Muddles and Awareness
Posted by: Greenwoman2007 on: October 14, 2009
I have spent much of the days recently in a twirl. Not really my usual deeply rooted self. I get knocked off my center when I feel hurt deeply. It is hard for me to maintain my equanimity and to not become possessed of emotionally dramatic thinking.
In an effort to calm my thoughts tonight, I sought Jaya Kula, a site about Tantra.
Tantra is one of those very quiet things in my life. Its always there…the same way that Buddhism and its very noble teachings has been there in my life for a long long while. The same way that the very basic Sufi meditations are always there in my life, quietly supplying insights and support as if they were direct transmissions with each tiny chant and each small insight into the Divine that they provide. There is also the pipe. That’s actually been there right along with all these things in my life…and they have each been there quietly. I have openly pursued other traditions and teachings with such an avid interest and I have made them all consuming. But these ways of praying and thinking and dealing with life unfolding and these ways of becoming conscious have always been in my life quietly providing me with teachings in the small, repetitive doses I need to consume and integrate the wisdom I can glean from them.
Each of these pathways that I’ve spoken of are direct realization ways of becoming aware and balanced. They are all the same thing really…they just bring a unique quality of insight into the question of what is Reality? What is Important? Who am I? and What is my Purpose?
What is needed in that path to understanding is willingness to listen and to set aside my assumptions of what Is…so that I can really understand. If I really understood there would be no questions in my being at all…Right? But there is. I am often confunded and confuzzled by my life, by my own thoughts, and most especially by my own heart….never mind being utterly bewildered sometimes about what is beyond my own being. I am a universe inside this little body. That’s alot to understand right there…and we didn’t even get to the recognition of my innate Divinity…nor did I get to the topic of yours and the great impact your Life force has on my being-ness.
Reality is a sharp and awe inspiring thing. It can overwhelm me and strike me speechless with its wonder and mystery that I can sense but which totally escapes words. Words just make it small and boxy and not make sense at all. It is boundless like the sea can seem visually…but in our minds we know there’s land somewhere beyond our sight. We know that for sure. Even if we’ve never crossed the sea. But the thing is? Reality is not bound by anything but our concepts of it. If we drop those…what’s there to root ourselves in?
It can be so scary at first. I’m learning to get past that fear and to see that I am in fact the root. This body is the root. I’m firmly tapped into this great boundless thing that’s all around the Me that is this body and the associated individuation that resides in it. It is my temple and my way of touching that infinity that is you and you and you…and all the green growing life that’s all around me.
Wow.
Can you feel me on that?
And this…these words and awe strike me in the midst of my muddle. How does that happen I wonder sometimes.
I know now after years of this being so. Sometimes a muddle is the cord that tugs me toward the next insight and wisdom that draws me ever deeper into this boundless awareness of what Is.
Sometimes my muddle is the guru because then I have a indicator of new ways and needs to grow and learn.
My current muddle?
Fear of having an open heart. Of being hurt.
I’m laughing inside. How did that happen? Me…who just found that I could trust myself am being challenged to go deeper into that trust…and so I am discovering yet more places in which fear hides in the shadows of what I lack full awareness of about me and about Loving and about Trust.
I feel like cussing. I feel like crying. I feel like running away. I feel like seeking the deep silent flows of peace that will carry me out of this muddle toward something so real and beautiful…so Aware. Something that I can’t imagine living and brushing up against right now.
I have but to trust and relax and follow the flow of right view and the flow of the pipe smoke and the flow of the wazaif’s insight into the devotion of the Divine. I follow the flow of Tantra as a result.
At least I do as best I can while muddled. *smiles*
The Curl of the Beloved’s Hair
Posted by: Greenwoman2007 on: September 30, 2009
“Neither sober nor drunk, sometimes I feel the joy of my soul’s eyes looking out through mine.
Other times I feel the curl of the Beloved’s hair and my life wobbles and staggers.
Sometimes, the seasons of life turn and I find myself back on the compost heap.
And sometimes, when her glance finds me again, I am back in the Rose Garden.”
Shabistari
Image by Rassouli
Hurrying
Posted by: Greenwoman2007 on: September 28, 2009
- In: Happiness| Leadership| Sangha| Tantra
- 3 Comments
I was traveling at high speed this past weekend. It seemed like I was running and running and running and could just never catch up. And there was all this stuff I wanted to do…and I was so determined to do my best to do it all, that I just couldn’t accept that I couldn’t do it all.
And really none of what I truly wanted to experience got done.
I had another really good and happy experience instead…
But it left with some basic messages…some of which are reminders of things I already knew.
Running as fast as I can through life is not a life lived well and it is not possible to be present to the fullness of the moment because there’s too much hurry and too much tired in it.
There are some things which should be given such a high priority that they are not squeezed into a too busy schedule…they are the focus of the schedule. For me, my children and my ceremonies are those things. It is just not right for me to squeeze these aspects of my life in between other things. This should be so important to me that I stop what I’m doing and set aside meaty time to just focus on them without my attention being divided by any other obligations…and that I’m not rushing to or from some where else at the last minute because I over committed the day I travel the long distances to see my family and experience my ceremonies.
These are activities that require all of our ability to listen.
We cannot really listen if we are in a hurry.
Warmth
Posted by: Greenwoman2007 on: September 23, 2009
- In: Happiness| Meditation| Tantra
- 3 Comments
The last few days its been so warm. I’ve had the windows open and the sliding glass door open. I lay last night on the floor listening to the trees creak. The coyotes were howling in the distance. Their voices carrying on the wind sporadically. Close by birds startled in the night and complained. Likely the owl hunting and disturbing their slumber. It is so peaceful here…
Soon winter will be upon us. This is the first time I will see winter come to the land here in VT. It will be a treat.
As the power of the land here inches toward repose, I think of pooling power too. I think of how power effects us…It creates awe…and that awe disturbs us. It burns…and the inner self remembers its mortality and the small self passes away.
I think of beauty and its effect on us. It fills us with intimacy. It brings joy. It illuminates us and so enters communion. And through the revelation of this beauty, our hearts are resurrected.
These are the teachings of the Afghani Sufi Al-Hujwiri of the 11th century.
I have been thinking about these things and I am carrying power and beauty into the repose of winter…letting them pool in me.
We shall see what spring brings.
In these moments, I struggle with the swirling detritus of the past. Its makes my skin smart while it blows in the winds of my thoughts sometimes. It confuses my eyes to see it there. Sometimes I am filled with doubts. Sometimes I think I don’t belong here. Sometimes I wonder if all is well with me when I struggle with old stuff that has no bearing on the now.
I am told that this is a normal response to the small self dying in me…and that even this odd sadness is normal too. There is something slightly wistful about the cooling days of summer that reflect my mood and on this day of balance between night and dark, I wonder to myself how I shall be when the small self has transformed into the deep consciousness that I am learning to live each day. Who will I be? What will I be like? Will I recognize myself?
I am told that my mind will not become some alien thing inside me but will still contemplate all sorts of things like it does now…but that I will be poised within my thoughts and within my life. Being poised. What a word. Graceful that feels. I like the idea of graceful.
This evolution has been a long time coming…I welcome it with such wordless abandon…with such wordless gratitude and enthusiasm.
Pooling
Posted by: Greenwoman2007 on: September 21, 2009
Holy cow, life is full of challenges! And as is usual for me, I turn to my spiritual practice to cope with it.
I’m a great fan of a practice called bibliomancy, which is a meditation practice in which you use a book to find a synchronous passage that will add some comfort or guidance to something on your mind or heart. It’s a kind of divination really…but I use it not for specific, ‘do this’ or ‘do that’ kind of guidance so much as for bringing into consciousness another perspective that is useful and constructive to situations in my life. So if I’m feeling stressed, I’ll get out a book of poems from Rumi or Hafiz, or I’ll get a book of daily meditations and think fully on my concern and then feel into where to open the book for something useful to read. I’ve been doing this for years, so I’m pretty good at feeling into the pages and picking one with concepts and energy that constructively add to my thinking.
Yesterday, I was processing a huge change in my life that’s upcoming and got out a book I’m very fond of called the Sufi Book of Life by Neil Douglas-Klotz. The passage I picked was about pooling power. Not the power formed of trying to rechannel/transform stress, but the deep power of the life force and soul Self; the deep power of the Divine moving through…
The passage spoke of this energy being sublime and glorious…that it wells up and begins to spread, but like the deep ocean , if we are mindful about pooling the power, it doubles back on itself and pools more deeply, building. It is expressed/radiates without speaking or acting. It is a reservoir in repose…a mastery that others can sense in you and will respond to without your needing action to express it.
Okay…so what’s that mean really? That’s all nice and neatly packaged as a spiritual message, but how does that really work in action?
I think it is about attention for me.
If I pay attention to the moment and who/what is in it with me and if I enter that moment without expectation, judgment or attachment, then I can let the power of that moment fill me with its basic goodness. I can let my ongoing connection with the Divine guide me through the unfolding moment and respond without reacting. I can just be with the moment. I don’t have to change or fix it or muscle it into being what I want. I can try to engage without emotional angst.
That’s something I will really need to do in the months to come. This challenging change in my life will necessitate alot of accommodations emotionally that I wasn’t prepared to make and it will call for loving at a more evolved level than I am used to. I will have to grow and stretch to manage this situation. The best way I know to do that is to be present and let the power inside me pool so that I can act in a flexible way…so that I don’t feel empty. Feeling empty is going to make it hard to stay present. It will make it impossible to be flexible and loving or even compassionate on a basic level.
Pooling strength is something I do with my pipe meditations. Its something that I do with Reiki energy and with tantric meditations on Shakti (in the potential sense) and on kundalini. It is to draw in divine energy, but not send it out as much as I take it in. Ergo, the power pools into a resevoir of strength.
The Heart as an Instrument
Posted by: Greenwoman2007 on: September 14, 2009
- In: Happiness| Sangha| Tantra
- 2 Comments
I was reading a bit out of a book I meditate with frequently. Its called The Sufi Book Of Life by Neil Douglas-Klotz. This particular passage included a quote by Moineddin Jablonski:
Note by clay note
pipe me down.
Play the holes in my heart
that swallow love
and slowly heal.
This quote makes the tears flow for me…’Play the holes in my heart that swallow love and slowly heal…’
Life has played the holes in my heart over and over again…Men and women and children passing through my life…being Divine fingers playing over the holes in my heart…healing me.
When I get all philosophical and get out of my responses to content intellect (aka ego), I start thinking that Love is a paradoxical thing. Sometimes we think that we’re only being wounded yet again…but its the call to open further, to let all the love in that we really need so we’ll heal. (boy I don’t do that well. I kick and scream and whine forever it seems when I get my feelings hurt. At least I used to.) Its a call to be fully in the moment, instead of the past or the future. Its a call to let go of the flow of time and be only in Now. (Something I’m getting more skilled at) Its a call to love the same way…to play the pipe of another’s soul. Its music. An ephemeral thing that can’t flow if we grasp too hard. It is something we’ve got to let the air out of to make the beautiful sounds…Its something we’ve got to hand back so it can be played elsewhere…
After all. No one person can play every song the heart needs. We have to hand it back so others can play it…
Playing a song on someone’s heart…playing a song on my own.
Aren’t they really one and the same? Aren’t hearts also like bells…? One resonating with another when its struck? Even if someone I love is being played by Another, can’t I resonate from the song and so know joy also in that loved one’s happiness?
It seems so. It really does seem that more people to love can equal more love for all concerned.
I feel as if my dance in the sun has struck melodies in me and that I am in a rhythm I do not understand sometimes. I am just trying to be in the moment and respond. I am sometimes very afraid in my life these days. Everything is challenging me. I’m on all new ground. Nothing is familiar really. New places, new faces…I miss friends I love who have passed out of my life for now because their own insecurities and/or emotional needs have taken them where I can’t follow. I miss what could have been with others. I watch them and feel wistful about what might have been.
And then I remember…’that’s all about grasping on to what isn’t in the now’. So I draw myself back and I realize that in this moment, there’s so many gifts…New people to make friends with. New experiences to have. I am finding the courage to open fully to my life experience…and there’s no need to be wistful about what isn’t available since there’s so much bounty in the now anyway.
That’s something I’ve never done before. Stay in the bounty of the now. I’m doing it imperfectly…but I’m doing it and the Universe is playing a lovely melody on my heart.
I don’t feel wounded any more.
Image by an artist whom I believe is named Marianna Rydvald, but I wasn’t able to find a website for her.
Rumi on the Cosmos
Posted by: Greenwoman2007 on: September 1, 2009
- In: Happiness| Tantra
- 3 Comments
I am the dust in the sunlight, I am the ball of the sun.
I am the mist of morning, the breath of evening.
I am the spark in the stone, the gleam of gold in the metal.
The rose and nightingale drunk with its fragrance.
I am the chain of being, the circle of the spheres.
The scale of creation, the rise and the fall.
I am what is and is not…
I am the soul of all.
Jalil al-Din Rumi
Image by Jim Warren
Alignment
Posted by: Greenwoman2007 on: August 27, 2009
I shared in a recent post how much change I’ve been experiencing lately. Some of those changes have been incredibly good. The best of them has been a change in my thinking. I am free of the egoic circular thinking that held me in unwanted emotions. My consciousness is evolving as a result. For many years I’ve been taught about my thinking problem…and most human beings do have one. A thinking problem that is. Yanno…that monkey mind thing, where you drive yourself all emotional and obsessive because you are twirling about something inside.
Well…I’ve heard what to do about it over and over again and it wasn’t until this moment in my life and until I had the right words to really get it and apply it that things began to change.
I want to share something I read in my meditation time today. Its from Eckhart Tolle’s book A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose. This is from pg. 198-199:
Not Minding What Happens
J. Krishnamurti, the great Indian philosopher and spiritual teacher, spoke and traveled almost continuously all over the world for more htan fifty years attempting to convey through words- which are content -that which is beyond words, beyond content. At one of his talks in the later part of his life, he surprised his audience by asking, “Do you want to know my secret?” Everyone became very alert. Many people in the audeince had been coming to listen to him for twenty or thirty years and still failed to grasp the essence of his teaching. Finally, after all these years the master would give them the key to understanding. “This is my secret,” he said. “I don’t mind what happens.”
He did not elaborate, and so I suspect that most of his audience were even more perplexed than before. The implications of this simple statement, however, are profound.
When I don’t mind what happens, what does that imply? It implies that internally I am in alignment with what happens. “What happens,” of course refers to the suchness of this moment, which always already is what it is. It refers to content, the form that this moment- the only moment there ever is- takes. To be in alignment with what is means to be in a relationship of inner nonresistence with what happens. It means not to label it mentally as good or bad, but to let it be. Does this mean you can no longer take action to bring about change in your life? On the contrary. When the basis for your actions is inner alignment with the present moment, your actions become empowered by the intelligence of Life itself.
I had thought that I’d add some of my own experiences and thinking to this tidbit from his book. But I think I’ll just let the statements speak for themselves.
Einstein
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