I recently attended an ancient African grief ritual with Sobonfu Some.  It was a very powerful ritual where we gather together in community to grieve and enter these deep places within our being that have been suppressed or denied.  To me, it was like a journey into a realm of darkness but journeying there with full support, power and consciousness.  It was beautifully set up in a flow of supporting and being supporting.  Someone holding the space while the tears of grief arose, anger or whatever needed expression and voice.  As I reached down and in and giving feeling attention, voice and movement to these more deeper held places, it opened up into greater expansion of being and allowing more of essential nature to shine through. 

I have always been really easy for me to share my tears and grief.   What has been the most vulnerable for me is sharing anger.  In my training and work with Robert and Diane Masters, the allowing of healthy anger and the expression of where it has been somatized in my body has been very important and has influenced my work with others in deeply positive ways.   My journey during this African grief ritual was more of a wailing in anger from years, maybe lifetimes, of suppressing my voice.  In allowing the anger and the voice of NO to be expressed, at the center of the NO is a YES  which allows the gifts of vulnerable strength to be more deeply embodied.   

This sacred 'No' is giving rise now for us to listen.  I am hearing versions of this in the stories of my friends and in the movements of the collective.   Most recently through the One Billion Rising in honor of stopping the violence against women and children.   I believe it is rising up from the heart of the Earth, through the collective and communities and then through our individual lives.  It is not a NO that pushes back in violence but a sacred NO that isn't willing any longer to put up with violence, disrespect and dishonoring of women.  It is also an invitation to rise up and claim the important gifts, alchemy, intuition, holistic perspective, receptive power, inclusiveness and gifts that the feminine has to offer.  I think in our Western culture, in general, we measure the value of our lives mostly through a masculine measuring stick  (accomplishment, logic, linear, doing, drive, etc ).  This has created an imbalance and it is reflected in our lives and how we are caring for our Beloved Mother Earth.  I think the Earth needs us right now and is inviting us, through both men and women to allow this feminine power and the values of the Earth to be more deeply embodied.    

Whether you have experienced violence personally or not, we all carry the pain and the conditioning of that experience within us.  Our personal pain is felt by our community, in the collective and in the Earth.  The Earth's pain is felt in the collective, in the community and in our lives.  What is your part in healing of this collective grief that we share?  Can you connect your Heart to the Heart of Divine Mother Earth and allow her values to be more deeply embodied?   Can you be her river and open to  grief so it can be felt and have movement and flow?  Can you be her volcano and allow the repressed NO to be spoken and voiced in a way that protects what is sacred?  Be amongst friends or support in a sacred space to let your voice be heard, to let these rivers flow.  Gifts, strengths, and empowerment are revealed in this embrace. 

****************
DEEPENING OPPORTUNITIES

Give yourself, your loved ones and friends a gift of a transformative healing session that supports deeper empowerment, love, authenticity and connection in every aspect of your life.   I am available in person or over the phone.   Contact me at 541-535-2186

*************
Full-day Workshop Exploring the KUNLUN® System
W/ Joshua Alan Young
Sunday, March 3rd from 9am - 4 pm
Oasis in Ashland
My friend, Joshua will be offering this full day class, exploring these ancient Taoist practices for Internal Alchemy. This “water” path empowers the body to quickly heal itself.
Call (541)728-3479 or visit www.meetup.com/AshlandKunlun

***************
Knowing your Shadow
Becoming Intimate with all that you are
by Robert Masters

Robert Masters has a new Audio CD set produced by Sound's True which goes into a deeply exploration of our shadows and the steps to illuminate the shadow aspects of who we are.  A beautiful and deep offering in support of living deep, fulfilling and authentic lives. 
http://www.soundstrue.com/shop/Knowing-Your-Shadow/4277.pd

 Over the past couple weeks, through different circumstances, the star tetrahedron within the space of a circle has come into my awareness.  Some scientists believe that this geometry is part of a fundamental pattern of creation that gives rise to everything we can see in this known universe and allows this dance between the form and the formless to happen. In my researching of a good EMF protection necklace, this geometry appeared on many different logos.

Being an inquisitive person with a focus on awakening and transformation of consciousness, my attention tends to be guided towards this star that we are and the potential of expressing the totality of our being. 

I would love to explore a topic that is one of my favorites around polarity.  In this geometry of a star within a circle, again using the most simplistic words, there is a triangle facing up and a triangle facing down enclosed within a circle.  This triangle is the expression of our manifested experience of everything we see, hear, feel and know.  I have heard time and time again that we live in a dualistic world.  To even be more accurate to my experience, I would say that everything in this world is polarized.  This tetrahedron represents that nature. 

As part of this expression, there is a also the unmanifested potential, the space/circle in which the tetrahedron arises. This space is the absolute Mystery of being, pure and formless but somehow mysteriously gives rise to all form and all felt qualities of essence. 

In the winter solstice of 2011, I was taken into a dark place within myself of a deep grief and personal childhood trauma which also included collective and archetypal images of the rejection of the feminine. It was after a period of some very unusual openings that occurred during a retreat.  As I laid in bed, pulled deeper and deeper into this experience of grief and agony, yet at the same time feeling held by a larger sense of Self, I prayed for support and a blue brilliant light filled my being.  It was an energy of deep love and a transmission that filled my body and brought these words. 

"For every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction. If you increase the light, it will flush up the darkness. Polarity is the nature of the universe. When we step into higher octaves of light, we must meet within ourselves lower octaves of darkness. If we push away or deny it, it creates more duality. If we are willing to feel into it, our pain, our woundedness, our 'darkness', it integrates and allows a stabilization to occur. Then there is polarity without duality. Shine out of the eyes of perfect oneness that includes both light and dark." 

Light and Dark seems to be one of the major polarities that are occurring in this world.  In duality, we judge it saying negative and positive, good and evil, wrong and right. In it’s essence, what I have discovered is that this can also be called Expansion and Contraction.  There are many deeply heartbreaking and horrifying things that are happening in the world.  How would you think the world would be different if we all were taking responsibility for our shadow: the darkness, pain and trauma within us that we have denied, indulged in and projected out?  

In my experience, a polarity that has been difficult to embrace is harmony and conflict. In my past, I tended towards harmony at all cost and this impacted my relationships in a way that called more unconscious conflict by not dealing with or recognizing what I wasn't happy about or what I needed to speak up about in the moment.  In my deepening intimacy with anger and the allowance of conflict, I realize that every quality and every emotion serves a purpose.  I don't mean the kind of anger that is trying to control or manipulate a situation or an immovable stance, of "I am right".  More so using it in a way expresses "This matters to me", helps create a boundary, express a need or cut a pattern in a relationship that isn't serving in order to support a deeper and truer expression of coherent harmony.  Just in natural cycles of nature, the creation and destruction serve a purpose.   A low burning fire in a forest serves to clean out the debris, weeds, small trees, so that the bigger trees have more space to grow.   So, too, can conflict and healthy anger serve its rightful place in any given moment to clean out the extraneous debris within us and serve as a clarifying and enlivening force in our relationships.

In the allowing of whatever it is that we have denied that is still influencing us on a unconscious level, this feeling attention that we offer can create more space for the unconscious energy to become conscious so that the refined quality of each of our emotions have their right relationship in our life.  So, whatever we have projected or denied that has become a shadow aspect of our life can be gently included in the whole of our being for a deeper, more intimate, more loving embrace of ourselves and others.   And as Martin Luther King so beautifully shared this exquisite truth, "Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see."  

Supporting Questions: 

What polarities shows up in your experience that are significant for you?
What side is more difficult for you to embrace?
What qualities of energy and emotion are present with each side?   Can you make intimate contact with each polarity in an open and curious way?  What is the deepest realization that you have had in your life?   Become fully aware of this.  What do you notice if you bring this polarity to be held in the space of this realization? 
******
Deepening Opportunities
I am now scheduling private sessions for the week of February 11.  Give yourself or a loved one a gift of a healing session, in person or on the phone, that supports a deeper level of openness, empowerment, authenticity and love.