Reflections & Practices: Offered by Shelley Ostroff

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These daily reflections and practices invite you to commune with the essence and vibrations of the theme of the day. As you engage with these essences you are invited to deepen the dialogue with the essence through spontaneous journalling, visual art, sound and movement inspired by the communion. The creative journey with these essences over the week offers a profound portal into the mystery and medicine of "Return to Essence".

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PRESENCE: An invitation to commune with the Essence of Presence and the Presence of Essence in a quiet space

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• In your imagination, invite the consciousness - the being of essence to be present with you. What do you notice as you attune to essence ? What are the images, feelings, sensations, insights and energetic experiences that arise? What is the essence of essence revealing to you?

• In your imagination, invite in the essence of presence to be present and reveal itself to you. What do you notice in your field, and what are the images, feelings, sensations, insights and energetic experience that arise? What is the essence of presence sharing with you through these experiences?

• What do you sense is the relationship of essence and presence?​

• Bring your attention to the breath and for a few moments and gently following the breath as it breathes through you. Notice how this may shift your sense of being present in the here and now. Then bring your nuanced attention to your heart space - perhaps putting one or both hands on your heart, with the intention of bringing your heart more consciously into your experience of being present now, and always. Notice what happens - and perhaps offer gratitude to your beautiful heart, inviting it to be ever more present in your presence with yourself and the world around you.

• In quiet reflection space, sense into what becomes present for you when you reflect on what is most essential and vitalizing for you in your Life. How can this reflection inform your awareness and your choices?​

• Sense into  the energy field of your presence in the here and now? What are you noticing about how you are showing up here and now in this reflection? Scan different situations in your daily Life and sense into how you and others may experience the quality of your presence in those situations. How can this reflection support greater awareness and choice.

• In your imagination, bring in diverse people in your life, and notice the way in which you feel their presence. Notice how your own presence shifts next to them? Notice in what ways you feel more or less present next to them. What insights does this reflection offer?

• Bring your and attention slowly to your different portals of perception and spend some time with each ~ touch, taste, sight, smell, sound, instinct, intuition, imagination. Notice what happens through these portals as you attune to your experience in the moment ~ in the meeting of your inner and outer worlds. How does this awareness inform your sense of your own presence in the here and now?

• Sense into the collective culture and the challenges and opportunities people experience in bringing the fullness of their presence into the world. How can we cultivate a culture that evolves in the capacity to live the fullness of our essence, the fullness of our presence? 

• Sense into an experience where you have felt the fullness of your presence next to the fullness of the presence of another human or other than human being - essence meeting essence. What do you notice? What enabled this? How can this experience nourish and inform your pathway forward?

• Invite in, one by one, the presence of the foundations of Life, Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Climate, Biodiversity and the Web of Life.  Sense into the the vibrational quality of each and how they inform your own vibrational field through their presence in your consciousness. How would you like to bring each of these qualities into your own field as you cultivate the fullness of your own presence in the world?

• As you expand your sense of the interconnectedness of all of Life, and the consciousness of all beings, how would you like to cultivate your own presence in relation to our other-than human kin? Perhaps you have a call to nourish greater connectedness with a specific Tree or Water body, Animal or Crystal. Sense into how you can offer this being your presence in a fuller way and experience their presence in a fuller way. 

• What do these questions inspire in you, and how can you take some of the insights into your life as you embark on the journey of Return to Essence?