Editorial
Volume 27 Issue 2 — July/August 2021
by Melva Armstrong

It’s summer! Time to enjoy the great outdoors and bask in our Earth Mother’s healing and nurturing energies. Be sure to soak up the Father Sun’s rays and dance in the occasional rain puddles. The sun and the earth are the natural healers and are so very important for keeping the body’s immune system whole and healthy. That way the body can repel any germs that come in contact with it. I feel a particular appreciation for being outdoors after a year of holding up indoors. I’m sure many of you relate to this. It’s the season to bust loose and kick up your heels, wave your arms in the air, and shout, “Hooray!”

I have had lots of fun working on this summer issue, and I’m excited that you will love every part of it, because it is an issue filled with “love.” As the saying goes, “Love makes the world go around,” so I trust you will feel the love energy throughout each page. Every individual who is part of WHOLifE journal is coming to you from their heart with love, so I encourage you to remember that as you read from cover to cover, from issue to issue.

Once you have read Jackie Jenson’s article, Twig & Squirrel’s Wild Goods Stands Solid on Sacred Treaty 6 Soil (p. 16), you will discover how her deep love for community was the inspiration and foundation that spurred her and her partner to create their very unique business on 20th Street West. This adventure began in 2013 when that street in Saskatoon was experiencing the beginning of a transformation. They wanted to know how they could serve this community, coupled with a deep desire to bring the medicine of the people back to the people. And that’s exactly what they have done. The store has become a place where creativity abounds and where art can help people cope more easily from trauma and deep loss. As Jackie says, “Creativity and wellness go hand in hand.”

Andrea (Ann) Austin had an AHA moment in her life in 2009, and by 2012 she said yes to life and love, and things began to change. She describes the journey that took her from uncertainty to her new awakening in her article, What if Love and ONLY Love was the Answer to Your Life, Would You Follow It to the End? (p. 30). She checks in with herself each day to see what is right for her, and then to trust again and to follow her heart and gut more consistently, setting her intention that love and only love guides her. I feel that her journey is one that many can likely relate to.

Often when we are feeling unwell and hopeless about healing, something magically comes into our life that helps to turn things around. That’s what happened to Lynette Brossart, as she tells her healing story called A Full Circle Rooted in LoVE: DoTERRA (p. 26). It was a loving friend who knew about her health problems and suggested she look into an essential oil company, and the rest is history. Lynette is not only healthier now, but she is filled to overflowing with a great love inside herself, for herself, and for everything and everyone in her life.

There are so many ways we can learn to love ourselves in body, mind, and spirit. One way is the art of reflexology, which is presented here by Carolynn Sikorski’s article, The Triumph of Our Feet and Hands: A Remarkable Holistic Healing Art (p. 10). She says reflexology is a deeply researched discipline that supports the body’s yearning to function at its best and that reflex stimulation on the feet teaches the body to self-correct using its own healing capabilities.

Another way of looking after ourselves is with earth therapies, which, according to author Sussanna Czeranko in her article, For Peat’s Sake, It’s Time for a Mud Bath (p. 16), have been used since time immemorial and have become the bedrock in some cultures as unrivaled therapy. Her favourite earth material is medicinal peat, which she says is almost magical. She adds that the constituents in peat are so numerous that scientists are still exploring the benefits found in this black, odourless, and tasteless gift of the earth.

There is so much more to explore in these pages, so be sure to read from cover to cover. They are all filled with love and healing energy for your body, mind, and spirit.

In light and love. Blessed be!

Namaste
(The spirit in me honours the spirit in you!)