Author: pmcrose

Make room for everyone.

I have the right to occupy my space and honor it, and I honor you to have the space to occupy you.

Letting go and rising up, occupy your space.

Honor the same life flow that moves through us and is being us, that supports and creates us, that we are being and that is being us.

It’s not like you arrive and it’s over.  There’s always more….

*Borrowing this sentiment from one of my favorite music group, Rising Appalachia.

For those who know me well, I have just had two years of quite intense physical ailments and pain–nothing life threatening, thank goodness, but certainly challenging and uncomfortable and demanding attention.  The first year, now dubbed “The Year of the Gut,” entailed about a year of digestive cramps, intestinal flora crashing and distress, giardia, and an appendectomy.  This most recent year, I came down with a severe case of sciatica that left me at first nearly unable to walk, followed by 3 weeks of hobbling with a cane, to a recent cortisone injection at a spinal nerve root.  Let’s hope this works!

I have come to the conclusion through these “problems” pain can goad one to change habits and patterns that limit growth.  It can motivate the willingness to let go of obsolete or limiting patterns, to search for alternatives, and to experiment with new ways of doing things to see what works best, or at least better.  Pain makes this necessary if one wants to have a “normal” life again.

Pain can bring about positive change.

I can have gratitude to pain for helping me learn.  (And I can have immense gratitude to all my family and friends, healers, and spiritual guides who have helped me along the way.)  But I do not need to hold onto the pain anymore.

I can try to look for more subtle signs that things need to change to grow and prosper physically, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually.

Maybe in the future, I won’t have to go to such great pains to learn!

 

At times when I meditate as I watch my breath, I feel an energy rising from the base of the spine upward to the heart.

Expanding like ripples of water from a stone tossed in a pond, warmth emanates outward from the heart .  What is it?

It seems to enlarge the heart and spreads outward in the chest, even down the arms and legs…up the throat…to the nasal area and forehead.

I continue to breathe in meditation and follow this warmth.

It may move to a soft pressure at the top of the head.

As I ground deeper, I let go, rooting more to the earth and rising up out of this solid base. The warmth in the heart expands even beyond the body, pulsing outward.

Respect this flow.  Root down and rise up.  Breathe.  You cannot control it.  It has a life of its own.  It is the source of life.  It is the kundalini shakti.

There is a fear that is different than the usual.  It is a sensible fear at feeling the intensity and sensing the brilliance of the life force, the kundalini shakti….like the energy of a million suns!  Even glimpses can leave us in awe and draw our deepest respect!

This wondrous force comes to this body and inhabits and enlivens it for a time.

Enjoy it for what it is:  it will only last a while.  The body is vulnerable–strong at times, other times weak.  It is brilliant with life that miraculously creates new cells that can heal it, and yet it is susceptible to so much.  Eventually the body, like all of nature, dissipates ending with death.

Having this body and life is a true blessing.

As a person, it is our great good fortune to have the sheer opportunity to discover, explore, and celebrate this amazing force, the kundalini shakti, and its supreme joy, bliss, and freedom.

 

Fear is like a dark cloud shrouding the sun.  Fear blocks the direct experience of the life force.

Know fear:  acknowledge it; talk to it.  Unconditionally accept and respect it.  Feel it wholeheartedly.

Then focus on the life force, not the fear.

Feel its warmth and vitality, its uplifting energy emerging.  Feel it radiating like a brilliant sun!

The cloud of fear may dissipate; it may linger,…or it may simply pass or be burned away by the sun.

Life has a will of its own.  It pushes forth, sometimes seemingly against all odds, against all forms of resistance, and emerges.

Both delicate and fiercely strong, life inspires respect, love, awe, and gratitude.  Welcome it in all its hues wholeheartedly.

What is the nature of the field of consciousness that holds our thoughts and emotions?

Thoughts and emotions arise in this field, exist, and then subside.

They are vibrations or frequencies within it.  They have texture and temperature.  They have varied energetic force.

Mindfully watch them come and go, arise and subside, in this field.

Use your breath (or a mantra or an image of your spiritual teacher) as an anchor to not get caught up in or ensnared by these thoughts and emotions as they pass through your field of consciousness.

Breathe, and meditate…. and discover the field of consciousness!

Each day opening new doors that were not ever apparent before, step forward and meet a really new day.

We draw the power of the earth to reach for the heavens.

The unwavering wavering of a candle flame.

The silence in a sound.

The stillness in a ripple of water.

The space between vibrations.

The pause between breaths.