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Wednesday, May 15 2013
Mirror Meditation
At a recent retreat with Richard Moss and a special group of sojourners, I focused on inhabiting the body – appreciating its wisdom, attending to its physical sensations and feelings, interrupting ingrained patterns where I disregard my senses and move automatically to analysis and stories – a movement away from what's real to thoughts about what's real. During the retreat, I realized, once again, that connection "in here" is the basis for all connection "out there".
One difficult morning, as I sat in meditation at a desk facing a mirror on the wall, some affirmations arrived. I wrote them down, faced myself in the mirror, looked directly into my eyes, and spoke each affirmation out loud.
I invite you to try this practice. Breathe, relax gently into the body, and let the affirmations emerge from quiet connection within. Take your time. Wait until you feel connected before speaking. Let each message resonate in the body, before moving on.
Here are the affirmations I used. The last one is a quote from Richard Moss. You can use these or create your own version of a mirror meditation. Enjoy.
You are a unique expression of infinite vastness.
You dwell in a body that's intimate with the universe. Listen to this body. Trust its wisdom. It is your pathway to the infinite.
The vastness within is larger than any feeling or story or problem you can have. Let it hold you.
Soften to this vastness. It loves you completely.
You are, already, that which you seek.
Wednesday, May 01 2013
Home Body
Inhabit the body
Let it be home
Sensation and feeling
Ground and guide us
At home in body
We connect to self
Connecting with self
We connect to other
Humans and critters
Planets and plants
All one playing in the Field
The Big Body we all inhabit
Little body nestled in Big Body
Home within HOME
Wednesday, April 17 2013
Universe and Us
Once upon a time, at the very, very beginning (about 13.7 billion years ago) before there even was time, there was a mysterious emptiness, a profound and fertile quiet. We're not sure exactly how this happened, but in a trillion-trillion-trillionth of a second (an unimaginably small amount of time), the universe appeared on the scene. It was about the size of an atom and it was very, very, very hot. Cosmologists called this event a "singularity" - a oneness that contains everything. All the energy that would ever exist in the universe was in that tiny speck.
Over the next one billion-trillion-trillionth of a second, in what we now call the "big bang", the universe expanded to the size of a galaxy. Nothing before or since, not even light, has ever moved that fast. And it moved at exactly the right speed. If it had been one trillion-trillion-trillionth of a percent faster or slower, the universe would never have been more than a big bunch of atoms.
There's an amazing elegance and intelligence in the unfolding of the universe – so many critical moments when the universe had to get it just right. There's a messiness too. It wasn't always pretty. For example, in the firestorm just after the big bang, most of what was created was immediately annihilated. And yet a vastness remains.
At the moment, there are about one trillion galaxies in the universe, with an average of 100 million stars in each galaxy. That adds up to 100 million-trillion stars. That's a 1 with 20 zeros after it – a very big number. Each star is unique and one of a kind – just like every planet, every person and every blade of grass. And all that uniqueness, richness and diversity originated in oneness. It's all interconnected. Every bit of it is kin to us.
I believe the story of the universe is a story of love. And, because we are inseparable from it, it's our story too. There is a vastness in us that mirrors the vastness of the universe. There is a richness and diversity in here that mirrors the richness and diversity out there. There is a messiness and elegance in humans that mirrors the messiness and elegance of all creation.
We live in a universe imbued with intelligence, creativity and love. Where we live is who we are.
Saturday, April 06 2013
Reflecting You
Disciple of life
Widens eyes
Opens heart
Softens spirit
Suffers, learns
Listens, loves
Master of journey
Eyes clear
Gently flows
Partners with life
Embraces, celebrates
Junior partnership
Eyes in the mirror
Reflect you
Disciple
Master
Partner
Eyes - smiling hello
Friday, March 29 2013
Easter Sequence
Age before Beauty
Peace before Joy
Death before Life
Fog before Clarity
Dark before Dawn
Winter before Spring
Silence before Wisdom
Emptiness before Fullness
Stillness before Big Bang
Chrysalis before Butterfly
Surrender before Transformation
Crucifixion before Resurrection
Good Friday before Easter
Remembering Rhythms
Softening to Sequence
Saturday, March 16 2013
Orienting to Beauty
Part of a delightful group of 16 travelers, Joanie and I just returned from a two-week immersion in beauty. The ecosystems of Costa Rica are rich in variety and vibrancy – teaming with extravagantly diverse and colorful plant and animal life. From tropical beaches – where we walked on warm sand, swam in the balmy blue-green Pacific surf and were entertained by colonies of white-face monkeys romping in a jungle of trees at the edge of the beach – to the lush, mile-high cloud forests – shrouded in perpetual mists which caressed our faces as we zip-lined through the tree tops – beauty was unavoidable.
Interestingly, home now for a few days, I find that I'm still seeing beauty. It's as if a fortnight in Eden has shifted something, at least temporarily, in my way of experiencing the world. I'm reminded that seeing beauty is as much about an inner orientation, an inner aesthetic, as it is about the aesthetics of out there.
Costa Rica was a jump start – a reminder, perhaps, that we can orient to beauty any time. Why not now?
Sunday, February 24 2013
Graceful Release
The Sedona Method, taught by Hale Dwoskin, asserts that letting go of pesky patterns of thinking and emotional reactivity can be as natural and effortless as releasing your grip on a pen and dropping it to the floor.
After just a few days of practice with myself and others, I've found it to be an elegant and effective way to heal by communicating directly with the deeper self. You by-pass ego, which relies on analysis, judgment and rumination, as it struggles to eliminate the very pain it causes.
The method involves a simple process of inquiry that I've adapted somewhat for my own use – and, perhaps, yours. Here are some instructions.
First, invite the pattern of thinking and emotional reactivity into conscious awareness. Then gently, very gently, ask the following three questions – fully accepting whatever answer arrives.
1. Can I let go of this or do I have to hang on to it?
2. Am I willing to release this or do I prefer to carry it?
3. When will I let go – now or later?
Moving meditatively through the sequence – inquiring, listening, allowing – and repeating the sequence as often as you'd like can noticeably lighten your load. Release may happen quickly, in one sitting, or gradually, over time, with patient and persistent practice.
Maybe it doesn't have to be such a struggle to get free.
I'll be off-grid for a while and will post again in mid-March. Meanwhile … May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you freely enjoy the graceful lightness of being.
Wednesday, February 13 2013
Brene on Love
Love is a mystery – one I've spent my whole life pondering, one I don't expect to ever unravel. I enjoy the pondering, and I enjoy encountering what others write about love.
Daring greatly, Brene Brown developed a definition of love, intended not to nail down the concept, which is too big to define, but to invite a conversation about love and what it means to us. She published this definition in her book, The Gifts of Imperfection. I found her words worth pondering.
"We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honor the spiritual connection that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness, and affection.
"Love is not something we give or get; it is something that we nurture and grow; a connection that can only be cultivated between two people when it exists within each one of them – we can only love others as much as we love ourselves.
"Shame, blame, disrespect, betrayal, and the withholding of affection damage the roots from which love grows. Love can only survive these injuries if they are acknowledged, healed, and rare." (p. 26)
Happy Valentine's Day!
Monday, February 04 2013
Joy Vulnerability
Daring Greatly, a book by Brene Brown, invites us to embrace human vulnerability as "the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy and creativity." (p. 34).
For her, vulnerability is not weakness, it's the human condition. Uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure are inescapable. We do, however, have choice about how we respond to vulnerability. We can engage authentically and wholeheartedly with life – or not. We can show up or shut down; we can hide or be seen; we can invest – hearts all in – or we can protect and defend.
Midway through Daring Greatly, I was struck by this conclusion from Brene's research: "Joy is probably the most difficult emotion to really feel." (pp. 117-8). We mistrust joy. Anticipating its passing, awaiting the other shoe to drop, protecting ourselves from letdown, doubting our worthiness of such blessing – we numb our joy and resist our vulnerability to it.
According to Brene, strategies for minimizing vulnerability to joy range along a continuum from rehearsing tragedy to perpetual disappointment. "Some of us … scramble to the bleakest, worst-case scenario when joy rears its vulnerable head, while others never even see joy, preferring to stay in an unmoving state of perpetual disappointment … It's easier to live disappointed than it is to feel disappointed. It feels more vulnerable to dip in and out of disappointment than to just set up camp there. You sacrifice joy, but you suffer less pain." (p. 121). Thus, we choose a steady diet of low-grade disappointment over the ups and downs of engaged, wholehearted living.
Softening to joy – breathing through the vulnerability we feel in its presence, gently stretching our capacity for its fullness – is a spiritual path to wholeheartedness. Brene recommends such "leaning into joy" and the regular practice of gratitude as antidotes to old habits of "foreboding joy." (p. 123)
Gratitude's the attitude. How good can we stand it?
Saturday, January 19 2013
Ego Dilemmas
One of my favorite quotes from Julia Cameron (author of The Artist's Way, The Vein of Gold, and other books blending spirituality and creativity) relates to the counter-productivity of ego's efforts to embellish and protect itself. She writes:
"It's impossible to get better and look good at the same time."
Lately, as I've been feeling the vulnerability of new growth, similar ego dilemmas come to mind. Here are a few:
The more I try to impress others, the less I do impress them.
The more I grasp, the less I have.
The more I try to control, the more powerless I feel.
The more I protect and defend, the less safe I feel.
The more I strive for perfection, the more unworthy I feel.
The year is young. And so is ego. Maybe this is a good time to take that youngster gently by the hand and remind him/her that we are never alone, we are always worthy of love, and everything we need is already here.
Less is more.
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