Dear Readers, Please join us for a ZOOM discussion on Penelope Smith’s great first book 📚 Animal Talk! We meet on Sunday August 1st at 3-4:30 PM. We’ll be doing Chapters 4 and 5. Email me for a ZOOM invitation. Thank you 😊 Happy Late Summer!
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Welcome, Reader! Here are some people’s quotes about our work together(Please See below Worcester Zen’s Inclusivity Statement):
Will try to return with more recent testimonials. If you see yourself here thank you for writing this! This is Reggie:
Also:
I love the inclusivity and Black Lives Matter statement by Boundless Zen in Worcester MA. One of if not the best! Please scroll to the “Inclusivity” link.
1) Although most of the following notes are behavioral, in this comment, a woman grieves a beautiful Cat:
"I am totally trying not to blame myself for anything, but sometimes the guilt seeps in. I certainly didn't feel from our conversation with Mozart that he blamed me or my husband for anything. I read "The Pet Loss Companion," and it says, "Whatever the circumstances of your friend's death, you deserve to remind yourself that human beings have limitations ... we never intentionally cause harm to our loved ones." Basically, you do the best you can with the knowledge you have at the time. That's what I did."
Carolyn
http://www.thepetlosscompanion.com/
August 7, 2020
2) I did not see a place for testimonials, so I'm sending it here. I just can't thank you enough for always being there when I need you. You have helped me and my fur family though adoption grief, loss and crazy adventures with interfering raccoons. You have never said no or I can't help you. You always help, you always come through. Please post this so people know how wonderful and dedicated you are!
Elaine Harrington
April 17, 2019
3) Zan has been a great help to me and my 3 pets. She eased the transition when my sister and her dogs were back home. And another time when one Larry was ill. Both times we were able to everyone back to a good their playful selves.
Carolyn(another Carolyn)
May 22, 2018
4) Things are better here.
Sheri
January 3rd, 2019
5) The change in the cats’ behavior is dramatic; they even groomed each other a little bit. Thank you so, so much.
Tara(in a text)
March 26, 2019
Update 7-21-21:
6) Christi writes about reading body language in ordinary reality as well as modelling calm behavior with her dogs 🐕 🐶:
“Well, I haven't taken Henry out to practice behavior modification in regard to people, but, a few things appear to be changing.
1) He has not growled at Maya on my bed, since we talked. In fact, my roommate's dog has been downstairs with me since Friday, and Henry has been quite gracious, even when Winston cozies up to me. That is kind of shocking. I was expecting him to resource guard me from Winston, but he is not even displaying any stress symptoms when Winston lays with me. I'm not pushing it...Winston sleeps in a crate at night.
Thank YOU so very much.
JoDell
July 8, 2021
Since we had trouble getting everyone to read Carlos Safina’s naturalist manifesto, we moved on to Carol Gurney’s ‘The Language of Animals’, are now reading and discussing ‘Pawstalking’ by Lisa Larson who’s a certified Hawaiian Shaman! And next we will probably read Pea Horsley’s
’Animal Communication Made Easy’
Email me for an invitation. Usually 3rd Sundays! Sometimes 4th.
Michael Grady did another great workshop at IMCWM(formerly Insight Meditation and can still be found at insightpv.org) last Sunday morning and on.
Also I really like Dawn Scott on loving all beings and Tara Mulay on the urgency and importance of the practice.
All You Need to Vote in Your State
This turtle is from the deck, Animal Allies 2, by Jessica Swift(highly recommend(!) But do keep track of your mail-in ballot. Click the very faint link above the turtle!
By “Immunity is Mutiny” I mean 1) Sleep well 2) eat healthy food 3) Exercise with a mask in case you meet somebody 4) keep Six feet Apart and mostly 5) Wash your hands.
https://www.daniellemackinnon.com/rainbow-bridge/how-to-comfort-your-dog-who-is-dying/
Dear Folks, #BlackLivesMatter and let’s give to the naacpldf.org legal defense fund. A statement for Covid-19, BLM and Indigenous Peoples: Immunity=Mutiny!
Some of the recommended Anti-Racist books:‘White Fragility.’ Wow just wow. Also, ‘Why are the Black kids sitting in the cafeteria all alone?’, ‘How to be Anti-Racist’ by Ibram X. Kendi, ‘White Supremacy and Me’ workbook & ‘Why I stopped talking about race to white people’.
Danielle McKinnon has an absolutely amazing talk on going through hospice/dying & a little on how to handle it after with your dog(very transferable to cats as well). Zoopix App helped me over the death of my cat(below). Thank you, Finn & Diego the Adventure Cat. 🐱🐕
First, Ram Dass slipped in to my photos here with a very funny story about the many vehicles of awakening!
Please click the link up top for Danielle’s article. I also read ‘You Are Psychic’ by Pete Sanders which includes his healing technique, as well as other books like ‘Mind Over Medicine’ and ‘Because Internet’ on modern linguistics.
Email me if you want to join our last-Sundays book group. Finishing ‘How to a Talk to Your Pet’ by Gail Thackray, an English woman who lives in LA, including some guided imagery I will read and we’re starting ‘Beyond Words’ by Carl Safina. Starts out with Dolphins 🐬 yay! The animal with a four chamber brain 🧠 !
My personal book list goes on(privacy used to be a civil right and might still be).
📚 Topic: Animal Communication(including ‘Animal Talk’ by Penelope Smith)!
InsightPV.org is responding to first Covid-19, the ensuing grave financial losses; now...to the horrible lynching of George Floyd(not a new thing) and how we respond. We have to move from being a fear-based society to being a love-based society. Marianne Williams was/is right.
Our school continues to have wonderful teachers: Rebecca Bradshaw(former guiding teacher) a Climate Change activist and therapist, Manny Mansbach, Jean Esther, Michael Grady and Tara Mulay to name a few. Dawn Scott, Harrison Blum, Nick Boutros....
Trellis Scepter is the new President of the Board and we are so glad to welcome 🙏🏽 him! These teachers have such wisdom and many have therapeutic background or practices.
Below is my cat trying to find South African Communicator Anna Breytenbach the author of ‘Diablo’.
The late Ram Dass’s(Richard Alpert’s) mystical teacher Neem Karoli Baba: Enlarge! To me he seems to be saying, “What are you doing?” He was a hypnotic medium and great teacher in India.
Last Saturday Michael Grady held a class on managing fear and it was such a good Zoom that my cat came to watch too. I got all my questions answered on both 1) Internet distraction(Can we ignore it?) and also 2) the difference between Catastrophizing(a scary form of inner storytelling) and skillful, calming stories we can do. Thanks again to Insightpv.org
Dear Reader,
Today is Rebecca Bradshaw’s last day as Guiding Teacher at insightpv.org and she has done a really good job of speaking and scheduling great visiting teachers!
She will be missed and the celebration is tonight. If I had played I would have sung, Heart’s “Dog and the Butterfly”(keywords: “She had to try.”) or possibly Sheryl Crow’s “Always on your Side.” She has free talks on dharmaseed.org that really rock!
Anyway, psychotherapist and Buddhist teacher Jean Esther recently did a great parable, on weeds and detaching from our attachments, that was hilarious(long story short), and the week before: Dawn Scott spoke about moderating reactivity. She is a wonderful trainee in the 4-year Teacher Training at IMS Barre, MA.
All wonderful teachers there and a great chance to become part of a community!
In other news I am so blessed to have the very professional and also maternal(and younger:) Sara Rose Page visit me twice a week for Yoga class mid-mornings. Yesterday a totally awesome thing happened. We were doing Savasana at the end to OM music, she played the brass bell my husband had bought for Yoga 🧘♀️, and so beautifully, to wake me up....
Then we faced each other in mixed lotus and said our Om’s. I usually run out of breath before she does and although I sing, her Om is stronger; but just as I dropped out I heard an overtone of a Fifth above coming from over my right shoulder way up high, like the golden light of an angel singing. I’m not particularly into golden light as it always reminds me of something else golden(LOL)
and when was the last time I called on angels, whoever/wherever/whatever they are? But I asked her, “Has your class ever been so in tune that you heard overtones?” She was not sure.
I’m not sure we were even all that perfectly in tune(!) but feel free to comment, “Have you ever been so in tune you heard overtones?” I felt as though it might be consolation for the first grey day of October!
We feel that artists tend to be clairvoyant and musicians, well they tend to hear!
Sept. 28, 2017 #AboutLastNight
Bhante teaches in West Vriginia but also at the three-month retreat at IMS in Barre MA. He founded a Buddhist center in Uganda that helps heal trauma.
A lot of people think his robes look like authentic African dress and when he gets stopped at airports he says he must keep himself from exclaiming, "Haven't you ever seen a monk, like The Dalai Lama?!"
But Bhante recommends to us that when we hear things we don't like, our off-the-cushion practice should be to think to ourselves only, "hearing", so that we label perceived insults as "hearing" with all the other sounds.
If we try something like that then we are less likely to get emotionally hijacked ourselves. Calling back our power to our own mind and not to the object of our distress, we can remain centered even in ordinary applications of everyday mindfulness.
When we get hijacked, Bhante says, we have:
1) a feeling,
2) a thought
3) an emotion.
Stories get built around emotions, and they can be where we get carried away.
Feelings(1) and emotions(3) are distinguishable he says. If we feel the feeling we can stop a thought from becoming codified into a hurtful story.
Not that we do not take real-world actions to protect or defend ourselves and others, but we can react much more skillfully if we remain centered and also 4) forgive.
What we must do, he says, is be aware of our own defense mechanisms. What are our defenses that get triggered?
It didn't take me too long to think of my vocabulary of defensive reactions, but exploring what types of events trigger these things in our minds, may take some analysis....
Bhante’s warning about emotions hijacking us is that it feels to him like when he missed a certain exit near Dulles Airport and then was out of his way for an hour(There's one like that on Rte. 9 outside Boston although not quite for an hour)! Still, it's preventable.
“May we be safe and free from suffering. May all beings be safe and free from suffering.”
