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When I am feeling empty or stressed or needing clarity, I always know that running a really hot bath will open me up. I’ve written about my love of melting baths but let me set the scene. We have an outdoor bathtub on our veranda and it’s looking out over our garden, and I have literally moved plants around my garden so that I see the mulberries directly in line with my feet as I lay down; I also see my herbal garden beds, with the Queen Anne’s Lace flowering next to the cosmos dancing in the breeze. I see the sage growing… they’re all here, my allies, my companions. If I come out early enough in the morning and I wait as the water pours into the bath, it’s just the right moment in which I witness the early morning sun coming up above the pine trees, the rays come and kiss my face, and I am anointed, I am awakened, I am blessed for the day. In that blessed moment, everything is taken away with the force of a thunderbolt.
My creation of bathing products was not something that I intended to do. It came in time and as a result of my other offerings. You see, during my in-person New Moon Rituals, we would make bath salts: each woman in the circle (30-50 of us) would take a pinch of herbs and place it in the “mother bowl” of salts, blessing it and filling it with intentions. These were our words of wisdom and spells and we would combine our magick together. In doing this, every woman could take a portion to bring home to use on the Full Moon, to be connected and interwoven together - weaving together our unique tapestry of healing and empowerment.
I began to birth the products I had been subscribing in my private practice out into the world as a result of no longer holding in person rituals. But for so long, I didn’t even have a bath. In our other home, we didn’t have a bath and when we got one, it remained uninstalled for some time. But when I finally made space for it, allowed myself and my family to have a bath, it would call to me in moments when I needed it most.
A looming decision about where to go next in my business emerged. Get in the bath. A stressful family situation that is taking up my mind. Get in the bath. An impending payment that needs to go through but the funds are not quite there yet. Get in the bath. The water connected me to my unique blueprints in this life. And the bath physically forces you to be in your body because it’s hot. The fog through my eyes and my brain subsides and I connect with the water and the sound of the bird song. The pitter patter of my dog, who insists on coming outside with me whenever I bathe; she walks alongside the tub and licks the water as it spills over because I fill it, like everything else in life, so close to the edge – it must overspill.
In this water, I am not a mother, I am not a wife, I am just me. With the intense heat surrounding me, it’s almost as if the skin, flesh has melted away and all that’s left is the essence of who I am. In the water there exists only my concoction of self and it’s here that I gain clarity.
And it’s deeply healing.
So much so that, in my Private Practice and with private clients, I often prescribe specific rituals that involve the bath, and give them specific potions and mixtures to use. And their experiences were the same. Of course, their breakthroughs were their own, but the ritual of a bath would support them in the same powerful way that it supports me. There is something in this. There is something deeply feminine in bathing, something deeply primal, a kind of primordial force of being outside in a bath. And yet, at the same time, it feels like the most luxurious thing. Not because it’s a hand carved stone bath with gold feet being filled by the sparkling waters of a waterfall. This bath that we have, is something we found second hand. There’s plants around it and the taps aren’t fancy, they look, in fact, like garden taps from which hot water pours. But it is all completely luxurious.
Luxury is not defined by price tag or exclusivity. Luxury is defined by the quality of the experience it evokes. Luxury is the integrity behind something. And this is how I aim to live my life through everything.
At this moment in time, I find myself uncomfortable. I am uncomfortable in the car that I have; my pillows are uncomfortable; my couch is uncomfortable. I am irritated because I am putting up with things that are just not for me anymore. But I am at a crossroads: I don't want to purchase a new couch when I am moving to Europe in a few months – it just doesn’t make sense and so I am feeling very wriggly and itchy, uncomfortable with things. But when I hop into the bath, I am immediately reminded of a tiny, simple, wrinkle in time where I am pulled away from it all.
I had a conversation with one of my dear friends, who has decades of so much wisdom and insight, his words pierce straight into my soul. He said that he doesn’t really subscribe to astrology because we’ve never been in the same place more than once. When we think about how fast the Earth travels through space, how fast the Solar System travels in space, how fast our galaxy is travelling, we’ve never stood still: we are always moving, shifting, changing, moment to moment, even half a degree makes it that this moment is different from the last. I obviously talk about the planets and the moon in my work, and acknowledge our connection to them, but astrology is not something that I ever completely resonated with. Which is why I have never called myself an astrologer and why I have always had this dialogue that it doesn’t dictate things or control things – it’s just glimpses of different lessons that we can tap into whenever we want - archetypes as such. Instead, my main focus has always been on the phases of the moon and honouring the Wheel of the Year, the turning of time. We live by this Gregorian calendar that is just a made up concept. My time is measured by the sun rising and setting, the moon waxing and waning, the leaves budding, blossoming, and falling… This is the clock that I choose to subscribe to as it is the clock that helps me to connect to my own seasons, the tides of myself.
Time is something that has caused a lot of anxiety for me: being late for things, hurrying and rushing, it’s been a big trigger for me. And being able to forget about the Gregorian calendar (in some aspects of my life – obviously I need to make appointments and things, so I can’t just throw it to one side since I choose to live with society, in society) has allowed much more freedom. In my daily life, I don’t always wake up at the same time. I naturally wake up before seven, but some days, it might be 5:30, other days it might be 6:45 or 4:55. I wake up when I wake up. And I go to bed when my body feels tired, sometimes it’s 1:00am, sometimes it’s 8:00pm. Living my life in this way, feels like I am honouring the ebbs and flows, the lulls and bursts of energy, the invigorating vibrations of a new idea or the humming, gentle buzz of quiet within.
This way of living does make it difficult to have consistency or at least the idea of consistency we are often subscribed to. My girls are homeschooled and I’ve found it difficult to plan out the lessons as we are expected. We have this idea that consistency is showing up each day at exactly the same time to do exactly the same thing, to feeling the same high by the end of it. But actually, consistency is just following through and continuing to follow through. And when we release ourselves from these constructs that bind us, we are able to free ourselves, feel freedom in our lives, and ultimately regain that sense of control.
Connecting with the seasons, therefore means, at least for me, that planning is out of the question. I have the luxury and privilege of living in a way that honours the Earth. I realise that this kind of living isn’t available to everyone but what if we looked at the things we have to accomplish, but instead looked at the week overall, asking ourselves what do I have to get done? And allot the time as you see fit. In this way, we are releasing ourselves from the construct, honouring to tread through the days in a more walking presence. Adding more mindfulness to the day depending on how the body feels because the wisdom is in the body.
As I sit here, in the bath, looking on to the blooms that have just appeared over the last 24 hours: the elder flowers that have decided to bloom because of all the rain; the cornflowers that have started to lean over from their shower so that the bright blue flowers are now tickling the ground, the spinach is looking so thick that it’s calling me to cut it and make some spanakopita or some dish (I don’t meal plan, I buy the things that I like the look of, of how I am feeling at that time and I’ll see what’s fresh at the market or in my garden and I make something from there.) And it’s all of these little things, of being aware and connected with how I feel in that moment that brings me back to that feeling that I get when I get into the bath.
This bathing experience, it allows me to be clear – there’s just something about these Roman baths, they used to have meetings in them, it opens you up to something else. Makes you feel like all the complaining and the children fighting with one another… it all melts away. You can actually just smile and laugh and recognise that it’s just another wrinkle in time.
As I lay in the bath, and begin to feel the temperature of the bath begin to cool, I feel almost like my body is becoming liquid because the temperatures are merging into one. I am nurturing space. I feel like it pulls out everything that needs to be drawn out and allows the things that need to be said, to be said, the things that need to be done, to be done. For the things that need to be seen, to be seen. For the things to be heard that need to be heard. And so it is that bathing is my simple yet most go-to for ritual.
And if you don’t have a bath, you can go into the waters of the Earth, the lakes, the rivers, the oceans, the creeks… I’d love to hear your experiences in the bath and the experience that results from the consistency and intention you have around it. Tell me about the experience of that moment in which you just liquify.
If we have lived in a hostile environment growing up, it creates a lot of stress in the body and leads to sacrificing ourselves and our basic requirements later on. In doing so we are not allowing ourselves to move forward at all; we are stuck in a state of oppression. We feel stuck and stagnant, we feel uncertain and lack clarity. Bathing is a beautiful moment to create a clean slate in the body. Gifting you the opportunity to gather what is most important.
You get to ask yourself:
How am I going to achieve all of the things I need to do in a way that honours nature and her seasons?
What beauty can I make with what I have right now?
Amoureuse,
Brooke x
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