“Every flower is a celebration of the goodness of life. Look how it exists in its incredible beauty, open to the sky and the sun, like an act of worship. I’ve never found a flower that has a problem.”
– Eckhart Tolle
Happy early Spring!
Love,
Shannon
The phoenix is a mythical bird with flame-colored wings that symbolizes regeneration and rebirth. In my previous post, I mentioned that I had the opportunity to lead a Yoga Nidra and guided meditation session at the Evergreen Yoga Phoenix Women’s Retreat in August.
In writing the meditation, which was centered around an empowering encounter with a phoenix, I was inspired to draw and paint this creature to get to know it better. This picture is a little askew, but it was the best one I got before sending it off to a dear friend who needed a little phoenix magic.
Many of the retreat attendees had asked me to share a recording of the meditation I led, so, I have recorded it and am sharing it here for anyone to enjoy.
The meditation begins with a guided Yoga Nidra practice. Yoga Nidra is a deeply relaxing, meditative process that guides you into a state where theta and delta brainwaves are produced. This creates deep rest, healing and physical regeneration.
The Yoga Nidra session is followed by a guided meditation where we meet the phoenix, for a profound process of renewal and empowerment.
More about Yoga Nidra:
In yoga wisdom teachings, Yoga Nidra is a method of purifying the “samskaras.” Samskaras are patterns of thought and behavior that are repeated, and thus create grooves that become our well-worn pathways for acting and reacting. Imagine tracing a line through the sand with your finger, then re-tracing that same line over and over again. The line becomes deeper as that pathway becomes more and more ingrained. It can be difficult to create a new groove when the current ones are so established.
Yoga Nidra gives us access to the subconscious mind, where we can know our Self as separate from our thoughts and patterns of behavior, and where we can access intuition and information beyond our normal conscious awareness.
(Note — some exciting news… the talented Rebecca Clever (who composed the original music for my “Zoom out/ Imaginal Cell Meditation” will be creating special music for this Yoga Nidra/Phoenix meditation as well!! I will post the new version later this year, when it’s done. But for now, enjoy, and if you’re inclined, check out the other meditations on the Presence and Prose YouTube Channel.)
Namaste,
Shannon
Last month, I had the opportunity to join the faculty of the Evergreen Yoga Retreat at the beautiful Bon Secours Spiritual Center in Marriottsville, MD.
Footbridge at Bon Secours
Many of the women attending had participated in this retreat for over 20 years. Some have traveled through India and studied with prominent gurus. Many of these women have been practicing yoga for as long as or longer than I have. I have to admit that when I was preparing my sessions that I was to lead, I asked myself, “Who am I to be leading them?”
But as we gathered in the Peace Garden for my first session, I saw nothing but supportive, welcoming faces. I heard my inner voice say “It’s OK to be where you are.”
After a sunrise meditation
And I taught from there. Where I am, where my heart is… where the yoga comes through.
I found this treasure someone made at the Peace Garden
At the end of the retreat, I was given wonderful feedback about my yoga nidra session, along with several requests to record and share it, and to write up and share my teachings on meditation and samskaras. (I’ll post the recording and write-up here next week in case you want to give the meditation a try.)
This experience, along with being a deeply nourishing retreat, was an affirmation for me that perfection, or even, feeling fully confident, is not where I need to be — but that acceptance, authenticity, and presence (being where I am), are surely gateways for my best self to emerge.
I sat here after a meditation in the Peace Garden to write the poem below
Peace Garden Meditation
Stones and pebbles, 
smooth, angled,
some stacked into stupas,
slightly askew
Surrounded by trees,
stately, gracefully
offering their cooling shade
And the birds!
They are calling to each other,
sing-song exclamations,
weaving through the silence, 
structuring the spaces,
sounds and rhythms
that settle into my ears,
and I translate:
“Now!” “Joy!” “Awake!”
And I sit in the center,
still and open.
Transfixed
by this symphony
of sweet belonging.
Namaste
The “recess ladies,” as my girls call them, reign over the school playground, scowling and yelling, trying to stifle the release of pent up energy, due to several hours of sitting in class, focusing and keeping quiet.
“No playing tag!” (No playing tag?!!)
“No mingling with the kids in the other grades!” (Some 5th graders were trying help a tearful Kindergartner find a friend to play with).
“You! Stay away from the fence.” (My daughter was on her way to enjoy the honeysuckle blossoms).
I want to fix this for my girls, and for the other kids at the school. This doesn’t feel right. I am upset because the kids need to run. They should not be made to feel badly about running and exploring and connecting in ways that are meaningful for children.
So I ask my daughter about it. How does it feel when they yell?
“They are SO mean,” she answers. (My internal chatter – I have to make this better for her somehow…) She continues, “But they make life more interesting.”
I tilt my head and wait to see where this is going.
“I think your life is like a story. A good story has great things and bad things, and it’s interesting. You want to see what happens next. I think to be happy, you look back on your life with love. It’s your story and you love the story. You don’t want it to be boring.”
They say that when the student is ready, the teacher appears. I just didn’t realize my teacher would be ten years old.
Just as I am uncomfortable bringing conflict into my stories, I also wish I could avoid conflict in life. I want peace and happiness and ease, always. But in stories with no conflict, those characters don’t really grow, do they? Without their challenges, they wouldn’t come to know their strength, fullness of being, and their deeper capacities for love.
As I let Kaiya’s beautiful wisdom sink in, my fix-it mode quiets, and I am once again reminded that I don’t have to over-feather the nest for my girls.
I am also reminded of a Buddhist story that I heard from a lecture by Pema Chodron. She tells us about a man who is walking barefoot over a field that is covered in thorns. He thinks, “This is too painful! I am going to cover the whole ground in leather so that it won’t hurt me anymore.” But he can’t cover the whole field with leather. It’s not practical or even possible. What he can do is wrap leather around his feet (shoes).
With shoes, you could walk across thorns, hot sand, cut glass, anything in your path, and it wouldn’t hurt you. And the teaching is that, instead of wanting to change and control your outside world, work with your own mind. That is where the power of true protection, and the power to ease suffering, comes from.
For Kaiya, her love of books and stories has given her a potent analogy to work with. (In another conversation, she has told me that, to stop worrying before bed, she thinks of the worries as words in a book, and “you can always put the book down.”)
What are some other ways we can “work with our mind?” You already know I am going to say yoga, meditation and mindfulness (presence). I will just gently remind…
Yoga helps us to feel better in our bodies. We release tension, feel stronger, sense our own inner power, and, with regular practice, we end up making choices in our lives that come from a stable and healthy place. Our mind can calm down.
Meditation helps us to deeply regenerate, and to stop identifying with our running thoughts and vacillating emotions. We learn to control the mind, rather than letting our thoughts and emotions take us down an unwanted path.
And, using presence, we can stop the running chatter in our head, in the moment, by tuning into our senses — feeling the sensations in our hands and whole body, while we look around us and listen. The “story” falls away for that time, as we tune into clarity and aliveness.
It’s like shoes, for the mind… no that metaphor doesn’t really work, does it? Let’s try this: It’s like realizing that you are the one holding the book. And you get to choose how to read your story.
I have some sad news to share. Last month Casey, my muse, my mascot, my writing partner and four-legged best friend for 13 years, left the physical plane. She had a massive seizure, most likely a complication from a tumor that was close to her brain.
The doctors were able to stabilize her so that we could sit with her and say good-bye. David, the girls and I encircled her and spent some time stroking her, talking to her, telling stories about all the joy and sweetness she added to our lives. At one point, my wise girl must have caught a look on my face and she said, through her tears, “It’s OK to cry, Mommy.” So I did.
If you’ve been reading this blog over the past few years, you know that my practice is to work with the full spectrum of emotions, and to realize the healing and empowering benefits of feeling and expressing them. It’s my practice because it doesn’t come naturally to me. I would rather avoid pain and conflict and I just want everything to be OK. So I need to mindfully practice feeling my emotions fully, and expressing them in healthy ways.
In her book The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are, Brené Brown says “We cannot selectively numb emotions, when we numb the painful emotions, we also numb the positive emotions.” And I know this to be true.
We numb ourselves with food and alcohol and busy-ness… but when we constantly distract ourselves from our feelings, we pinch ourselves off from being fully alive. So here’s what happened when I let myself experience the fullness of my sadness the night I said good-bye to Casey.
We got home from the animal hospital late. Not wanting anyone to be alone, David and I each slept with one of the girls. Lying on my daughter’s trundle mattress, I was so very tired. I would get close to falling asleep, but as I started to let go, a tidal wave of grief would surge through me. This happened several times, wave after wave each time I almost drifted off to sleep.
Each time, remembering my practice, I allowed the waves to wash over me, and I felt that sadness fully. It was a real, physical grief in my whole body that made my skin and my insides hurt. But I stayed with it. I felt it all, as if absorbing the wave-water into my body.
After some time, fully feeling the sadness felt more like there was a thick force field around my body, and I was pushing through it. Staying with it and pushing through it, feeling it completely, and then, to my amazement and pure relief, I would get “through” that thick field, to the other side, where all the joy and all the love of Casey still was. And you’d better believe I let myself feel that fully. It was, and is, still there. If I hadn’t allowed myself to push through that path though the depth of my sadness, I would not have known that joy was there on the other side. The pure emotions of happiness at seeing her cute spotty face, the bliss of feeling her soft chin resting across my leg, the love that she always expressed through her eyes and her enthusiastic “aroo’s”… were all there… are all still here when I feel for them.
So over the past few weeks, my practice has been to let the sadness knock me to my knees, like when I looked under the bed for my slippers and saw the water bowl that I had slid out of sight that first night. Like when I came home from my errands and for the first time was greeted with empty silence. And when I would recall the events of that night, and the sight the tears on the cheeks of my husband and the girls. I let myself have my sadness, and I let myself sob.
And when I was ready, I also let myself open the hidden gift inside the pain, to feel the sweetness of it. I felt the relief of letting the sadness move through me. Then I could also feel how our loss was deepening the connection among the four of us, causing us to grow together in love. I could recall and feel again the tenderness and compassion from the doctors, and the outpouring of kindness and support from our friends and larger family. Letting myself fully feel these blessings, I found my heart was more full than empty.
Fully feeling sadness and pain did not make it magically go away, but it did open me to my own inner strength, and to the beautiful feelings that are enfolded within the hard ones.
The morning after Casey died, the girls and I went for a walk by the stream where Casey loved to walk. We asked Casey’s spirit, which we felt so strongly, to give us some signs to help us know that she was there. In the mud we saw paw prints. 
Floating in the air we saw white fuzzy dog-fur-looking dandelion seeds. And the next day, a doe moved into our back yard and helped herself to a buffet of weeds!
For us this was a sign that Casey sent an “earth angel” to watch over us. After a few days of visiting and weeding, the doe lay down on the hill behind our house and sat there all day. Then, she disappeared for a while. Just a few days ago, a doe came right up to our house in our front yard, with a buck, and their two fawns following closely behind. Was this mama our doe? Our messenger from Casey, showing us with her spotted babies that Nature is constantly being renewed? That life offers us magic when we look for it, comfort when we are open to it, and joy when we are committed to being fully alive? We like to think so.
The intensity of grief has softened, and we are at peace. I am missing Casey for sure, but not suffering. Feeling sad when the sadness hits. Receiving the joy that comes with reminiscing, funny stories and pictures. Welcoming the love that flows naturally when I embrace it all. Practicing presence.
With love from my open, healing heart,
Shannon
In every breath, there’s a brushstroke. In every moment, a miracle. Notice and amplify the beauty around you, and so decorate your life. Embellish with wonder. Saturate with kindness. Paint with the colors of the full spectrum of aliveness. Express with joy. Your life is your art.
Love, Shannon
What a gift Helen Keller has been to the world. As a kid, learning about her made me realize that people are capable of amazing and beautiful things.
What Helen says in this clip brought tears to my eyes. I do believe that this is the point of all suffering — deeper understanding of and connection with each other, and the emergence of our greater capacities that we discover only as a result of our suffering.
Seeing the “bad things” that happen in the world through this lens helps me to feel empowered rather than overwhelmed. It is a practice that I have had to cultivate and continue to work on, because I am very sensitive and tend to take on the feelings of others.
And this is the focus of my latest meditation on the Presence and Prose YouTube channel :
This is a guided practice for releasing emotions that are stuck or not being processed because feeling them is being avoided. (In Grace in the Muck, we looked at the work of Dr. Candace Pert, whose research suggested that repressing emotions creates a blockage of neuropeptide signals, and that this insufficient flow creates weakened conditions that can lead to illness. )
But through the process of “zooming in,” we find that, with a little attention and understanding, our challenging thoughts and feelings can move through us, and the body responds with a sense of healing and release.
The practice addresses that we can’t control what other people do or say, but we have so much power within ourselves to choose how we respond to life’s events. We can meet our thoughts and feelings fully, with wisdom and understanding. We can release what does not serve our greater purpose, and bring harmony to the body and mind.
Understanding that life’s challenges are gateways to discovering our genius and our deepening capacity to love empowers us to live with courage and compassion.
The photo, by the way, was a spiderweb I found one morning, cradling droplets of rain water. See the beauty that zooming in can reveal? 🙂
Tiffany was the best colorer in our first grade class. She would draw along the outline of the image with a dark, steady and confident stroke of her crayon. Then, gently and evenly, she would complete the inside with just the right colors. (Except for skin. For some reason, she always thought yellow was the best color for people’s skin.)
I would try to copy Tiffany’s technique, but my dark outline looked somehow ominous and less confident. As if the crayons themselves were aware of that border’s lack of authority, straggles of color always escaped from within the lines.
“You’re good at art,” I remember telling her. Growing up, seeing my abilities, compared with what some other kids were able to do, I formed a concept of myself as “not artistically inclined.”
“But you’re so creative!” was the encouragement I’d hear from people who knew the wild stories I wrote and the other projects I concocted. “I know,” my answer would be. I allowed the label of creative. “But I can’t draw.”
Well, something has happened to me this year. More likely, it’s been happening since becoming a parent ten years ago, which has caused me to look and to see in new and different ways every day.
When my older daughter was three or four, she loved the PBS show Dinosaur Train. One day, she made some drawings that depicted a series of scenes from that show. Looking at her picture of the dinosaurs, I noticed that she drew blue stripes along Buddy the T. Rex’s head and back. “Buddy has blue stripes?” I thought… and in watching the show again, sure enough, he did.
On the next drawing, she showed the train from above, heading off-screen. I would have drawn the train in predictable shapes and in full view, and not from above… I would have drawn the train as I interpreted it through my lens of expectations and experience, rather than how it was actually presented on the screen.
I realized that she and I look and see differently. And when she started doing paintings that looked to me pretty amazing for a young child, I suspected it was because of the way she looks at things. (And, note to Tiffany, she uses three or four different crayons to create a particular skin tone :)).
Here are her sunflower, painted when she was four, and fire, painted when she was five.
Fast-forward, to last year, when I started to get this urge to draw my beautiful dog, Casey. I joke that her cuteness is beyond comprehension, so I think I wanted to draw her to try to understand what I was feeling. Well, I was taken aback when what I drew somewhat resembled what I was trying to draw. I mean, it wasn’t a masterpiece, but for me, it was like nothing I’d been able to do before.
I thought that this result was just a fluke, and that I could draw Casey because I love her so much. I thought maybe the emotions around what I was doing gave me access to a higher power, where genius resides, and I was able to let a little of that through. And I still think that may be part of the shift that happened. But over time I felt compelled to draw other dogs, especially when I saw lines and wrinkles.
Then, I started doodling on my daughters’ napkins on their school lunches. I just love the critters that illustrators Jan Brett and Jane Chapman bring to life in the picture books I’ve read to the girls thousands of times. So, I riffed off of those animals, and was surprised to find that I could reasonably re-create some of those furry characters with pen on a napkin.
Last month, a dear friend had a baby girl, and sent me some
pictures. And, you guessed it, I was so inspired by the sweetness and newness of this tiny person, that I needed to try to draw her.
At this point, it occurs to me that something is really happening here. But what? I can’t draw. I can only draw Casey. OK, I can only draw Casey, and some other dogs who are floppy and wrinkly. And also maybe critters on napkins. And babies.
I think what is happening is that I am looking at things differently. As I tried to draw that sweet little face, I kept wondering things like, “Why doesn’t this side of her face look right?” and then, at some point, a shadow would emerge that I hadn’t noticed before and I would lightly shade that part of the drawing, and it would make all the difference. I would stare and stare and suddenly realize, her eyes are not actually on the same plane. The left one is lower, in line with that wrinkle on her hood…
So this process of drawing seems to be as much an allowing of the picture to express itself to us, as it an attempt to manipulate the pencil and eraser.
I think the other thing that is happening is that I am looking at myself differently as well. The idea that I am a person who “can’t draw” comes from my former, fixed mindset. Throughout my research in psychology and education, both in my career and in my personal journey, I’ve come to believe in the potential we all have for growth and change. It seems that I have developed a “growth mindset” (check out the book Mindset by Carol Dweck). The growth mindset views genius as made and not born, and sees failure and challenge as foods that nourish your genius.
Dr. Dweck says that a growth mindset can be taught and developed. So if you feel you may have a fixed mindset, whenever you hear your fixed mindset say “I can’t…” answer it with a growth mindset. Add the word “yet.” Allow yourself to see your struggles as vital components of success.
Betty Edwards, author of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, says “It seems that your brain already knows how to draw. You just don’t realize it. Helping people move past the blocks to drawing is, however, the difficult part. The brain, it seems, doesn’t easily give up its accustomed way of seeing things.”
How do you see? Are you open to the idea that things are not always as we expect them to be… and that you may have new talents, waiting to be developed?
I am still learning. I don’t really know how to see myself now, or whether to believe that I am actually learning this “ability.” But I know how I see failure. There is no such thing, as long as you are growing. The only real failure is not trying at all.
Happy New Year! 
I have obviously been away from the blog for a while. I’ve been busy making snow angels, oh, and recording meditations!
I have set up a “Presence and Prose” YouTube channel, where I’ll be posting new meditations that folks can use to de-stress, energize, go to sleep, manage strong emotions, set boundaries, and many other things that are easier done when you access the subconscious mind.
While language works well for our rational, conscious mind, the subconscious mind communicates in images and emotions. When we use imagery and metaphor in meditation, we have better access to our brain’s “operating system” and have greater leverage in changing things like habits and emotional patterns. (For more information on this immense and fascinating topic, see “The Genie Within: Your Subconscious Mind — How it Works and How to Use It”; “You Are the Placebo” by Joe Dispenza; or “Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain: How a New Science Reveals Our Extraordinary Potential to Transform Ourselves” by Sharon Begley.)
The first meditation I’ve recorded is a wonderful tool for relaxation, but it is also a powerful method for soothing and shifting your energy when you feel overwhelmed. By “pouring blessings into the hollow spaces” via this exercise, you can reconnect with your source of power and joy.
I am a big fan of Jean Houston, who is a brilliant scholar, author, co-founder of the “human potential movement,” and advisor to the United Nations (to name a few of her roles). When I came across her exercise entitled “Entering the Heart of Reality,” I was so moved by reading it that I reached out to her to ask her permission to record it and share it here on my blog. And to my great delight, I was given permission to do just that!
Jean created this exercise as part of a new training program she is offering called “Unlock Your Quantum Powers.” The course is offered through Evolving Wisdom, and you can learn more about it here: www.quantumpowernow.com. Every time I listen to an interview or lecture by Jean Houston, my mind stretches so much, it’s almost disorienting. And amazingly refreshing and empowering. Her class is bound to be amazing.
OK. Enough with the words and the reading. I will post the meditation below, but feel free to subscribe to the Presence and Prose YouTube channel also so you can know when I’ve posted more videos.
Enjoy!
Wishing you and your family a beautiful Thanksgiving!
Love,
Shannon