23x33 Charocal

My Body is a Cage ~ Arcade Fire/ Peter Gabriel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeFezGJF7mA&feature=related

Somerset ~ Glastonbury & Compton Dundon

Loving the Two Halves

Usually, without growth being forced on us, few of us go willingly on
the spiritual journey. Why would we? The rug has to be pulled out from
beneath our game, so we redefine what balance really is. We eventually
get a feel for true balance when we fall and rise a number of times.

More than anything else, this falling/rising cycle is what moves us into
the second half of our own lives. All falling, no growth! Always on top,
no growth! There is a "necessary suffering" to human life, and if we
avoid its cycles we remain immature forever. It can take the form of
failed relationships, facing our own shadow self, conflicts and
contradictions, disappointments, moral lapses, depression in any number
of forms. All of these have the potential to edge us forward in life, or
dig in our heels even deeper, producing narcissistic and adolescent
responses that everybody can see except ourselves. We either "fall
upward," or we just keep falling.
(Fr. Richard - Loving the two halves of life)

***

Peter Gabriel ~ Downside Up
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2TZyYkohxk

I looked up at the tallest building
Felt it falling down
I could feel my balance shifting
Everything was moving around
These streets so fixed and solid
A shimmering haze
And everything that I relied on disappeared

Downside up, upside down
Take my weight from the ground
Falling deep in the sky
Slipping into the unknown
All the strangers look like family
All the family looks so strange
The only constant I am sure of
Is this accelerating rate of change

Downside up, upside down
Take my weight off the ground
Falling deep in the sky
Slipping into the unknown

I stand here
Watch you spinning
Until I am drawn in
A centripetal force
You pull me in

Pull me in
Pull me in
Pull me in
Pull me in
Pull me in

ovo ovo ovo
ovo ovo ovo
ovo ovo ovo

ovo ovo ovo
ovo ovo ovo
ovo ovo ovo

Downside up
Upside down
Take my weight off the ground
Falling deep in the sky
Slipping into the unknown
***

Make Tomorrow ~ Peter Gabriel. OVO.

"....Look at tomorrow today.
Make tomorrow today.
When it seems hopeless.
Make tomorrow today.
Where the sacred meet the scared.
Where the dreamers dream is dared.
In each one of us.
A dream can burn like the sun.
Lets try it all one more time.
To get this lesson learnt.
Make tomorrow today..."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdA_V_HYdCI&NR=1

Tender and Beautiful Heart

Remember you are Magical. You are Unique.

I am searching for a way to commit to living life. Being alive.
I have the luxury to be able to say this. As I am not struggling to survive.
I want to have the expansive heart to appreciate this life. As Chogyam Trungpa describes; a raw, tender and beautiful heart.
Is it possible not to question every moment as if waiting for an answer, that is either an apology or an enraged rejection. I believe it is.
Can I bare not to question the struggle. Cherish the challenges in life that carve out this twisted shape, hiding secret chambers, each one sounding a unique note.
And so in my job I use the word 'resilance' to parents of children who want more and more and more, of what they are not sure.
Tonight I watched a dramatization of the life and work of Vincent Van Gogh taken from his letters to his brother. It seems to me that he struggled his whole life to feel a deep connection. A validation that made sense of his world. Where his aliveness was not rejected. Where he belonged.
I yearn for a continuity. I yearn for community - as did Vincent. And when community is forgotten I find myself lost within a crowd. And so I treasure my own space where I cut myself off. Running away. Far away from everyone else. From myself.
As I reflect on life being change. Each moment passing. The one life line is Spirit; that pulses in our bloodlines.
When we all die from this life our voices shape the music that creates the vessel this earth. Without this continuity it seems to me that the desolute isolation that Vincent felt, can only increase as we see our disconnection externalized in the loss of our environment.
As more of our wilderness disappears more of our senses dull. And so we rage on and the fires spread deep in the earth, stripping our woodlands bare. We are lost. Paths dissapearing. The earth melting our shoes. Peeling our ashen skin back, to smiling bare shining white bone.
Our nostrils full of smoke. In our desperation to touch earth. Unable to breathe. Unable to sing. We limit our capacity to live. We limit our capacity for empathy.
If there is a Devil this is it. Hopelessness. Addiction. Seperation. Violence. This Devil a shadow puppet hiding a face full of tears. An ocean of tears, where upon floats so many ships, full of lost souls.
Dare we look upon this our Devil?
Rather than being overwhelmed is it possible to deeply feel?
Sensuality. Celebration of life. To be fully awake deeply sense the world.
As a child the breeze brushes against soft bare skin, feeling each tiny hair vibrate. Feeling the tempeture rise or fall. Catching smells diverse, rich, dark, light, delicate, raw. Beautiful. Creating space. Connecting time. Connecting memory.

"There is unlimited sound, unlimited sight, unlimited taste, unlimited feeling and so on. The realm of perception is limitless, so limitless that perception itself is primordial, unthinkable, beyond thought."

So this being fully alive is a lack of seperation. And with this I imagine comes a deep awareness of responsibilty. A deep love. Beyond conflict - 'Drala'

"One of the key points in discovering drala principle is realizing that your own wisdom as a human being is not seperate from the power of things as they are. They are both reflections of the unconditioned wisdom of the cosmic mirror. Therefore there is no fundamental seperation or duality between you and your world."

Shambala - The Sacred Path of the Warrior by Chogyam Trungpa.