Doris Maranda

NEWSLETTER - WINTER/SPRING 2004 “SEASON’S GREETINGS”   Such a poignant, rich, meaningful & full time of the year.   Many cultures and traditions interface - the Christian - Christ’s birth and our culture’s Christmas, the pagan Winter Solstice, the Jewish Hanukkah.  The music of Christmas pours from the radio and our stereo collections, lights flood many houses, buildings, cranes, boats and yards, the stores and billboards are constant reminders with their decorations and exhortations to buy gifts for one’s loved ones as there is only so many more days until Christmas.   So many Christmas concerts and functions as well as the parties and gatherings put on by friends and the multitude of tasks that accompany this season.   The common question is “Are you ready for Christmas?”    For many people, it is also a very difficult, even depressing time of the year.   Expectations, disappointments and negative family experiences leave their imprint.   For some, like Scrooge, Christmas is humbug!  Perhaps rejecting the predominant commercialism, it is difficult to find some meaning and the songs for joy and peace leave us empty.   Personally, I loved Christmas as a child and when my children were young, I was caught up in their excitement.   Then, some years ago I realized that I wanted to find a meaning in this time of the year that spoke to me personally and to the many experiences that have come into my life.  I wanted to develop both for myself and with my community of friends and family, our own ways of celebrating and ritual that incorporate the traditional paths.   That has been and continues to be a challenge.

 “Are you ready for Christmas?”   I offer you this challenge, the challenge to find your own meaning within the culture and the traditions. I also offer you the gift of suspending your beliefs, of questioning and being curious and attending to yourself throughout this time and in the new year to come. Seasonally, this is the dark time of the year, moving into the Winter Solstice and the return of the light.   In that vein, it is a time of hibernating, of dreaming, of gestating and renewal, in preparation for spring and the new seeding into one’s life of what has been laid fallow.    Let yourself, as Terry Tempest Williams expresses so beautifully, “become a caretaker of silence, a connoisseur of stillness,” so that you can “slow down and recover the rhythm in the heart that moves the body first, and the mind second.”  “Open the space” and let yourself have “time to breath, to dream, to dare, to play, to pray, to move freely, in a world our minds have forgotten but our bodies remember.”  Wishing you joy, peace, love and re-membering! December 12^th, 2003                                               With love & blessings,     

                                                                                         Doris 

CONTINUUM

VANCOUVER  NEWSLETTER FALL 2004

EMBRACING THE MYSTERY – Sobonfu Some, wise, earthy woman from the Dagara people in West Africa, gave a talk here in Vancouver last week on African Mysteries.  According to Sobonfu, mysteries have a life of their own and they bring our inner life into play so that that intrinsic life can be expressed outwardly.   Pema Chodren said in an article in the Shambhala Sun, “A warrior accepts that we can never know what will happen to us next. We can try to control the uncontrollable by looking for security and predictability, always hoping to be comfortable and safe.  But the truth is that we can never avoid uncertainty.  This not knowing is part of the adventure, and, it is also what makes us afraid.”   

FEAR – of???  What do we do when we feel threatened?   It is very much an unconscious, automatic reaction which often doesn’t even make logical sense in light of the situation which has created this fear.   I do think that we are prone to our safe, known habitual patterns but I also know that this fear response can be  triggered by a present situation that recalls a past event that is still unresolved.  When this happens, we very much feel isolated, alone, overwhelmed and confused as to how to handle our response.  The Somatic Experiencing model has been a welcome adjunct to the Continuum process in helping myself and others deal with situations like this.  We do shake up the habitual patterns in our Continuum gatherings, sometimes deliberately and sometimes, it happens as we are delving deeply into our sensorial selves where the implicit memories are residing.   

 Listening to Sobonfu, I was reminded of my experiences in Bali.   The Balinese people don’t hold much value (if any) in “individuality.”   There is not a “evil person,”  there is EVIL which to them is disconnection.  When evil occurs, the village as a whole takes action in ritual, ceremonies and prayers to heal the situation.   Sobonfu addressed issues like raising children, grieving for the dead, “mentally ill” and disabled people who act as messengers to the village that there is an issue needing to be addressed.   I was struck once again with a society that is a real community, that holds and supports individuals and families so that spiritual growth, healing and day-to-day living can thrive.   How we lack that in our culture and how we need to listen to those cultures who honour community as part of life so that we can create circles of community for ourselves in the midst of this culture we were born into, a culture that esteems individuality, achievement and success. 

Reach inside, follow your deepest desires, embrace the mystery and let it flow outward, a bit at a time.                                               August 18^th, 2004                  With love & blessings,     Doris