Tuesday, June 8, 2010

On Not Waiting for the Perfect Moment ... Or How I Came to Write This Blog

An ongoing theme in my life has been waiting for everything to be just right ... Perfect ...
Exactly how I envision/want/need/dream (please insert any number of words carrying high expectations).

I am a Capricorn by chance, American by birth, and a goal oriented, perfectionist by virtue of my upbringing and my culture. Right. Perfect. Exact. This is how it has to be before I will ... open a yoga studio, get on my mat, bake a cake, start running again, sit down and meditate, get married, write a blog ... this list could go on and on ...

When I look back at the times in my life when I have felt the most unhappy, fearful, anxious, angry, sad ... there has been one thing common to them all - ME! Or to be more clear - my created and rigorously adhered to set of expectations, self limited ideas, rules that I’ve imposed on others or on the events in my life. If I dig a little deeper, something else I notice common to all these times of challenge is that the rigid rules that guided me rarely led to an experience of happiness, joy, or delight. More often than not, I would find myself sitting in the box I had so carefully constructed feeling alone and exhausted.

A word that comes to mind is STUCK. I was always inbetween things. Full and ripe with inspiring ideas but unable to manifest any of them because the timing or circumstances was never how I wanted it. Pregnant with possibility yet unwilling to give birth. Ouch.

SO, how did I get here and to this blog that I am presently writing ... ?

“Make More Beauty” is an idea that has been cooking for quite some time yet due to (please see above) ... thus it has been waiting rather lonesomely but patiently on the shelf. While I haven’t been writing about it, I have been trying to live it. In fact, this little phrase has been the mantra around which I’ve been slowly and patiently organizing my life.

About this time last year I had the privilege to attend an amazing weekend retreat in Sydney with Carlos Pomeda, one of the top Tantric scholars and teachers of our time. Over the course of those three days, we rose early for 60 minute meditations, practiced yoga, ate divinely prepared vegetarian meals, and dove into study of the beautiful scripture - the Pratabhijna Hyrdym.

Though PH is rather short, the level of beauty and insight which it unfolds in layers and layers of depth is unending. In this text, the process of enlightenment or awakening is invited to happen in an instant. And continuously, a marvelous mala strand of moments linked together through the thread of ongoing practice. This act of awakening is akin to making the choice to “open your eyes” (unmilayati). It is an invitation and a challenge to view everything that happens to you as having the potential to deepen you. Every single experience becomes an opportunity for awakening.

Lightbulbs went off. This was the teaching it felt I had been waiting for and that I so desperately needed. What I took away from that retreat was that my experience (as it occurs - imperfect, scary, and “untimely”) is where my work is - and it is through the choosing to fully engage the ordinary moments of my life exactly as they offer themselves that I step into my highest dharma as co-creator and artist of my life experience. WOW. 

With this perspective - waking, cooking, eating, walking, talking, meditating, writing, gardening, etc. - all become the material by which I can create ART. 

I wanted to share these ideas and the process that unfolded in some way. I imagined a blog, an article, innumerable teaching themes, even teeshirts (why not?)...

And, as I was waiting (surprise surprise) for the “right” moment (Wordpress or Blogger? what template? what format? what publication? part of my website or separate?) to share my thoughts, the universe offered me an opportunity to cease procrastination and indecision.

Beautiful soul - Bindu Wiles - writer, yoga teacher, creativity coach, buddhist (and on...) devised a most marvelous idea: a 21 Day Writing & Yoga Challenge. 800 words a day on anything, anytime. 5 days of committed yoga practice. Participants from all over the world connected together by commitment, internet, Facebook, Twitter. Fabulous!

So here we are - the first day of the challenge and first entry of my new blog! Today I renew my commitment to yoga, to writing, and to making more beauty.

10 comments:

  1. Oh my goodness, does this mean that I am the very first person to comment on your lovely blog?? How exciting!

    I love everything you've got going on here. Everything. I too struggle with getting out of my own way and allowing all of the things that I desire and believe to happen. It is difficult, but I'm working at making things happen, and listening to what the universe is trying so desperately to tell me.

    Your retreat sounds wonderful -- I'm going to have to check out the text myself :)

    Welcome to the wonderful world of blogging!
    Laura

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  2. This is so beautiful - congratulations! I look forward to following along with your journey -- here's to your first entry, renewed commitments, and beauty in every moment.

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  3. Well, fellow Capricorn, perfectionist, yogini and #21.5.800 member, your first post resonates deeply all the way over here in Canada.

    Thank you and congratulations on the "birth" of your beautiful blog!

    xo

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  4. Great post! I feel like you took the words out of my mouth with the whole ME thing. I too came across this challenge with tantra on the brain albeit from a slightly different experience. Here's to fresh starts and new beginnings....

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  5. Hi Katie, I'm stuck too! I thought that having this time to sit and think (while I heal from my double knee replacement AKA The Twins), that I would get out that sketch pad, transer all those recipe cut outs into a book, and write deep meaningful things to my children - all I manage to do is bake! Well not quite, but I'm not feeling as though I'm making good use of this precious time. You've given me the wee kick up the butt I needed :) Good luck with your Blog, and let me know when the wedding is ;) hehe. xxx

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  6. Wow - what a promising start! I'm subscribing and looking forward to more. Here's to you and your beautiful new blog :-)
    Amy
    xx

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  7. Katie,

    blessings to you! hooray for this leap. i, too, am participating in 21 5 800. i found you through Marianne Elliott's tweet. i appreciate your words, voice + have subscribed to your blog.

    in joy,
    meghan

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  8. Congratulations on your blog and what a lovely first post! You have a "marvelous mala" way of stringing words together.

    Big blessings on your grand experiment and I look forward to more!

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  9. Fantastic Katie, and ever inspiring to beauty, commitment, new beginnings and facing the challenge to be ever-present in the moment. Love it!

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  10. Katie, you have such a talent for writing, for teaching and sharing yoga, for opening the hearts of others around you. It is inspiring to have you so close. Today I am going to take up the yoga writing challenge also......
    I am sitting on the creative process, while trying to figure out exactly what it is I want to create. Sometimes just to create is the right first step. Thanks for the reminder.

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