The following is part of an ongoing dialogue with the feelings and questions of our time. This month, our teacher Lili Nakita Kroutilina speaks to the fiery potential that we can harness on behalf of action, purpose, and justice, while tending to Earth and self. She also offers us suggestions for how we can access the gifts of cold water in the Nature Practice offering!
June can be a time of tender reflection and awakening, leading to inspiration and action. As the snow is melting down the mountains and into the flowing waters, we too can allow ourselves to melt and feel our internal fires warming us. As I bring my clients outdoors in June, we may witness the colorful scattering of wildflowers, but also the dryness and heat setting in for the coming months. Summer is here and with it, its powerful fiery energy and potential.
In the Northern Hemisphere it is summer solstice, the sun expanding to its most radiant light, marking the longest day of the year. In the Southern Hemisphere, the sun is waking up from the longest night and beginning its journey to longer days. It is followed by a full moon and the zodiac of Cancer season beginning. Going into Cancer, it is a sign of home, a symbol that can be taken as coming home to the self. How is the self being nurtured? This can be a time to reflect on your own crab shell boundaries, what have you been letting in and what are you keeping out.
We have been experiencing much shadow in the world and it is important to make time to let the pain and grief be cleansed. Allow it in, let it fill you, but also make sure to wring it out, and express it. Be careful of numbness coming in. Instead allow life to come in, in all of its facets of beauty and darkness, for they all hold wisdom to help us find our guiding light. Queer poet and activist Andrea Gibson writes, “When nothing softens the grief, may grief soften me.”
Take care of yourself this summer solstice, tend to your home, take care of your plants and gardens, animals, and your own animal bodies. 
Take this moment to ground and reflect before getting swirled back into the fiery whirlwind that summertime can often bring. As the light gets less each day and we slowly head into the fall time, try to step with intention and hold the light carefully in your palms. Let it fill you with inspiration for what you can do.
Our honored and beloved elder Joanna Macy has taught us that by taking the time to feel and grieve, we can move through the cycles and find the clarity of what actions to take. She says, “The most radical thing any of us can do at this time is to be fully present to what is happening in the world.”
Summer is for taking action, it is an ignited time full of light and energy where we can set forth and do what we have been feeling called to. There is much in the world that we are called to protect and rise up with. You are needed for this, so it is important you are taking time for yourself to replenish before you set forth again into the world. Take time to harness your fire inside, to bring forth this summer.
We take this month to recognize the significance of action and purpose being brought into alignment with justice!
Juneteenth marks the freedom of a group of enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, almost two and half months after the Emancipation Proclamation was written, on June 19th, 1986. Juneteenth is celebrated as a reminder that “No one is free until we are all free.” We are all needed to take action, however we can, for the liberation of all, for the peace and healing of all.
Another important revolutionary event that took place in June was the Stonewall Uprising on June 28th, 1969, which served as a catalyst for a new wave of political activism in resistance to social and political discrimination. It represents freedom of choice in sexuality. June is also known as “Pride Month” to honor the LGBTQ+ communities. It is a potent time. May we learn from our ancestors and step forward to keep creating change and transformation of our world, to bring freedom in all forms, peace, and healing to all.
Take time to feel and allow your emotions to melt inside you, and then use your internal truth and clarity to take action as the heat of the summer propels you forward. Allow inspiration from the earth around you as the season transforms the landscape, may we also transform our landscapes.
May you lean into all the fiery potential of summer, Lili, Ariana, and the Earthbody Team
NATURE PRACTICE
Cleansing and Connecting to Water Practice:
By Lili Nikita Kroutilina
Summer invites a special activity that is more pleasurably enjoyed during the hot heat – diving into cold water!
This is a practice I have learned from many others, the practice of submerging your entire body into a cold body of water.
Whether it be a pool, a lake, a pond, a river, a cold plunge near a hot spring, an ocean, a cold shower, a cold tub, or anything that is ice-cold water on your skin!
- Try taking a brisk cold shower! Allow your showers to end with that refreshing cold water to wake you up and set you off on your day.
- Put your face in a bowl of cold water! This is a practice from DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy), which can be a regulating technique when you are feeling triggered. It prompts the mammalian diving reflex, a natural response that occurs in all mammals, including humans when their faces come into contact with cold water. It creates a shift in body chemistry that leads to an immediate drop in heart rate and activation of the parasympathetic nervous system that induces a relaxation response.
- Submerge your entire body if possible in cold water! It may feel very uncomfortable at first, but just give it a minute or so, and your body will acclimate and you will feel immense relaxation and almost a meditative state. It is also believed that cold water can help improve circulation, boost energy, reduce inflammation, loosen sore muscles, and cool you down.
So head to your favorite body of water and try it! A technique you can use for life. And remember too that water is but single drops that create an entire ocean. We are water, We are all connected to each other and our planet, in ourselves and collectively together.
HOPEFUL ACTIVISM
Join us in celebrating Black led farm, food, and land justice organizations.
Black Liberation and Palestinian Liberation Are Interconnected “We must come together to fight for justice at home and around the world, write Nina Turner and Rashida Tlaib…it has been deeply inspiring to see organizations focused on Black liberation, from the NAACP to the Council of Bishops of the African Methodist Episcopal Church to The King Center, embrace the cause of Palestinian human rights. All of these groups have called for a cease-fire in Gaza—and recently, the NAACP, the nation’s leading civil rights organization, went a step further, urging the Biden administration to stop weapons shipments to Israel. This courageous declaration by the NAACP is the latest example of the shared struggle for Black and Palestinian liberation.” Read more about this shared movement for justice HERE.
Youth activists win ‘unprecedented’ climate settlement in Hawaii “Hawaii officials have announced a “groundbreaking” legal settlement with a group of young climate activists, which they said will force the state’s department of transportation to move more aggressively towards a zero-emission transportation system…Under what legal experts called a “historic” settlement, announced on Thursday, Hawaii officials will release a roadmap “to fully decarbonize the state’s transportation systems, taking all actions necessary to achieve zero emissions no later than 2045 for ground transportation, sea and inter-island air transportation”, Andrea Rodgers, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs in the case, said at a press conference with the governor.” Read more about this inspiring win for the climate HERE.
POETRY AND INSPIRATION
This month we celebrate Juneteenth and honor Black poets who played pivotal roles in Black liberation through poetry and storytelling.
Our Land
By Langston Hughes
We should have a land of sun,
Of gorgeous sun,
And a land of fragrant water
Where the twilight is a soft bandanna handkerchief
Of rose and gold,
And not this land
Where life is cold.
We should have a land of trees,
Of tall thick trees,
Bowed down with chattering parrots
Brilliant as the day,
And not this land where birds are gray.
Ah, we should have a land of joy,
Of love and joy and wine and song,
And not this land where joy is wrong.
Langston Hughes was an accomplished black
poet, novelist, short story and play writer…
”particularly known for his insightful portrayals of Black life in America from the 1920s to the 1960s…
He is also known for his engagement with the world of jazz and the influence it had on his writing, as in his book-length poem Montage of a Dream Deferred (Holt, 1951). His life and work were enormously important in shaping the artistic contributions of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s.” – poets.org
Earth, I thank you
By Anne Spencer
Earth, I thank you
for the pleasure of your language
You’ve had a hard time
bringing it to me
from the ground
to grunt thru the noun
To all the way
feeling seeing smelling touching
–awareness
I am here!
Anne Spencer was an American poet, teacher, civil rights activist, librarian, and gardener. She was the first African-American to be published in the Norton Anthology of American Poetry. She was a prominent figure of the Harlem Renaissance, as well as a civil rights activist for equality and educational opportunities. Poetry Foundation
Untitled
By Lucille Clifton
surely i am able to write poems
celebrating grass and how the blue
in the sky can flow green or red
and the waters lean against the
chesapeake shore like a familiar
poems about nature and landscape
surely but whenever I begin
“the trees wave their knotted
branches and…”
why is there under that poem
always another poem?
Lucille Clifton was an accomplished and nationally-recognized poet and author, college faculty member, and mother of six children. She is also the former Poet Laureate of Maryland. Clifton published thirty volumes of poetry and books for children and adults. Her writing focused on themes related to African-American women and families. It has been noted that her pride as a black woman helped her write positively about overcoming the difficulties faced by those living in the inner city. Poetry Foundation
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We acknowledge that The Earthbody Institute is located in Huchiun, in unceded Lisjan territory, now known as Oakland. We honor and support the ancestors and present Lisjan people. We encourage you to learn more and make a donation to support the return of their land and culture.