random truths

Finally.

Florian and I are laying in bed discussing our fears in the darkness. Our voices are softer and slower and we are listening more than talking.


There is a magical space that emerges when feeling and voice meet with comprehension. They gingerly crouch under a tree and they wait. At the exact moment that their eyes meet they suddenly smile at the silliness of their gravity and trust comes bouncing through the tall grasses and towards them.


bohemiangirl, the taker of enchanted photos has asked me to share eight random fact regarding myself.

So without further ado:


1. Since I was a little girl I have believed in magic and wanted to live in a world where I could talk to plants and birds and rocks and animals and the sun and the moon and the rain and the wind. Lately I'm becoming aware that this is indeed possible. In a different way than I thought. Planting and learning and respecting and caring and listening and dreaming and conservation are all conversations. Florian often talks of the relationships between plants and people and the way in which we have changed and adapted because of each other over thousands of years.


2. I studied fine arts and wanted to become a photographer. I even worked for a well known South African fashion photographer for a while. But I was young and foolish with a new dangerous boyfriend and a drug habit. Pretty soon I lost the boyfriend and my dreams. However I am happy with the twists and turns my life have taken and very excited about my new dream. I dream of using the magic of story, permaculture gardening and art as maps through mental landscapes.


3. I work out the best route to work in the minutest details. I carefully ponder the amounts of green spaces on my way, the number of traffic light, the busyness of intersections etc. I will stick to this route for months. Then suddenly one morning my entire being will refuse to travel down this path even once more and the search for the new route will begin.


4. I was born on New Years Eve and my father had to fetch the doctor from his New Year’s dance.

5. I love swimming. The feeling of my body and the water flowing together. Floating on the water I watch the patterns that the sun draws on my eyelids. When that becomes boring I stare at clouds and the bigness of the summer sky or I try hand stands.


6. When I was in the midst of my drug addiction a friend suggested topless waitressing as a good way of making money. I happily agreed. However, the manager fired me at the end of the evening claiming I was scaring his customers. I suspect the fact that someone gave me fifty bucks and told me to buy myself something to eat had something to do with it. That and the combination of ribs, a slightly gothic hairdo, lots of eyeliner, stiletto boots and leather shorts.


7. I was once in a movie that was shown at an art festival. I was also an extra in a movie called Fleshtone that stared the lead singer of Spandau Ballet. It was not a great movie. The best scene is where Martin Kemp looks over at me and my friend, clutching glasses of fake red wine, and sighs with irritation. Since the sound was only added in later we had great fun saying the most awful things possible in reply to his line which was: “The butler, you see, he is a lonely guy.”


8. After I came out of rehab I joined a organisation called Ananda Marga and lived in a small flat with my teacher who was a yogic nun. I almost became a nun but started wondering whether I was running towards or away from life. So I promised myself that if I could make it in the real world and I still wanted to become a nun I could go for it. I sometimes wonder whether I made the right desicion.


Since I also spend a fair amount of time pondering the effects of my deeds on other I am way too paranoid to tag anyone. What if I leave someone out or tag someone who hates being tagged? Awful.


But I would love hearing silly random things about all of you. Yes you, you know who you are. You who I visit in hope of catching yet another aspect of you. You are tagged. Let me know when I can come and say: “Who would ever have guessed?”
D

The bit of snow you see in the pictures is the first snow in Joburg in 26 years.

We are going to the mountains for the weekend. I will pop in to say hello tomorrow and then only again on Monday. Have a wonderful weekend.

Feeling better

Thank you all for your insightful comments. And for sharing this experience with me. I always feel slightly ashamed about feeling angry. Sharing my feelings and hearing about your anger makes me feel acknowledged. As if I'm sitting around a fire with all of you, content to be who I am, glad be known.

Jen said the words I was searching for. The words that made everything make sense again.

"‘for me, it's not about being right. it's about being understood.”
gg

I know it is silly but once I know why I’m freaking out it stops mattering so much.

What comes first? The hormones or the mood?

Anger stalks me. It confuses me. Why am I angry? How can I stop being angry? Should I be angry? Should I express my anger?

Do I hurt those I love by constantly expressing anger? Will it change things? For good or bad? Will it break love? Will I loose respect? Is anger a habit? Is it a way to tell me something is wrong and must change? Why get angry about something someone has no control over? How do I know the person has no control? Maybe they just do not want to change? Why can't someone tell me what to do? How to feel?

I hold on to the carpet. My heart throbs in anger. Anger sweeps through my body. My throat feels dry. I taste it in my mouth. I do not know what to do. Reasoning does not help. My heart tries to escape through my throat. My tears try to escape through my eyes. I try to escape from myself.

There are no easy answers.

There should not be.

Maybe no-one needs to win?

Happy Truths

Last night was so wonderful.

My new yoga class is located
in a school for the deaf.
It is very quiet.

A thick warm carpet softens all sounds.

The room is long
the ceiling is tall
The windows are high and narrow.

Shallow upside down moons spill light across the ceiling.

Incense mimics a sandalwood fire.

Our instructor is wrapped in orange.

During meditation we drape soft yellow blankets
across our shoulders.

The room reminds me of a
warm seductive
memory.

Stretching into an asana

I notice
a small star high above
bare silvery branches
and a midnight blue sky.

Once home I catch up on blogging.

Florian prepares our solstice fire.

In the oven
a chilli, chickpea, sweet potatoes and vegetable curry
to welcome back the sun.

Florian calls me.

We light the fire.

Small branches crackle.

Flames leap up.

The roof of our cob house is filled with stars.

We fit onto a straw bale and consume our curry.

The warmth of the fire
replaces the usual
in bed by ten routine.

I take photo after photo
trying to capture orange, blue and white hot magic.

We talk about this time last year
and how wonderful it will be living in our new house.

Tall mud walls stretch upwards,
and sink downwards.

Finished and half finished arches curve around.

An unlimited dark blue sky is filled with silver sparkles.

Eventually our eyes start closing.

We are ready to jump.

Over the fire
and into bed.

Florian leaps and then it is my turn.

I think of past achievements
I release a ball
of fear, competitiveness and anger.

My future dances past

I breathe deeply and I jump.

We step outside.

Warm golden orange light glows
through spaces
destined for doors and windows.

Outside is cold and clear.

The moon is a rich
red yellow bowl
resting on the tree tops.

Our wolves wriggle their heads into scratch-able positions.

My heart expands
and swallows the night.

Florian’s warmth ,
the fire,
frolicking wolves,
delicate tree shadows,
the bright smell of the stars
and the promise of tomorrow.

Here is wishing you all a great after the solstice day.

"Although my personality may go through fluctuations, I am the self that never changes."

Archetypes on the tree of life. The tarot as pathwork.
Madonna Compton

Turn around truths

This evening Florian and I are having a Winter Solstice celebration. We are having a fire and will be jumping over it while throwing that which we want to let go of into the wind. With a bit of luck we will make it safely to the other side.


During yoga this evening I will find the silence needed to enter into our celebrations whole heartedly.


The moon journey travels through dreamland. While driving to work this morning, admiring the reflection of the sun on the trees, the pavement and the road I suddenly felt as if I was travelling through a dream. And suddenly I realised that, as in a dream, with lots of practice we can start directing our thoughts and desires while we are awake.

Confuddled truths

Lately I have been feeling irritated, disconnected and wanting to be alone. Each night before going to sleep I sort through small grudges accumulated during the day and each morning when I wake up I resort dream memories and feelings of uneasiness.


In order to reconnect to me I started rediscovering my breath, silence and nature. I was hoping to slip away from my discontent into the moment where beauty and breath stretches into the eternity of the now.


Instead I realize that the discontent is part of me. It is not something I can run away from. It is something I have to settle into. To interact with the world using every little bit of me, even the fragments I don’t like.


I am not a small piece of perfection trying to break through layers of the unknown. I hold my breath, hoping to break through the surface into a clear morning.


However, I forget that I am made up of the unknown. By trying to ignore me I miss out on being me. I miss out on the moment when my separation joins the dance of the yellow leaf and the wind.



I forget that I am the mud and the water and the sky and the moon and the rain and the sun and the wind and the small rock in the corner of my shoe.


For the last couple of years I have been working though a book using the tarot as points on the Qabalah’s Tree of Life. Last night I decided I am ready to start the path of the moon.


The path of the moon is about the “working together of the millions of cells of the physical organism”. It is about the mysteries of breathing, sleeping and the beating of our hearts. It is about venturing into the great unknown while allowing our animal self, our inner wolf and dog to lead us.


It is about taking refuge in meditation and “build[ing] your own dreams and aspirations so strongly into your own flesh and blood that they ooze out of your body to become concrete in the world. “

Archetypes on the tree of life – The tarot as path work. Madonna Compton.


Sigh. It sounds scary yet wonderful. I will go to sleep and see what happens.


And this morning I wake up and read this and this and this post. And my heart quivers and says yes. I am ready for the journey.

Transient truths

Know all things to be like this:
A mirage, a cloud castle,
A dream, an apparition,
Without essence, but with qualities that can be seen.

Know all things to be like this:
As the moon in a bright sky
In some clear lake reflected,
Though to that lake the moon has never moved.

Know all things to be like this:
As an echo that derives
From music, sounds, and weeping,
Yet in that echo is no melody.

Know all things to be like this:
As a magician makes illusions
Of horses, oxen, carts and other things,
Nothing is as it appears.

The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying - Sogyal Rinpoche

For Flutter - because the relection of the moon in the lake reminded me of her