A note from Erin:
Hi, dear beautiful human,
I’m sending so many blessings on this sacred day of Equinox! My Tibetan teachers say that on days like today (equinoxes, solstices, eclipses, etc.) our karma is multiplied ten thousand times. It’s a good day to set intentions, remember who you are and long to be, and to be over-the-top in kindness and generosity. (Or whatever karmic vibes you’d like to be multiplied thousands of times!) I’m making lots of prayers and offerings and aspirations. As Carl and I were sharing what karmic seeds we’d like to plant today, he included, “so many blessings to all the people who are touched by our work, in the past, in the present, and in the future.” May it be so.
In an email from an online friend last week, I read:
I cannot think of another time when so many women I know have been feeling so overwhelmed, depleted, and exhausted.
These times. They are A LOT.
I’m sending out a gentle reminder that this is your last chance to join my once-a-year 9-month practice circle – Women Embodied. We begin on Wednesday. There is one spot left for the local to SLC group and two spots left for the online group.
In the midst of this A LOTness, I’m so grateful to sit inside the mature perspective that we don’t have to choose between tuning to ourselves OR others. Not practicing self-deletion or self-sacrifice to attend to the needs of others and the world. Not going head-in-the-sand about the state of the world to coddle oneself, as if we can’t handle reality. But instead, being embodied and present, with kindness, curiosity, and respect, humbly responding with our care and affection, one breath at a time, to life.
An artist I love and respect wrote recently that she received pushback from someone when she shared that she’s going on an artist’s residency. “How can you do that when children are dying in Gaza?” they asked. She responded, “as if refusing the blessed sanctuary of A Studio In the Woods would save them, knowing that the revolutionary art art I make, especially when I am well supported, helps to build radical culture in the United States, innocculation against despair, fuel for the fight, a song in the dark that helps us take brave and thoughtful action.” (Perhaps you’ve been touched by her work as I have.) The darker the times grow, the more we need the artists, and we need to support them. We too need support for whatever our art may be.
To say what is perhaps obvious to some of us: We don’t have to not eat dinner because people are starving elsewhere. We need to be well-fueled to meet the times as wholeheartedly as we can. We don’t have to abandon our own lives because other lives are being destroyed in war zones. It is utterly heartbreaking. Yes. And… We need you here as your most resourced, most adult, compassionate self so you can respond accordingly, in the ways you are called.
A magnificent poet friend recently included this line in one of his poems, “Don’t you want to have loved your life?” Such a good question to be haunted by, isn’t it? Hell yes, I want to have loved my life! Even now.
Despite small-minded people with lots of followers saying otherwise, the vast heart and the mature mind really do have room for all of this. The life-loving. The heartbreak. Making art. Taking the time to resource yourself. Resting. Working. Gathering with your people just for fun. Action and activism. Grief. Joy. Playfulness. Outrage. We become so impoverished and so shrunken (small-minded, small-hearted, tight-bodied) when we pressure ourselves and/or others to choose just one.
I picture our life force flowing along a lemniscate – a figure 8 on its side, if you will. I imagine our attention and presence flowing back and forth between ourselves (our bodies, our personal healing, our self-care, our wellness, our inner life, our learning, our self-compassion, our soul) and the outer world – (our families, our homes, our work, our communities, our passions, our caretaking and caregiving, our activism, our creative expression, our compassion and concern for the state of the world.)
To borrow a beloved image from Suzuki Roshi, imagine a swinging door between the inner world, which is infinite, and the outer world, which is infinite. We swing in and swing out again. We breathe in, we breathe out. And we can learn to make this swinging, breathing, sliding movement of our care and attention conscious and graceful, as embodied beings who are present to our world. We can even practice celebrating when we notice that we have tipped heavily over into one side and have neglected the other. (Happens to all of us!) Instead of becoming self-critical when we notice we’ve been neglecting ourselves, or alternately neglecting life beyond ourselves, we can be joyful that we noticed because that noticing lets us course-correct. (And judging ourselves only slows that down!)
Life is always asking us to include the inner world (which is infinite) and the outer world (which is infinite.) And since we are finite, it seems to me we should give ourselves a hell of a lot of grace about not doing everything perfectly in the infinite inner and outer worlds all the time. Amiright?!
We need to keep remembering how many millions and billions of us are out there doing our part in our own small ways, and know that together, our impact is immense.
For me, doing any of this – waking up, becoming embodied, responding to life, without abundant compassion and humor, is simply unthinkable. It’s deep work. It’s achingly tender. And it’s far too important to get all heavy and serious about. As so many of us are already exhausted, I like to remind us of the wise words of Tibetan teacher Thinley Norbu, which we’ve quoted in this newsletter so many times: Serious Mind is always exhausted. But Play Mind always has energy.
May we remember to meet the moment with Play Mind. At least sometimes…
Just a reminder – this is the last call for my once-a-year 9-month practice circle. I have one spot left in the local SLC cohort, and 2 spots left in the online group. We start on Wednesday, and I’m so excited!! (BTW – If you think you’ve applied and haven’t heard back – email me.)
Women Embodied will help you to stop living in your head.
It will help you stop being overly oriented toward other people’s expectations.
It will help you to slow down and really savor your one precious life.
It will help you stop feeling bad about yourself when you make mistakes – and instead nurture kindness and a sense of humor about it all.
It will help you grow more confidence in following your own way – becoming a wayfinder, as one of my friends says.
No one else’s path will be right for you because there has never been a you before.
Instead of giving you a map for the journey and telling you where to go, Women Embodied gives you the tools and the soulful, somatic roots you need to make your own path by walking it.
Women Embodied can help you slide on that leminscate – between the inner life and the outer life – so you can engage with others without deleting or sacrificing yourself, and vice versa.
Women Embodied will help you grow compassion for yourself and others.
Women Embodied will help you grow a sense of belonging in a warmhearted community of courageous beings, committed to kindness as they liberate themselves and walk their own path.
Women Embodied helps you to gentle the inner critic and grow a deep friendship with yourself.
Women Embodied helps you to be far more kind with your body – and wow, the body just laps that up and is so responsive to our attempts to befriend.
Women Embodied helps you be a better friend and listener not only to yourself, but also to the others in your life.
Women Embodied helps support you in embodying your role as a wise, kind, free, good-humored person, dedicated not only to personal well-being but to feeding a time of beauty and hope beyond your own time.
I feel so lucky to be a part of such a circle!!!
I have just 1 spot left in the Salt Lake City group and 2 spots left in the online cohort. There are such amazing people in each circle. I’m truly so excited about this group.
I’ve been cooking up with my friend Francis Weller some potent ritual additions to this round of the course, and they’re going to be goooood.
As I close, I’ll offer a few beloved reminders from wise ones:
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. – Mary Oliver
When you walk, kiss the Earth with your feet. – Thich Nhat Hanh
Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible. – The 14th Dalai Lama
Free yourself, free others, serve every day. – Nelson Mandela
From my heart,
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Posted in Embodiment
