#12 Playlist

Call in the Angels. Jane Siberry and k.d.Lang
Shostakovich Quartet, #15 in e flat. Elegy, adagio

Utter Darkness, The Halcyon Days

Dear friends, I am so touched by the growing sincerity in our time together on Mondays. Each of us are in different places, and each of us is welcomed as  we are-- how can we be any other way-- into our  circle of growing presence. We will always be in different places from each other, and from moment to moment. There is no cookie cutter way to presence. Each soul has its own journey, its own struggles and its own expression. That is the grace of presence. All is allowed and all is held. Over the weeks each of you have brought your sincerity, your vulnerability and your practice of presence to this circle. 

These are the Halcyon Days, well not quite. They start seven days before the solstice and end seven days after the solstice. The Halcyon days come from a greek myth. As is so often the case,  a couple of lovers piss of Zeus and he freezes them into oblivion. But some other gods-- thank God for those other ones-- come to the rescue and change this couple into a pair of Kingfishers. They build their nest by the sea. So in order to protect the nest and the delicate eggs, the god of the wind stills the winds for 14 days during the Halcyon Days. Go outside at night and feel the stillness, when the wind has dropped. Let yourself feel the pull of interiority. These are very thin times.

We are journeying into the darkness of this season. Last week we explored the frenzy of filling as we enter this season of emptying. This Monday we welcomed the utter darkness. It awoke childhood fears of monsters hidden away and fears of death, loneliness, abandonment, brokenness. And yet at the same time we discovered our longing to rest in the utter stillness of the darkness, the curious intimacy of this peaceful rest. It is as though for a moment we discover that all the agitation in the mind comes to a stop. The darkness welcomes us into the perfect rest of stillness and silence. (Questions: Tell me a way you fear total darkness; tell me a way you are drawn to darkness. Explore your experience of the movement between stillness and agitation. Apply your practice of presence to this exploration)

Following the poetry of Rilke we turned all the lights off in the chapel and sat together in silence. At the end of the evening we held our dear friend Karl in loving presence as he heads to Maryland to find out the results of his chemotherapy. Our prayers go with him.

Next time we will focus on the light of rebirth. If you have an unscented candle please bring it our next session. This will be our last time until we gather again on January 7th 2013. Love, Alison

…whom should I turn to,
if not the one whose darkness
is darker than night, the only one
who keeps vigil with no candle,
and is not afraid--
the deep one, whose being I trust,
for it breaks through the earth into trees,
and rises,
when I bow my head,
faint as a fragrance,
from the soil     (I 2, p. 32)


You darkness, of whom I am born---
I love you more than the flame
that limits the world
to the circle it illumines
and excludes all the rest.

But the dark embraces everything:
shapes and shadows, creatures and me,
people, nations--just as they are.

It let's me imagine
a great presence stirring beside me.
I believe in the night.  (I. II p. 63)


…when I lean over the chasm of myself---
it seems
my God is dark
and like a web: a hundred roots
silently drinking.

This is the ferment I grow out of.
More I don't know, because my branches
rest in deep silence, stirring only by the wind.   (I.3   p. 47)

-- 

Playlist #11

Arvo Part. Spiegel im Spiegel for Piano and cello.

#11 Emptying and Filling.

Dear friends. It is curious that as the days get shorter and the nights longer that the shopping, lighting up, eating frenzy increases. So what is going on? Sure capitalism has taken over and appropriated this sacred time of the year. Catalogues arrive daily in the mail and online, with tempting images of good cheer and beauty, and Christmas music accompanies us everywhere. This tradition of gift giving at Christmas began during the Victorian era, when the merchants saw the opportunity to cash in. Nothing wrong with gift giving. It is fun and generous. But something has gotten out of hand. The spirit has been replaced with a kind of compulsive ritual every year. And in January the bills come due and followed by the crash.

We began talking about emptiness on Monday. We all know someplace inside that feels hollow, like something is missing. It feels like a place where we are cut off. We don't know what we are cut off from but there is nagging sense that this hole, at the very center of our being,  must be filled. Mostly we don't get close to the actual emptiness, the nothingness. We experience all kinds of reactions. There may be intense agitation, addictive filling ( spending, shopping, eating, drinking, using drugs, gambling, over working...). Of we withdraw from the possibility of being disappointed, giving up and sinking into despair or a lazy collapse. Netflix is the perfect companion into the couch! Or we may engage in endless social activity fearing being lonely. Or we simply keep ourselves constantly busy. Or we our bodies freeze up in fear. What is your favorite way to reaction to the hole of emptiness.

So what is it about this time of year that seems to exacerbate this agitation, this filling up? The darkness of these long nights invites the soul into a kind of interiority. The darkness pulls the soul into a kind of silence or stillness. And this pull takes us closer to this place that feels like nothing, like a dull deficiency, that feels empty and cutoff. And the closer we get unconsciously we begin to resist this pull and we are off on the hamster wheel. We see what a culture does with this pull. Earlier and earlier each year, the lights go up, the jingles start. "Buy, buy, buy! Busy, busy, busy! Keep filling this hole." This is the implicit and explicit message.

The tragedy is that this nothingness, this place of cutoff-- where we unconsciously, by necessity, and through the normal and healthy development of ego,-- is actually the doorway to our divine nature, our presence. What you may discover as you befriend this emptiness, as you bring your practice of presence to it, that this empty hole, this disconnection is simply a kind of empty spaciousness, an opening, that allows what is deeper and truer to arise. If we are caught up in all the reactions we believe that this emptiness is a kind of annihilation, an intolerable meaningless, a place of terror and we never actually let ourselves land in the nothing to discover that it is simply an opening, a portal. 

Years ago I was in the Southern Hemisphere and Christmas was in the height of summer. Of course Santa on slays in blazing heat was all wrong. But more importantly there was so little darkness. My soul could not find the tug to go inward. Back then I did not understand what this pull was but at some intuitive level I could feel that some kind of deep dark gravity was missing.

So I invite you to go out at night. Let the darkness in. Next time we will focus on the Blackness of these nights.

Blessings to you all, Alison

playlist #10

Hope for Enlightenment &  Guru Rinpoche, Lama Gyrurme, Lama's Chants

#10 Thankfulness versus falseness

Dear friends. Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the season of declining light and an ever increasing cycle of frantic activity. Over the next few weeks we will  focus our practice of presence on this precious time of year. Can we pierce through all the demands, expectations, misplaced hopes, the stress of dead traditions into the living essence at the heart of these times?

On Monday we focused on thankfulness. How are we supposed to be thankful? The superego has many ideas about what we should be thankful for and how we should be thankful. This left many of us with a bad taste, even anger, at being coerced into being thankful for things and people that we are not thankful for. We looked at what blocks our thankfulness. How can we be thankful when we are cut off from ourselves? Having a self in some religious teaching is considered selfish. So thankfulness becomes hollow, empty of truth, empty of life. A soul with no inner life, no heart at its center becomes an empty, resentful shell, becoming ever more false as it tries to live up to the demands of the superego. Being thankful for some meant going along, even participating in the lie of presence, of gratitude in the midst of abuse. Thankfulness becomes obligation, duty and a show.

So how does our practice of presence bring to life thankfulness. We considered that thankfulness is a state of being, a quality of presence an out flowing of the heart, a response to truth and the abundance of living presence, in ourselves, in others, in the world around us. It cannot be faked. It is a far cry from the obligatory Hallmark card. It arises quite naturally when we allow ourselves to be where we are. If we are angry or disheartened that is the truth. And perhaps simply allowing and holding our distress is an expression of thankfulness. Thank God that we are free to feel, to be where we are without the coercion of the superego bullying us to be thankful when we are not. Or perhaps we discover by coming into the moment that thankfulness arises in unexpected ways.

Gratitude or thankfulness is an expression of an open heart, a full heart, a fleshy living heart. A numb heart, a stony heart, an angry heart does not need the added burden of the pretense of thankfulness. It needs the kindness, patience and generosity of our presence and our practice. 

#9 playlist

Yemaya Assessu Deva Premal, The Essence

Watermark, Enya, Watermark

Hallelujah. K.D Lang. Hymns of the 49th Parallel

#9 self remembering

Dear friends, All fall we have been inviting presence by practicing sensing our embodiment in the present moment. This is sometimes called the practice of self remembering. We start with the most basic sense of ourselves as our physical body. And then with practice we discover that we are remembering something far more fundamental, sometimes quite subtle at first. We begin to remember that we beings of presence.

On Monday we focused our attention on presence. We explored the movement from forgetting, distracting, even rejecting, to the present moment meeting ourselves with acceptance and kindness. As we land, as our attention begins to relax into our experience, whatever it is, we notice that our presence, our awareness, our consciousness holds our experience, and is the very presence we long for.  Our presence, gentle, subtle touches our experience. We relax, we become curious, we awaken just a bit. Experience begins to unfold, to move.  As we welcome this moment we discover that the nature of presence is different from the presence of our conditioned self, the ego. The ego is always restless, grasping avoiding, frustrated, helpless, resisting. This is the root cause of suffering.Presence simply is, simply holds, allowing the essence of kindness and generosity. It is so part of us, so close that we miss it. We get entangled in the struggle of ego. We believe this is the sum total of reality and we unavoidably suffer.

Practicing presence is a gentle practice of relaxing and waking up to what is!

Here is what D.H. Lawrence has to say:

When we get out of the glass bottles of our ego,
when we escape like squirrels turning in the cages of our personality
and get into the forests again,
we shall shiver with cold and fright
but things will happen to us so that we do not know ourselves.
Cool, unlying life will rush in,
passion will make our bodies taut with power,
we shall stamp our feet with new power and old things will fall down,
we shall laugh, and institutions will curl up like burnt paper.

playlist #8

Lama's Chant: Songs of Awakening . Lama Gryume and Jean Philippe Rykiel

Beethoven. Sonata for Violin and Piano. No 5 in F op 24. Andante

#8 Sin versus Missing the Mark

Dear Friends, It is amazing how it has all gone quiet, at least in my inbox. No more fundraising requests, at least for now!

On Monday we explored the issue of the word sin and what it means to each of us and how it becomes the property of the superego. It is interesting that the origin of the word sin is "missing the mark". Surely we are always missing the mark. Small and large missteps. But before we can sort out some response we are berated by the superego. And before we know it we have collapsed into shame, guilt, self hatred, damnation. In a nutshell we withdraw into denial;  hide away in self hatred; spin into action to make everything better; go on the offensive; fill ourselves with recriminations and anxiety. And in the mean time whatever objective response to missing the mark, to the "sin" is lost. We cut off from living presence, from our maturity to respond.

So once again something precious is lost to the attack of the superego. There is the possibility  of growing, of becoming responsible when we miss the mark. But this cannot happen if we are crushed by the superego. We know people who spend all their time apologizing, or people who persist in denying any responsibility. It takes courage to come into the moment, to feel into what has happened. Sometimes we hurt people, sometimes we make big mistakes. And to open to our limitations and mistakes, to our sins, actually takes courage, maturity and vulnerability.  Remember the superego does not see you as an adult, it sees you as a bad child. You are either a good child or a bad one. If you sin you are a bad child for sure. Bad children are punished. God will punish you just like your superego!

I hope you are beginning to see how the superego prevents the possibility for our maturity and but also it cuts us from the healing balm of our presence: our compassion for ourselves, our humanity and for others. The superego is about some kind of perfection and since that is impossible we are dammed, we will inevitably fail. What is damned is the most vulnerable part of us, our woundedness. Perfecting ourselves in one way or another is not the path to inner or out healing. This is not the path to true strength and courage. The miracle of presence, of God, if you like, is that presence holds all our wounding, all our betrayals, all our "sins". It does not white wash us. It allows us to see beyond the black and white world of good and bad, not to find some kind of grey, but into the life as growing living presence. This emergence, some call it a rebirth, is gradual, sometimes painstaking slow, is a life lived from the maturity that we are and can become, bathed in the consciousness of presence. Bringing us out of the falseness of living under the domination of the superego as wounded children. We are evolving souls desiring  for inner freedom, outer freedom. The freedom to be ourselves: human's of being!

Next time we are going to focus on presence. 

I will post this and the playlist on practicing-presence.blogspot.com 

Blessings to you all, Alison

#7 Wounding and Compassion and Holding

Dear friends,

We live in such turmoil these days what with hurricanes, elections and so much suffering. In these times our practice of presence becomes ever more important. These are called chaos times, times of deep transformation, end times. When the tectonic plates of the collective start to break up, when the planet groans, our souls are bound to shake too. Your practice not only helps your soul to remember its true unshakeable, indestructible ground, but it mysteriously adds to the collective soul of all of us, the global consciousness that is bursting forth pushing away the old and demanding a radical new. Some are calling this the Second Axial age (the first being the time of the Buddha, the birth of the monotheistic religions). We are in for a ride, fraught with fears and dangers. We are being called to attune to the need  for deep transformation and for the leap in consciousness. We are all involved in this. If we wake up, step by small step we are participating in this leap, this evolution. So don't loose heart when the journey gets painful, difficult. It is easy to succumb to cynicism, despair and loose all faith and courage. 

Rumi, the great Sufi poet writes:

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.

Don't go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.

Don't go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill

where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.

Don't go back to sleep.

We are called to wake up and trust, even when the way is completely obscured. That is our practice. Don't go back to sleep! And waking up is the process, the unfoldment of a life time. It is not a sudden explosion/enlightenment-- that does happen sometimes- rather it is the gentle awakening of what is precious and sacred in each of us. No journey looks the same.

On Monday we were drawn into the deep hurt as we explored how our most sacred and precious was and is betrayed. Our divine nature is our most precious and sacred.  All of us have felt how deeply people, parents, churches, religions, spiritual teachers have trampled on our preciousness. We believe that this sacredness was destroyed because we cannot feel it, find it, or know it personally. The good news is that this spark cannot be destroyed, we all hid it away, not by some conscious act, but simply out of choiceless self protection. And where did we hid it? In the unconscious! We hid away this spark of living light, buried this living presence, so that when the time came we could begin to recover  our sacredness. We all do this. Ego development is necessary. It creates a shell, protection for us against all the injury, all the hardships and also is the normal way we grow up and leave mommy's lap and eventually move into the world as so called adults. And then for some of us there is a longing for something. We know something is missing, something is not real, some further evolution needs to happen. That is the beginning of  spiritual seeking.

On Monday tears arose and the superego arose in its hateful attack. We need to understand that this is part of the awakening. Not to fix it, not like therapy, but to meet it as one of the many many layers that separates us from our living presence. What we discovered in our circle was the sweet tender presence of compassion. Our pain was met with the softness of our voices, the tenderness in our eyes. This is an expression of presence rising up to support what feels unbearable, feels too much and overwhelming. Compassion is not just a word, it is palpable and it lived in our shared presence on Monday night. This is presence as compassion.

Along with compassion, the strength of the 'no' to the superego also arose. Firm, integrated, clear and unequivocal. As I said, we our fighting for our living souls. This not a time to let the superego smash us or sneak in quietly through the back door. The superego holds such aggression against us and others. It does not trust this opening into vulnerability, into the hurt of what was betrayed, what brutalized us or into what slowly numbed us and  turned our hearts into frozen stones. Don't feel, don't hate, don't trust, don't open, don't love.... In a word 'don't'. This is the aggression of the superego.

By practicing presence we are inviting openness, the opposite, if you like, of 'don't.  Some of you are noticing that there seems to be an expansion followed by a contraction. We discover something, we understand something, and then there is an opening. A kind of "ah yes" or a joy or a relief that what you thought was true, turns out not to be a true as you thought. With this opening, presence can enter as grace. You may feel it as a quiet smooth ease, or a flash of understanding followed by relaxation. Or you may experience it as strength, as a kind of clear uprightness. Some of you may feel it as steady capacity to be with your otherwise rejected experience. Or you may feel it as simple love and appreciation for your friends in the circle. Presence has many faces. It arises to meet the experience. With hurt, compassion arises; with superego, solid firm strength arises; with confusion, there is spacious clarity as the dots line up into insight; with difficultly,steadfast, patient ease, arises. We assume that the face of the divine is simply one face: frightening power, passionate love, eternal compassion; judgment, you name it!  Big God, far too big and  for our smallness.Yet what we discover is that presence can show up so very simply, easily if we are willing to come back to our experience, whether it is numbness, hatred, resistance, fear, falling, sweetness, joy, love, power, aggression. All is welcome in this growing field of presence. Week after week you bring your presence, your willingness, your curiosity, and your sincerity. Such a gift, such a support for each one of us.

So during you week don't be surprised if you find yourself contracting, shutting down, or if the superego comes in for a serious visit. This is how this practice works. Its like breathing in and out, like the tides going out and coming in. Can we be with this more and more. And can we forgive ourselves when we get lost, forget everything, eat leftover Halloween Candy until we are sick! Presence will find you if you come back to yourself.

Peace, Alison  

#6 Are you meditating?

Dear friends, I am away on retreat, so this will be brief.

As we venture into this tender territory of religious hurt, and we must find our way to the living  presence, the taproot of all genuine spiritual wisdom. It is not enough to get discover and understand the real hurt, betrayal, and numbing. Our souls longing cannot and must not be set aside in cynicism, despair, resignation, giving up, that comes from spiritual and religious wounding. We must see through this and reclaim our living presence. We must open ourselves up to the living truth so that we can know for ourselves the nourishment, love and wisdom that rises up through the taproots and veins of all sacred wisdom. 

So in a way we are on an archeological dig. It is not easy, especially because the betrayal of churches, ministers, gurus, superego laden theology runs deep. Even if we were not directly wounded we have taken in thousands of years of ignorance, misunderstanding and violence done in the name of Truth. So as we peel away at layers of confusion, damnation, and hurt, humiliation and betrayal of what is most sacred,  we need to be ever so gentle. We need to feel the support of our grounded presence, our shared need for sacred space. We need to watch for the return of the superego manifesting as god, Jesus, the Buddha, the goddess. 

One way to support this exploration is to keep returning to your practice of becoming present. Not only during meditation-- are you meditating?-- but during our daily lives. Especially when life is simple and ordinary. When you are in crisis and  triggered it is not easy to remember to breathe, to feel your feet, and to find your belly center. Your emotions, your nervous system are caught in well heeled brain storms. So practicing presence during meditation, while you are brushing your teeth, walking down the alley in the supermarket, eating a donut.... are ways to remember to come back to your embodied now. Eventually with much practice, self remembering becomes natural. And even then hours, even days can go by when we get lost. The mercy is that our willingness, our best efforts are enough. Coming back over and over is enough. Perfection is not only impossible but a barrier to presence.

Wishing you all very well from 8500 feet in the Rockies. See you on Monday 29th.Alison 

playlist session 5

Kyrie. Robert Glass. On wings of song.

If it be your will. Antony

Pie Jesu Sarah Brightman

Dank sei dir, Herr. Barbra Streisand. Classical Barbra

The image of God/Holy and Mystery

Dear friends. Last night we took on God/Holy. All in the space of a few hours!!! 

We began by exploring our experience of the God in your history. Many of you spoke of the terrifying, punishing images of God that were passed onto your through church and even your parents. God was remote, cruel, stalking, watching your every move. So you tried very hard to be very good to avoid hell or punishment. And this was impossible. Some of you spoke about the confusion about God. "Do what I say not what I do". Some of you spoke about the absence of God. Others of you described how the image of God lives in the extreme from loving connection to damnation. Others spoke about the God of childhood, the white male surrounded by children. For all of you it seemed that you have found over time some crack in these images of God. Perhaps by calling God by another name, or leaving God behind, leaving official religion behind and finding spiritual practices and teachings elsewhere. Some of you have discovered with that with age God, the Holy becomes more and more unknowable.

We then moved into the  mystery of God/Holy.  We discussed how any image any idea, any concept, even any emotion about God are ultimately simply beliefs stored in our brains from the past. The mind is built to create images, to turn experience into concepts, to create memories. It does so in a split second. So whenever we have a taste of God, the mind will inevitably say something like" Ah thats it. I got it!" Now it is mine. I can keep it, talk about it, write great spiritual treatises about it, teach it. Nothing wrong with any of this. It is what we humans do when we discover something important and precious. We turn the experience into a memory, into an idea or concept. We can't stop this. The brain is wired to do this. And it is incredibly useful. The problem arises when we confuse the concept of God, the memory with the living experience. And since the idea, the felt sense  of God started before we can remember, and is the imprint of the powerful authority of our parents, we unconsciously associate God with all kinds of beliefs and ideas that having nothing to do with the mystery of God, the Holy. Some people call this making God into an idol. So we end up worshipping the idol, the concept, the belief, rather than the mystery. Notice how the mind will even try to concretize mystery!

It is important to see that in the scientific world of no god, then rationality, the scientific method becomes  God. All can be known rationally and eventually proved and verified. This makes it very difficult for those of us coming from secular, atheist background. Not only is God dead, actually God never existed, but there can be no opening to mystery because it cannot be known scientifically. Mind you many atheists I have known live in awe and wonder at this creation and love deeply. But they would never call this spiritual.

God is known directly through experience, through the touch of divine consciousness, not through a microscope or telescope. It is our souls that slowly discover through repeated openings the mystery of the unfolding holy through the course of this precious life. This is the mercy of grace. In the meantime we have our work to do. We need to clear the soul of the beliefs, ideas, distortions  from our histories and  the superego. This is a process. Gradually the soul becomes clarified and it becomes clear, transparent, sensitive enough to be receptive to the touch of grace, to this mystery of God and the Holy. By practicing presence and by understanding our not so conscious assumptions about who we are and what we believe, the soul becomes transparent enough to receive the light of revelation. 

So you can see that not knowing is an important and necessary opening for mystery. And yet many of us are very ambivalent about not knowing. We use knowing to decide whether we are stupid or not. We use knowing as a way to be secure and to be in control. We use knowing as a way to be successful. Knowing is important. But knowing is useful to fix the plumbing or to the discover the Higgs Boson! We learn all the time. The problem is the kind of knowing at the spiritual level is different from our usual mind's way of knowing. Some people call this knowing gnosis, direct revelation,  or divine intuition. This is profound knowing and it only arises out of the emptiness of not knowing. Not knowing is an open, awake and receptive mind. Ever had a moment in the shower or walking down the street, when the light goes on, and in a flash you know something deeply. Often it feels like the stars line and there is deep alive understanding. That is gnosis. ! And it seems to come out of nowhere! 

For many of you, our last time together was difficult and tender. Not surprising when you think about the images of God that we carry around.  You can anticipate that the superego will put up a fight and try to beat you back into your conventional beliefs conforming to what you learned about God years ago. So take care of yourselves. Ground yourselves, meditate, and most of all banish the superego.

Next Monday we will be holding Spirit Singing with Kath Roos. I hope you will join us. This is a precious way to enter into a celebration of presence. And you don't need to be a great singer. 

Our next session of practicing presence will be October 29th. Hope to see you all then.  

This and the playlist is posted on: practicing-presence.blogspot.com

Take care and in peace. Alison

playlist session #4

Lux Aeterna, Requiem, Simon Rutter. Cambridge Singers

Incantation, Deva Premal

Spiritual Superego and Strength

Dear Friends. During our last session we focused on the spiritual superego. This is about our relationship to authority modeled on how we experienced the authority, bigness, godlikeness of our parents. As a toddler looking up at our parents they are literally big and powerful. We are so small and dependent that we need to be able to look up at Mummy and Dad and see them as omnipotent, larger than life. Assuming that our parents were good enough their bigness makes us feel safe and secure. We all look up at to them in a kind of worship. "This is my Mummy and Daddy and they are the best in the whole wide world." In fact we often brag to our little friends about how wonderful and big our parents really are. Some of don't have this possibility, when we look up, we feel fear, dread and even terror. So we learn to shrink, hide. Some of us will fight to win some love, some truth, some safe place. But the fight ultimately is hopeless. Our parents hold all the power. There can be no real victory.

In either case, whether we look up in worship or we look away in fear, the image of our parents is our first imprint, our template for our relationship to authority.

So as we enter into spiritual or religious life; we join a church, or a spiritual circle like ours we will be exposed to spiritual teachings. We will be directed to holy books, dogma and spiritual wisdom. This is big stuff to the little one inside us. Thousands year of wisdom written down. Powerful words expressed by the Guru or the teacher. Anytime we are confronted with an external authority the early template of our relationship to the authority of our parents will rise up. And inevitably spiritual teachings will be co-opted by the superego, in this case what we are calling, the spiritual superego. So the teachings become about being perfect student, devotee, church goer; diligently following the rules; offering up endless self sacrifice. Or we may feel like a failure, unable to live up to the standards, and expectations of the spiritual superego. How many people walk away from  churches, spiritual communities, defeated, deflated? 

Our relationship becomes one of a child to a coercive or seductive authority/superego. We become codependent and we loose our sense of self. Or we become deeply disappointed when we discover that the Guru, the priests, teachers are not the perfection we need them to be. The spiritual journey is about growing into ourselves as adult souls. Being a child of God does not mean that we are meant to be a child. Rather we are meant to open into the purity, innocence (freshness and newness), openness (vulnerability) of grounded divine presence. We see those qualities in children, because they are still open. They have not yet grown a necessary ego shell to be able to live in the world. We see their divine nature shining through. But children are profoundly immature. They are run by powerful instinctual needs and their brains have not yet developed enough to become self reflective. That remarkable development comes much later. 

So as we sit together it is important to see how the spiritual superego works for you. In some families, like mine, it was a scientific superego that wiped out all possibility of the sacred, of wonder, of God. For some of you it will condemn you; it may drive you to being perfect; it may seduce you in believing that the spiritual teacher is perfect and you are not,....  The net effect is that it will suck the life, the truth, the joy, the love, the wonder, the creativity, the brilliance out of our soul's desire for more depth and opening. 

It is only since Freud that we have some understanding of the superego. It is a very new understanding. So our ancestors did not know that they were sliding into the territory of the superego. Many of them were sincere in their belief that they were preserving the truth. So it is really not surprising  that religious/spiritual teachings  over the millennia loose the wisdom that points to freedom and liberation, but become about rules, about good and bad, about purity and sin, about unworthiness, guilt and punishment.  

So there is a lot at stake here. My hope is that the more you see this your soul will awaken to the outrage and heartbreak of the situation. We need to feel angry in order to tell the superego "enough", "get the hell out of my spiritual life"; " I don't need you"; "I want to understand these teachings for myself, so get lost". We need to feel a soul strength, that is hot and clear.

Last sessions questions: Tell me a way you are supposed to be religious or spiritual. Explore how you feel when you see spiritual wisdom being co-opted by the spiritual superego. 

I am posting this along with the playlist on practicing-presence.blogspot.com

Poem. Hope by Lisel Mueller

Hope

    

It hovers in dark corners

before the lights are turned on,

it shakes sleep from its eyes

and drops from mushroom gills,

it explodes in the starry heads

of dandelions turned sages,

it sticks to the wings of green angels

that sail from the tops of maples.

 

It sprouts in each occluded eye

of the many-eyed potato,

it lives in each earthworm segment

surviving cruelty,

it is the motion that runs the tail of a dog,

it is the mouth that inflates the lungs

of the child that has just been born.

 

It is the singular gift

we cannot destroy in ourselves,

the argument that refutes death,

the genius that invents the future,

all we know of God.

 

It is the serum which makes us swear

not to betray one another;

it is in this poem, trying to speak.

    

~ Lisel Mueller ~

Playlist session 3

What a wonderful Life. Tony Bennet & k.d Lang

Incantation, Om Hraum Mitraya. Deva Prenal

Hope for Enlightenment. Lama Gyurme & Philippe Rykiel. Lama's Chant

Session 3: Superego, emotional regulation and presence

Dear friends, This week we looked at how the superego sees you. It is surprising and even shocking to see what a distorted, one dimensional picture the superego has of you. However it sees you, it is quite different from the person who is alive today, sitting in our circle of presence. In a nut shell the superego sees you as a child, small, dependent not as the grown adult that you are. So why do we give it such credence, why do we believe this aggressive, coercive voice?  

I suggest that you explore the following question this week. "What's right about believing the superego?" I know this is a weird question, because the obvious answer is that there is nothing right in believing the superego. But the fact is that we do believe what the superego tells us, screams at us, whispers to us. So to some part it is "right" to believe the superego. This question gets at our not so conscious beliefs. So for instance you might discover that what's right about believing the superego is that the superego knows what is true and not true about us. Or you might unearth that you believe that if you don't believe the superego you will go "postal", or you will run amok, or you will make impossible messes, or people won't like you, or you will be exiled or abandoned, or you will go to hell. Use your journal this week and ask yourself this repeating question and see what you discover. 

This weeks questions: Draw a picture(s) of how the superego sees you. Tell me a way you are different from the way the superego sees you. Sense your arms and legs for five minutes, then explore your experience right now.

I want to talk about the emotional intensity that some of you are experiencing. As we expose the superego this will unearth its power, sometimes terrifying, overpowering aggression. And this can awaken a lot of fear and anxiety, even panic at times. This is normal, not a sign  that you are failing. If the feelings become too intense, know that you are not alone and they are welcome in the circle. If you feel you need to get up and walk around, take a breather please do. It is important to be able to regulate these feelings, walking around, breathing will help. I urge you to come back to the circle after you have settled. There is so much support in this growing field of presence, support and kindness. What ultimately allows the nervous system to settle and regulate (the fight, flight and freeze responses) is the holding and support of grounded open presence. When we have the support of each other to simply welcome where we are, we are stepping out the brain that is freaking out (the limbic system). So when you feel like you are is bordering on too much, take a step back, and breath. Return to the practice of sensing yourself. Feel your feet on the floor, your pelvis planted on your chair. Let your breath gradually slow down and drop into the belly. Don't try to repress what you are feeling, talk yourself out of what you are feeling, judge yourself, simply welcome and stay embodied and present. This is a practice and we get better and better at it over time. The flight response is to run away; the freeze response is to shut down, and fight response is to attack. None of these responses will help you find the your groundedness, your center, your own emerging capacity to hold your experience. The presence of your friends who are also practicing staying present, staying embodied is an enormous and mysterious support.

I want to say how touched I am by your courage, sincerity and caring. We have only met a few times and already there is a sense of a sacred circle emerging. It can hold all of us wherever we are. It does not require that we perform or change. Presence is an open welcome to all of reality including and especially our divine nature.

I hope to see you all next week. I do appreciate when you let me know if you are unable to attend.

Warmly, Alison

Words that Point.

Dear friends, it occurred to me that it might be useful to clarify some of the words that we use during our  sessions.

Superego. This holds the voices of your parents, caretakers, teachers, and the larger culture. The superego was formed during the years 3 to 5. Its about learning the rules, how you are supposed to be, what it means to be good, what it means to be bad. Sometimes the voices are violent, sometimes they are simply felt as disapproval, shunning, and quietly shaming. The superego is passed down from one generation to the next. As long as you live within the confines of the superego you most likely won't hear it or feel its aggression. But if you make a mistake, if you say something wrong, if you behave badly it will jump all over you. You will feel anxious, ashamed, your mind will go into a spin, you will shut down, and perhaps even dissociate. The superego's job is to keep you small, to stop you from taking risks, from growing, from expanding, from being real and vulnerable. So when you embark on spiritual work--  to discover that you are  divine presence, oneness, vastness, pristine openness, loving fierceness-- the superego will rise up to force you back into your familiar self. Often we feel  the presence of the superego is a voice behind us, peering over our shoulders. Sometimes we experience as a blanket of dullness pressing down, or steel skull cap pushing down compressing us. It is important to recognize that the superego is not you, it is the internalized voices of those who parented us. And ultimately it is aggressive. 

The ego. The superego sits on top of the ego. The ego is essentially what we could call the personality. It is how we know ourselves, it includes all the younger parts of us, that are completely connected to the superego. Much of the ego is unconscious. It is our identity, our character.  And it is a natural, normal and important part of our development. We could say that the development of the ego is a stage in the development of the soul. The soul of the infant is open, transparent, vulnerable, easily disturbed by all the instinctual needs of the baby, and not aware of itself. The  growing infant starts to develop a sense of self and other; it knows itself as a body; as not mother. Gradually through the first five or so years of life an ego is formed which allows the child to know itself and to know the world, the family. Toddler internalizes the parents deeply as a way to cope with the anxiety of being separate and alone. Later the superego forms so the young child knows right and wrong, good and bad, what gets punished, what gets rewarded. The ego is a remarkable accomplishment. By the time we emerge out of adolescence we can function more or less independently and can move out into the world. The ego continues to grow and mature. It learns skills, it learns about relationships, sex, intimacy. It is quite miraculous how we evolve from being an utterly helpless infant, to a distinct human ego. 

In many spiritual traditions the ego is seen as the enemy and the purpose of the spiritual journey is to kill the ego. But the ego reacts instinctually and defensively to threats of annihilation. Even if it disappears for a period  of time --caused by intense meditation, trauma, life threatening events, falling in love--it will reassert itself. It is more helpful to think of the ego as a necessary stage in the development of the soul. We need it to function. But there comes a point for some of us, often in midlife, when we feel a deep dissatisfaction with life, with our accomplishments, or lack of them, and some longing wakes up. The longing is for something more real, for more peace, for God, for true meaning. Sometimes we don't even know what we long for. And so the search begins. All of you have made this turn and begun this search. Otherwise you would not be reading this. We call this the spiritual journey. Very gradually the ego takes its place not as the master of the soul, but in the service of the evolving, living soul, in the service of the mystery of being. This is a gradual process and comes from love and understanding.

Soul. There are many definitions for the word soul. For our purposes it is the location of consciousness that is you. Most of us don't know the soul, we only know our ego. Through years of conditioning the soul has taken the shape of our personality, like a shell, and  we have forgotten our open, transparent, liquid, clear nature as presence. The longing, the itch, the call, is the intuition, that I am more than my ego. We have all had moments in our lives-- peak experiences, or moments of stillness, peace, love-- when everything stopped. All the inner agitation ceased and something opened up. The soul in those moments knows itself as this presence, this alive, living awakeness. In the Sufi tradition there are 99 faces of God. Presence may have the taste of love, the smoothness of peace, the blackness of mystery, the bubbles of joy, the tenderness of compassion, the strength of a mountain, the power of pristine discrimination. When the soul opens and is free from the layers of conditioning we can know grace in its many flavors. So the soul when it is free from superego and the shell of ego is that which perceives, feels, knows our nature as the beloved, as the presence, as the presence of God. We cannot make the soul open. By seeing and understanding what keeps us tight, defended, asleep, distracted  naturally opens us, relaxes us and we remember  who we really are. And then the shell returns and the longing returns. And so we come back to this moment, to our embodied experience, to what is alive in the now. And we learn again and again what occludes, and we relax, we find a yes to the opening and then grace shows her preciousness.This journey back and forth between ego and presence takes time, patience, courage and love. And friends who share this same love. 

Don't get hung up on the words. Let them point rather than pin anything down. This is about discovery.

Next Monday will be our last review/introductory session. Starting on October 8th we will close the group. If you wish to join us or know friends who might be interested this is the time to jump in.

I have posted this at: practicing-presence.blogspot.com

Love, Alison

playlist session 2

Gabriel's Oboe From the Mission. Ennio Morricone and Yo Yo Ma.

Pie Jesu. Sarah Brightman

Session 2. Embodiment

Dear Friends. It is surprising when we let ourselves drop into the body. Embodiment is quite mysterious. At first we may feel the physicality of the body: the aches and pains, the tensions, the sleepiness and dullness, the emotional pain. But as we settle in we discover that our experience can settle, slow down, open and begin to flow. We feel more in touch with ourselves, sometimes we feels more real. Perhaps we discover feelings that we didn't know or expect. Sometimes something subtle opens. Some you felt a sense of connection with your partners. Perhaps we felt less distracted, or we felt more compassion, or a simple relaxation. Our embodiment not only opens us to our own presence, a kind of simple hereness, or a kind of relaxed settling into some kind of inner support, but also our presence affects others and the field between us, the atmosphere between us. The practice of not engaging in the habitual social cues while listening to each other has a profound effect. How often in our lives do we have the undivided attention, simple embodied listening of friends? What a relief to the listener. I don't have to do anything. I don't have to come up with some brilliant advice. I can simply be with myself and simply listen. What a relief to the listener. To one who is exploring this means that this time is just for me! I don't have to take care of my friends. I don't have to perform. I don't have to censor. This exploration is for me. And the more embodied we are, the richer and deeper the exploration.

When we are embodied we have a chance to not only see the superego but also to push it away. No I don't want my parents, my teachers, voices in my exploration. I want to explore and understand my own experience. The superego does not want to be dislodged. It is simply doing its job, trying to get you back to the small contracted state of your familiar ego. The more we become embodied, especially in the belly, the more we will be connected to the ground of being, solid, welcoming, trustworthy. That will give us the courage to meet the superego with whatever it takes to dislodge it, push it away. Then there is space for our own experience, for our own unfolding precious presence.

Here are the exercises:  What does the word embodiment mean to you? Tell me a way you loose contact with your feeling of embodiment? Explore what it feels like to inhabit your body right now. How does being embodied affect your presence. 

I will post this on practicing-presence.blogspot.com. You can post questions and comments. 

A reminder: Spirit singing on Monday 24th. On October 1st we will focus on the embodied now.

Hope to see you soon. Alison

playlist

Session 1
Simon Rutter, Requiem, Lux Aeterna. Track 7
k.d. lang  Hallelujah from Hymns of the 49th Parallel.
Arvo Part. Spiegel im Spiegel for Cello and Piano.

Practicing Presence. Becoming Present and the Superego

Dear Friends. We have begun this journey from distraction/sleep into the present moment and into living presence! This is a journey, not a one shot deal. No big experience will do it. It is a journey, and a journey of a life time. 

As we open ourselves, make ourselves receptive to grace, we learn slowly how to be open to this present experience, to this present moment. It takes practice and it takes understanding. We learn to practice coming into the moment by settling into our bodies and we learn about the obstacles that take us away.

On Monday we focused on the superego, the voice in your head, that speaks to you as though you are a child.  It speaks the words, gestures, tones, unspoken vibes of your parents, of your ancestors and all the important people in your early life. For some of us this voice is terrifying; for other it is shaming; for others it is sweet and seductive. It makes us anxious, contract inward, it causes us to dissociate, to hide with shame. If it is sweet and praising it is patting you on the back for being good, for being perfect, for being quiet and small, for being right etc. It is praising you for being the way you are SUPPOSED to be, not how you are, not as you are now and a fully fledged adult. At its core the superego is cohersive and aggressive. It saps you of your strength, your confidence, your desire to grow. 

The superego is not about growing, about taking risks, about being open and vulnerable. It is all about the status quo, whether the status quo is miserable, if the status quo is comfy, or if the status quo is distracted. 

You have all been drawn into the circle, because there is an itch inside, a longing, a dissatisfaction. It may quiet or it may be blazing, it may flicker and then disappear or it may simply burn on and on, despite all your best efforts to extinguish it. This itch, this longing is the flame of your divine nature. It has been there from the beginning, and it cannot die. You can ignore it, try to drown it out, but after awhile, the restlessness, the seeking for something more will bubble up again. And we try so many ways to get rid of it, try to fix it, try to find the answer, the  solution that will quench the thirst, or soothe itch. Whether it is finding the right teacher, the right church, the right path, until finally some day we surrender and turn towards this itch, this desire for more. We begin to let it flicker, we let it burn even though it is uncomfortable, and even though we have no idea what to do or where it will take us. 

And this is when the superego will try to divert you. It will try to convince you that, the flame is not real and anyway you are a fraud, you are a failure, you are incapable, you are not welcome in the circle, you are too lazy, too stupid, too undisciplined, not spiritual enough. Or maybe it will bolster you up telling you know it all already, you don't need these boring people, these simplistic teachings on the superego.  The superego will try to get you subtly or full blast. If you turn to the truth of who you really are -- a living soul whose nature is living, conscious presence-- then the superego will show up sooner or later. This is why Joe and I feel it is so important to help you see and understand this obstacle right from the beginning. And we need to keep seeing and learning how to deal with it. This week keep notes about your superego. When does it show up. What does it say. Does it say the same thing over and over. And what happens to your capacity to be present. You may be shocked to discover how much of the time it is operating. 

One of the ways we begin to deal with the superego is to become more and more embodied. The body can only live in the present. The superego arises out of your history and is not about the now, no matter how compelling it seems to be. We began our session with a meditation focusing on sensing your arms and legs. I encourage you to play with this. FInd a quiet place and circulate your sensing starting with your right foot, right leg, pelvis, up your right arm to your shoulder, across your shoulder and neck and down the left side. If you get distracted simply come back to sensing. Do not judge yourself. Notice how the superego may evaluate your experience. What on earth does the superego know about meditation practice!!! Take a few minutes at the beginning of the day or during some break in your day. Remember there is no such thing as a bad meditation. No such thing!

Next time we will continue with more exploration of embodiment. 

A brief reminder about logistics. We will meet every Monday except the 4th Monday of the month (an evening of spirit singing). We will break for the holidays mid December. We will begin each session promptly at 7.30pm. If you arrive late please come into the Sanctuary quietly. Donations to the church are most welcome. We will leave a donation basket on the altar. Please remember your commitment to confidentiality. 

I will be posting my emails in my blog: http://practicing-presence.blogspot.com/   You can find an archive of last year's emails. You can also post your comments and questions. I will respond!

I hope you are enjoying this perfect weather. What a way to begin this fall season.

 Blessings to you all, Alison

--
Alison Hine, LMSW
734-668-0475
Psychotherapy and Spiritual Guidance

Mary Oliver

The Summer Day   Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean-- the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down, who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.   I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?     ~ Mary Oliver ~   (New and Selected Poems, Volume I)

Rumi

The Guest House This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they're a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.   ~ Rumi ~  

Presence in times of turmoil: Radical Hope

It seems that we are living in times when nothing settles down. The stock market goes up and down; the political discourse goes from bad to worse; Arab spring turns in Syria into massacres; banks fail and make more money; the rich get richer; money buys democracy; friends get sick and die; relationships fail; jobs disappear; for many religions can no longer hold. How do we live in the midst of such turmoil; how do we find hope when it seems like the planet is dying.

Presence is like the eye at the center of the storm, a quiet stillness that mysteriously nourishes and offers hope in the face of fear, despair and helplessness. This is not the kind of hope that clings to things working out. Or the hope that comes from naive fantasy. Rather it is a radical hope that knows that presence is afoot in our lives, in our communities, nations even when we don't know it and we don't believe hope is possible. Presence cannot be destroyed. It is the "isness" of existence, the "beingness" of all of this life, this reality. It is the wild irrational that always says "yes". Always more, even in the face of defeat. It is patient, undying, faithful, goodness. This is radical hope.

By practicing presence we begin to align ourselves with the deeper, undying truths of existence; with unreasonable hope, unreasonable love, unreasonable goodness. In times of great fear, great despair we are all called, those of us who are fortunate enough to be open, to practice presence, to re-enter the life stream of the living now. This act of practicing is an alignment with radical hope.

Playlist

Last night's music: Deva Premal. incantation K.D Lang. Hallelujah Jan Garbarek. Officium

Movies

I recommend the movie The Way with Martin Sheen. This is the story of a grieving father walking a famous pilgrimage in Spain. On a lighter, more silly note, I enjoyed tge trip, about two English actors taking a foodie trip through tge glorious countryside of northern England. One of the greatest spiritual movies ever is The Matrix. I have seen it at least four times. In order to begin to understand this movie you have to watch it more than once. It helps to know the plot. It appears to be a sci movie, but it is really about the nature of the human mind and condition.

practice circle

Summer is a time to loose contact with our practice, especially on vacation. Do not loose heart. We all fall off the path, but sooner or later we get back on. Ever wonder what it is that takes us back to practice. Hope to see you at our weekly meditations on Monday evenings.

summer reading

I have just finished reading The Dark Night of the Soul: A psychiatrist explores the connection between darkness and spiritual growth.

I highly recommend this book. Don't let the Christian emphasis put you off. He is addressing an inevitable part of the spiritual journey. In my case this was a very long period of years with short, far too short, periods of grace and illumination. This darkness opened into an abiding grace a number of years ago. Oh sure I still deal with issues but it is all with so much ease, and the opening is only a breath away or a moment of self remembering. And the journey is not over, maybe it is never over, but I have been met by presence, by God. It would have helped me enormously to read this book. It would have given me hope when I had lost it, or so it seemed. He uses the poetry of St John of the Cross and St Teresa  of Avila. Easy read, contemporary. And he makes a clear distinction between depression and the dark night, and how they can overlap. I would also a distinction between clinical anxiety ( nervous system), and ego fear of losing control of the familiar.

Let me know what you think.

May Monday Night Meditation

Dear friends, it was lovely to see so many of you tonight. We sat for about 30 mins. I am curious to know how it was for you. Questions are welcome. As I said I will be away next week so we are canceling  the meditation on Monday May14th. We will resume the following week. There will be no meditation on Memorial Day. Warmly, Alison

May Practice Circle

Any reflections, questions?

Spirit Singing

Dear Friends, we held our third evening of spirit singing with Kath and Lori. Our circle is getting larger and the group is finding its voice!

I am so surprised how my voice now wants "to go places and sing into places" and my "job" is to simply allow, sense and listen and let go. Letting spirit sing is a kind of surrender.  In our first session my throat tightened and the superego jumped in everywhere. Phew it was tough, challenging and vulnerable. But after the three times I am sensing a trust and confidence that it is OK to let go and see what happens.

Sometimes it felt like a kind of group prayer as we moved from chanting into the silence and back into chanting.

I am curious how this was for you.

The Growing Edge

Dear Friends, During our last session we focused on the thread(s) that have emerged over the months that we have been meeting. What have discovered, learned, struggled with, delighted in over the many sessions? It is useful to keep that contemplation alive. It is a way to integrate the journey into consciousness.

This opened into an exploration: what is our growing edge? What is exciting to us, what is the challenge that we need to be open to. What is growing, bubbling up. Is it time to pay more attention to the supergo; is about sensing the body and breath more;  is it about how I bring my presence into my life; it is about creating the time and space to meditate; is it time to slow down... This journey is like a thread unfolding itself in and as our life. If we pay attention we will notice how miraculous this thread truly is.

We ended the evening with greeting each other face to face, presence to presence. It was lovely!

It has been an honor for me to be with you and to witness the unfolding of each of you and to feel the grace that has grown and matured in our circle. We will begin these sessions again at the end of August. Joe and I will keep you posted about details.

In the meantime we have an evening of spirit singing with Kath and Laurie next Monday. I encourage you to come. It is a way to practice presence, to sing... and to have fun too!

Starting in May we will be meeting on Monday nights for meditation. I will guide you through sensing your arms and legs and then we will meditate in silence together. We will begin at 7.30pm and end at 8.00pm. If you arrive a few minutes please join us.

Sending you all my love, Alison

Book that has me on fire!

Hi,
Some you wanted to know the book I was reading yesterday.

The Prophetic Imagination, by Walter Brueggemann.

According to Joe, Walter Brueggemann is the greatest living interpreter of the Old Testament. This book is especially for all you who care deeply about the world and the crisis we are all in. It speaks to the numbing of Empire on its people. That includes you and me. This book is on fire. The language is scholarly, perhaps dense, but the truth of ancient times -- Moses, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Jesus-- and these modern times, is  beautifully articulated by this prophetic voice.

Whenever we practice presence we are stepping out of the ordinary conditioned reality, the empire of ego, the empire of the culture, the empire of consumerism. When we are free from the numbing, from denial, even for just a few moments, we are participating in prophetic imagination.

Summer Practice Circle

Dear Friends, This is a space for you to ask questions, to post your own reflections about the practice of presence. Perhaps you find quotes, poems, writings, books that you have found helpful on your journey. Feel free to post what you find along the way.

I will try to respond from time to time with my own reflections over the summer.

This is a way to stay in touch with each other and the circle of presence that we have created over the months. Remember this is a sacred space. This is not a place to give advice but rather a place of listening, sensing and sharing your own experience. As with any sacred space it thrives in openness, vulnerability, sincerity. Superego be gone!

This is another experiment. Lets see if this kind of circle can support our journeys in presence more and more. Your feedback is always welome. Warmly, Alison

Surrender

 As we approach our last teaching session this coming Monday I would like to ask you to make donation to the church if you have not already done so. None of this would be possible without the support of Joe and this church. I will put the donation basket on altar. You can give cash or a check made out to ECI. Thank you for your generosity.

This last week we looked at the issue of surrender-- allowing, relaxing into, accepting, yielding.  On this journey we are discovering over and over that if we turn towards, if we allow our experience, surrender into it, there is a relaxing, and the possibility of an opening into presence and grace. This runs counter to our usual ego orientation which is to resist especially suffering or unfamiliar newness.  In the face of suffering we tighten, we numb, we dissociate, we push away, we go to sleep. In other words we resist. When there is no resistance surrender is natural and easy. In fact ego cannot surrender. Ego is essentially complex tension patterns. So trying to surrender only adds another layer tension, the tension of trying. So what to do.

What need to explore, meet and understand is our resistance. This is not easy. Much of our resistance may be unconscious. But if we turn towards the inevitability of resistance, if we meet it, hold it gently, it will begin to relax and open. This takes time. But if realize that resistance is an attempt to avoid, push away, deny suffering, perhaps you can see that becoming curious, kind about our resistance will allow to rest a bit. Maybe the resistance experiences your presence, your curiosity as a kind of holding, a kind of care. Then maybe a little trust can arrive.  Perhaps the resistance is not needed so much, maybe it's safe to open into what the resistance is trying to protect. (exercise: tell me a way you resist). We spend so much energy resisting out of habit, out of lack of support and understanding. It's exhausting.

Surrender arises when the obstacles, the resistances start to dissolve. It is a quality of presence. It seems to arise out of the ground of holding and support that we explored a few weeks ago. It has has a yielding, melting, ease to it. It seems to be inviting in a warm way, inviting us into more relaxing and more letting go.  The support of the ground provides the ballast, the trust into  surrendering into ever deeper relaxing. Not by trying to relax but by the natural effect of presence on our souls and bodies. In a way surrender is like a simple 'yes' in the heart.

As the weeks have passed we are noticing how the field of presence is growing. Sometimes it is warm and tender. Sometimes the presence is more robust and alive. This last time I was aware of the sweetness, appreciation in the air. This is what happens when a group of people come together  week after week to practice presence together. As the openness, realness grows amongst us, as we feel safer to expose the truth of what is arising now, this sincerity and courage opens up the field of presence in and amongst us. We feel held, we feel safer we feel more open, and that invites grace to be among us. It is so precious.