Browsing Tag

magic

gratitude

Just Do Your Thing

June 17, 2016
“Why they always look so serious in Yoga? You make serious face like this, you scare away good energy. To meditate, only you must smile. Smile with face, smile with mind, and good energy will come to you and clean away dirty energy. Even smile in your liver. Practice tonight at hotel. Not to hurry, not to try too hard. Too serious, you make you sick. You can calling the good energy with a smile.” – Ketut Liyer, the Balinese healer, via Elizabeth Gilbert

 

At lunch yesterday, I was talking to a new friend about how we can make a difference in the world. Both of us have, in our own way, changed our lives completely. We’ve gotten rid of the stuff, bought the tickets, and begun creating a life of magic here in Costa Rica.

But no matter where you live, you can’t escape how desperate the world is becoming for real change; for awake and compassionate and loving people. And if you are one of those people who feels things deeply, you can’t help but feel some guilt that you are not somehow doing more.

But how do you influence change or help save the world from a tiny place in the middle of anywhere?

Ketut Liyer passed away just over a week ago. I’d never met him. I’d never been to see him or even set foot in his home country of Bali, but when I heard that he had died, I put my hand on my heart and said a gentle prayer of gratitude and love for the things that I had learned from him.

If you’ve not heard of him before, Ketut Liyer was a medicine man. What made him special? He met people. He healed people. He talked to people. He did his thing, his way, in his place. Nothing more, nothing less.

But one of the people who met him happened to be a writer, and she happened to listen to and be changed by him, and she happened to write an incredible book in which (among lots of other things) she shared her experiences with Ketut with her – ready for it? – more than 10 million readers.

In her tribute to him, Elizabeth Gilbert said: “He was a healer, a mystic, a time-traveler, a world-bender, a mind-shaper, a compassion-expert, a flirt, a comedian, a bozo, a hustler, a magician, a trickster, and a fully ascended spiritual master.”

A man, living in the jungle, managed to touch millions of lives. Because he was totally committed to doing his thing.

If there a better example for you just never know, I haven’t heard it. By doing your thing, totally, authentically, and whole-heartedly, I believe you send out a particular kind of signal to the universe. Then allies and friends and teammates and angels are attracted to the total you-ness. And then magic happens.

Do your thing. Be totally you. Love. Laugh. Heal. Believe. If enough of us just do that, the world will change. I know it.

 

And thank you Ketut and Liz for being such an inspiration.

xo

spirituality

My Religion is Wonder

June 1, 2016
The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper. ~ W.B. Yeats

 

You know how there are some places that just fill up your senses; places that manage to feel completely magical and totally familiar at the same time? Siena was one of those places for me. I had never even heard of it before I went there, but it absolutely had me at hello.

For some, the overt Catholicism of Italy can be a bit much, but for me, the unabashed glory was soul-filling. Yes, you can tell me All Of The Things about religion and church and I will agree with you on lots of them – but I will still stand still in the middle of a cathedral as ridiculously decorated as the one in Siena and I will hold my breath in awe.

And I will wonder.

I do the same thing as I stand amongst trees or flowers or see beautiful art or eat delicious food or admire beauty or ingenuity or feel connection or notice kindness or talent or magic of any kind.

I do the same thing when I see something that makes me really laugh, like this clothesline of tights (I don’t know if they have a technical name) hanging on a clothesline outside of another church in Siena. The sheer every-day-ness of the laundry coupled with the shrine to the Holy Mother filled my soul with just as much delight as any painting.

I know I should go all Dalai Lama on you and agree that my religion is kindness, but for me it is not. My religion is the moments that make me stop and wonder. My religious practice consists of existing as much as possible in that state of true connection; in those moments that pull me out of my head and put me right into a state of gratitude.

Of wonder.

I believe that in those moments, I am as close to God/ the goddess/ the Universe/ the Mystery/ (choose your own word) as it is possible for me to be.

And I am looking to spend as much of my time there as possible.

xo

 

 

sacred

Your Soul Knows

May 27, 2016
Your soul knows the geography of your destiny. Your soul alone has the map of your future, therefore you can trust this indirect, oblique side of yourself. If you do, it will take you where you need to go, but more important it will teach you a kindness of rhythm in your journey. – John O’Donohue, Anam Cara

 

In the past few months conversations I have had with a lot of people have come around to the subject of feeling like an outsider or an alien or a stranger in our own lives. In many ways I completely get it. So many times in my life I have felt like I did not belong somewhere; like I didn’t even speak the same language as the people who surrounded me.

But my soul knows the truth.

My soul knows the way the light hits the surface of a lake.

It knows the lyrics and the beat of certain songs before I have even heard them.

It knows the truth in certain words when they are collected together. It knows books and quotes and lyrics, and it wraps them around me like a blanket just when I need them the most.

It knows the smell of oranges and jasmine tea and onions cooking. It knows lilacs and freshly cut wood and deep, rich wine. It knows the smell of incense – especially nag champa – and candle wax and woodsmoke and dandelions and all of the most important humans in my life.

It knows the paths through the trees and the trees themselves, even if I’ve never been there before. It knows earth and leaves and dappled sunlight. It knows butterflies.

It knows a warm breeze on naked skin.

It knows that there are angels and it introduces me to them on a regular basis.

It knows some people better than I do, and always before we have actually met. If I am open to it, it gives me moments of, ‘there you are!’ – the unmistakeable resonance of a soul mate.

It knows places I have never been, and it calls me to visit them.

It knows wonder and enchantment, and when it finds them, it gives me a nudge to say, “You want more of this.”

It knows power – my power – and it waits patiently as I muddle through all of my favourite illusions of powerlessness.

It knows the way. It always has.

It knows that I am not an alien, not alone, not a weirdo, not lost, and that I do belong. But it also knows that I have lost my way. And so it tries to remind me with those whispers, “This feels good. This feels right. They feel good. Go that way. Follow me. I know the way.”

And if I let it, it reminds me that I am always home.

xo

 

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