2010 anticipations

in 2010, i am looking forward to the following things already set in motion:

• meditating for 30 minutes every day and blogging about it (new blog up at http://zafureport.wordpress.com/). i've meditated for about 4 years. probably the longest i have done it daily has been 3 weeks. something interrupts. i get out of the habit. then i get back into, but sometimes it's taken a couple of weeks. it's so beneficial that i'm not allowing myself any excuses except being physically unable to sit. 
• i'll also be working with a meditation coach for the first time, peg syverson.
• continuing my practice of yoga, assisting my yoga teacher, working with other teachers occasionally, classes and home practice. working toward balance and strength, spine and pelvis. 
• continuing my bodywork partnerships with patrice and nina.
• moving towards a promotion at work, succeeding my most capable manager, who is retiring in december 2010. learning from a mentor who is already a manager. being ready for a smooth transition no matter who gets the job. understanding my workplace and its people and processes more deeply. moving a year closer to a good retirement in 2013.
• co-leading the monthly Peripheral Walking meetup with katie raver.
• helping lead Austin NLP. getting speakers lined up and ready, increasing attendance, strengthening the NLP community and reaching out to others who can benefit.
• taking advanced NLP courses with keith fail. authentic public speaking and NLP strategies are on the horizon. 
• assisting tom and bobbi best at NLP practitioner training and hanging out with new students and fellow assistants
• being part of flint sparks' Hakomi and Internal Family Systems consultation group
• taking a course on the Diamond Sutra with flint
• hopefully doing a seminar with stephen gilligan in march
• customizing my diet to work with my body even more
• helping my daughter get through nursing school by child-sitting my granddaughter when needed, and loving these precious people however i can

i want to sell my house for a big fat profit and buy a more modern, lower maintenance dwelling! i want to be able to buy it outright or have a small mortgage. i want to sell my house to someone who will love its character and remodel it rather than tear it down and build anew. i want the buyer to be someone who will be a good neighbor to bruce.

i can use some helpful advice about getting it ready to put on the market without outlaying too much money. it's definitely a fixer-upper and has been the whole 9 years i've lived here. i've loved it anyway...having discovered that i have no affinity for fixer-upping. i'd rather work outdoors, on gardening and landscaping, rather than using power tools, which i'm awkward at. it's time to move on.

i want to buy a place that has modern amenities like a garage, central heat and air, and a dishwasher. i want the structure and HVAC/plumbing/wiring to be in good shape. i want it to have at least 2 bedrooms and 2 baths. i want it to be fairly close in but in a quieter neighborhood. good friends nearby. a sunny spot for gardening. close to nature. a bikeable area. excellent reliable appliances. a good vibe.

and i don't know yet what form it will take--duplex, condo, townhouse, single-family house. i probably won't even look until selling my house is imminent.

may the selling of this house and buying of my next place and moving out and in go smoothly. may i find the right buyer.  may i find the right new home. may i sell and buy at the right price. and may i only have to move once!

who knows what else this year may bring? a lot of delightful surprises, synchronicities, new friends, deeper ties with old friends, bigger love. and of course there will be losses. as one of the teachers at love yoga coop yesterday said, you're at the yoga party, and there's dancing and there's also grief.

blessings on me, you, and the whole world, this first day of 2010!

2009 gratitude

2009 was a good year for me.

i finished my training as a master practitioner of NLP. it's a fabulous body of work variously described as Now Let's Play, a super-duper set of people skills, and the structure of experience. i learned so much, it would be hard to describe. have had one client since then and am open to more. it's very gratifying to guide someone whose energy about a past event has been dragging them down and holding them back toward shedding their own light on that situation, totally changing their perception of the event into one of expansion and lightness, so they can move on. all i do is guide them.

thank you, tom and bobbi best of Best Resources/Texas Institute of NLP. tom, watching you teach a new class of beginners has revealed even more of your mastery as a teacher/storyteller/shaman. bobbi, your suggestion about working with kids (anchoring happy states) is just one example of the brilliance with which you walk around every day, just like an ordinary person. to a long association!

i also began participating in keith fail's advanced study groups for NLP practitioners. good company, good teacher, much to look forward to in 2010, when i will study strategies (and much more, i'm sure).

thank you, keith, for being such an awesome teacher and being such a fount of knowledge of NLP, and having so much practical experience working with individuals and organizations. there is no internship with NLP coaching unless you find a mentor. you are mine, for which i'm grateful. also, thank you for being a pennywhistle buddy and a friend who really sees me.

and thank you, katie raver (keith's wife and my friend), for helping keith teach and for being your awesome loving self with so much presence. indeed you are the instigator of love, teacher of love, being of love! i'm looking forward to our first Peripheral Walking meetup tomorrow and doing this with you all year, and being your friend on into the future.

in the fall, i began assisting my yoga teacher at her monday class that includes beginners. i love doing this. it reminds me of how far i've come, and that each person can only really absorb what they're ready for. yoga is a practice of developing awareness, strength, and flexibility. we work in small chunks--from cow pose to urdhva dhanurasana--upward bow or wheel pose, aka backbend--and over time i see someone become more capable of doing a pose because their bodymind "gets it". yo!

i've said this before, and i'll say it again. yoga works on the meridians. now i don't know when or if those ancient chinese who invented acupuncture and those ancient indians who invented yoga got together and shared notes and then went their separate ways, but they were both onto the same thing--energy flows through our bodies, and both asana and needles can be used to free, balance, and strengthen our energies.

thank you, eleanor harris, yoga teacher extraordinaire, for being my yoga teacher and for allowing me the honor of assisting you and learning at the same time. you are so devoted to your students and a very gentle teacher, yet you have taken me a long, long way in the past five years. while being aware of my limitations, you know just what to say (and where to touch) to move me into a place of righteousness in an asana. namaste.

and thank you, patrice sullivan, acupuncturist and woman-of-all-trades. you are a pioneer, a role model, a wise woman, a genius, and definitely one of the free-est, happiest, and most competent people i know. thank you for your friendship, needles, partnership, teaching, questioning, guiding, rolfing, yoga and exercise coaching, your music, your lightness and fun, and that thing you do with your hands when i'm on the table covered in needles with my eyes closed. somehow i went into your energy once, felt what you feel, saw your color. mm mm mm wow. let's do it again. (i want to learn to read pulses in 2010.) yes-sayer!

i've already posted about my wonderful cranio-sacral therapist, nina davis, and her incredibly wizardry. you are such a healer, and a role model, and a teacher. you are leading me into greater awareness of my body and self-healing. i suspect too that just being in the same room with you brings my energy a little more up to your level. for all of this, i thank you deeply, nina.

i am so lucky to have found good teachers, tom, bobbi, keith, katie, eleanor, patrice, nina...

in 2010, i am adding a couple of new ones from the appamada zendo--a meditation coach, peg syverson, and a teacher, flint sparks, whose paths i crossed in late 2009. i've already had a couple of encounters with them and look forward to our journeys together.

2009 review--health

was thinking last night about what was significant in my life in 2009. health was big.

in february, i went to a NUCCA chiropractor and got my atlas adjusted. after a year or two of lots of yoga, and working with my acupuncturist/rolfer/yoga/diet coach and my cranio-sacral therapist and traditional chiropractors, i was still waking up sometimes with back pain. NUCCA sounded like a good bet. even if they didn't find any misalignment, at least i could rule it out.

the x-rays showed my atlas was off by 5 degrees in one direction. dr. shelley lorenzen at backnbalance.biz aligned my atlas in two sessions a week apart, and since then, i've held the alignment.

my insurance didn't cover it, so i paid probably $900-1000 out of pocket for treatment and 9 months of follow-up visits, when dr. shelley used an activator to gently tap my bones into even more alignment. it has been worth every penny. i can go back on an as-needed basis.

i can't recommend NUCCA enough if you know your left side and right sides are different--shoulders and/or pelvis not level, the soles of your shoes wear differently, one side is much stronger and more dominant than the other, and nothing else has fully healed your spinal problems.

the best after-NUCCA difference has been an awareness of new energy that i assume the scoliosis was diminishing. my energy flows much more freely through the meridians on the left side of my body than before. i feel more alive. more connected. better balanced. having more resources.  more integrated--more myself in some mysterious way.

there's still a way to go with the energy. my cranio-sacral therapist at my last session told me as she sensed it how my body was actively changing its energetic patterns. i can feel it sometimes, but she has super well-developed sensitivity in her hands and in-depth left-brain knowledge of anatomy. she can be really precise about what's happening where in my body. i can follow the energy when she says what she notices. it improves my sensory awareness. this experience was a marvel to me.

two things she told me stuck in my mind: when i asked her if this was going on in my body all the time outside my awareness, she said yes, and added that the process tends to accelerate in people who do yoga and meditation. i already do yoga (3 classes a week + home asana + drop-in at various studios). this is another reason to pick up on my meditation practice... more on that in a later post.

the other thing she said is that the energies from my sacrum and from my left ilium (pelvis) aren't hooking up. she sensed the energies on the ilium side lined up at the edge wanting to cross that little chasm. they're more reluctant on the sacrum side.

this makes sense i only learned a few of months ago how to realign my left SI joint when it went out of whack, and it's only been 4-6 weeks since it went out. so that part of my body doesn't have much experience being strong and stable.

s i have that to look forward to in 2010. better energy flow throughout my entire body.

i find this stuff fascinating, don't you?

if enlightenment is the desired outcome

then the resource is awareness.

the intent is presence.

the strategy is commitment to daily sitting.

waking up

I've been waking up in the mornings lately feeling really good. Not immediately jumping into monkey mind but lying in bed for a bit, savoring the experience of feeling good.

Not only does my body not hurt or feel stiff or tight anywhere most mornings, but I feel good emotionally as well. I feel well. I am a well being.

Come out from the shadow of your family tree!

Come out from the shadow of your family tree!

This Family Constellation Workshop cuts to the heart of generational issues,
shifting inner images from what is to what’s possible, transforming obstacles
into more health and well-being. Based on the work of Bert Hellinger, this workshop
offers a rare opportunity to uncover hidden patterns, healing past, present, and future generations.

Led by Judy Smith, who facilitates workshops and training in S. Africa and the U.S.
http://www.emotionalgenetics.com/index.html

Sat., July 18, 10-5 pm
Sun., July 19, 10-4 pm
NiaSpace
3212 S. Congress
Austin, TX

Cost: $325
$100 deposit
(or pay in full July 18)

Mail deposit to:
Mary Ann Reynolds
905 E. 2nd St.
Austin, TX 78702
512-507-4184
mareynolds@grandecom.net

CEUs available for MSWs, LPCs, and MFCs

Suggested preparation: Research your family going back three generations,
noting significant and traumatic events. Also you may read Berthold Ulsamer's
Healing Power of the Past, available on Amazon.com.

Questions? Call Judy at (903) 534-6263 or email her at info@emotionalgenetics.com.

experience

Today I was making a list of the various modalities I have at least some experience with for health, energy, awareness, personal growth, relating, and changework. I was shocked at how long it was!

I have either worked with trained practitioners, received training myself, attended classes/workshops/practice groups, read books or watched videos, or taught these modalities.

I'm going to start with the body-based and energy modalities. I excluded Pilates, snorkeling, kayaking, hiking, etc--practices that are for fitness and recreation only. This list is about healing, increasing awareness, improving energy. These practices can also affect mental/emotional state profoundly, since everything is connected:
massage (Swedish, Shiatsu, Thai)
traditional chiropractic
NUCCA chiropractic
cranio-sacral therapy
rolfing
acupuncture
osteopathy
zero balancing
Feldenkrais--one on one, Awareness Through Movement classes
Alexander Technique
physiosynthesis
yoga--mostly Iyengar, also at least one class in Sivananda, Integral, Anusara, Vinyasa Flow, Kundalini
breathwork
chakra work
Z-health
EFT
hands-on healing
Brain Gym

These are primarily dance-related:
5 rhythms
trance dance
contact improv

These involve food and nutrition and absorption:
candida clearing
diet--food sensitivities, pH, doshas
organ cleansing--colon, liver, gallbladder
fasting

These modalities are more about shifting state and changing patterns:
NLP (waaaayyy too much to list under this umbrella)
hypnosis/trancework
shamanic practices (journeying, Ha prayer, energy cleansing, yana chaqui, pico pico breathing, and more)
12 states of attention
nightwalking/peripheral walking
holographic repatterning
meditation
japalm/mantra
deeksha

These are therapeutic types of experiences:
therapy for PTSD/Waking the Tiger
re-evaluation counseling/co-counseling

These are systems for understanding types of people:
Enneagram
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
Life Prints fingerprint analysis

And these are miscellaneous:
InterPlay
Tarot
astrology
journaling
dreamwork
hanging upside down
using a spine aligner
toning

There are probably more that I can't think of now.

I have spent a great deal of time and money obtaining most of these experiences. They have all been of benefit and a joy to experience. Some have become life practices. Some have been specific for a given situation. Some are occasional treats.

I'd like to put this life experience to good use. If you have a question about any of these or want a referral in Austin (a few in Dallas), please feel free to contact me.

family constellation workshop, july 18-19, 2009

FAMILY CONSTELLATION WORKSHOP with Judy Smith
July 18-19, 2009
Austin, TX (place and time TBA)
$375 ($100 nonrefundable deposit)

In this workshop we explore family generational patterns, hidden dynamics, and subconscious patterns, and heal the souls of our families, restoring the natural order of familial love. Family constellation work brings long-standing unresolved family issues to light and facilitates healthy resolutions, dissolves entanglements, and removes blocks.

Healing occurs on a deeply felt, energetic level, along with accessing a bigger picture of life situations. In this way, we positively enhance our own presence and that of future generations.

CEUs for MFTs, LPCs, and LCSWs available.

For information or to register, contact Mary Ann Reynolds at 512-507-4184 or email mareynolds@grandecom.net.

more on lucid dreaming and lucid awakening

a couple of weeks ago, i had a lucid dream in which i looked at my hands, looked away, and looked back at them. they had changed, so i knew i was lucid dreaming. i enjoyed knowing i was dreaming and looking around at my dream environment.

one of the things i wondered after having that dream was how "solid" things are in the dream world. if you can look, look away, look again, and see things differently, what does that mean? does it mean nothing is solid in the dream world?

earlier this week, i had another lucid dream. i didn't have to look at my hands. i was aware that i was in a place from my childhood, with a person who hadn't even been born then, and therefore i was dreaming.

in the dream, i tested my hypothesis. we were walking past a painted wooden structure. i touched the painted wood. it felt solid.

i saw a place where the paint was chipped away, and i began scraping more paint from that area with my fingernail. the bare wood felt solid, and i felt paint under my fingernail.

we walked on. i noticed even the air seemed alive with energy.

somehow, awareness that one is dreaming seems to make everything more vivid and vibrant. this can transfer to waking life!

since then, i have had several unexpected moments of seeing differently. today i walked to the clay pit for lunch. crossing lavaca, i glanced at the street's asphalt, and it was as if i had never really seen pavement before. it's a matrix of individual pieces of gravel embedded in tarry black stuff! it has a pattern and texture.

walking on 16th, i saw a feather on the sidewalk, just an ordinary gray pigeon feather. it seemed to have something extra to it, as if it had extra dimensions. it "jumped" at me energetically.

and so it goes... will report more when i have more to report!

morning thoughts

what are you first aware of when you wake up?

it varies for me. sometimes my waking thought is profound and sets a theme for the day.

sometimes it's monkey mind, chattering 100 mph. that's annoying.

this morning i kept hitting the snooze after awakening from a dream about 2:30 a.m. and being unable to go back to sleep for at least an hour.

i'd hit the snooze, and fall back into a doze, over and over. i noticed that my mind's theater showed me a display of images (visual internal medium range), and at times my attention went to my body (kinesthetic internal and external broad).

being not such a visual person, i enjoy these images and feelings a lot. let the words and self-talk cease! i want pictures and sensations!

a visit to my cranio-sacral therapist

just back from cranio-sacral therapy

lying on the table on my back
nina puts one hand under the small of my back
the other under my neck

releasing
surrendering to gravity
breathing space into the tight places
i nearly fall asleep
images come unbidden
no effort

C2 and T7 have a dialog
a competition to see who can open up the most
in all directions

i feel really good

2009: year of the breath

katie raver created a facebook/meetup group called 2009: year of the breath. click the title of this post to go to the website, read, and join, if you like.

we'll meet monthly, on alternating tuesday evenings and saturday afternoons. there will be weekly how-to posts on breathing practices you can do at home. there will be an RSS feed you can subscribe to for these emails.

here's the january meeting description (and more about the work kathleen is doing now):

Shift Happens
with Kathleen Radebaugh

Using the breath practice of Fanning with Spatial Relations Changework... to get a powerful shift.

Tuesday, January 20, 7pm to 9:30pm
Location: Unity Center, Room 206 (9603 Dessau Road, Austin, Texas)
$10 Donation

Fanning is a simple process for releasing blocks and attracting your desires.

Fanning often creates profound shifts within.

Using the practice Carlos Casteneda calls 'recapitulation,' Don Americo Yabar and Tom Best (see www.nlpoptions.com for more information) have developed 'fanning,' a process for shifting energetic connections.

After aligning the mind, heart, and body with intention, the breath is used to clear - or "fan" - inappropriate energetic connections and refresh and strengthen appropriate energetic connections between an individual and other people, emotions, and/or events.

Facilitator Kathleen Radebaugh developed Spatial Relations Changework (SRC) from her own experiences of the work of David Grove, James Lawley, Penny Thompkins, Stephen Gilligan, Nelson Zink, Tom Best, and the body of work called Neuro-linguistic Programming. This powerful toolbox allows her to co-create new worlds with her clients, assisting them to quickly and easily shift old patterns, beliefs, and behaviors in a deep, lasting, and ecological way. Common changes from just a few hours of SRC include hitting the 'reset' button on one's life purpose, increased awareness of limiting patterns, and resolving unhelpful internal conflicts.

Bring something you'd like to shift, be it something you want less of or something you want more of.

About Kathleen Radebaugh, M.A.
As she was developing the early processes of Spatial Relations Changework, Kathleen underwent a radical life change in which she sold her home in St. Cloud, Florida in the middle of a recession, dispersed all her possessions, completed the 18-year-long project of writing and publishing her literary western novel Walker's Island, and fulfilled her dream of moving to Austin, Texas. Having refined SRC through hundreds of hours of client testing, she now facilitates clients in a 4 part series of 4 hour sessions, customized to each client to help them explore the inner worlds that limit and motivate them. You can reach her at (407) 924-4161 or kradebaugh@gmail.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

thoughts on mind

the conscious mind is what you are aware of at any given moment.

the unconscious mind is everything else. i really mean that. the unconscious mind is everything else in the universe that is not in the conscious mind.

so if i'm thinking about making some tea, that's conscious. the connection of my energy to everything else that exists in the universe--trees, stars, rocks, water, fire, ancestors, relations, earth, microorganisms, galaxies, matter, energy, spirit, life force, that cute guy, the crying child, that violent person, the grieving person, the crazy person, the dying person, the unborn child, past, future, present--is unconscious.

just knowing this, getting this, understanding this, living this is huge. at every moment, whether i'm aware or not, i am connected to the whole universe, and it is connected to me, and we support each other, and really, there is no "other".

consciousness has levels. and if the conscious mind comes to understand and accept that this connection is present all the time, it changes consciousness. it's not a matter of either conscious or unconscious. you can have both at the same time, and indeed, you always have.

two ways to change the world

the dalai lama says that western women will save the world.

i want to write about two organizations through which we can really make a difference in the quality of life of an individual.

my dear friend peggy lamb is working with an organization called women for women international: helping women survivors of war rebuild their lives.

you donate $27 per month, or $324 per year, to support one woman for one year, and you can send it to a specific country: afghanistan, bosnia and herzegovina, democratic republic of the congo, iraq, kosovo, nigeria, rwanda, sudan, or wherever the need is greatest.

women for women matches you with a woman in the country you choose.

besides financial support, you correspond with the woman you're matched with by writing to her monthly. she may respond. peggy got a letter written for her sponsee (who doesn't read or write) in rwanda, thanking her and letting her know her generosity means a lot.

imagine what it would be like to suffer the devastations of war, often losing home, family, community, and livelihood, witnessing violence (some of it perpetrated by the american government) or being a victim of "ethnic cleansing," and to receive help like this from an individual american woman.

WFW spends 11.7% on administrative costs.

http://www.womenforwomen.org/


another dear friend, fantasia london, works with an organization called kiva. kiva is a person-to-person microlending institution. you donate $25 or more online, and 100% of your money is sent to an entrepreneur you choose through a microlender in the entrepreneur's community/region. you can choose entrepreneurs by gender, business sector, and region of the world.

if their need is greater than what you can afford, your donation is pooled with others' donations.

you can view updates of your lendee's status and repayment online, and once the loan is repaid (usually in months), you can choose another entrepreneur to lend to. you can also have multiple loans going at once.

kiva loans go to buy tools, equipment, seeds, livestock, raw materials, and so forth.

with kiva, 100% of what you donate goes to the entrepreneur. they ask that you donate an additional 10% to help them cover their administrative costs, but it's not required. (apparently microsoft and other big donors support them too.) you get an email receipt for your tax deductions.

i wanted to check it out, and i found someone who only needed $25 to complete her loan. her name is isadora gomez de aquina. she lives in peru and is my age. she requested $825 to be repaid in 4 months to purchase a calf to raise and sell. 22 people contributed to her loan, mostly from the U.S. but also from france, australia, spain, and sweden.

you get a page on kiva.org where you can see your loans and repayment status, and the entrepreneurs you lend to also have profile pages.

after you donate, you can even send a feed to your facebook profile! i did, but it hasn't appeared, so there's probably some setting on facebook i don't know about...

it's a one-time donation that you can repeat, and you aren't obligated if your circumstances change. you can even get your money back!

http://www.kiva.org/

yoga journal and sally kempton

i just added yoga journal to my list of favorite links (scroll down to view), and you can click the title of this post to go to yoga journal's website as well.

i subscribe to their emails about yoga--they come from the tabs on the home page--practice, wisdom, health, lifestyle. you can also look up poses on the site.

i get the paper magazine at home and hang onto old issues for their practice sequences and other goodies. i tapeflag articles to refer to later.

i particularly enjoy reading sally kempton's articles, mostly under the wisdom tab. i just love, love, love her groundedness in communicating about a subject in which there is so much misconception and woo-woo. she rings true.

plus i dreamed i was turning into an angel after reading her wisdom on prayer.

today i was inspired to add YJ to my blog links and post about it because of one sentence about meditation techniques: "Perhaps the most important thing to remember about any practice is to keep looking for its subtle essence."

this quote is from an article called "points of entry" by swami durgananda under the practice tab.

after i read it, i found out that sally kempton IS swami durgananda! that's her monastic name. and... she's written a book, the heart of meditation: pathways to a deeper experience.

here's a little about it: The book presents principles and practices for opening gateways to the inner world. It offers detailed guidance through the subtle terrain of meditation, and practical methods for living from the heart while integrating spiritual insight with daily life.

i'm going to order it! she's brilliant and a fabulous communicator.

thinking

this morning i woke up, and my monkey mind jumped right into high gear. "remember this!" "don't forget that!" "oh, yeah, and what about that?"

the sweet thing is knowing there's an alternative.

monkey mind takes itself so seriously. even when it's amused at everything. it likes attention. it likes to be the center of attention. "ta da! look at me! i'm THINKING! woo! listen to THIS..."

it actually likes to believe it runs my life.

so i let it believe that and do its thing. it's just that my awareness has become bigger. there's more.

thinking isn't bad. some teachers would have you believe that, i've read and heard.

what would happen if there was no thinking, if thinking ended forever? i don't know. it's hard to imagine (a form of thinking, as are planning and remembering). imagine not imagining, planning, or remembering.

could the human race survive? could you? could i?

mind does what mind does. thinking helps create order, and it helps us survive. it's nice to get perspective on that.

it doesn't matter what it's about

last night i climbed into bed to read a little before sleep came.

i noticed tension in my chest. not even muscle tension really, but some kind of energetic contraction centering around my heart chakra. the closest emotion i could relate it to was mild fear.

it was fairly subtle, but i picked up on it. it was not a pleasant sensation. it didn't seem connected to anything occurring in the here and now.

i didn't like it. i wanted it to go away.

as soon as those thoughts came into my mind, the unpleasant sensation left. it dissolved, released, vanished.

i felt relaxed and peaceful.

who knows where it came from? i imagine it's old armor, an old defense pattern, unconscious habit. something that no longer serves me.

who knows what triggered it? i didn't notice it start, what was happening then, how long it had been there.

the point is, you don't have to know anything about it, just that it's there, you don't like it, and you want it to go away!

with my thoughts, i intended it away. the intending was a cooperation between auditory internal narrow and kinesthetic internal narrow. once it left, i felt peaceful, which was kinesthetic internal broad.

i read for a bit and went to sleep!

the earth does not belong to us. we belong to the earth.

“The Schumann resonance is a unique electromagnetic phenomenon created by the sum of lightning activity around the world. Electromagnetic pulses from lightning travel around the earth, bouncing back and forth between the ionosphere and the earth’s surface. At any given point on the earth, the Schumann resonance shows up as electrical and magnetic micropulsations in the range of 1-40 Hz.” (Oschman, 99)

There is evidence (though controversial) that geomagnetic rhythms serve as a cue for physiological rhythms. “There is evidence that geomagnetic pulsations strongly entrain brain waves during meditation and other practices in which one ‘quiets the mind’ to allow the ‘free-run’ periods to be dominated by geophysical rhythms.” (Oschman, 102)

Oschman hypothesizes that “if the therapist relaxes into the state of consciousness typical of those who practice meditation, therapeutic touch and QiGong… it is likely that his or her brain waves will, from time to time, become entrained with the micropulsations of the earth’s field. If the patient is also relaxed, both therapist and patient may become entrained with the earth’s field.” (Oschman, 107)

click the title of this post to go to a website on energy medicine. fascinating.

piko-piko and embryo rising

i went to my monthly cranio-sacral therapy appointment this morning. my therapist, nina davis, has a marvelously refined sense of touch and a deep understanding of the body's rhythms and processes.

i told her about piko-piko breathing, the huna technique that has many variations, but which i primarily use in this way: i breathe in through the crown of my head and fill my body with energy, and breathe that out through the soles of my feet into the earth. then i inhale through my soles, fill my body with energy, and breathe out through the crown into the cosmos. i repeat this cycle many times, not every day, but several times a week.

somewhere in my NLP/shamanic wanderings, i encountered the q'ero belief that breathing in from the crown and out through the feet cleanses the human body of "hucha", heavy energy from being imbalanced with nature that only human beings accumulate.

from what i remember, the q'ero also believe that each of us is energetically connected to the "center of the cosmos", which i can't really imagine, so i interpret it as "the source of being". for some reason, i associate this with individuation.

to breathe from crown to sole is to release what really doesn't belong in our energy bodies into the earth, which neutralizes hucha.

to breathe in from the soles to the crown is to incorporate energy that develops the self and connects us to the source.

so anyway, i was telling nina about this, and then doing it in silence as she was working with my energy. (i should mention that mostly she works with my energy from the head down my spine.)

a little while later, she mentioned becoming aware of a body rhythm she hadn't perceived before in my body. she related it to a "white streak" in a developing embryo, which later becomes the heart and the spine. the rhythm is called "embryo rising" or something like that, and it moves from the base of the spine upwards. and we always have this as one of our subtle rhythms.

it's kinda cool to get an external affirmation of a natural energy flow in the human body (so ignored by western medicine and science) that pertains to the shamanic teachings of indigenous cultures.

she also mentioned getting a stronger impression of my mid-line, mid-tide, and images of the eyes moving from the side of the head to the front in embryo development, while working on me.

it's all fascinating!

a british take on the US economic crisis

"a shattering moment in america's fall from power... the end of american dominance is over."

john gray is a british political philosopher. according to wikipedia, he currently sees the left/right divide as unviable, tends toward "green thought," drawing on lovelock's gaia theory.

well worth reading for a learned and global point of view. click the title of this post to read the article.