In describing our human predicament and dis-ease, D.H. Lawrence says we are like a great tree with our roots in the air. We need to replant ourselves—in our bodies, hearts and spirit. These two talks are guides to replanting ourselves. In Part 1, we explore how we are so often dissociated from the life of our body, and the pathways home. Part 2 looks at the challenges of pain, fear and trauma, and how we can gradually and skillfully reconnect with a wholeness of being.

May we be blessed to live from embodied presence… to realize the love and creativity and freedom that are our essence. ~ Tara

This very body that we have, that’s sitting right here right now… with its aches and it pleasures… is exactly what we need to be fully human, fully awake, fully alive. ~ Pema Chödron

Go with the pain, let it take you. Open your palms and your body to the pain. It comes in waves like the tide and you must be open as a vessel lying on the beach, letting it fill you up and then, retreating, leaving you empty and clear… with a deep breath – it has to be as deep as the pain – one reaches a kind of inner freedom from pain, as though the pain were not yours but your body’s. The spirit lays the body on the altar. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 48:23 — 33.2MB)

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This two part series explores how we regularly leave our body and skim life’s surface in a mental trance, and the ways we can train our attention to come home again. We look at working with physical and emotional pain, and the gifts of love, wisdom, creativity and aliveness that arise as we learn to fully inhabit these living forms and all our senses with awareness.

Includes a meditation to guide us in working with pain.

Life is a garden, not a road. We enter and exit through the same gate wandering, where we go matters less than what we notice ~ Bokonon

The Church says: the body is a sin.
Science says: the body is a machine.
Advertising says: The body is a business.
The Body says: I am a fiesta.”

― Eduardo Galeano, Walking Words

Listen to Embodied Presence: Portal to the Sacred – Part 1 here.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 50:55 — 46.6MB)

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Mindful awareness of our bodies is a portal to full aliveness, wisdom and love. These two classes will explore the trance that takes us away from our body, the pathways home, ways of working with pain, and the gifts of an embodied presence.

See also: Working with Pain – Mindfulness Strategies

Listen to Part 1 – Awakening Our Body’s Awareness

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 51:00 — 23.3MB)

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CC ~ Mindful awareness of our bodies is a portal to full aliveness, wisdom and love. These two classes will explore the trance that takes us away from our body, the pathways home, ways of working with pain, and the gifts of an embodied presence.

“Inside this clay jug there are canyons and pine mountains,
and the maker of canyons and mountains!
All seven oceans are inside, and hundreds of millions of stars.”

― Kabir

Listen to Part 2 – Awakening Our Body’s Awareness

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 51:14 — 23.5MB)

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