Welcome to Wellness Weekly coming to you every Wednesday. This will be a weekly series, sort of like a Letter from the Editors that will rotate between Morgan, Lara and Luigi with the occasional guest. We’ll hold space on the Dirt to check-in on our Sixth Sense: the term we use to refer to our spirit, our intuition, our inner power. And because while we exist in the world alongside our other Five Senses, we’ll do a check-in of those, too.
Is it really going to be September NEXT WEEK?!?! I’m already seeing many of your beautiful children’s back to school photos and my youngest cousins are all teenagers now, life is moving quickly. There is so much happening around the world both good and tragic that it is hard to keep up and hard to know what to feel. I’m writing this from New York where I am spending some time with my mom. We just had a two week adventure in Martha’s Vineyard where we go together each year for some down time. It’s some much needed reconnecting time for us now that she lives in NY and I’m still in DC. We both had one foot still in the matrix this year, occasionally on calls and checking emails and just getting stuff done. This year was different, life is different, the whole world is different. The theme of this month is Adventure and you know we are not surface people here at Smudge so adventure is more than just trips and good times for us. Two of the ideas within this month of Adventure that really resonated with me was the adventure of getting comfortable with being uncomfortable and transformation & reaching potential. August has been a lot of stretching for me, I moved, took a much needed break, made a couple more pivots and had some interesting but dope therapy sessions. My two week trip definitely turned into a much needed beautiful adventure with friends. I woke up every morning to join the Polar bears exercise circle, a 75 year old Vineyard tradition on Inkwell beach. They started as a group of morning swimmers, rising to enjoy the water before they headed to work. A couple decades ago, they added the exercise circle for people who weren’t strong swimmers or couldn’t swim or just wanted to exercise in the morning. I started going each morning after I arrived (a couple days late cause moving sucks). The water is COLD until you dip down to your shoulders. Once you do that and start moving, it’s pretty magical and also a really great workout. A few days in, I was able to convince my mother to join me, at first kicking and screaming but eventually she started to love it as much as I do.
I was super excited that I got to enjoy the last day of the CC:DC Takeover-Inkwell Beach at Martha's Vineyard. In their own words - “In 2019, the Cannes Can: Diversity Collective was honored to host the FIRST beach activation of its kind created to specifically highlight and showcase the theme of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Inkwell Beach Cannes is a historical tribute to the infamous beach in Martha’s Vineyard (Cape Cod, USA). It is an activation to celebrate the contributions/perspectives of creative, media, marketing, entertainment, technology and communication fields from communities of color and underrepresented communities.” It was a magical day of dope conversations and meeting new people all thanks to the founder, Adrianne Smith. She put together some incredible programming and I can’t wait to see what they come up with for next year.
Overall this month I learned that adventures come in all shapes and sizes and it’s important to follow your adventures when they show up. I’m learning to flow with my adventures more and more each day and really enjoying where they are leading me.
Inspired By the 5 other Senses: Sight, Sound, Smell, Taste, and Touch
Sight: My happy place has a lot of wonderful things to see but two of my favorite things to see there are the water and the sky and the many places where they meet. I got to enjoy sunsets with friends over watermelon cocktails I made for everyone with lobster rolls, our feet buried in the sand.
Sound: I’ve been listening to a lot of music, especially now that Aaliyah is finally online (mixed feelings for the estate but excited for the legacy if that makes sense). I also love me some Lizzo and Cardi who have given me my new theme song, Rumors - I particularly like this refrain - “Spendin' all your time tryna break a woman down, Realer shit is goin' on, baby, take a look around, If you thought that I was ratchet with my ass hangin' out, Just wait until the summer when they let me out the house, bitch”. I’m still staying mostly inside and did a home test each week to ensure I’m not sick.
Smell: Sunscreen is one of those funny things I actually enjoy the smell of. I probably should be better about using it more cause I live for healthy glowing skin, and there is something about that smell that brings a flood of summer memories. My favorite brand is Black Girl Sunscreen Broad Spectrum - SPF 30 because it’s made for melanated skin like mine. Also lobster red is not a good color for me.
Taste: Definitely cannot imagine a trip to Martha’s Vineyard without enjoying some lobster, a few times if possible, but not too many cause I don’t want to eat myself into an allergy. A vineyard trip is also not complete without a visit to Backdoor donuts for their glazed donuts and apple fritters. Day or night, they are always tasty and one of the reasons why we squeeze with each polar bear crunch, to get the jelly out.
Touch: I’ve been getting back in touch with myself and adventuring in. I’ve been reading “The Little Book of Big Lies: A Journey into Inner Fitness” by Tina Linfford and am in a weekly inner fitness circle where we discuss the book and practices. It has been a really helpful process and I’m doing a LOT of processing but it’s much needed growth so I am flowing with it. Working out my inner muscles, a strengthening we could all use some of after the last 18+ months. A family member who is vaccinated recently got Covid, luckily they are recovering but this variant has me a bit on edge. Mask up and be safe!!
Looking to amplify your own power of Adventure? Smudge Wellness suggests the following:
The Girl on Fire ADVENTURE kit contains: Medium-sized raw sodalite crystal point, Adventure Spark Matches. Use the Adventure Spark Matches as inspiration to create your own adventure.
With cases rising, a health spell is on my mind. Each Health Spell comes in our reusable packaging and includes: A medium-sized Smokey Quartz crystal point, a travel-friendly Intuition crystal mix, a Selenite palm stone, a White Sage smudge stick, Adventure Spark Matches, Wooden Spoon Immunity Now tincture, and an orange spell candle.
The Deep Cleanse. Our heavy duty cleansing kit for the space within and around you, each item is curated to amp up your ability to reset and reflect.
