Soul Medicine for Personal & Collective Transformation: A Conversation about Living Through the Five Elements [Episode 11]
A skilled weaver of the sacred through both the ancient and the modern, acupuncturist Lindsay Fauntleroy possesses the rare ability to make the principles of subtle energetic healing accessible within our daily lives. She does this with much wisdom and playfulness in her recently released book, “In Our Element: Using the Five Elements as Soul Medicine to Unleash Your Personal Power.” My favorite moment in our conversation was when she shared her invocation for the current Earth element “to walk like a mountain,” to allow her body to get heavy, to spread out, to take up spaaaaaace.
Here are some other highlights:
-Lindsay rubs on the land where she lives by rising with the sun and making her morning walk a prayer, a love affair with the breeze.
-Lindsay clears up one of the most common confusions she encounters: the difference between flower essences and essential oils.
-Flower essences are the ephemeral, thought-body of plants. They use the intelligence and consciousness of plants as affirmations of our higher truths.
-We can disrupt any training we might have in approaching plants with a “what can you do for ME” attitude by practicing a sense of reciprocity instead of self-centered transaction.
-Exploring ways of connecting with the land and the living world while living in heavily human-impacted spaces. Lindsay describes using the flower essence Green Nicotiana to help her remember that nature is everywhere, even in places that feel impossibly armored or urbanized.
-Lindsay describes her deep commitment to community wellness, advocating for urban youth, and normalizing that nature is us.
-Music is medicine and each season is a different song. We can work more deeply with the Five Elements by exploring them through their vibration, pulse, and rhythm within our bodies.
-Perhaps more than any other element, the current Earth element / late summer season highlights the voice of our bodies, asking us to better know what our bodies want, crave, long for.
Resources:
The Spirit Seed: Professional and personal development flower essence classes
Elementals Flower Essences: Archetypal flower essence formulas closely aligned with the soul lessons explored in Lindsay's book "In Our Element."
"In Our Element: Using the Five Elements as Soul Medicine to Unleash Your Personal Power" by Lindsay Fauntleroy
IG/Twitter handle @LindsayFaunt
Other Five Element Resources:
Five Spirits by Lorie Dechar
Nourishing Destiny by Lonny Jarrett
Further Learning:
A New Possibility: Alchemy, Astrology, and Chinese medicine courses and community
MINKA School of the Healing Arts & Sciences: Wellness, social justice, and community
*Practicing music as medicine, these show notes where created while listening to Allison Russell's Nightflyer on repeat. The song's hearty, repetitive guitar/drum beat is serious Earth element medicine for me.
