Holistic Peer Counseling System

Barefoot Goddess Blog, day 57, 9/4/10

admin — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 06:30:55 +0000

I read Oriah Mountain Dreamer’s blog about her month away, recovering from her divorce, and I thought, wow, she sounds so honest, so moving. What a wonderful writer!And here I’m always talking about my heart swelling with love for birds and children and sunlight and my husband…..Does THAT sound sincere? I feel a little confused right now (which is okay, as far as I’m concerned), am I lying? Everybody seems to go so deep and authentic in their suffering and over here it’s just joy, joy, joy and more joy! Am I a fake?

Sure, I woke up this morning thinking, Oh my gawd, I’m gaining back the weight I so happily lost. Help! But that is so fleeting and seems so irrelevant compared to one single dust mote dancing in a single beautifully slanting sunbeam. I could say, I really wish we had the funds in our budget to replace our aluminum windows, but do I care, really? No, not actually. They’re just windows, but I’m a miracle and so are you. Our bodies breathes and it feels so good…

The cold air on my skin and the promise of warmth when I go stand outside in the sun….

Barefoot Goddess Blog, day 56, 9/3/10

admin — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 18:03:22 +0000

Every day feels special. Since shoes on one’s feet is such a basic expectation, often times when I leave the house, there is a momentary impulse to look for them. Or I notice I’m sans shoes when I look down at my bare toes as I navigate the wooden front steps. In that moment, the routine is interrupted as I realize “Oh, I’m barefoot.” I’m pleasantly reminded that my life is not the sum of non-profit status paperwork, refinancing, class and event planning and data-bases.

My life is the sum of that and of breathing in the sun-warmed air, of feeling my heart expand with love for the shiny-black crows who clean the sidewalk, for my lovely husband who set off to work early this morning, for Brooklin who taught such a nice workshop here at the Green Lake Spiritual Center last evening…thank you, Brooklin.

Barefoot Goddess Blog, day 55, 9/2/10

admin — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:23:48 +0000

To hark back to the idea of cultural confinement. Until my mid thirties I didn’t fit in anywhere and the gap was so great, I didn’t try. Around that time, I found a community in which I could make a home and that’s when I began to trade away my ways of being in return for belonging. As I write this, I see I don’t regret it. It felt wonderful to belong.

Now, as I practice my barefoot meditation I have stepped out again. I frequently experience subtle and not so subtle disapproval, and unfriendliness. On Tuesday, my yoga teacher dismissed me as “special.” She asked me how it was to walk barefoot in the rain. When I answered it was fantastic, she waved dismissively and said “But you think everything is fantastic, you’re just special.” I felt diminished for a moment. It makes no difference in my choice to remain barefoot, but it makes me think, “What is going on in the minds of those who treat me unkindly for going barefoot?”

Barefoot Goddess Blog, day 52, 8/30/10

admin — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 06:10:21 +0000

It’s been a relaxing week and week-end. Steven and I went to Thornton Place to catch a movie and I was told that I just had to wear shoes. As you know, I bring a pair of shoesys so I was okay…Well, today I went again, and barefoot! I’m such a rebel. I did bring some real sandals and held them in my hands at the ready. I was nervous, but still bold enough.

I know I said that I was open to compromise, but I have a creeping feeling that I may begin to feel differently at some point in the coming year. I’m beginning to feel that I don’t want to participate in my cultural confinement as much as anticipated. I can see a challenge coming: Remaining willing to surrender. Ach, I love this!

Barefoot and Bold, day 48, 8/26/10

admin — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 15:53:22 +0000

I had the most glorious days yesterday: A day spent practicing the art of doing nothing. IIt begand to rain while I parked. I got out of the car with little Annabelle and stood under a tree to wait it out. I could feel in my body that that was the right place to wait. When it let up a little, we walked for blocks to Canal Street Coffee. Both our paws caught bits of grass and soil. It’s glorious! Ah, barefoot in the rain.

What life has to offer through the senses is staggering. It takes more than a lifetime to experience it all. Transcending, as I understand it, is to go beyond “human” experience. In that sense, I say, transcending is life denying. I say, feel it, feel it all, with all your sense. And then, when you’ve taken the world into your body, then play with transcendence. Before then, I feel , it’s premature and a short-selling of what the world, the senses have to offer.

Barefoot and Bold, day 47, 8/25/10

admin — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 04:39:33 +0000

I’m writing this as I sit at Canal Street Coffee. I love this places!

I’ve been dedicating all my waking hours to finishing the nonprofit paperwork. Almost done. Thank you Jeni Stambaugh and Will Wright!! A few more days of writing attachments and I’ll be filing. Woopee!!

People ask me why I go barefoot. In answer, it’s my way, now, of being conscious and of receiving instruction. I am aware of my feet, the place where I most continuously touch the world. I’m aware of what they touch. They’ve become an increasingly intelligent interface. Today I received the understanding to give myself permission for everything. Can I even wrap my head around that?

“Through being barefoot, I am aware of what I almost continuously touch: The world.”~India

Barefoot Goddess Blog, days 34, 35, and 36

admin — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 23:13:51 +0000

I lost blog day 34 in a crash and I didn’t notice that I hadn’t written a blog yesterday. All the days are blending into a lot of work with the Spiritual Center, the 501 (c) 3, and the development of our Mission Statement, plus logo work, education on grant seeking and writing, booking wonderful practitioners and teacher into Green Lake Spiritual Center and adding story vignettes to my book to help illustrate its points. A LOT of work. Now I’m having a sip of beer and LOVING life! I am kind of out of my mind. It’s a cool place to be because the only way I can do it is by surrendering completely. Yesterday, or maybe it was today, I got my first negative response on my barefoot blog. I felt a little hurt in the ego, but I was also excited. Hey, I was getting attention. Just kidding. Not ;). I was excited because it was an opportunity to experience my beliefs in the field, so to speak.

Steven and I went to see Eat, Pray, Love on Sunday and it was wonderful!!! So pleasing and uplifting. We were so inspired! But on Monday, yesterday, I felt the pinch of my own desires. I’ve been wanting to go to Italy, Bali and India, in that order and WITH Steven. At first I was worried that EPL was causing an existential crisis (they are awesome, but they feel aweful), but it hasn’t. It’s only galvanizing me. I like to be galvanized!

Yesterda,y in my meeting with Sherry Hoffman, who is helping me develop Green Lake Spiritual Center, I enlarged my “shoes” when I started to work on my personal mission statement. Thank you, ever so much for helping me, Heather Rogue and Sherry Hoffman!!!

Here is my mission statement:

My mission is to spread the word that each of us is God, having an individual experience.

Compare with Sundays mission statement:

Green Lake Spiritual Center’s mission is to foster and nurture spiritual experience in a nonsectarian context and provide a venue for teachers and practitioners to bring their gifts to the community.

I went from about a size 8 to a size 22 in a day. Of course, these mission statements are concurrent, but on Sunday, GLSC’s was the maximum I could “own.” How is is possible to push the envelop so fast? Is it because a barefoot goddess can do anything?

Barefoot Goddess Blog, day 33, 8/14/10

admin — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 21:14:56 +0000

Micro bulletin: The blog name keeps evolving as the experience does. Here is the latest incarnation: Barefoot Goddess Blog.

My wonderful friend, Elise, inquired about my barefoot meditation and here is what welled up.

It ended a status quo kind of living. Being barefoot is an overt expression, in my case, of my spirituality. It ended the illusion that I “fit in.” And by doing so, has begun to liberate me from my actions that attempt to fit me in.

Barefoot meditation is literally grounding. And through the soles of my feet, I get information about the world that would otherwise be invisible and unfelt. There seems to be a slowly reconstituting process afoot (pun intended ;) And I’m beginning to know myself to be someone whom I didn’t know myself to be before I started. We shal find out who that someone is as she is revealed over time.

In other news

Guided Meditation

I had a wonderful experience with two people who attended the guided meditation. Both discovered that grounding and engaging the the lower chakras will add to their sense of wholeness. One of them saw that she wants to reclaim them degree of self-love she felt as a young girl. That is so awesome!

Website

Karin Armbrust volunteered some of her time to help launch the Green Lake Spiritual Center website. (Coming soon.) Thank you, Karin!!

Mission statement and elevator speech

Heather Rouge helped me to develop an elevator speech and mission statement. Thank you, Heather!!

Here’s what we got. Your input is appreciated:

Mission Statement, “Elevator speech” Purpose and Values

Who I am: I’m India Holden, spiritual director of Green Lake Spiritual Center

Mission statement: Green Lake Spiritual Center’s mission is to foster individual spiritual experience in a nonsectarian context and provide a venue for teachers and practitioners to bring their gifts to the community.

Elevator speech: My passion is to facilitate individual mystical experiences that allow people to see themselves as God, having that individual’s experience, and for the center to provide a supportive springboard -by offering a venue on a donation basis- to teachers to teach seminars, classes and workshops and to practitioners to do their healing work, and to groups to hold their meetings.

Purpose: The purpose of the center is to be a spiritual home for people who have not found a fit in the non-denominational churches, but desire fellowship. Green Lake Spiritual Center is unique in that it is spiritual, yet non-sectarian. It speaks of God, but doesn’t define what that is.

Values: The values we hold in high esteem are “nonsectarian community fellowship” and being a venue for people to share their gifts with their community. We do so by hosting events and groups that benefit community and society as a whole.

Barefoot Goddess Blog, day 32, 8/13/10

admin — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 05:35:55 +0000

Best Friday, the 13th, ever! Jeni spent hours with me at the Redmond Public Library, thee goldmine for nonprofit resource access! Wow! We can access donor lists for free because the library pays for the subscriptions. That is so wonderful!

We sent in and paid for the 501 (c) 3 State application today! Yay!! The first concrete step! Thank you, Jeni! We’re rockin and rollin!

Lovely Elise Cope came over and also spent many hrs volunteering, working on the GLSC logo and sketching out the new web site that’s going up tomorrow. Thank you, Elise!! I. am. thrilled!

Now a little Sex in the City and off to slumberland. (Hard to believe now, but my life used to resemble that show. Wow!)

I love you all madly!

Blessings and namaste,

India

Barefoot Goddess Blog, day 31, 8/12/10

admin — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 05:34:25 +0000

I’m just too busy to even write a blog for today! Suffice it to say that these days every day is fabulous and enjoyed in bare feet. Is it that bare feet are magical and no one knew?

Went to see local fixture, Brad, at Easy Street for their latest CD release and then had Dick’s Burgers. Yumyumyumyumyum :-D.