Cleanse: Regeneration of Inner & Outer Landscapes
This is a long one, friends. Grab a mug of herbal tea?
Refugees fleeing their homeland, and images of women making Molotov cocktails in the Ukraine take me back to a time when I lived in Israel/Palestine for nearly 15 years - when it was next to impossible to bring attention to the plight of indigenous unrecognized Bedouin villagers. I feel outrage reflecting on the cyclic nature of war - the sense that the more things change in the world, the more they stay the same…
I can’t help but reflect on how long it takes for my Israeli, Palestinian, Bedouin, and Lebanese friends to recover from the cataclysmic results of war crimes. The almost superhuman effort it requires to heal trauma, and forgive. I think of how many generations it will take to regenerate the air, soil, and water all the unseen effects of Russia’s war machine attacking the Ukraine and its largest nuclear reactor. The after effects of losing loved ones, losing home, land. The length of time it takes to remediate soil, and today’s spillage of incomprehensible amounts of mercury, lead, arsenic and the combustion of large amounts of ammunition, shelling, and landmines, the radioactive materials soaking into those fertile breadbasket lands, and beautiful Ukrainian rivers… I think about the ramifications of this war on the Middle East and Africa (regions that already struggle with significant food shortages) and how they will adjust to receiving 40-60% less food from the Ukraine.
I’m also thinking about biomimicry, and all that cycles and recurs in nature and human nature with the patterns of war. How we are careening backward, brutally through time and space - decimating the intricate-webbing of souls, relationships, neighborhoods, collectives…While the colossal challenge and blanketed uncertainty of geo-political crises may feel numbing, consider how war happens when the patterns of forceful extraction and control are replicated on a global scale. Are these patterns mended on a nano-scale with tending nature? Relinquishing control guides me back to the garden, back to a safe haven in the body, back to what author Charles Eisenstein refers to as our “interbeing” - the interconnectedness between and among us all. It is on all of us, all who are culpable through our inaction, all who have no idea how elusive a sustainable peace is…to dream, to tend, to love.
I find hope in the promise of regeneration…Seeing Ukrainian kids in the streets supporting Russian defectors. Seeing eyas fly from their hawk mama’s nest, or hummingbird eggs hatch. I am struck by how the nano and life-affirming act of tending a fava bean plant yesterday in South Central LA - how lifting a caterpillar off a leaf and watching the slinking movement of it’s eight sticky pairs of appendages managed to captivate and engage some 60+ children for over 45 minutes. The slowing down and tending soil…the simple act of reining in the locus of attention and grounding in community feels profound.
Instead of focusing on what we can control to help move through times like these, I want to share another idea: I believe it’s more about letting go of control and leaning into the unknown. On top of every other stressor that has frayed the nerves and shaken even the most unshakable among us, how about this: release and surrender to the unknowns – accept the unsettling nature of Change.
That’s what the wisdom of the Sabbatical year offers. Relinquishing control is deeply unsettling, but it opens the way to possibilities we cannot fathom. In order to Change anything, release, can figuratively and literally move what’s stagnant in the bowels, tend what has gotten lodged within the organs, and cleanse to allow space in the body, mind, and spirit.
Radical Parenting Mentor, Abigail Wald says, “Every day I see how hard it is for humans to co-create solutions with even our spouses and our children. And every day I wake up renewed to teach the power that love has to cut through the darkness. Co-creating with and learning to inspire people rather than control them is a SKILL we must learn. Sadly, too few of us learn it.”
What can we do to release the urge to control when the world is so upside down? I’ve literally been upside down with grief and in an inversion chair under our olive tree - to allow for spaciousness in between my bones. This month, Adar II, is all about turning upside down so we can make sense of our world through love.
Registration for 49-day Regenerative Omer Cleanse is Open
Extended payment plans and scholarships for QTBIPoC available.
Many of us are reexamining the way we protest, organize, donate, think, work, and lead. The way we digest life. Many of us are exhausted, stagnant, and overwhelmed. Many are numb, addicted, and traumatized. There is a deep need to feel safe and grounded in our bodies. To move through CHANGE within us, and around the world - listen within, like you’ve never listened before.
The Omer is a time of reflection. I think of it as a prescription for a pilgrimage of the soul. A pilgrimage that is designed to realign, and ground in times of Change. It is a liminal time between our two harvest holidays, Passover and Shavuot, with a heap of tools to help us reflect and GROW.
During this liminal time, join me, and let’s do a 49-day Regenerative Cleanse. Long enough to create new patterns, and deep enough to refresh the life screen. Profound enough to clear out the poison and transform it into medicine for ourselves and the world. For 49-days, We cleanse. We Grieve. We Unearth. We Rejuvenate and Revitalize. We Release, Rewire and Regenerate. Then, we celebrate. For real.
Gather to embody the nourishing embrace of a healthy communal ecosystem and feed your roots with wisdom derived from the Tree of Life. Cleanse to share, learn, and dream.
Explore Food-as-Medicine recipes and herbal remedies fromsoil2soul. This is a nourishing cleanse that will feed your body, heart, mind, and spirit. It is NOT a punishing diet.
