Movement. Mala. Meditation. Roll out your yoga mat on the beach and let Wendy Billie & Mother Nature serve as your guides as you move your body, mind, & soul to awaken and harmonize the 2nd (sacral) chakra & the 5th (throat) chakra energy portals.  These powerful spiraling energetic forces within you will help ignite your creative essence as you then design a unique gemstone mala.

I remember always being a seeker.
From the moment of sitting in the sandbox, digging and digging, hoping to uncover some magical find yet not realizing in my child like ways that mom and dad had just poured the sand inside a box.

Dancing from one thing to the next.

Mow the yard.  Get my walk in. Clean the kitchen. Write a blog post.  Weed-wack around the trees.  Promote the Women’s Awakening Festival.  Drink some water.  Teach a yoga class.  Clean the bathroom.  Did I eat lunch?  Sneak in a few pages of reading.  Hop on the kayak.  Return client texts.  Sneak in dinner.  Return client emails.  Ahhh…I could go on and on.  For this redhead (and I am sure you too) are hard to slow down during the season of fire.

As 2017 begins, I have felt drawn towards the beauty of:
power & peace.
action & stillness.
speaking & silence.
The yin & yang of life. 
And these words cross my path “Silence is not silent.  Silence speaks. It speaks most eloquently. Silence is not still.  Silence leads. It leads most perfectly”. ~ Sri Chinmoy
Most perfectly indeed.  We are not one without the other.
In wholeness,
Wendy

She crawled out of bed and made the conscious choice to nurture herself.  Making her way into the living room, as the rising sun shined his glory on her, she slowly began to move her body.  Her breathing was her best friend as she flowed into movements of twists, bends, and extensions.  She knew each shape her body took had a name but in that moment labels were far from her thoughts; she was in the moment to just be.

For days (maybe even weeks), her thoughts had returned to questions that all of her outward searching could not answer.   She was ready to awaken the intuitive nature of her soul’s wisdom ~ for there is where she knew clarity would come.  As her body and breath began to slow into a state of rest, she found herself seated ~ unable to move.  She would soon begin to realize that she had tapped into an ancient secret of the yogis from India; meditation.  It was in that moment she began to ask the questions that burdened her mind.  And then ~ she sat in stillness ~ ready to receive.

Yoga prepares you for meditation.

Over 5000 years ago, yoga was created to prepare the body to sit for long periods of time.  It was an energetic tool to help you meditate.  For in times of meditation, we shed the stresses that our mind has trouble letting go of and we allow ourselves to wake up to the beauty within and all around.

Mediation prepared me for You.

Not long ago, I was sitting on mother earth in my tipi.  I had received a message that I was to lead a Women’s Awakening Festival and while I knew that was truth; I didn’t know where to start and surely google would not give me the answers I sought, so I turned to meditation.  I asked my inner knowing, my state of pure awareness or consciousness, to merge with the wisdom of nature all around.  It was in that moment I began to feel a spark through the core of my being and I was able to envision a festival to help women heal; heal as they shed the old labels of who they were told to be and choose a new look of authenticity.

Within those visions, I saw hundreds of women gathered around a stage, I heard lovely music and laughter, I saw women creating art, movement, and meditating, and I felt vibration of loving support all around as I saw nature grinning.

Women’s Awakening Festival prepares you for You.

​On Saturday, Aug 20th, my meditative vision is coming to life!  Women are gathering at Ottertail Lake to raise their vibration as they ignite their intuitive strength and beauty.  Along with the guidance of holistic healers & artists from Minnesota to North Dakota to Iowa, each woman will begin to step onto a path that is uniquely theirs.  Are you ready to Celebrate YOU?  Join the tribe at wendybillie.com

I am dating a recovering adrenaline junky.  Well, maybe he isn’t in full recovery as he screams down the street in any fast car he can get his hands on but he has stopped shirtless motorcycle wheelies. Baby steps.

Is driving fast a big deal?  Heck no as my mini cooper corners like she is on rails.  But when we surround ourselves with incessant intensity (& noise) that is what we are nurturing inside as well.  Because…

Everything is energy.

Our precious aura’s pick up on everything.  And then we wonder why we can’t slow down the monkey mind or get rid of the anxiety.  Re-insert the boyfriend who says he would never be able to meditate because his mind goes non-stop.   Ahh…the immediate gratification & instant results society we live in.  Meditation takes a slow dedicated practice (probably the same as he needed to learn to hold a motorcycle wheelie for 2 city blocks).  If he only knew how I was picking on him…sshhhh.
Let’s take this one step deeper and hop off the pavement onto a different path; a spiritual path.  If you are on one, do you wonder why you aren’t receiving the intuitive wisdom to help you make decisions everyday that are in your highest and best purpose?

Your inner knowing and your spiritual posey are ALWAYS there waiting for you to slow down and listen.

​Slowing down for you may mean sipping a cup of tea as you silently watch the lake freeze over, or cultivating inner stillness on your meditation cushion, or melting onto your mat in a yoga class…whatever speaks to you…just be sure to…give it a second.
Enjoy my all time favorite Louis CK interviews as he hilariously brings the point home.

Until our paths cross again…wrapping you in love & light,
Wendy

As I walked along the wooded trails of The Christine Center in Wisconsin, I knew I had stepped into a magical wonder.   Acorns were audibly falling all around, little creatures were dashing amongst the fallen leaves, birds were calling and I felt compelled to sit and absorb the palpable energy surrounding me.  Of course, a wooded bench appeared before my eyes just as I had cast the desire into the air.  I sat and found inner stillness.  I was in a state of connectedness with my nature family.  I began to drum.  The beats came from a deep indigenous knowing and the drum’s vibrations fell in tune with All.

I became one with the whispers through the trees.

Feeling compelled to continue my trodden journey I ‘thought’ that the trail to the right looked inviting yet I was ‘intuitively’ drawn to the more rustic trail to the left.  The trail started with crackling leaves beneath my feet and the terrain quickly shifted to a muddy earth.  I was sinking into the now and felt the inner stillness return to me.  At that moment, I looked up and saw a deer staring at me with a curious wonderment.  We locked eyes and I then noticed two young deer near her.  The stillness permeated them as well and we shared a hidden language understood by all because:

Fear was not invited to the conversation.

I left my new friends and took the experience into my dreams that night.

Waking before sunrise the next day, I again headed to the woods.  The darkness was calming and soon the rising sun would help light my way.  I easily & quickly sunk into the peace of inner stillness and I felt pulled to look up.   There stood the deer family waiting for me.  They had something to share and in that moment so did I.  I felt a mantra fill my heartfelt thoughts “We are One. We are One.”  The deer heard my collective calling and with an understanding moved closer to me.  I kept the mantra repeating silently “We are One. We are One.”  Soon they were within 5 feet of me.
​
Momma deer stomped her hoof into the ground ~ “We live here.  You live here.  We live in peace. We are One.”

After several more minutes together, I said good-bye and ventured into the chapel for early morning meditation.  We were soon closing the ritualistic time together and the Sister leading the group asked everyone to form a circle.  As we all hugged each other, the words that rang from the Sister’s mouth “We are One.”

Until our paths cross again my friends,
Wendy

Do you know how to relax? I mean really relax. Shutting it ALL off and letting the worries, fears, and doubts completely leave the building.
If you are reading this, I am sure you are on the path (or are very interested) in bringing the path of relaxation into your life. And kudos to you because it is a really BIG deal to bring utter serenity into moments of your day because if you don’t … well let’s just say the brain takes major ‘blows’ when we keep it in perpetual analyze & do mode.
A quick overview of the brain:
Left side is the control master of analytical reasoning & is very reality based.
Right side of the brain is master of creativity ~ the place of imagination, dreams, & intuition.


Ok, I said quick overview so now onto how easily we can destroy our precious brain with only our thoughts.
When we dive into the old song and dance of negative thoughts perpetuated by imagining the worst case scenarios happening in our life; worries, fears, and doubts shut down part of our brain. In essence, we lose our awareness or consciousness. Hmmm–do you ever find yourself saying “I can’t remember this or that?” Well, maybe you are shutting down the old thinker by worrying too much. Just a thought – pun intended.
Well, I wish a poor memory was the only brainy thing that could go wrong. But, because our body steps up and produces oober amounts of cortisol with all our negative thoughts we can actually ‘blow up’ neurons. Yes, our sweet body thinks we are in distress and thus steps up to the plate and makes cortisol to combat the stress. Excess cortisol is the killer.
Your Brain on Stress.
I watched a video demonstrating the destruction of our precious brain cells due to high levels of cortisol (sorry video wasn’t available for upload) but let me describe what went down. Envision a mass of neurons and their dangling arms of synapses lit up like Christmas trees (similar to our cool braintree picture above). Looks all pretty and then…bam…or kaboom is better to capture the moment. A neuron exploded. Gone forever!
Maybe you remember the old commercial scaring us away from using drugs “this is your brain on drugs”.


This may need a little edit to include ” this is your brain on stress”.
Never fear.  Put the frying pan away.
Yoga Brain to the rescue!
Go ahead and insert a new visual. It is the end of yoga class and you feel completely relaxed. You slide into the bliss of savasana (the pose of complete relaxation) and your happy brain takes over. It starts to activate parts of your brain ~ igniting creativity & dreams, & fantasies; igniting our intuitive nature.   This happens because instead of stress protecting cortisol being produced our bodies begin to release dopamine; our pleasure neurochemicals. ahhh….
You may think that based on your busy life that you need to have the left analytical side of your brain on high 24/7. But, introducing relaxation will activate the “right” and help you make decisions using the wisdom of your intuition.  And this is why I highly recommend that you wait to balance the checkbook for at least 20 minutes after yoga class. Let the fantasies and daydreams guide you and enjoy the sweet bliss of Yoga Brain.
Until our paths cross again,
Wendy Billie