Tiny Steps, Tiny Movements, Tiny Behaviors
Plus, A Recipe for Immune Support
With the onset of the Spring Equinox, with the Lunar Eclipse (March 25) in Libra, with the upcoming Total Solar Eclipse (April 8) in Aries, everyone is speaking about fast moving energy.
I hear them saying—
“We’ve finally entered the real new year!”
“Everything is going to unfold rather quickly starting now!”
“This is the time to make your biggest dreams come true—hurry!”
And with all due love and respect to the energy of the season and all those speaking about it, I want to speak about another way through this time.
I want to speak about a softer way.
A few weeks ago, I found myself stating an intention.
I even stated it in type to you in this piece.
I said, “I’ve consciously made a choice to redesign my life in such a way that I may be in other places as often as possible.”
I continued, “I’m not moving. But I’m not not moving.”
And while I have not booked a flight nor chosen a destination nor made plans to move across the country or the world, I feel my intention blooming in me in tiny steps, tiny movements, tiny behaviors.
For example, I spent an entire day stripping my kitchen of unnecessary objects and removing a hundred cookbooks from my book shelves.
I packed up what was staying with me, what I knew wished to stay in my life for the foreseeable future, and I began to sell or donate everything else.
Then, I stared at my overflowing closet of clothes, a closet that I am sure has far less in it than most of my friends. And, after a couple hours of picking through it all, I pulled out anything I haven’t worn in two years.
And now, those items are in the process of being sold online or they were donated to a local church.
Eventually, I went through one of my storage closets and picked out single items that hadn’t been touched in the same two years. I donated two wood chairs. I sold two white pillows. I just posted my 8-Quart Instant Pot on Facebook Marketplace.
And while I used to have a brimming supply closet—once overflowing with backups of toilet paper, laundry detergent, olive oil, and all-purpose flour (thanks to the pandemic)—I have slowly used up the excess and not replaced it.
I’ve even eaten through all the premade food in my freezer, thawing and slurping up my stash of Creamy Fire Roasted Tomato Coconut Soup or using up frozen spirals of pasta in quick dinners.
I defrosted hot dogs and sausages to eat alongside cottage cheese (thanks to TikTok). And all those frozen slices of my favorite banana bread? They’re now in my belly.
My freezer isn’t entirely empty—in fact, I did fill a bag with frozen cubes of my own immune support tonic (recipe down below)—but there sure is a spaciousness in there that feels good.
Actually, all the new spaciousness throughout my home feels good. It doesn’t feel like it’s waiting to be filled up again. It feels like it’s there to allow for possibility.
These tiny steps, tiny movements, tiny behaviors are more than a spring clean. They are an action toward my stated intention.
You see, I don’t need to know where I’m going or when I’m going. I simply trust my body when it wishes to take action toward an embodied intention.
I trust that the space all around me is meant to make space for the dream that’s most certainly arriving, even when I don’t know it’s shape or form just yet.
I trust my whole body and follow it’s wisdom. I don’t require evidence of the dream being fulfilled. I know it already is, somewhere in the astral, somewhere in the space between dimensions.
And, my tiny steps, tiny movements, tiny behaviors call it forward.
I hosted a Cacao Ceremony at Maha Rose in Brooklyn, New York over the weekend.
The Cacao Ceremony was beautiful. And each of the sweet souls there were so present and vulnerable and loving toward each other. For a couple of hours, we were a sweet soul family.
In fact, if the participants are reading this, I wish to say to each of them, “The sweet soul in me sees and loves the sweet soul in you.”
During the ceremony, I shared a lot of stories of magic and listening to soul. There was one particular story I shared for the first time, as it arrived in my field on the drive down to the city.
I wish to share it with you now.
In my late twenties, I began dating the man who would become my husband. In the first few weeks of our relationship, when we were all blushed up with joy and desire for each other, he spent a stream of many nights at my place.
Each morning, he’d walk by a wall lined with shoulder-high boxes filled with items from my life. Some were filled with my collection of handbags. Others were filled with my collection of Gourmet magazines (Rest in peace).
No matter the contents, a pile of twenty or so boxes paved his path to the bathroom.
One morning, he returned from the bathroom and asked about the pile of boxes. The following is a reenactment of our conversation.
I said something like, “Oh, since I’ve moved every year for the last ten years, I simply keep some of those boxes packed up, ready for the next move.”
He said something like, “I don’t understand but I don’t like seeing those boxes.”
I explained something like, “What I mean is, I move every year so why bother to unpack the boxes, right? I just keep them packed.”
He sat with that for a bit and then said something like, “I want to be with you. I have intention for you. And if you feel the same, I think we should unpack those boxes. I don’t want you to go anywhere.”
I sat with that statement for a bit and then said something like, “I want to be with you. I don’t know what that means or what we will lead to. But I don’t want to go anywhere. I agree, I think we should unpack those boxes.”
And together, we unpacked twenty or so boxes. He built a shelving unit to hold my magazine collection. He hung decorative hooks up on the wall for me to display my bag collection.
We didn’t have to know where it was going. We didn’t have to know how it was all going to turn out. But with that act, we called the dream forward.
With those tiny steps, tiny movements, tiny behaviors, by unpacking those twenty or so boxes, we called in a beautiful and complex twenty years together.
And though he is now my ex-husband, the dream we called forth on that day was beautiful for a long, long time.
Today, as a single woman with so much possibility before me, I don’t know what the full dream is and, honestly, I don’t want to know.
There are beautiful lessons that I’m learning in detaching from the outcome, in letting go of what no longer serves me, in releasing the old dreams and making space for the new ones to come toward me, to take up room, to stay awhile.
And I’m sharing this with you now because even as everyone speaks about quick energy, it’s your birthright to go slow, to stay soft, to take tiny steps, tiny movements, tiny behaviors toward who knows what.
You know who knows what? My former Iyengar teacher Karin Stephan.
She studied with B.K.S. Iyengar for something like forty years. She learned many concepts from him and here are two timely ones—
“The next step is the most important step.”
“You don’t have to do much to do much.”
And I wish to leave those with you in order to, first, inspire your tiny steps, tiny movements, tiny behaviors, and, second, to allow yourself to opt out of the hype and stay soft in these highly frenetic times.
Just by being alive, you’ve earned the right to not know all the things.
Take any tiny steps, tiny movements, tiny behaviors that feel good in your body.
Lemon-Honey-Ginger Tonic
This tonic is my go-to beverage the moment I feel under the weather or even when the weather shifts from season to season. It rights my immune system and I feel like I’ve tended to my soul, softly.
Sometimes, I even add a few fingers of fresh turmeric, peeled and sliced, for added tenderness and support.
Ingredients—
Two whole lemons
A large hand of fresh ginger
Honey, to your taste
Chamomile, turmeric, or mint tea bags, to serve
Directions—
Slice the yellow skin off the lemon (leaving the white pith) and add to a high powered blender. Trim and discard any thick white pith off the lemon. Chop the lemon into quarters, removing any pits, and add to the blender.
With the back of a spoon, remove excess skin from the ginger. This doesn’t have to be perfect. Chop the ginger into thin coins and add to the blender.
Add a few tablespoons of honey to the blender along with two cups of cold water.
Blend for a few minutes until it becomes a thin silky tonic. Taste and add more honey to your taste.
Pour the tonic into ice cube trays and freeze. Once frozen, pop the cubes into a freezer bag and store in the back of the freezer.
To serve, boil water. Add a chamomile tea bag (my favorite) to a cup or pot. Add 1 frozen cube of tonic (to a cup) or 2 frozen cubes (to a pot). Pour boiling water into the cup or pot and allow to steep for a few minutes. Enjoy when it’s cool enough to your lips.
