new moon meditation | for reclamation + healing

Last month a highly-intuitive friend sent me this video for releasing ourselves from the karma and burdens of others, and it was a pure revelation!

First and foremost, this meditation arrived divinely-timed at the end of a season when I had discerned a need to reclaim pieces of my soul from those who were incapable of bearing witness to my growth and my wholeness. In that process of reclamation, I had also recognized the importance of leaving the blessing of grace and mercy to stand in for those old impressions/memories of me. And because healing is not one-time event, I was prepared for something more to eventually show up and support this new level of growth.

Second, with one simple metaphor — likening cutting cords to cutting weeds: they’ll grow back if you don’t pull them out — it shifted the paradigm of teachings I’d previously encountered on cutting energetic cords! In the past, I’d used cord-cutting visualizations to unfetter myself from people and situations whenever lingering unresolved issues were unlikely to be fully addressed and transformed, and reconciliation was not possible. I truly found it helpful. Still, as we get equipped with new tools and new understanding, we can go back and dive deeper in order to rectify, amend, clear out and transform the seeds of suffering.

Between the two full and new moon cycles since then, I have pulled it out of my medicine bag nearly a dozen times for myself and in prayer on behalf of others who asked for support with transforming conditions and circumstances that are a source of discord in their lives. And it has indeed been good medicine! So now, under the auspices of the new moon, I offer it to you. Make it your own (as you’ll see below the video that I have done).

May it open the gates to new possibilities for compassion, generosity, skillful understanding, and authentic connection.

May it release you from the exhaustion, worry, guilt and resentment of over-giving.

May it help you discern the difference between duty and obligation so that you are empowered to make skillful choices from a sense of honor instead of acting out of habit and expectation.

May you trust that by centering your wellness and unhooking yourself from those who lack the capacity to offer mutual care, opportunities for healing will deepen and expand.

May you trust that they will be guided to grow into skills, tap into resources, and call upon a larger circle of wise council for support.

May it restore you and fill you up with abundance. 

 

Unhooking Meditation (with my expansions in italics):

I unhook myself from the ancestral burdens and adverse karma of all people, places and things that no longer serve me — sending them into the light with love, grace, and mercy to be healed and resolved as I am/ have been healed and resolved from them — and restore, reconcile, and redeem myself with the Divine Light nourishing me with love, peace, strength, grace, mercy, good health, free will and the optimum balanced flow of Divine energy. This wound is healed.

from “How to Remove the Cords, Karma & Burdens of Others
— Rhonda Harris Choudry

special event | “walk with me” film screening

​Shining the light on and supporting practitioners of Lansing Area Mindfulness Community in the effort to bring this documentary about our root teacher Thich Nhat Hanh to the Regal Cinema on November 6 at 7:30 PM.

Help us boost awareness and reach the minimum ticket quota needed to screen Walk With Me: A Journey into Mindfulness.

INVITE YOUR FRIENDS! SHARE THIS POST! RESERVE TICKETS via: https://gathr.us/screening/21193

bearing witness | looking back, beneath + beyond

Our fall series, Bearing Witness begins this Sunday! Over the next few months, we’ll be looking back, beneath + beyond as we contemplate a range of queries as practices related to our encounters with joy, sorrow, in/justice, forgiveness and reconciliation.

11 am – 1 pm | Heartdance Studio

1806 E. Michigan Avenue

DANA/DONATION: $5 

Doors open just before 11 AM. Centering begins @ 11:10ish. Doors are locked at 11:30 AM.

The new end time reflects the reality of how our time together has organically unfolded. So I’ve officially extended the practice an extra 30 minutes to allow more space to enrich our silence, connection and insight.

Whether arriving late or departing early, please enter and exit with mindfulness-–observing noble silence and, if possible, arriving/departing during the transition periods between practices.

when harvest is a feast for body, heart + soul

sun + breath + good spiritual friends + scratch-made yummies = harvest!

Thank you, loves, for sharing your gifts — hugs, hearts, laughter, presence, silence, curiosities, discoveries, baking/gardening/pickling talents…and so much more!

We’ll take refuge in the full embrace of Sangha on October 8th when our fall series Bearing Witness begins.

woman horizontal | bless it all

the blessing of breath + loving awareness has centered + restored me in body, heart + mind.

the blessing of acknowledgement + appreciation for all parts of my journey — shadow + sunshine — has enabled me to celebrate both my progress + the possibilities for continued evolution.

the blessing of honoring the lessons, opportunities + encounters, be it with the admirable or the adversarial, has strengthened my capacity to filter out poignant information + insights from any energy that doesn’t serve me. 

i bless it all. leaving no part neglected. gleaning the magic within the mundane.


walking the labyrinth | harvest party

September 24th

11 AM – 1 PM @ Moores Park

I’ll always remember my aunt telling me long ago that your friends are your assets.

I’m blessed to say that my good spiritual friends are my Harvest! 

So on Sunday, we’ll celebrate the Suchness of Sangha and all that we’ve learned and all the ways we’ve been stretched to grow this past season through our commitment:

to self-understanding and well-being;

to diligently taking refuge in the full embrace of sangha where we cultivate the sacred pause where, with silence and breath, we listen deeply, see clearly and learn to respond skillfully to all that arises as it arises;

to investing in collective wisdom and supporting the healing and transformation of one another.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

11 AM | Walking the Labyrinth

12 PM | Harvest Party

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

❤ Bring snacks to share, as you are able. I’ll provide napkins, cups and some cutlery. Consider additional plateware and serving utensils that your dish may require.

❤ Kiddos are welcome!

❤ IN THE EVENT OF RAIN: We’ll hold the practice and party at Heartdance Studio.

how we sunday | yantra bouquet 

Love that this gorgeous bouquet serendipitously became the yantra for our meditation and contemplation:

Turning toward the joy and magic of harvest — reaping and celebrating the abundance we’ve earned in the form of clarity, truth and authenticity, love with wisdom, trust and accountability.

Thank you for these gifts, my friends!

on the dharma shelf | september 2017

IMG_20170907_141332_556.jpgwhen you value interfaith learning and being spiritually multilingual:

bearing witness | on the delusion of colorblindness

Open ya eyes wide and see the truth of the skin I’m in. #TakeItAllIn

As a Dharma practitioner, I have cultivated Sangha on the sacred grounds of the Satipatthana Sutta (the Four Establishments of Mindfulness) and, in our gatherings, turn us again and again and again back to this foundational practice that teaches us to listen deeply,

see clearly,

and “remain established in the observation of the body in the body, diligent, with clear understanding, mindful, having abandoned every craving and every distaste for this life” [Majjhima Nikaya 10, as translated in Thich Nhat Hanh’s Transformation + Healing]. So too with the observation of feelings, thoughts/mental states and perceptions of whatever is in our field of awareness as we engage the world around us.

It is a spiritual discipline to help us acknowledge, take care of, and free ourselves from our attachments (what we cling to) and aversions (what we avoid). It is a spiritual practice that fosters discernment, accountability, transformation and healing.

Our skillful understanding of how connected we all are — the principle of interdependence — does not negate or override the commitment we make to:
Show Up, Notice, Pay Attention, Be Present, Hold Space, Cultivate Silence, Listen Deeply, Bear Witness.

We own our actions (thoughts, words + deeds). We are responsible for seeing and perceiving ourselves and one another clearly and in our wholeness. Skillful Understanding supports Skillful Thinking and Skillful Action.

To avoid seeing race/ethnicity is to cling to delusion. It is neither an act of compassion or generosity and not only hinders authentic connection but flat-out undermines our capacity for justice, liberation and transformative healing.