Tag Archives: Joy

Take Me to the Most Beautiful Thing on Earth: The Dance of Family, Work and the Sacred

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I got lucid a couple of months ago inside a dream in which I had been frantically, and unsuccessfully, trying to balance symbols of family life and the academic pathway I am currently pursuing.  At the point at which I became conscious, I was swimming in a vast ocean, and with great effort, I began to walk on the water.  Opening to the dream, I asked to be shown the most beautiful thing on earth.  I was whisked over the ocean, to the house where I had been playing out the conflicts of work-life (im)balance, now in darkness.  Peering through the glass door, I saw my partner and our two children fast asleep.  This was the most beautiful thing on earth. 

There are many ways that our dreams can offer layers of meaning and insight to peel back.  My family, sleeping, content and peaceful, was the most beautiful thing and place on Earth for me.  Not a massive external firework show.  Warm and reassuringly simple.  

I am reminded that sometimes in pursuing the spectacular moments in life, the acclaim and success, we can miss what is really there, right now.  Achingly fleeting.  

At the entrance to the East of the Wheel, holding together the juggling act of my life and fighting to maintain the space of this process, I think about what I must leave at the threshold.  In the dream, I walked on water with great effort.  And I peered at the most beautiful thing on earth, my own family, through glass doors.

These are the layers.

The core beliefs that I leave at the threshold.  

The belief that life is hard.   The belief that I am separate.  That I do not, or can not, participate.  

I held onto this dream for a long while.  Bowled over by it I must admit!

But what if…..

What if….  I surrendered to the currents of the great ocean without trying to walk on water? (While acknowledging the effort of having done it!)

What if…. I opened the glass doors and laid down to rest in the restorative warmth of the most beautiful place on earth?  

What if!  

 

Being in Allignment with Intention Is Not a Get Out of Jail Free Card

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I Awaken my Light…

How much of my life is in alignment with this intention?

Last night I went to bed late having actually done some work on a project that is mine.  I didn’t feel tired, I guess that’s the energy of doing something fresh again, like I was energised by returning, at last, to a project that I want to finish, even if I struggle to at
times. This is interesting to me, the way in which awakening my light is about honoring the things that are close to my heart, that feed the inner fire. And feeding that fire means having more energy, rather than less. This seems to be the way to see if what’s happening is right; to check in with that energy. So there are different kinds of tired. The tired that comes from ‘job well done’, the tired that feels like pushing through treacle because there is so much resistance to doing the task. I’m caught up in thinking about work now. It’s like at long last I have permission to pursue it. Here’s another interesting thing. In order to finish the thesis, I have to totally let go of making it polished and spectacular. There’s not enough time, and the project is too convoluted and complex anyway. My skills are not there yet. This means that sometimes I don’t want to bother finishing.  But here’s the rub, and where I know when I am in alignment with my intention.  Because dropping the standard, and doggedly sticking to it in order to finish, and finishing itself being the end goal, means that I am released from the other baggage and find that the energy returns. The fire ignites.

Going to sleep last night after doing a good few hours on this, I had a dream about my mother and father. My father was collecting all kinds of stuff as he does, and it was all covered in mould, damp. It needed to be thrown away. He hates throwing stuff away. I remember when we left South Africa to come to the UK 19 years ago, how he threw tantrums when my mother took control and emptied the house of all the rubbish and stuff that had accumulated over the years. In my dream last night she, my mum, assumed this uncharacteristically assertive role again. She had a new boyfriend, and was keeping this new information to herself. It was like she had distanced herself from us, her children, and was now living her own life. From what she did say, I guessed that the new boyfriend was Greek, from Tottenham, and a Spurs supporter. A proper immigrant London son and geezer. Not her usual arty, flaky, volatile type at all. It was cool. I liked this change. Having guessed her new involvement I reconnected with her on an equal level. She admitted to me that she had never wanted children, and that she was aware of how this not actually wanting the children she had would’ve affected our experience growing up. This was even more so for my younger sister than me as she had been the second child, and her birth had been located in the really difficult part of our mother’s relationship with our dad. Like I was the romantic baby, my sister was the no-turning-back baby.

Later on my dad let me and my sister throw the mouldy stuff away. It felt good.  Both to thrown the stuff away, and have his permission to do it.

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In the waking world, my circle partner and I shared our free writes in our weekly space about how in alignment we felt with our intentions.  Mine was the piece of writing shown above.  Discussing our observations from the preceding week, we had a conversation about the unexpected twists in living an intention.  I’ve transcribed it (we held our circle in a chat room due to work commitments… holding our space indeed!) as an experiment in communicating the process of working our way through the Wheel:

Maia – Awakening our light is sometimes not what we expect

Dom –  yes, that sounds right

Maia – Not necessarily all romantic and free

sometimes laundry

facing what we don’t want to

it’s etched with pain and struggle too….

Dom – And awakening our desire within that….

Maia – And pulling ourself out of i

it has tension at the edges

that we see and choose not to submerge in

it can be tired

Dom – Honouring the intention to awaken desire in ALL of life…

Maia – It has a history of heartache

of disappointment,

promises not kept

the birthing process is painful sometimes

and we to mourn

for losing innocence to find it again..it’s the tunnel we have to go through

Dom – Bumpy journey through the birth canal…

Maia – yep

and accepting that

Dom – and that’s where your intention has so much resonance for me… because it holds this thread of accepting all of life… not                  resisting or trying to push away the bumps….

Maia – well it’s only possible if I do

which maybe I didn’t realise

I thought this stuff was partly a get out of jail free card

you know a clean slate where its all different

Dom – Ha ! Tell me about it!

Maia – but its a bit of both or something

Dom – yes… that’s the thing…. its a bit of both….

Maia – it does say you don’t have to feel what you been feeling that’s not yours

but it’s not easy

Dom – exactly… and so the processes in the west of naming and holding and releasing are such an important part of clearing the    space, so you can’t just push it away and avoid. We work with the pain, hold it, and release.

Maia – What feels hard is that I have to do it myself – the thing that’s it’s actually my choice, i create it, am responsible

Dom – Sounds so simple as I write…. I think about the power of resistance that slows me down

Maia– we get help but we have to be willing to take that responsibility

that leap of faith that belief

no one will do it for me

Dom –   When we hold that… the realisation of taking responsibility… how much are we able to drop then? And how liberating is that?     Like… for example, you dropping the idea of doing the PhD…  I have to talk to my boss today about doing less hours in the office over the next few weeks…. it terrifies me… to ask for what I need….

Maia – each of these little things is important and what it’s about

reminds me of a pema chodron quote

where she says we hear a lot about the bliss of enlightenment

but not a lot about how painful/difficult it is to go from being totally wound up to being unstuck

Dom – ha ha… yup.

Maia –  or something like that

but joy is important because we have it there everyday

like my therapist said – have fun – without it there’s not lubrication

Dom- Yes! And it’s hard to go down a slide dry…..

Maia – maybe this could be a task for next week……

Dom – fun is so important… its everything… that playful, smiling spirit…

It changes the nature of things… the heaviness…

Maia – everyday before we sleep, write about the things that made us happy that day

from the smallest to biggest moments

Dom – Is this our practice this week?

 Maia – and share with each other – just a list if we wish

a suggestion…

Dom – great… I love it ! xxx

share all in one next week? Or email each morning?

Maia –  hmm maybe email each morning – i like that idea

Dom – me too…. sort of like daily scripting in reverse….

Maia – yep….. too much counting sorrows let’s count some joys

Dom – Joy counting x

Maia –     : ):)

Dom – Mould wiping : )

Maia – Hehe !

Dom – tee hee xxx

Earned the Right to Take Rest?

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I press Stop.

Some friends who follow this blog have commented to me recently that it seems like I am perpetually tired and fighting to go on. My writing reflects this struggle with fatigue. They have a point. Young families, social housing, PhD’s and deep spiritual excavations can take it out of a woman! Never mind the entropy of domestic life. You clean it up, and it just gets messy again. Round and round we go.

I notice as part of my Wheel practice, that my initial response to the observation is denial and defensiveness. I am not tired! Or so what if I am! I can handle it all! It’s hard to admit sometimes that I am not as in control as I like to think I am.

It’s OK to press stop.

It’s OK to let my family know that tonight I’d like to go to bed early and be alone for a little while.

It’s definitely OK to do this without a drama. When we give ourselves permission to rest when we need to, it’s easy to let the people close to us know that we are doing so. No big deal. When our need to take a break is tainted with judgements about worthiness and the need to state that we have earned this rest, well, we can act up in all kinds of silly and destructive ways.

Sometimes I need a rest and in the eyes of my inner critic, I didn’t really do anything to justify it. So the lists of ‘all that I do’ come out, the whiny voice of self-justification. I feel compelled to share these reasons with those around me. I teach my children that rest must be earned. Really? And who calculates what counts as work? Was I at that meeting? What kind of cultural belief am I agreeing to when I refuse to allow my knackered body an early night because I didn’t earn it? How much time do I waste by not resting when I need to, in the name of a false belief in what counts as productivity, that is sanctioned by a wider consumer-material culture? The flip side of a cultural belief in needing to ‘earn a rest’ is the equally damaging response of taking too much rest, too much leisure, too much reward. I earned this!

I sat with a friend today watching my son walking. He mastered it about three weeks ago. And he’s really good now. Because every day he practices: he gets up and starts trying to walk. We were reflecting on how babies just get on with stuff, not because they have to or someone tells them to, but because of the sheer joy of it. They haven’t got those moral filters on. They never get tired of their work – to keep walking, to keep making sounds. Except, actually they do!  They walk and walk and walk, and then they get tired. Or hungry. Or they make a big old dump. And if we are wise carers with gently flexible schedules, we let them sleep. Or eat. Or clean them up. And when the business of rest or sustenance or discomfort is done, they carry on, from that pure place of single minded Joy. I am mindful when I follow this formula. Walk when I need to. Eat when I need to. Rest when I need to.

I’ll keep walking towards it! And tonight, I press Stop. Early bedtime, with a hot water bottle and a good film to watch in bed. I begin ten days of recapitulation exercises tomorrow, as I slowly exit from the West of the Wheel.  Visiting my Circle Partner in Denmark in 10 days time. Literally heading North!  Work I choose to do. And when I don’t stress about whether this counts as the kind of work that earns me a rest, then everything is cool in the world.

Night night xx