TO HONOUR & TO CELEBRATE, EVERY DAY

• My practice: 6am: 30 minutes of yogic practice

• My vulnerability practice: putting aside my defensiveness, the chip on my shoulder, all the resistances to learning from women, and acknowledging what I owe… Considering that the only way for me to repay this debt is to keep my heart open, to persist in practicing my deepest vulnerability… And, always opening more than I want to. Because my “want” is a habit. Not a need.

Hans Peter Meyer

TODAY'S MEDITATION

Consider the women in your life. Whether you are a man or woman or otherwise identified, there is a woman, maybe several, older and younger, girls even, who shine a light on some part of your being that helps you enjoy or more deeply know this life, this day, this moment.

Take a moment and consider, How can I honour her gift to me? How can I celebrate her very being? How can I cherish her, create the safety she needs to unfold, blossom, be radiant?

It’s March 8. International Women’s Day. A very good day to notice and appreciate, and to commit to a simple practice of seeing the women who make our lives rich, beautiful, worth sacrificing for.

…

At some point —was it at the John Wineland “Fearless Intimacy” retreat in San Francisco in September 2019?— I understood this: my practice is to create and hold safe space for the flow of the feminine energies in and through my life.

Today, on International Women’s Day, I am called to a more concrete action: to consider the women who make my life beautiful, and how to create and hold the space they need to be who they are.

These women are: the woman who gave me life and nourished me as a child, who continues to give so much to me of herself, my mother.

These women are: the women who’ve chosen me, who’ve loved me, who’ve given themselves to me, who’ve blessed me with children, who’ve made me a man, who’ve made me a father.

These women are: my daughters, teaching me how to be a father worthy of respect and love.

These women are: the granddaughter who underlines the importance of the work I do, personally and professionally, to honour and celebrate and cherish the feminine —and the girls and women, especially— in my life. What joy to see her becoming herself! Surrounded and held by love, by safety.

These women are: the woman, my beloved, whose tenderness chose me, whose tenderness calls me to be even more of myself as her man, to break free and to be broken free of my fears and my limitations and my knowing to be worthy of love and radiance.

These women are: all the women I learn from, I teach with, I witness. You are my friends, my colleagues, my teachers. Through your attentions and words and support you guide me towards a way of being a man that I feel proud to be.

Thank you. And, forgive me. Forgive me for my resistance and my wilful ignorance. I am still learning to open my heart.

TODAY’S INSPIRATIONS

🌀It’s a time when the ‘womb’ of the future must exceed all expectations and limitations. (Guru Singh & Guruperkarma Kaur)

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