In the Blue of the Flame

I don't want
to sit around
or sing and dance
and tell stories
around a sacred fire,

I want to stand
in the blue
of the flame -
naked,
groundless,
yet alive,

tempered by
an unquenchable longing
to meet myself
in my fiery wholeness,
reclaiming the majesty
and insignificance
of what I am
and what I'm here to do,
in a world that's content
to share stories around a fire,
too terrified to burn
its fingers and toes.

In the Dark of the Night

in the dark of the night,
some people get away -
pinched skins
and powdered masks,
resting in the ashes
of long-burnt out sins;

in the dark of the night,
some people are spent
in the raging fire of what is,
stripped of their
insipid flamboyance,
without a fire escape;

in the dark of the night,
some people find
the signposts lost
in the glare of city lights,
guiding and marking
their long way home.

in the dark of the night,
is where I find
what I need to leave behind.

The Seed

I once held
a little seed tight
in my line-crossed palm,
waiting for the perfect time,
the perfect place
to set him free;

I watched the seasons
being born and die,
I watched the sun beat down
upon the burning earth,
I watched the flickering lights
upon a blackened sky,
I watched the storms
rage on and swivel by,
and held on tightly
to the tiny seed -
he couldn't go,
just yet, I thought;

until I saw a bird
drop a seed
while he whistled by -
where the sun and the stars,
the dark and the storms,
and the warm earth
where she tumbled
and giggled,
and cried and rested,
played with her,
shaped her,
and opened her,
so she could share
her gifts with them
and the world;

and I dropped
my little seed
quietly to the ground,
to set him free,
as I set myself free
from a tethered world.

Notes To Myself - 5

True leaders are those who do not impose themselves on anyone, who do not sustain their power by creating a division between themselves and their "followers", who are not victims of their own need for power and control, rather they are the ones who are happy to give their power away, and listen to what the others really and truly need.


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I am finding a certain peace that comes with listening to my body.....perhaps I will feel that I am listening completely to my body only when I can get out of ALL routines bound by time.
I am learning to listen to my body and to stop walking or cycling when I start feeling tired physically or mentally. I am learning to decide when to push it a little more and whether I really want to, and why. I am trying not to stop and look at the time when I am walking or cycling. I am discovering that on some days I can go on for half an hour or more, and on other days, only for 10-15 minutes. I am learning to feel okay about that. I am learning to not get wound up when I cannot meet a goal that I had unconsciously set up for myself. It is a good feeling to get away from the mind and into the body....to go with the flow....it is so much easier. 

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When I seem to be caught time and again between what I want to share with others and why and what responses I get, I try and look within.

Sometimes, there are needs that have to be met, that I knowingly seek outside. When those needs are met, I feel happy and satiated. If not, I feel sad or hurt and sometimes even angry or irritated. Both are great learning experiences for me though. Both are wonderful places to be, as there is always some deep learning that happens.

For me, it is the intent that holds the key. When I am completely open to owning my own feelings, I am open to the others' feelings...and however that makes me feel, I am open to stay with that. But when I expect only a certain kind of response to what I am sharing, and close my heart to some of my own feelings, I find myself building a wall inside quite unconsciously, that keeps people away, or hesitant or wondering or wary. And that is not such a nice place to be for me, when I often yearn to seek connection.

What I find working for me now, is to simply ask for what I want - to just put it out there. Or, to share what I want to, and being okay with every kind of response, as an offering to me. This is a much better place to be for me, as the connection is kept open from my side - the connection to my own self and the others.

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 'A paradox is not a conflict within reality. It is a conflict between
reality and your feeling of what reality should be like.''
- Richard Feynman

Every paradox holds a gift waiting to be opened.


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 Sharing my joy today with vulnerability...after wallowing in the doldrums yesterday...that makes THIS all the more sweet...

Met a family with a young girl in 6th Grade, at the organic store I go to every Saturday. I was surprised when the mother started our conversation with a quick 'hi',as if she already knew me, and then went on to say that she had watched the Youtube video where I had shared my journey about homeschooling my son, and also the one where R had shared what he felt about homeschooling, and how that had touched her deeply...she said she was convinced then that homeschooling was the way for her family...and also said that she was following my blog, and that that had given her a lot of strength and answers to questions that she often asked herself...how she had feared earlier that her daughter would get addicted to TV and other media, and how she is less worried about all that now...

It was also heart-wrenching to listen to her story....how her daughter developed bone cancer in her hand when she was barely five years old, how she survived all that, had a prosthesis inserted in that hand, and how she now really wanted her to pursue her interests instead of wasting her time in school...I realised how Life constantly gets us back on our feet....whenever we think we have the greatest problems on the earth, someone comes by who seems to have even greater problems....this has been my constant learning from my life experiences...

I am quietly happy today, with a warm, fuzzy feeling in my heart.....this gives me more inspiration to write with all my heart...

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Letting go is beautiful...much like the wispy dreams that you hold in your heart and set free into the heart of the Universe....memories may come back to haunt you again some other time, some other day....and in that coming back, you will also remember the sweetness of how you chose to let go....

Vulnerability

Vulnerability
sits inside each of us,
like a rose amidst thorns,
to unfold herself
to the warm sun
on a cold wintry morn.

To be a rose
is to sit with the thorns,
even as they prick, and
let the blood flow out;
it is to be alive
to all the pain and joy.

To be a rose
amidst the thorns,
is to stay
in the seeing,
being and knowing
that "I am enough".

When vulnerability
is the midwife -
love becomes the womb
and the passage,
for a new connection
to be born.

When you sit
with your vulnerability,
all naked and raw,
and with a broken fullness,
you begin to love yourself
and find love in this world.

Just Stay

Just when you begin to feel
that there is darkness all around,
Just when your trembling hand
reaches out to touch the ground,
Just when an old wound of yours
smarts too much, too much to bear,
Just when you're feeling lost and alone
and wish you could melt into thin air,
Just when you see the glorious sun
die into the bleeding sky,
Just when your revered nakedness
becomes a story to be tossed around,
Stay.
Stay with the pain, the fear,
Stay with the hurt, the rage,
Just stay.
Stay for as long as it takes.
And when you've stayed just long enough,
in that empty space of not knowing,
you will know that it always follows,
as the night, the day.
And so, just stay.