Sometimes the world feels out of control.
Your personal world. The lives of those around you. Your country. The ecosystem. When so much happens around you, a sense of powerless arises. Even when you identify actions to take or ways to help others, the muchness of this sorrowful world can get to you. Making it a challenge to navigate your days.
It’s helpful to remember that all worldly transformation begins within.
And that you have the power to generate the healing energy of compassion and wise, peaceful solutions.
If you have a personal practice of meditation, prayer or devotion, you know the comfort and potential when you plug into that which is greater than you. Your body breathes more freely, your wild emotions settle, and your mind calms a bit.
This settling opens a door within your heart where you realize this “something greater than you” is also within you. Intimately accessible.
In that moment, you remember that you are not alone. You are a part of this immense web of energy. Intimately connected. This greatness, however defined, offers refuge from the storm within which rages in response to the overwhelming news of your/the world.
How do you get there?
Turn off the television and take a break from the news that streams through your phone. Breathe a bit and take a walk. The world will still turn without your witness and upset.
Reflect upon what brings you back to center.
Explore what you’re already doing, a spiritual practice you’d like to resurrect, or a new venture into a type of meditation that feels right for you. No judgement or great goal setting here. Just ask the wisdom within what might be helpful for you now.
There is comfort in meditation, centered prayer, and sacred ritual.
Research points to the benefits these activities have for wellbeing, improved health, social connection, and positive mood.
Yet it doesn’t descend like manna from heaven.
It’s up to you to head in the direction of peace, healing, and clarity. It helps to bring attention to breath and focus strongly upon your intention to feel peace. When it’s hard to do this on your own, especially when unable to regulate your upset, joining with others enhances the potential of calm connection.
Using the group as a springboard to an organized, calm energy state makes sense.
Group devotion or a focus upon peace is contagious. Just like fear, hatred, and division. The good news is that you’re in charge of what you “catch.” The media thrives on creating fear.
Bad news sells. Good vibes calm. Your choice.
Benefitting the individual and radiating through the group to the world the energy of harmony.
It’s an energy thing, first and foremost.
When you understand that energy is your foundational architecture, you’ll pay more attention to any technique or intent that organizes your energy into a coherent state. All healing is enhanced with coherence. For you, them, and this beautiful planet.
You can’t tame the sorrow, fear, or sense of helplessness when you’re lost in the wild mind or unruly body.
And the world needs you. Calm. Coherent. Connected. Whether it offers great peace or just allows you to breathe easier, your daily practice is worth it.
I encourage you to explore the power of the group in shared practice.
There are many options live or online in a wide variety of secular and spiritual practices. Explore what calls you. They all lead you to the same calm center and depth connection with the beautiful Mystery.
We will be Chanting in the Light Cathedrals at Soul Sanctuary on Thursday, February 10th.
This devotional practice of singing the sacred prayers of the kundalini yogic tradition is only one type of chanting. Wisdom traditions around the world have sung, chanted, and danced their prayers out loud or silently as a means to connect with the Divine within and beyond.
If you are curious about what happens when you chant, you may join us to experience this directly. Details and link below in the blue box.
A 2016 research study at Macquarie University in Australia found that chanting of various types to contribute toward positive mood, improved attention, and increased feelings of social cohesion.
You don’t need any experience to delve into the great peace and beauty that always emerges when we chant our way into coherence.
You can do your own “research” to explore your movement into harmony within your body, energy, group, and vast cosmic ecosystem.
And some good news for those new to chanting: inexperienced participants who engaged in vocal chanting, as compared to silent chanting, demonstrated the greatest number of significant benefits. [More on this study in the HeartWarming News below.]
Since energy is nonlocal, you can also chant your way into coherence at home.
Tune in and join the group at Soul Sanctuary with your intent and practice in your own sacred setting. The Light Cathedrals (structures of energy) that descend around Soul Sanctuary as we gather can also surround your home.
How to do that?
Set the intent, say your personal prayer, and notice how it feels to be surrounded in these sacred structures of light which harmonize your whole being.
Healing this beautiful world really does begin within.
And when unleashed, this powerful healing energy of love and compassion radiates outward in every interaction.
May you discover how you can be a source of healing and optimism for this world so in need of uplifting.
Peace be with you and with all. No exceptions.
Researchers at Macquarie University also suggest that the benefits of vocal chanting may be mediated by three factors: group synchronization, which increases feelings of social cohesion; physiological changes (breath control and singing), which may contribute to increased positive mood; and focused attention, which may inhibit ruminative thinking and lead to increased positive mood. Do your own research. Chant alone silently and out loud. Compare that to chanting with a group. Silently. Listening to others. Singing out loud. This is playful research without the pressure to publish. Enjoy.
Learn the one essential skill that allows you to face any challenge with confidence, sturdiness, and inner calm.
More than a technique. It’s a game changer.
ia Sophia has arrived. This “Way of Wisdom” offers an invitation to step upon a Living Spiral Path and discover a new understanding of what it means to embody the Mystical Feminine.
For the past fifteen years I have lived and taught within the Mystical Feminine. I have sat within many circles and immersions with women as we explored how to practically and powerfully engage Feminine wisdom in everyday life.
When my daughter was in eighth grade, she and her Girl Scout troop were beginning to explore ideas for their individual Silver Award projects.
Around our dinner table, we tossed around possibilities. Nothing landed. Nothing stirred real interest. So we encouraged her to do what we have always trusted. Stay open. Listen. Pay attention to what people are talking about in the world.
Driving into Soul Sanctuary last weekend, I noticed the trees were engaged in a wild dance.
I should have paid closer attention as I got out of the car, because the wind nearly took me with it. Walking to the door, I had to lean in and brace myself for a moment just to stay upright. The cold whipped through my clothes and found every uncovered space, sharing its bone-numbing chill.
We recently had a big snow in my neck of the woods.
Everyone was hunkered down. The fridge was full, chicken soup was bubbling on the stove, and my book pile sat patiently on the coffee table. As the snow covered the neighborhood and the plows dumped fresh mounds over our carefully shoveled walk, we took turns peeking outside.
As a kid, snowstorms were pure joy.
“I think we need to be friends.”
Those were the first words out of my mouth when I introduced myself to Rev. Hilda Covington. We’d just finished a county meeting of nonprofit mental health and social service agencies. She was the presenter that month. We almost didn’t meet because Hilda arrived an hour and a half late to a two-hour meeting.
Life has a rhythm. It speeds up and slows down according to mysterious forces.
Your personal rhythm dances with the celestial bodies, seasons of the year, developmental phases, and the pulse of your Soulful evolutionary process. Living in harmony with these rhythms is in many ways hard to understand as it is a complicated and deeply personal process. Your rhythm dances with everyone’s rhythm in the grand Cosmic Dance.
