My video tribute to Rabindranath Tagore

Excerpts from Gitanjali.

Music- Vision by Hildegard von Bingen, Richard Souther

Photos from Wikimedia Commons

Full-screen for better viewing quality.

A song of despair- Pablo Neruda

My first attempt at making a video had one clear result- a new-found appreciation for all that we watch on youtube. Very frustrating experience indeed, and will probably want to tweak it, but at least there is some version available until someone posts a better one! :) Can't wait for that!

Self-sabotage

Today I've been thinking about self-sabotage, the age-old enemy that many people see as their monster in the cupboard. Or is it?

I myself can identify with most of the common ways said to imply self-sabotage- procastrination, feeling stuck or without a purpose, driving away relationships etc. Check the article about this here- The top 7 Signs Of Self-sabotaging behaviour

So what can we do about this? Often I find that as soon as I realize I am self-sabotaging once again, my behaviour changes, self-awareness as always seems to be the key. Our reasons for self-sabotage are all a little different- working through your past to understand ourselves and getting down to the nitty gritty with our deepest fears... Whenever I find myself testing a relationship and pushing the boundaries, I try to remind myself that I am once again presented with an opportunity to heal the deepest issues from childhood, viewing the whole situation not as an obstacle but as a blessing. A healthier attitude is also shown in this

following article by C. Devin Hastings, I have yet to form an opinion about NLP but we can all take the first step by simply re-evaluating this concept a little.

"Have you ever said or felt that one of the following statements is true about you?

 

“How come I can’t lose weight” (control my temper/get up on time/or whatever).

 

“What’s wrong with me?  I know I shouldn’t do that.”

 

“I must be sabotaging myself (again).”

 

When I ask students in my classes if and of the above is true for them, I usually get a large variety of similar self-talk patterns. 

 

What is striking in every class I have taught around the U.S. and overseas, is that every person raises their hand when I next ask them if they have ever, at least once, engaged in self-sabotage. 

 

Self-sabotage (dark, deep inner forces over which we have no control) is a concept that was created by Sigmund Freud, the ‘Father Of Modern Mental Health’.  Just for the record, Freud snorted a lot of cocaine and really didn’t like women so, I find his ‘mental health’ theories just a tad suspect. 

 

The point here is that a frightening number of people subscribe to the belief that they were created with an inner terrorist that forces them to ‘self-sabotage’.  What a terrible way to live.

 

Think about it: If a person truly believes in self-sabotage, then what chance do they really have to change and be happy?  This ‘SS’ force (self-sabotage force) has all the characteristics of something that one really can’t control.  And, this uncontrollable force doesn’t even like the person in which it resides!

 

Here’s the truth about self-sabotage: It does not exist.  There simply is no such thing as self-sabotage. 

 

Now, when I say this in my classes, there is always a “lively” debate that ensues.  It seems that some people are hell bent are keeping their limitations and as some wag once said: “If you argue for your limitations, you get to keep them.”

 

However, for those people who are open-minded, their brains fall out.  Ha ha.  Just kidding.  I wanted to see if you were really reading this.

 

Seriously though, for those of you who are curious about challenging and changing a harmful, long held belief, then the following idea may be valuable to you: Self-sabotage does not exist because in reality, it is just a terrible and incorrect name for “inner miscommunication”.  

 

You see, self-sabotage is a ‘label’ for essential, unchangeable unworthiness.  And we all live up, or down to, labels we have about ourselves.

 

Speaking of harmful and inaccurate labels, do you think that you (or someone you know) have flaws? 

 

Most people answer, “Sure.  We’re only human so it’s normal to have flaws.”

 

Here’s the flaw with having flaws: Thinking they are real is very damaging because doing so is the emotional equivalent of staring at the sun in that it blinds a person to change. 

 

Thinking that you have flaws reinforces the idea of a deep unworthiness because a flaw is intrinsic and hence, very tough if not impossible, to change.

 

The point is this: Thinking that one has flaws is emotionally crippling because it perpetuates the whole self-sabotage belief pattern.

 

What if, instead, you (or someone you know) had ‘growth opportunities’?  Doesn’t that feel better?  Can you see how that label makes much more sense? 

 

Many people feel this new definition click into place because they deeply sense (in spite of an inner critical voice) that “growth opportunities” is a true description of reality.

 

Isn’t it true that flaws are limiting?  However, ‘growth opportunities’ nicely invite a person to accept that their current behaviour is what it is and that it does not have to be permanent.  The great thing about this more accurate perception of reality is that it gives a person a real opportunity to grow and change.

 

Now, let’s get back to self-sabotage.  As I said, it is a state of inner miscommunication based on an inaccurate message of worthiness that originated from some time in our past.  In other words, we have learned to incorrectly talk to ourselves about our-Self. 

 

And keep this important fact in mind:  As children, we are born with the tendency to like ourselves.  However, “as the twig is bent, so grows the tree” and most of us learn to talk to ourselves in ways that do not affirm our self-worth. 

 

In fact, some of us learned at a very young age that we, for some inexplicable reason, are born with terrible flaws and hence are unworthy.  (Womb experiences are very important but beyond the scope of this article.)

 

However, the truth is that children are created liking themselves.  As far as they are concerned, there is nothing wrong with them and they naturally give and expect healthy love because that is how they are made. 

 

Only some time later do many of us stop expecting healthy love and/or we develop odd ideas about what giving love is (to ourselves as well as others).  It is at this point when damaging inner miscommunication becomes entrenched."

Source article HERE, also with NLP techniques to eliminate self-sabotage.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock- T.S.Eliot

What a wonderful reading and a short version of this full poem here-

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question ...
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the windowpanes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the windowpanes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair--
(They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!")
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin--
(They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!")
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all--
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all--
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all--
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?

. . . . .

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? . . .

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

. . . . .

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep . . . tired . . . or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in 
upon a platter,
I am no prophet--and here's no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it towards some overwhelming question,
To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"--
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: "That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all."

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor--
And this, and so much more?--
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
"That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all."

. . . . .

No!I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous--
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old . . . I grow old . . .
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind?Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown. 

Total recall by indigo child Matias de Stefano

I have understood for a long time that I am an indigo child but couldn't really see the whole picture with that. Bless other indigos like Matias de Stefano born with an ability to remember, and to help understand. This video contains an excellent wealth of info from the structure and workings of the universe, the unrecorded history of humankind, indigos to 2012 and what the future has in store for us. 

As for me this video and other info that I have come to contact with today in the usual way of synchronicity have helped me understand everything I have struggled with...

How many of us have always felt like aliens on this planet? I do believe that some of us are souls that have entered this planet for the first time from other systems and dimensions, and the others "are earth natives who have matured spiritually to the point of awakening to their metaphysical identity, thereby making the worldly identity less real, and creating the sense of being a stranger in a strange land." (src article- are you a wanderer)

Anyway I was suffering a lot for this reason- since I can remember as a child I was always very upset to be here, until I remembered that this was my choice. I used to long for "home" all the time, most of my youth was spent on watching the stars and wanting to go home. 

Always feeling as if out of my natural environment, at the height of my spiritual crises I literally had panic attacks constantly, physically developing an inability to breathe in a seemingly foreign air, breathing was a huge mile-stone for me, but suicidal tendencies followed me for several years in this time and I can honestly say- this planet is an extremely difficult place to adapt to.

The other thing I have always felt was a reverse growing process, this is how I see it in any case. My higher chakras were always open and I have always lived through mainly my crown, giving me great ease with dealing with spiritual experiences and growing tools like meditation and connection to the universe but on the downside with my lower chakras that give grounding, not developed, especially the root chakra, (this must be the main problem of integration for all indigos,) always left me un-rooted, disconnected, struggling with alienation. I was literally a tree that had to grow from the tops of the branches down to the roots, and I am still not sure I'll ever grow those roots. I don't think that integration for me is a goal though and it was not my intention. As de Stefano says in the video, "When people start to see that any type of teaching system they try is going to fail somehow, because the indigo have not come to stay on the planet, the indigo vibration changes the context for what's going to stay after."

I have understood why I and other indigos find it scarring to go through formal education and impossible to go for higher education. In my case I have looked at every single field of study and seen the futility and the nonsensical qualities in it with the thought in mind that we are going through a shift and the paradigm is going to change completely soon. There is no use in old educational system, as I have always felt about every single system operating right now, in power right now- it is all corrupt, it is all futile and it doesn't serve the humanity anymore.

So I have found a sort of peace through all of the understandings through this video and I hope others are too. The thing to do now is mostly nothing, though I agree with the speaker when he says, "This color [indigo] is transmutation, and the Souls have come to create in the way that adapts best to each of them. If their context is aggressive or very passive, they will create changes through aggressiveness and by breaking ideas in the family level. They will do it through sexuality, politics, vandalism, art, indifference and tribalism, even through pure and possessive love." I know something of some of these different ways but in short- all that matters at this time to me now is not participating in the system in any way that will feed it further.

I have no doubt in my mind that we have all decided to incarnate at this particular, very interesting, though very difficult time. The only thing we really "must" do in this time, is to be open to it. Be open to ourselves, learn to know who we are, and always keep a positive vision of the world we want to create before our eyes. Love, learn and help learn.

Blessings to you all my fellow travelers!

Music with a message...

has always been my favourite kind of music, even though of course at the end of the day music IS the message, I guess I'm a sucker for an extra punch-line (or maybe its just being a sort of a natural born hippie :)). Luckily there have been so many artists through history who have given us this gift of inspiration and wanting to make a difference. From the Beatles to the Rage Against the Machine, from Bob Marley to Faithless, from Bob Dylan to spiritual music as a genre the list is endless, in every genre there are prophets through sound, teachers via lyrics. 

So just sharing a couple of beautiful lyrical messages that have made me smile recently. 

The power of vulnerability

"When a man is living, he is soft and supple.When he is dead, he becomes hard and rigid.When a plant is living, it is soft and tender.When it is dead, it becomes withered and dry.
Hence, the hard and rigid belongs to the company of the dead:The soft and supple belongs to the company of the living.
Therefore, a mighty army tends to fall by its own weight,Just as dry wood is ready for the axe.
The mighty and the great will be laid low;The humble and the weak will be exalted."

Lao Tzu "Tao Teh Ching"

Here is an excellent talk by Brene Brown on TED Talks "The power of vulnerability"

I was profoundly moved by this talk cause I have recognized the importance of vulnerability often. Numbing oneself seems to be a survival tactic that I personally have always both been talented in but also tirelessly rebelled against. I remember writing...

      The clouds collapsed, leaving me in a block of ice. My heart was in Antarctica and it was no holiday I enjoyed, there was no sight of penguins or polar bears, no presence of anything whatsoever. No feelings, no sense of beauty, no love, no hate, just a nothingness. Ice obstructs the movement of the soul, you become lifeless, the blood freezes in your veins. For two days I was an ice queen, did not care about anything, anyone, hurt people, but I guess this had been exactly the escape I had needed- a safe place where nothing made a difference. Yesterday, sitting on the street and feeling the wind and the Sun, I realised something- I mourned my heart, I longed for my insecurities and fears as well as love. The self-protective shutdown that my subconscious mind had performed was in fact the greatest enemy of all and THAT had made me loose everything- life, love, myself... I understood that I have to risk it all and trust it all, or let everything go cause there was no way I was going to stomach that ice age for another second. And as the wind blew from the south it slowly cracked the iceberg, the Sun melted its hard crust. I will always savour that blissful moment when I first heard my heartbeat again, when small scared quivering rays of light from my core of being peeked out with such exquisite tenderness, so fragile, it was an unbelievable experience. The first breath after was like a drink of water after a draught, I felt it consume the whole of me, caressing the born-again sensitiveness with a protective might. My breath had longed for my heart as well, being forbidden from there was like having had its child taken away from it. For long after just the experience of following the path of my breath made me cry from joy- is there anything more beautiful than the meeting of the heart and the soul? The beauty of it shattered me so completely. It’s just sad the way we have to experience the loss of something before experiencing that which was always there. 

And then there was peace.

Peace with my fears, peace with everything I can loose in this world. Without sensitivity there is nothing that matters, that realisation was so beautiful it made my heart ache. I so missed the pain and the joy connected to the pain. 

How wide is the range of human experience! How special and strong is every single human being, especially cause of their fragility! 

I still fight against the habitual falling into the clogs of self-numbing, but I will never stop to aspire towards continuous vulnerability and openness.

 

The seven Essene mirrors

"We live in an action/reaction world known as the Plane of Demonstration where consciousness creates reality. We manifest and magnetize people and events into our lives according to our consciousness.

The Seven Essene Mirrors is a way of understanding how this process works. We can use what seem to be negative experiences as stepping-stones to healing and empowerment. “When life rolls boulders, build stairs.”

FIRST MIRROR reflects to us that which we are. It is something we ourselves are doing or where we ourselves have been in error or wounded.

SECOND MIRROR reflects to us that which we judge. It is something we have an emotional charge with, something we have either been wounded by in the past and have not forgiven. It is good to discern; however if we judge and condemn with an emotional charge, we will attract exactly what we judge into our lives.

THIRD MIRROR reflects back to us something we Lost, Gave Away, or had Taken Away. When we see something we love and desire in another, it is often something we have lost, given away or had stolen in our own lives. Every relationship is a relationship with self and often we try to reclaim what was lost, we gave away, or had taken away as a child. It could be joy, innocence, honesty and integrity, courage or love. All of which can be reclaimed within self.

FOURTH MIRROR reflects back to us our most forgotten love. This could be a way of life, a lost or unfinished relationship. Often it is a past life where a wrong conclusion from past experience was created. These will recreate themselves over and over until the right conclusion is registered in the soul as wisdom.

FIFTH MIRROR reflects back to us Father/Mother. It is often said we marry our father or mother. We also often become them acting out the same healthy and unhealthy patterns we learned as a child. Our fathers and mothers to us as children are Gods. It will often reflect the same relationship we have with others and the Father/Mother God principle.

SIXTH MIRROR reflects back to us the Quest for Darkness or what is often referred to as the Dark Night of the Soul. This is when we meet our greatest challenges, our greatest fears and have been gathering the tools and understandings in life to confront them. God never gives one any more than they can handle and we have a choice in every experience to greet it as a powerful manifesting God/Goddess or a victim.

SEVENTH MIRROR reflects back to us our self-perception. Others will perceive and treat us according to how we perceive and treat ourselves. If we have a low self-esteem and do not acknowledge our wisdom and beauty, others will not acknowledge them. If we are angry, bitter and unloving to others, they in turn will often react in the same way towards us. If we change our perception of ourselves, we change the world. Maybe it is time to be kind, loving and compassionate to ourselves and others. Remember the saying, “The only reason anyone has power over you is you want something from them.” Whether it be love, joy, or a personal God connection, maybe that something can be found within…" 

By James Gilliland 

source

While not a Christian I find this text too profound and insightful not to share... Wonderful teaching, such a great tool for us to find ways of understanding of why a particular relationships is in our lives, especially if its a difficult one. These are indeed what I feel the relationships of the most powerful kind, sacred contracts which help the souls to grow.

April lessons

As an April child myself I find my soul at home in this particular month. Always living on the border. Sometimes silent and at peace, sometimes aggressive and in passion, but always, always, no matter what- pushing forth with an almost violent force towards life. One foot in the nothingness of winter, the other in the fullness of summer. Not there, not there, here... Here- on the crossroads, in April... here- where death and birth intertwine, here where it gets stormy at times...

Energy and smiles waking up from a periodic slumber...

Trees breathing blossoms in the moody weather...

Is it cold? Is it warm? We wear summer jackets and catch a cold.

April just like hope are dangerous creatures

But the trees keep blossoming, they care not...

Here where the confusion is great, here in April- I feel at home, at home in the April storms. Yet the trees care not. The trees silently, without a quarrel, follow the steady, unencumbered rebirth, they slowly and surely reach out every branch to the warming sun and they flower, they crave life as I do but they never waver, no matter the weather.

So I am learning from the trees...

The origin, longing and beauty of love- Pablo Neruda and Stephen Trask

"The memory of you emerges from the night around me. 

The river mingles its stubborn lament with the sea. 

Deserted like the dwarves at dawn. 

It is the hour of departure, oh deserted one! 

Cold flower heads are raining over my heart. 

Oh pit of debris, fierce cave of the shipwrecked. 

In you the wars and the flights accumulated. 

From you the wings of the song birds rose. 

You swallowed everything, like distance. 

Like the sea, like time. In you everything sank! 

It was the happy hour of assault and the kiss. 

The hour of the spell that blazed like a lighthouse. 

Pilot's dread, fury of blind driver, 

turbulent drunkenness of love, in you everything sank!

 

In the childhood of mist my soul, winged and wounded. 

Lost discoverer, in you everything sank! 

You girdled sorrow, you clung to desire, 

sadness stunned you, in you everything sank! 

I made the wall of shadow draw back, 

beyond desire and act, I walked on. 

Oh flesh, my own flesh, woman whom I loved and lost, 

I summon you in the moist hour, I raise my song to you. 

Like a jar you housed infinite tenderness. 

and the infinite oblivion shattered you like a jar. 

There was the black solitude of the islands, 

and there, woman of love, your arms took me in. 

There was thirst and hunger, and you were the fruit. 

There were grief and ruins, and you were the miracle. 

Ah woman, I do not know how you could contain me 

in the earth of your soul, in the cross of your arms!

 

How terrible and brief my desire was to you! 

How difficult and drunken, how tensed and avid.  

Cemetery of kisses, there is still fire in your tombs, 

still the fruited boughs burn, pecked at by birds. 

Oh the bitten mouth, oh the kissed limbs, 

oh the hungering teeth, oh the entwined bodies. 

Oh the mad coupling of hope and force 

in which we merged and despaired. 

And the tenderness, light as water and as flour. 

And the word scarcely begun on the lips. 

This was my destiny and in it was my voyage of my longing, 

and in it my longing fell, in you everything sank! 

Oh pit of debris, everything fell into you, 

what sorrow did you not express, in what sorrow are you not drowned! 

From billow to billow you still called and sang. 

Standing like a sailor in the prow of a vessel.

You still flowered in songs, you still brike the currents. 

Oh pit of debris, open and bitter well. 

Pale blind diver, luckless slinger, 

lost discoverer, in you everything sank! 

It is the hour of departure, 

the hard cold hour which the night fastens to all the timetables. 

The rustling belt of the sea girdles the shore. 

Cold stars heave up, black birds migrate. 

Deserted like the wharves at dawn. 

Only tremulous shadow twists in my hands. 

Oh farther than everything. Oh farther than everything. 

It is the hour of departure. Oh abandoned one!"

~Pablo Neruda "Song of Despair"