She

Photo by Myself

A girl, a woman born with the essence of feminine grace and beauty. With innate qualities and potential for expression of what she can be, with the gifts she is born with.

When she dances to the rhythm of music she becomes her pure essence. When every fiber of her Being becomes a part of the symphony, she embodies the purity of the soul.

A girl, a woman, often since born on earth, has been caged in this mold, a way of living carved out for her, defined for her. Her role-play in this lifetime dictated to her as if in exchange for basic human needs of food, shelter, and clothing. The basic needs are met and she is trained to follow the rules of female existence.

This is from an age when her gender innocence is at its peak, she is barely a girl from a toddler. She is enrolled in a dance class to cultivate discipline. Not to allow her essence, her most beautiful expression of Being to bloom with her own unique fragrance, but just to learn a dance form. No public performance is allowed. Good girls don’t move their bodies this way in public, she is told, as she continues to mature.

The girl becomes a woman with a process of going through a shredder as if, separating her person into strips of ways of Being offered to different relations as designed and defined. She is a daughter of a family, daughter-in-law of another, keeping their smiles of approval beaming as long as she behaves in respectable ways.

One strip, the essence of that woman keeps fluttering in her face through life. It is her sense of being herself, a piece of that person wanting to be congruent within and not stripped off in so many ways. That strip has all the love and devotion towards her relations, yet wants the freedom to dance to her own rhythm, through life experiences of her own.

When this woman sets herself dancing to the music on stage, immerses herself in the realm of her own essence, her soul is set free to be herself. No name, no relations, no conditions, her gender evident only in the beauty, the grace, the art, the freedom that transcends all different ways of her being. This woman then captivates the audience as if in collective meditation, mesmerized and immersed in the rhythm of the soul.

Let us celebrate the awakening of this collective woman power in the uplifting of our human essence. Happy Women’s Day to all of you, those who identify with the gender, and others who support their journey!

Note: To me, She is based on my observation of so many sister-friends around, and the various ways of impact all of us have, from growing up in our particular culture. Do you recognize Her in someone you know from any of my descriptions?

P.S. This article was lying in my pile of unpublished drafts since 2017. It appeared in my mind today, as I was thinking about what do I want to share for this week’s blog post. I was delighted that this piece showed the willingness to go out into the world on International Women’s Day this year 🙂

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Innocence & Its Faces

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Photo Credit: Manish Doshi

Innocence is the face of a baby born
So also that of a person reborn
Each one has faced the struggle
To show up in the world

In their painful journey of birthing & re-birthing
Gut wrenching twisting and turning
Courage and surrender both have shown
To be able to breathe
And cry a cry of relief

That innocence has known survival
Not a scent of the vices of the world
The purity if they wish to retain
The reborn must keep the intent
To be alive & born to new moments
To die to each that has gone by …

We are blessed with many rebirths
In this lifetime alone
As much they make us weep & cry
Smile to welcome each one with joy

 

Note: This poem was first published on Dec. 11, 2015, when I was about 3 months into my blog on WP. The 4 bloggers that read it that time had felt so very precious to me. The poem itself was an emotional experience in response to a curious remark sent my way. Today this poem called me back as if to check in how and if it still fits with me. I felt it natural to share it again with all my new blogger friends.

This post is a contribution to ForgivingFridays on ForgivingConnects, a blog by Debbie Roth who profoundly teaches the art of letting go.

Who’s breath am I breathing?

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Photo: Manish Doshi ‘A Breath of Fresh Air’

Who’s breath am I breathing?
Who’s story am I weaving?
Who’s memory am I churning?
Who’s thoughts am I carrying?

With each breath I take

Who’s life am I living?
Who’s pain am I feeling?
Who’s right to breathe freely have I made my story?
Who is it that I am not left with my own pure breath for myself?

We talk about letting go. And for that process we invite all our stories and all of others’ woes to look at, to be able to let go. And then we look at them and we defend them and justify them and find ourselves lost in them. And the only thing we let go of is our deep, pure breath. Nothing else.

I have found that I imbibe, absorb, feel, sense every thought, feeling, energy around me. I pick up on it very sensitively. At times making my inner life a chaotic tangle of feelings. I have made a personal career out of my life to continually keep cleaning out my energetic closet that sometimes catches the cobwebs of negativity, lies, untruthfulness, facades, envy, jealousy in thought and action directed or not towards me. Most times I am not even aware of any of this actually going on. I just feel horrible inside and I know I am not breathing my pure breath but breathing a heavy air of all that is toxic to me. My breath catches it like a virus. I just feel it.

I have found myself very strong, resilient, having magical perspectives that lift me above any drama and trauma, in the face of the worst. I am unshaken in faith when it comes to threats to the well being of those closest to me and those who choose to work with me. I am undaunted in my intention of creation of a life of possibility and true joy for all of us. I will not give up on my version of a world where we absolutely trust the spoken word, show up as our real self and have compassion for each other.

Yet I end up using tremendous energy to keep my head above the waters of feelings and emotions of those around me physically, virtually and spiritually. I am an empath who feels the hurt behind your need to lie to me, your need to be untruthful to me, to act what you don’t mean with me. Yes I actually feel it and live it until I process it to rise above it.

I know I have done this when I am able to breathe purely, deeply, fluidly, smoothly, softly, leisurely, luxuriously – just pure breath of air that does not carry any charge, thought, feeling, emotion, story attached to it.  I am glad it is becoming increasingly easier, and the beauty of life is pouring in for me.

Do you know what a gift this kind of breath is? Have you given yourself a breath solely for yourself lately? Have you lived a moment purely as yourself lately?

I have dedicated my life to just that – taking as many deeply pure breaths and teaching you to do the same. It is a learning process to be able to let go of the stories. Even the real ones have to be let go, so they actually change.

Let’s breathe space into our stories instead of our stories clinging to our breath.

 

Yoga – My Work & Life

This post is a contribution to ForgivingFridays on ForgivingConnect, an amazing blog by Debbie Roth.

Beautiful Life & YOU

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Precious Times & Me

Sometimes being in a certain place nourishes more than any food can ever could. That’s how I feel when I look at this photo from a personal retreat I had been to.

There was so much perfection of space and time. A Hafiz poetry book just as if walked up to me …drenching my soul in the feeling of eternal love and contemplation for hours. Just the memory of that time at this place brings a luxurious peaceful feeling to me.

This moment now I am feeling such grace of gratitude flow through me. I wish to go back to that place yet I don’t need to. Those hours and moments in that place are just alive in me forever.

Such moments are a gift of this lifetime. They keep you satiated in precious ways. They help you find the treasure of gratitude for exactly where you are.

The yearning and the seeking takes a break. Right now is one such moment for me.

I am thinking of every single person and soul that has been a perfect intersection in my life. All those who have been perfection to my existence. You called me at perfect times. You said the perfect words …as if speaking aloud the whispers of my soul that were being dumbed down by the outer noise. Yes, YOU. YOU know who you are.

I am thinking of all those with whom I am virtually connected with. You are as real in my world as any other, because your words have made priceless difference to me. You have helped me live my dream life of seeing, acknowledging and connecting at the most authentic level.

I think of all the people that I have not been a best of myself to. I have often faltered in my human ways. I have been very sorry in my heart. I am yet to find the courage to get to each one of you. To melt the walls of thickness between us. I am grateful for you.

I look at this photo of mine at this place and feel gratitude for my time on Earth and the beautiful life that keeps coming to me. This is how I feel in this moment now. For now, that’s all. And now.

May all of the beauty of life flow in all preciousness to us all …and we flow in life with ease and joy.

 

P.S. Dear Debbie, it is my pleasure to make this post a contribution to ForgivingFridays. You are a kind loving presence in this space.

A home with no walls

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Image created by Josiah Harry of Skylarity

Have you ever been in a home like this?
There are close to 50 people in there.
Yet the experience is such that all there is, is space.
Like there are no walls to that home.
The whole universe seems to have opened up …or maybe the home has opened to the space of the Universe.
I was there with a friend who took me to that home. I didn’t know anyone else.
Everyone was so silent and just spacious within …they were just being their pure being.
If eyes met, the most heartful smiles came.
Regulars just melted into purest, warmest hugs …as if knowing what is to be received and/or given.
I venture into the ‘speaking’ area (the living room). You come here if you wish to converse.
Everyone just pure divine energy.
No name, no game, no status, no apparatus, no conclusion, no exclusion.
Isn’t this why we visit temples?
Here each person I spoke to was a temple visited.
I was immersed in the most precious ways of being and conveying and receiving and giving.
Without giving or receiving a thing that I can hold on to.
Yet what was given and received is part of me for this lifetime.
The food served, to be eaten in silence, was just one of the ingredients of nourishment.

We walk around with so many walls …of our name, profession, our beliefs, concepts.
These walls are so much a necessity to bang on, as we keep living.
But what felt like life itself was the perception of no walls.
We walk around striving to be normal …or striving to be extra ordinary.
But what we are, are pure miraculous specks of being.
I am in awe of how these experiences become possible for me …as I keep waking up to a new day of wonder …of what I know are pure soul interactions on a daily basis, just so perfectly waiting to happen.
I began writing on this blog platform with the concept called Infinite Living,
Not knowing it is actually being lived so profoundly …
I left knowing that I will always be supported in my strive to embody Infinite Living.

P.S. This post is dedicated with gratitude to Awakin Circles of ServiceSpace. I am grateful to my friend with whom I spent one evening here.

What’s more pure?

This poem is a thought process that unfolded while I was immersed in this exact setting, on a beautiful day, lounging under the sky, admiring the mountains, when a crow flew by …

What’s more pure?
Clear blue or the flawless floating whites

Mountains unwavered green and grand
Winds blowing and flowing
Sunlight bright yet gentle on land
Sky is blue, clouds white floating

What’s more pure?
Clear blue or the flawless floating whites

The contrast of a black, a crow flying
Flight through the expanse taking
Like a sticky thought across my mind
Takes a rightful stroll of a kind
All my attention vying
The grand green mountain dutiful
Says it is only a distraction beautiful

The crow has flown away
The whites floated away
The blue feels clarity, also my mind
The whites though had a purity of a kind
Like the thoughts that pervade at times
When in a state of joy or love sublime

What’s more pure?
Clear blue or the flawless floating whites