The Fear-quake at 3am

Photo by myself

3 am Fear-Quake
Seismic activity
Not plates colliding
More like
River revolving
Not flowing
But like
Pouring
Out of the
Heart cave
To form a whirlpool
In the belly
Richter scale
reading registered
Incessantly in the brain
Momentum of thoughts
Keep pale awake
Heavy eyes
Floods they make
Pulling the river
Reversed
From belly to cave
Heartbeat
Aftershocks
Desolate search
Breath rhythm found
Richter Scale broken
Blank
Lost
Quiet
Grief
No river
Anymore
Cave open
To the ocean
Of Being
Belly becomes shore
For the waves
Of breathing
Vision ships
Awake sleeping
Powerful release
To all turmoil within

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Layers Illuminated

Photo by myself

My original fear, I forever lived with it. I have spent enormous time looking at it, understanding it. Allowing healing to come.

It comes in layers and layers, tough work this is. Work of this lifetime, scraping down through the bottomless pit. Peeling, shedding, newly forming. Visible and invisible outwardly. Is healing ever done?

It became evident with clarity, it had literally been eating away at my heart, mind, body
and existence. It made me so gravely ill at times.

I am on the other side of it now, the most than ever before, if not completely. I am aware of how it works. I am now able to enjoy spaces of no words, no requirements, no neediness, no projection of outcomes. Trusting all that needs to flow through.


The choices come to me. It is what it is. Grateful for the reminder to me that I Am doing some actual work, that I Am brave.

It is so easy to often feel small compared to the robust human pursuits and accomplishments around. They are all so valid. I forget to find the same worth
in the pursuit as a seeker, to celebrate where I am. Who I am
.

Yet I do cherish and indulge in the joyful spaces of nothingness that I often land in.

Love is the way, the only way and always the way. Hate, judgement and separation only creates suffering. Our own choices that we make right here on this planet, our perspectives shape our reality. When we see the death of our perceived reality, feel the pain and rawness, experience rebirth, rise to the guidance of spirit, we then know the difference.

You become the one whose mere presence anywhere would shine the light to this truth. Doesn’t matter who sees it, they feel it and they don’t know what just made them uncomfortable. For it takes a certain journey to know it for what it is. What reality in all truth and love looks like.

I am in deep gratitude for those who really support and empower my process by showing exactly how it is done, own the light and shine it. Their words and radiance illuminate me. I am in awe of their self awareness. They model not only high positive regard towards life but also towards themselves. Give themselves a significant space in this fabric of life. They are a huge inspiration to me. I find all the escapes and excuses not to shine. To stay in the shell. Yet the force is relentless in how it pulls me out and into the Light. So I trust the process. I trust the process.

This post is a thought process that has come from my responses to some posts by Amy on her blog Heaven On Earth. The energy coming through her photography is absolutely that kind from beyond. Each and everyone of her picture is stunning, a pure glimpse of Mother Nature in all true love and glory . My words in the last paragraph are for Amy absolutely, for she has been a tremendous inspiration and support to me always.

The Ordinary Extraordinary

Photo by myself: Crater Lake, Oregon. Unedited mobile click – what is so ordinary or extraordinary about this picture?

It helps to blur the line between ordinary and extraordinary, whichever end we think us to be on. When extraordinary strength is required for everyday life during challenging situations that seem to be present for a long term, it helps to remember that even ‘normal’ life feels the same periodically.

I realized this when I dealt with a difficult illness for some years with no break of ‘normalcy’. I decidedly trained myself to accept my new normal and then the days that felt really hard became just like any ‘normal’ life. It lifted the burden of Why Me-s and made it somewhat more acceptable to live through the ordinary pain of a seemingly extra-ordinary situation (or vice versa).

And when we think of us as ordinary and normal it helps to remember that we hold the potential for extraordinary. When life is ‘normal’ we take it for granted that only some special people have strength. We forget that they are choosing to be strong. All of us have the choice to go a bit beyond our comfort zone, with integrity to our well being.

I love and admire people who have, what I don’t have in me yet. We need all shades of capacity, resilience and joy in differing measures from time to time. I keep learning to love myself more and more with all my perceived shortcomings. It gives a renewed taste of newfound freedom continually.

All things big and small when dropped to the felt sense become our internal experiences. No experience is ordinary or extra-ordinary, in some ways. Just because it happens to everyone and is normal, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be affected. If our thoughts and emotions are taking over that means our experience is real. It is affecting the quality of our life. Acceptance is being aware of all of that.

When fear grips, it means some perceived and real experiences have left us with no control over how we feel and choose. It becomes a struggle even when we have had a taste of divine faith before. We now seem to have lost the ability to be congruent with the core of our original being. When our system is out of balance the fear might bring up some pain or symptom in the body. We might feel agitation or confusion in the mind, we lose the capacity to connect with divine faith.

It is helpful at such times to create experiences to influence our system in the direction of balance. This can be done in various ways. A breathing practice that brings the body and mind to a calmer & clearer state of being, time in solitude or nature with nurturing activities. To me sometimes I just need honest conversations with people who can act as authentic mirrors to me. Either a friend or mentor who reinforces and channels that sense of trust, faith or divine connection back in our system.

I have found tremendous rich value in this process of intentional shifts between imbalance & balance, ordinary & extraordinary, and fear & faith. I am blessed to be a receiver of such reinforcements from friends and teachers that I reach out to.

I am also grateful to have opportunities to facilitate such shifts through the yoga classes that I teach in group and private sessions. If you are curious check my humble yoga website: http://www.YogaSaar.com

This post is from a train of thoughts that I had saved in my drafts. I would be honored to know what came up for you and if we are able to exchange perspectives.

Awakening

Sunrise photo by Manish Doshi

Yes Dreams Come True
The Waking Ones often Do

Fears too Come True
The Sleeping Ones often Do

Each can be stifling to the other
Awakening within, the creator

It is so interesting to look at our life and reflect on how it is a sum total of our dreams and our fears come true. Often when we stumble into suffering that diverts us from going towards our dreams, we are actually living our unconscious fears. Our waking dreams are our desires and yearnings that give us hope, direction, trust to find our way back again to where we are actually living parts of what we always dreamed of.

I chose not to make the C capital in the word ‘creator’ above because in the tender moments when we are transitioning from fear to faith, it is hard to feel the power of the Creator, and yet we are getting in touch with our creator self within to not succumb, but to dream even more boldly.

Awakening is a short poem published on June 20. 2018. The words felt very relevant to me to repeat and put them in the form of image.

Awakening

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Photo Credit: Manish Doshi 

Yes Dreams Come True
The Waking Ones often Do

Fears too Come True
The Sleeping Ones often Do

Each can be stifling to the other
Awakening within, the creator

 

This post is a contribution to ForgivingFridays on ForgivingConnect, for awakening is a process that happens where there is acceptance in our hearts.

Writing – a Journey of my Life

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Photo Credit : Manish Doshi

I have returned from my break absolutely inspired and pregnant with messages from the ocean and the sky. I am very eager to share them with you all, yet I am feeling uninspired to go through the process of making it into a post immediately. As if I want to steep in the experience a bit more and have the juices of the interaction with the ocean flow through my veins as if all mine. The message to become part of my Being. I can’t wait to get past this stage, pick it up from where I left off in my last post, before this deliciousness set in. I am giving myself permission to indulge in this space for a bit more.

I do want to have this following conversation with You.

How I became a writer is sort of an astonishing accident to me. I remember where I was and exactly the moment some words came to me and I was ‘forced’ to have those words typed. What came as completed looked like a poem to me. I was thrilled and absolutely scared at the same time. And more came and one more came. I was terrified. I sent them one by one to trusted friends, asked them if the words meant anything to them. I was so accustomed to living the surface level life (read turmoil) that this expression from the depth of my being felt alien to me.

It took me tremendous courage to begin sharing them publicly, as if baring my soul naked to be judged or accepted. I needed the kind approval from a trusted friend and sometimes my husband to hold my hand while I hit publish with the other. My heart raced a thousand miles an hour before the first like, the first kind comment came in, as a seal of approval for my eligibility to continue being whatever I was in this world of existence.

After each poem I often thought surely it was the last one, and looking around I always wondered where is this coming from? I just became insanely uncomfortable at times as if choking on words or tears and then it just became necessary to type all that needed to come. Often I typed words I did not know, looked up its meaning to find out it meant exactly what I needed it to mean and rhyme in the poem. Sometimes I made up words not in the dictionary, and they conveyed the right meaning. As some generous reflections and appreciation came as responses, I was utterly grateful as I was sure every time it was my last poem. The authentic exchange of perspectives and heartfelt interactions helped me thrive, grow, flourish and nourish my being.  In less than 6 months on WordPress I was amazed beyond measure at how a genuine word, true expression and pure intent becomes evident through words alone.

It got unstoppable. The poems, the prose, all came as these intense surges just wanting a place to land. I made a commitment to keep reading other writers because of what gift it was when they read me. Each one putting their attention and time on my work had my deepest gratitude that I earnestly conveyed through truthful response to their comments. I was able to post way less than I was writing personally. Drafts and drafts of different inspirations and topics that begged to be expressed have piled up to be published in some form or the other.

For almost 3 years now I have published 2 or 3 times a week, except about 3 breaks of a week to 3 weeks. Every single day reading other writers on different platforms and interacting through comments. The numeric growth of my blog followers and readers has been very slow compared to some others but my personal growth has been enormously satisfactory.

Until some months ago, I did not have mind space for adding pictures to my posts.  Slowly it started dawning on me that there were pictures taken by my photographer friends and those by my husband that spoke the words I wrote. None are ever clicked with a plan to go with my post. It is meditative and miraculous to me in how perfectly they choose to come together.

The emotional intensity from which my poems came have found a balance, my personality has changed quite a bit. I opened up to new strengths in my being. I have owned myself as a writer by now. I am going through a huge personal shift. I still have countless drafts and some unpublished poems and ideas for creating quote images. I feel immersed in this space of inspiration where I am soaking in some new energies and do not seem to have the mind space, energy and time to publish all that I know is waiting to be published. If you recognize this and have any advice for me, I am all ears. And if my sharing has helped you in any way then it is my privilege to be a channel that serves a purpose.

None of this was possible for me without You my friend. You know what you have done for me by being here for me and reading my words and responding. My utmost gratitude for that and our continued interactions and conversations.

 

Related posts :
Just how did the writer in me get born? – I realized that this poem had come through me exactly an year ago and today I have felt this strong urge to post on similar topic.
Top writer in Inspiration – prose

I can Be This & You can Be That

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Photo Credit: Manish Doshi “The Labyrinth”

If I can be this and here
Whatever and wherever you see me
You too can be that and there
Whatever and wherever you want to be

Just ask those who had met me
Before I simply started living and being me
You will know how small and low I lived
Before I let go of the fear of not fitting in

They will tell you how hard it is to believe
Who is this and what really happened
To the one who did not have a clue
To the one, either too dumb or too loud

I only wish to keep being this and here
Centered in this labyrinthine life of desire
Immersed in what feels like flawless space
Living as the energy that happens to have a face

Evidence that you can be this and that and there
Whatever and wherever you want to be …

Related Post : Step into the New …You

Yoga – My Life & Work

This is a contribution to ForgivingFridays of ForgivingConnect, a work of acceptance, awareness and transformation by Debbie Roth.

Feel Shine Melt Love

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Photo Credit: Virag Doshi

Feeling invisible
I seek longingly

To become visible
I burn seethingly

Find that the burning
Shines bright my yearning

You drop a glance at me
Then take it away so quickly

In that moment I know
And you know what we see

Now I want to keep burning
All that feels invisible in my feeling

Each time you look away
I will keep burning away

Until I shine so bright
You can’t evade my light

The heat of this resolve
Melts away my fury

As I come to know newly
There is no you or I

What’s burning away is my own lie
What you are is the divine eye

None but that part of me
That I am not willing to see

Rather than simply and magnificently Be
Keeps hiding behind the cloak of invisibility

And the fear of dying unseen
Or is it the fear of living and being seen

Oh dear me the heart keeps beating
Be kind with your breathing

All is good about the burning
All is beautiful about the feeling

Oh dear me there is no you no me
All there is, is to love me, so I love me

 

This post is a contribution to Debbie Roth’s ForgivingFridays of ForgivingConnects. This poem comes back to me very loudly, to help me accept where I am today without judgment and fan my intentions for moving forward from where I am.

Originally published on Jan 23, 2017

True Smile

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“True Joys” Photo: Manish Doshi ‘Lone Kayak on Kauai”

The numbness that we wear, in order to always smile

Choosing not to feel the pain, with that practiced smile

It is liberating to experience all there is, and not smile

For the true joys of life do not necessitate that we smile

One that comes from the heart and eyes is a true smile

 

 

P.S. This is a contribution to ForgivingFridays on ForgivingConnects, a blog by dear Debbie Roth, that is a wonderful work in support of acceptance, self-forgiveness, and self- love.

What if poetry never comes through me again?

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Photo Credit: Manish Doshi “Silent Question Answered”

It is as if recess time
A much needed respite
From my soul unrelentingly crying

It is as if an unknown strength
A much needed insight
From my heart soothingly sighing

It is as if I am not up for any play
A much needed friend divine
From times eternal shows up on my way

It is as if I am unshakably yet softly still
A much needed deep breath
From the juice of life helps me feel

It is as if I am looking for something
A much needed sense of contentment
From the clarified mind shows I have everything

It is as if I feel whole yet miss something
A much needed inspired poetry
From the churning of emotions, I reminisce

It is as if I fear words might never now rhyme
A much needed equilibrium achieved
From the turmoils of expectant time

It is as if I forage for disappointment
A much needed depth of mind diving
From the surface of a world striving

It is as if I need some intense emotion
A much needed transport vehicle
From the randomness to the magical

It is as if now I get it
A much needed realization
From the wanting to churn a poetry
To just Being with no drama of emotion

So what if never again my words rhyme
I am willing to be reborn that way
To just watch what else happens in this lifetime

 

P.S. This poem is a contribution to ForgivingFridays of ForgivingConnects. This blog by Debbie Roth has truly helped me find forgiveness for any judgment I hold towards myself, every single time I read her heartfelt posts.