 There is so much information accessible to us about essential oils that it is sometimes difficult to decipher what can be used as a resource. There is also a need in being eco-conscious in what we use and purchase. Being an eco-conscious participant in Aromatherapy means to understand what plant species are threatened and what part of the plant spectrum to focus on, according to our need at that moment. This class is for the person who has been using essential oils, or new to using essential oils. Topics covered in the class include:
Date: Saturday, October 24th, 2020 Time: 6:30pm-7:30pm MST (AZ) Location: Zoom Link sent via Registration Confirmation Availability of Materials: Handouts will be sent prior to Zoom class in pdf format. Registration fee: $10-$30 (non-refundable and variable scale) Registration Deadline: Monday, October 19th, 2020 Registration Link: https://sacredreminders.weebly.com/store/p27/Understanding_Essential_Oils_%26_Being_an_Eco-Conscious_Participant.html I am a Certified Aromatherapist with over 600 hours of certification hours and study. Memberships include the Association of International Aromatherapists and the National Association of Holistic Aromatherapy. I am also a Certified Teacher of Mathematics and a Teacher of Aromatherapy. There is enjoyment in offering educational classes for the all learners! Many Blessings. Christina Grossman, MA , CA Founder/Owner of Sacred Reminders, LLC www.sacredreminders.com
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 For years, I have found a deeper connection in being with Nature to learn lessons and practices that continue to guide me in learning more about myself. As a woman, the lunar cycle of charting my progress for personal growth has been more comforting and nurturing, than setting resolutions every January and not being able to follow through. With following the lunar cycle and working with the lessons I have learned with plants, I have found the process to be a challenge and to be forgiving at the same time.
Lessons Include:
This class is set to begin with the New Moon in September and ending with the next New Moon in October. We will be following the lunar cycle and using my personally created Inspirational Plant Cards for the lessons. Plants of Focus
Class Information Dates: Thursday, September 17th, 2020 to Saturday, October 17th, 2020 Time: This class is self-paced. Each person will be given a lesson via pdf and video once a week to read at their own pace. There will be a live video session each Saturday to be recorded for later viewing. Location: Private Facebook Group Page (link given after registration) Availability of Materials: All videos, lessons, and posts will be available for 2 weeks after end date of class to offer time for self-paced learning. Registration fee: $25 - $45 (non-refundable and sliding scale) Registration Link: Connection within the Lunar Cycle: Intentions, Goal Setting, and Inspiration from Nature Questions? Email me with subject "September 2020 Online Class" Disclaimer: All of the content shared through, but not limited to, print and in video is for educational purposes only. This is not to replace medical advice, or counseling from a professional counselor.  During a special season in the desert, the trees take their turns in creating blossoms for all the pollinators. One of those trees is the Palo Verde Tree. One may think that the blooms occur all at once and then the period is over; however, I have observed that clusters of the Palo Verdes take turns. There is this lovely communication of Palo Verdes throughout the area that are first in bloom and display these electric honey yellow blossoms. It is dazzling and beautiful with such a contrast against the green bark of the tree. It is their time to lure the pollinators in this spring celebration! This year, there is a subtleness to their order of blooming that may replicate an almost forgotten order of family hierarchy. The older trees are first to bloom before the newer generation get their turn. The fuller, stronger, more mature trees are able to present themselves to the pollinators and have their moment. However, the mature trees are the not the only ones to get their time to shine. The younger generation is then transferred this power to be able to stand out amongst the desert trees as well. It is such a beautiful dance of transition that allows all ages of the Palo Verdes to have their bloom. What a wonderful gesture to offer to the pollinators to get both blossoms of maturity and new generation to provide diversity. So how could we use this way of taking turns in our own lifespan? I feel that when we are younger adults, we want to peek at our success in life early on. I have felt that there is this race to be highly successful at such a young age. We might also envy the more matured adults in their success and how they flourish. It is through this hierarchy that we often miss out on, that we can all have our blossoming moment in our own time. There is so much experience, work, and time that goes into a peek moment that we often strive for. This also happens in seasons of each chapter of our lifespan. To wait a little longer for my time to bloom, I look at the ones before me and sit in awe of their “electric yellow honey” shining light that took so many seasons to get here. Celebrate in someone else’s shining moment, observe how many dry and rain seasons they lived through, and know that your shining moment will come in your own time too. Many Blessings, Christina Grossman, M.A, C.A. Founder of Sacred Reminders, LLC All Content and Photos on www.sacredreminders.com are Property of Sacred Reminders, LLC and Christina Grossman Copyright 2016-2020 All Rights Reserved  December 12th is a very important day and just as important is the night before. Whether you are in Mexico, or in the United States, the Virgen de Guadalupe is the Mother of all Mothers and the Female of all Females. Our Lady of Guadalupe, as she is also named, is for everyone. She embraces all and encourages all of us to see the light in ourselves. She encourages us to come to understand how important all of us are and the power in trust and belief in oneself, regardless of whatever walk of life we are in.
As a young child, each year on December 11th, the ladies of the community would come to my Nana’s house. There would be food, music, rosaries, and above all, the altar of the Lady of Guadalupe in the center of the living room. It was a time for celebration, but most importantly, a time for honoring the Mother. When it was time for the lead woman to begin the rosary, the whole house fell silent. Whatever we were talking about, or eating, or playing, it stopped so that we could all pray the rosary. With the room filled with all of us saying the same prayers in sync, it became a rhythmic ceremony of sound to be sent to the Virgen de Guadalupe in honor of our love and devotion to her. When December 11th began to merge to December 12th, the house was filled with songs, dancing, and even more celebration. She is a symbol of feminine strength, perseverance, tenacity, and faith. The Virgin de Guadalupe is there to represent the love, strength, and wisdom of every grandmother, aunt, mother, daughter, and friend who has gone through it all. She is the femininity that is grounded, fierce, demands that we are respected, and above all, to acknowledge we are who we are because we were created this way and this is sacred. Wherever we are placed on this Earth, we are born to inspire and persevere, and to spread the love. Regardless of our economic status, our ethnicity, our race, our religious beliefs, we are who we are and equal in importance by preserving our individuality, not conformity. The power of the community is profound and so is the one person who can still practice compassion, empathy, and unconditional love. However, no one is perfect all the time. The Virgin de Guadalupe is there to dust you off and encourage you to do better, now that you know better. She has helped me realize that I probably would have made a better decision if I wasn’t so tired that day, or for the last few weeks. Persevering takes practice. In doing so, we do our best with what we have, even if our best was different from yesterday. She has remained with me and I have remained with her because of this. When it was time for me to merge into woman hood with my Quinceañera, she was there. When it was time for me to celebrate my marriage, she was there. When it was time for me to be initiated into motherhood, she was there. She has been there through the greatest times and in the darkest moments of my life. She is the first one you see when you enter my house because she is there to welcome you like any other matriarch in the family. She is Mother. In honor of the beautiful Matriarch, I created this Mandala a year ago for her. May this bring you inspiration and blessings. May this inspire you to search for the strong feminine wisdom within yourself. May she also bring you encouragement to see the light within you and to trust in your own importance, just as she has done for me. Many blessings, Christina Grossman, M.A, C.A. Founder of Sacred Reminders, LLC All Content and Photos on www.sacredreminders.com are Property of Sacred Reminders, LLC and Christina Grossman Copyright 2016-2020 All Rights Reserved  The center of each Mandala is like your own heart to your body. The center of the Mandala is so important because it brings about life to the rest of the creation process. In each time I begin a new one, I take a breath as a reminder of how Sacred this moment is. With that breath, I let go of perfection and ego…just for that moment.
It took me time to really understand how much taking that breath would save me from giving up. At first, there was no confidence whatsoever of creating one in the first place, until I let go of trying to strive for perfection. Then the Mandalas transformed to something incredibly more meaningful for me and to those who I made them for. With each experience of every Mandala, I take that back to practice with my own life in as many moments that I can. There still lies faith in remembering to take a breath and letting go of perfection so that the moments I have with my family will transform themselves to something more meaningful over time. That takes work. Each day and every day, in our household, we rely on routine. Well, when you have as many different personalities and talents in our household, finding a generic “one size fits all” routine does not exist. Over the years, I have come to terms that new routines will present themselves when the old ones do not work anymore. Truthfully, I still do get frustrated and am nowhere near perfect in handling the change. However, I keep thinking back to the creation process of a Mandala and that reminds me of what is Sacred. What is Sacred, at this moment, is the relationship with family and the memories we create together. Since my name is also Mother, I need a tool to serve my wellness because I continue to take care of the wellness of my family. That tool is breath. Allowing myself to take a breath gives me that reminder that at the center of it all lies my heart. The heart that loves, the heart that forgives, the heart that asks for forgiveness, and still continues to beat over and over again in order create this beautiful Mandala of moments. Many Blessings, Christina Grossman, M.A, C.A. Founder of Sacred Reminders, LLC All Content and Photos on www.sacredreminders.com are Property of Sacred Reminders, LLC and Christina Grossman Copyright 2016-2020 All Rights Reserved  Sacred Reminders, LLC is something that I could never have imagined 7 years ago, or even ever. Somehow it all fits and makes sense in my life at this moment. It took a tremendous amount of effort, of letting go, a challenge in faith, love from my family, and a lot of tools along the way. Even still, I am still working on staying connected to what is Sacred and reminding myself that all I ever needed is all that I have at this very moment and always will be that way. Sometimes, that still takes a lot of hard work. Take this spiral, for instance, that my children and I made with the leaves of our wonderful Arizona Sycamore Tree. It began as a math lesson to collect all the leaves from smallest to biggest, and so they did. Their attention span was full and so they played and I took the leaves to create this spiral, my favorite formation. It gave me such joy to be able to use something from Nature and create art. Even taking a simple picture of this was really mind-blowing to me at that time as I did not have much confidence in my ability to create beautiful things, other than using my words and giving birth to wonderful lives. Now, as I have now looked at this spiral over and over again, it has so much more meaning for me. From those tiny leaves from the center, to the growth of the spiral, to the biggest leaves outward, this is how I now see myself in my expansion of getting to know myself, the expansion in what I believe in, and letting go of the things that do not serve my purpose in life. Just like the Arizona Sycamore, she sheds her bark more and more each day to reveal this beautifully smooth bark in order to grow stronger and longer, so must I shed a lot of whatever it is I have been holding on to. Little by little, I have shed a lot, picked up some more, and am trying to shed that too. What I have been so reminded each time is that it takes work every day and every moment, but it is worth it. The purpose of this blog is to share the tools that have worked for me that have helped and keep on helping me remind myself of getting back to what is important and Sacred to me. These tools may help you get you back to what is Sacred to you, or help you even be able to have a moment to breathe, which in this life, is a luxury in itself. I am not here to tell you how perfect my life is because it is wonderfully and lovingly imperfect, as it should be. There are tremendous challenges and unknowns in any given day. What gives me joy is helping others not have to reinvent the whee. Because a wheel that works will most likely come out round anyway. In my way of building that wheel, the hope is to lighten your load a little, even for a moment. Many Blessings, Christina Grossman, M.A, C.A. Founder of Sacred Reminders, LLC All Content and Photos on www.sacredreminders.com are Property of Sacred Reminders, LLC and Christina Grossman Copyright 2016-2020 All Rights Reserved  This Tree Mandala comes with a story, as all the Mandalas do. Usually, the ones that I make have a center and then grows from there. However, the entire center is the Tree, which is very fitting for all of us this time of year coming towards the Winter Season, the time of reflection. There are countless Trees of every kind around the world and they have different qualities and purpose, yet all have a common way of living. They all have roots that go into the Earth to receive nutrients and send messages to each other. They have families and networks to help the new Trees and the Elder Trees. All Trees serve to be a sanctuary to almost every living being in their area, from the birds to other plants. They also all begin from a single seed. Most importantly, they all breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen…they all breathe. The Trees have moments of new growth, a time to bear fruit or flowers, and a time to shed their leaves to prepare for the new cycle each and every year. For Trees, it does not matter what kind of Tree exists on this Earth. They each have their own purpose and importance; most especially, they are all equally important in life. So should we accept that we cannot do this alone because we are all parts to make the whole. Take a step back and see how all of these wonderful parts in this Mandala create this magnificent creation. There is not just one part that makes this complete, but of many parts of many stones and Trees. Hematite is for roots and grounding. Tree agate is located on the trunk and surrounding the head of the Tree to represent the importance of the cycle’s of life. Lichen is present to remind us of how Lichen is its own example of a symbiotic relationship that thrives. Sycamore, Eucalyptus, and Chestnut are parts that make this whole. Desert Rose Selenite is there to guide us in seeing the bigger picture, in deeper meaning…reminding us what is important. This is how we should see each other’s importance, by looking at how we make up this magnificent creation. We all have our own way of contributing to life. We all have our own uniqueness and astounding strengths and our own way of honoring this wonderful Universe. We all breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide…we all breathe. This is what makes all of us so incredibly important and magnificent. We cannot do anything alone and so we must appreciate each other and respect each other so that we can all thrive, to continue this beautiful picture of life that we are existing in at this very moment. Many Blessings, Christina Grossman, M.A, C.A. Founder of Sacred Reminders, LLC All Content and Photos on www.sacredreminders.com are Property of Sacred Reminders, LLC and Christina Grossman Copyright 2016-2020 All Rights Reserved  However small you think your efforts are, think again.
The flower wondered how significant one would be. It still joined the other flowers in the meadow and they grew and covered as far as the eyes could see. The rock wondered how significant it could be. It still joined the rest and made mountains. The water drop wondered how significant one would be. It still joined the others to carve canyons and quench the thirst of those in need. The speck of light wondered how significant one would be. It still joined the others to provide light for growth and warmth. And the Earth and Sky held everyone together in all significance. All is significant. When we all come together, our efforts create something of beauty and worth. Many Blessings, Christina Grossman, M.A, C.A. Founder of Sacred Reminders, LLC All Content and Photos on www.sacredreminders.com are Property of Sacred Reminders, LLC and Christina Grossman Copyright 2016-2020 All Rights Reserved  This Seed Mandala, that I created so many years ago, was an offering of gratitude to Nature and the gift of having seeds and plants. Even during such challenging times that all of us have not ever seen, or experienced in such magnitude, the hope that has shown up in many homes is the gratitude and power of the seed.
It has been such an inspiring and humbling moment to be present in watching so many beginning to grow home gardens, vegetables, or herbs. Many of us have been coming back in making salves and infusions for our own wellness. Others have been learning to re-use and up-cycle what we already have at home. What it comes down to is that we are gaining a perspective of doing something healthy that can be an essential part of creating a sustainable life of self-care. Growing, harvesting, creating, and getting back to simple, is a level of ownership and power that may be the avenue to restoring a level of wellbeing. There are many ways in how we have changed our perspective of what is important. For now, what seeds will you plant in your life? As for me, self-care is getting back to a level of sustainability to reconnect, even deeper, with the abundance of Nature, to learn and to continue creating what is simple, natural, and at times organic for the benefit of my well being, my family, and yours. Many Blessings, Christina Grossman, M.A, C.A. Founder of Sacred Reminders, LLC All Content and Photos on www.sacredreminders.com are Property of Sacred Reminders, LLC and Christina Grossman Copyright 2016-2020 All Rights Reserved Event Name: Mom and Kids’ Aromatherapy: Self Care is #1
Date: Saturday, February 29th, 2020 Time: 10:00am-11:30am Location: Sacred Wheel Connection (address supplied via registration confirmation) Registration fee: $25 (non-refundable) Note: Due to venue constraints, this is a class for adults only. Please email me if you have any questions. ************************************************************* You will be in a class/group setting to learn about the plants and essential oils that can help you and your child relax. Plants include Lavender, Chamomile, and Rose. Christina Grossman, a Certified Aromatherapist and Founder of Sacred Reminders, will walk you through on how to take care of your essential oils, go more in-depth of getting to know them, and learn ways to incorporate them into the everyday. Learn recipes you can make at home for you and your children, ages newborn and older. We all know that when Momma feels better, everyone feels better! Handouts, recipes, and DIY product will be provided to all registered participants. We look forward to seeing you there! Note: All paid registered participants (even those who cancel, will receive handouts and supplies to make the product). Registration Link: Mom and Kid’s Aromatherapy Class Questions? Email me with subject "Aromatherapy Question" |
AuthorLife can be busy and comes with challenges, but it can come down to the little things of adding that light and spark into our life that can give us the empowerment to get back on track with our wellness for self. Archives
September 2020
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