Readitations Celeste Johnson

Have you smelled a flower today? It's the beginning of bloom season and spring is in the air. These selected poems all speak to the grounding, peaceful, restorative nature of nature. When we spend time being mindful of our surroundings, we naturally become more mindful of ourselves. We are not separate from the earth; we are part of it, made of it, healed by it. This meditation is crafted to foster a sense of groundedness, mindfulness, and connection to nature. I hope you can use i...

What's your relationship to money? If you're like so many people, you want it and you fear it, love the freedom it brings but hate the baggage. In this episode on the power-packed self-help book You Are A Badass At Making Money by Jen Sincero, delve deep into your beliefs about money and begin to heal your relationship with money and yourself. Get your values, beliefs, actions, thoughts, and words into alignment and begin to give yourself permission to be more expansive, powerful, and we...

What is your deepest desire—the one that keeps you up at night because you want it so badly? Maybe you know immediately, or maybe you haven't allowed yourself to think about it for a while. In this episode on the classic short and spiritual novel The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo, allow yourself to listen to your heart and hear the dreams it is speaking to you just as Santiago does at the beginning of his journey to his own dream. Santiago faces great discouragements on his journey—his entir...

When was the last time you felt fully rested? If you're like most folks, it may have been a looong time ago. In this episode on three selected readings ("Winter-Time" by Robert Louis Stevenson, "Sleep" by Twyla Tharp, and "Song" by Henry Wadsworth-Longfellow), I discuss rest and why it's so difficult to make space for it. These poems ask deep questions about rest: how do the seasons affect our moods and how much rest we need? how does privilege affect our ability to rest? when do we lose our ...

What do you choose to put into your brain on a daily basis? Books? Social media? Movies? Podcasts? Over the past week, I tried Julia Cameron's reading deprivation exercise from The Artist's Way. During that time, I learned a lot about what I choose to allow into my brain space. Some of it serves me well and some doesn't. Going forward, I know more about what I want to keep in my reading rotation and what I'm better off without. During this week of no reading, I experienced lower anxiety,...

When was the last day when you didn't consume any media? Can't remember? Neither could I, until I began the reading deprivation exercise from Julia Cameron's acclaimed book and course The Artist's Way. In this episode, I do something you might not expect on a book podcast: I talk about the benefits of not reading for a week. This week, I'm cutting out all social media, videos, books, articles, podcasts, and more to see how it can create more space in my thoughts and my life.The meditati...