The post Imagine No Longer Desiring Pain  appeared first on Swan Michelle.

I began writing and studying  less and instead experiencing and contemplating more poetically in 2020.  Please enjoy a list of ongoing poetry that I will add to, inspired by this year of growth and transformation, a chest of jewels in poem from 2020.

And We Ignite 

Sky of infinity

Your stars shine so brightly

You reflect to me

A timeless truth

Brilliantly

 

I am infinity

 

Sun shines so radiantly

You give and give so generously

May I choose to live freely

And offer valiantly

 

With nobility

 

Moon up in the sky

Your mystery, yet you do not lie

Soft, supple, full of light

Your power reveals this night

 

And I ignite

 

I am infinity

And of nobility

I embody

This divinity.

And I ignite

 

We are infinity

And of nobility

We embody

This divinity

And we ignite

by Swan Michelle

And So Take To The Forest

We are asked to discern and choose daily

A new beginning or an old past disdain

And so take to the forest

When feeling deeply this worlds pain

Cut cords to change & cleanse it.

Let fall this transforming rain.

 

This forest, your deepest inn

You are in the forest to implore

Caring more is your greatest virtue

The more this inn that you explore

 

And so take to the forest

When feeling deeply this worlds pain

Offer everything to your campfire

Let enter this transforming reign.

Swan MIchelle 

What Seemed So Unbearable 

When the wind brushes up against these infinite branches

When your waves crush & devour  the harsh and ageless cliffs 

When nothing is witnessed in the forest but the elements in symbiosis 

When the sun turns the ocean gold at sunset & a white seal appears 

When what seemed so unbearable was actually nothing at all but a footprint in time  & a shift in perception

It means you have finally captivated me. You now, are indeed my captor. It is so exhilarating.

Swan Michelle 

I Ride These Waves

My power came back 

After I rode these waves

I fell, yet graced to rise again. 

These waves smashed me, took me, embraced me, loved me

And let me stand on her boldly, regally, powerfully.

Reflecting back to her after all that she has given me

The drop of this potent ocean that I too am 

Swan Michelle

Feeding The Hungry Wolf No More

Feel  the doors sealed shut. It all has come to a close

There is victory! You did not feed those hungry wolves

Upgraded doors burst open each moment that  you rose

Step forward. You, stable. This  immense readiness shows. 

 

You did not feed those hungry ghosts.

 

New footprints. New boundaries. Fresh, bold freedoms await. 

Our lives. This path ours. Yet, it must deeply resonate. 

Tell the truth to ourselves we find we are more than worthy

Then new creations & explorations will be inspiring & steady 

 

When there is no denial, there is wisdom and resolve.

Stay wild, stay clear. It is in integrity that suffering is solved.

Look forward. Why stay back?  Stand in presence on your own track.

Any sadness or separation… bold love will integrate you back 

 

To you my dear

Look within to align with the Truth this time

Take life force from others no more. Go in as to explore. 

Jump your own train, from fabrications refrain.

Question yourself less. There is no one to impress

Your own power won’t ignite when deceptions trespass.

Listen. No longer restless. Be with yourself in this darkness.

 

 

When you make it a show the shadow will grow. 

Your actions, more than words, reveal all that you know

Concern yourself less with others or what you can get

Pay gratitude for all that has  been given to you

Each relationship in the here and now is the exact one meant for you

This is your gift, your gate,… heaven or hell,  in you

 

And so….. Step finally into your own light

Feel  the doors sealed shut. It all has come to a close

There is victory! We need not feed those hungry wolves between us anymore

Newly aligned doors can burst open more freely as we chose to

Step forward with clarity and certainty. And this manifestation will show. 

And so….we step forward into the light. No hand outs. No spite.

We’ve learned more from this than we might know. 

I feed the hungry wolf no more.

Swan Michelle 

 

Your Love Is Like A Hurricane 

 

Your Love is like a hurricane. I received a hurricane indeed. It poured and flooded me with the purest essence of what love really is and exactly what I need.

Your love is like a hurricane. You are a mystery. Instead of getting what I thought I would want I got exactly what The Divine knows I need

Your love is like a hurricane. You are a mystery. You nourish, you clean, your roar, I swim. Yet, please take from me all that is not free.

 

 

Material things rotten and tossed. They drowned and left in your Grace

Yet, it was a hurricane of love that I received, not a devastation  to face.

 

It cracked my heart open even more. I was flooded with  life force

In the form of loving hands by an ocean that showed no remorse.

 

When I sleep, I feel the confluent care of community just like an ocean of devotion.

Loving hands having rebuilt a fresh new temple along the blue water, with concerted emotion.

 

 

It was a true testament to what communities can do. Not one. Not two. But far more.

Well intended people, with work ethic and compassion, Numerous surprise holy beings at my door.

 

Thank you for being my teachers. For showing me what pure giving is without any notoriety.

That loss is not personal. It is a part of nature and of cycles. Loss is important and necessary.

 

It was a Florida like Varanasi for a time.

Yet blocks away, pure and crystalline.

 

Underbelly, the underworld, loss, decay and rot amidst such sacred beauty.

My cup is still so full from it,ever drunk from your ability to love purely.

 

It was messy, laborious, exhausting and our determination relentless.

Transformation, even in rebuilding any sacred home or  temple, can be a quite a mess.

 

 

Your Love is like a hurricane. I received a hurricane indeed. It poured and flooded me with the purest essence of what love really is and exactly what I need.

Your love is like a hurricane. You are a mystery. Instead of keeping what I want I have exactly what I need.

Your love is like a hurricane. You are a mystery. You nourish, you clean, your roar, I swim. You took from me all that was not free.

 

 

Your Love is like a hurricane. I received a hurricane indeed. It poured and flooded me with the purest essence of what love really is and exactly what I need.

Swan Michelle 

Empath In The Forest 

This is what meditation is to me…

Entering into the forest is not for those in denial. Oh no.

It is for those that feel so deeply the  worlds sorrow, down to their bones marrow

They must retreat from the pain of overwhelm

As to come back to themselves

And artfully admire the insane

Meditate on the messages

And transform their Being for us all

Swan Michelle

What Are Your Investments

It’s been holding onto delusion

Thats kept up all the confusion

When the mind becomes thwarted

There is no room for the open hearted

 

To invest into the news of illusion

Is to invest into more confusion

To Invest in the wisdom heart

Is to uncover where to start

So start here….

Serving, give  generously

Sing, do yoga, face change openly

2020, a year to listen & live courageously

Skim down our focus, live quietly, non-violently

Devoted to ever grow, live freely &  mindfully

What are your investments?

Swan Michelle 

The Bridge of The Gods

Oregon.

The natives of this land

Were driven from their home

Yet I see them at the Bridge of the Gods

To worship the innate salmon cross

From ocean to river, to hardship, to duty

Drawn to spawn in their nobility

After struggling and living fully

Yearning to then return back home

Their innate roots never erased

As badly as we allowed for waste

Their dignity in their bones

We have so much to learn about what we call home.

These Douglas firs and rivers in our bones.

Swan Michelle 

The post A Chest of Jewels In Poem appeared first on Swan Michelle.

The radiance of wholeness permeates the body

And all directions simultaneously 

Wholeness is always here

Already here before your noticing of it

What we call whole is presence

It is permission to exist

-The Radiance Sutras 20

Purnamadah Purnamidam Purnat Purmam Udashyate Purnasya Purnamadaya Purnameye Vashisyate

Translation:

This is Whole. That is Whole. You cannot take away from the Whole. In taking away from the Whole, what remains will always be Whole. The Whole is Always Whole. The whole is infinite, and forever remains.

Another translation:

What is invisible is visible. Out of the infinite, the finite has come. And from the finite, the infinite is always present, even when covered, and cannot be destroyed. The infinite always remains.

This mantra is known as one of the 5 peace mantras, or “Pancha Shantih’s,”  found in the Upanishads at the end of The Vedas, which is one of the oldest known transcribed texts.  This mantra is recited when there is a propensity to divide or to destroy, which, according to this mantra, just like energy, cannot be.

“I am nothing like you. I am something like you. I am nothing but you.” The Vijnana Bairava Tantra

It seems quite understandable that we want difficult things to finally end, especially in such a purifying year as 2020. The volume got turned up many notches, yet it still carried an ominous, inconsistent, and concealed nature. The rearranging of many things has been an invitation for us all to see what it is that actually remains, and what was neither stable nor whole.

“When carving stone, the sculptor removes everything that is not the statue…The art of revealing beauty lies in removing what conceals it. So, too, Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras tells us that wholeness exists within us. Our work is to chisel away at everything that is not essence, not Self.”  Judith Hanson Lasater

Many things were not visible or known to us in 2020, yet this was always so. A great deal of discernment is being asked of us now. Many plans collapsed and we learned to adapt, with the vitality of faith in our heart, that we have permission to continue on. Here we are. We remain in this ongoing life cycle, asked to become more familiar or at ease in our relationship with the unknown.

Living and being, instead of surviving and craving for the known and forcing unsettling outcomes, hasn’t always made us happy or even always worked. When overwhelming, complex and seemingly incomplete form obstructs and consumes our sight, it narrows our view, and the brain operates in incoherent and distressed conditions.

What if, while doing our part to uphold the whole, we could be ok in the unknown, a place where the effects of divisiveness, pain of the past or fear have no landing place upon us? What an exciting and fresh start each day would be, this terrain of newly charged, fertile creation. What if we craved for the unknown as something inspiring and stabilizing?

 “Like a tree, that planted by the water, I shall not be moved.” Homer F. Morris

The Sanskrit word “Purna” can be translated into English as “whole,” “complete,” “full,” or “perfect.” Purna is likened to a full moon’s charge, illuminating the wondrous dark sky.  Whether we notice the full moon rising, and beyond any personal will of our own, it rises, resplendently and full on, yet it would be up to us to gaze upon it and recognize this.  It reflects to us our awe inspiring potential. We too can rise up with nobility to every occasion in illumination and wisdom, embodying the ongoing Whole of creation.

This strotra reminds us that the perception of a fresh start can only come from the lens of an observer, the indweller of ones unwavering completeness. This wholeness exists within each of us, and within the Universe.

Even if we have decided or believe something is less than, has the right to be judged, is incomplete, imperfect or wrong to us, this strotra states that in the ongoing, infinitesimal Truth, this transience is not so. There is an inexhaustible component and essence to all things in creation that is always Whole and Self sustained, even if invisible to us.

“When time is eternal and all possibilities exist, we experience moving from:

-the material to the immaterial

-Newtonian time to quantum world

-state of separation, duality and locality to unity, wholeness and non-locality 

-the known to the unknown

-limited possibility to unlimited possibility 

-the universe to the multiverse

-from someone to no one to anyone

-from something to nothing to anything

-somewhere to nowhere to anywhere

-sometime to no time to anytime.

When you are whole, you believe in your future, not your past.”  Breaking The Habit of Being Yourself -Dr. Joe Dispenza

When the self recognizes the Soul, the body and light fuse into one, the heart is at home in itself. There, wholeness is met, and has always been. We can identify with wholeness, where the Self reveals itself to self, or we can identify with pain, multiplicity and fluctuation and believe it is ongoing.  It is our free will and legacy to choose.

Holding onto separation or pain has often been described as a misunderstanding of incompleteness, which comes from the past. Having not healed from that past, thus not transformed it, it feels difficult to access a new version of ourselves, and we keep playing broken past parts out.

The fullest currents of creation lie right here, where the story is happening now, told in a new, electrifying, radiant way. Creation comes from having done the work to embody the teachings, freeing ourselves from the past. Completion in this stotra means we actually learned from what happened before, be it creations or mis-creations.

Transformation means we truly have let go of dulled, worn, incomplete and flawed perceptions and judgements of ourselves and others. Completion doesn’t mean we are done. We are rising and wired to rise again and again, just like the moon.

The idea of a fresh start fills me with hope from what seemed to have been a never ending unveiling of difficult news in 2020. Our survival instincts were in fight, flight and freeze mode and I am certain at many points, and for many reasons, we each became fatigued, confused, strained, or terrified, to say the least. The unknown and infinity itself can seem terrifying,

When we as creators identify with wholeness, it is an immense, powerful field of magnetism, energy, vibrancy, and awareness. It is a space where we experience the super charged, ongoing, life affirming infinity of ongoing creation. It celebrates artistry, purpose, dreams, creativity and expands our coherence, anabolic regeneration, health, mental cognition, vitality and energy field into a broader, hopeful and enlivening vision.

When we keep pain perpetual within us, there is no room in the mind to create nor imagine anything new, let alone implement this into an energetic, exhilarating action that forges an exciting new future.

“Purna” implies that the wholeness of all things is unshaken and inexhaustible. It can’t be taken over, knocked down, divided or moved. For any of you still standing in the mystery, you too have continued to rise, in some way unmoved. We have all continued to rise together, possibly with even more stamina, endurance and the revelation of a far more tenacious flame of spirit than you possibly thought you had.

Making sense of the news, virus, money, division, health, hurricanes, global warming, politics, social unrest, racism, restrictions, the truth, fabrications, and many humans’ actions may have tested you as they tested me. One option may have been to contract, narrow the lens, check out, look for blame, give up, take down others, get violent and get confused. Many things were set up to try to further divide us, temping us to feel weak.

Yet, we rose!

One thing has been far more clear to me than ever, if we are breathing this fragile breath still, we are all in this fierce and tender tapestry together.

For me, even in lock down, remembering interdependence more than independence has brought an extraordinary and exhilarating view of reverence. There is a powerful force that is the ongoing whole of creation in which we are all a part and I am in awe to be a part of it with you.

Rivers of power flowing everywhere

Fields of magnetism relating everywhere

This is your origin. This is your lineage.

The current of creation is right here

Coursing through subtle channels 

Animating this very form

Follow the gentle touch of life

Soft as the footprint of an ant

As tiny sensations open to vastness

Power sings as it flows

Electrifies the organs of sensing

Becomes liquid light

Nourishes your entire being

Celebrate the boundary 

Where streams join the sea

Where body meets infinity 

Radiance Sutras 44

Do not forgot what tried to weaken your spirits, tempted you to forgo your values, regality, fairness, skillful follow through, love, compassion and perseverance, but let that old story go. Remember who did miraculous things for you and had valiant follow through during a very challenging time. I am so grateful for those beings that reach out and keep reflecting the whole to me in the highs or lows of this precious life. Keep turning to what reinforces your ongoing wholeness for you. Perhaps you see that even more clearly than ever before.  This is why the story will be new. It won’t be a new year that changes your story. It will be you!

In the embodiment of ongoing infinity, we need less, complain less, blame less, fall for less, waste less, shake less. In some things, we may even care less because what we care about, we care even more for.  Whether we know, or not know things or what is to come, or not come. our completeness is unaffected and unmoved by this.

Judgments will continue to reinforce that everything is incomplete and never good enough. It often keeps an old broken story going. Discernment craves a complete picture. If your forget your ongoing whole, timeless nature, our practices, when applied, are tools to help us process and meet the whole full on.

Friends, relatives, neighbors, people who abide

In your village, city, country 

Be not concerned with their attitudes

Towards these teachings

Everyone is discovering the intimate Universe in their own way

This nectar is here

Within every breath, every desire, every transition

From waking, to sleeping, and sleeping to waking

Once You have set out on the path of intimacy

With the immortal essence of life

Never turn your back on it, my Shining One

Never turn away

Though every moment be surprising

Revelatory, unrecognizable, and full of wonder

Continue to cherish each breath

Live in gratitude for the ambrosia we imbibe

In each turning, out breath to inbreathe into out

The Radiance Sutras 160

It is satisfying and can be brave to learn, grow and step forward into the unknown. There is never just one person left stranded in the unknown. If it feels unconscious for now or others seem to exemplify not being too wholesome in their actions, ease up, rise up. We are all on a journey of re-membering.  It is quite a victory if even for a moment you remembered you are whole in all of this mystery.

See with fresh, new eyes now. Let yourself have a fresh new start.  See others having it too. See through the eyes of wisdom; a full panoramic view. Wholeness can’t be destroyed and it will not cease from continuing onward.

Lets rise like a full moon, full ON and beyond the limitations we think are there, together, Swan Michelle

“My soul is from everywhere, I’m sure of that, and I intend to end up there.” Rumi

“Sky of infinity

Your stars shine so brightly

You reflect to me

A timeless truth

Brilliantly

 

I am infinity

 

Sun shines so radiantly

You give and give so generously

May I choose to live freely

And offer valiantly

 

With nobility

 

Moon up in the sky

Your mystery, yet you do not lie

Soft, supple, full of light

Your power reveals this night

 

And I ignite

 

I am infinity

And of nobility

I embody

This divinity.

And I ignite

 

We are infinity

And of nobility

We embody

This divinity

And we ignite”  Lyrics by Swan Michelle

“We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started 

And know the place for the first time.

Through the unknown, remembered gate

When the last of earth left to discover

Is that which was the beginning;

At the source of the longest river

The voice of the hidden waterfall

And the children in the apple-tree

Not known, because not looked for 

But heard, half-heard, in the stillness

Between two waves of the sea.” TS Eliot 

 

You who have been seeking, whatever path you are on

A moment will come when 

Divine pulsation grabs you

And carries you into the dance

In the midst of ecstatic motion 

Your body dissolves into light, leaving only

The soft benediction of the bones 

You become the face of fury, yet serene within

Eyes fly open in amazement 

Seeing the unseen vastness

The Soul reveals itself to itself 

Through movement

Energy infused undulations and gestures

The invisible loves the visible 

The Radiance Sutras 54

And we ignite. Swan Michelle

The post Embodying The Ongoing Whole Of Creation appeared first on Swan Michelle.

Oṁ Saha nāvavatu. Saha nau bhunaktu

Saha vīryam karavāvahai. Tejasvi nāvadhītamastu

Mā vidviṣāvaha. Oṁ Shāntiḥ, Shāntiḥ, Shāntiḥ,

Om, May we all be protected. May we all be nourished

May we work together with great energy

May our intellect be sharpened (may our study be effective)

Let there be no animosity amongst us

Om, peace, peace, peace

When listening is absent, any relationship is at a stand still, we are worlds apart, and there is no transformation from which to keep going together in true unity. This often leads to resent, defamation, more confusion, hate and further unnecessary yet harmful divide. This weakens the cause of actually listening deeply enough to hold well to the permission to move forward and doing things differently. This is enervation.

Often speaking too much, we can speak about things we do not really know about. Assuming where someone is coming from can further divide us.

It would be dehumanizing and disrespectful to claim that I understand the exact pain, rage, fear, and sadness of another being’s story, and especially of a person of color, since I am white.  I think it important right not to not at all speak about anything I haven’t had a direct experience of. It is overstepping, creates a lack of focus & further distraction.

I do know that if I am in pain, and I keep going to others to let them know,  and I continue to not feel heard nor defended, let alone safe, it could absolutely feel dehumanizing.

Both making someone take us along on our journey of pain by creating more hate, nor our lack of recognition of our part in this is not life affirming.

One conversation that really moved me was one in 1973. It was a discussion between  what could have been 2 unlikely beings, Maya Angelou and Bill Moyers, who, when they were young, grew up near one another, yet were obviously worlds apart. .

I was moved by Bill’s humility to “hear” Maya as best as he could, while getting that he could never, ever understand the power nor the struggle of a black woman.

Here is the conversation: 

MAYA ANGELOU: You only are free when you realize you belong no place — you belong every place — no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great…

BILL MOYERS: Do you belong anywhere?

MAYA ANGELOU: I haven’t yet.

BILL MOYERS: Do you belong to anyone?

MAYA ANGELOU: More and more… I belong to myself. I’m very proud of that. I am very concerned about how I look at Maya. I like Maya very much.

In light of listening, I have asked a few other black women in the yoga community that I know and care about what “Belonging” means to them.  It seem normal to me to ask someone how they are if could potentially  be in pain.

I asked a few so that no one person is singled out, Nothing is edited and nothing was expected. Most importantly, I do not expect them to fix this for us.

“On belonging. There is cultural and societal belonging, both intra and inter, and personal belonging. Broadly, to belong means “to have the right personal or social qualities to be a member of a certain group or place.” This isn’t my definition.  The dictionary says so. The question then becomes, not what it means to belong, but what are those right personal and social qualities that bestow belonging, and who gets to decide?

At this point it should be obvious, but I guess to many it still isn’t, that in order to belong inter-culturally and inter-societally, many BIPOC, myself included, do what we need to do to make ourselves palatable to over-culture, who have set the definition.  The reality, though, is even if we’ve bitten our tongues, shrunken ourselves, or otherwise enacted or adopted the ways of the group, it doesn’t mean that we belong.  To truly belong means that your authentic self is what is personally and socially acceptable, not your need-to-get-by self.

BIPOC have historically not been accepted for being themselves, and those who have fought for the right and dignity to do so, have been vilified, deemed violent and militant, and worse.  Sure, you can join, but only if you are non-threatening, don’t make demands, don’t make us uncomfortable.  In other words, don’t be yourself, in order to belong.

That’s why many BIPOC seek spaces that are insular, and frankly, why those spaces are so important. Within those spaces, we don’t undergo the exhausting activities of having to code switch, we aren’t tone policed, and we don’t have to bear the labor of making ourselves into the right kind of socially and personally acceptable, for the benefit and comfort of others.  And it’s automatic. It’s so expected, that we do it without thinking about it.  Conformity is the expectation.  Belonging is the supposed prize.

So, what then is true belonging?  To me, belonging is the space where authenticity lives, where you can be an entity completely of yourself.  Where the need to shape shift doesn’t exist. BIPOC are required to shape shift every day, in activities of daily living, in spaces both sacred and mundane, and still are often not granted the rights of “belonging.”

Even though the blatant acts get all the attention, it’s the wear and tear of daily living and interacting in spaces expressly designed to make sure that you cannot show up as yourself that take a toll.  That do immeasurable damage.  These are the things that often go unexamined. The gymnastics it takes to live, move, and breathe as a BIPOC, and the reality that you still may not belong.” Camilah HIcks

“For the majority of my life, I equated belonging with outside acceptance and approval. To be a part of meant to be like the others, to be a chameleon, to blend in and lend myself to the homogeneity of the group. Being of mixed racial heritage made this tricky. I’d sacrifice parts of myself and amplify others to be perceived as black enough or less black, situation and company depending. Still, I was left with a sense of straddling two worlds, yet, never quite belonging to either. What’s worse, is after all that self betrayal, I no longer belonged even to myself.

I won myself back through radical self-acceptance, by reclaiming all the parts of me I’d abandoned and repressed. I stopped asking and waiting for permission and instead granted myself the freedom to be me, unapologetically and unashamed. I stopped searching for belonging and found it within myself in a deep sense of interconnectedness to the human race. I realized I don’t need to do anything, prove anything, or earn my worthiness or place in the world. I don’t need to choose which race to be. My only job is to choose, honor, and be the real me. The real me deserves to be here and is more than enough. I know I belong by the way I feel, by the way I am at home in my own skin, wherever I go and whoever I’m with.” Aubry Lablanc

“Since I was a child I felt displaced and different, I was confused and lost for years. Not understanding why I felt so much more than others and could see and vison what other’s could not. In the African American community anything outside of the Christian societal norm was seen as an issue. It’s only been in present times that some acceptance and understanding have began to surface towards spiritual individuals. Eventually, I began to suffer from depression anxiety. Misunderstood by my family and viewed as weird by our culture. By the time I was 18 both of my older brothers were murdered due to street violence, while living in the city of Louisville where color lines still existed.  Our culture was divided by the have’s and the have nots, the streets and the those who chose a alternate direction. I was just me, raised on both sides. I carried a understanding for both and just wanted to all walks of life come together.

Little did I know that the universe was directing my steps to Awakening. By 2018 I finally met my tribe and my purpose in this world was revealed to me. I came across a yoga studio called Swan River in New Orleans. There I realized I was a empath and that my service was to assist others in their healing process. I was able to discover and heal my own trauma and use my experience to give guidance to other’s. For the first time ever I no longer felt a void or this feeling of longing. I was home, I was loved and I was glowing. My journey continued as my ancestors began to call to me and currently I’m on my Rite’s of Passage with Holistic Priestess Queen Afua. Belonging is finding peace within yourself and making any place home. You carry that love, gratitude, compassion and healing wherever you go. Eventually your aura (your light) will radiant and touch every individual that it needs to. No experience and situation is by accident and every step is meant for your  greater good. You just have to remove the illusion set in place to be able to see and receive it.” Jessica Cleveland

To my teacher Namaste

To  my new found  journey Amen Ase, Jessica Cleveland.

ACTIONS:
We can do better, and it is exciting to do so. To learn more about some anti-racist actions we can take together as a Satsang, please attend our first series with Conscious Roots July 23rd on this topic. Go to: https://www.swanriveryoga.com/events-and-workshops

Stand in Unity.

Go to https://www.swanriveryoga.com/our-stand-is-unity

The post Conversations On Belonging appeared first on Swan Michelle.

Where guilt is found there can be no joy. When you attend to your personal guilt it will be very difficult to hurt others. Joy and harm do not rest together. 

”You do not help at all being sad and without energy. You help if good things emanate from the Universe  now. It is through joy that one resists. Also, when the storm passes, each of you will be very important in the reconstruction of the new world. 

You need to be well and strong . And for that ,there is no other way than to vibrate a beautiful, happy, and bright vibration.  This has nothing to do with alienation.

“Learn about resistance of the indigenous and African peoples: we have always been and continue to be exterminated. But we still haven’t stopped singing, dancing, lighting a fire and having fun. Don’t feel guilty about being happy during this difficult time.

What you emanate now is the most important thing. And sing, dance, resist through art, joy, faith and love. Resist — Be reborn”    –Message from White Eagle, Hopi Indigenous on 03/16/2020

Learn from this.  What you do, what you recognize and what you find discouraging is important at this time, but not as important as the courage to recover yourself, your heart, and your joy as to see this through with a unified vision. 

“Tell the truth to yourself and the rest will fall in place.” –The Avett Brothers 

It is important you do not degrade yourself or you will degrade others. Find courage even when there is no map and especially when there is friction. Be reborn. Be an explorer on a new frontier. Guilt, shame and violence are typical.   This is old. Is that what you really desire? Do it differently. 

Bring your heart and intelligence to a situation, not your guilt. You doing it differently shows us you no longer carry the inherited, borrowed or owned guilt that often controls and manipulates the human spirit.  Has guilt worked before? Let us learn. Bring your joy to the world and what it is that you truly desire. 

Your actions reveal that you have or have not received the teachings of this historically wild upheaval  in our lives. If you are doing well, or feel healthy, or at peace, or blessed, please do not feel guilty. Joy is the birthright of every being. Not just some. We are all entitled to large ,miracles and small joys. Blessings will produce more blessings, especially when we somehow feel blessed even in all of this. Do you ? Your care will transform this world, not your guilt. 

If you are not doing well, please do not make others feel or carry a guilt in them if they have somehow found small, humble and very human moments of joy in the uncertainty of all of this.  Pure joy is not complacent.  Joy is an energizing foundation from which to activate change.  It is not dehumanizing. 

“There can be no peace without the kind of inner change that brings a man back to his right mind.” – Mahatma Gandhi 

Change can be energizing. Deprivation isn’t the nature of change.  We do not need to hoard joy either, trying to bind to what will inevitably  change. Joy is dynamic and is to be shared. It is not meant to be static. 

Stick to your practices. Turn towards your inner self every day, right away, at dawn. Know more than ever what works and what is encouraging. Nobility comes from having faced it all. Bring your love, not your guilt and your shame to the world. Will sharing guilt really transform all of this? 

What new joys have you discovered during all of this? It helps us if you are healthy resilient, vibrant and strong.  Your acting small, undeserving, or guilty doesn’t serve this new world. 

It is clear what doesn’t work when you are in a state of pure joy. Pure joy is not fleeting.  Pure joy is liberating.  In the constriction of guilt, nothing is clear. It only further degrades us all.  

Shame and long held guilt disempower us. Whenever we feel lowered for too long, it is difficult to rise.  We are easily gullible, desperate or careless when we are ashamed and estranged from ourselves. The vivid guilt of any one man is felt as a disturbance in the entire force of us all.  Attend to your guilt. Recognize the root of guilt and forgive yourself so that you do not continue to create more pain. It is only together that we rise. 

 It is easy to be manipulated and controlled under sadness and anguish.  It is much easier to hurt others when we  keep alive our very own shame and guilt. It is also far easier to not care much about anything when so burdened within.  A profane view of the world and a cold heart will not produce visionary’s, real change or exquisite relationships.  

Which wolf do you feed? Other people, the animals and the planet are clearly secondary, expendable  and diminished when we are guilty and feel ashamed.  That wolf can became insatiable and endlessly ravenous. 

Attend to our shared joy more. 

Discover your weaknesses and where you are underdeveloped, not with shame, but with questions.  Any form of separation will create suffering and disconnection. Your guiltiness can create more guilt. 

There is sacredness here in this  life.  It is not all profane. But it must be examined. Feed your qualities that can also serve humanity optimally. Feed solutions and peace, not war and sadness. 

If you have truly done something that was disrespectful, abusive, deceptive, or violent, look into the root of how this came to be.  Rectify. At what point did you loose sight of yourself ? Keep inquiring. 

Living an intentionally simple life will help us  to simply live with more patience and inner resolution and respect for all others until there are no “others”. 

Attentiveness and contemplation create a brave new world, not a turning away from life. Bearing heat and some friction is in itself brave. Focus on brave and bright qualities. Anything you push away or force upon others isn’t really brave and it won’t bring joy. 

Forcefulness is the result of shame and guilt. Turning against yourself is the root of guilt. This only further discourages us all. The less baggage we can carry, the more life’s simple moments reveal their inner value, resplendence and strength to us. Less baggage  encourages us to uncover ourself again.  The result is a non-biased, unwavering joy. Joy is creative. 

Let this be a time of healing, of new and deeper connections, of new and deeper meanings. 

Apply ingenuity. We can do something new. But not with guilt.  Guilt is not creative. It tears away at life, often recklessly. It is debasing and can make us feel disgusting. 

Beauty is not always prettiness. Good does not always “look good”. Challenges will always exist. Yet, being completely discouraged will not save us. It will make you sick. 

We are not really running out and away when we are inherently joyful, courageous or feeling strong. Attend to your strength. . Watch that what you dwell upon does not further disintegrate your tenacity & open mindedness.  What we are going through right now is deep. There is beauty in depth, but it does not have to be constricting. 

Immerse in your strength, your vision, your beauty, your truth and your swelling love. We are depending on you. Be true to yourself and you will care deeply about others. Guilt is not the truth. of your being.  Learn from this. 

Know your joy so well that it brings you total clarity, not fabrications.  Engage all inner enemies first. Illusions about yourself and the world are one.  It is not going to be perfect. But we can be whole. We can act responsibly, have a clear perception of ourselves and be in deep joy. 

Our weakness is called upon the moment we attack another. It fatigues the mind. Let creative joy and solution be your proactive resistance to fear, doubt, uncertainty, and guilt.  If you are feeling guilty, walk into your restoration for a moment each day until your guilt is less self centered and universal vitality is restored. 

You do not help us if you keep carrying your guilt around. It exhausts your physical body and health.  Learn from it or you will carry little energy to create a new and joyful world for this planet. 

Anything is truly beautiful when it truly expresses itself.  Hold a space on the planet for others to share in your joy with you. It helps us to do so. Reflect that sublime presence for us all. Be the heroism of the human spirit. Offer this life more dignity, not more pain.  You hold the promise of the bright future within you. Make that promise real. 

Look into all of this and know your bright joy from within instead of a false version of you. Highlight your  sad-less nature over a confused and energy-less one. Remember your revelatory, confronting nature over a forgetting or denying facade. Recognize a  nature of creative peace and solution over war and despair. Reveal having enough and sharing  instead of coveting and taking  what small joy we are working hard to uphold together.

Let there be peace. Peace within, peace throughout, peace together.

Prayer for Peace

May there be peace in the heavens; may there be peace in the skies;

may there be peace on earth.

May there be peace in the  waters flow; may the herbs and plants grow peacefully;

May all the divine powers and persons experience  peace.

May we all be in peace, peace, and only peace; and may that peace come unto each of us.

Shanti (peace) Shanti—Shanti!

– The Vedas

May brightness, health  and strength  be unto all, Swan Michelle

The post Feeling Joy & Finding Guilt appeared first on Swan Michelle.

By Swan Michelle 

In one month’s pandemic time I have gotten to know most all of my neighbors. We wave at each other as though we are the only beings left on the planet, or as though we haven’t seen other humans in days, or as though we do truly care about how we each are doing even if we did not take the time to show this before in our busyness and pre-occupation.  This is our village now and we do look out for one another, even from our yards and homes.

“Wherever you stand, be the Soul of that place.” Rumi

 

My neighbors bake one another cookies, offer extended paddle boards lends and invite me over for  socially distanced but warm hearted libations and bon fires. From the balconies and yards they tell me about the dog that got loose how they dealt with the death of their twin sister, the newest local news  and the eagle nest that just hatched.  The children offer me rides on their blow up unicorn and lend me chalk so that I too can write about hope on my driveway.  My local tribe are cancer survivors, surf champions, deep sea divers, bird lovers, trust funders, life savers and home schoolers. They have all experienced loss, death, divorce, sickness, family triumphs, sailed the world, attended to their garden, wave banners about their political beliefs, discovered nature’s wonders and written books.  There is unity here, and when you look deeply, there is diversity. 

Recovery is kindness, thinking globally and acting locally.

Globally, more than ever before, we have a chance to share concern for this entire planet. From live streams, video chats and pictures, we can travel in minutes to vast geographic regions. We can along with this, picture the earth getting an overdo cleanse and each of us  no longer wastefully living beyond a means that contributes to her contamination.

Praise the waters, air clearing, and  animals safely thriving, with joy. This is now vivid “proof” our lifestyle effects global warming. Reach out to others in France and Italy. Hear their triumphant stories of singing to the health workers from their balconies. Hear about the courage of others wishing their loved ones goodbye in this lifetime on Zoom. It inspires us to remain interconnected and to live more radiantly and consciously.

Find your favorite teacher Live. They can now be anywhere on this globe.  You are no longer limited by where you live. The internet can be a library of prolific education. Teachers are still serving bravely and tirelessly in the advancement of this planet while health care workers save lives or do research and parents educate their children even as they’ve been laid off from their job.

The internet does not have to be a waste of time or voyeurism, wishing you were living somewhere else or someone else’s dream. Live YOUR life. Life is precious. Your life is here and now.  This is your chance to connect to what is the most resonant to your growth. We can also be clear as to when it’s time to be present locally and put the computer down.

It is important that we love where we live and who we live with. We must  be able to live with ourselves and our neighbors, even in unbearable compassion or thinking they are different from us. Ask how your tribe is doing and observe what those close to you need. We can attend to those around us locally as stewards of our village.  See who needs your local business, your hope, your experiences of past hardship, growing food, your exercise or cooking tips, your ability to go to the store, even on your bike,  to get their prescriptions. Our location  is a manageable approach to outreach. It also lessens our carbon footprint, spreads an education of a holistic, sustainable life style and bonds us in co-existence.

Co-exist.

One warm hearted neighbor near me stated quite forthrightly,  “ I am pretty sure we didn’t vote the same way in the presidential election and that we are probably political opposites but that doesn’t bother me. To the extent that your ways bring together opposites for peace is good. Keep on being a good force that accepts all”  These were his exact words. 

He’s right. I prioritize unity, not difference and division. I don’t need homogeny. That is fear based.  I am indeed  bewildered and welcoming of the many ways in which we choose to live our lives and how all of life can be. Free agency is our right. Rock your free will.  I personally ind it important  to relate to each person as a human BEING unconditionally, from a place of “Supreme Love” as John Coltrane would say.

Whether I agree with or understand all beliefs or not, change is here and thinking only about ourselves is dead. Endlessly wasting time in rightness,  righteousness, neglecting anyones health, hoarding  shared resources or violently harming animals for testing purposes does not work. What we are learning right now is important.

Mother Earth is providing a shift of priority. The earth is her dominion, not ours. A shift of perception requires a recognition, not a fear,  of all sentient beings. There is enough fear based consciousness as it is. It requires total presence to keep fear at bay. Presence to these circumstances is love. I choose love.  I know from Hurricane Katrina; there is nothing worse and unsettling than living around a large group of humans that are afraid.  . 

I really do not care about anyone’s political yard sign or what kind of flag you wave. I do hope that you vote and practice your freedom. More than that I hope you tell the truth to yourself. I also hope  that you find a way to love this life, respect nature  and are not a coward. Show up for this life and share hope so that more beings feel like their life matters. Love the animals.   Let us love this life together. 

. 

It’s a miracle that we live on a giant rock 4.54 billion years old, comprised of 70% water, at just the right distance from the orbit of the sun to not burn. With a satellite known as the moon, there is  a gravitational pull far beyond our conscious control that helps sustain a stable enough rotation. This movement is so balanced  that we don’t really notice we are moving. What a miraculous home we share.

Earth’s miracles are our miracles. If the earth  were an organism, we would be her cells. We can choose to activate further generated cellular health (love) instead of a degeneration (fear)  of this exquisite planet and shared home of planet earth. This is not my home. It is our home.

We are a unified eco-system. How we treat this planet and all of her sentient beings is a direct indication of how we feel about ourselves, in sickness and fear or health and love. There is vivid misfortune with so much sickness and loss. I pray for you if you have experienced this. We must not take this lightly. There are also clear silver linings and a chance to change with such a blank sleight ahead. 

“Oh, it’s like this now.” Lama Marut

 

 

There is a window opening. This window is an opportunity. We can choose to open this window thoroughly,  or partially, still being partial to whom is worthy of living a blessed and healthy life. Yet, who wants to be in a partial life really? Not I.  To me, this is cowardice. I am not a coward. Each of us must be given the right to health for us to be in a healthy eco-system together. This is brave. This is love.

It is impossible to not affect others with our internal landscape. If we give fear a lot of attention, we will become even more afraid. No one can rush. Haste and reactivity are fear based. Impulsivity and thoughtlessness  to tactics of  a new life could further harm us all. It isn’t life affirming. 

The  quality of the mind’s thoughts  go out of us as waves, hitting into everything in the atmosphere, far beyond your mind alone. Quantum science has proven this.If something is unsettling within you, this is your time to get clarification. It can be a productive time to uncover anything keeping you from the greatest of all powers; unconditional love. Myopia is dead.  Work to have no enemies. 

There is a window opening. It is opening fully. Nature couldn’t be more loud and clear. Within it is an awakening. Not just your awakening. But our awakening, together. Learn to hold yourself and your part in this well.  Your are affecting us. This historical moment is important.

 “Whether we like it or not, we have been born on the earth a  part of one great family. Rich or pour, educated or uneducated, belonging to one nation or another, ultimately each of us is just a human being like everyone else. Furthermore, we all have the same right to pursue happiness and avoid suffering.” The Dalai Lama

 

It is incredibly difficult to be both afraid and present. It might be strange if you didn’t have a moment of fear in the many questions that might arise during a total global dismantling. To have fierce compassion for yourself and all others is the love I speak about.  It is the most potent of all energies on the planet. It will be important to closely monitor ourselves and those in close proximity to us with gentleness. Awakenings aren’t easy.  So.go easy on yourself and others, as this is notoriously uncomfortable..

I think it important to not feel guilty if you are having a good day. It allows us to understand there is access to joy during a pandemic. If you watched  the sun did indeed reliably rise  again with it’s same eloquence and beauty, rejoice. More joy on this planet is helping to balance out the hardships that many are facing. Just be certain to still care. Complacency is a real killer.  Own your time. Pretend you are dying, because really, we all are!

 Being a visionary comes after you’ve allowed yourself to process out the fears that kept you separate, small and stuck. Vision requires a new perspective, totally devoted to this life’s continuation. If we are each doing our local part, with less panic, and more love, it is  the beginning of saving the world, one neighbor and one neighborhood at at time. Choose love over fear. It just feels good. 

Thank you pandemic. I now have my priorities  for a loving life more in check. 

I choose love,  I have no enemies, Swan Michelle

“No Hard Feelings” The Avett Brothers 

When my body won’t hold me anymore

And it finally lets me free

Will I be ready?

When my feet won’t walk another mile

And my lips give their last kiss goodbye

Will my hands be steady?

When I lay down my fears

My hopes and my doubts

The rings on my fingers

And the keys to my house

With no hard feelings

When the sun hangs low in the west

And the light in my chest

Won’t be kept held at bay any longer

When the jealousy fades away

And it’s ash and dust for cash and lust

And it’s just hallelujah

And love in thoughts and love in the words

Love in the songs they sing in the church

And no hard feelings

Lord knows they haven’t done

Much good for anyone

Kept me afraid and cold

With so much to have and hold

When my body won’t hold me anymore

And it finally lets me free

Where will I go?

Will the trade winds take me south

Through Georgia grain or tropical rain

Or snow from the heavens?

Will I join with the ocean blue

Or run into the savior true

And shake hands laughing

And walk through the night

Straight to the light

Holding the love I’ve known in my life

And no hard feelings

Lord knows they haven’t done

Much good for anyone

Kept me afraid and cold

With so much to have and hold

Under the curving sky

I’m finally learning why

It matters for me and you

To say it and mean it too

For life and its loveliness

And all of its ugliness

Good as its been to me

I have no enemiesI have no enemiesI have no enemies

 

“And even after all of this time, the sun never said to the earth, ‘you owe me’. Look at what a love like that does. It lights up the whole sky.” Hafiz

Namaste, Swan Michelle  

Artwork by Daniela Marx. Special thanks to her for documenting the prophetic words of our Swan River Yoga Teachers daily and to the teachers and students that continue to show up for themselves, which dissolves fear. Your practice is your daily statement that you have chosen love.

The post I Choose Love Over Fear. Pandemic Silver Linings  appeared first on Swan Michelle.

Listen To Audio Version Here

“Health Is wealth. Peace of mind is happiness. Yoga shows the way.” -Swami Sivananda

Listen to a FREE Meditation For Health Here

What a wild ride, this life.  With news of sickness escalating, it is vital right now to focus deeply on keeping our sacred instrument  of the mind body and spirit healthy, holy and happy, tending to the ways in which others might be affected by this.

Myself, I feel my holistic  practices are readily guarded tools of proaction for times such as this. In living through 911 and Hurricane Katrina and being in the direct chaos of it, as I look back, I realize now I was more afraid of the human’s response to these things than of the natural disaster, especially if we are thinking only about ourselves, yet, we must include ourselves in what is suppose to be  togetherness.

If someone is sick in Italy or an auto immune disease that puts them at risk to being in social settings, yes,  I am concerned.

The sickness of  “I , me, mine” plants the seeds for adharma (non-supportive, non-purpose, non-pillar)  to survive. “Us, we, our” plants seeds for dharma (pillar, support, purpose)  to thrive.

When the “I” becomes “we”, illness becomes wellness.

Our practices can’t be played off in the unpredicted moment of personal collision or world catastrophe. Whatever you have been doing to elevate and maintain consciousness on a daily basis is also how you will respond to this, with intelligence, discipline, and reality, which cultivates compassion,  and acts of love,  or with fear, keeping us paranoid, gullible and perhaps sick. If you are one to feel fed by dramatics, you may find yourself doing so even now. If you tend towards isolation, which is different from strategic and conscious social distancing, this to may be your go to. Remember incredible forms of separation are a form of sickness.

Watch what keeps you feeling empowered at this time and what really does not at all empower you to feel in flow with your life right now. Be sure to listen to the truth. Taking incredible care of yourselves and all others as a top priority, offering understanding to those in vivid crisis, sickness, or stress. We all handle stress differently. Take shelter in places that keep you in the remembrance of the positive. Really, if we are taking care of ourselves and others, nothing is really changed.

I remember teaching a class right after 911. The class was the fullest class I had ever taught at that point. It was the same after Hurricane Katrina.  Let this be a time we come together in reflection of sanity, health and steadiness.

There are many ways to boost our immune system no matter what state your immune system is currently in, as it is empowering to do so, from joy, fresh air, getting exercise, drinking fresh juices, clean foods and herbs, and keeping the mind in check by listening to what it is repeating, which can raise or lower our vibrational frequencies, in our quiet moments or meditations.

I think it important as yogis to be both clear, not naive, and to be proactive in holding the power of positivity and truth. Please do all that you personally can to be well informed, yes, AND to meditate just as equally if not more so that your mind and body remain in a positive frequency. Massive social distortions take place when panic lowers our vibrational frequency. Keep checking in with your mind, first and foremost! Positivity does not mean naivety. Look at the news, but do not let it consume you.

I grew up around Natural Remedies. I am not a doctor. I do not know if this will work for you but it does for me in boosting my immune system since I travel so much:

My Natural Remedy List:

Astragalus is an herb I take when I travel. It comes from Oregon

Higher doses of Vitamin C

General Daily Vitamins

Garlic

Ingest Thieves OIl- it has a name for a reason. Thieves were able to steal from those with the plague by wearing these ingredients. There are Thieves hand sanitizers, cleaners, mouth sprays and room sprays. Get some.

Fresh foods, less alcohol and substances that lower or compromise  your immune system

Exercise

I am an Ayurveda Yoga Therapist. These things I suggest. When in doubt, ask an Ayurvedic Doctor.

Ayurvedic remediations check list for boosting OJAS:

Cinnamon in large doses

Belly and gut health is a high immune system, probiotics, turmeric, triphala

Tulsi

Amla

Moving the body (yoga!)

Massage

Being in nature & breathing fresh air

Pranayama outside in nature

Meditation to keep your mind in check

Eat for your dosha

Wear an insulation of Sandalwood,  Frankincense, Sage, Pine, Tea Tree, Lemongrass or Clove, depending on what your skin and Dosha will accept, as a body oil, called Abhyanga for an entire body sanitizer. Many of these oils are naturally antiseptic, anti- fungal and anti-bacterial.

You can purify your air with an air diffuser made of these things, or by using natural incense that does not have chemicals in it.

You can create your own hand sanitizer with aloe vera gel, alcohol and any of these essential oils. If the grocery store is out, take action! The entire world does not use toilet paper. Just saying! Banana leaves maybe!

Here is a quick tip article. https://www.gaia.com/…/10-ayurvedic-tips-boost-your-immunity

We can be proactive in staying healthy. I remember Ram Dass stating that even global warming could be seen as a means of interconnecting all of those that love this earth together. Perhaps we can allow this global health epidemic to get us to boost our immune systems and take charge of a collective  health together.

A lovely Mantra I think of when I am praying for the health of others is:

Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah. Sarve Santu Niramaya. Sarve Bhadrani Pashyantu. Makasheid Dukhabhav Bhavet

Translation: “May all beings be happy, May all beings be healthy, May all see auspiciousness.  May no one be overwhelmed by despair.”

I think it important to pray for those beings affected by any sickness. If your immune system is already compromised, please discern what activities are worth being involved in for your own sake. As a social duty, if you are  sick, it benefits those that are healthy if  stay home. Lets collectively think of those suffering with compassion and remain aware and those doing their best to stay healthy so that they can continue to serve you

There are many natural health care providers that work for themselves. Continue to support them and reach out to them. Continue to get massages ,to seek out herbalists, Energy healers, Yoga Teachers, and eat at your local vegan cafes. These are people that work on remaining healthy.

As always, I am sticking to my practices of being in nature, getting fresh air, loving my family and friends, eating clean healthy food,  moving my body, clearing my energy, meditating, praying and singing in service to others. Because I can do so, and feel blessed by this truth, I am determined to continue to serve others by also attending to my health first in which to do more optimally serve others.

I suggest the same for you. I am here for you. Let us all be here for one another together. Social distancing can be intelligent, or create further separation, depending on it’s need for it. Separation can be a form of sickness.  Satsang too is empowering, which means coming together when healthy to gain confidence, perspective, inspiration and union.

I have included a Meditation For Health in my newsletter  that is free for anyone that wishes to listen. It is 11:11 minutes, can can elevate your vibrational frequency instantly if you are feeling overwhelmed by worry, which can literally make us sick.

It helps me when I think of others. I am praying for the health and well-being of us all.

To OUR health, holiness and happiness, Swan Michelle

The post Collective Health & Social Sickness appeared first on Swan Michelle.

Space, or ether, is a container. It is easy to forget it is there, but it has boundaries. Space holds the Universe in place. In a time of responsible and mandatory social distancing, it is important to remember space is not isolation, nor limitation. It is an activation of listening and an opportunity for greater freedom. 

The earth is the largest boundary that we experience, yet it is really mostly made of space, as are humans.  This is the space asked of us all at this time. It requires some tactic, daily regulation and boundary. I’ve found it that more than ever, beings are recognizing the importance of being connected to nature and outdoors, a part of this earth.

More articles are being written about our food as medicine, and it is being taken seriously. The elements are all our medicines, as those that practice Ayurveda know. This is nothing new, but we have often disconnected from nature’s nourishment. We are the trees, the ocean, the fresh air, the animals, and all o humanity. Is Mother earth is trying to connect with us as a precious Source? 

“Let thy medicine be thy food and thy food be thy medicine.” -Socrates

Sickness, a form of separation, the opposite of yoga and the opposite of being connected to our Source, is a wake up call. The yogic texts state that if one being is left unconscious, we all are. It couldn’t be more clear now. If one person is sick, we are all sick to some extent, and it affects the collective whole. Within the element of ether or space, all of the elements, and all things reside. One person not well means all of us are not well. 

The Universe is a unique and supremely intelligent system held in a specific container of unseen boundaries, of which are malleable, mysterious and unknown since we don’t have access to the whole picture. It can be easy to forget, while consumed by a narrow lens of fear, that we are held in a Universal order we may not always understand. 

“Don’t yearn for the past. Don’t anticipate the future. It is important that you not be so overwhelmed.”   -Ram Dass.

Leaping daily into life’s mystery requires more faith than perhaps we have ever experienced together as a collective in this life time. I am sure each personal apocalypse you had before you now see has in some way prepared you for this moment.  It may have been that each “regular” day did not seem like much of  a leap of faith either, being so predictable, but it was. All of this has always been uncertain and impermanent. 

This moment in time will most certainly go down in history. How we respond right now to these vivid quantum leaps of change on a daily basis is everything. Defined steadiness is essential to our collective recovery. Discipline may seem inaccessible if we have’t already been implementing it, yet we all must, and we can enjoy it! Write a book, build your garden and cook at home. it can not be just some of us practicing boundaries, thinking we are somehow above playing by the rules of the game we are in now or it just won’t work. 

Having a total lack of boundaries is disrespectful to the lives of others, which is not life affirming at all.  Everything we do, think and say affects the collective. IT’s not just now that this is so. It just  seems more obvious now. Even in the truth of mystery, we are asked to hold it all together.  This is the musculature of active faith. We don’t really have the luxury of turning away from this global awakening.

As I began writing this, I was in Bali, the mystical island of sacred sounds, Gods and Hanuman, Sita, and Ram of the Ramayana.  Bali itself is a name for Hanuman. There are giant statues of Ram and his bow everywhere, representing both being and protecting ethics as the highest aim and duty.

This 2020, the Leap Year day happened to be on the annual Balinese holiday of “Galungan”, around the time of “Holy” in India. This celebration is about “dharma’s” victory over “adharma.” Dharma means “upholding, ethic, pillar, purpose”. The “a” in front of dharma negates this, meaning there is no ethic, no pillar of support, no concern for others well-being and no point or purpose.

The inevitable victory of dharma was represented by bright elaborate decorations of palm husk, crafted with care by the villagers. It provided mindful decoration over the streets like a roof of colorful shelter of the dharma we are all held within.

Staying home for now is your colorful shelter. Make it into a personal temple, yoga studio and culinary haven for the well being of the collective of which you are a part. These devotional boundaries can be your gestures of choosing love over fear. 

Our conscience is the direct result of our connection to the consciousness that we’ve built daily over a long period of time. We are going to have to really navigate our internal compass towards the point of all of this. To not do so could be disappointing when other’s well being, safety, feelings or health are at stake.  

I’ve found myself saying  “I can do whatever I want” quite a bit recently before this virus turned pandemic, yet I meant it from my Higher Self’s view, not a careless one. As a free spirit, I do care, and I do want to be mindful of implementing the personal boundaries necessary to benefit the freedom of us all. 

“Desperation and the belief in helplessness destroys ones courage.  There is no greater enemy than despair. The Ramayana

Without an accountable commitment to our health and an internal value system from which to navigate our conscience from, the results will be harmful (himsa)  The ego often lowers our standards as it can’t see the big picture,

“Integrity is choosing courage over comfort; choosing what is right over what is fun, fast, or easy; and choosing to practice our values rather than simply professing them.” –Brene Brown

Developing our worth and sense of self is a vital part to our id structural model of the psyche’s evolution. The ego loves to be individual, and it  can also be sneaky, having little consideration to how ones choices affect others.  This is an opportunity to see that we  are a collective and this is a collaboration.

If we use this event productively, this can be an opportunity to experience Oneness, even at a temporary distance, on a scale we might not have yet. The understanding of “them” and “us” is indeed disappearing. 

“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” Abraham Lincoln 

The greatest of all sicknesses is the sickness of  “I ,me , mine”. Never underestimate the power of  “us, we, our”. When “I” turns to “we”, illness turns to wellness. 

 I do believe we are looking for environments and beings we can trust. A psychotherapist, doctor, lawyer or yoga teacher all must live in boundary to integrate freedom. Without it, their roles could be confusing or dangerous. We want our doctors healthy, our psychotherapists mentally stable and our yoga teachers ethical. It exemplifies they are living their practice.  Health, client confidentiality, refraining from sexual advances, and  being clear are crucial in those cases. You are also a community member of the planet. For now, as much as we will miss you, build your church and your yoga studio in your home.

If we think we believe something is happening and it ends up being something else entirely, it’s foundation is adharma. It’s like playing soccer while hockey is taking place.  It’s shaky and confusing. It’s not really all that enjoyable for the players and someone more than likely is going to get hurt.

“Compassionate people ask for what they need. They say no when they need to, and when they say yes, they mean it. They’re compassionate because their boundaries keep them out of resentment.” -Brene Brown 

Ram Dass spoke about dharma and the Ramayana often. He noted there is a difference between binding, which comes from the ego, represented by Ravana, who did whatever he wanted, and boundaries, which leads to boundlessness, represented in the love of Sita and Ram. The devotional leaps of Hanuman, who had a desire to be honorable and noble, represent us disciplining our character back to loving awareness. 

Like building a bridge one stone at a time as in the Ramayana, or ritualistic art in a small Balinese village, each act affects the whole. Social distancing and businesses shutting down for now, all heart breaking, are our gestures of our labor of love and our uncomfortable leaps of faith in upholding the dharma.  A pandemic is a global collaboration, as will be it’s dismantling as stewards and co-creators. 

Update yourself each day, and then put the news away. When we say “no” to something and mean it, we have said “yes” to many other things, often initially unknown, yet backed by a spacious power. Leaping into the unknown requires faith, which comes from discipline, courage and strength. This type of faith is far from careless, timid or gullible. It’s fierce. 

It is all clearly unknown right now. It always has been, yet, like space, there is certainty within it. Even the structure of the earth as our platform from which to launch and gravity too is an unspoken boundary that provides life affirming safety. When the Universe says yes, or no, it means it.

Swami Sivananda states that we must “adapt, adjust and accommodate.” 

In the Ramayana, It is dharma, also known as purpose, which brings the humans and animals back together again in the Ramayana to build a bridge to co-exist. The pandemic is building a bridge.  Rich, poor, marginalized or privileged, we are in this together.

We often feel like victims to our experiences when space is not held well and is violated. Tactics and strategy were applied by Hanuman’s army.  We are Hanumans army.

Upholding dharma is not black or white. Life is fluid. At this time, the rules are changing daily. Listen to your Higher Self and your role of civic duty.  What is the “right” thing to do, as a noble community member, even when there is hype that could lower your hope. It is when things get difficult that your boundaries and ethics will get tested.

Take aim as to what truly matters. Have you noticed that some things just don’t matter to you at all any more? Settle for nothing less. For the sake us all, aim high, keep faith. 

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Jai Hanuman!  Swan Michelle

The post Daily Leaps Of Faith. Boundaries and Boundlessness appeared first on Swan Michelle.

The Art of Listening, Honest Speech and Sound Baths 

There is a reverberating, un-struck depth within each one of us.  Can you hear it?  For a moment, pause, become aware, and listen inside to the many sounds of you. Honor first  a peripheral recognition. There it is. Let it be.

Then, tune in more deeply to another layer. Be still. Can you hear your heartbeat? Your nervous system settling?  Listen further. Can you hear your cells regenerating? The origin of where your breath reaches into you?

Go in. All in. Listen. Listen to what is agitating you. It too has a specifically attuned message. Take a breath and be with it’s melody. There is a song like intelligence in it’s honesty if we listen. 

There is also a place where you are not identified with any stasis or melodrama, if that is what you heard.  Listen for this also. This tone has a regulated message and a sound frequency. There is metastability within all of your pulsations, inviting you to go even deeper still, behind it all. 

There is a non- superficial sound that is always resounding within you. We can train ourselves to go deeper and deeper yet, behind it all, to the back of the mind, behind the prefrontal cortex, underneath any excessive, persistent pulse or superficiality. There is a place untouched within you that is poignantly honest.  

Once the truth is heard within, it is heard throughout. If we do not pause to hear it each day in regulation, unstable, inaccurate fabrications grow, discords play out, and we resonate with or invent illusions.

Eventually our thoughts become our words, and our words, our actions. Thoughts, words, and acting may seem separate, but only for so long. What is replayed within you will eventually come out of you.

Listening is the most substantial and subtle expression of our being. Listening will always precede telling the truth. There is no other way to tell it. Telling the truth is the result of listening. It is language of harmonization. Tuned to both listening and truth telling, our instruments, voice and being will resound sacred sound. 

Sound Baths are one of my favorite offerings. I love being connected to resonance of these crystal bowls, planetary gongs, tonal drums, Tibetan bowls, wind chimes and high-calibration instruments. 

I cherish studying and sharing Sanskrit and singing for others in service and for my own healing and artistry.  This language resonates with me more than any other. But there is something even far more important than these things as to why I am so drawn to this art: Listening.  

Listening is the most important sensory organ of perception for a musician and us all. As all humans and animals communicate one way or another, we are all instruments and musicians. We are all walking notes, cord arrangements, vibrational frequencies and tunes. 

We each resonate at a very specific frequency according to what we are currently in tune with in this moment. We are perpetually playing and recording melodies in our thoughts as well as our memories, what we say, and in the message we give off by our actions. This is heard down to a cellular, genetic and causal level. 

Sound eventually becomes matter. For this reason, it does matter.

What are the conscious ways in which you listen and create daily? Are any subliminal, unconscious messages entering in, unfiltered?

 I love Sound Baths as we are absorbed in what we listen to and often filter out what does not resonate with our vibratory field any longer. True listening means to focus, be totally present, and initially withdraw all other movements and thoughts to the commitment of one sound, just as a Sound Bath is, until all actions become one.

I find listening, good music and honest speech interrelated.

I have been offering Sound Baths since 2010.  I am not really all the way sure where I thought of doing Sound Baths, beyond being donated giant crystal bowls, teaching yoga and living in New Orleans, where melodies live in the air. There weren’t any Sound Baths in my world, and I had never heard of one until providing one.

I began envisioning after some travels to the East that since music and sound are expressed as sacred medicine, that I could create a sober, intentional, still and mindful setting in my own studio where no one talks while captivated by music meant for recalibrating  consciousness. 

Refining our appreciation and  presence with music is a form of intentional action.

Because Sound Baths are so subtle, they promote pausing, being sensitive to the vibrations around us, and noticing how their message can affect or prioritize our listening and speech with more honesty. It makes sense. It’s not like we can really separate these components. 

Clear articulation in all forms can only have come from having listened first. We can’t just be good storytellers, talking at others, as sound requires the dynamic harmony and mutual reciprocity of relationship, where the other gets their turn, and they get to speak, while you listen.  We also can’t just keep taking in all of the information that we now have access to more than ever in this world. We must process and filter it, or it will overload our fragile systems.  Sound Bath’s are one of many ways for holding a clear space for us to process all the things we hear.

Telling the truth is like a timeless, classic song. It remains with you far longer than anything hurtful, if we give ourselves the chance to no longer concretize their effects. 

Listening absolutely requires that we get to the source of something, which is striking. We investigate, and we investigate that even with more inquiry until it is crystal clear. Intuition will then single pointedly and strikingly reverberate meta-stability.  Listening is the absorption of remembering the most important and most original thing beyond the many things that in the end are not going to matter to you.

Listening within can be challenging if something is disturbing. It may be why we often escape these things by creating more noise and more stories, doing anything we can to  keep moving, escape and distract ourselves with distortion or lies, and eventually create an unstable, highly fluctuating life.

“Reality is never frightening. It is impossible that it could upset me. Reality only brings perfect peace. When I am upset, it is only because I have replaced reality with illusions which I made up. The illusions are upsetting because I have given them reality and thus regard reality as an illusion.” -A Course In Miracles, Lesson 52

When we are not listening within, we easily lie to ourselves. Like static, lies understandably and insidiously engender fear and insecurity in us and in others as there is no grounds for trust or safety. Without listening, which is an act of attentive loving and acceptance.

Listening is the first component to one of the most powerful tools any of us has as humans: Our voice. If we do not say how we feel or what we mean, we are misleading.  Listening extends clear speech effortlessly as the greatest gift we can offer another.

When we poison our speech, it lowers the vibrational field of our bodies and the atmospheres of those we share it with.The measure of our closeness or distance to another, to groups, or to our life experiences  is  equal to our level of communication with them.

Extending the truth comes from being clear about what it is that we want. Nonetheless, we are transmitting that daily no matter what, consciously or unconsciously.

Sound Therapy

“Music can name the unnamable and communicate the unknowable.”  -Leonard Bernstein

When I play tuning forks that are calibrated to bring the beta, alpha, theta and delta waves of the brain into homeostasis for a more efficient synapses of the neuron-communicators.  The vagus nerves, which regulates the parasympathetic nervous system, are the command center of communication to the brains waves. The two vagal nerves are in charge of  a refined orchestration of the gut, mind, and heart existing in concert with one another.

The heart has more neurotransmitters than the brain, and yet when the brain is loud, it may shut down the vagus nerves’ communication to the heart and gut. This can over stimulate more sympathetic response, which by nature is louder, and related to the beta wave’s critical mind dominance over calm and the emotionally or defensively charged pre-frontal and primal cortex.

Coming back into concert with ourselves means there is an entire orchestration of harmony in all of the systems of the body, be it the nervous system, hormonal system, or digestive system, in assisting blood flow, temperature, muscle tone, metabolism and the reciprocal play of alertness and calm found in the hypothalamus. A loss in the interrelationship of the  autonomic nervous system will lead to physical, mental, and emotional imbalances.

Sound Therapy talks to our nervous system naturally and specifically in an original and non-encased language. These instrumentations have little to no narrative, which can be helpful in getting chaos or cacophony to collapse softly. In Sound Therapy, specific hertz measured instruments and high in consciousness mantras break up frozen or cemented thoughts in the amygdala from their sympathetic holdings. 

With intentionality, these sacred sounds, entered in while listening, can break into disharmony. Imagine an inner world with no noise. That is what a Sound Bath activates in you, so that you more optimally choose a radio station for deep and honest listening. Hearing the simple truth means it is more likely you might tell it.

What I have found after a Sound Bath is that worry, myopic and low-grade thoughts dissolve on the faces of those that participated  into a landscape that sheds serenity, both creative and intelligent.

We are our own stereophonic bliss. My Sound Therapist and Teacher, John Beaulieu, stated that he found measurable amounts of nitric oxide can increase from high calibration instruments, which is an opiate molecule that brings on a natural pleasure and heightened immunity secretion within us in the thymus, along with a healthy level of melatonin. And so yes, a very real dream state is often a result of living in a well grounded truth.

The quickest way into the brainstem is through sound. Humans both process and produce sound. We can choose to upgrade or degrade our frequency through what we say, what we do, and what we listen to.

If we allow sound and speech become a mystical event again,  we naturally refine our taste for what we will say and how we respond.  Since degrading sounds can be vague, evasive, hurtful, deceptive, and unclear, there are also simply some things we no longer care to listen to. 

Simultaneously become the instrument, music, musician, and the audience. The truth is found in you and your focus on listening. 

Join me for a Sound Bath. We can practice listening to the truth together.

In listening, Swan Michelle

Your listening and your speech is your form of prayer.

The post  Listen And Tell The Truth appeared first on Swan Michelle.

“Love for no reason at all” -Ram Dass

By Swan Michelle

“The most important aspect of love is not in giving or the receiving: It’s in the being. When I need love from others or need to give love to others, I’m caught in an unstable situation. Being in love, rather than giving or taking love, is the only thing that provides stability. Being in love means seeing the Beloved all around me.” –Ram Dass

If we really know in our bones that we are loved, we would never compromise ourselves nor any other.  Everything would be precious to us. There would be no gain nor loss, no one-upping, nor downing anyone because it’s all sacred.

When you love this completely, your love blesses everyone. When you do practices that are committed to implementing loving actions, they not only affect you, but they affect how you will treat all others, near and far, with consideration.

Each action is either a form of love or of fear. For this reason, if you are loving, you do not need another as your source of security and stability from which to Love.

Fear is often a cover up to our own shame. When we are unable to change our mind or do our part, we are unable to change anything. Fear keeps changing it’s story. Love does not change. Love is simple. Love is love.

Our level of commitment is revealed in so many ways. Commitment to supporting ourselves financially, daily responsibilities, health, family, spiritual practices, mental stability, a clean home, architecting our dreams,  attending to the earth, and our relationships to others.

Just as presence cannot really be partial, commitment can’t really be partial. You either are or you are not committed. It is only when we are fully committed to the present that the present reveals its fullness to us. If we are partially committed to anything, it will never be enough, and the fullness of those revelations will never be revealed.

How do we know we are loved? Others might deeply love you, but it doesn’t mean that you are love. Giving, which isn’t always the same as sharing, can be an expression of Oneness and Love. Commitment multiplies giving. Commitment is sharing. This is Two-ness. Two-ness leads to unity, which is Allness. What is the deepest thing we can share together? The Truth.

There can be no love, nor presence if there is fear. There might be a little love. But a little love means it isn’t love.  Fear invents.  Fear separates us from our innate values. 

In love, there are no others nor separations. In Love, we are committed to being Whole and we simply Love others for no reason at all.

Prema, a Sanskrit word for “Supreme/Universal  Love,” is a  Truthful, reliable shelter of  Divine Love. There are many false shelters. They will prove undependable. If you are the source of love, you cannot really “get” love, nor are you endlessly searching for it. When we realize we are love and loved, it is only then that we can extend love instead of inventing more fear. 

The ego is sneaky. It has its purpose. But its purpose isn’t really to love. It thinks it gets love, gets attention, or is somehow beyond any internal ethics as to how others are being treated. The moment we think we are getting love from another as an opportunity, we have begun to turn away from love’s essence. Seeking love reinforces separateness.

If you are being love, it may remind another of who they are so that they can find it for themselves, within themselves. This is your personal vow and commitment to love and devotion, yet this alone ultimately each being must do. Within themselves and within ourselves, a love we each must find.

Not everyone is ready to receive love. They may not have been committed to it before. That is definitely a clue, but there is only one reason why: Fear. If one hasn’t  been honest to turning towards the inner envelopment and the barriers that stop them from loving unconditionally, they can’t fully give it, nor receive it.

There will inevitably be other humans that end up hurting us. This isn’t a reason to turn our back on love. This has nothing to do with you beyond your commitment to your work on yourself. Your commitment to wholeness is the greatest gift you can give another and it is the only thing you really can do.

If we love another too much, we might forget our own needs, and they feel sacrificed. Yet, let’s not rob ourselves of such a story. Supreme Love is boundless. It can’t be robbed,  and so, how can you really love “too much”?  

Remember, giving is Oneness. Sharing is Wholeness.

If we are incredibly committed to ourselves, how far do we take this? Can it not be a bit self absorbed and lofty, unconscious to how our actions affect them? Yes, of course it can. But that is not love. 

Individualization, although initially important, does eventually lead to mental and physical sickness, war, and suffering. It has no real connection. Prema is not commitment to autonomy. It is commitment to being who you are, so completely, that you are self contained enough to share yourself fully with another.

When you hold love well within you, you do not seek false shelters. You are also committed to life’s difficult turns because they cannot be separated from your love. You may have bruises, but are totally invulnerable to the need to feel important or loved. What was broken becomes unbreakable.

Invulnerable is my new favorite word. It means your love can never be compromised,  no matter how it is tested, due to the deep investigation to your bones’ marrow of where love comes from. Invulnerability does not come from being careless but careful. It does not come from cover-ups, but uncovering. It doesn’t appear free, which can be reckless. It is free. 

Loving for no reason at all gives another permission to change and to be exquisite in their uniqueness. It also means you are not threatened by another’s greatness because you know where that shine is coming from and you get to share in it.

Prema is not commitment to homogeny,  pretending to be someone we are not. Pleasing another is still a fraud like version of you. It means you do not love yourself. True commitment is to be exactly who it is that you are, sharing, free of us all guessing.

You cannot give what you do not have. Commitment is not always convenient. It doesn’t always feel at the time like it really benefits us. Be committed to a larger lens. Myopia will always feel empty, trickster like and lacking, because it is.

Commitment is a protection of Love. It is both noble boundaries and breathing room for each Soul to grow into their ever changing role. A non-committal terrain will breed insecurity and a lack of trust, not ultimately for the other, but most of all, for you. When you betray another, you haven’t really betrayed them. You have betrayed yourself.  Secretly, you feel stranded and you will not trust yourself. Nor will they trust you.

The answer: Know that we are loved.   But by whom?  By another?

No.

Love yourself. Not a projected version. These versions eventually start wars and corrupt goodness. Love yourself. Just the Real you, for within that, you will find us.

Did you know that the Divine exists within you, even if you feel you are flawed? Do you believe that the Divine loves you? Or does the Divine love everyone but you, since you are not as deserving as others  due to all of the perpetual  pain you have thought or created? 

There is a type of Self love that is so deep that it may require a commitment you are not used to. Self love is not just others loving your personality and your talents. The you that needs validation is not the you we mean when we say “love yourself.”

 “When  you see one thing differently you see all things differently.”- A Course In Miracles Lesson 28 

When it is difficult to find the honesty of total appreciation for ourselves, relationship is there to assist us. Relationship is a privilege, a mirror and a microscope. It’s a true test to see someone at all times and throughout many years, observing their hardships and triumphs, their falls and their gifts, and just simply love them for no reason.

Your commitment to one thing does not make that thing exclusive, yet your commitment to one thing is your commitment to all things. You then realize your commitment to one thing is the means of revealing its purpose to you, which later reveals the purpose of all things equally. Commitment is your contribution and application to seeing all things as they really are.

Commitment reveals your willingness to see things differently, Soul to Soul instead of just role to role. Nothing is ever by itself if it is in itself. Commitment is seeing what is in itself, not separate at all.  

“The light you will see in anyone of them is the same light you will see in them all.”  -ACIM, Lesson 28

Commitment, the application and work of Love,  has boundaries. Commitment implies reliability, single pointed in nature. When you say, “yes” to something, this implicitly and respectfully means you have committed to saying “no” to others.  And a “no” that you mean will always bring about many other “yes’s” that were not before recognized, available, or seen to you.

When it is painful to see the difficult aspects of another that you find yourself up against, this is your work. Dig deeper into you. You don’t have to take their inventory. Hopefully you can trust that they are doing their own.  And if you do not see them doing their work, trust your red flags, because soon, all commitment’s you too are involved in with them  may not be as they appear singularly to you.

Red flag: If someone cannot commit to themselves, how can they commit to you?

“Unconditional love really exists in each of us. It is part of our deep inner being. It is not so much an active emotion as a state of being. It’s not ‘I love you’ for this or that reason, not ‘I love you if you love me.’ It’s love for no reason, love without an object. Those particular thoughts that are painful – love them. I love them to death!” -Ram Dass

If you wish for your personal commitments to be honored, start with being certain to respect the commitments of others.  This of course is not a guarantee that your solidarity will be reciprocated.  Yet, if you never lose sight of yourself, you can always remain genuine  to your own experience of commitment. Partner and belong to yourself.  Being non-committal to our inner values is the most devastating loss of all. 

Sanskrit, my favorite language,  has more words for the variances of  Love than any other language, as a mirror of the many ways in which to apply connection. There is simply no relating to each other or these forms or roles without commitment.

We uncover our loving nature when we realize we have no reason to Love, yet still go on loving. May you be committed to going into the source of this love, careful, mindful, and for no reason at all, for then in you, is found a commitment we can trust. 

“ Love everyone. Tell the truth.” -Neem Karoli Baba

Happy Saint Valentines Day month! Stay committed to the most important thing,  Swan Michelle 

The post Commitment. You Can Not Give What You Do Not Have appeared first on Swan Michelle.