Instinct and Intuition Class
AMAZING MAY
5 Wednesdays of Meditation
May 2 - 31, 2007
7:30 to 9:30 pm
Continuum Studio
Santa Monica, CA
A couple of days ago, I looked at the calendar, and a feeling of illumination and radiance came over me as I noticed that there are two full moons in May. The first one is on May 2, and is called the Wesak festival. For meditators, this is a spiritual high point of the year, the time to align yourself with your soul and receive the energy and inspiration you need to live as a soulful human being in this world. The second full moon is also a powerful spiritual time, it is known as the Celebration of Humanity. The second one is May 31, and is a Blue Moon.
Why pay attention to full moons? Well, there are rhythms to life. Love has a rhythm, life has a rhythm, and spiritual life has a rhythm. There is a rhythm to receiving inspiration and guidance from the soul, and then working to make our dreams come true.
Magical Rhythm
What is in a full moon? The rhythm of the moon can be very useful for meditation, to help meditation be a blessing to our outer life.
In general, with any full moon, the few days before are a good time to pray for your most passionate desire, to dream about what you really, really want your life to be, and then inhale from the universe, from God, from life itself the energy and inspiration you need to accomplish your dreams, to make them real. Then on the day of the full moon itself, you meditate and rest with the beautiful feeling tone of what you desire. The few days after the full moon, you breathe out into the world and focus on taking steps to make your dreams take shape in the outer world.
Before the full moon - think of what you want, conceive of a desire, and open up to your sources of inspiration to care for you, feed you, nurture you, inspire you, give you energy and inspiration so that you become a cup that is overflowing. Go to the ocean, or the forest, or the hills, and open your arms wide to the sky. Ask your soul to give you a sense of your true destiny, and the power to make it happen.
During the full moon - meditate and be in gratitude. Rest and celebrate.
After the full moon - put your attention on the outer world, on the specific concrete steps you take to make things happen.
What Do You Desire?
May is going to be so intense that if you have any desire to get into a consistent meditation practice that helps you to thrive, this is an excellent time. Therefore what I propose is a special 5-class meditation series on Wednesdays in May at the Continuum Studio.
If you are interested, send me a note or call. And begin to think about what you want. Take a walk, or have a talk with your mate or friends about what you want. What is it you are longing for. Then come with those wants, to explore how you want meditation to help you get there.
-Lorin
AMAZING MAY
5 Wednesdays of Meditation
May 2 - 31, 2007
7:30 to 9:30 pm
Continuum Studio
Santa Monica, CA
$200 (Visa and Mastercard accepted)
Email: lorin@lorinroche.com
To register, call me at 310 821 0620 or email me.
The psychedelic quality of normal sensory perception
We each have 21 or so distinct senses – the usual five, plus balance, and joint position, oxygen senses, motion senses, and more. In class, I invite you to activate all these senses, including the ones you do not habitually use. The senses are usually grateful to be employed, and ordinary reality takes on a shimmering, psychedelic richness, because instead of just paying attention to the chatter in your head, you have a rich multimedia journey going on inside you.
When we pay attention to the sensory detail of being incarnate in human bodies, experience becomes rich with a normal psychedelic quality, the kind that kids and animals inhabit, and that we usually lose as adults. The literal meaning of the word is psyche = mind, delos = visible, clear. Delos is an interesting root word, it shows up in Tuesday, divine, jovial, Jupiter, diary, journey and psychedelic. It is related to the Sanskrit deva, "shining one."
Much of what we do in class is pure experience. We spend most of our time immersed in the subtle sensory world of internal seeing, internal feeling, hearing, touching.
The healthiness of the human instincts
The scientific research done at Harvard and other universities points to meditation as a built-in instinct, an innate ability of the human body. I say this because you can have a subject come into a lab, one who has never meditated before, give them five minutes of instruction, and then measure the changes as they go into meditation.
I used to teach meditation as a sacred process. I started working with meditation as an instinctive process – related to our homing and hunting instincts. This instinctive approach is extremely useful in everyday life, because it helps you to get what you need out of meditation – healing, renewal, inspiration, adaptability, fresh perception and fresh thinking.
Since I have been teaching meditation for 38 years now, it is really enjoyable for me to track you individually and help you find the techniques that work with your nature. I don't have to just teach one technique and you can like it or lump it, or blame yourself if it doesn't work for you.
What is a daily practice?
A daily practice is that which makes you thrive. It is a time to set aside to do those movement, meditation and awareness practices that tune you up to function at your best. What works is different for everyone, and it can be quite challenging to discover what it is for you.
Decades of scientific research on daily meditation indicate that it can prevent or reduce the effects of stress-related illness. This makes sense because meditation is such a powerful way for the body to un-stress itself.
As always, the theme is discovering what works for you. The class is a supportive environment for you to bring your desires, your cravings for respite and inner peace and access to your own energy and inspiration. We work together to help you find daily practices of movement, prayer, and meditation so that you can rejuvenate and move forward.
Class Details
I prefer that you pay for the entire month, at the beginning of the month, or pay for the whole series. It just makes my life simpler. If you can come only certain evenings, that can be fine as long as you let me know.
The ideal size for this class seems to be 5 to 10 people.
Driving Directions
. . . to the Continuum Studio in Santa Monica. To get there, you have to be driving West on Olympic, toward the ocean. Go past 20th Street, then turn right on 18th, go half a block, and park on the street or in the 18th Street Art Center parking lot. The Art Center is right across the street from the Crossroads School gymnasium building.