What a delight it is to be with you in retreats and gatherings. The end of the year was rich with such experiences for me and I thank all of you who participated and shared precious moments and inspired me to live my heart’s purpose more fully. When we come together with an open heart and mind, we call each other to live and love more authentically and fully.
We look for opportunities to renew and begin anew. Fortunately, we don’t have to wait for a retreat once a year because in the cycle of the year we have several occasions we can realign and focus our attention to live more fully.

It is 2013 and we should not miss the opportunity to resolve to live more fully.

Have you made any New Year resolutions? Are you keeping them? Are you feeling the difference it is making in your life? How is it to live your life by a renewed commitment to what you love?

Making changes and adopting new routines and behaviors is wonderful and just as important is practicing being kind and loving once we are committed, to pave the way to success.

If your resolution arises from self love and you live from love and are careful to be gentle and kind you are already so much better off than before.

Check in with yourself about how you are going about making changes in your life. Is it from the sense that something is wrong and you need to fix it? Is a part of you “bad” or is there a behavior you must beat down or reject?
I caution you against using those negative approaches that denigrate the self and yield little success.
Use positive affirmation and loving language and actions to affect the change you desire. Focusing on one small SANKALPA® at a time is more effective than to do lists. Try it.

Cultivating compassionate states of minds with gentleness – our basic nature, helps us to open with kindness and forgiving attitude to ourselves and others. When we remember and live this Sankalpa – a heartfelt desire, it spreads a warm feeling of comfort and joy.

Enjoy the practice of cultivating happiness through the heart.

Dr. Brown researched shame and vulnerability.

VULNERABILITY

• is not a weakness. And that myth is profoundly dangerous.
• is our most accurate measurement of courage. courageous
• is the birthplace of creativity, innovation, and change.

In order to live fully and authentically we need to take risks in relationships, in expressing our true nature with others. It is the most worthwhile we can do to gift ourselves and the world with our uniqueness. We can overcome our sense of feeling shame and guilt by acting with loving intentional hearts and kindness toward the self and others.

That’s what life is about: about daring greatly, about being in the arena.

If you put shame in a Petri dish, it needs three things to grow exponentially: secrecy, silence and judgment. If you infuse it with EMPATHY, it dies.

Brene´Brown

A.J. Heschel

I love how Heschel juxtaposition the activity of prayer, which many perceive as a personal activity; a calming balm to life, a place of solace,  and turns it on its head by making it political, communal, and about shattering and action.

Life is aided by activities that wake us up. Prayer is a way to remove the slumber, end denial, and make us alive with passion for what is right and good. To me, personal and political are interconnected; our inner work and communal/public work have no real boundary.

Tune in, discover and reconnect with your truth and let your actions wise, and if need be subversive. Make time to pray, transcend and integrate each day so you live and share your authentic self anew.

Sankalpa is a meditation. The blank scroll is the reminder to pause and reflect. It gives us space to go beyond the habits and patterns that limit us and invites us to listen to the heart, reclaim, and declare our truth, our heartfelt desire. We carry it with us close to the heart and are reminded to live it.

Today, make time to write the commitments of your heart and live them.

“A.J.Heschel viewed prayer not as an encounter with God, but as an event of being encountered by God. In prayer, he taught, our asking of God gives way before the awareness of being asked by God. Heschel taught that religion begins with a question and that theology begins with a problem. He even went so far as to assert that a person without a problem may not be a person. His teaching was not directed at resolving our problems as much as provoking our questions. Even then, his most common response in class was, “Is that the real question?”

Some critics avoided grappling with the philosophical challenges posed by Heschel by conveniently categorizing him as a “mere” poet or mystic. Realizing that we apprehend more than we comprehend, Heschel refused to reduce the perceptions of the mind to the rationally transparent. He knew only too well how much of religious affirmation is sheer metonymy; that religious language demands the “accommodation of words to higher meanings.” Thus he did not hesitate to deploy a poetic turn to point to “the unutterable surplus of what we feel.” He, of course, also rejected any flight to irrationality, rather he urged us to see the mystery in the interstitial crevices of everyday being. To adequately grasp Heschel’s thought, we must follow his advice to “unthink many thoughts.” (excerpted from Reuven Kimelman article about Heschel)

Enter the mystery of the heart in the crevices of everyday being and unthink many thoughts. To know you, the one who is connected to everything, you must enter your own inner life.

Words are important, but there is a whole field of wisdom beneath them, which we need to access to discern our heart’s purpose. We feel-into-it with our intuition and deep knowing. 

When inquiring about your true nature, your deepest desire, and your heart’s purpose, reach into wisdom; go beyond words and become her seeker and lover.

Only after you meet wisdom and let her infuse you with inspiration, then, only then, let the words come and write your Sankalpa.

The Happy Secret of Work and Life

Each creation is handmade with care in the US using ecologically and socially responsible materials and methods.  The wood is individually turned and shaped through several steps, which are followed by several steps of polishing and finishing.

Because each piece of wood is unique, no two will look exactly the same. As a result you can expect variations in each MezuZEN.

QUANTITIES ARE VERY LIMITED

Personalize MezuZEN:

1. Choose one of the following texts:

                                                                       Lord’s Prayer       /         Sh’ma (Hebrew)

                              Gayatri Mantra (sanskrit) /  Serenity Prayer /  Psalm of Protection

Click Image to enlarge

2. Write your personal message in addition to traditional texts, on the parchment provided with affirmations and intentions to inspire you, or write a wish for a friend.

3. Enscroll into glass tube and affix on wall or doorway at home or office with a small screw (provided.)

4. Live well. When the commitments to your life are always physically present, they are not easily forgotten.

5. Write new intentions & affirmations when you are moved. It is easy to take out scroll and replace with a new one.

Each MezuZEN comes in a gift box & includes (shown above):

• Parchment paper scroll with your choice of text in a glass tube and stopper
•  Parchment paper scroll to inscribe your personal intentions and wishes
•  Card and screw
  

Shipping: Always $4.95, no matter how much you buy (so fill up your cart)!               Ships in 2 days

Contact us if you would like:

• Consultation to mentor you in listening to your heart.
• Information about Sankalpa Retreats.

MezuZEN is trademarked and Patented.

“More than 60 percent of respondents consider a handwritten love note more romantic than expensive dinners, crème filled chocolates and diamond baubles.

However, nearly half haven’t received a love note in more than a year, with mobile devices reducing heartfelt expressions to “U r Gr8″ and “I <3 u.”"

(Reported by Pilot Pen who conducted the survey to find out where handwritten notes rank when it comes to making a loved one feel special.)

This Valentine’s Day write a love note & tuck it into a Sankalpa pendant and they will wear close to their heart.

• Tell her/him in your own words and handwriting why you love them and how much they mean to you.
• Create a surprising effect by leaving the pendant at an unexpected place for them to find it (lunch box, car, bedside, pocket.)   
• Spray the love note with your signature perfume and seal it with a kiss.

• Use Sankalpa to leave spontaneous love notes throughout the year, not just on Valentine’s Day.

Choose a Sankalpa to give them with your personal love note.

POSITIVE POWER A Sanskrit word, sankalpa means “will, purpose, or determination.” To make a sankalpa is to set an intention. it’s like a New Year’s resolution with a yogic twist. While a resolution often zeros in on a perceived negative aspect of ourselves (as in, “I want to lose weight, so no more chocolate chip cookies or ice cream or cheese”), a sankalpa explores what’s behind the thought or feeling (“I crave chocolate chip cookies or ice cream or cheese when I’m feeling stressed or sad. I will set an intention to become conscious of this craving and allow my feelings to arise and pass, rather than fill up on fats”).

EFFORT COUNTS A sankalpa also praises the nobility of the effort rather than focusing on what you are doing wrong. “New Year’s resolutions leave me feeling guilty and mad at myself for not keeping them,” says Wendy McClellan, a yoga teacher in Louisville, Kentucky. So, last year, in a conscious effort to reject the resolution rut, she taught a special New Year’s Eve yoga class and encouraged students to look back and let go. Her intention, or sankalpa? To open her heart to new possibilities. “An intention has much more of a global sense than a resolution,” she says. “It helps me be softer with myself.” With a sankalpa, the self-loathing that comes from dwelling on past transgressions can begin to dissolve. In its place is an exercise in effort and surrender, create an intention and open yourself to the universe.

Sankalpa Setting

LOOK INWARD For several days, set aside time to write in a journal and meditate. Mull over your typical resolutions. How do they make you feel? Anxious? Unsettled? Incomplete? Now contemplate how you would like to feel during the coming year. Is there any way you can re-frame your results-oriented resolutions into something that will make this year’s journey more joyful and worthwhile?

REPHRASE IT Create a short sentence or phrase for your sankalpa. Be careful not to set limitations based on fear. For example, instead of “May life bring me only happiness and joy this year” consider “May I be happy and open to what life brings me.”

BE FIRM BUT FAIR Change doesn’t happen overnight. When you stray from the essence of your sankalpa, don’t berate yourself. Instead, gently remind yourself of your intention. But be firm in your resolve, it’s a good idea to incorporate your sankalpa into your daily routine. Use it as a mantra during pranayama or meditation practice; post it on your computer, phone, or mirror; or simply say it to yourself quietly before going to sleep. C.G

Source: Catherine Guthrie in Yoga Journal.