Abandoned Bouquet

Push-pull confuses me. Especially the push-away.

We hurt each other with rejection.

The force with which we can expel each other. Turning the other into an object of non-importance, an unwanted essence. The ability to savour, to honour, to love: the self, others, the world, damaged. But love doesn't happen in isolation. Maybe some have their lists of good and bad. But it's not that easy. It's not that this person, or people, state of mind, area of interest is safe, acceptable and all else needs to be distanced. Isn't that possession? And possessions can be lost. If they're people, they can leave; if they're belief systems or areas, we can become profoundly disenchanted. Then where are we? In angry rebuttal to the world that we clearly divided between acceptable and not. Between people who counted and those who didn't. Between an arbitrary definition of the good and the not-good. So what do we do? Do we cling more tightly to our safe constructed categories of who is and who isn't even when they might betray us, or do we give way and open out to the mystery that has no name, is amorphous, all-pervading, without judgement? A light that shines everywhere without discrimination. If we could spend one year of our lives not rejecting what would happen? Would it open out in magnificent ways, this ability to love?

Or would be we overwhelmed? Is the push-pull, rejection-acceptance, necessary for homeostasis, for balance?

Breathe in; breathe out.

As I tell my yoga students, make sure your in-breath and out-breath are equal - that what you take in and what you give out balance.

But. Push-pull. Wound-heal. Why do I do this? Is there no other way?

Rose Mandala, or the Whorls of Angels

An MP3 recording of this piece:
Rose Mandala, or the Whorls of Angels: Lo
Rose Mandala, or the Whorls of Angels: Hi

I am with you like an angel. Can you feel kisses, a caress of breeze perhaps, or a sudden warmth that lightens your spirit? I hold you enfolded in my wings when you weep, inconsolable, disappointed. Can you sense a blessing of radiance about you? My wings, woven of sun and moonlight on veins like leaves. Surely you see their shimmer breaking through what separates us. You are my prayer, my vigil.

But I am an earthy woman who laughs, storms, cries, rants, pesters, and loves.

And I am unable to settle, come into being in one place, crystallize. Can I play in the garden palaces of the heart? And retire in solitude when the day is done, to rest?

Even as I sweep across the sky of your consciousness, a roseate sunset, mandala whorl of sun, the choral clouds, like a hymn, a sacred song, something ebullient and therefore holy, I am racing away into the night and disappearing.

I offer you a guardian, a keeper of the flame of your heart, a high priestess who holds your innermost secrets, a temple to honour your prayers on love, but it's ephemeral, Akashic, in the place where everything is recorded, where what we are, our memories, our dreams, are held safe. Nothing you could hold onto, nothing at all.

I am here; but you cannot see me.

Fundamentalism

One set of beliefs though which you define yourself. Is this fundamentalism? That set of beliefs is also a formulae. A code in a sacred text; the ordinances of the ordinated; a belief in the reward of rightness. Happiness to be on the one path to salvation, whatever it may be. In every movement, surge of social beliefs, group with a purpose, religion, are fundamentalists. Those who place whatever doesn't agree with their creed into a category of evil to be opposed with all force, vehemently. Fundamentalism is the opposite of acceptance. Fundamentalism takes the complexity out of living. It replaces a sensitive tuner, an ethic of compassion, a cognizance of difference, shades of infinite grey, with certainty. Instead of the vast and perplexing mystery of living, one set of beliefs through which a person defines themselves and others. One path to walk. One goal to achieve. One perspective on those who follow the "illumined path" and those who don't. Fundamentalism is an escape from the responsibility of living. Of living in the impossibility of time, with uncertainty, in the flux of ideas, events, emotions, unpredictable happenings with a mass of people who are equally unknown. Fundamentalism is like the virus that invades to overtake the whole system and make it its own. In its success it kills the very spirit that gave it life.

Epigenetics

We always knew it was a mix of what you were born with and the life you lived: genetics and environment. In a world of perpetual change, of nature's endless recycling of everything, how could there be any absolutes? It turns out that even our DNA is not absolute. Our genes have switches that respond to our living in the world and in turn affect our lives, their unfolding. If we didn't have philosophical underpinnings, a knowing that we're born with certain predispositions but that our environment shapes much of what emerges, would our epigenetic scientists have known what to look for? This is exciting research; I was riveted: even when an environment has not been conducive, a smoker's lungs, toxic metals in the water system, and there is disease, it might still be possible to heal the person by fixing the genetic response to the maladaptation. To go in and 'fix the operating system.' Turning back on the gene switch that stops tumor growth, thereby preventing metastasis. Medical science appears more and more miraculous. One hopes the techniques are used wisely and not ever for a eugenic agenda...

How did we meet...?

A meme, at Body Electric, which I couldn't resist:

If you read this, if your eyes are passing over this right now, (even if we don't speak often or don't really know each other) please post a comment and tell the story of a COMPLETELY MADE UP AND FICTIONAL memory connecting you and me . It can be anything you want - good or bad ("good" is better for me, however) - BUT IT HAS TO BE FICTION. When you're finished, post this little paragraph on your blog and be surprised (or mortified) about what people DON'T ACTUALLY remember about you!

I'd love to meet you all! Imagine stories for us...

Reflections on "Water," the film by Deepa Mehta

The palette in each frame, stark Modernist canvases, pillars, ground, simple, clean. The colour of the moon. Light as a wash over the world, the way water catches the light, the figures of hidden women, what moves across the landscapes of muted colour, women who dwell in colours of the Madonna's veils. Trapped in a caste system as rigid as the iron bars through which scenes are shot.

The women always framed in boxes, closed in, shuttered away.

The gigantic-limbed tree where the lovers meet like a blossoming, flow of the heart. She carries the light for him, visitation of a vision, where freedom may be, the candle she holds at her breast, the light of everything. She is a Religious painting of divinity, beautiful; Durga, Mary.

Ghandi who would free the enslaved of a rigid ideology. Riots and refusals in India for filming, for showing. Thirty one million widows today.

The widow is the virgin; beggar, or prostitute. Where acceptance, love is not possible. Who would not drown themselves? Who could not accept the warm caress of infinity in the waters when the ravaged heart beats like a wounded bird who's fallen out of its cage?

technorati tags: Deepa Mehta, Water, widows in India

It went well...

Finally speaking after 22 years about why my birthday is so difficult and the grief it holds enabled me to acknowledge, accept and perhaps release it. It's been a significant birthday for me. On the inside, where I shape my perceptions. I'm sure it had something to do with you all. After posting with an unusual openess, a warmth began radiating and it spread and spread even to illumining the evening with its kindness and gentle happiness.

Two dear friends took me for dinner at a superb Vietnamese restaurant, Ginger, on Yonge Street. They are both 'chanting buddies' from yoga. Jean and I did teacher training in 1995, and Moira was one of the first people to attend my classes and when I taught in my home she came for years. She belongs to a choir and has a wonderful voice and carried our chants. These two women came regularly to my house for about 5 years once a week for a two and a half hour "Long Chant," the one that has a seed syllable, or bij mantra, for each chakra, and we used to go, round after round, hour after hour, cleansing our memories, minds, hearts, emotions of whatever we were carrying. Afterward we ate chocolate poppyseed cake, a chai or yogi tea that had simmered throughout the chant, and laughed and laughed. I eventually moseyed into a moving meditation dance practice, Sweat Your Prayers, and left the rigorous yoga practice (except for my daily private meditation) but they kept on chanting. Jean, who is 62 and glows, does that woman glow, now hosts a Prayers for the Earth in her home once a month, and they do Long Chant, and an Adi Shakti, or Divine Mother chant, each once a month at the Ashram on Palmerston. I am going to try to make it to the Adi Shakti chant this Friday. They are such beautiful friends, how can I not go? The flowers, their bright ebullience, are a gift from Moira. The evening was a reunion and I don't think I've laughed so hard for over so many hours in a long time!

We hadn't seen each other since before I went to Vancouver, almost three years. I'm glad I'm back because having friends like these is worth everything.

On the way home my cell phone rang. It was my son wishing me a happy birthday, and he had a surprise too. He'd be coming to Toronto to see me, to stay for one night. I was fairly dancing down the streetlight lit streets I can tell you!

He arrived the next day, yesterday, we had a wonderful visit, and he took us to a movie I wanted to see, Water, and then to Future Bakery for cake and wine for me, and milk for him and his sister; he said with a glint, he'll be able to have a beer instead in a few weeks when he turns 19.

The warmth of friends and family, their generosity, what could make me feel more special?

It's been simple, but beautiful.