I have spent much of the days recently in a twirl. Not really my usual deeply rooted self. I get knocked off my center when I feel hurt deeply. It is hard for me to maintain my equanimity and to not become possessed of emotionally dramatic thinking.

In an effort to calm my thoughts tonight, I sought Jaya Kula, a site about Tantra.

Tantra is one of those very quiet things in my life. Its always there…the same way that Buddhism and its very noble teachings has been there in my life for a long long while. The same way that the very basic Sufi meditations are always there in my life, quietly supplying insights and support as if they were direct transmissions with each tiny chant and each small insight into the Divine that they provide. There is also the pipe. That’s actually been there right along with all these things in my life…and they have each been there quietly. I have openly pursued other traditions and teachings with such an avid interest and I have made them all consuming. But these ways of praying and thinking and dealing with life unfolding and these ways of becoming conscious have always been in my life quietly providing me with teachings in the small, repetitive doses I need to consume and integrate the wisdom I can glean from them.

Each of these pathways that I’ve spoken of are direct realization ways of becoming aware and balanced. They are all the same thing really…they just bring a unique quality of insight into the question of what is Reality? What is Important? Who am I? and What is my Purpose?

What is needed in that path to understanding is willingness to listen and to set aside my assumptions of what Is…so that I can really understand. If I really understood there would be no questions in my being at all…Right? But there is. I am often confunded and confuzzled by my life, by my own thoughts, and most especially by my own heart….never mind being utterly bewildered sometimes about what is beyond my own being. I am a universe inside this little body. That’s alot to understand right there…and we didn’t even get to the recognition of my innate Divinity…nor did I get to the topic of yours and the great impact your Life force has on my being-ness.

Reality is a sharp and awe inspiring thing. It can overwhelm me and strike me speechless with its wonder and mystery that I can sense but which totally escapes words. Words just make it small and boxy and not make sense at all. It is boundless like the sea can seem visually…but in our minds we know there’s land somewhere beyond our sight. We know that for sure. Even if we’ve never crossed the sea. But the thing is? Reality is not bound by anything but our concepts of it. If we drop those…what’s there to root ourselves in?

It can be so scary at first. I’m learning to get past that fear and to see that I am in fact the root. This body is the root. I’m firmly tapped into this great boundless thing that’s all around the Me that is this body and the associated individuation that resides in it. It is my temple and my way of touching that infinity that is you and you and you…and all the green growing life that’s all around me.

Wow.

Can you feel me on that?

And this…these words and awe strike me in the midst of my muddle. How does that happen I wonder sometimes.

I know now after years of this being so. Sometimes a muddle is the cord that tugs me toward the next insight and wisdom that draws me ever deeper into this boundless awareness of what Is.

Sometimes my muddle is the guru because then I have a indicator of new ways and needs to grow and learn.

My current muddle?

Fear of having an open heart. Of being hurt.

I’m laughing inside. How did that happen? Me…who just found that I could trust myself am being challenged to go deeper into that trust…and so I am discovering yet more places in which fear hides in the shadows of what I lack full awareness of about me and about Loving and about Trust.

I feel like cussing. I feel like crying. I feel like running away. I feel like seeking the deep silent flows of peace that will carry me out of this muddle toward something so real and beautiful…so Aware. Something that I can’t imagine living and brushing up against right now.

I have but to trust and relax and follow the flow of right view and the flow of the pipe smoke and the flow of the wazaif’s insight into the devotion of the Divine. I follow the flow of Tantra as a result.

At least I do as best I can while muddled. *smiles*

“Neither sober nor drunk, sometimes I feel the joy of my soul’s eyes looking out through mine.

Other times I feel the curl of the Beloved’s hair and my life wobbles and staggers.

Sometimes, the seasons of life turn and I find myself back on the compost heap.

And sometimes, when her glance finds me again, I am back in the Rose Garden.”

Shabistari

Image by Rassouli

Posted in Happiness, Tantra Tagged: healing journey, Ideal Being, Sufism ]]> http://leafingout.wordpress.com/2009/09/30/the-curl-of-the-beloveds-hair/feed/ 1 Greenwoman2007 02-22-TheRose http://leafingout.wordpress.com/2009/09/30/the-curl-of-the-beloveds-hair/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/LittleSeeds/~3/sOyZ0IZCQPI/ http://leafingout.wordpress.com/2009/09/28/hurrying/#comments Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:13:03 +0000 Greenwoman2007 http://leafingout.wordpress.com/?p=756 ]]>

I was traveling at high speed this past weekend. It seemed like I was running and running and running and could just never catch up. And there was all this stuff I wanted to do…and I was so determined to do my best to do it all, that I just couldn’t accept that I couldn’t do it all.

And really none of what I truly wanted to experience got done.

I had another really good and happy experience instead…

But it left with some basic messages…some of which are reminders of things I already knew.

Running as fast as I can through life is not a life lived well and it is not possible to be present to the fullness of the moment because there’s too much hurry and too much tired in it.

There are some things which should be given such a high priority that they are not squeezed into a too busy schedule…they are the focus of the schedule. For me, my children and my ceremonies are those things. It is just not right for me to squeeze these aspects of my life in between other things. This should be so important to me that I stop what I’m doing and set aside meaty time to just focus on them without my attention being divided by any other obligations…and that I’m not rushing to or from some where else at the last minute because I over committed the day I travel the long distances to see my family and experience my ceremonies.

These are activities that require all of our ability to listen.

We cannot really listen if we are in a hurry.

The last few days its been so warm. I’ve had the windows open and the sliding glass door open. I lay last night on the floor listening to the trees creak. The coyotes were howling in the distance. Their voices carrying on the wind sporadically. Close by birds startled in the night and complained. Likely the owl hunting and disturbing their slumber. It is so peaceful here…

Soon winter will be upon us. This is the first time I will see winter come to the land here in VT. It will be a treat.

As the power of the land here inches toward repose, I think of pooling power too. I think of how power effects us…It creates awe…and that awe disturbs us. It burns…and the inner self remembers its mortality and the small self passes away.

I think of beauty and its effect on us. It fills us with intimacy. It brings joy. It illuminates us and so enters communion. And through the revelation of this beauty, our hearts are resurrected.

These are the teachings of the Afghani Sufi Al-Hujwiri of the 11th century.

I have been thinking about these things and I am carrying power and beauty into the repose of winter…letting them pool in me.

We shall see what spring brings.

In these moments, I struggle with the swirling detritus of the past. Its makes my skin smart while it blows in the winds of my thoughts sometimes. It confuses my eyes to see it there. Sometimes I am filled with doubts. Sometimes I think I don’t belong here. Sometimes I wonder if all is well with me when I struggle with old stuff that has no bearing on the now.

I am told that this is a normal response to the small self dying in me…and that even this odd sadness is normal too. There is something slightly wistful about the cooling days of summer that reflect my mood and on this day of balance between night and dark, I wonder to myself how I shall be when the small self has transformed into the deep consciousness that I am learning to live each day. Who will I be? What will I be like? Will I recognize myself?

I am told that my mind will not become some alien thing inside me but will still contemplate all sorts of things like it does now…but that I will be poised within my thoughts and within my life. Being poised. What a word. Graceful that feels. I like the idea of graceful.

This evolution has been a long time coming…I welcome it with such wordless abandon…with such wordless gratitude and enthusiasm.