Overview:
Arrive & Settle
Gather & Begin
SHARING: Jeni shared a piece of the Emptying into Fullness origin story
Gathering towards the Still Point; Settling in: guided somatic exploration
Inner step back > using hands to assist with sloughing off/brushing off/shedding...any layer, no matter how translucent, that is ready to release/let go > letting what is released to first settle into cupped hands > finally, release to: the earth, the air, water, fire, etc...> Begin again > continue until body comes to a rest in Open Attention*
POEM: The Healing Time by Pescha Joyce Gertler
*Open Attention: wide, soft attention that is like a wide, open sky, with thoughts/feelings/sensations rising-falling-emerging-dissipating-passing like clouds; an attention that is awake and noticing, without honing into sharp focus. This quality of attention includes noticing when a thought and/or sensation captures our attention and we lose ourselves in it. It's natural that this will happen...and that our cultivation of Open Attention will assist us in recognizing when we lose ourselves, gently calling us back into expansive attention again and again. In-Joy!
THE HEALING TIME
Finally on my way to yes
I bump into
all the places
where I said no
to my life
all the untended wounds
the red and purple scars
those hieroglyphs of pain
carved into my skin, my bones,
those coded messages
that send me down
the wrong street
again and again
where I find them
the old wounds
the old misdirections
and I lift them
one by one
close to my heart
and I say
holy
holy.
~ Pescha Joyce Gertler
Deep Dive I: guided somatic exploration
Pour - Pool - Gather - Return - Rest
Video Demo: this video was made last year, yet applies this year as well -- Enjoy!
password: EIF3
Note: pauses are welcome throughout the process, an invitation to settle a little deeper before continuing in the process....
Arrive at a Still Point: surrender the remains of what is ready to let go. Be Here.
POEM: excerpt from Onto a Vast Plain by Rainer Maria Rilke
...Through the empty branches the sky remains.
It is what you have.
Be earth now, and evensong,
Be the ground lying under that sky.
Be modest now, like a thing
ripened until it is real...
excerpt: Onto a Vast Plain, by Rainer Maria Rilke, in Book of Hours: Love poems to God; passage II, I. Full poem here -- Enjoy the journey!
Deep Dive II: continuing with Pour - Pool - Gather - Return - Rest
Same sequence/invitation as above, another layer(s) deeper, more nuanced, perhaps a slowing of pace/rhythm...
Arrive at a Still Point: Experience the spaciousness that you've made available in your body/experience. Rest here.
POEM: At Blackwater Pond by Mary Oliver
GATHER & CLOSE: We began with sloughing off/shedding and then offering something to be released. We poured-pooled-gathered-returned and rested as pathways into surrender, into the spaciousness and quietude of the Still Point. In that spaciousness, we make ourselves available to welcome what is newly emerging-arriving. As we draw from this new reservoir, from the new forms-tastes-sensations of experience, we are stirred and enlivened. Within the awakening of new sensations, that which is stuck, old, congealed is loosened and ready for our next shedding-releasing-offering. The cycle begins again, continues....Thank you for your Presence here.
Allow your full body to participate in the poem -- Listen (read) from the space within your bones.
Beloved Friends!
YOU are the most beautiful thing that has happened!
Offer, Release, & Arrive at Still Point.
BE the Spacious Rest of Still Point.
Open to Receive within Still Point.
Be Stirred, Loosened, Offered, Returned to Presence,
Wave after Wave....
THANK YOU FOR YOUR PRESENCE HERE