Greetings Beloveds,

Many things have transpired since I last posted here.  I plan to be more present on this blog soon but for now here are links to several of my newsletters to update you on recent happenings in my life. 

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Decided to update and include the most of the above newsletter here:

Coming out from under the bed.   February 19, 2018 Newsletter

Greetings Beloveds!

I'm finally emerging from hiding.  I've been in a state of overwhelm with the recent changes in my life.   Margi's death took time to fully impact me.  In the beginning I was in a state of shock and grace all at the same time.  I felt her intimately close to me in spirit for the first few weeks.  She was with me even closer than before.  I can still connect with her but she is not so powerfully close now.   I so miss her gentle easy presence in my daily life and her way of seeing situations from so many angles.  She credited that talent to her Piscean nature.   Miss you and love you Margi!  Rock on in spirit!

I've been avoiding teaching All Love classes for the last couple months because of all the feelings inside me needing to get out.  The classes allow participants to open to their hidden or pushed down feelings in a safe and supportive environment.  They open us to healing and releasing whatever arises.  I knew that I would go into a healing if I was to try to lead the class and that's not my role as teacher.   So I hid "under the bed" for a while letting my grief process unfold. 

So many times I found myself in a painful and uncomfortable state through the grief and the fear accompanying it.  There's a part of me that doesn't fear death but sees it as a delicious release from limitations.  But I do fear being incapacitated and becoming a burden to others.  The death of someone close brings all these things to the forefront.   When I felt the pain and fears I tried to run from them, unsuccessfully.   I had to remember what I teach my clients and students; to embrace the feelings no matter how uncomfortable they are.  Treat them like your crying children and embrace them with love.  The quicker I did this practice the quicker the feeling would ease and let go into the next moment of experience.   

It really is true that what we resist persists.   Embracing the feelings is an act of self love.  Finding a safe space to fully feel and even safely act out the feelings is life changing.  The key is safe and supportive space either alone or with someone that can hold you and witness with love without taking anything personally.   I've had the grace of having healers and friends that could hold me and guide me to the center of my pain and fears.  So much was released and so much light began to shine through afterwards.   I was told to look in the mirror after a session and I could see the lightness shining in my own eyes. 

I hope my sharing is helpful for your journey. These sad and challenging times call on us to respond to the world and ourselves with love and compassion, not fear and malice.  Feeling fear and even rage is an honest human response but passing that rage and fear along to others is crux of our problems.   Feelings come and go quickly unless our minds begin to obsess over them or we are chemically imbalanced.   I've been though both obsession and imbalance.  I'm an on-going work in process as I let go, embrace myself lovingly and let the 'peace of being' arise through these sad times.

 I'm happy to say I've done enough work that I'm ready to teach again now.  I'll be offering an All Love class on Saturday afternoon, March 10th from 3pm to 6pm.  Hopefully we will have weather that doesn't interfere by then.  The cost is $35 and I offer discounts to those that need them.  Hope to see you here as I re-emerge right before we 'Spring Forward'!

From my heart to your heart, much love and many sweet blessings to you!

Sherry

 


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We're facing very challenging times in the world these days and our personal lives continue to present many challenges too.  I hope you are navigating these times with love and compassion.

Many Blessings!
Sherry

Happy June 2017 Beloveds

Happy June 2017 Beloveds!

Much has happened in the many months since I posted my last newsletter.  I'm now living happily in Pikesville, MD where I've begun to build my own small forest out back.  I do miss my amazing trees at Cowpens Avenue and the fabulous garden and trees out back at my rental in Timonium.  I'm getting used to having houses all around me here.  The spring has hidden a few, happily, and in a few years my new Green Giant Arborvitae will block the view of the house and road out back.

Here's a photo of me from this past December on the day I purchased the house.

After many months renovation and a long moving in period I do feel settled now.  I'm enjoying teaching All Love classes regularly and seeing my many wonderful clients here.  Patrick Zeigler, the Founder of All Love, will be in the area this June and July again.  I always enjoy reconnecting with him and diving deep in his classes.  Check out my newsletter below for dates and more musings. https://gem.godaddy.com/s/7f104a

I have a delightful and full June into July planned and the challenge of knee replacement to look forward to soon!  I suppose most of us don't look forward to surgery and I'm no different. Prayers are welcome.  Getting older certainly is a challenge especially for a big bodied woman.  The more aging happens to this body, the more challenge I have in accepting my body with love.  Recently I blurted out to a friend:  "Body Beloved my fat saggy old ass!"  Oops! I was laughing and kidding and not kidding at all.  Challenged by my own teaching and feeling like a fraud adds a nice twist to this story.  I find it a bit amusing when I'm not grousing about the reality of it all.  Not just the reality of aging but more my rejection and lack of love for myself in this body.  I do know better.  The old 'do what I say and not what I do' approach has flown up in my face.  Ugh!

The inside job for me now is to come back to the love that needs no outside reinforcement to exist,  love of myself and this body unconditionally.  I want to love all parts of me, even the part that wants to reject me in this body.  I need to let loving kindness arise for myself and for everyone else too.  Especially these days!

So have you ever had your own methodologies and teachings fly in your face?  How have you handled those embarrassing moments?  I could just not tell you about them and keep them secret but if you know me well, you know that doesn't work for me.  I may fool myself sometimes and create fiction in my head about what is going on.  I'll tell you those stories when I believe them but I'll tell you when they fall down too.  My middle name has often been 'Chagrin'.  ;)

One of my favorite quotes I got from my dear friend June: "Stumble on rejoicing."   So here I go again!  I have to add, 'stumble on rejoicing or bitching as the case may be.'  For a while the truth of all this wasn't funny and sometimes I still lose my sense of humor about aging.  Today I feel at peace with it, even as I limp to the bathroom hoping I'll make it in time.  LOL!  On that hopefully funny but truthful note I will close.  

I love you! 💕

And I love me too,  fat saggy old ass and all!  😉  💗

    

Fall 2016 Newsletter - Missing Beloved Krishna

Fall 2016 Newsletter

Happy Autumn Beloveds!

I'm sitting in the warm autumn breeze out back looking over my private yard here in the middle of Timonium. A little white 

butterfly dances past in the breeze, leaves and acorns scattered by my feet. One last bloom of the summer graces the 

Rose of Sharon nearby as a few red roses decorate the bush by my grape vine shaded patio. Fall has arrived with its 

late summer feeling. Blue skies and wispy white clouds overhead. Looking up I see lacy oak leaves lit by the sun, 

glittering like diamonds. Breathing in this beautiful moment! I hope your fall season is full of lovely moments. I'd love to 

hear about them!

In contrast, my end of summer brought unexpected grief. My beautiful young friend Krishna Naidu left this planet near 

the end of August. He was one of my Tantra teachers, a Tantric lover and a dear dear friend. I met him in 2008. He

would travel through and stay with me as he crossed the country offering sessions and Tantric teachings. In the last few 

years he'd moved out to Washington State and wasn't traveling east much. We had only talked a few times in the last 

couple years, sadly. Such a sweet loving and gifted soul he was. His epilepsy took his life as he had often feared it 

would. He was only 37. I'm heartbroken and slowly recovering from the shock of this loss.

Krishna taught me to savor life, to slow down and really enjoy each precious moment in all its splendor. He taught me how to be present with the energy of our bodies and the energy of the foods we put in them. I learned how to eat a blueberry properly. How you may ask? Well, you first select the perfect washed berry. Then gaze at it in your hand, smell it, feel it's texture. You gently put it on your tongue or, better yet, have your lover place it in on your tongue. Feel it inside your mouth with your eyes closed. Begin to roll it around gently feeling the shape and texture of the berry's skin against your tongue and mouth. After the berry is warmed and softened you slowly press it with your tongue until the berry splits and the sweet juice pours out. Play with the texture of the split berry a bit before you begin to chew it slowly. Savor each change of the fruit as you are nourished by its offering to you. If there is a seed, bite down on it and see if you can feel the energy of the seed explode in your mouth. That's how to eat a blueberry! One of my favorite memories of Krishna is from a dinner out at an area restaurant. He consciously poured over the menu, finally selecting a Cobb salad. Here's the photo of him deliberating over the menu.

When the meal came he savored each bite as he combined different flavors together and then, beaming and grinning, fed me each of his delicious creations. Thank you, Beloved, for coming into my life. It is indeed much richer filled with memories of your deep silence, ecstatic chanting and sacred Tantric gifts. You will live in my heart forever. I look forward to your visits from spirit! So many changes move through our lives! Fall is a great reminder of letting go with change. I work to fully feel each changing moment while letting them go. Our emotions well up to be embraced and felt fully. If we do fully feel them and can be present with their depth they usually subside like a wave in the water. See them as your children and hold them, comfort them, receive them. You'll be amazed how quickly they transition into peace or even joy when you do this. Our minds can become the trickster in the mix. It puts things on replay, often because we push away or rejected the truth of what is or has happened. See what happens when you embrace 'what is' like you would embrace a crying child needing your comfort. Let me know what happens. I'm sending much love and many blessings your way as you and I move through the many changes here now and ahead of us. I love you! Sherry

My Shadow Story

My Shadow Story

Wrestling with my shadow...my failures, my laziness, my resistance to change and the truth of now.  Trying to buy a new place and realizing my limitations.  Angry and resentful at my circumstances.  Victim is rising up big time.  Angry victim.  Hello Beloved Ego.  Here you are again.  I love you!

Sometimes it's the smallest things that trigger me and sometimes it's about taxes. (LOL!)  I've resisted doing 2015 taxes for the usual "I don't wanna" reasons to the underlying pain of not doing them in my beautiful old dining room.   Grief rises up and I'm angry at myself for not still living there.  Angry victim still visiting today.  I forgot where the 2014 tax papers were and looked in the wrong spot were all the other taxes are stored.  I asked spirit to help and immediately remembered where I put them.  That was a lovely gift.  More of that help seems to be showing up these days!

Then I watched myself angrily respond to a Facebook Papaji message about dropping the illusion.  FUCK illusion!  This shit is real!  My angry child is feeling cornered and terrified.

"You want to kill me off.  You hate me.  I hate you too!"  says my ego.

I respond;.  "I'm so sorry.  Please forgive me.  Thank you.  I love you."  Not sure if that helped.

Oh my!  I'd like to have less misery and still enjoy my emotions.  Still enjoy all of this human ride.  It's been a challenging and miserable one recently.

I've watched myself be angry about toilet paper.  Repeatedly.  Such an important topic, toilet paper, to be upset about.  Do they think we don't notice that the rolls are not as wide and the center hole is wider?  Please!   I miss gallons of ice cream too.  OY!  These important issues I'm upset about.  LOL!  It does distract me from the ugly election and rising shadow of racism in this country, not to mention the horrifying violence in the world.  I guess I prefer to be upset about toilet paper.

It's been a long time since I posted on this blog so let me catch you up on the many changes in my life.  I sold my beautiful big home on Cowpens and rented a little Timonium rancher.  Let me begin with the shadow side of the story.  I'm still grieving the loss of that beautiful home.  It feels like so many losses in the last year and a half.  Losing Beloved Malcolm, letting go of my house and losing the trust in a good friend all beat me down and bit me in the ass.  Most recently  a month long flu weaken me greatly and added to the physical limitation of this body.  Ego field day!  Misery central.

 Letting go of the comfort of that home has taken a part of my pride away. It was just the way I liked it and had created it.  It showed off the prosperity and heritage that I had come from.   Gone now!  Oh, how the mighty Sherry has fallen!    Matt Kahn told me humility was my life's theme.  Seems I'm getting some big lessons in humility right now if I can stay out of the pity victim party.  I may not seem so arrogant on the outside (I hope) but inside my head I'm an arrogant bitch.  I catch myself and just roll my eyes; "Really Sherry?!?"    

I'm always thinking I know when the real truth is I know nothing.  I congratulate myself on the wisdom of not knowing, of course.  LOL!  Still I have this underlying sense I really know, that I've lived so many lives and am this wise old soul.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  My thinking I know so much has been a great opening for naive gullibility.  I've started to catch myself and ask if I really know that is true.  Thank you Byron Katie! 

This lesson in humility has brought shadow feelings to the surface.  I've told myself many stories of disaster and ending.  "I'm such a failure. I've failed at everything."  "My life is over and I've failed."  "I'm not good enough to teach."  "What the fuck do I know."    Oh, that's right, nothing! 

Part of me wants to run and hide or hide this from you as I write it.  Wow!  This big shadow journey has really sucked!  I like to also give myself some credit for surviving all these changes and watching the rise and fall of thoughts and emotions around all of it.  What a ride!  Now, hopefully, things are turning around.  I probably wouldn't be writing if they weren't turning around.  I'm finally over the long lasting virus and getting back to swimming.  My body already feels stronger.  Yeah!  I've started to teach again and that feels great. 

There are other stories of triumph though the last months that I've left out because I've been in the half empty glass story here.  The fact I did successfully move after 18 years all my possessions from one place to another and weed out so many is a big success story.  My many loving friends helped me and supported me through the move and I am incredibly grateful for all they did!  I'm so very blessed!  Wow!  Although not entirely out of debt I am in a much better place and living more affordably now.   Losing Malcolm has opened me for another intimate love to come into my life as I let myself grieve, cry, let go and then laugh and move on.  The loss of trust in my friend made me take more responsibility and stand up more on my own.  When things have been very dark I've remembered "this too shall pass" and found support and love when needed. 

So my life is not over and I'm not such a failure.  Yes, I've failed for sure and will again.  And I have also succeeded.  I've had so many loving friends and students remind me that I am worthy and good enough.  I've received  beautiful praise from many.  The arrogant one in me is looking down on me for needing that recognition.  'Fuck off, oh great arrogant one.'   I am grateful, very grateful for the love and support of the Beloved Other!   

This move gave me permission to stop for a while and assess what I'm doing with this life of mine.  Good news/bad news obviously.  I'm happy to be coming into the half (or more)full feeling now.  I've started teaching again and will be posting upcoming classes on my Meetup  at www.meetup.com/Body-Beloved-A-Tantric-Journey/and on my newly redesigned website: www.body-beloved.com.  Would love to hear what you think of it.  Feedback is welcome!

I am interested in how your shadow is treating you these days?  Are you sitting with the darkness and having a contemplative cup of tea or running and hiding from it with Ben and Jerry's.  A little of both like me?  Can you open your arms to the discomfort and love that shadow part of you even though it is stinky and bad mannered?  Have you figured out a way to cast out the shadow?  Does it come back anyway?  Mine usually does.    

I send deep love to you and to your shadow as we grow and learn how to live these challenging lives!  

Many Joy Filled Blessings!

Giving it to the fire!