August 30, 2021

The Heavy & The Light

States change; stay awake to that and change right along with them.

Be here with me, in the Truth.

Practices to support your life View this email in your browser     Me, yesterday. And… Me, just a few days ago: [picture not included] I totally lost it - like full-on meltdown, heaving-crying - while attempting (and failing) to fix a shoe rack inside of a closet that wasn’t even mine. It wasn’t the shoe rack that did me in, it was everything else. It was life. It was feeling totally and completely crushed by humanity; crushed by our capacity to cause so much pain; crushed by our inability to look or care or have concern for anything beyond ourselves.  The unconsciousness is so real and I feel how it shows up in me. I recognize it’s harmful ways.  And I know, even as much as I’ve worked, as much as I know the ways to become more conscious (and become more Consciousness and less me), how hard it is to stay there, to choose it over the ignorance-is-bliss mind-warp in which we are so habituated to function. Consciousness is a choice. Sometimes the choice is easy. Most of the time it feels hard. And sometimes it feels brutally difficult to even remember there’s a choice.  But there is. States change, stay awake to that and change right along with them.  Energies shift, stay awake to that and shift right along with them. Ease yourself back into this moment. Soften right back into whatever life is offering right now, in this very moment. Though life is hard, our separation from it is actually harder. There is lightness and possibility when we meet life as it is and as we are.   , Ellie    --------------------------   *Monday Meditation* 7:30-8pm via Zoom   The link to join is below:   Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89731541924?pwd=WTdsOGlsemRkaU1xbm43SDAycHRPUT09 Meeting ID: 897 3154 1924 Passcode: 874259 To join, please send a donation* via Venmo (@EllieBurkeLife) or PayPal (ellie@ellieburke.life) {donations generally range from $5-$20, please offer what you can} *donations to benefit BEAM: BEAM is a training, movement building and grant making organization dedicated to the healing, wellness and liberation of Black and marginalized communities.   -------------------------- *SPACE AVAILABLE*  Next Session Begins in September! Weekly Meditation & Coaching Group     image from Charlie Macksey's book The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse     I've opened up a few spots in my ongoing Weekly Meditation & Coaching Groups (what I like to refer to as "The School of Unlearning") - this is a rare opportunity to join, so please let me know if you are interested! We all have learned who to be, what to be, and how to be in this world. This conditioned way of operating in the world keeps us limited in our relationship to our life as it directs us, unconsciously, in the choices we make, the actions we take, and in what we believe about ourselves and the world. Through awareness-based coaching tools & practices, we have the chance to begin to undo the unconscious parts of ourselves that have us operating in a state of unrecognized reactivity to life. The support and presence of a group of committed peers helps guide individuals in personal growth and transformation. This is the School of Unlearning. No prior meditation experience necessary. Fall 12-Week Session Wednesdays, 1-2pm Sept 8, 15, 22, 29 Oct 6, 13, 20, 27 Nov 10, 17 Dec 1, 8 Cost: $225  (email me to discuss payment plans and/or need based-assistance)  Please email me to request a spot or to find out more info! -------------------------- SAVE-THE-DATE   Half-Day Silent Meditation Retreat February 12, 2022 9am-12:30pm Richmond, VA   Nothing has supported me in my life more than the direct teachings & guidance of my teacher. Nothing has shown me more about myself and no one has quite ever cut through my egoic material like she has. I would not be where I sit today without learning to sit with myself. Over the past decade, I have worked with her 1:1, sat for hundreds of hours of weekly meditations, and accumulated weeks of silent meditation retreats. And now, only now, am I ready to offer this to you... Though I always incorporated silence + meditation into my annual retreat, I will now begin to offer silent meditation retreats. It is an honor and a privilege. My next offering will be a Half-Day Silent Retreat: Saturday, February 12, 2022, 9am-12:30pm Richmond VA Sliding scale donations: $40-$125 If you’d like to learn more or would like to save your spot, please email me. Share Share Forward Copyright © 2019, Ellie Burke, LLC, All rights reserved. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list "Until we make the unconscious conscious it directs our life and we call it fate." {Carl Jung}

“If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.” {James Baldwin}