Under The Surface

Reflections after a counselling session : 
We are looking for ourselves mostly "out there" ...in activities , social action or even in books and on TV.  Silence can be very busy when we keep controlling the silence/ aloneness by activity.
We create a lot of ripples and waves on the surface, so that the waters never become still enough to look deep down to the ground. 
We need to teach our children how to stay inside themselves instead of hopping up to the surface  creating images, activities, problems, stories all the time and forgetting  themselves on the bottom of the waters . 
If we want to see young people who do not become technology zombies, agitated consumers, compassion - less egos, it is our responsibility to teach them how to stay in their 
Big Heart and Big Mind . 
We need to understand that our task is not to make them fix and fit for society as is, but to always give them back to themselves and encourage them to live in their own truth. And additionally, we need to give their life meaning by showing them that they have some task in society, family, community and  encourage them to participate in work for community instead of just "letting them be children" ... 
instead of taking away everything challenging from them, not trusting that they are strong enough to grow with that.  
And especially in a society that lives behind masks, we have to encourage them to never deny their feelings - Not acting them out, but allowing them to express feelings...
The young clients coming to me are suffering from a huge dis-connect to the innermost core, an inability to handle challenging emotions and situation . T
Thus they run away from it with all sort of addiction like behaviours , loosing themselves in the new dogma of positive thinking and ignoring of their innermost core by cheering themselves through a constant flow of consummation. 
The face of today´s generation´s suffering is different from the one most of my generation showed  --- 
But it is suffering nonetheless.
http://www.whalerider.net/blog/under-the-surface

Allow For Help - Allow Receiving

I am back from a short holiday in Norway ....
some times we need to set ourselves loose , even physically , to jump in another kind of flow than we are usually in in our daily lives....
We do have a lot of really good ideas, we quote wise words but often we do not really be-live that life is about surrender , flow and love. We might THINK it but we miss the FEELING part .
Thus, travelling and experiencing things out of our comfort zone is a good thing .
Here comes a little sharing from our journey:

We had no fixed plan and just followed our heart.
This brought us up into the Norwegian mountain .
We drove quiet a while until we realized that to go on we would need to pay a fee to enter the Conservation Park and go on . Actually we had no Norwegian hard money to put into the machine .
So we entered the little supermarket ( the only place open in the whole area ) , but it turned out that neither could we change money nor could they take the sort of card we had. ....
In that minute a young woman stepped up out of nowhere and just offered us the money we needed , without anything in return !
No money , no thing. Just that.
We had a very nice conversation and we shared the happiness about our human meeting. ...
My learning : it is equally necessary to learn to receive as it is to give.
We need to un-controll and un-plan our lifes in order to open the doors for the hearts to open again...
if we always avoid to come into the place of being helpless we deprive ourselves of the wonderful opportunity to meet the goodness in others and restore our belief in humanity . 

No Matter How Small... the teachings of the Beetle.

Allow yourself to become gentle by the small ones.

During our visit of our Elders, sitting at the coffe table, suddenly a small beetle crawled in my direction . Grandpa saw it first and mentioned it , saying : you might just crush him.
He was really surprised seeing me protecting this small insect that most people just see as something disturbing.
But though he laughed at my protective posture , he helped me to open the door so that I could carry the beetle out of the house and release.
On my spiritual journey I found back to the wisdom of my childhood, talking with all animals and protecting them all-ways, no matter how small or big, appealing or not... it was my spontaneous impulse to prevent all from hurt.
Now, at older age , this is combined with the knowledge that ALL living things have an essential place in the eco-system.
It is not my right to judge and kill for the only reason that my ego perceives some being as disgusting or of less value or disturbing my comfort zone.
Everything is a miracle .... for those with eyes to see.

And whatever vibrates with life has a teaching ...
Beetle is in fact a totem animal , too , aiding in transformation, metamorphosis, resurrection and rebirth  of the soul.
The soft belly is close to the earth, symbolizing that their wisdom is sacred and deep and down to earth and reminds us of our connection to Mother Earth .
Due to its  back which is protected by a hard shell it symbolizes protection as well, reminding us that healthy boundaries are protecting our life path.
Beetle is asking you :
I it ime to fly or walk in life?  Are you grounded ? Do you protect life in healthy ways ?

Actualization Ah-Kine Enlightenment

by Dagmar Magdalena Ceki

I was asked to write an article about enlightenment and I thought –„gush, how can I do that ?„
So much is said about it already – many people have written about it .
Is there anything new I can write ?
Maybe by sharing part of my EarthWalk I can give an idea of what Enlightenment might be ....

My consequently walking a spiritual path started in 1998 when both my parents died in a very short period of time.
My mother was diagnosed with an extremely aggressive type of cancer which progressed very quickly .
It was a gift for me that we still had enough time to heal our lifelong issues with each other and that we
were able to experience a special kind of closeness that often only dying makes possible .
It rids us of all conventional behaviours and attitudes and thoughts , we come to the very essence of our being.
During this process , my father- as an alcohol addict - , could not cope with the situation . He went in and out psychiatry , but always started drinking again. So after my mother passed it took not long until he died one night in the street , because he lost his key and couldn’t enter his house again.
It was cold and he already was ill , so they found him dead on the next morning.
Death is one of the greatest teachers and brought me into a deep commitment to find out more about life and spirituality.

First I met Roshi Joan Halifax at a Buddhist Women Congress in Cologne / Germany. As she held workshops about death and dying , I went to see her . Listening to her talks and participating in a workshop , made me wanting to continue studying with her.
For several years I practiced Zen and had the blessings of deep and profound buddhist teachings.
Enlightenment in buddhist practice is a topic that seems very central to the teachings.
Enlightenment is like the fuel that runs the practice ...but what is this „Enlightenment“ we are striving for ?
There are many different approaches already in Zen practice , even more when we take all buddhist traditions in account.
On my way, to be honest , I lost interest in this question. I felt being here NOW is a task already big enough.

While in retreat with Joan Halifax, I came in touch with women who practiced shamanism and were students of a Native American teacher. After an invite to a Sweat Lodge I felt a deep longing of going deeper into it.
But it took me a while to find my own teacher.
2003 I started a traditional apprenticeship with Maria Yraceburu, a Quero Apache HolyOne of the Tlish Diyan ( Snake Clan).

In a traditional apprenticeship there are several circles and spirals in personal growth and spiritual re-connection that we have to go through. First we have to free ourselves from the Ego, this part we usually mis-identify with the I or Me, the part that has a lot of „Likes and Dislikes“ and very personal intention in all it does and decides .
We go through all our issues and, like an onion, get rid of one layer after the other as long as it takes to be freed from at least the biggest Ego parts and have kind of a sense of connection to our True Self, to our authenticity and to the spiritual source that we might call God/ess – Spirit – Emptiness or whatever.
This is followed by a period of time in which we need to learn how to go with the flow, integrate our knowledge into daily life and get more insights about our purpose here on Earth.

Enlightenment in the Tlish Diyan Tradition is called Ah – Kine and means Actualization.
People who come to that actualization are called the same , as there is no longer a gap between Enlightenment and the Enlightened person.
Ah- Kine means to be aware of our Oneness and Diversity in a profound way. Not in the meaning of a short and spontaneous moment ( like e.g. Sartori in Rinzai Zen ) but in the moment to moment living our evolutionary role.
Of course I know there are moments of Enlightenment ever now and then , spontaneous experiences of Being One .
But where does it lead to ... ?
In our times of Narcism and Egoism as valued attitudes and ways of living , in our times where „being One „ is often misunderstood as „I am okay , you are okay“- no matter how I behave- , and the fact that we are all already enlightened on our deepest mindground leads to the thought of „ we do not have to work any more on it“ – we need more to the concept of Enlightenment.
I had dozens of opportunities to observe so called Enlightened Masters or students having these Sartori moments, and I was puzzled by the way they lived ...about the amount of sexual, financial abuse and addictional behaviour to be found..
Explanations as „don’t expect teachers to be perfect „ wouldn’t work for me. I felt that if somebody is enlightened this should go hand in hand with a authentic, ethical behaviour towards all sentient beings.
Meanwhile I understand that Enlightenment might happen in a moment , but if it it not intristically connected to a profound spiritual and personal growth in this person it means nothing but an EgoTrip . It does not serve the community , not the world and not the Universe.
Enlightenment unfolds, and only if we join into with ALL efforts to grow personally , become more authentic , live ethically it becomes Enlightenment that serves humanity and All That Is.

Only Enlightenment that is more then just a nice moment of personal feeling and insight can be called Actualization – Ah- Kine .... Walk your Talk ...