“But………It’s Hard to Pay Attention”

Posted in Feldenkrais Seattle on 12/07/2011 04:44 pm by feldychi

I hear this statement over and over again through my day. From my students. From my family. From many I interact with in numerous arenas. I say, “Yep, there is a certain level of challenge to staying present and connected through paying attention. Yep, it’s true.”

Cultivating one’s access to Awareness requires work, commitment, and tons of compassion. Work….. without effort. Work…… without pity. Work……without indifference. Work…..without acheiving. Work with love, but work none-the-less.

Mature, potent work done over time cultivates a present connection to the unfolding moments of life. To all of the moments of life expressing itself within us, between us and others, and between us and our environment. Work done this way over time creates an enduring presence. That enduring quality is peace.

The enduring quality of Peace

So much of Western American mainstream culture is based on infantile and adolescent mindsets where qualities of impulsivity, distraction/escapsism, entitlement, narcissism, and selfishness are focused on with pride and reacted from with fear. The transformation and evolution of Consciousness that is underway is asking for humans to grow up.

Michael Mead, in his book “The World Behind the World” says, “Choose one side of a dilemma and the other side resurfaces with a vengeance. For picking one side or being “one-sided” about a true dilemma only delays and even intensifies the issue. Choose one side and the conflict will return at a deeper level at some future time. That’s the nature of the genuine dilemmas of life in this left and right, dark and light, abundant and empty world. Only when the tension of opposing forces can be held long enough does a genuine solution appear that can dissolve the tension and renew the flow of life at another level.”

Growing up actually means growing out—expanding. Living with paradox. Moving past right/wrong, I like this or I don’t like that, correct/incorrect and blaming. Living with diversity and shared cooperation of all in service to the Whole. This requires paying attention through your inner world to the sensations of life expressing itself through you. This means ALL the sensations and experiecnes of life. Even those you don’t like. The moments of life you don’t like are no less alive than the moments we like.

Yes, this is a challenge for minds that have had years and years of practice in separating from their inner experiences, fantasizing, distracting oneself, pushing away or clinging to particular life experiences. Learning presence through cultivating access to Awareness is all there is however. This is no longer a choice for our species. It is a neccessity if our species is to survive on planet Earth. This is the hardest work our species has had to do thus far in our evolution of Consciousness.

Pausing for a moment. With a non-judgmental noticing allows curiosity to arise. Curiosity that lives in the heart’s connection to the unfolding of life. Yes, it requires work AND with that….. an intimate connection to an authentic life. One with connection to the whole paradoxical unity of a life dynamically led through paying attention and staying present.

I want to unfold.

I do not want to stay folded anywhere

Because where I am folded

There I am a lie.

-Rainer Maria Rilke

The Harmony of the Dynamic Paradox of Life

Harmony of the Dynamic Paradox of Life

 

Join Carrie at an upcoming class or workshop to participate in embodied Awareness cultivation practices at Feldenkrais and Qi Gong in Seattle. She can be reached at http://www.movementfromwithin.net, 206-459-1773, or feldychi@comcast.net.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Upcoming Interview on Talk Radio with Women of Wisdom’s Kris Steinnes

Posted in Feldenkrais Seattle on 11/26/2011 06:51 am by feldychi

I am excited to share that I will be interviewed on Talk Radio this coming Friday, December 2nd at 1:30pm. This will be in relationship to my workshop being presented on Sunday, Feb 19, 2012 as part of The Women Of Wisdom Conference.

The show is aired at www.transformationtalkradio.com at_1:00_pm Pacific Time on _Fridays.  Should you wish to listen to the interview, you can connect via www.transformationtalkradio.com and WBLQ 1230.  See the details below.

 To listen live or to connect with us during the show we have several options.

Winamp/iTunes: http://deadby28.net/wblq/main_files/player2.pls

 To listen after the show you can access the recording usually by Saturday afternoon. Go to:

http://www.transformationtalkradio.com/host_page.php?id=16 and look in archives for the show date.

Earlybird deadline for registering for The Women of Wisdom Annual Conference is November 30th. Register at:  http://www.womenofwisdom.org.

Hope you are able to listen in!

Blessings,

Carrie Lafferty, PT, GCFP, Master Healing Qi Gong Teacher

 

 

 

 

 

Occupy Yourself…….and….. Re-occupy again!

Posted in Feldenkrais Seattle on 11/22/2011 05:39 pm by feldychi

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”.

Inherent Wholeness In Action

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.

Co-Create WITH the Universe

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.

Using your inner fire of passion to purify

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.

 

 

 

 

The Walking Way………Follow to Breitenbush

Posted in Feldenkrais Seattle on 11/02/2011 05:59 am by feldychi

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.

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 Walking Way offers six original FELDENKRAIS ATM® lessons paired with correlating Qi Gong Meditations.

Posted in Feldenkrais Seattle, Meditation, Qi Gong Seattle on 10/30/2011 06:17 pm by feldychi

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

 

Leaderless Community Of Leaders

Posted in Uncategorized on 10/19/2011 04:59 am by feldychi

What does it mean to move from the familiar to the unfamiliar? What happens within that moving? How does your inner world live as you expand to allow the unfamiliar to be present? Can you expand and open to allow a new wondering? Can you pause, sense your inner sensations of this unfamiliar way of being?

Likely dark, possibly muddled or unclear and possibly a little messy inside. Cluttered, a bit chaotic and at the same time very exhilarating. Exciting, your senses heightened with curiosity. What will unfold? How do I recognize the very unfolding? I feel my new self unfolding with my own noticing of the unfolding moment I am within.

I just returned from a walk in the forest in the dark on a crisp and cold October evening. We are camping near a river, ready to hike tomorrow to commune with the larches. The larches feed my soul and make my heart sing! A unique species of decidious needle tree that lives in very specific conditions on the east side of the crest of the Cascades between 5000 and 6000 feet.

Walking Into the Larches

PEAK LARCH WEEKEND

It is peak weekend. Peak for the amazing unfolding of color change as the larches prepare to let go of their needles. The dark green needles first turn a shade of lime green and then slowly become a bright yellow finally turning a deep golden shade before they softly nestle onto the ground. A basin of golden larches is an experience to take deeply into one’s soul! Tomorrow will be this year’s moment to unfold…. with those golden drops of joy.

Camping in October in the Cascades is cold and crisp. Darkness descends early. Dinner complete. Camp prepared for the night. Time for an evening stroll. My friend and I started out with our headlamps turned on and then we shut them down. Our walking slowed as we allowed our vision to adjust and our inner kinsthetic sensations to move into the foreground of our sensing.

First, it is possible to make out the shapes of the tall Douglas Firs, hemlocks and spruces against the night gray sky. Like a community of elders gathered together for a sacred ritual moment. As our eyes adjusted, we could begin to make out the edges of the gravel road in front of us. Allowing the unfolding sensations between my foot and the ground led me to know the shape and consistency of Mother Earth unfolding in front of me.

Slowly the lighter-colored maples and elms hovering along the edges of the corridor we were traversing through, came to be recognized. Like the light softness of a cream-colored blanket, cuddled closely on a dark armchair. Inviting. My eye is attracted to the difference. I pause, wait for the unfolding light, shadows, kinesthetic vision, and my inner world to fill in the knowing of what is.

EACH STEP UNFOLDS

The shape and path of the road unfolds with each step. Is the road straight? Does it curve? Are there dips, rocks, changes in surface from packed dirt to loose gravel? Amazing to just observe the new experience of my being unfold in the act of observing the unfolding path. Just observing the very experience of the unfamiliar becoming the familiar only to become unfamiliar again. And to come into knowing again, over and over. This is the very act of learning, evolving, becoming a new being.

The state of living. When observed consciously and co-created with, this is called insight, widom or discernment. Co-creating a new moment in the world. My friend and I walked arm and arm together through the vibrant darkness as a community of two leaderless leaders co-creating our unfolding path and moments as they were experienced.

The familiar, the unfamiliar, the coming into being....

Our collective human psyche is in a similar state. As a collective human species, we are starting to make out the shapes in the unfamiliar backdrop setting we are navigating through. We are in the forest. It’s dark. We know there are familiar species there. Trees, shrubs, gravel, rocks, sky, contours and other sentient beings. They feel and look unfamiliar as we wake up from our dark sleep of denial, fear, greed, and attachment. As we wake up together as a collective and begin to walk the unfolding path in front of us.

We create the very shape, speed and quality of it’s unfolding through just allowing the unfamilar to become familiar. To just stay present for the moment. We have to perceive and come to know our ‘new’ world through the ‘old.’ The new world is born from the old through our very act of perceiving it as it is unfolding. We each have to do that perceiving on our own. As our own leader. Together with others doing the same. A leaderless community of leaders. All living in interconnection with each other and our planet.

 

OCCUPY TOGETHER

The Occupy Together events sweeping our world are this very creation in progress. Our Universe has been expanding forwards into higher levels of consciousness since the Big Bang over 16 billion years ago. Consciousness becoming conscious of itself. This is the very act of creating a highter level of consciousness.

We must move forward into the total unfamiliar if we want to survive as a species. The unfamiliar of being our own leader within a community of other leaders, all leaderless. We must each learn to co-create with our own unfolding experience of how we are inextricably interconnected with All That the Universe Is… and with each other.

 

Leaderless Community of Leaders

This Occupy Together movement is our chance to walk into the night forest together. Where it is dark, and allow the unfolding shapes, contours, patterns and sensations form our new co-creative world of knowing our inherent interconnection to All That is. To create a new way of being where we are each fully empowered to live responsibly, engaged with life in each present moment. Living in a equitable, compassionate, way by co-creating with each new moment. Together as a community of leaderlsss leaders…..together.

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.

 

 

 

 

The Spiral………..The Universal Symbol

Posted in Feldenkrais Seattle, Meditation, Qi Gong Seattle on 10/04/2011 04:13 am by feldychi

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.

The unfurling

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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Fight, Flight, Freeze………..or Flow

Posted in Feldenkrais Seattle, Meditation, Qi Gong Seattle on 09/20/2011 03:31 pm by feldychi

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.

What do you choose?

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.

Practice Flow.....

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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What is Unity Consciousness?

Posted in Uncategorized on 08/31/2011 03:18 pm by feldychi

There is much talk about Unity Consciousness among those who are choosing to co-create with the evolution of the Gaian Web of Consciousness. Among those who are actively working with Carl Calleman’s unfolding of the Mayan Calendar. Even among those who just recognize that our world and particularly the human species’ place in it is in a place of huge transformation.

To me Unity Consciousness means acting from my particular place with complete service to the bigger whole. With harmony, equality, and reverance for All That Is in the Gaian Web of Life. Recognizing the complexities and polarities that exist in service to the bigger whole. Honoring the diversity within the harmony and equality.

The River of Unity

As I write this, I am sitting at the edge of the West Fork of the Methow River in the North Cascades on day two of a five-day backpack. Unity Consciousness could not be more clearly represented. All around me, there are cycles and fractals of complexity and diversity within Nature’s Unity.

The light is waning near sunset after a day filled with early morning raindrops, high clouds mysteriously playing peek-a-boo with Mt. Ballard and plenty of glorious sunshine for miles along the Pacific Crest Trail. What a difference there was at this time last night. It was cool and misting on and off with low hanging clouds and frequent high winds. Twenty-four hours later there is a completely opposite polarity feel. A complex cycle within Unity.

The gentle giggles of the river as it flows by couldn’t exist if not for the rain. I couldn’t survive on a backpack if it wasn’t for the many mountain creeks and rivers that so graciously provide water. The huge diversity of flowers, trees and shrubs couldn’t exist without the same water, clouds and sunshine. The marmots, chipmunks, bears, bobcats, squirrels and countless varieties of birds couldn’t survive without the amazing diversity of flora. This complexity within Unity IS LIFE.

In the distance, a flock of birds flows, dives, moves in Unity above the river. Each is individually swooping, curving and moving although they move as one synchronous form. THIS is complexity within Unity, once again.

Night is beginning to fall. The temperature cools. The melting water off the snowfields and glaciers slows down to a much more gentle pace. Just like the pace of the deer who slowly stops nibbling and looks for a place to lie down on the forest floor. Then tomorrow the cycle will repeat in a similar, yet different way. All does their part in service to the greater whole of Nature. Complexity within Unity. This is Unity Consciousness.

The cycles continue........

Enter the human. We have had thousands of years of practice of living as if we are separate from the integral interconnected Gaian Web of Life. Living from Duality. Living from Complexity. Getting more and more complex. However, not having that duality, diversity and complexity be in service to our greater whole that we are an integral part of. Keeping ourselves separate.

Unity Consciousness means our species will be able to live WITH our Gaian Web of LIfe and not try to control or conquer it. Live much more simply. Supporting the dark and the light, the rain and the sun, the snow and the melt, and the continuing, changing cycles between them all. Supporting also those cycles in ourselves, in our interactions with others, and how we treat all of the species in our GaianWeb of LIfe.

Taking full responsibility for ourselves while simply serving the greater Whole. As the light wanes and darkness arrives, I observe the river, the Douglas Firs, the ferns, the deer, and the ground squirrels just let the darkness arrive. They welcome it. I offer my own welcome to the vibrant quiet of the night.

I know this moment will just move on……..to the next……..and the next……and the previous……and the always……..and the never. Holding it all, right here at the intersection of day and night…..this is Unity.

As Gary Snyder said in a poem we read on the summitt of Crater Peak a few days ago….

This present moment,
which lives on
to become
long ago.

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

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Moving Beyond Either/Or–to Uniplexity!

Posted in Feldenkrais Seattle on 08/10/2011 02:40 pm by feldychi

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.

We are all interconnected.

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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