Touching What's Real

It's alive. I can feel it, the energy pulsating. To touch upon something that's breathing life and to feel it through the rise and fall of our own breath, is a kind of magic. It's a magic that sees, is seer and seen; touches, is toucher and touched. When we realize the magic that is ever present and that we unceasingly live in, a curtain parts and there are no actors. The breath and the life and the seed of becoming touch us, and teach us what it is to be real.

Protection

Sometimes we can all use a little extra padding in our lives. The following is a meditation to call in protection against the elements. It will help you to become more centered and grounded, and it will allow what is unnecessary to fall away or become less threatening.

Sit in a comfortable position.
Close your eyes.

Begin to pull your energies back into yourself, focusing your attention on your own body. Spend a moment allowing your thoughts to go where they will and let yourself become the observer of these thoughts. There is no need to judge, just let them be.

Start to bring your awareness into greater focus on your body. Feel the entirety of your body and feel its presence in the world.

Imagine that a vibrant white light surrounds your body, about three feet out in every direction. Feel it as a nourishing light, energizing and replenishing you just as the sun nourishes plants. This light not only offers nourishment, it protects you from outside energies and protects you from spreading your own energy too thin.

Bask in this light until you feel fully renewed and strengthened.

As you go through your day, if you feel run down or as if someone's getting the better of you, remember your protective shell of light, and let it deflect what's not your own and ground within your awareness what is.

Finding the Door to Your Potential

A door exists for each one of us. We each have several, in fact. Doors that serve as gateways to the fulfillment of our potential as human beings; doors that lead onto paths in tune with our hearts yearning in this lifetime. For some, the finding of these doors comes as second nature. For others, there may be struggle. All that's needed to find and walk through these gateways is to stop where we are and breathe. We need to allow ourselves to be exactly where we are in life. The first step is acceptance of the life before us.

As we breathe it in, we reach a deeper understanding of how we've come to the present moment of our lives. From that understanding, we can move forward, more clear about who we are and what we have come through, more clear about our abilities and our limits. In the confidence of who we are and who we are not, doors will suddenly appear. There will be no question about it being the right one or the right time - at this stage there is only heartfelt knowing. We have arrived.

It's time to step through the doorway and into the next phase of our lives. Should you feel fear begin to creep in like a weed and grow over your path, hiding the trail to the doorway of your potential, take courage. Remember how far you've come. Take a moment to breathe and to connect with your body. Connect with that fear. See its origins. Let it go. The potential of a more meaningful, rooted existence awaits all who can step through the flames of fear and onto the path.

Mycoremediation in the Presidio

What a glorious day! The sun is shining, the sky is blue - it's a perfect California day and the goodness of it was only amplified by a field trip to the Presidio, where a study in mycoremediation is underway.

After the SF oil spill, a team of mycoremediation folk got together to see if hair mats and mycelium could soak up the toxic chemicals. Mushrooms have been used in a variety of places to do just that. The best thing is, it works!!! Many of us are domesticated by supermarket lifestyles that lead us to believe there are perhaps only a few variety of mushrooms - white button mushrooms, crimini, and portabello - and all they're good for is pizza and stir fry. But mushrooms are and can do so, so much more.

A famous mushroom expert, Paul Stamets, joined us in the Presidio today. His most recent book is "Mycelium Running" and it details the number of ways we can use these extraordinary fungi to help heal the damage done to the planet so it can continue to sustain human and other animal life.

If you'd like to learn about mycoremediation, inexpensive classes are offered at Merritt College in North Oakland within the Landscape Horticulture program.

*munches on a wild mushroom*