V - Va Va Va Vooooom!

To be AliVe with Vibrant, ViVid, Victory of LiVing.

Storytime

My mom’s first name is LaVonne, with a capital V. Vhen I vas just a vee vone, I didn’t understand why she got to have a capital letter in the middle of her name and the rest of us didn’t. It seemed like the V wanted special attention.

Turns out, it did.

You see. Mom was named after her maternal aunt. My grandmother’s little sister, who died young. She was getting ready for her wedding, deep in the world of dreaming about her future, and two footsteps away from actually living it when she tripped down the stairs, landed just wrong, and died. A few years later, Mom was born, my grandmother’s first child…a WWII baby.

Not only was my mom given the name and legacy of living out a life of someone who couldn’t live it for herself, she was given the capital V energy that lives within the name.

Vonn comes from several ancient languages, meaning Hope and Strength and Victory.

La isn’t just an early version of the simple article ‘the’ - as it is also the musical note. To say LaVonne is to SING about hope and victory and strength.

Now here’s where things get interesting. My mom inherited this name from her Aunt, whose life was cut short at the very beginning of HOPE. My mom was raised in the 1950s, in a patriarchal culture where women were trained to be subservient to men. If you ask me, all those women built an immense amount of STRENGTH that they passed on to their daughters. . . ME!

No, I did not inherit the LaVonne name. I didn’t need it because I inherited the HOPE of my great-aunt, the STRENGTH of my mother, so that I could live the VICTORY of my own life.

Lesson

The magick of the letter V is the vibrational sound it emits.

The sound of V is the vibration that happens when your upper teeth meet your lower lip and you push air through the gaps and spaces. It’s a sensation and a sound that is deeper than a buzz. If you really pay attention when you make the sound, you might just be able to feel it all the way down to your pelvis.

The ancient yogis have known this for centuries. They chant the sound VAM as a way to activate all the nerve impulses in your sacral center…and we all know that vibrations *down there* come with all kinds of pleasure feels 🍆🍑.

The V-sound is about feeling fully ALIVE.

• It’s Vibrant.

• It’s ViVid.

• It’s ViVacious.

• It’s Vociferous.

• It’s Voracious.

• It’s Victorious.

• It’s Veracity!

The shape of the letter V is about gathering all the energy from and outside source and funneling it down to one point, and getting to the very sharp core of it all. It’s like one of those giant funnels at the children’s museum where you drop a penny at the top and it spirals its way down down down, making its own sort of revvvvvvving sound until it reaches the very bottom where it drops into the vessel below with a VING!

Homework

If your ever feeling a bit drab, dank, dark, or deadened. Try taking a big deep breath and making the V sound through your lips for as long as your breath will let you. Pay attention to where you feel the vibrations in your body. Does it go all the way down to your pelvis? No? Try straightening your posture. Yeah. Like that. After a couple rounds of that, it is really hard to remember the drab, because the vibration has reminded you exactly how very vividly alive you are!

Resource

This story from my friend Sonaakshi Sinha Jamwal of Zingy Zen is a perfect example of someone living vividly and vibrantly through life. The vegetable vendor in this story knows how to stay fully alive, in every moment.

Is Mindfulness Only for the Wealthy?

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