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

poem: Despair

Despair

So much gloom and doubt in our poetry -
flowers wilting on the table,
the self regarding itself in a watery mirror.

Dead leaves cover the ground,
the wind moans in the chimney,
and the tendrils of the yew tree inch toward the coffin.

I wonder what the ancient Chinese poets
would make of all this,
these shadows and empty cupboards?

Today, with the sun blazing in the trees,
my thoughts turn to the great
tenth-century celebrators of experience,

Wa-Hoo, whose delight in the smallest things
could hardly be restrained,
and to his joyous counterpart in the western provinces,
Ye-Hah.

~ Billy Collins ~
(Ballistics)

click the title of this post to see it on panhala, with image of laughing buddha and cardinals

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.

feet and earth

what is the relationship of your feet to the earth?

this is one of the most important connections you can make, in my opinion and in my experience.

walking, standing, sitting, lying, bring your attention to the soles of your feet and their energy.

the more attention you give, the more you notice.

love your feet! ask them what they want. they are amazing and often ignored body parts with a lot to say.

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.

blog analytics for november 2008

there were 142 visits from 76 unique visitors to my blog in november, the most i've ever had! 48.6% were new visits. there were 240 pageviews, doubling october's pageviews.

125 were from the US, with others from the UK, canada, ireland, germany, ukraine, australia, and the netherlands.

wed., nov. 26 was a big day, with 18 visits, the most ever.

i feel happy that more folks are checking out my blog!

beauty alert: monday night sky

The crescent moon will be adjacent to Venus and Jupiter. You may see some earthshine too.

Look to the southwest as soon as it starts getting dark, about 5:30 Austin time.

Thanks, Kathleen, for alerting me to this.

Click the title of this post to read about it.

stringing pearls

Each moment of awareness is a pearl. If today were a string, what are the pearls you would string on it?