Centering Tools

Fall classes at Loris Natural Foods

I am excited to announce two upcoming classes this October at Lori's Natural Foods: one about holistic healing, and the other on forgiveness and how to use it to live in the present.

You may register online at the Loris website, or call them at 585-424-2323. Loris is located at 900 Jefferson Road at the Regional Market in Henrietta, NY. If you have any questions, shoot Marjorie an email or call 585-244-6210.  

Holistic healing as spiritual recovery 

Wed. Oct. 22, 2008 (6:30pm-8:00pm)

$25.00 fee includes materials and a self-healing audio product

This class explores the foundation of spiritual recovery through the twelve-step program and the two fundamental laws of the universe, being "all actions have consequences" and "like attracts like", as the core elements of integrative holistic healing practice.

The healing power of forgiveness

Sat. Oct. 25, 2008 (10:30am- 12:00pm)

$25.00 fee includes all materials and a complimentary self-healing audio

Forgiveness comes through acceptance, which is the final stage of grief.  It is a serendipitous response that produces multidimensional healing, and restores the power of letting go and freedom to be whole and present again.  This interactive workshop offers the key steps to forgive and complete healing in a small, nurturing group through simple spiritual inner journeying and journaling processes. Focus on the realistic use of forgiveness for instigating a full spiritual recovery and on methods to resolve woundedness.

Everything Happens for a Reason

Partner with Synchronicity to Manifest Your Dreams

It is a cliche, to be sure, and it also happens to be a foundational metaphysical and holistic principle.  It integrates two primary laws of the Universe, on those notes - the law of attraction and the law of consequences - which are, consecutively, Like Attracts Like and Every Action Brings Corresponding Reaction, or consequences.

Here is my understanding of the requirements to partner with this fundamental law of synchronicity, and experience all corresponding opportunities to more easily and greatly flow with its extended, multidimensional and resonant integrative benefits:

Seven Rules for Mastery

1.  Detach enough to see the greater overall picture of what is going on to the maximum stretch of your currently unfolding consciousness.

2.  Dare to be ruthlessly honest in reporting to yourself what you see, without deluding yourself into having to come up with any analysis or conclusion.

3.  Be courageously responsible for yourself and all the choices you make, which are simply how you respond, think  and reflect in any and all situations.

4.  See yourself as the only co-creator, with the spiritual universe, of all your experience.

5.  Clarify the source of your beliefs and values as coming from either unhealed grief, faulty conditioning that is delusional (it always is, in that it is not the nature of what is real), or your own authentic integrity.

6.  Find a way to be compassionate towards yourself and the world you live in.

7.  Return to center from a place of letting go and letting be.

Spiritual Meanings for Spiritual Power

The number seven is an amazing vibrational frequency.  It associates with mysticism, spiritual completion, and all corresponding healing and evolution through one's own uniquely unfolding archetypal journeys as one's full, rich life. 

There are seven notes to our scale in music.  The story of creation in the Bible says it took God seven days to create the earth "and all its inhabitants thereof".  Seven has long been considered to be the number of extreme good luck - being successful within the laws of chance.

Transcend the Limits of Old Consciousness to Support New Beginnings

To translate these three sentences for synchronistic spiritual partnership . . . explore and practice the full range of resonance as you play through the unfolding course of your life, and make corresponding "music" . . . co-creating through all present dimensions  . . . trusting in all positive outcomes as they endlessly unfold in their matching rhythms.

This is the template and philosophy that I offer you in these intense, peaking, profoundly opening times, to truly go, as Mr. Spock would say, beyond what was before.  That is the final law of the spiritual universe - everything is in a constant state of expansion, or development.  So be it.

The In's and Out's of Forgiveness

The Essential Elements of the Six-Pointed Star of Healing

1.  It's elusive, and it doesn't lie. 

2.  It occurs as a serendipitous response when one experiences acceptance, the final stage of grief.

3.  It represents coming to completion. 

4.  When it occurs, pain disappears, and it is as if one's corresponding "record" of suffering is erased. 

5.  It is multidimensional healing involving body, mind and spirit, and it sets us free - free to be present in the present, recovering wholeness. 

6.  When we divide the word into its two primary sections, we have for-giving.

How to Explore Forgiving

These are the six key elements to describe forgiving.  It's interesting  to note that in numerology, the metaphysical definition of the spiritual meaning of numbers based on the understanding that each primary number exists along a unique corresponding vibrational frequency that has its particular characteristics of healing and development, the number 6 associates with personal, relationship and environmental harmony and balance.

So let's experiment with exploring for-giving, and see what happens.  Here is a guided meditation and journaling exercise to experience the "in's and out's" of forgiveness:

A Hands-on Exercise for You to Try

Settle back into a comfortable, supported position, close your eyes, and deepen your breath.  Count to yourself five, full, deep easy breaths.  Then for the next several breaths that you take, as you inhale, say to yourself "let be".  As you exhale, say to yourself, "let go".

Simply stay present with your sense of your own regular rhythms.  Then, for these next several breaths, as you inhale say the word "for" to yourself, and as you exhale say to yourself the word "giving".  Observe your sensations.

Now, for these next several breaths, allow yourself to say an additional word or phrase after you say "for - giving" as you continue to easily and fully breathe - whatever seems to naturally come up, say that additional word or phrase, and continue to observe your sensations.

Then consider, however you are moved to do so, a particular focus you feel called upon to take in further experiencing the power of forgiving.  As you continue to breathe so rhythmically and easily in and out, continue to experience whatever focus seems to quite easily and naturlly emerge regarding forgiving, even if there are several. 

See what happens as you continue this experiment.  When you feel complete with this healing journey, very easily and naturally return to full, waking consciousness, and record your experience and your insights.

Explore What's Next

What happened for you through this experiment?  What are you now moved to choose to do in any aspect of your life?  What has shifted for you?  Record your insights.

Many more opportunities to experience the multidimensional healing and development power that forgiveness offers you await your exploration, within organic, unfolding processes.  Know that life continues to primarily offer these opportunities, and if you can correspondingly support these challenges through your own consciously-determined inner journeys, you freely support many greater accelerated opportunities for multidimensional evolution for yourself and all others to whom you are connected.

I wish you all happy related results - Namaste, Marjorie

Anniversary of Truth and Healing

May 19, 1989

Tomorrow is May 19, which will be 19 years that my husband Tony, father of my three children, died at age 43 of undiagnosed coronary artery disease.  I found him dead on the couch in my living room, with my four-year old son and six-year old daughter standing beside me. 

In the midst of my brother and friend taking them away, followed by the EMT's working on him and ushering me into the dining room where I stood, shattered, alone, I heard a clear voice way beyond myself say the following:  "There is only an endless present, and that present is filled with love".  I think that allowed me to surrender to the healing power of grief.

Grief is a Tidal Wave to Which We Must Surrender

It is an irresistable tidal wave, actually.  It amazes me when I see others try to resist it, because it is so futile!  And yet, we have lived so many centuries in a world that runs from death, stupidly thinking that running will somehow sneak us in to live forever. 

That is not how we live forever.  We live forever by surrendering to the largest truths of life, which returns us to our indestructible spiritual essence, part of the All That Is.

The Challenge of Acceptance

How many times do we have to face the simple fact that we all die, and that coming to terms with that truth wherever it weaves itself  throughout our life will restore grace, peace and power to us in all corresponding right alignments? It is not worth a single moment of our time and focus to attempt to convince our ego or anyone else's, actually, of this truth.  We just have to somehow find the courage of let go enough within ourselves to yield to it, trusting it will find us, and well care for us in the bargain.

Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross who, in addition to being a physician, was a metaphysical counselor and wonderful spiritual writer in her lifetime, first defined the normal stages of grief while researching patients who were told they had a terminal illness.  She named five successive stages:  denial, bargaining, anger, hopelessness/helplessness and acceptance. 

The Loss of Resistance

These are organic, multidimensional stages, and as their own intractable "waves", come in their own time and realities, overlapping each other and determining their own course.  We have no power to manage or predetermine these stages.  We do have the capacity to be present with them and acknowledge their appearance.  They do, after all, explain a lot of what drives us to express each corresponding stage.

When we resist these waves, we interrupt the tremendous healing power of grief to lead us to higher resolution, which brings heightened awareness, personal power and spiritual guidance.  During subsequent losses whatever unfinished grief remains is added to the present crisis.

You can Enter the Multidimensional Wave for Healing

How much courage does it take to ask ourselves where we are in this particular moment in our lives with a particular stage of grief?  I invite you to do just that by settling back, closing your eyes, taking a couple of deep cleansing breaths, and entering a deeper meditative state.

Now imagine grief as its own high, healing wave, surprisingly like your breath.  Further imagine grief as having five smaller waves like dimensions that compose this larger wave, which are the five stages of grief.

You Can Receive Higher Guidance

Imagine how easily you can ask your breath to lead you to whatever particular  "subwaves" your consciousness is presently traveling in through the grief cycle.  Experience whatever happens, allowing it to bring you its own place of completion for now.  As this occurs, say "Thank you" to the wave, and easily, gradually return to full, waking consciousness, and open your eyes.

Take a few minutes and record your experience, which can include drawing if you wish.  Also record whatever insights naturally occur.  Now consider your inner sense of where these waves want you to go.  Can you call on your courage and higher guidance to honor your commitment to your own larger healing path of truth?   

The Amazing Path to Creation

Nineteen years later I still grieve for many reasons, including the fact that acceptance is never meant to cause us to erase what we have lost.  Acceptance is its own alchemy that sweeps in miraculous spiritual gifts of understanding the power of unconditional love and letting go.  Healing and evolution is won by the flaming spirit, who purifies and stretches beyond what was ever known and understood before. 

I suppose this is also the alchemy of creation, and our birthright.  In these troubled times filled with so many losses and shortsighted, infantile coping responses we are challenged to live up to the whispered promise of our infinite courage that never leaves us, and dare to seek what we know in our heart of hearts is the nature of our purpose on the earth plane. 

A Foundation of Wholism

We are meant to never separate ourselves from ourselves, both within and without the scope of our lives.  We deny at our peril, for when we have twisted ourselves into frauds we wander lost without our center. 

How our consciousness can stretch to accept the amazing, terrible paradox of love and loss, betrayal and recovery is beyond analyzing.  When we know we have found our way in experiencing this miraculous spiritual oddyssey that is the never-ending subject of great myths, we come of transformational age, inspiring all whom we touch to higher becoming.   

   

Sin's Root

It's All Rot

I almost titled this, "Sin's Rot".  Even typos engage in synchronicity, I guess.  We do tend to think of sin as involving "rotting" behaviors, do we not?  It's interesting, though, to note that the root of the word "sin" from the original Hebrew means "missing the mark".

Nothing more than a mistake, is the real bottom line here.  No one burns in hell (I dare you to find any greater example of hell than the many possibilities that exist here on earth), no one is reduced to being lesser than anyone else.  Like babies learning to walk, we fall down, we make a mistake, we "miss the mark", we sin.  So what's the big deal?

Infinite Stones

It does take a lot of chutzpah, to reveal my particular ethnic/religious roots, to accuse someone of sinning in the usually-understood sense of the word.  Of course, as Jesus said, "Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone." 

We would be hard put to find that person, and yet the world hotly behaves, and eagerly participates, in casting more "stones" than one could ever count, if we include more modern-day versions like, well, even all the way up to nuclear warheads . . . It's a "he said/she said" times populations, that make up nations' endless cycles of blame which compose all of recorded history, to be really specific.  And when - where - will it end?

Sanctioned Violence

The center is sanctioned violence that is virtually infinite, endlessly harmful.  The Dalai Lama advises us to seek to be harmless as the highest virtue we are capable of.  Mistakes really aren't the point here.  Forgiveness - next step up, speaking of evolution - requires acknowledging wrongdoing, or making mistakes, and simply accepting that this has occurred. 

Of ocurse this is a paradox, so we know we're really in a spiritual ballpark here, because everything in the spiritual ballpark is a paradox.  Can we stretch our consciousness enough beyond blame to state yes, there has been wrongdoing - mistakes - and I fully acknowledge that?

The Position to Create Miracles

Now we're in the realm of responsibility, and when we know we're able to respond, we are powerfully and fully present in the world.  In this position we can create miracles, inspire ourselves and others, and authentically support the greater whole, which is always the greater good. 

I noted another typo just now with the word inspire.  I started to type it as sinpire,  so I'm going to play with it a bit more.  Fire can extinguish wrongdoing - it burns it away - so I think we'ere getting warm here (can't resist the pun) speaking of tracking down  the roots of blame (I believe the full term is "hellfire and damnation").  I guess we're back  - have we ever left it? - to burning in hell.  The problem is, per the way this story goes, it goes on and on, forever and ever.

The Roots of Development

Here's the real truth.  When we are able to take responsibility through being fully present, which is to respond from heightened awareness, we can see and freely admit to making a mistake, understanding as well that we then can learn to correct it.  We do know how to correct, remembering my example of how we learn to walk. 

We crawl - this is development - we manage to stand up - we fall - we pick ourselves up and repeat, as long as it takes for us to learn to balance ourselves and take a step.  Then there are two steps, and eventually there are many more.

Dare to Inspire

This hasn't happened yet, according to recorded history, in spiritual terms.  We stopped at blame and burning in everlasting fires with no development to follow.  And note - the world is in terrible shape.  We are not infants, even though we continue to act like it. 

We live in critical times, times that loudly call for us to grow up, to dare to inspire ourselves to learn to live harmlessly with ourselves and one another, daring as well to admit our mistakes and determine how to do better, and better, and better, until we no longer miss the mark and can behave like compassionate, accepting human beings who acknowledge living in sacred, creating space fully dependant on each others' best graces as the fullest expression of the divine. 

What is "Atonement"?

The Much-Publicized Movie

I love English period pieces, especially about class relationships, as well as the history of Europe between the world wars.  Last weekend my daughter agreed to accompany me to see "Atonement", a much-publicized movie about the tragedy and prejudice of class struggle in pre-World War II England through a never-consumated romance. 

I thought the acting was superb, the scenes powerfully shot, and yet I felt hollow after seeing it - and strangely fulfilled and affirmed.  Signals enough for me to, per usual, check-in with my deeper reflective space as to what was going on.

Our Most Terrible Tragedy

I didn't have to wait long for a response.  How much I identified with the central themes of this movie, which went far beyond its shattering title!

What hit me first is how we all experience the unfair, terrible tragedy of only getting a glimpse at best of what we want with all our heart and soul, and what seems available to us, only to have it shut down, snatched away, disappear or be ruthlessly destroyed by some uncaring at best - malevolent at worst - outside force.

Not to Be Set Right

Next was the typical acting-out, narcissistic behaviors of adolescence that carelessly, dramatically and ignorantly fuel tremendously cruel consequences to those the adolescent is closest to, who are absolutely innocent.  Even one impulsive act, though, can so centrally ruin lives and be then regretted by this adolescent helplessly forever.

Now we come to the film's title - a not so often discussed aspect of coming of age, which is to have the horrible realization upon maturing that an impulsive, childish, histrionic, vengeful, self-centered act can produce evil results to beloved others - and that nothing can make it right.  Everyone is stuck with the results, as if they were transported from a caring, ethical world into a living nightmare.

The Only Question to Ask Yourself

The truth of the matter is - who hasn't done this and lived to regret it?  This is part of the normal developmental crisis of adolescence, which in this context plays out as follows:  waste no time rushing to dish out the full thrust of your most intense emotional pain to those you're closest to - and don't waste a moment thinking about the real ramifications, otherwise known as consequences - so long as you feel, in just a brief moment, vindicated and unconsciously relieved. 

Think before you speak . . . ask yourself just one question, To What End?  Emotional pain doesn't go away if we feel driven beyond recognition to peel it off and attempt to stick it on someone else with some nonsensical rationalization as to exactly why we end up doing this, to ourselves and to the world.

The Shadow of the Wounded Ego

Shadows expressing a wounded ego may be sticky, alright, but there's nothing we can do to get it to stick to anyone else but us.  Maybe it's really the end of the line of our conscience, no matter where, in a freaked-out, cowardly moment of transference fueled by fear, we stuff it.

Do we all as human beings go through a coming of age rite of passage way beyond adolescence, where we are meant to grow up enough to incorporate atonement in our lives as a central driving creative force?  What would this unleashed force do to transform the world?

Set A Tone

I love the break-up of syllables of the core word, "At-one", or "A-tone".  Unconditionally attentive listening as an objective observer allows us, in stepping back and paying full attention, to wholeheartedly and fully embrace our Great Spirit and the universal flow of the then free to be equally aligned humanity, which is a most compelling vibrational frequency to operate under. 

It is a frequency which inspires, transcends, and extends our capacity to embrace opportunities to give and be fully present in loving, with ourselves and each other.  We are here to support and trust, and together, move forward to a better future.

Self Develops, the World Can Breathe Again

The movie ends with that outcome, but makes sure to note that it is only imaginative, albeit reflecting the heartfelt wishes of She Who Lives to Regret and Atone Through the Rest of Her  Permanently Marred Life that supports her becoming an acclaimed writer. 

Consequences are consequences, and evolution does not, we understand as we come of age, guarantee us happily ever after endings.  Suffering, though, as all great spiritual tranditions tell us, fuels greater conciousness and awe-inspiring creativity, not to mention a new honesty born of accepting responsibility as the cost of exercising personal power.

Perhaps that is the real secret to saving the world and ourselves "at-one" fell creative swoop.  What an act of personal and global daring that would be!

 

The Power of the Snake

The Healing Power of the Snake Totem

In ancient times when we worshipped a Goddess and not a God, and before the Adam and Eve story gained precedence as the determined story of humanity on the earth plane, the snake was a revered animal totem strongly associated with healing.  It was understood that transmutation, or the ability of the snake to shed its skin, directed the full process of complete healing as directed from the outside in.

It is also interesting to note that the image of the snake has always been part of the "logo", as it were, for physicians.  To resurrect this shamanic healing practice to be able to participate in healing as an organic, holistic, integrated progression, the myth of snake energy offers tremendous guidance.

Experience a Clean Healing Slate for Yourself This Year

We, too, shed our skin and our cells completely along about once every seven years of our equally profoundly unfolding lives.  We are truly "born again"  with a full, clean slate to then freely create and respond as we wish anew.  Would we wish - do we wish even once a year along about this time, with new year's resolutions, to incorporate a clean healing slate for ourselves?

How does healing work, anyway?  Physiologically it is a progressive process, using wound healing as an example, that begins with opening and bleeding, and ends with scabbing and absorption.  I use wound healing often in my Centering practice as a metaphor for integrative healing, and also frequently bring in the ancient meaning of the snake totem to better understand this process.

Sources of Great Power for Healing and Creation

In the days when we all lived in tribes, the designated healer, or shaman, of the tribe would go in search of guides, or totems, for healing and all spiritual direction.  It was understood that animals and all life on the earth plane were sources of great power for healing and creation.  The divine feminine, or Goddess, worked particularly with the snake totem in healing.

The snake totem, according  to ancient myth, develops the ability to take in any poison and transmute it, or convert it to a benign, even healing element.  Perhaps we carry this ancient wisdom into the present when we talk about how all challenge and misfortune brings us gifts of healing and development. 

Call on the Power of the Snake Totem for Complete Healing

When the snake ritually in its completed cycles sheds its skin, it is born again completely clear from "poisons", or what, in therapeutic terms we could call "woundedness", having developed enough and experienced all integrative healing to "absorb" the wounds, whereupon they disappear.

So here are some self-healing questions to reflect on and journal about to call on the power of the snake totem to support full, complete multidimensional healing for you in this forthcoming year:

"Medicine" Questions to Meditate On

1.  What have been the central "poison(s)" of my life?

2.  Have I transmuted them completely?  How?

3.  If not, what poison is left?  How do I know that?

4.  How can I imagine transmuting what's left calling on the healing power of the snake to experience complete healing?  What would that look like?  Feel like?

5.  Now how can I "shed my old skin"?

6.  How does it feel to have a brand new one?

Be as the Goddess, and let the snake intimately coil itself to envelop you and extend to you all processes of complete healing, through all involved dimensions and cycles; and restore your spiritual power to initiate your own organic healing "from the outside in".  And blessed be ...

Birth-Day

I am 58 years old today.  Although as a child I always felt my birthday was scrunched in just after the holidays, and therefore too much of a bother to be celebrated, I love having my birthday happen in the wake of the new year - what used to be called, I believe, Epiphany.

I began celebrating with my favorite epic, written by a fellow Capricorn, Lord of the Rings.  I'm not kidding when I tell you I've probably read the trilogy at least 50 times.  I was beyond thrilled when the three movies came out, so deliciously spread out over three years, all for me to gloriously savor and continue to dream about.   

Life as an Offering and Expression of a Great Spiritual Odyssey of Life and Death

Of course I own the extended version, so through the end of 2007 and the beginning of 2008, I managed to immerse myself (to say the least!) in the movies.  Its become, I must admit, about as satisfying, in its own way, an ploughing through the magnificent books.

When we view and understand, in the depths of our being, ours and everyone's lives as an offering and expression of a great spiritual odyssey of life and death proportions, we ignite our capacity to rise to these occasions and become greater than we ever thought we'd be, than we  were ever capable of being.  Its called development and expansion of consciousness through all presenting key challenges for healing.

Our Deepest Well of Creative, Endlessly Loving and Sustaining Passion

That is our spiritual directive, our ethic, and our best friend.  That is what enables us to extend ourselves greatly to truly be the world's best friend. 

That is what draws from our deepest well of creative, endlessly loving and sustaining passion to experience life in all moments as most unique and magical, filled with paradox and needless suffering, extending opportunities to find the call of the light and adventure through darkness in inner and outer fellowship to experience the universe's next chapter.

May the force be with you, and with your spirit . . .   

Peace on Earth, Good Will Towards Men

The Tiny Light Emerging from A Great Darkness

Its here once again - Christmas.  Its particular vision, a spiritual metaphor emerging from its ancient solstice roots (today, as a matter of fact!) - that celebrate a tiny light emerging from a great darkness, promises peace on earth, good will towards men, with one big qualifier - humanity is asked to make that commitment - and so far - well, 'ya think its happened, even a little bit?

One must be able to respond - accept responsibility - to prioritize this 100% commitment.  I personally don't think we're at the level of consciousness to do this.  One doesn't, as the saying goes, have to be a rocket scientist to come to this conclusion, just read the headlines and listen to the news - not to mention, be honest with the thoughts that typically go through our heads and the feelings that typically go through our hearts and our guts.

Opposite Sensations from Hellfire and Damnation

When was the last time you felt, within your own inner universe, corresponding peace and good will as a radiating force everywhere your consciousness could travel?  I feel these sensations all the time, along with a whole lot of opposite ones. 

The English language carries these oppositional clues very well.  For example, spell "devil" backwards.  I challenge you to come up with a clearer, cleaner (no religious threats of hellfire and damnation allowed!) definition of that word.

A Great Light Illuminating an Erased Darkness

Peace on earth, good will towards men would, as if in the wink of an eye, revolutionize our world.  What a wonderful daydream, to contemplate this multidimensional evolution that would instantly put an end to violence and place us all on an equally caring, unconditionally loving and affirming level with each other - all/one, as it were.

The thought comes to me that the result would produce a great light fully illuminating an erased darkness.  Solstice complete, promise fulfilled, as we are finally able to respond, accordingly.

The Worthiest Commitment

What other commitment is worthy of our tender hearts, our strong souls, our creative, transcending minds?  Time heals all wounds, so the saying goes, providing we allow it to exquisitely carry us to the courageous core of admitting to ourselves and the world what we really must protect ourselves from - being lesser than. 

What does the sensation of being at peace feel like?  How does your body respond?  What do your thoughts express?  Can you catch a moment of this experience?  Can you dare to record it? 

Inner Peace as a "Full-Circle" Offering

I challenge you to dare to seek your own sensation of peace.  It  is what I call a "full-circle" offering - the most amazing present we can create, which returns us to being maximally aware of who we are and what we are - spiritual beings of multidimensional consciousness - endlessly, wholly existing in a free present.

Good Will aligns your ability to respond as it allows your real circle of power to emerge.  It, in turn, as the Book of Genesis in the Bible reminds us, fuels creation, which extends through all connections, all possibilities.  That is my offering and challenge to spiritually-centered You this Christmas on the ancient Solstice - to be responsible, in transforming yourself, to correspondingly care for the world.

Return to the Flow Through Sacrificing the Wounded, Clinging Ego

What exactly is the "price" one pays for this oppositional shift in global consciousness?  Only the sacrifice of the wounded, clinging ego, living backwards. 

Are you thinking and not quite admitting, then what's left?  Back to You, the Great Spirit, free to partner with the All That Is to return to the flow and create your great, unfolding life.      

Reading Your Writing

One of my clients recently wrote a blog entry that refers to my women's group.  You can go here to read the original post on her blog, Wonders of Writing, but with her permission I posted it here as well.   I enjoyed this post very much and I think you all would too!

Enjoy!

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Reading Your Writing

Who wants to read your writing out loud to a group?

I never did. I would run the other way. But why should I be scared? It was all my words and thoughts after all. If I can write them down, I can say them out loud.

I was invited to a writing group to do just that the other day. I was new to this group and this group was new to me. One reason for my newness happened because the membership rules were relaxed of late to allow 'youngsters' in the group. I was in numbers, half the age of the other ladies.

There is something to be said for gaining age. I am so glad I am the age I am now, and hope to always feel this way about my age. It is only with age, you can have experience, reflection, and hopefully, wisdom. But at the same time, there was something about being in this group, that for me, did not make me feel young. I felt, in some ways, on par with some of the ladies there.

But how could I have anything in common with these ladies twice my age? It was all about the writing. But it was really all about what we were writing about! The theme of the day seemed to be 'how to say no' and not feel guilty. What woman, or person for that matter man or woman, doesn't struggle with that!

On Oprah the other day, her guest was Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of the New York Times best seller Eat, Pray, Love. Many women in the audience agreed that one of the lessons they learned from her book was how to say no. The book written by a 30 something- like me- had a message that spanned across ages, generations and even cultures. How do we say no and feel good about it?

I will leave that question for you to answer in contemplation. Back to the group experience. Being in the group and reading out loud was a good experience for me. I admit as I read, I was nervous, I could even feel my insides twitching. But, it was good to just let it out!
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As always, comments are welcome--on either my blog or her blog

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.

Women's Spirituality - A New Call for Wholism

A Call for the Divine Feminine

Beyond tens of thousands of years ago, say archaeological findings for the past several decades, instead of worshiping a God, we worshiped a Goddess.  It is interesting to note that we still call the earth "Mother", and, as global warming spreads its terrible alarm, we are, perhaps, driven again to further recover women's spirituality, or the divine feminine, to heal and empower ourselves to once again become caring stewards of the earth.

To me this phrase returns to us all the understanding that our own authentic sense of spirituality equally empowers, uplifts and supports expanded holism.  The word "Goddess" is, of course, composed of two syllables - words in and of themselves, which sound like "God" and "us". 

The Self as Freed, Fully Integrated Male and Female

I love these messages as metaphors in the English language.  So you mean to tell me that our authentic infinite spirits are "God (in) Us"?

Carl Jung said there is an inner male and female spirit in each one of us.  When we stopped primarily worshipping the Goddess, or Great Mother, as She was called, and primarily worshiped a patriarchal God, we lost an essential divine half of ourselves.

The Regained Divine Feminine Trinity

Women, of course, became, and still are in many places in the world, treated as legally "less than" men - essentially men's property.  Women's spirituality is a recovery therapy to, in our core, regain the divine feminine to be free to once again determine our human right to be fully accepted, affirmed, acknowledged and understood equally as evidence of "God-in-us". 

The Goddess never left us - she was just forced underground.  In these ancient days when we worshipped a Goddess and not a God, the divine feminine trinity was expressed through Maiden, Mother and Crone. 

We Must Embrace Women's Spirituality for Planetary Survival

Stripped of power and rights through thousands of years of a designated patriarchal spiritual global culture, the archetypal Maiden was an object to be seduced, Mother was she who sacrificed to bear children, and Crone was she to be feared and discarded. 

In ancient days Maiden was the multidimensional free "rose in bloom", Mother was the personification of the Great Mother, and Crone was the wise, powerful Grandmother-Priestess.  Can we come full circle to embrace this feminist spirituality for our own, and the Earth's survival?

A Goddess Meditation

Of course I have a little guided meditation for you to experiment with to meet, within your own core, the Goddess.  Settle back, close your eyes, and deepen your breath.

Imagine your breath carrying you to your heart, which opens like a beautiful flower.  Place your hand over your heart, and say "God - us", three times.

Your Divine Feminine Spirituality Gift of Recovery

When you're ready, let your hand fall back comfortably at your side, and open your eyes.  Say out loud, "I am God-us".

Record your experience, through this inner visioning exercise, of divine feminine spirituality.  Consider how you are moved to carry it out - and back - to a hurting world as your gift of recovery.

 

Solar Return - September 11, 2007

Energy in which Anything Can Happen

Much has been written about the unusual astrological occurrence of the lunar eclipse on August 28, followed by the solar eclipse this morning, regarding the amazing planetary line-up that has occurred:  most particularly, the solar return of September 11, 2001.  The weather where I live in Rochester, New York was most unstable today, actually, swinging from sunshine and clear blue skies to torrential downpours, lightning that swept the sky, claps of thunder, and blustery winds.

It has been said in astrological and metaphysical circles that this amazing line-up of planets and their aspects to each other from August 28 through September 11 also represents very strong, unstable energy.  That is understood to mean energy in which just about anything can happen, which opens a very wide creative door of what has also been called a time of initiation.

An Adventure to Heal and Evolve Consciousness

Suppose, just suppose there was a real opportunity, along with current Senate hearings challenging upcoming military decisions about the war in Iraq regarding further commitment of troops, etc.,  to truly face what it means to consciously participate in killing?  Would fully facing our capacity to mindfully carry out killing change how we are in the world?

Once a month I facilitate a memoir writing group of currently five women who read to each other the stories of their lives.  They use these as opportunities to "connect their own dots" of perception for greater understanding and development, and support each other in that amazing inner adventure to heal and evolve consciousness.

Stories Teach, Touch and Pass On . . .

This group, which has been meeting for years, was an outgrowth of a memoir writing class I taught at the Center for Lifelong Learning to seniors at Nazareth College in Rochester, New York.  The group met the day before yesterday, and I asked one of the participants if she would be willing to allow me to share her powerful story about a most seemingly insignificant episode in her present life as part of today's blog entry. 

I advised her to also submit it to Newsweek's "My Turn" column, with my full wishes for us all to experience how this touches, teaches and passes on, as stories are meant to do, an opportunity, as the solar return today promises to offer, to initiate profound healing and transformation.  Here it is, to mark this sixth anniversary as a call to begin again. 

Let me know what you think -

The Fly That Wouldn't Die - by Norma Rappl

I always thought that I was overly sensitive and wished it wouldn’t be that way.  I didn’t realize just how sensitive I was until earlier this summer.  I started seeing flies in my home.  Usually, there were only one or two at a sighting.  I only saw them in the kitchen near the front window or in the bathroom.  They were those big horse flies.

Do you remember flypaper?  I had mentioned my problem to a friend on the phone.  This happens every year in the summer.  This year the flies were bigger and seen on a daily basis.  My friend said that she had some flypaper and would bring some over for me to use.  I put some up over the sink by the front window where I had seen most of the flies.

Two days later, I had my first and only prisoner.  A large fly got caught in the flypaper by the back leg and wing.  That fly wasn’t caught good enough to stop all motion.  Well, he buzzed and tried to get free for days but, of course, it was hopeless.  I was waiting for death to come.  After four days, he wasn’t getting any weaker.  He was just buzzing louder and trying harder to get away but to no avail.

I started talking to him to just give up because he would die anyway.  Then I started praying for death to take him.  The fact that I had captured one of God’s creatures and he was suffering brought the tears.  Before long, I was sobbing and feeling really bad.  I thought, “How stupid of me to be crying over a housefly.”  It got so bad that I was comparing this to the crucifixion of Christ on the cross.  How sad is that?

I have no problem killing flies with a swatter.  No suffering.  Instant death.  It was then I realized I feel bad killing anything.  I can do it if needed.  As long as it is instant, I have no problem with it.  I just “suck it up” as it were.

On this fourth day, I could not take it any longer.  The buzzing, suffering fly was getting the best of me.  I took the step stool, a Wegman’s plastic bag and a paper towel and set up for the final kill over the sink.  I brought the bag up over the flypaper and, using the paper towel, I released the flypaper that immediately stuck to the side of the bag.  The buzzing was really loud as the flypaper doubled over onto the live body and dropped partially into the bag.  I said a prayer and sobbed, “You had to die anyway.  I’m sorry you had to suffer.”

I carried the bag with the body out to the garbage can and dropped it in.  I went back inside and cried for another hour or so.  Needless to say, I have gone back to my old way of swatting flies when I see them.  In four days, I only had the one fly on the flypaper and didn’t even see another fly for two weeks.

It is impossible for me to understand how humans can kill other humans.  I have a hard time understanding the sport of hunting animals.  I eat meat, know where it comes from but cannot handle the killing part of it.  It is a good thing that I was born in this era so I don’t have to depend on myself for providing the food that I eat.  How did I ever live through the flypaper days of childhood when there were so many bodies?  I don’t remember ever hearing the buzzing when flies went to their death.  I know I never cried for them before.  I suppose my life experiences have brought me to understand the ugliness of man’s inhumanity to man.  There seems to be no shame to killing anything these days, human, animal, or insect.  I cry for the loss of any life.