Mugen Healing

We had a beautiful, relaxing, fun and healing weekend. I am so lucky to be in each of these womens lives and to know and love them deeply.

I love this graphic. Bare feet on the dirt or grass is a wonderful way to ground.

Instead let us truly bear witness.

"Please, let us not turn this heartbreak into something useful just yet. If we do, we will be tempted to walk in old ways. We will rely on tired words. We will make memes of ourselves. Easy, digestible phrases that fill a short term longing for solutions.

Instead let us truly bear witness. Let the fog of confusion obscure our clarity for a time. To not know how – or where – we’ll live. To be fumbling and full of grief, because what we always counted on has been struck from our horizon. And we may never be as magnificent again.

Acknowledging this isn’t pessimistic, but rather grounding. Lightning and ground are collaborators, after all. Once you’ve been struck, you no longer live in the upper chakras alone, believing you are the creator of your reality. Or that some higher power is only benevolent, and rewards people for good. Instead you learn the paradoxical nature of life and death."

Toko-pa Turner, excerpt from "Rushing the Redemption" (toko-pa.com/2020/04/25/rushing-the-redemption/)

Photograph of Toko-pa’s left hand, holding an opened Empress Tree seed pod

Ruby Monsen and I are hosting in Coarsegold, the Sierra Nevada foothills. Come join us.

Heather Tull and I are hosting a retreat in Santa Cruz this April. More details to come✨

Yes, yes, yes!!!

I light a candle to celebrate his crossing, his stepping through the door.

This body is not me,
I am not limited by this body.
I am life without boundaries.

I have never been born,
and I have never died.

Look at the infinite oceans and skies filled with stars,
Manifestations from the basis of consciousness

Since beginningless time I have been free.
Birth and death are only doors through which we pass,
sacred thresholds on our journey.

Birth and death are a game of hide-and-seek.
So laugh with me,
hold my hand,
let us say good-bye,
say good-bye, to meet again soon.

We meet today,
We will meet again tomorrow.
We will meet at the source every moment.
We meet each other in all forms, on the myriad paths of life.

~ Thích Nhất Hạnh, "No Death, No Fear"
(11 Oct 1926 – 22 Jan 2022)

As the seasons change, the daylight shorter, the weather colder we as humans feel a call inward. To introspection, to sleep, to rest, to feel and be cozy. We can use this time to embody that which is most important to us. That which is worth passing through our vulnerability to the place of being seen and heard. ❤️✨❤️

"Silence is a power because it keeps what’s tender, what’s vulnerable, away from scrutiny, criticism, dismissal, interruption, and exile. The keeper of silence has tremendous control. What she keeps sealed away can never be harmed so long as it remains hidden.

Silence is a power, yes, but when does silence turn upon its keeper and become the captor? When does it inhibit the natural impulse to speak, the urge to sing, the longing to contribute? So many wait for the express invitation to speak, for some permission to be granted, to be coaxed into contributing. But what if this invitation never comes?

When does silence stop us from fulfilling our purpose, or making connections with others? When does silence stop a healthy disagreement, like the one that names an injustice and invokes change? When is silence being complicit, when it should be calling on a revolution waiting to happen?"

Toko-pa Turner, from “Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home” (belongingbook.com)

Photo looking down into a valley filled with fir trees, covered in a fresh blanket of snow. The sea, barely visible, in the distance under a low fog on Salt Spring Island, in BC

Yes! Reiki has helped me become better at balancing my energy. And also paying attention to the seasons… lovely

“Though it may seem counter-intuitive, pulling back our energy is like drawing the bow to find the aim before releasing an arrow with precision. Yin knows that sometimes we have to withdraw to enter. We are just like the earth, from whom we take so much and give back too little: our energy body has so much to give, but it needs to be harnessed sustainably. It requires pleasure, contentment, and periods of grace. If we are to come into right relationship with the earth, we need to practice at yielding to the rhythms of our own bodies.”

Excerpt from “Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home” by Toko-pa Turner (belongingbook.com)

Photo of a wide creek cradled by a canopy of mossy trees and the ground covered with gold and brown autumnal leaves.

😊

my brain and
heart divorced

a decade ago

over who was
to blame about
how big of a mess
I have become

eventually,
they couldn't be
in the same room
with each other

now my head and heart
share custody of me

I stay with my brain
during the week

and my heart
gets me on weekends

they never speak to one another

- instead, they give me
the same note to pass
to each other every week

and their notes they
send to one another always
says the same thing:

"This is all your fault"

on Sundays
my heart complains
about how my
head has let me down
in the past

and on Wednesday
my head lists all
of the times my
heart has screwed
things up for me
in the future

they blame each
other for the
state of my life

there's been a lot
of yelling - and crying

so,

lately, I've been
spending a lot of
time with my gut

who serves as my
unofficial therapist

most nights, I sneak out of the
window in my ribcage

and slide down my spine
and collapse on my
gut's plush leather chair
that's always open for me

~ and I just sit sit sit sit
until the sun comes up

last evening,
my gut asked me
if I was having a hard
time being caught
between my heart
and my head

I nodded

I said I didn't know
if I could live with
either of them anymore

"my heart is always sad about
something that happened yesterday
while my head is always worried
about something that may happen tomorrow,"
I lamented

my gut squeezed my hand

"I just can't live with
my mistakes of the past
or my anxiety about the future,"
I sighed

my gut smiled and said:

"in that case,
you should
go stay with your
lungs for a while,"

I was confused
- the look on my face gave it away

"if you are exhausted about
your heart's obsession with
the fixed past and your mind's focus
on the uncertain future

your lungs are the perfect place for you

there is no yesterday in your lungs
there is no tomorrow there either

there is only now
there is only inhale
there is only exhale
there is only this moment

there is only breath

and in that breath
you can rest while your
heart and head work
their relationship out."

this morning,
while my brain
was busy reading
tea leaves

and while my
heart was staring
at old photographs

I packed a little
bag and walked
to the door of
my lungs

before I could even knock
she opened the door
with a smile and as
a gust of air embraced me
she said

"what took you so long?"

~ John Roedel: johnroedel.com

[Art: Christian Schloe Digital Artwork]

Yes!

“There is a wild woman under our skin who wants nothing more than to dance until her feet are sore, sing her beautiful grief into the rafters, and offer the bottomless cup of her creativity as a way of life. And if you are able to sing from the very wound that you’ve worked so hard to hide, not only will it give meaning to your own story, but it becomes a corroborative voice for others with a similar wounding.”

~ Toko-pa Turner, “Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home”
🎨 Lucy Campbell, “Celestial Bodies”
🐅 🐅 🐅

Beautiful sunset tonight... almost one year since we moved to Coarsegold and we are loving it! Just wanted to let my mountain people know that I will be starting to see reiki clients in my new office up here and continuing to see clients in my office in Fresno. You can contact me here❤️❤️❤️