the mini SNAKE | "there is something better than perfection"

a Soul SAUCE Workout feat. Herakut, Louise Glück, bell hooks, adrienne maree brown & the SNAKE!

the Enthusiastic Perfectionist Full Moon in Virgo

In celebration of this ENTHUSIASTIC PERFECTIONIST Full MOON in Virgo (After years of thinking I was a Virgo rising, and really leaning into that magic, I’ve just learned I am in fact a Leo rising—so now I understand there is something better than perfection…), I’m delighted to share the mini SNAKE: a SEVEN-minute Soul SAUCE workout GUARANTEED to SUPERCHARGE your day, giving you an INSTANT (physical, mental, emotional) UPLIFT.

This badass martial-arts-inspired workout will strengthen your core, build cardiovascular capacity, and leave you with the confidence to KICK ASS in the RING and at the WRITING DESK!

The MINI SNAKE features four of my favorite boxing/Muay Thai moves, and three of my favorite martial arts combos. All you need is yourself, SEVEN minutes, the space of yourself, and the desire to tap into your INNER FIGHTER.

Why the SNAKE?

The snake is an invitation to define your moral center—i.e. CORE.

The snake’s medicine is ancient, complex, and foundational—for both HEALING and HARM.

The snake’s secret is that multiple realities exist at once until the moment we choose, and your choice creates the reality to come.

You are, for example, STRONGER, FASTER, more BEAUTIFUL, more POWERFUL, and more CREATIVE than you think you are.

Build that CONFIDENCE in the ring, and take it back to your professional/creative endeavors. It’s a delicious, enlivening feeling!

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& what about perfection?

Honestly, ya’ll, I was raised to be a people pleaser and a perfectionist, so while I want to believe there is something better than perfection, I am still struggling with my epigenetics/childhood trauma/fucked-up sense of self worth. And at best I can offer a detour into the wisdom of artists'/makers/thinkers/humans who inspire me to act in my integrity whenever I come to that crossroads (still) (again).

On Perfectionism: Herakut, bell hooks, Louise Glück + adrienne maree brown

I first encountered the phrase “there is something better than perfection” via a mural by German-street-artist duo Herakut.

In All About Love, bell hooks recalls her revelation with perfection, stating:

For some time I thought of this word only in relation to being without fault or defect. Taught to believe that this understanding of what it means to be perfect was always out of human reach, that we were, of necessity, essentially human because we were not perfect but were always bound to the mystery of the body, by our limitations… That is until I looked for a deeper, more complex understanding of the word ‘perfect’ and found a definition emphasizing the will to “refine.”

And then there’s the inimitable Louise Glück, who won the Pulitzer Prize for “her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal,” who, like me, was a precocious and perfectionist anorexic, nearly starving herself to death just after she hit puberty.

In “Dedication to Hunger,” from the poetic sequence “Descending Figure,” Glück writes:

It begins quietly

in certain female children:

the fear of death, taking as its form

dedication to hunger,

because a woman’s body

is a grave; it will accept

anything. I remember

lying in bed at night

touching the soft, digressive breasts,

touching, at fifteen,

the interfering flesh

that I would sacrifice

until the limbs were free

of blossom and subterfuge: I felt

what I feel now, aligning these words—

it is the same need to perfect,

of which death is the mere byproduct.

And then there’s emergent strategist and science fiction author adrienne maree brown’s “a word for white people, in two parts”

i am blessed by the anti-racist white people in my inner friend circle. instead of perfection, these friends are committed to practice, to asking questions and really listening to the answers, to doing their own work and not putting it on me, to releasing rigid control and seeing that that there are many ways to be productive and efficient, to growing ease in taking leadership from black people, from people of color. and then diving in deep with other white people. and decentering themselves in their fields. and fucking up, and then letting it grow them rather than make them performative or bitter.

In “maybe happiness,” adrienne continues:

also, i am a virgo. scorpio moon. i pay attention, i look for the inconsistencies, i can see the worst case scenarios fanned out before me, a million lonely paths. since i was young, i have been drawn to what i thought of as “real life”, the hard stuff; the addictions, heartbreaks, and the places where humans were failing at perfection.

i have had to learn to cultivate joy, to generate and extend trust, to be still, to focus my attention on what brings me ease, to give myself permission to experience beauty and love. that shouldn’t be past tense, as it’s all daily practice. i am learning. i am learning that being happy is, at least initially, not about external circumstances, but about internal perspective and attention liberation.

Cosmic Curveballs & Dropped Mics

Which brings me full circle to Cosmic Curveballs & Dropped Mics | a Soul FLOSS Ritual for injecting healthy doses of LOVE, LOVE, LOVE into our daily lives via the alchemical magic of the snake, the Tarot’s Magician, and bell hooks.

Love is revolutionary, ya’ll! And an antidote to people pleasing and perfectionism!

xxxO, Dr.  MLE | Beach Witch

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