Shiva Nata: the Dance of ShivaA loving gift of truth.
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 same way. And I throw it back into the mix, and then am surprised when it pops back out again. That’s a pattern too. Hi, pattern.
Just in this past week Shiva Nata has told me all sorts of astonishing things.
So many things.
For example, that that I have been forgetting about PLEASURE as a door.
Or how DELIGHTING IN PLENTY is a superpower that I can partake in. And, related to that: I don’t have to persist in getting all tangled up in words like “prosperity” or “thriving” (and in my relationship to them) because guess what, delight in plenty.
On Thursday Shiva Nata showed me a way that I was hurting myself without meaning to. On Friday, Shiva Nata showed me a way that my fear of being misunderstood was leading me to be misunderstood.
On Saturday, I saw how something I’d thought was broken was actually a temporary container for the new incoming thing that is replacing it.
On Sunday I learned (again! deeper!) that that buoyancy and grounding are not mutually exclusive.
These all got planted deep. They reverberated through my cells. They were all loving gifts of truth.
Loving gifts of truth…
Loving gifts of truth is not the same as “tough love”, which is not really always love at all.
Loving gifts of truth is not the same as telling someone something because the telling makes you feel better.
Loving gifts of truth is not the same as oh, something like “let’s face the harsh realities”. There are no harsh realities in this gift.
Instead it’s more about recognizing that things in a certain formation or formulation are not congruent and harmonious with the essence of what they’re about.
So they need to reconfigure.
So they need to reconfigure.
Just like in Shiva Nata itself, where everything reconfigures all the time. Each formula allows itself to be broken down into elements and re-formed into the new formula.
Just like the symbolic essence of Shiva-ness: that clean clear destruction/deconstruction of those elements that are no longer working so that new, beautiful organic forms can come in their place.
Today — at the 21st and most-amazing-ever Rally (Rally!), we did this unbelievably intense Shiva Nata class. Intense is not even the word for it. It was extraordinary and glowing.
An outlandishly luscious class. We were subsumed by flames and stuff like that. Shiva was all hey lady, would you like some deconstruction because I can bring it. Like that. I may have broken them.
Or we may have broken everything. But in the most compassionately loving and playful way ever. It was awesome.
Everything. Reconfigures.
And after the class was over and we were all internally reconfigured, I knew (in that fleeting moment) all the truths about all the truths. Including about the loving gift that is being harmonious with the truths.
I have a loving gift of truth to share with my people, possibly you.
And like with many loving gifts of truth, you may not want to receive it. Or not right now at any rate. Either or both of which is okay.
Just know that this is what it is in its essence. A loving gift of a loving truth, available for you if and when you should ever happen to want it. Here it is:
There are so many things that are deeply important when leading a group of people in Shiva Nata and shivanautical deconstruction.
Sovereignty. Autonomy. Spaciousness. Delight. Presence.
Most of all, is vital that people need to come to Shiva Nata with me already knowing that they are entirely in charge of every aspect of their own experience.
It used to be that people would come to my trainings and over the course of studying with me they’d figure that out.
They would realize, eventually, one realization and sparkling epiphany after another, that I am not the authority. That there is no authority.
There is you and there is Shiva Nata. There is you and your deep, beautiful internal wisdom and knowing, which gets revealed through doing Shiva Nata. There is you and your patterns and your relationship with the patterns. And whatever comes up you give back to Shiva Nata and it gives you the next piece. And then you do Shiva Nata on that.
There’s more to this. It’s pretty hard to explain.
Reconfigured and reconfigured again.
The point is, people used to come to me and they would learn this beautiful thing (yay!).
They would first understand and then internalize this understanding that their own body/brain/heart is the thing. Their suchness. And their relationship to their patterns and their own reconfigurings through Shvia Nata. THIS is the thing.
Not me, not my opinions, not my answers, not my guidance.
And now everything has shifted. Because now in order for us to do the shining everything-is-different-and-better-now work and play that we do, I need people to come to me already knowing this.
The way I used to teach where the realization happened during the training is no longer a sovereign, viable or harmonious way for me to teach.
Reconfigured. This is my truth.
The next part of the gift.
This is the beautiful and challenging understanding that Shiva Nata has been steadily delivering to me over the past several months.
And each time I have not wanted to receive it.
But it is my truth, even though it took me several months of arguing with it before I could see the part about how this was a) a loving gift to me, and b) a loving gift to my students and my people, whom I madly adore and am devoted to.
Because of this huge understanding, I am putting off Shivanauticon for one year.
Over the course of this year I will be putting together the materials that I believe are necessary to be able to show up (whether physically, which would be awesome, but really more emotionally-mentally-energetically) for the type of teaching that I am ready to do now.
Teaching isn’t even really the word for it. It’s not transmission either. This is so beyond teaching. It’s about radiance and autonomy and flow. It’s about harmony and congruence. It’s about people being so completely there with themselves that they cannot possibly let anyone else be a false authority in their lives.
It is big and important and I am going to figure out how to explain it.
Where do we go from here?
We will have ways to prepare for the adventure.
We will have some online sessions in the winter months.
We will be preparing to open the Shiva Nata studio at Stompopolis, our brand new gigantic space.
And we will practice and play, and then practice and play some more.
We will dance the patterns out and dance them back together again.
With loving gifts of truth.
It will be beautiful.
It will be beautiful, it will be hard, it will at times be confusing and at other times it will be ridiculous and funny.
I will update you with all the details when I have them.
In the meantime, I am glowing Shiva Nata in my cells. I am reconfiguring all the reconfigurations. All of them.
I cried all the tears over the thing I thought I wanted to happen in the way I thought I wanted it, and then I cried tears of appreciation and gratitude for the deep internal knowing that I thought I didn’t want but actually that I want more than anything.
And now I am feeling happy and hopeful and ready.
I can’t wait to do impossible shivanautical magic with you next summer. And maybe at Rally (Rally!) in July or September this summer if you can make it.
You are loved. And this feels like a really vulnerable and over-the-top thing to write in actual words that someone could read but I mean this: you are a loving gift of truth.
xo
Havi
Commenting blanket fort.
Things I am receptive to: heart-sighs, pebbles, understandings that have been sparked, qualities.
Oh. Oh. Massive heart-sighs and all the love. <3
Twitter: maxdaniels
Mmmmmm….. >heart sigh<
The Quality of this for me is Perfection.
This is perfect. I am happy to receive all of this.
Twitter: yogiconomist
o o o o o (pebbles)
Twitter: fruitmaven
Ahhh – I highlighted this quote for myself:
“It’s about people being so completely there with themselves that they cannot possibly let anyone else be a false authority in their lives.”
Yes, yes, yes. I want this! I’m getting there. I know it. But I want it. Crave it. Can almost taste it. Yes!
Thanks Havi.
Twitter: MahalaMazerov
Havi! So much truth and beauty in your words. Reconfigurations! Gifts! What you’re saying reminds me of my own experience on my sacred path, teaching it, and wanting people to know their intrinsic wholeness. The practices will carry them, not me.
You’ve inspired me to “dust off the dvd” again.
Big love to you for writing and hitting pooblish.
Mahala
Twitter: lirarenee
I am reading this during the entrance of summer solstice and know it to be the doorway to my own truth. Entrance and Exit.
Shiva Nata is both the doorway and mirror to my self (although I can’t seem to understand how or why). Ever since I came to the training last year, I’ve been watching the patterns play. I can’t wait to come to Rally in July and walk through the door again.
I will use the time in the interim to prepare for that journey and thank both you,(Havi) and the dance, (Shiva Nata) for holding and folding space.
Also – ooooooo
Twitter: naneira
o o o o o
Heart sigh :-) Truth is so very sweet. Thank you for sharing!
Twitter: allthatmel
There are so many pieces and words here that hit me, but especially this piece of needing and wanting to explain, and needing the time for that verbalization to form in some coherent manner (I feel this way often, maybe even always, with my yoga teaching, and only more acutely when I have attempted to explain my shiva nata practice!). Also this piece of not being the authority, which I feel so strongly about (even while I still sometimes crave it from my teachers, even when my students crave it from me…) this is why I know it will be so worth the wait to come out and play with you at some point in the future. Thank you, for sharing this practice, creating such a kind and helpful community of people around you, and for holding true.
Heart sighs!!
Oh WOW. I knew I was meant to come to shivanauticon this year but all the monsters said but HOW? And suggested crossing the line instead. I was thrilled and scared and a little but but HOW? And also sad for missing shivanauticon. Now I have the truth I DON’t HAVE TO MISS OUT…that was just an illusion. Phew!
so much love for the loving gift of this post Xx
Twitter: kimianak
Gentle hand-on-heart sigh for these shining gifts of truth you are lovingly radiating here.
{love}
Twitter: fantheember
o o o pebbles o o o
and heart sighs, and a quiet yay that feels less tentative the longer I think about it. both for a shivanauticon, whose concept suddenly feels clear and sparkly to me again, and for the loving gift of truth via words. lots to come back to on this one.
This reminds me of entering as I wish to be in it. Yes, I am referencing the blog, AND I still do get the point that external words just point me in the direction of the internal truths.
I had been feeling disappointed that I end up reading such blogs/books, because I needed to feel like I can dissolve (opposite of solve?) my own issues. I just realized that maybe those aren’t mutually exclusive. That is, I am taking charge of my issues precisely by connecting with others’ issues. And the compassion flows.
(As I tell Hypochondriac Me: I don’t take on others’ issues, because I have my “force field”. It has sunny forces radiating outward and also daisies.)
Heart sighs for all the vulnerability, on the side of both “teacher” and “student”. Quality of delightful acceptance of being both!
Twitter: spiralsongkat
Havi. Oh, Havi.
Click. Bing.
Reading this post was like having Shiva Nata happening in my brain.
Qualities that are now shimmering and simmering there: Autonomy. Serendipity. Compassion. Evolution. Revolution. Freedom.
And, though I’m not sure why my epiphanies are suddenly speaking in French: Liberte! Egalite! Fraternite!
(With the acute accents over the final letter e’s that I can never remember how to do in html, even though I’ve been told how more than once. But never mind that.)
I love you. And — though this also feels like an extremely vulnerable and over-the-top thing to say in this space — I love me.
Sighing gently, with my hand on my heart, and experiencing the unfolding of things.
hand-on-heart sigh. {hugs} for your tears.
my brain hit me with this thought: leader does not equal authority – a leader shows a way.
Thank you for finding the words and pooblish-finger to post this.
o o o
Twitter: flamencooregon
Hand on heart sigh…
Gratitude. Thank you for all that you do and give and offer.
xo
“It’s about people being so completely there with themselves that they cannot possibly let anyone else be a false authority in their lives.” … massive resonance. Vibrations of delight and understanding. Gratitude.
Hand on heart sigh and a pebble -o-. xxxx
<3
Twitter: JaneOfArdis
Gentle heart-sighs, and so much love.
Flexibility, Strength, Radiance and Sovereignty are saying hello too.
Twitter: sonyjolly
Mmmm….loving heart-sigh!
It has been such a privilege to witness your evolution this past year.
“Deep internal knowings” are truly the most amazing part of doing Shiva Nata.
Thank you. Thank you.
Twitter: darxyanne
A hand-on-heart sigh and a little bit of a lump in my throat. You are a loving gift of truth, too.
Pebbles in a dinky smiley face pattern on the shore to make whoever finds them giggle.
Qualities:
[+ plenty]
[+ spaciousness]
[+ that sparkly, oxygenated, revitalised feeling you get after a big, luscious, cat stretching yawn]
[+ every little thing gonna be alright]
[+ steppin' up and feelin' .... actually, now I think about it, a whole lot easier than I thought I would]
[+ matrixey, double-visioney, deja vu-like, almost glimpse of the subtle energy realm]
[+ om baby]
Namaste xo
Twitter: abccreativity
Leaving a sighing adorable little heart-shaped stone.
I love what Kathleen said!
Click. Bing.
YES.
So much bing! And perfection and truth and courage and I keep getting this picture in my mind of a girl with a Brand New Dress. Like, the perfect dress.
Twitter: persnicket
<3 <3 <3
(And I cannot wait to see what the next, newer, heart-of-truth springing version of your teaching will be!)
Twitter: creativechai
I’m drinking in every word of this, and it all feels so right and good.
Heart sighs and gratitude for this loving gift of truth, and the beautifully clear path you laid out.
Twitter: lizemmettmattox
-0-
Twitter: jjlogs
-o- with a hand on heart sigh
o o o
MMMM…heart-sighs.
It’s hard to express what I feel reading this–apart from, hopw have i been coming to this blog for over a year now and ONLY NOW found this the SN blog???–but it feels true and right and good.
I deeply wanted to be onboard for Shivanauticon and it made me sad that I couldn’t. Now I’m happy to hold space for its maiden voyage next year. And t hope I can be on board for that.
I feel so loved and held by Havi’s unswerving loyalty and protection of us. Her refusal to compromise on the most important prts of the culture here: the safety, the sovereignty, the permission to be vulnerable and soft and not have all the answers, and also the bravery to accept the Right Answers when they are counter-intuitive or otheriwse challenging. Thank you!
-o-
+gratitude
+hope
+possibility
+pathways
+love