Stillness is the Way Home

Stillness is the Way Home

Although much is written about stress, today I would like to focus on an antidote.  Let’s call stress the Freeze Response and its variations from micro levels in the cellular structure to macro levels in your physical, emotional and mental bodies.  The Freeze Response is the intense cry from your organism for everything to please JUST SLOW DOWN.  In a word, the system is completely overwhelmed and simply shuts down.  This survival mechanism is called playing ‘dead’ in the hopes that the stressor will go away.  But really, once the system shuts down, what could bring it to life again?  Where is the switch for that?                 

If you understand that stress = contraction/freeze and health = relaxation/flow, then lets choose an image that conveys the answer.  A metaphor I like to use is… just imagine an ice cube set to float in a bowl of water.  Let yourself perceive how those ice crystals dissolve and move into an expanded microscopic flow of joining the water around them, free to move now in any direction… free to respond again to Life.              

Your natural state is a quiet place of letting go of control and surrendering into an open relaxation.  Your natural state is like a column of stillness in the very midline of your body and, paradoxically, where the Breath of Life breathes into that Stillness the forces of creation for your structure and being.  This is the primordial Breath that brings potency, buoyancy, expansion and evolution to every level of your beingness.  This is the Way Home to peace.

Each day cultivate the practice of sitting quietly and ‘backing up’ into your midline, contacting the Stillness, and melting your ice cubes into that pool-like place. Here is your response to any thoughts that arise as you do this:  “Let it be.  Leave it as it is.  I surrender into open relaxation.”  Allow your body to feel and integrate all the sensations that were numbed out by the freeze and become the finely tuned instrument of Life that was intended for your pleasure.

 

Wren Breedlove, senior instructor with Sandra N. Wheeler http://www.dynamicstillness.com

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NEW REVISED CLASS OFFERING! Midline Meditation: Resting in Your Inner Stillness

Now a 2-Week Introductory Class :

June 1 and 8,   6-8 pm (arrive 5:45)

$50,  includes Midline Meditation CD

Preregistration is required, as space is limited

This class is designed for all levels of experience

The Midline is our first embryonic structure. Within the midline is a core of Stillness, which is present from the moment of conception, and is radiating throughout our lives.

Every form and function of our being is created upon this inherent stillness.

An open, vibrant midline is essential in creating, repairing and sustaining health on all levels: physical, mental, emotional, spiritual.

The Midline is the portal through which we evolve in consciousness: it is our direct channel to Source. The Breath of Life – the unimpeded flow of Source through the Midline – is the wellspring of our health, inner guidance, intuition and destiny.

IN THIS SUPPORTIVE, EXPERIENTIAL AND INFORMATIVE MIDLINE MEDITATION CLASS…

YOU WILL LEARN:

– a meditation practice that assists you to feel and rest in the inner Stillness in your midline and body

– how to reduce the stress and brain hyperactivity that depletes our health

-how to recognize the “buzz” of brain hyperactivity and overwhelm in the nervous system

-how to rest back into Stillness in the midst of the inevitable challenges of life

-how the practice of this meditation reorients our system back to wholeness and ease

YOU WILL EXPERIENCE:

– the restful depths of your own inner Stillness

– your central nervous system, brain and nervous system become open and receptive

-the resurgence of warmth, relaxation, ease as your awareness rests in the Midline, bringing centeredness and calm

TO REGISTER:

A few spaces are still available. Call 541/343-4415 to reserve your space.

Instructor: Sandra N. Wheeler, LMT #1610 (www.sandranwheeler.com)

Sandra is a gifted healer, mentor and teacher in private practice in Eugene OR, and is committed to the process of wholeness and thriving in our lives. These meditations are an expression of that commitment. She is a Senior Instructor in Biodynamic Cranial Touch. (www.dynamicstillness.com)

For much more information about this meditation, its extensive benefits, & resources on stress,

please go to http://www.midlinemeditation.wordpress.com

“Only from the heart can you touch the sky”  Rumi

Strengthening and Awakening the Heart…

One of the most powerful and healing practices we can undertake in our lives is to reestablish our hearts as our energetic centers. Midline Meditation  is a potent tool to assist us in this excursion, feeling in our bodies the contrast between a brain-dominant stress response, versus cultivating heart awareness throughout our day.

An excellent resource for understanding heart centered awareness is the book: The Secret Teachings of Plants: The Intelligence of the Heart in the Direct Perception of Nature, by Stephen Harrod Buhner. Here is a mini-review written by a practitioner of Midline Meditation……

The electromagnetic field produced by the heart is 5000 times larger than that produced by the brain. Our heart field expands outward in all directions, gathering information, storing emotional memory, perceiving spaces and the other fields we come into contact with.

Our most sensitive scientific instruments detect the human heart field ten feet out from our body. But this measurement only reflects the limitations of these instruments, not the reach of the heart’s electromagnetic field. Like radio waves, the vibrations emitted by our hearts expand out to infinity.

“We are meant to feel the touch of the world upon us,” Harrod writes. By listening deeply to the information perceived by our hearts– by trusting our hearts as powerful organs of perception– we can gain profound insight into ourselves and our fellow beings– humans, animals, and plants alike. (shared by Lucius Wheeler luciuswheeler.wordpress.com)

There is a light that shines beyond all things on earth, beyond us all,

beyond the heavens, beyond the highest, the very highest heavens.

This is the light that shines in our heart.

Chandogya Upanishad

Stillness is the Way Home….

Although much is written about stress, today I would like to focus on an antidote.  Let’s call stress the Freeze Response and its variations from micro levels in the cellular structure to macro levels in your physical, emotional and mental bodies.  The Freeze Response is the intense cry from your organism for everything to please JUST SLOW DOWN.  In a word, the system is completely overwhelmed and simply shuts down.  This survival mechanism is called playing ‘dead’ in the hopes that the stressor will go away.  But really, once the system shuts down, what could bring it to life again?  Where is the switch for that?

If you understand that stress = contraction/freeze and health = relaxation/flow, then lets choose an image that conveys the answer.  A metaphor I like to use is… just imagine an ice cube set to float in a bowl of water.  Let yourself perceive how those ice crystals dissolve and move into an expanded microscopic flow of joining the water around them, free to move now in any direction… free to respond again to Life.

Your natural state is a quiet place of letting go of control and surrendering into an open relaxation.  Your natural state is like a column of stillness in the very midline of your body and, paradoxically, where the Breath of Life breathes into that Stillness the forces of creation for your structure and being.  This is the primordial Breath that brings potency, buoyancy, expansion and evolution to every level of your beingness.  This is the Way Home to peace.

Each day cultivate the practice of sitting quietly and ‘backing up’ into your midline, contacting the Stillness, and melting your ice cubes into that pool-like place. Here is your response to any thoughts that arise as you do this:  “Let it be.  Leave it as it is.  I surrender into open relaxation.”  Allow your body to feel and integrate all the sensations that were numbed out by the freeze and become the finely tuned instrument of Life that was intended for your pleasure.

Wren Breedlove  ravenspeakstome@yahoo.com

Wren is a Senior Instructor along with Sandra Wheeler in the Dynamic Stillness School (www.dynamicstillness.com).  The curriculum of the school includes professional training in Biodynamic Cranial Touch, as well as an expansive curriculum of immersion into the embodiment of stillness, and the art of transmission of essence to another through touch for every level of experience.

Physiological Benefits of Midline Meditation

Midline Meditation brings us ‘down and in’ to our bodies, to rest and widen in a state of ‘neutral’……..

Neutral is a state, or disposition, that occurs after you relax into your body in a receptive quality of equanimity. When your bodily relaxation deepens into stillness it decreases the brain’s vigilance and calms the stress fight or flight reflex. Meanwhile, the separate, non-coherent, disjointed parts of your body will quiet until you sense a seamless, whole body, fluid motion throughout the bodymind that feels as though it is floating in stillness. After you have sufficiently acclimated to your felt-sense of bodymind union, or wholeness, you may sense a healing presence that gently ebbs and flows in graceful, delicate waves that feel like breathing, but it is your whole body that breathes.

This ebb and flow is primary respiration, which transcends, yet synchronizes with the breathing of your lungs such that you feel as if you are breathing as a whole body. You may notice your separate body parts such as bones, tissues, muscles, and organs merge and become one unified sensuous protoplasmic flow. This subtle breathing presence is the ‘wisdom of the body’ that reconnects the parts and unites your bodymind into one whole unit. When you directly contact primary respiration, and you feel your fluid body breathing in this sensuous manner, you may say something like “I feel connected to my body, I am whole, and my heart feels intimately connected to life. I am myself again.”

Physiological Aspects of Neutral:

Resting in neutral quiets the addictive physiological noise of the ego (inner buzz, rapid vibrations, and ‘static’ in the body, and a sense of inner compulsion to ‘do,’ coupled with an inability to be still) that is created by stress. While the stress patterns are settling, your body connects and synchronizes with the ebb and flow of the sensuous motion of primary respiration (PR). PR emanates a resonating field of healthy motion that gently entrains your body’s metabolic fields that are caught up in the stuck patterns of fight or flight. This entrainment gradually unlocks the repeating stress patterns, and rearranges the submicroscopic nutritional substances and returns them to balanced free-flowing homeostasis. Primary respiration changes these metabolic fields, rich in ground substance,* from a stress induced gel, which moves in stuck staccato-like (inertial) patterns  that give us the bodily sense of the buzz, into a free-flowing liquid that accurately reflects the sensuous motion of health. The resulting healthy motion restores the original healthy function, shape, and position to the cells, organs, and structures of your body. This will increase nutritive function, raise energy levels, open blocked acupuncture meridians, promote mental clarity, strengthen immune function, balance the cardiovascular, nerve, and hormone systems, and more importantly, increase the coherent function of your heart.

In the stillness of a neutral, the bodymind (and inertial fulcra) are infused with levity. As these compressed spaces expand, the Neutral frees the spaces to flow with the Health and integration of Primary Respiration. Each ‘liberated’ space then orients/reconnects to the midline (source of PR and stillness) Each individual fulcrum/contracted area that reorients to the midline helps to rebalance the midline. The more the midline is balanced and open, the greater the capacity to distribute even greater potency (flow). As this midline potency builds, it enhances the metabolic fields, which restores vital function to cell membranes. This returns the practitioner’s tissues to their original shape and function.

This is the process of TRANSMUTATION: inertia and static are changed to healthy motion that then creates healthy structure.

The Effect of the Neutral on your Heart Field:

As you bodily relax in neutral, while sensing the fluidic ebb and flow of primary respiration throughout your whole body, it strengthens your heart’s electromagnetic field, which amplifies its ability to maintain bodily coherence. As the strength of the potency of your heart field is restored it reawakens an ancient capacity of your heart as an organ of perception that operates as your body felt sense.

The heart field permeates every cell in the body, as an ever-changing non-linear fractal field that radiates to infinity. The heart’s electromagnetic field is decoded by the body while the heart sends out its messages to the cells, which, in turn,respond to the heart, and then the heart receives the new information from the cells, and adjusts to send out new messages. All this activity maintains a dynamic equilibrium of a self-organized wholeness of life that we call ourselves.

The effects of using Midline Meditation- on your own, or in a group field which enhances the effect- are cumulative and progressive. Each time we relax into a neutral state- and the deeper states of consciousness beyond neutral that are available to us in Midline Meditation- our bodies more easily attain this more open and restful way of being.

We Were Made For These Times

In MIdline Meditation, as we cultivate and rest in deeper levels of inner Stillness and Presence, as we calm our brain/nervous system dominance and stress, as the heart begins to choreograph our lives in our more natural state of being, we literally entrain and radiate this stillness into the world to every other being we encounter. Thus, we walk into the world embodying transformation, equanimity and a more neutral, heart-centered awareness that is deeply healing.

This is truly a remarkable time to bring this embodiment into every moment of our lives. This article speaks to our readiness to be of service……

We Were Made for These Times by Clarissa Pinkola Estes

My friends, do not lose heart. We were made for these times.

I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world right now. Ours is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people.

You are right in your assessments. The lustre and hubris some have aspired to while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking.

Yet, I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is that we were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement.

I grew up on the Great Lakes and recognize a seaworthy vessel when I see one. Regarding awakened souls, there have never been more able vessels in the waters than there are right now across the world. And they are fully provisioned and able to signal one another as never before in the history of humankind.

Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on the waters with you. Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in this stormy roil, I assure you that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder come from a greater forest. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless.

In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. There is a tendency too to fall into being weakened by dwelling on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails. We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we more so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us, and we will know them when they appear.

Didn’t you say you were a believer? Didn’t you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn’t you ask for grace? Don’t you remember that to be in grace means to submit to the voice greater?

Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely.

It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good. What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing.

We know that it does not take “everyone on Earth” to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.

One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire.

To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these – to be fierce and to show mercy toward others, both, are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it.

If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do. There will always be times when you feel discouraged.

I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it; I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate.

The reason is this: In my uttermost bones I know something, as do you. It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here.

The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours: They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here.

In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for. This comes with much love and a prayer that you remember who you came from, and why you came to this beautiful, needful Earth.

Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D

* This posting is reprinted again today in honor of the accelerating challenges unfolding in the world*

 

Wholeness, Awakening and Midline Meditation

In the quiet, nourishing field of a Midline Meditation Gathering- or as you listen to the Meditation on a recording- we begin to bring our awareness from a brain/thought oriented/Central Nervous System activated way of being to a body and heart centered awareness. When we make this important shift in our energetic state, enormous shifts in our physiology begin to unfold. We will discuss more about those in our next posting on “Physiological Benefits of Midline Meditation”.

Our brain centered activity is one of separation, analytical thinking, making distinctions and differences, future planning and reprocessing past events. Many Meditation participants have described this mental process as a “hamster on the wheel” constant state of activity. Rather than focussing our attention on this constant stream of information, we gently bring our focus in this meditation down and into the heart and body, as we access Stillness in the core of our being.

This important traverse in Midline Meditation allows the mind to BE, as it is, without changing it or even witnessing it. We simply move our awareness to a more restful place: the midline of the heart and belly where we finally rest in the inherent Stillness which is always available, every moment of our lives.

This shift from the brain into the heart center is also a profound shift in perception from separation to oneness. In Midline Meditation we actually begin to feel this in our bodies as we move from feeling separate- perhaps injured, tight or sore body parts- to a warm, fluid, connected state of wholeness within our bodymind.

This traverse from brain to heart also brings profound spiritual and energetic shifts in our consciousness, as described in the following article:

When you see behind the illusion of separation and, instead,

connect with the unity of all life, you have awakened.

Human life on Earth was designed to explore the concept of

separation from other people, separation from your environment

and separation from the universe on all levels. This is

achieved by the projection of unified consciousness into an

infinite variety of objects of apparent separation.

 

When you reach a deep enough meditative state to experience

the oneness that underlies all of reality, then you have

arrived at the main destination of the journey through life on

Earth. Once you experience your unity with the universe and all

that it contains, you realize many things. You realize that you

have always had this connection, that you always will have this

connection, and that nothing can ever take it away.

Awakening brings an aliveness and a great sense of love for

life in all of its forms. Upon awakening, you realize that your

friends are not just people with whom you share a mutual love.

You realize that you and your friends are one, that you share a

common empathy and a mutual kindness, one that knows no

boundaries of self.

You connect with the realization that you are the One that

always was, even before time was created.

Owen Waters

http://www.infinitebeing.com

 

Midline Meditation Gathering This Sunday!

“Deep in the heart, every mystery of Spirit is hidden.” Rumi

We welcome all of you to come and rest in the exquisite Stillness cultivated within ourselves, and enhanced by our Group Field!

Our next gathering is this Sunday, March 6. Arrival time is 4:45, and we will begin promptly at 5. Our guided meditation is approximately 30-40 minutes with silent time on your own at the completion. Optional sharing afterwards.

The gift of these gatherings is not just the potent Midline Meditation, and the cultivation of a body-felt sense of centeredness and Stillness in our midlines. In these meetings, we gather together in this community of fellow practitioners or travelers on the spiritual path, who are also seeking to embody these more restful qualities when we leave the circle and step back into the demands and fullness of our lives.

In these gatherings we begin to bring our awareness and center of Presence back into the heart and into the body. This powerful excursion moves us from a brain-centered/hypervigilant/stress driven way of being, to live more consistently in the body and heart.

The  Midline and the heart are the portal and resting place of the Soul, respectively. The Central Nervous System naturally begins to relax when we bring our attention and awareness down and in to these inner sanctuaries.

We welcome you!

If you cannot join us, our Midline Meditation CD or Mp3 download is also available for purchase.

You can order these here:

http://www.sandranwheeler.com/_pages/meditation_mp3s.html

If you are unable to join us in the gathering, consider sitting and meditating with us at the same time in your own space while listening to the CD, in order to connect to the group field!

“All we are asked to do is BE LOVE”

Midline Meditation is a powerful, easily cultivated practice which assists us in moving from brain dominance to a state of HEART DOMINANCE: we exchange thinking for sensing and feeling. As we reorient our inner ‘resting place’ from the head to the heart, belly and body..every aspect of our Being shifts……

*stress and fight/flight/freeze responses ease, and all physiological systems begin to come back “on line” and into greater balance and health (this includes our hormonal, cardiac, respiratory and immunological systems)

*heart -centered consciousness naturally arises: we become more compassionate and aware of the whole and the interconnectedness of our lives

*heart coherence comes back “on line” and choreographs all the systems of our bodymind (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual bodies become more integrated)

*an innate sense of our wholeness arises, rather than an ego (brain) driven sense of separateness, including our sense of connectedness within our own bodies (“I am a whole being, rather than separate parts”)

The effects of consistently reorienting our awareness to our midlines, and finding a place of rest in our more INNER, heart-centered, feeling centers is CUMULATIVE AND PROGRESSIVE.

Like training a new ‘muscle’,  our abilities to relax our busy mind/nervous system dominance becomes easier and more instinctual. We are more able to move to this inner awareness throughout our day, in all situations. From this place we find that it is easier to ALLOW life to unfold without needing to “go out” and react/try to change the events and people in our lives.

With Midline Meditation, we are cultivating a restful sanctuary within ourselves, that strengthens and stabilizes each time we bring our awareness within.

Over time, we also notice that this stillness and sense of wholeness begins to permeate our entire being. The stillness which we have cultivated within the midline has come to radiate and infuse every cell of our body. As we move through our day and our lives, we literally move into the world as Stillness, radiating this heartcentered Presence into every encounter and environment.

This radiant Presence is brought into our lives, and through the coherence of our heart fields, we offer the possibility to every other heart field to begin to entrain and awaken. We are not GOING OUT of ourselves to ‘make something happen’, but are simply cultivating our own inner Stillness/heart coherence and moving into Life as that, embodied.

Our bodies, then,  literally become agents of transformation through our own willingness to cultivate this within ourselves.

“We are the strongest of strong of all souls ever to come here, and we have the ability to change the world we live in. All we are asked to do is BE LOVE.”

The time of moving from brain dominance to Heart Centered living is NOW. Midline Meditation is a practice which enhances this essential evolutionary process.

I invite you to watch this powerful video which speaks to the imperative of living from the heart, and pass it on to others.

http://vimeo.com/17355872

New Midline Meditation Dates and Times!

Sunday, January 23 5-6:30 pm

Thursday, February 3 6:30-8 pm

Thursday, February 24 6:30-8 pm

RSVP as space is limited!

Please plan to arrive 10-15 minutes early (the time in parentheses) to get settled so we can start on time.

“Since noise is increasing in all directions, the psychology of silence has taken on a special meaning. We are already so adapted to an abundance of screeching sound that we are surprised when stillness suddenly envelopes us. Not that this happens very often.

We begin to see that the whole question of our relation to the world , both positive and negative, centers in something like silence.

So our service to the world might be simply to keep a place where there is no noise, where people can be silent  together.”

Thomas Merton  “The Springs Of Contemplation”