Tag Archives: spiritual practices

Thursday April 5, 5pm Pacific: Mystic Tech Live and Free!

Posted on April 4, 2012 | 1 Comment

Creative license AS Divine license

I will show you mine. Will you show me yours?
Thursday I am going to attempt, drum roll please……a Powerpoint presentation. And, If I got no Powerpoint at least I will point with power to share

  • a recovering workaholic recipe for modern mystics.
  • why divine license authorizes Playing and Resting as key to mysticism.
  • why we need each other to be mystics.

Judy Collins said, “Creativity is a voice that calls us from dreams, that peeks out of the corner of our eyes when we think no one is looking, the longing that breaks our hearts even when we think we should be happiest, and to which we cannot give a name. When I was young, I heard the voice, the ticking, had the dream, but I didn’t know what it was and only felt the pain, the longing that the voice inside brought me.”  Source: Voices (Thanks Anne Sigler)

Speaking of voices, I heard a voice say to me last week: There are 500 human qualities in danger of being lost. I have been thinking about that ever since.

Have you received any messages that have you wondering?
1.  Please join my meeting, Apr 5, 2012 at 5:00 PM PDT. Once on Go2Meeting find instructions on the chat area on the lower right.
Don’t want to fiddle with any of this? Use the phone number only.
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/join/874364334

2.  Use your microphone and speakers (VoIP) – headset is recommended. Turn off other applications.

To call in using your telephone.
Dial +1 (267) 507-0003
Access Code: 874-364-334
Audio PIN: Shown after joining the meeting (you shouldn’t need this)

Meeting ID: 874-364-334

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Thursday’s Free Teleconference with Cynthia

Posted on March 5, 2012 | Leave a comment

HOW TO INTEGRATE EASY FOCUS AND CLEAR FOCUS: CLAIRVOYANCE (clear-seeing) SKILL #1

Thursday March 8th 5pm Pacific Time

“Close both eyes to see with the other eye.” Rumi

In this teleconference I lead a guided meditation with silence, movement and sound. Then, I teach you how to integrate easy focus and direct focus and support you to notice what happens.

1.  Mar 8, 2012 at 5:00 PM PST click on https://www3.gotomeeting.com/join/718289254

2.  Use your microphone and speakers (VoIP) – a headset is recommended. Or, call in using your telephone.

Dial +1 (213) 493-0600
Access Code: 718-289-254
Audio PIN: Shown after joining the meeting

Meeting ID: 718-289-254

Email me at cynthia@interplay.org if you would like an email reminder.

One day in a meditation course I learned to simultaneously apply focus and easy focus. It changed my life. I felt different in my head. I flooded with grace. It was so easy. Why couldn’t I do this before? It was like riding a bike. When I went to my InterPlay class my alignment changed!

Unfortunately, the sudden shift threw my back out.  Bodies need to go slow even with good stuff. I eased up and returned (with mercy) to my hyper focused ways. But I didn’t give up. I snuck up on simultaneously using incisive focus while opening to the wider field (easy focus).

I am convinced that this is a basic skill for clear-seeing or clairvoyance. Before rational and analytical thinking became a major skill using easy focus was….a lot easier. Meanwhile, blending the two is still rare except among artists, visionaries, and seers.

Join me to learn a thing they don’t teach in Sunday School, Temple, or PE.

Consider Joining the Mystic Tech Journey at any time!

There are many things that I couldnt’ put in the InterPlay manuals. So, each month I send a slew of ideas and practices to Mystic Tech members who subscribe through paypal. Unsubscribe at any time. This month receive

  • A pdf. Artist as Community Mystic
  • A recording of the free teleconference on clairvoyant skill #1
  • A Body Prayer Youtube
  • An excerpt from Chasing the Dance of Life on seeing in the dark.
  • Bi-weekly provocations and inspirations for your own journey.
  • Underlying Affirmations for a Body Prayer Practice pdf.
  • A chant for the journey.

Small online Art and Wisdom groups offer interactive ways to share creativity inspired by your journey. Together we’ll strengthen the role of mysticism at a time when spiritual solutions may be needed more than anything.
Body and Soul members also receive individual sessions at a discount.

If you are visiting the blog for the first time you can enter your email into the Blog subscribers at the top right to learn about free events. I’ll send you a free audio gift “Define Mystic,” just for joining this part of the journey.

 

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The physical shift that helped me to “see.”

Posted on March 1, 2012 | Leave a comment

 

Free Teleconference with Cynthia

Thursday March 8th 5pm Pacific Time (full moon)

 

I remember the day I learned to simultaneously apply focus and easy focus. It changed my life. I felt different in my head. I flooded with grace. It was so easy. Why couldn’t I do this before? It was like riding a bike. My alignment changed.

Unfortunately, it threw my back out.  I eased up and returned (with mercy) to my hyper focused ways.

But I didn’t give up. I snuck up on the simultaneous access of my incisive focus while opening to the wider field (easy focus).

If you are you intrigued by answers that come out of the blue you may access easy focus. If you need things to make sense you may be looking hard at the world and over focus.

It’s hard for the Universal to reach us when we shine our bright light on it and blind ourselves.  A definition of shaman is “one who sees in the dark.”

On March 8th I am offering a free teleconference on one skill for seeing in the dark. I’ll lead a guided meditation with silence, movement and sound. Then earn how to play with focus and notice what happens.

1.  Mar 8, 2012 at 5:00 PM PST click on https://www3.gotomeeting.com/join/718289254

2.  Use your microphone and speakers (VoIP) – a headset is recommended. Or, call in using your telephone.

Dial +1 (213) 493-0600
Access Code: 718-289-254
Audio PIN: Shown after joining the meeting

Meeting ID: 718-289-254

Email me at cynthia@interplay.org if you would like me to email you a reminder.

The Mystic Tech Journey

This month I am sending ideas and practices to all levels of Mystic Tech subscribers including

  • A pdf on Artist as Community Mystic.
  • An excerpt from Chasing the Dance of Life.
  • Bi-weekly emails to provoke the Mystic Journey.
  • A Body Prayer Youtube and pdf. on Underlying Affirmations for a Body Prayer Practice.
  • A chant for the journey.

For personal connection small online Art and Wisdom groups offer real, visual interaction and places to share creativity inspired by mystical connection. Affirming mystic wisdom strengthens the role of mystics in the world at a time when spiritual solutions may be what we need more than anything.
Body and Soul members receive all this plus individual sessions at an incredible discount.

Join me. There is so much to share and learn about this under developed area.

If you are visiting the blog for the first time consider getting regular updates and gifts in your inbox by entering your email into the Blog subscribers at the top right. I’d be delighted to send you a free audio gift “Define Mystic.”

 

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1 Crazy Secret on Zipcast @ 5pm PST today

Posted on January 10, 2012 | Leave a comment

If you want to go quickly, go alone, if you want to go far, go with a group.           – African parable

Please join my online Zipcast Meeting, Mystic Tech: 1 Crazy Secret, a live visual presentation to see if we can play on the web.

It’s today Tue, Jan 10 2012 at 5:00 PM pst. Password: mystic tech or try http://www.slideshare.net/cynthiawh/meeting

“The Mystic Way: One Thing Not To Integrate,” is a single body wisdom practice that changes the game plan for personal and group life. It shifts how to get to love and is so simple you’ll wonder why it’s been so secret. (Perhaps because the body’s been on the back burner.)

Those who attend the webinar receive a free gift, “The Heart Mic,” a depiction of my favorite way to communicate through time and space.

In 2012 I’m setting off across the landscape of embodied mysticism. My aim is to strengthen the heart of personal and collective mysticism, to sing love into and out of life, practice mercy, and share wisdom, insights and practices.

What is Mystic Tech?  Mystic– one engaged with the Mystery of Life.   Tech– tools to navigate life’s great mysteries.

Where is life taking you? 2012 is a time of great opening. Some of us are artists, activists, spiritual leaders or wanderers. If it is true that the time of the lone wolf is over then how do we move forward as leaders and listeners to life’s mysteries?

Do you seek the “next level” where body wisdom and life deepen further in synchronous, spontaneous, soulful wisdom? Would you like to travel the wisdom path with a few others? Would you like small guide books to help you and others develop efficiency of energy, clarity of vision, and courage to love this new day? Would you like to create, play, and rest more?

“If you want to go quickly, go alone, if you want to go far, go with a group.” African parable

The Mystic Tech route offers

  1. Monthly live tutorials
  2. weekly practices on youtube, emails, pdf’s.
  3. bi monthly practice and writing groups
  4. 1 on 1 coaching

Here’s the landscape. At the bottom see how to play.

January: Gather the travelers
Consider your own journey with mystery. Who travels with you? I’ll be signing people up for the blog and sharing on a January 10th zipcast at 5pm pst 1 Crazy Secret That Changes Everything: What Not To Integrate. (let me know in the comments below and I’ll register you and send you the link!)  I’ll be blogging on mystical stuff going on with me as I step into this form of leadership.

February: Moving forward– Claiming How We Know Things
Attune to body wisdom. Attend to time, space, energy, and effort. Claim and share your foundational technologies. Join a small group to meditate, share writing, art and music, and practice each month.

March: Gifted & Sensitive Bodies
Understand and play with energy, yours & others. Appreciate and claim how you get information from others, the planet, the stars. Know your choices as you manage information that isn’t yours.

April: The Healing Ways: Four Paths
Choose the easiest healing routes for different needs. Surgery is rarely the bodywise choice. Learn why play is the best homeopathic remedy. Gather wisdom on suffering.

May and June: Divining Purpose
Gain clarity about day-to-day purpose. Differentiate between the forces of gifts, calls, and inner and outer guidance. Learn about the seasons of purpose. Do you have more than one? Learn why it is perfectly fine not to articulate one’s purpose.

July: High Play
Why Rituals Change the World. Why They Need to be Simple. Five Rituals that I Love.

August: Nature Mystics–The Body and the Tree of Life
Meditations on the world tree, the rivers, fires, and airs in and around your body. Drawing strength, tuning in, and taking wisdom from Earth.

September: Courage to Love–The Book of Initiations
Life initiates us. Those who are fortunate experience highs and lows. Learn how to honor your initiations. What is the difference between healing and getting initiated? What does divine wisdom reveal about your journey. What is easier?

October: Sacred Story Keepers: Why & How to Share Key Stories
What experiences impact us? Are they “ordinary” or extraordinary moments? How might we build our stories back into wisdom sharing?

November: Muses, Hags, Saints, and Wizards: Wisdom Figures
Opening to our guides, seen and unseen. Introduce guides we journey with and who care for us.

December: Mystic Tech Retreat in the Desert

How to participate? Play at the right level for you by registering for any monthly webinar offered throughout the year or becoming a pioneering member of Mystic Tech with the right amount of connection for you.

I’ll sign you up and walk with you as a

Mystic Tech Member: $15/month: Tools, Tutorials, Insights Giving you
• Monthly live topic webinar and recording
• Guide Books, noticing practice, youtubes, and a song to open the heart.

Body and Soul Member: $49/month Full participation includes personal coaching giving you
• Personal Coaching via email, Skype, or in person (Normally $85 per session).
• Access your primary movement pattern in a FEBI session.
• Reserved room @ Dec. 2012 New Mexico retreat!
• Small group coaching through monthly phone calls and online sharing.
• Monthly live topic webinar and recording
• Guide Books, noticing practices, youtubes, and a song to open the heart.
• A writing & art community to welcome mysteries of the heart through free writing, poetry, photography, images, and prose.

Art and Wisdom Members: $29/month giving you
• Small group coaching through monthly phone calls and online sharing.
• Monthly live topic webinar and recording.
• Guide Books, noticing practices, youtubes, and a song to open the heart.
• A writing & art community to welcome mysteries of the heart through free writing, poetry, photography, images, and prose.

SPECIAL DEALS!
Join by January 25t and get my early bird tool,“Meet the Mystics In and Around U: Five far out minutes  to mystify you.”

Interested in the early December retreat? Save money by paying over time. Add $20 a month to any membership level to get the December retreat tuition at a reduced rate: $240/normally $300. (Does not include room and board.) Voila! Your tuition is paid off by the time December rolls around.

How to Register. Mystic Tech is a project of Body Wisdom, Inc.  Call in your registration to 510-465-2797 at 2273 Telegraph Ave. Oakland, CA 94612. or email info@interplay.org.

I will guarantee you a refund or change of level at any time. Contact me at Cynthia@interplay.org with any questions or if I can make someone more clear.

Need more embodied connection?
Come play wherever I am (I’ll keep you posted). I have a limited number of Skype or in person appts. each month. Make an appt. at cynthia@interplay.org.

Anyone can attend the December 2012 Mystic Tech retreat. Let me know if you are interested.

Thank heaven for being the mystic you are!

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I choose letter Q for New Year

Posted on January 1, 2012 | 15 Comments
i take it easy and walk friendly into the unknown year. i put my ear to mystic guidance. i listen. That is why my letter for 2012 is Q for quiet, for quest, for question. may my heart be open. what is your letter for the year?

E. E. Cummings

Image by o admirador secreto via Flickr

may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old

may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
for even if it’s sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young

and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there’s never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile

“53″ by E.E. Cummings, from 100 Selected Poems. © Grove Press, 1954. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)

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The Manifesting Trick

Posted on November 8, 2011 | 3 Comments

One of my favorite things to make is interesting, fun community.

Right now I am in the midst of radical remaking. I am preparing to spend 2012 teaching a lot more both online and in person. I’ve been clarifying how I want to teach.

It will be spirit-led, in other words, feel synchronous, right sized and supported by the right collaborators.

When I go out to teach I will speak in a Ted Talk kind of way–sharing somatic wisdom for individuals and groups and asking communities: What is a spiritual solution for this time?

I will offer online and in person skills that strengthen clarity of vision, efficiency of energy and courage to love for our everyday and biggest manifestations.

I will teach groups how and why it serves to be a smart and wonderful group body.

The Sacred Stories Project and Dance of Apology will be primary art projects, both using InterPlay.

When others bring me I will address 50 people or more.

When I create an event on my own, it will be effortless and welcoming of registrants at the right fee/exchange for both parties.

When the holy calls I request three clear indicators. For instance, I had 3 random intersections with Katrina Browne’s aunt who is involved with Traces of the Trade and lives in my area. I am paying attention.

As I clarify my vision I am feeling this alignment not only in my body but in my conversation with others and with my highest good. I am releasing my will at the same time as I am stepping forward.

I will seek a grounded, comfortable pace that works for me as a contemplative, a spouse, and friend.

If you are ready to manifest it is great to get all of your senses involved and feel the truth of your intention all the way through your being. The cognitive brain guy who I adore, George Lakoff, also suggests in his new book, The Political Mind, that when you visualize that you also move your body. It lights up the neural pathways all over your brain.

Right? Right!

You can try Mike Dooley’s 4 minute Manifestation Visualization technique

1.    One time per day is all that’s necessary.
2.    No longer than 5-10 minutes at a time.
3.    Imagine every conceivable detail.
4.    Feel the emotion.
5.    Put yourself in the picture.
6.    Dwell upon the end result or beyond.

That’s pretty much what I do although a lot of times I don’t even realize it. That’s when I get into trouble. Ha.

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Sacred values drive behavior

Posted on October 25, 2011 | 2 Comments
Top Love Stories No 3

Image via Wikipedia

Unfortunately they also drive us nuts, into walls, over the edge, and into war. What is our deepest value?

In deep wonder about this question  I’ve launched The Sacred Stories Project. I want to discover for myself the influence and importance of Great Love in our lives.  I’ve begun to gather people to listen to body and soul, tell, and sometimes share moments that inspire them to love.

What is love? How does it affect our behavior? What happened to increase or challenge our ability to love?

For me, the feeling of love is my response to something transcendent, sacred, a phenomenon that is not necessarily passionate or emotional. It communicates underlying unconditional regard for all things.  Everyday this regard is shown to me in nature, beauty, the kindness of people and demonstrations of our collective desire to keep learning how to love.

What inspires love in you. Why is it important? Do you have a story to tell?

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Salvation: How shall I know what to do?

Posted on September 14, 2011 | 5 Comments
Panjab Hills, Bilaspur. Opaque watercolor and ...

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Sleeping on an air bed in Santa Cruz, I awoke from a dream. I saw a piece of paper and on it was my “soul contract.” It said something like “Share Somatic Wisdom.”Soul Contract is not language I use, but  I remembered that Carolyn Myss wrote a book called Soul Contracts: Awakening Your Divine Potential. The dream reassured me that I am on the right path.

A current challenge is that I’ve learned to manifest, draw some people and produce events. Yet, if I do too much I

  • overwork and loose grace.
  • discount my family.
  • hog leadership and hinder Collective Growth
  • make poor decisions (article on Decision Fatigue– John Tierney)
  • rely on will instead of higher power (Synchronous, Magical Love).

As a Mystic my relationship with GREAT LOVE guides my life. Lately, operating by will with financial insecurity and “pictures in my head” about what to do literally stopped working.

I had to admit this and grieve.

Today I read the secret at the end of the Bhagavad Gita, a holy work with which I have almost no familiarity. HOORAY!   Krishna says to Arjuna

Hear further My supreme word, most secret of all. Thou art dearly loved by me; therefore shall I disclose (this secret) for thy Good.

Fix they mind upon Me, Devote thyself to Me.
Make every action a sacrifice (a holy act) to Me,
hold thyself as nothing before Me.
You shall come to Me truly,
I promise, for you are dear to Me.

Abandon all dharmas,
Take refuge in Me alone.
I shall liberate you from all sins,
Do not grieve.                                     Gita 18.64, 65, 66

Do not grieve!?!

September of 2010 I entered a “GREAT PRUNING.” In a dream I saw the Tree of Life growing out of the world and felt shock to see ALL of its branches cut off, leaving only the trunk!

The dream was prophetic. Life started lopping at my attachments: airplane engine failure over the Pacific, my mother’s personality taken by Alzheimer’s, Dad’s heart surgeries, dead hard drive (knowledge and information), salary reduction (financial security) and odd things like the breaking the zipper on my luggage.

Out of that season grew this blog, Mystic Tech as I also realized that I must prepare to let go of InterPlay roles. Guidance turned me back toward spiritual leadership. My calendar emptied. Circumstances slowed me down.

There are new lessons. I began to make amends to myself for OVER giving. For months my third chakra has complained with an ache. Real rest requires deep change, beyond trying to find balance. Thomas Merton said,

Some of us need to discover that we will not begin to live more fully until we have the courage to do and see and taste and experience much less than usual…And for a man who has let himself be drawn completely out of himself by his activity, nothing is more difficult than to sit still and rest, doing nothing at all. The very act of resting is the hardest and most courageous act he can perform.

How will I know what to do if I don’t MAKE IT HAPPEN? What is the difference between my will and my heart? You’d think an improvisational expert would know the answer to this, yet I am humbled by fear and anxiety. InterPlay creates space for the heart, but it is up to me to engage it.

As a woman I am glad for a strong will, taking responsibility for the power to create, and dancing the path of mutuality, collaboration and self-awareness.

I am grateful that I do sense that I am loved, both by myself and something greater. If I listen to the Beloved, will I know what to do next?

Things I can practice.

  • I will not fill my calendar. I will wait. I will rest.
  • I will open to and love the Beloved.
  • I will engage my heart to understand what I am to do.

I could be a beloved bit of nothing. I could take little moments and make a holy offering from a place of rest. I could wait and listen with my heart. I could be the one I am waiting for…

Ahhhh–that feels better.

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Tisha B’va

Posted on August 9, 2011 | 2 Comments

I hang out with mystics. These are people who groove with mystery, dance with shadow and light, and go deep into their own universe. Cassandra Sagan is one of these. She lives in Portland, does InterPlay and is a Maggid, a Jewish storyteller. She wrote today….

Friends—
As many of you know, my beloved grandson, Sidney Lev, was stillborn last year on Tisha B’av, rendering this day powerfully and eternally significant for me and my family, and I will be telling a very personal story about that loss at our minyan in Portland tonight.  This morning I woke up with this image in my mind: Tisha B’av is like the intentional bee sting to an arthritic joint, a healing dose of intentional sadness.

Rob Brezhny who wrote PRONOIA, An Antidote to Paranoia, a book about (the very Jewish topic of) how the universe is conspiring to shower you with blessings, recommends that in addition to HAPPY HOURS we take time occasionally for SAD HOURS. Days of Mourning and intentional sadness are built into the cycle of the Jewish year, and I think that in addition to  simply NOT FORGETTING the tragedies of our collective and individual past, they are also an opportunity to heal some of the associated trauma. As we all know, the story lines of sadness, loss, and tragedy are connected to each other through energetic and neural pathways; each new loss or sadness or betrayal seems to “light up” the whole sad string of lights, reactivating unhealed trauma. And each year, each time we come to Tisha B’av, we are in a new place in our own spiritual development, and by hanging out with, or at least playing tag with, touching on, having a safe container for a glimpse of our deepest grief and loss, we have the opportunity to bring new insight, light, strength, and story to what we hold in our bodies from the past—restorying, restorative.

I know most of you are understandably not fasting this Tisha B’av, or perhaps even NOTICING that it is Tisha B’av, but I do want to gently recommend that you take even a few minutes of silence on this day, when the gates of healing are opened to the collective Jewish bodywisdom, to reflect on, or write about, or davven on or dance on behalf of a little SAFESOMETHINGSAD, just a tiny sadness or loss or memory. TAKE THE BEE that’s here today for the taking. The Mystics say that Mashiach will be born on Tisha B’av; may she be born in you today, just a little!

B’shalom,
Cassandra ZHRH

Thankful for all who play in the big spirit of life!

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Step 1: Download mp3. Step 2: Go somewhere.

Posted on June 27, 2011 | 3 Comments

Take me on a car ride, a walk or to the gym. Share with me in this conversation with Lisa Michals highlighting snatches of wisdom, special people, moments of divine inspiration, and challenging discernment about the dance between the crazy made up categories of art, theology, Africa, India, the US, mysticism, activism, organizing, and magic.

Download this hourlong interview here. Let me know what you think.

Spirituality in Dance Tele-Interview Series

Lisa interviewed the co-founder of InterPlay Cynthia Winton-Henry. She is the author of three books on movement. They explored Cynthia’s life-long journey with dance and spirituality and she discussed her books Chasing the Dance of Life: A Faith Journey, Dance: A Sacred Art: The Joy of Movement as Spiritual Practice, and What the Body Wants: InterPlay. (Find books located under the stuff tab)

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