Love and Fire

It’s the season of building fires. In fireplaces, wood stoves, and fire-pits.

Every year I have to remember again, how to feed the fire and not stifle its first breaths.

Arranging the paper and kindling in such a way that air can come through. Carefully fanning and blowing on the small flames, allowing them to take hold and spread.

It’s easy to stifle a fire in the beginning stages. To pile on too much wood too quickly, to interrupt the flow of air, to neglect it too long without fanning the flames.

And poof, the flames are gone.

Today I remembered that many of life’s experiences follow the same rhythm. And that sometimes I’m so quick to want a robust, crackling fire that I forget those important, early stages.

Or maybe I’m afraid that if the flames go out, they’ll never come back again, so I have to rush to take control.

Have you ever been so excited for something that you stifle it prematurely? Or want it so much that you forge ahead with too much force and too much hard-control?

I say “hard-control” because long ago when I first started learning Tarot, I studied Joan Bunning’s website. She refers to the Chariot card as hard control, and the Strength card as soft control.

For some reason, that always stuck with me. The difference between controlling things with force and will, or through gentleness and influence.

There are things budding in my life that I don’t want to stifle. And today I took a step back and remembered how to establish a healthy fire.

I thought of life itself breathing into these beautiful manifestations, letting them become bigger. I thought of how I didn’t want to interrupt that process, I only wanted to help.

Sometimes helping means taking a step back and letting Flow ride freely around and through that which I want to grow.

I acknowledge my desire to control through force and will, and how that only works sometimes with some-things. And can be quite destructive with other things.

I don’t want these things to be hard won. I don’t want to think back and say, ‘I hammered that into place’.

I want to say, it started and it grew and I participated in a way that felt satisfying and joyful. And I’m thankful.

So now when I’m thinking of these things I want to grow, I say, “Life, show me how you want me to participate. Because I like this and I want it to grow.”

Or I feed it gently in my mind with simple thoughts of gratitude or by remembering something about it that makes me smile, and then letting go.

I’m still practicing BK Shivani’s affirmations, morning and night, and sometimes when I eat lunch.

You’re supposed to write them down, but I just recite them to myself now.

The first one is, “I am a powerful being.”

And I thought, powerful doesn’t mean overbearing. Powerful means knowing how to be gentle even if you have the strength to be forceful.

“Strong enough to be gentle.”

I heard that somewhere.

I am strong enough to be gentle.

I wonder if I trust life enough to grow a seedling into a beautiful, giant tree. Or if I trust myself enough not to destroy the seedling before it has a chance to grow deep roots.

I want to tend to these new beginnings with kindness and loving and gentle attention. Giving them room to breath, and letting life show me how it makes buds bloom into flowers.

I’ll try my best, and I’ll let you know how it goes.

🙂

With Love,

Heba

Old Hauntings

I had a nightmare last night. It was a familiar scene with some modifications – I’d been here before.

More important than the content of the dream, was the very end.

An evil had risen, materialized out of nowhere. I knew it had come from my own fear and discomfort.

And now that fear had made something scary, and it turned around to face me.

I quickly lifted my hand to fight (I had an image flash through of Buffy slaying a vampire with a stake), but I knew it was pointless.

That kind of strength was useless against dream monsters. The monster itself was made of Nothing. It was my own fear.

All at once, I remembered something and I shot awake, stilling shaking from my dream.

I don’t have to destroy my monsters through force or strength. You cannot destroy fear, in the same way you cannot fight a cloud in the sky.

I remembered that in some of my dreams and visions in the last couple of years, there were helpers that came in and protected me from something.

Now awake, I said something I hadn’t said in awhile, but it came easy to my tongue:

“Lightest of light, Highest of High.”

I said:

“Fill this room with light, protect my mind from my own thoughts, protect me from my own fear.”

I started to slip back to sleep, and the scene was still in my mind. I was standing in a haunted room facing a ghoul dressed as someone I know.

I knew now not to fight, and not to feel powerless. A beautiful light swept in and dissipated the whole scene. It seemed to swallow it whole, to envelope it, like a Great White Shark biting into the sea to eat its dinner.

I woke up again, exhausted from my dreams. I said another invocation:

“Lightest of light, highest of high. Lovingly fill this room with light, protect me, protect my mind. Protect my thoughts.”

I reached for my phone and the time read 4:44 a.m.

I opened YouTube and the first video that came up was a beautiful singer, singing a Durga mantra.

Durga is a Hindu diety, symbolizing the great mother. She is strong and protective and slays demons.

I listened to the mantra and relaxed, slowly trying to understand the symbolism in my dream.

I came away with two things. One, to take responsibility for what fear creates in my life.

And two (most importantly), ask for help with the things that are too scary.

Light is always ready and waiting, and although you are very strong, not all battles are fought and won via strength.

I thought of the areas that I struggle in my life. Somewhere in my subconscious, am I quietly fighting demons in those areas? Is that why they are so hard?

Some demons I can face head on, and some take the breath right out of my lungs. They scramble my thoughts and I’m rendered temporarily lost.

I’ve learned not to fight those ones head on. For those ones, I ask for help. Because I want to breathe easy and I want to think clearly and with coherence.

Today, I’ll remember to be easier on myself when I hit those rough patches. I’ll remind myself not to fight, but to let the light in. To let help in. The metaphysical kind and the flesh and bone kind. Whatever works.

I’ll imagine that light streaming in, dissapating clouds of monsters and haunted images. Leaving behind clear waters and a clear sky.

And I hope I can relay that message to my subconscious 😉 .

Be safe, be well. You are loved. You came here wrapped in light, and that light never wavers.

❤ ,

Heba

Deep Acceptance

I usually write blog posts after an idea has fully integrated for me. I wait to see what happens; I wait to see how I feel.

This evening, I’m inspired to write in real-time. I’m pulling this idea in, letting my body and my mind swirl into the vibration that it carries.

Maybe you can relate…I’ve grown up thinking that my natural way of being is incorrect.

I was “good in school”, but I hated it.

I loved learning, I loved words and reading and writing. I loved the infinite seeming worlds that math and science and language opened up to be explored.

I hated the rules and the busy work. I didn’t like doing something “just because”, when it obviously had no value. I didn’t like waking up early or being herded around with no power to choose for myself.

I couldn’t wait to get out, into the world. And once I got there, I was more free. Yet there were still so many rules, pointless work, and the herding of the masses.

I always wanted to dream. I liked to play outside alone, or way upstairs in a big closet with slanted walls. I would make up stories, I would write poems, I would animate every blade of grass or rock or insect that I found.

As I got older, I liked the freedom of skipping school and going to sit in nature. To walk around town feeling free and curious, eating whatever and whenever I wanted.

I just wanted peace and happiness. To smile, to play, to rest.

And life kept saying no.

No, there’s no time to rest it’s time for school. There’s no reason to smile, in a house full of sadness. There’s no one to play with and no rest in the constant mixture of violence and isolation.

And as I got older, there’s only time to work. To heal from the past. To get myself together.

I worked. I healed. I got myself together.

And I was lost.

I thought, I never got to play. To dream. To walk around and animate the trees and leaves and write poetry.

I was an expert at not being myself. I learned to live as an imposter, and I was an expert in my field.

One day, as I had the opportunity to start over, I tried to live as myself. To find the natural impulse of me, somewhere inside the imposter.

Beneath the duty bound, money bound, image bound shell there was a me that never changed. Could I find her?

Yes, easily. Everything we’re ever searching for is Right Here. Within our hearts. Never corrupted by life, never changed, always pure and steady.

I had an immense fear of Doing Nothing. That if I let myself, I would never do anything again. I would rot away on a couch, unmoving. And I would be nothing.

I thought, I can’t afford to let myself be myself. It’s too much of a risk.

I think I knew how different my natural rhythm was, to the one I had adopted through surviving life.

I forced myself to sit, without planning, or thinking about what I should do. I tried to relax and lean away from my conditioning.

Without my constant anxiety around being “productive”, what would I choose to do?

I spent several weeks investigating. Here are my findings:

I have intense anxiety around being myself, letting myself move naturally. It’s so overwhelming that it leads to all the unhealthy behaviors and low mental states that I’ve always struggled with.

My darkness stems from the discord between my natural self and the one created from surviving in society. It was as though I hated myself, but that was because I didn’t know myself. So it felt scary and foreign.

This was hard to go through, to feel the feelings and to bring in awareness so that I wasn’t lost inside of them.

[This is why mental health professionals exist. And don’t worry, I have one and I had one back then too.]

It was hard to feel how big the hatred and fear was inside of me, it felt humongous. No wonder I had been using everything I could to avoid myself. I wanted to avoid that truth. To avoid that hatred.

I’m thankful for the parts of me and that protected me from myself, until I was ready.

It’s taken me just over 2 years to accept myself. I’d say I’m 25% to full acceptance. That 25% feels like 1 million percent!

More findings:

I like to draw and to paint. But not for the “art” of it, for the expression. I found a big part of me that doesn’t like verbal expression. I would just swirl the paint brush or marker around, it felt like I was letting something out that was non-verbal.

I like sitting outside. I like playing with earthen material. Making pigments or texture mediums for my paintings with clay and eggshells etc.

I’m actually good at taking care of my needs. Listening to my natural impulses, it was easy to make and eat healthy food. I was easily moved to stretch and walk and sleep well.

I woke up early. I liked the quiet early morning hours to sit with the trees and pet my cat and just exist.

Some of my other findings are more private and I’d like to keep them for myself.

So it turns out, I wouldn’t just sit and rot. But I would move slower. I wouldn’t talk as much; I would express using other ways besides the intellect. I would easily take care of my body and my mind.

I had to fight through what felt like thick concrete walls of anxiety, fear, anger, and hatred to come to these findings!

All to find that who-I-really-am is, peaceful. Quiet, gentle, enjoying communing with nature and painting.

She’s not so scary or so foreign after all. But I couldn’t be “her” for so long. In my world that was violent and rushed and chaotic.

There was no place for gentle, quiet processes.

I had said to her, “I can’t use you. You’ll ruin us. We’ll sink like a leaky boat. There’s no place for peace, for slowness, no place for quiet.”

And maybe that’s why I hated her too, she threatened the shaky survival we had patched together.

In all the years of pushing her away, squelching who I really was, I accidentally made her my enemy.

I accidentally made myself my own enemy.

And now was the perfect time to clear things up.

One step at a time, patiently. A loving reintroduction of self. No threat to survival. Only an easy communion, a little bit at a time.

And now, over 2 years later, it’s time. Time to let myself deeply accept my natural self. Not to hate my gentle processes, but to trust that they are perfect.

Perfect because they’re mine, my natural ‘god’-given instincts and impulses.

And because they’re natural, and because they’re mine, they are supported by the universe-by life itself.

I feel like a fish, that learned to live on land. And I’m thankful for the wild skill-sets I’ve learned, out of the need to survive.

But like the fish, my natural self is supported in the water. The place where I breathe easy and move freely.

I never let myself go in the water for too long, always thinking I had to rush back to land. Land was where I could survive, because that’s what I learned.

Because I was born a fish, inside of a desert, and I adapted.

It feels the time now, to see what happens when I act like a fish.

What happens when I do things “my way”? Will life support me? [I know it will.]

Will I let myself be supported?

I’ll let you know.

🙂

With Love,

Heba ❤

Clearing the Pipes

Some time ago, I lived where there was a natural disaster. We didn’t have water for weeks, and when it returned, we had to flush the pipes.

We turned on our faucets and let the water run until it ran clear.

Initially the water coming out looked terrible! But I knew I had to wait, I had to leave the faucet on and trust that it would eventually run clear. 

Sometimes it’s the same way in our lives, energetically. We might start a new project or new relationship, maybe even a new way of thinking. And things start up going great, until a bump in road seems to slow things down.

We might wonder, what the hek happened?? Things were going so well. We might even have a belief that every time things go well, something strange and inconvenient happens.

I want you to know that you’ve done nothing wrong and that things are, in fact, working out in your favor.

It’s like those pipes that stayed unused for weeks. We might have energetic “pipes” that haven’t been able to run water for some time.

Water is your life force, your attention and intention.

Someone could absolutely love singing, they might have always dreamed of being a singer.

Within them is everything they need to be a successful, fulfilled singer. But they haven’t had the chance to sing, only to dream.

They created a beautiful, elaborate energetic system of piping where their life force can flow and erupt outward into song.

And still, for different reasons, they don’t sing.

Many years could go by with those pipes collecting rust and dust.

All of the times they said, “no, not yet.” The limiting beliefs that gathered over time, now lining the pipes with rust and grime.

When at last this singer is able to free themselves and begin to sing, they might encounter impediments on their path.

They might be angry or upset with the universe, or even blame themselves.

It might sound like, “I finally get myself together to live my dream and this is what happens?? Its not fair! Why do you hate me?? What did I do wrong?”

Etc.

Perhaps they become ill or lose their voice. A seemingly personal attack on their miraculous breakthrough!

The truth is, all is well. All is so well.

They can’t turn off the faucet now, this is when they need to persist forward.

Those pipes have been waiting for years to carry and stream that beautiful, singing energy.

The energy is pouring through, just like powerful water, bringing with it everything in its path.

Do not fear, do not fret. You’re on the right path, keep going. Sometimes you need to clear out the rust or build-up in unused pipes.

That can manifest as all kinds of things. Don’t take it personally, take it in stride. Let the water keep running.

Those icky manifestations will clear out soon enough, don’t look too deeply into them. Imagine you’re just flushing out the pipes.

Say, “Ok well, this must have been some old build-up in these pipes. I’ll allow it. I’m willing to let it get cleared out. It won’t take long.”

Don’t fight against the icky things that come up. They aren’t important, they are past limiting beliefs exiting out of your system.

In the meantime, take care of yourself. Stay as high as you can in your thoughts. Receive help if it’s offered from a loving place.

And most of all, stay in support of yourself and what you were doing. This bump in the road is only a bump. And your road is extraordinary, long, and winding.

Remember how it felt when you finally let those pipes carry water. That joy that came forward in the beginning of your new venture.

That is real and it is yours.

Say, “I’m right here. I love you. I’m still with you. Keep flowing, I won’t be deterred, and I won’t give up. This temporary discomfort is giving way to a beautiful, clear stream of joy.”

With ❤ ,

Heba

Thank you, a mantra.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Seated comfortably, window open, a light breeze shakes the curtains.

I close my eyes to relax. I wanted relief. I wanted a kind of peace that my sleep wasn’t providing.

Hmm.

I quieted my body. I say, “It’s ok. We’ll just sit here for a while, it’s ok.”

My thoughts and ideas drifted around me.

I said, “Hmm. It’s ok. We’ll just sit here for a while.”

I let my mind jump and glide and skip, as I tried to find the quiet behind my thoughts.

It’s there, a blanket of quiet.

Shhh.

Hum.

There it is.

My mind plays the movies of my life again. Beautiful pictures and streams glide across my consciousness.

I say, “Thank you.”

I say,

“Thank you Mind. Thank you streams. Thank you for carrying the script of my life. Thank you for holding those pictures and scripts so lovingly. Thank you for your hard work. Thank you for your generosity and steadfastness. Thank you for always being there for me. Thank you for giving me a movie to be a part of.”

I wasn’t upset at the chaos of thoughts and pictures leaping around my consciousness. I knew they were important. I knew they meant well. Without these stories, I couldn’t have the satisfaction of a certain kind of life. Specific, personal stories that I was invested in.

I saw these thoughts like an array of beautiful white and gray clouds in a vast sky.

I took a breath and brought my attention below the clouds, where the sky is clear and steady.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Peace.

I felt grateful for the peaceful, endless sky. I felt grateful for the endless rumbling movement of clouds streaming in. Shaping and reshaping themselves into color and texture and noise.

Om. Peace.

What a beautiful view.

I invite you to try a mantra in your meditation. It can be anything you like. A sound or an easy phrase.

It can be “om” or “hum” or whatever feels good to you. Today I chose “thank you”.

So I let my thoughts dance and I let my attention drift towards “thank you” when I could.

In meditation, you’re looking for Space. A bit of space between your identity, which is mostly formed by consistent thoughts and a feeling-reaction to those thoughts. And the place where you are identity-less.

Where meaning is relaxed away from thought, so there is less pressure to tend to those thoughts.

Breathe in, breathe out.

As the preasure lifts, you find space. Space to breathe into the rest of who you are. That which is quiet, peaceful, well, whole and grounded in eternal life.

I hope that today you can find those spaces between thought. The space between sound. And that you can rest in those spaces, breathing in, breathing out.

With <3,

Heba