Seeing as we are in a fire horse year, only days away from its most peak fire expression (in the northern hemisphere) I want to emphasize to anyone prone to imbalance, especially towards burnout and heat, dryness, fatigue, heart or anger issues, hyper tension, etc - your entire goal should be to not extinguish your deep inner flame while not ever burning out your reservoir of deep water and yin balance held deep down in the root of us. The Heart is about to come into season and for many it will be a parched, unstable, chaotic and imbalanced, swollen, burnt out experience.
These are the exact things I would prioritize over the next 3-4 months (start now and get in a few days of practice) to keep the body from burning out and becoming too imbalanced in this expression of cosmology and nature :
Early sleeps & guard your sleep like it’s first line medicine
Rise with the morning but get rid of late sleeps over the next season (exhausting, depleting of yin / dehydrating)
Practice periods of purposeful silence (no phones, podcasts, tv, just silence for 10 minutes here and there)
Go walking, especially among the trees (seek lush green, mosses, ferns, shade)
Laying the kidneys on the ground when it’s not too cold a surface / warm hands over the kidneys while you give them Qi.
When outside in nature spend time in or near bodies of water
Avoid all forms of conflict (and high drama people or groups)
Give your day some proper scheduling so it can depend on things like steady meals and reliable bed times. Let your body know it can count on you for consistent food and rest times (this is huge)
Keep your living spaces cool, darker and quiet (but keep your body warm (not hot) within it - like a gentle radiant cocoon)
Prioritize steady movement over intensive exertion (tai chi, qigong, swimming, stretching, gardening, yoga - especially yin yoga)
Eat foods that nourish your fluids and moderate heat (cucumbers, pears, zucchinis, melons, broths, berries, peach, snow fungus (tremella), goji, oysters and clams, jammy duck eggs, lily bulb, mung bean)
Eat foods associated with the water element & kidneys (sea vegetables, black or adzuki beans, blueberry & blackberry, mineral rich broths
Protect your body & spirit from overstimulation (this goes for how you hold your thoughts as well)
Keep a gentle, calm mind that can let go of things. Do not grasp.
Cultivate joy without over-excitement. Think like a monk or Buddha thinks just for now - a grounded presence and gentle gaze, a non attachment and general appreciation that is still within and felt, but not loud and taxing. There is a difference between a contented heart and a stimulated one.
All summer, be very mindful of excessive heat. This year it may affect you much more acutely or noticeably.
Think lakes, rivers, rains and springs in a sunrise or sunset. Soft gaze and connections with ground around you when going about your days.
Woodland, shade, water, repeat (etc)
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Foods to avoid :
Hot spices unless you have a constitutional medicinal need for something, alcohol, caffeine, coffee and energy drinks, smoking, fried foods, excessive sugar intake of processed foods and grilled or charred meats.
Avoid the tendency as well to fight online, or grasp world events and especially to doomscroll. Even worse is doomscrolling at night.
Practice slow breathing into your belly every day. Inhale 4, exhale 8 - that kind of thing. Sip the air through the rolled tongue placed rolled between your lips, gently out (to sip the cool air) - Even ten minutes twice a day.
Best sounds you can play for yourself are gentle moving water - even a water element in your room to turn water.
Adopt the practice of slow movement and things like havening or meditations.
Acu points that you should memorize and press in the worst of it :
Liver 3
Pericardium 6
Heart 7
Kidney 1
Look these up with “acupuncture point” after them on a search engine and you’ll find the right locations.
You’ve got this.
🙏🏻💧🌲🌊⛲️
Ma’at is about carrying yourself with awareness, discipline, and intention in every space you enter.
Not everything deserves your words.
Not everything deserves your energy.
When you move with divine order, your presence speaks before you do.
Walk in alignment. Embody Ma’at daily.
I don’t do casual exchanges, as there is nothing casual about me and this experience. I am not here for temporary pleasures or half-hearted connections. I move with intention, emotional depth, and spiritual attunement. If someone’s energy cannot meet me there, it has no place in my space.
I am no longer negotiating my essence for fleeting attention, because in the end it’s never worth it. What I allow into my life must be able to hold itself with safety, consistency, and integrity.
In 1998, I was fired from my corporate job while 9 months pregnant because and I quote, “my priorities would be elsewhere after the baby is born.”
The lawyer I hired told me I didn’t have a case because discrimination like “that” was almost impossible to prove.
So I got pissed.
Took the LSAT. Went to law school. Passed the bar. Had 3 more kids.
Twelve years later, another woman from that same company was fired for the same reason. She sued them for a million dollars, and won, partly because I had kept every piece of evidence from what happened to me years prior demonstrating a systemic pattern of discrimination against women.
That company no longer exists. My law practice is thriving. And that baby they said would derail my priorities? She’s a brilliant attorney now working at my firm.
Turns out my priorities were indeed, elsewhere.
we live on a planet where trees warn each other of danger through a fungal network. Where octopuses dream.
Where elephants return to the bones of the deceased and stand over them in silence. Where bees use dance to communicate where to fly and where the flower is.
Where crows remember the faces of people who were cruel to them and pass this memory to their children.
Where ants build cities. Where cats purr at a frequency that accelerates the healing of bones.
Where, after a forest fire, the first thing the earth does is grow flowers.