Category Archives: love

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

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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

Graphic: Patanjali’s 8 limbs of yoga

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The marvelous yogini-cum-graphic-artist Alison Hinks, who created the yoga lineages flow chart I linked to earlier, has done it again.

This beautiful graphic shows the eight limbs of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras.

What’s extra nice is that she’s identified the actions you do and the experiences that happen to you because you have practiced the actions effectively.

Thank you, Alison Hinks, for adding beauty and inspiration to the world.

Livin’ in the suburbs, drivin’ a rental

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My posting has been infrequent lately because (1) I’m working full-time on a three-month technical writing contract and (2) I just moved after selling my home of 10 years.

I thought I got rid of a lot of stuff when I got the house ready to list back in November, but when it came time to pack and move all but some basic necessities into a storage unit, I discovered that I still have way too much stuff. Gonna need another weeding when I move into my trailer.

Moving has been disorienting. I lost my little red Canon camera some time between Saturday afternoon, when I had someone take a photo of Judith Lasater and me (she created restorative yoga, would have loved to put that on my yoga page) and Wednesday morning, when I wanted to photograph some spectacular clouds and discovered my camera was not in my purse.

I’ve contacted Yoga Yoga and looked under the car seats and in the most obvious places. It will probably show up at some point. (Apparently the police found my laptop that was stolen in December! Will get that back next week!)

I also can’t find a box with my supplements in it. I take most of the supplements recommended in the book Buddha’s Brain. I’m glad I posted about them, because I may need to go buy replacements, and that book is deep in a box in storage.

Yesterday I completely forgot the PIN for my debit card. Proof that nourishing those neurotransmitters makes a tangible difference!

Adding to my feelings of disorientation and insecurity, I’ve been having car problems since Dec. 23. I took it back to the shop twice for problems; then when it overheated, I took it to a different shop, and that shop discovered it had a blown head gasket, which none of the previous shops had discovered.

I’m ready for my car to be fixed completely! And I hear myself whining and know that I created this. Well, maybe not all of it, but I wanted a change. And here I am. Livin’ in the suburbs, drivin’ a rental, camera-less and supplement-less. Oh well!

A couple of positive notes: Mango handled the move really well. This was our first move together. I bought him a top-loading cat carrier — much easier to get him into it. I moved him with the last load, and he meowed most of the way. He’s been super affectionate and hasn’t even tried to go outside yet.

And…he’s been behaving in a frisky manner! Running and jumping up on furniture with a goofy look on his face! I think he likes this place — a big house with three people to give him attention.

The other note: Saturday, in the midst of moving, I took a restorative yoga workshop with Judith Lasater, who created restorative yoga. I’m so glad I  did. I’ll post about that separately.

Anyway, here I am living in Wells Branch with Katie and Keith and Mango, while I work on this contract job and purchase, get transported, and set up my next home, a vintage trailer. Stay tuned for more adventures!

Did Marianne Williamson and legions of angels help Egypt?

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Just came across a blog post by the spiritual teacher Marianne Williamson, dated Feb. 2, during the darkest days before the Egyptian people prevailed and dictator Hosni Mubarak stepped down.

Maybe she’s onto something!

February 2, 2011

IN THE LAND OF EGYPT

In a radio interview this morning I was asked if I have hope for the future… whether I think love will ultimately prevail on earth.

From a spiritual perspective, yes love will ultimately prevail. Buddha became enlightened; the Jews made it to the Promised Land; Jesus resurrected. All those are religious tales that inform us of the basic imprint of the universe. No story is over until the happy part, and if it’s not happy yet then the story isn’t over.

But that is only the beginning of a framework for understanding. We mustn’t let the phrase,”Love will ultimately prevail,” be a mere platitude that serves to justify complacency…either spiritual or political. For whether we learn to love one another through wisdom or through pain is completely up to us. How long it takes before love prevails is completely up to us. How much human suffering occurs before love prevails is completely up to us. Free will does not mean we get to determine what ultimately happens, but it does mean we get to determine what happens in the immediate future to us and to those we love.

When you have thousands of people acting out a high-emotion, high-stakes drama such as that which is occurring in Egypt today, almost anything can happen.

On the one hand, we are witnessing the purity and power of the quest for freedom. The demand for basic human rights, the repudiation of a dictator, and the protest of an economic order in which 40 per cent of one’s population lives on less than 2 dollars a day – all of this is a pure, democratic rising up of the human spirit. And if America doesn’t stand in support of those things, then we’ve completely lost our own moral center.

At the same time, this situation has gone from volatile to violent. Freedom is rising, but the forces of oppression are cracking down. Chaos overrides not only the impulse to freedom but also the impulse to basic human decency. Blood is spilling. People are dying. The situation has gone from liberating to tragic.

Right now, let’s pray for a miracle.

May a great wave of sanity and peace flood the minds and hearts not only of the protestors, but also the military and police and government. The phrase “may cooler heads prevail” comes to mind. May men and women of honor and good will within every corner of Egyptian society be listened to, and their words and ideas heeded. May thousands of small miracles that you and I will never ever know about quiet down a conversation over here, cause a peaceful solution to emerge in a neighborhood over there. May a general sense of peace and good will – something we’d seen almost miraculously on display at the beginning of the protests — return to the streets of Egypt.

Try closing your eyes and see, with your mind’s eye, legions of angels roaming through the streets of Cairo. Do this as frequently as you can throughout the day. It is no idle fantasy. This is the exercise of spiritual power, and in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., such power is “more powerful than bullets.” Even when we are materially passive, he said, we can still be “spiritually active.”

The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle means that as the observer changes, there is a change in that which is observed. Worldly news anchors report the news: miracle-workers help change the news by the nature of their thoughts. And the greatest medium of miracles is prayer. So today, let’s pray for Egypt.

Dear God, please pave a miraculous path for the people of Egypt, to peace and freedom and joy unending. Bless their hearts. Guide their minds. Illumine this moment. May love prevail. Amen.

I’m ready to visualize legions of angels roaming the streets of Tehran. And Washington, DC.

How about you?

Kindness and giving challenges

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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?

The end of gratitude!!!

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Not really. Made you look, didn’t I? Ha!

Today’s the last day of my 21-day gratitude challenge. Several others that I know of have participated in some way — thanks, Katie and Michael and Victoria, I appreciate your support — and I hope that others of you have been inspired to explore gratitude in your own lives.

Today I understand that gratitude is a powerful connecting force. It’s simply recognizing the interconnected nature of your life.

We truly are connected. We are interdependent. To not feel gratitude is to experience walls around your self. To feel gratitude is to let the walls down. We are one.

Remember, gratitude is a habitual bias that you can cultivate by consciously experiencing it. If you ever have a hard time feeling gratitude, think on this:

At this moment, the vast majority of human beings on this planet don’t have it nearly as good as you do.

Just recognize that you have comfort and freedom and connections beyond the imaginations of much of the world. You don’t have to feel guilty about that, either.

But you might want to do something, like at least have some compassion for the homeless, hungry, malnourished, ill, lonely, hurting, hating, suffering, dying people in this world. And these people aren’t necessarily in Third World countries, in case that image flashed into your mind. They are here among us. They are us.

And every single one of us, until we draw our last breath, has the capacity to grow up and wake up.

As Byron Katie said,

I’d say “bless your heart, sweetheart,” but I’m too late. You’re already blessed.

She also said,

Who would you be without your story?

What is the story that keeps you suffering? Can you consider just giving it up and opening to what actually is?

When I first posted about this challenge, I asked you to consider this, from Wikipedia:

A large body of recent work has suggested that people who are more grateful have higher levels of well-being.

Grateful people are happier, less depressed, less stressed, and more satisfied with their lives and social relationships.

Grateful people also have higher levels of control of their environments, personal growth, purpose in life, and self-acceptance.

Grateful people have more positive ways of coping with the difficulties they experience in life, being more likely to seek support from other people, reinterpret and grow from the experience, and spend more time planning how to deal with the problem.

Grateful people also have fewer negative coping strategies and are less likely to try to avoid the problem, deny there is a problem, blame themselves, or cope through substance use.

Grateful people sleep better, and this seems to be because they think less negative and more positive thoughts just before going to sleep.

I’m closing this challenge with one more quote from Byron Katie. Consider this radical, revolutionary thought:

It all happens for your awakening, enlightenment, and joy. There is nothing that is not for us.

Love you!

~~~

Tomorrow is the first day of the Chronic Stress and Trauma Recovery Challenge! Accept the challenge, check in, contribute to the discussion, and support us by following!

A clear sign from the Universe. Flexibility. Freedom.

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I’ve reached day 20. The gratitude challenge ends tomorrow. Today I’m reviewing.

Here’s my parade of gratitudes so far, day by day:

  1. My cat Mango. My house. The internet.
  2. My daughter. Women friends. Gifted intuitive healers.
  3. My health. A car wreck. The best novel ever.
  4. Water falling from the sky. Mexican food. Saying no.
  5. Generosity. Root vegetables. An offer on my house.
  6. Doing this challenge. Imperfection. A day with my granddaughter, Hannah.
  7. NLP. Challenges. Resources.
  8. Asking for what you need. Seeking work. Integrative Chakra Breathwork.
  9. Options are the antidote to anxiety. Offers on my house. Work possibilities.
  10. The 4-Hour Body. Teaching yoga. Yes.
  11. Signing a contract on my house. Relationship challenges. Housewife on LSD video.
  12. Father and infant daughter. New watch. Pigeon pose.
  13. Meta position. The Metta Sutra. A good night’s sleep.
  14. Being a mad scientist. Having a wise realtor. Leaving home.
  15. Inner bigness. Jedi warrior Keith Fail. Awareness.
  16. Job interview. Insights. Shared dreams.
  17. My car. My house. My friends.
  18. The Work. Cat-moving advice. T-Mobile.
  19. Byron Katie. Life as it is. 5,000 blog views.

(By the way, as of this moment, this blog has gotten 5,019 views. Thank you again for reading, connecting energetically, commenting. I appreciate you.)

I see from this list a mix of specific gratitudes, for specific people, a video, a book, a company, a sutra, and more.

I also see broad areas of gratitude — insights, awareness, inner bigness, life as it is, no, yes.

Hmmm. I passed my own “chunk size” test! Yay! The object is not to be stuck in the details or in the big picture. It’s to have flexible perspective, to be able to see both the forest and the trees.

I am grateful to have the flexibility to zoom in and out on life with a measure of ease. I believe this skill is something I began developing since my very first day of NLP practitioner training several years ago. I hold the universe and an acorn in the palm of my hand. It helps tremendously with my equanimity — it helps me know I can be ready for anything. That confidence is priceless.

~~~

This 21-day challenge has coincided with selling my house. I had no offers on day 1, and now I have a contract and what looks like a pretty solid bet on closing February 18. Since I’ve often marked eras in my life by the home I was living in at the time, I am in transit, ending one era and beginning another.

It’s also coincided with a lot of attention to my work. On day 1, I was happily jobless, except for my joyous work as a yoga teacher and an NLP coach/change shaman offering free or low-priced sessions to get experience and build a reputation.

Meanwhile, my vision of my future work/identity keeps evolving. My plan had been to start as a full-time student at AOMA in July. I still love AOMA, and now I’m not so sure that becoming an acupuncturist is right for me. Nowadays it is hard to build a full-time practice in Austin, which has two acupuncture schools. I have time to get clear on this.

I believe I could become an exceptional acupuncturist, as long as I can practice “everything else” alongside it. But for me, maybe “everything else” is more to the point. I’m still working on this.

I’m considering getting other training, which may include classwork at AOMA. I have a couple of key words to guide me: blockages and beliefs. These words are about working with the body and the mind, i.e., touching and talking, and came to me during this challenge. That’s the big picture. Maybe massage school is where I need to start, to get a license to touch.

I can do Reiki now, without a license. Thank you, Jonathan, for attuning me.

I can do the verbal changework now under the banner of a coach or consultant, or, my favorite, well-being shaman.

It’s all energy work.

In the practical realm, due to the uncertainties of when I would actually close on my house, and desiring to keep my technical writing skills marketable until I have fully made the transit to self-employment, I updated my resume one day and spent the next day responding to job postings and sending it to recruiters for contract work. I heard from a recruiter that day, had an interview a few days later, and received and accepted an offer the day after that.

Honestly, I didn’t know it would be that easy, and that it was has touched my heart. Thank you, Universe, for showing my humble self that I’m on the right track. I hope to be doing contract work over the next couple of years to pay the bills as I get the training I need.

~~~

I’m incredibly grateful for the freedom I have. Especially when I compare myself to so many people in the world who can’t live where they want or do the work that they want, to people who feel trapped. (Actually, these are the people I want to work with.)

I can sell my house and buy a trailer!

I can quit a “permanent” job and do contract work to pay the bills and keep my skills marketable and have an adventure!

I can teach yoga and offer NLP/changework sessions and do The Work!

I can explore my desired life work and how best to learn and do that!

I can literally change my mind!

I am incredibly lucky and grateful that my life gives me these choices.

Father and infant daughter, a new watch, pigeon pose

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This will be a quick post after a long and busy day.

Today I’m grateful that I saw Brannen Temple holding his tiny, one-month-old daughter Najwa, who was sound asleep on his forearm this morning when I dropped Hannah off.

They made a beautiful picture together that just enchanted me — the big man and the tiny baby.

The photo above of Brannen’s hands and Najwa’s feet was taken by Sarah Temple. Love this photo, Sarah!

I found a watch at Target this evening that’s exactly like my description a week ago of what I desired in a watch but had never seen! It has a large round silver analog watch face, big numbers, a second hand, and a skinny black leather band. Found it for only $9.99!

For this I am grateful. They are very handy when teaching restorative yoga. Thanks to Mary Jean for suggesting Target.

I’m also grateful tonight for eka pada rajakapotasana, one-legged king pigeon pose. It just feels so good! It’s nice to use bolsters and blankets and hold it long with forehead on floor as a passive, resting, restorative pose. Ahhhhh!

Thanks to Yoga Journal for the borrowed photo below.

Asking for what you need, seeking work, and Integrative Chakra Breathwork

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On day 8 of the 21-day gratitude challenge, I am grateful for two dear friends who have asked me for love and support because they need it now.

I don’t know why, and I don’t need to know why. They will share when they’re ready. That’s beside the point.

These friends are people whom I’ve asked for support from when I’ve needed it, because they have an abundance of love for people.

I feel deeply honored that they can ask me when they need it, and that I have it to give. Blessings on you both, and may angels wrap their soft wings around you, carrying you in love, as I do.

***

I am grateful for my skills and abilities to make myself useful. Today, I will be asking for what I need in terms of a temporary/contract job. I do technical writing, editing, training, and a whole slew of other things.

Please ping me if you hear about anything. I’m also updating my LinkedIn profile. Please feel welcome to link to me if you like!

***

Today I’m grateful that I attended an Integrative Chakra Breathwork session last night. This is the creation of Ed Buresh, whom I just met in person last night, and it is a journey through the chakras with sound, breath, and movement.

Ed created the sound, which is marvelous: a heartbeat, a swirsh, and a tone for each chakra based on the earth’s vibrational frequency. I went into a deep theta trance during the 6th chakra and emerged as the sound was receding. It felt like I was working something out that was mostly unconscious.

I plan to return for more sessions.

(Another friend was teasing me about going to this, saying that “integrative chakra breathwork” hit all the New Age buzz words! Not quite. If you add “channel” and “angels” and “purple” and “bio-energetic”, then you’d be pretty close! That angel photo just makes this post complete, does it not?)

Gratitude for my daughter, women friends, and skilled intuitive healers

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About gratitude journals

From googling “gratitude journal,” the practice apparently began in 1996 when Sarah Ban Breathnach created The Simple Abundance Journal of Gratitude as a companion to her popular book Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy.

Here’s a blurb about the book:

“Gratitude is the most passionate transformative force in the cosmos,” promises author Sarah Ban Breathnach (Simple Abundance) in her introduction.

I believe it, Sister Sarah!

Sarah asked journalers (journalists?) to write five things every day that they felt grateful for and said they would feel their lives shift within a couple of months.

In 1998, Oprah Winfrey had Sarah as a guest on her show, and as we all know, Oprah just knows goodness. The gratitude journal took off.

I missed out on this back then. It was in the early days of the world wide web (remember that?). I was working at a computer all day, and in my free time, the last thing I wanted to do was be on a computer. (My, how Facebook and blogging have changed that!)

I was raising an adolescent girl going through her most difficult period, in an often-strained relationship.

Actually, looking back, keeping gratitude journals would probably have been a fantastically wonderful practice for us to share back then, if she had deigned to share anything with me.

Hmmm. She’s changed, and so have I.

What I feel grateful for today

Today I feel grateful for my whole experience of motherhood. From pregnancy (easy), through childbirth (difficult), to the moment I held my new baby in my arms for the first time and she wrapped her tiny fingers around my little finger (instant love), I have been blessed to have had a child, a daughter, and specifically my daughter, Lela Rose, who is 29 years old now.

Lela at her Dec 2010 graduation from nursing school, with her women friends.

I watched and helped her grow up, even as I grew up more myself, and she has turned out to be a mensch, a true human being. I see her in her young adult years now, a mother herself, starting her nursing career just this week, moving through struggle to accomplishment. I see her self-esteem, her worthiness, her competency, her intelligence, her endearing goofiness, her wisdom, her discipline, her caring, her limits too.

What I am most grateful for about being a mother is the personal growth that raising her brought to my life — the growing up that I had to do, the inner work of exploring my values, learning when to be flexible and when to stand firm, the changes that being her mother brought to my life.

Today I feel grateful for my women friends, in particular Clarita and Linaka, whom I spent time with last night. We go way back to 1995 when we began ecstatically dancing together. That is 16 years of knowing each other, talking, coming together and moving away, seeing each other through difficulties and joys and sharing them, traveling together, cooking and eating together, always laughing together, and lately doing NLP with each other.

I feel blessed to have so many women friends, new and old, near and far. There is something about the friendship of women that is so nurturing. I think we let our hair down when it’s just us, in a way that we don’t or can’t with men, because we share the lifelong experience of being women in this culture. And when we have common interests and affection for each other, the connecting is abundant.

Today I feel grateful for those people I’ve encountered so far in my life who are skilled intuitive healers. I’ve mentioned Patrice, my acupuncturist, and Chandler Collins, my chiropractor, on this blog before.

Yesterday I had a heart-centering bodymind session with Bo Boatwright, who is a chiropractor but who has learned and developed a method that one could do with just a massage license.

Having experienced one session with Bo, I’d say his work with me on the table was a combination of massage, chiropractic, myofascial release, rebirthing, and visualization. He rolled me and moved me to find the stuck places, and he dug into the stuck places, having me breathe all the while, until my body spontaneously began to release stress/tension/stuckness in the manner of rebirthing and trauma releasing exercises.

After my body quieted down, I felt sadness arise in my heart chakra. I cried, and Bo asked me about my relationship with my parents, who died in 1984 and 1997 (but of course one’s relationship with parents doesn’t end with death). I opened my heart to them, forgave them, embraced them, kissed them…

A couple of hours later, in a moment of quiet stillness, I noticed a new space in my heart center, an openness that wasn’t there before.

Thanks, Bo. I’m grateful for you. And heads up, you are teaching me.