Decompressing on the downlow

Tags

Carried by a Promise, cartoon series, feta and silverbeet pie, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, little girl giggles, Mojo, new job, Nieces, Papa Bear, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, satire, suppressor, The Wonky Donkey, Tinkerbell, update, world of impermanence, Yoga

A little more street art from my 'hood

 

There’s been the odd hint or two from certain people about my lack of blog posts in recent times. I know.

Well, blame it on all the energy I had to put into surviving the Hellhouse of Horrors, but I’ve been a touch short on inspiration lately.

Thing is, I don’t wanna post just for the sake of posting either, and I do know I sort of owe a few posts that I promised in January – more on Carried by a Promise, and reviews of the two yoga intensives I went to.

So believe me when I tell you that they’re still coming. They are. No really, they are!

I haven’t forgotten my bloggy friends either, believe me. I’m still reading your blogs and commenting when I can and right now, I’m preparing for my first day on the new job (back into contractor mode – I jokingly refer to this as the world of impermanence, which is more of a yogi joke than anything else!) tomorrow morning.

Right now, I’m waiting for my feta and silverbeet pie to finish cooking – my lunch for the next few days.

This weekend has been busy, too. First, there was that glorious experience of reveling in not having to go back to my old job any more, not ever-ever-ever-ever. Once I’d gotten over that, I realised how freakin’ tired I was!

And Saturday afternoon/evening was a family thing for my (currently) youngest niece’s birthday (there’s another niece-ling in the oven right now!). That cheeky lil cutie just turned two and is apparently fascinated by “Tubba” (Tinkerbell). So much fun!

I also had my hands full “doing tricks” (yoga) on command, helping both nieces do some acrobatics of their own, and reading Goldilocks and the Three Bears in my best character voices (you should hear my Papa Bear, it rocks!). Oh, and I was introduced to a very fabulous kid’s book called The Wonky Donkey. It’s rather hilarious and another good one for character voices and other exaggerated noises that elicit perfect little girl giggles! 😉

So today I just kinda collapsed, and thought very hard about writing a post or two but… not. Instead I had a lazy day of enjoying the rain from inside my apartment, eating an incredibly late lunch at one of my favourite local spots, grocery shopping and preparing for tomorrow.

So, I’ll be back soon okay? I just need to get a lil more inspiration mojo back, which will arrive once I’ve recovered from the stress and exhaustion. Because I’m a suppressor of my own “stuff”, in case you hadn’t realised. I’ll put up with ridiculous things for a really long time and sometimes it takes me a while to recognise what’s going on. Then it takes me a little while longer to recover…

Hey, let’s just call that another very handy side-effect of Post Traumatic Stress, shall we?

Anyway, if you draw all of the above on a graph, then I’m somewhere towards the end of that particular timeline, but just not quite there yet.

HOWEVER, I will have something delightfully wicked for you shortly – a brand new cartoon series called “The Yoga Rebel”… *cackles maniacally*

Of course, I’m no artist so my stick figures could be slightly on the ugly side. But ah well, I read Toothpaste for Dinner and understand the irony of bad art and satire, and it will amuse me and hopefully also readers of this here blog. If I haven’t lost y’all yet with my radio silence, that is!

Catch ya on the flip side, folks!

~Svasti xxx

Carried by a Promise discussion [1]

Tags

Carried by a Promise, Diary of a Woman's Search, kula, Paramahansa Satyananda, Reviews, spiritual seekers, Swami Radha, Swami Radhananda, Swami Sivananda, Yoga

This month I’ll be writing a number of posts about the book: Carried by a Promise by Swami Radhananda. I’m fortunate enough to have been offered a review copy, and right now I’m about four paragraphs in and enjoying it immensely.

For me there’s a personal connection to this story, even if it’s several times removed. Swami Radhananda’s guru is Swami Radha, and her guru is Swami Sivananda. Another student of Swami Sivananda was Paramahansa Satyananda, who is my guru’s guru. So we are of the same root lineage.

Additionally, I’ve always felt very connected to Swami Sivananda through reading books by and about him and through his photos.

This was the first photo of Swami Sivananda I ever saw on a wall at my guru’s house when he lived in Australia:

It’s hard to explain, but I feel that I know him even though he died before I was born. Then when I first read Swami Radha’s book [Diary of a Woman’s Search], I found it very compelling – in part due to her relationship to Swami Sivananda and also because I had an intense healing experience mid-read, lying on my couch in a tiny apartment in Melbourne.

I’ve re-read Swami Radha’s book many times, always gaining some new insight I could relate to. I’ve since given it to someone else that I felt really needed it, but I’ll buy it again some day as it’s one of those books that lives in my heart.

Given all the above, Swami Radhananda’s story is of great interest to me. Once again we have the story of a western woman on an intense spiritual journey – and there really aren’t enough of these stories – which is odd when you consider that the western-world yoga scene is primarily dominated by women.

For much of 2010 the yoga blogosphere was on fire about what “real” yoga is, who’s doing it and who isn’t, the uber-commercialisation of yoga as a brand and so on. In stark contrast, what Swami Radha and Swami Radhananda are writing about are very personal and real stories about their yoga practice. About the transformation of their lives through yoga – and we’re not just talking about who can do what poses.

So far from what I’ve read of Carried by a Promise, it is rich in honesty and self-reflection. I am impressed by the number of questions Swami Radhananda managed to come up with as she struggled with her burgeoning spiritual life at the same time as her marriage was disintegrating, while she worked to raise her kids and pay a mortgage without an income from her husband.

My first impressions are that she was both vulnerable and fierce in the pursuit of her studies. Her words are like honey, and they remind me of everything that’s happened in my own life since I first met my guru in 1998. I feel like I’m reading the diary of someone I know and it invokes that same sense of “home” I get when among my kula and with my guru.

Suffice to say I am looking forward to wading in deeper!

So hang tight, and I’ll be posting my reflections from the book in the next little while. In the meantime you might enjoy checking out Swami Radhananda’s website, which includes video clips of her reading parts of the book.

Finally, you can read a review by Roseanne at It’s all yoga, baby – she’s already read the book and her account has me very excited and curious!

~Svasti