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New TMC Members

Marguerite Fishman I first walked through The Movement Center’s iron gate on the morning of July 25. I am grateful for the vibrant truth and beauty of what I experienced during the succeeding days and am eager to return in December. Currently I live in the SF Bay Area (Redwood City). I grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana, went to college in Ohio and spent a few years in Nebraska. I lived for some months in the 1980s at Herakhan Babaji’s ashram in India, and am curious if anyone at The Movement Center was there as well, since I feel some connection. I have been a dancer all my life and support myself teaching dance and yoga. I live with my partner (Patrick), three cats (Aggie, Larry and Little Bug) and one goldfish (Mr. Fish Junior) in a log cabin.

Hannah Zaiv Two strangers over the course of a week told me about The Movement Center, just as I was flailing about thinking I'd have to settle for way less than what I wanted in a spiritual group. When I came here and discovered that the open-eye meditations, not to mention looking into Rudi's eyes in a photograph, made my body ache all over, which it does not usually do, I knew I'd found my place! Well there've also been all kinds of other internal twistings and turnings and creakings and cracklings and even bliss moments, and that's before I've even heard a dharma talk here yet. I hadn't even dared to hope that I'd find such a marvelous place! I have background in Advaita, Zen, and (long time ago) Jewish renewal, interspersed with many shorter dabblings. For work I am honored to be a mental health counselor, specializing in rapid eye therapy, heart centered hypnotherapy, and past life and between lives regression hypnotherapy. I'm joining this Center just in time for my 60th birthday; what a perfect gift.

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Rhena Miller I’m an east coaster who grew up in N.J. studied psychology in Boston and first discovered Portland in 1989. I only left PDX to get my MSW in Seattle and woops found myself up there for 12 years. After a lay-off I chose to head back to Boston in 2004. After a year and a half of a not-so-great SW job I created an opportunity to return to Spain to improve my Spanish fluency. Post Spain, back to Boston while attending a spiritual dance retreat I woke up from a dream, sat up, and said, I need to return to Portland. I just returned to beautiful, friendly PDX June 2007. I have fun giving Boston credit for getting me to Boston and Spain twice in my life.

I discovered The Movement Center in May, 2008, when Snatam, Benjy and Heather performed. I was immediately drawn by the beauty of the campus and then by the warmth of the people here in this community. It was fun to discover that TMC had found its way to Portland from Boston for reasons similar to mine. Currently, I am in a career transition. I am studying to get my clinical social work license and then plan to learn either hypno therapy or EFT technique (I am open to other ideas). My dream is to work with a community of folks providing healing (emotional, spiritual, physical) support to our community. If anyone happens to know of any EFT/hyno-therapy practitioners/teachers who you would recommend please share their names with me. Thanks. rhena_miller@hotmail.com. I am pleased to be here.

Mary Ann McCrary Being responsible for ~47 acres of restoration projects is more than enough to keep me occupied this time of year. There is no coherent nutshell version of my past. I've had several different lifetimes...and it's all just stories anyway...none of which are the Truth. (Thank goodness!).

I simply want to be more supportive of The Movement Center for as long as I can be. I don't know whether you've heard up there (probably not), but our Governor

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here, Mr. Terminator, is doing all he can to cut state workers pay back to minimum wage until a budget is passed. I'm not too worried about that...but lay-offs could be in the future as a way to balance the budget. So my current lifestyle could change abruptly....but then that's always true for anyone isn't it?

Lauren McDuffie I moved here to Portland about a year and a half ago from Tennessee. At first I didn't even know why I was moving here, I just knew I wanted to be out in the Pacific Northwest somewhere and I heard Portland was a cool place to be. After saving up some money, I was on my way to live in a city I had never even visited! Luckily when I got here I landed a job right away, I'm a manager at Applebee's at Lloyd Center. In my spare time I like to go to Mt. Hood for snowboarding, go to the coast, and in the summer months you can find me camping almost every weekend. After living here for a few months I met Jesse, now my boyfriend, who lived here at TMC. I started coming to meditation classes occasionally with him, and recently decided to join. I feel so blessed to be a part of such a wonderful community. It feels nice to know even though I am far away from my family, I have one here in Portland now as well!

Brenna Iset My name is Brenna Iset and I live in Beaverton. I have been waking up to my true Self for 4 years now, and this year I have begun my practice as an Intuitive and Energy Healer in Portland. My friend Hannah has been telling me about the Movement Center for about a month now and one day Spirit guided me to show up......I felt the Beings of Light immediately when I came into the Meditation area, I was Home. I want to send much Gratitude to all the Beautiful People of The Movement Center for welcoming me and embracing my Being with so much Love.

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Pat Sauer

Local gal,raised in Cedar Mill. Have worked for 25 years creating residential architecture, self employed for the last 14 years. I love hanging out with friends, cooking, eating, laughing and being generally silly.

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Barbara Rabin

In There Is No Other Swamiji writes, “The truly important moments in our life, the important experiences, do not give us a second chance. The most important moments we have one chance at, and that is it. We practice every single second of every single day because we do not know which day, which hour will bring the pivotal moment.” One sunny afternoon four years ago, my friend Kari handed me Spiritual Cannibalism. From the moment I opened that book Rudi spoke to me as no other spiritual teacher ever had. Rudi’s voice has been with me every day since. Then last year I came to the Summer Retreat. When Swami Chetanananda walked into the Big Room, my life changed in that moment. My Guru walked into that room, and there are no other words beautiful enough for the rest. The final day of the retreat Swamiji gave darshan. When I came before him my heart was pounding. I asked, “Will you be my teacher?” Never had I ever asked that question, and never had I known the desire to bow low, to show an ultimate gesture of respect reserved for the Guru. That was the single most fortunate question I ever asked. When he answered, “Yes, I would be honored,” my heart exploded with joy. The framed photo of that exquisite moment is next to my altar.

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I will come to The Movement Center as often as I can and contribute however I am able to. To practice with such dedicated, completely wonderful people is an extraordinary gift! So all at once I found the three most worthwhile things in life—a guru, a complete spiritual practice, and a community. As a child I lived in a little town just across from the Canadian border in northern New York State. My family were mostly teachers of one kind or another, so predictably I vowed to never become a teacher. My first loves were art, literature, and trying in vain to make sense of a world filled with so much beauty and so much brutality. The Judeo-Christian tradition just did not hold answers for me. After I graduated from high school, leaving that small, cold little town for Chicago and then New York City was a pleasure. New York captured my heart. All that art, music, and creativity everywhere! I just loved it! My friends often referred to the Metropolitan Museum as “Barbara’s only temple” . . . and at that time it certainly was. Eventually I went back to school, first at Hunter College, then the New School. Although I often imagined myself ending up working in a museum, my destiny instead was a lifetime in education. I worked in public schools and then in the private sector in New York, Ohio, and Utah, before moving in 1992 to California to begin a Living Wisdom School, where I work to this day. Hafiz expresses my gratitude perfectly:

Love Is the great work Though every heart is first an Apprentice That slaves beneath the city of Light. This wondrous trade, This magnificent throne your soul Is destined for— You should not have to think Much about it. Is it not clear An apprentice needs a teacher Who himself Has charmed the universe To reveal its wonders inside his cup. Happiness is the great work, Though every heart must first become A student To one who really knows About love.