Dealing with Haters

Posted on February 6, 2025 by Dorena

I was expecting an email and didn’t see it in my in box, so I opened the spam folder and checked for it. It wasn’t there. But I did notice, half way down the list, a series of emails from someone in my neighborhood. I closed the spam without even looking at the subject lines and wondered what this person was so upset about, again.

A few months back we had a chat about some farming thing (biochar) and the conversation went to Robert Kennedy Jr.. Her ideas about him didn’t seem to match my experience of him. However, she had never even met him or listened to him talk. I had. Frankly his knowledge and dedication to his own health were inspiring to me.

Anyway, as time went on she started sending me political articles. Just forwarding things without any comment. At first I took a look, but it became clear that they were not contributing to me. I also noticed that I could feel the charge of fear and aversion that motivated her to forward them to me. After careful consideration, I choose to mark her email as spam so it would simply avoid my inbox.

Today I am wondering what it would take to change the hate and divisiveness in the world.

Last year I was leading “An evening of Visioning Beyond This Reality” in February. One of the guests shared during the introductory time said she just wanted there to be more love in the world. She was very emphatic about this heart’s desire.

Later, after I showed the 5 minute mind movie “I am Oneness” by Nicola Do (find below), she expressed her feelings. She hated the movie and everything it represented. Where I saw ease, she saw repression. Where I saw healthy people moving their bodies, she saw fake, Hollywood bodies. Where I saw the ease that money creates, she saw greed and filthy dollars. I selected this movie as a contribution and was surprised about how much hate it inspired in her.

The fact that she desired love and was putting out so much hate was ironic. And it was a little tragic that she couldn’t see how allowance and love creates more love. Hate, aversion and rejection doesn’t allow for what she said she wanted. She also disregarded how her lambasting the video might impact me, the person that selected the video.

For me, that evening was the end of the “Wisdom Goddess” series I’d been leading. When someone called them entertainment, I realized that what I was creating as transformation opportunities was not how they were being received. I was wondering why I was feeling a little let down after each event. Now it made sense. This is another example of the same thing being seen differently by different people. I also gave up the weekly Chi Gung classes I was teaching. I desired community devoted to inner growth, so I let go of everything that wasn’t aligned with that to allow for my outside world to change to reflect my inside world.

I’m not sure what will change the hate and divisiveness in the world, but I do know what changes it for me. Realizing that this world is a creation of my mind and choosing to cultivate my mind to weed out everything that stands in the way of peace. At this point my practice is to
1. Notice my internal reaction when people say mean things about others
2. Restraining my impulse to lash out or counter with my brilliant intellect
3. Redirect my mind that is ruminating or continuing to think about my great comeback
4. Reflect on emptiness or the dream like quality of this reality
5. Reaffirm what I am choosing
6. Reflect on any possible actions to take
7. Take action and/or let go

Hestia, Goddess of Eternal Light

Posted on December 27, 2023 by Dorena

Hail Hestia!
Goddess of Eternal Light
By your presence I am restored

Blessed is I,
who knows myself
and Blessed is the love
I bestow upon me

Holy Vesta!
Goddess of the hearth
Warm my heart,
allowing me to simply be.

Let me introduce you to Hestia. We are good friends.

Historically she is a Greek/Roman goddess that tended the fires of Olympia. Sister to Zeus, she refused all suitors and vowed to remain forever unmarried. In earlier history, devotees of Hestia practiced sacred sex as part of the healing aspect of the divine feminine. They were “virgins” in so much as they were not married, but they were certainly not celibate. In later times, under the Roman Empire, the high female priestesses of Hestia/Vesta were called Vestal Virgins and were indeed celibate during their 30 year service period. They had rights and liberties not usually associated with women at that time. The service they provided to the community afforded them with more prestige than royalty.

Hestia is an interesting lady, being associated with the home and hearth and yet, not being a mother or caretaker. She invokes the energy of self-love. She is all about knowing oneself intimately and caring for oneself with kindness and self-nurturing. She stands apart from social customs and comes forth as a great individualist.

When we invoke Hestia, we are calling forth that eternal spark of our being. We are connected to our primordial nature and our source. This is how Hestia restores us by her presence. She reminds us of the blessed nature of all of life. She reminds us that all beings and things have that sacred spark of eternal light.

Drawing on my studies of Buddhist world view, I penetrate even deeper into the idea of inner light and wisdom. Hestia can assist us in realizing the deceptive nature of ourselves and conventional reality. When I say she helps us know ourselves, I not only that mean that we know our personal preferences, desires, passions and aptitudes, but that we know, ultimately, that we don’t exist independently. We truly do not exist in the way we appear to exist.

We can call on Hestia to help us remove the constructs that obscure the truth of our being. She can help us penetrate the false ideas that have been perpetuated upon us. Her refusal to partake in the convention of marriage, is an open invitation for us to question conventional ideas and make different choices from the norm.

How does Hestia, “Warm our hearts”? The warmth of love and of self-caring is spread through our bodies and beings once we let go of judgments. Following Hestia’s lead ,we learn who we truly are and we honor that. We learn that all judgments are arbitrary and simply choices. Peace and deep contentment and connection can only come with the demolition of all judgments. A careful investigation reveals that this is truth.

Following the path of inner nurturing, we can begin to let go of the judgments that keep our bodies locked up and our minds closed to receiving. Starting with ourselves we choose to appreciate everything we are. We let go of self-hate, criticism and harmful self talk. Then we begin to expand the circle. We let go of the judgments of our friends and family. Allowing them to be exactly who they are. We are practicing sacred respect. And finally, can we let the world be exactly as it is? Perhaps we can become empowered to stand for ourselves while not standing against any other.

Sometimes called “enlightened self-interest”, our new attitude provides us with freedom from trying to control and change everything and everyone – which is probably outside the realm of possible anyway. The ultimate health treatment is letting people be as they are without judgment: tension falls off our bodies and we experience greater peace and joy.

In this new place, we are able to act or not-act, but are not compelled to react or live under the influence of the emotions of hate, frustration, anger, sadness, and resistance. Are hearts are warmed by the the ever present hearth within us.

Low Back Pain

Posted on August 20, 2023 by Dorena

A person approached me before chi gung class seeking help with lower back pain persisting for the last couple of weeks. A couple of weeks before, while trying to move my bedridden mom, I strained my back. To my surprise, the injury cleared instantly during body process energy work I was doing as part of my health routine. He was wondering if the body process might help him.

The process that was run on me is one of a hundred different specific energies. Being unable to find someone familiar with my preferred body process system, I’ve hired a Reiki practitioner to run the energy I specify. I don’t even remember which one we ran that day. I just remember, realizing that the discomfort in my back disappeared mid session.

Would a body process help him? Certainly. Would a body process be the best medicine to fix his back? I don’t know.

What would I recommend for a person that is showing health deterioration that often occurs in older people?

PHYSICAL
Strengthen and engage the core. This means exercises like sit-ups. In the case of my injury above, I was forgetting to pull my abdominal muscles in when I bent over my mom’s bed to change a diaper or tried to move her. Simply remembering to do this has “saved” my back.

Keep the tissue warmed up – After years of “throwing out my back” at least once a year and being bedridden for a two to three days I learned that using a jade stone heating pad for 20 minutes daily prevents my back from getting too tweaked out. You could also keep the back warmed up with hot tubs, stretches, saunas, chi gung.

Sometimes lower back pain is caused by digestive upset. For instance, my mom complained of intense back pain when she had an intestinal infection.

Figure out what muscles are causing your discomfort and do specific exercises for them. My old annual back pain was caused by a muscle that was in the butt, underneath the gluteals. A tennis ball to the butt kept it more relaxed. Other muscles that have contributed to back pain are the psoas and quadratus lumborum. Search for exercises specific to them. I can personally recommend Somatics by Thomas Hana

ENERGETIC
Physical problems are always preceded by blocks in life force energy. Chi Gung, acupressure, and yogic practices that move energy along the meridians will remove the blockages and allow the body to heal itself. Other modalities that work on the energy level are sound healing, Reiki and energetic body processes.

The lower back is ruled by the water element and the kidneys in Chinese medicine. The kidneys are responsible for our deepest stores of energy. Depending on lifestyle, these stores can become depleted. One old friend had debilitating lower back pain in his twenties. Using pulse diagnosis a Chinese Doctor prescribed beef. His vegetarian diet was not providing him with enough yang energy. His back issues disappeared with the addition of meat and he is now in his 60’s still working as a carpenter.

If the lower back pain is a result of low kidney energy, beef is a good addition to the diet. In addition, I would recommend power mushrooms such as Reishi or Lion’s Mane and Eleutherococcus senticosus or American Ginseng. All these will bring up the kidney chi.

MENTAL
Of course, everything begins with the mind. The energy and physical bodies simple follow the beliefs held by the mind. Unfortunately, the conscious mind is only 5-10% of our mental activity and the seeds for disease are imbedded in the subconscious mind. Luckily we have ways to change the subconscious erroneous beliefs.

In the case of the lower back, I would first look at beliefs in being unsupported or wanting more support. Remove those first using you preferred belief changing modality or prayer method. Then ask if there is any other misbelief holding the low back pain in place. Follow that line of questioning to uncover anything else. Once the beliefs are gone and energy healing should clear up the issue.

In my case, with my back strain moving my mom, I realized a little feeling of needing more support and was able to resolve that first, perhaps letting the energy session clear me for complete healing.