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Wake Up San Francisco! Live March 28, 2015

Sounds True — February 19, 2015

How can we stay sane, resourceful, and connected to the limitless depths of our being, right in the midst of our busy lives? Is such a thing possible? Is spiritual awakening reserved for people who travel to retreats and monasteries, or is it possible that we can touch that and the depths of the human heart right in the midst of the chaos of our lives? Wake Up San Francisco is a one-day event on Saturday, March 28th that immerses participants in the awakening of the human heart. Bringing together spiritual teachers, poets, musicians, yogis, psychological researchers, healers, and lovers of life, Wake Up San Francisco promises to be a day of reflection, new insight, and transformation.

You are warmly invited to join pioneering spiritual teacher Adyashanti and music sensation Alanis Morissette for a one-of-a-kind dialogue about waking up in the midst of everyday life. The author of books including Emptiness Dancing and Falling into Grace, Adyashanti is one of today’s most sought-after teachers, especially when it comes to his rare public appearances. Alanis is most recognized for her album Jagged Little Pill (which still ranks as the number one top-selling debut album for a female artist). The dialogue will be hosted by Sounds True founder, Tami Simon, and will be followed by an intimate concert with Alanis Morissette.

In addition to Adyashanti and Alanis Morissette, presenters at Wake Up San Francisco include:

Caroline Myss, New York Times bestselling author and leading voice in the field of energy medicine
Mario Martinez, clinical neuropsychologist lecturing worldwide on how cultural beliefs affect health and longevity
Sally Kempton, author of Awakening Shakti and Meditation for the Love of It, on the transformative power of kundalini
Roger Housden, author of Ten Poems to Change Your Life and Keeping the Faith Without a Religion, on beauty as a portal to awakening
Sera Beak, Harvard-trained scholar of comparative world religions and author of Red Hot and Holy: A Heretic’s Love Story

When we touch a limitless sense of being—vast, open, undivided—and do so in an embodied way, we paradoxically become more uniquely ourselves, more empowered, and on fire to bring forward our unique gifts. We wake up to our courage, to our authenticity, and to contributing to the well-being of others in fresh and meaningful ways. We welcome you to join us at Wake Up San Francisco!

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The miracle of autumn

Sounds True — October 12, 2014

To walk in the early morning on what appears as another ordinary Sunday, with the summer and the fall still in dialogue about who will take it from here. Looking up into the unfolding sky, it is so clear that I know nothing at all, that I have no idea what the beloved wants of me, until she whispers it through the birds, through the falling leaves, through the orangeness of orange, the yellowness of yellow, and through this body as it feels the shakiness of being wildly alive.

Each arising moment, more revelation as to how little I actually know, other than this erupting now moment and this tender heart, raw and unprotected from love and its sweet and fierce activity. I really hope to make it all the way through this day, and to be in awe at what might be shown tomorrow. But if not, for now I am left only with an unexplainable, erupting gratitude to have been shown even a tiny sliver of love. I have been given so much.

It is early morning in the mountains – and fall is arriving. Something new is asking to be met, to be allowed, to be held in and as luminous awareness. Whatever form arises into translucent consciousness is revealed to be none other than that consciousness itself. It is breathtaking, really, to watch as love emerges as this sensual world, as these feelings, as these colors, all laid out as one harvest feast of grace for lover and beloved and their union.

To be here in this special world is the only miracle. We’ve been given everything we need: a beating heart to feel so much, arms to reach out and hold another close, words to speak kindness, and eyes to gaze sweetly into the depths of our lovers. Behold the grace-harvest that is this life, and the endless bounty of love as it emerges out of the unknown and takes shape as the miracle of autumn.

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Wake Up or Bust!

Sounds True — August 13, 2014

As I write this blog post we’re days away from the 2014 Wake Up Festival, and I’m thinking about all of the things I have to do before heading up to Estes Park for four days of camping and “WUFing” as we like to call it. But I’m also thinking about what my intentions are and why I am excited to be fortunate enough to be able to attend. Having experienced the last two Wake Up Festivals, I’m looking forward to immersing myself in the unique energy field that is created by all of the participants. You can feel it the second you get out of your car on the grounds of the YMCA. It’s as if the coming together of several hundred people with the shared intention of becoming more conscious, present, and authentic generates the perfect environment in which such aspirations can become reality. It’s powerful and infectious. And it needs to be if it’s going to fuel changes that continue long after the conclusion of the Wake Up Festival. After all, it’s one thing to spend a week practicing with others but another matter to live what we learn when we return to our everyday lives.

So as I deal with the details of packing and travel and so on, I hope that I’m able to remember why I’m going in the first place, to go with the flow once I get up there without attachment to programs and agendas, and to stay present with the beautiful people and surroundings. And if I’m lucky, the energy of transformation that all of us create will indeed support positive developments for each of us as we move toward the end of another year.

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Dr. Andrew Weil on “cooking” meditation

Dr. Andrew Weil — February 1, 2014

In many contemplative traditions, it is said that we can practice meditation during the most ordinary activities, such as taking a walk, washing the dishes, or even in the midst of a busy day of emails. Here, our friend and Sounds True author Dr. Andrew Weil shows how the simple art of cooking – when engaged in a present, mindful, and open way – can offer a gateway into the experience of meditation.

We’d love to hear from you on how cooking and other so-called “ordinary” activities offer you a portal into deeper love, awakening, and aliveness in the present moment.

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Preparing you for what is next

Sounds True — September 14, 2013

Look close and see what it is that you do not want to feel, that you will do anything to avoid, that no matter what you… will… not… go… there. Your dependency. Your aloneness. Your hatred. Your utter despair. Your conviction that you are not actually lovable as you are.

Take pause. Things are not what they seem. For love is alive, and is all. Touch the earth. Look up into the sky. Call out for help. Crumble to the ground. Fall apart and give up the fantasy that you will ever, ever, ever be put back together again. Breathe this abandoned feeling into your heart. Hold it. Touch it. Let it unravel its secrets. Let it dance within you. Let it unlock each and every strategy, defense, and piece of armor protecting you. It will not destroy you. It has come as fierce grace to reveal how infinite you really are.

What you are is pristine, luminous consciousness itself. Even the greatest despair, the most terrifying fear, the most profound grief – these rise and fall in you, liberating in your awareness, in your care, and in your kindness. Your body and your heart are a sanctuary for love’s movement. Your body is a factory of grace.

See that there is nothing here working against you. Everything in this world is comprised of the same particles of love, which take shape as the galaxies, the oceans, and as the cells of your heart. They illuminate the strands of your DNA and the synapses in your brain. Love is everywhere.

Watch carefully how love appears as light and appears as dark, as wisdom and confusion, as joy and as sadness, and as human and divine, come only to prepare you for what is next. And what is next after that.

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Your heart is love’s tavern

Sounds True — August 24, 2013

There is a brief moment when you imagined that your sorrow was working against you. For an instant there was the sense that your sadness, your despair, and your loneliness were obstacles on the path. But love is a shape-shifter. She will take any form she must to unlock a secret place within you.

Even in the center of your fear, right in the heart of your anxiety, weaved into the fabric of your most scary places there is a raging intelligence, a firestorm of pure creativity. Love is awakening those parts of you that have drifted asleep. This is not a journey into some transcendent, detached, and safe place, but into the heart of a wild, untamed groundlessness. You will feel so much more than you ever felt, care so much more than you ever thought possible, yet you will know nothing. Love will even convince you of her absence if that is how she must reach you.

It may seem like an ordinary Saturday, but what is happening here is far from ordinary. Stop. Breathe. Lay your hands on your sacred body. Touch the earth and feel the aliveness and the rare opportunity that has been given here. It will not last long, friends, for love will be calling you home soon. Every person you meet, each feeling that surges within you, every emotion that comes knocking at the door of your heart, every form that appears – love is sending its messengers to you, one by one.

Your body is love’s temple, your heart is its tavern, your eyes are its windows, your words of kindness are its voice, the way you sweetly touch another are its hands – for it is only through you that love can explode into this world.

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Wake Up San Francisco! Live March 28, 2015

The miracle of autumn

Wake Up or Bust!

Dr. Andrew Weil on “cooking” meditation

Preparing you for what is next

Your heart is love’s tavern

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