http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Coventry_Peace_Bench.jpg

The last couple of weeks I’ve had a bit of a juggle since I’m committed to both my 40 day ego eradicating challenge and to chanting for peace.  Last week I was short on time and I decided–since the only thing(s) in me that keep me from being peace are ego blocks–that the 15 minutes of the Ego Eradicator plus Om Gum Ganapatayei Namaha (destroyer of obstacles) would work to fit both challenges.

This week I decided that I wanted to do both so I performed the ego eradicator, then substituted 10 minutes of the lovingkindness chant instead of the usual three minutes of mindfulness.  I could feel how much the ego practice opened me up and thus the power of the chant’s energy seemed more than usual..  My heart felt radiant.

Having built all that energy, when I finished with the chant to Ganesha the radiance in my heart increased and I felt it ignite the sea of chi with fiery energy.  I like putting different practices together and changing order and noting how it feels different to do things a different way.

If you have a story about your experience with chanting/praying for Collective Prayer Sundays today, comment her or on the Facebook page or write a post and both link it to this page and tag it CollPraySun.

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The one piece of my “Break the Ancestor’s Spell” ceremony I haven’t posted about is the final piece, which was a last minute addition.  Sindy, of bluebutterfliesandme, suggested that I use the Clearing Vows and Contracts from the Akashic Records script that she posted on Facebook.  As soon as I read it I thought it should be part of the Ceremony.

I’m not sure whether it’s connected with with ARCI, but a friend of mine is an ARCI teacher and I took her first level course some years ago, in which you learn how to open your own Akashic Records.  So I included the ARCI formal opening of the records first and then read the script out loud.  I like the script and I feel that it will probably be something I do periodically just to be sure to keep clearing.

Related articles

• Breaking the Ancestor’s Spell (bluegrassnotes.wordpress.com)
• Ceremony Breakdown: The Chants (bluegrassnotes.wordpress.com)
• Ceremony Breakdown: Protection
• Ceremony Breakdown: My Chants plus Gayatri event and CPS open (bluegrassnotes.wordpress.com)

This is one of those days when all I have to say is here’s the post on which you can leave comments about your experience.

For those who aren’t familiar, you’re asked to pray or chant or meditate for peace in whatever way you choose for a minimum of 10 minutes every Sunday between 7 and 11:59 p.m.  More info on the Collective Prayer Sundays page.

The latest challenge: by midnight Oct. 27 create a ritual to let go of an issue or ancestral pattern within you that conflicts with peace.  See previous post for more info.

You can also start a conversation on the Facebook page.  Please like the page (you can click to the right of this post if you’re logged in to FB) so I can unlock administrative tools.

Have a lovely, peaceful Sunday everyone!  Hugs, Leigh

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I finished my first week of the ego eradicator with mindfulness meditation and Om Gum Ganapatayei Namaha (see previous post). It feels great every time I do it.  It builds a big energy and the flow continues for me long after.

Any change it’s creating is very subtle I’d say.  And since I’m always doing more than one practice at a time and more than one practice over time most change for me arises as an effect of cumulative efforts.

I mentioned that the night I did my ceremony to break an ancestral spell I felt pain shoot through the two locked areas in my head — tentorium and

Wikipedia

falx — and the remaining locked muscles in my face began unwinding. That has continued.  The core tight pieces that, up to now, have been yanked around by other pieces unwinding but have not themselves let go have been opening at quite a pace.  I would say that the pace has picked up considerably since I began to do the ego eradicator.

I would also say that I’ve been feeling somewhat more inner strength and increased mental fortitude.  That’s something that’s been building with some other practices I’ve been doing for a while but the change is more noticeable in the last week.  When the unwinding muscles are letting me sleep only every couple of days it’s a little tough to decide how much stronger or more assertive I feel as fatigue tends to dull everything.   My vision has also improved.

I love this practice and I may be doing it beyond the 40 days.  But I want to be clear that it is not a magic bullet.  There has been no sudden miraculous shift nor have I suddenly been successful at some task nor magnetized some great circumstance.  There are lots of testimonials that make this sound like something that will transform your life after the first three minutes.  I’ve been at this long enough that I entered this challenge without assuming that my life would radically change.

But I do find the practice powerful and I can feel its impact on a spiritual level.  I find over time all spiritual practices slowly transform me but for me the change has usually been more inner than outer.  I’ve known lots of people for whom those inner changes have soon translated to big outer changes but that has not been true for me.  I have faith that the practices are doing whatever I need and that my higher self has the best plan. Sometimes that faith is the only impetus to practice, so don’t feel discouraged if the only change you feel from any practice is subtle.

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My experience recently with Deva Premal’s 21 day meditation series, for which I sang chants every day, has me thinking a lot about music and its place in my life.  And possibly provided me with an answer for some long unanswered questions.

As a child my two main interests were music and writing.  The writing just came naturally.  I did it without thinking and had no goals or aspirations. Music I loved and wanted to pursue.  I took piano lessons for 12 years, voice lessons for five.  When I sent away for catalogs from music schools I was told that I couldn’t go to a conservatory; I had to go to a university and study something that would lead to real work.

I wasn’t the kind of kid who could just take off then and find a way to earn my own way through music school (it never even crossed my mind…) so I went to Northwestern, with the promise that I could switch to the music school there if I still wanted to after some unspecified time passed.  The music school allowed only classical music which wasn’t what i wanted to study. I also realized when I met music students that my training seriously lacked theory and I’d have a hard time catching up.

Later, when I was in a band for a while I realized that all the training left me not well suited for the jazz/rock style I favored.  And then that my talents were more suited to local community theater than the kind of unique career I wanted and I gave up the music dream.

In recent years when I contemplate my talents and desires and try to figure out who I’m meant to be and what I’m meant to do I often leave music out — I mean it really doesn’t cross my mind.  And if I do think about it I turn it around and contemplate it from different views.  I feel like I should want to because “they” always talk about how important it is to look at what you wanted to do as a child.  But as far as a life purpose or career pursuit, I just really don’t want to do music any more.

The Deva Premal series gave me a new idea.  I’ve also tried lots of different paths and never had much sense that one was more my path than another.  I like being eclectic.  But I’m now thinking that I would like to pursue the singing chants more.  SInging those chants opened up something in me that nothing else has and created an amazing flow.

I wouldn’t necessarily chant to the exclusion of all else but if I were going to start taking workshops again or look for a teacher, I think it would have to do with singing chants or kirtan.  It feels like a perfect way to express that musical side and at the same time follow my spiritual path — without having to make it a career or purpose.  In the  meantime I have plenty to learn and sing with on Deva’s Mantras for Precarious Times, Moola Mantra, and Gayatri.  And if I can find lyrics for them, I have a small kirtan collection.  So I’ll be singing along with recordings for now.

Sometimes it seems to take me a very long time to work through things like this but when the right moment comes and things start coming together, wow.  I can often see that I needed years of gathering bit and pieces to get to a more complete picture.  Do you have any loves or desires that don’t seem to have a place?  Or could use a re-purposing?

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• Deva Premal Concert & Falling In Love with the Gayatri Mantra (mantrasandmiracles.wordpress.com)
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During my Marin visit last spring I realized that Buddhism isn’t for me and that my path is eclectic and leans a lot into New Age/New Thought.  Ever since then synchronicity has been afoot. I found a whole new array of bloggers whose paths are a lot like mine and new practices and ideas keep finding me.

At a time when the unwinding head stuff has seriously interfered with my practices and exercises (all that not sleeping alternating with migraines…) suddenly lots of challenges have popped up that just ask me to spend 10-15 min./day for limited periods of time and I’ve found that perfect in these circumstances.  The latest one came from a heads up in The Daily Love about a Gabrielle Bernstein video on YouTube in which she explains a short meditation called the Ego Eradicator.  The video is:  A Meditation to Bust Through Your Blocks.

It’s just three minutes of a mudra while doing breath of fire, followed by three minutes of quiet meditation (I’ve just been using the Buddhist of practice of breathe in, “I calm the body”, breathe out, “I smile”).  It instantly felt like my next step after completing the Deva Premal meditation series.  Having loved the Deva Premal chants I decided that I wanted to add the chant to destroy obstacles — seemed like the perfect pairing with a meditation to bust blocks.  (see notes below from yoga teacher me for suggestions regarding this practice–if you don’t practice pranayama and/or haven’t done breath of fire I highly recommend that you follow them)

One of the things I learned from the meditation series is that the tradition of chanting 108 times relates to the 108 major nadis in the body.  Nadis are the energy channels through which prana flows.  Chanting 108 times balances the body.  It helps attune you to the vibration of that particular mantra.  All the tracks on Deva’s Mantras for Precarious Times have a mantra chanted 108 times and it includes Om Gum Ganapatayei Namaha, the chant to Ganesha, destroyer of obstacles.

Gabby’s video suggests that you do the ego eradicator for 40 days and I’ve committed to that.  I’m going to try to add Om Gum… each time but I’m giving myself permission to do just the three minutes of breath of fire with a quiet time.  I’ve done three days now of the three pieces, which takes a little less than 15 minutes and it feels GREAT!

You can also leave comments about your Sunday prayer, chant, meditation practice here for Collective Prayer Sundays.

Practice suggestions:  Most of my students who haven’t practiced pranayama find breath of fire challenging and if they do too much they experience dizziness/lightheadedness and discomfort.  I generally start them off with Bellows Breath, which is basically breath of fire slowed down.  Take a big inhale while pushing the abdomen out and then a big exhale while squeezing the abs in to release all air.  It sounds a bit like fire-place bellows. It helps to practice the motion of pressing the abdomen out with the inhale and sucking it in on the exhale slowly.  While that’s actually the natural way to breathe, in this country we usually reverse that pattern so this is a struggle for many people. Practice the pattern until it feels easy before trying to speed it up to breath of fire, which Gabby demonstrates on the video.

Once you have the abs motion I suggest you try 10 breaths of fire and stop to see how you feel.  If that’s no problem, try 20.  Do 20 for a few days, then try 40.  When you get to a minute start going up by 30 second increments every few days till you can do three minutes.  Then add the arms-in-the-air mudra.  It is seriously not a great idea to start off trying to do three minutes of breath of fire.  Breath of fire is not recommended for people with high blood pressure, heart disease or risk of strokes — talk to your doctor before trying this.

Wikimedia by Kborland

Since I finished the enemies challenge for Collective Prayer Sundays shortly before I left town I’m slow writing a post about it.  It gave me some time to think about it.  The challenge for me came out differently than in the past and I’ve never quite decided whether I felt it succeeded or not.

In the lead-up to the beginning of the Iraq War I got tired of the bombastic e-mails and messages from “peace” groups and decided to chant the lovingkindness chant on my own for President Bush, Osama bin Laden, world leaders.  Mostly I chanted for Bush  I chanted half an hour every day for a couple of weeks.  When I started I despised President Bush.

During the course of the chanting my heart softened and I felt the Divine heart of the Prez.  It wasn’t that I suddenly became a Republican or agreed with his positions on… anything.  But I could love the Divine being while not agreeing with what he said and did.  Many times when I led a group in the chant I watched the same impact occur for others.

I chose my late aunt to chant for because I realize every now and then that the forgiveness I felt at her deathbed didn’t stick (see earlier post).   She had no children and I was an only so our relationship was a bit more complex than the average aunt/niece one.  I adored her when I was little but her nasty tongue and mean drunk episodes turned me off by the time I was 11 or so and our relationship was often adversarial after that.  Anyway, I wanted to put the remaining bitterness to rest.

The first two-three days I could feel a stony place in my heart that had her name on it.  After that I realized when I chanted that it was gone.  Before I got to seven days I did one of my “consult the council” meditations during which I was told that i was done with the chanting for my aunt.  I had one or two left to do and it felt odd to leave my own challenge but I try to follow that guidance so I let it go.

I’d like to say that I had some dramatic release or feeling of being freed or a moment when I knew all was forgiven.  But really, it all felt kind of vague.  She’s been dead long enough that she doesn’t really enter my thoughts all that often but I feel relatively benign when I think of her now.  I didn’t experience a big shift this time.  Long ago I saw the wounded heart in her.  I guess I’d say this softened my feeling more and yet I still think she was a mean bitch.  That just doesn’t make me as mad as it used to.

I haven’t heard much from those of you I know participated.  Would love to read a post (put a link to me please so I know) or leave a comment here.

The new challenge.  Regular readers know that I put together a big ceremony a couple of weeks ago to break the hold of an ancestor on me and my line.  Click here to see the script.  I think we all have issues from the past that block us from being truly peaceful.  Sometimes the issues are from childhood, sometimes they’re from ancestral patterns, sometimes they’re from past lives.  My challenge to you is to pick an issue of whatever variety and create your own ceremony/ritual to release that issue.

You can see from my outline that I planned a long ceremony and incorporated elements from several traditions.  Several posts in the next week after the ceremony describe each part of the ceremony (one still to come).  You don’t have to use a single thing that I used, but feel free to check it out and incorporate anything you want.  Pick a practice or practices from any tradition(s) you wish, make it as long or as short as you wish (I recommend that it be at least 10 minutes).  I want you to have time to look inward, decide what issue you want to release and to take your time planning what you want to do so you have until midnight on Sunday October 27 to complete the ceremony.

Don’t hesitate to get in touch if you want suggestions.  There’s a private comment box on the CPS page and you can also e-mail me at collpraysun at gmail dot com.

As always, please tell us about your experience in your comments or write a post about it and include a link to this blog and tag it CollPraySun or start a discussion on the Facebook page.

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I’ve been posting on the Scribblings blog about my recent trip–with my mother–back to my home town of Flint, MI.  Our strange experiences on the travel to and from have had me thinking about the space/time continuum  and I thought maybe that topic fits here better.

Now I’ve heard from early days in this journey about space and time just being constructs, etc. and my first teacher used to talk about how to stretch time — she’d use it when she had to make an hour’s drive and be someplace in 45 minutes and she’d get there on time.  It always seemed too much for me and never seemed important enough compared to the other issues I’ve been dealing with to look into it. But I have been interested.

I had my own, unintentional, experience at the end of Nine Gates’ second session at Joshua Tree when I left in a greatly altered state and 2 hours later than I thought I would.  I headed toward San Jose, where a friend expected me.  The trip would normally be 8-10 hours (depending on traffic conditions and speed).  I put the car in cruise control not much above the speed limit and settled in for a long journey.  All the way I still floated in the expanded space of Mystery School — and arrived at my friend’s house six hours later.

Anyway, I’ve kept up a bit of fascination with time and the way it seems to stretch and shrink and go faster and slower — often just depending on mood or circumstances — mostly in ways that don’t actually defy the ordinary rules of time.  I’ve noticed that when someone who feels heavy is in the car a trip takes longer than normal.  And sometimes things seem to move fast even when the clock and the miles are staying the same.

On the way up to Michigan we left on a Sunday afternoon for a four hour drive to Findlay, OH, with plans to eat in Dayton on the way.  Though traffic was heavier than we hoped, we moved at a good speed and hit Dayton at the expected time.  And it felt like we’d been travelling since morning.  It’a short hop from Dayton to Findlay but time dragged even more.  Although we took exactly the four hours, we felt like we’d driven from the Everglades in a day instead of from Lexington and we were exhausted.  I have no explanation for that one as to emotions or expectations impacting the trip.

On the way back, tired and in a lot of traffic I somehow landed in a wrong lane around Ann Arbor and got on the wrong freeway without either of us realizing that we’d gotten off track.  We’re not that familiar with the area south of Ann Arbor so it wasn’t registering with me that nothing seemed familiar and I wasn’t looking at highway signs because I thought I was still on 23.  We stopped for lunch and I just headed in the same direction without looking at signs.  So it was some time after lunch that it finally registered with me that we should have hit the road around Toledo long since and then I saw the I-94 signs to the side.  By the time I was able to turn around we’d gotten to Battle Creek — an hour off course with an hour back to Ann Arbor…

At first my heart sank.  Then I let all that spiritual practice kick in with the realization that no amount of fretting or being mad or upset would do anything to change the fact that we just added two hours to the trip and we weren’t even out of Michigan.  I resigned myself to the late arrival and Mom–unusually– seemed to become resigned when I did.  I made sure that we stopped often enough for her to get to move around a bit, which always seems to help both of us and quit worrying about time.

I’d made arrangements to stop in Findlay and pick up a pound of coffee and what had been a no problem stop became a nail biter as to whether we’d get there before they closed, so that did disturb the peace a bit from Toledo to Findlay but I kept breathing and reminding myself that we’d get there or not — no tragedy either way.  We got off the freeway at 5 and for some reason we decided to just chance it.  The place was locked but someone was still in and she let me in to get the coffee.

In spite of all the angst and the much longer day of driving that became even longer than expected, we weren’t complaining about how slow the trip home seemed and we weren’t nearly as tired as we were on the first day.

I’m interested to hear from you — do you experience time differently in different circumstances?  Have you ever stepped outside the space/time continuum?  Do emotions impact how time seems to flow?

By Michel Royon on Wikimedia

Sunday was the 20th day of Deva Premal and Miten’s 21 Day Meditation series and I was a little behind.  So when it was time to do my Sunday peace prayer I also wanted to do the meditation that would catch me up and have me ready for the big Gayatri day on Monday.

I’ve really loved this 21 days of chanting but the 20th entry disappointed me a little.  Instead of openly singing the chant they had written a song that expressed the sentiments of the chant.  I listened for quite a while before realizing there was a chorus of the chant going on so subtly in the background that I didn’t realize it was happening.  I’ve loved singing the chants and they have opened my heart and gotten my energy flowing so just lying there listening to this song didn’t do it for me.

I have the chant, Om Kama Pujitayei Namaha, on their Mantras for Precarious Times so I chanted with that before getting to metta.  The chant brought me to saying the lovingkindness chant from such a lovely, open space, I may sing one of those chants before I chant for peace every time.

The last couple of months has brought a variety of challenges that have asked me to do some practice or another regularly– sometimes I’ve been doing two or three at once and having to get in several things.  I’ve been loving the way it has kept me immersed and moving and opening.  That included one of Deepak’s 21 day meditation series.  I’ve done 4 or 5 of his series now and enjoyed them but none for me have compared with the extraordinary experience of singing these chants with Deva.

The culmination was a an invitation to the world to join in Gayatri on the 21st day.  Suggested times were 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.  I was slightly late for the 7 p.m. time but got in soon enough to overlap with people who started on time.  I felt such power from the chant and the sense of energy connecting around the world that I played the chant on a repeating loop softly in the background for the rest of the evening.

I’ve been listening to Deva’s chants for a few years now but, not knowing the words to most of them, I didn’t sing along.  The chants have such power that you can keep a track or a CD repeating and the energy in a room starts shifting.  So I’ve felt their power but still it came as a surprise to sing the chants and feel their power surge through me.  I’m hooked!

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Notes

1. CPS open for comment; see CPS page for info; pray, chant, etc. minimum 10 min.  Facebook page
2. Monday, September 30, for the last day of her 21 day meditation series, Deva Premal is inviting the world to participate in the Gayatri Mantra at 7 a.m. and/or 7 p.m. (or help the wave keep going by doing it when you can that day).  Go to this page to register and get access to the chant.  ”It is said that this sacred prayer spirals through the entire universe from the heart of the chanter, appealing for peace and divine wisdom for all.”  See this site for more info.

For my ceremony I used others’ chants for the first segment but wrote my own spells for the two main pieces.  I did a lot of hunting but couldn’t find any spells that came close to accomplishing what I wanted and I felt like I wanted it to be mine anyway.  Most of it is self-explanatory (full ceremony script here).

The first one I wrote to call in my guides and ancestors.  Since Robyn’s vision of my ancestor was that she gathered powerful magic to shut down “the sight” for our line, I figured I needed powerful magic to break her spell.  Since I’m something below  a novice at wicca I felt I wanted assistance in bringing enough magic to the ceremony to counteract hers.

In the second chant I felt my two big challenges were to create wording specific enough to create the desired outcome and to write it so that other people in my line could be freed if they wanted to be but not to impact anyone who didn’t desire it and so that the ancestor could stay stuck as she apparently wants to.

When I called in my ancestors I felt the energy in the circle grow powerful and when I chanted to break the spell, I felt a big energy fly up from me.  Otherwise, as I mentioned at the time, no dramatic impact.  It just felt like I did what I set out to do and it felt GREAT!  I highly recommend creating your own ceremony for important issues.

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• Breaking the Ancestor’s Spell (bluegrassnotes.wordpress.com)
• Cranio-Sacral, Completion, and Challenge (bluegrassnotes.wordpress.com)
• The Witch is Back (bluegrassnotes.wordpress.com)
• Ceremony Breakdown: Protection (bluegrassnotes.wordpress.com)

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My sense that I needed to add a protection piece stemmed, to be honest, from my vague understanding of things like wicca and calling in spirits and being locked down by a dead ancestor…  I generally prefer to assume positive outcomes.  But in this case I wasn’t sure what the to-be-banished-ancestor could do and I wanted to have boundaries set so that when I called in ancestors and guides, no miscellaneous unwanted entities could show up.

After looking through my books and searching on the internet I chose two spells from a web site, Wiccan Spells,  You can see the two spells on the post about the ceremony.  I chose one to close my mind to outside influence mainly to block any possibility that the ancestor whose spell I attempted to break could affect me.  The other, the Golden Mist Shield Spell was to create a safe sacred space inside the circle.  The main point for that one was to make sure when I called the ancestors and guides that only high vibration entities could join my ceremony.

For me setting protection mainly served to underscore my usual intent for only positive, highest good outcomes.  I felt that by creating a ritual for that I bolstered my expectation of only good outcomes.  There are lots of protection spells out there.  I liked these two because they’re simple and don’t require props or hunting through the woods searching for the feathers of an obscure bird…  I also sprinkled salt, a traditional wiccan protection measure, around the circle.  It’s supposed to prevent evil from entering.

Between the chants creating a high vibration and the protection spells, I felt that I sat in a strong, safe place when I got to the meat of the ceremony.  That made it exactly the ceremony I wanted.

Related articles

• Ceremony Breakdown: The Chants (bluegrassnotes.wordpress.com)
• Ceremony plans – and CPS open for comment (bluegrassnotes.wordpress.com)
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