For over 20 years, Mary Gay Shafer has been my constant companion, unwavering ally, and wise mentor. She has compassionately guided me into the depths of my interior self and fostered the recognition and development of my natural gifts as a teacher and a leader. What best describes our partnership is anam cara, a Celtic term that means soul friend. The anam cara friendship awakens the fullness and mystery of life and cuts across all barriers of time, convention, philosophy, and definition. The Irish believe when you are blessed with an anam cara, you have arrived at that most sacred place.

And so it is with great pleasure that I share one of her teachings with you. __________________________________________________________

I first learned about submission while working with my Teacher, Brugh Joy. It was quite clear from the beginning that the way to experience the fullness of who Brugh was, and the depth of what he had to offer, was to make myself utterly available. I had to free myself from my dearly held protections. I needed to be willing to be seen – seen in ways I couldn’t see myself. Opening the gateway into the inner recesses of my being was a prerequisite to availability. It’s like this; you can open the front door to your home, but is all of what is inside really accessible to your guest? If I wanted to experience the unconditional love that Brugh embodied, I had to do much more than just show up. It helped that he was both vastly wise, and immensely loving, that I could trust him with my precious vulnerability. Trust, you see, factors in strongly in the ability to choose the unguarded, exposed state of availability.

There is a sequence of perceptions and shifts, a pathway, a developmental process, in becoming available to a teacher. First, is the necessary recognition of skill, even mastery, in the teacher. Thus, trust arises naturally. If trust is cultivated, nurtured, it evolves into what I call ‘radical trust’. It is radical because it puts us in a state of defenselessness in the face of the instincts that would have us reinforce our isolation and separateness. Once trust is established, there does need to be a conscious choice about allowing the teacher to influence you, to extend an invitation to be affected. Because this is not an act of giving away any of your personal integrity, not a gesture of weakness or inferiority, it then becomes essential that you give permission to the teacher to begin offering her gifts. It is at this point of authentic humility that submission enters the relationship.

Submission is a place of profound receptivity. I am not expecting, not projecting, not comparing, not judging, not exerting my identity in any way. I have become the paint tubes filled with all the colors of my uniqueness, as well as the blank canvas of pure openness awaiting the creative surge of the artist. My permission transitions into a deep communication to the teacher, an invitation, an active request to be restored to my essential magnificence and beauty, even if that entails a painful awakening.

And, it is important to acknowledge that not all teachings come through other human beings – sometimes life itself can be the teacher. When one is available, the teachings come from a multitude of sources. The old saying that “When the student is ready, the teacher appears” is true! And this dynamic process also occurs in less dramatic forms, even in the simple moments, like stopping to smell the roses.

In our essence, we are all magnificent. Recognize each and every moment, that you can give yourself the gift of submitting, whether to the beauty of nature, the gaze of a beloved partner, friend or pet, or countless other ways to be exquisitely available. It is through the spiritual practice of submission that you can come fully into yourself and your life, available to everything and everyone.

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Mary Gay Shafer, MA (in transpersonal psychology) has been a spiritual teacher for several decades and offers a variety of formats for exploring the soul-partnering relationship of student and teacher. Here is how she describes her work:

Teaching has been my lifelong calling. It has evolved through artistic and spiritual explorations, culminating in the recognition that these two are intrinsically related in a vivid interior life. Their pairing synthesized my innate abilities. It is through creative imagination and an encompassing understanding of the human spirit that I consider myself an  artistof the soul.

My offerings will carefully guide you on an adventure to discover both your authentic self-expression and inherent capacity for a fulfilled life. I invite you to retreat to the mountains, the ocean, or the desert. I ask that you embark upon the journey that will take you Home. I offer you my eyes so that you may see your beauty and my insights so that you may know your depths. This is my passion. This is why I teach. My heart recognizes you in your wholeness.

She can be contacted at mgshafer@comcast.net.

deep blessings to you, Carol

I just completed an 11-day Gyrokinesis intensive training in Miami. This training was both arduous and inspiring. It’s always a pressure cooker when I go to trainings led by Juliu Horvath – there is a certain level of intensity, a quickening, just being around the creative and demanding brilliance of the founder of this work. These trainings are not for beginners; rather the 20-30 participating teachers had already attained some level of proficiency and were devoted to the work. The energy was electric!

Each day we learned the movements, the rhythms, the details, the tactile and verbal cueing – everything we needed to experience in our own body in order toe be able to teach this work. We spent time paired up with each other to practice, practice, practice . . . which can be nerve-racking. We all want to teach each other well, be present and available, give meaningful feedback – to be a brilliant teacher and an outstanding student.

During the final days of the training, we paired up to teach each other the formats in their entirety; one person would teach in the morning and after a long break, the other would teach in the afternoon.

My partner for the first format taught me in the morning. She did a lovely job and gave me a really good class. I felt well-worked and well-supported.

In the afternoon it was my turn. I always have a bit of performance anxiety in these situations and that caused me to fumble early on in the routine. Once I fumbled, I lost my “student” and, try as I might, I could not bring her back. In that brief moment of awkwardness, she became un-teachable – going through the routine on her own, not listening to my cues or engaging with me. That, in and of itself, was quite challenging. When it was over, her feedback was unkind and insensitive – and she would have nothing to do with the feedback I gave her. It was clear that she had decided I was an inferior teacher, unworthy of teaching her or giving meaningful feedback.

I was struck dumb – literally, my mind went totally blank. I felt frozen. It took awhile for me to come back to myself, to re-embody my being, to reclaim my confidence as a teacher. Once I did that and reflected back on the situation, well, a few things happened. First I wondered why I hadn’t slapped her, at least verbally. Once that passed, I realized that this young woman had missed an opportunity to be taught by me. She lost the chance to learn this work in a different way than how she teaches it. She was unavailable to learn from me the reverent, soulful and unfolding quality of this work as I teach it. I felt great sorrow in that – for both of us.

We all know there is an art to teaching. There is also an art to being teachable. My friend and spiritual mentor, Mary Gay Shafer and I have discussed this frequently and it is through her that this teaching becomes vividly clear and alive as a practice. The student and the teacher have a mutual responsibility to:

• be available to what is being taught
• actively extend an invitation so the material can be entered as deeply as possible
• give ongoing permission to be met,  instructed and guided

And, honestly, no matter how good or bad a teacher is, how relevant or unrelated a teaching may seem – if we are teachable, we will always learn, always gain from being open, and always receive the gift that any given moment has to offer. And, every moment is full of potential. Let yourself be vulnerable. Consider everyone and everything a worthy teacher. Throw out all the strategies of defense and be humbled by the vastness of what has yet to be discovered in this precious human experience. Choose to be teachable.

deep blessings to you, Carol

Stay Tuned! Mary Gay will be my guest author for the next e-rhythm on the art of teaching and leading.

“To be in a more selfless expression of service is to cultivate the kind of sensitivity that can detect degrees of receptivity. Knowing the extent to which someone is available, whether an invitation has been extended and/or if permission has been granted will guide you in the content and depth of your offering. Discerning these components of receptivity requires perceiving what is transpiring beneath the surface of your relationship.” Mary Gay Shafer

Even though I haven’t been posting, I have been exploring “Both/And.” Which includes everything! There is nothing that is excluded from the ebb and flow of form and formless, finite and infinite . . The field is wide open as to how to engage this material.

I’ve been spending quite a bit of time with Robert Masters book, Spiritual Bypassing - a worthy read as it clears up so many of the ways we misuse our spirituality to avoid rather that include – everything. Today I’d like to share a passage from his book about nondual teachings. Wonderful fodder for the inescapable inquiry!

“In nonduality there is no dissociation from phenomena, no withdrawal from life, no bypassing, no avoidance of manifesting as form. And there is no truly separate self, no discrete knower, no autonomous entity standing apart from and seeing all of this. There is no past, no future, and nowhere to go, just a freedom beyond imagining. This may sound like madness to our usual self but not to who we really are. To our mind, nonduality is inescapably and unyieldingly paradoxical, but to our heart of hearts, it is living truth. In nondual awareness the personality is no longer the locus of self but nonetheless still persists – and why shouldn’t it? If we are truly at home in (and as) the nondual, then personality, like everything else, is just one more nonbinding expression of nondual being, needing not annihilation but rather recognition and acceptance. To nondual awareness, everything is God – anger, joy, duality, personality, clouds, wonder, fear. There is only the Real, only the One, only the Mystery, outshining any language with which we attempt to describe it – and if we genuinely recognize this, there is no abandonment of our humanness, no employing of nondual teachings to separate out from the more difficult challenges of life, no turning away from the demands of relationship.” Robert Masters

Good Morning – I began my day today with movement, particularly spinal articulation; what I consider to be a form of body prayer. I followed that with a brief meditation. How about you?

As I was contemplating the “Both/And,” it occurred to me that we spend an inordinate amount of time and energy resisting what we cannot understand, defending against the ambiguity that we are form and formless, unique and one, matter and non-matter – definitely boggles the mind! This resistance creates a wall of tension around our capacity to be fully who we are. So today’s “practice prompt” is to notice the ways in which you hold tension and then see if you can relax into the uncertainty in order to open to the possibility of full expression.

Good morning and welcome to our 30-day art and practice of “Both, And.”

I’d like to know who is on board with this immersion, so let’s begin with a simple introduction and intention for this 30-day journey. I’ll start . . .

I’m Carol McAnally and I have a few intentions. I am perpetually intrigued by the mystery and the challenge inherent in being human. My practice that supports tuning in, being present and course correction is floundering, so I am committing today to revitalize and deepen my practice – to breathe new life into it through this rich exploration of “Both, And.” Also, I very much want to do this in community. My tendency is to be a lone-wolf in my practice, which has its place, and – it is also imperative to come together with people moving along similar trajectories for support, wisdom, accountability, insight, vulnerability – and for me, to break through the isolation that is so ingrained.

As the facilitator, I will post daily conversation starters, practice prompts, quotes and whatever else comes forward – as well as sharing my own experience.

OK – your turn. You must be on the blog page, in order to respond to the group as a whole. Scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page (the comment box is, for some reason, way down the page – a bug to be worked out), write your intro/intention and click the “post as” button, you will be prompted to subscribe to disqus (provides the comment program). Just add your name email address, you’ll be sent an email to confirm that info – and away we go! We’ll see how this system of community interaction works and revise as needed.

Happy Immersion, Carol

Many of us (particularly women) have, at one time or another, been guilty of talkin’ trash to or about our bodies.  You know – words and phrases filled with the judgment and distaste we sometimes feel when we look in the mirror, have aches and pains or find it difficult to maneuver around our physical lives. These rubbish words are plentiful and easily identifiable. You know what I’m talking about – we each have our favorite areas of aversion and ongoing allegations against the body. These thoughts are the easy ones to catch because they are so blatantly mean. And, I trust that you are doing what you can to be aware of that nasty voice and to quiet it with the deep love and acceptance that you inherently have for your body.

What about the more subtle ways you disrespect your body? hold it in contempt?  make unreasonable demands of it? wish it were anything but what it is? hate that it hurts, is sensitive or sick? are disappointed that it is not as resilient as it used to be? ignore its communication and wish it would just shut up?

These subtle messages flow below the surface of awareness, are non-verbal and much more destructive than the obvious ones. Is the answer to go after all those sneaky, subversive ways of judging ourselves, identify and then try to undo each one? Yuk! That sounds overwhelming, exhausting, unproductive, zero fun and potentially depressing.

What to do? Here are a few ideas:

Instead of thinking of the body as an IT, think of your body as SHE or HE. This takes you out of an object orientation with your body and into the possibility of relationship, partnership and mutuality. How is SHE feeling? What does SHE need?  What brings HER joy? How can I help HER? See if you can feel the difference in this simple turn of phrase.

Accept HER as she is, right here and right now. This may seem like old news, a bit trite and overused. It isn’t. The internalized programming that we can only accept her under certain conditions (thin, pretty, pain free, graceful, athletic . . .) must be arrested and put asunder – not by convincing yourself that she already has these attributes, but by letting go of needing her to be anything but what she is. Wanting her to be other than who she is currently,places you firmly in the future, unable to appreciate her or even truly experience her right now.

Yesterday during my errands around town, I practiced deep acceptance – not only for myself but for every woman I saw. I looked at each imperfectly perfect body and sent her unconditional love and acceptance. A sigh of relief moved through me and I felt waves of deep appreciation for women and a softening toward the challenges that we face, as a collective – needing desperately to relax the hardness with which we judge our bodies and nurture a more joyous and pleasurable way of being with her and caring for her.

Deep blessings to you and your body,  Carol

“ . . . God has been here all along. In the noise and in the stillness, in the upheavals and in the rafts of peace. In each moment of kindness you lavish upon your breaking heart or the size of your thighs, with each breath you take – God has been here. She is you.” Geneen Roth