...A Fragment of Life's Heart...

So after lots of reflection and awareness and suffering and relief I realized that I was killing myself with certain concepts and beliefs.   Hence the acronym DEAD. D: demands E: expectations A: assumptions D: desires (the ones that create attachment) All these things equate to a total lack of freedom inside and outside of me.   When we can love in it’s truest sense (aka without attachment), then we become FREE.   And oh how I want to be free.   As I reflect back on 2010, I see an amazing pattern of DEAD behavior which has created great suffering but great learning for me and for that I am grateful and feel it was all worth it.   When I take the personal ME and MINE out of it, I see and experience the big picture. How it’s all a big school and the same curriculum but we all have different ways of learning.   So can I learn to let you learn how you need to learn while respecting my ways?   Trusting that in the end we’ll arrive at the same destinati...

A client made a wise statement today about helping to the point of annoyance and helping others in order to feel good about oneself.  It hit me between the eyes and in the chest.  The double-edged sword of helping simply for the joy of it and as a way to show love/affection OR helping as a way to feel useful, a part of, or worthy.  Subtle differences and most actions we take are probably never clearly one or the other but some combination of the two, otherwise we'd be Enlightened Beings with no attachment either way.  But alas, human it is, human I am, even though my Soul tries to remind me I'm more than that by putting people in my life who give me a good dose of humble pie or sweet awareness. Let go of that fear of being forgotten or dismissed. What would it be like to let her miss you, let them "forget" you, even for a day?  Think of the joy that comes when you REMEMBER a loved one. Don't deprive others or yourself of that joy... just for today.  Rem...

Intentions are powerful whether you realize it or not. Setting a heartfelt intention creates a channel in which the energy of the Universe can support us.  Many people have stories of how they asked and gently focused their energy towards a certain event/outcome/experience/etc and by handing it over to the Universe, so to speak, their desires were fulfilled, sometimes in a little different way than expected but fulfilled all the same. Intentions are not goals or mandates on the way things "should" be but a way of opening space inside and around us for our desires to be expressed and offered to the greater whole so that they can be fostered and cultivated into what our Soul's journey needs.  Those things we want or intend upon that do not come to pass are usually things that are not in the best interest of our development. In those cases, if our desires our built upon an honest desire for growth then we usually find ourselves modifying those intentions or letting them go...

  This is why a regular home & class yoga practice is vital to keep us from forgetting our true Self and the gratitude that comes with it. Usually when I've been aware of the kleshas (the creators of suffering!) in my life, it's usually of raga (grasping/craving) - we are in a society of "I want more" after all. Today my eyes were opened to how I've been over run by ALL of them in some form and it's not until that awareness of the full, true nature of things that transformation can happen. It's as though life has just been happening in pieces, in regard to my awareness & insight, but after one more come-apart, a lightbulb went off and one of my teachers was there to help me see more clearly what was surfacing. I knew that some new ways of being and knowing myself were arising but instead of following them on the higher road, I feel into the trap of the past, the ego (asmita) that told me I wasn't getting what I "needed & deserved,...

I think I wrote about this before but here it is again. I keep being reminded that everything is a choice, thoughts, feelings, actions, words.  And yet, it's hard to remember I get to choose when I'm being swamped by feelings & thoughts that aren't serving me or anyone else. We can choose to be with a feeling, letting it flow through us or we can fight it, question it, analyze it, share it.  The curious thing about choices is that whether I realize I'm choosing to do or say something, I'm still responsible for it.  While Krishna says to be detached from the fruits of our actions, sometimes the fruits of our actions are unkind and need to be apologized and corrected, if we can't stop ourselves before potential harm is done.  Usually when we find ourselves steeped in something and feel like we don't have choice, the best action to take is probably inaction or action that involves self-care and not the thing or person even partially being associated wit...

.... ..... ..... ..... It either unnerves you or settles your nerves - silence that is. The space between the words and the sounds.  Swami Kripalu asked if what we wished to say was an improvement on silence.  Lately the answer has been NO.  So I've been electronically silent.  The unfortunate or maybe just interesting thing is that even in verbal silence, there is often little mental & emotional silence or stillness.  And in today's hurried society, it's rare to find and wonderful to feel.  But silence doesn't mean being alone. How often have you had a silent meal with a friend/loved one or just sat with someone while they cried or laughed or just breathed. How often have you given yourself those things while being alone with you? No distractions, just you and you. In preparation for my birthday, I spent most of the week preceding in alone or with amply quiet & alone time.  I felt such a joy and excitement build in me during that week and...

Certainty Root my being in certainty
So I witness you without fear.
Even as the waves of blood crash over me
And the worlds char in fire.

 - Jalal-ud-Din Rumi So what certainty is Rumi asking to be rooted in, so that "I witness you without fear"? Certainty: a mental state of being without doubt; perfect knowledge that is free from error.  So it's not a certainty "about" anything, just a state of 'being' that is free from doubt.  What a concept to consider!  To live free from doubt & in perfect knowing & belief that all is perfect and right and in harmony with one's Path, one's Dharma.  Complete trust in the process equaling total freedom to be present and joyful, knowing worry was futile & just more fear (false evidence appearing real). To witness you, me, the world, WITHOUT fear, feels like a goal everyone could have.  To be in such a state of harmony and grounded faith that nothing could shake your presence from this moment....

We make millions of choices every day, often time without much awareness, thought or discernment about those decisions.  Some choices are now habits and don't feel like much of a choice.  Some choices take great deliberation and even after made leave us wondering if we "chose wisely" or not. What is choices were not about good or bad, right or wrong, but simply paths to new experiences and lessons that we needed to learn.  Labeling everything keeps us from truly learning the deeper meaning because it allows us to once again, mindlessly throw something into a box of assumption & singular in identity.  I'm beginning to discover that nothing is singular in identity even when we try to make it so, nothing is as simple and singular as we'd like it to be.  Once again, our search for stability, for ground when in fact, there is nothing constant except change. Example 1: A women who has been "in recovery" for many years CHOOSES to let go of that identit...

Becoming the Lover How can you ever hope to know the Beloved
Without becoming in every cell the Lover?
And when you are the Lover at last, you don't care.
Whatever you know, or don't – only Love is real.

 -    Jalal-ud-Din Rumi
 (Translated by Andrew Harvey from A Year of Rumi ) The seed of God is in us. Pear seeds grow into pear trees, nut seeds into nut tress, and God seeds into God. -    Meister Eckhart

A Star Without a Name When a baby is taken from the wet nurse, it easily forgets her and starts eating solid food. Seeds feed awhile on ground, then lift up into the sun. So you should taste the filtered light and work your way toward wisdom with no personal covering. That's how you came here, like a star without a name.  Move across the night sky with those anonymous lights.                 (Mathnawi III, 1284-1288) "Say I am You"  Coleman Barks Maypop, 1994 Ý  God has given  us a dark wine so potent that, drinking it, we leave the two worlds. God has put into the form of hashish a power to deliver the taster from self-consciousness.  God has made sleep so that it erases every thought.  God made Majnun love Layla so much that just her dog would cause confusion in him.  There are thousands of wines that can take over our minds. Don't think all ecstacies are the sam...

I recently heard two friends who are both mothers share this awareness that even their children we not “their’s” to own but merely Souls entrusted to them with unique paths that just happen to be born through them.  It reminded of another Sufi quote, “Overcome any bitterness that may have come because you were not up to the magnitude of the pain that was entrusted to you .  Like the Mother of the World, who carries the pain of the world in her heart, each one of us is part of her heart, and therefore endowed with a certain measure of cosmic pain.” I think most of the suffering experienced in the world today has to do with a denial, rejection or resistance to “cosmic pain” entrusted to each of us.  Some may see this as crazy and unrealistic or even unfair that, as the Indigo Girls say in their song “Galileo”, “and now i'm serving time for mistakes made by another in another lifetime.”  Because that’s what it can feel like, the kicker is that the “another” is ME, YOU...

Truth - Honesty.   Is it always the best policy?   This brings to mind Step 9 in 12-step programs: Make amends wherever possible, EXCEPT when to do so would injure them or others. The premise behind this step is that we are trying to express our apologies and how we hope to act more mindfully next time.   It’s NOT about easing our mind or lightening our load…at the expense of another.   Granted no one is totally responsible for how another feels or reacts, but it doesn’t mean we empty our garbage into our neighbor’s lawn because it’s stinking up our lawn or we no longer like “owning it.” Consider this Sufi saying that offers this wisdom around speaking mindfully: Is it kind? Is it true? Is it necessary? If you use that as a guide before opening your mouth or writing that email, then you may find yourself more speechless than usual.   But then again how often are the words that come from us and the actions following them the causes or breeders of disconte...

DISCLAIMER: today's post is a bit paradoxical and potentially confusing, so beware and enjoy. After reading it, you may feel like you just left the movie "Inception" but without the dreaming part. ___________________________________________ What kind of thoughts, feelings, and memories come when you see the word “special”? Positive, negative, both?  Words like food can be used and experienced pleasantly and painfully depending on who cooks them up and how they serve them.  Examples: On the wedding day, the bride says, “this is the most special day of my life!” An adolescent trips & falls down the steps, a student laughs & says, “he’s special !” Remember, Specialness implies unspecialness.  When we place a label on something such as desirable, then we instantly create it’s opposite by assuming that something else is less desirable.  This dichotomy places us in a game of constantly seeking or wanting one thing over another as if to achieve some ideal exp...

Loaded question, right? After a few days/weeks/months of continued reflection with Self & others and an eye/heart opening experience yesterday, insight came and desires expression today. I found it fascinating and eye opening to look up definitions of these words: Commitment (via hyperdictionary.com) [n]  the official act of consigning a person to confinement (as in a prison or mental hospital) [n]  the act of binding yourself (intellectually or emotionally) to a course of action; "his long commitment to public service"; "they felt no loyalty to a losing team" [n]  an engagement by contract involving financial obligation; "his business commitments took him to London" [n]  the trait of sincere and steadfast fixity of purpose; "a man of energy and commitment" [n]  a message that makes a pledge I was instantly drawn back away from the deluded romantic Libran ideals that often consume me ...

In the deepest spiritual sense, love is unlimited, unconditional, undefinable, indescribable. Yet every writer, artist, musician, and movie star spends a lifetime trying to portray it in.  But in what form and under whose rules are we portraying it. And is it truly love or just some hybrid by which we base all our relationships and interactions with others? Society in all its forms conveys love & relationship as something that is limited, rule-bound, and clearly defined.  We even have a legal establishment (marriage) for it that creates more trouble than it's worth often times, especially considering the 50%+ divorce rate and the saga that goes along with the ending of relationships.  Why do we insist that we should only love or "express" love to one person at a time when for centuries before in ancient and indigenous cultures, love wasn't limited to one person or group but seen as a ritual expression of Divinity and Union with Self, God, & Other. What wou...

"Thank you for being here with me." Short, simple, POWERFUL. How many times in your life has someone simply "been there with you" (without trying to fix or analyze you or the situation)? How many times have YOU simply allowed yourself to "be here" with someone? This feels like the TRUE experience & expression of love.  No requests to do anything, just acknowledgment and gratitude for presence, holding space, seeing another.  Our presence as shown through our eyes allows us to see and be seen by others.  And often times, that's all we really want or need.  In Garrison Starr's new album "Beside," she has an amazing song about this called, Sit With Me Tonight . How would your life different if from the moment you were born, everyone that nurtured & raised you truly SAW you...versus telling you how you should be or could be?  Everyone around you encouraged you to find how you are a piece of Life's Heart.  It is only through...