Celebrating Our Spiritual Cores

Tags

beliefs, celebration, healing, practices, renewal, values

Summer is often a season of travel, of new explorations and discoveries that often lead to further explorations. It is a season of days with long hours of sunlight, of watching fireflies and sunsets and moonrise. Summer brings heat and sweat and thunderstorms and awareness of climate change. It is often in the early morning coolness and long, late evening twilights that I find opportunities to reflect on, to review and renew my cores.

The core components that I find myself focusing on are the physical, the mental, the emotional and the spiritual. While they are all distinct cores, they are also all connected like the members of a multi-dimensional honeycomb. Our mental core affects our psychological core, which in turn affects our physical core, and so on. When the state of any of our cores is less than optimal, all our states suffer, and pain in one core begets in in another.

Self awareness teaches us that it takes a bit of (self) discipline to develop and maintain sustainable, holistic practice for the best health of our cores. Our practices are influenced by our core beliefs, our core values, our core inputs and our core connections. These can be viewed as our four core quadrants. They are like the four legs of the lunar lander – if any of the legs were to be unduly compromised, it could lead to a failure of our spiritual core, our journey and our mission.

Inertia is often what stands between us and the adoption of new disciplines and practices. Our unexamined state of idleness, or even our accepted state of motion, takes a certain amount of ‘force’ to effect internal change of speed or direction. It often takes an (unanticipated) life event to shake us out of our inertia or reverie to ask – what are my core values, beliefs, connections and inputs? How do they influence my daily core practices? How do they affect my spiritual core?

For me, it all began with a simple question – how do I get out of the state of my spiritual inertia? I made small changes in my physical core (waking up rested, walking in nature, eating better), my mental core (guarding my input gates, meditating) and my emotional core (friend and family connections, my reactions, my judgements). Over time and space, every meditation hour, every small nature walk, every new association with fellow travelers, has added up to a perceptible change in my spiritual core.

The result of a renewed spiritual core? I have good quality fuel and oxidant, guidance, and company for the journey ahead. I have appreciation and gratitude for all those who have inspired me, walked with me, celebrated with me, and continue to do so. Awareness, joy, silence, solitude and stillness have become my reservoirs. ‘Thou art That’ has become my internal engine. ‘For the benefit of All’ has become my charioteer. All the quadrants have become focused on the center, where the heart flows love and light abundant, which empowers me to share freely, without hesitation, and with a core spirit of celebration.

Kumud @AjmaniK

P.S. Join us as we gather for our weekly chat, Sunday July 28 at 9amET on Twitter in #SpiritChat – we will celebrate our cores, all of them, as we complete eight years of our journey together – Kumud.

A return to the core space – where the five elements meet for renewal…

On butterflies and renewal…

Tags

easter, healing, holidays, renewal

Her wings spread wide to the fullest, she floated lifeless on the water’s surface as I drained the pool…

maybe she is still alive, I thought, for I had not seen her floating a few minutes ago…

lifting her up out of the water with the pool cleaning net, I thought I saw her move one of her… or was it just my imagination?

and as headed over with her towards the row of herb planters, my heart leaped with joy as she did lift her other wing off of the blue mesh…

but she still could not fly, as her wings were wet and all her feet were enmeshed… did I dare to try and extract her from the mesh without causing her damage?

Surely, she would die without my help (or would she?), even though I had to use the gentlest of touches so to not break off a leg of hers?

In what seemed like an eternity that must not have lasted more than fifteen seconds, I managed to pry her loose and set her free again as she landed on a blade of tall grass to dry her leaves and recover…

And then, a few minutes later, she came to circle the pool many times… as if to express her joy… flapping her wings with abandon…

But wait… what was this? Were there were a few more of her siblings that she brought in her wake? Sure enough!

And I got the feeling that it was going to be a busy morning rescuing butterflies with the net for me…

Sunday morning on the farm in Brasil.

A lesson about returning to life, to freedom, to flight, and to light…

– Kumud

A Spirit of ReInvention

Tags

connection, evaluation, reinvention, renewal

Some say that time is just an illusion. It is something that we humans have ‘created’ so that the world operates in some semblance of order. It is hard to imagine the chaos that would result if we were to abandon the concept of time in the external world…

And that is perhaps why the idea of a “New Year” raises so many possibilities in our heart, mind and spirit…

The New Year is a great opportunity for us, if we choose it to be so, “to wipe the slate clean”. There is a certain sense of “forgiveness in the air” around this time of the year. There is a certain sense of freedom, an allowedness that we give ourselves, to walk the path of reinvention. So, how may one prepare for this “reinvention walk”? What “practices” or “habits” may we need to add, subtract or even reestablish to make our reinventiona walk “successful”? Where may we look for the support and tools that will sustain our reinvention?

The first step is preparation. Preparation can begin with evaluation. Maybe we can make a list, a review, of the top ten “accomplishments” of the past year. Accomplishments would be actions, events or habits that raised our inner energetic vibration, increased our inner state of cleanliness, helped our heart’s light shine brighter. It could be a single action or a group of sustained actions that created a new habit that we can take forward with us. Let us look at ourselves with kind eyes as we evaluate. It is good preparation for the next step. One of my accomplishments this year was to do an end-of-the-year physical exam, and take charge of my health. How about you?

The second step is renewal. As we evaluate, we may become aware of those actions, events and habits that either increase or decrease our heart’s energy level. This awareness can help us identify our “positive” and “negative” energy triggers. In this step, we may also rediscover some of four previously beneficial habits that “fell by the wayside” due to lack of practice. For me, daily walking in nature was one habit from 2016 that suffered in 2017. I am aiming to “renew” this “positive energy” trigger in the upcoming year. How about you? What triggers are you going to reinforce? Which ones are you ready to discard? Which “old” habits are you going to bring back and renew?

The third step is connection. Our first two steps of (self)evaluation and renewal can be energetically facilitated those who are positively vested in our reinvention. The spirit of the sangha, of (re)connection, is elevated within us by our friends, our families, our coaches, our communities. We may posit that we walk the fastest on our reinvention path when we walk alone. That may indeed be true. But even in our solitude, our solitary walk, we are connected.

We are sustained by the earth that holds us gently, the wind that breathes life into us, the waters that grow the seed, the great sky that inspires us, and the light of the suns, moons and stars that guides us. They are our sangha. Connection of the heart, with their heart, through our heart, connects us to the sangha. Will we recommit to create time and space in our daily practice to connect with heart-filling energy? What could be bring forward from our evaluation step to broaden our practice of daily, inner (re)connection? How could we work with our awareness from the renewal step to deepen our (re)connection?

Preparation. Renewal. Connection. In my heart, this adds up to ReInvention. The choice is given us, to avail the simple math, to reinvent ourselves – not just at the threshold of a new year, but at the threshold of every dawn. May we pause, reflect and choose with the freedom that true awareness, mindfulness, kindness and love that flows in our heart in this present moment.

Namaste,

Kumud @AjmaniK

P.S. We will bring in the New Year of 2018 with reinvention in our final chat of 2017 – Sunday, December 31st 2017 at 9amET/2pmUTC on twitter. Please join us! Thank you for all your support of the community, our virtual sangha in 2017. How would you reinvent #SpiritChat in 2018? If you have ideas or suggestions, please share in the comments. Namaste – Kumud.

A full week of vacation in December 2017 gave plenty of opportunity, time and space for rest, renewal and reinvention – particularly at sunrise…

Spiritual Energy – An Evaluation

Tags

balance, energy, evaluation, renewal, spirituality

Energy is a funny thing.

We pay a lot of attention to it when we don’t have it, and we often fritter it away frivolously when we have an abundance of it.

We assume that we will always have enough of it when riding a wave of good health, and we wonder if we will ever be able to fully restore it when we are sick or in chronic pain.

We look at those who seem like supercharged energy bunnies in their actions and wonder why we can’t be like them – whereas they are wondering why they can’t be easy-paced like us?

No matter which way we look at it, energy – or lack of it – runs our lives. In its many forms – physical (P), mental (M), emotional (E), financial (F) and spiritual (S) – the state of health of our energies is vital to our actions and purpose.

So, let us begin by taking inventory of our energies. Some forms of energy like P and F are easy to inventory, while others like M and E may need a bit more of an in-depth exam. As for spiritual energy – how do we inventory it? How may we measure the state of our spiritual health?

Once we have inventoried the various health states, the next step is to discern what actions or inactions – of our own, or of others – leak our energy reservoirs? Conversely, what is it that fills our energy reservoirs? This self-evaluation – or evaluation guided by the gentle, loving assistance of a trusted friend or advisor who can encourage you to explore those energy corners where you would rather not go by yourself – can reveal a lot of hidden strengths and cracks in our energy continuum. Pull out a piece of legal size paper, make two columns, and take inventory. Leaks energy vs Fills energy. Do it once a week for a month. Observe the patterns. What will emerge?

Now that we have an understanding of our energy ‘leaks’ and ‘fills’ (I really want to call it ‘fillers’ but that just sounds ‘wrong’ :)), what next? We may be ready to begin rebalancing and renewing. Or even rebirthing. We are ready to ‘plug’ the leaks because we know where they exist in our energetic life. But know is not enough. We need to take concerted action to plug the holes. But ‘I am too busy to plug these leaks’, you say? Well, small leaks in a garden hose may be okay at low pressure, but a pressure surge or temperature change of life’s waters may leave you without a healthy energy conduit. Result? An unscheduled trip to the nearest garden store’s emergency room for a replacement conduit!

Some may ask. And what if we (or our advisors) deem that the container is so full of holes, that it is beyond repair – unpluggable? Well. That may be the best news of all. For that may mean that we are ready for an energetic transformation. Not just a change. But a complete transformation with a brand new energy container. But, I digress by taking about ‘death of the old energy’.

So, we plug and then we fill the reservoir again, to restore to that level which will support our higher purpose in life. Yes, our old habits will cause us to spring new leaks, so the work is to find new, energy-filling habits for the old, energy-leaking ones! After refilling, there is one more step.

We may need to put some filters in place. We may have worked hard to ensure that our inner and outer worlds are pure and pristine, but the reality is that pollution exists. Filters can ensure that our intakes, thoughts, words and actions retain the level of purity that we desire to establish and maintain. The good news is that we can choose the filter size – coarse, medium or fine – for the different energy components of our life. Now that some filters are in place, what’s next?

How effectively do we use our energy reservoir? Energy efficiency – how much ‘useful’ work does our energy reservoir do for you and for others? What kind of resistance comes into play during energy conversion? How do we balance the feminine and masculine aspects of our energies? What role do tools and practices like meditation play in energy creation and conservation?

These are a few questions that we will answer in our #SpiritChat conversations in the month of June. We kickoff the month on Sunday, June 5th (9amET/1pmUTC on twitter) with the topic of “Spiritual Energy: An Evaluation”. Join us for an energy health check-up!

Kumud @AjmaniK

Rejuvenation by @IntuitiveHeal

Tags

rejuvenation, renewal, spiritchat, spirituality

We continue our weekly Sunday morning #SpiritChat conversations on Sunday, November 8th 2015 at 9amET/2pmUTC with special host, Dr. Christy Johnson. A long time supporter of the chat with her insights and sharing, Christy will discuss the subject of “Rejuvenation” with the community. Please join her, and leave her some comments on her ‘high energy-density’ post below. Thank you, Christy, for stepping up to host #SpiritChat! – Kumud

Energetic imbalance drives the need for rejuvenation. Excess energy can lead to physical pain or mental/emotional overwhelm. Insufficient energy and movement may manifest as numbness at the physical level or as stagnation and “stuckness” at the mental, emotional, and spiritual levels. How do you create a life with a sustainable balance of movement and stillness, speech and silence, growth and dormancy, giving and receiving, doing and being? At times you may need to counteract your own habitual tendencies to invite this internal harmony. Presumably along the way you have discovered or developed rejuvenating activities, rituals, and practices to support you on your spiritual path.

Ovid said, “What is without periods of rest will not endure.” Growth and movement naturally cycle into and out of life. To expect continuous improvement as a person or soul perpetuates a form of depleting violence (remember the recent #spiritchat topic of non-violence?), sometimes leading to exhaustion or illness. At the very least it can rob you of pleasure, enjoyment, playfulness, as well as your sense of wonder and divine connection.

Whenever you rejuvenate yourself either by dropping or adding activities, you receive fresh energy to renew your enthusiasm for life. Anne Frank touched upon many forms of rejuvenation when she wrote, “The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be.”

Although most spiritual teachers point to worship, silence, and nature as rejuvenating, what feels most regenerative reflects your individual spiritual alignment and needs at the time. Giving yourself permission to rejuvenate replenishes your reserves of love, compassion, and resilience; a bountiful spiritual return on investment. How do you welcome the spirit of rejuvenation into your life?

Please join us on Twitter with the hashtag #spiritchat on Sunday, November 8, 2015, at 9 A.M. ET where we’ll explore when and how we spiritually rejuvenate.

Bio

Dr. Christy L. Johnson, a former IBM engineer and recovering productivity addict, helps people invite wholeness and harmony into their lives. She offers soul point of view (#SoulPOV) consultations, the healing art of Jin Shin Jyutsu® Japanese acupressure, and intuitive healing.

Connect with Christy at her website

Blog: http://www.intuitiveheal.com/blog

e-mail: christy@intutiveheal.com

Twitter: @intuitiveheal

Facebook: http://www.fb.com/intuitiveheal

A Spirit of Renaissance

Tags

renaissance, renewal, spirichat, spirit

We have been talking about spring, a change in season, a renewal in nature and all the manifestations that come with it in the external (and internal) world as a result. We talked about letting go, making space for the sacred, moving towards spiritual success, and nurturing wellness through radical self-care over the past few weeks in #SpiritChat.

After last week’s chat, I received a couple of tweets that made me realize that the impact we have as a community goes far beyond we realize, or we can imagine. I have often said that “every tweet matters” and that “every tweet has an opportunity to influence someone positively”, even if only momentarily. We can nurture wellness in all that we do if we change this to “every thought matters” and “every thought has an opportunity to influence someone positively”. For our thoughts becomes our words, which when spoken with positive force, become our actions and our habits.

However, it takes a certain amount of change for us to adapt a thought process that is dominantly positive. In last week’s discussion, our guest host @JanetNestor shared a startling statistic ~ that 70% of our thoughts are negative, which leaves 30% for the positive. Even if this statistic does not apply to all of us, and even if it the numbers are closer to 50/50 for negative/positive thoughts, we still have a ways to go. So, what is this amount of change that will get us to shift to the positive, and stay there?

Borrowing from chemistry, the principle of activation energy comes to mind. Two chemicals will not react with each other unless a certain minimum amount of energy is supplied. A similar principle in physics is that of quantum change – once an atom is provided enough energy, it will “jump” from one state to another. I posit that our thoughts, positive and/or negative are like that too. They need enough activation energy to make a quantum jump from one state to another – hopefully from the negative to the positive.

I am convinced that this is the Renaissance that some of us are looking for. This activation energy, so we can make the jump. Where does this activation energy come from? One source of it is community – offline and online. When the offline world is not meeting our needs, we turn to online – and the opposite is true too. The other sources of energy are nature, art, music, books and meditation. Many masters have defined meditation as the simple act of sitting, observing our thoughts, like clouds moving across a blue sky. This act of slowing down is not a waste of time. It is critical to us tapping into the deep well-spring of energy that resides within us.

Yes, we need to take small steps, do small things with love, on a regular, daily basis. But occasionally, a renaissance in our spiritual lives can move us to a state which opens our heart to higher insights. As Leonardo da Vinci said:

There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see. ~ Leonardo da Vinci

So, what we need at certain times in our lives is a renaissance of spirit, fed by activation energy, to make a quantum jump forward in our spiritual path. I invite you to come and explore this idea of renaissance ~ of revival, renewal, resurrection, reawakening, reemergence, rebirth, reappearance, resurgence, regeneration ~ with the #SpiritChat community on twitter. Sunday, March 24th at 9amEDT/1pm UK/6:30pm India.

I wish all of you great insights, and better vision. Namaste.

Kumud

Update: Transcripts for the live chat ~ A Spirit of Renaissance ~ bit.ly/sc-tr-032413 (full) and bit.ly/sc-tr-0324-qa (QnA only) ~ share and enjoy – Thank you!

Questions asked during the chat are listed below. I invite you to answer in the comments ~ note that you can share your answers in the comments in your twitter feed. Or you can click on the link at the end of each question to answer it and engage with the community. Do try it 🙂

Ready? Q1. Spirit of Renaissance. What does that phrase mean to you today? #SpiritChat
http://twitter.com/AjmaniK/status/315811988326461442

Q2. What are some activities that fuel your personal “Spirit of Renaissance”? #SpiritChat
http://twitter.com/AjmaniK/status/315813649090502656

Q3. Other than fear, what else prevents us from moving towards renaissance? #SpiritChat
http://twitter.com/AjmaniK/status/315814807007813634

Q4. Engaging in positive thinking is enough for a spiritual renaissance. Agree/disagree? Why? #SpiritChat
http://twitter.com/AjmaniK/status/315816619370745856

Q5. One meaning of renaissance is re-birth. What has to “die” within us, for re-birth to occur? #SpiritChat
http://twitter.com/AjmaniK/status/315818358589255681

Q6. Once a renaissance has begun within us, how do we sustain it over time? #SpiritChat
http://twitter.com/AjmaniK/status/315820171581341696

Q7. Renaissance is re-awakening. How do communities play a role in our re-awakening? #SpiritChat
http://twitter.com/AjmaniK/status/315821565117865984

Q8. Some personal best practices to effect a renaissance for us, our communities, are… #SpiritChat
http://twitter.com/AjmaniK/status/315822890241097728

Bonus Q9. Who (person/project) is a role model of Renaissance spirit for you? #SpiritChat
http://twitter.com/AjmaniK/status/315823824442650627

Renewal with Community Spirit

Tags

community, renewal, spirichat, spirit

We have all heard the adage – “it was the quiet before the storm”. In our case, it had already been raining for three straight days before the super-storm called Sandy actually hit. Fortunately, we were merely on the outermost edge of the hurricane which battered the East Coast of the USA. But we were part of a few townships in the local area which had a lot of power outages due to uprooted trees falling on power lines.

They say that adversity brings out the worst or the best in human beings. As we focus on our own selves and follow our natural instinct for self-preservation, we can get disconnected from the plight of those in our community. Once we determine that we (and our families) are going to be safe, our attention may shift to how our neighbors may be faring. Of course, there are the few who first respond to the needs of those around them and then focus on their own welfare – they are indeed community heroes.

This is perhaps where the renewal that comes from connection with a community – physical or virtual – comes into play. As we connect and engage with those who are trying to recover, our empathy, our sympathy, our words of caring and our small acts of kindness can go a long way to assist in the renewal. Before we renew others, we do have to make sure that we are strong within, before we can be effective in helping to renew others. That is perhaps why regular personal renewal on physical, emotional and spiritual levels is important.

The metaphor of this particular storm may not be important to you. You may not have been personally affected by this storm. But do know that there is someone in your neighborhood, your community who is trying to weather some kind of storm. And you have an opportunity to help them with their process of renewal, and give them that little bit of strength that they may need to stay standing.

As large parts of the Eastern states in the USA recover from the physical effects of the storm (as of this writing, four days later, a lot of families are still without power), the emotional effects are perhaps more widespread because friends and family of those on the East coast are spread all over the country, if not worldwide. So, how do we best recover from these effects? How do we prepare for future storms? How do we help those affected by the storms – physically, emotionally and maybe even spiritually?

The themes in #SpiritChat for the month of November were designated to be gratitude and healing. I invite you to join the #SpiritChat community on Sunday November 4th at 9am ET / 2pm UK / 7:30pm India – your strength can help the community with the process of renewal.

Be well. I hope that mother nature is kind to you.

Kumud
P.S. If in the USA, please don’t forget to turn back the clocks for that extra hour of sleep 🙂

Update: Here is the pdf version of the chat transcript for download. Also see the questions asked during the live chat on our topic of Renewal. Enjoy!

Q1. What do the words "renewal" and "community" mean to you in your current life context? #SpiritChat 

Q2. What are some signs that it is time for you to pause and renew? #SpiritChat 

Q3. What are your favorite ways to renew your body and mind? #SpiritChat 

Q4. How do the communities you engage with impact your process of renewal? #SpiritChat 

Q5. Spiritual renewal is mostly personal. Community is secondary. Agree or disagree? Why? #SpiritChat 

Q6. How do we strengthen our communities to support renewal for others? #SpiritChat 

Q7. Do you have a personal mantra, prayer or technique(s) for renewal? Do share. #SpiritChat 

Q8. How do we identify communities that are struggling at this hour? And help them renew... #SpiritChat