The Silent Eye is busy gearing up for the annual April workshop. Every year we host a residential workshop weekend in Derbyshire and every year people come from across the globe to join us for an adventure of mind, heart and spirit.
Past events have seen us travel through time from the far distant past to the unwritten future. The weekends are a frame for spiritual exploration, the costumes and colour bring the stories to life, while the scripted ritual drama engages the imagination and emotions, allowing us to learn from a shared experience.
Inevitably, these weekends have their ‘best bits’… the memorable moments that stand out from the rest. Such moments are largely subjective and doubtless everyone has their own, although the warm, friendship and laughter are a common thread.
Some of the highlights from the April workshops stand out not just as ‘workshop memories’, but as very special…
The way people approach life is the way people show up on their yoga mat. And yoga teachers are no exception. Some yoga teachers may lead with a sense of aggression and competition while others will promote a feeling of safety and peace. I’ve noticed that depending on your own personality type you’ll be attracted to a teacher or style that tends to emulate your own tendencies, i.e., if you are hard core, you will like hardcore yoga.
But in the practice of Ayurveda, a Hindu system of alternative health and medicine, people who have core characteristics in their personality, like intensity and fire, should work on balancing their energy by engaging in activities that promote the opposite effect. If you are competitive and ambitious, a gentler, softer practice would benefit you. If you are sluggish and tend to be more sedentary, you should work toward a more active…
To be of ‘one mind’: it’s an expression we don’t hear a lot of, nowadays, though it remains available to us in the language. Historically, it was used to describe an intensity of opinion, or – even stronger – belief, that something was so important that several key figures united in a single ‘front’ of solidarity behind whatever was being endorsed.
Perhaps our vision of truth has become dulled, and it is considered that there are few such ‘black and white’ moments… In line with the complexity of our world, it may be that nothing truly ‘is’ anymore, there are just shades of ‘isness’.
Over the ages, philosophers have ventured into the waters of the human psyche and grappled with the idea of single-mindedness. To be of ‘sound mind’ has always been important; and that implies being single in our interior nature. That unity expressed by a group of people…
I started working with the Gayatri Mantra while I work with the transformation energy of Sekhmet. It is both strang and perfect how my yoga teacher training has aligned with my final year of instruction with the Silent Eye School of Consciousness. When we agree to walk the path, though, the roads we take converge to unite to the deeper awareness we seek.
I was introduced to the Gayatri Mantra by a dear friend who sent me a video of Deva Premal singing it several years ago. As I listened to Deva’s unparalleled voice, I felt as though my cells were being realigned to a deep memory of truth. I was hooked. Transfixed. I played the video for days, maybe even weeks, and each time I did I wept with the beauty of what it brought to me.
Now it has come back to me through yoga. Placed into my lap by one of my teachers at a time when it is needed both individually and collectively. After what has felt like hard work for the inner and outer voice with my earlier mantra practices, the Gayatri Mantra feels like a welcoming balm. It tempers the inner fire and soothes the wounds that were reopened for healing.
The Gayatri Mantra is ancient. It’s Sanskrit sounds work through each chakra in the body, releasing and realigning to the true self. The healing potential of the mantra is so powerful it appears in ancient texts of the Vedas and the Bhagavadgita. It is a dedication to the sun god Savitri, and calls us to awaken to the sun within that is also outside of us. It works to open us back to our deepest origin, the Light of the Divine Consciousness that resides in all of us.
I am using this mantra as a tool to balance the firey energy of Sekhmet whose claws are ripping through me in what sometimes feels like a brutal effort to expose all that is false both within and without. Her talons dig deep, piercing the deepest origins of fear as they open wider the path to Holy Truth. I feel her raging through me in a restless urgency that can leave me off-center and in need of a quieter peace. The Gayatri Mantra brings me this. The ancient notes digging deeper than Sekhmet’s claws to find the core of Love and peace that is ever-waiting to be present. It is a healing balm in these turbulent times. A gift that has come, like most unexpected gifts, at the perfect time.
One of the key understandings in mystical thought is the idea of identity. Words morph their meaning over time, and identity is a classic case.
We might think of the police knowing the ‘identity’ of a person they want to speak to. We would find it in fashion magazines for both genders in the context of a garment to reinforce our identity in line with a progressive trend.
Both these show how the word identity means either a unique description or a close bond through some sort of ‘mapping’ of properties by adoption. The central theme is that of a chosen closeness. If I buy a new car and feel very good when I drive it, I’m identifying with an object that adds to my identity and makes me feel good.
The car analogy is a good one – and a very good way of studying one of the 21st century’s fault lines – in the sense that, if ten miles down the road, someone deliberately races past our new sports car, we may well feel aggrieved that we have been deliberately ‘slighted’ and that our inflated identity, centred on the car, has been wounded.
Sometimes we need a reminder of the beauty that is always present in and around us. Today is one of those days. In the aftermath of another horrific event involving children and a gun, I look to extract the light from the darkness. Here is what I find around me:
The OM symbol on my wall
The OM carving on my wall leading up to my healing space looks like the causal realm is kissing the awakening realm.
Yesterday, scrolling through photos of tragedy on FB, I discovered Morgan Freeman is transforming his property into a sanctuary for bees.
Two beautiful dogs rescued from an unknown fate fill my home with joy and laughter in a constant reminder of gratitude and love.
The morning sun spotlights nature’s beauty and I need only look through the window to see it.
With each breath, I can bring that same light deep into my body to charge my cells.
When I go outside, I feel the quicking pulse of spring, which promises renewal.
The gentle pour of water sings a lullaby.
Warm oatmeal smells like sweet earth.
A blueberry wears the imprint of a flower.
When my mind searches for beauty, it opens to the wonder that is Life.
Please, if you feel moved to do so, include something beautiful that you have discovered in your life in a comment. May this day and all your days be graced with beauty.
The Light Behind the Story 