8-08-08

A beggar had been sitting by the side of the road for thirty years.
One day a stranger walked by.
"Spare some change?" mumbled the beggar.
"I have nothing to give you," said the stranger.
Then he asked: "What's that you're sitting on?"
"Nothing, " replied the beggar.
"Just an old box. I've been sitting on it for as long as I can remember."
"Ever look inside?," asked the stranger.
"No," said the beggar. "What's the point, there's nothing in there."
"Have a look inside," insisted the stranger. The beggar, reluctantly, managed to pry open the lid. With astonishment, disbelief, and elation, he saw that the box was filled with gold.

I am that stranger who has nothing to give you and who is telling you to look inside. Not inside any box, as in the parable, but somewhere even closer: inside yourself.
--Eckhart Tolle

On Friday, August 8, 2008 at 8 pm I had the honor of participating in a special 8-08-08 Renewal Ritual of "Healing, Blessings, and Enlightenment." It took place at the Center for Spiritual Living in Dallas, TX, and it is to be the first of 11 such rituals to be held between now and 12-21-2012 facilitated by Br. ChiSing, M.Div., M.A., and Ordained Disciple of the Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. The number "8" is universally recognized as a sacred symbol of "New Beginnings" in many traditions around the world. For example, the Buddha taught the Noble Eightfold Path of Enlightenment, and the name of Jesus in the original Greek New Testament has a numerical value of "888." It was a truly amazing evening of singing, chanting, meditation, dance, poetry, drumming, Tibetan bowls, sacred flutes, rituals, blessings, prayer and connection. It was one of the best nights of my life, and I know that many who were there mirror that sentiment.

Aside from the Renewal Ritual I was a part of that evening, I know that there were also several very important rituals going on at different places around the planet that also contributed to the sacred energy of the evening. There were the opening ceremonies for the Olympic Games, which are very metaphysical in many aspects. Also the 8th of 12 Ascension Grid Activations was happening that evening at Queen Wilhemina State Park in Arkansas.

I was honored to be asked to participate in the ritual as one of 8 "Goddesses" who helped with the evening in facilitation and leading of song, ritual, and blessings. The 8 of us Goddesses, all dressed in white with baby's breath in our hair, gathered before the doors opened in a secluded spot to meditate together before the event. Then we all sat up on the balcony of the sanctuary of the Center for Spiritual Living, where the event would be held to watch people arrive and hold the energy of the space.

There were people receiving chair massage, and people from the DFW Oneness Blessing present to offer blessings to all who wanted it. Us Goddesses, of course, went downstairs and received our blessings with gratitude. As I waited for my turn to receive, I felt my heart start to flutter. As I kneeled down in from of the woman that was to bless me I breathed deeply and opened my heart to receive. She placed her hands on my head and I felt washed in love and peace and excited by the energy flowing through me. My heart was fluttering more as were the hands of the person blessing me. After a few moments she removed her hands and we bowed to honor one another. I headed back up stars to join the rest of the Goddesses.

I sat in mindfulness and felt an overwhelming compulsion to offer short EDINA healing sessions to each of the 7 other Goddesses. One-by-one, I asked each for their permission and connected myself in to the EDINA energy. With each Goddess, worked on them in a sitting position, sitting on the floor behind them. I felt compelled (as I often to when working with EDINA) to channel the energy into the Heart Chakra first. I placed my hands over the back of the Heart Chakra and let the energy flow through the top of my head, bifurcating at my heart and traveling down through my arms and out of my hands. With each of the 7 I felt several surges of heat energy, each stronger than the last, before I felt "complete." Then I felt moved to place one hand over the Solar Plexus Chakra while the other was over the Throat Chakra. Here I felt the same surges of heat before feeling compelled to move on to the 3rd Eye and Sacral Chakras and finally completing with the Root and Crown Chakras. As I moved from woman to woman, the sessions got faster and faster and I was filled with a sense that these beautiful beings from Sirius that are bringing the EDINA energy to the planet had a major role to play in the rituals of the evening, and would remain to do their multi-dimensional work whether I was directly connected to them or not.

As the event began we were greeted with the beautiful sounds of Tibetan Bowls played by the lovely and talented Jodi Roberts. There was also sacred Native American flute music played by John Sullivan, and drumming by Michael Kenny and friends. Michael Gott provided piano music as well. The Dreamsicles sang a duet, and as their song came to a conclusion, Br. ChiSing welcomed everyone and explained some of the chants and dances we would be doing. Following 8 bells and the sounding of a conch shell, the Taiko Drumming began. Jen and Jeremy Wanamaker, along with Lainey Bernstein played some amazing beats that got my heart pounding and the energy of the space moving as the Goddesses lined up on the stairs. As we processed in behind Br. ChiSing, holding candles and spiraling in through the standing-room-only crowd, we chanted, in three-part harmony:

"Om Amitabha Hri
Om Amitabha Hri
Om Amitabha Hri
Om Ah Hum"

Finally, we circled around the table at the center of the room and, after some ritual dancing and chanting, we placed our candles down. I really got into a trance sort of state from all of the chanting and dancing. We next each picked up a bowl of water and a sprig of baby's breath to dip in it, and wove through the crowd sprinkling each person with blessings of water as we chanted. The flow of voices and drumming lifted my spirit up as I smiled and connected with each person I blessed, heart wide open.

As the chanting ended and the drumming continued, Br. ChiSing then led everyone in the room through a Spiral Dance (<---cool animation of the dance on that link!) where everyone held hands in a circle and Br. ChiSIng led the line inward on itself like a spiral, then back out through the spiral. We chanted again during this dance, but this time our chant was:

"We are a circle
within a circle
with no beginning
and never-ending"

Spiral Dancing is a really heart-opening experience. There were probably somewhere around 180 people all doing this dance, so we were all very close to one another throughout the dance because of the size of the space we were in. Because of the way you face each other at each point in the dance, you are looking directly into the eyes of every single other person in the room as you pass them. After all of the chanting, singing and dancing we had already been doing, along with the primal and spiritual rhythms of the drums, flutes, and bowls....it was really as though all of us breathing, singing, moving, dancing, chanting bodies were all ONE. I am that I AM. We were all just one big smile of love radiating inward and outward in all directions. Flowing, singing, dancing, smiling, loving, breathing, BEING!

Once we had finished this dance and re-situated ourselves back to sitting either in chairs or on meditation cushions, Michael Gott sang and played piano to ease our minds back towards stillness. Then John Sullivan on the Native American Flute and Jodi Roberts on the Tibetan Bowls played for us to deepen the silence as we all went within for a 20 minute group meditation. It was during this sit I had some of the most profound experience of the evening.

In learning to practice EDINA, we learn several meditations and techniques for preparing ourselves and a space for healing. One such tool is the use of the Violet Flame as a containment field for a healing or sacred space. The method is simply to visualize and intend violet flames filling the given space or in a cone shape if outdoors, there are also chants that can be used to invoke the Violet Flame (see link for more info). The purpose is to take any lower-vibration energy in yourself or the space and transmute it into pure Light or pure Spirit energy. It is then returned to the person or space in a beneficial way.

Normally when I visualize this in a space, it happens slowly, in a step-by-step kind of way. First the the floor is covered with flames, then it creeps up higher and higher until it fills the space. Well, not this time. I went to visualize the flames and BOOM the whole space was full with raging, spiraling violet fire. It kept growing in strength and getting bigger and bigger. Suddenly my point of view changed from being inside my body, observing the scene, to floating high above the building, looking down upon and through the building. The Violet Flame just kept growing in size until it had spread out for a mile radius around the building. Once I could clearly see this flame anchored and radiating for a mile around the Center for Spiritual Living, my point of view returned again to my body.

As the violet flames spiraled upward like an inverted tornado, I noticed a vortex of energy forming like a downward-spiraling tornado below, mirroring, the flames. It began along the plane of the earth from which the flames were rising and penetrated down, down, down. But it did not go into the earth as I would have expected it to, instead it was silvery-dark and transparent. Through it I peered down into a starry cosmos. Not only was the floor of the building gone, but so was the Earth! I felt as though I was sitting on the edge of a double whirlpool in space, with violet flames rising and spinning upwards, and anything that did not need to be there flowing down and out into the cosmos through this spiraling vorex. I just sat there and marveled at it for a timeless time.

Slowly, piano, flute and bowls nudged us gently out of our deep state and back into normal consciousness. We then watched and listened as Monica LeCrone spirit-danced to a song played by Michael Gott, and then reveled in the vocal rhythms of spoken word expressed through Veronica Valles' poetry and Spiritual Mind Treatment. Brother ChiSing also read some of his poetry and delivered and impassioned message about conscious creation of a New Earth, right here, right now, and the importance of mindfulness and community, especially over the next few years in our rapidly-changing world. Together we all sang the song "Love, Serve and Remember" and then chanted "Amithabha" which means "Infinite Light" as the Goddesses gathered once again around the table for a candlelit prayer ritual.

Everyone was encouraged to call out the names of people, places, events, situations in their lives or the lives of others for whom they would like to offer blessings, light, and love. As we heard these called out, the Goddesses would light one of the many candles covering the table. Being in the center of concentric circles of such amazing energy was quickly overwhelming for me, and many others there. As the prayers were called out I was filled with a myriad of many emotions, all swirling around inside and my tears just started to flow. I think by the end of it, none of the 8 Goddesses nor Br. ChiSing had a dry eye. It was beautiful and powerful, and I have since heard several stories of spontaneous healings that came out of the prayers sent out that evening.

As the Prayer Ritual came to a close, we gathered again in a circle, only this time we were in several concentric circles as we danced together one of the Dances of Universal Peace. As we sang and did the movements to "The Ocean Refuses No River," drummers were drumming and music was playing and we danced and sang together, in alternating directions, and in rounds, faster and faster and faster until were were all ecstatic with the cumulative power of the evening. When we finally stopped, panting, and glistening with Spirit in Expression, it seemed like no one wanted to leave, to break the magic spell of the evening. We all placed one hand on our hearts and walked around greeting others but touching together the palms of the other hands. Many hands and hugs were shared as people mingled, shared Love and Light, and slowly began to leave and we ended the night.

It was, by far, one of the best nights of my life...and it's just the first of 12 such rituals that Br. ChiSing will lead! I have also heard of several other "events" in the works that might have been possibly inspired by this event. The energy from that group that evening was, and still is, radiating out in all directions infinitely and exponentially affecting and changing the world as it spreads out in waves and ripples of Love and Light around this plants we call home.

And I am filled with gratitude!

Namaste!

Meditation with EDINA

A few weeks ago I went home to visit family. While we were there, my aunt, a BodyTalk practitioner, did sessions on myself and my husband and our kids. We all had really great sessions with allergies being worked on in all of us, but one thing that was interesting was that, on both my husband and myself, the body asked to have our gonads worked on (energetically, lol).

Then, once back home, we went to our meditation group. On Sunday at the Sangha, I connected in to the EDINA energy and myself and began to meditate. Not only did I notice that I was able to slip into a transcendental state much more easily (than times when I have meditated without connecting) and maintain it longer, but I also felt compelled to channel the EDINA energy and place my hands over my lower abdomen, over the area of the uterus, near the Chinese acupuncture point named Dan Tien. Dan Tien translated to English can mean "elixir field" or "energy field." "Dan" is a ball of energy that is believed to have its origin in the Celestial realms. "Tien" means field, or elixir. So, a Dan Tien is loosely translated as field or elixir of energy. According to ancient Chinese philosophy, a person has three Dan Tien, one in the lower abdomen near the 2nd Chakra (lower Dan Tien), one at the level of the heart near the area of the Heart Chakra (middle Dan Tien) and one at the third eye Chakra (upper Dan Tien). Some sources have the middle Dan Tien placed at the lower abdomen and the lower Dan Tien at the perineum, near the 1st Chakra. In qi gong, energy is cultivated at these locations without reference to any of the seven Chakras.

As I focused the energy through my hands over my lower abdomen and got a very strong sense of the "path" the energy was following/flowing in/through my body. I could feel it coming down through my crown Chakra and flowing along the spine, bifurcating around the area of the heart
Chakra and traveling down both arms, through my hands (which were suddenly HOT) and into my uterus. From there, it swirled around, then traveled back up the spine into the pineal gland at the center of my skull. I thought this was especially interesting in light of a lecture called the 2012 Enigma by David Wilcock that I recently watched on YouTube. He talks about the importance of the pineal glad in meditation and how, when activated, it creates a gateway to inner and outer spiritual realms.

At one point in the meditation, I had my eyes open but relaxed and gently focused on a candle flame in front of me and everything and everyone (remember i was in a room full of people in deep meditation) within my vision started to go grey and "melt" away and all I could see was the flame. I closed my eyes and it felt like I was floating in space and my body/mind/spirit was flattening and stretching spreading out and becoming transparent as it expanded. I could see billions upon billions of stars and galaxies and also the blue-white ever-changing energetic gridlines connecting everything in the universe...the fabric of time and space. It looked similar to Alex Gray's painting entitled "Theologue" except I was in space rather than over a mountain range and there were no flames. It was definitely a deep moment of meditation and connection and I am looking forward to connecting to the EDINA energy again in the future during my meditation sessions!

Shortly after that experience, I learned that I could simultaneously connect myself and my husband to the EDINA energy while we were meditating together. At our next Sangha meditation, I connected in for both of us and something very interesting happened. The room was rather cool with the air conditioner on and we both had on meditation shawls. Not too long after I connected, I started to heat up rapidly all throughout my torso. About the same time I heard my husband, who was sitting next to me, toss off his shawl. Later we talked and he said he felt suddenly filled with heat. This was very validating for me as he is not an EDINA initiate.

Swan Dance to Open My Heart, All Ways

Two days after getting my new job, I attended an 8-hour retreat led by my new boss. It was research, after all! If I am to promote him I need to experience firsthand what he is all about. I was excited because I had seen advertisements for the retreat and had wanted to do it but it hadn't worked out for me, yet. I showed up bright and early that morning, with an open mind and an eager heart.

For 8 hours we mindfully sat, walked, ate, moved and wrote. None of these tasks were new to me, but it had been a very long time since I had spent that much solid time in meditation. For the first few hours I had "monkey brain" and my thoughts would flit and float here and there, but after awhile I really started reaching some deep states of altered consciousness.

My mantra for the day was:
Inhale: "Yes"
Exhale: "Thank You"

For me, it was based on the idea that when you plant seed of thought and intention into the Law, the Universe always says YES! And if you approach life with gratitude, it brings even more good things into your life. Throughout the day I would vacillate between rote recitation of the mantra, and really meaning it. When I was mindful, present in the here and now, and aware, I could feel the YES! and the Thank You! in my whole body.

After a mindfully-eaten lunch, in which I tasted tastes and felt textures like I had never truly tasted my food before...we mindfully took a walk. As we walked down to the creek and crossed the bridge, a pair of pure white swans came quickly swimming up to our group. One swan (the male?) was "pacing" back and forth in front of our group while the other (the female?) remained more aloof and towards the center of the creek. I was mesmerized, and in that moment, I felt at one with the male swan and his dance. It was as if I had never truly seen a swan in my life before that moment. I marveled at the size and power and of the bird as he paddled powerful legs under the water that propelled him forward in surges that indicated a strength I had never expected from such a graceful creature. His neck was strong and thick, and, as he came right in front of me, not 2 feet away, our eyes locked. I was surprised to see he had deep steely soulful blue eyes. I knew in that moment that he felt the connection as well. He lingered with my gaze for a few moments and then continued his dance. As our group moved across the bridge and along the shore on the other side, our swan friend followed. I split from the group at this point because I could not tear myself away from the majesty of these swans and their dance. As I walked up to the edge of the creek, my friend, my soul brother, came to me and once again danced back and forth in front of me with those soulful eyes. I was overcome with emotion and welled up with tears, our lives were so beautiful, so inextricably connected, in that moment. I could feel the swan and I know he could feel me as well. Some many long moments after, I made my way back across the bridge, my new friend following along, and took one last gaze into those eyes like deep watery pools before making my way back inside with the group.

In our next round of sitting meditation, I felt and sensed something happen in my heart Chakra that I had not felt in a long time. It was as if a million-petaled lotus flower was continually unfolding and blossoming out of my heart. It was made up of beautiful gentle pink energy and radiated out from my heart in an horizontal plane that surrounded the earth, linking up to all the open heart Chakras it intersected on its way. It was very beautiful and loving.

Soon it came time to try our hands at writing meditation. We had five minutes to write a letter to God/The Universe/Spirit, or whatever your idea of the divine is. And then we were to do some automatic writing for 5 minutes in response to our letter.

Here are my letters:

Oh Great Spirit, Mind of this Perfect Universe,

I come into awareness of The Presence in deep Joy, Peace, and Gratitude. Life, lately, has been a great challenge to my Spirit, Soul, Will, and ability to trust and have faith that this Abundant Universe is providing for me and my family in all ways and at all times. I feel as if I am silver being held to the flame for purification, and boy is the fire hot! I feel I have finally reached the point of surrendering to the flow of life rather that continuing to feebly and fiercely cling to the banks of what I know. I ask now for some form of elaboration or indication of the Universe's movements to align into the reality I have been faithfully holding in my mind these past months.

In Love and Peace,
Conscious Evolver

And here is what I got in response:

Dear Conscious Evolver,

What a Joy you are! You have finally stopped rehearsing for life and started actually living it! All of the things you desire and more are already yours, you have but to reach out with your heart and grasp them, claim them as your own. You are always, always ALWAYS cradled in Light, Love, Peace, and Abundance in ALL WAYS.

Always love in ALL WAYS
Always peace in ALL WAYS
Always light in ALL WAYS
Always abundance in ALL WAYS.

Love,
God

So out of this I have found myself a new mantra: "Always in All Ways"

"Namo Buddhaya
Namo Dharmaya
Namo Sanghaya
Namo Nama"

At the retreat, our facilitator told us his "formula" for maintaining and active and successful spiritual practice that will help us all to live more balanced, connected and fulfilling lives and to eventually all become Buddhas, or Awakened Ones:

1. Daily Meditation for 15-20 minutes
2. Weekly Sanghas (group meditation circles)
3. Yearly (or bi-annually, or even quarterly) Retreats, the longer the better.
   

Since that day, I feel as though I am different. Old ways of thinking and of being seem a dim and misty past that I to which I no longer relate. I feel more connected to my husband, my kids, and everyone I meet. I walk outside and feel the trees, listen to the wind, savor the air. I take off my shoes and walk on the Earth, giving and receiving love and energy with my mother. Where before I would feel judgment, I feel compassion, where before I might feel anger, I can smile and laugh it off.

I am not saying it is like this all the time, I am still integrating all of these experiences and sometimes the stresses of daily life pull me out of this mindset and I react rather than respond mindfully. But it seems to be easier to breathe, come back to center, and let things go. Every day, I am able to make little changes in the moment that make a big difference in my mindset and outlook. I always knew, intellectually, the importance of breath, but now I know it and am really starting to embody these principles that I have long thought were really nice ideas.

And I am filled with gratitude!