Hello

Here in the pacific northwest, winter can be pretty dark and dreary. It can be weeks between those fleeting sightings of the Sun.

In Nelson, I began to suspect that the main reason that locals spent time downhill skiing was so that they could get up above the cloud cover.

And in Vancouver, the winter months bring me many sales of my Bring Back the Sunshine tincture blend.

All this to say that we miss the Sun!

I made a short video this week so that I could share a different approach to feeling the warmth of the Sun - even when it's cloudy and grey.

Check it out. It may surprise you :) And I'd love to hear your feedback!

Also, you can find and subscribe to my youtube channel --> here

There are a handful of videos there now, but many more on the way. AND, I won't always be sending emails to highlight them.

May you find the Sun shining brightly throughout all areas of your life!

strength & wisdom.
garliq

PS. You can also follow me on FB --> here

Video Transcript

hi folks this is garliq with the living medicine project. i wanted to to make this little video for you because i had an insight this weekend.  So a little bit of backstory… just to fill you in, i'm just coming off a 14-day fast and as the culmination of that, on the full moon, i did a sacred fire.  i spent many hours staring into the fire and uh i mean, i did lots of things but to keep it relevant to what i'm wanting to share here uh i had a moment of of insight a little epiphany um and so you know a lot of people talk about connection uh as part of the the healing that's needed in the world and if you followed my work at all for the last uh few years then you'll know that it's it's really important to the work that i do and i've primarily con focus on connection with the plant world as a way to heal taking them as medicine connecting with them as beings and learning from them and i wanted to offer a different uh perspective today we're coming into the dark time of the year uh it's noticeably longer nights and shorter days right now we've got just about a month until winter solstice when that starts to turn around but we really won't notice that change until february so we've got a couple of months of darkness left and so i hope that this helps you know one of my most popular tincture uh remedies that i sell at this time of year is called bring back the sunshine especially here in the pacific northwest uh people are really craving the sun as soon as that permanent cloud cover sets in and it's here for for months and months and in that blend are three herbs that i consider to be the most connected and most imbued with the energy of the sun of course there's some there's some traditional uses and there's some medical reasons for it uh in terms of you know tracking the chemistry of those plants but really when i put that thing together it was about trying to get drops of sunlight into people to help recharge them in the dark time of the year and so what i want to share with you is is an invitation or a reminder i'm not sure where you're at with it to connect with actually the sunlight and so here's what what occurred to me while i was staring into the fire first thing that occurred to me was that the fire as i was watching the flames dance in front of me and watching the embers you know do their slow moving sort of wavy dance if you really if just as a side note when you watch embers in a fire you see the connection between fire and water because there are waves that just wash through that and it's really entrancing and very magical but in both cases that that light that is released that flame that is dancing around is actually a form of sunlight because what happens is the trees as we all know they breathe in carbon dioxide and they eat sunlight and so what happens is when they breathe in that carbon dioxide they actually break the carbon and the oxygen which is part of the reason they release oxygen for mammals to breathe but then they bind sunlight to that carbon we tend to call those carbohydrates and it becomes part of their form and when we light a fire it releases that sunlight but you might not have access to a fire you might not be able to light a fire every time you want to if you're in the city it's harder you might not have a fireplace a wood burning stove even if you do wood is is expensive in the city can be hard to find free wood but i wanted to point out that sort of the second realization that i had is that actually that same process is happening inside each of us every day and how that's happening is through digestion so when we eat plants whether they're fruits or vegetables or roots or any part of the plant when our body digests that it's actually breaking open those carbohydrates it's releasing that sun energy and then it's binding oxygen to it so that we breathe out carbon dioxide so all you really need to do is notice that warmth inside you you know maybe place your hands on your belly i've been doing this a lot lately just like feel the warmth that your body is creating and the vast majority of that is from digestion and the vast majority of that is actually sunlight right it's give you some time to ponder it and just chew on that maybe for the rest of the day and and notice how you feel as you connect with yourself feeling that sunlight inside you even when it's dark out even when you might feel a bit oppressed maybe especially when you might feel a bit oppressed by the darkness and the length of the night and that yearning for sun again to realize that it's inside of you can provide a great deal of resource and really ease the tensions in the body so i invite you to try that play with that uh give me some feedback uh post a comment on this just comment on my facebook page the living medicine project or just send me an email i would love to hear from you and see how this stuff is landing for you because i think this is a really it's a different it's a different take on things that not a lot of people are thinking about connecting with the sunlight that's inside of you can be very powerful so that's it for me today hope that's helpful for you and i will talk to you next time