Meditative Hike

Meditative Hike 

Being in nature is healing. Being in natural surroundings aids us in energy sensitivity training/cultivation. Being inside we are automatically cut off from fresh air, the positive aspects of sunlight, natural sounds and smells. This is why energy cultivation in natural settings is so powerful – positive environmental elements are readily accessible and set the stage for deepening our sensitivity to energy. We will need to use our senses to help guide and stretch our awareness, our mind to be at ease – serene and peaceful, and we need to be in a space where we can build trust in our instincts.

Why energy cultivation and sensitivity? Yoga, Tai Chi, Acupuncture, etc… these are healing many people today due to the way in which the energetic work of the mind and body both respond to, are developed and moved in these practices. We have innate abilities to tap into our energetic body and heal ourselves, and live more in tune with our “true” selves.

Beginning 

Quieting the Mind and Working the Breath
Setting intentions and asking for guidance

Working (extending) 
Using the senses to Connect 
- feeling the landscape
- opening our senses

Following your instincts 
- found objects
- being called to a space
- noticing the messages and lessons

Energy sensitivity 
- energy from self, objects, places, trees, spaces, people, animals
- awareness of others energy
- our voice as source of positive energy

Resting (harmonizing and integrating) 
Meditation 
- setting the mind with sound, breathing
- looking at your thoughts and letting them pass

A meditation on Fearlessness

A meditation on Fearlessness

Tonight we will explore the idea of Fearlessness, or moving beyond fear to have the courage to embrace vulnerability and raw emotion, and in the process break down the walls we erect and masks we wear to hide behind.

This meditation comes from a personal insight and plea for guidance which directly led me to a book by my bed, “Shambhala: The sacred path of the warrior” by Chogyam Trungpa. I was guided to page 35.

I have realized in the past few weeks that a huge shift is happening within me – emotionally and mentally, as well as most certainly on a physical level. I am being drawn to deal with my fears about the birth and journey with my child to be, as well as being a mother. I was profoundly impacted by what I read about fearlessness and “working with the softness of the human heart.” My own tears and emerging sadness in working with memories and emotions from my last birth are positive signs of growth and awareness.

I am glad that we can share tonight in not just honoring and supporting the journey into motherhood for Lauren, but for ourselves as well. Lauren’s revelation of fear and anxiety in the last class about her upcoming birth touched my heart and I realized we could help her with a positive transition with this class. Tonight we will focus through art, movement, meditation, and sharing on building a Positive Foundation for birth and motherhood with heartfelt Release, Inspiration and Encouragement.

Release painful or negative emotions and stories we hold in our bodies.

Inspire each other and allow others to journey with us.

Encourage understanding, growth, softness of heart, and peace in our lives.

Our art: Using simple crayons, markers and pencils we can create powerful images of birth and motherhood, blending hopes and dreams, words of affirmation, and personal stories.

Our Movement: Tonight we will perform authentic movement and create a sacred space for our bodies. Allow your movement to be spontaneous and come from within your body, not from choreography or thought.

Our Sharing: The work we will do tonight is transformative and lasting. We become stronger and more authentic through exploration of our stories and emotions through art and movement. Please keep the space sacred by not judging or interpreting others experiences – you will have an amazing impact as a witness and support!

Authentic Movement

The practice of authentic movement allows a mover and a witness to share an experience of creating sacred space for moving deeply into the mind-body connection, thereby gaining insights and awareness through spontaneous expression of the body's wisdom. Practitioners may gain a sense of incredible emotional freedom and release. I can personally recall a number of powerful emotional releases over the years during sessions, from intense happiness to anger, with previously unimagined healing effects lasting in my whole being to this day. These have been small 1:1 sessions with a witness and with larger groups of movers and fewer witnesses. Each time has been a unique opportunity to move inward and discover a new aspect of self previously hidden, I believe, behind an overactive mind masking and numbing intuition and self-awareness. Authentic movement can begin with the simple intention of allowing your body to start a journey from a movement impulse or memory, and following (not leading) the course of action until a closure occurs and the body rests. The voice of the mover that sometimes arises during authentic movement can be startling, even unsettling, for the participant, as the sounds are felt so intensely and the impact of the words may feel more genuine than in daily conversation.

With a beginner to authentic movement, it can take some time to feel comfortable to open up in this way - a way sometimes described as allowing yourself to be raw and vulnerable, unexpected, and going into an unknown place in yourself. My experience is that trusting and not trying too hard to make movement happen allows for an optimal experience, even if you lay on the ground for 10 minutes and merely move a finger, that may be all that is called for that day. Was it an authentic experience? Only you can say. Learning what that is, is part of the experience.

I am eager to experience authentic movement this week in my class, and have to admit I certainly have a bit of an agenda going in - working on dealing with feelings from the birth of my daughter. However, I can not say what will actually surface once I begin, and that is part of the beauty. I also look forward, always, to the experience of being a witness for others, and sharing in the authentic expression of our deeper selves. Witnesses, and witnessing, help create a sacred and safe space. The witness responds to the mover's comments about what he or she experienced, and the witness reports in terms such as, "I felt" or "I saw", careful not to interpret or analyze. A witness receives incoming images and thoughts with mindfulness, that is to say with a certain receptivity to seeing clearly what is happening in the moment. Non-judging, and holding the space for the mover to be seen and heard.

Authentic movement is a creative process of opening and going deeper into the self, healing, and being in a spontaneous moment of self-awareness. See you there!

Be Fit for Baby | Boulder Moms Connect

Be Fit for Baby | Boulder Moms Connect

What happens in a garden?

Some people are drawn to nature, and some people aren't. I was telling a friend today that I grew up feeling closer to nature than to most people, except my family. The lake I spent my summers next to was my friend. I would sit on the dock and look into those waters and connect. I remember giving the lake little gifts of flowers or leaves. And I remember I gave them as "gifts". Many things in nature were my friends over the years and taught me... rocks, valleys, grass, animals. Last year the animals harvested my sunflower seeds. I intended to bake those tasty seeds but seeing the animals enjoy them, and need them for the winter, changed my mind.

Each year I grow a garden, and have done that with a few exceptions since leaving college. What makes me get out there year after year to plant, work the soil, compost, harvest, and weed? What is the attraction? There is a definite attraction - a soul yearning feeling - to working and being in my yard. I wouldn't recognize myself without it. I can honestly say it has very little to do with what actually grows out there, though the "harvest" keeps my passion sound reasonable I guess. I do love to see a full healthy garden. I also love to see my "illegal" water cache fill up with the spring rain. I take pleasure in the spring green, and the summer browning of the grass because I refuse to waste water to keep a lawn green. But I think what it all comes down to is loving the land is in my genes. My mother, my mothers grandmother, my brother all have been gardeners. Family time was full of camping out, hiking, or spending the summer outside in the beautiful Adirondacks.

Beyond that, I just connect with the land. If you do, you get what I am talking about. So, what happens in a garden?

Just a few very beautiful things.

rich dark dirt
worms
mud
seedlings
large leafy plants
flowers
food
a place for wild animals (a refuge in my neighborhood)
weeds and straw piled high to keep them down
survival
watering cans
gifts
growth
life
yearly cycles
a place to sit and be
challenges
dirt under your nails, in your hair
...

The End of Times! (what?)

Did you look outside today and contemplate the end of times for humanity and life as we know it? The people who created Vivos, which doesn't deserve a link on my blog, have and are making lots of money selling space in vast underground shelters built to help you survive for one year in the event of the end of the world. The "news" is also picking up about the Mayan predicted End of Days in 2012 due to the recent disaster in Japan. Why on earth am I talking about this in my blog (besides amusement)?

A brilliant man's writing I follow keeps inspiring me to approach current issues with my own view point. He was writing about Native American views on apocalypse and how humans are creating their own demise by the way in which we treat our planet, the way we selfishly live our lives, and our lack of foresight into sustaining this beautiful earth for our children.

My friend posted this comment about another blog entry of mine:

‎"Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children."

Ancient Indian Proverb

For many years now, I have been of the opinion that the sum of our destructive tendencies are so great that we will not be able to overcome that inertia. Eventually we will follow the fate of Easter Island inhabitants, who abused the environment to such a degree, overpopulating, deforesting and decimating resources, that they destroyed themselves. Though people are now trying to curb environmental pollution and "save the planet", our individual tiny everyday acts as a sum total are still too great a burden. As an activist I believed that getting the message out was a change catalyst. As an individual I believed changing myself and my actions would teach others. As a mother I hope my child and her generation will still see the beauty of the planet and save, even restore, nature. In the end, I see that the planet will outlast humanity and I am peaceful in recognition of this.

I would not want to live to see the end of times as we know them. I would not want to live in an underground bunker, for a year, only to emerge and die. I want to live everyday in the beauty that is here now. As I've said before, I cherish every moment I have watching my little girl explore, discover, and know for the first time the world around her. I want to surround myself with people who try to live in balance with this planet - the healers of this world.

Curtis Mayfield - Move On Up

Sometimes I just have to have one of those nights... Bring the Funk on, have some fun!