Photo: Manish Doshi, Oceanside Labyrinth in Maui, Hawaii “Am I at the Center or am I at the Rim?”
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.
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.
Photo by Manish Doshi ‘Sunrise on Kauai, Hawaii islands’
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.
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 wasfirst 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 modifiedcompilation 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.
The deep blue Ocean Clear waves Peaceful purity I watch I feel From the threshold Careful that I Don’t get wet So I can Turn back walk in home Engage with drama
I glance back at the blue It calls me back “Watch” it whispers Enormous tidal wave It drenches me Sweeps me off my feet I playfully give in Then come back to my threshold again The insistent blue wave Now peaks higher than the roof Breaks through the doors and windows Floods in through me and everything From the back of the house, out through the front Cleansing everything on the way Within me and the house I am amazed at, how clean and peaceful it feels Despite such powerful waves breaking in
And I am reminded ‘they’ will return soon The ones that I am not done playing with yet And their games have different rules So I close the windows and the doors The wave, like the romantic lunatic lover whispers “I won’t give up – now that you are wet, you can’t keep me out” I smile one way and annoyed in another Proceed to hold the door shut tight with all my strength The wave still pours in, flows through me, and the house This time it is careful, once inside the house, not to flow higher than my ankle Flows out the front silently, without the uproar unlike before ‘They’ arrive and I start explaining and convincing How I tried my best, with all my strength To hold the door, so no water comes in I just couldn’t do better than this
I was amazed again How they simply said “Oh the floor is wet” Fetched the mop and started mopping the floors I watched them from the corner All wet and floored at myself Wondering if they would ever want to know About that amazing blue ocean That visited this house Did they even notice That I am All Wet!
Perhaps I will just Allow myself To Hang dry As I help Them Mop and dry The floors Of the house.
I woke up recently with a sense as if I had had a profound experience, and slowly realized and recollected this vivid dream. I decided to write it down and this poem is how it got described. It gave me abundant clarity in my juggle and confusion in navigating my relations while allowing/resisting the waves of transformation that keep washing over me. I am in deep gratitude for the gift of healing and awakening afforded to me in this lifetime. All relations and interactions serve a purpose in this evolution towards embodying my authentic being. Emotions of guilt and grief tend to interfere when we first become aware of how we have been unknowingly contributing to false constructs and agreements of relations. Guilt for not keeping up with our end of the agreement any longer and grief for losing some comfortable ways of being, not being acknowledged for who we truly are. It is my personal responsibility to honor the truth of what the tidal wave brings me and continue to walk with that truth. This acceptance helps me smile and continue to engage with all my Love and Gratitude.
Did you relate to the poem in some way …similar or different? I would be honored to know.
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.
Infinite Living 