Why I offer the Ladys Slipper Ring Home Study course Herbal CSM

Marketing is so annoying.

I was talking to my close girlfriend last night and found myself in an honest kind of rant. 

She asked me about my Lady's Slipper Ring.....

"Hey! Your membership is open again for another year!"

"Yep :) it is!", I reply.

"Are you excited, or nervous?" She inquires.

"Both" (of course)

You see, there's a world of fancy marketing plans out there, and many of them are very slick, very savvy, and very effective. 

They are also designed by folks who know all about marketing and get paid to do that with their time, and can tell everyone all about it. 

I raise kids. I harvest plants. I make medicines and oils and fragrant delights - instead  of weaving a string of drip campaigns into your email box every day, laced with this deadline and this incentive and this push and shove. 

I bend time in order to make dinner for my family, and escape soccer practices to get into the woods. I move mountains in order to keep homeschooling my kids, and I try like hell to make sure that every way I choose to spend my time is in alignment with my values. 

Perhaps I should apologize, because I'm not giving you a proper spiel to be properly coaxed and convinced. I don't actually want to sell you something that requires lubrication. 

Perhaps you want more information, or more insight and my lack of big showy buttons and videos make me small and hard to find.

And maybe you just want the truth from the horses mouth, without the airbrushed words and glittery splash pages. Maybe you just want to hear what I really think, and why the Lady's Slipper Ring is what I choose to put out in the world. 

So here it is, black and white:

I offer this work because I've been to hell and back. A few times. I know the fight to remain heart centered.

This is the work, the insight and loving kind of contemplation that got me through my dark nights of the soul.

These are the affirmations I needed when I wanted to throw in the towel. 

Mornings when I wished with all my heart, that I didn't even wake up, the thread of life was held to my heart by the smell of the plants. By the grounding of vetiver and cinnamon on my feet, I was able to walk that hard day. I was able to let the tears fall with a little more compassion. 

I do this work because honesty can set us free, but sometimes the truth is hiding under a pile of shit.

I do this work because I'm in service to the plants - it is my duty to share their sensual, intuitive powers. It's my thank you to them for resuscitating me time after time after time.

It's the Echinacea roots that carried my grief when I could no longer. 

It's the Bloodroot that called me a medicine woman before I could. 

It's the Pine tree that climbed my bones first. 

It's the Oats that sowed me. 

I'm not a doctor, I'm not a psychologist, I'm not a naturopath. 

I'm not a therapist.

I am a woman 

who's been to hell and back

and these are the tools that carry me through

the challenges of being woman, authentically and wholly

beautifully and dynamically

and I want women to 

not only

know these tools, 

but always have a fragrant oil to put on before bed

to have a healing salve in their bag

and feel the support of the plants

in their bodies and lives

and know you are not alone

as you give

and give

and give

to your families, 

your lovers

your communities

your work

it is you that shines greatness and sweetness

and cannot bear fruit without water 

at your feet.

And so I have not spent time and labor on fancy technological email patterns, and perhaps this is a mistake. 

But instead I have gathered primrose and mullein and artemisia for you, for your body, your pleasure, for your health and joy. 

I have climbed trunks for resins so that you may soothe your weary ankles, and collected the tiniest of skullcap flowers from nearly invisible patches of meadow. I splash through swampy frog streams to reach the bluest of the vervain, and balance precariously on the shoulders of my girlfriend in the thick of the forest so that I can reach enough Elder flowers to last the winter. 

And I will continue to fill my baskets with unruly beauty so that you may always know yours ... your beauty, and your basket full with nourishment. 

In service of the Green Goddess that is in all,

Ananda Lakshmi

for the

Lady's Slipper Ring, Pleasure Medicine Membership UPDATE - LSR 2012-2013 is FULL. Please sign up for the newsletter to stay connected.

beauty blessings

xoxo