Before and during the Black Lives Matter campaign that grew in 2020, I was completely unaware of what unconscious bias was and that I could possibly have any. I was unaware of what it was like to be a person of color in America and that our experiences could be so vastly different. All that to say, I’ve learned a lot from Dameda JoLynn over the last year. Not only because she so kindly share’s her black experien[...]
Let's talk about sex. While this isn't my favorite conversation to be had–I'm highly uncomfortable by the conversation of sex based on my upbringing–I think it's an important one. And who better to talk to than Alyssa Manny who isn't afraid of any conversation. Alyssa is the owner of 'Ohana Yoga + Barre in Denver, Colorado. Her mission is to evolve and help others to evolve too. To help others to open[...]
Kemetic yoga is a newly rediscovered Egyptian practice with roots that outlive that of the yoga we practice now. Unlike Indian yoga that was made for the elite and men, Kemetic yoga was created for all the people. Men and women of every background, focused on soft movements that highlight the divine feminine and only features a limited number of postures to explore. It’s a style of yoga that’s making its way bac[...]
What does happiness mean? Our founding fathers made a point of saying that a basic human right was to be able to pursue happiness, but what does that look like? Is happiness getting everything you want? Having a job that you are excited to wake up to every single day? Having a family that you never fight with? Does happiness look like an episode of Leave It To Beaver? What is happiness and how do we even pursu[...]
The Crone… not an archetype we like to talk about because we don’t like ending in our society. As defined by Joanne Sienko Ott, St. Catherine University, "The literature describes the crone archetype as a pre-existent form in the collective unconscious that embodies instinctive ways of channeling wisdom, inner knowing, and intuition, guiding us through the transition of life, and going inward to bring fort[...]
One of the most common things I hear from people when talking to me about my art is, “I wish I could create like that,” or “I don’t have a creative bone in my body.” Even at a creative’s networking event when I met an engineer who came to hear the speaker talk about AI and she said “I’m not a creative.” The truth is, we are all creators. You know it when you were six, doubted it when you were ei[...]
Nadia Bolz-Weber said it best in her book Shameless, "Origin stories, tell us how the world came about, where we came from, and other important things like white snakes, don’t have Lex. We may think we know our own origin story really well, but the garden of Eden account in genesis is notably devoid of several elements that Lora has inserted into it. For instance, there are no mentions of original sin, “a fall f[...]
The Homemaker was the title given to most women during the turn of the century. While their husbands worked for a paycheck they were the ones at home taking care of the chores, cooking the meals, and tending to the children. However, I look at the homemaker as something a little different. I see her as the ultimate host, a creator, a curator. The homemaker teaches us how to create spaces that are inviting and rel[...]
We all get stuck in them–Mindset cycles. Whether they're breaking us down or building us up we form cycles to preserve ourselves. When these cycles are here to help us grow and prosper they can be the most powerful thing in the world to achieve the life we want to build. But when they're a negative mindset loop they can be the very thing stopping us from finding true happiness. Cycles are best represented in n[...]
The Nordic Goddess of rest gives us the invitation to rest. To let go of all we're holding and to sink into the darkness, calm, and healing powers of it. In a society that is so focused on more–doing more, having more, being more–I think it's time we talked about embracing less. The constant strive for more is burning us down from the inside out and in the end isn't serving anyone. As someone who has faced th[...]