Removing the Barriers to Love (retreat talk)

Removing the Barriers to Love (retreat talk)

(Retreat Talk) In our daily trance of feeling separate, we spend many moments wanting others to be different so we can feel better. This talk explores the heart awakening that unfolds when we deepen our commitment to seeing what is happening inside us. Only then can...
Sacred Fertilizer: The Portal of Fear (Retreat Talk)

Sacred Fertilizer: The Portal of Fear (Retreat Talk)

Bringing presence to the contraction of fear is a universal part of spiritual awakening. This talk explores two interrelated pathways of opening to and transforming fear.  …from the Fall 2014 IMCW fall retreat – Sunday night talk. Enjoy!
Embodying Loving Presence (Retreat Talk)

Embodying Loving Presence (Retreat Talk)

This talk looks at the evolutionary fear-patterning that creates separation in our relationships, and at the practices that open us to giving and receiving love. (from the IMCW long weekend residential retreat – 2014-08-02)

Am I Dreaming? (retreat talk)

Am I Dreaming? (retreat talk)

As we cultivate mindfulness we become increasingly aware of how we move through huge swaths of our life in trance. This talk reflects on three key domains of trance, and undoing the habitual reactivity that keeps us from the loving, open awareness that is our...
Realizing Our Undefended and Awakened Heart (Retreat Talk)

Realizing Our Undefended and Awakened Heart (Retreat Talk)

It is our evolutionary and spiritual potential to release unnecessary habits of violating other tribes, individuals and unwanted parts of our own being. This talk explores three essential facets of the pathway to awakening: Leaving the fortress of aversive judgment,...
The Heartspace That is Our True Home (retreat talk)

The Heartspace That is Our True Home (retreat talk)

By dedicating ourselves to loving the life that is right here–ourselves–we discover the heartspace that holds this world. This talk explores the pathways of forgiveness, offering and letting in love, and gratitude that reveal the vastness of loving presence.

Bodhisattva Path – Widening Circles of Compassion (Retreat Talk)

Bodhisattva Path – Widening Circles of Compassion (Retreat Talk)

A bodhisattva (awakened being) is committed to relieving suffering and living life from an all inclusive loving presence. This shift of identity from a self centered focus to one of realizing our radical interdependence is a natural part of our spiritual evolution and...
The Heartspace That is Our True Home (retreat talk)

Loving Ourselves (from Spring 2013 IMCW Reteat)

The greatest truths we forget, and one of them is that if we don’t love the life that is right here–what we perceive as self–we are unable to embrace our world. This talk explores the suffering of turning on ourselves and the deep freedom that arises...
The Heartspace That is Our True Home (retreat talk)

Self Compassion (Retreat Talk)

We can only find love and peace in this life if we are able to hold our inner life with compassion. This talk explores the subtle and therefore often unseen ways that we turn on ourselves, and the pathways to a forgiving heart.

Am I Dreaming? (retreat talk)

The God Whom I Love is Inside (retreat talk)

Our suffering arises from unlived life–the fears and loneliness and hurt that we have been unable to digest and include in our heart. This talk explores our conditioning to become dis-embodied and the blessings of spiritual realization that arise as we inhabit our aliveness fully.

Loving the Life Within Us (retreat talk)

Loving the Life Within Us (retreat talk)

If we don’t love the life we consider “self,” we will not realize or live from the loving awareness that is our essence. This talk guides us in bringing a kind, accepting presence to our inner life, and discovering the vastness of what we really...
Be Who You Are (retreat talk)

Be Who You Are (retreat talk)

By bringing a surrendering presence to mental, emotional and physical domains, we undo the trance of separation and discover our true nature. This talk explores the practices that cultivate the non-resisting space of presence, and the flavors of our essential being...
Opening the Lotus of Your Heart (retreat talk)

Opening the Lotus of Your Heart (retreat talk)

Our reaction to life’s stress is to contract, and we live many moments with a tight body, clenched heart and narrowed mind. This talk explores how deepening attention can reconnect us with our natural openness and radiance (from the 2012 Women’s Retreat on 2/3/2012).