In this blog I want to emphasize that the heart of the creative process involves a kind of deep unlearning. What does this mean? It means that we have to be willing to question the way that we think, the way that we observe, the way we take all sorts of things for granted. We need to get back to our ‘pre-conventional’ mind, the awareness within us that sees the world freshly, for the first time, with curiosity and wonder.

You can look out your window, and call what you see ‘a tree.’ But it’s actually so much more than that tiny little sound ‘tree.’ What is your actual experience of that tree, that person, that moment, when you let go of the words, the ideas, and just open up to it with your whole being?

If we drop back into the openness, the silence, the deep receptivity of our unconditioned awareness, we contact something very alive and true. When we write from that place, then our words have a vibrancy and power to them that wakes us up and invites us to be right here, in this moment, without our judgments, opinions and beliefs. That’s what it means to be naked.

For more information and inspiration on this topic, please visit my website at http://www.barefootjourneys.net

with love
Shayla

Did you know that people are beginning to say that we are living in the age of anxiety? As a coach and teacher, this doesn’t surprise me. I have the opportunity to hear people express daily the level of anxiety they are living with. The speed of change is so intense that people can’t keep up with it. Everything we used to depend on, all our traditional support systems, are falling away.

More people are on medication that we can imagine, because a lot of people don’t talk about it. They feel ashamed, helpless, without power.

The way that I work with people initiates them into a process of deep change, or what is sometimes called ‘second order learning.’ This kind of learning is what we really need in our world right now. Traditional forms of learning just give you more information. But information is not going to do the trick at this point, because the information itself keeps changing and becoming obsolete.

We need to discover a way of learning that connects us with our being, the core of who we are.  When we can access that place, things really start to turn around for us. Then we are no longer taking knowledge and information from the outside, and imposing it on ourselves. Instead, we are actually opening to the genuine wisdom that lives inside us, and engaging in a real process of transformation. In the short run, it’s a lot more challenging. In the long run, it’s the only thing that’s really sustainable.

I give classes, retreats and personal coaching sessions on this kind of learning.
Please call me or email me for a 10 minute chat if you are interested.

Shayla
http://www.barefootjourneys.net
250.352.7908
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I want to thank all the people who have written to me from all over the world in response to my newsletters. I love getting your emails. Please let me know if there is anything in particular you would like me to focus on: a question or challenge you might be working with.

People have been asking me where I’ve learned what I’m writing about. These newsletters are not literature! They are reports from an ongoing practice and investigation that is my life. I discover most of what I am writing about in the relationships, inquiries, and dialogues I have with my students and clients.  The courses, retreats and sessions are the laboratories in which we drill down into the living wisdom that reveals itself, again and again. I call it ‘deep learning,’ the kind of learning that takes us down to the ground of our being.

“Along which secret aqueduct,
Oh water, are you coming to me,
water of a new life
that I have never drunk?” (‘Last night as I was sleeping,’) Antonio Machado

David Mackenzie reminded me last week of James Hillman’s book, ‘The Soul’s Code.’ Hillman is a prominent Jungian therapist. He speaks about the myth of the hero/heroine in our world, and what an illusion it is. The heroic approach demands what I call ‘false courage’, a will of steel, and endless struggle. As a hero or heroine, we are invested in being strong, in ploughing our way through obstacles, in never admitting defeat.

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Speaking from our heart does not always need to be serious and profound. The heart can be gay, spontaneous and full of humour and creativity. Where does it all come from?

Resting at Point Zero
The source of this creativity is the creative emptiness or silence (point zero) out of which your words come. “Your willingness to meet this nothingness without panic is your greatest ally.” (Michelle Cassou-Reclaiming the Magic of Spontaneous Expression) Each time we speak, we can rest in this emptiness, and wait without demand or expectation, for what wants to arise.

This is one of the core aspects of my work, helping people open to the silence and space within them, and recognize that they do not need to be afraid of it. It’s the creative source of our being, our greatest resource. But we have to learn to respect it, acknowledge it, and listen to it. The more we practice this, the more we can let go into trusting this place in us-this silence that reveals itself to us in so many beautiful and surprising ways.

Minnows live in all my toes,
my body is the ocean.
A dolphin plays in my belly
and in my heart
a purple sea anemone
opens and closes.
They all stay far away
from the shark that lives
in my mind.
He swims since before time
in the sea of my thoughts
and never sleeps.

Shayla

each of us carries
in our chest
a song

so old
we don’t know
if we learned it

some night
between the murmurs
of fallen kisses

our lips
surprise us
when we utter

this song
that is singing
and crying at once

-Francisco X Alarcon

I am posting an email written straight from the heart by a dear friend of mine and a great poet,
about life in a brand new city-an adventure that requires great faith and courage.

Dear Shayla,
Thank you so much for having me on your e mail list. I really enjoy
the newsletter, and of course it comes at the time when my heart is
aching for connection, and I am trundling blindly into that vast, deep
sea of nothing.

This is where I have found myself, have no knowledge of my destiny,
trusting, albeit, sometimes from a place of deep fear or grief, yet
still, trusting that I am cradled and this fall, this dive into
darkness is my sweetest journey yet.

I cry a lot, grieve many things, perhaps cry the collective grief
that penetrates me from this strange world that has no rhythm but her
own, a wild horse, that we all think we can ride, but no, she froths
and bucks us off..and then laughs as we attempt to brush off the dust
and set our selves straight.

What i understand is that there is no straight line to
follow...it is an undulating river...i can soften, surrender and allow
myself to be drawn to the sea.

That is all I can do in this moment. Let life have her way with me,
and just try to breathe

love Lana

Please print this newsletter if you can. It is meant to be held in your hand.

A Foot in Both Worlds

When we were living in India, there was not much about our life that was certain, safe and predictable. Life in that country is full of wild and spontaneous happenings that cannot be controlled. Floods, cholera and diptheria, landslides, thieves, and terrorists were a regular part of our landscape. Not to mention daily power outages and water shortages.

I used to watch westerners who came to live and study in our community go through a whole process, just learning to live in India. Often they would get really angry, and burst out in wild rages when they experienced the lack of control they had over their day to day lives. Our whole conditioning in the West seems to be telling us that we can and should take control of our lives, and that if we can’t, there is something wrong with us. I’d like to look at that basic assumption right now, explore for a few minutes that underlying belief and some of its consequences.

Is it really true that you are the one that is in control of your life? This body-mind, this person with a name and form, who thinks they are a separate, concrete entity - is this really who is making things happen?

This person, this human being, lives in what Deepak Chopra calls the local or manifest domain. This is the world of the senses, of things we can grasp and understand with the body and mind. This is the world that most people call ‘real’ in our western culture.

In India it is very different. The manifest field there is not considered primary. What is primary is the unmanifest world, the non-local domain, which cannot be grasped by the mind or the senses. The ancient and traditional culture of India, and of many indigenous societies, was based on the primacy of the spiritual realm, the unmanifest, the source of being. Even the activities of daily life were engaged in so that the nature of this human conditioned attention could be drawn back into this source, recognizing it as the one life in every being, the unseen force that moves everything.

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My friend David Mackenzie inspired me to offer you this invitation:
Please print this newsletter. It is meant to be held in your hand.

In the Native American shamanic tradition, there’s a way that a teacher chooses the students who come to learn the art of plant medicine. “Here’s your first test,” says the teacher. “Go and find as many sacred plants as you can in the next hour and bring them back to me.”
If the student walks away to look for them, the teacher knows he or she is not ready to begin the apprenticeship. The ones who are chosen do not move. They stand where they are, and look for the plants that live right under their feet.

There is a lot of talk about gratitude these days, a lot of talk about learning to appreciate what is right under our feet. People all over the place are awakening to the power of gratitude, not just as a warm fuzzy feeling, but as a liberating and transforming force in their lives. Who could deny that gratitude is good thing? It’s easy to talk about it, easy to think about it-quite a bit harder to walk the gratitude walk in a genuine and sustained way.

A few years ago I came to a place where I realized how conditional my gratitude was. I could feel gratitude for things that pleased and delighted me- not for the times when I was stuck in between a rock and a hard place.  I could only appreciate those times in retrospect, after I had gleaned the hard- won wisdom out of the pain and struggle.

I found myself becoming more and more curious about how it would be to be grateful for it all, for every single moment of my life-nothing left out.  It was one of those questions that wouldn’t go away. It just kept drilling down into my heart, into the moments when I was deep into resisting what was going on. It drilled into the annoying little moments: “How would it feel to be grateful for this parking ticket?” and the big ones, “How can I be grateful for losing a chunk of my investments?”

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·Freedom and Truth-2 core aspects of love
The nature of love is that it gives total freedom to the other person. This does not mean that they can do whatever they want, when they want. This is a very immature understanding of freedom.
The kind of freedom we are speaking of respects their basic human rights:
Their right to keep private whatever they want to
Their right to speak or remain silent.
Their right to take their own space when they need to-ie leave the room , even when you are wanting to engage them in conversation
Their right to go out and spend time with friends, without having to report back to you.

· Building trust-another key aspect of love
Every time we promise something, or make an agreement with our partner, and do not come through, we erode the space of trust between us. Healing broken trust can sometimes take a long time, but the process is very simple:
Do not make a single promise that you do not intend to keep.
And be sure that both you and your partner are clear about the specific nature of the promise or agreement.
For example, don’t just say you will call. Specify the day and time.

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It was a lovely afternoon, so invigorating, so celebratory, so nourishing.
Naida Hyde-Nov. 06

It was wonderful to spend the day with you.  It was my and Amy’s Christmas gift to one another - time together- and was well worth it.
Kiersten Packham-Dec. 06

The spiritual training and teaching I have been engaged in for most of my life comes from the ‘non-dual’ teachings of Hinduism and Buddhism. I notice that most people’s eyes go a bit glassy when I mention the word ‘non-dual.’ It’s a difficult concept to grasp with the mind, because the mind functions in the field of polarity, of opposites.  I’ve found the simplest way to approach the non-dual understanding is to invite people to let go of their ‘either/or’ thinking.  Non-dual is more like both/and.  Either/or thinking is black and white thinking. AA calls it ‘stinkin’ thinkin’, because it leads to pain, suffering and confusion. Why? Because it divides our world and our experience up into opposites that oppose one another. And this opposition exists only in our conditioned mind. When we confine ourselves to a world that exists only in our minds, we run into trouble.

I began to contemplate this many years ago in India, after having a conversation with my teacher one day. We were standing on a mountain road, looking down at the great river Vyas, roaring through our valley. I was asking him to help me deal with a situation in my life. “I can’t help you in that way,” he told me, “that’s not the way human beings are. What you are now calling your greatest strength, will one day be your greatest weakness. And what you call your greatest weakness, you will recognize as your greatest strength.” I was stunned by that, and spent many years exploring the depth of it. But it wasn’t until I left India that it really came home to me. Then I started to hear it everywhere: “ Find your true weakness and surrender to it. Therein lies the path to genius. Most people spend their lives using their strengths to overcome or cover up their weaknesses. Those few who use their strengths to incorporate their weaknesses, who don’t divide themselves, those people are very rare. In any generation there are a few and they lead their generation.”
- Moshe Feldenkrais

It was like waking up from a dream, realizing that I had been living in a black and white world. At first it was confusing and frightening to leave that world behind. Then I began to appreciate the depth, complexity and richness of life when I was not putting everything into those boxes of human/divine, good/bad, strong/weak, matter/spirit. In the non-dual understanding, your true nature is something that embraces everything as it is. As long as we live in a world of polarities, we cling to one side and try and push the other side away. Life becomes an endless struggle.

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Tell me, does the night fall because it wants to,

Or because it has to?

It’s the same thing.

It may be risky for the bud to blossom, but what

the heck else is a bud going to do?

You may think you’re able to hold yourself back

from blossoming,

hold yourself in the bud.

But your blossoming is as inevitable as the night falling

And as wanted.

Jillian Harvey, Dec. 2. 06

About how you’re not following your dharma, your dharma is following you.
( or why your damn dharma won’t leave you alone)

I’m looking back now at what’s happened in my life over the last six months.

On one level I feel like I went to sleep and then woke up in a new world. Things in this new world seem to be operating in miraculous ways, on a daily basis. It’s not that I didn’t know about all this before, but it felt like there was a glass wall, separating me from stepping into and embracing this other universe. Now I’ve stepped through, and I’m really not quite sure how it happened. I could shrug my shoulders and say it’s all part of the great mystery. But I don’t really want to do that. I’d like to understand a bit more of what happened as I worked with you, so that I can pass some of this on to my friends, students and clients. That’s one reason I’m writing all this down-I’m tracking back, following the thread that joins the moments that seemed to really make the difference.

The first moment I remember was quite early on in our coaching relationship. You asked me about writing a newsletter, and I told you I didn’t have time for that kind of regular, committed writing. You said, “There’s no such thing as not having time for something. We find the time for what we really want to do, every single day of our lives.”

I don’t think I’ll ever forget that moment. It’s not that what you said was new to me. I’ve said it many times to my students and clients. But in that moment, your statement was an arrow that hit its mark, dead center. I felt it going in, deeper and deeper. It was literally a physical feeling of being pierced by the truth of it. And I had no resistance. I felt the presence of all my habitual excuses and evasions about writing, and I saw what they had cost me. And I let them go. Something in me was ready. That’s a very interesting thing to me. It reminds me of Hamlet: “Ripeness is all.” In that moment, I was ripe. The apple was ready to fall, and it did.

When I look back now, I realize that all my life I have not only wanted to write, but I’ve known that it was my ‘dharma,’ something I should be doing. That’s how I understand dharma right now-it’s the union of passion and necessity. And there has never been a time in my life when some teacher, friend or colleague was not urging me to write. What held me back for so long? What holds us all back from doing the things we long to do, need to do, are born to do? I think it’s because we have not been able to clear the field of our intention. We are blocked, covered by our desires and aversions. The very thing we most want is the thing we are afraid of. So that attraction/aversion process you took me through at the beginning, which is so much a part of the Radiant Mind Course and my own work, cleared the field for me. That was the hardest part of our work together. I couldn’t believe how much resistance I had to really engaging in those exercises. It was like looking deep into my subconscious mind, shining the light of my awareness down into these subterranean regions of my own being.  As I was doing them, I didn’t realize how much was being clarified, freed up and released. That only revealed itself later on.

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