Colours of life

Comandante!

I've met some people along my life who've left a lasting impression. They've inspired me in the fine way they take on situations and they've made me laugh through their witty observations of life. Most importantly, they mastered early on the importance of taking charge of their own personal lives in order to succeed.

Now success is relative, it is not limited to always winning in the external things. The greatest battle is in conquering the weak and faulty parts of us that make us less human. Unfortunately, this critical aspect of success is misunderstood a lot today, especially by extremists.

The success of being human is thankfully not tied to the material resources at one's disposal. It begins with a mindset. An attitude that dares to still embrace humanity even when the rest of the world mocks you. It is the courage to live right even when the world is primarily one big billboard that screams: "The end justifies the means!" "Grab what you can for yourself!" "Be bigoted!" "Kindness has no place in the modern rat race!" "Destroy!" "Gain the world!"…and forever lose yourself. 

Don't be deceived. The world is hurting. You can feel the pain that Warsan Shire speaks of:

A hurting world is made up of broken people. People who have given up hope and decided to match despair for despair and cruelty for cruelty. Quite the blind and toothless world…

The blueprint for taking charge of one's life is looking inwards in order to rise above all these gravely misleading voices. When you understand yourself, with all your flaws, then you become comfortable in your skin, then you are able to see the world with the scales fallen from your eyes, then you are able to be human…giving fully your authentic contribution.

A journey to your centre

As you go through life, consciously and subconsciously, somewhere along the way there is need to unburden, retreat into yourself, in order to return again, anew, to the world. It is a process that calls for great openness and honesty with your inner self in order to truly listen to what you need to leave behind in your journey ahead.

I like the Labyrinth for its representation of life: at times straightforward, at times circular, at times a maze but always with a way out…all is needed is sincerity and courage to step into oneself. The Labyrinth is a symbol of the two journeys we make in the pilgrimage of life, while responding to a Higher Call. “…the inner and the outer journeys, which are in fact one journey. It creates a sacred space and place that takes us out of our ego to “that which is within”. The way in is the way out”.

In every moment of great adversity or triumph, it is not an exaggeration that there is power within you to meet each in the right spirit. As you move inward, return to the beginning of your faith – uncluttered. Travel light; discard the few or many hats you wear, the demands and most importantly the noise. Leave behind the naysaying voice of guilt, resentment, 

self-hatred, failures, depression, shame and forgive yourself. Simply be and reckon with your true self, hidden in God.

Purge and focus on centering yourself in the stillness, recognising the emptiness that can only be filled by love. Receive wholly and gladly the gifts that come your way. See the possibility of the new and the light for your path so that as you move outwards back to your world, there is less anxiety and more peace in a simpler and more focused life.

That letter to your heart actually has as its reference Re: treat. Go on, make it your regular practice; slow down, find some soulful time, silence and satisfaction.

Hurts like brand new shoes...

The irony of new shoes. They hurt. They are not as comfortable as your worn ones that 

non-judgmentally welcome your corned toes. Your poor feet practically sigh in joy when slipped into this pair that your cobbler frowns when you return yet again…for another small fix. He knows your shoes. He remembers the sole he replaced. He knows when you prefer gum over sewing because your heart would not take the defacing of your precious shoes! He is resigned to the fact that you will always want same day service, nay, instant service because surely what does he expect you to wear?!

Shoes are a literal reflection of where we walk and of our life. For those with a few more choices, they are a reflection of our style, even mood. Some even go further to sacrifice sensibility for shoes, we can discuss wedding line-ups another day!

They mark important moments. For some generations, a start in formal education was the astonishing moment of having shoes for the first time at the relatively young age of 10, 12 thereabouts. Then there are the DIY middle-borns whose lives are distinctly marked by handed-down shoes. The fresh officer proudly receiving their boots to serve, earnestly struggles to do so…until the cancer of brute power and corruption spreads in their system and those same boots physically harm innocent civilians. The hopeful graduate endlessly polishing, the one pair they own, the night before the interview, leaving them in sight as they barely sleep in nervous excitement at the wondrous opportunity of employment. Trudging jaded years later in the same pair, which has no choice but to ‘tarmac’, yet have to stoically represent their desperate owner and be judged harshly for the inevitable wear and layer of dust. The special collection, which only the mega-money-maker church can assemble in the usher, prayer warrior and Praise-n-Worship leader shoes, if we may call them shoes. Shoes that any respectable cobbler would firmly refuse to fix again. And no saying can be more apt than ‘if you were in their shoes’…

The news emission on a struggling economy that without fail shows a sweeping view of citizens walking rapidly in all manner of shoes in varying stages of tear with the camera rising to capture the resolute expressions of faithful patriots as they endure yet another benevolent government. The feet of a straggling line of refugees…the mental image of a semblance of shoes, of former plastic creations barely held together by odd pieces of string unsure of reaching the next border safely and intact on the same body. The shiny, fashionable, imported pairs walking to the press conference, delicately delivering the compassionate leaders, who are doing their very best (!) to improve the situation of the exploited, unwashed, dying, shoeless masses.

There is a woman in Somalia

There is a woman in Rwanda

There is a woman in Sudan

There is a woman in the Congo

And she hurts like (and she hurts like, and she hurts like...)

Brand new shoes.

~ Pearls ~ India Arie feat. Dobet Gnahore [Originally by Sade]

Sometimes you have to go through some ice-cream...;-)

I just finished reading Elizabeth Gilbert's "Eat Pray Love: One Woman's Search For Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia".

This super dose of womanness came to me as it should, in the form of a well-thumbed copy passed on from a darling friend who let me keep it for for-EVER (only to read it non-stop when i finally picked it up!)

Elizabeth, as herself, shares the intimate journey that is womanhood, in the pursuit of life's purpose, laughter and love; of losing all three and finding them again. I enjoyed this book for its forthrightness especially in those difficult dark moments we all struggle with. It is her story to restoration, unabashed. There are parts i felt were a thin line between humour and sensibility, where the latter risked being offended in a cultural perspective.

Her quest is still inspiring and the woman she becomes admirable. A wry reminder that in whatever moment of life, spiritual search, relationship or career a woman finds herself, she has it deep within her to be the amazing being she is meant to be.

For those who, like my sweet little sister, confess to falling terribly ill if they have to read books, there's the movie! Starring the inimitable Julia Roberts (who else?!), see the trailer here. I'm yet to watch it (voting books always!)

Book or movie, what's your most defining moment as a woman?

And as you tell me, some excerpts i enjoyed below.

And three, of course, is the number representing supreme balance, as anyone who has ever studied either the Holy Trinity or a simple barstool can plainly see. p. 1

...i have been walking endlessly and aimlessly, and i did finally find a tiny little place that a friendly bus driver informed me sells The Best Gelato in Rome. It's called "Il Gelato di San Crispino." I'm not sure, but i think this might translate as "the ice cream of the crispy saint." I tried a combination of the honey and the hazelnut. I came back later that same day for the grapefruit and the melon. Then, after dinner that same night, i walked all the way back over there one last time, just to sample a cup of the cinnamon-ginger. p. 38-39

Needing to be cheered up after the game, Luca Spaghetti asked his friends, "Should we go out?" I assumed this meant, "Should we go out to a bar?" That's what sports fans in America would do if their team had just lost. They'd go to a bar and get good and drunk. And not just Americans would do this - so would the English, the Australians, the Germans...everyone, right? But Luca and his friends didn't go out to a bar to cheer themselves up. They went to a bakery. A small, innocuous bakery hidden in a basement in a nondescript district in Rome. The place was crowded that Sunday night. But it always is crowded after the games. The Lazio fans always stop here on their way home from the stadium to stand in the street for hours, leaning up against their motorcycles, talking about the game, looking macho as anything, and eating cream puffs.

I love Italy. p. 73-74

"Across the broad continent of a woman's life falls the shadow of a sword" On one side of that sword, she said, there lies convention and tradition and order, where "all is correct." But on the other side of that sword..."all is confusion. Nothing follows a regular course." 
p. 100

You are, after all, what you think. Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions. The [other] problem with all this swinging through the vines of thought is that you are never where you are. You are always digging in the past or poking at the future, but rarely do you rest in this moment. p. 139

"The resting place of the mind is the heart. The only thing the mind hears all day is clanging bells and noise and arguments, and all it wants is quietude. The only place the mind will ever find peace is inside the silence of the heart. That's where you need to go." p. 149

Prayer is a relationship; half the job is mine. If i want transformation, but can't even be bothered to articulate what, exactly, i'm aiming for, how will it ever occur? p.186

I keep remembering one of my Guru's teachings about happiness. She says that people universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you're fortunate enough. But that's not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you don't, you will leak away your innate contentment. It's easy enough to pray when you're in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to it's good attainments. p. 272.

This is a practice i've come to call "Diligent Joy." As i focus on Diligent Joy, I also keep remembering a simple idea my friend Darcey told me once - that all the sorrow and trouble of this world is caused by unhappy people. Not only in the big global Hitler-'n'-Stalin picture, but also on the smallest personal level. Even in my own life, I can see exactly where my episodes of unhappiness have brought suffering or distress or (at the very least) inconvenience to those around me. The search for contentment is, therefore, not merely a self-preserving and self-benefiting act, but also a generous gift to the world. Clearing out all your misery gets you out of the way. You cease being an obstacle, not only to yourself but to anyone else. Only then are you free to serve and enjoy other people. p. 273

She wiped the last of the green herbal goo off my leg, then sort of jiggled my kneecap around for a bit, feeling for something. Then she felt the other knee, closing her eyes. She opened her eyes, grinned and said, 
"I can tell by your knees that you don't have much sex lately."

I said, "Why? Because they are so close together?"

She laughed. "No - it's the cartilage. Very dry. Hormones from sex lubricate the joints. How long since sex for you?"

"About a year and a half."

"You need a good man. I will find one for you. I will pray at the temple for a good man for you, because you are now my sister. Also, if you come back tomorrow, I will clean your kidneys for you."

"A good man and clean kidneys, too? That sounds like a great deal." p. 271

She said, "I know cure for broken heart." Authoritatively, and in a doctorly manner, Wayan ticked off on her fingers the six elements of her Fail-Proof Broken-Heart Curing Treatment: "Vitamin E, get much sleep, drink much water, travel far away from the person you loved, meditate and teach your heart that this is destiny." p. 276

So what will become of me and Felipe? Now that there is, it seems, a "me and Felipe"? He told me not long ago, "Sometimes i wish you were a lost little girl and i could scoop you up and say 'Come and live with me now, let me take care of you forever.' But you aren't a lost little girl. You're a woman with a career, with ambition. You are a perfect snail: you carry your home on your back. You should hold on to that freedom for as long as possible. But all i'm saying is this-if you want this Brazilian man, you can have him. I'm yours already." p. 327

I think about the woman i have become lately, about the life that i am now living, and about how much i always wanted to be this person and live this life, liberated from the farce of pretending to be anyone other than myself. I think of everything i endured before getting here and wonder if it was me - i mean, this happy and balanced me, who is now dozing on the deck of this small Indonesian fishing boat - who pulled the other, younger, more confused and more struggling me forward during all those hard years. The younger me was the acorn full of potential, but it was the older me, the already-existent oak, who was saying the whole time: "Yes - grow! Change! Evolve! Come and meet me here, where i already exist in wholeness and maturity! I need you to grow into me!" And maybe it was this present and fully actualized me who was hovering four years ago over that young married sobbing girl on the bathroom floor, and maybe it was this me who whispered lovingly into that desperate girl's ear, "Go back to bed, Liz..." Knowing already that everything would be OK, that everything would eventually bring us here. Right here to this moment. Where i was always waiting in peace and contentment, always waiting for her to join me." p. 345

You know, it's a funny thing. The only Romance language Felipe doesn't happen to speak is Italian. But i go ahead and say to it to him anyway, just as we're about to jump.

I say: "Attraversiamo."
Let's cross over. p. 346