aroraborealis: (oroboros)
In about half an hour, I'm headed out to western MA for a 10 day silent meditation course. I've been wanting to do one of these for a little more than a year, and now that the time has come, I'm a chaotic mix of excitement and terror. It's so unlike anything I've done before, the closer it comes, the more some of my internal voices are screaming "WTF ARE YOU DOING???"

I just keep reminding myself that I have historically enjoyed spending time with myself, and that curiosity can be a powerful force for good.

See you all in May!
aroraborealis: (bubbly)
I missed this on other social media, and it's too hard to catch up there, so! Let's do it here:

What three things would you put in a circle to summon me?

Comment with my three and I'll respond with your three!
aroraborealis: (alone)
This true nature of ours tells us what our power is. Understanding power is absolutely critical because you can have all the smarts and devotion and information to carry forth a campaign of action, but if you are still falling for the old notion of power you are crippling yourself. The old notion tells us that power is what one substance does to another piece of substance. And what can it do? It can push it around. It can exert its will. Hence we have identified power with domination—power over. And we've imagined that power means having strong defenses, really being invulnerable so others don't push us around. In contrast, an image frequently used by systems thinkers is the nerve cell. In a neural net, nerve cells are constantly interacting and interdependent, allowing flows of matter and energy and information among them and transforming those flows. What is the power of one nerve cell in relation to another? It's not power over or the power of being invulnerable. If a nerve cell were to build strong defenses to protect itself from painful information, it would die. An effective nerve cell lets the charge through. It communicates and develops collaborative assemblies or networks. We can call that power with, or as systems theorists do, synergy. So when we remember our true nature as change, as action, we remember also the true collaborative nature of our power.

A second thing that helps is mudra. We go from philosophy to gesture. There are two symbolic gestures, or mudras, in Buddhism that help me a lot. The abhaya mudra, palm outward, means "Fear not." Don't be afraid. It arose with the teachings about impermanence and interbeing. When I wonder where is my refuge, my safe haven, it reminds me that my real refuge is in my action, in the flow going out of the heart, in the connection. The other mudra is this gesture—touching the ground. When the Buddha was sitting under the bodhi tree, Mara said, By what authority are you doing this? Gautama didn't recite his pedigree or what he had accomplished in his life; he reached down and touched the earth. This is my right to be here; this is my right to seek freedom from endless suffering and inflicting of suffering. The scriptures say that when he did that the earth roared.

Knowing this, we know we don't need to fear pain. We can see our pain for the world as flowthrough of information in the great net. Grief can ambush us at any time, and our power doesn't have anything to do with being immune to that. It derives rather from our capacity to suffer with—the literal meaning of compassion. To be able to suffer with is good news because it means you can share power with, share joy with, exchange love with. Let your pain tell you that you are not alone. What we thought might have been sealing us off can become connective tissue.


From: http://www.tricycle.com/special-section/schooling-our-intention

headspace

Mar. 4th, 2014 01:36 pm
aroraborealis: (alone)
I've intermittently tried to develop a meditation habit, to pretty limited success. I enjoy meditation when I do it regularly, but I find it difficult to carve out the time for it, and it's easy for me to get distracted while meditating, and then it's more like "sitting for 10 minutes lost in thought" than what I envision meditating to be.

A couple of months ago, [livejournal.com profile] contessagrrl introduced me to headspace, a meditation app/website/course that addresses a lot of the struggles I've had with freeform meditation:

* It's guided meditation, which gives me, as a beginning meditator, the support I need to keep each session on track (and to lessen my fear that I'm "doing it wrong").
* It feels like doing something, so it's easier to make the time to do it AND
* Because it feels like doing something, I feel like I get to check it off my to-do list, which encourages me to do it, and helps me notice when I don't.
* The narration is just right for me in the sense that I find the cadence and word choice accessible and pleasant.
* It's not wifty.
* It is gentle.
* It builds over time, both in content and in length.

I'm really loving it, and I find myself wanting to tell everyone about it! I know meditation isn't the solution to every struggle we have, but I also know there's a lot of research support for the idea that it's helpful to a lot of the things we struggle with in ourselves and our relationships, and it fits well with my multi-year project of developing a robust sense of compassion, both inward and outward.

If it sounds like something you might enjoy, I highly recommend Headspace, which is available on their webpage and as a free app with a 10 day course for free, and then you can subscribe to continue if you like it. I'd be delighted to hear about your experience with it if you try it or have tried it.

cut loose

Jan. 16th, 2014 01:09 pm
aroraborealis: (moon path)
Last night, a fuzzy pink bear appeared to me, giving me the secret of happiness, which led to a moment of ecstatic union with myself and the universe and a deep emotional understanding of the false separation between the two and a deep, profound contentment about the universe, change, and everything in between. This caused me to burst out laughing and promptly forget the secret of happiness. OH IRONY.

But, actually, I think the secret is still a spark inside me that I can still touch, and it's that feeling of deepest contentment completely unattached to any particular thing or no-thing. Baby's first buddha moment.
aroraborealis: (alone)
I'm working on the writing exercises described in Return, exploring fears and things that scare us. The first part of the exercise is to take 10 minutes to write the things that scare you most, and later, another 10 minutes to write in depth about one of them. This is the first of mine. )
aroraborealis: (moon path)
What metaphors do you use for meditation?

For example, I've heard meditation described as standing on the bank of a river, where the river are thoughts and emotions, or as being an empty room with open windows, where the thoughts and feelings pass through (and hopefully don't linger).

What metaphor(s) describe the experience of meditation for you?
aroraborealis: (tree gaze)
My therapist gifted me a sweet small mezuzah for Conspiracy of Delight. I plan to replace the scroll with a poem or two. I have a couple in mind, but this strikes me as a wonderful moment to solicit new poetry into my life. Do you have favorite poems of home, abundance, blessing, or other ideas that you think would be well-suited for a threshold and homecoming?

Here's one from my potentials:

What We Need Is Here

Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.

(Wendell Berry)
aroraborealis: (flow)
I'll be participating in this 30 days of love prompts ecourse. I'm excited and curious to check it out!
aroraborealis: (cosmic)
Today, I'm thankful for intoxication, alteration, meditation, exploration, and all the many ways we let loose of ourselves and dive into the world like children with glee and curiosity and wholehearted engagement, and the ways we can bring those with us to our every day.
aroraborealis: (happy petals)
I got up this morning before the fingers of dawn had become rosy, and along with [livejournal.com profile] veek, [livejournal.com profile] eestiplika, [livejournal.com profile] moominmolly, [livejournal.com profile] dilletante, and little N, ventured to the banks of the Charles River with small boats made of folded paper and candles to set them afloat and afire and welcome the solstice sun.

We watched the sun peek over the horizon, a distant dim pink at first, slowly brightening as it rose above the haze of Boston. Welcome, summer, we're glad you're here!

Today's song is Hope on Fire by Vienna Teng:

aroraborealis: (happy petals)
I've been in California for about a month now, and I've hardly posted about it. In some ways, I feel like I've hardly had time to do it, and in other ways, I've had so much time that it hasn't seemed necessary to put anything down in words.

Being here is a delight. Of course it mainly comes down to the people, as it always does. [livejournal.com profile] contessagrrl, [livejournal.com profile] sol3 and [livejournal.com profile] elvendoll have so completely welcomed me into their home as a temporary roommate that I've been calling the House of Trouble "home" basically since day 1. It has been such a treat to see them and other people out here in a more day-to-day way than I ever have before. Even so, there are plenty of people who I've only seen once or twice; there are a lot of fantastic people around here.

It has also driven home how completely I have a foot on the ground here, and one in Boston. I've been trying to "solve" that problem for years -- always toying with the idea of moving here, and somewhere in the back of my head aware that as soon as I move here, I'll switch from missing my SF people all the time to missing my Boston people all the time. This is true, and it's going to keep being true, and there's no fixing it.

Over the weekend, I had an important realization that not only is there no solution, but that perhaps this isn't actually a problem as such. I think I really like and value having a foot in both places, not just in terms of where I live, but in all sorts of ways in my life. I have occasionally thought -- sometimes with a certain amount of self-flagellation for not being a "good" career woman -- that I'm just not a person who has a clear career path. But it's true in a lot of ways that I'm a generalist. I really like variety, and I think this kind of split and balance is actually really important to my happiness and sense of self. That doesn't stop it also being frustrating and sometimes unsatisfying, but it doesn't make it wrong or bad, and so it might be a big favor to myself if I can stop feeling like I need to figure it out.

I still do need to figure out what I'm going to do for work, of course, but that feels like a more manageable project, suddenly. Know anyone who wants to hire me?
aroraborealis: (alone)
Last week, [livejournal.com profile] moominmolly and I were talking about some of my points of internal discomfort and anxiety and fretting and the like, and she pointed me to this article about feeding your demons. It primarily consists of a five step exercise in doing so, and some discussion around it.

I'm sharing this because I just tried it for the first time and found it immensely powerful and moving. I can't say it's changed my life or anything, 'cause, you know, I just did it a few minutes ago, but I anticipate that I'll be trying it again, and I think it's going to be a great tool for taking gentler care of myself.

If you try it, I'd love to hear how it goes for you!
Article reposted behind the cut )

horoscope

Jan. 23rd, 2011 10:57 pm
aroraborealis: (cosmic)
This is your horoscope every day from now on. And mine, too:

aroraborealis: (alone)
Last night, I walked home from a party at 4am, a time that I'm rarely out and about in the world, and almost never happy about it when I am. But last night, it was one of the most perfect hours of recent memory.

I stepped out of the party into the fresh, cool, quiet air, and, of course, no one much was out and about. There was an inch of fluffy snow on the sidewalk, and big, soft flakes drifting lazily down from the sky. Between the lack of people and cars and the muffling blanket of snow, the city was as quiet as it ever is, and the light of the streetlamps was like magic.



I took the long way home, strolling through the neighborhoods, my footsteps silent on the blanket of snow, and loud when I walked where it had melted. I was reminded how much I love myself, and being myself, when I am doing nothing but being.

It was perfect.
aroraborealis: (cosmic)
My god is located in the high desert. Where's yours?
aroraborealis: (blind dance 2)
Well, that was awesome.

Today was [livejournal.com profile] dilletante's and my blindfolded ballroom experiment (take 1), and it was a lot of fun, I thought! And our guinea pigsattendees seemed to think so, too. You can read [livejournal.com profile] dilletante's comments and observations here. Attendees should feel free to comment here, there, or in email.

My hope was that it would be interesting and useful enough that people would want to come back a second time when we knew more about what might work and not work, and I'd say we definitely achieved that! I had a ton of fun, was pleased with how our exercises and the general shape of the workshop went, and we have lots of ideas about how to do it next time.

Stay tuned for future dates.
aroraborealis: (phoenix)
Do any of y'all have knowledge of Buddhist or other such retreat centers, especially in the Northeast? Or, I suppose, CA?
aroraborealis: (Default)
[Poll #1262378]
aroraborealis: (cosmic)
[Poll #1238798]
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