I recently assisted a young woman who was dealing with an obsessive-compulsive eating disorder. The following are the words that I shared with her. I post them here in the chance they may help those who suffer in a similar way.
“ Before you eat breathe into your body to feel what is hungry in your body. Ask that place what it really wants. It is a place inside of you that you have forgotten to love. With your breath touch that place and bring gentleness and kindness to that place. Look at your [parents] and realize that you have ingested [their] voice inside of you and you eat to quiet that voice as a defense against being hurt. Instead of loving yourself you give power to the voice that asks you to seek yourself outside of your own center. You habitually dislocate yourself and eat to quiet the fear and anxiety you feel. Food will never quiet that voice.
The ingestion of food is a desperate attempt to quiet the terror of your own habitual abandonment of yourself. As I am sure you have experienced, you can loose yourself in food only for a few moments. Then the roar begins again. Food does not work to heal the basic dilemma. Only by rewiring consciously with nonjudgmental gentleness toward yourself will you quiet the crying pain of your inner fragmentation and abandonment.
Watch how over and over your desire for food overwhelms you each time you abandon yourself by seeking your answers outside of yourself. (Food, others, money, power. success, approval of others, manipulation of image). The abandoned being within does not need food… It needs your conscious love. It needs to be loved for no other reason than the fact that you are here. You need to pick that gentle part up in your arms like a mother would pick a crying baby up. For no other reason than the fact it is here and deserves attention because that is the way it is. Babies need love to live. We all need to be loved in purity but to get that we must first rewire and give that love to our self. FIRST FIRST FIRST
Print this out and read if each time you feel like eating and breath and search for real answers within.”
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Making room for a spontaneous fluid sense of time in our structured lives.
It is important to maintain a spontaneous fluid sense of time in our structured lives. A fluid sense of time allows opportunities that would otherwise be a stillbirth.
My complex life demands I schedule my efforts to achieve my goals. Yet I can miss life’s greatness if I don’t stretch my sense of time to include fluidity.
I must balance my sense of spontaneity with my need to structure and define time.
Recently, my husband and I spent a Sunday looking at real estate to assist our son in buying an entry-level house. The Realtor, a Korean woman, saw my husband’s marathon t-shirt and talked with him about completing a 10k. She then invited us to a potluck at her house later that afternoon.
Although we had tickets to a theater event that evening we decided to stretch time and drop by. We were glad we did.
We dropped into a culturally rich experience. We met her community of friends and family, ate delicious Korean foods, and shared very stimulating conversation. When she gave us a gracious tour of her house, she showed us her newly built piano room and treated us to a musical concert.
We would have missed so much if we had not stretched time to take in a spontaneous possibility. I want to always find ways to stretch time to see the beauty of other people. Sometimes it can be as short as a five minute conversation. I want to always be open to the generosity of sharing a meal in the middle of this and that.
My complex life demands I schedule my efforts to achieve my goals. Yet I can miss life’s greatness if I don’t stretch my sense of time to include fluidity.
I must balance my sense of spontaneity with my need to structure and define time.
Recently, my husband and I spent a Sunday looking at real estate to assist our son in buying an entry-level house. The Realtor, a Korean woman, saw my husband’s marathon t-shirt and talked with him about completing a 10k. She then invited us to a potluck at her house later that afternoon.
Although we had tickets to a theater event that evening we decided to stretch time and drop by. We were glad we did.
We dropped into a culturally rich experience. We met her community of friends and family, ate delicious Korean foods, and shared very stimulating conversation. When she gave us a gracious tour of her house, she showed us her newly built piano room and treated us to a musical concert.
We would have missed so much if we had not stretched time to take in a spontaneous possibility. I want to always find ways to stretch time to see the beauty of other people. Sometimes it can be as short as a five minute conversation. I want to always be open to the generosity of sharing a meal in the middle of this and that.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Weighing in: The American Flag and the Bald Eagle
Americans national symbols
The comparison of two American revered icons came to my attention when the LA Times ran two seemingly unrelated stories: the American Flag and the Bald Eagle.
The first article was about war veterans protesting the possible sale of the Veterans Administration property to private developers. Originally the land was a gifted with the stipulation it be used for public purpose. In protest Veterans turned the American Flag upside down, an international signal of distress. Instead of receiving their signal, the government arrested the Veterans for “desecrating” the American Flag. Ignoring the well-established symbolism, outrage over the mistreatment of the flag was used to stop the veterans’ peaceful protest.
A second article reported on the re-appropriation of a 200 acre forest for the expansion of the Office of Homeland Security. Ironically, this forest is home to the first bald eagle nesting pain to locate near the capitol in years. Currently, there is little government discussion of protecting the forest essential for this living American symbol.
The different reaction to these two symbols reflects the unconscious values of our culture. We do not support the maintenance of the living systems that allow a living symbol of American freedom to flourish in the same way as we protest the perceived desecration of the symbol of our flag. The icon of the bald eagle flying free near our capitol does not carry the same symbolic weight as the flag.
To be “the land of the free and the home of the brave is to become sensitive to the innate impulse to freedom expressed in the world around you; it is to understand the right of our veterans to express and articulate their point of view. To truly practice freedom is to protect wildness and to understand that wilderness inherently reflects our own sense of freedom within ourselves. It is our adherence to the principles of freedom that has the power to keep our land secure.
If we forget to honor our living symbols, I fear we will see more examples of symbols manipulated to suppress freedom of expression, as in the example of the Vets and the Flag. We seem so ready to fight for the idea of freedom as expressed in our flag but seem to relish sacrificing the living symbols of America’s greatness. I fear we cherish the idea of freedom more than the nitty-gritty physical reality of what it takes to be free. I pray America connects with the bald eagle deeply enough to protect it with the same fervor we protect the American Flag.
The comparison of two American revered icons came to my attention when the LA Times ran two seemingly unrelated stories: the American Flag and the Bald Eagle.
The first article was about war veterans protesting the possible sale of the Veterans Administration property to private developers. Originally the land was a gifted with the stipulation it be used for public purpose. In protest Veterans turned the American Flag upside down, an international signal of distress. Instead of receiving their signal, the government arrested the Veterans for “desecrating” the American Flag. Ignoring the well-established symbolism, outrage over the mistreatment of the flag was used to stop the veterans’ peaceful protest.
A second article reported on the re-appropriation of a 200 acre forest for the expansion of the Office of Homeland Security. Ironically, this forest is home to the first bald eagle nesting pain to locate near the capitol in years. Currently, there is little government discussion of protecting the forest essential for this living American symbol.
The different reaction to these two symbols reflects the unconscious values of our culture. We do not support the maintenance of the living systems that allow a living symbol of American freedom to flourish in the same way as we protest the perceived desecration of the symbol of our flag. The icon of the bald eagle flying free near our capitol does not carry the same symbolic weight as the flag.
To be “the land of the free and the home of the brave is to become sensitive to the innate impulse to freedom expressed in the world around you; it is to understand the right of our veterans to express and articulate their point of view. To truly practice freedom is to protect wildness and to understand that wilderness inherently reflects our own sense of freedom within ourselves. It is our adherence to the principles of freedom that has the power to keep our land secure.
If we forget to honor our living symbols, I fear we will see more examples of symbols manipulated to suppress freedom of expression, as in the example of the Vets and the Flag. We seem so ready to fight for the idea of freedom as expressed in our flag but seem to relish sacrificing the living symbols of America’s greatness. I fear we cherish the idea of freedom more than the nitty-gritty physical reality of what it takes to be free. I pray America connects with the bald eagle deeply enough to protect it with the same fervor we protect the American Flag.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Afghanistan War Resister to "Put the War on Trial"
I dedicate this poem to Victor Agosto and Ehren Watada and all of our soldiers who have had the courage to put down their guns. May this poem circle the globe, bringing our troops home to rebuild our country.
Soldiers Put Down Their Guns
Sit down and make audible in this world the music you hear that comes from the world within. Open your mouth from deep within your pelvis. Grow a sound from a thin line to a thick resonate ambiance that fills space until Beauty and Joy sparkle everywhere.
Actualize right now! Be totally who you came here to be. Allow the integration of mind, body and breathe to become so complete that all fluttering of fear and doubt, all hesitation, simply cease.
Hear the silent symphony unfolding within the boundaries of your skin. Set the passion living inside you into rivers of color, light and sound. Roaring like a crashing wave, an unstoppable force breaks the limited boundary of your known world.
Life cries through your throat, and is born into the space around you. Your passion is a storm, a hurricane--violently demanding time, space and attention. Your passion crashes and roars through red lights, fences, fears.
The birthing is now! Here! Let it out. Let it be born as a new consciousness that sees beauty, hears beauty, feels beauty--everywhere. Let it be born as this new world. Nothing to do but align heart, mind and breathe with the creative powers of this Universe. Nothing to do but create Power, Beauty and Peace with the natural and indigenous creativity of this Universe.
People passing are attracted to your sound. They are compelled to bring their voices to the mix and take the sound onto the street. Soon the whole city is harmonizing, open-mouthed, like a huge flock of hungry bird-chicks.
Our tribal sound resonates the heavens open. The blue of the sky becomes a vortex for a great funnel of light. The Light fills us deeply. Our sound spreads, jumping across oceans to all continents of our planet.
Soldiers hear the sound.
Suddenly, they find the guns they shoulder so heavy they can no longer make sense of war. Without a word, they unbuckle straps that hold implements of combat to their bodies; and they leave their guns on the ground. Burdens lift. They walk toward the sound. Slowly tilting their heads to the heavens, their voices join the chorus of humanity.
As soldiers join the sound, the heart of Humanity opens. We each find a great joy in the center of our hearts. Borne through us all, we are enjoined by the passion and beauty of our living planet moving through us.
The force is unstoppable. Those who resist sicken and lose strength. The blue of Peace perfumes heaven and hearth.
We stand in the power of our truth; fear of the unknown subsides. Shining the light that we are, in joy with creation, we deeply celebrate the mystery in our creative expression. We feel the complete, simple satisfaction of recognizing one another.
Vital Force unfurls deeply, fully from within us now: You, We, Together, Weaving our Future.
deep love to you all, Courageous Ones,
Ruth Gould-Goodman
Friday, July 17, 2009
I long to be washed clean
I wrote this late at night while on Facebook. I became overwhelmed with how much information was flooding toward me. I wanted connection to my world and instead I felt I was drowning. I share my thoughts with you.
"Information floods my brain.
Waves Stretch and Arch out of the vast ocean
Slide over the hissing rush of the previous waves dance over wet sand and rocks
Simultaneously Crashing reach to the shore
And pulled back to its source.
In my dizzy spinning of endless infinite limitless possibility
The hum in my heart that sees beauty in your smile are my North Star"
(The above thoughts then produced these thoughts)
I long to be washed clean, swept back to the ocean a Tabla Rasa knowing nothing except that which is essential. Instead of believing I am the wave crashing upon the shore I want to know in my bones I am the Ocean the wave arises out of. I long to revere the mystery of my own heartbeat and breathe, to trust the endless rhythmic pulse, to witness the effortless cycles of growing out of itself and falling back into itself.
I do not want to control it all. I do not want to arrive at some ultimate ending in which I can finally stand for the rest of eternity.
I want instead to trust I am a part of a hugeness that is so grand that my little mind can not even conceive of it. I want to open to the endless joy of finding my way out of myself and back into myself. I want to know the beginning is in the end and the end is in the beginning enough to release all fear of death. Life, not just my life but all life, deserves to be loved with fearless fierceness to respect and cherish everything in life while we are here. I want to be awake to the exquisite special uniqueness of each moment knowing I will never pass this way again; each encounter, each moment, a brilliant jewel of light on water. I want to trust and love life so much that when I am called to return I welcome the dive into the deep darkness of my death. I do not want to resist my death out of fear when it is my time to go.
Each breath and heartbeat initiate me into remembering I am a part of endless cycles; waves in the oceans, the circling of the moon around the earth, the earth around the sun, and the sun through the milky wave. I am darkness turning to light and light to darkness, the turning of the seasons. I watch my birth and death in every thing alive. No straight lines only endless hoops of joyful circles growing out of itself, then dying to itself to be reborn: infinite expression of precise uniqueness. How boring to cower in the narrowness of fear. Let Go Trust this magnificent dance. We are all coded in our essence with this truth. No matter how hard we try or how completely we forget we can never stretch too far away from our source before we are drawn back like a wave to be born again out of that great Ocean. We all arise out of this playful and ingeniously creative oneness. I want to love enough to be fearless and empty enough to allow this subtle uniqueness called life to register and be savored by my conscious mind. Relax. Enjoy the ride. Do not try to hold on when you are drawn back to essential original state.
Ruth Gould-Goodman 7/17/09
"Information floods my brain.
Waves Stretch and Arch out of the vast ocean
Slide over the hissing rush of the previous waves dance over wet sand and rocks
Simultaneously Crashing reach to the shore
And pulled back to its source.
In my dizzy spinning of endless infinite limitless possibility
The hum in my heart that sees beauty in your smile are my North Star"
(The above thoughts then produced these thoughts)
I long to be washed clean, swept back to the ocean a Tabla Rasa knowing nothing except that which is essential. Instead of believing I am the wave crashing upon the shore I want to know in my bones I am the Ocean the wave arises out of. I long to revere the mystery of my own heartbeat and breathe, to trust the endless rhythmic pulse, to witness the effortless cycles of growing out of itself and falling back into itself.
I do not want to control it all. I do not want to arrive at some ultimate ending in which I can finally stand for the rest of eternity.
I want instead to trust I am a part of a hugeness that is so grand that my little mind can not even conceive of it. I want to open to the endless joy of finding my way out of myself and back into myself. I want to know the beginning is in the end and the end is in the beginning enough to release all fear of death. Life, not just my life but all life, deserves to be loved with fearless fierceness to respect and cherish everything in life while we are here. I want to be awake to the exquisite special uniqueness of each moment knowing I will never pass this way again; each encounter, each moment, a brilliant jewel of light on water. I want to trust and love life so much that when I am called to return I welcome the dive into the deep darkness of my death. I do not want to resist my death out of fear when it is my time to go.
Each breath and heartbeat initiate me into remembering I am a part of endless cycles; waves in the oceans, the circling of the moon around the earth, the earth around the sun, and the sun through the milky wave. I am darkness turning to light and light to darkness, the turning of the seasons. I watch my birth and death in every thing alive. No straight lines only endless hoops of joyful circles growing out of itself, then dying to itself to be reborn: infinite expression of precise uniqueness. How boring to cower in the narrowness of fear. Let Go Trust this magnificent dance. We are all coded in our essence with this truth. No matter how hard we try or how completely we forget we can never stretch too far away from our source before we are drawn back like a wave to be born again out of that great Ocean. We all arise out of this playful and ingeniously creative oneness. I want to love enough to be fearless and empty enough to allow this subtle uniqueness called life to register and be savored by my conscious mind. Relax. Enjoy the ride. Do not try to hold on when you are drawn back to essential original state.
Ruth Gould-Goodman 7/17/09
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
My Upcoming Events
Upcoming Events
Mystic Journey Bookstore Workshop on Wednesday 7-9 p.m.
I guide people to journey into their breath and to reconnect with an embodied experience. We will focus on the feet, the spine, the pelvic bowl, the throat, the central nervous system, and the joints of the extremities.
We resonate our body with sound and explore sound production.
The next step will be to explore how we create a “Soundscape” together with others in the room. If there is time there will be opportunity to sing our soul as individuals.
Ecstatic Embodiment: Movement and Sound Workshop Series
I will teach a three week series of Saturday afternoon classes July 11-25th 1-3p.m. at my Venice studio that will take the journey of ecstatic embodiment and deepen the process. IT is an opportunity to explore consciousness and how we embody our awareness.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Science and Sprituality
Pro-science is not innately anti the Deep Feminine. However, I have reservations about the motivations of Western Science. This “new” scientific mapping of the inner worlds of our body/mind can point the way for us to reclaim the sovereignty of our hearts. Instead, I fear the exploration is being used to keep us in a fractured state to maintain us as dependent consumers of reality. We worship machines of power instead of reclaiming the innate power living in our heart.
Science is a methodology that observes the evidence of “what is” to base its conclusions. I honor science for its desire to dissect the physical universe to understand the laws of nature to assist humans to live more fulfilling lives. Spirituality does the same thing; It methodically observes and studies the internal material of human subjective experience in order to better understand how to live a fulfilled and harmonious life.
Western scientific thought expresses a masculine, authoritarian cultural perspective. This prejudice narrows science’s capacity to serve the human race. Science, in its bias to only consider hard objective information, only permits evidence that is measurable and quantifiable by the intellect.
Modern science assumes the superiority of a rational, linear perspective. It places the intellect process on a throne and gives weight only to that which is quantifiable and measurable. Western, left brain, logical, rational, objective concrete thinking dominates all other ways of knowing.
The scientific community reinforces the bias of Western intellectual thought. It does this by vehemently refusing to admit subjective direct experience as viable and meaningful.
Ironically, rational science is finally developing instruments that measure subtle energy… events that our hearts haves always been able to perceive. Western science now measures data that was previously dismissed as a fairy tale. Spiritual events that were dismissed are now given the currency of hard evidence by sophisticated machines. Now deeply subtle paths are quantified.
Through intermediary machines, science is finally able to objectively observe the subtle interconnecting web holding life together. Indigenous culture, the human heart, and feminine intuition have recognized and perceived these events through subjective ways of knowing since the beginning of time. The ancient wisdom of the deep feminine, which comes from feeling the interconnected relationship between all things, is entering the halls of science.
Science is a methodology that observes the evidence of “what is” to base its conclusions. I honor science for its desire to dissect the physical universe to understand the laws of nature to assist humans to live more fulfilling lives. Spirituality does the same thing; It methodically observes and studies the internal material of human subjective experience in order to better understand how to live a fulfilled and harmonious life.
Western scientific thought expresses a masculine, authoritarian cultural perspective. This prejudice narrows science’s capacity to serve the human race. Science, in its bias to only consider hard objective information, only permits evidence that is measurable and quantifiable by the intellect.
Modern science assumes the superiority of a rational, linear perspective. It places the intellect process on a throne and gives weight only to that which is quantifiable and measurable. Western, left brain, logical, rational, objective concrete thinking dominates all other ways of knowing.
The scientific community reinforces the bias of Western intellectual thought. It does this by vehemently refusing to admit subjective direct experience as viable and meaningful.
Ironically, rational science is finally developing instruments that measure subtle energy… events that our hearts haves always been able to perceive. Western science now measures data that was previously dismissed as a fairy tale. Spiritual events that were dismissed are now given the currency of hard evidence by sophisticated machines. Now deeply subtle paths are quantified.
Through intermediary machines, science is finally able to objectively observe the subtle interconnecting web holding life together. Indigenous culture, the human heart, and feminine intuition have recognized and perceived these events through subjective ways of knowing since the beginning of time. The ancient wisdom of the deep feminine, which comes from feeling the interconnected relationship between all things, is entering the halls of science.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Leigh McCloskey: Spiritual Mentor in Venice, CA
I was recently asked to speak about spiritual mentors whom I respect in the Venice area and I thought I would share it:
I respect the work of Leigh McCloskey. He does not promote himself as a spiritual mentor but as an artist who is devoted to honoring the depth of the creative process. I like that he does not separate function from spirit. His whole life speaks of a dedication to creating within himself and in his community the space to allow a new possibility to grow. His spiritual vision includes the community around him.
I was acutely aware of my first encounter with Leigh. After meeting him at a friends art gallery opening I visited him in his home to see his studio and his artwork. Although he did not really know me, he received me fully and shared with me the pillars of his world, his art and his relationship with the internal source of his creative process. I received his vision and shared mine. We talked for three hours. I understand that we did this not because I am special but because of the passion Leigh has to share philosophy and an understanding of the Divine.
Leigh teaches in a deeply individualized and democratic way. Every person is equal to the process, including himself. He understands that to take any other position of power would immediately exclude him from a direct experience of what he knows to be his truth. It is so refreshing to be with a masculine being who has bowed to the deep freedom, and fertile generative creative power of the feminine aspect of GOD. HE seeks not to control her but to love her by honoring the flow of creative impulse with in his own being. This is a teaching I align with.
I respect the work of Leigh McCloskey. He does not promote himself as a spiritual mentor but as an artist who is devoted to honoring the depth of the creative process. I like that he does not separate function from spirit. His whole life speaks of a dedication to creating within himself and in his community the space to allow a new possibility to grow. His spiritual vision includes the community around him.
I was acutely aware of my first encounter with Leigh. After meeting him at a friends art gallery opening I visited him in his home to see his studio and his artwork. Although he did not really know me, he received me fully and shared with me the pillars of his world, his art and his relationship with the internal source of his creative process. I received his vision and shared mine. We talked for three hours. I understand that we did this not because I am special but because of the passion Leigh has to share philosophy and an understanding of the Divine.
Leigh teaches in a deeply individualized and democratic way. Every person is equal to the process, including himself. He understands that to take any other position of power would immediately exclude him from a direct experience of what he knows to be his truth. It is so refreshing to be with a masculine being who has bowed to the deep freedom, and fertile generative creative power of the feminine aspect of GOD. HE seeks not to control her but to love her by honoring the flow of creative impulse with in his own being. This is a teaching I align with.
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