Love is a Two-Day Discussion: Body of Wisdom January 2025
There’s something about bright light and blue skies on a winter morning that really clears my mind and illuminates my heart. Winter is a time for celebrating simplicity, dormancy, and rest. The trees outside are mostly bare, the woods are quiet. And although each day grows a breath longer, the darkness of long evenings invites us inward and toward the gentle embrace of books, woodstoves to tend, and cats to snuggle.
Writing these words brings my nervous system a sweet sense of harmony. They feel true to the rhythm of my body. The rhythm of a body whose ancestors (a hugely vast majority of them) lived according to the cycles of nature.
There are societal tensions that pull us away from the rhythms of winter at this time of year. What were your ancestors up to during these long nights and short days? Telling stories, tending fires, handcrafting tools, repairing clothing, cooking and baking, hunting… the answers to these questions are unique to peoples and places around the world. But I think it’s an important question to ask, because being super busy and starting big new projects likely weren’t part of the picture. Yet according to the Gregorian calendar, we’re at the start of a New Year right smack in the middle of the season of rest.
If you’re feeling a little off-kilter trying to hold the juxtaposition of New Years resolutions amidst the biological dreamspace of winter, I can relate. Let’s loosen a little and give ourselves permission to be here exactly where we are.
Nicole, Abbey, & the Winter Woods: Photo by @amandalucia_photography
Speaking of storytelling, let me share with you some beautiful imagery and lessons from our recent trip to Colombia. Amanda and I spent the first half of December journeying with a small group and a couple of facilitators to Santa Marta, the Sierra Nevadas, and the coastal region of Tayrona. The most impactful part of the trip for me was sharing space with three members of the Kogi tribe, the indigenous peoples of the Sierra Nevadas.
We sat in ceremony with an elder woman and spiritual leader of the tribe, Haba Teresa, as well as her teenage grandson and granddaughter. We were lucky enough to be guided in some of their practices, ask them questions via multiple layers of translators, and receive one-on-one sessions with Haba Teresa.
The Kogi tradition, which I can only begin to understand the tip of, is steeped in practice and ritual honed over generations to live in harmony with the earth and with the unseen spiritual realms. One example of this is the Kogi’s intimate relationship with tending to their own emotional and thought forms. When they are of age, Kogi men begin to carry a gourd with them at all times. They chew coca leaves into a paste, mixed with ground shells from the beaches, and use it to build layers of this cementing mixture around their gourd with a stick. Every time they have a thought, “positive” or “negative,” they channel it to shaping their gourd. They shared with us that older men can tell what the younger men are thinking about based on the shape of their gourd. My understanding is that this tradition of channeling and passing thoughts through prevents the Kogi men from identifying with thoughts and allows them to cultivate a state of pure being.
The Kogis strongly emphasized to us how much Mother Earth is here to help us with thoughts and emotions. All thoughts and emotions are received by Mother Earth with gratitude. She is grateful for us to pass energy in all forms to her as an offering. So please, offer her your fear, your anger, your shame, not just your love and gratitude. She welcomes it, and prefers it to you feeling you must hold onto it, and carry it all alone.
Fire circle at La Poema with 360 views including the ocean and snow-capped peaks
During the Q&A, Amanda asked what we thought would be a simple question - what is the Kogi word for “love” or “peace”? We were surprised when Haba Teresa spoke at length in answer to this question. As it passed from Kogi to Spanish to English, we heard that it would take two days for Kogis to fully discuss just one of these words.
I returned to that answer and turned it over and over in my mind and heart throughout our trip, and since. One of our facilitators Mandolin said at one point, love is not an emotion but a way to live. I observed it in the small community of friends and family that run the permaculture farm and retreat center La Poema where we stayed. I feel it when I think of the Kogi traditional ways that tend to the health of their minds. Is love a blissful emotion we feel sometimes? Or is it so much more - a commitment to being in right relationship with each other and with earth even when life gets hard? A willingness to meet with our old friend humility over and over while learning here at Earth School? A practice of being gentle with ourselves and resting in the arms of Mother Earth? Or the fierceness of a parent protecting their child?
Truly, I can sense why the discussion of love in Kogi takes days to complete.
If you’d like to learn more about the Kogis and their message to the younger siblings (that’s us), here’s an awesome documentary.
I also highly recommend the annual Nourish Colombia Retreat, facilitated by Mundo Adventures.
A cabana to sleep in at La Poema, built with Kogi guidance according to their
traditional style and materials from the land
On our last morning before leaving the mountains, this poem came through, weaving as only poetry can do, the essence of our time at La Poema. I was particularly touched, as you may notice in the poem, by the abundance of powerful plant spirits we encountered and learned of from folks living there - coffee, cacao, cotton, and coca leaves used to make mambe, among others. Mambe is chewed by men in combination with tobacco paste as medicine to support them in accessing sweet words and deep thoughts for healing and conflict resolution - hence the reference to smiling green teeth.
Medicine from Mother
Powdery dirt
earth carried on our clothes
carried on motor bikes
thoughts carried on cotton
Mother, happy to receive all, all of us
nourished by our anger, our fears
She calls - let it all go
down into my bones
Coffee trees in green ravines
smiling green teeth
working coca paste into sweet words
bridges to mothers, and to the Great Mother
flying in the birds, reflecting from banana leaves
pulsing through swallows of cacao drinks
Hearts training as muscles must
to close less and open more
to embody love, peace
words that take days to describe
for this land’s Kogi tribe
Held, seen, loved, surrounded,
infused with Medicine from Mother
Cotton grown at La Poema that we used in ceremony with the Kogis: Photo by @amandalucia_photography
Bananas and plantains hanging outside La Poema’s outdoor kitchen: Photo by @amandalucia_photography
One of my quick traveler watercolor sketches, an attempt at remembering the aliveness of the
Mauritius-hemp plants, palm-roofed cabanas, and mountain views at La Poema
Somatic Tool of the Month
Enjoy this somatic tool, and find more like it in my self-paced course The Somatic Journey Toolkit.
Find a comfortable place to sit, stand, or lie down for this practice.
Drop some roots from your sacrum or your feet gently down into Mother Earth.
Take a moment to sense the connection. Relax into the support of gravity.
Allow Mother Earth to absorb anything from you that is ready to leave. This could be thoughts, beliefs, emotions, or energies. Notice this energy traveling down from parts of your body into your roots and into Mother Earth.
When that process feels complete, allow Mother Earth to send you any nourishment or energy that you need up your roots and into your body. Feel how this energy that she sends reaches the places where it is most needed.
As the energy exchange completes, take a moment to rest in the embrace of Mother Earth. Notice if there is anything else she wishes to tell you, or anything else you wish to tell her.
Grateful to encounter these minty green moss tree skirts: Photo by @amandalucia_photography
Rooting in Ritual
This winter, explore a simple ritual of aligning with your circadian rhythm. Rising and falling with the daily and seasonal cycles of the sun helps regulate our pineal glands, nervous systems, hormones, sleep cycles, metabolism, digestion, and immunity. Harmonizing with shorter days and longer nights can help inform our systems it’s a season to rest and recharge before spring comes.
Here are a few simple ritual ideas:
Upon waking in the morning, don’t look at your phone and avoid turning on any artificial lights for as long as you can. Open your curtains, look out the window, and breathe in and out, settling your energy for the day as you gaze upon the beginnings of morning light.
End screen time early and spend the last hour of the evening in low light before getting ready for bed. Candlelight, firelight, or warm dim light are better than bright artificial light. Use this time to connect with yourself or others, take a bath or stretch your body, journal, or simply breathe.
Pause and observe either the coming of light or the leaving of light once a day. Again, avoid artificial light and allow your eyes to adjust as the morning sun begins to fill your home, or the setting sun begins to dim your home.
As you engage in any of these practices, notice any changes subtle or big in your body, mind, or spirit.
Watching the sun rise in the Poconos, PA where I grew up
Invitations into Offerings
I would love to weave with you on your healing journey. Here are some opportunities for our paths to cross:
Somatic Journey Toolkit - For folks feeling dysregulated and disconnected, who desire resilience, ease, and liberation from the stuck patterns in your nervous system, this course is designed to help you:
Feel more confident, at ease, and resilient in your ability to regulate your nervous system and emotions
Feel more free, having shed layers of stuck emotions and survival energy
Feel more authentic and connected to your needs, emotions, and desires with a stronger, more stable, embodied sense of self
1/7 Sacred Sisters Circle: Chakra Reset - Join us as Beccah guides us through the chakras, their connection with the nervous system, and into a nourishing sound bath.
1/21 Sacred Sisters Circle: Embodying the Elements - Amanda will take us on an alchemical journey through nature’s elements of Earth, Air, Water, and Fire exploring through movement, meditation, creativity, and connection how the elements live and express within us.
2/4 Sacred Sisters Circle: Honoring the Shadow - I’m looking forward to guiding our community to connect with our shadows and inner conflict to move toward integration and peace. Together we’ll bring curiosity, compassion, and freedom to whatever is feeling sticky using somatic practice, journaling, and a nurturing Feeding Your Demons™ practice developed by Lama Tsultrim, with roots in the Tibetan Buddhist principles of Chöd.
1:1 Somatic Coaching - Let’s center your body and nervous system as anchors in your healing and personal growth. I help people who want to spend less time living in survival mode and are ready to shed the accumulated lifetime of stress and conditioning and come back home to their hearts and bodies.
Photo by @amandalucia_photography
