Sweet Grass Medicine

and radical acceptance of the enneagram

Hello!

The weather is turning out to be a beautiful summery day, as I commit these words to the ether web. Not too hot… not too cold… just right. I’ve enjoyed my restorative yoga practice, reading in the sunshine soaking up my solar vitamins, and a guided meditation that ended with a small nap. I could live every day like this one!

This letter starts us off with our second chakra work. See all previous posts for our first chakra work. If you are just now joining us, take the time to go back through before proceeding forward. We are in each chakra for awhile, so no worries about ‘catching up.’ There is no such thing as falling behind in your own personal journey. Your soul timing will always be perfect for where you are in this moment.

The Call to Live Deeply

Sweetest Grass Roots Devotionals is about making a promise to devote time and give sacred space to our healing, our internal processes. I share my practice with you in hopes it inspires you to create your own. To show the way with words and images steeped within my subconscious tea brought to life on canvas, in songs, stories and spirit journeys. How to live more deeply within your awareness and connection of the microcosmic world, and in turn our macrocosmic universe.

I wish I could promise you that every letter I write will contain perfectly organized subjects with perfect grammar and punctuation that obviously connect the dots for you. This is a promise that I simply cannot make, although I do feel like my writings are taking on a beautiful shape.

What I can hope for… is to bring you along on my adventure into spirit, to show you how simple it can be, and to share in the beauty of my liminal spaces while you learn how to find your own… to make available sign posts, trail markers, bread crumbs and pin cushions in my digital creations.

I do not charge a monthly subscription (at this time) and hope that you will show your support by making a small monthly purchase in my digital creations store complete with instant download gratification.

Click the subscribe button below and pledge a future subscription amount or join for free (no pledge option), which allows me to see the statistical impact of my Sweetest Grass Roots Devotionals in the world.

Because I will not pretend to know your journey more than I know my own, I write within my experience as woman. Please change as needed for your experience on this journey… for such teachings apply to us all.

Grab a cup of tea, plate of scones and sit by the window listening to bird song while you read… for we are going on an adventure!

Love, Light & Shadows…

Isabella, Pups & Family

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Today's Weaving

I recently came back to the Enneagram personality test at the suggestion of a friend. I had found a book on it years ago at the library but never got very far into it. My brain wasn’t in the right place to absorb all that information. Too many things had gone wrong and I wasn’t ready.

I’ve spent the last 5+ years re-building my brain from the medulla oblongata all the way up. The ride has been insane to say the least, and I never thought this day would come. The day where the world is really starting to come back into focus, as I learn that I am a 4.

My world revolves around creativity and sacred spaces, art, music, emotions, healing and becoming. I’ve always known this. This was not a surprise. The unexpected came in learning that I am inherently sad.

I thought it was the traumas from my life, seeing death at a too-early age that just kept on coming with everyone around me seemingly dropping like flies. Or perhaps all the injuries and recoveries. That must have been what was making me so sad.

Thinking for sure, if I dug deep enough, worked hard enough —

I would uncover joy filled gems like white sapphire or fire opals in my center.

Like my birth gem stone, I am filled with deep pools of emerald green holding onto sadness, longing; reminiscing nostalgia.

Like my birth chart stone, I am filled with the glimmering magical light of the moonstone. Glowing ephemerally thin of silver light. Shining deeply into the valleys of shadow like something straight out of a fantasy novel.

As I discussed in my letter on Tending Grief (link), I was correct. My underlying sadness is the well of all my creativity, which is my soul’s paramount task. To create. To challenge. A trend setter. A navigator. A guide for the soul.

My liminal space is the twilight of perpetual grief in shades of lavender, blue, and grey set against the backdrop of deep dark forests with olive green, burnt sienna and black. It’s no wonder I’ve been drawn to the stories of Guadalupe, La Llorona, and the Washer Woman. That I feel such affinity with Keening Women, The Calleach and the transformation of Cerridwen’s Cauldron.

I feel like I’m on a perpetual quest for enlightenment in the effort to be lighter, to be light, so I can find joy or at least a happiness —  I do not genuinely possess at my core.

A guide post — La Loba in the desert, Baba Yaga in the deep dark forests of my ancestors — showing others the way out of a darkness I won’t ever be able to leave; that I will always carry with me.

I have tried so hard not to be sad. I’ve followed the spiritual maps of my ancestors and beyond, yet —

I am curious.

What will I do with all my energy if I am not trying to be happy?

Will I find myself in a place of contented sadness?

Will I spend more time actually painting and writing my Three Sisters’ Grove Storybook, if I’m not constantly lamenting my woes on paper?

Will I finally be able to relax into my day? My nights?

Healthy 4’s are supposed to have a brighter outlook but I’m still trying to discover if this is physical vs emotional health; probably both. Probably spiritually too. This light breaks through in moments like the sun on a cloudy day.

I question —

All the therapy I’ve spent money on —

Was it wasted? If I can’t get to joy? Or do I see it as part of the journey? To learn how to be able to tell the difference between contented sadness and traumatic dysfunction?

If I’m not worried about being happy — if I’m not all wrapped up in getting better — will I start to live life? Will I go on more adventures?

I’ve heard of the idea of Radical Acceptance where I am supposedly able to instantly accept how I am in any given moment, regardless.

Is this that? Resigning myself to feel fully? To sing my songs, paint my creations, pen my words and live my life within the core of sadness? Submerging myself in deep pools of emerald longing? Emerging to walk as a moonlit keening woman (or darker still a moonlit wraith)?

What purpose do I serve? Is it to hold sacred space for all who are grieving knowing full well that I can never leave the circle?

Is this why I love most the days when the mists travel down off the mountains to surround me? Poetry filled with my own essence of sadness, longing and just a smidge of hope for hope’s sake?

I thought I knew who I was before the injuries — before the illnesses — but did I?

I’ve always marveled at happy people. How do they sustain it? I guess its at their core. They are happy people because at the center they are shining light, egg yolk sunrises; they are filled with golden citrine.

I am the Moon — born on the waxing crescent deep in conversation on the Self, existential crises and transformation, while sharing brunch with Cancer. I’m sure some tarot cards and runes were involved too. Filled with moonstone and eerie blue moon light — perhaps a glimmer of a golden full moon on harvest night. Not as bright as daylight’s citrine —

but still —

A purpose after all. To service as a lantern in the dark.

What will happen when I finally embrace my emeralds and moonstones within? Instead of trying to be something I am not? Instead of painting over my luxurious and mysterious moonlight with a citrine-gold paint?

What happens when I embrace who I am fully — my light, my shadows, my kaleidoscope of myriad greys?

Is this why I like earl grey tea? Shades of forest browns and greens? Moss?

The burning vanilla of Sweet Grass?

Sweet Grass is my hope in the darkness — it lays bare my core — allows me to accept who I EM — soothes me and covers me in the sacred smoke of my ancestor’s love — allows me to hold Radical Acceptance of my Self and Compassionate Grace for my heart and soul.

Did you know? Sweet Grass only thrives when it is shared — pulled up by the roots to signal the remaining rhizomes to make more —

Perhaps, Sweet Grass is a 4 too — like me. Perhaps, I am simply Sweet Grass in human form.

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Simplify YOUR Practice

As you read this work, what percolated up from your subconscious? Emotions? Thoughts? Images? Does my work inspire you to create one of your own?

What is in YOUR Core?

Find your Enneagram here: Click here for the link to a free test online. What is in your core? How does it inspire you to live your life more fully? More authentically?

Take it one step further, choose an idea, word line, or entire phrasing from your Enneagram type (click here for link) and write down everything that comes up for you in a free-flow without censorship. Go back through and circle key words and phrases from your own writing. Is there a secret message hidden within your subconscious? Within your Soul?

Take it two steps further down the path, and continue to journal about how that secret message makes you feel. Do you agree with it? Disagree? Why? Do you have a friend who will welcome bouncing the ideas around so you may see a deeper well within your Self?

Accessing Spirit through Creation… Words, Artwork, Jewelry, DIY Rosary or Prayer Beads. Create a more physical practice through Yoga, Qi Gong, Tai Chi, Nature Walks and more! Pick one or two for your practice today and see what happens! Don’t forget to journal about it so your future self will have a road map on challenging days.

On days when you need extra help accessing Spirit, you can choose from one of my many inspiring digital creations in my online store:

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Today’s Resources

Line “…to make available sign posts, trail markers, bread crumbs and pin cushions in my digital creations” : Refers to all the different sign posts and trail markers that you might find in fairy tales and wisdom stories. Bread crumbs famously found in Hansel and Gretel, and following the pin cushion comes from my family’s deep dark forest roots across the ocean.

Poetry/Quotes: Unless otherwise stated, I wrote it :) IEM 2024

My Journal Entries: Dated June 30, 2024.

Sweet Grass information: Braiding Sweet Grass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

My Artwork & Photos: These are wonderful prints to include on your altar, bookshelf, dresser, taped to your bathroom mirror, paste into your journal (etc.), and/or printed as unique gifts for friends, family and students… as a reminder to Keep your Self Rooted so that YOU keep Growing Tall and Sweetly Flowering!

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What We’ve been up to

Starting to Re-Read:

Don Miguel Ruiz’s series on Toltec Shamanism

Still Actively Reading:

Eastern Body, Western Mind by Anodea Judith

Awakening Artemis by Vanessa Chakour

Wood Becomes Water by Gail Reichstein

Watching:

Grey's Anatomy, Season 20

Listening to:

Moya Brennan’s Show Me The Way & Loreena McKennitt’s The Mummer’s Dance.

General Life:

Keeping our heads and hearts on straight through the cascade of it all. Check out my Notes to see how the puppies are doing and other fun tidbits I managed to post!

Love, Light & Shadows,

Isabella, Pups & Family

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Thank YOU again for helping to support my Great Works!

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