Tuesday, November 26, 2013

From the Carrot Patch: Lessons on life, love, and letting go

I have been growing carrots in the garden for several seasons and decided to let some go to seed this summer so they could plant themselves and sprout and grow when they wanted to.  It has been a very beautiful, satisfying, and relaxing process to watch.  It also cut back on several time consuming tasks:  Pulling the bolted plants out and taking them to the compost pile, numerous successive plantings of seeds, and buying seed packets (I would have spent a fortune to buy as much seeds as those carrots made).  Instead I just let the seed stalks lean over and drop their seeds where and when they wanted.  Some of them I encouraged to lean where I wanted them to drop.  Others I pulled off and sprinkled the dried seeds in a different bed.  Now I have a gazillion baby carrots coming up.  And I also have a more complete appreciation for the carrot.  Here is a poem I wrote about the wisdom I received from this beautiful plant. 

From the Carrot Patch:
Lessons on life, love, and letting go


My root was once tender
Sweet with love
For this patch of soil
A landing, a pantry, a community
Drawing in this love
Sending it up to light
Sprouting shoots towards the sun
Feeling the union of earth and sky
Dark and light
At my crown
The dance of life within me
Sweet with joy
With the touch of neighbors
Roots and leaves mingling
And watching them disappear
One by one
Collapse, emptiness, and begin again
Drawing into my core
Squeezing tears of rain
Extracting life from life
I swell, stretch, and reach up
Each moment making love
With the elements
With what is here
With my nature
Feeling the season pass
Urgency arises to blossom
To share my essence
The bliss of giving
All of my self to this moment
My root becomes knarled
Tight and tired
Nibbled and worn
My stalk holds firm
I squeeze these last tears of love
Up into bloom
Seeds
Gifts to the world
Whatever life has given me
I give back
To the last breath
My seeds grow heavy
Hanging down
Dropping onto a new patch
I linger to feel them sprout
Then give all that is left of me
Back to this patch of life
To feed my new selves
How I will grow!

Monday, November 25, 2013

Excerpts from my e-book "9 Sacred Steps to Healing a Broken Heart"

     An important part in my growth into spiritual partnership has been healing my broken heart.  It seems that broken heartedness comes from all of the attachments to relationships being a certain way, lasting forever, having my life and identity stay the same, fear about change, and longing for that deep sense of oneness and soul connection that can so often elude us even though it is right under our noses.  I have spent much of my life exploring this healing process very deeply and recently became inspired to write an e-book on my experiences and offer practical steps for people to use in their healing.  An important part of this healing for me has been the creative process and writing.  So this book and the poems in it represent my soul's dance with my heart.  Enjoy.

9 Sacred Steps to Heal a
Broken Heart
by Sama Morningstar

Ribs Too Small
The skin stretched across my chest
is so thin
and my ribs too small
to contain this heart
raging to the touch of long lost kin
dancing under one bright star
piercing through twilight
dropping softly over this silvery lake
I fly down winding roads
following the beckoning
the tender whisperings
the bitter wail of longing
that licks the edges of silence
hillsides crumble, boulders roll in the rain
branches creak and tremble in the wind
fire destroys and regenerates the land
and I am devastated by this love
wide eyed and breathless
I step off the edge of now

Here you are, feeling alone, dissatisfied with life, in pain, pining after a lost love. Maybe you are heartbroken because of a breakup, or maybe someone you love has died. Maybe it was a dream or way of life that has come to an end. Maybe you just can't seem to find happiness and joy in life. We all long so deeply for that lasting feeling of love and oneness that we feel when we are in love and together with someone, together with family and close friends, and yet it often eludes us. It has eluded me many times. I have entered into many relationships, built up many identities and lifestyles, feeling so clearly that yes, this is finally the “one” that I can merge with completely, the one with whom I can feel totally relaxed with, totally at home, only to be disappointed as I watch my dreams dissolve and disappear.

The feelings of disappointment, pain, loss, and sorrow are very familiar to me. In fact, I am feeling them as I write this book. The interesting thing that I am learning about those feelings, however, is that they are in me regardless of my life circumstances. I get just as nervous and fearful, doubtful of my abilities when things are going well as when they seem to be going badly. I feel the same feelings in my heart when I am starting a new romantic love relationship as when I am ending one. The only difference is the preferences I have about it. When I am starting something new, I love it, I am filled with joy about the possibilities to come and I tend to focus on that instead of my fears about how things will work out. When something I love is ending, I am sad about the things that are over and fearful about whether or not anything good will ever happen again. I end up focusing on the fear. It seems I am having all of the same feelings, just focusing on different things. The truth is, something must end for anything to begin. The preferences I have about any one part of the process of change are the cause of my suffering.

The steps in this book have helped me many times to move more smoothly through the process of change. They shift my focus to what is actually happening now and how it actually feels, allowing me to embrace each moment with loving presence. They encourage me to appreciate the sacredness of everything that happens, every feeling, every movement, every breath. They cultivate a sense of unconditional love for life and for myself. Any brokenness, wrongness, preference or fear I feel dissolves in this well of unconditional love. 

If you would like to read more of this book, please contact by posting a comment about this blog or emailing me at samananda108@gmail.com.  I look forward to hearing from you.
Blessings,
Sama  
 

Friday, November 22, 2013

More on Spiritual Partnership in the Garden

       
       
         The other day I had a plan to do a bunch of fall clean-up in the garden.  This is one of my favorite tasks.  It is one that gives immediate gratification in the drastic effect it has on the appearance of the garden, as well as often a fairly large harvest of end of season crops.  It also grows the compost pile, which is one of the first steps in preparing for the next season.  The tasks involved, cutting down and pulling up dead and dying plants are very meditative and don't require a lot of thought or skill.  It is an essential part of the life cycle and I love it.  However, right now it is pouring down rain.  Now, I could put on my rain gear and go out there, get completely wet, work twice as hard, push through and get it done.  I might have done that ten years ago.  But now I have more practice in trusting that another time will present itself that will be more easefull.  The rain is a sign to me that I can take the time to be indoors and write this blog instead.
         The previous method of pushing through to complete the plan despite the signs and signals is a very common way of life with the human masculine approach.  This is why many of us end up with physical injuries and pain from sustained strain and stress.  We don't listen to the signs and messages from our bodies and from the environment because we are trained to force the goal.  This ends up creating more work for us and thwarting the goal in the end.  I have treated many clients on my massage table who end up missing weeks and months of work, bringing whole projects to a grinding, prolonged halt in order to heal an injury that had been bothering them for some time and finally got so bad that they were incapacitated and couldn't ignore it anymore.   Many of these types of experiences have taught me to pay more attention to the more subtle signs along the way and learn to care for myself on a day to day basis.  The Divine Masculine attends to the structure of the goal while being sensitive to the whole picture.  Taking care of the tools is an important job of the divine masculine and our bodies are an essential tool.
      Our minds and hearts are essential tools as well.  When I work through the pain, it is difficult to be in joy and relaxed.  I am more likely to be grouchy about my work and even rough.  Frustration and anger are more readily available.  I am rough on myself and rough on others, whether plant, animal, or human.  The Divine Masculine approach in this state is to take a pause, notice the distress signals coming from the Divine Feminine energies within us and around us.  Emotional wisdom is a Divine Feminine quality.  Emotional energies arise in response to our actions and thoughts.  The  message may not always be clear, but if we take a pause and ask what is necessary, what is really going on, and take it into consideration, we are much better off than if we stuff it down and push through.  Years of stuffed down emotions are at the root cause of many injuries and ailments.  They are also often the cause of many self-sabotaging behaviors.  My self-fulfilling fears are one example.  I am in the process of excavating from my cells years of fear energy that was stuffed down  throughout my childhood.  As children we are rarely given the tools to healthfully feel, express, and receive the wisdom of our emotions.  This is not in our societal training.  So as adults, if we realize the importance of this we must sort through these old feelings that are stored in our tissues.  We must develop new healthy habits at the same time as cleaning up the years of mess from the unhealthy habits.  It is like in the garden.  If I don't pay attention to the messages from the garden, like discoloration in the leaves, for example, telling us that there is a nutritional deficiency, and take appropriate action, the problem gets worse and worse each season until plants will no longer grow.  Then at that point it may take a long time of hard work to get back to a place of possible growth.
         These are beautiful examples of the power of natural consequences.  This is how the universe trains us.  The great Divine Masculine and Divine Feminine in perfect balance and universal harmony, always present underneath all of the imbalanced human ways that we try.  When we don't listen to the subtle signs in and around us, we eventually run into the solid wall of the Divine Masculine structure.  Like the garden, telling me to thin the boc choi that I let reseed itself.  I didn't listen and the boc choi grew very small, pallid leaves in its crowded condition.  A gentle lesson.   There is no right or wrong here, simply natural consequences.  This is a universal principle that is always present, always working.  We can look for the natural consequences of our actions and learn from them.  We can harness the energy inherent in the obstacles that spring up in our path if we see them as guidance from the Divine Gardener. 
     
       So we can relax and trust in the process of this universal principle.  Let ourselves be.  A dear friend reminded me of this recently.  He mentioned that our expectations and hidden agendas can cause harm in our relationships.  We need to just get them out on the table, write them down, make clear requests.  He requested that we endeavor to let others be.  I am very grateful for that request.  It made me look at what makes it hard for me to do that.  I have been seeing the differences between myself and my partner as obstacles and sources of conflict instead of blessings and resources.  This would be like the plants in the garden getting upset at the gardener for putting up a wall on the edge of the raised bed.  Or the gardener getting angry at the plants for being true to their nature and growing all over the place.  The truth is that in the partnership, the teamwork in the garden, the combined skills of the gardener, the soil, and the plants creates something greater that each could be alone.  If each partner recognizes and appreciates the nature of the other partner, including similarities and differences, then what used to seem like conflicts, become assets and resources.   And then we can rejoice when we run into that wall lovingly placed by the Divine Masculine to guide us back into the garden.

Woodstock
By Joni Mitchell

I came upon a child of God
He was walking along the road
And I asked him, where are you going
And this he told me...
I'm going on down to Yasgur's farm
I'm going to join in a rock 'n' roll band
I'm going to camp out on the land
I'm gonna try and get my soul free

We are stardust
We are golden
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

Then can I walk beside you
I have come her to lose the smog
And I feel to be a cog in something turning
Well maybe it is just the time of year
Or maybe it's the time of man
I don't know who I am 
But ya know life is for learning

We are stardust
We are golden
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

By the time we got to Woodstock
We were half a million strong
And everywhere there was song and celebration
And I dreamed I saw the bombers
Riding shotgun in the sky
And they were turning into butterflies
Above our nation

We are stardust
Billion-year-old-carbon
We are golden
Caught in the devil's bargain
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Lessons on Spiritual Partnership learned in the garden

     Gardening has taught me many things about spiritual partnership over the years. The very basics are simple. I must be present. We have a clear agreement, the plants and I. I care for their basic needs, make sure they get enough sun, water, and nutritious soil and they in turn produce beauty, oxygen, flowers, aromas, medicines, and food for me and my loved ones. Plants very quickly let me know when i have neglected them. Either they become overgrown, develop inedible fruits, stop blooming, droop, develop spots, mold, loose their leaves, or even die altogether. I have learned to hear their language and attend to their needs. Some phases in a plants life require more attentive care. Seedlings need sustained attention to get them established to grow on their own. Other phases happen all on their own, and as I follow the natural rhythm of things, my job as a gardener gets easier and easier.

     The agreement in a spiritual partnership with another human seems a bit more complex. But when we take a closer look, a spiritual partnership is very much like a garden. Two people come into a partnership for varying reasons. If the purposes of the two people are compatible, then the partnership can move forward with a clear agreement. The partners contribute their skills, assets, and energies, communicating their needs along the way, and a partnership grows and flourishes. If it is nourished and tended to by both partners, it can be very fruitful. If the partners are not in agreement, then the signs become very clear and the partnership very quickly perishes. Just like plants in the garden.

     In the garden, the gardener is very much like the masculine element in a human partnership. I would like to call this the Divine Masculine to distinguish it from the distorted and underdeveloped expressions of masculinity that are so common in our human world. The Divine Masculine embodies the highest, most universal and beneficial qualities of masculinity that are life affirming and nurturing. The gardener expresses these qualities by building and maintaining a solid structure for the garden to grow in. For ease in writing I will use the pronoun 'he' to refer to the gardener in the Divine Masculine, though, as we know, women embody Divine Masculine qualities all the time. The same is true of men embodying Divine Feminine qualities. (I will use the pronoun 'she' later when I write about that). The gardener builds trellises, raised beds, fences, compost piles, paths, etc. The Divine Masculine plans where to plant things and at what time and how far apart based on an understanding of the nature of the plants involved. He adds nourishment to the soil based on information provided from the plants and how well they are growing. He is in touch with what they need, with their nature, taking their messages of distress as signs to take some different action. His work is not constant. He works and rests. He sometimes works a great deal, and then stops and lets the Divine Feminine grow at her own pace. Much of his time in the garden he spends watching, listening to what she needs and responding appropriately.

     Now the Divine Feminine works all the time. She is in the constant flow of life force energy in the soil, the compost pile, the plants, the seeds, the weather changes, the sun, the moon, etc. She makes an agreement with the gardener to respond to his loving attentions in the contained space of the garden with a much more abundant and nutritious crop than would be possible out in the untended wilderness. Within his structure and care, she can produce tramendous fruits, colossal flowers, and potent medicines for his benefit. She gets to fully explore her potentials of abundance. She is in the water flowing everywhere, and with the structure provided, she can flow directly to where she is needed. She is in the life force in the seeds, waiting for the right conditions, always ready to sprout and begin the growth process. She is in the roots reaching down, finding pathways through the soil, absorbing nutrients and moisture, breathing and growing. She is in the sprouts pushing up towards the light, every cell yearning to kiss the sunlight, drink the rain, breathe into the spark at her core and light the fire of growth. She flows completely into the tips of the vines, the edges of the leaves, the body of the fruit, the fertility of the seeds. She flows to the utmost limit of the resources provided to her, pouring every ounce of life into creating her flower, fruit, seed. Only the earth moving out of range of the sun can stop her. And even that doesn't stop her because when the leaves wither and die, they just become food for her precious seeds. She gets busy decomposing, turning everything into resources to feed the seeds when the earth moves again and the conditions are right. She never rests.

     In natural ecosystems, particularly climax ecosystems like the old growth redwoods, the Divine Masculine and Divine Feminine energies are in perfect balance. It is a palpable state of divine beauty. These systems are models for us in our partnerships with plants as well as other humans. These systems are the instruction manual for how to live an enlightened life, how to partner with other living beings for the highest, most divine experience of all.

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Gardening for the soul

     I have gardened for many years in different climates through different phases of my life.  The garden has played many different roles for me, all of them healing.  As a young girl, my mother would send me out to the garden when she was making dinner to pick a sprig of rosemary or a handful of tender beans.  This was a delightful way to help and an excellent education.  Where did food come from?  I had some clear experiences about that.  I had even attempted to grow food plants from seed.  I would not be successful at that until much later in life, but knowing it was possible, watching the miracle of a seed sprouting and beginning to grow was very powerful for me. 
     The next healing experience I had with gardening was when I got my first migraine headache.  I was a teenager and dreaded the possibility that I too would suffer what my mother suffered all the time.  I woke up one night with an excruciating headache.   I knew I would not be able to walk if I tried to get up for a pill.  Somehow I know I could breathe the headache out the window into the tomato worm my mother had been complaining about that she couldn't seem to find.  I took several breaths into the pain and exhaled it out the window, imagining it all landing in that fat tomato worm.  My headache very quickly disappeared.  The next day, I told my mom about my headache going away and she was glad for me but preoccupied.  Until she went out to the garden.  I will never forget the look on her face as she approached me with a branch from the tomato plant.  She was flabbergasted, speechless.  She showed me the branch which held the tomato worm, dead in its tracks.  Completely in tact, otherwise healthy looking, but completely dead.  We looked at the worm and each other and said nothing.  But my reality changed in that moment.  I realized that there were invisible forces and powers, energies that we could play a part in.  I don't think this reality was really all that new for me.  It was simply now confirmed.

     So several boyfriends, college applications, moving out of the house, dorms, a year abroad, and much family turmoil later, I found myself having another healing experience in the garden.  I had moved into a student cooperative at UC Davis that had adjoining gardens.  I had planted some peas and they were coming up, my first crop!  I was very upset about a boyfriend, to the level of panic attack.  I decided to go out to the garden.  I began building a trellis for my peas to grow on.  Stakes and string and hours later, I had completely forgotten about the boyfriend and the panic.  I was so grateful for that little plot of dirt, those peas and all that came after.  It felt so real to bring food in from the garden and prepare a meal for myself.  Nothing I learned in college could prepare me for life as simply and practically as that.  Self-nurture and self love.  I discovered a joy in the mutually nurturing relationship with the plants that is so direct and undeniable.  The plants, unlike other people, would respond to my care immediately and palpably.  I can pour my love into them unreservedly and they pour it back out to me magnified.  They do not run away, tell me they would prefer someone else tend to them, tell me they are moving to another state, or going back to the gardener they were with before.  They always give their whole life to me.  Something very deep heals inside me every time I bring in a basket brimming with food.  The thing is, many plants I like to grow will even thrive on just a little nurture and then they turn around and shower me with so much love.  I am so grateful to them.  They have carried me through so many disappointments in myself, in others.  If I feel a failure, I can simply put some beans in the ground and a few weeks later, voila, the universe sending me a love message, reminding me of the miracle of life. 
     I soon learned that my love affair with the garden was not shared in the same way by everyone.  In fact, even my fellow gardeners in the community gardens had vastly differing approaches, views, and attitudes.  Just like anything, the garden was not immune to human conflict.  But I was oblivious to any of that when I was in the garden.  I inherited quite a large plot from a long-term gardener who had installed a drip system and my love affair took off.  I created a beautiful sanctuary for myself in that garden, there was a bed of german chamomile where one could lay down and watch the clouds, listen to the bugs, and smell the sweet fragrances of summer, there were many roses that dazzled the senses nearly year round, I grew enough flowers in the summer that I could fill my bicycle baskets with bouquets and sell them to the restaurants and cafes in town.  Everything in the garden delights.  I would go there and forget all my concerns about anything in the world.  I was one with the seasons, the cycles of life, a partner in the art of creation.  I tried to enlist several friends in my endeavors there only to find them staring back at me in consternation.  Most just didn't want to do the work, some did, but had different ideas of how it should be done.  I even tried to include a few boyfriends in the project.  They always seemed to have different ideas about how things should be done, and unlike the plants, they were very vocal about it, sometimes even rebelious.  In the end, I was happiest with just me and the plants.
     And then one of the biggest healings from the garden happened.  I had to let it go.  I had to move away and leave it all to the next community gardener.  I found someone to take it over, showed her everything, and then surrendered it all up.  It broke my heart.  I visited once after I moved away to find major changes happening and the sanctuary I had built was gone.  I had to go out into the world and find that sanctuary in other ways, in other gardens, and ultimately in my own heart.

The Gardeners Heart

Dig deep
pull out weedy roots
morning glory, bermuda grass, vetch
like fear, anger, despair
will crowd out love
in the gardener's heart

Pile dead things
whose time is done
memories from the past
into a heap
let it rot
cook in the middle
becoming compost
to mix into that newly weeded heart
extracting the best of the past
to feed our love of life

Rake, sift, mix
prepare, primp, and fiddle
until you are ready to take the plunge
plant the seed
how can this tiny hard nugget
be so precious
just like our hearts
waiting for the moment
when we feel the moist, warm soil
absorb, swell, and sprout
reach for the light
and fall in love 
completely with the sun
give up everything we can muster
life, limb, flower, fruit
we fling our offspring
into the wind
with a prayer to nourish this world we loved
as we begin to decay
and become compost
for our own heart
our own soul
to plant itself again

 

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

More beginning: On open relationships, tantra, and spiritual practice

     One thing I find myself doing again and again in life is beginning.  I seem to have a knack for it.  I relish the joy of a new project, a new inspiration, a new love.  I have tramendous beginners luck at games of chance, strategy, and skill.  I have a tendency to dive in quickly and easily to many things.  Sustaining an endeavor or relationship when things get difficult, now that is another story. 
     As a child, I was good at anything until I wasn't and then I quit.  I learned this method of always feeling good about myself because I was always a success.  I rarely had to deal with failure.  There was one thing I longed for in life that this trick didn't work for, however.  A loving, lasting partnership.  A romance that lasted past the first three months of infatuation. 
     I explored open relationships as a young woman when things got difficult in my primary relationships.  This was simply a way to get out of the relationship that didn't work.  Later, I almost married a man who was committed to open relationship as a long term lifestyle.  It wasn't what I really wanted but it worked for a few years because he was so honest and would tell any women he approached that he was in an open relationship and they all turned him down.  He just wanted to have sex.  Those were his exact words to me at one point when I was having chronic health issues that hindered my sexuality.  This is why he wanted open relationship.  He wanted to have sex with as many women as possible.  He was a very loving, sweet man, but he didn't want a partnership.  The purpose for him in a relationship was to have a reliable sex partner, not a life partner.  It became clear as my spiritual practice and healing process progressed that our life paths were not going in the same direction.  Our purpose in relationship was not the same. 
     I was clear that my purpose in being in love relationships and exploring sexuality was to bring me closer to feeling the oneness of divine light.  Merging, surrender, I knew it was possible, I read books on it, I took tantra workshops, I just needed to prepare myself and I knew I would find the right person.  Part of preparing myself involved a process of opening up my sexual energy which was actually very shut down.  In order to face my fears and limitations, I moved to an intentional community that specialized in tantric sexuality, open relationships, and sexual/spiritual awakening.  I had many partners that all played crucial roles in helping me face my fear of sexuality and just cut loose and have fun.  Yet what I really longed for was not available there.
     So I found a yoga ashram that seemed to have the best of everything I had explored so far.  The Yogi claimed to be a tantric master, but not just in sexuality, in all of life.  He taught powerful hatha yoga practices as well as spiritual life skills that helped me to get to the root of some of the things that were hindering me.  I had my first taste of spiritual practices that could liberate me from the limitations of my ego training.  I ended up moving to live near this Yogi and help build the ashram.  I started to learn how to stick with things past the initial infatuation, how to see the joy in beginning each day anew, with fresh eyes, stepping out of the familiar and living in the unknown.  I learned to love my failures as much as my successes.  I learned to love life just the way it is.  I also fell in love, truly in love, with a man for the first time.  I felt I could truly surrender to my love for this man.  We were both equally committed to spiritual practice, to growth and healing, and to partnership.  We studied together at the ashram for eight years, taking turns supporting eachother through rough spots and rejoicing in each layer of liberation. 
    Recently, it became clear that we had learned all we could at the ashram and we began the process of stepping out into the world on our own.  Now we are falling in love all over again.  (Geoffrey keeps cutting his hair drastically so I feel like I am taking a new guy home every few months.)  Through the process of re-orienting our lives and discovering new directions for growth, our partnership is deepening.  We are discovering that we are still equally committed to our spiritual growth and exploring how our partnership can enhance that process for each of us as individuals as well as for the partnership itself.  The partnership has become an entity greater than just the two of us added together.  In the merging process a stronger container is held by two together than one can hold alone.  So more spiritual energy can be generated and held.  There is more energy to lift us up together.  There is more energy to burn through the barriers.  (And I mean burn.  Burn, baby, burn.)
     I am so grateful to have this precious opportunity to explore spiritual partnership and to share it with the world.  I know how rare it is, though many people long for it.  I feel Geoffrey and I have been preparing for this for many lifetimes.  And the world is so ready for it as well.  The time is here.  Hallelujah!

Give Yourself To Love
by Kate Wolf

Kind friends all gather round
There's something I would say
What brings us together here
Has blessed us all today
Love has made a circle 
That holds us all inside
Strangers are as family
Loneliness can't hide

Just give yourself to love
If love is what you're after
Open up your heart to
The tears and laughter
Give yourself to love
Give yourself to love

Love is born in fire
It's planted like a seed
Love can't give you everything
But it will give you what you need
Love comes when you are ready
Love comes when you're afraid
It will be your greatest teacher
The best friend you have made

So Just give yourself to love
If love is what you're after
Open up your heart to
The tears and laughter
Give yourself to love
Give yourself to love

I've walked these mountains in the rain
I've learned to love the wind
I've been up before the sunrise 
Just to watch the day begin
I always knew I'd find you
But I never did know how
Like sunshine on a cloudy day
You stand before me now 

So Just give yourself to love
If love is what you're after
Open up your heart to
The tears and laughter
Give yourself to love
Give yourself to love

 
 Love and Blessings,
Sama

Sama Morningstar is a Certified Massage Therapist, Thai Yoga Massage Therapist, Yoga Instructor, Doula, and Spiritual Life Coach.  She and her partner, Geoffrey Huckabay have just recently opened a healing center in Garberville, CA called the Abundant Light Healing Sanctuary.  They are both available for healing and consultation sessions locally and remotely.  Please feel free to contact them through this blog.


Monday, November 4, 2013

In the Beginning

In the Beginning

Hi, my name is Sama Morningstar.  I am thrilled to be starting this blog about Spiritual Partnership because I am so grateful to be exploring a spiritual partnership with my fiance Geoffrey.  This partnership is something I have longed for all my life.  It is a big part of my soul's purpose in this life, something I didn't know at times if I would ever have the opportunity to live.  I guess it is true, that if we want something badly enough, if we are willing to do whatever it takes, pay whatever the price, it will be given.  I guess it is also true that if we seek first our union with the divine, then all other needs and desires will be granted effortlessly.
I started out like most of you being born in a family where the mother and the father did not often see eye to eye.  Where there were a lot of power struggles and nobody seemed to get their needs met.  In fact the partnership seemed to be a drain on everyone.  It was a poor model for partnership, but luckily I seemed to have been born with an inner guidance system, something that told me that there was a more loving way, a more nourishing way to have partnerships, where everyone is uplifted and enhanced by the union.  I was very connected to divine light, though I didn't understand what it was at the time.  I could feel this great sense of union and oneness that I just new I wanted more of but it was always elusive.  My fear of it and desire for it all at the same time seemed to drive it away.  These childhood experiences primed me for a life of exploring spirituality and spiritual partnership.  I knew something brighter was possible in my life but didn't know how to get there.  All I knew was when something felt like it got me closer to that feeling and when it didn't.  I refused to settle for a life that didn't feel like it nourished that feeling of oneness.  Whether that meant letting go of love relationships, jobs, relocating, starting over, I have done it.  And now I have been given the great gift and opportunity of exploring with a wonderful partner who wants the same thing.  How beautiful is that?
So I would like to share some poetry in this blog.  I will start with the most recent ones about spiritual partnership.  Let me know if they inspire you.  Let me know what spiritual partnership means to you.  

Spiritual Partnership

The rock gives
the water shape
a path
a container
something to flow through
around, into
to roar against
to smoothly caress
allowing her full
expression of her liquidness
from frothing white
to mirror still
from warm broth
to icy chill
the rock absorbs
her warm passions
her cool peace
into his original structure
he stands strong
holding form
for her to dissolve
wear away
reshape
little by little
until they both
flow into the ocean


Love Song

There is a rock
he takes a stand
he shapes a world
with loving hands

he takes the sun
within his heart
and holds it there
until it starts

to grow, to flow
back into the sky
back into the sky

there is a drop
of cool rain
she falls upon
his solid pain

she starts to grow
she starts to flow
she trickles down
his ruts and furrows


she wears away 
all of the fear
her depth does grow
until appears

the ocean all around
and from the rock
there comes a sound

a song of joy
a song of love
because their shapes 
fit like a hug

it's just the two of them
to wash away the time
the two of them to flow into the sky
the two of them
to flow into the sea
the two of them
to discover they are free
discover they are one
one together
free
one together 
free