Medicine Dance Counseling

07/04/2024

This expectation of perpetual blissful state with spiritual awakening is something I see all too often. I really appreciated this post by Mary Mueller Shutan about the value of allowing ourselves to feel the full range of emotion and thoughts about how to move toward grace with our emotions.

One of the illusions of spiritual awakening that is continually perpetuated in the modern world is that if we were only conscious enough that we would no longer feel, or would constantly be in a state of bliss.

This is an understandable thing being sold, as when we are suffering, the idea of not feeling, or of feeling only bliss, is what we believe that we desire.

But we experience our emotions for a reason. They are messengers. For example, we feel fear because it is a cue that someone or something in our environment is not okay.

We simply must get into right relationship with our emotions, and to learn how to skillfully feel them, to clearly hear these messages and respond appropriately to them.

We are not intended to permanently reside in a state of non-feeling, or a state of bliss. Our emotions require contrast. One side of the coin must have the other to exist, for us to know what they are. Bliss requires suffering, joy with pain, happiness with grief and despair.

The end result of truly feeling all of the emotions within us results in flow, in "e-motion"– emotions flowing through us, without the fear and resistance that we once had.

When we truly learn to feel, it is like sinking to the bottom of the ocean. The waves and tides can still be seen, they are still there, and we are a part of them, but there is an essential stillness amongst the chaos.

If we accept the chaos of life, the uncertainty, the fact that one thing always changes to another, we can find this stillness.

It is an odd thing to explain this to a world sold on non-feeling, or on feeling only bliss, but if we can accept that we will experience darkness, suffering, and chaos throughout our lives, we can then (and only then) feel the light and essential stillness of our beings.–

Mary Mueller Shutan

06/11/2024

Never thought I would be on YouTube, yet here is a video produced from an interview I did for a channel called Crossing Thresholds, which is devoted to exploring facets of death and dying from around the world.

If we haven't done the work to Greet our Death with grace, with preparedness. A lot of the fear can actually manifest for us. Join us on a profound journey w...

02/20/2024

Wise words from an amazing poet, courageous individual, and whole-hearted embracer of living fully!
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1745063865980444

09/12/2023

The insidiousness of comparing ourselves to others as the measure of our success and value is that too often we are comparing to a presenting face that hides the same kind of inner turmoil and doubt that we experience under a veneer of having it all together, just like we do. That yardstick is one that is built for measuring someone else's life, not our own. I invite you to let the yardstick you use for measuring yourself be one that is shaped by your own heart and soul, rather than anyone else's.

09/07/2023

If we keep saying that this isn't the way it was supposed to be, we don't engage enough with the life we are actually living to be able to manifest the life we want.

09/06/2023

07/21/2023

This was in an email from Animas Valley Institute. I deeply appreciate it and thought I would share.

For the Sake of Reality

For the sake of reality,
meditate on your own death
until you enter such close communion
with your impermanence
that you come out
of your primary addiction
to life
which makes us think
we have to preserve everything
at all costs.
Meditate on the certainty of your death,
the tone and curve and texture
of its promise
And your soul will clear itself
of every fear that will come out of hiding.
For we hold fear
to protect us from death
though with it
we ward off
Life.
Our world is at a time
where we must die before we die
or we will kill ourselves
with our self-preservation.
So take my hand and let’s die
consciously and beautifully
to every limited thing
we’ve imagined ourselves
and this world to be.
I am ready to step out
of the small bunker
of life
the endlessness of my soul
has been hiding in.
It’s time to go fully into the fear
of being extinguished
that I may begin
my eternal life.

~ Chelan Harkin

09/25/2022

"Dear Mother Earth,
I bow my head before you as I look deeply and recognize that you are present in me and that I’m a part of you. I was born from you and you are always present, offering me everything I need for my nourishment and growth. My mother, my father, and all my ancestors are also your children. We breathe your fresh air. We drink your clear water. We eat your nourishing food. Your herbs heal us when we’re sick.
You are the mother of all beings. I call you by the human name Mother and yet I know your mothering nature is more vast and ancient than humankind. We are just one young species of your many children. All the millions of other species who live—or have lived—on Earth are also your children. You aren’t a person, but I know you are not less than a person either. You are a living breathing being in the form of a planet.
Each species has its own language, yet as our Mother you can understand us all. That is why you can hear me today as I open my heart to you and offer you my prayer.
Dear Mother, wherever there is soil, water, rock or air, you are there, nourishing me and giving me life. You are present in every cell of my body. My physical body is your physical body, and just as the sun and stars are present in you, they are also present in me. You are not outside of me and I am not outside of you. You are more than just my environment. You are nothing less than myself.
I promise to keep the awareness alive that you are always in me, and I am always in you. I promise to be aware that your health and well-being is my own health and well-being. I know I need to keep this awareness alive in me for us both to be peaceful, happy, healthy, and strong.
Sometimes I forget. Lost in the confusions and worries of daily life, I forget that my body is your body, and sometimes even forget that I have a body at all. Unaware of the presence of my body and the beautiful planet around me and within me, I’m unable to cherish and celebrate the precious gift of life you have given me. Dear Mother, my deep wish is to wake up to the miracle of life. I promise to train myself to be present for myself, my life, and for you in every moment. I know that my true presence is the best gift I can offer to you, the one I love."
~Thich Nhat Hahn, Love Letter to the Earth

08/04/2022

I am proud to have finally taken this step on my path and to be able to offer my service as a Death Midwife.

04/21/2022