Archive for the ‘nature as mirror’ Category
Tuesday, March 16th, 2010
In the fall my husband Jon and I flew our Cessna 182 from Tucson to Taos to visit friends who have a wonderful mountain cabin. On the way, we saw fall leaves coming to their peak, almost as quickly as time lapse photography on the Discovery Channel. By the end of the long weekend when we returned, spots of gold like this one had spread, and whole swatches of forest were brilliant gold and orange. Superimposed on it all, I would see a moving shadow of our little plane, projected onto the screen of nature.
Plato saw reality in a way similar to this, as I recall–shadows projected on the back of a cave, like a camera obscura. Is everything we are so attached to a moving set of illusions?
Part of the Flying Lessons process I teach is the notion of seeing that we can move our vantage point around, seeing ourselves and our lives from above when that is helpful, defying the gravity of events on the ground level.
Another flying lesson is about opening our hearts to the beauty and wonder of nature, and to the beauty and wonder of our inner words as well. After all, we are part of the creation, and when we see that we are full of gratitude and a sense of connection to the whole web of life. The stories that fill the “middle world” which we usually inhabit are like this shadow of a small vehicle moving across the canvass of nature.
The key here is that we can observe all this. We are the first species that is conscious of ourselves. We have choices no part of creation has had before. What will we do with this awareness? Where will we travel on our journeys? What will our relationship be to the planet? What will our exclamations be as we observe our interaction with the planet; will they be utterances of wonder or cynicism? Small views or large? How curious are we to see what the extent is of our powers? How will we use them?
Or is the plane shadow just a “plain shadow,” just an illusion, just a passing image that no one saw anyhow?
What do you think? If, like me, you are a “philoser,” as I used to call myself when I was a child, and you too are sipping from a pot of tea, drop in and share your observations.
Tags: afternoon tea, beauty, Flying, Flying metaphor, inner landscape, musings, non-attachment, perception, Photography, relationship, Self, The Beauty Way
Posted in aviation, conscious evolution, consciousness, Flying, Gaia, Guided imagery, Imagination, inner landscape, nature as mirror, Photography, returning to essence, seeing oneself, shifting paradigms, The Beauty Path | No Comments »
Friday, March 5th, 2010
Sand Spirit Insight card #21
I love this card. Sometimes I see a parental figure whose head is the peachy-apricot color, just radiating love on to the smaller one being held. Other times I see the higher Self holding the smaller self, and the smaller self feeling so good, so protected, so seen and so loved. Today it’s all of that: the soul within me holding me, loving me and me remembering that soul IS me, and so the two become one. Ahhh, it feels so good.
Sometimes it isn’t that we don’t think we are loved or protected. Maybe we believe in God loving us, or angels or guides who protect and care about us. But belief is in our heads. What is it that allows us to actually experience love? To receive it into every cell of our being?
What are your experiences of being able to open up in this way? Was it a result of meditation? A relationship? A teacher’s inspiration? Or was it mystery and grace?
For me, it has been all of them. And since I am a seeker of love, as I’ll bet you are, I collect these experiences. After enough of them collect within me, a tipping point is reached, and suddenly I no longer believe. I experience. And real life begins again.
Tags: inner peace, love, new life, Photography, relationship, Sand Spirit Insight Cards, Self
Posted in Guided imagery, loving ourselves, nature as mirror, Photography, returning to essence | No Comments »
Friday, March 5th, 2010
Is it a piece of crumpled paper? a well-worn piece of leather? Or an aerial photo of a river system?
One of the things we can see from the air is the similarity between the surface of the earth and the surface of some of the smaller things we find on earth. Did you know, for instance, that the mathematical relationship between rivers and their tributaries is the same as the mathematical relationship between veins and arteries of the human circulatory system?
The airplane, as St. Exupery pointed out, “revealed the face of the earth.” And then of course space flight revealed the body of Gaia. So now we can see what no other generation has ever seen, except in their mind’s eye.
So, what do we want to do with what we can now see? How do these visions of the connections between your body and Mother Earth’s body affect you? What are you inspired to remember or be or do?
Tags: consciousness, earth, Flying, Gaia, perception, Photography, seeing
Posted in consciousness, Flying, Gaia, nature as mirror, Photography | No Comments »
Sunday, February 28th, 2010
I walk out into the desert’s winter, watching for signs.
The blonde brittle grasses part, giving me a glimpse of apple green beneath.
The hard ground softens for ants wakening to build spring mounds.
Black broken trees play dead, but tell me the sap is rising like warm honey in their limbs.
The mountains’ sprinkling of sugar pours down into liquid in the washes.
Wildflowers are plotting from deep within their seeds, imagining their riot.
And I thrill to the feel of my heart widening into the sweet flow of breath within.
The land is remembering me into new life.
Tags: inner landscape, living today, musings, new life, perception, Photography, poetry, spring, The Beauty Way, winter
Posted in centering techniques, conscious evolution, death and new life, Guided imagery, inner landscape, meditation, nature as mirror, new life, Photography, poem, returning to essence, self-healing, spring, The Beauty Path, winter | No Comments »
Thursday, February 25th, 2010
What if your true voice–the one that represents your deepest truth and your most spectacular gifts–sounded like this flower looks?
I think it does. The question is, how do we remember how to bring out that true voice and give it to the world?
After all, if we don’t, our deepest message–which is what Angeles Arrien calls our personal medicine–could be lost to the world forever.
I just finished faciliating a luncheon seminar with an intimate group of 8 women seated around a table at one of Tucson’s loveliest resorts. This Feast for the Feminine Soul session was titled “Nourishing Your Authentic Voice.” So we discussed all the aspects of what the song is we want to sing, what stops us from singing it, and what might happen to us and to the world if we belted it out with abandon.
After all, we mused, how do birds know their songs? Well, it sure as hell isn’t because they think about it, try to figure it out, consider how it will affect other birds, or decide what they have to sing isn’t worthwhile. Their song is simply part of them, inseparable from their being– as the vibrant color of the flower in the photograph is inseparable from its petals.
We thought about the fears of singing out, and how they are related to being rejected or oppressed or made foolish or feeling unworthy, and decided that it’s true that these fears are part of being human. But as women leaders, we also know that we are, as the Dalai Lama pointed out recently, the ones who will save the world. And so the time’s up for those old fears. We long to move past them, to trust our voices. After all our lyrics are all about justice and love and compassion and all those other good things we want for ourselves and for the world.
We’re going to sing in the shower, in the grocery store, in our offices and in our bedrooms and board rooms. We want to belt out messages of truth and beauty and clarity, and we have faith that these songs will reverberate to places we cannot even imagine.
And you? What do you long to sing? What messages do you hope to contribute to the world? And if you spoke them with the deepest, truest voice within you, without false pride or false fear or apology, what might be the results? Could it be that you might change your loved ones in positive ways? Might you inspire others? Might you feel fulfilled and relieved from the freedom of being your real self?
Sing out and let us hear your voice.
Tags: authentic voice, beauty, Essence, Manifesting, new life, Photography, Self, speaking truth, women leaders
Posted in conscious evolution, divine feminine, Guided imagery, nature as mirror, Photography, returning to essence, self-healing, women's empowerment | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010
As a photographer, I stalk light, but I also stalk color, form and everything that to me represents beauty. Sometimes that means looking past something that is at first glance ugly or ordinary to find a new element I hadn’t see before. That’s the reward: seeing something I hadn’t seen before.
California is host to so many interesting plants, and many of them seem, to a desert rat like me, downright tropical. Like this banana tree. I thought the trunk was a canvas full of a hundred abstract paintings. Here I’ve shared just one of them. I didn’t make it; I just documented it. Still, it was a discovery. I found something I hadn’t seen before. Something beautiful.
An easy version of a medicine walk is to just go out and stalk beauty. Go for a walk and look for something you haven’t noticed before that offers some kind of suprising beauty. Bring it back with you–in the form of a photograph or a remnant of nature, or perhaps just a mental image or a feeling inside.
Beauty is an antidote for all that is troubling today, and so it is medicine for the soul. There is even a life path that the Navajos call the Beauty Way. Walking with beauty before you, behind you, beneath you, above you, inside you. What a way to live!
How do you stalk beauty in your world? And how do you make sure you bring iit with you on your journey? Send your comments!
Tags: beauty, inner landscape, Navajo tradition, perception, Photography, Self, spiritual practice, spiritual tradition, The Beauty Way
Posted in Imagination, inner landscape, nature as mirror, Photography, self-healing, spiritual practices, The Beauty Path | 2 Comments »
Saturday, February 20th, 2010
What gives you fuel for your life journey? If you’ve seen my website, blog page and gallery, you already know that one source of fuel for me is photography. I love immersing myself in the study of light and the continuous discovery of how light reveals the ever-changing forms in nature.
Looking at this agave plant makes me think of other things that fuel me: a refreshing rainstorm; the healing touch of softness against my skin; the depth of the mysteries hidden among the events of my life; and the beauty of the contrast of light and dark within myself and my life. These things along with sitting with husband and our dog and cat by a fire; riding our horses out into the vast desert garden outside our house; reading to my small grandchildren; watching my daughters bloom as powerful women; and a glass of good red wine. And the list goes on.
If you’re making your own mental list now, check to see if you visit this list often enough. I love making art, but I don’t do it often enough. Playing piano and singing have delighted me all my life–so why have I stopped? When we don’t drink from the well, we begin to wither and become dry and brittle. We begin to mistake duty for real life and to cling to a mythical future time when we’ll live, instead of plunging in right now.
What makes your eyes light up? What brings you alive? What stirs the god or goddess within? What makes your heart beat a little faster? These things fuel the life force inside–the creative power that causes us to truly feel and be alive. So what will you choose today as fuel–so that tomorrow you’ll spring out of bed feeling grateful for the journey?
Tags: Flying metaphor, food, grandchildren, inner landscape, perception, Photography, Self
Posted in inner landscape, nature as mirror, Photography, self-healing, spiritual practices, women's empowerment | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010
Sand Spirit Insight card #4
I’m continuing my experiment of asking a question about a personal issue of mine, and then thinking of a number between 1 and 36, since that’s how many Sand Spirit Insight cards there are in the set. Today I asked about my lingering laryngitis. What do I need to know or do to get completely well?
Two numbers came to mind: 31 and 4. Interesting, since 4 is the sum of 3 and 1—so 4 seems to be up with this issue. The section on numerology and the Sand Spirits in my own workbook lists these words for the number 4: Work, foundation, order, health, service, practicality, application, loyalty, struggle against limtis, steady growth, rigidity and repression. Some words having to do with the light side of me and some referring to the shadow.
The Sand Spirit image looks like a guardian angel to me, and always makes me feel I am surrounded by protection and support. That’s a comfort. So I ask this angelic advisor, what words apply to me now, and what can I do to improve my health and my immune system?
The Sand Spirit points out that there’s a whole back story here about me not wanting to slow down, fighting limitations, not listening to my inner voice, and suffering health issues as a result. But I’ve been working on this. So now what?
“Still more layers,” she answers. “Loyalty…to others or to yourself? You’re still making your way toward equality in this department. Be willing to slow even more. Be very practical. You want to serve, and that is great. But some of your own needs are still being repressed. Look for them in your body…”
“So, would you say this has to do with speaking up for myself, or feeling I have no voice to do that?” I ask.
“Remember the little one at the bottom of the image who is the younger, smaller you?” the Sand Spirit asks. “You need to be her guardian angel and prompt her to speak up for herself. She needs to feel equal to the aspects of yourself you consider more worthy, more together, more of an achiever. When you accept the shadow as equal to the light, all will be well.”
And so, once again, the Sand Spirit has more wisdom that I know how to live out. So I am off to give that a try.
What did you see in this Sand Spirit image? What message does the figure have for you today?
Tags: centering techniques, Essence, inner peace, living today, meditation, musings, Photography, Sand Spirit Insight Cards, Self, spiritual practice, transitions
Posted in centering techniques, coaching, divine feminine, Guided imagery, Imagination, meditation, nature as mirror, Photography, returning to essence, self-healing, spiritual practices, Uncategorized, women's empowerment | No Comments »
Saturday, February 13th, 2010
self portrait with grasses
I’m taking a wonderful tele-course from Craig Hamilton, who is teaching for Integral Enlightenment. Craig seems to be a highly evolved, gentle and thoughtful human who is giving his listeners wonderful exercises for shifting their lenses to a place beyond ego. Even though this kind of surrender isn’t something we can “do” or “accomplish,” it’s so lovely and true when we experience that place that I want to extend and expand my experience of living from that place.
Craig led us on a guided meditation back in time to the moment when the universe had just begun, as a tiny seed or point of energy he calls the evolutionary impulse. We felt the impulse within that seed to expand and create, and experienced the evolution of all things. We were each within that pinpoint, and thus were asked to experience ourselves as the evolutionary impulse, now in the form of a body/mind. Then, through that lens, he asked us to view whatever challenge we are facing in our lives and see how that challenge looks.
All I can really put into words is that next to that experience of being the evolutionary impulse, or being part of God, my challenges look pretty insignificant. My body felt a great relief, a relaxation, a surrender. Now I don’t hve to do it all by myself, I remembered. Now there is no self that has to try so hard.
And how did this feel, we were asked. Well, to me, surrender feels like being a blade of grass that is being gently blown by the wind. I bend, and am caressed.
And so, as my spiritual practice, I’m going to try to return to being that evolutionary impulse or that aspect of the Creator every day, which after all, is what every spiritual practice is about. If, once again, I can surrender to the intelligence of that Creative Force, I can be at ease, in grace, beyond ego–and connected to all that is.
What is your spiritual practice to move beyond ego, and how does it work for you? What does surrender mean to you and how do you experience it?
Tags: centering techniques, Craig Hamilton, ego, Essence, inner landscape, inner peace, Integral Enlightenment, meditation, perception, Photography, Self, spiritual practice, surrender
Posted in centering techniques, conscious evolution, Guided imagery, inner landscape, meditation, nature as mirror, Photography, returning to essence, self-healing, spiritual practices | 8 Comments »
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010
Often I pick a Sand Spirit Insight card at random, trusting that I know which one will tell me what I need to remember for the day.
This is an image I’ve always loved. I see a woman with a heart-shaped face, wearing flowing robes and bedecked with ceremonial scarves and decorations. Her body looks relaxed and she is walking forward gracefully, her right hand over her belly.
This woman is full of love and grace, and she is very earthy. She loves her body and loves and cares for herself in the best sense. She has a sense of humor and loves pleasure. All who come across her feel better just for being in her presence. I feel better just drawing the card with her image on it.
This Sand Spirit has come to remind me that we all–men or women–have this juicy, beautiful, fun and holy feminine energy within us. I think today my message is to bring her out and let her show, let her walk in the world. That ought to make today a magical day.
What do you see in this card? What does the form or figure that pops out for you have to say? And how do you respond?
Tags: centering techniques, Essence, Flying metaphor, inner peace, living today, musings, new life, perception, Photography, relationship, Sand Spirit Insight Cards, Self, sense of humor, spiritual practice
Posted in centering techniques, conscious evolution, divine feminine, Guided imagery, Imagination, nature as mirror, Photography, play, returning to essence, self-healing, spiritual practices, women's empowerment | No Comments »
In the fall my husband Jon and I flew our Cessna 182 from Tucson to Taos to visit friends who have a wonderful mountain cabin. On the way, we saw fall leaves coming to their peak, almost as quickly as time lapse photography on the Discovery Channel. By the end of the long weekend when we returned, spots of gold like this one had spread, and whole swatches of forest were brilliant gold and orange. Superimposed on it all, I would see a moving shadow of our little plane, projected onto the screen of nature.
