love

the true meaning of love is to stay with. i have been thinking of this lately. how it relates to our yoga practice: staying with the edge, the challenge in a difficult posture, the challenge of a whirlwind mind. to love our self means to stay with our self, like a good friend not leaving our side, but holding us close and whispering words of comfort and support tenderly in our ear. when we stay with ourself we no longer abandon our self, our inner child, like we may have chosen to do many times before, in a blind panic, in not knowing what to do, or how to make it better.

when life is so painful it is easier to turn away. when our heart aches it is easier to look away. anything is easier than feeling the pain, than owning the suffering. so turn away we do, so many ways, like a carnival, to distract us. here are some of my favourites: tv, too loud music so i can no longer hear my self think, cleaning the flat, reading, surfing the net for hours, wild night out, disconnect from feeling my body, and the one i am most skilled at, being ridiculously busy!

yet, i know that each time i turn away from my self, from staying with my self, from loving my self, i am breaking my own heart, i am betraying the only one who will travel with me until my last breath out.and so i have made a commitment recently, to keep turning back, to fully notice when i just have to look away for a while, and then gently, so gently, find my way back, to holding my own hand, shyly, softly, no words needed, no apology, no guilt. simply sitting besides my self once more fully feeling all that is moving through me.

and believe me, sometimes this takes great strength, a great warrior heart, yet it is the only way.

if i love my self, i choose to stay, no matter what, until the bitterness of my pain turns into the sweetest blossom my heart could ever hold, and i know that a new day is finally dawning upon me and my beloved self.

inspiration

love (mixed media)

'do what you love

love what the moments of your beating pulse offer

what is your passion dear soul?

can i hear your whispers beneath the raging city decibels?

the twitching of my ears to sounds of music

feet up then down with the beat

beating the earth as she hums in delight

whilst skeleton limbs throw shapes with the wind.

the light of my eyes filled with you

yes, you, who shines a talented furl my way

teasing and inspiring my fingers to play

with words paint feathers wood sound,

in ways new, to me, anyways

do what you love

no time wasted start now,

breathe inspiration into a full belly

of tomorrows dreams'

why is it so hard to simply do what we love most? what makes our heart sing, our eyes twinkle, our belly feel warm? is it fear? i wonder what we are so afraid of.

maybe we are afraid that if we began to truly live as we desire so deeply, that our carefully placed world will topple and fall like the last card atop a playing card house. our lives might change. our priorities seemingly different. our little everyday to do lists of monotonous ongoing tasks may not get ticked off. whats the pay off? increased happiness. knowing we have created meaning to our time on this earth. courage to continue to risk for the sake of living fully and feeling deeply. a satisfaction that we no longer procrastinated in the creating of our one singular precious life.

breathtaking

(click on the title 'breathtaking' to see this video. unfortunately i haven't worked out how to download videos properly yet so please bear with me for now!)

wow! this rendition of the gayatri mantra by the wonderful deva premal is just simply breathtaking. it touches me very deeply and breaks my heart open in tenderness and awe. i love this mantra, always have done, and i have decided to embark upon a 40 day discipline of chanting this mantra as we head into wintertime. my experience of it from previous years is that it felt like it had lifted my spirit, quite literally, i felt like i was imbued by light, by the sun, a lightness of my whole being.

the late mantra master, acharya namadeva thomas ashley-farrand, whom i was incredibly blessed to have met at one of his workshops on the shakti mantras last april in london, talks about the effects and importance of this mantra in his book 'healing mantras'. he says that not only is this mantra thousands of years old, but is considered the essence of all mantras. he says:

'the gayatri mantra is simply meditation on spiritual light...for pure spiritual potency, the accumulation of the highest spiritual light, and attainment of enlightenment, there is nothing to compare with the gayatri mantra'

when i chant this mantra, i feel connected to something old, so old and ancient that it makes me weep with a remembering and re-connecting deep in my bones. mantras are magical, and i highly recommend this beautiful, powerful and luminous one to steer one's spirit thro' the darker months.

namaste

tenderness

'softly, gently, night unfurls its splendour...', so sang the phantom from the opera of his name. well the night is blowing strongly out in the wee hours of manchester, the wind howling, announcing its power, and leaving us in awe of the elements we can so easily forget sweeped up by our city lives.
mary oliver wrote:
'you do not have to be good.
you do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
you only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.'
(wild geese)
mmmm...the soft animal of your body. how delicious! with the cold weather bearing its weight can we find that softness, that animal part of us, our sensual nature. how do i find that? thro rolling around on the earth, on a dancefloor, on my solar fringed rug; in the arms of a lover, warm, receptive, playful; with big juicy tubes of paint squeezing out into freedom and form. what else connects me to that softness? my lil 3 year old beautiful niece, hanging out with a cat learning from its natural sensuality, naked in the nevada desert, playing with clay teasing it into ever evolving shapes.
i wonder what makes you soft dear reader, what connects you with that animal part of you, your sensuality?

autumn

golden fire leaves burning away the old, making space for composting, resting, clearing, transitioning into the unknown, the 'fertile void'.

ah, time to slow down my friends, to feel the pulse of the earth pulling us deeper and deeper into slowing down. 'stay for a while longer' the earth whispers as we prepare to leave our homes. 'surrender to me' she purrs as we are busy planning and doing.

this is my lesson right now. my oh so familiar pull towards being busy and rushing on to the next activity is being challenged. i am being asked to slow down, to pause, to surrender. eeek!

do you know that osho mentions the difference between 'activity' and 'action'? he says the first is about this constant buzzing, doing, and generally wearing ourselves out with so much, usually, pointless motion. whereas the latter is a more focused, aware and purposeful movement, powered by our intention and wisdom.

well, creating this blog is a form of taking action for me. well at least i can write in the warmth and comfort of my own home, with fresh green tea as company, and the sounds of lucinda belle on the stereo. bliss!