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Tuesday, October 25, 2011

What is Evolutionary Activism?

INTEGRAL EVOLUTIONARY PALOOZA
A Meta-Sangha Gathering for Integral Evolutionaries

How can individuals and communities become agents of cultural transformation?
What is evolutionary activism?


Sacred Center Friends!

Here is something you should know about!  My friends at IAC (the Integral Awakening Center) are putting on a happening Saturday, November 5th, in San Francisco! Discover what is meant by I am excited by the emergence of these new formats in our local spiritual scene, and am doing what I can to support them by forwarding this message and also teaching at the eventRegister by Oct 31st and save 25%!

Blessings,

Anodea Judith
Integral Evolutionary Palooza
A meta-sangha gathering for integral evolutionaries

18 Teachers
30 Organizations
1 Question...

How can individuals become agents of cultural transformation?

Save 25%  (off door price)
Early-Bird Sale ends Oct 31st

Click image above for larger view.

Saturday, Nov. 5th    [10:30-6:00pm]

Early-Bird Sale Ends Oct 31st
Reserve your spot now!

Sat. Nov. 5th
10:30-6:00pm
1187 Franklin St, San Francisco
More info:  http://www.integralawakeningcenter.com/Palooza.html


Anodea's Upcoming Calendar
Join Anodea Judith for a Transformational Workshop. You will come away invigorated and changed!
 

“I feel more alive and whole and more real. I feel I have made changes at a core level - changes that will stay with me.” -M.D. Psychotherapist

“I think I’ll be processing and benefiting from this experience for the rest of my life.” -M.C.

2 0 1 1


October 2011


Lenox, MA
October 16-21, 2011

Kripalu Yoga Center
Mind-Body Integration
Reg. and info: 1-800-741-7353

Lenox, MA
October 23-28, 2011

Kripalu Yoga Center
Chakra Yoga Teacher Training 

1-800-741-7353


November 2011


New Hope (Philadelphia), PA
November 11-13, 2011

Yogaphoria7 Windows to the Soul
215.862.4041


December 2011


St. Augustine, FL
December 9-11

Seven Windows to the Soul
Transformation Through the Chakras

Discovery Yoga

2 0 1 2


February 2012


Lenox, MA
February 17-20, 2012

Kripalu Yoga Center
Seven Wonders of the Soul
Reg. and info:
1-800-741-7353

Lenox, MA
February 20-24, 2012

Kripalu Yoga Center
Creation is Ecstasy Breakthrough Workshop
Formerly known as Manifestation through the Chakras
1-800-741-7353

March 2012


Petaluma, CA
3/3 – 3/4: Sat 12:30–8:30, Sun 11:30–6

Bodyworks Yoga 
$250
Chakra Yoga workshop:
Seven Wonders of the Soul: Transformation Through the Chakras 
email or call 707-769-9933

Dallas, TX
March 23-27
Dallas Yoga Center
Mind-Body Integration
Therapeutic Techniques for Wholeness

New York, NY
March 30 – April 1

New York Open Center
Seven Windows to the Soul
212-219-2527

May 2012

Sacred Centers Immersion! Details coming soon.

June 2012

Copenhagen, Denmark
June 22-24
Sponsored by the ID Academy
Seven Windows to the Soul
Ringsted, Denmark
June 27 - July 
1

Sponsored by the ID Academy
Mind-Body Integration


August 2012


Lenox, MA
August 3-10, 2012

Kripalu Yoga Center 
1-800-741-7353
Chakra Awakening


October 2012


Lenox, MA
October 14-19, 2012

Kripalu Yoga Center
Mind-Body Integration
Reg. and info: 1-800-741-7353

Lenox, MA
October 21-26, 2012

Kripalu Yoga Center
Chakra Yoga Teacher Training
1-800-741-7353


Friday, October 14, 2011

The Power of Story


The Power of Story

Stories have shaped civilizations, created religions, cultures, villages, and lives. They have started and ended everything from wars to relationships. They steer politics and policy, consumption of the planet, or its potential for a new way. They are deeply embedded in our consciousness, teachers of meaning and morality. A good story can create a new world.


Think of the myths that have guided humanity since time began. The myth of Inanna’s descent to the underworld. The myth of the virgin birth. The myth of the fairy goddess-mother who grants every wish. The myth of the evil stepmother who does just the opposite, tales of the Good King, the Wasteland and the lost Grail, or the perfect Love Story of happily-ever-after.

These may seem like tales of the past, but even now we are guided by myths, perhaps less Godly: The myth of the American Dream, where you can achieve anything you want. The myth of the good mother who self-sacrifices. The myth of the Hero who will save the world. The myth that the goal of life is to make as much money as you can. Stories are evolutionary drivers.

Our world today is longing for a new story about how to create our future. As you create your dream, you have a chance to contribute to this story. You can also consider what story is guiding you in creating your dream.  Is it the story of fame and fortune? The pursuit of the perfect love? A story of fighting injustice, where you set right a terrible wrong? A mystery story that you are allowing to unfold, one that is unknown, even to you?


The story that guides my life is the fairy tale about how the baby of the King and Queen gets sent down the river, and must find his or her way back to the Kingdom (I prefer kin-dom)-- a story that represents the journey of seeking divine consciousness. The next chapter in that story of seeking, known as the Hero’s Quest, is the Return Home. This is the path of the avatar, the path of manifestation.

The Hero’s Quest is an ancient motif that runs through many myths and stories through time and across cultures. It starts with an ailing world, a world that has lost its magic, a world where people are no longer happy, no longer singing the song of life together in harmony. The Hero longs to heal the world, but must first leave that very world to break the spell of the old story. Outside the community he goes on his quest. The quest is full of terrible danger, mythic mysteries that must be solved, dragons to be slayed, and wise ones to be sought. After many long and arduous adventures, he awakens from his trance. He has a realization, meaning that he sees with real eyes. The Hero solves (or discovers) the mystery and through this breakthrough finds the elixir of healing – the magic formula of wisdom and maturity that can heal the ailing world.

Though he thinks the challenges are behind him, he discovers an even further challenge when he returns home with the elixir. He discovers the world has no interest in his magic potion. His words of wisdom fall on deaf ears. The people in the ailing world don’t even admit they’re ailing, much less want to change. They slam doors in his face, laugh at his efforts, disbelieve his stories. His only tool is to be the living proof of his magic, igniting the curiosity around him to wonder about his secret. By living his discovered truth, he prevails at last and the community moves toward healing.

This is our story today. We have ventured up and out to discover transcendent mysteries, to develop technologies, to travel to the stars. But our world at home is ailing and in need of healing. Albert Einstein said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”  We must break the spell to create something entirely new. We must get outside the world to think outside the box.  This is why detachment and emptiness are so important. Creativity means creating something new and different.


* * * * * * * * * * * * *

This is an excerpt from the book on manifestation through the chakras tentatively titled:  Co-Creating Heaven on Earth co-authored by Anodea Judith and Lion Goodman due to be released through Sounds True in October 2012. Stay tuned!



We must live the new way in order to make change. We can be shining examples and learn to manifest from the highest principles to create Heaven on Earth. 


* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Make plans now for the next Manifestation Live workshop or join in our ongoing teleseminar, both listed below.



Creation is Ecstasy!
Manifesting Through the Chakras

A Breakthrough Workshop



Lenox, MA

February 20-24, 2012
Kripalu Yoga Center
Creation is Ecstasy Breakthrough Workshop

1-800-741-7353


"The workshop was absolutely fantastic. Anodea and Lion area a great teaching team, very compassionate, wise, grounded, and able to hold a space where everyone and everything is honored and sacred. The workshop was powerful for me in clarifying my life purpose, vision and goals for the future, and how to get there from here. This workshop was such a gift." -S Gibson






Mind-Body Integration:
Energy Dynamics as a Path to Wholeness

with Anodea Judith



October 16-21, 2011
Kripalu Yoga Center 
Lenox, MA


Therapeutic Techniques for Wholeness:
A 5-day experiential course in transformational healing with Anodea Judith

* Are you a psychotherapist who would like to expand beyond talk therapy and learn to address the body in your practice?

* Are you a bodyworker who would like to understand the psychological issues behind your clients chronic complaints?

* Are you a somatic therapist who would like to expand your skills?


The body is the unconscious mind. Learn how to awaken the consciousness within this miraculous organism and harvest its deep wisdom for spirit and soul.

This 5-day workshop for healers of all types will bring you cutting edge techniques for integrating mind and body. Providing a backbone of theory for somatic therapy, students will have a chance to explore new techniques through movement and self-exploration, as well as in-class demonstrations and practice with each other.

Topics addressed will include:

  • The energetics of charging and discharging
  • Formation and dissolution of body armor
  • Bioenergetic character structures and childhood development
  • Post-traumatic stress disorders
  • Understanding and treating trauma
  • Use of the chakra system in energetic diagnosis
  • The role of disease in transformation and the language of symptomatology

30 CEU’s possible for therapists, social workers, and yoga teachers.

"Anodea is a brilliant therapist and workshop leader. She has the capacity to get to the heart of whatever is going on within minutes and support you through vast creative therapeutic resources to make enormous progress in just one session. " - S. King, H. Crecraft


800-741-7353



Opening the Inner Temple:
Chakra Yoga Teacher Training

with Anodea Judith


October 23-28, 2011
Kripalu Yoga Center
Lenox, MA



The chakras represent the architecture of the human soul. As meeting points between mind and body, spirit and matter, the chakras form the yoke of yoga. As portals between the worlds, the chakras are the seven windows to the soul that connect the inner world with the outer.

Yoga is the spiritual language that opens these centers and brings us to the core consciousness of the divine within. Chakras are modulators of subtle energy and the goal is to free the prana to travel fully through the whole body: grounding your first chakra and rising through the core to the infinite consciousness of the crown.

In this training, yoga teachers and seasoned students will learn asanas through the lens of the chakra system. What postures do we use to open, stimulate, or relax various chakras? How do we read the body to understand the functioning of the chakras within? How do we combine opposites, such as opening and closing, holding and releasing, charging and discharging, to pump energy through the whole body-mind system? How do we incorporate breath, mantra and mudras into our chakra practice? How do we access and strengthen the core?

You will learn sun salute variations for each chakra, along with yoga and bioenergetic exercises for each chakra, along with chakra philosophy, pranayama, mantras, guided meditation and more.


Anodea is a 500hr RYT instructor which may make this class eligible for credit in other Yoga Teacher Trainings. 24 CEU’s possible for therapists, social workers, and yoga teachers.

1-800-741-7353



Manifesting Through the Chakras

Mastering the Spiritual Technology of
Co-Creating Heaven on Earth

with best-selling author Anodea Judith

7-Week Course
Wednesdays: 5:00pm Pacific / 8:00pm Eastern
September 14 – November 2, 2011
Calls are recorded so you can listen to any calls you missed!

No class on Wednesday, 9/28
Price: $287

Dear friends,
I wanted to let you know about two new Shift Network online courses being offered in September!

Manifesting through the Chakras is a 7-week course being led by best-selling author and one of the world's foremost experts on transformation through the chakras, Anodea Judith. She is best known for her groundbreaking book, Wheels of Life. Anodea has passionately dedicated her life to helping people realize their untapped potential and connect it to humanity's greatest needs, and she'll be guiding you through a powerful step-by-step plan to catapult you into the world of co-creating with Spirit, manifesting what your heart and soul truly desire and clearing the obstacles along the way. Visit this link to get all the details here. Course in Laughter is a 5-week course with internationally-known author and workshop leader Steve Bhaerman and cosmic comic cohort Swami Beyondananda.

Steve and the Swami are offering their breakthrough tools to bring more laugher into your life, transform negativity or pain, and help free your spirit to connect more deeply with the world and those around you. Check out all the details for this course here; it should be amazing!

 Warm regards,
 Anodea   


It's not too late to join!
New VIDEO-based Online Course
with Anodea Judith


 
Through the sponsorship of Sounds True publishing, Anodea has created an 8-week Online Course that contains video of the exercises for each chakra, as well as audio instruction and text, downloaded to your computer to use in your own time.

Starting August 18, once per week, you will receive a specially prepared lesson on each chakra, with video intro, audio instruction, video of exercises, and text of deeper ways to reflect on each chakra. This will come to your home computer and you will have these materials to keep forever.

Nearly 4 hours of video over 6 hours of audio, 100 pages of text, and live sessions as well. Don’t miss this exciting opportunity to have a multi-media chakra workshop in your own home and participate in ongoing study with Anodea Judith.

Started Aug 18!  If you have missed any material, it will be sent to you.
Learn more or purchase here


Anodea's Upcoming Calendar
Join Anodea Judith for a Transformational Workshop. You will come away invigorated and changed!

“I feel more alive and whole and more real. I feel I have made changes at a core level - changes that will stay with me.” -M.D. Psychotherapist

“I think I’ll be processing and benefiting from this experience for the rest of my life.” -M.C.

2011


October 2011


Lenox, MA
October 16-21, 2011

Kripalu Yoga Center
Mind-Body Integration
Reg. and info: 1-800-741-7353

Lenox, MA
October 23-28, 2011

Kripalu Yoga Center
Chakra Yoga Teacher Training 

1-800-741-7353


November 2011


New Hope (Philadelphia), PA
November 11-13, 2011

Yogaphoria7 Windows to the Soul
215.862.4041


December 2011


St. Augustine, FL
December 9-11

Seven Windows to the Soul
Transformation Through the Chakras

Discovery Yoga

2012


February 2012


Lenox, MA
February 17-20, 2012

Kripalu Yoga Center
Seven Wonders of the Soul
Reg. and info:
1-800-741-7353

Lenox, MA
February 20-24, 2012

Kripalu Yoga Center
Creation is Ecstasy Breakthrough Workshop
Formerly known as Manifestation through the Chakras
1-800-741-7353

March 2012


Petaluma, CA
3/3 – 3/4: Sat 12:30–8:30, Sun 11:30–6

Bodyworks Yoga 
$250
Chakra Yoga workshop:
Seven Wonders of the Soul: Transformation Through the Chakras 
email or call 707-769-9933

Dallas, TX
March 23-27
Dallas Yoga Center
Mind-Body Integration
Therapeutic Techniques for Wholeness

New York, NY
March 30 – April 1

New York Open Center
Seven Windows to the Soul
212-219-2527

May 2012

Sacred Centers Immersion! Details coming soon.

June 2012

Copenhagen, Denmark
June 22-24
Sponsored by the ID Academy
Seven Windows to the Soul
Ringsted, Denmark
June 27 - July 
1

Sponsored by the ID Academy
Mind-Body Integration


August 2012


Lenox, MA
August 3-10, 2012

Kripalu Yoga Center 
1-800-741-7353
Chakra Awakening



October 2012


Lenox, MA
October 14-19, 2012

Kripalu Yoga Center
Mind-Body Integration
Reg. and info: 1-800-741-7353

Lenox, MA
October 21-26, 2012

Kripalu Yoga Center
Chakra Yoga Teacher Training
1-800-741-7353


When Understanding is Not Enough


When Understanding is Not Enough


written by Anodea Judith


Many are the clients who come to me from years of traditional therapy and say, “I’ve done all this work on myself and learned all about how my problems are connected with this and that from my childhood — but it still hasn’t changed.” This is often because traumatic experiences are stored within the tissues and muscles of the body, becoming chronic holding patterns, known as body armor, that keep us from feeling energetic, healthy, and peaceful. Unless we address the “issues in our tissues,” our unconscious responses stored in the body become habitual recreators of patterns we would prefer to move beyond.

Talk therapy can be extremely helpful in understanding the source of these issues, but may do little to change health problems, or dissolve the chronic tension held in the musculature. Bodywork therapies, on the other hand, may do much to help relieve tension, restructure one’s alignment, or make contact with deeper issues, but if this material is not processed into consciousness, the mind cannot implement the necessary changes in one’s life to make this healing permanent. Thus we return each week to our bodyworker with the same sore shoulders or aching back.

Mind - Body therapies work both sides of the equation at the same time - uniting the physical and the spiritual as an integrated whole. They link our psychological problems to the experience of the body and link our physical problems to the experience of the psyche. This gives us an embodied experience of being whole in the world - fully present, active, and aware.Artwork by Alex Grey
Alex Grey - Mirrors
The interface between mind and body is energy. We can think of the body as hardware, like a computer, and the mind as the software installed on that computer. But the hardware and software cannot work together unless there is electricity running through the system. Without energy, nothing works at all. If the current is not flowing smoothly - if the voltage is too high or too low - the programs will not run correctly, and the hardware itself may even become damaged.
So too with a human being. It is energy that enlivens both mind and body, allowing them to connect. The body runs that energy through its cells and muscles, and converts it into action. The mind, both conscious and unconscious, holds the programs that tell the body how to channel that energy - when to hold it in, when to let it out, how to coordinate a task, and how to heal oneself. The programs we hold in our minds - such as feeling unsafe, feeling unworthy, or feeling compelled to accomplish Herculean tasks - all run energy through the body in particular ways, creating either repression or overload. Bringing this into balance requires understanding the programs that are running our lives, and simultaneously getting down into the deeper structures within the tissues that have been hardwired for these programs.

The body is the unconscious mind. Filled with nerve endings that are the sensory receptors for that central processing unit called the brain, the body records everything that happens to us, and then speaks to us in its strange cellular language. Diseases are ways of telling us what the unconscious mind remembers that our ordinary consciousness has ignored. When these messages come to awareness, the body can be released from having to hold that message. Tension or disease is then free to dissolve, as the energy finds new and healthier pathways.

There are many systems for working the interface between mind and body, often loosely collected under the heading of “Somatic Therapy.” Bioenergetics is the art of moving energy through the body and dissolving body armor. Originating from Wilhelm Reich and then through Alexander Lowen, bioenergetics works with basic character structures — patterns of behavior and ways of holding the body that are inextricably linked. Bioenergetics works to unblock the energy, reinstating the natural flow, thus softening the tissues and simultaneously expanding the mind.

The chakras (energy centers in the body) are also points where the mind/body interface takes place. Together, the seven chakras, form a systematic link between the earthly orientation of physical survival, through the egoic realms of interpersonal relationships, and into the spiritual realms of transcendent consciousness - seeing them all as integrated steps along a continuum. To work through the chakras is to systematically work through the various levels in which mind and body connect.

 

Dance, movement, yoga, massage, and martial arts, are also forms of somatic therapy in that they address body and mind simultaneously. All can be used as healing modalities to enrich our experience in the world, and help to “get us out of our heads,” and more into the body. All provide a simultaneous spiritual experience - but one that is grounded in the body rather than intellectual abstractions.

The archetypal divorce between spirit and matter - which has fostered the severance of mind and body - is one of the greatest tragedies of our time, creating a wound that further separates culture and planet. To heal this separation - and reintegrate body and mind - is to move ourselves, and the world, toward greater health and wholeness.

Anodea Judith
1998

(A more detailed version of this article appears in an anthology called The Heart of Healing, ed. by Dawson Church, Santa Rosa, CA: Elite Books, 2004)