Marya Mann : Blog : Be A Blessing To The World - Sacred Air Ceremony Nov 9th

Be a Blessing to the World - Sacred Air Ceremony Nov 9th

“Laugh as much as you breathe. Love as long as you live.” — Rumi

Aloha Kakou!

To be a blessing to the world, and to love as long as we live, we need to know our basic goodness.

How do we find our innate goodness and the blessing we can be to others in a world that so far has produced so much badness in the form of hurt, harm, fear, and rejection?

When we are waiting for the election news, worrying over an imagined future that doesn’t need to happen, or feeling traumas inside our bodies that were inflicted years, decades, or centuries ago, we can lose our connection to goodness. When we have been hurt, we might not only lose that connection but our bodies may get stuck in painful positions.

At the beginning of a Love Continuum intensive, I often ask everyone to relax their bodies. People shift a little. And then I say, “Okay, really relax your body, your mind, and your breathing. What are you still holding?” They shift some more.

“Where do you honestly want to be with your body?” I ask. Not “What do you THINK you want to do with your body?” This isn’t about thinking. “What do you feel? Do you want to lean to the right, lie down, jump up, or exaggerate a sigh?”

There’s more shuffling and the circle transforms from what looks more or less like an attentive, respectful wheel — vertical spines sitting in a ring like pillars of light – to an amorphous, multi-tiered, moving sculpture of human bodies spreading out and letting go. All the stuff that limits us — tension, tricky thoughts, ancestral patterns we know, as well as those we haven’t identified yet – empties and we begin to feel the limitless energy that is our Source.

What we discover is that a multitude of inputs are choreographing our life force, shaping how we hold ourselves. Some of those inputs are holding us back and hiding our goodness, not lifting us up and revealing our goodness.

We may need to re-learn how to let go of the holding and allowing the self-soothing feelings of goodness through the protective layers from the past, and absorbing them back into our deep selves. As we open our bodies to genuinely nourishing movement, our spiritual roots, and our collective presencing, we restore wholeness.

THE REVOLUTIONARY THING TO DO

Especially if we have been traumatized by false thinking and incendiary remarks from family, friends or public figures expressing physical and sexual aggression, we benefit immensely from the upward spiral of the healing spaces we create, solo and together. Taking the time to behold, connect, and restore ourselves in safe, sacred spaces is the revolutionary thing to do.

Restoring our physical and energetic bodies awakens the luminous body, homo luminous, that which is the vehicle for much of our caretaking of the Earth, Wind, Water, and Air.

The Medicine People of ancient times applied themselves to the healing of people, systems, and places through their luminous bodies, their rainbow bodies. Through awareness, intention, and practice, they developed time-tested methods of trance induction through breathwork, drumming, dancing, and music. In the “non-ordinary” states they perceived transcendent powers that they could draw upon to pray, create, and bring curative blessings to the world.

EVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT

The transcendent powers discovered by the ancient holy ones, the shamans, yogis, teachers, and visionaries, have found confirmation in modern-day quantum physics. What Einstein called “spooky action at a distance” became later the underpinnings of holographic theory and quantum entanglement.

In brief, we are evolving. We evolve IF we are moving and growing, and then our understandings evolve too. The problem is that many traumatized people – which is the entire human race, imho– often freeze up and stop moving.

Most of us have learned that all animals, when threatened or shocked, express biological, non-conscious action patterns that prepare us to meet the danger and defend ourselves. Trauma occurs when our survival responses of activation, dissociation, and freezing become defensive and rigidify unchanging patterns in our skin and muscles, which become an uncomfortable body suit of frozen armor.

In the animal world, if animals suffer trauma, they “shake off” the freeze response caused by a life threat. Humans need the same “shaking off” or discharging of the energy of the traumatic event.

In this Saturday’s Love Continuum, we will not only “shake off” the detritus of past pain and trauma, but in the Dreaming, we will explore the Spirit Worlds to absorb the full breadth of awareness and healing available to restore us to our original totality. We will also practice simple methods of trauma relief and spiritual unfolding.

SELF-HOLDING AND PTSD

By far some of the most effective techniques I have discovered to “shake off” trauma and recover the innate goodness of our embodiment are self-holding somatic therapy exercises created by Peter Levine, the trauma healing pioneer who wrote the seminal book, Waking the Tiger.

The Self-Holding exercise may be the perfect antidote to the frenetic feelings stirred by our U. S. electoral situation this week.

At any time we experience Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder (PTSD), we may feel scattered, broken, shattered, blown apart, chaotic, fractured, or split. Our thoughts and nervousness may become overwhelming, out of control, all over the place. We may even forget we have edges.

Self-Holding helps us feel, for the first time perhaps in years, “contained.”

This helps us become aware of our bodies, says Levine. “The body is the container of all of our sensations and all of our feelings; it’s all in the body.” This self-embracing exercise helps create an internal state of calm when PTSD is agitating us.

Being scattered and not knowing where we begin and end is unsettling, even if it’s unconscious. By stabilizing where we are located in space, it brings a “settling” feeling. The person feels less overwhelmed. When we can feel our body contained by our own hands and arms, then the emotions and sensations do not feel as overwhelming because.

Here’s how you can do the simple exercise now:

-Place one hand under the opposite arm, and then place the other hand over the upper part of the other arm; you are giving yourself a hug.
-Pay attention to your body.
-Let yourself settle into the position; allow yourself to feel supported by it. Allow yourself to feel contained.
-Watch and see if anything shifts with your breathing, bodily sensations, and how you feel in space. See if you can sit with it a while and let it shift your perceptions of yourself and the world somewhat before coming out of it.

Blessings all around! You have just taken a step to nurture yourself and help soothe any trauma-related symptoms.

INSPIRATION IN THE SPIRIT WORLDS

Our attention is very Zen and focused, while our perspectives grow to infinity. In the Spirit Worlds, every person’s visions, poems, ideals, songs, remedies, wisdom, communications and healing with the ancestors, and the uplifting sweetness of Destiny Tracking percolates new aliveness and inspiration into everything we do.

Inspiration, from the Latin inspirare, meaning “to breathe or blow into,” carries the sense that wind or air connects us to more creative concepts, like motivation, ambition, and artistry.

On Saturday, we will explore the element of Air, the action of Breathing, and the integration of our personal lives with the collective and ancestral healing we are called to do. We will also …

• Learn the Shaman’s Breath, Deep Listening, and Self-Soothing hand positions.
• Explore the Upper World of Dreaming to meet a Teacher
• Deepen in the Practice of Truth, the Power of Words, & Blessing Rites
• Go on guided Shamanic Journeys to expand consciousness & a sense of belonging in the Web of Life.
• Establish relationships with Nature that reveal powerful truths about our species.
• Restore ourselves as part of the web of life and know authentic responsibility – our Kuleana.

At this remarkable time, there is a cosmic wind in our sails. This is a good time to journey far, feel deeply, and turn the tides of our humanity toward the Love Continuum.

Remembering what the Wizard said in Rings of Power — “Alone it’s just a journey. Adventures must be shared!”

I will love to see you there!

Love, Marya

Please go here to learn more about the Love Continuum and Sacred Air Description .

To register for the event, please go here: Sacred Air Ceremony Registration for November 9th