As the Summer Solstice approaches….
Shamanic healing is not about fixing what has gone wrong.
It’s about growing a new body that heals, ages, and dies consciously.
Alberto Villoldo, 1949 -, Cuban psychologist and medical anthropologist, writer on the healing practices of the Amazon and the Andean shamans.
Our whole world falls apart, and we’ve been given this great opportunity. However, we don’t trust our basic wisdom mind enough to let it stay like that. Our habitual reaction is to want to get ourselves back – even our anger, resentment, fear, or bewilderment. So we re-create our solid, immovable personality as if we were Michelangelo chiseling ourselves out of marble.
By becoming aware of how we do this silly thing again and again because we don’t want to dwell in the uncertainty and awkwardness and pain of not knowing, we begin to develop true compassion for ourselves and everyone else, because we see what happens and how we react when things fall apart. That awareness is what turns the sword into a flower. It is how what is seemingly problematic and unwanted actually becomes our teacher.
Pema Chodron, When Things fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times
You never really know what the next moment is going to bring,
so living fully in this moment is the only constantly reappearing option for happiness.
Sylvia Boorstein, Happiness is an inside job
Hell is timely, for hell is the thought
that hell will go on, on and on, without end.
Heaven is only present, instantaneous and eternal,
a mayfly, a blue dayflower, a life entirely given,
complete forever in its hour.
Wendell Berry, VIII
We often ask, “What’s wrong?” Doing so, we invite painful seeds of sorrow to come up and manifest. We feel suffering, anger, and depression, and produce more such seeds. We would be much happier if we tried to stay in touch with the healthy, joyful seeds inside of us and around us. We should learn to ask, “What’s not wrong?” and be in touch with that. There are so many elements in the world and within our bodies, feelings, perceptions, and consciousness that are wholesome, refreshing, and healing. If we block ourselves, if we stay in the prison of our sorrow, we will not be in touch with these healing elements.
Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Step
Through meditation practice you begin to realize that:
2. Thoughts are nevertheless unceasing….
3. They appear but are not solid….
4. Putting that all together, there is no birth, no dwelling, no cessation…
This understanding gives the unsurpassable protection of realizing what is called complete openness [shunyata]. There’s nothing solid to react to. You have made much ado about nothing.
Pema Chodron, Always Maintain a Joyful Mind
Mindfulbalance 