SacredSpace: Cultivating Restfulness

Dear Reader.

Welcome to SacredSpace.

Today's letter

Cultivating Restfulness

Below you will find:

QUOTE

GUIDING QUESTIONS

A RITUAL OF REST

MY JOURNEY

SPOTLIGHT & UPDATES

With love,

Noelle

QUOTE

How can you find that sense of self that is open and sees potential and possibility in any situation?

Resting your attention is key. Resting attention is open attention.

It means being fully present with your experience.

-from Spontaneous Creativity by Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

GUIDING QUESTIONS

Do you value rest?

What practices do you have to cultivate rest in your day-to-day life?

What does restfulness feel like in your body?

What is the role of rest in movements for liberation?

A RITUAL OF REST

Releasing Attachments: Finding Freedom and Joy

a guided mediation by Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

If possible, take time both before and after the meditation to be in silence for a while. After the meditation, continue to cultivate resting attention & open awareness. What emerges for you? If you feel inspired, take some time to intuitively draw any visions, experiences or reflections that emerged during your meditation.

As always, feel free to share any experiences / art / reflections with me!

MY JOURNEY

‘My journey’ shares some of my practice creating sacred space in my everyday life. In sharing aspects of my intimate, inner world, my hope is to support you in connecting with the vulnerable, sometimes hidden spaces within your own being.

In my life, meditation continues to be one of the most profound practices for me to cultivate rest. I question whether I have the right to rest or to write about rest at this moment, when there is so much urgency & need to take action right now, for Palestine and for our world. And yet, I trust, with great devotion, that practicing the art of restful awareness as essential in this time. Perhaps rest, along with care, is one of the foundational tenets of building new world visions.

Rest is a sovereign energy to respect, listen to and lean into, to support freedom for all beings.

a buddha statue from Serenity Ridge Retreat Center

I know rest isn't always easy. It's not about escaping. It's not even necessarily about sleeping. Or stopping. Or disengaging. For me - rest is about creating spaciousness & quietness in our inner world & body.

From this place of rest, we can cultivate the open awareness, the natural state of presence and care from which we engage, make decisions & take actions.

a post-meditation drawing: RESTING UNDERGROUND.

When resting in meditation, some of the embodied experiences that have surfaced recently....

I feel the fragility of sacred aliveness

The horror in Palestine. Hold space for it in my heart. Not run from it. Honor the lives, the lineages, the beings, the spirits, the land. The unfathomable violence. It feels too big to hold. Come back to spaciousness. Breathe in spaciousness. Allow the tears to express. Grieving all the horrors. Again. And again. And again. Everyday. Prayers honoring the infinite sacredness of all Palestinian life.

Heartache. An ache to change the atrocities of the world, with every fabric of my being.

Listening to what lives beneath the grasping and aversion of my mind.

I feel the sacred geometry of the Bön mantras. As light, entering my cells. Reshaping my inner world.

Creating spaciousness to feel all of it. The layers of experiences. Matrescence. Caregiving. Chasing time. Heat in my chest. The subtle pains in my body. The infinite love in my heart.

Feeling embraced by the lineage.

New SACRED patterns honoring LIFE emerging from our collective movements

Feeling there is not enough time. Space. Energy. To offer what I hope to offer to life AND Releasing the colonial / patriarchal / capitalist 'not enough patterns' that have entered my bones and heart. Shifting the view.

My love of caring for my daughter & her caring for me. Grateful for how she helps me see time and presence in brand new ways. Each rock. Each stick. Each moment. Sacred. Full of aliveness. A gift. This journey teaching me what collective care could look like.

Gratitude.

image from Atelier Assaf, Chouf mountains, Lebanon

What are some of your experiences with rest? Your visions, struggles and joys? Would love to hear from you!

SPOTLIGHT

Spontaneous Creativity by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

Founder and spiritual director of Ligmincha International, Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche is a respected and beloved teacher and meditation master of Yungdrung Bön, the indigenous spiritual tradition of Tibet.

His recent book, Spontaneous Creativity looks at creativity through a wide lens: as a dynamic force that animates us and connects us with every being on the planet. From this perspective, creativity is not just a spark igniting the fire of inspiration. It is a way of living spontaneously from the sacred space within us.

UPDATES

Later this month, I am traveling to Dearborn, Michigan to take part in ten day residency for the development of The Magic Bullet at the Arab-American National Museum, with LubDub Theatre, and our incredible team of co-creators. The Magic Bullet is inspired by historical accounts of the marabouts—Sufi leaders who animated Algeria’s revolt against French colonial rule—and French stage magician Robert-Houdin, who crossed the Mediterranean to prove the “superiority” of European conjuring.

Drawing on archival sources, ritual, original writing, stage magic, and documentary filmmaking, The Magic Bullet offers an overlapping, intersecting sea of stories unfolding across space and time, defying a global legacy of colonization and reclaiming the liberatory potential of magic.

photo: in a Magic Bullet workshop with Caitlin Nasema Cassidy, Mohamed Yabdri, Robert Duffley, Geoff Kanick and Ismail Khalidi. photo by Bjorn Bolinder.

On January 13th, Two weeks ago, I was honored to take part in the Cultural Resistance March, and share words about The Freedom Theatre in Jenin Refugee Camp, Occupied Palestine.

The Cultural Resistance March was co-sponsored by Noor Theatre, Friends of the Jenin Freedom Theatre, Al Límite Collective, Queers for a Liberated Palestine, Writers Against the War on Gaza & Theatre of the Oppressed NYC.

Noelle Ghoussaini

SacredSpace: Cultivating Restfulness

SacredSpace: Openhearted Presence with Transformation

SacredSpace: A Guided Meditation

SacredSpace: Lineage