all the hoo-ha...and then the present moment

yo beard. funtastically awesome to connect with you on i-chat yesterday, and loved loved loved the fact that the universe ended our sesh as we boogied down in still frame.

so i'm in bc right now, the most beautiful part of the world at this time of year, as i choose to believe it. partner gone for work. his roommate gone for another half day. and i got the place to myself! i can see a silhouette reflection of my head and unkempt hair in the computer screen, backed by orange-berry tree branches. what a lovely momentses it is hey?

but then i get a little restless: what can i DO today? what can i produce? and while i'm cooking, cleaning, nesting, and arting, i really feel the need to go volunteer to clean up from this festival i just went to. not just because i'm rather attached to the site of a green river with boomey mountains . . . but a little bit of wOrk, just feels good. you can get in a rut when working 8-5, but you can get in a rut when you've been gallavanting around the globe for 6 months as well. i'm not in a rut [in this particular moment!] but i think participation is a huge one. if i go volunteer i will be participating in a greater project, a festival that three girls worked their asses off to make happen. show gratitude, give back, be with giving loving humans.

and then in the end, it doesn't matter what you're doing. it comes down to thich naht hanh style each and every time: this moment, this breath, is a gift. when you treat it as such, abundance comes.

sorry this post is lacking cohesion majorly - i lay down to take a nap on the couch yesterday at 4pm. i was surprised to wake at 1am, and slept more till 9 this morn. i therefore leave you with this wise word, abearda: deurrrr.

xx!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX1CvW38cHA

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of you body
love what is loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-
over an over announcing your place
in the family of things.

momentseses

what say i missmev? "No Sleep til Brooklyn!" I'm excited to get out east for another dose of goodness from my teacher. and the beastie boys always make me feel full of shakti, that is the force that enlivens, the animating energy of lord Siva's tandava dance.

as for inner and outer spiral, i do love that assist in DFD, when with the inner edge of the feet rooted, a friend draws my inner thighs back and apart, so i can freely widen the sitting bones, creating space in the pelvic floor, and into that space, scoop the tailbone, lift the belly in and up, outer rotate the thighs, and ground down through the pinky toe side of the foot, reconnecting to the earth. it's like filling an empty crystal vase with Queen Anne's lace.

life coach getting tantric on you, eh? i've been more with the buddhists lately, letting go first to let the fresh flow in. but as for colors GREEN. the color of the heart. you know that part in wayne's world, when the big hair guy says to all the other guys, "I love you, man!" and Garth responds brilliantly with, "Thank You!" There's the tantra, the first principle of anusara yoga, open to grace. With gratitude, let the love flow in first.

What else is there to say but I love you, friend?!

nuggets from 'it's us not them' in shambhala sun

• egolessness, or practicing NOW, frees us from this cycle. but when fear has taken over and we can't control the negative emotions that arise, the internal freedom that comes from egolessness is beyond our means. instead we become fixated. we live in the memory of the past or the fantasy of the future. we are stuck, unable to see the fluid truth of NOW.
• at the heart of the dharma is the truth that the world is fluid. when we practice now, we see the flow clearly. now is now. there is not another now. [how cool is that quote?!]if gentleness is the key, the method is mindfulness. in a sense, speed is the disease of our times. it's always there and it's very hard to extract ourselves from it. but speed is in face just a hallucination, a self-imposed reality...
• when it comes right down to it, the practice path is manual labor of the mind, and it's hard work. but that doesn't mea n that there is no magic. when we pay attention to the details of our life, we do find magic.
• we are enormously capable and free, and if we begin to develop appreciation, our mind doesn't dwell on what we do not have or on what we have lost.
• we need generosity in our mind, which is limitless. generosity is the seed that allows us to receive help in the future.
• the notion of fearlessness is finding it NOW.

precious human life, by his holiness the 14th dalai lama, tenzin gyatso

today, i am fortunate to have woken up.

i am alive,

i have a precious human life,

i am not going to waste it.

i am going to use all my energies 

to develop myself to expand my heart out to others

to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings.

i am going to think kind thoughts towards others

i am not going to get angry or think badly about others.

i am going to benefit others as much as i can.

momentses?

momentses? 

 

last night it hit me in a more palpable way: not only do I want to feel that I’ve cultivated positivity, health, and happiness for myself at the end of the summer, but in order to do so, as the Beastie Boys said, “ain’t no time like the present to work sh*t out.”  that is to say, happiness is now, this moment.  this very second, millisecond, this very vibration and milli-vibration – every milli-moment a choice.  and in meditation today, I thought to myself, life is simply a series of ‘this momentses’, followed by, ‘did I just say “momentses”?’  is that even a word?  I laughed myself back to that particular present moment.

other tid bits.

my life coach said yesterday that in order to let go, it has to first come in.  how very tantric.  to live is to feel, and to live fully is to feel fully.  when we quiet the citta vritti of the mind fluctuation, we open the forum to our heart.  yesterday my heart was pink and green – a nice color combo by my reckoning!  pink for romance, and green for spirit, thirsty for Union, Consciousness, and Bliss.  yes please I’ll take them all.  starting Now.

and how about them spirals?  got to inner and outer spirals in the arms yesterday in doug keller’s manual.  inner spiral feels unnatural to me, while outer spiral feels delightful.  I do suppose though, that when you do an inner spiral, starting at the thumb and pointer fingers, moving with energy up the inner arm to the front deltoid, it does firm the upper arm bone into the shoulder socket.  and I suppose that that firmness allows for outer spiral to take off.  I’m such an outer spiraler though.  what say you AB?