I tend to over think everything. I studied Moral and Political Philosophy in University for 3 years and I got this tendency to analyze in details everything. Which most of the times is a good thing, but at times when the body says A, the heart B and the mind C, I don't know how to find a middle way.
QUIET THE MIND. LISTEN TO THE INNER SELF - mission failed.
When I started going into spirituality, 7 years ago, in the first phase I heard everybody around me saying that you should quiet your mind and listen to your heart. Almost everybody was doing it. I came from an over analytical background and suddenly, this new life style which I choose told me exactly the opposite of what I was doing - make your mind silent. The over thinking and does repetitive thoughts are useless and harmful. The secret of happiness and of peace consist in living a quiet life. So I was a while into meditation and yoga - to make the mind stop. To concentrate on the breath and only listen to my body and not my thoughts. At times, I was meditating one hour a day. As a routine. Well, that was in the beginning- trying to make my mind silent and blaming the mind for the real problems. But now, with time, I realized that there is absolutely no problem in my head. I simply love my mind and over thinking. I just need to accept that I am a thinker and not to pretend or try to be somebody else. Now I accept my mind as my best friend and I don't see it as an enemy that needs to disappear in order for peace to prevail.
VIPASSSA MEDITATION
I went one time at a Vipassana course. You might have heard of it. I am sure some of you did. This type of meditation that Buddha discovered and that he preached all of his life - to silence the mind and to concentrate on the physical sensations of the body. To observe the was that the body feels and how the body reacts and just to let if flow. No matter of what the sensation might be, just to be neutral about it, just to be an observer and let it pass. As nothing is forever, not to get attached on pain or pleasure. Everything is changing. And if we don't resist to pain, we can reach Nirvana. Anyway. Buddhist philosophy. This Vipassana course I did in Nepal for 11 days. The hardest days of my life. To be in complete silence. Not to speak with anybody, not to look at anybody, not to write, not to read. Just to sit and meditate. For 14 hours a day. I remember I was counting the minutes and the hours until the end of the course. Nobody forced me to do it. At times, I do this tests to myself - I challenge myself to push my limit and go beyond it. And Vipassana was one of the things I wanted to do. Pure pain, man. Pure pain! I was SO BORED sitting there. Ok, I managed to meditate and I remained with this habit with sitting still for one hour daily (although now I am not doing it anymore). But I felt that this life is so much more then this! I am an active person. I need to run, to do, to make. To express. To whatever. But not to sit in my ass all day "on my path to Nirvana"
DANCE IS MY MEDITATION
Now dance is my meditation. Is the fastest way and the most pleasant way for me to reach God and to reach my inner self. Whenever I am frustrated or angry (which is quite often I must say! I am a choleric person trying to behave herself and act civilized. Most people see me as a shy person, which I am in big groups. But actually inside of myself is a burning volcano ready to explode). Anyway. Dancing is the new THING! Why to sit down in suffering when you can meditate actively by letting the body move and letting the body release what it needs to release?
PLANT MEDICINE HEALING
My problems are not solvable with the head. They must be solvable with the body, with my subconscious. If I have an issue, I don't really believe in counseling and psycho therapists that will be there to help me out. For me plant medicine works or breath work or any type of work that goes deeeeep inside. Not though the logical mind I will have my healing. My problems are not in the mind, but rather rooted into my subconscious. And digging with mental tools is like trying to collect the sand from the beach with a little spoon. So little real difference can be made! We need deeper tools if we want to heal all the memories from our birth, childhood and why not, past life events? The only thing that helped me are Plants. Plants are here to help us. They are on this Earth for such a long time before us. They hold such a strong memory. They have seen so many and are so intelligent. We, humans are the newbies on this Planet. The plants have seen it all and they posses a great wisdom if we are open to listen.
HUMAN DESIGN AND THE BODY INTELLIGENCE
Anyway. I have been a long term vegetarian but my body suddenly asked me to eat meat. I do what my body tells me. Almost always. To know if something is true or not, I don't ask my mind for the confirmation. I just ask my body and I start nodding as a YES or NO. Since I know myself, I have decision making problems. As everything could be right and there are so many possibilities and I don't know which to take. I like them all equal. Since I discovered the Human Design Astrology and the difference between Sacral and Emotional Types of People, I realized that I have been blessed with an unfinished source of energy and that everything I need to know is inside of myself and I just need to speak with my body more and pay more attention to what is saying.
THE STORY OF PACO. TWO CHICKS BEING AFRAID OF A ROOSTER
Well. I felt I want to start eating meat. Orgaic, local grown, happy chicken (if happy chicken can exist if they will end up in our plate anyway). I made my mental plan. In order to have the right to eat an animal, you need to kill it first and to make a ceremony for its soul! For months I Planned it. I got a beautiful rooster and we called him Paco. We planned to sacrifice Paco for ourselves. For our human minds and bodies. For our evoluted selves. Bullshit. We couldn't. There was me and my friend - Two Chicks being afraid of a Rooster. We took him as gently as possible, We covered him. With a purple cotton cloth on his head so that he can not see anything so that he he can calm himself. And there he was. On the ground. Fully quiet and peaceful breathing his last minutes. And I couldn't do it. It was one of this out of myself experiences. Something beyond the existence, the time suddenly became longer. It was only that long moment with me, my friend, the rooster and the knife. And we stayed for more then 10 minutes in total silence seeing that small centimeter of skin and the feathers with the knife in our hands. And we couldn't do it. It seemed so stupid and useless to kill another living being. It seemed wrong. My inner self couldn't do it. My mind was in silence. Just asked the question WHY TO KILL IT? And then stopped. No answer emerged. Me and the rooster. Couldn't find in my spirit the answer why to kill it. Of course, my mind usually says a lot of things (you can read my previous post to see why I started this experiment). But still. The body and the mind were not in harmony.
In the end, we let him live. Now Paco is in a farm with a guy actually called Jesus (no kidding!!!) who rescued him. We likes chickens. All types. Male, females - be it! He loves them all and keeps them with him! So this Paco story turned good for him. The journey from a farm where he was extra and they needed to get rid of him to the hands of some hyper intellectuals that want to do some vegetarian experiments on him in the hand of Jesus, the chicken rescuer! :)
LACK OF CREATIVITY, DISHARMONY OR JUST AN INTEGRATION PROCESS?
Well that's it. I haven't wrote anything here in 9 days. I couldn't find anything true in myself that is worth sharing with the others. First I put the blame on the Moon, saying that the Creativity and the Inspiration come depending what day in the Cycle I am. But honestly, I have lots of mixed feelings of this Paco story. I am not necessary disappointed with myself. I am not proud either. I am just perplexed of the disharmony the mind, the heart and the mind are once again. It will pass. All the voices will make eventually peace and we will continue living on with a superficial harmony.
That's it. Long live our Paco! And kudos to all of you who are brave enough to change your life and break your own patterns and to destroy the self build wall.
Really nice post @purplemoon. I'm not one for traditional meditation, I like movement so dancing has always been my way to meditate, I guess as everyone is so different that's why we have so many different ways to get to where we want to go.
I also am a big believer in plants ability to heal, the land on which we live in time becomes tuned in to our needs and we will find that all we need is provided for us. I love spring, it is such a great time for greens, I was very happy yesterday to see some chickweed back in my garden and I have successfully been growing nettles. I know most people see them every where but around here they are rare so I am very proud of that.
I must admit I'm glad Paco is still alive. I could definitely not kill an animal myself.
Good to see you writing again, you covered alot in this post.
Thank you @trucklife-family for your encouraging post! and congratulations for your nettles!!! Hopefully no child will fall on them while they are running! :) Yes, we are truly blessed to live in such an abundant green place all year long! We should do a dancing evening!
It is good to come back writing. I was very confused after all this Paco Experiment, so I took a break to internalize everything that happened and then to try to settle it in words.
nice. i would like people know more about meditation. i havent thought abot dance meditation.
yes! just dance and let the body move as it wants to move! the body takes control of the mind and everything is in silence! There is not such a big effort to quiet the mind through dance. It is a very natural thing. As in sitting still meditation, it takes a lot of practice. In dance is all flow. Try it! Just put some danceable favorite songs and MOVE around! You will see how you feel afterwards. Dance is like an active meditation, comparing to the traditional one
First time I ever saw those 4 words put together :)
Hahaha, I Iove reading about Paco, and it's good to see you found some creativity. I like reading your posts because you tell it straight and to the point, but with some soft edges and humor thrown in for good measure.
Long live Paco!
thank you for your comment! :))) I love your critic writing skills :) Means a lot to me! :)
Long live Paco! :))
Long live Paco!
Im sure he will have a happy life on his farm. ♥
I dont know how you feel about eating eggs, but maybe a few hens for eggs would be a good idea? Great source of protein from happy birds, no killing required. :)
actually i have no problem with the killing, i am just not able to do it (yet! :D). Maybe in 10 years I will try again. I don't want hens and more responsibility. Being a single parent is hard enough :)) Plus that you have to commit to the chickens that you will always be there every morning and evening to feed them and close them before the night and the foxes come... And I like my freedom more then I live free range eggs! :)
Lol!
Well I can thoroughly understand that!
I'm glad you rejected meditation and letting your thoughts pass too. One day i might be able to do it, but hadn't worked yet! I was brought up to think, analize, think and then analize again. Exhausting sometimes, but it's who I am.
Great post, very funny and your personality shines through. Keep up the good work.
We must accept who we are in the end, no? There is some category of humans who are thinkers. In vain to pretend that they are enlighten whatever spiritual living in present. We are who we are and it is great when we accept the mind as being our best friend and not as an enemy, as the eastern side is seeing it!
I am so happy to hear that my post was funny! :)) It is the hardest thing to write in amusement :))
yes @purplemoon I like that, you went through and listened to your guts, your instinct, and spared the chicken.
You haven't failed you have grown a little and I'm impress with your decision.
Life has its challenges and you provoked one here, it's not a failure believe me. I'm 100% behind you on this, you even got jesus to the rescue that is fucking amazing there are million of peeps looking for him you might want to share this very important piece of information with them!
hahaha, no thanks! :)) I don't want Paco to transform me into an evangelist and a Jesus Saves Everybody kind of promoter :))
Thank you for your comment @blacksheepblog! Nice to have in my virtual purple space :))
Great post @purplemoon ! Nice work, i upvoted. I am interested in the esoteric. If you are interested in this topic, I have similar material about mantras - https://steemit.com/esoterics/@adeptus/all-about-the-tibetan-mantras
Perfect for meditation and yoga.
Nice piece @purplemoon and yeah fully agree...break the patterns and create a new one that fits you instead of the one society deems suitable
thank you for passing by! :)
Great story that doesn't sound like it has an ending yet. You illustrate well the conflict that most of us have at times between the body and the mind. This is what we're here to reconcile. Love that you are being with your mixed feelings. Long live Paco!
Btw I'm into Human Design too. :)