THIS MOMENT IS ALL THERE IS

• Today's suggested practice: Ten minutes to know your consciousness holding everything in this moment ... (see below)

• My playlist while writing today's meditation: Mendelssohn, Märchen von der schönen Melusine 

• My morning practice: 90 minutes, warm-up, Sat kriya, followed by Kriya to Know the Other as Myself (mantra and mudra), Linking to the Infinite (pranayama and mantra)

• My vulnerability practice: I am aware of myself, my impatience, and my limitless capacity to hold this impatience...

—Hans Peter Meyer

MY MEDITATION

What is happening? What strange unfolding is this?

Last night we talked about "men consciously creating relationships." So much here in this topic. So much learning to do about not being in my default setting.

When the feminine chooses me I typically default to an unconscious hunger. What Deida calls my "first stage" appetite for sex, love, life. Grab as much as I can, as quickly as I can.

Not always, of course. I have learned a thing or two over the years and through my relationships. As Fabiola Perez said last night, as she described the questions she asks men when they think they are ready for love, What have you learned? About yourself? Your needs and desires and aspirations?

But all of that wisdom is so easily thrown overboard when I feel Her opening. So fitting that the topic of "feminine testing" came up! As Aumsong Troughton said, I test to feel safe. I can only open when I'm feeling safely held.

And so she tests me. Right after the show. A subtle expression of testing, to set a limit, to know if I am paying attention.

Slow down. It all starts with slowing down. Feeling into my body. My breath. And then, feeling into her. Not just her words, but the breath in each vowel, the tension in every consonant. How slow can I listen and feel? Much slower than I want. So much slower than my default...

Slow down and bring my awareness to this moment. First to my own anxiety, the tension and resistance in my body. My breath. Then, bringing the spaciousness of my consciousness into the moment, holding myself, now holding her. And, consciously "following the follow," feeling into where she needs me to lead in this subtle dance. Every test an opportunity for me both course-correct, and to feel even more deeply into her desires, her yearning to be free to blossom.

This is my art: to bring my awareness to every moment She brings me, and allow Her to show me my way. As I practice my art becomes deeper, broader, higher. Able to hold more and more of what She brings, more of what my beloved needs. To feel more confidence —and to risk it all as I follow this oracle, my interpretation, knowing I will fail, and fail, and fail again. Every test an invitation to open myself more deeply, to risk more, to know her more...

Her testing keeps me true to my unimaginable capacity to hold this space, this safety. Without it, my life becomes dull. I am not afraid to feel, or to fail. I am afraid to become dull and dead to life, to Her. And so, I am grateful for this testing. Always grateful, especially when I resist it the most.

TODAY'S INSPIRATIONS

🌀How boring is modern love, how boring,

Everyone tries to feel as little as possible so that the other person doesn't get scared.

I love you, but I don't tell you

I miss you, but I don't talk to you.

I want to see you, yes yes I want to see you but I don't move

Showing interest in this day and age seems like an act of shame. (Luciano Betancor, by way of Fabiola Perez)

🌀...know that you won't ever fit in with most of what's around you; have the courage to be unique and outstanding -- the person of your destiny...quite odd, extremely sensitive, and unusually compassionate...the master that you are. (Guru Singh and Guruperkarma Kaur, Peace with Your Strength)

🌀...a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust.... ( Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet)

🌀You're not like that now. (My beloved, my Oracle)

TODAY'S SUGGESTED PRACTICE 

Ten minutes to know your consciousness holding everything in this moment...

Please read through first, then ...

• Set a timer for 10 minutes...

• You are sitting with your eyes open, seeing everything and being still as you watch...

• Your feet and your sit bones, planted and secure in the earth's embrace (yes, aka gravity). You feel your hips and legs and feet heavy. You lift your spine out of your pelvis, lifting your chest, your heart as you tuck your chin. The crown of your head touches the stars.... You are a bridge, a connection between heaven and earth, breathing gently through your nose into your belly, relaxing your body with every exhalation.

• Feel your hands. See your hands. See them as part of you, but also as something distant from you. Step outside of yourself and see yourself sitting, on the chair, on the floor, in the middle of the field or forest. Wherever you are, look at yourself from this distance at the same as feeling yourself in this place.

• You are breathing without effort. You are observing without effort. You are feeling without effort. You are holding this space, and the space around it, and the space around it, all without effort.

• Notice the temperature of the air. Notice the wind. Notice if the trees are moving, the grasses moving, the street moving. Notice the smallest things inside the biggest things. Notice yourself as you notice these movements or these stillnesses. Notice your impatience to be done with this practice. Notice your delight in feeling relaxed and able to hold this much space. Notice yourself noticing.

• Awareness is not a difficult thing to attain. Sustaining awareness, this takes practice. Notice your edge. Notice when you become bored with noticing, being aware. Notice your impulse to move, to make something happen beyond what is already happening. Notice this, and be still. Allow these impulses to be felt, held, and to dissipate as another sensation or feeling or thought or perhaps another level of awareness takes its place.

• Feel into your body as you notice yourself watching yourself going through these shades of awareness and unconsciousness, slipping back into awareness, and back into unconsciousness. Feel yourself heavy, held. Feel yourself light, lifted.

• As the timer signals, slowly bring your awareness back to your feet and your sit bones, your breath into and out of your belly. Take a few breaths to return to this body and its desires, for more stillness, for movement, for release from this short practice. Feel all of this, and allow yourself to do what comes most naturally, stepping back into whatever this day asks of you, knowing that you are deep enough and stable enough to hold space, awareness, for everything, if necessary.

Notes: 

If you are a masculine-identified person you may feel yourself "at home" in the spaciousness that this practice encourages. Allow yourself to practice when in the company of others, especially those who are more feminine-identified. Notice how they open, or close, with your spacious awareness, or lack thereof.

If you are a feminine-identified person you may enjoy this spaciousness, but you may also recognize that this is what your feminine heart and energy yearns for. If this is the case, know that there are masculine-identified people who, in their way, yearn to hold you and allow you to move, to flourish. Sensitize yourself to how it feels to be held in this way. Don't settle for anything less than the safety you begin to feel as you hold yourself in conscious awareness.