Insomnia and Water

[I've spent a long time thinking I wasn't affected by caffeine; that somehow I rose above the trappings of the drug. In fact, I tend to believe I bypass a lot of standards - perhaps it's a nasty sense of entitlement or a scandalous affair with a tempting fellow named Authority. However, a half-a-cup of yerba-mate this evening and brutal case of insomnia later, and I'm beginning to reconsider what I really am affected by.]

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A dear friend recently told me that I reminded her of the earth element water (she was speaking in the sense of Reiki tradition). Pliny the Elder (the naturalist, not the beer...) said, "Water swallow up the earth, extinguishes the flame, ascends on high, and by stretching forth as clouds challenges the heavens for their own, and the same falling down, becomes the cause of all things that grow in the earth."

Water is a cleansing, healing, psychic, and loving element. It is the feeling of friendship and love that pours over us when we are with loved ones. Water is feminine, it's the element of emotion and subconscious, of purification, intuition, mysteries of the self, compassion and family. Water is love. When we swim, it is water that supports us; when we are thirsty, it is water the quenches our thirst. Water is powerful, yet full of flow and grace. What a compliment to be likened to water (thanks love).

When something gets in the way of water – water flows over it, through it, around it, under it. But sometimes, is it dammed. And it's those dams that I've been riding on.

To me, there's two dams, one that wanes and one that waxes, like the moon.

The first dam is anxiety. Anxiety that shows up as a pressure right on your chest. Fear in your eye. Impatience with yourself or others. It's a time bomb that has been ticking patiently for a long time and the sound has become aggravating. It's an alarm clock that you keep thinking you turned the snooze off, but the chirp keeps coming back on, over and over, every damn 8 minutes. It's a conversation you know you need to have but keep avoiding. It's love lost or misplaced. It's saying you will do something, and not doing it... or not doing it well, or on time. It's witnessing bad grammar or two or even three(!) spaces after a period... and reacting. It's not living in your power. It's saying "I'm working on that..." instead of doing that. It's over-consumption. It's excess. Heartbreak. And it goes profoundly deeper in the direction of grief and loss. The dark tunnel of thinking you may never find what you're looking for - supreme discontentment. Mourning and death. Chemical imbalances, like depression, where you dig deeper and deeper into a dark abyss. It really is as simple as imbalance. It's not putting your two feet on the ground, after you know that you should put them back down after their trip.

The second dam is bhakti. I'm using the word bhakti here instead of the English word "love" because I'm not sure if love is the right word for me in this sense. Cynically, at times I see the word 'love' as cheap and easy. To my point: "There is some speculation that the English word Love has an etymological path winding all the way back to the Sanskrit word lobha, or greed. Though this may describe the very lowest of attractions we confuse for love, it certainly does not encompass the life-opening potential of this state of consciousness. Many definitions of love have to do with deprivation or self-denial and speak to the self-effacing qualities of love where union begins to become possible by the loss of attachment to self as the center of the universe. These particular definitions can be associated with much suffering as they require the “sacrifice” of the little self. Some Old English roots for the word love have an affinity with allowing or approving. Latin origins center on the energy of pleasing." (got it from here)

But in essence and without negative stigma, divine love or bhakti is what I'm getting at. Like the real shit. The blissful stuff. The stuff that lifts you up, that sets your heart on fire, that makes your bones tingle. That which entices your mind and intellect, as well ignites lusts deep in your body. That opens up your spirit to the howling wind. That makes the deepest part of your soul as visible as the pattern on your shirt. The complete willingness to do for others without abandon. Matched passion and an equal embrace. Tenderness without juxtaposition. Being on the same page. Trust. Truth. Accountability. Soulful awakening and enlightenment. Really seeing into someone's eyes, and then looking into those eyes and seeing yourself. Taking a leap towards living in adventurous abundance. Creation. Birth and rebirth. Walking a tight rope. Trying something new because you know there will be someone/something there to catch you if/when you fall. It's feeling electricity happen on your skin. It's skinny dipping. It's opening your eyes when you would usually close them. Falling. Feeling yourself fall. Landing on two feet.

So in essence, the dams are the highs and the lows. The new and the full moon. The ying and the yang. The (oh so) hot and the (freezing) cold. That's what dams the water - the freeze and the boil.

Despite the intense desire our culture has embedded to always live in the moment of intense action (the "path of endless climax"), most of our time is on the plateau in between. Riding it out in anticipation, creation, libation... and mostly, learning, growing. (If you aren't growing, you are dying.)

To paraphrase a book I've been reading by George Leonard called Mastery,

We spend our life stretched on an iron rack of contingencies. Contingencies, no question about it are important, the achievement of goals is important, but the real juice of life; whether it be sweet or bitter - is to be found not nearly so much in the products of our efforts, as in the process of living itself. In how it feels to be alive. We are taught in countless ways to value the product, the prize, the climatic moment - but even we catch the winning pass in the Superbowl, there is always tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. If our life is a good one, a life of Mastery, most of it will be spent on the plateau.

Practice the path of Mastery, exist only in the present. You can see it, hear it, smell it, and feel it. To love the plateau is to love the eternal now. To enjoy the inevitable bursts of progress and the fruits of accomplishment, then serenely to accept the new plateau that waits just beyond them. To love the plateau is to love what is most essential and enduring in your life.

So what stops us in our tracks and can also throw us the extra yards ahead are the the tip and the base of the iceberg. The highests highs and the the absolute zeros -- but what creates consistency, solidity, form, and strength is the space between. The plateau. The growth. And that is a path of patience. 

Life isn't just at high or low tide, there's a full spectrum of space. There's a full rainbow of opportunity for progress, for the journey that is life. That is a slow moving river, full of tributaries and still water. I can't always jump ahead to the next waterfall and break through Niagra Falls. So on my path as water, I will respect and adapt to the shape I'm encased in, the gentle boundaries in the path I'm on, the universe's current, nature's season, the time, the weather. And with grace, I will let her take me, rather than apply force to her.

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Now let's see if sleep will take me...

Cosmic Shit

I woke up this morning disoriented. My head banging, cluttered with memories of a strange and wild night. Glimpses of my boyfriend, his friend, my younger brother Eli, all in the disarray of the beat of bass, the charge of flashing lights, the glimmer of clinking glasses, the scent of illicit fun.

I opened my eyes, slowly, and ran my hand over the familiar soft fur next to me, Kira, my pup. I hazily saw my room: tidy;. my book, neatly earmarked between Kira’s spotted paws. I saw my still-full glass of water on my nightstand. My thoughts sharpened.

I had come home last night before 10 pm. I had drank two glasses of wine at a restaurant with close friends. None, of whom were in the vivid memory I’d awoken with. I’d driven home soberly, read my book, eaten a very juicy nectarine, and lights out by 11:30, happy. I’d gone to sleep lost in thoughts of new love and unforeseen adventure.

But my head ached. I got out of bed and took a naproxen, laughing ironically at myself. My damn lucid dreams had given me a hangover. My mind, in sleep, had physically affected my reality.

Mercury went into retrograde this morning. By no means am I an astrological whiz, but just like the moon effects gravity, tides, harvest, and a woman’s cycle, I have no doubt that our solar system affects our lives in many, many more direct and indirect ways. [In fact, I feel that people who don’t put some faith in the universe are kind of idiotic.] The universe can play a big part in (get ready for my favorite word…) happenstance.

While shifts in the universe can bring us into alignment in a cosmic sense (yes, Maha, I owe you a dollar) for example, coincidentally seeing an old friend or meeting someone new who will greatly affect your future; it can also immediately take us out of alignment.

The thing about happenstance is that it’s not about you. It’s about what happens to you as a result of your surroundings.  A friend’s agenda, a changed plan, a river cutting off your path, the brakes going out in your car, the vacancy of a hotel, a café’s wireless being down, spilling barbeque sauce down your shirt and needing to change, oversleeping, a traffic jam, a client not liking your work; it all affects your ‘final destination’ and more importantly, the path leading to there. It can immediately tear you from your schedule. It can take your peaceful morning and cause a rift. It can create a fight, an accident, or even just a ‘bad vibe’. So when the world and its uproarious shifts pull us apart, wind us up, tear us down, or threaten our faith and security; how does one come back to their center?

While much of the world is out of our hands, we often forget what is in our control. You.

When I came onto my mat today, disoriented and unnerved by happenstance or Mercury’s effect on my morning (call it what you will), I took a big breath in. I filled my chest cavity with air. My air, the air I share with my neighbor, my kula, my community, my carved out shell in this big, big universe. I smelled the familiar, sweaty, rubbery scent of my mat and recalled that while our earth shifts and moves, it also supports us. Fully. Where would we be without the ground beneath us? It supports  our living, breathing self; the vessel we assume for 100 or so years; the body that we have full control over. Your body.

It’s true that we may not be able to control all of our injuries, cravings, rehabilitations, or certain physical characteristics. But for the most part, our body and what we do with it, is our choice. We experiment, intoxicate, detoxify. We swim, bathe, submerge, dry, and tan. We sweat and we eat. We sleep too much or not enough. And because of what we do to our body, we feel. We suffer, or we feel fulfilled. We sob, or we cry out in joy. We feel physical pain, or we find ecstasy.

So, if what we do physically effects us mentally, than obviously what we do mentally affects our physicality – just like my dream.

Although it might not always seems so, we have control over our thoughts. I will be the first to admit that my thoughts mess with me constantly. They create stories in my head, fabrication, exaggeration, or distrust. My mind often feels sad when maybe the more appropriate emotion is anger. It allows distraction, when full attention would serve me more. But, I digress. Our thoughts, our reactions to what happens, they are in our control. And that mindfulness, or lack thereof, affects the physical self (and like a domino affect, everyone we touch). Let's just quote Buddha, "...as the shadow follows the body, as we think, so we become."

On my mat, when I am in my true power. The form, action, and alignment of my body is somewhere near to my-own-perfect. When my foundation is strong and my balance untouchable; my skin, muscle, and bone: lit up – fully alive. It is then when I realize my true integrity; a graceful, feminine, water-like control, in tandem with a powerful, strong, and grounded attitude. With command over my physicality and emotions and openness as happenstance unfolds, whatever that adventure may be. It is then, at my most pure, with my arms open to the universe, when I sit in full trust.