Anodea Judith's Blog, page 4

Meditation for Climate Change

The COP 21, the Paris climate conference is upon us. There is nothing more important right now than making substantial changes in the way we treat the environment, particularly mitigating climate change. If we do not act now, disastrous consequences for the whole world and the future of the human species will occur. The refugee crisis is just the tip of the iceberg of what we will see if sea levels rise according to predictions.

Yesterday, I joined The Shift Network in a global meditation to support the conference. I thought, “Why do this just once? Why not every day of the conference?”

I imagined the Eiffel Tower was a huge radio antennae. (Actually it was going to be destroyed in 1909, but they did repurpose it for a radio antennae.) I imagined this could channel the hopes and dreams of humanity as it faces into its initiation into the next era, the era of the heart, and channel this into the conference. I imagined standing on top of the Eiffel Tower and looking out at the all the rooftops in Paris and seeing the gleam of solar panels everywhere. I imagined the streets lined with green trees, sizable parks, even rooftop gardens. I imagined I could see even farther to a greener earth, a thriving people, living in peace and prosperity, with the plants and the animals. 

This can be done, but we need everyone to do it. We need everyone to see the possibility.

Climate change is the biggest opportunity for global cooperation the world has ever faced. It is a make or break moment for us all and for future generations.

Will you join me in this visualization? Because of the difference in time zones, I believe it will be effective no matter when you meditate, so choose a time that is best for you to really concentrate. Pray for the highest outcome. Visualize the world we know in our hearts is possible. Help make it happen.

Thank you,

Anodea Judith

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Gateway to the Core

Everything—both living and non-living—has a core. Every tree, every blade of grass, every animal, every rock, even the earth itself has a core.

Living things grow outward from the core, lengthening as they grow, and expanding from the inside out to reach into the world. 

The core is what we all have in common, so you might say it is God or Goddess, or whatever term you favor for the Divine force behind everything we experience. The core is simultaneously the essence of our individuality and our universality.

I think of CORE as representing Consciousness Organized in Relation to Energy. Our consciousness organizes itself according to how we react to things around us, and what we do with all that is within us. We organize our core through the seven energy centers aligned along the midline of the body called the chakras.

Just as the spine is the central organizing element of the bones and muscles, the chakra system is the central organizing principle of the soul.Arranged vertically along the core of the body, the chakras describe the sacred architecture of the soul—the yoke that joins together heaven and earth, mind and body, inner and outer. In this way, the chakra system is the means whereby your earthly being connects to its divine source.

To study the chakras is to enter an unfolding mystery that takes you closer and closer to your core, and ultimately to your Divine essence. The chakras are not a New Age phenomenon, but an ancient map for the evolutionary journey, so crucial at this time. They take us to higher consciousness on the current of liberation, and they help us bring Heaven down to Earth, on the current of manifestation. They are the portals through which we take energy into our core, and the gates through which we express energy into the world. And they are an organizing principle for humanity on its evolutionary journey as well. As a master map, they offer a profound formula for wholeness.

Come join us for this exciting upcoming seven-week exploration into the deep meaning, activation, and healing of your soul through the chakra system (see below for details on the free call introduction to this course!). As a systematic way to approach your personal development, you will gain tools you can use the rest of your life, while learning a marvelous map to guide you to your highest source.

Blessings,

Anodea

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The Vital Key to Healing the Life Force

CHARGE!

THE VITAL KEY TO HEALING THE LIFE FORCE 

Everyone wants to feel more alive. Yet most people are simultaneously afraid of feeling the full “charge” of their aliveness. Taught to contain their charge through common child-raising practices, well-meaning school systems, and culture in general, the raging statistics on depression and anxiety suggest that too many people feel shut down and lethargic, out of touch with their life force, while others are plagued with the stress of having too much charge, whether in the workplace or in their own body.  Many jobs dull the feeling of aliveness, while others demand more than we can provide. Even worse, pent up energy can sometimes erupt in destructive activities, such as addictions or acting out behaviors, or worse – sudden shoot outs or violence–if not addressed. And finally, blocked charge can result in disease, when left unbalanced over time.

Charge, as the basic life force, is little understood in the healing professions. Yet its understanding is crucial if we are to fully heal past traumas, meet the challenge of difficult situations, and overcome the stress of modern life. 

My somatic therapy training workshops look at charge as the interface between mind and body, and the missing ingredient in Mind-Body healing. It brings you into a deep intimacy with your own charge, as well as an understanding of charge in your relationships, your children, and your clients or patients. It examines how you can become “overcharged” or “undercharged” and how to bring about balance through practices of charging and discharging. It describes the “comfort zone” in terms of the amount of charge you can handle, and shares ways you can expand your comfort zone, creating more freedom in your life.

After understanding the basics of charge you learn about the patterns that blocked or heightened charge can create, such as character complexes, body armor, behavior dysfunctions, addictions, and post-traumatic stress. In keeping with the author’s wide reputation as a writer on somatic therapy and the chakras, it also looks at how the chakras handle charge, and can become either excessive or deficient.

Concepts such as charging, discharging, binding, and harvesting the charge are taught through exercises that bring theory into direct experience. Special focus is given to working with trauma, where a high amount of charge is “frozen” into the body, mind, or behavior.

Cognitive therapies deal with intellectual understanding and insight, but fail to deal with the body. Bodywork therapies manipulate muscles, bones, and connective tissue, but fail to address the energetic underpinnings that create our sore muscles or misaligned spine. Spiritual practices such as yoga deal with cultivating prana through breath and movement, but seldom understand the way charge gets locked in the body in the first place, and have even less understanding of how to safely release it in the cases of past traumas and abuses.

Find upcoming workshops dealing with this material!

–Anodea Judith

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Coming into Balance: The Fall Equinox

September 21st is the Fall Equinox—an important moment of balance between light and dark. In a world dangerously teetering out of balance between these two primordial, cosmic forces, it is worth all of our time to reflect on what balance really is. In yoga, it is a very important concept.

Image borrowed from http://www.silentnature.com.au/blog/c...

I am currently up in the Pacific Northwest on a remote Island in British Columbia where a canceled workshop at Hollyhock proved to be a blessing beyond compare when it became a personal retreat.

I realized how out of balance I had become, working all the time, how rare and important it is to get to just “be.” How else can we unfold the stresses built up over time and make room to download the Divine?

As you enter the dark time of the year, reflect upon all that hangs in the balance at this time in our world. The Patriarchal mindset that broke the back of the Goddess of Life is spinning toward calamitous Death without Her. Masculine and Feminine, yang and yin, are way out of balance, but we must first bring them back within ourselves.

Image borrowed from http://yogaseasonal.weebly.com/autumn...

How much do you make room to get away from the yangxiety and go yin-side? How much time do you make for emptiness, quiet, darkness, earth, and rest?

We all know that doing less is good for the environment, but it is essentially good for the soul.

This Equinox take some time to remember the balance within you. Do a practice of balance poses and honor the balance of Heaven and Earth, transcendence and immanence, above and below, inside and outside, Divine Father and Divine Mother, all coming together within you.

And celebrate that we have the capacity to be all of that.

Anodea Judith
9.21.15

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Harvest: A time to start to pull inward

I love the fall. The smell of apple cider, the leaves changing colors, the cooling in the evenings. A time to start to pull inward.

And I love this time of harvest. All our labors over the year come together now, to see us through the winter. In times past, it was a time of sharing abundance with others. We grew more food than we needed, and much of it didn’t keep, so we had to share it. And that was a celebration of community.

What are you harvesting this fall? What projects, insights, or ripeness are you coming to in your life? We’d love to hear from you about that.

My harvest this year is the new book on Chakra Yoga. Really it’s harvesting 40 years worth of study in yoga, mind-body medicine, and the chakras. It amazing to me to be able to share this harvest at this time, and feel the abundance of a wide audience receiving it. (Peek inside the book here!)

This offer bridges the personal and the collective, the inner and the outer world, with how the chakras happen inside us (through the Chakra Yoga book) and how evolution is bringing us through all the turmoil to an awakening of the global heart, chakra by chakra.

And with the proceeds, I hope to give my fall harvest donation to Women’s Earth Alliance, who works with indigenous women to grow healthy, organic food, and take command of their destiny.

What are you sharing this year?

Anodea Judith
9.9.15

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My Tribute to the Royal Road of Yoga

Anodea Judith’s Chakra Yoga is finally here!

“At long last, here is a modern guide to teach us Chakra Yoga. For decades, I have been waiting, wishing, longing for such a book as Anodea Judith’s Chakra Yoga. Chakra Yoga is a multidimensional book perfect for those who practice yoga, but also for therapists who work with energy transformation through the chakras, Tantra teachers looking for the best information about the chakras, and those who want to heal their body and improve their meditation skills. As always with Anodea, the book is exquisitely presented, deep, practical, inspiring, easy to follow, contemporary. A MUST HAVE. Enjoy the ride!” —Margot Anand, author of The Art of Everyday Ecstasy  

Publishing a book is like having a baby. After all the initial work, the book goes off to the printer and you anxiously await the day it is delivered into your hands, fully formed. You might think you’re finished with the work at that point, but just like a baby, its birth is when the real work begins. I’ve heard it said that by the time your book is published, you’ve done only 10% of the work. The rest is feeding and diapering, and getting it out there.

So I am anxiously awaiting the delivery of this new baby coming next week—my book on chakra yoga. To distinguish it from Alan Finger’s book Chakra Yoga, published about 10 years ago, the publishers chose to call it Anodea Judith’s Chakra Yoga, capitalizing on my name. It was certainly not my first choice to have my name in the title, but no other title suggestion was accepted, so I have been the one learning acceptance. I didn’t mean to be egoic about it, however, it is my own compilation of 40 years of practicing and teaching yoga, combined with my own special blend of bioenergetic exercises designed to move charge through the body, or what yogis call prana. So even seasoned practitioners will find something new.

It is also my first book in full color, with 232 photographs of the poses shot by Bobbi Lance of Yuzu Studios. Many thanks and kudos to the models, Sarah Jenness and Mark Silva. I am grateful that these amazing yogis were able to stand under bright hot lights for hours on end, while I looked on making suggestions. They did the hard work of making this book possible.

So much of yoga is performance oriented, and in my 40 years I have seen this trend grow stronger and stronger. Yet yoga was originally designed to put its practitioners in touch with the subtle energy, and evolve that energy into divine awakening. As a somatic therapist and yoga teacher, deeply immersed in the chakras, this has been my work over the years: finding ways to put someone in touch with their own sacred center, the divine within, and help that soul heal and evolve through practices. There are many paths to get there.

This book is my tribute to the royal road of yoga. The body is the vehicle that drives upon that road, with consciousness as the driver. But everyone needs a map to navigate that terrain, and that’s what the chakra system provides: a map for the journey of awakening, the most important journey of our time.

That awakening is both personal and collective, which is why we are offering a 2 for 1 offer: pre-order the new chakra yoga book and you will get a copy of the The Global Heart Awakens as a free gift. Write a review of either one and post it on Amazon (we’ll have to be able to see it) and you get a 50% discount on any one of our online course bundles.

Blessings,
Anodea

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Support Peace with Iran

Peace is one of the most important issues we face today. We cannot advance to a mature society at the same time we are making war with each other. Nor can we continue to solve our differences with weapons and warfare. Diplomacy is the only way forward. And even though diplomacy doesn’t offer perfect solutions, it is still the best tool we have for creating a peaceful world. We must use our energy and resources previously spent on war toward solving more important problems: climate change, environmental pollution, and poverty.

After nearly two years of hard work, diplomacy has created a peaceful agreement with Iran. It may not be perfect, but it is an important step toward the future we want to see and an even more important step away from another disastrous war that costs thousands to millions of lives, trillions of dollars, untold suffering, and creates more rogue groups like ISIS. The future of humanity simply cannot afford another war in the Middle East, or anywhere else for that matter.

Our representatives in Congress will be voting on the Iran deal in September. Several senators, even Democratic ones, are on the fence.  You can call them or write them, and let them know how you feel.

Here is a link from a Huffington Pose article that tells you who is likely to vote yes, who is wobbling, and who is against the agreement.

This time, there is something you can do about it. You can call the Capitol Switchboard by dialing 855-686-6927 and asking to be connected to your Senator’s office.

1. It only takes a couple of minutes and it can be as simple as: My name is _______________ and I’m a constituent from (city), (state). Please support the nuclear deal with Iran. 

If you want more to say, here are some suggestions from the Friends Committee on national Legislation: http://fcnl.org (this site also explains more about the deal).

2. The agreement sets up the most extensive inspections plan in history, and it gives inspectors the access they need to make sure Iran doesn’t cheat. Without the deal, all the new inspections and restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program go away. 

Or simply: 3. The deal is better than any other options, and it’s the best way to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran.

And then ask your Facebook friends to do the same. We can use what democracy we have to work for the peace that we want to see in the world. Participate. Care. Take action.

Thank you,
Anodea Judith

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30 Years of Dancing Across the Rainbow Bridge

Remember when we couldn’t trust anyone over 30? That was 50 years ago, and I was still in my teens, wistfully watching the news about Woodstock, still too young for my parents to let me go. Age 30 seemed like a long way off at the time, and I was well aware of the generation gap. Now, age 30 seems like a long time ago, a time when I was full of inspiration, but short on knowing how to get my work out there. But then the Internet didn’t even exist then, nor cell phones, ipods, instagram, Twitter or Facebook. It was a different world.

This year, my ripening into maturity will be celebrated with a course, originally begun 30 years ago, as a co-creation with Selene Vega, co-author of the The Sevenfold Journey, and co-teacher of what began as the Nine-Month Chakra Intensive, that has become the week-long Psychology of the Chakras, also known as Chakra Awakening.

Selene, by the way, was the first person to ask me to write about the chakras back in the mid-seventies. She was then editor of a small magazine,Pentalpha Journal, and after hearing my passion for the chakras, suggested I write a series for the magazine, featuring one chakra each issue. Though the magazine folded sometime between third chakra and the heart, those articles later became the basis for Wheels of Life, which has now sold over 200,000 copies in English and been translated into 16 other languages. Llewellyn publishers, who took a chance on me way back then, will be bringing out a new book on Chakra Yoga this fall! (Get your pre-order discount here!) 

Selene and I first began to teach this course as a nine-month journey through the chakras, similar to the gestation of nine months of pregnancy to birth a new self. With a one-day workshop each month, students had four weeks to practice what they learned and to look at their lives through the lens of the chakra system. It was transformative! 

Later, after Wheels of Life put me on the travel circuit, Selene and I started teaching the course back east, the first five years on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, hosted by Rosemary Clough, and the last fifteen years at Kripalu, where I also teach other workshops each year. 

This year will be the 30th year that this particular workshop has been taught, having guided about 2000 people over the Rainbow Bridge, each tying their knots in the ceremonial cord, and untying the knots within themselves during the course of the workshop. We will sing, dance, go into guided trance journeys, do yoga, explore our inner psychology and share in rituals of empowerment and divinity, as we spend one full day on each chakra, making the journey now in one week.

Unfortunately, Selene will not be able to join me this year, due to a schedule conflict, but her work of trance journeys, movement and more will be represented. And those who cross the Rainbow Bridge this year will be having a memorable journey, tying their knots in with all who have come before, yet entering new ground within themselves.

So what’s in store for the next 30 years? Chakra Yoga, a book on Charge,perhaps more on chakras and relationships—and lots more journeys across the Rainbow Bridge.

Hope to see you there! For more info, click here.

Anodea Judith
7.21.15

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Speculations on a Floating World

Here I am, my first day completely out to sea, on the Alaska Spiritual Cruise, where I have been invited as a speaker and yoga teacher. I have never been aboard a cruise ship before, never been to a place where I couldn’t see land around me in any direction, and never spent a week so intimately packed in with 3000 complete strangers held together by a floating mass of steel the size of a small city. It is a unique experience to ground on a body of water, and even harder to hold balance poses on a surface that is constantly shifting back and forth. There are no yoga mats, and we practice on towels, reminiscent of when I first started studying yoga 40 years ago. But we practice.
This whole enterprise is an incredibly complex production. Nearly 1000 staff and approximately 2000 passengers are careening through the waves together en route to Juneau, Alaska and back down the Inside Passage – the fjords of Alaska and Canada. The staff, I’m told, consists of workers from 40 countries. One waiter I talked to said he had met people from 60 countries during his 7 month shift. The staff is generally good-humored, and I hear are treated well, except the nature of the work means they live on board and seldom see their families. Most send the money home to a distant country.
I marvel at the fact that this self-contained vessel carries enough food to lavishly feed 3000 people for a week, enough water for all their showers, dishes, and other uses, and carries the waste until it docks into port. It has to create the electricity to power the ship, 3000 staterooms, 7 dining rooms, more bars than I can count, several elevators, and a gym with over 100 electrically powered workout machines, going 24/7.
The guests, from all walks of life, share one thing in common: they have all come here to have a good time and to enjoy the beauty of nature. This is their cherished vacation, some as the result of long and careful savings, others rich enough that it doesn’t matter. But no matter how they got here, something different happens in this unique off-land environment—people talk to each other. They make jokes, they look out for each other, they ask with genuine interest who you are and where you’re from.
The atmosphere is playful, unhurried. There’s nowhere to go when you’re out to sea. No bus to catch, no train to make, no appointments to book, unless it is for a massage. Everywhere you wander, there is music coming from some hall or other, interesting art on the walls, and the endless deep blue sea, with its shimmering reflection of the sun and clouds.
Nevertheless, my judgments arise because it is such a consumptive environment. My mind calculates the carbon footprint, sees the wasted food left on the tables, the overweight bodies stuffing themselves with sugary desserts. The whole scene is catered to the rich, and every little thing costs money–$60 a day to use the internet for example.  Beneath the mall-like atmosphere, there are people here who are hungering for more, for a deeper experience. They are the ones who signed up for the spiritual part of the cruise, with two dozen speakers on board to bring them enlightenment about one thing or another, from past lives, to rituals, to of course, chakras.
Tomorrow I speak on manifestation through the chakras — how to give your gifts back to the world and co-create Heaven on Earth. Perhaps it will make a difference, somewhere, somehow, even way out here in the middle of the sea. I manifested this wonderful experience—what do you want to create?

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Why Not a Matriot Act?

The USA PATRIOT ACT is due to expire on June 1. Now that we have a woman running for president, maybe it’s time to introduce a MATRIOT ACT instead.

A MATRIOT ACT would state that the greatest threat to our future national and global security is the degradation of the biosphere of Mother Earth. To this end, extreme measures need to be put into place in order to protect ourselves from environmental collapse, and the economic and social collapse that would ensue. A MATRIOT Act would procure government funds for addressing such issues as climate change, air quality, topsoil depletion, ocean acidification, water purification, population control, food shortages, and other environmental issues. It would support green technologies, conservation efforts, and public education in these matters.

The Patriot Act was passed in October, 2001, with little debate or public comment, allegedly enacted in response to perceived threats to our national security by acts of terrorism. It has cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars (the true budget is classified), threatened our civil liberties, and accomplished very little in combating  terrorism. This act passed by a wide majority in both houses of Congress, 357-66 in the House, and 98-1 in the Senate, and was extended by Obama for four years in 2011. It’s time to let it expire and channel its prodigious cost into something that really does protect our future.

The USA PATRIOT ACT is an acronym that stands for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism.

The USA MATRIOT ACT could stand for: Uniting and Strengthening All by Making Alternative Tools Ready to Invest in Our Transformation.

The PATRIOT ACT increased the ability of law enforcement agencies to spy on its citizens, by searching telephone, e-mail communications, medical, financial, and other records. It expanded the Secretary of the Treasury’s authority to regulate financial transactions, particularly those involving foreign individuals and entities. It enhanced the discretion of law enforcement and immigration authorities in detaining and deporting immigrants suspected of terrorism-related acts. The act also expanded the definition of terrorism to include domestic terrorism, expanding the powers of domestic law enforcement against its own citizens.

The MATRIOT ACT would be designed as a document of protection for the life-giving qualities of our natural resources. It could fuel the economy with the production of jobs in eco-technologies and scientific research. It could enhance public understanding through funding educational films, television broadcasts, and school programs designed to teach ecological awareness and conservation. It could enforce environmental laws to prevent corporate pollution. It could fund birth control programs in overpopulated areas of the world.

It could be a document that really does make us safer, healthier, and happier.

How do we write and circulate such a document? Anybody want to run with this?

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