Regenerative Practice: Pixie Lighthorse


Nature knows best. As we observe the natural world as being regenerative, we begin to realize that it is essential for us to mimic this mindfulness into our own daily existence. It can be easy to become repetitive and ‘mono-culture’ like in our yoga practice and other daily doings. This is one of the reasons I love attending gatherings that spark inspiration and cultivate positive change.

Being seasonally summer based in South Lake Tahoe, California makes it quite a joy to journey north to Wanderlust Squaw every July. This year was the most beloved Wanderlust experience yet! Could be a coincidence that they were also celebrating their 10 year anniversary with this ever evolving event. I was fortunate to participate in many beautiful classes and workshops, but the stand out this time around for myself was the speakeasy talk with Pixie Lighthorse. She touched on topics dear to my own heart, and engaged the community in important conversations. Her written and spoken words are wonderful resources for healers who wish to advance in their fields of study and for individuals in the self-healing process. Here, we catch up with Pixie as she shares a glimpse into her own creative and regenerative process…..

Can you briefly tell us a bit about your Earth journey thus far?

My Earth journey has had a lot of bumps and sharp turns! But I suspect not more than the average 48 year old living in the western world. What I find most exciting about living on Earth is how relationships are grown and how we strengthen them with healing and bonding. 

How has yoga influenced your life?

I practice a form called Primal Vinyasa, created by Annie Adamson of Yoga Union in Portland, OR. It integrates functional mobility training with barefoot theory, nature awareness, and some foundational principles of asana that work really well for strengthening the front of my body for daily life and ordinary moving. We call it “no more achy sounds movement practice” because it’s the antidote to cranky restricted movement—very playful and FUN. I came late to practice, and yoga has always been a little bit out of my wheelhouse. It’s changed the way I move each day and brought a lot of joy into moving and being on Earth. I was becoming a complainer with chronic stuck bits and pains. Traditional asana was too much like a competitive sport for me, my body was hurting trying to do it. 

Article Photos by: Heaven McArthur

What does a ‘regenerative practice’ mean to you?

Regenerative practice is an agricultural term (I’m also a part time rancher) that asks us to look to the soil to learn how to be. It calls for diversity on all measures: gut biome, range of motion, expansiveness, inclusive friendships with all kinds of people. It calls for honoring all of our bodies: emotional, spiritual, mental, physical in order to be fully engaged with the process of life.

How did you get into public speaking and presenting at events such as Wanderlust? 

Elena Brower connected me to Wanderlust, having read my books of prayers at gatherings around the world and seeing a positive response. In the world of yoga, just as in other communities, there is potential to heal spiritual and religious trauma. My books in the Prayers of Honoring series are that call-to-action.

What are some techniques you use to tend to your internal waters and soil?

Allowing emotions to have a place in my life has freed up a lot for me. As an adult child of an alcoholic, there is a secret ethic of “Don’t talk. Don’t trust. Don’t feel.”  This is toxic, and to me, it’s the Round-Up of the soul. Emotional repression is the signature of post-WWII America, and it’s tendrils have made intimate relationship increasingly sufferable the more intelligent we’ve become about what it feels like to be human. I’m deeply fed by the relationships I can count on. Inner healing for people and soil ravaged by chemicals, pesticides, and desertification bear similar results.

How do you balance nurturing yourself while designing beneficial relationships with others and nature?

I take a lot of time and space for myself. One example is that my partner and I deconstructed our co-habitation patterns so we both could have time to down-regulate our nervous systems. We stopped living in the same house and now claim quality interaction together when we have something to give. This is unconventional, but I think people are learning that it’s okay to do what works and gives life. Being with people all the time doesn’t give me life. When I tell that part of my story it’s alarming for some! It’s made a huge difference to us—the time we spend together isn’t about tolerating one another, it’s about building really great moments together.

How can we create more diversity and vitality within our daily yoga practices and life? 

Play and have fun. Life is too chaotic and too short to make movement another chore full of drudgery. Just this morning, my daughter and I made an impromptu stop at a park with a rock climbing feature before school drop off. We both got stuck up high and laughed our heads off while we navigated down. I like to make friends at the grocery store and our family pulls over to help people stranded on the road. I’m at my best when I have some room for spontaneous awesomeness. And gardening, of course. Lots of permaculture anywhere I can make a bed. 

Any tips on how to tap into creative brilliance?

Let the creative brilliance use you to tell its story. We have the most fragile aspects of our egos all tied up in our creativity, where it has no business trying to run things. I honor Creator when I sit down to write or paint and say, “Do what you will with these hands today.”  And I have to promise not to complain about what I make. We can have fun learning new skills, but our obsession with perfection is ruining all the fun. It’s making for an intellectual climate that to me, is boring and arrogant. Imagine if soil was so picky about the leaf litter that fed its worms. We must learn to do what we can with what we have and find joy in it.

What inspires you most right now?

I can’t get enough of marginalized voices. We are seeing the next major Civil Rights Movement! It shifts something so profound to center others. I’m getting tired of my own voice and tired of white males dominating the conversation about…just about everything. The inherent sagacity of black, brown, and indigenous peoples gives me life. Also, Autumn. I love the inward turning season—it’s my new year.

If you could say one sentence that everyone in the world would hear, what would it be?

Trade in your repetitive habits, forms, and mono-cultures to restore land, bodies, and vitality with diversity.

Do you have any upcoming projects or events you would like to tell us about?

Work! I am putting the final touches on my fifth book, Goldmining the Shadows, available in early October. It’s the sister to Boundaries & Protection and will make navigating the inner darkness much easier to talk about, and normalize.

Anything else you would like to share?

Yes, the Earth is a mirror for our bodies and lives. Every plant is a medicine, every animal a messenger, every direction a teacher. When the Earth suffers, we suffer. We can start healing right now, by tending our bodies’ needs and any soil that we can steward back to health.

 

 

Pixie Lighthorse is the author of five books centered on self-healing through intimate relationship with the natural world. She is an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. She writes to honor the unheard voices of her ancestors.

www.pixielighthorse.com

Insta @pixielighthorse

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