Loving thoughts and Accepting my beautiful broken Heart

Sloan's song "I can feel it" just came on. "But you've got a thing for me. I can feel it. I can feel it. And I've got a thing for you too. You can have it." Feeling. We can feel it, even when we aren't consciously aware.

This past weekend I had the immense privilege and good fortune to learn from Suzanne Faith Slocum-Gori. Let me just say, unselfconsciously and without "complexity or pride," that I love her. In one of her workshops she illuminated the seat of the teacher, focusing on how to hold sacred space for students. And since we're all students, all teachers, her insight and wisdom is invaluable for all of life. So much invaluable knowledge was shared and I am so grateful. 

But back to "feeling it": at one point the tangibility of the energy of thoughts came forth. The energy of thought is felt. Felt by the students, felt by all of the people that one might direct thought at. Judgment. As teachers, as people, we need to take responsibility for this. When teaching, she asked that we look for what is beautiful about the student, find their strength and encourage that. Then they will also feel that beauty, that strength. Instead of looking at someone in down dog and seeing misalignment or tight hamstrings or lack of integration, find their specific strength in the pose. Maybe it could be their earnestness or the power in their legs or their core, or the flexibility of their joints. There will always be something positive in their approach to the pose, and to life. Peer out from the Self with Love first, before trying to detect possible ways of improving. Love first. Right? This is why the famous Mother Theresa quotation is so foundational: "If you judge people, you have no time to love them." This applies also to the Self. To the negative self-talk that can run rampant through one's mind. Catch it! Do not engage in self-harming via your own thoughts. Being gentle and kind with myself has been and continues to be a challenging lesson to fully integrate. I am enough. I am enough. One more time: I am enough. For me!

Acceptance of all of me. As Suzanne led a practice at the Sattva School of Yoga this past Monday she began by explaining how she had felt a yearning to call in Courage and Strength. The light of awakening is at hand...at mind? at heart? at soul? Shreem! We chanted an invocation to the Divine Mother in her many aspects. "He maha Lakshmi, He mata Kali, He Saraswati, Jagatombe jai jai Ma, He ma Durga, He ma Durga..." In my own practice honouring and praising the Divine Feminine has recently become intuitively necessary. I guess I could say, I have had and continue to have a deep yearning to chant and give thanks to the Divine Mother. I've been chanting the following, and, having only read the words, the rhythm comes from within me: " OM Jayanti Mangala Kali Bhadra-Kali Kapalini Durga Shiva Ksama Dhatri Svaha Svadha Namo'Stu Te." So powerful, these Sanskrit words vibrating through my entire being. Kali Ma!

Back to the practice, leading up to the revelation, the mini-epiphany. Sweat dripped off of me, I found myself in a pose I had never managed before (visvamistrasana variation), as a deep fire burned through some of my samskaras (I hope!). And then, during the meditation this liberating acceptance and Truth came to me: "I accept my broken heart. I accept my broken heart. I accept my broken heart." Over and over. There was no me, no space, nothing tangible surrounding my body; simply light and love. I don't only accept my broken heart, I LOVE it. It makes me who I am, it brings the depth and understanding that I have gained through life experience, through past life experience, and provides the sweetest compassion along with the fiercest love and protection. Blessed. I am so incredibly grateful for this path that unfolds, for my journey into Being.

I accept my broken heart

I accept my broken heart

I love it

Thank God for the pain

The experience

The depth.

Yes! Blessed

To feel. To reveal.

Nothing wrong. Nothing right.

Acceptance that dissolves fright

Shifting from darkness to light.

Ephemeral beauty.

Spiritual duty.

Dancing. Keep dancing. Ever chancing.

Emptiness vibrating.

Nothing in Every-thing.

To be or to not? Impossible quandary.

Allow. Let go. Let grow.

The river will unstoppably flow.

Evolve.

Is-ness. Unmasked. 

And here is David Newman chanting to the Divine Mother.

Love Embodied: Blessing? Or Curse?

Of late, the notion of divine Love has been at the forefront of my contemplation. Understanding love...can we? Maybe we can over-stand it. Maybe love cannot be said. And, for those of us who find ourselves on the arduous and wildly transformative spiritual journey, seeking God's Love, (though we know it is already and always a part of us, is contained within and without us), for us, does human embodied Love support or hinder the journey towards Self-realization? These questions are meaningless and yet indicate the mistake, the human error. What is love? Where is it? Why is it? Divine Love?

I had the immense pleasure and opportunity to write a paper last year in my comparative literature class that does not fit into the usual mold of academic paper writing. Therein, Shakespeare, Rumi, John Donne, Hildegard of Bingen and St. Augustine, all conversing in the Akashic field, examine Plato's Symposium in an attempt to decide whether or not it displays an adequate understanding of the nature of Love. It was fun. If you you were interested in reading it, do let me know! I'd me more than happy to e-mail you a PDF. Keats makes an appearance at the end! "Beauty is Truth."

This morning I found myself heading down a nostalgic deep road of Bon Jovi. He has a beautiful rendition of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" that I had never heard before. The line, "And remember when I moved in you? And the holy dove was moving too. And every breath we drew was Hallelujah." Like that, earthly love becomes momentarily divine. And those moments, so powerful, though fleeting, are difficult to let go of. Moments of rapture on the way to realizing eternal and unwavering bliss. Do they detract? Distract? Create addictive like behaviour? They certainly can. Yes. But they also bring forth knowing that there is a greater Love, a constant and ever-present Love. Breaking down the barriers that we've created against it. And in my Bon Jovi marathon, a line from "Bed of Roses" resonated: "I wanna be just as close as, the Holy Ghost is...and lay you down. In a bed of roses." Humans seeking divine union. A curse? A blessing? This depends on the clarity of purpose held by each Soul, I suppose...

Unending Love

I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times…
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, it’s age old pain,
It’s ancient tale of being apart or together.
As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,
Clad in the light of a pole-star, piercing the darkness of time.
You become an image of what is remembered forever.
You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount.
At the heart of time, love of one for another.
We have played along side millions of lovers,
Shared in the same shy sweetness of meeting,
the distressful tears of farewell,
Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever.
Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you
The love of all man’s days both past and forever:
Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life.
The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours -
And the songs of every poet past and forever.

― Rabindranath Tagore, Selected Poems

With Love; Blessings for 2015

With Love

"Whatever you do, do it from a space of love."
He said that. To me.
Wisdom.

Did I understand then? Not quite.

From love. The heart.
From that part
Inside that IS the whole.
Soul.

Beauty and Bliss.
From this,

From this place, I can do no harm.
Can cause no pain.

Act. With Love.
Think. With Love.
Be. With Love.

Only Love. Is Real.
Feel.

Feel deep. Go there.
Finding the courage to face yourself.
And to stay.

This.
Is Love.

All that we do, and all that we seek,
Guided or misguided,
Is because of Love–
Love of Self.

Self-Love!
Fill up. Overflow!
Let it flow.
Let it grow.
And know, that there is really nothing to know.
So let go.
Gentle softening. Surrender.
So tender. The mender, of hearts.


With Love.
Eternal.

A passage from Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj in I AM THAT:

"That which you are, your true self, you love it, and whatever you do, you do for your own happiness. To find it, to know it, to cherish it is your basic urge. Since time immemorial you loved yourself, but never wisely. Use your body and mind wisely in the service of the self; that is all. Be true to your own self; love your self absolutely. Do not pretend to love others as yourself. Unless you have realized them as one with yourself, you cannot love them. Don't pretend to be what you are not; don't refuse to be what you are. Your love of other is the result of self-knowledge, not its cause. Without self-realization, no virtue is genuine. When you know beyond all doubting that the same life flows through all that is and you are that life, you will love all naturally and spontaneously. When you realize the depth and fullness of your love of yourself, you know that every living being and the entire universe are included in your affection. But when you look at anything as separate from you, you cannot love it because you are afraid of it. Alienation causes fear and fear deepens alienation. It is a vicious circle. Only self-realization can break it. Go for it resolutely." (187)