Easter Sermon from the Mount

Blessed transformation day!

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Commemorating the rebirth of the sun in springtime, the reincarnation of all that seemed to die overwinter yet arises once again.

A little more evolved, a little more adapted to its environment.

Who would you be if you could recreate yourself with all you know now?

If, instead of having created your neurosis, everything you have experienced becomes your unique insight?

Are there steps you are able and willing to take to help yourself move in that direction from right where you are now?

From the incubation of winter into the fertile soil of spring.

What you do now is a prayer into what is becoming.

An offering.

A seed.

Redemption day.

No matter the winter,

Begin Again.

(It’s what the stories are saying?)

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Won’t you help to sing…

“Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery

None but ourselves can free our minds

Have no fear for atomic energy

‘Cause none of them can stop the time

How long shall they kill our prophets

While we stand aside and look? Ooh!

Some say it’s just a part of it

We’ve got to fulfill the book

Won’t you help to sing

These songs of freedom?

‘Cause all I ever have

Redemption songs”

~ Bob Marley

Tempestuous Luminescence

As the sun rises on this day, may the light shine upon you too☀️

Right now things may feel a bit chaotic and crazy but … things are! It is serving me to accept this rather than deny or hold onto any previous idea of how things should be.

I am practicing to help myself be steady in this storm. Sometimes that includes being able to really feel the storm so that we can learn how to navigate even in the wild winds, cold rain and snow. And still see the beauty that surrounds us, illuminated uniquely by this tempestuous luminescence.

Perhaps this is a creative evolutionary trait that we may need to make it through this time.

As I hold this orientation maybe it helps you align to it and as you hold your center it helps me find mine too.

Thank you.

♥️

The Gift of Mothering

hey diddle diddle…

Sunday was Mother’s Day and…I did a lot of mothering. It just turned out that way. Some things went down (no trouble, just life) and presence is what was required. ⁣

⁣A lot of what I do as a mother is that I am present. I am available. I listen…as best I can. Turns out I’m so easily distractible! I use the other’s face and sound of voice as dristi/focus points and keep coming back. Compassion is a helpful motivator. ⁣

When I have thoughts or perspective I try to offer them in a respectful way that is translatable. At the right time. To help navigate. Sometimes I do this better than others. Yet more than anything I am just here. ⁣

Parenting in a pandemic is hard. There is a lot to face and continuous hard choices to make. Kids and young adults want to be with their friends and from what we have been told so far they are likely not at high risk. ⁣

Yet their lives that are just beginning are being seemingly derailed to keep safe the elders, many of whom have already lived long lives, and the immune compromised…like myself.

There are conflicting motivations for sure, and most of what we are going on is speculation at this point. It’s hard to make choices in this climate and then have to live with whatever that brings. Once again, always true. Yet accentuated. ⁣

Late high school and college age kids are deciding if they want to sign up for major debt while trying to plan their future when nothing seems clear. We just paid for likely the highest priced online schooling so far in history while having the highly anticipated freshman year experience cut off with no warning after moving cross country together to make it happen! Each of us has our own unique story…⁣

These kids have worked so hard doing what they have been told they have to do only to have the rules change at the last moment. I suppose we are all experiencing this but it is really accentuated for the upcoming generations about to step into the world as adults on their own. ⁣

Although there is this…they have experienced the old way and yet are not already as ingrained in their life path. Perhaps they can more easily adapt to life as it presents going forward. Without the same preconceptions of how things are supposed to or have to be. They can help evolve the old to meet the new. ⁣

This is what I will encourage. ⁣

In myself, my child and whoever else I encounter. Whether the new way is full of roadblocks, newfound possibilities, or both. We may not be able to recreate the future in the image of the past, we will have to adapt. Yet the more seamlessly we can do this with fresh, open eyes the more likely we are to succeed in the new environment. ⁣

Perhaps this is post covid parenting. Expectation, entitlement and arrogance will only get in the way. We have to keep adapting as quickly as the world around us. Once again, this is not new, but even more so. ⁣

It seems…people want accolades and congratulatory pampering about their parenting. It is helpful to support the caregivers, yet remember, mother’s day was at least in part developed as a consumer holiday with a political agenda. Every day can be appreciation day! Yet that’s not why I parent.⁣

While I sure could use a massage or a delicious meal I didn’t make myself sometimes, the real gift I receive is the parenting itself…learning how to adapt and meet my child and a situation right where they are. Not in the way I think I want things to be. As they are. And respond to that.

When I stop fighting or forcing I can better see what we have to work with. I see my child as a being with needs that are trying to express…and I can help or hinder that.⁣

For being a mother…is really about mothering. It is something you give. The potential-yet-not-guaranteed reward is the connection, and your child. You give without knowing what, if anything, you’re going to get. In my case, I have given a lot. And been given back so so very much. Not always what I thought or expected, and sometimes so far beyond what I could have imagined.

It’s not for everyone, parenting, and at times seems not for me! Yet once you’re in it there is no easy out. We adapt or we suffer. And we pass that on.

Once again, this is not new. But accentuated. ⁣

We are all presented with this opportunity right now – evolve together or get stuck trying to force things to be some preconceived way. In parenting and in this post covid world. Same thing, accentuated.⁣

I…am going to keep trying to meet things with fresh, open eyes, and continuously, consciously adapt to the situation as it presents itself. I don’t already know better, I am learning as I go.⁣

In life and parenting.⁣

This is my precious Mother’s Day gift.⁣

♥️

Quarantine Awakening

There is something so electric about the sunrise. The way the light slowly increases to illuminate the landscape, revealing all that was shrouded in mystery. I feel more capable, wise, like I understand things a bit more clearly.

We made it through the night again to face another day. ⁣⁣
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I slept on the couch last night so I could awake with the sunrise on this snow capped hill across from my window. I feel like I’m finally waking up, I’ve been so tired for such a long time. ⁣⁣
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That’s what I’ve been doing during this time of isolation, I’ve been resting. At first I could hardly get off the couch. I figured I was stressed, depressed, overwhelmed, afraid and triggered from ptsd for a variety of reasons in this situation.

While all that was valid, I then recognized I was exhausted from the move and the last year of getting Philip settled into college, then before that from 20 years of parenting. Then I thought, wow, I’ve been running since I graduated high school! Then I realized I have been going since way before that. As long as I can remember I’ve been running. And I was starting to falter in it too. I really needed some rest. ⁣⁣
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So I have been. Resting. When else have I ever been given the time and space to finally, fully rest? In the beginning of this I spent time purposefully allowing myself to be as slow as I wanted. I am always being rushed in life; I could finally go at my own pace. Maybe nothing has ever felt this good.

I stayed in bed as long as I wanted. I took naps anywhere and anytime. I didn’t make myself leave the house if I didn’t want to. I let go of any pressure to get anything done. I let myself be. So much underlying static rose up and was processed or released, or both.⁣⁣
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I have been spending a lot of time in a liminal meditative space between wake and sleep where I allow a free flow of thought while retaining consciousness. My tolerance to retaining presence in any state is increasing and a sense of adaptability and underlying peace is stabilizing.

Much insight into things that have plagued me is arising while I am also coming to terms with what I can’t know and don’t have the power to fully control. In doing this I start to see what choices I do have and where I can have an affect.

I am not doing all this but just being and allowing it to rise and process.⁣
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I’ve gone from perhaps the most afraid and triggered I’ve ever been (as it was the culmination of a lifetime) to feeling that the perspective of this lifetime is the most integrated it has ever been. Because I finally have the space to let myself be. ⁣
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I know this isn’t everyone’s experience. Many are working harder than ever before, many are in unsafe conditions without enough resources. Many appear to be struggling with being alone and not being able to get out or be entertained while others are suffering from being with the people with whom they are isolating. Some have been terribly sick or losing loved ones. There are usually many sides to each experience.

I may have been sick too, maybe with a physical illness, certainly soul sick and exhausted from a lifetime of trying to keep up. All I know is the mist is clearing. We are all going through something right now. ⁣
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We are all in this together, sure, but we are not all in the same situation. Each have our own life tragedies born from this and otherwise and each will learn what we learn. ⁣
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I could tell you my tragedies but you already have your own. Instead today I chose to share some of the beauty that I am experiencing. ⁣
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Waking up inside the parable of my life and learning to let myself be. Slow and steady like the sunrise, until suddenly, when everything is illuminated.⁣
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No matter your story, perhaps you will experience some of this too.⁣
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We made it through the night again to face another day.
♥️

Gayatri Mantra

Om Bhur Bhuvaḥ Swaḥ

Tat-savitur Vareñyaṃ

Bhargo Devasya Dhīmahi

Dhiyo Yo Nah Prachodayāt

ॐ भूर्भुवः स्वः

तत्सवितुर्वरेण्यं

भर्गो देवस्य धीमहि

धियो यो नः प्रचोदयात्

Gratefully dilating open to allow the all pervasive radiant light beyond individual form to shine through.

Dissipating the veils, pixelating the solidity of the forms, clearing the lenses that block us from wisdom, from experiencing the continuum of the infinite.

(current transliteration and experience of the moment)

Framing

Thoughts upon awakening:

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I do not want to allow challenges from the past to negatively define how I envision my potential moving forward. I want to utilize the perspective and wisdom I learn through all my experiences to inspire me to be adaptive and resilient, to inform me of ways I can continue to grow with discernment, empathy and grace.

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How we perceive things is greatly dependent upon the frame we see it through.

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Every experience relevant, a springboard for the alchemy of transformation.

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Planting seeds, observing how they grow, refining as I go.

Guided Meditation – Processing Experience and Sensation like Water

I thought I would share this as maybe it will help you clear your mind and body before you sleep. It is not really a video but a guided meditation, but so far with what I know a video is easier to share than audio. It is raw, not perfected or polished. I blow my nose, I have a cold, I sit up in a wonky way. It is taken from the end of a online Zoom yoga session with a private client. I have been wanting to share some guided meditations, when I teach it is pretty much all guided movement and stillness meditation. I don’t have a plan or use a script. I tried recording some with a script I wrote, and while I like what I said, it sounded like I was reading from a script. In this what I say is not exactly right, yet it sounds, at least to me, more authentic, albeit a little slow and with a stuffy nosed voice. I like it better than the script though. In 14 years of teaching it is the first time I have recorded myself and listened to the recording as a meditation for myself…I tend to be more ephemeral than documenting. I think it will help me get better at this to do this, record myself in real time rather than scripted and then experience myself as a student. It is fascinating. I am different on the outside than I am inside of me, it seems so far, and as I watch myself I have extreme compassion for this little woman that I am, in the same way I have compassion for you when I see you in real life. I will likely record a similar guided meditation and at that point perhaps delete this. Yet in the interim I am sharing what I have available and maybe it will be of interest to you.

A New Day

I have been sleeping with my head in the same direction on my bed for many years now. Last night I was sitting on my bed in the evening and felt compelled to put my head down in a totally different position, so I did. I slept like I was in another world.

I had many dreams about doing things differently than I have done before and spending time with new people I hadn’t met yet or didn’t know all that well. I was really enjoying it and learning a lot, but I was also very concerned that the new ways were going to disrupt the old ways, familiar consistent habitual ways that I thought I needed to maintain in order to be okay.

And disrupt they did. In a way that showed me the old patterns were not as stable or supportive of me as I had imagined. I was angry and hurt at first. Then I began to recognize. I was also freed.

Even my breathing pattern changed as I made this shift. I started to notice that although there were things that were passing there were also aspects that seemed to thrive in the space that was freed by putting myself in new positions, by moving in new directions. There had been no time or room to grow being stuck repeating the same old things, even if before it had felt familiar and therefore safe.

As I woke my perspective was quite different, literally and figuratively. My cat was really happy to get to lie in the spot I usually lie in that at times we fight over. As my granny used to say, “It’s a new day Neissy.”

Can’t hold on to the old day.
May as well face the dawn.

I mentioned to my son last night I was going to sleep in a new direction and he said he changes the direction he puts his head all the time and encouraged it.
Evolution.

I awaken with the resolve to keep stepping forward into the reorganization with less fear of the accompanying dissolution. To just keep going, see how it grows.

From the Inside, Looking Out: Simple Embodiment Guided Meditation

Overwhelmed? Maybe this will help. Not so much as an escape, for as tempting as that seems, hiding doesn’t make it all go away and can have a rebound effect. Yet as respite. A grounding in yourself. To calm the intensity and restore clear thinking. To help reorient in the face of the disorientation, whatever the specifics of that may be for you right now. A potential for self-support to keep going.
It is a simple guided meditation. Once you listen to it you can practice it yourself anytime. It is tactile, you can let go of the words and feel it. And bring yourself back. It can be done in any position, at anytime, even in the midst of action and intensity. No one will even know you are doing it.
You can take in this recipe and let it distill inside of you…this current speaking of it is a continuously evolving variation that has been inspired by many techniques and teachers and holds the quality of each as well as has become something personal inside of me.
It helps me come home to myself.
I share as maybe it will be useful for you too.

I tried to record a variation of this yesterday but there was a fly in the background…
So I opened the front door to try recording it outside and this photo is what I saw!
I sat down to record again today and this is the first track, unedited. I may record it over again, perhaps utilizing another method, but this works for now.

 

February 14, 2018

On this day when many people are basking in the bliss of romantic love or lamenting that they are not, I would like to offer another perspective for those of us who are not partnered. Many times I have felt very sorry for myself that I don’t seem to get to have what other people seem to have and so many songs and stories say is the ultimate experience that everyone wants, the companionship of mutual romantic love. There are myriad reasons why some of us don’t find this, or perhaps don’t have it currently, and while having it can certainly be lovely, finding romantic love does not necessarily make or break a fulfilling, vibrant life. Many people hold on to relationships that have expired or perhaps were never even all that good to begin with in order to avoid the seemingly horrific potential of life without a romantic partner. Sometimes we put ourselves into situations that are not viable and at times even dangerous because we are more afraid that we need to be held in order to be okay. And many, myself included at times, miss seeing the beauty that’s right in front of us in pining for something that we imagine would make us complete and can’t seem to find. I have been without romantic relationship for many years now, with only very few unsuccessful attempts along the way. In each case we would have likely benefited each other much more to have related as friends instead. While I still get caught up in the desire for that at times, and am not closed to the possibility that at some point I may find mutual romantic love, I have also found great peace in letting go of needing to have it, in being complete in myself.

Some of the benefits for me have been: I am very comfortable going almost anywhere alone and enjoy my own company, whether or not I engage with other people on my journeys. I have come to often prefer it, especially the ability to come and go as I please without having to compromise with someone else’s desires (other than my son, but that is another situation, and also part of why I deeply appreciate my times of pure freedom). I am pretty capable of doing most things on my own, and when I’m not, I am becoming adept at finding ways to support myself to get those things done too. I am not resentful and waiting for someone else to do their part to balance the tally, I just get it done or not. I relate well with men and women and value them as beings worthy in themselves, not so dominated by the tension of being potential sexual partners or not. I am becoming more comfortable walking away when this is not respected, and am able to take it less personally through time and practice. This helps me feel safer and more comfortable in my own skin, and in my own integrity, and sometimes wakes people up to how they are limiting the ways we may be able to relate by fixating on sexuality and romantic love. I experience the transmutation of sexual energy into vitality and creative inspiration, and sexual attraction into appreciation and connection beyond just that initial potential interest. I am often able to desire without having to obtain the object of desire and enjoy the beautiful experience of the desire in itself. Which…is freedom. My identity is not confined to being a partner and I am able to relate with whoever I want, however I want, as long as it is agreeable with the person I am relating with, and perhaps their partners  I continuously discover what I think and enjoy without the influence of others defining what is possible or valid. I have come to trust myself and am my own validation.

I’m not saying these things can’t be found in the context of a romantic relationship, monogamous or otherwise, I’m just sharing that life can be beautiful and satisfying even if you don’t find romantic love. Even if that’s not what we’re conditioned to believe, and even on a day like today. If you’re feeling alone, just know you’re not alone in being alone. And that being solo doesn’t necessarily mean being lonely. There are many ways to have companionship, including the companionship of your own heart.

On this and everyday.
Love