Stand Still. Listen. - Kathleen Knipp

I returned to the cabin at dusk.  As I was unlocking the door,
I heard a panicked voice leave a message on my answering
machine (yes, an actual answering machine - remember
those?)  My guest, who had set out for a hike with promises
to turn back early, was lost.  Very lost.  Darkness falls quickly
in the winter desert; the temperature can drop 20 degrees in an
hour.  She'd gathered her altitude, longitude, and latitude from 
her technology, but her data points did not reveal the trail.

So, I did what any experienced hiker would do.  I commanded
her to stop speaking and to listen carefully.  Then, I read her
a poem.

It was the same poem I'd received almost a decade earlier from
a wise and seasoned outdoorswoman one evening when I had
gotten turned around in the woods behind my home in Quebec.
It begins:

"Stand still.  The trees ahead and the bushes beside you
Are not lost.  Wherever you are is called Here...
The forest breathes.  Listen.  It answers..."

By the time I'd ascended 500 feet, running full throttle with
my headlamp lighting up loose rocks, roots, and downed
trees - hazards for chronically sprained ankles - we made
contact again.  She had located the elusive path shortly after
our call and was now making her way down.

Stand still.  Listen.

When we can't find our way, we try our best to figure out
what to do.  We look for solutions, consult, gather information.
Do I turn left or right?  Speak up or hold silence?  Innovate or
uphold tradition?...

Listening - true listening - is not an activity.  It's not about
listening to something,or even for something.  It's not
listening to the mental chatter or the wisdom of the body.
Rather, it's about dropping into the primacy of experiencing,

into the field of pure receptivity, free from egoic interference.
It's resting in complete availability until the next step becomes
perfectly clear.

Listening.  It's what I teach.  It's what I practice.  It's what I
humbly learn and relearn daily through my own missteps and
moments of distraction.  When I fall into the habit of believing
that "I" can figure it out, that "I" make the decisions, that "I"
must find my way, the field narrows and"I" end up running
around in circles.

"Stand still.  The forest knows
Where you are.
You must let it find you."

Kathleen Knipp
Pathless Yoga

The poem "Lost" by David Wagoner

~

Photo taken by my brother
at Sunday River Ski Resort
in Maine.  He is a volunteer
ski patrol there...

~

Personal Note:

I love this piece by Kathleen.  It moved me deeply, not only
for it's message but because Kathleen did not give a "non-dual"
answer, dismissing her predicament, she gave a loving, caring,
compassionate answer to the woman who had gotten lost on
the trail - by reading comforting words from a poem about
 not being lost, about standing still and listening to the trees
 for the way to go.
And then Kathleen took action and went to help her friend
in trouble.  She acted with love from her heart...

In these very troubling times around the world, we need to
support each other in dealing with the reality we are faced with
 - in our  seeming"lostness"; as we navigate
a way "Home..." and remember our Infiniteness...

MM

Just Breathing...

The silence outside the window late at night
is pungent,
leaving me rapt,
sinking more deeply
into timelessness beyond time,
letting go of thought,
just awareing the night.
being breathed by the Silence of the Unknown...

I hear the sound of the ceiling fan
breathing its own whirling rhythm...

feeling the breeze of its breath
gently move the strands of my hair...

Just breathing...

And I am suddenly gone...
slipped off the edge
into slumber
until
just
before
rising
the
next
morning

Again finding myself
at the space at the edge
before awakening,
before rising...

Just breathing

Conscious of the stillness
before thought...

Just breathing

Mystic Meandering
July 15, 2012

~

The Breath - neither mine nor yours - is the same breath
touching everyone, the same breath uniting everyone
and everything.  The same breath touching all beings,
those who are suffering, those whose lives have been
torn apart by war, those living in famine and poverty.
Immersed in this universal breath, limitlessness is
revealed as form remains...

Kathleen Knipp
Pathless Yoga

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Fully Human, Fully Divine - Kathleen Knipp

Without ignoring or denying the story of our lives, we
can relax and experience that which is beyond story
through the simple practice of attuning to body and breath.
We can open the lens wider than our dramas and traumas
and reconnect with Source.

We find ourselves in our humanness, our extraordinary
fragility and our extraordinary resiliency - both.  And can,
without denying the story of "my life", the events, the
response I may be having to these events, without ignoring
that, without denying that, we can also open to that which
is beyond this story.  And it is so easy to forget, it's so easy
to have the events of our lives move into the foreground and
just fill the whole field with the dramas and traumas.  And
without ignoring or denying them, we can open the lens
wider and we can, through practice, reconnect with our Source.
It might not be easy.  We do that by beginning to feel our bodies,
feeling each part of the body and experience the sensations,
using all of our senses, while also accessing our inner sanctuary
to feel supported.

Noticing the breath and falling into the rhythmic cycling of
the breath, in a moment of suspension where we can rest.
When life presents its challenges, which it does, we can rest
in the rhythm of the breath - feel its caress.

...[there] may be the sense of slipping below the surface of
turbulence.  Sinking deeper and deeper to an absolute stillness.
Stillness so profound that it is impossible to disturb that which
is beyond time, sinking deeper to the very Source.  The Source
that reveals itself and conceals itself and emerges in infinite
forms... and begin to sense the infinite and the finite expression
as you - this unique set of patterns that form into a sense of me...

Kathleen Knipp
Excerpt from a Yoga Nidra Meditation
Fully Human, Fully Divine

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Yielding and Allowing - Kathleen Knipp

[What if we]...let go of the need to hold ourselves up.
Become familiar with the sense of yielding and allowing.
Realign and connect with that which feels most important,
that which our heart most deeply desires and yield to the
pull...

[What if we]...sense what if feels like to feel safe.  Access
somatically the feeling of letting go, surrendering, giving up
the struggle, even if only momentarily; releasing into the
Eternal Embrace.  Feel the sense of relief - simply being.

[What if we]...just feel what's here, without any sort of
commentary.  Sense the entirety of this moment: body, breath
thoughts, emotions - all the stuff of human experience, just as
it is; the changing landscape of emotions and thoughts.

It's okay to fully let go and to feel very deeply the human experience.

The Infinite and the finite are just different facets of the same gem.
There's no contradiction.  Infinite and finite simultaneously.
Vast and condensed at the very same time.
What a mystery.

Fully living this mystery; the experience of being human
and being Divine...

Kathleen Knipp

Excerpts from a Yoga Nidra meditation
called "Receiving"

 

"Stilling" - Kathleen Knipp

Consider what would feel "stilling", calming, settling.
Many traditions teach "be still" and that stillness can be a
stilling of the body.  Finding a position in which the body
can remain still has the effect of stilling the mind to some
extent. Stilling has an effect on the body as well as the mental
and emotional faculties.  Just as emotions have an effect on
the physical body they can influence the experience of 
emotions and thoughts.  So becoming still is happening on
multiple levels simultaneously. As the process of stilling
ceases, you become more aware of the breath that's always
happening...

As we become more still, the more subtle aspects of our Being
are more evident.  In stillness we have a greater capacity to open
to listening, to pure listening, not with the ears, or listening for
something, or to something.  Just listening - availability.

In stilling the body and stilling the mind we become more
present to that which is - what's here - which can manifest in
an infinite variety of ways.  What's here is ever changing, ever
renewing.

Allowing the body to be as it is gives the emotions and thoughts
the freedom to move and change.

As we become more still, that which is essential becomes
more apparent, that which is most important, the sense of a
"greater purpose", the "feeling" of being drawn/called toward
that which may be beyond our comprehension, beyond explanation,
beyond words.  Yet in the stillness it is felt as a bodily experience.
Yield to it, trust, knowing that it takes care of itself.  Just fall into
the stream, as the flow of life flows through us.

As we become still there may be a sense of ease, softening,
equanimity.  Meet what arises with an attitude of openness and
curiosity.  It is constantly changing and ever evolving.  Sensing
beyond the habits of the mind and surface turbulence there is
great stillness, unfathomable stillness...

Stillness that just is....

Kathleen Knipp
excerpts from a Yoga Nidra Meditation

original title - "be still"

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Resting in the Womb of Creation - Kathleen Knipp

...The body is one radiant mass of Aliveness,
the Aliveness that just Is...  Feel the pulse of the Universe throb
through, giving up any struggle, any need to do or know; to 
figure out...  Just resting, being breathed...

The natural flow of thoughts and emotions will continue...
Slip behind or below the thoughts and emotions like an
ocean with waves and froth on the top - surface turbulence.
Sink down beneath, deep down, below all the movement
of the mind, resting in absolute stillness; the vast silence
of the Ocean of Pure Awareness, Pure Beingness...

There may be a sense of being pulled, drawing you deeper
and deeper into the silence, into a stillness beyond
comprehension and words, receding into the womb of
creation before time, deeply resting, being held in a feeling
of ease and well-being that is familiar...

Kathleen Knipp
Excerpt from a Yoga Nidra Meditation
Resting in the Womb of Creation

~

Photo from the Internet

 

Exploring Emotions - Kathleen Knipp

The goal is not to replace one's experience with another...
but accepting the entirety of life...  Be fully present for
what is here - instead of distracting ourselves...
Be intimately with yourself [using] somatic inquiry
into what's being felt and how it expresses itself as
sensation [in the body] getting a sense of what is
felt in the body.

You can also use inquiry to get a sense of what is
really Essential, what is really pulling you to what really
matters for you, using whatever we have as inner resource
or inner sanctuary...  What helps us to feel safe and feel what
is here.  Make the feeling sense as vivid as possible.

Our approach to meeting whatever is present is not aggressive,
but of receiving and welcoming.  What is seeking to be felt -
feel what presents itself.  What is the sensation you are drawn
to repeatedly?  Can you feel it without interpretation?

Let the emotion present itself and meet it.
What does it actually feel like?  Is there a part of the body
where this emotion expresses itself, or does it move around?
If there is no particular emotion present, be with what is here...

Slide behind the emotion, even dive inside, feel it from the
inside without conclusions, explanations, or stories.  Focus on
the sensation and be curious with wide open availability and
fully embodied...

Kathleen Knipp
Excerpts from a Yoga Nidra Meditation

 

In Difficult Times - Kathleen Knipp

Let go of the belief that 'I have to muscle this through' -
and let yourself be held...

This moment - if it could be different it would be different...

Everything changes...

Underneath the changing thoughts, emotions, beyond form
there is This - the unchanging, unspeakable Essence -
familiar as the breath - and a deep knowing that everything
is okay...  in the silence that is present, even as the soundscape
unfolds - a stillness that is present even as movement arises;
the silence and stillness that is Isness in all form...

Kathleen Knipp
gems from a Yoga Nidra Meditation
called: "A practice for difficult times"

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Current of the Breath - Kathleen Knipp

.....set aside our habitual way of being,
befriend our woundedness, our fragility -
personally and collectively.

Be in the place of utter receptivity, listening to the sound of
our own Heart.  Feel its pulsation, that's not uniquely your own -
not just the physical beating.  The unique heartbeat is just an
expression of the pulsation of Aliveness that just is - infinitely
recreating Itself in each moment.  Sense the breath [the rhythm
of the breath], absorbed in the sensation of the cycle of breath.
It nourishes, it revitalizes, it sustains the body, and it disappears.

Breath washes through the stuck and sticky places, soothing
the places that hurt, whether physical, emotional, or psychological,
softening resistance, resolving tension.

Receive breath as a soothing balm - the current of breath -
flowing into a vast ocean of pure Awareness - beyond words,
beyond understanding.

The breath animating this form, this body
is infinite and finite...

Excerpt from a Yoga Nidra Meditation
The Gift of Breath
by Kathleen Knipp

You might also like this wonderful Yoga Nidra Meditation
called Deep Rest, especially in these chaotic times.
  It's one of my favorites.

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

This Magical Mystery - Kathleen Knipp

Give yourself fully to yourself...just as you are...

Feel fully this mystery of existence; your thoughts,
emotions, the breath, sensations in the body.

Just listening - whole body listening.
Nothing to "fix", or resolve, understand,
repress, or negotiate - or do.

Just simply Be.
Being just Is.

Surrender to just being,
just receiving, listening...

Feel comforted and at ease.
The fundamental feeling of ease
can be accessed - feeling held and supported.

Just Rest.  Just Be - Naturally...
Living this magical mystery.

Excerpts from a Yoga Nidra Meditation
"This Magical Mystery"

by Kathleen Knipp

Pathless Yoga

~

I find Yoga Nidra to be a wonderful way to rest the nervous
system and connect more deeply within in stressful times.

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering