Harvest Abundance

Looking to make some delicious warming fall meals that support the body? For me, nothing comes close to squash soup. In past years one of my favourites was the superbly simple combination of roasted butternut squash blended with coconut milk and spices.

This fall, I took this simple delight and have boosted it up with lentils for additional protein to support your body! Whether you’re chopping wood, wandering through a forest, or working from home – this recipe will fuel up your physical energy so you can focus on your energy healing.

You can use red lentils or green lentils for this recipe. You don’t need to soak dry lentils before using them in a recipe. That said, soaking can enhance the rate of mineral absorption in the body and helps to break down the complex starch in lentils (making them easier to digest). So if you plan ahead, you can soak the lentils 4 hours or overnight prior to making this recipe!

If you’re in a hurry, you can bake the squash and potatoes at a higher heat, just ensure the oil you use can tolerate a higher temperature!

What you’ll need;

• 1 medium or large butternut squash
• 1 large potato
• 2 tbsp coconut oil (or neutral oil of choice)
• 1 medium white onion
• 4 cloves garlic (feel free to adjust per preferences)
• 1 knob of ginger (roughly equal amount to your garlic)
• 1 tbsp paprika
• 2 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 fresh serrano pepper or 1 tsp dried chilli (optional)
• 2 cups of preferred stock (veggie or chicken are my favourite)
• 1 cup of dry lentils (soaked if desired; see note)
• 1 can of coconut milk (400 ml or 14 oz)
• Salt & Pepper to Taste

How to make this soup!

1. Turn on your oven to 375 F
2. Chop your butternut squash and potatoes into cubes, toss with coconut oil and salt, and add to a pan. Pop it in the oven; we’ll return to it at step 11 when it smells delicious and is soft (in about 60-90 minutes).
3. Time for some prep!
   • Chop your onion and set aside
   • Make a paste from your garlic (4 cloves), ginger (equal amount to garlic), and serrano (if using fresh) using a mortar & pestle if you have one. Otherwise, mince finely and add to a small vessel.
   •  Measure out your spices (1 tbsp paprika, 2 tsp cumin, 1 tsp turmeric, chilli if using dried) into another small vessel.
4. Add oil to a large pot over medium high heat and wait for it to shimmer.
5. Add your chopped onion and some salt and sauté until it begins to soften (~4 minutes).
6. Drop in the ginger/garlic/pepper paste and mix throughout the onions (~1 minute).
7. Add your lentils (1 cup) and stir.
8. With your broth ready beside you, add your spices and stir until fragrant and mixed throughout (~30 seconds) before adding quickly adding broth (2 cups) to avoid the spices burning. Then add the coconut milk (1 can) and stir.
9. Taste the soup, adding salt, pepper, and other spices per your taste preferences. If it tastes bland, add more salt!
10. Bring soup to a boil, then cover, reduce heat to low and allow soup to simmer until lentils soften (~20 mins if cooking from dry, faster if soaked).
11. When the vegetables from the oven are soft, remove from the oven and add to the soup pot.
12. Taste the soup, and adjust salt and pepper as needed.
13. If you prefer a more blended texture, use a potato masher or an immersion blender to break up any chunks in the soup.
14. Serve!

I suggest a garnish of some citrus or yoghurt for acidity.

Alternatively, or in addition to that, you can add some cilantro or arugula fresh on top for a bit of greenery!

A Point of Power

Washed and tumbled in relentless fragility
The balance of strength
The net of time
The web of continuity
And a gasp of life

The point of entry
The art of departure
Hang under a primal sky
Like a rain drop in flight
On an embryonic night

A point of power
A source of life
A fledgling love
In a passionate embrace of Light

Cells divide
The day breaks
And the Earth cracks its stony crust
In the beginning…

Beyond the Apps: Meditation Is More Than You Know

As a meditation teacher, I can tell you things have really changed in recent years. Not long ago, you couldn’t get away with saying you were a meditation teacher at a dinner party without people looking at you sideways. Even on the west coast.

Now, meditation is more familiar. New students arrive to my classes excited to talk about their direct experience with mindfulness and meditation, many having tried apps or classes of some kind.

How about you? Maybe you’re brand new to meditation or maybe you’ve been meditating for years.

Whatever your journey, if you’re like many people, you might define meditation as endeavoring to be calm and peaceful. To be less stressed or reactive. This is true. But it can go much further than this.

Do you know you can use meditation to increase your energy level? Little known fact: meditation is a really amazing way to replenish your energy and release energy you want to let go of.

You’ve probably heard of energy audits for homes, right? You can figure out how a building is losing energy and make changes so it runs more efficiently and sustainably.

Well, you can do the same thing with your personal energy. You can do an energy audit to reveal how, when and where you’re using (and losing) energy in daily life. 

Let me ask you this…where in your life do you expend the most energy? And on the flipside, what relationships, activities or experiences recharge you the most? 

If any of this intrigues you and you think you could benefit from learning to power up your energy using meditation, consider joining me on May 27 and 28 for the Lightwork Meditation Energy Management Life Skills Workshop: 10 Techniques to Replenish Your Energy.

In the meantime, here are just three areas (there are many more) where meditation can improve your energy level.

Energy Saver #1: Energy-Savvy Relationships 

Relationships enrich our lives, but they can also test, strain and trigger us. If you’re not aware of how to handle these stressors, you can needlessly lose tremendous amounts of your personal energy.

Meditation can help you better understand how to define your personal boundaries, allowing you to let go of stuff that really isn’t yours to manage. With guided instruction and practice, you can become more skillful at navigating relationship dynamics — even challenging ones.

When you’re not losing tons of energy to relationship drama and stress, you far have more energy to apply to whatever you want.

It becomes easier to choose relationships wisely and recognize patterns you want to change. You can bring out the best in your relationships, and prioritize healthier relationships as a norm.

Energy Saver #2: Learn to Switch Gears

Are you good at not doing your job? And I use “job” in a broad sense here, as whatever primarily occupies your time, like being a student.

How good are you at putting work aside so you can flourish in your time off? Can you focus your full attention on your downtime activities, bringing a healthy balance to your life?

Many people really struggle with this. It can be hard to switch gears and really embrace fun, or restful, restorative time.

Our society is addicted to thinking and doing. This incessant future-focused, goal-obsessed life approach taxes the nervous system. Bodies need time to restore…and to just live and thrive.

Using meditation, you can learn to calm down the analytical part of your mind at will, and be more present for all aspects of your life. This is a huge win for saving your personal energy.

Energy Saver #3: Let Go of External Opinions

We live in an age of social media. We’re constantly faced with how other people’s lives look in comparison with our own, and how we are perceived by others.

Try to stop and notice throughout the day how much attention you’re investing in other people and what they may think of you.

Don’t get me wrong, we all need to engage in the world. We are fundamentally social creatures. But focusing too much of your attention on how others view you can seriously diminish your energy and quality of life.

Meditation helps you get to know yourself more deeply. This begins with learning to invest more energy and attention on you.

Now, let me be clear, I’m not describing narcissism. I’m talking about having a healthy relationship with yourself.

Meditation helps you experience life’s simple pleasures profoundly, without anyone even noticing.

Curious to know more and learn a powerful set of meditation techniques? I hope you’ll join me for my two-day workshop. 

Check out Tiffany Robinson’s Pacific Rim College online workshop on May 27 & 28.

Everyone is welcome, ages 16 and up. Pacific Rim College diploma students will receive 1 NU/WHS academic credit. 

Founded in 2006, Pacific Rim College is a globally-recognized and award-winning institution of Holistic Medicine and Sustainable Living located on the unceded Coast Salish Territory of the Lekwungen (Songhees) and WSÁNEĆ nations on Vancouver Island in beautiful Victoria, British Columbia.

Tiffany Robinson is a full-time Lightwork instructor. She has studied meditation for more than 16 years. She lives at the Lightwork Ecovillage on Gambier Island, an off-grid permaculture farm-meets-meditation centre overlooking Howe Sound.

Gratitude For Right Now

An excerpt from the book, ‘Navigation’, by Scott Robinson

The spiritual warrior knows the tropical beach is not better or more valid than a quiet afternoon at home. Fundamentally they are the same.

You can heal yourself by seeing the ways you believe your happiness is external to you; that it is somewhere ‘out there’. What programming leads you away from this moment where everything is already as it needs to be?

Because it’s all right here, right now. Life is complete and whole as it is.

Yes, there is healing to do as you create freedom for yourself, but at the same time, there is only now. The present moment. So if you’re waiting for a different reality to show up, you are missing your life.

In order to have you must let go

An excerpt from the book, ‘The Journey is the Goal’, by Scott Robinson

You must let it go. This applies to everything, including the things you want most in life. The old cliche of “if you love something set it free” is based in spiritual truth. Practicing non-attachment is one of the more challenging things for the human body, because the body believes that if you want it you should hold onto it tightly. This is not the way of Spirit, of the universe. As Spirit we understand that if we want something we need to let it go and the more we want it the more we need to release it. This does not mean we go into apathy; “who cares”. It means we can be passionately involved with something and at the same time not be attached, being able to let it go.

Finding Flow: Joni’s Story

Being a mom, social work student and Lightwork Teacher-in-Training, Joni Louie is not new to juggling a lot in life. We caught up with Joni recently to get her take on Lightwork, and to find out what excites her most about this stage of her journey.

My Road to Level 1

This spring marks 15 years since I took my first Lightwork meditation class: Level 1. It has been an incredible journey of change as I look back over the years.

In 2007, I was working at a Gulf Island retreat centre. It was incredible – our office overlooked the ocean. I walked lush, green paths to and from work each day. Took beach walks and hikes through temperate rainforest regularly. I was introduced to digging for shellfish, evening paddles with bioluminescence, the sweetness of laundry on clotheslines and a simple life. 

Island life was still very new to me, and a far distance from my Albertan roots. I loved it: the community markets, time spent outdoors, vivid bioregion and all of the healthy signatures of west coast living I was introduced to. 

But it was also a time of personal tumult; of messy question-asking and emotionally-driven seeking. I had a lack of skillfulness in my relationships. Frequently, my life was intense, engaging, dramatic and at times volatile. I was learning a lot, but it wasn’t easy. 

When a friend put up a poster offering a Lightwork Level 1 meditation class series, I registered with little hesitation. I had no way of knowing how significant that decision would be. 

Right from the first class – I was riveted. 

I had come to Level 1 with an internal feeling of a million loose ends within me that needed to be dealt with in some way. It was as if a wild array of emotions might surface at any time, and I had no idea how to manage them – no idea how to find calm or make right what was so obviously painful inside.

Despite being effective in my work and enjoying life on the whole, I would at times cry without awareness of why. I created untold angst for my partner at the time. I was aware there were dark corners that needed to be investigated and cared for inside of me. 

In each class of Level 1, I learned simple, powerful techniques that provided me with a structure for better understanding and caring for myself. 

Level 1 taught me about the fundamentals of managing my energy. It gave me a language to name and begin owning my emotions with greater maturity and self-responsibility. It introduced me to boundary setting, which I had struggled to understand in relationships for years. It pointed me to a practice where I could find peace and calm. 

More than anything, Level 1 uplifted me spiritually. It spoke to me so clearly in a language I could understand. Amidst so much internal fog and lack of clarity, every tool I learned in Level 1 rang out like a bell. 

The class resonated so deeply with me that I took every subsequent Lightwork class without pause! Each one inspired new depths of personal healing. 

Fifteen years later, I am immensely grateful to everyone and everything interconnected that led me to sign up for that first class. 

Now, I am a professional Lightwork meditation teacher and one of the instructors of Lightwork’s two-year Teacher Training program. I am happily married and work full-time at Lightwork supporting others in learning powerful tools to get to know themselves more deeply.

There’s nothing I love more than this work. 

And I ended up on another west coast island, and loving it…

Maybe Lightwork is a fit for you too. If you’re curious about Level 1, the next class series starts April 11 online.

Updated March 28, 2022

Curious about Level 4?

Are you thinking about taking Lightwork Level 4 this year?

Now is the moment to request a pre-registration interview so you can register by March 6.

You might be wondering…what is Level 4 exactly? Why do people take it? Let us explain.

Level 4 is a journey into self-awareness and personal transformation. You do a deep-dive into how energy works by learning to read auras and energy systems.

As you may already know, everything is energy and humans are inherently able to sense energy and work with it. But because most modern-day cultures tend to deny this, people have largely lost touch with these abilities.

Level 4 allows you to turn those abilities back on. In doing so, you open up the true, big picture perspective on yourself and the world around you.

When you can see energy and understand how it works, your whole way of navigating life changes. You can heal yourself. You can change your life. You can help to bring light onto the planet.

That’s why we call Level 4 the transformation program.

To inquire about registering for Level 4, please send us an email at lightwork@lightwork.ca.

Learn more about Level 4 here.

Celebrate Simplicity

An excerpt from the book, Navigation, by Scott Robinson

Creating stability has been a priority in my own life. In the past I was into drama. One of the biggest changes I’ve had to make is letting it be okay to lead a simpler life.

Simple isn’t mundane. As you play with simplicity, you create more clarity.

I like to notice when I’m creating the next level of stability for myself. I can be more present for the simple things, which are often my biggest joys.

When I’m busy, I don’t have time to stop and really experience the small things. Like a raindrop hanging from a leaf. Or the scent of a rose as I walk by. Or the quality of the air at daybreak. Or the essence of light bouncing off water.

Or the pure stillness of a quiet room.

Creating Balance Through Spiritual Practice

An excerpt from the book, ‘Navigation,’ by Scott Robinson

Being in balance is a spiritual choice.

We can choose sustainability. We can choose a more holistic way of living. We can choose to be in harmony with each other and the earth. We can shift our value system.

I’m not talking about reverting to a pre-industrial society. I believe in the gifts of technology. I’m just saying to use them consciously. I’m saying be aware of the addictive quality of products, and make conscious choices about how to use them.

As a spiritual warrior, aim to bring spiritual awareness to every decision. Is it of the highest integrity for all of humanity and the planet?

Choose the path of balance.