🎧 Listen to the Essay and/or Meditation 🎧
Why, yes, those are 2 separate audio links – 1 below, 1 above. || My reading of this essay is right before the opening Hi friends. 👇🏾 || A guided meditation is at the top of this email. 👆🏾 || An archive of meditations lives here.
🥳 Meditation Party is Next Weekend! 🥳
Meditation Party is happening at Omega Institute October 11–13. This will be our third time, and it just keeps getting better. This time Jeff, Dan and I will be joined by my longtime dharma buddy Aaron Schultz/DJ DRM for the Saturday night dance party. Come! [There’s an online option too.]
💫 ANCESTORS TO ELEMENTS 💫
REGISTRATION FOR ANCESTORS TO ELEMENTS CLOSES THIS FRIDAY!! I’ve put everything I know into this course. It’s my favorite. You can read about it below or here.
🌙 MAKE SACRED SPACE 🌙
Make Sacred Space is a Sunday evening co-creative gathering where we attune to the Moon through guided meditation, journaling prompts, and open space — all for a soulful start to the week. Sign up for October AND Sign up for November.
Listen to me read this essay:
Hi friends
I hope you’re finding ways to ground as the crises of our world intensify. I’m not here to tell anyone what to do. Each of us is unique and must discover our methods, ways that support our own well-being and help us connect to others. And I believe practice matters. Maybe now more than ever.
Today I’m sharing a post I wrote last month for my friend Jeff’s newsletter, Home Base. If you don’t already follow him there, I highly recommend you do. Jeff’s my favorite meditation teacher—wise, funny, transparent about his ADHD and bipolar disorder, honest about his challenges as a dad of two little kids, endlessly curious about consciousness, and masterful at crafting meditations to suit different people and situations. I’ve learned a lot from him about attuning to what I need and creatively adapting my own practice in response. Because, ultimately, it’s not about how I meditate or maybe even if I meditate but whether I practice at all.
Whatever time (however seemingly miniscule) I dedicate to opening my heart, stilling my mind and remembering the irrefutable truth of our interdependence makes me better able to meet what comes next. Helps me be more curious, conscious, compassionate, courageous, and all the Cs that signify the change from reactive to creative. Breath by breath…
It’s called practice for a reason.
Thanks for practicing with me.
With love,
Sebene
Practice Matters
In my teaching and writing, I regularly dip into the deep end of the contemplative pool, exploring questions like: If everything is ultimately perfect—why do I continually get caught up in my nonsense to the point of being totally distracted during meditation?
Or: How do I reconcile the fact that, although, at my core, I'm merely pulsating atoms—I also recognize I'm an often-exhausted, middle-aged, Black lady living on stolen Lenape land in Brooklyn, NY?
And my biggest question these days: We seem to be in a propulsive trajectory towards ever-more turmoil—does it even matter if I meditate? [Spoiler alert: Yes, it does.]
These questions are clearly paradoxes. Paradoxes are my jam. And allowing for them shows me that, yes, practice matters, just sometimes not in the ways I expect or maybe not even in ways I can always sense.
I like that the word practice names what we're doing and also implies that this is an ongoing process. Like with any skill, a meditation practice may evolve, but it never ends: buckle up—also, find what works for you (for now). For many years, my primary practice has been mindfulness (mindfulness is my other jam), and I try out others too.
I also like the word matters in "practice matters" because it implies the importance for us and our planet that we meditate (we'll get to why that is in a sec). However, I also like the idea of matter as a basic substance. This meaning serves as a warning not to use practice to bypass the realities of life. While it might be great to touch into the bliss and oneness-of-it-all (in fact, this can nourish and fuel me on the path), as the saying goes: after the ecstasy, the laundry. Or in my case, after the ecstasy… the fear connected to living with advanced metastatic cancer, or the grief of my recent divorce, or the everyday annoyances of being an imperfect human person muddling her way through it all and sometimes making an utter mess of things. In the end, we are simply made of the same stuff as everyone and everything else—there's no getting around being someone with feelings and faults.
Then there's a third connotation of matter, as a term from physics. Here's where it gets meaningfully magical. Because, maybe this is true for you too, it can seem like practice is futile in the face of our current polycrises. Yes, mindfulness helps me cultivate attention to all experience—sensations, emotions, and thoughts as well as their various interplay—and gradually develop more peace with whatever I witness. Yes, this capacity has grown in me over many years. And, while it's not always constant or easy (and it's definitely nowhere near perfect), yes, I can honestly say I feel a lot more joy and freedom in my life because of practice. But does any of this matter? We are living in a world rife with divisions, inequalities, violence, and oppression. Many forces are successfully promoting the delusions of separation and domination. Our climate is collapsing. You don’t need me to remind you that we are in critical times. Why are we meditators literally gazing at our navels?
I say because the ancient teachings as well as modern science point to the fact that absolutely nothing is separate and every single thing throughout all of of time and space is interdependent, that Einstein told us over 100 years ago that “time is a persistent illusion” but we don’t truly accept this reality (also, we don’t understand the math), that we are embedded within a universe of great mystery where consciousness itself may be its inexplicably interconnecting force, that 96% of the universe is dark matter and dark energy and our dumb asses do not know what that even means, that the central paradox is this: yes, I am a tiny human with petty problems definitely needing my tender, loving attention AND I am also a collection of vibrating energy patterns where every micro-moment of my living is impacting the entire outcome of reality throughout eternity. We are all literally just vibes affecting all the other vibes (I was going to call this Vibes Matter, but I wanted people to open the email).
These days practice is packaged to be about individual stress relief (which isn’t a bad strategy/gateway-drug), but I firmly believe practice is ultimately about both personal and collective liberation. I don’t want to be constantly flooded by fears of dying from this disease and I am scared the U.S. may descend into the complete chaos of polarized political mayhem. I practice so I can be present and awake for whatever arises for me and for our world. I do what I can for my body and my communities. I trust that doing so will also impact outcomes in ways I can’t necessarily measure or maybe even know.
In the meditation today, we will explore how to center intention, attention and connection in order to support our innate ability to be aware, clear, and spacious.
Intention focuses us on our aspirations for practice, providing us inspiration and direction.
Attention helps us notice what is arising in practice, cultivating the skill of staying with our experience–no matter what.
And connection reminds us that ultimately this is simply about letting things be—we may not have control, but we are not separate from anything and therefore have impact on ourselves, on each other, and on everything now and forever.
I hope you enjoy the practice. Thanks for vibing with me today.
A Few Related Posts:
Registration Closes This Friday!
Created for these challenging times, ANCESTORS TO ELEMENTS is a creative & soulful 6-week course designed to help you embody the sacred paradox of belonging: we are not separate AND we are not the same.
This course creatively engages these two frameworks — elements and ancestors — as ancient & expansive metaphors for exploring how existence rests on a key paradox: you are absolutely interconnected with everything and you are also a uniquely independent being. Through six-weeks of inspiring live lessons, creative practices, journal prompts, guided meditations and community sharing, this course leads you to (re)discover your unique & sacred sense of belonging.
Main sessions run on Zoom every Wednesday October 9 — November 13 from 6–8pm ET. There is an optional 1-hour practice/Q&A sessions on the following Sundays from 5–6pm ET). All sessions will be recorded.
There are three sliding scale payment options.
Pay-It-Forward Price: $480 (works out to $80/week) REGISTER HERE [This option is for those who easily meet their basic needs of food, housing, transport & leisure... and then some.]
Full Price: $380 (works out to $63/week) REGISTER HERE OR USE COUPON CODE: FULL-PRICE [This option is for those who regularly meet their basic needs of food, housing, transport & leisure.]
Need-Based Price: $240 (works out to $40/week) REGISTER HERE OR USE COUPON CODE: NEED-BASED [This option is for those who mostly meet their basic needs of food, housing, transport & leisure.]
If the Need-Based Price is a hardship, there are a limited number of pay-what-you-can scholarships available on a rolling basis. Please see the registration page for more info about scholarships (please do NOT reply to this email to request a scholarship).
Make Sacred Space is a Sunday evening co-creative gathering where we attune to the Moon through guided meditation, journaling prompts, and open space — all for a soulful start to the week.
🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘🌑
What people say about Make Sacred Space:
I really love this Sunday evening time for nourishment and expression. I look forward to continuing!
I really love Make Sacred Space. The work you put into the music, themes, quotes and prompts is very much appreciated. I treasure the full half hour of mostly silent meditation and your well-placed skillful guidance. It’s nice to set aside some time at the start of each week in the company of spiritual friends.
I don’t know what to say. You are uncannily tapped into where I’m at every dang time!! Why are you such a genius? Your meditations are amazing/insightful. Your journaling prompts hit the nail on the head and get me thinking about things like “duh, of course I need to be thinking about this!” But I wouldn’t have myself. Your musical curation is on point. I love you. Your talent is beyond. Do more of these!
I really loved this space and am looking forward to more!
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