Category: letting go

Turn the stones to peace

/ Lanae / Leave a comment Featured

Sometimes, the various thoughts and messages I think I’d like to share feel rather like a swirling nebula, and the question is, where are the stars?! Where is that cloud of desires, feelings, ideas, and possibilities coalescing into a star, a message that’s like a unified point of light, shining bright and clear? Sometimes, these days, the intention, time, and energy required for star formation (as it were!) are beyond me …. but I do what I can to keep the creation spark alive!

And that’s why it’s a gift to rediscover stars – writings and poems from past years that hold the essence of a message that remains relevant to my heart, that speak light to my soul again, that could speak light out into the world, perhaps. I wanted to share one of those stars here, a poem I wrote in November 2017 – a time when my heart felt like it had somehow become full of stones, but I sure didn’t want to keep carrying them and so I desperately sought a healing, freeing practice.

The stones that the poem speaks of are stones that any of us could be carrying in our hearts for whatever reason – we’re human, and these stones, these feelings, these emotional, psychological, and spiritual experiences, are a part of our humanness. But there is a way to see more deeply into these things, to see them for what they are (and are not), and there is a way to set ourselves free, to “turn the stones to peace”. It might be that we need to “turn the stones to peace” over and over and over again, to set ourselves free over and over and over again. At least, this is true for me – I find I need to return to the practice, partly because I seem to be good at finding stones to carry again!

It can be intense, challenging, sometimes exhausting work, but also such healing and freeing work – what lightness and light it can bring, that we then carry with us, wherever we go and to whomever we meet.

And drawing the lens out further: What if this were not only an internal practice, but a communal practice that we learned (re-learned) to share and do together – and found peace, became free, together? To carry stones no more to our own hurt and others’ hurt, but turn them to peace, be free. Be free to be love to ourselves and one another.

Turn the stones to peace

These stones
I have carried in my heart
Resentment stones
Envy stones
Loneliness stones
Grief stones
Bitter stones
Sorrow stones
These stones
I have carried in my heart

I reach
inside
and I gather these stones
I hold them in my hands
rest them on my palms
lift my hands up
feel the weight of these stones
I see the stones
outside my heart
I see them for what they
are
emptiness
perception not whole
truth
As I see them
for what they
are
they fall into dust
and from the dust
transform into doves
who take wing

Robbed of their form
and their weight
given a whole
truth
stones become peace
my heart is light
I carry stones there
no more
I am free

Living with a heart wider open

/ Lanae / Leave a comment Featured

Yesterday, I was reading a reflection in a lovely yoga book called Meditation on Intention and Being, by Rolf Gates, and there is a passage there that really resonated with me to share. It is from a section discussing self-study, or self-examination, being willing to look into ourselves, to understand our motives and our intents better – so we can change and purify them, change and purify our habits of thinking and doing and relating to others.

Anyway, these are the words I wish to share: “We find … that what stands between us and an act of kindness, or honesty, is not race, or gender, or politics, but just plain old-fashioned self-protection. We may mutter unkind stereotypes under our breath, but it is not because we are fundamentally against any particular type of people. What we discover is that we are against any threat to the immediate gratification of the self (ego).”

For me, this cut to the core of my own personal struggles with learning to live with a heart wider open, with generosity and vulnerability … and what I suspect is at the core of many prejudices and biases and extreme reactions people sometimes have toward those who are different, and why they feel so terribly threatened, hesitant or resistant to reach out or step out of their comfort zones. It is a self-protective measure, an ego-protective measure, a feeling that the sense of themselves as they have understood themselves, of the world as they have understood it, is threatened. And that is a fearful thing, that invites a passionate reaction of some sort … a reaction that perhaps covers up what is really at the core, that desire to protect ourselves.

That self-protectiveness, that self-defensiveness, the kind that causes me to resist or shrink in fear from deeper acts of compassion and generosity, of going beyond my self,  is something I am working on surrendering … and surrender is a challenging practice! But I don’t want the self-protective urges of my ego to cause me to miss out on the joy of surrender, living from the soul, living in abundance, generosity, purer integrity!

My intention: to become more self-aware of that limiting self-protectiveness, and to surrender it.

 

Lessons in belonging (or, what my grad school group class taught me)

/ Lanae / Leave a comment Featured

Today is the final day of my latest session of classes, and am I ever looking forward to a week off before the next round of classes starts – one whole week homework-free! Every time I make it to the end of a session of classes, it’s such a sweet feeling of triumph and relief, a mingled sense of accomplishment and emancipation … and maybe this time, more so, because of the particular challenges and obstacles that tagged along for the journey this time.

For one, I have a job in which I travel a lot, and while I truly enjoy my work, care deeply for the people with whom I work, and don’t mind driving, extra time on the road means time not available for schoolwork – and means creativity in finding time for schoolwork!

For another, I’ve gotten quite the lesson in the complex dance it is to balance full-time graduate school, work, parenting, teaching yoga/meditation … it’s been, frankly, often exhausting and sometimes overwhelming (but rewarding too!). Somewhere in there, my sleep/rest quotient decreased, which meant that balance sometimes felt wobbly, and the whole school/work/parenting/life dance got a bit out of rhythm (okay, maybe my emotional equilibrium occasionally did too)!

For one other, one of my classes presented a special challenge for me, which is really what this post is about. It was a group class, about group methods and facilitating groups, and as part of it, the class met through Adobe Connect. Actually, it was thoroughly delightful to see my classmates’ faces, hear their voices, and experience who they are, because in online classes, usually your classmates are names without faces, people you only meet through discussion posts!

But anyway, those who know me well know I feel much more comfortable in one on one interactions over group interactions, so I felt sort of apprehensive about this class, because I wasn’t sure what it would like, what would be expected. Plus, I was thinking, 2 1/2 hours every Thursday, whoa, that’s a long time to be in group!

And … I was concerned about how the technology might behave for me. With good reason, as it turned out! I missed the first class due to another obligation, and then technical difficulties disrupted four of the next five classes. I did everything I could to resolve the issues, and still there was a signal bottleneck that meant sound transmissions didn’t come through.  So – I spent most of those four classes as a silent observer, watching my classmates on the screen, unable to hear most of what they said, unable to be heard. Ugh!

I thought I might have to withdraw from the class … but a dear friend came to the rescue and graciously let me borrow her home office for the remaining 6 weeks of class. An act of abundance that not only rescued me but redeemed my whole group class experience!

Sitting in silence was painfully frustrating, because I wanted desperately be a part of what was going on – until I simply surrendered to the situation as it was, and determined to look for whatever good there was to draw out of it.  For one, it was a chance to practice maintaining presence and equanimity – what else was there to do, sitting there in silence! An extended meditation opportunity, really!

The piquant irony of it all though (I’m convinced the universe has a weird sense of humor and brought it to me purposefully!) is that my outsider experience in this case so neatly aligned with the outsider perception I have often experienced or felt – a sense of both belonging and not belonging in some way in many groups (as I discussed in my previous post ).

I’ve often felt outsidered – or, maybe more precisely – have often outsidered myself. Although sometimes I’ve most definitely been outsidered, because I failed in some way to conform to expectations about what I should think, believe, or be … and because I was/am different in some ways. For instance, I’ve experienced being outsidered for being gay in one way or another over the years … and now as a single (divorced) person, I sometimes feel a little outsidered amongst my married friends.

However, I see now that mostly, it became my pattern to outsider myself, to believe that being the outsider, or being the quiet observer, was my role in a group – my role in life, pretty much! The odd one, the odd one out … beloved, but still the odd one out.

And so the gift of this disconcerting group experience was that it forced me to confront that core idea. After all, it was technology, a neutral party, that outsidered me, not the group or myself … so that gave the chance to look deeply into it from a whole new perspective, a liberating perspective!

I learned to let go of my attachment to an outsider role, or more precisely, my attachment to the expectation or perception that I often end up playing an outsider role … well, honestly, I’d have to say I’m still working on that! I still kind of like some parts of choosing the outsider role … but I also like belonging (so maybe there’s a way they fit together, eh?!).

Even though it was hard to feel like I belonged to the class group after my silent time, I learned that they still felt I belonged, if for no other reason than that I had persevered and remained present. I wasn’t an outsider, I wasn’t outsidered! What a wonder that was to me!

What I discovered within this experience is that I can be who I am and while my authenticity might mean that I don’t quite conform, yet I can still belong, and belong more so because of my authenticity.

The experience of outsidering has helped me know the value of the experience of belongingness!

Belongingness means more to me because I understand feeling or being outsidered … and I want, I intend, to share the gift of belongingness with those who feel, or are, outsidered!

(So, yes, this was quite the 12 weeks! I’m just glad I made it safely, sanely, through – and found the good in it all 😀 )