The Yoga of Awakening – with Seane Corn
We are so happy to present The Yoga of Awakening series with yogini and friend Seane Corn, with the first DVD entitled, Body-Mind Flow.
With this three-volume training series, Seane makes available for the first time her complete program for entering the deeper dimensions of #yoga—and discovering our own vast capacities of consciousness,#empowerment, and connection. Each DVD guides us into a unique realm of consciousness—the physical-mental, the emotional-energetic, and the psychic-symbolic—to discover our full potential in each dimension.
Volume I, Body-Mind Flow, teaches the foundational practices of the series. DVD One provides all-level instruction in #Vinyasa flow yoga and on awareness of the body for inner discovery and healing. DVD Two offers more advanced practice to stabilize your foundation, deepen the body-mind connection, and release tension. With precise and easy-to-follow guidance, you’ll learn how to:
– Build each pose from the ground up while tuning into the body-mind
– Harmonize movement, breathing, and awareness
– Work with your physical “edges” to release stuck emotions
– Create strength and well-being—physically and spiritually
Learn more @ Sounds True.com: http://bit.ly/RcUolD
Moving with Mindfulness: Five Free Video Practices to Release Blockages and Activate Your Natural Energy
Mindfulness practice is often thought of as a static or seated activity. But cultivating present moment awareness is something that can be done as a moving practice as well. In Moving with Mindfulness, you will experience five engaging excerpts from our esteemed video archive that will help you unify body and mind, clear energy blockages, and stimulate your body’s innate healing ability.
Download Moving with Mindfulness now.
Practices include:
1. “Mindful Movement #1: Raising the Arms” by Thich Nhat Hanh from Mindful Movements
Thich Nhat Hanh guides you through the first of ten meditative movements used daily by the monks and nuns of Plum Village as a complement to their sitting practice.
2. “Shoelace Pose” by Kim Eng from Yin Yoga
Kim Eng teaches us a gentle sequence called “shoelace pose” to cultivate presence, receptivity, and acceptance toward each moment just as it is.
3. “Qi Massage” by Lee Holden from Qi Gong for Self-Healing
Discover a practice that stimulates qi flow throughout the body, removes stagnant energy and blockages, and activates the immune system.
4. “Classical Sun Salutation” by Shiva Rea from Yoga Shakti
Shiva Rea guides you in this classical yoga practice to connect to your own vitality, strength, and fluidity.
5. “Dance of the Four Elements” by Wyoma from African Healing Dance
Experience Africa’s unique dance heritage through this enjoyable dance intended to connect us with the earth’s energies.
A love we never outgrow
Let us hold all fathers in our hearts today, in gratitude for the gift of life they have given. Some of us are close with dad, some are not; some have very fond memories, some do not; some of us never really got to know that person we called “dad” and what really moved him, inspired him; what he really wanted and what his unique relationship was with the movement of love; or why he came here to this sacred human place. But the one thing we do know is that, just like us, dad only ever wanted to be happy, to be free from suffering, and was only able to use the tools he had been given to take the journey that was his. We may never understand the nature of dad’s journey, the unique pattern that unfolded as his life, somehow orchestrated in the stars, to unveil to him the mysteries of love.
Whether dad is still on this earth or the beloved has sent him elsewhere, it is possible for you to fully connect with him right here, right now, for he is alive inside every cell of your heart; no matter what has happened in the past, he has given you something important for your journey. May we honor dad on this day in all of his guises, in all of his forms – personal and transpersonal – and may we be guided by his wisdom qualities down that pathway that he and all beings have laid out for us.
3 Ways to Welcome the Sacred Feminine This Holiday Season
If you are anything like me (and almost everyone I encounter these days), you are growing bored with the patriarchy and eager to reclaim feminine wisdom across the spectrum of human community: politics, academia, pop culture, and religion and spirituality. It’s not a matter of personal preference. The well-being of our Mother the Earth is inextricably entwined with our choice to either lift up and center the feminine or continue to bury Her. Here are a few ways for you to welcome the sacred feminine this season.
Reclaim Mother Mary
With so much of the attention of the Western world focused on the legendary birth of a boy baby, we sometimes forget he had a badass mom. Mother Mary was anything but meek and mild. She was a powerful prophet, an unconditionally loving force, a broken-open heart on fire. She offered her divine YES (Hineyni, in Hebrew) and spoke truth to power with love. How can you soften and step up to the resounding call to be the instrument of peace you were born to be? Look to Mary as a guide.
Read Women’s Poetry
There are a host of truth-tellers in the form of contemporary women poets & they are brimming with mystical treasures. Back away from the news for a moment and pick up a poem. Read it three times. The first time, you are knocking on the door of the poem. The second time, the door opens. And the third time, you are invited all the way in. Here are some recommendations: Marie Howe; Ellen Bass; Lyla June; Hashem Beck; Lynn Unger; Naomi Shihab Nye; Jane Hirshfield; Linda Pastan; Mohja Kafh.
Cultivate a Sabbath Practice
The tyranny of tasks that bosses us around most of the year can intensify around the holidays. Even as the mystical traditions invite us to turn inward & rest in stillness during this season, the larger culture demands that we engage in an endless array of duties and expenditures. In the Jewish tradition, a weekly observance of Shabbat, infused with the Feminine Presence (the Shekinah), is not only a requirement of the faith, but the sweetest blessing. Find your way to keep the Sabbath holy.
Mirabai Starr writes creative non-fiction and contemporary translations of sacred literature. She taught Philosophy and World Religions at the University of New Mexico-Taos for 20 years and now teaches and speaks internationally on contemplative practice and inter-spiritual dialog. A certified bereavement counselor, Mirabai helps mourners harness the transformational power of loss. She has received critical acclaim for her revolutionary new translations of the mystics, John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila and Julian of Norwich. She is the award-winning author of GOD OF LOVE: A Guide to the Heart of Judaism, Christianity and Islam and CARAVAN OF NO DESPAIR: A Memoir of Loss and Transformation, and Mother of God Similar to Fire, a collaboration with iconographer, William Hart McNichols. Her latest book is Wild Mercy: Living the Fierce and Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics. She lives with her extended family in the mountains of northern New Mexico.
The community here at Sounds True wishes you a lovely holiday season! We are happy to collaborate with some of our Sounds True authors to offer you wisdom and practices as we move into this time together; please enjoy this blog series for your holiday season.
To help encourage you and your loved ones to explore new possibilities this holiday season, we’re offering 40% off nearly all of our programs, books, and courses sitewide. May you find the wisdom to light your way. Use promo code HOLIDAY10 and receive an additional 10% off your order.
The traveler of aloneness
A friend who regularly reads my personal blog asked if I would comment on what I saw as the difference between what she described to me as ‘loneliness’ and a related experience she referred to as ‘aloneness.’ Here is an excerpt of what emerged from our conversation…
At times, a very familiar sense of ‘loneliness’ can begin to color your world. You may wonder if it will ever go away, when it will yield to your deep longing for connection, and why all the work on yourself has not yet transformed the despair. The feeling of loneliness is a reminder of separation, and has a way of cutting into the aliveness of immediate experience.
The reality of ‘aloneness’, on the other hand, is translucent, in a way, and vibrantly alive. Despite your connection with others, you are asked to make the journey of the heart alone. No one can experience life for you, love and be loved for you, embrace and feel your tender heart for you, or die for you; likewise, you for them.
The traveler of aloneness is at home in this type of environment—and remains committed to it—knowing that organizing her reality around love will almost always trigger the experience of tender vulnerability and penetrating, transformative sadness. Living in the burning alive field of aloneness is so open, so unknown, and so unbearably touching; it is always uncertain and forever without ground or reference point. It reveals the truth that we can never fully look to the known to tell us who we are or anything certain about the nature of love. For love is of the unknown, infinitely creative, and emerging as a firestorm of grace in the radiant here and now.
Within the mandala of purifying aloneness, we know that at any moment our hearts may break, that we may fall in love in the most surprising way, that old dreams are sure to crumble, that what we thought we ‘knew’ *will* dissolve in front of our eyes, and that we *will* inevitably be asked to meet deep waves of feeling and sensation. As we commit to the very embodied path of the heart, only one thing is certain, really: that *everything* that has yet to be metabolized in our somatic environment will come on display, especially in intimate relationship, as it is seeking wholeness and integration.
There is a part of us that knows that as we open in this way, we will no longer be able to avoid the terror of intimacy, the surety of complete exposure, and the reality of crushing aliveness. We may realize that, without our conscious knowing, we have taken some forgotten vow to turn all the way into the preciousness of this life, willing to enter directly into such achy tenderness, into suffering, into penetrating melancholy, into the darkness, and into naked vulnerability—guided only by the unknown and by a love from beyond. It is not easy to live in such an open and unguarded way, but here we are: We have come here to give our hearts to others and to this world.
Though related, the experience of ‘loneliness’ is usually borne out of a resistance to our present experience—a subtle (or not so subtle) abandonment of feelings of grief, sadness, hurt, vulnerability, and shame. In our early environment, certain feelings were simply unsafe to touch, hold, and express—there was no true home made available for them. Because we are wired to do whatever we must to maintain the critical tie to our caregiving surround, we very intelligently and creatively chose to disembody and split off from these wild movements of fierce grace within. This was a very healthy, short-term strategy for a little boy or girl, yet here we are, several decades later, and burning to know the aliveness and mysteries of lover and beloved in this world.
When we are unable/ unwilling to meet these primordial companions—and are not able to stay with, hold, and metabolize them within our own somatic immediacy—we feel cut off from life, lonely, and disconnected. We yearn and long, at the deepest levels, to meet whatever guests appear in this sacred body, for we intuit that each is a special doorway Home. And we become lonely when we are not able to do so. It is the melting of these wounds and tangles that becomes the essence of the path of re-embodiment and opening the heart. The only way out is through; and the only way through is by love.
It is so bittersweet, really. Being an open-hearted human, who is always and eternally both broken and whole, can feel so fragile. Our old friends sadness, grief, jealousy, hopelessness, and raw vulnerability are so often sent away, out the back door of our hearts, and into a lonely forest. This is sad. Please, don’t go, friends! Stay close! Let us keep the door open to these ones, moment-by-moment crafting a warm home and safe refuge for the entirety of what we are. For in doing so, the path from loneliness to aloneness will become illumined, and we will provide safe passage for love in this world.
Can you medicate meditation?
Tara Brach is right. The use of psychiatric medication by those committed to spiritual practice is one of those topics that can get real heated, real fast. This is a complex issue and one that many of our authors and listeners have grappled with over the years. Is it possible for medication and meditation to work together, as allies on the path of healing and awakening? We hope you enjoy this short article by Tara and would love to hear your thoughts as always.
Can you medicate meditation? by Tara Brach
The use of anti-depressants by those involved in meditation practice is a very hot topic. Students often ask me things like, “If I take Prozac, isn’t that as good as giving up? Aren’t I admitting that meditation doesn’t work?”
Those who’ve been advised by a doctor to consider medication tell me they are afraid of becoming dependent on it, afraid they’ll never function again without it. Some wonder if taking medication doesn’t directly undercut the process of spiritual awakening.
They ask, “Don’t medications numb the very experiences we are trying to unconditionally accept? Wouldn’t liberation be impossible if we were on medication?” One student even quipped, “It’s hard to imagine the Buddha reaching for Prozac while under the Bodhi Tree.”
It’s true that some of the most widely used anti-depressants can create a sense of distance from acute fear, and a degree of emotional numbing. It’s also possible to become at least psychologically dependant on any substance that provides relief.
Yet, for some people, no matter how hard they try something else is needed to engender safety and bring anxiety to a manageable level. Whether the cause is life trauma or genetic predisposition, the brain chemistry and nervous system of some people lead to intolerably high levels of fear. For them prescribed medication for depression and anxiety may provide additional—and possibly critical—aid in finding the safety that enables them to trust others and to pursue spiritual practices.
At least for a period of time, in these cases medical intervention may be the most compassionate response.
I’ve seen students who were utterly incapacitated by anxiety and fear finally able to face it with mindfulness and lovingkindness once they started on medications. As a psychiatrist friend says, medications make it possible for some people to “stop anxiously doing, and just sit there.”
Medication and meditation can work together. As medications shift the biological experience of fear, mindfulness practice can help undo the complex of reactive thoughts and feelings that sustain it.
One of my meditation students, Seth, a composer and pianist, took anti-depressants after struggling unsuccessfully for years with debilitating anxiety, shame and depression. Seth dreaded performances and the expectation of perfection that surrounded them. He told me, “Knowing how to write and play music is my life. When I feel like I’m blowing it, I lose it completely. I feel totally worthless.”
When Seth began taking anti-depressants his fear level dropped significantly. The familiar stories and self-judgments would still arise, but because the fear was less intense, he was able to see that his thoughts were just thoughts, not the truth about how things were. Gradually, as Seth deepened his meditation practice, he became familiar with a new and different sense of himself. Rather than rejecting himself as sick and broken, he began wanting to care for and comfort himself.
After two years, Seth decided to stop taking anti-depressants. While his fear had decreased, he had also lost a certain degree of his natural sensitivity and empathy, and his libido was diminished. Within a few months of discontinuing the medication, Seth began to experience once again waves of acute fear and, at times, oppressive depression. But now when the old stories made their appearance, he could note them mindfully rather than getting lost in them.
Taking medication had driven a wedge into the trance of fear, and it no longer was so engulfing. While Seth’s emotions were still intense, his fear wasn’t fueled by overwhelming self-judgment and shame. He no longer identified himself as a broken person. Perhaps from time to time he might seek relief again from medications, but Seth now had a strength to his spiritual practice and a faith in himself that gave him a genuine sense of inner freedom.
There are no absolute recipes for working with this issue of taking medications. In making choices on our path, it’s important to ask ourselves whether or not they will serve awakening and freedom. Our best answers are found by honestly looking into our intentions.
For instance: What is our intention in doing therapy, in taking medication or doing a particular style of meditation? Are we using meditation as a way of escaping from painful relationships or unwanted responsibilities? Do we truly intend to face and accept fear? Are our choices helping us relax and become more kind?
As we honestly explore these questions, we can experiment through our practice to discover which of our choices are the most compassionate, and will best bring an end to our suffering.
Adapted from Radical Acceptance (2003) via Tara’s blog.
