katemusic

I have a project that I would like you to know about: Musical Sanctuary. Musical Sanctuary is the result of many years of working with the Connect & Glow™ meditation, adding music and developing themed meditations that offer healing solutions to some of life's challenges: how to let go, how to forgive, how to be content and at peace no matter what the current life circumstances and conditions might be.
 

In Spring 2023 I got organized and formed a nonprofit, Musical Sanctuary. It is a nonsectarian alternative…

Thank you for pink in the sky
this bare branch morning.
Thank you for robin egg blue sliver on the horizon,
for muffled evergreen sketched in charcoal and mist
on a steely lavender shadow of island.

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Fragrance Free!
Important for anyone who likes to breathe!
Links to helpful resources are below.
Do you remember when smoking cigarettes was accepted and allowed? In the workplace, airplanes, restaurants - ?! Seems unimaginable today. Slowly the public learned of the dangers of smoking - of directly inhaling, and of second-hand smoke. Then it was revealed that tobacco companies had known of the dangers of smoking for a good long time, but continued to manufacture and market tobacco products, making as much…

The premise: All people will experience greater safety, health, purposefulness, security, happiness, and overall well-being when all people are supported in discovering and expressing their best individual self. 

One Citizen governance addresses many current issues. Most immediate and pressing are: 
    Citizen apathy. People don’t see the point of making an effort to get involved when it seems as if any effort will be absolutely pointless. 
    Gross inequities, unfairness, and an almost unending litany of…

The First Lesson

Music is my religion
Chocolate, the communion.
Pain is my guru
“No thoughts necessary,” the mantra.
Kindness is the catechism
and beauty is the gospel.
As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be,
World without end,
Amen.

Relax, and take a nice, deep breath....

There is a reason that nearly all meditation exercises begin with slow, intentional breathing: deep breaths activate the relaxation response, one of the functions of the parasympathetic aspect of the autonomic nervous system. From Wikipedia: “The parasympathetic nervous system is one of the two divisions of the autonomic nervous system, the other being the sympathetic nervous system. The autonomic nervous system is responsible for regulating the body's unconscious…

Just Past Arbuckle

Just past Arbuckle
telephone poles list
in tandem.
Shadows cross-hatch
at exit five-five-nine
County Line
and orchard rows swirl
in a mesmerizing polka.
Young branches raised kalani,
a nut tree halau
in graceful undulation.
On a distant hill a vineyard is laid
like a dotted swiss picnic cloth.
I-5 snakes south
shedding its skin
to become
The Five.

In 1984 I had been in recovery for a couple of years; I was doing well in college, and enjoying working in my garden. I lived in a lovely two-story red-shingled Craftsman house in Sebastopol, California. Two palm trees graced the front yard; a barn owl lived in one of them. I often found regurgitated rodent skeletons on the lawn under its perch. Two large picture windows flanked the southeast corner of the living room, bathing my baby grand piano in filtered light. When I practiced Chopin’s Military…

Randomly opened to the following passage in Rudolph Steiner's "How to Know Higher Worlds":

"The ideal situation would be to pursue our esoteric training among green plants and sunny mountains, surrounded by the loveliness of nature’s simplicity. This would produce harmony in our inner organs that would never be possible in modern cities. In other words, a person who has grown up surrounded by fragrant pines, snowy peaks, and the quiet bustle of forest animals and insects is better prepared for esoteric…

Presentations in Vashon, Port Townsend, Lummi Island and Crescent City have been sweet and magical. The morning service at Lummi Congregational Church on the first day of Advent with an inspiring talk by Pastor Larson and beautiful piano music by Cindy Minkler created the perfect space for our afternoon Connect & Glow. The next Sunday the beauties at Universal Heart Center in Crescent City truly opened their hearts and we were all uplifted. I am reminded of Shankarananda’s writing in “Consciousness Is…