A new year has just begun – I love a new beginning. What is a new beginning anyway? They are everywhere, all around us… they’re little opportunities just waiting for us to grab them. And let’s be honest, we never know exactly how anything will pan out. Very rarely do things end up being the way we expected. That’s the beauty of life- we forge new paths to find the unexpected, not to seek the familiar.
Sometimes the unexpected can surprise us, present a new opportunity – like meeting someone who will change our lives for the better. Sometimes it can disappoint us, derailing us from the life we had planned. While we can’t predict the outcome, we can learn to embrace the opportunity, take the journey, and figure out where the path leads.
The journey begins with a decision, those big decisions tend to stand out. I recently decided to change careers, and I saw a path laid out before me. I have often seen these paths and sometimes I chose not to walk them. But I looked at this path and it was beautiful, inviting, but also, long. I’ve already taken a few steps, and so far it’s exciting. I know there may be some rough patches, but I’ll embrace them, too. I have decided to embrace uncertainty.
Join me at #spiritchat this week to discuss some paths we have traveled, the beauty we have found in uncertainty, and limiting beliefs we’ve had to overcome to embark on our journeys.
💕✨
Meredith
It is my honor to guest host another #spiritchat and have the chance to give back to a community that has given so much to me the past decade++ There are no words to express the appreciation I have for Kumud and everyone here. The impact to my life is simply immeasurable. Thank you all and I’ll see you Sunday, Jan 22 at 9amET in the twitter chat!
White Mountains, New Hampshire (photo by Meredith B.)
I’ve been trying to find the inspiration I needed to properly convey the topic of this weeks chat. I wanted to talk about the steps we take: sometimes premeditated, and other times, spontaneous. The steps we remember as being pivotal, and those we plan to take in upcoming days, weeks… and so on. What guides our steps? And where have they lead us- or where are they going to take us?
I found inspiration in some noisy neighbors, my neighbors in the “triple decker” house I’ve been living in for about 5 years. I talked to them a couple days ago about some ongoing repairs needed in the building, and how, like me, she doesn’t always feel like we’re taken seriously. I’m thinking of taking a step toward being a property manager for landlords who just don’t want to deal with it. Unplanned step, spontaneous! Those can be really fun!
One of the best steps I ever took was moving to New York. It didn’t seem like a great thing at the time, but through the struggle, it lead to a different version of me that I am really proud of.
These steps take us somewhere- either straight forward or off to the side. Straight forward may seem like the best option but these side quests give us lessons, knowledge, wisdom which helps our later steps take good direction.
There are so many different things that influence the steps we take- and sometimes it feels like a battle to choose which one. But, today, as we stand, what steps do we remember taking that make us proud, and where do we see our steps heading now?
Let’s explore!
Meredith
Author bio: I’m always super awkward with bios and have no business or brand to promote (yet!), but if anyone wants to follow me I’m @merryb923 pretty much everywhere you look!
Kumud’s note: Meredith has been part of the #SpiritChat community for a very long time, and has hosted the chat a few times. I am grateful and excited that she has agreed to host #spiritchat on twitter on Sunday, Dec 18 at 9amET / 2pmGMT / 730pm India. Do join in and share… Thank you, Meredith! Namaste.
The steps we take… often take us to places of joy unknown
You wouldn’t imagine that the pre-dawn fog could get thicker as the morning wore on, and yet that’s exactly what it seemed to be doing. It got so heavy that the water condensing on to the once-leaved branches eventually started dripping en-masse… and it sounded exactly like a light rain on a quiet summer morning. The stillness of the breeze was remarkable in that the leaves still on the bushes lining the forest were only rustled awake by the backyard deer who was taking advantage of the fog and undertaking a later than usual morning excursion.
What is it about the presence of heavy fog that tends to make us pause and observe in wonder at its mystery as it seemingly slows down everything that it envelops in its embrace with its arrival? What is it about its often slow but inevitable dissolving into all that it briefly enveloped that can connect us to the phases of light and shadows of our own lives?
We are perhaps designed to experience all of the seasons for reasons that often elude our mind’s capacity — just as the fog and the sunlight that dissolves it eludes our physical grasp, no matter how hard we may try. We can behold the ephemeral but we cannot hold it. We can reprise many of our life’s ‘heavy fogs’ in our mind’s eye, and yet, it is said that wisdom is about learning to choose to retain those experiences that can help us thrive.
My grandmother used to say that the decision to choose to thrive is perhaps the greatest personal decision we can make in our lifetimes. History is full of examples of people who made such a choice for themselves. Can you think of a few people who embodied and manifested their ‘choice to thrive’ in their lives, and inspired you to do the same? What are some character traits of ‘thrivers’? One reason we may remember such ‘thrivers’ is because no matter how thick or persistent or frequent the ‘fog of life’ became from them, they kept investing actions fueled by their heart’s light and warmth into their decision to thrive.
It is said that ‘the universe is no respecter of persons.’ If we choose to believe that, then what is stopping you and me from choosing to thrive? Are we to believe that our existence, our awareness, our bliss, our connection to consciousness, is in the hands of those few mere mortals who cannot apparently find the way out of their own fogs of disillusionment?
Surely that cannot be. Who is capable of taking away our choice to remain connected with the divinity within us, and thrive in the process of doing so? I, for one, choose to believe that no mortal has domain over the power that flows to and through me from the infinite source. What if we all make choices that help us thrive within, help us manifest our creative selves, help us keep waking and walking the path of love and light?
It’s time to thrive. Let’s choose well, shall we?
Kumud
P.S. Join us for our weekly gathering and twitter chat in #SpiritChat, Sunday Nov 6 at 9amET / 2pmGMT / 730pm India (note the one hour time-shift for locations outside North America!). Namaste – @AjmaniK
Autumn’s fogs come and go, and the roses choose to keep thriving…
A few years ago, Disney released the animated film, Coco, and I was so enamored by the tradition depicted, Día de los Muertos. I started to do some research, and I realized that this holiday is a hybrid of multiple religious & cultural beliefs, it’s purpose is to celebrate and remember the lives of loved ones who have passed. These holidays occur towards the end of autumn, once the trees are bare and the harvest is over. I fell in love with Dia de los Muertos! What a beautiful way to honor those who came before us, and to feel genuinely close to them.
One of the staples of this holiday is the ofrenda – an altar containing photos of our deceased family and friends, along with offerings of their favorite foods and drinks, surrounded by marigold petals and candles. Each photo on the ofrenda is an invitation to our ancestors and friends to join us for the day, to celebrate- to dance, eat and drink, to meet younger generations, while we share our memories, and tell stories to be passed down- legacies.
As shown in Coco, Dia de los Muertos is not solemn, there is no despair; it is to celebrate lives lived and to show gratitude for the gifts shared. It shows that there is more to life than just living- it’s an opportunity to make an impact that will outlive us. To leave the world around us even just a bit better than we found it- to grow and to inspire and to provide memories that others smile to recall.
While we remember the legacies left, and ponder our own legacy in the making- what have we learned about life? Whose legacies have changed our lives? And what would we like to leave others with?
I look forward to meeting you all at #spiritchat this week, to remember those who have impacted our lives and to share how we plan to leave a legacy of our own.
Namaste
✨💕Meredith
Author bio: I’m always super awkward with bios and have no business or brand to promote (yet!), but if anyone wants to follow me I’m @merryb923 pretty much everywhere you look!
Kumud’s note: Meredith has been part of the #SpiritChat community for a very long time, and has hosted the chat a few times. I am grateful and excited that she has agreed to host #spiritchat on twitter on Sunday, Oct 30 at 9amET / 1pmGMT / 630pm India. Do join in and share on Life and Legacy. Thank you, Meredith! Namaste.
Autumn’s flowers – remembrances of life and legacy…
Partly cloudy days can provide beautiful lighting for outdoor walks. When the partly cloudy day happens to be the first day of autumn with a distinct chill in the morning air, one has the distinct feeling that there is a different calling for the weekly forest walk that day.
And so it was that I accepted the inner invitation to visit with the local bird reservation this Friday – a visit that I hadn’t made since the spring! All the familiar locations looked a bit different. A new water fountain in the pond, near the entrance where my favorite bridge is located, brought a welcoming freshness to the water and a delightful hum that warmed the ears. New signs in several trails educating visitors about the mission and the support needed for the good health of the reservation. And much more.
The trail itself had very few leaves on the ground yet, so the sun rising slowly through the forest created beautiful light and colors on the leaves still on the trees. Nature’s morning and evening light patterns can help create a beautiful inner condition of stillness and peace.
A visit with a favorite book or movie or podcast, an actual conversation with a good friend, a greeting card in the mail, a wave from a neighbor walking by as you sit on the porch — one or all of these ‘things’ can instantly brighten our inner condition.
Some of us may also have daily, intentional, spiritual practices which, over time, help us build resilience into our inner condition. Why build resilience? Such a condition can serve us well in moments where a random text message, a tweet, a news item, a harsh word or any such intervention by the outside world can instantly disrupt our condition. The higher the degree of resilience of our inner condition, the more quickly and easily we can find ourselves back in our state of equanimity after our mind’s surface has been insta-stormed by the world.
By asking and observing ‘what is it that disproportionately disrupts my inner condition?’, we can get heart-smart about the actions we take to decrease the frequency such disruptions of our condition. As we adjust our practices to decrease our sensitivity to the disruptors, we can improve our inner condition, and then do more of those practices which works for us. A positive feedback loop can thus be established within, and over time, the heart-mind-body system becomes less and less ‘allergic’ to our ‘irritants’.
If we want to establish, maintain and enhance a condition that is active but not reactive, a daily walk of self-observation of our condition is essential.
Yes, it takes ‘extra’ work, but what if it is perhaps the best work we will do on a daily basis? Start with a small daily commitment and bring a joyous attitude to the walk. Journal what happens daily. Watch the changes in your condition over ninety days.
Consider. If you start a new walk today, you may have a brand new ‘gift of inner condition’ for yourself by the end of the year.
Kumud
P.S. Join us for our weekly chat with the #SpiritChat community on twitter, Sunday Sep 25 at 9amET / 1pmGMT. We will take stock of our inner conditions as we gather over tea and quotes! How to start that new walk? Ask me if you need suggestions. Namaste – @AjmaniK
Sunflowers in various stages and conditions as autumn arrives…
It was perhaps the first time ever that I did my Friday morning walk on the school trail without my phone. I forgot it at home when I went for drop off, considered going back to retrieve it, and then thought… perhaps this will be an interesting experiment!
On a typical walk in the trails, I walk, pause, observe, take photos, walk some more, pause, and so on. It often ends up that it can take me almost forty five minutes to an hour to walk a mile or so. However, today’s walk was different, not just for the pace, but for the nature of the pauses and what I felt during those pauses.
Walking phoneless felt less like I was gathering, and more like I was simply observing. The lower angle of the Sun in the same hour as compared to last week. The hearing of leaves rustling and the raised white tail of deer bounding away as they sighted me. The almost complete coverage of the pond surface with green algae and slivers of rising sun reflecting in the blue patches. The wooden sign that said that the pond is a ‘scientific observation facility’ and hence ‘no swimming, fishing, skating’ and such. And so much more different views and perceptions on a trail that I have walked at least a few dozen times over the last year.
The experience made me ask. Why does perception matter anyway? How does it change over time? How we change it when necessary? What is its origin, and what is its connection to our spiritual journey?
It is perhaps no coincidence that I have pulled my weather-worn “Upanishads” book off of the shelf this week, and have stumbled upon a chapter describing the ‘five layers of existence’ within us. Perception is one of the layers — it is the fourth layer, sitting between the third layer, which is the mind, and the highest layer, which is bliss.
One may infer that in order for us to travel from the mind towards the highest layer of bliss, one has to walk through through the layer of perception. How do we best accomplish this? Are we aware of the quality of our perception in our daily life? One way to evaluate our quality of perception can be to observe our reactions to what is fed to our mind, voluntarily and involuntarily. Another way is to examine our fears, particularly those we had in the past, and what were the outcomes of those fears in our life?
We can further ask – to what extent did the perceptions of the possible outcomes of our (worst) fears keep us from experiencing bliss? What have we learnt from those self-limiting perceptions of self? What have we learnt from past perceptions and then adjusted our awareness, in order to get closer to and remain in bliss more consistently?
Some say that ‘perception is reality’. I would tweak that and say that ‘perception is the doorway to reality’. What is reality? According to the Upanishad, reality is the awareness that we are ‘well made’, perfect beings in the eyes of the divine. Our destiny on the path is bliss, except that we tend to get ‘stuck’ in the perceptions fueled by our mind, which is fueled by our senses, and so on.
Towards the end of the walk — a walk that was uncluttered by my desire to take a bunch of photos and share the best of them with all of you — I realized that there was a unique clarity born from this new experience for me. By removing the tasks of fiddling with the phone-camera’s filters of framing, perspective, lighting, focusing and such, a different kind of perception of the trail was revealed.
The ‘full-frame’ of nature, as designed, as intended to be perceived by us by the grand designer, was unfolded. I believe I had a sighting, for perhaps the first time during a walk, the doorway to bliss. Perhaps the door has always been there and I have been busy fiddling with trinkets? Perhaps next time, I will walk through the doorway of bliss, and even stay for a while.
Now where’s that phone? I need to write down my perceptions of today’s walk before I forget. I guess it will have to wait till at least my return home. Maybe I’ll just take the blog-post photo in the backyard and share that with all of you.
Kumud
P.S. Join us for our weekly gathering and twitter chat with the #SpiritChat community, Sunday Sep 18 at 9amET / 1pmGMT. We will discuss the perceptions of our weekly walks, and I welcome you all to join in. Namaste. – AjmaniK
Ref. ‘Five layers of being,’ Taittiriya Upanishad, Chapter 2
The last(?) of summer’s roses blooms in the backyard…
In Indian culture, the two week period following the full moon in September is a period of ‘remembering our ancestors’. This year, the two week period begins on September 11. In the USA, that date has a remembrance connection of its own since 2001 (‘Never Forget’). For many of us, we may choose not to remember, or remember selectively, particularly when remembering is connected to pain, trauma, and the lowering of our inner vibration at large.
This raises the question – what is worth remembering? How do we best remember, in what way, so that it elevates us and the energy of those around us? Is it enough to simply remember, or can we do more with the wisdom bridge constructed for us by our ancestors? Some reflections came to me on these choices during my Friday walk. Do allow me to share.
Give ‘remembrance of the divine’ a chance to shine in you, on you, to light up your being from within and without, to let you become happier, to arrive at the awareness that the meeting can happen. Yes, You, your I, may have to disappear in the process, and then only the memory of the perfection of That shall remain — and the meeting may not happen anyway. And yet, you would have remembered, and that imprint shall remain for eternity.
Why would we rather forget? Sometimes it feels like we are walking the same paths, the same trails, over and over again… and we may tend to wonder why we keep doing so? What is the purpose? Remember that these doubts on the path are of the logical mind, the domain of reasoning overtaking our heart. What is worth remembering is the choice to walk, to practice, and not the the result itself.
If we more often than not, if not always, feel better about our state, feel lighter, feel less connected to the ego and more connected to the divine after our walk, is that not enough to keep walking? Of course, if said path makes us feel heavier, more connected to anger and despair, then we may want to consider a different walk or habit, is it not? Better to forget that path of heaviness, yes?
At the end of the walk came the message of urgency. The opportunities and invitations to remember the purity of your soul, the purity of the souls of our ancestors, will be few and far between. We think that we will have time to walk towards the divine ‘later’. We tell ourselves we are not ‘ready’ yet. Is that really our truth? What is going to happen ‘later’? If we don’t change our awareness and make a conscious choice, how will we remember to create time from our ‘honey gathering’ in life, create space from all our entanglements with the world, to walk our destiny?
The message from the walk was that remembering takes work. The amount of work of course depends on our current state and where we want to be. That’s where free will and choice come in. Like grandma used to say, ‘We have no one else to point a finger at, for when we do so, let us remember that four fingers point back at us’. Is today going to be the day we stop pointing fingers, even at ourselves, and choose to wake up to our potential for peace, harmony and an attitude of cooperation with others who are on their own path?
I invite you to accept the invitation. Arise, Awake, and Remember the intrinsic purity of the soul. It’s an empowering choice, isn’t it?
These chrysanthemums came full bloom in the front yard in early September… they chose to remember that it was their time…
Kumud
P.S. Thank you for reading. I invite you to share your responses in the comments and/or join us for our weekly gathering on twitter with the #SpiritChat community, Sunday Sep 11 at 9amET / 1pmGMT/ 630pm India. Namaste. ~ AjmaniK
Rarely, if ever have I not felt better after walking in Nature’s embrace. I have often wondered during my walks – how does this happen every single time? Is it the stillness and the silence and the vastness and the constantly changing variety of the path? Or is it something more, something that logic and intellect are unable to adequately explain?
Perhaps what fills the heart and soul when we get out of our own heads and walk the open path, beyond the limitations of our knowledge and even our knowing, is beyond mere reason and words to explain?
And yet, having experienced the heart-affirming outcome of every single past walk in vast openness, there are days when I hesitate to walk… why is this? The world and its seeming urgencies and pressures of time and space create mental barriers.
How do I overcome the barriers to openness? I remember the light, the flow, the radiance, the glow, the energy transfer that creates temporal transformation that lightens the heart and points me upwards. The gravitational pull of the final destination, the path to it, winds through openness, does it not?
The open path often finds us walking alone. This doesn’t mean that we need to stop living in the world, isolate ourselves from feelings and emotions. Being open can help increase our awareness of the feelings and emotions that are creating excess and imbalance within us. Our ‘practices’ are ‘working’ when they open us, orient us towards equilibrium, and harmony with the world. Over time, openness can teach us how to conserve energy, so that we can do our best work while moving in the direction of our heart’s destiny.
The alternative to openness is closedness, driven by fear. What does the path to closedness create? Perhaps more fear? The first law of thermodynamics states that ‘an isolated system cannot change its internal energy, and hence do no work’. The corollary is that the work done by us depends on how we un-isolate ourselves, connect with energy sources around us, and allow for change in the level of our internal energy.
Maybe that’s the answer to the original question. Why does Nature, and by extension, some people, raise our internal energy and vibration when we associate with them? Is it because we allow for them to do so, by being open to them? If yes, then the choice becomes – what kind of path and what kind of energy association will we open ourselves to, to get closer to our destination?
Sunflowers on the open path by the river… some thrive, and some…
Kumud
P.S. Join us for our weekly twitter gathering and open conversation, Sunday Sep 4 at 9amET / 1pmGMT / 630pm India in #SpiritChat. Namaste ~ AjmaniK
One of the many landscaping decisions we had to make after moving into the newly built home a few years ago was – what flower bushes should we plant outside the two windows of the main bedroom on the first (ground) floor? I don’t remember the details of the decision-making process, but the result was one small hydrangea bush next to each window. We had no idea of all the learnings and experiences that the small decision held for us in the ensuing years.
Fast forward five years, and I am spending a lot of time on the deck during my July 4th weekend mini-retreat. Both the hydrangeas are in full bloom after going through what often appears to be certain death during the winter months when all the leaves fall off, the flowers turn to dried out shells of their summer selves, and my mind wonders if there will ever be fragrance from them in the air again.
As if to make my mind look foolish yet again, the breeze picks up a bit in the late afternoon, and I have to put down the Osho book I’ve been reading, because the fragrance comes around the bend onto the deck and demands the full attention of all the senses. It is a reminder that the hydrangea, at its own level of awareness, knows who it is, knows it’s nature is to bloom in the summer and spread its fragrance, knows that it can support the fireflies, the yellow-jackets, the bees, the butterflies for nourishment and more. The hydrangea seemingly knows the domain of its life’s possibilities, and makes the best use of them.
The question that the hydrangea bushes seem to ask of me is – do I know who I am? What is the level of my awareness about what I truly want from my journey? Do I know that my winters are temporary, even necessary for renewal? Do I know the domain of my life’s possibilities, and how my decisions affect the ecosystems that I am part of and may even be supporting?
Yes. A mini-retreat can often bring you face to face with the present and the possibilities that it presents. As you decide on which of life’s varied possibilities to pursue, an answer to ‘who am I’ can clarify ‘what do I want’ — which in turn can present the courage and confidence needed to be in motion like the bee, or be in stillness like the flower.
The distance traveled by the soul is often the same.
Kumud
P.S. Join us for our weekly gathering and twitter chat in #SpiritChat, Sunday July 10 at 9amET / 1pm GMT / 630pm India. We will talk about life and its possibilities, or maybe about hydrangeas 😉 Namaste – @AjmaniK
A part of one of the hydrangeas in full bloom… so many possibilities to sustain life around it…
It was a somewhat unusual week of ups and downs, of great calm and turbulence in the inner world for me. It began particularly well in that I used the Monday holiday to read a new book from cover to cover – something I hadn’t done on a long, long time. It felt really good to get back to ‘deep reading’, and prompted me to make a summer reading list of spiritual biographies. That was the high-point of the week, and I was only the first day in.
The next couple of days was where the outer world started seeping in, and it turned into a bit of a flood by Thursday morning. The morning meditation practice was unable to restore calm and stillness, because the mind was highly perturbed and the usual heart-focusing techniques weren’t working. Something was surely out of alignment. I looked in my ‘toolbox’ to see – what was I to do next to reset my alignment?
The first step to realignment was to return to the weekly walk in the reservation, which I did Thursday evening after work. The forest immersion worked really well to do an inner reset, as the familiar trails, the waters of the river and lagoon, the clear blue skies — all submerged me in their warm embrace. The exclamation point was the blue heron that I observed sitting in perfect stillness across the river, for the entire final ten minutes of my walk. Typically, a heron will take off as soon as it sees humans, but today was different. The realignment was going well.
Friday morning meditation was a bit of a test of how well the realignment was going. Things were better, but not quite fully restored yet. It wasn’t till late Friday evening, after seeing my daughter again after a week, overlapping with a long dinner meeting with a very good friend’s mother, Carol, whom we hadn’t seen in almost three years, that the realignment felt almost complete. It must have been Carol’s beautiful, pure, in the moment, loving energy, deep hugs, and childhood stories of living and growing up in the small town of Longport on the Atlantic shore, that helped clear away a large part of the dust of the week.
As I write this post, I find myself asking some questions. How do we know that we are in alignment, and out of alignment in our inner world? What are the happenings in our outer world that shift us out of inner alignment? How often do we lose alignment, and how quickly is it restored? What tools do we have for restoration, and how well do they really work?
I was tested this week in a way that was perhaps not so unique to me. Hence, I shared my experiences with you. The alignment testing helped me identify some weaknesses in my spiritual practices. One result of the week’s testing is that I am grateful for the opportunity to learn, adjust and develop greater awareness on the journey towards answering — Who am I? What am I truly aligned to, and why?
Kumud
P.S. Join us for our weekly gathering and twitter chat with the #SpiritChat community, Sunday June 26 at 9amET / 1pmGMT / 630pm India. I will bring some alignment gauges in the form of questions, and a pot of tea. You bring the cookies! Namaste – AjmaniK
The hydrangeas finally bloom in the garden… helping to restore alignment!
The #SpiritChat Community 