Kiyowara

Joyfully

There is a sense of lightness that informs me when I feel connected to the World.  A light, fresh, feeling of joy bubbles up and fills me with a sense of play.  All the world around me seems to be full of interesting things and I find myself smiling, even softly giggling, a great deal of the time.

In my favourite yoga classes, the ones I remember most affectionately, this effervecence bubbles up and I find myself grinning as I move through the asanas.  When I make eye contact with the yogi on the other side of the room they sometimes look at me in a bewildered way.  I smile brighter, internally rising to meet the Divine in them, thinking/feeling/sharing the Truth of the Namaste - The Divine in Me Honours the Divine in You.  This way we share the path, each to our own work, on our own mat, but together building a new World from the inside out.

Ah, how glorious the rising wonder of Spring! Let yourself open and look with eyes open to wonder and Joy will rush in.  

Namaste!

Love

This Great Love shines through us. We are the vessels through which Love manifests in this world. How can we not love ourselves? Every atom we are composed of came from the very same beginnings of our Universe. Knowing that how can we not love our neighbours as ourselves?

I love you. Now that you know someone loves you, can you love yourself a little more? Peace begins here, in a nurtured heart.

One Breath

The headlines the last few days have been full to overflowing with devastating events.  It's interesting for me to see the juxtaposition of the tragedies of the last few weeks against the backdrop of enormous human achievements like the Olympic Games and the landing of the lastest Mars Rover, Curiosity.

It really points out that stress comes in many forms, both painful and uplifting.  Both types of stress bring up the same flight-or-fight responses in our bodies.  On a physiological level we really don't know the difference between a tragic moment or a joyful one; both can ultimately leave us feeling drained.  We want to be able to respond appropriately to each situation.  What key can bring us back to a place where we can decide on action rather than be caught in a cycle of the same old reactivity?

The Breath - it all comes back to our breathing.  A single, thoughtful breath can change our perspective on a situation.  In times of tragedy or crisis, that moment of breath can make the difference between life and death.  In the joyful moments that single breath can bring us fully present in order to be in that beautiful event with our whole selves.  Isn't that kind of memory the ultimate treasure to hold?  That moment of breath, filling our lungs and ourselves, can allow us the maximum ability to remember, to hope, to love.

Everything began with the breath.  Take a breath with me, deep in to your lungs, your belly, giving yourself permission to fully engage in Being.  Let us fill our centers, and having that strong foundation, be able to bring as much of ourselves present into the world as possible. The breath is the finest gift we give ourselves, and in doing so we can give best of ourselves to the world.

Love's Warrior

The Sword and the Heart

The sword I bear
Is Water embodied
A gift from the Galactic Heart
Bourne on Moonlight's wings
Into waters deep and dark
Drawn forth into my hand
Crystalline structure
Of Love given form

"The sword is for protecting
That which is valuable,"
A Warrior's saying

What value Love?
How to count the ways
In which Love is so precious
To a World gone mad with pain?
But essential value it has, this Love,
The Joy without which Life
Would cease to exist
Ananda

"The sword is for protecting
That which is valuable,"
A Warrior's saying

Love

"Dare to live in Love," She said to me.

The Call

The Call is something we all must hear in our own way.  No one can tell you how it will sound or feel.  Only personal experience tunes us into this driving force in our lives.  There is no substitute for this search.  

For some of us, The Call has always beat loud in our blood and bodies. For others long discernment and hard work were applied before that whisper surfaced.  And sometimes, the search itself obscures the very object of its desire. 

I have always felt a hunger, a need to search, a driving desire to KNOW, something that I couldn't always describe.  As a very small child I would open and close all the cabinets in my home looking for something I couldn't explain.  The need to search drove me in restless movement, my mind seeking, seeking, seeking.  

I watched this in my youngest child.  From moments after she emerged, she wanted to get up, first fighting to raise her head, then her body, then rising to her feet.  A great deal of her waking energy went into trying to rise, to crawl, to walk, to run.  Something drove her to rise even as I held her close in my arms.  

In myself I am now observing my own resistance to The Call.  It's close, it's loud and clear and ever present these days, and yet a small, fearful part of me stands in the way of one more dive into a deeper experience of this part of me that is my deepest self.  I know how to make this next step, and yet I hold back, self-sabotage, caught in a net of fear and hope.  I thrash and suffocate when I only need to relax and let go to be in the flow of Love.  What is it about this great light that I can bear to hold back from?  The act of holding back is causing me more pain, and yet I still feel fear about what I might become on the other side.  I am creating a war within myself, one I cannot win.

The Light I held close for so long seems to burn so brightly these days I cannot bear to see it with my human eyes.  Rather than closing my eyes, I must open them wider and trust that I will grow in my capacity to See.  Love will hold me if I allow it to do so.  

The Call is Love.  Listen with your whole body, mind, and spirit.  Let that symphony carry you forward.

Showing up

Do whatever you need to do to get into your body, not because you will need to be able to swing a fist or a sword, but in order to bring all of yourself to the front line of your own life.  Be in your best body for you in order to bring your whole self to your sacred work.

Resources

There are times when we answer a call - and discover that we have pushed ourselves beyond our resources.  It's easy in such situations to just keep pushing until we simply fall over in exhaustion.  How many of us have experienced this in response to perceived crises?  The college student getting miserably sick following finals is a perfect example.  How effective are we when we end up in a drained state?  

Instead, it helps to stop, look, and listen to the environment around us.  Is there actually a crisis that does require us to keep moving, push through and hope to reach a safe place to stop before we fall down?  Sometimes the answer is yes.  In the case of a a medical emergency this is certainly true, but even there we need to assess carefully whether or not we can safely and effectively respond.

All too often, however, the crisis is only a perceived crisis, and could actually afford to have us wait in responding.  When our personal resources are already low, continuing to say yes to requests for assistance that are not life-threatening drains us, increasing stress levels and lowering our immune systems until we are probably going to get sick in some way.  It's nice to call a rest stop while you can actually enjoy one; waiting until you are in enforced rest by an illness-induced full stop is much less fun and harder to recover from.

Our society encourages the lack of self awareness that leads us into these draining situations.  Those of us who have answered a call to any kind of service are keenly aware of the need crying out in our World, and wish to answer to with everything we have to ease the pain, maybe even to foster some Joy.  The further down the rabbit hole of our own resources we are, the less effective we will be in answering that call. It's so easy to feel overwhelmed by the sea of pain out there, and holding perspective and building safe space gets harder and harder the more overwhelmed we feel.

We joke in our Circle about "put on your own oxygen mask before assisting another," but it's not really a joke at all. It is an admonition to stop, look, and listen to ourselves before stepping forward, to be able to honestly assess what resources we have to offer rather than always be reactively overextended.  

Let Peace begin with me

I have been doing fairly intense Lightwork this season. There is a great deal of need in the world right now, and I have been fortunate to have the internal resources to offer my Work up in some important ways.  I feel the stirrings of Peace on the Winter wind, and I wish to foster the growth of the desire for Peace. 

As the song says, Peace begins with me.   To that end, I have decided to start a Peace shawl for myself. This shawl, which I have wanted to knit for sometime, is soft and intended to remind me of my desire to work for greater Peace in the World starting with creating Peace within myself.  I began knitting on the shawl on the Winter Solstice here in the Northern Hemisphere to commemorate specific Work in which I assisted designed to support the growing Light in the World of spirit.  The shawl actually has the word Peace knitted into it.  The knitting is going much more quickly than I expected it to; I will likely finish it before the end of January.

With this in mind, I have decided that this journey of Peace shawl knitting will encompass more than one shawl.  The first, as I mentioned, is for me, since Peace must begin within each person individually.  The second will be for a close family member; supporting Peace within the family, whether birth or chosen, is the next logical step.  If I have time before December 21, 2012, I will knit a shawl for a member of my community, outside of my immediate family, who is in need.  This is the reach of support from within a family out into their surrounding community.  Beyond that, if I have time in this year, I will knit a Peace shawl for donation to a charity that can place it with someone in need that I do not know, thus reaching further out into the greater World with Love in mind. 

I do not need for these shawls to all be the same pattern.  In fact, it might even be better if they are all completely different.  Each of them will be knit with Love in mind.  That is the goal here: to foster Love, and with that the Peace which passes beyond the understanding of our every day mind into the heart of the Divine.  

Won't you join me?  Knitted, crochet, felted, woven, sewn, stitched, using whatever technique speaks to your spirit, create something that conveys Love and warmth, seed the Light of Peace in yourself, and then reach out.  It doesn't matter how many pieces you make, nor how quickly, it is the intent that counts.  Peace, begin with me.  Let me share this Light.

The Void and the Beacon

In the past, I feared The Void.  Being easily connected to what I perceived as a large, dark, cold, empty place, I fought to learn how to enter The Void without unintended side effects. My body would grow incredibly cold, and the loneliness I felt in that space would weigh heavy on my spirit.

And yet I continued to be drawn into it.  I struggled with the idea that this connection was somehow within me, that here lay the Immanent Divine.  And so I learned to build heat in my body, to remain deeply rooted to Earth even as I reached out into the space that frightened me seeking that deepest connection to Spirit.

What I found has surprised me.  Inside myself there is a bright light, a connection to the Divine.  The real surrprise, however, is that this same light fills the darkness.  Once I found the light within myself, I could recognize the light in the darkness that I had been unable to see before.  The real Joy here is this: the Light that fills The Void is US!  We are the beacons that fill space, we are the ligths that call out, the heat that builds life.  By God Herself, The Void is full of stars and we are them!

Isn't that wonderful?  I think so. Won't you join me in shining forth?