Feldenkrais and Qi Gong in Seattle Washington

The wave shifts of duality or ‘separation from wholeness’ Consciousness are complete. The final energetic wave shifts that the Mayan Calendar has been tracking all came to be fully accessible in the Universe on 10/28/11. All nine levels or waves of energy came to full accessibility for humanity to co-create with….. on that same day. The Mayan Calendar has been tracking these dualistic wave shifts which have been emitted from Source since the Big Bang. This is when the spark of Consciousness began.

This spark has been under the influence of particular types of energetic waves over 16 billion years. These influenced Conscsiousness to evolve into cells, mammals, humans, tribes, families, nations, and then a more subtle evolving of humans into communities within the planet and the galaxy. Throughout these 16 billion years all potential combinations of dualistic energy (separation from whole, black/white, feminine/masculine, night/day, good/bad) has been explored. Sometimes for hundreds or thousands of years.

CONSCIOUS OF OUR OWN CONSCIOUSNESS

This has been so Consciousness could come into a form that could eventualy be completely conscious of it’s own Consciosusness. Know completely it’s own interconnection and recognize a dualistic moment as just that. A partial story. A perspective only. A glimpse. Humans are that potential species. The only ones that can be conscsious of our own Conscsiousness. The only creature that can evolve to truly knowing it’s own interconnectedness or non-spearation from any moment or anything/being/experience.

Other sentient beings are already living in this Unity or Oneness Consciousness all the time. There is little to no evolution of Conscsiousness for them once they are in form as a being on our planet. They live in Wholeness constantly although don’t ”know it”.

Everything on the earth and in the Cosmos arose from the same material matter that makes up everything. All beings, objects, or things are the same at their core. We are all the Universe. The Universe is us. In fact, a more clear term may be the Multiverse. The name for All That Is and Isn’t. All forms and possibilities at the very same moment. There is no separation. All possibilities living dynamically at the very same moment. Paradoxically. Night AND day, masculine AND feminine, Good AND Bad.

ALL POSSIBILITIES HAVE EQUAL POTENTIAL

The framing of fixed particular perspectives within that Wholeness is no longer being supported. All possibilities have equal potential now. We aren’t being ‘led’ to notice, focus on, act from, any particular dualistic perspective. This is the first time since the Big Bang this is true. We have the choice and the responsibility to choose actions that arise from Wholeness.

The Calendar does not ‘start over’. This is the ‘end of dualistic time.” There now is only Wholeness, Unity, this current moment. The present. Just this. Wholeness has all patterns of dualistic perspectives within it. All can be noticed and held together as one. We have always had this available to us however most are just waking up to this possibility and necessity now.

Yet these times are incredibly important—particularly to the human species. The dualistic wave shifts and our behaviors that have arisen from them have placed us in a particularly precarious and yet very exciting moment. Why exciting? Because humans have free will. The only species that has it. The ability to be conscious of our own Consciousness is another way to say it. Free will or the ability to create an intention. The ability to co-create with Unity Consciousness/Source/the Multiverse (that which we already are and are just waking up to know).

Our situation is precarious as most all humans know. Maybe they want to deny it, however, on some level most know. We have created the conditions on our planet where if they continue unchecked human life as we know it and possibly human life at all won’t survive. Likely other higher level mammals won’t survive either. Only lower level life forms will survive. The Earth will survive. It’s humans that have no guarantee.

Choosing to wake up and co-create a world that lives only from a place of Wholeness is the only option for humans to survive. Using our free will, our intention (first personally and then all of those personal intentions put together collectively) to co-create a completely new paradigm. One where all the forms of duality live within Unity and are recognized for what they are. A momentary change. A glimpse. Not the whole truth. The whole turth is the paradox. Duality within Unity—at the same time!

That means the first step is to open your eyes, your heart, and your body to feel your actual experiences. The good and the bad. The grief, anger, frustration, fear, AND the excitement, passion, and love. In other words the connection to the very moment of aliveness. There is no other moment than now–whatever content that moment holds. All moments are equally alive.

Embodied life practices are the only way through. Practices that happen in the now–with your intent, your free will, and your consciousness being conscious of itself participating fully from one moemnt to the next.

Embodied, co-creative, multi-dimensional life is a ‘purification’ process. Noticing when one particular duality perspective is becoming too big or overidentified with in one’s awareness. Allowing a pause and Awareness to settle back into the paradox. Let go of whatever is not serving the Whole. It’s a practice from one moment to the next. A purification practice. Continually letting go, receiving and creating more clarity. It’s the only way.

You, me, other sentient beings, our planet as we know it totally depends on it. Choose to wake up and co-create through embodied practices a New World. One based on love, reverence for Life, equality, harmony, compassion, gratitude, and connection to the very unfolding moments–over and over again. Occupy Yourself……and…….Re-occupy again.

Join Carrie at Feldenkrais and Qi Gong in Seattle for a class or a workshop. She can be reached at http://www.movementfromwithin.net, 206-459-1773, or feldychi@comcast.net.

 

 

 

Imagine a deeply peaceful yet vibrantly alive setting in the woods. Once you arrive, further exploration provides you with healing waters arising from the center of Mother Earth. The powerful sound of water draws your awareness off a bit in the distance. A frothy, dancing river rolls by below you. You are drawn……..to walk towards it. You have entered The Walking Way.

Observing the flow of constantly changing sensations within you, each step allows an opportunity to connect to your dynamic aliveness. The shear power and grace of the water draws you closer. Upon nearing the river’s edge you find an amazing labyrinth. The Walking Way clearly invites you in. A spiral. Continuous. Unfolding. You observe and sense a merging of your inner world with this continuous flow of dynamic moving life. You follow the spiral to the center and realize there is no end, no beginning. Only constant changing vibrancy.

You inhale deeply the stillness, calmness, peace and wisdom that comes with that knowing. You seamlessly turn and  follow the walking way to the river’s edge. You have arrived. Breitenbush. Along The Walking Way.

Join Carrie at Feldenkrais and Qi Gong in Seattle at her upcoming retreat at Breitenbush Hot Springs and Retreat Center on November 13-16. 2011. Still space available. You can register here.

See you along The Walking Way. http://www.movementfromwithin.net, 206-459-1773 or feldychi@comcast.net

 

 

The current manifestation of the last 26 years of my journey is a brand-new, six-CD series (also available as a download).

Click for more information. To order, look for “Feldenkrais/Qi Gong Products” button.

Just scroll down to check out my blog. Thank you for celebrating with me!

Blessings, Carrie

We are not separate from Nature. Magnify the view by 10,000 and you could be in the center of our Milky Way galaxy. Go 10,000 in the other direction and you could be in the zero point field of vibrating strings and the vast reservoir of all possible energy. Either direction of magnification from the center of the human being takes you to the same view–a vibrating, fluxing and constantly moving spiral of energy. We are made of the same stuff—hence our inability to be separate.

THE VAST AND THE TINY

The center of our Milky Way Galaxy is a black hole in the shape of a vortex or a spiral. The physics of a black hole are amazing and are being studied in depth. Check out Brian Greene’s ” The Elegant Universe” for fascinating reading about the relationship between black holes (the center of our galaxy) and the tiniest of all matter (elementary particles) and how they are the same………..

Both black holes and elementary particles have a spin—a spiraling spin that is constantly dynamically changing. It can be measured. We are made of the same energetic spiraling energy and can measure our own ‘spin’ through our own internal sensory system.

The physics of the miniscule and the vast are fascinatingly complicated. They are endlessly spiraling themselves through possibly many more than the 3 dimensions that we are usually aware of. Check out this Ted Talk by Brian Greene.

Brian Greene-Universe on a String

The most powerful lab to study is the one within your very own inner world. The richness, subtlety, and refinement of your sensory study will open you to the world of the miniscule and the world of the vast as they all live together within you, and all around you in the world of Nature.

Have you ever watched a sprout unfurl over time and observed the nonlinear path it takes through space? If you have a garden it is simple to do. Check out a budding tree in the springtime. Commit to watching a sprout for just a minute or two each day and create your own perspective on the graceful rounded arc of the leaves as they unfold and of the stem as it moves upward through space.

There is nothing straight about the process. The sprout intricately and gracefully unfurls through it’s own unique spiral shape into all dimensions at the same time. This is an amazing process. You can sense this if you just take a few moments each day to consistently observe the constant miniscule changes.

Have you ever sat at the zone of the ocean’s edge without thinking, planning or doing? Just allow yourself all the time you need. Invite the continuous rolling waves to bring their beautiful, graceful, curved roundedness to you one after the other. The shape of the universal spiral is so easy to feel and to see as the wave rolls over onto itself or as it laps and rolls onto the shore.

YOUR INNER WORLD

If we are interconnected with Nature, and with the miniscule and with the vast, then our own internal world and externally viewed movements must have the same qualities. This is easy to see as you watch a perfectly executed jump and turn by an ice dancer or a complicated multi-twisting dive by an expert high diver. We all know by sight and by internal sensation those moments we observe a perfect spiral within movement. This is because it feels effortless and graceful even just in our observation of it. Notice how you feel it–not just how you see it.

All efficient movement has this universal quality within it. Efficient movement doesn’t have to be ‘perfect’ or highly complicated or athletic. It feels like grace or ease. It can show up in any movement. You sense the universal qualities of flow, smoothness and ease that are similar to what you feel when observing the ice dancer or the diver.

These qualities of smoothness, roundedness, arc-like, continuousness, grace, connectedness, fluidity and ease can clearly be known. These qualities show up as continual movement through an intricate dynamic multi-dimension spiral. Access is made through wonder and inquiry. About any of your movement intentions. That includes those inner movements of your thoughts and emotions as well as those movements of your body and limbs in space.

UNIVERSAL SPIRALING SENSATION

The unfurling of efficient movement for us—no matter what our task at hand is—shows up within our internal sensation as a sense of graceful ease. The same way it does for us when we watch the sprout, the wave, the ice dancer, or high diver. It isn’t the task that matters but the awareness of the unfolding internal sensation that matters.

Join my upcoming retreat at Breitenbush Hot Springs Nov 13-16, 2011 to experience first hand the connection of your awareness to the universal spiral within stillness and movement. Through gentle self-exploration of your inner world you will connect to the spirals within and without. Immerse yourself in practices that will be directly useful in these transformational times. Practices will be taken from Feldenkrais ATM®, Healing Qi Gong, Vipassana Meditation, Joanna Macy’s The Work that Reconnects, and Nature-based Shamanism.

Join Carrie at Feldenkrais and Qi Gong in Seattle for a class or a workshop. She can be reached at http://www.movementfromwithin.net, 206-459-1773, or feldychi@comcast.net.

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Your choice. Always. Habit isn’t a choice–it is a reaction. Aware choice is a response. Which will you create?

Habit will likely have you creating effort. Too much effort to ‘push your way through’–Fight. Too much effort ‘to avoid the situation’–Flight. Too much effort by holding a rigid view that ‘there is no other way’—Freeze.

Aware choice will have you curious, wondering, and sensing. Always sensing. For your inner flow. Sensing for your inner world to show you flow–through a deep breath, a slightly more open and expansive sense within yourself as well as the obvious —a sense of moving in the direction of more continuous smoothness in your movements.

This requires practice. Any path of awareness requires cultivation of a practice. Deep inner inquiry, gentle yet fierce persistence, courage to stay present for what shows up and much compassion/kindness for the continual requirement to practice….again and again. To choose to wake up…..again.

We are in a time of great transformation. The chaos/effort in our Mother Earth and in our global world is a direct reflection of the chaos/effort in our collective species as well as in each of us personally. The way from Fight/Flight/Freeze effort in our planet to Flow can only be traversed through the same path in each of our inner worlds.

This transformation is an inside out job. The only way to move towards Flow–having the whole operate with harmony and ease—is to practice. Cultivate this practice in your own lab–your inner world. Frequently. Notice with curiosity. Play Wonder, Notice again. Refine your noticing.

Allow your own inner wisdom to ‘pay forward’ each noticing to a future moment. This will slowly allow your innate inner wisdom to arise in those future moments. You will begin to act with Flow. Finding yourself much closer to Flow earlier in those future moments. You will begin to feel improved ability to find grace, ease and connection–no matter your circumstances.

The amount of Flow experienced in each of us adds up to the amount of flow experienced by our collective. The amount of Flow experienced by our collective relates to how we experience our global world. Fight/Flight/ Freeze effort in the world equals the same within each of us. Practice changing your inner world towards Flow and experience your perception of tour global world and your actions within it changing. Towards a sense of increased ease/flow –no matter the circumstances.

We will only transform our world through committed cultivation of self-awareness practices. There are many available: FELDENKRAIS, Qi Gong, Meditation, Yoga, Shamanic indigineous wisdom and many others. Choose one, commit to a practice. Begin now! Our world is crying out for YOU TO BEGIN and for YOU TO CONTINUE…..to notice and to cultivate noticing again.

Are you moving from Fight/Flight/Freeze towards…….FLOW?

Join Carrie at Feldenkrais and Qi Gong in Seattle for a class or a workshop. She can be reached at http://www.movementfromwithin.net, 206-459-1773, or feldychi@comcast.net

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Our world is crying out for movement of the human species beyond either/or, black/white, us versus them, good/bad or correct/incorrect only within the narrow confines of a limited world view. This dualistic world view, when allowed to run the world has lead to separation, hierarchy, and an over focus on the rational divorced from the intuitive aspects of our consciousness. This separation shows up as separation of our heart/soul from our rational/strategic minds, of humans from Nature, and of rational thinking from intuitive sensing. This is the crossroads where we stand as a species.

We are not separate–from anything, or anyone. We are part of a complex interwoven web; inextricably linked in every moment, in every way with ourselves, with each other (no matter how close or far in porximity), and with our surroundings, both Nature and man-made. Complexity within Unity–Uniplexity.

I recently saw an anonymous quote that reads…..“This doesn’t have anything to do with me. I want to live as comfortably as I can.”
This thinking will no longer work. Action arising from this leads to further separation. Western society/culture has become mutant–focused on pleasure-seeking—separateness from our interconnection to the bigger story of life. Our planet cannot support our actions arising from this “It doesn’t have anything to do with me, I just want to be as comfortable as I can” consciousness. Everything has to do with everything.

Blind pleasure-seeking automatically places us into a ping-pong ball game. We bounce like a ping-pong back and forth in a reactive way. We go from grasping and clinging tightly to whatever pleasures we ‘need’ to the automatic resistance or aversion to those pleasures being taken away. When one comes up the other is also driving us from our shadow. This is where our fear, greed, arrogance, hierarchy and separateness-judgement and drive for external power usually lives.

Mutant consumer-driven ‘must have more’ thinking, pleasure-seeking, external distraction-seeking, hierarchical models, and living as if our planet is a ‘thing’ to take control of and dump our wastes onto/into will not survive. The conditions humankid has created from these ways of thinking are showing us more and more how each of us personally and we as a collective must look in the shadow.

Our species is at a crossroads. This is a global moment of opportunity for transformation. We each have the opportunity to look deeply inward and find how we are complicit with promoting separateness in our lives. Promoting (even very subtlely) greed, arrogance, fear, or a narrow right/wrong ideology only in service to ourselves or a very few others. A friend recently termed this a ‘contextless ideology.” It’s a great term!

In Feldenkrais work we term this: moving in the direction that allows equal ease to continue to move in any direction even while doing what you are doing. A clear intent while always allowing the unified whole to have the freedom to respond without effort to whatever may show up. This is complexity within Unity. Uniplexity!

No one culture or system in our world has all the answers. This crossroads we stand at requires us to make a new dynamic uniplexity system. One where we know our inherent interconnection to the whole of the Gaian Web of Life. That includes what is in the light AND what is in the shadow.

As Thomas Berry (a true elder in the deep ecology field) so beautifully said in The Dream of the Earth: “We must go far beyond any transformation of contemporary culture. We must go back to the genetic imperative from which human cultures emerge originally and from which they can never be separated without losing their integrity and their survival capacity. None of our existing cultures can deal with this situation out of its own resources. We must invent, or reinvent a sustainable human culture by a descent into our pre-rational, our instinctive resources. Our cultural resources have lost their integrity. They cannot be trusted. What is needed is not transcendence, but ‘inscendence.’”

Our species can no longer just move towards ‘what is comfortable.’ We must move towards what continues to allow equal ease to move in all directions for our unified whole. That is All of the Gain Web–as One Unified Whole. The shift is happening–will you choose to participate from your interconnection? This interconnection has another name. It is called Love. Will you choose to participate from love (interconnection) or from fear (separation)?

Carrie has upcoming classes and workshops at Feldenkrais and Qi Gong in Seattle supporting your travels inwards. She can be reached at (206) 459-1773, feldychi@comcast.net or http://www.movementfromwithin.net.

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I have some exciting news to share. I feel like I have been pregnant for awhile and am very ready to deliver. Pregnant with a creative project that has been unfolding for pretty much the past year. It is coming very near delivery time and I have decided to share the upcoming birth with you now. I am very excited to do so!

I am creating my first work to enter the public realm! It is a 6-CD series entitled The Walking Way: Stepping Into Awareness. It is a combination of Feldenkrais ATM® Walking Lessons and Five Element Qi Gong Meditations. The two are woven together in a unique spiraling path to access greater ease, efficiency and embodied wisdom.

I am very grateful for all of the amazing and abundant help that has been provided to me along the creative path of manifesting this birth. It truly takes a village as they say! My village has been, and continues to be incredible! Much gratitude fills my heart.

I can now look forward to sharing this with you. Look for information on my website in the next couple of months on how to order the series.

Blessings,
Carrie

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This is a re-post of an old post from last year. I will be on a retreat and not writing this week. I look forward to you joining in the upcoming walking ATM class at Greenlake on June 29, 2011. Hope to see you there!

What is ATM? Awareness Through Movement (ATM) is one of the two learning avenues of THE FELDENKRAIS METHOD. ATM is a verbally directed dynamic group (usually) learning experience. The Feldenkrais Method is about learning how you specifically learn through refining your own internal sensory experience while you move. This noticing while moving and acting is possibly the most unique characteristic of The Feldenkrais Method.

A particular environment is created during an ATM lesson (as they are called) in which spontaneous learning, knowing, or insight arises through noticing while doing. This spontaneous knowing is recognized on a sensory level–a felt sense experience–and can create a completely new or previously unrecognized way of being and doing–for anything in life.

Moshe Feldenkrais said “We act in order to perceive.” Not we act in order to get things done or to get as many things done as we possibly can. Our nervous system is designed to continually refine and discern the quality of how we do what we do and how we are the way we are in order to bring that way of being to a level of increased ease and higher functioning.

This perceiving the way we are acting (doing or being) is what allows us to access all sorts of untapped potential for creating increased ease, grace, comfort, wonder and mystery in our lives. It opens the door to spontaneity and wisdom.

ATM lessons create an open and expansive space where precisely acting or moving in order to perceive is what is being explored. Moshe Feldenkrais said doing an ATM lesson should be a ‘waste of time.” He meant that any ‘goals’ or attachments to achieving any right or correct way of moving or acting was useless. The learning occurs precisely from moving and exploring the sensory qualities of moving without this ‘image of achievement’ as he called it.

He also meant that by acting in order to perceive and refining that perceiving (which is what ATM is all about) is what allows a spontaneous, unplanned, and often a ‘surprise’ knowing or learning insight to arise from the movement exploration. Therefore, this unplanned and at times meandering sensing from the intellectual mind’s perspective could be considered a waste of time! Nothing, however, could be further from the truth!

ATM is a powerful learning experience which has the capacity to change our very fabric of being. This is because it works below the level of the planning/striving mind. Moshe also said “We act in accordance with our self-image.” Both ATM and the other avenue of the Feldenkrais Method (Functional Integration-FI) work primarily with and from this statement. Moshe is referring to an internal kinesthetic self-image that we carry around within ourselves and are for the most part habituated to on a sensory level.

This internal image creates our thoughts, emotion, beliefs, and actions—all arising as internal kinesthetic sensation. ATM lessons allow a special opportunity to become intimately connected through direct experience with our own internal image. Through this intimate direct knowing comes more options for allowing increased efficiency, ease, and peace and wisdom.

In ATM lessons there is a continual relationship with possibilities and with constraints. This relationship exists within the variety of movement positions one is in during a lesson, the movements through space being explored, and the multitude of ways attention is being asked to be perceived relative to the intention of the movements being explored. There are a finite number of ways we can line up our skeleton within the gravitational field we live in and with whatever movement forces are happening and still maintain the integrity of our joints and soft tissue. There are, however, an infinitely huge number of ways we can more and more subtly make tiny changes within the patterns of combinations of muscle fibers and the timing of their firing within our movements. These subtlties lead to differences within our perception of a wide range of nuances of effort and ease within our movements.

These are called ‘patterns’ of movement in Feldenkrais. Patterns of movement have qualities such as directionality of body parts moving relative to other body parts, qualities of speed or acceleration/deceleration which can be perceived as jerkiness or smoothness, qualities of density or lightness, length or shortening, resistance or ease, and of connectedness, continuousness or fluidity. These are universal qualities and can be perceived by all with some training and directed attention on one’s intention.

This is exactly what ATM lessons do–direct your attention to very specific intentions manifested through movement explorations. These movement explorations are exploring a particular relationship of ‘basic’ moving patterning and systematically ‘playing’ with asking you to change your perception of how you notice yourself do the moving. You may be asked to keep your awareness the same and do the intention (or the movement) differently or you may be asked to keep the movement the same and change your awareness or your perception through directing your focus on different qualities of moving.

Overall there is an intent to continue to pay attention for a universal quality of ease and fluidity of moving that manifests within our perception as grace. This sort of moving has a uniform distribution of work throughout the system and an ability to be neutral or equally easy to be or move in all directions at any given moment wherever we are within the range of a given intended movement.

By keeping our sensory intent on this quality and pausing and allowing a spontaneous change or movement toward this intended quality if we notice ourselves going astray from it (by acheiving or trying to ‘get it right’ or by forcing) we allow the deep inner wisdom we all have to arise and bring us to a more neutral state or a state of increased ease and wise possibility. This changes our perception from within allowing us to feel spontaneously how we can create a sense of increased flexibility, strength, efficiency, balance or comfort.

ATM lessons can be done in any position or combination of positions. The movements may be tiny or large. In fact, the exploration of movement may be so tiny it is done within the ‘inside’ movements of our thinking or our imagining of movements.

The lesson may be done directly in a function such as exploring how one gets up/down from a chair or the floor or how one rolls over. The lesson may also explore a pattern of movement in one position that is seemingly unrelated to a particular function but then directly affects that function almost as a ‘surprise’ to you.

There are countless different lessons as a lesson is organic and occurs only in the moment it is taught based on the persons being taught to and their individual and collective ways of perceiving. ATM is a completely individual experience done within a collective of others and is a powerful, awesome, subtle and fun experience!

Join Carrie’s upcoming Walking ATM series at Greenlake Park on Wednesday evenings for Feldenkrais in Seattle. She can be contacted at (206) 459-1773, feldychi@comcast.net or http://www.movementfromwithin.net.

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Somewhere I heard this story. I don’t remember exactly where. It goes like this.

There was a statement made something like…..”I don’t know where to start or which choice to make to dig my well in order to find water.” This person went to someone wise who gave advice to locate a particular site with particular qualities and dig there. Digging commenced and very soon became mundane. No water was found. A much wiser person was located and consulted with. The first location was promptly judged as completely inadequate and a waste of time. A description of another location with different qualities was given and an encouragement made to dig there. Digging commenced again and became uninteresting in a different sort of a way over time. No water was found again. This sort of activity was repeated many times. Eventually this being found a very ordinary person digging a well in a very ordinary location. The well was very deep and filled with water. Through conversation this well-seeker discovered how this ordinary person had stayed with countless moments of mundane digging interspersed with wonder, hope, and fearless persistence until water was discovered. A desire to abandon the project for something better had arisen many times but was not acted upon.

What is the meaning that is important in this story? Well, simply said, you must be dedicated, open-hearted, and stay in one place (or stay connected to one clear intent) while exploring the depths in order to access the well of Wisdom.

OPEN HEARTED PRACTICE

There are many authentic, valid, profound, and effective paths to access inner knowing. All paths that are accessing your inner wisdom (that is interconnected to the larger Universal Wisdom), will require a dedicated and open-hearted practice. One that continues. One that becomes more and more subtle over time in how to allow continued access to Universal Wisdom. This staying and becoming deeper and more subtle in your practice over time is development.

Universal Wisdom holds all beings as equally important. Universal Wisdom always contains both compassion and Wisdom and holds all consciousness in Universal Love. Development of one person or development of many beings as a collective will always allow continued access without stepping on anyone in order to aid only yourself.

GROWTH IS NOT THE SAME AS DEVELOPMENT

Growth, on the other hand, is not the same as development. Growth is just getting larger. A pile of trash can grow but doesn’t have to develop. Growth is obtaining more, just for that sake only. Usually with only a single interest in mind. Growth is about acquiring more–for your own sake, in order to feel safer, richer, smarter, etc…..

Just like in the story, when one is on a path of inner development (could be called a path of Awareness or a path to know Interconnectedness or Wholeness) a type of practice is located and digging (inner practice) begins. With a deep inner work, all kinds of hindrances to continuing to practice are guaranteed to arise. These moments are sure to create an inner state of discontent and set up a desire to go and find a new location to start digging (practicing) a new well (a new practice). That other location will always appear greener of course! When you get there, it won’t necessarily be so however! You will still run into yourself there.

WHAT GETS IN THE WAY?

There are common hindrances to any practice of development. If the hindrances are not noticed and continued, unaware practice can fall into a ‘growth-only’ category and/or will definitely fall into the realm of unawareness. The hindrances are universal human reactions from the ego and are termed differently in different models. In Buddhism, there are five hindrances (that is exactly what they are called). These are attachment, aversion, agitation, sloth and doubt. In terms of Feldenkrais or Qi Gong thinking (for example while doing a Feldenkrais ATM lesson or a Qi Gong form), they may have slightly different names but mean the same thing.

Attachment means getting stuck on a belief (therefore, on an internal image) that ‘this way’ is the right way or the only way to practice or to do a particular movement. Moshe called this the Image of Achievement. We only see our goal and force ourselves to get there or stay there.

Attachment basically means we continue only because we initially ‘like’ some sensation and don’t continue a more refined inner inquiry about whether this action continues to serve the higher good of us personally and the collective.

Aversion is the opposite of attachment. Aversion means getting stuck on a belief (and an internal image) that ‘this way’ is the wrong way or a way never to be investigated. Moshe Feldenkrais called this the pattern of anxiety. We contract, close down, and hold ourselves in place with excessive tension. Aversion shows up as a reaction to an initial sensation that we don’t like and we over-react and push away or hold ourself at bay from further inquiry once again.

Typically in Feldenkrais ATM/FI practice or Qi Gong practice, I describe attachment as how we ‘help’ the intent without inquiry and aversion as how we ‘resist’ the moment without further inquiry.

Agitation shows up in any development of an inner world practice as chaotic, scattered or very restless energy. During Feldenkrais or Qi Gong practice thinking agitation shows up very much the same way as it does in a meditation practice. In Qi Gong this is called the monkey mind.

I usually refer to this state by this sort of example. Practice is just getting started and your mind is so cluttered with what you will be doing next, evaluating what happened a moment ago, or having very unnecessary ideas become overwhelming such as a desire to have to clean the kitchen. Agitation like this is manifest physically as extreme fidgeting. Our lack of focus prevents further inquiry.

Sloth is the opposite of agitation. Another word for sloth could be apathy or sluggishness. One result of sloth from Feldenkrais thinking is that we remain in our fixed images, beliefs and movement patterns. In other words, we continue to do what we are already doing endlessly. Once again sluggishness shows up universally the same in any type of practice. During an ATM or Qi Gong practice our mind becomes dull or passive and we are unmotivated to engage in noticing or even in practicing itself. The end result is we do not engage in further inquiry.

The final hindrance is doubt. I feel it, on most levels, is the most insidious and subtle in some of the ways we manifest undermining our inner development. There is no sense of wonder with doubt. Moshe said during ATM very often, “Do it as if it doesn’t matter—just be curious.”

Often doubt is what leads us to abandon our current inner inquiry and ‘go looking’ for a new location to dig a new well. We question everything. Are we doing it right? Are we getting it? I’m not good enough or as good as…..

My direct experience is that as a culture we are one of the most self-doubthing and self-critical cultures that exists. Doubt stops further inner inquiry directly in it’s tracks. No possibility of development.

DEVELOP DEEPLY AND THEN GROW WISELY

Development requires going deep with your inner inquiry process. it requires recognizing any of the hindrances all along the way. From their gross manifestations to their most subtle manifestations, the process of discarding the effort created from any of the hindrances is the practice of inner deveopment itself. Staying connected to our inner sensory world with a delicate, continuously balancing, and changing awareness is inner inquiry.

Otherwise, we fall into the other realm–growth. Growth can mean just acquiring more practices to have them or switching practice constantly and not delving deeply. It can also mean growing our current way of being into a more deeply engrained habit of stagnation, apathy or fixed belief images or self-criticism. With aware development in hand, growth can then become wise and they can grow together.

Collectively our world is learning the same lessons we each are learning individually. Our planet, our communities, our inter and inner relationships cannot be sustained or know the wisdom and joy of awakening from an unrestrained growth model. Development is necessary. The time is here–now. Start digging. Stay put and explore. Dig some more!

Please join Carrie for a class or workshop at Feldenkrais and Qi Gong in Seattle. She can be contacted at (206) 459-1773, http://www.movementfromwithin.net or feldychi@comcast.net.

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I was recently at an event where several well-known Buddhist teachers were discussing the state of the global situation and the importance of the universal quality of neutral observation engaged with wonder. One female Zen master (Joan Sutherland) said her favorite most simple Zen koan that had utmost importance in the world today was the question Huh? A koan cannot be understood by rational thinking but only by embodied sensory knowing or intuition. I felt right at home (here in Feldenkrais and Qi Gong in Seattle) as I heard her say that. I can be frequently quoted saying to clients “Ah, there you just said my favorite Awareness/Feldenkrais word……huh?

The word is always uttered from a completely engaged place. There is only noticing. There are no fixed views being held by the ego mind. The word describes a universal state of wonder and presupposes internal noticing. There is curiosity, open noticing, and only the full present moment is alive. There is no critical judgement of good, bad, right, wrong, or what needs to be fixed, corrected or changed. There is no dualistic language, only a state of open connection to possibility, to Wholeness. Wise discernment can arise from this wondering state of huh?. The discernment here can create a non-reactive action or response instead of an unwise habitual and disembodied reaction.

The state of huh? is where young children naturally reside. They naturally are curious, and explorative. They move, think, and feel from a state of wonder and learn through embodied sensoral play. They completely engage in the full aliveness from one moment to the next with whatever arises. They recognize no less aliveness in a moment when they are fully engaged in a a gleeful laugh, a full-on cry, or an experience of complete novelty. Aliveness resides in their staying connected to their internal state—regardless of the contents of that state.

Baby Eats A Sour Lemon

Over time we all learn through society’s norms to begin to think ‘about’ our experiences from moment to moment and develop habits and tendencies in moving towards or ‘holding onto’ those experiences we like and rejecting or ‘pushing away’ those we don’t As time goes on and we get caught up in this pinball life between grasping and rejecting, we gradually lose our ability to discern on a more subtle level the gray zone between grasping and rejecting.

These gray zone moments of unrecognized sensation can be powerful if we pause and wonder or be curiously engaged in our inner sensations at those moments. Noticing from a state of huh? in those moments, we can slowly reconnect to a wiser sense of discernment. This is the state where ‘Ah-ha’s', sparks of insights or just ‘knowing’ something in a different way arise.

NEUTRAL OBSERVATION

As adults, our judgemental and critical minds are well-established. We have opinions, likes, dislikes, views, stories, arguments, decisions, etc….that are ‘held’ rigidly within us. To enter that state of huh?, we have to just notice what is………without adding our story to the moment. Just perceive within ourselves ‘as is’ with a neutral observation–no helping, resisting, or checking out sensorally with the moment. Staying connected within.

It is critical, however, that this neutral observation remain connected lightly to the state of huh? Lightly connected to that open state of wonder and curiosity. Fully alive—whatever the moment holds. The state we naturally accessed as children and the state that still lives within us. Curiosity is one of the natural, innate qualities of Awareness/ Wisdom/ Mystery. The state that we are an interconnected part of at all times.

Baby and Dog

In Buddhist terms. this neutral observation state is called non-attachment. Just noticing, fully open to what is with non-reactivity. The bridge to access that wise discernment is the state of huh? Both Feldenkrais and Qi Gong in Seattle are avenues to access the state of huh?

DETACHMENT IS DIFFERENT

If we don’t have a very delicate and subtle way of monitoring ourselves as we get better and better at non-attachment we can fall into a state that lives very near to non-attachment. That stae is detachment. Detachment is aloof, and we are slightly pulled away from the moment. This, on a very subtle level is rejecting the moment. It is still reactive. On the surface, one can appear calm, cool and collected but inside the state of aliveness is not being fully accessed. Our allowance to our own full state of discernment and Wisdom is not available. The state of huh? is not alive within. There is a ‘fixed’ state in the bodymind of the detached person and a true interconnected Wisdom and aliveness can’t arise. When continued this can lead to apathy.

Moshe Feldenkrais always encouraged staying connected to the internal state of huh? with a neutral observation during ATM or FI. Otherwise he termed the state that arises as ‘the image of achievement’. The image of achievement within us is when we are concurrently ‘trying to get it right’ (grasping) and ‘not wanting to do it wrong” (rejecting) at the same time. These two states that arise from the dualistic ego mind always arise together. They are both present and set up the pinball reaction pattern once again.

If we can pause for a moment while we are Doing and notice ‘what is’ with a neutral observation of sensing, while opening to that state of huh?, we can allow a state of non-attachment to quiet the system and allow a larger Wisdom to arise. This discernment ‘moves’ us from the inside. We feel very slight directional changes in our movements that allow us to find increased ease, comfort, peace, and less effort within. We feel a new ‘idea’ or just come up with a new way of viewing a situation that we had previously never thought of. We suddenly view ourselves or someone else we are in an incongruence with in a different way. This allows us to find the appropriate words or actions that arise from compassion, love, and non-reactivity. Once again the bridge is the state of huh?

Have you entered the state of huh? today? Join Carrie at Feldenkrais and Qi Gong in Seattle for a class or workshop to access your own curious and wise self. She can be contacted at (206) 459-1773,
http://www.movementfromwithin.net, of feldychi@comcast.net.