When we are separate, we are like unopened buds on a stalk. We may grow tall - 'ascend' but not see the light.

Feeling the aloneness, we move to the next step, to expand by seeing the light within all,  to connect without attachment.

And then the flower blooms. Wonder of wonders! When the lotus blossoms, we are not a pond of lotuses, but petals on one lotus!

In the mindfulness of the Gaia Minute that we are in, in the connections with those who participate, the awareness is increasing that so many people on earth today, are living lives of a deeply sacred vibration, that what is hidden is not something to fear but the brilliance of the light within, and as we see the light in each other, we are able to let our own out of the windows that hid it from view.

There is a new world dawning. Our feet may still be separate, but in intention, heart and crown,  the fulness of the day has come.

In the past few days, I've been thinking about how our conversations with others can be like breathing out and breathing in…

When we're nervous, or trying to fill in the gap, or push something on the listener, it is as if we keep breathing out, without taking a breath in….


And sometimes we're so busy breathing in - listening —that we seem to forget that we can also breathe out, and speak.

And then that wonder when we are in synchronized breathing : when I breathe in when you breathe out and vice versa.
I listen, you speak, you listen I speak…

I have used synchronized breathing with people who need to learn to get along with each other. It's something that came naturally to me as a mother helping a child calm down and sleep, for instance. And recently I learned that it is a technique used by some management consultants to build strong teams!

Breathing in….so you can breathe out.

 

How do we synchronize with the breath of Gaia?

 

[Cross-posted from Breathing out....and breathing in at the 50+stars group]

I've come across some articles on the idea of earth not only as Gaia, a nurturing, benevolent mother; or perhaps a Medea, one who ultimately destroys her children.

Certainly, the history of earth, in which she has endured while species have been born and died through the eons - much before humans came to the planet, gives credence to both ideas.

When talking about death, I've been known to say : "There's one cause of death:life!"
Oxygen helps us to grow and then to decay. Yes, of course, it's the cycle.
So perhaps that's what it is : not a Medea vs Gaia; but Medea turning to Gaia turning to Medea turning to....

Where are we in all this? As children of Mother Earth, we sense her processes, and do what needs to be done. When we needed to build and grow and 'fight' the forces of nature, we did so. Now we realize we've overshot the mark, become seduced by our own actions, and forgotten to listen to her heart.

So now, we're listening again.


The spiral numbers rise again! Just to take us one step up...or down [there is no up or down in space!]
For now, we use the pattern of 9:09 as a reminder: send your highest vibration into Gaia.  Perhaps this time, Medea will breathe as Gaia.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Gaia Minute   and 9:09 - the Gaia minute - it starts now
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Links:Gaia's evil twin: Is life its own worst enemy?
Based on "The Medea Hypothesis: Is life on Earth ultimately self-destructive?": by Philip Ward

This morning, I was again blessed to speak to Eli,  Swami Sraddhasudhasharananda, who came down last year from the HImalaya mountains with a message.

It's simple, it's one phrase:



At my urging, he agreed to allow me to record him expanding on these words. I will do the tech stuff and upload it as soon as possible. I was recording while walking in the garden ["backyard"], looking at birds, the sky, bees, a dragonfly, spiders and their webs, the treetops.. while he gave his message.

Talking to Swami Sraddhasudhasharananda is like talking to Eli: there's no difference. Or rather, there is that vastness in which the conversation can be at one moment about depths and at another about heights...but of course, always in the awareness that there is no up or down in space!

It is a blessing beyond compareto meet one who knows so much,  yet who does not preach or teach or sermonize, who can quote from ancient books or tell a parable to illustrate a point or with equal ease, shed it in a moment in utter humility. Who has a clear presence, but is not stuck to a personality.

Who is not afraid to connect in light.

After the conversation, in which we had talked about how anything and anyone can give us a message, I got a clear one.

My husband called out to me as a little bird had hurt himself on the glass and lay injured on the floor outside. For a moment I stood near him, letting him be calm at the closeness of my presence. As my husband brought a camera at my bidding, I raised my hands to beam healing. He's so sensitive to Reiki that the moment I put up my hands 5 feet up from  him,  he looked up fully, turned around, did a pose for a hurried photo shoot, his mate called…and he was off!

He was a Black And White Warbler, google tells me as I look for a professional photo  to offset my amateurish before and afters…

And according to Animal Spirit Guides:

Warbler's Wisdom Includes:
Diversity
Beauty of all soul songs
Invisibility
Frail endurance
Survival

 

I think the message is given. Now it's up to us to do what needs to be done.

"We need 1000 people to pray at the same time"

Swami Sraddhasudhasharanandawho came to us as Eli

When I think of the confusion surrounding the where's whyfore's what's and even whether's of climate change, I take refuge under the beautiful trees that have been friends, companions, heroes and joys of my life.

These are a few of my favorite trees.
The acacia I  detour to pass by, to feast on  its explosion of color
Reflected in the silk floss tree with its thorny bark that attracts hummingbirds



Next to royal poincianas- the gul mohur -  that blaze orange at the point where three roads meet


And the solid oak trees whose branches support children on swings
I know the paths in my life as defined by the trees that grace them
What will happen to the trees as earth's climate changes?
I think of the events of my life as reflected in the trees that I have loved
The ancient gingko in a round-about in Paris where I walked with friends one day.


The fragrant blossoming harsinghar, which I found in America after searching for three years.


The banyan in Madras that shaded us as we attended talks by J Krishnamurti, or listened to the Dalai Lama. It had a majesty, as it spread freely, whose memory sustained me when I looked, shocked, at the ones uprooted by hurricanes in Miami.



A fig tree we call  peepal  has suddenly appeared on the roof in Miami, a blessing sent by Buddha through the birds. Will it grow as ancient as the bodhi tree under which Gautama became the Buddha? Or even as large as the one I knew in childhood?  I saw my first large snake there. Will the air around it be as pure, the water it soaks, as plentiful, the nutrients in the soil, as rich? I cannot find space to grow it in, and it makes me wonder. Perhaps it's time to move away from cities, to spaces where trees can grow freely. Where banyans do not need to be cut to fit into the parameters of road and power cables, leaving them helpless under the onslaught of hurricanes.

I think of the petrified forests that appear to be closer to stone than organic matter; diamonds made of deeply compressed organic matter. the trees that sprouted thousands of years ago.  They adapted to tremendous changes - why won't we?




What will happen to the trees that still line the paths where my loved one and I wandered?
The ones that I was searching for, and helped us find this house that has become a home in a faraway land?
The aam, lychee, amrood, anaar, chikoo fruit trees that show us the changing seasons even in tropical climates?
What do they portend about how we will react to the coming climate change?

Trees seems so stable; so able to withstand the myriad changes the world has gone through. Will they be able to withstand the predicted climate change?

Our earth is not something that is out there. Its state is woven into our memories and our present. Our visions of the future are interlaced with the visions of what happens to everything on earth. What are we doing to help it to be radiant?


Perhaps the tree might help. The cosmic tree that reveals the inter-relationship of all on earth;
The metaphor of  the tree that helps us ground, expand, center, clear, nourish, nurture, breathe.
The story of the brave little tree that bent in the storm to spring back when it was calm.

A little voice tells me - climate change isn't out there. It's in here. It's not only about external climate, but also about internal climate. It's about how we use our emotions to influence our actions, what we choose to care for, how we apply the collective wisdom that we have gained. Do we need to worry about climate change? Assign blame? Get angry? I think what we need to do, is to be deeply grounded into our earth, sense her feelings. Expand into the atmosphere, and sense its moods. Keep clear the toxins within our personal and earth body, and make each moment one in which we are mindful of earth as Gaia - all sentient and insentient beings on this planet.

The Gaia Minute

If today seems dark, remember: when the seed first begins to grow, it is in darkness. Slowly but surely, it makes its way towards light.

Earth already survived climate change  ..why can't we?




As my memories propel me onward, I am inspired by Eli who came from the sacred mountains:

I posted a little before the question came up- so - this is my response to climate change

In short:
Climate changes
Perhaps we can influence it
It starts with internal change
Internal change can influence the way we treat our Gaia
And that is always a good thing.



In long: Trees and climate change - a deeply personal tale

[Pardon the links that will stop functioning after Oct 26 when geocities goes offline. The info is all in this blog and I'll update as soon as possible]

PARENTING THE WHOLE CHILD

 

Who is a child?

What needs do you try to parent?

What chakras do you parent?

Do you parent the whole child?
If not, then where is your focus?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WHO IS A CHILD?

 

Developmental psychologists tell us that the child is a developing human being : one who develops biologically, neurologically, cognitively, emotionally, and socially through defined phases of growth.
These phases of growth are infancy, childhood and adolescence.
At all these stages, the parent[s] or primary caregiver[s] plays a crucial role in development. Their very presence or absence influence the child. The values they teach, the opportunities they give their children, and the manner in which they discipline the child - all affect the relative maturity of the person as an adult.
People need their parents at adulthood, too; but it is not with the same intensity or urgency as when they are growing so dramatically, as they do till adolescence.
Parents change the style of their caregiving as a baby grows into a toddler, a child, and finally a teenager.
The style also differs with each child. Child and parent thus influence the other; and as one grows, so does the other. The difference is, that the child's growth is easier to notice than the parent's!

According to ancient wisdom in India, children have a deep inner wisdom. However, they have to spend their childhood in gaining knowledge from a teacher, or guru. They are in the first of four stages of life, which is called Brahmacharya-ashram. This is the time to gain intellectual and physical strength, "learn correct behavior, self- control, art of developing a pure mind, and the duties of man and the proper relationship between you, your family, your society and the world", said Swami Vivekananda.

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WHAT NEEDS DO YOU TRY TO PARENT?

What are the Child's Needs?

Abraham Maslow, the famous psychologist, gave a structure to various human needs . The wonder of his theory is that he described the order in which humans try to satisfy these needs. Lower level needs dominate in the urgency with which they motivate a person to take action to satisfy them. Once satisfied, the need subsides, and a higher-level need takes over.
Maslow's Pyramid of Needs

It seems common-sense to believe that a hungry person [lowest-level biological need] would first try to assuage hunger before, say looking for shelter [safety/security] or making friends.
Or that we would try to realize our potential [self-actualization] if we first have self-esteem.
How well does the heirarchy hold for people who are mystics or yogis?
What about a starving mother who feeds her child first?
What about children who are picky eaters? Who are very social but have low self-esteem? Or those who over-eat and are loners?
We need to see the importance of knowing the needs of our children and ourselves.
How well do we know these needs and energies inside us?
How well do we know them in our children?
Which level of the needs does the parent control?

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THE CHAKRAS

Chakras, or wheels, are like energy fields within our consciousness. They are not physical, but are located around physical parts of the body, and influence our physical, mental, emotional and psychological state.
It is interesting to see how the chakras correspond to the widely-used Maslow's pyramid of needs.

Chakras Maslow's Pyramid of Needs

As we can see, the chakras extend to levels beyond Maslow's heirarchy.

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DO YOU PARENT THE WHOLE CHILD?
Where is your main focus as a parent? How do you assess that your child
is “growing well?” If s/he is happy? Tall? Intelligent?
Getting good grades at school? Popular? Good at sports? Helpful? Kind?

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© 1997 Meenakshi Suri

Old links, brought over from my GEocities page which will soon be extinct

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~~A magical conversation~~

When I first heard the words "Pray...pray...pray....Gaia is calling" by one who I knew progressively as Eli ,Swami Shraddhasudhasharananda, Guruji to some and Swami Eli to others--and all these and more  to me! - I was aware of different layers of interpretation, each thought with its opposite, all chaotic

Something's wrong with Earth, and our prayers will help --But why should we interfere with what's going on?
We are being asked to connect ~ Aren't we already connected?
We're being asked to pray - isn't the heart always  at prayer?

Layers through chaos...the way a star begins to shine.

Those powerful words kept ringing in my ears, till like a mantra that begins to flow into our energy field, they went beyond words into the essence.

When Siona began the Gaia Minute Call meditations, I realized that I would need to do something in order to listen to Eli's voice on that call.  I  call [ring up ] my parents in India very often, so we had a wonderful calling plan for  India. As it turns out, my parents are miraculously visiting us here now, so I decided to use those minutes to call Swamiji instead. He agreed to be on a conference for the second Gaia minute call, where we heard him just prior to the meditation. What a strong, vibrant, loving voice!

As we moved into the message of the Gaia Minute, interpreting what it seemed to mean, I sensed that there would be questions about prayer; the layers I had experienced were not  only 'mine', and I wanted to be able to record them as well, in his voice. In his humility, Eli kept asking me  why I thought those words have such importance, but agreed.  What he had told me about prayer was important to share widely. 

And then on one magical day, when the breeze cooled a warm Florida morning, the sun shone through the clouds, and birds visiting for the winter filled the garden with song, the conversation took place. As I asked questions, the voice from the mountains answered and spoke and shared.

Now picture this: there I am, with completely amateur equipment - a cordless phone and a digital camcorder, not wanting to film the fence or the  home so much as the Earth home, walking about the garden, with phone in one hand and camera in other, holding them close so that the voice gets recorded at the right stages in the conversation, but pointing the camera to the sky. Mosquitoes are happy at my presence but usually they don't feast too much - I guess my blood isn't sweet enough for them! Bees are going about their activity, an occasional dragonfly flits by and as my heart is lifting with the blue sky and clouds and filming the spider webs framed crazily by the sky and the hawks watching overhead.  Aging muscles got their message across  as a need to film the sky, and I connecedt with Mother Earth as I haven't in a long while, by lying on that Florida grass.

Mother Earth, Father Sky, Grandfather Sun, and even Grandmother Moon! Animal guides, breeze and flowers.

It was heaven.

A voice from the mountains with a message connecting the dots of space and time, coming through apparatus that has been sent to earth as technology, to show us that the voice is always in our ear, the touch even closer than the heartbeat, the message coded into our DNA.

Brahmand is there in every moment, in the ordinary and the extraordinary.

And as I saw the parijat flower blossoming in the garden, I knew that just like the fable that talks of this tree being brought down from heaven to earth, so has Swamiji come to us from the mountains, as Eli, and the wonder is  that they could come as one and actually be a physical voice coming through the phone lines to be recorded and shared!

All of Gaia was there.

I am not one who easily bows to ones who come as teacher or guru or swami. But one who came this way, like a whisper filled with love, simplicity and purpose,  with a message that he could deliver  clearly and in our language and medium,  profound and powerful in its delivery, and encouraged us to receive and give in our own words, shining a light on those around him rather than on himself, but also graciously allowing himself to be recorded - to him, and to all who are around him, I bow most joyfully.

As I wrote on HummingBird's blog, I am not one who prays to ask as I never know what to ask for, never feel that what I could want would be better than what the more expanded self wills for me, but I was aware that prayers go out from the heart and those are the ones that are constantly being answered. When others spoke of praying for something, I used to wonder why I don't pray, not in others' words or my own; except when a mantra or bhajan make their way out through me…and yet feel so close to the Unnameable One. 

I could not therefore understand why we were being asked to pray in this direct, focused, conscious way.

I realized that when being asked to pray, a vague sense of fear comes into being. And that is not what is being conveyed here. That is why the inspiring message of the Gaia Minute came through: to send your highest vibration into Gaia. Fear will not do that. Knowledge will not do that.  Thinking will not do that. Prayer with an attitude of devotion will do that.

These words of Swamiji's connected it all for me. They helped me to realize that prayer is a state of being in our highest vibration while going about our daily or special activities. It helps us to access and use our energy in a way that staying in other states of emotion or disconnect cannot, for actions that are not only for ourselves but also for those we call others.

As the next step, I wanted to make the movie and post it on YouTube, but as things turned out, my aging computer equipment would not allow that. That is the way the Oneness reminds us to reach out and connect! My son uploaded the snippets and then I reached out to Kathy. A flurry of emails later, in which I saw an artist, a being of great beauty and sensitivity at work, a video has been made.

I realized that watching Kathy bring this to life is watching prayer.

Then Anna did what the heavenly messenger HummingBird does...spread the nectar around and from Gaia.

And now people are responding with different layers of response. It is as it is meant to be. The cycles repeat, and in the hands of all, is the 9:09---the pattern that seems to repeat but actually takes us one step up, each time, raising the energy.

From seeing the wonder manifesting around me I know the prayer that went out from my heart. To see a true swami, one not attached even to this as a title. To the loving connection underlying different facets of Gaia.
 
It is not we who pray. It is not we who ask. It is what is to be, the connection, that comes to us as a prayer.  We just flow with it.

Om Namo Narayanaya


Links:The Gaia Minute Call - Week 2 with Swami Eli's voice
9:09 The Gaia Minute ~ a call to light
 A Guide To Prayer Prepared For The Gaia MinuteOct 28th, 2009 by  HummingBird
How ~KES  made the video