Spirituality and Weight Loss

Ok, so, I consider this my before picture. Let’s get that straight. I will post another one when I hit the 30 pound lost mark. I promise you, it won't be long!

I am one of those stubborn people that sticks to their New Year’s Resolutions. Is anybody reading this doing the same? I decided to lose weight this year. Not a little bit, I consider it a whooping amount. I’m down just about to the 20 lb. mark after 6 weeks. It feels great but there is a lot more to go. I have been gaining and then losing the same amount of weight for years, since child-bearing really.

4 years ago (and I can’t quite believe it’s been that long but that’s what Microsoft Word says so I have to believe it) I started a book that is a spiritual guide to weight loss. Considering my battle and my use of magic it seemed a fitting premise. Finally, I got the courage to submit it to a few places. It is being considered but so far nothing has happened with that. I will keep you posted.

I just finished eating that dieter’s classic, cottage cheese and a half grapefruit. Ugh! Can anything in this world be worse? Nothing at all spiritual about that, no matter how I look at it, though the pink grapefruit was quite good, cottage cheese remains abysmal, except for when it's hidden in a smoothie.

The journey of weight loss, especially losing a lot and having that weight loss stick for good, is no easy journey. It is fraught with setbacks, temptations and yes, fear. Any big change presents challenges, not just for you but for those around you.

Yesterday I watched an episode of “My 600 Pound Life.” I don’t know why exactly, but it inspires me. The people on that show have swelled themselves up to an enormous proportion. Still, they have the courage and steeliness to battle their weight and lose 100's of pounds over the period of a year. Most of us can only imagine what that must be like. The word struggle doesn’t even begin to describe their way of being.

I have been watching that show as a part of my research for the book. The stories presented there are truly touching and they stick with me for days. There is so much more than food intake that makes a person overweight. The psychological issues that surround the person play an important role. Spirituality can also enter into the picture. Through a deepening connection to Mother Earth, I find that my spiritual beliefs help the cottage cheese go down a lot more smoothly.

Gran Bwa

Gran Bwa is a lwa that helps you connect to ancestral roots or the spiritual home of Vodou. A friend of mine, who is an expert on Haitian Vodou, who has spent a lot of time in Haiti with the artists there, told me I had painted Gran Bwa when I made this spontaneous work out of walnut ink and sumi-ink on handmade paper. I had considered this painting a self-portrait. She now holds this piece in her private collection: Quite a few people are afraid of Vodou but it is an awe-inspiring tradition of bringing together plant energy with divinity, spiritual and personal energy. My friend who is very involved with Vodou, especially the art that surrounds it, is from European ancestry. She is light in spirit and bubbly, with a close relationship to nature and her garden. Vodou affirms the relationships between cycles of life, trees of knowledge and spirit. The Vodou vision of lwa , understands them as the intelligence of energy present in humans, nature and thoughts. ...

Tree Whispers

Tree Whispers Shinrin-yoku is a complementary medicine modality, designed to up-lift sub-par health conditions, through lifestyle changes that involve immersion in nature, specifically the wildness, we call a forest, where the senses, including our intuitive sense and ability to heal ourselves through it, is ignited. Forest bathing, as Shinrin-yoku is popularly called, has come to our attention, at a time when the scientific community is abuzz about the ability of trees - be it in stands, groves, or forests, to build community. This, at a time, when we as humans, struggle hard to build and sustain healthy in-person communities, in the face of Online communications. Books like “The Hidden Life of Trees: What they Feel, How they Communicate Discoveries from a Secret World,” (Wohlleben 2016) by Peter Wohlleben is a Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post bestseller. It makes readers privy to trees’ communication skills and social networks, that is, it helps us entertain...

Art of Motherland Herbal

Motherland Herbal is my latest book, set to be released June 11th by HarperOne, an imprint of HarperCollins. It is a cross-genre work, primarily an herbal guide, with elements of memoir, and creative nonfiction. It encompasses my passion for folklore and mythology, from the African diaspora. I’m back here to begin a series of posts built around the art within its pages. Today, I share my inspiration for the book cover art. One of my favorite houseplants is our Money Tree. Rich in lore, intimately connected to abundance, prosperity and luck, I adore this plant. It is plentiful, in its growth habit, beautiful in its variety of green leaves and becomes luminous in the morning, when it catches light, hence the yellow-orange negative space around the leaves on the cover. I enjoy the playful way the art director at Harper, inserted the text, showing the title, subtitle and my name. The cover was a wonderful collaborative effort. It is designed to be inviting, informative and lumin...

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