I am still riding high from my retreat experience at the Wildflower Center for Return to Your Light Women's Retreat. Although we had hoped for sunshine, the cloudy day did not deter us from enjoying some dance moves, slow walks, and yoga practices.

As I was walking our dog through the neighborhood last evening and enjoying all the lights wrapping around tree trunks and dangling from branches, it occurred me even more how appropriate the poem we pondered at the retreat was so seasonally appropriate. So, of course, I want to share it with you!

Our theme was Return to Your Light, and since we were using nature as part of our experience, I turned to the poet Mary Oliver and her artistry in words and images:

May You Go Easy, To Be Filled with Light, and To Shine

When I am among the trees, especially the willows and the honey locust, equally the beech, the oaks and the pines, they give off such hints of gladness. I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant ...

It’s time to talk about it again: digestion.

Here we are in the treats, sweets, and overindulging season of the year. That’s ok! I’m all about it. And thankfully, there are some great Ayurveda (the science of life and longevity) and yoga techniques to support your gut health and get you through the season feeling good. 

Here’s the three I’m practicing this season:

☝️Walk 100 steps after you eat. 

This is an old Ayurvedic trick to help your digestion process after a meal, reducing bloating, gas, and indigestion.  It’s a helpful guideline–you don’t have to count the steps–but do take a leisurely stroll. Stroll with a soft gaze at the nature around you (if possible) and you get dopamine-boosting bonus points. 

✌️Eat probiotics every day–three if you can!

This has been a game-changer for me. Just adding sauerkraut to my morning eggs has me feeling all sparkly inside from the get-go. A few sips of kombucha at lunch and a ½ cup of plain yogurt for a midday snack, and there’s three! You...

I had a great coffee date with my new friend Dara of Soulfully Creative yesterday. (If you check it out and like what you see, be sure and get on the wait list for Emerge, because she'll be there to take us through a watercolor meditation!) We talked a lot about the energy of the atmosphere these days, and the word that kept coming up was dense. Things feel dense.

Do you feel that? Whether it's uncertainty, fear, fluster, frustration, or simply unsure of what to expect from what's to come, there's a sense of hunkering down out there. I feel it too!

But when we hunker down, we lose connection to each other and nature. When we hunker down, our energy becomes stagnant, dense, and tired. A metaphoric cloud rolls in and the lights get dim. And as like attracts like, the more dense we feel, the more dense we become.

But it doesn't have to be like this.

Believe it or not, when our system gets out of whack in one direction, the best thing you can do is increase the opposite energy. So if you ...

A strange thing has happened since my pilgrimage to Chartres Cathedral in France: the name Jess just doesn’t fit anymore. Since you likely know me as Jess, or Jess G, I thought I’d tell the origin story of that name and give a little glimpse into what’s happening now. (My mom is going to love this.)

Twenty years ago I got my first yoga teaching job at a big, beautiful studio here in Austin called Yoga Yoga. Mehtab was the beloved owner, along with his wife and a business partner, and he was the one who hired me. But before I signed the dotted line, there was one more thing, and I remember his words so clearly: 

“We already have a Jessica M on the schedule. Can you be Jess G?”

Yep! Sure! Sounds good!  And just like that, Jess G became my teaching name. And for fifteen years I taught at Yoga Yoga, my classes grew, and people came to really know me as Jess, or Jess G. My coworkers, friends, people at church and at the grocery store all called me Jess. The name spread out into ...

This is Natalie from Team Jess! I’m excited to step in as your guest writer for the newsletter this week, while Jess and Nick explore the beautiful and spiritual mysteries of Chartres in France. I can’t wait to hear how this journey inspires Jess and, in turn, how she inspires all of us.

There’s truly nothing quite like a journey to bring us back home to ourselves. Whether it takes us to faraway lands or a nearby sanctuary, every journey has the potential to ignite a spark within us. 

When we take a break from our routines and familiar surroundings, we open ourselves to fresh experiences that can shift our perspectives. Each journey, no matter how short, introduces us to new ideas and landscapes, helping us see the world (and ourselves!) in a vibrant new light. These experiences can awaken creativity and inspire us in unexpected ways.

Journeys offer us countless gifts: moments of reflection, spaces to dream, and opportunities to reconnect with our innermost selves. Movement...

For the past couple of years I have spent two hours, one Friday per month, in a Spiritual Direction Group. There are four of us in this little band of contemplatives, led by Nancy, our Spiritual Director. Each month we have a short experience, followed by silence, reflection, response, prayer, and more silence. It is one of the most enriching aspects of my life, and it has brought me great joy and insights.  

On one of our first gatherings, Nancy gave us the instructions to head out into nature on her beautiful property, find a place that seems to be calling you to come sit, and do just that. Sit, look around, and see what is there for you.  Listen, without expectations. It’s called Wilderness Contemplation. 

I love an assignment like this because you can’t possibly do it wrong, and it leaves a lot open to interpretation.  I get to be as woo-woo and magical as I want, no judgment.  So on this day, naturally I had a conversation with a spider.

She was a tiny little thing wit...