Gaia Community: sass' Blog

an Integral Spiritual Retreat for Women, Bali March 2010

http://sass.gaia.com — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 01:23:36 GMT

I'm excited to announce....

an Integral Spiritual Retreat

for Women

with Dr Sarah Nicholson

and Tina Nance

inanna

Experience deep, energising, rest and nurturance,

Engage your consciounesss of mind, body and spirit,

Explore the path of womens sprituality...

through yoga, meditation,

journaling, dream work, dance

women's history and Integral theory

Yoga

Stretch and strengthen each morning with daily yoga practice in Honeymoon Guesthouse's yoga room.

Meditation

Lie down and let go. Come back to your self with deep rest meditation in the style of Open Dharma.

Journalling

Beginning with presence, in the body, this free writing technique will open the gatway to creative expression and insight.

Dream Work

Work with extending conscious awareness into the realm of sleep through recording, remembering, and naming your dreams, and dialoguing with your dream self.

Dance

Experience the ecstacy of "Dancing the Dakini"

Womens Spiritual History

Beginning in ancient Sumerian myth, learn about women who have walked the path before us. Join in story with the lineage of spiritual heroines who have embodied the divine in flesh as women. Understand women's spirituality in the context of Integral theory's evolutionary unfolding.

Integral Theory

Explore and understand the pathways of women's development through Integral theory, as drawn from the work of Ken Wilber, Carol Gilligan, Susann Cook Greuter, Jenny Wade and others.What does Unitive development (the embodiment of the divine) look like? Is there a path of development specific to women? What might the hurdles be? How might our relationship to the social and cultural world as women affect our personal development?

About the venue:

Honeymoon Guesthouse

heroguesthouse

The beautiful Honeymoon Guesthouse is perfect for relaxation. Elegant Balinese style guest rooms with private balconies are set amidst a lush tropical garden complete with beautifully carved stone statues, carp ponds and a grand salt water pool for relaxing.

Massage and beauty therapy is available onsite. Daily breakfast includes fresh tropical fruit, homemade yoghurt, and freshly baked pastries and bread from The Honeymoon Bakery.

Honeymoon Guesthouse is also situated only a five-minute walk away from the heart of Ubud's shopping, eating, art and performance hub.

Other retreat information:

Retreat is limited to 18 participants

Full retreat costs:

$AU 1000 per person (single room)

$AU 875 per person (share room)

Includes:

5 nights accommodation

5 breakfasts

All retreat activities: yoga, meditation, dance, creative writing, dream work and lectures

Deposit:

$AU 250.00 to confirm your place

Full payment due by 26th January 2010

http://womensintegralspirtualretreat.eventbrite.com/

Tags: integral spritual retreat for women, integral women, sarah nicholson, integral feminism, women integral practice

Sarahnicholson.org

http://sass.gaia.com — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:06:52 GMT

I've been quietly working away on wordpress creating myself a website.

it's still pretty fresh on its feet, but ready to toddle into the world.

take a look:

www.sarah nicholson.org

Tags: sarah nicholson

The warrior and the wound

http://sass.gaia.com — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 00:42:14 GMT

"The term "warrior" in the Shambhala tradition is a translation of the Tibetan word pawo. Pa means "brave," and wo makes it "a person who is brave." The warrior tradition we are discussing is a tradition of bravery. You might have the idea of a warrior as someone who wages war. But in this case, we are not talking about warriors as those who engage in warfare. Warriorship here refers to fundamental bravery and fearlessness. Warriorship is based on overcoming cowardice and our sense of being wounded.If we feel fundamentally wounded, we may be afraid that somebody is going to put stitches in us to heal our wound. Or maybe we have already had the stitches put in, but we dare not let anyone take them out. The approach of the warrior is to face all those situations of fear or cowardice. The general goal of warriorship is to have no fear. But the ground of warriorship is fear itself. In order to be fearless, first we have to find out what fear is."

From "Facing Yourself," in SMILE AT FEAR: AWAKENING THE TRUE HEART OF BRAVERY, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Shambhala Publications.

Tags: hero, warrior, wound, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Commitment: to self and other

http://sass.gaia.com — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 03:56:32 GMT

I've been musing recently about commitment.

Zen teacher Elizabeth Hamilton writes that "The mere mention of commitment can send the small mind into high gear. It gives us a close look at the interplay between the issues of commitment and identity; so it’s worth asking, “Who do we take ourselves to be, when the issue of commitment arises?” When asked “what’s your commitment”, some say “realizing the awakened way”, and others mention commitment to living in alignment with their deepest values."

I have passaged through a mass of emotional turmoil in the last few months and from within this a real, deepening commitment to myself, to genuine self nurturing, has emerged. In excavating myself to locate my deepest values the desire to commit to living in alignment with them and to be in harmony with myself, has developed in a visceral way. And it seems clear that it is only through this self commitment that commitment to another begins to make sense.

Elizabeth Hamilton's full artilce on commitment:

WHAT’S YOUR COMMITMENT?

Commitment is always a timely topic. Several recent dharma talks have explored commitment, and some folks have expressed interest in exploring the possibility of a Practice Commitment. Besides, confusion about commitment is an ongoing theme.

In many traditions, the year’s end and beginning are times of reflection, renewal, and rekindling aspiration. Personal or existential upheaval may come along as well, as we alternate between feeling certain about what’s most important, and then dipping into doubt, disheartenment or depression.

This isn’t bad news; as Rollo May points out, “Commitment is healthiest when it’s not without doubt, but in spite of doubt.” Humans, like nature, tend to cycle through seasons, from wintry dormancy, to Zen’s “mindflower blooming in eternal spring” - a reference to the Buddha holding up a flower and Mahakasyapa, a committed practitioner in the community, smiling. The Buddha saw that smile as a sign that Mahakasyapa’s appreciation of the nature of existence was flowering.

This fluctuation of interior seasons seems to reflect our apparent hardwiring with opposite, if not equal, commitments: one, a commitment to fortifying the ego-self; the other, the commitment to awaken to the nature of reality, to the whole self - which isn’t separate from the small self. If we aren’t yet acquainted with this vast self, we can at least take it as a hypothesis, to be confirmed or denied experientially.

Recently a fair number of folks have expressed interest in what a deeper practice commitment might entail. Commitment is a seed of awakening, an inherent capacity that encompasses persistence, intention, determination, motivation, and aspiration. All of these require cultivation, through skillful efforts, and all are susceptible to going through dry spots. If that weren’t the case, things like Zen training might not be necessary.

What does a Practice Commitment look like to you? There are many ways that commitment to practice is expressed: some groups have religiously-based ceremonies, including ordination as a layperson or monastic in Zen Buddhism. Sometimes life-change events like marriage include receiving or renewing the Precepts, guideposts for living-as-if-awake, along with other commitment vows. In some traditions, participants are asked to make a commitment to a particular teacher or center. At ZCSD, vows and commitments are expressed and renewed during each meditation block, with the Morning Verse, the Practice Principles, the weekly Service readings and dedications, and periodic ceremonies such as Remorse and Reconciliation.

The mere mention of commitment can send the small mind into high gear. It gives us a close look at the interplay between the issues of commitment and identity; so it’s worth asking, “Who do we take ourselves to be, when the issue of commitment arises?” When asked “what’s your commitment”, some say “realizing the awakened way”, and others mention commitment to living in alignment with their deepest values. Some regard commitment as just one more burden, in an already over-busy life. Then there are those who confess to being committed to being uncommitted – iffy or yes-butting - saying “Look, I’ve got commitment issues!” Many of us have also encountered periods of deep discouragement, where our main commitment seems to be giving up.

One way to discover what our primary commitment is, as of now, is to hold up an objective mirror to our life: where do our energy and resources go? Are we committed to maintaining awareness in daily activities? Do we know what our “underground commitments” are, from indulging in unhealthy behavior patterns, to keeping a particular self-image intact – what’s yours? Part of commitment is recognizing what obscures commitment, since our longstanding ego-conditioning is bound to put in cameo appearances, even after many years of dedicated practice.

Could additional supports be helpful for clarifying and actualizing our commitment to the path of awakening? Starting with formal Zen training, we can ask: to what extent do I make use of regularly scheduled practice opportunities, even when stuckness and resistance are running high? We can be very stuck, for a very long time, yet avoid the microscope and telescope of practice, which stand ready to help illuminate and penetrate the very stuckness that binds us and blinds us.

It helps to come back to basics regularly, and ask: are we committed to still, silent sitting meditation, as a crucible for learning to practice presence? Are we committed to maintaining awareness of the breathing, the body, and our larger body, the environmental soundscape? All of these form a diving board into actualizing the Second Primary Precept, the commitment to living beneficially: attention focused in the here and now is a prerequisite to a life that reflects our innate kindness, spaciousness, and interconnectedness.

Given the recently established national Day of Service, it’s also timely to reflect on the words we say during meals: “…We eat … to practice serving”: what is our commitment to serving?

Without a conscious commitment, things meander. It’s easy to go along blindly, without questioning the point of various practice modalities. Then we can end up wondering what we’re “getting out of practice” – a sure sign that the ego-self has taken charge.

If you have questions about what a practice commitment might look like, please bring them up. We need to be honest with ourselves about this, and to consider how honest we’re willing to be with those who can be of some assistance.

In addition to questioning “what is my commitment” over the years, it’s helpful to raise the question as a koan, allowing it to drop into our being, and reverberate around on its own, rather than remaining solely an intellectual consideration. Given the right conditions - clarity about basic practice, and a big enough pasture - the question is bound to bear fruit.

Tags: commitment, elizabeth hamilton, open practice

The practice of letting go

http://sass.gaia.com — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 11:55:15 GMT

I've been reading Jack Kornfield's fabulous After the Ecstacy, the Laundry in which he makes wonderful use of the spiritual life experiences of many spiritual teachers and practitioners from across traditions. He writes of different gateways to experiences of enlightenment and of cycles of return to the detritus of Mara, of falling from grace, of the dark nights of the soul. Particularly resonant for me at the moment were the words of Theravdin monastry abbot Ajahn Sumedho:

"For minds obsessed by compulsive thinking and grasping, you simplify your meditation practices to just two words - "let go" ... The grasping mind wants to read the suttas, to study the Abhidamma, and to learn Pali and Sanskrit, then the Madhyamika and the Prajna Paramita, get ordinations in the Hinayana, Mahayana, Vajrayana, write books and become a renowned authority on Buddhism."

and Kornfield writes,

"Though it sounds simple, letting go is also an advanced practice. It is demanded in the greatest trials of our lives and in our final moments. It is here that the heart learns the secret: that to let go is also to embrace what is true." (Kornfield, p 137).

I count "letting go" as a primary meditation practice; derived from the Open Dharma teachings of deep rest. In some ways, the simplicity of it is simply exquisitely beautiful... to just allow yourself to rest, to be with your breath, to sink into yourself, to just be, to let go... And yet, at the same time, there is also, as Kornfield and Sumedho suggest, a continually emerging complexity to it. For the challenge of letting go of dropping the struggle of many manifestations of the minds "compulsive thinking and grasping" is, for me at least, enormous, astounding, and continuous.
Letting go - one hand ecstacy: one hand laundry.

Tags: jack kornfield, after the ecstacy the laundry, ajahn sumedho, open dharma, letting go, open practice

Get lost, disband your army, wake up to a broken heart

http://sass.gaia.com — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 13:54:53 GMT

“That [transformative] thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you is usually what you need to find, and finding it is a matter of getting lost. The word 'lost' comes from the Old Norse los, meaning the disbanding of an army, and this origin suggests soldiers falling out of formation to go home, a truce with the wide world.” (Solnit, p 7)

This is how I feel, as if I have been slowly, slowly, disbanding an internal army of contraction and confusion. There is a palpable softening around my heart, when I drop my struggle and relax into loss. But its not an easy process, nor is it a one way street, its a heaving mass of contradiction: as one thing loosens, something else seems to tighten in response, in compensation, in fear.

The idea of disbanding your army reminds me of Pema Chodron's description of the ego as "a room of your own, a room with a view, with the temperature and the smells and the music that you like... But the more you think that way, the more you try to get life to come out so that it will always suit you, the more your fear of other people and what's outside your room grows. Rather than becoming more relaxed, you start to pull down the shares and locking the door. .. You become touchier, more fearful, more irritable than ever...

To begin to develop compassion for yourself and others, you have to unlock the door. You don't open it yet, because you have to work with your fear that somebody you don't like might come in. Then as you begin to relax and befriend those feelings, you begin to open it. Sure enough, in come the music and the smells that you don't like. ...

Now you begin to relate with those feelings. You develop some compassion, connecting with the soft spot. You relate with what begins to happen when you're not protecting yourself so much. Then gradually [...] you become more curious than afraid. To be fearless isn't really to overcome fear; it's to come to know its nature. Just open the door more and more and at some point you'll feel capable of inviting all sentient beings as your guests." (Start Where You Are)

She also talks about bodhicitta ('the soft spot') as analogous to “the rawness of a broken heart. Sometimes this broken heart gives birth to anxiety and panic, sometimes to anger, resentment, and blame. But under the hardness of that armor there is the tenderness of genuine sadness. This is our link with all those who have ever loved. This genuine heart of sadness can teach us great compassion. It can humble us when we’re arrogant and soften us when we are unkind. It awakens us when we prefer to sleep and pierces through our indifference. This continual ache of the heart is a blessing that when accepted fully can be shared with all.” (The Places that Scare You)

I witnessed this beautiful actuality in friends of mine recently. Friends who were thrust deep into the fires of grief when their best friend was murdered. I saw how this deep grief had burnt their hearts wide open so they were soft and present and joyful. It was astounding, and instructive.

Tags: pema chodron, solnit, bodhicitta, lost, loss, ego, heartbreak

The Story of The Stork

http://sass.gaia.com — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 07:40:52 GMT

I was reminded recently of Karen Blixen's story of the Stork.

Referring to this story, she writes in a letter to her mother, "Just when one feels one is floundering in the deepest despair,--'fall into a ditch, get out again,'--is when one is perfecting the work of art of one's life. . . the greatest moments have been those when I have been able to glimpse the stork" (Letters from Africa, p. 49).

I've been wondering at what point do we get to perform a postmortem on the events of our past? When is the vantage (ever) right to know which turn was good, which bad? Are we indeed as Blixen suggests, stumbling our way, through the mud of life, in the dark, towards some sort of unity of meaning?

The power is in the impetus to get up, the drive to get out of the ditch, the desire to learn to walk on the path. Something I've been reading recently (Pema Chodron, perhaps) has been making much of the importance of this moment: when we notice "ah hell, I am in the ditch... again!" and thus we scramble up its muddy sides and plant our feet and return.

Tags: Karen Blixen, Stork, return, life, meaning

The Personal Approach to Spiritual Practice

http://sass.gaia.com — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:46:15 GMT

This quote came from the Ocean of Dharma e-list. It is very much where I am finding, or orienting towards finding, myself in my practice at the moment.

"According to the ideas of my teacher, Jamgon Kongtrul, the only way to develop spiritual discipline is to accept chaos as well as orderliness. His suggestions are very profound and totally ecumenical. To develop genuine spirituality, one has to be dedicated to a contemplative approach, a meditative approach. That doesn't mean that everybody on this earth has to sit on a meditation cushion....We are not talking in terms of being good meditators. We are talking about actually, personally being able to identify with what you've studied, what you've heard, what you've learned, what you've read. It is bringing all of this into your personal experience."

From Talk One of "Jamgon Kongtrul," an unpublished seminar by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Boulder, Colorado, November 1974.

Ocean of Dharma list is complied by Carolyn Gimian

Tags: Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, open practice

Philosopher Notes

http://sass.gaia.com — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 11:21:08 GMT

While in Bali recently I had the good fortune to be able to drop in on a couple of Brian Johnson 's Philosopher Notes classes.

Brian's a lucid, articulate and intelligent teacher, who while exploring the Big Ideas of one text, wove insights from various Philosopher Notes texts together, to demonstrate the way thinkers from various disciplines arrive at similar points, and drew on his own experience to illustrate. As a result the Notes aren't cheap soundbites but skillfully extracted insights.

The last class I attended focused on The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. They are:

Be Impeccable with your speech,
Don't Take Things Personally,
Don't Assume, and
Always Do Your Best

Simple and yet ...

At the moment Always Doing My Best involves 'practising' a bigger, more mature self. I've been comtemplating the way practice means not perfect, means moving towards. Until my bigger self stabilises, doing my best means I am consciously 'practicing' it again and again, realising when I have fallen back into my smaller, young self, and recognising it, returning to 'practice', starting again...

The tides of life often leave me time-poor so I'm looking forward to more succint dharmic reminders from the Notes. I like Brian and I respect what he is doing.. and I am all about finding ways to support each other in following our bliss.
So, my summary is - Philosopher's Notes... worth checking out.

Tags:

Ahab's Wife, Una and I

http://sass.gaia.com — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 03:03:43 GMT

I am quite in love with this remarkable book. I arrived in Bali with the desire to find a holiday read with depth and beauty, that would speak to me, sing, take flight by drawing me into its world to teach me about life and thus myself. I spent a long time in the second hand book shop and it turns out that I chose well.

mobydick

illustrations by Christopher Wormell

Ahab's wife follows an epic journey, the life of Una, wife to Captain Ahab, the nemesis of Moby Dick in Melville's classic. Making it thus, Naslund has enabled Una's reflection on the twists and turns of her own life path:

“I marvelled some (to myself) that I had known so little of my own course. I had been like a ship, blown about in dark and storm, suddenly finding, beyond all hope, that the dawn illuminated the port of home.” (p 363)

Una's life's path is textured by travel, adventure, religion, intellect, literature, the joy of nature and domestic arts. And Naslund lays much emphasis on love through exploring many meetings of hearts and minds through friendship, family and romance.

It is little wonder that I identify strongly with Una, she is a wonderfully drawn heroine and a classic one, in the sense of Joseph Campbell's heroes. From her beginnings in the woods of Kentucky as a young girl she challenges her father's Christian fundamentalism with “you can not order belief”, thus exiled she lives a simple, idyllic, nature-mystical life with her aunt and uncle, New England lighthouse keepers. Leaving them, she cuts her hair and pretending to be a boy, boards a whaling boat seeking to feel the bigness of the world. Sailing into the seething oceans opens the way for majestic vistas of natural beauty, and in turn for great tragedy, violence and darkness. Throughout all, Una's questioning mind and spirit, contained and quietly graceful, is infused by an inner fire and steered with certitude.

She has been holding a mirror for me, as I have been remembering myself on this journey, much reflecting on how I have come to this place in my life, remembering the girl I have been, a girl not unlike Una, alit with an adventurous and questioning spirit. A girl who shaved her head and wandered alone through strange and beautiful lands, who created ecosystems in sunflowers, who organised festivals, who wandered naked in the forest, who danced. I've been remembering her, gathering her up, holding her as I keep travelling down these paths; watching the road ever vanishing behind me, watching the road ever arriving, arriving.

sunflower

I've been struggling with the loss that death of relationship has brought me. I have come to see the potency of this energy and the way it signals the beginning of a new adventure. To pause too long, to mourn too deeply, is to refuse the call. I have come to see how I am being called once again, but this time I know it, as I didn't before. I know that I am being called to grow, to peel back, to deepen, to allow grief and pain to burn right through me, to illuminate my dark corners, and to soften my heart.

I have found my own twists and turns mirrored in the fortutitous meetings, struggles, losses and tragedies of Una's life. While I would not myself use the paternal language of Christianity, passed through internal translation, this passage, directed to Una, floored me: it might have been to be spoken straight to me:

“Dwell not in the inner hell which is always of our own making. Inside yourself you must give up the illusion of power. That is God's realm. Your life is like a vast ocean. Can you control the tempest? Can you make the sun shine? 'Twere naught but folly to think so. Your despair comes from your struggle, from your vain belief that you order the sea of feeling. ... Prayer is the shelter from despair; good works for others is the obligation of joy at home. Meditate only on the glory of God, his magnificence, his kindness in the most ultimate sense, his ever-flowing forgiveness, his warm love. Admit your lowliness before his plan. Give up the illusion that you can order either your own life or Kit's turmoil. Trust that Kit can find his way, according to the plan of God. Look you only to your own way, which is in God.” (p 287)

Tags: ahab's wife, Sena Jeter Naslund, heroine, hero's journey

Bali, a return

http://sass.gaia.com — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:27:50 GMT

from my balcony

Returning some seven years later, I remember why my relationship with Bali was so ambivalent.

I'd forgotten really how very, very beautiful and lush it is. The tropical flowers, frangipanis, hibiscus, orchids, the gold and red carp swirling in ponds, the light caught in the palm trees, breeze rustling the green of green rice fields, and caressing me on the back of a scooter, the exquisite attention to detail of the aesthetic presentation.

And I'd forgotten its ulterior face: the broken sidewalks, the women and baby beggars, the desperate aggression of shopkeepers consumed by hungry ghosts, the noise of the motorbikes, and the rubbish fires.

A postcard from Sanginngan

if you follow the tramp of my thonged feet on this small dirt path you will not step in the puddles. skirt by the muddy edges. step to the side for passing motorbikes. children will peer out from houses. women will look up from scrubbing clothes on rocks by the stream to greet us. turning we wander past fields of greens and corn that ebb into the spreading terraces of rice, spotted with coconut, papaya. banana; rooster, hen and duck.

don't mind me if i lounge on the verandah watching butterflies dance with palms and orchids alike on the breeze that brings the rains. i am pondering the virtues of writing absent friends about the heat, the aesthetics of Ubud cafe society, of Bali life from three year old eyes, of lotus ponds and carp, of my quiet struggle with colonialism, of the vast and the domestic... but all of these subjects seem to melt away inconsequentially into the simple splendour of the afternoon.

Sarah Nicholson, 2002.

Just as Bali's essential nature seems unchanged, so is mine.
I sleep late, take long baths with sweet smelling salts, get massaged, do yoga, retreat from the buzz of the streets to swim, and lay by the pool watching the play of air and light across the rice fields and palms, to listen to the sound scape of insects feeding on sunlight, cocks crow, bells, rustle of fronds and what sounds like a call to prayer washed towards me on the breeze.

I read and read, and I write and write, and rest, and let myself soften, and get softer still.

Tags:

You are not lost: you are home

http://sass.gaia.com — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 14:32:47 GMT

“Did you ever go home?”

“Home?” she chuckled. “I have made my home wherever I am . A gimbaled bed, a maid's room, the howdah atop an elephant.” She stopped smiling, tilted her head back, and looked majestically at me over the bulges of her cheeks. “And I advise you to do the same.”

“I have lived in a lighthouse.”

“I know.”

“Before that, I lived in the woods...”

“I know.”

“I don't know which is more nearly home.”

“I know.”
With that, she heaved herself up from the windowsill. Her skirts whispered their silk secrets as she passed, but I thought them to say, Welcome to the world.

(Sena Jeter Naslund, Ahab's Wife, p 133)

notlost

image from ffffound

Tags: ahab's wife, lost, found, home, Sena Jeter Naslund

seeing anew

http://sass.gaia.com — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 14:19:07 GMT

I've started reading a gorgeous book by Sena Jeter Naslund that I was lucky enough to find on the shelf of a second hand bookshop here in Ubud, Bali.

I love picking up random books while travelling. Years ago, I found John Steinbeck's Cannery Row on a book swap shelf of a hostel in Turkey, and it totally broke me open and blew me away. I class the experience of reading it among some of the most sigificant experiences of my life.

Today, I read a wonderful passage in Ahab's Wife, in which the heroine, Una, recovers from a lightning flash that has temporarily blinded her:

“The simple colors I knew with their names and incarnations … delighted me. The hues that have no name even more charmed my eyes. I saw tones of gray, when a cheek was in shadow, or tones of yellow, or pink at the flanges of the nose; I noted the way the violet of my aunt's blouse reflected under her chin. The many colors in our food spoke to me with joyful voices. It was as though there were landscape and vista enough to have pleased a Wordsworth in a spoonful of vegetable soup or in the stretched tent of shiny, whitish skin over a bent knuckle.

… I wanted … to reclaim my Island, my world, to my sight. Not from the lofty height of the tower, but close to to things. Antlike, I wanted to travel our paths, to look long and hard at the design of Queen Anne's lace, the long spurs of columbine. Even the yellow cap of a dandelion delighted me, and how there was something greeny in the yellow. The beach was littered with mussels, and I loved the bruised blue and the ridges of their shells... The light poured over the world like honey, and I wanted to see the breeze as well as feel it. I watch the tiny hairs on my forearm ripple like the sea grass. Whenever a wave withdrew, the million bubbles left behind, sinking rapidly into sand, tickled the corners of my eyes with iridescence.

I would store it all up; I would reclaim it if I ever was blind. As I looked, I planned that in my bed, that very night, I would remember these colors and shapes, the distinctiveness of every part of nature. Then I would rejoice again, like Wordsworth, with 'that inward eye, which is the bliss of solitude.' I was full of love for all that I saw.” (p 95-6)

This reminded me so much of an experience when on retreat in India with Open Dharma two years ago. As I slowed down with mindful steps over the week, I began to really meet each thing that I encountered; singlely, uniquely and thus, with a newly revealed beauty. It was an intimate way of seeing the world, and a new one for me. It preceeded a wild opening - where I felt as if I were a channel of crsytal light, a streaming waterfall that ran straight through me, and in which each and everything in my world was absolute perfect and right - and then a crashing descent and contraction as it all fell away.

... but the knowledge of that more incandescent way of seeing remains ...

Tags: meditation, seeing, open dharma, ahabs wife, sena jeter naslund, cannery row, steinbeck

Self portraits? With golden horns, birds and semaphores

http://sass.gaia.com — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 09:25:10 GMT

hornedgoldenlady

I would love to be able to claim these as self portraits.
They are such beautiful paintings while also so sumptuously and profoundly symbolic.
The symbolism of trapped, decorative and free birds in these works is particularly resonant for my golden haired self at the moment : the image of birds as a metaphor for the self, the freedom for flight as the opening of those twisted, calcified parts of myself to growth and deeper expression.

I was speaking to a friend about my desire to paint birds, and that night dreamt a flock circled inside the room as I slept in bed, and I felt the feathers of their wings caress my face.

They are the work of Steven Kenny.

semaphore 500

Tags:

barn's burnt down

http://sass.gaia.com — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 07:33:00 GMT

Barn's burnt down --
now
I can see the moon.

Masahide

Tags:

Phoenix

http://sass.gaia.com — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 07:55:08 GMT

I am ash
again

smoke
again

smouldering soot and
murderous glowing coals.

i am peeled back to the source
of the tributaries of pain.

i am broken
torn apart, runined.

I am burnt through, burnt back,
raw, on fire.

I am lost and found
again

in the charnel grounds,
bones underfoot.

from embers,
from ash,

my feathers emerge
red and gold,

shaking off soot
blinking,

newly opened,
ancient eyes.

whole phoenix

painting by krisztina lazar

Tags: phoenix, poetry

A field guide to getting lost: part one

http://sass.gaia.com — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 11:34:15 GMT

lost

Excellent and intriguing reviews of Rebecca Solnit's “A Field Guide to Getting Lost” inspired me to find a copy for my travels. For what better companion can there be for a traveller, than a field guide to getting lost? And indeed, even more than I anticipated, its a profoundly resonating read.

Her first chapter unfurls a spiral of musings grounded in a question posed by pre-Socratic philosopher Meno: “How will you go about finding that thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you?” (p 4). This, she suggests, might be a “basic tactical question” for life. For, “the things we want “ she writes “are transformative, and we don't know or only think we know” what they will look like. “Love, wisdom, grace, inspiration – how do you go about finding these things that are in some ways about extending the boundaries of the self into unknown territory, about becoming someone else?” (p 5)

With one foot always resting in the unknown, Solnit ties philosophical questions of being 'Who am I?' ,'What am I doing here?' with questions such as 'What is it to love?'. As a relational being this wondering after who I truly am and how I develop and grow, through another, through others, and perhaps most deeply through the fires of love, is very pertinent.

With blissful synchroncity (for me) she turns to Keats' concept of 'Negative Capability'. This was a slogan of Naropa's University's writing program which I attended in 2004. I was much enamoured by it, if unsure of its absolute meaning. I think now that it is best carried, as with the best of philosophy, as a question.

Keats writes of an epiphany he had whilst out walking – the realisation that people of great achievement have “the quality of Negative Capability”:“capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason” ( p6). I am greatly drawn to this liminal space, the mysterious beauty of that which is betwixt and between, yet find this nigh on impossible in matters of the heart.

My heart wants to be fully and certainly met in its offering of an open and vulnerable Yes, or otherwise concealed behind the impenetrable iron curtain of No. Yet, certainly this is where the great fire of transformation is for me, to learn to remain fully open in the face of Great Doubt, to stay without collapsing towards resolution.

Great Doubt as expressed in the Zen teaching of Hakuin is conscious relaxation inside uncertainty, rest inside the paradox of neither this nor that. It is one of those teachings which has, in true koan style, stayed with me ever since it was offered as a teaching to the group of dharma walkers with whom I rested in the shade of a French forest . It has sat deeply and quietly in the confusions of my heart and now wakes to whisper to me again of a bigger way.

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Kuala Lumpur

http://sass.gaia.com — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 04:45:03 GMT

Kuala Lumpur is hot. The humid air smells of spice and perfume and swirling fans carry the music of voices in a language unknown to me.

KL is suprisingly green and chilled, pockets of tropical parks in the centre of the city and quiet. Not at all the chaotic Bangkokian metropolis that I was expecting.

But it still possesses the Asian style chaos that I find so deeply appealing: the hand of history peeling back the paint, the touch and wear of time, of lives, and unfinished futures hanging in the air.

klhostel

The large shopping centre next door to my hostel was ground floor America : Borders, Esprit, Western Union, 7 Eleven...

timeismoney

but as the floor numbers grew things changed. By floor five I was being accosted by people wanting to unleash feet eating fish upon me.

klfishfeet

and by floor seven.... a full size indoor rollercoaster.. whoah.

klroller

But I was headed straight for a massage : my first in six months. I have been so consumed and overtaken by loss and unexpected, unwanted change in my life, that I've built up twisted bundles of suffering in my muscles. The pain the Malaysian woman's hands untwisted from my back and (unexpectedly) the back of my legs was quite simply insane.

massage

and there's much more untwisting to come on this holiday road....

Tags: holiday, kuala lumpur

Shiva and Sati

http://sass.gaia.com — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 05:06:40 GMT

"Sati had the feeling that this was the first time her body had really existed. It wasn't as if SIva was penetrating her, but as if he opened himself up to her like a huge cavity, welcoming her into himself. The contact with the surface of his body absorbed her into it.. She pressed on toward the center of him, as though toward the glow of a fire in the depths of a cave. She was lost, but felt she was about to find herself. Or rather: She felt that what was happening was a return" (p79)

Ka, Roberto Calasso

Tags: ka, lovers, sacred sex, shiva, sati

through the clouds

http://sass.gaia.com — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 04:11:38 GMT

In the darkest moments of the Lord of the Rings chronicle, when Sam is alone in the midst of Mordor, and surrounded by danger, there is this beautiful moment:

"... peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the foresaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for every beyond its reach"

Book VI, The Return of the King, Tolkein

Tags: tolkein, lord of the rings, hope, darkness