This magazine has been a regular source of inspiration for me over the past few years and I want to thank Kristina Craig for her gift… with her usual sensitivity, she stepped outside her own worldview to offer me something I didn’t know I needed!
Check it out at Shambala Sun.
In this kind of strength
there is such wobbling,
such surrender to the shaking fire,
wet wood damp around small sparks.
These shambala warriors
in soft robes,
no clanking armour…
deep familiarity with fear,
a humbled kinship
with those who feel its nauseous bite.
Compassion as a slithering shield,
unsteady protection when the gripping is released,
suffusing air
with the tender opposite of walls.
Under the gentle raiment,
a beautiful assortment of old scars,
new pains crippling their current postures;
beauty redefined
in a war without winners and losers.
In January I re-read a book that I savoured more than 20 years ago and have read small snatches of since then. It was fascinating to see how much I had changed in two decades, to experience some regret that I had glossed over huge chunks the first time – chunks that could have saved me some heartache along the way!
The book is Grace and Grit by Ken Wilber, about the life and death of his soulmate. It’s a woven tapestry of theories about transpersonal spirituality, cancer care experiences, human relationships and journalling. It added new shape to my worldview in the early 1990s and it is interesting to see how many seeds it planted for me that are now bearing fruit. Thanks to Susan Hubbard for giving me the book and for all the rest of the journeying that she has accompanied.
Here’s one website on Ken Wilber.
I feel compelled to publicly offer thanks to Jennifer Berezan and don benedictson for crafting the beautiful CD “In These Arms.” It is wonderful as a longer meditation or for creating moments of peace in a minivan with kids, connecting us all to broader circles of compassion. Thanks too to Bonnie Macdonald and Jill Pangman for allowing me to connect with Jennifer’s music. Here’s the link to her website.
Found a connection today between guilt and longing, as if the voice of judgment was a weir or floodgate. I realized a tidal wave of longing underneath the sense of not doing enough. A healing wave, as if the guilt and judgment were washed aside – a broken gate left swinging – as the stronger flood of desire was freed. I long for many changes in my life and our world, and it is liberating to claim these longings without the constricting gatekeepers of judgment and resistance.
I long to be more healthy, energetic, strong and radiant. I long to eat healthy food, with ingredients I can take pleasure in rather than fear. I long to enhance my relationships, become more celebratory and engaged in my interactions with husband, sons, family and friends. I long for a community where fear is acknowledged and tamed in order to make room for justice and kindness. I long for more time and more personal commitment to my crafting of this life, more excellence or Quality in my experience of the moments through which I move. I long to live in full awareness of the passionate sadness and tranquil joy that traverses the web of embodied divinity we call life.
Eventually, I suppose, I may even move to a state of being where the longing is honoured without attachment, where there is no entanglement of craving and grasping in the rich experience of desire. But today there is an inexpressible surge of liberation in the transformation from guilt to longing. Instead of feeling badly about all the ways my longings are not met and my vision falls short of my experience, I can deeply immerse in this flood of conjoined despair and hope, this river of joy.