Dear ones,

I woke up this morning with a lot of activation in my body.

Not bad.
But ready.
The kind of ready that can easily tip into non-productive anger if it doesn’t have somewhere to go.

I caught a glimpse of it last night.

Putting the kids to bed—their rooms were a mess.
Piles of clothes in corners.
Legos everywhere.
Closets that basically fall on you when you open them.

If you have kids, you already know.

It was getting to me.

So—with a bit of a meltdown on my end—we worked it out and cleaned the rooms.
It took 45 minutes longer to get everyone to bed.

But this morning?

It felt so good to wake up and not step on a Lego.

I let the dog out.
Walked into the kitchen.
Set the kettle on.

Looked at my stove.

And the same feeling washed over me.

I’ve got some Virgo and Capricorn placements in my household house—
organizing and cleaning is one of the ways I find a sense of control
when nothing is really in control.

I looked at the stove
and wished it looked like the stove of someone who doesn’t cook.

So—

I rolled up my sleeves
and got to work.

Top of the stove.
Inside.
Door of the oven.

Here it is:

the unsurprising benefits of rage cleaning.

Or maybe more accurately—
cleaning that prevents rage.

That would be more specific.

It was a pretty blissful 20 minutes.

Thinking about the state of the world.
Thinking about tax season hitting harder this year—
and the quiet heaviness of knowing what those dollars are funding.

It makes my stomach turn.

I don’t want to be paying for another war.

I want my tax dollars to go toward healthcare,
roads,
basic human needs—
safety,
clean air and water,
something that actually supports.

Somewhere between scrubbing and rinsing,
I started composing this email to you.

One of my favorite astrologers has been saying this weekend feels like a pressure cooker—
like you’re ready to go,
but something is stopping you.

The transits lately have been… heavy.
A lot moving through Aries.
Heat, friction, initiation—
but not necessarily a clear place to put it.

If you like tracking these things, I always read her weekly breakdowns.
You can find her substack here. Her name is Emi, and she lives in LA.

In our house, we call that:

an elephant sat on you.

(From that Raffi song—Willoughby Wallaby Woo, an elephant sat on you.🎶)

And yesterday?
It absolutely felt like an elephant sat on me.

If I don’t move my body in those moments,
it’s very easy to get bent out of shape.

Rage cleaning, for me, is also a place to think.

Sometimes I’ll switch hands—
use my right for a while, then my left—
just to wake up both sides of the brain.

And something shifts.

An insight comes.
A decision clarifies.
Or I just… think differently.

What’s been moving through me lately, in these moments:

chewing on whether to homeschool my son.

Where is the world going?
What are we preparing these children for?

Something Mad Max?
Something more like The Jetsons?

Probably somewhere in between.

I spend my Fridays at the Waldorf school—
baking fairy muffins, prepping snacks for the parent-child program.

There’s a little kitchen between two preschool classrooms.

And yesterday morning—

it was a lot.

Children having a hard time.
Moms crying.
Teachers holding it all together with that quiet, practiced steadiness.

I love my Waldorf colleagues. They feel like gentle forest creatures—
motherly, grounded,
able to hold so much with quiet reverence for the human spirit.

And still—

yesterday was hard.

We forgot a backpack.

Which meant Dave had to drive 45 minutes back home
and then 45 minutes back again to bring it—

because winter decided to return overnight.
After 60-degree days, we’re back to low 40s and snow.

He was not thrilled.

And I couldn’t go—I had to teach.

There is something heavy in the air this weekend.

You can feel it.

All that pressure, all that movement—
and nowhere obvious for it to land.

So maybe this is simple.

Maybe this is the practice:

When the energy rises—
when the pressure builds—
when it feels like an elephant has sat squarely on your chest—

give it somewhere to go.

Clean something.
Move something.
Touch the physical world in a way that lets your body discharge what it’s holding.

Not to avoid what’s here—
but to metabolize it.

Because sometimes clarity doesn’t come from sitting still.

Sometimes it comes
from a clean stove,
a quiet floor,
and a body that’s no longer bracing against itself.

With you in it,
Vanda

P.S. I’ve been loving this cleaning combo lately. I soften the grease with a spray from Young Living (yes, you probably already have an essential-oil-slinging mom in your circle).

Then—once everything is softened—I come in with Bar Keepers Friend and scrape it away like I’m closing a ritual.

Apparently my spiritual practice now includes a two-step degreasing system.

If you don’t have an oil mom, here’s my friend’s Young Living account—she’s raising eight kids (truly a small ranch of humans), and I like knowing the commissions go to her instead of Unilever’s quarterly earnings.

P.S. #2 I’m supposed to tell you all about a breathwork retreat this fall, over Labor Day weekend.

One of my teachers from The School of Breathwork—coming from Ireland (where she lives on an island with a winter population of 2)—is coming to bless it.

Assists are flying in from all over the continent:
Kaitlin from New Mexico,
Angela from Alaska,
Jess from New York.

There will be one support person for every two breathers.

I found a massive log house up on a high mountain mesa that can hold us all.
McMansion meets 80s charm.
Hot tub. Big sky. 40 acres to wander.

My friend Ale, Kim, and I will cook for you.

I’ll rage clean a little more this weekend and write you another letter—
about the past two years in this training,
about intention,
about what 1200 hours of breathwork has actually done to my life.

Until the next email—the retreat space is viewable (and bookable) here:
https://www.vandaland.com/elkstone-retreat

Come.
Be held.
Breathe it in.