I want to come from love.

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What I am focused on is how I want to show up for whatever lessons life provides me.

How do I want to show up in the Universe?

I want to be in love. I want to come from love. I want to be receptive and open to whatever life throws my way. I want to come from compassion and forgiveness. I trust that whatever life delivers me is both for my growth and pruning. I don’t seek to out-picture how I DO want to learn lessons because I choose not to use my mind to tell the dancing, singing, ever-expanding, pulsing force of living love how to bring me back home to me. So many of life’s richest lessons have come in a vehicle I would never have chosen (like being one of two women sharing a pregnancy with the father of my child at the same time) but have brought me so fully into the strength, tenderness and evolution of my own heart. (Lelainya– I am so glad you’re my soul sister!)

For me, to do so would be dropping into that place of egocentric thinking that layers judgment onto what is with the assessment of good, bad, better, worse, best. My aim is to open wide and soften into whatever life offers me. What is most paramount is trust and just showing up with presence for whatever hapens
as.
it.
arrives.

When I stated “I don’t need to learn these lessons like this in the future (listen up universe! I’m receptive already! I’m receptive! hehe!) but thank you for this opportunity now.” I am really affirming, ”Ok – I surrender. I get it. Thank you. I trust you. I love you. I surrender.“ It is more about aligning my will with the will of the entire sacred cosmos of which I am a part. I see the perfection and beauty in the dynamic interactions that accompany relationship and lived experience. I didn’t come here to realize myself sitting alone in mediation. (But boy, does meditation help!) I came here to see, touch, taste, smell – experience fully in the sacred vessel of my body.

From that place of absolute spaciousness and limitless freedom that is ever present from within – I say “yes!” and “thank you.” I will remain open and receptive.

~ artemisia shine

Called to the Dance Floor

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photo

This made me laugh. The uninsured motorist who slammed into my car and gave me two forms of fake insurance is now filing an injury and vehicle damage claim against me thru my insurance company. Hahahahahaha! I really feel for him. On some level I feel angered by this and have a desire for more integrity and accountability. In a larger sense, I am grateful that I am in relationship with the universe in a way that inspires me to make different choices. I sent him a sweet picture of my painted car with a Hafitz poem last week. I still stand by it.

Ultimately, this is a big gift. I get to actively choose to respond from a place of rigorous honesty, compassion, forgiveness and love. This senario is absolutely calling me to be in integrity and look at the places within myself where I am not. I humbly state that I don’t need to learn these lessons like this in the future (listen up universe! I’m receptive already! I’m receptive! hehe!) but thank you for this opportunity now.  I get to actively unravel my own karmic samskara bit by bit.

Even as a look at my broken car, feel my (temporarily) injured body and experience small wisps of fear cross my mind about what else this man may be capable of, I get to CHOOSE to TRUST.  It’s like this whole experience is the universe tenderly calling me onto the dance floor. I get to be led by the most skillful dance partner! I get to surrender into the warmest strongest embrace I’ve ever known and discover what it is to be truly held. I am so open to and already receiving support in limitless ways I have yet to imagine.

I forgive this man. I wish him well. I hope whatever place in his heart that inspires such unconscious action is filled with sweet tender warmth. Really. This is frustrating me still but I won’t judge myself as the waves of frustration move through me. The love is bigger and carries more weight. 

~ artemisia shine

Courage to Marry Forgiveness

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Before and after. Ahhh, feels so much sweeter.
PicMonkey Collage

My inner response to the driver who was uninsured and provided two forms of false insurance after plowing into my car: I am calling in the support I need to fix this. My insurance does not cover my car but I am holding hands with the universe and she has me in the most tender embrace. I forgive you. May you be cared for, live with peace in your heart and have all that you need.

love,
~ artemisia shine

The moon starts singing
When everyone is asleep
And the planets throw a bright robe
Around their shoulders and whirl up
Close to her side.

Once I asked the moon,
Why do you and your sweet friends
Not perform so romantically like that
To a larger crowd?

And the whole sky chorus resounded,

“The admission price to hear
The lofty minstrels
Speak of love

Is affordable only to those
Who have not exhausted themselves
Dividing God all day
And thus need rest.

The thrilled Tavern fiddlers
Who are perched on the roof

Do not want their notes to intrude
Upon the ears
Where an accountant lives
With a sharp pencil
Keeping score of words
Another
In their great sorrow or sad anger
May have once said
To you.”

Hafiz knows:
The sun will stand as your best man
And whistle
When you have found the courage
To marry forgiveness

When you have found the courage
to marry
Love.

~ Hafiz

I sent this to the driver as an offering along with an invitation to choose to act with accountability and provide financial support to help us acquire a vehicle.

However he responds (or not) is perfect. In the face of so much community feedback to hire a lawer, this feels so much more in alignment with me.

Most importantly: It was SO FUN to do!

~ artemisia shine

Yoga, Sex, and the Teacher-Student Relationship

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Yoga, Sex, and the Teacher-Student Relationship

Source: 90 Monkeys • Carol Horton, Ph.D. • September 24, 2013

Yoga Instructor with Students

Since I started tracking the steady stream of news, controversies, and online debates in today’s yoga world, I’ve had to struggle repeatedly with the challenge of confronting beliefs that are profoundly different from my own – both with regard to yoga, and many other issues as well.

On the whole, this has been a positive experience. Most of the time, when confronted with radically different sensibilities, I’ve been able to push the envelope of my own perspectives and find common ground. It’s been enlarging, and at times enlightening to discover ways of connecting with people who hold very different views on issues ranging from the advisability of “yoga for weight loss” to the foundational nature of the universe.

When I read Cameron Shayne’s recent post defending the righteousness of male yoga teachers who choose to pursue “hot, casual sex” with as many female students as they fancy, I knew that I’d hit a point where I didn’t want to bridge the divide separating our views. In this case, I believe that setting a clear boundary that says “NO” is more honest, clarifying, and potentially valuable than trying to find common ground.

The fact that Shayne’s post received a lot of enthusiastic support (including from the lead editor of Rebelle Society, which published it) suggests that a cultural rift has developed in the yoga community over the issue of whether teachers should enjoy open sexual access to their students, or respect long-standing norms requiring sexual restraint.

Considered in conjunction with the recent wave of high-profile yoga scandals, it’s clear that the issue of sex and the teacher-student relationship demands our attention – as well as an appropriate response.

Addressing the Conflict

To be clear, I’m not advocating some sort of war between the forces of sexual freedom and restraint. Nor am I in favor of issuing wholesale condemnation of any particular individuals or groups. The last thing we need is for the yoga community to replicate the same sort of hateful, vicious, polarized dynamic that infects so much of our culture and politics.

At the same time, I believe that the ethical standards and teaching protocols advocated in Shayne’s article should be unambiguously rejected.

How, then, to deal with the fact that Shayne and his supporters will undoubtedly think that it’s my views that are wrong, and not theirs? Is it possible to assert strong differences on the highly-charged issue of sex and the teacher-student relationship without falling into damaging negativity and conflict?

Only time will tell. But I’d suggest trying to accomplish this by:

  • Acknowledging that the divide on this issue is too big and too important to ignore
  • Working to depersonalize the conflict by debating ideas rather than attacking individuals
  • Strengthening the role of a regulatory body (e.g., Yoga Alliance) capable of distinguishing teachers who support norms governing sexual restraint from those who reject them as outmoded “dogma.”

Analyzing the Argument

Shayne believes that yoga teachers should not be subject to ethical or regulatory restraints that limit free sexual access to their students. (Presumably, this means adults capable of giving formal consent, although these criteria aren’t stressed.) To my reading, his argument (which is echoed in many of the comments) reflects a mixture of two larger streams of thought that are quite influential in U.S. culture: hyper-individualist radical libertarianism, on the one hand, and irrational New Age spirituality, on the other.

This, in my view, is a toxic mix: capable of legitimating all sorts of power abuses, while at the same time advancing a twisted logic that “blames the victim” when they occur.

Here’s how I’d break it down most simply:

1)    Hyper-individualism refuses to recognize the fact that systemic power differences really do exist. The idea that there are no power issues in play in the teacher-student relationship because we’re all free and equal individuals replicates the larger cultural logic which holds that it’s wrong to limit individual contributions to political campaigns because a billionaire and a homeless person have an equal right to “free speech.” (Yeah, right.) Any sort of more realistic understanding of how individuals are necessarily affected by the larger social context of which they’re a part is rejected out of hand in favor of a dogmatic adherence to the hyper-individualist view.

2)    Hyper-individualism easily slides into self-serving “blame the victim”-style reasoning. For example, Shayne asserts that the “issue of vulnerable idealistic adult students being taken advantage of by egomaniacal male teachers for me is like the war on drugs: another completely corrupted strategy designed to deal with the symptom rather than the disease”:

The guru/students manipulation — like cocaine — is the symptom of a larger problem; the student’s lack of self worth, identify and voice. Clearly the corrupted guru is a problem, but the student, like the user, is the real disease.

By extension, it is solely up to the individual student to cure her personal “disease” of vulnerability to the predations of others, not least including the yoga teacher whom she may have turned to for guidance and support.

3)    Radical libertarianism represents the logical extension of hyper-individualism into the social realm. If you believe that the only proper way to see people is as individuals divorced from any consideration of social context, then it makes sense to see all norms or regulations established for the collective good as illegitimate and oppressive.

Again, you see this sort of reasoning in American society frequently: for example, the belief that any sort of gun control laws – even limiting convicted felons from acquiring machine guns! – is an intolerable infringement of individual liberty.

4)    Combine hyper-individualist radical libertarianism with New Age magical thinking, and unrestricted teacher-student sex is easy to justify. Anyone who’s spent any time in the yoga world is probably familiar with New Age spiritual platitudes such as “everything is exactly as it’s meant to be,” “everything happens for a reason,” and so on. In general, this pairs nicely with hyper-individualist radical libertarianism, as it provides a “spiritual” explanation of why we should never concern ourselves with pesky issues of abuse of power and exploitation – after all, everything’s perfect just as it is!

Hence, Shayne assures us that “you cannot have sex with the wrong person — only a person that provides you with another intrinsic part of the whole that becomes your story”:

As with all action, its meaning is assigned by us, created by us, experienced by us and remembered by us . . . the very idea that you can project onto sex a special quality that may exist for you, but not for another, is arrogant, assuming and stepped in antiquated dogmatic ideology.

5)    Logically, then, if a student ends up feeling sexually exploited by a yoga teacher, that is simply because she is “choosing” this negative perception. Notably, there are also many “Tantric” variations on this sort of irrational New Age thinking, which I won’t go into there as they weren’t featured in Shayne’s post. They do, however, come up in some related comments – and, I’m sure, are quite familiar to those who remember the recent Anusara debacle.

The Teacher’s Responsibility: Zero

Illogically, Shayne’s argument that exploited students “chose” their negative perceptions is presented in conjunction with an explanation that the reason that yoga teachers “sexually misbehave” today is “because they finally can”:

The majority of all yoga sex scandals involve one or more desperate devotes and a teacher who figures out, maybe for the first time in his or her hopelessly hip-less life, that they can get laid . . . They are doing what any male or female given sudden persuasive license would do when bombarded with adoring energy — engage it. Only the naive and emotionally underdeveloped would fall prey to it.

There is a horribly circular logic at work here: the exploited student is the “real disease” because she is “naïve and emotionally underdeveloped” – yet, when she is exploited by a power-hungry teacher, she is faulted for “assigning” a negative meaning to the encounter, rather than embracing it as an independent choice that she made to support her own self-development and spiritual growth!

Meanwhile, the teacher is conveniently off the ethical hook and gets a pass – and, no matter what his abuses of power, should presumably remain so to prevent oppression by dogmatic social norms.

Ethics, Community, and Tradition

Personally, I find Shayne’s argument so shallow that it would be laughable were it not for the fact that many yoga practitioners apparently embrace it quite fiercely.

Initially, I was shocked to see how much support his post was generating. Quickly, however, I realized that given its resonance with influential currents in the larger culture, its popularity is not so surprising.

Yoga, like any other tradition, necessarily evolves in interaction with the larger society of which it’s a part. If it didn’t, it would quickly lose its relevance and meaning to most people. Therefore, we can expect that variations of the cultural divides that we experience in the larger society will continue to replicate themselves within the yoga community.

As noted above, however, one dynamic that I’d really like to avoid is the establishment of mutually hostile camps that are constantly hurling hate at one another. Right now, I think we are pretty far from that point. But things can change quickly. And there’s no question that the tone in the yoga blogosphere has become frequently meaner in the past few years.

I’ve tried to avoid gratuitous meanness in this post by critiquing what I see as the central ideas in Shayne’s post, rather than attacking him as an individual. For all I know, he could be a great guy in other ways. On the issue of teacher-student sex, however, I believe that the views he’s advocating are dead wrong and need to be forcefully countered.

The contemporary yoga community needs to honor the historic yoga tradition by adapting it to speak to today’s needs and concerns. The Yama of Brahmacharya has informed the yoga tradition for thousands of years. Given the materialism, hedonism, and sexual confusion that trouble our society today, this is a particularly bad time to simply throw it out as antiquated “dogma.”

Instead, we need to reflect on how best to interpret and adapt this restraint to support the meaningful transmission of yoga in our time. Considering the profusion of recent scandals involving teacher-student sex in the yoga community and the incalculable suffering they have caused, the need to do so is urgent. Shayne’s provocative post is helpful to the extent that it spurs those of us who believe we must uphold sexual norms that protect vulnerable students in the yoga classroom – and, by extension, support and elevate the practice for everyone – to reflect on what we can do, and take action.

 

* * *

CH photo   Carol Horton, Ph.D., is the author of Yoga Ph.D.: Integrating the Life of the Mind and the Wisdom of the Body, and co-editor of 21st Century Yoga: Culture, Politics, and Practice. She holds a doctorate in Political Science from the University of Chicago, served on the faculty at Macalester College, and has extensive experience as a research consultant specializing in issues affecting low-income children and families. A Certified Forrest Yoga teacher, Carol teaches yoga to women in the Cook County Jail with Yoga for Recovery, and at Chaturanga Holistic Fitness in Chicago. For more information visit her website.

Ram Dass: Fierce Grace

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Ram Dass: Fierce Grace

I love this man. This beautiful movie is about Ram Dass’s experiences aging and the radically life changing event of getting “stroked.”

“Healing does not mean going back to the way things were before, but rather of allowing what is now to move us closer to god.” –Ram Dass

Find the Conditions That are Conducive to Life…

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“…And the wild geese are calling down. And it’s getting louder and louder. And then they circle and circle, and they land. And honestly, I was like, no way. No way. I look at Eduardo who is near tears looking at this. And I say, you’re telling me that your geese are calling to the wild geese to say, come for a visit.

And he says, no, no, no. They come to stay. They come to stay? Think about that for a minute. I mean, imagine– I don’t know– imagine a hog farm in North Carolina. And a wild pig comes upon a factory farm and decides to stay. The DNA of a goose is to fly South in the winter, right? I said that. I said, isn’t that what they’re put on this earth for? To fly South in the winter and North when it gets warm? He said, no, no, no. Their DNA is to find the conditions that are conducive to life, to happiness. They find it here…”

Stay curious, keep asking questions – open minds and hearts with the essence of who you are. Practice protracted and thoughtful observation.

 

30 Days of Gratitude – Day 9

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30 Days of Gratitude – Day 9

Today I am grateful..:

  1. for the melody of wind and birdsong warming the edges of early morning’s chill.
  2. winter produce and organic grocers. We are so fortunate in California to have such abundant local produce in the winter.
  3. for friendship. This journey would be that much lonelier without bright souls to share it with.
  4. for that silent moment after the breath where thoughts are collected, emotions are processed and tongs can choose to lay still. Ahimsa and Satya.
  5. for my two beautiful calloused bare hobbit feet — they greet the earth daily and demand liberation from shoes.
  6. for the life of Paramahansa Yogananda. What a mark he has left on the planet. Thank you for writing Autobiography of a Yogi for future generations and inspiring the Self Realization Fellowship.
  7. for  grey whales and the wide-open mystery of the deep sea.
  8. for coastal skylines dotted with shore birds in flight. Their graceful ride on the wind’s currents remind me to go with the flow.
  9. for airplanes.  Sustainability conflicts aside, it is simply amazing a traveller can board a for enshrouded plane in San Francisco, CA and less than 24 hours later land in New Deli, India sunshine.
  10. for the visual representation of number 10. We are not alone. 1 = the individual  placed right beside 0. 0 = the cycle of the universe encompassing the whole of creation.

Asteya: The Practice of Non-Stealing

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Asteya: The Practice of Non-Stealing
by: Artemisia Shine ♥ January 2011

“You are quaffing drink from a hundred fountains: whenever any of these hundred yields less, your pleasure is diminished. But when the sublime fountain gushes from within you, no longer need you steal from the other fountains.”  ~Jelal ad-Din Rumi

 

The Yamas and the Niyamas comprise two of the eight limbs of Classical Ashtanga Yoga as first written around 200CE by Patanjali Jois in the Yoga Sutras. Yama is the Sanskrit word for “abstinence” and the five Yamas are a set of external disciplines we can apply in our lives to help align more harmoniously with the Universe. Niyama translates as “observance” and the five Niyamas are a set of internal observances that help us align more fully with our highest Self.

The third Yama is Asteya, or non-stealing. We all can recognize the more palpable forms of theft and can easily refrain from pinching our neighbor’s bicycle seat or taking lunch money from the kid down the street.  It is the more intangible ways we rob from others and ourselves that require active discipline.

Stealing may not crop up in the more obvious forms of shoplifting or credit card fraud but may lurk in the deeper recesses of our minds. Do you secretly long for another’s job, lifestyle, relationship or physical form? These lusts are stealing your happiness and sense of contentment not to mention pilfering the present moment. Look within for riches and find fulfillment in your internal wealth rather than looking beyond yourself for satisfaction. This will moderate excessive desire for objects coveted by the senses — ideas, effects, energetic attention from others, status, power, or recognition. Practice asteya by recognizing the gifts you already possess. As Carl Jung asserts, “Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.” Cultivate the patience, strength and courage to bring your inner dreams to life!

Do you sometimes wish you had the hamstrings of the girl on the mat next to you when her forehead gently kisses her ankles in Paschimottanasana? Where the mind goes, the attention flows. Practice Asteya in every asana. Focusing on your limitations robs you from reveling in the beauty of the divine manifestation of life that is expressed through your unique form.

Are you regularly behind schedule for appointments or commitments? Do you arrive after class has already started or hold your yoga students for a few extra minutes of savasana?  When we are late we are stealing time from others.  Take a critical look at what is behind this chronic lateness. Could you be clinging to every moment, trying to wring all that you can from life? Are you packing too much into your day? This is a form of hoarding – insatiability collecting stolen moments for the fear of being in lack.  Hoarding is a form of theft. Asteya proscribes respect for the time and energy of others.

Have you taken a look at your ecological footprint lately? Granted we live in an industrialized nation, but do your consumption patterns border on over-indulgence? What is your fair share? Take a moment to bring mindfulness to your next shopping trip, be it at the local grocery store or retail center. Is that purchase extracting clean water, livable wages, health or ecological diversity from another? Can you meet your needs without deleteriously impacting the needs of others?

There is no need to steal.  Trust that all you truly need is present in the universe and available to you.  It is written in Yoga Sutra 2.37 “When one is established in refrainment from stealing, all jewels manifest.”

~ Artemisia Shine

Satya: The Art of Truth

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Satya: The Art of Truth
by: Artemisia Shine ♥ November 2011

“I AM IGNORANT of absolute truth. But I am humble before my ignorance and therein lies my honor and my reward.”  – Khalil Gibran

 

The Yamas and the Niyamas comprise two of the eight limbs of Classical Ashtanga Yoga as first written around 200CE by Patanjali Jois in the Yoga Sutras. Yama is the Sanskrit word for “abstinence” and the five Yamas are a set of external disciplines we can apply in our lives to help align more harmoniously with the Universe. Niyama translates as “observance” and the five Niyamas are a set of internal observances that help us align more fully with our highest Self.

The second Yama is Satya. Sat is the sansrit root word for “being” or “existence.”   Satya is the observance of truthfulness – with ourselves, with others, in our thoughts, words and actions.  To practice Satya is to place oneself in alignment with reality as it truly is, beyond the illusions of our ego-mind, desires, biases and false perceptions.

Satya is a practice of speaking the truth and abstaining from non-truths.  Non-truths encompass slanderous comments, gossip, and malicious thoughts or actions. When we act in ways untruthful, we are shrouding our divine nature.  When a friend acts in a way you don’t enjoy do you flippantly claim, “I don’t care. It’s cool.”  Do you play strong, cool and detached while harboring resentment for quite some time? When a baby is upset, it shares an instant and honest reaction and then moves on.  We could learn much about Satya by observing an infant.

Satya challenges us to seek out the essential truth of our being-ness; to reveal the essence of who we really are.  Who are you when you cease identifying with titles that only exist in the physical world? Who are you when you dispense of thoughts such as “I am a student, a single mother, a teacher, a farmer, a wildlife biologist, a child?” Who is left when you are no longer  “skilled” in one arena or “not good enough” in another?  We are each radiant expressions of the divine, the central luminous essence that is the inner-connected fabric of life. Our consciousness is way beyond our physical forms. Unhappiness comes from forgetting this fact.

Are you living in alignment with your true spiritual nature? Satya calls us to evolve our actions to bring us into harmony with our fundamental Self. Do you allow time to silence the mind and uncover your unique path of growth? Although this honest observation cause discomfort, when we practice Satya we see through “strengths” and “limitations” as simply what is, free from judgment.

When you are on the mat do you force yourself beyond the limits of your body? Does your ego throw a party when you’re in the “perfect pigeon pose?”  Albert Einstein once said, “A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.” Our yoga practice serves as an opportunity to honestly dive within.

– Artemisia Shine

Ahimsa: The Art of Non-Harming

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Ahimsa: The Art of Non-Harming
by: Artemisia Shine ♥ October 6, 2011

“Strictly speaking, no activity and no industry is possible without a certain amount of violence, no matter how little. Even the very process of living is impossible without a certain amount of violence. What we have to do is to minimize it to the greatest extent possible.”
~Mahatma Gandhi

The Yamas and the Niyamas comprise two of the eight limbs of Classical Yoga as first written around 200CE by Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras. Yama is the Sanskrit word for “abstinence” and the five Yamas are a set of external disciplines we can apply in our lives to help align more harmoniously with the Universe. Niyama translates as “observance” and the five Niyamas are a set of internal observances that help us align more fully with our highest Self.

The first Yama is Ahimsa.  Himsa translates as “harm” or “to cause pain.” The “a” set before “himsa” changes the word to mean not-to cause harm or pain.  Ahimsa is the practice of non-harming – with our thoughts, words, actions, attitudes and beliefs.  Are there relationships in your life that may need further practice of ahimsa?  Do the choices you make come from a place of not causing harm? Are your thoughts about yourself injurious? Do you walk lightly on the earth?

The beautiful thing about the practice of yoga is that it is a practice. We all make mistakes and act in ways that fall outside of our ideals. Perfection is not required. At any moment we can initiate practice and apply the principle of ahimsa in our lives. We can deepen our yoga practice with each breath, continuously over time.

Ahimsa begins inside. What do you say to yourself when you look in the mirror? When we look around the class and compare ourselves to others, thinking things like “I should be more flexible! Why can’t my down-dog look like her down dog?!” we are really practicing self-rejection rather than yoga. When you’re on the mat, internalize ahimsa and honor and appreciate yourself just for showing up!  As we nurture a love relationship with ourselves we can more easily shine love on those around us. As we exercise this yama with our partners, children, and roommates, we reduce violence in our communities. Ahimsa goes beyond simply being kind to our neighbors and includes not causing pain in the natural world and avoiding harm to the planet.

In the words of Mahatma Gandhi, “Ahimsa is an attribute of the brave. Cowardice and ahimsa don’t go together any more than water and fire. “ For this month, lets courageously set an intention to live in ahimsa and more purposefully cultivate compassion in our lives. When you encounter violent thoughts about yourself or others, take a deep breath and say “Ahimsa” silently (or aloud) and allow this principle to subtly reset your brain.  Choose a relationship where unresolved injury has occurred and lovingly address your part.  Apply ahimsa daily with what you choose to consume and how you treat the natural and material world. The seeds of himsa can sprout and establish roots in our hearts, choking out light in our inner landscape and lessening peace in our relationships. Collectively, let’s be an agent for health and healing. Let’s cultivate wildflowers of ahimsa, tending amity with all life and the universe at large.

– Artemisia Shine