honoring the energies of July

+ moodboard, playlist, book recommendations, June favorites

I’m beginning to write this on July 4th at an early hour from a small patch of sunlight next to my garden, which badly needs to be weeded, with incense lit to keep the mosquitoes away. Jolene, my dog, is running wild through the bushes chasing the scent of chipmunks. My feet and legs are covered in poison ivy, my back in bug bites, and I know that means I’m entering into summer the right way.

July holds the energy of fire, play, sleepiness from the sun. We mirror the intensity and fullness of summer. The hot pink sun rises as I drive through the hazy valley on my way to work each morning, and falls so late that the days feel like they stretch on forever. Humidity weighs heavy in the air, on the skin. Everyone walks around alive and taking everything in, like someone experiencing summer for the first time. The world is filled with desire, the earth bursting with life. Inspiration falls from the sky to meet you whenever you ask for it. Laziness pulls you in, wildness brings you out. There is no balance in July. July is wild, free, impulsive. Dreams show themselves more. Manifestation is easiest. Everything happens faster. In the summer we enter soul territory. An illusion is lifted and we can see layers of the world. We dive into depths, we float on the rivers of our own being.

July is not for self help books. They can only get you so far: a practical manual, step by step as if it is a guide to putting together Ikea furniture. There is a passion that comes with summer that leaves us craving more, wanting depth and story. So what helps the romantics? The dreamers? We get swallowed by the diaries of past women, by poetry, by myth. We integrate lessons taught through something beautiful, left up to our own interpretation and connection. We see ourselves mirrored back in something written by someone who existed before us, our lifetimes only briefly overlapping, if at all. I read Anais Nin, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Mary Oliver, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Frida Kahlo. They have something to teach with their stories, their myths, their confessions.

from The Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. One

Right now there is a universal and internal breaking down of what we know. We are being pushed to extremes in different ways, testing us and asking us to offer some space in between to let it all exist and fall apart (or fall together). There is a call to be as present as possible. To not push anything away and let the intensity of feeling take you deeper into yourself while expanding to meet the world. Befriend a journal and crack yourself open, then go dancing. Everything is intensely wild. Move with it.

This month I am:

• Leaning into my love for Anais Nin. I have always been inspired by her passion, her ability to always see and love the intricacies of life, of the seemingly mundane moment. She turns everything into romance. For a decade, I have loved her diaries and have felt so connected to this woman who lived before me, so many pages underlined and marked with pressed flowers. The feelings in my heart being written in another’s journal is a gift. You, too, are not alone in this feeling, this desire, this ache. You may find yourself in her pages, too.

• Selling the clothes I used to love, but no longer wear and casting loving wishes onto them for the recipients. A prayer for passion and presence and love. I am a true Taurus and love my objects, my bed, my dresses, my sentimentality. I hold on to anything that I once wore on a night I had fun, or a date with someone I loved. Each object holds memory and emotion. It has become time to let some of them go and offer them a new life.

• Painting my nails Big Apple red. Wearing white skirts and vintage dresses I’ve collected. Getting coffee in my platform heels. Keeping my hair in braids. Letting myself get freckled. Wearing big hoops or no jewelry at all.

• Spending more time doing nothing. It is so easy to distract and numb my way through my free time when life is feeling intense, when there is so much chaos in the world. It is important to be with myself and not create a fracture in my soul too big to jump over. I lay in the sun and do nothing but close my eyes and eat fruit. Be a witness to the subtle life happening around me. Leave my phone in the house. Turn it on DND at 8pm. Give myself room to breathe, feel, think, witness.

• Dating myself. The healing process that comes after a very serious relationship is not one I want to miss or numb through. I want to move with life honoring my feelings and getting to know myself outside of a romantic connection for the first time in a long time. I hold all of my feelings in my hands. I let it all be true. I am learning to love my solitude again. I let the loneliness come and the peace come and the sadness come and the joy come. I feel everything and follow my intuition. I am in a committed relationship with myself. I trust that everything is unfolding as it should and while the path ahead of me is unclear, it is the right path because it is the one I am on. So I take myself out for matcha in the mornings and write in my journal for 3 hours. I cook dinner and sit on the porch. I walk with my dog. I sit and watch the fireflies. I drink wine. I go out with friends. I allow space. And it is all new.

books to read:
1. anais nin’s diaries
2. the great cosmic mother by monica sjoo & barbara mor
3. the secret history by donna tartt

songs to listen to:
1. ride — lana del rey
2. roman d’mour — alastair lane, sarah degny
3. fear when you fly — cleo sol
4. feel your weight — rhyse, poolside
5. back, baby — jessica pratt
6. cherish the day — sade
7. zebra — beach house
8. going to california — led zeppelin
9. mariella — khruangbin, leon bridges
10. alive and dying (waving, smiling) — angel olsen

moodboard:

June favorites:
my grandmother’s white cotton skirt with embroidered details. vajrayana diamond light healing meditations. watching the cherry tomatoes grow. kitten heels or bare feet. nasturtiums. red blush. watermelon juice. palo santo. journaling every day. cafe tables on the sidewalks. strawberry matcha. drunk laughter. vetiver perfume oil. wild rabbits.

xx,
Emery