Everyday Sacred

Peace Is A Big Island

During these dark, pre-solstice days, all I really feel like doing is practising slow, deep yoga, doing subtle pranayama and meditating. Of course, everything about this season is urging me to rush around like crazy but, the pull to drop down is especially strong now. The weeks leading up to the solstice have long been considered the most sacred time for contemplative practices. This year, there is a heavenly dance of sun, moon and several planets that makes it more imperative than ever to take a break from making merry and sit on your meditation cushion.

On Sunday, December 9th, we began the new moon in Saggitarius. The new moon is a time of introspection, insight and setting intention. Saggitarius is ruled by Jupiter, symbol of wisdom. It's wide orbit is symbolic of stepping back and getting a bigger picture. Between now and December 21st, Jupiter, Mercury, Pluto, Chiron and Juno will align themselves with the center of the galaxy. This hasn't happened since the mid-seventeenhundreds, the birth of the Age of Enlightenment.

Mercury governs your thoughts and how you communicate your ideas. Jupiter and Mercury concern your personal evolution. Pluto represents the collective and is more about the evolution of consciousness of the race.

So, picture an expanding dance of planets swirling around the galaxtic center until the sun enters Capricorn on December 21st and the swirling morphs into a structural, geometric formality. If you know anything about Chaos Theory, which is the study of how turbulence transforms into order organically, you may have an idea of the power of the center of a galaxy, a tornado or a hurricane. Mathematicians call these centers "Basins of Meaning". In Chaos Theory, they are known as "Islands of Peace". When things align right, they get bigger and they become "Great Attractors". The whole system shifts from turbulence to peace because the Island of Peace resonates its field outward through a flowing web of interconnectedness. Eventually, the system comes to a tipping point and change happens.

Tornados, societies and people are all known as dissipative structures in Chaos Theory. They all gather energy from a turbulent environment. Conflict and turbulence take them through a cycle of stages that builds to a tipping point. The old basins of meaning become less attractive and the patterns that circulated around them become weaker and then die off. The resonance from the Island of Peace has established a new, higher order, a more elegant pattern. Growth into a better organized form occurred organically.

This is an opportunity for us to really understand what stops us, personally and collectively. What you are struggling with in your life now is just that thing that is the Golden Key that unlocks the door to release the structure that traps your light, your expression and the free flowing of your life force. Then can you truly be yourself. Then you are a Truth Speaker and your light shines forth!

Something Precious

Even though the solstice is still 3 weeks away, winter has descended upon New York. It's getting dark at 4:00 and the moon's light is waning as we descend into a new moon on the 9th. All of Nature is resting. Many esoteric traditions consider these days to be the most sacred and contemplative.

Yet, I have lost entire Decembers to parties, Nutcrackers, shopping and decorating. The external busyness and merriment and the internal pull toward quiet and solitude makes me edgy. The time of the greatest external darkness is the time of the greatest internal light.

We descend into darkness guided by a faith in something greater than us but, knowing that there are no guarantees. Sensing that there is really nothing except this dream we are dreaming and, what... the consciousness that is dreaming it? Half-believing that we could wake-up or, maybe, dream a different dream.

How does contemplation fit in with this crazy-busy life and an even crazier month when, if you make it to class twice you're feeling lucky?

Truth be told, more and more of us are being called to do just that. Conscious-evolution is a participatory event and no road map exists for where we're going. The old methods of monastic living to cultivate the spiritual seed don't serve us now. Too many of us are waking up (even if it's just for a flash). We're feeling deeper. We're unravelling ourselves from our dramas. We're practising lovingkindness. It's too late to turn back now.

This is when you change your yoga. When the seasons change, change your practice. You're playing with a different archetype now. The fall practice is about the hero/alchemist in us. We work the lungs. We do alot of warrior poses. We come out of fall with a deeper capacity to feel our grief and the courage to find happiness with what is.

The greatest gift of the winter practice, greater than precious gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, is the gift of the birth of a new archetype in us. This is the one who saves us from our suffering and separation, the transformed one, in us.

In winter, we work the kidneys; we guard our essence; we replenish. We do alot of forward bending. We become very concentrated and rooted. We surrender our compulsion to control outcomes. We engage in deep listening.

There is an opportunity we get at this time of year. Something precious can be born in us, if we don't miss it. Some deep insight, some piece of soul recovered, some obstacle dissolved. It's like this time 'round, you reach for the brass ring and you get it! Instead of just going around in circles, you're spiraling to the next level. You get a wide-angle view and it all makes so much more sense now.

It feels so good to be alive. It feels good to be in the game. You're heart holds so much love.

What if you could do lucid-dreaming and dream yourself back here, whenever?

And what if you could?

And what if you did?

And why don't you?