I’m SO excited to introduce PAUSE: Mini Meditations for Wherever You Are.
For 5 years I’ve been cultivating & compiling tools on my own healing journey. From that pot of gold during this suffocating pandemic + having a baby + racism magnified + postpartum + election year + aliens landing…(jk…not yet), I went to a practice that grounds me. I then had a vision of making said practice into something tangible and beautiful that I could share with others on their own self healing / self empowerment / “self preservation” journey.
These mini meditation cards, ebook and audio are filled with a variety of affirming words, grounding reminders and physical guidance. These cards were made to be an anchor during life’s overwhelming and often uncertain times. PLUS! They’re discreet, sleek & conveniently pocket-sized, so you can carry them anywhere and privately check-in with yourself. Pair your deck with a matching journal and pen to create space to sit and download/unload.
“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”
― audre lorde
I hope these moments of PAUSE help others as they’ve helped me. ♥️
Our presale sold out almost immediately 🎉🎉🎉 so thank you! It’s so encouraging to a brand new biz that our pre-sale has expanded into a pre-order. 🙌🏼 I’m so grateful!
Candles glow // I close eyes for the wishes I blow // Seeds I sow // For the chance to know // Your healing soul // Grow Flower grow.
This week I had the honor of guest writing for the blog, Jane Dope, “a blog by and for women who love Cannabis.” on the super taboo topic of using cannabis while pregnant. In the article, I share my personal thoughts and experiences. Here’s an excerpt:
“I’m a planner and a researcher living a hippie lifestyle. I don’t just put anything into or on my body without proper investigation, so to smoke during my pregnancy was a conscious choice.”
I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to share my story on a female-driven platform for other conscious Mama tokers. I hope that it can bring some understanding to those that may judge us and also share a light with those who feel alone or even ashamed by their cannabis use.
Let me lick you up and down til you say stop. – Silk
Check out 5 different ways to use coconut oil here.
I love me some coconut oil. You can use it for practically anything I swear! My top daily uses are:
Oil pulling!– This 3,000ish year old practice comes from Ayurvedic medicine. You swish coconut oil around in your mouth for about 20 minutes to release the demons! and to pull toxins out. Spit it out when done, do NOT swallow (that’s what she said!). “Recent studies show that oil pulling helps against gingivitis, plaque, and microorganisms that cause bad breath.”
Moisturizer!– Raw shea butter is hella hard, so I add coconut oil to it and blend it up together to make a creamy and luscious body butter. I use it on my hands, my feet and for my abdominal womb massage nightly.
Hair growth!– My main squeeze is trying to grow his hair out and Southern California is hella dry, so I mix Tea Tree Oil in a glass container with coconut oil to massage into his scalp, this stimulates hair growth and combats the dry flakies! It’s a 2fer! 2 treatments in 1 mixture!
Cooking!– I love the taste of coconut, it makes me feel like I’m in the tropics somewhere. Coconut oil doesn’t break down at high temperatures like other oils so it’s good for high temp cooking, especially rice dishes (mmmmm!). Now I know some people don’t prefer the taste of coconuts (like how?) but Trader Joe’s got ya covered, they make a triple filtered coconut oil that takes most if not all of the wonderful coconut flavor out. If you don’t live near a TJ’s, you can also get it here!
LUBE!– yes honey! Lubrication for sexy time! Coconut oil is naturally antiviral, antibacterial, and antifungal, isn’t that amazing?! It got me smellin like a damn summer paradise between the legs and between the sheets! I used to work in sex retail and I’ve used a plethora of lubes from silicone, to water and all those in between and coconut oil is by far my fave! It works for partner use and solo play either with or without your adult toys. Side note: Make sure all your toys are high grade silicone, glass, metal or crystals! 🙂 Those are the only materials I recommend to go into your body, this goes for men, women and non binary!
Baby’s Bum and other skin irritations!– This wasn’t in the original video, but coconut oil is a daggone miracle worker! Anytime my son has a small skin irritation, whether that be in his diaper area or under his armpit or some other roll that’s not being clean properly b/c babies stay sweatin, I clean it and then put a little coconut oil on it and BAM! it’s gone by the next day if not in a matter of hours!
I’ve listed my top 6 daily uses here, but there’s so many more!! Here’s an article from another awesome mama with 101+ uses and benefits for home AND beauty! That’s so many!!
So what are you waiting for? Go get some right now!
My baby got his first cold!!! Wannnh! I know it’s inevitable and his immune system does need to build up its strength, but I was hoping we had another few months before he got sick. Like I really thought maybe around 9-12 months, y’know, because of the super duper forcefield and otherworldly power of my breastmilk! But alas…he got that runny nose y’all and word on the street is, babies can get sick 6-8 times before they turn 1! WTF?!? Seriously. I know I’m living in LaLa Land, both literally and figuratively, but I hope babes doesn’t get sick again for the rest of this year! Praying his immune system has gotten really strong this go round!
Anyhoo. He got sick, I freaked (aka scoured the internet to make sure it wasn’t the plague) and these are the things I found to help and they seem to be working!
Sauna it out! Go into el baño, run the hot water, put some drops of peppermint oil and *eucalyptus oil* in the bath and let the room steam with aromatherapy! We sat in the bathroom for 10-15 minutes tops. NOT in the shower, just in the bathroom on the toilet, breathing. (This one was hard for me because I HATE wasting water, but it does feel like it helps a lot.)
Suck boogies! The classic blue bulb syringe BS that we all know and loathe. Every mother receives one through the hospital, their registry or from some well-meaning person and it’s quite frankly a piece of doo doo! It really can’t do anything, look at the teeny tiny hole and long slender nozzle, that hole isn’t pulling in diddly squat and that violent nozzle is going to stab the baby in the brain. PLUS you can’t see inside of it to see if it’s getting anything (it’s not) or clean it, that’s just gross. So… I tried sucking babe’s boogers out with my mouth, yes, I did that, I know, I know, but it is a thing and I was desperate! However it didn’t work well. Then after some more internet digging, I found this amazing mama’s post and immediately ordered the Frida Baby! It basically marries me sucking boogers out of his nose with the blue bulb blob and it’s SO much better! You put one end in the baby’s nose and it creates a suction around their nostril and then the other end in your mouth to suck. Don’t worry, there’s a long ass tube and a filter, so no boogies get in your mouth! Seriously though, it gets so much mucus out! There was a point where I felt like I was sucking his brains out because the mucus wouldn’t stop coming! How would he have lived with all that snot in there? I felt like a hero, I don’t think he saw me the same though. FYI*Do not do a saline flush more than 2-3x a day for over 4 days, you run the risk of drying baby’s nose out too much.*
Oil Diffuser/Cool Mist Humidifier! I live in California where it’s hella dry! We’ve been running a Young Living Essential Oils diffuser which also works as a cool mist humidifier in the room for pretty much 24 hours a day. I added peppermint oil to it for a menthol-y scent to help open up babes nasal passages.
Baby’s Positioning! For the first 2 days and 2 nights I slept in a recliner with my big ole baby on my chest. It felt like we were back on his newborn schedule, sleeping off and on every 1-2 hours. I believe it helped the phlegm not pool in his throat and I loved sleeping with him like we did when he was first born! *Memories* He’s back in our bed now and I’ve been keeping him on his stomach or laying him on an incline, his whole upper back inclined, not just his neck, you never want anything to compress the neck area. I also worked from and hung out in the room on these days to watch him breathe, because…mommy paranoia! If your little one sleeps in a crib. Roll up some towels and put under the side of the mattress where their head is so there’s a slight incline, again for that mucus drainage. YUCK!
Onion! A super holistic mommy friend of mine told me about this, “quarter an onion and put it in every room of the house. It will purify the air of anything airborne.” I trust this woman and what she tells me, so I did it. It definitely added a scent that I believed was taking out all the “bad” with it. I also found this article by a Mama in Indonesia who uses the onion method and adds *eucalyptus oil. She has some other fab tips as well.
Bath! We took a nice warm bath and afterwards, he got a lovely massage with coconut oil. I concentrated on his crown chakra and the bottoms of his feet in hopes that it will ignite healing from both ends!
TLC! I’ve just stayed with him all day and all night. I’m there for whatever he needs, whenever he needs it. We haven’t left the bedroom in 3 days. I let him nurse on me as often as he wants and we’re both naked, so he can have the boob whenevs. We sleep, we read books and I hold him, a lot. My lower back is def in need of a good stretch and workout this week, but right now, being here is worth every minute! Now I know how my Mama felt when she would bring pillows in the bathroom and sleep on the floor with me when I was sick. Mommies ARE heroes! 🙂
I hope some of these work for you as they’ve been working for us. He still has a lingering cough that we’ve been told by a doctor can last another 1-2 weeks as the postnasal drip clears. BOO! So we’re still using the humidifier, steams and baby positioning. LET THIS COLD END!!!
Blue bulb of death. Suck them baby boogies out right!
We have altars set up throughout our home, 4 to be exact. I would even go as far as saying our home is an altar in itself as are the two humans who currently occupy space here. I love me some rituals and altars are all about rituals and purposeful places of worship. My home is definitely full of devotion as well as praise! So as I prepared to call our little spirit baby to join us in this life, I created an altar with all my fave fertility relics and some schweet treats! Here’s the objects I chose to put on my fertility/welcome bambinx altar! 🙂
Coconut Oil: Good for just about everything, but my new fave…lube honey! It’s like a tropical paradise down under! Good for solo play, w/toys, and with ya partna!
Food: an apple, an orange and my favorite chocolate mints. I think every altar should have things that are living (need to add a plant to this one!) and things that are being sacrificed, the fruit. I’m blessing them and asking for blessings as I add them to the spread. At the point I do become pregnant, I’m plan on eating the fruit that’s present.
Fertility Portion:
My favorite vibrator, the Lelo Ina Wave. I def wanted something on there that was fallic and that brings me joy and since I can’t put my lover up there, the next best thing will have to do. *side note* 3 words: full body orgasm!
Viva La Vulva! It’s a vulva pin that I picked up at 2016’s Amber Rose’s Slut Walk and met the cutest pair of feminist, sex-positive entrepreneur artist gal partners! I love their pins and stickers and am sad I can’t find any contact page to tag.
Ganesh who was actually a wedding present from my spouse’s childhood friend that she bought while traveling in South Asia. Ganesh represents fertility and is the destroyer of obstacles! So having her aboard the altar was a no-brainer!
Venus of Willendorf c. 25,000 B.C.. obvi I don’t have the original, in fact mine is carved from wood not limestone. There’s a bunch of theories on her, but like who do we ask to know for sure, right? This is even before Jesus’s time! Some theories are; she was used as a symbol of fertility, represented procreativity, could have been a good luck charm, a deity or mother goddess! My fave theory about the red ochre pigment covering her is that it’s thought to symbolize menstrual blood which was seen as a life giving agent. Yay!! Ahh pre-patriarchy and hate of all women things, let’s get back there, shall we?
Moonstone, the stone of fertility, the love stone and it connects us to the goddess and the moon! Plus it’s the stone for my birth time and is said to accelerate psychic abilities!
Yoni Eggs: Holistic vaginal weights made of precious healing crystals. This link will take you to my other v/blog I created on my favorite vaginal inserts! 🙂
Hopeful baby daddy’s crystals, although I joke in the video that he didn’t want to be left off of the altar, it is important for him to have a stake and a presence in all aspects of baby consciousness and I’m very grateful that he’s into all the same hippie spiritual ways. I tease and call him my monk.
BOOKS!: We are big readers individually and collectively, we read as much as we can together, like legit read out loud together from the same book like some nerds. Lots of relationships books, finance books, plays, anything that is going to continue to help us grow and develop into better versions of ourselves! I think it’s SO important that a couple read together and continue to work on the relationship. Time changes, we change, reading together, for us, has helped us to stay on equal footing.
Incense: I typically light one every day, especially during yoga and meditation times. My favorite scent is so cliche I feel like, nag champa. I could smell it all day!
Above the altar
Erotic art! I’m so into it and I want more! Right now I have a Kama Sutra basic position piece from The World Erotic Art Museum in Miami, Florida. Please go if you’re ever there, it’s incredible, they have everything and I don’t want to spoil it for you! We have a couple making love that was spray-painted on black canvas for us in the streets of Barcelona, Spain! Lastly, I have a abstract piece from an artist in Joshua Tree, California.
Dreamcatchers: We made at a Native American site and event at Kuruvungna Springs. We were actually really proud of how they turned out even though they look like a child made them!
Our vows!! Bae and I were up ’til the wee hours of the morning the night before our wedding (separately!) finishing up our vows, in fact I was still cleaning them up in the space a couple hours before the ceremony. I’m happy that we wrote our own vows and what’s hilarious is we both open on almost the exact same line. We are the same human sometimes! 🙂
Our altars will continue to shift and breathe with me and the changes that I go through, just like it will modify once I’m in pregnancy mode then into postnatal! It’s probably why I have 4 of them throughout the house. We live, we grow, we add, we purge and we pray.
God lives within me and she is a fierce lover. She is spiritual, she is sexual, she is confirmations and contradictions. She is the living well of life.
Ahhh one of my favorite topics! Mainly because I get to talk about vaginas, spirituality and self-love with a big ole heapin tablespoon of solo play!
A quick sneak peak into my personal yoni egg collection and practice!
Yoni is a Sanskrit word meaning “source, sacred temple, womb” in other words…our VAGINAAAAAAAA! Yoni eggs are holistic vaginal weights, used to strengthen our pelvic floor muscles, aka “Kegel” muscles which most people are familiar with, but Kegel was a dude gynecologist and I’d like to keep the man and his name off my vag and the internal practice we were already doing before he stuck his pole on our property! (All puns intended).
I’ve been using yoni eggs almost daily for over a year now, but it def wasn’t my first rodeo with putting weights in my vajajay. I’ve worked in the sex retail industry for over 2 years, I’ve used my own muscles, metal ben wa balls, glass and silicone weights, but when I found yoni eggs on a late-night internet rabbit hole as I was looking for more ways to aid in my recovery, I knew I needed them stat! So here’s ALL the reasons I fell into yoni eggs and why I stick with my daily practice!
1. Physically/Sexually: the actual mechanics and strength building of having something weighted in your vagina and what that can do for sex, for giving birth which I’m in prep to conceive, for solo play, to prevent incontinence. You can totes do vaginal strengthening sans weights, but it’s just like working out at the gym with and without weights, you’ll get more results and quicker! Plus it’s fun to grip up on things with your partner to show off your strength! Can you feel me now?!
2. Holistically: I’m a hippie. I love rocks and crystals. Yoni eggs are made from precious stones from the earth, I just intuitively trust them more plus they carry their own healing energy.
3. Emotionally: Emotions are energy in motion and the stones really do hold and share energy with us, letting us release blocked emotions and as a sexual trauma survivor they’ve been very powerful as a tool in my own recovery and healing. I wear one or a combo of 2 to therapy quite often.
4. Spiritually/Ritualistically: I feel very connected to ancestral healing, so I was drawn to the history, sisterhood and feminine spirit within the practice. I love the feeling of oneness and connectedness with a generational tradition that I can learn from and carry on to other women, like maybe my own daughters one day! *Yoni eggs were used by Taoist royalty thousands of years ago, this is not a new practice.*
Anyhoo…in a nutshell, yoni eggs, for me: turn me on, amp up my orgasms, connect me to my body, to the Feminine Divine, other vagina owners throughout herstory and on a practical level they keep my chocha lubed up and tight a’ight!
I’m trying to keep these v/blogs Snappie, but dangit if there’s not soooooo much yoni goodness! I used to host 1 hour yoni egg conference calls with newbies all over the world just to guide them into their practice! It was the bees knees and I miss it, so I could legit talk about this topic all day, like how to insert them, how to release them, how to clean them, when not to wear them and YONI BREATHING, omGAWD yoni breathing…oh and having sex with them in and vaginal reflexology being a thing, and, and, and! So much, too much for 1 post….so you know what that means, there’ll have to be a Yoni Eggs II in our future!
The Snappie Hippie 