Wednesday 26th August 2009
It wasn’t that long ago that I set myself some weekly goals….walking to work three times a week, an additional yoga practice each week (to make at least 4), regular meditation, and daily journaling…
Like little seedlings, they were carefully watered for a few weeks, they faltered for a while, then somehow I forgot about them. This week, while walking to work, I suddenly remembered them and realised that they’ve all taken root and become firmly established routines in my life.
- I love walking to work each day and do it most days now (weather permitting);
- Yoga practice has changed from an occasional morning struggle to a regular evening practice which is much more achievable
- daily journaling justifies my morning coffee habit so the day starts with reflection, not just caffeine
- and meditation serves as a regular debrief before bed.
Life’s not so bad.
26 August 2009
21 August 2009
Imbalances
Pre menopause…that’s the only explanation I can come up with for my moodiness over the last few months. We humans (especially we women) are at the mercy of our pesky hormonal chemicals. They have a mind all of their own and bombard our systems at will wreaking havoc on our moods and behaviour.
I’m thinking it’s peri-menopausal because
a) I’m 49 years old
b) My menstrual periods have been coming every two weeks for the past three months
c) The ups and downs FEEL hormonal and out of my control.
My heavy frown, my lack of motivation, my depressed state of mind, are all completely out of character. There’s no sense of Divine communion anywhere, no disciplined spiritual practice, no altruistic ideals, no love and compassion for all beings.
Just generally feeling very self-centred and demoralised.
As with all things I know this shall pass, but if it is peri-menopausal it won’t be passing quickly so I’ll need some new strategies other than the panic stricken, beat-myself-up ones that haven’t been helping me at all.
Yoga practice has waned to almost no yoga practice, especially with my yoga buddy Renate overseas for two months – an occasional evening restorative practice has been the yoga highlight of my week. What happened to the athletic 40-something who used to thrive on a daily, sweaty Ashtanga practice? I pondered whether lack of yoga is actually causing my blue state of mind (which led to the thought that feeling good each day may have been completely dependent on a morning Ashtanga yoga practice hit), but quite possibly the reverse is closer to the truth because a depressed mood destroys all motivation and a hormonal imbalance can drastically alter my physical/mental/emotional state.
Hmmm…what comes first, the chicken or the egg?
And can the mood and lack of motivation be overcome by WILL?
I don’t know if one kind of hormone is being overproduced or if another one drying up. Whatever it is = no motivation = no yoga = leave me alone.
The last good 2 hour practice I did was last Saturday, exactly one week ago, but I’ve done a couple of shorter evening practices since them.
Here are my notes from last Saturday:
It was a blissful Saturday morning because I had a day off – no work, no commitments to anyone, my precious time was my very own. I felt strong enough, and present enough to attempt a few moves that have dropped off my practice routine because they aggravate my sacroiliac injury, like the lift-up-jump-back move from seated position.Although I haven’t been able to ever do this properly, engaging the muscles to start it helps strengthen my core and, well, you gotta start somewhere…again.
PASCHIMOTTANASANA
Paschimottanasana, (the seated forward bend) for me starts the second third of the sequence. I tend to divide the whole sequence into three sections: standing, seated and inverted poses. Paschimottanasana is a fairly accurate barometer of my determination on the day – the gauge being how well my heels lift off the ground. If my mind is disengaged or resistant, my heels won’t be off the ground and it becomes a resting pose instead of an active one and the practice will slowly disintegrate from there.
Today I was right in this pose, actively grounding the thighbones, working the leg muscles enough to keep my heels off the ground and engaging mulabandha. Concaving my pubic abdomen (ie. drawing the top of the pubic bone inwards slightly) in all forward bends is something I learned from Glenn Ceresoli and that little adjustment causes wonderful things to happen in my sacroiliac joint and pelvic floor.
From Janu C I digressed to backbending: Supta Virasana to stretch the front of my thighs, Salabhasana to strengthen my spinal muscles, Dhanurasana to develop the upper back arch, Ustrasana to deepen it even further, then some repetitions of Urdhva Dhanurasana focussing on my new obsession with alignment. Add together sacroiliac injury, uneven leg lengths and lop-sided pelvis and you’ll understand why my body needs some serious retraining.
URDHVA DHANURASANA
So I approached Urdhva Dhanurasana with a slightly different intention today. I slid to the top end of the mat, made sure my feet were placed parallel and in a straight from mid-heel to middle toe. The side edges of the mat provided the frame in which I positioned my feet – they had to be an even distance from each side. Once in place I cemented them there, determined not to move them even one millimetre for the duration of the 3 backbends. This was a fascinating mental exercise because I was confronted with every little habit that my feet wanted to revert to, to make the lift up into the backbend easier - like slightly lifting a heel or turning one foot in more than the other. Catching the little urge to move the foot just before the foot responds to the urge gives a fascinating insight into how unconscious and prevalent are our habit patterns.
After pushing up into the first stiff backbend with feet cemented into the earth like tree trunks, I then had to adjust my hands to line them up as perfectly as my feet – each one had to be the same distance from the side edge of the mat, and as I’d placed myself at the end of the mat I could also place the tips of my middle fingers at the leading edge of the mat. Once my feet and hands were perfectly lined up both horizontally and vertically, the unevenness of my arched body was magnified to gigantic proportions in the full backbend. My pelvis felt crooked and I had to work hard to stretch up through the left side of my torso (this is my shorter side, as my left leg is 1.5cm shorter than the right). Need someone to spot me objectively…
So today it was Urdhva Dhanurasana that provided the context within which I could explore the extent of my body’s misalignment.
As my body ages, and as I become increasingly sensitised to the subtleties of my body and its habits, the imbalances built up over a lifetime are emerging in tandem with the imbalances of my peri-menopausal mindstates.
HEADSTAND
Lovely, lovely Headstand....12 minutes in Headstand: 100 breaths, it topped off a thorough practice. Counting to 100 provides a realistic but challenging goal and keeps me right there in the pose, watching how my body and mind change as the seconds tick away.
I’m thinking it’s peri-menopausal because
a) I’m 49 years old
b) My menstrual periods have been coming every two weeks for the past three months
c) The ups and downs FEEL hormonal and out of my control.
My heavy frown, my lack of motivation, my depressed state of mind, are all completely out of character. There’s no sense of Divine communion anywhere, no disciplined spiritual practice, no altruistic ideals, no love and compassion for all beings.
Just generally feeling very self-centred and demoralised.
As with all things I know this shall pass, but if it is peri-menopausal it won’t be passing quickly so I’ll need some new strategies other than the panic stricken, beat-myself-up ones that haven’t been helping me at all.
Yoga practice has waned to almost no yoga practice, especially with my yoga buddy Renate overseas for two months – an occasional evening restorative practice has been the yoga highlight of my week. What happened to the athletic 40-something who used to thrive on a daily, sweaty Ashtanga practice? I pondered whether lack of yoga is actually causing my blue state of mind (which led to the thought that feeling good each day may have been completely dependent on a morning Ashtanga yoga practice hit), but quite possibly the reverse is closer to the truth because a depressed mood destroys all motivation and a hormonal imbalance can drastically alter my physical/mental/emotional state.
Hmmm…what comes first, the chicken or the egg?
And can the mood and lack of motivation be overcome by WILL?
I don’t know if one kind of hormone is being overproduced or if another one drying up. Whatever it is = no motivation = no yoga = leave me alone.
The last good 2 hour practice I did was last Saturday, exactly one week ago, but I’ve done a couple of shorter evening practices since them.
Here are my notes from last Saturday:
It was a blissful Saturday morning because I had a day off – no work, no commitments to anyone, my precious time was my very own. I felt strong enough, and present enough to attempt a few moves that have dropped off my practice routine because they aggravate my sacroiliac injury, like the lift-up-jump-back move from seated position.Although I haven’t been able to ever do this properly, engaging the muscles to start it helps strengthen my core and, well, you gotta start somewhere…again.
PASCHIMOTTANASANA
Paschimottanasana, (the seated forward bend) for me starts the second third of the sequence. I tend to divide the whole sequence into three sections: standing, seated and inverted poses. Paschimottanasana is a fairly accurate barometer of my determination on the day – the gauge being how well my heels lift off the ground. If my mind is disengaged or resistant, my heels won’t be off the ground and it becomes a resting pose instead of an active one and the practice will slowly disintegrate from there.
Today I was right in this pose, actively grounding the thighbones, working the leg muscles enough to keep my heels off the ground and engaging mulabandha. Concaving my pubic abdomen (ie. drawing the top of the pubic bone inwards slightly) in all forward bends is something I learned from Glenn Ceresoli and that little adjustment causes wonderful things to happen in my sacroiliac joint and pelvic floor.
From Janu C I digressed to backbending: Supta Virasana to stretch the front of my thighs, Salabhasana to strengthen my spinal muscles, Dhanurasana to develop the upper back arch, Ustrasana to deepen it even further, then some repetitions of Urdhva Dhanurasana focussing on my new obsession with alignment. Add together sacroiliac injury, uneven leg lengths and lop-sided pelvis and you’ll understand why my body needs some serious retraining.
URDHVA DHANURASANA
So I approached Urdhva Dhanurasana with a slightly different intention today. I slid to the top end of the mat, made sure my feet were placed parallel and in a straight from mid-heel to middle toe. The side edges of the mat provided the frame in which I positioned my feet – they had to be an even distance from each side. Once in place I cemented them there, determined not to move them even one millimetre for the duration of the 3 backbends. This was a fascinating mental exercise because I was confronted with every little habit that my feet wanted to revert to, to make the lift up into the backbend easier - like slightly lifting a heel or turning one foot in more than the other. Catching the little urge to move the foot just before the foot responds to the urge gives a fascinating insight into how unconscious and prevalent are our habit patterns.
After pushing up into the first stiff backbend with feet cemented into the earth like tree trunks, I then had to adjust my hands to line them up as perfectly as my feet – each one had to be the same distance from the side edge of the mat, and as I’d placed myself at the end of the mat I could also place the tips of my middle fingers at the leading edge of the mat. Once my feet and hands were perfectly lined up both horizontally and vertically, the unevenness of my arched body was magnified to gigantic proportions in the full backbend. My pelvis felt crooked and I had to work hard to stretch up through the left side of my torso (this is my shorter side, as my left leg is 1.5cm shorter than the right). Need someone to spot me objectively…
So today it was Urdhva Dhanurasana that provided the context within which I could explore the extent of my body’s misalignment.
As my body ages, and as I become increasingly sensitised to the subtleties of my body and its habits, the imbalances built up over a lifetime are emerging in tandem with the imbalances of my peri-menopausal mindstates.
HEADSTAND
Lovely, lovely Headstand....12 minutes in Headstand: 100 breaths, it topped off a thorough practice. Counting to 100 provides a realistic but challenging goal and keeps me right there in the pose, watching how my body and mind change as the seconds tick away.
29 July 2009
Miscellaneous
Thursday 27th July 2009
Inconsistencies
A heady mixture of extremes over the last few weeks: practice/no practice, running/no running, healthy minimal food/a ton of chocolate, relationship mood swings. For someone so involved in spiritual and psychological development, my inconsistency still perplexes me.
But no-one would ever consider me inconsistent. I’m considered to be serene, stable, dependable and disciplined. Only as one digs deeper into the samskaric layers do the gaps and blips appear. And I’m a compulsive digger, so I see them, I feel them, I tease them out of their hiding spots to analyse and work with them. That’s the practice, digging into those deeper layers to flush out the impurities.
Yoga Practice (and pain)
This week I’ve done three consecutive morning yoga practices, working gently with a body that has stiffened in a survival response to lower-back trauma. I’m convinced (again) that I've seriously injured my sacro-iliac joint, not surprising considering my legs are different lengths causing my pelvis to be crooked, and I've been doing daily yoga practice lopsided for over 10 years.
During the initial acute phase of the injury last December, I visited a Sports Med doctor; after briefly touching this area he said it wasn’t sacro-iliac related. Funny that even after x-rays, he still couldn’t diagnose the cause of my agonising pain. And this was SERIOUS pain - not a tweak or a pulled muscle, or ‘arthrosis’.
Eight months later, the pain is still acute, my entire lower back still tender.
The pain varies day-by-day, week-by-week and I know it varies according to my mental state. Over the last week it seems to have regressed back to acute pain throughout the sacro-iliac area.
So I’ve had to dumb down my yoga practice this week: some core warm-ups, the 10 sun salutes, the evergreen sequence of standing poses, some seated twists and backbends, then lapping up all the extra time in the inversions and seated meditation to fill out my 2 hour practice.
Running
Running hasn’t happened at all this week, not because of my back, but because my tiny window of opportunity to run at night has been filled in with drizzly rain. Dedicated runners go out in the rain but I'm still a reluctant neophyte runner.
Maybe I’ll go tonight.
Or maybe it will rain.
Bhagavad Gita
I’m coming to the end of the Bhagavad Gita. Reading the Gita is uplifting (especially all those descriptive qualities of a saintly person). I'd like to get my hands on a different translation though. Some of the phrases in this one (by Shri Purohit Swami) are a bit archaic and clumsy and do little to convey the delicate complexity of meaning hidden within the Sanskrit words.
Inconsistencies
A heady mixture of extremes over the last few weeks: practice/no practice, running/no running, healthy minimal food/a ton of chocolate, relationship mood swings. For someone so involved in spiritual and psychological development, my inconsistency still perplexes me.
But no-one would ever consider me inconsistent. I’m considered to be serene, stable, dependable and disciplined. Only as one digs deeper into the samskaric layers do the gaps and blips appear. And I’m a compulsive digger, so I see them, I feel them, I tease them out of their hiding spots to analyse and work with them. That’s the practice, digging into those deeper layers to flush out the impurities.
Yoga Practice (and pain)
This week I’ve done three consecutive morning yoga practices, working gently with a body that has stiffened in a survival response to lower-back trauma. I’m convinced (again) that I've seriously injured my sacro-iliac joint, not surprising considering my legs are different lengths causing my pelvis to be crooked, and I've been doing daily yoga practice lopsided for over 10 years.
During the initial acute phase of the injury last December, I visited a Sports Med doctor; after briefly touching this area he said it wasn’t sacro-iliac related. Funny that even after x-rays, he still couldn’t diagnose the cause of my agonising pain. And this was SERIOUS pain - not a tweak or a pulled muscle, or ‘arthrosis’.
Eight months later, the pain is still acute, my entire lower back still tender.
The pain varies day-by-day, week-by-week and I know it varies according to my mental state. Over the last week it seems to have regressed back to acute pain throughout the sacro-iliac area.
So I’ve had to dumb down my yoga practice this week: some core warm-ups, the 10 sun salutes, the evergreen sequence of standing poses, some seated twists and backbends, then lapping up all the extra time in the inversions and seated meditation to fill out my 2 hour practice.
Running
Running hasn’t happened at all this week, not because of my back, but because my tiny window of opportunity to run at night has been filled in with drizzly rain. Dedicated runners go out in the rain but I'm still a reluctant neophyte runner.
Maybe I’ll go tonight.
Or maybe it will rain.
Bhagavad Gita
I’m coming to the end of the Bhagavad Gita. Reading the Gita is uplifting (especially all those descriptive qualities of a saintly person). I'd like to get my hands on a different translation though. Some of the phrases in this one (by Shri Purohit Swami) are a bit archaic and clumsy and do little to convey the delicate complexity of meaning hidden within the Sanskrit words.
24 July 2009
Kid's Yoga Dice
A friend of mine has created a range of giant dice for children to play with as part of his line of educational toys.
He asked me for some ideas on yoga poses for children, I made some suggestions, did some stick drawings and he came up with the first prototype for a yoga dice which is now ready for production.
Here is my granddaughter Lily with the first one last weekend.
Vrksasana
He asked me for some ideas on yoga poses for children, I made some suggestions, did some stick drawings and he came up with the first prototype for a yoga dice which is now ready for production.
Here is my granddaughter Lily with the first one last weekend.
Matsyasana
Bhujangasana
Setu Bandha Sarvangasana
Vrksasana
And here's a YouTube video of the yoga dice being tested out at a kindergarten last week.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOk7-WztpEk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOk7-WztpEk
If you want more information on the yoga dice have a look at this website:
http://www.giantdice.net/yoga-dice.htm
http://www.giantdice.net/yoga-dice.htm
And finally: Me, Lily and Buffy.
The Spirit of Fitness
Saturday 25th July 2009
Running
I started running a couple of weeks ago. I cruise through the streets at night, running for a couple of blocks then walking a little. There’s no desire to get fit, no goals, I’m just enjoying the process, the feeling of freedom and the revitalisation of lost youthfulness.
The solitude of running is intoxicating…there’s just me, the streets, the night, the rhythmic pounding of my steps and my heart, all merging into the quieter pulse of night.
I’m loving it.
Fitness Magazine, quite coincidentally, sent me an email through this blog last week about their current feature on yoga (my apologies to the editors but I’ve never read or even heard of your magazine). I reprint it here without alteration:
Dear Nobhodi,
My name is Nathan and I work with the publisher of Fitness Magazine. You have some very interesting things to say about yoga and life in general.
I thought you might like to know, and might like to let your readers know, that FitnessMagazine.com is currently featuring a complete guide to yoga, including workout videos, photos of many yoga positions, answers to common yoga questions and more.
Have a look at:
The AcroYoga extreme yoga poses, a unique new practice that cultivates trust, connection, and playfulness to bring individuals into a state of union with themselves, each other, and the divine.
The complete yoga video workout, a video by Cyndi Lee, founder of Om Yoga in New York City .
The yoga for better sleep poses, an 8-minute workout of five yoga poses that can be done in bed.
Yoga for back pain, a video showing yoga poses that release tension from the back.
To thank you for helping us promote this information, the FitnessMagazine.com blog will link back to your blog.
I am attaching a couple photos, if you want to include them in your posting. I also have videos I can send if you want to include them.
Let me know if you would like other photos or want any additional information.
Many thanks in advance,
Nathan Groom
For FitnessMagazine.com
Running is a fitness activity– no question about that, but yoga for fitness?
Ashtanga vinyasa yoga is probably the most aerobic of all the physical yoga practices but it is an intensely purifying practice for all layers of our physical/mental/emotional/ spiritual being, not just an exotic fitness regime for the consumer muscle market.
So promotions such as the above for AcroYoga that promise how it can “bring individuals into a state of union with themselves, each other, and the divine” do not go down well with me (again, my apologies to the editors of Fitness Magazine).
A state of union with themselves????? Who wrote that?
As human beings with bodies we are meant to be active, hunting and gathering, running, playing, roaming through the natural landscape in search of food and shelter. Contrast this to our stagnant western lifestyles where hours/days/weeks/years are spent in front of computers and televisions. Many of us have forgotten how wonderful it feels to be physically active out in Nature, to have the life force and endorphins flooding through us, overflowing with natural childlike joy.
For me, running and yoga are not in opposition, but rather they complement each other, combining to elevate the spirit. And if we can live permanently from a higher consciousness, we can be like a lamp unto others, uplifting the energy of those around us and serving a higher divine purpose. Christian Larson describes this as “living in the upper storey”.
Better to be physically fit and active than not.
Better to run/ride/lift weights/hit the gym than do nothing.
But how much better it is to enliven the spirit as well as the body.
Bhagavad Gita
I’ve picked up the Bhagavad Gita a few times over the years but never read it through seriously.
This time round it’s different. I'm enthralled with every sentence.
The words are like sharp arrows armed with wisdom; the target is the centre of my heart.
From Chapter 6: Meditation and Self-Control:
“Let the student of spirituality try unceasingly to concentrate his mind, let him live in seclusion, absolutely alone, with mind and personality controlled, free from desire, and without possessions.” (6.10)
“The wise man who has conquered his mind and is absorbed in the Self is as a lamp which does not flicker, since it stands sheltered from every wind.” (6.19)
“This inner severance form the affliction of misery is spirituality. It should be practiced with determination, and with a heart which refuses to be depressed.” (6.23)
Running
I started running a couple of weeks ago. I cruise through the streets at night, running for a couple of blocks then walking a little. There’s no desire to get fit, no goals, I’m just enjoying the process, the feeling of freedom and the revitalisation of lost youthfulness.
The solitude of running is intoxicating…there’s just me, the streets, the night, the rhythmic pounding of my steps and my heart, all merging into the quieter pulse of night.
I’m loving it.
Fitness Magazine, quite coincidentally, sent me an email through this blog last week about their current feature on yoga (my apologies to the editors but I’ve never read or even heard of your magazine). I reprint it here without alteration:
Dear Nobhodi,My name is Nathan and I work with the publisher of Fitness Magazine. You have some very interesting things to say about yoga and life in general.
I thought you might like to know, and might like to let your readers know, that FitnessMagazine.com is currently featuring a complete guide to yoga, including workout videos, photos of many yoga positions, answers to common yoga questions and more.
Have a look at:
The AcroYoga extreme yoga poses, a unique new practice that cultivates trust, connection, and playfulness to bring individuals into a state of union with themselves, each other, and the divine.
The complete yoga video workout, a video by Cyndi Lee, founder of Om Yoga in New York City .
The yoga for better sleep poses, an 8-minute workout of five yoga poses that can be done in bed.
Yoga for back pain, a video showing yoga poses that release tension from the back.
To thank you for helping us promote this information, the FitnessMagazine.com blog will link back to your blog.
I am attaching a couple photos, if you want to include them in your posting. I also have videos I can send if you want to include them.
Let me know if you would like other photos or want any additional information.
Many thanks in advance,
Nathan Groom
For FitnessMagazine.com
Running is a fitness activity– no question about that, but yoga for fitness?
Ashtanga vinyasa yoga is probably the most aerobic of all the physical yoga practices but it is an intensely purifying practice for all layers of our physical/mental/emotional/ spiritual being, not just an exotic fitness regime for the consumer muscle market.
So promotions such as the above for AcroYoga that promise how it can “bring individuals into a state of union with themselves, each other, and the divine” do not go down well with me (again, my apologies to the editors of Fitness Magazine).
A state of union with themselves????? Who wrote that?
As human beings with bodies we are meant to be active, hunting and gathering, running, playing, roaming through the natural landscape in search of food and shelter. Contrast this to our stagnant western lifestyles where hours/days/weeks/years are spent in front of computers and televisions. Many of us have forgotten how wonderful it feels to be physically active out in Nature, to have the life force and endorphins flooding through us, overflowing with natural childlike joy.
For me, running and yoga are not in opposition, but rather they complement each other, combining to elevate the spirit. And if we can live permanently from a higher consciousness, we can be like a lamp unto others, uplifting the energy of those around us and serving a higher divine purpose. Christian Larson describes this as “living in the upper storey”.
Better to be physically fit and active than not.
Better to run/ride/lift weights/hit the gym than do nothing.
But how much better it is to enliven the spirit as well as the body.
Bhagavad Gita
I’ve picked up the Bhagavad Gita a few times over the years but never read it through seriously.
This time round it’s different. I'm enthralled with every sentence.
The words are like sharp arrows armed with wisdom; the target is the centre of my heart.
From Chapter 6: Meditation and Self-Control:
“Let the student of spirituality try unceasingly to concentrate his mind, let him live in seclusion, absolutely alone, with mind and personality controlled, free from desire, and without possessions.” (6.10)
“The wise man who has conquered his mind and is absorbed in the Self is as a lamp which does not flicker, since it stands sheltered from every wind.” (6.19)
“This inner severance form the affliction of misery is spirituality. It should be practiced with determination, and with a heart which refuses to be depressed.” (6.23)
18 July 2009
The Silence and Beauty of Solitude
Saturday 18th July 2009
“To live wisely and intelligently requires a deep, meditative re-examination of priorities.”
Light on Enlightenment - Christopher Titmus
It’s Saturday morning - I’m surrounded by people in a noisy café, smack bang in the middle of a shopping mall, twittering, chattering humans pausing momentarily in between bouts of compulsive spending, some reading newspapers, others stuffing kids with yet more consumer products, lives bulging with shopping bags. There’s an endless undercurrent of busyness, it hums like the fridge we don’t notice til it stops. Shopping malls…hundreds of egos projecting themselves out into the world, bouncing off each other, colliding, repelling, then turning in on themselves, exchanging useless information and regurgitating it to pump up self-images. A million useless, frenetic conversations with no genuine communication.
Tons and tons of wasted human energy.
The hectic buzz of a Saturday morning café.
The flavour of espresso bites…then lingers deliciously on my tongue. I feel the buzzy vibration on my inner energy field.
Personal velocity.
It’s Saturday afternoon – I’m surrounded by windswept canopies of trees and birds; water trickles somewhere in a creek closeby; there’s a kiss of sunshine through crisp wintery air. I inhale the fresh purity of green life, oxygen, the gift of photosynthesis.
No-one’s up here at Horsenell Gully today…just me…such a small me in the vast beauty of nature, there’s room to relax and expand into the spaces between the threads that weave our world together.
I bathe in the silence and solitude, soaking it up to recharge my people-depleted energy.
More and more I’m making choices that enhance this quietness, living a simple life with simple pleasures. As the activities and people drop naturally away, new shoots appear in the undergrowth of my life. A new kind of life energy is arising that is pure and powerful; it’s the energy of a focussed life, channelled through the purifying lens of clarity and one-pointedness. Debris and clutter and disappearing, my life is being washed clean by the illuminative power of simplicity, silence and solitude.
“To live wisely and intelligently requires a deep, meditative re-examination of priorities.”
Light on Enlightenment - Christopher Titmus
It’s Saturday morning - I’m surrounded by people in a noisy café, smack bang in the middle of a shopping mall, twittering, chattering humans pausing momentarily in between bouts of compulsive spending, some reading newspapers, others stuffing kids with yet more consumer products, lives bulging with shopping bags. There’s an endless undercurrent of busyness, it hums like the fridge we don’t notice til it stops. Shopping malls…hundreds of egos projecting themselves out into the world, bouncing off each other, colliding, repelling, then turning in on themselves, exchanging useless information and regurgitating it to pump up self-images. A million useless, frenetic conversations with no genuine communication.
Tons and tons of wasted human energy.
The hectic buzz of a Saturday morning café.
The flavour of espresso bites…then lingers deliciously on my tongue. I feel the buzzy vibration on my inner energy field.
Personal velocity.
It’s Saturday afternoon – I’m surrounded by windswept canopies of trees and birds; water trickles somewhere in a creek closeby; there’s a kiss of sunshine through crisp wintery air. I inhale the fresh purity of green life, oxygen, the gift of photosynthesis.
No-one’s up here at Horsenell Gully today…just me…such a small me in the vast beauty of nature, there’s room to relax and expand into the spaces between the threads that weave our world together.
I bathe in the silence and solitude, soaking it up to recharge my people-depleted energy.
More and more I’m making choices that enhance this quietness, living a simple life with simple pleasures. As the activities and people drop naturally away, new shoots appear in the undergrowth of my life. A new kind of life energy is arising that is pure and powerful; it’s the energy of a focussed life, channelled through the purifying lens of clarity and one-pointedness. Debris and clutter and disappearing, my life is being washed clean by the illuminative power of simplicity, silence and solitude.
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