Kundalini Splendor

Becoming the Light Body (Wednesday, May 31)

Some call it the light body, some the divine human, and some (the ancient cabalists) Adam Kadmon.  Whatever it is, it is a process that is occurring now, here, right in the midst of world chaos, to many in various ways at various stages.  We are all works in progress, finding our way, helping one another on the path, moving through pain and sorrow into states of joy and ecstasy, always swinging back and forth, back and forth as our systems adjust to new energies and adapt to new frequencies.

Yesterday, I went to experience a totally unfamiliar process of light and sound, said to alleviate ailments and even cure many illnesses.  To do this, you enter a chamber where you are exposed to intense light from above and listen to music chosen especially for you.  The theory is that your own frequencies will be matched by their opposing ones, and thus you will be put into a state of balance.

I did not feel much during the "treatment."  In fact, I went to sleep.  I had come in rather groggy and still depleted from my previous day's bout with food poisoning.

I still felt rather draggy and drained of energy for a few hours afterwards, but then I suddenly felt normal once more.  This is good, I thought.

But this morning the surprise happened.  I was at the computer when I realized I was feeling nice energies here and there. On instinct, I lifted my arms face high and moved them in gentle micromovements back and forth.  The sweetness flowed.  I have had many "bliss outs" in my life, but this was unlike any other.  So soft, so gentle, so tender.  Indeed, it was like light playing everywhere I moved my hands.  Light infinitely subtle, inexpressibly loving, felt in and around the body.  I am grateful.

I think this is progression toward the light body.  Some years ago, I wrote this poem:

"The Jeweled Cloud Floats overhead,
waiting.
Meanwhile our cells
are turning to air,
finer and finer
arrangements of light."

Thank you, Gail Lynn, for this beautiful experience.  I thirst for more!

Love,
Dorothy

Celestial

"Never Trust a God Who Does Not Dance."
                                       Daniel Danilou

Indeed, first, I will dance.
Finally no longer earthbound,
I will swoop and swerve,
a creature untethered at last,
music unheard,
dipping and swaying,
energies flying,
total rapture.

And of course there will be
music: Schubert, Faure,
Bloch, Mahler,
the whole gang
at the ready,
just ask.

I will drink
the colors
of the gardens,
become the sacred
scents,
know what it is
to be pure olfactory
delight.
And it will be the right
odors,
frankincense and amber,
the source of all I have tasted
for so long.

And when I meet someone
I love,
we will simply float through
one another's bodies,
diaphanous clouds of
glory,
each becoming and fusing
with the other temporarily,
a new creation,
merged as one.

Amen.

Dorothy Walters
April 27, 2017

Surprised by Joy, Visited by Pain (Sunday, May 28–Monday, May 29)

A few years ago, a book appeared with the title "Surprised by Joy."  This would be a good description of what can happen, once the Kundalini experience is well integrated and balanced into the system.

Here is the surprise I experienced yesterday morning:

I was in my dressing room, getting ready for the day, when I happened to notice the vial of my favorite essential oil (Frankincense and Amber) on the counter.  I decided to take a few whiffs of it, for it has a delightful odor and also often gives me a sense of deep relaxation.  But as I inhaled while I moved the vial back and forth, I realized I was experiencing more than a lovely scent.  I was feeling sweet energies around my face and head, and indeed, I continued to experience such soft waves of bliss everywhere I moved my hands (in circles) around my body.  And so, I received  an unexpected "visit" from the Beloved, as always subtle, delicate, and sensuous.

Here is  a poem I wrote earlier, that seems relevant this experience:

A THOUSAND WAYS

The Beloved knows a thousand ways
to enter your body.

When you were young,
she sent you a lover of flesh who stood near
to awaken your nature.

Now God is your unseen paramour
arriving without notice
on unexpected occasions.

To discover her,
turn gently,
and follow your breath
to the center of your being.

(from "Some Kiss We Want: Poems Selected and New")

Dorothy Walters
May 28, 2017

And here is my very different experience this morning:

Each year on Memorial Day Boulder sponsors a foot race called "Bolder Boulder."  This race has grown each year and now includes thousands of participants, some from foreign countries.  It is an exciting event, with, first, wheel chair entrants leading the way, then the most able runners, then the regular runners, and finally, the walkers.  I am able to watch much of it just two blocks from my house, and love to go there and vibrate to the heavy drums beating in rhythm, and enjoying the music blaring from the loudspeakers.

This morning I woke to the sounds of the drums already echoing just down the street, so I hurried on down to claim my spot.  This time, there was an added attraction.  On my corner, a group of young people were doing what I assume was "break dancing," in a very athletic way.  Indeed, they were skilled acrobats, standing on their hands, doing back flips,  gyrating around on the floor with astonishing skill, all this to accompaniment of what I would simply call "rap music."  Usually, I don't care for this type of music, but somehow this was different.  I soon found myself moving a bit in time with the frequencies, and then I noticed that my lower chakras were opening, in a subtle and indeed truly pleasant way.

So now I had been "surprised by joy" in both the upper and lower chakras, and both were  blissful.

But next I had an even different somatic experience.  Suddenly, in mid afternoon, I experienced what seemed to be an attack of food poisoning.  My poor stomach was wracked with pain, and I had a miserable time for a few hours.  I tried to account for this source of this upset and concluded it must have come from the food I had eaten the day before.  Ultimately, the pain subsided, and I was left tired and (now) hungry.

I am always intrigued by how our states of consciousness can so easily shift, moving from the upper to the lower chakras,  from joy to pain.

Singers

Oh, let the heart be opened
and expanded to its full:
let it be loved and give love
in full measure,
not wondering about
the why of it all.

Let this town that I love
not be ruined
by wrong vibrations.

Let this world that I love
not be destroyed
by those whose hearts
are frozen.

Outside my window.
There is a bird
that sings.

It sings and sings,
no matter the weather,
the unstable barometer,
even in falling snow.

Let me be the same,
singing always,
and sometimes
dancing a turn or two
to my song.

Passing overhead
I see a gathering of angels,
moving together as a cloud.

When it is my turn to go,
may I join them,
this chorus of love,
even with my unsteady voice,
my uncertain ear,
filling the vastness above,
the radiance below.

Dorothy Walters
May 26, 2017

(picture from internet)

Whatever Else

Whatever else you do,
keep on climbing.
You know there is a mountain peak
up there, even if it is sometimes
covered in clouds,
even if the path 
is narrow
and often rutted,
or covered 
in rocks.

Don't sprawl on a log
and count your sorrows,
or the betrayals that still
haunt you.

Take out your favorite poems,
sing your own particular song,
the one that soothes you.
Think of your friends
who have given you courage
and sustenance along the way.

Send a little prayer
out to the universe.

They say everything
is perfect, just as it is.

Make it happen that way.

There is lots of love
to go around.

Dorothy Walters
April 21, 2017

These Ancient Saints

These ancient saints
had a special privilege:
in their caves or forest retreats
they could be nothing but bliss
all day and through the night.

Their bodies flowed
with unceasing rapture,
and essence of God
flavored
each breath,
each bite of food,
every step.

The rest of us stumble,
have to wake up,
pay bills,
watch the latest news
as our world
tumbles apart,
worry about the future,
if it will come.

Occasionally
we enter the
lost realm,
recapture for
a brief moment
our forgotten selves,
our passionate pleadings
and untellable joy.

But this is the way
it is supposed to be,
the choices we made,
the purpose of why we came.

Dorothy Walters
May 24, 2017

The Wedding Night

When Rumi died
he called it his "wedding night."

I also hope
that I will at last be joined
to that larger being
I have been struggling
to become
for so long.

Indeed, we have celebrated
together
many times over,
love pouring
from one to another
in a rite of sacramental union.

In that other place
I will look back
with curiosity
and compassion
on who I was before,
who I am now,
the connection
between them
and the revised self.

In the meantime,
I will prepare
my bridal clothes,
my inner joy
as I await
an unknown ceremony
of becoming,
and hear new music,
dance at last in a more abandoned way.

Dorothy Walters
May 24, 2017

Thinking Ahead

I have already begun to say goodbye
to the things
I have loved on this earth,
in my life.

Something has told me
I may not live forever
after all,
may not survive to see
the next ruler installed,
the next country
give way,
whether or not
the distant "others" come.

Mostly, I think
it will be my friends I shall miss,
and though many will arrive
to join me soon enough,
some having already gone ahead.

I am told there are gardens
filled with exquisite flowers
and trees over there,
colors you cannot imagine,
scents, sounds, abundance of love.

I am hoping I won't be asked
to solve the problems
I left hanging behind
when I departed,
won't have to remember
and try to erase
the memory of things
I did wrong,
how I misjudged some,
over rated others.

We will all be transfigured
in one way or another,
perhaps unrecognizable
balls of light,
flickering shadows
of fires in the distance,
awareness without form.

I trust there will be
plenty of Mozart and Beethoven
to go around,
that the vibrations we have tasted
here now and again,
will thrill through us
and we will become these alone.

Mostly I fear
the loss of all that has
been me
in this lifetime,
like a book
whose print
has faded,
Table of Contents gone.

I would like to visit,
from time to time,
the "person" I was,
the being that was crafted
out of my flesh and blood,
however temporary
on the scene.

In the meantime,
I am hoping
for a new assignment,
some way to participate
in what is going on
on my old planet,
my former home,
a place where radiance
and tender feelings
still survive.

Dorothy Walters
May 22, 2017

From: Unit CEO

To: My Body

Dear Friends and Employees,

This is a letter of thanks to each of you who have contributed to the success of this operation for long.  As you know we began as a startup many years ago, and all of you have contributed to the overall success of this effort.  It is true that we have had a few ups and downs over the years, but by working together we have resolved most of our issues and now work together as a (mostly) smoothly functioning unit, each one contributing to our overall success as a project.

I am grateful for the contribution of each area, including the cells, tissues, and bones as well as the many organs inside, each performing its function in a beneficial way.  And of course, I also wish to signal out the brain itself, where my office is located and which has afforded me much pleasure over the years.

It is true that some of the parts are getting a bit worn with time and sometimes we have had to incorporate new replacements into the main system.  I am thinking here of such things as supplements for teeth, hearing and eyes as well as walking aids.  I know that we have all also appreciated the addition of certain vitamins and herbs to make things work more efficiently overall.

I have particularly been happy with our ability to contact the subtle body (as an extension of the physical) for it has afforded much pleasure over time.  This is the part that I will carry with me in future, since it endures longer than the rest.

As many of you know, I am considering possible retirement from this configuration in a few years.  Many of my contemporaries have already left their positions and gone to live and work elsewhere.  Please be assured that in the meantime I will be behind you in all  that you do, and you will be given ample notice when the operation shuts down.  Newer models are coming off the line and I am sure they will serve the community well.

In the meantime, I will be seeking a new assignment elsewhere and only hope my colleagues there will be as highly functional as you have been.  I am sure that the overall chief of this operation will find an appropriate role for me in the next phase.

Love and gratitude to all,

Dorothy

The Spectacle

Yesterday
on the trail,
it was everywhere.

As if someone
had unleashed rampant beauty
into the world,
as though a treasure chest of jewels
had been promiscuously
sprinkled about.

Even in the trees,
their limbs sparkling
with––yes––diamonds,
that old cliche,
flaunted on every leaf.

Except that they were there,
undeniable,
Christmas ornaments
glinting and flashing
in May,
everyone saw them
and wondered
how such a thing
could be.

Dorothy Walters
May 21, 2017

If I had it to do over

I think if I had it to do over
I might just be a rose.

That renowned ancient flower
that poets love
to write about,
revered emblem of final mystery,
the one that serves
to send to others
from time to time
to show that they are loved
by what is beautiful.

In the meantime,
I would thrive
among the blossoms
in the carefully tended
gardens of the field,
of the mind,
swaying gently
in the wind,
smelling of God.

Dorothy Walters
May 20, 2017

Yesterday I had a new and exciting experience.  I first heard a presentation by Gail Lynn on a very new healing technology called Energy Genesis.  This method employs the frequencies of light and sound to awaken the body's own healing capacities to heal the entire nervous system (and thus the body).  In order to experience this technique you lie on a bed enclosed in a "box" while music and light are directed to you, these chosen by the device to match your personal frequency needs.  According to Gail, it has shown remarkable results to heal such things as Hashimoto's syndrome, Lyme's disease, the shaking of Parkinson's disease,  M.S. and others.  She herself was healed from chronic migraines, that she had experienced for years.

Here is a description of the process from the site called "Energy Genesis":

"What is Energy Genesis?
Energy Genesis™ (EG) is brand new and unique light and sound based treatment modality that is implemented via a 360 degree chamber.   It combines photo-stimulation, music and the vibratory sensory perception of music which takes into account optimal relaxation and autonomic balance. As a result, only certain types of music is used in the chamber.

As this technology begins to evolve, the focus is to create results that turn off the activity of the genes that cause disease and turn on the activity of the genes that fight disease.

This technology was created by Barry McNew, who was also involved in the creation of the Life Vessel technology (an earlier version of the same principle).  He has invented and patented the energy genesis  machine and technology for applying therapeutic frequency, vibration, light and sound to the human body in a resonant frequency.   Mr. McNew discovered a unique technique of using the body’s natural diagnostic output of the autonomic nervous system (ANS). This technique allowed him to balance the ANS while the individual is in the Energy Genesis™ chamber, which also supports the body to naturally de-tox and de-stress at the same time."

I plan to try it soon for, among other things, tinnitus, and will keep you posted.

After I attended the presentation, I was very tired and fell asleep while supposedly watching the T. V news.  Later, as I was preparing to lie down to sleep, I had a sudden surge of ecstatic feeling, and automatically raised my hands up a few inches away from my ears.  I then experienced one of the sweetest bliss outs in a very long time.  As I moved my hands out and away from my head, the bliss continued as ecstatic feeling.  I then moved my hands over my entire body (never touching) and felt exquisite sensations everywhere.

Why did this unexpected bliss session occur?   I think I picked up energies from the speaker (Gail Lynn) as well as the audience, which consisted of many highly evolved souls.  Bliss is indeed catching.

Gail operates a center for experiencing this healing technique in Westminster, Colorado, which is very near Denver.  You can look her up at www.lifecenter.us or e-mail her at gail@lifecenter.us or call her at 303-630-9218.  People from over the world come to have this treatment.  So far, I have found only one other center in the U. S. and that is in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Frequencies

The heart, like music,
is a matter of vibration.

Let your heart open,
even as you gaze on
that honeysuckle tree
outside your window
with its succulent drops
hanging,
the lone oak standing guard
over the field of green
majestic, invulnerable,
the cloud getting ready
to send you a message.

Let your heart
pulse and throb,
as the earth itself
vibrates to its
own rhythms,
you are part of it
and it of you.

Dorothy Walters
May 11, 2011

Dear Friends,

If you long for a deeper connection with the Divine, I will personally guide you into the mystical practices that can open your direct personal connection to divine love.

On Saturday, May 20, I will present a free online workshop: How to Connect Directly With the Divine: Mystical Principles & Practices to Access the Love, Wisdom and Sacred Energies of the Universe.

Register now for free here: https://shiftnetwork.isrefer.com/go/cdAH/andrew/

I understand the process for entering into a mature, rigorous and exhilarating relationship with the Divine — and evolving into a higher state of divine humanity as a result.
During this compelling hour, I will share with you:

What it takes to connect deeply with the Divine

How the process can release your authentic self into the world

How to have unconditional love permeate all of your relationships

Your ability to discover unimaginable bliss within your own heart

How to awaken all of your spiritual centers and unlock your deeper potentials

If you feel called to free yourself from self-limitations so you can open to the greater expression of your soul, you’ll receive great value from this sacred hour!

You can register here: https://shiftnetwork.isrefer.com/go/cdAH/andrew/

Andrew

P.S. During How to Connect Directly With the Divine, I will help you discover key practices and insights to connect to the ecstatic, loving energies that created the universe.

Register now for free here: https://shiftnetwork.isrefer.com/go/cdAH/andrew/


A downloadable recording will be provided later to all who register, whether or not you listen to the scheduled event.

Wild Animals

What they have
is an aliveness
that escapes us.

Every moment a potential
catastrophe,
each step
a possible betrayal.

Always they are poised,
ready to leap
or spring away
from a hovering terror
into a future
of rest, silence
in the den.

How the world must
appear to them,
with its glorious array
of sounds and smells
rain arriving majestically through the trees,
shimmering snowfalls.

But they hardly have time
to notice,
so busy are they
just staying alive.

We too
have our distractions,
obstacles that keep
us from our goal,
our secret destination
which is our home.


Dorothy Walters
May 17, 2017

A Mandala

Think of it
as a mandala,
with a sun in
its center.

There are a thousand portals,
all leading the way in.

Choose the opening
that suits you best,
whatever you name it.

Even a church can be
an entry.

Or study the paths,
ways of transforming
dross to gold,
cauldrons of change.

If you will let the Beloved
kiss you,
she will take you there
quickest of all.

Dorothy Walters
April 21, 2017

Paradox

They gave me a name
I did not understand.

It was that of a great figure,
someone written about in books,
known to history.
He was the one
who carried the dharma
to other countries,
made them his.

Sometimes I wonder
if I could be he,
shrunken and circumscribed,
struggling to remember,
to fulfill.

What if I were that one,
come back again,
trying to recall?
What would I do then?

Dorothy Walters
April 21, 2017

Nada Brahma

When we say the objects of our world are "Empty," imagine momentary nodes, evanescent, forming and then dissolving back into a web of vibration.

Pearls on a mother-shawl of sound.

The next time you interact with matter - say, unloading the dishwasher in a huff - remember that these "things" are holy, are not there, are you.

Ann Rick

Sally Kempton's Awakened Heart News

May 2017

Join Sally for the new teleclass, Living the Awakened Life:
The Bhagavad Gita and the Path of Action, Part 2
Six Consecutive Wednesday Evenings
June 7-July 12, 2017, 5-7pm PDT/8-10pm EDT
Register here.

Sally is one of the experts being interviewed about working with emotions on the Mending the Self Summit—Cultivating Joy and Resilience through the Gifts Within Grief and Loss. Register here.
The interview will be up for 72 hours, starting May 11.

Dear Ones,

SallySpiritual practice is always an experiment. All the great spiritual technologies—direct self-inquiry, mantra, every form of breath meditation, asana, deity visualization, subtle body processes and others—came out of the experiments of sages. People sat, perhaps starting out feeling into body and breath, and followed the inner suggestions that begin to arise when you truly turn inside with intention. For some, these experiments created deep shifts in awareness. Then, they passed on their methods—and found that when applied with serious intention and even in play, these practices opened people to their own essence.

Anyone who practices meditation for a few years will naturally find themselves experimenting with different methods. Even when we begin with clear instructions from a teacher, the inner experience of mediation will often unfold in its own way. My Guru used to say that meditation itself teaches us meditation. I’ve found this to be true…and then we need the discernment to recognize which approach to practice is right for you at a particular time.

As my own practice has deepened, I’ve discovered that my most natural approach combines two factors. One is the direct tuning into Awareness itself, the knowing presence that witnesses and holds experience. The second is devotional—maybe a mantra practice, or chanting invocations, or contemplating the felt sense of a deity form, or simply breathing in love. The Awareness practice align my consciousness with its own essence. The devotional practice opens up the energy of the heart. For me, a truly satisfying meditation aligns and integrates these two aspects of the self: awareness with love, spacious presence with a melting heart.

It’s that integration that ultimately cooks and awakens us to the truth of the Self. An awakened heart knows that its real self is unlimited, pure consciousness. Yet it meets the world with open, softness—even vulnerability—willing to meet both the beauty and the pain of life.

Summer Retreats

Awakening the heart is the theme of all our retreats this summer. So, please scroll down and see which of our offerings call to you over the next few months!

We begin with a teleclass series, June 7th-July 12th. It's Part II of the Bhagavad Gita teleclass, Living the Awakened Life, and you can register for that here. (Scroll down to see the full description of the course.)

Then, in July and August, we travel from the new 1440 Retreat Center in the Santa Cruz mountains to One Yoga in Vancouver to Kripalu in Massachusetts, to London and our retreat in Italy.

In-person Events

Friday-Sunday, July 14th-16th
Love, Spirit and You: Transforming Difficult Emotions

1440 Multiversity
800 Bethany Drive
Scott’s Valley, CA

This workshop dives into the transformative emotional methodology of both tantric and bhakti yoga traditions. Along with teachings, we’ll work with cutting edge energy practices for entering emotional states, finding their energetic core, and using it both for self-healing (including healing your emotional wounds) and as a path to deeper levels of spirit and soul. The workship is designed to help each of us ride even emotional upheaval into freedom. For me and so many people, this approach has been central in the on-going work of awakening and transformation that we are all engaged in!

1440 is one of the most exciting venues in the country now—a brand new conference center in the redwoods of central California—elegant, sustainably built, and sparkling with intention. You can check out Sally's workshop and get details about 1440 here.

Friday-Sunday, July 28th-30th
God as Yogi, God as Love, God as Guru: A Weekend of Practice with the Sacred Masculine

One Yoga
201-150 W Hastings St
Vancoucer, BC V6B1G8 Canada

We expect this weekend will be an amazing explosion of sacred energy, as we invoke and internalize the forms of the great masculine deities Shiva, Krishna, Rama, and Ganesha. Using the myths as our ground, we’ll enter into our own experience of what the masculine essence feels like in the inner world. Stepping beyond the fundamentalist conceptions about deity, we’ll explore how tuning into a sacred archetype can transform our own sense of inner structure, love, and relationship both with our own psyche and the masculine divinity in others.

Suzanne Faith Slocum-Gori will be teaching gentle asana in each class, and we hope to have some chanting as well!

Register online here.

Sunday-Friday, August 6th-11th
Freedom, Ecstasy and Awakening: A Five-Day Immersion in the Heart of the Spiritual Journey

Kripalu Center
57 Interlaken Road
Stockbridge, MA 01262

A full, five-day immersion in tantric meditation practice, including deep inward focus, and the methods for turning the sensory experience of life into paths to awakening. The class is based on the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra, and makes use of Sally’s transformative insights into meditation practice, consciousness, and the connection between these ancient practices, neuro-science, and your unfolding inner journey. Any one of these practices can lead to profound breakthrough, especially when we practice with the deep wisdom of the tradition behind us. Together, they enter us like depth charges, and open doorways into our own Being that can transform everything about our practice.

Elizabeth Rossa will be here to work with us in asana. You’ll be able to enjoy Kripalu’s campus, walks, spa offerings, and delicious food.

The class fulfills the pre-requisite for Sally’s upcoming teacher training.

It will be followed by a weekend workshop, also at Kripalu...

Friday-Sunday, August 11th-13th
Awakening Shakti: Meditation, Kundalini, and the Energy of the Heart

This is a practical workshop on engaging your own inner energy through mantra, visualization and deity practice. Sally will lead you through cutting edge practices for discovering and understanding your own inner spiritual energy, kundalini Shakti, and its connection with the sacred feminine. We’ll work with methods for becoming intimate with our own inner energies at different levels. We’ll deepen our meditation together, and work with the philosophical wisdom that helps nurture the expansion of your conscious energy field. And we’ll explore the three core deity energies that come into play as our meditative energy expands. This is a workshop for people who want to explore the sacred feminine in themselves through meditation, mantra, visualizations and chakra work.

To register for either event, click here.

Friday-Sunday, September 1st-3rd and Tuesday-Saturday, September 5th-9th
Coming Home to the Self

Tri Yoga London
57 Jamestown Road
London, NW1 7db

Friday, September 1st, 7-9pm: Who Are You? Discovering your Enlightened Self
Saturday, September 2nd, 2-5pm: Freedom, Ecstasy and Awakening through Tantric Meditation
Sunday, September 3rd, 2-5pm: Intimacy with the Divine: A Contemporary Approach to the Yoga of Love

Tuesday, Saturday, September 5th-9th
Five-Day European Meditation Teachers’ Training—For Yogis and Others
The Art and Practice of Teaching Meditation: A Training for Yoga Teachers and Others

Teaching meditation is much more than giving instruction. It's a profound dialogue between your own natural meditative awareness, and the hearts of your students. A skilled meditation teacher offers a genuine transmission of her own state, and actually helps a student open to her own meditative current. Along with that, a true teacher can guide the student as to which type of meditation practice is appropriate at different times and for different individuals.

Some topics will include:

Why meditation is an essential practice and what meditation does and does not do for you
Styles of meditation and the strengths and weakness of each
How to transmit meditative awareness
Three approaches to Posture
The role of pranayama and the natural breath
The truth about mantra meditation
Mindfulness practice: The art of focus
What is true tantric meditation, and what makes your teaching tantric
Beyond Mindfulness and Mantra: How to Relax into pure awareness
Meditation and Self-Inquiry
Your brain on meditation: the latest findings of neuro-science
Working with fear, blockages, dryness, and other obstructions
Balanced practice
How to help your students harvest the effects of meditation
Commonly asked questions and how to work with them
How your own meditation practice teaches you how to teach meditation
Pre-requisite: At least one year of regular meditation practice

Register here for either event.

Thursday-Tuesday, September 14th-19th
European Retreat in Sicily
Il Picciolo Etna Golf Resort and Spa
Castiglione di Sicilia, Italy

Surfing Reality: The Transformative Journey and the Yoga of Divine Energy: A Living Exploration

Andrea Boni will be joining Sally to offer yoga, translation, and other practices in this retreat.

The Spanda Karikas, (Stanzas on Vibration) is a powerful tantric text that offer a blue print for living with the highest wisdom. Its pithy verses encode both a vision and a practice for recognizing how the reality works, then moving with skill and grace through the challenges of our lives. As Sally shows us how to apply these teachings to our lives, you learn to recognize how energy moves in your inner and outer life, and how transforming the energy in your body-mind can help you find the sacred in every moment and encounter of your life—especially in challenging times.

You discover the natural doorways into the infinite within your own body, mind, and feelings, and how to find the sacred in every moment and encounter of our lives.

Sally unfolds key teachings from the Spanda Karikas, along with powerful practices and contemplative exercises designed to transform your consciousness from the ground up. Working with the body, the mind and the heart, we’ll establish deeply personal pathways into the power of divine creativity. The course includes  meditations and contemplation practices that you can take into the situations of your life, and that will shift your awareness of everything you do.

You’ll learn:

How to discover and work with the subtle energies in your own body
The key understanding that helps us move through reality successfully--even in hard times
Discovering the pulsation of power that creates thoughts and feelings
How to find the still point at the heart of movement
Transforming emotions through the energy of emotions
Certain teachings are innately transformative. The energy teachings of the Spanda Karikas are like a living depth-charge of awakening energy. When you take them in, they change not only the way you live your life, but also the way life lives you. Download flyer for further details.

Wednesday Evenings, June 7th-July 12th
5:00 PM PDT, 8 PM EDT
Part II: Living the Awakened Life: The Bhagavad Gita and the Path of Action

"Yoga is the separation from union with pain."
Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita

Why has the Bhagavad Gita been a wisdom-guide for so many people, for so many centuries? Because it really does tell us how to live a spiritual life in the world.  In Krishna’s teaching to Arjuna there is a powerful transmission that meets you where we are, and takes you to the next stage. That’s why we can study it again and again and find that its always relevant to our lives at this moment in time. The more you practice its teachings, the more you realize their power and truth, and the more they refine and open you.

Many of you who took Part One of this class shared your deep experience of the transmission that came through the text and the course itself. This second 6-week class takes us deeper, not only completing the teachings on enlightened action, devotion, dharma, and surrender, but offering granular guidelines for examining the quality of your inner life, your motivations, and your relationship with spirit. Using the powerful commentaries of three enlightened teachers—Abhinavagupta, Aurobindo, and Jnaneshwar—we will examine the often koan-like words of Krishna to Arjuna in depth. We’ll meditate, discuss, contemplate. Above all, we’ll discover how to apply this transformative wisdom to ordinary situations.

Topics include:

The real secret of navigating dark times
Choosing skillful action: Krishna’s infallible guide to doing the right thing at the right time.
Surrender: the myths and the reality
Combining the four great paths to Self-realization
What is devotion, why does it matter, and how to awaken it in yourself
Using the three gunas to understand your own actions and the state of your mind
The inner guru, guidance, and the discovery of discernment
You can find more details and register here.

So much love,
Sally

Poets

Some got famous,
traveled,
signed books,
went on Youtube,
collected royalties,
got prizes.

They were good.
They deserved it.
They worked hard
for their fame.

Others worked in darkness,
shared with a few friends
and neighbors,
got talked about locally,
even written up by the
town newspaper.

They never got rich
from their offerings,
but thought of Emily,
Walt, William (whose wife
put an empty plate before him
to remind him that the
cupboard was bare).
Or Yeats with his one
good suit.

I could go on,
the list is endless.

But they did not mind.
Oh, well, they thought,
what does it matter?
How much did Mirabai charge?

Dorothy Walters
May 11, 2017

Advice for Going On

Think of someone you adore,
say Mary Oliver or Goethe
or, of course,
Rumi, the master of all.

Consider where their
connections came from,
somewhere invisible.
never on any map,
unless you count
the lonely attic,
the hours spent there
for so many,
the striving for perfection
even when the ears had failed
or the pen could hardly be
held in the hand.

What was it
that kept them going,
even when all else
faded,
even when no one noticed?

Would you be willing
to give your life to this?
To forge ahead,
no matter what,
as the roses sang to you
in the garden,
as you danced
to the music
that only you heard?

Dorothy Walters
May 11, 2017

Let Go

Oh the water lilies. See how they seem
to open wider out of their own opening?

Let me unfold like that—without thinking,
without assuming I’m already open enough.

Do not let me close up, all stiff and stoic,
like a walnut that will not crack.

Don’t let me become the one who groans
when someone else starts to rhapsodize

about the fragrant wisteria in spring.
Why is being hardened a respectable, desirable thing?

Let me be soft. Let me always sigh as I bite
into ripe watermelon, juice spilling in runnels

of pink down my chin, down my neck.
Let someone else stand beside the waterfall

and explain how its negative ions work,
and let me be the one getting drenched

and falling in love with the sheen on the rocks.
Let me not leave my signature like the woodpecker,

but let me chant endlessly on summer nights
in the way that the whippoorwill does.

And why not? Why not praise the slender-bodied weasels
who turn white then honest brown?

Both colors are equally lovely. Why not enthuse
over the bulky walrus that has adapted to stay warm?

Oh let me be warm and give that warmth back to the world.
It’s so easy to turn cold, to poke fun, to accuse, to be cool.

Let me be a fool. Let my thoughts of how the world should be
jump away like a mob of wallabies. Let me not find pleasure

in making things small or putting others down
or rolling my eyes or criticizing. Let me be silly.

And gushing with praise for whatever
is the nearest thing I see—

a twig in the rain, a rock on the trail,
a red leaf that has already let go.

~ Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

(Image is of  Claude Monet's painting)

The Shift Network
Dear Dorothy,

Later today, at 12:00pm Pacific, join with mystic-scholar Mirabai Starr for an encore presentation of her online event: Receiving the Gifts of the Goddesses: How to Connect to the Powers of the Sacred Feminine and Awaken to Greater Love, Liberation & Beauty.

Access Details:

You’re invited to join us LIVE by phone or listen over the internet — on your desktop, laptop, tablet or smartphone:

To join us: Visit our Mirabai Starr Event Page

If you’ve ever wondered who about who the beautiful Goddesses of the world are beneath their iconic images and centuries-old stories — and if they represent something relevant for our modern path (especially for women!) — this is the call event for you.

You’ll also hear about the launch of an exciting new program with Mirabai in which you’ll discover how to revere the Sacred Feminine not just as an abstract principle, but through a living relationship with specific Goddesses.

See you soon!

The Shift Team

To the Beloved Who is Shiva

I do not want
to lead someone somewhere.

Nor do I wish to break
some sort of ceiling.

I just wish to be here
with my Beloved,
the one with
the tossing hair,
his body half man,
half woman.

World aflame,
eternal dance.

Everywhere
is where he is,
where I would become.

Dorothy Walters
May 8, 2017

I Read a Sacred Poem

I open to a sacred text.

Already a sweetness
flows in my bones.

There are dishes waiting,
tasks begging to be attended to.

I ignore all promptings.

I want only to be here,
with my Lord,
the one written about
in books,
the one with the fiery locks
who lives inside me.

Dorothy Walters
May 8, 2017

Here Eve Ensler offers a brilliant summation of what we are currently faced with in the highest office.  Clearly, we are dealing with someone who is deranged.  If any relative or friend displayed any of these characteristic symptoms, we would rush them to a doctor and seek help.  Confabulations, lies, ruthless suppression of perceived enemies, chronic contradictions, charges without foundation––how much longer until his supporters realize they are the victims of a giant con by a master deceiver?  When will the populace recognize that this would be emperor has no clothes? 

from Eve:

Donald Trump and the chaos surrounding him seem to be the manifestation of all we have not processed or taken responsibility for, a karma come to roost, a serious comeuppance.

I wrote in the Guardian in March 2016:

Donald Trump is an outcome, a viral manifestation of a serious malignant illness. He is the mirror of our emptiness, the emptying out that has been happening to our country for a very long time.

He is an outcome of a two-party system that has consistently ignored the needs and wishes of the majority of Americans for generations.

He is the manifestation of celebrity culture where those that have everything are worshipped for their shiny success and in the world of celebrity that shininess is a stand in for principles, substance and moral values.

He is personality over planning, symbol over substance, insipidness over insightfulness.

He is the outcome of the rich being able to buy anything, including our democracy.

He is an outcome of centuries of underlying unaddressed, massively denied and metastasized racism.

He is the hatred of the poor and the needy, the denigration of immigrants and those seeking refuge from the devastation of US wars and imperialism.

He is the outcome of an insidious exceptionalism—the bedrock belief that American lives are more precious and valuable than any Others, those that we stigmatize, bomb, torture, murder, control, invade and whose economies we trash, whose resources we devour, whose futures we steal.

He is the outcome of fear which masquerades as bullying.

He is the manifestation of patriarchy and the endlessly indoctrinated belief that only a father will save us even though the mainly men who have been determining reality for this country and the planet have led us to near ruin.

He is the outcome of high tech fantasy, virtual disconnection, TV reality shows.

He is proof of the duplicity of corporate sponsored media that claim “neutrality” while reaping profits from propping up racists, tyrants, fascists, haters and those that would seek to destroy the country.

He is the outcome of an insanely violent culture, increasingly unkind with more bullying, that normalizes cruelty, industrializes punishment and declares endless war on its own citizens.

He is the consolidation of a government that devotes huge portions of its budget to building an imperial military rather than feeding and educating its own people, that wreaks havoc on the world rather than fighting climate change, that promotes the pillaging of the earth rather than ending violence against the people who inhabit it, that forces working people to police the world rather than providing them with meaningful work.

He is the product of a country with the most number of armed citizens in the world, where the average of 89 firearms for every 100 people leads to more deaths at the hands of fellow countrymen every year than international terrorists have killed ever.

He is the outcome of a country where police consistently murder Black women and men with little to no repercussions and millions are living in perpetual incarceration.

He is the outcome of corrupt, self-seeking, extremist politicians who ignore the constitution and make it their business to refuse any meaningful legislation from getting passed.

He is the outcome of an insidious, selfish morality where getting what you want, making money at any expense is the credo and how we behave, who we hurt, or destroy, what earth we eviscerate is inconsequential.

He is the holographic representation of the failure of a country, our denial, our refusal to act and rise for each other and to take responsibility for what our government, corporations, military are doing across the world.

He is a symptom of what happens when collective consciousness has divided and subdivided so many times within this neoliberal psychosis that we no longer know how to make alliances, build coalitions and have each other’s backs or stand with each other when the going gets rough.

He is an outcome of a country with denial as thick as its amnesia. We come to honor and idolize war criminals and racists and sexists and corporates who’ve destroyed the lives of millions.

He is an outcome of years and years of each of us being taught to fend for ourselves, fight for our own share, step over those who we are told are slower or weaker but who may in fact be deeper, more moral or more considered.

He is an outcome of a world divided between winners and losers.

He is an outcome of fatigue and privilege and disenchantment and hopelessness and exclusion.

He is an outcome of cynicism and an imposed belief that there is nothing we can really do to overcome this corporate neoliberal imperialist racist sexist homphobic earth-hating system.

The moment of America has arrived. This is our reckoning, our karma come to roost. It is way beyond the question of who we vote for in the upcoming election.

It is a question of who we are. What is America? What kind of country do we want this to be? What values and principles do we hold and cherish?

What will we do and what lengths will we go to, what collective imagination will we employ, what mighty love will we summon to ensure the ending of this violence, this hate, this destruction of our mother earth, this grotesque inequality of wealth, this mad and ferocious drive to our end?

Let us take Trump at his word. Let him be our Unifier.

My Significant Other is the Kosmos : Return of the Aesthetic Jedi Part 4 - Oops?

OK, now we have established another element in our exploration of the aesthetic moment, the element of process.  Which of course implies time, continuation, movement...and dare I say, development.  Kind of sounds like evolution, doesn't it?  And to use my borrowed metaphor in a previous posting, the aesthetic moment did not happen, it's HAPPENINGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG...

Hmmm....aesthetics as an element of evolution?  Physiosphere to biosphere to noosphere, rocks to roses to Rumi, as I have suggested in the past.  We've all seen those magnificent images taken by the Hubble telescope, described by some scientists as Deep Time.  How is it  that those images are so...beautiful?  Just a bunch of rocks, really, when it comes down to it.  And yet those apparently lifeless masses of hydrogen and helium and the rest of the periodic scale are somehow saturated with aesthetics (For those inclined toward cynicism this statement may suggest anthropomorphic projection.  I would suggest they ponder the fact that bears in the wild have often been observed sitting passively watching a beautiful sunset - bearopomorphic projection, perhaps?)

So, we might say evolution itself is an aesthetic process.  And evolution is certainly development, an unfolding change toward more complexity, toward a broader or deeper  or higher state (whether hydrogen atoms to stars, acorn to oak tree, human fetus to human adult).  Implied in this is the notion of a beginning, that place in time when a new process emerges to travel its course through time - the Big Bang, the Spring rain that goads the acorn, the sperm crashing into the egg.  Aesthetic processes also have beginnings.  How do they come about?

You might remember my story of reading 'War and Peace', and the subsequent process of creative unfoldment that emerged in my own development.  The reading was certainly the impelling energy, but in fact it was that day listening to the radio that was the true beginning, the catalytic moment if you will.  What did I sense in that 30 minute rendering that convinced me to read the novel, which in turn steered me to the creative life that is to this day 40 years later still unfolding?

Value.  Somehow in that skillful radio reading I sensed value - not quantitative or instrumental value, but qualitative value.  And this was more than just the value of a delicious meal, or an entertaining movie, or a good read.  This was what I would call a hyper-value.  From Buddha to Plato to Kant we've had names for these hyper-values - the True, the Good, and the Beautiful.  These hyper-values are so powerful that even a sniff of them seizes our attention.  They are what the philosopher Steve McIntosh labeled "value attractors".  They attract us through our desire (eros) for just these hyper-values of truth, beauty and goodness, whether we are conscious of that desire or not (and the unconscious part of that eros for value is what always catches us by surprise when it suddenly bursts through the veil of our personal maya).  In that short reading of Tolstoy's work I sensed the truth of the relentless ugliness of war, the good of our empathy with its tragic victims, and the beauty of the heart-felt rendering that Tolstoy had brought forth.  I caught a sniff, and that was enough to turn a young, 20-something lost soul in a new direction, to allow a new process to emerge.

I'd like to share with you another such catalytic moment, one that might just give you a little sniff of what I'm talking about.  You might remember in the beginning postings of 'My Significant Other is the Kosmos' I spoke of an existential crisis of meaning that I was plunged into in my fifties.  I had, so to speak, lost the scent, and indeed lost all sense of who I was, why I was here, what was I doing here.  Nonetheless I managed to cowboy-up and proceeded on a fog-bound search for... who knows?.  I read a lot of philosophy in those days, and came upon multiple references to an author I was unaware of, Ken Wilber.  One day I was in the philosophy stacks of the Denver Main Library and came upon several of Wilber's books.  Picking up the thickest one, titled 'Sex, Ecology, Spirituality', I opened to the introduction and read the first page.  I'm going to quote that first page here:

"It is flat-out strange that something - that anything - is happening at all.  There was nothing, then a Big Bang, then here we all are.  This is extremely weird.

To Schelling's burning question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?," there have always been two general answers.  The first might be called the philosophy of "oops".  The universe just occurs, there is nothing behind it, it's all ultimately accidental or random, it just is, it just happens ---oops!  The philosophy of oops, no matter how sophisticated and adult it may on occasion appear - its modern names and numbers are legion, from positivism to scientific materialism, from linguistic analysis to historical materialism, from naturalism to empiricism - always comes down to the same basic answer, namely, "Don't ask."

The question itself (Why is anything at all happening?  Why am I here?) - the question itself is said to be confused, pathological , nonsensical, or infantile.  To stop asking such silly or confused questions is, they all maintain, the mark of maturity, the sign of growing up in this cosmos.

I don't think so.  I think the "answer" these "modern and mature" disciplines give - namely, oops! (and therefore, "Don't ask!) - is about as infantile a response as the human condition could possibly offer.

The other broad answer that has been tendered is that something else is going on: behind the happenstance drama is a deeper or higher or wider pattern, or order, or intelligence.  There are, of course, many varieties of this "Deeper Order": the Tao, God, Geist, Maat, Archetypal Forms, Reason, Li, Mahamaya, Brahman, Rigpa.  And although these different varieties of the Deeper Order certainly disagree with each other at many points, they all agree on this: the universe is not what it appears.  Something else is going on, something quite other than oops......

This book is about all of that "something other than oops".  (End of quote)

Did you catch the whiff, the little tug of the value attractor in those opening paragraphs?   I certainly did.  I checked out the book and plowed through its 600 plus pages of text and 300 plus pages of end-notes in four or five frenzied days.  When I was done I rediscovered that woozy feeling of being here and simultaneously being somewhere else, that feeling I had encountered upon reading 'War and Peace' so many years before.  It was a profound aesthetic moment that instigated a process that, again, is still in motion.

 Oops?

Jeff Richards

Jeff Richards is a gifted artist who uses string to create fascinating geometric forms.  The above image is one of his works.  It is titled "Swedenborg's Angels."  His blog site is

 http://hexagonart.blogspot.com

The Mirror

Believe me,
it is still there.

That place inside,
where you have visited,
and then lost your way.

You know how to get there,
the signs and sounds
that take you close.
They are still there too,
waiting
for you to take notice.

When you arrive,
there will be a mirror.
It will not be just the same
as the last time.
You will have changed,
improved,
gotten better,
wiser.

This time you will
not forget.
You will know what to do,
find your way quickly,
claim the image
looking back at you,
who you are,
ready to begin again.

Dorothy Walters
May 4, 2017

What to Tell the Children

First, they took away
our voice,
the one we used to tell them
they are wrong.

Then they said
we could not meet
together,
to discuss, to plan,
to act.

Then they went on
to take away
our very being,
how we keep ourselves
going,
who we are,
what we stand for,
something about an ancient respected document
repealed.

Now we are here
in this lonely place,
the barbed wire
holds us in,
we wonder how it was
we got here,
what to tell the children.

Dorothy Walters
May 4, 2017

Earth's Frequency - Schumann Resonance - Hits 90Hz
In this New Earth ONE Network News Update, learn about the recent spike in the Earth's Frequency. Spiritual Leaders say this is confirmation and proof positi...
YOUTUBE.COM

Dorothy : I am interested in this phenomenon as it affects both me and others. Many are feeling the negative effects of this shift, as old memories and issues come to the surface and demand to be attended to. I experienced some of this negativity on April 2, when I and others had a period of strange wooziness and disorientation. However, some are having very positive effects from these solar events. I and others had sudden surges of creativity on and around April 19, a date mentioned in the overall discussion. And today I had an unusual experience of involuntary trance state as I was intoning a mantra composed of two words I love but had not thought of in a long time. As I chanted, my voice lowered significantly as it became very male and seemed to issue from a very strong human source. I saw in my mind an image of a vajra, and identified the two poles as the upper and lower chakras, these connected with the central channel running from bottom to top. No bliss as such was connected with the experience. It was definitely a changed state of consciousness and as it continued I went into deeper and deeper levels, until I seemed to enter the awareness of "vastness" that many speak of during quiet meditation. This ws in effect a new experience for me. I did enter prolonged trance many years ago during my original awakening, but that has now been over thirty years ago, and since then shifts of consciousness have manifested as various kinds of bliss. Trance as such is not a common feature of my life.

 I personally agree that our individual selves are moving into higher frequencies as is the earth itself as we progress on the process of evolution of our consciousness and are formed into beings closer to the divine. Despite the contemporary social chaos, universal spiritual transformation is occurring universally.

I feel blessed to be included in this epochal event in human history.

A Small Bird

Please understand,
I do not know
where all this
is coming from
or why.

These verses
just keep spilling out,
like an overflowing
vessel,
a rushing mountain stream
flooding its banks.

I am just the small bird
with open mouth,
waiting to be fed,
hoping to be noticed.

Dorothy Walters
April 21, 2017

Saved

Who was I then,
always writing about
the sadness of the disposessed,
the grief of the bereaved?

How I had lost
the way into
the promised land,
how I had ended up
in the pit of despair.

How was it that I could
never allow
my heart to fill with light,
my soul to ignite with joy?

Somehow I emerged
from that dark planet,
got free of the shadows
always flitting around me.

Now I am one
who sometimes reminisces
about those unhappy times,
but moves to another music,
lets the lover within
enter and embrace.

Dorothy Walters
April 19, 2017