GOOD VIBRATIONS 〰️ JULY

Jul 1

Aloha, summer bunny! Can we please discuss: Where did June GOOOO??? Wow, you look tan. Vacation? OooOooOoo, where? Tell me everything! I need pics. ...Holy crap, it's gonna hit 97 today - let's put a watermelon in the freezer.

HERE'S THE 100% JUICE THIS MONTH:

•JULY FEELS

•#follow

•RAD READS

•LISTEN UP

•IN THE STARS

•NEVER BORED, NEVER BORING

•#mantra

JULY FEELS

UNVEILED

Yep, we've are officially hit FULL-ON-SUPER-LUSH-ALL-GREEN-ALL-FLOWERY-ALL-HUMIDITY-ALL-THE-TIME-VIBRATIONS.

July is my sweet-spot month of the year: hot and sunny, brilliantly verdant, and explosive with energy...from fireflies to fireworks, sizzling sand to cool ocean plunges, solo movie dates to potluck park picnics, iced-matcha mornings to frosé-fueled nights.

This month sizzles with endless opportunities for energetic output and outings, for sure. But I also think that this epic summer heat provides the perfect condition to turn inward and explore the monthly #mantra. IMHO it's a real goodie, so hang ten till the end.

K! Scroll onward, you sumptuous sun gods and goddesses, for frozen-grape-refreshing finds to cool your mind, body, and soul till we meet again in August.

#follow

@thecut

because they’re “showing the world what women are made of”…and their hashtag #summeroutfitresearch is all my inner nostalgic bohemian sartorialist craves

@danibeinstein

because psychology and astrology make a beautiful pair…and she features artwork by the graphic-arts-goddess, @inkandwit

@nitsacitrine

because she’s the @sunpotion creative director and head mixtress…but moreover she’s the embodiment of self-actualized ethereal artistry and divine feminine allure

RAD READS

The Rules of Magic

Because Alice Hoffman brought us Practical Magic (god love ya, Nicole Kidman & Sandra Bullock) and this is the newly released lead-up to those characters. Calling on the history of mysticism in the northeast USA, set in New York City in the 60’s, and sectioned into parts titled Intuition, Alchemy, Conjure, Elemental, Gravity, and Remedy…I was in the library a few days ago and flocked to this cover like a moth to a flame.

Whole Beauty

Because it's high time we honor beauty as an all-encompassing, 360-degree celebration. Shiva Rose lives it and encourages us all…shine every ray of inward light outward, with unabashed joy and femininity.

Session Cocktails

Because it's cool to get loose, but not to lose your cool.

How to Tell the Bad Men From the Good Men

Caitlin Moran wrote this essay for The Cut. Expect countless heartbreaking and/or stupefying and/or shameful anecdotes of men being bad in and out of the bedroom. But she’s really hitting at how we are ALL fumbling around in the dark. We’re due for a larger societal shift.

LISTEN UP

I made us a funky playlist, friends! Let's throw on sarongs, fire up the Sonos, whip up Shiva Rose's Summer Lover Tonic* and dance barefoot in the grass like nymphy baby monsters.

*See recipe below in MAKE THINGS

PODCAST: Tarot for the Wild Soul

Lindsay Mack is an intuitive healer and tarot reader based in Brooklyn. She is literally an earth angel, and her podcast delivers both interviews with other magical humans in the world of tarot and “Monthly Medicine” episodes. The latter are my favorite, for she DIVES DEEP into how we can be our best, most present selves in the month ahead. July’s medicine is “REBIRTH” and I high-high-highly rec you listen, here.

PODCAST: GOOP

Newsflash: Gwyneth is divisive. People have opinions.

Newsflash 2: I don’t mind her! And I think her company pushes boundaries to share fringy-ish topics with a more mainstream audience, which I for one am extremely cool with.

If you’re not on Team GP, however, I still encourage you tune in; the interviews are typically hosted by other GOOP editors and feature ah-maze-ing beings. Listen to “Are We All Psychic?” with Laura Lynne Jackson and “How to Defeat Your Inner Critic” with psychotherapist Barry Michels.

IN THE STARS

The Numinous - Tarotscapes

Shameful plug: I’m a contributing writer for The Numinous, but the site is truly my go-to platform to satiate cosmo-curiosities. Melinda Lee Holmes does beautiful work interpreting the tarot in tune with your horoscope. (I’m a Pisces Sun, so my card this week is The Lovers.)

Apartment Therapy - Home Design Horoscope

It’s the coolest thing in life when you go from admiring someone’s work to making them become your friend. That’s what happened with my “Sorceress,” Bess Matassa. Her brain is otherworldly brilliant, and she delivers the energy of the stars with the most illustrative prose. Here she turns her talents to bettering our aesthetic environments. The architect in me is OBSESSED! (Plus, she prescribes that us Pisces add disco balls and fresh roses to our lives, so…NAILED IT.)

MYSTIC MAMMA

Turn to Mystic Mamma (founded by Mijanou Montealegre: MM) for her enchanting universe of spiritual guidance AND for her gorgeous prints (the piece above is titled “Gateway”) and accompanies her theme for July:

Mature Responsibility in Unpredictable Times

NEVER BORED, NEVER BORING

The New Human Summit

25 proven disruptors, innovators, game changers and unknown extraordinary people discuss and share the steps to enable us to thrive and make a difference in a changing world.

July 13-15

FREE

Summer Lover Tonic*

12 ounces kombucha

Splash sparkling water

2 tsp pine pollen

1 tsp mucuna prurines

A squeeze of lemon juice

3 Raspberries

3 Strawberries

6 Mint leaves, + a sprig for garnish

•Pour half the kombucha and all other ingredients in a blender and blend thoroughly ~30 seconds. Divide amongst two glasses and top each with remaining kombucha and splashes of sparkling water. Stir and garnish with mint sprigs.

*Adapted from Whole Beauty by Shiva Rose

WARM UP @ MoMA PS1

WARM UP is one of the most fun things you can do if you like sunshine, DJs, body movin’, and relentless fun. It goes down every Saturday of the summer in the outdoor garden space of the museum, and every year a new architectural installation provides layers of visual, tangible interest. This season features large-scale interactive mirrors by Dream The Combine.

Sunday in Brooklyn Wood Roasted Maitake Mushroom

Last Sunday my bestie and I followed our hearts and intuition to dinner at Sunday in Brooklyn before realizing what a face-palm obvious choice we’d made. BUT IT WAS DELICIOUS SO GO ANY DAY ESPECIALLY SUNDAY.

We shared a mess of salad and pickles and wine and these hot damn amazing mushrooms. I don’t have their recipe, but I’ve made this tweaked version from the CAP Beauty book High Vibrational Beauty, which comes f*ing close:

1 pound maitake mushrooms

1 tablespoon tamari

5 spring onions, 1/4” slice on the bias

1 shallot, small dice

Salt & freshly ground pepper

•Preheat oven to 400°F. Add 3 tbsp water to small sauté pan and cook spring onions and shallots with a three-finger pinch of salt over medium heat for 10 mintues, stirring occasionally. Once the onions are soft, add to a mixing bowl with the mushrooms and tamari. Toss tenderly. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil or parchment and spread the mushrooms out in single layer. Pop into the middle-ish rack of the oven; flip after 5 minutes and cook another 5 to 7 minutes more until golden.

Maha Rose - Workshops

Maha Rose is New York’s “center for healing, inspiration, creativity, and transformation.” Their lineup of summer workshops is EPIC and will surely fill any lull night or Sunday afternoon with soul-centered community and self-expansion.

#mantra

IT'S TOO HOT TO WEAR DISGUISES.

This one goes out to all the babes who are sick and exhausted of being anything other than themselves.

I spent the majority of my life as a mixture of unsure + uncomfortable about who I am. I suppressed myself as a spiritually-attuned and clairsentient child, a free-spirited artistic adolescent, an adventurous pleasure-seeking twenty-something... It's only been in the past couple of years that I've increasingly committed to excavating every gritty detail of my truth and skinny dipping in it like a fountain of authenticity.

July -with its relentless heat and wild, primitive, jungle-like abundance- begs us to strip off any cloak, costume, conformity, illusion, act, deception, or disguise. Additional layers of the *not-self* are a) tiresome to lug around and b) boring.

“There is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost.”

-Martha Graham, legendary modern dancer and choreographer, #astandoutbabe

Indeed, a brilliant cocktail of contribution resides within each of our souls. The world doesn't need 7.6 billion versions of the same person; it would cease to function and surely cease to amaze. What I believe we do need is to examine our disguises...release them so that the sun's radiance can illuminate our real skin. When we own our shadows as much as we own our light -and grant others the same grace- vibrations grow higher, magnetism pulls stronger, and we're gifted a world of perfectly eccentric realness.

Keep it real. Stay true. Follow what feels good. Wear what you want. Be good. Love you!

MERCEDES KISS