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?!!
My Beloved WP Community Friends – I have this deep overwhelming joy as I return to this space, a moving gratitude for finally being led to return to my birthplace as if, after a brilliant yet humbling voyage of life that I wandered off into – always looking back here over the shoulders, not wanting to leave ever.
I left here after “Lingering on the Rim” and the poem I share with you today urged me to come back to my center here:
For it has been a decade since my entire existence was cracked open to the insanity of living unskilled with my raw spirit.
A decade ago
began
a series of
my own personal deaths
A decade after
begin
a series of
my own personal rebirths
A decade
whole
a series of
oceanic churnings
Stillness at depths
Turmoils at surface
Redefining coastlines
for where the water
meets the shore
Dipping the toes
not an option
The ocean
devoured
me whole
‘Tis a mystery
Yet I see clearly
Why
I still hover
between
two worlds
Witnessing
the mind rain
in the darkness
Spirit drinking it up
with stilling starkness
I am left dancing
in the vivid rhythms
in between
‘Tis is yet only
the spine moved
with my breathing
In this moment –
A decade ago
and this decade after
and the decade from now
All merged into
one bolt of lightning
across the sky
of my earthly existing
Pray my spine
can sustain
the brilliance
of the bolt
as it traverses
my earthly time
Photo of lightning bolts by Vidur Sahdev of VerseInEmotion – thank you for letting me borrow it to go with my poem, it fits perfectly. Their poetry & mine have been conversing coherently for years now – do visit this beautiful poetry blog, if you would enjoy one more.
I want to visit with all of you, all at once!!! Please catch my beaming heart smile as I wander around old streets, making my way to each one of you. Perhaps help me by leaving a link in the comments for where you would like me to visit first, and not miss an update or a favorite from you. It has been 10 months … I offer this poem above to you, to celebrate my decade, to begin with.
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Note 1: Please join me here for conversations through the lens of yoga that I have begun sharing recently & inconsistently.
Note 2: Upcoming Virtual Seminar & Series in honor of International Womens Day: Embracing Equity through Stress management & Self Awareness
Experiences on a continuum,
spirally back at deeper levels
alive, raw, intense
Much greater trust
each time around
We keep
doing this
continually,
push the edges
towards authenticity
while keeping the peace,
protecting our sensitivity,
our strength misunderstood.
It is often awful
yet so so stunning
how we keep going.
After digging deep
now sitting on the rim
of another level of depth,
enjoying the breeze,
holding the expanse above
in my awareness,
there is no turning back.
Right here right now
being on this planet,
breathing new life
into every sense of
Being, Knowing, and Perceiving.
Fear and I play peekaboo,
not wanting the encounter
when I venture to dig deeper
seeking a calm quiet inspiration
to be led,
through it all.
Enjoying the gifts
of where I am,
which may be over
this very moment
or may linger on
for a bit more.
Today I wish to give a special mention to 2 blogger friends “The Chatter Blog” & “Dreamwalker’s Sanctuary” They are a tremendous positive inspiration and influence on my trajectory of writing and being through life experiences, since the beginning of my blog journey. The above poem is a confluence of my responses to their posts. If you haven’t yet visited their work, please do.
It was in the middle of the night.
First came these words:
Love
Freedom
Raw
Empty
Joy
Full
Then they got filled this way:
Love for myself
Freedom for myself
Raw renewal
Empty of you
Joy of being
Full with myself
To become Empty again
To Love
To Serve
Stripped off of relations
Finding myself whole
Filling up all the holes
Then what looked like a poem took a different form for the image above today.
Do the 2 forms of the poem feel different in meaning and sentiment to you? I am not sure exactly but the words changed form for the aesthetics and they feel different to me. The original poem was ‘Self-centered’ with the ‘joy of being full with myself and empty of you’. The image made it more spirit-related, and empty in general. Somehow I was ok with how all of this wanted to be. Do you have any thoughts?
This journey I feel is not against any one, and for everyone. The world that I walk out in often feels like an alternate reality. What is real is underneath all that we actually see. The shortest way to describe it is Love. Because it is a feeling experience…
Love is felt deep and love is felt light. It is felt in its absence and in presence. It is present whether you are aware or unaware. This is a story & journey of Love, how I discovered its true meaning, some of it through my own living and some from observing others. This is Love broken down to Basics.
This article initially titled “Love Broken Down to Basics” was published on this blog before in 2016, in a longer form. The topic has been very close to my heart, and I am absolutely thrilled to see it take a new form to be published on India Currents, a South Asian digital media magazine with the largest following in the United States.
I will be very honored and humbled for you taking the time to visit this link to read it in full.
https://indiacurrents.com/straddling-two-cultures-conditioning-love/
It is my deepest joy to know your thoughts on my words about Love. Sincerely.
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.
I am very happy to share that my prose of perspectives on long-term, family relations, is now published on AmericanKahani.com. I would be honored if you choose to read it on the link below and share your thoughts, feedback on it.
Don’t Blow Up your Life: Take Responsibility for the Choices You Make
Love is not dramatic or romantic sometimes. It is way bigger. It is something that helps accept what Is, wholly, and then change it.
This article was originally published on this blog On January 17, 2018.
I feel that I am personally transitioning through a portal from a known past into an unknown future in so many ways at once. It is eerie how outwardly all the walls of reality still look the same, and yet as if all the mental castles of reality have inwardly collapsed. Each day I find another brick falling.
As if each day I wake up and walk into a hall of mirrors absolutely wanting to confuse me – Is that me? or is that one me? Until I push back on a mirror to have it open on to a very expansive space of peace, joy and lightness, carrying an air of crisp clarity.
It is so thrilling and awesome terrifying to surrender in to that space, and live without alignment or resistance to any mental constructs, comforts of relations, definitions, concepts of what exactly makes up our everyday life. Also it is awesome that I don’t have the ever insistent fear rumbling inside me. For I recognize this portal from 5 years ago, and I know now what brilliance awaits on the other side of it.
I love and embrace with a much robust gratitude and awe, the exquisite and divine guidance, synchronicity and perfection with which this play of life is executed. These are such powerful times that our tribe of truth seekers and heart followers are finding their way with themselves and each other like never before! I am now ready to show up in ways like never before.
And hence, I wished to post this poem and picture today to share with you, my gratitude for the trail behind me. For the people on the trail with me.
This poem was first published on August 16, 2016, 5 years ago today.
There’s a trail from the past behind me
From whence in this moment I arrive
I look forward to see
Whereto it wants me strive
The smile on my face
Belongs to those who helped me thrive
The chosen and unchosen soul friends
The given and unchosen of relationships
With their simply Being or coaxing mends
Diffused and dissolved perceived hardships
I have all of You in my heart
To walk with You, I would go back to start
Gratitude for You will keep You forever with me
Especially when I seem to have parted ways with thee
There’s times when only You can make me less lonely
That’s when I look back at the trail
Find the bend where you found me frail
Then I walk forward steadily a mile
Taking with me the newfound smile
I have circled back to square one yet again in my journey of Becoming myself.
It is my responsibility to patiently skillfully claim who I am.
I Am the ripple and the wave that keeps flowing in to her destiny.
I receive this gift of melting diffusion of my being fully, breathing and being with it.
A Moved Heart, deep no-tears-eyes feeling tears.
This is pure energy transmission through pure intent.
This is Truth of the moment. This is Love.
On my next phase, I work on absolute skill in silence or speech, than ever before.
My Life is Changed Forever.
I am stunned and moved, and receiving deeply. I am ready. Whatever that means.
In this moment I accept my wholeness.
I leave it to the shift and process to work itself through me.
It feels empowering. I am thrilled at the lack of the lurking fear and overwhelm.
The prayers and blessings are at work at all dimensions.
This energy is so fluid and expansive.
I am done blinding myself from the clarity available to me.
I am done being so cautious of stepping into it.
I feel the grief of mothering others’ emotions and then letting go.
I cared for how much they needed me to need them and so became the needy one they needed me to be. I have been part of the game too, trying to keep it all so comfortable.
Oh Truth is not such. So much peace in this moment I don’t know who I am anymore.
That makes me smile, it shows me my raw beginning yet again, to get back to being who I was, am, to be. I flow in to my destiny, from this moment here now.
I am not stuck here, I am planted and blooming.
There is pulsating power within, my container is adjusting, recalibrating for this shift.
I am reminding myself these sensations are not pain they are sensations of divine rearrangement of energy itself, tangible and intangible.
This process is going to stay alive for some while, I will stay present and silent.
What Gift, Grace, Gratitude – to hold this unfolding, in utmost reverence!
Thank You is what covers it and doesn’t begin to cover it, for the revelations and truth that are a grace of this lifetime.
This post is a modified compilation of my comments that came in response to
Amy Rose on a recent post of mine Layers Illuminated. I decided to make my end of this recent conversation into a post to turn the profound shift into a powerful affirmation, own and embody it fully. I would be honored to know how this post spoke to you.
The process keeps going life beside
you yearn for a bit longer respite
A sense of having found a ground
maybe for a day and yet again slip down
Another layer being called to shed more,
then called to show up and Be more
Allowing lower energy mind games to penetrate
to become like others around to be able to relate
Showing how attached still to comforts of certainty
then suffering for not being your own self worthily
Feel and sense the divide happening
Grief of as if current reality leaving
Comes with having to keep going
while still staying in your Being
Cusp of opening up from the guardedness
feel the transition and rawness
The waves keep coming yes
you hope you can let go…
Maybe this is how it looks like always
you simply learn to breathe better in calmness
PS : This poem was composed sometime last year from my response to one of Sue Dreamwalker’s post on her profoundly inspirational blog Dreamwalker’s Sanctuary. I realized I had never published it.
Infinite Living 