Monday, December 29, 2008

re:charge.


people and love are essential to human growth. why, then, do i always try to move through my days in solitude while feeling that something essential is missing? oh yes, love, silly!


i used to say that i was "newly single", but by now it has been almost six months and i feel like the only way i can make it out there is by taking baby steps. instead of surrounding myself with beautiful people and distracting activity, i decided to spend my time in isolation. my intuitions told me that i needed to focus my energy inward, because, well, i was lost. i no longer had anyone to hide behind, and my self-image was so funked out of whack that i just couldn't face many people for too long.

normally i observe my emotional phases to last from a few hours to a few days to a week, tops. i understand and accept this now: i know that my body likes to jive with the moon, and i figure it's better to learn the groove and flow through it rather than resist. then there are seasons. i consider the past six months to have been a hibernation of sorts...i've faced my fear of aloneness and learned to name him solitude. i've made friends with night, tree, bird, and sun, and come to some kind of terms with my own impermanence in its ability to lead me to live wholeheartedly in the present.

i am ever grateful for what this season has brought to my consciousness, and also stand in awe at the changes that yoga has brought into my life. B.K.S. Iyengar said that the goal of yoga is to unite the individual self with the universal self. through yoga i can now access the answers to many of life's questions from within, and seek to continually recognize the connection and interdepence between self-and-nature.

a new friend laura explained to me that the introvert-extrovert self is like a battery. depending on your personal introvert/extrovert ratio, one aspect must be charged in order for you to feel complete and satisfied while basking in the other aspect. so if you are an introverted person, you probably need a lot of personal time to balance out the amount of time you spend socializing. and if you are an extrovert, you will require a lot of social contact in order to balance out the time you spend alone. this has lead me to think more and more about moving out from home in cambridge to kitchener or waterloo in order to surround myself with more people. it is difficult to stay in equilibrium without people around me, and i'm just itchin' to create a humble little home for myself where i can manifest a new reality without the negative energy that tends to float about in my present home. i am ready to recharge.

Monday, December 22, 2008

for safe-keeping ;)


"Who knows how to make love stay?

"Tell love you are going to the Junior's Deli on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn to pick up a cheesecake, and if love stays, it can have half. It will stay.

"Tell love you want a momento of it and obtain a lock of its hair. Burn the hair in a dime-store incense burner with yin/yang symbols on three sides. Face southwest. Talk fast over the burning hair in a convincingly exotic language. Remove the ashes of the burnt hair and use them to paint a mustache on your face. Find love. Tell it you are someone new. It will stay.

"Wake love up in the middle of the night. Tell it the world is on fire. Dash to the bedroom window and pee out of it. Casually return to bed and assure love that everything is going to be all right. Fall asleep. Love will be there in the morning."

-Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker

Sunday, December 21, 2008

chapters in change


change: impossible to resist yet incredibly challenging to bring forth. if you are reading this, and you do not know already, you will soon learn about the little theme of becca's adventures battling the destructive dragon-self. in this i am fighting for acceptance and love of myself as is. i'm not sure if i am a late bloomer in this sense; i have grown up as a people-pleaser, possibly with a bit of an inferiority and/or guilt complex and a need for social approval. i have grown in volumes since i was a teenager, but still grapple with the pressures to return to the comfy-and-familiar mode in which i operated for so long.


some days i have incredible revelations that expand my mind to invite an entirely new reality that, at the time, seems to defeat the dragons. then i rest, oh-so-satisfied with myself for welcoming this new change and finding sudden enlightenment. oh, the ego. they say that the higher you go, the farther you fall...and you fall and fall and fall again. i suppose it's because we have these grand altering experiences that open portals into the superconscious, and well it's tough to assimilate such a thing into the everyday reality that we are used to. the point of all this is that it's really tough to change when your expectations are set so high. i guess you have to be gentle and compassionate with yourself and change little bits at a time to allow yourself to adjust.


two nights ago i went to a magical solstice gathering in an enchanted little home in kitchener (it's not actually little at all). up in the attic i was chatting with two lovely ladies, *adrienne and laura* and we got to talking about this stuff. in the movie A Beautiful Mind, John Nash is a genius mathematical wizard who struggles with schizophrenia but cannot function at his prime level while taking meds to neutralize his symptoms. he decides that he is going to try to fight the schizophrenia rather than take the meds. two of the voices he hears are manifested in the body of an imagined best friend/old "prodigal roommate" and a sweet little girl who is in his care. every time Nash sees and hears them, he has to face his dearest, closest best friend and a sweet little girl begging him not to turn away from them, saying anything they can to pull at his heart strings to prevent him from adandoning them.


seeking to change negative/undesirable patterns or habits is like saying goodbye to your best friend, the one to whom you are so deeply attached and with whom you are familiar and comfortable. you have to face this part of yourself that is like your best friend (yet really your nemesis) and tell her that you do not love her anymore, she is not your friend, and you have to let her go. in the beginning, you lack the strength to deny your best friend what she is asking for, and revert to the old and comfortable ways, heading down that same path that is so well-paved from being well-travelled and therefore easy to follow. that best friend is also careful to remind you that you better stick with her: she knows you best and you're not cut out for those other roads... nope. i can't quite say anything about what it's like to finally let her go, because i am not quite there yet. but i am inspired, and i think i just have to trust that freeing myself from her will open up my world, somehow.


in the film, when Martin asks Nash if the voices are gone he replies:


"I've gotten used to ignoring them and I think, as a result, they've kind of given up on me. I think that's what it's like with all our dreams and our nightmares, Martin, we've got to keep feeding them for them to stay alive."


on an additional note~ perhaps it helps simply to lighten up. Erleichda*


~~~


"Meditation is not doing anything to your violence, not doing anything to your jealousy, to your hate. It is simply bringing light into your house, and the darkness disappears." -Osho, Emotional Wellness.


Saturday, December 20, 2008

hang it on a wall, baby





"Beauty must be defined as what we are, or else the concept itself is our enemy. To see beauty is to simply learn the private language of another's life--to recognize and relish what is. Why languish in the shadow of a standard we cannot personify, an ideal we cannot live?" -Crimethinc poster

Monday, December 15, 2008

to love thyself::


:: is an ongoing journey and struggle riddled with tears, doubts, joys, revelations, and many footprints: those from my footsteps and from those i have allowed to trample upon my fragile self-esteem and willingness to give.

there are many difficulties i have faced in this effort, the two most salient being: 1) the guilt i often feel for using so much of my energy thinking about my feelings, my needs, my problems rather than channeling outwards with the knowledge that my problems do not stand up to those plaguing the world today; 2) the inner demons that interrupt the natural flow of energy, binding me to the illusions of this world and leading me to false and unhealthy conclusions about my own worth. i often think that #2 prevents me from overcoming #1, which is why i am sticking to the premise that i must look after myself before i can give genuinely to others.

my preoccupation with the workings of my heart and the feelings that swim about inside me may seem to some to be narcissistic and egotistical. i have faced these possibilities--i am indeed my own worst critic. yet through countless attempts i now accept and embrace that this is simply what i need to do in order to offer my best to you. one thing i have learned from the habits of nature is the concept of balance and equilibrium. so: i must sometimes be selfish in order to do selfless things... and i cannot be compassionate to others unless i am compassionate towards myself.
i am a part of nature: i can only really give as much as i receive, if i am to be healthy, bright-eyed, and sustained...


"And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make." -The Beatles, Abbey Road

Thursday, December 11, 2008

you are what you eat.


today while i was eating some yummy brussel sprouts i stopped to remind myself to slowly enjoy the meal...which lead me to examine the contours and layers of those little green cabbages.


i am growing to appreciate the value of mindfulness in my everyday life, as each moment where i pause to be aware of my surroundings brings a joyful appreciation of beauty in those earthly phenomena often perceived as mundane and ordinary.


with vegetables, i like to imagine the history of their growth and travels, from seed in the dirt to sprout to being and then the hands that lifted these little creations from the soil. where does our food come from? who brings it to us? what happens once we chew it up and it enters our bodies?...and how are these bits and snippets from the earth a part of us?


do you feel good about what you eat?