Tempestuous Luminescence

As the sun rises on this day, may the light shine upon you too☀️

Right now things may feel a bit chaotic and crazy but … things are! It is serving me to accept this rather than deny or hold onto any previous idea of how things should be.

I am practicing to help myself be steady in this storm. Sometimes that includes being able to really feel the storm so that we can learn how to navigate even in the wild winds, cold rain and snow. And still see the beauty that surrounds us, illuminated uniquely by this tempestuous luminescence.

Perhaps this is a creative evolutionary trait that we may need to make it through this time.

As I hold this orientation maybe it helps you align to it and as you hold your center it helps me find mine too.

Thank you.

♥️

Quarantine Awakening

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There is something so electric about the sunrise. The way the light slowly increases to illuminate the landscape, revealing all that was shrouded in mystery. I feel more capable, wise, like I understand things a bit more clearly.

We made it through the night again to face another day. ⁣⁣
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I slept on the couch last night so I could awake with the sunrise on this snow capped hill across from my window. I feel like I’m finally waking up, I’ve been so tired for such a long time. ⁣⁣
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That’s what I’ve been doing during this time of isolation, I’ve been resting. At first I could hardly get off the couch. I figured I was stressed, depressed, overwhelmed, afraid and triggered from ptsd for a variety of reasons in this situation.

While all that was valid, I then recognized I was exhausted from the move and the last year of getting Philip settled into college, then before that from 20 years of parenting. Then I thought, wow, I’ve been running since I graduated high school! Then I realized I have been going since way before that. As long as I can remember I’ve been running. And I was starting to falter in it too. I really needed some rest. ⁣⁣
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So I have been. Resting. When else have I ever been given the time and space to finally, fully rest? In the beginning of this I spent time purposefully allowing myself to be as slow as I wanted. I am always being rushed in life; I could finally go at my own pace. Maybe nothing has ever felt this good.

I stayed in bed as long as I wanted. I took naps anywhere and anytime. I didn’t make myself leave the house if I didn’t want to. I let go of any pressure to get anything done. I let myself be. So much underlying static rose up and was processed or released, or both.⁣⁣
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I have been spending a lot of time in a liminal meditative space between wake and sleep where I allow a free flow of thought while retaining consciousness. My tolerance to retaining presence in any state is increasing and a sense of adaptability and underlying peace is stabilizing.

Much insight into things that have plagued me is arising while I am also coming to terms with what I can’t know and don’t have the power to fully control. In doing this I start to see what choices I do have and where I can have an affect.

I am not doing all this but just being and allowing it to rise and process.⁣

I’ve gone from perhaps the most afraid and triggered I’ve ever been (as it was the culmination of a lifetime) to feeling that the perspective of this lifetime is the most integrated it has ever been. Because I finally have the space to let myself be. ⁣

I know this isn’t everyone’s experience. Many are working harder than ever before, many are in unsafe conditions without enough resources. Many appear to be struggling with being alone and not being able to get out or be entertained while others are suffering from being with the people with whom they are isolating. Some have been terribly sick or losing loved ones. There are usually many sides to each experience.

I may have been sick too, maybe with a physical illness, certainly soul sick and exhausted from a lifetime of trying to keep up. All I know is the mist is clearing. We are all going through something right now. ⁣

We are all in this together, sure, but we are not all in the same situation. Each have our own life tragedies born from this and otherwise and each will learn what we learn. ⁣

I could tell you my tragedies but you already have your own. Instead today I chose to share some of the beauty that I am experiencing. ⁣

Waking up inside the parable of my life and learning to let myself be. Slow and steady like the sunrise, until suddenly, when everything is illuminated.⁣

No matter your story, perhaps you will experience some of this too.⁣

We made it through the night again to face another day.
♥️

Gayatri Mantra

Om Bhur Bhuvaḥ Swaḥ

Tat-savitur Vareñyaṃ

Bhargo Devasya Dhīmahi

Dhiyo Yo Nah Prachodayāt

ॐ भूर्भुवः स्वः

तत्सवितुर्वरेण्यं

भर्गो देवस्य धीमहि

धियो यो नः प्रचोदयात्

Gratefully dilating open to allow the all pervasive radiant light beyond individual form to shine through.

Dissipating the veils, pixelating the solidity of the forms, clearing the lenses that block us from wisdom, from experiencing the continuum of the infinite.

(current transliteration and experience of the moment)

Equinox Sunrise

For many years I taught yoga somewhere that was a 45 minute drive from my house and at certain times of the year I would leave in the dark and witness the sunrise. Often during class I would say, because for me it was true and because I had seen it happen so many times, that the awakenings come slow and steady like the sunrise, and then there are those moments like flashes of light when everything suddenly becomes brighter. When those shifts come, let it happen. Let yourself be transformed.

At some point I noticed that these sudden flashes happened especially at certain places along my drive, like when I drove north past exit 20 on I-93 in New Hampshire. Some of it was that the sun had risen higher and some of it was just that I had moved myself into a position where I could more clearly see the light.
Which really, is all the sunrise is, and the equinox, and the passing out of an eclipse. The sun is always shining. We just move into a position where we are in more in the light than in our own or something else’s shadow.

nymphs

wisps of mist
the sighs of nymphs
frozen in the sleep abyss
the crystalline dreamscape
embrace of winter
time

awakened by the simple kiss
the warm caress of their dear lovers lips
their lover
who everyone’s lover is
the sun

Shift

During sunset and sunrise, the transition times, when one thing is ending and transforming into the next, everything is accentuated. Illuminated. So alive I can taste it. The colors race across the sky in one last vibrant flash, imprinting upon us the resonance of their existence as they dissipate into the future they were heralding.
Fascinating to be present in this moment, the blending of past and future so obvious, the path that led us here so clear. What is coming gradually unveiling.
Becoming.
Now.

The Subtleties of the Sunrise

How many times
Can I watch the moon set at sunrise
While driving this same stretch of highway
To teach the same yoga asana postures
To the same types of people
In the same rooms
And ride the same trails
On the same mountains
And sleep with the same man
In the same bed
In the same house
In the same town
Before it loses it’s novelty
And becomes rote?

These are the questions
I used to contemplate
As I hastily sped to work
At 6:30 in the morning
Praying I wouldn’t be late.

Sometimes
I noticed the subtleties of the sunrise.
And that the moon was never in the same place.

And neither was I.

Awakenings
Come slow and steady
Like the sunrise
Until sometimes
With a flash
Everything is illuminated
Revealing what you couldn’t see before
In crisp vibrant clarity.

Now I leave early
In wonder
Of where the light will first crest the horizon
In awe
Of the hue that ridges the mountaintops
And defines the boundary
Between earth
And sky.

It is never the same.

Nor are the asanas
Or the people I share them with.
Even the rooms have changed.
The consistency and texture of the snow is always variable
The landscape shifts with the blow of the wind.
I can taste the humidity
And smell the storm in the distance.
Sometimes we we skate on the lake
And sometimes
We swim.

The eccentricities of each encounter.
Even when it looks the same
The nuances distinct.
The novelty
The consistent everchanging
Subtleties
Never knowing
Until maybe
When I’m in it.
Every moment a transition
And always
Right now.
Noticing.
Being.
Always interesting.

I mostly sleep alone now
In my own house
Or my own car
Or on couches
Or in the bed of the forest
As I drive this same stretch of highway
It has never become boring
And it has never
Been
The same.

Hide and Seek

Incandescent orb shimmering
Melting snowcovered seascape of sky
Waves of lithe clouds swimming
Intermittently veil and revealing
Feminine contours of mountains
Modest confident majesty 

Enclosed inside my temperate auto
Slowly curving alongside the river
Silent for the wheels upon the road
I gaze soft focus through my windowpane
Entranced by the serene fluid stillness
Frozen, yet liquid, and vapor, and light
As sunlight escapes briefly
And illuminates the horizon
And then falls behind cover
And hides from me again