One of our favorite parts of summer and early fall here at Shakti Sage, is shopping for produce at our local farmers’ markets. We are very fortunate that there are many in our area, including the Ladner Market and the various Vancouver farmers markets.

One of the reasons we love to eat locally, is that we can become friends with and support local farmers. As we all become increasingly used to big box stores and ordering merchandise online, it can sometimes be easy to forget that there are people and lives behind the food that ends up on our table.

One such family has been providing healthy, organic fruits and vegetables for tables here in BC for more than three decades. Organic farming is definitely not a flashy trend that the Forstbauer’s from Chilliwack have just caught onto. They’ve been farming organically for over 30 years! In the late 1990s they also began to farm biodynamically. (You can read more about biodynamic farming here.)

It can’t ever be easy to be a farmer, and at a time when Statistics Canada is finding a steep decline in the number of family farms in our country, we suspect it’s even more difficult than ever. Luckily there are still a few people, like the Forstbauer’s, who are passionate about healthy food and healthy families.

Why not hug your favorite local farmer this week? Better yet, buy some of his great produce!

namaste,

Zoey

Zoey Ryan
life & business coach for women
inspiration * clarity * wisdom * enchantment
www.shaktisage.com
604-323-3700

“Coaching for your heart & soul & the heart and soul of your business.”

Remembering Three Amazing Women & Your Self-Care Enchantments

“What we have not known is how to begin from our own centre, how to begin from our own experience, how to make ourselves as women the subjects of the act of knowing”

- Dorothy Smith (A Canadian Sociologist, known for her work with feminist theory and women’s studies)

This quote is a wonderful reminder that each of us women, has a center point, a still point, an internal place of equilibrium, of power and energy that can fuel us, feed us and inspire us. Inspire us, to get to know ourselves intimately and to get to know each other intimately. A friend, fellow coach and colleague, Debra Rafel, in fact, used this concept as her key business identifier.

This inner center is your “shakti sage” place and I have written quite extensively about the shakti sage qualities over the past year.

During this time of “All Hallowed Eve, Dia de los Muertos and All Saints Day” I want to acknowledge and remember three amazing shakti sage women who embodied their shakti sage essence and inner knowing and have now passed on.

I mentioned Debra Rafel earlier. Debra left us far too early after a brief critical illness. Debra leaves behind young twin daughters and her husband. Debra introduced me to yoga and we shared numerous cups of tea over deep and interesting discussions.

I also wish to remember and acknowledge Anita Roddick (the founder of the Body Shop). I had the great pleasure of hearing Anita Roddick speak in Vancouver in the late 90’s. She walked on stage, wearing a funky understated outfit and totally captivated the audience of over 2000 women. She modeled her “shakti sage” essence to me by standing fully in her powerful presence. It was clear to me then as it has been in the ensuing years that she “wore her skin well”, that she knew who she was and what she stood for and that this “knowing” informed all of her actions.

Finally, I want to remember my mom, Renata Wenzel Johnson, who passed on Thanksgiving Day 1996. Mom introduced me to the “act of knowing” and taught me patience and humility.

So, lovely shakti sages, for this week, your self-care enchantments are to use the following questions to explore your inner knowing:

1. Who do you wish to remember and acknowledge?
2. How can you engage with your shakti sage presence daily?
3. How can you deepen your self knowledge?

peace & namaste,

Zoey – founding hippy at hippy grandma

Zoey Ryan
life, business & leadership coach for women
inspiration * clarity * wisdom * enchantment
www.shaktisage.com
604-323-3700

“Coaching for your heart & soul and the heart & soul of your business”

Are you a heart-centered and “soulful shopper”? Know of a new baby arriving? Keep the heart, soul & hippy love flowing for generations with purchases from Hippy Grandma: an Eco-Boutique selling fair trade, one of a kind, earth friendly treasures.
Through your purchases, you help local artisans, hand-crafting grandmas on a pension, women’s fair trade co-ops and programs designed to support vulnerable mamas & babies. Please share Hippy Grandma widely and wildly with your soul sisters. www.hippygrandma.com

We are pleased to share this article by one of our Shakti Sage Life Coaches, Shannon Rosnau, seen here with a kidlet!

Mystic Mama’s Infusion of Inspiration and delight for Conscious Parents….

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.”
-Melody Beattie

‘Tis the season to give thanks; however, as we all know, a special day is really unnecessary. Every hour of every day is the perfect time to express gratitude.

This month, I would like to reflect upon “thankfulness” and explore ways we, as parents, can foster “attitudes of gratitude” within our families.

So much more than a social nicety, thankfulness is an incredibly powerful

Each word spoken is recorded in our saliva – a vibratory
reflection of the essence of the message. Being nearly
99% water, saliva holds a “memory” of all that passes
through our body/mind/spirit. A healthy human
produces nearly 600 milliliters of saliva each day –
enough to fill a 12 oz. bottle.

Talk about swallowing our own words!

As conscious parents, I know we all recognize the genuine power of gratitude. Many of us keep personal gratitude journals and count our blessings on a daily basis. However, it can be a challenge to incorporate thankfulness into our busy, everyday family lives. Gratitude is admittedly hard to muster when our toddler is having a meltdown in the grocery line or our At times like this it is easy to sink into self pity and ask, “why me?”

When we are thankful

This week, practice making gratitude a natural part of your family life. Write thank you notes to one another. Create a family gratitude jar or journal. Hug your child and tell them, “I am soo thankful for you.” Start a thankfulness ritual that feels perfect for your family. Model thankfulness and talk about all the things you are grateful for. I would love to hear your ideas

Yours in gratitude.

Namaste,
Shannon Rosnau
Mystic mama, Shakti Sage Life Coach, Advocate of love

I hope you enjoyed this article by Shannon. It is a great reminder of the power of families and how important it is to keep the love & gratitude flowing!

peace & namaste,

Zoey – founding hippy at hippy grandma

Zoey Ryan
life, business & leadership coach for women
inspiration * clarity * wisdom * enchantment
www.shaktisage.com
604-323-3700

“Coaching for your heart & soul and the heart & soul of your business”

Are you a heart-centered and “soulful shopper”? Know of a new baby arriving? Keep the heart, soul & hippy love flowing for generations with purchases from Hippy Grandma: an Eco-Boutique selling fair trade, one of a kind, earth friendly treasures.

Through your purchases, you help local artisans, hand-crafting grandmas on a pension, women’s fair trade co-ops and programs designed to support vulnerable mamas & babies. Please share Hippy Grandma widely and wildly with your soul sisters. www.hippygrandma.com

Choices Market is a locally owned and operated grocery store here in the Vancouver area (they just recently added a new store in the BC Interior town of Kelowna, as well). As Western Canada’s largest retailer of natural and organic foods, Choices has always been a leader in the local business community and have always placed a focus on supporting local growers and producers. They have also led the way in making choices (pun intended) and taking action to ensure that their stores operate in the most sustainable way possible.

And they listen to their customers! (How often do you encounter that in a large retailer these days?) Choices customers have voiced their opinion that less packaging is better, and as usual, Choices is listening. They’ve created the Sustainability Program.

From their web site (choicesmarket.com): The Choices Sustainability Program will allow proactive Brand Owners the opportunity to fully close the recycling loop.

The program is simple.

* Select Brand Owners will approve the return of all their packaging to Choices Recycling Centre
* Shelf signs with the Choices Recycling Centre logo will be placed in front of products that may be returned to Choices Recycling Centre
* Consumers return authorized packaging to the Choices Recycling Centre
* Packaging is collected by the Choices Recycling Centre and sent off to the appropriate recycling depot
* Any revenues for collected materials will be donated to local charities.

Choices Markets strives to take responsibility for the full life cycle of the products we sell. We are proud to incorporate this program into our store and we are excited to be an integral part of the solution.

From everyone here at Shakti Sage, congratulations once again to a community leader, Choices Market, for a great idea and for taking one more step toward a fully sustainable future.

namaste,
Zoey

Zoey Ryan
life & business coach for women
inspiration * clarity * wisdom * enchantment
www.shaktisage.com
604-323-3700

“Coaching for your heart & soul & the heart and soul of your business.”

There is a non-profit legal society in Vancouver that has been working to improve the lives of some of the most marginalized people in society.

Pivot Legal Society works to use the law to achieve social change, addressing the root causes that undermine the quality of life for those on the margins. They practice strategic legal advocacy, meaning they are not a legal aid society, but one that focuses on the causes of problems rather than the symptoms and tries to find ways that the law can address those causes.

For example, a few years ago a hotel in the Downtown Eastside (Canada’s poorest neighborhood) was closed due to long-standing maintenance issues. The City of Vancouver had the power to rectify those issues through the Standards of Maintenance By-law but had not done so. Pivot took up this issue on behalf of the residents of the closed hotel, and on behalf of all those in the neighborhood who rely on single room occupancy hotels for housing, and sued the City for not enforcing the bylaw. In March of 2009, Vancouver City Council resolved to enforce the bylaw, following presentations by Pivot and others; with the support of the council behind it the bylaw is now working.

Based on the premise that everyone deserves a safe, secure place to live, Pivot has once again used the law to enact positive change in a desperately poor and drug-ravaged neighborhood. Go to Pivot’s web site (pivotlegal.org) to find out more about all the amazing projects and initiatives that they have going on in the name of a healthy, inclusive community.

namaste,

Zoey

Zoey Ryan
life & business coach for women
inspiration * clarity * wisdom * enchantment
www.shaktisage.com
604-323-3700

“Coaching for your heart & soul & the heart and soul of your business.”