Quickening: Rhythms of Change
Self Mastery is a very personal experience. When conveyed through inspirational stories, others create their own mastery; and that's really good news!

April 9, 2010

Self Mastery: Oneness & Individuation

Oneness:
The existence of a subtle energy web that interconnects all things.

Individuation:
Integration of human components and recognition of one's true self and soul path.

I love the Yin Yang symbol. To me it is the single most significant and descriptive symbol representing the nature of the Universe and each one of its laws. Every primary Universal Law is contained within the Yin Yang symbol including "Oneness," which is represented by the encirclement of masculine and feminine crescents within.

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Musings & Meditations

   "…mysticisms perceive the ultimate goal as being the moment when the little individual drop of water which has fallen from the rain cloud to the mountain top, melted down from glacial snows, flowed with myriad others into streams and waterfalls and broad rivers-finally merges itself indivisibly in the vast and shining sea.…enlightenment is rather when the individual drop itself becomes the repository of the whole vast ocean, when the shining sea slips into the individual drop!"

- Lama Anagarika Govinda



Awareness & Alchemy

Sit comfortably, feet on the floor, hands in your lap. Take a few deep breaths through your mouth, exhaling the hot wind from deep in your belly. Now take a few relaxing breaths through your nose with your mouth closed. Breathe up from your pelvic floor into your head through the depths of your spine; breathe back down the spine. Repeat this a few times. Next, breathe through the nose and visualizing it moving up the spine again. This time, as you exhale, watch as the breath spirals, winding around and down the spine to the pelvic floor again. Repeat this cycle at least 9 times and up to 21 times in increments of 3. Stay in the Center of your Head, focusing on the breath as it moves up and down.

How do you feel? What do you see, sense or notice?



Enlightenments & Education

Opening to Spirit I: Exploring Ceremony, Healing & Intuition; Opening to Spirit II: Balancing Sun & Moon, Fire & Water. These online courses, complete with audio accompaniments, will guide you with restorative yoga poses, breath, visualization and creative assignments leading you toward your own self-mastery. Available through the Energetic Connection, these courses are currently $33 each; $11 for the audios; through May 31, 2010; prices will increase on June 1, 2010 to $99 each.



Keystones & Kingpins

Expand your consciousness, balance your health and enhance your immune system with CHOCOLATE!! Check out Chocolate Jewels of Nature today.



Conservation Concerns

Greenpeace has been working diligently to increase Trader Joe's seafood policies. Here's an update from the Traitor Joe's website:

"My one-stop-shop for ocean destruction is drastically changing. Now, I'm doing my part to help save the oceans with my seafood purchasing policies.

After months hearing from activists, shoppers and pirate pals how important it is that I stop destroying the oceans just to turn a profit I finally turned over a new barnacle. I've publicly announced that I am going to:

  • Offer only sustainable seafood in stores by December 31, 2012.
  • Work with a third-party, science-based organizations to establish definitions and parameters for addressing customer concerns about overfishing, destructive catch or production methods, and the importance of marine reserves.
  • Remove "red-listed" seafood from our shelves. We stopped selling Chilean Sea Bass in 2005, Orange Roughy in July of 2009, and Red Snapper in March of 2010.
  • Provide accurate information on all seafood labels, including species' Latin names, origin and catch or production method.
  • Use my buying power to leverage change in the seafood industry."

For more information and continuing updates from Greenpeace, go to the Traitor Joe's website



Self Mastery: Oneness & Individuation

[continued from top]
Together, black and white snuggle against one another inside the circle; they are one with the whole, on some level equal and balanced parts of individuality: day and night, active and receptive, cause and effect, the fire and water in all life. Separately, these crescents are each undifferentiated components of the whole; viable parts, yet not the whole idea.
Our souls are similar as they are the center of our own personal being-ness, components of our individual bodies, part and parcel to the spirit that surrounds us, weaves through us, and is knitted into everything in the known Universe. Spirit, by its nature, is "Oneness." It belongs to no one in particular, although we are all contained within it and it is held inside us.

It's easy to claim a belief in "Oneness" and then to avoid responsibility for our actions as separate, contributing human beings in the world. Rather than being synergistically Yang--a giving, active, vital force of life, and or Yin--open, welcoming energy; it's much easier to be complacent and apathetic or angry and forceful. This way we don't have to work as compassionately and diligently, instead riding in someone else's wake or waiting for God to send a knight in shining armor, or for the wind to blow us into the magical palace of our dreams.

What some may call entitlement, I call ownership. It's our job to claim our power, the gifts of abundance, prosperity and connection to all things. We also need to own everything in our lives, remembering that it all "happens" as part of our own creation; it is our calling and at some point was our deepest desire, to be part of this enigmatic thing we call Heaven on Earth; Yin and Yang.

If you have further interest in self-mastery, please visit our online courses at the Energetic Connection. You can take a 6 or 12-week course or you can take a bit-sized piece, signing up for a single session.

For more personal stories on Oneness & Individuation, please follow my blog.