Give her permission,
Have the power
In her wavy dress,
to hold the reins
Of a mighty dragon
Defying the wind
With a sword
Commanding with the heart made from fire.
Only when the dragon would lay down
On soft and nurturing soil
Under tree fern leaves reflecting little waterdrops,
She would lay down with him, calm,
Earth wind metal and fire
Finally at rest.
B.C.
The flickering sounds of the fire in stillness
burning away the willfulness
floating On the holy river
like drop of water in the ocean
One falling into the One,
echoing the encounter,
Spreading stillness in the circles.
One falling into One.
The silence of potential,
What I feel
is unclear,
can my experience turn into exponential?
feeling Unity within
the connection becomes real.
I know I am here,
My body can dance out
This mess
Unknown to my words to express.
The dissonance between things
sways with the lightness of being
what more am I seeing
further from limitation blinded before by believing.
On the bar codes of consciousness
Falling like drops from the sky
I surrender my resistance, my control, my illusions
Less judgement – more trust
With open arms embracing a stranger
To feel welcomed
Body reassured
Relaxing into wonder.
Loving with opened eyes
Laughing with opened chest
Embracing with joyful heart.
As a gift to myself to my upcoming birthday I have asked my friend Claire who runs a writing temple, a kahuna therapist and lover of poetry to guide me through some inspiration for new writing.
We went to a beautiful garden (the photo above Claire took) and this is the writing from this day:
The family came picking up chestnuts and the girl picked one up and said: look what I have found! The chestnut opened and there was both a spiky shell and the fruit inside.
One tree leaning towards other, the other ones branches reaching to the one next, yet it is very clear they are two of them, shaping the window of possibility and openness.
The bridge, soft and rounded fence,
Gently resting in front.
Thank you for the warning, it may come handy some day, but today is not the day.
That day came when she realized she was lit,
That with being lit, she is living her purpose.
Together with the flame, the candle gave light where they were placed.
The flame needed the candle to rest there burning, the candle needed the flame to give light.
(B.C. 04.09.2024)
improve wellbeing and relationships
In the program 9 steps for inner peace the second triad in the model is named Allowing your wants.
In allowing your wants we are looking into liberating yourself, which literally means how to get out of the prison of “shoulds”, guilt and shame.
These ideas and emotional blocks often prevent the clarity around what are actually our true heart desires. They are the protectors of fears, that we have developed sometime along our path in the life. They are the “I can’t”, “What will people think” sort of thoughts. They are the addictions, jealousy, bitterness, underlying issues of “ I don’t deserve to be happy”, “ not enough” syndrome kind of sources of behavior.
Part of this path of liberation is to get familiar with your saboteurs and develop more sage power. This concept of saboteur and sage was developed by Shirzad Chamine
Positive intelligence. He has identified one master saboteur and named it The judge.
When you work through The judge and various variations of it towards self, others and situations, it is helpful to identify the energy of this judge, the look and how it steals your perspective from your higher wisdom.
Besides Shirzad concept, there is also another aspect of saboteur, that holds a different energy that is also useful to get familiar with. The name of this one is The Brat. (Dora and Angelo Frasco, Healing course). You recognize the brat by quite immature, childish, sulking, walking away, avoiding, “not dealing with the issue in a mature way” kind of energy.
Both the judge and the brat would paint out an image of reality that seems so believable, but there is underlying fear and the choice you would be making for your behavior and decisions would be based on fear.
In a book Breaking free Overcoming Self sabotage (Linda Ellis Eastman and contributing authors) the following chapters give a great insight into what are we working through when we decide to develop more sage capacity in ourself and move more into our original essence. The chapters are: How to built healthy self esteem&stand up to your internal saboteur; Negative self-talk; Stop with the cruel words; Sabotage: the consequence of fear; De-clutter your mind; I am enough; learning to love yourself.
How do we work with these aspects of ourselves that are kind of protecting us, and yet it is not a protection that would serve our highest. Every time you manage to catch the saboteur, it is like overcoming a threshold guardian in a video game, which if you do manage to catch it and act from your wisdom, it is your entrance to level 2, to celebration, to more alignment.
It has been a fun month. Some challenges in between and lots to be grateful for. Above all I was resting more, sleeping longer, allowing more space. Summer in Europe, winter in South Africa.
I was exploring how can I be devoted to the journey of chosen self-development with finding my own way of keeping the promises to myself and not being rigid about it, or forceful.
I know that daily meditation practice is part of my daily hygiene to collect myself, ground, center in my heart, remind myself on the intention. And that knowing has just naturally became part of me. However, at one point though I observed that it has moved from the energy of Love to energy of Duty, which brought in somewhat mechanic feeling.
With that I gave myself permission to let go a bit, what happens if I allow myself to sleep a little longer, when would I actually feel from inside to sit down for my practice?
I think I just really needed the rest and some relaxation. In this month I posed a question what is a way that there is some discipline and also enjoyment?
The result was a feeling of deeper settling in my heart, a certain relaxed open spaciousness in my heart space and breath. It felt good and nourishing.
I am curious now to explore further with autumn routines and kids starting school again, where is this practice going to find its place again somewhat organically, aligned with my overall intention of gentle, appropriate, to my Highest. With sobriety, openness and curiosity I will explore the unknown, follow the true heart feeling and observe.
Last month I was listening to Lama Rod online as part of the mindfulness meditation teacher training. Lama Rod Owens is an author, activist, and authorized Lama (Buddhist teacher) in the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism. I recommend his book Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation Through Anger and a coauthor of Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation.
Since listening that online presentation and reading his book I am consciously including the 5/7 homecomings he writes about in my practice.
This month I got inspired to return back to my art creations under mentorship of Katherine Bull. (http://www.katherinebull.co.za/about/).
It took me couple of months to follow through my intention. I gathered some of collage material in July. This collage on right was on the art session also supported with connecting to a specific energy of a crystal and my initial material was complemented by blind choosing from Katherine’s materials and I have added in some color with ink.
Now I am so happy I created space and time to do it. This is one way of cultivating happiness. Listening to your soul calling you to create something, move, listen…
What is your soul’s calling?
On the morning of my morning walk in the forest today
My mantra today was
“My roots reach deeply
I am connected to the core of me”
This is part of the lyrics of the “I am connected” by Beautiful Chorus
For me in singing those lines
feeling the connection between the nature and myself
I enter the feeling that enables all other feelings to be
And still be still like a mountain a tree with all that.
Feeling of longing familiar to many people. I am no exception. Often this longing also includes a further illusion, fantasy that is a coping strategy to escape even more out of the present and body to the mind. Instead of getting more in touch with the uncomfortable, you go away in something that creates a further longing, desire. Have you ever thought how close are words Longing and Be(longing)? The journey to add Be to Longing is what Michael Singer in his podcast from Fighting to Harmony describes when we stop fighting with “No, I don’t want this, I want that. “ In Enneagram1 word and embodiment practices this means learning more about Willfulness, Will and Willingness. How do we do that? By practicing mindfulness, sitting, establishing true intimacy with self.
A true feeling of Belonging is possible only when we are connected with our bodies. That is the core message of Sebene Selassie in her book You Belong (2020) Chapter 3 is a great read on how to Ground yourself in your body.
In the 9 steps to inner peace coaching program we usually start with establish ing a good connection with body. We use the body guidebook that I have gathered from my studies with Hippocrates institute, Mindfulness meditation teacher course, Breath coaching course. The guidebook includes essential topics for a solid, grounded body. Session 1 of the guidebook is all about body connection.
I want to share here couple of lines that Sebene writes on belonging (Selassie, 2020, p. 74)
This is an amazing performance of Barbra Streisand classic People. I have been doing a lot of observing and learning on the topic of Belonging and connection. One Wednesday as we were doing our usual group meditation and the feeling was connection and belonging was present, this song “People” and the feeling of the community and being part of the greater whole came to awareness.
When i was looking through the lyrics of this song, I found these lines meaningful:
:We’re children, needing other childrenAnd yet letting a grown-up prideHide all the need insideActing more like children than children”
“No more hunger and thirstBut first be a person who needs people”
I guide in the 9 steps to inner peace my clients to first come in touch with their needs, stay in touch with their bodies, without separating their mind, body and soul and prioritize their needs. Yes, there is a mindfulness involved to discern between indulgence and taking proper care of your needs. Often I work with this topic with the Ennea1 and 2 energy. Both energies are inclined to have their own right way of idea of helping others and using mainly their energy to fix, help on the outside, to the other and have difficulty to connect with their own emotions, feelings and needs. Through re-establishing connection with the body, we are putting a new foundation to relationship with self and others.