Pre-SUMMER SOLSTICE Special Sauce Workout | Sowing the Seeds of Wonder
Pre-SUMMER SOLSTICE Special Sauce Workout | Sowing the Seeds of Wonder
a three-step SOUL FLOSS workout by Dr. MLE | Beach Witch
In honor of PRIDE MONTH and in anticipation of the FULL STRAWBERRY MOON in CANCER on the SUMMER SOLSTICE—I’m sharing my SPECIAL SAUCE Workout: Sowing the Seeds of Wonder in three simple steps:
Still Life Scavenger Hunt
Aphrodite (Soma)tic Ritual
Sun Tea for Inner Peace + Harmony
Think Vitamin B shot, for your curiosity!
The Summer Solstice a pivotal point in the year that invites us to indulge in pursuits that bring pleasure to our lives. Because it falls in Cancer, the Summer Solstice a time of transformation, rigorous honesty, and EMOTIONAL CONNECTION.
As revolutionary astrologer Chani Nicholas explains: “in Western astrology it marks the moment that the sun moves into 0 degrees of Cancer (tropical). Cancer initiates emotional connection. This sign wants to feed, nourish, provide safety, create intimacy and give life. Cancer is The Mother.”
The Full Strawberry Moon might be ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL MOONS OF 2024, and, serendipitously, she’s falling on Friday, June 21 (the day after the Summer Solstice). Conventionally, the Strawberry Moon is a time to savor life’s sweetness (via, for example, strawberry-infused cocktails and desserts) and celebrate anything that’s ripening in our emotional lives (like WONDER, EMPATHY, and VULNERABILITY).
With this caveat: this particular Strawberry Moon is falling in Capricorn, a haaaaard working sign known for ambition, discipline, productivity, stability, efficiency, and taking a mature and responsible approach to our lives—at work and at home. In other words, this Strawberry Moon is a time to take responsibility for our EMOTIONS, to commit to growing EMOTIONAL MATURITY, and to adopt a more EMOTIONALLY MATURE approach to life.
My SPECIAL SAUCE WORKOUT is chock full of poetically proven strategies to fully and authentically participate in the healing powers of this potent astrological moment. In three simple and wonder-filled steps, you’ll craft a study enough container to let that golden light alchemize within you. And who doesn’t want that?
(And, for the writers in my audience—you just might find yourself penning your Next Great Poem/Story/Essay in the process!)
Workout Overview
I’ve helpfully chunked this wonder workout into three 20-minute steps, which I encourage you to space out however you like leading up to June 21. Though, of course, carving out 20 minutes a day to flex your wonder muscle is ALWAYS a good idea. You can do this workout anytime you need an instant boost of curiosity, perspective, and connection!
This workout could become a welcome companion when you wake up in the morning, or just before bed! Of course, it’s ideal to complete this workout under the beneficent light of the moon. However you schedule it into the fabric of your life, I encourage you to treat it like an appointment with yourself. See what happens when aligning yourself with your innate capacity for wonder becomes a daily habit.
See how you change.
See how the world changes.
The Seeds of Wonder | Three Scattered Thoughts
As you read this warm-up, focus less on “knowing” and more on “wondering,” letting this delicious bouquet of thoughts sow itself wherever it falls in your imagination, planting curiosity, perspective, inner peace, and harmony.
And of course, you can skip down to Step #1 of the workout if you feel like your imagination is already primed and you’re ready to WORK OUT!
1 | Wonder + Curiosity (or, Wonder vs. Knowing)
We poets tend to think of wonder as generative, in terms of its capacity to grow the ego beyond the borders of the self, to experience the world from the point of view of an “I” that both isn’t and isn’t you. This is a complex idea that poets have been arguing about for centuries, so for our purposes what it boils down to is expanding your perspective—acknowledging that there are other ways of experiencing the world, challenging yourself to step into others’ shoes (including nonhuman others’, like rocks, trees, horizons, oranges, ants, pennies, carnations), and then celebrating that difference—growing through it and syncing up with the larger story of which we are one small, very small part.
Poet Mary Ruefle explains wonder as inhabiting, dwelling in, the question:
“I would rather wonder than know. It makes it more and more difficult to be alive on earth in these times, when your inclination is to wonder rather than to know.
I suppose the example that comes to mind is: it used to be if you were having dinner with people and someone said, “Who’s the fastest animal on earth?” An amazing conversation would ensue. And now someone pops their phone out and looks up the answer. And it breaks my heart….
I really, really don’t like it when people look things up on their iPhones…. I mean, sometimes, of course, I’m no idiot. The encyclopedic nature of the information that’s available is fantastic, but I would still rather wonder than know.
I think wondering is a way of inhabiting and lingering. There seems to be more dwelling. To dwell, inhabit, and linger. I’m interested in those things. And you can do that when you don’t know.”
We tend to, as human beings, our impulse is, once we know, once we have the answer, we move on. So we’re constantly moving from one thing to the other. I would rather inhabit the question, or dwell. For me, that is the place I want to live in.
2 | Wonder as Resistance
On the other hand, poet Kaveh Akbar talks about wonder as a strategy for resisting dogmatic ideology and axiomatic points of view:
I was actually talking with my graduate workshop yesterday about how an orientation towards wonder, as a poet, is absolutely necessary. I really do sincerely feel that bewilderment is at the core of every great poem, and in order to be bewildered, you have to be able to wonder. You absolutely have to be permeable to wonder. Maintaining an orientation towards wonder in a time where the government is conspiring against it, in a time where black people are being murdered at the hands of the state, in a time when the Earth is very much trying to warn us about what we’re doing to it, maintaining an orientation towards wonder becomes really difficult. It’s the work that I have to do every day, the work of trying to find sources of wonder, even in our sadness and loneliness, or even in our anger. There are ways to be both angry and full of wonder at the same time. I think Solmaz Sharif’s Look is a great example of a book both bewildered and angry. I think that orientation towards wonder is really vital to our fellowship of writers, and I also think it’s a lot of work. It’s not passive, especially not now.
I think Look is indeed an excellent example. I also think that all of CAConrad’s (soma)tic rituals and resulting poems are a great example of wonder as resistance, as the capacity to hold two counterintuitive, paradoxical emotions in our two hands and move forward—into a revolution that is brave and just, infused with integrity, hope, and light.
CAConrad’s “Bee Alliance” and “Bug, I Love You” exemplify what I mean…
I encourage you to read both before cruising down the rainbow continuum…
3 | Wonder + the Rainbow Continuum
Personally, I like to think of wonder as a container for holding our BIG UGLY FEELS—and not getting overwhelmed by them. Wonder makes it possible for us feel rage, fear, anxiety, grief, etc. and express those strong, tidal-pull emotions while being balanced, while remaining in our integrity.
Witch + candle-maker Bran Taylor explains:
“All emotions are on a continuum, and I like to think of this continuum as a rainbow. Feelings like happiness, joy and excitement are part of the day rainbow and feelings like rage, anger and grief are part of the night rainbow. All emotions are valid here and exist in a nonjudgment zone. Both sides of the rainbow meet at the crossroads of the Earth to form a full and beautiful circle.”
I love love love the idea of an emotional rainbow continuum, and like to think of wonder, empathy, vulnerability, and curiosity as a stalwart foundation for the emotional rainbow I want to cruise in this lifetime. Which, yes, also includes a healthy dose of rage, grief, and fear.
And how about you?
What seven emotions form your emotional rainbow?
One of the most powerful ways to tune into our integrity is to name those emotions; here’s a helpful list to get you started.
Okay, now your imagination is warmed up and it’s time to WORK OUT!
And remember, if you’re short on time or an ingredient, it’s okay to skip it or to substitute or really just spin the whole thing in a direction that feels even better for you.
This workout is just a jumping off point.
It’s 100% customizable.
Every ingredient is optional and you can improvise with what’s available.
Step #1 | Still Life Scavenger Hunt
Gather a penny, an orange, and a carnation, ideally white, and something to take pictures with.
These are your magical talismans.
Pennies were originally made of copper, which is the metal of Aphrodite, the goddess of LOVE (not fidelity). While pennies are currency, they are often considered “worthless” and discarded on the side of the road.
Oranges are a lucky fruit. Orange declares “I am fertile, available, and desirable.”
Flowers are offerings to the spirits and transform our words into song. Carnations are a lucky flower. White is good for divine connection, dreamwork, and the removal of negative energy.
Travel to a park, beach, museum, zoo, or even your backyard—any outdoor location where you can revel at the natural world. Explore with all of your senses open to wonder. Look, taste, touch, smell, listen.
Find something that sparks your wonder—at being, at nature, at grief, at love, at memory, at desire, at loss, at hope…
This could a living, nonliving, animate, inanimate, natural, manmade object—a tree, a statue, a blade of grass, a shadow on the lawn, a painting, the light seeping in underneath the curtains, the scent of green peppers from some unsuspecting ferns, a cloud passing overhead, etc.
Pause and read Mary Ruefle’s “Kiss of the Sun”—a gorgeous exhale of a poem full of wonder—out loud at least once.
Kiss of the Sun
If, as they say, poetry is a sign of something
among people, then let this be prearranged now,
between us, while we are still peoples: that
at the end of time, which is also the end of poetry
(and wheat and evil and insects and love),
when the entire human race gathers in the flesh,
reconstituted down to the infant's tiniest fold
and littlest nail, I will be standing at the edge
of that fathomless crowd with an orange for you,
reconstituted down to its innermost seed protected
by white thread, in case you are thirsty, which
does not at this time seem like such a wild guess,
and though there will be no poetry between us then,
at the end of time, the geese all gone with the seas,
I hope you will take it, and remember on earth
I did not know how to touch it it was all so raw,
and if by chance there is no edge to the crowd
or anything else so that I am of it,
I will take the orange and toss it as high as I can.
Throw orange as high as you can in the air and catch it—maybe once, twice, or three times. This really is a delicious, enlivening feeling!
Organize the penny, carnation, and orange into a temporary altar incorporating the object (or idea of the object) that is the source of your wonder.
Take six photographs:
from your point of view
from the object’s point of view
from the orange’s point of view
from the carnation’s point of view
from the penny’s point of view
a selfie incorporating yourself
Leave the orange and the carnation as offerings.
Put the penny in your right pocket or bra or shoe. (Right is your giving side.)
Step #2 | CAConrad’s Aphrodite (Soma)tic
Spend a few hours or days with your penny. You can pre-schedule this next step, or complete it whenever spirit moves you.
If you didn’t already, read CAConrad’s “Bee Alliance” and “Bug, I Love You” so you have a tangible example of how these (soma)tic rituals work.
Gather orange juice, something to write with and something to write on. (And make sure your penny is still in your right pocket, bra, or shoe.)
Revisit the site of wonder from step #1.
Slip the penny under your tongue. (Or hold it in your hand or leave it inside your bra or your sock or your shoe.)
As CAConrad explains: “Copper is the metal of Aphrodite, never ever forget this, never, don't forget it, ever.”
Drink a little orange juice and let some of the juice rest in your mouth with the penny.
Oranges are the fruit of Aphrodite, and she is the goddess of Love, but not fidelity.
What is the best Love you've ever had in this world? Be quiet while thinking about that Love. If someone comes along and starts talking, quietly shoo them away, you're busy, you're a poet with a penny in your mouth, idle chit chat is not your friend.
Be quiet so quiet, let the very sounds of that Love be heard in your bones.
After a little while take the penny out of your mouth (or hand or bra or sock or shoe) and place it on the top of your head. Balance it there and sit still a little while, for you are now moving your own forces quietly about in your stillness.
Now get your pen and paper and write about POVERTY (literally or existentially), write line after line about starvation and deprivation and lack (literally or existentially) from the voice of one who has been Loved in this world.
Write wildly, like a child, as fast as you can, without worrying about sentences or punctuation or fully-formed thoughts. This way you can get ahead of your internal editor, who gets in the way of these raw notes. Focus on outrunning the internal editor, on fully trusting yourself, so you arrive at that moment where all self-doubt or worry or lack of self-confidence fall away. It is here where, as CAConrad advises, “we can cruise into the previously unimagined magical writing we had concealed from ourselves.”
Leave the penny, and walk away without looking back.
Step #3 | Sun Tea for Peace + Harmony
Brew your Sun Tea for Inner Peace + Harmony the day before Summer Solstice. (So Wednesday, June 19.) Make an ENORMOUS BATCH.
On the Summer Solstice (Thursday, June 20), drink sunlight from dawn to dusk, quenching your thirsty soul with the delicious, enlivening taste of light, peace, and love! Ice as needed. Use as the base for a cocktail as desired. Share with a friend or three. Host a Mad Hatter Tea Party. Toast the Full Strawberry Moon.
However you go about this step, dedicate the Summer Solstice to drinking in love, love, love!
That’s all for now, babes!
You can access the rest of my alchemical FLOSS rituals here on Substack, and all of my transformative SAUCE workouts on Youtube.
Please join me: in reclaiming the power that is RIGHTFULLY YOURS!
ONE SOUL FLOSS WORKOUT AT A TIME!
xxxO, Dr. MLE | Beach Witch
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