Devotion – a place where all forces come together.

"At Eternity's Gate" by Vincent Van Gogh  (1890)

“Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves - slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future. Live the actual moment. Only this moment is life.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

“I understand our mornings can be busy; however, if we cannot make time for God now, then when?” ~ Ashley Ormon, God in Your Morning

It’s been another rough week as a mom in Buckeye Land.  My heart has been heavy.  Words have been exchanged and feelings have been hurt on both sides of the dinner table.  This has also expanded outside our home too.   An unexpected task has now appeared on my desk and my heart hurts for a son because a young woman said yes and then stood him up.  My feelings and emotions are all turned-up-side- down. 

In situations like this I set off to find my grounding point.  For me, it is the place where all the forces come together within me.  That point where I know I’m connected with the divine spirit.  When I’m there; I’m balanced.  I can put the dark emotions into a perspective.  There, I know that I will survive and can move on.  The divine drives my emotions and no other forces.

Getting to that place and finding that place takes work.  It isn’t something you can buy at the store or an herbal spell you brew up.  It comes from daily practice of being devoted to MotherFather Spirit.  I have discovered the more I’m devoted to practice the easier I can come to that middle point where I'm not at where my emotions are out of control and the world looks dark and without hope.

A daily devoted practice to me means prayer, meditation, yoga, knitting, walking, exercising on the stationary book, writing, drawing mandalas, and etc.  I do it alone and I do it in fellowship.  My practicing time isn’t about calling the spirit for a 911 “help me request,” but putting in the thanks and joyful noting or citing WOWness.  I believe you need to see both (i.e., 911 and joy) in order to find your balancing point and center.  The world isn’t just about crisis; it has the joys too.  If you can see both, it helps you put things into a calmer perspective.     
          

~#~ 

Over Cherry Blossoms

by Shuntaro Tanikawa

Over cherry blossoms

white clouds

over clouds

the deep sky

over cherry blossoms

over clouds

over the sky

I can climb on forever

once in spring

I with god

had a quiet talk.

~#~

If you haven’t ever prayed before or don’t know how to start to find your center.  I got this from a women’s meditation retreat back in the 90s.  The key was meditation or prayer help FADES the crisis.  The FADES is a mnemonic describing things to consider when you pray to MotherFather Spirit.    

F= Free and Formed

A = Alone and Assembled

D= Desperate and Delighted

E= Explosive and Extended

S= Spontaneous and Scheduled

My instructor at this retreat was animate that prayer wasn't about sitting still in a room.  This was the first time I heard this.  She said prayer needs to be done while you are singing with friends; waiting at the check-out line when you see an act of kindness; or when you are pondering out what word should come next in your "blog."  She stated that the "Now the lay me" and "God is great" ritually at dinner is fine for a starting point - but prayer should be done on the seat of your pants.  You should think of prayer as a day long conversation with MotherFather Spirit.  

  

Tibetan Wind Horse Prayer

(Tibetan prayer flag is 'Lung ta', meaning 'Wind Horse')

As Wind carries our prayers for Earth and All Life, may respect and love light our way.

May our hearts be filled with compassion for others and for ourselves.

May peace increase on Earth. May it begin with me.

Downward Facing Dog – Youtube Yoga Practice

The Dog by Picasso

Silent Moon - How can we find silent time to restore and regenerate our enthusiasm for our lives/work/relationships? ~ CAYA's Full Moon Questions.

When the breathe wanders the mind is unsteady.  But when the breath is calmed the mind too will be still, and the yogi achieves long life.  Therefore, one should learn to control the breath. ~ Hatha Yoga Pradipika

I would like for people to realize that yoga is not about touching your toes. ~ Gary Kraftsow

Yoga has a sly, clever way of short-circuiting the mental patterns that cause anxiety. ~ Baxter Bell, quoted in "Worry Thwarts," Yoga Journal, March 2006

The first time I heard “Rest in Downward Facing Dog,” I turned towards my friend (the one who talked me into coming to this free yoga class) and smirked.  It was a “Now I heard everything” smirk while holding back a big belly laugh that would ultimately cause me to land on my head in this position.  Looking around, I could tell everyone in this class was very serious resting in their inverted “V” poses.  This only made me want to giggle more.  How could you be serious in this pose – bum pushed up into the air while you are looking at your feet?  And, rest?  Hello - my arms were killing me.

Yet, Yoga and energy work has somehow managed to weave in and out of my life since that 1988 class. 

~#~

Adho Mukha Svanasana (AH-doh MOO-kah shvah-NAHS-anna)adho = downward, mukha = face, svana = dog

Benefits

•Calms the brain and helps relieve stress and mild depression

•Energizes the body

•Stretches the shoulders, hamstrings, calves, arches, and hands

•Strengthens the arms and legs

•Helps relieve the symptoms of menopause

•Relieves menstrual discomfort when done with head supported

•Helps prevent osteoporosis

•Improves digestion

•Relieves headache, insomnia, back pain, and fatigue

•Therapeutic for high blood pressure, asthma, flat feet, sciatica, sinusitis

~#~

As I’ve spoken before, our bodies are made up of energy that vibrates (science speak – partical energy theory). Many people are familiar with chakras, but there are also many more energy layers that make up our bodies.  Even our physical form that you can touch is an energetic body (science speak - its molecules move around at low energy.)  These individual energy layers don’t work in solo by themselves.  They’re interconnected and working in concert together.

If you injure your physical body, the others will be affected.  When I broke my ankle, I found it so easy to get caught up in healing the physical.  For example, I went to the emergency room and got a cast, had to navigate stairs and doorways for 8 weeks, taking a bath with a garbage bag was.... – I didn't even consider the other layers in my treatment plan.   

The same can be said about negative thoughts, emotions or habits.  We may stop or change them, but energetically speaking they’ve been imprinted on the body.  They are in our muscle memories.  Again, each energy body needs to also be healed in order for the habit to be permanent. 

Bodywork like Yoga is a great way to integrate healing throughout the energy levels.  I think of Yoga or Qigong working like oatmeal does for the digestive system.  The poses or movements unclogs and scrubs out the places where energy is stuck.

Why is this important?

Magical living is about working with energy.  If I have stuck places like stress pain in my neck and shoulder it makes it hard to concentrate on what I’m trying to manifest.  I become so focus on the pain that my energy is diverted between two places – what I'm trying to create and that “pain.”  My craftiness becomes not so perfect: the lemon happiness cookies burn or taste odd, the healing candle for a friend becomes more about me and I have to rip out many rows of stitches. 

~#~

There is no excuse for not doing bodywork.  Thanks to modern techology you can do Yoga or Qigong at your home via Youtube.  Start off with something gentle like Hatha Yoga.  There  is no Olympic medals in this practice.  Turn off the competition - yoga is about being present in the moment without judgement.  It is accepting where your temple body is at each day.

 

Nineteen, The Sun and Namaste

Sunflower field

"I honor the place within you where the entire Universe resides; I honor the place within you of love, of light, of truth, of peace; I honor the place within you, where, when you are in that place in you, and I am in that place in me, there is only one of us." ~ Mahatma Gandhi

“We are members one of another; so that you cannot injure or help your neighbor without injuring or helping yourself.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

"This we know: All things are connected like the blood that unites us. We did not weave the web of life,  We are merely a strand in it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves."  ~ Chief Seattle

I parked in lot 19 today and the first thing that came to my mind was fields of sunflowers growing on the plains of Kansas, my version of the tarot card.  I can see the sunny blue sky, orange petals with large black centers, swaying a hello in the wind.   These Van Gogh colors symbolically remind me to do what makes me happy.  I get that lighthearted feeling that everything is going to be okay, it will all turn out right just put on a smiley Band-Aid and find something to laugh about.

Nature has a way of reminding me that everything is interconnected.  The sun not only gives me warmth but is also one of the needed ingredients to make my garden grow vegetables.  (Those chloroplast within the plant cell use the sun rays for creating energy.)  In turn, I eat them in wonderful salads and stir-fried in ginger and soy sauce over rice – each bite gives me energy.  The sun’s energy is transferred to me and I become connected to the sun and the vegetable plant.  The question becomes what will I do with this energy?  Do I share this power freely or keep it to myself?

I smiled as I walked the ¼ mile into work.  Funny – it is like a chain reaction.  Others see you smile and they smile to.

http://yoginidebi.com/

The Sun by Mary Oliver

Have you ever seen

anything

in your life

more wonderful

than the way the sun,

every evening,

relaxed and easy,

floats toward the horizon

and into the clouds or the hills,

or the rumpled sea,

and is gone–

and how it slides again

out of the blackness,

every morning,

on the other side of the world,

like a red flower

streaming upward on its heavenly oils,

say, on a morning in early summer,

at its perfect imperial distance–

and have you ever felt for anything

such wild love–

do you think there is anywhere, in any language,

a word billowing enough

for the pleasure

that fills you,

as the sun

reaches out,

as it warms you

as you stand there,

empty-handed–

or have you too

turned from this world–

or have you too

gone crazy

for power,

for things?

    

~#~

I went to yoga class at lunch.  Talk about law of coincidence or Jung’s Synchronicity?  My Instructor announced that this Yoga session would be devoted to our interconnectedness.  He didn’t know what was going on in Central Ohio, but felt that the Universe was offering opportunities to learn about this concept with the storms and accidents. 

7 Sun Salutations: purity of spirit, forgiveness, service to others, compassion, faith, healing and wisdom.

~#~

On June30th a terrible storm came through Central Ohio.  Winds were clocked up to 85 miles an hour.  T called me at work that afternoon and asked if I wanted a ride.  I thought he was joking and said: “I rode my bike home yesterday in this heat.  It can’t be any hotter since lunch (98 F).”  He asked if I had risen out of cubicle land to look out the window.  The sky was pitch black looking more like 5 pm during December.  I requested a ride home for my bike and myself.  I felt like Dorothy in the Kansas.  T gave a ride to one of my walking co-workers.

As of this week (July 13) out in the rural areas of Central Ohio, there are still people without power.  Besides not having power for at least a fan to move the hot humid air, many can’t run the pumps for their wells.  My grid was one of the lucky ones; we were one of the first up and running.  I immediately offered my outlets for electronics or someplace to escape the heat. 

Strangely, these events haven’t stopped.  During these last two weeks, several major accidents on Columbus’ main freeways have managed to snarl traffic during the morning rush hour: a deadly crash, a car drove off the freeway into a building, and today a train derailment with an explosion. 

But the news has offered up numerous stories about people in Central Ohio showing kindness and love.  People have ask those without electricity over for supper in a cool house; stringing an electrical cord across the street so a neighbor’s freezer can remain on; created brigades with power saws to move trees out of the streets; made room in freezers for someone’s recently put up peaches; or drove someone to work because the bus is too packed to let person on. 

1+9=10=1 – weirdly it all ends up back to the magician and E=mc2 with that WOW energy that can jazz up the world or tear it down.  I notice that many seem to be sharing the magical spell of kindness by reaching out to others.

Namaste

My Yoga instructor ends our time ritually saying “Namaste.”  This simple gesture acknowledges the soul in one by the soul in another.  Translated poetically this ancient Sanskrit means: “the divine light in me, respects the divine light in you.”  Namaste is a symbol of love, respect and gratitude towards another allowing us to come together energetically as one.

To carry out the Namaste gesture face a partner.  Place your hands together at your heart chakra, close your eyes and bow your head saying: “Namaste.” 

On a spiritual level, bringing your hands together at your heart chakra increases the Divine energy within you.  By bowing your head and closing your eyes , it helps quiets the mind in order to hear the messages from the Divine (Motherfather Spirit).   This gesture reminds us to live from our hearts by doing so we can see the beauty and love in all people. 

Activities

Howard’s Yoga Shake-up Blessing Chant

Done after Sun Salutation to loosen things up

Close your eyes and bounce shaking all your joints – think rag doll. After each line chant “omm” or “aumm”

May we learn to forgive.

Ommm

May we show compassion to others, especially the electric company who is doing the best they can.

Ommm

May we invite others over who are without electricity.

Ommm

May we ask someone without electricity to dinner.

Ommm

May we be willing to accept invitations to dinner.

Ommm

May we check on a neighbor to see if they are okay.

Ommm

May we be willing to offer a person a ride

Ommm

May we learn we are all connected and everything we do affects someone else.

Ommm

May we love more and live more from our hearts.

Ommm

Omm is believed to be the original sound that rose at the time of creation.  It is called the sound of the universe.  Chanting omm allows us to reconnect with creation’s movement: the waves against the shore, the movement of birds flying, the rising and setting of the sun and moon.  We remember our place in the symphony of Divine love.