“ I’m not in the don’t-touch-it school. Maybe it’s my Italian heritage. I call it Mediterranean satsang. I say, “Come here, poor little story!” If the story keeps coming back, it means it’s desperate for a little loving attention.

If you are always going, “Oh, it’s just story,” of course it’s going to renew its effort: “No, I’m not!”

If a certain situation continues to arise, just let it sit with you. See it as your devotee. Grant it the compassion to be able to sit with you. Say, “Yes, you are welcome here.” Even story. In the beginning it’s good to get firm with stories, because there are way too many of them. But it’s like Reader’s Digest; you have them condensed down to the top five issues, right?

When you’re feeling strong, or if you have a friend to sit with, just sit in the silence until you’re soothed, until the body and brain are soothed, and then invite the story to come sit. It will start to activate the body, and then the brain will start to bring in strategies to fix it and try to help. So thank the brain, and then attend to what’s happening in the body. Stories have another function, other than bothering us. They’re designed to dissolve the defenses in the body. They’re like armor. So you sit with the issue, the upset, and see where it’s triggering in the body, and then just allow awareness to move into it and permeate the upset – like awareness has hands, and it’s soothing and loving.

What you’re doing is helping the body let go of the past. One of the ways the body creates release is by recreating something from the past in order to pull it out of the earth of the body. Otherwise it stays deep. This system of release is strange – almost reptilian, it’s so ancient. These bodies are from another time. Even though you get a fresh, new body every time, a lot of the defenses are recreated through thought. That’s why I say bring the story here. There’s no lack of brilliance in the design of either the body or the way it lets go, or even that this world is so harsh. Robert Adams used to call this the remedial planet, because when you really want freedom, this is where you come.

It’s sweet: the body asks for a blessing through its upset, its agitation. It’s invoking the Beloved, awareness-consciousness: “Please, master, come here. Please heal me.” And if it’s really frantic, then it will be sending out distress signals all the time. So it has another function: to awaken the Beloved. It awakens the satguru through its distress.

Ramana used to say, “I would follow a devotee into hell if need be.” So when hell or agitation arises in the body, it’s luring the satguru out of the heart. Everything is an invitation for the Buddha to awaken and bring peace, even to the body. It calls for the laying on of hands, the welcoming and soothing. Even doubt is asking for your love. Doubt is talking to you, saying, “Master, is this true?”

When you see your body and thought as your devotees, you have a completely different relationship with them. Where else are they going to go for truth?”

I think this offers great advice for bridging the split between intellectually knowing the persona as a false self, a projected fiction fashioned from conditioning, and trying, seeking, to know the True unmediated Self.  Offering this level of compassion to the frightened psyche of everyday life presents a wonderful opportunity to BE LOVE, the True Self.  Come to me for healing, sweetheart, I have all you need to simply be OK.  There’s power is that.  Such a simple recipe.

The COLLECTIVE EVOLUTION II: THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE

“Behind your image, below your words, above your thoughts, the silence of another world awaits.  A world lives within you.  No one else can bring you news of this inner world.  Through our voices, we bring out sounds from the mountains beneath the soul.  These sounds are words.  The world is full of words.  There are so many talking all the time, loudly, quietly, in rooms, on streets, on TV, on radio, in the paper, in books.  The noise of words keeps what we call the world there for us.  We take each other’s sounds and make patterns, predictions, benedictions and blasphemies.  Each day our use of language holds what we call ‘the world’ together.  Yet the uttering of the word reveals how each of us relentlessly creates.  Everyone is an artist.  Each person brings sound out of silence and coaxes the invisible to become visible.” – John O’Donohue from Anam Cara

It is a cliché to say a picture paints a thousand words, and oversimplified at that, however, there is truth in the statement, and particularly when it comes to photography.  In this creative and interactive workshop we explore the photograph, not as window, but as mirror; not as document, but as highly persuasive text; as a convincing language which employs the eloquence of rhetoric with the seduction of realism and the allure of aesthetics.

The medium is particularly suited to an investigation of identity.  We look through the ‘window’ of images to validate the existence of an external world; towards a concrete and linear reality in which tradition and fixed views offer both threat and comfort; where everything that affects us happens ‘out there.’  Throughout this process we unconsciously  imagine ourselves in relation to the reality proffered for our perusal, sculpting narrowly defined identities as we succinctly and ‘silently’ dialogue with the barrage of imagery in our environment.  Mistaking ourselves for the wraiths we come to experience ourselves as through repetitive exposure to a limited selection of symbols, we inadvertently “sacrifice Self for self image,” abandoning our inner power as we fail to ‘listen’ to our essential, eternal, and infinite being.

“I have arrived, I am home, I am solid, I am free.” – Thich Nhat Hahn

The age old arts of Infinite Chi Kung and Tai Chi provide the means for us to re-connect with our intangible, yet felt sense, of True Self.  These internal martial arts foster a nourishing of the deprived inner being, allowing the enlargement of the silent space lost in the noisy connection of the consumer experience.  Re-experiencing ourselves through the beauty of moving meditation, we find the supportive solidity of our Real Presence, always there, waiting for our re-cognition.

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” – Antoine De Saint Exupery.

For workshop details please go to WORKSHOPS page.

All contents of this page and site are copyright of Gillian Treacy 2011

Throughout, I have been guided to courses that would continue to deepen my understanding of humanity as Divinity, and which have supported me through enormous personal challenges.

As a practice, Infinite Tai Chi is a beautiful, graceful and powerful art, which promotes well being and advancement on multiple levels.  Performing Tai Chi regularly challenges the body to strength and flexibility, opens new neural pathways in the brain, activates energy flow thereby preventing illness while calming the emotions, and transports ones being to higher levels of spiritual  awareness.  All this while learning a powerful art form which looks and feels beautiful to perform.

Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which animates all whom it floats, and you are without effort impelled to truth, to right and a perfect contentment.  Ralph Waldo Emerson, SPIRITUAL LAWS

Copyright Gillian Treacy 2011