Grounded Spirituality

Tags

Blog Catalog, grounded spirituality, Sivananda, Slovenia, Yoga

The vagaries of Blog Catalog never cease to amaze me, but occasionally it’s turned up some wonderful gems – people who are now good bloggy friends of mine.

Recently in another happy accident, I found myself receiving a message via BC from Ben Ralston, a yogi in the Sivananda tradition (sort of a sister school to mine!). Ben’s based in Slovenia, which sounds terribly exotic to me!

One of his recent posts is on the topic of Grounded Spirituality.

This is something a few of us blogging yogi types have discussed before, and I totally dig what Ben has to say.

My spirituality and my yoga are not this airy-fairy-love-and-light-always-perfect kind of experience.

Instead, it’s a very real and gritty path which encompasses my faults and everyone else’s –  such as getting outrageously angry, making mistakes, having my heart broken, saying the wrong things and all sorts of other human foibles… every bit as much as the so-called “good stuff”.

It also includes the realities of physical and mental health.

When I was first assaulted, I truly felt like I was losing my spiritual self. I questioned how any of those things could happen to me. I felt very, very separate from my yoga practices and studies.

But guess what? None of it separate. All of us are innately spiritual beings, even if we don’t realise it. Even if we don’t care and don’t want to know – too bad, it’s just part of the stuff of this world.

What we need to understand is that spirituality does not equate with living in some kind of fantasy land where everything is always WONDERFUL.

I’ve met people with that view of yoga and the world, and while I’d never tell them to get real (coz I think that where we’re at is all relative anyway) it’s a state my Guru refers to as the god realm (note: must do a post on the different realms sometime!), where life is always easy, beautiful and wonderful. And some people live in the god realm almost permanently. True!

But all we have to do is go to a third world country, or even the poorest part of our own country, and spend some time in the streets (instead of a fancy hotel) with our eyes wide open… to realise that that’s simply not everyone’s experience of life.

And if we try to cut out all of the “negative/bad” things in our experience, then we are not fully integrating with the world.

I also believe we can find spirituality in almost any experience – no matter how grim. No matter how hopeless or sad or horrific it is.

On that note, you should really read this story if you haven’t already: On Blistered Feet

Grounded spirituality is going through the world with open eyes and an open heart, and somehow finding a way to accept everything as it is anyway. It’s the path of deep, compassionate love for all beings.

And that’s what I’m working on, that is my path…

Namaste!

~Svasti xo

Sandhis & shout outs & stuff

Tags

blog award, Blog Catalog, First Dog on the Moon, Fuck you Penguin, Happy New Year, Sandhi, Sanskrit, The Girl Who Wears My Shoes, Trauma

Sandhi is a Sanskrit word, meaning something like  ‘space between points‘. Sort of like that point on the horizon that’s not really anywhere… The changing of the year is basically one of those… and this one was very different to the past few years.

Which is, in itself is a very good start. So… Happy New Year people!

Sure, I spent a good bit of time alone. But I was recovering from a horrendous mucousy flu/cold almost all week just before and after Christmas. No fun!

I also got out and saw the world a little. And some friends, too (admittedly one of those friends I got to see coz he came over to jump-start my hire car – I managed to leave the headlights on overnight – doh! – and he rescued me!). Then I went to see my very ancient old grandma, who at 93 is nuttier than a bag of chestnuts and now living in a nursing home.

I had to work between Christmas and New Year, coz being new in my job and all… I don’t actually have any holidays to use up right now!

Then, I spent New Year’s Day talking for hours to someone who’s become a very good friend via this whole blogging malarkey… so there we were, getting to know each other a little better and talking with voices instead of IM (wow, old fashioned, I know!). It was awesome! If we coulda talked all day, we would’ve I suspect! Instead, I… well, actually you don’t need to know what I did with the rest of the day…

So there. I’ve been social, I’ve been spreading my wings and I’ve even possibly discovered some studies I’d like to do this year. Now, I just gotta find the money to make it happen! More on that later…

Svasti, don’t forget the shout outs!

That’s right… I’m pretty sure I wrote something in the title here, about a shout out or two??

Okay. So as well as the above, I’ve been exploring Blog Catalog a little more. To feed my blog reading addiction.

Which is how I found Tricia and her blog The Girl Who Wears My Shoes.

This is a woman who’s lived a lifetime of sorrow. And somehow she managed to get to this point in her life (I’m too polite to speculate on her age) in one piece. Sort of. Despite everything.

And I’m awe-struck, because I’m not sure I would’ve been able to hold all that in for decades. I think I would’ve ended up in a ditch, become a complete lunatic or just taken lots of drugs. Or something.

Anyways, not that suppression is good for you or anything of the sort. But, Tricia did what she needed to do to survive. She’s clearly very strong. But that strength hides such an inner fragility.

What’s astonishing is that Tricia is now taking steps, carefully of course, towards bringing her heartache and pain into the light. Which is hard at the best of times, but when you’ve pushed it down, down, down for such a long time… that’s a tough pattern to break.

It was shocking to her, to discover the intense and latent emotions that re-surfaced as she wrote. Which just goes to show – if ya don’t deal with trauma, it just dives deep, and lies in wait.

Oh, and Tricia is a beautiful writer.

She’s had a lot of internal struggles in writing some of the things she’s written. But I truly hope she keeps it up. For her own sake as well as for the sake of other women of her generation – if only my mum could do for herself what Tricia is doing!

I heartily suggest taking a peak at her blog.

Oh, and thanks muchly for the blog award… I’ve added it to my ‘Awards’ page. 😉

And, for completely irreverent giggles…

I also feel compelled to point out another couple of blogs, also recent additions to my blog roll:

First Dog on the Moon – an Aussie cartoonist who pokes fun at many things, including Australian politicians, but then, just generally life. He’s ace!!

He recently unleashed an unwitting but brilliant marketing ploy via Twitter. Indirectly, that’s how I found him actually.

Fuck you, Penguin – ever had a lil’ distaste in your mouth about all the things really cute animals get away with, just coz they’re cute? Well, this blogger gives them all a little what-for in return! Funny. Silly. And lots of cute critters.

(Thanks to FDOTM actually, for this little find…)

~Svasti