Online with Jeannie Zandi

Jeannie invites participants to explore “I am and it’s like this” -- letting oneself have the direct experience of being and then of everything that arises. Jeannie points participants toward noticing presence, away from the pull to go to the everyday mind, to rest as the noticing and let the rest float by. She explores growing roots into being as a place to rest before taking action. 

Exchanges

Exchange 1: Participant talks about the awe and wonder that seems to come pure noticing of sensation from an awakened mind. Jeannie suggests direct experiencing involves the right brain and a sense of fresh and new. Participant asks about the feeling of needing to justify their existence or become something specific. Jeannie identifies this pull as early conditioning and talks about rooting down beneath the patterning, where the fullness of our being is enough. Taking risks to rest outside our conditioned patterns can invite fear to rise and be digested

Exchange 2: Participant was touched by the meditation, and experiences a difficulty loving themself because of conditioned self evaluation. They explore with Jeannie how to soften open and turn to the open heart. 

Exchange 3: Participant explores grieving the war through tears, and Jeannie talks about wrestling with one of the most challenging questions on earth - how the open heart can regard suffering. The tender heart can look straight at things and let itself break. 

Exchange 4: Participant talks about Ukrainian and Jewish heritage in light of current events. Jeannie talks about a new model of responding to war/tragedies that is rooted in unity, not division. The “yes” or righteous “no” of the heart is important, but how do you move from that no, how do you stretch to another being who’s doing something you’re saying a no to? This is something humanity is confused about as a collective. Jeannie suggests finding support from other Jews of Ukrainian descent to get some company in her experience. She assures participant that Presence includes what arises in the present to be digested in light of the current challenges. 

Exchange 5: A poem by Chelan Harkin read by participant.

Exchange 6: Participant feels overwhelmed, exhausted and depleted, feels they become someone at school that feels far from who they are. Jeannie validates that this in itself can be exhausting and normalizes the challenge to crack open to one's true being and then try to live that in the world. Participant feels the need to stop something, but she doesn't know what. Jeannie encourages them to stay for now with the sense "I have to stop" which is a knowing, and that not knowing how yet is not a failing, but something that will come in time. 

Sponsored by Open Circle