The Cheezy Chronicles: My Loves

A few days ago I was pondering about love (as I often do). I considered how blessed I am to have people I love and who love me back.

Most people yearn for a soul mate. Generally this is defined as an adult partner to walk through life with. We call them the Loves Of Our Lives, our One and Only. There is a mystical, magical feeling associated with this. It's a comfort and exciting to envision that union.

I'm not sure I will ever again find that ecstatic union of feeling like I'm with a "soul mate," in the way described above. I may/I may not find that partner to walk hand in hand with.

But I do know I've been beyond Blessed with my Ones and Onlies. I have three of them. They are my three daughters.

I adore them. They are my life. I would give my life in a nanosecond for them and am fierce in that love for them. Each is entirely different than the other. Each touches me in ways that make me cry. I am Blessed.

I've heard it said that little girls dream of their future marriage: what the dress will be like, who it will be,where, etc. I don't remember ever doing that. My day dreams when I was younger were about kids.
I used to fantasize that I ran an orphanage. It was in a castle in Scotland by the beach. We used to run on the beach, a line of kids and I, with scarves, dancing on the sand. I remember daydreaming about this in Jr. High. I don't remember there ever being a man in this scenario. It was just me and them.

Do the things we daydream about as a child find their ways into our lives? Are they hints of who we are at our core? Haven't a clue. But I've been remembering those daydreams these past few weeks, finding it interesting that when I think of my everlasting loves, it isn't one man that pops into my mind. It's my gals.

They are all around me now that it's the Christmas season. Tussles and sibling struggles of years past, appear to be gone now that theya re older. This year is a first for our family in that department.

Words cannot convey the immense joy I felt yesterday morning with my apron on, making brunch...with the three of them in the living room all working on a Christams puzzle I got, each cursing me becuase they couldn't pull themselves away from finding "just one more piece..."

I can think of no greater gift than a family. I am beyond Blessed.

image from here

The Cheezy Chronicles Begin

Life's been good.

After a couple of years of confusion, these past two months or so I'm feelin' increasing sparklies in my body, mind and spirit. I definitely feel I'm on my way back to the hum that was my life.

Part of these past two week's happies are that I'm really feeling the Christmas Spirit this year. My house is decorated, I've gotten the bulk of the gifts I'll be giving this year and I keep listening to my favorite Seasonal CD's. It's not unusual for me to break out in a carol or four while walking. I'm feelin' really really good.

In all this mix, I haven't felt like I've had much to share on here. I guess the tone of this blog has been primarily about my Spirit Journey, which is often me trying to figure things out..which means that I'm often lost and experiencing one form or another of internal drama. Since very little of that is going on, I haven't felt like writing here.

But I got a flash this morning, while doing my NIA time, that I'm so happy and grateful about life right now that I want to do a gratitude/appreciation series that flashed in as wanting to be called "The Cheezy Chronicles." I used to be focused on the little wonders that surround me, running around, talking about how Blessed I was and how I LOVED my life. I want to honor it all here.

So, to begin, I want to give huge thanks for feeling more "myself" (or the joyous/in tune self part, anyway). I am blown away by the gift of healing and potential I feel right now. I give thanks that I don't have to know where this will all end up. I'm so happy I listened to the little voice to do my month of breathing (which continues sporadically), and for having gone to the EFT session (which I continue to study and do a little bit of most every day).

I love the way my body feels when I'm truly happy and joyous. There's a hum of energy to it. I can feel life moving through me and I'm loving the return of that. When I tune in, it kinda feels like that buzz after a number of really nice orgasms and I envision that I am making love with Life. I am Blessed.

I am thankful for the learnings that continue here. Differeent levels of understandings and openings seem neverending. One realization opens to five more as I continue this journey. Last week, ancient issues around my mother were triggered via exchanges with two email buddies. I feel so blessed that they are coming to light now/again...to be held and cuddled and embraced a different way.

So....for the next few, however long, writings will be about the various things I feel beyond grateful for in this life. I have decided to allow GooberVoice to run wild and take center stage.

Life is grand. Indeed!!

Art from here

What Tantra Is And What It Isn't*

It's about sex and has nothing to do with sex. It's about how we approach life.

Tantra isn't memorizing and perfectly executing all the chronicled positions from the Kama Sutra. It is about being your body and following its impulses rather than some rote routine in sex.

Tantra looks like it's all about pretty and light. Which it is...but it's also about being with the Dark...which often shows up in the middle of playing in the light.

For instance- the biggest sort of cliche thing I hear about Tantra is that it's about lighting a few candles and gazing into each other's eyes (snicker, snicker). Many find this boring, silly, trite. And it can be. Sitting there looking into another's eyes while a Sting song plays in the background isn't what Tantra's all about.

Tantra is all the resistence that comes up for you when you think about doing it or actually do look into your Beloved's eyes for a half hour, going deeper into yourself and them with each passing minute. It's about not burying whatever comes up for you that gets in the way when you think about being seen and seeing someone else for an extended period of time without the distractions of talking, moving, pretending.

Can the real, quiet, you be seen?...for an extended period of time? How, when, where do you want to hide?

So what happens when you start to look into another's eyes? First off you giggle. You call it trite and silly because you feel like a poster child for all the woowoo shit that exists on the planet. You do all sorts of behaviors to avoid actually having to look into someone's eyes for an extended length of time and be seen.

But if you stay with it, and just be with whatever comes up...don't fight it...just laugh, giggle, make jokes, be and allow the flow of whatever is authentic in the moment and stay with it... things can start to change inside you in magical and unexpected ways when you allow yourself to be vulnerable and open to someone.

If I'm coaching and someone resists looking into another's eyes, I asks them to internally explore why they don't want to be seen. What about them is unwilling to just sit with someone else and be. What's going on that you can't slow down enough to really connect? What happens inside you when the boom chicka-chicka of porn sex is gone and you are left with only the connecting of one soul to another? What kinds of feelings are coming up that make you want to look away? Is is shame? Fear about stuff hidden?

What happens if you just allow yourself to feel that shame and keep looking into your partner's eyes? I've found that all sorts of different emotions flow into one another if I look into another's eyes for an extended period. Layer after layer comes up, flits and floats away. If I'm with a partner I may flow from love to anger to disgust, back to love again, just by not editing anything.
Often, if I just keep sitting, I start to merge with that person...boundaries stop existing. Everything starts to hum and glow. But it could also be that I never get to that place. I remain twitchy, angry, maybe even rageful.

That's Tantra, too.

Tantra is being fully present with the world.

Fully being with a cup of tea, involving all my senses and concentration, with my brain fully present right here, is way more Tantric than doing position 37 of the Kama Sutra but being disconnected from both myself and my partner. Whipping the the tar out of your lover with a cat o' nine tails with full presence is way more Tantric than trying to figure out your Christmas shopping list while pretending to look into your lover's eyes.

I've talked about tons of exercises on here to learn to be "Tantric," but each of those exercises is not Tantra. They are the path to Tantra. They get us out of our minds and into our bodies, letting go of MonkeyMind to the best we are able and learn to really hone into our bodies. The whole idea is that once one masters the exercises, you let them go as that's all they are: processes, not experience.

All of Tantra's messages for me are found in breathing fully: taking life in, letting it go, being here in the middle of all of it.

Don't forget to visit my Sweet Tantra Sister and Friend, Greenwoman, who talks about kissing for this week's Thursdays's Tantra.

______________________________

*My flavor of Tantra, anyway, smiles.

Art

Image from here.

Couple with head together in prayer from here

My New Friend, EFT

A few weeks ago, a good friend of mine called to tell me about a special healer lady who was in town who did this tapping thing with the meridians. She was highly impressed and would I like the opportunity to have a session with this woman?

I had been asking for "something more," as a new tool. So even though I didn't feel an immediate attraction to go, I said I'd think about it. When I called back the next morning, I got the last slot.

I'm a fairly open, yet highly skeptical person. I have high standards for new techniques that come my way. I was open to this, but had my feelers up big time. As I listened and considered it, I was more attracted to the principle behind it...that when things happen to us, our bodies may respond by having our electrical wiring (the meridians) discombobulated. If that doesn't get tended to, it creates a glitch in the matrix.

When the end points of these meridians are tapped, while focusing on the emotions that the situation elicited but weren't healed, and repeating a healing statement to redirect the energy, the wiring gets rerouted and the emotional block goes away.

When she started the work, I remembered I had done this before...years back, maybe as an intro something and included with a something else. The memories are so foggy that I can't even remember where or why or what. But I do remember doing it. I've seen it referenced in various places, but never investigated it further.

I am now.

As I left, I asked for any information on remembering the points. The healer woman directed me to this site, by a guy, Gary Craig, who put this whole technique together. It's called Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). There's a free E-book downloadable manual that explains it all. They also have instructional DVD's for sale, workshops listed, practitioners, and an online community of support for finding shortcuts and ideas on how to deal with anything from headaches, to depression, anxiety, losing weight, addictions, PTSD, insomnia, back aches, business blocks (!), phobias and all sorts of stuff. Craig suggests trying it on everything. Yes, it's called Emotional Freedom technique. But I guess people are getting all sorts of positive accompanying physical results as the emotional basis for their dis-ease is cleared up.

The science behind it makes sense to me. I like that most of the practitioners listed are therapists and doctors. I like that there are studies of EFT being done all over the world and that the results are positive.

I'm hooked!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Happy thanksgiving to all who come here! Even if you don't celebrate this American holiday, I wish you all the best in your abundant Life and Loves. We are truly blessed.

image from here

Words

And these last few weeks ponderings on the meaning of words.

Another one of those paradoxes I so love:

Words mean nothing...it's action that counts.

Words are extremely powerful tools of the psyche in both creating and interpreting the world.

I have tons of emotional responses to words. The words I've been playing with these last few weeks are the differences of my internal responses when I hear or say: surrender, release, let go, or allow.

Whenever I hear the word "surrender," I feel a battle or struggle and that one side capitulates to the other. Or, at least, as in sexual surrender, there's some outside influence that I have no control over that overcomes me and I finally realize there is no way I can avoid the other's dominance. It could be two internal parts of me that are "warring." I also get this feeling that it's not something I really want...but that I can no longer fight or keep at bay. In other words: when I surrender, I do so unwillingly. If I look at that energy a bit deeper, there's a tad bit of Victim Voice in there for me.

I emotionally respond to release and "let go" in the same ways. I get the feeling, again, of a stuggle of some sort, or a resistance but that it's something I've been holding on to through either conscious or unconsious thought. No Victims here.

The newest perspective I've been focusing on...for the last...oh...seven years or so is that of "allowing." My Old Friend, Abraham introduced it to me and I like it. It feels free, flowy, opening and expansive to me. It feels in the moment, alive with life, opening to all that is

So..HA!...yeah...it feels to me as if I've been surrendering to the outer experiences in my life...letting go and releasing my internal reactions.

And I'm shifting...and getting really close into allowing all of it.

Yeah, they're only words, but words can convey to me what's really going on in this brain of mine and the ways in which I operate. They provide me with subtle nuances of my energetic response to life and what I put out/how my psyche react and attracts in the world.

Art:

Surrender by Lunea Weatherstone from her great Full Moon Dreams Tarot deck. Beautiful images, all.

Questing

I recently read a memoir by Elizabeth Gilbert called "Eat. Pray. Love." What a lovely book! It's about a woman's yearlong spiritual quest after a painful "wakeup call" divorce, where she goes to live in Italy, India and Indonesia (Bali) for four months each.

Italy was to explore the senses and pleasure. The four months in India were spent at an ashram, meditating and doing service work. Bali was to experience a life lived in combination of the two. She starts out lost, confused, depressed, and riddled with anxiety and fear. She ends up centered, happy, and feeling more deeply on her Path.

I also saw the movie "Into The Wild," a story about a young man, angry at his parents and society so he goes off, pennyless, to discover Life. He ends up in Alaska. He ends up discovering, after having been alone for months, that happiness is best when shared.

I've been thinking about quests lately. I've been on a bit of one here, although it didn't involve traveling in the outer world sense. Mine is more inward. It continues to go well. Things shift some then momentarily revert...then shift lots more. I am Blessed.

My greatest gift is, I guess, more of a relearning or perhaps a deeper understanding: that the deeper I do inside myself, the more I want to engage in Life; and that the more I learn, the more I discover I will never understand or know anything.

I find that quite beautiful.

Art:

Buddha Swirl from here.

Samhain

One of the Great Sabbats and another of the Fire Festivals, Samhain (pronounced "sow-in") is a celebration of when The Veil Between The Worlds is the thinnest. It's also considered to be the Pagan New Year (not by all, but many traditions).

In the US, we call it "All Hallow's Eve" or Hallowe'en the night before the Catholic holiday of All Soul's Day, celebrated on November 1. The early Christian church, in order to lure people away from the Old Ways, would celebrate and/overlay a holiday of their own to coincide with all of the ancient pagan festivals. All Soul's Day, or All Saint's Day, is a celebration of all the souls of the dead and departed Saints. It's also celebrated in Mexico as The Day of the Dead.

Old Pagan traditions continue to influence the holiday. Why all the ghosts, monsters, goblins and tricksters? Because, as stated above, this is the time when the Veil is the thinnest and our ability to contact the dead most opportune.

Scrying (fortune telling) and seances are are popular at this holiday. People talk to the dead, not in fear, but for guidance and inspiration. As it was a time when the veil was thinnest, some folk thought that we could pass over more easily, too. Feasts for the ancestors and other dead are common, with sweets being the enticers to lure them out. Put extra chairs at the dinner table and honor those who have passed at your meal, bringing each alive, again, with the magic of stories, laughter and love. It's easy to have an altar with pictures of all you loved and who have crossed over.

Samhain is also the third, and last, harvest celebration. Apples, squash, nuts abound. Have a glass of cider (hard cider for the parents, indeed!!!), bob for apples, eat candied apples. Apples are a symbol of the goddess in all her fertility, abundance and power (Eve knew that one). In ancient Greece, it was a symbol of resurrection and immortality. Cut one in half and look at the star that the seeds form.

This celebration also honors and recognizes that it is now time for winter. We go out in nature, enjoying our last days of warmth before the cold and dark that ultimately leads to the Winter Solstice.

Finally, it's a time to remember that we will all die some day. It's an opportunity do acceptance ritual around that and revel in the Life right before us and around us.

And with that in mind...I offer my favorite song by Loreena McKennitt. It's called "All Souls Night." I was introduced to it years ago and used to dance all around my house with it in honor of Life and living. I thought to shart the YouTube offering that has a montage of pictures from Ireland.

Art

Spirits by David Harrison

Squash Harvest from here

I Really Thought....

...that I'd be posting more, after the 30 day journey. Really had intended to start covering other topics that interest me. But life got busy and then I had a new thing come up in sessions that made me go internal to writing here in public.

The image of it that came to me today was about watching our children grow. Parents who really watch their children will notice that their kid is kinda just moving along in life....they're happy, healthy, smiling, cuddly. Then all of a sudden they go through this period where they become like little demons. They cry lots, are very impatient, are clingy. Maybe they revert to younger behavior. Like maybe all of a sudden they want to nurse when they've been weaned. Or they start wetting the bed again. Or all sorts of things that build in a crescendo, until one day, just about when they're ready to call an exorcist, the angel they knew suddenly reappears. But now they are starting to talk in full sentences or reading or walking instead of crawling.

In watching myself and my kids grow, I think we continue to do this. We kinda go into a chaos state right before shiftings or a new level of learning. Just as with our kids when they are needing to cling when they feel something big coming but don't know what it is, I think it really important to be gentle with ourselves. It's all about The Gentles.

______________________________

Last Wednesday, I did Tantric stuff along with the breathing. At one point, my body felt the urge to do some esoteric pranayamas intersperse with both self pleasuring and tapping my forehead/third eye area.

This continued until I started to feel a wave of intense heat flow up my body and radiate out my shoulders, neck and head. Then began the pulsing of the most intense headache I've ever had. Throbbing, pounding, vise grip, possible aneurysm pain that wouldn't go away. I kept trying to open the seventh and sixth by envisioning energy flowing out both. The pain kinda moved back and forth between the two points, and perhaps maybe some of it was flowing out, but MAN...that sensation in my head!!!! The lid, so to speak, would not let the energy out.

Later that night, I had the same experience...as well as the next few times I've orgasmed. The headaches are the most violent I've ever had. They come on fast and strong (although the last one I felt subtly before the explosion). They eventually go away, but it's a gradual process. The heat is intense (and I've gotten a chuckle or four on how accurate the sexual term "Hot" is).

On Thursday, I noticed that when I tune in to my body, there is a nice constant stronger level energy hum....like a very low level orgasm....going on all the time. When I continue to tune in and focus on the energy, increasing its intensity with my conscious intent, the headache starts to ever so subtly appear.

I'm remembering all the ways that we can shut down life force in our bodies. I'm getting kind of interested and intrigued about the possibilities. I don't think I want to go back to full body orgasms all the time, but the hum sure is fun.

Since then, I've backed way off doing the really prolonged intense sessions. I'm just going through the CD as is, and letting the energy work its magic slowly, instead of pushing myself through whatever is going on.

_____________________________________

In the outside world...???...

I'm coming to realizations of fears of some of the decisions I am facing. Although I am recognizing old patterns, I'm trying to do them in a different way now than I did years ago. And..I think I'm succeeding, smiles.

Eskimo Nebula from here

Days 28-30 And Beyond

Although I've not been writing, I have been doing my breathwork sessions. Days 28-30..and the days since have all been kind of progressions of a theme.

There has been lots coming up around surrendering. Surrendering to not really knowing what's going on...yet trusting and feeling lots going on. I continue to open, continue to feel, continue to experience the energy moving through my body in different places. It all feels like there is healing going on, slowly, yet surely, as my body accomodates more and more Life Force.

These last few days, there was a pattern of taking awhile to get into the intense, fast paced tempo of the cathartic, circular, fast breathing. I found myself rewinding back over and over from minute 21 or so to minute 15 and getting then keeping that intensity going.

One thing I'm finding interesting is that I'm starting to experience that numbeing, tetany in my fingers after I've been breathing for a long while now. It feels like the breath has cleared lots on one level and that now I'm accessing another- one that's possible scarier so my hands are holding.

The pattern the past few days has been that after a number of rewinds of the CD, all of a sudden my upper chest/heart area starts to generate tons of heat, along with prickles. Then the breathing starts to really breathe me. Huge inhales are followed by long slow exhales, where I feel everything flowing out of me and don't want to stop. I feel lots of energy flowing out my feet, knees, all the chakra areas from throat down. It kinda pulses, but mostly is just a steady flow that feels like there is a hole in the area where something is pouring out.

The nausea comes now with the deep breathing and doesn't wait for the rest period. I allow it. Today it had progressed from feeling like it was in my belly to definitely being in the throat area...first in the lower throat, then more towards the area closest to my skull..then into the inner ear/temporal area. As it moves, the area it inhabited before is left feeling free. So in other words, when it shifts from my abdomen to my chest/heart area then up..I feel no stomach nausea. Not sure if this makes sense, but it's the best I can to to describe the physical feelings.

Day29, the energy was really intense and it felt like if I wasn't able to totally relax in the middle of the intense feelings, that my hands would have been experiencing pain and tetany. My arms went up perpendicular to the floor, outstretched to the sides and didn't want to come down. It was weird. On all days, when my hands have started to go become numb, with more breath, they relax and just allow the energy to flow, instead of being all curled up in pain. There is also lots of enery in my backm which I'm very thankful for after decades of being numb. Plus, there is the beginning sensation of the tightening of my throat, which used to happen all the time when I used to do this years ago. But this time I slow it down, knowing that each time I touch there, healing occurs. I don't need to push because I'll be back tomorrow and can let the energy flow a bit more to allow the healing slowly, without trauma (I used to choke and stop breathing from chest pressure and my throat feeling like it was closing).

I've decided to continue this journey. I won't be journaling about it as much as I have been. I'll probably only be updating about it from time to time, maybe with big breakthroughs. But I keep hearing "A Year Of Breathing" in my head. So we'll see where this goes.

My assessment of this 30 days?

I feel more alive. It's not an effort to do this at all. I crave it, and get almost frustrated when my life (which has been busy with family matters) puts it off until the end of the day. I feel that if I start to fall "off the path" during the day, and start to feel disconnected, all I have to do is breathe and I'm back to feeling loving and OK.

I feel very vulnerable. Some days, such as today, I'm weepy. I'm feeling more energy from those around me, am much more sensitive to their moods and overall energy output...like..are they primarily a happy person? Frustrated? Angry? I feel their energy literally cut through me and I have to breathe to not feel overwhelmed. I figure that with time, I'll be able to maintain my openness and not be influenced as much by those around me.

In the meantime...

I feel lighter, more at peace than before I started. I walk with my meditation more and more as a constant reminder of Life. I'm clear that I am beyond blessed. I've come to some difficult decisions that might not be easy in the implementations, but which feel good in my body. I keep getting images of

1) selling all my "stuff" and entering a buddhist temple or going to my cave.

2) selling all my "stuff," moving to LA to live with my daughter and starting anew

I'm noticing that the constant there is selling all my stuff. So, I guess, a garage sale might be happening soonly here, smiles.

Surrendering....I'm learning what this means. Still have more to learn.

The journey continues.

Days 24-27 Integration

Life's been beautiful and busy.

Friday's session was powerful, again, but I took it easy. I'd been pushing it so much that week that I thought it would be a good time to just do the CD as it was and not rewind it at all to prolong the experience. Great heart and throat openings, but gentler than the beginning of the week's.

Then all of a sudden, life got really busy. I had Nona* duty as my grandson came to spend both weekend nights with me. It was fun. He is a delight. Saturday, I didn't find the time to breathe. We were running around too much. Sunday, I made time, but only did a short session. Mind was too much in Monkeyville, so I didn't fight it.

And I was marveling today on the amazing abilities of Mothers. How in the heck do we do it all? When I think back to when my kids were little, my today me wonders how I did all the inner growth work. I had three of the little folk, a business to run and was doing this breathwork at night when the kids were in bed. Geez.....makes me tired just thinking about it!

I started today feeling way more grounded than I did all last week. Last week was a haze of emotions and opening. Lovely. I'm so happy I had the opportunity to just flow with it all.

What pervades everything is the Path of Unconditional Love. Of finding peace in the middle of chaos. I continue to tune in, go deep. I had a few times over the weekend where I lost myself, but I regrouped and found peace. Life as meditation.

Today's session began with the prayer to open to whatever needed healing.

At first MonkeyMind was there...rewind, rewind the CD to try and stay internal. At one point I had such an awakening to an idea of love that I went to the computer and wrote it down before it went away. But then I went back to breathing. It was then that the fun began.

For whatever reason, I was moved to touch the top of my head. Ouch!! Tender. So I massaged it. Then, my hands wanted to move up and down with the rhythm of the breath. So I just let them go. I was sitting cross legged on a Zafu pillow. My hands were relaxed with palms up. My arms raised with every breath on the inhale then slapped down onto the inside right above the knee area. GAAAAAA....way tender.

Mind at that point wondered if they were associated with any meridians, if there was a connection to the top of the head and that point. When I just went to look it up, it appears it could be the gallbladder meridian. Whatever it is, it was beyond ouchie. My arms and hands just wanted to continue that movement...then they switched to fists with knuckles hitting the inside knee points. I think it alternated with occasional wanting to go back to the top of the head to rub there, too.

That energy died down, then I felt that opening sensation that occurs at different place around my body with this process. I felt it in heart, throat and hands but it was strongest in my back lumbar area, this time on both sides and emanating out. At this point, the music and breathing were fast, almost a pant. I kept it deep, way into the belly and focused on opening to bring the breath to my back. As the work felt really good, I rewound the fast part about four times.

When I slowed down a bit, the nausea showed up. I was excited in that this time I was sitting up, so not as deeply into trance and was able to just sit with it. Although it wasn't as strong a sensation as when I was lying down, it was strong enough to peek and make sure the bowl was closeby, just in case. I breathed with it, allowed it, felt the heat with the allowing. More openness and expansion in the heart. I really think this is about the heart chakra opening. We'll see.

What I liked about this was that the nausea came when I was still very aware and not that deep. I forgot to mention that at one point my hands were drawn to the lumbar region, too..deep massage while breathing..then did a belly dance sort of gyration in all sorts of directions, during which all sorts of tinglies went up my spine and I felt pops and snappies of release in my brain and cervical vertebrae.

I think the nausea could only appear when I was really deep before and my concious mind wasn't in the way. I'm excited it appeared when I wasn't that deep and I was feeling all that energy flowing out the back. It says to me that things are moving quite nicely. I don't think I've ever mentioned here that while I don't usually experience nausea, the last few times I smoked pot I got ill. The last time, in 1987, I was sick for about three days, with lots of vomiting the first day. I also vomited lots in labor. And with each time, my cervix would open more, then after giving birth I had huge kriyas that lasted a long time. I feel like old blocks are now slowly, consciously opening.


* I'm not aging happily and hate what I call "the G word." I'm Nona..the Italian word for the G word

Day 23

Most every time I've asked for spiritual learnings and opportunities, the universe provides almost instantaneously. In this case, I've asked to open my heart more and find places of unconditional love.,

It's easy to feel unconditional love when it's not challenged. Love and peace can flow effortlessly when all is going exactly as I want it, happies are staring me in the face everywhere I look. But then, that's about being conditional...things on the outside have to look good for me to feel good on the inside. It's when things on the outside aren't that way and I'm still able to maintain that feeling of peace and love that I've truly reached the level trust and inner peace that I want.

With my open heart flowing I pushed "publish" on my last post. I then went to see if there were any new comments. There was one.

It was from an artist from one of the images I had used. I don't write the artists before publishing images, but I always give credit to them, figuring if they don't want me to use their art, they will let me know. Until now the feedback has been very positive and sweet. This one informed me that I had used the image without permission, that she found the content objectional and that she didn't want her image to be associated with it.

I found it really interesting that it was from my post called "Secrets," in which I had taken made myself fully vulnerable. I took a leap of strength, openness and truth telling about myself, disclosing my past on here when I knew it was something that I could be judged for.

I reflexively went into protecting my heart mode. Nothing huge here and I had to laugh at the hilariously amazing perfection of the universe bringing me exactly what I wanted. I asked to consciously work on keeping my heart then instantaneously get judged for a post where I had tweaks about being judged!! The universe is such an amazing place to inhabit!!

I thought to write her. I decided, instead to just sit and feel and send her love. Stuff came up again later in that night, but I continued to send her love. I want my heart to open and remaind open.

Then yesterday was "one of those days," where it seemed the message was...sit...be...don't try to do anything because it ain't gonna work.

Plans got cancelled, my computer connection would not work. I got to feel abandoned in a few places. It was also "one of those days" for many important people in my life...all who turned to me to lean on and recieve support....a pattern in my life....and one which I am grateful to have because I love these people and am happy they love me enough to ask for support. But, if I'm not feeling whole, I can also go into a victim "I am never supported" mode. It was pretty cool to see how I was being provided with tons of opportunities to decide to either keep my heart open or shut it down in distrust, frustration, protection or fear.

So..Pamm...can you stay with an open loving heart in the midst of all these cool opportinities you being provided with? Or will you decide to shut down in distrust, frustration, protection or fear? Can you do this day in another way????

I did. I stayed open all day. At the end of the day, when I got another whammy, I got kinda off kilter, but all in all I was pretty excited about staying present, breathing and keeping my heart open.

Because it was such an interesting day, I didn't have time to do the breathing until about 10pm. Generally I do it by early afternoon. I decided it was a perfect time as I could just go to sleep after and let the energy continue to flow.

My intention/request for this session was for it to address the shame stuff I've been experiencing...and to continue to open the heart even more.

I noticed that with all this breathing these days, it's almost like the residuals of the session before carry over and the level of energy doesn't abate as much. It starts to get intense with just a few breaths now if I focus on it. My mind did wander a few times during the early partof the session and I wouldn't feel the energy moving. But when I would tune in again, then it would increase. The scientist in me decided that this shows that it's not only about the breathing, the chemical reactions of the O2 and CO2...intent and attention are a huge piece of this process.

I breathed for a long time....kept rewinding the CD as my body wasn't feeling any blocks at all. Finally, when the breath started at the panting stage, I was doing really deep strong panting and I started to feel firey sensations in my upper chest/thymus area and throat. It was getting stronger but the music started to slow down and I didn't feel ready to slow down...so I rewound it three times. The breath was really starting to open up into my throat...felt a fluid acculation thing I'd felt when I was doing this years ago and wondered if I would go into choke mode. But I didn't...was able to stay with the breath and let it all flow. I started to feel pressure in the back of my head....then went to rewind the CD again and mistakenly pushed the off button instead...dagnabbit!!

Then forward winding to the place I had been at got me out of that "special" moment and it didn't return. I decided to just slow it down and go with the after intensity tinglies and openings.

Still the nausea. Still the inability to just let that first hurl sensation to flow...but, again, did have presence of mind to let the second and subsequent waves be.

The thing about this time that's different is that I had low level nausea continue during the rest of and after the session. I felt some this morning.

About eight months ago, I had an intuitive hit that something may be up with my liver. I've been slowly getting my body ready over the two months to do a liver cleanse. I'll hopefully be ready for it in about a week or so. We'll see if things clear up after it.

And I'm thinking that instead of pushing things, I may do a gentle session today. We'll see what feels right in the moment.

Images:

top opening image from here

heart image from here

Day 22

Jiminy Biminies.

One would think that after...um...almost 30 years of inner growth and spiritual work I would remember a thing or two. But it's so easy to forget the realizations we have and the applications of it...then to actually use what we know.

Why is it that I can remind myself about certain things in concept, I can remember them for others when coaching, but when it comes to my own stuff I forget things?

When will I remember that the places of my greatest fears and pain are the places of my greatest power and healing?

I crack myself up.

It's now Wednesday. I've been in an emotional "something" since about Friday. I've been feeling, allowing stuff to bubble up and integrate, along with stirring and opening. It's been an amazing journey, indeed.

Today's session was about realizations of unconditional love and how I have been unable to be that. On all sorts of levels. The stuff's been dancing around in different areas, playing on the edges of my consciousness, but today it all kinda gelled together in a flash of insight.

I love it when the pieces just all fall into place at once without me pondering my way through it logically. There it is...all at once...understandings of a place where I hold myself back from Spirit. The impact of it manifested itself in all sorts of areas of my life that flashed before my inner eyes and showed me how I have been playing my fears out in my world.

My heart. I've been guarding my heart for years. When I was a Courtesan, I could not do it the Escort way because of my need to guard my heart. I guard my heart in relationships of all sorts and kinds.

My heart wants to open.

Ever since I was....wayverysmall, I've been spiritually driven. By the time I was a teen I was obsessed with my Spiritual Path. The obsession turned into a buring desire for enlightenment. The way there has taken many forms and I'm still a long way off, but I have gotten more open, centered, peaceful and happy overall. Way.

I've always said (and have heard it from others now over the years) that how I do sex is how I do relationship is how I do community is how I do the world is how I do God.

Today, I got (again?) that the ways I hold onto and protect my heart in relationship and my old line of work are the very things that keep me from that Union with the Beloved that I seek. That the pain of a broken or fear-filled heart, when experienced and allowed to transmute, opens my heart in ways that I have never been able to experience through the mind talking to itself about what it wants.

The universe is a very interesting place, indeed. I find it so cool that things in my life synchronistically appeared to give rise to huge emotional stuff for me. I got to feel them all, sift and sort, do this breathing around them, and now, today, I feel this internal shift.

I wrote the other day about how I was feeling judgemental and cranky about people and myself..and how I didn't like it. That's gone. Every time I looked at someone today I saw a Spirit on a journey and appreciated them. I'm spontaneously going to that place of compassion where I used to live. I look deeper than to what's presented. I am less impatient with one area of my life that has been a major contributor to my "decline" this past cycle..and I am OK with it in ways I've never been. Detached, watching, not knowing if I want to continue much longer, but no longer angry and distrusting. It just is what it is.

I wrote about little awarenesses that had come over the weeks. I've had other things in my life that have been triggering heart issues. Everything came together today for me as I breathed, crying with Thanks over the gifts all this (what Abraham would call) "contrast" has been.

I got again today that everything that I label as pain or have fear about in relationship is an opportunity to open my heart more, in surrender and unconditional love.

Shoot, I love the universe.

And physically? As these realizations flashed in during the fast paced breathing part of the session, opening me to more while just being present, I had tears of joy streaming down my face. Strong energy flowing in the heart and hands.

I made the connection that the big stuff, however, doesn't come with the intense breathing. It's when I slow down at the end and really tune into the subtle nuances of the energetic flow throughout my body when the big stuff seems to happen. It's like the fast breathing is the spark that gets things flushed, then stuff is integrated and moves through with the stillness.

I had the bowl again in case of the hurl feeling. Yes, it came again....right at the edge of very deep hover trance. Again, my instinct to push it down won over my desire to stay present and go deeper with it. But I was able to catch it on the second wave of nausea and breathe it through. Again, as it fizzled with the breath, the energy moved up and opened my heart even more.

I'm excited to have reached an opening here. I'm excited about finding more. I'm excited about learning and being open to what else is in store...I have no idea where this will go. And I'm excited that my sacro-iliac joint feels freer than it has in over a year....maybe two.

Golly, I love the universe.

Art

Fourth Chakra Dancer by Bonnie Herman Zachary

Day 21

Today's session ended with a very long pee. I forgot to mention that every time I have a particularly good session, I always have to pee after. Yes...these sessions are that releasing on all sorts of levels as the body lets go.

I had another interesting thing happen in that usually I don't answer the phone when I'm breathing, but my daughter called and I knew it was important so I answered it. What was interesting to me about it was that when I put the headphones back on, I went dizzy/disoriented and it took awhile to correct. It felt like the music was influencing my brain waves. Never had that happen before. Trippy stuff.

Although I had the bowl, ready to vomit, I, again, spontaneously caught my breath when the sensation came up. This time, however, I was able to catch it after the first impulse and just feel/breathe it through....not fighting the sensation, just allowing it all and breathing into it more.

It feels really cool the way my body is responding energetically. The more I allowed the nausea, the more the breath played with it, the more I felt energy pouring out my heart. I also felt, for the first time, energy pouring out my back in the upper part of the lumbar area where it's frozen. I'm liking how I'm not getting excited when that stuff happens...just continue breathing, focusing and feeling, not letting mind get in the way, not pushing, just being with all of it.

After awhile, the energy also went down my legs and eventually, for the first time ever, I felt it pouring out my yoni. At first it felt like my uterus was contracting...or expanding?...not sure...not cramping or painful, just lots of pressure there, feeling very big. Then with a number more breaths, the energy slowly moved so that my yoni felt really really full...stretched tight. When I was able to relax into it, the energy sensation pouring out was incredible. My hands were throbbing (but not in a bad way) with so much life force coming out.

Before that, I got in touch with a deep longing for The Beloved and cried lots...had all sorts of realizations about life situations. Not sure what they all mean but it was great to feel them. It felt especially yummy top just sob. Really was a no brainer that I could cry this session, because I've felt weepy and emotional all day. I didn't disappoint myself. They showed up pretty quickly and got more intense as the session went on.

One thing I remember is this flash on when I was overweight. As I lost the weight, I would notice at plateau stages that old issues would come up. I wouldn't realize it for awhile, but then would go..geez..why is this bothering me now..haven't though of it for ages. As I healed the issuem (primarily doing this same work), the weight would melt off.

In my 3D life, I'm a confident person. But when I was younger (teens to 20's) I had huge shame issues. Earlier in this session I felt shame overwhelm me. All sorts of stuff has been going on in my life these past two weeks that has brought feelings of shame for me. In fact, I've been really good at creating all sorts of situations to bring it up. It all culminating with meeting up with my sister this past weekend so being reminded of old family issues. We are all very good at shame...which....lest I forget....also goes hand in hand with judgment of others, too. I've been wrestling with unusual-for-me internal dialogue lately, Judge has been running like it hasn't run for...sheesh....20 something years??? I'm highly critical of both myself and others right now...not like me. At. All. It does not make me happy.

I "got" that this may be like the weight issue thingie....like maybe this is surfacing now as I open loving life force is infusing my body more...like the last vestiges that were/are buried in my hip and frozen back are healing so all that is flushing itself out. The crying wasn't only about craving for Union, and also on a more practical level of the fear of having to make some decisions that may not be easy. But then again...this is precisely why I'm doing all this.

When does one pull the plug on important stuff? When is enough enough?...when all resources are exhausted? Or...does one cut one's losses and try to regroup with half a heart? And what to do when neither one feels "right?"

I guess my answer would be that I breathe. Kinda feels like all I want to do right now, smiles. Help!

Image is from here and is what I feel like during and after a session. I wish I could see energy. I can only feel it.

Days 18-20

I'm utterly fascinated by this nausea thing that happened last week. I had it again, twice today.

It happens when I'm in deep body trance....right on the edge of almost asleep but hovering while still breathing strongly. Then I bolt up with strong feelings of being right on the verge of vomiting. As I'm so deep, my body reaction is to sit up and make sure I don't vomit on the carpet. And then I get frustrated because I don't want to stop the flow of energy, either. Tomorrow, I'll bring a bowl so I hopefully don't slow it down again but just let the impluse flow to see what's there (if it shows up).

Even though I stopped myself, when I laid back down, I breathed into it and felt more energy moving. After focusing on opening and bringing life to the Belly, I noticed that there was lots of energy flowing from my heart. It stayed strong for a couple of hours.

The last two days I was traveling so did breathe but only for short periods, just to the point of happy bliss feelings.

My mind wants to "explain" the nausea. I almost started to go there while breathing..trying to let my mind clear and "give me messages." What I got was to just feel, not interpret.

I had come into the session with the prayer to open and heal that area of my back that feels frozen. At one poing my hands were, again drawn to the right Sacro-iliac joint so I put my hand under and rolled around on the fist to push on the pressure points. After awhile, it felt much freer, but it was after that when the nausea showed up.

So curious.

Days 16, 17

Yesterday's session was gentle. Not much to speak of. I find that when I do the sessions in different rooms, I have a different experience. The one room where the experiences are more intense is darker, more private, feels more cocoonish.

Today's started off a bit scattered but then I got into it. Immediately felt heat prickles in my upper chest. The tenderness that was there two days ago had peaked yesterday and is almost gone today.

The breathing got strong, but I decided to not push it as I still feel like my body is integrating the earlier sessions this week. I did have nice out of body trance stuff, some slight nausea, but it subsided when I breathed into it and expanded that area with the breath.

I am noticing these past two days that I am quick to have intense emotional responses to people...I am less patient. That's not like me. It passes pretty quickly and makes no sense, but there it is.

All in all, pretty quiet on the western front, stuff gently brewing.

Image from here

Day 15

Wow...Holy Kamoly this sure is getting interesting to me. Today's session was unlike any I've experienced in any of the breathwork sessions I've done this round or the many I've done in the past.

I began thinking it wouldn't be anything intense, wondering if my body would still be bubbling from a few days before. Then the breath started to breathe me. What I mean by that is that it just went into its own rhythm instead of me trying to make it harder or faster.

At first, mind thought to "work on" the third chakra as that was what came up yesterday. But then I felt the most bizarre thing....never felt it before. It was like a rolling flutter of energy (man this stuff is so difficult to describe) started a bit above my heart moving outward and down my hands. It kept happening. I just continued to breathe and feel, but then it felt like Body wanted more assistance. So I began a thymus tap. This is the endocrine gland located above the heart which is pretty shriveled up by adulthood. Alternative healers (of a certain flavor) suggest doing a tapping on it every day to restimulate it to grow and open. Then..shoot...can't remember how many years ago, but I heard that some chakra healers were saying that this was beginning to open as one of the chakra centers.

I don't know about that stuff, but I do know that my body was feeling what it was feeling and it wanted me to tap it. Then pound it, like an neurotic gorilla (these are the things that flash through this brain). So I did. I waled on it, using fingers alternating with closed fists. While it hurt (the area was really tender to the touch) I kept feeling like it was moving the energy. And there was no way that I couldn't be doing it. Yes, I could have stopped but the urge was strong to continue so I did it for a long while.

Then my breathing really started to be raspy. I kept drawing in a tremendous amount of air, and doing the outbreath just as strongly, moaning/rasping with each outbreath...um..kinda loudly.

I felt strong energy in a continuous flow out my hand and feet. Then, my body started to wave big time with the breaths and with each inhale, my head wanted to go back so my face was upward to the sky. I started to feel energy coming out my mouth and all of a sudden images of the movie "The Fifth Element" and pictures of saints with those shootings of energy came to mind. I remember flashing that the breath is life force. Every time I tried to slow the breath down, Body wanted more..not to push it, just to open. Strong beams of energy kept flowing out my hands, feet, heart, and mouth. I was able to let them flow (thanks, I think to the Tantric work I've done with holding energy and not needing to direct or stop the flow....high states of arousal with total relaxation).

I remembered flashes of an email I had written to a friend describing tetany in breathwork and how I don't get it any more. As he is a biological scientist, he was trying to understand the physiology of what's going on with me here. I conveyed my personal experiences in both my body and my coaching that when people start doing this breathwork, they exhibit many of the symptoms of hyperventilation. The first sign is a tingling around the mouth and fingers. Eventully it can lead to tetany, which generally first shows up in the hands and feet freezing up into claws. It's very painful and can lead to the whole body freezing up in pain. It has been my experience, though, that when the breather has a release of some emotional or psychic pain, both the emotions and the body release their hold simultaneously, not more pain, just bliss. So that what's going on can't be explained (to my satisfaction, anyway) as mere physiology of O2 excess or CO2 deficiency (they go together).

I told him that I no longer get that tetany of the hands or feet, but that my body went to pain where the blocks remained. What I forgot to talk about is the huge amount of energy that flows out the hands and feet. It's like there's energy pouring out holes in the palms and soles. I flashed that in a new breather, it could be that the hands and feet contract because their bodies are not prepared for the incredible amount of energy, so subconsciously try to hold it back.

Mind goes in flashes during these sessions because it's just stuff coming up/into consciousness. Unfortunately, it leaves just as quickly.

When I stopped stomping my upper chest and just breathed, I felt tremendous movement pouring out of that area. Opening. Flow. I felt the energy move into my throat. It wanted to be open. At first, that movement with wave and head back, face towards the sky was enough, but then it wanted to be able to completely relax into the feelings without having to effort in any way....even keeping itself up.

So, even though it was difficult to move, I tried to position the zafu pillow on its side so that I could drape my head over the elevated edge. That wouldn't work (too much efforting to hold my body up) so I went on a bed and hung my head over the side, throat exposed and continued to breathe.

After a few minutes, I felt a bubble of energy (can't figure out how else to describe it) start to form in my second chakra between the two hip bones. It kinda bubbled there...sometimes moving up a bit into the belly...then it would be down there again in the second ckakra area. I didn't feel it go down, like maybe it flowed up a bit with a breath then formed again? Not sure, but I definitely felt something trippy.

Not sure how long I stayed there, but eventually, the breath started to slow down. I tried to lay on my side, which is the position my body usually goes into for comfort, but it was having none of that. I had to be on my back, so that the chest was unimpeded. There was no way that amount of energy was going to be slowed down by any body positioning my mind thought appropriate or went to out of habit.

Oh...should mention that all day yesterday I felt my chest opening more and more breaths. I'm noticing I'm standing and sitting straighter. Body won't not.(smile)

It came to me to try and write this all down as soon as I could move..so I made myself get up, go to the computer and write. Dizzy. This is what was written with eyes closed, hardly able to move my fingers...no editing:

"not out of session yet, but need to write before I forget...stumble to computer...no pain in stomachor heart..moved to thuippoer chest...thyumus...pressure....keep breathing. body wants to do thymus tap so did until pounding on chst for long time.. pain...paniting...hoarse breathing ..pain sejsatono fo letting go i nhands feet ,ehce....head moves up and ak with each breath...five elements...pictures os fisaings...hands no pain but were before....eintnest pain snesaion..not pain...energy life..moving into throat....ears pluggeg...head swimmingn...go to bed and hang head over side....intesne energy from throat...thenfrom fifth chakra..bivbtating...slo ball of negy moving from there up..."

Hehehe..I'm thinking I translated it pretty well..who knows what some of that middle stuff was. Note to self...get a tape recorder.

After writing the above, I stumbled into my bed and pulled the covers over me to snuggle. I felt my body humming and my upper chest prickle. It felt like a cross between wool and what I would imagine burlap to feel like on the skin- more than an itch, not pain. I feel asleep for two hours, coming in and out of sleep and not being able to move, just feeling all the energy still working.

The rest of the day, today, I feel my breath all the way to my pubic bone and all the way up to my shoulders. When I check in, I notice I'm doing deep belly breathing even unconsciously now, like I used to before this last two years of slowly shutting my body down in pain.

During the course of today's meditation, I wondered what would happen if I did this, not for a month, but for a year. Today I thought I could just totally devest and start my cave stint (my kids have always said they think I'll end up in a cave some day, a hermit/nun), breathing, feeling the energy flowing all inside me and around me. Yum.

There's lots of stuff coming up around abundance for me. A few days ago, I realized that when outrageous abundance seems very close, somewhere way deep, I get terrified. I hadn't noticed until awhile back when it came to me that every time it gets close I drink lots or eat a bunch of chocolate.

I hadn't even noticed it before....but it's like I can't handle it so I try to bury the feelings of fear...like it's too much so I have to weigh my body down to handle the possibility of it all and stay grounded.

I also realized today that I have attracted a mirror of judgment into my life embodied in two people. Both are friends. I project that both have judgments to differing degrees around what I'm doing or not doing with my life right now. Both want to support me and consider me their friend. They care. But I feel judged. I am not saying they judge me as they have never said that directly...I am saying I am projecting that. The person who was my previous mirror for that died in April, and I wondered who would show up to take his place. Today I was able to identify where.

And I realized that in the stuff I'm doing/not doing with my life...the stuff/gift that triggered my decision to to do this journey to release and surrender/allow all that will be, mostly around abundance and relationship. It's not that I want the money, the stuff. It's not that I care that I may decide to sell my house.

It's the shame of failure. I have it inside me and I have plenty of mirrors for me.....my kids before, some of my friends, many people who know me but not well...those who only know some surface stuff.

As I've been talking about with my best friend for awhile now, I'm in the middle of something where if it succeeds I get to be seen as a warrior who believed in My Voice-who trusted my inner guidance no matter what the world around me said, no matter what kind of fear it's brought up for me.

If it doesn't come through, I will get the opportunity to judge myself as an idiot..someone who was in the middle of something that made no sense, had no footing, was not grounded or safe in any way. Not logical. The Path of the Risk Taker.

But this is the really fun part: the longer I stay the more of a warrior or fool I become...and all depends on forces that lead to outcomes outside my control. (kinda sorta sounds like life, yes?)

It's not about the loss of the "stuff," it's the ego shame/loss of having made decisions when I'm using logic that is not linear. It's bringing up all my stuff around my Path, all my memories of past lives when I was burned. And in this life, there isn't the fear of being literally burned. It's what I call "the dumb shit factor" (a phrase I coined from that friend who died. He used to say so many people "were dumbshits"....and I told him I had a hard time trusting him with my inner stuff because I thought he would lable me that in his mind).

I've been tip toe-ing on the edges of this shame....not wanting to really embrace how it will be to walk thinking that my decisions had led to a major step...no giant leap backward.

My prayer today, while on my walk, was to learn to live with this and surrender to that, allow that possibility in my life...

How will it be to walk if this does not work within the next few months? I am no longer running from it. I am willing to face that terror now, so that if it happens, I have practiced it so that it is my friend.

And in the midst of all this, I'm really pretty darn happy and at peace. It's all just awarenesses, flittering through. Kinda like...oh...that's interesting....hm....would ya look at that....cool....nice to be putting things like that together.

Funny....fear if it works, fear if it doesn't. What a pretty pickle!

And, wow...feeling even more exposed and vulnerable with this all out there. Whew....
__________________________________________

I send a prayer to the monks and people of Myanmar/Burma. May they find peace and freedom within the contrast they are experiencing now.

Day 14- Being Gentle With Myself

Whenever I coach folks in breathwork, I always end the sessions reminding people to be gentle with themselves. To go slowly through the next few days, holding themselves like they would a child. I caution them to put as little on their plates as possible and to just be with all that bubbles up in awarnesses and openings. That shiftings will occur over the course of the next few weeks or so, so to just follow your inner guidance as to what you'll need.

Yesterday I stayed in trance pretty much all day. The only things Body wanted to eat were a few fruits and Miso. My lungs felt like they went all the way to my pubic bone and I found myself doing deep sighs every so often. I was in a haze all day, coming out only when I drove to do a few errands...which I probably shouldn't have done, but did. I easily slipped into trance again when I arrived back home.

I continued to feel energetic swirling, got weepy a few times so just cried at the state of the world. Not me, personally, just our condition as humans and how we choose pain and fear over and over....started to go there myself a few times, then went within again and remained in my blissbunny state. When the feelings came out my eyes, it was a release crying, leaving me cleansed, refreshed. I spent very little time at the computer, couldn't handle the energy of it. I engaged in my world around me and within me. Life as meditation.

I was reminded of the incredible amount of energy this work takes...both in the doing and the processing of it afterwards.

Today when I woke up, the trance had receeded, but I felt at peace.

I often wake up with strange things on my mind, but I have learned to listen to them and share when appropriate. Today I woke up feeling really vulnerable about this blog thing I'm doing here, sharing what has always been such an intensely private process for me. I feel mightily exposed. Vulnerable. Open. Raw. Just needed to say that. Tears.

With all this inner stuff going on (vulnerabilities, the caution of being gentle with the self), and putting aside my usual MO of Intense Italian Leo, I first thought to impose gentility on today's session. Then, a bit into it, I decided to just flow with what Body asked for.

It breathed gently. Never got to a really fast deep tempo. I went within. Again, focus was drawn to my power center. I kept opening and feeling expansion. Felt nausea again, but only faintly and I used it to localize where to breathe into.

At one point I went into deep trance and felt the sparklies working my body. I don't know how else to describe it. I feel them like little fireflies/happy wormies of energy going where healing is needed. They kinda flitterflutter here in a little wiggle line, then move to another area. All the rest of the body hums. But I don't get them much in my abdomen.

In fact, I don't feel much in my abdomen. In fact, at one point, it occurred to me that when I tune into the energetics of my belly, there is a void. I got an image of rolling around on my stability ball both directions in turn, first opening the front then the back of the chakra center. Again...I felt yearning for some deep bodywork...we'll see what the future brings.

In the meantime, it was a nice, slow session, but I must still carry residuals from yesterday as I feel as if I had an intense session, not a gentle one. More grounded than yesterday, but I notice that when I stand up, I have to center. My ears are ringing and my head is vibrating. Thinking mind wants to go back and read up on third chakra opening exercises. None that I recommend are calling me in this moment so will see what hits as right for me today.

Art:

Surrender by Elizabeth Moss

Days 11-13

Day 11's meditation was nothing to write about, so I didn't. Just breathed, felt. Nothing big.

Yesterday on Day 12, I did a short session as I spent from 9am - 4:30 doing a daylong Vipassana Meditation retreat with John Travis. The breathing session, again was not huge as it was short. But I figured it would suffice to get me "in the mood" meditatively, anyway.

The day was lovely. I wondered if I could sit that long, as the last time I did that long a meditation was in 1996 when I did a ten day silent meditation retreat at the California Vipassana Center in North Fork as a gift to myself. I did fine. I experienced lots of that vibrating in my sixth chakra area when I would would scan my body for "energetic holdings onto" then clear it so all the energy would flow freely.

We alternated between sitting and walking meditations, which was nice. I felt myself dive deep. It was a good thing.

Then maybe because of yesterday, today's breathwork session was the most powerful since I've started doing this 30 day thing. I'm still in a trance, having a difficult time functioning, haven't had the ability to be coherent enough to write anything. I'm thinking that may be partially due to my deciding to continue to go within and not shut things down fully, going back into my body, feeling, being in meditation like I was yesterday. I opened lots, can feel energy swirling.

I did some Tantric stuff at the beginning and got my body totally open and energized. So when the strong music started I kept breathing it until it started to slow down then reversed (rewound?) the CD to its beginning. I did this three times. I'm a little hazy on what all happened, but I know it was intense.

At one point I remember feeling like there was so much energy my body would blow up, but in a good way. I felt no blocks and felt really good about that, feeling like the Tantra stuff and all that I've been doing had released lots. But somehow, I think I couldn't feel my third chakra.

Then I remember saying an intense prayer to totally open and remove all blocks that were remaining. My heart started to hurt lots. Then I couldn't breathe. I started to feel that old compression I used to feel and said to myself.."yup....here we are, where we left off years ago when you were doing this big time before and decided you didn't want to go here yet....we get to play here again...maybe now it's time." I just kept forcing the air into my lungs past the compression. Hurt. Pain. Intense.

I remember lying on my side again, rubbing sciatica, feeling pelvis open, feeling abdomen open, heart constricted. Hazy... then I remember the music slowing down a bit and going really deeply into bodytrance....then all of a sudden bolting up because I was sure I was going to vomit. It felt like right before the hurl. Got frustrated with myself for pushing the sensation down reflexively. But then I remember lying back down again and going really deep into my body there.

Felt tingling, sparkling, shifting. Energy was moving around, I felt slightly nauseous so just breathed into it and felt it open, move. Kept breathing. Then I felt it moving into my heart, slowly moving like it did here, up my head and out the top, but not freely flowing..kinda like it was oozing out a small opening where in the previous experience it felt like the whole top of my head had blown off and energy was streaming. My arms felt all light and tingly whereas before they had been heavy and hurt.

So I just stayed there, breathing, feeling, opening, staying with all the sensations. I laid there a very long time, in the fetal position, feeling total blissbunnyness.

I have no energy to find art. It was good, I feel wonderful. Blessings abounding. I surrender to all of it.

Day 9 + 10

Was traveling on my fun abundance trip yesterday to San Francisco, so didn't have a chance to do the meditation. I missed it!! Today's was....interesting.

The breathing didn't want to be as intense today, so instead of forcing, I just flowed with that. When I started to really let go, my hands were drawn to my back on the left sacro-iliac joint..my body decided it wanted to lie down on its side and massage that area. As hands massaged they moved down a bit and went to strong sciatic blockage. OUCH!!! GAAAA!!! As I worked it, and just continued to follow my impulses, I rolled over on my back with my knees bent, feet flat on the floor. Then I made fists with each hand and put them smack dab into the sciatic nerves on each side of the pelvis. Then body started an undulating motion, with each side, in its turn, very sore as it bore down on the knuckles to knead that area. Not sure how long I was doing that, but it was for a good portion of the CD..probably almost half of it (20-30 minutes) as the tempo slowed down then picked up.

Had lots of awarenesses that bubbled up, but just as with dreams, many of them are lost to my conscious mind now. I know that if they are important to remember, they'll come back to me.

One that does stay is a wondering if my sacro-iliac joint thing (it gets highly tweaked from time to time to the point where I can't walk...and I have almost constant low level sciatica) is from when I had that kundalini thing years ago and discovered that if I held my hips a certain way the energy lessened/went away so I could function.

As far as this pea brain can remember (where does the brain go as we age???) this is the first time I've made that possible association. Can't remember if this was a problem before then or not...but I tend to think if so, it wasn't as bad. I tend to remember my back problems prior to that being at the thoracic level (bra line/heart chakra level).

At any rate....after doing that undulating thing for quite awhile, I noticed a bit of that abdominal pain again, so incorporated that into the massage, too. I started to feel energy rushing through my whole first and second chakras. This led to an impulse to self pleasure. Images of Shiva making love again, opening me, opening all my centers eventually led to intense orgasms.

My orgasmic energy has felt in transition these past two years. I've attributed it to stress, aging, or shiftings of some sort. But these opened me way up and felt more like they used to. When they were over, all the abdominal pains were gone, sciatica is way less and the beginnings of back tweaking I felt from walking uphill with heels in San Francisto are gone. (High heels on Nob Hill you might ask? What were you thinking, Pamm??? Hey...what can I say? Some things are really important).

I want to try and remember to feel my pelvis remaining open as it does today. I want to enhance that opening of the first and second chakras over the next few days. Roots, sexuality feel important. Plus... I think it would be good to do this meditation again today. Will see if there is time later this evening.

Art images:

First chakra from here

Second Chakra from here

Day 8- Abundance, The Body And The Past

Right off the bat, I could tell the mind was racing today as I'm getting ready to leave for a night's adventure with a dear companion.

When I coach people, I often suggest that they ask a question or put out a prayer so they can receive answers during the session...then to let it go and see what comes up. Today my question was a wondering what my blocks are to outrageous financial abundance.

I am Blessed in this area. I've definitely been through scary times, but my overall belief is that, in the end, I am always taken care of. I flashed on this book I once read called "The Trick To Money Is Having Some." It was a hilarious book about personal growth folk (he is one of them) and how it's often difficult for us to manifest big money. The author's thoughts were that it's harder for those on a spiritual path to be outrageously abundant because we put so much on it, bring so much conflicted energy to it that we put up blocks to it. I'm not in angst around money right now, but I am curious so I thought it a good time to ask....and just receive whatever came up.

Body wanted to move. Monkey Mind..or what I thought was Monkey Mind, began. But I decided to let it flow, not push away to see where it would go.

At one point, about ten minutes in, Body wanted attention...so I began massaging in my abdomen...no....that is only slightly tender now. What was holding before is now releasing. Legs are tender but no shooting, intense pain.

Arms wanted to dance so they did. Then, when I wasn't paying attention, all of a sudden they were on my back. They went to the lumbar region, the only place in my spine that's frozen. I see chiropractors, healers always being drawn there, but realizing the work is way too much to do in one or seventeen sessions. I yearn for Rolfing....two rounds with emphasis here. Maybe intense bone crunching chiropractic in the off days??? Or...maybe...it occurs to me...this is good for right now and am I'm not going so that I can create something new????

The snippets of awarenesses began.

-There I am swinging high into the sky...about three...singing...feeling like the creator of my world.

-There I am at 7, overweight, dancing when I see a neighbor laughing at me, stopping my dancing in shame.

-There I am in Jr. High....in gym....shamed. Still overweight, I am trying to do gymnastics. I do one of those summersaults over five people, land on my back and knock the wind out of me. The pain is in my lumbar (...today's mind asks if this is the origin of this frozen area..mind, body, mind...this is the back part of the pain in the abdomen). I get up,walk to my friend whisper "I can't breathe." When she wants to get the teacher, I tell her no..shame over my body and its inability to do this stuff is too much to be noticed here in this class where I have no abilities.

-the area right under my heart starts to hurt...does this block in my back power center hold back energy and opening of my heart?

-which leads to awarenesses about love

How I am conditional in how I am willing to share my love
How when I open to love with one person, I open to love with another....love begets love
How maybe my outrageous financial abundance is blocked because heart is blocked..as isn't abundance about letting in love?
About how blessed I am

Curious to see what awarenesses continue to bubble up today around this. Good stuff continues.


No time for art image searches today...I am off to be abundantely wined and dined and arted and funned. Yum.

Day 6 + 7

I never got enough time to post yesterday as I had company (my dramatic daughter was up from LA). But I did have a session...and it was a great one.

About half way through, my lower abdomen started hurting again, so I decided to dig into it. I contorted my body to get it from all angles. Then I found my fingers being drawn to the Spleen 9 point (in acupuncture, inside below the knee). Intense pain shot up and down my leg, through my leg so I just stayed with it, breathing all the way.

I noticed intense sexual energy coming up all through the session. When done, while coming down from the strong breathing, at one point I got nauseous. Yup...things are moving.

I'm thinking it would be so wonderful to be able to get some Rolfing done along with this. In the past, I've pondered how cool it would be to develop a system of combined intense bodywork/breathwork. I mean...of course I breathe with bodywork..how can I not? But I think it would be so cool if there was something where the worker coached intense breathing while doing release work in a certain body part.

Then todays's session was amazing. It came to me that when the music slowed down to just continue the intense breathing, making strong energy of my own. Great flash on all of life, really...just because the energy around me doesn't match mine, it's about keeping my own process and connection.

Body really let go. I went into a complete wave*.....I heard Richard say things this time that I haven't heard before and am loving this CD more and more every day. He said something to the effect of "when we attend to the breath, we make love with the Universe, the Beloved, OurSelves in body." This stayed with me.

..and then all of a sudden I was making love with Shiva.

He was blue. I felt him/us in Yab Yum, energy flowing from his Vajra, through my chakras, up to my heart then back to him, back to me over and over with every wave/thrust. Tears were streaming down. I felt all sorts of heart awakenings touching me, opening me.

It ended with me waving big time....feeling this overwhelming ecstatic opening (I think my arms were up at this point) to service to Shiva and All Beings. Ecstatic tears flowing freely. Wow.

Biggest message to me with this day's meditation?

Reminding myself: Where there is pain in the body, or fear in the mind, there lies my greatest power as it's the point where I hold myself back.

I'm playing more right where that lives...wherever it shows up...whether in my body or in my psyche.

Golly, this process is so cool. I'm enjoying it no end.

Just be.

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And how is all this affecting my world so far?

One of the things I have always loved about this work is that it's so organic. There generally aren't trumpets to announce: this is a direct result of what you're doing!!!!

I am happier, even more at peace, even though a few glitches in the matrix connected to last year showed up today.

Business is hugely, crazy busy. Lots of stuff looking good. But more important: I am detached. I'm not pushing, not running, but not emotionally engaging. I may start to "hope," but then it just just kindasorta happily flits away. No effort, really, just an organic letting go of its own accord...kinda like an old pattern that automatically engages out of habit but then gets bored because it finds no fuel to feed it.

My middle daughter, just left after what was the most peaceful, happy, connecting, joyous time this family's had together since the youngest was born (that would be almost 20 years ago). It began when the youngest one was one day old and middle daughter held her. Youngest screamed and it's been a battle ever since.

But "something" happened a few months back and the youngest changed. She has become calmer, more centered. Who knows where this stuff comes from? But it's here and it's all good. I've been callling it "the alien that inhabits my daughter's body," and her siblings are beginning to see what I mean. We're all kind of in shock that she actually hugged her sister goodbye, then kissed her on the cheek. She initiated it. There is no way I can begin to explain what that is for this family in the context of a blog post. But it's huge.

So, yes, little things in the scope of life, but huge in my world, indeed. I don't care where the shift came from...all I care about is that it's here. And it feels really really good.

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* a wave is when the whole body/spine moves, undulates with the breath.

Art:

And isnt' the universe an interesting place?

For some reason, when I came out of the meditation, I thought...hm...Shiva blue? I generally think of Krishna as blue.

But then when I typed in "shiva yab yum" into google images, this image was the first to come up and you can find it from here. Love that stuff.