HER TEARS... MY PLANS

• Today's suggested practice: Day 15 of this month's practice... (see below)

• My playlist while writing today's meditation: the song of my garden: Chet Baker, Someday My Prince Will Come

• My morning practice: 90 minutes of physical, yogic, and meditative practice, including Infinite Trust pranayama and meditation

• My vulnerability practice: I breathe, and the world changes. Nothing is as I planned, everything blossoming...

—Hans Peter Meyer

TODAY'S MEDITATION I had plans. To write about breath and divinity. I'd written the whole thing. And then... tears. An oracle half a world away.

I had, as the masculine-identified man that I am, plans. Things were sorted. Thoughts formed. Words laid down. And then... the tide of her tears washed it all away. Deeply feminine tears showed me that my plans needed to be set aside. That there is something more important to attend to. And that how the feminine Oracle moves me to be so much more than my masculine planning and doing.

I used to be afraid of my beloved's tears. Was I doing something wrong? Always my first response. Then: How can I fix this? How can I divert this stream of tenderness? What can I do!

Now, her tears tell me that I am exactly where and how I am meant to be: holding the space, tenderly, securely, that she may flow with all of her feelings, all of her confusion, her pleasures and pains, her delights, so much that confuses and confounds me, just hold the space and be so grateful that she is feeling, and trusting me to feel so openly...

It is one of the blessings of this life that, at almost 63, I am become sensitive enough to know my oracles when they appear. To trust the ebb and flow of tears, the oceans of feelings that pass through my body, her body, the bodies of so many profoundly feminine bodies all around me — my children, mother, sister, my beloved, my colleagues and teachers... so much nourishment.

And so I set aside my plans and enjoy the tears and where they take me. I breathe and am grateful that there are women who trust me to cry, and laugh, and rail, and be silent, knowing that there is nothing they need to do. Knowing that there is nothing I need to do, but hold this sacred, this oh so holy space of tears and radiance and mystery. All of it beyond me, yet all of it here for me. Thank you.

I had plans. But as my beloved said to me, You’re not like that now.

TODAY'S INSPIRATIONS🌀 Started my day crying. The beauty in [these] words are the reason I check my emails in the morning. To breathe into the masculine offering and let it move me. (Katrine, @darkfemininedesire on Instagram)

🌀God has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which God looks with compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which God walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which God blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are God's body. God has no body now on earth but yours. (Saint Teresa of Avila)

🌀When we commit ourselves to our breath, allowing ourselves to breathe fully and deeply you will find it will become easier to commit to yourself and to find the necessary discipline to do the things that serve you well. The word discipline stems from disciple, which means we have a willingness to be the student. (Tim and Marieke, Kundalini Yoga School, Infinite Trust sadhana, Day 15)

🌀The Conscious Warrior practices the cultivation of wonder and awe. (John Wineland, Precept 7)

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

TODAY'S SUGGESTED PRACTICE

Day 15 of this month's practice, 11 minutes to wonder, in awe, and feel into everything that comes...

Please read through first, then ...

• Today, sit (or stand) in stillness with one question: What feelings are stirred by this gentle, deep rhythm of your diaphragm?

• Set your timer for 11 minutes.

• Sit or stand. If you are feminine-identified, please sit or lie down to allow your body to be still while inner tides ebb and flow. If you are masculine-identified, consider standing, consider feeling the tension in your body as you hold space for yourself and your own tides as you do this practice.

• Begin by closing your eyes and aligning yourself, tucking your chin to lift your heart and straighten your spine. Breathe 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. If you are sitting or standing, lift out of your pelvis, letting your pelvis and legs become heavy, dropping into the earth below.

• Feel your breath moving your diaphragm in and out, up and down, becoming slower and deeper, opening your body. Let this question of, "What am I feeling here? What is being stirred by this deep and gentle movement?" ... let this question open you with every breath... let it settle wihtout being answered. Just wonder... There is no right or wrong. There is no answer... there is only you, allowing your body as your oracle to speak in whatever way it needs, through silence, through discomfort, through pain, through pleasure, through any one of a thousand ways it may .... just allow... without a plan or a result.

• As the timer signals the end of this short 11 minutes of feeling into yourself and your deeper feelings and truths and sensations allow your eyes to slowly open. Take three breath cycles and step into your day... being aware that your experience of your oracle begins with this sensitivity to your breath.

More meditations, practices, and inspirations at apprenticeshiptolove.com