Haiti 2011

From the girls at Off the Mat, Into the World... :)

So this is it, the hour of reckoning: the proverbial “Savasana” of the Global Seva Challenge 2011 is finally upon us, and what a year it has been! Regardless of whether you reached your goal or not, just for taking that first step forward and committing to a Challenge as big as this. And we are so proud of you for having the courage to step into your greatness and explore the possibilities of your own leadership potential.

Now is the time to rest. To let go of attachment to outcome, and allow these final moments to unfurl exactly as they are meant to. To stop the doing and step into the being. To integrate your experience from the past year. To observe where you have grown and what you have learned. To nourish your body and reinvigorate your connection to Spirit. To reconnect with friends and family and loved ones in celebration of this divine gift we call life. And to express gratitude for all of the ways in which we are blessed, and for this opportunity to serve.

This year you have collectively raised more than $300,000 for Haiti (final numbers will be posted on the homepage of the OTM website in the coming weeks). I want you to know that this is no small feat by a team of 60 participants (in past years we have had closer to 120). Suzanne, Seane, Hala, and all of us at OTM are so thankful for all of your efforts, and we value everyone’s participation equally, whether you raised $20 or $20,000. The work you have done in your own communities could have an impact that lasts for generations to come. Maybe your efforts have inspired a change in someone else’s life in a profound and radical way – or maybe, just maybe, your own life has been changed somehow.

You may never know the full extent of the impact you have had, fundraising for Haiti this year with Off the Mat. But we do know exactly what your hard-earned funds will help OTM and our partners in Haiti to do:
provide clean drinking water at an orphanage and school
build a community center
support women’s empowerment through micro-lending
create a mosaic art wall
remove rubble from the streets
build an eco-friendly children’s center

From K10-THANK YOU! Thank each and every one of you for your support whether through monetary funds, opening your space for transformation, or just being an ear to listen or a shoulder to cry on. It has been an amazing journey and I look forward to continuing to raise awareness for our world and hope you will journey with me to make a difference for ourselves and our future generations!

In love and gratitude,

Kristen

Giving Thanks, a cliche?

I used to find it cliche to be thankful for things on thanksgiving, why cant we be reminded everyday to be thankful? But in the spirit of the season I would like to take a moment to recollect and find thanks in what seem like the most awkward or tough situations.

I'm thankful for...

• Karma
• Truth
• Family
• Love
• Patience
• Eyes to see
• Babies
• Yoga

I'm thankful for having the eyes to see the karmic path I have chosen. Knowing that somedays things will hurt and taking responsibility for those actions.

I'm thankful for those who know the truth, who see the truth, who speak the truth, and those who feel the truth. Truth being whatever feels right within their own being. Those who will stand for that among what others say may or may not be right for them.

I'm thankful for my family, direct and indirect. I am thankful for my roots and for those sent through a higher power to cross my path as family or friends or loves to bring me to my current place in this world.

I am thankful for love, pure unconditional love that I have felt in very rare ways this year. Love for myself, love for others, love for life, love for those questionable times that bring you to your knees and allow you to love yourself even more.

I am thankful for patience... even though I am tired of being patient, I am thankful for it and for the lessons it teaches me each and every day. Do not rush, live.

I am thankful for babies, for the miracle of creativity and for the privilege to assist in trainings and classes that birth new philosophies into the world. For being able to make small changes in the world one person, one day, one breath at a time.

I'm thankful for yoga which is the thread that binds all of these things together. Recognition of the karmic path, seeing life as it is, and loving it.

In the midst of confusion, hustle and bustle that comes with this time of year, I encourage you all to your own revelations and thankfulness to those people and places of your life. From my heart to yours...Cheers!

Be your own painter

I dream of painting, then I paint my dream... I think thats how the quote goes... regardless I have had this idea of being an artist on the mind lately. We are all artists in our own sense. Perhaps we don't create huge canvas paintings that could be sold for millions, or perhaps we do... but I want to look at it from a different prospective.

When it comes to love and life and what to do what not to do and when to start and when to stop etc, inevitably we are the ones in control of that. Others can tell us their opinion about what to do, when to go when not to go and yadi yadi yadi but at the end of the day YOU are responsible for YOUR own Happiness. Some may think you are crazy for choosing the timeline that you do, but its up to you. Just like the painter, people may look at the art and say it is perfect. People may look at it and say ohh, that needs some work. Why do we try to tell others what to do? When the painter is happy with the painting when in his or her own expression is complete, then the job is done and the project can be put out into the world for it to become whatever it will become.

Think about life, how long do you hold onto a situation? It's okay if you say 50 years, or 45 minutes because it is up to your own creative expression what you will do with it.

Be the painter. Life is your canvas. Be responsible for yourself. Create the life you wish to live.

What will you birth?

What will you create? Hold it in love!

I don't know if you have been feeling it or not, I would hope that everyone is so intuitive to notice but things are changing, and fast. Sometimes referred to as the quickening, this age of Aquarius is upon us. After a heartwarming weekend with Heather Till learning how to teach yoga to pregnant mommas a number of things came to mind and I choose to share this one...

When thinking about the birthing process there is the conception time, the time you carry the baby, and then what some call the fourth trimester when you are getting to know your new one. So what if we took that concept and moved it into this awakening of consciousness that is happening. It's difficult to pinpoint a conception date but just say it were 11.11.11 and then we use the time in the year 2012 to really feel the shifts and changes of baby inside of each of us. Then we deliver, we step up and take responsibility for the life we have lived and prepare for spiraling into new life set before us. We are brave, we are proud of our creation, we are scared but joyful and excited for the new time. Then we transition into this new life, funneling our emotions and thoughts, coddling them, nourishing them and becoming accustom to this new experience.

It is a beautiful process that is sincere and divine. For each individual with the eyes to see the beauty in this new creation, cheers to you. For those who may not understand and cannot see past birthing an actual baby, best of luck.

The time is now, take responsibility, clear out the old, unnecessary, clutter of the past years and prepare. You have a great gestation period to meditate, forgive, and proceed. Where will you go? What will you do?

Be excited, Be open, the shift is near! Ride the energy wave for beauty is just around the corner!

Remembering How to Love

Great post, I had to share with you all. From my Aussie friends, love to see we are all in this exploration together even on the other side of the world! xo :)

"Remembering How to Love"

QUESTION: I’ve been feeling lost and unsure of my next step. I feel the urge to move but I don’t know where.

ANSWER: Then don’t move until you know.

QUESTION: I need to earn money, but have been unwilling to do work that seems menial to me.

ANSWER: And you will continue not to have money as long as you make that decision.

QUESTION: This is good! I’ve written a book but I don’t understand where it belongs. I have a lot of energy and I don’t know where to focus it. I’ve been feeling tired and angry and feeling what I have to give is invisible or invaluable. I feel caught between what is true inside and the way life works on the outside.

ANSWER: You remind me of Paul!

QUESTION: Is there a reason for me to be on the planet right now? I want to live and I....

ANSWER: Well, what is your alternative? I am not being smart here! But I am asking you so that you might realize that the question really means nothing, "why am I on the planet right now". If you truly have no alternative then you might as well pay attention to being here. Because obviously if this is where your presence of mind is being aware, then this is where to give your attention—this is where to be curious. But continue...

QUESTION: I want to live and I want to thrive...

ANSWER: You want to live, did you say?

QUESTION: Yeah.

ANSWER: I know you can take this. I am very glad that you want to live, because again you have no other choice. Don’t want to live if you are already living. Continue...

QUESTION: Do you have any suggestions that will help me to proceed?

ANSWER: Well, I will tell you that all of the things that you just talked about are nothing but distractions you are providing yourself with, distracting you from allowing yourself to be fully present in the moment as who you Are. They are distractions from your allowing yourself to be present in the moment fully enough and quietly enough to have the opportunity to experience what this presence is that you Are. You do not have to be afraid of finding out. You do not have to be afraid that you will find out that there is nothing really here of any value.

As reconfiguration occurs little elements of your life will seem to no longer relate to each other in a way that secures a sense of identity for you. And yet you will find yourself still present observing these elements that had provided you with a sense of identity and substance no longer being cohesive. You will find yourself still observing these elements no longer seeming to be cohesive. They’re disbanding, as it were, from that which seemed to hold you together and will not disrupt you from being the presence of awareness or the presence of mind that is watching them do this. You will remain absolutely permanently present! As these things which you had used in order to have a sense of identity seem to fragment and float away from you, you will find there is less covering You up from your Self.

You know what’s there underneath all these things? What is there about you that is eternal, forever present? It is Love! You know we talk a lot about Awakening, you hear talk about resurrection, I have spoken about coming Home with a capital "H", Remembering with a capital "R" the truth about yourself—and I’m not just addressing her, this is true of every single one of you. And I know some of you have wondered, "what is it, what is it that I have forgotten that something in me is moving me to remember? What is it?" I will put it this way, what you have forgotten is how to Love! And what you will remember is how to Love!

Some of you have felt out of place, you might say, since you were three months old, one year old, two years old. Some of you have never felt happy here. Well, I’ll tell you something, it isn’t because it’s such an awful place. It’s because you have forgotten how to Love. You have forgotten how to Be Love.

I’m going to take a few moments to share some things with you. There is something quite essential to Being the Presence of Love. And what it is that is essential to it is a lot less than what you are bringing to the living of your life. In order to let the Love that you are move into expression you must give up some things—some excess baggage. For example, defense, judgment, plans of your own, insecurity. Interesting, you thought insecurity was something you had because you gave up security and now I’m saying you must give up insecurity? Yes, insecurity felt and practiced is a defense. It is a way to keep yourselves preoccupied so that you don’t find out what’s underneath this thing called insecurity. And what’s underneath it is this Love that each one of you Are—your essential Being. Fear is another thing that you will have to drop from your knapsack! Pride... Personal success...

Now I agree that this is nothing new. And yet it is very important for me to reestablish in your awareness that all of these things stand in the way of your being quiet enough, being present enough with this presence of mind that you are that you would have the opportunity to discover the feeling of the presence that you Are, which is a Movement of Love.

This book or yours, this opportunity to work and have income, what are they if they’re not the opportunity to be in the Movement of the Love that you Are so that you might let it find expression. They are not means of getting anything! Who are all of these people who for whatever reason don’t find value in anything you have to share? Well, they aren’t somebody there to validate you by finding value in what you have to share. They are, I’m going to say, the opportunities you have to share and fulfill your purpose for being in the giving, whether it’s received, whether it’s understood, whether it’s valued or not. Because I want to tell you something: more than the items that you would share it’s the fact that you were giving without self-protection, without fear, without judgment, without self-righteousness that constituted the real gift. The real gift is when you are being present not covered over by anything whatsoever!

I want to come back to the fact that any distress you might be feeling is not because of circumstances—any of the list that you read off, so to speak, at the beginning, but because you have forgotten something. And this is true of everyone in any aspect of their lives. You are afraid, you are judgmental, you are defensive, you are unforgiving, and on and on. Why? Because you have forgotten something, not because there are justifications for these things—it is because you have forgotten something. And so, the answer lies in your remembering.

And this is what you could call a reconfiguration at a higher level, we could say reconfiguration at a more fundamental level. And that which is more fundamental is more universal, it is therefore more natural. It is not something you are working towards but something you are letting yourself into.

Remember, all of you please remember that you cover over the fundamental Presence of your Being which is the impulse of Love which has it’s source in God. It is a matter of covering it over with distractions of fear, judgment, hate, self-righteousness, goal seeking, willfulness, doing good based upon thinking rather than the good that you would spontaneously do as a result of being Conscious of your Self as the Presence of Love. You cover over the Love that you Are with things which you have come to conclude are essential to survival. And because you think they are essential to survival they are worth every ounce of energy you can bring to them so that you can survive. And yet you have no choice but to survive because you Are the Essence and Presence of Life in action already.

The things you were concerned about in the expression of your question all had to do with survival—survival relative to the dynamics of relationships and the power they seem to hold over the ease or lack of ease of your survival. And I am giving you a new point of attention. The point of attention that I am drawing your attention to, is that in you which is underneath all of these distractions, which is the Presence of God which I am calling the Presence of Love. And you being the Presence of Love are the absence of fear, hate, anxiety, judgment and on and on and on. Therefore, this that I am redirecting your attention to is something very valuable, because it is you experiencing the Essential Integrity of your Being so completely that fear and all that follows fear is nothing but nonsense, is nothing to attend to because you are not blocked in anyway from being the fulfillment of purpose that God has in Mind in being you at this very instant.

I want you also to understand that although this could sound like a dissertation on the spirituality of Being, I am describing the actuality of being right here in this very instant, which is absolutely relevant to right where you are—right where everyone of you is. I’m expressing the truth of the instant you’re in and the truth of you in this instant. But you say, "Well I understand what you’re saying. But when I leave this room and go back into the world, what you’ve said isn’t going to mean beans, because I’m going to have to relate to the world the way the world says I’m going to have to relate to it."

Well, there’s another one of those distractions again. It’s not true. There is no reason for you to abandon the genuineness of the Presence of You that is Love and cover it over with a disguise and pretend that you are somebody else and forget who you Really Are and never make the full Gift of your Self. There is no requirement for you to do that! I’m not really picking on you, but you did ask the question. There is no requirement for you to be ingénue! You can be Present in a new way.

And the discovery all of you have waiting you is that when you refuse to be present in the world covered over by fear and defense you will not become dysfunctional. That’s the discovery you have awaiting for you. You will not become such a radical presence that no one will understand you. You will be even more meaningful. And the primary reason that you will be more meaningful is because in your expression of your Self there will be no apology for what you are expressing because there will be no fear there. And when there’s no fear, people know they are safe. And when people know they are safe they lower their defenses and they let something in. And what could possibly cause someone to lower their defenses but the Presence of Love?

It was important for all of you to hear this today. Thank you for your question.

Excerpt from - http://pamelaparnell.homestead.com/files/frnance.htm

Be a Strawberry

Stand back. Watch the world go around. It's an interesting place, this world. There are a few ways to walk through this world, one with eyes open and one with eyes closed. I do believe it came from the infamous Beatles, Strawberry Fields Forever singing "Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstand all you see..."
What happens when you open your eyes, understanding all you see. That seems easy in theory but it is quite tough and can be quite painful, this transformation. From here we grow, coming out of the muck and blossoming into that lotus flower we hear about.

We have choices, we can choose to stay in the muck or we can allow ourselves to blossom. We are in the places we are because we chose to be here. So, if you aren't feeling happy or secure or grounded... maybe its time you look in the mirror and decide if you choose to stay in that place or not. Depending on how many dependants you have determines how deep your roots are in the muck. (dependants here being kids, debt, j-o-b, mortgage, commitments, etc...) I can't tell you how to get out, how to blossom, but being aware of it and having those eyes to see tends to help. What about commitments, some people are dealthy afraid of them, some deathly afraid of not having any, how do you find a happy median? Where do you stand, be honest with yourself.

What about those who are not rooted in the muck, can they be beutiful lotus flowers? My analytical mind is curious what the ratio of muck has to be in order to be that beautiful flower... can you be too flowery and not rooty enough? Who knows really.

The bottom line is this... Can you go through life with eyes closed? yes you can. Does it get you anywhere on the path to enlightenment and top chakra kinda stuff... I dont know. But for me, I accept the responsibility to live with eyes open trying to understand our world from a place of compassion in hopes that one day I can be that fully blooming and enlightened lotus flower. Shit gets tough, yes, and some days I just want to crawl in bed and cry until I cannot cry anymore and thats just human. At the end of the day though, be strong, stand firm, argue if you have to, commit when it feels right, play loud music, yell, scream, jump up and down, offer a helping hand, be passionate, follow your heart but think with your brain. Then... get up and do it again.
Open your eyes, face the world, understand yourself, and move from a place of compassion and grace and from there blossom.
Imagine an entire world that did this, translate that lotus into the strawberry and we would have... strawberry fields forever.

Rock on Yogi's

What does it mean to be in tune... we hear it in yoga class, "scan your body" "be in tune with your inner works" and on and on...

Here is my thought process: Tune, okay you tune a guitar, what if you dont know what it sounds like for a guitar to be out of tune? I am not very musically inclined (though I can play the first few licks from Dream On by Aerosmith) but it seems to come as a natural instinct if the guitar is out of tune. Things dont sound right, I dont know what 'right' sounds like but it just sounds and feels funny.

I think the same is with our bodies, maybe you feel extra tired one day or things just are not working out or flowing as you think is best. Something just feels funny. Unfor"tune"tly for the average 2 legged roaming this earth their instincts feel the movement of being out of tune but they are so caught up in the rat race that they don't know what to do about it. So then we all know the story you have all the things people try to make themselves feel better and more in tune... shopping sprees, beer, sex, pedicure, beer, sex, a nice dinner out, sex, beer, you get the point.

Yoga, for me opens me and gives me a chance to be aware of what string is out of tune, and with practice, to tighten or loosen that string until it creates a beautiful tone to my ears. "Those with ears to hear, let them hear it". As we move through life, perhaps we take time to listen to the tone of our bodies. Use the breath to soften the sounds of the world around you and listen within. Become aware of YOU. Stop looking at others and trying to 'fix' their tunes, listen within instead.

Next time you find yourself in pigeon pose and those little thoughts start to enter into the mind... "goahhh, is it time to unfold yet...", "if you keep me here one more second I might throw this block at you", "dream on dream on dream until your dreams come trueeeeee" or whatever it may be just take note where your thoughts are. This can be a signal to which chord might need to be tunes. 6 chords on most guitars... think 6 chakras and then that final beautiful sound that resonates across the universe, the infamous 7th tone that encompasses all 6 chords.

Life is beautiful, take time to check in, and tune your chords :)

Rock on Yogi's