Paula, a lovely client of mine, came into her session recently carrying the weight of restless nights. When I asked what she felt was at the root of it, she paused — “The state of the world, the suffering, going to bed too late... and maybe something hormonal, too.” Hard to pinpoint exactly, but what she knew for certain was this: she’d find herself lying awake, body exhausted from a full day of mothering a toddler and writing for a non-profit she deeply believed in, yet unable to cross the threshold into sleep. Paula is compassionate, empathic, emotionally attuned — she carries a lot, quietly.

The sleeplessness had begun to leave a physical trace — tension in her head, jaw, and upper shoulders, and a kind of bone-deep fatigue that rest wasn’t reaching. Before we began our table work, I asked her about her wind-down rituals.

Wind-down rituals matter enormously for a nervous system that has been holding stress and stimulation all day. The autonomic nervous system — autonomous by design — doesn’t always receive the signal that the day is over. Even when the body is horizontal and still, the nervous system may need intentional, sensory cues to begin its descent. Conscious ritual creates that cue.

One of the most immediate and effective tools for that descent is aromatic medicine — the use of essential oils to speak directly to the nervous system’s oldest language: scent.

Together, Paula and I crafted a sleep blend: Valerian, Roman Chamomile, and Lavender, each chosen for their specific chemistry, merged into jojoba oil for application to pulse points — temples, occiput, wrists, and soles of the feet.

She brought the bottle to her nose. Almost immediately, something in her visibly softened — a settling at the center of the chest. The blend carried sweet, herbaceous, apple-crisp notes, evoking the sensation of being wrapped in something warm and soft. Her nervous system recognized it before her mind could name it.

That same blend was then woven into her massage session, anchoring the body’s unwind through touch and scent together.

Why scent works so directly:

When an aromatic molecule is inhaled, it bypasses the thinking brain entirely. Odor molecules travel along the olfactory nerve directly to the limbic system — the brain’s center for emotional memory and felt safety. From there, the signal moves through the HPA axis (hypothalamus → pituitary → adrenal glands), regulating whether the body tilts toward rest or toward alert. The terpenes and esters found in sedating essential oils — valerenic acid, linalool, linalyl acetate, angelate esters — can effectively interrupt the loop of nervous system activation and invite a genuine downshift.

Scent doesn’t ask the mind for permission. That’s precisely what makes it so useful when the mind won’t quiet on its own.

Paula’s Nightly Rest Ritual — 15 minutes

REST Blend In a 10 ml roller bottle filled with jojoba carrier oil:

• 8 drops Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia)

• 5 drops Roman Chamomile (Anthemis nobilis)

• 4 drops Valerian (Valeriana officinalis)

The Protocol:

1. Viparita Karani — Come to the floor with your legs elevated up the side of the bed or a wall. (A bolster and two blocks can support a more restorative variation — see photo.) This gentle inversion encourages venous return, quiets the adrenals, and signals the parasympathetic branch of the nervous system.

   

   

2. Palm Inhalation — Roll the REST blend into your palms, cup them over your nose and mouth, and breathe slowly — deep into the belly and chest. Five to eight full breath cycles. Let the exhale be longer than the inhale.

3. Application — If desired, apply to the soles of the feet, behind the ears, and across the sternum.

4. Transition to bed — When you feel complete, move slowly to your bed. You’ve already begun to arrive.

A few notes on working with essential oils for sleep: avoid anything stimulating or energizing in your evening blend — citrus top notes, rosemary, peppermint, eucalyptus. The oils you choose at night should feel like a door closing gently, not a window opening.

What we do consistently, the body learns to anticipate. A nightly ritual — however simple — becomes a kind of somatic conversation, a signal repeated until the nervous system begins to recognize it as the threshold between the world and rest. Over time, the scent alone becomes the cue. The breath alone becomes the bridge. This is the quiet intelligence of ritual: it doesn't demand that you arrive already relaxed. It simply creates the conditions, night after night, until the body remembers on its own how to let go. Sleep is not a luxury to be earned at the end of a hard day — it is a practice, tended like any living thing, returning to you what you bring to it with patience and care.

Stay connected — add your name to the waitlist for my future restorative training program, Rest as Resilience. (Hover over to click on the link).

In the meantime, I’d love to hear about what your ritual of rest looks like.

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The smooth, warm, honeyed, vanilla-soft wood notes of sandalwood have been such a balm for my soul— especially during those early morning rises at 4:30am, when the house is still and quiet as a mouse. It’s the sacred witching hour. My wise, elder fifteen-year-old shepherd–hound–husky, Jasper, sleeps soundly beside my partner, who barely rustles a peep. I prefer it this way. It allows me to slip quietly down the stairs and tend to my morning ritual of making coffee—its own aromatic pleasure.

From there, I take deliberate steps to my altar, sruti box, and yoga mat in my studio. I light a candle and pause, sensing how I want to shape the morning ahead. Sometimes a subtle choice of anxiety creeps in, which is not necessarily negative. The anxiety can be triggered by the inability to stay focused as the monkey mind starts to jump around. That’s when I reach for sandalwood.

On a recent particular Friday morning I begin to muse on my class for later that evening, when l teach my regular Friday night restorative yoga class at my yoga studio. Since the beginning of 2026, these 5:30pm classes have become a ritual for many—an offering of respite at the end of the week. Over time, a quiet sense of community has formed. Familiar faces, gentle conversations, a warming of the room. Even when unspoken, there’s a felt sense that we are not alone.

Because it’s restorative yoga, I arrive early to set the space—mats, bolsters, blankets, and often name cards for students I know are coming or may arrive late. Like the warm notes of sandalwood, the visual order becomes its own balm. Students who enter the studio feeling agitated or tense often begin to soften before we even begin, commenting how calm and relaxed they already feel, ah. That evening, sandalwood became the scent du jour. Not a blend, but a single note—chosen deliberately. Australian sandalwood, Santalum spicatum. The word Santalum is the genus of the tree to 15-20 species of trees that exist. The species spicatum can be found in Australia while album is the species found in India and paniculatum or also commonly called “iliahi” is found in Hawaii. Santalum spicatum grows across the semi-arid lands of Western Australia and by the local aborigine tribes, sandalwood is called Dutjahn.

The word santal is believed to have Arabic origins, tracing back through ancient trade routes where aromatic woods were carried across deserts and seas as precious offerings. Sandalwood has long been revered as one of the most aromatic and enduring woods known—valued not only for its scent, but for its capacity to sanctify space and time. Across cultures, it has been burned as incense in temples and homes, carved into prayer beads, ground into powders for ritual, and infused into oils for anointing. Its fragrance has accompanied moments of devotion, mourning, and celebration, marking thresholds between the ordinary and the sacred. In these traditions, sandalwood was not merely a scent, but a reminder: that the body itself is a dwelling place worthy of reverence, and that through ritual, we remember our belonging to something larger than ourselves.

In the Indian tradition, Indian sandalwood or Santalum album, is known as chandana in Sanskrit. According to Ayurvedic texts like the Charaka Samhita, it is considered to be cooling, pacifying and calming and can be used to address the doshas made up of 3 constitutions: vata, pitta, kapha. Strongly pacifies Pitta (fire element), gently soothes Vata (air and water element), can be grounding in excess heat-related Kapha (water and earth element) states. Due to these qualities it can therapeutically calm heat, inflammation, fever, skin disorders, rashes, acne, burning sensations (digestive, urinary, emotional) anger, irritability, overstimulation. So therefore also used in the skin and beauty industry. And since there is no separation of the body from the psyche, it is used to calm the mental and emotional heat in the body that can cause restlessness, obsession, looping thoughts, and emotional reactivity. In perfumery, sandalwood is considered a base note and fixative, known for its ability to anchor other scents. It lingers long after first contact.

During the start of class, a single drop was passed to each student, layered into meditation along with a suggestion to invoke a sankalpa, a personal vow or intention to oneself. A drop in the palm, connect into the heart center and the third eye point between the brows to ucreate the internal dialogue of coming into being and the breath is the vehicle that carries the aromatic molecules into the olfactory bulb so that it may bathe the limbic brain, to calm the amygdala (reduce fight and flight) and be that cashmere blanket for the sea horse shaped hippocampus (to stoke new memories or tap into past scent experiences). How you might wonder? There is a chemical plant intelligence in sandalwood that works on the nervous system, a naturally occurring compound called α-santalol, When sandalwood is inhaled, its primary compound, α-santalol, travels directly from the nose into the limbic brain—the region that governs emotion, memory, and our sense of safety. Because α-santalol is a large, slow-moving molecule, its signal arrives gradually, without urgency, bypassing the thinking mind entirely. There, it gently quiets the amygdala, the brain’s alarm center, reducing signals of threat and reactivity. This slow, steady input communicates with the hypothalamus—the bridge between brain and body—where emotional tone is translated into nervous system and hormonal response. Rather than triggering mobilization, the message that passes through is one of safety and containment. As reactivity softens, the nervous system shifts out of vigilance and into a state of calm alertness. The mind does not go blank; it becomes spacious. Awareness remains, but without strain. One student later shared that she slept deeply that night, the scent still present on her skin—a gentle reminder of rest to continue into the night.

Sandalwood can be woven into the end of a yoga practice either during shavasana or during a Yoga Nidra which is considered to be a “sleepless sleep” practice. This scent is enough to calm the senses but to still hold the attention of presence and layered in with a Dirga pranayama or 3 part breath pattern will leave the mind and spirit transported to wholeness.

If you are interested to explore layers of sandalwood and blending, join me in my upcoming workshop Aromatherapy for the Yogic Mind February 21 through my website. To source sandalwood directly and responsibly, please visit the following distilleries and aromatherapy companies for your purchase of sandalwood:

Santalum spicatum from Dutjahn Sandalwood Oils in Australia

Santalum album from Nisarga Farms in India

A Natural Balm for the Spirit

Sandalwood does not rush.
It arrives the way dusk does—

without asking anything of the day.

It is the scent of patience,
of time agreeing to soften,
of the nervous system remembering
it was never meant to be braced forever.

Warm as skin held by morning light,
sweet without sugar,
wood without sharpness— it settles where words cannot reach.

It moves through the body like a low hum,
a quiet yes beneath the ribs,
an untying of the places
that learned to hold on too long.

Sandalwood does not lift you up.

It lowers you back

into yourself.

Into bone.
Into breath.
Into the simple truth
that you are already held.

Let it be the balm
that teaches the soul how to rest—
not by leaving,
but by staying.

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Ever since the season shifted, I’ve been waking up around 5:30 most mornings. While my plush duvet begs me to stay cocooned, the bones and joints of my 52-year-old body insist otherwise. So I wrap myself in a jumbo sweater, slip into cozy slippers, and head downstairs to begin my morning caffeine ritual.

The grinder scents the kitchen churning beans, the coffeemaker gurgles water and grounds into deep, rich notes. The frother hums, swirling oat milk into soft spirals. Together they make a kind of mechanical symphony, a soundtrack to the day’s beginning. Then comes the most important decision: which diner mug will hold my first sip?

Will it be Stumptown? Grey Dog? Intelligentsia? Cape Cod?

Over the years, I’ve collected these hourglass-shaped mugs from my favorite branded coffee shops—New York City, California, Massachusetts. Each one carries a memory of a time and place in my life. Today, my Intelligentsia mug brings me back to a summer in Venice, Los Angeles, California. Then, the first pour, dusted with cinnamon over frothed milk and hot coffee. That first satisfying sip — ah! — floods my whole system, awakening the limbic brain, where the hippocampus stirs memory and the amygdala softens into calm.

This begins my yoga — in the quiet of the kitchen, in the steam rising from a mug, in the pause between sip and breath. Not just in the postures on a mat, but in the way we choose to meet each moment with gratitude, attention, and presence. Maybe your yoga begins with coffee too, whatever the ritual, it’s the practice of arriving and being present.

What’s the small morning ritual that carries you into your day? Tell me about yours here.

100 bpm (beats per minute). This is the number that read on my client’s Apple watch when she arrived for her weekly private yoga session with me. Daisy mentioned she had a rough night of sleep with her heart moving in and out of AFIB which stands for Atrial Fibrillation, which is an irregular and often rapid heart rhythm (arrhythmia). This is a heart condition that happens when the upper chambers of the heart (atria) is not in sync with the lower chambers (ventricles) and beats uncoordinated and chaotically which then creates stress on her physical heart triggering mental and emotional stress in the process.

Meeting her with a distressed look in her eyes, I reach out to her hand and tell her that we will take it slower during our session together and support her heart in the best possible way. As a yoga teacher, it is always about meeting the student with their current needs and adapting the class accordingly. My initial plan of a pre-planned flow sequence is shelved for another day, and lean into my practices from my restorative yoga background for a chosen restorative asana like supta baddha konasana with supportive props like bolster, blocks, and blankets.

And right away, I reach into my own wellness arsenal as an aromatherapist and choose appropriate essential oils that can best support sedating the nervous system and senses. What flips through my mental roladex of essential oils are: vetiver, lavender, roman chamomile, spikenard. (photo here is my personal palette of 100 oils)

She ends up choosing the essential oil of Vetiver to work with. Vetiveria zizanioides, a tall grass plant found and grown in hot tropical climates throughout the world has a deep rich, earthy aroma with roots that can grow from 10-13 feet below ground. Metaphorically, Vetiver has the ability to provide an anchor and a strong sense of grounding and stability. When I work with Vetiver it helps tether me to my own inner core channel, my sushumna nadi to cultivate deep peace and presence.

Foundational to the start of any yoga practice, we begin centering from the ground up. The first priority is to support the calming down of her heart and so we come down to a comfortable seat on the floor and begin with what I call my ritual of, an aromatic breath, starting with a couple of drops of Vetiver diluted in jojoba carrier oil (since Vetiver is so viscous and thick), through palm inhalation followed by an easy three part Dirga pranayama breath. During this time, I ask her to call upon a sankalpa or a personal vow for herself to anchor this in along with her scent practice. “I am calm. I am at peace.” Silently reciting to herself, we encourage the exhales to be longer than the inhales.

After returning to her normal breath, Daisy welcomed a restful support in an restorative asana (seat or posture) supta baddha konasana which translates as “reclined bound angle pose", a deeply relaxing, heart-opening and hip opening posture where the soles of the feet come together while lying back, supporting the head and back at a 45 degree incline. And after 15 minutes of guided rest in this restful shape, Daisy checks her Apple watch this time and it reads…. drum roll.

60 bpm! A normal resting heart rate number, where it remained for the duration of our session and continued to stabilize throughout her day.

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Share Resilient Breath

We forget, too easily, but we always have the option to approach circumstances and situations in life by beginning again. Especially during the moments when we are caught in our own emotional riptide of storylines and mental replays it is hard to find a way out. And we inevitably find our way spinning into a downward spiral, twisted in our own contractions and tightness. Tightness of breath, tightness in the heart, tightness in our connective tissues.

This new moon in Capricorn (December 30-31), the cardinal earth sign of steady growth, ascension and self mastery, represented in the image of a mountain goat, is an opportunity to seed an intention of a new path and a new establishment of Self. To know this is to know that we can always start over, first by halting and then taking a baby goat hop back to reflect on a new approach to your circumstance or situation. Pause. Create more space to examine and look at what is so. Honor and question:

Is this true? Recognize the feelings. What are you feeling? And acknowledge and give it a nod. Don’t dismiss. Then, think of how can you feel different about it? How would you like to feel? Imagine what that new feeling is and drop it into the heart. Once this is sourced, create a sankalpa (a directed intention), comes from Sanskrit, where "San" means a connection with the highest truth, and "Kalpa" means vow, intention,.

Then, sit with a scent note. When we work with desirable smells or scent in an intentional way, we can bring more clarity, space and presence and use that to anchor in new beliefs, like with Frankincense or Yarrow or Chamomile. Scent has the ability to bypass cognitive pathway and hook into the primal centers of the brain, the limbic system responsible for fight and flight patterns, and make new tracks of feelings and sensations.

In this way of sitting with scent and a conscious breath, we allow ourselves to pause some of the agitation to make way for a little more breathing room. When we create more breathing room we can create more space in our heart to soften and widen into the moment. When we are able to widen, we are able to gain more perspective and allow the baby goat within to see the where the next hop should land.

For this next month, lean into this practice as a tool of resilient resourcing. I love sharing what I use in my own practices and would like to create a virtual group called the Sadhana Scent Club where we drop in, discuss, and connect into various practices of embodiment. The word sadhana comes from sanskrit and the root “sadh,” meaning to achieve, and as a result about creating a discipline or daily practice with intention to align with the deeper and greater truth of the Self. Ultimately we are all guiding our way back to ourselves and our own inner connection. This remembrance is an act of generosity to the soul’s Self.

As a member, we would gather biweekly, connect into contemplative yogic practices and scent note to which you receive a sample of an essential oil. If this sounds like something you’d like to be a part of, drop me a note! Email camhands@gmail.com

Wishing you a peaceful, spacious, journey forward into January 2025 and into a beginning of new sights and heights.

While we are all in the throws of summer here on the northeastern state of New York, embracing the outdoors— wooded hikes, bbqs, pool invites, outdoor concerts, dancing with the evening light of fireflies. This is my favorite time of the year and so it is important to create greater pauses in my schedule to enjoy it, because summer is short lived here, minimum two months if not three (rolling into September).

The summer heat can also force us to slow down and remind us that life does not have to constantly move in the fast lane. And in the slowing down, we can create more space, more time to relax, to sink into a book while swinging in a hammock. Two weeks ago I co-taught a two hour workshop with my dear colleague, friend and yoga teacher Alexandra Tse titled the Yoga of Rest and Renewal. We relish in this notion of creating the right conditions for the mind and body to find peace in our classes and aligned in joint effort in a special collaborative workshop.

As yoga teachers and licensed massage therapists, we witness first hand through our clients and students the profound power of what it means to rest when in the place and space of receiving. Often when we think of rest, we might think of taking an afternoon nap or taking a seat to catch a breath. While that is absolutely a form of rest, deeper shifts happen when one is guided into restfully held shapes with the body. According to Dr. Herbert Benson, a prominent Harvard medical doctor, it takes the body between 10-20 minutes for the body to shift into a deep state of relaxation. A lowered heart rate, decrease in blood pressure, decrease in breath pattern are indicators, resulting in turning on the parasympathetic branch of the nervous system. Yogis have essentially known this for many centuries and have developed practices that Western Yogis have made popular. When you come to an hour long restorative yoga class, you are provided with more ample time for your nervous system to drop into the relaxation response and truly sink into and even luxuriate in it. I often say to my students that is it like giving your nervous system an epsom salt bath!

When we give ourselves permission to deeply and truly rest then we create the conditions that can help us feel more renewed. To set up for this experience we begin with some actively held stretching and lengthening of the muscle and connective tissue through yin poses. Yin, different from restorative poses, remind our senses to lengthen into the opening of the body, the opposite sensation. This helps us connect into what may feel tight, contracted and restricted in our joints and muscles before surrendering into supportively held postures to further let go.

In our workshop that I co-taught with Yin Yoga teacher, Alex, we guided an experience that began with active stretch movements, including qi gong and body tapping, originating from traditional Chinese martial arts. These movements are to stimulate our nerves and enliven more blood and energy flow through our meridians and blood vessels, while waking up our energy. It’s an opportunity to also move any stagnancy and lethargy, and even emotions and thought patterns that we may be holding in our tissues. We stir, stimulate, and shake out energy patterns so that we may prep for the conditions for states of space, expansion and rest.

And through the use of aromatherapy and sound therapy, we connect into deeper parts of our senses to facilitate increased inner calm and peace. Our smell sense is a direct pathway into that part of the brain called the limbic system that signals for calm or fear before cognition of the external stimulus. When we work with concentrated distilled plant oils we are able to experience the therapeutic properties of the essential oils offer through olfaction and sensory absorption. Within the limbic system, a structure known as the hippocampus responsible for memory experiences, also becomes triggered and if the smell is familiar and recognizable it may positively connect to a remembrance of an experience.

The power of scent is accompanied by the breath to support the yin and restorative shapes. Yin poses to deepen and lengthen the body, can require a bit of effort and work to only remind it of what it craves and needs to feel a greater sense of opening; sets the stage for the surrender into restorative poses. Restorative poses does just the opposite as it is about non-doing and shifting into a state of receptivity. We are held by the props that are provided so that our joints, muscles, bones, tissues be held up so and hat we may truly let go into the moment.

Sound therapy bookended this deep state of nourishment with harpsichord, sruti box and kochi chimes to envelope the mind and body and reset the nervous system response towards a state of peace and serenity. There is simply nothing like this two hour experience of being nurtured and cared for, a deep palpable rest that can leave one feeling transcendent and transported to only be renewed.

Join Alex and myself as we will be co-teaching another workshop again on the Yoga of Rest and Renewal on Saturday, September 7th, 2024 from 4-6pm at Shakti Yoga Woodstock. Sign up here Yoga of Rest and Renewal workshop to register your mat and an experience a mini spa day for the mind, body and senses.

I am also teaching a regular one hour restorative yoga class this coming Friday, July 26 at 5:30pm. I look forward to seeing you on the mat!

It is truly hard to believe we are only days away from 2024. What’s also hard for me to believe is my birthday is just a away on the 31st. I was born on the very last day of the end of the year, a New Year’s Eve baby as I am called. When I was young, I absolutely hated being born on this day because it felt as though I had to wait so long until it was my turn to be celebrated, to receive gifts and a party. Plus, growing up in New York City, it is a time during the Winter season when it was bitter cold, snowy and icy and just simply not a fun time to be having a birthday party. Often, it was also overshadowed by Christmas and the world watching the ball drop in the middle of Times Square in New York City. If you do not know that tradition, a lit up mechanical ball would start to lower at approximately minutes to midnight to count down the close of the current year and to celebrate the next one. While I lived in NYC for most of my life, I may have only experienced that celebratory madness in person only once, just to say I did it. Well I pretty quickly realized it wasn’t a tradition that I was going to uphold. I am not one for large crowds, in the end.

At the turn and start of the new year, January 1, it is culturally popular to ask the question, “What is your new year’s resolution?” And the truth is that I have yet to meet someone who has actually committed to one throughout the year. I asked ChatGPT about the origins of this tradition and apparently it dates back to “ancient times, around 4,000 years ago, when the Babylonians celebrated the New Year with a festival called Akitu, which typically lasted 12 days. During this time, they made promises to the gods to pay off debts and return borrowed items, believing that keeping these resolutions would bring favor from the gods for the coming year.” In modern times, resolutions are about setting goals and commitments for the self improvement and to set positive intentions for the coming year.

I find there is a bitter sweetness to creating resolutions. In theory it is a lovely promise to aspire to, because it is easy to make them, but challenging to stay consistent and committed. I know for me, there are distractions in life and obligations that feel like they take precedence. Because the resolutions, the promises we make, the goals we set requires us to put ourselves first— our health (the mental, physical, emotional and even spiritual) before anyone or anything else and that is hard to do.

Resolutions may be looked at as ritual acts of change and a part of building our arsenal of resilience to manage daily life. I like to propose certain parameters for keeping a resolution digestible and doable. For starters, make it fun. It should be that ritualistic thing you look forward to. I’ll give you an example, I absolutely LOVE the taste of coffee, it is my sacred morning ritual. When I wake up, I head straight to the kitchen, and begin the process of adding scoops into my machine along with oat milk in my frother and have cinnamon at the ready. While the coffee is brewing and the aroma is permeating throughout the house, I set my meditation timer in the interim and meditate, using a three part diaphragmatic breath to tune into my center. Then the coffee awaits my consumption and I am just so happy and it instantly puts me in a good mood.

Be creative in your fun. Get into the right side of the brain hemisphere which is considered to be the artistic, visual aspect to stimulate dopamine and serotonin neurotransmitters that help the mind and body feel motivated and positively stimulated.

Make it small and simple. It is often said that less is more. There is great value in keeping the focus simple so that we don’t overwhelm what we are trying to accomplish and start there, then eventually build on that. This makes it more digestible. Bite size.

Lean in, and to others for support. Find a friend to join in on creating on the ritual act of a resolution as it helps with accountability, this is the act of co-regulation and the chance to reflect with one another, and it may make it more fun and creative.

Nowadays I no longer dread my birthday, and invite the closing of the year so that I may make room for new resolutions, new opportunities to invent something new and different. In the meantime, I will be musing on what my resolution will be, or my personal ask and promise to myself for 2024. What is yours?

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We come upon the Winter Solstice on December 21st, in the northern hemisphere when we experience the longest night of the year. This has been historically celebrated across many cultures throughout time: Soyal, by the Hopi tribe in North America which includes rituals, prayers, and dances to usher in the Kachinas, spiritual beings believed to bring life and fertility. Lohri, a winter festival celebrated in the Punjab region of South Asia. Inti Raymi, or the Festival of the Sun, was a religious ceremony of the Inca Empire in Peru. And many more.

It is an astronomical marker by the earth’s axis and tilt furthest from the sun before the light returns and grows brighter again in the coming months. The solstice is symbolically and metaphorically an opportunity to turn and reflect on all that we may look to incubate and cultivate as we move into the stillness of Winter.

This past Saturday, I co-facilitated a day long retreat for twelve women in honor of this very notion in Woodstock, New York. The retreat was themed Tending To Our Inner Hearth. We reflected upon resources, writing prompts and dialogue in a safe and shared space of support for one another. Renee Rotkopf, my co-facilitator presented on the mythological Roman Goddess, Vesta and her prominence in the current astrological sky as the the keeper of the spiritual flame. She was considered one of the most important deities in ancient Roman religion, she protected the home and family and the temple dedicated in her honor was kept by the vestal virgins who kept the fire light. In each of our astrological birth chart, which is a map of our soul’s blueprint during this lifetime, we may locate our own Vesta in sign and elemental placement. Similar to how we may know the Sun sign we are born in, it is the same with Vesta. (Mine is in the air sign of Gemini and it quite fitting since I enjoy writing, communicating and engaging with others in many different conversations.)

In our group experience, we invoked our Vesta by meeting her on a visualization journey burning incense smoke of frankincense and copal and guided by the beat of a buffalo drum. This journey shaped each person’s intention for the season along with an aligned aromatic scent of essential oils and absolutes. The end result was a beautiful array of 12 gorgeous blends, each so unique and different. These blends were then finished into a body oil and candle. This was followed by an array of mind and body exercises both Renee and I co-taught to anchor into the nervous system through scent and sound.

It was such an honor to hold and create a sacred space and container to hold everyone’s hearth and intentions, during a time when it may be challenging to shine our inner light brightly. Sometimes it is necessary to let go into the dark for a period of time before emerging into light once again.

During the Solstice on Thursday, December 21st at 10:27PM EST, tune into the practice of candle gazing to stoke your own inner hearth:

Items you will need:

Your favorite essential oil.

A candle. (Vesta Ritual Candle by Root and Resin)

A Journal and pen. To record insights, inspiration and messages that may come to you during your ritual.

1. Begin by lighting your candle, set at eye level to your seat.

2. Place 1 - 2 drops of your favorite essential oil into your palms, cup over the face and breathe in deeply. 

3. Shift your attention to the flame of your candle and focus on the flicker of the flame without blinking.

4. Allow the flame to fill your mind, heart, and body. Breathe in each flicker and take note of the sensations, thoughts, feelings, images that come up.

5. Once you have finished, record any insights that may have come up in your journal.

6. Offer gratitude to yourself for the moment and experience. (Always remember to blow the candle out to close).

A Candle Gazing Ritual also supports the calming of our nervous system and has the ability to reset the heart and mind from scatteredness, anxiety, and fear. The combination of scent and candle gazing as a meditation practice will also influence the limbic system, the part of the brain that is wired for stress response to quiet and calm down.

As we approach the year’s end, I want to take this opportunity to wish you and your beloved ones a very happy, healthy, and nourishing holiday season and into the new year. I will also be celebrating my birthday at the year’s end on December 31st.

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It is the day before Thanksgiving and my partner, our dog and myself will make the trip to New York City, to Queens where I spent my life growing up to spend it with my beautiful sweet Mama and the rest of our family. Thanksgiving happens to be my favorite holiday of the year, mainly because I love to gather to eat. I come from a Chinese household and growing up with a grandmother, the matriarch, who was an incredible cook for most of my upbringing. The holiday cuisine would involve a fusion of roast turkey as the main feature and all the fixings, alongside sauteed chinese vegetables and house made dumplings. It is a few years since my grandmother, who we all affectionately called “Poh Poh”, (translates as grandmother in Chinese) has since passed at the ripe age of 94 years old. The tradition lives on for tomorrow’s feast, and before we eat, we will all gather around the large 10x14 framed photo of Poh Poh, light incense, offer prayers followed by deep bows to Poh Poh in the after life .

(Me and Poh Poh)

I count my blessings to know that this part of my family is a drama free household, with the exception of my father. It has been five years since I have seen or spoken to him and he also lives in Queens. My father was not the easiest man to grow up with, domineering and controlling, looking back and I could perhaps understand reasons why. He emigrated to the United States in the 1960s and was faced with a lot of prejudice and racism as a Chinese man from China and so one could imagine the hardships he endured and persevered through. Working various blue collar jobs: truck driver, bus driver, wielder, mechanic he ultimately landed in a secure unionized job at a bus company, now retired with a pension. His life experiences shaped and influenced his decisions which spilled into the family and so his actions and reactions are what I have been challenged by my entire life. Tomorrow I am contemplating a visit with him because I know deep down it both pains and angers him to not see me, as it is my choice. And while I no longer harbor any resentment or animosity towards him, I will hold a sense of grace to meet and match whatever feelings and attitude I may be met with.

In my life studies and practice as a yogini, there is this concept known as a mantra which is a repeated word or phrase used in meditation or as a point of focus to come back to again and again to remember, remind and embody positivity. It could be love, peace, happiness or a phrase like “be here now”, to quote Ram Dass, a pioneer meditation teacher. Mantra is a Sanskrit word, comprised of two words, “man” means mind and “tra” means instrument, which then means an instrument of the mind. The mind can then be powerfully tamed through this practice of mantra recitation to calm the mental chatter and stories from triggers of the past, present, and even worries of the future.

Reciting Grace. Grace. Grace. Also in my resilience arsenal tool belt, is a grounding essential oil scent to breathe in during the mantra practice. When inhaling an aromatic scent, the limbic brain that controls the stress arousal can become more relaxed and at ease. The olfactory nerve and receptor bulbs which protrude off the front of the brain, like two mini antennae located between and behind the eyes travels directly to this control center and bypasses cognitive function in a matter of seconds before recognition. This stimulates an immediate physiological state change for the mind and body. I invite you to practice this with me.

Aromatic Breath with Mantra practice:

1. Be comfortable, preferably seated, lying down.

2. Close your eyes or lower your gaze, and think of your mantra (one word or phrase). Example: Peace.

3. With a steady inhale and steady exhale, recite grace.

4. Reach for your favorite aromatic scent and take in a deeper breath while reciting grace. The oil of lavender, frankincense or Clary sage are my go-to options.

5. You may place one hand over the heart and the other hand on the belly.

6. Notice any new bodily sensations, feelings, thoughts, impressions, emotions that may arise from this Aromatic Breath and Mantra ritual.

This may be used anytime and throughout the day over this Thanksgiving holiday. I wish you much grace, love and peace during this time.

Drop me a line and let me know how your holiday time is for you?

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“Home is where the heart is”, as the phrase goes. This came up in conversation with a friend who was over for dinner last night for an overdue catch up. As we dined over Saag paneer and samosas ( some of my favorite Indian food), she caught us up on the whirlwind of her life. She is technically homeless in the sense that she has opted to live/travel in different places as part of her transition out of a long marriage and currently bounces between NYC, Paris to visit her college kid, and upstate NY. While she yearns to have a physical home to call her own again, for now this is ok. And this is made ok by remembering that home can be felt by simply connecting within oneself vs. a physical home surrounded by material things. Of course there is nothing wrong with loving things and objects, I am the first to say that I love to shop. But as my friend shared, when you learn to live with your essentials you begin to realize you don’t need very much to get by and to feel happy, whole and even at home. When living transiently, there is this reminder that home can be found from a sense of belonging within the heart.

And yet, we easily make ourselves homeless as we traverse circumstances and situations in life. We get caught in the riptides of our thoughts and emotions and attach the stories that may or may not necessarily be the truth of the reality. Then the heart hardens and aches and the mind tries to make sense of these feelings and may even wonder how did we get here? And so the mind takes over, becomes the driver and sets the heart on cruise control. There is a bit of danger in this because the mind, our beautiful powerful brain, has the capacity to rationalize what the heart is trying to decipher by inventing so many storylines to understand what the heck is going on.

Triggering a limbic response, the amygdala and the hippocampus is also searching for remembered states of being and past experiences to match the emotions of the moment, it’s part of a primal survival response. While it serves to protect, it may also create old loops and stories that are not necessarily accurate, only familiar. The danger in this is that we attach to the old truths of the past that may not serve us in the moment and not accurately reflect who we are now.

A disembodiment of the heart and mind happens, a schism that can trigger habits of disservice— like self criticism, judgment, trance of unworthiness, emotional overwhelm, negative thoughts and just a complete total shutdown, like let’s just pull the covers over our head and never look to come out, EVER AGAIN. This spiraling is real, and has been too familiar and close to my own heart home. But even in the darkest moments of the monkey mind and a numb heart, there is the ability and awareness to do little things to help offset this— a meditation ritual, an aromatic breath practice, and a supportive restorative yoga pose/asana to calm the nervous system, to unite what feels disconnected and disembodied. (If you want to practice this with me, continue on below to access.)

And then in the midst of your personal thunderstorm, an unexpected caring friend reaches out and checks in just in that very precise universally well-timed moment to say, “hey, is all ok?”. She tosses out an anchor for you to grab onto, and helps you navigate your return home, to your heart.

Allow me to be your anchor, Hey is all ok? How is your heart doing?

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This song, Sit Around The Fire, is based off of a recording of a youthful Ram Dass during one of his spiritual talks from the 1970s, a pioneer meditation teacher and spiritual guru. It is a beautiful reminder of our inner truth.

Join me and Renee Rotkopf on our next one day Women’s Retreat, Tending to Our Inner Hearth in Woodstock, NY. Saturday December 16th. Read on for more details below.

As we transition through the seasons, and the darker days become longer, Winter is a season of stillness and turning inward. How may we support our own inner hearth and continue to stoke the fires of resilience, harmony, and balance? Join us as we explore, journey, and practice resourcing together in our sacred community of women.

Hearth centered program includes:

• Contemplative Journaling & Intention Setting Aromatherapy Scent Crafting
  Havening Techniques to anchor our scent intention

• Guided meditation & Pranayama

• Breathwork with Gong Bath and closing circle

• A warm, nourishing and delicious lunch provided by Bistro To Go

Value Exchange: $195 We will happily help with accommodations if traveling from outside the area.

To register: email me at cam@rootandresin.com

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We all know the world is on fire right now. It is really hard to stomach the news and all the social media channels that are airing footage and scenes from the atrocities in the Middle East. Like watching a train wreck, I tune in but enough to get a pulse of what is happening that even what I see, read, and hear about it creates such a deep unsettling and disturbance in my nervous system.

This past Sunday, I took myself on a solo walk with my dog Jasper to enjoy the unseasonably warm 70 degree temperature and to settle my nervous system. One of my favorite places to visit is a beautiful, mossy gorge called Sloan Gorge where it winds in and around bluestone and natural carvings made from the ice age. According to geologists, this land is one of the oldest on the planet, made of sedimentary rock layers of shale, limestone and sandstone. There is a stillness that is so incredibly palpable each time I come here, as if I moved through an energetic portal of beauty and grace among the trees and stone, I instantly feel held.

My blended shepherd/hound brindle dog, Jasper Blu always guides our walks, she is familiar with the winding paths as I trail behind her. With each step I am present to the moment and to the feelings and sensations in my body, inviting the earth to absorb it, I am also taking in all the etchings and formations of carved rock walls that scale so at least 100 feet high as I make my way through the gorge. I am greeted by what appears to be a humble peaceful friendly face, pictured above. Do you see it? And what do you see?

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I take a pause in this moment to really receive what my eyes are noticing and in the rock, I see eyes, a nose, a mouth, a leg/foot. Having a complete Harry Potter moment, I believe in magic and connecting to the unseen, to dialogue with the earth and its aliveness. Deep breath in, AHHH. This moment is a remembrance to take deep full breaths, filling my abdomen and chest and perhaps be open to receiving messages from my friend in the rock, an old ancient wisdom keeper. `I hear him say, “you are ok”, and I thank him and continue on my little sojourn of exploration and contemplation and be present to the moment.

The Japanese have coined a term shinrin-yoku that translates as forest bathing. It is a ritual practice of immersing yourself in a forest environment to connect to nature and noticing the trees, breathing in the forest air, sounds, sensations as a way to reduce stress, lower blood pressure and boost the immune system. It is like an epsom salt bath for the soul. Tell me about your shinrin-yoku practice.

If you do not live in nature, find a park or an urban garden, and tune into this practice. Here is a little guidance:

1. Find some nature, a park or garden, get quiet. Put your phone on silent.

2. With your senses— eyes, ears, nose open up to your surroundings, observe.

3. Feel your feet heavy on the earth, make a connection and begin to walk noticing each step.

4. Take a deep breath in filling your chest, lungs and belly, easy soft full breaths.

5. Listen for any impressions that filter through your senses.

6. Honor yourself for taking in this practice.

7. Make this into a ritual and do this on a regular basis.

Love to hear about your shinrin-yoku, where you are located and what impressions you receive.

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One of the ways I ground my mind and body is through music. Soundscapes set the tone and mood in the background for what I drop into whether it is inspo for writing my weekly Substack, creating content for my next retreat experience or formulating products for my aromatherapy line, Root and Resin.

Here is a Spotify playlist for you to drop into some inner peace and grounding, I call Morning Stillness.

Join me and Renee Rotkopf on our next Women’s Resilience Retreat on December 16th to honor the Winter Solstice Day Long retreat on Tending To our Inner Hearth in Woodstock, NY.

Email me cam@rootandresin.com to get on the waitlist.

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“Our breath is always available as a pathway back to presence”, according to psychologist and meditation teacher, Tara Brach. When I heard this phrase during one of her meditation talks, it struck a deep chord of resonance inside my heart center, inside of my own breath. There was something so simply freeing and unobstructed to think of the breath as an available pathway to have access to, especially when we might need it most, in times of anxiety, overwhelm, exhaustion, sadness, grief.

In my recent restorative yoga class, I offered this as a reminder through somatic movement, self massage with aromatherapy, pranayama and supported postures as a bridge to connect the mind to the body. Because we often forget that we are a whole being. We all know that if we are not breathing at all, then we are dead. Breathing is an unconscious autonomic and automatic function of our operating system, we do not have to think to breathe, it just simply happens. It is when we are not breathing fully and deeply, particularly during times of duress that over time it can trigger a cascade of symptoms and effects impacting not just the physical body but our emotional and mental body.

When we take a full deep inhalation, we engage our diaphragm, a dome shaped, broad muscle located below our thoracic ribcage and above our organs. The job of this primary breathing muscle is to facilitate the process of inhalation (breathing in) and exhalation (breathing out), alongside the other breathing muscles like the intercostals (lies between the ribs), neck muscles (scalenes and sternocleidomastoid), as well as abdominals. Imagining and engaging the fullness of the breath as one movement and sensation is a true gesture of kindness to the organs in the system. As the diaphragm domes and flattens it engages with and massages the heart where it sits on top and the abdominal organs below, like the rippling of a tidal wave. As this happens the vagus nerve is also stimulated and massaged. The vagus nerve acts as the bridge between the mind and the heart to signal states of calm, peace and safety. It is quite an important cranial nerve alongside the olfactory cranial nerve responsible for the limbic smell response and recognition, to regulate the nervous system. This all happens unconsciously. And what is genius about knowing this is that we can influence it consciously through the breath and anchoring positive scent smells.

While there are many pathways to engage the flow of the breath, an easy practice that I come back to again and again is to simply breathe in and out of the heart. And my recent go-to essential oil for relieving nervous tension and anxiety is sandalwood. Sandalwood offers a creamy, soft, woodsy scent like a cashmere sweater to hug and warm the mind and senses. With a couple drops placed into my palms, I then bring it up to my face, take deep breaths, then sense and feel the flow of breath moving in and out of my heart, as if there are nostrils on my heart.

Try it! Let me know how it goes. What are some of your breath practices to help you find presence and calm?

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These days I find myself waking up right before the sun rises, 5:45am. This was never me even during my old life in New York City, you would find me hitting the snooze alarm at least twice before rolling out of bed. I was always lured to cocoon a little longer in the haven of down comfort. Since 2020, I have traded the concrete jungle for an actual jungle of pines and hemlock spruce trees. Nowadays, waking up before my alarm that is set for 6:00 am, yes I still set one. I roll out of bed and delicately head down the slightly creaky wood stairs, careful not to wake my partner, and my dog. Though Jasper Blu, she sees, hears, and watches me all the time even when I don’t think she is.

The first task at hand is to go straight to the coffee pot and have that brewing along with my oat milk warmed and frothed in the frother. While this is happening, I go to an app on my phone called, InsightTimer, to meditate. (If you already don’t know about this free meditation app it is a wonderful resource. I would also highly recommend tuning into meditation teacher, Renee Rotkopf and her Morning Heart Awakening meditation. (Disclosure, Renee also happens to be my wife, but it is not because of me she has over 22,000 followers. LoL). A huge part of my daily meditation ritual is to select a scent from a distilled plant botanical to work with.

As an Aromatherapist, I also happen to have a scent palette of close to 200 essential oils, its origins from all over the world. These days I am leaning into tree notes of Frankincense (Boswellia sacra) or Palo Santo (Bursera graveolens) or Sandalwood (Santalum spicatum), to help ground my spirit yet still lift my senses as these very different essential oils have a wonderful uplifting citrus finishing note to them. During these cool crisp Autumn mornings, the scent wisdom of the ancient, middle eastern Frankincense tree has been my shepherd of peace and a grounding rod for my nervous system. Simply inhaling the distilled essential oil has such an immediate effect to calm the mind and drop into the heart, and paired with a regulated breath practice, is like adding vanilla icing to a red velvet cake. ( I love red velvet cake.) Similar but different, there is a certain euphoria that can wash over the senses to induce a state of happiness.

When we think about fortifying our inner resilience, Frankincense for me is the plant embodiment of that notion. Follow me to the Oman desert for a minute to understand the extraction process of Frankincense, which is itself a ritual. The resin is obtained by first tapping the tree or where an incision is made to allow the resin to ooze out. Once exposed to air, the resin must harden and dry, over a period of a few weeks. The resin drops or also known as “tears” is then collected, sifted from bark and debris, and the clean tears are steam distilled to extract the essential oil.

Weaving together the practices of aromatherapy and yoga pranayama, here is my morning Aromatic Breath Ritual:

1. Finding a comfortable position, seated (or lying down)

2. Begin with one hand on the heart and the other on the belly or abdomen

3. Bring a Three Part Breathing (“Dirga Swasam”) technique,

   1. begin by filling the abdomen with your breath, filling up fully and exhaling out

   2. next fill your chest with the breath fully and exhaling

   3. then, fill the top of your lungs and collar bone with a full breath, exhaling

   4. making this a continuous flow— fill up your abdomen, chest, top of collar bones with the breath and emptying out completely, for a couple of rounds to then incorporate the aromatic practice by

4. Placing a drop of Frankincense oil into your palm, bring them together to cup over the face, and integrate the Three Part Breath while breathing in the woodsy, balsamic, citrus fresh scent note of the essential oil.

An Aromatic Breath Practice is an opportunity to bring a calming state to the limbic part of your brain through the therapeutic properties of Frankincense, while the full deep continuous movement of breath expands the lung capacity, stimulates the parasympathetic branch and increases vagal tone to the nervous system responsible for relaxation. This ritual becomes a perfect prelude to connect the body through movement, and in my case, a yoga practice whether it is rolling out the mat on my floor or heading out to my morning yoga class at my studio Shakti Yoga in Woodstock.

Perhaps this is the reason my biological rhythm wakes me up as early as 5:45 am, so that I may have quiet time to sink into my morning practice, which I have come to look forward to. Not only is my mind is set, but my attitude and tone of the day is welcomed with a greater sense of balance and grounding.

Music is such a big part of setting my tone in my nervous system so I have also included a 10 minute Morning Rise Rituals Playlist below to accompany your start. Now that I have shared all of my morning secrets, well ok maybe not all, I would love to know what are your morning rituals that keep you sane? And if you don’t have one, perhaps you can think of one you want to create right here and now? Tell me about them here.

Much love, Camellia

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Do you think much about your nose and the use of your nose? Probably not. If I asked you to close your eyes and pay attention to what it does, you might begin to fixate on the shape, angle, size, if it wiggles, flares or scrunches.

As we all know, the nose is connected to our sense of smell. It also assists us in taking in oxygen, filters and warms the air we breathe, a rather important feature! But did you know that of our five senses— sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell, our smell sense is the only sensory pathway that directly connects to a part of the brain that activates emotional, memory, and sensory triggers before full cognitive recognition?

It is a part of the body’s survival strategy and response mechanism. Here’s an example, you smell something burning and right away, the body responds by feeling if it needs to get out of where you are or do something to extinguish the burn— this is a direct nervous system response, but more on that later. Another example, the classic smell of chocolate chip walnut cookies out of the oven. This for me, transports me back to my childhood visiting my Aunt Kim (my grandmother’s sister), who I loved so dearly.

Allow for me to time travel for a minute to circa 1980s, when we would spend Christmas in Staten Island, NY at Aunt Kim and Uncle Henry’s beautiful home in the suburbs of Staten Island. My brother and I would inevitably fall asleep during the 1.5 hour long car ride from Flushing, Queens. The payoff was the best fresh baked cookies to greet us. My heart would leap from excitement the moment we turned into their driveway, greeted by a joyful Aunt Kim and Uncle Henry in his cute suspenders. After hugs, my brother and I would run through the garage, up the stairs and into the kitchen to descend on these huge crunchy and gooey warm cookies. There is not another chocolate chip walnut cookie that beats Aunt Kim’s. To this day, whenever I smell fresh baked cookies, I think of my Aunt Kim and how much I love and miss her. It is not only her cookies that begin to flood through my memory but all my interactions and times spent with her. The mere thought of those cookies, and my mouth begins to water and salivary glands are stimulated.

Our sense of smell is directly linked to this emotional and memory center of the brain known as the limbic system or once called the rhinencephalon (smell brain). It contains major structures that include the amygdala and the hippocampus, two of the most relevant ones in relation to olfaction or smell. When the nose takes in smell, scent molecules travel up to the olfactory bulb, a structure that protrudes off of the prefrontal cortex of the brain like two antennae, and delivers it straight to the almond shaped amygdala, reading for cues to trigger fear or safety, then communicates directly to the hippocampus, shaped like a sea horse, to make meaning for memory connection. To geek out even more, this is executed through the role of the olfactory Cranial Nerve 1, the ONLY cranial nerve out of the 12 we have in our brain that directly links nose to brain. The other 11 originates from the brain stem. In brief, the relationship between smell and memory is quite an intimate one. So a little side bar here, hence the reason why I love working with aromatherapy and essential oils as a way to support more regulated emotional states and influence the mind and body. My next new project, Listening To Scent..welcome to join me!

So I would like to ask you, what are some of your most intimate scent memory experiences? Take me down your memory lane, what are your “chocolate chip cookie” moments?

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Listening To Scent: Aromatic Rituals for Health and Happiness

Become a paid Subscriber and receive monthly rituals and tools on how to support more balance and greater calm for your mind, body, and spirit. Through aromatherapy, yoga, breath work and movement practices, I will share with you easy ways and daily habits to create more balance and cultivate more peace throughout your day. Join me!

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I can tell you what this is for me. To feel seen is to feel whole and accepted for exactly as you are. That to be perfectly imperfect is 100% acceptable. To know that you are loving and you are loved, without judgment or expectation to be any other way, but just as you are.

This past weekend, we held the space for ten beautiful women to show up exactly as they are. Honoring the autumnal equinox, we hosted a two day weekend retreat themed around “harvesting the resilient self”, offering different practices and resources to support the season of change. A time of elemental transition from fiery Summer into cool crisp Fall, the mark of the equinox may also signify a potent shift in our mental, physical and emotional body that may at times, feel a bit challenging and difficult to navigate. It is in these moments where we may lose our way, and feel even more untethered to our sense of wholeness.

There were so many meaningful exchanges that took place among this diverse group of women ranging in age from 30s - 60s, backgrounds and life stories to tell. In 24 hours, women who started out as strangers instantly became friends reunited. Laughter and intimacy were peppered through many different conversations that circled throughout the room. There is a term for this gesture, it is known as co-regulation. Popular in the field of psychology and the work of clinical psychologist, Deb Dana and under the framework of Polyvagal Theory (via behavioral researcher, Dr. Stephen Porges). It is this notion that the interactive exchange of love and positivity— that is an inherent human condition, lends to the support of a regulated and balanced nervous system.

To feel seen, in its most literal sense happened during one guided exercise known as “eye or soul gazing”, a mindfulness based practice. You choose a partner to sit with at an approximate distance but close enough so that you may engage in a soft but steady gaze into one another’s eyes. Breathing in and out easily and steadily, avoid averting or looking away, blinking and giggling or smiling is ok. Begin with a timer set for 5 or 10 minutes, and while it may feel awkward and uncomfortable at first, through a steady breath, uneasiness may begin to melt and the ego may soften. And what you may drop into is a liminal space between you and the other. Then there is this sense of vulnerability and overwhelming love and care that emerges. This might well be a glimpse into the window of another’s soul where you may recognize the beauty of their wholeness that is also yours.

What are some of the ways that you have felt seen by another? What makes you feel whole? I would love to know of yours.

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Rolling out of bed at 6am, I start my morning ritual by making a pot of coffee and meditate alongside the sound of the machine drip and frother whipping up oat milk. Lately, I have been reaching for a flannel shirt out of my closet to respond to the early chill in the air. To be perfectly honest, I am not 100% thrilled about saying goodbye to summer and the freedom that tank top and shorts offers, but reaching for that extra layer now is my reality check.

The equinox is exactly three days away to mark the official Fall season, and so I DO love my flannel shirts— soft, thick and cozy, and the snap buttons on mine is like a warm hug. Add a dash of cinnamon to my coffee layered with frothed oat milk, and alright..bring on Fall!

In three days, I am also incredibly excited to be welcoming and co-facilitating a group retreat of women here in Woodstock. We host these quarterly themed retreats around the turn of the solstice and equinox to honor and reflect upon what change means and offer tools and resources to support the face of change. It is an opportunity to feel fully seen, held, witnessed and connect with one another. It is that flannel shirt for each person.

As the elements of nature change and temperatures shift, this may be reflected in our own season of transition, and so how do we find the tools and resources to nourish our mind and body? As you know, mine begins with a coffee ritual as the start of my happy place, and perhaps there is a dip in my hot tub and heat from my cedar sauna (yup, I live in the woods in upstate NY, come for a visit or join our retreat, there is one spot left, DM me!) and a yoga class at my yoga shala studio, Shakti Woodstock.

What might your morning ritual be, particularly in the face of your seasonal transition? What do you need to support change during this time? I’d love to know and offer you a flannel, should you like one.

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Hello & Welcome.

Thanks so much for dropping in here. My name is Camellia. I am interested in simply sharing raw and honest exchanges, musings, connecting with like-minded on all the ways we find solutions to living more happily, balanced, and whole.

To unpack what resilience looks like in the face of adversity and every so often drop in practices, tools, rituals to remember how we may come back to ourselves.

I have spent close to 20 years, and perhaps lifetimes in the nonlinear sense, helping people feel better in their body, in its many layers— mental, physical, emotional, spiritual. My wheelhouse as a licensed massage therapist has given me a honorable privilege to hold space and witness discomfort, pain, and resiliency for another, which at times has become a mirror for my own lessons.

I love the intersection of science and spirituality around all things wellness and some may refer to as “woo” which for me is also about believing in Magic. The magic of life, the synchronicities, aligned moments that ultimately make life all that more interesting when we pay attention and tune in with intention.

You may expect a weekly drop in from me here!

With so much gratitude, Cam