Sehnsucht nach Mehr - Yearning for More

In German the "Mehr" (More) sounds the same as "Meer" (Sea)... I have the urge to submerge myself into the sea, yearn for immersion into the deep dark waters to escape the demands of the everyday; I also want more from life, sense there is something missing. Thus this title in German as it just encompasses both.

Yesterday, while sitting amongst a circle of women, we were sharing age-old cellular wisdom that is beautiful but more than that felt so natural to us women (if that caught your attention I highly recommend Jewels Wingfield's workshops!). Once we connect with our whombs - yes, there is wisdom in this alien place! - we have a direct link to nature, everything natural and our mother, earth. Experiencing it felt unblievably good. Reconnected with sex, the cyclical, sisterhood, nature and simple wisdom, I opened up to my own inner voice. At one point I recognised that what drives me in life is not something that is tangible or clear. I am driven by my intuition, the feeling that there is something more, something else in me that wants to be explored and I give myself in to that.

There is no linear path, clear route I feel I can take through life. Instead I am driven by my senses. Rationally, choices stemming from this place might not apprear to make sense. Instead of looking for an explanation I immerse myself into the chaos of the deep waters, waters we know so well from our time in the whomb, to see where the current is taking me, what shore I might be washed up on. Once I am there it will slowly begin to make sense - the brain is usually the last to catch up! If we can find a connection again with this chaos, darkness, emotions and the wild, we women can reclaim our true power - to me that is the connection with the ultimate truth of nature, for it's gift is trust.

In spite of all the chaos and mess in my life, that used to make me question my sanity, I now trust the process, I trust life. It might not appear natural as we are used to straight lines, clear goals and tangible targets, but that is not how life operates. The challenge is to find love for oneself because it will help to trust one's inner guidance, trust that it is okay the way it is, messy or not.

I would have plenty more to say, about the need for women to connect, stop competing and start sharing as well as the important role of men in all of this. Instead I leave it at this today as I fancy some yoga and a hot bath whilst enjoying the rain knocking on the bathroom window.

So here a wonderful poem that captures the essence of women wonderfully and with those words I would like to say "Thank You" to all the beautiful women in my life!

Dear Woman ~

Woman,
You belong to the night.
You have blood on your thighs
and fuhrze in your hair.
You smell of loamy fertile soil.
Your breasts give life,
Your sex is a mystery school
leading to the holy of holies.

Turn your eyes inward,
use owls vision to see where you come from.
Slip beneath the surface,
and feel yourself become full.

Make a marriage to the moon.

Divorce the false gods of intellect and reason.
Find meaning in your dreams
and in the secrets of your body.

Follow no authority -
but your own true nature.

Make a sacred fire
and throw on it all that you would use to harm yourself.
Make kindling from shame.

Let your dance be wild,
your voice be honest
and your heart untame.

Be cyclical,
don't make sense..

Initiate yourself
Initiate yourself

By Aisha Wolfe

 

beauty of women

When I walk the streets, looking around me I see plenty of beautiful, stunning women. Very rarely do I see women coming together without their masks - pure, sensual, loud, dancing, laughing, crying, being emotional and supportive of each other.

At the workshop run by Jewels Wingfield http://www.jewelswingfield.com/ I had the joy of experiencing such a gathering. An attic in the heart of London was filled with female divinity, bringing to life what this new energy is about - a coming together, laying down of masks and forgetting about competition. I cannot even begin to explain with words what emotions the encounters with other beauties evoked and I don't want to make sense of it - it merely felt awesome. It was refreshing to not trying to understand, to let the mind rest and surrender to the sensations my body was flooded with.

First, women, let go of competition - it is a concept that stops us from embracing each other for we are all beautiful in our essence. We are nature, we carry the secrets to life. Jewels put it poignantly when she said that as society we have to recognised that we cannot take too much of the earth, that we must look after her. Let's do the same for each other, for ourselves, for women who are trying to be everything at once! There and then I recognised the importance and urgency for us women to help one another through the pains we carried, the traumas and the impossibilities we have faced in trying to be like men and remain women at the same time (not that men have got it much easier trying to be real men in this day and age!).

We all carry male and female but in this life I embody one: the feminine. I love to be supported by men and we should love them, but only once we come to love ourselves for what we are: women.

Hurt women, Sexual women, Emotional Women, Wild Women, Beautiful Women, Strong Women. And in this we came together on Saturday, seeing each other purely. It is an extremely powerful, vulnerable way of being that holds such greatness that we are now beginning to explore in these new times.

Meeting those sisters made me believe in the new times ahead as I looked the change in the eyes, danced with it, encouraged it in joint expressions of joy and pain. Wonderful. A beautiful future is ahead.

Thank you Jewels for this experience!
Much love,
From me to you.

project m.e.

project m.e.

Walking into a dark room, the first thing one would do is look for the light switch and turn it on, right? Why then do we walk day by day in darkness, without awareness, often merely functioning, fulfilling A role?

Deciding to put on the light can reveal a lot of dust, cobwebs and even the odd ghost sitting forgotten in a corner, feeling ignored and grumpy. Yes, it can even be scary to turn on the light because what if we do not like what we see?

However, as we all know, once the light shines on things they don’t look as bad as during the dark hours. As I raise my awareness, work on myself, switch on the light so to speak, I am learning a lot about my dark places. On my side I have great, unbelievable inspirational people that help the process. In this instance I am referring to my counsellor who is on my side while I find my way through this maze. She is great because she lets me do the hard work! I see myself very lucky to have met this amazing person exactly at the right time that is absolutely on my wavelength.

One major discovery in my session was that I am a typical ‘Rescuer’ believing – with a load of arrogance in tow – that I can help others, be the Good Samaritan, and thus change the world for the better. It’s an evolution of the ‘good girl’ role!

In this particular role it is important to focus as much as one possibly can on others, not one self, as that is ‘selfish’ and would interfere with the concept of giving one’s all, pour oneself into the wellbeing of everyone but one self. Funnily this leads to frustration as the ‘Rescuer’ doesn’t tend to receive much (it would be arbitrary as it weakens him as a rescuer). So this person moves into the position of ‘Victim’ and eventually turns into a ‘Persecutor’... it’s called the “Victim Triangle” I found out. And most of us are in some shape or form entangled in subconscious game playing like this.

How do we get out of this trap you might ask? First, accept that you cannot, even with all the love in the world, do the deeds of others or open their eyes for them, or carry their load. All one will achieve is that the other person feels smaller, undermined and it is all about feeding one’s own ego. Hence, I decided to embark on ‘project m.e.’ because I decided that the only possible solution can be to trust in others to be able to find their own path as I do with mine.

This left me with a light feeling but I could not imagine what I would do with all that energy and time freed up not spent on trying to help others. So I now have got time to attend my own needs, fears, desires, wishes, dreams and begin to listen to my gut! This radar, we all have inbuilt – in fact all of our body tells us constantly when something is off (headaches, tension, pain, etc) – can guide us along the way and help avoid falling back into those familiar, comfortable roles.

It is really tremendous that I tend to stumble across articles that match the themes I am dealing with (KT Tunstall in an interview said she only recently learnt to use her gut she uses constantly as an artist to lead her decisions in all aspects of her life) or receive a phone call going with my learning (my dad called up to say he decided he’s done all he could for his children and that we are now grown up and can look after ourselves – how true and how grateful I felt for that info as it set me free from the role of ‘good girl’ for my daddy!).

As I am sitting here on my own, with my own thoughts, focused on myself I realise just how long I have not consciously spent time focused on me, in spite of meditation and writing this blog. I tried to fix something, get a message out, focus outwardly, not on my inner voice and just be. So it’s my newfound hobby to learn to listen more, and carefully to myself and make time to enable for those moments to happen. No distractions!

What does one might gain from this? Freedom. You reclaim the freedom to be true to yourself. You can create your own rules, be your own guide and walk your honest path. With that demeanour one can begin a real exchange with others – a give and take, seeing eye to eye, and begin to stand tall in love. For me it feels like the only sustainable way of being with each other, empowering not only oneself but the other person too, seeing them and oneself with kind, embracing eyes.

From this vantage point we can also create the life they truly want, feel deep down inside we deserve. We are all creators, artists, out of the box kind of people in those deepest of places. We were simply not given enough options to live that side as in this society we suppress those instincts in favour of a false uniformity and a false security. This stifling way of life appears safe, sound and controllable.

Yet what it really does is to mute our essence, the child-like spirit in us that wants to play, have fun, laugh and create.  Through history the ones who broke the mould did not adhere. The ones leading the path into new worlds and new ages were seen as crazies... I sincerely wish to do my part by focusing on myself as a creator, artist, Urban Yogi to live by example, live the change I’d love to see.

Will I fail and fall back into old patterns? Hell yeah! I am human. Otherwise I’d already be sitting in a circle with the ascended masters loving everything and everyone all the time. I’d already be in my purest form, which is light, and I’d be shining brightly. But when I fall flat on my face once more I will get up again and try once more.

Until I get to the point of ascension I dedicate my time through ‘project m.e.’ to bringing light into my very own dark chambers and begin to tidy them up.

Urban Yogi

  

Crash-Landing

Jumping, taking that leap of faith took a lot of courage and blind trust as I did not know what the landing would feel like. As one can imagine - it HURT. Not only did it pain myself but close ones around me. I have been mulling over why we are so scared of pain in previous entries. As a society, as indiviuals too, we are very scared of painful experiences, so afraid in fact, that we chose slow, uncomfortable misery over a potential (necessary?) crash-landing.

I certainly did that for a long time. I put on a brave face, played my part as defined by me in accordance to societal norms. I fooled myself by ignoring that inner voice, pushing it to one side and simply marching on with a brave fasade, numbing each flickering of that tiny flame of truth in the gut with TV, food, drink, ... any form of distraction. But inside I was upset, grumpy, liveless, grey, numb.

Every now and then I'd blow up when life became to unbearable, make a scene to release the pressure - I'd go "crazy" for long enough to take another breath, then re-apply the make-up and return to acting my part. The one thing that comes with surrendering one self to serving one's higher purpose is that such behaviours cannot be sustained. Even though I held on to the status quo for as long as I possibly could, life dealt me cards, showed me an exit route of this faded, dull, horrid game and I jumped at this opportunity.

What hurts is not to let go of the old but to face the inconvenient truth that in spite of believing in my autonomy I was in fact adhering to everything society (WE) believe we ought to do, ought to have, ought to live, ignoring the wisdom within, pushing down the truth with yet another bar of chocolate. All simply to be a "good girl" afraid that my powerful, real me would come out and destroy the carefully crafted web of deceit, leaving me naked and bare to the elements of a, let's be honest, often tough life. So I toughened up in the past and marched like a little (unhappy) soldier in the machinery of the everyday functioning.

By beginning to listen to that inner voice, our guidance, the piece of the divine every one of us carries within, one enteres another plain. It is a blessing to face the truth and follow the path of the heart. No, it is not without pain and one has to accept a lot of uncertainty, connecting in trust with one's voice. In this place I feel tested by the minute to let go of expectations, accept that not knowing and let myself be washed away by those waves of  the new... the new feminine energy, the new earth, the new ways, new patterns, new ways of seeing and living life!

"Shhhh! She is traveling between worlds right now. You can see her holding the tension of not knowing ~ she is simply breathing into her unanswered questions. Sometimes she drinks her coffee with quaking hands, not knowing where her relationship or her bank account is going. But this time, she is holding onto the tension of not knowing, and is not willing to hit the panic button. She is unlearning thousands of years of conditioning. She is not being split between the opposing forces of fight and flight. She is neither naïve nor ignorant. She is a frontier woman, paving new roads & making new choices. She is willing to make a new transcendent possibility emerge. You may see her now ~ standing at thresholds, or at crossroads ~ breathing into her body ~ intently listening for inner signals. She's learning new navigation skills as she arrives at a most magical moment of her life."

~ Sukhvinder Sircar

 

I am not resentful for having lived my life the way I have since I decided to be a "good girl" and fit in. Believe me or not, I still remember that moment, when I was entering primary school, sitting on the stairs outside my family's flat and making a pact with my inner self to shut up as people would not be able to accept the truth, be able to accept the full, uncencored version of myself...

 

Life has offered me rich experiences so far, leading me to the point where I am at today - ready to break free, re-write the rules and stop trying to be a "good girl" or fix myself. Instead, today I embrace myself, embrace the unknown and find joy in starting a journey of re-discovery.

 

The veil of the illusion is lifting all over the world. It is time to face the truth, even if it means a crash-landing. I recommend a jump! Then get up and dust yourself off, get up and work through the pain.

 

Life is too precious to be wasted playing silly games!

 

Dusty, sore but happy,

Your Urban Yogi

 

 

 

 

Jump that cliff; take a leap of faith!

When I was a teen we used to go to a local lake called "Blindsee", a stunning green-blue space of tranquil bedded into the mountains of Tyrol. While the girls tanned the guys dared each other to jump off the cliffs. Only once did I jump too; cause it was scary, I did not now what to expect and by comparison to lying in the sun it was blimming dangerous as well. Although it was a thrill and resulted in a great feeling of overcoming my fears, I never jumped again.

Blindsee - http://wonderfulplanetphotography.zenfolio.com/img/s4/v65/p1194800474-3.jpg

Driving past this lake today to get to the airport I recalled several people at the last meditation gathering talking about 'jumping off cliffs' and 'taking leaps of faith'. Now is the time of finding the trust in oneself to take a chance, follow one's gut and let the mind take the back seat. Letting the heart take the lead can be a scary business for our mind, as we are trying to rationalise, as we are reminded of belief patterns and as we push societial norms.

Returning to my centre and tuning into what feels truthful to myself helps me to find peace and that tranquil my favourite lake uses. Nature helps me recharge and fill up my senses to have the courage to jump. Being back home in Tyrolean nature has further elevated and centred me. I have just listened to the podcast of Lee Harris (http://leeharrisenergy.blogspot.co.uk/) and he beautifully sums up the struggles we tend to encounter before taking a 'leap of faith', following one's inner guidance.

Becoming a teacher myself I am very aware of what entails a strong, empowering lead figure, such as Lee Harris. I profoundly disagree with putting a teacher, or leader on a pedestal, because it is disempowering to students. A good teacher cannot decide for you whether or not you ought to jump. Only you know what is in tune with your life. A person who truly leads lives by example, shares her struggles and remains touchable. A real teacher will refrain from explaining everything but leaves you to discover the feeling yourself once you have taken the step off the cliff; and more importantly she will accept if one decides not to jump.

However, I have taken the jump, I am enjoying the free fall, engulfed in a feeling of trust that the outcome will be just right in the end. In that knowledge I am more than ever accepting life as my real teacher and I am rendering control of the mind and let my gut take over the cockpit.

I will keep you posted and let you know once I reach the ground!

Much love,
Your Urban Yogi

The Function of the Orgasm

People on trains stare at you when you read a book titled 'The Function of the Orgasm' or they try to co-read the book looking over your shoulder, which I don't mind at all. The person sitting next to me on my way to uni today just leaned over and read, the woman opposite blatantly stared at me every time I looked up from my read. Hence, I felt like another blog entry on sex is apposite.

A good 60 years after the first publication of Wilhelm Reich's book in English I cannot help but wonder if the attitude towards sex, pleasure and the marvellous experience of orgasms in society has changed  all that much since Reich and his contemporaries explored this vast topic? Asking how and why we manage to perpetuate a conservative, life-fearing attitude towards sexuality from generation to generation is a crucial question worth thinking about.

Although I do not see eye to eye with Reich on what 'natural sexuality' entails I agree that suppressed, innate sexual drive is the root of many of our societal and personal problems, frustrations and neurosis. The image of sex we have created in society inhibits too many of us, myself included, from accessing a powerful energy and great source of happiness lying idle in each and everyone of us. Although I am working on tidying up my believe systems and patterns towards everything pleasurable! It is fun and I can highly recommend it.

Yet one has to be prepared to look deep and meet all sorts of animals along the path towards sexual liberation. I believe in the principal of 'as within so without, as above so below', which provides many starting points for such a journey of exploration. I refrain from judging while uncovering all aspects of my sexuality, looking towards the sky to reach the divine; delving deep into the warmth of mother earth to reconnect with nature as well as natural desires. I revisit hidden places inside seeing the 'anima' and embracing it whilst observing what manifests externally in my life as I am doing so, embracing all the learning dished up to me by life (or all that I create subconsciously that ends up in my life once I am ready to face it).

If we accept that 70% of our life takes place subconsciously is is not time to make an effort and reach that part of ours? There are plenty of ways to do so but without accessing this wealth of knowledge, power and source of peace we can find in facing the truth of ourselves, we will always remain restricted by the "behest of authoritarian, mechanised society" (Reich, reprint 1999:198).

Once again I remember the beautiful connection Pedro Pablo and his wife had with nature and how much they respected the natural rhythms of life that we in Western communities have forgotten to feel. Paraphrasing Hellinger we would be well advised to follow the wisdom of our flesh as the mind is so very limited in its departmentalised view of our complex and interconnected world. Once we begin to sense, feel and see (not with our eyes but we our heart) our world in tune with what is, we stand a much better chance of actually having a good time here on this plain.

I honour the opportunities of feeling both the dark and the light in our way of living, yet I crave the emerging feminine energies resembling the new, emerging vibration on earth, so we can free ourselves from the patriarchal chains of the systems we have put in place. The suffering through suppressed emotions, sex and creativity needs to come to an end. If we arrogant, neurotic and anxious grouches (said with a whole lot of love of course and a smile on my face) could be bothered to look towards native tribes we could find living examples of healthier communities, sustainable living and honest, deep, raw sexual connections.

No wonder every so often I feel the urge of escaping this madness we have turned our lives into to a haven of peace, laying it all bare and savouring the sensation of oneness. Being in the haven of the heart is truly a wonderful physical, mental, spiritual and emotional place, worth encountering your daemons for and tidying up your metaphorical closet!

Your Urban Yogi,
engrossed in my current read

Things I should not have seen...

I am sitting here bemused by life's ways of offering lessons in the everyday: a picture on fb; a conversation overheard; a passage of a book; or simply, a gaze met. In those moments I feel the utmost connection with life, with everything. I love it when things come together in a peculiar fashion and it just all makes sense (at least to me).
 
Trying to piece together quite how such a moment comes about is near impossible and maybe I should refrain from trying to do so, but I would like to somehow highlight the strings of the puppeteer called life, that I occasionally manage to see. I had the 'aha' moment when overhearing a statement a fellow student made regarding nudity on TV - do not ask why we ended up at this topic! It was a strong statement about naked bodies shown TV, made with conviction: "I saw things I should not have seen as a child, things that are private."
 
I've always felt that in our society we have got an intensely weird relationship with the human body and what we are capable of experiencing with it. The fact, that we associate nudity with filth is sad and that we ban love-making behind closed doors is even sadder. A few weeks back a friend recommended a book by Wilhelm Reich titled "The Function of the Orgasm" which I am currently picking at. The mind blowing work of my countryman ties in just perfectly with the comment of my acquaintance, who, by the way, I absolutely understand in her disgust with what we can see on late night TV.

Reich, who was way ahead of his times, argues that a healthy, autonomous person ought to fulfil his/her natural rights - e.g. follow her body's instincts. A passage that I find particularly enlightening is this one:

"People have lost their feeling for natural sexual life. Their assessment is based on a distortion, which they rightly condemn. Hence, to fight for or against sexuality is futile and hopeless. On the basis of such distortions, the moralist can, must, and should win out. The distortion cannot be tolerated. The modern woman is repelled by the sexuality of men who get their experience in brothels and acquire a revulsion towards sex from prostitutes. "Fucking" is a defilement. No sensitive woman wants "to let herself be fucked" ...

When I speak of sex, I do not mean "fucking", but the embrace promoted by genuine love; not "urinating into the woman", but "making her happy". No headway can be made unless a distinction is drawn between the unnatural practises in sexual life, practises that have developed on a secondary level and the deeply buried needs for love which are present in every person." (p188-89)
 
To add to the connections I made in the moment I heard her statement, I remembered a fb post I stumbled across the previous night. A Mexican friend of mine posted an incredibly rich picture with writing in Spanish that I would not normally translate, but that night I felt like it (and I added the original text at the end). The Google translation might not be adequate but one gets the gist.

TAO

- Master, what do you need a man to court and make a woman happy?
- Nothing, replied the Guru. Just dare to be what it is ...
- I do not understand, said the student.

- Love is a beautiful opportunity to live without masks, said the Master. The man and woman are afraid of love, because they fear to live naked ... Do not undress just to make love, the Master said softly.

When you live naked inspire others to live without fear, and so my dear friend, you're making love all day ...

Diego E.


Lastly I also had my daily dose of IGing that topped off the opportunities presented by life to 'get the message'. I do not feel the need to add an A4 page of metaphors to this already full blog entry but just this little passage makes me feel like I am somehow been led to this trough and I better drink :)

 

48 - The Well.

Deep Waters penetrated and drawn to the surface: The superior person refreshes the people with constant encouragement to help one another.

There is a Source common to us all. Jung named it the Collective Unconscious. Others hail it as God within. Inside each of us are dreamlike symbols and archetypes, emotions and instincts that we share with every other human being. When we feel a lonely separateness from others, it is not because this Well within has dried up, but because we have lost the means to reach its waters. You need to reclaim the tools necessary to penetrate to the depths of your fellows. Then the bonds you build will be as timeless and inexhaustible as the Well that nourishes them.

It might not be obvious to see the red thread running through this but I sense this is a time to heal our relationships with our bodies and the way we experience our sexuality individually and also as a society.

Your grateful
Urban Yogi


ps: the original fb post:

TAO

- Maestro, ¿qué necesita un hombre para cortejar y hacer feliz a una mujer?
- Nada, respondió el Guru. Solo animarse a ser lo que es...
- No entiendo, dijo el alumno.
- Amar es una hermosa oportunidad para vivir sin máscaras, dijo el Maestro. El hombre y la mujer le temen al amor, porque temen vivir desnudos...
No hay que desnudarse solo para hacer el amor, dijo suavemente el Maestro.
Cuando vives desnudo inspiras a otros a vivir sin miedos, y así mi querido amigo, estás haciendo todo el día el amor...
Diego E.