Poems That Want to Breathe

Gifted to me by Beloved Jeanette on my arrival to the Pacific Northwest for my writing conference in 2021….

It’s the first day of May. And an auspicious one at that, Pluto turns retrograde- the planet of rebirth and healing! The sun, Surya, comes on this first day of May, bringing his light to me for the first time since Wednesday. This day comes following days of rain, a lot of rain yesterday accompanied by a huge wind storm. Yes, I think and smile as I type, washing, cleansing, clearing, lifting, removing, blowing away all of the residue that lingers…

I took a poetry class back in March and feel called to share some of the pieces I wrote during that time.

Here they are:

Drawn away from light

The in between

A gap before dark

 _________

Begging for the light to remain

The space in between

Before dark

 __________

Drawn into the dark

A pure light

She illuminates

 ___________

A flick of the wrist

In the dark

A single flame

Illuminates

 __________

I take out my anger*

And lay its shadows

Behind me

What I have come from

Been

What I have felt

Endures

A constant reminder, lurking

I will not allow to repeat

A cycle

Now broken

___________

Quiet

 Still  

 Alone

You notice

A stirring, a birth

And there was a new voice **

Within

Gaining strength

Courage

Energy

To emerge and

Let itself be heard

These are poems that I have been living in the closed pages of a journals for years and they want to breathe in the air and live:

You have to

Put things down

Let go

Open

To receive

It is the same

Simultaneously happening

Open up,

Unfurl the palm

Open

To receive

In receiving there is giving

They meet here

In this feedback loop

____________

The sound of wings in flight

Accept, know

Your identity

Who you are

Why you are here

Claim it

Not someone else’s view of you

Of what you should be

                       should do

rather connect with the deepest aspects of

yourself

and know yourself

______________

You giving up on me

Was an invitation for

Me to give in

To myself

Thank you is only the beginning

___________

A façade

This life I live

In a world that is rarely honest

No truthful exchanges

Where we pretend

Niceties of our day

What is real

Lacking

Not being said

Rarely interacting

Wondering

Why me?

__________

You said we had nothing in common

I accepted

I can make change if I am

Driven to

We all can make change

If we are driven to

_________

Years pass

Mere marginal moments

Is this what there is to live for?

_______

How do you repair distance

How do you repair disbelief

The word alone

Repair

Means something is broken,

Needs to be fixed

Yet I am whole

____________

Looking at photos

From the past

I have aged

Eyes used to twinkle

Skin had a glow

Now they are grey, dull

-this pull of life

____________

What lays underneath

All that I do

This day in and

Day out

___________

How can one be free

Giddy and laugh

When there is criticism?

I am scared

_________

When you look at me,

I feel

Disgust

Disappointment

Judgment

With the critical eye

Ashamed

Criticized

Unloved

Small

Powerless

I second guess myself

What have I done

Wrong?

I become defensive

I blame

Justify

Withdrawal

And this is where I live,

In this darkness

__________

Withholding love and affection

Is a form of betrayal

Its crazy making

Yet, I seek to make sense and

Understand

__________

I feel alone

Knowing I am not

Doesn’t stop the pain

________

Parallel lives

That sometimes intersect

Is this all?

_________

Your comments

Speak volumes

Of resistance and fear

Rather than openness and

love

_______

Maybe the problem is

That I am seeking

Answers outside myself

When I know the

Answer

It is inside me

It is me

_______

It is not try

It’s do

It’s not me

It’s you

Tired of talking

Yet if I don’t

Years continue to pass by

________

I used to look for love

Now I know

I am love

It’s not even inside me

It is me

I am it

It is who I am

Love

______

I love and accept all of me

For who I am

To shine bright, live fully, free to be me

I am worthy and deserving  of love

Feeling, yearning, wanting

Connection, acknowledgement

To be heard

Valued

These basic needs, not unique to me

I am not crazy for wanting more

Seeking more

We are wired for connection

Honesty

Straightforward

No longer hiding

Pretending

I am not scared anymore

*This line, “I take out my anger” is lifted from the Poem “On A Pink Moon,” by Poet Laureate Ada Limon

** This line, “and there was a new voice” is lifted from the poem “The Journey,” by Mary Oliver

Anticipation Is Part of the Plan

I opened my eyes at 9:03 and it is now 9:15. In that span of time so many awareness’s have come….

Things have to end. That is the nature of things. Things separate. Things drop. Things fade. Sometimes this happens with grace and ease. Sometimes this happens with grief and sadness. Sometimes this happens with questions like what if and why? And sometimes it is a combination of all of these things swirled together into a big mass, a huge tangled knot.  I acknowledge that this awareness, this awareness of loss is here. Loss of friendships and relationships that at one time were my family. I acknowledge that this is here and that there is nothing I can do about it. I cannot control what others think in their mind or what they say to one another out loud. I am not able to explain or justify my choices and actions, share my perspective. These are all defense mechanisms, shields to not feel, attempts for things to be any other way that they are.

A long while back I gave my sister a magnet that said ITS ALL ABOUT ME. I want to ask for it back. For I know now, that it is all about me. It, meaning how I see and perceive, how I make meaning and understand, it is all from my stance as a witness. What am I seeing? What am I perceiving? What am I noticing? What sense am I making? What understanding am I drawing? Things can be no other way than the way I am. I can take a victim role and make others out to be villains.  I can be passive and feel I am a martyr. I can speak up and feel like I am a hero. All of these stances are true, I know them all for I have donned each costume, each mask.

It is all about me. It is all about my relationship with my mind. My mind that has engrained patterns and set ways of doing and being, responding and reacting. Like autopilot. It just goes, on its own. And now, through my practice I am catching on to it. I am noticing its trends, it tendencies, its habitual ways and I am catching them much faster than before.

As Beloved Jeanette shared with me yesterday, “it was this way, until now.” Yes, it was one way for hundreds, thousands of interactions. It was that way until the now, the now when I break the pattern, the familiar patterns of interacting out of fear and stepping fully within myself, full embodiment of my practice and speaking my truth, in alignment and with harmony.  Not placing blame on others- saying you did ______ and it made me _______or off loading my feelings and emotional sensations onto someone else, saying they way I am is their fault, the way I am feeling is as a result of them and their choices. NO. What is theirs is theirs and what is mine is mine. I can take responsibly for me. I can speak what wants to be shared through me. I can step when I want to step. I can be me and when I am me, without any constraints or restraint, without the thought of what will happen if I say _______ or what will they think when they hear _______.  I already know the answer. They will leave. They will go. They will talk. They will share stories and gather. And that is what they will do.

Or at least that is the way it was. Until now. Who knows what is on its way, what is on the horizon once I break free of this pattern of being. I know that I live in a feedback loop and what I put out I receive. Give and receive. Receive and give. One and on it flows like this, this cycle or offering and receiving, receiving and offering. Life is offering me new ways of being and I am receiving these new ways as a new being, aware of the patterns and habits that have defined and guided my way for so long. Until now.  So now, as I switch up the footing to this dance, what new moves will arise? Oh yes, this dance. This lovely dance. The vibrations coming and moving me, they way love wants to move. The way I want to move!  So exhilarating! So exciting!

It is what I do that matters. The choices that I make are the ones that matter. For so long in my life I made choices for others, thinking about what they would like, think, say and do. How they would respond to me, what they might think or say to others. None of this matters. It is outside of me. All of it is outside of me. What matters is my relationship with myself. My integrity with myself.  I am the one who lives with me. I am the one who inhabits this body. I am the one who is in conversation with this mind. This is the work I am here to do, to tune into and to pay attention to. Here, within me. Noticing what sensations are arising. What subtle messages are being shared. What signs are being delivered. The latter, is the big work right now, it is a whole new language, a whole new way of communicating that I am exploring. There are many messages and signs that I am receiving and getting ‘right’ and I know I have gotten some ‘wrong.’ I know I have misinterpreted some messages and signs, and these misinterpretations have costs friendships and relationships to end. This I know to be true. I also know that I am learning. I am here to learn and to learn we must take steps and explore the unknown. What we call mistakes, for me are opportunities for growth, for expansion. I caught a glimpse of a fortune the other day that read – Mistakes are portals for new discoveries. Yes! I thought. Yes, they are!

This morning, when I woke and had more than 15 thoughts run through my mind in the 12 minutes before I sat to write- one of them being the quote from Alice and Wonderland that was on a journal that I used when I was a part of a team working to write a Special Education side to a Charter:

“Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said. 'One can't believe impossible things.'

I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. ― Lewis Carroll

Something caught my eye. A tiny green speck. Could it be? Could it be? Yes, it is. A new bud, pushing through and emerging from a stalk of a jade plant that I had recently cut off because it had died. It shriveled up and was no longer receiving nutrients to grow.  And there it was, right before my eyes- new growth.

Reminding me that yes, somethings have to drop, get cut or come to an end for new things to come. 

Which brings me to the songs that I woke with, replaying in my mind from when I heard them the other day in the car. Dan Fogelberg’s Part of the Plan and Carly Simon’s Anticipation (check out the lyrics that speak to me below). I can hardly wait for what is on the horizon, what is on its way. I catch myself, dreaming and wondering, creating plans and visions in my mind.  And then I bring myself back and say, be here Sara. Be here. Here is when it is all happening. Right now. Right here.

In love with life, exactly where I am, right here, right now.

Believing, knowing that ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE IF YOU ARE WILLING.

And I am!

Loving you,
Sara

Part of the Plan, Dan Fogelberg from the Souvenirs Album 1974

I have these moments all steady and strong
I'm feeling so holy and humble
The next thing I know, I'm all worried and weak
And I feel myself starting to crumble

The meanings get lost, and the teachings get tossed
And you don't know what you're gonna do next
You wait for the sun but it never quite comes
Some kind of message comes through to you
Some kind of message comes through

And it says to you
Love when you can
Cry when you have to
Be who you must
That's a part of the plan
Await your arrival
With simple survival and
One day, we'll all understand
One day, we'll all understand
One day, we'll all understand

Your conscience awakes and you see your mistakes
And you wish someone would buy your confessions
The days miss their mark, and the night gets so dark
And some kind of message comes through to you
Some kind of message shoots through

And it says to you
Love when you can
Cry when you have to
Be who you must
That's a part of the plan
Await your arrival
With simple survival and
One day, we'll all understand
One day, we'll all understand
One day, we'll all understand

There is no Eden or heavenly gates
That you're gonna make it to one day
But all of the answers you seek can be found
In the dreams that you dream on the way

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Dan Fogelberg

Anticipation, Carly Simon from the Album Anticipation 1971

We can never know about the days to come
But we think about them anyway
And I wonder if I'm really with you now
Or just chasin' after some finer day

Anticipation, anticipation
Is makin' me late
Is keepin' me waitin'

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Carly Simon

Anticipation lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

The Cycles of Cycles

I am emerging from another cycle. Another go. I wrote a piece about this cycle a few posts back. This time, the cycle felt as if I was trapped in a washing machine cycle- the door was locked and I could not get out despite everything I was doing to try to get it to stop! And this is the thing I am learning about cycles- they are cyclic and they move at their own pace and timing. It isn’t possible for me to hurry them up or asked them to get on with it, or conversely when something is blissful to have it stop and slow down. What I am finding is that it is all relevant, the beginning, the end and all of the stuff that comes in between. What I have learned from my practice is that I can be with this all- the highs and the lows, the swings from one side to another. I read this today from Rebecca Campbell and smiled:

“You are being invited to remember that while these extremes are difficult, they can also be magnificent. The more widely the pendulum of your life swings, the more truthfully you can say, “I have truly lived.”

We are taught that something is good or bad, right or wrong, accepted or not or it is rewarded or punished.  I am really undoing all of this. In this undoing, I am seeing things as they are. As simple as they are. I am seeing that I don’t need to attach some sort of condition to it, some sort of adjective to it.  It is what it is. It can be this way from my perspective, from someone else’s’ perspective it can be that, and they are both true. The thing itself is what it is – it is only when we attach something to it that we have to show our opinion or our preference or our tendencies, our likes and dislikes.

I am acknowledging this as I come out of this cycle, that I feel like I have been in since November. This cycle that has felt like a lot of tossing and tumbling, a lot of fast stuff happening with little gasps of air in between. At times, life has felt like it has been a real obstacle, a real challenge. I can say this because in some ways I thought this time, this specific Dasha I am running would have a certain flavor and it conjured up a vision of what it would be and it turns out that it has been something different than what I expected and as I am discovering it is something way more than I could have ever imagined. Way deeper, with way more breadth. Its depth and the space I have traversed is vast. Subtle and subtler layers are being unlocked in all directions. And this is the things with cycles, they have their own beginning and their own end. They come with their own energy, own expression and they come within their own space and time.  This is something I acknowledge, that I cannot hurry. I cannot tell it to hurry up and rush or go fast or to slow down or stop, which is really sometimes what I wanted. Instead, I bask with and in it all.

Today, for the first time in a long while I sat for a practice and it was delicious. Oh, so lovey (this word wrote itself and is a nod to Beloved Carol Mann who energy and wisdom is so strongly with me right now). Yes, yes, I thought. Why have I not done more of this? Why do I not do this more often? And there it is, the stick, the measuring stick, the comparison, the wanting things to be any way other than the way they are. Now is the time I sat. Now is the time for that experience. Not before. Not after. Now. I continue to soften into this, as this is part of the cycle. Part of the cycle I am emerging from. And nature is too.

I am waking up. Things are waking up. Pushing up through the earth, rising up, bursting into bloom, emerging, expressing.  Have you ever watched something come up from the earth? How it transforms and changes? How it knows what to do? Some silent (to us) intelligent form inside guiding its way on? This is how it is for me too. Emerging from the winter, the inwardness and stillness of winter.  A slowing. The preserving of energy.  This emerging is leading me to the acknowledgment of energy. The energy I have and where I want to share it, the energy that I want to be around. The energy I want to surround myself with. The more I learn about myself, the more I turn inwards, the more connected and rooted I am in my own body. I ground down and feel. I notice sensations that I may have missed in the past, messages that were trying to be delivered but I was not aware. My receiver was not tuned in, my attention was elsewhere, focused on other things. Things outside of me. Things outside of my control. Things that have nothing to do with me. Things that I know now, I would willing pick up and take on responsibility for- even though they are not mine. This inward time, this time of reflection, pondering and contemplation has allowed me to gain distance, separation. With this new perspective I can see things clearly, from a new view, a new stance. I am able to see patterns at play. Patterns of ways of being, of interaction. These habitual ways. They seem instinctual, they happen without any thought. They are reactions, embedded, known reactions that just happen, that rise up. This is what I am noticing. This habit, instinct, deeply embedded response happens and the thought comes up, turn on after. That is how quick it is.

This response is not always bad or negative. It is not always good or positive. It is simply a response, a response that is embedded deep within the cells, within the body, within the knowing that has been around for a long time. These responses are our samskaras and they are related the kelsha, the sticky residue that I have found to be more sticky than cling wrap.  Yes, that is what this is, these responses are old habitual ways of being. Ways that are in a family line, from my own patterning and experiences, from the community in which I was raised and they reflect the timing of when they got locked in or imprinted on my being. And now, each cycle I go through is helping me see and once I see, then I can rid myself of these tendencies and patterns, some of them are so deeply embedded they do not want to go. The grasp tightens and there is a clinglingness- like the tendency of cling wrap- it gets all tangled and knotted. It is such a mess you do not know where to begin and then desire it to throw it away, stop and being again. When I read back my pieces and what they have left traces of on this journey I see this is also a thread- the wanting it to stop, enough, let me off, let me out, I am tired, what more do you want. And there are also the threads of let’s go, let’s clear this, let’s clean away this muck and left over residue, this grim and film that lingers.

I was going through my audio recordings this morning and found these two gems from September 12,2022:

“It’s as if the thoughts that come in, the samskaras, they’re interference, they’re the static. That is what brings you out of the alignment, that causes the confusion.”

The confusion for me is another thread. Over the years I have used the word, cloaked or getting knocked down, hit by a wave and disoriented, out of sorts, not able to see clearly, unsure of what is happening or asking what just happened. When you are in it, it is challenging to discern what is going on. And each and every time I come out, I laugh with giddy delight, flying high in the bliss of releasing and letting go that which binds and limits me.

“And if you think about what static looks like visually, like the black and white fuzz or really erraticness, you can also see that it is an illusion, the blurring of it, like it is not clear, it is fuzzy when it is like that.”

Sometimes things have to blur before they can become clear. Like turning a lens into focus as a dear friend Michelle offered to me the other day.

Sometimes static is also points of light that spread, like mini lightening storms. Reminding us, showing us that there is power here, a great force at play.

So here, with this static, confusion, haziness and disorientation I am accepting that they too are parts of these cycles. Cycle of undoing. Cycles of rebuilding. On and on and on they go, fueled by this natural intelligence that is always here guiding my way on.  And I am leaving a trace of this here, so when it happens again and I forget, I can revisit my own wisdom and trust that this too will come to an end, which is actually the beginning.

Cycles of inwardness and outwardness.

Cycles upon cycles upon cycles. Everything is embedded within cycles.

Which reminds me of a dream I had the other night and the awe I had once I put it into words and said it out loud.

“It was dark, and there was light on the horizon,”

Meeting you here,

S

Taken by Beloved Wendy after my most recent dip- ahhh to be held and to have your breath taken away!

This Incredible Journey of Opening to Love

Opening to Love

A few moons back, not so long ago, a wise woman asked me to contemplate this:

What are your nourishing self-love practices? (*to read what I wrote, scroll to the bottom of this post)

Oh, self- love. What is that self-love? What is this self-love?  Self? Love? Nourishing? Practices? Me? I can do this? I can give to myself? I do not have to wait or look to someone else for this? Aren’t I supposed to be taken care of by someone else, turn my needs and wants over to them? Aren’t they supposed to be able to read my mind, to know what I need before I know myself? These are stories I have been told, narratives that have been shared and conditioning that has been marketed to me. Someone is to know me better than myself and my life’s work is to find that person, to locate that person and then, only then can I be whole, complete, taken care of and nurtured.

Yes, this is the story I was told. And this was the story I conjured, taken from life’s experiences, pulling in from all directions, collecting and gathering- waiting.

For what?

I continue to explore through the written form, many pieces about loving myself enough and setting myself free.

Trevor Hall has been speaking to me, his words like a love letter written by me even though it’s written my him and shared through his voice, calling me home…bringing me back to myself:

I remember you. Do you remember too?

Calling out to the way you were, the way you are

Calling out to the way you’ve always been

There’s no stopping the rising sun what’s done is done

Can you set your own self free?

Threads of speaking up and taking action, doing things for me continue to show up. I say continue because they arrive in every context. It’s not only on my mat or my cushion, when I am talking with a friend or reading a book- I encounter moments to live my life for me when I am at work, walking on the street, talking with my members of my family, overhearing a conversation (last week I cringed when I overheard someone say- but I need to prove myself to him!). There are always moments, endless moments for me to see myself. For me to free myself. For me to step for myself. Not someone else. Not thinking about how my choice will impact someone else or what someone else might do, say, think or feel. Not hesitating before I act or speak out, of fear of the response I will get or carefully calculating the situation to avoid a reaction. No, I am working on listening to the voice within- which is actually the work of discerning the voice within. The voice that is me and the voice I have come to know as mine which is actually the voice of others implanted in me. This is the tug, this dialogue between these two voices is the cause of confusion and self-doubt. Do I do for me or do I do for someone else? Do I do what I want to do or do I do what I think someone wants me to do? So, I step for me or do I step for another?

At times weight is here, it is heavy to carry this burden, this burden of who am I stepping for. The density of the reaction, the fear of what might come or be- being shunned, ignored, ostracized, someone making up a story about me, projecting. All of these things are true. All of these things can happen and they have happened. What I am realizing now, is that I can choose to be me, to step for me irrespective of the state of someone else. Irrespective of what is going on in someone else’s life. Irrespective of what might happen. Irrespective of the doubt and the worry, the voices that tell me “I wouldn’t say that if I were you.”

This is a huge ahah! for me. It might seem normal or common place for many. For me this is HUGE. So huge that when this notion, this way of being came to me as I sat at my altar last week I got my phone to record it so I would not forget. That is how new it was for me, how foreign of an idea and how exhilarating and freeing it was to realize. *refer the previous post to hear the recording.

What I am finding is a recognition of the inner feeling that arises when I don’t step for me, when I do not speak up out of fear or doubt or worry, when I sit in my own projections and ideas of what might come, what might happen, what might be. When I ignore my inner voice, my body starts to send signals, signals that I cannot ignore. It is like a fire inside, a storm is gathering, energy that is gaining momentum. It is closely associated to a known feeling of anxiety; however I am realizing it isn’t that, that I am feeling, sensing, noticing. I am being called to step. I am being called to stand up and speak out. It is mixed feeling, a feeling of necessity and passion, a feeling of immense fierce love and a crushing, an almost paralyzing feeling of fear. Fear of what if? But then, as soon as the fear of what if arrives, I am able to switch and ask myself- and what if you do not speak, stand, step? What then?

Ah, this fear of the unknown. The uncalculated, not predictable. Yet known. At the same time, known because we have experienced this realness of being shunned, ignored, silenced and ostracized before. This is why we are fearful of taking the step. Because the power of experience is so strong.  The fear is so strong it bounds us, it limits, us, it confines and convinces us to stay. It holds us in this space. This space that we know. This space that is known. And I am realizing that I no longer want to be in this space and not only that-  I NO LONGER HAVE TO LIVE IN THIS SPACE. This is what is HUGE. I have a choice. I know now that there is another way. While I do not know what will happen when I step and I also carry what has happened to me in the past when I have stepped AND I am still choosing to step in this way. This way for me. This way I want to step. This way that I am being called to step. I know what has happened in the past and I am still choosing to step. Irrespective of what has happened, what has been, could potentially be AND I am saying no longer. I cannot take, tolerate, accept, stand this any longer and so I step. And I take this step for me, not for anyone else. This step is for me.

This is a question that only we as individuals can answer. This is a question that only we know the answer to. When folks come to me and ask, “What am I to do?,” my response is always, “You know. You know. You already know. That is why you are asking this question.”

The question only arises once the answer is here. The knowing has already arrived and then the faculty of the mind kicks in and generates a question. This is the birth of self-doubt and confusion. At this juncture, at this intersection. It is at this meeting point of the knowing of the heart and the thinking quality of the mind where confusion comes. The heart knows, it is longing and responding to the call and then the mind turns on, it wakes up in a panic, shocked that it was left out shouting, wait, wait, why are you not consulting me? Why have you not checked in, why are you not inviting my opinion on the matter? Let me have a say- include my reasoning, justifications, excuses. And then it begins, the tug, the confusion, the doubt, the back and forth, the up and down. The I don’t know. I am usure. The questioning. The torment. The inner turmoil. Havoc is unleashed, chaos swirls and off the mind goes collecting and gathering all of its points of logic and analysis. No wonder why I am exhausted.

You know what I have been doing? I have been stepping. Overriding the thoughts of the mind and taking action. Trusting that I can handle what comes my way. If something comes my way as a result of my step, I’ve got it. I can be with what comes my way. I have come this far, haven’t I? I am still here aren’t I? Which really, is remarkable. Because the power of my mind is so strong, so alluring it is believing. It works nonstop to persuade me in its direction. It must have a savvy marketing manager because I am drawn right in. You know what else I know, something will come, because something always comes. Not as a consequence as I had grown to believe, no. No, something always comes and that something is an opportunity. An opportunity for me to see, for me to meet myself on the other side of fear, for me to meet myself beyond the limiting, narrow construct of the fearful mind and meet myself, envelope, surround and suspend myself in love. Love that I stepped in. Love that I stepped with. Love that I cultivated. Love that I crafted and created. Love that I am worthy of. Love that I am.

Ah, to be held in this love is a bliss like I have never encountered. This knowing is bliss, this is ecstasy.

This is what these past five months, past three years, last five years, this entire lifetime -what is time anyway except a linear construct to keep track of was- has been. A journey towards love. A journey towards myself. A journey home. A journey beyond, past the barriers and confines that have felt safe and have built to protect me from hurt and harm. That have shield me from being me, from feeling free and living. How many times have I wanted to and then stopped? Stopped because of the stories- too much, not enough, fear of rejection, hurt, pain, of being too big, of needing to stay in my place, of needing to check myself and my place, of needing to be reminded of who I am talking to, these powers of control and dynamics of dominance. They are all illusions. They are all illusions. They are all illusions. Illusions of the mind. A carefully crafted play where everyone is in on the script, fulling their roles and playing their part. The game I am expected to play, to put on my uniform and go get in the arena.

No. I will no longer sacrifice myself, my voice and my life to be accepted and to fit in with someone’s idea of who they want me to be or how they want me to be. If something wants to be expressed through me either in action or word, I will step. I will honor my inner voice; I will allow her to be heard. I will no longer be silencing her out of fear- out of fear of what if?

What if we changed the narrative and thought about what if in an expansive way rather than the prescribe narrow, reductionist way? What if we embrace the possibility that anything is possible? Which it is, I know this.  I know that anything is possible, it is only my mind and its stories that block me from traveling on that road, from entertaining the idea that anything is possible. This is a way that we have been trained to conform and to stay in our lane, to stay the course and fit in, not shake the status quo or cause any ripples. Because doing so requires someone to have to face themselves, to have to see what they are trying to ignore, to bury, to hide, to stuff and cram away. That is why I get shunned and ostracized. They can think we will send her away and the problem will go away. Although it does not work this way. That is not how life works. See, life can only be the way you are. You are the one who is living your life, no one else is living your life for you. We get conned thinking and offloading our choices and decisions on someone else, saying they made us do it, or it is their fault. NO. Nope. No one else is living your life except you. You are the one who is living your life. You. You and only you. It is time that we all started to realize this. That we all begin to see that life can only be the way we are and the way we are is how we view life, for life is flowing through you as you. No one else. When we see this, when we realize this, we can begin to take radical responsibility for our choices and actions. We are choosing to live our lives for ourselves and no one else. And really, that is why we are here. To live our own lives, fully. To live the life we came here to live. To be the unique, strong, powerful, fierce loving expressions of ourselves that no one else can be. It is not selfish or wrong or bad. It is the gift. A gift we can all give to each other, a gift we can give to one another. Know yourself fully and be you. Choose to live your life for you. FOR YOU, AS YOU.

Now that I know myself, there is never a going back. I can never go back. Only forward.

Step. Step. Stepping in love, the fierce love that surrounds, burns through this stuff that limits me and holds me utter awe and grace.

The love that is so intense and who force is so strong my only response to it’s call is,

If this is the ferocious love you have for me, I’ll match it!

LOVE YOU!

S

This is what I wrote on August 22, 2021 in preparation for the Opening to Love Circle:

 As soon as I saw that I was invited to answer questions, I balked. Really, I said to myself. I thought all that was being asked of me is to show up.  And, as I sit with this, I acknowledge how much blockage is here, that which I want to avoid looking into… and at the same time, here I am, showing up. Thank you for the invitation to see. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

What is the sacred purpose behind your decision to join this women’s circle?

To heal and be healed.

To give and receive.

To hold and be held.

To love and be loved.

To see and be seen.

To be held and embraced by the Divine Feminine, to share our stories, to bond, to know we are not alone, that we are together and that we are STRONGER than we can ever derive from thought.

What do you want to receive from our six-weeks together?

Clarity within myself, no end point. Nowhere to be. Deeper and expansive compassion and generosity for myself, towards myself.

Connection and bond with women.

How do you already embody love, just by being you? 

I am love. I exude love. So in that sense, I am love in body, I embody love. Nothing more to do than being me.

What is it that you want to commit to for our six weeks together?  What is your sacred commitment to yourself?

To show up and be fully open. Open to receive, accept, acknowledge, allow all that is arising to arise and move through me.

I became aware that my 54 day sadhana with the Maha Mriytunjaya will come to an end on September 1st, during this time. I smiled as I realized I would be engaging in work with self forgiveness and healing at the first and second chakras and feel called that this will move me more towards the Divine Feminine. And the commitment, the will, the staying power is located at the naval center along with absolute surrender totally letting go, which leads to the anahata, the seat of love, love itself, our purest form at the subtlest level. Truth. Love. Accessing the ferocious truth and love through commitment, staying power, total surrender healings and fearlessness.   YES PLEASE!

What are your nourishing self-love practices?  Or, if you do not have any self-love practices, what practices feel nourishing to you?

It is so easy for me to give. I have been trained, conditioned to give.   This is why I am showing up. To deepen my love for myself. And it is not to locate love or find love. It is to practice loving myself, fully accepting myself. Which is a practice. A daily practice. A conscious choice. Conscious awareness. Which when I type this I do, do. I do accept myself; I acknowledge this aspect of my journey and the growth I have made and the evolutionary steps I have taken. I am way more kind to myself than I have been- my kindness and generosity and love and compassion and forgiveness and acceptance towards, to myself has shifted, has grown and I recognize this, I see this, I celebrate this.

I show myself self-love by greeting myself with a smile, saying namaste to myself, smiling when I gaze at myself in the mirror or when my eye catches a glimpse of myself. I engage with self massage and self touch on a regular basis. My body says thank you for taking the time to massage myself with oil or lotion.

I listen to and honor my needs in the moment, rather than shun them or ignore them. That can be removing myself from a situation, not saying something, speaking up, taking a bath, taking a nap…. I remain committed to my practice and through my sadhanas I know that I can show up for myself and rely on myself.

I am and have been contemplating the connection of love and commitment. Are they the same? Does one come before the other? Is one a result of the other? I am not hung up on answering these inner inquiries, rather I am curious about the stories we have told ourselves about the meaning of the words and how those narratives around the words impact the meaning of the questions- really what is commitment?  What is love?

How can I support your unique needs during our journey together?  Is there anything that you are already working in your life that you would like me to be aware of?  Is there anything else that you would like me to know? 

What arose for me while writing, reflecting and being with these questions is a new awareness. I have known that I have been conditioned that in order to receive love, I must give something first or give something in return. This knowing has been known to me.  A new awareness arose, that for me to feel good, for me to feel pleasure is wrong and I need to punish myself for feeling good. That it is wrong to feel good. It is wrong to ask for things so that I can feel good, feel pleasure. This is both intimate and sexual but also connected to the simplicity of being in JOY and ENJOYING life itself. It is that I have been taught that to be in JOY or to enjoy life, living is wrong, is shameful, it bad, is not necessary, is too much….. This is huge and I see how this is the beginning to seeing deeper. I can already locate to “stories” and “narratives” that are playing out in my mind, and more are flooding in.

Yes, this is going to be a beautiful journey.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Offerings During These Shifts

Here are current thoughts and offerings that are showing up for me. I share them here in no particular order of importance.

Love is a state of mind. This is a lyric from Fleetwood Mac’s Rhiannon that I heard today. I have heard this song countless times and today this is what I heard. Yes, love is a state of mind. It is a state of being. And since it is a state of being, so is fear. Fear is a state of mind, a state of being. I choose love. I choose to live in and step in love. I choose to cultivate and create love. And surround myself with those who do the same!

I am noticing my modes of protection. My go to responses that defer or deter, that are hazy and not clear. My responses that offer ease to the other rather than clarity for myself.  I caught myself early one morning last week when I realized that I had not answered a question that was asked of me. Instead, I offered a round about answer and aloof response which was clearly a form of protection so I would not get hurt, let down, or bummed. Yes, I am working, I am taking an active stance to be clear with what I want and what I do not want.

I am taking a class about supporting young humans as they transition into adulthood. While I do not want to rush this by any means, I am eager to offer guidance and assistance to them as the navigate changes in their bodies and the world around them.  I was asked to reflect on one piece of wisdom that I wish a mentor shared with me during this time when I was emerging. This is what I wrote:

The ability to be honest. It is okay to be honest. It is safe to be honest. Being true to you is what matters the most rather than being concerned about what others will say or think or how they will react or respond. I would like to guide my younger self that she can be at ease with being honest and truthful without fear of being reprimanded, shamed or punished.

*I cannot even imagine my life if I had this knowledge. It would be do different, for sure I would not be here now, for my life, the choices I have made and the steps I have taken have led me here to this very moment, sharing these words with you. Had I known this, then this would not be a new awakening for me, something that literally dawned on me the other day. (I’ll share more on this is in another piece).

I have heard Let it Grow, by the Grateful Dead two times in two days…..signaling to me to allow  time for things to grow into fruition. Growing takes time, it doesn’t happen all at once. And who is to say that it (this which I want) isn’t already here, buried beneath the leaves or hidden under last year’s growth. Maybe it doesn’t want something grand to announce its presence, it is simply emerging in the way it is meant to.

Rather than trying to read into something, or read between the lines, I am taking things at face value- for what they are. I am not coming up with a story or an excuse for someone, I am receiving them for what they are. Actions, choices, words. Whatever energy is behind them is of the individual who is making the choice and it has nothing to do with me. It is not mine and it has nothing to do with me…This one bears repeating- it is not mine and it has nothing to do with me.

This juicy awareness came to me the other day. I continue to be in awe with how and when wisdom finds its way into my mind and heart and then out of my mouth.  This may seem common place and normal for some this is a real ah ha for me:

 *The two song quotes “Life is a bundle of joy” and “Eternal Joy and Never Ending Splendor” are both Phish.

I am focusing my attention on the here and now, noticing how my mind wants to jump in and control by planning how things are going to play out. With each plan my mind creates and when I am able to catch, I bring it back to the present moment, reminding myself that this is the only moment that I have and as I have learned, life always is far greater than what I conjure up in my mind.

Which leads me to this- I got on my mat in a studio this weekend. I have not been in a studio since before I was in India. My mind created all of these stories, ideas, projections, narrative, biases and preferences and I dropped them all along with my what if’s when I felt called to get on my mat and practice with a community in person. It was beautiful. Beauty filled.  The communal OM alone sent chills throughout my body. It was there where I set this intention for this new season. This season that is upon us, this season of birth and rebirth, of awakening after dormancy, after time inwards and restoration. After a time of healing and inner gaze:

I step into this season of rebirth with ease and grace, awakening to the potential that lies within.

How do you step?

Love You,

Sara

Self Acceptance

I used to think that self – acceptance was me being accepted by others, now I know it is accepting my self, my wholeness, my uniqueness, my me-ness and none of these are dependent on anyone outside of me.

This has been a long journey, a long winding journey of self-discovery, of self-realization, of coming home. This has been a long journey full of so many emotions, feelings, stories, actions, events and experiences.  This has been a long journey full of support, a vast expansive support system.  This has been a journey of systems; systems of support, experiences, events, actions, thoughts, stories, undoing, unraveling, unlearning, relearning, replacing, recycling, cleansing, clearing and systems of acceptance. Yes, acceptance.

Acceptance of what is. Acceptance of what once was. Acceptance of the unknown, of that which will be. Acceptance of time - that time is needed, time is necessary. That growth takes time. Growth occurs in time. That growth is a marker of time.

Acceptance of who I am. Meeting myself. Knowing myself. Learning what works for me. Listening to my body, listening to its signals to learn what is best for me. It’s not that I don’t listen to folks on the outside, I do. It’s that I have found that who I share what is going on with, who I confide in and whose voice is best for me to hear varies. I have a support system that I can call in, call on to hold space for me to listen, to hear me, to support me, to sit with me.

I find that I am interested in connecting with others who are doing similiar work. Others who are showing up and facing themselves. Who are aware of their patterns, tendencies. Who are real. Who know from experience, who know from living, not from reading.

It is important for to me to note that acceptance is not sitting back and taking it. If you have read any of my pieces here, you know that I have spent a long, long time doing just that. Feeling like I have to sit, to take it, to receive whatever it is that is being thrown at me. That I have to because I am not worthy enough or that I deserve it.

No, the acceptance I am speaking to is that this is unfolding, this is happening as an opportunity to learn, to come face to face with what is here, what wants to be seen and addressed.  What wants to be acknowledged and worked through, dropped, cleared, cleansed, washed away, recycled or as a friend recently shared, composted.

Stuff is not meant to stay. The nature of life is cycles, cycles of changes. Spending time in nature, with nature, watching and connecting with it has helped me see this. NOTHING REMAINS THE SAME. NOTHING.  Change is the only constant and yet we want, what we are taught is to seek in sameness and comfort. And this causes resistance.

What if we were taught to see that nothing lasts, nothing is the same. That things are always growing, changing, shifting, yielding, revealing?

Patterns, yes. They hold the tendencies and the familiarity. Patterns and habits are at the root of these lessons, which show up different each and every time, with new players and environments and familiar scripts.  “What will she do this time?” I hear my team say as they craft and arrange a new opportunity for me to see the patterns that lurk below. And lurk is the right word here, because they are known, the patterns are known to themselves under the surface, they are alive and real, living off the bottom, bottom feeders, taking and accumulating what they can get. It is just that we tend to not look below the surface, to what is underneath, in the dark, little access to the light, so we don’t know what is there. It’s not that we ignore. To ignore is to know and to turn away. When you don’t know, you don’t know. Yet, what you don’t know is known, it is. It is just not seen. It is here, everything is here. Everything, every possibility is here, waiting to be plucked, to be birthed from this void, from this unknown. Waiting to be known. This is growth. This is evolution.

This is the invitation, to grown. To meet yourself. To get to know yourself. To connect with yourself. To make a commitment to your self. To stand up for your self. To love your self. To accept yourself.

Circle. Wheel. Orbit. Revolution. Axis. These are images and words that keep finding their way into my life. On my snack bag. In a song sung from the heart of a colleague. From a flat tire on a car being towed by a truck. From a fallen off wheel replaced by a shiny new wheel. To the image of the world spinning and me wanting it to stop so I could get off. Or the image of me being in a washing machine, a fast spin or a heavy load cycle.  You may know, when you start the cycle, the door clicks and audible reminder that it is locked and set, ready to go not stopping until they cycle ends or you preemptively stop the cycle and what is left is a soapy, wet mess.  This has been me. In a cycle or rather cycles. Started and not going to stop until the work is done, the cycle is complete, what is has begun is ready to end.

It’s the same with a roller coaster ride. You find your seat, get strapped or buckled in and off you go. For this great adventure, this wild ride.  I love rollercoasters. I love the freedom, the laughter, the total surrender to the ride, the trust it will all work out. I do not hold on, I open my arms out wide, giggling and laughing with uncontrollable delight. I feel alive.

I’m noticing that when I choose to get on the rollercoaster, I like it. I am okay with it. The choice is mine, it is one I make. I am all in.  I haven’t gotten on a physical ride when I am not prepared, when I am not ready, although I feel as if moments in my life are like that.  I mean, what is being ready and prepared anyway (that is a whole other piece). What I mean is that I have not gotten on without making the choice to do so, the conscious choice that I am taking the steps to get there, to arrive at that seat.  What I am finding is that when a ride begins, starts to get wild and continues without warning like a washing machine cycle starting, the door locking and I am in it until it ends, I am disoriented. Swirling around in this pull, this force, asking myself, what has happened? How did I get here? Have you felt this way?  Being in something and not knowing when it is going to end? Arriving somewhere and not knowing why? Usually for me, this being in something is connected with a less than desirable experience, again one that I would not choose, not willingly step into, and yet here I am.

This is what I am emerging from, a ride that I did not sign up for. A cycle that played out and no one on the outside could press stop cycle to let me out. And there were moments in this last bout that I would have gladly, gladly walked out covered head to toe in bubbles, tossed, drenched, cycle incomplete because I have no idea when it was going to end. If felt as if it was going on and on and on, never ending. It felt never ending.

Actually, there was a dream during this time when I was wandering in a corridor, I could see the outside, I knew I got myself in there and could find NO WAY out. I was perplexed and confused. I was searching. I was looking. I wanted to be anywhere other than where I was.

This is a reoccurring theme for me. One that shows up again and again. Not wanting to be where I am and seeing visual markers that I indicate as spaces or places in which I should be if I wasn’t here. And this feeling of being stuck, being trapped.

I am softening in this. Acknowledging this. Accepting this.  Trusting that this is where I am meant to be. That it be it, life, whatever emotion, feeling, experience, is happening for me. What I am finding is that when I go looking for meaning, to understand why, to attach reason or a story to it I am actually entangling myself even more. I undo nothing. Rather, I create threads and connections. I invent and conjure up reasons to justify and explain and none of it helps.

What does help is being kind to myself. That means resting when my body wants to rest. Getting outside, walking, breathing, being. Asking for help and turning towards those I trust, whose voice and message I know supports me. And this most recent cycle involved doing a reset with my diet, a shift of what I am taking in, what I am feeding my body. Am I nourishing it or depleting it? In a literal sense and a figurative sense.

Which leads me to ask myself what I am consuming?  What thoughts am I welcoming and entertaining? Which ideas am I following? What stories am I giving my attention to? What am I energizing and expanding?  I have this choice. I have the choice to catch my thoughts, to be aware of the narrative in my mind. And this is the work. This is the work that I can always do, the invitation that is always here.

The work, that it has occurred to me, is my work.

Here is an excerpt from my 95th journal. It is my first entry, written on February 23rd.

And a deer appears.

The tug, the pull is also up + down- higher and lower- spiritual and physical- beyond mind and in mind. Often I feel it left- right, dual, good/bad, right/wrong just how it occurred it is what is playing out on a larger, deeper, vast, more expansive scale. What must be done- thy will be done and when my minds catches on or jumps in it has an opinion- it is annoyed or dissatisfied, irritated, questioning why, why not? Or it likes things over others, has preferences, would prefer this.

How many times have I asked for something and it has not been delivered in the time I want, span I want, way I want

AND

How many times have I received more than I could have ever imagined and envisioned?

It is magic really- get out of the head

I am here to work through this mind.

What is here for me, is for me

Uniquely for me, for I am the

One who can express it

I can take all the time I want and

Need to bring it forth

‘It’ being more than what I am

Already doing.

Which brings me full circle or back to the wheel:

Wheel = momentum and movement

Circle = cycle and continuity

and

Revolution= sudden, radical and complete change

Axis= an imaginary line in which a body rotates

Yes, this is it. This all fits. Shaking free of the powers that bind and hold, the forces that draw me into familiar obits and cycles and finding a new way to move, a new way to be.

Right as Spring is bursting into bloom, pushing through that which once served, that which once had a purpose, to bring forth what wants to be now.

Marveling in this bliss,

Sara

Klesha

These past few weeks, more than few, six, seven, eight maybe nine…. Wait has it been weeks, months, years? How far back does this go? Can I trace it back to the beginning? What is the beginning, where to even begin? When has it not felt hard? When has life not felt hard?

I know this past bit has felt hard. Challenging. Tough. Rough. Uncomfortable. Icky. I am tired. I am drained. I have little energy. I am experiencing bouts of nausea and pain. Shallow breaths and tears. Sleepless nights and restless energy. Wanting to find myself in some sort of clearing, some resemblance of a break from this enigma of the mind. The mind that keeps telling me that I am not doing enough and that if I had, I wouldn’t be here. That me being here is proof that I am not doing enough and if I had done enough, then I would not be experiencing this.  I can add pretty much anything to the if, if you stopped eating ice cream, if you stopped drinking diet coke, if you sat for mediation, if you didn’t stop your practice, if you started another sadhana, if you never left your job, if you hadn’t spoke up, if you had continued to suck it up…

Ah, what I am seeing now is this pattern. It is not only if, it is if you. if you stopped eating ice cream, if you stopped drinking diet coke, if you sat for mediation, if you didn’t stop your practice, if you started another sadhana, if you never left your job, if you hadn’t spoke up, if you had continued to suck it up…

Which leads to, why can’t you just go with the flow, why can’t you see something through to the end, why can’t you keep a commitment- to yourself and to others.

And there, with those words I get a jolt because I know this is not true. Who is this talking to me. Who is this pointing a finger at. Who is saying this- YOU, YOU, YOU? What is the saying, whenever you point a finger at someone, three fingers are pointing back at you….I know that I have made a commitment to myself and I have held commitments to myself and to others. (the blue jay calls as I type, they are in agreement). At times, I hold commitments to myself in ways that end up hurting, harming and hindering myself.

This, as with everything else I have learned in life, I have learned through experience, first hand experience. Experience that comes with a lot of feelings and emotions.  Experience that comes with memory and imprints, traces left of the path I have taken, the choices I have made. Like visual markings on a tree, these actions leave traces on the screen of my mind. Flashes pop up out of nowhere reminding me. Reminding me that I have stepped, that I have acted, that I have endured, that I have succeeded. Showing me that I have felt hurt, that I have been confused, that I have been lost, unsure. And at the same time, other images pop in, trying to get control of the screen- images of me smiling and laughing, images of me elated, moments of silence and grace, of stillness and peace.

And these are more examples, mere examples of the enigma, the tug of the mind. Good, bad. Right, wrong. In line, out of line. Accepted, rejected. Clear, confused. The tug used to feel like a game of back and forth. A pulling, rather a yanking from one side to the other. Now the battle is taking place between my heart and my mind. This back and forth, rather than side to side is now up and down. My neck and throat are in between, tired, exhausted and in pain.

I am still getting done the stuff that needs to get done. I have not checked out all of the way, although there are times in which I have made SOS calls to friends because moments have felt very questionable. Moments in which the gravity of my despair and despondency feel they are doing anything they can to bring me down into the depth and the weight of it all is literally crushing, crippling and debilitating. These moments come and then they go. They come in with strength and force, a force so strong it feels as if I am trying to move in molasses. Everything feels like work. Then moments of grace come, the clouds part (literally and figuratively), I see the light and am energized. Ready for more.

It is not that I am standing on guard waiting for doom and gloom. I know this because there was a time when that was the case. There were times when I was on watch, vigilant watch out to catch any movement, any action, any word or phrase that would send a sharp blow to my fragile state. These moments seem to come out of nowhere, like storm brewing without warning or a flash flood and instantly I am swept away. I have lost my footing, the ground underneath. My rooting and my foundation are shaken and I question what I am tethered to, if anything at all.

I know that I am not alone. I know that I am supported. I know that I am held. I know that I am loved. And I also know that when I am in these moments, when I am swirled up it feels like some force larger than me has taken over, I am really lost. I am in a cloud of confusion and doubt, uncertainty and instability. And it does not feel good.

So today, this morning when the sun was rising, I could see how her ray, her warmth and light warmed the patch of grass with her gaze. A tiny sliver in between a vast yard of frozen moisture was melting. This was, and is a welcomed way to wake and begin my day. Trusting and knowing the light always comes.  The light always comes.

I set forth on my list of things to accomplish. One of them was to peel away the wrappers of the crayons. I will be with children tomorrow in a city park and maybe, just maybe an invitation will present itself to make some marks or rubbings, some traces of nature. I have no idea what will happen tomorrow as we enter the space and I would like to have some tools on hand to extend an opportunity should it arise.

Sitting on the front porch, under the loving gaze of light and warmth from the sun, I began peeling away the wrappers. Some pieces came off with ease. Some paper came off whole, intact, as a simple unwrapping. Other pieces were ripped and came off in tiny pieces. Some wrappers had more than one layer. Some pieces of paper remained stuck to the crayon and then some had this residue, this sticky clear residue that remained once the layer was removed.

And, like I have been doing when moments like this come, I cackled. Full on cackled. Yes, yes. Yes, of course. This sticky residue, this layer that wants to remain, that is tricky to get off. This is the klesha, the klesha. I have heard of my teacher talk about this, this sticky stuff that remains, this sticky stuff that “is more sticky than gum in the hair,” as he would share. This residue, this residual stuff that wants to remain, even when we have peeled back all of the layers, exposed all of the stuff.  I can hear another teacher’s words, “just when we think we have gotten it all, there is a little bit more. There is always more.”

When I am doing readings, I liken klesha to the rim of grime and grease, the ring that remains in the sink once you drain it after doing dishes. Or some might recall the pink line in the tub from The Cat and the Hat.  Sometimes, you wash the sink or basin and watch it all go down the drain. Standing back, with a satisfied grin I think, clean, sparkly, spotless. Only to find one tiny mark and you turn on the sink again and it begins to fill and up from the drain the residue emerges. The stuff that you think you dealt with, took care of, scoured with soap and cleaner is there and it is the grim, this residue that is smiling back at you with a satisfied grin- you think you can get rid of me. Not so fast. I do not go without putting up a fight. It is not that easy.

This is the klesha. This klesha is the sticky residue of karma, the stuff that remains, that is hard to remove. The stuff that seeps up from the drain, the stuff that goes down the drain and leaves a ring. And in my case, the fine layer that is not paper, but not wax, it is the glue that holds them, that binds them to one another.

Oh, yes. This bondage. This attachment. This sticky stuff that holds and binds. That adheres and clings. That remains and stays. The stuff that does not want to go.

Yep, here is it. For me to see. For me to laugh at. It finally made itself known.

This force. This strength. This resistance. This fight. This battle.

It is klesha.  And now that it is known, now that I can see it. I can work with it.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

A simple gift that arises from a seemingly mundane task has me seeing and knowing.

And smiling from ear to ear.

For it is actually the glue of love that is here, this force of love that is saying:

Let’s go.

S

*Written on this day of Budh, when Budh and Shani Dev are conjunct. Yep, this is the love that is always here, loving me.

Access the Gap

*If you would rather hear or listen to what has risen from this space, scroll to the bottom and there you will access audio recordings that I have made during this time.

A gap. The space between. To sit in. To be with. To do nothing. To simply be in space.

A gap. An in between.  The known and the unknown.

A gap. A threshold.

A gap. Liminal, as Lisa offered me today.

To be here. With nothing to do. No desire. No outcome. No planning. No crafting or designing. No arranging or conjuring.

Being.

Allowing.

This is what is being offered.  To sit. To accept. To stay. To be.

Rather than plan, do, organize, set up- all of which have been my go to actions when there is space. Fill it up. Make space and fill it up. Empty to fill.

Except now, I am seeing how I am invited to sit. To be. I receive. To stay. To not do. To be in the space.  To access this gap. This in between.

And to be okay with it. To be at ease with it.

This space began three weeks ago when I came to the “end” of a sadhana, a commitment that I made.  For over three years now, I have held back to back commitments to myself. Various sadhanas with a day or two, in between.  Usually, when I am in a practice, something comes, some indication or sign come of what wants to flow next. It’s just that, that has not happened. Nothing has really come. Nothing has stuck. So here I find myself in this in between. In this space, this vast open space. This gap.

It is happening with work too. Things have come to an “end” and this ending is providing space to open up. I see how this space can allow possibilities to arise and present themselves, if I am able to maintain holding the space, rather than resort to my auto pilot action of filling it up.

I do this with my mind too. When I do not have the whole story, my mind likes to fill in the gaps and make projections with what it thinks makes sense or what might have happened, because this is the tendency of the mind. To make sense, to understand. To grasp at whatever it can to make meaning.

I do this with my time. Eating. Checking. Busying myself. Distracting. Diverting.

I do this with work. I tend to find ways to shift my schedule to show up and do more.

I do this with friends and social situations, over booking myself. Making commitments to others before creating space and time for myself.

I do this with situations that do not feel good and then feel the need to run, hide, solve, fix, avoid.

I have become accustomed to doing ANYTHING else rather than sitting and being. This doesn’t happen all of the time. It has happened. It does happen. It is something I am noticing.

And here, now, I am presented with an opportunity to be with this space. Space is showing up for me to be. To be in this space.  This space that has been afforded to me, to simply be.

What is behind this doing? This filling in?

An ill ease with the void. With this space in between.

And then I sit. I sit and breathe. 

I return to what is known. To be with what is here. To access what is always here, underneath the incessant chatter of the mind, the constant seeking and wanting, the thinking faculty of the mind. The mind wants to think its way out, think its way around and I know, I know that the thinking that got me here, is not going to get me anywhere other than here. So, the invitation is to sit, to return to my breath and breathe. In and out. In and out. In and out. Out and in. Out and in. Out and in.

Brining my mind back to the breath, back to the count, back to the intention. To sit. To breathe.

It is not that the mind stops. No, it can go on and on. And it does. It continues, it’s that once I have accessed a still space, a quiet space within, this void which is full of ease and grace, the thoughts have nothing to cling to, nothing to hold on to. Nothing to grip them or to clasp, so they do not remain. Here, yes, but not dominant, not as pronounced. Not dictating or directing. They fade, their presence is known and they do not have or hold value. My attention does not go to them.

This is the knowing. This is the commitment I have made to myself. To connect with myself through my breath. To meet myself before the mind. To meet myself in the space before the chatter of the mind. To meet myself beyond the chatter of the mind. The mind that wants to control, to make sense, to fill in the gaps.

Stay. Stay. Stay in the gap. Access the gap. This space of nothingness that is full of potentials. This rich space of possibilities. Access this gap.

Which reminds me of a teaching I have heard from every yogi, some variation of “wherever your attention flows, your energy goes.” Ah yes, what am I giving my attention to, where am I allowing or diverting my attention to? For whatever I am giving my attention to, grows. It expands. It is fed by my attention.  So where am I putting my attention, the most important currency - my attention and energy - where am I putting it?

From this place, I can see the many truths. The multiple truths. The truths that are true when I give them attention and energy. When I focus my thoughts in their direction.

Here is a quick example of how from different perspectives one can see the same event.

Saturday was MahaShivaratri, the dark night of Shiva.  It is a time of devotion and action in alignment with the cosmic force of death and transformation. (interesting to note that Shivaratri fell 28 days since I “ended” my last Sadhana….

It was beautiful. I moved through it with ease and grace, devotion, ceremony, celebration. Stillness, quiet, practice, commitment, steadfastness, love, dedication, laughter.

There were moments of playfulness and humor, when I realized I talked into Nandi’s horn rather than ear. Moments of reflection when I didn’t bring milk or a huge offering. There could have been moments of shame that I made a mistake and didn’t do it right. There were moments when I felt connected and grateful, at ease and in ecstasy and moments when I felt alone and excluded.  All is dependent on my lens, on how I want to see. And this is dependent on my emotional state which is the outward expression of the state of my nervous system.

I could have read the day from a variety of perspectives:

From the lens of competition and critique, I could look at my day from a place of all that I did not do- I did not stay in “silence.” I did not fast. I did not stay up all night chanting. I did not access what I was supposed to access.

Or this lens of judgement, If I had done all of those things- being in silence, fasting, chanting, staying up all night then I would have received, accessed these deep messages beyond the veil, these trippy ways of being that I have been told about.

Then the justification comes in. But look at all that I did do. I woke before dawn, sat for mediation, went to the mandir, participated in puja, offerings and aarti. Connected with the deities. Made a commitment. Did a journey. Japa (two different chants). Went back to the mandir for aarti and bhajan. Sat for puja and evening practice….

Or it can be what it was. Without any attachment to narrative or story. A way it should have been or could have been. Without the idea of expectation or condition.

Simply accepting what it was for what it was.

The way it was.

And this is the invitation:

Stay. Stay. Stay in the gap. Access the gap. This space of nothingness that is full of potentials. This rich space of possibilities. Access this gap.

And be here, in this grace, this love, this ease, this peace of total acceptance for what is.

Total acceptance for what is.

Not wanting anything to be different or another way. Not wishing or ignoring. Not wanting to shift, alter or change.

Acceptance for all that is.

For all that is.

Hug,

S

If you would like to hear these awarenesses bubbling up or some of the pondering and reflections that arose, here are audio recordings that I made during this time….

Barriers and Blockades

For the past six weeks, the forest in which I have worked has been closed for deer management.  This closure was in place for all of the public access areas. We, as a school, were granted access to the forest on these days with the agreement that we would be gone by 12, an hour before the management began.

For six weeks, barriers and blockades were lined up at the entrance to the forest, a visual reminder to not enter. When we arrived in the morning, we would need to remove the barriers to open the space for children and families to arrive.  I often moved two of the three blockades, as the first one was moved by my colleague who arrived before me.

On Tuesday, I arrived at the entrance to see two blockades “blocking” the road.  This isn’t going to work, I thought to myself. Cars can come in, but when cars go to leave they will not have the space. Cars can not come and go through the same narrow path. I put the car in park, got out and began to remove the barriers as I had done for the past five weeks.  Except this time was different. This time, when I went to lift the barrier, one of the “legs” fell off. As I bent down to lift the leg and secure it back in place it occurred to me the meaning and significance of this action and I began laughing out loud, full on cackling.  Yes, yes, I said out loud to no one except myself, “This is what I have been doing. For the past five weeks I have been removing the barriers, the blocks that allow children and families to move freely. This is the work that I have been doing- literally and figuratively. Oh my, oh my.  This is it. I get it. Thank you!”  Once the barriers were removed and placed on the side of the road, I snapped a picture.

Inside at school I shared my delight with other teachers.  At the end of the morning, I was tasked with, as I had been for the previous five weeks, putting the barriers back in place so the public would not enter the space. (* During the the first week this management program, a police officer came into the school space as I was driving out. We nodded at one another as we passed. Police officers know that there is a port a potty on site and often come in to use it. That paired with the knowledge I had from early that morning, when a police officer was on site, had me thinking that they planned to sit at the space to monitor so that no one came in to access the site.  So I continued to drive and once at the gate wrapped a chain around to appear that the gate is “locked.” After I closed and “locked” the gate and was putting the barriers back in place, I saw the police officer driving around the gate and back on to the road. As they approached, their window was down and they said jokingly, “what are you trying to do? Lock me in?” We exchanged our stories about what we thought the other was doing and I shared that, the gate is never really “locked” it only appears so”).

So, on this final morning of the deer management, which also happened to be my final Tuesday with the school, I got out and put the barriers back in place. Seeing them through my rearview and side mirrors. Behind me.

Then, the next morning, which was my final day at the school, I arrived on site to see the barriers broken down and neatly stacked on the side of the road. I giggled.

And, as I drove out of the forest for the final time I glanced over to the space where the barriers once were, where they sat in tack as a visual reminder of what I was facing each day until that final morning. They were gone. Gone.

Yep. Gone.

All clear.

A beautiful metaphor for my time in the forest.  And my work on a larger scale.  Removing barriers and obstacles on the path so I, as well as others can move with freely with ease.

I do not leave with animosity, hate or regret.  Things changes. Seasons shifts. Wind comes. This is what I shared with the children.  I served my purpose there. I was needed for a time and that time has come to an end. I recognize these endings now, this discontinuity, these discontinuous events. They are becoming more and more frequent for me.  I see and accept that they are natural, a part of a larger play that is at work. Not all are able to see this, some can only see this relative level, the one of here and now created by the rational mind.  I took get dragged into this space when I forget. Forget that all is happening and unfolding for a reason, a reason that I often do not know.

I read a quote from Anand Ji, “The past does not know the future.” And neither do I. I simply step and arrive as I am called, in service as myself.

These past few weeks have been hard. I felt really challenged to speak up and confront the stuff that no one wants to address, and I knew it needed to be done. Every cell in my body was making it known that I had to take the step. The step in love, a step of love. And while I often feel like I do this work alone,  I know that I am not. I know that I am held by a huge support crew. And that this is my work. These weeks are mere glimpses in my life of the work that I have done and I will continue to do, for this is a gift of mine. To show up and face stuff head on, having the hard conversations that are necessary for growth.  My very presence stirs things up, shines a light on the stuff that is hidden away, tucked away, the stuff no one wants to see.  And, my presence is grounded in the reality of what is seen and true, not just to me, but to others. I, for some reason am the voice that is able to speak, that has the courage to stand up and make things known.

There is unity in this polarity. This seemingly separation and divisiveness. This pull and tug back and forth. I am reminded that in order to know love, one must know fear. To know another, one must know themselves. To know silence, one must know voice. To know dark is to know light. To know depth is to know height.

This is what I am doing. Getting to know myself on these various levels, in unique situations and through vast experiences.

I root to rise and with each step I take, I acknowledge and accept this even more.

For I would have it no other way.

With and in love and gratitude,

Sara

PS. On Saturday, I got into the car and Pearl Jam’s Rearview Mirror was playing. When I got into the car again, Release was playing. My sister, sister and I have a connection of Pearl Jam and after I left an audio recording of these events paired with the pictures, she sent me Pearl Jam’s Gone.

Ain't No Stopping Me Now

It’s midnight and I am up. My body is up. My mind is racing, or is it? It is attempting to make sense, to grasp at something to understand what is happening and why.

When I know it is bigger than my mind can comprehend.

And I am feeling this. This, something. The weight, the energy. My body is communicating. It is not grounded. It feels unsettled. Jittery.  Different than the sensations from earlier, earlier years when I found the sensations mostly in my chest. Now it is throughout my body.

It is shock. Shock. A piece of it is shock. Shock from the reaction that I got when I spoke up, when I stood up and spoke up, which I did out of love. Of myself and for others. I stepped. I stepped in love. Away from fear and into love. It felt like I had no other choice.

It didn’t feel good to not say anything, to keep in what wanted to be expressed out of fear of how it would be received. It didn’t feel good to not say anything, to hold in what I wanted to say because I knew the response, I knew the outcome.

My body knows. It knows this feeling of being ostracized. Shunned. Removed. My body is familiar with this, my cells know. They remember.

They are also the ones that are signaling, shouting, shaking me awake- do something they announce with fervor. Do something. No longer can you sit idle.

Which is funny, because I have not been sitting idle. I have been actively working to find ways to communicate- to express, to ask questions, to convey, to share.  And I am reminded again and again that how something is received is beyond my control- even when I strive to be mindful of the word choice and how I approach something.

And for what? For what I am asking myself. Because me being me, me speaking what is necessary to be said, me sharing what is “the elephant in the room” has never been received well. Never. And time and time again, I am placed in these situations in which I feel I have no other choice than to act, to speak, to step.

Fear is here. I feel it. It is lurking, showing up in its sinister way. Seated in the front row, watching, judging how I perform, how I respond.

I want to crawl into a hole and stay there. At times I feel so alone. Breaking this pattern, forging a path into and through these brambles and tangled woods that lay before me. Off the beaten path, the well-known familiar dance of dancing around a topic, not wanting to offset or offend. Thinking that all can be covered up and hidden.  Thinking that others cannot see.

And that is the crazy making. Because the elephant is standing there. Right here, for all to see.

Except, I am really learning now, that you can only see that which you are willing and ready to see. When you are not willing to see, you cannot see. Everyone around you can see, but you cannot, because you are not ready, shielded, protected, hidden by your own story and narrative, by your own fear.

Somehow, I continue to be the bearer of the news, the news that no one wants to hear, or see. The truth that wants to remain covered up, buried, out of sight from others.

What is ironic is that everyone can see. It’s actually not hidden. It is all here in plain sight. Invisible only in the mind of-what is the story, about the Emperor and His Clothes? It’s like this. Where everyone can see, except him. Or from a different perspective, the story of the Wizard of Oz, where the delusion lies behind the curtain- just because he can’t see out, doesn’t mean that we can’t see in.

I feel alone, even though I know that I am not. I feel alone because I cannot sit idle and not speak. I know. I tried. I have done that for so long. That has been a recurring thread for me. Sit, take, receive, shut up, stuff it in, down, check your place. Who do you think you are speaking to? These words pop into my mind. I am confused, time and time again, because to me, it is blatant, obvious, needed to be said, shared. And often, most often, to the one I speak, they feel attacked, vulnerable, exposed. Pulling back the curtain while saying, “there is nothing to see here.” Yet all I do is see. And once I see, I cannot unsee.

This is the dilemma. This is the confusion in which I sit. How to be me?

For if I do not speak, my body shuts down.

When I do speak, my body shuts down.

How to live? How to be with this?

How to be me? How to be authentic to myself? How to be authentic with myself? How to live in the skin I am in? How to be me, when the very me-ness causes me to be exiled, outcasted, shunned?

You know, as I type this. I feel exiled, outcasted and shunned by the one I have turned and given my power over to. To this one being, in a circle of people. To one point. And I am zeroing in on this one point, when there are 359 other degrees and perspectives to see this from.

I don’t know why I am called to show up and see things. I do not.

What I do know, is that this is a huge thread in my life, engrained in my very being. I say my very being because my body gives me signals, signals that I used to ignore. Signals that I used to numb. Signals that I still attempt to override by saying- I can take this, you can endure this, you made a commitment that you need to keep, honor your word.

You know what, how things look from the outside are very different once you step in and see the behind the scenes. And as I have said, once I see, I cannot unsee. No matter how hard I try. And I know. I have tried to unsee, to pretend, to turn my head, to take a deep breath, to close my eyes.

It is unsustainable. The stuffing. The hiding. The turning a blind eye.

It is crazy making to not address what is out in the open, for all to see.

And what I am experiencing is that it also feels crazy for me to speak what is seen. Because each time I do, I am met with this force that is so strong, so strong it sends vibrations through my body that cause me to uproot and lose my footing and balance.

I know this. I have been here before.

My mind steps in and tries to make sense in a rational kind of way, when there is nothing rational about fear. Nothing is rational about fear. And yet, each time, each and every time, my mind wants to make sense of, to understand what just happened. For as far as it was concerned, I was standing there, solid, taking a step and the flooring got ripped away, a crack opened up in the earth and I fell. Laying on the ground or falling into nothing, looking around wondering what just happened, shaking my head in confusion. Forgetting that each time I speak up, each time I speak up I am met with resistance. Resistance from those who do not want whatever they are working to protect and hide to be seen.

And each time, rising. Each and every time I rise.

Shaken, fractured, confused. Bewildered.

Stronger than before.

For the cracks…  I’ll let the card my sister sent me five years ago speak those words.

And the words that were written inside:

“Did you know that scar tissue is stronger than it was pre-injury? There is a reason for that. Most people will say when you get knocked down you come back stronger and it’s literally true. I know it has been a really hard few years… but I know you’ll come out like a diamond in the end.”

Around that time, the repeating lines to my life at that time were:

Ain’t nobody gonna break my stride.

Ain’t nobody gonna slow me down.

I’ve got to keep on moving.

Interestingly, the words that came, the song that I played on my way to work this week are:

Ain’t not stopping us now

We’re on the move

So here we go, expanding, radiating and sharing out with the world all that wants to be seen and shared- for those who are ready and willing to see.

I continue to be full of gratitude for all that flows to me so I am able to see, acknowledging that what is true to me, what is true for me is not true for another. I accept this.

And what I am learning, with each step I take, is that I choose to live a life that is aligned in truth and action. This alignment is integrity. I am noticing the sensations within, the inner signals from my cells when I am not aligned. I choose to live a life I have reverence for. And to live in this way, in a way of integrity and reverence, I know I must take action.

I stepped out of fear and into love and I am still here.

Ain’t no stopping me now, I am on the move,

Sara

Stop the World and Let Me Off

Stop the world and let me off, I’m tired of going round and round.

These are the words that were with me when I opened my eyes this morning. Words I have heard sung by Waylon Jennings.

I am tired. I tired of being me. Tired of being activated. Tired of being seen as a provocateur, as one that stirs the pot.

I am simply being me.

This is a long, long, standing thread. Colleagues used to tell me that the word around town was that I was difficult to work with.  I have always seen myself from the perspective that I speak the truth, even when the truth is hard to face. I have come to realize that not everyone wants to see the truth and in some way or another, me being me stirs up this emotional aspect within someone.  And I am tired of it. I am tired of being on the receiving end of their stuff.

I am tired of being seen as confrontational. Tired of being seen a malicious or wanting to engage in a power struggle. Tired of being in this space with others.  Tired of being misunderstood. Tired of folks making projections of me and my desires or what drives me. It is exhausting. I am exhausted and I want to run, hide, quit, remove myself, go away forever and live alone by myself, with no need to interact with anyone other than me- me who I have come to know and for the most part expect. Me, whom I can handle and navigate, rather than others who show up and provoke me, who light me up.

I know that what I do to them is exactly what they do for me- it is reciprocal as most things are.

I know that what is being shown is an opportunity to find my way through this, for me to learn, to grow, to open up spaces within. I get it all on a cognitive, mind level and even with this knowing I am done. Exhausted. Tired. I have no more energy for it. It is draining. I feel as if I am leaking my energy, focusing on things or areas that I have NO CONTROL over so it feels fruitless, pointless. And, as I type I acknowledge the opportunity that is here, that is offering growth. The opportunities that are presented here for me rise up, to see beyond. To strengthen my resolve. To access my willpower and inner strength. I do, I see these opportunities and I am tired. Tired of doing this, engaging in and with this. This, which seems to go on and on forever. When is it going to end?

Hence, the words sung by Waylon Jennings in my inner mind this morning-

Stop the world and let me off. I am tired of going round and round.

I am tired of being seen by others in ways in which I am not. Tired of finding others trying to pull me into power struggles when it was never my intention. Tired of not having others around me speak up or stand up for me.

I am done.

I know in the past folks would get tired of me. Those deep exhales in staff meetings paired with the inner thoughts of “why doesn’t she drop this, why won’t she let this go?” I know, folks would even go talk to my principal to express their discomfort and ill ease- never to me. Always to someone else. I know that I can be a lot. I know this because I am the one who lives with myself, I am the one who is always here. I cannot escape myself; I know this because I have tried. Which is why I want to go, to leave, to live alone- holed up as a hermit, in isolation because it is easier to deal with myself then having to navigate the wide world of others and their shit, because let’s be honest- a majority of us do not look at ourselves, many of us do not know ourselves. They do not know what lights them up and brings them down, they are so disconnected with themselves that they go around thinking it is everyone, anyone else’s problem. Never theirs. They take no responsibility for their own shit, the shit that they are putting out and instilling in those around them.

I am doing the work. Why aren’t others? I am tired of having to interact with others who do not see themselves and the role they play, how they create and participate. It is so easy to put it off, push it off, the easy story of blame- to blame someone else rather than take responsibility. I am tired of being the scapegoat. I am tired of being the one who gets dumped on.

Yes, yes. I know. I cannot get dumped on if I am not willing to receive.  You don’t think I know this. I know this is a vicious cycle of giving and getting, of reciprocity. This is a huge thread, a huge narrative that I have taken on over the years. And it is taking a LOT, a whole lot of energy and attention to shed. It is exhausting. I am tired. I am depleted. I want to put in the towel and say I am done. I am out. Tapping out. Done. When did I sign up for this? It is not something that I am willingly doing. I am not showing up to fight you, to be malicious. I am not being me as a confrontation. I am simply being me. I know no other way.

I have responded. I have reacted. I have spoken up. I have stood up. I have walked away. I have silenced myself. I have sat and taken it, heard the lies you tell, the lies you spread. And now, I am still trying to figure out what to do. This is it. This is the great invitation: How to be me in this world, especially around those who see me in ways that I do not see myself?

I read this quote by the Mother yesterday,

“When you have started, you must go to the very end. Sometimes to people who come to me in a surge of enthusiasm I say, “Think it over, it is not an easy path. It will take time, it will need patience. You will need endurance, much perseverance and courage and untiring goodwill. Look and see if you are capable of having all this, and then start. But once you have started, it is decided: there is no going back anymore. You must go to the very end.”

This goes back far, far back. I can recall my first grade teacher sharing that I get upset with others are treated unfairly. This passion, this drive is embedded within me. I cannot take it out. I cannot snuff it out. I cannot remove it. I try to shield myself; I try to hide it. I try to stuff it in and not speak up and when I do this, the very actions I am trying to do to help myself, to support myself wrecks havoc on my nervous system and my mind.

I really do not know what else to do.

I am tired of being me.

The next words that come are “I can’t change, even if I wanted to.” You know these words, from Same Love, the song by Maklemore and Ryan Lewis. This is how I am wired. This is how I am created. This is what I have cultivated. I care.  Yes, I care.  And this caring is the root at my pain and challenges. This caring is at the root of my passion and drive. This caring is at the root of me. It is the strength that bolsters me, it is this strength that limits. My greatest gift is my weakness.

Why can we not see others for who they are?

What I am acknowledging, as I feel tears well up in my eyes and a sharp pain in my chest, is that I am ready to put down these limiting stories and see myself from another perspective, see myself from a different lens. Rather than being seen as confrontational and stirring stuff up as a problem, I am going to embrace being provocative by my very nature, shaking up the status quo, that same old day in a day out, the repetitive patterns of sameness, because they are easy, because it is known. I am going to go on continuing to point out the small, limiting ways, reduced ways we have been accustomed to look at the world and of the children who are in it because I care.

It is that simple.

I am asking us to look because I care.

In some way, that is why I am here. This is the work I have been invited to do by simply being me. Because I care,

S

The End

For the past few weeks now, there has been a theme of leaking and expansion within my life. These examples range from water bottles and tea travel mugs leaking and spilling out to my computer mouse pad rising up and expanding.

Here is a recorded audio piece about the computer:

Here are photos that accompany this story:

My Newest Commitment

For the past three years I have been committed to a sadhana. I have made and upheld commitments to myself through a practice that I engage in daily. These commitments have ranged from 54 days, 45 days, 36 days, 27 days, 21 days, 12 days- one practice was 100 days.  The practice can vary from a Kriya or Pranayama Set, a series of asanas or be mantra based, sometimes the practice would be a combination of these. Each practice, each Sadhana, each commitment I made would spontaneously arise. Either I would know which practice to take on based on an inner knowing or a message would come to me in the form of an opportunity that I would agree to and set forth.

My most recent sadhana came to an end on the night of January 17th. Since then, mantras have come into my headspace, stillness comes when I sit for puja, movement comes with I wake in the morning, but nothing has held me. Nothing seems to stick.

Until two days ago, when out of the void, came the words - commit to write on Wednesdays, commit to write about Education on Wednesdays.

It stopped me.

I usually write when I am moved to write, when something within me says write this down or put this in writing. I have explored a set writing time and writing for a certain period of time. At those times, the commitment stuck as long as it held me. I have been writing for a long while and as I explored different types of writing beyond my journal- be in here in this space, using certain strategies such a “lift a line,” or answering questions folks have asked me to get my ideas flowing, I have even explored audio recordings, to model the notion that I am talking to someone, engaged in a conversation or discussion about a certain topic. I began to figure out that my writing flowed not within preset or predetermined times or reduced to timeframes during the day, but rather is flowed when it flowed. I learned to accept this and to create space and time to be with wanted to come, to write or type when I was moved.

I was stunned. Shocked. Taken by surprise when I received this message, when I heard- commit to write about Education on Wednesdays.

I sat still. Hum. I responded. Okay.

I have learned to honor my inner voice and take action when it speaks, so last night I sat. I transcribed an audio recording from October 16, 2021 that I titled- Clarity in Regards to Wholeness Around Education.

Here are a few excerpts from this piece, that is a work in progress- as all things are. For nothing is static, nothing is set, all things continue to morph, grow and change with time. Including my understandings on the way things work, the rules that govern how things play out and my view.

We say, ah, the parent is the child’s first teacher.

I’d like to offer a different perspective

Rather

Life is a teacher and the child is a student and a teacher simultaneously

Seamlessly moving back and forth

Crossing from student to teacher

Teacher to student

Without them even knowing

Without their conscious awareness that this is happening

For this is their essence

The very essence of being

Learning

Growing

Evolving

Expanding

------------

It is here, in this space

where

Children learn to rely on themselves

The foundation on which they interact and

Encounter the world

This is how they explore throughout life

They try things out

They add this learning, incorporating it into their field

They drop it or store it away

And they begin to learn through these experiences

On and on it goes

And I commit to doing the same- to learn through these experiences, carrying myself on and on as I go.

Gladly,

Sara

Waiting Is The Hardest Part

Driving today I heard Tom Petty’s The Waiting. I laughed out loud. As if Divine herself is listening to the inner dialogue of my mind.

Ah, yes, waiting. What am I waiting for? Waiting for what? Is it a waiting? What about timing, right timing? Nature’s timing. Could it be that I am in this space of preparation?

I am exploring this. Rather I continue to explore this. This notion of waiting. This notion of nature’s timing.

I know that nature has an inherent understanding of time. Her knowledge of time is different than mine. Her expression of time is related to conditions; right, auspicious conditions that are favorable to success. Conditions that require the least amount of energy, or maybe it is the most efficient use of energy. Conditions that are ripe. Conditions that have been prepped for, conditions that have been prepared or cultivated over time. She doesn’t wait. She knows. She knows when the time is ripe. She knows when the time is right. She conserves her energy and puts it forth when it will be best utilized, when it will be welcomed an appreciated. Like the small green sprouts pushing up in early spring or the fragrance the flower emits when she opens to greet the sun.

I recently read a quote from a farmer that spoke about how the growing season starts with preparations.  To prepare. Yes, I see how idea of preparation has been a thread in my life, how it is a thread in nature. Read the environment, tap into the inner knowing, the intelleigene that is embedded in each being. Harvest, reap, tap into that which is in service, that which is useful and discard, recycle, return to the earth that which has been used, that which has already been of service, that which has done or contributed its part.

This is where I am. On the level of the mind mostly- clearing out old clutter, stories and narratives, identities and patterns that once served me and are required no more. This process is work. It requires attention, dedication, commitment. Steadfastness and willpower. Awareness and acceptance. And the ability to let go. Fully.

There have been times in my life, in all of our lives where we have had to say goodbye to things that are meaningful to us from relationships with individuals and material items.  Relationships that we have depended on, relied on, materials that provide ease and comfort.  At times we have an ability to consciously say good-bye, to know when an end is upon us, or near. Sometimes, these ends come “out of the blue” or “out of the darkness.” They sweep us up. They knock us down. The leave us breathless or speechless. These moments evoke emotion and at times our grip to hold on and not let go gets tighter.

And for those of us who have come to know ends, we also know they are beginnings.  For these discontinuous events are the catalysts for something new. They are the change in the pattern that allows for newness to emerge.  And those beginnings that one that emerge from the ends, sometimes are only able to be seen, are only able to be recognized as times of great growth and shifts when we look back and see the gift of time.

Am I waiting for an end? Am I waiting for a beginning?

You know what? Waiting is the hardest part. Because, in waiting I am wanting. I am thinking up and desiring something in the way I want to it be. Through the lens of what I already know. And when I am in a place of wanting, time seems to take forever to pass. Not the pleasant slowly, slowly in which I enjoy and revel in delight. No, this waiting it can feel like a ravenous desire, unsatiable, clinging and attaching to whatever it can to make something happen, to feel like I have control. To feel I am in control.

That is when the mind steps in.

And that has become my signal to stop. To stop. Surrender. Drop in and trust totally.

Do you want to know how I know, how I have come to learn this? The greatest moments in my life, the biggest shifts, the events that have impacted and changed the trajectory of my life were not planned. They arrived out of the blue, out of the darkness. They appeared out of my control. Beyond my planning and the capacity of the human mind.

So, what am I waiting for when I know that Divine timing and alignment is far greater than anything I could plan for or want, think up or dream of?  For each time she offers me something, something that feels like an end, I find myself giddy with delight which is here, offering herself as a beginning.

How do I know this? How have I come to see this?

In time. With time. Over time.

In TOTAL trust.

For every end is a beginning and every beginning is an end.

This is a law of nature.

In awe,

S

Outsourcing and Guidance

I have been sitting with this after reading a chart of a dearly Beloved.

Are outsourcing and guidance the same?

How do I view them?

What do they mean to me, what have I come to know about these through my experiences?

When do I outsource?

When do I seek guidance?

As I have been writing over the past bit, when I give over my power and my ability to make choices, when I place that responsibility on someone else, then to me, I am outsourcing. I am no longer standing in my power, claiming my strength and my capabilities. I am turning those over to someone outside of me. This, I am coming to understand, happens for a variety of reasons, one of which came up today. I outsource when I am tired. When I am drained, when I am exhausted. Now, to me, this is different than having someone decide say for example, what I am going to eat when I get home from a long shift and I do not feel like I have the capacity (read, nor do I really care) what I eat. In that moment, it is more important that I eat, that I nourish my body and take care of it than being concerned about someone making a decision for me. For I have learned, after over a year of not eating because I was too tired, that this choice wrecks havoc on my body and nervous system.

Outsourcing, is wanting someone else to do it and often someone else to have the responsibility of doing it, is different to me than seeking guidance. Seeking guidance or tuning to a friend or mentor to talk something out, to receive another perspective or simply for them to hold the space so that I can talk something through is a way in which I maintain my me-ness and the abilitiy to make choices, I am simple looking to other to shed light or provide an gaze that I have not yet seen. I find, when a friend holds space for me, I can usually talk openly and freely and it is in that held space where the insights and clarity come. Where a light goes off or dawn awakens something within me.

When friends are able to hold space- to truly listen, not listen to respond, not listen to tell you what to do-when a friend really hears you, I have found that it provides me the space to hear myself. To come to my own conclusions and my own awareness. To make connections that are known to me.  It provides me the opportunity to tap into my own inner knowing, my own inner guidance. It allows me to bolster my confidence of what I know to be true. When I figure something out it is affirming and confirming. It is validating and ressauring. Like a deep sigh. Ah yes. Yes, yes, yes. I do know. I can trust myself.

When I outsource, I am asking someone else to figure it out for me. And really, how can they? There is no one else in the world that has the same experiences, perspective, the unquieness of me that makes me, me. No one else can be me, so why would I want someone to make a decision for me?

I used to willingly allow others to make decisions for me. What I would eat. What I would wear. What I would say or not say. I say used to, because during those times, I did not know myself. I used to think that others knew me better than I knew myself. And to be honest, they probably did because my relationship with myself was so shallow, so surface. I fluctuated all of the time. I had no idea who I was. I would meld and adapt, cram and fit myself into whatever role someone wanted me to be molded into. Willingly. Until I met myself and I learned and am learning that I no longer want to life my life that way, the way someone else wants or believes or thinks it should be. That was then.

This is now.

What I notice sometimes is that I get tripped up around timing. Because I have found that when I want something, I want it sooner than later. I do not want to have to wait the 3 years for it to circle around to me or come flowing to me. When it takes time to come to me, like an answer to a question, the space in between the asking and the knowing usually involves a huge head game, you know the tug and pull back and forth? This is where self doubt comes in, self negation shows up and I do not like these stories. I do not like when they present their presence in my mind. They show up and lug me toward the desire to return to my old ways, wondering why I put forth all of the time and energy of being present and aware - of getting to know myself. For what?  I cannot tell you how many times, through sobs and wails, tears flowing, gasping for breath have I asked, For what? What more do you want from me? What now?

And then, the clarity comes and I realize that I am holding myself up to some sort of measuring stick. This isn’t totally new to me. I have been held in tornado storms in my mind, hurricanes sitting in the eye of it all, waiting for it to pass. When the storm stops and the clouds part and when there is some break, I can begin to see. I can see what is holding me or what I have been holding on to.

In October of last year, I was in the grips of something. Its jaws were latched tight. I felt as if was being shaken from side to side, so disoriented, so confused.

There was a sense of rigidness from that time that was showing up. The rigid, fixed thinking that I was being asked to addressed was strong, the pull of the mind is so strong. It was so strong that when I was literally physically tired, I told myself that I could not rest. I told myself that it is not okay to be tired and that I needed to push through. And yet there were times when I was really generally tired. At that time, I was doing a lot for reading. I read about the great masters and teachers saying that there is no such thing as being tired and that it is all on the level of the mind. Yet, there I was, tired and fighting against something within me, these stories of judgement and competition. And I was confused. Conflicted with what I was reading and the reality of being me, because I kept finding myself here in this body on earth and feeling that this body sometimes gets tired. It became a real internal battle to allow myself to soften and allow myself to be. To give myself permission and not get wrapped up in the snares of shame and self hatred. Again, I was in this fixed, rigid place. I was locked in a place and the grip was tight. So, when I reached out to Beloved Lisa and shared this, these intimate stories from the depths of my mind, I had such gratitude, gratitude that she continued (and continues to this day) to offer me, to hold me in in her lap so that I can to see myself fully and talk and process and heal and to say out loud, aspects that are often in my mind…that are dark and hidden and do not want to see the light.

Lisa offered me this:

There is something within you that is measuring you, measure that is not allowing the rest, that is not allowing that which has already arrived….

 allow yourself, to fully take your seat knowing you are perfection right NOW-

 nowhere to go, nothing to do

I offer this as an invitation for you to rest into

Absolutely fully, let go

Let go

Be in the moment, no plan

No should, no expectation

It’s about letting go of all of it

It’s not about claiming, it is about letting it go.

And fully knowing that grace of you.

That was over a 15 months ago. 15 months in linear time. 15 months, that when I stumbled on the pages in my journal that revealed her words and the description, I wrote about what was unfolding in my life at that time, brought me to a full stop. I sat and in the sitting I realized how much I have grown. How much I have changed. How my effort, energy devoted to and commitment to myself has been unshakable. And how much I have softened in and accepted. How I have developed forgiveness, compassion and love for myself. All of which is expanding and growing with each step I take.

Each time I trust my inner knowing. Each time I turn to others for support and guidance. Each time I learn to rely on myself while simultaneously trust that there is something much larger than me at play.

A force that has guided my way on.

So, as I type this I guess, in a sense I am outsourcing. Instead of outsourcing to a person, I am trusting the Divine intelligence in partnership with myself, my full self, my whole self, that has brought me to this very moment, typing these words here for you and me to read.

Whole and full. Full and Whole.

Sara

The Crows

I was in a writing class when I wrote the Intersection of Gentle Street.  The piece came to me in response to a prompt about a life changing moment.  As I shared the piece with my class, some of the feedback that I received was that it was like an academic paper and that the audience wanted to know what happened that lead me to arrive at the intersection of Gentle Street.

I sat with this. I sit with this.  As I write, what I choose to write and share happens for a variety of reasons. To me, it is not as important to know what caused the learning to happen, as it is to share the learning or the insights gleaned.  With this said, I know that sometimes it is helpful to read a first hand account of what a person has experienced or gone through. This helps me connect to the writer and it also helps me connect with myself. As I read the work of others, I often find comfort and solace knowing that I am not alone. That others experience moments in which they endure or are elated, and in this sharing, there is a connection of humanness. The natural nature of humans.

It is with this that I share a story that took place yesterday, in the scheme of my life.  I share it in its raw and real form- full of emotions and feelings. Accessing the depths and heights of myself.

An opportunity arose, through connections, for me to visit a school in NYC.  This school is looking for a naturalist teacher to support outside excursions into neighborhood parks and open spaces this Spring. I planned to take the train into the city from NJ.

As I pulled into the parking lot for commuters, I noticed it was full. It was a rainy day and so it wasn’t a surprise that many people drove to the train station rather than walking. Knowing that I need to find a parking spot, I drove to another lot. This is a lot in the town for town use, not for commuters and the sign at the entrance to the lot indicated this.  The lot was for parking and there was a 3-hour limit.  I easily found a spot and while I knew that I would be longer than three hours, I justified my parking there by telling myself that I would not be much longer than that.

I got out of the car and went to the trunk, where I knew I had a plastic bag. I had documentation in my bag. The documentation was larger than my bag, so it stuck out top. Since it was raining, I wanted to cover the top so it would not get wet as I walked. I got the bag, placed it on top of the exposed documentation and made my way to the train station. I noted my parking spot number, smiling when I saw it was 933. I have an app on my phone to pay for parking, so I pulled that up as I walked. Once I hit payment, a pop up message appeared saying that the payment could not go through. I tried again and again, the same message came.

This same thing happened a month ago when I went into the city. The message popped up and I learned that my bank account that the card associated with the parking app has access to had insufficient funds. I had not used the app since that time and thought that maybe something happened and that I needed to refresh the account.  In the meantime, I saw a pay station where I could pay for the parking with cash or a debit card, which I had done last month. I began the process for paying at the station until I realized that that station is for a different zone, that particular pay station was for the commuter lot, not the public lot that I was parked in and there was no way to access a different zone at that pay station.

Acknowledging that time was passing, I decided to get my train ticket. Once I had that I made my way to the platform. I had a plan to work with the app to add another form of payment. There on the platform, I opened the app and navigated my way to the place where I could add another card. Since I thought something was wrong with the card from before, I decided to re- enter that information. Once I hit submit and attempted to pay the $1.80 for the 3 hours of parking, the same message popped up on the screen.

Now, I realized I did not have time to go downstairs, across the street and into the lot to the pay station for that zone.  So, I told myself I would add another form of payment. This time however, when I selected the setting to add another form, my option was to use Google Pay, PayPal or Apple Wallet. I wanted to add another debit card, but that was not an option.

I rarely remember my passwords to anything, but I knew that I had a PayPal account. So, I went through the process of resetting my password- clicking on the forgot password link, getting the authentication number, entering it and changing my password. Once I took those steps, I realized that the card associated with my PayPal account is the same as the card on the parking app, but I try it anyway and I get the same pop up message.  It became clear to me at that moment that my account is overdrawn. (Which, by the way, I made a point of checking my balance yesterday when I withdrew cash from the ATM, but what I forgot was that it is this time of the month when many of my bills are paid through bill pay so money was withdrawn between the time I checked my balance the day before and this attempt to pay for parking). I did not even check my bank account, because that is another password that I do not have memorized and did not have access to the written from while I was on the platform waiting for the train.

What I did do though, was attempt to reach out to the online chat support to share my story. That way, I reasoned, I could have written evidence that I attempted multiple ways to pay and what I wanted to do was to add another debit or credit card to my payment options, but on the app that was not possible.  All of this I thought would be evidence of the steps I took to attempt to pay when I got a ticket for not paying for parking, which I thought was a possibility that could happen. The chat function of the app was not working. So I surrendered in, accepting. did what I could, save going across the street and potentially missing my train.

The train came and I boarded. I made my way to a window seat, sat down and realized that in the midst of leaving the car, I did not lock it. That my car, was left in a public lot, unlocked.

Usually when I leave the car, I lock it by touching the handle of the car and since I went into the trunk, I did not touch the driver’s side handle and at the time it did not occur to me to take my key out of my bag and press the lock button.

Now, grasping at the truth of what is, I realize I am on the train, headed to NYC for the next 3.5 – 4 hours and my car is unlock and parked in a public lot without payment.  My mind began to race. It took off, going in any and every direction it could grasp. You are so irresponsible. How could you? You are so spacey. How did overdraw your bank account? Why are you not paying attention to your finances? I would never leave my car unlocked. You must have been distracted, in your mind, not paying attention.

Then my mind entered an even darker space- this is what you get. You were so happy this morning. You woke up, you wrote, you were feeling good and BAM, now this. Nothing lasts. You are not deserving of joy and happiness. Life is out to get you. Your stuff, all of the stuff in your car is going to be taken. It is going to be removed. You left the doors unlocked and that is an indication for your stuff to me taken and it is your punishment, just like what happened this Spring (which interestingly- it is occurring to me only now, that is what prompted me to write The Intersection of Gentle Street. My belongings that I had with me in Bristol, England were left in a unlocked car and when I returned to the car they were gone). Something similar happened last month and it is happening again- wanting to pay for parking, having an overdrawn account. Why do you not tend to the things that are important? History repeats itself don’t you know?  Do you know what is in the car- all of your outdoor gear, your sleeping bag, your journal with notes from forest school… Hanuman and Vincent hanging from the rearview mirror. Good thing you took out your sneakers so you have those. What are you going to do when your car is stolen? Huh, what are you going to do then? You will have no car to transport you to and from work. You have no money to buy a new car. The only thing of value that you own, that has any resemblance of value or asset is this car and you do not even fully own it yet. And now, it is going to be taken. Just like your stuff in Bristol. Taken, removed, gone. All because you left it unlocked. This is the price you have to pay.

My mind took me to even deeper depths- I am not going to be able to continue. I am not going to be able to live, to face myself or others if my car is stolen. They are going to say you deserve it. You are so irresponsible. This is the punishment for you being you, spacey, airy, irresponsible you. I can’t even endure this, I don’t want to be here anymore. What I know is that I do not want to live through this, that which might happen, that which folks will say about me if my car is stolen.

Then it came. Loud and clear.  STOP. Stop it right now. Stop this incessant chatter and the pulling of the mind. Stop it this instant. Harness yourself Sara, get your mind under control. Stop allowing it to go to all of these places.

So, I turned to my practice. I began chanting. I began chanting mantras to switch my vibration and energy state, to get out of my head and into the mantra. To allow that mantra to carry me, to shift me, to ground me. To bring me to the present moment. The only moment there was.

Looking out the rain streaked train window, at the dark, drab, muted colors of the Meadowlands, with trash and leftover vehicles from another time I chanted. I chanted. I chanted. I slowly brought myself back to center. I reigned myself in.

By the time the train pulled into Penn Station, I was somewhat calm. I told myself that I was on my way to a school, for a new Beginning and what was to be was to be. That the unlocked car is far away from here, from me and is out of my control. That I have to surrender to the moment, to drop all of the what ifs and the projected stories of my mind, the stories rooted in fear and scarcity and allow it to be what it is- beyond my control.  I turned to what I could control and I what I know. I know that can control or at the very least attempt to control my mind and the state of my nervous system, which I wanted to be stable and open. Clear and present for this meeting that was about to take place.

I exited the train. I walked through Penn Station, through the turn style and up to the subway platform for the 1 and 2 train. As soon as I turned left the mosaics on the wall caught my eye and I was in awe. Cackling in awe and humbled at the same time.

Here is the recording I made at that moment:

I made it to the school. Had a lovely time with the director, we walked to the park, explored the space and the possibilities. I met a few teachers and saw spaces within the school.

I made my way to Union Square, took the #3 subway back to Penn Station and realized that had I taken the express train on the way downtown, I would have not seen the crows. In fact, I have been on that subway platform hundreds of times and I never noticed them. Never, until then.

Until the moment it was necessary for me to see them.

Crows. The vehicle of Shani Dev. Beloved Shani Dev.

As I waited for the platform to be announced, I listened on repeat to the 12 mantras of Surya Namaskar. I boarded the train and made it back to New Jersey. I choose a seat on the right side of the train. Aware that I would not be able to see the parking lot when the train pulled into the station. The train pulled into the station and I gave thanks to all of the beings who watched over my car while I was away asking only for my car to be there.

And it was. Unlocked, with everything inside and no ticket.

By the grace of Shani Dev and the ever watchful, loving gaze of the crows.

S.

PS. As I look, really look and take in the images of the crow, the story they share in these pictures, my heart softens as I smile. It is beautiful.

I Am My First Teacher

I am my first teacher

These words have been with me before. I have sat with them, pondered them. And yesterday in a marathon conversation with a dear friend Corrine, she pointed out that I, am my own teacher.

I am my teacher.

This invitation stems from my ability with ease to look to others as teachers- people, events, moments, experiences and how I rarely give credit to myself. What arose when she offered the perspective of looking at myself as a teacher in similar to what I wrote in a pervious post- the one thing that is consistent, the common denominator is me.  So, in this sense, yes. I am my own teacher.

I have outsourced my learning to so many others over the years. I have given so much respect and reverence to others for my learning. For being teachers, showing their way and other perspectives. I remember being in India on the morning of the ceremony to mark the final day of my 200 hr teacher training, when it occurred to me, dawned within me, that while I have deep reverence and respect for Anand Ji and Sattva Yoga Academy, I found respect and reverence within myself- for they offered, they presented and I was the one that did the work. I was the one that rose up. I was the one that practiced. I was the one that pondered. I was the one that received.

So yes, it is a partnership AND it is up to me.

Which has me smiling because years ago, maybe six years now, I saw a bumper sticker that said If it is to be, it is up to me. That quote, that very phrase is the first post I made on Instagram.

No one else can do it. If we want something, it is up to us. Our willpower, our drive, our commitment. Our steadfastness. Our dedication. Others can share, offer, present, tell, name and point out. It is up to us, to act, we have the choice to make if and when we want to see, do or follow through.

All too often we place blame on the other or something outside of ourselves. We tell ourselves and others this story to justify our actions. They made me do it. If she hadn’t….then I wouldn’t have….and when we are here in this place of blame, we are actually in a place of putting the responsibility on someone else, rather than ourselves.

We all have choices. We have choices on how we see, perceive. How we interact, how we engage. How we choose. We have choices. Not all of us are aware of this. Many of us, and I was one who felt this way for a long, long time, many of us have taken the stance that life does things to me and that I am a victim. That life itself was out to get me and that I was its opponent, that somehow, I got on the bad side of life and it was against me. When I was in this place, when I interacted from this place there was so much resistance, so much anger and angst. So much misused energy.

Slowly, slowly I moved toward gratitude. I practiced finding gratitude with small things in life.  It was work. Work that required energy and thought. Sometimes the gratitude was that I woke up or that the sun was shining. Sometimes it was a small gesture that I noticed from someone or an action that supported me. With each recognition of gratitude, I began to break the pattern of feeling like life was out to get me, that life was bad and that I had to shield and protect myself from it and slowly, slowly over time I began to see that there were and are so many gifts. That life is full, abundantly full of gifts that she offers continuously, tirelessly, effortlessly. I choose to focus my attention and energy on what is here, what is offered, not what is lacking.

These steps. It is these steps that I have taken toward awareness that have opened up a whole new world to me. I have accessed a whole new world inside of me. And what I am seeing is that I can have gratitude for myself. I can be in gratitude with myself. My choices, my actions, my thoughts. I can be grateful for my very being. I can soften in and love myself. I can be conscious of my perspective, my thoughts and my words.

Recently, I have become increasingly aware of what is at the root of my thoughts and the perspectives that I hold. Through this gratitude of and for myself paired with my awareness, I am noticing who I give power to and when. And most often, I give my power over to others without even knowing I have done so. It is a subtle feeling in my body that alerts me, signals to me that something doesn’t feel right, that something is icky. That something is off. My body knows. My body knows and I am in tune enough know to recognize its signals and pay attention to them.

Once here, I can make a choice. I get to decide how I want to move forward, what step I want to take. Once I have the awareness, I am in control.

So, when Corrine pointed out to me last night that I was giving credit to someone outside of myself for being my teacher, I realized that then too, I was outsourcing my own power, strength and awareness to another. When in fact, it was myself that stood up and said, “No, I am not longer tolerating this, no longer agreeing to the way I am being treated.” It is similar to the invitation that Katrina, Amaya and Sophie offered me two years ago when they asked me If I LOVE MYSELF ENOUGH.

Here, when I say myself, I mean my inner being that is connected to my nervous system and my body. The subtle system within that offers signals, that has always offered signals as I move in life. This inner knowing that has always been here and is grateful for my awareness, acknowledgement and participation.

Yes, this is the partnership.

Me and my inner knowing.

Me and life.

Walking hand and hand.

With a mutual gaze, a reciprocal gaze of love, respect, gratitude and reverence.

S.

PS. I see now how folks, events, moments- they are all instruments through which my karma is being played out….

Root to Rise

Invitations

What does it mean to be at home with yourself?

In the previous piece, I wrote about being at home within myself….

So what does it mean to me, to be at home with myself?

As always in life, or at least the way I look at it now, there are opportunities to grow, to learn and to see things in a new way.  In the past, I would resist anything that didn’t feel good, anything that would “throw me off” or “make me uncomfortable.” When I say resist, I mean I would fight. I would fight the feeling. I would battle it and do ANYTHING to not feel the way I was feeling. If you have read any of these pieces shared here or know me these things ranged from sleeping, eating, numbing, leaving, defending, justifying, explaining, shutting down- anything to stop the feeling from being felt. I would do anything to end the feeling.

What I did not know then, is that I was simply replacing the feeling with another feeling, another feeling that felt better in the moment. This replacement tactic was another shield, another layer that I added to barrier myself from the inner signals in my body, the signals that were alerting me that something was there, that something within me wanted my attention and instead of looking at it, I turned my head shunning and ignoring it.

Now, I face it. Full on face myself fully.  This has been a long journey, one that I am still on. Now though, rather than numb, hide, stuff or turn away I invite and welcome. It started with having the hard conversations with myself. Pulling up a chair and saying, what is here? What wants to be seen? What is under all of this? What is behind all of this? What is at the root of this? What is this attached to? What is this clinging to? I have shared excerpts of these conversations in audio and written form here in this space to offer and reveal the inner workings of my mind. In this process, I have revealed the stories that I tell myself, the stories that others have told of me, the stories that I have picked up and worn as comfortable garments even when they are not true. Through the process of facing myself, I have learned that even when the stories and perspctives that others have of me, do not match the version of me that I have of myself I still willingly took them on.

See, I only know this now. I did not know this then. I know now, that I willingly took on others projections of me and made them mine. I identified with them, I allowed them to define me. I allowed someone else’s story, someone else’s perspective of me to be the lenses through which I looked at myself. Until now.

Again, I say now, and what I mean is not that it is an end point, a stop, a destination- a “ah, I have made it.” No, this is a continuous process, one that is forever unfolding and being revealed. One that is always here, asking me to see and to pay attention. And to do that, I have found its best face it, turn my face towards whatever is occurring and being activated within me rather than turning away. Turn towards and sit - to stay with what is arising, rather than running from it, trying to evade or escape it.

And so, as life goes, there have been a few interactions of recent that have offered me opportunities to see. To me, these opportunities to see are invitations. Ones in which I invite myself to hold space, to notice, to observe without judgment, without putting on my shields or pulling out my protective habits. Instead, I allow myself to feel them fully. Fully. All of it, leaving nothing out. Let me tell you, there is so much here. So much to see. So many connections and woven patterns and stories all linked together. It is almost like a bramble of branches or bushes, twisted and tangled, like overgrowth that has not been tended to.

Yes, this is what I am faced with when I face myself. Stories, projections, feelings, ideas, lenses and perspectives. All which at some time were alive and real to me and may still be alive and real to others. In the poem Hear Me Roar, which flowed through me in February last year the opening lines speak to this:

I am this.

I am this baggage that I carry around

I am a sum of all of my parts

Complete

Whole

Inclusive

Not leaving anything out

For I am these experiences

That shape and mold me

How I see

Perceive

And understand this world

that I create

From these experiences

I am the sum of all of my parts

Every thought you have had of me is my truth, every perception you have had of me is me, is my truth

Yes, this is what makes me alive

This is how I am alive

This is how I stay alive

In the images of your mind

The perception you hold of me

This is how I breathe

this is what fuels my fire,

That which is the kindling

It is not mine, it is yours

It is not true to me yet it is true to you

And it is here in these two lines, where the most recent invitations have come from or maybe come through. Maybe these recent invitations are connected to this root ball of “It is not mine, it is yours. It is not true to me, yet it is true to you.”

See. What I have found, is that if I am not firmly rooted in myself, if I am not grounded in my very being or being me, of the isness that is me- then I am easy swayed and persuaded. If I am not comfortable and rooted in being me, all of this that makes me, me, then I easily absorb the perspective and projections of others. They infiltrate my being and then I start to feel something deep within, something icky. Something that I still cannot fully explain with words. Something that is here, a feeling, a sensation, a signal from the part of myself that knows myself and is alerting me “Sara, Sara, wake up and pay attention. Something is happening here. Tune in. Feel it. Stay with it. Something is going to be revealed, there is an invitation here for you to see and this invitation will eventually set yourself free from the binds and constricted notions and stories that you have been lugging around, the stuff that is weighing you down, the burden that you have willingly carried. Until now.”

Until Now.

For once something is seen, it cannot be unseen. It has been revealed. I can choose to ignore it, turn my head, pretend, talk my way out or around it, justify- I have so many strategies, too many to name. Except they no longer carry the strength, they no longer carry the power. The power resides in me being me. The me that I am meant to be. Not the me someone else wants me to be. Not the version of me someone else thinks I am. I am Me.

For who else is there to be?

I cannot be anyone else, I know this because I have tried. I have stepped into all of the versions that others want me to be. I have played the roles. I have worn the masks. And you know what, I am tired. I tired of trying to be someone that I am not, someone that you want me to be. An idea, a figment of your imagination, your dream. I am not a hero, I am not a villain. I am not out to get you. I am not causing problems. I am not making your life hard or bad, or causing you inconveniences. No. NO NONE OF THIS IS HAPPENING.

I am simply being me.

I am simply being me.

I am simply being me.

All of the stories that you are attaching to me, the narrative that you tell of me are YOURS, they are not mine. They are your stories that you make up in your mind, to justify, explain, protect, defend, shield, ignore, run, hide, pretend…. All of it is your stuff. It is not mine.

But here is the thing that I am learning, here are the things that I am seeing, here are the things that are being revealed to me. My body gives me signals when something doesn’t feel right, when something feels icky and guess what? I pay attention to them now. I stop. I feel in. I tune in. I listen to the subtle messages that they are conveying. I pay attention to where they invite my awareness to goes towards. Not to think. No, the mind has a tendency to step in and make more stories. The mind has a tendency to want to make sense and to connect and to fill in the gaps.  The sensations in my body are signals to tune in. To stop. To get quiet.

Wisdom is offered here in this quiet space. This space of non-doing, not- thinking. This space of being. This space of feeling. This space of seeing.

And you know what I am noticing when I am in this space? When I allow myself to enter this space?

An invitation.

An invitation to see what wants to be seen.

Ann invitation to hear what wants to be heard.

An invitation to bring to light which has been hidden in the dark.

These invitations are opportunities for me to grow. To shed the old narrative, the old stories, patterns, roles and hats that have unwillingly put on, carried, lugged around as if they were mine.

It happened just the other day. I asked a question. I asked a simple question. And one of the receivers of the question answered with a whole story that they had made up in her mind about me. This person conjured up a whole story about me in their mind. And as we know, minds have a way of wanting to make sense of everything and its go to tatic is to fill in the gaps with what we already know, what we have already experienced. So, from this place of their own experiences, they had created a whole narrative of me in their mind and rather than hearing my question for what it was, or asking me to clarify, they heard my question through their projected lens of what they thought I was saying.

Here is the trick, and I find this happens a lot with folks- they do not even know they are doing it. They do not have a strong foundational relationship with themselves, they do not have an awareness of what is going in in their mind and they often respond from this place of projection, this place of assumption.

In the past, I would be baffled. I would walk away confused, blind sighted, asking myself, “what just happened?”

Now I know that we entered the context of the discussion from two different viewpoints. I was asking a simple question, a genuine question and how the other person receives my words is up to them. I cannot control how they perceive what I say, the stories that they make up in their mind about why I am asking the question or saying what I am saying.

I am simply being me.

And what I have noticed is that the feeling I have in the presence of another who has a perception or projection of me that is not how I see myself, is so uncomfortable that I begin to question myself, I begin to ask myself “am I making this up? how far off base am I here?” And then the unthinkable happens, so quick I have no idea it happens. I take on, I identify with their projection of me, the story that they had in their mind about me. I would disregard my own knowing and without choice follow them. Blindly agreeing to the stories that they have of me and make them mine.

Until now.

Because now, I see this. I notice this. I am aware of the sensations in my body. I am aware of the signals my body gives me to alert me when this is happening and I no longer feel like the rug is getting pulled out from underneath me, because I am rooted. I have a strong foundation with myself. I have a grounded relationship with myself.

I know who I am.

I am comfortable and at ease with myself.

I am comfortable and at ease being me.

And from where I am standing, I do not need to waver or change my position, my stance. I do not need to alter my relationship with myself, I do not need to view myself through the lens of someone else.

Their lens is no longer necessary. Their story is no longer needed. Their projection of me is no longer an option for me to pick up and wear.

Because I am comfortable being me.

I am at ease being me.

I am at home with myself.

And to whom else do I have to answer to, except myself.

Whose view of me is important and relevant?

Mine.

Only mine.

So, these recent interactions have been opportunities for me to be at ease with myself. To see what is here, what my tendencies are, what the sensations are communicating to me. Ah, yes, invitations abound.

My first entry in journal #93 was here, seated, held on this fallen tree trunk.

Here are a few excerpts from my journal, number 93, around these invitations:

*I am noticing how L signed her note to me, “Love, Me.” This is how I sign my cards to her…She sees me. She recognizes my love for her, my vast, wide and expansive love for her. And she chose to write me a note, it has been a long while since I have received a note from her. And this one, on this day! Signed Love, Me. Love Me is also an invitation to love myself- for who I am. Effortlessly being me- the invitation is for me to be with without effort, without the pull, the back and forth of the mind that grabs a hold of others view of me, their projection.  This is the friction, the rub- this is the icky unsettled, jittery feeling that shows up when I am losing grounding, footing, becoming uprooted by the presence, projection and power of another.

This is the signal my body gives me when I am teetering, wavering – allowing a debate between what is read and true and what is an illusion, a fabrication of the mind, egoic mind- old stories.

This is the invitation- to remain being me. Effortlessly being me- not picking up, taking on other views or projections of me- their made-up stories of me about my actions and choices- what they think I did or do not do.

*This notion of wanting to be understood and feeling misunderstood is strong. I know that I show up and my presence in certain places evokes, calls forth change. I stir things up, make them seen. This is my essence. I bring stuff to light, stuff folks want to ignore, hide or shy away from.

I do not like being misunderstood or having someone have a wrong view of me, a view that does not fit or is not aligned with the view I have of myself. In the past I would justify and explain to make myself clear. I would be concise with my words, trying to control so there could be no confusion (while I acknowledge how whatever I say is perceived by the receiver and the receiver’s receptive state and I cannot control that). And how I want to be silent, to not talk because it kind of feels pointless because you can only engage with people where they are, at their current conscious level. So, in a sense, it’s just not really worth it.

The invitation is, how do I continue to be myself, operate and function in this relative world with people who do not think like me.

The invitation is to not give my power away, to not allow their perception of me to become mine because it is not true.

*Effortlessly- like the sun shines, effortlessly it shines. It is doing what is does naturally. This is the invitation right now, for me to be me, without any effort, without any thought, without any back and forth debate of the mind.

Are you aware of times in your life when you are teetering? When you feel unsteady?

Are you aware of any subtle messages within your body?

Are you aware if you turn over your power or control to someone else?

Are you at home with yourself?

When are you at home with yourself?

Discovering the times and spaces in which you feel at ease and comfortable with yourself is a journey. One that, for me, is full of invitations. Invitations to see who I am and who I am not.

Only you can know this. No one else. This is an inside job, one that can feel very isolating and leave you feeling very much alone.

Know that you are not alone. You are not alone. Know this.

Sending you a hug,

Sara

Humbly Bowing in Love and Reverence

Beloved Shani Dev,

Many years ago, this song from George Jones was shared with me. From the moment I heard it I was held, loved, lulled. I know now you were calling me in, drawing me close.

Walk through this world with me

Go where I go

Share all your dreams with me

I need you so

In life we search

And some of us find

I look for you a long, long, time

Now that I found you

New horizons I see

Come take my hand and walk through this world with me

Now I know, we have always been holding hands and will forever more.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you for your gaze, your relentless commitment and steadfastness.

Thank you for your love.

Thank you for being my teacher.

Thank you for choosing me.

You have shown me what I have been looking for, searching for, longing for -

my Self.

Humbly bowing in love and reverence,

Sara

-This love letter to Shani was written in the early morning on Saturday, January 14th after I had written What more is there to say?. On Tuesday, January 17th Shani Dev also respectfully known as Saturn moved into Aquarius from is previous residence in Capricorn marking a transition from my first five years of the 7.5 years Sade Sati which is a pivotal and impactful time of transformation, into my final 2.5 years.

What More is There to Say?

This was typed in the early morning on January 14th.

It’s 5:06 am.

I got up to leave an audio recording at 4:46….and then was called to type.

As I opened my computer, the EarthWord SkyWord page was open. I receive a monthly newsletter from Lyn Dalebout called EarthWord Sky Word that give insight into what is happening in the celestial realm.  This is what is said:

Last Quarter Moon

With the last quarter moon, you release what has been and simultaneously prepare for what will be as new desires perpetually arise in the next SolLunar Cycle.

Last Quarter Moon: Sun in Sagittarius square moon in Virgo: Sat January 14

This is the last day the Sun transits astronomical Sagittarius, entering Capricorn tomorrow. Review goals or visions you may have set for yourself or reflect on events from the past, making peace with a recent step you took if need be. Take care of your health and the needs of the body under Virgo’s influence.

This builds Fri January 13, crests Sat January 14, dissipates Sun January 15.

As I typed Sagittarius I smiled.  Dhanu, the archer. Ah yes. It all makes sense and is crystal clear…

I have been awake for some time now. I woke initially to use the bathroom. As I stood, I recalled an image that was in my head, vision while I slept or rather while I was laying in my bed. There was an image of cabinets, up high on the wall, under the ceiling. The cabinet doors were off and the space behind the cabinets was open, there were no dividers of the space. It was clear that what appeared was taking place during a renovation of a home and that these cabinets were located behind a wall, revealed once the wall was removed, demolished, taken down. I am not sure, but what I think I saw written in black block lettering was the word NEXT. I say I am not sure, because I when I was recalling this back, the words appeared and I am not sure if my mind placed them there or rather that my mind made them out to be the letters NEXT.

I was intrigued and told myself to record it when I woke. Which is what I did. Got my phone to leave an audio recording and then began typing this…That was some time ago and I have not gone back to sleep. Instead my mind began to travel…

Five nights/mornings ago now I woke with Neil Diamond singing Hey Now, Hey Now in my head. I knew the cadence of the song, but I could not recall any other words or the name of the song. A quick internet search landed me on the song Cracklin’Rosie.  I laughed when I heard the first few lines….

I played the song on repeat and a few days later created time to look at the actual lyrics and record them in my journal.  Just now, within this past hour or so of being awake and having my  mind travel it occurred to me that (I know from reading the lyrics and hearing the song that what I thought to be Hey Now, was actually Play it now) that the message being delivered through the song was Play it Now- meaning Play your Song, the song that you are here to deliver, what you are meant to do. Put your purpose, your dharma to action. Which is why I laughed when I saw the EarthWord SkyWord note from Lyn on my screen just now. Dhanu, Sagittarius in the archer, the one that sets forth, releases the arrow with single pointed focus. Dhanu, half horse, half person. Sagittarius the sign placed in my fourth house.

My mind continued wandering, processing what is swirling around me in the relative world. The phrase, “don’t bleach red flags” came. This is a teaching from a teacher, mentor, guide, friend Carol. She shared this with me many moons ago and with all timeless teachings, it continues to reveal new layers to itself and continues to be relevant today.  In this particular case I am referencing noticing internal signals, signals in my body, signals that my body gives me. Signals that I am learning to attend to, to acknowledge and act on.

So, as I laid in bed about an hour ago, I was formulating how I can release a commitment that I made that does not serve me, a commitment that does not feel good. Originally, it did, which is why I said yes. Then the red flags came and I kept over riding them, I kept bleaching them remaining fixed to the commitment I agreed to, to honor and keep my word. It was in this space where I was crafting what I was going to say to release myself from the commitment- which as I ponder, I never actually locked in the commitment, it was pending, never fully set or fixed. Yet, I verbally agreed and took steps towards it and a huge thread of mine is keeping and honoring my word. So, as I lay in bed working through various ways to convey that I am out and how I want to ensure that the person in the middle that connected me to the opportunity to make the commitment, is not affected, it occurred to me that it is not about her or them. It is about me. So when I heard myself say, “I am at home with myself,” I smiled a wide, sly smile. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. What more is there to say? What is left to say?

I am at home with myself.

I am at home with myself.

I am at home with myself.

These words came from me. Yes, I have heard them before. Yes, they have been shared with me. Yes, they came from me. From the dark recesses of my mind. From the depth of my heart. They emerged and were spoken.

I am at home with myself.

And you know what? You know why I was smiling a sly smile? I didn’t even know until I read the opening lines to the EarthWord SkyWord piece about the Sun in Sagittarius, Moon in Virgo. Sagittarius is placed in my 4th house. The house of the mother, the mother’s place. The house of relationship with myself. The house of the relationship with myself.

When I read charts for folks, the question I offer, the invitation that is offered through the lens of the 4th house is How much at home are you within yourself? As all relationships stem from yourself, your relationship with yourself. For you, me, I am the common denominator. I am the constant.

How much at home am I with myself?

The words emerged from the depth of my being:

I am at home with myself.

Jai Ma

 Jai Guru Dev

   Om Namaha Shivaya

Sara