Posts Tagged ‘Journey’
Living Lineage
Monday, February 10th, 2014
“Make a relationship with the lineage as a living force that is communicating within us right now.” ~Reggie Ray
When I began channeling the Lineage of the White Mesa in 2005 I had no idea where it was going to lead. I just knew it was time to heal with Light in the most profound way. In an article about the emergence of the White Mesa I wrote, “The Path of the White Mesa is about sharing one’s greatest light. The White Mesa is more than my own personal journey of pain. It is a rite of passage of stepping beyond the darkest moments and remembering the light.”
After co-teaching White Mesa Intensives for more than seven years, I was called to serve and teach about the White Mesa Lineage in new ways. I had a deep sense of sharing this living lineage in sacred circles throughout the world. The White Mesa lineage felt palpable and alive. Living the White Mesa lineage meant opening to the inner abyss and letting the unknown be one of the sacred teachers.
The power of living lineage is that it evolves and meets us where we are at in our lives. Living lineage is direct, honest, and uncompromising in its integrity. It blazes new trails and opens hearts. Living lineage is a willingness to bear witness to what’s happening in our lives and take a deep dive inside. It constantly gives birth to new life. Lineage is not a person or one set of teachings. Living lineage is fluid – a deepening and expanding that we’re all invited into. To take a deep dive into a lineage, we must learn to let go of expectations, spend time in a dedicated practice, and have ongoing mentoring. In this way, the lineage will be very real, intimate, and human.
For me the Path of the White Mesa is a lineage of emerging ancient teachings with contemporary humanity. It’s a path that is open to all. Lineage is meant to be shared, practiced, and carried on by many practitioners.
Listen for the living lineage inside of you. What does living lineage mean to you?
The Lineage of the White Mesa is a global medicine path, which includes: anchoring altars of stone and drum; shamanic mystical traditions for personal and planetary healing; an awakening of our original and evolving connection with Mother Earth, the Luminous Lineages of Light; and re-discovering our place in the primordial cosmic web of life. For those who would like to read the origin of how I came to channel the Lineage of the White Mesa, click here.
2014: The Year of…
Thursday, January 2nd, 2014
Happy 2014! As each New Year begins, I take time to sit quietly and set intentions for the coming year. I listen to silence. I listen to nature. I listen to my heart. One clear intention is to follow the map of my heart.
As I started to meditate, I gazed at my bookcase. Joan Didion’s book, The Year of Magical Thinking, jumped out at me. I had read this book a few years after my mom passed away. (I highly recommend any Joan Didion book!) As I stared at that book, I felt like there was a message for me for 2014. I randomly opened to a page and read, “As a writer, even as a child, long before what I wrote began to be published, I developed a sense that meaning itself was resident in the rhythms of words and sentences and paragraphs…The way I write is who I am, or have become…” I returned the book and felt the rhythms of the words as it matched the rhythm of my breath.
I wrote the words: 2014 is the Year of Magical Being
This year will be about following the sacred path of the warrior and living from a place of being. It will BE a year of allowing serendipity to replace certainty. It will BE a year where I live from my heart. It will BE a year where feelings will be the map that guides me. 2014 will be a year of Magical BEING.
As a part of that beingness, I am also honing in a word for 2014: Metta.
The Pali word for lovingkindness, metta, means unconditional friendliness, warmth, love or care, and the Pali word for compassion, karuna, means to “feel with,” to bear suffering with an active sympathy. In his wisdom the Buddha realized that by purposefully awakening lovingkindness and compassion, we invite the alienated hurts and fears into consciousness, and free ourselves into a wholeness of being. (Tara Brach, True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart)
My year of Magical Being will be tuning into loving-kindness towards myself and others. This loving-kindness will allow me to consciously stay awake in the world and turn shame, fear, and doubt into wholeness.
It’s a big journey and I know I don’t walk alone. I have many holy witnesses with me.
You are invited to take time and listen for your intention, your word, and your heart.
What does 2014 feel like for you?
Middle Way
Monday, July 15th, 2013
Over the last several months, I have had to deal with bouts of dizziness. I have had to make adjustments as looking up or down often triggers my dizziness. This is part of an on-going health issue and it has made me slow down. I have learned to ask for help. And I am learning more and more to ask for what I need.
As I sat in meditation, I asked for the message and gift of my dizziness. This is what came through in my meditation:
Maybe you don’t have to look up right now – heaven is right in front of you.
May you don’t have to look down right now – Mother Earth is all around you.
Look in front of you. What do you see?
Your path is right in front of you.
That is your middle way.
As you listen to what is informing you, what is your middle way?
Share the Good Stuff Now
Tuesday, June 18th, 2013
“Throw the flowers while they are alive” my friend would say. This quote has stuck with me for more than twenty years. It means we ought to say the loving thoughts, compliments, and kind words to people while they are living. I do my best to live this way as I compliment people daily, sometimes even strangers on the street. I can be found sharing kindness with the coffee vendor that serves me daily or even high-five a young boy who just graduated kindergarten.
I personally had people “throw flowers to me” after I shared with students my decision to step away as co-teacher of the Path of the White Mesa. I knew it was time to make space for a new path and expand my wild cosmic heart. After sharing about my heart-centered journey, I invited students to listen to their heart and where they are called to more deeply lead, serve, and love.
After sharing my gratitude with the students I had taught for more than six years, I received many responses filled with overwhelming appreciation and love. I hadn’t realized the impact I had with the participants and how much my presence meant to them. As students began sending their reflections and gratitude to me, I felt like it was hearing my eulogy while I was still alive.
I am sharing some responses as a way to spread light, joy, and the impact of sharing kindness.
We all matter. Every one of us matters. Make sure the people in your life know just how blessed you feel.
I thank you always for sharing you and your gifts with us. May this new journey surround you in only love and light. You are a beautiful shining light.
The light has formed you, the light has carried you, through light you witness darkness, through light you know love. It is time to spread your wings and fly so that all of us who remain earth bound can see where you lead us.
I have so deeply loved our circles in Goshen of which you were such an important part. Another part of me is so glad for you in making this bold change and creating a new space for your own expansion. I am grateful to have had you in my circle for these past six years.
I’m going to miss you at the White Mesa gatherings. I love your smile, fantastic sense of humour, and the way you spoke and taught during the white Mesa gatherings.
You are the light that shuts out the dark. You are the essence of love and the hope we all hold on to. Continue being who you are. Your journey is perfect. Just as planned. Beauty, in every aspect of the word.
Thank you for all the work, play, stories, laughter, and energy that you shared with me and the White Mesa circle over the years. You were the one that always made space and took everyone in! And thanks especially for your big smile and bright eyes. I hope to see that smile again soon!
I admire your courage to go off on your new path and honor your knowing that this is the time. One of the statements I will remember you saying is, “Do it afraid!”
I will miss your hugs and your affectionate welcomes every time I came for the White Mesa weekend. I send you many blessings and may your new journey be splendid in beauty, more growth and great prosperity. I love you and you will be always in my heart as a sister and teacher. Thank you for all you have given me these past years. I will miss your laughter.
I will miss your soothing yet steady presence. You have added the feminine heart to the white Mesa teachings and grounded our work with love, patience ….. In the most sacred container.
I know that you will forge a light path that is very sacred and powerful by creating a space where each person will have their own unique experience of the Divine. I am looking forward to being a part of it.
Thank you for always holding space. I would look up and know how grounded and present you were with each of us. I am grateful I had the chance to be in circle with you — and I know we will be in circle again.
I wish you only love and light on your continued heart journey. Thank you for your amazing hugs, contagious laughter, and your smiles. I will miss hearing your meditations and channeled messages. Yet, I carry your wisdom with me.
You will be missed. I know you are following your path and where it leads you. You have always led with your heart as our teacher and I am filled with immense gratitude.
Keep drumming, divine one. The world needs to keep hearing your rhythm.
We Have What We Need
Thursday, January 17th, 2013
“This is a work in progress, a process of uncovering our natural openness, uncovering our natural intelligence and warmth. I have discovered, just as my teachers always told me, that we already have what we need. The wisdom, the strength, the confidence, the awakened heart and mind are always accessible, here, now, always. We are just uncovering them. We are rediscovering them. We’re not inventing them or importing them from somewhere else. They’re here. That’s why when we feel caught in darkness, suddenly the clouds can part. Out of nowhere we cheer up or relax or experience the vastness of our minds. No one else gives this to you. People will support you and help you with teachings and practices, as they have supported and helped me, but you yourself experience your unlimited potential.”
~Pema Chödrön, Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears
{Photo by Mary Anne Flanagan}
Daring Deeply on a Path of the Heart
Thursday, January 3rd, 2013
I came across this poem by Carlos Castaneda that reminded me of living a path of vulnerability with heart.
You must always keep in mind that a path is only a path.
Each path is only one of a million paths.
If you feel that you must now follow it,
you need not stay with it under any circumstances.
Any path is only a path.
There is no affront to yourself or others in dropping a path
if that is what your heart tells you to do.
But your decision to keep on a path or to leave it
must be free of fear and ambition.
I caution you: look at every path closely and deliberately.
Try it as many times as you think necessary.
Then ask yourself and yourself alone this one question.
Does this path have a heart?
All paths are the same. They lead nowhere.
They are paths going through the brush or into the brush
or under the brush of the Universe.
The only question is: Does this path have a heart?
If it does, then it is a good path.
If it doesn’t, then it is of no use.
Walking Through Illusion
Tuesday, October 26th, 2010
I was recently given the book, Walking Through Illusion, written by Betsy Otter Thompson. The book features a series of short stories about biblical people who either knew Jesus or knew of him. The author believes that we don’t take our beliefs with us when we leave here. Rather, we take the love we found from having them.
Each chapter focuses on a specific theme through a conversation with a biblical person. The end of each chapter has a worksheet with questions, which is designed to deepen the conversation and engage the reader in their own personal journey.
This is a book for those of us who have questions about their own faith and beliefs and how beliefs play a part in our faith and life. As Thompson says:
Faith Can’t Be Bought, Bartered, or Begotten.
It Is the Knowledge of Who You Are,
Why You Are Here,
And How to Enjoy That Search.
In the end, the book is about deepening our relationship with ourselves and stepping beyond the illusion of seeking approval. “The greatest achievement you’ll ever reach is to love and accept yourself.”
I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to bring more love & insight into their life and heart. Enjoy!
Mary Anne
Breaking Ourselves Open
Monday, August 30th, 2010
After visiting Omega Institute for the weekend, I felt myself break open a little more. I became so mindful of the earth I was walking on, the food I was placing in my mouth, and the thoughts flowing in and out. I “thought” I was going to Omega for a yoga weekend, but found myself exploring organic foods. I walked away with a whole new relationship with my meals—eating slowly, consciously choosing what I put on my plate, and noticing how foods from the earth tasted in my mouth. My relationship with food is breaking open.
Elizabeth Lesser, co-founder of Omega Institute, writes about the journey of breaking open in order to blossom into who we really are. In her book, Broken Open, she writes:
“Over and over, we are broken on the shore of life. Our stubborn egos are knocked around, and are broken open—not once, and not in predictable patterns, but in surprising ways and for as long as we live. The promise of being broken and the possibility of being open are written into the contract of human life. Certainly this tumultuous journey on the waves can be tiresome. When the sea is rough, and when we are suffering, we may want to give up hope and give in to despair. But brave pilgrims have gone before us. They tell us to venture forth with faith and vision.
May you listen to the voice within the beat when you are tired. When you feel yourself breaking down, may you break open instead. May every experience in life be a door that opens your heart, expands your understanding, and leads you to freedom.”
Here is to breaking open over and over and over again.
Mary Anne
This is dedicated to Elizabeth Lesser, all the amazing staff at Omega Institute, and Sri Dharma Mittra for breaking open my relationship with food.
“Lost” Taught Me About Remembering
Monday, May 24th, 2010
The final episode of “Lost” aired this weekend and for anyone who has been watching the show for six years it was a typical ending in that it left viewers asking more questions. I think what the show did best over the last six years was allow for amazing discussion around time, faith, redemption, light, darkness, and interconnectedness. For me, I became deeply invested in the relationships of the characters, and of course, wanted a happy ending.
The show’s brilliance was its ability to move us through time and connect the past, present, and future. It felt very shamanic as people called forth their emerging self while releasing their past. Characters were often asked to “let go.” I felt like the show asked us to remember our original selves. It gave us the big questions: Who am I? Who am I now? And who was/am I to you? And as Charlie asked on the last episode of the first season, “Guys, where are we?”
The highlight of the last episode was watching the characters in the flash side-ways remember who they were on ‘the Island’ in relation to one another. Our ability to remember is often what connects us. Even small glimpses, like remembering a smile, can keep people alive in our hearts. After my mom passed away, I told my spiritual teacher, “I’m not afraid I will forget her. I am afraid I will not remember.”
If the show did nothing else, it reminded us that we are all related and connected. It’s about finding one another and remembering one another. It’s about the journey of life (and death). It’s about choice and acceptance. It’s heaven on earth and earth on heaven and everything in between. Each character’s transformation through the multi-universes showed us a journey through self-awareness and ultimately personal enlightenment.
What is our state of remembering? What allows each of us to remember that light within that is always there?
To remembering,
Mary Anne
Lessons Learned in 2009
Tuesday, December 29th, 2009
I spent this week rereading all the blogs I posted this year. Each one felt like a personal recipe for living, learning, & loving. Each blog held a nugget of hope, a spark of light, & moments of absolute love. I have put together some of the best quotes from my blogs of 2009. May they give you the hope, light, & love that is already awakening in every way.
“Starting over means we can release the past without judgment and move forward without baggage.”
“Forgiveness is not an act; it’s a process. In order to forgive, there must be a journey of going to the place of healing. It’s coming to a place and resting – just resting.”
“The question then becomes, are we willing to practice and share peace with one another? It starts with each person being peace. We can then see peace in each other. Each of us can be the peace story.”
“Do it afraid. Whatever the ‘it’ is, do it, live it, breathe it…Do it anyway. Do it despite yourself.”
“The phrase “Truth Be Told, I Choose You” represented the grandest invitation to life. This is the experience of totality – the gift of fully inviting another person on your life’s journey.”
“When I am open, the world is open, when I am grateful, the world is grateful.”
“I am the one I have been waiting for. The teacher I have been waiting for is me.”
“How are we prisoners to our own minds and project it out to the world? Freedom starts with each one of us. Step forward for yourself and for another.”
“Here was an opportunity to live in harmony with the way things were. Now was my chance to ask myself how I am unconscious in the world.”
“How much is mind chatter costing you? Stillness is free.”
“Imagine taking a planned break to clear yourself of all distractions. Perhaps we are not ready or able to take a year off, but what if we could actually plan in our calendar a sabbatical to generate new ideas, listen to our inner creative voice, and appreciate our work as a calling.”
“As we prepare for a season of “Peace on Earth”, may each exchange this season be one of love and presence. It’s the economy of the heart that I am looking to build this coming year. It’s increasing our capacity to love that I am hoping to stimulate.”
Happy New Year! Here’s to learning more lessons ~ Mary Anne