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Current Affairs
02/11/2022
07/31/2020
“Where Is My Mail-In Ballot?” What we need to know! From The Skimm
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.
06/07/2020
On Helping Your Dying Animal(and Updated 7-24-20): On InsightPV.org in the Time of Covid and Protests
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.
01/05/2017
Jesse Vega Update: August 20/20: At InsightPV.org Spoke About Focused vs. Open Awareness
Mr. Vega teaches at Insight Hawai'i on the Big Island and has led 3-week retreats in Burma.
Update 8-20-20: He is the only American Buddhist I have ever known to question our Burmese teachers over their support for the genocide against Muslims in Myanmar.
But then: This was a short day of Sitting, Walking & Talking....not like West Wing where I'm as if stuck in my mind.
First he asked us to focus on a body part and inquire what we were feeling. He discussed different techniques of focus. As we drifted into our stillness I heard him say, "Do not get stuck in aversion or liking." He cautioned against "hunting for experiences" while meditating.
Vega told this story where someone at a retreat got annoyed by someone coughing all throughout a silent period: In the interview the participant complained to his teacher about the horrible coughing. The teacher said, "You should thank that person for showing you how bad your concentration is!"
JV also told us of a classic teaching called the Four Protections or Four Guardian Meditations:
1) Contemplating the Buddha's Virtue
2) Contemplating the defilements of the body.
3) Contemplating the Joys of Love.
4) Contemplating Death
So when we think of the ups and downs we get accustomed to the ups and downs, good/bad.
* * *
Someone asked what would be our affirmations and Mr. Vega went over what we often learn about at Insight Meditation Center of Pioneer Valley, The Brahmahivaras or Virtues and our basic Metta prayer. Forget how he worded it exactly but Sharon Salzberg once taught it as:
"May I be safe, May I be happy, May I be healthy and may I live at ease.
May you be safe, May you be happy, May you be healthy and may you live at ease.
(You = Loved ones and/or Benefactors, Friends, People we feel neutral about and Difficult folks- in more or less that order)
May we all be safe, May we all be happy, May we all be healthy and may we all live at ease."
(If we aren't feeling healthy we can say "strong" or "healthy and strong".) This picture was taken in the late afternoon so Jesse is smiling and yet you can see the shadows growing long.
Another thing he said is that in these troubling times some people wonder whether we really have the right to sit and meditate instead of taking action. JV said more or less, "If you can find the right conditions where it's peaceful enough to settle down, then it's actually your duty!"
Only then can we find the clarity and groudedness to take the most effective action, I think was the idea. Or to speak and communicated in ways that can best be heard. #GoodTmes!
Thanks to our fearless teacher and more to come soon on other IPV leaders and their classes!
Also on yoga-sanctuary.com New Year's Eve Retreat.