Monthly Archives: November 2013

Walkin’ the Good Road

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On the Good Road

Today we had the third Saturday meeting of the12 week meditation series in the Daring Greatly: 60 Day Gratitude Challenge at Two Rivers Yoga. This week we focus on learning to Walk the Good Road and becoming healers.  We began with a prayer inspired by Ana Forrest’s teaching:

Let us dance with what is immovable in our lives.  Let us find the courage and help one another to travel the Good Road.   Let us find the courage and help one another to find the prayers that are true for us.    Let us find the courage to use our healing breath to see and feel the energy inside ourselves & others.   Let us find the courage and help one another to honor the laws of medicine and nature. Let us find the courage and help one another to trust ourselves to try, to accept ourselves when we fail & to try again.  Let us give thanks!

Prayer has always been a bit challenging for me.  Reading Ana’s personal experience of it has sparked something inside – I feel a shift happening.  Right now just letting the discovery be.

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Patti’s Gift

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Catherine's Birthday Body ButterMy friend Patti gives me so many gifts as we live our friendship together.  This year’s gem is really so amazing I had to take it in bit by bit.  Patti is a biodynamic farmer, herbalist, writer and cofounder of The Farmwife Mystery School in Snoqualmie.  What you see in this picture is Catherine’s Birthday Body Butter.  It feels and smells as good as it looks.

 

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Yoga Behind Bars

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Yoga Behind BarsI had the amazing gift of joining my Two Rivers community of friends to practice in moving prayer for the benefit of Yoga Behind Bars.  We’re part of a wonderful fundraising effort called Gratitude in Motion in which many local studios are giving heart and thanks.   It was so good to see the many faces coming together in the LIGHT!

We moved in fluid synchrony with moments of calm to really take in the moment, the miracle.  Our friend and teacher, Kelley, explained that at the very moment we were practicing another friend and teacher, Cathy Iacobazzi, was offering yoga to residents of the Women’s Correctional Center in Monroe.  I felt a sense of connection and empathy grow imagining the women “inside” breathing with us.

In the quiet moments of savasana I began extending loving kindness to “them” – wishing they be safe and well.  In the inner space of quiet a wish that “they” forgive and be forgiven arose.  It started to swell inside me as I realized there are things that I haven’t forgiven myself for nor have I forgiven others.   It struck my heart like a resounding bell – this realization – this truth.  Us and them started to dissolve into we.  Today, I wish that we all can forgive and be forgiven.  In boundless gratitude.

Holding Space

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Holding SpaceWe had the fourth meeting of our four week Introduction to Meditation Class at Yoga Bliss yesterday.  During the month of November we’re focusing on the basics in order to help each other build a personal practice.

 

We attended to the four foundations of mindfulness:  body, feeling tone, emotions and thoughts.  We enhanced our concentration by sensing into these areas to allow what may be calling out for healing to arise in our awareness.  We enriched the healing experience of meditation by opening to a sense of a healing quality might answer a particular call.   An experience of physical tension could be soothed with relaxation.  General anxiety could be assuaged with peace.  Feeling a sense of heartache could be met with love.  A busy racing mind could be quieted with calm.  In each part of the journey we paused long enough to recall the last time we experienced the healing quality.  We enriched the memory by activating it with as many senses as possible.

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Listening In

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inner-wisdomGiving thanks, thanks, thanks for this cool clear, bright sky – it’s helping me listen up & wake up!   Yesterday was the second Saturday meeting of the12 week meditation series of the Daring Greatly:  60 Day Gratitude Challenge at Two Rivers Yoga.  This week is about listening in.  Now if you read down to the second to the last paragraph you’ll find a treat for your ears!

Okay:

 

Right now:   begin to breathe . . . really breathe & feel your breath bringing new life to every cell of your being . . .
Right now:   begin to breathe into the dream of your life . . . see it, sense it, enliven it with your breath!
Right now:  begin to breathe into your feet, into your hands, into your heart so they can be flexible & quick ever ready to respond to change!                                                               Right now:  Give Thanks!

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Safe, Satisfied & Connected

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SafeWe had the third meeting of our four week Introduction to Meditation Class at Yoga Bliss today.  During the month of November we’re focusing on the basics in order to help each other build a personal practice.

We began with a body scan and revisited the six points of posture.  Bringing awareness to feeling sensation in the whole body and then different body parts helps to calm and center our minds.

We brought a sense of being safe, satisfied and connected into our awareness.  We shared a comfortable, warm and safe room.  For the moment, our basic needs were substantially met.  We were among accepting, supportive people with whom we could share a sense of connection.  These are the three states that give rise to “homeostatic equilibrium.” This state is the foundation for an experience of well being, an ability to cope and an instinct to heal.  Dr. Rick Hanson describes this as the brain being in the “Green Zone.”

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A Path with Heart

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A Path With HeartGo Saturday!  We had our first meeting of the our 12 week meditation series to kick off the Daring Greatly:  60 Day Gratitude Challenge at Two Rivers Yoga.  Together we take up the challenge of personal transformation and to live in gratitude.   Today we began in stillness to explore our heart’s connection to the commitment we are making.

We are taking an amazing journey in which we can learn about ourselves, each other and our world. Stillness offers a wonder opportunity to really know the place from which we begin – in this case – to know ourselves well enough to seek what is most healing and empowering and what will enable us to live with thanks.

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