Feastival of Lights

My life span has included a number of amazing events.
Man on the Moon
the year 2000
and this year, Thanksgiving and Hanukkah are on the same day. That won't happen again for a very very very long time. The radio said it would never happen again. I, of course, won't go that far, but you get the picture.

A cool combination. A Feast of Lights. When we think feast, we often think heavy, so why not capitalize on the inherent Light of the day. Lightly feast? Feast on Light.

Be the light that you are and you will never go hungry.
Feast on your Self and the Knowingness that lies within and you will never be confused.
Feast on the Present Moment and you will never feel depressed.
Feast on the Whole and you will never feel unworthy.
Feast on non-judgement and you will ride the center line.
Feast on fun and you will never be bored.
Feast on love and you will remember who you are.


And for a person that didn't want to commit to the use of the word "never" at the beginning of this blog, well, let's just say I got off my judgement of the word and trusted the Whole to make sure the point gets across in the perfect way for each light who reads this.

And thank you.
Gracias-tude.

Full of Tude

I am thankful that I love myself enough to feel fully grateful.
Fully great.    Full.
So full…

Toodle oodle doo!

Flip a bit o 'tude! Show some 'tude! Got tude? Don't mean rude.

It's the attitude of gratitude. So show yourself some.

With or without the 'tudinal flip, I am thankful that you are here. I am thankful that you read this. I am thankful that there is a person/being/anything really to thank.

Thanks tude

Gratis-tude-  thanks for free. Unconditional thanking

What's behind the curtain

A few blogs ago, on Nov 10, 2013,  I wrote this:

Sharing is caring

And I'm sharing. In this moment I am so full of it, I want to share all of it with you! So in the spirit of Let's Make a Deal, do you want some of what I'm full of? 

I'm giving you all the _____________ you want! It's up to you. Do you want it? Let me know and I'll tell you what's behind the curtain.

and i never told you what's behind the curtain. I got distracted with the Distraction series. Then had some dragons to deal with. truthfully, i totally forgot.

What is behind the curtain is YOU. You are the curtain. So yes, you are the great and powerful Oz, the trip and the car, the Home of Shangrila.

I am full of it and full of you and full of black and full of blue
My closet's also full of shoes
and yes I've paid my union dues
so time to read the headline news

I'm full of it and full of you.
I shared because I cared.

And I am ever so grateful for you.

Dragons are People Too - Pt 2

So I've been out on a journey, sharpening my blade, my wits, and my typing fingers (do we still call it typing? keyboarding? snowboarding? jean - read your blog about distractions dude!)

Sharpening up to deliver the blow. And if you have expectations right now, you might want to drop those cuz it may not be that big of a blow after all.

In the Nov 18 blog, I alluded to fairy tales, root vegetables, ok - roots - vegetable not specified, but possible, natural disasters (which pair perfectly with roots if you look at my hair right now!), and money. Here it is - draw your sword o Dragon!

When we talk about survival in our culture, what does it really boil down to? Money. Do I have enough money to live? If I don't have enough money to live, then I will die. This keeps us in jobs we don't like, gives us an excuse to behave in certain ways - i.e. - i have to put my job first, otherwise I will die, etc…  And if we are "poor," living hand to mouth, paycheck to paycheck, or not even having a paycheck, our biggest concern is getting what we need to stay alive one more day.

Let's just say we are a in a family that's "poor." We have a built in pet - a dragon, a demon, something to blame, something to live for, something to band together to fight. Just like when tsunamis and hurricanes hit, we have a "reason" to forget who we think we are for a moment, and fight the dragon, the demon, the evil that hurt my fellow people. But what happens once we slay the dragon?

Once we slay the family pet, the dragon, and my family has more than enough money, towns are rebuilt and thriving, we are no longer fighting for survival. We are no longer stuck in the root chakra. We no longer live in constant fear of our lives. Now we can sit up and take a breath and start being who we think we are. Happily ever after? Let's look at fairy tale...

Take that family that was working together to survive. Now they have the trips, the cars, the time. Have you heard this comment "We were so happy when we were poor? Money has ruined everything!" (only people with money will say that btw). Money ruined nothing. It eliminated your excuse to stay in your root chakra and make fear based decisions. Now that death is off the table (not exactly true, but for now, let's just run with that), we are left ourselves, sans dragon. And we are left with the person who was fighting next to you. What if your relationship only works when you are fighting a demon? What if when you move out of fear to the next level, you have nothing to talk about? What if now that you know you will live to see another day, you start acting like yourself - warts and all, and that pushes your partner's buttons to high heaven and vice versa? What if you are appalled at their behavior and choices, now that they actually have a choice (since before it was life or death, and that's off the table)?

Now the Dragon, the devil, the demon, is no longer outside of ourselves, and we are faced with the dragon inside of ourselves. So this "we were happy when we had no money" just means that fear kept us ignorant. And ignorance is bliss. And in the end, and the beginning, we have the choice to stay stuck on the Dragons outside of ourselves, or we can slay that beast, and then turn our attention inward and start getting to know the Dragons within. And this is where the real war begins.

#mybiglife  #mybigdragon #dragonsarepeopletoo #hashtagmydragonbaby #loveyoubabe

Slaying the Dragon Part 1

As a little girl, I was always thrilled by the prince who would slay the dragon and saving the lives of innocents. (yes, innocents - plural. not innocence, even though that could work too).

Disasters strike. They have become our modern day Dragons. We all band together to "slay the evil thing that did such and such to us."

This morning I heard on the radio, from some government person responding to tornado related destruction "We will prevail over the tornados!" I burst out laughing. Really??? We will prevail over tornados? We can rise up from the destruction caused by tornados, but tornados, and other "natural disasters" will happen. Probably more than once.

Back to the dragons.

Dragons are all about root chakra - fear. The 4 biggies: survival, food, sex, sleep. Mostly survival. In the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, he talks about "Abhinivesha" or fear of death. It pretty much boils down to that.

So what is at the root of our survival issues? What governs our feelings around whether or not we will survive? Money. Money. Money. So money may very well be the "root" of all "evil" - root being the root cause of fear, and evil being the dragon we need to slay in order to feel safe.

So, how do we slay this dragon? Do we even want to actually slay the dragon? What happens if we do/don't? What if we want a dragon as a pet?

Stay tuned for more on modern day dragon slaying, and you may end up becoming your own knight (or day) in shining armor! (shining being the luminosity that knows no sorrow, often said to reside in the heart chakra, and armor being the will to live from that place)

Filled to the brim

I'm so full. Full of all of it. Today was so full the filling of the full 

started spilling after school 

and I missed seeing my amazing friends perform their righteous words. 

No words can I say 

to make it some other way

Than what it is

So I can trust that I was where I needed to be 

and let myself see

The perfection of whatever that was

And know that we are all connected

Even if we aren't in the same room.

A Whole lot of Distraction

To temporarily put an end to this distraction series, let's just say, just because i feel like saying it, that if we embrace these distractions as part of the Whole, we will become more Whole. Not because we are less than Whole, but because we have accepted more of the Whole, more of ourselves.

And who said distractions had to be negative? Ever hear of SOS - "shiny object syndrome?" I have it. Just ask my husband. Anything beautiful, sparkly, quirky, unique, interesting, etc... can catch my eye in a moment's notice, taking me off course. And sometimes those shiny objects may have been just the light I was looking for, whether it be inside or outside of myself. But the more light I see without, the more capacity I build for seeing it within. And vice versa.

So when it all boils down and is ready to serve on the table of your life - it's perfect. With or without distractions on the side. 

Distraction Extraction

(note: there will be references to the previous blog, so if you feel lost, distract yourself and check out yesterday's post)

So I now choose door number 2 - eliminate the distraction.

We try to get rid of that which distracts us in a number of ways. Whether we get up and turn off the radio, change our breathing, count to 10, leave the room, clean the house, the distraction really hasn't gone anywhere. After the radio, there will still be another noise. Our breath will change again. 10 only lasts for the count of 10. And the house will get dirty again. So we really never eliminate anything if you think about it. Even people. When someone leaves us, or even dies, don't you notice that there is another personality to come in and push all the right buttons?

So when we set out to eliminate the distractions, it seems to really work. But haven't we just distracted ourselves from the distractions? This is not a bad thing btw. It's  a good tool to have. It can help us get off a thought train, a hamster wheel.

It takes me back to door number 3 - if I can start loving, embracing, welcoming, accepting distractions as part of my reality, I may experience them in a different way. And instead of using distraction replacement therapy, I can start relationship counseling with my Self and my Distractions. 

Distractions

So there you are. Sitting. "Meditating." Start with a little breath work. Sit a little longer. And what happens? Are you more or less calm? What has stopping your momentum done for you but shine a light on that which occupies you? And that which was occupying you, is now called a Distraction.

How do we deal with distraction? Radio too loud? Turn it off. House too dirty? Clean it. Offensive smell? Leave the room. But what about those distractions that are more challenging to run away from? For example, I'm on an airplane with a crying child next to me (I can't turn it off), who is throwing Cheerios in my lap (I can clean it up, but it keeps on coming), and someone farts. I'm in a plane and can't leave. All of these things distracting me from something that I perceive as "more important."

Let's go back to meditating. I'm distracted by my thoughts, my laundry list. I'm distracted by my tight shoulders, my aching hip. I'm distracted by mu judgement of myself for being distracted instead of "one-pointed." What are my options?
1) i can remain in the pain of my distraction
2) i can try to eliminate my distractions
3) i can embrace my distractions
4) anything else you can think of

"I choose to explore door  number 3, Bob!" So what if, instead of trying to "fix" my distractions, I breathe into them, embrace them, even welcome them, as part of me and my experience. As part of my Wholeness. As part of The Wholeness. So I breathe in, acknowledging the distraction. I breathe out, hugging the distraction. At the very least, I'm changing my relationship to the distraction, which will change my experience of being distracted.

What if we start to welcome those pesky, squirrelly, niggley, wiggly aspects? Maybe by acknowledging them, they lighten up, or even move on? Maybe I learn something? Maybe I find a way to peacefully co-exist. Maybe nothing changes. But it will change, because we have changed how we respond, even if only for a moment. And that changes everything. Maybe enough to distract us from our distractions so we can move on and get more in the present moment.

Tomorrow - what happens if we try to eliminate the distractions...

what was I saying?  oh yeah...

;)

Sharing is caring

And I'm sharing. In this moment I am so full of it, I want to share all of it with you! So in the spirit of Let's Make a Deal, do you want some of what I'm full of? 

I'm giving you all the _____________ you want! It's up to you. Do you want it? Let me know and I'll tell you what's behind the curtain.

The bliss of ignorance

If we don't know what we are missing, we can blissfully live our painful lives.

Auto correct me

Wiping the tears from my eyes reading auto-correct texts. Then I got to thinking- the same bloopers come out of our mouths everyday. We start to tell the truth from the present moment, but halfway through, we blurt out something else.

Is there a place in our brain we can turn off auto-correct? Oh yeah, that would b yoga.

Quality vs Quantity

Quality vs quantity. Which is it? And why is it important that we know?

Regarding yoga practice, I've been told both. The quality of your practice counts for a great deal, but you must have 1,000,000 repetitions of your mantra. Or is the quantity assuming that 999,999 will be of a lesser quality, and it really only takes 1 to do the trick?

One great bite of food. Is that all it takes? Or what about 1,000,000 lesser bites? And if I have 1 amazing chocolate bar in my house, is that enough? What about when it's gone? Will it keep feeding me for the other 999,999 days? 

Maybe quality v quantity is an upscale issue. When we have quantity, then we move on to quality. Maybe until the root chakra is taken care of, meaning we have enough to survive, then we move on the second chakra- preference. Quality. 

Only when we feel we have enough, does the issue of quality come in. But if we haven't let go of fear, the memories or samskaras that were back in the days when we didn't have enough, we may never feel like we have enough.  And no matter the quality, we will still seek the quantity. It still won't be enough. 

So if we perceive ourselves as hungry, less than, not worthy, inadequate, unlucky, unlikely, then no matter the gifts we bestow or receive, it will never be enough. That one perfect repetition of mantra will not be enough, even though it was enough. 

Only when we know we are enough, will enough be enough. And that is quality and quantity.