I relate, therefore I am ......

With my continuing theme: relationships as mirrors and gifts to reflect back the honesty of what is, I offer and struggle myself with this thought; I relate, therefore I am. I am reading Philip Shepherd's book, New Self, New World: Recovering our Senses in the 21st Century and am thrilled, chilled and wigged out as to the new ways we can move forward. He constantly brings us back home with the theme of: look no further than yourself for the path to change and renewal. These days, more and more of what continues to be revealed to me through continual disruptions, loss and chaos is the change, freedom and liberation that holds true. Today I am bound to work on myself only it seems ..... clear my own dark corners,unblock my own perceived limitations to my real self and penetrate gently, like the wind, my own growth. Far too many spiritual masters, past and present,beckon us to draw our energy, attention and our changefulness back home within so we can offer healing to our world. I rest in this place of knowing when I read the Buddha's words: "Go forth on your journey, for the benefit of the many, for the joy of the many, out of compassion for the welfare, the benefit and joy of all beings. - The Buddha, entitled: Going Forth.

How am I relating to myself first? To begin, the real journey is the one we take within, therefore without. I don't know about you, however I have spent too much time degrading, beating and berating myself and therefore have invited several others to join me at my table. It's time for a new meal folks! All of us, as I have said before, can feast at a new table. Hungry anyone?

warmly,

Stephanie

Transformational learning ...... whoa!!

I am listening to Eckhart Tolle's Stillness Speaks on audio. I picked this up at the library, which has been such a great blessing to me. I love books ..... I love them all around me, everywhere. But this one is audio and because I am an auditory learner, I find words to hear by engaging for me. There is a line in this audio CD he says that catches my attention: "Ultimately there is no other and you are always meeting yourself." Okay ..... so my reflection is myself. This is not the first time I have read or heard this truthful sentence. This stops me in my tracks because I, my ego, loves to look "out there" for something/someone to repel. To continue the trail of looking for and following "stories" is often my favorite pastime and activity! I really feel uncomfortable acknowledging this .... it is quite embarrassing to reveal this about myself, but what the heck ...... I need to say it.I am working towards writing a short story/memoir and so I am involved rather deeply in the excavation of my own family history. I can get pretty wrapped up in all the stories of my life course and although the story or stories might have a place at my dinner table, they are not the only meal. I work diligently now when I write or tell my stories to allow myself the time and space to answer the following question when I have revealed enough. This question is: What is it I am learning from this person and/or situation? This is the "happy ending" I want to achieve for my memoir: transformational learning. This is the real deal baby! This is the gift .... the main course of  the meal, any meal. So go ahead, taste and savor the story. Let the senses come alive with both delight and sadness. And remember to digest, assimilate and accept the lessons, the learnings that are yours for the honest effort and vulnerability you have committed to yourself.

Bon appetit!

Stephanie

Snags and musings .....

"Realize how many gifts and potentials you have - in your self, in your family, in your society, in this world. Cultivate the eyes to see yourself as you are, not the way you've been told you are." Pandit Rajmani Tigunait

I am writing a short story/memoir with the theme of reclaiming, healing mother-daughter relationships. Okay, my own, however in talking with and observing other women and their mother - daughter relationships, I do believe we all share a common thread of desire, hope and faith. For me,it is the desire to know my feminine lineage, to give honour to the incredibly elusive relationship that ties and bonds us all so deeply.. It is the hope that I hear and listen to who our mothers and grandmothers really are or were and it is the faith to know I must do this: heal a severed bond that I and my world so feverishly sliced away. 

Today I am spending time, once again, writing my story and I am in a snag, so therefore I will become the muse! This blog simply lets me wander,like my morning journaling practice however this is different. Somehow this electronic, cyberspace machine is moving me forward. Okay time to go back to my writing. Stop procrastinating Stephanie and get going .... so restless, so distracted! (Is this my voice, or my mother's ......?)

Muse-fully yours,

Stephanie

How will you spend your dash ( - ) .......

I have a running route through the city of Victoria that allows me to run alongside the oldest cemetery in the city. Given this is Victoria, I suspect it is one of the oldest cemeteries in Canada. Anyways, as I plod along .... and yes, I now plod rather than run sometimes ..... I will stop and imagine a life lived back in time from say 1897 - 1988. This individual lived for 91 years before their bodies became food for worms. My apologies for sounding so insensitive, but it is true: we will leave behind these physical bodies, all of us, and we will decay in order to follow the laws of nature from death, decay, gestation, fertilization and rebirth.Can you imagine being witness to two world wars, traversing the Great Depression, witnessing the creative invention called the automobile and even electricity, etc? Myself, born in 1962, I have lived a rather charmed and pampered life! One thing I have been witness and sometimes succumb to is rapidity.Yes, too fast, too much, too competitive and full of striving .... for what? So I can fill up my dash with lots of "to do's" that no one really cares about anyways (and on some level, either do I!).

I am a slow learner however that is my work at this time .... to unlearn conditioned patterns and the only way to do this is to be with them, all of the icky, picky, tricky conditions that no longer serve. My job is to witness them only .... not to change a darn thing, just watch. Ah, so easy! Then why the struggle?

I have a new view of education ..... those of you who know me, I am a bit of an education junkie ..... Alvin Toffler wrote: "The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read or write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." Well, this might just about sum up how I am going to be spending the rest of my dash!Wow .... lots to do!!!

signing off for now ...... Stephanie Needham (1962 - _____)

www.moffattneedham.com

Callings

"You thought that union was a way you could decide to go. But the soul follows things rejected and almost forgotten. Your true guide drives from an undammed stream." - Rumi.

Last night I had a dream where I found myself in a place I have been before but the waters along the shore were congested and boggy. The shoreline was not at all what I remembered: all had changed,and not necessarily for the better. Any one looking for symbolism might comment on how the water is really me and the fact that it is congested and boggy probably means that the dreamer (me!) is too. In my efforts to live my soul's calling or callings while at the same time remaining a householder who lives in this world and has bills to pay and responsibilities to commit to, I am sometimes forced to halt along the way in my accelerated growth and allow the underpinnings of my dream scape speak to me. I have always considered prayer my way of conversing with God and meditation my way of listening. Dream scape however is a real banger because wisdom comes to me in the night, in the dark.  So here I find myself in the midst of living and this time living more authentically. To walk a life non-linearly means at times, to get re-routed, fail, stumble and crawl ..... basically finding yourself traversing through Dante's hell of the dark woods. Mystics of past and present confirm that despite the fierce challenges we may confront, dark and light, all is for the divine purpose of making us whole. There are no short cuts when we say "yes" to becoming who we really are. Making such a claim ought to come with a warning label: This will change your whole life. Once again, careful what you ask for .... although I no longer want to be careful. I have wiggled my way through careful and am now on my way to dareful. So be brave, go deep (like I always suggest to my SI clients) .....undam your stream, follow to the places within that are rejected and forgotten.

Cheers!

Leave nothing behind ......

Today's wanderings wrap around a quote from Kazantzakis who writes, "Leave nothing for death to take, nothing but a few bones." I cannot pronounce the author's name, however his/her words are profound.For those of you who commit to a yoga practice or meditation practice as myself , know the goal is the same as the path: it is the road we travel towards self-realization. This is no simple or easy task for the householder: there are distractions and demands all around us! This is it though, isn't it? I once had a Vedic reading years ago before I studied to become a yoga instructor and the reader suggested to me that I had spent many lives in solitude, like a sage, becoming wise but never giving it away.This explained the loner within and began to bridge the wise me with the intensity and intuitiveness I find relatively simple to hold. In that same reading he encouraged me to come out of my cave this time around .... spend more time in the light! Ah .... the light, yes. But I quite like the dark, I rebel. Here, no one disturbs my self righteous attempts to understand  all there is out there. Hmm ...... not this time round. The study of yoga, Vipassana meditation and Structural Integration have all yanked me out of the dark, into the birth canal and into the light. This time, I choose a life fully lived, messy, disruptive, chaotic and incredibly spiral! Hooray for me ..... I intend to leave nothing but a few bones!

Becoming who we really are .... yeah, sure!

Hi folks,

Before I become really cynical and irritated and basically give up ..... here's my query: is anyone out there really interested in transformation that takes you out of your box completely?? I mean the kind of transformation where who you are no longer works ..... the outside world is reflecting back "disinterest" ... and doesn't pick up the you you thought you were? These are radical times indeed in the world. So where are we all going and how do those of us transitioning such intense transformation hold on, move through to the other side? My wish is to gather people who can admit "I'm really insecure here! Nothing fits anymore!I don't want anything out there!" Along any spiritual path, we learn this is a very important place to travel to and through ...... we need each other to bridge across the abyss even though we must take those steps solo. I am partnering radically with the path of my soul ..... anyone else out there care to comment?