INTEGRITY

This week I pray for integrity.

This week I made choices that were so totally freeing to my soul and yet  contradictory to my family’s tradition and culture.

This weekend was Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year.  According to Chabad.org, it is the "day on which we are closest to G-d and to the quintessence of our own souls.  It is the Day of Atonement.  For nearly twenty six hours, practicing Jews abstain from food and drink, washing their bodies and sex.   They pray indoors, in a synagogue, in a type of religious fervor until the end of the Fast when they share food together.

This tradition no longer felt right for me.   On so many different levels, I was seeking a more spiritual experience of connecting with my divinity.    Friday night, after sitting with my parents for their Friday night meal (cooked by LoverBoy – woohoo), I took myself to Raja Yoga at Anuttara Yoga Shala.

This Friday, our class was smaller and more intimate.  I had the opportunity to practice right next to my yoga teacher, Philip, and right in front of a mirror.  The music embraced me while the heat in the room allowed me to release the tension in my muscles and access a deeper layer of myself.

 

This form of practice tranquilizes the mind while energizing the body and soothing the soul.  For me, it is an opportunity to open my body and heart and empty my mind.  My teacher, Philip has a peaceful engaging voice which keeps me present and focused in my body – melting into my bones while my connective tissue expands and my hips open.

As I listened to his gentle voice guide my body, his truthful words were punctuated by powerful thunder that matched the electromagnetic energy we were creating in the room.  A bolt of lightning illuminated the top windows in the Tapas Hall and lit up the statues of Shiva Shakti and made my experience even more mystical. 

Philip reminded us of the sacredness of our practice as it was also the 9^th day of the Navaratri holiday – a Hindu holiday that honors Shakti (the Divine Feminine/Mother) and looks to her for spiritual cleansing, guidance, and enlightenment.    With sweat pouring out of my cells, my body felt limber and my mind was at peace.  I knew I was in the right place, at the right time.

I prayed during my practice for my forgiveness and asked for more compassion and patience with myself.  I prayed for more listening to the guidance from within.  I prayed to the inner child that I honor her and laugh with her and put her first.

Even though this is not how many Jews practice this High HolyDay, this is how this recovering Jew became in integrity with her spirit.    

For me, integrity is finding my way into the world truthfully – not because my parents said so, or religion dictates or this is how everybody does it but rather because it resonates within.  It creates an inner experience that radiates my light into the world.

And so, I laugh at loud and follow my own path, knowing that this is my way of bringing peace into this world and chahahanging history to herstory.

Nico & Vinz sing it like it is.  Enjoy!!!

INTEGRATION of WE

Raw and Juicy Tribe 2013

This weekend was OMazing.  Three Goddesses came together to hold sacred space for a mind, body, soul experience.  We covered topics that I am passionate about - Laughter, Raw Food and Learning.  We held a Raw and Juicy Weekend Retreat.

10 peeps signed up to explore a Raw and Juicy lifestyle.  We came together to learn about food combining and alkaline diets.  We experimented with spiralizers and juicers and dehydrators.  We drank chocolate mylk and green juices and ate crackers made of juice pulp.  We feasted on raw pasta, pad thai noodles and gourmet salads.  We concocted rawlicious cacao-coconut haystacks and lemon shortbread cookies and mintchoco patties.  We laughed and shook the stress out and found new ways to relax and ease into the learning experience.  We opened our bodies and minds with yoga and meditation.

I shaHAhared easy peasy recipes with 5 ingredients or less and introduced them to the benefits of laughter circles for stress release.  We talked about how to fuel our bodies naturally and create peaceful enerchi.

We laughed out loud and shook our bodies loose.  We listened and learned and lunched.  The process was so gentle and juicy.

On the last day of our retreat, we went on a field trip.   We traveled to Hollywood Beach to check out Josh' Organic Market.  We answered questions about fruits and vegetables and how to use them raw.  And then we got a special treat.  

Josh took us around the market and gave us samples of his herbs (cilantro, dill, arugula, dandelion, red sorrel) and his greens (butterleaf lettuce, spinach) and his citrus (grapefruit, minneola) and then the exotic fruit (mango and pineapple).  So rawlicious - woohoo.

What I am learning about ME, MYSELF and I - WE -  is that we like to shaHAhare what we know about growing all sorts of muscles that make our body healthy and haHAhappy.   We love creating space for others to learn about their body wisdom.  We love to show others how their temples work optimally when we integrate all parts of ourselves into this thing called life.

Prayer in Vilcabamba

ThaHAhank you for all the interest about my upcoming Goddess retreat in Ecuador  - a great question - why Pray in Vilcabamba?

The name of the valley comes from the Quechua language of Inca derivation.  It  is composed of two words, Huilco meaning "sacred" or "Goddess" and Bamba meaning "valley"; hence, "valley of Goddess" or "Sacred Valley."

Hidden away, deep in the Andes Mountains of South America, lies this peaceful valley called Vilcabamba  - an idyllic land of lush, subtropical agriculture where nearly every imaginable grain, fruit, and vegetable grows wild for the picking. It is a veritable paradise on Earth, and by legend, proposed to be the original Garden of Eden.

Over the years the Sacred Valley has been called: "The Isle of Immunity for Heart Disease, The Land of Eternal Youth, The Valley of Peace and Tranquility, and The Lost Paradise."

It has been given these labels because of the valley's solitude, serenity, clean air, dazzling sun, nearly constant blue sky, pure mineral drinking water, medicinal herbs, green fields, towering mountains, friendly people, lack of illness, and a kind of ubiquitous beauty that penetrates to one's soul and provides a sense of well-being.    

It is here that my soul is calling me to nurture and rechaHAharge my batteries and find the STRENGTH to bring peace to my world in 2013.

It is here that my body gets restored and rejuvenated and grounded.  So I can return to South Florida and absorb the electromagnetic force fields and create love.

It is here that my mind is free to rest and become creative and play. And then remember which way to go and flow.

It is here where I can best hear my song so I can shaHAhare it with the world.  

It is here where I will pray and whisper my desires out into the Universe and tap my toes and wrinkle my nose and send my fairy dust out into the World.

What is Laughter

This poem was written by Hafiz, a 14th-century Persian mystic and poet.  His works left a mark on Western writers such as Thoreau, Goethe, and Ralph Waldo Emerson (who called him a poet's poet).

What is laughter? What is laughter?

It is God waking up! O it is God waking up!  

It is the sun poking its sweet head out

From behind a cloud

You have been carrying too long,

Veiling your eyes and heart.

It is Light breaking ground for a great Structure

That is your Real body - called Truth.

It is happiness applauding itself and then taking flight

To embrace everyone and everything in this world.

Laughter is the polestar

Held in the sky by our Beloved,

Who eternally says,

"Yes, dear ones, come this way,

Come this way towards Me and Love!

Come with your tender mouths moving

And your beautiful tongues conducting songs

And with your movements - your magic movements

Of hands and feet and glands and cells - Dancing!

Know that to God's Eye,

All movement is a Wondrous Language,

And Music - such exquisite, wild Music!"

O what is laughter, Hafiz?

What is this precious love and laughter

Budding in our hearts?

It is the glorious sound

Of a soul waking up!

~ Hafiz ~

(I Heard God Laughing - Renderings of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky)