“It’s not happiness that makes us grateful but gratefulness that makes us happy.” – Br. David Steindl Rast
A Will to Wonder
A note from Carl: This morning I am reflecting on a line that Mark Nepo quotes in his wonderful book, 7000 Ways To Listen: Staying Close to What is Sacred. The quote from Abraham Heschel: “We will not perish for want of information: but only for want of appreciation…what we lack is not a will…
Self-Deletion Becomes Self-Respect
A note from Erin: Good day! One of the powerful aspects of my professional Feldenkrais training was learning this truth: I have to be at least as tuned into myself as I am to my client if I am to be of benefit. Often I need to have 50% or more of my attention on my own comfort,…
February 24, 2014 @ 6:00 pm – 7:40 pm “I don’t believe people are looking for meaning in life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.” For as long as humans have existed, men have gathered in sacred circles to speak, listen and connect together around the great mysteries of…
A 12 week somatic adventure in 3 acts. Taught by Carl Rabke, LMT, GCFP Begins Monday, Feb 23 Act 1: The Ground Act 2: Your Dynamic Center Act 3: Discovering Length The Ground: Mondays, 2/23 – 3/16 6:30pm In this segment we will explore our living connection with the ground. How do receive support, strength, and connection through…
Finding Ease in the Neck and Shoulders
February 21, 2015 1-5 @Avenues Yoga
A note from Carl: Happy Losar and Chinese New Year! A supermoon, a new year- what a ripe morning! A good day for reflecting on a line from Suzuki Roshi: “The most important thing…is to find out what is the most important thing.” This is one of those inquiries that I need ask myself repeatedly…
The Wisdom of a Broken Heart
A note from Erin: Greetings! This past weekend was the beginning of my Women Embodied Live group for 2015. I adore teaching this class so much and am always blown away by the wonderful women who grace the group. This past week was no exception. One of the things I look forward to every year…
Dreams and Trust
A note from Erin: I’m thinking about dreaming. Not night dreams, but those we dream for ourselves in our lives. As in Charles Eisenstein’s beautiful phrase, “the more beautiful world our heart knows is possible.” Not so many years ago I was a little disoriented about dreams. I thought the point was all about being…
The Paradox: Perfect as You Are + You Could Use Some Improvement
A note from Carl: Greetings from Finca Mia! We arrived yesterday morning in Costa Rica and our Begin Again retreat commences this evening. As I sit here on the deck of the movement studio with the laptop, countless sounds of the living world surround me. The crickets, frogs, birds birds birds, and the the ever-present…
Begin Again A New Year’s Retreat in the gorgeous Cloud Forest of Costa Rica with Carl & Erin Jan. 5-11, 2014 Last January, during those cold gray depth-of-winter days, we set the intention to go somewhere wonderful in January 2014, to refresh our bodies & souls, and escape Salt Lake City’s annual attack of air…
Not Knowing Is The Most Intimate
A note from Carl: Happy Holidays! Greeting from a cozy seat next to a fire at Erin’s mom’s Blue Moon Ranch. We had a beautiful holiday, and were gifted with a visitation from two bald eagles during the snowy Christmas Day. Look at those wings, those eyes! I notice, in moments like this, that it…
How Do You Want to Feel?
A note from Erin: Good morning! This morning I’m inspired to share with you something that’s been super helpful for me, and I hope for you too! Sometimes synchronicity brings similar things into our lives at the same time. For me, in the past few years, one of these has been a powerful question which…
What You Don’t Need to Hear
A note from Carl: Good Morning, This morning, these powerful lines from William Stafford are alive for me: “The things you do not have to say make you rich. Saying the things you do not have to say weakens your talk. Hearing the things you do not have to hear dulls your hearing. And the…
No Place to Lose Your Wings
A note from Erin: Hello! Shall we start with a short and sweet poem? Love, love, love. It always comes back to that, doesn’t it? :) I have been enjoying reading Maya Angelou’s book “Letter to my Daughter.” Here’s an inspiring question she asks in one of the essays which I thought I’d share with…
On Intimacy with Life
A note from Carl: Good Morning! This morning on the cushion, I was reflecting on the response of two great modern Buddhist teachers to the question of: “What is the essence of meditation?” The Tibetan teacher, Chogyam Trunpa Rinpoche responded: “Intimacy. Meditation is the practice of intimacy.” When Suzuki Roshi, on the of the early…
More or Less Kills Me With Delight
A Note From Erin: Aloha! We returned from a wonderful week in Kauai a few days ago. I tried to send you a newsletter last Thursday from the desk in our cottage below. (The view was spectacular, but my sending was unsuccessful. The Hawaiian technology gods were not smiling on me :) ) I was…
The Friendliness of the Universe
“I think the most important question facing humanity is, ‘Is the universe a friendly place?’ This is the first and most basic question all people must answer for themselves. “For if we decide that the universe is an unfriendly place, then we will use our technology, our scientific discoveries and our natural resources to achieve…
A note from Erin: Hello! Something I’ve been thinking about this week is limitations. When I was 14, I used to go to a bookstore at the mall with my girlfriend, and we’d get all excited about discovering books about such far out topics as shamanism, new age philosophy, astrology and anything remotely resembling an…
The Friendliness of the Universe
A note from Carl: Good morning! What glorious fall mornings we are having here in Salt Lake. I have been enjoying the cool moonlight as I start my days on the porch in the early morning. I’m very excited to be welcoming Russell Delman to town tomorrow. It will be a wonderful community gathering tomorrow…
Inner Richness + The Peace of Giving One’s Gold Away
Good day! September is such a glorious month. One of my favorites. Everything seems golden. On a recent camping trip in the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument, and a morning drive up Mill Creek Canyon today, and even just around the city, I find golden flowers, honey colored aspen leaves just beginning to turn, and…
New Beginnings and Early Discount Extended for Costa Rica
A note from Carl: Good morning! What a beautiful late summer/ early fall morning with colors changing in the canyons. I find myself needing layers of fleece for morning coffee on the porch. I appreciate the nuances and changes of all seasons, but the transition into fall is one that is most satisfying for me.…
A Good Reminder on a Challenging Day
A note from Erin: This morning, a line from a Mary Oliver poem comes to mind. “I am so distant from the hope of myself, in which I have goodness, and discernment, and never hurry through the world but walk slowly, and bow often.” I’m having one of those days. Reintegration after a week of…
Hawks and Vultures
A note from Carl: Good Morning! Last week I was walking in a canyon, and out of my peripheral view I saw a giant shadow passing through the sky- I paused. I turned toward it. Was it a visitation from a hawk? An eagle? Hawks evoke for me, a special connection with my father, perhaps…
An Important Question: Have You Become Yourself?
A note from Erin: “The role of a fully realized human being,” Meade says, “is to arrive at the door of death having become oneself.” I love this quote from Michael Meade. He continues in an interview that was featured in the Sun Magazine, “To become nobody but yourself, to struggle against the tide of…
Making Yourself a Light & Reappropriating Inner Authority
A note from Carl: “Make of yourself a light,” said the Buddha, before he died. I think of this every morning as the east begins to tear off its many clouds of darkness, to send up the first signal – a white fan streaked with pink and violet, even green. I love this opening line…
The Wonderous Journeys Still to be Ours…
A note from Carl: Yesterday, I was out in a rainstorm – probably one of the most intense downpours I have ever experienced. As the rain began, I noticed a kind of reflex to to brace, to protect myself, to want to run from the trail we were on to the protection of the car.…
Maitri is the bomb + Registration open for fall Embodied Life Class
A note from Erin: Good morning! This morning I’m thinking about maitri. Do you know this word? It’s one of my favorite words in any language. It’s from Sanskrit and it is often translated as something like “unconditional friendliness” or “unconditional warm welcoming.” I remember a powerful point from a teaching given by Pema Chodron in…
Celebrating Love + More
A note from Erin: Hello! I hope this note finds you well and enjoying the season. A few things I want to share with you this morning. First, tomorrow will wrap up my first e-course, the Embody Gratitude Project, and it’s been wonderful! I’ve gotten great feedback at how these simple practices can be so powerful in…
Something Ain’t Right About This Camel Ride
A note from Carl: This morning over a beautiful breakfast on the porch, (thanks Erin!) I was talking with Philip Shepherd about the topic of his talk tomorrow night, “Recovering Our Senses in the 21st Century.“ As we spoke, I was was reminded of a favorite poem from Hafiz: First the fish needs to say…
Are You Ready to Come Home to Yourself?
A note from Erin: I am writing from a dear old Feldenkrais friend’s sunny dining table at her lovely home in the Mission district of San Francisco. Mesa is happily running around blasting things with lego planes along with Michela’s boys and the smell of a frittata is wafting through the air. Yesterday,…