Guiding meditation

My fried Lily basking deeply in the experience of summer flowers.

Do not go to the garden of flowers, oh friend, go not there.
In your body is the garden of flowers. Take your seat
on the thousand petals of the lotus, and there gaze on the
Infinite Beauty.

- Kabir

I've been guiding meditations in one context or another for many years.  I enjoy doing this, and hopefully, the meditators who join me from time to time are assisted by the prompts and images that flow from my imagination into the sound space of the moment.
 
I felt like writing a blog post this evening, noticing that I haven't done it for awhile.  When I go back and read my posts, I always enjoy remembering what I wrote and re-experiencing what I was thinking at the time. Tonight when I touched in to ask myself what I would write about, I just felt and thought,  "I love you."  Or maybe it's more just "I love," without any particular object.  This feeling reminded me of meditating.  I've cultivated the feeling of love by focusing on it in meditation for years, in various formats.  Writing and meditating are in some ways similar activities, and guiding a meditation is particularly like writing, because it is using the imagination to come up with a flow of words.

When I guide a meditation, I don't have a plan in mind, but the process will generally begin with focusing in on the sensations of being present in the moment.  Shifting awareness into the sensations of the moment has an immediate calming and filtering effect.  The moment of sitting down to meditation is one in which there is not much going on, there is quiet, and any problems of the immediate past and future can be put aside in favor of the reality of now.  Now consists of sitting, breathing, and being aware.  There's nothing else going on, at least on the surface.  So the first level of experience is letting go of the busy thinking mind that takes care of the trappings of daily life.  This results, often, in an immediate relaxation.  

(By the way, as I reread that last bit about the busy thinking mind, I thought, "I love the busy thinking mind!"  And that feels good and right.  Meditation teachers who teach that the mind is some kind of enemy to be vanquished are not doing anybody any favors.  The mind is miraculous, just like everything else.  The analytical thinker doesn't need to always run the show, though.  I find that there's going to be a much better chance of getting it to be quiet with a gentle loving shift to something else, than trying willfully to get it shut up.)

That relaxation is followed by an opening.  As soon as the outer awareness settles down, the inner awareness is eager to bloom!  For me, it often feels like I rapidly sense my own energy body.  That's a phrase that may not have a precise meaning in regular 3D terms, but it seems like a good description of what it feels like.  It feels like awareness of warmth and life that is simultaneous with the physical body but not part of it.  It has its own life.  It has qualities of emotion, and can be directed and orchestrated with intention.  That's where the fun is - holding an intention, and directing the experience to generate positive feelings.  

I do this by using four basic tools.  One tool is grounding.  This literally means putting attention downward, into the body, and into the ground.  For some reason, grounding has the effect of making the experience stay in the present and not go off into too much abstract mental activity.  Sometimes it also creates a sensation of stretching - it feels like there is lengthening of the space between my head and the ground below me.  Perhaps that is just the effect of placing focused awareness into the physical experience of being a vertical physical entity sitting above a massive orbital earth - but I am skipping forward to the end here!

The second tool is cultivating mindfulness, which just means paying attention to the sensations and experiences that flow through the moments of the now.  Lots of things can and do flow through the moments of the now.  Some of them will call for special attention.  That's a large topic for another blog.  But ultimately, regular attention or special attention is all attention.  It occurs to me that the experiences of the moments in meditation (or any other time) may be like little children who feel so completed by basking in the adoring attention of an appreciative adult.  (Yum! That is a really delicious way of looking at being mindful!  My heart tells me it's spot on!)

Which leads directly into the third tool in my made-up meditation toolbox!  This one is creating positive feelings of gratitude, acceptance, compassion and love.  I do this not only because it feels wonderful, but because I believe that it is a force for good. If love and appreciation are like, say, sunlight, then they have the power to cause many processes of life and growth to unfold.  It may not be apparent from just looking at sunlight that it fuels our ecosystem, but deeper understanding shows that to be true. 

And right here I am going to put it out there why I would want to exert a "force for good" into the world. I have a deep sense that there is a better world, right here inside of this beautiful but sad-scarred, battered, and broken one.  I sense that this world as we experience it with our five senses and our thinking minds, is, well, not exactly a mistake, but something like that. I'm pretty sure that there is way more going on here than is readily apparent, like the proverbial iceberg, and that by gravitating toward those inner experiences that feel more like it ought to feel, that I can be part of giving birth to the rest of the experience that life is supposed to be.  (OH YES!)

So, nicely leading us to: the fourth tool.  Expansion.  (Which was right there at the beginning with that stretching sensation.)  Once the experiences of grounding, mindfulness, and creating good energy feel like they are underway, then it is natural to take that wonderfulness and expand it outward or upward, deep into the earth or stretching across the surface, up into space, or across the globe.  It can also stretch back and forward in time - there's no limit to where we can put our attention to direct energy.  The energies of gratitude, love, joy, appreciation; these are change agents.  They heal, they nurture, they strengthen.  The eyes of love see the invisible, perfect world that we all sense should have been here all along.  Heaven is not some mythical other place with limited access only achieved by dying.  It is here, hidden, waiting to be loved into focus. 

In my vision to dream a new world into being, the states of being in light act as a force of change on the environment, the way sunlight does.  So, I am always delighted to have the opportunity to share a pathway to deep appreciation and peace with others, and to have my own experience reinforced and validated by the presence of other's hearts and souls journeying into the field of possible together.  I am deeply grateful for the presence of others with me (visible and invisible) as we journey into the wonderment and evolution of ourselves. Namaste.

Multidimensional dreaming

This is one of my favorite pictures. It looks so lush and exquisitely formed.  This was a plant that was anemically limping along in an under-patio planter for years, surviving on a little splash of water now and then when I remembered to give it.  Then the patio and the planter were demolished, to make way for a dance studio, and I stuck a few of the little clusters of this plant in the ground, not hoping for too much.  But it absolutely loved getting out in the rain and the sun!  It was unleashed.


I feel like that's what can happen to us.  We can get out from under the low roof of our perceived limitations, and we can expand into our true potential.  


Sometimes lately I've been feeling like that. As I weather waves of exhaustion, anxiety, or irritation, to come into the clear, I find that I am more connected with the possible.  I have deeper resources of insight and wisdom.  I can look around and love everything.  It feels fabulous.

This morning I dreamed I met three young men with long silky hair sitting by a road dressed in toga-style wraps and talking about their feet - that they could never wear shoes because their feet were too sensitive. Then I was in a castle and someone was making a sign with their names on it, and I told him that someday that sign would be worth more than the whole castle because those guys were going to be the three musketeers and they would be famous in the future, so famous that the memory of them would not fade.  Then I was taken south and given coffee to taste by some people dressed in big sweater coats, and in this dream, I was the first person in North America to have journeyed south and tasted coffee.  More cool stuff happened in this dream, including remembering a sea journey I took in a ship, but what I noticed is interesting about it is that I traveled through time and space with great ease.  Maybe we're touching on multiple realities in dreams all the time, but my sense is that lately my dreams are illustrating the multidimensional nature of reality.  Not only that, but an expanding awareness of my participation in other realities.  


I'm feeling it other times too.  I keep dipping into myself for healing and insight, and recently during a massage with a gifted healer, I became aware of how I could loosen the way I think in my day to day problem solving mode, how I could relax, open the top of my head, open my third eye, and let the solutions come.  I had this awareness when focusing on my left shoulder.  It felt quite easy.  

Then on the right side of my body, I became aware (again) of a very old fear of persecution, which I've worked on before, but this time there seemed to be less of a veil between myself and this experience.  I wanted to let go of it, of course, but I really came up against a need to be vigilant.  I could forgive, and that helped, but that still didn't let me really say goodbye to my vigilance.  I kept feeling it and loving it and after awhile, the healer said to let it go, and something gave way in my body, and then that tingly energy washed down from the top of my head and through that area.  Sweet.  I don't know if it's really gone forever, but I have the sense that something significantly shifted. The next day I felt sad, and I thought that made sense - the onion layer of fear was off, and that let the next emotion bubble to the surface.  

And now it is today, and I had an amazing dream, and I woke up before the sun and basked in the moon and stars and clouds gradually pinking in the east.  I'm enjoying my yard and the hummingbird sitting in the top of the cherry tree.  I'm going to enjoy a nap today.  It's beautiful and now the sun is breaking through making all the orangey yellowy colors really stand out.  Nothing to be vigilant about at all.

sleepy

I'm so sleepy right now but it feels kind of good like all the molecules of me are slow dancing.  On the way home from work today, actually much of the day, I was saying to myself and chanting, "I love you. I love you."  To the people in the other cars, or on the streets, to the trees, to the ground.  Doing this changed my thought pattern.  I might see someone and start to make observations about them, but then I would think, "I love you," and I'd just let go of the observation and simply love them and move on.  When, during the day, I drove over a river, I saw it sparkle in the sun and I loved the river and that pulled my mind into it and I saw how green and quiet it is under the water, how it keeps moving, and I loved the fish and the plants and the rocks and the water and it held my heart for a long time after I was past there.  When I got back to my office, I got in an elevator with a man I don't know real well but had decided a long time ago that I didn't like him.  And I thought, "I love you."  And then he complimented my shoes.  Which was sweet and unexpected.  Plus, they are awesome shoes.  
On my way home I was still thinking"I love you," but I also had the radio on, so I started saying it out loud, and singing it a bit with the music.  Then on a street near my house I saw a parked van with the license plate, "ILOVEU."   I never saw that license plate before though I have driven down that street often enough.  Confirmation! I felt good. 
This practice started on the mountain a couple weeks back, and I might have forgotten about it, except Dave picked up on it and has been doing it all the time.  He started doing it while he was harvesting herbs in his garden and making peppermint tea.  Such good tea!  And he kept reminding me that he was doing this and telling me how good he felt.  So finally it worked its way back through my thick hide of habit, and I started doing it.  At first it didn't feel natural or mostly I'd just forget, but the last couple days it seemed to pick up some energy and started to become part of a pathway. Anyhow, I wanted to write it down to share here.  And now I am really sleepy.  Happy rest to all.  I love you. 

Love on a mountaintop

I just want to write a short post here to tell the story of climbing Table Rock in the Oregon cascade mountains, and what happened at the top.  

Some of the boulders below table rock (disclaimer, this is not my photo, I captured it from the net)

This is a pretty big hike, for regular folks who are not hiking up mountains on a regular basis.  We took it seriously and packed a lunch and enough water to keep us hydrated, though we saw other people who felt it was just a stroll and went up without anything but a pair of shoes and a pair of lungs.  We were pretty hot and tired when we reached the top.  After we rested and recovered for a bit (Dave said, "I love these bodies, they recover so well!"), I strolled over to the edge, sat down on some rocks, and looked out at the vast green expanse of mountains laying quiet and radiant in the hazy moistness of that afternoon.  

So much space and quiet and life.  I wanted to sing to it.  I spent some time toning with the intention to re-create the sequence from the crystal palace within meditation that I have done a couple times recently.  In this lovely meditation, you first activate your heart chakra with a heartfelt resonance with the earth.  This is pretty easy to do on top of a mountain!  Then you spend time paying attention to your pineal gland, in the middle of your head.  This is to activate your receptivity to subtle energies.  The third phase is you pay attention to a spot about 18 inches above your head, with an attitude of appreciation and gratitude.  This is to open a portal to your higher mind and free you from the negative idea that you are separate from God.  So I sat there and enjoyed the sounds that my voice could make while focusing on these different places and ideas.  

There is a way of singing I like to do, in which it feels as though the sound is creating a thick space around me, and in that space, there is a whole choir of singers.  There may be some scientific explanation for this, it might be overtones or something.  Whatever it is, it feels very cool and I like it. So I directed this resonant sound to my heart, my head, and the space above my head.  And then I looked out again at this beautiful planet, and sang to it.  

I sang a very simple song.  The words are, "I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you I love you I love you."  Etc.  You get the idea.  I feel a little shy saying it here, but then again, I want to say it.  I think none of us should be ashamed of loving the earth.  Maybe we should say it all day long.  I think the earth would like to hear that, just as any other living thing would like to hear that it is loved.  Especially if it has been abused and treated with disrespect.  What a relief it is to hear "I love you" after you have been hurt.  

It sure felt sweet inside me to sing that love song out there on top of the mountain.  I felt that my song could be heard more clearly because I was singing into all that open space without thousands of people's words and thoughts competing and filling up the field.  It was sincere.  I felt renewed and healed and transformed by the whole experience.  

Maybe some of you will read this and you will let the earth know how much you love her the next time you get a chance.  Thanks.   

Mindfulness and expansion

I've been working with a counselor to assist with my evolution process.  I've found it very helpful to have another person there as a ground and witness as I venture into my own energetic experience of being.  Recently, I really experienced an amazing shift.  Part of what's so cool about it is that I had no idea what was going to happen when I started.  I just sat down and closed my eyes and started feeling what was in my body and communicating it to the lovely woman who has made it her vocation to assist with this.  

I followed the thread of my own experience and sensations and thoughts in the moment.  I used my understanding to offer forgiveness and thanks.  Out of this, eventually a beautiful lightness was revealed to me.  It wasn't really something I saw, as I'm not all that visual, but it was more of a feeling of spaciousness and love and energy.  At that point, I sensed that we were accompanied by other beings who reside in that vibration all the time.  It was a wow moment. 

Later I thought, hey, I have really learned a lot in life to be able to do this process so easily.  And that's true.  But then I watched a video on youtube about the shift in consciousness happening in this time period, and one of the commentators said that a sort of window is opened and we have abilities and access that we did not have before.  That felt true to me also - that it has become easier than ever to tune in and follow the flow of awareness to find resolution of old problems, hurts, and misunderstandings.  And I want to do that, because it lifts all of us.  We are in this together.

The universe offers confirmations.  I got an email from Jason Siff, a Buddhist teacher, who said, "What occurs to me about meditation practice is that we have difficulty being with our experience. We’ll use all sorts of means in order not to stay with what it is we’re going through."  So he suggested, "In practicing in a more receptive and allowing way, our tendency to steer our attention away from something that’s uncomfortable becomes interesting. It’s an ability we’ve developed in a variety of ways. We can then start to look at some of these habits that we’ve developed that have worked quite well."  I think this is insightful. Finding a way to be receptive to our own resistance.  Finding an experience interesting, being curious, is a way of dis-identifying from it, which is important to do - otherwise, you become the thing, and you can't see around it. 

This can happen very fast.  For example, one kind of resistance I have had is that I get a spacey feeling in my head.  I felt that, I said, "I have a spacey feeling" and felt it, and it soon shifted.  I also felt tired at one point.  I noticed where the tired feeling was in my body (sort of a dark weight in front of me, not in my body per se), and shortly, it morphed into a sense of defiantly not wanting to do anything because of a thought that anything I can do in this life is not going to help me feel better.  In other words, I felt just like an adolescent!  What shifted it was I didn't become that feeling.  I felt it, observed it, noticed where it was coming from in my body, stated it, appreciated what it was, and it changed again.  I love this process! 

This spiral of learning, uncovering, mining, allowing, expressing, appreciating, keeps unfolding.  Yesterday after a meditation I followed the thread of sensation in my throat to a loud sound, which turned into a "no!" and then a sort of memory of what it was like being a child in the midst of the darkness that can be human nature. What's interesting to me about this is that the present-time experiencing of the memory is not at all what it was like at the time.  At the time, I didn't think, "Oh, all these people around me are asleep and acting out of some lower impulses."  I was just cruising along in the moment and sometimes, some painful stuff happened, and I may have reacted some, but mostly I just swallowed hard and moved into the next moment. 

But from the expanded place that is my now, I can feel how on a deeper level, behind the scenes, I was a light being who fell asleep and woke up in this life and felt shock after shock at how harsh and hostile being a human is.  As I recover the integrity of who I really am, my view of the experience is big enough to encompass all that - the dullness and impulsiveness that fueled so many insults, the woundedness of every person's heart, and the ultimate integrity of each being despite their apparent brutishness.  And it takes its proper place - really just a small part of the span of our time here.  Mostly we are immersed in an environment of stunning beauty and incredible abundance.  And we are motivated by a desire to do the right thing (even if misguided).  We humans more or less offer tenderness to those we love.  And love we do.  That is the strongest, most impervious, persistent, and undying impulse and force behind everything. 

When you wash your windows, in pours the light. It's so strong that it can feel uncomfortable to bathe in it unshielded.  I think we are mostly not accustomed to it.  But it's the truth, and we crave it.  Beneath all the other cravings, is that one.  Craving love, craving that pure beauty, the energy of life.  

When John Perkins said at lecture I attended a year or so back that we have to create a new dream to create a new world, I kept wondering what that might look like.  Gradually I have seen that, for me, it has to do with the transformation of my own consciousness, the gradual unwinding of the fear that emerging into darkness had generated.  This begins to transform my relationships, and thus ripples out into the collective.  There may also be a rippling out and a lifting up that takes place on a less visible plane.  I hope so.  

For all of us, I wish for emergence from the collective dream of powerlessness, in which we live in the shadow of cataclysm and dearth.  Into the true dream of cooperation, caring, compassion, concern, and communion with the whole body of humanity as we stand equal to and a part of all that is.  I think this is the new dream, and I hope that more and more of us can wake up to the possibility.  

Sensing

Lately I've been doing a lot of sensing in.  There is a whole universe of experience and information that seems to have its own language and, until it is explored, is mysterious.  There are some people who have highly developed their inner senses, but this is left largely unattended in our society.  It's certainly not taught in school.  Or covered by insurance.  But that's another discussion. (Wink and smile).


What I've been doing is rather simply paying attention to the sensations in and around my body.  Doing this, lightly, I am drawn to places of tension.  If I can feel a place like that without trying to make anything happen, then the sensation changes, my attention might move to another place, and sometimes things occur to me, like emotions, or colors, or even pictures.  


I do have a motive with this: I want to release the held energy in my field, so that I can be more open for love, peace, and appreciation.  


Recently in a group meditation I was doing this process and I very much enjoyed watching the colors that appeared to wash through my body.  Later, I was focusing on a persistent knot in my diaphragm and a series of thoughts that seemed unrelated to the knot led me to think about an event that happened in my family when I was quite young.  When I put the two together, they seemed connected.  I'm not done with that one, because the knot is still there, but I feel that myself as an organism wants this attention and that I can unravel the mystery and release the energy a bit at a time. 


The energies of fear, keeping small, valuing safety over being the fullness of who I am are asking to be released.  It might be a matter of being persistent - more persistent than the habits themselves.  Today with a counselor I felt myself climbing a staircase out of the ground into the light.  Part of me rising up out of that constricted place, and another part of me crouching back to earth, then dissolving into her.  The earth can absorb the past and its limitations.  I would like to see a mighty tree grow out of that.  Or a mighty priestess - we are, after all, made of earth, even as we are animated by spirit.  


I really enjoyed this blog today, as it echoed many of the experiences I've been having recently.  Experiencing and transforming fear, finding boundaries, changing ourselves for the good of the whole.  The blog mentioned using "the violet fire," which is new to me, but when I read it I felt like this is something I want to explore.  A quick search and I find it's a visualization to transform dense energies in meditation.  It feels wonderful! 


For the radiant unfoldment of our beingness, I remind myself and anybody else who wants to ascend, to meditate.  Create alignment, be a vessel for light, and offer as much time as we have to grounding the spirit into this world.  Yes!  Namaste.

Being more and more alive

The last couple days I've have some very potent experiences, and they start to be so natural that I don't even realize that they are happening.  One thing that comes to mind after reading this amazing blogpost about a woman on the Oregon coast whose consciousness opened so much that she was able to communicate with a cat, is that a few days ago I was sitting in my hot tub and said to no one in particular that I wondered where that hummingbird had got to who was sitting in the top of the tree so often at the end of winter.  

Well, the next day I saw a hummingbird in my bay laurel and when it turned its head to face me from about 5 feet away I saw its incredible iridescent wine red face. We looked at each other, it turned its head away, the color disappeared, and it took off.  

Then that night I was back in the hot tub at dusk, and the hummingbird came back into the paulownia tree and buzzed about in the flowers some, but mostly just sat on a branch not too far away so I could clearly see it.  I told that little bird how beautiful it is and I enjoyed its company immensely.  I'm not saying I could hear the bird talking to me, I'm just saying I asked the bird to come, it came, and I'm open to the possibility of more communication.  At very least it felt like there was some sympatico happening there.  I felt like we were both relaxing at the end of a busy day.  

the beautiful paulownia tree in bloom

The other night I saw the movie called "I Am."  This is a wonderful story of a movie director's exploration of meaning after experiencing a devastating accident.  He was looking for what's wrong with the world and what can we do about it.  He interviewed several scientists on the cutting edge of inquiry who were talking about how our separateness and sense of competition is not only a source of trouble for us, but is an illusion because in fact we are all way more connected that we might have been led to believe.  And that the behavior of non-indigenous people who keep stuff for themselves rather than share it freely with the tribe is a kind of mental illness.
 

What this movie made me wonder was this: what if I just did not buy in to the story of scarcity?  What if I really allowed into the fiber of my conscious knowing the awareness of abundance, of all needs being met?  How could I then relax and not feel like I have to hoard anything for myself because the flow of everything necessary would continue to come to me and everyone as it always has?

At the end of the movie one woman in the theater said, "Maybe we should have a group hug." And I said, "Oh yeah!"  We didn't, but the feeling was there.  Yesterday I went to a dance in Corvallis where I only knew one person, but by the end I was dancing sweetly with just about every one, because when there was an opportunity, I told the members of the group that I had come there to dance with each one of them.  After that, they were more welcoming and I got very, very happy doing just that. Sweet!

Then on the way home, I turned on the car radio, and there happened to be this show I never heard before, On Being. It was an interview with a woman who is a Unitarian chaplain for law enforcement agencies in Maine.  She pointed out that everybody dies, and she's seen a lot of accidents and tragedies and crimes, but what she looks for and takes from her experience is the love that people offer to support one another.  And also the resilience of people who suffer devastating losses.  I felt blessed to hear this show.  At first I was thinking, "What? Are they turning NPR into the God channel?"  But then I listened, and this woman was thoughtful and wise, and I felt like I was getting supported and confirmed by hearing her coming through my radio. 

beautiful red seeds little angel wings!

So, I feel grateful.  This is not some religious scold, like it has been used before - be grateful you got some because you don't deserve it anyway.  No!  I wish to offer you a spark of my gratitude for this amazing life.  It is probably the most powerful state of being that you can get into.  I read so many wonderful things people are writing nowadays, and I feel uplifted and supported by them.  I want to be part of that. 

Oh, and I didn't even tell you all about when I invited my friend to go to this farm stand down near the river and afterwards took the road further down just to see what was down there and in the grass near the road was this giant bird and we saw it lift off with its red tail, and my friend said, "That's my totem animal!" And I said, okay, that's what we came down here for, so I turned around and went home.  Because really there was not another good reason I had driven down there.  I felt very alive just then.
 

Gratitude makes a space inside you for things to happen.

And my gratitude makes me feel ready for the bumpy times when pains and fears and nags push back and make me wonder if I will ever be clear and free and really part of the evolution I so want to bring about.  But that's another story.  For this one, I'll just say goodnight now.

Spring is amazing and so is the sky

Spring is amazing and so is the sky. This is a post that I started a couple months ago and felt blocked about finishing until now.  It's still spring, and I think I better get on it or spring will be over -- although in Oregon, spring lasts for months. This is a picture of camellia petals that happened to have transformed this formerly neglected corner of my yard into a work of art, a party, a sacred moment.  I was out pruning some fruit trees and noticed this beautiful happening on my way to get a tool out of the garage. Which tells you that it was a couple of months ago because now the fruit trees are leafing out and pruning is long past.
 

And this was the view out my window, before the leaves came in.  It is precious to sit in the morning and give thanks for the beauty of the sun rising, the day, the warmth of tea, the quiet.  Feeling the ease of breath moving in, moving out.  Hips opening as I sit cross-legged on a cushion.  To just sit, letting my spine be long, shoulders drop, belly making breath. 

Lately I have felt stuck in some respects, and have not known how to express what is useful for sharing into the world.  I want to share my process of healing and unfoldment in a way that either educates or inspires a reader to feel her own movement and growth.  I would love to light another soul on fire, even a little, towards freedom.  

But I guess I have to light myself on fire first.  To find a crack in the density of space that's wide and deep enough to let light pour in from another dimension.  To unhinge all the doors and rules and agreements and let truth explode unvarnished into the now. Yes, that feels like it.  I've been trying very hard to fix and heal some parts of me that feel heavy and hanging on me like wet coats.  I've been afraid to let it all hang out, afraid if the truth isn't pretty.  Judging myself, feeling judged.  I think in some ways it would be better to just be totally insane and entirely outside the social contract.  I wouldn't be surprised if lots of people feel like that - secretly wanting to talk to themselves, weep and scream in public, take off their clothes, just buck it all.  And thinking about that, I wonder, what would happen?  Yes, there would be lots of odd stares and nervous looking at and away, maybe call in the authorities to decide what to do with a woman who is not playing by the rules.  But I can sense in myself also a compassionate nod to a person who is going through the throes of casting off a bunch of intolerable life-squelching restrictions.  Restrictions whose only purpose is to make other people comfortable with the status quo, the normal, the sameness. 

I do it on the dance floor sometimes.  That's when I feel the most alive.  The rest of the time, my body has been hurting.  No, I don't really believe it's because of getting older.  I believe my muscles and joints are talking to me, saying, "Hey, you've got some more baggage to unload here."  And I do try to listen.  It's hard to hear sometimes, though.  Most recently, I listened to the muscle that goes down the front of my neck and into the chest, that steel ropey thing.  With the help of a gifted energy healer, that muscle said, "Hey, you are an exquisitely sensitive feminine emotional receiver and generator.  Be that."  I want to just love it into its freedom.  I will keep on doing that until it is free.  

And I just took a walk around my neighborhood, whilst humming the whole time. Making the sounds of what's going on inside of me.  That felt good.  And the color of the sky right now in the west is pink and good and true.  So I will close with that image.  May all beings be filled with the pink light of evening and our hearts be alive with gratitude and hope.


Thank you ever so much, whoever should happen to read this.  I am grateful to have a voice and have it listened to.  We are all unfolding, individually, together.  I feel you.  And it is good.  

credit: David Ward

Undergoing liberation

I've been working on this post for about a week.  

It looks like large numbers of people are now undergoing liberation.  It's quite possible that this is happening on many more levels than we realize.  We hear on the media that whole countries of people in the Arab world have been liberating themselves from their repressive or self-serving leaders.  This in itself is huge and nearly unprecedented.  Here's a great article discussing the phenomenon.  It says, "The closest historical analogy is the revolutions of 1848, the Springtime of the People in Europe. That revolution erupted in France, then hit the Italian states and German principalities, and eventually reached the remote outposts of the Austrian empire. Some 50 local and national uprisings, all in the name of liberty."  It helps to get some historical perspective on something so incredible that's happening, because it does make we wonder whether anything like this has ever happened before.

But I like to think that even more than this is happening.  And it makes me feel good.  Everything is energy, invisible then visible.  I wonder what the energy that created this liberation looks like.  Is there a DNA for liberation?  Is liberation a blue or orange flame inside the hearts of the people?  I don't exactly remember what it feels like to be part of a mass liberation, but I can imagine that it is exhilarating and feels like power in the belly. 

On a personal level, I feel like I have been gradually and continuously experiencing my own liberation.  It's not smooth, but it is definitely progressive.  What I notice is that there's a cycle to it, of feeling good and enjoying things like the sky, the birds, my lover's skin, delicious food, the movement of my hips as I walk, hot tea, positions of rest, sensations of stretching, and the warm assurance of seeing a smile reflected to me out of the field of possibilities that create each moment.  And then a little thought will insinuate itself into my awareness, some little negative thought that I might not have particularly noticed before, but because my awareness is attuned and this thought is in contrast to the rest of what is happening, I'll notice it.  And being an inquisitive creature concerning my own habitat of being, I'll notice it some more.  The seemingly minor thought then reveals itself to be the tip of some sort of iceberg.  And that's a good analogy because it tends to be something from the past that's preserved, though I wouldn't say it's exactly frozen, since it seems to have life and movement to it.  But it causes me to get to work on it, using tapping, or making sounds, or dancing it, or meditating with the intention of dissolving it in light or passing it down into the earth or asking loving invisible beings to help me be free from it. Or all of the above.  


Some of the thoughts and feelings that I have been processing this way are core and essential things - like the feeling, "I am unlovable."  Another popular one asking for liberation is, "I am alone."   I woke up with that one the other day.  Then sitting in the hot tub I was feeling that isolation and looking around at the world, so the world said, "You can't be alone, because you are part of this earth, which loves and surrounds and supports you."  To which I said, "Okay, but what about cold and hunger and pain?"  And the world said, "I totally support you in abundance."  And I replied, "But I was born into this body and it felt unwell and then my father didn't know how to love me."  

This was a sad thought.  So I felt into that, knowing what I know now that he did love me, and from this perspective I saw that his energy, the flow from his core being into the human expression, was distorted, wounded, blocked.  Since he has passed from this world, I felt like it was okay for me to go in and fix it, to straighten it out, unblock it.  And as I thought these thoughts, I wondered, "Where did this begin?"  My mind saw my grandparents, and I felt some of the same kind of distorted, blocked expression along with a natural love of the innocence and beauty that is a child.  I imagined a line of people going back into Europe, their lives marked by oppressive and dangerous social forces, living with dreams for better lives for themselves and their children.  This happened very very fast, not so much as thoughts but little flashes, accompanied by searing emotional pain that shot through my body and made me gasp.  I panted and cried and made some long tones.  I felt the need to get up and stomp on the ground in my bare feet.  Then I came inside and stood in the shower and a roaring came up from the middle of me.  I roared and coughed.  Until it sort of subsided and I felt tired.  I can only take so much of this.  


Later, I don't remember if it was that day or the next, we went for a walk.  I had been vacuuming, and as we walked along, as I felt a heaviness clinging on me, I thought about the vacuum as a tool to vacuum off whatever needed to go.  I imagined a vacuum cleaner that sucked the darkness, the blockages, out of the core of me.  It was an effective visualization.  Maybe it moved enough of that heaviness, along with the walking, along with the love that my partner continuously offers, along with his arm to balance me, so that the thought could come - Ah, I need to meditate.  And since we were walking along a straight road and he was watching, I just closed my eyes and meditated as we were walking.  

In the meditation I felt and saw my light body, and I let my attention hang out in the places where it had been dimmed.  I felt the energy above my head, and down into the earth, and all of my chakras doing their lovely chakra station energy exchange-emit-accept thing that it is their nature to do, and this nice orb of light spinning around, and my partner's light doing the same thing, and these lovely light orbs overlapping as we walked along.  Happily, this made him turn and smile and kiss me.  And I've been pretty much feeling great since then.  


But the process goes on.  Even as I have been writing this.  I had to stop a couple of paragraphs up to do a little tapping on the thoughts that came up around me writing, "I need to meditate."  There were some effects of people being judgmental around spiritual practices.  Not doing it their way, not doing it enough - that kind of thing.  Luckily it was fairly easy to move through just now.  Love and appreciation of myself even though I felt judged.  

I think the current ease with that one might be because a couple of weeks ago I made a big declaration.  I stated aloud that I disavowed, declined, resigned, rejected, and annulled any all associations, initiations, vows, inductions and the like to any church, order, cult, religion, government, tribe, society, etc.  This was liberating, and I had no idea it was going to happen.  It just suddenly bubbled up from inside of me after I was feeling an unpleasant feeling.  I was hanging out with this unpleasant feeling, and then the thought popped into my head and out came this giant declaration that seemed to stretch back (and maybe forward?) into lifetimes of experience as a human.  Wow. 


So, it seems that the energy of liberation is a real force in the world.  It feels like it's available, it's spreading, and it is more possible than ever for anybody who wants it, to breathe into themselves the fresh air of renewal through liberation from old patterns and habits and beliefs.  Doing that feels like a contribution to the collective.  Anybody who makes themselves a better person, a clearer channel for love and light, raises up the whole.  This is very well articulated by Peggy Black as she offers messages from her "team" of spirit helpers. Here is a recent message she pasted on facebook that I enjoyed.  

I will close this post with a well-used blessing: 

May I be free
May you be free
May all beings, in all worlds, be free

With much love, light, acceptance, appreciation, gratitude, and joy
Julie

Eating for evolution

I've been wanting to write about food so I'm just going to write and see what happens.  The last thing I ate was a Dove dark chocolate truffle which was pretty yummy and also came out of a big dark red heart-shaped metal tin.  Which was a love gift I got on, you guessed it, Valentine's day.  I think that love is the best kind of food for our being.  But I find it's easier to feel the love when my body is feeling good, and my body feels better when I give it some kinds of food rather than others. 

I'm also drinking a cup of yummy herbal tea made of nettles and dandelion and oatstraw and mint and a bunch of other stuff.  This is a tea that tastes good and I believe is good for me, based on information I got from reading New Menopausal Years : The Wise Woman Way, Alternative Approaches for Women 30-90, by Susun Weed.  I was interested in this book because when I was younger, my friend Erin told me about another of her books, Wise Woman Herbal for the Childbearing Year, and I used the information in that book to help me help my body get ready for giving birth.  I had a rough pregnancy, and after seeking lots of help from doctors, midwifes, and healers to get through it, it was the information in that book about taking vitamin E to heal a placental abruption that I believe ultimately got me back on track.  To a wonderful natural birth and easy and healthful post-natal experience.  So I trust this woman's information, and she says that nettles is a great herb for menopausal women because of its mineral rich properties.  

It's a cool story how I discovered this tea.  Last year, I had to go to Portland often to bring my son Casey to his orchestra rehearsals.  I got an email from Groupon one day that advertised a store in Multnomah Village.  I didn't get the Groupon, but I did investigate and discover that there is this cool neighborhood not too far from where the rehearsals were.  So one afternoon I found my way to Multnomah Village and browsed around in the stores. One store that was selling some beautiful clothes and shoes made in Israel was offering cups of tea to the customers as we came in.  And I tried two of these teas they were offering, and it turned out that they were made by one of the employees there.  The teas are called Possiblitea, they come loose leaf in a tin, and the one I like is called Daily Dose.  I noticed that drinking a cup of this tea before bedtime helped me sleep better.  And it feels good to be consuming a local product. 

It's hard to pinpoint because there is so much going on in life all the time, and I have made so many changes, but it seems that mid-life is bringing a particular kind of change and process that asks me to be more mindful about what I put in my body.  

One of the things that I was looking into recently was having a more alkaline diet.  I came to this discovery after reading an article in the New York Times about calcium and osteoporosis.  The article observed that a high protein diet, including the dairy products that are generally recommended to support bone health, might actually contribute to osteoporosis by making a person's body more acidic.  This is because the acid created in metabolizing these foods must be neutralized in the body, and the body does this by pulling calcium out of our bones, or at least using up the calcium that's around and not putting it into bones.  (Probably this explanation is not well-stated, but as I said in my very first blog entry, I am not a scientist).  Then it was noted that in Asian countries in which the people eat almost no dairy products, but do eat lots of vegetables, they don't have the trouble with osteoporosis that we have over here.  

This fits with other information that I've seen concerning the effects of inflammation as being harmful in the body in myriad ways, including heart disease.  So I was reading about this here and there on the internet, and reading one person's comment that the easiest way to change was to just change one meal a day at first.  I liked that idea, and the idea that felt good to me was to change some of my breakfasts.  

I decided to eat miso soup with seaweed for breakfast.  This is a very easy way to give myself a super alkalizing dose of nutrition with no cooking.  Here's how it's done: First I go down to my garden and cut a few small leaves of swiss chard, which has survived there all winter.  I wash the leaves and cut them into little bits so the boiling water can cook them on contact.  I put the leaves in a bowl and put in some dried seaweed, usually wakame.  Then I pour boiling water over the veggies.  The wakame expands like crazy and turns a beautiful green, while the chard also deepens in color.  Pretty soon it's a stew!  Then I add about a tablespoon of miso and stir it all in.  I think the best miso is a low salt organic miso called Jorinji that is made in Portland and I have only seen at Uwajimaya.  (If you have never been to Uwajimaya in Beaverton, check it out! It's a huge and fun Asian grocery store).  Then what really makes this soup taste fabulous is adding some kimchi, and, if I have some, a little lime juice!  This is a super alkalizing probiotic feast!  

Also I've found that almost any green will be quite edible by cutting it up in little bits and pouring boiling water over it - so I've used kale, parsley, cabbage (not the thick parts), and spinach to make soup.

Here are some pictures of the fun transformation of wakame.  I didn't put anything else in, just to show what happens.  Took about 90 seconds to do this:  

Wakame expanded - veggie from the sea!

Pretty cool, eh?  So, getting back to my theme here, I think that eating well supports evolution.  A few years ago a sweet young man named Julian was living in Salem and dancing with my group sometimes.  He was really into having only raw food.  One night he said that the thoughts you think and the food you eat are both important, but the food is more important.  Well that may have been true for him, but I have to say that I've known a few people who were very fastidious about what they ate but not necessarily in a great mood most of the time.  I've found that the thoughts I think are certainly the most important thing that I'm feeding myself at any time.  But choosing good food makes it easier to think good thoughts, and thinking good thoughts about the food I eat sure makes the whole deal go better!  So I'm grateful to Julian for bringing this to my attention. 

Here's a gorgeous video that helps with thinking wonderful thoughts.

Speaking of good thoughts, here's another thing I want to share:

This is the wetland in the back of Dave's property.  Isn't it stunning?  At night about a million geese roost here and we hear them honking all night. And this is the hub of some kind of willow that grows on the east side of this fantastic seasonal pond:

You have to tromp through some high grass to get to it, but it's a cool little hidey place in there!  I am having lots of fun with my camera since I started this blog.  And sunshine is so precious in the winter in Oregon.  These things are as delicious as the best, most healthful foods.  

I am really looking forward to a good growing season this year, and doing gardening together with Dave.  He knows lots more than I do about growing things, and has a nice big plot where he's been growing food and tossing compost for twenty years.  Yum.  

Here's one last picture to let people know that spring is just about here: 

Thanks again for reading my blog.  I hope it brings you some happiness, reminds you to eat well, think enjoyable thoughts, and feel hopeful about spring. 

May peace, freedom, and contentment prosper in this world. 

- Julie 

Healing and love

It soon will be Valentine's day and lots of people are thinking about love and those they love or what it means or how to create more love.  I'm enjoying more love than I ever experienced.  The more love I feel, the more my perceptions seem to expand, and the less willing I am to spend much time feeling pinched off or in the shadow of unpleasant emotions.  So, I noticed a little insecurity inside myself.  Nothing big, just these little thoughts that crop up and ask, "Do you really love me?  Do you still love me?"  I wondered how to release that, since it obviously doesn't serve me or my relationship, and has nothing to do with anything going on in current reality.  


I happened to get a nice message from Shiloh Sophia talking about self love.  And I thought, "Oh yeah, self love is the answer to insecurity!"  Convincing myself that somebody else loves me is not going to kick it, since the insecurity is like a sneaky crevice - not too wide, but very very deep - and some of the love that gets poured into me leaks down into the crevice and disappears into the dark.  


Self love is cool.  I used to say an affirmation inside my head, and it's not too tricky: "I love myself!"  That helped.  Self love is a big project.


Another thing that I've been doing a lot in the past year or so is using Emotional Freedom Technique.  This is a clearing method for removing and remodeling unwanted patterns.  Part of it is tapping on a series of points on your upper body, but what you are doing while you tap is, in a sense, radical.  You identify and really notice what it is that you're feeling that you'd rather not feel any more (this alone is a counterintuitive and very powerful tool), and then you say to yourself, "Even though I have this feeling of insecurity (or anxiety or sadness or whatever it is), I deeply love and accept myself."  That's radical, because rather than being at odds with the emotion, situation, or sensation, you are accepting it, accepting yourself with this experience.  It's a compassionate response.   And then you go through the tapping, which seems to rewire something in you or distract you - I don't know, but when you finish the tapping you take a deep breath and check in with where that feeling is at.  Usually it's changed.  And you do it again on another aspect until you feel done for now.  It's pretty cool - there's a free instruction manual on it on the internet and I would recommend checking it out for those who want more emotional freedom!


This week I had an appointment with the dentist to get a crown on a back molar.  I put it off for a few years but the dentist convinced me that a crack in the tooth was getting a little longer.  Like most people, I don't relish a trip to the dentist.  So beforehand I was trying to come up with things to appreciate about the experience.  I thought about how lots of people don't have access to this kind of health care.  And then I thought, "This dentist is the greatest f**ing genius dentist in the world!"  Even though I had no idea whether or not that was true at all, it felt pretty good.  Nonetheless, there were times that I was tense sitting there.  I brought my ipod and listened to some music while the dentist and his assistant were working.  It took a long time to prepare everything - they had to make impressions of the teeth and numb my tooth.  Twice.  But once they succeeded in getting the area sufficiently anesthetized, I did relax and was able to appreciate how the dentist and his assistant worked together very smoothly and incredibly fast to get the thing drilled off.  It was nice to see that and nice to have them working towards getting out of my mouth!  After the drilling was done, I enjoyed looking at the assistant's ear with her pearl earring in it.  Her back was turned and she was working on the temporary crown, and there was the line of the bottom of her hair, and her beautiful little ear.  It's possible to derive tremendous pleasure from appreciation of small things.  I'm not sure that's quite love, but it is definitely healing.  


The beautiful pears in the picture up there are from my yard last summer.  I think they look like the epitome of a lush, fruitful, prosperous reality.  Not only that but for some reason there is a pink blossom in the top left of the picture.  It's a mystery what that's doing there in the time of summer when the pears are that big, except that flowers are sweet and sexy and exude flower essence.  I don't know much about that, but I feel that it's subtle and offering balance for those that stop to feel it.  

Recently I was reading out of Divine Nourishment by Mary Lane, and she described a journey into a crater in Hawaii to collect flower essences.  While in the crater, she communed with the spirit of a rare plant that grows there, and it told her that there were two other plants there that would work together to support a spiritual practice of restoring the balance of the masculine and feminine energies inside a person.  I was moved by this very poignant story of information for healing and expansion being revealed in an unconventional way.


A few days ago David and I worked in my yard pruning trees and trimming ivy.  He is an awesome tree pruner!  He made a huge pile of branches in my front yard.  Things there are looking good now and feeling ready for spring.  It feels like a great clearing out, making way for new growth, light, air, expansion.  He told me the plants appreciate this attention, and would explode with beautiful new energy as a result.  Plus we got dirty and sweaty and we had so much fun neither of us could believe it. 


I'm going to end this soon, with a part of a poem from Rumi that I read at dance the other night.  I was looking for something about self love, and I found these:

The minute I heard my first love story
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.
They're in each other all along.  

      **

We are the mirror as well as the face in it.
We are tasting the taste this minute
of eternity.  We are pain
and what cures pain, both.  We are
the sweet cold water and the jar that pours.

     **

This moment this love comes to rest in me,
many beings in one being.
In one wheat grain a thousand sheaf stacks.
Inside the needle's eye a turning night of stars.

    **

I am so small I can barely be seen.
How can this great love be inside of me?
Look at your eyes. They are small
but they see enormous things.

Happy Valentine's day to all you lovers of self, lovers of life, lovers of lovers, lovers of what is and what could be and what was - acceptance, appreciation, gratitude, joy, love.  So be it!

Bumps on the road

Sometimes it feels like there are bumps on the road to evolution.  On a recent morning I had a dream in which my mother came crowding into my bed and discovered all kinds of bugs there.  She uncovered various little nests of spiders and dead leaves that were hiding along the edge of my bed, and her continued focus on these things annoyed me.  My situation there with her prevented me from going out to play.  I woke up feeling agitated and upset.  Sometimes I will remember a dream like this, and I figure it's telling me something, so I try to pay attention.  

I think that on the path of healing and evolution there's a process of uncovering, releasing, clearing out.  Sometimes I hesitate to attend to the little moods that come over me because I think I have done plenty enough of that.  But I've also trained myself to be present with what is.  And I notice that bumps and moods keep coming, and that the content of the moods has its own story, its own wisdom.  I thought for awhile about what that morning's dream might have to tell me.  In a meditation that evening, I reviewed it and imagined cleaning out all around that bed and allowing my mother to rest in it, while I went off to swim outside.  That felt good.  I also think that there's a message in the imagery of cobwebs and spiders eggs and leaves hiding behind my bed.  I was at peace and she came and found these things.  I felt that she was focusing unnecessarily on negative things, but I sensed that my allowing her into my dream to do this was telling me that part of me is harboring squeamish and persnickety feelings.  I would like to be at ease, and in acceptance of myself and others. And I would like to pass the acid test of being able to be in complete ease and confidence in the presence of my mother.  Yikes!! 

Don't get me wrong, my mother is a lovely person, but she just can't help having a few (well, maybe more than a few?) itsy bitsy judgments that she makes about, well, everything.  She's a discerning individual.  Discernment is an important skill, but its big sister is acceptance.  And the class president in this little community of skills is appreciation.  Being in appreciation actually changes our brain chemistry, and maybe it even reforms our DNA.  (Check that out - it's called epigenetics.)  So I seek to often be in appreciation of what is - not that hard, mostly, since we live in beautiful and amazing world.  But sometimes another kind of mood can cloud my ability to be open hearted and in wonder and appreciation about the things that are happening around me.  


As I said, I like to honor those moods and feelings with expression, inquiry, love, and acceptance.

What really moved me past the mood of that dream was the dance I did the following evening.  I hold space on Thursday evenings for people to come to my small studio and dance.  We dance to wonderful recorded music that I put together in a mix for the event, and it's a free form experience of safety, creativity, reverence, and cutting loose.  Last week, what was especially wonderful was having a some new people come in to share the experience.  An entirely new and lovely person called me that morning and got directions to come to the dance, and old friend came back who has suddenly reappeared, smiling, into my life, and another dancer returned from overcoming cancer to dance again with renewed joy bursting out of his being.  Plus a warm and lively regular dancer, and me.  Funny, I thought up to 1/2 hour before the dance that maybe I should cancel because no one would show up.  That sure was wrong!  Instead, we opened with a centering exercise, acknowledging our awareness and our body wisdom, and off we went into stretching, moving, breathing, tuning in, and rocking out! What often happens for me is that after several fast songs to which I am bopping, jumping, swirling, dipping, reaching - whatever, you know, it's a full body response to the music - at the end of the set there will be a slower song, something deep or tender or spacious or reflective.  By this time, my body is all loosened up, my mind is freed, and something happens that allows me to channel the most spirited and delicious energy into the dance.  

So, on that night, the next song was, "Film III (Live)" by Canadian avante garde cellist/singer Jorane.  This is one of those songs that for me feels very understated yet passionate.  During the song I really let go.  Moving physically and emotionally, without really thinking about it, I was pushing the frustration and stuckness right out of my chest and throat.  Making room to replace these things with a sense of reverence.  Then late in the second half of the dance, one person took another's hand, and after a bit, all five of us were holding hands and swaying and ducking in and out and laughing laughing until the music stopped and we just hugged one another in a spontaneous recognition that we are alive and life is sweet.  Finally, as we always do, we ended sitting in a circle in silence, and I felt so grateful.  That state of appreciation that I seek to return to again and again enveloped me, the group, and the night.  Yes.  

Here's a poem I wrote a few years ago from a state of deep and wide appreciation:

PRETEND WHAT IS TRUE

Open a door onto a world of wonder.
A soft, humming jungle world that glows in damp fecundity
while scents of green hover in clouds
that stream around us as we walk.

Open a door onto a world
where smooth bodied creatures link arms and share damp secrets
in downy beds of night,
and great ferny trees rise from the loam like arrows
their branches fanning out emerald
against the startling blue sky.

Open a door onto a world where clouds gather in magnificent tufts
blanketing the sky in every shade of pale
until vapor spills over into rain,
covering every leaf and blade of grass
in a bath of freshness.

Open a door onto a world where fruits
take every shape and color - crisp, tart, juicy
they fill the belly until sleep comes.

Open a door to see that these creatures know beauty -
they make music of every variety
and build monuments of stone and glass
in delicate symmetry with unfathomable detail
rising like impossible caverns from the ground.
 
A world whose air is filled with insects and birds
whose very earth is teeming with fantastic life too tiny to see
but pulsing continuously and silently like blood flow, or air.

Open a door onto a world, a world whose invisible essence
is as powerful as its highest trees or wildest tempests
a world with heart, and the heart of this world
shines through it like sunlight through ice
everywhere sparkling
even in the starry blanket of night.

Open a door.
This is our world.

Well, thanks, readers, I think maybe this blog entry is long enough, though it makes think of lots more things to say.  Catch you next time, then.