Read what has me fluttering and floating!
Dear Soul-Sibling,
I did not know the magnitude of Yosemite National Park. I had only been once and spent a single night in Yosemite Valley with all the people and activity.
I recently stayed seven nights secluded on the edge of the National Park in Foresta with a close friend. As I integrate, at home, in my zen-den, I recorded a podcast episode for you.
Jude and I hiked and cooked and gazed at stars. I listened to creeks, waterfalls and rivers and early mornings with owls. We followed the wind between lakes and drove to the top of Tiago Road at nearly10,000 feet above sea level. We rode our bikes and found wisdom and joy in the rhythm of mountain life.
Yosemite is internationally recognized for its cliffs, waterfalls, clear streams, giant sequoia groves, lakes, mountains, meadows, glaciers, and biological diversity. Almost 95 percent of the park is designated wilderness. Yosemite is one of the largest and least fragmented habitat blocks in the Sierra Nevada.
Its geology is characterized by granite and remnants of older rock. About 10 million years ago, the Sierra Nevada was uplifted and tilted to form its unique slopes, which increased the steepness of stream and river beds, forming deep, narrow canyons. About one million years ago glaciers formed at higher elevations. They eventually melted and moved downslope, cutting and sculpting the U-shaped Yosemite valley.
This has me fluttering and floating!
Are you allowing your life, especially the pain and struggle, to melt and move downslope? Cutting and sculpting a Yosemite-like valley within you?
I remember gazing down into the Grand Canyon for the first time in the Spring of 2017. I was only a couple years into sobriety and recovery and exploring spirituality with an official teacher (Adyashanti). It dawned on me, in this moment, on Grand Canyon's edge, watching the dance of light and shadow reveal the terrain, that getting to know my inner world felt very similar.
Adyashanti suggests, "The role of spiritual practice is basically to exhaust the seeker. If the practice does what it’s supposed to do, it exhausts our energy for seeking. And then reality has a chance to present itself."
Reality from this perspective was presenting itself with a powerful idea about my relationship with my inner world (spirituality).
Grand Canyon April 2017
Let me get this straight?
My practice might be pushing me to exhaust myself?
To wake me up and get me to pay attention to my life.
Asking me to surrender "seeking" in exchange for what's happening right now (mindfulness).
Today, here, now!
May I be at peace with the here and now.
Another facet, from Mark Nepo, reminds me that practice is shaping and creating an engagement with my life:
"Time and again, I keep learning that, for all my effort to shape and create, it is I who am shaped and created for my engagement with life."
Engagement with my life suggests an involvement.
How involved are you with your life? All of it.
Nepo continues:
"I’ve learned a great deal drifting in and out of wakefulness over the years. In the beginning, I used to do a lot of things—write, play music, draw, garden—one after another. But along the way, it stopped being about creating things and started being about the space that is opened in the act of creating. Now the experience of creating brings me such joy, because somehow I came to realize that it is the space that creating opens that saves me, not what it produces. Now it doesn’t matter if I finish anything. I just need to be in that space. In that holy interlude, I am grounded. Only when in conversation with what-is-eternal am I able to stand in a fundamental knowing that is unshakable. When I stand there, I feel calm. When I stand there, I’m attuned to different weather."
My new podcast episode explores these ideas.
I also published three stand-alone episodes encouraging mindfulness, meditation and imagery work:
1. Make Sit Happen: Healing Trauma, a guided meditation journey, written by Belleruth Naparstek.
This 23-minute guided meditation on trauma is delicious and powerful. While recording, it brought me back to the early 2000's when I trained with Belleruth and experienced the power of her deliberate and gentle imagery. Here's an excerpt from her narrative:
"Noticing a golden light glowing up from the ground, some distance away..... and, walking toward it, you slowly approach what looks like a glowing cave, or hollow..... with a hazy, golden light filtering out from it..... and you can see that this is a tunnel, but like no other, because it glows..... leading down into an older, deeper part of your heart..... and so the two of you enter.....continuing to breathe deeply and easily..... moving along the glowing pathway..... deeper and deeper..... sensing a sweet peace in the soft, golden air, that gently pillows around you..... and so you travel together down into the deep center of your heart."
2. Blue Noise (Waterfall) Foresta Falls (60 minutes)
Swap your brown noise, green, white, or violet for this unique Yosemite waterfall. Blue Noise, an offering from Foresta Falls, which is deep on the edge of Yosemite National Park (in Foresta, CA). Recorded on live, on location, Saturday, September 9, 2023 at 6:02PM PT.
3. Crane Creek, Foresta, CA (10 minutes)
Everyone should sit next to a creek and listen. The sound and music of Crane Creek only. Curated and recorded by Yours Bluely.
Listen where every you get your podcasts!
Fall Wise Circles start this week, and will be closing enrollment soon.
Now is the time!
Change is here (Happy Autumn), let's fall into new colors and community together.
You have three different circles to choose from:
Tuesdays for five weeks, 9AM-10:30AM PT
Wednesdays for five weeks, 4PM-5:30PM PT
Thursdays for five weeks, 2PM-3:30PM PT
Here's what Lisa says about here experience in a recent wise circle:
"Alexander facilitated a informative, deeply caring and inspiring circle that I will carry in my heart. Practicing poetry, music, art, movement & mindfulness with fellow soul seekers has inspired me to burst with creativity and love my life again. To be alive is the point. Simple and profound and it was lovely to be guided by such a gifted, gentle and wise teacher.”
Shaws says:
“Meeting weekly for a month in circle setting was a gift! I got so much out of our time together but also gained much from the musings, prompts, meditations, and assignments that Alexander gave us every week. He is a delight to work with.. highly recommend!”
It was simply magical! The wise circle brought so much wisdom and clarity to me during a dark period."
AJ says:
“Alexander's Wise Circle gave me a space where I could be witnessed as my realest self — messy emotions, processes and all. To be witnessed, and in turn witness others in their journeys, was very healing. We all deserve to have a space where we can show up exactly where we are at, and as exactly who we are. Spring Wise Circle gave me that. I can't wait to join again in another season!"
Do you have questions?
Do you want to hop on a 20 minute "coffee talk" exploration call?
Let me know how I can assist your enrollment. Hit reply to this email with your questions.
All my love to your next mindful step!
Yours Bluely,
Alexander
