Mystery & Mastery

This time of year takes us into the dark, our inner core of sustenance, which does not have to be mysterious, but when given half a chance-is.  As explored in last week’s Breath, we are in that straddling time of endings and beginnings, of work and celebration, of fall into winter, of questioning past results in order to produce a better new year.  To survive 2012, we’d best learn to go into the mystery in order to grow mastery.

We have become a fast facebook nation of tweeters who disgorge and cannot dis-engage.  We are plugged in from every pore recycling other’s ideas, and appeasing our friends by liking them.  Our appetite for the mundane is voracious, leaving little room for the numinous.  Like anything that is not black and white, going into mystery takes time.  It is a practice of silent intention and repetition.  It is a sacred, solo practice away from errands, kids, work, friends, chores- and yet it must hold all that and more. We do not live in a cave on a mountaintop. Whatever mystery is, whatever the numinous holds, and however we go there, it is not achieved by the instantaneous.

How do we master what is unknown?  How do we make space for the grey areas, the non-defined, and non-denominational?  I fear the growth of my own trigger-happy habits, of fitting in too many things, making over-quick decisions based on too little information.  I fear for my creativity that has to produce something, anything in order to be heard, to be seen, never mind to be ‘excellent.’  I wonder who’s really listening to all these bodies so insistent to be heard and seen.

Perhaps Daily Breath shall take a vacation-a great exhale of surrendering in order to beckon what is numinous, and more compelling. I shall allow the possibility of not encountering any mystery, but shall insist on silent hours during the dark days.  I will allow the not knowing, asking simply to listen.  I promise to not do.  Rather, I shall re-learn how to be by opening the core of my heart and listening to its songs.

SUGGESTED POSE AND SEASONAL ENERGIES

Asana: Whenever we wish to see our world from a different viewpoint, upside down is the way in: headstands, handstands, shoulder stands, Scorpion, and Peacock Feathers- any and all variations of these work.

Health Notes: What is about going upside down that gives respite to the eyes so they see old patterns in a new format?  What else happens beside more blood feeding the brain, oxygenating ideas, opening new pathways? Is it we risk when we up-end the body?  When the heart is higher than the head, can we then ‘think’ through the heart?  We are not as confident when up-ended, even the strongest of us don’t pick fights from headstands, rather we listen, we pay attention to exactly where and how we are without reacting, for how can one react when not on their pins?

Astrology Notes: This weekend is the last Full Moon of 2011, and carries the polarity of Gemini and Sagittarius which are the thinking, questioning, and visionary energies ruled by Mercury and Jupiter.  This is also the last eclipse of 2011, and almost coincides with one of its rulers, Mercury going direct, ending the last retrograde of 2011.  It is a time of great change.  Have you noted how many public men have been falling from grace? How the political arena changes daily? As we move strongly toward 2012, it’s interesting that our thoughts have been in re-view, re-consideration, and re-vamp so that our visions, our ahaaa understanding can more ‘light-filled,’ perhaps more sighted.   We haven’t got it right yet.  We need the re-new, re-connect button so we canunderstand the past in order to move with greater heart into our future.

Ayurvedic Notes: Controlling the senses in order to enter the mystery is an Ayurvedic practice called, ‘Pratyahara.’  It comes from two Sanskrit words, prati meaning against -or away, and ahara meaning food, or anything taken in from the outside.  There are three levels of Ahara; physical food, second -impressions-which are the subtle substances such as touch, sight, sound, taste, and smell, and the third is connections, the people who affect us emotionally.  Pratyahara works on two levels, the practice of opening to the right food, connections, and senses, which turns us from choosing wrong ones.  This frees the mind to see life differently, and strengthens the body to resist disease. * these notes from “Yoga & Ayurveda”   by Dr. David Frawley.