Yogachaitanya: New Yoga CDs

Sounds of Transformation

Yogachaitanya has created a CD set for yoga practice and sadhana, with Yoga Nidra as the first in the series. He explains the concept behind the CDs to Carol Sill, while discussing the practicality behind using the CDs for daily sadhana.

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A Few Random Thoughts on Christianity

Donald Grayston shares some thoughts on the place of Christianity in a pluralistic society. Christianity in our time is in a state of decline, and in a state of renewal - one in which Christians are looking for ways to accept themselves as part of a pluralistic society.

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Donald Grayston on Thomas Merton

Donald calls Thomas Merton his “spiritual advisor in absentia”. Merton’s ideas of contemplation & a contemplative life … his visit with the Dalai Lama, and most surprisingly … how Merton’s long-censored book on peace is startlingly relevant to the current Iraq situation.

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Secrets in the Christmas Tree

O Tree! The natural beauty and mystical meaning of the Christmas tree custom is honoured in this simple yuletide slideshow. A poetic meditation on the secrets of the Christmas tree, its meaning, ancient origins and present day symbolism.

Slideshow transcript:

Slide 1: Secrets in the Christmas Tree personal vision :: winter light By Carol Sill

Slide 2: A Tree of Life • In the form of the Christmas tree, the beautiful tree of life comes into our living rooms. • It is an altar, a symbol and an embodiment. • Each year we go through the ancient ritual of the tree – its sacrifice and resurrection in light.

Slide 3: Green, Even in Winter • Even in the coldest dead of winter, when all the other trees have become skeletons, the evergreen is permanent, stable and constant, a symbol of everlasting life.

Slide 4: Why Do We Do This? • Why do we bring this symbol of everlasting life into our homes, into the main room of the home, where we live and enjoy ourselves? • To remind us of life everlasting and to bless our future.

Slide 5: Life’s Continuity • By honoring nature through the evergreen tree, we affirm the continuity of life and light throughout the darkest days on earth.

Slide 6: Decorations • When we decorate the tree, it is a ceremony of offerings, which involves placing upon the tree of life precious and beautiful objects – spheres, miniatures, sparkling things, shining things, pretty things, funny things, things that only the family understands.

Slide 7: Offerings • By offering decorations to the spirit of life through the tree, we call to the life force and entrust our family’s future welfare to it. • By year after year placing objects which have meaning only within the family, a resonance is built up which protects the family.

Slide 8: Meaning and Memory • Each time the decorations are taken from their box in the yearly ritual, they have accumulated more meaning and memory. • These fragile, often reflective, and precious personal objects of beauty adorn the tree of life which becomes an embodiment of the family spirit.

Slide 9: Symbolism of the Lights • The lights on the tree symbolize the energy and life force of the magnetism and colors of breath, as growth and life radiate out from the branches, especially the tips of the branches. • The lights symbolize the divine presence which illuminates all.

Slide 10: An Altar of Light • The illuminated tree becomes an altar of light in the home. At this altar is an offering to the naturally existing divinity in all beings.

Slide 11: Light in Darkness • The lights are also a human comfort in the darkest days. A tree covered in lights indoors would mean little in the peak of July. This contrast gives the tree much of its beauty and meaning.

Slide 12: Light and Dark • As the lights contrast the dark days of winter, our hearts are reminded of the life force always present and the divine in all life.

Slide 13: Ancient Resonance • Ultimately it is an ancient thing we do when we bring a tree into the home. • It is an ancient nature worship, allowing an embodiment for a most ancient protective being, a form of God as a generative everlasting being of light living through the harmony of humanity’s reverence for nature.

Slide 14: Being of Light • Yet this being is nothing but a reflection of ourselves, a light- filled jewel-gifted transfigured reflection of the human form standing before us. • The decorated tree reflects the lord or lady of light within each of us.

Slide 15: Sparkling Beauty • We offer gifts beneath this being and adore its beauty. • We delight in its presence, gathering round its radiant glow.

Slide 16: O Tree! O tree of life that grows in each of us, O being of light and gifts and precious delights: “How lovely are your branches.”

Open Pathways

“And so we in Edmonton, Alberta, did a ritual by a sacred spring that we were lucky enough to find. And that was all simultaneously done. There were people, I know, as far south as Patagonia in South America. There were people in England and Europe as well as North America simultaneously doing ceremonies, lighting sacred fires.” Judy Evaski talks with Carol Sill about the paths she has explored through her spiritual journey, through Christianity, Sufism, Buddhism and the Native traditions.

Read a transcript of this video here.

On Soul and the Inner Family

“In my experience of myself as the soul I feel that my main purpose in the world is to create, and that’s where I get the most joy. That’s the feedback that comes to me from those higher levels. So it has nothing to do with being able to control other people or have power or money or influence or any of that, it’s just the sheer joy of creation.” Lee van Patten discusses the process of spiritual maturing, with emphasis on understanding the Soul, as well as explaining the concept of the Inner Family.

See the transcript of this video conversation.

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Rosen Method: Opening the Spirit Within

Rosen practitioner and trainer, Mariette Berinstein, talks with Carol Sill about the process that occurs during Rosen bodywork, an opening of the spirit.”Opening the heart and freeing the soul.” “To really dare to meet someone in their wholeness.”

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Agrippa’s Magic

Here’s another rather difficult quiz. I loved the idea in Agrippa of relating the power of the stars to … oh, I won’t spoil it for you. Try the quiz yourself, and maybe you might be intrigued to look into Agrippa and his Renaissance cohorts. These guys were really into something quite amazing!

What do you think? Should I make these quizzes easier?

Iqbal Ishani on Chi Gong

Iqbal Ishani discusses the benefits of Chi Gong with Carol Sill: including, stress release, chakra opening, expanded energy flow, health and well-being.

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Collage 911

This collage series was created in the month just before 9/11 and I put it up on slideshare a few years ago.

Here’s a bit more description for many of the collages included in the slideshow.

Emergence of the Serpent of Wisdom
This collage was the first in a series that literally burst through. I hadn’t done any collages since the 80s, and suddenly restless, I created a series with many dark images. Strangely, they comforted me. The series began in late August 2001, and the revelation of the serpent force was totally unexpected and unplanned. I had wanted to show only a window revelation into another reality, but the articulated being appeared. I felt it was a shamanic communication, so I followed that lead and created the series as shown here. They are like astral snapshots.

The Old Country
I envisioned this as a northern Scandinavian afterlife, where souls arrive to be transported to other levels. The ancient dolmen, the hanged man, the boat of souls in the crisp cold sky somehow connect me to my dad’s side of the family. Here the supplicant approaches the ruler of this afterlife.

From the Stars
Here the eternal feminine forces of moon and water bring messages to earth in a procession pouring downward like a waterfall. Priestesses bear golden bowls, cups fill to overflowing, the mysterious planetary forces beam into our lives

The Oracle
The masculine force of the oracle predicts the future. His realm is one of magnificent glorious interplay of form. He is embedded in it, and in all he sees. His companion spirits flank him on either side. They open their mouths to articulate his vision, and he speaks the words which predict the future.

Dolphins and Dolmen
On earth, tourists see dolphins on land, leaping in communication with the ancient dolmen. Unconnected, they can only observe. Magic is afoot.

Goose Girl in the Stars
Far from earth, a part of the great mother archetype looks after things. This young girl, tending geese with her starwand, is known for her “healing, performing miracles and teaching” while the magnetism of the earth remains in her view.

Mysterious Stranger
One of these things is not like the others. On the horizon, he sends his energy ball to glide along the path, while planetary storms brew behind. On the right, human remains lie folded in an ancient grave. Standing with him are the glittering saints. The stranger stands as one of them, but has he come from somewhere beyond, and far more primitive?

Near the End of Time
I had put together a collage before this one, but for some reason could not bear to complete it. Disturbed, I went instead to this integrated image of dangers unleashed into the world. As death extends technological dangers over a wasted sea, engineers in offices seem to map the complexities of disaster. Hope, in the form of the Buddha’s understanding, adds balance to a dark vision.

Miracle of Science
The virgin Mary is resurrected by scientists. Elevated against a grey moon, she is reconfigured by machine projections, monitored by banks of data controls. Believers with hands up grieve her death and pray for her. The resurrected self is a colourless figure, an overworked factory child.

Declaration of War
This hot blood red image nearly completed the series. I had hesitated to commit to it, and did the others in the series. Then 9/11 happened, and I knew then that the imagery had been true. I finalized this image of war. Mars influences the blood-covered demonic celebrant as he emerges screaming from the cannon. Warlike peoples march on the earth carrying kings as the hand fate has dealt is enacted. Red tentacles enter the scene and a beam from the cosmos glows like an evil eye, while the red volcano erupts and lava flows.

Let’s Rock
The world is tilted, off kilter. Waves crash and buildings topple, while Tibetan shamanic dancers tell the tale in movement. Above, in a pavilion, a rock band pounds out the tune. It is a cosmic unbalance, and world rocks to find equllibrium.

Most of these images can also be viewed individually here on Flickr.

Mantra and Meditation Quiz

This quiz is rated difficult. Some of the questions are quite tricky. The original questions here were inspired by the scholarly book Mantra and Meditation by Pandit U. Arya, a student of Swami Rama of the Himalayas.

Please feel free to enter your own questions to expand this quiz, and of course, we welcome your comments in the comment form below.

Diamond Sutra Quiz

We know it isn’t possible to have any one correct answer to this quiz on the multi-layered and deeply meaningful Diamond Sutra, a sacred Buddhist text. Still, the answers are taken from the text itself, revealing in some cases the limits of the linear mind. Enjoy playing within these concepts.