The essence of Grace and the Wind is how circadian, seasonal, lunar and tidal rhythms express themselves emotionally and metaphorically in our lives.

CIRCADIAN

Physiology and behaviour over a 24-hour period
that encourages congruency and alignment.

OUR HEARTBEAT IS THE VERY EXPRESSION OF LOVE

Our mother’s heartbeat first comforted us, and regularly connecting with the soothing rhythm of our own heartbeat, induces a state of calm. Just as the sun completes its own rotation of rising and setting, it reminds us of the sacred rotation of our own breath and heartbeat.

* Your heartbeat is the original beat. How do you connect to this inner drummer? And can you march to the beat of your own drum?
* How do you express gratitude? To yourself? Others? Planet Earth?
* What is your heart telling you right now? And can you listen?

EVERY BREATH IS AN INFUSION OF LIFE

The rhythmic presence of our breath brings us to present moment awareness. We limit our grace by not honouring the very thing that sustains us.

* What’s your default breathing pattern? Shallow? Deep? Pause. And take three, long diaphragmatic breaths now.
* We are nature – what we breathe out affects the world around us. Can you breathe in a flower’s life force, and in return, breathe life back into the flower by acknowledging its beauty?
* What do you currently need to breathe new life into? Your daily routine? A community project? Can you be a breath of fresh air to others?

INTEGRATING THE LIGHT/DARK CYCLE

We find peace in the grandeur of the rising and setting sun by grounding ourselves in its recurrence and flawlessness. The sun never struggles to rise or set, it does so effortlessly and with great ease. It’s a reminder for us to go about our day just as fluidly.

* These 24 hours will never come again, and the sun’s exultant path across the sky, is a reminder of each day’s uniqueness. How can you consciously open and close each day?
* How much presence can you bring to the cycles of waking, bathing, eating, drinking and sleeping?
* How can you attune yourself with the signals of nature to expand your awareness?

MINDFULNESS MATTERS

The personality feeds off distraction so mindfulness is a skill that must be practiced. Attention can’t multitask – constant partial attention can’t feed our true selves.

* Often our two biggest triggers are feeling overwhelmed or tired. What triggers push you into autopilot? How do you acknowledge the triggers and move to higher ground?
* How do you disconnect from the moment? What are the warning signs that you've "left the building?"
* Where have you scattered your energies too thin? What project deserves your full and undivided attention?

BEING CONGRUENT

Can your thoughts, emotions and actions function as one truth? They can, when you embody and express your authentic nature, as you're not trying to be anything other than who you are.

* Are your actions congruent with your belief systems? Where are you out of alignment?
* Are you living congruent to an internalised sense of your true value? Or are you looking
to attain value in externalised ways?
* Rituals help ground us and encourage congruency. What rituals of rest and restoration can anchor you today?

SEASONAL

Subdivisions of the year with noticeable changes in weather,
ecology and light, which invite acceptance and greater presence.

LIVING IN THE NOW

Treating the present moment as an obstacle we separate ourselves from our vital life force. Don’t wish past moments to be different, nor place terms and expectations on how future moments should appear, instead, can you bring your attention to be right here, right now.

* How do you take yourself out of present time? What causes you to time warp yourself?
* What are you trying to capture that’s ephemeral, and by doing so, diminishing its beauty and imprisoning its legacy?
* How can you embrace the metaphoric and emotional qualities of the season right now?

ACCEPTANCE OF WHAT IS

Whether it’s blooming, flourishing, withering or dying, each element of nature’s cycles contains expanding perfection. Spring: new birth, Summer: strength, Autumn: glorious decline, Winter: death. Not all aspects of us are simultaneously coming into flower. And that’s okay. Life isn’t what we wish it to be, it is what it is.

* What aren’t you accepting, or allowing, in your life at the moment?
* What’s currently maturing inside you? What’s decaying? What’s been left fallow?
* What creative energies are uncultivated? Which are ripening?

EMBRACING THE WHEEL OF TIME

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” – Ecclesiastes 3:1

* What are you building up that really needs breaking down?
* Was there a season of life you rushed through? Have you ever awakened just in time, so as not to regret a season passing?
* Where are you trying to outpace what hasn’t blossomed yet? Can you be the space for inspiration to bloom in its own time, without you stamping your personal agenda on it? Can you be okay with the vagueness of the unknown - the dark, fertile void?

CREATING ORGANICALLY

It’s a different struggle when we’re birthing a new idea into being when we’re in reverence of the invisible, as it’s a process we allow ‘let happen’ rather than use brute force and ‘make happen.’

* Can you catch the possibility of an idea not yet born to fruition? How would you shepherd it into the light of day?
* Is there an idea you have that still needs gestating? Where has the world not caught up to what you want to birth?
* What parts of your life need pruning and decluttering? Can you see what your clutter costs you? (in your space and mind)

THE JOY OF EATING SEASONALLY

When we pay attention to the shape, smell, texture and taste of seasonal food it’s an invitation to become one with the seasons - via these temporary, sensorial, palate pleasures - as they fleetingly make their way through us.

* How can you more deeply connect to the land to feel, and appreciate, the abundance of the earth?
* How do you celebrate seasonal food? Which seasonal eating rituals sustain you the most?
* What’s currently nourishing you? What’s depleting you? How can you create an ecosystem of support during this season?

LUNAR

Distinct phases of waxing and waning within an unchanging cycle
that inspires reflection and appropriate phasing and pacing.

BEING THE WITNESS

Experiencing ourselves as the witness, the one who notices, can calm the thoughts racing around our mind and help us rest in a greater universal presence.

* We talk about the weather everyday, but how do you experience the moon's influence?
* Your relationships, work, creativity and health are always in cycles of waxing and waning. Where are you in the cycle of expansion and contraction, building and dissolving?
* Can you be a neutral observer to your thoughts? Your emotions? Your breath? Can you witness without judging?

LIFE AS A REFLECTION

We often get trapped thinking a mirror holds the power to influence how we feel. But we decide the reflection, not the mirror. New attitudes and ways of being come when we recognise that the internal and external are in symbiotic relationship.

* Where do you need to rise above your circumstances and view the lay of the land from the expanse of the sky?
* Can all the mental stress inside you compare to the beauty of the moon and stars? Can your frustrations match the resplendent vastness of the night sky?
* What situation currently requires you to reflect your wholeness and inborn luminosity?

HONOURING EACH PHASE

The moon is an anchor, in timing and in our emotional lives, teaching us to not get overly attached to a particular phase, as another will soon appear. Be present to the energetic experience of each phase of time, as the quality we bring to this moment, determines the features and attributes of the next.

* With a creative endeavour, which phase are you now in? (birthing fresh ideas, building your strength, working on any imbalances in your undertaking, digesting the learning)
* Are you trying to skip a phase? What parts of the process are you rejecting?
* What’s the bridge to the next phase of your life?

AT WHAT PACE?

Being with the individual pace of each process we undertake (like the moon's phases), we stop placing more value on clock time, and instead, connect to time through sensation. We get out of this paradigm where only sprint and rest exist; where we live life in only two gears – stop or go.

* What’s your default tempo? Is it internally or externally dictated?
* How can you live in accordance with your own inner rhythm?
* How do you match your pace with the activities you undertake? Imagine yourself as a bike with different gears and ask which gear is best to engage each of the tasks in front of you.

THE BEAUTY OF HOLISM

Observe the interconnectedness of all things, rather than viewing the separate parts in dissociation. There is no meaning in isolation, only in relationship to everything else (people and planet).

* What are you compartmentalising and viewing as separate? And what are you excluding? Can you honour life’s web of intersecting influences?
* Where do you feel fragmented? And how can you feel whole?
* What open energy loops are bleeding you dry? And can you gently close a loop that's been pulling at your attention to complete?

TIDAL

The periodic rise and fall of large bodies of water,
which promotes a state of effortlessness and flow.

GOING BEYOND THE MIND

It’s the still gap between our thoughts where true originality and creativity exists. It’s not about shutting off our thoughts, but rather letting the space shine through.

* Can you observe without the need to judge or label something? Is there a story about yourself – or life – that you need to drop?
* How can you concentrate on your love of humanity, instead of thoughts around your perceived individual failings?
* Can you witness the harmonious percussion of life? And exist as both the incoming and outgoing of wisdom?

RIDING EMOTIONAL WAVES

Waves transform with ease and grace. And emotional sustenance comes from within, not without. When we allow the waves of our moods to fully express themselves in whatever form they take, each emotion will naturally come to pass.

* The body's language is sensation. Can you sense your body's emotional landscape in this moment?
* Is there an emotion you keep stuffing down and not letting pass through you?
* Rhythms are how you navigate the forces of energy and the flow of your life. How are you currently reading (and riding) the waves in yourself? And in the collective?

LIFE AS ONE CONTINUOUS EBB AND FLOW

Life’s not static. It’s transitional. We’re continually adjusting, fluctuating, tinkering and oscillating. Be the rhythmic nature of life itself by remembering the constantly changing equilibrium at play.

* What in your life feels more like a stagnant lake, instead of the fluid state of a river? Where are you resisting the undulating journey? Are you rejecting the constancy in change?
* In your life what is currently ebbing away? (an emotion or quality) And what is flowing?
* How do you ride the waves of your moods? Can you allow their rolling and breaking form to exist with the same grace as the ocean does?

EFFORTLESS LIVING

Allow your present reality to flow through you without mental struggle or resistance. By observing the direction a stream of water takes, we’re better able to surrender to its flow, and let it effortlessly carry us to our next destination.

* How can you work with the conditions of your life, not against them?
* Where are you currently swimming upstream?
* Where do you need to become lighter in your life to allow yourself to be carried by the flow? Which unnecessary stones in your pockets are weighing you down?

INNER SILENCE

Sound has driven our lives this last century and it’s now time to let silence lead. When silence means as much to you as all the other things in your day, the experience of stillness – and the peace it brings – effortlessly emerges. And in silence, we can more easily hear our intuition: that still, small voice doesn't need to work so hard to reach us.

* How can you give the same worth to silence as to noise?
* Rather than thinking about the oceanic force of stillness, how can you embody it?
* When lost on the surface of life, how do you return to the deep-rooted, inner silence within?