Wow! Gangagi's words have opened some inner eye into me. There is so much in this piece for me to think about or not think about and allow my self to experience. I seem to remember times in my life when I was less of an I and much more or completely immersed in just being. I guess that has been when on what we would call a vacation and out in natural settings. So much inner space to explore or perhaps ignore.
I will go to beach today and bury my naked self in sand. And, who knows, perhaps I will Be vigilance.
Aloha- I constantly bring back my wandering attention. I did it several times while reading this article and unfortunately even when someone important to me is sharing deeply. I was known as a "day dreamer" for all my school years which were more than 20 years. I still managed to be very successful in my career and my relationships. I believe that the more gestalt perceptions of scanning and listening broadly can be very helpful evolutionarily and when balanced with the more focused folks in a co-creative community could save us from destroying ourselves and our world. Some people who have those perspectives in balance would make the best leaders in my opinion.
mahalo nui loa for this conversation
Ahhh! This story really connecting me with many incidents of transformation in my life. As a child, I was often upset by what I felt as injustice but mostly chose to hide. Sporadically anger arose and I would use my fists or an outburst of words. This has been a painful path for me but I have learned to allow myself to grieve and even enjoy my broken heart. This has led to deep healing in myself and with others, though sometimes taking many years. I still feel anger arise and can be mentally preoccupied with vengeful thoughts but no fists and rarely an outburst. This energy gets channeled into community organizing for international day of peace recently, annual Martin luther king day , poetry and peace dance events, and holding babies of all ages and sizes and shapes in my spiritual arms close to my heart and hairy chest.
Thank you sacred waters, thank sacred streams, thank you for your blessings, our aina healthy and green.
Thank you sacred waters, thank you sacred spring, thank you for the blessings, our bodies healthy and clean.
We shall live and give more, we shall love and share more, we shall sing give thanks and praise,
to live in a good way , a good way , a good way, a good way, a good way a good way, a good way a good way,
a good wayyyyyyyy
Find the sacred in every last drop, find the sacred when you think that it's not
find the holy all across the land , find the holy when you think that you can't!
Ahhhh! The taste of the sacred. Being in nature and feeling safe and supported by beauty, Feeling my place in the web of life. Knowing I am blessed with abundance, always enough and more. Remembering the perfect parents that I have. Gathering with my community to sing and dance. And though I know , I always enjoy studying and learning more. Knowing that I am the creator of my experience and one hundred percent responsible for what I feel. Opening to the myriad of sensations in joy of being alive and sharing my joy and my grief. I believe only what I directly experience and have faith that peace and safety are possible now for all beings.
Right now this exploration is helpful since the I that i identify with is experiencing some turmoil related to 2 friends who are relating to me, this body that has made some choices that they are not entirely pleased with lately . My outward behavior, things I said or did were contrary to what they believed they needed or fit for their ease. My little i knows I did or said the best I could with a loving , compassionate heart , yet i did not please them, these friends. i made choices that felt right in those moments. There may have been unconscious shadow beliefs during me that I had not delved into.
At this moment I am aware that any turmoil that I experiencing is certainly not real. It is a choice of emotions that this surface me is choosing. Not my soul essence which I know is safe, and well, and loved in a way that is different and more real than this body that was experiencing some turmoil,
Experiencing grief has been the door for me toward every day being the best day of my life after years of depression. It took a long time for me to discover that anger, frustration, addictions to sex and constant activity were ways to avoid grief. I always felt better once I allowed myself to have a real good crying, sobbing session and take time to be stilling on the earth, sand, water and fully breathe.
I have incorporated Reichian/ bio-energetic exercises into my work as a wholistic physical therapist. Stillness, shaking( chaotic or dynamic meditation as taught by Rajneesh), or fetal position holding as a parent unconditionally loving a child have become pathways for many of my clients to end long term "chronic" pain.
Breath work is amazingly powerful.
I have benefitted from what is called "radical forgiveness" which may appear to be a form of "cognitive bypass" with the concept of re-framing any event in my life as perfect and transforming events such as abuse, violence, suicides, genocide, homelessness, environmental catastrophe into "calls for help" toward increased LOVE rather than Evil, or sinful. What is the message? What brings me and my world into balance?
Though I think I always abhorred any energetic resembling aggression , I perpetrated many explosive violent reactions toward my brother and other neighborhood kids when i became frustrated, not knowing how to express my needs for emotional understanding. I can forgive myself and others for acts of violence with the context of understanding now that we do not live in a culture that places value on emotional learning.
When I was eligible for the draft into the Vietnam War, I looked into becoming a conscientiousobjector . I knew in my heart that there is no violence that is Right or ok, that the idea of turning the other cheek was the only path to peace. The idea of NVC that when we can discover all of our beautiful needs and communicate them as requests , not demands, that we can all live non-violently in win/win.
That is the world that I envision, yet when I or someone else acts out
usually or maybe always due to fear I know that the violent act is always an unskillful way to get Love that we truly desire and even if there is grief or anger summoned in response to the aggression, I remember that that aggression is a call for help, and I know that there is only love.
"loving with hands wide open" for me, means being fully receptive- no limiting belief minimalizing the miraculous ecstasy that pours over and into what I call ME. And MORE ME overflows into loving healing hands that ae place on thou if thou accepteth. In the acceptance by thou ae HAVE all ae ever needed while allowing thou full creative expression.
This is the personal story that ae experience constantly with "my" partner.
The How( in my humble opinion) is knowing our multidimensionality, knowing that we have way more than 53 senses to attune with, and that all experience is a choice. What shadow would cause one to choose to love any way less than consciously, conscientiously, concretely, and constructively.
I love the storytelling "I" that surrounds aer self in a mysterious wondrous healing adventure. Any and every moment that I find a feeling arising from unmet needs I return to gratitude and feel enfolded in the arms of love against a breast of a loving beating heart and know that all experience is a re-frameable choice. " Every little cell in my body is happy, every little cell in my body is well!"
On Dec 27, 2022 Stream wrote on Be Vigilance, by Gangaji: