Notes from a Quiet Town

The week before last, I had an amazingly vivid dream: I was standing by a river, in India, with crystalline fast flowing water and green, green grass growing on its banks. There was a waterfall and behind it, a stone grotto. Looking through the little cave, I saw a repetition of the same tranquil, bucolic scene. I suddenly became aware that beneath my sweater, a huge snail was stuck fast to my upper left chest, right over my heart. A sense of revulsion swept over me, expecially when I realised that I had been carrying this beast around with me for AGES. I began to peel its slimy sides off my skin – it came away with a revolting sucking sound. As I pulled it off, I felt the slime on my skin. I gave the snail to my friend Elena, but as I awoke, I could still feel its presence on my skin…

This little gem comes at a time when my poor, downtrodden heart is blooming with a lovingness and openess such as I’ve never experienced before. It is truly a wonderful feeling to feel the heart chakra opening. Lovingkindness, compassion, such bliss. Anyway, that snail feast no more on my poor ol’ heart. My ruby necklace (bought on my last night in Goa) warms and feeds the energy of the heart centre. I am also convinced that the “medicine water” mix we bought back from Kerala holds the energy of the Keralan sun and fills the body with this light at every draught. Total: goodness, joy, lovingkindness, to others and also to mySELF. Om.

A Green Tara mantra:

Om Tare Tuttare Ture Ye Swaha

Get going, oh conscious ones!

(The first installment of a bi-weekly green, fair-trade gathering. @Venus Hotel in El Albir, Alfas del Pí, Alicante, Spain. March 14, 2010; 11am-8pm.)

but I LOVE soup! T’night’s brew was garlic/potato and broccoli with black pepper and walnut oil on top. Salad of sprouted mung beans, sea spaghetti and pine nuts with thistle oil and raspberry vinegar dressing. yumMY.

“Practice becomes firmly rooted when cultivated uninterruptedly over a long time with devotion and skill”
“Sa tu dirghakala nairantaryasatkarasevito dridhabhumih”

–
When my body is tired
And my mind craves rest
I give in.
An hour luxuriating
Then beg my spirit to rouse me
Help me rise above this mortal condition!
Breathe.
Aspire once more.
Discipline.

Morning, early, yet to break day
I breathe my prayers
Faith moves my body
Willing it to transport me
To ever higher realms
Each day I know a little better
That I know nothing at all.

First train passes, rumbling under the weight
Of metal, petrol and people
Each a soul, a spirit, realized or unrealized
Called or yet uncalled
Lit or yet unlit by Agni
Who burns brightest in those
Who light and relight
his sacred fire daily.

It’s no sacrifice to rise a little earlier
It’s a joy.
A private, quiet, Universal celebration
of limbs and lungs and light
ritually replayed time and again
The journey is infinite
As the goal, too, is Infinite.

Yoga.

…that I’m not at liberty to share yet. But, please, anyone here on the Costa Blanca interested in yoga should watch this space. Om surya.

It’s been a long time since I blogged.  It’s been a long time since I’ve wanted to say anything publicly.  It has been an eventful two months.  Where can I start?

Well, I am lost for words.  I still find the whole blogging/status updates/public sharing of my thoughts and feelings to be a strange and unnatural thing.  However, in order to maintain a wide and far-flung group of friends (my “Social Network”) the blog becomes essential.  Here’s what I have to share today.

I have experienced a huge energy shift in the past weeks.  Having reached the 7-month mark in my raw food adventure, I have begun to live the deep changes that this diet brings about.  I have also completed a full year of Yoga Teacher Training and am  feeling the benefits of the deep inquiry and pleasant discipline that are indisputedly part of the yogic path.  I guess that the main shift has been toward a feeling of greater peace and a greater sense of personal freedom.  I feel freer to express my thoughts and desires, and freer to act upon them.  My anxiety gap is closing.  The anxiety gap, for those of you who don’t know about this part of my personal philosophy, is the space between what you know to be correct and what you are actually doing.  The wider the gap between these two states, the greater the space in your life that is filled with anxiety.

I tested this a few weeks ago:  I had committed to go to an event that did not really excite me, but which I “ought to” have attended.  A few days beforehand, I read about a Yoga Festival in Catalunya.  Of course, the two fell on the same date.  Now, I knew immediately which I wanted to attend but had a huge grapple about being able to express my desire.  I nearly crumbled, but then I slept on it.  The morning before, I awoke from a vividly graphic dream.  I had been bandaged all over my body with waht seemed like sticky tape, over which had been tattooed big black tattoos.  This covered my whole body.  I looked in the mirror and realised that I could remove the tape from my face.  I began doing so, and gradually removed all the sticky tape/tattoos from my entire body.  I awoke with the knowledge that this dream had meaning:  a shedding of the skin.  With certainty, I canceled the undesired event, packed up the car, and drove up to Girona with my little daughter.  People, the elation at the freedom that I actually DO posess to determine at any moment my actions was an immeasurable sensation.  This is what caused the energy shift – the second chakra, self-determination.

Since then I have had a quiet certainty about my wants and purpose.  I have never had this before:  although I have managed to tread a path that has led me to where I am now, I have done so with great uncertainty, doubt and lack of faith.  There is a distinct saving of energy when one ceases to worry about a decision, desire or directiong being “right”.  This energy can then be directed towards the task at hand – instead of sucking the energy away thourhg worry, you inject it with purpose.

I have been watching David Wolfe’s videos lately.  For some reason I had doubts about the guy.  Never having met him, nor read his books, (apart from Naked Chocolate, a gift from my man on my 37th b-day this month) I still managed to doubt him.  That’s your negative mind at work, Rachel.  Anyway, he is strangely compelling.  Even in his videos you can sense his energy and humour, and purpose and simplicity.  I have found myself having recurring dreams about David Wolfe.  The subconscious is a rare thing, I tell you.

I love the fact that Britain’s new farming minister is a vegetarian, and so is his boss!

Having read an interview with Nobel-prize winnning neuroscientist Rita Levi-Montalcini in today’s El Pais, I found her comments about the right vs. left brain intriguing.  While Shazzie and Kate Wood wax lyrical about right-brainedness, how we need to feed and stimulate this neglected intuitive part of our cerebrum, La Doctoressa Levi-Montalcini says the opposite.  Indeed, she says that people are right-brained when under the influence of crowds, dictators and instinct.  To become more human, we need to develop the rational, thinking, left brain.  Hmmm…..I guess that I can see both sides of the argument.  That intuition and feelings are certainly important if we are to develop empathy and cohesiveness. But  I can also see that rational thought can save the day when emotions run high.  I find it intriguing that La Montalcini says that the left brain has had neither somatic nor functional development to the same extent as the right brain hemisphere.  She says that the right-brain dominance is a throwback to our animal past that we must strive to shake off.