Category Archives: connecting

In the Light of Love: A Tribute to Japan

Posted on by
Reply

If you read my earlier post containing the beautiful letter from Japan written by the American woman Anne who taught school in Sendai, please watch this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGWAZVZG1TA&feature=player_embedded#at=13

Deva Premal and Miten made it in loving tribute to the Japanese people affected by the earthquakes and tsunami. They write:

The earthquake happened while we were working on a remix on this song. Later we put images to the music in an attempt to portray the elevation of the human spirit in times of such overwhelming and inconceivable destruction. It is our tribute to the brave hearts of the Japanese people.
The letter at the end of the clip is a first hand account of a friend of a friend, living in Japan.

With love

Miten and Deva

…ps… we just received this message and thought you’d like to know: “And in case you don’t know — the baby in the pink snuggly being smiled at by the soldier was found in the wreckage 2-3 days after the tsumani and was reunited with her father….one of the biggest miracles to date…”

To relax, to improve health, to change the world, just breathe

Posted on by
Reply

Last night I attended the monthly Austin NLP meetup. Katie Raver, who was raised by an NLP-trained mom and who is a co-founder of Austin NLP and who created Year of the Breath in 2009, presented on the topic Breathing Life into Rapport.

Note: Katie is my temporary roommate. And she loves my cat, Mango. I may be biased.

Katie drew on her experiences in Hawai’i (where ha means breath, thus Hawai’i, aloha, ha‘ole — without breath, ha prayer). When she returned, she noticed how shallow breathing negatively impacted a work-related meeting she was in, and she experimented with pacing and then leading the alpha person at the meeting (not the speaker, but the key decision maker) to breathe more deeply, thus changing the state of the meeting for all 17 people present. Only Katie — or as we call her, the instigator of love — was aware of how that shift occurred.

We had fun doing exercises like matching someone’s breathing while talking to them and matching their breathing while they’re talking to you. Sorry you missed it.

I must say, it’s a lovely experience to have a room full of people breathing in unison. It’s on a par with hearing a room full of people all chanting OM. Deep. Alive. Powerful. 

 Today an email led me to this NPR article dated Dec. 6, 2010, Just Breathe: Body Has a Built-In Stress Reliever.

As it turns out, deep breathing is not only relaxing, it’s been scientifically proven to affect the heart, the brain, digestion, the immune system — and maybe even the expression of genes.

Yogis and meditators know this. Breath is powerful.

But more importantly, [breathing exercises] can be used as a method to train the body’s reaction to stressful situations and dampen the production of harmful stress hormones.

Click the link to read up on the latest scientific findings about using breath to influence health and well-being.

You can also make meetings more satisfying. At least you won’t be bored.

Helping a healer heal with sound, Reiki, and presence

Posted on by
Reply

I had a most remarkable experience last night. I was planning to go to the Saxon Pub to listen to The Resentments play on the last night of SXSW after teaching my restorative yoga class, and on the way, I took a detour to check out a nearby mobile home park. (Yes, I’m still looking, but just today discovered an online directory of MH parks in Texas with phone numbers! My next home is getting closer and closer.)

Just as I was leaving, my iPhone rang. It was my friend B. We’ve had a couple of bodywork/unblocking sessions, and I’ve enjoyed getting to know him. He’s a teacher for me, someone who knows a lot about healing.

B asked me to breathe with him, which we’ve done together before, in rebirthing. Curious but game, I did.

I discerned that he was in pain from his occasional moans and sobs, and I could tell the pain was pretty intense. I pulled the car over and breathed with him for a while, not knowing what had happened, unsure if it was physical or emotional pain, not that it really matters.

All he could tell me was “I was out riding bikes with my son and something happened.” Didn’t know if he was bleeding or if something happened to or with his son… I watched my mind try to make up a story and give up.

After about 10 minutes, he asked me if I could come to where he was. I said sure, thinking he was at home. No. He gave me directions to a little woods behind a grocery store several miles away. We stayed connected on the phone as I drove.

He asked if I had any blankets in the car. Yes, B, as a matter of fact, I happen to have a dozen or so yoga blankets in my car. Good thing, because he was wearing a sleeveless t-shirt, and it was dark and starting to get chilly.

As I drove, he asked me if I had any Reiki training. Technically I’m a third-level Reiki master, but I have only done Reiki on myself and distance healing on others. He told me:

You’re about to get initiated.

He asked me if I was ready. At first I said yes, and then I said no, I couldn’t know that. All I could know was that I was willing and open to it. He was satisfied with that.

From my car, I could barely see him, back in the woods. I parked and brought some blankets over to where he was. I covered his upper body, and we began to work together.

From there on, the sequence of events gets fuzzy. We spent a couple of hours together in that little woods behind a suburban grocery store, out of sight of the hustle and bustle, healing his foot. 

He’d dropped a board on top of his foot that morning, and he worked on it then, and it seemed fine, and then he and his son went on a late afternoon bike ride. When he got off his bike, he couldn’t bear weight on that foot. The pain was excruciating. The motion of pedalling had apparently further dislocated a bone that had been impacted by the earlier injury and not quite gone back into place. Anyway, that seems to be the likeliest story.

This man works on his feet, but he was uninterested in going to any kind of medical establishment. He could have called 911 at any time from his cell phone, or asked numerous people to take him home and give him painkillers. Instead, he sent his son home on his bike. His wife, D, was working and he couldn’t get hold of her.

So he called me. Not sure why; maybe I was the only person who picked up. But we have a good strong connection, and I was able and willing to help. I helped him text his wife so she would call when she got off work.

I mentally reviewed my preparations for giving Reiki to myself. At his direction, I wrapped my hands around his foot just so, and he occasionally directed me verbally and nonverbally where to apply pressure, where to ease off, how to elongate his foot.

After a little while, my hands felt really good. I had a really good, positive, loving energetic connection with his injured foot. I could feel the pulse in it, feel the life force. I felt plugged in and connected to the Source.

We breathed together. Fast, slow, loud, soft. Mostly he led and I paced him.

We moaned, toned, sang together. Some of the toning we did was amazingly powerful. I could hear the resonance between two notes becoming so much more than those two notes. They amplified the energetic connection, almost as if we were supported and held in place by sound.

I noticed that when I could be in a position where my body was symmetrical, my energy flowed better. My crown chakra opened wide, and I felt very present, engaged, and relaxed.

B was a marvel to me. Here was someone in pain who fully faced it. Now that’s a different approach. He was totally present with it. Sometimes it was overwhelming, and he just had to lie down. Sometimes he sobbed from the pain. He was so open to his experience, even though it was intensely painful.

Pain is just sensation without the story.

He reviewed the sequence of events and admitted he had made a mistake getting on the bike, but I never heard any self-castigation. He accepted that he had made a mistake, but it didn’t mean anything, as in “therefore, I am a failure.” Just facing what is, that he had made a mistake. End-of-story. I never heard any cursing — in fact, he chided me for using strong language at one point.

He was very clear what he wanted to use his attention and energy for. He said let’s not talk about that, or let’s talk about that later.

Over time, the pain abated somewhat, he said from about 8.5 or 9 to a 7 on a 1-10 scale. That’s still pretty intense.

Then D called, and she came, and all of us held his foot and toned together. D had some Young Living Essential Oils in her purse, and he slathered them on his foot and  put some on his head. He used a whole bottle of Pan-Away on his foot. That’s what it’s for. (And by the way, I’m selling this stuff now.)

After maybe 30 minutes, D said she was ready to go home. She took his bike with her. B crawled from the woods to my car, and I drove him home. It was 10 pm, and I’m currently a gal with a job.

Today B called twice and thanked me. It was actually an incredible honor to be called upon to help, and to witness this method of healing, and to let Reiki flow through me in the service of alleviating suffering.

This afternoon when B called, he said he could now bear weight on his foot. He had continued with someone else giving him Reiki, and D had applied comfrey leaves to his foot, but he gave me a lot of credit. Really, I just met his presence.

As amazed as I am at this way of healing an extremely painful injury, I am even more amazed at his valor, presence, and most of all to his commitment to and faith in the healing power that lies within each of us, that when combined with others, can work what seems like miracles.

Letter from Japan: tender and calm amidst the surreal, stepping through the veil

Posted on by
4

3.2.5.2011: There’s a video with music by Deva Premal and Miten that ends with the text of this letter. Click here to listen and read.

Jean Houston posted this on Facebook, a letter from a friend of a friend. The writer has been living and teaching English in Sendai, Japan, for the past decade.

I added paragraph breaks to make it more readable and bolded parts for emphasis. It’s not what you’d expect. More like living calmly amidst the surreal, with great tenderness and presence.

Great spiritual awakenings often follow tragedies, disasters, and other events. The great Mystery makes itself known.

Hello My Lovely Family and Friends,

First I want to thank you so very much for your concern for me. I am very touched. I also wish to apologize for a generic message to you all. But it seems the best way at the moment to get my message to you.

Things here in Sendai have been rather surreal. But I am very blessed to have wonderful friends who are helping me a lot. Since my shack is even more worthy of that name, I am now staying at a friend’s home. We share supplies like water, food and a kerosene heater. We sleep lined up in one room, eat by candlelight, share stories. It is warm, friendly, and beautiful.

During the day we help each other clean up the mess in our homes. People sit in their cars, looking at news on their navigation screens, or line up to get drinking water when a source is open. If someone has water running in their home, they put out sign so people can come to fill up their jugs and buckets.

Utterly amazingly where I am there has been no looting, no pushing in lines. People leave their front door open, as it is safer when an earthquake strikes. People keep saying, “Oh, this is how it used to be in the old days when everyone helped one another.”

Quakes keep coming. Last night they struck about every 15 minutes. Sirens are constant and helicopters pass overhead often. We got water for a few hours in our homes last night, and now it is for half a day. Electricity came on this afternoon. Gas has not yet come on. But all of this is by area. Some people have these things, others do not.

No one has washed for several days. We feel grubby, but there are so much more important concerns than that for us now. I love this peeling away of non-essentials. Living fully on the level of instinct, of intuition, of caring, of what is needed for survival, not just of me, but of the entire group.

There are strange parallel universes happening. Houses a mess in some places, yet then a house with futons or laundry out drying in the sun. People lining up for water and food, and yet a few people out walking their dogs. All happening at the same time.

Other unexpected touches of beauty are first, the silence at night. No cars. No one out on the streets. And the heavens at night are scattered with stars. I usually can see about two, but now the whole sky is filled. The mountains are Sendai are solid and with the crisp air we can see them silhouetted against the sky magnificently.

And the Japanese themselves are so wonderful. I come back to my shack to check on it each day, now to send this e-mail since the electricity is on, and I find food and water left in my entranceway. I have no idea from whom, but it is there. Old men in green hats go from door to door checking to see if everyone is OK. People talk to complete strangers asking if they need help. I see no signs of fear. Resignation, yes, but fear or panic, no.

They tell us we can expect aftershocks, and even other major quakes, for another month or more. And we are getting constant tremors, rolls, shaking, rumbling. I am blessed in that I live in a part of Sendai that is a bit elevated, a bit more solid than other parts. So, so far this area is better off than others.

Last night my friend’s husband came in from the country, bringing food and water. Blessed again.

Somehow at this time I realize from direct experience that there is indeed an enormous Cosmic evolutionary step that is occurring all over the world right at this moment. And somehow as I experience the events happening now in Japan, I can feel my heart opening very wide.

My brother asked me if I felt so small because of all that is happening. I don’t. Rather, I feel as part of something happening that much larger than myself. This wave of birthing (worldwide) is hard, and yet magnificent.

Thank you again for your care and Love of me,

With Love in return, to you all,

Anne

How the dominant paradigm is being subverted, and how you can participate

Posted on by
Reply

I read this article, The New Humanism, in today’s New York Times. It’s an op-ed piece by columnist David Brooks about how our culture’s predominant way of thinking and viewing the world, through the lens of reason, has led to major policy errors, such as invading Iraq, the financial collapse, futile efforts to improve the educational system.

Brooks writes:

I’ve come to believe that these failures spring from a single failure: reliance on an overly simplistic view of human nature. We have a prevailing view in our society — not only in the policy world, but in many spheres — that we are divided creatures. Reason, which is trustworthy, is separate from the emotions, which are suspect. Society progresses to the extent that reason can suppress the passions.

Of course, we brain geeks know that it’s the glorification of the left brain at the expense of the right.

He continues:

Yet while we are trapped within this amputated view of human nature, a richer and deeper view is coming back into view. It is being brought to us by researchers across an array of diverse fields: neuroscience, psychology, sociology, behavioral economics and so on.

This growing, dispersed body of research reminds us of a few key insights. First, the unconscious parts of the mind are most of the mind, where many of the most impressive feats of thinking take place. Second, emotion is not opposed to reason; our emotions assign value to things and are the basis of reason. Finally, we are not individuals who form relationships. We are social animals, deeply interpenetrated with one another, who emerge out of relationships.

These points bear repeating:

  • Consciousness is tiny in comparison to the unconscious parts of the mind.
  • Emotions are the basis of reason.
  • We live our entire lives in a web of interdependence with other humans.

Got that? Good. That’s thinking with an integrated brain.

Brooks goes on to write about the difference this makes in what we pay attention to:

When you synthesize this research, you get different perspectives on everything from business to family to politics. You pay less attention to how people analyze the world but more to how they perceive and organize it in their minds. You pay a bit less attention to individual traits and more to the quality of relationships between people.

Then he lists the talents this new paradigm requires and develops:

Attunement: the ability to enter other minds and learn what they have to offer.

Equipoise: the ability to serenely monitor the movements of one’s own mind and correct for biases and shortcomings.

Metis: the ability to see patterns in the world and derive a gist from complex situations.

Sympathy: the ability to fall into a rhythm with those around you and thrive in groups.

Limerence: This isn’t a talent as much as a motivation. The conscious mind hungers for money and success, but the unconscious mind hungers for those moments of transcendence when the skull line falls away and we are lost in love for another, the challenge of a task or the love of God. Some people seem to experience this drive more powerfully than others.

Which of these talents have you developed? Which do you want to develop more deeply?

This article is not about Buddhism or NLP or ecstatic dance, by the way, although given my history, I couldn’t help but make those connections.

It’s about how thousands of researchers in multiple displines are coming up with a new view of what it means to be a human being. Brooks concludes:

 It’s beginning to show how the emotional and the rational are intertwined.

I suspect their work will have a giant effect on the culture. It’ll change how we see ourselves. Who knows, it may even someday transform the way our policy makers see the world.

Let’s hope so. Let’s do our parts to make it so.

Okay, people. let’s get to work changing the world! One savasana, one trance, one meditation session, one ecstatic dance, one meta-position, one moment of transcendence at a time.

What makes you really, really well?

Posted on by
Reply

I posted this question on Facebook and got some great answers, listed below.

  • sleep
  • breathing deep
  • listening
  • taking time/space
  • to dance and get out of my head and into my body
  • a job well done
  • great conversation
  • lots of love being shared
  • right now, a really good cry (from Carol, whose grandmother just died)
  • gardening
  • petting Mango the Cat
  • talking to my friends
  • going for a walk by myself
  • listening to beautiful music
  • cooking delicious food
  • giving to others
  • watching the rain
  • dancing my heart out with kindred spirits
  • being in nature
  • receiving rainbow seeds from a friend : )
  • when I remember to quiet my mind and breathe

For myself, what makes me feel really well are:

  • having a good cuddle with Mango
  • releasing stress from my body through the trauma releasing exercises and yoga
  • reaching that place of inner stillness and silence that is so alive and vast while meditating
  • definitely getting a good night’s sleep
  • deep easy breathing
  • really connecting with another person

What makes you feel really, really well? Please add (even if it’s a repeat) your experience in the comments. Thanks!

Right arm and shoulder release!

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve mentioned several times that when I’ve done the trauma releasing exercises, that my left arm and shoulder would tremble, shake, wave, jerk chaotically, releasing deeply held tension that I was previously unaware of.

Today I did the exercises, and finally, my right arm and shoulder began to release.

Also, my neck released more than usual. At one point my head was rolling from side to side.

Nice.

I had a longer releasing session, 20 minutes, today. Besides the new right arm and neck movements, the usual places released: legs, hip joints, spine, left arm and shoulder.

I noticed afterward that my breathing was deeper and more satisfying.

All this while lying on the floor in my roommates’ living room, while they were listening to this YouTube video of interviews of people all over the world talking about what progress means to them.

I listened to people speaking many languages while I lay on the floor and trembling moved through my body.

Then I did yoga, a couple of long, slow sun salutations, and my body totally loved it after doing the TREs.

~~~

And soon I’m off to the Kite Festival, and then to teach my restorative class and wind down my weekend.

Yoga lineages flow chart

Posted on by
2

Came across this awesome graphic this morning that shows the development of yoga over time. Bravo to Alison Hinks for creating it!

If you’ve ever wondered about the many different types of yoga and where they came from, this chart shows them very nicely.

Almost all my yoga experience has been in the Krishnamacharya lineage through Iyengar, although I have taken a class in Sivananda yoga in the Bahamas and took classes for a couple of years from a teacher whose background was in Integral yoga.

One omission I see is Shiva Rea. I understand she has studied with Krishnamacharya’s son and associates Desikachar, Mohan, and Ramaswami. (Maybe it was too difficult to show that!)

I’m unfamiliar with Babu Bhagwan Das, who is shown to have influenced Krishnamacharya. I haven’t encountered that name in my readings about Krishnamacharya. When I googled it, I got links to Bhagwan Das, the follower of Baba Neem Karoli who met up with Richard Alpert in India and took him to meet his guru. (Richard Alpert became Ram Dass.)

But Babu Bhagwan Das preceded Krishnamacharya, so obviously they are two different people in two different eras with similar names.

Just FYI, from Wikipedia, shramana refers to the belief that salvation is possible for anyone (in contrast to the Vedic caste system) and to monastic, ascetic traditions. It underlies Buddhism and Jainism. Buddha later shed shramanic practices, but Buddhism has a strong monastic tradition in Asia.

Kindness and giving challenges

Posted on by
1

This is just informational — I’m doing my own trauma releasing exercises challenge in Feb. and March, plus selling my house, moving out, seeking the perfect vintage trailer, finding just the right place for it, and arranging to have it transported and made ready, and moving in, while I work at a temporary job full-time. I’m feeling stretched a little thin! Just a little, at times, enough to not want another challenge at this time.

So I’m not participating in either of the challenges described below. Maybe later! I love the idea and want to pass the information about these challenges on to you all, to accept or decline as you wish.

The Extreme Kindness Challenge runs Feb. 14-20. It’s sponsored by the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation. (Today’s Feb. 15, but you can start today and end Feb. 21. Or never end!)

Today’s challenge is to smile at 10 strangers. You can easily do that in the grocery store!

Here’s the link: http://www.randomactsofkindness.org/extreme-kindness-challenge.html

My friend and fellow blogger Shelley Seale is doing a year of 30 day challenges. She’s already done the “six items of clothing” challenge. You can read her blog here: http://30days2011.wordpress.com/

Now Shelley is doing a 30-days-of-giving challenge. That’s how I learned about the Extreme Kindness Challenge. She started her challenge on Feb. 11 and has donated to St. Baldrick’s Foundation to fight childhood cancer, given a couple of dollars to a panhandler, donated clothing to Goodwill, and today she donated a scientific calculator to St. Monica’s Girls Home in Kenya.

If you would like to donate to St. Monica’s Girls Home, Shelley will pick up donations given in Austin. They need sports bras, bike shorts, flip flops, and some basic office supplies. See the list on Shelley’s blog.

Is your heart challenged to connect to our world in a deeper and more meaningful way?

Is anyone else doing the trauma releasing exercises?

Posted on by
2

Just checking. I’ve taught them to one person so far during this challenge and am curious to learn whether anyone else is doing them or has tried them at least once or intends to do them.

If so, would you please comment? I’d just like to know someone’s there.

Last night my releasing was mild compared to the previous wild session. A little shaking in my left hand, but not my left shoulder this time. Mostly my legs shook. I experienced some mild, gentle pelvic rocking. Lasted about 10 minutes.

~~~

This morning I went to Appamada Zen Center for the Sunday service. I got there just as the clappers signaled time to get seated before the service begins.

Had a nice practice inquiry session with Peg Syverson, my teacher. So much has changed since I saw her last, which was maybe in early January. We had a really good connection. She asked what stays the same while so much of my life is changing — selling my house, moving out, doing temporary work — and advised to notice it all.

During the sitting parts of the service, I noticed tight places in my body. I attribute it to the kettlebell swings I’ve been doing to strengthen my body. I’m working my way up from 10 swings with a 15 lb. kettlebell. Right now I’m at 20, and I feel it slightly afterwards.

Then I had tea afterwards with some sangha members, and we chatted about the revolution in Egypt, Islamic finance, the environment, and people’s difficulty in dealing with long-term incremental change like climate change, among other things. Some of my sangha read a lot.

I haven’t been to Appamada for weeks. I’ve been spending time with my granddaughter while my daughter works at her nursing job on Sundays. She had this weekend off, and I got to sit with my sangha.

I’m grateful to have my daughter and granddaughter in the same city as I and to be able to spend time with them.

I’m grateful for Appamada, Peg, the Buddha, Zen, the sangha, and my zafu.

I’m grateful to be exploring the trauma releasing exercises.