The sweet spot

She stood in the storm, and when the wind did not blow her way, she adjusted her sails. Elizabeth Edwards

This week marks both the four month anniversary of my break-up with the one I thought was ‘the One’ and the six year anniversary of my marriage ending. My second marriage, that is.

It would be easy to just fall in a heap of ‘woe is me’ weeping. Truth to told my heart is heavy and raw, but I feel that the time has come to just launch myself forward and embrace life as best I can.

The time has come to shake off the doldrums, and what better way than the Sacral Chakradance. The moon is new, the celestial energy is ripe for a rebirth of fresh, vital energy.

The sacral chakra, based in the lower belly, is the colour of a vibrant orange sunset, the centre of femininity, sensuality and feeling, the dance expresses itself through the traditional belly dances of the East.

It’s element is water, so the imagery of the dance is of flowing rivers, and the ocean, and the full moon. It is the chakra of emotions, of feeling, of the senses.

As I have written previously, I feel that igniting the belly chakras is a great way to move through difficult emotions and replenish the lust for life, that can become depleted after prolonged illness or times of grief and sadness.

Last week I cancelled a hot date becuase I was feeling so down and disillusioned. I am hoping that moving through this sad energy and revitalising my belly chakras will shift me into reclaiming my inner goddess energy. Into feeling alive with the energy of the senses, feeling the flow of sacral energy through my belly.

In her amazing book, Vagina, Naomi Wolf describes the connection between female sexuality and creativity, she calls this the Goddess energy.

Calling to mind writers and artists like Anais Nin and Georgia O’Keefe, whose creativity skyrocketed during their passionate love affairs, Wolf uses both anedoctal evidence and medical science to support the theory that an orgasmic women is a women in full force of her energy.

The tantric tradition supports this notion absolutely, for both men and women, a healthy and satisfying sexual and creative life is a integral part of their vitality. Fortunately for many of us, tantric breath work and practices can be done alone as well as with a partner, so being single doesn’t preclude anyone from accessing this aspect of their spiritual vitality.

Let the beauty of what you love be what you do. There are many ways to kneel and kiss the ground. Rumi

The sacral chakra is connected to our creativity, our flow. That there exists this connection between emotion, sensuality, and creativity, makes perfect sense to me. The grief of the past few months has had a dulling effect on my vitality. Making a conscious intention to revitalise my sensuality has created a shift, and as a result I am smiling more, singing, feeling lighter. Feeling in the flow of my energy.

The sacral chakra – or Svadhisthana in sankrit – means “sweetness” or “one’s own place”. I like to call it “the sweet spot.” This alludes to the sensual bliss of an awakened sacral chakra, but more broadly to the awakening to a place in our own lives where we can embrace bliss in every area of our life.

What makes you smile? What makes you happy? What makes your heart sing? What are you passionate about? Is there any reason not to follow your bliss? For many of us the secret to success in life lies in following our heart and doing what we love, living in alignment with our natural gifts and talents.

There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence that is a fountain of action and joy. It rises up in wordless gentleness and flows out to me from the unseen roots of all created being. Thomas Merton

The sacral chakra resonates to the colour orange – the colour of positive emotions, pleasure and success. The colour of flame that represents your true nature, and refers to the true and pure essence of the real you.

Svadhisthana is the seat of sexual desire, pleasure and nurturing. The sacred art of tantra uses divine energy, including this sensual, sacral energy, to propel Kundalini energy up the spine, inspiring bliss and enlightenment.

The Svadhisthana allows you to find pleasure in self-expression. Whatever that may mean for you, it may be writing, painting, dancing, singing, gardening, parenting, being of service to others – we all have our innate gifts to share with the world.

The self-respect that comes from doing the things we love and feel gifted at, flows from our sacral chakra – if you’re enthusiastic, sociable, energetic and self-assured, your sacral chakra is strong.

Here a little video to show you how to balance your sacral chakra:

After discovering Sally Kempton’s wonderful book, Awakening Shakti: The transformative power of the Goddesses of Yoga, when I was attracted to the energy of Kali, I have continued to read about the hindu goddesses in their myriad forms.

Yesterday feeling depleted and lacklustre, heading out on a date when I had absolutely zero confidence in my appeal to anyone except the dog (you know they love us unconditionally), I picked up this book and began reading about Lakshmi. I kid you not, after about ten minutes I felt my mojo begin to return. Rejection hadn’t made me undesirable, it had just made me feel that way.

Lakshmi throws the spell of the intoxicating sweetness of the divine; to be close to her is a profound happiness and to feel her within the heart is to make existence a rapture and a marvel; grace and charm and tenderness flow out from her like light from the sun and wherever she fixes her wonderful gaze or lets fall the loveliness of her smile, the soul is seized and made captive and plunged into the depths of an unfathomable bliss. Shri Aurobindo

Prayer to Lakshmi:

O mother

Deeply embedded

Is my fear, my insecurity

Have mercy, O mother, on my wretched state.

Uproot it

With the joy that arises from your sweet and compassionate glance

Plant in us the seed of auspiciousness

As we make our way in the world.

Of her many names, one means lotus, the sacred flower that blossoms in the waters and roots itself in soil. The lotus represent the manifest world, so Lakshmi’s power can be seen as the manifestation of this flow, the energy of the waters and the fertile soil into life.

Lakshmi is beauty and life. When Lord Shiva inadvertently disrespects her, she withdraws from the three realms, and all the flowers wilt and the crops fail. She doesn’t create mass destruction like Kali, she simply withdraws her luscious, life-giving energy from the world. And the world is a drier, colourless place for her absence.

Lakshmi represents the fine balance between giving and receiving. The cycle of the natural world. As we enter into the Chinese New year of the Yin Wood Sheep, a very feminine, receptive, and nurturing time. After the strong yang energy of last year, this year is a time for nurturing, for reflection, for reestablishing our flow.

The energy of Lakshmi is the perfect meditation to restore balance and harmony to our depleted bellies. Here’s to finding your sweet spot!

Sacral chakra affirmation by HealingJourneysEnergy.com

As I focus on this orange light that radiates from my sacral centre, I feel radiant, alive and strong.

I am able to feel all the positive emotions, I embrace them as they allow me to stand in power.

I am able to feel all the negative emotions, feelings of fear, anxiousness, doubt and I truly understand what causes them, I accept them as they bring about feelings of joy, dignity and peace as they teach me lessons of growth and truth.

I am at peace and I lovingly release any negatives feelings that cause me any discomfort and pain.

(A deep breath in) I lovingly acknowledge, accept and appreciate.

Bless!

…

Images:

Tantra Goddess

Khajuraho

Lakshmi

Tantra healing

Tantra Art

Further Reading:

http://www.originmagazine.com/2012/10/23/free-your-sacred-belly-by-shiva-rea/

Imbalance in The Sacral or Sex Chakra

http://www.chakrahealing.com/blog/sacral-chakra-healing/

What is love anyway?

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of being and ideal grace. I love thee to the level of every day’s Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Finding myself bemused by my New Year intentions, that one repeated word intrigues me. Love. What does that even mean?

These are my intentions, by the way. I can’t even remember them, so I certainly don’t expect you to!

Love myself, Love the natural world, Love animals, Love people, Love my work, Love my space, Love my spirit

I don’t know if it’s the Valentine’s Day hangover, but that amount of love is making me feel a little nauseous.

Love is a word so overloaded with meaning, both societal and personal. Poems and songs are written about its lofty heights. It’s the word used to describe both our most precious relationships and how we feel about a good cup of coffee or a new dress.

What did I really mean when I wrote these intentions to love so widely and completely?

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close. Pablo Neruda

To love myself or love nature, is that the same kind of love? Does it need to be? Could these intentions be an exercise in stretching my ‘love muscles’ – and you can get your mind out of the gutter, right now. There’s more than one kind of love, y’know.

There are so many different kinds of love. Love can mean like, adore, adulate, care for, worship, cherish, yearn for, hold dear, pine for, enjoy, like, delight in, savour, fancy, admire… you get the idea. Other languages and cultures are much more nuanced in their expression of love – with words for which you need a whole sentence in English.

Saudade (Pronunciation: saw•’day•djee – Portugese) n., a strong feeling of missing someone you love.

In his wonderful article on the subject, philosopher Roman Krznaric, writes that the Greek language distinguishes at least six different ways as to how the word love is used.

The ancient Greeks were just as sophisticated in the way they talked about love, recognizing six different varieties. They would have been shocked by our crudeness in using a single word both to whisper “l love you” over a candlelit meal and to casually sign an email “lots of love.” Roman Krznaric

The first kind of love was eros, named after the Greek god of fertility, and it represented the idea of sexual passion and desire. Something the Greeks saw as a frightening loss of control, not the desirable state of constant arousal our modern society views it as.

Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. Neil Gaiman

The second variety of love was philia or friendship, which was valued more highly by the Greeks than the sexuality of eros. Philia describes the deep friendship that developed between men who had fought side by side on the battlefield – it epitomised loyalty, sacrifice and the sharing of deeply affecting experiences.

We’d never know how high we are ’till we are called to rise; and then, if we are true to plan, our statures touch the sky. Emily Dickinson

Ludis was the Greeks’ idea of playful love, such as the affection between children or young lovers. Think of flirting, teasing, bantering and light-hearted fun.

The fourth love was agape or selfless love. This was a love that you extended to all people – compassion, charity and an empathy for all people (and all living things).

Pragma was the deep understanding between long-married couples, who demonstrate compromise, patience and tolerance.

It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages. Friedrich Nietzsche

The Greek’s sixth variety of love was philautia or self-love, of which there were two kinds. One was a narcissistic self-love, where you became self-obsessed and focused on selfish ends. The second type was the idea that if you have a healthy self-love, you will have plenty of love to give others.

Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them. Leo Tolstoy

Krznaric suggests there is a correlation between the lack of attention given to these non-sexual, non-romantic forms of love and the modern obsession with romantic love, and with finding ‘the one’. The Greeks clearly articulated that expecting one person to fulfil all our love needs was completely unrealistic.

So it makes sense that there are different kinds of love, and perhaps we are designed to experience them all. Like getting all our nutrients, perhaps this longing for the ‘one’ is a manifestation of unfulfilled love in other parts of our life. Too much focus on the meat and not enough vegetables. (Okay, that pun was intended.)

On a recent shamanic journey, I was shown another aspect of love, receiving. One of my regular animal guides, the wolf, took me on a journey that showed me how resistant I am to the love and support all around me.

Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love. Rainer Maria Rilke

As the western world celebrates – or commiserates – Valentine’s Day, I wondered why we laud the romantic love above all else?

Feeling triggered by the ebbs and flows of my own heartbreak, I found the constant emphasis on that kind of love demoralising. A guy from an online dating site asked me ‘what had reduced such a beautiful, intelligent woman to this?’ I found that strange. I didn’t feel reduced. I wanted to meet single men, it seemed like the place to do it, was I missing something?

Adversity is like a strong wind. It tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that we see ourselves as we really are. Arthur Golden

And then, after some last minute cancellations, I found myself waiting for the last remaining Chakradance attendee who was a no show. Abandoned on Valentine’s Day. Uh oh.

Then tears came. I wish they didn’t. I wish I could write that I’m all strong and warrior-like, but I’m not.

As I sat in my beautiful studio, feeling alone and abandoned. Opening my eyes a sliver of light from the red candle flame was kaleidoscoped by my tears. So unexpectedly beautiful – the outlines of angels and holographic tribal images. I began to play with my tear-filled eyes. It’s a fine line between pleasure and pain…

Love is so short, forgetting is so long. Pablo Neruda

Unable to reconcile the Valentine red hearts, roses, and chocolate idea of love; the light and sparkly new age all-embracing love; and the love that has left me so bereft,  it occurred to me that love is so much deeper than the use of word suggests. The love of mother at her child’s sick bed. Of a husband as he holds his dying wife’s hand…

Love is a risk. The risk of the loss of that which we love. Love walks the razor’s edge between unconditional love and devastating, debilitating attachment.

What is to give light must endure burning. Viktor Frankl

Love is an act of courage. The courage to remain open after the heaviness and shards of hurt rain down on us. In the birth/death/rebirth cycle, grief is an inevitable part of love.

Grief reunites you with what you’ve lost. It’s a merging; you go with the loved thing or person that’s going away. You follow it a far as you can go. But finally, the grief goes away and you phase back into the world. Without him. Philip K Dick

Martin Prechtel is the author of Secrets of the Talking Jaguar, an autobiographical account of his initiation as a Mayan Shaman. His lecture series on Grief and Praise is a simple yet profound insight into the false distinction between love and loss, positive and negative emotions.

It is an interesting reflection on our modern desire to both suppress grief, whilst simultaneously expressing it in unhealthy and unhealing ways, on Jerry Springer, Facebook, from a bar stool. Most of us lack the real community which would hold us as we safely grieve.

It’s so curious: one can resist tears and ‘behave’ very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer… and everything collapses. Colette

Prechtel talks about grief and praise as part of the same continuum, as a yin/yang process where one always contains the other – it must or it is devoid of any real depth. Love and praise are only of substance if there is a connection involved where the loss would be felt deeply.

I love my cup of coffee but if I spill it, I’ll be upset for a moment and annoyed, but there’ll be no real grief. My dog on the other hand… The same goes for grief. We only grieve that which we have deeply loved. If there is no grief, there was no real love.

The darker the night, the brighter the stars,
The deeper the grief, the closer is God! Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Perhaps this kind of community, Pretchel speaks of, where people can bear witness to our pain and our joys is something we have to create in the modern world, we don’t live in extended families and tribes, and if we break down in the street we are more likely to be carted off to the psych ward than given a cup of tea and a friendly shoulder to cry on.

Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o-er wrought heart and bids it break. William Shakespeare

In a society where it is not safe to grieve, we abandon ourselves before anyone can abandon us, and withhold emotions because we fear it is unsafe. This repression and denial of grief manifests as all kinds of psychosis and physical symptoms, passed down as psychic wounds from generation to generation. These tribal and ancestral wounds are energetically lodged in our base chakra and can make us feel unsafe and insecure.

You won’t find these wounds on an x-ray or ultrasound, yet they will emerge from within when it is safe, if the timing is right, and you have the tools to process and honour them, if you give them the words they need to take flight, you can finally grieve them.

Each of us has his own rhythm of suffering. Roland Barthes

I was fifteen the first time tried to take my own life. That wasn’t the last time. That medicine cabinet still stands in my mother’s bathroom. Whenever I see it, I can still feel the ache of that girl.

As she emptied the pills in her hand. Her tears as she swallowed them, really thinking it was the end. Of what she thought she would find there. Relief, escape from the burden of an open heart.

Instead of a white cadillac to the clouds, I vomited until I bled, and there were tearful confessions, remonstrations, and resolutions.

It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure. Joseph Campbell

I don’t know what makes someone that thin-skinned. I don’t know why things never bounced off my skin the way the did off other people’s. Why the stings and arrows all got wedged in my heart.

This has been my journey. Being born with an over-full, ever-open heart. Experiencing shame at a too young age. Learning that people would stop loving me if I wasn’t good enough.

Someday you’re gonna look back on this moment of your life as such a sweet time of grieving. You’ll see that you were in mourning and your heart was broken, but your life was changing. Elizabeth Gilbert

Open heart. Broken ever wider. Yet when I journey there I see a beautiful garden growing in the ruins.

Maybe it’s okay to be alone in my garden. It’s beautiful. It lives. I am grateful.

So it’s true, when all is said and done, grief is the price we pay for love. E.A. Bucchianeri

I am grateful for my body
I am grateful for my heart
I am grateful for my spirit

Bless!

Images: http://www.jamesreads.com/

Let’s get wild

We need the tonic of wildness… At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature. Henry David Thoreau

There’s a half-written blog post languishing in my drafts folder, intended for this week, but as often happens, some thing burns a hole in my soul and I just have to write about it instead.

The soul-burning issue this week is self-restraint.

Now I’m a fan of self-restraint to a degree. I accept that we learn to keep our hands out of the fire and to not blindly walk across the road in the face of a Mack truck. Not to mention the restraint of pen and tongue that is so vital to peace in relations between family, neighbours, and nations.

However, when self-restraint tips over into stifling our wild nature, well, I have a little something to say about that.

As I resume teaching Chakradance for the New Year, I have been fielding lots of queries from interested people. And there is a disturbing trend emerging. Now I want to make it clear that this post is not based on any one individual, but on what seems to be an overwhelming reaction to the idea of dancing without inhibitions.

The refrain I keep hearing is that you would love to do Chakradance but…

You think you can’t dance

You think you’ll look foolish

You’re feel insecure and self-conscious about your body

You are worried what will people think of you

After one gorgeous person after another laid these concerns on me, I began to feel really sad. I mean it’s possible that these are excuses, that they really don’t want to do Chakradance, and that’s fine. I’m not trying to evangelise here!

But you see, I know they’re not just excuses, because I have had them too.

For years, I was a party animal, I would get drunk or high and dance the night away. When I gave up all that, I felt like I had lost the ‘fun’ button. I didn’t know how to relax into my body, how to move freely. When I danced, I feel like I had wooden legs.

And the irony is that the only cure for these inhibitions and insecurities – for me – was to dance in spite of them. To dance harder in the face of them, to thumb my nose and stick my bum out and wiggle my hips at them.

You see, they are a barrier to my wildness, and once I opened the door to my wildness, she came and whooped those fears right away.

Wild child full of grace
Saviour of the human race. Natural child, terrible child
Not your mother’s or your father’s child
You’re our child, screamin’ wild. The Doors

The idea of me being a Chakrdance teacher seemed ludicrous to me. I mean, I’m the one always turning the wrong way in dance class, I stumble a lot. I don’t look like a dancer…

So many mental barriers.

Writing this blog has given me the freedom to follow my wildness. Because, you see, my heart wanted me to dance. And maybe I thought, I can encourage other people who would love to express themselves in some wild and creative way, but hold themselves back for fear they don’t fit the bill.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life? Mary Oliver

As I practice for the Chakradance Journeying classes, I dance to the themes of the Earth, trees, and animals. These are dances that focus on connecting with your wildness, your deepest primal nature. Dances that transport you into the ancient energy of your ancestors and the spirit of the land.

I connected with a wolf spirit in the power animal dance, and afterwards I was drawn to pick up an old, favourite book, Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ Women who run with the Wolves.

I was given my copy of this transformative book 17 years ago by my first husband. He often lamented how uptight and restrained I was, he could see there was a wild woman in there just itching to get out, if I’d only just let her free.

Over the years I’ve re-read parts and the entirety of the book and it always has great wisdom for me.

I’ve also been drawn recently to books and stories of women who literally go into the wild, like Cheryl Strayed’s Wild and Robyn Davidson’s Tracks and Nomads.

Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity.John Muir

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating a wholesale Thoreau-esque return to nature here.

In his book on the ecology of Celtic spirituality, The Salmon in the Spring, Jason Kirkey writes of the need for integration. We know our technological life is inherently lacking in spirit, and yet who of us wants to live without electricity and running water – only a small few.

The goal then is to integrate our technological advances with a renewed spiritual connection with the wilderness. Intrinsic to our soul is a deep need for this connection and only by honouring this can we bring the vision of a truly modern world – one that respects science, technology, nature and spirit – into being. Kirkey argues that evolution is the key, we cannot go backwards to a more primitive life, nor should we.

The mantle bestowed on humans in collective evolution is our ability for self-reflective awareness. This is not ‘our’ intelligence per se, but rather the evolutionary process has blessed us with this capacity to be a “particular expression of an intelligence and subjectivity” present in the cosmos from the beginning. In the scheme of things, of nature, humans got the job of self-reflection.

Our purpose now is to integrate this reflective consciousness into a mode of living that is in harmony with the evolutionary functions of all life – and not contrary to it.

It had to do with how it felt to be in the wild. With what it was like to walk for miles with no reason other than to witness the accumulation of trees and meadows, mountains and deserts, streams and rocks, rivers and grasses, sunrises and sunsets. The experience was powerful and fundamental. It seemed to me that it had always felt like this to be a human in the wild, and as long as the wild existed it would always feel this way. Cheryl Strayed

Sandra Ingerman says, from the shamanic perspective, we dream our world into being, and we can’t keep dreaming the old dream, we need a new one. I keep thinking of Robert A Johnson who writes in The Fisher King and the Handless Maiden: Understanding the Wounded Feeling Function in Masculine and Feminine Psychology, that the feminine psyche tends to solve problems by focusing on reducing the differences between opposing sides – mediating and peace-making – rather than in out and out battle.

In some ways this has lent itself to the feminine being always accommodating to her own detriment. But wildness is not synonymous with aggression. We can be wild and let our wildness shine and radiate its effects on those around us, without any force or aggression.

Most of us exist for most of the time in worlds which are humanly arranged, themed and controlled. One forgets that there are environments which do not respond to the flick of a switch or the twist of a dial, and which have their own rhythms and orders of existence. Mountains correct this amnesia. By speaking of greater forces than we can possibly invoke, and by confronting us with greater spans of time than we can possibly envisage, mountains refute our excessive trust in the man-made. They pose profound questions about our durability and the importance of our schemes. They induce, I suppose, a modesty in us. Robert Macfarlane

Think of the Mother bear archetype. I remember after years of trying to advocate for my son with autism, and being consistently made to feel that I didn’t know what was best, because I was a mother not an expert, my maternal ire rose up in me and I started being a mother bear. When something was against my maternal instinct, I stood my ground.

This internal shift has made me a much better mother, as I now have a steady internal compass for my parenting. I am not always looking to others to tell me what I should do.

Wildness in parenting, in any aspect of life and relationships means using instinctual intelligence – trusting our gut. Doing what we know is right even though the ‘powers that be’ – both internal and external – may not approve.

We may have to step out of the dynamic of being good and polite and nice. Perhaps like me, you had these qualities drummed into you as a child, as virtues. Perhaps being polite has also left you defenceless and vulnerable in dangerous situations. Situations your instinct would have warned you from, if you had been brought up to be attentive to it. Situations where sometimes the only way out with your life was to give up a piece of your soul. And bit by bit these woundings deplete our wildness. But the wild spirit is regenerative. The soul wants to heal and it will, given the space to.

Though the gifts of the wildish nature come to us at birth, society’s attempt to “civilize” us into rigid roles has plundered this treasure, and muffled the deep, life-giving messages of our own souls. Without Wild Woman, we become over-domesticated, fearful, uncreative, trapped. Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Chakradance is described as a dance practice for the soul. The intention is reconnect to our true essence or self – to tune into that deeper part of us and hear what it has to say.

In our forests
part divine
and makes her heart palpitate
wild and tame are one. What a delicious Sound! John Cage

These days there is an epidemic of challenging symptoms in our modern lives – depression, anxiety, addictions, compulsive behaviours – the list goes on. In traditional shamanic cultures, it is believed that these symptoms arise from loss of connection to the soul.

Oh, I’m burning! I wish I were out of doors! I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free… and laughing at injuries, not maddening under them! Why am I so changed? Why does my blood rush into a hell of tumult at a few words? I’m sure I should be myself were I once among the heather on those hills. Open the window again wide: fasten it open! Emily Brontë

Fortunately, the soul has a natural instinct to heal. It communicates with us through our bodies, our feelings, our relationships, our dreams, our art. And once we listen to our souls language, we find the path to wholeness, we align our inner and outer lives.

Chakradance workshops are a journey inwards. But they are by no means the only way to make this connection.

We can reconnect with our nature self, our primal self, our wild self, by reconnecting with mother earth, and the elements of water, air, sunshine, moonlight, starlight. This can be as simple as:

Walking on the earth with bare feet

Singing with all your heart

Dancing with abandon

Standing beneath the moon and the starry night sky

Sitting in silent solitude

We can model wildness for future generations as the way to integrate modern life with our inner instinctual selves. A balanced way of life for both the natural ecology and the internal ecology – toward an individuated and balanced psyche. For a balanced person will want to protect what it loves, the wilderness within and without.

What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another. Mahatma Gandhi

Root Chakra Affirmations from Chakra Anatomy 

I feel deeply rooted.

I am connected to my body.

I feel safe and secure.

Just like a tree or a star, I have a right to be here.

I stand for my values, for truth, and for justice.

I have what I need.

I am grounded, stable, and standing on my own two feet.

I nurture my body with healthy food, clean water, exercise, relaxation, and connection with nature.

I am open to possibilities.

I am grateful for all the challenges that helped me to grow and transform.

I trust in the goodness of life.

I make choice that are healthy and good for me.

I trust myself.

I love life.

Bless!

Images:

Anita Anti & Margarita Kareva

For more information on Chakradance

The spirit that lives in all things

Close your eyes, let your hands and nerve-ends drop, stop breathing for 3 seconds, listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world, and you will remember the lesson you forgot, which was taught in immense milky way soft cloud innumerable worlds long ago and not even at all. It is all one vast awakened thing. I call it the golden eternity. It is perfect. We were never really born, we will never really die. It has nothing to do with the imaginary idea of a personal self, other selves, many selves everywhere: Self is only an idea, a mortal idea. That which passes into everything is one thing. It’s a dream already ended. There’s nothing to be afraid of and nothing to be glad about. I know this from staring at mountains months on end. They never show any expression, they are like empty space. Do you think the emptiness of space will ever crumble away? Mountains will crumble, but the emptiness of space, which is the one universal essence of mind, the vast awakenerhood, empty and awake, will never crumble away because it was never born. Jack Kerouac

Ah! I needed to read that. Thanks Jack.

Last post I put some serious intentions ‘out there’ for my year. And now I’m back in ‘reality’ – pfffft! Whatever that means. And I feel like I’m stuck between worlds. The world of jobs and bills and traffic and the world of nature and spirit. How on earth do I practice these intentions in a life chock-full of distractions?

Was I being a little rash? I mean those intentions popped into my head, literally seconds before I wrote them down and raced to the beach, between violent thunderstorms, to do a ritual – out with the old, in with the new. Whooosh.

It was all rather spontaneous and spur of the moment. It was my last night at the beach. A night of the full moon, all dark and stormy, and I just had this urge to harness all that wild, electric energy to make my new year’s resolutions.

Later, after re-reading my intentions I thought, hmmm… I’m not sure where all that came from. Obviously, I was on a bit of a nature love-buzz.

But you know what? I’m just going with it. Those intentions came to me for a reason and I am going to just let that unfold. Even if it turns out the reason is to teach me to put some forethought into my rituals…

To refresh your memory here are my intentions as they spilled out of my pen that fateful night… (Drum roll please)

Love myself
Love the (super)natural world
Love animals
Love people
Love my work
Love my space
Love my spirit

So there’s nothing too outrageous. I didn’t commit to chasing down Johnny Depp or becoming a bestselling author or bringing about world peace or anything.

It occurred to me late last year that my intentions, and the whole theme of ‘putting it out there,’ was rather outcome focused. It was all about bringing stuff in, manifesting great things in my life. And yes, it worked, undoubtably. But it also tapped into a part of my personality that is a little, ahem, shall we say, insatiable.

As the buddhists tell us, the greatest source of pain in our lives is the state of dissatisfaction that comes from our attachment to desire.

So when I came to the end of last year, despite its many great blessings, in a state of grief and pain, I knew I had to go within and see its source.

Now I do believe that pain has its purpose. Grief breaks my heart open, promotes compassion for other’s pain, highlights thought patterns that no longer serve me, and is a release of held emotion from my body. I don’t think we can or should avoid grief. I think we can certainly learn from its expression though.

Sadness gives depth. Happiness gives height. Sadness gives roots. Happiness gives branches. Happiness is like a tree going into the sky, and sadness is like the roots going down into the womb of the earth. Both are needed, and the higher a tree goes, the deeper it goes, simultaneously. The bigger the tree, the bigger will be its roots. In fact, it is always in proportion. That’s its balance. Osho

On the night of my ritual to the ocean, I was driven by this pain to let go of my attachments, especially in relation to the ideals of romantic love and home. This was motivated by a nagging sense that somehow my intentions ‘hadn’t worked’ in these areas of my life just because I didn’t get the house or the man I wanted.

As soon as these ideas were articulated in my heart and mind, I realised the source of my pain. Being single and renting my gorgeous little place is not painful. It is the attachment to the idea that things should be different that creates pain. Of course, there was also some legitimate heart-ache and grief thrown in there too, but while those emotions will shift and move, attachments stay stuck and often become so embedded, like a veruca burrowing deep, down inside, causing more and more pain.

So I wrote out my list of letting go, my commitments to practice, and some new intentions.

Originally my intentions were going to be very specific. Like a shopping list of desires. “I want to go to Bali and study shamanism” “I want to go to Ireland and see the sacred sites” “I want to study celtic tradition and herb lore and sound therapy and tarot and …”

First it was becoming a long and exhausting (and rather whiney) list, second I could see I was setting myself up for disappointment again.

What if these things didn’t eventuate? Would that leave me with a sense of failure and disappointment? Would I become so fixated on these attachments that I would miss the appreciation of the gifts that did come my way? I suspected, yes.

As a student of druidry and shamanism, the consistent message that comes through these traditional practices is a reverence for the wisdom of the natural and spirit world, or what I have come to call the (super)natural world. Studying these traditions, we learn there is not a clear distinction between these worlds. Nature is inherently imbued with spirit and spirits. All things have the ‘spirit that lives in all things’ and nature is rife with the ‘hidden folk’ sprites, faeries, and other elemental spirits.

When I get attached to physical outcomes, I lose sight of this nuance and numinosity, that is such a gift in my life. Even in my grief and pain of the past few weeks, I was acutely aware of how the ocean held me, and the presence of spirit all around me in the rocks and sand and sea-plants and animals. As I hummed an Ani DeFranco song about heartbreak, suddenly the tune was alive with spirit and the words came – and I had my soul-song or power-song, a great gift in shamanic practice. This is a song I sing to connect with my power and spirit for the purpose of healing myself and all living things.

All this became a cacophony of voices reminding me of, possibly the key principle of all spiritual practice, “practice not outcomes.” The practice itself IS the point. The gifts are in the practice itself. Intentions are the focal points for my practice, not means of searching for goodies from the universe. Although great blessings do come from this practice, that should not be the incentive. I saw I had the cart before the horse.

So I am sticking with these intentions that came to me so intuitively. This time with the focus on the means, not the end. They are a commitment to practice. I want to reconnect with my study of the subtle energy bodies, the chakras, and the chakradance journey as a practice for integrating all that I am learning in my druid and shamanic studies.

This year I intend to take a slightly different process in exploring my intentions. Last year I aligned each intention with a chakra and examined them independently. This year I intend – who knows what will actually happen, or what wonderful tangents this will take me on – to look at my seven intentions through the perspective of a different chakra each week.

I intend to look at each intention through lens of the seven chakras. As well as developing my sense – which I touched upon last year – of the correlation between the chakras other energy systems, in native Australian indigenous practice and the probable Celtic energy system of the ‘cauldrons’.

The cauldron is a great analogy for this blog, as this will be the melting and magic pot where all my practices come together.

These are my intentions, but spirit will guide me so it’s a fabulous journey of discovery, let’s see where it goes!

I am rediscovering the beauty of spontaneous ritual in working with nature instead of imposing our will and structure on nature. While there needs to be a basic structure to ensure practice and intentions, and a reasonably informed approach, there is always room for interaction and spontaneity. This is where the majority of my guidance comes from. A spark of inspiration in meditation and then I follow up with research.

I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes. e. e. Cummings

So, we find ourselves back at the Base or Root chakra – Muladhara. Intricately linked to our survival, our instincts and our primal, tribal nature. This chakra holds our ancestral memory bank. Our base chakra influences feelings of grounding and being supported. Most children, by the age of seven, have decided whether the world is a safe place, and this informs our vitality in the base chakra. However, we can strengthen our sense of security through energy work and affirming living practices.

The base chakra energies are earthy, dense, physical. Feelings of being grounded and supported, like the roots of a tree… How does that manifest in my intentions? What can I do this week to bring the earthy, grounded energy of the root chakra into my intentions?

It feels to me as if there is a lot of shadow work to be done in this chakra. Inherited behaviours, thought patterns, beliefs, ancestral patterns encoded in our DNA that often lurk in the darkness of the soil beneath our roots. There is also the sense of a great unearthed ancestral wisdom of both our familial lines and the ancestry of the land itself.

I am a forest, and a night of dark trees: but he who is not afraid of my darkness, will find banks full of roses under my cypresses. Friedrich Nietzsche

In Chakradance we also draw inspiration from the natural movements found in the animal kingdom. Animal dances are deeply entrenched in shamanic ritual. Shamans believe that each animal can teach us the power of their instinctual energy through dance. Dancing the base chakra you may encourage a tiger, a snake, a dragon, or a bear, to join you.

As you intuitively choose an animal and begin to move along to the Chakradance tribal beats, an incredible spontaneity of movement is unleashed. As I danced the Base chakra journeying dance, a wolf came to me. I thought “how on earth do I dance like a wolf?” Through letting go of my judging, rational mind, I simply moved to the music as I imagined wolves in the wild.

Soon I found myself laughing and moving on all fours, then dancing with wild abandon. Wildness, that was the wolf’s message to me. To tap into that wildness that gets so repressed in our society of conformity and restriction of our instinctual natures.

Dancing into my roots, another part of the Base Chakradance practice, allows me to connect with the imagery and energy of the tree. Trees are a powerful symbol of the dimensions of life used in many cultures. In celtic druidry the ogham is a communication and divination system of tree symbols, based on the nature of specific trees. I intend to learn more about traditional druidic sacred plants and trees, but to also link in with local practitioners to learn and study our native Australian power plants.

Dancing the base chakra brings a sense of wildness and strength, but also a sense of support and groundedness. I intend to bring a sense of groundedness into my work-life – I will be mindful, stable and practical at work. I will bring a plant to work to enhance the work environment.

I will create harmony in my space through decluttering and letting go of what I no longer need, handing them on for others to use. I will declutter the space through energy cleansing rituals.

Sandra Ingerman, a shamanic practitioner and teacher suggests that rather than viewing shamanism as a set of complicated practices to achieve personal spiritual advances, it is quite simply a practice based on an authentic desire and attempt to commune with nature and the non-physical world. The ultimate end in this, is that we can become of service to the planet and all the life interwoven with it.

And the beauty is, the practice is a simple as sitting under a tree, taking a deep breath of air, drinking fresh, clean water, enjoying an open camp-fire or candle flame, swimming in a river or ocean. Bringing our selves, as nature beings, to nature without any need to get or change anything. Just being. And then the change happens. We become a little more aligned with the heartbeat of the earth. We walk a little lighter on her belly, with our feet bare and our hearts full.

Tree Meditation by Natalie Southgate:
Begin by standing with your feet in line with shoulders, close your eyes and gently straighten your spine. Take a few moments to focus on your breathing…

Imagine you are in a tropical jungle. You are standing under a canopy of lush foliage; you can smell the moist, rich earth. Sink your feet down into the wet earth. Imagine the bottoms of your feet are gently opening and beginning to grow roots like a tree. Push your feet into the ground and imagine the roots travelling down deeper and deeper, reaching for the red core of the earth. Breathe in through your body, and down through the layers of the earth. You feel secure; grounded to the earth.

After a few minutes of grounding through your roots, begin to draw the pulsing energy from the earth up through the layers of rock and soil, up through your feet and legs and into your base chakra. Fill your base chakra with the red vibrant energy from the earth. You feel secure, grounded and energised.

Affirmations by Chakra Anatomy:

I feel deeply rooted.
I am connected to my body.
I feel safe and secure.
I am grounded, stable, and standing on my own two feet.
I nurture my body with healthy food, clean water, exercise, relaxation, and connection with nature.
I am open to possibilities.
I am grateful for all the challenges that helped me to grow and transform.
I trust myself.

Bless!

Images by Severine Pineaux

Circles within circles

Illustration of Nahima
http://nahimart.blogspot.it/

Life is a full circle, widening until it joins the circle motions of the infinite. Anaïs Nin

Finally, after months of preparation and practice, I delivered my first (practice) Chakradance class on Saturday. The lead-up was predictably nerve-wracking – between preparation for the class itself and filming it for assessment.

I had started out with 10 dancers coming, but by that morning, in the midst of a flu-ridden Melbourne winter, I wasn’t even sure I would make my quota of three dancers. I was concerned about the technology, as I had to film the class – under stringent conditions – for my teacher to assess.

Entering an old and familiar state of panic, my overriding thought was “I can’t do this.” What started as a plaintive cry ended up sounding like a high pitched siren going off in my head.

I tried all my usual calming tricks and tools: meditation, essential oils, running, energy work. They all helped temporarily but then I found myself back in the morass of anxiety.

My reiki meditation class, the week before, were given the mantra ‘I can and I am’ for the solar plexus chakra. So I repeated these affirmations and they helped. After all, it was true, despite all my fear I WAS doing it. It was happening. And I was BEING amongst all the doing, and the happening…

When success comes into our lives it often highlights our negative thinking, as we stress about everything but fail to see beauty in how effortlessly it is unfolding. And as success creates its own challenges, it is easy to fall into the trap of constantly worrying about the ‘next thing.’

I had to remind myself that everything was actually alright. When I had decided to do the Chakradance course – with no money to pay for it – the money had come through crowd funding, quite effortlessly. My friend had offered a space to hold the class, despite my fears that no one would turn up, I had the required numbers.

Technology is always an unknown, in my day job I run events regularly and no matter how many times you check and recheck, there is always the possibility of something going wrong.

And that’s life, full of unforeseen variables.

Despite this sensible rationale, the stress continued to accumulate in my neck and shoulders, so I went to see my kinesiologist/chiropractor. He treated me, and listened to my body, and we talked through my fears.

What was coming up for me was a number of old emotional patterns, both my own and ancestral, which were blocking me from expressing myself. The torque between these emotional blocks and my attempts to encourage self-expression through Chakradance had manifested as anxiety and bodily tension.

It was an inner war between the old and the new, the inner and the outer.

There was an old feeling in me of being ‘set up’ for a massive fall. Even of divine trickery, that somehow the the universe was conspiring to make me feel like all my dreams were coming true, luring me into a false sense of security, just to snatch success out from under me at the crucial moment. The moment most likely to cause total humiliation and annihilation of self.

I’m wondering where I learned this rather pessimistic perception of the gods as vengeful, petulant, and conniving? Probably from the Greek tragedies.

You know how the story goes, the hero or heroine, mighty and strong, is brought down by their own pride in their capabilities. The gods could not allow such hubris. I was raised on that stuff, pride always comes before a fall, tall poppies get their pretty flowered heads lopped off…

Old ideas that are embedded deep in my psyche.

My earliest experience of going out into the world, as an independent young woman at 18, brimming with lofty ideals and dreams, ends with me falling down the metaphorical rabbit hole. It took me a long time and a lot of work to climb back out of that hole. Part of my psyche is dedicatedly risk-averse, based solely on the memory of that hole.

And yet, Hugh says to me, that was then, this is now. I can trust myself now. I can express myself now.

He insisted that this was a healing experience for me, to face this fear and break this ancestral cycle of repression.

Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty. Albert Einstein

Chakradance encourages me to bring in my unique brand of light, and facilitate others’ journey of self-discovery. As such it is the perfect expression of my gentle power – holding, radiating, not forcing. Holding the integrity of the sacred space to allow others to experience the light that comes from within, to illuminate the self.

Being a chakradance facilitator is primarily about creating and holding the sacred space, the sacred circle. For the dancers to feel safe enough to close their eyes and let go into their inner dance, the facilitator must bring a sense of calm and safety.

There must also be the sense that the circle somehow transcends everyday reality, that in this space, access to the spirit, the divine, the collective unconscious, to the deepest and highest parts of self, is sought.

Humans have traditionally used the circle as a space for sacred ritual – the circle being an ancient symbol, an archetypal container for inviting in the divine.

Stone circle sites such as Stonehenge have been found the world over. There is the infinitely circular nature of Celtic knot-work, and Mandala circles in the Buddhist and Hindu traditions. Native American culture creates medicine wheels, and the Bora rings feature in Australian indigenous practice.

Circles are a sacred symbol found in all cultures. Which by Jung’s definition makes them part of the collective unconsciousness – the collective wisdom we all tap into subconsciously and bring into our conscious lives.

All these sacred circles, despite variations in their techniques, have in common that they exist at a conceptual as well as physical level, they can be used as a sacred space, an aid to meditation, an altar, a centering device for one’s consciousness, a protector, and a framework in which to honour the forces of nature and the levels of being.

The circle is infinite, without beginning or end, in perfect symmetry, completely contained. The ritual circle allows for a group of people to stand facing one another, and the centre. The circle symbolically can represent the earth, the sun, the moon, and the womb. All that is, all that will be.

The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; and throughout nature this primary picture is repeated without end. It is the highest emblem in the cipher of the world. St. Augustine described the nature of God as a circle whose centre was everywhere and its circumference nowhere. We are all our lifetime reading the copious sense of this first of forms. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Chakradance draws on the wisdom of Jungian Psychology, recognising the power of creating a container or space to hold the experience of the dance. Chakradance is a dance for healing and self-discovery. By going within and dancing through each of our chakra centres, and staying present in what we find or experience, each dance gives rise to different insights and feelings.

After the dance, the creation of personal mandala art is a way of anchoring our experiences back into our conscious world.

We create a mandala art so that we can reflect on, and express, our experiences of the dance. The circle both contains our experience and holds a healing power. The images we draw can be literal or symbolic. In the dance, it is possible to see actual images in your mind’s eye, or the mandala may represent a feeling or an insight you had in colours, shapes, or images. Creating a mandala is an intuitive and spontaneous process. It is important to just let it unfold, without judgement or criticism.

After the practice dance on Saturday, the participants had a discussion about their mandala art and what the images meant. They asked me what a mandala was, what was it for?

I realised I had very little knowledge beyond my personal experience in Chakradance, and I was extremely grateful that my friend Margi was on hand. Margi has been creating mandalas for 20 years and the majority of the mandala images in this blog post are her beautiful work.

Mandala art has been used throughout the world for self-expression, spiritual transformation, and personal growth. Mandala is the ancient Sanskrit word for circle and is seen by Tibetans as a diagram of the cosmos. It is used by Native Americans in healing rituals and in Christian cathedrals. The labyrinth is a mandalic pattern used as a tool for meditation. An archetypal symbol of wholeness, the mandala was used as a therapeutic art tool by psychologist Carl Jung, who believed creating mandalas helped patients to make the unconscious conscious. Bailey Cunningham

The mandala, at its very simplest, is a circle with a centre, a form that is ancient, and is found everywhere in nature. Just think of a flower with its petals circumnavigating the centre.

Mandala is Sanskrit for ‘whole world’ or ‘healing circle’ writes Clare Goodwin, and describes it as a representation of the universe and everything in it. Khyil-khor is the Tibetan word for mandala and means “centre of the Universe in which a fully awakened being abides.”

Mandala artist and writer, Margi Gibb says, a mandala is a sacred space revealing inner truth about the self. In Sanskrit mandala also means both ‘circle’ and ‘centre’, implying that it represents both the visible world outside of us and the invisible one deep within us.

From Native American and Tibetan sand-paintings to Gothic rose windows and Hindu yantras, mandalas are used as symbols for meditation, protection and healing. 
Clare Goodwin 

Carl Jung saw mandalas as basic patterns for the Self, that explored the ideals of formation, transformation, and re-creation. The centre of the circle is the point towards which everything is directed. He discovered that while our consciousness lives in the outer circle, the centre of the mandala is what captures our attention as we seek oneness with the Self, with the universe.

The centre of a mandala is where the divine resides, and where we turn inwards and towards, as we seek this individuation of self. The unity of the unconscious and conscious selves. Our inner and outer worlds.

When I began drawing the mandalas, I saw that everything, all the paths I had been following, all the steps I had taken, were leading back to a single point – namely to the mid-point. Carl Jung

Jung used mandalas as a psychological tool for himself and his patients. The mandala captures inner images, creating a visual reflection of a state of self as it exists in a particular point in time. Jung found the creation of mandalas assisted us see the true state of our inner being.

Jung discovered mandalas when he began drawing his innermost feelings in a journal each day and noticed that many of his drawings featured circles. Understanding Indian cultural traditions as he did, he recognised the symbolism of the circle in his drawing and called them mandalas. He saw these drawings as a snapshot of his innermost self at a particular point in time.

I sketched every morning in a notebook a small circular drawing,…which seemed to correspond to my inner situation at the time….Only gradually did I discover what the mandala really is:…the Self, the wholeness of the personality, which if all goes well is harmonious. Carl Jung

As Jung discovered, the regular drawing of mandalas chronicles our inner journey. In Chakradance I have been creating mandalas for over a year now. And during the facilitator course I created 9 mandalas in 7 weeks. In the last week of the integration Chakradance I sat with my mandalas around me in a circle. The power was palpable.

Jung was right, these images had captured moments in my psyche. I could see where I had been journeying in my base chakra, how there was fear surrounding the darkness of going within, then a beautiful communion with the earth. I saw the dances of the sacral and solar plexus chakras and how they led me to release some old patterns and pain from my childhood. And so on.

It was a remarkable reflection of a journey within. And that’s just skimming the surface of the revelations they have brought me. I realised creating the mandala is one aspect, and meditating on them is another aspect of this profound practice.

I saw that . . .one could not go beyond the center.  The center is the goal, and everything is directed toward that center. Through this dream I understood that the self is the . . . archetype of orientation and meaning.  Therein lies its healing function. Carl Jung

How to Meditate on a Mandala (from Anne Lupton’s website Meaning of Mandalas)

To prepare yourself for your time of meditation, clear away a quiet place where you can sit with your mandala at eye level opposite yourself. Be as comfortable as you can be in the seating position you choose. If you like, you can even create an altar on which to place your mandala. This altar may or may not include objects reflecting spirituality, purity, peace and grace to complement the meaning behind the mandala you choose.

Tibetan tradition shows us the outer rings of the mandala represent fire that will purify an individual as they ready the journey of entering into the mandala itself. This is the point of entry for your meditation. The path will lead you inward to the center. Concentrate and focus on the shapes and colors and let the design and beauty sink into your being. Follow each circle inward and if you run into a dead end, just remember that not only do you want to reach the centre but the meditation is also about the travel to enlightenment.

As you travel, become one with the universe and its wisdom. Breathe slowly in through the nose and exhale lightly through the nose. Concentrate on the rhythm of your body as it matches the rhythm in the circle with eyes open or closed. You also have an option to play soothing music as you meditate. Become aware of where you have been, where you are now and where you are going. You can partake of this practice for 15-30 minutes.

You may find yourself inhibited or energized by the energy of the mandala. This sacred object you will find is not an ending but a beginning as you experience the life within yourself and the sacred. Become one through the quiet, still, and calm as you let the stress of the outside world wither away into nothing. Tranquil enlightenment can be yours.

I knew that in finding the mandala as an expression of the self I had attained what was for me the ultimate. Carl Jung

So when we create a mandala art after dancing through the chakras, we capture our inner sacred space in the circle on the page. The physical circle – within which we dance – contains our circle of inner selves, which we then capture in our mandalas. Circles within circles.

Affirmations on circle of life: (adapted from the Circle of Life Affirmation Meditation)

I am important and of intrinsic and infinite value.

I am someone who is in charge of my own life, my thoughts and choices… All are mine.

I am exactly as I am meant to be, and I am perfectly on the journey I set out for.

I matter, I make a difference, and I do make things better, for everyone who loves me.

Every act of my kindness ripples throughout the universe.

Every generosity changes the world.

I recognise my contributions, the gifts I share of myself, and their resonance.

I see my connection in the circle of life that is the universe, the circle of life that is me.

I affirm my place,my belonging and my eternal energy…

Bless!

Images:

Title: Goddess Mandala by Nahimaart

Practise – Mandalas from the Journey Series by Margi Gibb

Margi Gibb has been practicing as a Mandala artist for over 20 years. She holds a Masters Degree in Education; Experiential Learning and Development and published her thesis on`The Mandala and its Application in the 21st Century` She has studied and trained with America’s foremost Mandala artists, authors and educators; Judith Cornell Ph D and Bailey Cunningham, Executive Director of the Mandala project. She facilitates workshops for many diverse communities and is currently published in, “Mandala Journey to the Center.”

Margi is currently finalising her Doctoral thesis on the role of creativity in the process of individuation, entitled ‘The Call to Individuation: Spirituality and Creative Practice.’

See more of her work on her website:

http://www.mandalaprimitivepop.com

Sources:

http://www.mandalaprimitivepop.com

http://www.meaningofmandalas.com/jungian-symbols

http://www.abgoodwin.com/mandala/index.php/blog/60-blog-sidebar/52-meeting-the-mandala

Jung, C. G., Memories, dreams, reflections.  Knopf, 1989.

Dahlke, R., Mandalas of the world: a meditating and painting guide. Sterling Pub. Co., 1992.

Blinding me with science

With our thoughts, we could save the world, if they only knew…  And the time will come when you see, we’re all one, and life flows on within you and without you. George Harrison, Within You Without You

I always loved this Beatles song, from the Sgt. Pepper’s album. My dad gave it to me for my 8^th birthday, beginning a life-long love affair with The Beatles and the music of the 1960’s.

Maybe that’s why I’m such a hippy at heart.

This week, I have had three separate discussions with friends about my blog, in which they have very gently expressed that while they like reading my blog, they don’t agree with what I write. This got me to thinking about my beliefs, and about the effect our beliefs have on the way we perceive the world.

So, if someone disagrees with me, this shouldn’t affect my beliefs right? I mean we are all entitled to our opinions and beliefs, even me. Yet, I was aware that these revelations created a reaction in me, a reaction I can create just as easily in myself, as well. A reaction of doubt. As soon as doubt creeps in, it feels as if the faith I have in the belief of manifesting intentions and energy healing evaporates. Maybe that’s why these energies are known as ‘subtle energies’, because as subtle vibrations they are perhaps easily subdued. It’s hard to explain this stuff to the scientific mind, because it is so experiential.

The spheres are in commotion. The elements in harmony. She blinded me with science!  Thomas Dolby

My friend and I talked about the role of science, and the importance of exposing mis-truths, false claims, and quackery, but I don’t think of science as infallible either. Precisely because I believe in the power and energy of intention, I think science sometimes – because it is conducted and interpreted by people – sees only what it wants to see. Or more to the point, it finds what it goes looking for.

Thus we find ourselves in one of the ultimate questions of philosophy, is there one truth, one reality? Or are there versions of reality depending on who is observing it?

For the last four hundred years, an unstated assumption of science is that human intention cannot affect what we call “physical reality.” Our experimental research of the past decade shows that this assumption is no longer correct. We humans are much more than we think we are. William A. Tiller

Do we only see what we already believe? Is that why mainstream science so often fails to see the effects of subtle energies and energy healing, which from the point of view of the believer, seem obvious?

Many years ago someone gave me an audio version of Deepak Chopra’s Books of Secrets. I was looking for another CD this week and it literally jumped out at me. It’s a fascinating read (listen). Deepak uses the intelligent design of the bodily systems as an analogy for the secrets to life, in its broadest sense. The recurring message is that our consciousness is constantly evolving and self-correcting for our highest good, like the bodily systems themselves. And this intelligence carries on whether we believe in it or not, whether we are mindful of it or not. That said, we can through awareness of this intelligence, harness its energy in co-creating our lives.

Your body, which is bonding millions of molecules every second, depends on transformation. Breathing and digestion harness transformation. Food and air aren’t just shuffled about but, rather, undergo the exact chemical bonding needed to keep you alive. The sugar extracted from an orange travels to the brain and fuels a thought. The emergent property in this case is the newness of the thought; no molecules in the history of the universe ever combined to produce that exact thought. Deepak Chopra

Our consciousness depends on transformation as well. We are designed to experience, expand, and grow. But what of the impact of our consciousness on the physical world?

William A. Tiller – a professor emeritus of Science and Engineering at Stanford University – has discovered that there is an energy space between particles which can be influenced by human intention. Tiller appeared in the 2004 film What the Bleep Do We Know!? which looks at quantum physics and the implications for human consciousness. He is a seriously respected mainstream scientist who has been investigating the effects of human intention on what we call physical reality.

His white paper A Brief Introduction to Intention-Host Device Research explains how, in a series of experiments, he and his colleagues have discovered that “it is possible to make a significant change in the properties of a material substance by consciously holding a clear intention to do so.” For example, they have been able to change the acid/alkaline balance (pH) in a vessel of water, without adding chemicals to the water, simply by creating an intention to do so. 

Even more amazingly, they discovered they could ‘record’ and ‘store’ this intention into an ‘intention-host device’ – an electronic device they created to store an intention and use this remotely at any geographic location.

Wow! It’s sounds more like science fiction than science, right?

As I read this article I thought either this guy has lost his marbles or this intention stuff, it’s really, really huge!

Reading on, he’s not crazy and he supports his claims with rational scientific explanation. So how is this possible? As Tiller explains it, there are two states of physical reality. These states are made up of two reality ‘levels’ one is the reality of our senses and our measurable, observable, molecular reality. And the other? I’ll let him explain it…

This new level of substance, because it appears to function in the physical vacuum (the empty space between the fundamental electric particles that make up our normal electric atoms and molecules), is currently invisible to us and to our traditional measurement instruments. It also appears to be of a magnetic information-wave nature. William A. Tiller

Now stay with me here. The first state of reality is what Tiller calls ‘uncoupled reality’ where these two levels of physical reality appear to move around each other, but they do not interact with each other (like boys and girls at a primary school disco).  The second state is called coupled reality where the two spaces are interacting with each other. (Moving on to the late teens disco..)

It is the use of these intention-host devices that affects the experimental space in such a way that meaningful coupling begins to occur between these two very different kinds of substance and the vacuum level of physical reality becomes partially visible to our traditional measurement instruments. William A. Tiller

Then he goes off into serious algebra – which for the first time in my life, I wish I knew – if anyone can explain the rest of the paper to me I’d be most grateful. Thankfully we have science journalist Tara MacIsaac to explain it to us in plain English, read her article here.

Dr Tiller’s writing is at times a little challenging for the non-scientists among us. Basically the point is, as Tara MacIsaac writes, “an intention projected from a person’s mind seems to increase the conductivity between the atom/molecule level and the vacuum level.” And how did said scientists introduce a specific intention into the host device? Mentally and emotionally, from a deep meditative state, of course!

Check out William Tillman talking about our energy system:

Another radical idea about intention and belief crossed my path this week, psychologist Kelly McGonigal in her fascinating TED talk about stress. She says it’s not stress that kills, it’s our BELIEF that stress makes us sick which kills. New research suggests that stress may only be bad for you if you believe that to be the case.

What if you learned to view the symptoms of stress – heart pounding, rapid breathing quickening, sweating bullets – not as performance-reducing and life-threatening fear and anxiety, but as a helpful response to energise you to perform better? Apparently your attitude towards stress, based on your beliefs about stress, makes a HUGE difference to the physiological effects of stress on your body.

A study she refers to, measured two sets of people under identical stressful test conditions, only one group had been trained to reframe stress as a helpful bodily response. When people are trained to view the symptoms of the ‘stress’ response – increased heart rate and rapid breathing – as helpful to the challenge they are facing, their cardiovascular profile mirrors the signature of elation or joy, because their blood vessels actually stay dilated, instead of the constriction of blood vessels associated with stress response in those who believe it’s bad for them.

Never forget that you are not in the world; the world is in you. When anything happens to you, take the experience inward. Creation is set up to bring you constant hints and clues about your role as co-creator. Your soul is metabolizing experience as surely as your body is metabolising food. Deepak Chopra

Stress also releases oxytocin – the hormone known as the ‘cuddle hormone’ – a neuro-hormone which fine tunes the social instinct, and makes you do things that strengthen social connections. It enhances empathy, and makes you more likely to help, to be compassionate, and caring. Oxytocin is a stress hormone, as much as adrenalin. However it works by motivating you to seek love and support, to reach out and tell someone how you feel, and to notice when someone else is needing help, so you can support them.

Oxytocin also has significant physical effects on the body. It protects the cardiovascular system from stress, because it is anti-inflammatory. The heart has receptors for oxytocin, which appears to help the heart to heal from stress-related damage. All these effects are enhanced by social contact and social support, by seeking or giving support. Oxytocin actually motivates us to do the things which provide us a healthier stress response and help us to heal faster.

Human connection is a built-in mechanism for stress reduction. Kelly McGonigal

Another study showed that every major stress – death, bankruptcy, divorce – increased risk of dying by 30%, but people who spent time caring for others showed no stress related increase in dying, caring actually created resilience.

So how you think and how you act transforms the effect of stress.

On some dimension or other, every event in life can be causing only one of two things: either it is good for you, or it is bringing up what you need to look at in order to create good for you… Evolution is win-win…life is self-correcting ― Deepak Chopra

Watch Kelly’s TED talk.

This just shows how powerful our minds really are! However I think there’s an important distinction to be made here between beliefs and affirmations. While affirmations are helpful to shift our attitudes and thinking, they do not necessarily convert into beliefs. Our beliefs are deeply entrenched, often subconscious and ingrained over time. Affirmations need to be intentions, we say them, but then we must live as if they are true. Our beliefs will change as a result of our changed experience of the world.

Affirmations help purify our thoughts and restructure the dynamic of our brains so that we truly begin to think nothing is impossible. The word affirmation comes from the Latin affirmare, originally meaning “to make steady, strengthen.” In the sequence of thought-speech-action, affirmations play an integral role by breaking patterns of negative thoughts, negative speech, and, in turn, negative actions. Carmen Hanna

A few years ago I dated a guy who challenged some beliefs I held, in a big way. He literally rocked my world. I realised that because most of the people around me also held those beliefs also I’d become a little lazy, a little apathetic about my intellectual rigeur. It turned out I needed a good shake-up. The relationship didn’t last but it taught me a valuable lesson. While it can be comfortable to be surrounded with people who agree with you or see things in a similar way, it’s not necessarily good for intellectual growth. I need to be challenged to give my beliefs a good airing, to make sure I actually believe them. So, I’m not about to run off and join a hippy commune, I’ll keep debating, and listening, and contemplating. And I’ll be grateful to those who challenge me.

The difference for me now is how I process this doubt. Previously I would have let it shut me down. The wave of shame and doubt would have crippled me – “What am I doing writing about this stuff, I’m not qualified? Who do I think I am, do I look like a complete fool?”

These thoughts came and my energy was depleted by them. Then I meditated. I pulled out my hippy toolkit. I had the frankincense burning, as well as the essential oils that stimulate the heart energy, and I just lay down, breathed deeply, and allowed these thoughts to roll through. I had the image of waves. I experience waves of praise and they rise and fall – I like them – then I have waves of challenge rise and fall – they are okay depending on how I’m feeling in myself – and then I have the waves of doubt – don’t like them. They are all waves of mental and emotional energy; the only difference is my level of emotional attachment and reactions to them. For some reason I attach much more firmly to doubt than praise, obviously it taps into some beliefs I have about myself.

Based on William Tiller’s research and my experience I have drawn my own conclusion. These subtle energies of the chakra system and other energy meridians, as well as the energy of intention which seems to operate in the space of human consciousness interacting with the space in physical reality, are interdependent with our belief system. Our intentions to interact with these subtle energies either allow or restrict that interaction. Literally if we believe they exist, we experience them, if we don’t, we don’t. That’s not to say they only exist if we believe in them. That’s called fantasy! Like Tillman’s experiment, they exist in an uncoupled state; they exist but are not interacting in a visible way with our physical reality. Only with intention does this interaction become more visible and more powerful.

As Deepak Chopra says, the great cosmic joke is that whether we believe or don’t believe, the universe around us – and within us – behaves exactly the same. The question is, do you want to see it, and do you want to harness these energies?

You must find the place inside yourself where nothing is impossible. Deepak Chopra

Today’s affirmations come from Dr Carmen Harra’s article 35 Affirmations that will change your life:

I am the architect of my life; I build its foundation and choose its contents.

Today, I am brimming with energy and overflowing with joy.

My body is healthy; my mind is brilliant; my soul is tranquil.

I have been given endless talents which I begin to utilize today.

I forgive those who have harmed me in my past and peacefully detach from them.

A river of compassion washes away my anger and replaces it with love.

I am guided in my every step by Spirit who leads me towards what I must know and do.

I possess the qualities needed to be extremely successful.

Creative energy surges through me and leads me to new and brilliant ideas.

Bless!

Title image here

Out with the old, in with the new

“We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.” Buddha

The tricky part about believing that our intentions create our reality is what to do when negative thinking or even a spectacularly bad mood hits.

I realise my last post was very upbeat, and that’s how I felt at the time. Inspired, in the flow, super-confident of my manifesting abilities. Since then, being back at work, back in the suburbs, preparing for, what quite frankly feels like, ‘The Onslaught’ of the year kicking into full gear, I just haven’t felt quite so zen.

This seems reasonable, surely one is not expected to maintain this positive frame of mind 100% of the time? A few stolen grumpy hours under the doona with 20 episodes of a trashy TV series, in complete panic about how to pay one’s car registration, that’s okay, right?

Reading further on into Wayne Dyer’s Wishes Fulfilled put an end to that kind of thinking.

“Never let your attentiveness to what you are in the process of manifesting be side-tracked by external pressures of any kind”

Never? Like, ever? Even when I’m super-hormonal? Geesh.

I don’t know about you, but I have great intentions when they are new, but then I waft and wane a bit. I get a bit over being ‘good’ all the time. I get lazy and well, bored.

All the writers I have read seem to agree on the importance of attention and consistency in manifesting intentions. Apparently you can undo all your good work with some inattentive thinking.

This makes sense to me. My thoughts have been running this show with a news-flash like stream across my mind for my entire life, I don’t ask for them, they’re just there, and the majority of them are not particularly helpful.

There’s a lot of old recordings playing,

“why did you do that? you did what? again? your writing sucks! who do you think you are anyway? they don’t like you, they think you’re a pretentious twat”.

Or just banal rubbish like “how does the windscreen get so dirty on the inside?”

I could go on, like my mind often does, but I won’t.

Now I don’t pretend to understand the mind, or where thoughts come from. I only know that I don’t make this stuff up, it’s just there. If I could choose my thoughts, they’d all be positive, because that’s what I want in my life. So I tend to agree with the concept that Deepak Chopra and Wayne Dyer talk about. That I may not create my thoughts, but I do observe them. I am the constant presence that hears and reacts to my thoughts. Which means I get to choose which thoughts I like and which ones I don’t.

Like the old story of the two wolves. You know the one. It’s an old Cherokee Legend. A grandfather talks to his grandson.

“There’s a battle that goes on inside of all humans.”

He said, “My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all.

One is Evil – It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is Good – It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf wins?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

My friend also puts it this way, let your unwanted thoughts die of neglect.

It’s like positive parenting, focus on the good, ignore the bad, unless it involves fire or sharp objects.

Rolling along with the analogies…

Imagine your mind is like a computer, it has been programmed to act in certain ways from birth. However, not all of these programs are helpful. Some may have been encoded by well meaning parents or teachers who constantly told you that the world was a dangerous, scary place and you should value safety above all else. This encoded you to be fearful, worrying, ever vigilant of potential threats, adverse to risk-taking.

However, now you want to embrace the abundance of the universe. As the sage Norwegian eighties pop group A-Ha once sang “it’s no better to be safe than sorry”. You want to take risks. You want to be open and receptive.

In order to do this you can reprogram your mind with new thoughts and affirmations, like this one from the I am discourses by Saint Germain:

 “I am the almighty governing presence of my life and my world. I am the health, well-being and harmony, self-sustained, which carries me through everything that confronts me.”

I also find doing a regular stocktake of my thinking helpful. This is something 12 Step programs refer to as an inventory. You basically write out all your angry, fearful, guilty, negative stuff and then you ask yourself what made you think or act like that? Usually there will be these old programs running, that you may not even be conscious of. Things that, in the words of Mary A. Hall:

“you having been believing were the real you”

But they’re not! They are probably someone else’s thoughts that you picked up somewhere and just accepted as truth.

I believe these old programs contribute to addictive behaviours and depression, speaking as someone who has suffered from depression – since puberty tipped me over from being a sensitive child into a full-blown, hormone-fuelled nihilist.

Depression is exacerbated in me by a lack of speaking my truth, feeling disempowered, repressing anger, being inauthentic, fear of other peoples reactions, a lack of self care, and self-abandonment.

In other words, the complete opposite of Shakespeare’s adage:

“To thine own self be true.”

Lest we all feel the task is too hard, I’ll finish with two suggestions Wayne Dyer gives, which I think are very manageable and which should tide us over until we become fully enlightened beings.

1. Acts of kindness

Studies have shown that serotonin and oxytocin (chemicals that make us feel good) levels are increased when giving, receiving, and witnessing acts of kindness.

2. Five minutes before sleep

Spend the five minutes before sleep thinking and feeling into positive “I am” statements. This ensures you enter your subconscious dream state with the positive intentions you wish to imprint on your subconscious mind – as opposed to all your worries and concerns. This will ensure you wake feeling positive and aligned each and every day. It can also assist in physical healing as your body heals during restful sleep.

And finally, here’s an affirmation I love from The Book of Stones: Who They Are & What They Teach by Robert Simmons and Naisha Ahsian – for Rose Quartz.

I open my heart to receive and express the energies of love. My mind, heart, body, soul and spirit blend in perfect harmony as I manifest my true self.

Bless.

Further reading on Acts of Kindness:

http://www.randomactsofkindness.org/kindness-research/2153-elation-the-amazing-effect-of-witnessing-acts-of-kindness

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/priya-advani/random-acts-of-kindness_b_3412718.html

http://www.actionforhappiness.org/10-keys-to-happier-living/do-things-for-others?gclid=CLbB5LnXpLwCFQQwpAodVC4Ajg