Fierce Whisper

tuning in to the still, small voice

Did you hear that?

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Hatsurei ho
The whisper was so subtle, so faint that I almost missed it. In the breath between waking and opening my eyes, it ghosted across my awareness…
Hatsurei ho
And, thankfully, I caught it. Considered it. And yielded to it. 
I completed my morning ablutions and then, rather than strapping on my running shoes, I strapped on my meditation cushion and entered into ritual. This particular ritual comes out of the Reiki tradition, and it’s a process that we practitioners use to clear our energy. I think of it as both tuning myself up and clearing out any clogged pipes so that energy (call it Ki, Chi, or Prana; a rose by any other name…) can more effectively move through me to a recipient. Thirty-or-so minutes later, ritual complete, I emerged feeling renewed and reinvigorated. And grateful for the gifts that the Reiki healing tradition offers. And grateful that I had been steered to this ritual–one of so many that I know–at the moment when it was the perfect thing to bring me home to myself.
For me it was a lesson in remaining alert to my inner voice. It was also, just as important, a lesson in the value of being a spiritual magpie. By which I mean opening to all spiritual traditions and approaches, shamelessly incorporating elements that resonate with me whether I buy into the entire theology or not.
Hatsurei ho

Vipassana noticing techniques for grounding

Tonglen for navigating uncomfortable emotions

Thai massage for offering and connection

The Placement Process for asking for and opening to help 

Native American flute for relaxation

Midnight Mass for immersion in holy awe

Asana for coming home to my body

Pranayama for quieting my mind

Kirtan for ecstatic community

Earthing for the cellular pleasure of infrasonics
The list goes on and on and on and on. I have been exposed to so much wonderful wisdom over the years and I consider myself to blessed to have been able to integrate it all into my own personal, individualized spiritual mosaic.This probably won’t seem all that insightful to most of my friends and readers who are in the yoga and/or spiritual communities, but for me it is. 
I was born and baptized into the Episcopal church and raised firmly within its walls. And while I always had questions about God’s claims on exclusivity, I accepted them well into my teen years.  Then, like most of us, I went to college and that was the beginning of the end. It was a ridiculously short walk from Comparative Religion 101 to my current gleefully eclectic brand of paganism… kind of. Because even as I left behind the content of the strict Christian doctrine of my youth, I carried its structure with me for a long time. So, although I embraced Buddhism and yogic philosophy and Abraham-Hicks, I did so sequentially, eschewing much of the previous tradition as I learned about and embraced the new. Yup, I was basically a serial spiritual monogamist. And yet for all the sweetness that each new model for experiencing the Divine brought, none felt fully complete:
The Buddhism of my college days didn’t seem to leave much room for the normal ebb and flow of emotion and relationship

The Yogic philosophy of my early practice didn’t seem to leave quite enough room for my body’s specific needs

The Law of Attraction teachings didn’t seem to leave enough room for me to just have an occasional bad day

So, somewhere along the way I became polyreligious. It wasn’t deliberate–at least, not in the sense that I came out to my priest and my loved ones. It was more like a gradual knitting together of all I’ve learned as I chose tools and techniques for each situation. Swami Satchidananda taught that
Truth is One, paths are many.
And somewhere along the way, I began living that principle. My Truth is the absolute love and peace at the heart of this universe and I embrace all experiences, teachings, and rituals that remind me of it, ground me more fully in it, and infuse me with it. And I feel no compulsion to limit myself to one particular set of ideas or approaches. Why should I limit my approach to god when the divine is incomprehensibly limitless?

So I ask you, what is your Truth? And how open will you open to all the ways of experiencing it?

Author: fabienne

Fabienne Moore, MD MPH, RYT, a physician with clinical training in surgery and expertise in healthcare leadership development, has found her calling as a writer and teacher of yoga who encourages students to slow down, honor their body's wisdom, and listen to the voice of their own heart. She is a seeker and a lifelong student of movement--a yogi, acrobat, dancer and budding aerialist. She has practiced yoga for years and taught in the vinyasa style since 2009. Her approach is influenced by the wide variety of disciplines that she has been blessed to study, including ParaYoga ®, Iyengar, and Adaptive Yoga. She is also a certified Unnata ® Aerial Yoga instructor. Her yoga is further enriched by her training in the sacred art of Facilitation, skills she learned through her work at the Sacred You Academy for Women. Through this powerful work, she is continually deepening her own ability to hear her heart's calling while helping others to do the same. Fabienne brings joy and a sense of ever-expanding possibility to all that she does. She has a deep understanding of the body's structure and function, and is known for using Western understanding of the physical body as a point of departure for exploring the subtle body and she keeps a finger on the pulse of the newest research bridging these two worlds. She offers anatomy and physiology courses for yoga teacher trainees that are always met with great enthusiasm and appreciation.

I'd love to hear what came up for you as you read this week's article!