Celebrating Our Spiritual Cores

Tags

beliefs, celebration, healing, practices, renewal, values

Summer is often a season of travel, of new explorations and discoveries that often lead to further explorations. It is a season of days with long hours of sunlight, of watching fireflies and sunsets and moonrise. Summer brings heat and sweat and thunderstorms and awareness of climate change. It is often in the early morning coolness and long, late evening twilights that I find opportunities to reflect on, to review and renew my cores.

The core components that I find myself focusing on are the physical, the mental, the emotional and the spiritual. While they are all distinct cores, they are also all connected like the members of a multi-dimensional honeycomb. Our mental core affects our psychological core, which in turn affects our physical core, and so on. When the state of any of our cores is less than optimal, all our states suffer, and pain in one core begets in in another.

Self awareness teaches us that it takes a bit of (self) discipline to develop and maintain sustainable, holistic practice for the best health of our cores. Our practices are influenced by our core beliefs, our core values, our core inputs and our core connections. These can be viewed as our four core quadrants. They are like the four legs of the lunar lander – if any of the legs were to be unduly compromised, it could lead to a failure of our spiritual core, our journey and our mission.

Inertia is often what stands between us and the adoption of new disciplines and practices. Our unexamined state of idleness, or even our accepted state of motion, takes a certain amount of ‘force’ to effect internal change of speed or direction. It often takes an (unanticipated) life event to shake us out of our inertia or reverie to ask – what are my core values, beliefs, connections and inputs? How do they influence my daily core practices? How do they affect my spiritual core?

For me, it all began with a simple question – how do I get out of the state of my spiritual inertia? I made small changes in my physical core (waking up rested, walking in nature, eating better), my mental core (guarding my input gates, meditating) and my emotional core (friend and family connections, my reactions, my judgements). Over time and space, every meditation hour, every small nature walk, every new association with fellow travelers, has added up to a perceptible change in my spiritual core.

The result of a renewed spiritual core? I have good quality fuel and oxidant, guidance, and company for the journey ahead. I have appreciation and gratitude for all those who have inspired me, walked with me, celebrated with me, and continue to do so. Awareness, joy, silence, solitude and stillness have become my reservoirs. ‘Thou art That’ has become my internal engine. ‘For the benefit of All’ has become my charioteer. All the quadrants have become focused on the center, where the heart flows love and light abundant, which empowers me to share freely, without hesitation, and with a core spirit of celebration.

Kumud @AjmaniK

P.S. Join us as we gather for our weekly chat, Sunday July 28 at 9amET on Twitter in #SpiritChat – we will celebrate our cores, all of them, as we complete eight years of our journey together – Kumud.

A return to the core space – where the five elements meet for renewal…

Common Sense Spirituality

Tags

awareness, common sense, healing, practicality, spirituality

While preparing for last week’s chat on freedom, I had come across a reference to Thomas Paine’s essay titled “Common Sense” – an essay, written by an Englishman, published anonymously in early 1776, that is said to have greatly influenced and inspired the writers of the American Declaration of Independence. I was intrigued enough to get an electronic copy, and have been reading it this week.

Towards the end of the week, my reading of “Common Sense” was complemented by my (re)reading of “Practical Spirituality” by Swami Vivekananda. I couldn’t help but be struck by the common threads in the two writings, by two people who were so far separated by time, space, and causation. However, as often happens, when East meets West, and the waters of thought and action meet in Oneness, harmony is the result.

So, I paused to consider. What is the message of harmony that I could take away from these two treatises, for the cause of “Common Sense Spirituality”? Let me share with you the four quadrants of the message – I invite you to play in the template of four quadrants and arrive at your own interpretations of “Common Sense”.

Identify, focus on, and devote your best energies to the “big rocks”. How often do we begin the day, the week, the month or the year with good goals and intentions, but tend to “lose our way” among the little pebbles of life? For me, some of the the big rocks are morning meditation, tea and coffee conversations, walking in nature, sitting in evening reflection, and such. What are your “big rocks” and what quality of time, space and energy do you invest in them?

Feeding is important. It sounds simple, but the quality of what we feed our mind, body and spirit greatly influences the quality of creative energy that becomes available to us. Common Sense invites us to evaluate our feeding, our intake through all our senses, and develop awareness of our output. Are we emulating GiGo Garbage in Garbage out) because we are led by FoMo (Fear of Missing our)? If so, we are spirit-bound to course correct and improve the quality of our intake.

Weeding is directly connected to feeding, and the two combine to influence growth. As a gardener, I am well aware that no matter how hard I try, weeds have the propensity to appear “out of the blue” with alacrity and regularity. In order to prevent the mind garden from being overrun by weeds of fear, hate, judgement and the like, regular weeding is common sense. Regular weeding also ensures that our spiritual feeding has the maximum nutritional effect on our subtle body.

In the fourth quadrant, is breathing. Although breathing is an autonomous function, which is a good thing, we do have the ability to develop control over its rhythm. Beyond the purely physical benefits of breath awareness, the art of breathing directly influences our nervous system, its currents and its energies. The common sense way to regulate the perturbations in our emotional state is to watch the state of our breath. Emotions feed our thoughts, which often feed our focus and the actions that we take in the first quadrant of “big rocks”. Harmonize the flow of life-force provided by the breath, develop flexibility and resilience, and all the four quadrants can come into harmony by returning us to the center of wellness.

Namaste,

Kumud @AjmaniK

P.S. I am sure that you can think of many different “common sense” ways to fill the four quadrants… share with us your ideas in our weekly gathering, Sunday July 14 at 9amET in #SpiritChat on Twitter. Namaste – Kumud

The “four quadrants” of Common Sense

Gifts of Freedom

Tags

celebration, freedom, remembrance, spirituality

The waxing first quarter moon flirted with me from outside the upstairs window as it emerged briefly from behind the clouds at late twilight. I had just finished my evening meditation, and was slowly emerging from the gift of freedom from being immersed in a deep peace from the stillness beyond light. The gift of the moon made my heart feel like a lotus that opens its petals at the first signs of light.

I needed to see more of her magic, so I walked downstairs, and on to the deck outside, just to catch a few clear glimpses before some dark clouds engulfed her for the night. Just as I was to walk back inside, out of the corner of my eye, I saw yet another gift – the first summer sighting of a firefly in the grass. And as I swept my gaze towards the trees, I saw a forest full of fireworks – hundreds of fireflies silently floating, dancing, sharing their light from within. The Fourth of July fireworks from a distant suburb that sent ‘lightning’ into a clouded sky barely held a candle to this gift of Mother Nature.

So often it is the inclination of our human nature to get focused on, get trapped by, or even become despondent in despair about our lack of freedom, or the state of our independence in the world. When we forget about our gifts, it often takes a few courageous men and women to stand up and say – enough. Inspired by divine providence, they draft a new declaration, and then pledge to it their lives and sacred honor. Then, the battle to reclaim the gift of freedom, truly begins.

Such is often the state of our inner world too, isn’t it? Immersed in fear, doubt, anger, envy, and our desire for likes, we forget the gifts of our truths. It often takes a new declaration, a new resolve, a new inspiration for us to be (re)awakened to walk our path of constant remembrance of the gifts of our freedom. It is when we are awake to our inner gifts of peace, joy, silence, stillness and more, that we can pledge to share the same with our fellow freedom fighters.

That is perhaps the significance of the Fourth of July, Canada Day (and similar ‘Independence Day’ celebrations) to me. In addition to the fireworks, the concerts, the picnics, the road trips – it is the freedom to observe and embrace the gifts of light, however small or slivered they may be, that glow constantly within my reach.

Kumud @AjmaniK

P.S. Join us for a community celebration of our gifts of freedom – Sunday, July 7 at 9amET on Twitter in #SpiritChat – Namaste. – Kumud

A (de)light gift of summer that burst forth this weekend!

Spiritual Summer Camp

Tags

camping, healing, retreat, spirituality, summer

The outage started at about 10pm on Thursday evening. It was at about that time when we pulled into the parking lot of the camp ‘in the middle of nowhere” where the eastern and western branches of the historic Delaware river meet. The seven hour drive across rivers, valleys and through the mountains of the lower tier of upstate New York had been scenic and educational.

We arrived to pitch-black darkness under crystal-clear skies with the sliver of a new-moon slowly rising into wispy clouds and the brightest carpet of star-studded diamonds I had seen in a long time. My daughter announced – “there’s no signal, Dad” – a sign that cellular coverage had been reduced to zero. “I am sure they have Wi-Fi” was my palliative response, to instill some hope, even though I knew fully well that that was not to be the case (at for her).

Ten weeks of ‘summer break’ from school usually include at least a few weeks of ‘camp’ for most families, and ours is no different. This year, she decided that she was ready to try ‘sleepaway camp’. So, here we were, to begin three weeks of a journey into a new paradigm without internet, to be (hopefully) replaced with all kinds of activities including outdoor activities and water sports, theater, magic, music, art, and much more. Her ‘device’ is loaded with music and books, but I have a feeling that she will be hard-pressed to find time for any of that.

During the drive out, I couldn’t help but wonder – what were my ‘summer breaks’ like growing up? They were mostly spent visiting family, and traveling around in the areas where my Dad was stationed. Multiple summers were spent in Kashmir, Assam, Arunachal – the far North and Northeastern states of India were my playgrounds. And how about you – what were your ‘summer breaks’ like? Did they include any ‘summer camps’? If so, how did they influence your ‘education’ outside of formal schooling?

As adults, it is perhaps in summer-time that we feel a little bit of extra freedom to take time out for ourselves. As a society, it is a season where it is ‘acceptable’ to take time to be on family vacations, retreats and related travel. ‘Summer-camps’ for adults may look a bit different than those for kids, but the intent is perhaps the same – disconnect from the everyday routine, experience a new (unfamiliar) environment, try some new activities, learn some new skills, make some new friends, and emerge with energy, enthusiasm, and excitement about ‘back to school’ at summer’s end.

So, what would ‘Spiritual summer-camp’ look like for you? Have you ever been to one in the form of a ‘spiritual retreat’ away from home? If so, would you do it again? Have you ever experimented with an ‘in-home’ spiritual summer-camp which involved a new routine, new skills, new connections, internet disconnect, and more?

The outage (for me) lasted well after lunch on the next day. In the morning, it did feel a bit strange to pick up the phone, only to find out that I was still ‘lost’ to the outside world. I will admit that I suddenly ‘found’ a lot more hours in the day… to take a long walk by the lake after breakfast, to sit in an adirondack chair in the sunshine after lunch and doze off into day-dreams, to sit on the hill before dinner and watch the sunlight filtering through the tall trees creating musical patterns on the water…

Total disconnection from the internet, forced upon me as it was, even though it lasted less than a day, allowed me to get a wonderful glimpse of what I had been missing by not ‘going to camp’ as an adult. I was glad to ‘return’, but I secretly wished that my camping adventure had lasted a bit longer…

Kumud @AjmaniK

P.A. Join us Sunday, June 9th at 9amET and share some of your “summer camp” experiences. I will bring some questions, some lemonade and watermelon. You can bring a camp chair and some marshmallows – Kumud

A ‘slice of heaven’ in the Catskills

Towards Spiritual Graduations

Tags

awareness, celebration, graduation, spirituality

As life-defining events go, “graduation” is often considered to be one of the primary ones. For some, it can be a time to celebrate the milestone that has been accomplished, a time to reflect on the journey that has brought one this far, a time to express gratitude to all those who may have helped us along the way, and a time to look ahead to the next milestone. For others, graduation can be a portal, a doorway, an opportunity to begin anew, a new journey and a new phase of life.

My personal journey of formal education gave me many opportunities to graduate, and even though I did not attend any of the ceremonies until the one for my final degree award, they all were significant milestones. Each graduation opened the door to a new learning environment, new teachers and friendships, a breath of fresh ideas, and an awareness that the world was indeed my oyster. All I had to do was accept the opening invitation.

It has been many years since my own graduations, and now, I look forward to experiencing them every year through the eyes and words of my friends’ and relatives’ children. The light in their eyes, their hope to effect change and transformation, their desire for improved equality and justice, and much more, is written large in their essays and stories and actions.

So, how may we, our generation, best serve the graduates of today? If personal example is the best way to demonstrate leadership, then perhaps we can ask — what is our next graduation milestone? What is our (spiritual) curriculum? Who are our friends, our teachers, our guides, our mentors, our confidantes on our (spiritual) journey? Are we going regularly to ‘class’ or are we ‘sleeping in’ more often than not? Are we taking initiative and ‘asking for help’ outside of class when we know we are stuck on a project or assignment? Are we aware of our fellow students’ struggles and lending a listening ear or a book or a song, or providing a gentle nudge when we discern the need?

Yes. Graduation can take on many colors and hues and in this season. Maybe our own progress towards painting our masterpiece is light enough for others to pick up their paint brushes and share with us their strokes of genius.

Kumud @AjmaniK

P.S. Join us in our weekly conversation on Twitter – Sunday, June 2 at 9amET / 630pm India, as we continue our journey. I will bring some questions, along with some tea. It is in the journey together, towards graduation, that we can unveil the answer to the grand question – “what is That, knowing which, all else can be known?” Namaste – Kumud

Looking ahead – towards the next horizon, the next graduation…

On Loving Remembrance

Tags

love, memorial day, memory, remembrance

How are our memories created? Where do our memories reside? What makes certain memories indelible while others fade away over time? How do the memories of those we love, those we live with, affect our lives? What is the best way to pause and honor the memory of those whom we never knew, but who made great sacrifices for us?

Some of these questions filtered through my head as I sat in the parked car, contemplating the path I was going to walk in the forest yesterday. I thought of the questions, and then let them go with love in the breeze, as I began the walk towards the river. A few minutes later, I was at one my favorite junctions, and the choice lay ahead – to walk the broad familiar or the unexplored narrow. I did not have my best walking shoes on, so, as if to say ‘what of that’, I chose the latter.

I followed the riverbank for a short while, and then re-traced my course in the other direction, pausing for quite a while on some of my favorite rocks in the middle of the river where the waters had receded enough to allow me passage. And, as often happens, the muse flowed words of remembrance in response to my questions. Some of these, I share with you. Maybe you will find some answers within…

Out of the corner of my eye
I saw the heron with full wingspan fly
Over the river flowing shallow ;

I must have interrupted her morning sojourn
As I knelt and bowed at many a turn
To walk the fisherman’s walk ;

No fishing pole in hand I held
Except for a camera with phone 
To come closer to the river flowing swift
And listen to the bluebells alone ;

And the chipmunk who stared at attention
In his stance from the fallen tree trunk proud
What beautiful solitude awaits us
A mere few yards from the madding crowd ;

I can hear the chirping of fledgelings
And the rumble of motorcycles loud 
I pause to kneel, to sit on haunches
To breathe in the earth's green cloud ;

And the flat rounds on this bank remind me
Of skipping stones in the Indus in Leh
So much is different and yet the same
Water, air, sun and swallows hold sway 
My heart feels like it’s going to burst forth with memories
Of lullabies filled with love from that day;

And the dancing of sunlight on ripples
Asks - does it take much courage to flow?
Or does it take courage to stand...
For the truth we've all have felt from beyond the know ;

Yes, yes it does take courage to admit of tears
Of all our meager holdings to let go 
We swim in the river of desires
Forgetful of love's seeds given us to sow ;

So when this world weighs you down now and then 
Find a river whose other shore you can't see 
Remember -- love's courage helps us walk
And leads us to who we're destined to be... ;

Yet forget not that for love to bloom life
We need to master the courage to die ;

But what is it -- that we are to die to and for?
That is perhaps the question's cry
I often wonder, and try to remember —
As I watch the swallow who's learning to fly... 

Kumud

P.S. Thank you for reading this far, and letting me share my musings with you. May 26th marks the observance of Memorial Day Sunday in the USA. Join us on twitter at 9amET, as we discuss some (spiritual) aspects of ‘loving remembrance’. Namaste. – Kumud @AjmaniK

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Towards the end of the circle of my walk, I came upon this young tree with fresh green leaves, seemingly growing almost horizontally out of the love of the soil accumulated around the tree trunks of fallen trees… #MemorialDay

On Discovering Essence

Tags

awareness, challenges, essence, essentials

What a difference a week makes. Last Saturday, an early morning storm with a lot of rain and electrical activity, tripped the breaker on the sump pump in the basement. The battery backup pump, which I thought was working, but hadn’t tested lately, didn’t work. The result was a minor flood in the finished basement, and a day of phone calls to insurance and restoration companies. Oh well, we needed new flooring and carpeting in the basement anyway.

Later that night, I evaluated how my wife and I responded to this “life event”. In the big scheme of things, we determined that we “got off easy”. Yes, it was inconvenient that our weekend had been disrupted, but at least we were home, and managed to minimize the damage (the main pump kicked right back on after I reset the switch :)). Yes, we needed to reevaluate our emergency systems in the basement and the home in general. And the greatest revelation from the evaluation?

We got a new perspective on what is truly essential, on what it is that defines our essence. There is a lot of ‘old stuff’ in our basement that has been with us through two moves over fifteen years. How much of it is essential to our lives? And, as I delved a bit deeper over the past week, I asked myself some more questions.

What is it that defines my essence? How do I know what is truly essential to me in a physical, mental, emotional and spiritual level? Some of the answers have been filtering through me, and my exploration with the question(s) continues.

On Earth Day (two days after ‘the event’), I went walking my favorite trails. I often find that I have to make a conscious choice to accept the invitation to walk. The call is often so strong that the car seems to self-drive itself to the park on the way to work. So, I deem that walking the forest is essential to me. I have found that there is prose and poetry that flows through me as son as I step onto the trails. Here’s a sample:

Find your trail and walk

She will welcome you with open arms

From the tiniest of flowers hugging crocuses

To the tallest of trees holding birdsong

Her gifts will shower down upon you

Amid the remembrance – that her greatest gift is birth…

So, one way to connect with our essence may be through those actions that bring us face to face with unmitigated peace and joy. The world around us recedes like the floodwaters after the storm, and we can feel the essence of the tiniest of flowers, the freshness of new greenery emerging, the calming presence of tall trees gently swaying in the breeze, the river gurgling by past the boulders in the valley where it has been flowing for millennia.

What is the essence of our mental state? Is it our intellect? Is it intelligence and our power of discernment? We all have thoughts that swirl like eddies, or the thoughts are stirred by fresh emotions that cause highs and lows? The temporary nature of their existence surely means that they cannot be essential, right?

Awareness of our mental and emotional essence can be unfolded for us in physical stillness. Being still is not easy for many of us. Stillness is an essential that often needs to be cultivated. That which makes us still gives us the opportunity to connect to higher awareness – we can become observers of our mental and emotional states. As observers, we can then find our essential That by saying – it is not this, it is not this.

Allow me to posit that once we have found the trail to our physical, mental and emotional essences, and know how to (re)connect with them, our heart is ready to receive the spiritual essence. The invitation to receive then comes through clearly. We then awaken every morning, ready to receive the essence with joy, peace, silence and stillness, as we watch the source of light reveal itself to us in our heart filled with love.

We arrive at the awareness that the same spiritual essence energizes all of us, gives us life, and yes, a return to a dry basement…

Kumud @AjmaniK

P.S. Join us Sunday, April 28 at 9amET as we resume our weekly twitter chat in #SpiritChat ~ I will bring the essential tea and cookies. I invite you to bring your favorite flavor of essence. Namaste – Kumud

On Celebrating Nothing(ness)

Tags

action, celebration, healing, lightness, nothingness

The daily nightsong that begins in the pre-dusk hour with great earnest, has been particularly persistent this season. Over the past few days, I have found myself trying to identify the player(s) of this orchestra through online searches of bird songs, Audubon societies, and more. Truth be told, I have not yielded much, if anything. It is more like a whole lot of nothing.

And then, one night last week, after another round of futile googling of the source(s), I was reminded of Winnie the Pooh…

My favorite thing is to do a whole lot of nothing – for something good often comes out of nothing.

I paused, and asked myself – what is so wrong with not knowing the source(s) of the nightsongs? How about I simply do nothing more than embrace the beauty of the orchestra, without trying to assign name, cause or reason to the sounds and harmonies? What if I were to simply choose to enjoy, even celebrate the gift of spring’s songs, without trying to analyze them?

And so, for the past few nights, the night’s songs that last from dusk to dawn, have taken on new tones, new rhythms, new colors for me. It is as if they have been reborn. I have been opening the windows a bit more, drinking a bit more tea, and simply been sitting in open surrender to the all and the nothing.

The result? The allness and the nothingness have often flooded me, occasionally stopped my breath, flitted a not-knowing smile across my face, and filled me with the very same orange-peach glow that sunset often spreads across the sky at spring’s twilight. I have stopped my wandering and wondering in those few moments, to allow for something good to happen as a result of my celebration of nothing(ness).

Impossible to do, you say? Well. Consider another Winnie the Pooh gem of living wisdom:

They say that nothing is impossible. But I do a bit of nothing every day…

Embrace the impossible moment. I invite you to create time and space, where you do a bit of nothing every day with loving effortlessness. Maybe something good will be created as a result. Maybe, in embracing nothingness, time and space will cease to exist, and be reborn as love. Maybe we will discover that our inner black holes are in fact filled with the allness of light, and that nothingness is simply a portal to That something, which is in fact, everything.

Kumud @AjmaniK

P.S. Join us Sunday April 14 at 9amET, as we embrace nothingness while listening to each others’ songs, drinking tea, and sharing light. Namaste – Kumud

Sunset and twilight – an invitation to celebrate nothing(ness)

On Spiritual Radiance

Tags

celebration, healing, radiance, spring, winter

There was no mistake about the invitation. The morning sun had finally made its way through the haze as is crested over the ridge, seemingly at the same moment that I reached the bottom of Cedar Point hill. The only question was whether I was going to turn left or right onto Valley Parkway, park in one of the alcoves, and accept the invitation to walk.

And walk into spring I surely did. Unlike the day before, when spring seemed imminent but wasn’t quite there yet because the river was firmly frozen and the wind that blew through the clearings was swift enough to crinkle your bones, today was different.

There was a certain radiance in the invitation today. A radiance that spoke through the ever so slightly higher pitch of the songs of the birds. A radiance that invited the fishermen to walk out to the middle of the river on the sheet of ice still thick with opacity. The radiance made the water flow briskly in channels between the ice floes, and also started to create pockets of water inside the thick sheets.

And so I walked, letting the radiance of it all warm me from head to heart, bathe me with the light breeze that flowed from under the bridge as I walked out on the rocks towards the middle of the river until my passage was blocked by sheets of ice laden like layers of lasagna. Right there, in that stillness amid all the music, I spontaneously started singing – a prayer that invokes health and wellness for the universe and all her beings.

An invocation for guidance in our paths, to prepare us well for our walk, to give us strength to endure winter and also give us lightness to welcome the radiance of spring. A prayer of gratitude to all those who are walking with us, have walked with us, and whose radiance continues to reach us from the wide yonder beyond. Right there, on the rock in the middle of the river, came the awareness of the beautiful, gentle energy of the divine feminine, and its influence in my life.

And so I walked some more, absorbing, healing, sending thank you notes to all the women – mothers, sisters, aunts, teachers, grandmothers, my wife and daughter, and all the ladies of #spiritchat. All of you have raised me up, and it is from you that I continually learn the singular fact that radiance requires no medium. It is an energy like love, like kindness, like the light streaming through the trees and making patterns on the melting snow, which gives your heart the distinct knowing that, yes, you too, are the spring to somebody’s winter.

There is great joy in acceptance – to accept the invitation to walk, to be That radiant spring.

Kumud @AjmaniK

P. S. Join us Sunday, March 10 at 9amET/ 630pm India (note that US shifts to daylight savings this Sunday!). We will celebrate and honor the radiance of spring, and share team and cookies for International Women’s Day. Namaste – Kumud

Witnessing radiance – standing on a rock ledge in the middle of the Rocky River, as the river melts around me…

The river flows North to Lake Erie, and small, frozen waterfalls serenade her passage

The play of light and shadows, spring radiates into winter

The halfway point… I walked out into winter… I paused… I returned with spring…

Common Ground Spirituality

Tags

action, awareness, healing, relationships, spirituality

Common ground, like common sense, is becoming increasingly difficult to find. It isn’t that common ground doesn’t exist any more – it is perhaps that it has become buried under the layers of our increasingly fragmented lives – like the bulbs we planted in autumn, biding their time waiting to spring from underneath the layers of snow and frozen earth.

When we may think we have reached the end of the line, and that we have nothing more left in common, perhaps we can dig a little wider. We can step back, take a walk, or even sit in morning meditation and ask – what is it that we may have ignored or overlooked? And the answers may surprise us…

Commonality of backgrounds (immigrants from different continents), forgotten common interests, overlap in family values, shared beliefs (in goodness and kindness), common celebratory practices (food!) – even agreement in things we disagree about, things that annoy us, our shared dislikes, and much more….

Such was the invitation this week… to (re)discover, uncover common ground. To (re)search for it and renew it yet again. And the more I stepped back and looked with fresh eyes of the heart’s light, the more I found it in my close and distant relationships, even some faded and forgotten friendships, and particularly among the few that are especially close to me.

I discovered that it is perhaps in retraversing that common ground that the heart can find new paths, and find reasons to do some (not so) random acts of kindness. It is beneath frozen lakes and lagoons that the lighted waters flow again from the spring thaw in the heart. It is tending to common ground that enables us to repair the bridges that have grown algae because they haven’t been tenderly paused on, gently walked on, lovingly talked to and softly sung to for so long…

But why would we bother to do the work to find common ground in the first place? To assuage our guilt? Or to save, heal, being back to thriving, that which is worth keeping? And why is it worth healing? Because we have invested so much in it and come so far? Or whether we still see the potential for future growth, success and expansion – the spark that can kindle a thousand more micro explosions of joy when given the proper conditions of pressure, temperature, timing and ideal mix of fuel and air in the combustion chamber that is called common ground?

Kumud @AjmaniK

P.S. Join us in our weekly twitter chat, Sunday Feb 24 at 9amET / 730pm India – walk and share some common ground (over tea and cookies) with us. Namaste – Kumud.

Visiting some ‘common ground’ bridges and pathways… as spring broke through briefly (Friday, Feb 22 2019)