ONLY TRUST MYSELF TO TAKE THIS STEP

• Today’s questions: What deeper purpose is this moment calling you into?
• Today's suggested practice: Day 26 of this month's practice, to notice where I stand.
• My practice: 4:15AM: 90 minutes: Yoga, then a series of mantra meditations, ending with Gayatri meditation…
• My vulnerability practice: I can feel her fear, and it resonates with my own, and I am tempted to step back from this edge. But instead, I step forward…

Hans Peter Meyer

TODAY’S MEDITATION

I’ve said this before: we got the story of the Sirens wrong. Yes, the risk of obliteration is real. But that’s only a problem if I think that who I am —who I think I am— is more precious than who She knows me to be. That’s what Her song calls for: the part of me, the man I am that I am afraid to be, that I protect myself from being.

And, someone has to take the risk. Let it be me. What do I have to lose?

Seriously. Nothing.

I know. I reach out and I see her become small, protected.

Her hesitation and fear is thick between us. She cannot trust herself here. She will not trust me with herself. And, she does not run. Her fear is a call for my courage, a need for me to be entirely solid, entirely trusting of myself instead of this halfway, 50/50 thing I hide behind. She wants to trust me, yearns to trust me, so that she can trust herself.

I have only one wish: her blossoming. In this moment I know only this: that I am the only one who can lead her to this blossoming. I shake at this need. I’ve failed so many times.

Now: Breathe. Now: Lead her through it. Now: lead myself through it

Yesterday I sat in my garden and listened as a woman I did not know opened herself, a story of fear and protection, and love emerging with her man.

Years ago I imagined this place as a place for transformation. Women, and men, show up here and tell me their stories, share their heartbreaks, their desires. It’s a responsibility, to hold this much tenderness to the world, to listen and witness the opening, and pray for … For their courage in the face of a world that does not want to listen? For the courage in myself, to sit, and let the wisdom of these hearts nourish mine.

Yesterday I sat in my garden and listened as a woman described her life —almost 50 years— of hiding herself, and of wanting to be seen.

Too many men seeing her only as sexual prey. Not enough men, not a particular man (until now, perhaps), able to see her for the complex, deep feminine being she is. A source of wonder. A mystery to be held, cherished.

Hers is not a new story to me. But it came at an important time: just before my beloved walked, unbidden, into the garden. And all of my fears and anxieties and neediness and selfishness come to the fore, and I am feeling the flood of her reticence and fear and it feels like my own and I am struggling to right my little ship …

I was once asked for patience. That was all. To become slow enough to see her for more than my limited imaginings (“monkey brain” imaginings, if I tell the truth of it).

At the time it was too much to ask: I was numb and protected by a thick skin of neediness and selfishness, my heart crippled by this heavy and bulky armour.

Now —yesterday, in my garden— I am asked, again, but not with words, only with a powerful yet silent knowing: patience, depth, courage. And still my afflictions cling to me. Or: I cling to them, like the man who fears drowning and hangs onto the wreckage of his life instead of swimming in this ocean she’s called me into…

I am here.

There is no urgency.

I have all the time in the world.

This is what I’ve learned; this is what I teach: slow down; breath.

And so, slowing down, breathing into this moment of selfishness and neediness and wanting things to be different, the way I want them to be, I begin to feel the beauty and the love that are always here.

This is why she is my Siren: because her song —and she does not sing it consciously or intentionally— her song calls me to be more than my neediness and selfishness, calls me to smash these vessels that have kept me afloat, protected, for too many years, kept me separate from myself, from the great She who wishes only to nourish me. My beloved sings a song that calls me smash my neediness, my selfishness, and all the other ways I’ve protected myself from love.

Smashed, I am free. Vulnerable. Ready to become worthy of trust, worthy of love.

I am here, at this edge, to do something remarkable. But what? Always the return, a spiral through, the state of confusion. Is it the time of year? Spring, when things seem to be in such a hurry, and yet the mud is still being drawn up through the roots, the stems, the buds bursting —almost!— as her bosom bursts (but not quite).

I feel her fear and I am afraid, feeling my own fear reflected back at me.

She is afraid because she has been called here and needs me to lead in this confusion. To comfort. To protect. To guide into blossoming, that her bosom can burst. So that she can be She. And, in this vulnerability, I hesitate, not quite ready to be smashed into bits, to absolutely trust myself with a knowing that makes no sense except in the stepping into the unknown, over the threshold of what is conceivable.

She is afraid because I am not taking that step with unreasonable confidence.

And I? What do I do in this moment of confusion?

Yes, I am afraid. But I do not let myself be limited by my fear, or her fear reflecting my fear. Instead, I step forward, and falling, I know myself and everything bursts into the indescribable. There are no words…

TODAY’S INSPIRATIONS

🌀 If somebody doesn’t begin to provide some kind of harmony, we will not be able to develop sanity in this world at all. Somebody has to plant the seed so that sanity can happen on this earth. (Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche)

🌀 A more masterful method moves away from protection and instead uses intuition and deflection -- a technique of angles, a very powerful martial type art...[…] The capacity to deflect allows for security along with receptivity...you're not in a shell; opportunities abound, where protection would cut you off from the world. Deflection is a dance within every danger of the cosmos. In ancient history, deflection was taught as the dance of Shiva […]...a state of total innocence dancing in the mouth of time. It doesn’t cut off the world but super includes the world within your highest state of receptivity. Deflection is the art of passing through spacetime, where there's no space for danger and absolutely no dangerous time...magical means in a logical meme. (Guru Singh & Guruperkarma Kaur)

🌀Breathe. Breathe and she will return. (John Wineland)

🌀Recognize that the other person is you. (Yogi Bhajan , Aquarian Sutra 1)

🌀There are so many others. But you see me. You hear me. You know me. (My beloved, my Oracle and my Siren)

🌀Now, the practice of yoga begins. (Patanjali, Yoga Sutra 1.1)

TODAY'S SUGGESTED PRACTICE

Day 26 of this month's practice:

Please read through first, then ...

- Today, set two alarms, one for the early part of your day, one for late afternoon when you may be feeling low energy.

- When the alarm sounds, wherever and however you are, take less than three minutes to do this short practice with coach Leroy Gordon:

- When you’re done, stand for a minute and breathe long and deep, consciously and slowly filling and emptying your belly.

- Notice if your body-mind feels somehow changed. And whether you notice a change or not, be content with yourself, exactly as you are in this moment.

- Continue with your day until the next alarm sounds, and repeat.

Ps. Thank you for reading. I write these chapters for me, but I invite you please leave your comments as I appreciate hearing from you.