Our bodies need fruit.
Please do not fear fruit. Fruit is often labeled “sugary” & “too quickly burned.” But what is not often recognized is how very different fruit is from all other sugars. Fruit has a healing wholeness to it. It has fiber, astringent juices, antioxidants, minerals, & vitamins along with natural sugars. Fruit burns way less quickly than actual processed sugar because of all these other nutritious elements. And while it still does process through the system quickly, it is its divine design to do so. As a general food group, fruit is meant to reach the body’s needs quickly & efficiently. For someone with a body weakness (which is sadly most humans at this stage of existence), fruit eaten on its own can cause blood sugar highs & lows (& for a Diabetic, this would need to be worked with much more carefully than the average person). But this is not the fault of fruit or due to it being an unhealthy, too-sugary thing to eat. It is that the body has a weakness & how the fruit is being processed is simply highlighting it. A lot of times, a challenge to digest fruit properly can mean an adrenal-weakness, but there can be plenty of other reasons too; which is actually amazing because eating fruit in & of itself & noticing our digestion process can tell us some things about our overall health.
So what do we do if our body is sensitive to fruit? My advice is not to avoid fruit but do take it slowly, as slowly as we need to be comfortable while still including it in our life. Sticking with berries is a good place to begin, as they are less sweet than say a banana. We can work our way up to eating more of them & make sure to get greens in our daily diet to help support our body’s healing journey in processing properly.
What about eating fruit with fat or some other type of food in order to calm the blood sugar highs & lows? This is part of what can cause blood sugar challenges in the first place, because instead of the fruit sugar getting processed quickly as it was designed to do, it is now getting slowed down & stagnating in the body due to the fat or other food it’s being paired with which digests more slowly. When the fruit stagnates, as does any food or sugar that stagnates from not processing as it should, this is how acidity, dampness, & inflammation arise & ultimately create the conditions for disease. So I do not recommend that, though there are absolute times when an apple just tastes so good with sunflower seed butter. And so this is an important piece also! Food should be joy. Food should be pleasure. There are ways with food that can help a body to heal, but these ways should never be rigid or miserable or forced. And like I’ve always said, if there’s a mental challenge with food in any way (such as emotional eating or a past eating disorder), we will need to make extra space for a surrendering, free, joy-full connection with food as our first priority, and any healing ways will need to come second. And we must give ourselves full permission in this. Body healing is not just about the body! I am a complete believer in both healing ways & freedom with food, & know they can absolutely coexist in every way. There’s just lots of movement & flow to it & making room for our needs as nuanced, complex beings who can have all our needs met. Here’s to healing & here’s to freedom! And embracing the beautiful, healing gift of fruit (& berries & melons too) rather than fearing it & depriving ourselves of their necessary goodness for our well-being.
Home. With the birds singing in the forest. The frogs calling in the night. The deepest bright blue of sky. The Icelandic poppy a bright yellow sun outside my door.
I went to another land for a few weeks with my family & fell in love with it. I love getting to know this beautiful planet. I don’t forget that my human days experiencing it are numbered. I am 32 already. So it moves me deeply, usually to tears with its beauty. I already know how much I will miss Earth when Creator calls me & my body gives itself back to the land.
I saw wild buffalo. Rolling golden plains. Waterfalls & springs. I drank water that came from the ground & stepped upon sparkling forest paths of salmon pink dirt, sandstone, mica, & rose quartz. I saw mighty, full clouds skimming the wide earth, so close I almost felt them. I saw sprinkles of snow in the woods, bright & clear sunlight, a splash of rainbow in the distance, & heard thunder rolling. I felt the strong winds as they whirled across the prairie, bringing messages from far away of other places.
I loved & I laughed & I learned & I received the land & people. & it brought so much to me. More than I can share here in this moment, so I will write of the layers of experiencing Mni Khata {Hot springs}, South Dakota soon. One new practice that has become very strong in my heart after my time there is to begin calling places by their original given names. Our indigenous family lived on this land first. This is their homeland that they named & loved. I will call it as they call it, not as colonizers have named it in their attempts to erase whole peoples & their cultures. I have much learning to do to find & remember the original names of this land, but it makes my heart sing to strive for it. I am going to try & make a song of all the names, to root it into my being. I am hungry for new ways. Life-giving ways. I want healing & reclamation for all the people of earth.
One of the questions in my soul right now is * how can I support that?*
Thank you, Mni Khata, for touching my being with your beauty & goodness.
The wonders & loves of my week have been ~~
~ The waters of Mni Khata. Kidney Springs. Thank you, waters. You are our life. You are a gift. The water was like silk, full of minerals, & fortifying in a way I have not found before. I want water like this for everyone. Every one.
~ Coming home to warmth & light & spring in full bloom.
~ My friends. My glorious friends.
~ Seeing our loved ones again !!
~ My next steps in life ever so gently whispering to me. I am just beginning to hear them in my heart.
~ Birthday magic. May is the month of so many loved one’s birthdays & it makes spring so fun on top of nature’s tender unfoldment into leaf & flower.
~ Moccasin Springs in Mni Khata. What a gift to sink into the peace present there.
~ The clouds of Wyoming & South Dakota. Healthy, natural, full clouds. To see & feel them was a true gift in the skies we often see now which are manipulated through weather modification.
~ My essential oils which brought me a lot of fortification & support while traveling, which was a movement needing constant adjustment, energy, lightness, flexibility, creativity, & perseverance with three littles in tow & on my own. Thank you to Adaptiv {a calming blend for the nervous system}, Oregano & On Guard {cleansing oils for the skin challenges I faced while traveling}, & my favorite oil of all-time with so many different healing uses, Frankincense. Thank you also to the songs that came through me in the times when my little family & I needed beauty & gentleness through singing.
~ My children, always my children. They are each at developmental places in their evolvement which are so precious & I feel in awe of them & grateful every day. Being their mother is my favorite part of this life.
I am so grateful for life. May I use it for good, always good, & give love to everything & everyone that has given to me.
I am starting a new weekly rhythm here every week, where I share about the things I’m grateful for. Finding the beauty in things & really {{feeling}} it creates a loving & very healing energy. So much of our body’s health is woven into our internal being, our thoughts & feelings. Noticing beauty helps keep our minds & hearts open, which can create a healthy & clear circuit of well-being in our bodies.
This week in April ~
I love the road of flowering trees & the shimmering body of water I drive past every day.
I love that I walked in the forest today with someone I love, & it was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. The sweet, golden smell of sunlight on trees. The turquoise glow of river.
I love that I’ve finally found a way to drink medicinal teas that actually speaks to me ~ tea infusions. Take a handful of tea/herbs {I used nettle & red clover yesterday} & put it in a quart jar. Pour boiling water to the top & let sit for 4-8 hours. Strain out the plant material & drink. So simple & good, which is what I need.
I love that my very restless & grumpy baby is asleep right now & with his angels in dream time.
I love the healing journey I’m on of truth & compassion, together. They are the guiding lights of my life.
I love that my car is fixed now & I can drive safely again & listen to music & pray & be moved to tears by all the beautiful life I drive past & baby can nap more easily & there is a precious stillness that it all gives my day. Now if only I could figure out how to convert my car from running on gas to something healthier, it would really light up my heart.
I love the soft silver glow of the sky as the sun shines on another part of the earth & brings us night time.
I love that I get to visit a new land soon & hear it speak to me.
I love that I have very special friends who inspire me by how heartfelt they are. These friendships have been healing to experience in my life, a life where I love many, many people but truly befriend few.
I love experiencing the waking up of us all collectively. It is extremely painful & exquisitely precious.
I love crying & saying the words to myself that my heart so longs to hear in the moment. I love that I know how to be a safe, truly loving home for myself, & that it makes me more able to hold that loving home for others too, which is my greatest dream as mama, friend, daughter, family, lover, human, flawed being.
I love the idea that to receive without even asking is the most beautiful gift *and* to receive because we’ve asked is also the most beautiful gift. People are not mind-readers. This is a theme I’ve been working with intimately lately.
I love what someone I admire said recently :: they said we are valuable simply because we are life. Life is what is of value. & our ways of doing things as humans should be :: completely :: centered around tending to & caring about that. It is that simple. Life is fleeting & delicate & ever-changing. It is the most valuable treasure in God’s ever-expanding heart. Living as if money & power are more important than life is a grief I am continually doing healing work with for myself & the world. I am also loving that I am seeing many others who are feeling this same way & striving for new ways that hold life in reverence, rather than the dead ways that have lost their real sense & that we’ve been handed by an unconscious, wounded collective.
I love the sound of the frogs & crickets singing to the night world when I’m laying in bed.
My sleeping children. Safe, sweet, warm. {Added tonight as I write this & they lay preciously close.}
What ignites a sense of preciousness in your heart?
{{Note ~ this is last week's joy. Life has been so full & round. Another will be coming soon for this week's joys.}}
