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How Do We Think What We Need to Think? by Elektra Porzel

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First a word for traditions renewing us to life renewing itself!  May 1st is May Day, the midpoint between Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice.  The earliest evidence of this celebration is in the 2nd century so probably that it was celebrated for both the beauty of nature and for its fertility.  The best-known modern May Day traditions include dancing around the May Pole and crowning the Queen of May.  Take a minute to smile, look around and treasure the bounty of nature showing itself!!

In addition to being something that we treasure, that we repeat often, our traditions are basically thought patterns encoded in our neural networks and glia cells in our brains.  The emotions and physical sensations associated with those traditions are likewise embedded in those networks.   Those neural networks and glia cells hold everything that we think is real and how we should act in the world.  All that information, all those beliefs, all those perspectives come from our family, our culture, our religion, our country.  They frame how we experience our world and the way that we come to the moment, to life.

 …human beings think they are their thinking. They think their thoughts are their thoughts. You do not realize your thoughts are thoughts born of cultural structures that leave you trying to fix ‘you’, not your thought patterns. Tantra Maat

If everything in your brains is historic information/beliefs given to you by your family, your religion, your culture, how do know what is your own truth…about yourself, about your place in the world? What are your own possibilities, what is your calling or what are those niggles to be or do differently?  Do you need to create different ways to come to being with others, to being with nature, the land and the earth? Just doing the same thing or thinking the same thoughts will not give you a different future.

So, how do you know how to think differently, how to be differently?  How do you come to the present moment differently, to create new ways to act in the world?    You start with this recognition that your thoughts are not your thoughts. This gives you the perspective of asking…is this really what I believe?  What information/perspective am I not aware of?

Next, what do you note about about your society?   On a larger scale, what do your historic beliefs say about our institutions, are they sustainable for coming generations?  Or if that doesn’t seem supported with evidence, how can you be part of identifying and creating a new more sustainable future for your self, for your family and for humanity?  Many authors are speaking to this need now.  I am reading Charles Eisenstein and Tyson Yunkaporta.  Both these authors predict that our western society is not capable of having a sustainable future as it presently operates.  Start with reading these authors to stimulate your thinking.

Reading other sources of information is a starter to opening your mind to the more that is actually present. Then add ‘being with others’ to your search,  I suggest that you take the time to be in conversations with others to investigate perspectives different than your own.  These partners in conversations should be equally dedicated to discovery and non-judgment.  If they are stuck in historic and/or judgmental positions, then they are not the partners that you seek.  You don’t have to agree with these conversation partners. You are with them to broaden your own awareness and find how your perspective shifts or expands.

This search through reading and conversation helps your neural networks to expand and connect to these new pieces of data.  That makes them a more flexible network where choosing to respond is now possible. In the past, if your neural network was limited, there was only reaction.  With more branches and connections, your neural pathways are numerous.  You can take a breath and make a choice for what is the most life-sustaining option for you.

I discovered almost 8 years ago that there is one tool that supports me in this process of increasing the diversity of my neural network connections, the Templates of the Language of Creation.  When I use the Templates to write my Creation Exercises, I am deepening my search for my own inner wisdom and my connection with Creation/Source.  This happens for every writer of their Creation Exercises.  The Templates only demand that we write life-generating, life-enhancing phrases.  Just writing one Creation exercise results in over 16 life-enhancing phrases connected to that one Craving.  16 life-enhancing phrases now embedded in our neural networks as part of one Craving.  The Observing Templates help us stop our looping thoughts and emotions and help us see with clarity where we truly are in the moment.

The Language of Creation’s Templates give us access to our real thoughts of our Original Design and access to the personality within which those thoughts exist.  There are new energies coming into earth at this time.  They are here to help us in our search for our Original Design and our deeper connection to Creation. Many of us are shifting out of our historic personalities and becoming more of whom we came here to be.  We each are part of this body of humanity which is on the verge of restoring the wholeness of their Original Design and birthing their future Selves.

Our journey to discover our larger Self, our Being whom we came here to be, doesn’t end with reading a couple of books or having a couple of conversations or from writing a couple of Creation Exercises.  These are ongoing activities over time during which we observe what is shifting in our lives.  How are we coming to life differently?  How are we being differently?  What impact is our shifting behaviors having on others?  What are we willing to be?  What are we willing to commit to on behalf of a better future for ourselves and coming generations?

Over time, we shift out of our historic thinking and our historic habits.  We start walking our talk, the being and thinking of our Original Design.  We welcome being part of creating a new sustainable reality for future generations.  Take the first step today!  Welcome to the miraculous journey of the rest of your life!

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Consciousness and You by Elektra Porzel

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We hear a lot about the word consciousness these days.  It wasn’t a common word 50 years ago or even 10 years ago.  So, what does consciousness mean?

Dictionary definitions

…the awareness or perception of something by a person:” her acute consciousness of Mike’s presence”

…the fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world: “consciousness emerges from the operations of the brain.”

…an awareness of yourself and the world. Research on consciousness has focused on understanding the neuroscience behind our conscious experiences.

These definitions don’t fit my experience of the journey into greater consciousness not only of what is ‘me’ but also of what is the ‘Self’ that came here to earth to be, to do and to have.  It is not a straightforward awareness of my mind nor is it a straightforward awareness of the greater dimensions that interact with humanity.

First let’s look at our brains – the head brain, the Gut Brain and the heart.

Up until the 1980s, the medical profession only recognized the head brain.  They thought that it was unchangeable…that nothing could be done for people who were either born with defects or had injured their head brain.  Two paths of inquiry changed that picture: Neuroplasticity and the Gut Brain.  Research into what we now call neuroplasticity has proved that the head brain is the most malleable organ in the body. Different parts of the head brain can be used for different functions.  Now the medical world is discovering all the myriad ways that the brain can change so that birth defects, accidents, stroke are no longer jail sentences but are instead opportunities to rewire the brain and for the individual to move into being differently and being more.  Other research discovered the second brain/gut brain which has almost the same white and gray matter as the head brain and most of the neurotransmitters.   The microbiome of the gut brain informs us 24/7 what is occurring within us and outside of us.

Then what is the mind?

It’s the functioning of the three brains – the enteric nervous system/gut brain, the heart and the head brain all connected by the Vagus Nerve and our Spirit.  We think of it as our intellect or maybe everything we experienced in the past thru thinking, willing etc. Our brains hold all of the information, ideas, beliefs that we have been fed by our larger society, our family, our religion.  These beliefs/truths are stored in pathways in all our brains.  So, when we ‘think’ our mind is ‘thinking’ we are mostly simply reordering what we learned earlier in life.  We are not actually thinking something new, instead we are repeating the old statements that were given to us as the truth about the world.

How do we change if we are simply repeating what we have been told?

We can’t think newly if we never explore ourselves outside of the box that has been provided us.  Dipping your mind into the wider arena of discovery starts the process of consciousness.

What are ways that we can expand our thinking?

There are tools for the individual to use in this journey of ‘opening up to’ different perspectives, different information.  The Newfield Network suggests that you step outside your normal thinking and investigate new perspectives.  Like the five blindmen who disagree what an elephant is…. when they ‘opened up to’ the idea that the other blindman might have a different experience of the elephant…they could change their position around the elephant and thus gain another perspective.  Eventually the ‘all’ of what an Elephant is would be clear to them.  The same process happens with each of us when we ‘open up to’ others’ perspectives, others’ wonderings, others’ hopes.  Our comprehension of what more there is to the world, to life expands; our neural networks in our three brains gain more pathways; we have more choices in our thinking; and our levels of reactions lessen as these additional choice points makes responding easier instead of reacting to input.

What are the ways that you can search out different perspectives?

I use conversation with others who listen fully with their minds, their bodies, their hearts and their spirit.  They want to open up to others’ perspectives.   They are looking to create a future that takes care of everyone on earth including nature, the land and the waters. Conversations with these people opens me up to others ideas and information, their wonderings, and their hopes.  We use language to explore these ideas.  Our language is expanded thru these conversations and then become anchored as words with larger meanings in our brains. Those meanings carry cognitive and sentient information which makes the new neural pathways part of the our whole system, body, mind and spirit.

In order to language my inner consciousness journey, I use the Templates of the Language of Creation to give myself a connection to Creation and to access the deeper wisdom of my Spirit and Creation.  It is in the regular writing of my Creation Exercises that I deepen my own consciousness of who I have been (my historic self) and of my Self…whom I deeply am, whom I came to earth to be, to do and to have.  I experience these two processes…the observing of what is occurring and the craving of something new in my life.  This interaction of Observing and Craving is integral to my consciousness. They cannot be separated out as just one or the other.  We must reflect on where we are in order to take our next step to creating the life that we crave.

If we are to create a more viable and sustainable future for coming generations, we must come to the world, to ourselves differently.  That means learning to identify our historic patterns and habits and lessen those that are not life-generating.  That means changing how we be with others in our families, in our communities.  We must look to creating a world, a society that works for everyone. Our present economic system does not do that. Our present healthcare system does not do that. Our present educational and judicial systems do not do that.  These needed changes have to mean that we will return to honoring and respecting not just all people but also nature, the land and the waters.  Without this whole system response to the earth home and its inhabitants, we won’t be creating a sustainable future for our grandchildren and coming generations,

To learn more about the Templates of the Language of Creation, I suggest that you visit the website of the Language of Consciousness Institute.  Go to our products and investigate what supports we can give you in this inner and outer journey of deepening your consciousness. (www.loc-institute.com/store/)  If you want to be in conversation with others, join us in several conversations we are presently offering.  (www.loc-institute.com/courses-events/)

What is most critical is that you place yourself in a supportive field with others.  It is in the common journey of discovery and ‘opening up to’ that we find that we are most able for what has been hard for many of us.  The LOC Institute offers free mentoring when you first start writing your Creation Exercises and paid mentoring whenever a need for support is felt.  Go to our website to see what is being offered. (www.loc-institute.com/mentoring/)

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The Value of Conversations In Our Lives Now by Elektra Porzel

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We are in a time of humanity’s consciousness expanding towards a future where unity is dominant while simultaneously the old stories from the reality of separation of what is the ‘truth’ are fighting to stay in power. We each must pay attention to what we are paying attention to…the old stories that keep us in historic patterns of beliefs and actions, or the new stories that offer us the life that we crave.  One way to do that is through conversation.

What are conversations?  According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, they are informal talking together, an oral exchange of sentiments, observations, opinions, or ideas.  Is there a name for conversations where all participants are listening fully with no stances for judgments; where there is a mutual opening up to the others’ perceptions, ideas, wonderings, hopes?  Let’s call it ‘Full-On Opening Up Into’ Conversations (FOOUI)!  That’s my definition of conversation and the kind of conversations that I promote in my conversations on Zoom!

To open up to another’s perspective, another’s wonderings, another’s hopes for the future is to expand your own capacity to experience more, to see the world through another’s eyes.  As you open up through this listening, you gain new perspectives.  These new perspectives inform your choices and your actions.  Those different choices and actions lead to different results in your life.  Different results that help you create the life that you crave for yourself and for others.

In the present western society, there is a ‘talking at’ others from judgments or beliefs.  We could call it a ‘not-listening’ to the thoughts of the others. There also exists a ‘belief’ mindset in which the individual hasn’t questioned their own thinking…are their thoughts what someone else told them or did they create these thoughts themselves?  In this ‘belief’ mindset there is no examination of evidence pro and con or weighing of what others are saying relative to the ‘belief’.  In ‘Full-On Opening Up Into’ FOOUI Conversations, we examine both our own thinking and seek evidence for our own thoughts as well as the thoughts/ideas of others.  This form of internal/external dialogue is important to us now. Without those basic parameters of internal/external listening, how will we realize that there are other ways to view the world? How do we change how we behave or choose? How do we create new ways to be with each other?  How do we create new ways of working together to create a more sustainable future for humanity?

The only way to get different results in our life is to open up to others’ perspectives. It’s like the five blind men around the elephant. If each blind man stays in just one position such as the leg or the trunk, they will never know the entirety of what an elephant is. If they listen and open up to what others are present to, they have the opportunity to move to the other’s position around the elephant and thus have a fuller comprehension of what an elephant is.

We each are a blind man about something in the world.

What better way to get a larger picture of the realities and the possibilities that are present in every situation, concept, experience than to participate in FOOUI conversations?  Being in conversation does not force you to change your perception or opinion, it only serves to open you up to the more of what others are experiencing, thinking about, perceiving, wondering about, hoping for, dreaming about.

I hold conversations every week about the ideas of two different authors, Charles Eisenstein and Tyson Yunkaporta. They each have written books about the need for our present western society to shift our practices and policies, so that we can create a viable sustainable future for humankind. Eisenstein offered us his ideas in his books Sacred Economics and The More Beautiful World our Hearts Know is Possible as well as in his blog on Substack.  In his book Sand Talk, Yunkaporta proposed that indigenous practices may offer us some practices, some concepts and some being states that we could use as templates for each of us to adapt in order to create a sustainable future for generations rising.

Each week I have two conversations on an Eisenstein Old Story-New Story proposition. Each conversation has different participants and therefore each conversation ends up focusing on different issues and evidence.  It’s fascinating!  Lucky me to be with these women who share from their history, from their wisdom, from their wonderings and from their hopes for creating a better future for our grandchildren and coming generations. Join me in April to be part of the conversation around Eisenstein’s Next Stories and Yunkaporta’s Sandtalk.  The Eisenstein Next Stories conversations are on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The conversations on Sand Talk are every other Wednesday and focus on one chapter of the book while looking for adaptability to our lives and possibilities for humanity’s future.  Join me in FOOUI conversations and/or join others in FOOUI conversations where everyone listens without judgment, where everyone opens up to the possibilities of different perspectives, of different dreams and of different possibilities.  Let’s open up to each other’s perspectives and discover the more of what there is to perceive in the world!

Exploring Charles Eisenstein’s Next Stories April

https://www.loc-institute.com/product/exploring-charles-eisensteins-next-stories-april/

Becoming the Modern Indigen using the ideas in Sand Talk 

https://www.loc-institute.com/product/becoming-a-modern-indigen-using-sandtalk-by-t-yunkaporta-and-the-creation-templates/

 

Unpacking

The Art of Unpacking Soma

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by Lori Candon collaborating with Victoria McMahon

Alice Miller, The Body Never Lies—

“Physical illnesses are the body’s response to permanent disregard of its vital functions. One of our most vital functions is an ability to listen to the true story of our own lives.”

We each have a story, a series of events/circumstances, influenced by our individual and collective (societal/historical) experiences. Story may formulate from a tape that continuously runs in the mental mind, linking thoughts with emotion, or from a habituated shaping of our physical body. The shaping of the physical body produces a mood; creating a link between body and emotion. Shaping may operate on behalf of life or you may recognize an experience as disconnecting from life. 

The Art of Unpacking Soma has been a theme in my storyline for over 40 years. Observing began through the access point of the mental mind; deciphering the world from a place of either/or thinking (good/bad, right/wrong, safe/unsafe). A hypervigilant, external focus led to disengagement with expressing internal emotion and feeling body sensation. I operated from a place of “being at the effect of circumstances”, which for me means surviving the world and navigating relationships. 

As the practices of yoga and tai chi brought me back into relationship with my body, other modalities reconnected me with emotions. Threading my experiences of mind, emotion, body language has opened me up into strength, stamina, capacity for embodying choice. Embodying choice has me have agency for “being with” the dynamic unfolding of life, inviting more. 

Can you identify either way of being? 

Does a story come to mind right now?  

How do you gain access to authoring a new story?

Exploring our unique communication system and observing our mind, emotion, body languaging informs us of our level of engagement with our living body (Soma). The intelligence of the entire organism (Whole System Response) is a vital lens in which we organically engage with the world. Through the interactive, interrelated, interdependent Soma Communication System, we increase our capacity in the unfolding of how we language an experience.  This informs moving with experience, being in direct relationship with the fullness of life within us and in community with others.

Is your unique relationship with Soma what you have been longing to discover?

Are you pondering the possibility of a new way of operating in your being that gives you a deeper connection to you? 

Are you able to remember a moment when you felt aligned, all aspects of the mind, the emotion and the body interacting in a harmonious way of being?  

How are you unpacking that which no longer serves you? Choosing to explore and awaken into observing and engaging as a somatic being opens us up into living our purpose while experiencing the joy of who and what we came here to be and do.

Coming from an organizing nature, unpacking for me happens in so many different ways. Imagine a suitcase where everything is jumbled and stuffed inside, unable to close and function properly. 

Then, imagine a suitcase where all the contents are organized and have a place.

Now it is time to unpack the suitcase. Do you throw the contents into a disorganized heap only to ‘deal with it’ later? Do you remove the contents in an organized way, returning the contents to their rightful place? Do you take the time to be with the experience, listening to the wisdom of Soma?

Sometimes unpacking is messy and happens all at once and sometimes it is a slow, deliberate process. There is no right or wrong way to do it. You can be in the both/and…you can go into the depths all at once or you may choose to take one baby step at a time. Consciously choosing what, where, and how to unpack supports moving into ‘trueing’ with Life itself. 

Link to our video to explore what ‘trueing’ is for you

Trueing Ourselves in Somatic Relationship

For me, the art of unpacking is a dynamic process creating generative movement toward balance.  It is an expansion of either/or thinking into both/and thinking. While sustaining and maintaining life enhancing languaging and fluidity of the entire communication system, soul consciousness is able to operate through form to remember itself. 

“Health is the natural expression of the body, mind, and soul when they are in rhythm with the One Life.”- Dr. Randolph Stone, Health Building  

https://www.loc-institute.com/product/the-art-of-unpacking-soma/

 

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Capacities Magnify when Collectives’ Actions Unify By Elizabeth Geyer

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A field of people gathered in January and February to paint a new canvas of Self!  What has risen as a result?  These phrases below were the ones that popped out from unpacking the first recursion of  Craving what 2023 is for me.  There is so much afoot now, and these phrases are evident in my life, and all over the planet in various forms.  

  •  a flow of congruent language that is excited nourishment
  • finding common grounding of Self with others
  • everything being newly forged 
  •  potency in collective energies 
  •  a lifetimes project of deep longing 
  • poking this curious mind and heart where She has not dared to go before.  
  •  emboldened steps to Being with Creation as explorer
  • honoring the new music of life’s light
  • a matrix unique to each cell, organ, tissue, the All of each of Us
  • increasing the energetic power of each and every-one who is listening for the beauty of these nuances of shift
  • a warm, loving space to BE with one another in this rich, all encompassing field of Being, dreaming, action and joy!

I remember back to the beginning of January when I wasn’t certain at all about unpacking.  I just knew I had to do it!  What evidence has shown itself to further unpack, or what has shown up as a result of unpacking that I can see in my own life?  So much!  There have been many moments of beauty, intensity, unworkability, play, creativity, joy, sadness.

One story that pops up from reading the phrases that have pinged me, is that of the health journey I began in January that I am unpacking.  “Poking this curious mind and heart where She has not dared to go before” is what raised my attention.  I have poked into many places to finally begin to take really good care of my body and how I fuel her and exercise her.  I have not dared to exercise like this in over 20 years!  I have not dared to really look into how much it matters when I prepare meals lovingly.  I have not dared to connect with people around health and have a health journey group before.  So much has been unpacked here because I am unpacking Self this year!  I have not dared to reflect on the stories I tell myself that in the past, sabotaged my journey.  The latest story is how I have to have a half banana and ¼ cup nuts before I work out.  This week I learned that I was afraid, and told a story that said I need these foods.  Nope…not true.  Some days it might be true.  Other days, no.  My body asked me to check in on a workout by workout basis from now on.  Duh!  Oh…this unpacking is such a cool process!

Another phrase that pinged me is “a flow of congruent language that is excited nourishment”.  In The Field of Tantra Maat, there are phrases that we use that I am beginning to hear outside the field.  One phrase is ‘building new neural pathways.’  I wanted to kiss my swim instructor yesterday, because she gave us  exercises to do in the pool that make us feel so geeky, and they exercise the brain in doing them!  I am also hearing other phrases more commonly spoken out in more public spaces.  Some of you, I am certain, have been finding commonalities also.  Isn’t it amazing how unpacking is rippling out in ways we didn’t have a clue that it would?

Are you noticing that when you are with others doing any body of work, that you seem more capable?  This is such a delight!  It is as though the universe just purchased a lot of new mirrors and now we are all reflecting off of each other!  Let us let these thoughts steep, as they fuel the fires of unpacking more deeply! Join Elizabeth Geyer and the LOC Institute Team for The Art of Unpacking Your Creation Templates, Series 2, Mondays, March 13th-April 17th at 8:00 AM PST.  You can register with this link: https://www.loc-institute.com/product/the-art-of-unpacking-the-creation-templates-series-2-with-liz-geyer/   

Sandtalk

SandTalk – An Extraordinary Reading Experience

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You have heard how impressed that I am by SandTalk.  Here is a review by Elke Power of Readings Monthly.

“Tyson Yunkaporta’s Sand Talk is an extraordinary reading experience. It’s both philosophical and practical, and underpinned by a compassionate yet realistic humanity. At the core of Sand Talk is a deep respect for Indigenous Knowledge, to which long-term thinking is fundamental. As Yunkaporta demonstrates, a central principle of Indigenous Knowledge and learning paradigms is looking back and recognizing patterns from the past, then learning from them. That’s an extreme simplification due to the length of this review, but as Yunkaporta convincingly argues, it is this kind and caliber of thinking that is profoundly lacking in many societies today, including in Australia, and the damage wrought upon our world in its absence is abundantly evident.

Yunkaporta writes with a clear-eyed sense of his own perspective, flaws and past failures. An academic, an artist, and much more besides, language is important to him. Like many of Australia’s First Peoples, he has a complex identity and history, and he writes, ‘I often don’t get to decide what I call myself.’ Throughout Sand Talk, he carefully shares stories of life-changing ‘yarns’ – a term he defines precisely early on – with people he has met on his extensive research travels.

Sand Talk is an engaging and singular introduction to the elements of Indigenous Knowledge, thinking, and methods of communication that Yunkaporta is in a position to share. It’s an opportunity to recognize these concepts and their history, and a generous invitation to incorporate these methods into non-Indigenous thinking for the benefit of all. It’s an unforgettable book, rich with ideas and inspiring in its conviction in the human capacity for personal change and growth. Open it to any page, read and enjoy!”

The LOC Institute is offering a series of discussions led by Elektra Porzel about Sandtalk starting on March 15th at 9amPT and every two weeks thereafter. Calls will  last 60-90 minutes.  We will discuss it chapter by chapter.

Questions we may explore:

  • How are these concepts/practices of the Aborigines with each other in community, with the land, with nature different than our relationships with each other, with the land and nature?
  • Are the concepts/practices presented something that we might adapt?
  • What impact might that have in our lives?
  • What if a large percentage of the human population adopted that practice…what might the impact be in how our society functions?
  • What are you called to write a Creation Exercise on?  What did you experience when and after you wrote your Creation Exercise?  (If you are unfamiliar with the Templates of the Language of Creation, I can work with you offline to teach you how to write your Creation Exercises)

I look forward to ‘yarning’ with you!

Register here:  https://www.loc-institute.com/product/becoming-a-modern-indigen-using-sandtalk-by-t-yunkaporta-and-the-creation-templates/

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Unpacking in its Next Greater Whole of Actions By Elizabeth Geyer

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Unpacking

Uncovering

New

Perceptions

Activating

Conscious community’s

Kinship, kindness, kinesthetic-(Kin)nections

Inspirations intensifying

Naturally nurturing

Growth & G.O.D.’s Greatness

 

Isn’t it amazing to explore and find ever deeper awarenessness emerge?  Wow…that is what writing this poem on unpacking created…new kinship…kinesthetic ‘kin’nections!

 

Yesterday, two kinesthetic kinnections occurred.  The first one happened as I ate a few bites of an incredible apple cobbler.  I could taste the love that exploded in my mouth.  Tears came to my eyes!  My partner just smiled at me!  We were out having a delicious meal at a favorite restaurant in Napa, California.  It was raining outside, and inside all was cozy, with natural and warm lighting, many diners talking with animation making the experience that much richer.  The whole meal was infused with love!  I know…without a doubt, that had I not begun this journey of unpacking new awarenesses, I would not have experienced the richness of this whole system response during the meal.

 

The second experience that occurred was driving in Napa, observing the brilliance of the winter grape vines, highlighted by the mustard that grows this time of year.  I was marveling at the contrasts in colors, and the beautiful cells of rain that occurred in the distance with bright sunlight happening in other parts of the sky all around.  My heart was already full, when, in the distance, the most incredible rainbow appeared.  There were people stopped on the side of the road taking pictures.  I was so taken by the fact that you could see each shade of color, and the brightness was mind-blowing!    Again…I know without a doubt, that this too, was unpacking.  How was this unpacking?

 

Well…this bright rainbow was the fruit of unpacking that has grown since this journey began.  It is paradise…uncovered in the sifting through the layers of life, to find ever deeper layers of subtlety and intensity.  Everything is just…brighter!  I think of that line in the song…”The future’s so bright you gotta wear shades!”  Remember that song?  I thought it was weird…nope, not weird yesterday…yesterday was proof!  My glasses lenses were darkened in the car to protect my eyes from the brightness!  Unpacking uncovered new perceptions…a new richness that had deep emotions rise because I could feel a love beyond human…I could feel a deep appreciation in these experiences that now has me longing for more.  Granted, not more sugar!  That apple cobbler experience went beyond the sugar I haven’t had for a while.  The chef who created it infused it with all of the love they had for their craft, for the ingredients, for those who would be enjoying it, and then something beyond that I cannot explain.

 

This is the beauty of unpacking life.  I now see unpacking as a slowing down to really savor each bend in the road.  I see going deeper on behalf of what give us life and has us exist as whole to be everything now…every moment is to be savored…even the sad moments, the angry ones, and moments filled with guilt or shame.

 

Unpacking with others is an amazing experience.  Knowing we are supported in every moment of this deep awareness is priceless.  I invite you to consider joining the LOC Institute team for series 2 of The Art of Unpacking The Creation Templates!  We are excited to be with you!   

 

Link to register:  https://www.loc-institute.com/product/the-art-of-unpacking-the-creation-templates-series-2-with-liz-geyer/

 

Fiddler on the Roof

Traditions…Hindrance or Support?

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Traditions!  Do they support us or hinder us?

By Elektra Porzel.

We all have celebrated shows where the children defy the traditions and prosper.  Fiddler on the Roof comes to mind with one daughter refusing an arranged marriage and another marrying out of her religion and culture.  We witnessed the joys and the difficulties of these choices.  We also have been part of or heard of families broken by the children’s decision to live their lives differently.  In my generation, it was intermarrying between culture/religion groups and then racial groups.  Now it’s children defying being what their gender has traditionally been in their family lineage and/or in their culture’s definitions of gender.  All this change, while welcome in some parts, is never easy.  Our families’ traditions are often based in a larger cultural context and that is based in an earlier time when adherence to tradition assured the individual’s and the family’s survival.  Our family’s reaction to our changing of traditions can be separation, hurt, judgment, shaming as well as welcoming, integration, owning.

In the beginning of these tradition challenges, we are not always aware of the ultimate value that this shift to the family/societal structure and functioning will be.  When it occurs on a societal level, it is harder to monitor and control the positioning of old=good, new=bad scenarios.  As we negotiate how to celebrate holidays, how to speak to others of these choices, of altered expectations, there is an up and down of the roller coaster of creating new ways of being, new norms for the family or the society.  We are watching an extreme response to change in our legislatures in the USA trying to limit choice, to limit voting, to make silence about the real history a mandatory action, to push back the clock of change.  Ultimately they won’t succeed AND they make the process of integration so much harder for the society as a whole and for the individuals within it.  While they voice their actions as trying to protect society for the future, they are actually lessening the viability of the society for the future.

We must create a new reality for humanity to live within, to prosper within.  That future must meet the criteria of sustainability.  Our traditions, our institutions are all up for needing change.  We are seeing them falling apart right now.  My questions is this: How do we create a sustainable future for our children, our grandchildren and future generations coming?  How do we navigate these times without falling into judgment, shame, blame?  How do we open up to the greater benefits and be compassionate to ourselves and others in the bumpy road of navigation to a new norm, a new pattern of living as a family, as an individual, as a society?

These questions are all up in two discussion series that we are offering through the Language of Consciousness Institute this month.   ‘Becoming a Modern Indigen’ explores what we could gain from reviewing the practices and thinking of indigenous peoples, of our long-ago ancestors.  In ‘SandTalk” by Tyson Yunkaporta, he suggests that our present western society’s traditions and institutions are not viable as a sustainable culture for the future.  He offers for our investigation the practices and thinking of the aboriginal peoples of Australia.  In Becoming a Modern Indigen, we will explore his thesis chapter by chapter…trying out some of the practices, writing our Creation Exercises around those ideas.  Lots of wonderful deep conversations will surely occur.

To learn more: https://www.loc-institute.com/product/becoming-a-modern-indigen-using-sandtalk-by-t-yunkaporta-and-the-creation-templates/

In Exploring Charles Eisenstein’s Next Stories, we explore his ideas about new stories that are rising about humanity’s future.  He too believes that our  present society is not the basis for a sustainable future for humanity.  This is discussion is aimed at looking at all the perspectives that dance around each ‘Next Story’.  It is free for March.

To learn more: https://www.loc-institute.com/product/exploring-charles-eisensteins-next-stories-march/

 

What is soma

What is…Exploring Soma?

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What is…Exploring Soma?

by Victoria McMahon and Lori Candon

SOMA = Living Body

Soma includes not only the physical body but also the intelligence of the entire organism that can change itself.  As living organisms we are born with the impulse to move toward safety, connection, belonging.  Depending on our experiences, beginning in the womb, our bodies shape around our biological responses to safety/lack of safety, connection/lack of connection and belonging/not belonging.

Do you have recognition that you are a somatic being? 

How does being somatic register in you?

Somatic being is the innate way of listening, observing, and operating in human form.  We all experience ourselves on a continuum of Somatic being – from the awareness of our Soma, just coming into awareness of Soma or not engaging in awareness with the Somatic system. 

If you haven’t been introduced to the experience or languaging of Soma until now, celebrate your expanding curiosity for how you long to engage with life.  If you already operate in relationship to Soma, what ways are you longing for more or deeper access?  Either way, you are inviting yourself into a new way of operating in depth of knowing, embodying who and what you are! 

 Is your interest piqued?

What is it to operate in life through the lens of experience and language of Soma?  We have access to our organic nature through mind, emotion, body languaging. 

 In gaining access to mind languaging, we are exploring and building our capacity of attention.  Attention is about recognizing our words, thoughts and actions that follow a thread of either being life-enhancing or life-depleting.  Moving into the observing of being with these threads, we are deepening our connection to the rise of emotion and body languaging.  Discovering the woven patterns in-forms and invites us into practices that move us beyond mental mind thinking. Then we are able to organically re-shape into a mind that operates in unity.  

The languaging of emotion is about listening and following the ebb and flow in the emotional field. This organic flow invites somatic opening up into the gift of being emotionally present.  Engaging emotional presence with mind and body, we experience how emotion shapes thinking and physical body sensing/shaping.  This interweaving sustains our capacity to observe and be with rise and release, flow and restriction, and interruption or completion of energy in motion.  

Body languaging is the third access point of Soma.  Typically, when you hear the word Soma, you think of paying attention to the body, registering sensation.  Registers can include muscle tension/relaxation, pain/ease, temperature changes or tingling energy sensation.  Observing and tracking the intelligence of body sensations connects us to our body shaping,  informing our mood and mental mind thinking. The integration of body, emotion and mind generates the potency for deeper exploration of Soma.  

 Observing from this deeper exploration, we can develop practices that create choice:  

  • Shifting language of mind, emotion, body
  • Operating in connection as somatic beings
  • Engaging in life-enhancing ways with Self, Others and the World
  • Generating purposeful action towards your longing in life

Are you ready to step into this way of operating in your being, giving you a deeper connection to your organizing design?

Register here:  https://www.loc-institute.com/product/what-is-exploring-soma/

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about.”- Rumi

 

deeper dive

Discovering the Deeper Natures of Unpacking, By Elizabeth Geyer

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Have you ever had a topic you were super interested in take you down many different pathways to relate to it?  Have you ever had that topic become almost a friend, and not let you go?  This has been unpacking for me!  

Way back in November of 2022, I could see in my mind’s eye, a gathering place, with people gathered around a fire, telling stories and sharing their experiences.  I felt such a deep kinship with this group that had not yet shown itself!  Guess what?  That group surfaced, and began to meet to immerse ourselves in the writing of The Creation Templates.  Then, another ‘download’ occurred over the holidays.  A knowing that unpacking our lives, our journeys, and the deeper relationship with ourselves could be created.  I simply kept being with that ‘can’t not’ feeling…can’t not unpack in 2023!

Currently, this amazing group has almost completed The Art of Unpacking The Creation Templates, series 1.  We have just begun to form a relationship with unpacking what there is to unpack in our lives.  I had no idea that unpacking had so many pathways!  I also had no idea that unpacking would show up everywhere…not just in the writing of the Creation Exercises!  There are so many ways to look at unpacking now!

What might you be unpacking this year?  How has using a magnifying glass to unpack what is there for you shifted you being who you are? How has taking a deeper dive into the wonder of you been for you?  For me, I can see unpacking everywhere!  I am unpacking my health and what that is for me; I am unpacking becoming an empty nester, becoming a mom to only three cats and missing the 4th one that just moved out.  I am unpacking what my relationship with my daughters is for me now that they aren’t here at home anymore.  My relationship with my partner and how we are here at home…another exploration…my relationship with unpacking…with others I hold dear in my life and who they are as part of this unpacking…unpacking what listening to my heart is…listening to my body…listening to my mentors…listening to Mother Earth.  This list could go on and on!

The other lens I am observing from is that which has my attention, and discerning that attention with more clarity.  In other words…what happens if I am writing a Creation Exercise, unpacking it, and I hit a wall? To observe further I have now learned to ask this:  Have I hit a wall because the language in this phrase I am unpacking cannot hold a deeper resonance?  Have I hit a wall because the phrase has ‘unearthed’ discomfort and I am not certain I have the strength to follow the unpacking thread?  These are questions I have never asked mySelf. What do I ‘do’ if the Template falls flat?  Well…newsflash…I am coming to discern that writing that falls flat means I need to let Time pass and let the mind, body and spirit ‘steep’.  Knowing I am uncomfortable about something only makes me want to persevere to follow that thread to walk along the path to move to the next greater whole! And looking more deeply if the writing isn’t resonating at all has also been part of the experience of unpacking.  Choosing to write a Creation Exercise more mindfully and slowly has been a big help to solve the issue of my writing falling flat.

If you are unpacking, and you run into a wall…I call it a firewall…perhaps ask your heart some of these questions.  This year I am working on relevancy and potency of exploring mySelf and Her deeper natures of Being.  “S.H.E.” has a lot to say and is loving Her audience!  

Unpacking the deeper nature of Being and Self is an amazing journey thus far. I would love to share this experience of unpacking with you!   In hindsight, I am so blown away by the deeper nature of life that has shown up all around me, loved ones, my communities, both local and global, with the Earth and the Universe…this is BIG?  Yes?!!  Who wouldn’t want this amazing experience? 

To register for The Art of Unpacking, Series 2, register here: 

The Art of Unpacking the Creation Templates-Series 2 with Liz Geyer

 

 

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