#41: An Ode to Autumn

Episode 41: An Ode to Autumn: Seasonal Energetics, Fall Eco Beauty Favorites, Nourishing Food + Tea, Astrology & Cozy Healing

An appreciation for autumn (the best season) that goes beyond pumpkin spice, BBW candles, and Hocus Pocus. I’m very interested in seasonal energetics, and share how I’ve come to understand my affinity for this season based on Chinese Five Element Theory (I’m very strong Metal type), astrology (pure Air type), personality (INFJ), and limbic system imprinting from childhood growing up experiencing distinct and archetypal seasonal transitions in upstate New York. Then of course we talk about fall (eco) beauty favorites (skincare, a bit of makeup, body and hair care, et cetera), nourishing foods/teas/medicines, a look ahead at the major astrological transits this fall, and I end with answering a few questions I received on Instagram.

Episode Notes:

For listeners of the podcast during September:
Use the code LAMOUR at Pink Moon checkout to:
*Donate 10% of your order to The Lyson Center for Civic Agriculture and Food Systems
*Receive a Pink Moon Gua Sha stone ($32 value) with your $125+ order at Pink Moon
*Receive a sample of the Pink Moon Lunar Drops with every order

Save 15% off a Ranavat Botanics Kansa Wand and anything else on Ranavat’s website during the month of September using the code LAMOUR at checkout!

Save 10% off your Earthwise Beauty or Pacific Northwest Essences order using the code LAMOUR.

Follow along on my 30 days of kansa wand/gua sha project this month on Instagram (@lamouretlamusique). I post about my routine each night, and have a saved highlight reel of the project on my Instagram profile. I will be re-posting on Patreon at the end of the month. You can watch my 24 days of kansa wand project from March of this year here: https://youtu.be/YLQLvqG6PU0

Please consider helping me reach a goal of 199 Patreon supporters by the end of September! Once I reach this goal I will be releasing full transcripts of every episode of Your Purpose is Beauty, thereby increasing accessibility of the podcast and providing an easy way to reference past episodes and search for information that piqued your interest. Podcast transcripts will be posted with each episode post on lamouretlamusique.com. Also this month I will start including an option for annual Patreon membership, at any tier, at a 12% discount. Visit Patreon.com/lamouretlamusique to support.

Links and Resources Mentioned in the Show:
Free + True Mama Pacha* https://bit.ly/35RU1Xw
Ayuna Cream II https://bit.ly/2ZXP2B4
Ayuna Terra* https://bit.ly/35Xtfgv
Earthwise Magical Babassu https://bit.ly/2ZVwhy3 (LAMOUR for 10% off)
Earthwise Ferns and Moss https://bit.ly/2FCDfBh (LAMOUR for 10% off)
Inlight Lip Serum* https://bit.ly/3kA4B9Y
Earthwise Thelma https://bit.ly/3co5hMD (LAMOUR for 10% off)
RMS Diabolique https://bit.ly/35XvKPV
Olio E Osso Tinted Balms in No. 4 and No. 5 https://bit.ly/3mCJFRt
Lisa Eldridge Velvet Jazz https://bit.ly/2Hjp3NX
NARS Cruella https://bit.ly/3mFBaFi
Aether Joshua Tree Palette https://bit.ly/3hSy6Su
NARS Cordura https://bit.ly/2HjoQu9
Kjaer Weis Abundance https://bit.ly/3hQ4lBE
Ere Perez Carrot Colour Pot in Holy* https://bit.ly/32NtZTt
Lhamour Mongolia soaps https://bit.ly/3mCxq7m
Inlight Body Butter* https://bit.ly/3hPW54S
Mythic Medicinals St. John’s Wort Oil https://bit.ly/33PlOFq
Innersense Hair Masque https://bit.ly/3csTSLL
In Fiore Patchouli Royale https://bit.ly/3kzIj83
Hermes Ambre Narguile https://bit.ly/3kz4L19
Vered Divinité Perfume https://bit.ly/3hKZ26N
Deborah Lippman Single Ladies https://bit.ly/35XuJY7
OPI Lincoln Park After Dark https://bit.ly/33MwGnG
Aila Sarang https://bit.ly/3mOp7pg
Smith + Cult Tenderoni (discontinued)
Club Monaco turtlenecks https://bit.ly/2Hkajyj
Everlane cashmere crew https://bit.ly/3hVvrHW
Zara blanket scarf https://go.zara/2FCDL2b
Pique Matcha https://bit.ly/3hNFZbO
Golde Turmeric Tonic* https://bit.ly/3iPvMNs
Nespresso Vertuo https://bit.ly/2RM2vHr
Earthwise Revered Berries https://bit.ly/3kADE5M (LAMOUR for 10% off)
Earthwise Nettle https://bit.ly/32L1WUO (LAMOUR for 10% off)
Earthwise Goldenrod https://bit.ly/3hIb4Oc (LAMOUR for 10% off)
Earthwise St. John’s Wort https://bit.ly/2C2zh2M (LAMOUR for 10% off)

*PR sample

To listen –
Episode 10: Why Valentine’s Day is the Best Holiday
Episode 15: How Traditional & Nourishing Foods Saved My Health
Episode 16: Khulan Davaadorj, Lhamour Mongolia
Episode 37: Taking Questions from Instagram #2 (Part I)

To watch –
Earthwise Beauty Oils/Oilserums

To read –
TCM World Five Element Framework

To visit –
The Body Astrologer
Medicine Stories on Herbal Body Oiling
Kami McBride

Find Mercedes:
Join the L’Amour et la Musique Patreon community to gain access to exclusive episodes of Your Purpose is Beauty, along with 3 years’ worth of exclusively produced beauty video content!

Subscribe to L’Amour et la Musique on YouTube
Follow L’Amour et la Musique on Instagram
Visit L’Amour et la Musique’s website
L’Amour visual inspiration on Pinterest

To listen and subscribe, just search “Your Purpose is Beauty” on your favorite platform. New episodes every Monday (first Monday of each month is a Patron-Exclusive episode, available for $3 per month)
Your Purpose is Beauty on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/36oCxPT
Your Purpose is Beauty on Goodle Podcasts: https://bit.ly/35l7Xp1
Your Purpose is Beauty on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2ZPU94Q
Your Purpose is Beauty on Stitcher: https://bit.ly/2QqCLAO
Your Purpose is Beauty on Pocket Casts: https://pca.st/ki27eqe5

OVERVIEW

00:09:25 – Ode to Autumn
00:13:25 – Seasonal Energetics– (Jump to section)
00:21:35 – Fall (Eco) Beauty Favorites – Skin Care– (Jump to section)
00:26:57 – Fall (Eco) Beauty Favorites – Maquillage– (Jump to section)
00:35:21 – Fall (Eco) Beauty Favorites – Body Care– (Jump to section)
00:36:25 – Sidenote – Astrology– (Jump to section)
00:42:19 – Fall (Eco) Beauty Favorites – Hair– (Jump to section)
00:43:34 – Fall (Eco) Beauty Favorites – Fragrance and Nails– (Jump to section)
00:49:05 – Fall (Eco) Beauty Favorites – Clothing– (Jump to section)
00:51:53 – Fall (Eco) Beauty Favorite – Nourishing food and tea– (Jump to section)
00:56:33 – Addendum – Herbal Support– (Jump to section)
00:57:58 – Astrological Highlights– (Jump to section)
01:00:30 – Your Questions from Instagram– (Jump to section)
01:06:32 – Final Question: Cozy is Healing– (Jump to section)

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Hello, Your Purposes Beauty listeners. Before we start today’s episode, I wanted to let you know that during this month, September of 2020, I’m working to reach a goal of 199 Patreon supporters at any level by the end of the month. Once I reach this goal, I will be releasing full transcripts of every episode of Your Purpose is Beauty, thereby increasing the accessibility of the podcast and providing an easy way to reference past episodes and search for information that piqued your interest. Podcast transcripts will be posted with each episode post on https://lamouretlamusique.com/.

When you become a Patron you gain access to almost three years worth of bonus content, including exclusive podcast episodes, monthly bonus videos, individualized video-based correspondence and weekly live Get Ready With Me’s that are archived indefinitely.

Also this month they will start including an option for annual Patreon membership at any tier at a 12% discount. This translates into savings of $4.32 at the $3 a month level, $10.08 at the $7 a month level, $15.84 at the $11 a month level, and $47.52 at the $33 a month level. I will post all the details of how to either sign up as a new patron for an annual membership, or how to convert your existing Patreon subscription to an annual membership.

I made the decision to not do any sponsored work on L’Amour because I felt it was fundamentally at odds with my current goals: To speak honestly from the heart without any conflict of interest without an agenda, and without being beholden to anyone else’s interest. Your support on Patreon helps bring to fruition this kind of work in the beauty and conscious living space and I hope you’ll consider helping me reach my goal. Sending a huge heartfelt expression of gratitude to all my current and past patrons who have supported me. Please visit Patreon.com/lamouretlamusique to join.

(music)
02:09
Hello Hello! Welcome to another episode of Your Purposes Beauty. This is Episode 41 of the podcast. I’m sorry if I sound kind of low energy. It’s about 8 pm on a Monday night and this is kind of the last possible time for me to record an episode if I want to have one come out the following week in terms of the editing turnaround time so I always endeavor to get it done over the weekend, but sometimes it gets pushed until Monday night like today. I just feel like toddlerhood has been pressing my husband Kaveh and I to the seams. We have a 22-month-old and I’m sure all of you parents out there that have kids in the two to three to four-year range will be like: “Oh, just to wait, it gets even better.” It’s just a lot. It’s a lot. Every phase is a lot. You think the newborn phase is a lot. And then you think that the one two year phase is a lot and we’re coming up on two. Baby L’Amour will turn two in the beginning of November, which is kind of an entree into today’s episode because we’re going to be talking all about the best season.

In my opinion, unequivocally the best of the four seasons that we get to experience: fall or autumn. I had done an episode, I think it’s Episode 10 on the podcast was an episode all about how in my opinion, Valentine’s Day is the best holiday and it’s a very underappreciated holiday. I feel like it’s a very misunderstood quote-unquote “holiday” if you want to call it that. But it was really me expressing my appreciation for this day that’s dedicated to love and I threw in beauty recommendations like I kind of tied it back to beauty. So I thought today we would do an ode to fall and autumn. I posted this on my Instagram stories with a little question submission to see what people wanted covered. I had posited a few things like fall beauty favorites, skincare, transitioning, wardrobe, astrology, but I got tons of responses. I was actually really surprised at how enthusiastic people were about wanting to hear this episode all about autumn. I think, for the most part, my impression – or it could just be people that I’m in contact with – I feel like there’s a pretty universal appreciation for fall although I think some people do find it potentially melancholy. So I’m going to start the episode today by talking about my personal connection to this season – positing some reasons why I feel that way. There’s some esoteric reasons, but there’s also just some childhood reasons or lived experience reasons. And then, of course, I’m going to talk about some fall beauty favorites. We’ll do some skincare, some makeup, some body care, hair, fragrance nails. I do have some wardrobe, things to talk about. And then the beverages and food section is … it just has to be its own thing. I will talk about a couple of things because I think food is so much a part of our lives and especially during a seasonal transition. I think that the way that we eat shifts pretty profoundly and I think this summer to fall transition is really profound in that way as well as the winter to spring transition. So the types of foods that we have available to us, especially if you’re eating more seasonally or searching out local produce, you’re more interacting with the season on this level, so I guess that’s a good time to let you know, just a couple of announcements I have before we dive into all of this, which is the Patron exclusive content I have going on this month for September, which ties into this food issues.

06:16
So the patron-exclusive podcast episode I actually published on September 7, that was Episode 39. And it was the second part of a recent Q&A that I did here. Part one is here on the public feed. I think it’s 37. Maybe I’ll have it in the show notes. But I listed all of the questions that I answered in this Patron exclusive episode on lamouretlamusique.com. So you can go see everything I answered, and if that’s of interest, please do head on over to Patreon.

So I did a poll…I do a video poll every month. But one of the options or the option that one was a What I Eat in a Day video. So I often include this as an option or I sort of cycle it into the poll options every now and then. These tend to be popular videos on YouTube. At least they have been throughout the years. I think people are always really curious about how people are nourishing themselves, especially when you feel aligned with someone’s perspective on that whether it’s traditional foods or ancestral foods, which is my case, but people that are vegetarian or vegan or paleo or keto, they all find that kind of resonance with people that are doing what I eat in a day videos too. So it actually won this month, which I was sort of surprised to see because I include it as an option every now and then. But this is the first time that it’s won. So I’m going to be doing a video towards the end of the month all about, well, it’s going to be a what I eat in a day video and how we eat as a family but I’ll use it as an opportunity to talk about how I practice traditional foods. What it means to me, you know, we’re not purist or perfect, but I could share a lot about the sources for some of our stuff, some of the tenants that I try and abide by and what ancestral foods mean to us because we are a very multi-ethnic family. I’m sure you’ve heard me say that I am of mixed ethnicity. My mother is Mexican American and my father was Polish and Irish. So I grew up with these different cultural food traditions and my husband Kaveh is a first-generation Iranian. So they eat a ton of Persian food at my in law’s home and I’m learning how to make actually a lot of the Persian stews. I’ve already learned how to make Kotlets which are these Persian meat, potato, and onion patties that are amazing. A lot of different cuisines have a version of that. For example, one of my longtime Patreon supporters and friends is Russian and she said that they have something very similar in Russian cooking. So that’s going to be the place to go if you want to hear much more about nourishing fall recipes and my approach to foods. I’ll tell you a couple in this episode, but it’s going to be pretty surface level. So if you’re interested, please do head to Patreon. It’s patreon.com/lamouretlamusique. Still somehow managed to do a seven-minute intro to this episode. So let’s get into it.

(music)
09:25
I think the place to start with my personal Ode to Autumn is my background. So I grew up in upstate New York, and I feel like growing up in upstate New York, gave me a very deep appreciation and lived experience of seasonality. So I was actually born in South Carolina and moved to upstate New York when I was four and a half so I don’t have a ton of memories of South Carolina. But of course, I have many, many memories of upstate New York. And I always have had positive associations with autumn. I always loved the feeling of going back to school. I’m definitely a nerd as we know, but it wasn’t even really, “Oh I’m so excited to go back and learn.” It was the freshness and the promise of this new time of year. And in fact, that to me always felt like the fresh start of the year and not January. I’m sure that some other people can relate to that. But in addition to that, it was always the sensory feeling of the air changing and the crispness in the air, the way that the air smelled, the beautiful colors of the leaves changing the little traditions and rituals that we used to do as a family. So I grew up in a very small village that was about 15 minutes outside of Ithaca, New York. There were 500 people in my village. I went to a tiny little elementary school, down the street from my house. So I had a pretty rural upbringing in a lot of ways, my high school was next to a dairy farm, the whole nine yards. But my little village every year had a harvest festival that took place at this little elementary school and I still to this day have such visceral memories of going on a hayride, drinking apple cider, and it always just made my heart so, so happy. As a kid, I was never, like, that nuts about Halloween. Plus, by the time Halloween rolled around, it was always really cold in the part of New York that I grew up in. We often had to wear winter coats over our costumes, which was a total buzzkill, as you can imagine, but it often would even snow before Halloween. As I’ve reflected on it as an adult, that feeling of the year changing, the season changing, the temperature changing, I mean, I would be stating the obvious to say that autumn is a time of slowing down, of going inside, becoming more internal, being more focused on nourishing and sustaining the self. And nature is preparing for this long slumber and wildlife is preparing for this long slumber so it’s a naturally more introverted time of year. I am naturally more introverted person. I think I have described myself to you before as an extroverted introvert. I’m kind of right on the cusp, but I think I veer more towards introversion than extraversion. I have taken Myers Briggs I’m an INFJ. And I think that a lot of you listening probably are as well because I feel like INFJ’s are very attracted to other INFJ energy. It’s always annoyed me though, that there’s this weird elitism around INFJ’s because it’s described as being a relatively rare personality type. But I don’t find it to be so because I know so many INFJs. I don’t know we just all find each other somehow. I’ve also never done Enneagram. I know some people are really, really into that. The point of all that is that I’m a naturally more introverted person, so anything that’s going to engender just a slower, calmer, more nourishing energy really jives with what I always considered to be my personality.

(music)

13:25

Now we’re going to move into kind of a constitutional discussion, which is what I’ve really learned about myself and why this type of seasonal energy just is such a jive with me and nourishes my soul. So as you know, I’m a longtime fan and cheerleader of acupuncture. I discovered acupuncture around 2009. I’ve done so much past content on this. I won’t belabor it here. But over the years I’ve seen many different acupuncturists and I end up developing good rapport with certain acupuncturists and I think it inevitably comes out that I personally am very interested in potentially someday studying classical Chinese medicine myself – becoming a practitioner. I don’t know. That’s actually a topic probably for another episode. I might do goals/visioning type of episode around the new year. That’s, like, a long-term goal of mine. But I’ve been told by multiple acupuncturists that in Five Element Theory that I am definitely a metal type.

So I’m not an expert in five element theory at all. I pulled up an article on the five-element framework from TCMworld.org. I’ll include it in the show notes if you want to go take a peek, but they say the five elements are a comprehensive template that organizes all natural phenomena into five master groups are patterns in nature. So the five elements are wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. And within each of these categories, there are associations with seasons directions, climate, stage of growth and development, and internal organ body tissue, emotion aspect of the soul, taste, color, sound. They say the categories are seemingly limitless. But it’s basically an organizing rubric. Or I guess maybe you could call it a heuristic for understanding these more esoteric or universal principles that organize life as we know it. And apparently Five Element Theory is the foundation of Chinese disciplines like Fung Shui, martial arts, and the I Ching.

So just wanted to give you a little background there. If you go to this TCMworld.org article there’s a nice diagram of the five elements and I’m looking right here at metal which is what I have always been told that I am. Now similar, I think, to Ayurveda dosha typing, we all have all of the elements in us, right? But we tend to express constitutionally a certain way. If you’ve ever done any work with a medical astrologer, I realize how crazy that sounds to me that’s very normal. I’m like, “Oh, yeah, of course, all of you listening have worked with a medical astrologer.” But if you know anything constitutionally about astrology, there are four elements there, air, fire, earth, and water. And in an astrological typing sense, I am pretty much a pure air type. So the 12 signs of the zodiac are all associated with a different element. And there are ways to determine from someone’s chart what their constitutional type is. Similar to a dosha in Ayurveda, which I know the least about, you know, you can be dominant in two. It’s a little bit more uncommon to have a person be a purifier or a pure air, but you know, it definitely does happen. Almost all of my placements are in air signs, which is why but there’s other things that can balance that out or contribute to a typing. So I just brought that up as a side example. It’s not necessarily relevant to this very long-winded way of how I’m talking about my connection to autumn.

17:18
But the metal type of Chinese Five Element Theory the season associated with it is autumn. It’s also associated with the lungs, the large intestine. The emotion associated with metal is grief. The color associated with metal is white. The direction is West. The taste is spicy, the time of day is 3 am to 7 am. So again, like it said in that little descriptor, the associations with these types are kind of endless. But from the minute that an acupuncturist was like, “you’re very, very strong metal type”, and she had posited that as why I feel so good in autumn. And I’ve done some thinking around this because the lungs are the organ that’s associated with metal. And I was talking to my current acupuncturist about this. And I said if you are described as a metal type, does that mean that you would have very strong lungs or that your lungs would be weak and more apt to express a pathology because I have pretty strong lungs, for example. That’s not where, when I am sick, or when I am imbalanced … I shouldn’t say when I’m sick. When I’m out of balance is what I would say. It doesn’t express in the lungs for me. I don’t get colds that linger in my lungs for a long period of time, for example. I don’t have a lot of phlegm or I don’t have asthma, you know, things like that.

My pathology is all expressed through the skin through – skin conditions. I had psoriasis as a child, I’m actually, as we speak, having a pretty major red angry eczema outbreak on my upper half. Which actually can happen with seasonal transitions for me. But my acupuncturist was talking about the connection between the lungs and the liver, which is more where I express imbalance in the liver. Which I believe is the, yes, the wood type. So she described to me as a metal type, but deficient in wood, which would be more where the pathology is expressing. So it’s this very elegant way of understanding constitutions. I am by no means an expert, but I have always felt that people that know this framework associating me constitutionally these are acupuncturists that have treated me being a metal type and its association to autumn just gives me that deeper level of understanding why it feels so good to me. And beyond a lot of the superficial stuff. You know, I know that it’s become in popular culture, everyone is obsessed with pumpkin spice, people love candles – Bath and Bodyworks candles, people love watching Hocus Pocus you know the popular culture, types of associations with fall. It’s not really about that for me. It’s more, I guess you could say, esoteric and energetic and the need that I have deep in my being to be nourished. And I think this is just a theme that I’m working out in my life because I’ve had so many years. If you listened, I think to – maybe it was the traditional foods episode I did – how traditional foods – that way of eating and being in the world which is tied into my acupuncture story, which is tied into my first big health, healing moment, awakening type of moment that happened around 2008/2009 right around the time of my Saturn return – which is very interesting to me. And I have Saturn in Libra, which means it’s an exalted Saturn. And to me, that symbolizes or tells me that an exalted Saturn placement in a chart can lead to a very positive resolution to typically Saturnian things which tend to be very challenging. Kind of getting off track, but it actually is that deep for me, trying to understand what autumn means to me – the need for my being, my soul, my spirit to feel nourished in these very, very deep ways.

(music)

21:35

Now we’re just going to get into some fall beauty favorites. We’re going to go a little bit more… not superficial because I never think the beauty is superficial, but just more getting into some product talk which is, I know very nourishing to all of us. So let’s start with some skincare. As I was sitting down to the notes for today’s episode, I realized that the topic of skincare transitioning could be a whole episode unto itself because I think that there’s quite a bit to say there and because I want to give weight to other areas beyond skincare, I think I’m going to do a second episode this month or in early October, specifically on skincare transitioning or what my fall skincare routine is looking like very holistically not just products but practices, steams, particular kinds of treatments, or masks – all of that. But I do have a couple of recommendations for you today. So now is about the time and I’ve been noticing this in my own skin over the last, really just the last couple of weeks because up until maybe two or three weeks ago it was still in the 90s here in Chicago. But it has been more in the 60s. But like I’m saying it’s even more than the ambient temperature. The moisture levels in the air have been changing. So I have noticed my skin has been a bit drier. So one of the first things that I have changed out is the cream that I use and the facial cream that I use, usually at night. I don’t tend to use a cream during the day. But I had been using the Sahajan Nourish Face Cream since the spring. And I love this product. I was testing it for my A Night for Green Beauty 2019 award winners project which is going to be coming out on YouTube soon (I just need to find the time to sit down and film it.) But I’ve noticed that I want something a little bit richer. So the two that jump to mind are either Ayuna Cream-2 or Ayuna Terra. Now, it’s a little bit tough to mention these because they’re both very expensive. Terra is $350 plus dollars.

But I think I’ve mentioned this before, I’m not mentioning it to recommend that people go out and buy this product, but I’m bringing it up because I really like it and I bet that there are going to be some good deals or potentially some beauty boxes that feature this in some way this fall or holiday season. So I just want to put it on your radar because I think it’s a beautiful, beautiful winter cream. It would be good right now for the transition but I actually have Free and True’s Mama Pacha written down as a nice transitional cream because it’s not as heavy as Ayuna Cream-2 or Terra. But it’s richer than the Sahajan Nourish Cream which I think is pretty lightweight. So I think that the Free and True line is a really nice price point. Beauty Heroes carries them. I just bought another bottle of the Body Prophet for Kaveh because he proclaims that’s the best body care product he has ever used. And he likes my Mama Pacha a lot too, but he said it was too rich for his skin this summer but that it’s a really nice fall and winter cream.

In terms of face oils, I am going to recommend Earthwise Magical Babassu is a wonderful seasonal transitional oil. Ferns and Moss is more of the winter oil in my opinion. It’s just their most nourishing oil. And I bring these up because I just did a very detailed review of the five oils in Earthwise’s range on YouTube. I’ll have it linked in the show notes for you. But Magical Babassu is – it’s emollient without being too oily or heavy. It’s not overly plumping to the skin, but it’s great if your skin is dehydrated, sensitized, or sensitive. I think it’s a really nice fall oil. I really do. And then I wanted to mention a lip care combination because I think our lips are one of the first things that start to show dehydration or when indoor heating kicks on and things just really start to dry up. This works as a really nice overnight treatment. I think it would work as a daytime treatment. I haven’t needed to use it during the day yet. I’m still using a bunch of different things during the day. But let me tell you this combo. It’s the Inlight Lip Serum, which comes in a rollerball. And Earthwise’s Thelma Lip Balm. I actually don’t absolutely love these products alone. When I paired them together, it was mind-blowing. And I feel like it has been regenerating my lips on this very deep level. I actually feel like my lips are more naturally pigmented than they have been in a long time. It just feels like it’s repairing the lips, protecting the lips, nourishing the lips, keeping them extremely healthy. And it’s been one of my favorite lip care discoveries that I’ve made. So pairing those together I think is really amazing.

26:57

It was actually sort of divided opinion in the responses I got on Instagram whether people wanted to hear about makeup because I know a lot of people are still indefinitely working at home, don’t maybe have as much occasion to wear lipstick or to put on a lot of makeup. But I feel like I still have to mention my favorites because nothing says fall to me like a deep red berry or burgundy lip, oxblood nail, I mean, these things to me are just an integral part of enjoying autumn as a beauty lover. So my probably, I would say, most long-standing archetypal fall favorite is RMS Diabolique. This is one of their lip2cheeks. It’s a cream cheek color that you can use on the lips. It’s just a really, really beautiful I would say purple undertone burgundy. I have had my pot for many years and I just realized or accepted is maybe a better word that I need to do a clear out. I need to do a beauty clear out. I think I’m going to do it this fall. I’m not going to wait until the new year or anything. But it’s time for me to clear out RMS Diabolique and RMS Sacred. Those have been a dyad of me of a fall transitional beauty product and a spring transitional beauty product for Sacred which is like a strawberry coral, juicy melon type of shade. I’m undecided whether I will repurchase a new RMS Diabolique. I actually almost hit pan I used it so much. And I use this on the lips as a lip stain paired with Jane Iredale Berry Lip Liner which also needs to get cleared out. Some of these things I have had for probably five or six years. And while they actually don’t seem like they have gone bad I just in good conscience feel like I need to get rid of them and replace them if I want, you know fresh ones. My issue with RMS is that I do feel like the quality of the products has changed since the pots of RMS that I bought five, six years ago. So I don’t know if Diabolique would be the same. I’m kind of afraid to be disappointed. Diabolique was actually a relatively dry RMS product, you know how they can have a tendency to be extremely emollient and even somewhat greasy in certain circumstances, which is not a bad thing, especially when we’re talking about fall and winter beauty products. But the products that I want to mention, not as a replacement, but what I reach for all the time and actually last fall and winter reached for them much more because they’re easier to work with are the Olio E Osso balm: tinted balms in No.4 and more recently No.5. So I think number four was the one that I initially had. It’s basically an equivalent of RMS Diabolique. It’s that purple undertone berry shade. But it just looks beautiful on the cheeks and because they’re more of a balm formula than a cream, they impart more of a plumpness to the skin and a little bit less pigment. So in that way, they’re easier to work with. Number five of the Olio E Osso, I think it’s called Current and it has a little bit more of a brick red undertone, but it’s still gorgeous.

So those I really like and recommend. Lisa Eldridge Velvet Jazz is a quintessential fall lip color. It’s a beautiful deep blue undertone red. I find it, honestly, a bit difficult to work with formula wise but the color and the undertones are magic, as everybody says about Lisa Eldridge lipsticks. For whatever reason I just I find the formula of this Velvet Jazz in particular somewhat difficult. I also have Skyscraper Rose, which is a bright pink fuchsia and I find it easier to work with. I know that they are different formulas. Nars Cruella – I have to mention, I know it’s not an eco beauty product but the Nars Velvet Matte Lip Pencils are – I think I answered this in a Q&A recently – they are a beauty product that, in my opinion, no comparable formula exists in a quote-unquote “green organic brand”. And I cannot be without Cruella. It’s just a beautiful deep red shade. It’s so easy to wear. It wears off the lips beautifully. It’s very much a French girl type of red. Like you could do no other makeup, except put this on your lips and you would look trés chic. You know what I mean?

Now, Aether Joshua Tree palette, I am going to go ahead and say is like the perfect fall palette. It’s all harvest looking colors for the most part. There’s some, there’s like that really beautiful cornflower blue but it’s like these burnt oranges, red-y browns, mustard, forest green, deep brown. It was so funny to me that that palette released in the spring, because it just looks like a fall palette. So I got it several months ago, and I think the quality is outstanding, and I will definitely be getting use out of it. If no other time than during my weekly live Get Ready With Me’s on Patreon. I don’t have a ton of time to do makeup, unless it’s for a video or for a live stream. But I’m so happy to have that palette and I am forever wanting to pull off some sort of mustard toned eye look. I just think it looks so chic. I love it for fall. I love it for winter with like a black turtleneck. And a ton of mascara. It’s very Viviana Does Makeup. I know that’s not her handle anymore. The Anna Edit. To me, she can really be bold with those warm neutrals. And it’s a tough look for me because I have these really weird complicated olive, light olive, cool, pink undertones that are really not that well suited to those colors but I’m going to try. I’m going to try and make it work because I have this palette and I love it.

I also wanted to mention a Nars eyeshadow duo. The only NARS eyeshadow I’ve ever owned and it’s the duo Cordura and I used it on my live stream last week and it’s a beautiful fall makeup look. It’s two shades of brown and the lighter brown is kind of a camel color. And the other brown is like a slightly warm blackened brown. But I was just reminded how much I loved it. And then I also wanted to give a shout out to Kjaer Weis Abundance. I reached for this cream blush so much more in the fall and winter. I think that it’s very, very flattering on people that have cool undertones, that have olive undertones or that have any kind of multi-ethnic skin undertone. It looks so weird in the pan. It looks like a purple-gray, but it translates into a neutral mauve, at least on my skin. And I just don’t know for some reason I really ,I never reach for this in the spring in the summer. But come fall and winter, I love it. And now this is not on my list but I’m also now thinking of the Ere Perez Holy Carrot Lip Color pot – like a grape color. I like it more for winter. I think for the fall I still like to experiment with some warmth and by the time we’re getting into January-February I’m kind of more for neutral veering on icy veering on, not as warm.

35:21

I have a couple of body care recommendations [but] I haven’t really noticed my body skin getting much drier. But like I mentioned in the intro, I am having this angry red eczema outbreak. It’s all over my back, and it’s on my torso as well. I made the connection yesterday, as I was posting an update to Instagram about my 30 Days of Kansa Wand project. I noticed it on the 9th of September, and I went to acupuncture actually on Saturday, a couple of days later. And she wasn’t that concerned. I’m on some different Chinese herbal formulas for other things, but she just thinks that it could be this seasonal reaction that I have even though it’s a little bit more severe than I typically have. But she wasn’t that concerned. She actually gave me the recommendation of a product called Emily’s Skin Soother, which is a balm that has some herbs in it. It has Angelica root in it, maybe I’m forgetting what else. I might pick up a jar because mine has been a little itchy. But I made the connection that my outbreak coincided with Mars, the planet, turning retrograde.

36:34

So I am going to do a little astrology section here. But that is one of the big transits of this fall is Mars retrograde. It’s retrograding through Aries, which is my third house. So that should be interesting. It’s always interesting no matter what house it retrogrades through for you personally but given things that are going on in my life it should be interesting.

But I thought it was it was just really poignant that I – oh guess I should say in medical astrology terms. Mars is associated with things like rashes, boils, measles allergies – basically red angry, inflamed skin issues. So how funny that I would have a more severe, seasonal type of skin condition around Mars retrograde. I very much do think that these big astrological transits can affect us physically. I mean, this is the whole work of medical astrology. I recommend Claire Gallagher of The Body Astrologer for a consult if you’re interested or having a particular health issue flare-up. She’s an expert in this field. I’ve had several consults with her and I think her advice is wonderful and has helped me. I’ve done videos about this on Patreon.

37:54
So beyond dealing with my eczema which I’m hoping will abate soon, I wanted to mention the Lhamour Mongolia soaps. I’m sure you’ve probably heard me talk about them for a long time now. I’ve had the founder of Lhamour Mongolia, Khulan Davaadorj, on the podcast. These are soaps that are made with traditional Mongolian ingredients like yaks milk, goat milk, nettle, sheep tail, oil from tallow. They’re wonderful soaps, I use them exclusively on my toddler. And they’re wonderful. If you have sensitive skin, if you have dry skin, there’s many in the range. I ordered them mostly from the site called Lilly’s Bath Carry because they carry all of them. So I wanted to mention those for some nice body care.

I’m also newly trying the Inlight body balm. So I think a body balm is a really nice product to bring into your routine in the fall. If you’ve just been using you know a lightweight lotion, water-based type of product, maybe some of you are dedicated body oilers like I use oil on my body out of the shower or bath year-round. But swapping out maybe a cream – water-based cream you’ve been using for a balm is wonderful I think in the fall and winter – layering it with an oil. So Beauty Heroes recently started carrying four new products from lnlight which I was so excited about. So they’re carrying the eye balm, they’re carrying this lip serum that I told you about, they’re carrying this body balm, and they’re also carrying an Arnica body oil which is also really nice. But I wanted to mention the balm because the scent is so nice. I mean if you’ve ever tried Inlight skincare and you have wanted to have that, that scent experience all over your body, now you can. I love the texture of this balm. It melts on contact with the skin, so it’s quite an oily balm. But the scent is just … I don’t have it in front of me or I would try and bumble my way through explaining it to you. But I just I feel so energetically protected too after I use this and it’s just very, very fortifying to the skin.

40:16
I also want to mention the Mythic Medicinals St. John’s Wort Body Oil which I’ve already gone through a full four-ounce bottle of. I bought two, so I have another one. But this is something bigger that I’m working on, which is I’m taking a handcrafted herbal body oil making course online. And I want to start making my own herbal infused oils at home. St. John’s wort is tough because it doesn’t grow around me at least not where I’ve been able to find it in the Chicago area. So I may try growing some myself. You do have to have fresh St. John’s wort and it only is able to be harvested for like a month over the summer so it’s done for this season. So if I want any more I’m gonna have to buy it from people that have already made it. I think I’m going to try and make my own calendula oil because you can do that with dried calendula, of which there are many good sources but the Mythic Medicinal’s St. John’s Wort Body Oil is magnificent. It’s very – it’s quite expensive to buy it from somebody else. It is much more economical to learn how to make them yourself. But if this is interesting to you, the idea of herbal infused oils, I recommend, of course, Medicine Stories podcast and there are several episodes on that podcast about healing with herbal oils and Kimmie McBride has been on that podcast three or four times now. And there’s a whole episode about handcrafted herbal oils. To me, this just feels like such a wonderful home art. And the fall would be as good a time as any to make some – not St. John’s wort oil necessarily – but arnica, comfrey lavender, calendula. I think those are the main ones that she teaches how to make. But yeah, I love that for transitioning your body care and also getting some herbal healing.

42:19

I do have a hair recommendation: the InnerSense Hair Masque. I actually just picked up a new one for myself from Beauty Heroes. I ordered off their new website which is I should say a very nice shopping experience. I’ve gone through a full one of these that I received as PR and I’ve thought about it ever since so I had to have it back in my life, especially for the colder months. This is my favorite very, very nourishing hair product I’ve tried. I only use it on the ends of my hair. I basically use it as a conditioner. I don’t really use it as a mask, but I find I get really good results using just a bit of it on the ends of my hair. This has flaxseed, monoi oil, shea butter, coconut, tamanu oil, and quinoa to repair and strengthen hair while delivering rich hydration and shine. But you can also leave on for five to 10 minutes or longer so I don’t really leave it on that long. But I also feel if I’m ever to be successful in transitioning to a shampoo bar of which am sort of endeavoring to try, I definitely feel like I need a richer conditioner because shampoo bars can have a tendency to kind of make your hair pretty dry.

43:34

All right fragrance and nails. So I am kind of actually getting back in the habit of wearing just a little bit of fragrance, now that my baby is a bit older and still very attached to me but I don’t know like I’m fine with doing a spritz of something. And most of the perfumes that I wear are quote-unquote “eco”. So the ones that I would mention and that are just they’re integral to a fall transition for me In Fiore Patchouli Royale. I love this one. I mean, I would never tell you to buy a fragrance unscented – like on without you smelling it yourself – on sniffed I guess because it’s so personal, right? And the way that it smells to me and the way it reacts on my body chemistry is going to be really different. I have smelled pretty much all of the In Fiore perfume solids, and this was the one that has always spoken to me the most personally. It smells nothing like any patchouli you’ve probably already smelled. It’s just very woodsy, spicy, sexy, unisex, warm. I don’t know. It’s amazing and they stay good for quite a long time. I’ve had mine for several years and it’s still amazing. And you get this really beautiful compact. So my piece of advice with these as you may be able to request samples of the In Fiore perfume solids from Beauty Habit, I think. I know they have a sample program and they do carry In Fiore so that would be your best bet if you don’t live near a place you could smell them in person. And to the point of In Fiore, I get quite a few requests to talk about that brand more in-depth like do a brand review basically. So I want you to know that I’m just going to try and put something together before the holiday shopping season starts. So they normally will do a gift with purchase around Black Friday, the way many, many brands do. So the best time to order from In Fiore is when they’re doing a gift with purchase, I think because the gift with purchases are usually really generous. You do have to spend a nice chunk of change but I think it’s worth it because you get to try more products and I just feel like you’re kind of getting the most for your money. For example, that gift with purchase they did over the summer was a full-size Vitale toner. So for me, I needed a toner anyway, so it was totally worth it. So I’m planning to do that for you before the holidays.

Hermès Ambre Narguile, I also have to mention. This is more of an evening fragrance. It’s not as much of a daytime thing. It’s quite heavy. I smelled it actually on a male friend of mine who was working for Hermès at the time. And I was obsessed. I like didn’t leave his side all night. I mean not in that way. He was just totally a friend of mine, but he snagged me some samples and I have been addicted ever since. I don’t even like amber scents, but there’s something insane about this one. You have to try it if you ever can.

I also wanted to give a shout out to the Vered Organics perfume. I think I have the [Divinité] perfume from Vered, but her signature perfume is actually on my wish list. I have so much respect for Vered. She’s been in eco beauty for such a long time. If you haven’t heard of her she’s a master herbalist and aesthetician who has had a skincare line for many years. Her products have a lot of herbal integrity in my opinion the scent experience of them is amazing. And she has a perfume line which I think are really worth looking at. And to me, they’re very rich and nice fragrances for fall.

47:29
In the beauty category the other thing I wanted to mention were some nail polishes because like I said Oxblood nails is fall – like you can’t do fall without a dark nail. So Deborah Lippmann Single Ladies has been my go-to Oxblood polish. I first saw it on Shirley Pinkson, of Well People at an event at Follain six years ago, maybe five or six years ago. She did my makeup and I was obsessed with her nails and she told me what was on them and it was Deborah Lippmann Single Ladies and I’ve been using it ever since. I also have to say OPI Lincoln Park After Dark. I know a lot of people put this on their toes in the summertime. I think it’s nice for that. But to me, this is a wonderful fall winter nail color. I mean it kind of looks black but it’s a really really dark purple. So it doesn’t, I don’t know, to me, it’s never really looked black. It just looks like a very deep vampy color. And then I also do a lot of Aila Sarang which is just a true red on the deeper end type of red and those are kind of the main polishes that I will do in the fall. I also recently did Smith and Cult Tenderoni on my nails which is like a taupe. And I mean, are Smith and Cult nail polishes even still a thing? Do you remember when they were just a craze? Mine is still good all these years later. Tenderoni’s the only one I have, but it’s a very nice fall neutral, I think.

(music)

49:05

Okay, let’s quickly kind of power … Gosh, I still have so much on my list. I spent longer on beauty maybe than I was intending. As far as wardrobe, I don’t know how I’m going to tackle wardrobe because I get so many questions to do more content around this and I just I don’t know why because I wear the same thing, guys, all the time. I wear the same thing all the time. It’s really uninteresting, but in the fall, I just always look forward to when I can wear my Club Monaco turtlenecks. They do these really nice thin turtlenecks that I’ve been wearing for the last four or five years. I have a black one, a hunter green one and kind of like a brown burgundy one, and they’re amazing. I also have some Everlane cashmere. So I have several cashmere crew sweaters that are just super comfortable and cozy. I also always look forward to when I can wear these two scarves that I interchange a lot. So one is just a blanket scarf from Zara. I think they do a version of it every year. It just basically feels like you’re wearing a wearable blanket. And then I have a hand knit by yours truly. Because I knit, which I really want to get back into. But I have this alpaca cowl scarf that I had knit many years ago from a winter patterns book by the knitting pattern brand Rowan Knits who do some of my favorite knitting patterns. So you just knit in the round. It’s a cowl scarf. So you just slip it over your head. I love a cowl scarf. The alpaca yarn that I knit this with has just aged beautifully. It’s so warm and cozy and this is just also an opportunity to say, from a Chinese medicine perspective, but also I feel like just a home, home health care, you know, your mom telling you “cover up your neck and wear a coat” like this is so important during this seasonal transitional time if you’re in a climate where the weather is getting cooler. In Chinese medicine, external pathogens can travel through the wind and if the wind hits your neck, this becomes a weak spot. So our necks are a weak spot and things can, I mean, keep in mind, this is you know, more esoteric, it’s not a germ theory approach. But it can weaken you and make you more susceptible to coming down let’s say a fall cold or something like that. So we always want to keep our necks covered up and even if you’re just wearing like a heavy sweater, wear a scarf, wear a cowl scarf. Anything to keep your neck warm, I think is very very very important during this time of year.

51:53

Now beverages, food obviously a very, very important part of fall. I am going to talk about it so much more on Patreon but just very quickly. I make matcha lattes from Pique Tea Ceremonial grade matcha. I do Nespresso lattes. And then I also want to give a plug to the Golde Tumeric blend. I think those are three really, really amazing options for a warm creamy beverage. I would like to perfect a hot cacao superfood type of beverage, but that’s TBD. Cacao, chocolate, is a spiritual practice to me, so that requires much more attention.

Now as far as tea, I’m going to be doing a review of all of the Earthwise beauty teas. I’m going to do content more holistically, somewhere about to you is actually an option for Patreon this month. But talking just about artisanal tea, kinds of tea, tea accessories. I just got as a wedding gift, a six temperature electric kettle. So I want to talk about that. I mean tea is so healing. It’s not just a beverage it’s medicine. And the ones that I could tell you right now quickly here that I think are wonderful for the season we’re going into are the Earthwise Revered Berries tea. This is a blend of goji berries, schisandra, elderberry. and rosehip. It’s a wonderful immune-supporting tea. Very, very good if you’re depleted – blood deficient in Chinese medicine terms – trying to rebuild and fortify your system. I’m on my second box of this. I’m obsessed. I can’t be without it. And then I would also say the St. John’s Wort tea and the Goldenrod tea would be good to have around more in the winter because these are teas that are going to be helpful if you are struggling emotionally in the winter like seasonal affective type of stuff winter blues, those are good. But I would say Earthwise Revered Berries. And then nettle tea would be my go-to recommendations for the fall. My code is good on all the teas. So if you use LAMOUR at checkout, you get 10% off your Earthwise Beauty order.

54:06
Okay, as far as recipes like I said, I’ll tell you so much more in this video on Patreon but some of my favorite things to make in the winter are of course soup. I mean soup is like the number one thing. I love soup. It’s like one of my favorite things to eat and make if not my favorite thing to eat and make. The ones that jumped to mind right away are the Cooks Illustrated Chicken Tortilla Soup. I actually already made this one even though we’re not fully in soup season here yet. But I make my own bone broth. I only have chicken right now but chicken broth, bone broth – having in your freezer and just adding it to the soups that you make or cooking your grains in it or whatever – It’s just so, so wonderful. So the Cooks Illustrated Chicken Tortilla Soup. There’s also a New York Times recipe for a Lemony Carrot Soup. It’s like a pureed carrot soup. It has white miso and lemon and oh my god, it’s so so good.

Now not really a soup but something that we make all the time here – I make it all the time here – is Organic Olivia-inspired Thai green curry. I highly recommend going to Organic Olivia on Instagram and trying to find in her pin to highlight somewhere where she talks about Thai green curry because that’s basically the recipe I follow. It’s two cans of coconut milk, a jar of Thai Kitchen green curry and then you doctor it up with kitchen medicine things you have at home: shallots, onion, ginger, garlic, you add a little bit of tamari, fish sauce, a tiny bit of sugar, and then you can add any protein you like tofu, chicken, beef, shrimp, any kind of vegetables you can serve, have it alone, serve it with rice. It is one of my favorite things to eat. It is so nourishing. It is blissful. It’s full of those ingredients that are just so rich and quercetin, which Organic Olivia talks about all the time. Just wonderful for the immune system, which is obviously what we really want to be focusing on and fortifying right now. And then I’m really looking forward to making the Smitten Kitchen Korean short ribs recipe. I made this once last winter and it was amazing. It takes quite a long time if you don’t have an instant pot. It cooks for two, three hours in the oven in a Dutch oven, but really, really amazing.

56:33

I just want to make a little addendum here. I got quite a few questions about herbal support for the season transition or for immune support, and that is definitely going to be a separate content. I’ll probably include it as an option for the October video poll on Patreon. I think I’m going to include it or wrap it up … well, I don’t know, I’m just so wordy. There’s always so much to say. But I’ve gotten questions on COVID coping or kind of COVID thoughts and processing what I’m doing to manage or what I might be doing to prepare for the upcoming winter, which is typically a winter cold flu type of season with this kind of added thing going on. So my approach to that has been creating a home herbal apothecary. I would love to share that with anyone that’s interested, I will probably do it on Patreon because I’m really not interested in having an ideological or paradigm difference type of debate with people who don’t believe in the power of herbal support, immune support, natural medicine, nourishing food as a way to engender good health and the ability to process an external pathogen in a healthy way. I’m not interested in having that debate with anyone so I’ll probably do that content on Patreon.

57:58

Okay, let me quickly tell you a couple of astrological highlights to expect. Like I mentioned Mars is going to be retrograde until November 13. It’s retrograding through Aries like I mentioned. Please also know that Mercury is going to be going retrograde from October 13 through November 3 It’s going to be retrograding backward through Scorpio and into Libra. For me, this is my 10th and 9th house and it should be interesting because it’s going to pass over some of my major planets: Jupiter, Pluto, I’m not sure how far back in Libra, it’s going. But that was actually something else I didn’t mention in the beginning – astrologically even though I’m a sun in Gemini, Libra is a very, very prominent sign in my chart. I have what’s called a stellium in Libra. A stellium in astrological terms means you have more than three major planets. I don’t know if it refers to points too but you have at least three major planets or placements in this house and I have Mars, Moon, Saturn, and Pluto all in Libra. So like all the baddies. All the malefics. And my poor little moon is just struggling. I could do a whole type of content on what that means and how I experiencedthat in my life story for another day. There’s going to be a full moon in Taurus on October 31. I just thought that was noteworthy because a full moon on Halloween night I don’t know how often that happens. So I thought that was worth mentioning. Tuesday, September 22 is the fall equinox. So the first official day of fall and then we’re going to be having some eclipses, but they’re not happening until the end of November, I think November 30 and December 14. They’re happening in Gemini and Sagittarius.

So I that was just kind of my quick little putting together of, of what’s coming on. There are other things going on. And I didn’t really talk about what Venus is doing. She’s mostly just changing signs, I think. I don’t think there’s any major configurations or planetary conversations going on in that sense. If you’re interested more in astrology of beauty and what that means seasonally, that’s a much more personal or individualized type of thing. And I do offer astrology of beauty readings on Patreon, if you’re interested.

1:00:30

Okay, I’m going to quickly try and close this out with a couple of questions that I thought would just be a heartwarming way to end this episode after talking about products and giving some recommendations. So someone asked what my, do I have any autumnal rituals? And the answer is not really. I mean growing up we did we you know, we have this fall harvest festival. Actually another related question is my favorite fall memory. But as far as an autumnal ritual is now I would say I always want to eat a cider donut. I love donuts. It’s like one of my favorite things – freaking love donuts. Making pumpkin pie. Kaveh is already requesting pumpkin pie. One year for Thanksgiving, actually the first year that we were married, I made three pumpkin pies in the span of two weeks, I think and you can guess who ate most of them. I really like the Smitten Kitchen pumpkin pie recipe. I think it’s really, really good. And then Baby L’Amour’s birthday is in the beginning of November. So that’s going to be kind of a new fall ritual for us. And I’m hoping that we’ll just establish other fall rituals as a family.

Favorite fall memories; I liked this question a lot. So like I said, I grew up near Ithaca, New York. So we would always go to the Cornell Orchards. So Cornell maintains a bunch of apple orchards. And you can go and see them make apple cider. They have like an apple cider processing place that’s open to the public, you can pick apples. So we would always go there on field trips, actually for school, or I think we would even go with my family like it was just open to the public. So I remember that really vividly. I also used to go to a nature camp called the Cayuga Nature Center. And you know, in the fall, there’s like all those random school holidays like Veterans Day and I forget what else. I feel like there’s other random days off of school in the fall. So I would have to go to like a day-long camp while my parents were at work. And I remember so vividly at the Cayuga Nature Center, we would go tap maple trees for syrup. And I love maple syrup. I have so much reverence for maple trees and I just have so much reverence for the fact that we can make something that’s full of so many amazing trace minerals. And I feel like maple syrup is a very magical food. I don’t know I love it so much and seeing it get made as a kid, like really made a strong imprint on me. And then like I mentioned, that Harvest Festival in my village of 500 people was a really, really happy memory for me as a kid.

Someone said how to deal with the energy change from summer to fall. So the first thing that came to mind was to be outside – be in nature. Hikes, even if it’s just long walks in your neighborhood, letting your body adapt to the changing temperature. Make sure you always cover your neck, I think is it’s working almost in a subconscious way. So when you’re breathing the different air, when you’re seeing the visual cues of the season changes. I think this affects us in an energetic way that we may not consciously be aware of. And this point was really solidified for me when I had this interaction with a neighbor that lives like, I don’t know, a block away from us. I gave birth in November…but all throughout like that, so basically I had a newborn during this cold winter Chicago months. But, you know, after the first couple weeks, I was putting Baby L’Amour in the Moby carrier or in a different baby carrier and bundling up with like hat and scarf and basically like barely any of Baby L’Amour – just like the little nose and mouth were sticking out. And I would go outside like every morning I would at least walk around the block. And even if it was really cold, and I had this interaction with this neighbor who had seen who had seen us, I think. And he came up to me one day when we were walking by and he was like, “are you to the ones that were walking around like all winter?” And I was like, “Oh yeah, that was like we just needed the fresh air and it just felt we felt good.” He was like, “I think it’s so amazing that you did that because in Native American traditions”, I don’t know how he said this is like, you, I’m sure you can imagine just kind of NPR listening, you know, liberal white retiree guy like very educated was like “in Native American traditions they actually dunk their babies in freezing cold water ” – I’m not sure if it was that or they leave them outside for a short period of time to basically acclimate their bodies to the season, not obviously in a way that’s dangerous at all. But breathing the cold air can be really beneficial even for a newborn. So I bring that up just because I really think the best way to deal with the energy change is to actually experience it and let your body experience it. I would also say that acupuncture is wonderful, any kind of bodywork or energy work. If you’re, depending on what you’re dealing with, like some people have physical imbalances that can show up with season changes. For some people, it’s mood or emotions. So in that sense, I think acupuncture, herbs, all of that can be supportive to help your body process and work through that. And also flower essences. That was the other note I made. You could have a custom consult with Ava at Pacific Northwest Essences specifically about seasonal transition. And that could be a really interesting and helpful experience as well.

1:06:32

Last question: What makes you feel cozy? I’m like made for this question. So the first thing I wrote down is soup: eating soup, drinking a warm beverage, homemade bone broths, warm blanket. So I actually right now have one of the – I still don’t know if it’s Dino or Dyno apparel. This is a sustainable textile company that I think Beauty Heroes used to carry or still carries. I have one of their blankets. It’s actually Baby L’Amour’s blanket. But super cozy blanket and then I actually, I’m in the process of redoing all of our bedding and investing in some Coyuchi bedding, some Coyuchi blankets for our couch. One of my other favorite things and this is like the epitome of cozy, is on a fall or winter morning. So I love mornings like I don’t know, 6,7, 8 am is like such a nice time of day for me. And it actually happened this morning. It doesn’t happen that often because the baby gets up pretty early, like usually at 6:30. But this morning, the baby was sleeping past 7:30. So Kaveh gets up actually before any of us. And this morning, he went downstairs and made me an English Breakfast tea with a little bit of whole milk and sugar and he brought it up to me and I got to drink it in bed. I got to do this a lot when the baby was a newborn, or you know, past a newborn too like 5, 6, 7 months because until there’s sleep, I mean, I’m not gonna bore you with baby sleep stuff. But basically when the baby was still getting up for like a 3 or 4 am and feeding would often sleep then until 8 in the morning. So, I would have a little bit of time in bed to like, you know, scroll on my phone and Kav would always bring me a tea in bed. And it was, I can’t even tell you. It’s such a nice note to end this episode on because to me that was just the most amazing feeling. Drinking this tea first thing in the morning. I love English Breakfast tea by the way, It’s so good with milk and sugar. But like sleeping with my baby, my sleeping baby next to me and snowing outside and drinking tea it was just like the happiest place. So wonderful. And then I love just you know, lying on the couch under a blanket with a warm beverage or eating soup and watching a show with Kav. Like very simple stuff like just feeling warm, feeling nourished in what I’m eating and drinking, feeling rested being around people that I love more than anything. I feel like fall and winter just really lend themselves to that kind of closeness you know, and we’re not so externally focused the way that we are in spring and summer. And we need that too, you know, it’s all about balance but I just love this natural return to introspection and closeness and nurturing and nourishment and rest.

(music)

So thank you all for being here for this long episode! I hope you enjoyed it. I hope maybe it got you a little bit more excited about fall if it hasn’t been something that you’re typically interested in or maybe you’ve lived vicariously through that if you happen to live in San Diego or Florida or something. So, sending all of you tons of love and if you want to be in touch, please come over to Instagram @lamouretlamusique, let me know what you thought of this episode. You can always shoot me an email at lamouretlamusique@gmail.com. And I’m always on Patreon, Patreon.com/lamouretlamusique. I’ll see you guys next week. Bye!

(music end)