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Monday’s Poem: Infinite Breath
I led a Qigong demonstration during our ACT (A Community of Transformation) meeting today. I began with a breathing exercise using a poem I posted here three weeks ago, Breathe. Breathing is always good, and a good spiritual practice to help both lift and ground us. Everything breathes in one way or another; which is to say everything is in some state of vibration. Here’s another poem about breath to start your week. Happy Monday!
Infinite Breath
We are all in mid-breath,
That infinite sigh that
Began long ago and
Blew us all into existence.
We tumble in the remnant
Turbulence of that long sigh,
No more than fluff of milkweed
Spiraling at the edge of the pool.
The exhalation continues for now
Expelling more flotsam
On each breeze generated
By whirling currents of emptiness.
And, at the end of this long breath?
Every vibration has a frequency
Measured by the return from the
Infinitesimal steady state.
There must be an inhalation, right?
The contraction is only preparation
For that next breath, a sneeze perhaps,
To blow something new this way again!
©2013 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
Spiritual Practices: from Qigong to Prayer
The theme for the week has been Spiritual Practices, so I thought it would be good to close out the week with a laundry list of the possible. I’ll offer as examples my current practices that I do on a regular basis:
Qigong: Daily. I’m spending anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes every day doing either 5-Element Form or Jeff Primack’s Level 1 Form (which I’m also certified to teach and will be starting my classes very soon).
Yoga: At least every other day, at least 20 minutes. I also just returned from my Svaroopa Yoga class with my good friend Dharma, an excellent teacher. This is nearly a two hour class each week in this new to me style of gentle, yet very effective (I can feel tonight’s work already!) yoga.
Morning Pages: Daily. I write three long-hand pages every day in the style recommended by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way. I find this practice to be incredibly grounding, a way to purge, a way to jump start the day, a way to record feelings, events, dreams, visions, plans, hopes, basically just about anything that comes to mind (or heart). I sometimes channel consciousness that just comes.
Poetry: I often write a poem or two through each week. I publish one here on the blog every Monday. And I read poetry often. I love this other-dimensional way of writing and expressing.
Divination: Daily. Currently I draw two cards, one from the Goddess Guidance Oracle Cards by Doreen Virtue, and one from the Crowley Tarot Thoth Deck. I use these cards to get an intuitive sense of the energies of the day. I write a page of notes about what they mean to me and how they relate to one-another.
As another form of divination, on new moons I cast an I Ching Gua for the moonth to gain intuitive insight on the energies for the upcoming moon cycle.
Chanting: I wrote in yesterday’s post about Mantra Meditation. I do this frequently, currently daily following Deva Premal & Miten’s 21-Day Journey.
These are my current daily practices. I spend about two hours each morning on these practices. And I consider them all forms of prayer. They are definitely forms of an invocation or act that seeks to activate a rapport with a deity, an object of worship, or a spiritual entity through deliberate communication. (from the Wikipedia definition of prayer).
OK, I may be stretching a point a bit here, but the “spiritual entity” I communicate with is the Universe, Source, the All, and other ways of expressing or labeling something greater than I and yet also inside me!
I do sometimes wonder if I am over-doing it; if I am spending too much time at my practices. But they do serve me in many ways. I feel we are all on a path of expansion, evolution and transformation. Why else bother with all these sometimes hard lessons we keep encountering and, hopefully, learning! My practices help me through the changes, support my struggles, offer ways to feel my feelings, stretch my intuitive sensibilities, open me to embrace the greatness of human consciousness and the Divine Consciousness that is there for immediate access if we sharpen our methods to encounter and listen to the wisdom available.
How much time is this worth? For me it is priceless. Maybe I am not devoting enough time to my practices!
Enjoy your weekend. Find time to practice!
What Is Your Spiritual Practice? –Richard’s Commentary
We just got back from our local Spiritual Exploration Group here in Maryland. This is a monthly meeting of like-minded folks who we bring together to discuss spiritual topics of many colors. Our mantra is we get together for Discussion, not Dogma.
Tonight’s topic was Prayer. And we explored the many dimensions of what this means for people both as a word and as a practice. We began with our childhood remembrances of what prayer meant to us and our experience of prayer. We considered the Wikipedia definition:
Prayer is an invocation or act that seeks to activate a rapport with a deity, an object of worship, or a spiritual entity through deliberate communication.
And we discussed where we are now with prayer as a way of “connecting” to something greater than ourselves but that we find inside ourselves. We spoke of prayer as a way of generating and offering our energy for positive connection and transformation, or “lifting to a higher vibrational frequency.”
We even discussed the possible existence of “dark prayer” – negatively focused energy to counter the evolutionary path of human consciousness; and we wondered if prayer can be judged in this way if it is truly a “deliberate communication with a deity”! Is a negative prayer even a true prayer?
I bring this up because prayer is certainly a spiritual practice. For me the word sometimes has a negative impact because it is overloaded with memories of childhood when reciting the “Lord’s Prayer” seemed so rote and lifeless. As a young child required to memorize the prayer I wasn’t even clear on the meanings of the words.
Then it hit me! I, with 46-thousand of my closest friends, am tuning into Deva Premal & Miten every day to chant ancient verses from Holy Scriptures. They are offering a 21-Day Mantra Meditation Journey that began April 23. Today is Day-10. (You can sign up for this free daily practice here: Deva & Premal. And you can catch up because all of the chants they have shared so far are still posted.
So, I sit, eyes closed, each morning in a very open and loving state to chant, often Sanskrit, words I am not familiar with, over and over in a “rote-like” way. How is this so different from my childhood experience of reciting the Lord’s Prayer in a rote-like way?
OK, here’s the thing about that: I am in an altered state when I chant “Om Shanti Om” 108 times. I move into that state of true inner peace invoked by this mantra. I remember where my mind was when I “prayed” the Lord’s prayer as a kid – anywhere but on “Our Father”! I wasn’t seeking to develop “rapport” with “Him”; but with these mantras I am seeking to develop a rapport with the energies invoked by their vibrations, their words composed of sacred syllables, the transcendent quality of the constructs and how they sound when chanted, whispered, or just thought and felt as they vibrate through my being.
One of my Spiritual Practices is to chant. I have learned a number of chants from different traditions using languages from Sanskrit to Navaho. I have been ritually initiated into several. And they all transport me to another “place” where I can transcend this physical dimension of time, space and my body and commune with Spirit. And for me this is the best form of prayer to which I can aspire.
If you are at all interested in chanting and mantra meditation as a form of prayer I invite you with all my good wishes to tune in to Deva Premal & Miten. Here’s the link again:
21-Day Mantra Meditation Journey
All blessings!
ROSEMARY’S EXPLORATION: What Is Your Spiritual Practice?
Do you meditate every day? Are you following a yoga or qigong or tai chi practice? Do you go for a walk in nature and call it a spiritual practice? Do you write in a journal?
How do you feed yourself spiritually every day?
So often we jump out of bed and start getting wrapped up in our to-do list. We have lists of lists and feel ready to spring into action checking things off. And, yet, at the end of the day, is that activity really the most important way you could spend your time? If you run out of day before you run out of to-do’s have you really spent your time wisely?
Let’s look at 2013 as the Year of Transformation that it truly is. What are we transforming?
How high on your priority list is your spiritual practice? If it’s not number one then maybe it’s time to re-examine those priorities.
This isn’t about religion but about the total YOU, the whole-istic YOU, the YOU who lives on Planet Earth in 2013 for a Purpose. The YOU who was born for a reason. The spiritual YOU lives in the Universe as a particular being at a particular moment in the life of the Universe so that you might play your part in the unfolding plan that the Universe has been revealing for millennia. You fit into a much bigger picture than your to-do list would indicate.
And every day it is good to check in and see how you’re doing with regard to that unfolding plan. Remember, this life isn’t about what you are DOING, but who you are BEING. Does your to-do list sometimes get in the way of your being you?
Allow yourself to define your spiritual practice by what feeds your soul. What uplifts you? How do you want to feel today?
It doesn’t really matter what you choose as your spiritual practice so long as it is important to your spirit and you do it consistently. Do you pray? Just when you need something or in thanksgiving or praise? Do you exercise? Is it just for your bodily health (or the eye candy at the gym?) or are you honoring your physical body and its assistance in your fulfilling your purpose on Earth?
Meditation can be a simple, short time to tap into something greater, to ask your higher self for guidance about the day. Of course, it can also be more elaborate, take more time, be more formal and contain even richer wisdom for you.
The Eastern practices, like qigong, tai chi and yoga, invite you to connect to your body and your breath in specific ways so that your energy can be organized for your day. Sometimes just tapping into ‘the feeling state of the Divine’ can bring you joy and peace for your day.
Choose a practice that you will commit to doing every day this week. Maybe it’s drawing a card from an oracle deck, or sitting with your morning coffee and watching the birds at the feeder outside your window. It doesn’t have to be formal and it doesn’t have to take a lot of time. But choose something that helps to feed your spirit and do it every day.
Watch how your to-do list takes on a new meaning in the context of your ‘to-be’ time!
Men and The Goddess 