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The Inner Door Vol. 23 No. 3 August 2011

The Inner DoorGlobal Breathwork Day a Success!

Volume 23 Issue 3 ISSN# 1524-623X August 2011

A Publication of the Association for Holotropic Breathwork™ International

In This IssueArticles & NewsGlobal Breathwork Day: A Sharing from Spain by Guy James 1 Mission Accomplished: One Giant Leap in the Shared Vision

Moving Forward by Karey Pohn 1Stan Grof Returns to His Childhood Passion with Lillibit’s

Dream by Melody Sullivan 4A Sharing from Argentina by Ana Maria Aguirre 9 The Others by Laurane McGlynn 10A Sharing from Houston, Texas by Grace Victoria 10 A Sharing from Canada by Renn Butler 11A Sharing from Germany by Kenneth Sloan 11 From Romania with Love by Elena Francisc 12A Sharing from Oregon by Cynthia Kranich 12

ColumnsAHBI News 2

Global Breathwork Day: A Sharing from Spain by Guy James

I will take the opportunity to summarize my Holotropic Breath-work experience on June 11th in Barcelona, Spain. Please forgive its length, but I couldn’t edit it anymore! Here we go:

I had to kind of psych myself up before the session because I felt rather tired and unprepared, and once the music started, I felt a bit lost as if I didn’t have any issues to deal with, and there was none of the pressure I had felt in some of the previous sessions. The more I breathed, my body started stretching out and moving in time with the music, which was a very psychedelic set that one of the facilitators had gotten from a Mexican Holotropic Breathwork practitioner. I shouted a few times to wake myself up and bring my consciousness into the present moment.

After maybe half an hour, I had the image of a door and I sud-denly knew that this was an invitation to go through into another state of consciousness, but I also knew that I had to leave my ha-bitual self and my problems behind completely. I knew I could sit and think about problems forever, but I now had the choice to “get with the program” and leave all of that behind. There was a feel-ing of a very practical consciousness within giving me this choice.

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Mission Accomplished: One Giant Leap in the Shared Vision

Moving Forward by Karey Pohn

On June 11, 2006, AHBI hosted its first ever Open Space/Town Hall meeting in a virtual format on the Internet. That meeting gen-erated a new mission for AHBI and its vision for the future, and now 5 years later, synchronistically on the same day, over 1,000 people from all over the world joined together, participating in Global Breathwork Day. With the joint significant year birthdays of Stan who turned 80 and Christina, who will turn 70 later this year, as our motivation, we at AHBI envisioned many ways of cel-ebrating and giving back. One of them was Global Breathwork Day. Jim Garrison and Teresa Collins of Wisdom University co-sponsored the six-week Holotropic TeleSeries with a twist—the first telecourse from Wisdom University to feature a worldwide live experiential component embedded within it. And once again, the pioneering spirit of the Grofs was the inspiration.

This international event is a dream come true, long in the mak-ing, for many people associated with the Holotropic Breathwork community: Stan and Christina, the AHBI board members, past and present, the folks at GTT, facilitators worldwide, and many others who have shared the vision of and the potential for breath-work reaching a wider community. After an initial suggestion from Teresa Collins, Global Breathwork Day was the joint brainchild between Jim Garrison of Wisdom University and the AHBI Board, as we shared a vision of getting Stan and Christina’s work and Holotropic Breathwork in particular out to a larger audience. And we couldn’t have done it alone. Facilitators across the globe joined forces in 27 countries hosting 77 events. Over 400 people partici-pated in the Holotropic TeleSeries, with 20 different organizations acting as sponsors to get the word out.

Global Breathwork Day events were held in Argentina [6], Australia [3], Brazil, Canada [5], Chile [3], the Czech Republic, Denmark [2], Dubai, Egypt, France, Germany [3], Hungary, Indo-nesia, Ireland, Italy, Mexico [3], Norway, Paraguay, Romania, the Russian Federation [3], Slovenia, Spain [2], Sweden, Switzerland [2], the Ukraine, the United States [28 events in 18 states], and Uruguay [2]. This was a wonderful beginning, and on the AHBI side, it was made possible largely through the tireless work of Ken

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Association for Holotropic Breathwork™ International

www.ahbi.org

© 2011 by the Association for Holotropic Breathwork International.

All rights reserved. ISSN # 1524-623X. Holotropic Breathwork is a trademark of Grof Transpersonal Training (GTT).

Marty Boroson, President Email: [email protected] Riskin, Vice-PresidentKarey Pohn, SecretaryLenny Gibson, TreasurerAna Maria AguirreTim BrewertonOliver WilliamsTav and Cary Sparks, ex officio

Advisory Board Christopher BacheChristina GrofStan GrofJack KornfieldRick TarnasKylea Taylor

Legal AdvisorJack Silver

AHBI Staff Ken Sloan, Executive Director Email: [email protected]

Brian Bauer, Office Coordinator AHBI Tel: 1-617-674-2474 AHBI Fax: 1-484-932-6021 AHBI Email: [email protected]

Alysson Troffer, Editor of The Inner Door Email: [email protected]

Board of Directors

The Inner Door is a quarterly publication (February, May, August, November) for members of the Association for Holotropic Breathwork International (AHBI), a California non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation. The address is P.O. Box 400267, Cambridge, MA 02140.

For information about joining AHBI, go to www.ahbi.org.

Manuscripts, photos, and other graphics are invited. Please send them electronically. Email the editor for specifications.

The editor of The Inner Door reserves the right to reject or edit submissions. Deadlines for submission of copy are March 1, June 1, September 1, and December 1.

The viewpoints expressed herein are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Association for Holotropic Breathwork International or the editorial staff.

12.05.12 by Kenneth Sloan, AHBI Executive Director

The Association for Holotropic Breathwork Inter-national is proud to announce that the second Global Breathwork Day will be celebrated on May 12, 2012. Facilitators around the world are encouraged to schedule events that include Holotropic Breathwork on this day.

The selection of this date was a community process involving AHBI, Wisdom University, Grof Transper-sonal Training (GTT), Stan Grof, and the excellent astrological guidance of Renn Butler.

AHBI will again be providing support and promotion of Global Breathwork Day and breathwork events on this date, as well as facilitating connections between events and participants.

Those interested in participating in events are encouraged to set aside the May 12 weekend on their calendars now and to encourage facilitators they know to schedule events. For up-to-date information, go to www.ahbi.org and click the 12.05.12 tab. s

AHBI News

Thank You, Bonnie, for Your Service!by Kenneth Sloan

Bonnie Bright, who had served on the AHBI Board since October of 2007, resigned her board position ef-fective July 2011. Bonnie had focused her work for AHBI on web design, publicity, and promotion. She was the main force behind the visual design and new logo for the AHBI community site. In addition to press releases, she initiated and supported a Twitter presence for AHBI and set up the publishing of a weekly Twitter-based newspaper on the community site.

Bonnie was especially active in support of Global Breathwork Day 2011, writing press releases and mak-ing and editing videos with Stan Grof that were used to encourage workshops. She will be sorely missed on the AHBI Board, and it was with regret that her resignation was accepted.

At the same time, the main reason for her resignation is to enable her to concentrate full-time on the dissertation phase of her Ph.D. work, which she says will explore the theme of “Ecocide,” an important topic in our world if there ever was one. We in AHBI can only wish her continued success in pioneering this important field.

The overlap between spirituality, consciousness, politics, and nature is not a new topic for Bonnie: She recently presented at the “Transcendent Wonder: Peering Be-hind the Veil” conference in Assisi, Italy, which was hosted by the Assisi Institute and featured Jungian James Hollis as the 2011 keynote speaker.

Bonnie is the founder of the first online Depth Psychology community, called the Depth Psychology Alliance (www.depthpsychologyalliance.com), and offers Depth Psychology-oriented research, writing, coaching, and consulting services for individ-uals and organizations. She can be reached at [email protected], or you can follow her Depth-related updates on Twitter at @bonniebright5. s

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Sloan, our executive director and resident Internet guru, who de-signs and maintains the AHBI web site. Our web site acted as a virtual meeting place, which played the crucial roles of being a place where organization of the event occurred and where virtual space was held for the sharing community after the event. Brian Bauer, our office manager, also was a key player in helping make this vision a reality. Ken and all the board members have donated countless hours without remuneration; this would not have been possible without them.

I was lucky enough to be a facilitator at the Spirit Rock event. Tucked in the foothills of Marin County outside of San Francisco, California, the beautiful setting of Spirit Rock was the physical space that held us during Global Breathwork Day. Stan and Chris-tina, along with 18 facilitators and some of our Wisdom University partners, joined forces to create a container of transformation for 160 eager breathers. For almost half of them, it was their first time, signaling a rebirth of sorts for the community.

The room was filled with excitement, as we were blessed with Christina’s musical virtuosity and Stan’s calm strength and ac-cepting authority. What an honor and privilege to be part of this timeless moment with both Grofs working their special brand of magic, in this, their joint creation and gift to the world. Christina at the CD control panel and Stan’s ever watchful eye and presence patrolling the room set the stage for breathers to go deep within and experience whatever their Inner Healers deemed appropriate for this stage in their journey. The sharing groups afterward were rich and the depth of experience, especially for first-time breath-ers, was very touching.

It is always a profound blessing to be able to bear witness to the transformation process, and Holotropic Breathwork in particular provides a sacred space like no other. Knowing that people all over the world were experiencing this at the same time, or within a few hours of each other, was a synergistic icing on the cake and added an air of even more sacredness and connection than I have ever experienced before.

After the breathwork event, Spirit Rock hosted a thank-you dinner for the facilitators and a mini-birthday celebration for Stan and Christina. Later, most of the facilitators gathered in the hallway of our bunkhouse and chanted along with a CD of Swami Muktananda’s “Om Namah Shivaya.” The music and the camaraderie were sublime. It struck me that I had come full circle, yet again. My personal jour-ney of transformation began in nearby Oakland, California in 1994 when I met Gurumayi, Muktananda’s successor, and first heard that haunting mantra. Shiva is the god of death and rebirth, and Swami Muktananda was important in Stan and Christina’s lives. He wrote The Play of Consciousness, which was one of the seeds of my dissertation. I joined the AHBI Board, as the chair of the Community Support committee, a year after completing my doctoral work, which was based on Stan’s The Cosmic Game and the perinatal matrices.

Many of my fellow board members have lost a parent in the past two years—in my own case, my father. Now, there were so many new people experiencing this deeply transformative work for the first time. I was reminded of the saying, “when one door closes, another opens,” and this indeed seemed to be a wide open door. Indeed, death and rebirth are always eternally at hand. Global Breathwork Day was the culmination of many visions I had when I first began to work on the board, and the Town Hall event five years prior was the basis of it. I marveled at the synchronicities.

Breathers and facilitators reported that they connected in ways they had not before, feeling more a part of a larger whole and less isolated. People were inspired by the event, and plans are already underway for next year’s Global Breathwork Day, which will take place on May 12, 2012. For information about this event, go to www.ahbi.org and click the 12.05.12 tab.

Teresa Collins from Wisdom University shared the following:Wisdom University is honored to have been involved in this great celebration of Stan and Christina’s lives and work and enjoyed working in collaboration with AHBI, GTT, and all the practitioners from around the world. We were also joined by a rich group of sponsors that helped us get the word out far and wide. Together we co-created a special offering that has touched the lives of many and inspired an encore for next year. None of us could have done it alone. We are excited to join forces again next year and anticipate a huge wave of people joining in as we breathe as one!

In July, Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California hosted a celebra-tion in honor of Stan and Christina, and our Joshua Tree birthday celebration on September 23–25 will round out the year with an Open Space event where together we envision the future of Ho-lotropic Breathwork. Our last meeting of this sort—the virtual Town Hall meeting—bore fruit in the Global Breathwork Day. With a renewed sense of purpose and building on this beautiful and successful first step, I am very encouraged, deeply inspired,

and tremendously excited to be the chairperson of the Birthday commit-tee, and the secretary of AHBI at this pivotal moment in time and hope that you will join us in some way in help-ing to celebrate Stan and Christina in all that they have given to the world.

Giving back to Stan and Christina and the Holotropic Breathwork com-munity has been a source of great joy for me. Now, with the new AHBI mis-sion, the new AHBI web site, an annual Global Breathwork Day established,

and a reunion of sorts in the form of the Birthday Celebration at Joshua Tree, it seems that we’re finally getting somewhere! Won’t you please join us in continuing to celebrate Stan and Christina at the September event? And if you cannot physically make it there, we would love for you to share your ideas for breathwork, your thoughts and well wishes for Stan and Christina, or any other con-tribution you might want to make. You can reach us through email at [email protected]. You’ll be glad you did. s

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Don’t Forget to SAVe tHe DAte!A Holotropic celebrAtion

in Honor oF StAn’S 80tH birtHDAy AnD cHriStinA’S 70tH birtHDAy

September 23–25, 2011 in JoSHuA tree, cAwww.groFcelebrAtion.com

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Stan Grof Returns to His Childhood Passion with Lillibit’s Dream

by Melody Sullivan

I have had the blessing of knowing Stan Grof for fourteen years. Many years ago, I showed him a small picture book I had created for my mother, Louise Eiler. He suggested that I work to publish this story. “Would you like to illustrate it?” I asked.

Twelve years later, Lillibit’s Dream is about to be birthed into book form. During Lillibit’s long pupation within her chrysalis, I learned much about Stan’s childhood and adolescence—particu-larly his many artistic abilities. I asked to commemorate Lillibit’s birth and Stan’s 80th birthday with this article. This article is a compilation of written notes and audio taping during our conversa-tions and a Skype interview. I hope that you enjoy learning more about this wonderful being who has helped birth so much beauty into this world.

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Melody: Stan, may I ask, why did you choose to illustrate this book?Stan: Well, a big part of it was our friendship. We had known each other for a long time and shared many interesting experiences in the training, so that was already a good enough reason. And your Lillibit story also connected me with my childhood interests. As a child, I was extremely interested in animals, not necessarily, ini-tially, as an animal lover—I was more of a hunter.

I was particularly fascinated by butterflies; I had a netted bag attached to the end of a pole that I would carry with me on family trips and was quite skillful in catching them. During one of these weekend trips, I met an entomologist who was studying butterflies. He was not only catching butterflies, but was also collecting cater-pillars. He knew exactly what they ate because different kinds of caterpillars need different plants or different flowers. He kept the caterpillars in glass containers until they grew into a chrysalis and then hatched as butterflies. So I had the really exciting possibility of observing the different stages of the miracle of metamorphosis.

Then later, when I was nine years old or so, I started draw-ing personified insects; quite a few of them were caterpillars and butterflies. So getting involved in the Lillibit project was like re-turning to my childhood years.Melody: That sounds wonderful. And as a child did you enjoy stories?Stan: I have always loved stories. I had two older cousins who studied in Prague for extended periods of time, and they lived with us. I heard a lot of stories from them, from fairy tales to movies, most of them scary or funny. I also had two other cousins, a boy and a girl, who were only two and three years older than I. When they were learning to read, I was trying to catch up with them. I was competitive and could not stand the idea that there was a whole world that was inaccessible to me. So I learned to read very early—when I was five years old.

When I was six, my parents gave me a wonderful collection of books, called Brehm’s Life of Animals. It had separate volumes on mammals, birds, reptiles, insects, and so on, and covered the entire animal kingdom. I read those books voraciously and learned to draw a large variety of different animals. When my teacher found out about this, he would ask me to come to the chalkboard during classes on biology and draw the animals he was talking about. So this was a significant chapter in my artistic beginnings.Melody: You mentioned to me earlier that you initially wanted to be a cartoonist and work in animated movies. What made you want to do that?Stan: That began in 1938 when we moved to Prague, just before the onset of the Second World War. We lived on a block that had a movie theater that specialized in cartoons and animated movies. They had a one-hour program that was repeated a number of Stan working on his illustrations for Lillibit’s Dream

Melody and Stan read their story to a group of children at the 16th International Transpersonal Association Conference in 2005

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times during the day. You could pay for one ticket and then stay for as long as you wanted. There were days when I would watch six programs in a single day. These movies were full of new characters for me: Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Felix the Cat, Popeye, Olive Oyl, and Brutus. And then, when I saw Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs—that really blew my mind!

So, having so much exposure to these characters, it became very easy and natural for me to draw them and paint them. And I started creating my own comic strips; their stories were my own invention, but they featured Walt Disney characters. Disney was my childhood hero. Melody: At some point, you started draw-ing personified insects. How did that happen?Stan: I was about nine years old when I discovered a series of wonderful books by the Czech artist, Ondrei (Andrew) Sekora. The hero of these books was an ant called “Ferda,” a very funny ant with a big red and black polka-dot bow tie. He was going through all of these adventures involving his insect friends and insect enemies. And

not only was it a very exciting and interesting story, but it was full of actual information from the life of insects.

When I was about ten years old, I created a comic strip describ-ing the adventures of two little beetles—a staghorn beetle and a longhorn beetle. It was a kind of hero’s journey. The little boys left their home and shared many wild adventures, including an en-counter with a very vicious spider. Then, at one point, they built a boat using half of a walnut shell and a leaf for a sail. They got into a storm, and it seemed like the end; however, a big wave threw them ashore, right in front of the houses of their parents. So the story had a very happy end.

A shortened version of this story was published in a famous children’s magazine called Punt’a. My father wanted to surprise me and arranged a visit with Andrew Sekora. It turned out to be a very bad experience. When Mr. Sekora saw my paintings, he got very angry and screamed at me that I was plagiarizing him—steal-ing his art. I walked out pretty downtrodden. But I did not get discouraged and continued for some time creating various insect adventures. Unfortunately, most of them were destroyed in the fire of our California house in February 2001.Melody: What about high school? Did you continue to draw then?Stan: I continued to draw quite profusely. I drew during many of the classes when I was not particularly interested in the material that was being taught. With my very intense reading, I was fre-quently ahead of the syllabus. So when I was bored, I would do anything from doodles to more complex drawings. But my main activity was as editor and illustrator of our class journal called Acko, which featured many of my cartoons and caricatures. Not

A picture from an illustrated story about the hero’s journey of two little beetles that Stan created when he was about 11 years old

Lillibit’s Dream Is about to

Birth!Lillibit, the caterpillar,

dreams of flying. Yet, first she must let go of her cat-erpillar life. With the help of her friend Serena, Lillibit overcomes her fears, dis-solves within her chrysalis, and becomes more than she had ever dreamed.

This children’s picture book by Melody Sullivan, illus-trations by Stan Grof, M.D., is for anyone in the process of transformation: breathing for the first time or experienced NOSC astronaut, starting kindergarten or a new job, register-ing for a conference or hospice.

Stan’s playful, dynamic illustrations and Melody’s sim-ple, lilting language take us on a journey through our fears and into the magic of transformation.

Lillibit’s Dream will soon be available at www.hanfordmead.com and at www.amazon.com. Check out Lillibit’s birth on Facebook. View more of Stan Grof’s il-lustrations at www.LillibitsDream.com.

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just of schoolmates, but also of the profes-sors, frequently in quite an irreverent way, as you can imagine. This collection actu-ally survived the fire of our house. Once in a while, I look at it, and it brings back wonderful memories of those years.

Then later, I became fascinated by Me-soamerican cultures, and I learned to draw in the style of the Mayans, the Aztecs, and particularly in the style of the Incas. I cre-ated a lot of paintings in those styles. I still have some that survived the fire.Melody: You also mentioned that you had decided to be a cartoonist as a career.Stan: By the time I finished high school, I had another hero, a wonderful Czech artist named Jiri (George) Trnka, a name that is difficult to pronounce. He cre-ated many wonderful animated movies on subjects that were much more serious than Disney’s, such as stories from Slavic mythology, Pushkin’s fairy tales, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He won many international awards for these animated movies. I had an interview with him and was accepted to start working in his film studios in Prague.

Then, a friend lent me Freud’s Intro-ductory Lectures in Psychoanalysis. And it blew my mind. Within a few days, it all turned around. I decided that I wanted to be a psychoanalyst. So I had to enroll in medical school and study psychiatry with a specialization in psychoanalysis. I have an entire collection of drawings that I made during medical lectures on various subjects—from my private readings of Nietzsche, Poe, Verlaine, Baudelaire, and Freud to caricatures of our professors and a picture of Paracelsus creating homunculus.Melody: And here you are, a renowned psychiatrist. How would you describe the career of a psychiatrist to children?Stan: People go through all kinds of dif-ficult situations in their lives: inside their family, at school, and in relation with the larger society. They may be experiencing all kinds of losses that can bring fear, sad-ness, depression, guilt, or a lot of anger that they might have difficulty managing. Psychiatrists are trained to help people with their emotional life, partially by talk-ing, called psychotherapy, or by dealing directly with the emotion. Also, there is a whole range of medicines that people can take when they cannot sleep, or if they are

A picture from an early version of Stan’s beetle story showing one of the beetles liberating his friend from a vicious spider (an inkling of BPM II?)

One of the paintings imitating the style of the ancient Incas that Stan drew in adolescence

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very agitated or they don’t have enough energy. I became particularly interested in states where people have vi-

sions, when they actually see images and have inner experiences. So, in a sense, I did not get very far away from my original in-tention: to work with cartoons and animated movies. Only these visions are different kinds of movies; they happen in the inner world. Melody: Exactly! So how do you see Lillibit’s Dream relating to your chosen career as a psychiatrist?Stan: Over the years, I have seen many of my clients go through a crisis that was so severe, so profound, that they actually had the feeling that their life was ending, that everything was going down the drain, that their life was being destroyed, that they were hitting bottom, not knowing how to go any further. But they were able to go through the crisis and emerge from it stronger, renewed, rejuvenated, and trans-formed in a positive way.

The metamorphosis of the caterpillar is a wonderful metaphor, a wonderful symbol of this transformation. Because if you study what is happening with the caterpillar, you notice there is a paral-lel. It eats, it grows, and then changes its skin; it molts a few times, and then it creates a chrysalis. Very few people know what hap-pens inside of the chrysalis. It is not that the caterpillar somehow changes into the butterfly. Its body actually completely dissolves until there is nothing left of the old caterpillar. And then a com-pletely different creature, the butterfly, emerges out of that brew. So it is a real death/rebirth experience that resembles—naturally

This painting representing an insect orchestra is an example of one of Stan’s favorite subjects: personified insects.

at an entirely different level—the situation when people feel that their old self has been destroyed, their old life has ended, and that something radically new has emerged.Melody: You had mentioned that you would be dedicating this story to your grandchildren.

Stan: Yes. We have five wonderful granddaughters: Lauren, Jade, Sierra, Mira, and Luca. I will dedicate my part of the book—my illustrations—to them. They will find their names in the book. And I am very much looking forward to handing the final form of the book to them and witnessing their reaction. I hope they will enjoy it. And I hope that it will give them a very useful message. That it is really won-derful and important to have a dream

in life and pursue it—even if other people don’t believe in you and are trying to discourage you. That if you persevere, your dreams can come true. I hope that this is a message that they can bring into their lives.Melody: Thank you, Stan. And thank you for following your dreams and for bringing your beautiful art into this world.Stan: It was a real pleasure to do this interview and to do the proj-ect itself. And I hope that you will have the chance to tell your own story and reveal what inspired you to write Lillibit’s Dream, because without that, it wouldn’t have happened at all. sMelody Sullivan is a freelance writer and facilitator of Holotropic Breath-work. She can be reached at [email protected], or visit Lillibit’s Dream on Facebook.

This story came to me while in a dream state and forever changed my perspective of transformation. In written form, this experience might have simply

remained as an entry in my journal. Yet, this vision of metamorphosis made such an impact upon me that I wanted to share it with my mother, Louise, who was new to Holotropic Breathwork. Many years later, I

look forward to sharing this book with my 70-year-old mother and with all of my nieces and nephews.

~Melody Sullivan

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t A Sharing from Spain - Continued from page 1

It was like a paradox because lately I’d been feeling a bit un-sure as to whether I should try to make an inner change, or if I should merely accept everything and the change would evolve naturally of its own volition. It came to me like a flash that yes, I must change, but this only entailed becoming more myself. I also had the growing realization that I was able to “see” my soul or real self—it was so obvious; it had been there all the time, and I had been ignoring it! I knew if I went through the door, then I would be going into this real self, and everything would change. I felt enormous fear and had to breathe into the fear for a while before I could think clearly again. I knew I had to go through this door, whatever the consequences.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to describe the real self, other than it is limitless and one with everything… I went through the door.

On the “other side,” I was just one with impersonal Love; there is no other way to describe it. I had the song title in my head, “Sap-phire Bullets of Pure Love,” and I imagined shooting them out of my hands into the sky. This then transformed very briefly into a situation where I was god and putting the stars in the sky. I felt one with the ultimate process that is creating the world and everything, but only for a few seconds. Although I felt fear, I don’t think it was that which pulled me back; it was almost like I knew I wasn’t ready for that at a deep level, and my consciousness just naturally retreated from that after giving me a glimpse.

Next, I could see columns of blue light radiating up from spots around the Earth—the places where people were doing the

breathwork on this special day of “Breathing as One,” but also where the people were protesting in Barcelona and Madrid, and other places where people were standing up to power. I saw these columns of blue light flowing into the sky, and I saw the columns expanding to become islands of light, which then gradually merged to cover the whole Earth. I knew we were part of this movement that is going to transform the whole world. Needless to say, this was a very powerful and positive experience!

I actually felt too full of impersonal Love and had to let some of it out, so I adopted a kind of Islamic prayer position and imagined it flowing out of me into everyone else in the hall and from there into the city and the world, going wherever it might be needed.

Then, I felt the impulse to apologize to the planet for the dam-age I and other humans were causing. I seemed to receive a kind of reply along the lines of “How can you apologize when we are one organism? There is nothing to apologize for. If you did something that is also my will.” This very much goes against the prevailing view that humanity is “a virus with shoes” and that we are destroy-ing our own Mother in a kind of abusive relationship. In fact, it points the way to a view where there is no separation, no guilt, no blame, and no need to apologize. If we adopt this view, although it might seem counterintuitive, I can imagine that we would natu-rally cease to hate ourselves and have much less need to behave in a way that would cause the planet (and thus ourselves) harm.

For awhile, I lay back and was basking in the light of these rev-elations. I held my carer’s hand for awhile in order to share some of the impersonal Love, as she had done with me in her session. It is very easy to feel when attachment or desire enters in these

One of two Global Breathwork Day gatherings in Spain. Guy James is the man on the right. Courtesy of Magda Sampere Martí.

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situations, and when there is just a flow of love that needs nothing at all from the other person.I had the realization that our soul (and there is only one soul, or rather “not two”) is so beautiful that if our bodies were as luminous

and perfect as it is, we would be unbearably conceited and arrogant. The imperfect physical world offers a completely necessary balance to the utter perfection of our inner being. The problem is that most people only know the imperfection and are unaware of the perfection, thus life appears ugly and meaningless. This time, however, I was just so happy that although I felt boundless compassion for every-thing, I did not feel in the least sad. The imperfection and pain in the world was seen as a perfect and necessary part of our “journey,” which is only really a deepening of the present moment and a merging into who we really are.

I had some realizations about my past relationships and issues with attachment to women, and I could see that I now had a choice not to be this way anymore. I then lay back for a while feeling very relaxed, and I adopted the Islamic prayer position again for awhile and let love flow out of me, allowing it to go wherever it was needed most. I remembered Osho’s saying that love increases the more you give away, not decreases as with most things. I realized if you gave all your love away, it would be replaced, with interest, immediately!

Gradually, I started to think about coming back to the room, as the music was winding down. I had a difficult time coming back to the consensus reality for awhile, and a facilitator told me to jump up and down as I felt my head was totally “in the clouds.” Words can hardly even capture a tiny part of the experi-ence, but I feel it is worthwhile to try. There have been other realizations since, and hopefully there will be more, not that I need anything more at all now. s

A Sharing from Argentinaby Ana Maria Aguirre

Our group in Buenos Aires had more than fifty participants. We had several facilitators walking the room. The Neptunian en-ergy was very strong that day. Several participants felt the void, nothingness, the darkness with lots of stars. On Sunday, at the con-tinuation of the workshop, ALL the participants went together out of their body for a long period of time. The room was in a very special silence, and I felt they were, as only one soul all of them together, working in another di-mension. I had never experienced something like this in any other breathing.

With her permission, I will share with you Tatia-na’s breathing on Sunday, as I think the message she received is for all of us. After being born in a very long and painful process, this is what happened to her:

I began to breath again and to connect with the heartbeats. I began to feel much heat, very intense, around all my body. My chest was like fire. At that moment, I began to see different paths, many roads, but all of them took me to the same place: my heart.

All of a sudden there was a big heart in front of me, huge, enormous; it was beating and very sweet. When I looked higher, it was the Sacred Heart of Jesus in front of me, and behind him was a very bright white light, with a brightness that was unique. I never saw something like that.

When I wanted to go closer to him, he said NO, that I needed to come back and keep working, that they were there waiting for us, that we must keep doing what we are doing, joining together to breathe, that we are doing

it very well and that the experience of the previous day (the 11th) has worked out (“habia funcionado” in Spanish). He blessed me, merging then with the light, and a candle kept burning in his place.

Namaste to all of you (this is mine). Tati will share in the Span-ish group when she arrives home, as she traveled more than a thousand kilometers to come breathing with us; she will put her mandala there, which of course was a very beautiful heart. s

A sharing from Magda Sampere Martí from Spain: “Just a big hug to you all from Barcelona. Our workshop had twelve people, and we felt very

connected to you all around the world. Laughs, unconditional love, and connection were part of the

sharing. Thanks to all the people who made it possible, and ‘Happy Birthday’ to Stan and Christina.”

taller del 11 de Junio – Tatiana

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Prepare to light the firethe time to preserve our specieshas arrived.We lay downand join the Othersin this organic danceon the precipice of existence.

Inhale deeply,with each vanishing breath,experience death.Icons rise and fall in the beating wombof unborn lifetimes.Demons and deitieswait just beyond the gate.

Atoms and moleculesinfused with fetal innocence,fertilize our spiritual offspring,emerging from the breathless emptiness.

Pierced by the arrow of awarenesswe breathe,unaffected by the anesthesiaof spiritual abandonment,bleeding in the lost aloneness of rebirth.

Tempting projectionsof nameless emotionsmake each tear conscious,as if beloved loneliness had a cure.

Unidentified freight trainsroar inside of us—rippling,crippling,dismantling our holy emotions.

The Others by Laurane McGlynn from New Jersey

Let us lay downand breathe with the Others,time to follow the flight of angelsin their terrible arcfrom the heavensto a startled sun.They try to get in deep,but we pierce their celestial skinwith our body armor,and these,our many lifetimes ebb and flow,running forever from the source.

An emaciated moon,juggles the cloudsin a masterful mirageto re-arrange our destiny.

We scramble for survivalon a poison planet,carnivores,guarding the path to enlightenment.Let us wake upand meet at the open door.

One lifetime is only aspark in the darkness.Each breath,the last with wings,transports us to a deeper realm.Living with the advantage of solitude,we lay down,and inhale the breath of God. s

A Sharing from Houston, Texasby Grace Victoria

When I received the email from Pam Stockton inquiring as to whether I would co-facilitate this Global Breathwork Day work-shop, my immediate reply was an enthusiastic YES!

During the breathing sessions, I felt a profound sense of love in the room, holding both the trauma and the grace that the breath-ers and sitters were experiencing. Was this different from other workshops I had facilitated? Yes, only in intensity. I attributed that to the energy of Global Breathwork Day. Pam spoke about the global event at the beginning of the workshop. As we focused on the individual work of our group, we held the awareness of our participation in the global event.

After the workshop, I experienced a euphoric state of well-being. This reinforced for me the power of group healing work and

my role in facilitating for the greater good. The facilitating process was another exercise in putting my personal issues on the back burner in order to be fully present for the group.

I felt much gratitude for Pam’s contributions as a savvy busi-ness woman and breathwork facilitator in the Grof Holotropic Breathwork tradition. This led me to ponder how well Stan and Jacquie Small must have worked together, each bringing their unique strengths to the process. Having been trained by Jacquie, my style of facilitating flows according to the Eupsychia Integra-tive Breathwork tradition. The differences between the two are minimal, and they blend beautifully!

Thanks to the Holotropic Breathwork community for initiating Global Breathwork Day. Also thanks to Pam for the invitation to work together. sGrace Victoria lives in Houston, Texas where she performs paralegal work for a living. Her spiritual practices include breathwork, Continuum, yoga, dancing, golfing, Depth Psychology, and Nature walks.

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A Sharing from Canadaby Renn Butler

Sixteen of us (fifteen participants including two supersitters) gathered for Global Breathwork Day at the idyllic Deer Leap Yoga Studio near Victoria, Canada. It was the most intense and expres-sive small group I’ve ever participated in, and we were honored to have a range of people there, from new breathers to veteran rebirthers from the 1980s.

Almost every participant experienced dramatic surges of en-ergy, vocalizing, and emotional release. These included some deep crying, sequences of coughing and choking, explosive discharges of aggression, fear, and doubt, exultant laughing, tender bonding, and feelings of cosmic unity. I was impressed by the steady loving presence of all the sitters, with some of the caring very poignant to witness. The lunch break was sublime as we savored the exquisite feminine energies of the Moon trine Neptune and Venus square Neptune world transits and the beautiful natural setting.

A powerful Dionysian wave, reflecting the world transits of Uranus square Pluto and Jupiter trine Pluto, carried through the en-tire day. One participant experienced drawing cosmic energy down into the human realm and burning off collective karma. Another felt she was giving birth and simultaneously experienced some kind of primal snake goddess that mediated a connection with her divine nature. She also had a full identification with the ancient and empowered Indian Mother Goddess and felt compelled to re-peat “Ma Ma Ma” over and over.

Several people experienced leaving the mundane world be-hind and exploding out into the heavens. Another said she felt in her session like she had participated in the birth of a new cosmos and looked out in awe at this new universe. Another experienced waves of bliss and mused ironically why she wasn’t suffering more. Many breathers and sitters reported being impressed by the intensity of the energies flowing through everyone.

I remember thinking the afternoon before that the Australians and Indonesians were then just starting. Later, lying in bed with my mind still racing along, I wondered if there was anything else I needed to do or something more I could share online. Then around midnight, I realized that the big Russian groups were just beginning to breathe—and they don’t mess around! At that point, I just gave up my head and surrendered into the cosmic healing wave. Then in sequence, I acknowledged the beginning of all the European

groups, the Egyptians, and Dubaians and then in the morning our Western Hemisphere colleagues. As our second group of breathers was starting late in the afternoon, I remember saying: “You are the last wave of this entire global experience. You’re in a safe space to really go for it!” And they did…

At the very end of the day, the host put on a CD and the fi-nal six of us broke into twenty minutes of spontaneous dancing and laughing. As most of the same group drove home together, the atmosphere was high-spirited and enthusiastic as we marveled at the two-thirds-full Moon glowing in the evening sky. Talking with people in the days following, many said they had begun or accelerated a process of facing painful memories, shed some ma-jor baggage in their lives, or turned an important corner—and that cosmic energies were still flowing through them in new ways or opening their higher chakras. The expression “Wow!” was repeat-ed a number of times.

Thanks so much to Stan and Christina Grof; Tav and Cary Sparks from GTT; Ken Sloan, Bonnie Bright, and Martin Boro-son from AHBI; Teresa Collins and Jim Garrison from Wisdom University; and the many breathers and apprentices for making this such a great experience. A special thanks to all the Holotropic Breathwork facilitators around the world who organized work-shops on short notice. It feels like a new chapter in the modern transpersonal movement has begun. This experience, as well as listening to Stan’s interview with Lilou Mace this spring (http://juicylivingtour.com/the-consciousness-revolution-dr-stanislas-grof-san-francisco-ca), has given me a new feeling: that the broader paradigm shift is being born by the cosmic creative principle itself. The transition is underway, at its own pace, and we are all just go-ing along with the process.

It has been very special to feel the connection with all of you this spring on June 11th, in the confer-ence call for facilitators, and in Wisdom University’s Holotropic TeleSeries. Best wishes to every-one for a happy summer. s

Renn Butler is a writer and arche-typal astrologer in Victoria, Canada. His book, Holotropic Astrology, will be completed this fall.

A Sharing from Germanyby Kenneth Sloan

Hello World. Just finished my session. Music, Music, Music—the whole thing was about music from the first through the last: how important music is, how much we should honor and support those who support us with it, how it can be made more available, and and and … No Mandala!!!

Instead, I have a strong urge to upload to the AHBI site (Home page, bottom right, scroll way down) an mp3 of “Adura,” the defining cut on Babatunde Olatunji’s Healing Session album, one of my favorite breathwork cuts of all time. And so I did. Hmmm… That was easy. Why then is it so hard for us in breathwork to share our music? How can we be fair with the musicians? It will be interesting to see what manifests out of this Global Breathwork Day experience…

Welcome Home, Holonauts. The world will never be the same again. (But then, of course, it never is the same.) s

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Join the Association for Holotropic Breathwork International (AHBI) and support the practice of Holotropic Breathwork as a resource for healing and transformation. If you care about the practice of Holotropic Breathwork, its preservation, and its evolution, AHBI needs you!

AHBI supports the practice of Holotropic Breathwork facilitators and participants, and enables communications among all who are interested in Holotropic Breathwork. AHBI also supports research into the theory, practice, and effects of Holotropic Breathwork.

For information about joining AHBI, go to www.ahbi.org. Dues payments and donations can now be made online using PayPal® or a credit card.

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A Sharing from Oregon by Cynthia Kranich

I very much appreciated my co-facilitator, and sitter, Sylvia Brock. We swapped breathing sessions for the day, as work and timing did not allow us to pull a workshop together, but we wanted to participate regardless. In so doing, we were able to breathe that day, rather than facilitate, so a special treat for us.

I think the global “field” of everyone participating and breathing on that day, from one time zone to another, was quite powerful and added to the depth of my session. After a couple of songs into my session, I just started laughing and laughing and felt an amazing connection with everyone out there doing the same thing... It was joy and fun and just an invitation to continue. I think I just said something like “okay, okay… !” There was some heavier work somewhere in the middle, but at the end, another wave of gratitude to everyone who has touched my life while doing this work, especially Stan and Christina. Many faces came in and out of my session. Circles upon circles of friends, all with the invitation to join the dance! s

“Happy Birthday, Stan – From Romania with Love” Courtesy of Elena Francisc

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