My Secret Spiritual Dance

"A Call To Conscious Evolution"

2009-03-25T11:59:00.000-07:00

I've tried about five times to get the color and size of font to conform to this blog's other posts, but it is being persistent in standing out. Must be important ;)

More politics...but good, juicy, important stuff. I truly believe we can shape our world through conscious action/letting our voices be heard. Love that someone's listening :) If, after reading this, you want to sign the petition, you can do so here.

Obama Administration Requests Info on Planetary Challenges

Sat Feb 7, 2009 1:04 pm (PST)

The Obama Administration has asked the "Evolutionary Leaders" to
communicate about what is transpiring on the planet, and how we can
change the course of the unprecedented events that are challenging
this planet. This is a window of opportunity that must be taken! A
deadline was given for this information to be conveyed to the Obama
Administration..

The Evolutionary Leaders like Deepak Chopra, Gregg Braden, Michael
Beckwith and many, many others, gathered together to write up the
information to present to the Obama Administration. They are also
asking us to sign a petition to show the Administration how many
people are in favor for these changes to occur. Their goal is 100,000
signatures. We request your assistance to reach that number and beyond!

Below is the information presented to the New Administration.. The
petition link is found above.

By the Evolutionary Leaders

The human family is in the midst of the most significant
transformation of consciousness since its emergence over one
hundred thousand years ago. Consciousness has been evolving for
billions of years from the first cell to us. We are becoming aware
that through our own consciousness the universe can know itself. This
awareness reveals incredible new potential for our individual and
collective humanity.

Simultaneously, we are the first species on this Earth aware that we
can destroy ourselves by our own action. This may be the greatest
wake-up call to the evolution of consciousness since the origin of
Homo sapiens.

We now realize that we are affecting our own evolution by everything
we do. This knowledge awakens in us the aspiration to become more
conscious through subjective practices including meditation,
reflection, prayer, intuition, creativity, and conscious choice making
that accelerate our evolution in the direction of unity consciousness
and inspire us to deeply align our collective vision.

THE CHALLENGE

At this juncture in human history, urgent global crises challenge us
to learn to live sustainably, in harmony and gratitude with one
another and with the living universe. The changes required of humanity
are broad, deep, and far reaching. Only by acting swiftly and
creatively can we birth a planetary culture that will bring well-being
to every form of life in the Earth community.

The good news is that a compelling new story of our potential as a
whole human species is emerging - a story of collaboration, citizen
action, dialogue and new understandings propelled by unprecedented
levels of democratic freedom, multicultural exchange, and access to
communication technologies. It is nothing less than the story of our
collective evolution.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR ACTION

We recognize that the inner and outer aspects of life evolve together.
A dramatic awakening in consciousness will involve an equally dramatic
shift in outward aspects of our lives. In particular, we see the
following as vital opportunities for our conscious evolution, both
personally and collectively:

Cultivating a Paradigm of Aliveness: We regard the universe as deeply
alive and conscious by nature. In a living universe, our sense of
subtle connection and participation with life around us is the basis
for a compassionate and cooperative approach to living.

Educating for an Evolving Consciousness: Awakening consciousness is
the foundation for all the change we seek to see in the world. We can
work to elevate our capacity for conscious reflection and creative
action in our personal lives as well as our collective lives as
communities. We must support research and educational strategies that
optimize human capacities and explore the nature of consciousness.

Restoring Ecological Balance: The balance of planetary ecosystems is
fundamental to our survival. We must reverse the pollution of our
global commons - the water, air and soil that nourish all life. We must
encourage the proliferation of clean, renewable energy sources and
expend all necessary resources toward mitigating the effects of
climate change..

Encouraging Conscious Media: We must find innovative ways to use the
new electronic media as the mirror of our positive evolutionary story,
investing in their capacity to reach across differences of generation,
culture, religion, wealth, and gender to build a working consensus
about our colle ctive future.

Engaging in Social and Political Transformation: More sustainable ways
of living will require the support of a more conscious democracy and
vibrant civil society from which more enlightened leaders will emerge.
All individuals should be encouraged to use their gifts to create
participatory, responsible and compassionate models of governance.

Working for Integrity in Commerce: Conscious businesses that are aware
of the scope, depth, and long-range impacts of their actions are key
to achieving sustainability. Business must become an ethical steward
of the Earth's ecology and consciously establish an economic basis for
a future of equitably shared abundance.

Promoting Health and Healing: The science of mind-body-spirit health
has demonstr ated the profound connection between the health of a whole
person and the health of the system in which he or she lives. Whole
systems healing, respecting both traditional knowledge and modern
sciences, must be supported in physical, social, and spiritual domains.

Building Global Community: The new story is about all of us who share
this planet. Together, we can create a culture of peace that
eliminates the need for armed conflict, respecting and appreciating
the glorious diversity of our human family.

YOUR PARTICIPATION IS VITAL

Our group has done its best to articulate possibilities for the
evolution of consciousness at this crucial moment in time. Please
reflect on this document, feel what resonates in your being and calls
forth a response on your part. We invite you to discuss it with
others, continuing this global conversation by adding to it the wisdom
that is uniquely your own.

Together, let us co-create a new narrative of conscious evolution that
is a call to individual and collective action, birthing the most
significant transformation of consciousness in history. Join in the
Call to Conscious Evolution by signing the pledge now.

FOUNDING SIGNATORIES

Chopra Center , Carlsbad , California , July 26, 2008 Michael Beckwith, Joan Borysenko, Gregg Braden, Rinaldo Brutoco, Thomas Callanan, Deepak Chopra, Mallika Chopra, Dale Colton, Gordon Dveirin, Duane Elgin , Leslie Elkus, Barbara Fields, Debbie Ford, Ashok Gangadean, Kathleen Gardarian, Tom Gegax, Charles Gibbs, Kathy Hearn, Jean Houston, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Bruce Lipton, Judy Martin, Rod McGrew, Steve McIntosh, Lynne McTaggart, DeborahMoldo, James O'Dea, Carter Phipps, Wendy Craig-Purcell, Carolyn Rangel, Rustum Roy, PeterMoldoJames O'Dea, Carter Phipps, Wendy Craig-Purcell, Carolyn Rangel, Rustum Roy, Peter Russell, Gerard Senehi, Emily Squires, Brian Swimme, Diane Williams, Marianne Williamson, Tom Zender

Trust. Again.

2009-02-23T12:32:00.000-08:00

Today I ponder trust.

Who do I trust?

What do I trust?

At core, is there truly any other trust than in Self and Universe?

Image from here

Walking With My Inner Critic

2009-02-17T13:03:00.000-08:00

About a month ago, I realized that for the past while, My Inner Critic has been running my show. I was not allowing it voice, pushing it down in my quest to focus only on being happy. There is a difference between allowing happiness and pushing down alarm signals. I hadn't noticed how much I had demonized My Inner Critic until a number of mirrors graced me with having to look/feel more deeply.

In my journey to re-befriend her (and mine's a "her), I remembered a book I had read years ago by Hal and Sidra Stone. It's called "Embracing The Inner Critic." They came up with this form of finding integration and wholeness through a process called Voice Dialogue. I've written about it briefly before here and other places, but I'm too lazy to find the other links.

I loved the work and it's been a mainstay. It was the first work I did to truly integrate my shadows and I continue to use it, always going back to it as one of my primary tools.

As all my books are in storage, I went to the library (Barnes and Noble) awhile back to brush up on their work.

This rang so true for me:

"Whenever someone is not in touch with his or her vulnerability in relationship to another person, one may expect a judgment, silent or spoken, as a way of dealing with the situation. Unconscious vulnerability is a very dangerous commodity for this reason."

and

"An attack of the Inner Critic is a cry for help."

Damn, ain't it the truth? How often do we need to fall into judgment (of ourselves or others) when we feel whole and happy? It doesn't even enter our minds. It's only when we feel vulnerable that we put up walls. It's much easier to then point outward and find reasons to separate ourselves rather than feel the pain of being vulnerable.

I've been trying to just be with the terror of my vulnerability these past few weeks. A few weeks ago, I was down. I've noticed that this week, I'm feeling it especially more so than usual, but I believe I must be burying it, pushing it away. At least that what I think is up as I've been craving wine every night. I've written about addiction here, here and here. I'm trying my best to hear what this craving is trying to tell me and to listen to The Critic so I can hear what she has to teach me. I do want to hear it. I'm trying.

Image from here

From Rob Brezny's email...

2009-02-13T06:08:00.000-08:00

...for the week of 2/11/09

"GUIDING QUESTION for cultivating PRONOIA: 'The secret of life," saidsculptor Henry Moore to poet Donald Hall, "is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for your whole life. And the most important thing is—it must be something you cannot possibly do.'

What is that task for you?"

For those who don't know Rob's work, pronoia is the belief that the universe is conspiring to bring us good.

Image from here

Thoughts On Depression

2009-01-23T13:16:00.000-08:00

Through a blogger friend, I learned that another blogger I wasn't familiar with had committed suicide on Christmas Eve. Other bloggers I sometimes read have been talking about suicidal thoughts or tendencies. Or if not that extreme, they talk about depression. I think one even mentioned that about 50% of the bloggers she reads are on some type of anti-depressant medication.

Emotions are always moving, cycling through me. They flutter and can run the gamut in the course of a day. Sometimes I get on a jag that lasts awhile. Today, I'm coming off a few days of tension. A few weeks ago I was really sad. I could even say I was possibly depressed. When things on the outside don't look good, I can lose myself if I'm "off."

When I tuned into my "Observer" Voice, I realized that on some levels it feels kinda oddly good to feel so emotionally devastated and just be with it. To lie in bed all day long with the covers pulled up over my head, crying, staring at the wall. To kinda just allow all of it instead of pretending things were anything other than what they were in that moment.

I'm pondering depression and suicide. I'm fascinated.

What happens? How do people go from being sad to deciding to kill themselves?

I have an opinion/theory that we simply get caught in a loop. That we have a thought that triggers emotions which then trigger thoughts about the emotions which trigger more emotions about the thoughts which then lead on and on and on...stories upon stories and our reactions to them...ultimately to chemical imbalances, organs stressed and then the cycles and loops get even stronger, longer and ingrained.

But I don't know.

I do know that when I get in my funks it takes work to get out of them. I have to be really focused, aware and conscious to catch myself and start to remember that Blessings are the way of the universe. It takes time (sometimes days) to have those those thoughts become the primary vision I have of the world.

And I know about this stuff and have practiced it for years, don't have too many funks (although these days there are more than there have been in other cycles of my life..I'm being given opportunity to learn more in that arena :) ). I imagine/have a theory that those who don't have tools or practice would have a very difficult time coming out of the cycling loops of pain.

But I can't know.

I wish them well, I wish them peace, whatever that means to them.

image from here Wow...powerful one, yes?

Happy, Joyous 2009!!!

2009-01-01T08:27:00.000-08:00

I wish us abundance in all things important to us: Love, Health, Feeling safe and secure.

I wish us pleasures of every kind: sensual, sexual, laughter, excitement, appreciation, cuddles, contentment, harmony, excitement, and happies.

I wish us creative expansion of that which has not yet been a part of our experience or that which we wish to increase.

I wish for us all a joyous, opening, expanding year...one filled with acceptance and allowing of what Life brings us...not resisting but rather trusting that all is well at every turn, no matter what it appears to be from our smaller perspectives...which sometimes can only see fear. May we all remember that every challenge is actually a Grand Opportunity and Gift.

Finally, I wish you Peace in the remembering of that which you know in your heart of hearts to be true:

We are well.

All is well.

Image taken from here.

The Mirrors Of The Divine Matrix

2008-12-01T18:42:00.000-08:00

I've been savoring "The Divine Matix" by Gregg Braden, letting all the connections between current science and spirit sink in. I finally finished it. Great book.

The book began with a set up of a number of different physics experiments which, when taken all together, paint a an emerging explanation of how we create our worlds. At the end of the book he talked aboutt how we attract our mirrors and beliefs to us through The Divine Matrix which connects The All.

On page 162, Braden lists Key 19 of his list of The 20 Keys of Conscious Creation.

"Our true beliefs are mirrored in our most intimate relationships."

He then lists Five Ancient Mirrors of Relationship:

Reflections of the Moment...where our outer reality reflects our beliefs in the moment.

Reflections of What We Judge Most...where we get to experience that which we judge.

Reflections of What We've Lost, Given Away, or Had Taken From Us...where those we are attracted to mirror parts of ourselves we want to reclaim and tell us about ourselves

Reflections of Our Dark Night of the Soul...where we are gifted with experiencing our greatest fears so we can move beyond them

Reflections of Our Greatest Act of Compassion...where we finally embrace perfection in imperfection

Good Stuff.

Art: Mind Mirror by Catherine Akastar

Obama And The Mayan Calendar

2008-11-21T12:12:00.000-08:00

I haven't talked about the election of a few weeks ago.

I was overjoyed. When Obama got elected, for some reason I flashed on things I've read about the Mayan Calendar and how we were supposed to really start feeling the effects of the 2012 shift during 2008. I thought it so interesting that Obama will be our president during this transition.

I still have no opinions about what the shift means in terms of where we'll end up. I keep getting this hit that it doesn't mean the Earth will be annihilated or that we are doomed as a species. I believe it's a New Age.

The sense I get is that Obama is a reflection and a manifestation of hope. I don't see him as having all the answers, nor do I pretend to think that I will be happy with many or most of his choices as President.

However...

The energy his campaign inspired- hope, action, community, participation, a vision of engagement;

The use of the internet and the example of its potential power to unite us in a common goal spoke to me of a shift in powerbase. A shift in the fundamental way we operate as a country and a world;

The dreams and desires of the masses to remember and live the ideals this country was built on;

All these speak to me. They speak strongly.

Then, while walking the other day...I pondered.

If it's true that this last cycle of the Mayan calendar means that the world as we know it will change....isn't it interesting that this election comes on the heels of one of the darkest political regimes this country has known?

It's like the last administration is a metaphor and the reality of where arrogance and disconncection from Spirit can take us when played out to the extreme. We, as a country, are pretty ruined on just about every level. Our people are troubled, questioning, searching. We're lost, clinging to an old idea of ourselves that needs ReVisioning in a new world.

But just like every spiritual quest, things often have to get beyond horrid before they get better. It's like Bush was our collective darkest night and Obama is the symbol of the dawn.

In Abraham terms, we went through this huge contrast to figure out what we don't want. Bush provided us with our asking. The election of Obama and all he symbolizes...not the man himself, but what was triggered is those of us who voted for him...is our opportunity to allow. Allow ourselves, our country, our world to receive and change in the ways we truly want to be as people of conscience and spirit.

We truly live in exciting times!

Art: It's Always Darkest Before The Dawn by Judy Chicago taken from here

Perspectives

2008-11-14T13:19:00.000-08:00

Isn't it amazing how nothing means anything outside the meaning we give it?

I love finding pennies when I walk.

Years ago, I walked regularly along a route that, for whatever reason, had tons of pennies. I would play manifestation games, seeing them as a gift of abundance. Sometimes, I imagined that they were signs I was on a "right path" of thinking if I was pondering. Sometimes they were a reminder that all was well. Every so often, I would come upon a pile of coins in the street, couple of dollars worth. These were big signs to me and would make my day. I'd feel all glowy inside.

One day, I as I walked up to my driveway, I noticed what looked like about a hundred pennies strewn all over. I got really excited, tears came to my eyes at this huge gift from the universe...and right at my front door!!! I imagined them as a gift from a friend who knew about my delight and how I saw them as treasures. I skittered here and there, picking them up, giggling a thank you every time I put one in my pocket. I felt so Blessed!!!

A short while ago, I was watching "Weeds" ( a show on cable TV..now in DVD...very entertaining and recommended).

One day, the main character, played by Mary Louise Parker, walked up to her car. Around it were hundreds of pennies.

The guy she was with called it "getting pennied." It was an active, violent warning to her and she was furious about this act of "vandalism."

I laughed. It NEVER occurred to me in all these years that my pennies had ever been anything but an act of love and signs of blessings. I would think of it from time to time and it always made me smile.

Could it be that someone was so angry with me that I was being intentionally singled out for an act of hate?

Were all those pennies in my driveway a random act of violence?

Or where they Pennies From Heavean...a synchronistic reminder of the Abundance Of The Universe and how connected to it I was?

I'm stickin' with the last one.

Art: For Love Or Money by Ginny Guara

Aha Moment #428.7

2008-11-12T10:32:00.000-08:00

I'm reading "The Diving Matrix" by Gregg Braden. I read "The Isaiah Effect" yearsyears ago. Man, his stuff excites me!! It's all about the interface of Spirituality and Physics.

As I was reading, I flashed on how science continues to "prove" the Ancient Teachings of every branch of mysticism.

I flashed on how mainstream religion pits itself against science, like they are at war. I then thought of who were the loudest voices of that, and I flashed on how it's the far right that does so.

And then I got that the energy of it comes from fear...just as mainstam religion rejects mysticism and all traditions/spiritual paths it labels as "other" from fear.

And since mysticism is what physics is slowly proving, no bloody wonder the right rejects science.

It isn't that science is anti-spirituality...no way...it's that science puts into question their flavor of seperatist exclusionist religion.

I understand the fear of being confronted with a paradigm shift. What will happen to their worldview if they are "wrong?"...what will the world look like if there is no god "in charge" with a preordained plan?

No wonder they're afraid and want to silence.

Art from here

Question Of The Week

2008-10-18T22:53:00.001-07:00

How do I reconcile

1) Abraham's teachings that struggle can only lead to more struggle...no joy...and if things don't flow, they aren't "meant to be"

with

2)The concept of the hero's journey of being tested and struggling through the challenges to an ultimate joy/victory...Staying The Course, believing and keeping on no matter what it looks like on the oustide....

???????

Pondering....

Image taken from here.

Security

2008-09-30T14:09:00.000-07:00

For many years people told me that while they longed to work for themselves, they couldn't because they needed the security of a job.

For many years, the people surrounding me saved, saved, saved to ensure security in their older years.

I wondered how the employed-by-others felt secure when their jobs were at the whim of another. I pondered how it is that the saver can feel secure when markets can disintegrate and values are not absolute. I wondered if perhaps it was because they had never lost it all so couldn't believe it could happen to them. I kept wondering about myself because I saw it as ephemeral, transitory, unstable, unsure...not secure in any way. Rather all this was only an illusion to feel safe.

I do understand the need to feel safe.

The more I know about the world economy I see, first hand (in my astonishment at what few know about it), that it's all a house of cards built upon a pile of ashes and dust, looping back upon itself, built only upon thought. But I think that very cool, cuz thought can change.

In these days of economic upheaval, I keep wondering if we are co-creating to learn (at a very acute and personal level) that our security does not lie where we think it does.

A few years ago, when I had lots more financial security, I went into a panic for a short period. I let go of the panic when I had a deep knowing/flash of trust and realization that all would be well and not to worry. I knew that either I would be dead, the economy as we knew it would be no more or I would be taken care of (in whatever form or job opportunity that meant).

I now have less than I've had in years. Haha...just about nothing...certainly from the perspective of my American culture. I am basically "homeless" (not really...but I live between two daughters' houses). At this point, I have no income that I can know of for another couple of weeks. I pretty much live out of two suitcases and a couple of boxes.

And yet for some reason, all I can think about is how abundantly Blessed I am.

Wonder what that's all about

Art: Abund-Dance from here

ALICE And The Rabbit Hole

2008-09-09T11:03:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow ALICE is being tested! I'm so excited...heard about it some time back when I read articles about concern that it will open worm holes. I'm thinking rabbit holes sound more warm and fuzzy, if not nearly as interesting.

What is ALICE? A Large Ion Collider Experiment.

I was led to this:

What's a Hadron? Find out here.
A little more about it in article format is here.
What Steven Hawking has to say about it.

And on another note...on my Yahoo homepage is an article on scientists creating a new form of life.

I've always been puzzled when people say that science is the antithesis of spirituality. I think it the same thing, just another Path. Both explain the universe. It's just that science is taking longer to do so :) and needs empirical evidence so the Logical Mind will accept what the Mystic Mind has always known. But don't get me wrong- I love science. I love that it is supporting, rather than negating, what Mystics have said for centuries.

Spirituality says "In the Beginning was the Word" .....and the Word was the Big Bang...I mean...isn't a Bang a sound?

Spirituality says our Spirits live on after we die.....and didn't Einstein or someone prove something about how energy is never lost, it just changes form?

Spirituality says there is the Dark and the Light. Science says matter and antimatter, or dark holes and our known universe.

I mean...am I the only person who sees this stuff?

Note to Self...get subscription to Scientific American. Seems to be lots going on....there's change in the air. Cool. Wonder what's up.

My Mom

2008-09-05T17:39:00.000-07:00

Mom has been popping in lots lately.

No...not over for a chat and tea. In my brain.

Next year it will be 20 years since she died.

She was 55.

I am 52.

At age 52, she was just coming out of a dismal period with my father who had been having multiple heart attacks over a period of ten years. He was unhappy, obese, smoked like a fiend, never exercised, drank way too much, sat his butt in front of a TV when not working at at highly stressful job.

Because he was not taking care of himself, my Mom was pissed that whole time. I can't remember a conversation where she didn't complain about him.

But at age 52, they had turned a corner. They were starting to play again...taking trips together. It almost sounded like they were falling in love again, rather than merely staying married out of a sense of duty and familiarity even though they were miserable.

In February the year she was 53, my dad had his last heart attack and died on the kitchen floor.

She died from cancer two and a half years later.

I pierced my ears. I pierced my nose. I left a marriage that had died for me.

I thought, wow...if there's anything to this genetics thingie, between the two of my parents, I have a little over 20 years to go. I vowed to fully live. I think I've accomplished that.

And now it's been 20 years.

And how does that make me feel?

Blessed.

Appreciative.

At peace.

The flowers on my morning walk make me happy.

Today while I held my grandson, bouncing him on the rebounder, the world stopped. He shimmered. I gasped in awe at the wonder of his pudgy fingers and Life.

I want to dance. And so I do.

I want to sing. Yup, that, too.

I want to look into people's eyes and feel their presence. And it's lovely.

I want to play and smile and laugh and embrace All of It.

I'm simply happy.

Art: Sacred Place by Ed P. Nice stuff.

More On Tantra And The Extreme Dark

2008-08-29T14:15:00.000-07:00

I've been pondering controversial topics lately and I've been having a difficult time figuring out how to write about them.

One pondering got triggered during a visit to an old Tantra friend a few months ago.

First- some background on Esoteric Tantra:

Dissolution of the disconnected ego to unite with The All is one of the main goals of Tantra. The Tantrikas of old participated in ceremonies that contained forbidden elements in them: eating meat, drinking alcohol, sex, etc...some of them were necrophiliacs. Many of the greatest Teachers lived in cremation grounds. They abandoned families, and all "good" society to let go of the ego's attachment to attachment.

Tantrikas past and present challenge themselves to conquer their fears. What greater fear do we have than being an outcast, one of "the damned?" We are constantly molded and shaped to conform, some societies more than others. Tantrikas engage in taboo behavior to challenge our vision of the sacred and our place in it.

I believe Tantra to be the first Spiritual Path on this Earth. I say "believe" because I don't know it as a fact (and I have not, to date, read any book that would pass academic muster to prove my belief). I believe that those first humans were closer to Spirit than we, by virtue of the lack of technology and their dependence on the Earth and their intuition. I believe these people took this first Path and traveled around the world, resulting in this basic Path's variations. It became Wicca in Europe, Bonn in China and Tibet, Native American paths have the same symbols- spirals, hand prints, eye, bird, egg, etc.

Most of the Earth based traditions do not have a concept of the universe as "good" and "evil." Many of the traditions carry that into their code- that there really is no good and bad, just intent and isness. I know of Buddhists who were the most deadly assasins because they believed that when they killed without emotion, they incurred no karmic debt.

_______________________________

I don't think I've met anyone who is as intent on her Spirit Path as my friend...not even me. Her whole life is devoted to spiritual travel to India's ashrams, meditation, self awareness...it's how she makes her living. She writes, talks, breathes Tantra constantly.

I hadn't seen her in a few years. One of the first things out of her mouth was telling me that what she thinks most about as the next step upon her path is to kill someone with her bare hands. Someone has given her permission to do it. She said she had been getting in touch with this primal thing about killing and being the agent for another's transition into spirit. She talked about what an incredibly sexy thing it was.

Do I need to say that this woman is the ultimate button pusher...unflinchingly honest about all of her deepest darkest places as well as her light? (Which, I might add, shines very brightly. All who come in contact with her are mezmerized by her giggly, sparkly, loving life force).

I admit to thinking she was kidding around at first. I admit to feeling a bit discombobulated when I figured out she was serious. All sorts of feelings came up....man that woman is a force!

I told her I would come visit her in jail.

She told me she appreciated that I still liked her even after she had told me she wanted to kill someone.

The weird thing is, after my surprise, I understood her when she got all excited and kind of pantomimed choking someone to death, talking about it being the ultimate act of love. It is...think about it...if we think that being spirit is so wonderful, what a gift it is to assist someone in that journey!

Then I flashed on the dangers of this line of thought because of its capacity for being misinterpreted and used as a tool for unconscious behavior. That in the hands of the unconscious, it could justify lots that would certainly upset me to hear about.

What an odd line. What an odd topic to consider.

But it stays with me.

Why?

Well...when I think of killing someone I go numb. I don't think I could do it, even in self defense. I don't know if I could do it even to protect my children, but if I was to do it, that's the only scenario I can envision. I have this past life memory and it freaked me completely until I integrated it.

Then a weird thing flashed in the other day. It had been nice out so we had the doors open. We weren't paying attention and a species of small flies (bigger than fruit flies, smaller than the usual kind) took over our kitchen. There were tons of the little suckers flying all over the place. I started a campaign to get rid

I was smooshing and thwacking them, spilling their little guts all over the place. It felt really good killing them. Truth is, the act of taking their little annoying lives was exhilarating when I allowed myself to feel it. I flashed on my friend and I wondered...is this the same thing?

Life is life. We humans have conveniently appointed ourselves to be the arbiters of the hierarchy of the value of life here on the planet. While I'm not ready to kill a human walking around (although I have had an abortion so have killed a human), I am more than comfortable continuing my fly genocide (flyocide?).

At the same time, intellectually I don't buy that one form of life is any more important than the other and see my hypocrisy.

Then I flashed on actors, specifically Angelina Jolie. I thought about acting and how to be a truly great actor, you embody what it is what you are doing. You live/be/do this act or archetype. And I thought...wow...she plays all these assasins. Does she (and other great actors like her) get to feel that feeling of exhilaration of killing in a "safe" way? Does this ability to acceptably embody that taboo enhance their psychic integration?

My knowing is that it's all sacred. All of it means all of it- the light, the dark...all of it. Mystic logic does not allow for arbitrary exclusions of "all" just because we humans feel discomfort and judgment around a particular topic. Doesn't it then follow that even killing is sacred and "not evil" if it's all simply a part of the Dance of Life? And that when we acknowledge those feeling impulses instead of demonizing them we become more whole? I wonder how many would be willing to allow themselves to feel this ultimate taboo as spiritual practice?

Yup...I wasn't lying when I said I've been pondering controversial topics.

Art:

Kali by Mary MacGregor-Reid

Gaia Sacrifice from here

Wheel of Life from here

Pronoiac Sucking

2008-08-13T12:17:00.000-07:00

Have to have this on the blog...another gift from Rob Brezny and his book PRONOIA IS THE ANTIDOTE FOR PARANOIA:How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.

"If you choose to become a practitioner of pronoia, your life will suck. It has to suck.

Let me explain. As you cultivate the arts of gathering and bestowing the blessings that the universe is always conspiring to send your way, your life will suck in the best senses of the word.

First, your life will suck in the same way that you use a straw to compel a thick milk shake to disobey gravity and squirt into your mouth. Metaphorical translation: You'll work hard to pull toward you the resources you need, perhaps even exerting yourself with a force that goes against the natural flow.

Your pronoiac life will suck in a second way: like a powerful vacuum cleaner that inhales dirt from the floor and makes it disappear. You will have a sixth sense about getting rid of messes that are contaminating your clarity.

Here's a third interpretation: Once you commit yourself to the art of pronoia, you will most likely develop an unusually dynamic form of receptivity. Whether you're a man or woman, you'll be like a macho male with a willful intention to be like a welcoming female. As a result, you'll be regularly sucked into succulent opportunities you would never have come upon if you had let your pop nihilistic conditioning continue to dominate you. Your openness to uplifting adventures will make it easier for serendipitous miracles to find you and draw you in.

Let's take one more poetic leap of faith as we meditate on the metaphor. As you devote yourself to the art of making yourself available, your life will suck in the way that movements of the mouth and lips and tongue during close encounters with intimate partners stimulate pleasurable feelings."

Order Pronoia... by Rob Brezny from here

Vortex image from here.

Today's Question...

2008-08-09T20:34:00.000-07:00

Shall I focus on:

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it?"

or...

Magic and Miracles happen every day.

The latter.

I do believe we are not bound by our past, that we can create anew.

I do believe that even when something has looked the same for years, it can change.

I keep thinking about Tessla, Edison, scientists all over the world who have a vision and keep at it until they get it right. I think of Nelson Mandela, who spent 27ish years in prison, then ended up president of his country. I think of Frodo and every hero.

This is my science and quest, this life of mine.

I believe.

Photo from here.

New Project?

2008-07-30T07:00:00.000-07:00

I have decided to start a new movement...may even try and get it started as a nonprofit organization (seriously).

I thought of it on my walk this morning after reading about a program begun in Gambia and Sierra Leone for teen peer education around health (and AIDS...but they don't separate the two issues over there). I found a paper on the complete organization and training online. Man, I love the internet!

They suggested that although this program was primarily targeted at the schools for now, that they were aniticipating taking out into the general public to teach all ages.

And I thought...what a great program!!! I want there to be programs like this all over the world. I envisioned the kids who had great interest in continuing to get further education or get involved in further areas of health, being recognized and receiving scholarships to become doctors and nurses (or whatever their interest), then go back to their communities.

The more I thought about it, the idea grew and I thought....heck...it's kinda like an army that brings life instead of destruction!!!

Then the name "Happy And Healthy Army" popped in...and I said to myself....Perfect!!!: They'll be the HAHA's!!!!

I've been smiling ever since.

Then...

A few minutes ago, my weekly Brezny email came with this quote from Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins (one of my favorite authors):

"The unhappy person resents it when you try to cheer him up, because that means he has to stop dwelling on himself and start paying attention to the universe. Unhappiness is the ultimate form of self-indulgence. When you're unhappy, you get to pay a lot of attention to yourself. You get to take yourself oh so very seriously."

Lovin' the synchronicity happening these days....

God's Smile uploaded by Worldpassenger from here

The Dark, The Light, Jesus, Osho And Me

2008-07-27T14:49:00.000-07:00

I'm always a tad taken aback when people are surprised/shocked or judge that spiritual people get angry, have doubts, worry, whine or aren't always little positive, peaceful, balls of unconditional love and light.

I've met lots of Teachers and a smattering of gurus, read tons about more. I have yet to fully believe that anyone is only light and peace, that they never lose themselves if only for a short while.

Now, I won't totally discount it. I definitely don't know much of anything. I do know I'm a total full on skeptic of the highest order while remaining more than willing to be wrong. Maybe the Dalai Lama is. Eckhart Tolle says he never gets angry or loses his inner sense of peace. I can't know their experience and I suppose anything is possible.

But let us not forget that even Jesus got a bit attituded from time to time. He also got really scared and whiney the night before his ordeal (and I don't blame him one bit....sheesh). We have only a smidge of recountings of his days and nights, but my guess is that he probably raised a bit of hell from time to time. He surely hung out with a rowdy group, yes?

I've always wondered what it would look like if Jesus had the same media that Osho or some of the other controversial gurus have had.

It was easy to just pick out a few strategic stories that feed the Jesus mystique and focus on those. No print, no video, no tape recorders to contradict The Truth of the 99.99% of the remaining hours and days we know nothing about. Wait almost a hundred years and you've got the story intact. Have a synod or four, a council or two at Nicaa and poof, total shoring up of The Truth.

Osho, on the other hand, has everything fully documented. No possibility of hiding from any controversy with him, no opportunity for BC/BCE unrecorded spin and soundbites to become fact.

It took Christianity centuries to stabilize and survive. It went through many permutations until it did. I wonder what the Osho movement will look like in a few hundred years. Will the controversy override the gifts? Does it matter so much the behavior of the founder of the movement if the participants get so much out of it? Will Osho end up being deified in some way? (Jesus did not start out that way, but was later voted divine at Nicea). Will Osho's strong followers keep this tradition alive and will it become codified, with a hierarchy and over 1700 different denominations as Christianity did?

And does much of what we attribute to Jesus have to do with "Truth" or more with the fact that we don't have access to the what really happened so are able to create him in the image we need?

Was he really all light and love? I don't think so.

...just as I don't think any spiritual teacher is totally light and love (possible above disclaimers aside).

I feel in my soul that the most profound teachers are the ones who embrace all of Life. They shock us into looking at our disconnected ego judging them for not being perfect. They give us opportunity to remember our own divinity when we are forced to see that we are all humans here and that they are no "better" than we.

I saw an old acquaintance awhile back. He had taken one of my workshops about 15 years ago. He said that after that workshop he had been talking to someone (couldn't remember who) who said to him that of all the people they had ever come in contact with, I was the one who was most dedicated to doing inner work.

What I flashed was "Um...well...ahem...there was a reason for that...." :)

I have done lots of inner work. Even during this last ripping apart cycle, it wasn't like it used to be before. I'm way happier and at peace on all sorts of levels than I was 20, 30 years ago....wayverymuch. It could simply be age. It could be that I would have arrived here without all the inner work. I haven't a clue and I don't care.

I was messed up, but in hindsight I don't think I was any more or less messed up than anyone else. I've discovered that maybe it isn't so much about hating those parts of ourselves that we find imperfect as finding acceptance of them and allowing them to flow through to the next piece of who we are that is just behind it. Because who we are, what we feel and how respond are fluid, open and ever changing.

Maybe like everything else, inner peace isn't about being all light and love but our response to ourselves when we aren't light and love for whatever reason. Maybe the anxiety, depression or stuckness isn't about itself or what's in front of us but rather our response to it and the story we tell that makes us miserable.

Maybe it's that the enlightened ones get angry, but they fully allow it and go postal in temples. The full on embracing of the essential feeling allows it to flow through so return to peace much more quickly than others who will analyse the politically correct way to respond when they're pissed and keep holding it in their bodies, afraid to let their authentic selves expression.

And maybe it's the ones who are OK with all of that, not judging themselves for their responses that are anything other than light and love that get to be at peace more.

Sure has been a big piece for me.

So, sometimes I'm in ecstatic union. Often these days I'm at peace and I don't know why. Sometimes I wake up in the night anxious and can't get back to sleep. Sometimes I love holding my grandson...sometimes it bores me. Usually I am fully accepting of my arteest daughter's moods...and once I got tired of it. Often you'll find me tremendously patient and compassionate. And sometimes my buttons are pushed and I get snarky.

I want and expect my Spiritual Teachers to have problems, to be assholes from time to time, to smile and laugh lots, to admit their shadows and their doubts. Many of the ones I know smoke (and I loved hearing all the judgmental gasps at workshops around that one!!). Some do drugs. Many have strong libidos and sexual kinks. Some get really pissy at times. Others refuse to talk to their disciples and students. I want all of that.

Why? Why don't I want perfection? Because it doesn't feel real to me. Why? Because I, too, used to think there was some end state of perfection that I could attain...that I wanted to attain and that I fell far short of. Because of who I was, I thought it was defined by some outside set of rules of "the way we should be." Because I wasn't all that, and I was a Type A, I used to feel competitive, "less than," imperfect, unlovable just as I was, in a fight with myself to be everything I clearly wasn't. I lived in a constant state of self judgment.

I don't always respond happily when I fuck up, but in the end I like that I'm a messed up ball of imperfection. I like that I fall off the path....and since I'm OK with all that, I tend to get back on it pretty darn quickly. I like remembering and living the knowing that the lighter the light, the darker the shadow, that it's all connected everywhere and that I'm a reflection of that, too.

And the best part of all this? Because I'm OK with all this inside me, I'm also mostlyusuallypretty OK with the imperfections inside you...and the world...and all of it....

And the best part of all that? I get to be pretty darn happy and in integrity in relation to the world.

Art

Photo of Jesus by Kevissimo from his series "TRIBUTES FOR KINGS, THE STATIONS OF THE CROSS" This guy has some amazing photographs and does shows. Yum.

Nature And Nurture

2008-07-23T08:48:00.001-07:00

I was watching a baby the other day. His thighs were the fattest I'd ever seen, truly one of the stars of what I call "Deprived Child Syndrome" or "Michelin Man Syndrome" that healthy breastfed babies get. He was happy, bubbling bubbles, totally fascinated by his toes.

And I thought how cool it is that we come into life expecting to be taken care of, expecting to be loved and for the world to revolve around us.

Every mother I've ever talked to confirms that each child is born with an established personality. I have yet to hear a parent say "oh my....this baby is exactly like my first one." Usually it's the complete opposite- we think we have it down but the new one comes to confound us, reminding us,once again, that we have absolutely nothing to hold onto in terms of ego in parenting.

And every time I remember new second time parents marveling, I wonder how it is that we can think we are simply some Skinnerean experiment. How is it that we think that we are solely a result of our conditioning and environment? No way.

With the gabillions of chemical responses, hormonal influences, thousands of neurons firing, personalities that are clear before labor, individual responses of newborns to the exact same environment...how could we possibly think that we are born blank slates with nothing inherent about who we are?

I'm not saying who or what it is that we are when born or what we bring in. I'm not vying for some specific story of the model of the universe or creation. You won't hear me saying that some god on high has given us a task here to complete, our fates set in place the moment we are conceived. I don't care how anyone else explains all this to themselves. I simply notice what mothers have known for centuries.

I'm not arguing that nurture plays no role in our development. I am suggesting that we come in with our own unique makeup to respond to what's in our environment. One person might shrivel and die in an abuse situation. The other in the same family, may end up using that experience as a tool to create amazing, positive things in their lives. How each responds has nothing to do with the outer world. It's their inner world that creates a particular outcome.

I love the mystery of this. It makes for total lack of control and, for me, wondrous opportunity for creation because of the wild cards of our own unique nature's response to our nurture.

Art from here

A Note To The Artists Whose Work I Share Here

2008-07-20T11:38:00.000-07:00

I love art!

I would love to be an actual patron of the arts, buying pieces to enjoy and support you. It's one of my intentions and I envision being in that position some day.

In the meantime, I share the art I find that I like and would buy (hope to buy in the future.)

I am someone who feels art should be shared. I know many artists and they struggle financially. I'm also a networker, and like to share stuff I'm excited about. My word of mouth adverstising has brought business to many in many fields- restaurants, products, foods, bodyworkers, artists, doctors, therapists, workshops, etc. I find it the best way for us to share what we have and be able so support ourselves doing what we love. I find it a win/win situation.

I also see the internet as an amazing vehicle to have our energy out there as little beacons of light, providing us with incredible opportunity to spread the word about what we want to offer the world and get ourselves out there. I assume that is why you are on the internet to begin with.

I am aware that there are copywright laws. It is not my intent to violate them. I do my very best to give credit to the artists out there and provide a way to spread the word about your talent so that it can come back to you and bring you increased income. I don't contact you beforehand because this is a blog, I put these posts up quickly, I find the art as quickly as I can and I don't have the time to write you and ask for your approval.

If you want me to take your art, down, I will remove it within ten minutes of opening your email. I hope you understand the intent with which I used it, which was not to rip you off, but rather to celebrate you, your vision and talent and to advertise for you, too. If you do not want these gifts, then just tell me and I will find other art and artists who do.

Many Blessings and thanks to you!!

Father Issues

2008-07-16T14:43:00.000-07:00

I'm not one to try and dig up all sorts of history to focus on in my healing. Being an actional person, I tend to think that rehashing old stories is counter-productive in the long run, serving only to keep me stuck in Victim Mode.

I do, however, think it useful in the short term to identify areas in which I may be unconsciously operating from.

Over the years I've tended to identify my main issues/woundings as stemming from my relationship with my mother. Occasionally my intuition might flit on the concept of "hm...gee...this is interesting that I don't feel anything around my father." But he remained a blank.

Years ago, in one journey/meditation I did around healing with my parents, I felt/saw/experienced us on a beach. We held hands, dancing in a circle. We started to fly. My dad kind of faded out of the picture behind my mother and I "got" (in that way that we get things while in trance: fwoomfwoomfwoom) that most of the issues were with my father and that we had all agreed on a soul level that she would put herself between the two of us. It was a true ah-ha moment.

However this vision was not enough for me to focus there or do any of the real work that I devoted to my mother (and other) issues. I find that quite cute...running from the what, Pamm?

He calls me now. I'm not sure what that looks like just yet, but I feel the call of healing my personal relationship with male energy. I have chosen, these last fourteen years, to learn what it means to be devoted to being with and serving male energy as it redefines and re-creates itself. But the years have come full circle (or what looks like full circle to me right now, anyway) and I'm learning the things I "need" that I've put on the back burner in my crusade of being "of service."

Years ago I did a stint around healing The Father when I did an adventure with Christianity and disconnected angry Radical Feminism. I'm not there any more and I don't know what any of this looks like today.

I do know it's deeper. And I do know that when I put the intention out there, things appear. It's already begun as I kindasorta began this a few weeks ago. It's scary, but completely freeing. This time of year is historically one where I experience stagnated, stifling, stuck energy. My birthday is soon and I've had intuitive flashes that it's about pre-birth body memories of waiting...sitting...or that since mother was a smoker I'm reliving feeling terrified and paralyzed with no oxygen, not being able to get the "life force" I needed. Stay small...stay quiet...maybe I'll survive. Whatever....

But this year I feel more energized than I have in years. It grows daily. I've been taking concrete steps toward doing life differently, learning trust in Life and Love...learning to listen as best I can then act according only to my heart...no shoulds...following the illogical...not doing what I think others need, not taking on projections. I'm both excited and scared shitless. Yum.

Time for a Quest.

Art: The Love Between A Father and a Daughter by Keith Burns from here

Pronoia

2008-07-03T11:35:00.000-07:00

SACRED ADVERTISEMENT from Rob Brezny:

"Evil is boring. The universe is friendly. Life is on your side. Joy is your birthright. Cynicism is idiotic. Fear is a bad habit. Despair is lazy. In fact, all of creation wants you to succeed. Act as if the universe is a prodigious miracle created for your amusement and illumination. Assume that secret helpers are working behind the scenes to assist you in turning into the gorgeous masterpiece you were born to be. Retrain your senses and intellect so you’re able to perceive the fact that life always gives you exactly what you need, exactly when you need it."

* The preceding oracle comes from his book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Powells.

Here's a review of the book.

Art: Waterfall from here

Lava from here

Icebergs from here

Trust

2008-07-01T13:35:00.000-07:00

I'm asking again (and it feels really wonderful to be here).

If it's manifested, clear, no question as to what is or is to be created...then is is Trust?

Isn't Trust when we have nothing to back up our perceptions on the outer world?

When it looks like all is lost and we are "not safe?" or "not getting?" or "not loved?"

Isn't Trust the essence of peace, right here, right now?...not needing to ponder, plan, worry, anticipate, grasp?

Isn't it the knowing that this moment is perfect, no matter what our stories define it as?

And that maybe all this is soul practice for Trusting the perfection and Love offered in Death? (as the Tibetans teach)

That Trust has nothing to do with anyone or anything outside myself?

Isn't trust the core of Unconditional Love, inner peace...all of it?

I'm asking about trust as I continue to learn it.

Lovin' the journey.

Art: Open Heart by Leonard Morales, Jr.

The World Is Happy

2008-06-30T13:56:00.000-07:00

I found this article today on Yahoo news and it made me smile. Basically, it's about a study that has found that even with "all the negativity" going on in the world, that we are, as a planet, happier people than we used to be.

I like this....and it makes me happier knowing that even scientists and now Yahoo News, are talking about it. It's like a secret is finally out of the bag or something. Hey, world...we CAN be happy, right here, right now. We ARE happy. All we have to do is remember we came here to be happy and not have the ickies take over in our minds.

I was listening to an Abraham tape the other day and they were talking about how if the world, as it really is, was on TV, there would be happy, happy, fun, sweet, happy, then a two second fuzzy noise, then it would go back to happy for hours. Those two seconds would have been the totality of the "bad" that is on the Earth, amidst the joy and abundance that is the overwhelming energy on the planet. Why do we continue to choose to see the bad?

Although I haven't reached the place yet where I am there 24/7...and especially not in times of intense stress... I do like knowing that, in the end, I have a choice whether I want to focus on what makes me sad or unhappy...or...I can go watch a You Tube video like this:

Matt gets around...and you can find his other videos on YouTube and here. He even has a blog.

Matt inspires me. I can't help but be in awe of someone who's touched so much of the Earth and the hearts of the humans living on it. Not only did I joy-cry when I first watched this video, it's happened every time I've watched it again. (I've also had word from a couple of diehard non-goobers that it makes them cry, too.) I can't explain fully why in words just yet, but he jolts my core.

I'm thinkin' he's one helluva angel.

"What If God Was One Of Us?"

2008-05-21T10:48:00.000-07:00

That song by Joan Osborne often runs through my mind when I walk through the streets of Los Angeles.

Today I saw a woman, probably in her 70's, with a wizened face pulling a small cart filled with junk. She was getting up from a bus stop bench. I happened to glance down and noticed that her pants were stained with dark splotches at the crotch, a fresh trail of liquid darkened her pants. As I passed the smell of urine permeated the air.

My heart opened. I remembered reading somewhere, sometime long ago that some Native Americans look at the disabled, the crazy, the shunned as Teachers and Holy.

I wondered if she was in pain. I thought of the vastness of human suffering. I thought of the impossiblity of any one person "fixing" it. I wished we honored our elders, the outcast, the one closer to the other worlds than we.

I'm so in awe of souls that choose to come and experience life in this way. Seeing her touched me and reminded me, one again, at the power, the majesty and the mystery of creation.

Yes, It's Really The Breath

2008-05-09T15:28:00.000-07:00

It's been a very long time since I've posted. Thanks and Many Blessings to those of you who continue to visit.

In my absence, my whole life has changed. Much of it has been a tumultuous shifting. I've moved 400 miles away from the beautiful Northern California town I called home for thirty years. I sold my home, sold lots of my stuff, packed most the remaining stuff in storage.

I left family, friends and a way of life that was laid back, comfy and connected, while being close enough to a large city to be able to enjoy that life when I wanted to. My old hometown has a strong sense of family and community.

I loaded only what could fit in my Camry and I moved right smack dab in the middle of Hollywood. I now hear helicopters flying overhead much of the time. Asphalt and cement have replaced trees and grass. I know very few people when I used to see tons of acquaintances every time I went out.

The move down here was not under the best of circumstances. I had to let go of a dream I've had, a passion I've held onto for four years, the vision I had of what the rest of my life would look like. I've let go of that dream and have relocated down here to rebuild my life, as a 51 year old woman with no job, an odd sort of work history and no dream or clear direction as of yet.

Initially, I felt lots of resistence. I cried rivers of tears in the grieving and letting go. I've been grieving loss of so much on so many levels. I left two daughters...one in emotional and relationship trouble. I left the opportunity to be a daily part of my two grandchildren's lives. I left a strong circle of women friends who are family to me.

In the middle of all of it, I re-discovered Eckhart Tolle's book A New Awakening. I've read so many books on this stuff, I have to admit to a certain degree of resistence the first readthrough. But Life was so Big, I wanted a guide, a friend to hold my hand. I found it. Thank you, Echkhart.

Nothing new, but what a gift...and so eloquently said. I've heard the same thing over and over and over, but each time I hear it anew. And, once again, I'm struck by the beauty of Life.

It's about the Breath. It's about being present to all of Life. It's about being right here, right now and melting into Existence and Consciousness. It's about resisting nothing, continuing to remember to let it all flow through us, holding onto nothing, allowing everything, breathing, breathing, breathing with all our awareness both inner and outer.

Books, Tapes, Teachers keep us on track. These Wisdom, Self Help, Awakening blogs echo the same message they teach us over and over and over. We really don't need any of the books, the blogs, the teachers. I don't, you don't, we don't. But they help us. We are little angels for each other in times of need when we forget who we are, lose ourselves in our fear. When we're in the middle of crisis, they help...all of them do.

In the end, though, it's not the words that bring peace. The words remind us, help us focus, keep us on track...but it's us that does the play of finding our peace. It's the experiencing of peace, of Life without labelling, of holding ourselves in that space of merging with The All that eventually brings us back to ourselves. We have to do this stuff. Just do it. It's pretty cool.

We may only be able to access it for a few seconds at first. But if we keep revisiting throughout the day, eventually those little seconds expand into minutes, then increasing blocks of minutes. Soon we're connectiong to our Essence in longer and longer intervals. Trust returns, we feel the embrace of love and all is well.

I'm happy. It was a good idea to move here.

Image taken from here.

Enlightenment Intensive

2008-03-25T20:29:00.000-07:00

My Dear Best Friend, Adrienne is leading a workshop May 1-4 called an "Enlightenment Intensive."

It's a system of meditation/process called Dyad Communication that cuts through to the core of Spirit. Find out more about the process here. Then, once you've visited there and found out what it's about, you can go here and get more writings by Adrienne on the topic and find out the particulars of this intensive.

I love what this process has done for and with her and her husband. I encourage you to go visit the site and check it out...and maybe you'll go...and maybe I'll see you there!!!

Art- Men in Dyad Communication position from here

Today I'm thinking of....

2008-03-06T11:00:00.000-08:00

...a dearly loved friend who is undergoing open heart surgery as I write. We trust all will be well, that this is a good thing and that he will come out the other side healthier than before he went in. We know will soon be playing in our grand style.

I know it's brought up all sorts of stuff for him. I can see it in his face, primarily his eyes. His face has changed. Although I am totally projecting here, I don't know if it's as much a fear of how surgery will turn out. I think it's more that the world is shifting for him. He's never been this sick before. He has to redefine how he sees and feels his body, can no longer claim "no major surgeries" on medical forms. His wife has had a degenerative disease and both thought she would be the one "to go" first. And although that's probably still the case, it opens eyes to the reality that nothing is permanent, nothing is assured to be as we plan in life.

I'm thinking of another friend who woke up this morning with pains and achies in her heart. She "doesn't do" anxiety attacks, heart attacks or heart burn so has never experienced this feeling before. I can tell she's discombobulated, as she called to get support at about 5am...not her usual MO.

And I'm thinking of another friend who used to be a runner, then he tweaked his knee. And now his hip is toast. He's going through a painful divorce "that's slowly killing him." Although I know he's on his way back, this whole two/three year period of his life has been intense, pretty much ripping him to his core. I know he'll re-emerge an even more amazing person than when he entered this soul cycle. But in the meantime, I know he's not himself because he says he doesn't even know who the new "him" is.

I'm thinking of three in my community, all in their late 40's early 50's...who died this past year.

And I'm thinking of the Tantra and yoga teacher, in the prime of his 40's health, a loving soul, who died a few years ago after slipping in the shower, passing out from the impact, lying in the shower for three days (under cold water because the hot water had run out within an hour), then dying of pneumonia.

I don't write about this to be morose or be down. I don't feel down at all. In fact, the realization of all this brings home the preciousness of each and every moment...once again. I give thanks for all I have right here, right now in this moment. I want to remember this when I forget that nothing can get in the way of inner peace when I shift my perspective just an oontz. I am Blessed to be right here, right now....as are each of those who I'm thinking of today.

My prayers are with you.

Art is The Dance Of Shiva And Kali and can be purchased here.

Today

2008-03-03T09:45:00.000-08:00

While the rest of the country seems as if it's in the middle of a block of ice, here in the Northern California Valley, Spring has arrived full on.

On my walk today, I noticed the almond trees blooming. Prettypretty pink and white flowers are everywhere. Bees (thankfully) will still be humming later today. The morning air is crisp-perfect for a walk/jog, while listening to Abraham on tape. Daffodils are smiling, grass shoots are tender green. Everything feels new.

When I got home, I made myself some Yogi Detox tea and put it in one of my favorite tea cups.

Then I cooked up some steel cut oats sauteed with kale and onions, topped it off with two eggs over medium, then put all in my pretty bowl. Pretty bowls make me happy... as does my beautiful cutlery which has a spiral on the end of it.

Life is perfect.

Orchard image from here

Tea image from here. My favorite line of teas, readily available in most health stores. These days I'm hooked on a number of them. For a desert drink, try the "Thai Sweet Delight" (it's coconutty) with foamed soy milk, a dash of vanilla and some Blue Agave Sweetener. Yum.
My bowl from here at Dinnerware Depot.

Today's Note From The Universe

2008-02-29T10:34:00.000-08:00

"Do you know what today is, Pamm?

Besides Friday. It's February 29, 2008. Ah-ha!

Do you know what today means, in spiritual, numerical terms? Me neither.

But I know this, your thoughts become things every single day, no matter what the occasion, no matter where the energy vortices lie, no matter when the equinox starts, no matter what the economy is doing, no matter who is in office, no matter what you want, no matter when you want it, no matter what, no matter what, no matter what. Any other thinking just gives your power away.

Love you by leaps and bounds, The Universe"

You can get these notes to start your day feeling happy here.

The Cheezy Chronicles: Family

2008-01-30T09:24:00.000-08:00

I haven't been writing here much because family and processing family are taking lots of time and psychic energy. In a good way. My daughter, Starla, is due on Feb. 3 to have her second child at home (mine). She and her son have been living with me since last week. It's been many a year since the pitter patter of little feet has graced my home for this long a period of time.

February is a month that brings up lots of family feelings for me. My mother's birthday was Feb. 1st. My father died on February 12, 1987. My mom died two years later. With my daughter being here, and the new baby here soon, my thoughts turn to family more and more as the days roll by. My parents are with me.

Both of them were in their mid 50's when they died. My mother was only 55. I am 51. It's weird to be approaching the ages they were when they passed. I'm thinking and feeling these days about the families we create.

I feel so blessed with my children, as I've said before. I feel blessed that they have chosen to have me in their lives in such an ongoing and active way. I wonder, in these pondering times, why it was that I felt such a need to get so far away and as quickly as I could from my family of origin. At age 18 I moved three hours away to go to school. At age, 20 I ran across the country to escape....what? I don't really know now, but it sure seemed important at the time.

But in leaving, I isolated myself from that support system that "family" is. My mother and I talked on the phone once a week or so. If I was lucky, I saw her once a year. But my father? We probably talked once every other month with visits being every three years or so (if that). I haven't talked to my brother in over 10 years (he's angry with me) ...and that was only at our grandmother's funeral. Although we are close, I hardly ever speak to my sister. My family of origin was not tight knit.

So I know both ends of the tribal thing. I give thanks for all that families are. We are messed up all in our own unique and lovely ways. We get hurt, angry, frustrated with each other to the point that sometimes we don't want to have anything to do with one another for awhile. We take our stuff out on each other more than anywhere else. And we have laughter, that place of safety and solace, where people know all of us in ways that are difficult to replicate outside that bond. I LOOVEEEE the drama, the rebuilding the opportunity to learn from each other (when we least expect it....often when we least want it.). Love is a powerful bond. Although not every case, blood creates a something "more" that runs deep.

I used to envy other cultures with their strong bonds of family. When I would hear people complain about having to attend family gatherings or whine about their parents, I would look at them and think they were so lucky to have something to whine about. I love that movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," for all its dysfunctional glory. These are gifts and part of what I call "the suchness of life" that's so sweet. We are Blessed!

Art:

Family Reunion In A Vase, by Kazuya Akimoto from here.

"Show Me"

2008-01-15T10:22:00.000-08:00

A couple of days ago, I turned on the TV which was set to VH1 (I have a 20 year old living here so it's on lots when the TV is first turned on). The music video to this song was playing.

I couldn't embed the actual music video as it was barred on YouTube. You can see that here, if you like.

My 20 year old thinks it's a love song to another human. If you decide to go there, what you'll see is that the song is intended as a prayer. It's dedicated to two children who died trying to stow away on a plane to escape life in the streets in Guinea. I'm continually struck by how we use the same words and pleas in our Prayers that we use for Romantic Love.

The lyrics:

"Show Me"

I realized as I lay down to sleep

We haven't spoke in weeks

So many things that I'd like to know

Come have a talk with me

I need a sign, something I can see

Why all the mystery?

I try not to fall for make believe

But what is reality?

Where do we go?

What do we know?

Life has to have a meaning

Show me the light

Show me the way

Show that you're listening

Show me that you love me

Show me that you walk with me

Hopefully, just above me

Heaven's watching over me

Guess it's funny how I say thanks to you

For all you've given me

Sometimes the price of what you gave to me

I can't stop questioning

O God of love, peace, and mercy

Why so much suffering?

I pray for the world, it gets worse to me

Wonder if you're listening

When people go

Why do they go?

Why don't you choose me?

But someday I know

I'm gonna go

I hope you're waiting for me

Show me that you love me

Show me that you walk with me

Hopefully, just above me

Heaven's watching over me

Maybe we'll talk

Some other night

Right now

I'll take it easy

Won't spent my time

Waiting to die

Enjoy the life I'm living

Show me that you love me

Show me that you walk with me

Hopefully, just above me

Heaven's watching over me

To find out more about John Legend's "Show Me" Campaign, please visit here.

The Cheezy Chronicles- Our Brains

2008-01-07T12:44:00.000-08:00

I live in Northern California, which just experienced a storm that left about 80% of my town without electricity for at least 24 hours. For about 40% of the town it was 72 hours before they were back in business.

As I sat at one of only two public places in town that had power and Wifi, watching people come in with their cell phones and chargers, I was reminded how much we depend on electricity for our lives.

Some argue way too much dependence. Perhaps...but I'm not going to argue that here. Rather, I'm just interested here in giving thanks for electricity, and the Human Brain that thought to harvest this energy then create things to use it.

I have a couple of friends who are scientists and have known a number of engineers. They blow me away.

How do their brains work that way? How is it that they take information about how molecules work, then sift and sort, put it together in new ways and create a cell phone? My heavens...a phone that requires only waves to work...and that can be used all over the world. We have planes that fly us across oceans, to Europe in less than a day. Computers...I am totally blow away by email. I write something out, I click...the words/sentences go, in pieces and parts, along cables which end up in another person's computer..sometimes on the other side of the world. Their computer puts all that information back together from it's send mode of pieces and parts, so they receive the note exactly as I sent it. Often in seconds. I truly see this as a miracle, yet so common we don't even think about it.

Or TV....how is it that an image in Chicago can be taped on a camera, go across wires in the form of a bunch of dots, then end up in the same confiruration on a small screen on my TV in California..and it happens almost instantaneously.

We can look inside bodies, giving doctors an opportunity to see our organs in 3D. We have microscopes that can see cells, for heavens' sake! I just read an article yesterday that they've now discovered that small neurons can and do heal themselves when injured, making recovery after paralysis something that seems much more doable now.

How do we do all that stuff? The human mind fascinates me, astounds me, puts me in awe.

We are Blessed!

image from here

The Cheezy Chronicles: My Loves

2007-12-26T13:03:00.000-08:00

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

2007-12-12T15:49:00.000-08:00

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*

2007-11-29T09:59:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-26T11:30:00.000-08:00

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!!

2007-11-22T08:14:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-06T09:37:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-05T06:31:00.000-08:00

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

2007-10-31T13:42:00.001-07:00

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....

2007-10-22T13:24:00.000-07:00

...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

2007-10-12T21:18:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-08T15:33:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-05T11:32:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-03T20:02:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-02T16:55:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-01T21:08:00.001-07:00

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

2007-09-28T19:31:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-26T13:17:00.001-07:00

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

2007-09-25T11:56:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-24T16:12:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-21T14:38:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-19T10:26:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-18T08:45:00.000-07:00

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.

____________________________________-

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.

___________________________________

* 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.

Day 5- Pain

2007-09-16T18:18:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's meditation began the pain. Today it was in full glory.

My guts hurt.

Today, while breathing, there was intense pain in my abdomen. I've been doing an intestinal cleanse for some time now, preparing for a liver cleanse.

It hasn't been comfortable.

Today, my guts cried out. My hands were drawn to my belly and I began to rub. At first, my hands were drawn on each side of my torso, doing an upward motion from my pubic bone to my ribs. When I noticed that the pain was intense on my right side, I laid down and massaged that area deeply. I wished I could contort to get my elbow in there.

I kept yearning for my Rolfer, wondering if this pain was my intestines or my psoas muscle.

Tears, releases....pain melting into freedom.

Power, safety, intuition. Trust flows.

This area wants my attention.

Image:

Third Chakra from here

Day 3-Monkey Mind

2007-09-14T20:36:00.001-07:00

Oh my...today's meditation was so scattered. I could NOT focus. Monkey Mind was victorious in all its glory.

Body was twitchy, mind followed suit. Both were all over the place. I think it was a diversionary tactic as even with the mind spludge, legs cramping/spasming, my body went into the deep intense breathing quickly and easily when the music amped up. Partly, perhaps, because I did the first part twice before the build up (as I mentioned in the last post, I like to do more breathing before the pick up and then do the strong music a bit longer....opens me more...so that was my temporary "fix" for that today).

So since I was there in Monkey Mind I just went with pondering Monkey Mind. I'm not sure why we have it. I do know it's here. I know that most meditators fight it. Heck..I do, too. But, in this flow thing I'm doing, I'm wondering why it would be excluded from flow?

It was pretty clear something was starting to come to the surface. I'm wondering if Monkey Mind was there as a protection of some sort?

What came out of the meditation today was that I got really cranky...more indication of movement (or hormones...who knows?..but I prefer to think of it as stuff moving so there it is). It feels like stuff is flushing up. I was going to get my tennis racket and hit my bed with it to get the crankies out of my body (racket was bought solely for that purpose years ago) but life got busy today with out of town visitors and it never happened. I'm wondering if it will flush up again tomorrow.

I'm watching myself internally around situations that have been going on for these last two years. They persist but I have changed.

I've gone the rounds in my internal experience of them. At first, it was a true roller coaster ride. Talk about bi-polar time! Geeeeeeez.

That was so traumatic that I decided I had to detach. And...being an intense Italian Leo, I did things big the other way, too.

So when the roller coaster issues would come up, I could feel my body push them away...almost frantically. Don't get too happy, don't believe them, protect, protect, protect. I could feel myself talk myself out of feeling good about them in case things didn't work out. What was really going on was that I was energetically bracing myself for them to fail.

I would run internally. It was almost like those cartoon characters that will stand there with their hands behind their backs, eyes to the sky and whistle. Like..maybe if I ignore it, the fear will go away. Last year this time when things would happen, not only would I leave internally, but I would often physically leave and go for a walk. In my retreat, I would really really try really hard to force peace and happiness.

And just how silly does that sound? Tricksy mind, smile. We do the best we can.

Today I noticed that I feel nothing around the same issues. Truly nothing. No hope, no excitement, no fear. I watch. I feel no need to run, hide, whistle or walk. It's kind of like: well...OK..if this works out that would be grand, but if not, that will be grand, too. And isn't it a beautiful night here?...and look at the pretty trees dancing.

I wondered if the crankies earlier today were connected to this slow evolution of finding a different internal space around the stuff. I felt like a victim, I felt shame, fear, confusion, despair...all sorts of stuff. I had a few temper tantrums last year when things got like "The Twilight Zone," but don't think I allowed anger to get it out of my body.

Who knows???

...again...for me, the beauty of this work is that I don't know, don't have to know. I just shift.

But it is fun to wonder. Brains are a trip.

Note..although I committed to doing the breathing every day, I'm probably not going to post every day...but probably at least every other day if not more.

Image:

Monkeys from here

Day 2: Quantum Light Breath

2007-09-13T13:18:00.000-07:00

As this is a Thursday's Tantra, I thought I would talk more about a Solo practice of a Dynamic Breathing Meditation called Quantum Light Breath, along with talking about the journey.

I love a new version of the meditation by Richard Bach and the QLB Orchestra. Rather than taking pieces of music from different artists and putting them together in a compilation (as all the other previous QLB CD's have been), the music here is all live. And it's beautiful. Richard's voice is always soothing and healing- has always made me purr. Along with the asthetics of his voice, his words in the CD really trigger body awarenesses and awakenings for me.

One of the things that he keeps talking about is making love to yourself, the universe, feeling the energy all the way down to the first chakra, opening the heart to unconditionally loving the self. He also brought focus for me to that area between the heart and throat chakra that some consider a "newly activated" chakra- The Thymus Chakra, vibrating at the color turquoise. This is where my focus is today.

I first started doing Jeru Kabbal's Quantum Light Breath tape in...wow...1993....maybe earlier. It's a profound tape that was (and probably still is) used by lots of workshop leaders because it just didn't get any better in terms of effectiveness for being a tool to help people open up. The music (much of it from the soundtrack to the movie "The Mission") had people releasing all over the place. I highly recommend it as a tool for healing. I'm glad to have both in my healing audio tool box.

It was wonderful waking up earlier than I usually do these days. When I was at my happiest, feeling the freest, I was waking up at 4:30 or 5. These days, it's more like 6:30. Today I was spontaneouly wide awake at 5:15 or so. I think my desire to get back in Spiritual Shape was enough to get me up and moving. I began the meditation soon after rising, then did yoga.

It was wonderful. During the meditation, I got more deeply into the breathing today, amping it up to even more of a circular open mouth panting. I noticed after awhile that although body unthinkingly and spontaneously does a pelvic tilt whenever I breathe to release, my PC doesn't unconciously engage. I tried to remember to do so, but lost it when I got fully into the breath.

I cried more yesterday. It felt wonderful to have that release both days. One of the things I've always loved about this type of work (and why I got so hooked on it) is that it releases all sorts of stuff that I don't even have to focus on. I don't have to "know" what healing takes place, I just know that the breath brings in more life, which automatically heals. Today, I felt emotions come up, started to tear some, but then they just fluttered through. releasing to the universe.

One thing that came this time is the realization of how much energy I expend in keeping my body tight, holding in energy- my shoulders, chest, belly. Free feels better.

This time, about half way through the breathing, my whole body started to experience pain. It started in my belly, then moved through. My chest felt compressed and started to do that rattle thing I remember from doing this form of breathwork meditation long ago. I get a certain taste in my mouth that is unique to this breathing. My saliva changes consistency. After awhile, the breath started to breathe me, instead of me breathing the breath.

Which brings me to my only desire for difference in this new CD...the intense portion of the breathing is too short for me. For this reason, I will probably switch back and forth between the two versions, or also use the tape I made for myself years ago. I was really moving the energy with the intense rapid breathing when they started to slow down. My body wasn't ready to. It kept wanting to flail and move and breathe deeply/quickly/intensely. I kept it going for awhile, but the energy totally changed so my rhythm felt off. Since I'm so auditorially and physically based, I prefer the music to relflect, add to, and enhance my experience or I get discombobulated.

When I was done, there was that wonderful oneness that permeates everything. Shimmers. Yum.

My breath now, later in the day, is deeper, fuller. I'm happier and not much is affecting me. However, I'm also noticing that if I do go over into a tweak, my reaction is a little more intense. I cried at the beauty of life lots yesterday. Although feeling really peaceful and happy today, I had a fairly trivial thing happen and it really irritated me.

But, I see these as indications that things are moving, getting stirred, closer to the surface.

A grand beginning.

Don't forget to visit my Tantra Sister, Greenwoman who talks more about her solo practice here. Great stuff!!!

Images:
CD cover from here...it's where you can buy it. I bought mine from Amazon..but when I went there today, it was gone. Might want to check back as it was cheaper there.
Chakra Man from here

A 30 Day Journey

2007-09-12T13:25:00.001-07:00

As I've said a few times in this blog, I've been kinda sorta in a bit of a limboland now for a couple of years. The cauldron's definitely been bubbling. Last Fall, I reached an all time low. Try as I might to be positive, to flow, to do/be all of that stuff, I was not a happy camper. I kept seeing it as a cycle of life, knowing it wouldn't last, but not finding respite. It kinda culminated with a huge family thing right before Christmas that jolted me big time with a situation that could have been lethal for one of my daughters. Muy scary for this Mom.

After looking at all the "what if's" and things that "could have been," ....and.... given other situations in my life that had been building and intense, I realized about April that I had to let go of lots.

Life started to turn.

About July, I feel I reached a new level of surrender and letting go. Then the beginning of August, another piece fell into place and there was an even greater release. At the same time, things in life started to "get better," incrementally.

Then last week, I went to one of my favorite blogs, be Conscious now by Kara-Leah Masina. She had a post about surrender. This led me to Zen Chill's article on letting go and surrender.

I began an internal program of surrendering even more. I refocused and made it strong intention to be even more conscious of every time I began to feel stress. If I felt a glitch in the matrix of any sort, I would try, as soon as possible, to remember trust and letting go. To feel safe. To not push down, not run. I sat even more in the middle of what used to make me twitch and which I would try to avoid to "be happy." I sat with pain if pain came up, sat with fear until it moved through, returning to remembering my Spirit. I felt myself going to a deeper level than I had been.

The idea of doing some Cathartic breathwork has been coming in over the last few weeks. Awhile ago, I had a client do a session. As she left, she asked me how often I do them. I had to answer that truthfully, it's been awhile. Until about six years ago, I had been doing them regularly but that lately my breathing practice is to just do things throughout the day in little mini meditations. Continued, gentle focus on the breath leads to the same result, but just more slowly.

That conversation stayed with me.

Life's been good but I think it's time to amp it up.

My favorite CD for breathwork was Jeru Kabbal's Quantum Light Breath. I found a new one done by a person I've mentioned on here, Richard Bach. This morning I decided to try it out for the first time. I love it.

During the meditation, it came to me to do this process every day for 30 days. As so much of life is out of my conscious control right now and I can't get a strong direction as to where to go, it came to me that what needs to happen right now is to refocus on intense Spirit Growth in a way that I haven't in a long time.

So, for the next 30 days (except when traveling):

I commit to doing this meditation at least once every day. Then throughout the day, in between sessions to continue to do mini meditations of surrender.

I commit to restarting my daily yoga practice.

I commit to getting back on the path if I fall off.

I commit to learn new levels of surrender. I am willing to let go of any relationship that does not serve, every living situation that does not serve, every idea about how my life should look, everything I know. I also let go of having any need for having anything "come out" of this adventure.

And, for the next 30 days, I will use this blog to record the journey.

Cool.

Art:

Surrender from here

Paradox

2007-09-10T12:16:00.000-07:00

In trying to explain my worldview on here, I've focused, so far on the stuff that impacts lives in a very personal way- how we walk in the world, how we operate, live, create, find happiness. It's how I experience Spirit in every day life. This is the part of the discussion that's important to me. It's practical.

I can't know how we got here. I can't know if God is a bearded guy sitting on a throne surrounded by angels and harps. Or if she is the void. I don't know about the spark that started it all...or if there was a start....or if there wasn't, how to understand all that. The macro part of theology is out of my control or my ability to comprehend and, truth be told, it doesn't impact me so I figure why waste time on it? I'm a practical, actional, body centered, Earth based sort of gal, making her way through this plane today here and now. I've had body experiences that have led me to understandings and more questions that I continue to explore. I feel as if I'm a pretty well grounded, practical mystic.

There is, however, a bigger world and I would like to talk about it a bit here. But, again..being that Earthbound gal, I'm really only interested in how it impacts life here and today. Plus, I don't know how to talk about it in any other way. It involves what I've come to call "Embracing The Paradox Of Existence."

I am the creator of my world and a co-creator of the universe...and...I am nothing...a blip in the scheme of things

There is no time as powerful as now as it is the point of all creation...and...now is gone the minute it is born and means nothing

Humans beings are the leading edge of creation.....and....humans are a nothing in the scope of creation and life. We have been here for a nanosecond in creation's time and will be gone soon

I can never know what God is...and....when I experience that union, I have experienced God and know exactly what God is.

I am eternal.....and......I will die

Life is precious.....and......life is ubiquitous, common

I create and am fully responsible for everything in my life...and....I have absolutely no conscious control over my life

I think that when we forget about one half of the paradox, we lose balance. When we get emotionlly invested in one or the other we get lost. Focusing on being insignificant only, can lead to depression. Focusing on our divinity can bring arrogance.

But when I embrace both as equally true statements, the macro and micro are united in my "real" truth- that both are eqully true for me today and every day.

And yet...mean nothing.

This makes me happy.

Art:

Paradox of Life by Arthur Douet

This article was featured in be Conscious now's Carnival of Truth #8

Personal Development Blog List

2007-09-10T10:03:00.000-07:00

Quelle Horreur!

Awhile back, my good friend Karen Lynch nominated me for being on a list of Outstanding Personal Growth Bloggers begun by Priscilla Palmer. I then went brain dead and forgot to post the list. I would like to add Darlene at Spirited Boutique, a new friend of mine whose site I like.

Better a bit late than never!! So...without further ado I now present the up to date list of Personal Growth Blogs!!

Personal Development List (up to date):
Aaron Potts at Today is That Day
Adam Alexander at Adam’s Peace
Adam Kayce at Monk at Work
Adam Khoo at Adam Khoo’s Philosophies and Investing Insights
AgentSully at Life Learning Today
Amber at Amber Waves
April Groves at Making Life Work For You
Argancel at C’eclair (for those who speak french)
Ash aka Mr. Biggs at One Powerful Word
Al at 7pproductions.com
Alan Torres at Made to Be Great
Alex Shalman at AlexShalman.com
Alexander Kjerulf at The Chief Happiness Officer
Alexys Fairfield at Unraveling The Spiritual Mystique
Albert Foong at urbanmonk.net
Alvaro at Sharp Brains Blog
Amber at Random Mangus
Amie Ragan at Psychology of Clutter
Amit Sodha at The Power of Choice
Amy Hedin at There is no Maximum to Human Potential
Andrea Learned at Learned on Women
Andrea J. Lee at Money, Meaning, and Beyond
Andy Wibbels at AndyWibbels.com
Anita Pathik Law at Power of Our Way
Anmol Mehta at AnmolMetha.com
Anna Farmery at The Engaging Brand
Antonio Thornton at AntonioThornton.com
Ariane Benefit at Neat & Simple Living
Ask Lucid at Ask Lucid Spiritual Development
Barb Melloh at The Law of Attraction Info
Barbara Curtis at Mommy Life
Barbara Sliter at Creatorship
Belle Wong at Abundance Journal
Ben Yoskovitz at Instigator Blog
Bill Perry at Lucid Blog
Billy Smith at The Organic Leadership Blog
Blogfuse at LifeDev
Brad Isaac at Achieve It
Brian Clark at Copyblogger
Brian Kim at briankim.net
Brian Lee at geniustypes.com
Brightfeathers at this time-this space
Brooke at Plain Advice
Bob at everyeveryminute
Bolly at Motivational Corner
Byron Katie at Byron Katie.com
Cam Beck at ChaosScenario
Cara Lumen at The Success Magnets With Cara Luman and Your Second Wind Blog
Carlon Haas at Possess Less Exist More
Catherine Carter at Continuum Wellness
Cheif Family Officer at Cheif Family Officer
Chris Brogan at Chris Brogan.com
Chris Cree at SuccessCREEations
Chris Marshall at Martial Development
Chris Melton at Soupornuts.com
Chris Owen at Pink Apple
Christine Kane at ChristineKane.com
Christine Valters Painter at Abbey of the Arts
Clyde at Feeling Good
Colin Beavan at No Impact Man
Colleen Wainwright of Communicatrix
Conceive, Believe, Achieve at Conceive, Believe, Achieve
Cooper at Wonderland or Not
Crabby McSlacker at Cranky Fitness
Craig Harper at Motivational Speaker
Curt Rosengren at Occupational Adventure
Cyres at Cyres Matters
Damian Carr at Soul Terminal
Daniel Sitter at Idea Sellers
Danny Kohn at Be Inspired Everyday
Darlene at Spirited Boutique
Darren Rowse at Problogger.net
Dave Pollard at How to Save the World
Dave Schawbel at The Personal Branding Blog
Dave Schoof at Engaging the Disquiet
Davers at Language Trainers Blog
David Allen at The David Allen Company
David Bohl at Reflections on Balance
David Finch at David Finch.com
David Richeson at 360 Degree Success
David Rogers at How to Have Great Self Confidence
David Seah at David Seah.com
David Zinger at Slacker Manager
Dawud Miracle at dmiracle.com
Dean Lacono at Law of Attraction for Beginners
Deb2012 at Fibromaylgia and Wellness
Debbie Call at Spirit In Gear
Debbie LaChusa at 10 Step Marketing Collection
Deborah aka Zephry1 at Climate of Our Future
Debra Moorhead at Debra Moorhead.com
Denise Mosawi at Destineering.com
Devlyn Steele at Tools To Life Guide
Dick Richards at Come Gather Round
Dominic Tay at Personal Development for Winners
Don Simkovich at Hey Don
Donald Latumahina at Life Optimizer
Donna Karlin at Perspectives
Donna Steinhorn at Rethinking
Douglas Eby at Talent Development Resources
Dr. Charles Parker at The Core Psych Blog
Dr. Hal at Northstar Mental fitness blog
Drew Rozell at Drew Rozell.com
Dwayne Melancon at Genuine Curiosity
E Murphy at The Active Life
Edward Mills at Evolving Times
Ellen Weber at Brain Based Business
Emily G. W. Lilly at The Science of Waldorf Education
Emmanuel Lopez at The Adventures of Motivatorman
Ellesse at Goal Setting College
Elly Jolly at Jolly Life Coaching
Enoch Tan at Mind Reality
Eric Napier at Quotation Collection
Erin Pavlina at Erin Pavlina.com
Evelyn Rodriguez at Crossroads Dispatches
Farouk Radwan at 2KnowMySelf
Frank Kanu at Frank Uncovers Excellence in Leadership
Frank Roche at KnowHR Blog
Galba Bright at Tune Up Your EQ
Garr Reynolds at Presentation Zen
Gary at Personal Strategic Plan
Gilad Buchman at Sigsug
Gleb Reys at Personal Development Ideas
Grayson at Modern Worker Blog
Greg Butler at holistic-personal-development.com
Greg Frost at ChargedAudio.com
Geoff R at Gearfire.net
George Vasu at 360
Golbguru at Money, Matter, and More Musings
Gretchen Rubin at Happiness Project
Gustav at Success-is-in-you.com
Guy Kawasaki at How to Change the World
Gyanish at Diethack
Halina Goldstein at The Inner Travel Journal
Hilda Carroll at Living Out Loud
Heather Goldsmith at A Creative Journal
Helgi Pall Einarsson at Everyday Wonderland
Henrik Edberg at The Positivity Blog
Honman at Open Your Mind to Prosperity
Ilyria at Finding Norway
Inkedmn at The Cranking Widgets Blog
Isabella Mori at MoriTherapy
Itzy Sabo at Email Overloaded
Jack Vinson at Knowledge Jolt with Jack
Jackie at The Painted Veil
Jackie at The Vegan Diet
Jacklyn Ker at Inspiring and Empowing Lives
Jarle Husefest at The Personal Development Blog
Jason and Michael at Black Belt Productivity
Jason Ivers at A Miracle a Day
Jason Womack at Fit and Effective
Jay White at dumb little man tips for life
Jean Browman at Transforming Stress Into Power and Cheerful Monk
Jeane Michelle Culp at Binding Ink
Jeanne May at Aspirations Plus
Jeannette Maw at Good Vibe Coaching
Jeanie Marshall at Empowerment and Meditation Blog and DailyAffirm: Positive Affirmations Day by Day
Jeff Davidson at Breathing Space Blog
Jeff Lilly at Druid Journal
Jeffrey Phillips at Think Faster
Jennifer at Goodness Graciousness
Jennifer Mannion at Heal Pain Naturally
Jenny and Erin at Jenny and Erin
Jeremiah Owyang at Web Strategy by Jeremiah
Jerry Hart at Blue Print to emarketing
Jerry Lopper at Personal Growth
Jessa at clairvoyantGuidance.net
Jessica Hagy at Indexed
Jim stroup at Managing Leadership
Jim Walton at Black In Business
JoLynn Braley at The Fit Shack
Joan Schramm at Accelerating Momentum
Joanna Young at Coaching Wizardry
Joanne at I’m Happy Fish
JodeeB at You Already Know This Stuff
Joe Vitale at Dr. Joe Vitale at Zero
John Pratt at John Pratt International
John Place at John Place Online
John W. McKenna at The Leadership Epidemic
John Wesley at Pick The Brain
Jon at Join The Secret
Jonathan at Smart Wealthy Rich and Freelance Folder
Jordan at The Abe Blog
Jory Des Jardin at Pause: Meaningful Work
Josh Bickford at Reach For Magnificence and Reach for Magnificence
Josh Kaufman at The Personal MBA
Judy Martin at The Work/Life Monitor
Julia Rogers Hamrick at Julia’s Blog: Journal of the Journey Home to Eden
Julie Bonner at Declutter It
Kailani at An Island Review
Kammie Kobyleski at Passion Meets Purpose
Karen at Journey with Water Learner
Karen Lynch at Live The Power
Karen Wallace at The Clearing Space
Karl Moore at Karl Blog.com
Karl Staib at Karl Staib.com
Kathy Mallary at Coaching Biz Tips
Keith Ferrazzi at Never Eat Alone
Kelly at Kellymentology
Kenton Whitman at kentonwhitman.com
Kevin Kinchen at Creative Power of Thought
Killeris at Attitude, The Ultimate Power
Kim and Jason at Escape Adulthood
Kim George at Doing What You Can Do
Kimber Chin at Client K
Kirk Nugent at Kirk Nugent.com
Kirsten Harrell at Ipopin
Krishna De at Biz Growth News and Todays Women in Business
K.L. Masina at Be Conscious Now
LJW at Heavenly Inclinations
Lauchlan Mackinnon at Think Differently
Lawrence Cheok at A Long, Long Road
Laura Young at The Dragon Slayer’s Guide to Life
Leah Maclean at Working Solo
Leigh at The Lab
Lee Nutter at bmindful
Leo Babauta at Zen Habits
Life Reflection at Universe in a Single Atom
Lilifixt at Feel Happy
Linda Salazar at Awaken The Genie Within
Lisa Braithwaite at Speak Schmeak
Lisa Gates at Design Your Writing Life
Lisa McGlaun at LifePrints - Good News for a More Compassionate World
Lisa Q at 40s Singleness-Dating in Your 40s
Lisa Van Allen at Finish Strong
Liz at Internet Marketing Strategies
Liz Strauss at Successful Blog
Lodewijkvdb at How to be an Original
Lola Fayemi at Real World Spiritual and Personal Development
Lorraine Cohen at Powerfull Living
Luciano Passuello at Litemind.com
Lucid at Spiritual Suggestions
Lumosity at Brain Health Blog
Lyman Reed at Creating a Better Life
Lyndon Antcliff at LyndonAntcliff.com and Cornwallseo.com
Lynn McTaggert at Living The Field
MT at MindTWEAKS
Maddy at Illuminated Minds Want to Know
Malathy Badri at Laws of Universe
Malcolm Campbell at The Round Table
Manny at Success Books
Maria Gajewski at Never The Same River Twice
Maria Garcia at Get Organized Now
Maria Palma at The Good Life
Marianne Williamson at Journal
Mark at The Naked Soul
Mark Forster at Get Everything Done
Mark LaPierre at The Winding Path
Mark McManus at Build Your Life To Order
Mark W Shead at Productivity 501
Martin Avis at Kickstart Daily
Mary K at Becoming Your StellarSelf
Matthew Cornell at Matt’s Idea Blog
Meg Haworth at Life Lessons From Your Soul
Melanie Benson Strick at The Success Blog
Merlin Mann at 43 Folders
Michelle at aMusing My Genius
Michelle Moore at Happiness Blog
Michael Port at The Think Big Revolution
Michael Vanderdonk at TOACH Performance
Mike Janssen at Opgestroopte Mouwen
Mike Kemski at BANABU
Mike St. Pierre at The Daily Saint
Millionaire Mommy Next Door at Millionaire Mommy Next Door
Mimi Lennox at Mimi Writes
Mizzy Bohemia at Miz BoheMia’s Rhapsody
Mona Grayson at Question The Mind
Monte Ladner at Fitness Rocks
Mr.Wang at Mr Wang Says So
My Everyday Planner at My Everyday Planner
My Mind on Books at My Mind on Books
NCN at No Credit Needed
Nancy Mills at The Spirited Woman
Nancy Tierney at Unconditional Confidence
Neil Patel at Quick Sprout
Nic Askew at Monday 9AM Blog
Nick Smith at Life 2.0
Nneka at Balanced Life Center
Organize-It at Organize-It
Pamala Slim at Escape From Cubicle Nation
Pamm Larry at My Spiritual Dance
Patricia Singleton at Spiritual Journey of a Lightworker
Patti Digh at 37 Days
Paul at Paul’s Tips
Paul Piotrowski at Self Help Wisdom
Paula Kawal at Paula Kawal.com
Peggy Payne at Peggy Payne’s Boldness Blog
Peter at I Will Change Your Life
Peter Aldin at Great Circle
Peter Haslem at Necessary Skills
Phil Gerbyshak at Make It Great
Philippe Matthews at Shockwealth
Pia at Courting Destiny
Priscilla Palmer at Personal Development Demands Success
Quint Jensen at Win Your Mind
Raymond Salas at Zenchill Powertools
Real Modern Man at Real Modern Man
Reg Adkins at ElementalTruths
Ricardo at Wake Up Tiger
Rich Schefren at Strategic Profits
Rick Cockrum at Shards of Consciousness
Rick Cooper at The PDA Pro
Ririan at Ririanproject
Rob at 7Breaths
Rob Cooke at Leave the Office
Robert at Compassionate Council
Robert at Myselfdev
Robert Ashcroft at PDSS Online
Robin Skeen at Robin’s Reflections
Robin Yapp at Yapp 3.0
Robyn McMaster at Brain Based Biz
Roger Von Oech at Creative Think
Rolf F. Katzenberger at Evomend
Rosa Say at Managing With Aloha Coaching
Ryan Marle at The Alpha Project
S.J. Yee at Personal Development for the Book Smart
Sam at Aquire Wisdom and Live with Passion
Scott Adams at The Dilbert Blog
Scott Berkun at Berkun Blog
Scott Bernadot at Keeping The Secret
Scott Ginsberg at Hello, My Name Is Blog
Scott H Young at Scott H Young
Scott McArthur at McArthur’s Rant
Secret Simon at The Secret of Life
Self Pursuit at Self Pursuit
Senia at Senia.com Positive Psychology Coaching
Seth Godin at Seth’s Blog
at 2KnowMySelf
Shane Navratil at Zoomstart
Shauna Arthurs at Breathing Prosperity and Follow Your Path
Shaheen Lakhan at GNIF Brain Blogger
Simone at Dynamic Living
Simone and Mandy at Outfit Inspirations
Single Ma at Single Ma’s Fabulous Financials
Slade Roberson at Shift Your Spirits and Spiritual Blogging
Sleeping Dude at How to Wake Up Early
Sonora Jayne Case at Positive Realities Coaching
Sophiagurl at Life is Just Around the Corner
Spike at Organize It
Start Up Coach at Take Charge of Your Life
Stephanie and Jeffrey at Brains on Purpose
Steve Beisheim at Jumping Ship Happens
Steve King at The Green Geek
Steve Olson at Steve-Olson.com
Steve Pavlina at stevepavlina.com
Steve Roesler at All Things Workplace
Stephen at HD bizblog
Stephen Hopson at Adversity University
Steven Aitchison at Change Your Thoughts
Success Current at SuccessCurrent.com
Sue Ann Edwards at Always Embraces All Ways
Surjit at Gurushabad
Susan at Got2BeGreen
Susan Sabo at Productivity Cafe
Suzanne Bird-Harris at Learning Curve Coaching
Takuin Minamoto at Takuin.com
Ted Demopoulos at Blogging For Business
Terry Starbucker at Ramblings From a Glass Half Full
Thom Quinn at Qlog
Tiffany at Little Red Suit
Tim Ferris at 4-Hour Workweek and Lifestyle Design Blog
Tim Taylor at My Agapic Life
Tim Warren at Personal Development4U
Tom Peters at Tom Peters.com
Tom Spanton at TRCoach
Tom Van Brunscot of Transformation Economy
Tony Chimento at Living Forward
Tony D Clark at Success From The Nest
Torlink at You Create Reality
Travis A. Sinquefield at Disorganizational Behavior
Travis Wright at Cultivate Greatness
Tricia at Blogging Away Debt
Tricia at Loving Farewells
Trizoko at Trizoko.com
Trent Hamm at The Simple Dollar
Trevor Gay at Simplicity is the Key
Troy Worman at Orbit Now!
Tuck Self at Rebel Belle Blog
Tupelo Kenyon at Tupelokenyon.com
Ubertech at Geeks Guide To GTD
Vera Nadine at Vera Nadine.com
Vickie at Contemplate This
Wade Millican at The Middle Way
Wally Bock at Three Star Leadership
Wan Qi at Meditation Forum Mantras
Wild Bill at Passionate Blogger
and these collaborated sites:
Burst Blog
Change This
Change Your Thinking
Daily PlanIt
Did I Get Things Done
GTD Wannabe
Jobman2
Joyful Jubilant Learning
Life Coaches Blog Stratagies for a Greater Life
Lifehack.org
Lifehacker.com
TED Blog
Transformational Girlfriends
Unclutterer

Tantra- On Being Solo

2007-09-06T12:30:00.000-07:00

In her Thursday's Tantra Post of a couple weeks ago, Greenwoman said:

"I am learning to trust this practice more and more as the weeks of solitary practice unfold also....though I will admit to not doing the pc exercises and the rocking with it most of the time. It is so stimulating to my sex drive that I find myself feeling horribly frustrated with it. I am not getting much sex or sexual/emotional intimacy, so it makes me feel really lonely to have my libido stroked, which is what the rocking and flexing does for me. Perhaps Pamm, who started her study of Tantra as a solitary practitioner, will give that one her attention and tell me how that's worked out for her....so in case you are wondering. No. This solitary practice has not been including masturbation for me.

I fully expect to hear that this part of it will work just the same as the breathing does. *sigh...*"

As Greenwoman stated, I began my "official" Tantric training when I single. Actually, I was newly separated. I had been doing stuff I read about on my own before that, but I didn't have a partner even in my then husband, a Fundamentalist Christian who thought I was evil. That didn't preclude me having amazing Tantric experiences with him, however. It's just that I hadn't had partner consciously participating with me. So what I guess I'm trying to convey is that not only can Tantra be practiced with a partner, it can be practiced alone. And it can be practiced with someone making love with you but not simultaneously consciously engaged in the practice.

Yes, doing the pelvic tilt, kegels and breathing alone can and definitely does bring up the energy.

My solitary practice sometimes included self pleasuring. When it did, I always did it ritualistically. In other words, I would connect to my Higher Self and Shiva energy then offer myself/orgasm up in prayer/connection with the Divine. I had one practice where I would bring the energy up just to the point of orgasm, stop, do intense forceful breathing, hold the breath, engage all the bandhas, then let the air out in a hissing noise, feel the energy disperse, then bring the energy up again. I would eventually get the rhythm to the point of a few strokes, then stop and disperse just until it wasn't the edge, then a few more, then back again for upwards of a half hour or more, all the while breathing, holding, dispersing, etc. It was pretty powerful stuff.

I remember a few other times, where I was actually celibate. Once was for three months, another for about nine. In both cases, I started to get fairly strong streaming energy going within a month. ( I can feel a slight hum all the time when I tune in, but this was much stronger) While I could feel this stronger energy all the time during those periods to varying, there were times when they would explode into intense full body orgasms when I least expected it. (once in a very quiet library where I could not stop a moan....oooopss...smile).

But even when I came out of celibacy and did have Tantric partners, there might be periods of time in between when I wouldn't see them. Then Solitary practice was all I had. Good Tantric partners are few and far between so I learned to make love with myself, even when not self pleasuring.

Powerful Tantric energy and healing can occur when even one partner focuses on circulating energy. It can't help but be felt by the other partner, even if they aren't doing any conscious Tantric practice (breath, moving energy, connecting with partner, creating a circle of light, etc.) My partners have spontaneously shifted when I tune in to bringing the energy up from my first chakra to my heart and offering it back to theirs, seeing it flow to their first and back to me.

While always nice to have a partner consciously practicing, I find that if I let go of that need which blocks the free flow of healing energy, I experience profound stuff. Tantra is about flow and non-resistence. Sometimes, smile, it's about being with the flow of resistence. It's all cycles. Solo time is just one of them. All of relationship is about first tuning in with the self, then sharing that with another and the Dance of that play. This is not only in sex, but in all aspects of all relationship- how am I alone and how am I with another? It's in deciding what kind of sex to have now, to how a couple will handle their money situation, to where they will go on a vacation, to which movie to watch when she likes comedies and he wants to watch a more cerebral movie.

So where do I go when I'm in an alone cycle? There's something very powerful about raising sexual energy and just sitting with it, not needing to have it met or dissipated in any way. Just sit. If alone comes up, I feel alone and watch it as it transmutes (because it always does). If I feel horny, feel horny shudder through. If I feel elated, I feel that oozie its way through. Here this moment is. I'm feeling this sexual energy, it's my Sacred, alive, juicy body. I will make love to Me and Life. Breathe, feel the orgasmic energy flow, smile, aaaaaaahhhh.....

Don't forget to go visit my dear friend Greenwoman who talks about Solitary Practice again today.

Images:

ShaktiShiva from here

Goddessvega 7 from here

T-Island Dream from here

The Bubbling Cauldron Times

2007-09-04T12:29:00.000-07:00

I know these times are important. Words escape me, nothing calls to be written. I feel no particular direction calling me, no passionate creativity pulling me forward. I try, look, search, desire direction.

But I have learned from past experience that these things cannot shift from trying. They must be felt and allowed.

So, for today, I remain a vessel... gently holding a new concoction, not done yet. I will bubble, simmer, create something vastly different than the sum of its pieces and part.

I smile and breath in the peace of knowing all is well.

Image:

The Bubbling Caudron of NGC 3079 from here

Thursday's Tantra: I'm Visiting.....

2007-08-30T15:51:00.000-07:00

....over at Kara-Leah's blog "be Conscious now" today talking about Sex and Spirit. She was kind enough to ask me to be a guest blogger some time back. Come visit!! And check out all her other posts while there. She has lots of insights, great processes and ideas for connecting with Spirit, all pulled together with a huge heart that shines through.

Image from here

Also..don't forget to go visit my good friend Greenwoman for her Thursday's Tantra post on Resistance And Submission.

The Measure Of Success

2007-08-26T11:30:00.000-07:00

In days of yore, I was always focused on the end. I didn't understand it when people said that it wasn't the destination, it was the journey that was important. It was a total "huh?" disconnect for me.

In the business world, success is defined by "results." If you are a sales person, it depends on how many and how large of sales you make, how big an account you bring in. If you are a lawyer, it's how many cases you've won. For a real estate agent, it's snagging the multi-million dollar piece of property to close.

We all like to set goals and achieve them, whatever our reasons. Maybe it's for the sense of accomplishment- a creation completed. Perhaps we want to succeed to feed our egos for whatever reason. Perhaps we are committed to something we believe will benefit the world. When things go according to our design, we automatically take it as our accomplishment, feel a sense of success. It feels good.

But what if we try to do something and it doesn't turn out like we hoped it would? We give it our all, we bring expertise, do all the right things, work really hard at it and nothing comes through? Are we then incompetent failures? The traditional business model of success=performance would say so.

I disagree.

Many years ago, I was a lay midwife. At that time, it was a calling that in my state rode the edges of the law. If any one of a number of things would have happened to either a mom or baby under my care which were outside my control, I could have been arrested for practicing medicine without a license. I can tell you first hand that most of birth is out of the control of medical personel. That anyone has any control is an illusion of the highest degree. Why do you think there are so many C Sections? It's the only way to semi-control birth.

I read obstetrical texts for my training, did intensive apprentice training with other midwives, took classes and workshops from nurses and doctors. Even in my small conservative community, I had a few doctors that respected my opionion and treated me as a peer. In other words I was good at what I did and was respected by the "profession" by those who would open their minds a bit.

But if anything would have happened, even if I had done everything correctly, sometimes especially if I had done things correctly (like use a restricted drug to stop a woman from hemorrhaging), I could have been thrown in jail. And just because I chose, for very logical reasons, to not finish my RN degree and licensure process, I would have automatically been judged as misguided and irresponsibe by some, to evil and dangerous by others. This, while having nothing but loving intent and passionate commitment to something I fervently believed parents and babies had a right to: the ability to choose to birth at home.

I then had an agriculturally based business. As the years went by, we hired more and more Mexicans. They were happy. They worked. They didn't complain. They made the job fun. Given the nature of the industry, we were not able to ever offer them any sort of advancement that would make them wealthy or successful by regular business mode standards. They worked hard and in horrible conditions (it gets really hot here, lots of mosquitoes, and ag work is hard labor intensive work when you do it organically). In many respects, they worked much harder than many folk who made much more money than they ever would.

And then as I started looking around more I started to challenge this idea of success=outcome even more.

I think of all the women who have births that require intervention. Many of them are ashamed that they have to get a C Section, feel like failures because they want drugs to ease pain. I think of parents who work really hard, love their kids, do their best and their beloved child ends up a junkie. The parents blame themselves, feel like failures of the highest degree. I watch people who can't lose weight having to deal with the world looking at them as losers.

I watch my healer friends, who have such high intentions to give service to the world, struggling with their bills even when they work forty hours a week plus...if they can get that many clients. I have met very few alternative healers who make an income that would be considered "successful," because their services are not deemed important enough to compensate as well as a lawyer or doctor or consultant. Many of them invest lots of money in tuitions. They spend years educating themselves, investing in their job. The people they serve are greatly impacted, yet we don't value that as much as we do being able to close a real estate deal.

And what of a business owner who goes bankrupt? Many from the outside look in and see mismanagement. Maybe there was, maybe not. Maybe there were things way outside the person's ability to predict (heck anyone to predict) what might happen at any given time. I sometimes think that the label "mismanagement" is applied so that others looking in can feel better, safer in their world. I understand it's important to keep worldviews intact and that judgments often help us to feel safe. I've learned, though, in countless ways, that unless I am in the middle of something, I can never know what's really going on anywhere. Heck...I can't even understand lots of the energetics of what I am in the middle of. How do I think I can figure it out for any other situation?

I've known of many women who have C Sections with 7 pound babies and are told that their pelvis is too small to ever deliver vaginally. Two years later, they easily give birth vaginally to a nine pound baby. I've known of parents who have one child who is happy and well adjusted and their other child commits suicide. I've known of business owners who lose everything only to come back with the same set of skills and do really well in their next one.

There's lots more to my world than just formula A leads to happy result B. There are energetics, unconscious beliefs, soul tasks and circumstances that no one can judge from the outside which influence "outcomes." I've had situations in my life I can point to and smile because my ego gets to think it "succeeded." There have been times in the past of incredible pain where I've made decisions that I've hung my head in shame in until I realized that I did the best I could. That's the only thing I can ask of myself and it's the only thing I ask of anyone else.

I've changed my definition of success. It's not about outcome. All I have conscious control over, all I can truly succeed at in any situation, is my intention and how I choose to honorably act in that situation. "Honorably" being defined as being in integrity with myself and others around me. I can't control other people, I can't make the world be what I want it to be. I have to operate from a place of trust until proven otherwise, I have to let go of circumstances that don't turn out the way I hoped they would and try my best to keep true to my Voice. It took me well into my late 30's to get that whole "journey" thing. But I'm ever so happy I finally got it.

All Photos by Nancy Rotenberg

Tantra: Soul Gazing

2007-08-23T16:00:00.000-07:00

Short, sweet, simple post, but maybe the most profound Tantric experience: looking into the eyes of your partner for long periods of time. Whenever I do it, it feels like my partner and I melt into one another. I lose all sense of boundaries, separateness. Nothing exists but his eyes, the beating of my heart and the halo that surrounds us.

To do this is simple...just gaze into the left eye, said to be the window to the soul.

If you want to dress it up a bit, you can add a heart salutation, something I learned from Margo Anand. For this, you and your partner sit across from one another. Put your hands in the prayer pose pointing down to Earth. One person breathes, the other follows their breath (the best way to do synchronized breathing). After you've settled in and feel a connection, as you inhale you bring the hands up, still in prayer pose, to your hearts. With the next exhale you keep the hands at the heart and touch foreheads. Breath together there for awhile, closing your eyes and focusing on your internal feelings and the connection of your bodies at the forehead. When it feels like it's time, you break contact of foreheads with an inbreath, sitting back up straight. Open your eyes when you feel like it's time. Then on an outbreath, point the hands back down to Earth. You can do this more than one time, whatever feels "right" to you.

You can then sit across from each other not touching, just gazing into each other's eyes, or I like to connect at the heart. Each of you places your right hand on the other's heart. Then you take your left hand and put it on your heart, over your partners right hand. Breathe together, again, with one person setting the rhythm, the other following. On the outbreath, feel the energy go from your heart, down your right hand, into your partner's heart. Then imagine it mixing with the other's love energy in their heart and coming down their right arm into your heart with the inbreath. Change focus back and forth, until you feel the circle. Yum........

Feel where the two of you go.....

And, don't forget to visit my Tantra Sister, Greenwoman who's topic for this Thursday's Tantra about solo practice and submission. Juicy stuff.

Art:

Eye from here
Chakra Couple from here

Outstanding Women Bloggers!!!

2007-08-19T15:24:00.000-07:00

My dear Birthday Blog friend, Karen from Live the Power, has nominated me for being on the list of "Outstanding Women Bloggers." I get to feel special even MORE this week!! Pretty cool.

Valeria Maltoni of Conversation Agent is the brilliant mind behind this list. I get to pass on the celebration and the awards.

So...I choose, Jennifer of Goodness Gracious and The Art of Intimacy, Kara Leah of be Conscious now, Isabella Mori of Change Therapy, and Greenwoman of Defining Spiritual Presence.

All of you belong on a list of Outstanding Women Bloggers! Please pass along the honor to as many other Outstanding Women Bloggers as you wish.

Here is the list so far……
45 Things by Anita Bruzzese
A Look at Art & Design: Lisa Mikulski
angiemckaig.com: still a great pair of legs Angie McKaig
AnjaMerret.com by Anja Merret
Ask Dr. Kirk The Artsy Asylum by Susan Reynolds
Back in Skinny Jeans by Stephanie Quilao
Balanced Life Center-Spirituality applied to Life by Nneka
be Conscious now by Kara-Leah Masina
BlogWrite for CEOs Debbie Weil
Biz Growth News by Krishna De
Brain Based Biz by Dr. Robyn McMaster
Brain Based Business by Dr. Ellen Weber
Brand Sizzle Anne Simons
Branding & Marketing Chris Brown
Brazen Careerist by Penelope Trunk
Build a Solo Practice, LLC by Susan Cartier Liebel
Change Therapy by Isabella Mori
Christine Kane by Christine Kane
CK’s Blog CK (Christina Kerley)
Colloquium by JHSEsq
Communication Overtones Kami Huyse
Confident Writing by Joanna Young
Conscious Business by Anne Libby
Conversation Agent Valeria Maltoni
Corporate PR Elizabeth Albrycht
Customers Are Always by Maria Palma
Customers Rock! Becky Carroll
CustServ by Meikah David
Creative Curio by Lauren Marie
Debbie Millman by Debbie Millman
Deborah Schultz by Deborah Schultz
Defining Spiritual Presence by Greenwoman
Designers Who Blog by Cat Morley
Design Your Life Ellen and Julia Lupton, identical twins
Design Your Writing Life by Lisa Gates
Diary of Claudine Hellmuth Claudine Hellmuth
Diva Marketing Blog Toby Bloomberg
Do It Myself Blog by Glenda Watson Hyatt
Dooce by Heather B. Armstrong
EdithYeung.com by Edith Yeung
Email Marketing Best Practices Tamara Gielen
Emily Chang - Strategic Designer Emily Chang
Enter the Laughter by Marti Lawrence
Escape Blog by Melissa Petri
Escape from Cubicle Nation by Pamela Slim
eSoup by Sharon Sarmiento
Essential Keystrokes by Char
Every Dot Connects by Connie Reece
Fish Creek House by GP
Flooring The Consumer CB Whittemore
Forrester’s Marketing Blog Shar, Charlene, Chloe, Christine Elana, Laura and Lisa
Forward Steps by Thea Westra
Franke James by Franke James
Get Fresh Minds by Katie Konrath
Great Presentations Mean Business by Laura Athavale Fitton
Hey Marci by Marci Alboher
Get Shouty by Katie Chatfield
Goodness Gracious by Jennifer
Holly’s Corner Blog by Holly Schwendiman
ifelse by Phu Ly
Illustration Friday Penelope Dullaghan
Inspired Business Growth by Wendy Piersall
J.T. O’Donnell Career Insights by J.T. O’Donnell
Joyful, Jubilant Learning by Rosa Say
Kinetic Ideas Wendy Maynard
Learned on Women by Andrea Learned
Lindsay Pollak by Lindsay Polla
Live the Power by Karen Lynch
Liz Strauss at Successful Blog by Liz Strauss
Lorelle on WordPress by Lorelle VanFossen
Making Life Work for You by April Groves
Manage to Change by Ann Michael
Management Craft by Lisa Haneberg
Mandarin Design Daily:The MEG Blog Michelle Goodrich
Marketing Roadmaps Susan Getgood
Moda di Magno by Lori Magno
Modite by Rebecca Thorman
molly.com Molly E. Holzschlag
My Secret Spiritual Dance by Pamm
Narrat Assets Karen Hegman
Netdiver Carole Guevin
On My Desk Linzie Hunter
Pass the Torch by Kelly Curtis
Peace Love Harmony by Kirsten Harrell
Presto Vivace Blog Alice Marshall
Priscilla Palmer: Personal Development Demands Success by Priscilla Palmer
Productivity Goal by Carolyn Manning
Purse Lip Square Jaw Anne Galloway
Small Biz Survival by Becky McCray
Small Failures: Sustainability for the Rest of Us Jess Sand
swissmiss Tina Roth Eisenberg
The Brand Dame by Lyn Chamberlin
this is rachelandrew.co.uk Rachel Andrew
Sheriar Designs Mani Sheriar
Spare Change Nedra Kline Weinreich
Talk It Up Heidi Miller
Tech Kitten by Trisha Miller
The copy Writing Maven Roberta Rosenberg
The Blog Angel by Claire Raikes
The Engaging Brand by Anna Farmery
The Floozy Blog by Kate Coote
The Kiss Business Too by Karin H.
The Origin of Brands Laura Ries
The Parody by Sasha Manuel
The Podcast Sisters by Krishna De, Anna Farmery and Heather Gorringe
Veerle’s blog 2.0 VeerleVersa Creations by Vivienne
Water Cooler Wisdom by Alexandra Levit
Wealth Strategy Secrets by Nicola Cairncross
What’s Next Blog B L Ochman
That’s What She Said by Julie Elgar
Ypulse by Anastasia Goodstein

Thursday's Tantra: An Erotic Healing Story

2007-08-16T16:27:00.000-07:00

The music in the background is a gentle, sensual, slow beat like the beating of a heart. She sits in Lotus, nude at her altar, lights two candles flanking the statue she has of Shiva embracing Shakti in Yab Yum.

Her eyes now closed, she breathes deeply into her belly. With each breath, she feels herself go deeper and deeper into herself. She sees energy entering her first chakra, filling her, then moving out of her body with the exhale. With each breath she moves her focus up her body, allowing in clarity, cleansing each center, then allowing all that she no longer needs to leave with the outbreath.

When she feels open, clear, she brings the earth's energy up into her, feeling it enter her body, swirling, filling her as she sends roots out her first chakra into the earth all the way to its core. She is grounded in the mother. Now with her outbreath, she feels roots coming out the top of her head, searching, traveling to the outer spaces, rooting her firmly in the father. Breathing in, she pulls gold down from the sky, green up from the earth and unites them in her heart.

The door knocks. She puts on a sarong and goes to open it. Here is the man who is visiting her today, who has come for an experience he has never had before. She invites him in and brings him to a pre-filled bath. It has flower petals floating on it. Spicy lavender, cinnamon and cloves smells softly fill the air. Candles are all around. He disrobes, steps in, sinks down into the water.

She sits next to him outside the tub. He looks into her eyes, and she invites him to breathe with her. She asks him to concentrate on each area she touches, to imagine the air there, feeling it vibrate. As she touches each chakra, he brings focus there and within a few minutes he starts to relax, to let go of his outside world.

She tenderly washes his body, charging the water to cleanse his body, mind, soul and heart of the week's stresses and hurts. They breathe together and feels himself let go at even deeper levels. Nowhere but right here, right now exists.

The bath done, she dries him off, taking her time, paying attention to every part of his body. Every breath's awareness comes to her touch. She takes his hand, and leads him to the massage.

Off goes her sarong as he lies down on the floor. She sits between his legs which he has splayed over hers.

He is open, vulnerable. Again, they pause, as they look into each others' eyes. She sychronizes her breath to his, then subtly slows them both down. She leans over his sex and places a hand on his heart. They breathe together. Then she invites him to close his eyes as they begin a dance on the floor.

At first it's the dance of stillness. She holds her hand on his heart. Then she places the other on Vajra.* She stops, concentrating on connecting the energy. She invites Vajra's yang energy up her arm, through her heart, then out the other arm and hand, sending their combined energy into his heart. Seeing/sensing the circle of energy she continues with breathing and uniting their bodies and souls. The massage begins.

It's like none he's ever felt before, no massage he has even heard of. No particular rhythms, no particular strokes. Her hands move all over him, his whole body covered in oil. Sometimes she touches lightly, like a feather. Sometimes her hands don't even touch at all, tracing butterfly lines that are more sensed than felt. At other times her touch goes deep...he can feel it in his bones. She does long strokes, taps him, scratches, thumps his skin, deeply kneads. She cradles him at one point and holds him on her lap while rocking him, softly humming a lullaby. Every part of his body is included, no one part getting more attention than another. One minute she is drawing circles around his nipples, the next she is digging her elbow into his thigh, then sliding her whole body down the length of his back. He's flipped one way then the other, turned, folded, stretched.

He feels Her. Not only her hands, but all of her concentrated in them. Soon he notices a sensation in his chest. Its a constriction. He has no idea what internal place it comes from. As she is still very much in trance, she intuitively puts her hand there, moving it in imperceptively small circles. The other hand touches his perineum. She gently rocks his whole body rhythmically, connecting Heart and Sex. It's quiet, so quiet, so peaceful, he's so open. And the tears start to fall because he's never felt like this before, never knew it possible for a body to feel so cared for and embraced, so whole, so alive from head to toe.

She moves back between his legs, now focusing on Vajra. Her whole body, her whole being is focused here. She has felt her heart in her hands this hour, pouring out her connected Love to him, expressing it in every move she makes; honoring, seeing/feeling this man as the embodiment of God here on Earth.

And now she feels herself dive even deeper into herself. She brings the energy up, sends a prayer to Shiva to direct her hands and heart now in her honoring if Him in this aspect of Life Force. Placing her hands with reverence, she begins to stroke Vajra and Jewels with love and adoration. Her hands dance with different rhythms. As he starts to feel an orgasmic release coming, he, as instructed, tells her his level of arousal before he has reached the tipping point of no return. She stops, wrapping her fingers around the top of the scrotom at the base of Vajra and gently pulling down with one hand, while taking the other and squeezing right under the head to stop any chance of ejaculation.

Each time they reach this crescendo, she reminds him to breathe the energy up and throughout his body. Each time his body fills with increasing energy so that soon his whole body is pulsing. Each time the sensation peaks get closer together and stronger but they are able to work in unison.

They hold ejaculation off for quite awhile until this last time he explodes, fire shooting out the top of his head, hands and feet. Energy keeps rolling in waves over his body in the longest orgasm he has ever had.

When he is spent and lying there in bliss, she lays Vajra pointing towards his heart, lying on his lower belly. She takes her left hand and covers it gently, letting the warmth of her hands comfort and connect. Again, she puts her hand on his heart, connecting the two with her breath.

After a few minutes of this time out of time, she invites him to lie on his side and she spoons him from behind, putting her hand over his body on his heart, filling him with all the Love she has to give, giving Thanks to Shiva for giving them these bodies to share Divinity.

After awhile, when he feels grounded, he gets up and goes to dress. While passing a mirror, he notices that the lines in his face have softened. He looks decades younger, at peace, his eyes shining so brightly they almost glow.

As she shuts the door, the woman goes back to the altar and sits again, in Lotus, giving thanks for being a vehicle of transformation for this man. She reconnects to her sisters of the past who welcomed warriors back, giving thanks for their legacy and the line she continues for the men who do their own form of battle today. She feels full and at peace. Everything in the room shimmers with energy which she feels whirling both out and inside her. She knows she's not ready to rejoin the modern world so takes the rest of the day to ground herself. Slowly reconnecting to this time and space, she is gentle with herself and her psyche. She breathes.

______________________________

*Tantra poetic word for penis

This story was previously published on my other blog.

Please be sure to visit my dear friend and Sister Tantrika Greenwoman for her post on Thursday's Tantra:Solitary Practice. All her posts are wonderful, but this in is particularly exciting for me as she is sharing some of her deep healing process. Yum.

And...if you would like to be included in a link for writing on Tantra or other forms of Sacred Sex on Thursdays, we would love to include you. Also..any questions for either of us are always welcome, too.

Blessings!!

Art:

Hieros Gamos by Jay Gutveg
Two red couple images from here
Tantra Dance 2 from here

I Feel Special

2007-08-14T18:32:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty blown away and just want to say a heartfelt Thank YOU!! to two people who have been kind enough to review my blog and say wonderful things about it. Makes my heart happy.

The first honoring is from Darcy at Spiritual Blog Reviews. Her site is very informative because she's done the homework of checking out the blogs here in SpiritualBlogLand and gives a short synopsis, thereby saving us the work of having to sift and sort through archives. Go check her out!!!

And a very special Thanks to Kara-Leah Masina of be Consious now, who gave this blog a really nice review. I was quite delighted and taken offguard...was not expecting it or the kind words. (I was, of course, being a bit self-critical as my webmaster has disappeared and I'm not sure of the direction I want to take...so lots isn't fininshed here to make it "professional.") She was very kind, wink, wink....

Kara-Leah is an articulate, dedicated woman and a great writer. I am so impressed with her commitment to her and others' Paths. Her heart feels huge to me and she has lots of really wonderful and helpful sparkly reminders of how to reconnect with Spirit. I applaud her journey...she's going for it with a refreshing mix of the personal and the Spiritual Practice, bravely sharing things that are not easy to share in the outer world. I am especially excited about her beginning forays into stretching herself to talk about Sex and Spirit here in SpiritualBlogLand. It's scary, but I feel, vital to include this most Holy aspect of ourselves in the discussion. You are a hero to me.

Powerful Living 3- Loving Myself

2007-08-13T13:20:00.001-07:00

This is the third piece of how I live powerfully. The first two parts are about how I see The Victim, the second is my relationship with Death. These posts were inspired by Karen Lynch's Blog Birthday Bash.

________________________________

I love us folk "on the path." I love hearing our stories how we came to where we are (one of the reasons I love blogs...free, ongoing, mini-biographies). I love how dedicated we become to our path of self discovery. We spend hours reading, studying, doing all sorts of practices, going to workshops, taking online courses, doing classes of all sorts and kinds on body, mind and Spirit.

We are, as a group, committed. We do really difficult work, mucking our way through our issues (...and man this stuff takes time and energy...yes?). Once you're on The Path, there's "no going back...." right?????

Our goals are "honorable." We want to become better to be happier, more productive people. We want to be better partners, parents and friends to those we love, better citizens to co-create a better, balanced planet. Many of us want to become enlightened. We want to be our own personal best. And when many of us find answers, we want to spread the word of the world as we see it. We want to teach others what we've learned..."the way."

If the rest of the Speerchul world is anything like I was, we are always looking for the piece that will help us heal some wounding within ourselves:

"I want to heal the old relationship issues I have so that I don't bring those to my new relationship...I want to start healthy and whole."

"When I heal the piece about my father not loving me, I will feel whole."

"If I could just find where in my life I got this procrastination/eating/poverty consciousness issue from, my life would magically be better."

"If I can just flow positive energy, then things will also flow outside me in ways that are more in line with my vision."

"If I am a vegetarian and meditate enough and do enough yoga, my body will then be pure so I can move the energy better, which will lead me to enlightenment much faster."

And on, and on, and on.

I used to be a Type A person (I really, really was....and no one who knows me now who didn't know me then, believes me but it's true). I was really Type A with my Spiritual Path. After devoting most of my waking hours to either practice or pondering my Spiritual Path and personal growth; after about $30,000 in alternative therapies, workshops, books, heavy duty bodywork, classes, study courses- I had a realization.

By the time I hit about 38 I could see that I had come far, but oh my...I still had wa-a-a-a-a-a-aay more to go. When I would finally feel like I had an issue healed, four more would pop up.

Oh.

My.

God....

...it will NEVER end.

I will ALWAYS be fucked up.

I froze.

I started to freak out.

Then I felt it.....

What a.....relief!!!!

I will always be fucked up....wow....cool....No matter what I do, I will always be wounded. No matter what I do I will always have issues to work on, to mend, to be aware of. It's a part of being human. I don't have to heal anything to find a perfect partner because five more things will show up behind it...plus...my partner will be wounded, too. And that's OK...this spice is what we came here to do and play in.

It's OK that I'm not enlightened...I don't ever HAVE to be enlightened. And I don't have to go anywhere to find enlightenment, I don't have to buy any more books, go to any more seminars, spend any more money doing any of this stuff unless it's to play and fine tune...I don't HAVE to be doing this any more.

And...get this...Pammie...even if I get it even half way together this life, I will die and just start this journey all over again. It's never ending.* Ha-ha-ho-ho-he-he-ha-ha.

What a relief to let go of the striving for perfection!!!

And another big revelation??? I thought I liked Me before, and that all this was coming from love and "good, right" intention. And it was. But now I see that I was giving myself subtle, and not so subtle, messages that there was something wro-o-o-o-ng with me. That I was flawed, not whole, not complete, separate. My Victim had tricks-i-ly convinced me that I had so much wrong with me that there was no way I could ever get out of it, or feel whole because of all the imagined stuff.

Maybe I'm just a very slow learner. Maybe it's because I'd done all that stuff that I got to this place. I really haven't a bloody clue and it doesn't matter. What matters to me is that I really like what it's done inside me.

There's a calmness that was never there before. I laugh at myself. Whereas I was "on a serious mission" before, now I am much more playful and fun. I made peace with Victim, told it it no longer had the strongest voice to keep me from feeling whole. My self talk is gentle, different, fun, compassionate. When I go through hard times, it's not beating myself up because I and/or life are somehow IMPERFECT. It's more about...hm....feeling this ripping apart...not fun...what to do? Get lost? Lose trust in my Voice? Stop trusting? I now remember my Spirit and balance returns much faster. Instead of "Oh my... gotta go to some breathwork to figure this all out, gotta do this, gotta find that something that was the cause of this to root it out and HEAL!!!" Now it's: ...here we are. Feel, feel, be, feel. Nowhere to go, nothing to do. You are OK, you are loved, all is well. If you're lost, you'll find yourself again. Breathe.

I am much more present, feel much more Life Force moving through me. Because I'm not so worried about "doing things right," I have lots more energy to really be with others. Since I let go of my inner struggle, I'm no longer inside myself and can be fully here with them. Because I laugh at myself, I laugh much more with others foibles, instead of judging. If I make a mistake, it's no big deal. If others make a mistake it's no big deal. I see many more "mistakes" and "miscommunications" where I used to be sure someone was intentionally doing something to me. I feel much more compassion for the world and all our little things that make us human. I feel others hearts even more. I don't have to look far to always find the positive in life and others now: positive is just there. Because I am coming more and more to terms with the dark places inside me, I can extend that out to others. Because I'm gentle with myself, I can be gentle with others when they need that gentleness the most. I realized that before, no matter how hard I was trying, I couldn't extend out that which I wasn't willing to give myself. It wasn't balanced.

Am I saying that the journey isn't needed? Not really. I don't know about anyone else, we all have our own journeys. It obviously was needed for me because that's what I did. Am I saying that there is nothing more to learn? No. Do I think I will never attend another workshop, read another book, listen to another Teacher? I haven't a clue what the future brings. I may want to, but that's a very different energy than thinking I need to do this to get better.

So now when people talk or write me about the confusion they feel, or if they are upset that they haven't moved further upon the Path, or are upset or questioning something in their lives about their lovability...I remind them:

You are doing just fine. In fact, look at how really well you are doing- look at this, look at that. Be gentle with yourself!!! Instead of looking at what is yet to be done, let's look at what you've accomplished, how far you've come. You are on their path...learning right now, doing fine, doing the right thing because whatever you do is the right thing...there are no mistakes in the long run because you can always change course and go another way. What you're doing now will serve you in ways you can't begin to imagine now. You're doing really really well. You are learning lots, learning about yourself. The learning may not be able to be assessed in multiple choice format, but you will begin to notice things have shifted in magical ways and you are a different person than you were before, reacting differently, seeing things differently. You will be stronger in yourself.

I invite them to imagine they are with their best friend who is in deep pain. Would you berate that friend who is in agony now? Coldly or angrily tell them to go fix themselves? No...you would hug that friend. You would be there with them. Sit with them, hold them, love them. Please....be with yourself in the same ways you would be with this friend or a child in pain. Give yourself that which you give others.

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I think that when we learn to love ourselves we shift in all sorts of ways. What we do on the outside may look the same, because much of the action is the same. But I think the outcome is much more positive when we approach our Living from a place of LovingOurselves Power. I also believe in the magic that when we are acting from a place of inner love and harmony, that our mere presence shows others that there is another way...the way of self love.

When people love themselves, they naturally extend that love outward toward the world. They don't have to be mean to others to protect "what's theirs." They trust. They don't judge others. They do no harm and live with a strong sense of internal ethics. Likewise, when they see action out of alignment with the good of The Whole, they act because they have to. When you love yourself, you can't not act. But the action comes from a very different place and intent.

Aside from a short period of my life, I have always done service work of some sort.

I am, once again, slowly beginning to work more for the a larger audience of people and the planet. But this time it's from an entirely different energetic intent. It's softer. Before, my motivation came from being driven by my Victim Voice that I needed to fix the imperfect world. I'm no longer on an angry mission to arrogantly change the world according to my image. I learned that although it may make perfectly logical sense to me, my image may not be the the highest Vision for the planet and its people. Imagine that....peoople have their own ideas about how they want to live their lives....and that might not match mine!!! It's like when someone is dying...long ago I used to think that I "should be" praying for the person to get better and live. Then I came to understand that it might not be what that particular soul wants. Who am I to say what's best here? Likewise, in the bigger picture of the cosmos, the world is just fine and is creating itself more and faster every day.

But there is pain and as this hurts the whole, it touches my heart. This time, I don't feel the need to heal the world. I want to support Earth and it's people in the ways they define they want that help. Because I'm an Italian Leo, I get on an occasional fun rant or four. But when that's done and I calm down, in the end, I am comfortable enough in myself that I don't need the world to fit my vision of what it should be. I trust that all is well and working its way through whatever the Soul Path is.

Service work still calls me. It's where I feel most alive. I am slowly beginning to put myself in the middle of places where people are remembering and re-awakening to their empowered selves and creating new lives in the ways they define and want them. Because I love myself now, and am not caught by my Victim, I no longer see Victims out there that need help or fixing. I see Strong Souls who have lived and learned lots through their ordeals and are ready for huge creation. I am excited to see what they will create and want to celebrate and support them. I feel called to do this because there is simply nothing else I can do.

Plus, it's really a lot of fun.

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* I don't suscribe to the whole wanting to get off the karmic wheel of life thing because I think from our soul perspective this Earthly life thing is a good thing. I think souls are chomping at the bit to get the opportunity to come back here and add to creation in this way. And...part of that co-creation is working with and loving our "stuff."

Art and Images:

Dalai Lama from here

Jesus from here

Kuan Yin from here

Mary from here

Tara from here

!!!Public Service Announcment!!!

2007-08-10T07:02:00.000-07:00

We've been playing the abundance game on the left sidebar for awhile now, with the winners listed there. Karen Lynch has won three times now and it's been way fun sending everyone tapes.

I have a request- if you Stumble a post of mine, please let me know you are the stumbler so I can keep track and give credit for hits where credit is due!!! Leave a comment or send an email. Thanks!!!