“You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.” -Rumi

How do we remain centered in Love with All. The. Violence?  Over and over again we get tripped up with our questions, shaking fists, head in hands, pointing fingers, on our knees-with the repeated patterns of violence, seemingly getting worse, yet always there, just showing up in different ways over time.  We are devestated.  We are angry.  We are deeply saddened.  We are crying.  We are feeling deeply.  This past week, nationally, globally, What?!  Why? How? Who?!

We grieve in our differnt ways and feel sadness, anger, hate, and other darker emotions.  Sometimes we want to act from these emotions.  Some of us move into anger wanting immediate-and oft times, just as violent an action for justice.  Some of us turn to blame of the times, "When I was younger it was never this bad."   Some of us move into seperation, good-versus-evil mentality.  Some helpless-feeling like a drop in the ocean as to what can be done positively.

For me, I feel and think all those things at different points.  Then as I watch the emotions, get Present and breath, I get inside myself, and remember that peace inside.  Whether on my yoga mat, having a disagreement with a loved one, battling a harsh self-judgement, or guiding my two-year-old through a tantrum, I get centered in love.

Sometimes this take-care-of-yourself space seems like it might not have that much impact on a larger scale.  To some, it may seem selfish, trivial.  Some cynics-or on the other end-some with a more martydom perspective-may feel like "taking care of what's right in front [and inside] of oneself-the more intimate actions, are a drop in an ocean of trouble and chaos.

When I consider how I might be a part of a larger positive evolutionary shift, I recognize that it actually HAS to be as simple as starting with myself. I can practice [yoga] what grounds me in the reality of what is going on, while opening me up to the potential of my greatest hopes and intentions--for the coming together and healing of misaction, displaced anger, wrong perception in the world.

I can take care of what is in right front of me:  nurturing my children, bringing warmth into my home, strengthening the relationships around me, lend a hand to the woman who has lent many hands before me at the grocery store, listen to that person who is lonely, look in someone's eyes and say thank you.  And before I can apply the practice externally, I must have a deep inner practice, so that I know I am acting from a place of self-love, commitment, openess, compassion.  If the inner work is not done, then from where does our outer response to the world and our actions come?

Larry Ward, a former Fortune 500 management consultant firm owner, ordained Baptist minister, and the director of a meditation and healing arts center, says this, "I am a drop in the ocean, but I am also the ocean.  I am a drop in America.  Every pain, every confusion, every good and every bad and every ugly of America is in me.  And as I am able to transform myself and heal myself and take care of myself, I am very conscious that I am healing America...ever small, ever slowly."

I urge you to find ways to remain centered in love.  Practice life in a way that gets you intimate with the Presence of yourSelf while hanging in the greater fold of humanity.  Be sure to have support for when it feels too hard, too sad, too dark.

Maybe that means taking a walk with a loved one under the light of the full moon-the same moon we all see.  
Maybe it means gathering the forgiveness, love, and strength to pick up that phone, write that letter, let it go.
Maybe it means you practice yoga, or do whatever brings real inner presence.

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In Living Color: the Explicit Heart

Sometimes I feel lonely.  -Or unimportant.  -Or absent.  It has something to do with being a mother, and me, and, I am pretty certain, it has to do with every single one of us. In yoga it is said this is our "gift" (ha-like coal in the stocking, at first consideration) to discover--that the Universe has chosen to pare down its' Greatness in order for us to remember from where our Potential comes.  We are embodied Divinity!  -Once the simplest organism grown into unquantifiable dimension, of which huge parts of our formation not only do we have yet to still understand, but of which parts are still manifesting, continuing to evolve.  Elizabeth Gilbert says it like this, "The Universe buries strange jewels deep within us all, and then stands back to see if we can find them.”  With this depressing intro-atleast there is the hope that we are a TREASURE TROVE!

In regards to the mother piece, I hardly want to admit the feelings of inadequacy, not-enough, absence, triviality even.  -For I want to be totally 100% in love with the role; present all the time; relishing and rolling in every sweet moment.  I have smiling deeply contented vibrant totally loving boys skipping along in my wake, or in front of me, leading me back Home; journals; homemade and handcrafted signs of love; snuggle fests; nature walks; all the "I love yous" for this and next lifetime; cherished family reading time, game time, meals, vacations, poignant conversations; laughter and silliness; piggyback rides; swinging marathons; to-die-for hugs and kisses...and still.

And as a human-wearing-yogi's clothes, and vice versa, I practice and study my yoga, live my life as sadhana.  -Loneliness, smallness, disconnection will find anyone with a heart and head!  

Even when I know I have great friendship, HUGE love, and a deliciously loving family who I am enfolded into, embraced; never a single beat skipped in the pulse of "be you, be you, be you"  that heartbeat of encouragement and support from my parents.   -But still that little girl of seven or eight or fifteen or sixteen (is that when I/we first recognized those feelings?) chimes in with any possible and pragmatic reasoning...the reasoning is in vain.

Then I start to remember how I am building something incredibly important-monumental really.  A foundation of ever-lasting love! A treasure trove of experience and possibility, to carry me as I walk, and as I pass on and to others. In me, around me, with others.  

As a Mamma, I am sewing silken strands of Love into the soft soles of my children's shoes, many stitches into the earth.  Just taut enough, and also ready to gently break away at just the right time when just the right kind of wearing, and hopefully not tearing, allows their steadfast tread to walk in the marginal space between This Kind Of World, we are all living in now, and the One Full of Real Hope, Authenticity, True Fearlessness  and Awakened Folk.  -Which my children will help uplift out of the Upheaval, usurping the Crooked Queen, for real liberation for all!     *(Please excuse the allusory voice, akin to Jabberwocky talk-y.  I will indulge in this tangent, however that this banter is relative to the blog entry here, as in my role of mother, I have been reading "The Jabberwocky" each night with my children, exciting all kinds of adventure and importance--the little boy DOES save the day with his vorpal blade and makes grand connection with the proud speaker of the poem, and even the slithy toves, borogoves and mome raths seem to rally in community around the hero-getting a glimpse of his Granduer.  All these positive aspects of what it means to be a human are alive through this poem when one may be in the doldrums as alluded to in the beginning of this entry!)  

Alas, I SHOULD also say that most of the time for me, I am growing love out of every pore.  -Especially as a mother.  Right in front of me-these little folk yearn for my love, as I do theirs!  And they are asking for what they know I can already give, and that’s enough!  I don’t need to give more than that.  Brene Brown talks about how you can’t love your children more than you can love yourself.  This lesson became so apparent for me recently.  A friend and colleague of mine, Livia Shapiro, said recently that "being a mother is both the most isolating place one can find themselves and the most profound connection to Real Love," grounded in the form of this little charge you hold and guide tenderly to know and understand these same things that you are trying to remember.

As a yogi-practicing-human, and vice versa, I am committed to my inner work, and I walk the bhakti path of the heart.  Each yellow brick of the way gets easier as I follow the road to my own inner Awakening.  Most of my days are filled with light.  Most of the tougher moments from which this blog was born, are filled with the light of consciousness, where I have the innate knowledge that the connection to my heart AND those around me AND to our highest purpose is greater than the simple sum of my parts-especially my dark parts.  The shadow exists because there is light.  As Leonard Cohen says, "Ring the bells that still can ring/ Forget your perfect offering/ There is a crack in everything/ That's how the light gets in."  

So, ultimately, at the end of my frabjous day, I can, I do chant, "Callooh! Callay! and chortle in my joy.**  

I share this little piece of my heart, my writing, this blog, because I must in order to crack wide open so the light gets out... and it is my tiny HUGE hope that in the sharing, you also will remember your perfect offering, and to shout it to the rooftops, chortle delightedly at the thought of it, or give it away to someone else who might need it, trusting the Universe will again bring solace in the remembering if you forget!

**More borrowed words/lines from Lewis Carroll's "The Jabberwocky."

Fumbling Towards Enlightenment

Easter is an interesting day in our household.  For my husband, who was brought up with a traditional and more dogmatic approach to Christianity he has this quiet way of celebrating.  In many ways, it is who he is, and I wonder, if it also has to do with him respecting me and my views.  I appreciate him in all ways, and in this particular way also.  The way we both show up in this way, it's why we can be together, raise a family the way we do, have real, vulnerable, straight-from-the-heart conversations (sometimes ;) about everything.

For me, I reflected so much today on this idea that we can be born again into new personalities, new patterns, new people--we can shed the old and rise up from that deep place of misunderstanding, ignorance, and into new awareness.

As my family and I walked along the reservoir and found signs of Spring-small crocuses, maturing skunk cabbage, a fuzzy green draped across the edge of the wood, the sun still hanging high in the sky at 5:00pm; the local country boys shedding their winter coats for galoshes and fishing rods.  I found a deer skull and thought how fascinating that even this, it's rot and compost, gave birth to the baby green fescue poking up between its' eye sockets. Anew again.

Going for a run (these things always happen when I am out for a run), I also had this incredible new (old) awareness rise up inside of me!   I had various emotions come up and out as I often do when I spend some time with my extended family (my sister's family and my aunt came for the weekend).  I then began to think about my father, and realized this:  for all of who he is, for all of who I am, for all of who anyone is, we are all trying, without even trying to become the next version of who we are.   AND, without even realizing, sometimes we can become wrapped up inside the feeling we are having, rather than connect to it, learn from it, and awaken to the fact that it is something passing through us-it's not a thing that belongs to us, OR IS us.  Ok, that doesn't really do what I was feeling/thinking justice (and I just knew this would happen when I tried to write this out-ha!)  So, whatever, I am going to just go for the sloppy and messy.  This might make my point more or less confusing, I am not attached to the reaction or level of acceptance I'll have over this being a "good" or "bad" blogpost...for right now anyway--

Here, let me try to explain it like this (might be an even stranger, or gruesome, route):  I saw this turkey vulture just doing it's thing, picking away at a roadkill-squirell on the run, and I thought, "Hmm, she doesn't even have to think about who she is becoming-she just is.  There's no emotion, there is just this whole survival piece, just doing the best with whatever conditions are present, and the tuning in of instinct.  So, sure, to relate this to humans is quite a different thing because we have got this whole frontal-cortex and more highly developed brain.  We've got this whole emotion thing down, er, or so we think.  I, for one, do incredilbe amounts of work to get clear with what I am feeling, and then being both loving and direct in explanation of said emotions.  I think a lot of folks are doing that, and then maybe a whole lot who aren't, and for the sake of evolving humanity, probably could.

Anyway, without too much digression, I began to think about how we all have attachments-I'm going to call it pride for now, to certain varying degrees of emotions.  I know the gal who loves (is proud of) her anger; a woman who I don't doubt proud of her loyalty; the man who I suspect has become his resentment he is so attached; and the righteous folk (Oh, GOODNESS, how I can become attached to my righteousness); and shame, oh that one makes me sad, but folks who might not neccessarily become proud of their shame, but spend so much time there, wallow really, that they become it. Folks who are attached to their "specialness"

Now of course, mind you, in my humblest (and possibly most self-righteous ;) of opinions, I do think we've all experienced and then teetered over to "becoming" all of these things at one moment or another.  The realization, for me, though, became that we can "birth ourselves" through these and recognize these emotions just for what they are.  We can free ourselves in this way that the emotion is not what makes us who we are.  Our inclination towards feeling a certain way, may shape part of who we are, but the higher path is to recognize that being present, based on empirical evidence in the felt-sense, and then perhaps the less visceral "heart-feeling" into something (one might call this compassion, or empathy), and the greater intuiting into both your internal and external world, may indeed be the deeper "rising up" or the one that resonates for me, anyway.

Miracles are happening everyday, and whether the stone is being rolled away from ones' heart, or in the literal sense, rolled away from a great human-for many a Savior's, tomb in the utmost profound sense, to awaken the Truth in other's who doubt, are overly-attached to their "personalities".  To make anew, what has become stale.  Or to completely shed and transmute.  To refresh, remember, understand something that is more deelpy liberating than calling to judge.  For me, this is so beautiful, so exciting, so profound!

Tristan asked me last night, after his cousin who was declaring sweetly that Easter is the most important thing ever, "Mamma, what's the most important thing?"  A bit thrown off I said, "Well you, of course.  And Charlotte, and Ben..." I proceeded to name everyone in the room, "...and everyone in the world."  And Love.  Love is the most important thing to me."

Once I was told there was no way my husband and I with such varying beliefs and philosophies could raise our children successfully.  While still, and sometimes not having to do with religious differences, I worry about this myself, I also know we all have our own path to the Truth that lies in our own hearts.  As soon as the worry rises up, and I become the worry, I try to remember, that this is a simple judgement, and if I am able to let it go, or let it in sometimes, I can be who I be.  And not what I am feeling or thinking.

Whether enlightenment be through Jesus Christ or a deer skull, as long as we lift one another up (and, for Matt and I in regards to our family dynamic, lift Tristan and Brooks up) in the name of Love, and show eachother (them) a steadfast heart, one of folly and Divine potential, one with openness and a strong sense-of self, we're all gonna make it-we'll fumble, together, towards enlightenment.

What to do.

I wonder sometimes what I'll do with this open heart of mine.  It is open, spirited, full of the pain and beauty of the world, courage, curiosity, and fire.  -Who will go racing for the door when they catch a glimpse of it as I continue to offer it unapologetically? Who will stay?

One of the things I am learning is it doesn't matter who stays or strays.  As I continue to do the spiritual work around what True Love is, I realize that I am my greatest love.  -Not in the egotistical, narcissistic manner, but in the way in which you are suspended between yourself and your child as they take their first steps.  The way in which you are so enraptured by the symphony of thousands of cicadas on a summer night, a majestic endless mountain spiraling into the clouds, the words of that poem where the words leave you silent and with a gleam of tears in your eyes.  You are brimming, no cascading with presence, understanding, the fullness of a moment where the judge is left behind, and only the witness is left naked and staring.  When you are so greatly humbled by the beauty and can grapple with the hardest, even quite possibly most grotesque and come into an understanding that all of this-including your own love is for your, for the sake of everyone's love and awakening.  The Great Heartbeat.

What matters is that I stay true to my heart.  Authentic and allow my Spirit to grow beyond the bounds of this body, for the only fear in an open heart is being seen.  I wonder if it's also that I may not be seen and feel alone, or misunderstood?

I read recently that there are only three things that cannot hide for very long--the sun, the moon, and the Truth.  I love this.  Those moments we offer a part of ourselves to someone, where we get "real", we try something out of our comfort zone for the first time, we allow ourselves to gush, feel fully, spill over, get messy--even within the context of "revealing ourselves", this is still just a small sliver of Truth.

As part of a 40-day Awareness Challenge I am taking, we are to create a clear intention as to our  spiritual yoga practice.  The teacher explains that contrary to oft times mainstream opinion about yoga, there are motives, desires.  However, he goes on to explain that the Pure Motive-the traditional prayer in one's practice is to practice out of love for yourself; with the desire to get to know your own Being; and to benefit all Beings.

So in light of being truthful and open-hearted, and as my intention for this course grows, I am moved to share with you:

My heart's intention is to love and love wholeheartedly. To love from that place that is so boundless that it is like the sea. It moves from shore to shore, it bulges toward the moon, and rests towards the earth. I want the boundary of my love to be the trust I give myself that the Universe indeed holds me beyond the arms of others (which I often think I "need" OR don't trust others offering/or the lack of). To receive love with open arms, and trust and accept the love that comes my way, just the way it is. In the next couple days I will refine and simplify, or not.


My invitation for you is to reflect on the ways in which you offer yourself wholeheartedly.  Where do you pull back?  When do you feel sharing your truth backfires?  How can you become more adept at knowing when to surrender and when to act on behalf of your heart?  And what kind of intention is arising for you in ways of living a more truthful life?