aggression, love

what is it I don’t want to feel? is it actually serving me to repress those feelings? what if it’s no longer necessary to do so?

we actually maintain a practise, with great effort, of being aggressive toward who we find ourselves to be.

- from Already Free

today’s insights

there is a fear of loving intensely. as if the abrupt change is not normal. as if I should always remain in the same peaceful, equanimous state, unshakeable. if I express love and affection, I know that one day it must dissipate and change, and I’ll have to “shamefully” return to my previous state. but what if I welcomed and embraced the things I feel, the rollercoaster of emotions? so what if it “doesn’t work” and I am seen falling in and out of love constantly? so far, every person has been worth my energy and attention. every one teaches me. so what if I teeter, am happy, am sad? the human condition. fully feel, and fully move forward with the new experience, grow, release. I want to continue experimenting. to feel big, always. to expand.

how much could I expand? how much of my self am I not allowing to come through because I believe I must dull myself down to be loved? love because loving feels amazing. love what I have with delight, while also knowing I am totally fine without it simultaneously. I am always basically, fundamentally good. how do I make sure I thrive without leaning or needing anyone to keep me there? small acts every day can be rooted in unconditional love. I am the one who feels love. they don’t do anything to me that I don’t do to myself. so how do I continue to experience love, no matter who comes and goes?

Mid-Summer Crisis

it’s not a crisis, but rather a part remembering, which brings me to wonder about the future and how to organize it. which step is the first best step in the right direction toward the life that I want? I am certainly encountering the people and the situations that bring up these questions. it’s been a while since I thought about it and reinvigorated the passion toward self sufficiency, independence, community and life away from the city.

a friend told me yesterday, make sure that you think of your future self. will your future self be happy with your choices? what’s your 10 year plan?

the summer has blinded me, yet there is nothing else to do but to charge head first with a slight forgetfulness of the other goals. the work is all encompassing and therefore, to be present with it and to do it well, I am choosing not to daydream too much. I have set my intentions already, I have thought about possible futures. my body knows, and the universe knows it too, so now I take steps in directions that I feel called even when they are scary.  go toward the fear.

taking a week off of painting, then a week on quadra island, then a visit to my sister’s in lake cowichan, then a dance party in sooke. all the nature life, all the humans in the surrounding places. it’s all possible, isn’t it? how true is it that if you build it they will come? depending on where I step, the map illuminates previously unimagined places to take the next step. I will never know what’s beyond until I make a decision. it barely matters which one … choosing is key.

life as my lover

I am co-dependent with life.

Life and I are lovers. Partners. We share everything. We both have different ways of operating; different answers to problems. We've got preferences. Sometimes we'll agree to disagree. I must always remember there are two minds in this relationship, and although we exist separately from each other, the third entity we co-create is the most beautiful of all. When I say yes to this partnership everyday, there is less struggle. We have each other's backs. When I remember I'm in a relationship, I know I am not the one in control. There is always compromise. I don't always have the last word, the last say. I don't hold the power. 

Life and I are lovers. This is specifically reassuring in times of darkness and sadness: I am not alone. There is life there to witness me. Help me. Love me. And I can choose to awaken to this truth and stare back into my lover's eyes, witness the witness, become one with the all-seeing all-knowing face of Love.

no center

The mind must have space, limitless space, and that can only take place when all problems are resolved as they arise. You can have great space only when there is no center. The moment you have a center, there must be circumference, a diameter, a movement from the center to the periphery. Space implies no center; therefore it is absolutely limitless.” - Krishnamurti

body

I don't want to be in anyone else's body. Mine is my favourite. My life is the only one I want to live. I would never trade any of my ills or difficulties to become another. When I sit and ponder this, I truly do not wish myself to be any other way than what I am right now at this very moment.

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Manifesting something "through" someone else is the same as coming through me. We are all vessels through which life experiences itself. Life is abundant and I believe it wants to find its way into our lives any way that it can.

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There is no divide between the work and the play. Everything pleasantly weaves together to build the fabric of my life. The more I allow this, the more open and free I feel. And there is no wrong way to live this precious life!

From Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche said "If you fulfill the pattern that is peculiar to yourself, you have loved yourself. You have accumulated and have abundance. You bestow virtue then because you have luster. You radiate; from your abundance something overflows. But if you despise yourself, if you have not accepted your pattern, then there are many kinds of beasts in your constitution, which get at your neighbours like flies with appetites you have failed to satisfy."

Nietzche found his way to love by acknowledging beauty. "I want to learn more and more. I want to see as beautiful what is necessary in things. I shall be one of those that makes things beautiful. Amor Fati - let that be my love henceforth. I do not want to wage war against that which is ugly. I do not want to accuse, nor do I want to accuse those who accuse. Someday I wish to be only a yes sayer."

A determination to find what is beautiful. A path toward love.

There's a lightness in my body and mind today, empty but full of substance. Not the sad empty but rather the contentment of being where I'm at. I awoke from friendly and flirty dreams, which may have left a bit of satisfaction in the morning, as if I had socialized for a few hours before waking. I didn't question wanting to go to the cafe for work; I have accepted my leaving the house in the morning, and the usual fight against my own preferences - my own patterns - wasn't there. I want to live every day with this ease. I no longer struggle against my desires. What if at the end of my life I thought, "Oh Lydia, you could have loved every minute of it, but instead you tried so hard to stay away from yourself, from the things that fed you" ...