This Moment To Be Free

Last week was a holiday in the Hindu calender for the god Shiva – the Destroyer. This Shiva holy day is about transformation. Yesterday my yoga teacher mentioned this and noted that transition can feel like destruction. Indeed.

I am thinking of the tower card in the tarot, and the death card which traditionally does not mean actual death, but change.  I am again shifting and changing and it does feel like destruction, like a tower falling. One thing Shiva destroys is bad habits. Good, I need that…in general though, the transformation seems to be just happening.

Transformation physically, emotionally, spiritually, in relationships…just happening right now and i am hoping to end right side up, which ever side is right.

I am thinking of the word shiva – in the Jewish tradition there is a transitional time of seven days after the death of a close loved one. This time is called shiva – you sit shiva – sit for seven days in mourning, on uncomfortable chairs, your clothing torn (you rip a piece of clothing to signify mourning), and friends come visit – you are never alone during shiva, during this transition time around death.

So whether it is a feeling of death during a time of transition, or a marking of the transition around a time of death — a Hindu god, or a Jewish  custom — Shiva or shiva — is a very powerful experience and I feel as though I am sitting shiva during this time for whatever is dying off in and around me during this time of Shiva.

Om shanti, om peace.

i have not written in two months – needed to just be and do and not yet to comment on it all…

i am having a difficult moment right now, because i love my life so dearly and am feeling pleasure and expansion and grace and gratitude and…again, the humanity, the imperfection…

my greatest fear is, having begun to build, having found a home – all this will be taken away from me — worse, that somehow i will do something or act in some way or say something  that will cause all that i love to disappear…

i speak in yoga class of the peace within. i tell my students, or those who come to my class to hear the wisdom of the swami as it passes through me…i say “feel the peace within. this is your true nature, your true nature is peace. this place of peace is a place you can come home to at any time – your true home, waiting within – welcoming and warm – and you can dwell in this place of peace at any time, no matter what else is going on in your life at that time”. I say this, and i mean it when i say it – but right now, i am not living in it.

i need to find out, once and for all, what it is to dwell in the place of peace – unafraid and at home in the world – because i know that i am not my body or my mind, or my surroundings – but that i am a spirit. that i do not need to continue to be attached to the external form of my experience – although i love dearly and with all my heart the external form of my experience right now – that it is – so much = an expression of myself and what i desire….

and if deep down what i truly desire, and what is truly right for me, is what god desires — than so be it. But i register my desire, dear father, dear mother of all things, dear physical manifestation of reality — let me stay and experience all the beauty i have around me and for which i am so grateful and i am truly sorry if i have taken your name in vain. i apologize and will strive never to do this again.

with all my heart, i thank you for being allowed to continue to unfold as a being of light and love upon this planet.

i thank you for all the opportunities you give me to grow and learn, and for teaching me how to be grateful.

grant me the serenity to accept what i cannot change, the courage to change the things i can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

om shanti, om peace,

amen