Tuesday Tributes - The Pause Between

On this gray, dreary, misty, wintry morning, I sat on my mat at the end of yoga class and listened to my breath, especially to the pauses in-between.

I’m granted this opportunity every week I practice at my intimate neighborhood studio, Amsa - to surrender, become absorbed, immersed in my breath - but this morning I was especially able to savor the experience.

Throughout the day, I continued to reflect on this morning gift of gratefulness. I was struck by how little attention I afford to my breath - that automatic thing we all do in order to live. The constant current of our life force, that breath that breathes us into a continual state of being, holds such surprising gifts. 

The same lessons learned on the yoga mat are analogous to ones absorbed working at the studio table.  If we listen to the tide of our breath, to the rhythm of our inhales and exhales, we gradually begin to become more present, more attune with our essence, our essential selves.     These exquisite pauses hold vast potential where everything dissolves into nothing.  It is within this nothingness, this pause between, where we are bestowed glimpses of an intimate inner peace some refer to as brushes with the divine..

A larger force bestows these gifts of gratefulness, reflection, knowing, and wisdom, but we have to do our part by showing up. 

In this New Year, consider pausing from your life's routine to take advantage of Healing Icons creative offerings  and consider signing up for a week of artistic and cultural immersion in Italy this May – where we will have many opportunities to honor, reflect, create and awaken more fully into our lives.

"A lifetime is not what is between
the moments of birth and death.

A lifetime is one moment
Between my two little breaths.
The present, the here, the now,
That's all the life I get.
I live each moment in full,
In kindness, in peace, without regret."

Chade Meng, Taoist poet

Frankly, I wish he had said strive to live each moment...because I think it is impossible to live each and every moment as he describes ... but we are lucky if we get glimpses into this pause.

"Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?
While the soul, after all, is only a window,
and the opening of the window no more difficult
than the wakening from a little sleep."

Mary Oliver

       from - Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thursday Travels

Travel

to move forward towards a given direction or path

to journey through or over a given distance

to follow a course or path, going from one place to another

to cross over boundaries and borders

The idea of movement from one known, comfortable place to another unknown, mysterious place can fill us with terror, trepidation, anxiety, fear.  Simultaneously, the idea of leaping wildly outside of ourselves is lusciously stimulating and excites us with curious life-affirming wonder.

Yet how often do we allow ourselves this gift?

Comfort zones are a wonderful place to come home to but certainly not a place to live! Traveling outside of our known, expected selves keeps the juiciness of our human journey vibrant and alive.

Whether we physically travel to unknown lands, delve deeply into our interior lives, or embark upon learning to paint, to sing, to dance...we are traveling forward, opening our vision and hearts towards learning that the most valuable things in life are not our possessions but our experiences.

Wordless Wednesday

 

In this Year 2011

"We need to travel. If we don't offer ourselves to the unknown, our senses dull. Our world becomes small and we lose our sense of wonder. Our eyes don't lift to the horizon; our ears don't hear the sounds around us. The edge is off our experience and we pass our days in a routine that is both comfortable and limiting. We wake up one day and find we have lost our dreams in order to protect our days. Don't let yourself become one of those people. The fear of the unknown and lure of the comfortable will conspire to keep you from taking the chances the traveler has to take. But if you take them, you will never regret your choice. To be sure there will be moments of doubts when you stand alone, on a empty road, in an icy rain or when you are ill with a fever in a rented bed. But as the pains of the moment will come, so too will they fall away. In the end you will be much richer, so much stronger, so much clearer, so much happier and so much a better person that all the risk and hardship will seem like nothing compared to the knowledge you have gained."

"Letters to My Son" by Kent Nerburn


As you begin this New Year, consider traveling with Healing Icon's to Italy in May.

Why We Travel

When Traditions Become Stale

Christmas Eve, Santa arrived in the Houston airport buzzing around on a golf cart which was appropriately adorned for this auspicious day.  Having completed our extended family Christmas dinners and gift exchanges, we began a journey I have always wanted to embark upon.  Leaving town for Christmas, skipping joyously out on some of the Christmas traditions that frankly seem way more exhausting than fulfilling.   Our daughter suggested it, having what might be her last significant break as a full time graduate student.  Elated at the idea, it took some convincing for my husband to jump on board and our son initially was quite annoyed but thankfully everyone came around.  Scheduling our annual Christmastime party which we have been holding for over 20 years with some dear friends was challenging but we did it early and no one even missed the fact that we did not have a Christmas tree.

Deciding to visit Guatemala's Mayan indigenous people of Lake Atitlan, which is about and hour and a half from Antigua, sounded like the adventure we were looking for.  Through an article I had read in the New York Times this summer, I tracked down Markus and Laura of Magic Carpet Rides, who placed us with a Mayan family in San Juan La Laguna.  My daughter and I will be studying the relationship between Mayan arts and their spirituality with our host family.


So this idea of taking a break, a pause from traditions that have become stale and unsatisfying gives us the opportunity to breathe new meaning and purpose into the rituals within our lives. Occasionally letting go of well kept traditions and throwing caution to the wind with wild abandon can be another way to gather up that yummy inner phosphorescence that keeps our lives sparkling with aliveness and adventure.

As you begin to end 2010, take a few moments to remember with gratitude all the goodness of your year and note if there are areas in your life that perhaps need a bit of tweaking.

We found this bit of  wisdom from Sarah Susanka in December's Whole Living Magazine and wanted to pass this on to you.

The Year-End Review

The Past Year - How have you spent your time?  What were you grateful for?  What were your sorrows and disappointments, and how did they change you? What books, films, etc. moved you?

The Present - How are you different from the way you were a year ago? How can you integrate the lessons of the past year? Is there anything you're trying to force into existence right now? If so what would happen if you stopped?

The Future - What do you want to focus on in the coming year? If you could sum up your desires and longings in one simple statement spoken from the highest aspect of yourself, what would it be?

This is not a New Year's resolution - it's an antiresolution. We imagine we have to make things happen, but when we're clear about what we love, those opportunities come unbidden.

$5,000 Grant Awarded for Sometimes Words Are Not Enough

Our staff worked very hard on the South Carolina Artists' Ventures Initiative Grant offered by our wonderfully terrific state agency, The South Carolina Arts Commission.  Our efforts were rewarded!

S.C. Artists' Ventures Initiative is funded by a major grant from Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC), a national initiative that works to improve conditions for artists, enabling them to more readily do their creative work and contribute to community life. As a part of this national initiative, the Arts Commission is drawing from and contributing to the research, resources, and tools being forged by the national network.

Three traveling exhibitions will be produced featuring the artwork created by oncology participants in our Insights into Healing programming.  Each exhibition will consist of 20 color reproductions of the original artwork.

We Found Our Inner Phosphorescence

Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow.
Don't walk behind me, I may not lead.
Just walk beside me and be my friend.  

Albert Camus

When we share our inner journeys with others, the more we find a commonality of what it is to be human.  Continually amazed at how the creative process forges deep bonds with others as well as within ourselves, we thought we'd offer you a few participant's wanderings and insights.  

After creating a series collages and wax resist water-color paintings, we stopped to really look at what we had birthed and asked questions of it.  What type of mood or atmosphere was portrayed?  What emotions were associated with the colors and shapes used?  Did a sense of place come to mind?   What colors and
shapes were used?  Forming these words into a vertical list, we then wrote down 4 or 5 immediate
associations with all of the words.  Circling 8 or so words that held the most interest or curiosity for the creator, these words were then linked with other parts of speech to form a wandering thought, a reflective paragraph, a surprising poem.

Recognition

I am reuniting……..floating into continuance.

Always the passion, the transformation.

Joy from the past, peace from the future.

Giving over, giving all.

 

Today

I AM life, itself,

                         full

                              with

                                    inner

                                    depths.

I AM the essence

                             of Mary,

                                         light as a breeze

                                                                   accented by

                                                                                     fiery

                                                                                     passion.

I AM layered

                      in

                        time

                        ALWAYS.