It was Fatima-san's birthday.  Her wish for this day was to spend a part of it with friends in the Sacred Mountain and do the OM Chanting Ceremony.  And so, it came to be.
I met new beaming faces, already at the little mountain cabin as we arrived.  
-'My name's Gayatri Devi Dasi' said the beautiful woman in fuchsia pink.
-'I'm Surya Dev Das' said the tall gentleman.
-'I'm Yoginam Pub Das' beamed the kind young man.
I felt intrigued.  The Indian names I recognised, but the combination of Indian name spoken in context of Japanese language was new for me.  I felt a new adventure was waiting for me.
The wood cabin room is spacious.  The floor is covered with tatami mats.  I find tatami-mats very comforting and supportive to sit on, although having a cushion always helps.  Soon enough, we were sitting in a circle.  Gayatri-san started to explain OM Chanting in great detail; its story, how its done, its benefits, etc.  I felt very grateful for the length she went into to explain what OM chanting is, how it is done, why we do it, and how it benefits the individuals and the world.  I was convinced that I wanted to participate.  She demonstrated how the OM sound rises from the belly and traverses the whole body, rather than being just a nasal pronouncement.  The OM sound, rising from her felt so much rounder and bigger than her petit body, camouflaged in beautiful colours of dark pink and navy blue.

One thing that touched me in particular about the effects of OM Chanting was the purity it radiates to about 2 km radius around the place it has been chanted.  Secretly I thought to myself, this would be so helpful for my friends and folks in Iran and the Fertile Crescent.  We are so much in need of both physical and spiritual cleansing.  Could the OM Chanting really purify you?

Soon the room filled with our voices.  We sat in two concentric circles facing each other.  The voice came from the depth of our bellies and bones.  It reverberated through the body.  The M sound made me quiver.  At first I could not hold a stable M sound ... it just slipped away from me, and I could not chase it.  But I came back to it again, and again, and again.  With each repetition of the OM chanting the sound grew deeper in me.  Until, one moment, with wonder, I felt I could hold the whole OM sound steady and transcendent.  As I reached this level of steadiness images started to dance inside me.  I felt the forest around me, full of medicine and mystery.  I felt my ancestral roots in Japan.  A deep sense of gratitude bubbled up in me for this moment, for being in the forest with these friends, chanting OM and tapping into the well of mysteries of creation.  I became aware of the other streams of my ancestry, of my deep roots in Iran and the Fertile Crescent.  A deep wish bubbled up in me to connect, and bridge, and make known the magic of OM Chanting across my many worlds.  So many worlds exist in me, but I am only one woman.  So many worlds exist in our planet, and we are truly one world.

The OM Chanting was Fatima Suomi-san's birthday gift.  What a rich gift to give away!  I had asked Fatima-san what she wanted for her birthday.  She smiled and said 'harmony and peace in the world.'  Could this be possible, the cynic in me had its own opinion.  
After the OM Chanting Ceremony we sat in a circle again to share our experiences.  I heard each person express his and her personal journey with the sound of OM.  I felt something in me had grown, like I had become larger, rounder, more contained.   Each one had a unique encounter, and we all had something shared and in common.  A sense of roundness, like an encompassing skin surrounded our individual and common experience.  
​We went for a walk in the forest afterwards.  My senses were sharp and clear.  I smelled the tantalising Sansho tree ( a sharp pepper tree).  I could feel the heart of others around me.  I moved with gratitude and love as my eyes met the eyes of others in the forest.  I joined Fatima-san in her earnest wish for harmony and love in our world.  

https://bhaktimarga.jp/
https://bhaktimarga.co.uk

​On my last day in Japan, I was blessed by my visit to see Fatima-san (Suomi) and Yaqin-san (Yuya) in Nagano Prefecture.  They have kindly took me to the Hijiri Shrine, a Shinto shrine nestled in a radiant forest.
We walked the path through the thick bodies of trees to reach the shrine which was, just at that moment, illuminated by sun.  A small space in the shrine was created for humans to pay their respects to nature.  Behind the shrine a small pond contained the spring water coming from the mountain, which is always fresh and cold.  Tiny little fish flirt in the water of the pond.  Next to it, a sign carved in stone, announces that the pond, is a seed pond.  I don't know how this small body of cold water could be a seed pond, ecologically thinking, but something in my heart jumps up and down in delight.  Here, on my last day in Japan, I offer the intention of my journey - to sprout seeds of life, to the pond.

​I wrote a story in preparation for my journey to Japan, and to offer a workshop on Personal Seeds of Renewal for the Earth.  I followed a process I learned from Allan Kaplan from the Proteus Initiative.  After observing my present circumstances from various perspectives, I allowed my imagination to 'see' into the potential of my journey.  The story surprised me.  It also delighted me.  What follows is the myth of my Japan Journey.

​There is a woman who loves seeds, and she collected them whenever she could.  Seeds of all kinds : flowers and grass, grains and vegetables, trees and bushes.  She just loves plants, insects, worms ... anything that belonged to the category of life.  She had a big sac, in which she placed her seeds mindfully.  But her sac had a hole in it.  Just like Kokopelli who travelled from place to place, with his seed sac, and a hole in it.   Kokopelli, the seed collector, left a trace of life wherever he'd been.
She is particularly keen on human seeds - the potential of each person to blossom.  She also noticed that many people have forgotten their seeds, their gifts and essence of life.  So she decided to help those people to reclaim their seeds, and plant them for the sake of life.
She climbed up to the top of a tall tree.  From that height she chirped a bird song.  She sang for the people who could hear her to gather around the tree.  When she looked down, many people were gathered in expectant anticipation.  So she climbed down and sat with them.  They started a great conversation.  So many soulful stories were exchanged in their circle.  She helped each person to sprout their seeds, their potential to blossom.  And those who gathered around the Tree of Life went to awaken the seeds and potentials of others.  A ripple effect reverberated through the land.  The people who sprouted their seeds were no longer victims of circumstance, but agents for life.  They distinguished between love and domination.  With their power to discern, they made a difference  in the unfoldment of evolution on their land.
She perched up on her tree once again.  Looking at the landscape of her life, she could see undulating patches of time.  The patch of time she had spent in Japan were among the most colourful and abundant times of her life, such that from that patch of time, seeds of life kept forming and being released to regenerate life well into the future.  She felt the heart of Gaia beating with her gentle, soft, caring rhythm in the heart of everyone she knew.  She saw all this from her vantage perch on the Tree of Life.
​

I met Fatima-san (Suomi Sekiya) in Findhorn about 5 years ago.  She joined our 1001 Angels mosaic creations on our first day of the project, and her last day of a two-week stay in Findhorn.  By some good fortune our paths just crossed.  I was immediately curious about her, since she had so uniquely expressed two cultures I also felt a part of, namely a Sufi tradition in Japan.  I felt we have so much to explore together, but at that time we had very little time to invest in our explorations.  When the opportunity presented itself to visit her in Nagano prefecture, I approached her.  I was delighted to know that she could take a day off her work, which happened to be her birthday, to be with me and her partner Yaqin Nirdosh (Yuya Sato), and the Sacred Mountain of Hijiriyama, which she is a guardian of.  Both her name and her partner's name, Yaqin evoke deep feelings for me, as they are from my native tongue, Farsi.  Yaqin means certainty, Fatima, purity.  So together they speak of Pure Certainty to my soul.

Meeting Fatima and Yaqin at the Hijiriyama, which literally means Sacred Mountain, felt like a chord of destiny's been tugged.  I also found out they are both web-creators.  Since I've been looking for web-masters for Trees for Hope, I asked them if they could make our website, which they delightfully said yes!  My heart did a little dance at the top of the hill where we were standing to admire the view of the expansive North and South Japan Alps Mountains in Nagano.

Later on her birthday she took me to a remarkable restaurant called Momo, which means peach.  There she gave me her meishi, business card.  On it she lists a few things she offers the world as a way of her unique expression.  They include : Herbalist, Psychic Healer, Holistic Therapist.  As well she lists Meditation and Prayer, Deep Ecology, Permaculture, Co-Creation with Nature.  

Yaqin offers on his meishi (business card) : Meditation and Co-Creation Space.  His business name is Nirvana Lab.  I feel like I have just connected with two dear kindred spirits, on my last day in Japan!

http://nirvana-lab.com
http://devafatima.com
http://libernaturae.com
http://nuuralanuur.com

* Why do we need to learn and communicate in the language of our bodies?
​
In our post covid era we are in need of ways and means to care for our health and happiness in diverse and informed ways.  My intention by providing classes and workshops in massage is to strengthen the field and network of practitioners who are fluent in the language of our bodies.
My own experience with Esalen massage and Scaravelli inspired yoga has helped me be in touch with moments of somatic enlightenment, moments when I felt as light as a bird in flight, as spacious as a healthy forest, as delightful as a wild coast full of mystery and mischief.  These treasured embodied moments increased for me as I put my attention on my practice and learned to let go of outdated habits and behaviours.  I want to share the sense of joy, wholeness, and soft-breath I have been experiencing in my body with a wider network of friends.  I want to guide more people to the treasures in our bodies that speak a language of connectivity, intelligence, lightness.
Our natural state of being is wholeness.  Yet we learn to live with pain.  Pain is a feedback mechanism pointing to where we have fallen out of wholeness.  When I learned how to listen to the pain in my body, I could then help my body to return to its natural state of alignment with my spine and become fluid.

*Classes and Workshops
I am offering classes in the Language of Our Bodies for a limited number of people.  We will start our practice in the art of touch and massage.  We will engage in yoga movements and increase our awareness of our own bodies.  We will learn how to approach the bodies of other people needing help to release tension and pain.

*When?
Starting in January until August, most Saturdays from 10.00 ~ 1.00.  

*What is the exchange?
I offer this programme in exchange for either cash (suggested £60 per session) or work (3 hours), or a mixture of the two.

*Commitments
I ask the participants to consider these commitments :
Regular practice in between classes
Regular study of the anatomy
Caring for your health and wellbeing with regular yoga or dance

*For one or two people
The classes could work very well for couples or two good friends as you will be learning together and practicing on each other as well as on more people afield.  It also works well when you join on your own.

*Responsibility for everyone’s safety 
When joining the classes please take responsibility to for your own wellbeing and others by ensuring that you won’t pass on any nasty virus during our sessions.
​
*Get in touch
To join the classes, contact Pupak on:
hoopoesong@protonmail.com

An excerpt from my book Sacred Passing.  The book is about healing from war and co-creating paradise-earth.  It is part biographical, part a guide-book.  Here is a little story, contained in a bigger story.
*
Freedom of Spine - elbows
背骨の自由-肘

Findhorn, 2018
*
    I was born to live the freedom in my spine.   In my yoga class, I am learning to get deeper into my spine, finding the relationship between my spine, shoulders and hips.  The deepening frees me up bit by bit, in an indirect way.  A gentle, subtle, beautiful breath arises from below my rib-cage, penetrating every cell.  My body hums with lightness.  I am learning to discover the polarity of intensity and ease, at the same time.   I am observing the delight of the vastness and narrowness of the spaces inside.
    Louise demonstrates how the freedom of spine relates to the freedom of hips and shoulders.  P and G, she calls them out, then posts them on either sides of Anna.  Anna, you are the spine.  P and G, you are the hips.  I am the dictator in your head, Louise says firmly.  “P, G, bring Anna to me,” she commanded in a terse, cold voice. As if spellbound, P and G, like two dutiful soldiers grab hold of Anna’s arms.  They start to move her towards Louise.  They are not looking at Anna.  They are just marching straight onward.  Like a prisoner, Anna walks, bounded by the two guards on either sides of her.  They deliver Anna to Louise in a straight, humourless way.  End of Story.
    Now let us change the story, Louise said.  “P, G, you are going to look at Anna.”  They do.  They smile at each other.  A bond is forming between them.  “P, G, bring Anna to me.”  P and G hold  Anna’s right and left arms, but they don’t move.  “Bring her here,” Louise said again.  They start to move, the three of them.  But they are smiling at each other.  Their steps are joyful and light.  P and G cannot walk so straight and rigidly.  They waltz forward, the three of them, and come much slower to Louise.  A bright smile on their faces.  “This is the freedom of spine.” Louise said.  “It is in relationship to the hips.”
    The simple act of looking changed everything.  Lightning struck my heart as I watched this scene.  Had they but looked at me, we would have learned to waltz.  Maybe we would have moved slower, maybe faster.  But they did not even look.  They just grabbed me, delivered me to the dictator, and cut me away.  Onward they moved, joylessly.  They delivered statements to the UN, to their universities.  They missed the point, altogether about peace in the self, peace in the world.
    What if they did look at me?  What if we learned to smile at one another and start to waltz?  Could we move onward on freedom’s way?  All we need is daring to look at each other and see.  Our bodies are signifiers of our liberation.  I was born to be free, to fly like a carefree bird in the open skies of life.  And so do you.
*
Photo by : Alan Watson Featherstone 
Gannets on a clifftop at Troup Head Reserve, Scotland

A dear friend who had been meditating in the early hours of the morning in our old sanctuary came to my place this morning.  Together we kicked off our Early Morning Meditation Practice here in Findhorn at 7 am this morning.  She walked in the dark and rain, and brought a brand new fat white candle with her.  We sat in the silence for an hour together. 

What can happen in an hour of silence?  Why do we bother to keep up the practice?

Usually I have a busy mind.  My monkey mind likes to jump from a branch to another branch of thought and feelings.  In my meditation practice I allow my mind to have its way ... to jump, run, somersault, anything it wants.  Slowly I allow a gap ~ a tiny winy space between my thoughts and feelings, and me.  That tiny winy space makes all the difference.  I can then observe my thoughts, and not be attached to them.  I can experience my feelings, and have some space to observe them.  The tiny winy space in my mind, allows for transformation.  This is a reason why a daily, or a regular practice of meditation is rather significant.  

For me tending to the tiny winy space inside my own mind helps me to turn my fear and prejudices into kindness.

After our one-hour-long sitting in silence, we hugged before she parted. With a sense of heavenly joy, I started my day.

I was introduced to the Early Morning Meditation in Findhorn by Angus Marland, a long term community member.  Angus held the focus for the Main Sanctuary in Findhorn for a very long time.  He told me, 'we are making a Field.'  I didn't know what he was talking about when he first mentioned this to me.  I started going to the early morning meditations, starting at 6.30 am and lasting for one hour in 2014.  At first I could not even sit straight for the whole hour.  But after a week or two of falling asleep, my body learned to stay awake.  At first I sat on a chair to support my back.  When I learned to stay awake, I could then sit on a 'zafu' a meditation cushion, like the one in the photo above, for a whole hour.  Then the magic started to happen.  
At first my mind was so noisy.  My head was a chatter-box of constant talk, talk, talk.  I learned to let my mind have its way, to say everything it wants to say.  Then came a moment of perfect silence, a touch of profound space.  I noticed it and welcomed it to my 'being.'  In the summer time, I went to the early morning meditation in the Main Sanctuary almost every day, five days a week.  It is easier here, in the far north (57 degrees North) to be up early in the summer, than in the winter.  With constant 'turning up' and practice the quality of the silence and my contact with the 'source' kept growing.  The practice of early morning meditation has had a noticeable impact on the quality of my daily life.  Sometimes I would grow tired during the day because of the early morning start.  I also had to sleep earlier than before.  These minor adjustments were definitely worth the exchange.  I felt like I had reached a gold-mine inside me during the long, quiet, and peaceful morning meditations.
When the fires came to swallow our Sanctuary in April 2021, I was a Sanctuary holder, which meant I would arrive 10-15 minutes before the others to light the candle, open the curtains, sit down quietly to hold the space for our hour long meditation.  I also marked the hour by ringing the bell at the start and end of the hour.  The early morning meditation is held in complete silence.  So I didn't need to think about what to say, or not to say to the other community meditators or guests.  Since that Monday morning in April, we didn't have a home for our community practice.  No early morning meditation was held for the community, although the 8.35 am meditations were held both in the Singing Chamber, and in the Universal Hall, sometimes simultaneously.
I am excited to say that we will resume our practice from tomorrow morning.  I have re-organised my massage practice room, to make it available for our golden hour of meditation from 7.00 - 7.50.  We will experiment with the time and place, until it will find a form that will work for us.  
Recently I've been introduced to Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche.  I've listened to this talk of his at the London School of Economics in August 2019.  He explains the process of meditation in a humorous and easy-to-relate-to way.  It is 1:44:40 long.  A great help to re-start our early morning practice here in Findhorn.  You can think of anything except for cheese, beens, chips.  Have fun with this great teacher and your own golden hour of space and time for your mind, body, and spirit.

When I reached home, in time for my call with Aref, I was shocked to be hung up on the call.  'Something's come up, can't talk to you right now,' read the text on my phone display.  I felt a space that was warm and receptive, indeed as divinely creative as Chrystal is to me, closed down.  And then came the breathlessness of death.  My relationship with Aref died with this missed appointment, with the missed opportunity to communicate truly.  I felt I lost a friend and colleague I loved as dearly as my own beloved son.    

According to Eileen, everyone has access to their inner knowing.  In the calm and deep space of the Sanctuary here, answers come easily, once you enter the inner sanctum.  This is the golden key to our balance and freedom.  

So what are the symbols of your feminine and masculine energies?  What are their relationship like?  What is the synergy of their relationship?  

© Pupak Haghighi