And not even metaphorically. Which is the usual way. Three times. Just in the past week. First. The first time I was crossing the street. At the crosswalk. With the green light. Three lanes. As I’m crossing, I can’t see the third lane until I’m there, but oh look here’s who is zooming down and [...]

Sometimes Shiva Nata knocks me over with the way it rings internal bells. It shows me my patterns and it shows me tiny sparkling moments of TRUTH, and sometimes (lots of the time) I do not like this. Sometimes it reveals to me the same piece of truth in different ways. Or even in the [...]

There are, of course, infinite ways to challenge yourself and make your Shiva Nata practice hard. This list of one hundred and one is a great starting place. And it’s also barely the tip of the tip of the tip of the iceberg. Here are the ones I pretty much always use, just as a [...]

Found scribbled on a post-Shiva-Nata post-it note. From a few months back, but I found it today. Which was exactly the right day to find it. Anyway, here it is: There are two ways to find the clues. 1) Be present and you will find the clues. 2) Be someone who sees patterns, and you [...]

If you’ve been doing Shiva Nata for a while, you’re already used to contradiction. And paradox. Ahahahaha. Yes. I am right but I am also wrong. I recognize the pattern but I can’t explain it or repeat it. One thing is true but uh oh its opposite is apparently also true. That’s just how Shiva [...]

At the last Rally (Rally!), we were getting ready for our first Shiva Nata class. And I asked the group — some of whom were experienced shivanauts and some of whom had never done this ever — to make up words for the eight basic positions. I often do this when I teach. Do you [...]

I have been enjoying this fascinating book by Stefan Fatsis called Word Freak, about competitive Scrabble. And my favorite part, of course, is about how about studying word patterns strengthens memory patterns in the brain. As you study patterns, the synaptic connections get stronger and go deeper, encoding the new patterns and embedding them. Here’s [...]

I came back.

Had a glass of water.

Paced around the room.

Knew what needed to happen.

Found the opening.

It was obvious.

I had to set up a new section. And I knew exactly what to call it and where to put it and how to describe it and how it would work.

So I was teaching about how Dance of Shiva is all about the relationship between deconstruction and rebuilding. Create and destroy. Take something apart and then build something new with the old components.

That’s why Andrey calls it the liberation of consciousness. Because you can take any pattern — physical, energy, emotional, mental, spiritual — and use the parts of it to bring in the new pattern.

And the new pattern heals the old pattern. Patterns rewrite patterns. It’s like homeopathy but bigger.

Here’s the problem with epiphanies. Those Shivanautical moments of bing and zing that show up and make you go oh. They’re really hard to explain to anyone outside of your head. Because a lot of the time they sound kind of obvious. It’s kind of like big spiritual truths. Right? Like you have a serious [...]