I woke up one morning tight. Tension in my shoulders, contraction and pain in my body. My mind was started to spiral: “Oh no you are so tight !!! How do we relax??” I tried some things that usually help me feel more present, but it wasn’t cutting it.

Luckily I know that somatically, “trying” to relax often makes things less relaxing.

I went inside and started pushing with my arms against the couch, engaging my core, purposefully engaging the tension. I started to make some spontaneous sounds, growls. I bared my teeth. My body did these little shudders, and I could feel the energy moving through. My body was unwinding by itself.

I want to note this feels different than intense catharsis - I wasn’t trying to release anything, I wasn’t screaming until my throat was raw or forcing a kind of expression that was overwhelming.

I was meeting my body where it was at and allowing it to do what it needed to. This is a groove I have formed from years of practice! And it specifically reminded me of why I am passionate about creating spaces for these responses to be welcome and unravel. Specifically ones that can have edgy cultural connotations: like anger.

When we have an anger/fight response and we try to suppress it in the name of relaxation, we are basically invalidating our body’s attempts to protect us. Or we might be invalidating a boundary violation or experience that the anger is communicating to us is not okay. 

Many people in my practice are afraid of going into their anger because of this fear of hurting someone, or that it will make them a “bad person.” Luckily, during our sessions, the person they might be angry towards is not there! This is where, as my teacher would say, we separate the Biology from Personality. Our personality says, I am a nice person, I don’t want to be angry or yell or say hurtful things. But the BODY, aka the biology clocks - hey, that wasn’t okay. RAWR. What happens when we ignore that and stay in our social conditioning is often that anger or protective response can get directed inwards - sometimes creating symptoms (especially over time), compulsions/distractions, or manifesting as self criticism and shame. Or perhaps it inevitably finds a way to be released towards others in a way that actually does harm them.

What we can do about this is that can provide a space for the Animal Body to express it’s anger, it’s self protective responses, within a container where it will not actually cause harm to anyone. We can ask the personality to step aside for a moment, and we can see what the body wants to do with this anger.

Often it is actually an incredibly enlivening process. That vital force energy is able to come back to us when we allow it!

What happens when we move through these responses instead of suppressing them, is that ACTUAL relaxation can happen. Actual safety and stillness that arises from the body completing what it was trying to do. This is so much more deep and sustainable than bandaid breath work or hacks to “move into parasympathetic.” 

When we are able to have this experience of welcoming our protective response in an attuned container, repeatedly, we can start to develop the ability to hold this kind of space for ourselves. To find the groove of allowing, as I was able to do this morning.

This is something i LOVE to support people with in my 1:1 work. If you’re looking for some deep somatic support, I have a couple spots available!

you can learn more and book a free curiosity call here

I didn’t realize I had fallen into it. In fact, they have a term now, heteropessimism.

(Does that apply if you are bisexual? like, half of me is pessimistic?)

After the end of a long term, stable relationship seven years ago, I found myself entering a string of situation-ships and short term relationships with (mostly) men. The type that makes people disappointed in them.. ghosting, emotional unavailability, poor communication, and uncertainty were all themes I experienced. I was confused and unprepared for the wild world of dating after being in a cozy partnership. Looking back, perhaps I was not the most available myself, or I wouldn’t have been so enticed by people who clearly could not give me what I want (!)

But somewhere along the way something interesting happened: I started expecting to be disappointed by men.

This was only reinforced by friends around me with similar ruptures, disappointments and let downs. Every time they met someone who seemed decent, genuine or caring, there was always a serious catch. They didn’t have any boundaries with their ex, or they were a love bombing narcissist, or they immediately pulled away at the first sign of closeness.

It’s like i was living in an echo chamber of the disappointing qualities of men. I figured maybe it’s just a fact: men are disappointing.

The thing is, the more I held this view the more I seemed to prove it to myself.

Before I go any further I want to say, I think patriarchy is absolutely the problem. And this isn’t really a post about how I awakened and started Loving and Worshipping the Masculine and that solved everything.

It’s more about how I realized that not every person who’s attracted to men has this relationship with them of constant disappointment. And that maybe that lens has become some kind of glasses (not rose colored) that I walked around seeing the world with, reinforcing my fate.

It didn’t help that after my tumultuous situation-ships and almost-loves, I ended up with someone who at first seemed Different.

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It is cold outside, the middle of December. I’ve organized a photo shoot to promote my upcoming course called “The Wild Feminine, a 7 week journey into aliveness.” I’m wearing a red dress, and holding a single red rose. I’m trying to find postures that will convey the depth of my primal feminine embodiment - that shows I’m a goddess, a priestess. At this time I identified as a priestess of the Rose, inspired by reading books on Mary Magdalene (and also, my life-long obsession with roses.)

Fast forward seven years…The deeper core, or “why” of my work is actually not so different than it was then. I wanted to find divinity in the body. I wanted to bring that to others.

But I’ve now come to realize that finding god/the divine in the body is so simple. It does not need an entire aesthetic, roses, flowing dresses, or to be labeled as “feminine.” In fact, doing these things can actually detract from the substance, and add on a lot of fluffy, superficially sexy layers that could confuse, or even exclude people from this very ordinary pursuit of feeling alive.

I admit I was lured in by the sexiness of it all. Seeing beautiful, sensual women on Instagram that seemed like they had figured out The Secret. They looked magnetic and hot, and they told me I could also feel this open and alive and manifest everything I had dreamed of through my embodiment practice. I was also, at this time, an avid neo tantra practitioner (you can read more about the roots of that story in one of my older posts.)

One piece that stands out now is, as a white woman, a desire to belong to some kind of lineage. A lineage of ancient priestesses who were still whole and connected to their body, and to eros, sounded very appealing. But is that really mine to claim? And what am I claiming exactly?

The thing is that this version of eros that was being marketed on instagram (generalizing here) bordered on a performance that is weirdly similar to the patriarchal dream of women, beauty standards and all. Enter the “polarity” world with definitions about how women should be submissive, yielding, soft, flowing, and OPEN, while the men should be direct, penetrating etc….sound familiar? Hello, gender roles in sexy re-packaging. Hello, purity culture.

Also….If we really try to imagine how Mary Magdalene would have spent her days it was probably doing activism - gritty unsexy healing work, bringing food to the hungry, etc. Probably not self pleasuring for hours on a silk pillow? (i’m not knocking self pleasure but….)

Focusing so narrowly on a certain definition of “feminine,” particularly as only connected to the womb, leaves out a vast number of people that are trans, or non binary, or don’t particularly feel that their womb is a portal to all of life. Which is FINE! Everyone is really truly entitled to their own relationship with their body. I think fertility awareness is beautiful. Being connected to your womb is beautiful, if you want to. But we don’t have to make this a standard of being a good or “empowered” woman, we don’t need more ideologies on how women or anyone embodying femininity, have to be, to be good. These narrow definitions of femininity don’t just harm those who don’t fit them, I believe it traps all of us.

I love being femme, I love playing in the field of femininity outside of rigid constructs. I believe we get to play and dress up in all the realms of gender expression freely, everyone gets to.

Archetypes are beautiful. They can help us tap into energies through the power of imagination. I also love beauty and as a double virgo I am all about aesthetics in my home. I think archetypes can be an inspiration, but also why do we have to dress up as something fancy to remember the basic truth of who we are? I think we need to be careful when drawing inspiration from archetypes turns into a script that might be narrated by purity culture.

In a call with one of my mentors the other day, we were talking about our desire to make embodiment less sexy. We don’t have to try so hard to be enough now. Everything that is already here is the starting point. When we become too preoccupied with the aesthetic or the image of our embodiment we can lose our felt sense, or our experience of the moment, which may not be sexy at all. It may be mundane and boring as hell. THAT moment might be the place we actually start to contact life and ourselves underneath the performance.

A lot of these “feminine embodiment” programs promise “stepping into the fullness of who you are” and yet come with a not so subtle script or version, again maybe an aesthetic of what that would be or look like. I remember teachers who would demonstrate a practice and have some big loud, sexy cathartic experience full of energetic orgasms…which definitely sets an idea of what the embodiment experience “should be.” Or goddess circles that elevate only a certain expression of femininity through aesthetics or even exclusion and narrow /harmful definitions of who gets to belong there - how is that supporting anyone’s fullness?

For many of us who are socialized as women, we are conditioned towards belonging and fitting in, and we will want to adopt all the things, aesthetics, even performances that will help us to belong. Is this really encouraging our “sovereignty” and “wildness?”

I still remember the moment I realized embodiment could actually just be so simple. It didn’t have to involve a lot of crying and shaking and writhing on the ground. I could just touch my fingertips together. God might live right there.

I’m thinking about the demos from my Somatic Experiencing training. The teacher and a volunteer sit in front of the class and the teacher does a mini “session” with everyone witnessing. It is vastly different than the big sexy demo of a tantra retreat. Someone is just feeling sensation in their pinky toe. A dance starts to unfold. It feels slow, you almost might miss the imperceptible shifts that start to happen. There is a sense of aliveness in the room, but it is different from an endorphin high, it is a sense of just meeting the moment as it is, with more wholeness, presence, clarity.

These are the reasons I no longer identify as being a feminine embodiment practitioner. Me six years ago might have shuddered at this, but I don’t actually think that embodiment needs to be labeled as feminine, and I think that when it does it can send us down a slippery slope of falling back into weird patriarchal programming.

I think we each get to define what femininity means to us, whether we want to “embody” it or not, and then focus on FEELING that from the inside instead of performing it.

My emotions used to control a lot of my life.

I’ve always been very sensitive, and had big deep feelings. When I learned about the Enneagram in my twenties, I really resonated with the 4 type. Romantic, artistic, poetic, passionate, and emotional.

When I first got into the embodiment world, I received a lot of messages about going even DEEPER into my emotions. “Feel it to heal it,” they said. I was told that the more deeply I felt my emotions, the more alive I would feel.

The thing is, I didn’t have the containment and stability in my nervous system to hold the emotions, so I would get flooded by them, swept away in the intensity and think I was “doing healing work.” I would have big emotional releases only to feel more anxious afterwards.

It took me a long time to realize I wasn’t actually resolving things, but rather stewing in emotional cycles and whirlpools and it was taking up a lot of my life and time 😅

I had to learn how to find stability and neutrality, how to feel small amounts of things and *how to consciously back away from the edge * when it became too much.

I really had to rewire the “more is better” approach and trust that just feeling a little bit would be okay, and that if I stayed on the edge than I could return more easily to myself, which would actually grow my capacity to feel more in the long run, but in a way I could actually integrate.

Now, I still have big feelings!! But I have much more containment around them, and also choice in how and when I do go into them, and this has made a world of difference. At first it might feel boring and less sexy, but the real key (as an Enneagram 4) is CHANNEL THAT SHIT INTO ART.

Also, doing *nervous system informed* somatic work was really key in this (because not all somatic work is trauma informed! )

If you’d like some support in this area, I have just a couple spaces available for 1:1 clients. You can learn more and schedule a free call here.

Grief has been my lifelong friend. But I have not always welcomed it in the door. I have not always known how. I have not always had the space, or support. Sometimes grief has taken up residence in my body - in my joints, in a feeling of perpetual emptiness, in a prolonged story of darkness.

Slowly over the years I have crawled towards spaces where my grief can be held. Through rituals, support groups, mentors, and somatic practice. Every time the grief is truly held something miraculous happens: it becomes a fountain. It overflows, it nourishes me. I am reminded of the precious miracle of all life. Grief only seems bad when it is too much, when it is alone, when there is no container. And sometimes we do find ourselves alone in our grief, without the community we need. This is when I turn towards the natural world, to the wider layers of ancestral or imaginal realms, to the resources found within my own body and breath. And sometimes, just to accept and be with the aloneness with a lot of softness.

Grief stretches us so we can become something more. Something wider, more space for the wind to move through. Grief is a beauty- spell. Grief washes away the dust from our eyes and makes everything vivid again. Grief gives us reasons to live, knee deep in the awareness of what is precious.

I usually avoid watching TV shows or movies where a mother dies of cancer (this is actually a very common theme!) because it feels too tender, too close to home. But lately as I watched The Summer I turned Pretty, I could not look away. I saw so much love braided into the grief. So I felt it, and it reminded me of my own aliveness. When we lose, we are not defective, though it can feel like it. It can feel like we are walking around with a giant hole in our chest. Something is missing and everyone can see it. This must make it so something is wrong with us. Then the shame enters and stuffs the vitalistic energy of grief deep into our body since it is not able to be accepted and seen by society.

What if when we lose, we are actually able to become more whole? Because we are experiencing the wholeness of life, which includes loss, and death. All things end. It is only our addiction to constant growth and consumerism that leaves us completely unequipped to deal with this. But when we can’t deal with death, loss, and grief, pieces of our aliveness start to leave too.

The aliveness is in the grief. Grief, held, can become overflowing. Can become the gift, the song, the fountain.

Early this year I joined a support group for Motherless Daughters. I had danced around the idea for years, but honestly I was scared. I had not always been supported in my grief, in fact sometimes I opened up to people who couldn’t hold it - who pitied, ignored, or judged me. It felt safer to keep it inside.

I approached the group warily - staying off camera and tentatively inching closer. What I found was an abundance of care and the immense relief of realizing I was not alone here. I belonged, and there were other people who had experienced similar things to me. I felt understood, woven together through this shared experience.

If you are grieving, I want you to know there is nothing wrong with you. Maybe there is something very right about you! There is so much to grieve right now. Versions of ourselves we never got to be, the way the world feels to be irrevocably changing. Perhaps we are grieving our health, relationships,or the earth.

My deepest wish is that you find yourself in spaces that can hold the grief. Even if it’s just a beeswax candle and a beautiful song. Even if it’s the altar of a tree trunk, or the lap of a friend. A group of others who have experienced your similar flavor of loss.

I think that as a society when we start to feel and metabolize more of our grief, we might find the aliveness we are looking for so desperately, that we fill with more Things, with self improvement, with constant business. Grief massages our heart into greater aliveness. Grief takes us out of the momentum, this acquiring, into the real, the dark, the tender, into what we really care about.

And there is a lot to care about. A lot to love.

grief is a song of love
and a seed of beauty
cracking open in the naked heart
of this world


- from my poetry book Naked

P.S my poetry book Naked makes a lovely Christmas gift! Here is where you can order for international. If you’re in Nevada City they are sold locally at Kit Kit Dizzy :)

*

My parents were Osho people. As in they lived in that controversial commune Netflix made the Wild Wild Country Documentary about. Osho is often credited for bringing “neo-tantra” to the west, and a lot of neo-tantra practices have trickled down from him. Therefore it’s no surprise that when I got into neo-tantra many years ago, I ended up doing a lot of practices that my parents had done in the commune. One particular practice is called dynamic meditation, and includes chaotic breathing, screaming, crying, and hitting pillows, and jumping up and down saying “hoo!”

My dad told me that Osho’s reason for these practices is that westerners are carrying too much emotional baggage to just sit still and meditate. They need to “take out the trash” first with these cathartic activities. Another strong theme was to embrace sexuality as a doorway to spirituality and or to embrace human animal sexual instincts instead of rejecting it from the spiritual path. (Maybe I’ll write a whole other post about this.)

Anyways, fast forward to me in my early twenties going to workshops and shaking, crying, and having breath-work orgasms. It felt very fun and sexy and liberating, and I certainly had some profound experiences. I also started practicing in an actual traditional Tantric meditation lineage (veryyyy different, not sexy and cathartic but very profound.) Somewhere in there I started to encounter some very deep trauma from earlier in life. Instead of helping, the cathartic practices seemed to be making it worse. The tools I had were about how to “go all in” to sensations, but this was further stressing my nervous system and I became burnt out and overwhelmed.

It was from this place that I found Somatic Experiencing. Actually, it was after I had a rupture with a therapist who tried to renegotiate a trauma in a way that was *extremely* re-traumatizing, that I found my way to a somatic coach trained in Somatic Experiencing.

Despite years of workshops and programs I feel like this was the moment I actually started healing. I began learning how to slow down, how to feel little bits of things instead of diving into the deep end, and how to find stability and resource instead of chasing highs and cycling in a vortex of wounds doing “shadow work.”

I noticed such a giant shift in my life. It felt like I came down from an endless confused spiritual quest and actually touched the earth. I learned that spirituality/presence/god is actually can be so so simple. It doesn’t have to be an intense cathartic breakthrough. I think I was drawn to the neo-tantric practices because I thought I would find god in ecstasy and energetic orgasms and reliving intense emotions from my childhood. When actually I could find god just from sitting on the ground, watching the sky, feeling my toes.

I began to re-think all the ways I had previously worked with clients as a neo-tantra /embodiment practitioner and I decided to take the somatic experiencing training. It was everything I loved about helping others be in a body but at a bite sized, digestible pace and some added trauma re-negotiation in a much safer way!

I notice that a lot of people who come into my practice have some kind of background or conditioning that they need to try harder or feel more intensely to have some spiritual or emotional breakthrough. For those of us with trauma backgrounds this messaging (encoded in a lot of new age and even some somatic modalities) is very compatible with our survival strategies. It feels familiar. We know intensity and we often think that’s where we will find healing or resolution.

But it’s actually in the slowness, softening and stability that the trauma starts to have enough room to reorganize and integrate instead of being perpetually probed and activated.

Anddd we get to lean into what it’s like to find pleasure or neutrality and let that be healing instead of dwelling in constant triggers. Then that resource starts to slowly re- shape our system until we find we have more space to hold more of the full spectrum of life, including our emotions and trauma, without becoming overwhelmed. I always had a hunch that pleasure could heal us and now there’s science to back it up. We need pleasure to heal. Only that pleasure may not be found in the intense peaks and highs, but something that could sustainably slow drip throughout our lives with its sweetness. A nectar we can draw from during the difficult times.

This is the heart of my work, nectar somatics.

I’m not at all hating on the cathartic practices/lineage that marked my entrance into the embodiment world - I can see the value those practices brought in a cultural moment, and I’m grateful for the experiences they have given me. I’m especially grateful to have experienced that realm because it has lead me to where I am today, evolving this work and getting to support others who have had similar experiences and are wanting a different way. All that I offer now has been melted down in the furnace, composted into dirt, and still contains elements of the original matter. I give reverence to my early embodiment teachers (Chameli Ardagh, Charu Morgan) and am grateful to my somatic mentors (Mahshid Hager, Madison Abdallah, Noelle Morris, Luna Dietrich, Jennifer Orchard) who have helped me refine and carry this forward.

As I type the words “My Somatic Lineage” at the top of this page I feel like I’ve left out something important: the earth. Before there were workshops and practices and anything I learned about my parents, there was the earth. My body, and the earth, the original relationship. At its heart I feel that’s what somatic practice is - earth wisdom. How to let our bodies be a part of nature. How to get out of the way and trust in the innate flow and intelligence that our body was literally designed with. The earth as the original somatic practitioner.

*images sourced from Pinterest

I’ll leave you with one of my most beloved poems:

you don’t need an altar

sit on the ground

feel your lover’s body

watch the sky.

you don’t need a perfect daily practice

wash the dishes

feel the joy spreading through your chest

the ache of grief,

practice being here

amidst the mess of being human

nothing to transcend…

just everything to come home to.

If you would like to explore working together, you can book a free curiosity call here.

I had to move unexpectedly, my closest friendship dissolved, and I lost much of my health and functionality all in the span of six months.

I laid in bed for hours, weak with exhaustion and barely able to move. The image that came to my mind was a decomposing log on the forest floor. I felt like I was receding, fal…

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image via Julek on pinterest

Hey friends!

I’m going to keep it short today as I’m working on a longer piece for you about my recent travels in Portugal (!) coming soooon.

Today I want to share a poem and a playlist inspired by the energies moving through my life at this time of transition and unknown, which feels fitting for the dark moon in scorpio. For many of us who have experienced trauma, the unknown can feel terrifying - a loss of control, a dark void. But the unknown can also be a place of spacious possibility and fecund potential - if we can orient to it that way. This poem is born of my longing to dance with the unknown in new shapes.

there is sensuality in the unknown 

the fertile void

the place in between 

full of rippling darkness ~ a velvet caress.

here - the mystery could be not fear but 
a friend

i move my hips 

i stretch into it, undulate 

i lick the edges

and i dance.

and here’s a sensual new moon playlist inspired by the sensuous unknown, scorpionic sweetness and heartache, as well as ancestors and the unseen realms.

I hope you feel deeply supported and held in this threshhold time.

As always if you’re needing extra support navigating the waters of life while tending to your nervous system I am offering somatic sessions at a discounted price through the end of the year. I can say that somatic work has been HUGE in starting to gently shift my perception of the unknown, through building a sense of trust in the body. Next year my rates are going up, so if you’ve been eyeing this work, maybe now’s the time :)

You can learn more and book a free call to learn more here.

with love and a hip shimmy,

Rosalie

My mind has a tendency to rush ahead of itself.

During these long, hot days of summer I found myself already dreaming of the coolness of autumn; of trips I’ll take and the perfect linen fall clothing. I found myself wondering if I was doing enough, feeling like there was some missing information just beyond my reach that would somehow make everything better and easier.

Then the other morning I reconnected with an old friend - Tea.

I laid a handmade bowl and clay teapot out in a sunbeam on my floor. I heated water in a glass kettle until it was almost boiling. I lit incense and placed a small vase of garden flowers beside me, and sat down on a purple fuzzy pillow.

I rinsed the tea pot and bowl with warm water and placed some fragrant red tea leaves in the bottom of the pot. I filled the small handmade teapot with water and let it steep.

As the steaming amber liquid touched my lips, I sighed and melted a little. As the warmth of the tea spread through my body, I became aware of how much richness is ALREADY HERE. How much potential and beauty is in this moment. I felt the ways I’d been habitually rushing past it, to always want more, to figure out the next plan or acquire the next thing.

I realized that when my brain and body are in that state I completely miss out on the wealth of the moment. That perhaps there is more than enough now, and that THIS is really the only place to start to build anything else.

I thought of all the projects and spaces and ideas I could tend already brewing inside me instead of creating new, “better” ones.

In a culture of rushing it takes intentional effort to slow down, to find a different rhythm. To move at the pace of rocks and water instead of algorithms and emails. But I think we need it.

How would our creations in the world be different if we made them from a place of “already enough?”

What if I went through my closet and focused on the clothes I already love wearing? What if I remembered to drink in the little details of my surroundings and to savor them?

What if the answer to our restless dissatisfaction and seeking is literally right in front of us?

In times of information overload and busy hustling, I remember the power of savoring. When we savor, it allows time to stretch out and slow down. It allows pleasure to take over our senses and the body to soften. Nowhere else to be, but here.

And in being here, there is more than enough.

meditations on enoughness: questions to journal or ponder.

what is going well in my life right now?

what do I want that I already have? (this is inspired by a question in the Slow Glow Journal from Radiant Somatics)

where is there already beauty around me?

what simple pleasures can i savor today?

If the voice in your head says “BUT WHAT ABOUT THE HARD THINGS,” you can let it know that we will get to that, but first we are building a capacity for pleasure that will make the way we address the hard things feel a lot lighter :)

If you feel you could use an added layer of support getting space from the stressy voices and accessing pleasure and presence, I have 2 more spots available for 1:1 somatic coaching!

Witnessing my clients experience more ease and connection to themselves, and ability to move and flow with life is quite simply the best and I love it.

Learn more here and you can also book a free curiosity call.

i am learning how to walk slowly.

how to caress the moment

instead of rushing over it

how to marvel

at moonlight and rosebud

how to be empty,

and yet pulse

with potential

how to drink from the same cup

i feed others from.

I live in cycles. Rather than experiencing time as only linear, I am moved by the clock of my body, the moon, the seasons. 

(I once heard someone say that time is like the ocean, a swirling depth moving forward and backward, spiraling and sloshing. in this way we don’t have to be limited, bound by time. we can create with it as an alive substance.)

Anyways, summer solstice feels like an apex of a cycle. a flowering. Everything is ripe and at it’s peak. The ovulation season of the earth.

And yet we all live within our own personal seasons. Right now I am bleeding - in an inner winter. shedding and releasing, as the moon is becoming full. Everything is at different points of dying and being reborn, all at once. I like to think that’s part of what makes things beautiful, alive.

I’ve been thinking about flow, about how to allow this. Everything has a natural arc - from seed to blossom to decay. What would it be like to not fight against it, but to gracefully open and die according to the moment ?

One of my somatic mentors recently reminded me that in nervous system work it is important not to become too precious about “regulation”. And especially to not confuse regulation with being calm or unflappable. A healthy nervous system is a responsive one - meaning we can respond appropriately to the situation. If the ceiling is on fire, for example, we might want to jump up and run out of the room instead of sitting on our couch taking deep breaths. Maybe we don’t need to “just calm down,” maybe our anxiety is really telling us something and needs to express itself for a moment.

How do we respond then, to the seasons of our lives? Can we let ourselves be fluid -rise and fall, expand and contract, instead of holding onto a rigid idea of “how things should be?” 

(Looking closer i just see this as another symptom of how we’ve culturally found safety in control, in perfection, even if it slowly robs us of joy)

How do we cultivate resilience in our nervous systems so that we can weather the seasons of life? So that we can be truly present to witness the beauty of the flowering, so we can taste and savor the ripeness of the fruit, and then surrender to the ache of letting it go to experience what comes next?

I’ve found that when safety is the underpinning of our experience, we have more room to breathe and be stretched by the waves of life. We can start to wake up into this moment instead of just habitually reacting.

Building this safety is slow, steady, holy work. Like time, it has seasons and cycles 

 and oceanic undertows.

Anything that helps us to experience even 2% more enjoyment, pleasure, and here-ness counts towards it. 

any small noticing can move us towards aliveness.

Current offerings:

I am continuing to offer somatic coaching at at discounted rate til the end of this year! Learn more here.

with summer love,

Rosalie

i want to marry the earth

the bees will be my bride 

their sweetness 
my overflowing heart

i want to lay down in the clover 
and cover myself with their humming

i want to crawl into the hive 
and live there 
my days full of honey 
and flower dust 

i want to climb into the open window of this love 

find every crack and let the the light pour in

and in 
and in.

Now I feel a stirring - my inner animal slowly awakening, stretching, shaking off old layers, moving towards warmth.

The trees are dripping with white blossoms that scatter in the breeze.

My heart is brimming, full of grief and hope, tenderly spilling over. 

This time of year feels like a threshold – where we are shedding and blooming all at once. It is not tidy. We may blossom, and then it freezes. The seasons expand and contract, sending us through the birth canal. Birthing us into spring. Into ourselves.

My honeybees are full to bursting in their hive. Fat honeycombs and the queen’s fertility abounds. Soon they will swarm - flying into sunlight in a golden cloud of ecstatic freedom. I dream with them, emerging from ancient dark mountains into the glowing dawn, anticipation at our fingertips.

Spring is a time of reaching. Reaching towards what we desire. Towards life. Reaching for our heart and the gems we mined in the cold and darkness of winter. Reaching like the bud for sunlight, called by invisible erotic forces. The bud who doesn’t think about blooming, but follows the impulse.

I bring awareness to my body. Slow like honey, moving down, noticing. My feet in my sandals. The sun on my skin. The perfect song in the car. The availability of life hits me at once and I weep. The connection that has always been here comes rushing in when I take the time to acknowledge it. The warmth of the sun is melting me. The moon is re-arranging me. I let it happen.

I remember that in the bursting open of spring, I can still move slowly. I can savor. I can take my time. I can let it be enough.

Resources + Offerings

I made two different playlists this time. One embodying the energy of spring and the other dancing with the edge of the upcoming lunar eclipse. Feel free to go wherever you are moved.

*The title of this newsletter, Slow like honey is inspired by the title of a Fiona Apple song, featured on the playlist below ;)

Somatic Coaching

I have changed the format of my offerings a little to be more supportive of ongoing sessions. I’ve noticed that this work can take time and repetition, and I really want to provide a space for the slow unfolding and ample time for nervous system integration. This work is not about quick fixes and I want the structure of sessions to reflect that :)

Currently I am offering sessions in bundles of 6, 9 and 12. The price is still slightly discounted, and definitely go up next year!

learn more about somatic sessions and schedule a free call!

As usual, I leave you with a poem.

the buds open in spring
and nothing i can say or do will ever stop this

just as there is a flowering intelligence in your heart
that knows it's timing.

Wishing you inner fullness in this turning of the season

xx

Rosalie

This past weekend I took a break from self improvement.

Secluded in the verdant hills of my favorite hot springs with my partner and disconnected from WIFI and cell service, I decided my “intention” for this retreat was just to allow myself to be human.

I ate delicious food at all the wrong hours for my blood sugar.

I melted brie on toast with currant jam.

I read an entire 90s romance novel.

I made love and cried on the floor.

I watched the stars and soaked the mineral water deep into my bones.

I noticed the ways I got it wrong and still survived.

I feared and tensed and then let go.

When you are immersed in a world (or social media page) steeped in self growth, improvement, ways to regulate your nervous system, how to eat, how to “biohack” and “up-level” your self care or business,

It’s so relieving to just take a break. To be human and get it wrong. To be messy and to LIVE.

I’ve become aware of how much thinking about the right way to “live” can really get in the way of just living. Especially for trauma survivors. We can feel like we need to manage all of our reality to stay safe. That we need to be doing all the perfect things at all the right times. 

There is something so healing in letting it unravel a bit and see that we are still okay.

I’ve returned feeling sleepy and yet also invigorated to continue showing up and allowing the mess in the process. To not wait until I am perfectly curated to offer what my heart wants to the world.

Updates / offerings

Right now I am feeling the immense privilege of guiding 11 humans through the winter months with somatic practices designed to support rest, pleasure and creativity. And I am also learning, along for the ride.

It’s been so inspiring that I’m already dreaming of the next group container where we get to play together. I’ll be offering Muse Creativity Coven again this spring - which is for women and queers to explore their creativity through a somatic lens and get support in bringing your creative longings to flourish with lots of pleasure and permission along the way.

You can get on the waitlist to be notified when registration opens here.

I leave you with a poem <3

some nights
i spend alone in warm water
massaging my pain
giving it a voice, a home
other than my body

some nights
i stop running
from the swirling darkness
i take a breath and feel it

on those nights
i am falling into grace
i am a poem unfolding
i am velvet and smoke -
a pearl in the night.


i am just stars
and empty space


on those nights
the pain and beauty move in my chest like lovers
and i am just their dance floor.

I’ll be honest. I’ve been finding it hard to rest lately. There’s been a buzzing, anxious energy in my body, propelling me into “doing” mode. I’ve found myself taking the shape of old patterns of perfectionism and accomplishment. My heart has felt broken from witnessing the violence of the world.

There is so much space in the quiet. So much promise in the darkness, that I don’t quite know how to unfold into. I know it requires choosing a different route than the well worn neural pathway of “productivity.” Though I’ve been conditioned, it’s not my native language. I am daydreamer, a liminal explorer, a word-receiver. 

I am learning to court darkness, and quiet because that is where the dreams and the words reside. And I don’t want to miss them.

I remember sometimes it can be simple. 

A single step.

A toe dipped in. 

A tea and a candle.

A moment to let my body unwind what it’s been holding so ease can find me, and not be another thing I strive for or stress over.

I remember maybe I need to accept all the things I have not been able to “get done” and toss them into the end of the year compost heap.

I remember to make space for grief. To let myself cry to a really juicy, soul stirring song. To let it release rock and open me into softness. To honor what is slipping away, what is receding.

Maybe there is sweetness in that grief that can sustain me through the winter months, like the memory of honeyed summer days.

I remember that my creative process is an ally for holding grief so it doesn’t have to live in my body.

I remember that the light is coming back, soon. 

But for now, sweet darkness

Let us wait in the unknowing

Where feeling is the compass

Tenderness the guide

Grief the companion

Darkness the cocoon

Emptiness the altar

For now let us be hollowed out

Humbled.

But held.

resources and offerings

I made a fun little list of ways to dip your toes into rest, if slowing down is feeling hard right now. I’ve found it can really help to break up resting into smaller, bite sized pieces instead of forcing a big shift.

Winter Somatic Practice Group

There are still some spaces left in my upcoming Winter Somatic Practice Group - Sanctuary! If you would like some community support to delve into resting and the creative realms. Emptiness will be our altar. <3 and early bird pricing ends Jan 1st.

Here’s a really juicy song I enjoyed crying to.

i used to have altars
statues of deities and roses

now i pray
to the empty spaces inside my heart

because i could no longer run
or be distracted
because the darkness was calling my name
and i felt the gold glittering

at the bottom
because i sensed that something like
sweetness and freedom
lives in the places
we are too afraid to look.

-rosalie amber grace

I’ve taken a break from writing here the last couple weeks while I was recovering from a winter cold and needing to be in a contractive, hibernating state. 

Lately I’ve been marveling about how sometimes in periods of being sick, or sad, it can be so easy to forget that things will change. That the light will come back and the days will get longer. That my body will heal and strengthen again. 

Surrendering to the experience of contraction is a practice that requires a lot of trust. One I’m still learning. But there are maps all around me: the waxing and waning of the moon, the blossoming and decay of flowers, the turn of the seasons. Nature is contracting and expanding all the time, showing me that this is normal, this is right.

I don’t know where we got the idea that we need to be shiny or “on” all the time (maybe capitalism?) but it actually makes me very sad because I feel that there are a lot of gifts hiding inside the experience of contraction.

Winter is a time that is naturally contractive - energy draws in, and the earth is quiet. The animal body nudges us towards rest. I’ve found that when I can walk willingly into a contractive energy that I choose, like resting and slowing down more in the winter, I feel more empowered and equipped to deal with the contractions that are inevitable in life. Contraction doesn’t have to be negative - it can be a slowing down, a pivot, an opportunity to embody a different pace.

If you’re curious about exploring your relationship with contraction here are some questions / prompts to journal about or contemplate!

• Instead of trying to get rid of the inevitable experience of contraction, how can I SUPPORT myself in it instead? What tools, self care practices, community practices, cozy blankets, books, permission slips, etc will help me to safely contract in a way that might actually feel restful and rejuvenating? 

• Where am I holding a story that this contraction is “bad”?

• Looking back, what moments of contraction have ultimately prepared me for something more expansive? (looking for evidence of how it’s worked out in the past, seeing the bigger picture)

• What is my body asking of me right now?

I’d love to hear how this inquiry landed for you!

Somatic Winter Practice Group

I’m also excited to share that I’ve designed a somatic winter practice group, a space where we can come together and practice the art of wintering, of slowing down and resting. We will also be exploring themes of creativity and pleasure! We’ll meet 4 times over the course of 2 months, throughout January and February. 

If you’re wanting some community and nervous system support through these months, I’d love to practice with you!

You can learn more and sign up here.

the timing is not always perfect
sometimes you blossom
and then it freezes - 
snow clinging to your petals

it's okay. 
are we not all messing up a bit as we stumble
into beauty?


- rosalie amber grace

pleasure based holiday gift guide:

As promised, here is my mini pleasure based holiday gift guide! I’m focusing on items that have personally brought me pleasure or fulfillment or embody coziness and are from small makers.

Slow Botanicals Ghee + Tallow Lip Butter : y’all this lip balm is DIVINE. I’m never going back to regular lip balm after the succulent experience of ghee and vanilla on my lips.

Slow Glow Journal from Radiant Somatics: I worked with Madison for years as my first somatic coach and she just made this epic journal! I can’t wait to get my copy.

Venus Candle from Benjamin Pixie: Benjamin Pixie is a bee keeper and mead maker extraordinaire - also check out his mead if you’re in the mood for some sensual, ecstatic libations - it ships to most states!

Naked, a poetry book: - shameless plug for my own poetry book :) you can now order it directly from my website! Perfect for the sensual romantic in your life.

Honeydove Vintage silk Scrunchie - this scrunchie is so soft and versatile! and made with mulbery silk, and I adore this mama - owned brand.

Alright, I’ve kept it mostly under $50 but for the finale: the coziest wool blanket I’ve ever bought hands down

cozy AF merino wool blanket from Folkee. you’re welcome.

May you be cozy and dipped in pleasure as you navigate the ebbs and flows of this life and winter season.

<3

My somatic teacher talks about how each of us has an inherent body rhythm. Like the pulse of the tides and the rising and setting of the moon, we are moved by this rhythm, and it becomes our pace as we move through life.

When a traumatic event (or events) happen, that rhythm gets disrupted. 

I imagine it as a metronome that’s ticking along, and then something happens to either speed up the metronome, slow it wayyyyy down, or make it bounce erratically between the two.

This is what happens with the nervous system. If our rhythm has sped up, our body and pace speeds up. We might feel constantly busy, stressed, over-scheduled and anxious (capitalism culture rewards this pace.)

If our nervous system has gotten stuck in a “too slow” mode we might experience depression, fatigue, procrastination, loss of zest for life or energy to engage in the things we want to create.

None of these states are bad or wrong. In fact, a well functioning nervous system can move fluidly between action/inaction, fast/slow, and movement/inertia.  But sometimes we can get “stuck” in one of these states for longer than we’d like. Or we find ourselves pinging between them in a way that feels exhausting.

The goal of good somatic work is to help us to naturally find and attune to our own innate rhythm again. For this rhythm has never truly left us. The body remembers the way and can lead us back to it. 

From there we can begin to remember and embody our own pace. This is often different from society or even possibly the paces of those around us. 

It’s the pace that we can move through life staying connected to ourselves, and each other.

We are relational creatures, and our rhythms affect each other. We don’t have to do this work all alone. Like tuning ourselves to stability - we can connect with the pace of a tree, or co-regulate with a trusted safe person to help our own rhythm come back into balance.

After all, our body is made of the same material as the trees and wind and water that move and cycle and breathe. We are held in wider circles.

We are a part of greater rhythms.

`

Resources + offerings

Slow pleasures and rhythms in my life lately

• I’ve been listening to musical albums from start to finish as a meditation. These records have captured by heart:

  Water Made Us by Jamilla Woods - a raw, gorgeous and poetic journey through the realms of love and relationship. Especially love her spoken word.

Are You Happy Now? By Jensen McRae- deep, genius and evocative. This album explores themes of trauma, gender, & race with an honest and soul- laden depth. Also her voice melts me.

• I created a clothing resale page! @luxe__cozy is a space where I share new or gently worn clothing - always slow fashion and natural fibers. Check it out!

• I’ve been loving my 1:1 somatic sessions lately and am in awe of what can unfold when the body is given space to find its way back towards wholeness. If you want some support with attuning back to your own rhythm, I’m still offering sessions at a discounted rate. Respond to this email or book a session here.

  I’m also considering creating a group offering for the winter months where we can practice Somatics together - stay tuned, or you can also respond if you’re interested and I’ll make sure to send you the info directly.

If you knew me, you would know that coziness is a very high priority in my life. And as the season turns towards Winter in the northern hemisphere I find myself drawn into it’s well worn embrace.

I’ve come to understand coziness as a sensation that can be cultivated inside as well as out - a kind of radiating warmth and contentment in the body. A sense of home and hearth that lives within. I find this sense of coziness when I can really be with myself and my felt experience of life no matter what is happening. It’s not about shutting out what is hard, but rather having access to coziness can help expand my capacity to be WITH it all.

Lately I’ve been going through some personal transitions and noticed one of the ways I was coping with this as well as a lot of collective heartbreak was wanting to buy lots of clothes online. As I held more curiosity around this I noticed all of the things I wanted to buy were extremely cozy in nature - sheepskin hats, shawls, literally a dress called “the cozy dress.” I realized that I was craving the sensation and experience of coziness.

I’ve discovered that coziness is a way to seduce myself into rest. A way to make it inviting and fun. Naps become better when taken on a cozy sheepskin with a snuggling wool blanket. The outside cold becomes less threatening with the presence of a cozy coat.

In the spiritual healing self growth world there can be an emphasis on feeling everything ALL THE time and that = embodiment. But as the intensity of the world ramps up around us it’s also important to remember to rest and resource ourselves so that we can take action and show up to the relationships, communities and causes that are important to us. Coziness is a balm that can help us to slow down and notice what feels okay and safe about resting, and that can hold us even as we navigate heartbreak.

Resources + offerings

If you want to connect with cozy energy more here’s a practice:

Just start to pay attention to anything (could be super simple) that feels cozy or comforting in your life. A warm blanket, the soft fur of an animal, snuggling with a lover or friend, or even the warmth of your heater  in the car. Take a moment and let yourself receive anything that feels good and right about that sensation even 5%. Memorize it with your body. Then continue about your day and repeat :)

If we have been in survival mode, it’s normal for comfort or rest to feel a little disorienting. It’s okay to take it slowly, little by little. Know that even 2% of feeling cozy counts. When we focus on a sensation it tends to grow and expand and we can do this with feelings/states we want to feel more of.

If you did this practice, I’d love to know how it went for you!

*Also a reminder that I’m still offering discounted Somatic sessions, while I’m in my training! This will be the lowest price I’ll ever offer so if you’re feeling the curiosity tickle - reach out!

You can learn more here.

cozy playlist

I made my first playlist in a while! It’s invoking the energy of softness + coziness.

for this week’s poem, I want to share one that is in progress and not “polished” to embrace imperfection in the creative process. Also it fits the theme :)

coziness of self


i cultivate it and it grows stronger 

I am here
in times of loneliness and pain
in times of fullness and pleasure
expansion. contraction. i stay.

the techniques, the practices are helpful
but eventually i must throw them away

unless they start to become traps
or too many extra steps
between this love

already right here. 



Thank you so much for taking the time to read my writing and support my work! I would love to hear from you if anything particularly resonated  with or there are any topics you would love to hear me discuss on here. Let's make this collaborative!

xx

The days are growing colder and shorter, and I’ve made my first fires in the wood stove. My inner animal is curling inward, drawing me into rest. I want to stay in bed longer. I want to fill my mornings with silence and listen to the quiet whisperings of my body.

My heart feels the tenderness of what is falling away. Of the confusion and pain of how to hold the thousands of lives being lost in Israel and Palestine. I call my representatives and fumble awkwardly through the conversation. I look outside and see the trees gently swaying in the wind and the comforting presence of dew misting the grass.

Lately I’ve been feeling the necessity of tuning in to the resources and practices that ground us so we can stay available to what is being asked of us, individually and collectively. Practicing Somatics - being with the body - has helped me to slow down my reactions so that I have a little more choice in them. So that I can find the ground even when I am being swallowed by grief. So that I can feel the edge of my anger as a spark urging me into action. So that I can get a little space from the mental stories and feel what my body wants to do. 

To me the goal of nervous system regulation is not to become calm, no matter what is happening around us. It is actually to have more options and choice in how we respond, whether that’s taking action, grieving or resting. Our body knows what it needs to do when, and when I can support and allow this I can rest into such a greater sense of safety than from trying to control and manage my way through life.

On a physiological level, we are still animals, moved by the tides and the seasons. There is an innate rhythm that thrums and calls to us, an instinctual knowing. Many have called this primitive, and tried to eradicate it through prioritizing the intellect, technology, consumerism, capitalism, etc. But the inner animal holds a great intelligence and a gift. It is connected to what is wild, to soul, to nature. To what remains unbroken.

In a culture that prizes accomplishment and progress, I say that tending to your inner animal is a radical act. It is not another self care item to check off the list but an undoing, a getting out of the way, listening and allowing.

So this is an invitation to follow that inner animal - perhaps into the cave for some rest, to bare its teeth for a cause you care about, or show your soft belly.

Resources + offerings

• I am still offering 1:1 somatic sessions at a discounted rate while I am in my training if you’d like some support connecting to your body + inner animal

You can learn more + book here

• I was recently interviewed on a podcast where I spoke about Somatics, and my creative process amongst other things!

• I wanted to share this powerful practice by somatic practitioner Kathy Kain, - this truly feels like a practice for the times…. to help us to be WITH what feels unbearable in the world while also supporting our nervous system.

Learn more and access the practice here.

I leave you with a poem from my book, Naked.

let your soft body be 

let the tide go out, and the waters cover you

let your innocence be the dawn in which you wake

though the night has sewn black lace

into your edges 

– a holy blessing.

in the arms of darkness

we can see ourselves more clearly

in the descent we merely touch what had been there

all along – 

the pain and love

grief and ecstasy

and you, your soft body

the sweetest intersection.

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