Questions Part II

My inspiration for the poetic flow in my previous post was the following by Langston Hughes (also the introduction to A Raisin in the Sun):

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore--

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over--

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Questions about the future are like dreams, like wishes we wonder will we ever achieve, ever realize these milestones in our lives that our heart so achingly thirsts to behold...

I realized after reading over my previous entry, it is I who is in a holding pattern - It is not all of us twenty somethings and for that matter 30, 40 , 50 and so on somethings.  If we are in a holding pattern it is because we have chosen to be there! Eureka! An epiphany about my/our current state of mind…its time to demolish these walls!  Time to unblock the arteries to our hearts, and breathe in a full breath taking in all of life's possibilities and exhaling out all that is out of our control...smiling in return at the beauty that surrounds us.  I stand on a peak tonight alone, strong.

The most important thing I left out about the whirling dervish, is that eventually he finds God at the end of his spins! ;)

The significance of the Question mark "?"

Questions that need to hang, that literally once asked hinge on the question mark itself; the sickled shaped symbol that it is….all beginning with “Will you?”  Questions that wonder about a future result, a result that can only occur based on present actions.

These open unanswered questions, with each day may receive a different answer and while the intention is to eventually answer, the question itself may shrivel up on that very sickle and lose life.  The life with which it was hinging on to continue on with the life of the answer the breath that was to breathed into the question.  The story never to have a beginning.

I feel as though the twenties of an adult persons life is this way; a holding pattern. We have so many questions that will eventually lead us into a direction, so many forks, we can keep spinning around and around trying to choose a path. But where?  Like the whirling dervish you may find yourself spinning and spinning yourself into a frenzy, until you collapse with no answers to the questions in your head, just fatigue.

Indecision, is a dangerous disease; a symptom of your twenties

Falling Leaves...

With the Fall chill in the air, I feel as though we are all slowly waking from the haze of the summer, suddenly alert and aware.  The chill is seeping into our offices, our cubicles, the air we breathe in, it brings with it a quality of change;  Of death and decay followed by renewal and rebirth.  We are just dying now decaying now, exfoliating now, awaiting for rejuvenation.  It only gets worse from here only to get better.

The wind flutters in the distance.

It plays and twirls with the fabrics adorned on the bodies nearby, the same fabric that covers the earth it plays with too, water.  The waves come crashing  up high, gaining great momentum in the distant horizon before they hit the coast.

We whisper back to the winds whirling whistles that sweep up the decayed red, yellow and orange leaves with new wants and desires, new goals new hopes and the fears that come with it. Renewed desires come alive bornagain thriving to be realized…

I want…

I want…

I am ready…

One sweep of the wind…I feel the wind, I am the leaf, detached from the tree, a seed to be planted in a new soil. I watch and wait.

I want to blow away with that wind, I am at his will and his mercy

I want to disappear into the wind

And become nothing

Take me with you

Take my everything

    That makes me, me

     Give me no name and make me nameless

Until I am nothing…

Let me give until there is nothing, Until I am nothing

That empty

Then I become everything

…that many

To Rumi, the great poet and mystic, you dwell in my heart

When you close your eyes...

What do you see?

I am a dancer - dancing in ancient traditional Indian classical garb, unrecognizable and yet recognizable as my passion, my love manifested.  A haze of cream, red and gold smear before this lense through which I see myself move, telling the story of my self by myself in this solitary place. Swift, sometimes slow; sharp, sometimes smooth in movement and gaze. When I bend deeply into pose the silk in which I am wrapped, spreads like a peacocks’ train, into an embroidered fan. It is through embellished dark eyes, that I speak as there are no words…just music, and the force that moves me with the utmost passion and intention, in a place that is placeless, timeless and spaceless, to be as I am.

I think that each of us sees ourselves as we truly are from within, in these moments of clarity.  Clarity of perception, connection and mind.  While what we see, may remain unexpressed to the outside in literal form, it is very real behind the curtain of the physical eye.

I see myself dancing through this life.  One turn of the body, one bend of the legs, one tap of the feet, one hand gesture after another, a seamless, tireless continuum.  In my minds eye everyone I encounter is a dancer either a partner dancer with whom I perform a beautiful intricate masterpiece, or a chance duet.  Each of us has our own dance form, our own rhythm that allows us to compliment or upset another’s harmony; our own traditional garb handed down to us through history making us inseparable with many pasts and futures to come, connecting us somehow through this ornate singular united melody…

When you close your eyes…what do you see?

I am reminded of a German film I once saw Cherry Blossoms (http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/movies/16cher.html), courtesy of netflix's strange collection of 'watch instantly' movies.  Now mind you, I do not understand nor have a particular fascination for German culture, but at the time I was obsessed with the beautiful metaphor for buddhist philosophies of detachment, and transcience often associated with cherry blossoms.   In this film which I highly recommend, I was introduced to the japanese dance/art form Butoh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butoh), which I find to be similar to bharatanatyam, an Indian dance form.  Both look at the body as a work of art, both try to create ornate shapes with the body, both take you to a place beyond the body...truly beautiful to witness.

Yogini in the making

I have been working on my self these days, through the aid of Yoga. I mean how often do we really take a look under the hood to make sure everything is working okay?

There are so many things I want to work on, like my Ego. I hate when I catch myself being egotistical, at its truest form it’s really just insecurity. It is through this weed in the fertile field of the mind i.e. the ego that gives rise to other beautiful qualities like jealousy and anger – how lovely! But the problem is, to live here, on planet earth you need some form of it, its like no matter how hard you would like to shed it completely, you have no choice but to keep a thin layer on so you can survive here on this plane.

Next is mental discipline and ability to focus. You see these two go hand in hand and without these you really can’t achieve anything; it really is making sure you have a well-oiled engine facilitate the achievement of your goals – your mind! It is where everything begins and ends. And as I have become older, somehow my machine has had a lot of garbage coming in, and not a lot going out,  I desperately need to reboot and reprogram.  These are my two main foci at present; the goal of writing is already manifesting itself with a little bit of discipline ;)

But overall my experience with Teacher Training (3 weekends completed so far for 200 RYT) has begun a much needed internal revolution within myself. Yes the philosophies are familiar, but the danger of familiarity is that we don’t see or appreciate all the details. Because I am learning all this in an unfamiliar manner and territory, so the material is from a fresh perspective, and direct sources – the Vedas, the Yoga sutras of Patanjali, the Upanishads…such ancient scriptures, I am in heaven being such a history buff. The entire experience is slowly allowing me to go after my negative patterns of thinking, one thought at a time, which makes my goals that much more achievable, I am cleaning my internal home.

I feel as though I am experimenting, like my entire body, this life, there is a science, and I am the scientist meant to study and understand and test out these hypotheses. I feel engaged; I feel a slow shift happening, a shift to a place of balance and equilibrium within myself…

I Want to Bleed Sufi...

...My words would whirl about me in Dervish fashion

There are these moments, where I feel crazed, drunk and I want take ownership of the title drunkard.  Not drunkard in physical terms, passion pure passion like a red silk blazing in the Sun's heat, flailing about in merciless gusts of the wind, and welcoming the mystery of the night.

I am mad, possessed, its an energy that brews up within me, turning churning and whirling about, wanting to propel itself into action, but where?

And so am I here, writing. It has been one month to the day since I have sought out this space, place, the nameless. The struggling writer that I am, struggling for the words, worthy words for you, and worthy words for myself – foolishness I know, I spend too much time in my head as result, brewing with the energy that desires to create, instead I just think and think myself into a frenzy.

So here I am in a frenzied crazed state, in love, in love with love, and life and creation..everything and nothing

Music moves my soul so, it always has, listen to my latest discovery via Pandora in the musical corner

I have decided to keep it raw, keep this space, true to me. The philosophy, the truth, the lessons will be there, but wrapped within me, all that is me. A fabric of my existence..

Yoga is helping me to tame my mind, channelize its energies, understand my heart, source and quell its insecurities so I don’t react. I don’t want to react, I don’t want to be jealous, I don’t want to harbor hatred. Its like a rotted seed that will eventually turn me completely rotten, I can’t risk it. Love love love….

Breath, Breath, Breath…"I am only breath" as Rumi says, I never understood the mystical context behind what he says in that verse.  Pranna the life force as mentioned in the veda, it is all so very connected.  A grand metaphor that is all that each religion is according to Ms. Gilbert says in Eat Pray Love, epiphanic thought don't you think?  The Hopi Indians hypothesized that each religion or spiritual system was just a thread and if sewn together would create a fabric of one ultimate truth..

Persian art, culture, and history have always fascinated me, there is something so mystical about what was Persia.  The coexistence of such fierce faith and innovation, and not just coexistence immersion of the two, passion for the world in the form of art, dance, music, architecture and beyond this world. It is perhaps through this world they were inspired into the world beyond..

“The future comes one day at a time”

My fortune cookie yesterday. I often wonder, why is it that the best of us struggle with the inability to finish something we start. Correction something we dare to start. There are the usual suspects which all end up at fear combined with slothfulness.

I was watching Julie and Julia the other day, and there was a moment where Julie wanted to give up, she said “I’m taking a break” in response to her overbearing mother's inquire as to why she wasn’t cooking that particular night. Other than the obvious fight with her husband which was all to easy to blame her desire to quit on, it was clear she was feeling defeated.  Her mother uncharacteristically ends the phone conversation saying “Don’t quit.  It’ll do you some good to finish something for once in your life. Who knows you actually might learn something.” The scene ends with Julie getting up off bed and heading to the grocery store.

While I am no cook, I too have this problem, unable to finish what I start. I believe its cowardice mixed in with slothfulness. But I want to work through this, I really do believe at the bottom of the task we set out to do, its on its way to completion that we realize a lot about ourselves.

I once read “When you get right down to bottom of the word ‘success’ it means to follow through.” Think about it, how good is the greatest golf swing if you never follow through?

I decided to air this issue out a bit because I think a lot of us struggle with this, and I say this because I can’t really even sum it up in a single word.

The quote I started with is significant in what I’m setting out to do because it takes changing what you do one day at a time, that changes the slope of the line of your life. One day at a time…