Sophia's Children

Spiritual practices are good for your brain

Some people believe that spirituality and science are incompatible. Not so much, as it turns out.*

This is good news, because it validates ancient practices that many in the modern, left-brain-favoring world  consider a luxury, or a leisure activity, or just plain 'California woo woo'.

Instead, the research is showing that these practices are very practical indeed.

I find it exciting to see modern neuroscience research that shows the beneficial effects of practices such as meditation or mantra on your brain function, for example.

Perhaps that's why His Holiness the Dalai Lama has been a strong advocate for scientific research on the effects of meditation, though he doesn't likely need to see a brain scan to prove it.

The same is the case with the research conducted by several major U.S. universities on kundalini yoga's Kirtan Kriya, a meditation done with mantra (sacred sound) and mudra (hand exercises).

The research shows a difference in the before and after brain scans of alzheimer's patients after a 12-minute Kirtan Kriya practice, for example.

People who meditate regularly, or practice centering prayer, or mantra and mudra, know from their own experience that such practices, done regularly, really do increase a sense of calm, reduce stress, rewrite neuropathways of conditioned 'negative chatter'.

A regular practice allows for a very different quality of experience and way of being in the world.

A new book, Power Up Your Brain**, by Alberto Villoldo, PhD and David Perlmutter, MD, continues on this theme. 

Drs. Villoldo and Perlmutter -- one a medical anthropolgist and shaman, the other a neuroscientist -- debunk misunderstandings about the brain as well as some unfortunate biases against shamanic and other ancient knowledge and wisdom.

In addition, they explain concepts like neuroplasticity that show why practices like visualization, mantra, and meditation, along with other spiritual practices, help to rewire neuropathways, among other benefits.

Research has also been done showing the effects of visualization -- your brain doesn't register a difference between visualizing or imagining something and actually seeing or doing it. This is one of the reasons that peak athletes use visualization as part of their training.

Of course, this also shows why our habitual thought patterns and imaginings -- for better and worse -- are powerful in their effects on our experience of life.

So if you've been feeling guilty about allowing ample time for your spiritual practices, you'll have more and more evidence on why it's one of the highest priorities of your day.

Blessings & Love,

Jamie

* The same may not be true when it comes to religion and science.

** More information and several excerpts from Power Up Your Brain.

 

"My Life Came to a Standstill..."

That's what Leo Tolstoy wrote in his Confessions about the period in his life when his old priorities and accomplishments no longer held meaning for him, but a new sense of meaning and authenticity hadn't yet become clear.

He was pretty depressed about it, understandably, and had been resisting it for a long time.

"My life came to a standstill..."

I've experienced that, too, as are many more people in this time of great transformation.

As much as it frustrated me, none of my attempts to 'go back' to an old comfort zone seemed to work, and no attempts to impatiently force a new clarity were very effective. Both ego-effort and resistance proved depressingly futile.

One image that really captures this time of 'in-between' is the symbol-rich Queen of Disks painted by Lady Freda Harris for the Thoth tarot deck.

In this card, the Queen of Disks is at a standstill, but her pause is not without purpose.

Take a look.

She sits on her throne, looking back over the barren valley through which she has just journeyed.

The desert seems to stretch on forever into the horizon now behind her. It has been a long, trying, and often exhausting journey for her.

The desert, like the 'dark forest', is that cycle of life when what has come before has dropped away, and the 'new life' and renewed clarity and motivation have not yet materialized.

Our Queen of Disks looks out over the meandering path by which she's come -- one that seemed to zig zag along without direction, until she sees the whole of it from her current vantage point. It's led her to where she now sits.

And though it's a desert, and her path was meandering, she now sees the many trees, grouped in threes -- a pattern that she hadn't noticed when she was laboring through the journey.

This tells her that the Feminine, the Great Goddess, had been present with her throughout her desert-valley initiation.

She can now more fully realize that her desert-valley journey has been an initiation into the Feminine, presided over by the Great Goddess herself.

In her current position, new vegetation grows around her, symbolizing the energy of new growth that is gathering, perhaps because she has taken the time to be still enough to let the greening energy gather.

She wears the crown of spiraling horns, and the Aries ram sits to her left. In the journey of the Zodiac, Aries is the new beginning: one cycle has completed, and a new one readies to begin. The spiraling horns signify a maturity, a 'royalty' earned on the Spiral Road of initiation.

Look closely (unusually, I've repeated the same image twice so you can see it more easily).

She holds an orb-shield painted with interwoven circles, symbolizing her awareness of the interconnectedness of Life -- a more wholistic perspective gained from her experience crossing the desert valley.

In her right hand, she holds a scepter topped with a crystal, symbolizing a new clarity of mind and a new mastery that she has earned through experience, through gnosis -- the knowledge and wisdom based in her own experience.

With this awareness and experience, she is more grounded, centered, spiritually mature, and dignified. She can now move through life with a newly earned depth and grace.

Because she is a Queen of Disks, which represents Earth, her orb and scepter speak to her new mastery being rooted in 'down to Earth' experience, and her awareness that she is connected with the energies of Mother Earth and the 'greening' energy of Nature.

She now knows that it is this 'greening energy' of Nature, of the Feminine, the very Shakti of Life itself, that allows life to be rich, fertile, and abundant rather than the barren wasteland of the wounded Masculine in the Grail.

Being a Queen, she represents the Feminine, having learned through her journey how to navigate using the Feminine gifts of the Empress and the Priestess.

From this different perspective, she sees that the barren valley, the desert, is 'greened' through the presence of the Feminine and action that is based in connectedness and alignment with the laws of Nature.

Her meandering path through the desert valley might now be seen, with her expanded perspective and wisdom, as a potential riverbed through which waters might flow to bring a new fertility to what has lain barren and dry.

She reminds us that our time of seeming standstill allows us to take stock of our journey through the desert, and 'gather the pearls' of the new perspective and mastery we've gained, knowing that these give a renewed fertility and abundance as we begin a new cycle on the spiral of Life.

From Leo Tolstoy's writings, this is what he learned, too, as he opened to a new, more vibrant awareness that gave new meaning to his life.

If you're feeling like you're at a standstill, the remedy is homeopathic -- like heals like. Stand still, and let the 'greening energy' gather around you, renewing your vision and guiding you into authentic, inspired, and meaningful action.

With the current Aries energy and the newly emerging growth of Spring, it's the perfect time for it.

Blessings on the Way,

Jamie

Image Credits: the Queen of Disks, painted by Lady Freda Harris for the Thoth Tarot Deck.

What turns the corners of your mouth up?

This blog entry is an updated version of a post from my Engaged Spirituality & Mystic Activism blog in early February 2008, and I thought of it again this morning . The Hafiz quote & the wisdom it conveys? Timeless.

Often, I'll hear from people who have a deep yearning for a way of being and doing and living that feels more heart-centered and soul-aligned.

All of us, at some point or another -- and perhaps more often than that -- feel separated from our inner-guidance, or guiding star.

And even if we think we 'know the answer' intellectually, sometimes (maybe even 'often'), what we think we know leads us away from our joy and 'heart-soul' path.

What we 'think' is often an inheritance from a culture in which the intellect has for too long presided without connection to (and thus the deeper wisdom of) body, spirit, soul, or wisdom.

I remember seeing a greeting card -- and later had it on a magnet on my fridge -- that said, "Don't trust anything you think."

So if we can't always (or even often) trust our mind's 'old knowing' -- that ingrained, habitual pattern of judging and deciding -- how can we know what choice, direction, action, or inaction is truly right for us?

This is different than knowing what will conform to the cultural status quo. Big difference, particularly as the energies of transformation bathe our Earth (and our minds and hearts, too).

In early 2008, while visiting Ithaca (N.Y.), I saw a quote from the Sufi poet and mystic, Hafiz.

It has, in the days and now several years since, proved a reliable guide and practice for discerning the path or option that is in alignment with my heart and wisdom, versus that of 'old mind'.

When I remember it, that is. And even then, I appreciate the reminder.

"What is real, what is unreal?

That which turns up the corners

of your mouth, trust that.

~ Hafiz

That which turns up the corners of your mouth, trust that.

Nothing else -- whether we have been taught to perceive it as 'real' or as 'unreal' -- can be truly reliable without a confirming sense from our own intuition and wisdom, which often sends us signals from (in!) our body.

If the corners of our mouths are truly and spontaneously 'turning up', and if we practice following this spontaneous response into our bodies and feel it deeply, we'll feel that the 'smile' reaches outward from our core, our hearts, and it feels that every cell in our body is smiling.

And so the corners of our mouths turn up.

Sometimes we can even find our way to 'what brings us alive' by putting on an outer smile -- it's good face-exercise, anyway -- and allowing our 'inner smile' to catch up with us again.

This 'turning up', smiling inwardly and outwardly, may feel gentle, passionate, energetic, or quiet, but at its source, there is joy and that joy guides us.

[Take a look at other ways to connect more deeply to your Inner Wisdom and knowing through The Academy of the Divine Feminine and upcoming telecourses and programs.]

Lots of love,
Jamie

Jamie Walters is a 'shift catalyst', energy whisperer and transformation guide. She is the founder & creatrix of Ivy Sea and The Academy of the Divine Feminine. A respected horizon-walker, she is a guide for humane business, right livelihood, and engaged or embodied spirituality -- including the embodiment and expression of the Divine Feminine, and a 'reconnection' to your Divine Spark.

Image Credits: Smiling kitten from Last.fm; Smiling girl from Association of Catholic Women Bloggers post.

The Returning 'Divine Feminine'

Greetings!

As we all feel the increasing pull into a new era and a new way of being -- and feel the old paradigm slipping away, sometimes from beneath our feet.

We're being ever drawn and invited to remember and reclaim the Divine Feminine awareness and gifts within and around us.

The Ways of the Divine Feminine have been marginalized, brutalized, suppressed, and buried underground.

But instead of dying away, the Divine Feminine gestated, like a seed underground in the cold of Winter, finally cracking through the seed shell, winding Her way up through frozen ground, and is now sprouting green buds throughout the world.

And it's a good thing, too.

Seriously. All we need to do is look at the news on any given day to see the whackadoo imbalance that's run dangerously rampant. Enough of that.

The Way of the Feminine is just what's needed for a more yin-yang balanced way of existing, being, creating, knowing, and relating. And these capacities are vital to awaken and embody for personal and collective healing and wholing.

You'll find a lot about the Feminine in my blogs, particularly Sophia's Children.

And if you're really committed to that call and want to deepen your relationship with the Feminine, join me in the Academy of the Divine Feminine ~ I've created a wealth of audio programs to support you on your return to the Feminine, drawing from my own Journey of Return.

Take a look...

Blessings,
Jamie

Image Credits: Seed sprout, from Omega Gardens.