April/May/June

Oof. It has been a little while since I've written a new post. Life has its own way of flowing! :) I have decided to combine three months into one post for the sake of keeping things moving. <g> This post is probably going to have a lot of links and information, so - don't feel overwhelmed. Just take what you want, and feel free to come back over time. That is what I love about all of this stuff. It is a never ending circle of self-work. One can jump in at any time, and there is no end point. This is the marrow of life. 

April was all about Forgiveness and Humility! Yep, we went there. Forgiveness is something I still put a lot of work into - daily, and it will probably be something that I have to devote a lot of time and energy towards for the rest of my days. The hard truth is: it is rare you will ever receive an apology for any wrongdoing done to you. This is something we all have to learn to handle in our own way. 

“The French have a saying, perhaps from Voltaire: "Tout comprendre, c’est tout pardonner.” To understand all is to forgive all. When we see the state of mind beneath behavior, we realize with great compassion that behind a sharp remark, an unkind glance, a rankling insult, an outburst of anger, lie a thousand contributing causes over which that person has very little control, extending back perhaps for many years... Praise and blame are irrelevant here. You do not romanticize or close your eyes to defects or mistakes. You simply understand, which means that you do not judge. If a blind person knocks you off  balance, do you get angry? If she fails to respond to the look on your face, do you call her insensitive? The vast majority of people are very much like that, blind to each other’s needs. They do not mean to be unkind; they simply do not see. And instead of judging them or conniving at them, we learn to help them open their eyes. It not only enables them to change; we transform ourselves. “What is here is also there”: in understanding ourselves, we understand others; in forgiving others, we forgive ourselves." - Essence of the Upanishads

  

The earlier months of practicing to be my own witness really helped me to practice witnessing others. It really is just a form of compassion - to witness others' behaviors and words, without judgement, but to try to figure out why they do/say what they do. Again, I'm not some awesome guru at this (it DRIVES ME UP THE WALL to hear/see people call THEMSELVES gurus or mystics or sages. Like, whoa. Eat a little more humble pie man. Chill.) ... but it is something that I have worked hard on, and it has absolutely made a difference in my life. Many times you will not come to any reasonable conclusions on other people's behaviors and actions... but just the witnessing helps to re-center yourself, and keep your authentic power in your own hands.

Also, I feel compelled to mention that forgiveness does not condone harmful behavior. Forgiveness is for YOU, so that you may be free... not giving a free pass to the assholes in life. Which means, you can forgive a person without even involving them. It's about you.

The practice of forgiveness naturally leads to humility, gratitude, compassion... love. Ta-da! Yeah, ok... so, way more involved than that. But, you get the point. 

For the month, E. recommended the book No Mud No Lotus - I actually had read this about a year prior to the start of the workshop (my instagram handle used to be wherethelotusgrows, now thelotusgrows, in reference to this book as well as the book by Goldie Hawn) I re-read it because I knew the things I loved about it the first time around would only take deeper root within me when reading it again. 

The essence of our practice can be described as transforming suffering into happiness. It's not a complicated practice, but it requires us to cultivate mindfulness, concentration, and insight. It requires first of all that we come home to ourselves, that we make peace with our suffering, treating it tenderly, and looking deeply at the roots of our pain." - Thich Nhat Hanh

On this note, I also highly recommend The Power of Acceptance, Letting Go of the Person You Used to Be, and Radical Acceptance - all three were ones that I read before the workshop started. They really helped me to reframe my worldview, my view of myself, and started me on the path to cultivating my personal power. I absolutely love these books for what they have shown me and given me. 

April also had me reading Spinning Straw into Gold - all about the fairy tales and myths that reveal the transformational journey in every woman's life. Good stuff! (And totally why I hate Disney...). I don't know why this isn't required reading for teenage girls. Shouldn't we know the general journey of the female archetype? I know my own transformations have been brutal and traumatic... it would have been amazing to have something like this enter my life during one of my transformations. *Sigh* (there's also mention of spinning and such... which I'm always sucker for. It's just so freaking symbolic. And FUN.)

(As a side-note, somewhere during these months one of my very good friends gave me the book The Knitting Sutra: Craft as a Spiritual Practice, which I LOVED, and found to fit right into everything I had been thinking/feeling/learning.)

“Spinning is a metaphor for transformation, and transformation is woman’s work. The woman of the house spins flax or wool into yarn, which she makes into clothes; then turns old clothes into rags, rags into quilts or rugs, and quilts or rugs into art. She turns, or used to turn, grain into flour and flour into bread, which becomes part of her family’s flesh. In her highest moments, like the Queen, she transforms a drop of protoplasm into a new human being in the heated oven that is her womb; turns the food that she herself eats into milk that flows from her breasts; and transforms the wild creatures she gives birth to into more or less civilized members of society.”

- Spinning Straw Into Gold 

I watched a lot of movies this month: Spitfire Grill, The Fisher King, In Her Shoes, Secrets & Lies, Embrace (on Netflix, and highly recommend!!), The Way, and Dead Man Walking. If you have seen even two or three of these, you can see how they might fit into the themes of forgiveness and humility. I won't link to all of them, but I know that most of these I either found on Netflix, Prime, or rented on Prime. 

I also really (REALLY) loved this from Jack Kornfield - 12 Principles of Forgiveness, (actually, I fell down a Jack Kornfield youtube hole. It was good. Watch anything of his.) and read The Seat of the Soul - all about switching our perspective from our external power (or what we perceive as our external power) to our authentic power, within. This is one book I'll be keeping around for quite sometime. 

May and June were all about Wisdom, Courage, and Dreams. E. said "wisdom and courage are the bricks and mortar that make our dreams come true." From humility (and an openness to witnessing yourself and the world) comes wisdom. Wisdom, however, isn't enough to accomplish our dreams... for that we also need courage. Practicing all of these things (forgiveness, humility, wisdom, courage... even small acts of courage) can lead us to create the life we want to live. Way harder and more time consuming than any paragraph can present, I know. But, there you have it. 

I took these two months really easy, and spent a lot of time outdoors - I watched Field of Dreams and read The Artists Way, and really focused on bringing all of these concepts together for myself. It's not short or easy work. But more impacting than book or movie for me, were the commencement speeches of Neil Gaiman and JK Rowling that I listened to (for the first times). I don't actually know how many times I have since listened to their speeches, but I'm not ashamed to say it has been more than a handful. They are just soooo good. 

I know this is a lot... and it was three months hard work for me. So I'll leave you with this as encouragement: 

do not try to serve the whole world

or do anything grandiose.
instead, create a clearing

in the dense forest of your life

and wait there patiently,

until the song

that is yours alone to sing

falls into your open cupped hands

and you recognize and greet it.

only then will you know

how to give yourself

to the world

so worthy of rescue.

– martha postlewaite

Love and Light ~K