Happy New Moon Loves,
Endings and beginnings. Sunday was the last day Maha Rose at 97 Green street was open to the public.
Pausing to reflect this morning in meditation on the past seventeen years. Thinking about the successes and the failures. It's an interesting thing with spiritual business, the personal is professional. Healing as a business. It's a delicate art and filled with grey areas: our own challenges, our own blind spots. Most of the people I've met who are in the healing world, myself included, have come through the doorways of our own wounds.
Then here we are, working professionals but still unhealed healers. And the thing is- until we are totally enlightened (someday, hopefully...) we will remain unhealed healers.
It can get messy. This thing called life. It's messy. My favorite description of reiki from Luke Simon, years ago, I think it was you Luke? said that reiki is like combing out the energetic body. We can get kinked up, tied up in knots, karmically tangled with others. Humans and healers alike, it's messy.
I'm grateful for some time to slow down, reflect on these past chapters and vision and listen for what's next.
Right now I'm still in a tender place of letting go, feeling all the feelings, surrendering, letting go some more.
Here's one of my all-time favorite photos of Maha Rose, taken by Monica Kapoor. Our door in the fall, circa 2010, the shadow of the tree that I watched grow over the years. Here with no leaves, having let go completely, surrendering to the next season of change and growth.
Thank you God. Thank you Goddess. Thank you Maha Rose. Thank you Amma. Thank you to all of you for being a part of it. Thank you Mariko Tamegai for the distance reiki on Sunday, to help me slow down, cry some more, remember Green street in the early 2000s, remember there’s more to write. More to remember. More to come.
If you're free this eve come to Trae Harris' New Moon Glo Up Ceremony. We have online workshops and healing sessions available for the next month before we go into hibernation/sabbatical/retreat September 18th...
Love,
Lisa & Maha Rose
Hello Loves,
On the coming Full Moon, Monday, August 3rd at 8pm EST, we will gather virtually to memorialize Maha Rose Brooklyn.
We invite all to join us to hear some memories from our teachers and staff, and join in a meditation lead by LaVonne, to carry the energy of Maha Rose Brooklyn with us into Maha Rose North, Maha Rose South, & Maha Rose Online.
All are welcome.
As everything turns in this moment of change we will share a burst of gratitude and love for this community that has grown.
We invite you to share your memories using your Instagram platform with the hashtag #mahamemories so we can see your memories and stories. In the spirit of the full moon, we see what grew and prepare to release and transition into new phases and projects.
See you on Zoom. <3
Love,
Luke, LaVonne, Morgan, Lisa and Maha Rose
Hello Loves,
I hope this day finds you well.
It is with sadness, gratitude and trust that I want to let you know that we have decided to close the Brooklyn location of Maha Rose.
Thank you for the love and time, energy and trust you have put into Maha Rose. I’m sorry that I can't tell each of you this news personally.
In 2003 I moved into the loft that became the original Maha Rose. From 2006-2010 the original seeds and roots were sown with Padma Gonzalez, Luke Simon and other friends, artists and spiritual seekers. Seven years ago we opened as a full-time business. It's held many magical and transformative chapters of my life. To say that it's not a death would be a lie. I've been grieving for Maha Rose and for the loss of New York as we all knew and loved it. I have moments of excitement as well for whatever will be birthed after, in the new world. Post 2020: Who will we all be? What will we need? What will the earth need? What will healing look like and how will we be able to serve you? Time will reveal all.
For now, we will continue with online workshops and healing sessions, please come and share virtual space with us. We hope to be able to hold retreats and experiences upstate at Maha Rose North and in Mexico in the future. Goddess willing, who knows what her plans for us are... I'm trying to trust as much as possible as the ground moves beneath us.
Thank you so much for being a part of Maha Rose. Maha Rose wouldn't be Maha Rose without you. Trusting that with change and transformation will come new beginnings and opportunities for us all.
We'll be opening up the retail shop for a closing sale, subscribe to our newsletter for details and dates. Wear your mask and come say goodbye. All retail will be 25% off.
Love,
Lisa & Maha Rose
I hope you are doing okay and riding the waves of this year as well as possible. In speaking with friends, family and colleagues this week I'm amazed at how much we all are being squeezed, tumbled and stretched... Somehow I felt a little better knowing we all are going through it. All of us. In the washing machine of life, on high. All the dirt, all the shadows, coming to the surface, individually and collectively. We are all being asked to grow so much.
When we say yes to the tumbling there is less suffering. When we say yes to the suffering it lessens. Feeling into the shadows. We move through things faster when we are willing. Willing to grow. Saying yes to all the curve balls life sends us. Trusting God. Even in the free fall. Even when the ground beneath us shakes.
We've had earthquakes here this past month. The earth is shaking. Resetting. We're all being reset, individually and collectively.
My teacher says, “For one who knows swimming, being in the ocean is a delightful game. But one who doesn’t know may even drown.” We need to learn how to swim. We can learn. We must learn. I don't anticipate this year getting any easier.
Is it an amazing time for spiritual growth? YES. Committing to the inner work we can make amazing progress internally.
We have online workshops, remote healing sessions and community offerings to assist you on this rocky path.
Love,
Lisa & Maha Rose
Hello Loves,
Everyone deserves healing.
I hope you are doing well and that you are taking care of yourself. I pray that the pain and trauma being unearthed in each of us is bringing us to a better tomorrow. I pray that any pain you are experiencing at this moment will bring yourself and all beings to liberation.
Healing isn’t easy. In this time it feels like generations of ancestors are rising up asking for the healing they didn't receive. They say when we get on the spiritual path many generations before us and many generations after us benefit from the work we do. Spiritual work is not selfish. Healing work is not selfish. It benefits everyone, those close to us, and those not even close to us.
When we are willing to do the work, miracles can happen. We’re being asked to heal a lot right now, all people, all colors, I see you digging into your histories, your hidden psyches, uncovering the wounded parts, the ugly parts, the parts we wish didn’t exist. This is an important part of the healing process. It’s a big part of healing: going in, seeing the ugly parts, releasing them, shifting the patterns. We’re doing it collectively and individually.
There is work and healing that white people must do together. There is healing that black people can only do with other black people. Different wounds are healed in different ways. Different people heal in different ways. Some types of healing we need to go within our groups, with others who share our histories, traumas or patterns. Women’s work, men’s work, queer work, the work of the addict. We do work with those who understand our wounds and patterns.
It takes a lot to do any of this. Praying for our collective awakening.
Simone Small, Morgan Murray and I are working closely together and with our community of healers to bring you more healing for these times on earth. We will be rolling out more curated programming, scholarships and community programs as this year unfolds. Please stay tuned. We’re excited and hopeful for what’s to come.
If you're able please join us this evening for The Roots of Our Practice, led by Baba Ifasanami Erwin Thomas, Sunder Ashni, and Jordan Pagan on decolonizing wellness. The Maha Rose portion of the proceeds of this event will go to The Association for Black Economic Power.
Love,
Lisa & Maha Rose
We’re in it. We knew things on earth were going to change and now they are. Let's slow down, take good care of ourselves and whoever else we can, be kind and pace ourselves. This isn’t a hurricane that passes through quickly. It’s a good, strong message from the earth that is going to stay, I believe until we really get the message.
How long will that take? Hard to say. The earth has been telling us to change our ways for a long time but we weren’t listening enough. I pray our leaders will listen now. There are many good lessons for each of us from this time on earth.
The hard times bring us closer to God and truth and love if we let them. Hold on tightly to the divine, pray, meditate. Spend some quiet time with yourself. I had a dream last night where I was remembering how much I like to spend time alone with myself.
The news is hypnotizing. There are a million messages coming at us all at once. But the best messages come from within.
Quietly with myself, in meditation and prayer I feel ok, ready for all that’s to come; trusting God, trusting nature and her process. Let’s use this time to pray and to rest and to dream of new ways on earth. This can be the quiet time we haven’t had in a long time...
There is wisdom and beauty to be found in the slowing down. I pray that we all find what is hidden in this challenge for each of us.
We love you. We’re rolling out the online classes and remote sessions. If you are having a hard time, reach out! We have so much help and technology to connect us even if we are physically far.
We are all connected. May we find that connection within as well.
May all beings everywhere be happy.
Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bavantu
Love,
Lisa & Maha Rose
Hello Loves,
We’re living in times filled with fear. I’ve gone through a few of my own recently. Certainly, the collective consciousness is a fear-based one: all the things that could go wrong or kill us... this is most of what we hear about.
We will die. We will get sick and we will die eventually. Maybe the thing we are afraid of will get us. Maybe something else will. Getting sick down here this year I really felt how the fear surrounding the sickness was worse than the actual sickness.
I’m looking at you fear.
I’m also thinking about Vedic astrology a lot and wondering how much of it all is written? And my question then is if we have a fear is it because we know on some gut level that that thing will happen? Or is it that we call our fears? Or that the thing happened to our grandmother or great grandmother, grandfather and the fear of it is written into our DNA somewhere? Or maybe that thing happened to us in a past life?
We’ve lived so many times, I believe. We’ve had so many experiences. Some of the fears are probably healthy, life-saving fears to have. But some others, they might not do anything helpful, only keeping us up at night afraid, anxious.
I’m spending this time getting to know some lingering fears of mine. I don’t have any new solutions except to see them, talk to them, draw them pictures, give them to god, goddess, the earth. Ask her to take them, transform them. Ask her to hold us close in the uncertainty of life.
If we can find peace in the mind then we’ve found peace.
When we release our fears how light will we be? How free will we be?
I remember being fearless. I’ve felt her. I hope to feel her again. She’s so good.
May we lay down our fears.
May we embrace the unknown, each other, this life...
May we be released from our parents' fears. May we be released from our grandparents and great grandparents fears.
May our children be free from our fears.
May we all be happy and free.
May we all be happy.
Love,
Lisa and Maha Rose