Earth Abloom
In Celebration Of
All the Transformation
Around & Within Me
After relentless rains, California is now bursting with these wildflower superbloom on lands, mountains & valleys – the drives are heaven-on-earth beautiful! I felt a rejoice and a deep peace within getting to drink in with my senses, the delicate beauty of the flowers counted in millions to make it easy?!!
A Welcoming of Life
Into Itself
a path inviting
into the Unknown
A Newness that sprouts
Out of that certain Deadness
something within
not giving up
A Brightness that spreads
From Grounds of Silence
a quiet glow
can’t be missed
And yet The Wait is Forever Unluxurious
The Forest Within
is crowded yet clear
at the same time
These glimpses from my solo walk along this trail in November of 2022 – stirred inside me some exact feelings to come alive. The forest within doesn’t feel as crowded anymore by now.
There is a conflicting perception
of what is real and what is fake
while navigating relationships
that are unaware of your inner journey
or outright deny your feelings as invalid.
They approve only what fits in their world
and make what comes from your heart invisible.
They want you to be assured of their love –
the one that lies behind
their everyday expressions
of negativity, sarcasm, facade
– the life of only upholding the structures
given to them and those
that you are required to inherit.
Your invitation to actually care
for each other with genuine words
and thoughtful gestures
rejected as naive.
All actions are transactions
for how we need each other in times of need –
all needs that translate into the Doing aspects
not really actually Being there for each other
without requiring you to be any different
All your initiatives of heartfelt love
are seen as your need for their support
when you might need it the next time,
and not for the love itself.
There is no receiving, gratitude, or reciprocity,
only need, indebtedness, and duty.
A made up love and made up relations
that we commit and adhere to.
The condition is also that your love
has to be contained for this family setting only
any expression towards outsiders is foolish or unrequired,
unless only exactly as defined by them.
Love and kindness are good in words
until you try and implement them
– that’s when they want to fix you,
to become worldsmart,
to play the power games,
to lend them your energy
and kindness-laden words
to bring them the results of their agenda.
Beyond that, they have no trust
or allowance for you acting on those words
and extending that heartfelt kindness
to someone, they don’t approve of.
They want you to get over
your mushy heart
that cried with hurting
from the lack of integrity
when expected to conform
to feel a part of family
You just don’t and won’t agree
with hating someone
when expected to hate
because you are family
And you will get hurt repeatedly
when they only insist on having
unconscious conversations
and otherwise, make you invisible
for who you really are
Your real conversations –
reserve them for those
showing up in
your Universal Family
Getting past this need
for nourishing family relations,
standing up for being yourself,
holding compassion
for what they bring as love and life,
not feeling like a fake
when speaking their language
limited to how we relate
– these are the many painful
rebirthing parts of the process.
Acutely aware of your inner body
the rumble of fear in your belly
a holding up in shoulders & your being
having to affirm to yourself
of the safety, trust, and love
available to you
Nourish your inner self with your own love.
Invite the ability to be with yourself
with comfort and ease
Allow the capacity for gratitude
For they are exactly who
assisted your life journey
into this deeper yearning
and more expansive
Love of your Being
the kind which still
holds all of them
with
Love.
I am very thrilled to share that 2 of my poems
The Silent Warrior & The Beauty of Disruption are published in the new anthology edited by Anita Nahal – “Pixie Dust & All Things Magical: Global Poetry in English 2022”
I wrote “The Silent Warrior” in 2016, I have linked it above, I didn’t have as many blog friends visiting me back then 🙂 I wrote “The Beauty of Disruption” in 2017 and published it here in 2018. The conversations generated on it were deeply enriching and gratifying for me. I am choosing to share that poem again in this post, as a powerful reminder to myself too, knowing well it might be a repeat for some kind friends who were with me back then and have already read it. Perhaps you will enjoy the repeat.
When a surging flow of life seems to be disrupted,
Because of an un-event that was unexpected,
There is a space that is opened up for a rich listening in …
To every message that has been missed out on.
When you become willing to pause in that space
Deeply nourish yourself with simply being,
Precious awareness of fulfilled desires starts unfolding.
They may not feel the grandest dreams come true …
If you look closely you will find
Simple moments that were a dream for longest time.
Enjoy them, relish them …
If you go in distress over the disrupt
You shut yourself off from your own magical moments coming true.
If you look closely you will find
The very thing that disrupted your current momentum
Has made space for something that you had earnestly yearned.
Receive it fully …
Along with the faith that your current dream
Is now on its way to you.
If you look closely you will find
The surge of momentum had actually affected your ability
To receive some divine guidance with subtlety.
The surge worked to steer you strongly,
The disruption worked to create space
To help you settle in that direction,
You now move ahead with your trust, faith and intentions
Towards your dreams, desires and compulsions
With the subtle guidance of your own knowing.
In the space created with the disruption there is richness
of all that you have ever asked for.
Receive, relish, nourish, and become ready
For fresh beginnings in calmer tides of life.
This Anthology is currently only available only in India at this link :
https://www.amazon.in/dp/B09R2DRYBS/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_2HC3KKDJHZHW0AAJMEBE
As I sat down to create my weekly Monday post, I checked into my heart for what wanted to be expressed during this week of ThanksGiving. I realized that Gratitude has been my drug of choice in life – I trace back the infinite blessings of my life to this gift of Gratitude that sometimes blooms with joy and sometimes is a practice of cultivation that reproduces joy unfailingly.
I checked for how and for whom I want to express gratitude today. Of course, for this community that literally buoyed my being for these many years now, and also something unique happened. I realized that I feel a new sense of gratitude for someone who I have often neglected most. Now I feel quite audacious to say – Myself. But honestly, and humbly that is what came to me – I am grateful for myself for all of who I have become.
Now how should I convey this? – I asked, perhaps hoping to be redirected to something else. It was a pleasant surprise when I was guided to this Liebster Blog Award post from when I was 5 months into blogging in February 2016. I did not have readers yet, but this kind blogger acknowledging and encouraging me meant the whole world to me.
I wish to share with you all today, kind friends, my response post to that award. It felt so good to have a glimpse into myself from when I was in this space kind of innocently, not knowing what blogging meant. To see not much has changed truly, in spite of the fact that I feel like a whole new person since then.
I remember so tickled from getting asked questions about myself – it was an unfamiliar and amazing window to look at myself through. This is the only blog award I responded to, going award-free thereafter. Here it is :)))
11 facts about me:
1. I believe magic exists in everyday unfolding.
2. I love rain.
3. I love driving in the rain alone.
4. I like the crunch of walking on fallen leaves.
5. I love the sunshine in lukewarm weather.
6. I can watch waves crashing for hours.
7. I think every single thing that comes my way is relevant.
8. A coffee and a great conversation is time spent well to me.
9. I enjoy creating different styles of outfits.
10. I am passionate about seeing life transformations.
11. I have spent a lot of time playing board games with my sons.
Answers to the 11 questions given to me:
1. If you could live back in time when and where would you choose and why?
Hmmm …Actually I am feeling perfect where I am, so given a choice I would like to stay right now and here 🙂
2. What do you think will be the greatest invention in the future
Don’t know really …
3. What is the best t.v. show in your opinion?
I don’t watch t.v. much … have loved Friends in the past and now occasionally enjoy Big Bang Theory.
4. What book have you enjoyed the most?
Difficult to pick one … Power of Intention by Dr. Wayne Dyer, I was young and this book felt powerful…
5. Who was your favorite teacher and why?
My first yoga teacher in US, he always helped me see the truth in me, in a very un-authoritative manner.
6. Which parent influenced you the most and how?
Not sure about this actually …by now every interaction has become an influence.
7. How do you think we can contribute to peace?
By cultivating peace within, it can be very contagious!
8. What do you think is man’s greatest achievement?
In my small reality, this virtual world that connects people across the earth, is an amazing achievement.
9. What do you think is man’s worst behavior?
Acting in harmful and untruthful ways, going against joy …their own and others.
10. What do you like to do for fun?
Listen to songs, chat with friends and laugh with them.
11. If you could travel into space where would you go?
Far enough to take a look at Earth as a whole and then back!
Thank you for traveling with me and my words till here, THANK YOU is all I can say truly and deeply. Happy Week of Giving Thanks!
P.S. Thank you to my husband for the amazing fall picture that I used at the beginning.
The words on the picture above formed a short post Your Choice, published on April 30, 2017.
While I was thinking for a picture to pair with the poem Love Warrior, the above came to mind, along with wanting to add words from the older post to make it into a word image. I am shaking my head to myself over this compulsion I am feeling, to combine various elements to a post instead of just sharing the poem I intended to. Perhaps they are slightly different flavors of Love Warrior. I hope you enjoy the expressions of this phase I am going through.
Love warrior
Made
Unseen
Unfelt
Unnoticed
After being
Seen
Felt
Noticed
Love Warrior
Not Victim
Yet Victim
From
Heart assaulted
Ignored
Gaslighted
Love Warrior
Taking space
Humbly
Courageously
Vulnerably
Still looked down
By those
Taking space
Boldly
Unapologetically
Powerfully
Love Warrior
At war within
Without enough
Self Love
Wary from
Letting go
Expectations of
Natural reciprocity
Even from those
Placed in roles of
Nurturing tender hearts
And failed to deliver
Love Warrior
Daring to be so alone
No complacency
For want of company
Often doubting sanity
Counting blessings
Cultivating Gratitude
Choosing Love
Love Warrior
Colored leaf
Drifting
Through space
Finding Ground
Becoming One
With Earth
Finding
And receiving
Divine reciprocity
Love Warrior
Becoming the Ground
For bold ones standing their ground
Holding space
For unapologetics to walk upon
Lending strength
For the powerful to use
From the subtle
Power of
Humble Courage
And vulnerability
Love Warrior
Often Invisible
Being
The ground
And space
The embrace
They themselves
Yearn for
Note to dear blog friends: I have become slower in my visits to your blogs, I still treasure my visits to read you work the same, I will keep doing so, just going through shifts in routine.
The light at the end of the tunnel is not an illusion, the tunnel is.
We parked our vehicle on a tiny street lined with closely spaced homes. We walked along to find a tiny opening between homes. It was this path filled with sand that led to the ocean.
There was no guessing of the expanse to which, that tunnel on Earth opened up. It felt like a magical portal. Especially because we walked through the tunnel before sunrise, so it was dark until we saw some light when out on the other side. The pictures of the tunnel were taken on our way out, so you can see the light coming through the roof made of branches.
This is from our trip to Oahu, Hawaii Islands in February 2021. The experience of being here felt so much like life itself. There is so much intricate and exquisite beauty available that we are actually immersed in when we go through the seeming dark tunnels – light keeps leaking in the form of exact people and guidance pouring from all directions. The sand keeps the feet engaged mindfully (I walked barefoot here), there are occasional pricks to make sure I am present to where I am and also heeding my direction.
Intense times
Life itself
Shapeshifting
Dig my heels
To stay standing
And oriented
Dropping
All things head
Into my heart
So I don’t
Lose myself
In the fluid reality
So I do
Find myself
In the flow easily
Guiding Light
So present for me
In the seeming
Absence of it too
I honor the seeming
Dark spaces
They are actually
Healing forces gathering
Fuel for my
Expansive Being
All that is exactly needed
For ease, joy & well-being
I am amused how this post turned out to be a combination of pictures, a bit of prose and the poem. The poem is what I wanted to post and the rest just tagged along, tugging in my mind to go with the poem. I was happy to see it all seemed to connect well – hope you enjoy this mixture of a post and the poem itself. I am curious to know which part spoke to you most.
“Brutal Honesty can bring out your vulnerabilities. It is worth it when the result is peace of mind.” I wrote this to myself in 2013.
It had seemed the most challenging year of my life, as I was going through a ravaging health crisis. These words came to me as I was unwillingly about to enter yet another agonizing treatment phase. It was more than unpleasant for me to surrender to becoming completely dependent on others, until I regain strength, yet again.
“Do I really want to do this?” I checked in with myself. Without a pause came a YES! I sensed into how I was feeling, and it was PEACE. I felt so vulnerable to myself even. Because it meant I would be going ahead with the treatment, that too willingly. Saying Yes to an impending suffering by choice seemed like brutal honesty to myself. Why can’t I just deny it and be comfortable in ignorance? I thought. Because I felt the trust, that it was going to be worth it. And it totally was.
It has been deeply humbling how this lesson comes back to me, on repeat, wearing different garbs, cracking me open in every vulnerable spot in my being, everywhere I live in fantasy, everywhere I have a need for some things be a certain way. Though by now, along with it feeling Brutal, I feel a lot of Gratitude. For the Gods of Clarity are inherently kind with the revelations, in my experience.
I have found myself supported in utmost possible ways, before a shot of disillusionment hits me. Resources, divine and worldly, are made available to me in perfect design. I am at times lost in awe of the grace with which I am held and guided through the seemingly unexpected, as much I imagine I could slip down in the pain of another castle of made up reality crashing down.
If we are willing to read closely, there are signs along the way. Only in hind sight are we able to connect the dots, regarding any situation and our own role in it. I am amazed at how much I protected myself from the emerging uncomfortable clarity every single time. Not realizing how many mental justifications and worldly definitions, I keep living with regarding people or situations, that are not really serving anyone truly.
I would go into mediation on a rising sun, an object of meditation as instructed by my teacher Chase Bossart, and see myself sitting in a cave looking at the sun rise only partly, refusing to come out in to the wide open space. While discussing with my teacher I said “there are things I do not want to see, I am not ready for that clarity” That is one instance from couple of years ago.
In the recent months I have shared poetry about being Awake at Dawn, and yet not willing to open the curtains to enjoy the early morning light, wanting to take care of baby Me a little while more. I had been wondering to myself for quite a while why I wouldn’t want to see the light of the day, stay hidden in my cave.
It makes me laugh at myself (I will do that only lovingly), at how each time I am shocked at how unexpected something that follows is. I am aware this will keep happening until I clear my own emotional geography at the deepest level that brings me these experiences. It will happen again to show me my ability to step up, in my vulnerability, and integrity. I take full responsibility, and it humbles me. I will keep moving through life with as much kindness to others and myself. This process empowers me and teaches me to live more as myself in the truest sense.
Here’s what I have discovered until now. If there is inherent peace to a decision, it is worth it. It is actually a gift to everyone that you live in fear of hurting. It is up to them to find their truth or not. Fear is a Lie, I heard several times from Dr. Dain Heer’s teachings, and yet only now I realize the extent of how much fear existed in me because of some lies I was allowing to continue. If the lies are not your own to yourself, if they have been coming from other people, they are not going to be happy when you make choices for yourself. This can be painful for those who are as if born with the vow of keeping others happy. Often forgetting themselves in this quest for gifting happiness.
All of this keeps getting much more easier, with quicker recovery from the hits of reality, more surrender with faith to the Divine Guidance – whichever way you tune into it, more courage to make tough choices, with literally miraculous ways and people showing up for you.
Honesty as a conquest is worth it, don’t doubt your own knowing of anything. The peace is not short term. The Peace felt in the Truth is addictive. Life unfolds like you never imagined it to be.
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.
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.
Infinite Living 