the MINI INCHWORM
the MINI INCHWORM
a Soul Sauce + Floss Workout feat Ross Gay, Charles Darwin, & Yoko Ono
Welcome to the INCHWORM MINI | a Soul Sauce + Floss Workout.
This 15 MINUTE workout + ritual is GUARANTEED to SUPERCHARGE your day, giving you an INSTANT (physical, mental, emotional) UPLIFT and JOLTING you into IMAGINATIVE LEAPS and PHYSICAL FEATS you didn’t know you have inside you!
As a gift to those of ya’ll with complex modern lives, this streamlined workout + ritual involves:
a 5-minute Inchworm Workout (combining all my FAV variations)
a 5-minute Tarot RX
a 5-minute writing provocation
This ALCHEMICAL COMBO will PUMP UP both your abdominals and your GRATITUDE MUSCLES!
All you need is 15 minutes, yourself, some comfy(ish) clothes, something to write with and on, and open minds, ears, and hearts.
the Mini Inchworm
The MINI INCHWORM has it all, y’all! It’s one of my ALL TIME FAV FITNESS MOVES. CARDIO, CORE, and STRETCH!
It’s a body-weight movement that builds strength, improves flexibility and range of motion and gets the blood pumping and endorphins flowing—while targeting just about every major muscle group. It’s a dynamic exercise that will strengthen your abs, hamstrings, and mid-back WHILE enhancing hip mobility and shoulder stability! All in FIVE MINUTES OR LESS!
And, yes, you can totally BUST this MINI INCHWORM out in the middle of your workday.
New Year’s Tarot RX
In this New Year’s Tarot RX I talk about Strength (8) and the Star (17) as anchor cards for 2024 (2 + 2 + 0 + 4 = 8 and 1 + 7 = 8) and offer a 5-step Tarot RX for identifying, reclaiming, and manifesting the power you always had. This Tarot RX features the Ace of Wands, the Queen of Pentacles, the 4 of Pentacles, the 5 of Wands, and the 4 of Wands.
Grab these cards from your favorite decks—I like to use two that power clash, like the Gentle Tarot and the Garbage Pail Tarot—and prepare to identify, reclaim, and manifest the POWER THAT IS RIGHTFULLY YOURS, like poets and witches do!
Strength (reclaiming the power that is rightfully yours) + the Star (you have everything you need within)
Ace of Wands—look for motivation in unexpected places & mix up your artistic praxis
Queen of Pentacles—concoct the life you want by prioritizing what really means the most to you & reorganizing your time
Four of Pentacles—change, as the only constant; balance what’s incoming & outgoing (time, money, energy, attention, etc.)
5 of Wands—internal struggles; problem-solve creatively, follow your gut feelings
4 of Wands—celebrate everything you’ve accomplished & thank the people who helped you get where you are today
Growing Your Gratitude Muscle
How would I get started, beloved’s? At the end, of course!
Ostensibly, you’ve done the 5-minute MINI INCHWORM, watched the 5-minute TAROT RX, and now you’ve got 5 minutes to…
Set a 2-minute timer, and list all the PEOPLE WHO HELPED YOU GET WHERE YOU ARE TODAY.
Set a 3-minute timer, and write one of these people a postcard/Twitter-style thank you note, or record a short voice memo. Don’t overthink this, go with your gut!
If this is challenging, SO BE IT. Like physical strength and flexibility, gratitude and creativity take CONSISTENCY. Build the muscle memory and I guarantee you will repeat the benefits, on and off the mat and on and off the page.
Gratitude, green witch and herbalist Robin Rose Bennett explains, is a highly underrated emotion. True gratitude fills the heart with a deliciously happy feeling. We tend to save up our gratitude for special occasions, hoarding it as if we don’t have enough to go around. Most people are rushing around too much to remember to be grateful for an ordinary moment of life—for having a friend or relative who loves you, for having enough food to eat, for your breath flowing in and out… Authentic appreciation doesn’t have room for feelings of indebtedness or entrapment. True gratitude is so fulfilling that is overflows.
Gratitude, House of Intuition founders Alex Naranjo and Marlene Vargas remind us, is a powerful form of intention—a beacon that draws more of what we want and love our way. Being in a constant state of communicating thanks is an important part of our spiritual growth and true purpose as human beings.
Gratitude à la Ross Gay & Emily Dickinson
If you need a jumpstart, here is one of my favorite THANK YOU poems, written by the inimitable Ross Gay, an icon of delight, grief, and gratitude, who plays basketball and grows orchards when he isn’t busy writing poems and raising baby poets.
You could record yourself reading this poem, and message it to some folks who have supported you. Trust they’ll get the memo.
Or, handwrite the poem on a local postcard and mail the poem off à la Emily Dickinson.
A Small Needful Fact by Ross Gay Is that Eric Garner worked for some time for the Parks and Rec. Horticultural Department, which means, perhaps, that with his very large hands, perhaps, in all likelihood, he put gently into the earth some plants which, most likely, some of them, in all likelihood, continue to grow, continue to do what such plants do, like house and feed small and necessary creatures, like being pleasant to touch and smell, like converting sunlight into food, like making it easier for us to breathe.
(Ross published a book dedicated to gratitude, The Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, and TWO books dedicated to delight, The Book of Delights and The Book of (more) Delights… sustained meditations on beauty, loss, and change, helping us see our extraordinary world anew…)
Earthworms, Charles Darwin, & Yoko Ono’s Cleaning Piece VI
Like earthworms, gratitude is essential but often overlooked. (How many of you listed GRATITUDE when you did my Giving Your Values A Voice Ritual?)
(To call someone a “worm” is usually an insult. If you “worm your way” into a situation it implies you aren’t entitled to be there and/or your method for getting in was dodgy. Linguistically, worms get a lot of disrespect but, in terms of the life of the soil, worms are tiny and essential digestive powerhouses, literally pooping out fertility.)
Towards the end of his life, Charles Darwin began keeping earthworms in pots at his house in Downe. He fed them bits of onion and cabbage, shone lights upon them and played music for them, and monitored their activities with the curiosity (and arrogance) of a child—playing the bassoon to see if they could hear, spraying them with perfume and secondhand tobacco smoke to see if they could smell, laying out a picnic treasure hunt (including cherries, carrots, cabbage, celery, fresh herbs, and raw meat) to see how what they liked to eat…
He was working on a book about worms, The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms, which would be published in 1881, a year before his death and which, despite the ridicule of his colleagues, would prove to be a bestseller.
Amongst other things, Darwin suggests that people (specifically archaeologists) “ought to be grateful to worms,” makes an innovative argument that worms are intelligent, and advocates for worms as good gardeners and good housekeepers, making the earth into a home for themselves and, inadvertently, for us.
It may be doubted, he concludes, whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world, as have these lowly organized creatures.
Darwin’s earthworm obsession is, ultimately, about curiosity, hospitality, gratitude, humility, unsung heroes, and being overlooked.
It vibes with the Queen of Pentacles (concoct the life you want), the Four of Pentacles (manage resources), the Ace of Wands (look for motivation in unexpected places), and the 4 of Wands (celebrate EVERYTHING).
It’s an invitation to, à la Yoko Ono’s Cleaning Piece IV, make gratitude a regular practice.
CLEANING PIECE VI
Send a note of appreciation to silent courageous people
you happen to have noticed: parents, teachers, shopkeepers,
street cleaners, artists, etc.
Keep doing it.
See what happens to the world.
Florida resident Susan Timmons tried Ono’s practice, taping the instructions to her fridge. She described its effect for the Bradenton Herald in August 2014:
…After several days’ attempts, I began to seriously worry about my character. It seemed I couldn’t even get past 9 a.m.
… I worked hard. At first, I did a lot of tongue-biting. I was humbled and dismayed by how often negative thoughts about someone could slip into my consciousness, but with effort and concentration I was able to stop the words from coming out.
It started to get just a little bit easier on the third day. Fewer negative thoughts were coming, and I wasn’t having to work so hard to squelch them when they did.
And then came Day 4. I began to sense a very real qualitative shift in my thinking, perspective, even consciousness. I felt different. I was looking at the people and world around me just a little bit differently, with a little more peace and clarity and empathy. There was no need to suppress negative thoughts, because here’s the thing: They just weren’t there.
I was amazed. I could make a shift in my perspective, and indeed perhaps in my very soul, just by changing what I said? This was powerful and exciting. If I could feel this much change in the first few days, what indeed would happen to my life over three months?
And how about you?
I think step one to RECLAIMING THE POWER THAT IS RIGHTFULLY OURS is a perspective shift.
And why not start with gratitude?
xxxO, Dr. MLE | Beach Witch
P.S. Curious about the timing of these seemingly sporadic missives? It’s ASTROLOGICAL, babes—on every new moon, down to the hour and minute!
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