Recently a client while being on my massage table said: "I'm falling in love with your hands. You have a gift". But really what was happening - she was getting in touch with the aliveness and loveliness of being in the body. We are so accustomed to react to somebody outside ourselves, forgetting that the capacity to love is internal. Our senses are trained to pay attention to our external environment, so our thoughts are mostly about things external to ourselves; and that makes processing of our feelings and reactions more difficult.

The first rains are washing away the last days of summer, burying the seeds deeper into the ground. With the indigenous people celebrating Day of the Dead, we have an opportunity to honor our ancestors and all the "seeds" that went into making of our bodies, hearts and minds; to find gratitude for the continuity that sustains our lives; to meditate on the seeds that we carry inside ourselves, that'll come to fruition in the future.

AUTUMN

Autumn - the fruit bearing time.

Seeds go off the mother-plant, and into the ground - to be buried, to lay dormant, waiting for the call of spring… How do they know the spring will come? They don’t, yet that’s the only thing they “know” to do – to follow the design the seeds have no way of knowing about.

Humans are different – humans want to know. Humans get satisfaction knowing their efforts will bring fruit. Humans have difficulty letting go of the fruits of their efforts – they want to store it in a barn somewhere close by for the future use.  Humans want to know the future, want to be assured the spring will come and the seeds they’ve planted sprout into the beauty of the new life. Humans want to have the piece of that newness – that’s how we, humans, grow.

Autumn. The time of letting go, finding trust that your efforts are not futile - that the seeds you planted will grow in their own time, that when the new life that sprouts will be part of your life, enriching you in a new way…

The time of turning your awareness deeper inside, getting in touch with your core essence, that’s always there for you - your resource, from where you are sprouting, again and again, engaging with the world outside of you.

Healing is a task of a lifetime

There is a myth that I'll figure it all out and have a happy "thereafter"... As Abraham said, it's never done. Figuring out, and healing, likewise, are tasks of a lifetime. Death of the body is the only certainty at the end of it.

MY PRAYER

Dear God, Who dwells in my heart,
and the hearts of every body of Your Creation and beyond,
I offer you my prayer with gratitude and joy.

It is my wish to connect with You, and to be met by You,
in all happenings and non-happenings of my manifested life.

It is my wish to meet myself in You, and to be met by You
in my pain and lack - not with a fix, but with compassion and care;
to meet my pain

and not be broken by it, but grow stronger.

It is my wish to meet myself and be met in my fear - not with impatience,
but with trust and encouragement;
in my weakness - not with disgust but with kindness;
in my loneliness - not with sadness but with respect;
in my arrogance - not with punishment, but with understanding;
in my anger - not with destruction, but with strength and generosity;
in my joy - not shying away and not holding on to it,
letting it go afterwards like any other feeling.

Dear God, meet me in all things alive, and meet me in my death,
so that I'll be able to move into it with my full aliveness.

And whatever I'm missing here now, please, fill in the blanks for me,
from the perspective of my highest good, my Spirit, and the necessity of Your Creative Expression.

Amen.

Having a body.

After taking an anatomy class and visiting a cadaver lab recently, I got a new understanding/feeling of the body.
Our bodies are anchors for our souls, giving a soul an ability to live in the 3-D physical reality. It's evident, but rarely contemplated, that all parts in a human body attach to each other; the body is designed to move through 3-D space, to hold itself and onto itself. It's systems and parts connected by connective tissue saturated by water flowing through all of it; you pinch someone's toe and all of that person turns to you reacting to the pinch.

Lots of people are in transition now. Waiting for a change. Watching the news, searching the Net. Looking for positive shifts.

As we wait, we can do small actions, make small choices, that will invite the change we want. It's choices of what we eat, how we spend our money, our time.

As we long for a healthier environment, we can take responsibility to start healing our personal past, instead of re-creating it day after day. As we note chores in our calendars, we can start putting in fun dates with friends and loved ones. Classes and workshops, concerts and presentations.

Support people and activities that will support you. Chose what to support, how you want to be supported.