oneness – Page 2 – Dandelion Doorways

Wellness

Are you being mindful of your needs? As we (in the northern hemisphere) move towards colder shorter days, it is a good idea to spend sometime creating nourishing routines to maintain balance.
Are you getting proper nutrition?
Eat warming nourishing foods like homemade root vegetable soups, stews, or try a warming Kitchari for a gentle seasonal cleanse.

Are you moving your body to keep your lymph flowing? Your lymph cleanses your blood and system as it circulates through your body. Unlike blood, lymph needs you to move in-order for it to move. Try some gentle yoga, walking or a rebounder is great for lymphatic system health. Always check with a doctor before starting any new exercise. ..and remember to drink plenty of water!

Are you getting quality, consistent sleep? Movement and proper nutrition will definitely help with getting better sleep. Try not to eat 2 hours before bed. Getting up and going to sleep every night can also help with the quality of your slumber. Need help unwinding? Try a guided meditation (check out Spotify page) to help slow down thoughts and find restful comfort.

Have tips you’d like to share? Let me know!

Intention

 /inˈten(t)SH(ə)n/

noun

a thing intended; an aim or plan. “she was full of good intentions”

  2. MEDICINE; the healing process of a wound.

I have realized that the power of intention can dynamically impact your life, but never more so than in these last couple of months. I have experienced a tremendous energy shift due to my intentions. Over the next month, I will share how setting an intention daily has opened me to new experiences and opportunities and how intention can help you shift not only your perspective but your life.

Now a little about the first definition of intention, and in the next blog post, we will take a look at the concept of intention as medicine and its healing effects.

Merriam-Webster defines intention as a determination to act in a certain way; what one intends to do or bring about; and the object for which a prayer, mass, or pious act is offered. Most are familiar with setting an intention, but how does it work?

Manifesting intention has to do with the power of thought. Our thoughts are energy, and every thought we have puts energy into the world, gently influencing the nature of existence and our view of reality.

Here is a simple example. We have all woken up grumpy at some point and decided it would be a miserable day; everything that can go wrong does go wrong kind of day…. that is intention in action. Our first thoughts in the morning set the tone for the entire day.

I am far from a morning person. Yet, I recognize that it will be miserable if I am grumpy every morning because I have to get up earlier than I would like to get to work on time. Grumpy mornings lead to grumpy commutes and gloomy work days, which turn into weeks and years. Is that really how I want my life to be? Complaints every day because I have to wake up at 5:15?

HELL NO!

Do you know what to do? We make a CONSCIOUS CHOICE to be grateful every morning. If we wake up, AWESOME, that means we are still alive! YAY! BE GRATEFUL! That simple.

Waking up grateful does not ensure a pleasant day, but it is the first step to realizing we can INTEND how our day will go. You can try it for a week. As soon as you wake up, before you get out of bed, be grateful for something. Say, “I am grateful for _________.”

Want a simple suggestion to start with? Try “I am grateful for my breath.” Notice if this allows you to be more mindful of your breath during the day. Do you find yourself breathing more deeply, more diaphragmatic breathing?

Take note of any subtle shift in awareness that may occur.

…and I’ll be back to see how you did and tell you how setting an intention in the morning changed my life in 1 short month! Until then…..

Free

I am most content in Nature, be it mountains or fields, in these places I have a sense of connection, of suchness that eludes me in trappings of concrete and steel. When I am able to spend even brief moments in the bounty of the earth, I am reborn, refreshed and deeply content.

I recently stumbled across the writings of Wendell Berry, a man of “suchness” and I think this quote from his essay “A Native Hill” captures the essence of the lightness and depth one feel’s amidst Nature’s verdant realms.

“And so I go to the woods. As I go in under the trees, dependably, almost at once, and by nothing I do, things fall into place. I enter an order that does not exist outside, in the human spaces. I feel my life take its place among the lives-the trees, the annual plants, the animals and birds, the living of all these and the dead-that go and have gone to make the life of the earth.
“I am less important than I thought, the human race is less important than I thought. I rejoice in that. My mind loses its urgings, senses its nature and is free.”
~Wendell Berry, A Native Hill

Non-dual

In stillness, the truth slowly revels itself. We begin to understand the preciseness of the Universe. Out of chaos arises beautiful order; a magical dance of dark/light, pleasure/pain, bliss/suffering, life and death; anew in each eternal moment.
𝘕𝘢𝘮𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦

Fool(ish) Musings

Today we will take some time to think about “the fool’s” journey through life. This theme is represented in literature with works such as “the Epic of Gilgamesh” and ”Alice in Wonderland,” among many others. Joseph Campbell, an American writer and professor, described it as the archetypal hero story.
These themes are prevalent in our lives as we grow from child to adolescent to adult, gaining insight and experience along the way. We begin our journey as the uneducated novice (infant) bound in pure awareness, with no sense of self – hence, the fool.
Our modern language has negative connotations associated with the word FOOL; however, when examined through experience, we see that societal trappings and norms unencumber the fool. The fool experiences life in all its splendor, tasting experience for what it is. There is no shame, no guilt – only pure being.
As babies, we have no sense of self (as in self-consciousness); purely instinctual beings. Our whole experience is based upon survival- cry to be fed, changed, consoled. All our energy is concentrated in the root chakra. As we grow, we develop a sense of separation, of otherness. It is at this point our energy moves into the sacral chakra. We experience the partition based on sex and slowly become aware of the power sex and sexual identification has in our lives. Like the fool/hero on the journey, we must come to understand that power is limited, controlling, and lacking Love. If our karma in this life allows, we move into the third chakra, some of us developing a stable sense of self, or we become lost in the anxiety of trying to fit in. Most people are living through the energy of the lower 3 Chakras.
Progress moving the energy upwards becomes difficult due to our physical plane of existence constantly telling us we need more to be happy, loved, and fit in. Beings stuck here are trapped by instant gratification-always seeking outside of themselves.
The fool/hero, however, can move beyond the physical plane of power after some time. This shift can happen gradually, or some trauma can rend open the heart instantly, allowing the experience of the power of unconditional Love. This subtle energy will enable us to bridge the gap between the lower and upper chakras.
This Love can assist us further on our foolish yet heroic journey. It allows us to see the world for what is in pure Love. It invites gracious speech and action and opens our intuition to allow a depth of understanding: everything is exactly as it should be every moment.
This is the most difficult pill to swallow. War, greed, and suffering are all intrinsic parts of human existence, and they are the opposite side of the coin of Love, compassion, and empathy.
At a point in history, we began to see everything as duality (Eve eating the apple/Gilgamesh and Enkidu), and we lost the pure taste of awareness.
Those whose karma is ripening for awakening feel the “something not quite right” in how we are told to experience life.
The fool’s/hero’s journey is never straight, and it is a crooked path with many missteps and falls along the way.
Take time to look at your life from the perspective of storytelling. Can you identify early life moments where energy stagnated in the lower chakras?
In working with these ideas, we must remember that we are most likely not fully awakening in this go-round, and we are the fool – just beginning to open our eyes to the light of truth. This is a journey of many lifetimes, unpredictable and long.
With this realization, which cannot be intellectualized, we begin to see the face of god in everyone we meet. No one is better than us, no one less than us. All god, all one; All beings are moving toward the light in their way, in their own time.
The person that cut you off on the highway is god; the megalomaniac, hell-bent on persecuting other beings, is also god. It is all energy in form and all one. Ram Dass says, “ it is all grist for the mill.”
Everything we meet is the path.
Namaste