The sound I effortlessly found emitting from myself as I settled in to listen to Julie Dittmar and Matt Kahn give this presentation on the absence on the spiritual path was that of an extended “Ahhhh.” It feels so good to enter into the energy these two teachers emit and know that permission has been given to relax and simply “be.”

I first encountered Spiritual Teacher Matt and Yoga Teacher Julie at the 2011 YogaHub Conference. I found Matt’s teaching so different and so powerful that I sought him out afterwards for some of the one-on-one sessions he offers called “Direct Transmissions” — which can be done via

Imagine waking up each morning with only a few things to be aware of…

As a dolphin you are aware, through telepathic and feeling ‘sensors’, of the other members of your pod swimming around you. You are aware of the ‘plan’ for the pod that reveals itself as each moment presents itself. You are aware that when required, you will decide to rise to the surface of the water and take a breath.

And actually, while you were sleeping, you were also in a state of awareness. You were being guided in the water by your friends and family, literally gliding beside you. The part of you that had some physical consciousness was linked with the ‘awake’ parts of the pod, so that as you rested, you also moved in constant companionship, safe and protected, at the side of others.

Talking about the Unseen

What is it about the dolphins that we find so irresistible?

They look so beautiful, they glide with such effortless grace, and they demonstrate their freedom simply by living wild in the sea. Dolphins live a life unencumbered by things or by written laws…the choices they make are based on that which is required by the moment.

How they communicate the truth of the moment to one another is the basis for the ease of living they indulge in. Dolphins feel everything. They feel each other’s need for food, for play and for rest. They feel the need of the collective, the pod, to greet a new friend, to swim to a new bay, to shy away from uncomfortable groups of people, to avoid loud noises, or to support a pod member in labour.

I have just returned from a glorious two-week initiation with pods of wild dolphins in the Pacific waters of Hawaii’s Big Island. The experience was an initiation into a world so divine that it defies many of the ‘laws’ and standards that we tend to accept as normal in our human world.

Learning from the dolphins is not like going to class…it is instead an experience of total immersion in a sea of oneness. The dolphins swim, glide, turn, spiral and breathe as one. They do almost nothing on their own, as individual entities.

Participating in Sharan Ro’s presentation, “New Era Living: The World of And” turned out to be a wonderful Wizard of Oz-like journey into a land where instead of either/or answers to life’s options and pathways, the answers can be, well, why not both? Why not choose this AND that too? Why not, indeed. Another breakthrough in those walls of limited thinking that hold in so many of our lives. You see in this Wizard of Oz tale, Dorothy standing at the crossroads and asking the Scarecrow which way is to the Emerald City — city of dreams and hopes — gets a different kind of answer. In the New Era Oz, when the Scarecrow’s arms go this way and that, it’s because this road and that road can get you there — with different scenery and people and situations along the way!

Miss the Live Session? The Energy is Still Transmitting!

My own meditation and energy work teacher said to me during one of my first meditation classes, “I don’t know if you know it, but you run a LOT of Kundalini energy. It’s probably hard for a lot of people to keep up with you.” That was about six years ago. I had no idea what that meant at the time, and as goes Kundalini, I’m still a beginner at understanding this particular type of energy, even if it was organically streaming through me long before I had a name for it. So when I saw the session by Steven Sadleir, Kundalini Master, I made a beeline for it in hopes of learning more. I wasn’t disappointed.

David Cumes, M.D. / South African Healing Wisdom & What it has to Offer the West

Cures, divination, trance-channeling and more

What a delightful surprise it was to discover David Cumes’ presentation among the offerings of this year’s YogaHub Conference. Indigenous medicine and healing is an area of deep interest to me, so I made a beeline for this presentation and was not disappointed. With a couple of weeks left to delve into the conference sessions on the site, I’d highlight this for anyone involved in healing work who wants to at minimum, expand their awareness, and perhaps go on to learn more.

The world as we know it is changing in so many ways…

This flux is not new. The flow from one experience to another is part of the timelessness of our existence. That we have changing needs, changing habits and changes in friendship, career and location is all normal.

And yet it feels as if there are bigger changes afoot all around us right now.

When we feel a new and dynamic form of energy start to affect us, sometimes we embrace it, and sometimes we just want to shut it out. When it’s an unknown sensation, and there’s no one who can explain it to us, the quick reaction would be to ignore it, or to avoid it altogether.

Everything about the giraffe’s body is built for one thing: reaching towering heights. As the world’s tallest land animal, they have an unrivaled reach. With legs that are taller than many humans — about 6 feet — to a neck that weighs over 600 pounds, the whole structure enables the giraffe to eat tasty treats unavailable to others constrained closer to earth.

Yet you don’t see other animals lamenting the fact that they can’t reach what’s easy for the giraffe to reach. The zebra or lion don’t appear to be jealous. You don’t see them being melancholy over the fact that they are height-challenged in comparison.

It seems a purely human trait to compare ourselves to others, only to find ourselves lacking in one way or another.

As far as the sun knows, it is now giving us, the inhabitants of the Northern hemisphere, a little more light every day. Every day will have a few more minutes of sunlight than the previous one.

I wonder if we notice this.

Do you notice this subtle change each day?
Or do you realize at some point that the sun is setting later than it was a month earlier?

Becoming aware of the subtle changes around us, as with the sun’s movement north, is a perfect reference point for an understanding of the amount of attention we apply to all things. What kinds of change attract your attention?