THIS ART, TO SERVE LOVE, ALWAYS

• Join me this evening at 6pm on an Instagram live with teacher and therapist Fabiola Perez as we talk about her upcoming “Sacred Sexuality for Couples” workshop. Click here to join us…

• Today’s question: Where do you feel love calling you to open deeper, wider, to serve? And are you willing to be obliterated in love’s service? And if not, when?

• Today's suggested practice: Day 25 of this month's practice with Sarah Anderson (see video, below)

• My playlist while writing today's meditation: Hahn, L’Heure exquise https://music.apple.com/ca/album/lheure-exquise-hahn/339096668?i=339097378

• Practice: 3:30am: 60 minutes of yogic practice, including Meditation for Purifying the Elements

• My vulnerability practice: To put my complete trust in this silence, allowing myself to know its richness…

Hans Peter Meyer

VIDEO

What is “sacred sexuality?”

TODAY'S MEDITATION

My friend who gives me the gift of irritation and frustration publicly thanks those who are willing accept them as they are.

Would that I had the compassion my friend asks of me. Would that I had the compassion my beloved needs of me. Would that I were the husbandman to this life, these loves, this garden of earthly delights that is always nourishing me.

…and so I am again drawn to my status as an apprentice. Learning. Practising. Breathing. Trusting the seasons, the darkness, the frustration, that which lies beyond me. Trusting myself; the hardest trust to know.

…

What I feel, besides the irritation and frustration, is my regret. Maybe this is what triggers, seeing my friend choosing the things that brought me regret?

Maybe it is also this: I *expect* a seriousness and depth from those I’ve allowed near to me. It is, and this is narrow and selfish, an expectation of ROI: return on the investment of my friendship, my love, my time. All the listening. All the years of standing-beside in their discomfort —and then this!

I am taking this very personally. It is not personal, their journey. Not personal to me, in any case.

And yet, perhaps it is? Perhaps I’m being called to be that man I love, and especially so when it is so difficult.

Of course, I want to be excused. I am tempted, as i see so many are tempted, to apply the excuses of “toxicity” or “immaturity” or “attachment style” or “childhood wounding” etcetera. Excuses that are so popular. Excuses that I am so critical of as passing by the lessons all of us need to become more of who we are, that being that is worthy of our love. And so I am tempted to simply slip into the ease of judging and pushing away by way of labelling my friend and their behaviour (which was, as has been pointed out, my own behaviour at a similar moment in my life; a pointing out that is worthy of laughter, a laughter that at least partially deflates my self-righteousness…)

…

There is a profound and simple lesson from tango: I lead by following the follow. The feminine is always calling me —as Oracle, as Siren— into something I have not imagined.

Today I wonder: How can I listen to this calling without lapsing into excuses that mean I don’t have to go into the darkness? How can I listen to this calling and feel all the irritation, frustration, regret, all the discomfort, and, binding myself to my deepest breath, my firmest posture, as Odysseus was bound to his mast, and allow myself to know what this song has to tell me?

…

It is all here for me. She brings me everything. How do I listen? How do I hear? How do I know?

TODAY’S INSPIRATIONS

🌀Acknowledging abundance (Aparigraha),we recognize the blessings in everythingand gain insights into the purposefor our worldly existence.—Yoga Sutra 2.39 (Patanjali)

[Asteya teaches us]…we ultimately do not possess anything but are the caretakers…

Moderation, the essence of the teachings of Brahmacharya, has nothing to do with suppression, rather with clear recognition of the sacredness of our existence and thus also of our sexuality. (KYS, Breaking Habits, Day 13)

🌀Men, loving an embodied woman requires that you embrace, encourage, and hold all that she is. Because to love her is not to tame her but to encourage her to remain untamed. To allow her love to wake the parts of you that are afraid to feel, that are not strong enough to hold her fullness, and that need her to remain unthreatening and pleasing in order to feel secure in your masculinity. (Jeremie Lotemo @byermeas on Insta)

🌀And you, you see me. You hear me. You know me. (My beloved, my Oracle, my Siren)

TODAY'S SUGGESTED PRACTICE

Day 25 of this month's practice, take about six minutes today to sit and join Sarah Anderson in a beautiful “Sacred Womb” meditation (because all of us, however we identify, can benefit from some loving attention to our “feminine” creative/generative capacities)

Please read through first, then ...

• Today, sit (or stand) in stillness as you listen to your heart, your belly, your sex, your root and let this question stir within you…. Where do you feel love calling you to open deeper, wider, to serve? And are you willing to be obliterated in love’s service? And if not, when? Again, this is the question posed to the sacred womb, the fecund darkness that lies beyond our knowing. Let that divine mystery of creation reveal Herself, no matter how masculine you are, no matter how little you may trust this feminine mystery…

• Set your timer for 6 minutes or listen to or watch Sarah:

• As the timer signals or the video ends allow your eyes to slowly open. Take three, relaxed breath cycles, no pressing, no effort, and feel yourself full, without thoughts, open. Safe to receive. Then, step into your day, letting the mantra echo as a nourishing vibration whenever you become still. You don't need to DO anything. Let the world come to you with its demands, its complaints, and yes, its endless tide of gifts and blessings.