writings
writings includes all text-based entries
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Involution and Evolution: The Real Solution
Hi everone. I’m winding down my body after a challenging few days. My latest experiment has been to construct a full body “jolly jumper” down here in the land of magical manifestation. A jolly jumper falls into one of my notions that if I create the right environment for healing to occur - it will, thats nature. If I knick my hand, and take care of the details, my body will do the rest - heal itself. The jolly jumper also represents another notion I have about the body in its wisdom and mystery - the body is movement, the pulse of life, that is its nature. When external “out in the world movement is reduced (either by choice or chance) one becomes more aware and intimate of moving with/into the inner rythyms of your beingness.. something I had mentioned in my latest weblog/video Baba Hari Dass’s
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
January 25 Happy Anniversary
Happy Anniversary is a celebration of time acknowledging a milestone or a commemorable occassion, and indeed january 25 2004 was a memorable day for myself and particularily for my girls Amanda and Kate and the rest of my family. In an atteempt to continue to help and inspire others in similar situations I would like to offer just what we have to celebrate here at the five year milestone.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
The God’s must be fainting
What splendor this world beholds, and all of us creatures, big and small within it! I’m in Mexico right now on a personal retreat, and after yesterday’s epic historical event with the inaguration of Barak Obama backdropped againt my time here in Nature’s glory, l feel we have so much to be grateful for and to celebrate, it’s mind boggling! Wow what remarkable times. We all feel that. I have to say I was just flowing with tears of joy and gratitude as I watched live, that remarkable speech. Here is a true a Leader and an example of what we are all capable of. We know that too - especially when we are in our groove or sweet spot and things are clicking. And as our new leader so definatively emphasized in his speech: “We have to work on our groove - and each of us must take responsibility for ourselves, for each other and for our home.’
OK when you really get how glorious this place is and how special our life is - there would be no questionn, but not every one see’s it that way - and perception is everything. So if all you’ve seen is struggle, hardship and trauma, its difficult to see what lies beyond our man made traps to the greater reality. That’s where community, service and teaching really come in. Its a different state when our world feels difficult or when we are faced with pain or suffering, then the world can feel harsh and we feel small, closed and alone. It is those people now, who we must include in our circles, conversations and classes. Those who know only the street, or the war zone, or addiction or isolation or daily depression - need belonging, empathy and prayers , now more than ever in these changing times.
It was in that same context that President Obama emphasized the global citizen and the need to shift from “only about me” to ‘community’ - of which the word almost looks like common-unity, which is really the big ideal. In so many ways, our challenges can appear insurmountable, however when you really see and get what we are capable of, there is faith. For me that is what a true practice nurtures, deep unquestioning faith in the Divine Intelligence.
That is the gift we pass on in our prayers and community gatherrings and in the teachings. We share and pass on the light, the feeling and the experience of being cared for. My Teacher passed on a wonderful fable about buddha on the mount at the gates of heaven. There were thousands of people clamouring around the gates to get in, and there were many far down the mount it was crowded and hot and yet the Buddha was sitting outside the gates with the people.. When asked why he, who could easily enter the gates,didn’t go ahead he replied “How could I when others have not yet reached the gate? That would not be right. How can one enter, when the whole has not entered. Ttat would be impossible - like my arms entering without my legs or the rest of my body.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Trinity Yoga’s Winter Newsletter
Hello students and friends, yogis and yoginis. This newsletter comes at a time of endings and beginnings, in a season that along with its own endings and beginnings is also rich with tradition. Traditions stem from our cultural and spiritual heritage and inform us all, to some varying degree. These traditions generally arise from the wisdom teachings and were a way of creating rites and rituals to help cope, understand and engage with the cosmic life-force. Although today we see many ways that the act of tradition can become more important than the wisdom it was intended to impart, traditions are still an important resource in challenging times, like ours right now. What can the tradition of yoga offer you when the stock market crashes or the news of a loved one is devastating? How can many of us - who have entered the tradition of teaching, offer the teachings that will most serve their purpose and the needs of the day? These are questions I have been asking myself the past couple of years and especially now as Trinity Yoga ends its eight years of providing a high quality Teacher training program, and moves to redefine itself within the tradition as well as the needs of the day with my guidance.
What is clear to me is that the wisdom of the teachings, and the tradition of passing on that knowledge is precious, and something that needs to be held in regard as we navigate over the waters of these rising tides of change. What the yoga tradition offers is the intention and techniques to Self-realize so completely that any question you have about the love that is, the love that you are, is dissolved. I know for myself that this has been a life’s work, and that along with the intensifying global angst, I am drawing ever deeper from the wells of wisdom and traditions that have flowed for centuries in the heart of this amazing planet Mother Earth. So as the power structures crumble around us for the illusions that they are, and the earth rebels and revolts from abuse and neglect; we are all more obviously connected as we are all more closely affected, and I wonder like many - what can I do?
Those of you who have a world view succinct with the great cosmic laws know that change is constant and that chaos and the upheaval experienced is transitory. Indeed the best way to deal with these uncertainties is to think like the mystics and yogis: as above so below, all is one, identification is illusion, and especially - Divinity is paradoxical, and what seems like devastation is usually opportunity. From our holistic perspective of: what effects one effects the whole, and the enormity of our global situation one can see that the healing of each individuals’ own personal challenges, and the healing of the whole - are interrelated. Most of you will have experienced these cosmic energetic laws at work in your bodies: as you develop more awareness you see that one system is not in isolation but that it affects and is affected by the whole.
We all know the devotion it requires to manage our energetic systems so that we feel, joyful, healthy and loving - and most of us have been healing what illusions we may have that obscure that Truth. The tradition of yoga gives us tools and techniques to deal with the management of our energetic being amidst the chaos, while at the same time aligning oneself to the Truth and Source of All. That is a huge ripple in the larger global body tide that we all connect to and affect. That is the true gift we can offer: to do the work required individually, and by virtue we offer that learning to the whole. So what happens in the eye of the storm depends how resilient and prepared one is spiritually & energetically and how much grace you have stored up, because no matter what, we are only as strong as the strength of our devotion and the humility that it requires to surrender to, and become the living prayer of that force. In other words through physical practice and tapas, make your temple strong, receptive and resilient but don’t stop there, see that the True gifts the traditions offer are practices that eventually move you beyond the physical, to methodologically, energetically and intelligently guide one back into to the Source.
With the winter days winding down toward the solstice, and the end of the year drawing to a close I feel the endings - of which there have been many for me this year including turning 50 & menopause -giving rise to new life, and the chaos of having ones entire world turned upside down from the physical and emotional devastation of a Spinal Cord injury subsiding into this clear wellspring of knowing. I have been considering you, the students and the vehicle of teaching earnestly for many, many months and how I, and the company that I founded - that trained many of you to be teachers - can best be of service to contribute to the Greater Whole. I have been blessed with the experience, the learning & the teachings of how to direct Prana into paralyzed limbs and beyond all odds to re-awaken them, and it is this experience and the teachings therein that I humbly offer, as it is that which is really the heart of the yoga tradition - to embody, imbue and understand prana fully, that is the culmination of all teachings. You will soon notice a new look and theme for Trinity Yoga that reflects my sincere intention to offer to you, the essentials of the tradition, that continue to tantalize and inform me.
It is my wish that Trinity will continue to hold the space for developing and recognizing our highest potential, as well as to hold the space for our own traditions of the Trinity collective to evolve. So as we gather with friends & loved ones under the winter solstice sun celebrating and sharing, let’s give thanks, to those people and the threads they have utilized that help steer us and strengthen our connection to - and reverence of - the Divine Primordial Life Stream.
Blessings to all,
Mary-Jo
Friday, November 28, 2008
Welcome from Mary-Jo 2008
Hello and welcome to mary-jo.com. Welcome back friends and students I know, and hi to those of you that are new aquaintances. The re-launch of this site marks a significant time in the re-emmergence of mySelf back into the public world, and the end of an era for the yoga teacher training company I founded 8 years ago - Trinity Yoga. I am deeply moved and delighted to be able to offer my insights, revelations, and suggestions on life, love and healing and the great journey of consciousness - that sparks the life force within us all. It is my intention that this site will become a rescource and a forum for our personal and public dialouges as they meet the challenges, thriumphs and inspiriations of our interior and collective journey’s. Through the wonderful exposure that this medium allows we are endowed with opportunities to speak openly, to inquire deeply, to erradicate collectively iggnorance at its doorstep, and to collaberate and commune together with others who are similarily curious and interested.
Over the past five years as I have been recovering from a grave diagnosis of severe quadraplegia from a break @ C-4, I have had the increadiable opportunity to experience first hand the multiple layers of personal healing on the physical, mental and spiritual levels, that are capable through the work of gifted professionals, through gifts from the great teachers and nature, family & friends, and from personal devotion and practice. It is through the genuine sharing of these gifts that we are capable of transforming - ourselves and the mother earth upon which we have bled our wounds. Before this injury occured I had expressed that it is within each of us to transform, that it is not what happens to us but what we do with what happenes to us that liberates us and sets us free. The time is now, as we all know to do what is needed to release old, outdated belief systems that keep us from being the pure love and lifeforce that we are. I intend to share with you on a regular basis my findings, from these past experiences and current as they continue to unfold, as well as exchange all of the practical and insightful information that we are able. So welcome again, past students and friends and hello to people from all streams of life - here we can share our stories and Selves.
Namaste,
Mary-Jo
