Visualizations for health

This material is copyrighted by M. Kirby Moore.  Reproduction without permission is prohibited.  Thank you for visiting!

At some point in our spiritual journey (through life) there is a progression toward mental (intangible, intuitive, inner) power, strength and confidence.  What do I mean by this?

I would say that most mainstream Americans – maybe 50 % of the population – believe that once they cross a certain threshold of sickness, then they MUST go to the doctor.  And they are smart to believe this.  However, I will elucidate this matter.

At some point in our inner evolution, we will notice that certain food and drink makes us feel a certain way – and hopefully at some point we notice that drinking a lot of cheap alcohol makes us feel very crummy the next morning.  If you have not done this yet, then you should stop reading right now.  🙂

So we start to believe that we can affect our health by what we put in our body – generally speaking, eating less processed food (due to add GMO ingredients) and cutting out all non-organic dairy products (the growth hormones and antibiotics they add are disturbing) – will lead to our feeling better and probably being healthier overall.  There is a great TED talk about this and you can view it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rixyrCNVVGA

At some point, maybe you are here, maybe it will happen in a few years, maybe another lifetime, you will notice that meditation (and certain types of efficacious spiritual practice) makes you feel better – in your heart, in your gut, improving your health and intuition overall.  It might be yoga, it might be guru yoga, it might be sun salutations, it might be native practices, it could even be receiving process-oriented bodywork twice a month.  Whatever it is, you feel more connected to the Earth and all of our brothers and sisters who live here.  Once you get here, you are well on your way to creating the life you desire and deserve.

Recently, I happened to come across an article that talked about how certain doctors experimented with using visualization techniques with their cancer patients and the results of these experiments were pretty astounding.  For instance, having one group of patients visualize white knights charging into battle with the cancer cells and visualizing them vanquishing the cancer led to an additional 27% positive recovery.  That is pretty significant!  And yes, I am too lazy to go find this article.  But trust me I read it.

So having read that piece, I decided to start using my own form of visualization.  I already have a slight edge on the general population I think, owing to the fact that in Tibetan Buddhism, we do certain visualizations for certain practices.  (I’m not saying I do them well!!  I am just an ordinary human being who is in possession of many poor habits…)  But I have some experience with visualization.  So I decided to mix the two – if and when I feel sick – whether it is a tiny scratch in my throat, or if I just want to get rid of a pimple, or if I feel a cold sore forming on my lip – then I visualize Vajrasattva (a Buddhism deity of purification) and white knights going to work on that part of my body.

And sure enough, so far it seems to work.  I will wake up the following morning feeling better – the sore throat will be gone, or the cold sore will be all but gone and / or the pimple will be smaller.  So maybe it is just a coincidence, maybe these things were going to improve on their own, or maybe I am actually affecting my body for the better.  I believe that.

So go ahead.  If you feel down or sick or fatigued, experiment with visualization.  It can’t hurt!

And may you and all beings be well and happy.

Thanks for reading.

preliminary ruminations Jan 2015

I am pondering several little things in my life…

 

I have been in a growth-0riented relationship for about a year now (Wow! right?).  Growth-oriented because Stephanie (my partner) is a strong woman who is thankfully able to assert her needs and desires.  It has been very pleasant at times and occasionally trying.  But overall I am very happy to be in this relationship.  It will get better and it is getting easier each day.  So there are stresses but they are mostly positive.  I just have to remember to take (or make) time for myself in my (and our) busy schedule of life.

 

Also, on a separate note.  I wonder about learning about history.  I am presently reading a great book entitled “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.”  It is fantastic and it is helping to open my mind to the horrors and beauty of people’s lives who lived under the occupation of German soldiers during World War II.  I am starting to wonder about maturing.  In the past, I avoided learning about our planet’s tragic history (unless it involved China or Tibet).  But now I wonder if another level of maturity involves learning about people’s plight in the world – in little, doable doses of course.  It is a great book by the way – did I mention that?  🙂

At present, I am taking classes in Anatomy and Physiology at the local community college and I am working full time.  That and the relationship I mentioned and my life is full.  Very full.

Oh – and I am applying to nursing school.  Whoa!?!  Wish me luck!

Aqua Float experience, part 2

Continuing from the earlier post about floating in a sensory deprivation tank…

I was starting to notice that there might have been tension in my bones?  Was that possible?  Then I slowly became aware of a point in my neck that was developing discomfort.  Now before you judge the whole concept of floating based on this review (which you probably won’t do), you need a little bit of back ground about me.

I am not an entirely typical human being.  I have experienced at least 200 process-oriented bodywork sessions, I meditate on a quasi-regular basis, and I have been told that I am an Indigo Child (adult now of course).  I have done meditation retreats, somatic-process retreats and I have spent a decent amount of time outdoors – hiking and walking in nature.  So needless to say, I know my body more than most typical Americans do.  I practice process-oriented bodywork and offer it to others, along with Spiritual Astrology – so I have some uncanny insights into transpersonal reality.

Anyway – back to the float.

So my neck is becoming more and more uncomfortable as I lay there, more relaxed than I have ever been.  Knowing my system like I do, I realize that my neck is processing one of two things: either birth trauma (when I was born the cord was wrapped around my neck twice and forceps were used) or an injury from when I was five years old – where I dove into a pool that was three-feet deep and I nearly killed myself.  However, knowing trauma resolution like I do, I just lay there and allowed the pain and discomfort to increase to its strongest and then it slowly started to melt away in warmth and heat.  Seriously.  I felt warmth running down my spine after a time.

This experience above is not some minor thing.  I sometimes go for bodywork to work on this neck issue, specifically, and sometimes I do not feel like much gets worked through.  Therefore I would say that attaining these deep levels of relaxation are pretty special and unique (that is what I acquired in one float experience).  And that once these levels of relaxation are attained, then other deeper stuff can start to unwind and process through (if you are ready for it to).  I don’t know how much of this would have happened without the history I mention above.

At one point in my float, I felt like my whole body was being supported by something larger than me.  Something larger than the room the tank I was in, was in.  🙂   It was pretty incredible.

Then to be honest, maybe around the 60 minute mark, I had to go to the bathroom.  So getting up and slowly coming back into my skin was pretty wild.  I felt the cool air of the room as I opened the tank.  The light in the hall way was extremely bright after lying in the pitch black darkness for an hour.  And then, getting back in the tank, I could not get as deep as I had been previously.  I think this was because I was not sure how much time I had remaining.  (Each session is 90 minutes long and then the L.E.D. light comes on in your tank letting you know you have 5 minutes before the pump and filtration system will make your tank into a whirl pool.)

Further thoughts:

So that is one big quality in favor of floating.  Deep deep levels of awareness below and beyond the surface senses, relaxing below the skin.

However, here is what I have to say about the inference that floating in a sensory deprivation tank is a form of meditation.  Yes it is.  But I don’t think it should take the place of a regular meditation practice.  Maybe floating can be a great supplement to meditation – seeing your progress?

In conclusion, I would go back to Aqua Float several times per month if I could afford it (not that it is expensive, but I’m in school, etc etc).  It was an awesome experience.  I got to process something deep and complex and in the first session!

And actually, as I write this, several hours later, my neck feels much much better.  There are times that it is stiff and I rarely suffer from torticollis – stiffness which radiates up from behind my heart, making it nearly impossible to turn my neck.  So that feels better at present   🙂    Yay!!

Aqua Float – my first sensory deprivation tank experience

The tank looks like a bizarre, smooth clam-shell – white plastic or composite material, filled with relatively clear water.  There is a small L.E.D. light in the back of the tank which slowly shifts in color from clear white, to blue, to purple, orange and green; the water takes on these new colors.

I step into the water.  It feels good.  I can barely tell my foot is in the water – at 93.5 degree Fahrenheit, the water is basically the same temp as my skin.  At first, the small L.E.D. light in the back is not terribly bright.  It does illuminate the entire room with a small glow, and it was in that glow that I got undressed and showered off before getting into the tank.  Later though, that little tiny light will be VERY bright indeed.

In the short briefing the owner of the place gave us (there were two of us who had never been before), he explained how we should do a short body scan meditation, which I have some experience with, and that we were free to turn off the light whenever we wanted.  Therefore I lay back, feeling my body being supported by all the salt (he also said the system has 800 lbs of salt in it – don’t know if that is for all four tanks or just one, but that is a ton of salt!).  I turned off the light within 3 minutes of laying down.

It takes a few seconds to notice how I am not as relaxed as I could be, and that was just the initial layers of tension.  I have experience receiving process-oriented bodywork, so my ability to relax deeply and to rest back, allowing my body to relax in trust that I am safe and that I will be supported, is pretty advanced.  In the dark, my toe bumps the side of the tank.  I push off.  Within about 20 seconds, my hair feels the other end of the tank nearby.  I learn that I just need to relax my appendages rather than reacting or pushing against the edge.

Later I will bump the edge every 5 minutes or so, but my reaction to those bumps changes and shifts throughout the session.

In the meantime though, my inner ear is going hay wire.  When I first lay back and felt the support of the salt water, I felt like I was falling backward down a bottomless pit.  Thank god that sensation only lasted for a few seconds.  Then, from time to time, it feels like I am drifting toward the left fairly swiftly.  The first couple times I feel that sensation, I brace myself.  But then I never bump.  So I start a body scan meditation.

I probably take 20 minutes to scan my whole (outer) body.  That includes each toe, ankles, calves, thighs, etc, all the way through arms, hands, fingers, neck, head, ears, nose.  Occasionally I find a spot where there is a small amount of tension – this usually had to do with bumping the edge of the tank, or in my neck, where tension seemed to arise every few seconds.  I would hum into that section of my body, or I would intend to relax it deeper.

In response to that, sometimes a hand might twitch, or a foot, or maybe a leg.  Once or twice, I tried to hum into my neck and relax more deeply and my legs almost kicked out.  This was an experience however because with my ears submerged, it sounded like splashes or drips were echoing from far far away.  Pretty amazing really.

I felt like I was incrementally dropping deeper and deeper into relaxation.  I might twitch a hand, causing ripples to cross the water for a few seconds, and these waves, no matter how small allowed the periphery nervous system to have some data to input.  Otherwise I was slowly losing touch with my outer skin and any sense of touch it contained.

So I began to notice that there were no sense organs receiving info.  I put a hand in front of my face.  Nothing – just blackness.  No sound (yet, although I would eventually hear my heart beating).  The only smell is like being half a mile away from the ocean but subtly starting to smell it.  I could smell humidity (feel it?) and the slightest scent of salinity.  Of course there was no taste – I was not about to open my mouth in that level of salinity.  And my sense of touch was starting to vanish.

Maybe 20 minutes or more have gone by.  Thoughts are pretty much vanishing as well, unless I consciously summon them.  I notice the bizarre and unique and quite radical sensation that my skin and the outer layers of my body are checked out.  I did not feel extra long like he said I might, but I became aware of my bones much more clearly.  I thought I felt some tension either in my connective tissues or in my bones (is that possible?).

I will continue in a future post (to be completed very soon)   🙂

Altogether I was very pleased by my gift of floating in a sensory deprivation chamber!  Wow!  I do have more to say however.

 

2014 Report for astro dharma

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 17,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 6 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

poem arising from winter retreat

I participated in a few days of a winter retreat in Charlottesville.  At this retreat, we sat in silence, we played with Zapchen somatics – bringing awareness into the body and as body and we did Dream Play.  This is a way in which someone expresses a dream and the retreat participants get to play different parts from the dream, acting them out, exploring and connecting with other parts.  It is a unique and very interesting process.

I felt like I got more out of working someone else’s dream at this time, and that is where this poem arose from:

you are the Dad I never had

willing to touch and be touched

still rough around the edges

but wanting to transform

like the pieces of furniture you create

from blocks of bulky wood

my heart yearns to warm to you

your hands, calloused, on my neck

you are softer than before

I knew you

and that makes me glad.

Expanding a Dharma center in Florida, benefiting many sentient beings

Drupon Thinley Ningpo, my root guru, is working to expand the Dharma center he started in Tampa Florida.  This is going to be a much larger, modern shrine room which will be able to hold up to 200 participants.  Please help out if you are able to.  Also, there are some great Dharma items you can get in exchange for donating.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/expanding-our-tibetan-buddhist-center-in-florida?fb_action_ids=10153308536508508&fb_action_types=indiegogo%3Acontribute

Drupon Thinley Ningpo & the Green Tara empowerment November 2014

Drupon Thinley Ningpo (Florida)

We are very blessed to have the revered retreat master, Drupon Thinley Ningpo returning to the Charlottesville area.  He will give teachings, bestow the Green Tara empowerment and conduct interviews in Charlottesville and Yogaville during the weekend of November 21st – 23rd.

Friday evening will be an introductory teaching from 7 – 9 pm in Charlottesville.  He will give the Green Tara blessing empowerment Saturday morning in C’ville.  There will be an afternoon teaching, also in town.  Then he will talk on the topic of Bodhicitta at Yogaville Saturday evening.  For more info, call Kirby at 434.465.0603 or email the address below:

Drupon Rinpoche’s Full Bio is here

You can also email cvilledharma [at] gmail [dot] com for further info

We hope to see you at this event!

Bio Energetic Synchronization Technique (receiving a session)

This material is copyrighted by M. Kirby Moore.  Reproduction without permission is prohibited.  If you want to support Kirby’s blogging efforts, you can visit his website at www.mkirbymoore.com  Thank you for visiting!

Earlier today, I received my first B.E.S.T. session.  Holy cow!  Wowsers!  Oh my goodness!  It was so very potent and incredible.  It was clarifying, cathartic and a bit beyond my understanding.

It seems like this is the website of the creator of B.E.S.T.: www.morter.com  and it has some good descriptions of what it is.

I saw Michele Groux – a grounded, pragmatic and solid practitioner of B.E.S.T. here in Charlottesville.  I would highly recommend her work.  Her website is www.completebalance.net

The only disclaimer (or concern?) about receiving a session of this potent modality is this:

If you might have suppressed feelings about something (say anger or resentment or jealousy or [insert potent emotion here]) and you are willing and ready to uproot those feelings and get to the bottom of your subconscious misunderstandings and confusion, then you will most likely have a powerful session.  Then if you have a powerful session, you will require time to integrate the inner shifts.

In my case, I have been receiving bodywork for years now – since 2002.  So maybe my system is more capable or more ready to process some serious stuff.  In any case, you might want to schedule your B.E.S.T. session on a day off.  If you must interact with strangers or in an environment where speaking your full truth is frowned upon… then at least give yourself 2 – 4 hours to integrate it. Having unstructured down time after a session is good (napping, sitting in the sun and staring at the trees and the sky, etc).  You might need that level of integration time.

With that out of the way, why do I highly recommend a B.E.S.T. treatment?

Here is some of what I did, all in one session: (which was close to 90 minutes)

Became clear, consciously and subconsciously about my name – I have been given more than one spiritual name so I was unsure which was for my highest good.  Now I feel very clear.

I cleared confusion, shame and feelings of regret around an event which happened 13 years ago.  I cleared misunderstandings about an event which happened in the late 90’s.  I became clear about what a bodily ailment had to do with – it was subconscious in origin.  I’m pretty sure I cleared up some stuff around one of my parents.  Somehow I even cleared up some stuff around two future dates…  That was pretty interesting!

And this list was only about half of what I accomplished in the 90 minutes.  I left feeling pretty woozy – she had me walk around the halls of the office building, swinging my arms to help reconnect my reoriented nervous system to my body.  Fortunately I parked about half a mile away so I was not driving immediately.  I walked back to my car a bit gingerly (maybe I would recommend you have someone drop you off and then pick you back up)   🙂    if possible of course.

It involved eye movement, breathing, visualization, positive belief words and numbers in addition to the practitioner doing muscle testing on the arms and feet.

I have received numerous sessions of the modality called Body Talk (TM) and I would say that B.E.S.T. somehow goes deeper (it does have a lot in its protocol to access and shift the subconscious mind).  Or maybe I was just ready for this particular treatment on this particular day.

Nonetheless, it was awesome!

The powerful upsurge of inner shift-oriented psycho-emotional energy was very potent.  It last for about 4 hours or so after the treatment.  I have only felt that level of raging emotions in two other conditions: one was where I received a multiple hands treatment in Craniosacral Therapy and the other was during and after a powerful Womb Surround Process workshop with Myrna Martin.  In this case, I had a lot to process and change, so my experience would probably be on the more extreme end of the spectrum.  It was very cathartic, beneficial and I was forced to face my truth – up close and personal – and I now believe that my path will be more clear as a result.  Wow!

I’m excited about exploring this modality further.

Resting my big heart down, an introduction

This material is copyrighted by M. Kirby Moore.  Reproduction without permission is prohibited.  Thank you for visiting!  If you want to support Kirby’s blogging efforts, you can also view his website at www.mkirbymoore.com

 

Yesterday I was fortunate to receive bodywork from a solid practitioner of the modality called Somatic Experiencing (SE).  I have been doing this trauma resolution type work – both giving and receiving for at least three to four years, and in fact, if you count Biodynamic Craniosacral work as being similar, then I have been going at it for closer to eight or nine years.

I do not mention this “time-in-service” to boast.  I mention it to show how long it can take to truly peel away the layers for healing and renegotiation of trauma.  In previous posts I have discussed both of these modalities, but I am nearly always amazed at the creativity and uniqueness of SE’s methods of gently yet firmly going through the layers of frozen tissue and organ systems, uprooting misunderstandings and wounded emotions wherever it encounters them.

What I am trying to say is: “WOW!!!”  And “Holy Toledo!!!”

Yesterday’s work felt like a little culmination of a few years of Pre- and Perinatal Psychology (read Birth Process) work I have been doing in addition to insights into my Astrology Chart in addition to this work in Somatic Experiencing.  Yes – you read this correctly; many pieces and many layers – it was pretty big!

I know I tend to say that phrase often.  Or at least I used to say that fairly often – I would come home from an SE treatment or from a class and go, “WOW!  That was big and amazing!”  And that was true.  Each layer tends to produce deeper and more complex discoveries and insights.  And you neither know how each layer will unfold, nor in what order the layers will unravel.  One of my fellow students said it best yesterday (it was an all day class in which I received such an incredible gift of open hearted embodiment):

She said, “Most people think that true freedom is being able to do what we want…  But actually, true freedom is being open to the mystery of the unknown.”  I think that sums up what is possible with Somatic Experiencing pretty darned well!  And she could easily be a teacher in her own right – these classes tend to attract some amazing and wise folks.

I am hesitant to describe the session without supplying some background context information.  Because how else could I possibly convey how big this is without doing so?  And I want to be compassionate about showing how much information and how many layers must be resolved before one can start to get to the “bottom” of the layers of trauma.  I mention I am getting to the bottom of my traumas, but I’m not sure.  I suspect I will be pleasantly surprised by all the discoveries still to come.  But once you are ready to start the deep mediastinum work (mediastinum is the complex matrix of connective tissue connecting and embracing and wrapping around all the tubes, nerves, organs and glands in the chest – the pericardium is a part of the mediastinum), it means that you have unglued many stuck parts and melted a number of frozen layers to get there!  So I must be doing something right.

So in a future post, very soon completed, I will elaborate.  🙂

Thank you for reading!