A bite of my mother-daughter book:
~~~~~~~
Somehow, what gets stuck in human beings and keeps us from flourishing are the “bad” moments, the uncomfortable moments, the moments of conflict. These moments can keep us from being fully expressed in the future, because they were so uncomfortable when they happened in the first place. Like when I knocked a cartoon figure from my teacher’s desk in fifth grade—it went clattering to the floor and its little protest sign broke off…all because I was making a grand gesture with my arms. Do you think this made me want to be expressive?
What if it’s not an accident? What if you’re in a great mood so you randomly get up and sing a love song to your whole class, who respond by staring back, in stunned embarrassment that you were willing to be seen--do you think you’ll ever do it again? No, of course not. Wait--would you? Why or why not? How much does or should our past experience dictate our now? We learn from our mistakes, but how do we even know what’s a mistake and what’s just something that the world isn’t ready for yet?
And what if someone else sang to their class and it was taped, and put on YouTube, and had a million hits? All of a sudden it’s cool, to get up and serenade the class. And it would be cool to know this kid, who is now a YouTube sensation--but who is taking the risk to BE this kid? To be fully expressive? Didn’t that end before kindergarten? Maybe it didn't end, but it likely became more of a risk.
As we age, we are taught to pull our expression further and further inward (unless we’re a rock star) until we become mature adults. That’s what “Mature Adults” means, right? It means boring people who are in judgement of us; mature adults are the gatekeepers of the expression of pleasure and joy and anger and intensity. Mature adults define our borders and boundaries and “contain” us. And that’s what our society used to need, because of limiting belief systems that told us that if grownups didn’t contain their kids, they’d grow up to be criminals, outlaws. But slowly the world is coming to realize that the personal power and expression of individuals is not inherently dangerous, if we are connected to the highest part of ourselves.
~~~~~~~
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Sunday, December 19, 2010
'Tis the Season
Lily has been obsessed this week with “feel-good” movies. Coincidentally (surely!) I’ve been crabby, and looking for the route out.
“Mom, is this a feel-good movie?” she asked in the middle of Burlesque. That was the first time I'd ever heard her use the term. She was apparently born a feel-good person, so of course this term would catch her attention. Her personal dramas always have happy endings, but it seems suspicious to her that it’s a movie genre.
The afternoon after we saw Burlesque, because we’re homeschoolers and we can do whatever we want, she was watching Amelie, as a French assignment. Kind of. Later, I asked her how it was. “It was a feel-good movie,” she said.
“Seriously?” (I thought she was teasing me. But I do recall it had a happy ending.)
I too have a reaction to the label ‘feel-good.’ It smacks of marketing. How gratifying that my daughter is suspicious, because she’s otherwise fairly gullible. I imagine her questions, the ones she’d ask if I weren’t in such a crabby mood: “Mom, does anyone NOT feel good after a feel-good movie?” I imagine my crabby retort.
“If people don’t leave feeling good, is it still a feel-good movie?” This is the kind of question that makes me gaze at her speechless. I am going into a mini-trance just typing it. Wisely, she never asked either question, which gave me space to wonder why I’m so unreceptive to feel-good movies. I seem to assume that these movies cannot possibly be works of art and therefore must be works of marketers, because they know, they totally know, because they do focus groups, that people will PAY to feel good. Sure, people pay for other movies that aren’t feel-good movies…but I’m not suspicious of those movies. I only feel this wariness about feel-good movies. They write the endings after the results of the focus groups are analyzed. I’m so crabby.
Two of my facebook friends recommended The Blind Side; Lily has been avidly reading the comments to my status update query regarding feel-good movies. As she reads my comments she critiques my facebook comment-writing style, which makes me also-crabby. “That was confusing,” she points out, and indeed the next person who commented was, indeed, confused. (Somehow, her friends’ comments are not confusing at all…even though they don’t use vowels.) Anyway--Lily and I once tried to watch The Blind Side and couldn’t. We tried--I had thought she was enjoying it; I thought she’d object when I said I’d had enough, but she agreed.
“It’s lame,” she had said. I was relieved. I excused my facebook friends’ questionable taste with the fact that they are from Indiana, and Lily was curious.
“Really? Really, mom? People from Indiana have bad taste in movies?” She was asking in earnest. I was hoping she was not going to make this the thesis of her homeschooling term paper.
“I don’t know,” I said, “maybe just the ones from my hometown.” (I’m from Indiana too, so I can say whatever I want, right?) Ever so crabby.
Meanwhile, this week I was writing a eulogy--bummer--and coming face to face with who I even am as a human being and how much of my ancient ingrained human-ness I can transform into Light in order to come ever more into harmony with my partner. It was a long two days. I could see why people take pills. I have every skill and tool and awareness to not declare war on the world, on my partner, on my kid, on myself, so I didn’t, but I was still crabby as I drove to my hair appointment.
And I was trying to remember what had lifted Katrina last week, when she was in her own allergic reaction: all that is not love, within, reacting to the unremitting flow of Love, causing acute discomfort to the human self. Our shadows, we have seen, sometimes react against Love Itself. It's just an energy dynamic. We see how it works. We’ve got its numba. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t make us pause, sometimes. I knew I had a choice, a route out of the darkness…but what was it again? I tried to resurrect Katrina's experience as I drove north on Sheffield to my hair appointment...what was it again?
And then I remembered what lifted her up, into a mini-epiphany: she had missed feeling good, she missed being close to me, and simply chose to change, for no reason, chose to reroute…immediately…yes! And that’s all I needed to do too; realign with love, JUST because it feels better. Right!
Just then, a white Honda pulled in front of me with the license plate: “LOVE WINS.”
Uncanny timing. Confirmation. So much better than a movie! Instant gratification. The Universe loves me, is invested in my happiness. Absolutely arresting—though in truth, there was a part of me that still wanted to stay crabby nevertheless.
Do I deserve to feel happy and be loved right now? On my crabby drive up Sheffield? Even though I am totally flawed as a human being? Apparently yes. Even though my issues aren’t totally, totally sorted out yet? Apparently yes. Yes! Love wins. Yes: love whatever’s in your way, love whatever is blocking the way of Love. LOVE WINS was a stunning moment delivered by the Universe and followed by a series of 11's in a more esoteric but still staggering communication to me that all is well.
Turning toward the Light, I repeatedly experience, is immediately rewarded, with good feelings and license plate communications and lucky numbers, and is worth accessing by almost any means necessary…even feel-good movies. Really, whatever it takes. It is absolutely essential--and I'd even venture to say, it's the meaning of life--to be present to LOVE, every moment that we are alive. Whatever it takes...dropping the ego story that thinks I'm right, dropping the ego story that resents that I'm wrong...whatever. Just find the love, the Divine Presence. Now.
In case I still didn’t get it, LOVE WINS proceeded to park right in front of me when I reached my destination.
PS. I must add that facebook friends from my hometown also recommended two of my favorite movies as well: Slumdog Millionaire and Little Miss Sunshine. So actually people from my hometown have GREAT taste in movies...when it agrees with mine.
(And hey, is Burlesque indeed a feel-good movie? And if so, aren’t all musicals, Corrie Lenn Borris? Because otherwise... wouldn’t they be operas?)
“Mom, is this a feel-good movie?” she asked in the middle of Burlesque. That was the first time I'd ever heard her use the term. She was apparently born a feel-good person, so of course this term would catch her attention. Her personal dramas always have happy endings, but it seems suspicious to her that it’s a movie genre.
The afternoon after we saw Burlesque, because we’re homeschoolers and we can do whatever we want, she was watching Amelie, as a French assignment. Kind of. Later, I asked her how it was. “It was a feel-good movie,” she said.
“Seriously?” (I thought she was teasing me. But I do recall it had a happy ending.)
I too have a reaction to the label ‘feel-good.’ It smacks of marketing. How gratifying that my daughter is suspicious, because she’s otherwise fairly gullible. I imagine her questions, the ones she’d ask if I weren’t in such a crabby mood: “Mom, does anyone NOT feel good after a feel-good movie?” I imagine my crabby retort.
“If people don’t leave feeling good, is it still a feel-good movie?” This is the kind of question that makes me gaze at her speechless. I am going into a mini-trance just typing it. Wisely, she never asked either question, which gave me space to wonder why I’m so unreceptive to feel-good movies. I seem to assume that these movies cannot possibly be works of art and therefore must be works of marketers, because they know, they totally know, because they do focus groups, that people will PAY to feel good. Sure, people pay for other movies that aren’t feel-good movies…but I’m not suspicious of those movies. I only feel this wariness about feel-good movies. They write the endings after the results of the focus groups are analyzed. I’m so crabby.
Two of my facebook friends recommended The Blind Side; Lily has been avidly reading the comments to my status update query regarding feel-good movies. As she reads my comments she critiques my facebook comment-writing style, which makes me also-crabby. “That was confusing,” she points out, and indeed the next person who commented was, indeed, confused. (Somehow, her friends’ comments are not confusing at all…even though they don’t use vowels.) Anyway--Lily and I once tried to watch The Blind Side and couldn’t. We tried--I had thought she was enjoying it; I thought she’d object when I said I’d had enough, but she agreed.
“It’s lame,” she had said. I was relieved. I excused my facebook friends’ questionable taste with the fact that they are from Indiana, and Lily was curious.
“Really? Really, mom? People from Indiana have bad taste in movies?” She was asking in earnest. I was hoping she was not going to make this the thesis of her homeschooling term paper.
“I don’t know,” I said, “maybe just the ones from my hometown.” (I’m from Indiana too, so I can say whatever I want, right?) Ever so crabby.
Meanwhile, this week I was writing a eulogy--bummer--and coming face to face with who I even am as a human being and how much of my ancient ingrained human-ness I can transform into Light in order to come ever more into harmony with my partner. It was a long two days. I could see why people take pills. I have every skill and tool and awareness to not declare war on the world, on my partner, on my kid, on myself, so I didn’t, but I was still crabby as I drove to my hair appointment.
And I was trying to remember what had lifted Katrina last week, when she was in her own allergic reaction: all that is not love, within, reacting to the unremitting flow of Love, causing acute discomfort to the human self. Our shadows, we have seen, sometimes react against Love Itself. It's just an energy dynamic. We see how it works. We’ve got its numba. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t make us pause, sometimes. I knew I had a choice, a route out of the darkness…but what was it again? I tried to resurrect Katrina's experience as I drove north on Sheffield to my hair appointment...what was it again?
And then I remembered what lifted her up, into a mini-epiphany: she had missed feeling good, she missed being close to me, and simply chose to change, for no reason, chose to reroute…immediately…yes! And that’s all I needed to do too; realign with love, JUST because it feels better. Right!
Just then, a white Honda pulled in front of me with the license plate: “LOVE WINS.”
Uncanny timing. Confirmation. So much better than a movie! Instant gratification. The Universe loves me, is invested in my happiness. Absolutely arresting—though in truth, there was a part of me that still wanted to stay crabby nevertheless.
Do I deserve to feel happy and be loved right now? On my crabby drive up Sheffield? Even though I am totally flawed as a human being? Apparently yes. Even though my issues aren’t totally, totally sorted out yet? Apparently yes. Yes! Love wins. Yes: love whatever’s in your way, love whatever is blocking the way of Love. LOVE WINS was a stunning moment delivered by the Universe and followed by a series of 11's in a more esoteric but still staggering communication to me that all is well.
Turning toward the Light, I repeatedly experience, is immediately rewarded, with good feelings and license plate communications and lucky numbers, and is worth accessing by almost any means necessary…even feel-good movies. Really, whatever it takes. It is absolutely essential--and I'd even venture to say, it's the meaning of life--to be present to LOVE, every moment that we are alive. Whatever it takes...dropping the ego story that thinks I'm right, dropping the ego story that resents that I'm wrong...whatever. Just find the love, the Divine Presence. Now.
In case I still didn’t get it, LOVE WINS proceeded to park right in front of me when I reached my destination.
PS. I must add that facebook friends from my hometown also recommended two of my favorite movies as well: Slumdog Millionaire and Little Miss Sunshine. So actually people from my hometown have GREAT taste in movies...when it agrees with mine.
(And hey, is Burlesque indeed a feel-good movie? And if so, aren’t all musicals, Corrie Lenn Borris? Because otherwise... wouldn’t they be operas?)
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Just Between Us
In one of the “best” private high schools in Chicago, girls are making out with each other and exposing each others’ breasts to willing boys, at parties, for the boys’ viewing pleasure. Boys record these make-out sessions on their phones. Shyer girls record them themselves for shyer boys. What luck, that kids were born at this time in history when such amazing technology exists! How clever! How convenient! No longer do boys need to find their dad’s stash of boring old still shots; they can keep live action in their pockets! And no longer do girls have to pretend that they are not sexual beings! They are! Not only are they sexual beings, but stars, emailed from boy to boy for unlimited exposure! Fifteen minutes of fame, indeed! We are living in a new age! What freedom! What clueless parents!
I’m stunned, that with all this evolution on so many other levels, we—parents of the new millennium--have allowed our kids to become live porn for each other, instead of teaching them to be heart connected. It’s not that I’m sexually naïve. If I haven’t done it myself, I’ve read about it; but years have gone by since the last time I heard of a sex act that jarred my world as much as the news that high school girls are making alcohol-fueled soft-core porn videos for boys.
What does a girl need to ignore in order to let herself be filmed at a party? How desperate to be loved and seen must she be? When did women start to disassociate like this, and create disassociated daughters? With all the evolution and awakening and access to information and technological wizardry of the last 20 years, sex is still in the dark. Disassociated from love, from a heart connection, and universally unrecognized as a union of SOULS, of spirit shared, it is passed on to kids in ways that allow them to dishonor one another. How can we teach this honoring, though, if we don’t embody it ourselves?
How on earth do we do this? How do we walk our talk, rather than leaving our own sexuality in the dark and commenting woefully on the de-generation of this generation of teenagers? Can we fully embody our own sexuality in a way that honors it as the creative force it is? Can we celebrate it in ourselves and revere it in our partner, our mirror? When will NOW be the right time to make a change?
We average everyday people have squished sex into this tiny category, moved it to the end of the day, and only if our partner deserves it; we’ve kept the energy of sex so locked up in the genitals for so long, that we have culturally forgotten what it truly is: the energy of transformation, the energy of creation. Meanwhile kids, in an effort to discover what sex is, in an effort to actually feel something in this world of digital media, have learned to use our magnificently evolved electronic technology for sex play, without an evolved spiritual perspective. Why not? What do they know? We have never known how it feels to liberate this energy from its conventional pathway and send it throughout and around our body, throughout and around our partner, throughout and around our lives. We’ve never learned how to embody it without shadow and secrecy and shame.
What if? What if instead of the “don’t do what I do, do what I say” perspective, we evolved ourselves? What if we boring old adults with mortgages experienced the way that when this supercharged energy flows through the rest of our cells we feel and look more youthful and live from a joyful, conscious place? What if?
Have you ever tried to promote a tantric sex workshop? A whole weekend, people wonder. A whole weekend, about sex? What are we gonna do? We can’t take time from soccer games and birthday parties and bar mitzvahs and our Netflix queue to be sexy!
It’s about time.
It’s easy to say there’s not enough time. Especially for that! But this creation energy, sexual energy, is the same energy that makes the world go round; it’s life force, it’s the same energy that fuels the people and situations around us; liberating it makes our lives more synchronistic and easier to navigate. That’s the biggest draw for me: tantric sex, conscious sex energy, fuels my life. I am able to create my life, able to create happiness. Plus! I can see karma coming several miles away, without needing to interact with it. I can see illness coming a mile away, rarely needing to embody it. It’s not just about sex. It’s about living life from an awakened, happy state. It’s about evolving sex at the same rate of speed that the rest of the world is evolving.
There is no reason why we all can’t be ten times happier than we are. We have everything else we need. Don’t we? Our needs are so well met, better met than at any given historical time period, and American needs are met more easily than anyone else’s on the planet. We now have plenty of time for the world’s most blissful, most misunderstood activity—but we can’t, we can’t do it in the middle of the day, or move evolved, conscious, life-affirming sex to the top of the to-do list, because it’s been so culturally repressed. Or we can’t, because our partner was irritating that morning. Or we can’t, because we don’t have a partner—the second most used reason for avoiding addressing sexual energy.
What is the point of all of this ease and comfort and abundance? So we can have more time to watch movies? Surely it’s not to evolve our perception of sex so that we can raise sexually enlightened children.
There is no known cultural or spiritual permission to have spiritual sex. It is not held within the language and comprehension of the sacred. But it is, indeed, sacred. It is ready to evolve, into the Light. And Now is the time.
The Tantra Heart beginning level workshop in Chicago October 8-10 is the place, a sacred space, to begin awakening to the light behind the darkness that has shrouded sex. It is a safe time and place to let your own inner light shine, to awaken yourself to the abundance of Universal Love that is ready to come forth on the New Earth. Imagine a world in which you were honored simply for showing up, for seeing and being seen, in the Light. This is the world—this is the community, at least—that is being created Here, Now. Join us to get a taste of the future.
Let’s be a living example for the next generation, by learning to fully embody sex-heart-consciousness, so that kids have real live role models for how to live as fully connected, enlightened sexual beings.
Tantra is where yoga was 20 years ago: edgy, unknown. So be a pioneer. The unknown frontier is so much better than what we have inherited and what we are passing on to our kids, because we have an opportunity to create it, consciously. I’m in. Are you?
I’m stunned, that with all this evolution on so many other levels, we—parents of the new millennium--have allowed our kids to become live porn for each other, instead of teaching them to be heart connected. It’s not that I’m sexually naïve. If I haven’t done it myself, I’ve read about it; but years have gone by since the last time I heard of a sex act that jarred my world as much as the news that high school girls are making alcohol-fueled soft-core porn videos for boys.
What does a girl need to ignore in order to let herself be filmed at a party? How desperate to be loved and seen must she be? When did women start to disassociate like this, and create disassociated daughters? With all the evolution and awakening and access to information and technological wizardry of the last 20 years, sex is still in the dark. Disassociated from love, from a heart connection, and universally unrecognized as a union of SOULS, of spirit shared, it is passed on to kids in ways that allow them to dishonor one another. How can we teach this honoring, though, if we don’t embody it ourselves?
How on earth do we do this? How do we walk our talk, rather than leaving our own sexuality in the dark and commenting woefully on the de-generation of this generation of teenagers? Can we fully embody our own sexuality in a way that honors it as the creative force it is? Can we celebrate it in ourselves and revere it in our partner, our mirror? When will NOW be the right time to make a change?
We average everyday people have squished sex into this tiny category, moved it to the end of the day, and only if our partner deserves it; we’ve kept the energy of sex so locked up in the genitals for so long, that we have culturally forgotten what it truly is: the energy of transformation, the energy of creation. Meanwhile kids, in an effort to discover what sex is, in an effort to actually feel something in this world of digital media, have learned to use our magnificently evolved electronic technology for sex play, without an evolved spiritual perspective. Why not? What do they know? We have never known how it feels to liberate this energy from its conventional pathway and send it throughout and around our body, throughout and around our partner, throughout and around our lives. We’ve never learned how to embody it without shadow and secrecy and shame.
What if? What if instead of the “don’t do what I do, do what I say” perspective, we evolved ourselves? What if we boring old adults with mortgages experienced the way that when this supercharged energy flows through the rest of our cells we feel and look more youthful and live from a joyful, conscious place? What if?
Have you ever tried to promote a tantric sex workshop? A whole weekend, people wonder. A whole weekend, about sex? What are we gonna do? We can’t take time from soccer games and birthday parties and bar mitzvahs and our Netflix queue to be sexy!
It’s about time.
It’s easy to say there’s not enough time. Especially for that! But this creation energy, sexual energy, is the same energy that makes the world go round; it’s life force, it’s the same energy that fuels the people and situations around us; liberating it makes our lives more synchronistic and easier to navigate. That’s the biggest draw for me: tantric sex, conscious sex energy, fuels my life. I am able to create my life, able to create happiness. Plus! I can see karma coming several miles away, without needing to interact with it. I can see illness coming a mile away, rarely needing to embody it. It’s not just about sex. It’s about living life from an awakened, happy state. It’s about evolving sex at the same rate of speed that the rest of the world is evolving.
There is no reason why we all can’t be ten times happier than we are. We have everything else we need. Don’t we? Our needs are so well met, better met than at any given historical time period, and American needs are met more easily than anyone else’s on the planet. We now have plenty of time for the world’s most blissful, most misunderstood activity—but we can’t, we can’t do it in the middle of the day, or move evolved, conscious, life-affirming sex to the top of the to-do list, because it’s been so culturally repressed. Or we can’t, because our partner was irritating that morning. Or we can’t, because we don’t have a partner—the second most used reason for avoiding addressing sexual energy.
What is the point of all of this ease and comfort and abundance? So we can have more time to watch movies? Surely it’s not to evolve our perception of sex so that we can raise sexually enlightened children.
There is no known cultural or spiritual permission to have spiritual sex. It is not held within the language and comprehension of the sacred. But it is, indeed, sacred. It is ready to evolve, into the Light. And Now is the time.
The Tantra Heart beginning level workshop in Chicago October 8-10 is the place, a sacred space, to begin awakening to the light behind the darkness that has shrouded sex. It is a safe time and place to let your own inner light shine, to awaken yourself to the abundance of Universal Love that is ready to come forth on the New Earth. Imagine a world in which you were honored simply for showing up, for seeing and being seen, in the Light. This is the world—this is the community, at least—that is being created Here, Now. Join us to get a taste of the future.
Let’s be a living example for the next generation, by learning to fully embody sex-heart-consciousness, so that kids have real live role models for how to live as fully connected, enlightened sexual beings.
Tantra is where yoga was 20 years ago: edgy, unknown. So be a pioneer. The unknown frontier is so much better than what we have inherited and what we are passing on to our kids, because we have an opportunity to create it, consciously. I’m in. Are you?
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Tantra for Superheros
It's no more outrageous for the President to attend this month’s Tantra Heart workshop than it is for me to be on Oprah (April 8, 2010!). Tantra is where yoga was 20 years ago...it's being reborn. I had considered voting for Dennis Kucinich in the primary in part because I'd read he and his wife were Tantra practitioners. I was very aligned with his edgy, far left politics. But it was the Tantra piece that excited me the most. Imagining a President who practices Tantra inspires optimism for peace on earth. Admittedly, Kucinich was unelectable (in large part because, according to my friend Chuck, a politically savvy, articulate, esteemed Shakespeare professor, “He looks too much like a ferret”).
Nevertheless, we can still have a President who does Tantra! The workshop is happening in the Obama’s former neighborhood, Hyde Park, at the home of his daughter’s former schoolmate! How un-exotic, how do-able is that?
You can tell that the First Couple is already having darn good sex—have you noticed the way they look at each other? I suspect if the President did this Tantra class, we would be that much closer to world peace. Truly. You cannot do this TantraHeart weekend and go back to sleep, thinking you are not a creator, on a very high level. You cannot come out thinking we the Human Family are not One. You come out knowing that. So, yeah. That’s scary. It’s a big responsibility, to be a conscious creator, to honor all of life. Tantra introduces a new way of seeing. Since our First Couple are already fearless, highly responsible, conscious creators having really good sex…why not just formally embody that for all to see? Claim it! Register at www.ugoddesstantra.com!
They're probably registering right now. Did I mention I'm going to be on Oprah?
My daughter and I live in a wonderful single-family home in Lincoln Park, far better than my modest income would allow, due to the vision and heart of my dear friend and pelvic floor goddess Missy Lavender. (By the way, you might remember her as the perky blonde woman standing beside Oprah on Inauguration night. Missy is a right place at the right time kind of goddess.)
So. It’s a long story. But it began four years ago on the descending stairwell of a rental two-flat when, in a moment of inspiration, I set an audacious intention: "I want to live in a home that I love, a home much better than my income would allow."
Setting intentions works. But, as I explained to the group of goddesses that my dear friend Julie had assembled (she had been introduced to me by Missy, by the way) it helps to set audacious intentions.
I spoke with my goddess friend Katrina Rivers one afternoon last year and mentioned to her that I was going to speak at Julie’s gathering that evening.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
“Nervous,” I replied.
“Do you know nervousness is JUST energy? And that you can take that energy and turn it into something else? Such as excitement?”
Of course I knew that. I taught that to people, didn’t I? It’s just that…I had forgotten. Because I was nervous.
“Ok, hang on!” I said, “I’m going to do it right now!” And I did.
Katrina held on, talked me through the transformational moment, and I emerged, saying, “OK! I’m excited!” I thanked her profusely, and headed to my computer where I made an outline of everything I wanted to say to Julie’s guests.
Enjoying Julie’s gathering, I could not help but notice that the other speakers, including my colleague, tantra goddess Elsbeth Meuth did NOT speak from an agenda. The piece of paper quartered into my back pocket began to haunt me as I listened to Elsbeth and breathed my enlightened sexuality up into my heart, as she was instructing us to do. I was brimming with excitement, enough to ignore the thought what if I can’t do it without my typed-up, well articulated agenda?
I walked to the front of the room and looked at the open faces waiting for the NEXT words and I let it flow. I was more open than ever, the voice of the Goddess flowing, when I gleefully instructed these women to dig deep and imagine what their heart’s desire truly was.
“What’s your heart’s desire?” I asked, to a handful of women.
I revealed mine. I said, “Naming our heart’s desire can actually be stressful. For instance, I want to write a book. And I can say that, but then the thoughts creep in, thoughts like, ‘do I have time to write a book?’ or ‘what if I don’t write the book?’ so it is very, very beneficial to set an intention above and beyond that. So, yes, I want to write a book. My book will be about enhancing the spiritual connection between mothers and daughters. Now for the audacity: I want Madonna and her daughter to read it, and form a mother-daughter circle. I want Michelle Obama to read it, and I want there to be mother-daughter circles at the White House (she hadn't moved in yet, but that was beside the point)! I want mother-daughter circles to form across the country. AND I WANT TO BE ON OPRAH!” And everyone laughed, as I had expected. I laughed. Because, what an audacious intention!
“See?” I said. “When you set an audacious intention, it makes you smile.”
A few weeks later, I went through that same series of thoughts in one of my UrbanGoddess workshops. Each participant amped up her intention until it made her smile.
“I just want peace in my family,” one of them said. “I bet you can't amp that up.”
“I can,” I replied. “What if your family went to a yoga workshop together? What if at the end of the workshop, they composed a song and sang it to you, thanking you for how peaceful they all felt?”
She laughed. We all laughed. Outrageous, right? Why set an intention that’s going to stress you out, when you can set one that will make you laugh?
So I went about my life. For months. For a year. The mother-daughter book was slowly being written. One day I took a nap. When I woke up, I checked my messages.
“Hi Rachel, this is Brian from the Oprah Winfrey Show,” the message began. I put Brian’s voice on speaker, stunned and euphoric. “I know this is late notice (HA! I thought, This is happening much sooner than I had imagined!), but we’d like to come over and tape you teaching Tantra to some clients of Dr. Laura Berman.”
With deep gratitude, another goddess, my dear friend Annmarie, popped into my mind: she had introduced me to Laura Berman, based on her intuition that we should be working together. (In case you're wondering, Missy had introduced me to Annmarie too.)
I listened to Brian’s message two more times. I savored it. If you had asked me then—and maybe even if you asked me now—what the highlight of my life has been thus far, I would say, “Hello, this is Brian from the Oprah Show.” Indeed.
Audacious. Not so much because I wanted to be on tv--but because the Universe had heard my intention!
As it turned out, the Oprah show did not film at my house.
I met the couple four or five times. They kept walking in the door of Vessel Yoga, and I kept introducing myself, as if for the first time, five times. The second time, I felt somewhat insincere. By the fifth time, I was trying not to feel fraudulent. After that, they went and sat down. I approached them. “I am here for you,” I said to them, wanting to make a real connection this time. “I’m not here for the tv show. I’m here to do what I always do with couples, and I can assure you that if what you want is to be healed, you will get what you came here for." I paused, waiting for them to take that in.
But Brian, the director, respectfully took my arm and steered me aside. “We ask that you only talk to them when the cameras are rolling. It’s kind of like…reality tv.”
When I arrived home from taping that day, my beloved goddess of a daughter Lily looked at me and said, “Mom. You wore THAT? On tv?!” I had no idea what was wrong with my outfit. I was wearing what I always wore to teach yoga. She illustrated how I was supposed to dress, by pulling my yoga pants tightly around my legs.
The next day, Ann the assistant called me to say 1) we were changing studios due to the el train noise; and 2) they were running late. I was already used to the running late part by then. I canceled the rest of my appointments that day and headed to Moksha Yoga, where, coincidentally, I had spent hundreds of hours and am very comfortable. When Ann called again to say they were running even later, I headed into Moksha’s boutique and tried on the first yoga pants I saw: they looked exactly like Lily told me they were supposed to look. I felt a tad exposed. But the ease of shopping and the thrill of buying something hot at the right price…reminded me of my intention for the day--to HAVE FUN!
The tech guys were cool 30-somethings, intrigued by my job. I was equally intrigued by theirs. Harpo cameramen. I loved the camaraderie they had and how smoothly they worked together. There was a level of respect for me, in part because the day before I had been assertive enough to tell them what I would need, in order to do my job and assure success for all of us.
“You’ll get the hot footage and good sound bites that you need IF this couple gets 45 minutes’ uninterrupted yoga, and 15 minutes uninterrupted breathing,” I had said. “I need to feel like I’ve given them the same healing appointment that everybody else gets. ...No, I never take off my mala beads.” My mala beads were clicking against each other, interfering with the sound. The sound guy settled on taping them to my wrist with medical tape. A clever compromise, which worked.
“I hate to ask you this,” he said, hesitantly, “but can you take off your necklace?”
It was bumping right against my microphone. It has deep significance, was made by my partner, and I wear it every day. It has an OM on it. It worked with my top, and my lotus necklace. Of course I didn’t want to take it off. “Sure, no problem,” I said with a smile. It’s not like I’m a prima donna or anything.
“Can you say the thing about the full-body orgasm again?” my director, Brian, requested. I repeated it. About six times. Keep that in mind, reality-tv fans. I did a lot of repeating, until reality and what Brian wanted were united as One.
“Can you say that again, without using the word ‘esoteric’?” asked Brian. “That word is a little too--”
“—esoteric?” I asked.
By the end of the four hours of taping, I understood just what Brian wanted. I wished I could come back the next day, armed with ten-second descriptions of Tantra, a 4,000-year old spiritual path which takes book-chapters to describe.
Later my friends and clients asked what it had been like.
“It was like trying to get your child to do their homework…during their birthday party,” I replied.
The couple, especially the wife, was very distracted by what was going on around us. I rely about 95% on intuition and 5% on what I’ve done with other couples in the past. Imagine tuning in to your intuition, and to your clients’ body/mind/spirit, and to the clients’ relationship dynamics...while all three of us are miked, with lights in our faces, and cameras following our every move. There were eight other bodies in the room for me to NOT tune in to.
I loved every minute of it.
I loved the challenge of getting through to the couple, despite the challenges. I loved the challenge of Brian asking me to oversimplify everything I said. I loved my new, tight, yoga pants. I would do the whole thing again the next day, in a second. I would do it EVERY day.
I might have forgotten all about it—two months have gone by—when another goddess, my friend and former sister-in-law, Kathryn, emailed me with a link to Oprah’s schedule. “Is this it?” she asked. And indeed…it was.
So, I have no idea what they will show, after our four hours of taping. I am thrilled that tantric sex—spiritual sex, heart-sex-consciousness in union as taught to me by my teachers Richard and Antoinette Asimus --is going to get some valuable daytime tv exposure, even if I personally come off as a flaky, nervous, new age nymph in tight pants.
THE COUPLE: What I doubt they’ll show on TV
Dr. Berman briefed me on the couple, and because of the tv time constraints I didn’t have a leisurely introductory dialogue with them. But I did ask what I always ask. They answered that they’d met at a non-profit, where they had both volunteered.
I often use that question, “Where did you first meet?” as a point of departure. It is an easy question for nervous novices to answer. I can also see who talks first, who holds back, whether they agree, whether one defers to the other…then I often ask, "What did you first like about her?" And then I might move on to, “And when did you really focus in on them and realize, wow, he might be the one for me?” And finally, “How did your first sexual encounter go?”
We had, of course, started two hours late. I wanted this couple to DO, rather than talk, because I knew that they had already talked extensively to Dr. Berman, and lord knows how much repeating they had done for "reality's" sake.
Fortunately their non-profit initial meeting struck a chord which allowed a leap forward into their new paradigm. After they were softened up with some yoga and breathing, I offered, “You have been living as a couple who has “sex problems,” and you have come to identify yourselves as a couple with “sex problems.” I bet you’ve lost touch with that initial meeting. So let’s go back there, to the non-profit. Let’s remember that you met performing selfless service, and that by being HERE NOW you are still performing selfless service. You are showing the world—how many people watch Oprah? 16 million? 23 million? You are showing the world that sexual challenges do not need to be kept secret. You are allowing cameras into your life to help people; do you realize how many people out there will benefit from watching you on this show? Do you know that cliché about love, ‘It’s bigger than both of us!’? Let that be your new mantra. From now on, when you think about your intimate life, if you fall back into discouraging thoughts, reroute. Use your mantra. Remember that you have been presented with your unique challenge because you were meant to help others. Millions of others! How amazing that your so-called problem can be used for the benefit of millions! It is not just about you two in the bedroom. Take a moment and transform your former ‘problem’ into the gift to the world that it’s going to be! Create a new vision of yourselves, for yourselves! You are SUPERHEROS!”
It was an audacious intention for them to embody. I bet they were the least likely superheros they could imagine. But they smiled. As the cameras rolled.
And that was their pep talk. They breathed into that new reality, grateful to have let go of the old one. Superheros.
When the lights were taken down, after we were unmiked, after we had found our socks, but before they left for their next event…the wife approached me.
“Do you say that to everyone?” she asked.
“Do I say…what…to everyone?”
“You know, just, everything you said to us. Or were you saying it for…you know…the show?”
“I was absolutely saying it to you, for you,” I replied. That is exactly what I had tried to establish the day before after we’d met five times. Right then I realized that she had probably been too nervous and distracted to hear most of what I had said, but I could tell by the transformed expression on her face—and the ease and warmth between husband and wife—that even though she might not have heard it all, energetically she had “gotten” it.
And truly, beyond my lofty and audaciously met intention to be on Oprah, their recognition, their transformation, makes for major job satisfaction.
That evening, Lily and I remarkably ran into them and the crew at Whole Foods. I was still flying high. This time the husband pulled me aside. “The breathing we did,” he said. (For more on that breath virtually meet David Elliott!) “After that breathing. I felt like…like…it kind of felt like…I felt like I was...in church,” he concluded. "Do you know what I mean?"
“Yes,” I said, “I know what you mean. That’s your spirit. Feel it! Because that’s who you truly are!”
Skyrocketing job satisfaction at this point.
What more could I ask for?
PS No, I did not meet Oprah. (Everyone asks.) Why didn't I? Because it had not been part of my intention! But I do want the Obamas to come to my Tantra Heart workshop!
Nevertheless, we can still have a President who does Tantra! The workshop is happening in the Obama’s former neighborhood, Hyde Park, at the home of his daughter’s former schoolmate! How un-exotic, how do-able is that?
You can tell that the First Couple is already having darn good sex—have you noticed the way they look at each other? I suspect if the President did this Tantra class, we would be that much closer to world peace. Truly. You cannot do this TantraHeart weekend and go back to sleep, thinking you are not a creator, on a very high level. You cannot come out thinking we the Human Family are not One. You come out knowing that. So, yeah. That’s scary. It’s a big responsibility, to be a conscious creator, to honor all of life. Tantra introduces a new way of seeing. Since our First Couple are already fearless, highly responsible, conscious creators having really good sex…why not just formally embody that for all to see? Claim it! Register at www.ugoddesstantra.com!
They're probably registering right now. Did I mention I'm going to be on Oprah?
My daughter and I live in a wonderful single-family home in Lincoln Park, far better than my modest income would allow, due to the vision and heart of my dear friend and pelvic floor goddess Missy Lavender. (By the way, you might remember her as the perky blonde woman standing beside Oprah on Inauguration night. Missy is a right place at the right time kind of goddess.)
So. It’s a long story. But it began four years ago on the descending stairwell of a rental two-flat when, in a moment of inspiration, I set an audacious intention: "I want to live in a home that I love, a home much better than my income would allow."
Setting intentions works. But, as I explained to the group of goddesses that my dear friend Julie had assembled (she had been introduced to me by Missy, by the way) it helps to set audacious intentions.
I spoke with my goddess friend Katrina Rivers one afternoon last year and mentioned to her that I was going to speak at Julie’s gathering that evening.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
“Nervous,” I replied.
“Do you know nervousness is JUST energy? And that you can take that energy and turn it into something else? Such as excitement?”
Of course I knew that. I taught that to people, didn’t I? It’s just that…I had forgotten. Because I was nervous.
“Ok, hang on!” I said, “I’m going to do it right now!” And I did.
Katrina held on, talked me through the transformational moment, and I emerged, saying, “OK! I’m excited!” I thanked her profusely, and headed to my computer where I made an outline of everything I wanted to say to Julie’s guests.
Enjoying Julie’s gathering, I could not help but notice that the other speakers, including my colleague, tantra goddess Elsbeth Meuth did NOT speak from an agenda. The piece of paper quartered into my back pocket began to haunt me as I listened to Elsbeth and breathed my enlightened sexuality up into my heart, as she was instructing us to do. I was brimming with excitement, enough to ignore the thought what if I can’t do it without my typed-up, well articulated agenda?
I walked to the front of the room and looked at the open faces waiting for the NEXT words and I let it flow. I was more open than ever, the voice of the Goddess flowing, when I gleefully instructed these women to dig deep and imagine what their heart’s desire truly was.
“What’s your heart’s desire?” I asked, to a handful of women.
I revealed mine. I said, “Naming our heart’s desire can actually be stressful. For instance, I want to write a book. And I can say that, but then the thoughts creep in, thoughts like, ‘do I have time to write a book?’ or ‘what if I don’t write the book?’ so it is very, very beneficial to set an intention above and beyond that. So, yes, I want to write a book. My book will be about enhancing the spiritual connection between mothers and daughters. Now for the audacity: I want Madonna and her daughter to read it, and form a mother-daughter circle. I want Michelle Obama to read it, and I want there to be mother-daughter circles at the White House (she hadn't moved in yet, but that was beside the point)! I want mother-daughter circles to form across the country. AND I WANT TO BE ON OPRAH!” And everyone laughed, as I had expected. I laughed. Because, what an audacious intention!
“See?” I said. “When you set an audacious intention, it makes you smile.”
A few weeks later, I went through that same series of thoughts in one of my UrbanGoddess workshops. Each participant amped up her intention until it made her smile.
“I just want peace in my family,” one of them said. “I bet you can't amp that up.”
“I can,” I replied. “What if your family went to a yoga workshop together? What if at the end of the workshop, they composed a song and sang it to you, thanking you for how peaceful they all felt?”
She laughed. We all laughed. Outrageous, right? Why set an intention that’s going to stress you out, when you can set one that will make you laugh?
So I went about my life. For months. For a year. The mother-daughter book was slowly being written. One day I took a nap. When I woke up, I checked my messages.
“Hi Rachel, this is Brian from the Oprah Winfrey Show,” the message began. I put Brian’s voice on speaker, stunned and euphoric. “I know this is late notice (HA! I thought, This is happening much sooner than I had imagined!), but we’d like to come over and tape you teaching Tantra to some clients of Dr. Laura Berman.”
With deep gratitude, another goddess, my dear friend Annmarie, popped into my mind: she had introduced me to Laura Berman, based on her intuition that we should be working together. (In case you're wondering, Missy had introduced me to Annmarie too.)
I listened to Brian’s message two more times. I savored it. If you had asked me then—and maybe even if you asked me now—what the highlight of my life has been thus far, I would say, “Hello, this is Brian from the Oprah Show.” Indeed.
Audacious. Not so much because I wanted to be on tv--but because the Universe had heard my intention!
As it turned out, the Oprah show did not film at my house.
I met the couple four or five times. They kept walking in the door of Vessel Yoga, and I kept introducing myself, as if for the first time, five times. The second time, I felt somewhat insincere. By the fifth time, I was trying not to feel fraudulent. After that, they went and sat down. I approached them. “I am here for you,” I said to them, wanting to make a real connection this time. “I’m not here for the tv show. I’m here to do what I always do with couples, and I can assure you that if what you want is to be healed, you will get what you came here for." I paused, waiting for them to take that in.
But Brian, the director, respectfully took my arm and steered me aside. “We ask that you only talk to them when the cameras are rolling. It’s kind of like…reality tv.”
When I arrived home from taping that day, my beloved goddess of a daughter Lily looked at me and said, “Mom. You wore THAT? On tv?!” I had no idea what was wrong with my outfit. I was wearing what I always wore to teach yoga. She illustrated how I was supposed to dress, by pulling my yoga pants tightly around my legs.
The next day, Ann the assistant called me to say 1) we were changing studios due to the el train noise; and 2) they were running late. I was already used to the running late part by then. I canceled the rest of my appointments that day and headed to Moksha Yoga, where, coincidentally, I had spent hundreds of hours and am very comfortable. When Ann called again to say they were running even later, I headed into Moksha’s boutique and tried on the first yoga pants I saw: they looked exactly like Lily told me they were supposed to look. I felt a tad exposed. But the ease of shopping and the thrill of buying something hot at the right price…reminded me of my intention for the day--to HAVE FUN!
The tech guys were cool 30-somethings, intrigued by my job. I was equally intrigued by theirs. Harpo cameramen. I loved the camaraderie they had and how smoothly they worked together. There was a level of respect for me, in part because the day before I had been assertive enough to tell them what I would need, in order to do my job and assure success for all of us.
“You’ll get the hot footage and good sound bites that you need IF this couple gets 45 minutes’ uninterrupted yoga, and 15 minutes uninterrupted breathing,” I had said. “I need to feel like I’ve given them the same healing appointment that everybody else gets. ...No, I never take off my mala beads.” My mala beads were clicking against each other, interfering with the sound. The sound guy settled on taping them to my wrist with medical tape. A clever compromise, which worked.
“I hate to ask you this,” he said, hesitantly, “but can you take off your necklace?”
It was bumping right against my microphone. It has deep significance, was made by my partner, and I wear it every day. It has an OM on it. It worked with my top, and my lotus necklace. Of course I didn’t want to take it off. “Sure, no problem,” I said with a smile. It’s not like I’m a prima donna or anything.
“Can you say the thing about the full-body orgasm again?” my director, Brian, requested. I repeated it. About six times. Keep that in mind, reality-tv fans. I did a lot of repeating, until reality and what Brian wanted were united as One.
“Can you say that again, without using the word ‘esoteric’?” asked Brian. “That word is a little too--”
“—esoteric?” I asked.
By the end of the four hours of taping, I understood just what Brian wanted. I wished I could come back the next day, armed with ten-second descriptions of Tantra, a 4,000-year old spiritual path which takes book-chapters to describe.
Later my friends and clients asked what it had been like.
“It was like trying to get your child to do their homework…during their birthday party,” I replied.
The couple, especially the wife, was very distracted by what was going on around us. I rely about 95% on intuition and 5% on what I’ve done with other couples in the past. Imagine tuning in to your intuition, and to your clients’ body/mind/spirit, and to the clients’ relationship dynamics...while all three of us are miked, with lights in our faces, and cameras following our every move. There were eight other bodies in the room for me to NOT tune in to.
I loved every minute of it.
I loved the challenge of getting through to the couple, despite the challenges. I loved the challenge of Brian asking me to oversimplify everything I said. I loved my new, tight, yoga pants. I would do the whole thing again the next day, in a second. I would do it EVERY day.
I might have forgotten all about it—two months have gone by—when another goddess, my friend and former sister-in-law, Kathryn, emailed me with a link to Oprah’s schedule. “Is this it?” she asked. And indeed…it was.
So, I have no idea what they will show, after our four hours of taping. I am thrilled that tantric sex—spiritual sex, heart-sex-consciousness in union as taught to me by my teachers Richard and Antoinette Asimus --is going to get some valuable daytime tv exposure, even if I personally come off as a flaky, nervous, new age nymph in tight pants.
THE COUPLE: What I doubt they’ll show on TV
Dr. Berman briefed me on the couple, and because of the tv time constraints I didn’t have a leisurely introductory dialogue with them. But I did ask what I always ask. They answered that they’d met at a non-profit, where they had both volunteered.
I often use that question, “Where did you first meet?” as a point of departure. It is an easy question for nervous novices to answer. I can also see who talks first, who holds back, whether they agree, whether one defers to the other…then I often ask, "What did you first like about her?" And then I might move on to, “And when did you really focus in on them and realize, wow, he might be the one for me?” And finally, “How did your first sexual encounter go?”
We had, of course, started two hours late. I wanted this couple to DO, rather than talk, because I knew that they had already talked extensively to Dr. Berman, and lord knows how much repeating they had done for "reality's" sake.
Fortunately their non-profit initial meeting struck a chord which allowed a leap forward into their new paradigm. After they were softened up with some yoga and breathing, I offered, “You have been living as a couple who has “sex problems,” and you have come to identify yourselves as a couple with “sex problems.” I bet you’ve lost touch with that initial meeting. So let’s go back there, to the non-profit. Let’s remember that you met performing selfless service, and that by being HERE NOW you are still performing selfless service. You are showing the world—how many people watch Oprah? 16 million? 23 million? You are showing the world that sexual challenges do not need to be kept secret. You are allowing cameras into your life to help people; do you realize how many people out there will benefit from watching you on this show? Do you know that cliché about love, ‘It’s bigger than both of us!’? Let that be your new mantra. From now on, when you think about your intimate life, if you fall back into discouraging thoughts, reroute. Use your mantra. Remember that you have been presented with your unique challenge because you were meant to help others. Millions of others! How amazing that your so-called problem can be used for the benefit of millions! It is not just about you two in the bedroom. Take a moment and transform your former ‘problem’ into the gift to the world that it’s going to be! Create a new vision of yourselves, for yourselves! You are SUPERHEROS!”
It was an audacious intention for them to embody. I bet they were the least likely superheros they could imagine. But they smiled. As the cameras rolled.
And that was their pep talk. They breathed into that new reality, grateful to have let go of the old one. Superheros.
When the lights were taken down, after we were unmiked, after we had found our socks, but before they left for their next event…the wife approached me.
“Do you say that to everyone?” she asked.
“Do I say…what…to everyone?”
“You know, just, everything you said to us. Or were you saying it for…you know…the show?”
“I was absolutely saying it to you, for you,” I replied. That is exactly what I had tried to establish the day before after we’d met five times. Right then I realized that she had probably been too nervous and distracted to hear most of what I had said, but I could tell by the transformed expression on her face—and the ease and warmth between husband and wife—that even though she might not have heard it all, energetically she had “gotten” it.
And truly, beyond my lofty and audaciously met intention to be on Oprah, their recognition, their transformation, makes for major job satisfaction.
That evening, Lily and I remarkably ran into them and the crew at Whole Foods. I was still flying high. This time the husband pulled me aside. “The breathing we did,” he said. (For more on that breath virtually meet David Elliott!) “After that breathing. I felt like…like…it kind of felt like…I felt like I was...in church,” he concluded. "Do you know what I mean?"
“Yes,” I said, “I know what you mean. That’s your spirit. Feel it! Because that’s who you truly are!”
Skyrocketing job satisfaction at this point.
What more could I ask for?
PS No, I did not meet Oprah. (Everyone asks.) Why didn't I? Because it had not been part of my intention! But I do want the Obamas to come to my Tantra Heart workshop!
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Haiti, Avatar, and Pat Robertson
I don’t know who Pat Robertson is, really. So it doesn’t seem at all fair or balanced for me to react to something he said, as though I’m a Fox TV reporter…not that I’ve actually seen one of those, either, before writing this sentence. So I'm not going to react. There are a lot of different beliefs and assumptions out there in the world, aren’t there? I just assume Pat Robertson is wrong and FOX TV is biased. There is a part of me that is tempted to do some research on Pat Roberson, because in my mind when I picture him, I see Pat Boone, and really, how dare I mention him in a blog if I have no idea who he is and can’t even picture him?
Nevertheless, this week I have gazed from afar, while Pat Robertson, from a place of old-style ignorance, dug an even deeper hole for his credibility with sentient beings by declaring that Haitians have created their own reality and are being punished. Daily, I tell my yoga students, and my kid, that we humans are merely different embodiments of the same Universal Energy, that we are all mini-manifestations of God, or Source, or Spirit, flowing through us. No other “religion” necessary. Honor yourself, others, and the planet. We are One.
And then Pat Robertson comes along and proves me wrong! No possible way is HE ME! I am so not One with a tv evangelist. -–Is that what he is? I can’t bear to look him up.
But for the sake of spiritual exercise, for the sake of putting my money where my mouth is, for the sake of walking the talk, I’m gonna go there: I am One with Pat Robertson. Furthermore I agree with him that we create our own reality, which is what, as I understand it, Pat Robertson is “accusing” Haitians of doing.
That would appear to be where our agreement ends. He does appear to say we create reality, but from a confused, xenophobic, victim-based perspective. Taking a step back, or a step up, to a higher level, a global or even Universal perspective, I believe we do and did--We human beings, through thought and word, DO create our reality, all humans, all at once, not just Haitian-humans.
So many current texts say: Remember Who You Are. Take a big step back and up. We are all microcosms. We embody the same Universal energy of life. I See You.
Personal experience and a level of mirroring from my spiritual community leads me to see that Earth is a network of Life Force, a forum where Divine Intention is manifest. Shadow, as well, is manifest here: our biggest fears, and our most victimy perspectives, are also manifest here on earth. It's quite a responsibility, being a Creator. Dare I accept it?
We human beings come from a long tradition of being victims! It is only very recently that a non-victimy perspective has been embraced, finally. For ages, God has sent down plagues. Satan has punished. Whatever your religion. Most of us have been conditioned—and from looking out around us, we have led ourselves to “empirically” believe--that things happen to us.
Only recently has quantum physics begun to illustrate that thought actually creates the physical, that the external originates internally. In the meantime, for ages, we as a human conglomerate have unconsciously been offering disharmonic, victimy, fear-filled thoughts, sending these fear-seeds out to manifest. Our conscious, Divine, prayerful intentions have manifest as well. Thanks be to God. And to the Goddess, working in tandem.
There is one Earth. We, the living energy of humanity, are One On Earth. These boundaries called countries are invisible from that perspective; they are un-real, man-made constructions. Thoughts and beliefs don’t know these boundaries. ALL of us, thorough the Divine Power of being human, create an eruption on earth. All of the ways in which we have abused earth and each other come crashing back to us karmically, in exchange for what we the people have offered, just doing the best we can, and in this week’s case Haiti is left picking up the pieces. And where crisis has struck a chord in our hearts, we non-Haitian humans are responding with aid, care, love, and light that know no national boundaries.
We come together so well in crisis. What if it didn’t take crisis? What if we were always empathetic to each other and the earth? Have you seen Avatar?
I checked the map. Isn’t Haiti so close to home? This crisis hits close enough to home to cause me to ask: where am I not clear about life on Earth? Where am I in denial of the concept that my thoughts and actions can actually manifest and do damage—or the opposite: create heaven on earth? Am I creating it right now?
How can I help in this time of crisis? By honoring the life that is potent in my thoughts, and in my very breath. By opening up to embody true gratitude that I am alive, that the pulse of life flows through the people I love. And the ones I don’t even know. By embodying gratitude that this square foot of land that I inhabit right this second is solidly supporting me. By honoring the energy of creation that wishes to express itself through me through teaching and writing. By navigating life with a renewed sense of gratitude every day, sending it down into the earth every time I eat from the earth’s goodness, every time I pump gas! By teaching that it matters. On a daily basis, I will be grateful that the unfixed pothole on North Avenue is really not that huge after all.
What can I really do to help keep the planet in harmony? Tonight it came to mean that I not wash my sheets. They’re clean. It’s not that I’m a compulsive washer; it’s that I want them to be really really soft. Right now. My friend who gave me these sheets for Christmas promised, “They’ll get softer and softer every time you wash them.” So I want to wash them! A lot!
For two weeks I have left my newly washed and dried espresso-shade sheets downstairs beside the washer. I've known temptation. I love them and am grateful, and I want them to be super-soft. Now. But tonight I finally made the commitment—for the sake of writing this blog, perhaps, but that’s as good a reason as any—that to wash clean sheets is not sustainable when there are people who don’t have clean drinking water. It feels wrong to wash them for the sake of a having an obscene level of comfort, NOW. It feels like...a lot of water. I do admit that it bums me out that it feels wrong, because I want really soft sheets. Now.
Isn’t that the privilege and the curse of living in the U.S? So many of us have gotten used to being ridiculously comfortable, that it's hard let it go.
Is there a part of you that can buy into the possibility that our founding fathers GOT this Oneness, somehow, as well as the potential for the Land of Plenty, on some level; that these initials US are intended to remind us of the melting pot that this land was meant to be? Maybe this land wasn't meant to be a strip mall. Can we be global leaders--not in the military-industrial sense?
Now is the time to gather the forces and energy of capitalism and turn it back to creating an Earth that thrives with abundance and is honored as our Source. Let's create an awareness, within ourselves and others, that our thoughts and feelings are most comfortable on Earth when they are at a Divine level. Until we alter our awareness, I am convinced that our Earth Mother will continue to find another opportunity to take in a deep breath and ROAR. It's all...just...energy.
For me to think I live in some kind of world where the literal vibrations of being human don’t register, and aren’t felt by the earth and its inhabitants around me, is to live an unconscious existence. The movie Avatar graphically illustrates how blind humanity still is (particularly America, its military, and its acquisitionist-Capitalist far-reaching arms). Avatar is a reminder of how many people are still sleeping, still asleep on the un-conscious hamster wheel of unsustainable, addictive growth. Still in denial that We Are One. That the Earth is alive and sacred.
My friends and I haven't waited for the scientists and powers-that-be to ordain this empowered point of view. It is a cutting-edge, revolutionary act to NOT be a victim. It is also a very rewarding act; the effects become more and more clear the longer we ground ourselves in this sense of responsibility for holding the Light of Love and using that Light not just as a beacon, saying,“rescue me!”--but as a Divine tool for cocreation. As a cocreator, I must honor the highest part in everyone around me, even if I judge their actions or beliefs to be wrong or hurtful. So yes, at that level, We Are One. Whoever you are. Even if you're a FoxTV reporter or a tv evangelist. I honor the energy that unites us. I See You.
So, yes, Pat Robertson, my shadow ancestor, I honor you as a teacher--a teacher who illustrates so clearly the unevolved reality from which I have awakened; for me there’s no more falling back to sleep.
Nevertheless, this week I have gazed from afar, while Pat Robertson, from a place of old-style ignorance, dug an even deeper hole for his credibility with sentient beings by declaring that Haitians have created their own reality and are being punished. Daily, I tell my yoga students, and my kid, that we humans are merely different embodiments of the same Universal Energy, that we are all mini-manifestations of God, or Source, or Spirit, flowing through us. No other “religion” necessary. Honor yourself, others, and the planet. We are One.
And then Pat Robertson comes along and proves me wrong! No possible way is HE ME! I am so not One with a tv evangelist. -–Is that what he is? I can’t bear to look him up.
But for the sake of spiritual exercise, for the sake of putting my money where my mouth is, for the sake of walking the talk, I’m gonna go there: I am One with Pat Robertson. Furthermore I agree with him that we create our own reality, which is what, as I understand it, Pat Robertson is “accusing” Haitians of doing.
That would appear to be where our agreement ends. He does appear to say we create reality, but from a confused, xenophobic, victim-based perspective. Taking a step back, or a step up, to a higher level, a global or even Universal perspective, I believe we do and did--We human beings, through thought and word, DO create our reality, all humans, all at once, not just Haitian-humans.
So many current texts say: Remember Who You Are. Take a big step back and up. We are all microcosms. We embody the same Universal energy of life. I See You.
Personal experience and a level of mirroring from my spiritual community leads me to see that Earth is a network of Life Force, a forum where Divine Intention is manifest. Shadow, as well, is manifest here: our biggest fears, and our most victimy perspectives, are also manifest here on earth. It's quite a responsibility, being a Creator. Dare I accept it?
We human beings come from a long tradition of being victims! It is only very recently that a non-victimy perspective has been embraced, finally. For ages, God has sent down plagues. Satan has punished. Whatever your religion. Most of us have been conditioned—and from looking out around us, we have led ourselves to “empirically” believe--that things happen to us.
Only recently has quantum physics begun to illustrate that thought actually creates the physical, that the external originates internally. In the meantime, for ages, we as a human conglomerate have unconsciously been offering disharmonic, victimy, fear-filled thoughts, sending these fear-seeds out to manifest. Our conscious, Divine, prayerful intentions have manifest as well. Thanks be to God. And to the Goddess, working in tandem.
There is one Earth. We, the living energy of humanity, are One On Earth. These boundaries called countries are invisible from that perspective; they are un-real, man-made constructions. Thoughts and beliefs don’t know these boundaries. ALL of us, thorough the Divine Power of being human, create an eruption on earth. All of the ways in which we have abused earth and each other come crashing back to us karmically, in exchange for what we the people have offered, just doing the best we can, and in this week’s case Haiti is left picking up the pieces. And where crisis has struck a chord in our hearts, we non-Haitian humans are responding with aid, care, love, and light that know no national boundaries.
We come together so well in crisis. What if it didn’t take crisis? What if we were always empathetic to each other and the earth? Have you seen Avatar?
I checked the map. Isn’t Haiti so close to home? This crisis hits close enough to home to cause me to ask: where am I not clear about life on Earth? Where am I in denial of the concept that my thoughts and actions can actually manifest and do damage—or the opposite: create heaven on earth? Am I creating it right now?
How can I help in this time of crisis? By honoring the life that is potent in my thoughts, and in my very breath. By opening up to embody true gratitude that I am alive, that the pulse of life flows through the people I love. And the ones I don’t even know. By embodying gratitude that this square foot of land that I inhabit right this second is solidly supporting me. By honoring the energy of creation that wishes to express itself through me through teaching and writing. By navigating life with a renewed sense of gratitude every day, sending it down into the earth every time I eat from the earth’s goodness, every time I pump gas! By teaching that it matters. On a daily basis, I will be grateful that the unfixed pothole on North Avenue is really not that huge after all.
What can I really do to help keep the planet in harmony? Tonight it came to mean that I not wash my sheets. They’re clean. It’s not that I’m a compulsive washer; it’s that I want them to be really really soft. Right now. My friend who gave me these sheets for Christmas promised, “They’ll get softer and softer every time you wash them.” So I want to wash them! A lot!
For two weeks I have left my newly washed and dried espresso-shade sheets downstairs beside the washer. I've known temptation. I love them and am grateful, and I want them to be super-soft. Now. But tonight I finally made the commitment—for the sake of writing this blog, perhaps, but that’s as good a reason as any—that to wash clean sheets is not sustainable when there are people who don’t have clean drinking water. It feels wrong to wash them for the sake of a having an obscene level of comfort, NOW. It feels like...a lot of water. I do admit that it bums me out that it feels wrong, because I want really soft sheets. Now.
Isn’t that the privilege and the curse of living in the U.S? So many of us have gotten used to being ridiculously comfortable, that it's hard let it go.
Is there a part of you that can buy into the possibility that our founding fathers GOT this Oneness, somehow, as well as the potential for the Land of Plenty, on some level; that these initials US are intended to remind us of the melting pot that this land was meant to be?
Now is the time to gather the forces and energy of capitalism and turn it back to creating an Earth that thrives with abundance and is honored as our Source. Let's create an awareness, within ourselves and others, that our thoughts and feelings are most comfortable on Earth when they are at a Divine level. Until we alter our awareness, I am convinced that our Earth Mother will continue to find another opportunity to take in a deep breath and ROAR. It's all...just...energy.
For me to think I live in some kind of world where the literal vibrations of being human don’t register, and aren’t felt by the earth and its inhabitants around me, is to live an unconscious existence. The movie Avatar graphically illustrates how blind humanity still is (particularly America, its military, and its acquisitionist-Capitalist far-reaching arms). Avatar is a reminder of how many people are still sleeping, still asleep on the un-conscious hamster wheel of unsustainable, addictive growth. Still in denial that We Are One. That the Earth is alive and sacred.
My friends and I haven't waited for the scientists and powers-that-be to ordain this empowered point of view. It is a cutting-edge, revolutionary act to NOT be a victim. It is also a very rewarding act; the effects become more and more clear the longer we ground ourselves in this sense of responsibility for holding the Light of Love and using that Light not just as a beacon, saying,“rescue me!”--but as a Divine tool for cocreation. As a cocreator, I must honor the highest part in everyone around me, even if I judge their actions or beliefs to be wrong or hurtful. So yes, at that level, We Are One. Whoever you are. Even if you're a FoxTV reporter or a tv evangelist. I honor the energy that unites us. I See You.
So, yes, Pat Robertson, my shadow ancestor, I honor you as a teacher--a teacher who illustrates so clearly the unevolved reality from which I have awakened; for me there’s no more falling back to sleep.
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