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the Crushing Weight of Mountains

3/2/2021

the Crushing Weight of Mountains 3/2/21

I am so grateful not to be pressed by the crushing weight of mountains today
Mountains that I cannot climb, that I cannot get out from under
I am relieved to not be crushed by the weight of “me” today.
In this moment I am free from the dismal density of self-doubting reality
Today the burden of self-hood does not press so painfully upon me
As it once did, as it so often has, as it in passing, still sometimes does…
Now I know this cruel trick of fate, - that trickster - trying to make me believe
That I am make-believe, trying to deceive me with the belief that I am not enough
That I am not worthy, that I am broken, beyond repair, a gaping wound that will never heal...
In this world of make-believe, I am what I believe.
I believe what I am taught
Until I un-school myself. & so I have, beneath the crushing weight of mountains
The smallest most meaningless molecules of me have struggled to breathe and thought
Why bother
Then, something flea size fly size butterfly size mouse size rat size... something inside outside
Wide as the swaths of stars, deep as the dark depths of earth beyond my comprehension
Beyond words…
- those complicated harbingers of belief-
Something stirred, still stirs, …stillness stirring… incomprehensibly
A glimmering, the residue of stars, sparkles of my truth, divine truth, finds itself dancing
Stillness is part of dancing, It sets the whirl to blaze
I dye in this empty stillness… I find nothing nothing nothing
Which soon, though slowly, exposes itself as everything, everything, everything...all the colors
retch and yawl, creep and crawl, stretch out from their glimmering, yearning, turning to roar fires of desire
To live. Fully.
To find truth, curiosity, wonder, adventure, expression, relation, compassion, celebration...
What is it to be alive in this body? why is it one would want to die before life is done with this body?
What part of me wants to dye?, what expired aspect is sacrificing itself for change, for growth
Of new life
I am a force of nature
You are a force of nature
We are a force of nature
Nature shows us how to do this
We have so much life to live
So much love to give
Love is breathing us
The love of the universe is dancing through us
Its creation
We are the universe celebrating its creation
Doubting its creation
Like all artists creating, doubt and questioning are parts of the process
that bring forth the form of the whole
Aren’t they?
Like the way that expressing grief breeds joy and feeling the fullness of love and joy gives way to grief...
Nothing permanent, nothing lasting…
Everything gives itself to what’s next
This is healing, this is living, all the humble and resistant receiving
All the generous overflow and also, the sometimes fearful clutching of the giving
All of it, all of it, all of it, parts of the song to which we are dancing

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Re-birthday Re-memberings

2/2/2021

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INTRODUCTION - Trigger Warning - Real-Life Violence February 2, 2021
On February 2nd, 1989 @ 2am I turned myself in to the police station. I was 85 lbs, 5’9“, and had blood poisoning from an injury in my hand which ran a flaming red line almost to my heart. I was 16.5 years old. I had been wanting to die since I was 10. i had been a runaway since i was 14.
In the middle of that freezing winter night in Haverhill, MA after visiting a last couple of desperate attempts at a place to be safe and continue dwelling in my miserable bottomless pit - I surrendered to that I just. couldn’t. anymore…
I hadn’t eaten for days, I had tried to sleep and woken up to the guy who supplied the drug house that I had been dealing from & smoking cocaine in nearly non-stop for months, trying to push himself up into me. I screamed & thrashed like a wild cat, broke from his grip, grabbed a few of my pathetic, worthless belongings and ran from him as he then tried to burn my face with a cigarette, but I wouldn’t stop screaming. He let me go. I ran away. It had been a big day already. It was the first time I had tried to sleep for what felt like ages. I was scared of sleeping. It wasn’t the first time that I had woken up this way. He wasn’t the first man who had violated me in my sleep.
I tried to sleep after I cried. I hadn’t cried for years, after deciding to only be mad rather than sad about the things that people do to children- had done to me. I cried because I heard “Let It Be”, by the Beatles and felt the presence of the divine as feminine for the first time. I felt some faint glimmer of something like hope.. or love.. something broke through the base pipe shell of my being. I was only ashes inside, or so it felt before that moment…
But no, a last ember was sparked, something still lived, something still wanted to live.. I guess it was why I was still alive after wanting and trying to kill myself for so long, in so many ways. I had been in great danger out there and so many horrid things had happened. I was trying to forget who I was. Yet, here I was -violence, traumas, losses and fears later.. awakening… Wanting to live?
None of my family or foster parents would come and get me from the police station. No one wanted me. I had burned all of my bridges. Home was a terrible place for me then anyways, it was why I was out there, and my foster homes were not any better. Stories for days, there too…
I stayed in a cold cell of the police station overnight, sans belt, shoes, and socks - huddled in a ball in the corner of the metal platform in the otherwise bare concrete room.
In the morning my social worker came and got me and brought me to a lockdown juvie rehab.
Those kids were scared as hell to see someone their age looking as deathly as I did. The counselors there used me as a scare tactic. I felt it. They were smugly displaying me and telling a bit of my story to prove their stories of the dangers of drugs. That was my introduction to the place. Then I went to bed for days as I was so deathly ill and hadn’t eaten or slept for so long. I slept deep except for needle pricks in my arms from the nurses and I dreamed intensely.
The dream that I remember the most is sleeping next to a dead girl who looked just like me. I reached out and scratched her face, she bled but didn’t stir.. This is when I knew that she was dead. We were sleeping on trash bags full of old clothes. Soda bottles, like the ones that we used to make base pipes with began to fall from the ceiling of this dark and dank cellar that we were in. They hurt, they scared me, I felt like I was being pummeled. I began to crawl over the bursting and slippery trash bags full of clothes towards a faint light that I saw at one far end of the basement. I reached a crooked and splintery stairway, with light at the top. I wasn’t sure that I could make it, but I knew that I had to try. I crawled up that crooked staircase, struggling to get out of that basement and into the light.. I awoke as I was crawling, grabbing, grasping the next step with my fingers…
They brought me to my first meeting at the kids rehab the morning after this dream. It was a public meeting where grown-ups came too, and it was 1989 so the adults were smoking indoors. That was hard. I didn’t think about much the whole meeting, didn’t hear much but the screaming inside for cigarettes. I came back to the present as people were getting up and moving their chairs. Everyone gathered into a circle, I awkwardly followed the physical cues of people inviting me to move my chair and create a circle with them. People reached out to take my hands. This was all very strange. I wondered where I was and what the hell was going on…
I let my hands be held and stepped back to make space in this wide circle of humans holding each other — grown-ups holding hands in a circle!? I had never seen or experienced such a thing.
I felt a baffling intrigue. People spoke words of thanks and love and congratulations. People here cared about each other in a way that I had never seen. Someone recited what I came to learn as the Serenity Prayer, someone else said the Lord's Prayer. I was brought up catholic so I guessed then that this made sense (now it doesn’t).
Nonetheless, my awe of perceivably grown humans holding each other in care and intention to get well held me rapt. Suddenly I saw a vision of different colored lights coming from each being, connecting each being to one another and from the circle up to the sky in a teepee/ prism shape. A great rainbow teepee prism appeared and I felt like I had been struck by lightning. I had a flash memory of how my great great native grandmother was struck by lightning. I thought I might fall down.. Something had just quick rearranged all of the furniture inside of me. I have come to feel like this was a great Shakthi-pat from the divine itself. I was slapped awake- into realizing why I was still alive.. I was alive for this - people holding and helping each other, people reclaiming life after great suffering and loss, after being hopelessly lost in the great mystery. We were a rainbow people returning and it is my job to do the work to heal and learn from my experiences, to awaken and to help and hold others in circles of healing and connection.
Ever since then, this has been my inner & outer work. I spent some years swept up in the glamour of fashion, club kid life, and Hollywood. Sometimes that seems like it was a distraction from my ‘purpose’, but overall I can see that this was always my nature - to be a storyteller, to try on many faces and names and ways of being, to wear many costumes and to investigate the fullness of being in this skin suit. I want to know all that I am and all that I can be. I want to know all that it is to be human. I want to live life to its fullest and celebrate the fullness of life. I want to help others to do the same.. Investigating these aspects of life began to give me back my voice. I had been silenced for so long - as my mother and her mother & father and their parents, as many generations of wounded and indigenous people had been…
I have lived many lifetimes in this life. I have lived with and as many different kinds of people.
I am a multi-dimensional being, I always have been mercurial. And, I see and have experienced the pain of being “other”, of trying to fit in, to be like I was “supposed to be” - as a female, as a “white” person, as a professional, as a mother, etc.. etc.. I have never fit in to the stereotype or related to any of these roles.
I think that the silencing and the “supposed to be’s” are continuing to make for very sick cultures. I am trying to duspel he supposed to be's and encourage authenticity and full expression of being. We are vibratory beeings. We cannot keep the vibrations of our experiences locked within us without becoming sick from the stagnancy. Energy must be in motion to perpetuate itself. Emotions must be expressed. I was born with a big mouth and a strong voice. I was born with a huge compassionate heart and a passionate desire to celebrate life. These things being beat down in me caused much sickness. The sicknesses, pain and suffering taught me resilience and HOW BADLY I want and need to express, serve, and help anyone else who has ever felt stuck or silenced like I was, like my lineages have been. It is time for all of the people to rise up and be seen and heard. These archaic systems of oppression are crumbling and we all have a part in the dismantling and rebuilding that is happening... that must happen now.
My indigenous lineages were taught to be ashamed of who they were and to deny it, my Irish lineages too - so much shame, alcoholism, and abuse. Silence and poverty is my inheritance. So is, from somewhere, this big voice, this courageous heart, this burning rebellious spirit of fire. I am here to renew again and again for myself and my lineages in both directions. For the whole of my human family I claim my power to sing, to speak my truth, to be a voice for the voiceless. My mother was silenced after being raped, she silenced me after being molested, I left home only to get myself raped again and again until I was nearly dead. I have been burned out on a pyre and returned a great flame of love and passion for life. I will not be silenced. I pray that I might be a vessel for the divine to help others reclaim their bodies, their minds, their voices from the panging pains of misogyny, white male dominance and colonialism over our lands, thoughts, and actions. I am supported at this time, as we all are, by great movements of so many activists and healers. I am humbled at this time by awakening to the unjust privilege that I have had in being pale-skinned. I am grateful for having the public services that helped me to get on the path to getting well. Thank you to the unappreciated social worker, the mandative reporting counselor, the dreaded rehab, all the teachers and healers who have given life to my life.
I am here and alive to give back.
I have not and will not stop learning. I am here to listen, to serve, to give my life energy to the cause of dispelling what separates us and to find what connects us, to encourage and give permission to sing, dance and PLAY with all that consciousness wants to express through us. May it be for the greatest good for all beings!
I look forward to the day when we can gather again in physical circles of healing and celebration. For now, I hold movement & breath classes online and spend time writing my stories in hopes that they will help others with the inspiration and the permission that may’ve been robbed from them at some point too.
Each breath is a blessing from divine, great mystery, source, creator. Each breath is the gift that says, YES TO YOU! Yes, to your life, yes to spirit living through you and expressing itself uniquely within this human family of spirit. I am honored to breathe with you, I am grateful to be able to share breath with you, the same great breath that we share with all the trees and all of the breathing beings from all time and space…
And, thank you for the breath that you protect in these uncertain times of pandemic. We learn from and in this spaciousness. We will come to gather again with more joy and honoring than ever about how truly blessed we are to share breath.
Aloha.

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FORCE OF NATURE - Silence

11/23/2020

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I am beginning a series, a training and a book with this theme - FORCE OF NATURE. This is the first shared writing from upcoming said things. I welcome your stories of teachings and healings from nature as well!

Here is my writing from a trip i took in September. The memory of it inspires me everytime! Enjoy!

We are backpacking, carrying all that we will need for 5 days, along the trail from Usal, named for ‘United States of America Lumber’ company, as they were trying to clear cut this area for decades to continue highway 1 along the coast, to Anderson creek, where there is a secluded little black sand beach. Thank goodness the land, again and again, held out and said, ”no”  to those who would blow up these rocky outcrops and clearcut these thickly wooded inserts of forest to lay down pavement.  The unadulterated natural beauty here, only accessible by foot, is worth the work to visit.

It is a very rugged up and down trail we are on.  At some points it disappears into trees, bushes, and poison oak.  We even encounter a landslide where rope has since been tied by caring volunteer tenders of this obscure trail, between two fallen trees still clutching the sideways earth with stubborn roots.   I work to get purchase with my sneakered feet into the loose, sandy, gravely hillside.  I am hanging onto the rope for dear life as my beloved Jess works to give tension to the other end and make it easier for me.   I am still holding on to the rope as I hear a scrambling of rocks and a shuddering of the bushes high above.  I  look back to see where I just nervously crossed.  From way up the mountain, rocks as big as my head come bounding down.  I see a cavalcade of potentially lethal strikes to my fragile human form.  I see where I could have been pummeled and thrown down the steep slope by this movement of the earth which did not seem to be propelled by my actions.  I guess that we were warned by the aesthetics of the place, but I had truly not realized until this moment how actually at risk my life is here.  I had been afraid of sliding down the hill, but honestly had not considered that the hill might yet be falling down on me!

We are far above the sea in many spots, on arid hillsides with wide views of the Pacific Ocean, wider views than my little mind knew were possible.  At other turns in the trail we descend through ferngully-like, lush landscapes and dive through underbrush down to trickling streams making their way to the ocean.  The rises and falls here are dramatic. I am grateful for my daily yoga practice that  keeps my body in tune for this kind of push - the many pushes really, that we are having to make to navigate this landscape with heavy packs on our back.   Returning upwards from one of these low lying ravines, breathing heavily, scrambling up the sketchy little trail, the path ahead looks to be evening out which is a relief to my burning thighs and the heart beat pounding in my ears.  My breath is ragged and my head full of commentary that I am too breathless to speak as we reach the high point of the trail here.  We are back out in the bright hot sun now, with one last burst up the hill before a reprieve.

  Ahead of us is the welcoming density of a shady forest.  As we approach though, it actually feels foreboding, like the forbidden woods in a fairy tale that you know you shouldn’t enter because this is where bad things happen, where the evil witch lives, or some such thing… The branches of the trees are old and scrambled all together, there is a bit of an archway over the path but it is a scraggly, ominous reaching of creepy dark fingers of ancient, failing, falling limbs that both beckon and threaten overhead.  I make jokes about the deep dark forest of the mind, horror movies and such… We are casually chatting and dancing with our imaginations now that we have more breath.  The path turns to the right, back towards the ocean, it’s scent comes in wisps upon the air, though it cannot be seen as now we are in the thick of trees.  The earth to the right of us on this part of the path begins to drop away down into a deep dark gulch.

Suddenly, we are hushed.  My love pauses me, and I am caught mid-sentence as we stand on the edge of this dark chasm of redwoods, moss, ferns, and ..absolute.. silence….

The silence has stunned us into silence.  We cannot even comment about it.  The feeling arising in me is spiritual, it is emotional, it is full body awe and wonder.  I cannot remember ..ever… feeling.. so .. much.. silence…have we shushed the birds?
Oh, far away.. one. little. sweet tweet,.. birds do live here in this deep, damp, musty and majestic redwood silence.

Silence.  Wow.

There are no power lines overhead, no airplanes, the sky is barely peeking through the dense overstory.  There are no far away leaf blowers, there is no incessant beeping, barking, no whir of generators, motors, voices…nothing.

Stillness overwhelms me.  We stand, planted in reverence to this massive, passive, powerful
force of nature.

Creepingly, I  feel sick with the sickness that we live in back home, the constant noise of construction, destruction, vehicles, beeping,  humming of power transformers, buzzing of modems, the noise of everyones phones and conversations, alarms, sirens, signals, radio waves, EMF’s, and noisy white noise machines to drown out the noise of everyones noise living so close to each other, trying to find privacy and feigned silence in the city of Oakland.  We are plagued by noise from all points around us and all points within us.  We are on constant alert.  No wonder meditation is so especially difficult for the city dweller.  We have forgotten what silence and stillness actually feel like… Have I ever actually known?
I cannot remember feeling this much profound silence and stillness in my whole life.  I have momentarily sensed it in meditation, tasted in in part, in relatively quite places, between the scramble and flow of thoughts and “shoulds”… but this… this, in an instant is the spacious blissful state sought by those who sit.

I let this expansive, beautiful dark silence drop deep into my being.  I sense the softness of my body, softening, held gently in this resplendent redwood womb.  I surrender to the open wonder of my heart. Nothing in me is gripping.  I melt into the quiet, sublime radiance of the natural world.
I am.
I just am…
This just is.
This is how I am meant to be.  In harmony with great mother, this blessing of a planet…
I feel so nourished, so complete.
I am at ease.

I will take this with me for life…

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2020 VISION - Seeing the Hidden

5/18/2020

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I went cross-eyed at age 2. I know why. There are things in this world I chose not to see and things in other worlds that were calling me. You can only get knocked in the head with anger so many times and still want to look in that persons face. There is a look in the eyes of some that accuses anyone who dares to look, of being the reason for their rage.  I barely remember these younger years but for fear and discomfort. Sorry mom, this is the way the brain works. I did not look into my fathers' eyes. I was scared to. Both of my parents were abusive, both of them had also been hurt and abused as children. Same thing, later, with my stepdad. A gaze that incited only fear.

   I did not much look into the eyes of my friends and lovers later in life as I was afraid they would see that I was cross eyed. I was also afraid that they would see that I was wounded, that I was not as confident as my guise proposed.

No one ever called me on it until my first Burning Man, 1998. Stardust was her name. I had only been in California a few years from the East coast. I had been living & working in LA, as an actress, until uncannily enough, a door hit me in the eyebrow via the force of a stalker ex-boyfriend trying to break in. When that blood ran into my eye, I knew it was time to move on.

First move, Burning Man - to the initiation of eye gazing and a whole new chapter of love in my life. I felt free and determined to find myself anew after a 3.5 year tumultuous relationship.

Stardust asked me, "how come you never look me in the eye?" I don't remember what I said, I just remember being stunned. I don't think I actually realized at that point that it was something I avoided. It was a long held, built-in survival mechanism. No one had ever called me on it. So, I had one of my very first eye gazing moments; vulnerable, nervous, awkward, open. I do remember feeling grateful to have a friend who would so boldly and kindly call me out and welcome me in. On the morning after the burn, as the sun was rising behind the new found love of my life, I lay on the open playa amidst musical friends on a blow up mattress and courageously gazed into his sky filled eyes.

I moved to SF, a hotbed of spirituality and creativity. (This was the CA I had been looking for. LA was good for work and dear friends, but here I found and immersed in my spirit family). I took Neo-Tantra workshops. We eye gazed. I blinked, cringed, laughed, cried, I flicked my eyes back and forth quickly from one to the other of my partners eyes. It was awkward. It was intriguing. There was power there. It was actually a few years before I was in a workshop where the leader was savvy enough to cut out this awkwardness and have us each stare into each other's left eye, then right eye. Phew - that was relieving!

Actually, soon before BurningMan, I did have a love in LA with whom I had a meditational Puja and we connected 3rd eye centers. That was a deep kind of intimate eye gazing, though more naturally experimental. It's fun, try it! Bringing your faces close, you can get to the place where you see them as having one big eye and it feels like your brain waves are connected. This was also a breakthrough.

I since have learned, that we do ‘sync up’, psychological states/ heart beats, breath, etc.., after 3 minutes of eye gazing.

Now, I gaze at my Self, and the many variations of self that travel with. I talk to me/them in the mirror, I let all the children inside know that we are ok now. I celebrate myself just by looking into the eyes with approval, the approval that I didn't get growing up. I've been practicing this eye gazing thing for a long time now, usually just for a few minutes at a time.

I am now able to receive fully the beauty and pain of the world and I do not hide myself. Now I gaze at everyone I meet. I gaze at the divine and the way it expresses itself through them. I see them, I honor them with my eyes, I invite them to be at ease and open, simply with my eyes (& smiles!;)

Sometimes I still catch myself in the old habit of looking away quickly. I invite myself to remember to slow down and look with the eyes of love, who knows no time. I notice when I turn away, that I am turning away from love. I work to keep noticing the habits that do not serve life. I give myself space to soften, be present, even - or especially - in awkwardness or discomfort.

The gaze can hold a strong container for someone to feel safe. The gaze can let someone know you need a container in which to feel safe. The gaze can say “stay out, I am afraid, I am defensive, I am judging…” or, “dive deep into me, I am open, I trust or want to trust”… The gaze can reveal truth without speaking. The gaze is connection. Connection is how we heal the trauma of lack of connection or the disconnection that happens when we experience trauma.

Eye contact between humans and dogs has also proven to raise levels of oxytocin (happy hormone) in both beings. This is the same bonding chemical occurring with the gaze between infants and parents. Video can inspire some of this chemical expression as well, more than voice alone, but far less than live, in person contact. Many opportunities - get it where you can!

My adult child has been practicing eye gazing with self in the mirror for 3 hour sits, for the last couple of years. I thought that there was no way I could sit so long just looking at myself, with all that I have to do, yet they insisted - it must be 3 hours!  Now that we are in quarantine, my schedule is a bit more my own. I decided to leave other work for the day and try it - naked, without makeup… Wow. Try it. Do all 3 hours. It’s real, something happens just at the end. There is a breakthrough that is profound. Observe and sit with the discomfort of the other hours. It’s worth it! Healing just happens when we are present for ourselves. I will do this many more times to see what else is there. I’d like to try with a partner for 3 hours! After doing this with myself , I WANTED to connect more fully with those around me. Oh!, and how we need that now more than ever! I see others looking away more quickly than usual too, with all the confusion and pain of social distancing.

The greatest epiphany from staring at myself for so long this time- even while seeing all of my asymmetry, aging and so forth- was that I love myself. I have unveiled my truth of steady & strong - even in the wavering & faltering. I have come to truly love myself. I can critique with out beating myself up. I can sit and look at myself for 3 hours!!! without hating, judging, feeling disgust, contempt or wanting to run away entirely. Yes, I scrutinized, yes, I got distracted, yes my monkey mind wanted to do a million other things. I stayed. I saw. I held myself. I went in with curiosity. I experienced shadows of old perspectives on self inquire about their place. There was no present place for them. Healing has happened. It is still happening. What a relief to not want to smash the person I was looking at! I have smashed many mirrors, on purpose - with self hatred, in my life. This impulse was not there at all. It was a joyful relief to feel my own steady, connected presence with myself. I worked for this. I am rewarded. This is possible for anyone. I know this. I wish this for you in connection with your self and others. I encourage you to practice with all of the eyes that you are so blessed to meet...

"...when the eye is cleansed, of whatever's been covering it,
You become a guide to love, Just like the eye itself " - Rumi

“When the heart is full, the eyes overflow.” – Sholom Aleichem

“Let my soul smile through my heart and my heart smile through my eyes, that I may scatter rich smiles in sad hearts.” – Paramahansa Yogananda

“Just because a man lacks the use of his eyes doesn’t mean he lacks vision.” – Stevie Wonder

“Open your eyes, look within. Are you satisfied with the life you’re living?” – Bob Marley

“Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war.” – Otto von Bismarck

“Where words are restrained, the eyes often talk a great deal.” – Samuel Richardson

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust

“The eyes shout what the lips fear to say.” – William Henry

“Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant? “ – Henry David Thoreau

“For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone.” – Audrey Hepburn

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WHAT IS HEALING?

2/24/2020

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WHAT IS HEALING?
A profoundly simple and ultimately provocative question posed by a student of yoga who is healing from trauma inspired this writing of my personal reflections. This informal writing is informed by decades of healing work, study, and conversations with fellow healers. I hope that it is supportive to you &/or someone you love.
HEALING IS the connection to and unfolding of our true self, our vital center - who and what we are beyond the limitations of story, personality and worldly identity. It is integrating the wisdom of all of our experiences to this center. It is the embracing, the bringing together of all aspects of our being. It is remembering our innate wholeness.
What is sickness then, what is trauma, what is injury?... it is the fragmentation of our being, the splits in personality (or skin, bones, etc.. but we are focusing on energetic/ emotional healing here), it is the stuffing away of experience because it is too painful to deal with in the moment.
Healing is the reveal and digestion of these things. This might not feel like healing at first, but more like a falling apart, a mess of emotions, thoughts, memories, fears, pains, stories, and even a crumbling of identity / “identity crisis”. We can feel like we are losing ourselves on the way to healing. Our protective and carefully constructed identities can prove to not be our self, our truth, and the falling away can feel devastating or potentially so.
Why some people choose not to heal is just that.. “What if i don't come back, what if i go crazy, what if i break irreparably, what if someone sees me all in pieces, a mess … and i am rejected” - these fears touch on our primal fear of death, abandonment, betrayal, being shamed and outcast.
Healing is
Coming home
Healing is finding yourself
Healing is connecting all parts of self to Self
Healing is embracing all of yourself and your experience as your strength, beauty and wisdom
Healing is growth
Healing is finding and re-membering our center.
Because we so often we cannot SEE healing or growth happening, does not mean it's not happening.. Healing happens sitting in meditation, introspection and contemplation.
All that happens in the seed, in the dark, is part of the growth. All that happens to crack that seed open and messily spoil its contents into the rich dark netherrealms is an integral part of the growth. The cracking, the mess, the destruction of an old shell (identity) is crucial to the growth of what is to come.
Healing is the feeling & integration of our experiences.

Notice the embodied experience - notice how feelings show up in the body in the way of tension, held breath, etc.. that may then be triggering further coloring of our ongoing experiences as we are ‘on alert’, looking out for the ‘dangers lurking in the underbrush’.

Healing is... seeking & transmuting the trapped stories, the holds, releasing these biomechanical patterns of reactivity and protection to experience our ‘now’ with open awareness unfettered by past trauma.

Giving time and space for things to arise from the subconscious in a way that can be witnessed, felt and not experienced as a reactive (triggered) state, (stemming from present moment perceived danger, based in past experience cues alerted in our subconscious) in order to be with them. When we can sit in the fire of discomfort and witness what wants to be seen, it will move and change, it will eventually dissolve or transmute into something new.

Allowing the light of awareness to seek out and rest / shine on all aspects of self. Leave nothing untended, ignored, pushed aside, denied - these things will fester, grow and change until we do not recognize them anymore & it is harder to discover their source or prohibit them from coming out sideways in unexpected situations.

Source doesn't always matter, know that. It doesn’t always matter why you are the way you are or who did what to you. Although, in some cases it can be helpful to address the source so that we can forgive. Forgiveness of self and others is healing.
Just don't get stuck.
Feel and move and allow the feelings to move.
Sometimes they will move just by being seen/ felt.
Sometimes we hold, as they say, “our issues in our tissues” & we must move the body to release the holding patterns. We must make new shapes and movements to begin to create a new ‘norm’, or a new homeostasis. If the body has been held in a protective pattern for a long time it can take a while to unwind. The physical and energetic are inextricably linked.

Do the thing that scares you.
Do the thing that hurts (emotionally), let those tears flow, let the poison out.
Do the thing that makes you shake. Shake on purpose. Shake out the stuck stuff. Shake in the anger or fear that maybe you did not let yourself feel once, so that it stops showing up exaggerated or out of place in the now.

Re-perspect fear, sadness and emotional pain.
Our nervous systems are wired to flight/ flight/ freeze when we are afraid. We have been conditioned to be afraid of sadness and emotional pain because it is not comfortable and has been demonstrated to us that it is not socially acceptable to be upset, because we might upset others &/ or be shunned for being a downer. So we resist our feelings, we hide in shame, we lash out and blame… We perpetuate these feelings this way. We must honor our pain.
What if we embraced all human emotions and held each other with honoring as we support each other moving through, (instead of stuffing down or getting caught up in) our pain with presence and acceptance that this is what humans do. We feel, we move, we change.

Re-perspect physical sensation (which might be perceived as pain)
Notice that when you are ‘triggered’ you might hold your breath, feel a gripping, pain, nausea or tension in the body. We often grip against feeling the held fears or memories in the bodymind, this can show up as pain. This may just be sensation that is calling our attention to a deeper need. It will turn into actual pain if we try to force our way through it. We need to train ourselves to listen, breathe and lean in gently in order for the gripping to unwind.

Triggers are messages from the bodymind about things that are ready to be moved, changed, healed. They are not intended to be ‘scary’, socially unacceptable things that we avoid. Triggers may be warning us of people or situations to avoid, (thank you subconscious mind - & in the NOW we must discern whether or not that warning is valid).

It is beautiful that our current social awareness is awakening to the need to give ‘trigger warnings’, knowing that it is not always the time or place to feel, heal, or bring up undigested or uncomfortable experiences. Nonetheless, these things arise in our consciousness so that we may hear, see, feel and heal them / those parts of ourselves that are ready to heal.** We can do these things so much more powerfully together when we see that others have similar experiences and that there is nothing “wrong” with us.

** “Long-term avoidance of triggers increases the likelihood that the affected person will develop a disabling level of PTSD.[7] Identifying and addressing trauma triggers is an important part of treating PTSD.[6] “
…”While research on the effects of trigger warnings is limited[8][9][10], several scientists with knowledge in this area have suggested that trigger warnings may be counterproductive and actually increase anxiety and PTSD symptoms.[11][12][13]”
(quoted from Wikipedia page on “trauma triggers”. I looked this up to find “evidence” that i could quote to support my assertion and personal experience. I am aware that confidence in Wikipedia as a source of reputable information is variable. And, the first thing i saw was directly in alignment with what i was saying and had lots of links to references, so i'm sharing it.)

There is so much harmful stigma about being ‘wrong’. So often, being wrong is how we find right. Falling down is part of learning to use our bodies in new ways. Can we re-frame the learning process in a way that supports the power of vulnerability, can we welcome being seen dancing with the wobble that helps us find center?

To heal and support others’ healing with integrity we must embrace the truth of ourselves and all beings as susceptible to illness, frailty and death.

Healing is the expansion of our center. Yoga is the expansion of our center. We practice expanding the center so that we can steady here, so that we can hold the ‘dark and the light’ at the same time without seeing them as contrary forces.

The more that we visit our center, the more it expands and becomes easier to access. The feeling at center is clear, quiet and beyond the questioning of words. The knowing beyond words will not respond with words when we question it. It is “pratibha” (in yoga/ sanskrit), the silent knowing of instinct, intuition and inspiration.
We may never ‘heal’ from some things entirely. The scars and residue of trauma may always be present, but as we strengthen and expand our connection to center, these things fade, affect us less, get further away and have less impact, & / or shorter duration when the influence of them does arise. We gain more tools and grow to know ourselves beyond our old stories. We can see and feel the pain without getting caught up in or identifying with it. (Phew! Thank goodness!)
This is healing...

As i write this, i realize that there is a book of words and views possible here.. I do not claim to have them all or that any of the things i say are absolute truth for all. They are what i have learned from self study, study of ancient texts, modern scientific reports and personal experience with myself and others.
I am interested in what healing is to you. Please share. I would love community dialogue around this. No one is wrong. No one has all of the answers. No words can really speak the whole truth, but only point to our limited perspective of it. Let us dance with the vibrations that move us. Let us be kind to each other and curious about one another's experiences.

...

Thank you to all of the darlings that i threw this question out to during the writing process.. Your perspectives and experiences fed my reflections. Thank you especially to Jess Chubb & Ola’i Wildeboar - my constant inspirations and sounding angels. Thank you to my teachers, including my students, on the path of healing whose teachings and lineages echo through me. Thank you to the time of peace in the Kashmiri Valley, India, over a millenia ago, where much of the wisdom and practices that i have utilized for my own healing was cultivated and catalogued. Thank you to all the witches and the synthesizers of healing practices old and new, too many to name, who ripple the healing wisdom out into the world. Blessed be.

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Planting Seeds in the Dark

1/16/2020

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it is winter solstice as i first write this. I have just gotten home from visiting my mother, the first trip that i can remember returning home from and not feeling depressed about it all. Magick happened on that visit. My daughter now sees my mother as "magickal". Magick has indeed happened for this to be true. Soon after arriving home i receive a package in the mail from Santa Rita jail - some incredible art with an even more incredible apology that i had given up on years ago after exhausting myself from trying to forgive again and again. There are so many little points of light arriving with this Solstice, so many seeds that i had planted with thin hopes are finally finding their way to the light...
This poem (below) was written in the swirls of conversations with a couple of people that ive been having communication challenges with around this same time, feeling despairing... Yet, i remember, and i listen and watch for these moments in life and nature where we are being taught and reminded even in our forgetting and fancies of quitting.
I want to acknowledge that i know that none of this is very polished. This is what I have always thought a BLOG was for and i decided not to change my mind about it BLOGS (such a funny word) are for sharing casual, honest life experience that may help others. All of your comments and questions are welcome. May the turning of this year be blissful for you, may you feel steadiness even in the wildest weathers. Blessed be...

PLANTING SEEDS IN THE DARK

Planting seeds in the dark,
knowing, the light will return
Listening to my heart
hearing her cries as she burns
to death, this waning life
chilling , what once remained warm

I struggle with being alright
w/ wanting more & more
w/ wanting nothing & giving up
because the walls are not giving in
for over them, it is heard to see
the future which ive quested to believe

lying in darkness, cocooned
truthing thru hardness
knowing its difficult to receive
one who gets so marooned
eacho f us is an island of our own
nto getting what we need
neither giving all for what we plead

i am planting seeds in darkness
knowing the light is coming
trusting the light is coming
hoping...
the light is coming

i listen to your pain in the dark
not knowing what to do with it
knowing, i have something
to do with it

i am the light
you are the light
we are turning
the earth is turning
the moon appears to be turning

sometimes, everyone has just got to
be with their hurting
the heart of each failing
to feel like we are unworthy

i am planting seeds in the dark
seeds of remembering
for times of forgetting
things are growing
all is ever changing
we are all worthy

i struggle, i falter
i bow before the altar
all of it, altered
everchanging...
stop wasting life wishing, blaming...

i preach, i pray
i feel in to what to say
i mince my words
chop them up into little bits
scatter them like horse shit
to fertilize what hopes to grow

but why hope?
when one proclaims to trust life

i ask you whats going on with you
you dont answer most of my questions
you ask me more questions
it is easy to get distracted by these,
talk about myself
altho what is desired is to hear you out

we suffer our silence
our stories become violence
are these words well spent
or best hoarded

i just want to connect
my heart yields
to prioritize "protect"
mind says, "deflect"
- this is not yours
yet, alas - we want the same thing

i am still here waiting
for you to take everything
wishing i could teach you how to
take everything & get over it
but thats not really what this is for is it?

Planting seeds in darkness
visiting place of struggle
trusting the light will return

enduring thru doubt
wanting to quit - not quitting

i sit with patience
i work with diligence
i allow myself ease
with the unease

& so in the darkness
despite doubt & hopelessness
despite fear & pain
i witness the turning
experience the cracking open
see seeds planted
release sprouts of new life

i see courageous arms
reaching for the light
feel daring hearts
trusting that they might
be safe to grown and change
to seek their own way

where once it was not seen
now the light grows
vulnerability shows
a powerful grace is rising up
we live, we struggle,
we love, love, love...

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Breakdowns & Breakthroughs

5/13/2019

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Day 2 of moon cycle, April 2019 Re-Cognition (to learn again, to take new perspectives)

Trigger Warning: discussion of mental illness, anxiety, panic attacks, trauma, drugs, self harm & cursing.

***************I apologize in advance if any of this triggers or feels offensive to anyone who suffers or loves someone who suffers. I hope that this can be heard as my still unfolding understanding of my own experience. I share it with a shaky tender heart as honestly as i can. This is not intended to be a judgement or a ‘how to’ for anyone else’s process. I am sharing part of a process of re-cognition. I think and hope that my honest share can save someone else some unnecessary struggle and offer hope and kinship on the path to self knowledge and healing.*****************

Still fucked up after all these years…!?

I talked to Mom today. I miss my Mom. She’s on the East coast and i only see her once a year these days. I haven’t called for months. I am feeling like a bad daughter. My absence = my guilt.

Guilt, blame & shame are the heritage of my lineage.

Talked to my life partner about our mutual beloved whom i have previously hurt emotionally by being harsh. She still doesn’t trust me. Still repeating stories of my past ignorance, frustration and struggle that have caused her pain. I feel my shame/ guilt trigger kick in and my tone/ energy become defensive.

I am sitting at the computer for a rare two hours in this overworked month to tackle a challenging list.

I call my daughter to see about her making her way home from college, her FAFSA needing completing, etc.. She tells me that FAFSA is my job as i sit before a mountain of things to do, and i am looking at the payments i have made to her school. As i sign on to try to find her FAFSA my own OLD school loans pop up and remind me of decades of shame.

Passwords, taxes, marital status (or lack thereof), debt, confusion, ...stress….

“Something” in all of that triggered what i am now recognizing as a subconscious reactive pattern showing up in the form of an anxiety/ panic attack.

I have previously vehemently avoided labels. Since i was first “diagnosed” i have rejected the naming as it came with prescriptions (more on that later). I have entirely resisted considering that i had an anxiety disorder or panic attacks my whole life.

Meanwhile, my mother is in a constant state of depression and so stuffed with the unexpressed emotions of her traumatic experiences that she seems (to me) ready to burst with violent outbursts or tears at any moment. My stepfather as well, always angry and depressed. I have lived with all of these as my default states. I was born with a rebellious, ebullient nature which i was too rarely able to express safely. I was beaten and shamed for being too loud, crazy, expressive, emotional, for singing!, etc…

(Exhale…)

So, back to yesterday - I felt my nervous system “short circuiting” - that is the best way that i can describe it. That familiar feeling of edgy, over-full, jittery, jarring, about-to-explode energy. My breath gets short. My heart races. My muscles, especially my jaw, neck and shoulders, tense extremely. There is a physical response (to the situation) that i feel is largely out of my control.

I know i want to be calm and show up reasonably and responsibly for my daughter. But what i am feeling is not rational. I cannot think it away. I cannot breathe fully. I try. I practice breathing everyday. I try to lengthen the exhale. I try to get a bigger inhale. I try to relax my nervous system. It is not enough. I cannot get enough breath. I feel as though i am drowning, suffocating…
FUCK!
I am still crazy after all these years, after all of this work… (this is the thought that wants to keep imposing itself, that wants me to feel helpless, suicidal and quit trying).
Still trying to breathe deeper, i try to explain to my nearby partner what is happening to me physically. I ask for help, “Touch me, ground me, i need pressure on my shoulders...rub the base of my skull…” I offer directives as specifically and calmly as i can but i feel scared, and so he feels scared and tentative, hesitant.. This only makes me more upset.

I’m asked what’s wrong, “did something big happen that i missed?” It’s a fair question, and it’s triggering, like the story inside that there is something wrong with me for having these kinds of feelings…
It is unexplainable. It’s the way that i have always been under pressure. Except usually i freak out, scream, yell, hit things, break things, run away…

Except,
Today i do not run. I choose not to freak out. I sit and watch the raging fire, i take what breath i can while feeling like i’m drowning...
I can see it more clearly now. I am not this feeling. I need not be consumed or subsumed by this feeling.
After years of practice and being more and more able to quell these feelings, i can SEE what is happening and i am not caught up in it entirely. There is space between “it” and “me”. This is not me. This is my body. This is fight/ flight/ freeze response. This is a subconscious reactive pattern. This is the circuitry that was wired and fired during early trauma to protect me. Here it is, rearing its ugly head, trying to protect me again. The velocity of the response is as though a tiger is coming.

It takes 2 minutes to shift our physiology. I know this. The thought is there along with the witnessing of my feeling of out of control physiology.

I feel like the breathing is not working. I want to quit trying, i want to scream…

JUST> Keep> BREATHing.

I kept breathing. I turned away from the triggers of technology and finances. I ate food. It is not how i would choose to calm but food does calm me. I remembered forward folds - they help. Pressure on my head and body helps. Sound helps; sighing, moaning, singing (if i can get enough breath!). Yelling helps too but then i always have to deal with the consequences of “being crazy”, of hurting/ scaring someone else too which just continues the tangle of this messy head business. Trying not to yell…
Things quelled. Something new had happened. I wasn’t clear on it yet.

I went to teach my evening classes. Humbled. I spoke to breath practice - the need to create foundation for when we need something to hang on to, so that we have a default level of understanding/ trust that we can fall back on when it feels like breath is not enough. So that when we feel ‘crazy’ we can just keep breathing. Observe the fear and trust the process. We can get to know in our bones that it all will keep changing… Although in the moment it can feel like the end of the world.

Breath is catchy - like yawns, when people around us are stressed and breathing shallowly or calm and deep breathing, we can feel it and tend to do the same things subconsciously This is where our early conditioning often begins, from our parents modeling.

I was born into a traumatized, stressed out, reactive family. As a teen in recovery i found yoga. I stuck to yoga because right away i felt more connected than i ever had in mind, spirit and body. It was literally awe inspiring to feel such a connection with the layers of self like i never had before. Mind body and spirit greeted one another consciously for the first time. I felt my first melting, my first glimpse of open awareness.

The next day I sent my daughter this text;

“Good day my love. I want to apologize for my anxious communication yesterday. I am really working to not let those physical reactive patterns eat my head and disrupt connection and yet, sometimes, in the moment, or for a couple of minutes, even focused on deep breathing, i fail. I am on my moon, i am overbooked right now and sometimes my nervous system just feels like it is short circuiting, it’s more and more rare these days and i am having more space to witness it so i am realizing more what is happening. I know you have lived with me being this way your whole life. Im sorry. I’ll try to recognize the triggers more and back off and ask for help or go to my practices sooner. Anyways, i love you. I want you to be able to be at ease even when there is a mountain of things to do before you… i am still learning that.. I hope that you can more easily.
… thank you, i love you, please forgive me...

She called me back as i drove yesterday. I realized while talking to her that i have an anxiety disorder that i have had my whole life. I inherited this from my family. I had not named it before. I realized that I and my family all have what is now called anxiety and depression and that i / we/ the world has passed it on to another generation.

As a teen i was suicidal, I self medicated, became a full blown daily user, addicted to cocaine from 14-16+ years old. I hit bottom hard and fast. I / the grace of the divine got me to the authorities and I got sober.
I have broken many chains, but not all. My daughter breaks more. Together in our processing we grow up, we evolve.

In rehab i was told i was manic depressive amongst other things and that i should take drugs (the message i got) for these things. I was trying to kick drugs! I was rebelliously perplexed at being offered drugs. I now realize that besides trying to escape my self loathing, misery, shame and abusive home life by doing drugs that i was trying to balance out my own chemistry.

It would have been nice if we were taught how our brains work in rehab. I guess we (as a culture) have now learned so much more about neuroscience and trauma that maybe those in charge didn’t actually have the means to share then? I certainly have learned so much more and am on fire to share the learning.. I think it could save many lives. Hence, this vulnerable share.

Anyways, i talked to my daughter and apologized for not seeing / knowing / accepting that i had an active anxiety disorder while she was growing up. I had rejected all labels as they seemed to come with drugs, excuses, and “poor me” / victim mentality. My baseline (thanks to my survival-oriented mom) has always been to work hard to make the changes that need to be made, to fight (thanks dad), and tough it out through whatever arises: all feelings (except maybe anger) aside. I was able to make much change and have profound healing from this old school place of thinking, and presently i continue to awaken to more healthful ways to grow and change.

So when my daughter began to have panic/ anxiety attacks i thought she was “catching” them from her friends as many of her friends were experiencing some sort of these at the time. It seemed to me to be a trend. I wondered where she got this way of reacting to life.
Was it because i had had scary outbursts and now she did not trust life and would break down in fear? She would not let me touch her during her episodes. It was so hard for me. I felt so much guilt and shame and really wanted to fix it. Yet, i also told her she didn’t need professional help. Ignorance.

I pushed her to not let the thoughts get to her, to think positively, to breathe more deeply, to have physical practices to move energy. These things can be helpful, we both now acknowledge, but at the time, I made it worse for her. They don’t always work immediately or fully in the moment of “attack”, or at least being told to do them by your hard ass mom doesn’t necessarily help in the moment. She felt (she tells me now) like something was really wrong with her. She didn’t understand (as i didn’t) why she was feeling helplessly, uncontrollably the way that she did.

I tried to make her tough, like i was made tough. I told her to toughen up, that she would not be able to get through life with this kind of weakness. It was not until i read Ta Ne-hisi Coates’ book, “Between the World and Me,” where he apologizes to his son for trying to make him tough, that i truly realized and had such lamentable sorrow for what i had done to my baby.
I am (once again) realizing how much i can stop being “tough” and soften even more, slow down even more… This has been my recurring lesson for decades now.

I am so sorry, babe...I seem to be such a slow and resistant learner.

We talked about how, when she had these things (emotional/ physical reactive patterns) going on that she was glad that she knew they had a name so that she could research (thank you internet!) and learn more. She found communities of people dealing with the same things and supporting each other.

This broke my heart a bit more open, for her and for my young self - forcefully pushing through where i could have been supported. If i had more information, if i had known/ accepted/ acknowledged “labels,” then i could have supported her more...I could have moved beyond feeling like i was “fucked up” my whole life, hating on myself, ashamed of where i came from, and thereby perpetuating the patterns! No matter how much work i did, the reactive patterns kept reappearing. Over the years, more space came between incidents, but i still had a long line of beloveds who thought, just as i did, that i was “crazy”. I ashamedly received their decree because i believed it. I didn’t know any better then, now i do.

I am not “fucked up”. You are not “fucked up”.
It is arguable whether or not the world is fucked up.

Either way, we have sensitive, pliable, and resilient nervous systems. We can repattern our thought/ feeling connections and thereby affect the chemicals that pour into our system as a cellular response to emotions. We can change our physiology. It helps to understand what is happening. Labels can be good for this. Research and community are helpful. None of us need be victim to our genealogy.
We have the power to make choices, to take action, to change and to break the chains of inherited conditioning, subconscious response due to trauma and threats that are no longer present. We now have tools, wisdom, and support at our fingertips. It is a blessing of this technological age. The information and resources we need to be supported (including pharmaceuticals and plant medicines) are readily available. These can be powerful, necessary things to help us through transitions.

My experiences have taught me how powerful my mind/ thoughts/ emotions are.
My perspective is that we ALL have the power to change these things within ourselves. When we do, the world around us changes… and it ripples out…

My purpose is to continue to heal and unfold the unabashed fullness of my Self and to help and inspire others to do so as well.

Let us abolish shame. Shame is a killer. It literally causes inflammation in the body. Science has taught us that inflammation is the root cause of all (?) chronic pain and illness. Let us honor our own processes and one anothers’. We get well together.

Some things I’ve found to help release feelings of panic/ anxiety/ anger/ depression;
*counting visual or musical patterns
*physical pressure
*rubbing gently the base of the skull/ cranial nerve 10 - the vagus nerve
*screaming into a pillow, toning, chanting, humming, growling, singing
*meditation, ultimately it will create the space to witness/ be with rather than react or identify with the feelings
*studying and truly knowing (thru practice) that it takes less than 2 minutes for an un-storied emotion to pass thru your system (see Jill Bolte Taylor, “My Stroke of Insight”)
*un-story your emotions, take the shame out of them! Honor your feelings by witnessing without judgement. Let the energy MOVE through you.
*notice how your day can turn from wonderful to terrible in an instant and how you can choose to do the opposite and turn a terrible moment into a wonderful one. Wonder & curiosity help.
*anything that brings you back into your body Eat, run, shake, do yoga, massage yourself, hug a tree (really!;)
*don’t get stuck thinking one thought - keep shifting your attention
*continue to seek out new methods of helping yourself!

For references to mind/body/ emotional healing and neurobiology i want to honor some of the sources i have learned from and encourage you to investigate more of; Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, Dr. Bruce Lipton, Dr. Candace Pert , Dr. Mario Martinez & Dr. Darren Weissman.

Deep gratitude and honoring to my generous and and courageous daughter, Ola'i for her willingness to share this story unedited. I checked in with her with NO pressure to share it all. She was completely open to the full share. Ola'i you are my greatest teacher of all. I love you beyond words. Thank you for all that you are.

& to all of my Yoga teachers, to all of my students as teachers, Thank YOU! It is an honor and blessing to be on this path of unfolding fullness with you all.

Great honor and respect to all of the lineages and teachers of yoga that encourage self knowledge and expansion. May India flourish and benefit multifold from the immense catalogues of wisdom that have been so generously shared with the world. May we all know times of peace where we can be so blessed to have time to study and grow in a good way.

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An Interview With Native Society & Lucid Dawn

5/11/2018

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The Native SocietyPositive Perspective Platform: Inform Inspire Aspire

LUCID DAWN: MOTHER, WIFE, TEACHER, COMMUNITY ORGANIZER, RITUAL LEADER & ARTIST
THURSDAY, APRIL 26, 2018 AT 06:14PMMy NativeAdVantage:
Bio:
Lucid Dawn has been on the Yogic path since 1994, five years into recovery from an abject early life of illness and abuse. On this journey she has learned many healing modalities. She does not subscribe to one 'style', but honors and integrates many. She specializes in yoga for healing and creativity. She is thriving as a mother, wife, teacher, community organizer, ritual leader & artist. She is also the founder of the performance artist-activist/ yoga band, "Nona Fender & the Benders"
Lucid is fervent in her desire to help others thrive. She weaves the teachings of Yoga; movement, breath, meditation, & Non-Dual Tantrik philosophy w/ ritual & practice that acknowledge; season, celestial movements, and phases of life. She includes the use of sound healing & expressive arts. Her studies in theatre, music & voice, neuroscience, cellular biology, nutrition, essential oils, Non-Violent Communication, earth magick, energy medicine, & Lifeline Healing Technique also inform her teaching. She is dedicated to embracing all beings & all aspects of being for a full celebration of life, including courageously facing death
What do I do best?
What i do best is to weave all aspects of self, being, yoga, & other healing modalities into an integrated whole. It has been my practice for myself to heal and learn and is what i see as a need and natural occurrence in our world of information right now. I am a world bridger. I am here to heal divides, to offer up an even more juicy and integrated path for creative, sensitive, healing beings to celebrate life and unfold their greatest offering to the world. I tend to see the big picture and have an impulse towards things before they are in the mainstream.. I believe it is a time of synthesis, with so much available to us right now - a time of bringing together wisdoms and peoples for the highest good for the whole. I think that is one of my natural gifts - to bring people together in celebration of life & weaving many modalities to do so.
What makes me the best version of myself?
Trusting the flow of the divine thru me makes me the best version of myself.. Listening to the noisy, wordy voice of ego is sabotage.. I practice listening to the voice beyond words. When i trust the honest impulse of universal energy that causes me to speak, not speak, touch, reach out, it strengthens that hearing, intuition, instinct, inspiration… Taking pause is crucial to being and expressing my truth. So, i meditate, i listen, i write, i reflect.. These things keep me at my best.
What are my aspirations?
My personal aspirations are to continue to slow down and become gentler, calmer, and more compassionate while remembering where i came from. I also intend to continue to see where others are on their own path with clarity, compassion and patience. I intend to live without judgement but with passionate and available inspiration and guidance.
My business aspirations are to grow a worldwide movement that holds people in circles of love and trust to open and connect and clear lines of resistance in bodymind - to find personal and societal wholeness. I wish to teach people by way of experience how to hold circles for seeing and healing all aspects of ourselves - whole, self accepting people will be the ones to create a whole, undivided world.   My vision is that these ancient and new ways of circling and processing will become once again models for our renewal on the earth - where people know their purpose and honor the role that each being is here to play - with respect and connected support. May we meet and may i have the power to teach being in circles of relationship, creation, respect, wisdom sharing, and sustainable world bridging.
My Biggest Success?
My biggest success in life so far is raising a child that is strong, confident, independent, talented, compassionate, driven, magickal, healthy in mind body spirit and sexuality. She is friendly and supportive and stands up for the ‘underdog’.   She is motivated by social justice and inspired by the beauty and wonder of the world to break boundaries, stretch limiting ideas and create art that raises up the level of consciousness and inspires all to be their own best (or weirdest on purpose) person. I am grateful to have had the tools and courage (presence of heart) to push thru challenges in relationship with her father (my husband) and to have largely not handed down the sicknesses that have leaked down for generations in my lineages. She has made it thru childhood unscathed and enters the grown up world now as a powerful beacon of YES! I dedicated myself to her thriving and i see the rewards in that.. Now, i want to do that for everyone..;) <3
My Most Challenging Moment?
Well, i guess i would have to pick up on my last answer to reveal my most difficult personal decision.. It had incredible impact on my life to keep the child that came to me when i was only 2 months into a relationship, and just after losing everything in a fire. In no way was i traditionally “ready” to have a child. We were new together, we lived in an artist warehouse that was under re-construction to build a dream space to service community - but was highly toxic so we stayed outside in a motorhome. We were crazy about each other but he planned to be a touring musician and i had just left a successful, but soul degrading life of commercial modelling and acting in Hollywood for a free floating hippie artist Bay area life… Then the fire - i really had NOTHING - except this new love and trust of the universe… We were scared.
I made the decision on my own, despite outer resistances, to keep that baby no matter what. I just knew with a knowing beyond words that this is what was happening, altho most people and situations in my life clearly indicated that it was a “crazy” thing to do. I am so grateful to have had the capacity to listen to this knowing and trust myself and the universe to follow through.

My Motto?
Breathe Deeply, Live Fully. Throughout the course of my yoga practice and training (& LIFE!) it has struck me again and again - “the breath!, wow! the breath!” It’s so basic, i know - but so mind blowing, so life transforming to be aware of the breath and what is happening when we are breathing fully or not. I have noticed patterns in myself and my family and students around holding the breath, holding emotions, holding tension, fear, old trauma, etc.. in the body - which i now see clearly as not living fully. This is holding back.   When we breathe deep and full, emotions come- words, thoughts, our truth comes out.. and this can be scary. It can also be the greatest gift to be in touch with the breath and notice when we are holding the body tight and not breathing fully - then we have the choice to breathe, relax, speak our truth, connect to others, connect to the actual moment at hand and therefore - WOW! - the fullness of life that can arise from living courageously in this way.   The breath moves emotions and changes reality/ physiology. Breathing deeply and consciously, using the breath to shift my energy has enabled me to do lots of things, to make lots of connections that i might otherwise have been holding back on.
My Favorite People/Role Models?
My favorite people / role models are; (in no particular order) - Caroline Casey, Starhawk, Suzanne Sterling, Marshall Rosenberg, Nina Simone, PJ Harvey, ...there are also many fine female yoga teachers who weave music, activism, magick & myth into their work that i am grateful for and inspired by. I want to touch people’s hearts, i want to inspire, i want to teach and lead with excellent communication and fierce love as i think all of these beings above do.
My Favorite Places/Destinations?
My favorite travel destinations have been;
Maui! - i feel it as the womb of mother earth, i love and miss her like a long lost lover when i am away too long. The verdant land, the Aloha - the true Hawaiian spirit of connection to all of nature is present there for me. The animism that enlivens everything and awakens, deepens ones connection to nature is so alive for me there. I love Maui and want the Hawaiian culture to continue to re-establish itself, to grow and thrive and remind all beings of what aloha and living in harmony with nature really means… and oh swimming naked in a warm ocean at sunset (especially while hearing the whales sing underwater!)! - YES! heaven on earth.
Brazil has been my other favorite place to visit - i LOVE the language, the music, the warm bouncy sensual nature of the people, the colorful aesthetics and celebrations.
I also love redwoods and faery lands, the way that big trees can just lift energy UP and host sooo much LIFE! I love hiking,climbing and being in nature. Tree hugging is actual healing and energizing!
I hope to go to Ireland and Africa and India in the near future!
My Favorite Products/Objects?
My favorite objects tend to be things that ring sing vibrate sound - i love musical instruments, singing bowls, tuning forks, bells, harps, resonant string instruments, bass drums, …
I love crystals and sparkly things of all sorts, the former for their earthy healing powers and also the latter as i seem to be attracted to anything that sparkles and shines - i love the play of light and color in the world in general - i am an artist who appreciates art and beauty.
I also seem to be really into gold shoes. i have a *bit* of a collection of them.
My Current Passions?
My current passions are awakening to what is next for me! I have been realizing my new freedoms and letting go of old identifications as i sent my daughter off to college this year and woke up to how much my life and identity had been structured around being a mom and no longer needs to be!
I have also been feeling really motivated to be a world bridger between Neo-tantra (modern California/ Western, sex based “tantra”) & Non- Dual Tantra which is the tradition that i am steeped in. I actually got introduced to tantra thru the sexuality healing practices but later discovered what an epic lineage of Tantra there is and how deep and wide the philosophy & practices are - and actually how little most modern/ neo-tantra has to do with its roots, and even more so, how little most neo-tantra teachers know about the history, roots, practices and philosophy of actual Tantra. I honor that our world is largely sick in its approach to sexuality and it is time for healing and awakening of our sacred sexuality.   I honor that these people intend to be doing good work in the world and largely are. I also see clearly that there is a hyper focus on sexuality which is so easy to sell and can be quite dangerous to those who do not have a foundation of self care, self knowing, mental wellness, physical practice, meditation, connection to the divine, basic communication skills, integrity, etc…   These things and more, that non-sexual yoga and other healing practices have to offer help one to build a strong energy body and foundation that can handle the intense energies and relationships that come when one opens their sexual self up so much.
My main focus & thrust is self healing & living fully. The work that i bring to others is all about connection - to all layers of ourselves, to the earth, to one another, to spirit - it is about not leaving any part of ourselves or our experience unseen, undigested, unloved - but embracing the fullness, the wholeness of all that we are and our experience here as embodied beings. I think it is important when focusing on one branch of any discipline or practice to know well the tree that holds that branch up.

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WHAT IS THIS EXSTASIS?

9/30/2017

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WHAT IS THIS EXSTASIS?
My Experience and a Heartfull of Invitations to Yours

    Exstasis is the experience of connection that takes you outside of your limited sense of self.
Most of us live in a quite contracted sense of self. It is the conditioning of our culture. We are taught to define ourselves by our aesthetics, our interests, our ideals, etc…. We are told that we should “just be your self”. This might lead one to think that they should only have one way of being. We are taught even more indirectly, but possibly more impactfully, that there is not enough for everyone.. that we are separate. Our whole culture often seems to be built around the idea that you had better “get yours” before someone else does.

   I grew up in a survival oriented family. There was not much treasuring or celebration of life. My self was squelched. I suffered the struggle and was silenced often in my self expression with violent actions and language.

I experienced a taste of exstasis in church while singing in the choir amongst the stained glass light streams. I experienced tastes of exstasis while playing in the woods and hearing the natural world speak. These were my escapes.

   I had my first fully ecstatic experience in a circle of people gathered together to get well. At the end of a 12 step meeting people connected in a circle, held hands and said the serenity prayer. I saw myriad colors of light coming from all of them, raising up to the sky in a point. It felt like a great prism or teepee. It was charged with an incredible energy. I felt the presence of the divine charge through me like lightning and I was startled awake. I had never seen/ felt people supporting each other in such a way before. I clearly heard, from a voice beyond words in that moment, my life purpose. I understood that I was alive to be a part of this and to cultivate and expand this sense of connection and support. I felt all of those people as one, myself as part of this one. I saw that this is truly how the world becomes a better place - with connection, togetherness and intention for the highest good.

   I have since felt exstasis on many occasions; in performance, ritual, prayer, playing music, in yoga, chanting, breathwork, dancing, making love, living life…. Really, I feel it daily and more and moreso as a natural state of being. I feel like each welcomed experience of this openness and connection to all beings, all nature, to the divine and formless Self adds onto itself to create an ever more accessible and ‘normal’ state of being awake, fully alive, connected.

The most continuous ecstatic states I have experienced have been in nature; being in yoga w/ nature, climbing mountains, standing under waterfalls, swimming and singing with the whales or dolphins… I know no place better to do these things than in Maui - I feel Maui as the womb of mother Earth and as a great lover. Sometimes Maui is out of reach. Nonetheless, there are countless breath, sound, meditation, awareness, and movement practices that can take us out of the mundane in any moment, anywhere. These practices are how I find true joy and ease day to day no matter where I am. These, I would like to share with you.

Please join us if you can in Oakland this Fall/ Winter for an 8 week series of ecstatic practices @ Mohari on Grand Ave. Eenor & I, w/ special guest teachers, will be guiding you to your natural state of well being, to your bliss body, to your YES! To all of life!
You might also consider joining us in Maui February 12-18, 2018. We are leading a carefully curated, Ayurvedically catered ecstatic practices retreat w/ Yoga, meditation, Tantrik philosophy & practice, ritual and ceremony for healing and connecting deeply to yourself, others, nature, and spirit. As we cultivate & find ourselves in flow states, we heal ourselves and charge ourselves up to bring that healing back to the rest of the world.

https://www.wetravel.com/trips/exstasis-in-paradise-retreat-to-maui-lucid-dawn-maui-county-28186823
https://mohari.life/classes-workshops/

with ecstatic breaths,
lucid dawn

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