What moves the world?

Je Le Bouge:: I Move It

LOVE!

Love Moves the World.

I do not have diamonds outside of small earrings and my engagement ring and I have a beautiful strand of pearls which were gifted to me on my wedding day. I don’t even have a proper jewelry box. My jewelry box is, instead a few trays and bowls on top of my chest of drawers, full of beaded bracelets, malas and handmade by artisan earrings. I also have a freestanding wooden cross which holds my most special and meaning-filled necklaces.

It holds a raw sapphire and aquamarine from India and several talisman charms from Pyrrha. They each hold a special place in my heart and are worn when I need them. Sometimes stacked and stacked as I channel my inner Mr. T and a deep V-Neck t-shirt.

As we enter another week of distancing and the world shifts into a new way of moving day to day, I’m wearing this one: Love Moves the World. Because it does. We must press into and believe. As a collective people, we must!

When you order from Pyrrha each piece of jewelry comes with a card sharing its significance and meaning. (Also a handwritten thank you…my 1st love language.) The card from this one reads: ‘Je Le Bouge’ in French, which means, ‘I Move It.’ The image of a cherub moving the earth is the unstoppable power of love.

As it hangs from my neck, near my heart, know I’m believing in a LOVE which moves the world. A love which was given to each of us when we took our first breath. A love we can connect to at any moment we choose.

Pause ~ Feet on the Floor ~ Left hand on Heart ~ Breathe

Feel it? xx,

PS If I were to have a 2nd love language, I’m certain it would be a gifts toss up between Pyrrha and Le Creuset. Click HERE to check out Pyrrha. Maybe you will find something special too.

he asks for cookies

the making of comfort

“Mum, can you please make me cookies? The good kind,” he asked yesterday. When he asks me to bake cookies, I know his heart is heavy.

My heart is heavy too, baby and it hurts for you. First, a canceled game, then the season. The season where you’ve been named a captain and placed in a leadership role. School goes digital and your senior prom postponed. The email came about the venue for your graduation no longer being available, so they are looking for alternatives. After reading that news, you said to me, “I hope my flight can hold out for 24 more hours.” It didn’t. Senior year spring break trip, canceled for now.

Elliott, since you were a toddler, warm chocolate chip cookies have been a symbol of comfort. When you’d hear of school or mass shootings, you’d ask for cookies. When you learned about social injustices and people taking to the streets to protest, you’d ask. When you’ve suffered a teenage heartbreak, I’d make sure they were baked. They’ve been called “Turf Burn Cookies” and passed out after soccer games or “State Champ Cookies” eaten on the bus to play in the big game. I’ve greeted you after the first day of school with a plate for 12 years and am sure to mail them when you head to college next year. It’s your thing, our thing, these cookies.

I am uncertain how to parent in these present days, but I am certain of this: When you ask, I will bake. I love you and we will find a new way, but these will stay the same. I promise.

Recipe-ish for Elliott’s Cookies.:

Cream together: 2 Sticks of Salted Butter, 1 C Brown Sugar (or coconut sugar), 1/3 C Sugar in the Raw (or white cane sugar). As it blends, add a large splash of Vanilla (the real stuff, not imitation…ick!), a few shakes of Cinnamon & a pinch or 2 of salt. Crack 2 room temperature eggs into a dish (this way if you end up with a shell, it’s not in the dough) and add to the dough, as it continues to mix.

To the wet mixture add little by little: 2 C Unbleached Flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder and 1/2 C of something else ex: more flour, flax/chia meal, oats, potato chips, cereal…just something else to make sure the dough is thick enough. After that’s mixed, add lotsa chocolate chips. Say a prayer for the hearts who will eat them, for comfort and understanding and the goodgood. This is the most important part, so please don’t forget.

Chill the dough for a couple of hours. Preheat oven to 375, spoon extra large hunks of dough onto the cookie sheet and bake for 8-12 minutes (baking time depends on the size of the dough hunks), removing before they are fully baked. Allow to cool a few minutes on the cookie sheet. If you remove them too soon, placing them on the cooling rack, they will fall through. This isn’t a horrible thing - it means they are extra gooey. Enjoy with your loved one, savoring the conversation and moment. xx,

Physical Quarantine: thoughts & an opportunity

Each day we will do the Liz Gilbert shared 5-4-3-2-1 journal. List 5 things we see, 4 things we hear, 3 things we feel, 2 things we smell & 1 thing we taste. We will hang them on the wall & reread at the end.

In a physically distant, but heart connected conversation today (GER~USA) a dear one said to me these words: “The world is waking up.”

Yes she is, YES SHE IS!

Lovelies, we have been given an opportunity to rise with her, stay where we are or sink. What will you choose? I choose RISE!

My thoughts and feelings are many and they are scattered. I’m sharing a few of them from the first real day of COVID-19 family quarantine:

High School Homeschooling: I am not and was not a home schooling momma. I did remove my boys for a semester and we “unschooled” in Rwanda. The best teachers they had were freedom and boredom and Pops. My dad taught them about bats and they still remember his lessons. They were young and I believed it would (and did) lay a solid foundation of global & societal awareness and wanderlust. Today, the schools are closed for a minimum of 2 weeks and that makes me a homeschooling mum. I call it homeschooling-ish with the inability to aid them in learning about world history in the 1800’s and matrix in math. I don’t understand math and forgot the history. So, I serve them snacks.

Daily dos: I promised myself some things I would do each day during this time: asana, meditation, lotsa water, writing, reading and pressing into the spaces of discomfort. And letters; to write letters. Send me your addy and I’ll write you a note and post it. I stocked up on 3 things ~ peanut butter, Astragalus and stamps. Handwritten notes on letter pressed cards are my love language.

Deep conditioning & coaching: I do some of my best thinking in the shower. Today I used a deep conditioning treatment, making my thinking time extra long. During this time I asked myself how I can give back during the next 14 days. Do I livestream meditation and yoga? Do I offer reiki sessions at a distance? Do I host a Q & A about ____________ (enter something)? None of those felt right, and it must feel right.

Then it came to me. This is how I’m doing to give back — Free 30 minute holistic coaching sessions for 14 days starting today. I’m a certified holistic health coach, but many of my clients describe my work more along the lines of life coaching. (Working on the testimonials, I promise.) I will not set up a menu plan or exercise routine for you. Just not my jam. But, I will help you identify areas of your life which are out of balance and together we will craft a plan, with goals, to move you in the direction. The direction of a more holistically balanced way of living.

If you are interested, please send me an email (rebecca@rebeccanimrod.com) or a DM on Instagram. I am not committed to using Facebook as a platform for back and forth communication, so please know I won’t reply to comments. Let’s get something set up and move together in that direction.

xx,

a return to India

In search of part of my heart I left behind the winter of 1995 and on an adventure my travel partner/friend/most loyal client, I boarded a plane on Valentine’s Day 2019. My friend named this adventure to the east: Do Epic Shit.

XNA>DEL>GOI

We landed in Delhi, cleared immigration and headed to the lounge, waiting for our flight to Goa. The moment the small glass filled with masala tea touched my lips my heart was at ease. An ease I’d felt 24 years prior. What was it about this, Momma India, which spoke deeply to me? What was it about her which caused people to love her or hate her. Very few I’ve met who have encountered her have a middle of the road feeling about her.

She is a land of extremes. A land of chaos and peace. Fresh mountain air and toxic city air. High tech innovative businesses and no-tech mountain ashrams. I’ve often described her as a land where your senses are each on high alert, wrapped with a spiritual bow. A land of powerful generational energy. A land who will welcome you, should you accept her offerings. With an open heart, I accepted.

Much has happened in the 24 years since we met. I left the college which introduced us. I moved. I married. I had babies. I traveled to other parts of the world. I led others on these global experiences. I crafted dreams into reality through business ventures and volunteer opportunities. I achieved goals and set others aside. One thing remained, I longed to return. I needed to tell her in person: You changed me. This was my chance.

The days were filled with sunrises and sets on the Arabian sea, meditation, yoga and learning. Sitting with a local Ayruvedic healer, watching and learning and asking questions is an example of the daily gifts presented. There were sunbaths in between practices, tuktuk rides to neighboring villages and solo candlelit dinners as I watched the children and dogs play in the sand.. A bit of bargaining with the jewelry and trinket sellers on the beach, henna on my hands and feet, as I read books which had been stacked next to my bed for months. Yummy vegetarian meals and mediocre white wine, fish caught that morning and masala tea. Hundreds of cups of masala tea.

There was an ease to the days. A slow routine. An ebb and flow, like the sound of the sea. In the expected of the day, I knew not to. Not to expect. The removal of expectation was one of the biggest gifts.

I traveled with 2 women who were health coaching clients. One for the first half of the trip and another the second half. When they need a coaching session they’d ask and a few times I’d suggest a chat (with masala tea of course). I’d arrange drivers and tickets, sightseeing and run errands. In a way that was expected of me, but it felt different.

After a few weeks with my feet on her soil & sand, body immersed in her water, I knew I’d not found the part of my heart for which I’d returned. I’d board the plane leaving more of it behind.