Seane Corn
New Moon
April 30, 2022🌑
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This new moon, let us make this promise together to never ever look away…ever.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Mariupol, once one of the country’s most developed cities, is now a “Russian concentration camp among the ruins.”
For the refugees, for those who suffer, for all who simply want to leave in peace. jai ☮︎
A Safe Place To Land
The ocean is wild and over your head
And the boat beneath you is sinking
Don’t need room for your bags, hope is all that you have
So say the Lord’s Prayer twice, hold your babies tight
Surely someone will reach out a hand
And show you a safe place to land-Sara Bareilles
Migrants and immigrants, refugees all.
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Tuesday, February 15th, 2022
February 15, 2022
Power Path
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From author and yogi Sean Corn:
‘This February full moon, the Snow Moon, rising at the peak of our North American winter, symbolizes the challenges we all face when the world seems cold, dark, and stark.
Basking in the chilly illumination of this deep and reflective moon can allow us to confront our internal challenges, eliminate unhealthy physical and emotional habits, and release the resentments, resistance, and limiting beliefs that often keep us stuck in a cycle of self-sabotage. The full Snow moon brings a sense of renewed focus.’
Visionary Anatomy
December 13, 2021
“Our stability requires near-constant maintenance.” -Thomas Myers
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“Where does the body end and the mind begin? Where does the mind end and the spirit begin? They can’t be divided, as they are interrelated and but different aspects of the same all-pervading divine consciousness.” -B.K.S. Iyengar
Seane Corn, Revolution of the Soul:
“There is only one true revolution, and it begins within. End the internalized oppressive behavior by reframing the narratives we tell ourselves are true and heal from the ways that cultural, historical, generational, ancestral, and individual traumas have influenced our perception, and we will see an end to the pain and suffering the exist in the world. Why? Because when we heal the fractured parts of ourselves and learn to love who we are and the journey we’ve embarked upon for wholeness, we will see that same tender humanity in all souls. Doing the inner work creates compassion; it just does. Although doing to inner work is humbling and exposes the depths of our own humanity, it is only when can be fully in the human experience and see it for what is is ~ a process of being that opens us, through experience, to love ~ that we can love all the evolving, imperfect, and wondrous souls as they come home to themselves. So do your inner work and take action. Act as though lives depend on it, as though equality, justice, peace, and freedom depend on it. Because they do. Act like your own liberation depends on it. Because it does.”
Let’s wake up. Remember who we really are to each other, and do whatever needs to be done now in order to create a just, equal, happy, abundance, blessed, safe peace-filled, and loving world for all beings everywhere. It’s time.
“Cues from our mind body connection keep us safe and teach us how to accurately perceive both our limitations and our areas of strength. We wait patiently, trusting Gaia to lead us into a mature experience of who we are a physical, emotional, and spiritual being.” [Cindy Senarighi and Heidi Green]
Shakespeare
“We know who we are, but know not what we might become.”
Dualities and Dance
May 22, 2021“Our world thrives on dualities, our systems depend upon it, and participating in separation has become so normalized that it feels as natural as breathing.
How can we create balance within our selves? We change the system by changing the people who keep it alive, and that change begins with ourselves.
We contain within us the same fundamental forces that are found in nature: stability (tamas), energy (rajas), and harmony or basic goodness (sattva). These are called gunas in Sanskrit.
These three intertwine, in various ways, to create everything (visible and invisible) in the universe and within ourselves as well. All of this weaving together happens without us being conscious of it, but we can learn to pay attention to their individual characteristics so we can figure out how they work and how we can work with them.
The Gunas in Nature and Within
A sattvic world is one of abundance, beauty, order, and balance.
To achieve sattva, things need to get moving, and rajas is the guna that makes that happen.
Rajas governs the beginning of the life cycle, brings birth and growth. It’s what causes a seed to grow into a plant and the plant to flower.
Tamas predominates the end of the life cycle; it’s the destructive force that causes the plant to break apart, die back, and return to the soil. Sattva is the time in between, when the flower is in full bloom and beauty is all around us. Nothing can live without energy (rajas) There can be no harvest, no beauty without sativa, and there can be no rebirth without tamas.
All of nature depends on a healthy relationship between creation and destruction, rajas and tamas, to support the health and the vitality of the planet and all who abide there (sattva).
Just like in nature, our physical and mental health depend on the proper interplay among the gunas. When all three gunas are in balance, everything arises (rajas), abides (sattva), and dissolves (tamas), whether we’re talking about the life cycle of a plant, an idea, a pose, or a stage of life. 🌏
Rajas is the in-breath; tamas, the out-breath; and sattva, the gap in between, the silence where liberation can happen, where magic resides, and where everything is whole.” -Seane Corn
Dissolve into the shift.
March 14, 2021
We can not, we must not, return to what we were before.
Let us embrace and dissolve into a global shift as we begin to settle into what it is we are needed to become.
Pandemic
Traumatic
Stress
Experience
P T S E
‘For the inequities this pandemic has exposed, kindle in our ♡’s a new commitment to justice. For the ways in which our ♡’s have been broken & put back together differently, be softer & more attuned to the needs of the vulnerable, mindful of those most in need.’ [Salt Project]
I have held many things in my hands, and have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess.”
-Martin Luther
S U R R E N D E R
INSHVARA PRANIDHANA
“TO DEDICATE YOURSELF…AND SURRENDER…THE ALL-PERVADING CONSCIOUSNESS, OR DIVINE ESSENCE, IS THE IDEAL OF ISHVARA PRANIDHANA. SURRENDER DOES NOT MEAN GIVING UP OR FEELING DEFEATED. IT MEANS GIVING YOURSELF OVER TO A HIGH PURPOSE, SEEING THE ‘BIGGER PICTURE,’ GETTING OUT OF THE WAY IN ORER FOR THE SOUL TO EVOLVE. IT REQUIRES THAT YOU SURRENDER TO THE MYSTERY AND TRUST THAT THE UNIVERSE WILL PRESENT WHAT YOU NEED, WHEN YOU NEED IT. IT MEANS THAT YOU MUST DEDICATE THEIR MERITS OF YOUR ATIONS TO SOMETHING BIGGGER THAN YOURSELF. EVERYTHING YOU DO MUST IN SOME SMALL WAY TO BENEFIT ALL LIFE.” -Seane Corn
PEACE.
Silence, whispers and love.
February 22, 2021‘In the Bhagavad Gita we are told that we transcend our suffering to the degree that we are able to passionately employ our gifts in the service of others.’
-Rolph Gates & Katrina Kenison
‘Let us be silent so we may hear the whisper of God.’
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
“One day, if you ever write a book, tell them you got this from your dying dad: ‘Love big, forgive always, do good, and don’t be an asshole’
‘L O V E. Let love lead your life and your choices. Let it become who you are, and just be grateful. For all of it. Life is really heard, but it’s also really good, and it’s all yours, my baby. So grab it hard, hold it tight, learn all you can. Experience everything, and when it comes time to let go, like I need to now, just be thankful for it all.’
-Seane Corn’s dad
(Seane’s dad passed from cancer around 10 years ago.)
Ahimsa.
January 12, 2021
[A 10-year-old girl’s letter to the police officer seen being crushed in the insurrection riot at the Capitol building on January 6th, 2021.]
“Sorrow is my meditation.” -Dr. Jan Peppler
‘Our suffering has been trying to communicate with us, to let us know it is there, but we have spent a lot of time and energy ignoring it.
The suffering inside us contains the suffering of our fathers, our mothers, and our ancestors.
Our suffering reflects the suffering of the world.
Understanding suffering always brings compassion.’
-Thich Nhat Hanh
We are beaten and blown by the wind, blown the wind, oh when I go there, I go there with you, it’s all I can do.
-U2
‘Despite the terrific beating we were experiencing at the hands of fate, each of us still living out his faith. Even in the presence of extraordinary pain, we were taking right action, we were attending to our practice, each in her own way.
As I listened to the lyrics of this song, the depth of my commitment to my own spiritual path became clear to me.
Marianne Williamson, in her spiritual guidebook a Return to Love, “If you want to end darkness, you cannot beat it with a baseball bat, you have to turn on the light.”
We do not need to enter a showdown with our self-destructive behavior, nor can we deny its existence. We must simply come to now it, and move on. We learn to focus wholeheartedly on positive behavior.’
-Rolf Gates and Katrina Kenison
Additionally, ahimsa/non-violence practiced not only in behavior and thought, but also a vow to disrupt violence.
From Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, lawyer, author, and professor: “We are all implicated when we allow other people to be mistreated. An absence of compassion can corrupt the decency of a community, a state, a nation.”
From yoga teacher, practitioner, author and activist Seane Corn.
Dearest friends,
I intended this letter to be about the New Year, wishing you all the brightest and the best for 2021.
Sadly, so quickly into the year, the Capitol building in the US was assaulted by domestic terrorists, and, once again, this nation is in trauma and turmoil.
I am devastated by the events in DC and horrified by the people who caused so much suffering to democracy in the US. It’s tragic but not surprising. It felt like it was moving in this direction for a very long time.
Although this moment in history is sad and discouraging, I continue to commit to re-imagining a future that is happy, healthy, and peaceful for ALL and holding on to hope that justice will prevail and healing will occur for us in the US and throughout the world.
I hope you are doing okay. That you are breathing, staying in communication with your friends, family, and support system, and doing your yoga, meditation, and healing work.
I am sending you so much love to you and your family.
God bless,
The world cries out for compassion.
♡
Ahimsa.
January 4, 2021Non-Violence.
In thought, language, and behavior.
“We must disrupt harm whenever we encounter it.”
-Yogi & Activist Seane Corn
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Ernest Holmes:
‘New arts, new sciences, new philosophies, better government, and a high civilization wait on our thoughts. The infinite energy of Life, and the possibility of our future evolution, work through our imagination and will. The time is ready the place is where we are now, and it is done unto all as they really believe and act.’
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Pierre Teilhard de Chardin:
‘Fuse the powers of the sacred heart with the energies of the body, and you can transform everything.’
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2 Corinthians 4:16/The Message:
‘So, we’re not giving up. How could we! Even thought on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where GAIA is making new life, not a day goes by without Her unfolding grace.’
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Rolph Gates & Katrina Kenison:
‘At a Native American gathering in Arizona for the 1999 summer solstice, a Hopi elder said: “There is a river flowing now, very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart and suffer greatly. Know that the river has its destination.
The elders say we must push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open and our heads above the water. See who is in there with you and celebrate.
At this time in history we are to take nothing personally, least of all ourselves, for the moment we do that, our spiritual growth comes to a halt.
The time of the lone wolf is over.
Gather yourselves; banish the work ‘struggle’ from your attitude and vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred way and in celebration. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.’
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The Enlightened Heart, p. 86:
‘With the happiness held in one inch-square heart you can find the whole space between heaven and earth.’
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Hildegard of Bingen:
‘Divinity is in its omniscience and omnipotence like a wheel, a circle, a whole, that can neither be understood, nor divided, nor begun, nor ended.’
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Mark Nepo:
‘Each person is born with an unencumbered spot…free of expectation and regret…free of ambition and embarrassment, free of fear and worry…an umbilical spot of grace where we were each first touched by God, Spirt, Sophia, Gaia.
It is this spot of grace that issues pace. Psychologists call this spot the Psyche, theologians call it the Soul, Jung calls it the Seat of the Unconscious, Hindu masters call it Atman, Buddhists call it Dharma, Rilke calls it Inwardness, Sufis call it Qalb, and Jesus calls it the Center of our Love.
To know this spot of Indwardness is to know who we are, not by surface markers of identity, not by where we work to what we wear how how we like to be addressed, but by feeling our place in relation to the Infinite and by inhabiting it.
This is our lifeline task, for the nature of becoming is a constant filming over of where we’ve been, while nature of being is a constant erosion of what is not essential.
Each of us lives in the midst of this ongoing tension, growing tarnished or covered over, only to be worn back to the incorruptible spot of grace at our core.
When the film is worn through, we have moments of enlightenment, moments of whiteness, moment of satori, as the Zen sages term int, moments of clear loving when inner meets outer, moments of full integrity of being, moments of complete Oneness.
And whether the film is a veil of culture, of memory, of mental or religious training, of trauma or sophistication, the removal of that film and the restoration of that timeless spot of grace is the goal of all therapy and education.
Fr Richard Rohr:
‘The real question is “What does this have to say to me?” Those who are totally converted come to every experience and ask not whether or not they liked it, but what does it have to teach them. “What’s the message or gift in this for me? How is God in this event? Where is God in this suffering?” This is a prayer of unveiling, asking that the cruciform shape of reality be revealed to us within the very shape and circumstances of our own lives.’
A new journey around the sun.
December 31, 2020
As we leave a reckless and tragic year, I wish you for you all three, Love, Strength, & Courage.
May all beings be happy.
May all beings be free.
May all beings be healthy and well, realizing potential and possibility.
jai
On this final night of 2020, may our hours be deep, meaningful, quiet, and tender (Seane Corn).
P
E
A
C
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What does it look like?
What does it feel like?
“I know that deep within each person the Divine Paternities of perfect peace is already implanted. I now declare that in each person and in leaders of thought everywhere this Divine Pattern moves into action and form to the end that all nations and all people will live together in peace, harmony, and prosperity forever.”
-Ernest Holmes
“As far back as we can remember, people of the oldest tribes, unencumbered by civilization, have been rejoicing in being on earth together. Not only can we do this for each other, it is essential. For as stars need open space to be seen, as waves need shore to crest, as dew needs grass to soak into, our vitality depends on how we exclaim and rejoice, “I see you!” I am here!”
-Mark Nepo
🤍
“Midnight on New Year’s Eve is a unique kind of magic where, just for a momet, the past and the future exist at once in the present. Whether we’re aware of it or not, as we countdown together to it, we’re sharing the burden of our history and committing to the promise of tomorrow.”
-Hillary DePiano
The year brought lessons, challenges and opportunities to grow in unanticipated ways. Good or bad, devastating or productive, we navigated our way through the challenges, surprises and revelations that came out way. We dealt with circumstances the best way we knew how. We are here today, poised and centered, ready to leave the year behind and move into newness, fresh ways of living and greater connection to ourselves, each other and the Divine.
-Rev. Dr. Edward Viljoen
And from Marianne Williamson on this New Year’s Eve 2020:
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The final Sun Valley sunset in 2020.
Only ℒℴve❥❥☆҉
COVID Isolation: a contemplative frame.
December 22, 2020
[Rilke]
I have, like so many, been in isolation since February…only daily hikes, the market, and virtual connection. Truly what has sustained me, even when I’ve bumped up along the edge, is a deep contemplative practice, the discipline of ‘stability loci’, a psychological function for withdrawal, surrender and acceptance: “This is my place, my situation, and that is what I want to work with, however it develops, for better or for worse.”
Deep gratitude for my virtual yoga teachers, Cathie Caccia and Seane Corn. Your spirit and guidance transcends the global sadness and dark, dark days ahead. jai
From the Center of Action & Contemplation:
Practice: Remaining in Place
What if the challenges of the current moment are actually offering us an invitation to let go of our ideas of freedom and mobility and to consciously participate with reality in a new way? In The Great Within psychologist Han F. de Wit invites us to consider the discipline of stabilitas loci (or remaining in place) as a liberating practice. He writes:
Many contemplative traditions contain the rule of not abandoning the monastic community or the place of retreat for shorter or longer periods (sometimes for life). If one follows this rule, it is almost always preceded by voluntarily taking a vow to keep to it. In the Christian tradition, it is known as the vow of stabilitas loci (remaining in one place). This place can, for example, be where one goes into the solitary retreat. The practitioner then vows not to leave this place before he has completed a specific spiritual practice or attained a certain realization. This approach can be found in the Hindu tradition: the yogi draws a certain line around her place of retreat and vows not to step outside it until she has completed a certain practice (sadhana), until she has reached enlightenment, or until death has reached her. A well-known example of this in the Buddhist tradition is obviously that of the Buddha himself, who finally sat down under the bodhi tree and vowed not to leave that spot until he had reached enlightenment. . . .
Why do people do this? What is the function of such a discipline? . . . The contemplative psychological function of this physical stabilitas and of the adherent vow is that we let go of the idea that we have an alternative, we give up the possibility of withdrawing. As we know, one of the characteristic aspects of ego is that it always wants to have alternatives available: ego reflects a mentality that always wants to keep an exit open and therefore can never come to complete surrender and acceptance. Through the vow of stabilitas loci, we confront and surrender an important part of that mentality. We say, “This is my place, my situation, and that is what I want to work with, however it develops, for better or for worse.”. . . The limitation that this discipline imposes on ego proves to have another element: a flourishing of self-confidence and strength of mind that enables us to be in the situation we are in without any reservations. What may seem claustrophobic or restrictive actually turns into vast and hospitable space. [1]
–Han F. de Wit
Fr. Richard Rohr:
Speaking from personal experience and my many years in Lenten hermitage (where I stayed in one small place for the forty days of Lent), I found a deep inner liberation in “giving up” my freedom to come and go as I chose. I am experiencing some of that same freedom in my hermit-like life necessitated by the pandemic. I cannot “fill” my life or myself up with outside experiences; I must simply “be” with myself and God.
Reference:
[1] Han F. de Wit, The Great Within: The Transformative Power and Psychology of the Spiritual Path (Shambhala Publications: 2019), 263–264.
“The anger made me brave and the grief made me sure.” The Book of Longings
Can not recommend this book more highly. Inhaling. -dayle
‘Lord God hear my prayer, the prayer of my heart.
Bless the largeness inside of me, no matter how I fear it.
Bless my reeds and my inks.
Bless the words I write.
May they be beautiful in your sight.
May they be visible to eyes not yet born.
When I am dust, sing these words over my bones:
She was a voice.’
‘I felt all the women who live inside of me.’
-The Book of Longings