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…

On Spiritual Flexibility

Tags

practicality, resilience, spiritual practice, vedanta

It was a bright, sunny early evening when I left home to head out for the Friday evening lecture hosted by our local Vedanta group. By the time I got to the highway a few minutes later to head east for a few miles, the skies had suddenly darkened. A mile or so later, it was pouring down, torrential downpour – severe enough for me to consider pulling over and let it pass.

I slowed down but decided to keep going, hoping that the thunderstorm would pass through. By the time I arrived at the venue, I realized that I had arrived at the eye of the storm, which included the steady drum-beat of pelting down pea-sized hail. I decided to wait it out in my car, for to step outside would surely mean an instant shower. Maybe I should have stayed home today?

The speaker was a young monk from Hollywood, California, who had arrived in the USA from India, less than two years ago. As he started his lecture, it was apparent that his (very good) English was still heavily tinged with Indian accents. However, his two-part message, of which, “flexibility in spiritual practice” was the second part, was unmistakably clear. With story after story of how to practice spiritual flexibility in life with respect to time, to people and to situations, he held the audience in rapt interest.

The gist of his message was that spiritual flexibility is one of the best ingredients to create inner peace.

Have you ever read or listened to spiritual and religious material(s) (books, essays, lectures, scriptures) and wondered why some of the messages within them seem anachronistic (out of time and place) with modern life? If yes, then his suggestion was to put a ‘time context’ to those material(s), and allow for temporal flexibility of the message(s) contained within them. The message(s) that made ‘sense’ then may not necessarily make ‘sense’ now. We may have to re-visit, re-classify, re-evaluate, and maybe even reject certain old doctrine(s), so that we do not become prisoners of dogma. This is called spiritual flexibility in time.

Have you ever wondered why certain people get attracted to certain spiritual practice(s) while some seem totally disinterested in them? Some may prefer yoga or chanting, others may prefer going to places of worship, while others may choose meditation or something entirely different. To each their own. There are also those who have developed a variety of such practices. Such people have the ability to be flexible in their understanding of, and their response to, different types of people. Diversity of spiritual tools allows us to practices flexibility with people.

Have you ever felt that your beliefs, your responses, and your outcomes to seemingly similar life situations have changed over time? An event or situation that would have sent you into a tail-spin a few year ago barely registers a blip on your emotional radar – this is a sign of growth in emotional intelligence. Similarly, our ability to respond with equanimity to ‘good’ and ‘bad’ events in our lives, and keep on doing good for the greater good, is a sign of spiritual flexibility in life situations.

Spiritual resilience is a benefit of developing spiritual flexibility. We learn the art of being flexible, and adapting with time, with people, and with life’s situations. What other pros (and cons) may be the result of practicing spiritual flexibility? I invite you to come and share with us in our weekly gathering. Namaste.

Kumud @AjmaniK

P.S. Join us for our weekly gathering on twitter – Sunday, June 30 at 9amET. I will bring some questions (and answers), and we can help each other build resilience as we walk our paths forward. Namaste – Kumud

The tree trunks, the branches, the leaves, and the not-visible roots… they are flexible, they all bend to the light and the wind… and hence transmit peace

On Fathers and Spirituality

Tags

fathers, Fathers Day, inheritance, legacy, spirituality

I would like to believe that spirituality is gender neutral. If our spirit – that which is beyond mind and body, beyond the influence of space and time, is gender-neutral, then so is perhaps our ‘spiritual path’ that connects us to It.

This is not to say that we live in a gender-neutral physical world. Our very physical inception as humans required the union of two different genders. For some of us, the propagation of our genetic inheritance leads us to one day inherit society’s label of ‘father’ or ‘mother’. In my case, unprepared as (I thought) I was, on that day when she was born, I said – now what?

Many a ‘Fathers Day’ has passed since that day. In times of totally being at sea as a Dad, I have often searched for calm waters and warm breezes among the wisdom memories of my own fathers (birth Dad, my two uncles) and my grandfathers. I have walked, bhikshu bowl in hand, for morsels of advice at the doorsteps of my peers and friends who have walked the path ahead of me. I have asked for many a blessing, invoked many a fervent prayer, in many a house of worship. I have sung many a song to evoke grace and received many a poem in trail, on many a trail of mother nature’s infinitude.

In the process of doing ‘fatherhood’, I have unfolded a ‘becoming a father’. It has slowly dawned on me that the greatest legacy of my ‘fathers’ was their dedication and devotion to their practice. They did not shy away from prayer, from honoring the divine, from practicing their faith, from singing the songs of their mothers and fathers. They subscribed to the practice of silence and stillness as a love-form, speaking soft yet weighty words with lovingly measured tones, and looking me in the eye with tenderness when they deemed that I was in veering towards being lost at sea.

As I reflected on the spirituality of my fathers this week, I realized that I have much to learn and practice. I have discovered that I am fortunate to have a wisdom treasury to draw upon when needed – for they all conspired, in their own way, by their own spiritual walk, to connect me to the treasury of the Infinite.

Kumud

P.S. This is not an eulogy to my fathers, or fatherhood in general. I realize that your experience(s) as fathers, with your father(s) and those that played such role(s) in your lives, may be far from, or totally opposite of what I have described. No matter your experience(s), I hope that you will choose to reflect a bit, and join us Sunday June 16 at 9amET in our weekly twitter chat in #SpiritChat – Namaste. Kumud.

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 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 Inviting Peace

Tags

inner peace, invitation, peace

It had been a more than usually stressful drive to work that morning. It seemed like one of those days that folks were determined to do their best to annoy me with their driving antics. The closer I got to my exit, the more my inner temperature and dissonance was rising. And my ride to work is perhaps a walk on the park as compared to some folks who have long commutes in bumper to bumper traffic.

As I headed onto the exit ramp, a thought crossed my mind. What if, I were to experiment with not letting traffic annoy me so much? What if, I were to simply let people flow in and out of my path, and simply be witness to their journey? How much emotional energy would I possibly conserve by choosing to remain on my island – the very same island of peace that I often began my journey to work on?

And hence, I began the process of being a witness to the peaks and valleys that my inner peace traversed on a daily basis.

If I were to ask you – when is the last time that you accepted an invitation from peace – what would you say? Or, when is the last time that you extended an invitation to peace?

There are so many reasons that we get distracted from our Inherent peaceful nature. When we experience a truly restful sleep, it is because we have been in reconnection with this deep inner peace. The mere act of living in the world around us, the daily tugs and pulls of life, of relationships, of expectations, of our emotions, of our to-do lists and our goals and deliverables – can drain our peace. We feel the need to refill and reconnect with peace again.

How do we reconnect and refill?

There is an Inbuilt awareness in each one of us which Informs us that peace Is. Peace Is ours if we decide to accept, yield to Its Invitation. Peace Is in the knowing that in every Instance that It trends away from me, I can Invite It to return. Peace Is like breath. In every breath that leaves me, is Inherent the Invitation to breathe It back within. Peace is hence the thread of Life Itself.

So, let me ask you to consider your response in the next Instant in which you are presented the peace choice…

What will It take for you to Imagine, Invite, Immerse In, Invoke, Inspire and Incentivize peace? Will you decide to make peace Imminent or will you decide to postpone it?

Take your time. I will wait for your answer. But don’t hold your breath (or your answer) for too long.

Peace is your Invitation to receive, yours to receive, and then give away. Breathe deep. Inhale it. Then exhale it.

I invite you to make Peace your IAP – your Individual Action Plan. Will you declare that #IAmPeace?

Kumud @AjmaniK

P.S. It has been two weeks since I decided to be witness to the peace disrupters of my daily travels. Gradually, I have yielded a bit more space, slowed down or sped up to facilitate easier merging, changed lanes in anticipation, and more. My daily commute is becoming more peaceful by the day. There are trips when my peace island departs and arrives, virtually undisturbed.

What area(s) of your daily activity could benefit from an invitation to peace? Are there any relationships that could use a peace invite? Could you be a third-party agent to invite others to the table of peace?

Join us Sunday, March 31 at 9am EDT / 1pm UTC / 630pm India, to discuss #IAmPeace. A cup of tea and some cookies await you. Namaste – Kumud.

The sunset’s daily “invitation to peace”

Align and Shine

Tags

alignment, compassion, spiritual practice

Align and Shine – by Dr. Christy Johnson

During #SpiritChat on the topic of Loyalty earlier this year, I tweeted “Still not a fan of the word #loyalty, I vote for alignment – aligning to self, others, and the highest good of all“ as my answer to one of the questions. After that tweet, Kumud challenged me to host a chat about alignment, which led me here.

I believe a driving force behind each of our earthly incarnations is to embrace our authentic selves. The idea is to accept our messy, imperfect humanness despite the contrast with our soul-level perfection. Via self-alignment, we can shine more brilliantly and vibrantly as whatever may block our light gets removed. Self-alignment also illuminates the evolutionary path for those who can see and hear us, those who are aligned to us.

As part of my own explorations, I took three different extensive Mindful Self-Compassion courses starting in late 2017. I tried and tried Mindful Self-Compassion practices, believing if I just stuck with them, something would shift but finally after a year and a half I realized it isn’t something I align to deeply. Aha! So Mindful Self-Compassion joins other powerful but not aligned to me approaches like acupuncture, Ayurveda, and Transcendental Meditation.

Giving myself permission to release Mindful Self-Compassion from my daily practices relieves me from unconsciously pushing to make it “work” and frees time and energy for what does align. Now I feel lighter and freer and have found ways to apply my healing modalities to the issues at hand. Through this evolution, I’ve become more self-aligned, which is precisely the point of Mindful Self-Compassion!

As your evolution deepens and strengthens, you also align to the highest good of all. Self-aligning more fully frees energy that gets reabsorbed in the world and also models the power of alignment.

How do we find what aligns? What are the clues? How do we know what either doesn’t align or has passed its expiration date? Ever notice how effortless life becomes when you’re aligned to what you want to be doing? Alignment leads to flow and flow, in turn, supports alignment. What resonates also energizes us. When we align, we shine.

Please come to share and shine on Sunday, March 24th at 9 A.M. EDT on Twitter with hashtag #SpiritChat.

Host Bio: Dr. Christy Johnson quit her decades-long engineering career in 2010 to open her own integrative energy healing practice. She helps clients overcome life challenges and also align with themselves, others, and their highest good via soul level information, energy healing, and empowering self-help tools. You can connect with her via her website www.intuitiveheal.com , on Twitter @IntuitiveHeal and on her YouTube channel.

Editor’s Note: Thank you, Christy, for taking up the ‘alignment’ challenge and stepping up to host the weekly chat on Sunday. I am sure that it is going to be a wonderful opportunity for many to ‘Align and Shine’! Namaste. – Kumud

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…