Cary is available to travel to your center to teach. She can give personal consultations, intensives or any of the following retreats below. She is also open to requests if there is a something particular you would like her to offer.
Opening to our Primordial Nature and the Heart of Bodhicitta
Dharma retreat
We often respond to life from our fears, wounded material and the unconscious aspect of our psyches. We need to know how to hold ourselves with much more acceptance, care and deep love so that we might open out of our fearful contracted state and access more of our creative potential in life. We are caught in an epidemic of striving and are never fully present in the moment at hand. As a result, we aren't allowing the greater flow to guide us and we forget that we are held always by something greater than ourselves.
In this retreat Cary will be guiding us towards the Natural State, the ground of Being. We will be introduced to Bodhichitta, the Awakened Heart, the source of all healing qualities. Through sitting meditation we will become aware of the internal experiences that are constantly arising and allow ourselves to meet these experiences openly, fearlessly and with huge Heart. We will practice resting in Open Presence with the sensations, thoughts and feelings that are continually arising and will be guided through movement to recognize and open to our own healing capacity following what the body needs to regain balance and ease. We will learn about the deep subtle channels in the body and how to clear these channels as a support to freeing up the habitual patterns that keep us from relaxing into openhearted compassion, care and acceptance for ourselves and others.
These sessions include:
- Guided meditation practice and teachings that are directly applicable to daily life.
- Guided movement to unwind and free the tensions, blockages and held emotions that prevent us from being fully present and comfortable in our bodies and the moment.
- Breathing practice that is essential to reach the root of all our emotional, physical and psychic imbalances.
- Dialogue and talks on Dharma and walking our individual path to the Heart.
- Support in opening to deep and loving self acceptance.
This weekend will be an opportunity to relax into an open space where healing occurs. It is here we begin to experience ourselves as more than our limited fears, contractions, deep insecurities and confusion; here we open to our humanity and our Wholeness.
Nourishing the Spirit of Our Ancestors:
Ritual and Practice for Healing the Ancestral and Collective Spirit
Cary will be guiding us through practice to embrace the light and the dark side of our own lineage through ritual, sacred chant, meditation and personal engagement, accepting our strengths as well as our personal struggles in order to bring a sense of peace and wholeness.
Honoring our ancestors is one of the first steps in reclaiming our spiritual
heritage. As we begin to work with the material of our own ancestral line, we may unblock aspects of our own psyche that have been unavailable to us or held in the unconscious. As we begin to allow for opening and healing in ourselves we can begin to reconcile the ways in which we have carried some of the challenges and pain of our own familial line. We have largely forgotten the joy, love and wellness that are intrinsic to human nature.
Through ancestral memories we can recall the world's oldest rituals and ceremonies. These rites kept us connected to one another, to our lineage and the greater energies of the universe. Our ancestral lineage is not limited to those with whom we share a genetic heritage. Teachers, mentors and older friends who have inspired and shaped our lives may be included in the ritual honoring of our Ancestors. These practices connect us to those who sustain us with their spirit, support and energy and help us to remember them with the gratitude and respect that is essential to our interdependence.
Each year at this time the rituals for acknowledging and bringing healing to our familial and spiritual ancestors and ourselves are engaged and prayers are offered. These practices are traditionally done during the dark moon phase of the lunar month of Ashvina, which is an archetypal time of healing when the cosmic gateways are open and available for us to respectfully enter. Through these practices, we can bring healing and deep transformation to our conscious and unconscious ancestral memories. This practice is believed to nourish the subtle body of those we hold dear.
Ayurvedic Seasonal Juncture Retreats
The Seasonal Juncture is a two week time period marking the transition from one season to the next. According to Ayurveda, the juncture between seasons is a time when we become more open and vulnerable while we are responding to the fluctuation of our natural environment. This is also the time in which we actually become more grounded and clear if we know how to engage; it is a powerful time to release and clear that which is no longer beneficial and to allow what is healthful and creative to emerge as we open to the qualities that the next season brings.
Retreat Material:
The elemental characteristics of the season; the challenges and opportunities that each season presents to our maintaining health and balance. How to nourish ourselves with foods that will best support balanced health in each season; including recipes and preparation techniques. Specific guidance on how to care for our bodies through conscious movement and self-care during the season. Engaging our inner life and psychological material as we move with the cycles of the season. Connecting to the natural environment that we live with; recognizing the elemental qualities in relationship with our deeper vital energies.
Integrating the Feminine
Each year in the Fall there is a designated period in the Lunar Calendar that we can replenish ourselves through a process of engaging with the Feminine. This is the period of ten days each fall when the energies of evolved Feminine Consciousness are particularly available to us for a process of release, opening and renewal. Consciously engaging with these awakened energies is potentially a source of tremendous healing and transformation. Through mantra, offerings, prayer and celebration we can connect for the benefit of ourselves, all others and for the healing and transformation of our planet.
In this retreat Cary will introduce a relationship with the enlightened female Buddhas and their Archetypal qualities which represent and contain a channel for a transformed and evolved Feminine Consciousness, through which we can eventually reach a state of full awakening.
Experiencing Psyche and Entering the Unconscious
In this retreat, we will look at the Jungian understanding of the psyche. Through understanding Carl Jung's map of the psyche and the unconscious, we can come to know and understand ourselves more fully. Through the four functions of Thinking, Feeling, Sensation and Intuition, we are in constant relationship with our selves and our environment. We are called to work with the unconscious and in this retreat Cary will speak of why this is relevant in our lives.
This process is interactive and can be a deeply personal exploration of where we are functioning with ease and where in our lives that we struggle, get tripped up and suffer the most. Much of this is due to where we are less developed and aware. Cary will help us to understand our relationship with this deeply meaningful journey with the psyche and the unconscious.
Mahamudra Meditation & Movement
This is a meditation retreat in which we do sitting practice of Mahamudra meditation alternating with movement. We will engage the practice of settling deeply in the body and resting in bare open awareness, staying present with what is arising on the body, emotions and mind. We will interweave movement with our sitting practice or integrate more fully our experiences in meditation.
Meditation and Vedic Mantra
In this retreat, Cary will introduce meditation and the practice of Mantra within the Female lineage of Vedic Practice. We will deepen our practice of settling into Silence and grow in our ability to just Be. Cary will also teach us the practice of the fundamental Vedic prayers if her lineage and speak of the relevance and power of their presence as a base of practice.
Introduction to the Sadhana and Practices of Green Tara
Cary will introduce the female Buddha Green Tara and her meditation and practices. She will speak about why Tara is such a relevant female figure today and how engaging in her meditation affects our lives. In this retreat we will engage in meditation, mudra, visualization and recitation of Tara's Mantra. The sitting practice will be alternated with movement.
