Spirituality Matters

• The Voice of the Village • 27 February – 5 March 2020 MONTECITO JOURNAL 27 1218 State Street 805-770-8300 | 805-452-2692 | www.tmollie.com BlissSing is a Rebirthing Spirituality Matters by Steven Libowitz “Spirituality Matters” highlights two or three Santa Barbara area spiritual gatherings. Unusual themes and events with that something extra, especially newer ones looking for a boost in attendance, receive special attention. For consideration for inclusion in this column, email slibowitz@yahoo.com. S anta Barbara singer-songwriter Noell Grace’s evenings of original chants and simple songs have returned to her hearth and home for monthly gatherings. The events were originally private satsangs that morphed into Spirit Sings held at her home before expanding into fully public events at Yoga Soup a few years back. The gatherings came to a close when Grace moved to Arkansas in 2018 for what turned into only a brief relocation.

Back in town for good, Grace has reconfigured the events again as BlissSing, calling in the boundless joy, love and life of our Holy Spirit together in call-and-response singing of Grace’s ever-increasing catalog of songs and chants, designed to invoke our Divine Life through ecstatic song. The chants are mostly in English, with a dash of Sanskrit, Aramaic and other languages, and there’s room to dance when the spirit moves. Fellow like-minded travelers are welcome to “bless and bliss yourself and your world” with the love songs to, and as, Divine Presence, all beings and beloved Mother Earth in “a safe, freeing space to express the holy fire of our wild hearts ‘til bliss is vibrating our bones.”

BlissSing takes place every fourth Thursday of the month – the second event is on February 27 – at Arden House, Grace’s home on Arden Road just off De La Vina Street. Admission by donation. Email Noell.Grace@ gmail.com or call (805) 403-1063 for details. Mindfulness for the Yoga Practitioner Barbara Rose Sherman is a Yoga Alliance Experienced Registered Yoga Teacher 500 who is also a Trained Mindfulness Facilitator through the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior and a UCLA Mindful Awareness Practices Affiliated Teacher. Now she’s bringing her experience in drawing from the two spiritual practices to a teacher training weekend available to all in Santa Barbara.

The course, which is a component of the Santa Barbara Yoga Center’s advanced studies and teacher training programs but open to anyone, will impart principles of mindfulness to make for better teachers and students of life by providing tools and skills to become more resilient to stress. Participants will gain immediate access to your own powerful inner resources for insight and healing, learn to enjoy the present moment, and experience more peace, calm, and happiness. Saturday of the two-day training explores “Why Mindfulness?”, how to develop Presence and Attunement, how to use breath as a meditation anchor, how to uncover and understand common issues affecting teachers and students, and develop compassion and self-compassion practices. Day 2 is conducted as a mindfulness retreat mostly in silence while participants learn how to teach various mindfulness meditations and practices, including opportunities to practice leading a mindfulness meditation and/or teaching the seated and lying down body scan.

Mindfulness for the Yoga Practitioner, which costs $295, takes place 10:30 am to 4:30 pm on Saturday, February 29, and 9 am to 3 pm on Sunday, March 1, at the Santa Barbara Yoga Center. More MAPS

Sherman, who has facilitated twenty-three yoga-meditation retreats in Montecito before La Casa de Maria fell victim to the 2018 mudslide, will also lead a “MAPs I for Daily Living,” her first offering of the introductory course from acclaimed, scientifically-based UCLA program here in town since last summer. The MAPs I course provides insight into the basics of mindfulness, how to develop a mindfulness meditation practice, and how mindfulness can be applied in daily life. It is also appropriate for experienced practitioners who wish to revitalize their practice. The six-week class series – taking place Thursday evenings in downtown Santa Barbara March 5 to April 9 – is open to everyone interested in reducing stress and becoming more present by cultivating a personal meditation practice. Each class is a combination of lecture, practice, group feedback, and discussion. Admission is $200. Email Sherman at Barbara@ MindfulBusinessWorks.com, call (805) 569-5659, or visit https://www.face book.com/events/184220588892328. I AM Love Ceremony Shining Lion (aka Shane Rilling) and the Ojai-based World Peace Tribe guide a sacred ceremony to cultivate more love within this weekend at a private estate in Montecito. The event – in which the sacraments include Sacred Honey Bee, Mycelium, Cacao, Hape, Essential Oils, and more – is intended to cultivate community and create an energy field to cultivate love, joy, gratitude, forgiveness, compassion, flow, and prayers for all life. The estate boasts sprawling gardens that will inspire the heart to fully express its magic in its fullness, while all are invited to bring flowers, crystals, or other sacred items to be placed on the Altar.

The I AM Love Ceremony, hosted by Ascension Academy, takes place 1:11-11:11 pm on Saturday, February 29, and costs $188. Message Ascension Academy on Meetup (www.meetup. com/Santa-Barbara-Kundalini-Yogaand-Meditation-Meetup-Group/ events/268120955) or contact shineril ling@gmail.com for more information and required pre-registration.

Ascension Academy also hosts its weekly Meditation & Breathework Practice at Lower Manning Park - Area 9 from 10-11:30 am on Sunday. The events focus on learning the basic techniques of meditation and breathwork and how to incorporate meditation and its techniques into our daily lives, and includes guided meditation and a sound healing immersive experience. Admission by suggested $10- $20 donation. More Montecito Meetups

Santa Barbara Buddhist Meditation, which holds regular meditation and other gatherings at the American Buddhist Temple in Goleta as well as various Montecito locations and elsewhere, has a special offering for this Saturday night. Its Once-in-a-LeapYear Forest Retreat is a three-hour excursion at La Cumbre Peak designed to briefly isolate participants from the “busyness,” noise and clutter of our daily lives. Other than brief opening and closing remarks, including general orientation of the area, the retreat will consist of silent individual sitting and walking meditation practice in the forest and around the crags on and near the summit of the mountain. While group practice is not necessarily discouraged, this forest retreat is envisioned as an ideal time to go off and be alone in silence with only the trees and the wind. Meet on East Camino Cielo at the gate just below the very top of the mountain for the event, which begins at 9 pm on Leap Year night, Saturday, February 29.

Santa Barbara Buddhist Meditation also returns to Vedanta Temple (927 Ladera Lane) for its monthly Half Moon Morning Retreat at 8 am on Monday, March 2. Visit www.meetup.com/Santa-Barbara-BuddhistMeditation. •MJ