Tara Mantra

Embracing the Feminine

There are some definitive moments when I consciously moved from the androgenous into the feminine space. It was less like embracing and more like being an aggressive driver of a dodgem car.

I was 30 when I started to wear ‘pretty’ clothes, or clothes that flattered the figure. That’s not to say I have never worn them before, but I made a conscious decision to enhance my figure with clothing. That is, I wanted to change my outer image from tomboy/sports person to feminine and attractive. Yes. I wanted to be seen as attractive. I was going to manipulate my image. I felt a certain dirtiness in doing this. Its the same fear of 'wonderbras' that I have had. Pretending you have something you don't.

I bought my first pair of jeans and they were tighter than any pants I’ve worn before. I bought a pair of semi high heels and tops that fitted into the figure and didn’t cover my bottom. Wearing these things all together was a challenging experience. I was self conscious and embarrassed and knew that I had to do this to myself because I had daggers of judgement towards girls who dressed like this every day.

I had to embrace what I disliked so that I could stop to dislike it.

My problem with women started when I was born. My mother’s stories were that my father wanted a boy child. I was strong from the moment I was born. Small but strong, flexible, always awake, hardly eating, good natured, observant and climbing everything.

My father used to hang me from the door way with just my fingers curled into the frame at 6 months old.

I wanted to be a boy. I thought I was a boy. I wasn’t emotional. I disliked pink. I hated dolls and dresses.

I resented bras and bows and fluffy fancy things.

Women were weak. They cried and were dramatic. They were victims, shadows, manipulators, trappers of men, using their intelligence to trap and fool men.

Why did I think these things? Just watching the interactions of my parents, of the world around me. I had so much hate towards females in general.

The silliness, the giggling, the talk of boys, the concern for their hair, the preciseness of their pencil boxes.

It didn’t help that I was considered ‘plain’ and had a figure that was described as ‘straight up and down’, that my thighs were so big from running I couldn’t fit into normal sized pants and had to wear sport clothes, that my face was freckled and my mother adored clear beautiful skin, where my hair was wavy and brown and my mother loved thick black curly hair, that my mother thought the perfect waist was one you could put to hands around and actually, I didn’t have a waist. And so forth and so on.

I used to go swimming at 6 – 7 am twice a week and have competition on Sunday. I used to go to athletics training twice a week and have competition on Saturday. I used to jog for 45 minutes every morning that I wasn’t swimming with the local surf club. That was when I was 8.

In my thirties I took a shot of vodka, then another one, and then I went to my first belly dance class with my good friend Mitra. A class that changed my life. A class I was so afraid of – to move the body freely. To move the hips. To shake the shoulders. To let the hair be free. To embrace the female body with its curves and beauty.

I felt my feet pound the floor to the drums – and it was awakening the female power from below. My feet pounded on the door to our great Mother. My hips moved in circles – winding, calling, and invoking the snake goddess of dreams and darkness. My arms and hands moved out into the space around me and felt the energy of light. I became darkness interacting with light. Light was my medium.

I went home to Australia and made my peace with the black and the white. I gave my tears of sorry to the despair, and I gave my bowing and forgiveness to the arrogance. I took the earth into me and felt her release her floodgates of love. She had always loved me. I just didn't know it. I had to release my own hates and unhappinesses. To feel the Mother's love, you have to let go. You have to clean the inner self.

I moved here, to Catalonia, to a place that is blessed by the Virgin of Montserrat. The virgin of the serrated mountain. The Black Madonna. Its where I have come, to place my roots down into the earth, and to make a home. My first home where I can leave my things and travel to other places without selling/giving away all of my possessions as I have done three times before.

The Mother Earth – the continual healing, the continual giving, the continual renewal – without end. We scream at her, and she gives us food. We hit her, and she gives us sunsets of such beauty we think we will die. We destroy her ornaments and she gives us flowers.

Its time to grow up. To stop the tantrums. To turn to her and embrace her with love and gratitude. For everything thing the Mother represents. For everything the female represents. For everything.

And this does not mean we are against the Father. Not at all. It just means, we are for the mother. When she is strong, and has been awakened, we can allow the sacred meeting of the father and mother to take place within each of us. The light, the darkness. The rational and the irrational. The waking and the dreaming. The mountain and the valley.

Thank you to my mother, thank you to my Grandmothers, thank you to my sisters, thank you to my father, thank you to my first female friends, thank you to Mitra, thank you to Sevika, thank you to Sarah, thank you to Geir, thank you to Anders, thank you to Jett, thank you to Katrine, thank you to my brother, thank you to Albert, thank you to Elizabeth, thank you to our dear Mother and thank you to Ordinary Sparrow for helping to bring the clay into some sort of identifiable shape with a master’s touch.

Surrender into Space

Last night was the new moon. I’ve been reading Ordinary Sparrow’s words, and then I listened to Caroline Myss on her new book on Defying Gravity.

This morning I woke up with an image of the earth floating in space. And the conviction that the self, in its search for ‘trust’ and ‘surrender’ and being ‘One’ needs the same, it is the same, Trust and Being that the earth has in its ‘hanging in space’.

Pause to think about that for just a moment. The rest of what I write is mere repetition.

If we look at the picture, if we contemplate the strangeness, the impossibility of it – the rational mind expands to a point of confusion and shuts down. This is the point. We can’t understand the hows and whys – but the fact remains, IT IS.

It is.

The earth hangs in space and this weird suspension, with all its miracles and queerness and mystery, this ultimate existence is the same incomprehensible, irrational Trust that we must surrender to to reach the place we need to go.

The leap of faith. The free fall. The Knowing that is of the blood. The seeing that is of the Third Eye. The Pulse of the Earth is our own pulse.

‘We are the world.’ We are the Earth. There are studies comparing the human body to the earth and its physical relationship or connection. However, its psyche? The Earth with its pollution (that humans create), is it not our negativity blocking our energy system? The increased instability in weather is our own personal lack of grounding or imbalance. The weather is of the air – air is the element of the mind. They are all symbols and symptoms of our very personal struggle.

I think again of Dr Len. Heal thyself. Heal the world.

With Love

From Light to Darkness - The Tao Within

By all accounts, I was a happy sunny child.

Life shone upon me, and I grew into a hard blend of Artemis and Athena. Withholding and defending my light with arrows of judgement and eternal virginity. Hunting for more of my kind. People to believe in what I had become.

When I questioned my coldness, the light grew stronger and stronger and shattered my image until the all became One and one became All.

Then the Darkness arose, for I had returned home to claim my sorrow, my guilt, my incomprehension, my fears and offer my love and forgiveness to myself and all.

The Darkness was so deep into my blood, it began to turn into Light. The light and the darkness merged and I saw that it was the same, but different.

The Golden Tao.

The threads of my new life begin to create the new form for this phase. Its delicate shape arises little by little with threads of gold from the extraordinary of the ordinary.

With Love and thanks for all that has been, and for all that has yet to come.

The TV of the Mind

What gets the highest rating in your TV mind? What gets the most views? Are there repeats from the past that are always dependable for full concentration and energy? Is it just shoes and breasts, depending on your gender?

I was laughing at myself the other day. I was caught off guard.

I was walking down the street to the supermarket. Its a busy road. I was happy, but my happiness attracted a certain attention that I became intensely aware of. I stopped feeling happy, and became aware and sensitive and then I laughed at myself, dropped my slightly risen rib cage, let the wind shake my hair and I let it go.

I thought to myself, ha, got you.

Then I was in the supermarket and straight in front of me was the tall figure of a well built man who gave me one of those looks and I felt this creeping female power rising. I haven't felt that for a few years. The urge to become a prize worth the male’s advances.

It caught me unaware and I quickly hid behind the laundry detergent until the Spanish words had turned themselves into a soothing blur.

I walked home with a little less spring in my step, laughing a little to myself, but my mind was sharp and watchful and I remembered 'be ever vigilant'.

Watching the TV of the mind - that part is ok. But when the images give rise to that sorrow, that sensation, that coveted desire... this is the moment of test. And to watch ourselves get caught up with the tangles of the mind, and then slowly un-knot ourselves.

With gratitude to OS

Our Insect Friends

For the past couple of months, seemingly out of nowhere, we’ve had unexpected insect guests in our apartment. We live in the middle of a little big city and the most we usually spy is a lost fly or a wayward mosquito.

However, we’ve been noticing, a random wasp, or moth, or beetle, or some little creepy crawly.

Albert and Jett jump up and cry ‘what will we do with it?’ reaching for a rolled up newspaper, but I, coming from the land down under, calmly (especially under pressure) rescue the little bug and let it out the window.

Today I was going through the box of vegetables and realised that this organic box of fresh vegetables we took from the country every Wednesday evening, was the obvious transport for these random insects. Obviously. It all made sense.

Last night, I caught a moth in my hands. It was quite big. I didn’t like the feeling of its wings battering against my hands. I tried to be as gentle as possible and took it to the window.

It had me thinking – moths, attracted to electric lights, or fire, the ‘wrong’ light – and singeing its wings. We, humans, getting caught up in ‘the wrong’ light. A different light. Forgetting for a moment that the light we were searching for is much bigger, much brighter and more encompassing. Like the moth and the moon. The moth will go out into the night and follow the brightness of the moon and meet other moths and gather together and follow its destiny. If it doesn’t get caught by a cheap electric light on a street corner instead.

Hmmm. All that glitters is not gold.

Yoga Asanas are Purification

Yoga is unity and harnessing energy. Yoga is about unity. The enemy of unity, is ‘me, me, me’ thinking.

Asanas (poses), pranayama (breathing) and dhyana (meditation) are ways to clean the body of ‘me, me, me’ so there is more of ‘thee, thee, thee’.

Who is ‘thee’?

The ‘thee’, in this circumstance, is the will of nature, of tao, of the way, of ‘what is’, mindfulness, of the universal consciousness – what ever you’d like to call it.

Every experience we have, every thought, ever action, every moment, we create. The act of creation causes a consequence, repercussions, even if we can’t see it right now. The mind takes in so much information at a moment’s glance, at a moment’s rise or fall in emotion, in an idea – we leave traces of the past where ever we go.

Yoga helps to clean us from the out side in – by releasing the hold the past has on our body tissue. There is a school of thought that suggests the body holds the memories of the past. Not the mind. Our body freezes when we hear certain noises. The ‘feeling’ we have is from our body. The mind is quiet, waiting, while the dinosaur walks past the cave.

Yoga is purification of the mind and body, so that we can move the self aside, and reside in the Self that is unity.

Cleansing Processes

Yoga Journal – purification

Blue Yoga

Right Now, You Are Where You're Suppose To Be

(or you wouldn’t be there)

How hard is it to accept, that this is where you are suppose to be? In this apartment, in this house, in this country, with these people, with this job or lack of job, and reading this right now. Everything at this moment, is exactly right.

Because it is.

Perhaps our mind tells us that we deserve a better life, a better husband, a better child, a better best friend, a better job, a kinder city. Perhaps you’ve always felt misplaced. The mind is powerful. The mind wants you to be a part from what is, so that it can be.

And it creates suffering, and pain, and frustration and disappointment.

Let’s look at our expectations of our life. Ten years ago, did you think you would be where you are now? Twenty years ago?

How could your mind possibly know what was going to happen and create all the circumstances so that you got exactly what you wanted? And surprise, surprise, if you did get it – are you any happier? What we wish for is often not what we really want, once we’ve got it.

Right here – at the moment in time, is exactly where you need to be. This is the key to simple happiness. Start with where you’re sitting. Notice the chair/sofa. Notice the noises around, the music, the birds, the cars. It is. Its life. Life can not be controlled by mere willing.

Scary to think of all the things we can’t control. But in facing the fear of the unknown – in facing this special fear, we have a chance at touching something so holy within the centre of each one of us. A sacred centre of stillness and peace. A place where sages sing of butterfly wings and eternal love.

Smile I might, but joke I do not.

Accept things, just as they are, right now. This face, the body. This chair, this apartment, this house, these people, these noises, the family, the friends, the work opportunities. Accept it – just for the moment.

Breath it in, and let the hardness that says ‘this is NOT me’ drop away. Be soft. Be real. Don’t be a projection of will and demands and ego. Be still. Be soft. Be in the moment so you can feel that tiny movement of air across your cheek and along your neck.

Smile. Be here. This is really more than good enough.

Can I Love You?

Can I love you?

Can I love you today?

Can I love you after the illusion has faded away?

Can I love you now, that the gilt has worn down?

Can I love you today?

After all of the disappointments, the lies, the frustrations, the angry words?

Can I love you, truly, with no string attached?

Can I love you, because you are you?

Can I love you without asking for something in return, like honesty, or forgiveness?

Can I love you, anyway?

Can I love you, knowing who you are?

Can I love you, knowing what you’ve said and done?

Can I love you, after making me suffer?

Can I love you at all?

Can I love you after all my tears are dry?

Can I love you when all that is left is a sigh?

Can I love you, more fully than before?

Can I love you after feeling my heart break?

Can I love you, even after that?

Perhaps, it is said, that only when the heart breaks open, can it fit in a little more. Perhaps that little more is the ‘real’ you I never acknowledged. The you I denied in my blindness for my ideal.

Let me release my wants. Let me let go of my expectations. Let me see the truth, and love it, and you, because it is. Let me be free from the tangles of my mind and free in the expression of Love.

Amen

Three Words On The Way to Unity

Belonging

When we come into our yoga class, we have an opportunity to practice unity. We start by gathering our mind together. Releasing the memories of the day. Letting go of the tomorrow. And we use the presence of our body to bring our awareness into focus.

This is the first level of unity for us during asana practice.

Practicing acceptance

When we resist what is, when we fight it, we are against it. It is different from us. It is something our mind does not want or comprehend and we reject it. This is not yoga.

During yoga practice, let’s say ‘its ok’. Let’s accept our limitations. Let’s understand that getting it ‘right’ or getting it ‘wrong’ is the same thing. It is. If it is – then its ok.

Once we start judging, we can’t see clearly. Once we get emotional, foggy is the word for our vision. One breath at a time. Because it is.

Belonging

Belonging is an extension of acceptance. In savasana (corpse pose) I like to use the words ‘you belong in your body’, or ‘you belong, right here, right now’. There is no other place you should be. Should is a term the mind made up. We want to get closer to the ‘what is’ – not further away. Thinking in terms of ‘should’ turns us away from the centre.

Grasp it. Embrace it. Because it is.

The Human Mind and The Universal Mind

The human mind can’t understand a fragment of it all. Don’t try. The human heart understands. But we have to give up trying to figure stuff out. We just get angry, sick, unhappy, frustrated, depressed and confused.

Breathe through the heart. The world works on an energetic level. Your heart understands it. But listening with your heart is painful. It hurts. It breaks. It tears. And it knows that the bigger it gets, the more it understands. Your heart belongs. It is. Its pulse is the pulse of life. The gentle breeze in the evening. The rhythm of the ocean.

Trust

God or Universal Consciousness – what ever you want to call it – trust it. Because it is. Your mind resists. But when was a human right?

Nature is. It’s a fact. It does its thing no matter what we do to try to stop it. We chop and change and burn and pollute and still flowers bloom. Still the storms come, and still the sun shines.

Because it is – trust it. We change our mind at a moment’s notice. We say we like this, and like that – and if we don’t get it, then change – and what ever – inconsistent and ever changing is the way of the mind. But It – is. Never changing. Always present. It’s the only thing worth putting our trust in.

Acceptance, Belonging, Trust.

Three steps to Unity.