As a human; as a person concerned about the whole picture; as someone who cares about the people, and the environment, around you; as a mother or parent--as a descendant, and an ancestor in the making; as someone who wants harmony, abundance, and justice now and in the future; as an individual who values the thousands of people who made the path for you to be here today (your ancestors); and as someone inspired to dream and appreciate all that is present within you:

I invite you here for a pause to drink up and assimilate a bowl, or two, of cosmic soup.

May you be inspired, embodied with freedom and agility, and open to the wisdom around you.

With care,

--Ashley

What’s this soup and what’s in it?

The Cosmic Soup Bowl is a virtual space dedicated to informing, reflecting, and connecting others to resources for healing, culture, & motherhood. 

The name for this space was inspired by the myth of Hundun. if you’re not yet familiar with it, here’s a interpretation from Wikipedia:

Semantically, the term hundun is related to several expressions, hardly translatable in Western languages, that indicate the void or a barren and primal immensity… It is also akin to the expression "something confused and yet complete" (huncheng 混成) found in the Daode jing 25, which denotes the state prior to the formation of the world where nothing is perceptible, but which nevertheless contains a cosmic seed. Similarly, the state of hundun is likened to an egg; in this usage, the term alludes to a complete world round and closed in itself, which is a receptacle like a cavern (dong 洞) or a gourd (hu 壺 or hulu 壺盧).[1]

…

Note that the English loanword wonton is borrowed from the Cantonese pronunciation wan4tan1. Mair suggests a fundamental connection between hundun and wonton: "The undifferentiated soup of primordial chaos. As it begins to differentiate, dumpling-blobs of matter coalesce… With the evolution of human consciousness and reflectiveness, the soup was adopted as a suitable metaphor for chaos".[2] This last assertion appears unsupported however, since wonton soup is not attested in Chinese sources dating earlier than the Han dynasty,[3] although the linguistic connection of the soup to the larger concept certainly appears real.[4]

This is meant to be a space of nourishment, and so I maintain it and my eclectic practice with the intention of supporting your assimilation and completion of what you’re served in life. There’s no clear answers or “hacks” to be found here… only connection back to what you naturally are.

The View— The Cyclical Path to Healing

The view attached to the word healing here comes from China’s traditional cosmological perspective (specifically the Tang and Song dynasties) and I recognize its meaning as intended in its old English form, hælan, which means 

“To make whole, sound, and well”

The animistic East Asian folk and shamanic views of healing (which was also being practiced pre-Han dynasty) are largely what guide my personal cultivation and practice as a somatically-informed collaborator. Reflections from Cosmic Soup means being present for relational experiences of all kinds, including non-human relations.

For instance, the open air, water, and space we can sense and see isn’t dead space. Even if subconscious, we all are engaging in some form of relationship to what is imperceptible.

Much of what you’ll find in this space is oriented to the sociological aspects of medicine, which are intrinsic to well-being, but sorely missed from the fragmented philosophies of pathology-centric modern medicine and its standardization of strong-armed methods. This isn’t meant as a value judgement or statement against modern medicine, but an observation of the differing views.

The essence of what is offered and shared in this and other related online spaces has value only to the extent that it can be distilled for application and experience in real life, but it’s not for those wishing to be saved, nor for those who want to continue living mechanically, disembodied, or what’s referred to in Chinese medicine as being ghost-like (stuck). Cosmic Soup can’t fix you like you’re a broken car or computer. You aren’t meant to stay the same forever and your various transformations is how you know you are real and really human.

Cosmic Soup offers loving support and the energy it foster nudges you to recognize where you are so you can get to where you need to go--in a non-hurried fashion! Everything happens in its own rhythmic, cyclical time frame and I’m here to facilitate your relationship to this process as you move deeper into your own embodied experience.

I trust in your capacity to heal yourself, and in doing so I invite you to open yourself up to the possibilities of our dancing (physically and/or emotionally) together towards more fluid states of wellbeing.

There’s no need to convert or become anything than you already are. Come in and stay for a bit. I’ve put the kettle on in case you’d like to stay longer and join me for a cup of tea, along with that soup.