The key to your juiciest self starts with the heart beating in your chest. Want to read from the start? Start here, then go here, followed by here. And then, read on below.

Kate Says:

The full moon often wakes me up at night. The past few nights my dreams have been vivid and intense. It’s a powerful sensation that’s easily ignored in the busyness of modern life. We chose the full moon intentionally for this juice celebration.

Our lives often lend themselves to ignoring the way our rhythms want to jibe with nature’s. Even small shifts in recognition that we are not simply inhabitants of this planet, but part of it, can make a huge difference in how we live our lives.

“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.”

~ Carl Sagan

If I am part of this world, I want to treat it better. If everything that’s in me is made of the same stuff as the stars, the ocean, a field of flowers…it seems ridiculous to fill my body with chemicals. When we shift our perspective in this way, we stop fighting with life and instead find gratitude and begin to feel at home in the world, and in ourselves. This lends itself to nourishing ourselves—not restricting things, not making lists of dos and don’ts—but of slowing down enough to listen to what our bodies actually want, and being willing to give it to them.

I’ve just finished my yoga practice, showered and am getting ready to head to bed. It seemed a fitting end to the juice feast. I am a bit of an Ashtangi rebel, in that I don’t always take moon days off. But, if I do have an asana practice on those days, I practice Chandra Namaskar, or Moon Salutations. The physical or asana part of yoga practice is such a tiny piece, but it’s a wonderful place to start. Or as Iyengar said, “My body is my temple, the asanas are my prayers.”

Sometimes we want to connect more deeply to the parts of life for which we cannot find the words.

This is a perfect practice to fill that need.

Bryonie says:

Last night, the idea of trying to capture the thoughts, feelings and emotions whirling through my mind felt like an impossible mission. And so, I did what my body had been screaming at me all day to do—I turned everything off and settled into my space and just allowed quiet to fill the room.

I spread a blanket out on the floor, lit some candles, made a cup of tea and pulled out my medicine cards and stayed there as long as I need to, listening to the messages that are already embedded in my bones.

All day, I could feel the pressure build—like the weight of the universe (and my own tangled shit) pressing down on my heart to the point of near explosion.

Those ghost patterns I spoke about in an earlier post? Thriving and beating their wings so heavily the ground shook.

Such is the power of the full moon for me and each cycle I tune in deeper—and go deeper still—and sometimes I don’t want to see what I’m being shown. Sometimes, I don’t want confront my own feelings of jealously, fear, rivalry, ego—my own ugliness that I see so plainly in those moments—sometimes, I want my body, brain and heart to shut the fuck so I can just get through the day.

Here is the thing: we cannot get away from ourselves, ever. If there is one person to love with our whole hearts from the moment we are born to the moment we die, it is ourselves. We all deserve our own love and compassion and we all deserve our own forgiveness.

When I clear my body of the things-that-feel-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time and allow whole foods and quiet and nourishment and my practice to be a priority, I can hear the love in the messages of hate; I can greet my fears and my hard eyes with soft heart.

It is almost, after a brief period of paying close attention to what feeds me, really, I can see myself for who I am. I can see myself as juicy and loving and kind and everything the universe holds all contained in this body, in this heart.

*****

If you take away one habit from this Full Moon Juice Feast, we hope you start to get curious and notice the way the rhythms of the moon affect you, and let yourself be moved by them—let them open you up.

And in all of this juiciness, may we begin to truly feel at home inside ourselves, may we enjoy the love of those who get our brand of crazy, and may we let go of the need to impress those who don’t.

Cheers to adding more juice to life—may we all feel like ripest peaches in the whole orchard.

If you enjoyed reading the recipes posted to the event, you can join our #juiceeverydamnday group on Facebook for continued support, or follow our board on Pinterest.

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Editor: Bryonie Wise

Photo: elephant archives