Centering Tools

The Power of Feminine Support - enter the "Jane Austin Book Club"

My Latest Favorite Chic Flick

A couple of weeks ago I knew it was once again time for me to beat a quick, definitive path to the nearest movie theater alone, to catch the latest chic flick that caught my eye.  I ended up watching a movie I thoroughly enjoyed, The Jane Austin Book Club. 

Yes, I've seen every last Jane Austin movie that has come out for - over a decade, is it?  But no, I am not a die hard fan of her books - never could get into them, to be perfectly honest.  Dostoevsky, yes, I can't put him down - all that late-nineteenth century Russian angst and  DEEP analysis into one's very soul . . . Jane Austin - well, works for me in the movies, is about it.

Women's Challenges for Healing and Development

That being said, this terrific film artfully pulls a handful of women and one "token" man together in southern California who are each undergoing major life crises with all their accompanying challenges toward major transformation, and all the healing, integration and development it brings.  Women of all ages who are very avid Jane Austin fans (the man becomes an equally avid convert) at the first somewhat-tense meeting determine who will be responsible during the monthly meetings to review a particular book, until all of Jane's books are discussed. 

Of course, the film makes  sure that the particular woman who reviews one book is currently facing the exact same thematic challenges in her life that her chosen book to review presents.  Each "reviewer" comes to experiences herself as a heroine in her own life, and so she "rises" to the occasion" of becoming one. 

Can We Unconditionally Accept and Love Each Other?

At that time, natural, organic transformation occurs, all successfully enhanced in the arena of the increasingly cohesive, unconditionally loving and accepting group support.  Individual challenges for members of the group include a sudden marital break-up after over twenty-five years of working partnership,  exploring and solidifying lesbian  relationships,  deciding to "try again" for a soul mate connection after many failed partnerships, and finally "crossing the line" to, for the middle-aged "ultimate heroine" of the group, at last be able to commit to  a "happy-ever-after " marriage.

Of course the film offers women the ancient reminder that when we come together in a like-minded, caring group that affirms our inherent capacity to empower ourselves, we integratively heal, develop, and create great miracles for ourselves and each other.  That brings me to what really "floated my boat" with this movie.  I  realized as I watched the women change profoundly, one by one, that I have delighted in this view of self-healing through women's spirituality groups on an ongoing basis in facilitating, for over twenty years now, Centering women's self-healing and spirituality groups.

Our Tremendous Power to Restore Awareness, Choice and Staunch Support

We have such tremendous power to restore awareness, freedom to choose, and staunch support to each other and, coming full circle, to ourselves.  When we can let go of millenia of cultural conditioning that stripped us of our power and twisted us into perpetual "good little girls", which fueled all kinds of passive-aggressive, subservient behaviors, we become a formidable force for good to transform ourselves and the world we live in. 

And Goddess knows, we and the world we live in so desperately, so piteously cries out for just that!   Interesting to note that I write this on Halloween , which, in the days when we worshiped a Goddess and not a God, was called Samhain, actually the start of the New Year.  May this be a  new year for us to stand tall as the divine feminine beings we are, and come together to support our own desired healing, transforming ourselves and our associated world  for love, for light,  for acceptance.

Job's Miracles Revisited

Remembering the Parable

I found myself moved, in a session with a wonderful, long-standing client today, to retell the story of Job.  It was a struggle for my already way-overstocked memory, for it's been a very long time since I read this parable in the New Testament. 

I further remembered, once I began digging for my memories, how this story had been required reading during my senior year of high school for my English class.  I must admit, I still see the teacher as if, as the saying goes, "it were yesterday" (would that were the case - and of course, I wouldn't go back to those days for a million dollars).  She was in her first year of teaching, and she so strongly showed a level of intensity, caring and commitment to teach, that beautifully stoked my philosophical and spiritual fires long before I knew I had any.

The Mystery of Acceptance

If we find our way to being a truly Good Little Boy or Girl and grow up to become a Good Big Man or Woman, "in-your-face" reminders, through the story of Job, dictate that our "god" - our indestructible, spiritually knowing divine Self - can still, for His or Her own higher purposes, take it all away from us.  We are left deaf, dumb and blind - cast into the purifying fires of a tidal wave of grief - where we experience, each in our own unique way, its predictable stages:  denial, bargaining, anger, helplessness/hopelessness, and acceptance.

The mystery of acceptance in the fires of full-bodied destruction of all that one holds near and dear is a baffling one indeed.  It yields its own miracles of restoration, peace, and even greater gifts than the ones we have lost, promises the "happy ending" of the story - BUT it is for us to rightly interpret and understand all of that through the unfolding, synchronistic adventures of our lives.

The Indominable Force of Our Great Spirits

The story of Job is a story of how easy it is for Larger Forces, wherever they hugely come from, to shatter us and our associated world.  It reminds us just how fragile, how puny we are.  And it banks, even more hugely trusts, in the indominable force of our Great Spirits. 

It is, even further, a story that defines the many dimensions - the winding, irregular course - of emerging faith and trust through great betrayal.  Who has not, during that course that defines a well-lived life, experienced such a story?

The Uncharted Journey of the Shattered Heart

As we have experienced our own corresponding journeys, have we found our way to that miracle the story promises?  This is an uncharted journey of the shattered heart, which rebirths a newly strong soul to, in turn, resurrect us and all we deserve to have and be in our lives.

Like the quilts the pioneer women wove with every worn scrap of cloth, our hearts proudly bear the imprint of all our wounds, knowing where and how they rightly fit in our lives.  Perhaps that is the definition of faith, acknowledgment, even ownership.  It seems empowerment is simply a reflection of our own deepest, most reality-based spiritual definition of Who We Are and What We Are and How We Be in the world, after all.

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Additional resources

• Articles about healing

Does Byron beat Austin? Researchers: yes!

Here's a great article I stumbled across.   According to Richard Gray of Scotsman.com, research teams at Dundee and St Andrews apparently found that reading poetry was more helpful from a cognitive standpoint than reading a novel, even if the novel was by Jane Austin!

Well, I'm not entirely sure whether the conclusion can be projected to great novelists, but what may be more reasonably maintained is that poetry, due  possibly to its comparatively (linguistically) indeterminate syntax and semantics, results in more cognitive effort.  Reading poetry is to reading novels as hiking up a mountain is to walking down a suburbia street corner.

The research teams held that a relative increase in eye movement corresponded to increased cognitive complexity.  Reading poetry created faster eye movements, so it ought to be requiring more sophisticated cognitive mechanisms, as compared to reading a novel.

Other noteworthy indications included the fact that participants would return to one or two lines repeatedly while engaged with a poem.  Evidently, the explanation is that the comparative vagueness and/or purposeful equivocation of poetic expressions results in mental perplexity as it tries and discards various ways in which to impart sense to the expression(s).

In any event, I'm so glad to have found a reputable empirical study demonstrating that yes, one of the artistic therapeutic methods I've been using for several years indeed does have cognitively verifiable (even if by implication) benefits.

The Real Bomb

The Real Cost

My daughter emailed me this poem she wrote for her high school English class assignment.  It set off a torrent of emotion within me.  Here it is:

Growing Up

we used to have more fun

playing games and laughing

and feeling freer to be ourselves

having not a care about what the world thought of us

we would do as we pleased and feel happy with the simple things in life.

now we are too busy for something as simple as fun

or feeling free

because we are always trying to prove to the world

that we can be exactly what they want us to be:

the only thing we are not.

Is This Progress?

In no particular order, these are my corresponding thoughts as antidotes to this central mortal wound that is the schism of our times:

1.  We have nothing to prove.

2.  The most satisfying life is a simple life that comes from being present.

3.  We have the power to free ourselves.

4.  We  can only free ourselves by becoming authentic from a place of integrity and acceptance.

5.   When we lose the power to laugh in our lives - experience joy and delight - we've lost ourselves.

How Long?

How long will we accept living at the cost of denying ourselves?  We have only to look at the state of the world to see the terrible, tragic cost we pay when we let go of the above five truths.

Of course the world seduces us to just that with a delusional promise that when we do the opposite, we will survive and be protected.  Instead we experience "dis-ease", with all its resultant pain.

Give back to Yourself . . .

Your Self.

Your power to choose.

Come "Of Age" . . .

And really, truly Grow Up.

Can we create an integrated story of personal power and transformation beyond Peter Pan?  In my fantasy version, we grow UP - evolving to be and unabashedly show ourselves in the world as who we are and what we are, taking a stand for ourselves and all others whose paths we cross, as we are moved to respond.

Response-ability

Notice the break-down ot this word associated with becoming an adult.  No proving here, no spiritual schism.  Just the ability to respond.

That is my preholiday-wish for you as we move to wrap up this pivotal year that begs for widespread change . . . for the better.  It's all really, really up to us.

Children know - couldn't be plainer - was the central thought of my "torrent of emotion" when I read her poem.

I think we do, too.

A True Buzz Word

What is Spirituality Anyway?

This was the topic "discussed" at a meeting I attended recently of holistic health care practitioners.  I became more and more disquieted by the discussion because it felt to me that much of what it quickly became was an expression of personal pain, fear, and hopelessness from the practitioners, with its "butting heads" and unsuccessful systems to provide health care for both patients and providers. 

As I listened to people rush to insert their particular belief system - "prove their point" -and watched sharp egos in panic strive to insure their own conditioned survival - so evident in these "opinions " - I became more and more heartened to watch an evolution in that small conference room as another kind of sharing emerged.  It was a simpler sharing of one's own clinical experience, and a surprising note that emerged, that elements like compassion, attentiveness, unconditional listening, the willingness to be fully present and empathic, and a strange trust in human-to-human, unadulterated exchange are the keys to transcend the current challenges in health care that providers can "own" and keep, no matter what.

An Emerging Definition

I watched, through this shifting exchange, an emerging definition of spirituality as what I believe is the center for integration for all healing, all centering.  In fact, we can afford, if all else fails in our lives, to sacrifice anything but our own amazingly indestructible spirits. 

We find that out quickly enough when our lives - not our egos - are threatened.  Spirit is all there is, has been, and ever will be, for it is who we are and what we are as an original expression of the divine Creative.  I am moved to use the word "Creative" rather than "Creator", for the Infinite is a constantly moving, endlessly dimensional work in progress.

Affirming the Imperfect

So much for perfection.  Instead the real crisis of our times is to know that our innate spirituality - our willingness to dare to be fully present, empathically listening, letting go of all agenda and conditioning through our free will's choice and courageous commitment, and share from a place of One - is all we get and all we need and all we can, in so many creative ways, offer to sustain ourselves and support the emerging world we live in.

On that note, I offer a poem I wrote for an Oversoul class I facilitated last year as an inner-journeying guide for you.  Please consider, as yu read, how your divine spirit is all that there is, that defines your innate spirituality. 

The Free Purpose of Our Lives

Know that we cannot survive without it.  It is present in every breath (which means, from the Hebrew, Latin and Greek root from which it comes - "Spirit") we take . . . every moment of our purposely-free lives. 

Listen to your emerging Spirit, then. As you listen, it will bring you love as trust, love as clarity, love as innate divine power.

Extending Evolutions

Your life will correspondingly transform.  This pain-filled, lonely, violent world will then correspondingly transform with it.

My Center cries in life and death
Against the rhythm of my sweet breath

Fading, rising through each new dawn
In birth, awareness and journeys spawned

My heart sore pressed with each new date
Comes to know they’re all just gates

For choice, and love, and strength above
Beyond, belonging as the dove.

Welcome to the Crone-Grandmother and the Rebirth of the Divine Feminist

Crone as Grandmother

I became a grandmother October 4, 9:28am to Ethan Antonio, weighing 9 lb, 9 ounces.  A swift rite of passage, this - another dimension to a full, loving life with all its joys, gift, challenges and tragedies - and a whole other introduction to the Crone, ancient third face of the Goddess trinity, who revealed her secrets to  me so that I could rebirth and integrate my divine feminist.

Grandmother remains a fairly revered term in our culture.  In Rochester, New York where I come from and live, the Seneca nation carried the matriarchal tradition as the dominant directive for passing down names and leadership in the tribe.  It's interesting to note this also happened to be the place where Susan B. Anthony was born and spent her life.

Grandmother as Compassion

Grandmother is Crone - She who is past bearing children, but carries the ancient lineage of the divine feminine as both ancient and earned wisdom through Her own experience, which she endlessly shares with others.  This divine feminist, exemplified through the Crone, somehow manages to extend and center her own spiritual power while generously offering it to everyone and anyone as the pinnacle of what we call the Earth Mother.

I am detached and immensely caring and concerned as Grandmother.  I can take the long view through my own rich experience, having nearly raised four children now as I continue to centrally live my own multidimensional, incredibly rich life.  That is the definition of the word "compassion" - detached loving.

Centering as Supporting Healing and Empowerment Through the Divine Feminist

It occurs to me that in my centering practice I am very much Grandmother as well.  Having found my own inviolate spiritual, multidimensional, integrated Center, I am happiest sharing endlessly with all others that I have the immense honor to work with, to support their own journeys of healing and empowerment. 

I sense a mysterious regenerative energy that fuels me and all with whom I amazingly connect only through finding my innate capacity to be a channel - not knowing, not caring re: outcomes - just delighting in being able to participate in the joint creative adventure that emerges through whatever becomes the client's central concern.

A New Identity of Regeneration

Perhaps we're all divine feminists.  Can we carry, exemplify and own this wonderful dimension of spiritual empowerment, accepting, releasing, receiving, unconditionally listening?

I invite you on an inner journey for your own experience of regeneration through the guided meditation below.  Please let me know what happens - and more importantly, keep your emerging directive as a treasured guide to yourself for healing and empowerment in your profoundly unfolding life.

A Guided Meditation to Return to the Divine Consciousness

Settle back in a comfortable position, close your eyes, and deepen your breath.  Imagine how quickly, how completely, how easily your deepening breath envelops you in its light, endless rising and falling waves. 

Imagine how your breath forms a light cocoon of flowing energy, and how wonderfully you float, so freely held ion the center.  Know it is a divine center, a place of "God-us".

Experience the True Identity of Goddess

Say this word to yourself three times as you continue to breath evenly,  rhythmically in and out.  Feel the infinite flowing energy, the sacred power flowing everywhere throughout your being - through your body, mind and spirit - through your past, present and future. 

"Goddess" - say the word, and experience, however this occurs, your innate, intuitive sense o0f the divine feminine as your own rebirth.  Know that as you experience, so do you own and accept it through all its gifts. 

Your Call to Share and Receive

Consider your call to share, to offer to yourself and your life, and to all others as you wish.  Allow your inner journey to bring you to its own place of completion - full circle, and when you're ready, once more, through the light rhythms of your free, easy breath, once more return to full, waking consciousness, and open your eyes.

Record your experience.   When you've finished, settle back, read what you have written, and consider what your rebirthed divine feminist is asking you to commit to for extending healing and empowerment.

Enjoy the gifts!

 

Rebirth Through the Sacred Center

A Surefire Path to Self-Healing and Empowerment/Development

The day after tomorrow  my daughter is scheduled for a necessary Ceasarean, expecting to deliver her first child, a son.  I have the good fortune to be there for the next several days, experiencing this transformation in my life, in hers, and in my family's. 

I realize, among a torrent of insights, that being able to experience extending living with others is a surefire path to self-healing and empowerment/development.  The only way to balance that is to stay in touch in the most intimate way with your inner self.

Our Creative and Spiritual Need to Embrace the Solitary

I spent this morning in that altered meditative state – it’s been too long, and the need to “zone” has built and built until, as it exploded, it revealed to me just how fragmented I’ve become.  At this moment above all others, I want to offer myself whole. 

It is a creative need, I think, to be so driven to embrace the solitary, as well as a spiritual need; and it is the need of the Self to love and embrace the self through reentering its own sacred womb.  What would happen if we all began by deeply, unconditionally listening to ourselves, finally surrendering to being wholeheartedly swept away by our own freed spirits?  (Minus, of course, the “do, do, do”, which I could spell another way, speaking of the connotation of bullshit.) 

Establishing Space to Transcend

Establishing space to listen brings peace, freedom, love, and support that, because it doesn’t appear to exist in the physical world, transcends it.  To establish these right relations most intimately with ourselves and our world allows us to stand firm on our own spiritually rooted ground with our own completing spirits. 

Who we are  is what we are, is our response-ability . . .  is all that we can offer to present ourselves in the world.  This little unseen ray can transcend a whole great world fraught with violence, captivity of many kinds, and uncaring, alienated behaviors that cut and fragment us and ripple throughout our lives, politics, economics . . . 

New Birth through Essence Rhythms

We have this day, this present, this first day of our reborn, sacred lives to speak to ourselves lightly, gently, without hurry, pulling an occupation of inner harvesting into this newly opened fall season  – to “sit” – “set” – alone – all/one.  It’s about rhythm, I think, reestablishing rhythm to begin again, entering an unfilled circle with just ourselves to stretch, speak, and soar.

Here is a guided meditation I've created to be able to center and soar through returning to your sacred essence rhythms.  We can - and always do - come full circle to our own light womb and, in reconnecting, rebirth.

A Centering Meditation

Settle back, open your body so your body feels very comfortable, very relaxed, close your eyes and imagine how easily you can direct your breath to deepen.  As you begin to sense the flowing rhythm of your deepening breath, count to yourself ten full, deep breaths, feeling more and more relaxed with every breath you take.

Observe your sensations after you have finished counting.  Check in with your sense of your body and your mind.  Now imagine your breath is like a cascading waterfall flowing down and down, deep and deeper still, from the top of your head to the tips of your toes, filling up your body and your mind in its endless rhythm with life-giving air and oxygen, more and more with every breath you take.

Let Go . . . Let Be

Now focus on the endless, flowing rhythm of your exhaled breath, imagining how easily your exhaled breath sweeps up and removes any tension, stress and blockage that exists anywhere inside your being.  Imagine how your body and mind seem lighter and lighter, clearer and clearer, until it seems you are just an endless part of the cascading waterfall of flowing energy that is your endless breath.

Now count five full, deep breaths.  With every breath you take, say to yourself these words, LET GO . . . LET GO.  Observe your sensations throughout your body and mind as you let yourself just be with the endless, flowing, even rhythm of your light, cascading breath.

Rebirth in the Sacred Center

Now imagine you can ask your flowing breath to take you deep and deeper still inside your being to your center.  Imagine your breath knows exactly where your center is, and will now effortlessly take you there. 

This occurs, and you are now completely, wholly in your center.  Experience whatever happens now, letting yourself just be in your center, continuing to observe your sensations.

Extending Your Sacred Circle

When you feel complete with this experience, imagine how easily you can direct your flowing breath to bring you so lightly and freely back and back, up and up, feeling very balanced, very clear, until at last you gradually return to full waking consciousness.  When you are ready, open your exercise, stay for a few moments with this sense of tremendous well being, centeredness, clarity and balance, and open your eyes.

Welcome to rebirth!  How magnificent that we can complete and extend our own sacred circles . . . for me, the day after tomorrow, another generation.