Dear Awakening Ones,

There was a powerful conference call with all the Wisdom Keepers of Watersongline (click here for more information) this afternoon initiated by Omileye.  And I took my place.  We joined hands and I no longer feel overwhelmed.  My heart is full.  I am sending this energy to you.  The elder and Wisdom Keeper, Credo Mutwa gave wonderful guidance (from South Africa in the early morning there) for the upcoming ceremony and notes might be sent to us before the ceremony (not sure).  If you don’t know Credo Mutwa please google him as he is the elder for this ceremony.

Wear white, bring offerings such as a piece or pieces of fruit, bring flowers, and a bundle of wood if you can.  We will begin at 6:00 pm but come early as possible.  Go to San Francisco Ocean Beach.  Enter onto the beach at gateway/pit 18.

Gatekeepers, Firekeepers, Prayer leaders, Helpers, and anyone who would like to help should arrive by 5:00 pm or 5:30 pm at the latest.   Below is a skeleton of the ceremony. Thank you for joining me.

bows to you,

Zenju

Lighting of the Lights Ceremony in San Francisco on June 5th –

Guided by Zenju Earthlyn Manuel

Intention: Bringing compassion and feminine divine into the era.  Credo Mutwa says it is time to stand and bring a rain of peace to bring all nations together and to leave our unconsciousness and darkness behind. Venus will rebirth on 10th of June as the Morning Star bringing a new Earth plan. The ceremony is important to the new Earth plan.

June 4th – Pray along with Omileye as she lights sixteen sacred fires being lit.  Sixteen traditional calabashes for the ceremony will be prepared by Omileye for each of the Wisdom Keepers and laid upon the altar in South Carolina.

June 5th – Zenju prays before sun comes up and aligns with her ancestors. Pray and divine with Oshun.

June 5th –  Afternoon – Gather gatekeepers and firekeepers, helpers, prayer leaders. Travel in pray to the site.

We will enter the Gateway at 4:30 pm

Once at the site an altar is erected near the fire pit and prayed upon before folks arrive

Fire:

• We hope to have enough wood for the entire ceremony beginning 4:30 p.m. until around 7:30 p.m.
• Asking that everyone brings a bundle of wood
• Light Fire between 5:30 and 6 p.m.
• Offer medicine to the fire.
• Firekeepers keep fire going and pray over it.

Gatekeeper:

• Medicine people, will carry medicines (Cedar, Sage, sage)
• Welcome people to the space, Sage those entering the space
• Direct people in rows for the offerings to the Mother and gatekeepers will lead folks to the water
• Others will be singing Imanja (Ghanian water song) along with the drummers
• Make sure that everyone stays with their group for the offering; to wait if necessary  (make sure they are not
• Look out for:  Drinking, Smoking, est. Please ask to remove themselves until done then can enter the space. We want to welcome all with courtesy.

Prayer:

• Zenju will begin a prayer with the fire and the importance of the ceremony
• After we will have a Four Direction Prayer and Song along with drumming
• Lynn-North, Atava-South, Zenju-West, Simbwala-East, Zenju – above and below

Drumming:

• African Drumming will begin after the Fire is lit
• Round Native Drum with the Four Direction song/prayer
• There will be select drumming in the beginning with Mar Stevens, Zenju and Simbwala
• At the end of the ceremony drumming will be open to anyone with a drum

DANZA Azteca Nanahuatzin

•  Will arrive around 5:45 pm

• Begin dance as they settle by the water, Aztec drumming and dancing, prayer and offering after the fire prayer

Offering

• Gatekeepers and firekeepers. etc.  will be the first to give offerings and prayer to the water.
• We will line up in rows and begin singing water song with hand dancing.
• Once offering is complete the line moves to the LEFT
• After we give our offerings turn around to continue to hold the space for the rest
• We will sing until offerings are made and as long as others want to pray
• Once we feel everyone is done will give our last offerings to the fire and complete the ceremony with Drumming that is open to all

My name was divined and therefore I was invited by Wisdom Keeper, Yeye Omileye Achikeobi – Lewis, to be one of many Wisdom Keepers (click here to see the other Wisdom Keepers) for the WaterSongLine’s Lighting of Lights ceremonies (click here for details).  Each Wisdom Keeper and Wisdom Holder will conduct a ceremony in their region of the world starting June 5th – June 6th.

The ceremony has been timed with the famous Venus Transit which happens only once every 150 years. The transit marks the coming in of the cosmic feminine energy of love, compassion, cooperation, and earth renewal. Astrology tells us it is important for all to pray at this time. The ceremony falls on the date of World Environmental Day and two days latter is  World Ocean Day. How auspicious! We honor both these days, as well.

I will lead a ceremony on Tuesday, June 5th, San Francisco Ocean Beach at fire pit 18 at 6:00 pm.  Wear white or mostly white, bring fruit and/or flowers as offerings and one bundle of wood if you can.  Most of all bring your open hearts and prayers.  If you feel called to participate please let us know by contacting me through this website at click here for contact page (zenjuearthlynmanuel.com).

The Lighting of the Lights Ceremony is  a collaborative effort between the Humanity4Water Campaign & Awards, the  Center of Sacred Studies and The  International Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers.  NOTE:  The thirteen grandmothers will hold their ceremonies in the part of the country in which they are currently staying and all other wisdom keepers will do the same.  They will NOT physically be at the ceremony at San Francisco Ocean Beach.

May you too be called,

Zenju Earthlyn Manuel

(video produced by :zenju earthlyn manuel, music by Choying Drolma & Steve Tibbetts)

Through intensive trainings, Still Breathing assists African American women who have experienced trauma  in bringing forth a new whole self, allowing the long awaited opportunity for true nature to come through. We will be using imagery (the Black Angel Cards), culturally relevant meditation and mindfulness practices, applying  food as medicine, and establishing a walking the earth practice.

Historically, African Americans in the United States have been subject to trauma through systemic oppression stemming from slavery. Today, the impact of such history (as recently researched) can be linked to the overwhelmingly representation of African Americans in the categories of life-threatening diseases and catastrophic deaths in this country. In addition, African Americans continue to suffer trauma in great percentages due to violence and poverty. The Still Breathing Project views trauma as a human condition that arises from seeing one’s life as shattered by one or more uncontrollable events or the result of major shifts in foundations of survival. Specifically, to African Americans trauma can be accumulated, generational and ancestral. In the context of Buddhist teachings a life may be experienced as “shattered” but that life is still intact.  Despite the validity of the traumatic experience, it is the mind and body, which holds the memories of the events that is at the root of a person’s “great” suffering.

In trauma survivors, they often feel inadequate or not capable of handling life.  For African Americans there may be a pre-existing mindset of inadequacy derived from oppression.  When trauma occurs this inadequacy is exponentially increased. In this inadequate place the capacity for healing is diminished. In Still Breathing a participant is taught that despite the trauma we have the breath, our bodies, our lives to awaken our own healing wisdom. We are born adequate, well equipped. This is our true nature but we cannot see obstructions to that nature.  Through distilling the pure essence of the mind, using the trauma, participants are led closer to the true nature of their lives. There may also be a sense among African Americans that the trauma is permanent sense it pervades the urban community in which most black people live.  Still Breathing provides an experiential training that can reveal the fallacy of that view of life and re-instate the possibilities of change and transformation.

Still Breathing creates a sanctuary for African American women in order to provide the safety needed to embark upon practices that may be new and different. The sanctuary can then be instilled within and used as they walk in the world.  The sanctuary is also used to assist in re-establishing trust. This sanctuary will also be part of the website in which trainees, past and present, can share and support each other.

Symbolic wellness ceremonies will be created by the women and used to release or manifest what they need in their lives.  Ritual and ceremony are critical to wellness among African Americans.

In the Still Breathing Project participants will spend three weekends spread over three months (one group of 20 in Winter and another group of 20 in Spring 2013). They are then taught how to train others in the same modalities so that the training is spread into the participants’ families and communities and the participants do not become dependent on the project or the project staff.

If you are interested in hearing more about the use the contact form below:

ZAZEN – The word used in the Soto Zen Buddhist tradition

Osho on Zazen Meditation : Let me explain to you what zazen is. Zazen is a deep unoccupiedness — not doing anything outwardly, not doing anything inwardly. It is not even meditation because when you meditate you are making some sort of effort, you are trying to do something: chanting a mantra, remembering God, or even remembering yourself.

But these efforts create ripples, these efforts create vibrations and your sitting becomes corrupted. Then your sitting is not innocent. Zazen means: sit, and just sit, nothing else. There is no doing on the part of the body, no doing on the part of the mind. It’s a state of non-doing. That does not mean that you are fast asleep, because sleep is a doing. That does not mean that you are dead, because if you are dead you cannot just sit.

That simply means that you are tremendously alive, intensely alive, a fire of being, but not moving anywhere — a reservoir of energy in a deep awaiting. You are just waiting for something to happen, not even expecting, because expectation will again create a ripple of thought and the mind will start functioning. Everything is suspended. You breathe, and that’s all that you do. But that is not a doing, because breathing goes on its own accord.

You have not to do anything but just sit silently. It is said about Bodhidharma that he sat for nine years facing the wall of his cave. The story says that his legs withered away. Nine years sitting silently, not doing anything: he was not chanting a mantra, he was not remembering any God, he was not doing any prayer. He was just sitting, facing a wall. His legs withered away. It is very significant, because legs are symbolic of activity, of movement. All movement disappeared.

Whether his legs actually withered away or not is not the point. The point is that all movement disappeared. The consciousness became an unmoving reservoir of energy, just pure energy not going anywhere. Then came his first disciple, because he would not accept any disciple unless he showed a tremendous intensity to follow. Hui Kujo came. It is said that he cut off his hand and offered it to Bodhidharma, and said,’Turn towards me, otherwise I will cut off my head.’

Bodhidharma had to turn. That was the first movement he had made in nine years. He said,’Wait — so the man has come to whom I can deliver my message.’ Again it may or it may not be that the disciple offered his hand. Again, it is a symbol: hands mean activity. Legs mean movement, hands mean activity. With activity offered, only then is being revealed. Bodhidharma gave his message, his all, to this man who had symbolically shown that he was ready to lose activity.

When Jesus said to his disciples,’Sit ye here,’ he meant zazen: that,’You simply sit and wait, because a tremendous event is on the way. Something is going to happen that I will never be repeated again in the whole history of man. Something unrepeatable, something unique is on the way. You wait, sit, and watch. Don’t make any movement, because even a slight movement of thought, emotion, body, and you may miss the point.

The son of man is going to be delivered to God. The son of man is going to disappear, and the son of God is going to appear. The greatest event ever is going to happen: sit ye here.’ And the word ‘here’ is also very, very meaningful.’Sitting’ shows: don’t move in space, and ‘here’ shows: don’t move in time. Just be here, now — no movement in space, no movement in time.

It would have been easier for the disciples — because it was late and they were tired of the whole day’s celebration, activities, and they would have liked to fall asleep — it would have been easier if they had been allowed to walk around. They would have kept awake. But Jesus said,’Sit. SIT HERE, don’t walk around. Don’t move in space and don’t move in time.’

The body moves in space; mind moves in time. Body is part of space, mind is part of time. Jesus says,’Sit — here.’ By sitting, you stop the movement in space; by being here, just being here, you stop the movement of mind. This is the whole meaning of zazen. If it can be rightly interpreted, Jesus said to his disciples: Do zazen…

From his talk at the French Retreat – March 2011

Thich Nhat Hanh teaches that one’s presence is one’s love.  At a retreat he offered five gifts you can verbalize to yourself, to a friend, to the moon, the earth, the sangha, or with whom and with whatever you are cultivating interrelationship.  They are especially helpful when you struggle with others or when a group is struggling.  Find a time to give these gifts:

1.  My dear, I am here for you.

2. My dear, I know you are there

3.  My dear, I know you suffer and that’s why I’m here for you.  I offer you my presence.

4.( a.) My dear, I am suffering (can add the suffering here, anger, sadness, etc.) and I want you to know. (b.) My dear I am doing my best.  I’m a practitioner; (c.) Please help me because I have not been able to free myself of this alone.  [Note: the other person may ask, what did I say, what did I do? That is meditation says Thich Nhat Hanh–when one asks the questions.  If you come through suffering with someone or others, let them know.  We often do not tell them I am fine now.]

5. This is a happy moment. [Note:  having presence is a happy moment. Feel the joy.

Try this in your next group meeting, sangha meeting, or  with friends.  Dyads are good.

The mind and the body is our household. If this inner household is not in order, no outer household can be in order.  The one we live and work in is dependent on the order that we have created in our own inner household…the one in charge has to be in the best possible condition.

Nothing in the whole universe is comparable to the mind or can take its place.  Everything is mind-made.

To meditate is to look after the mind. Our mind, that unique tool in all the universe, is the only one we have. If we owned a fine tool we would obviously look after it. We’d polish it and remove any rust. We’d sharpen it, we’d oil it, and we’d test it from time to time. Here we have this marvelous tool with which everything can be accomplished, including enlightenment, and it’s up to us to learn to look after it.  It won’t function properly otherwise.

—-Ayya Khema- From Being Nobody, Going Nowhere

In becoming forcibly and essentially aware of my mortality, and of what I wished and wanted for my life, however short it might be, priorities and omissions became strongly etched in a merciless light, and what I most regretted were my silences.  Of what had I ever been afraid?  To question or to speak as I believed could have meant pain, or death.  But we all hurt in so many different ways, all the time, and pain will either change or end.  Death, on the other hand, is the final silence.  And that might be coming quickly, now, without regard for whether I had ever spoken what needed to be said, or had only betrayed myself into small silences, while I planned someday to speak, or waited for someone else’s words.  And I began to recognize a source of power within myself that comes from the knowledge that while it is most desirable not to be afraid, learning to put fear into a perspective gave me great strength.  I was going to die, if not sooner then later, whether or not I had ever spoken myself.  My silences have not protected me.

Audre Lorde–From Sister Outsider (page 41)

There are some folks for whom openness is not about the luxury of “will I choose to share this or tell that,” but rather, “will I survive—will I make it through—will I stay alive?” And openness is about how to be well and telling the truth is about how to put the broken bits and pieces of the heart back together again.  It is about being whole, being wholehearted.

bell hooks – From Sisters of the Yam ( page 29)

Epilogue by Manha Ensemble  - 

Enmei Jukku Kannon Gyo by  Mountains and Rivers Order of Zen Buddhism in New York-

From the author of Tell Me Something About Buddhism (foreword written by Thich Nhat Hanh) comes another straight forward and simple book. How can we BE LOVE instead of craving it? This simple book explores that question and presents Four Paths of Being Love based in Buddhist teachings. Guaranteed to make you re-think love and transform your expression of it.  Available through Amazon.com or Smashwords.com

Often I am asked how do I integrate my work as a Zen Priest and my work as a diviner and holder of the Black Angel Cards.  I recognize it as a question that comes from the tendency to view things as separate.  It also comes from a curiosity of how one can embrace their whole life—every aspect.

First it is important to note that the Black Angel Cards, a deck of illustrated divination and healing cards that I brought through in 1996, came in a spiritual lucid dream during my first seven years of walking the path of Buddha’s teachings. As I walk the path of Buddha’s teachings the desire for healing intensified.  At the same time chanting and meditation, without reaching to accomplish anything, enhanced my awareness, developed a deeper heart knowing, and opened me to the dialogue of body sensations that signaled the arrival of profound wisdom from here and beyond the physical world.  The awareness enabled me to enter unexplored realms of existence that are unexplainable and meant to be so.  As the volume of confusion was turned down the volume of my true voice increased.

In February 1996 I had a lucid spiritual dream revealing that untouched place of suffering within and affirmed that not all of me had suffered at the hand of hate and harmful acts.  I was not completely wounded.  There was great light inside bursting through small openings.  The dream itself was an expression of that light– that fire.

The dream was about angels of which I had no particular interest.  The angels in the dream were healers delivering messages to me as I wallowed in a dangerous place of suffering. They were unlike any angels I had ever seen or heard of.  They were not the angels of a specific religion or tradition. They were not of this earth. They were free from intellectual meaning. They were dark, filled with light. They were a community of spirits, guiding light, in the darkness. They came from my dream world to awaken a dormant place within.  The dormancy had created an inability to connect to people and brought on feelings of wanting to end my life.  The dream brought healing waters to my fire and saved my life.  I shared the dream and the manifestation of the dream in the Black Angel cards with many around the world, including Trinidad, Brazil, Canada, England, and of course the United States.

Before the dream, without question or doubt of my actions I dug my feet into the earth of Buddha’s teachings while chanting and meditating.  I came to the temple to heal, not be calm or quiet.  In the temple, with my feet planted, I felt the root of all that I had suffered.  My feet remained buried next to those roots until the earth opened up into a canyon a million miles wide.

Today, I sit in that canyon with my gift to see clearly the present and the affects the past has had on it. The true opening of the eyes Buddha speaks of occurred in my life and continues.  With opened eyes, not the physical eyes but the ones you cannot see, I respond to requests for readings with the Black Angel Cards, which I refer to as divinations.  Divination goes further than a psychic reading in that in a divining session with me you are attuning to the nature of your life, to who you are.  You are coming aware of overlooked wounding.  I do not so much predict the outcome of earthly matters but help to create an understanding of suffering and how the earthly matters have come to be.  Your ancestors that attend the readings assist me.  I hear and see them, without my ears and eyes.  I assist and join many with crossing the bridge between the seen and the unseen worlds.  I help and join many with learning how to develop their own heart attunement to life and the world around them.  To tune into the wisdom and not the chaos, so that the chaos can be responded to in a state of well-being.

In divining I see the connection of human beings across generations, gender, race, etc.  I see our wounding and I am glad to be trained in using the breath to sit with such wounding.

In essence my work as a priest is as a diviner. I am neither Zen teacher nor guru. I am of the earth that feeds me.  I imagine that is the reason my mother named me Earthlyn, despite the fact that she had no idea of what to name me when I was born.  So, I left the hospital without a name.  Several days later she name me Earthlyn, without knowing where the name came from or the meaning of it.

When I received my vows as a priest I was given the name Ekai Zenju (Ocean of wisdom, Complete Tenderness).  I use Zenju (as instructed), meaning complete tenderness, because it is a name and essence I must work at.  A Zen teacher gave it to me because I was not tender and yet she saw that I was. As the tenderness became a divine work, my nature as a diviner has seasoned.

I trust that my relationship with my work in the world as diviner it is complete aligned with the ancient esoteric traditions of many Buddhist practices and Zen.  It is my personal path to sit in the Zen temple, where I wear robes, to continue cultivating integrity, tenderness, and purifying my heart-mind of confusion, and trusting that my work as a diviner will season because of it.

I bow to you and I stand with you.  May all that you have come to do on the earth unfold before your eyes.

By Rev. Zenju Earthlyn Manuel

May all beings be cared for and loved,

Be listened to, understood and acknowledged despite different views,

Be accepted for who they are in this moment,

Be afforded patience,

Be allowed to live without fear of having their lives taken away or their bodies violated.

May all beings,

Be well in its broadest sense,

Be fed,

Be clothed,

Be treated as if their life is precious,

Be held in the eyes of each other as family.

May all beings,

Be appreciated,

Feel welcomed anywhere on the planet,

Be freed from acts of hatred and desperation including war, poverty, slavery, and street crimes,

Live on the planet, housed and protected from harm,

Be given what is needed to live fully, without scarcity,

Enjoy life, living without fear of one another,

Be able to speak freely in a voice and mind of undeniable love.

May all beings,

Receive and share the gifts of life,

Be given time to rest, be still, and experience silence.

May all beings,

Be awake.