Thank you for being here with me. I’m so grateful for your continued commitment to your own self care.
As we anchor in to the longest day of light in the solar calendar, we have the opportunity to reflect on all the places we sense into light within and around us. Maybe taking some time over the next few days to breathe this in.
When we travel through the thresholds of summer and winter solstice, I personally turn to these expanding times of light and darkness as an opportunity to pause and consider how these threads weave their way through my own life. This is a potent time to remember how we travel through life in cycles and how every year we circle back to these points of reflection – changed in the way we arrive.
In the circle of time, the Summer Solstice brings us to the moment when light reaches its peak. I encourage you to drink this in, wherever you find yourself in your life in this moment, drink in this moment of expansion and light.
The summer solstice holds a time of remembrance of the potential for renewal as we drop into the spaciousness of summer rhythms, and bathe in the suns luminous rays.
The moments and days around the Solstice are a also potent time time to reflect on where you are in this moment in your life, perhaps at a crossroad. We are being called to step deeper into the ways we can live more authentically, unafraid of our own voice, urged to make choices that best support ourselves to thrive and in turn, it is my hopes, we will start to live more in alignment with how we can help to undo harm around us. The peak of the light honours where you are now, and gives you an invitation to dream in what’s next.
I want to offer you some reflections to journal around, or to simply think about:
What patterns continue to emerge in your life? What relationships, habits, or experiences have brought you joy or growth – OR – struggle and conflict? What could you offer to the fire to alchemize? What does your heart want to dream into being?
In entering the space of expanded light — through the breath, invite space into your body – what does this feel like? Or contemplate the turning of the Earth, our great mother, what does this bring up? We might also remember that we always have the potential to return to center – spiraling back in, this is where movement flows from.
How can you offer your hands and heart in meaningful ways for the times we’re living in?
Sending you lots of love for the days ahead,
Amber
Upgrade to a paid membership and you’ll receive weekly reflective emails, poems, and recordings of new movement practices and meditations. Birch memberships start at $6 CAN, created for folks who believe in what I’m offering, intended to offer inspiration and gentle guidance in the spirit of reciprocity. Our Oak membership also gives you access to my live weekly gentle yoga class and an expanded collection of longer yoga and movement videos.
I love this sacred window of time, as I close my eyes and imagine all of us, sitting together in circle, honouring the evolution and unfurling of who you are, who we are – moment to moment.
Thank you for inviting me into your inbox, you give me inspiration to keep doing this work, and I am grateful.
Earlier this month I celebrated 20 years as a Registered Massage Therapist, I can’t believe it’s been over 20 years since I started doing this work. My first experience was a training at the Mueller College of Holistic Studies in San Diego in 1999, later becoming Registered in British Colombia in 2004. That feels like a lifetime ago. I guess in many ways it was, thinking about how much I’ve changed over the years, and also how much we are continually learning about how we heal.
As I reflect on all of the care, the trust and the stories I’ve been honoured to hold for people, I am in awe. It is an honour and a privilege to do this work in the world, spiraling deeper and exploring different ways to hold healing space for folks.
We are a complex interconnection woven from our anatomy, the DNA we carry, our families history, our ancestral lineage lines, the experiences we carry in our hearts, our energetic bodies, the health of the Earth and the elements, spirit, the ways we are affected by the collective, our individual beliefs – and so much more. I’m curious how people are able to focus their attention on a presenting lesion or pathology, becoming trapped within a diagnosis and forgetting to consider all the factors that contribute to our wholeness.
In my heart I feel how much we need gentle and accepting places to explore ourselves, now more than ever.
I was having a conversation the other day about pain cycles, specifically the cycles of anxiety and stress many are presently living with. These states bring our body into a sympathetic state – which is indicative of energy expenditure; rapid breathing, increased heart rate, muscular contraction – often referred to as the “fight or flight” response. We can become overwhelmed by our thoughts which can manifest as physical tension and disharmony in our bodies and our minds. Thanks to the work of Stephen Porges, Deb Dana and many others, we are also learning more about our nervous system’s survival response of freeze, a dorsal vagal response, where we can feel stopped and shut down out of a visceral reaction where our bodies are in actuality trying to keep us safe – our bodies are always trying to keep us safe. This response is like pushing a pause button and is our nervous system’s attempt to conserve energy. These reactions, both a result of stress, live in our bodies and require somatic explorations to support our unique pathways to healing, releasing, and integrating. We need to cultivate and nourish our bodies and our minds with experiences and practices that help us to feel safe, daily.
It’s important to take time to move the heaviness we’re carrying through us, not needing to cognitively understand or be required to explain ourselves, but rather to have the space to feel – to be quietly witnessed.
May we all have places and people where we can put down our defenses, allow tears to flow, honour our cracks, and explore who we are under all the layers we often carry.
In service to the sacred threads of life
Love Amber
As I celebrate my 20 year massage anniversary, I have welcomed in some supportive spaces to offer care:
Tuesdays, Thursday andFriday’s I practice massage therapy and sound therapy in my private forest studio, nestled amongst the white pines, cedar and birch trees.
Send me an email if you’d like to book in my private forest location. Booking is directly through me. amber@suryadaya.ca
I teach weekly online zoom yoga classes Thursday mornings from 11:00 – 12:00 am EST, you can join from anywhere (live or with the recording).
Consider upgrading to a paid membership, created with the intention to offer guidance whenever you need a little extra support. Enjoy a weekly email, free access to my monthly bedtime yoga class and special practice recordings. Memberships range from $6 to $38.
Let me know if you’d like more information amber@suryadaya.ca
Hello Dear Ones, this is a practical piece, just updating folks in the area about my massage therapy practice as I’ve had quite a few people reaching out.
After my personal healing sabbatical, I’m so excited to be moving forward in my work. It’s been wild returning to hands on work, after receiving so much care myself. I definitly feel a new appreciation for the healing potential when we’re held with compassionate care and clear healing intentions.
The last few weeks I have noticed an expanded capacity and renewed strength inside, feeling into the shift into summer. I am still taking it slowly, and sense this is the way forward for me, a pace I much prefer.
I can’t believe this August I’ll be celebrating my 20 year anniversary as a Registered Massage Therapist, and yet I feel like this is just a beginning, I think in many ways it is.
I’m excited to be welcoming in some supportive spaces for me to offer my care, and I feel so lucky to practice alongside some incredible and gifted humans. This July I’ll be joining The Centre for Health Innovation (formerly Ottawa Integrative Cancer Centre), located in the city of Ottawa. For 20 years I have focused much of my care (and training) on individuals through their cancer journey; diagnosis, treatment and beyond. Life handed me my own personal education in the school of real world cancer, which has better equipped me to understand the effects of treatment, the emotional effects, the toll on one’s energy and how the experience changes you.
I’m looking forward to holding this space once again, but with a new perspective, an empathic heart and a deeper understanding.
The outstanding care I received at the CHI, during my own cancer treatment, is a big inspiration for me joining their team. I will be practicing there on Mondays, starting July 15th. Please reach out to them directly to find out more details and to find a space in my schedule, as they handle all bookings within their centre directly.
I’m also so excited to be joining another space in the fall, which you’ll receive more details as things are clearer.
For those of you who see me in my private space, I will continue to offer healing sessions out here in my forest studio, on this sacred land, nestled amongst the trees. I offer Massage Therapy as well as sessions infused with Sound Therapy and Energy Modalities. If you’d like to see me in my private space, located near Almonte, Ontario, please send me an email directly to book. amber@suryadaya.ca
Honouring the chapter I’m in now, and feeling how important it is to continue my work, in service to life.
If you’re new to me, and are curious about my work and experience, you can explore my website, or check out my bio on the CHI site.
It is a privilege and an honour to do this work in such a supported way. Holding the vision of a world where we all have the support we need to thrive in my heart.
Much love,
Amber
If you’d like to practice yoga and movement classes with me I teach weekly online zoom classes Thursday mornings, and a new monthly in person offering of yoga and sound therapy at the Cedar Hill School House, Pakenham, On (this next offering is scheduled for July 18th)
I also have several different membership options with an ever expanding on demand video library offering you supportive practices whenever you need them through a diverse collection of offerings. Depending on the support you need, memberships range from $6 to $38.
On another note, I’m so excited and dreaming about our next Tending Your Inner Garden offering, starting in the fall of 2024, stay tuned for dates.
Last month I attended a “write in” with the Almonte readers and writers group. My husband and I went together, a creative “date”, as he dove into ReNature; his creation of a dystopian Eco-crises novel (I’m so excited for this to be born), and I went with a desire to move through a writers block I’ve been rubbing up against for a while.
While I travel through my journey with cancer, a lot of people in my circle of support have urged me to not share so much of myself – to be more discerning. I closed myself into a cocoon and created very strong boundaries around myself, I know this has been important in my healing.
Over the past year and a half I have spent countless hours doing personal healing work, reflecting on boundaries for myself, reassessing my life, and yes, cocooning. I’m very slowly finding my way integrating this huge pivot point in my life, and being back in the world. This time has taught me that yes, I lead with my heart, AND that this is how I choose to walk through this life. This is also where I write from.
When we love and lead with healthy boundaries, and when the seeds of love start within ourselves, I believe we can never love to much. This is not something I will ever dampen.
It’s taken me a while to be able to write again, to get under all the outside voices thinking they know how I’m supposed to do things differently now that I live with cancer. I feel like I have been given so many opportunities through all the “outside” advice that did not resonate, that I’ve been able to find my way to myself. I feel grateful.
I realize that for the first time in my life I trust myself.
I notice people have an interesting way of telling others what they think they need and seldom stopping to ask what that person thinks. I’m making a conscious effort to listen more, and to ask people what they inherently think they need. And to surround myself with people who trust me to make good decisions for myself.
I wonder, do people tell you what you need, or do they ask you what you need?
I encourage you to take some time to reflect on your own sense of boundaries, and ability to be discerning in what is actually true for you.
When I decided to go to this evening of writing, I went with no expectations and no clear idea of what I was going to write, I just knew I needed to be in a room filled with creative, supportive, generative energy and to stay open to the process. It was wild the desire that I felt to just go, to trust my process through a medium that helps me feel alive, a medium that went to sleep out of fear, in my cocoon of boundaries.
What I found, was PURE unexpected magic.
When I sat down I was instantly guided into a body of work that has great meaning to me. To be accurate, a workbook that began about 20 years ago and has been evolving as a file on my computer for many moons. I offer these pages as efiles when I facilitate breast health workshops and support folks in deepening their understanding and relationship with their breasts, and truthfully with their whole selves. It needs ALOT of work and is definitly a living and evolving project, but it makes me feel excited to give it the love, respect and energy it deserves.
When you go through a dark time where the end of that tunnel could lead you through 2 doors; one where your time in this human body could come to an end, and one where you stay inhabiting this body with the heightened awareness that that other door could open for you at any time, there is a question that lingers.
A simple question really; where is my energy best spent while I’m here?
Let me repeat that for you:
Where is your energy best spent while you are here.
I have been thinking about my unfinished projects (oh my goodness, there are many), the seeds I have been carrying for one day.
I realize that day is here now, there may not be another day, and what I do with my time matters.
What you do with your time matters
What we do with our time matters.
I’m writing this post for you, and for me – affirming my commitment to this body of work, and to the seeds I am carrying. I have a lot of work and play to engage in, and will share this process with you along the way. My life may not be long in this body, so what I do now matters. And what you do matters…………
With so much love, and gratitude
Amber
I want to give an extra note of gratitude to Jessie Carson, and the Almonte Readers and Writers group, I’m so grateful you are in our community – such a gift for all of us who love to weave a tapestry of words. I’m excited to deepen this connection over the years to come!
Click here if you’d like to find out more about upgrading to a paid supporter for $6/month, helping me to continue to do this work. This will also give you access to weekly recordings of wellness capsules and mindful minutes.
If you’d like to practice with me I teach weekly online zoom classes , plus I have several different membership options with an ever expanding on demand video library offering you supportive practices whenever you need them through a diverse collection of offerings. Depending on the support you need, memberships range from $6 to $38.
I’m so excited to be back offering Healing Massage Therapy sessions and sound therapy. If you’d like more information I would love to hear from you, send me an email at amber@suryadaya.ca.
The place that lives inside of you, hoping you’ll visit often. The place that needs to be nourished with all the things that feed your soul, on a daily basis. The place that longs for your truth and needs to be held with love, care and compassion.
Join me on a 6 month journey, created for you. A place to tend to your inner garden; nothing to prove, no expectations, simply a space to show up exactly as you are.
Together we’ll be tending to ourselves in cycle and in resonance with the rhythms of the earth. Remember we’re not alone on this wild human journey, and there is a special magic that happens when we come together in like hearted community and engage in healing practices.
Our time together begins this fall, as the leaves drop away dancing in the wind and we practice putting down what no longer serves us. In this letting go, we create fertile compost for the earth, and for ourselves – this letting go is a gift. The autumn is also a potent time to set intentions and to nurture your foundation to prepare for the coming months of deep nourishment and darkness.
We honour the cocooning of the winter months, a time to rest, restore and look within for renewal, our seeds resting in the earth.
Together we’ll create a warm, inclusive, and powerful – yet gentle container, with the invitation to reclaim the parts of ourselves that often get lost in the day to day of our human lives. The parts of us that thrive on grounded practices that connect us to beauty, wonder and peace in our own inner being.
As the wheel turns, savoring a slow emergence with the spring, feeling into your own unique process. The spring heralds a time of new beginnings if we allow it, the bubbling of energy and the stirrings of new movement – in the world within our inner garden and within the world around us.
Through each month we’ll explore different aspects of ourselves and our process:
November – Grounding and Creating our safe container
December – Softening and Letting Go
January – Visioning and Receiving
February – Healing and Being Held
March – Integration
April – Joy, play and wonder
In each of our sessions together we’ll explore:
Grounding Practices, Breathwork, Gentle Movement, Poetry, Song, Journaling and Meditation.
Each gather will also include a guided relaxation and healing sound practice.
I offer you this as an invitation to come home to yourself
You belong here.
I invite you now to take a few breaths, notice what arises. Give yourself a moment to simply pause.
If you’re feeling the call from deep within you to say yes to this invitation, simply click on the link below (with the option that suits you best) to register for this nourishing exploration together. Please note these sessions will be offered online through the zoom platform.
I look forward to spending these windows of self care time with you.
Choosing the payment option you are able to manage in the spirit of reciprocity:
Cost: $300 plus HST (this works out to $25 +HST /session for 12 sessions)
Reduced Rate (Tiered Pricing) $180 plus HST (this works out to $15 +HST/session for 12 sessions)
This includes 12 live 90-120 minute virtual sessions, downloadable recordings of each session so you have lifetime access, poems, songs, journal prompts, plus other bonus’s and access to special classes.
If these payment options are not accessible to you at this time but you hear the call, please send me an email at amber@suryadaya.ca and we can discuss options.
Sliding scale and limited full scholarships are available as no one will be turned away due to finances.
Please note: Your camera can be on or off for our live sessions, there will never be any expectation to share, this is intended as time for you to go within.
If you can’t make a scheduled gather, no worries, Each session is recorded and sent out to all registrants within 48 hours of the live session. You’ll receive a video link to revisit our time together as often as you’d like, with the option to download for unlimited lifetime acce
Start date: My November 2023 offering is full and registration is now closed
Upcoming dates: New session starting November 2024, let me know if you’d like to be notified when dates are posted.
I also teach a weekly online gentle movement and relaxation class Thursday mornings from 11:00 – 12:00. You can check out my schedule here
To register, Simply click on the dates you’d like to join me and fill out your name and email, or you can send me an email with any questions at amber@suryadaya.ca
“A reminder: You are not a Before and After story. You don’t need to turn every experience of your life into wisdom, or prove to anyone how far you’ve come, or rush your way toward some other version of yourself. You don’t need to dissect yourself endlessly in order to extract your life for the consumption of others. You don’t need to be a beacon of hope or an example of overcoming. You don’t need to minimize your struggles OR your joy for the comfort of someone else’s story of you. You don’t need to bypass what’s true and real by performing what you think you’re supposed to be. You don’t need to be beyond what you teach or what you share, what you offer or what you give. You don’t need to deny when things are hard OR when things are easy, or when things feel right in the middle. You can let yourself be human, no matter what roles you play or what identities others hold you to, no matter what others expect of you or anticipate from you. You get to be human. You get to be human. You get to be human.”
This past month in my tending your inner garden classes we’ve been exploring the energy and practices to support us in our process of Integration and Alignment. I love the picture of the fern in this phase, in a cocoon of growth before it’s emergence with new life – every year going through this life cycle, mirroring back to us what’s necessary during periods of integration.
Through our life journey, we not only gather in all the pivotal moments of our life experience, but we also need to practice discernment and surrender into healthy support to release trauma, doubt, entanglements with others that we’ve accumulated through our experiences that take us away from our sense of wholeness. This is all part of the process.
In our tending sessions we’ve been exploring a tree of life meditation and related practices, these offerings have the potential to give us a grounded place to integrate from, and to welcome in supportive energy. If we choose to make the time there are so many things we can do to support this ongoing process; journaling, dancing, guided imagery and free movement, closing your eyes and honouring the movement that wants to unfurl from inside of you, breathing in intention and seeing how this moves you. We can also turn to the wisdom of wild animals, who shake and shudder after traumatic events – releasing the imprint of stress so they can move forward.
We had a very small and intimate circle these past two weeks, allowing the opportunity for some deep work. This was a special class, creating gratitude bundles and dropping into the practices. Our Monday group met under the solar eclipse, it was so powerful as we moved through this portal together.
I think the world needs more moments of intentional silence, I find often folks feel the need to fill the spaces of silence but I think this is where the healing and the deeper understanding of eachother happens. I find as the noise in our world gets louder I need more time in quiet just to survive.
I’m really feeling the ebb and the flow of fluctuating energy levels this year, honouring the balance of rest and movement, emergence and introspection, it is definitly a dance.
After our tending gathers these past 2 weeks, I felt filled with this remembrance of the sacredness of the earth and the interconnectedness of all life. Sometimes when I come to my drum and open myself, I feel the pain of our greater collective, the sorrows of the earth and of all of life, allowing this the space to move through.
This time of year – in the early days of Spring, and again in the turn of the wheel to Autumn, I often find myself reflecting on the eternal cycle of life, death, and rebirth that binds us all together in the intricate web of existence, none of us are immune to these cycles.
Our time here in these bodies is limited, I wonder, are you living in alignment with your core values, is your outer reality reflecting your inner reality? It’s important to surround yourself with people who can support you to step into the truth of who you are, and slowly you won’t care who you’re with – you will simply be living your truth if you’re not already – it is my wish we could all get to this place in ourselves.
Are you able to take some time to integrate the experiences of your life in ways that will support you to grow from the experiences on your path, and to learn from what you have moved through.
While we’re here, How we choose to live our lives matters, I know this can feel hard for some people but we do always have a choice – even simply the choice of where we put our attention and our energy.
Before I close for today I’m feeling called to share with you a ritual of gratitude we moved through during our tending sessions, I am honoured to offer you this here, it is inspired by Richard Wagamese from his book, One Drum. The wisdom of this book is such a sacred gift he left for us, and incredibly important for these times we find ourselves in. It is with deep respect and love I share this with you.
This ceremony reminds us of our place within the web of life; offering gratitude to the elements, to the 4 directions, to our ancestors, to the spirits of place, and to all of our supports and spiritual allies, gratitude to the earth and to the sky, and to the portal within our hearts.
Supplies needed: string / yarn , cloth – cut into 9 – 12 (or more) small circles or squares, an open heart.
You willl also need to collect an offering for inside each bundle. Notice what you’re called to collect – dried leaves, rose petals, pine cones, pine needles, dried herbs, sand, soil, small crystals or stones, dried legumes, etc……
Once you’ve gathered your supplies, you may want to find a place in nature to create, or light a candle to honour this time. I encourage you to take some deep breaths to center yourself into the space around your heart.
Once you feel ready, taking a length of string about the length of both of your arms and cutting it from the ball of yarn/twine.
Placing one of your pieces of cloth in front of you, tuning into your heart and seeing what arises – what are you grateful for, as this comes into your awareness gathering your offering for inside the bundle and perhaps breathing into the herbs (or contents), sending what you’re grateful for into your offering and placing it in the centre of your cloth. Gathering the edges together and leaving enough string at the one end to connect the two ends, tie your first bundle. Continue this process, tying each bundle alongside the one before it, along the length of the string. Once nothing is coming to mind and / or you feel like you’re at a place of completion (this may be based on the number of cloth pieces you have), tying the ends together (cutting off any excess string), creating a circle with your bundles, like a wreath. A circle with no beginning and never ending – a circle of gratitude.
Sitting with your offering, perhaps laying it on your belly or over your heart, breathing this into yourself.
Over the next week finding a place in nature, ideally somewhere you visit often, and hanging your wreath on a tree, or a rock, or you may feel called to bury it. Bringing intention, as a gift for the earth, honouring our reciprocal relationship. You may want to whisper a prayer from your heart. Your gratitude bundles can be a reminder for you when things feel off kilter. They may blow away or fall at some point, when this happens, we honour the release, burying , making a new wreath, or burning the bundles as an offering, feeling into what would be the most resonant thing for you to do.
I make one of these every year, and my old ones I either bury in the ground or burn in a fire.
Thank you for your openness of creating these with me, and for sharing my thoughts.
Sending you love for the days ahead,
till next time
Amber
Click here if you’d like to find out more about upgrading to a paid supporter for $6/month, helping me to continue to do this work. This will also give you access to weekly recordings of wellness capsules and mindful minutes.
If you’d like to practice with me I teach weekly online zoom classes , plus I have several different membership options with an ever expanding video library offering you supportive practices whenever you need them through a diverse collection of offerings.
I’m so excited to be back offering Healing Massage Therapy sessions and sound therapy. If you’d like more information I would love to hear from you, send me an email at amber@suryadaya.ca.
Hello Beautiful souls, I’ve been quiet for a while, spending more time on an inner journey than an outward exploration.
When you’ve been through a big moment in your life, it changes you. I know we all know this, but do we remember this for others. People remember you as you were before, and there’s a popular perception that once the event, trauma, birth, illness, death, etc…..is over, it’s business as usual. You look strong, your hair grows back, your back in the community albeit in small ways – so you must be back to how you were before.
The thing is, you never go back to how you were before.
Life changes us, in small and big ways – daily. I’m feeling like we need to give eachother more space to grow and evolve, and relate to one another with this understanding. Try not to put people in a box that fits so tightly there’s no room for growth.
I find there’s often a tendency to compare life to how it was before an event, wanting things to go back to “normal”. What is normal anyways? I’ve always wondered that, what is normal, the term doesn’t even fit in my vocabulary anymore.
I have needed to be on here less, as chemo and the surgery I had on my spine over a year ago has left me with some invisible physical and mental challenges. I’m not going to dive into explaining what those are, but I wanted to acknowledge that they exist. Yes, I survived this bout of cancer and the treatments cancer gave me the opportunity to experience to help me to heal – AND I find myself now learning to live with the ongoing effects of those treatments, a new awareness of my mortality, heightened gratitude, a very different experience of changing energy levels and the reality that I am now navigating life with a blood cancer.
Honouring it all.
I am living a life of truth, satya – the truth of who and where I am. I wonder what your truth is. I know I’m not alone, and neither are you.
I choose life, everyday, and somedays it’s really difficult.
There is a poem I’m reminded of as I write these words. It came to me in the hospital from a dear friend when I was first diagnosed with cancer, and I proceeded to send it out to a circle of support in the hopes of shedding some light on how I was. Now, a year and a half later, I think I actually only now understand the words. I’m going to share this with you (I may have already), as it feels pretty resonant.
This humaning journey definitly blesses us with paradox, everyday, and I think it’s not about making sense of it all, but instead taking care of yourself in the midst of it – regardless of anyone else’s idea of who they think you are or what you need. I encourage you to try different things to help you find your way to be able to step more deeply into yourself in whatever way that needs to be for you..
For almost 20 years I dedicated my massage and hands on healing practice to working with folks with cancer, trauma, and chronic illness. Maybe this was a crucial step in my training – moving through this experience so that I could truly understand, and honouring a new pace to open my life to a more meaningful moment to moment experience. I look forward to engaging in this work with a new perspective.
I’m writing this piece as I’ve been blocked in my writing. I needed to acknowledge the truth of where I am before I could actually take steps forward for myself, this is part of my process. It’s not “business as usual”, but rather a new way forward. I’m taking my time easing back into my life’s work, AND continuing the dance with my own healing journey – a dance that will be joining me for as long as I am.
Our community has been incredible, and I would not have survived this past year without all of you. I just needed to honour this gratitude again, and again and again! I’m so excited to see where this life takes me, and where we can go together.
I’m slowly starting back to work as you may have noticed in recent updates; classes I’m facilitating and sessions I’m slowly offering. It’s been amazing doing hands on massage therapy and sound healing work with folks again (with limited bookings), especially in this healing forest that has been holding me too. There’s a reason me and my family have landed here on this sacred land – not only to care for the earth, but to heal, and also help people to deepen that connection.
I’m also excited to mention that I was approved for a scholarship (thank you universe) for an accessible yoga training, with Jivana Heyman and an amazing collective, which starts January 25th. It’s a 6 week online program that has serendipitously come to me at the perfect time as I navigate yoga and movement in a new way in my own body. This important work is where I’ll be focusing alot of my attention through to March. I’m excited to see where this takes me.
Thanks for sharing my thoughts,
With so much love
Amber
Introducing my new monthly memberships – these give you instant access with various different tiers to virtual classes, an ever expanding video library, as well as some special bonuses throughout the year. Let me know if you have any questions!
I continue to teach online, and I also practice online, this got me through this past year during my cancer journey, when I couldn’t walk and couldn’t drive. Having the option of practicing online (thank you Lisa and Anne) both with live classes and recordings, was the only way that yoga was accessible for me. It has deepened my healing process in ways I can’t articulate.
As I slowly reemerge and hold intentional space once again for folks – I sit with creative ways in which I can best do that.
All monthly memberships automatically renew every 30 days, with the option to cancel at any time. Let me know if you have any questions or would like to find out more!
Stay tuned for my seasonal newsletter coming soon!
The Autumn equinox is a time of transition, as we move through the next few months preparing us for a time of deep rest and nourishment in the cycle of the year. A time of balance between the light and the dark and the contrasting energies in each of us. Accepting all these parts as integral to who we are, necessary in our growth and our becoming over our lifetime. Resting in the ground of holy hereness, honouring where you find yourself right now – at this time in your life.
We are also moving through a time of harvest, as we witness and celebrate the growth of the seeds we may have planted in the spring, witnessing this miracle of creation. A time of gratitude for these miracles, for being here and also for the ways we are supported.
The Autumn is also a time that we consider shifting our self care regime, honouring the changes in the season and allowing ourselves to live in resonance with our natural world. Our self care routines are a way to build our own self trust. When we show up for ourselves, it changes us. We question ourselves less, we hear our own voice as important, and we thrive – so we can be who we truly are in the world. If we can’t trust ourselves and listen to the wisdom within us, then what’s the point. This life is not a dress rehearsal. Take time for yourself, everyday, honour yourself and show yourself the gentle care and love I sense you offer out so easily. It has to start within.
Contemplative and introspective practices, including quiet time in nature, gentle movement, meditation and yoga, will allow us to work with sensations in our bodies and patterns we witness in our mental and emotional bodies through the changing seasons. Through these practices we learn to trust ourselves, we learn what self love feels like, and we also start to understand what is necessary to put down and no longer carry forward.
I have been quiet for the past year, out of necessity. Honouring my own self care needs and offering myself love so I could heal. This year I have traveled through the darkness cancer brought me, and also through the light. I am so grateful for the ways I have been held in community, and for the ways I showed up for myself. This is how we heal, and this looks differently for each of us – healing is not a cookie cutter recipe for everyone, it starts with listening within.
I sense it has been an intense year for many, I feel that. It’s important to mark transitions in a way that has meaning and makes sense for you. Autumn is a time in the cycle of the year that is so potent for marking these transitions in our lives. We shed the layers we need to shed, we acknowledge who we are now, we give thanks for the growth and the healing, and we prepare for yet another cycle.
During this chaotic time in in the world, we are all being reminded of how precious life is, can we hold ourselves and eachother with kindness and love in these changing and vulnerable times. If perhaps you don’t feel that, then let me remind you how precious and fragile life is – and that you matter.
I feel through my cancer journey I have been opened to a deeper calling of greater service to a world that desperately needs gentle places and healing hands. Together we build our resilience, we can support one another to soothe and strengthen our nervous systems and to take time alone and together in community – honouring the need for balance.
I no longer want to be resilient. I don’t want to simply bounce back from things that hurt me or cause me pain. Bouncing back means returning to where I stood before.
Instead, I want to go beyond the hurts and the darkness. The first step from genuine healing . . . when I came to trust and believe that there was a beyond.
Now I reach for beyond every day, in every encounter, in every circumstance. I seek to go where I have never travelled.
I wake with the vision of a purposeful day, filled with adventures and teachings.
Then I take the first step and try to make it beyond.
What does 2023 have in store for each of us? For some folks we look at the New Year starting at the end of October/early November – with Samhain, offering us the transition of autumn into winter; to let go, compost and rest in the season of hibernation – when our dreams start to take form. For others following the solar calendar, January 1st beckons us to a new chapter with greater clarity, a fresh canvas, welcoming in the energy of a New Year.
I’m not one of these people that’s going to ask you your new years resolutions, but I am a person that will ask you what pulls you forward, and how can you listen to the urgings of your soul.
The last day I worked, before my life took a bit of an unexpected turn, was ironically a day retreat about self love and self care – I think a wee bit of an omen for my own journey. An important and beautiful day, a day held in love.
Can you honestly say you love yourself? Your whole self?
Can you honestly acknowledge that you ensure your own needs are met first before looking outside of yourself? When you move in this way, you actually have so much more to offer the world and the potential to enjoy the journey more fully.
How often do you do things you love, just for the sake of doing something that feels good?
A very special group of souls gathered that day, on the land at Carp Ridge. We moved through the forest, walking mindfully and honouring the sun, we respectfully explored the way our breath and bodies flow and move, we journaled, welcomed in healing foods, held safe space nourished by sound and relaxation practices, and we planted some seeds of our own that afternoon.
I wonder, wherever you are in cycle, what feeds your soul? This isn’t just something we should consider once a year, at the threshold, but it’s something to anchor you on a daily basis. We planted 9 seeds that day and imbued them into a mala, holding the energy of our commitment to offer ourselves experiences on a daily basis that feed our souls.
What makes your life worth living??
What rituals or practices do you do on a daily basis that help you to remember that you belong, that help you to feel at home in your body, that connect you to what matters in your life?
For some these questions may be really hard to answer, hold that with gentleness. I urge you to give yourself space and patience to explore and understand what it is you need.
What experiences make your life worth living??
I wear my mala everyday, and hold my own seeds in my hand knowing that I have the power to hold them as simply great ideas, or to take action to welcome them into my life. To live with passion and wonder.
When did we get so busy in our lives? So distracted?
When did we stop having enough time for ourselves?
Since being diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer this past October, I’ve learnt alot – and yes, that learning will never stop. It shouldn’t take getting stopped in your tracks to TRULY start listening to the longings of your soul and to honour what brings you joy. Often it’s the most simple acts that feed us the deepest – as simple as your morning coffee or tea.
Now when I unroll my mat I do that with an increased awareness of every sensation in my own body, and every single sacred breath – it is one of my soul seeds, my daily yoga. That time everyday is teaching me to love my body and all the layers of my being, it is undistracted time to simply listen deeper within – and to practice the act of listening within first. My yoga practice has changed considerably since my surgery, and I think the most important change is the gentleness and tenderness I now tend to myself with – not for my students or planning my next class – but for myself. We are constantly evolving, and with that evolution the seeds that feed our souls, and the way we approach those seeds will also out of necessity change, remember that.
Blessings to each and every one of you during this season of introspection and hibernation, so grateful to be on this wild human journey, filled with mystery and opportunities for growth. Thanks for sharing my thoughts.
‘Till next time
Love Amber
Photo by Pixabay
Just a note to remind you that all community classes and healing sessions are temporarily on hold while I navigate my own healing journey. Stay tuned for updates, I look forward to holding healing space for you in the not to far away future.
Each time a little more determined, and a little less vulnerable
Unstoppable they said, but I think it was in the stopping
that she found her power.
– Donna Ashworth
A very dear friend sent me this just this morning, it seemed kind of perfect to sit down and write this update today. I know it’s been a while since I’ve arrived in your inbox, and for many good reasons.
Life hands us challenges that sometimes we feel are insurmountable and impossible to see our way through – when the path gets a wee bit blurry. We can lose sight of the strength we contain, the ability to rise, as well as the way we are being held in seen and unseen ways.
It’s been hard for me to get on here, and to write this. But I have been feeling a strong call to connect – and perhaps depending on your life circumstances offer you the reminder that you to are not alone.
The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of emotions and medical procedures – which continue in the coming week. I’m still processing the fact that I had spinal surgery, never mind the additional diagnosis of cancer – in the blink of an eye, our lives can change and do change, remember that. I very suddenly started losing the ability to walk (interestingly the day my eldest son and I sat with an owl in the cedar grove – whispering wisdom of slowing down). My body had also been speaking to me in quiet and loud ways over the past few months. October 5th I was admitted to hospital and underwent emergency spinal surgery for a tumor in my spinal canal, on the spinal cord from T7 to T11.
The tumor that took up residence in my spinal canal was found to have malignant cells and they were unable to remove the whole tumor in surgery – due to its location it was partially inoperable.
In the meantime, I rest in this liminal space, protective of quiet time and connecting deeply with what is being asked of me in this healing. I am sooo grateful to recover from step one here in the forest.
Relearning to walk, supporting my spine as the bones mend and the dura heals, healing mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually – while at the same time building my reserves for next steps.
My family and I are keeping pretty quiet, this is needed right now for so many reasons – my deepest need is to cocoon. I have been viscerally reminded of how fragile and truly precious life is – In many ways I’m only now just realizing how truly precious and sacred life is.
An unexpected turn on the path, one that will only bring greater strength and compassion. Perhaps a forced sabbatical, finding my own way on this life journey.
I wonder what helps you to rise when you fall – perhaps that’s a person, or a place. Make a list, right now if you can – written or in your mind, what helps you rise when you fall?
