Pre-Vipassana.

Hello world!

What a wild and crazy world, you are.

Question: You know how when we were little and your parents would say something seemingly dramatic because you couldn't believe it, like...I don't feel such and such age, I still feel 25. And you were thinking, wow, no way, how could you be so out of touch with reality? You're so much older than that!!?

Haha, yes...here I am at 37 years old. Amused at my former self. I don't know that I can quantify what age I feel, but I certainly don't feel like I've gotten it figured out enough to be 37 years old. I still feel like I'm on a voyage of discovery. Why do we think when we are younger that at this age, or that one, you will feel certain of everything and have nothing to figure out but just live. I certainly don't want to be that person who thinks they know everything anymore because I'm so curious about the world and there would be nowhere to grow.

Next stop. 10 day meditation in California. It's intense, even hard core yogis I know say, "that's intense"...when I tell them I'm going. 
I don't know if I should be preparing for it but I am actually not trying to overthink it. I'm just imagining that my adaptable self will be just fine. I will definitely be letting you know after the fact as there is no technology, no talking, no writing, no yoga, see where I'm going here? Just meditation and a few breaks for eating lightly and asking your teacher a few questions if you need.

Here's the typical daily schedule...

Vipassana Meditation Course – Typical Daily Schedule

4:00 a.m. ————————- Morning wake-up bell
4:30-6:30 a.m. —————- Meditate in Dharma Hall or in your room
6:30-8:00 a.m. —————- Breakfast break
8:00-9:00 a.m. —————- Group meditation in Dharma Hall
9:00-11:00 a.m. ————— Meditate in Dharma Hall or in your room according to teacher’s instruction
11:00 -12 noon —————- Lunch break
12 noon – 1:00 p.m. ——— Rest, private Q&A session with teacher
1:00-2:30 p.m. —————– Meditate in Dharma Hall or in your room
2:30-3:30 p.m. —————– Group meditation in Dharma Hall
3:30-5:00 p.m. —————– Meditate in Dharma Hall or in your room according to teacher’s instruction
5:00-6:00 p.m. —————– Tea break
6:00-7:00 p.m. —————– Group meditation in Dharma Hall
7:00-8:15 p.m. ——————Teacher’s Discourse in Dharma Hall
8:15-9:00 p.m. —————— Group meditation in Dharma Hall
9:00-9:30 p.m. —————– Open Q&A session in Dharma Hall
10:00 p.m. ———————— Light out

Whew! I'm looking to be crystal clear after this amount of meditation. They say that you get so clear and focused and nonreactive, little things just roll right off of you... I'll fill you in on the flip side.  I've been wanting to do this for two years now. It's time. 

If you're interested, there's a lot of information online about these courses. They're run completely on donations and you're actually not allowed to pay until after you have completed your first one. That's how much they believe in them.  So, if you're thinking about it, you only have to have the funds to get there..and then give what you can and what you believe is fitting for what you have gained from the process.

I really don't know what will come of this. Maybe I will love it. Maybe I will be back on the 17th of July and say, it's total bunk for me...but go and make up your own mind about it. Either way, I'm excited and I'll check back in with you about it after. 

Their website: http://www.dhamma.org/en-US/about/vipassana

Some other websites with info and perspectives:

http://biohackyourself.com/the-10-day-goenka-vipassana-meditation-retreat/

http://misscaelabailey.tumblr.com/post/62653484024/my-experience-at-a-10-day-vipassana-meditation-retreat

http://mybrandnewlife.wordpress.com/2012/04/30/vipassana-meditation-retreat-the-aftermath/

Adventures and Soundtracks.

Meant to drive down to Wilmington last night just so I could spend a half a day there this morning. I've always wanted to see it. Ended up in Richmond, Virginia after three big old traffic back ups. Luckily, they didn't seem to be on account of car accidents as much as nonsense, which makes sense, because there is full moon trickery going on. So, I guess I will see Wilmington on Monday.

Now I will just head on down to Easley, S.C. so that I can do this aerial training with Linda...who is one of my 500 hour yoga sisters. So cool that she's now doing aerial training and when we were meeting up in Asheville last year, she had just started experimenting with it. And I just finished my own 200 hour training with 8 beautiful graduates. Things can change fast. Or slow. As we all know by now. 

I had a great time shuffling between the music app Beats and my old iPod tracks, those of which survived the transfer to the Galaxy. (speaking of which, I can't wait to go back to the iPhone....just my personal experience. Not to sway anyone...it's a huge change if you're thinking of switching either way). 

Last night I kept listening to many things, of course. But, my number two favorite of the night, Phanotgram, You are the Ocean. The number one song of the 9 hours of car living was Steadfast sung by Shubha Mudgal and spoken by Ursula Rucker. 

Inspired by the poetry of 16th century poet, Kabir. It's a goodie. Here are the lyrics. You might want to check it out. xo ~ 


This love
This, love

This love,
Is not for sale,
Nor is it to be toyed with
It is delicate and humble,
But also, sturdy and grand,
So don’t be fooled

This love
This, love

And the true fullness, of this love
In all of its grace and charity, and imperfect perfection
Is meant veritably, for only one,
And most likely, too potent
In its highest form
For any other

This love is spoiled, and greedy
And highly expectant,
Like a coddled child,
Even in its maturity
Sometimes lashing out in defiant tantrum,
When assumed shunned
This love…
Is complicated

And even in the midst of confident revolt,
This love offers up contrition
For unpleasing, unworthiness
The human heart is so contrary
And wondrous,
And very easily broken
Both blessed
And cursed
Perfect house,
For so fickle a thing,
As

This love is content and comforted,
Most assuredly when the sacred object of its adulation,
Seems to find favor with
This love,
Is always challenged,
By the reality that,
The gift of sacred love takes patience,
And faith,
And effort,
and sacrifice,
And is ever changing
in its infinite and beautiful
Steadfastness

The road unravels.

Images float past my fingertips
What can a word convey
What can a sound conjure
What can a vision mean

So much, so much, so much
Much more than the world can contain
Much more than the rain falling in my paper cup
The strum of a guitar string

The road that unravels in front of you
The river that flows beneath
the peace that settles within
and then gently leaves

Find it. You go find it and bring it back.
But we never float in the same place twice.
It's always new, now find that. and that.
I challenge you. To a meeting of the heart.

studies in movement.

Once there was a boy who lived in Yang Zi. He spent his days sowing the seeds in the fields.

Place the seed, cover with dirt…and move on to the next one. Place the seed, cover with dirt...and move on to the next one. There was no time to watch the seeds as they unfolded delicately in the golden light. There was work to be done. Things were either going to grow or they weren't.

This boy loved a girl. 

This girl lived in a castle. She spent her days reading books. Cultivating relationships with them. Getting lost inside and taking the time to have daydreams and see what could come of the ideas that had planted themselves in her brain.

This girl loved nature. She would stare outside of her window for hours and in her view was the boy who she would watch while he planted. And the boy would glance up at her, in her window, so still like a painting and he created stories in his mind about her.

One day this boy was fatefully sent to the castle to take some of his goods to sell. He there ran into the girl in the courtyard, which was in full bloom and filled the air with it's fragrance. They stared at each other for what seemed like eternity and shared what felt to be deep love. 

The boy, he had to move, unsure of the still and the waiting. The girl, she was left to wonder at the quickness with which he moved. Could it mean that he hadn't loved her at all? 

The river that flowed throughout the land flowed gracefully on. Except in the places where it flowed at different speeds and temperatures and in those places, it could pull you under with a force. 

Bloom.

Excerpts from Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth…

"Everything, a bird, a tree, even a simple stone, and certainly a human being, is ultimately unknowable. This is because it has unfathomable depth. 

When you don't cover up the world with words and labels, a sense of the miraculous returns to our life that was lost a long time ago when humanity, instead of using thought, became possessed by thought.

A depth returns to your life. Things regain their newness, their freshness. 

Words reduce reality to something the human mind can grasp, which isn't very much. Do you believe some combination of such basic sounds could ever explain who you are, or the ultimate purpose of the universe, or even what a tree or stone is in its depth?"

I love words. I've played with them since I was a child. Copied them out of books, made them up, put stories together with them. But I want to use them to open the world up, not to close it off and make it something that I'm grasping in my tight little fists. 

Considering the words we use and the beliefs that they formulate within our minds and bodies, immediately closing us off to the infinite possibilities and miracles that surround us every day through those faces in our lives that the Universe assumes as our friends, family, lovers, nature, etc… 

Blooming like that flower out there in Spring. Sometimes blooming is scary, sometimes it's painful. But it's always worth it. Join the bloom. 

Joseph Campbell

Reading Joseph Campbell tonight and he's blowing my mind, one line at a time.

"And the cherubims at the gate, who are they? At the Buddhist shrines you'll see one has his mouth open, the other has his mouth closed- fear and desire, a pair of opposites. If you're approaching a garden like that, and those two figures there are real to you and threaten you, if you have fear for your life, you are still outside the garden. But if you are no longer attached to your ego existence, but see (it) as a function of a larger, eternal totality, and you favor the larger against the smaller, then you won't be afraid of those two figures and you will go through. We're kept out of the Garden by our own fear and desire in relation to what we think to be the goods of our life." 

"I always tell my students, go where your body and soul want to go. When you have the feeling, then stay with it, and don't let anyone throw you off."

Heart.

Red and blue.

Brown, marroon...

What colors conjure up the heart?

What lies within?

What space contains?

In which direction does it point?

Can we hold it in our hands?

Can we see it with our eyes?

Can we give it consciously to someone

While it stays lodged & firmly embodied?

Can someone take it from us

When it remains softly floating in that same place?

Singular and yet touching everything

Within us and without.

There is no coming close to it 

Without getting messy.

Blood on our hands

and fire in our souls.

We know now that 

scar tissue is the strongest.

Yet the heart

beats on

beats on

beats on

to the sound of it's own unique beauty.