Sing, Songbird.

Offer Up Your Song

On the road to loosening the clutch of fear and taking back your original joy of singing, try one of these self-coaching points. (They're not just for singers).

First, realize that you are developing your skills. Think of yourself as being in training. Instead of expecting yourself to have mastered your voice, think, "I'm learning." If you believe you're supposed to be a master, you'll criticize yourself when you aren't. But if you define yourself as a learner, you're much more likely to forgive yourself for mistakes. Instead of mentally trashing yourself when your voice quavers, tell yourself, "I'm in the process of learning how to sing with power and ease!"

The second step is to make your voice an offering. Offer your voice and your song and your vocal cords to humanity—to the All—using whatever frame allows you to touch your sense of the greater whole. Remember that once you make an offering, the outcome is out of your hands. It's not your voice anymore. It belongs to the universe, to God.

Third, ask the universe, the absolute love, God, your higher Self, or perhaps the spirit of a singer you admire, to sing through you. Open yourself to allowing that to happen. The key to letting go at the deepest level is to feel that you are not singing, but being sung. In fact, this is the truth. There is no "you" singing. Singing is happening through your body, your vocal cords, and your mind. What freedom arises when you let that be true!

http://www.yogajournal.com/wisdom/2652

A Course in Miracles.

(this post was written in 2012, along with the last couple that I posted.)

Started reading 'A Course in Miracles' which I've had on my bookshelf for awhile now but just opened. It feels like a very important and life changing book. I experienced that shift also with Eckhart Tolle's, 'A New Earth, Awakening to Your Life's Purpose' before this, years ago. Some books wait to come to you until the right time, I think. 

A few statements that hit home for me...

"Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God."

We make up our own realities. We tell ourselves stories that become real for us only for the telling and the retelling of them. The movie The Village is a perfect example of the stories people tell themselves in order to protect and control. Having faith that all is as it should be gives peace.

"It is the privilege of the forgiven to forgive."

We all need to be forgiven for something, somewhere. We all need to forgive ourselves as well for acting out of what we thought was protecting ourselves, or feeling of something we lacked or fear of something unknown. I love that it is the PRIVILEGE of the forgiven to forgive. It's not a duty, but a privilege. Extending forgiveness out into the world is a privilege. (not always an easy one, I'll admit, but if we can see others as teachers and also as children who were probably hurt...and are acting out of that hurt, it helps). 

"[...] that there is nothing you want to hide even if you could. This step brings escape from fear."

I spent a lot of years hiding myself. My whole self, as much as I could because I could only see myself as I thought others saw me. However, you never really know how others see you anyway. You can only guess at what they see and how maddening is that to imagine a million ways that someone might or might not see you? Who cares? At the end of the day, what does it really matter. If you spent the rest of your life finding out about the magic that lies within you, I'm sure that there would be some left over that you didn't have a chance to get to. Focus on that. 

I'm through with hiding.

"You can make an empty shell, but you cannot express nothing at all. You can wait, delay, paralyze yourself, or reduce your creativity almost to nothing. But you cannot abolish it. You can destroy your medium of communication, but not your potential. You did not create yourself."

How egotistical to do nothing, to hide yourself. Like you created yourself..you (I) did not. Letting yourself shine is almost an obligation. The quote by Marianne Williamson..."Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.' We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

"Time can waste as well as be wasted." 

What's wrong with now? What's wrong with today? There is nothing you lack but you're alive and you want to explore, do and be...do it now! There is so much in the world to fall in love with. There is no shortage of things to do or learn about. It's a matter of finding that spark within you that allows you to see the abundance.

"Belief produces the acceptance of existence. That is why you can believe what no one else thinks is true. It is true for you because it was made by you."

I know people who believe that only the worst will come to them. If you believe it, it is true. Point of view is so particular to each individual...change your thoughts, change the world.

So much good stuff! 

I hope that this post reaches out and touches someone who needs it. As we all need touched by grace, beauty, truth... and I was touched by this book. Pick it up if you like to read, I'm only on day one but I think it's a game changer!

random bali pics

Ask and I shall answer
Nothing left to hide
Truth is such a beauty
Hiding miracles inside

Complex calculations
with a riddle on the side
Cut through complications
with the melting of your mind

Heartfelt is the only
Even though it comes in waves
What else really is there
Except presence in our days

God is speaking always
We must only tune our ears
Through the silence and the truth
We will get there, never fear

As many of you know... I am a yoga teacher.  I've had quite a lot of experiences through yoga. And for all of them, I'm grateful.

Currently I'm only teaching two classes a week, slowly as things feel right and that is by choice. I suppose I could be jumping into teaching full time or making something happen. But I truly feel that after everything that has happened in the last 3 to 5 years of my life that I need to take a sabbatical and get real and focused about what direction is right for me in this next unfolding. So, I am allowing. I am surrendering. In really everything in life and that feels pretty damn good. 

My only prayer now is that God's will be done. And I mean that in the least and at the same time the most religious way possible. My favorite phrase? Maktub. I learned it from The Alchemist which I'm sure quite a few of you out there have read. It means...it is written. My trust has increased in untold ways and I'm sure that for all things that have happened in the past there are reasons and I have certainly grown from them.

I am grateful to be here. 

Much LOVE. Maktub. ;)

waiting
for you to enter
a bit unsure
of the reason for all of this

i heard
the soft rustling of my heart
the prologue of
what was, what was to be

the air surrounding
soft and warm, inviting
it gave no
sense or call of warning

and i relaxed then
into the sweetness of your arms
then and forever
yes. then and now

Wedding Homework.

Next weekend I will marry another couple, my second time as officiant of a wedding.

And I get the pure joy of looking up love poems to insert into my reading. This is the second time this poem has come up recently (first time by accident) and I'm absolutely in love with it.

Prepare yourself for the last stanza. It breaks your heart, in a good way.


Variation on the Word Sleep

by Margaret Atwood

I would like to watch you sleeping.
I would like to watch you,
sleeping. I would like to sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth dark wave
slides over my head

and walk with you through that lucent
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun & three moons
towards the cave where you must descend,
towards your worst fear

I would like to give you the silver
branch, the small white flower, the one
word that will protect you
from the grief at the center
of your dream, from the grief
at the center. I would like to follow
you up the long stairway
again & become
the boat that would row you back
carefully, a flame
in two cupped hands
to where your body lies
beside me, and you enter
it as easily as breathing in

I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.



AND THIS ONE. Don't pass out from the gorgeousness...


I Got Kin

by Hafiz

Plant
So that your own heart
Will grow.

Love
So God will think,

“Ahhhhhh,
I got kin in that body!
I should start inviting that soul over
For coffee and
Rolls.”

Sing
Because this is a food
Our starving world
Needs.

Laugh
Because that is the purest
Sound.

We

by Nayyirah Waheed

we
return to each other in waves.
this is how water
loves.