“No need to hurry. No need to sparkle.
No need to be anybody but oneself.”
~Virginia Woolf
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Tattoo Image: आत्मता मति
share the prayer of you
Do You
Who Is In Control?
For many of us, this may be the first time in our lives that we have felt so little control over our own destiny and the destiny of those we love. This lack of control initially feels like a loss, a humiliation, a stepping backward, an undesired vulnerability. However, recognizing our lack of control is a universal starting point for a serious spiritual walk towards wisdom and truth.
To be in control of one’s destiny, job, or finances is nearly an unquestionable moral value in Western society. The popular phrase “take control of your life” even sounds mature and spiritual. It is the fundamental message of nearly every self-help book. On a practical level, it is true, but not on the big level. Our bodies, our souls, and especially our failures teach us this as we get older. We are clearly not in control, as this pandemic is now teaching the whole planet.
Learning that we are not in control situates us correctly in the universe. If we are to feel at home in this world, we have to come to know that we are not steering this ship. That teaching is found in the mystical writings of all religions. Mystics know they are being guided, and their reliance upon that guidance is precisely what allows their journey to happen. We cannot understand that joy and release unless we’ve have been there and experienced the freedom for ourselves.
~Richard Rohr
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#surrender
Image: Desert Electric
by Jessie Eastland
A Prayer for Chaotic Times
I am SAFE.
I am HELD.
I am LOVED by Her.
You are SAFE
You are HELD.
You are LOVED by Her.
We are SAFE.
We are HELD.
We are LOVED by Her.
❤️
Who is Her?
In the ancient tantric tradition, Adhara Shakti is the Goddess, the divine feminine who supports us in the physical realm. She is the supportive energy in the soil and rocks of our Earth, and in the bones of your body. She is there in the the steady beat of your heart and the solid support of your pelvis and spine. She is there, always there, in the ground beneath you.
To me, Mama Earth embodies Adhara Shakti. I am safe. I am held. I am loved by Mama Earth.
The Giant Heart of the World
“I tell you here not a story out of a book, not an ‘approved’ story by a distant court, but a personal vision come into my heart from La Señora en una visita en un sueño despierto, from visitation.
I offer what I call in my life, ‘the vision that visited me’ here, only as it might be useful for others on their journey, to be encouraged that Everything will be alright. Keep to the Radiant Ideal as you see fit, and and if need be, fight like heck– and do not forget to
bless everything and everyone you can.
In much of our world, he is known as
Santo Cristobal, St. Christopher, the Giant.
One late day, he met a strange little child all alone at the edge of a raging river. The little child was dressed in a long white gown
People were afraid of the Giant. He had a reputation for being to himself alone, for being– just by gargantuan stature– a threatening figure that people feared and ran away from.
But at the river, the little one, unafraid, pulled at Cristobal’s armor, and begged to be carried across the river –for he himself could not negotiate the treacherous waters that leapt and dove deep as they crashed forward.
Cristobal bent to ask the child why he was not afraid of Cristobal. And the child replied he did not fear a giant’s Heart, only the raging places of no heart.
So Cristobal lifted the feather weight of the child onto his shoulder, and stepped into the cold rushing waters, struggling across the stormy river nearly losing his balance time and again.
With his tall, stout staff and his big rope-sandaled feet, he found his footing time after time until suddenly, in mid-stream…
the child on his shoulder grew heavier and heavier, so much so that Cristobal began to stagger in the currents.
Under this sudden huge weight upon one shoulder Cristobal fell, his body covered by the icy raging spume.
But with all his might, his muscles creaking, he fought and fought to lift the little child above his head, holding the little one above the jagged waters.
But then, the child became again lighter and lighter, and Cristobal finally, huffing and groaning like a huge sky furnace, found his way to the other side of the raging river.
Soaked to the bone, he fell to one knee on the sparkling sandy river bank. He gently set down the little child who was dry and unharmed. And whose little white gown now glowed as though lit from within.
‘Child, child, tell me how you became such a great weight upon my shoulder in the midst of a raging river?’
The child leaned forward and gently kissed the giant’s grizzled face, the child’s warm cheek warming the giant’s cold cheek.
“I am the force of Love in the midst of turmoil. As great as the roil might be, Love is the weightier, the more powerful. Those who struggle to carry Love in the midst of all else, will prevail. The treasure will be protected.”
And thus Cristobal, though as giant as before, was preceded by a radiant light as he walked, one to which others were attracted instead of being afraid. He carried much and many. With Love.
And the Child, true to his word, grew up to teach and heal the hearts of many in such love, was sacrificed by those without heart, descended into and utterly distressed hell with the purity of Love, came back from the dead, living onward forever.
As Love does. And will. And must, by hiding it in the place the raging river would never think to look ::: on the shoulder of the Giant Heart of the World.”
~Clarissa Pinkola Estes
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Soften
“It’s the hard things that break; soft things don’t break.
It was an epiphany I had today and I just wonder why it took me so very, very long to see it! You can waste so many years of your life trying to become something hard in order not to break; but it’s the soft things that can’t break! The hard things are the ones that shatter into a million pieces!”
~C. JoyBell C.
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#GetYin
A Clearing
“here is the month i decided to shed everything not deeply committed to my dreams. the day i refused to be a victim to the self-pity. here is the week i slept in the garden. the spring i wrung the self-doubt by its neck. hung your kindness up. took down the calendar. the week i danced so hard my heart learned to float above water again. the summer i unscrewed all the mirrors from their walls. no longer needed to see myself to feel seen. combed the weight out of my hair.
i fold the good days up and place them in my back pocket for safekeeping. draw the match. cremate the unnecessary. the light of the fire warms my toes. i pour myself a glass of warm water to cleanse myself for january. here I go. stronger and wiser into the new.”
~ rupi kaur
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#Beautiful
Find Your Door
“I’ll tell you right now,
the doors to the world of the wild Self are few but precious.
If you have a deep scar, that is a door,
if you have an old, old story, that is a door.
If you love the sky and the water so much
you almost cannot bear it, that is a door.
If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life,
a sane life, that is a door.”
~Clarissa Pinkola Estes