Image by Cadencia Photography www.cadenciaphotography.com
āMusic is meditationā¦.meditation crystallized in a certain dimension. Meditation is musicā¦music melting into the dimensionless. They are not two.ā
Share a tarot session with the mothers in your life! My May offer is a free guided meditation for all packages booked for or by mothers The guided meditation can be recorded and used again and again.
Become the master of your own meditation in May!
Stay Tuned........Updates for May
During the month of May, I will be offering Tarot sessions Lancaster Pennsylvania, downtown at Radiance on May 14, 17 and 21. Call 717-290-1517 to reserve your spot!
Tarot Sessions and Flower Essence Formulations are always available by Skype and in person. Contact me [email protected]
I have started a new series for Afropop.org called Voices In Vinyl where I curate my understanding of culture and place through vinyl. The latest post takes us to Bahia Brazil http://www.afropop.org/28620/voices-in-vinyl-bahia-bound/
I am honored to have been recently spotlighted by the inspiring eye of CadenciaPhotography.http://cadenciaphotography.com/2016/03/07/maui-tarot/ I have also begun to offer lei for photo shoots booked through Cadencia Photography, inquire for more detail.
I took another dip in the up and coming website PublicPool.org. My latest post is an exploration of the poet Nicolas Guillen from Cuba:Ā http://www.publicpool.org/dope/text/broken-beats-by-tasha-goldberg
Donāt forget to indulge in delicious BodyCare by SweeT HaBeBe! We have infused and blended a select line of organic oils and wild collected materials to marinate your body in delicious love. See website for details on offers: http://www.buildingbridgeshub.com/BodyCare
This monthās spotlight is on Happiness found in May Meditations!
First, erase from your mind what you think meditation is....and join me in a journey of what meditation feels like. Allow meditation to be an adventure, a journey into consciousness. Choose to be open to an experience of embodying your truth, happiness and your freedom. A life of delight, fulfillment and satisfaction is one of freedom. If we all were able to recognize the freedom we haveā¦perhaps we would have the courage to create the life we wantā¦for ourselves as well as for the land, the animals, our friends and family and our collective future.
To be alive is to have a heart-beat. This is the core of life for us as humansā¦ rhythm, a vibration. Our number one need to sustain our rhythm of life is our breath. Although our bodies beat and breathe on automatic, when we tune in our consciousness, we are able to enjoy the satisfaction of fulfilling our own needs. Perhaps it is simply a fact of science that we are meant to be heart centered, in love and rhythmic as our natural state of being.
If that sounds a little out there, letās build a bridge. My favorite bridge builderā¦.as you may guessā¦.music.
Reflect on the last great live show of an epic artist you attendedā¦.draw to mind the feeling of being completely absorbed in your observations of the artist as they transcended their own presence and entered into a trance like state. Revisit the sensations in your body, your arms, your pulse, your throatā¦.what did it feel like in your own body when you let go of the world outside and allowed yourself to surrender to the direction of musical vibrations?
āIt is one of the greatest experiences of life when music is there surrounding you, overwhelming you, flooding you, and meditation starts growing in youā¦.when meditation and music meet, world and god meet, matter and consciousness meet. That is unio mystica ā the mystical union.ā
Enter into the mystical unionā¦.often, if possible.
Meditationā¦via music, mantra or other, leads us to the mystical union. Nearly every great culture has its own practice to ritualize the act of meditation: Sufi dancing, monastic mala movements, pranic breathingā¦..and one of my favorites, the art of the mantra. We live in a moment in time when you can access practices, philosophies and components of various world cultures. It can be easy to become almost immune to this privilegeā¦becoming busy by scrolling options as a distraction rather than actually engaging in that which we seek.
I have often heard of meditation described as āa silencing of the mindā, or āshutting down the outsideā. Somehow that does not inspire me. It is like the feeling when as soon as you start a diet, you crave the gooiest banana split with extra hot fudge. Remember, the practice, the tools themselvesā¦are not the meditation. The meditation is the space you arrive at where your different levels of consciousness are braided together into an awareness that is focusedā¦without concentration. Detached and yet completely embodied. My approach is to engage all that I am, all parts of myself and find the sweet spot where the integration amplifies the light of each component individually.
Through the foundation of Yoga Nidra, we can use our different levels of consciousness to engage us more deeply into the present moment. The next time you close your eyes, imagine your breath is something that you can see in your mindās eye. Imagine you are able to watch the breath move from the bottom of your feet, up your ankles and legs, over your hips, throughout your abdomen and torso, up into your heart and shoulders and throat and all the way into your head. When you exhale the breath, imagine it descending from above your head down your entire body, retracing each place in the body. Challenge yourself by committing to ten breaths, just like this, every day for one week. Decide that you will do it before you get out of bed in the morning instead of checking your phone, or choose to practice while you are in the showerā¦.just ten breaths.
One of my favorite methods to remind myself to engage in breathing, and eventually a deeper practice of meditation, is to select a soundtrack. Dropping the needle and settling in to rotate my consciousness throughout my body, for the entire long play of an entire album. If you dig on digital rather than analog vinyl, you can set your settings to play through an album in its entirety without shuffle.
One of my favorite albums to meditate to is John Coltraneās Love Supreme:
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=jogn+coltrane+love+supreme&&view=detail&mid=264F0BA2B48C1F895F20264F0BA2B48C1F895F20&FORM=VRDGAR
Listening to album and breathing, these words came to meā¦.
Slowly, rollingā¦.calling. Slowlyā¦.rolling and calling.
Rattling cymbal sweeps the corners, dropping the stories across the keys.
A heart-song sets free the other notes to dance.
We are still outside and moving in.
With a trilling cry, the chaos begins.
Notes pave a path for the chant.
Gently acknowledging: A Love Supreme, A Love Supreme, A Love Supreme, A Love Supreme, A Love Supreme.
Exchange in a shared context, individuals in solidarity.
Boldly and clearly calling, steady and emotional.
Rhythms for movement, dashing beats.
Broad sidesteps for maintenance, movement.
In the journey, a collage of stories,
Saxophonic assertions balanced with light steps.
Confidence, declarations, echoed and trailed, notes escape to tell us this story,
Supported in sound beat structure.
Soothing balm of a rolling reality,
Once the struggle subsides, we will be left with a psalm to cherish and reflect the values we have learned and will never forget.
Rocking gently in the beauty of sound, this is the freedom we can only reach through sound, true embodiment of emotions without attachment.
If you are interested in learning more about building your own meditation practice, contact me. Through breath work and guided visualization, I can share with you the portals of consciousness I have discovered in my own practice.
