I was all ready to listen to my primary spiritual teacher's live webcast tonight. Instead of a live event being streamed, it was a recording of the recent talk he gave in Oakland (and I was there in person for that one). At the last moment, he had laryngitis and could not participate. This one is somewhat surprising since my teacher appears fearless about speaking in public extemporaneously on topics I consider too taboo to even discuss one-on-one behind closed doors with almost anyone.
The energetic pattern that when held too long --and by too long I mean relative to the Absolute which is infinitely in flux and does not fixate into any set pattern-- that indicates the "fear of speaking up" (via Louise Hay's handbook, but this should be obvious) is laryngitis.
I didn't know about my teacher--but that pattern is very familiar to me. You could even say familial as well.
This is deep subject matter and one post won't do it justice. Here's a start.
I'd been digging into my own family ancestry and am intrigued about how the southern Spanish were able to live somewhat amiably and peacefully during the Al-Andalus "golden age" about thousand years ago with Jews, Muslims, and Christians. I started to write a non-linear story about a character based in that timeframe.
Only later, did I start to uncover the shadow side (after that "golden age" of flourishment waned) that began in 1492 when Isabella and Ferninand kicked out all the Muslim rulers and forced people to convert to Catholicism or leave Spain altogether. So many families opted to stay in their homeland by lying and hiding their religious practices (death was often the result of being found out) and pretending in public that they'd converted. I began to see and receive so many signs about shadow side to my Spanish heritage that it became impossible to ignore.
For instance, one day I felt I might be in a rut by visiting the same few categories of shelves at the local bookstore that I went to rarely traveled areas and picked out books by unknown (to me) authors simply based on sheer instinct of the cover or the spine 'speaking' to me. One of these books was called "The Forgetting River." That's all I saw on the spine when I chose it (the subtitle "A Modern Tale of Survival, Identity, and the Inquisition" was only visible when I sat down at the cafe table and glanced at the cover. Little did I know it was the author's quest to discover her own roots in Spain and how she found that on her journey into Spain that people to this very day are traumatized by the after-effects of the Spanish Inquisition.
This week I also saw that my spiritual teacher talks about "generational suffering" and "generation pain," and how to heal it here in this video (although I know most of his teachings since 2005 this one escaped me until very very very recently):
Let me jump to something that appears off-topic initially. A week or so again, I saw a fun flyer for a writing class hosted at a local independent pirate supply shop (yes, you heard that right) for 10- to 12-year-olds. It was intriguing and said:
Treasures from the Deep
Journey along this workshop where your sea legs take you beyond your wildest pirate dreams to long forgotten maps guiding us beneath subterranean twists and turns. Come create a treasure map, then write letters choc-full of clues for the people who seek to uncover that treasure.
The symbolism spoke to me (so full of clues in only two sentences.) The imagery worked its magic on me and I couldn't stop conjuring up my own class offering inspired by it. I thought of offering a class on appreciating the treasure within and around us that was uplifting, whimsical and based on present experience. Then, the idea deepened. In Spanish, the word 'deep' means profound, heavy, intense as well as measurement of depth.
“All my offerings of beauty
are little more than decoration
If through them
my demons are not set free.” - Paul Madonna
So, I'm offering a six-week workshop (October 24 - December 5, 2012) that looks at buried treasure from a myriad of angles including angles we shy away from such as healing family skeletons and ancestral pain. With that timing, we'll also latch onto whatever Day of the Dead ancestry emphasis evokes plus the family of origin Thanksiving energy.
It's in conjunction with the Treasures From The Deep worksho I'm offering on my regular blog, but if you sign up through this site you'll get both 'sides'--the light-hearted and the subterranean. We'll delve much richer soil and leave no tendril or morsel of the Treasure of ourselves buried. Included will be exercises tailored for your life and ancestry that demonstrate the use of symbolism and of ho'oponopono. The class is all online on a secret blog privy only to these heart-y souls to accompany us on this quest. You'll be able to share via writing or if preferred calling into a private phone number to audio-record your contributions to a small, intimate group.
This course, specifically dealing with the healing of ancestral pain, will NOT be offered again. The window of opportunity for this in my life is NOW--and once resolved it will not need to be dredged up and revisited over and over (or that'd be another stuck/held energy pattern of looping in analysis paralysis). That's the whole purpose of ho'oponopono--to clear and dissolve held patterns so as to keep moving with inspiration of the moment as the symphony of life.