SOL blog
writings on the path
What is called in new-age lexicon 'the age of aquarius', is called by Charles Eisenstein 'the age of water'.
Water is, and always has been, showing us the Way of living in harmony with the cycles of life, in abundance, in interdependence.
CYCLICITY: “You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.” was Swami Satchitananda's famous teaching. Yoga teaches us that there is a constant flux in our lives, in our emotions, in our thoughts. Balance is not a static point but rather a graceful navigation of the ebb and flow that we experience. If we can approach the waves as non-problematic, even as opportunities, then our enjoyment of life will soar. There is a mysterious, even magical, timing that orchestrates the unfolding of our days, to be in harmony with this natural force is a truly worthy practise. Remember that at the peak of the wave, you are on the precipice of coming back down and at the very bottom you are about to move on up. In our current epoch of creative change and course correction, it is vital that we hone our surfing skills. Pay attention, breath, stay open, flow and look to mama ocean as a teacher.
PROVIDENCE (origin is in Old English, meaning to be taken care of and provided for): Our imprisonment in mind and the illusory separate self has entrained us to anxiety and scarcity. Happily, the prison door is not locked and we can walk out right now and claim our birthright of at-oneness and abundance. Nature (and water) is provident, unless we try to control it and monetize it because of our misidentification with the illusion of separation and scarcity. The belief in our disconnection leads to a deep emptiness, a modern existential malaise that only unity wakes us up from. It is time to ask ourselves what is a beautiful, fulfilling simple life. It is time for sufficiency and a life lived in accordance with natural laws. Watch how water gives to us unconditionally and take responsibility for taking care of the Earth in turn. The reward will be contentment.
INFINITE RENEWAL:
“When our water here
becomes saturated with pollution,
it gets led back to the original water, the ocean.
After years of receiving starlight,
the water returns, sweeping new robes along.
Where have you been? In the ocean of purity.
Now I am ready for more cleaning work.
If there were no impurity, what would water do?
It shows its glory in how it washes a face,
and in other qualities as well,
the way it grows the grass
and lifts a ship across to another port.
When the river slows with the weight of silt
and corruption, it grows sad and prays,
Lord, what you gave me I gave others.
Is there more? Can you give more?
Clouds draw water up to become rain;
the ocean takes the river back into itself.
What this means is
we often need to be refreshed.
Water is the story of how we are helped.
The qualities of water are showing us
how we move inside grace.
-Rumi
We are made of water – over 70% of us is H20 – and that means we too can we renewed again and again.
And then we can help. Truly graceful!
"Today like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened.
Do not open the door to the study and begin reading.
Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel
and kiss the ground."
-Rumi
These thoughts from Charles Eisenstein's book "Sacred Economics" inspire me today:
"We are here to create something beautiful...the truth is that more for you is not less for me; the truth is that what I do unto you, so I do unto myself; the truth of living is to give what you can and take what you need.
....and we can start doing this right now.
When we realize that life itself is a gift and that we are here to give ourselves, we are free. After all, what you have taken in this life dies with you. Only your gifts live on.
What do we imagine to be the source of what we give? Ourselves? No. Life itself is a gift, life and all that nurtures it.
Fear of receiving is also ultimately fear of giving. Together, they are a fear of life, of connection. To give and to receive, to owe and be owed, to depend on others and be depended on --- this is being fully alive.
Gifts, along with stories, are the threads of relationship, of community. The attitude of the giver: 'I give to you freely and trust that I will receive what is appropriate, whether from you or from another in our gift circle' strikes a deep chord.
We are here to give, to create that which is beautiful to us: it will keep us light and free, and we know that as we give, so we shall receive. We are born into gratitude, and born into the need and desire to give.
Let us look at the world with eyes of 'What opportunity is there to give?' and 'How may I best give my gifts?' Hold that intention in mind and unexpected opportunities arise. And quickly, any situation in which we are not giving our life gifts towards something that is good become intolerable. Bow into service each day.
Albert Einstein says: 'Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to a divine purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that we are here for the sake of others.'
Our hearts tell us that a more beautiful world is possible. Let us trust this knowing, hold each other in it, and organize our lives around it.
Shall we settle for anything less than a sacred world?"
With gratitude to Charles Eisenstein for his inspiration to live more simply, to be more mindful of our deep connection with family, community and the earth, and to understand that each one can contribute to a more beautiful, balanced world. Namaste.
Walking through the woods of Connecticut, immersed in philosophic discourse, I found myself quoting Kenny Rogers:
“You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em.
Know when to walk away, know when to run
You never count your money, when you're sittin' at the table.
There'll be time enough for countin', when the dealin's done.”
With a wink and nod to my Alberta roots where line-dancing to this song was mandatory phys.ed curriculum, this is rich teaching on life and yoga. I often draw comfort from the poker metaphor when I am having a challenging day here in Earth-school. It is not the cards I am dealt but what I do with them that matters. I create my reality through my perception and my perception is malleable through deep mental, emotional, physical and spiritual work. Taking responsibility for what I do with what I am experiencing allows me to reclaim my power and this feels good.
Kenny takes the poker metaphor even deeper. He captures the timeless wisdom of being a warrior of discernment. When is it time to stand my ground and be fierce? When is it time to let go and move on? The answer is, of course, always within me, sometimes right at the surface, sometimes so deep that I doubt that it’s there.
I have just returned from the first module in a yearlong apprenticeship in Integral Psychotherapy with Robert Masters and Diane Bardwell Masters and the first tool I was given was the mantra of “TRUST MY INTUITION”. What would life feel like if I knew that I knew? If I knew I was guided by the greatest wisdom possible from WITHIN? And if I acted from that deepest knowing, living by heart? I find myself sitting taller, lifting my sternum to shine my heart, breathing deeper into my belly and feeling my feet claim their place of this earth when I remind myself again and again to trust my intuition. I do know when to hold’em and when to fold’em and knowing that makes life seem much less scary and much more exciting.
The other mantra I have been using frequently in my adventures of late is “PACE MYSELF” and the second verse speaks to me about this. I have often in my life been impatient, demanding and fixated on the outcome. Shocking, I know. I launched out of the gates early in life at full tilt determined to get “it” done fast and furious. In retrospect I don’t even know what “it” was. Life is in the living, I now realize, not the finishing. I am grateful for yoga for slowing me down enough to catch up with myself, to get grounded and present. There is so much space in NOW. Space to meander and celebrate and savour and enjoy and breath and be. That is “it”! Life is a process and I am learning and there will indeed be time enough for counting when the dealing is done. Yoga reminds me on a daily basis that there is all of eternity to sort things out and I can relax. In fact, relaxing is the only way to sort things out. In the hurry and worry, clench and constriction I only tie myself into more knots and trash my energy. Relax, breath, pace myself. AAAAAhhhhh!
In the poker game of life what we are gambling with is not monetary but is our freedom. WE are all healing our way to liberation. In Robert Masters words…“to heal is to make whole, to reunite and integrate all that we are. To heal is to no longer let our separateness separate us. Then we are together, even when we are apart. One step at a time, learned by heart. Home is where healing brings us.”
Our freedom is in intimacy with all that we are, with all that is, with every aspect of this beautiful, challenging game we are playing. One of my adventures in the last few weeks was to be in a bridal party of a yoga wedding. It embraced the loveliness of time honored marital traditions while playing the edge of incorporating meaningful yogic rituals and the vows ended with the offering “I set you free” . Our freedom is to be found not by avoiding the sometimes messy, sometimes exhilarating thrill of the game but by diving in and playing it with our whole being.
“You have been walking the ocean’s edge keeping your robes dry, dive naked a thousand times deeper. That’s where love flows. “ -Rumi
APOLOGIES IN ADVANCE IF YOU FIND YOURSELF HUMMING “THE GAMBLER” SONG FOR THE REST OF THE DAY. Come to yoga, it will free your mind.
Yoga is the bridge between unitive consciousness and individuated experience (infinite and finite) and Michael Jackson lived a life that clearly straddled these two realities. He was an open channel for receiving, composing and performing music that would unite nearly a billion people in mourning his death and celebrating his life. MJ’s music and his story captured our collective imagination because his artistry was pure, directly downloaded from the collective mind, and because his life was our own light and shadow amplified. He is us and yet not us.
We all watched, with the guilty pleasure-pain of schadenfreude, his misadventures and hyperbole strained antics. Whether or not we admit it, we watched because we recognized our own fears, our own fragility, our own inability to run that much energy through this body of flesh and bone. When we saw how intensely he played out our own dramas, we felt ameliorated with the knowledge that we weren’t suffering so much after all. The horror of watching celebrities crash and burn through their humanness somehow makes our own lives seem ok. And yet we all envy them for their power and the sheer energy of having that much attention pouring towards them.
The triumphs that interlaced MJ’s tragedies were incredible examples of yoga teachings embodied. Yoga is ultimately an adventure in non-ordinary realities, without having to leave this incarnation yet. MJ’s triumphs, his X-factor of talent, originality and charisma, came not from having an ingredient the rest of us lack in our make-up but rather came from having less filters and editors than the rest of us do. He was not like us, in that he had less limiting beliefs about what was possible musically. He incarnated with a special mission, a Personal Legend to live, and he let nothing stop him from fully becoming Michael Jackson. He was born to be who he was and he didn’t have a filter that would have blocked the universal, cosmic energy from fueling this destiny. Too many of the rest of us refuse to be who we were born to be because we would rather be someone else, we lack the courage to step up or we simply believe it’s impossible.
MJ showed us how to live in the super-human realm of infinite possibilities. He lived in the non-ordinary reality which says that at anytime, anyone can create something that has never existed before, if it is your destiny and you are steadfast in living it. This creativity is possible to a gentle surrendered being that channels through the grand archetypes of our souls. MJ loved the archetype of Krishna. His living spaces and his rides at Neverland were covered with iconic images of the playful, musical, charismatic Hindu deity, who unequivocally taught that life is supposed to fun. His openness let him live the energy of the archetype, making him simultaneously human with all its bittersweetness and also larger than life, somehow connected to something Bigger. The reason we are fascinated and curious is that each of as a soul yearns deeply to bridge that gap as well and live both, to be yoga. May the life of Michael Jackson inspire us all to expand the realm of what we hold to be possible. May the life of Michael Jackson inspire us all to live fully and fearlessly who we were born to be.