Here's to loosening your grip. You don't risk crushing what you desire...and it's less strain on your fingers, too. Take some wisdom from The Mighty Ducks, "soft hands" in all things.
2. A very blue sky.
I'm sitting in the office right now, looking out at my awesome view, and the sky is the most beautiful robin's egg blue you've ever seen in your life. This is one of the reasons why I love England--it's an incredibly whimsical place. The juxtaposition is enchanting. The grey makes you appreciate the blue so much more.
3. U2 in my headphones.
Bono...I secretly love you. In a Little While, followed by Walk On, then Crazy, and of course Pride (In the Name of Love).
"In the name of love."
Absolutely, yes. Always yes.
4. Cleaning up my diet.
Less processed nastiness, more actual food; things made from life. Vegetables, and pasta, and rice, and wraps made out of spicy potatoes. The occasional piece of chicken. Dark chocolate too, of course, and lots of tea.
5. Abundance, and staying in its flow.
Life is a never ending river, the source of which is an eternal fountain that lives inside each of us. It never runs dry unless you decide it should...and even then it doesn't, you merely think it does. Change your thinking; change your life. It really is that simple.
1. Pasta with pesto. 2. Elf boots. 3. Phone calls. 4. The most Euro-trash outfit ever. 5. Consistency. 6. Photography. 7. New friends. 8. Creativity. 9. Laughing. 10. My blog.
Today is my 24th birthday...second birthday on the road. Well, I guess this really isn't the road anymore, since I've basically settled here, but you know. It was yesterday I was writing this post about my 23rd birthday...wasn't it?
Graces:
1. My amazing friends.
Here and at home and the other places in the world they are right now.
The girls who will always be there, no matter what--ladies, you know who you are. You're very far from me right now, but I hold you in my heart always and I love you very much.
My boys at work and in Guildford. I don't know what I'd do without you sometimes. You are wonderfully magnificent; you have given me a family here and for that I am incredibly grateful.
2. The most incredible opportunities.
To learn and live and grow in such a beautiful place. To know the people I know, to have been able to go the places I've been. To touch lives and be touched by life. I've had a very charmed 24 years, it must be true.
3. Wonderland.
Let us raise a glass to Wonderland. Here's to you! And to staying in it, always.
4. The way yoga has changed me.
Yoga is rebirth. It's messy and it's bloody and it breaks you open. Splits you from the inside out. It breaks me and rebuilds me. And it breaks me again. I sit straighter now, and I move with more intention. Keep shoulders down and back...open. Always open. Taking deep breaths; drinking in air and essence and the constant swirl of energy that is always present.
My practise is disjointed and misplaced. Once a week in the studio, here and there on the weekends and after work, trying to carve out the phsyical space in a room that's just too small. But I practise in the elevator trip; going up two floors, standing in tree pose. And I practise in taking the stairs and remembering to breathe. And I practise sitting at my desk when I notice my choice to allow someone to start to fray my last nerve, and I practise in not saying those things my ego wants me to that do not serve me or anyone. I practise mula bandha while sitting in the car; creating core strength and bracing the spine. I practise when I remember the concept of yin and yang--nonduality. That binaries do not exist and that things that are seemingly opposite are merely two sides of the same coin.
My practise is not perfect, and I crave more studio-time; I trust that this will come. The money will be there, the schedule will work out, the universe provides.
Most of all, though, yoga is one of many things that reminds me to Live on Purpose.
5. Authenticity.
Is a bit of a buzz word, but ignore that for a moment. What I'm talking about here is living life authentically. And that means different things for different people--different things for everyone, really. Living in a way that resonates with you, that makes you feel breathless and free, that lights that seemingly elusive (it's not) soul-fire. How do you know when you "find" it? Is something that people have asked me, and the answer is simple. How do you know Love? Beauty? Grace? Peace? Faith? You just do. When you know, you know, and you embrace and revel in the mystery.
"To understand that a little girl with more courage than she knew, would find her prayers were answered, can that not be called happiness?"
First of all...so cool! Second of all, when you do this pose you can feel the energy coursing through you like a tidal wave. It's super-neat. I'm no where near balanced or fully aligned in this pose yet, but I'll get there.
Specifically, "Somewhere between just do it and four days a week on the couch is a middle ground where the divine lives, breathes and blossoms. It's a resource which, if we open to it, can lead us to The Source. If The Source scares or annoys you, good. Just feel this fact: to everything there is a season. Every war has the eve before, the week before, the month before. Nothing is out of the blue. Yet every war also contains the during and the after: peace. The question is, could you see your divinity in during your regular life as much as you do in your martial advent so that just maybe, at the eleventh hour, you look up, breathe into your own divinity and you just do it. Thus you are no longer the blind-seer, you are insight itself."
3. The Tao.
Just is, really. Saything something about it would be useless, and kinda counter intuitive. Just go read it. Now.
4. Smokey eyes.
Yes, I put smokey eyes in the same post as The Tao, but it's my blog so I can do what I want, haha. Fierce, smokey eyes do make me all fluttery though. They are a happy place.
5. Trees.
And the energy you can infuse yourself with just by looking at them. Trees are pretty amazing. I look out the window at a line of them all day at work; I'm pretty lucky to have the view I do.
1. Getting back from lunch before it started raining. 2. Having my debit card back. 3. $1,000 paid off the credit card. 4. Spotify. 5. Watching movies alone. 6. Yoga tonight. 7. Lip gloss. 8. Other people's blogs. 9. A clean room. 10. Choices.
Is the kind of writer I want to be. Holy crap. He also does a pretty crazy-intense form of yoga. And he has badass tattoos, and that is cool. But really, he's a major breath of fresh air. One of the good ones, this guy.
2. Dresses over jeans.
Make my little hippy, boho heart all happy. Skinny jeans, purple and white tie-dye dress, blue cardigan, ballet flats. Massive earrings, layered beaded necklaces. Happy place.
3. Live music.
Tonight I'm going to watch my mates, The Toniks, play a gig. There is so much live music in and around Guildford; young, local bands have a lot of support here and it's awesome.
4. Winter weather in England.
See previously mentioned ballet flats. You don't get that in February in Canada. I <3 the weather here, rain and all.
5. Birthday shopping sprees.
My birthday is on Saturday, and I am buying me some new boots. :D
1. Washed-out, skinny jeans with pre-made holes in the knees.
Yup, bleached demin. Skinny jeans. With holes. Things I always said I could "never get away with." Too trendy? Too try-hard? Too confidence-requiring? Well, fuck that. No more, "I'm not young enough, scrawny enough, thirteen year old boy-shaped enough". I'm a grown up and I'm not a rail and I have hips and I like them and I look hot, damnit. (Rawr!)
Anyway, every pair of jeans I try on from this store fit. It's fan-fucking-tastic. Right now I'm wearing ripped up skinnies and I also have these babies and they make me haaaaaappy.
2. Repurposed clothes.
I'm hand-sewing a skirt out of an old pair of jeans (from Bay as well, natch). It's fun. Will post a pic when it's done.
3. Biffy Clyro.
Enough said.
4. Paulo Coelho.
Is just a genius in every sense of the word. His words touch my soul daily.
5. Wisdom.
In myself and in others. Soundbite wisdom in the form of quotes, most of all. Some I've shared here over the last few months, some I haven't.
"A prayer for the wild at heart, kept in cages." - Tenessee Williams
"For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned." - The Prayer of St. Francis
"We need to learn how to walk with one foot in the fairy tale and the other in the abyss." - Paulo Coelho
"When you’re obsessed with what’s going to happen next, you’re stuck in reaction mode. The terms of your experience are being dictated. You’re trying to control the future by tensing up in the present, and this knocks you out of authenticity.
When you stay centered in the present, you trust that your natural response will be just what you need. You remain authentic, allowing your creative self-expression to emerge without forcing it." - Steve Pavlina
"Indeed, the body complex as a whole is greatly misunderstood due to the post-veiling assumption that the physical manifestation called the body is subject only to physical stimuli. This is emphatically not so." - The Law of One
"Free your heart from hatred. Free your mind from worries. Live simply. Give more. Expect less." - Unknown
"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars." - Jack Kerouac
"You are allowed to slow down. You are allowed to turn off your phone. You are allowed to lie down...in the sun." - Sabrina Ward Harrison
"When you have come to the edge Of all the light you know, Into the darkness of the unknown, Faith is knowing that One of two things will happen, There will be something solid to stand on, Or you will be taught how to fly." - Patrick Overter
"To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose." - Ecclesiastes 3:1
"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain." - The Litany Against Fear
And especially:
"We can never see past the choices we don't understand." - The Oracle
"If this is not what you expected, please alter your expectations." - Mark Morford
Extra virgin olive oil, lots of chopped garlic, tomatoes, all organic. Quite a bit of black pepper. Simmer. Quorn "ham", red Leicester cheese. Pasta, little bit of pesto. Heat slowly. One glass of water. One mug of organic peppermint tea. It's a happy place.
2. A glass of fucking amazing French red wine.
Oh French wine, where have you been all my life? Alternate between wine and Mini Cream Eggs for maximum joytastic effect.
3. Yoga.
I've said it before: bare feet on a gymnasium floor heals the soul.
Have I ever loved anything more than I love yoga? I don't think so. I do yoga with Luci Phipps, and she is a genius. Ustras is a new favourite pose.
4. Connecting.
And reconnecting with so many friends recently. I am a lucky girl, it's true. <3
5. Ben Folds Five
Or really, Ben Folds on his own and also with the band. Especially Ben Folds covering Tiny Dancer; Jesus Christ it's amazing. Also, hello? Is this not the greatest thing ever?
This is one of my (many) challenges in this life. I vascilate between rising to it and running from it. I suppose it's like a dance--find the poetry and the art in everything, right? I wouldn't be me if I didn't.
Instant gratification society puts a bit of a kink in the spiral, as it were.
But anyway, I do find myself moving toward it far more than I move away from it now, so that's good. ("Good" is such a ridiculous word.) We crawl before we walk before we run, and everyone falls the first time, and insert platitudes here. But I do suppose that there is some kind of truth in the clichés or they wouldn't have become clichéd; people said them all the time because they made some kind of sense. We like things that make sense, after all. Boxes, neat little boxes, all lined up in a row, the illusion of some kind of external stability.
"To be nobody-but-yourself-in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else—means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting." (That's E E Cummings.)
But see, clichéd to the nth degree, to the point of absurdity in some ways. And romantic and poetic and not even remotely real. Almost some kind of post-modern existentialist philosophy. Yet, stripped of the words there is some kind of truth in there. Some kind of glimmer of something that on some kind of level makes sense.
I often get into these wars with myself. Wars of attrition, you see, last man standing kinds of wars. You see the paradox there, but I seem to remain on some level attached to these catch 22s. I'll venture a guess as to say it's fun. Mind games with myself because I'm the only one I'll consider a worthy opponent. Juvenile and arbitrary, really, but fun nonetheless.
Right, this post had a point, did it not?
Presence.
Well, read this:
"When you’re obsessed with what’s going to happen next, you’re stuck in reaction mode. The terms of your experience are being dictated. You’re trying to control the future by tensing up in the present, and this knocks you out of authenticity.
When you stay centered in the present, you trust that your natural response will be just what you need. You remain authentic, allowing your creative self-expression to emerge without forcing it." (That's Steve Pavlina.)
He says it better than I could anyway. Straightfoward and direct, whereas I tend to like to muddle things up...they look prettier that way.
