My little one has not been to London for a while, 2 or 3 years. His favourite place in London is the Natural History Museum. Whenever we go, it is top of the list. We went and it was lovely. Here is a high five from an iguanodon for you. The winter is almost over. There is hope. There is silliness 😊 Spring is coming. Hang in there ⭐️
via tricycle.org
It’s the little things sometimes that help us emerge from the depths of darkness, finally take a breath and see the light of hope. Like making this chap out of a loo roll and inspired by this TikTok video. Happy New Year of Tiger, fellow wanderers, may this year bring us much needed respite and hope!
I am making sure I live a little bit this weekend, hope you do too! 🎡 Sun is shining, birds are singing, flowers are blooming 🌸 We don’t know how much time we’ve got left. I am writing this from a cottage by the lake somewhere in the farm lands of Norfolk. My plans include visiting one of the beautiful local beaches 🐚, stuffing myself with guilt inducing food🍦 and doing as few things as possible 📚. I hope you have a good one.
At some point during my first psilocybin trip, I’ve looked at a couple in front of me sat under the blanket, quietly coming down from their trip. Reality underneath and around them was transparent, shimerring with molecular grid connections, blue and yellow fractal lines permeating the space. Even their human edges were fraying, exposing the underlying grid behind everything.
Matter as energy, reality not as solid as it seems. Everything a pulsating fractal, an energy wave stopped by mind perception.
I can’t draw or paint so I did the best I could with the collage. I could not find an image of a couple under a blanket that I liked but I found this wonderful lady, a drawing model, posing God knows how many years ago. Her energy seemed to fit just right. So this is what the Universe is made of. Happy weekend.
Why We Shouldn’t Be Afraid of Suffering by Thich Nhat Hanh
My cat has left her body this morning after a short illness. It was unexpected, happened too fast and it broke my heart. I love you, my beautiful fur baby, my wonderful friend, my dear Tata 💔 You’ve brought more joy, happiness and meaning to our life than we ever expected. At peace finally. See you on the other side. Ram Ram.
Taking a few deep breaths, feel the body you breathe in.
Feel the body expanding and contracting with each breath.
Focus on the rising and falling of the abdomen.
Let awareness receive the beginning, middle, and end of each inbreath, of each outbreath expanding and contracting the belly.
Note the constantly changing flow of sensation in each inhalation, in each exhalation.
And begin to soften all around these sensations.
Let the breath breathe itself on a softening belly.
Soften the belly to receive the breath, to receive sensation, to experience life in the body.
Soften the muscles that have held the fear for so long.
Soften the tissue, the blood vessels, the flesh.
Letting go of the holding of a lifetime.
Letting go into soft-belly, merciful belly.
Soften the grief, the distrust, the anger held so hard in the belly.
Levels and levels of softening, levels and levels of letting go.
Moment to moment allow each breath its full expression in soft-belly.
Let go of the hardness. Let it float in something softer and kinder.
Let thoughts come and let them go, floating like bubbles in the spaciousness of soft-belly.
Holding to nothing, softening, softening.
Let the healing in.
Let the pain go.
Have mercy on yourself, soften the belly, open the passageway to the heart.
In soft-belly there is room to be born at last, and room to die when the moment comes.
In soft-belly is the vast spaciousness in which to heal, in which to discover our unbounded nature.
Letting go into the softness, fear floats in the gentle vastness we call the heart.
Soft-belly is the practice that accompanies us throughout the day and finds us at day’s end still alive and well.
I am reading “Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life” by Shantideva, the Indian Buddhist master who lived centuries ago. It is a treasure trove of amazing perspective shifts and reframes. For example, here are some of his quotes on anger from the chapter titled “Relying on Patience.” He reflects on the role of anger in liberation, its emptiness (conditioning), its karmic determination:
Continue readingDid you know about Butoh? A rebellion in art form, an ego death ritual, embracing “grotesquerie, darkness, and decay”, where a dancer transports into alternative states of being – Butoh (originally “ankoku butō”, “dance of darkness”) is the best way to lose one self, and hence find the real one.
As I age, I realise that there is no such thing as absolute truth – only points of view. There is no black and white “right and wrong”. Just shades of “depends”. The more I know the more I realise that I know nothing.
I stopped burning bridges. I hear out folks whose values are very different from mine (unless they support violence) and I realise that to them their truth is truth, and to me my truth is truth. And so there are multiple versions of it and who am I to say mine is “truer”?
I’ve been hearing out anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists, uber liberals and super conservatives, people who believe in lizard overlords, government control, aliens or don’t believe science (because if you think about it, it is in a way a point of view). So many points of view. From my point of view 😊 none if it is true, on any side. Everything – an illusion. But what do I know!
For a long time I was working on intuition and manifesting because I thought I needed to become more intuitive and learn to manifest. Then I learned/ realised that trying to intuit and manifest is another way of not accepting the unknown, trying to know, control the uncertainty and that one can not intuit or manifest what is not ready to be revealed and is not their path.
Instead I am learning to take a step back, get out of the way, chill, trust the process and let go of control, of the need to know. I learned to face and accept uncertainty. As I practiced it, I also stopped setting goals. How can I know what the Universe has in store for me. I am open to all options and it looks like the only “goal” I have is to accept more and practice non-attachment/ non-aversion further.
My path has been unfolding miraculously so far, without me doing anything. New projects and teachers find me. New teachings and assignments materialise. No manifesting, no intuiting, no goals. Trust and patience and faith. And accepting it as it comes.
It’s beginning to look a lot like lockdown… again. This winter is a deja vu of rising infections, struggling NHS, unsure government – pandemic 3.0. Our social enterprise decided not to add to the doom and gloom and create something silly that’s also hopefully useful. Brian the Brain is here to show us how to survive this winter – therapy is one thing that can help! You can watch all videos here. And yes, some of the faces are by yours truly. Which video is your favourite?
“Be patient with all that is unresolved in your heart, and try to love the questions themselves. Do not seek for the answers that can not be given, for you wouldn’t be able to live with them, and the point is to live everything. Live the questions now, and perhaps without knowing it, you will live along someday into the answers.”
Rilke
Nomad of the Universe 