This Moment To Be Free

as of next tuesday it will be a year since i began this blog, and more so, this journey…

it has been a most wonderful year. i was talking yesterday with a friend, a fellow student from the public health master’s degree program i took at columbia a few years ago. we were both much happier and more energetic than we had been when we were in school and we agreed that this is because we are listening to the inner voice as guidance and following our hearts, rather than only trying to make money. the path of love, over the path of security.

i still worry about security — i am a cancer with a capricorn moon, so it is somewhat ingrained in my nature and part of my star-self to want to feel at home and secure, and to be ambitious — but i am learning that true security is found when i am able to come home to the peace within…that within me, within all of us, there is a home that is warm and secure, peaceful and happy — a home where we are always welcome, and always given all we need…the anandamayakosha — the place of peace within. Over the past year I have learned about this place and visited it many times. It is a good home and a home i hope to dwell in more and more as my practice deepens.

this year i have also felt anger, blame, hurt, fear, guilt, heart-break, confusion…in other words, all the human reactions to being alive…and i am slowly, with the help of love, good friends, good teachers and yoga practice, coming to realize that much of what keeps me from the place of peace within are my own character flaws. i am beginning to work on these more consciously.

in the course of the past year, i did indeed lie fallow – for about 4 months. it was so nice…doing yoga most days, shopping for, eating and cooking whole foods entirely at my leisure to play and experiment in the kitchen. then i found this wonderful and challenging job at the apothecary and now i am completing level 1 teacher training. i even yearned to write a book and had the image that this blog would become my book…until my oldest friend wrote me with a book proposal and we are in the process of creation of that — proof that your dreams may come true, but not necessarily in the form you might expect.

in the past year i have learned that it is ok to let go and let life evolve more organically. now on the precipice of the end of my first year living this way, i am very happy and feeling both expectant/excited and peaceful…and also some fear — despite the evidence of a joyful year of self-connection and connection with the Divine on many beautiful levels, i am still at times an anxious person. i do not have much experience listening only to my inner guidance, and i have not had as loud an inner directive since the first one to “take six months off, rest and do yoga”…

maybe i do not need to be directed as loudly or firmly, since i am now on this path – but i have so many interests and so many ideas – coupled with a bit of shyness, sensitivity, and the fear that maybe no one will want to play with me (a holdover from the long ago four year old inside)…

so i take a deep breath, and another…and thank god, the mother of everything, and the universe…i thank my beloved husband, and my cats…i thank my dear friends and my teachers…i thank my family…i thank all of my joys and all of my challenges…for being with me this past year as i journeyed out upon this path and i intend, in the coming year to plant the field i have prepared in this past year….i vow and intend to plow and till and plant seeds and try to trust and have faith in god and the earth that the work i am doing is right for my soil and that god and goddess will help me know which seeds to choose and where and how to plant them, and that the seeds i am planting will take root and grow…and i pray for a bountiful harvest, one that i and I can share with the world, feeding others as I have fed myself — even being blessed with opportunities to teach others what i have learned about how to “farm organically” in the pastures of body and soul.

in humanity, and hope…

om shanti, peace.

“ring the bells that still can ring – forget your perfect offering – there is a crack, a crack in everything – that’s how the light gets in” — Leonard Cohen

i have been sick in bed for two days and have decided to give myself one more day to rest and recover.

i have been doing nothing “yogic” with my past two days – just laying in bed drinking tea and juice and water and eating and sleeipng and watching tv. i have been feeling a bit guilty that i am not doing anything “yogic” – by which i mean meditating,moving my body, reading inspiring literature, and so forth.

but perhaps it is the most yogic action to just let go and take care of my body when i am sick, and what my body wanted was to simply zone out and be fed nice healthy things to eat and watch silly movies and tv shows and to just relax and not be good, or be yogic or be anything…

and now my cold is going away and i feel a lot better physically and my body still wants to just rest and relax…

is that so bad?

i have to trust that my body knows what it needs and i need to let my mind follow that need rather than dictate strict rules for what is ok and acceptable and yogic – i need to allow sick time, and i need not to be rigid — i need to cultivate an “easeful body, peaceful mind and useful life” and this will come naturally in time if i do not make strict and rigid rules, but rather go toward what i love and be in the flow of what i need.

peace.