 When it comes to thinking about our world (almost all day every day for me), why am I so dumbfounded by my own emotion that I can only think of paragraphs to post on facebook? I seem to only go as far as composing a superficial woe-begotten mini-rant, asking rhetorical questions and rehashing sentimental platitudes. Perhaps I shouldn't be so hard on myself with this observation. Paragraphs are better than nothing. Or are they just babble? Emotional purging for the sake of not much else. So many of us think and speak and write of how we fear the world in which we're raising our children. Fear it and question it and pray for it and... dread it. It's like we just dread the future, how much more horrific it can get, the way it seems to be going. Many of us pray and write hopeful things. And take hopeful actions. And get things done and change the world and save lives and create inventions and discoveries. I do have faith in us. But... but but but. Something's missing. Something's terribly wrong. I know it is, because I used to think I carried the weight of the world on my shoulders needlessly - and now I think I do it with no other choice. I suppose that's because I'm a mother now, and I feel like I just can't let myself off the hook. I feel as if a buried speck of knowledge and ability lies somewhere within me that I am not allowing to surface. If I don't light the way into that abyss with my own feelings and emotion, how will I ever unearth it? My old philosophy of living my joy is exactly that - it's old. I don't feel pure joy anymore in this world except when I'm with my son... And that isn't fair to him. I must not use him as my therapeutic solace. I wish to build a world for him where real joy is possible - not at the expense of barbaric wars and wasted resources. No, I can't live with all this blood on my hands. That of innocent people lost in the name of a fictitious cause... "fighting terror" and all this bullshit. The fight is the terror. The FIGHT. We stick play swords in our kids' hands and let them pretend to stab each other. We buy them plastic guns and let them shoot each other as they run through the park, shouting "I'm gonna kill you!" I know this observation isn't a new one, and it goes right along with my usual status-paragraph complaints. I just want to reaffirm it to myself - to challenge myself to raise my son with perspective, with awareness. To speak to him realistically about the effects of violence. To not instill in him that it is something in our nature. It may have been so in the past, as a means of survival; but it need not be so now. Unfortunately my ideal doesn't sit with the real "now." Sure there are statistics for how less violent and poverty-stricken the world is now than in the past. But that doesn't mean it ISN'T violent and poverty-stricken. And I think it's a shame that it is, considering all of our evolutionary advancements. It's a shame that huge wars are waged for the sake of questionable motives. It's a shame that there are stories and explanations and wool over everyone's eyes. It's a shame that we aren't able to solve our problems. Put as simply as I can - I think it's a damn shame. So I am challenging myself to think differently. Think of what hasn't occurred to me yet. Think of what I've been missing. There isn't really a simple answer. Or is there? Is it just staring me in the face, a quantum degree away? What is real power? Do we possess it? How can we harness it? How can it have any effect? Here are my rhetorical questions again. Well, Yanika. Start thinking. They say that overthinking is useless and even dangerous... I've definitely over-thought before to the point of feeling stagnated, or to taking unnecessary action... But to think differently isn't to think too much. It's literally that - different. It's different. What does that mean? I think it is both forgiving and holding evil accountable at the same time. It's acknowledging what's wrong, not bypassing it with explanations and theories. It's.... Oh I don't know. It's beyond words. It's a simple prayer, it's a rhythmic heartbeat. It's a dying star inside a supermassive black hole inside a supernova birthing a new star. It's truth. And indeed it's out there somewhere. All the way out there, right in here. *points to brain* I hope I can get nearer to it. Create it if I must.
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 Often I set ambitious intentions, in a mood of productivity and with an optimistic certainty that I can achieve them. Often I waver in my optimism, or just reorganize my thoughts surrounding the intent. Often I empower myself with a new moon's cleansing and initiating energy, and watch the productivity build towards the full moon and its reaping effulgence; or watch as the wavering seems to take over, out of a necessity within my true self to guide its own motivation and actions authentically. Often I do not "achieve" a particular goal because somewhere along the way, I just let it go. At some point my heart decides otherwise. At many points it hesitates and questions, but in gradually learning the maturity of honesty with oneself, this heart of mine is beginning to allow itself the hesitation where appropriate. It is only personal choice which dictates such appropriateness. Personal choice, and a nebulous cosmic ebb and flow with which my spirit dances. When I align with this mysterious movement, my choices are made in heart-brain coherence; and instead of hesitation and questioning, I observe and participate in the magic of *flow.*
Instead of pouring time and energy into graduate school applications, as I had previously intended two moons ago, I have watched a new idea spring up and take over my attentions. It wasn't actually a new idea, but a new just-do-it approach which allowed me to finally take action instead of just dreaming about it. I have begun to offer a prenatal bellydance class! Seven months pregnant and loving my body, swimming daily, indulging in meditations, yoga and dancing, I feel healthy, alive, vibrant. I encounter challenges - like antsy restlessness during a 100 degree heat wave caused by solar-flares, and moodiness; although it's fun to blame these complaints on pregnancy (since they've made not infrequent appearances in other points of my life where I really had no excuse). Despite the added challenge of being apart from my child's father, as he must finish his work arrangement in Northern CA before he can move down here to LA (soon, in November, thank goodness!), and the challenge of being self-employed and not generating the energy to encourage my motivation to earn money (wow, that is quite a run-on-sentence/euphemism-for-being-broke) ~ despite despite despite, all these things, I am deeply full of gratitude. I carve a bottomless well within me for the stores of gratitude to be kept, purified by the well-water's molecular structure of love, infinitely deep and reaching zeniths in the multiverse's holographic endlessness, circling back to their beginnings as inhales, resetting at maximum gratitude between breaths, exhaling and looping again to infinitudes and dancing between dimensions forming beautiful arrays of snowflake-like geometries. This is as close as my words can get to describing the specifics of my gratitude. It's a dancing light, a spectrum of vibrations of kindness and appreciation, a pulse and heartbeat of constant thanks, and reverence for existence. I am so grateful for my Mother and Father allowing me to stay in their home, feeding me deliciously and nutritiously, being my best friends. And of course am so grateful for my friends, those supportive hearts which beat their own lives' beautiful dances, and I get to watch as our energies intermingle and coexist upon this dynamic organism of a planet. And the gratitude extends to and includes the man I love, the father of this life growing within me; his deep blue eyes, deep resonant voice, deep spiraling soul. With 500 miles between us, I still feel immediate closeness to his essence. The physical plane flies along in hyperspace with the astral and etheric everything else. We soar amongst it, carrying our hopes and prayers, our goals and dreams, our doubts and fears. And we are cleansed and uplifted at any moment, by our intent. I believe it is our sincere intent - to be strong, to be healthy, to live, to thrive, to contribute, to inspire… which holds the omniscient and inevitable power to heal ourselves, heal our world, uphold and build our consciousness in the direction of what is best for everyone and everything that exists. What is best? Who knows!? Love, truth, beauty (in my opinion, beauty is key)… and for me personally, a beautiful healthy little baby boy born naturally come early December! I am so excited! I have always wanted to become a mother! And with this baby's birth on my mind and in my heart everyday these past months, I have watched my new-moon intentions fluctuate, and my full-moon celebrations build ~ as if the purifying darkness of the Earth's shadow upon the moon, with its empowerment of sewing our seeds and then nurturing them as the light builds, is actually my moment to let go. Let go of the need to chart and plan everything. Allow myself to grow so silent that I begin to hear the pulse of my blood in the river that is my system of veins and arteries, reaching my baby, ever-connected and dancing together, allowing me to hear the messages from my higher self, which wants only health, truth, and beauty. Simplicity. Authenticity. Honesty. Reverence for existence. The health of my growing baby, a healthy birth for him, a healthy life for him! Healthy grandparents and parents for him. Healthy environment and world for him. And on that note, as for world and environment ~ that is, however, a new-moon intention that I will never let go of. It is not even an intention I set during a particular astronomical arrangement, it is ever-present. It is the intention to keep alive and burning my flame of prayer for the peace and health of our world. It does not ebb and flow like my hesitations about whether I'm ready to commit to graduate school or whether I intend finding an apartment close to my parents or a place by the beach… the prayer for the world's healing and improvement is in my every breath. As I carry this baby, I imagine that he can telepathically sense that I am constantly wishing for this, and with his heartbeat added to mine, we are double-prayers, holding double-space, creating a double-vessel into which can flow the rays of light which carry the atomic structure of balance, peace, evolving technologies and consciousness towards understanding of the sacredness of life and the preservation of it. This little baby and I pray everyday, to be inspired by our hearts' true desire, which is to see this world, in this next generation, truly improve itself. In ways we might not even be able to imagine. We do our best imagining all sorts of ways. But just as in any intention-setting process, we may imagine the grandest possibilities, and even declare them as inevitabilities, and still then, release them, like the Sagitarrian arrow from its bow, to the greater forces beyond our comprehension. Perhaps our higher selves indeed do comprehend these forces, harbor them, initiate them and carry them out. Or we stand and observe our faith in both ourselves and a higher force, whether within us or beyond us, one and the same, do the magic of fulfilling our desires in ways even more grand than we had envisioned. After letting go, letting go, letting go… trying to simplify my prayer and my intent so that it is clear - I wish to discern which actions to take, how best to contribute to the world, and how best to step into the role of *mother.* My gratitude wells up within me so fast and hard that it bursts the dam of my eyelids, my tears flood toward my hands. Tears of thanks, for being alive, and having these sensory experiences of soul. |
