Time and Time Again

The first thing I thought about this morning was time. Again! Specifically more songs about time. I thought I would post them right away and get my blog out of the way first thing. But before I got to them this beautiful ancient healing mantra came up on my Facebook feed. Years ago my Sanskrit teacher, the late and beloved Swami Shivananda- affectionately known to his students as Swami Bob- told me that it is the oldest healing mantra on the planet. I decided to check it out as I was curious how they chanted it, whether it was melodic or more straightforward traditional chanting.

It turned out it is beautifully sung by Shankar Sahney in responsive form and I was pulled right in. For the next 45 minutes I chanted along with it. It did wonders for me on so many levels including opening up my voice. By the end, all the cells in my body were vibrating and felt somehow perfectly aligned as if I had had a cellular repatterning. When I got up I felt clear, balanced and grounded.

When I finally got to my blog the webpage was totally uncooperative so I’m just getting to it now! Enjoy the music.

Time For Healing

Cleansing, clearing , cleaning.
Cleansing, clearing, cleaning
On the inside and on the outside.
Watching how I feed my body
Watching how I feed my mind.
Stuff to be healed surfacing
On the inside and on the outside.
Cleansing tears
Cleansing fears
Cleansing laughter
What are the words I use?
How do I talk to myself?
How do I think of others?
Now is the time.
Noticing
Even the occasional guilt around
Taking so much
Time
For me
And remembering
I am not guilty.
I have been given this
Time

The Power of Intention

Whoops- I missed two days! I didn’t even think about writing a post yesterday or the day before which is kind of weird but so be it. I took on a series of challenges to start off the new year- which basically for me starts after January 8, since that is my birthday. I’m still in holiday festivity mode til it’s over.

That being said, on January 4 I started a 40-Day Kundalini Yoga Challenge through the Life-Force Academy. I also started a 5-day fast on January 9 which gently came to a close today with a bowl of wonderful sweet potato and beet soup I made. On January 7 I made a commitment to start a 3-week cleanse beginning January 11 offered by lovely wonderful bright spirit Sacha Jones of Stiggly Holistics- although waiting to begin til I finished my fast.

Now comes the interesting part- the third challenge. About four or five days ago I was missing my Course In Miracles connection and a video came up on my Facebook page of a woman named Cyndi Krupp doing a short live feed on A Course in Miracles. There are very few teachers of the Course that I listen to because I feel like everything is said in the book and what better teacher than Jesus? But for whatever reason I was drawn to it and I listened to her and absolutely loved her presentation. I heard her say something about something you could sign up for which I ignored - just listened to the video and really connected with her message. She said one thing so succinctly and perfectly that I wrote it down, “All pain is nothing other than being disconnected from the Truth.” Later the same day I was in my living room doing my Kundalini practice and sometime during my meditation I had the thought, “I want to do a 40-day retreat. Here, now, in my home. I have the time and I need to make good use of the opportunity.” It was just a thought that came and went but it stayed to some degree quietly in the background.

The next day I decided to see if Cyndi had another video up, which she did. And this time I heard her clearly say that a program was beginning the next day, January 11, called The 40 Day Program to Transformation with another Course in Miracles teacher, Lisa Natoli. She said it had changed her life, that she began to have a real understanding and direct experience of the teachings of the Course when she did the 40-Day Program the first time.

So on January 11 I started both the Stiggly cleanse and Lisa’s program. I’ve only been in for 3 days but they have been an amazing powerful 3 days. The second day, January 12 I had a bizarre healing event occur which I will not describe because it wasn’t pretty. I will simply say that it is an issue that has been with me for years and years and I have been actively addressing it for the past few months. I am sure that the combination of internal fasting and cleansing combined with the kundalini practice brought it to the surface to finally be healed.

I have a lot of things right now to attend to throughout my day, videos to listen to, stuff to read, journaling, meditation but it’s the perfect time to do it all and the 3 programs weave together absolutely perfectly. Example- part one of preparation for both the Stiggly cleanse and the 40-day transformational work involve cleaning and clearing one’s space- decluttering. And watching what I put into my body and what I put into my mind will be a constant for the next few weeks and hopefully will be a practice which becomes a habit. The yogis say it takes 40 days to break a habit and 40 days to create a new habit.

Also an interesting side note on fasting that came up. I had chosen to fast before I started Sacha’s cleansing program and actually continued it for a couple of days into the program. Lisa talks about fasting essentially from our old ways, our stories and our mistaken beliefs about ourselves ("I’m not good enough” etc.) and one of the things that stood out to me that I had never thought of before was the two meanings of the word “fast”. One is to abstain and the other is quick-moving or hurried and I suddenly realized that fasting gets you there quicker. I love words.

Chill Out With Some Ice Music

A friend sent me a link today about ice music in Lapland. I posted about the Ice Music Festival in Norway a few years ago when I first came across it. The visuals and the music are both stunning. There’s not much I can say- it’s all here.

I don’t think that it is true that there is nothing new under the sun- or in this case, under the ice! Every moment is new and so whatever appears in the now is new. And there seems to be no end to the creative spirit and inspiration that continually uncovers, explores and creates new technologies and methodologies which give us a whole new way to experience that which is known or familiar to us in other ways.

Check out this link to the Ice Music Festival in Norway- click here.

Dancing With the Goddess

In 2015 I accepted Seth Godin’s challenge to “ship” every day for 30 days- which meant writing a blog post. I did it for almost that whole year I think. I definitely did it for many months- and I had a sense of commitment every day, a sense of satisfaction, and a sense of completion. My commitment to myself as of January 1 is to post something- or ship- every day for 30 days.

It’s late. I wake up in the morning thinking about this- this blog- observing sound throughout the day, listening deeply at times, enjoying music on a more external level at other times and sometimes just being busy… doing stuff, making lunch, doing laundry, going to the grocery store, catching up with people on the phone- all the stuff of life. Today several hours were spent in mantra practice. Tonight I spent an hour chanting this beautiful mantra to Ma Durga during a webinar with Jai Uttal. Feel your breath, let yourself drop in and enjoy that quiet place inside for a little while…

A Groovy Sunday Groove

Morning has flowed into the afternoon as I have been immersed in Sunday morning music. Started off with Traffic “Low Spark of High heeled Boys” and I was actually able to play a little of the main piano groove along with it- which was very exciting!

That led me to a bunch of Traffic, Blind Faith and Steve Winwood classics- including these…

Somehow that all led into Van Morrison’s song “Into the Mystic” from his beautiful Astral Weeks album…

and finally, that led me to one of my favorite of all-time Van Morrison albums- Poetic Champions Compose- which I have been dancing, singing and playing the flute with for the past hour. I love Sunday mornings! Enjoy the music, and tell me “Did ye get healed?”

A New Dawn

2021. Happy New Year! I feel good. I feel hopeful.

2+0+2+1= 5. In numerology 5 is about change and transformation and after 2020 (4, think “square”, grounded, solid, not particularly creative or forward thinking) I think we are all looking forward to some major changes. That’s all I’m going to say about that!

It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day… and it’s a new year! I went to sleep a little after midnight and woke up at 4 a.m. thinking about things I want to get done and one of the first things that came to mind was to start blogging again. Along with it came this song.