the center of the universe

Posted on March 29, 2017 by Cynthia G.

“Today most scientists would agree with the ancient Hindus that nothing exists or is destroyed, things merely change shape or form…the cosmic radiation that is thought to come from the explosion of creation strikes the earth with equal intensity from all directions, which suggests either that the earth is at the center of the universe, as in our innocence we once supposed, or that the known universe has no center.”

–Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard

Brought to you with sherpas and a good GPS tracker, by Journaling as Sacred Practice: An Act of Extreme Bravery. Available now on Amazon.

Gifting Books

Posted on December 1, 2015 by Cynthia G.

I recently read some Christmas gift-giving advice: give something to wear, something to to play with, and something to read. What a fabulous idea! Years ago, when my first hubs and I were young and poor, we agreed that our entire Christmas budget would be an extravagant $100. We scurried off to get our creative best, and I headed down to Acres of Books in Long Beach, CA (a wonderful world of new/used books). I blew half of my $50 budget on fabulous used books that I bought at a fraction of the cost of new, and that I new my young husband would love. And he did. It is one of the best Christmas memories ever, filled with love and joy.

Now lo, these many years later, I’m still giving books for Christmas. Nothing is more rewarding, tantalizing, or generous than the gift of a book. These days, I do love my e-books, especially for travel, but my home is still filled with stacks and stacks of delicious books — and thanks to me, so are my friends’.

If you love books too, and if you’re looking to shop for books with meaning, you couldn’t do better than to check out our friends at Green Tara Press. A small press, Green Tara specializes in books with meaning and depth, lovely tombs filled with poetry and wisdom.

This holiday season, you can shop the big box stores, or you can shop online with the giant online retailers. Or, you can make a stand for the arts, and buy a book from the indies. We love that idea, and we love our readers. Support the Arts: Buy a Book!

Wishing you a merry and jingly gifting and receiving season.

The Girls @ Sephs Salon

Bring the Spa Home

Posted on November 22, 2015 by Cynthia G.

Winter is the time when we turn inward, stay indoors, feather our nest. This morning I was enjoying the amber morning light and feeling a little witchy, and a little under the weather, so I whipped up an at-home spa treatment to help loosen a stubborn chest cold. My little alchemical brew worked so well, I had to share it here.

When you can’t get away to a “traditional” spa, there’s no reason you can’t transform your bath into a luxurious spa with a little aromatherapy magic! Try this little goddess-girl two-step alchemy to chase away the winter blahs.

First, make a cold-care chest balm to slather on before bed, bath, or shower time. It’s pretty potent, and that’s the idea, so you won’t want to take this treatment before heading off to the grocery or office holiday party.

Step One. THE BLEND:

½ cup organic coconut oil
1 tablespoon jojoba oil (optional)
30 drops organic peppermint essential oil
20 drops eucalyptus essential oil
Dash cayenne pepper, if desired

Heat the coconut oil to soften and ease the blending process. Combine all ingredients to form a smooth paste. The peppermint and eucalyptus oils lend cooling high notes to the recipe, which will help open airways and ease breathing. Pepper adds a little heat. Jojoba will make the blend more creamy, but the recipe works as well without it. Mix all ingredients and then pour into a jar for storage. This yummy, bright, cold-care chest poultice is guaranteed to chase away any lingering winter blahs!

Step Two. THE BATH:

To make an amazing spa treatment, draw a hot bath. Add 2 cups Epsom salts to the water. Light a candle if you feel like channeling your inner priestess. Add some music to lend atmosphere. Set an intention for a healing bath. Add unscented bubble solution to the water if you are fond of a little froth. Add 10 drops peppermint oil to the water. Rub a little of the cold-care poultice on your chest before slipping into the peppermint-scented bath. Breathe deeply. Let the essential oils do their magic. While the Epsom salts draw toxins out of your body, notice how the cool peppermint contrasts with the hot water. Imagine healing whatever ails you. Go to your happy place and stay there until the water begins to lose its heat. Drain the bath, then shower off. Afterward, apply your favorite body lotion and savor the sensations of cool and warm that will continue for 30 minutes of more. Repeat as desired.

There you have it. You just brought the spa, home. If you give this recipe for bliss a try, let us know how it goes!

Yours Sincerely,

The Girls at Seph’s Salon

(Fair warning: Be a smart goddess. Do NOT touch your eyes with any of these blends on your hands. Do NOT apply undiluted essential oils directly to your skin. When in doubt, test on a small area on the inside of your arm.)

relax, baby!

Posted on August 17, 2015 by Cynthia G.

One of the greatest gifts you get from yoga is that it gives you permission to relax, to really really let everything go as you sink into a yummy pool of bliss. What’s not to love! At the gym where I practice yoga we end our sessions with a sweet period of savasna. Most times, I grab a towel to drape over my eyes because I can’t truly relax under florescent lights. What could be better than relaxing after a healthy workout. . .unless it’s being bathed in the sweet fragrance of lavender blossoms?

Our friends at Oregon Plum Brand have developed an aromatherapy eye pillow filled with a blend of lavender and flax seeds and are offering it for a limited time to our WordPress friends. Be one of the first 25 people to order an Oregon Plum all-natural lavender eye pillow, and get a deep discount on your purchase! Bonus: these make a great gift — get a jump on your holiday shopping and give the gift of relaxation. Click here to order.

Namaste!

suspended in blue

Posted on July 1, 2015 by Cynthia G.

When I meditate, the big things fall into perspective. When I sit and let my body relax, I can feel my bones and muscles, my blood and tissue, letting go of all the big ideas, the big worries, the Big Bad (as Buffy would say). My breath deepens, my shoulders drop. I would like to say that I let my worries go but it is really the other way around. When I fall into the sweet relaxation that mediation opens in me, worries let me go and my consciousness expands and rises up into the sky like a soap bubble. From that high-deep place the “big things” that occupy so much of my waking life seem as small as marbles in the dust and I wonder how they ever seemed important at all.

It took a couple of whole-day meditation retreats to reach this place. I like to think that I have meditated for years, but now I realize, I dabbled. I would do it when the timing was right or the moon was aligned or if I had not hit the snooze button and rose naturally, and meditation was a yummy doorway between dreaming and awake. But I never did it for more than 20 minutes. Tops.

I began attending a weekly Satsang in Napa and got to practice 30 minutes sessions. They were challenging, but I got the hang of it. Then, I did a couple of full day retreats at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre. These took a little more concentration, a little more physical discipline. I struggled at first, but when I stopped efforting so much. . .and when I forgot to try, it happened. The world and everything in it (including me) simply expanded and I found my mind floating in a sparkling pool of iridescent blue. I call this feeling Suspended in the Blue and it is completely, utterly, and deeply delicious. I won’t pretend that I get there every time, but now that I know how, it has become an unfolding, and I appreciate the practice as much as the experience.

Big worries? Meh. I breathe in, I breathe out. Everything else is optional.

stop::drop::breathe

Posted on June 14, 2015 by Cynthia G.

Two weeks into my extended vacation, I am meditating. Every. Day. No more excuses, no more hitting the snooze button, blithely squeezing available meditation time down to “maybe” and “not quite enough” before dashing off to the office.

Now, I’ve got time. Lots of it. And yet, meditation can still be an illusive tease, dancing just out of reach. I’ve tried all kinds of tricks to get my mind to stop racing, to slow down enough to actually follow my breathe in, out, in, out. Sometimes a guided meditation helps. Sometimes music helps. What mostly helps. . .is just doing it. You follow the breath in, follow the breath out, and before know it, like Alice, you’re down that rabbit hole. Namaste, baby!

peace of mind

Posted on May 25, 2015 by Cynthia G.

So there I was, planning my big, fat fundraiser, and I knew what I had to do. I’ve been doing this long enough to know that all the planning, all the wheeling, dealing, and organizational faits accompli, take a toll on body and mind. And so, into every event strategy, I insert one very important task: the post-event treat. Sometimes its a spa treatment. Sometimes it’s a couple of days away. This time, it was both. I booked myself into a yoga retreat in the breathtakingly beautiful Sierra foothills. I meditated three times a day, walked, breathed, and did a little yoga. Now I’m all calm and ready to take on a whole new adventure. PS: the event was a huge success!

Zen Up, calm down

Posted on March 29, 2015 by Cynthia G.

You know that tight feeling in your gut at the end of the day that begs for release? Or that tension that kicks in right after you wake up, when something big is up and you don’t feel quite ready? Or maybe there are bigger questions looming and you don’t have a handle on how to handle them. As one bright person said to me once, “your best thinking has gotten you this far. Maybe you should try something else.” Yeah, this just might be it. My friend, Becca Pronchick, has published a handbook for meditation called: No Matter the Question, MEDITATION is the Answer. It’s a book for beginners, full of great guided meditations. It’s also a go-to for people who have been meditating a while and need some new tricks to still the mind. Either way, this smart, pretty little book has the potential to calm your heart and mind. In case, you know, it matters.

BUY THE BOOK::CALM YOUR MIND

when spring arrives

Posted on April 29, 2014 by Cynthia G.

Persephone Walks

On a bright spring morning, she rises from a long sleep as if from the dead. She sighs, she turns. She slips into yoga pants, the sports bra that fits like wrapping. The smart phone with its Audible Pema Chodron lesson on compassion (because she needs this, she decides and as she listens, realizes that compassion is just the start, chica), and plugged in, walks to the edge of the property, to the edge of the seasonal river. She breathes the sweet, wet, morning air, the fragrance of loam and blackberry blossoms, begins her walk. It is the month of earth day; earth month, and the coincidental interval of her return. This year the timing seems off. The rains have come late. The storms rage larger, a swirl of unpredictability. It’s not her doing, she tells herself. Pema says to make it about herself, that to say it is the other is only illusion. It’s all Bardo, baby. It’s all Hades, honey. It’s all One. We are all Ophelia, we are all Hamlet.

Persephone remembers to breathe and in the rush of air she lets go of the border between her thin skin and the slow river, the rise of moist air warmed by yellow sun, the speckled quail darting for the shadows. This is compassion, she realizes. I am the earth. She is me. Separation is only willful delusion.