A Seed of God Grows Into God

“A pear seed grows into a pear tree, and a hazelnut seed grows into a hazelnut tree and a seed of God grows into God. God does not ask anything else of you but to let yourself go and let God be God in you.” Meister Eckhart

I first heard this quote when leading a dances of universal peace dance titled A Seed of God Grows Into God. This morning I was inspired to work with the phrase (from the dance/song):’ A seed of god grows into god, let yourself go, let god be god in you’ as part of my contemplative prayer practice. On the inbreath – ‘a seed of god grows into god’ and on the outbreath ‘let yourself go, let god be god in you.’ Holding this phrase loosely with spaciousness to allow for listening.

As I was writing this post, I found a you tube video of the Dances of Universal Peace dance from a Lava Hot Springs dance retreat – and found myself in the middle of an experience – if you watch it (and I’d recommend you do), the guitar player is my soul brother Jon Jon who just died this past year with his 3-year old son in a car crash – I hadn’t seen this video until 5 minutes ago and it brought me to tears. A beautiful soul. The saxophone player is my former husband, Chalazon – we’re now great friends. Many of the dancers are friends as well.

Many blessings,

Jayne

The Practice of Lectio Divina

One of the most soul nourishing spiritual practices that I do is ‘lectio divina’ or sacred reading.

‘Lectio Divina is an encounter with God mediated through the voices of the text and the senses of the reader.’ – Sister Mary Margaret Funk, Our Lady of Grace Monastery.

On the website, Humility Matters, Sister Mary Funk provides a thorough outline on the practice of lectio divina and describes three types of revelatory texts we can work with in the practice – scripture, nature and experience.

Traditionally, lectio is the first of a four-part process of spiritual practice:

• Lectio (reading/listening) — prayerful, slow, heart-centered reading of a sacred text;
• Meditatio (meditation)— deliberate pondering of the message in the text;
• Oratio (prayer)— responding to God’s message with honest, sincere prayer;
• Contemplatio (contemplation)— allowing the prayer to dissolve into wordless, thoughtless contemplation, or simply resting in the Divine presence.

- by Carl McColman on the Website of Unknowing.

Although lectio divina is an ancient Benedictine practice, it can be used within any religious or spiritual tradition. If you are working with a sacred or revelatory text, any inspired book (or scripture) can work.

I practice lectio divina in the morning after coffee and prior to any other spiritual practices – and often times, do this exclusively. It should be noted that lectio divina is a slow process – when you work with an inspired text, it’s not like regular reading. I find myself reading a phrase or a paragraph or two and then this naturally moves into the ‘meditatio’ stage where I’m just connected…in a space of communion. For the ‘contemplatio’ time, I often am inspired to write what’s coming to me. The stages seem to naturally progress without any conscious effort on my part.

For those who are looking to deepen their connection with the Divine, I can enthusiastically recommend this practice.

Lectio Divina Resources:

• Prayer Methods: Lectio Divina
• M. Basil Pennington:A Christian Way to Transformation
• Norcia Monastery on Lectio Divina – You Tube Video

9 Steps of Karma Yoga

Roger Walsh, M.D., professor of psychiatry, philosophy, and anthropology at the University of California at Irvine and one of the founding teachers at the Integral Spiritual Center offered a Karma Yoga Seminar in Boulder where he outlined 9 steps for practicing Karma Yoga.

Karma Yoga is the yoga of work and action and service in the world where daily activities are transformed into a contemplative practice. The essence of Karma Yoga is: 1) dedicating whatever you’re doing to a higher goal (traditionally offering it to God); and 2) while simultaneously relinquishing attachment to the outcome.

1. Stopping what you are doing

2. Coming into the present moment

3. Setting your intention & dedicating the activity

4. Doing the activity as impeccably as you can (committing to impeccability – giving yourself 100% to the activity)

5. Bringing as much awareness at you can to your experience and monitoring all the reactions that come up

6. Consciously working with those reactions

7. Attempting to release attachment to how things are going (i.e., to results)

8. Taking time to reflect and learn about the whole process

9. Offering or dedicating the benefits

A point that Roger makes throughout his presentation is that one can practice karma yoga in all of life’s activities – at work, doing the dishes, through service work, in relationships, etc. This is an important mind shift for me as it’s much easier to be conscious of doing karma yoga when involved in meaningful service types of activities versus when I’m cleaning the house!

In 5 short video clips, Roger goes into more depth on each of these points. In order to view them, you need to be a member of Integral Naked ($10 per month, cancel anytime and the first month is free).

The Karma Yogini Journals explores contemplative service (aka karma yoga, seva, engaged spirituality) from an interspiritual perspective.