Pixie Dust & All Things Magical – A New Anthology

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.

Beauty of Disruption

Photo by Myself

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

Advertisement

I am a yoga teacher …actually I am not.

IMG_3808

Photo Credit: Manish Doshi “Be present as you make your way”

Question: What do you do?
My answer: I am a yoga teacher.

Just that I don’t identify with that answer ever.

So what do I do?

My true answer:

I create space for people to rest their thoughts, feelings and emotions, and help them access their own clear voice that leads them to their truth and joyful living.

That is the answer that feels true to my heart. When I begin teaching a class my name, different tags of relations and society, our acquaintance if any, all that disappears. I lead you through an experience that is called yoga practice. I help you tune in with your breath, energy, body and sense of being. We take a dip in the pool of Infinite Living.

The practice helps you get clear in your mind, truly knowing and sensing what is going on within. Your time with me is a safe space to allow all that comes up in your body, mind, and emotion- no judgments. It is designed to help you be attentive and listen in.

I help you build skills to navigate through all that and listen to what your truth is and where your joy is. It is not an hour mind vacation after which you walk back into the same stress you live in. You know something about yourself or your life better than before as a result of your own attention. This happens in a group class too.

Do I continue in this relationship, or walk out? How do I find joy in my continuing relationship? Am I content with my current health status and how my doctor is addressing it? Do I quit my job, or continue? Do my food habits truly nourish me? Does parenting really have to be this difficult? How supported do I feel through these life changes and choices? What do I really want? I am worried, I have depression, anxiety, insomnia …

I facilitate these above experiences for you, as you find your own answers. We vibrate together with the joys and tears of transformation as you find your own relationship with yourself. My utmost contentment is when you need to see me less often, for our private sessions because you are now skilled at finding your clear voice and true choice. Your chronic pain has disappeared, digestion improved, or any other body issue addressed through therapeutic focus of yoga.

We are like lone kayakers in this Infinite ocean of the universe. If we are very present with the life currents, then we are skilled at the navigation. We have but this short and sweet vacation on this beautiful planet. We meet with each other, sometimes in happiness and sometimes in misery. Each one of us has our own path to carve through.

I have been blessed with teachers, with whom I continue to hone my skills. I have been blessed with students with whom I can share this powerful work, so I can pass it on just like I received it.

Teacher, student tags are just our convenience. What I do as work is create safe space for your pain, feelings, emotions – no judgment – so you feel positively empowered, inspired and supported through life and choices.

 

 

P.S. Dear wordpress friends, I apologize for my absence on your work, that are my joy to read. I will visit you soon.

Do Nothing

RestHere

Photo : Vikram Phale “Rest Here”

Choose to often do Nothing
Choose to not play the game
Choose to simply stay & Be
Choose the seemingly insane

Try it
Do Nothing
For an hour
For a day
For a month

For any length of time
Know what really is the fight
Win over that all in the mind
It is the Brave
Who can truly rest on this planet
Their choices are such …

Just Be
Aware
Then watch
Prowess simply becoming You
None of it you feel the need to be shown
Yet you are seen as powerfully grown

 

Of Journeys & Happiness

zzzzzzzzzz

Photo Credit : Pragalbha Doshi “Happy Birthday DH”

You love driving great distances
On roads with seemingly no ends
Taking me along, you in the driver’s seat
Record trips, some unthinkable adventures
That map across the states, thousands of miles
Sometimes no difference days or nights

Those travels just represent
The real journey together we transcend
You endeavor to create a splendidly simple life
You live though with challenging choices of your poetess wife 🙂
You are indeed a skilled driver to me
Giving me a ride on this rocky life road
All the way we traverse through eternity
On your special day, Happy Birthday dearly

 

P.S. Dedicated to my Dear Husband on his special day 🙂

There is a Difference

IMG_4526

LiveLifeGrand&Deep

There is a difference.
In living to make it look like
To be seen a certain way
To be remembered a certain way
To be talked about a certain way

And

Actually living the life exactly
As what would be seen and talked about
Only because that is the only way
That is skilled and known to live.
There is a difference.

The difference is
Vexed exhaustion
And
Calm conviction.

The difference is
Unknown inner suffering
And
Chosen wise suffering

The difference is
Mind maddening rush & fall
And
Heart exalting ebb & flow

Choose Differently

IMG-20170828-WA0003

Photo Credit : Niranjana Shah

Don’t choose the difficult

Only to prove you Can choose the difficult

Choose what is Right even if it is difficult

Often it is the Simplest that is the most difficult

Brilliance that only seems wasted!

IMG-20170721-WA0003

Brilliant Sky – by Vikram Phale

There’s some of us who have been told by our well-meaning friends that our brilliance has been wasted and our skills unused …as measured by academic standards and career achievements. And what a boost it is for us to know, how brilliant we are, and how amazing we would do in some ‘prestigious’ field! IF ONLY WE HAD THE OPPORTUNITY … but NO! We are merely living by with what came our way trying to make peace with it, trying to find our way through our own brilliance…

Which field of study are you choosing for higher studies?
How many degrees & from which reputable institutes do you have?
What abbreviations tag behind your name?
How big have you made it in your job? …the list keeps going as the potential never ends really, does it?

We have been taking in everyone else’s idea of what it means to be visible in the world in terms of our brilliance.

We live with these definitions in our minds and live really hurtfully with ourselves as nothing we do is really good enough …as we haven’t made it big in the world with these definitions hanging over us. The reasons keep coming …right things just always slip away from me, the most perfect things never seem to come to me, I got married too early, it’s too late I haven’t found my perfect partner yet and my career headed nowhere, my parents didn’t support/care enough, if only this and if only that …down the rabbit hole of judgment, resentment and rejection …of self, others, events, situations, life itself. Leading to more of the same!!

But Wait!! Wake up!! We have been giving in to a very limited definition of brilliance! We have listened to people in very limited number of settings – our school, workplace, friends, acquaintances – all operating from their outlook on reality. When did we make all that our own?

We actually keep missing out on so many simple ways of doing and being our best …just because we aren’t there where we are told we could have been.

By now I have met too many people with multiple degrees, multiple pursuits of achievement, all bringing out their utmost level of skill and brilliance. All that is valid, commendable …and never enough! I now measure my brilliance on my own terms in my own reality. As undefined by someone else’s understanding of it. Over the years my brilliance is shown in how truly happy I am with myself. How simple choices on an everyday basis bring me joy and the fact that I feel I have a choice on an everyday basis to create my reality.

We waste our brilliance when we try to build up castles of that perfect life in air as defined by others. We waste our power when it shows up as anger towards who we think is responsible for our so called failures.

That anger is the energy of our potentials coming up to point us to who we really are …part of Creation capable of creating our own reality. Our brilliance is in how we make a complete turnaround from the version of a limited possibility and reality. How we open up to an infinite way of being …coming back to being our brilliant selves on an everyday basis. There is no question of being someplace else, some particular designation or position to know your brilliance.

Our primary job is to be Happy! Moment to moment, thought to thought …flow through it only to find joy.

This can become the most difficult thing to achieve in life. The potential of the intellect seems easier to hold on to then. The idea of choosing only out of joy and happiness puts us right in the path of so many emotions waiting to be resolved within us. No amount of blame game helps. You are compelled to sit back with yourself …really have to get used to this. It can get so very sticky that we need an insane resolve and trust, in our ability to create exactly the reality that would bring joy to our being. The result is always the most rewarding and thrilling, as you have now used your own skill to define your own brilliance …as you tread through relations to extract only the best and the true out of them, through situations to extract only what serves you and gives you joy.

Seriously, how many of those then, who question the status of our brilliance in life, are sleeping that well at night? Striving for harmony and peace in your being on a day to day basis – even while in some shaky times – that’s brilliance! Look closely well-wishers, it is not complacent acceptance. We are treading slowly and joyfully through what unfolds, yet also looking to claim the territory of brilliance that is more visible in your reality …you see we are grateful for you, for keeping our spark alive in that goal, in still wanting and dreaming to make our mark in any area of our choice …with ease and joy, is what we insist now!

On Acceptance

Accept EVERYthing wholly.

Only in the present moment.

Never Ever Forever.

Then

CHANGE IT!

P.S. Happy Yoga Day! May this day inspire moments of awareness for you.

Art of Creation

An artist picks up a paintbrush
To create a view
Knows intently each color and every hue

An artist of life, similarly
Picks up from a palette of emotion
Lends a hand to Creation
Knows each one very intensely
Pain & Joy, Anger & Love, Fear & more
In all their potency
Has felt them all to the core

Picks up on the shades of feeling
As they keep emerging
Knows exactly what would appear on the canvas of life

Both are very skilled at knowing
When to put down the brush or use some more …

An attempt at success?

This conversation feels very significant to me as it is between my 11 year old son and I 🙂

Mom: My dear friend asked me a question “What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?” What would you say?
Son: I don’t know  …maybe I would become the greatest soccer player …
Mom: Oh but you already play soccer and you are good at it. Think of something that you haven’t tried but would love to …knowing you couldn’t fail.
Son: What did you answer your friend?
Mom: Well …if I actually choose to do something then chances are high I wouldn’t fail.
Son: You mean you haven’t like ever failed at anything?!!
Mom: Well, I don’t remember anything that I look at it as failure, either I succeeded or learned something about myself from it.
Son: But you must have failed at summmthing that you attempted to do?
Mom: Hmm …ok so the first time I was learning to drive a 2 wheeler, I broke my arm and cannot ride one even now. But look at it this way …I now drive a 4 wheeler and it doesn’t matter to me if I ever can drive a 2 wheeler.
Son: What about something that mattered to you? Like your school?
Mom: Right, tell me why is school any different? If it matters to you you will work at it to succeed …or you could attempt something radically different because you know you could not fail.
Son: Mom you are wayy too different than most people around!
Mom: Why?
Son: You are always too optimistic …normally people are not like that …(shaking his head, eyebrows high and a grin) …

I actually felt the most optimistic in my lifetime in that moment 🙂