I eagerly anticipate returning To Bethany Spirituality center this week to resume the Wisdom School Experience with Cynthia Bourgeault and the crowd from the eastern seaboard.  It will be our second gathering. 

The first was one of the most memorable experiences I have participated in.  I went with some trepidation because I had not been practicing Centering Prayer as much as I had wanted and felt like I might be  a bit behind everyone else.  The bottomline is no one but you and God knows what happens to you when you “sit” and we were not there to dissect our practice or share our practice experience.  

We came for all sorts of reasons.  What we experienced was something very special and unique.  From all sorts of backgrounds and geographic locations we spent five days living the Benedictine Rule  of prayer, mindful work, healthy eating, learning and silence while living in community.  Guided by very wise and articulate Cynthia, we looked at our relationship with  God in a very different way.  God is within us and not outside of us and the way to God is through quiet centering prayer–Surrendering to God, resting in the arms of God, and trusting that God knows best what we need and will sort it all out if we just allow and Be.  Easier said than done sometimes.
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We explored the concept of Perennial Philosophy–”There is no God, but God”. The One who comes to us in the way that we need to see or hear, accepting of all.  We explored the idea of the spiritual journey that all of us on earth are on–but how we are all in different states of awareness about that journey and at different places along the path and that it is all ok.  We practiced chanting and I learned how physical that kind of music making can be–effecting every cell of the body.  We started to learn Turning prayer–something we will return to this next time. 

 

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Surgeons, in my opinion, are very special people, but very left brain, concrete and visual.  We seek instant gratification.  We want to see the pathology that causes the belly ache.  We glow with satisfaction witnessing how well the appendectomy patient feels after the nasty appendix is gone—even with an incision. 

I tend to be particularly stubborn. It takes something as dramatic as a lightning bolt to change my way of seeing the world.  In the early 90’s, the lightening bolt hit me.  My husband, also a surgeon and visionary dragged me—almost kicking and screaming to a Tony Robbins seminar in East Brunswick, New Jersey.  The participants were  1000 wild and crazy New York City- Bruce Springsteenish kind of crowd.  The seminar included a FIREWALK?!

I agreed to go to the seminar, but I would never—NO WAY-ever, ever think about doing a  Firewalk.

I had no idea what was in store for me.  Tony Robbins is frighteningly charismatic with his physical (6 feet 7 inches) stature, stage presence and movie star good looks.  Halfway through his dynamic discourse, there was no way I was NOT going to do the Firewalk.    I went to the bathroom, took off my flammable pantyhose and tied up my long skirt so it and I would not go up in smoke.  

The mesmerizing part of the evening began with the lighting of the huge bonfire in the hotel parking lot that would eventually burn down to be our hot coals.

Tony led us all in a guided meditation where we imagined ourselves at our physical best.  I had just learned how to row a scull and felt quite accomplished.  It had not come easy to me.  I envisioned myself gliding through the water– oars entering the water without a splash, the seat of the racing shell gliding back as the strength of my legs added to the movement through the water.   I held that feeling of accomplishment in my cellular memory able to be recalled at will.  I was coach to  create a power move that would help recall that memory.  Mine was bringing my fist down through the air and saying to myself—YES!

We were then given our very specific instructions.   Maintaining our meditative state, we (all 1000 of us) walked in silence through the halls.  Primeval drums played in the background.  We were told to look forward as we walked, not look down at the hot coals, and chant the mantra—Cool Moss, Cool Moss, Cool Moss…..

In the dark, in state, I recalled my power move and lined up behind a row of burning embers and walked for ten feet– chanting, looking forward, slowly, deliberately, listening to the rhythm of the drums.  As I walked, there was no sensation of heat, no pain and when finished—no blisters.

How can that happen?  How can one walk on hot coals and not hurt? 

That is what changed my life—the amazing power of our minds to influence pain perception and change the body’s normal physical reaction to hot, burning coals.  If that could happen, what else was possible?  It turned my left brain mind upside down and it has remained open to possibility since that time.  I paid attention to the reports of melanoma patients living longer after learning relaxation techniques and end stage breast cancer patients living longer after learning meditation techniques with peer support.  A new and exciting phase of medicine was opening up for me.

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