The Delicate Art of doing Nothing Day 337

I sometimes am guilty of the need to always move. Maybe more than sometimes. The need to do something, to move, to proceed to the next thing, to put in effort and energy into things that matter to me. Doing that, is a way of showing your care, showing your commitment to a future, or just not falling into a rut of well.. not moving. It's isn't all without sense or reason. I have had to constantly work hard at many relationships, at many desires and wishes in life. The choice of having things come easy to me, to luck sprinkle its dust on me - has not really been my story :) Somewhere though between being efficient and ambitious, having a desire to be present and have a closeness with some - it started feeling like a bit of channeling energy and it getting reflected back to me in negative ways. And somewhere, I began to wonder if I am still doing this for this promised future and from a place of my love for others, or was I running from myself, from a space where I need to confront myself, be with myself - face the quiet, truly experience what I am feeling and experiencing as a consequence of being where I am.

I was told of this a lot by many in many ways, the spirit of tolerating. The spirit of tolerating your emotions, yourself. The need to not do something constantly. To let situations play out. It's been a lot of patience and work on my part as it starkly goes against how I've built myself up. But it is a rewarding and appreciating experience. I realise the art of doing nothing is not one without effort. It takes effort to be still, to be with yourself. It's just as much work to be with patience, to let people be, to let yourself be. To understand your fears, your inhibitions. To understand which demons wake up to play in their coveted darkness brought on  by difficulties. I learnt is sometimes allowing yourself to be the best you can be for you, for the situation involved. In a very difficult way, it's a way of truly caring for both of you. It's a space of contemplation, not necessarily separation. It's a space of nothingness...and it's so rich with lessons, with thought, with compassion for yourself. It's giving you a room to be as dramatic, as self piteous as you want to be :) But it's also a space to look at yourself, at this moment - and without feeling the need to move forward... you realise the moment you're standing in. Your present...your present which is as capable of giving you love in sadness, trust in pain, and validation in loneliness. It's a present which allows you to be friends with yourself.

In trying to learn to do nothing even for a few moments to calm the racing heart, the scampering demon, the fleeting mind... I think it's giving me a way to do what I really want to do. To be who I really want to be - for myself and for those in my life. It is still painful at times, and i need to consciously shake myself into just being still... but one of the things I've learn in this nothingness state is that we are always learning, we are always growing. And one of the most difficult endeavors you will have is to truly love and accept being with just yourself, in just this now without promises of anything more. Being alone in a way that' not lonely, allowing yourself to be with everything else and everyone else, as you choose, as you want, and giving them in return room to share themselves as they choose.

My Mara Post 336

She whispers in my ear
The wind she drapes for her dress
She speaks softly for me to hear
Her sudden need for my flesh
Her distress, and perfect paranoia

She talks of the darkness ahead
She pours it delicately
making small cracks in love
She spells the doom and the end
How we have all been forgotten

She weeps consistently on my sleeve
She tells me her sad stories
Of how we've have tried and lost
That no one will know or understand

The blade she hands me
With a sense of duty she urges me on
She tells me to take the step
And to end this dance once and for all

And I stay still, let her move around me
I try to not fight her, for she pulls harder
Her cold fingers on my neck
Her ice reflected in my eyes
I watch her move through my veins
And with each labored breath
I hold her without too much movement
Not sure of who will surrender first
I watch her as she watches me
We know we're part of each other
We're caught in this game...
I watch her dance and whisper
The end of all good as I know
The end of any kindness I will receive
I breathe, I hold still
For she is my weakness
And she is my strength
She is my confusion
She is my truth

Draped with the wind she comes
Dropping ice on spring days
She moves possessing me
And I move with her, my Mara.
- RKS

A prayer for self Post 335

Teach me to love myself kindly
When my confusions hit me hard
Teach me to discard bitterness
When I am hurt by others choices
Teach me to be compassionate
To those I love who hurt me
To give forgiveness to both of us
To be strong when others need to lean on me
And even stronger when they want to leave.
Teach me to love myself in the silences
In the quiet nights that don't contain warmth
In longer days that I drift into alone
Teach me to hold my hurt and disdain
My fear and my vulnerabilities
And give it to the heart of love
That surrounds us all..
And through that..
Teach me to love myself kindly
Purely and beautifully...
For my soul aches and my hearts worn out
And I am ready now to learn,
To wake up to a morning where love never leaves
And where we're never alone again.

- RKS