Happy Hearted Wanderer

This is for all who might have been feeling dull in the last few months. For the brains in the skulls of the people who have not yet felt the spring warmth that is trying desperately to remind them of the explorations to be had, the adventures to be taken on and the Neverlands that are in dire need of fumbling upon. A reminder, if you will, that this chill that is quite slowly fading, is not all that is out there as of right now.

The mist is slowly rising here in the Northern Flatland. It was thick as cooled cream this morning. I take so much joy in how gorgeous and yet dangerous something like water molecules in the air can be. I am so thrilled by the softness it creates but yet by the fact that you are at a high risk when your visual ability is so restricted with no ability to really change the setting or even help the situation all that much.
It reminds me of the Valley and pulls so hard on my heart as my family was also recently here from said Valley Homeland. I miss it dearly. The water content within a landscape changes everything. My body yearns to be hydrated by just the air itself. My skin is cracked and flaked in spite of the longevity of this stay in the Flatland. But as much as I am itching to leave, I think my mind is just taking the first sanctuary I know and making it my dreamland.
Whereas, if I were just to up and travel, I'm sure that would do just fine.
I love the idea of being able to take half a day to pack up all I have, shove it in my car, and drive to wherever. Or maybe, put all I own in a storage unit and fly off to some far off land. I am a little saddened by the fact that I settled here in the Flatland for so long rather than continuing my momentum and pushing onwards. I find myself losing that longing to be worldly and cultured the more that I settle in and plant roots.
I know our plan for travel is very much laid out and scheduled, but the impatience is still there and so strong. Maybe it's just winter fever as well. The cold months can be so long and draining, it really takes a chunk out of ones spirit.
Something that keeps me going though, is the pleasure I take out of little things. Like writing letters, drawing pictures, putting curious things in curiouser places, and so forth. A pass time I have previously indulged in is taking an old paperback novel and drawing in ballpoint on many random pages. Perhaps even cutting some out and splicing others in. Once I am satisfied with my work and have left enough room for others, I pass it on or leave it in a public place. I would love to track them but that isn't the important part.
I think the solution to my unsettled mindset is just to reconnect with that side of my mind. What with the union and uprooting of my belongings as of lately, I've not been nudging my creative side very much. Until I am ready in all ways to continue my wandering, I shall raise my clenched fist in the name of all things longing to be connected with far off places and press on in my strange and colourfully bumbling ways.
Maybe this is just my own reminder. Perhaps this is purely something to tell myself that I am only as stuck as I allow myself to be. But you might be able to take this as your own little finger tie and change your rhythm. Ask yourself, honestly, if there is something that you are doing in life that is taking away from what is important. Don't be afraid of your answer, for it will only bring you more happiness once you've gotten it all sorted out. Find the hurdle, remove the hurdle, continue forward in your lovely meandering pathways to contentment. I'll do the same. Together we can take the problems that become so lumbering and tiresome and reveal them to be the small feathers in the wind that they are. Lets take our troubles and tribulations to the river and wash them away so to recycle the bad into the good and bring forth a clean slate of Spring and bloom.
Creative creatures unite.

M.


All music dedicated to the soothing of the souls of The Wee One and Lady Love. May you rest well and tumble forwards to the acoustic sounds of the world.

Picture This - My Visual Life Part 5

The view from the kitchen in the evening time.

Yarn is now a constant part of my unconscious dream state. Lady Love has taught me to crochet. Oh dear.

Kitten Loves her new windows. Much happier in this home, me thinks.

BadyLug infestation. Is quite entertaining when living with three cats.

Teaching much more leads to more sunning naps. Yoga studio approved.

Many thoughts going through this brain of fluff. Not nearly enough time to sort through and write them down. May or may not be lost forever. Who knows. Doesn't help that I am now full of mucus and boogers (which equals being full of Buckley's and Bentasil) meaning creativity is quite lost.
Please send wishes of bettering and wellness.. or chocolate. That always makes things work properly.

M.

Stopwatch Pause

Ever taken a nap and woken up at a point in the day
where the sun may be just covered by clouds so that it looks like it could easily be dusk or dawn? For a second, there's a moment of disbelief that washes over you when you realize you could have potentially slept anywhere between 12 to 24 hours, depending on when you actually fell asleep. When this happens, I usually rush for my nearest electronic device to see what time and day it is. Now, checking what time it is, isn't too big of a deal. There are many situations I find myself in where I've lost track of time. It's when you have no idea of the date that really jars your mind.
It's a little funny how lost we become when that invisible road isn't laid out in front of us.
I was teaching a class and didn't have my phone on me. For some reason I figured that my Ipod didn't have a clock on it. I got 5 or so poses in when I had this thought and started to panic. Not wanting to break the flow of the class to ask if anyone could lend me a time device, I (somehow) figured I'd wing it and hope it turned out ok. That lasted all of 2 min. before I started to panic. My whole rhythm was thrown off and I started to rush a bit through the poses.
First of all, why I figured there was no means of telling time on an Ipod is unknown to me even now. Eventually I did discover the clock, thankfully. Secondly, why I thought I had any reason to panic is also a mystery. It is merely time, an illusion based on where the sun is during our "day to day" lives.
I understand that people want to feel as if we mean something. We want to feel as if we are fulfilling a purpose in existing. Which, in some ways we do. We affect the world and beyond just as much as it affects us.

On my way home from teacher training, I was seated next to a man. We got to talking and he confessed that he was not the best flyer in the world. At that point, I had just been doing countless amounts of yoga every day, meditating religiously, and was eating mostly organic, home made, fresh food. Needless to say, I was feeling at peace. Somehow, the most nervous man on the plane was seated next to the girl who would have been floating if she'd sung one more mantra. I thought back to what my Mum (a nurse) would do when she was doing someone's I.V. She would distract them with having them tell her stories. Pets, family, work, interests, whatever got their minds off of the needle being shoved into them. Using her fine tactic, we talked about his dogs, yoga, and just life in general.
It worked for the most part until we hit some turbulence as we were going over the mountains. There were no clouds bu the wind was apparently quite strong and was jostling us around a bit.
I'm enjoying myself. I'm drunk with acceptance and ready to take on anything be it plane crash or a little wind.
As I'm calmly talking him out of his panic attack, I look out the window for a glimpse at the pristine mountain scape below. As I do, the plan drops. Not nose first, of course, but straight down. Everyone feels the gravity change as our weight gets pulled up, hips pressing against the seat belt and arms hovering just slightly for all of 2 seconds. We regain normality once again and I think to myself. I just plummeted in a plane over top of mountains, thousands of feet in the air. I could have died in the blink of an eye. It could have all been over, just like that.

I am so small.

As much as we would like to think we are the center of everything, we also need to understand that we are despensable. Very much so. It takes very little to be able to wipe out a human life. Life in itself is fragile. Yet we cling to things like time and materials to try and shape our lives into a very detailed illusion.

My challenge to myself and the people around me is to pause, the next time you see or hear a clock. Think. Every time that little line moves, a moment of your life has passed. The "future" hasn't come yet and never will. The "past" no longer exists except for the imprint it has left in your mind. Every time that hand, attached to a gear, powered by a battery, moves a little more, your life is happening. You are the only thing that matters right at that second and yet, you matter very little at all. Enjoy the vast scape of opposites that are pulling at you and take advantage of each ticktock you hear. What are you doing with those seconds? Where is your mind in this moment?
Maybe you'd like to take that challenge and run with it. Maybe you care to push it a bit further. If so, take even just 5 min (also the time it takes for 2 commercial breaks) and be in the moment. Don't allow your mind to wander from past to future and back again. Observe what is happening now. Allow yourself to be fully aware of this current state.
See what happens.

M.


*All yoga classes and frightened men mentioned turned out just fine.

A Story

If you don't know me, I live in a fantasy world. It is a whole universe, really, so it is quite diverse. But my favorite part is the forest. There are many of them, all with different names and shapes. The one I care to talk of today is the one I've been living in for the past year or so. I've been looking for a change but I've been quite pleasantly lost and have not yet found a map. The woodland creatures keep telling me there is none and I must experience life to find my way around. I would like to think I've taken their advice to heart and done just that but, from time to time, it did bother me that I had still not come across any different terrain.

Until one day, some time ago, there was a call heard throughout the trees. A meek and sad call, it was. It cried for help so pleadingly that I answered softly.
Turns out, a Bear dressed quite handsomely as a Lumberjack was in a daze and required my assistance. He had lost what he thought was his love and wanted to find that connection again. Little did he know, what he knew as love was not as such. At the time, I didn't question it, but feeling sorry for the poor thing, I agreed to put in my worth. I was to teach him and his desired the ways of connection through movement and mind. When the time came to bring the lessons to them, she had dashed off, fearing many things and not wanting to take any risks.
He shrugged and with a drained heart, asked if I would perhaps still pass on my knowledge to him. I agreed, of course, for I believe in this knowledge with my whole heart and know it will benefit anyone who chooses to open to it.
So I come to his cabin to practice with him. We talk for a while and finally decide to get to work when we look at the time and realize hours have passed! After a little training, we part ways.
The next day he sends a squirrel to bring me the words "Either we are to have the best of friendship immediately, or we are to be united by God. in holy matrimony" I laugh, thinking back to how great his sense of humor was in our lengthy conversation. I thought of how able he was to get under my lily white skin with his challenges and honesty. How he exercised his capability to pull from me all emotions ranging between horribly uncomfortable to blissfully happy. He had shown me a whole new gradient of life.
From then on, I go to his abode upon a regular basis to have many an enthralling conversation with him. Despite taking an enormous interest in this warm hearted Bear, I exercise my rebellious side and tell him to find love in other places. Win back the object of his previous desire, find happiness in the Exotic Witch of Blonde and Ink, go and seek what you are looking for. He proposes that he wait for someone special but I push back with my iron will to test his character.
In the meantime, I prance along, biding my time with the company of friends. new and old. Not wanting to settle or land in one place for too long, I leave my trail of sparkles wherever I go, all the while keeping my sights on this strapping Bear. Until eventually my eyes start to become clear and he sees the longing that hides behind them. He becomes devious with his actions and words, mapping out an outcome with every moment. His love for this light hearted fairy becomes overwhelmingly large for his Bear chest, too much to contain, even. I daintily avoid the strength of his charm while ever tempting him to push the envelope more and more. Until eventually, with a soft will, he cools the fire of my past, lays my heart down on a bed of rainbows and promises comfort and adventure.
The Wizard of Education  then beccons him to live yonder for a time. I travel between lands to be able to keep him in my ever changing, quickly growing life. We struggle, we laugh, we play, until it comes to an end and we rejoice.
As we prepare for another change in scenery, he asks once again for our lives to become one and I agree upon the allowance of me having my way. I pick the ever fleeting day from the year of Leap to be united. And so it begins, the curious ways of the Bear and the Fairy, tumbling wildly through the forest. Turns out, the silly old Bear had the map the whole time. He just needed me to be able to understand it. Though we are so different and might not be in agreeance constantly, we are choosing to love. And we are now to travel the lands together, facing dragons and dungeons, mountains and sunrises, until as forever comes to an end. With love from our woodland friends and support from our families of Fairies and Bears, we venture off into the unique words of our combined wonderlands where we shine light and laughter on every creature we come across.

And they lived whimsically ever after.

M.

Apple Disection

On The Bound by Fiona Apple, gently pulled apart as a tender serving of honesty that sometimes has a bit of cajaun spice soaked through it. It's been aged through the thought process of years of experience in my life and smoked with the woody residue of past moments as one living organism on this carbon grown rock we have seemed to have taken fondly to.


All my life is on me now, hail the pages turning
 - Our whole lives depend on every moment. Every single little thought we have, whether as small as a reminder to grab the keys off the coffee table before locking the door or as big as what education to get/what career to follow. It is all happening now. There is actually no such thing as putting life on hold, for it is always moving no matter how much you try to control it.

And the future's on the bound, hell don't know my fury
  - We seem to think that the future is way in front of us. For me at least, when someone says "the future" I think of waaay down the timeline of my life into certain predictions I'm making based on my past choices and whether I found them pleasureable or perhaps, helpful to what I find attractive. Yet there is an opposite side to every person. We all feel things such as anger and sometimes, eventually, bitterness. We often don't like to think about it but everyone has a breaking point. Some of them are further away than others whether due to circumstance or methods of improvement.

You're all I need, you're all I need, you're all I need
You're all I need, you're all I need, you're all I need
You're all I need - and maybe some faith would do me good
 - People are strange. I don't know if I will ever know why we like to torture ourselves, in turn, making life harder for anyone and everyone around us, to the point of even just people we come in contact with. We usually have a bit of this need to please others and not listen to what is actually best for us, causing us to push against something good for the ability to achieve happiness in a projection of someone elses idea of "true". Maybe instead of pushing for understanding and control, a little confidence in the abilities one possesses, would actually work out.

I don't know what I'm doing, don't know, should I change my mind? I can't decide. There's too many variations to consider.
 - When you put your mind in that perspective of every moment being a choice of where on the actual Earth you will be (down the line), what type of person these choices will bring you up to be, the actual story of your journey, and why you ended up taking those specific steps, the whole idea of "life" can get very overwhelming.

Nothing I do, don't do, nothing but bring me more to do. It's true, I do imbue my blue unto myself,
I make it bitter.
 - All those decisions you do end up making are going to do nothing more than bring you more choices to make due to the lack of knowledge that we have for what lays ahead. Some people may be able to gauge what is often done in comparison to the past but they have just as little of an actual prediction as anyone else. We're all on the same page with that one. Maybe it's the lack of that knowledge that makes someone get down on them self. Almost as if we expect to be able to have that ability and feel as if we've failed when it doesn't turn out in parallel with our prediction. Why we feel it is acceptable to beat anyone up about it (including ourselves) is beyond my understanding. How can we actually blame time on anyone? It's no wonder we reach out to whatever is around us. (People and objects of substance or action)

Baby, lay your head on my lap one more time, tell me you belong to me
 - I can't tell you where, but I've heard the sentence (almost a phrase) "people are social creatures" quite a bit. To the point of it being an obvious fact in my head. But when I think of how that is true and verbalize facts behind it, I see that as a person, a friend, a group, a community, a society, a civilization, we exude that theory repeatedly. Because of our diversity, there are always exceptions (with everything, not just this). But for the most part I can't think of a single person that I know of, that would rather be fully alone for the rest of their lives than put up with the majority of people purely for the sake of human interaction. We will put ourselves through hell and back, just to get a taste of belonging and connection. To have that sense of "right" with someone else (be it a lie or otherwise).

Baby say that it's all gonna be alright, I believe that it isn't.
 - Blame it on ego or what have you, but people are stubborn, misinformed, and stubbornly misinformed. We love to rebel and push against what may or may not be there. We flail and spit at the void in our views (for nothing is anything but a perspective) with an expectation that if we keep ourselves clinging, we'll eventually gather strength, thinking, under the surface, "I can keep this going, I know I can." Someone will quite often take any encouragement they can to keep that ball moving even though, we know what is really best for us. If we took the time to stop distracting ourselves from confusion with more confusion, whatever we look for (question or answer) will always be right in front of our face, just waiting for our eyes to actually notice it.

Don't agree? Feel the need to go into further detail? Why not express your differences and reciprocity with other personalities? How can we be so afraid of being "wrong" when no one 100% knows exactly, to the last and tiniest detail, what wrong is?


M.

Results May Vary

I'm sure most people have heard this before. My Mum would tell me to do something, usually chores related, and I, being the feisty little child I had the tendency of being, would look her dead in the eyes and ask, "Why?"
Her usual response was to say "Because I told you to!" As she threw her hands up in the air, I'm sure growing overly tired of having this small minded being question every little thing she presents to the situation. (Sorry Mum) Needless to say, if you know me at all, I've not changed much. I still push the limits of the facts that are put in front of me. I still challenge whatever I am able to. Much to some peoples dismay..

I've been realizing the value of kindness lately. When I close my eyes and see this mental image of what that word gives me, I see a bunch of people in a circle, holding hands and being friendly with each other. That is just the still picture. If I look at the word "kindness" as an action, it takes on a whole different meaning. Just like music, art, yoga, and love, community is an action. You can choose to include it in every choice that is made during ones day.
Take art for example. I could do this more, but I do try and include it into every part of my day. Whether that is just sketching on napkins at a restaurant, forcing myself to paint every day, or just drawing hearts in the dust at someone's house. Creating images can be done at any time, any place. It's about putting the effort forth to make it happen with whatever material that may be available.
Love is a little harder to do this with sometimes. As humans, we tend to think the world revolves around us as a singular person. "My world is more important than yours, my problems are more substantial, my ideas are better, brighter, bigger. I'm right. You're wrong" We might not want to admit it but we all allow it to happen. Now the action of love is to be able to break through that wall, see the other persons perspective as best you can, then change your own mind, perspective, or even go against your best logic. That's what is hardest for me. Going against logic for the sake of trust, faith, or love. Seems like the dumbest thing to do. But yet, if we would bring a little bit of that empty minded, over the rainbow, cheese ball romance into our lives every once in a while, maybe our relationships would have a bit more forgiveness.
Faith
[feyth]

noun

1.

confidence or trust in a person or thing: faith in another's ability.

2.

belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.
It goes against everything within me. I want tangible, touchable, viewable, truth. I want my senses to be able to tell me, "Yes, this exists. You may believe it." To be able to trust, have faith, in something, someone, is quite hard for me.
Mum made a good point, as blunt as it was. Because I said so is just as much of a reason as the reason she could have explained. Because really, who is to say that it's even believable. The point is, do you want to do it to fight it, for results, or because you want to do it.
I see the point of community as doing something for the sake of doing it. For the sake of someone other than yourself. And though there is no such thing as selflessness because the reason anyone does anything is for ones own happiness. "It makes me happy that you're happy." But to do something for the sake of the action itself is quite the feat. There is no failure! No disappointment. Once you've completed the action, the result is obsolete. If something good does come of it, so be it! If not, you weren't expecting anything anyway.

It has become something I want to include into my daily choices. Do something for the sake of doing it. For the sake of someone else outside of myself. Actions such as those are sure to come back to a person in reward.
But who cares?
M.

Unidentifiable Space

Ever look through a lens of a train light? Those things are magnified so much that you could put a little light behind it and it would look like the heavens are opening in front of you. They take normal looking and mutilate it into an unidentifiable mash of colour.
I've been trying to explore my Yin practice more lately but I've been realizing how much fear is held in our bodies. There are so many poses where I'll be in it for a matter of breaths and suddenly get this great urge to get out of it and even stop doing my daily practice all together. It becomes so important to me to stop stretching and breathing that I feel like if I don't, the world will end and I'll implode into a puff of dust. My mind is putting this lens on my situation, taking it and expanding it so deeply that I can no longer see it for what it is. I'm not processing it as muscles expanding, mind being oxygenated, ligaments being stressed, ect. I'm seeing it as an emotional wreckage that needs to be avoided. All I'm doing is bringing more air into the tissue of my body and yet it's this turmoil of stress and anger.
I find that people do this in their daily lives as well. We get so wrapped up in our emotions, possessions, situations, abilities and capacities that we don't see it from an outside perspective. Which is why friends or counselors are always a good idea. People who aren't afraid to tell you the truth for your own betterment. Which will hopefully teach us to do it for ourselves and not depend on the people around us. Eventually, we can watch our own thoughts, our own mind processes and habits and see ourselves for what we are.
Just humans. In 93 billion light years of space.

M.

Fall to sleep
Fall to sleep
It's you I long to keep
This room will never stay still for you and me

Picture This - My Visual Life Part 4

A visual scattering of my life in the last two weeks:


Sibs of the younger variety.

A family picture taking we did. I decided this was classier.

Downtown Van. All of the lights.

Oh the boys of the New Year. SweetK was the photographer. Adding her feminine touch.


China. Town.

Meeting the neighbors.

7 floors of booky gooodness.

Going through my old photo albums of when I was wee. Found this gem of my late Oma and I. The sun was bright that day and my red balloon was much loved.

So my trip to the coast was lovely to say the least. I got to fully experience both sides of the scale between pulling my hair out with how crazy my family drives me and loving the nurturing kindness they would supply. Also, I am quite built for the moist ocean air. It agreed with me muchly. I miss the forest, the dew, the fog, the puddles, the freshness.

Time is pulling my life into a good direction. I now have the ability to focus my energy in scheduled segments on myself and on others rather than mixing and mashing my self time and social life. It's going to be a good couple months, I think. And when spring rolls around, it can only get better. Flowers will bring a new wind of change and who knows where I'll be at that point? I have love, peace, melody and balance as my starting point of this year.

Why, hello 2012, I surrender to you.

"In this moment, what is lacking?"

M.

Hunker Down

I have been viewing some lovely scenes of city life in the last couple days. I love looking over a city and focusing on every little light in every building on every street. It is often too much for my mind to contain all at once and I find myself drifting into other random thoughts but the contrast between the peace that I feel from having this higher physical vantage point in comparison to the bustling business of city life brings me an ease. One of the random thoughts I was having was about the scene in Amelie when she's looking over her city.

 "Time hasn't changed anything. Amélie still shelters in solitude and asks herself silly questions about the
 world or about this town.  For example, how many couples are having an orgasm right now?
-Fifteen ." 
We have as many choices as we can fathom. We are capable of anything. Which leads me to ask:

What is commitment?

com·mit

 [kuh-mit] Show IPA verb, -mit·ted, -mit·ting.

verb (used with object)

1. to give in trust or charge; consign.

2. to consign for preservation: to commit ideas to writing; to commit a poem to memory.

3. to pledge (oneself) to a position on an issue or question; express (one's intention, feeling, etc.): Asked if he was a candidate, he refused to commit himself.

4. to bind or obligate, as by pledge or assurance; pledge: to commit oneself to a promise; to be committed to a course of action.

5. to entrust, especially for safekeeping

Some words that pop out to me are: trust, pledge, and bind.

Are we as humans capable of doing such things? I choose to believe that everything should be considered an option. Nothing is impossible. Our minds give us limits due to the inability to understand or comprehend. We know very little. So how are we able to have such a confidence in something to the point of being able to trust or commit? It's almost as if we're saying, "I will control my future to the smallest degree" which I see as being impossible. Chance happens. Time happens. Who's to say something won't rewire the mind and change the perspective? If all we are is circuits firing off electrons to receptors, how can we say that nothing will change our opinions?

Is there such a thing as real commitment? Real trust? Can we actually bind ourselves to one thing? One mind frame, one way of life, one ideal?

Maybe that is why marraige is such a sacred thing. It's romantic, foolish, hopeful, created by faith and ignorance. It is thrusting yourself into a singular path and assuming that it will last. Working for a common goal, sure. But no two minds are exactly the same. People will have differing ideas no matter what the end goal is. How are we to jump off that ledge and hope for happiness?

A subject that needs to be discussed with one of more wisdom.

M.

It's All Good

What if you're already doing everything right, even though you're not sure?

And the surprises along the way have only sped you up, even though it feels like they slowed you down?
And all you want is now barreling towards you even though you can't see it?
And when it arrives, it will exceed your expectation, even though your dreams were huge?
A little email I got this morning spoke this to my tired eyeballs. It triggered a pretty massive switch in my head. For from then on, I had quite the eventful day. Went for breakfast with Lady Love at an amazing place in town, now have some fantastic leftovers, and talked the morning away of good times that are past, fun times of the future and just how small we really are. Almost as if our lives collided again and we were just overflowing with mind clutter that needed releasing. It's good to have friends who really accept you and yet are capable of keeping you accountable and calling you out on your bullshit and imbalance. We even busted out in a couple yoga flows! I guess it's almost expected when instructors get together. Typical.
It's nice to have days like these where you realize how small life is and how lovely it can be when you let it. When you see how little our problems are and trust that everything is nothing, it all gets a little easier to handle. Sure, it could be considered "unrealistic" but this is an often very depressing world we live in. So much can change from the littlest of things. All you need is a quick switch of thought and Bob's your Uncle, you're happy! Or at least a bit better.


The only thing that is stopping you, is you.

M.