Happy Spring Rising.

Dearly Beloved. We are here to get thru this thing called LIFE.

Happy Spring Up-Rising and U-Turning.  Spring allows “u” to rise to your best “U.”  Everything surrounding is expanding, going higher, going deeper.  Un-hibernating, we raise our arms up to the sun and root deeper in the physical earth.  Looping and magnetizing our own within thought : emotional : body highway to align with Universal Law of Attraction.  With 5 planets retrograde or making U-turns in the heavens at the beginning of the season, the value of steering ourselves in alignment with this movement is imperative magnetics!

In the oldest roots of language, Sanskrit, the letter ‘U’ is the sound “oooo” that stands in the middle of the sound “OM” in its true spelling: A:U:M.  The sound also translates to “movement, upward.” 

I’ve seen the meaning translated as: “pervasive, contained or progressive existence, command, or acceptance.”  A teacher once told me it meant “circumstance.”  We see that experience = circumstance as a circle or a circumference around us. A “circle-U-stance” around where we are standing.  (especially in our viewpoints translating/manifesting into that world
we create and experience as ‘Our LIFE’)

As I see it our goal is to stand in ourselves, experience all things desirable and uncomfortable and cultivate moving our fear to love.  Every fear offers that opportunity, both personally and culturally.  To make that U-turn consciously, to turn oneself on, this in turn affects everything around us.

In the face of what wants healing within our souls and on the planet, I champion beauty, fun, and play.

Among the “10,000 Other Fun Looping and Evolving Things” of the Tao, All-That-Is, we invented a map we call “Magic Square of Nine” to orient ourselves:

If you have been following our blog for awhile, you know we love ourselves this Feng Shui map system which is based on a ritual called “Tracing the Nine Stars,” outlining a way of movement to navigate and align our bodies, rooms, homes, and spaces based on the earth and universal sacred geometry.  Why is this important?  If this beautiful planet seems to be going to hell in a hand basket, aligning with the architecture of Universal Love is a good plan.  Newbies, you can read more about “Tracing the Nine Stars” it here.

This month we bring you 9 delights, each with a new category representing what we call “Nine Stars” or chakras, the energetic, vital wheels or “U” centers for…inspiring aspects of our lives that …we want to share with you!

Herewith. the latest trends to EAT, DREAM, CREATE, HEART, COMMUNE, and grow your WISDOM, FAME, DESTINY, and ability to RE-ELATE.  Lots of deep green botanical dives to bookend the post…because it’s Spring!

EAT: What we eat grounds us. Our 1st chakra. Our latest delicious:

When we trace the 9 stars, we start at the root.  Eating roots us in our primal, ancestral rhythms and this shared experience intricately ties us to the universe.

As a kale-lover-organic-eater for over 20 years now and a hungry New Yorker accustomed to the latest and best (and even healthy) restaurants,  I’ve wondered what the next level of the farm-to-table trend might be.  If the purity of food is healthy, what if there was a place where a 5-star chef and a doctor meet on common ground?

There is and the answer is Bouley Botanical.

On a recent Spring evening, our client, integrative physician, Dr. Pedre was invited to present at a special Happy Gut dinner at master chef David Bouley‘s Bouley Botanical restaurant space in Tribeca, New York City.

The event was part of Bouley Botanical’s Doctor and the Chef Series.  The evening featured a multi-course tasting menu, along with talks by Dr. Pedre and Chef David Bouley on healing through food.  The evening was truly a memorable, extraordinary culinary journey through multiple dishes which we’ll recap here!

First, the space….

Elegant and open…filled with the scent of the live herbs growing happily!  Chef Bouley explained the special fans and environment cultivated for the health of these herbs.  Sixty diners filled these tables for the event.

The venue is filled with life, here is the stairwell column, which is covered in black felt pocket “homes” for each herb!

The juxtaposition of herbs and urban shows us we can find balance in the worlds which stimulate us and create health.  Below, is the “herb wall” separating the dining space from the kitchen.

The room filled with guests and Chef Bouley spoke about his background working with the freshest produce and re-visiting heritage methods to create purees and oils of garlic.

Chef Bouley calls these “basic tools” to have on hand as “building blocks’ in your kitchen that are anti-cancer and…

Chef Bouley next introduced Dr. Pedre, who spoke about the pillars of his Happy Gut Program.  Dr. Pedre aptly explained his analogy of a garden wall to illustrate what makes a healthy gut, as he explained on his Good Morning America segment.

While we have more microrganisms than stars in the Milky Way, our stomach lining is one cell thick with cells tightly compacted like the stones of a wall.  Many factors change the permability and thus the immunity defenses of this lining which in turn compromise our health.  These include pesticides; GMO foods, which now range from potatoes to fish; stress; gluten; acid and sugar imbalances…such a long list!

Thankfully, a happy gut is obtainable as outlined in Dr. Pedre’s book HAPPY GUT, The Cleansing Program to Help You Lose Weight, Gain Energy, and Eliminate Pain, and his cleanse program.

After Dr. Pedre’s talk, the most amazing appetizers began to appear.

This was a delicate crisp made of kuzu topped with black truffle.  A carrot and tumeric soup with sunchokes was next served. Then the asparagus appeared!

This was a concert of French Provence White, Jumbo Green and Pencil Asparagus swimming in Bouley Botanical Chlorophyll Blast and Fresh Passion Fruit.

As a first course, this moon-shaped dish appeared next with the first of the season, Wild Salmon with Organic Quinoa, Celery Root, Porcini Mushrooms and Ginger Yuzu Botanical Herbs Dashi.

The second main course was organic chicken, here opened, so you can see all the delicious ingredients.  This was Pennsylvania Chicken with Wild New England Ramps, Wild French Blue Foot Mushrooms and Colorado Morels!

For dessert, this sculptural beauty arrived.  Hibiscus Granite, when opened…

…revealed New York State Cascade Grape Sorbet, with Tahitian Vanilla ice.

So much inspiration, information and delicious tastes all evening.  This kind of collaborative evening happily moves the realms of health and food closer.  We see that by tending to our health (and our desire for delicious food!) we can contribute to the health of the planet.

DREAMS.  Time to review your own Emotional Library in Grand Form.  Have a seat. Ponder your 2nd chakra.

“A chair for the guest,” said our client, interior designer Scott Sanders of this metal mesh chair created by Shiro Kuramata called “How High The Moon,” that Sanders used in his Library imagined for this year’s Sotheby’s “At Home” Designer Showhouse and Auction.

Like guests, emotions (except love!) are at their best to be nothing permanent and easily sifted through.  For our own libraries of information, be they emotional storage spaces within, physical rooms, social feeds, or stored on the cloud, we like them to equally be comforting and stimulating.

The “technology” of our emotions can be mapped by our desires, dreams, and experiences.  (in that order too, please1) Like any technology it can be a system that serves us, and like a library full of information, we can emerge smarter if we know how to dance with the flow.

“The library is a space of personal growth,” says Sanders of his library room above, adding that like the rest of a client’s home, “it should offer the latest 21st century technology.”

Sanders’ Showhouse Library at Sotheby’s was among twelve signature rooms curated by designers with pieces from a range of Sotheby’s departments, including 20th Century Design, Prints, Silver, Photography and English furniture.

Sanders placed graphic ‘Stars’ from artist Sol Lewitt over a William and Mary Giltwood Stool, late 17th century, covered in bordello red velvet in one corner for solo wisdom worship, above, and in another corner a sleek, sexy invitation to play with others.

Here a mirrored bar tray holds the sacred fluids necessary for any library.

Here in another corner…

A photograph by Malick Sidibe, “Nuit de Noel” sits above a pair of Regency Mahogany Hall chairs on a carpet that looks like a computer board as if waiting to dance.  A contemplative corner for the call to dance by ancient lyrical lutes and love.  That’s my kind of emotional library!

CREATE.  How to center your creative POWER in your 3rd chakra?  Go to a POWER PLACE.  Loosen your Soul in a Merge of Art, Personal, and Shared Space.

The solar plexus middle of our bodies is the intersection. Where our ability to merge and viscerally digest and understand a another person or circumstance.  When a space is integrated, so are we.

Exhibit A:  The Vine Hotel, NYC.  The Vine merges the personal, social via its merge of personal art, and social set ups and rooms that flow between spaces for merging, working, playing, or eating.  A ‘cast of thousands’ collaborated and merged the art of this space with design by Creme with Reunion Goods & Services, collections of objects and furniture from WE CAME IN PEACE, with the art collection curated by Kyle DeWoody, noted for her smart art | design merge urge satisfies.

While I waited for my breakfast companion, Kal Holczler of Excursions Elite, I settled into the space in another library, a little loft sitting just above the main dining area encouraging a mixing of talk, a curling up with cocktails or the hotel’s healthy Liquiteria juices.

Looking out from the library’s tree slab table balcony…

…one can see the ceiling net sculpture by artist Kwangho Lee, a signal to loop and weave.

The net effect is a translation all the architectural beams and grids into a relaxed, free-form, interconnected, weaving message looping nicely above where people gather to eat.

The Art and Weave message doesn’t stop inside the borders of the restaurant.  The multi-gender bathroom continued the grids.  Hmm, so simple, isn’t this multi-gender idea, the 3rd choice and perfect answer to all the M + W segregation hubbub these days?

An assemblage of white gloves over the shared sink emphasized the usual hygiene message “wash-hands everyone” into something way more fun.

Hands behind screens beckoned every which way, so like the way our own 3rd chakra is the place of feeling, considering, and acting on gut/intuitive decisions between ‘this’ and ‘that’.

My outfit was picking up on the decor, the undulating panels of my creme-colored silk blouse design and the soft grey wool and canvas of my vest echoing the silky creme lingerie art on the walls…more on that further on in this blog.

 

HEART TRIP.  The energy of the heart area chakra is transformative, the heart, travel, and fatherly guru energies are why.  Ticket, please!

HELLO from down above!  Above is Antartica hosting photographer, traveler Mark Lakin of Epic Road, a travel company we at Slow Luxury are partnered with.  Mark presented ‘Journey to the Last Frontier on Earth’ at the Soho House this April, part of his ongoing series there.  Talk about opening ones’ heart, can you imagine swimming with this whale shark?!!

Epic Road creates tailor-made adventures, holidays, luxury safaris and honeymoons in Africa, the Indian Ocean, Asia, the Arctic and Antarctica that combine the planet’s great explorations with thought-provoking experiences related to humanitarian and conservation initiatives.

“Epic Road has created a new genre of travel, called “transformative travel,” relates Mark, “by creating exceptional, mind-expansive journeys that inspire, captivate, and thrill.”

Here is the USA Today story on the trend that we garnered for them.

Epic Road believes that travel can power massive positive change in the world, whether it is a trip of a lifetime or the desire to sustain our world that follows.  Mark beguiled with tales of vast masses of penguins and how they huddle together for warmth, taking tiny steps in unison to keep moving.  Such a vision of the power when individuals come together!

I know, this wintry scene has little to do with the current climate…

…but everything to do with the power of shared hearts leading to a “commune” as in communicating and community.  Let’s go there.

COMMUNE : Plant your Message Powerfully in the 5th chakra, your voice.  Rap Music on Lingerie is just one amusing example, see here:

As promised, lingerie.  Here an artist, Zoe Buckman, is embroidering the most famous lyrics of Notorious B.I.G and Tupac on vintage lingerie from cone bras to silk slips.  This was the art in the bathroom of the Vine Hotel, and honestly, where better to commune the misogyny and feminism in rap lyrics than in a multi-gender bathroom? 

Read my hips.

Right when I was reading about Zoe’s next LA show ‘Every Curve,’ in Harpers Bazaar, as if on cue…

…a pop up email sign up appeared, leading me to check the box ‘No, thanks, I’m not interested in reading about the 12 Shoes Every Woman Should Own.’

Seriously?  While I love Harpers Baazar, what stands for “women’s wisdom” these days is thankfully challenged by artists like Zoe.

WISDOM   The world’s 3rd eye chakra sees global play | work | sustainable pals for all.  The 6th chakra is the nest.

NYC is home to many new flockings together, one recent evening offered a new one.  NEST, the non-profit organization committed to the social and economic advancement of global artisans and homeworkers through their investment in sustainable business development and industry advocacy, hosted an evening of enterprising wisdom, Moroccan mint cocktails, and a scented, visceral connection to earth.  A new kind of U-TURN welcome to Spring.

About 50 women landed to NEST at The Sabah House, a double height loft space owned by one male / bartender to learn about Nest‘s recent work in Morocco developing sustainable employment opportunities for the women who extract Orange Blossom oil in Morocco’s historic flower district.

Fragrance expert, Lisa Wilson was genius at awakening equally our senses and understandings of the economic realities of the fragrances that come to market from springtime in Morocco.

Director of Artisan Engagement at NEST, Annie Millican detailed how artisan production is an opportunity to create economic opportunities that alleviate poverty, empower women, and preserve cultural traditions.

Wise Women!  Following the timeless patterns of nature is the future.

One other wise woman made us do a U-turn this Spring.  We met Shahla Karimi years ago through her work as personal assistant to Nas and Kelis.  She’s since then been on teams for Obama and Theory, and now is a noted jewelery designer.  I LOVE her honeycomb ear jacket earrings, all the better to listen to the wisdom of bees, their message in their die-off due to pesticides.  Hearing the linked and connected places in our souls make this a piece for smart boys and girls. Humans, that is.

FAME STAR   The 7th chakra is Fame or Self Esteem.  It is the back wall, the pillar, the backbone or spine of a space…to prove it…we have just one picture that says it all, unites us all in shared contemplation about Fame this season.

Nothing compares 2 U. Ever.

Terrorism at its core is self-hatred.

Hail to the Princes among us that champion LOVE.

LOVE is our DESTINY.

DESTINY   The 8th energy is our Path, our Destiny.  Are you dancing on your path yet?

I am dancing.  Our destiny as humans is happiness and compassion.  We are driven by this quest and yet always learning that what we seek is right here dancing with us.

Thanks to my friend, the very creative and philanthropic, film producer Kim Jackson, I am so honored to work this season with Dancing Classrooms for their newest fundraising event, ‘The Elevate Ball,’ coming this Fall to NYC.  The mission of DC is to foster self-esteem, social awareness, and joy in children by providing the opportunity to learn and perform ballroom dance.  Classes happen all over the world and have been the focus of several movies:

I cried from joy recently when invited to watch several classes of beautiful young things, all shapes, sizes, shapes, genders, faiths, and adorable temperments as they earnestly and enthusiastically rotated and traded partners in classic dances from Ballroom to the Tango to the Hustle.  DC calls it “building confidence, breaking down social barriers, and inspiring respect for all individuals.”  I call it beautiful.

DC envisions transformative arts programs in all school communities, building confidence, nurturing creativity and promoting a culture of mutual respect and well-being.  Who else is fostering this “feeling” with the power to change our destiny?

Lady Gaga.

Lady Gaga‘s mama aka Cynthia Germanotta, President of Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation has been working closely with Dr. Marc Brackett, Director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, whose latest studies on the value of Emotional Intelligence are leading the curve.  Both were honored at DC’s Mad Hot Ball this spring.

Lady Gaga calls it an Emotional Revolution.

Are you crying with joy for the beauty and potential of these dancing kids yet?

Email us at: news@jadedressler, to stay in touch re: the upcoming
Dancing Classroom’s Elevate Ball.

RE-ELATE  9th

There’s no better remedy to re-elate one’s spirit than a classic movie.  Especially one that shows off the meeting places between male and women power, and love and war, case in point, the epic movie, Cleopatra.  While Cleopatra enters Rome with a cast of 1000’s proceeding her, and she finally appearing a tiny gold third eye on a black sphinx the size of a cathedral…it was actually the power of little beauties, such as her golden boat of perfumes for her bath that really charmed.

A few weeks prior I listened as our client, perfumer Maria McElroy and April Long, beauty editor of Elle magazine had a coupled swoon moment over the scent and pleasure of Japanese Hinoki baths, so much so I began to float in the conference room!

It is the Japanese mountainside hanging hot tubs built of hinoki wood (Japanese cypress) which are the inspiration behind Maria’s latest perfume, Vanilla Hinoki.

Blog @cafleurebon calls the scent “instantly calming yet elevated as if you came out of a long meditation or dream, like wearing a mist from the early morning hours.  A gourmand infused with cedar leaf, lavender, spices, and patchouli that bring out the sauna-like feel of a Japanese spring among the cypress on a mountainside.”  The blog included art by Ikenaga Yasunar, which does illustrate the intangible inspiration of the unisex scent.

You might loll about in undies (with or without rap lyrics) or pose pensively/seductively depending on who is on the room (or photographing you “as if” it’s a selfie.)

THAT is why we love fragrance.  It is a selfie experience inspiring fantasy, yet it is real, ephemeral, repeatable.

Or maybe you go get elated with your Gal-Pals to a spa like this:

Or roll-out with Maria’s AromaM‘s roll-ons…

How perfect to change a mood for when planets make u-turns, and introspection to inspire new roles is the call of the day!

Our last ROLL and final WISH…

…to send you forward with the planets after the U TURNS of Spring.  For your upcoming Summer travels to far-flung beach or ashram yoga retreats, wood cabins, festivals, or glamping situations, peep this portable luxe bed-in-a-bag…

Our friends at Norvegr sustainably harvest the down feathers of the Norwegian eider duck and clean it by hand in community, as it has been down for over 1,000 years!

The leather carryall holds a 100% down duvet (uniquely crafted by nature to be perfect for any weather) and a pillow with its 400 thread count cotton sateen pillow case.  Such an elegant way to travel!

And finally, to see us all off on summer adventures, here is a well-loved sign in my hood’s Carl Schurz Park, a tip of the hat to traveler, explorer, editor-in-chief and one who often walked the circumference of Manhattan, John Huston Finley.

Wishing you all rollicking, re-elated retrogrades, and massive grand visions to roll out when all planets go direct!

xoxo Jade

PS…Oh…and tip: this gorgeous photo is from my new fave Instagram feed: @the_corner_store where the choicest vintage lives.

 

 

 

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