I AM THE HUSBANDMAN TO HER FLOW

• Today's suggested practice: Day 8 of this month's practice... (see below)

• My playlist while writing today's meditation: silence...

• My morning practice: 105 minutes of physical, yogic, and meditative practice, including Linking with the Infinite mantra and pranayama, and Solving Communication Problems meditation

• My vulnerability practice: I allow the world to interpret me as it will. I allow the world to nourish me as it will...

—Hans Peter Meyer

TODAY'S MEDITATION Diverse wisdom traditions are available to me as heuristic devices, ways to bring new perspectives and interpretations to my experience of this life. On this, the eighth day of the month, I meditate on infinity, the constant flow of energy and power that is Her gift to me if I only allow myself to receive.

How to do that? How to become the husbandman to Her flow? This is the question that animates my practice, every day. Every. F*cking. Day. It never ends. I am, every day, challenged to open to this calling to be the husbandman, not the warrior. To be entirely unconditional in my vulnerability. No "needs." No "boundaries." Tender to the world. So tender...

As I said yesterday, if I am preoccupied with my "needs" and my "boundaries," I am not yet ready to be myself, a man in the full richness of my vulnerability. Unable to be myself in this way, I am unable to receive Her gifts.

There is a flood of awareness washing through men around the world. Many of us are seeing how limited we've made ourselves. At the same time, I see a raging conversation that involves ever more nuanced naming and labeling of other’s behaviours, feminine behaviours and being. I am sorry to see this, yet another way we limit ourselves from being ourselves as men. I am not interested in this. It is worse than useless; it is a distraction. My business is not in labeling or shaming others, not making Her behaviours, Her inscrutability and whimsy a problem. My business is in becoming the truest version of the man I am.

There is only one label that helps me enjoy this life, and that is the label of “gift.” Everything else is an attempt to reduce this life to exchange rates and suffering, an attempt to keep the beauty and richness of life at a distance from my tender heart. Yes, it is tender. But the only "protection" I need is my capacity to breath and become stable, grounded, rooted in my trust in myself.

One of my teachers says that the proper approach to life and its ups and downs is to make some popcorn, pull up a chair, and enjoy the entertainments. It sounds so easy. Like things that are simple, it is anything but easy.

To enjoy the entertainments of this life I live I need to slow down. I need to give up on the idea that there is something I can do —something I should do!— to make things different. The world and my experience of it are here for me to enjoy, not to change.

So long as I am tuning myself to the truth of who I am as a man, so long as I am aligning myself with the truth of who I am as a man, I am “doing” all I can.

Now, to pull up that chair, that bowl of popcorn, and relax, receiving Her infinite flow of nourishment —and enjoy it all!

TODAY'S INSPIRATIONS🌀For now, just relax, nothing is under control! (Tim and Marieke, Kundalini Yoga School, Infinite Trust sadhana, Day 8)

🌀Vibrate the Cosmos. The Cosmos shall clear the path. (Aquarian Sutra 5)

🌀I’m always impressed by you. (My beloved, my Oracle)

TODAY'S SUGGESTED PRACTICE Day eight of this month's practice, eight minutes to be the husbandman of joy in this moment..

Please read through first, then ...

• Today, stillness with one question: How can you relax into being the husbandman, whether you are masculine or feminine identified, of the joy in your life, if only for this moment alone?

• Set your timer for eight minutes.

• Sit. Align yourself by breathing slowly through your nose and down through your softened throat. Feel the "almost-snoring" of your breath as it passes into your body, filling your belly, your heart, pressing down into your pelvis. .... Close your eyes.

• Let this question of your infinite capacity to hold space as the husbandman to joy move with your breath settle in your body, becoming heavier with every breath. Again, notice where it "wants" to settle. Perhaps it follows your breath into the depths of your full, round belly? Perhaps it settles, with weight, on your shoulders? Perhaps it rests in your hands? Wherever it may settle, just notice. If it isn't settling, if this feels too abstract, allow yourself to feel into this as well. There is no right or wrong. It is a practice to train your body to notice itself, and to begin to trust itself to do more than the physical functions of sitting, walking, lifting, laying, dancing, etc. You are allowing your breath to hold your open and vulnerable, even if only for the moment of breathing in, breathing out...

• Breathe into wherever the question settles, or doesn't settle. Breathe into this noticing, your awareness. Long, slow, deep breaths that start with the nostrils, the softening top of your throat, the opening of your chest and heart, the filling and rounding of your belly, dropping into your sex organs and pelvic floor. And then lifting up again.

• As the timer signals the end of this short eight minutes of infinity allow your eyes to slowly open. Notice the room or garden or bus you are sitting in. Allow the visuals and sounds and scents in as pleasures... As you step into your day notice how open you are to the simple pleasures of touch and voice and cool and warm.... Just notice. Breathe. Enjoy.

More meditations, practices, and inspirations at apprenticeshiptolove.com