Dear Ones,

As I read the news these days I feel so much going on in my body. One moment there may be the heat and compression that may be called rage, as well as a shaky agitation of terrified powerlessness. Then the thick, heavy, stuck sensation connected to a feeling of hopelessness collapsing into a numbness of overwhelm and despair.

I have also been on a deep dive into the world of Non-Dual IFS (Internal Family Systems) where these streams of sensations may be described as different parts. I have experienced the opening that naturally comes with the shift in perspective - from “I am enraged, I feel powerless and overwhelmed.” to “A part of me is enraged.” “A part feels terrified, powerless and overwhelmed.” Or even “A part feels hot and compressed, shaky, stuck.” With this shift there is an inherent openness that arises, full of compassion and curiosity. There is a sense of acceptance internally - “Yes, of course these parts feel this way.” There is no need for them to change in any way, there is space for them to be just as they are. In this, my whole system relaxes further and something deeper reveals itself - perhaps a core belief system asking to be met. And even deeper - what is spacious, empty and whole within the rage, terror and despair. And somehow all of this can exist in the same moment because it is all pure source expressing itself - space inside rage, emptiness within terror, wholeness shining through despair.

Dr. Laura Patryas, in her book Awaken to Love speaks to the both/and experience of Duonity - the capacity to experience the absolute Truth of the emptiness of all form while also experiencing the relative truth of embodied incarnation with all its sensations, emotions and thoughts.

Thich Nhat Hahn points to this as well in his translation of the Heart Sutra.

I am curious, what is arising in your body, heart and mind these days? What if there is a gentle invitation to experience these arising energies as parts, not as the totality of what you are? Can you feel a sense of compassionate curiosity that invites deeper intimacy? And as whatever is aware draws more deeply in, what else is discovered?

You are welcome to join us to find out.

We plan to gather online on Saturday February 7th from 10-11:30 am Mountain Standard Time. All are welcome.

9am Pacific time

5pm/17h London

6pm/18h Amsterdam

If you would like to join us, please contact me here: embodied meditation sign up

The gathering is free and donations are accepted here:

https://paypal.me/openheartwisdom?locale.x=en_US

or at Wise: International Money Transfer | Transfer Money Overseas using the email address: mgedert9@gmail.com

Dear Ones,

As we flow into this new year, I am feeling drawn to inquire into the core of what we are, our True Nature, and to see how we may miss the spaciousness of this in our identification as the roles we play.

When, by grace, in the late 90’s, I first met Gangaji, I also happened to be in acting school. In each acting class we would engage in improvisation; our teacher would give us a topic, such as betrayal, and he would give us 10 minutes or so to meet in a group with our fellow students to make up our circumstances and decide which role we would each play in these made-up circumstances - who would be the betrayer and who the betrayed. We would get on stage and step convincingly into these roles, embodying them fully - what a rush to play this way! Then we would step off the stage and all of it would disappear - the circumstances and roles - no betrayal, betrayed or betrayer. Just peace and openness of friends who play together.

In Satsang with Gangaji each weekend I felt how this is what she was pointing to - what is here when we step out of the roles we play. There is the possibility to experience what is here before any role is claimed - whether it is a role connected to gender, family, profession, history or even the role of human being.

If in this moment we can step off the stage, out of the circumstances and the roles we play, what is here? What does not need a label or a name or any circumstance or others to be experienced right now? What is here without all of those? What if this is your True Nature? And does this go anywhere when labels, names and roles are invited back in?

You are all welcome to join us to discover what is untouched by all roles and yet infuses all roles and peace available in this discovery.

We plan to gather on January 3rd from 10-11:30 am Mountain Standard Time. All are welcome.

9am Pacific time

5pm/17h London

6pm/18h Amsterdam

If you would like to join us, please contact me here: embodied meditation sign up

The gathering is free and donations are accepted here:

https://paypal.me/openheartwisdom?locale.x=en_US

or at Wise: International Money Transfer | Transfer Money Overseas using the email address: mgedert9@gmail.com

Dear Ones,

For our final gathering of 2025, I would love to hear from all of you - what have you realized, what have you discovered? And how is this realization living you? What does it feel like to integrate discovery through apparent form - inviting in, including thoughts and emotions, sensations and circumstances, so nothing is left out? Everything welcome.

What could it feel like to step into our sacred container for this gathering as an integration circle - a space where we can collectively share realization, allow it to land in the body, and feel into any place that still yearns to be included? Then dropping in even deeper, asking - from here, what do I really want? What if this is already what I am? How is this life to be used?

We plan to gather on Saturday December 6th at 10am Mountain time. All are welcome.

9am Pacific time

5pm/17h London

6pm/18h Amsterdam

If you would like to join us, please contact me here: embodied meditation sign up

The gathering is free and donations are accepted here:

https://paypal.me/openheartwisdom?locale.x=en_US

or at Wise: International Money Transfer | Transfer Money Overseas using the email address: mgedert9@gmail.com

@nasa

Dear Ones,

I love when brilliant minds put into words what I am feeling in my whole being. Recently I have come across beautiful descriptions of the way pure consciousness naturally pulses and breathes itself into apparent form, into apparent movement, while never being anything other than empty silence.

From Shakti Spanda Circle:

The universe hums with a subtle vibration, a hidden energy that dances beneath the surface of all things. It's a secret symphony, a cosmic rhythm that weaves through the fabric of reality. This is Spanda, the vibrant pulse of existence, the thrumming heartbeat of the cosmos. In Sanskrit, Spanda means "vibration," "movement," or "divine pulsation." It's the life force that births creation, sustains it through countless transformations, and eventually guides it back to the unmanifest, the source from which it arose……….It's the creative power that propels galaxies into motion, the subtle energy that guides the unfolding of seasons, the vital force that beats within your own heart.

So, I am curious, what does this feel like in this moment - the subtle vibration, the hum of the universe? The divine is-ness that is free of all separation, labels, polarities and judgements even as it appears as separation, labels, polarities and judgement. And as you sink deeply into the heart of this pulsation, what is discovered? Can you feel the stillness in the center from which it arises?

You are all welcome to join me as we come together to slow down and feel the radiant divine pulse of pure consciousness as it appears as breath and heartbeat, as love and resistance, as wind blowing, water flowing and leaves falling from the trees. As the pain and suffering of the planet and as the joy of children’s laughter, never separate from the emptiness of pure consciousness.

We plan to gather on Saturday November 1st at 10am Mountain time. All are welcome.

9am Pacific time

4pm/16h London

5pm/17h Amsterdam

If you would like to join us, please contact me here: embodied meditation sign up

The gathering is free and donations are accepted here:

https://paypal.me/openheartwisdom?locale.x=en_US

or at Wise: International Money Transfer | Transfer Money Overseas using the email address: mgedert9@gmail.com

Dear All,

I don’t know about you, but for me doubt is a familiar companion. This part arises in the form of excessive planning, second guessing, rehashing, ruminating, talking to myself, talking to others. It seems like a purely mental process with the intention of trying to be certain, to make sure I do things right, and on this level, I can appreciate its protective intention.

Yet it can be painful and exhausting. It keeps my attention and focus in the mind, in the past, in the future, on apparent others - out of the body, out of the present moment - self-abandonment.

So where does this doubt come from? If I slow down and feel into the body in a moment of doubt, I notice that there are uncomfortable body sensations that are associated with fear. Fear of uncertainty, not knowing what will happen, not knowing what to do in order to stay safe. This part believes that if I don’t know, I could get everything wrong, I could be cast out of the safety of herd, I could die. Of course this doubting part wants to avoid all that, and intimacy and connection with myself and others are the price to pay.

What could it feel like to pause when a sense of uncertainty arises? Slow down and turn towards this fearful energy instead of moving away into the mind? To tune in more deeply to the patterns of this part, sensing the subtle qualities, allowing space for whatever is arising to be here, right now? What could be discovered? And what if all that is discovered calls awareness even deeper into the very Source of these energies? What does this feel like? Is this separate in any way from what you are?

You are all welcome to join me to find out what is here when we turn towards and open to the experience of uncertainty.

We plan to gather on Saturday October 4th at 10am Mountain time. All are welcome.

9am Pacific time

5pm/17h London

6pm/18h Amsterdam

If you would like to join us, please contact me here: embodied meditation sign up

The gathering is free and donations are accepted here:

https://paypal.me/openheartwisdom?locale.x=en_US

or at Wise: International Money Transfer | Transfer Money Overseas using the email address: mgedert9@gmail.com.

I am curious, what does this word “longing” mean to you? Merriam Webster defines “longing” as a strong desire especially for something unattainable. This word, this feeling of a strong desire for something unattainable lived large inside me for much of my life. It feels as though I was born longing for something I could not name, could not find, and this longing was painful. It arose as an ache in the heart for something outside of myself, something I could only get from someone else, someplace else at some other time. It was a longing for my parents’ love, but somehow that was not enough. It was a longing for safety, for comfort, but somehow when I had them it was not enough. This longing took me to the other side of the country where I found moments of peace with a new love or a beautiful sunset, but it never lasted. There continued to be unsettled energy, driving, seeking, wanting, needing the sense of separation to end. I pushed against this energy, trying to make it go away through spiritual texts and practices, sex, intense physical challenges - all of which sated this feeling briefly, until it painfully arose again.

Then I met my teacher, and she invited me to stop. She invited me to stop seeking and turn in, to burn, unmoving, inside the ache and discomfort. To open to failing completely at my attempts to satisfy this longing outside of myself. With that invitation, the longing ceased and what was discovered was endless, spacious, vibrant energy - pure life force, love. The uncomfortable longing that I had resisted, turned out to be the doorway into what I was longing for all along.

You are all welcome to discover for yourselves what is here when, instead of seeking outside of ourselves, we allow the longing to call us closer inside, to discover that what we are looking for is, as Gangaji says, “closer than your own breath.”

gangaji youtube - what do you really want?

https://youtu.be/8fB3zftq-3Y?si=7KuVSLOaIEszHiEF

We plan to gather on Saturday September 6th at 10am Mountain time. All are welcome.

9am Pacific time

5pm/17h London

6pm/18h Amsterdam

If you would like to join us, please contact me here: embodied meditation sign up

The gathering is free and donations are accepted here:

https://paypal.me/openheartwisdom?locale.x=en_US

Love Dogs
A Poem by Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks

One night a man was crying Allah! Allah!
His lips grew sweet with praising,
until a cynic said, “So!
I’ve heard you calling out, but have you ever
gotten any response?”
The man had no answer to that.
He quit praying and fell into a confused sleep.
He dreamed he saw Khidr, the guide of souls,
in a thick, green foliage.
“Why did you stop praising?” “Because
I’ve never heard anything back.”
“This longing you express
is the return message.”
The grief you cry out from
draws you toward union.
Your pure sadness
that wants help
is the secret cup.
Listen to the moan of a dog for its master.
That whining is the connection.
There are love dogs
no one knows the names of.
Give your life
to be one of them.

Dear Ones,

I am curious about your relationship to the future. From Dictionary.com it is defined as time that will be or come after the present. What does that actually mean? What is “after the present”? Isn’t that just more present? Is the future completely made up based on what has already happened? Is it just images and projections happening in our heads? Can you find the future right now? Does it exist?

And I wonder how much time you spend in your head thinking about the future, planning about the future, protecting against something that could possibly happen in the future? Trying to control life.

I recently found myself on the long drive home from the airport, at the close of a lovely trip to visit family, planning our next vacation. I had not yet let my feet touch bare earth here before I was in my head, projecting into the future to leave this patch of earth for another patch of earth somewhere else, at some other time.

When this was lovingly pointed out to me, I was able to pause and turn in. In doing so, awareness dropped more deeply into the body, and I could feel what I was avoiding. I could feel the physical discomfort of a long day’s travel, the sadness of leaving loved ones, as well as love and gratitude. I could feel the resistance to the responsibilities of daily life. In allowing all of this to just be here, my whole being softened and landed in the present moment. The mental activity stopped; awareness fell in and open.

I could feel the richness of my body - energy and vibration of aches, fatigue, and heaviness. I could feel the earth beneath and around me. I could sense the mysterious vastness of life force breathing me, driving the car - the same mysterious vastness of life force burning the forest around us. Quiet, spacious, alive. I could feel the natural unfolding of what we call life, the Divine wisdom that is so much more trustworthy than the future planning mind. The “future” was gone. No time, no plan, no one to plan.

With no idea of a “future” what is here? What is left? How is life experienced? How does life unfold?

You are all welcome to join me to discover for yourself what it feels like to trust the natural unfolding of the universe, right now. And now. Trust the mystery of the life force living what you call “you”.

We plan to gather (and we will wait and see on that) on Saturday August 2nd at 10am Mountain time. All are welcome.

9am Pacific time

5pm/17h London

6pm/18h Amsterdam

If you would like to join us, please contact me here: embodied meditation sign up

The gathering is free and donations are accepted here:

https://paypal.me/openheartwisdom?locale.x=en_US

Dear Ones,

Self-inquiry - this is a term many of us hear frequently, and I have seen it come more and more into the common spiritual and “self-help” conversation. But what does it mean?

Ramana Maharshi spoke of self-inquiry in this way:

When other thoughts arise, one should not pursue them but should enquire, ‘To whom do they arise?’ It does not matter how many thoughts arise. As each thought arises one should enquire with diligence, ‘To whom has this thought arisen?’ The answer that would emerge would be ‘To me’. Thereupon if one enquires, ‘Who am I?’ the mind will go back to its source and the thought that arose will become quiescent. With repeated practice in this manner the mind will develop the skill to stay in its source. From ‘Who Am I?’ Sri Ramana Maharshi’s teachings on how to realise the Self - David Godman

“The mind will go back to its source” - this is the invitation - for the mind to become quiescent, for it to rest in the center of its generation - silence.

And yet, somehow this process of self-inquiry can become a trap. It can lead to the opposite of rest, the opposite of silence, it can lead further away from Source. How? In my experience this can arise when there is an agenda driving the inquiry, a desire to get something, somewhere, to be someone different than what I am now. I am curious, can you feel this? I can as I type these words - contraction, tension, heat, agitation.

This can all be a signal to pause and open to these sensations. Somehow in that pause and opening, everything softens, the mind relaxes. Whatever is asking the questions slows down, sinks into the sensations themselves and deeper into the source of all sensation. Ah….rest, silence.

I am curious, what do the words “self-inquiry” mean to you? In the process of inquiry, what are you looking for? Where are you looking for it? If you get what you are looking for what will that give you?

You are all welcome to join my co-host Joey Bloom and me as we explore the potential trap of self-inquiry, and what happens when we turn inside to discover that what we are looking for is what we already are.

We plan to meet by zoom on Friday July 25th at 5pm Pacific time.

Tokyo - Saturday July 26th 9am

Sydney - Saturday July 26th 10am

Auckland - Saturday July 26th 12 noon

If you would like to join us, please contact me here: embodied meditation sign up

The gathering is free and donations are accepted here:

https://paypal.me/openheartwisdom?locale.x=en_US

Dear Ones,

I don’t know about you, but I find that in these time sometimes my mind gets caught in a loop of rehashing something that happened in the past, or projecting into an imagined future. Minutes or more can pass, and I am lost in thought about anything other than this present moment. This can feel constricted, tense, sharp, and buzzy in a way that is deeply uncomfortable. Or it can feel like a spacey dissociation, unaware of the body or my immediate surrounds - fuzzy, comfortable, numb. Both are quite familiar. It used to be that I spent most of my waking hours in these two states - trying to think, project, imagine myself into a moment of peace and relief. Or going to sleep to the present for this moment of peace and relief. Both skillful protective strategies, but neither could bring the lasting peace I was seeking.

Thankfully, through deep dissatisfaction, through grace, through a myriad of teachers, I was led to another possibility - embodied presence. Right now. Turning from the mental activity to the felt sense of what is here right now - both outside the body and inside the body. Discovering the boundless safety that is here, regardless of circumstance.

I am curious, what could it feel like to pause for a moment, aware of the sounds and sensations surrounding you? Allowing that awareness to fall inwards, aware of sounds and sensations within - perhaps even the sounds and sensations of your own breath. Sensing where there may be resistance to this internal intimacy, allowing that to just be as it is. What if whatever is aware could drop in even deeper, resting within as the alive spacious presence that infuses breath and sensation? The labels of inside and outside can fall away and what is here?

You are all invited to join me to discover for yourself what is here when awareness is invited and supported to come to rest now, fully, in this moment. And what it can feel like to live from here - allowing apparent inside and outside, self and other while sensing the presence of all, experiencing the exquisite multiplicity of existence fully, now?

"The best use of this Moment is to drown in It."

~~ Papaji ~

All are welcome as we plan to gather by zoom on July 5th at 10am Mountain time.

9am Pacific time

5pm/17h London

6pm/18h Amsterdam

If you would like to join us, please contact me here: embodied meditation sign up

The gathering is free and donations are accepted here:

https://paypal.me/openheartwisdom?locale.x=en_US

Dear Ones,

There will be no gathering on June 7th as I will be traveling. We plan to meet in July.

In the meantime, I invite you to experience this guided meditation: Opening to the Flow of Love. In this meditation you are welcomed into the support of this present moment, and from here the effortless flow of love can be felt, absorbed, radiated. It is possible to discover that you are both the source of love and the receiver of love. What if you could experience deeply, that there is no separation between you and love, it is what you are?

As always, I welcome feedback and reports. And you are welcome to support us with donations at https://paypal.me/openheartwisdom?locale.x=en_US

I look forward to seeing you on the first Saturday of July.

Dear Ones,

As structures, agreements, alliances and familiar forms continue to unravel and dissolve in this current quickening of change, I am curious what are you holding on to? What are some ways you are seeking certainty outside of yourself? Grasping at what is familiar while resisting what you fear? Attempting to recreate old patterns that belong to a past that no longer exists? Trying to stay safe even as the fault lines crack open and the ground beneath us all reveals itself as illusion?

What does this grasping, seeking, holding, trying to stay safe feel like in your body? How does it guide your life, your relationship with others, with the earth, with yourself, with the Divine? What could it feel like to honor this pattern of seeking certainty for the ways it has shown up in your life, receive this honoring deeply, and feel into a deeper desire? Feel into a desire that is deeper than relative safety, feel into the deeper purpose of your life here, now.

Perhaps as you open to this desire, you can sense your grasping fists unfurl, palms wide, body relaxed, floating, permeable.

What does it feel like to allow this freefall? To honor what seeks the illusion of safety and, for a moment, not touch it? To be willing to be free, to fall, realizing that anything you were holding onto is also falling. Drifting on invisible currents of Divine wisdom that have always carried you, are you, can never be anything other than what you already, always are. What does it feel like to allow this Divine wisdom to live fully, freely through what you call “me”?

“The bad news is you're falling through the air, nothing to hang on to, no parachute. The good news is, there's no ground.” — Chögyam Trungpa.

You are all invited to join me to discover for yourself. We plan to meet by zoom on Saturday May 3rd from 10-11:30 Mountain Daylight Time.

9am Pacific Time

5pm/17h - London

6pm/18h - Amsterdam

If you would like to join us, please contact me here: embodied meditation sign up

The gathering is free and donations are accepted here:

https://paypal.me/openheartwisdom?locale.x=en_US

Dear Ones,

Maeve Jones and I are coming together to co-host another gathering, this one exploring “agenda”. I wonder, what does that word evoke in you?

For me, I can feel a certain tightness with a sense of a do-er, someone trying to get something done, and a future - when this something will get done. There can be a sense of struggle with what is here, now. Perhaps a sense of effort - trying to gain an illusion of control over what is inherently out of our control. There could be a feeling of inflation as this do-er, or a feeling of deflation that the effort is trying to avoid.

We may be aware of agendas we have when it comes to other people, external circumstances, how we want them to be different - perhaps for very justifiable reasons. I am also curious about the agendas we have with ourselves - physically, mentally, emotionally. I call this the “Agenda of Wellness”. Of course we want to feel well, of course we want our bodies to move freely without pain, of course we want a regulated nervous system and to not act unconsciously out of fixation. But what gets lost in this agenda? How are we betraying ourselves in this effort to be “well”?

What if instead, it is possible to stop and turn into what we are avoiding with our agenda? What if it is possible to listen and receive, noticing that the river of life is carrying us perfectly in this moment. What if, instead of paddling hard against the current of life, it is possible to let the natural flow carry and guide? What does this feel like? Trusting the love that is naturally living us in this moment? And what right action may effortlessly flow from here, now?

You are all welcome to join us on Zoom to deepen into this exploration.

3pm Pacific Time

8am April 19th Sydney Time

10am April 19th New Zealand

If you would like to join us, please contact me here: embodied meditation sign up for the link.

The gathering is free and donations are accepted here:

https://paypal.me/openheartwisdom?locale.x=en_US

Dear Ones,

As we witness a world seemingly fracturing into polarities on many different levels, I find myself reflecting on what I really want. When reading the news, I can feel how I want my own agenda; I want things to look the way I want them to look & I don’t want them to be any other way. In this I can feel the violence in myself - a violence based in a belief of separation. This but not that, you but not me, us but not them, here but not there. It feels like the violence of these polarities is rising to the surface to be seen and met in a new way, and this process feels painful. If I stop to tell a deeper truth, I can sense how focusing on separation is a way to actually avoid feeling this pain. This may have served at sometime, but now causes more suffering.

I wonder, what could it feel like to turn towards the pain within instead of projecting it outwards? To come into attunement with the waves of energy arising in us? To feel the harmony and rhythm of what is here, right now, even if it is uncomfortable? To open?

Perhaps by coming so deeply into attunement within, we can feel the illusion of separation dissolve everywhere - no you or me, no us or them, no here or there, no inside or outside. I am curious, what is left?

And what could it feel like to meet the apparent world, the apparent “other” from this place of deep attunement? No separation. Recognizing that everything is your own self dancing this dance. What right action naturally comes from here?

You are all invited to join me to discover for yourself. We plan to meet on Saturday April 5th from 10-11:30 Mountain Daylight Time.

9am Pacific Time

5pm/17h - London

6pm/18h - Amsterdam

If you would like to join us, please contact me here: embodied meditation sign up

The gathering is free and donations are accepted here:

https://paypal.me/openheartwisdom?locale.x=en_US

Dear Ones,

As someone who has a tendency to interact with the world through my mind, the invitation to inhabit the body more deeply has been life changing. When I first experienced conscious ego-transcendence decades ago - all form disappearing, the true formless nature of everything revealing itself - somehow the mind co-opted realization and turned it into “insight”. Very beautiful and true insight, but it seemed to stay safely in the mental realm and did not include the body and emotions. There was a sense of separation between “me” and “body” - a doubling down on “I am not my thoughts, emotions or body”. Yes, this is true, but over time this true realization turned into strategy of avoiding emotional energy and uncomfortable sensations in the body, a way of trying to control what is fundamentally out of control, a way to attempt to stay safe by maintaining the illusion of duality. A way of avoiding true intimacy, and this was painful.

It was the young people I work with who invited me out of this survival strategy and into my body, into a deeper experience of presence. They did not care about insights or inquiry - the “who are you without that thought?” Their presence called me to stop mental activity, drop more deeply into the embodied experience of this moment. In order to be present with them, I had to be present in myself - fully experiencing sensations in the body, waves of energy that get called emotion. I had to develop the capacity to open to everything arising in myself to be able to open to everything arising in another - to fully meet these precious apparent others who were coming to me for relief from their suffering. In this presence, any sense of “me” and “them” fell away, past and future revealed themselves as imaginary - nothing but unnamable, vast, endless, love. Silence that is empty of separation and completely full of everything.

You are all welcome to join me dropping more deeply in - experiencing the body as a portal to presence. I don’t know what will be discovered, but I welcome you in to experience for yourself.

We plan to gather by zoom on Saturday March 1st from 10am to 11:30am Mountain time & all are welcome.

9am Pacific Time

5pm/17h - London

6pm/18h - Amsterdam

If you would like to join us, please contact me here: embodied meditation sign up

The gathering is free and donations are accepted here:

https://paypal.me/openheartwisdom?locale.x=en_US

Dear Ones,

I have been exploring this theme of absorption for months….years…perhaps lifetimes, who knows? As I looked up a definition for the word, these are some things I found - full immersion, not paying attention to anything else, the act of drinking in, soaking up, receiving.

What could it feel like to deeply receive yourself and be received by yourself? Making contact with what is here is this moment: thoughts, emotions, sensations, reactions. Allowing awareness to rest immersed in what is here - no need to fix or change, no need to make meaning or understand. Fully merged within.

You are all welcome to join me with guest host Maeve Jones and we explore Absorption and offer a sacred container to take a deep dive in to receive your own self - where quiet opens everything on its own, no one here to comment or to observe, and no one to do anything at all. One.

We plan to meet by zoom on February 21st from 5pm - 6:30pm Mountain time.

Feb 21st 4pm-5:30 Pacific time

Feb 21st 7pm-8:30pm Eastern time

Feb 22nd 11am-12:30am Sydney AEDT

Feb 22nd 1pm-2:30pm Auckland NZDT

Feb 22nd 9am-10:30am Tokyo JST

If you would like to join us, please contact me here: embodied meditation sign up

The gathering is free and donations are accepted here:

https://paypal.me/openheartwisdom?locale.x=en_US

Dear Ones,

I am taking a zoom pause for a bit here & will not host a gathering on February 1st.  I invite you during our regularly scheduled time, or any time at all if it feels right, to take a presence pause for yourself.  

I am curious what that feels like for you - to pause and open as this present moment - aware of ground and sky, sound and sensation right now..... 

And what if whatever is aware sinks back and down and in so deeply that any sense of subject and object fade away.......? 

No doer or doing, no past or future, no name or identifiable form.  Dropping in so deeply that inside and outside are revealed to mean nothing at all. Beyond any label, meaning or interpretation.

What if this is the True Nature of everything?  This pure freedom.   What if this is what you are, what everything is and always has been?

What if it is possible to rest here now?

And what if objectivity of awareness returns?  Why not?  Even as it returns and duality appears to appear - so what? Labels and meanings, preferences and discernment can tell the truth about themselves - they are empty, formless, spaciousness dancing as somethingness.

What can it feel like to live lightly as nothing and something, empty and full, embodied and free?  

I would love to hear what is discovered.

As the calendar moves from December to January, the year somehow changes from 2024 to 2025 - arbitrary in many ways and yet a useful agreement - it is a time to reflect on what else we are in agreement with, and what agreements no longer serve.

What could it feel like to have space to explore the ways we are in agreement with:

Habitual patterns of reactivity - such as taking things personally, projecting, worrying, judging, blaming?

Stories of the past - what we believed happened, and what we think that means?

Survival strategies - based on a limited belief in who and what we are, who and what others are?

As we come into this new year you are invited to join me and my guest host Karlis Williams as we support the exploration of these agreements - feeling into their vibration and tone, sensing how they have been living in the body, learning the lessons there are to learn, offering gratitude.

Then allowing the vibration and tone of the old agreements to naturally transform into something new. Infused with light of knowing the Truth of who and what we are.

Patterns, stories and strategies may still arise, but with a different energy, a lightness perhaps. Not a problem at all. What could it be like to live from here?

You are all invited to join us as we gather by zoom on Saturday January 4th from 10am to 11:30am Mountain time & all are welcome.

9am Pacific Time

5pm/17h - London

6pm/18h - Amsterdam

If you would like to join us, please contact me here: embodied meditation sign up

The gathering is free and donations are accepted here:

https://paypal.me/openheartwisdom?locale.x=en_US

Dear Ones,

After a beautiful gathering in November, inquiring into the ways we avoid death, what we hold onto and what is here when all avoiding and holding on dissolves, I would love to investigate further. I invite you to join us as we explore the ways we keep an imagined sense of ourselves separate; the ways we protect an identity we feel needs protection.

I am curious, when you turn the light of awareness into the depths of the heart, can you feel or sense the defenses you hold there? They may be subtle or obvious, perhaps deeply hidden. What emotional energy have you not let yourself feel? What has been the cost?

You may find that the defenses have served an important purpose in the past and this may no longer be necessary.

What if it is possible to get more intimate with the defenses of the heart? To move closer through the layers of thought and projection, emotion and sensation, discovering something fresh as you turn towards instead of away? As you drop all the way through to what you were before you were even born?

What could it feel like to be fully absorbed into the purity and innocence of the undefended heart - beyond any sense of a separate someone needing protection? Where life can unfold effortlessly, the natural rhythm of Love flowing open and free.

And, what could it feel like to know that everyone and everything you see is this same innocence?

We plan to gather by zoom on Saturday December 7th from 10am to 11:30am Mountain time & all are welcome.

9am Pacific Time

5pm/17h - London

6pm/18h - Amsterdam

If you would like to join us, please contact me here: embodied meditation sign up

The gathering is free and donations are accepted here:

https://paypal.me/openheartwisdom?locale.x=en_US

Dear Ones,

Here in the Rocky Mountains, autumn has been taking its time turning to winter this year. The aspens and even some cottonwoods are still holding their leaves late into October. With one hard freeze, everything will change. What a beautiful time to meet and explore dying.

What is “dying”? One dictionary definition is gradually ceasing to exist or function; seeming to decline; about to disappear. “Ceasing to exist or function” - I am curious - what happens in you when you feel into those words, what arises as you contemplate the ceasing to exist or function of everything and everyone around you, when you contemplate your own dying?

What thoughts and emotions arise? What do they feel like in the body? Are these welcome or, perhaps, are there ways you avoid these thoughts, emotions and sensations - consciously or unconsciously.

You are all welcome to join us as Linda Floan and I offer space to inquire into the ways we avoid dying, what we hold on to, and what is here when that holding on stops - for just a moment. What if awareness can sink so deeply into what was avoided that there is no separation, there is total absorption? What could it feel like to allow life to be lived from here- present, quiet, whole?

Dying is giving up everything - even the identity as the one giving up.

We plan to gather by zoom on Saturday November 2nd from 10am to 11:30am Mountain time & all are welcome.

4pm/16h - London

5pm/17h - Amsterdam

If you would like to join us, please contact me here: embodied meditation sign up

The gathering is free and donations are accepted here:

https://paypal.me/openheartwisdom?locale.x=en_US

Dear All,

For this month’s gathering I would love to invite you all to explore with us the embodied experience of Inner Refuge.

According to Merriam Webster, refuge is “shelter from danger or distress”.

We so often seek this outside of ourselves, in our circumstances - seeking refuge in relationship, family, job, community, house, nature, etc. Perhaps we seek this kind of shelter in our image, the health and comfort of our body, the bliss of positive emotions, or in disembodied mind-stream. What other ways have you sought refuge in circumstance? or a certain state of being?

We may find refuge in these circumstances for a moment, but these circumstances all change - the relationship fails, someone dies, the company folds, a hurricane destroys the beautiful house, the body ages. Uncomfortable emotions replace blissful ones and living in the head leads to suffering.

When we give up seeking refuge outside, I am curious, what is left? What could it feel like to turn inwards to seek refuge instead? In this moment to turn so deeply inside that it is possible to discover what cannot come and go, what is always here, always whole, always free from danger and distress.

You are all welcome to join us in this exploration and discover for yourself what this deep inner refuge feels like in the present moment.

We plan to gather by zoom on Saturday October 5th from 10am to 11:30am Mountain time & all are welcome.

5pm - London

6pm - Amsterdam

If you would like to join us, please contact me here: embodied meditation sign up

The gathering is free and donations are accepted here:

https://paypal.me/openheartwisdom?locale.x=en_US

A while back a 10 year old was sharing with me that she often asks herself, “Why do I exist?”. This is a young person with a very challenging family situation, and I could feel some contraction and sadness as she asked this question, a sense of hopelessness in understanding the challenges she faces.

And I could also feel the innocence of this question that resonated deeply. “Why do I exist?” - what a beautiful question full of awe and wonder that can lead us to the very source of what we are.

I am curious, if you ask yourself this question right now - “Why do I exist?” What arises? Thoughts? Emotions? Sensations? Or perhaps nothing at all - silence, emptiness, I don’t know. What if there is space for everything that arises to just be - no right answer or wrong answer - everything welcome and met free of judgement and appraisal. What could be revealed?

What if there is permission to rest and sink even more deeply into the source from which this question arises? Where the one asking and the question itself dissolve, open? I am curious what remains?

Everyone is welcome to join us on Saturday September 7th to discover for yourself what is here when this question is asked. And what it feels like to live from the depths of the answer. Linda Floan will co-host with me.

We plan to gather by zoom on Saturday September 7th from 10am to 11:30am Mountain time & all are welcome.

5pm - London

6pm - Amsterdam

If you would like to join us, please contact me here: embodied meditation sign up

The gathering is free and donations are accepted here:

https://paypal.me/openheartwisdom?locale.x=en_US

Dear Ones,

The wildflowers have been abundant this summer. In the mountains, nourishing spring rains and lush moisture of late day monsoons have supported rich growth and proliferation, so that meadows, hillsides and even rocky outcrops are dotted with yellows, reds and purples.

The other day I wandered into the woods with my identification book with the intention of naming, labeling, knowing some plants I had not seen before. As I sat on the bank of a stream and looked at the flower next to me, the momentum of naming and labeling stopped, and something shifted. Awareness opened.

Not naming, not labeling this precious being rising out of the earth, awareness opened, and the perceived form of flower dissolved. The form of earth and mountain and stream dissolved. And even the form of “I” dissolved. In not naming or labeling, not knowing, the vastness of what is unnamable & radiating within all apparent form instantly revealed itself. Shining, glowing, dancing, laughing. It was never not there, but I could feel how words, names, stories and labels cover over this radiance.

What if in this moment? You don't know what anything is called? What if all names, even your own, have permission to dissolve back into their source? All labels and whatever creates them have permission to rest right now? What is here? What is left?

You are invited to join us to discover for yourself in this inquiry.

We plan to gather by zoom on Saturday August 3rd from 10am to 11:30am Mountain time & all are welcome.

5pm - London

6pm - Amsterdam

If you would like to join us, please contact me here: embodied meditation sign up

The gathering is free and donations are accepted here:

https://paypal.me/openheartwisdom?locale.x=en_US

I am curious if you have ever experienced a moment of knowing that what you are is beyond name and form? Deeper than any story you tell? What if you have always known the source of your own being beyond the trance of the apparent world? Perhaps you forgot that you knew this but there was a moment when you remembered - it may have been only a split second, but what if that is enough?

What could it feel like to say “Yes!” to what you know, to confirm your own wisdom and be supported in deepening and anchoring into this as what you are? What could it be like to speak from this, live from this?

To discover, you are invited to join us as Linda Floan and I support you in this journey of Self-confirmation.

We plan to gather by zoom on Saturday July 6th from 10am to 11:30am Mountain time & all are welcome.

5pm - London

6pm - Amsterdam

If you would like to join us, please contact me here: embodied meditation sign up

The gathering is free and donations are accepted here:

https://paypal.me/openheartwisdom?locale.x=en_US

Watching what is unfolding in Gaza, I can experience waves of emotions - shock, sadness, despair, fear and anger. With the waves of emotion, the body feels heavy, tense, covering over tremulousness. A sense of powerlessness and helplessness. Stories run in the head about what should and shouldn’t be happening, who is right and who is wrong.

It feels necessary to identify what is wrong with what is happening in Gaza, to be aware of the circumstances that have created war, but if we only focus out there, we are missing the opportunity to intimately discover the roots of war.

What if there is space to also turn inward to discover more deeply what is happening here - in our communities and even more closely - in our hearts, minds, and bodies? Where are we turning against others and ourselves? Where are we doing what we judge others for doing?

What has to happen for us to believe that we are right and superior while others are wrong and inferior in that wrongness? What does this feel like in the body? And is there a possibility to open to all of this right now? To stop going to war with what is here in this moment?

You are all welcome to join me in this inquiry into the roots of war and to discover what is here when everything is welcome.

We plan to gather by zoom on Friday June 21st from 5pm-6:30pm Mountain time & all are welcome.

7pm - New York

9am Saturday June 22nd Sydney

If you would like to join us, please contact me here: embodied meditation sign up

As this body ages - more wrinkles and grey hair, less shine on the surface - I experience the strange phenomenon of not recognizing myself when I look in the mirror. Who is this old person in front of me? In my mind I look the way I did at 40, and there is a jarring disconnect when I see my reflection. My mind can get busy with narratives about this aging body - how to slow down the process, improve the image. This involves a lot of comparing to others - in media, in public spaces, in the darkness of my own imagination. I can go to war with myself and the world. All to back away from the abyss of the disconnect - the terror and uncertainty of aging and dying.

Or the disconnect itself can be received as an invitation to stop and inquire. Who is this that I see in the mirror? And who or what is seeing? Is this image of apparent form - skin, hair, body - who I am? How can it be if the experience of “I” has not changed as this body has aged?

Who am I with no concept, image, projection or idea of what I look like? Who am I with no narrative of form? What is left when the identification with form falls away, for just a moment? Right now?

This is the invitation from my teacher Ramana, passed down through Papaji and Gangaji and can be found here:

‘Who Am I?’ Sri Ramana Maharshi’s teachings on how to realise the Self - David Godman

Entangled in the Search for a Better Identity - Gangaji

Please join me to discover together who we are deeper than our self-image, to discover what doesn’t change as the body ages, what remains as the form disappears completely.

We plan to gather by zoom on Saturday June 1st from 10am to 11:30am Mountain time & all are welcome.

5pm - London

6pm - Amsterdam

If you would like to join us, please contact me here: embodied meditation sign up

The gathering is free and donations are accepted here:

https://paypal.me/openheartwisdom?locale.x=en_US

Dear Ones,

Over the past few weeks I have had the privilege to step back from organizational roles I have been playing for the past couple of years. There was no movement away or against, just a clear knowing from stillness that this whole system needed to rest, to unhook from a matrix of planning and structure and fall deeply open as the liminal, the non-linear, the muddy earth of unknown and unknowing. This body needed to swim in salt water, press hard into red clay, feel the liquid touch of newly blossomed petals on the skin. My whole nervous system needed to absorb early morning sun and drink in birdsong of spring - red winged black birds and robins - listen to the creek running full and fast as the snow melts in the high country. To feel the lengthening days in the spaces within and between all facets of apparent form.

In this deep rest, this deep surrender as the heaviness of soil and mulch, the mind rests - loosens any contraction of identity, identification, imagined someoneness and separateness. Such a relief. All awareness falling back and down, dissolving as its own Self - nothing, no one. Quiet, free. No past or future, no time, no form, nothing that isn’t this and nothing that is. Nothing, no thing. Even the words “birdsong” and “earth” are too much, too heavy and limiting to describe the vastness of pure being as it rises and falls, dances and plays, as it naturally rests in this moment.

You are all welcome to join me this month to discover what deep rest feels like, what is naturally here when all energy of doing and becoming stops, just for a moment.

We plan to gather by zoom on Saturday May 4th from 10am to 11:30am Mountain time & all are welcome.

5pm - London

6pm - Amsterdam

If you would like to join us, please contact me here: embodied meditation sign up

The gathering is free and donations are accepted here:

https://paypal.me/openheartwisdom?locale.x=en_US

Dear Ones,

As there is much energy arising, falling, as patterns are showing up to be met during this eclipse season, I have been feeling into what it means to take things personally. How we can be open and at peace until someone walks into the room with a scowl on their face or does not return our text or email, and our whole mood changes.

How does this happen? How does a certain circumstance, or set of circumstances trigger waves of energy - energy in motion - e-motion - and corresponding sensations that turn into a narrative we become identified with? How do these energies become “mine” and mean something about “me”? “I am unworthy.” “I am a failure.” How does identification with these narratives spin into projections about the world - “You should be different, so I can feel ok.” Yes, there are ways that this strategy has been useful and kept us safe, and how is it now causing suffering?

This month we will explore together in a sacred container how we take things personally and what happens when it all stops. What is left when the identification of “me” and “mine” falls away - if the world unfolds just as it unfolds internally and externally and there is no one to take anything personally at all.

We plan to gather on Saturday April 6th from 10am to 11:30am Denver time & all are welcome.

5pm - London

6pm - Amsterdam

If you would like to join us, please contact me here: embodied meditation sign up

The gathering is free and donations are accepted here:

https://paypal.me/openheartwisdom?locale.x=en_US

Dear Ones,

This month we welcome guest teacher Liz George who will lead us in the Seven Homecomings Practice of Lama Rod Owens. This is a deeply nourishing practice of opening to the support that is here, always, in all ways. The support that is who we are. From here, the possibility is that everything is welcome, everything can be met - fear and uncertainty, pain and heartbreak, anger and rage. And in allowing everything to be met fully, true liberation can be realized - in yourself, in the world.

You can learn more about Lama Rod Owens and the practice here: Seven Homecomings Certification Course (lamarod.com)

We plan to gather on Saturday March 2nd from 10am to 11:30am Denver time & all are welcome.

5pm - London

6pm - Amsterdam

If you would like to join us, please contact me here: embodied meditation sign up

The gathering is free and donations are accepted here:

https://paypal.me/openheartwisdom?locale.x=en_US

Dear All,

You may have noticed that the subject heading has shifted from “Embodied Meditation and Self- Inquiry” to “Embodied Awakening”. Why is that? Truly, all the meditations and self-inquiry have been arising from and pointing to what is always awake and free - what is always whole , no matter what shows up internally or apparently externally. Bringing in this word “awakening” may stir something in your heart as it does in mine - there is a sense of quiet relief and rest, joy and openness. Or there may something else in you, such as frustration, resistance, fear or confusion - I don’t know.

“In awakening, what’s revealed to us is that we are not a thing, nor a person, nor even an entity. What we are is that which manifests as all things, as all experiences, as all personalities. We are that which dreams the whole world into existence. Spiritual  awakening reveals that that  which is unspeakable and unexplainable is actually what we are.” - Adyashanti

You are all invited to join us in an exploration of “awakening” - what does it mean? What does it evoke? What may be discovered in this sacred space where anything and everything that arises in this exploration is welcome?

We plan to gather on Saturday February 3rd from 10am to 11:30am Denver time & all are welcome.

5pm - London

6pm - Amsterdam

If you would like to join us, please contact me here for the link.

The gathering is free and donations are accepted here:

https://paypal.me/openheartwisdom?locale.x=en_US

Dear Ones,

I am grateful to have spent two weeks mostly unplugged, immersed in the natural world of water and wind, tides rising and falling, waves crashing and receding. Fish swimming, birds flying, humans doing what humans do - so simple and natural. I spent days gazing at the wide sky, watching clouds come and go, swimming and wading in the ocean, feeling waves come and go, deeply aware of what is always here internally and externally.

I could feel separation between me and sky and ocean reveal itself as illusion even as thoughts, emotions and sensations moved through like clouds and waves - sometimes small and peaceful, sometimes dark and stormy.

What is here as this illusion of separation falls away? When identification shifts from the clouds and the waves to what they are moving through, arising from and dissolving back into? Vast, open, spacious, empty, full silence - what is always here.

You are all invited to join us in inquiry to discover the living experience of what is always here. What does this feel like right now, and right now? And what does it feel like to live from here, to allow life to be lived from silence, to unfold naturally as it does for the fish and the birds?

We plan to gather on January 6th from 10am to 11:30am Denver time & all are welcome.

5pm - London

6pm - Amsterdam

If you would like to join us, please contact me here for the link.

The gathering is free and donations are accepted here:

https://paypal.me/openheartwisdom?locale.x=en_US