Purification

Soul Food

“Be totally empty,
embrace the tranquility of peace.
Watch the workings of all creation,
observe how endings become beginnings.
All creatures in the universe
return to the point where they began.
Returning to the source is tranquility,
meaning submitting to what is and what is to be.”
~Tao Te Ching, Verse 16

This Week: Spring + Fall energy welcomes you to purify all aspects of your being. I invite you to explore the value of purifying your mind, body, heart, and soul.

As Inspired, take a moment to balance your inner landscape, creating space to nourish yourself while harmonizing your inner and outer worlds.

Questions:
What is the current quality of my thoughts, words, and actions?
What am I grasping for in my thoughts, words, and actions?
What aspect of self is ready to be purified?

Contemplation:

Are your thoughts clear or cluttered, your words kind or reactive, your actions aligned with your values? The Tao encourages a state of flow—observing without forcing—yet grasping, born of desire, fear, or control, disrupts this peace. What might you be holding onto that the verse urges you to release, returning you to tranquility? Purification, shedding old habits or beliefs, aligns with 'endings become beginnings,' hinting at a limiting mindset or emotional burden ready to transform.

Weekly Sol. Silence. Sound Sessions are an offering to assist you in diving deeper into a spiritual practice, exploring your inner landscape, and cultivating inner peace.

Time Stamps: Dharma 0:00 | Meditation 22:40 | Sound 48:30 | Outro 1:26:20

Heart + Mind Food

Anger | Purpose and Remedy: From a psycho-spiritual lens, anger exists to teach you how to be patient—finding and retaining your ever-present calm. The upward motion and surprising jolt offer an opportunity to practice humility. It’s a repetitive dance that doesn’t always have the same footwork or consistent tempo. Anger’s outcome, however, remains the same: hurling you back into the wheel of suffering. From a sassy Buddha lens, anger opens the gates of H-E-double-hockey-sticks, leaving you and others in one of the lowest emotional common-denominator states of being. Everyone is held in the sludge, with more toxins than high-vibrational frequencies to navigate any moment with equanimity. All involved suddenly find themselves captive to a disorienting frequency, best met with a pause—until you regain your presence and neutrality.

Anger has the power to impact many parts of your system, both internally and externally. It moves your Qi (energy) in an upward motion, literally disrupting your entire system. This electric charge grabs your attention and can pull you into a destructive loop, internally and externally. The disruption may last only a moment, yet the ripples continue beyond the explosion. Alternatively, you can harness this energy and transmute it for the benefit of yourself and others. Some days, this will be easier than others.

Internally and Externally: All emotions can injure your energy (Qi), affecting your body, mind, heart, and soul. Professionally and personally, this is why I focus on a psycho-spiritual approach to help others rebalance their entire system and return to well-being. Collectively, in most treatments and practices, humanity has become skilled at compartmentalizing every system that co-contributes to your well-being, creating dissonance in analysis, objective contemplation, and finding a clear pathway to rebalance. This compartmentalization creates blind spots. When you ignore the energetics and your soul’s eternal pathway in a healing and transformation process, any return to balance in mind, body, heart, and soul—perceptual healing—will be temporary. In Western and “modern” Eastern practices, the focus on symptoms, diagnoses (labels), prognoses, “doing” (taking something, shifting lifestyle habits, bypassing), and/or even facing death ensures you’ll keep running around the proverbial racetrack, potentially creating additional imbalances in mind, body, heart, or soul. Simultaneously, you’ll evade authentic psycho-spiritual balancing and transformation. When I step back and look at all aspects of an individual’s system, I can begin to map the deeper roots of their current state of affairs that led them here. Then, if they’re willing, I can guide them to a state of balance. This brings me back to the word patience—it will be required. Most of society is programmed to use a Band-Aid approach for symptom/prognosis treatment and proactive well-being. In Spring, your liver, coupled with anger, invites you to step out of the control loop and into a daily practice of retaining harmony, flow, and balance. This unique guidance comes from your eternal being—your soul—and is guided by your divine heart.

I wanted to share this excerpt I recently read because it beautifully illustrates the emotional call-and-response you can predictably experience at any moment in your daily life:

Wang Bing, the great commentator of the Suwen of the Tang Dynasty, discussing the phrase ‘anger dominates thought’, specifies: ‘When there is anger there is no thought, in the impetus of rage one forgets one’s misfortunes, and this is the victory (of anger over thought).’39 Famous clinicians used this relationship in the course of various procedures in their treatments. This type of therapy was particularly developed by Zhang Zihe: Sadness can treat anger: one must move the patient with sad, painful and bitter words; euphoria can treat sadness: one must entertain the patient with jokes, wisecracks, and practical jokes; fear can treat euphoria: one must frighten the patient with threatening words about death or bad luck; anger can treat thought: one must provoke the patient with insolent words; thought can treat fear: one must divert the patient’s attention towards another subject, so that he forgets the cause of his fear. […]

It’s really this simple: you can start tracking how your emotions play a significant role in your state of being and how each emotion can either balance or disrupt your ever-present calm. When you retain your true nature, the pathway to balancing your entire being becomes much clearer, more certain, and effortless.

If inspired, I encourage you to observe when your electromagnetic system starts to heat up—when you feel anger, frustration, irritation, aversion, and so forth. Then, create a pause (even if you didn’t catch yourself before erupting, do so afterward). During this “time-out,” self-reflect and turn into the emotion(s), noting where you feel restriction in your mental, emotional, and physical body. Hold this gently—just be with it. Next, ask the deepest depths of your being, “What do you need?” Let this question rest gently—just be with it. Keep repeating this process each time the emotion rises. In every moment, you’ll be practicing patience with yourself and, eventually, with others.

The outcome. You’ll find a deeper understanding of how to balance all your systems. Plus, you’ll learn to listen more deeply. Your ability to hear will lead you into smooth, graceful action in all seasons of your life.

Body Food

Your body is your sacred temple. It is the miraculous vehicle that houses your eternal being (aka your soul). Your entire journey into this form is filled with mystery, magic, and unexplainable phenomena that could take potentially perceptual lifetimes to fully understand. Fortunately, you can simply be present here to cultivate a deeper awareness of where you are and how you can honor your physical being. It literally acts as the relay switch between your inner being and the outside world. I find that when I create space to acknowledge the wonderment of my entire being, I’m more motivated to care for myself with a reverence, self love and sacredness that can get lost in the day-to-day shuffle.

If inspired, during these Spring/Fall months, practice patience by retaining your natural state of being—calm. The benefits of living from this state of awareness include stress reduction, emotional regulation, improved resilience, restful slumber, reduction of some or all physical imbalances, a positive outlook, rewiring of neural pathways, reconciling past actions, stronger relationships with self and others, deeper intimacy, healthier communication, and thoughtful decision-making.

All of this directly supports your overall well-being. Remember: if you treat your body like a sacred space, you will connect with the divinity that runs through you. It’s your choice. You are miraculous.

Mind You + Food

Lemon Rosemary Salmon

Prep Time: 5 mins | Cook Time: 10 mins | Total Time: 15 mins

Course: Main Course | Servings: 2

Ingredients

• 2 salmon fillets with skin (½ to ¾ lb = 340 g; ½ to ¾" thickness, skin on), *

• ¼ tsp kosher salt or Himalayan salt

• Freshly ground black pepper

• 1 Tbsp all-purpose flour

• 1-2 Tbsp organic olive oil

• 1-2 Tbsp unsalted butter

• 1-2 Tbsp sake (or Chinese rice wine or dry sherry)

• 1 lemon, sliced

• Rosemary sprigs

Seasonings

• 2 Tbsp rice vinegar (or Chinese rice wine or dry sherry)

• 2 Tbsp sake

• 1 Tbsp honey

• 3 Tbsp lemon juice

• Freshly cracked pepper and Himalayan salt

Instructions

1. Gather all the ingredients.

2. Combine the seasoning ingredients in a bowl and mix well until the honey is mostly dissolved. Rinse the salmon fillets and pat dry. Season both sides with kosher salt and black pepper.

3. Sprinkle ½ Tbsp of all-purpose flour on one side of the salmon and spread evenly. Flip over and sprinkle the remaining flour on the other side. Gently shake off any excess flour.

4. In a frying pan, heat the olive oil and melt the butter over medium heat. Don’t let the butter burn—if the pan gets too hot, reduce the heat or remove it from the heat temporarily.

5. Add the salmon fillets, skin side down (this will be the top when served). Cook for 3 minutes, or until the skin side is nicely browned, then flip. Add lemon slices and rosemary sprigs next to the salmon.

6. Pour in the sake and cover with a lid. Flip the lemon slices and rosemary. Steam the salmon for 3 minutes, or until cooked through. Remove the salmon to a plate.

7. Add the seasoning mixture to the pan and increase the heat slightly. When the sauce begins to boil, return the salmon to the pan and spoon the sauce over the fillets.

8. When the sauce thickens, turn off the heat. Transfer the salmon to plates and serve immediately.

Recipe Notes

All-Purpose Flour: Coating the fish with flour locks in flavors and juices. It also creates a crispy texture and helps the sauce adhere nicely.

*Vegetarian/Vegan Substation: Cauliflower, Lion’s Maine Mushroom or Cabbage Wedge. Substitute Butter with Sunflower Butter.

Serving Suggestion: Pair with steamed brown or white basmati rice and fresh greens (steamed or saute’ dandelions and fennel compliment this recipe).

Dandelion Tea + Greens

If you’re in an area where dandelion greens grow, this is your signal to nourish your liver. You can harvest these in the wild or in your yard; however, ensure the area hasn’t been sprayed with chemicals or impacted by animals. Always clean all parts of the plant thoroughly. Then, you can use them in salads, dishes, and/or teas/beverages.

Here’s a simple way to make a natural electrolyte drink:

1. In a large pot filled with 1 gallon of clean water, simmer 10-12 washed dandelion roots (cleaned beforehand and roughly chopped) for 3-4 hours.

2. Then, add a handful of dried hibiscus flowers. Steep while the water cools.

3. Drain the roots and flowers, and transfer the liquid into a glass container.

4. Add ¾ cup of freshly squeezed lemon juice, zest from half a lemon rind, and ½ to 1 cup of honey, to taste. Blend well.

5. You can drink this straight or mix it with fresh, clean water or coconut water.

6. This will last 2-3 days. It’s a great beverage to enjoy after a long workout, in the morning, or a few hours before bed.

To Be Noted: One size doesn’t fit all. If you’re on medications or other herbal supplements, consult your practitioner or send me a message to verify. Here are some contraindications: antacids, blood-thinning medications (anticoagulants and antiplatelets), diuretics, lithium, ciprofloxacin, and diabetes medications (since the root can lower blood sugar).

May each moment be filled with Blissful JOY, Peace and a lot of LAUGHTER. .sT