Category: present moment

Nature and the present moment

.Reading time 5 minutes.

present moment practice

It is raining… It is not ‘it will clear in a few hours’ or ‘yesterday it was sunny’, it is raining here and now, nothing else is happening. Nature is expressing herself through the element of water in this very moment and it is just how it is. It is not that it is wrong or should be something else, it is what it is right now. Our minds create stories about ideal situations and conditions in every moment of the day. Mind perceives things often not as they are, but how they should be, what would be more favourable and wishing for something else, for a change from what is currently. When do we notice the rain that is happening right now? The mind invites us to avoid, to close eyes and let it pass, but not only that wishing for it to pass and fast, the sooner the better. This is suffering and how it is created in the mind. Imagine the freedom of allowing the rain wash over you literary through your senses of vision, touch and sound and allow your body to be in contact with it, that’s even better. I bet it will be somewhat of a shock to realise what rain feels like and the resistance that one would experience from being in that moment. That’s how powerful the mind is and how difficult it is to detach from its constant instructions and interpretations of reality around us.

It is like rain on a wedding day, which was mine, e.g. It rained like I never experienced in my life before with days previously and the day after being glorious warm and sunny. I despaired, I suffered in the mind’s realisation it is actually raining heavily on my wedding day. “Why, or why, it is not fair, how is this even possible, it shouldn’t be this way”, etc. This is the voice that my mind used with me. It was all about me in that moment (we are terribly self-centred creatures, humans). It was not about anything or anyone else, but about me being upset with the rain for ruining my day, but was it ruined? A wise woman pulled me out of my mind’s cruel narrative and brought me back to a moment of ‘nothing is different, nothing is affecting anything, but my mind’. I was still going to marry a man I loved, the intention was still there, all guests were still there, everything prepared and ready, why would rain take that away from me. It wasn’t rain, it was my own mind that was trying to convince me that ‘it should not rain on a wedding day’.

Nature does what it does in every moment, it is changing all the time. It lives, it blooms and it dies without attachments or regrets. It is just how things are. I am yet to find a greater teacher than what is all around us all year round. It is there, in front of us manifesting lessons in every moment and if observant on a daily basis we can take those teachings into our daily lives and drop the struggle, which is not what we ultimately want, yet mind creates scenarios for us to attach and hold on to. This is why a simple breath meditation is so useful when one simply observes their breath and notices how, when and where their mind drifts off to. Simply noticing what the mind does in any given moment, acknowledge it and let it go and come back to the breath.

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Present moment surrender

.Reading time 4 minutes.

present moment

Trusting the universe, all in good time, hard work and patience pay off. We all heard these sayings, but how good are we with a state of surrendering to the present moment really?

I have experienced this year in particular ‘a run away’ with my thoughts and emotions, that often threw me into a state of panic and anxiety and pulled me right out of the present moment. It is so very felt when I am not in the present moment these days. I feel like not just I am not living, but almost I am not breathing, loving, experiencing or feeling. The awareness in me is strong, however, thoughts are also powerful at times and push me into a turmoil of ‘what if’ rather than ‘what is’. I believe being with what is and really grounding in the present moment is one of the most important lessons again for this year. What is happening is that our awareness is becoming sharper and we are shown what we are potentially missing out on if we avoid, resist to what is currently happening to us and wanting to fast forward. It is also more difficult to do this year than before. That contrast in sharp awareness and increased difficulty in holding that present moment vibration is necessary. Things are highlighted so we really see what we need to see and also go beyond just seeing and understanding, but really feeling it with every sense. For example, my body is sharply aware of continual stress I am putting on it in the last two months, so I am physically feeling not great and problems manifest more and more yet I find it difficult to stop. When on holiday I was hit with sadness and grief when I realised I was not being with what was surrounding me and enjoying it, so my emotions were heightened as a result and as a way to show me that what I was being or doing didn’t serve what I could potentially experience if only I let go off resistance.

Today I am making a conscious decision to stop the run around, purposefully slow down, not to rush and allow the universe bring what is meant for me. I am putting my focus into surrendering, as it is so needed right now. One way of doing that, I feel intuitively, is creating a beautiful space around myself and sit in its energy for a while. Elements that ground me today and help me focus on what I am feeling in the body are soothing Celtic music, burning eucalyptus oil, which allows my airways to open up and take some deep breaths, as well as textures that I can explore with various crystals. When one is in touch with visual, smell, touch and auditory senses, I find it is beneficial to experiencing what is in the moment. We can also use words that we say out loud, a prayer, a poem or even a song, so we connect to the vibration of our own voice and really listen.

Blessings!

Struggling to stay in ‘winter’

.Reading time 5 minutes.

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I am struggling with staying in the moment. Is it a ‘curse’ of winter? Through running workshops and personal interactions I have been noticing how common it is for people to want to escape winter. More spring pictures pop up on social media in December and beginning of January. I am doing the same at this point, wanting to escape?

First, I feel I need to redefine when IS winter for me personally. Over the last few years I have embraced December/January as the most productive time of the year for me, a period of high Fire energy and creativity. During this season I write a lot, I feel in high spirits and I possess confidence like at no other point during a year. You know how we all like the familiar and we try to stay in that place of comfort and I thought I was experiencing the same energy this year, however, something is not aligning for me this January, things are changing. I noticed I am not able to stay present as much and yesterday I bought spring flowers for myself, which evoked a very obvious yearning for spring in me. Weather wise it is mild and raining outside, which, I feel takes away from my ‘winter’ feeling and I wish we had snow, frost and lower temperatures. I realised it is harder in that respect to stay in ‘winter’ for the reasons external as well as internal. Instead of feeling confident and raring to go, I do feel a bit flat and very doubtful. Fire element is being replaced by Water, a bit distorted water too, which is normally a spring signature for me. This is something new in me and for the first time in years I am unconsciously seeking ‘spring’, not in any way forceful or desperate, but I notice that shift. I begin to think about the future, jumping ahead, worrying ‘what if’ and things that I need to do. I also feel resentment left over from last year, something I am working on as well. Restfulness is also present, I can’t seem to settle. This is interesting to me and something that makes me wonder what my spring is going to be like (here, jumping ahead again) this year.

What are you feeling this winter? Notice your vibration and emotional and physical energy surrounding the season? What comes up for me is a need for a water ritual, contained water specifically and I am intent on writing a specific poem/spell for the Water element to perform later on.

The main and most important point is to bring ourselves back into the present, which somewhat, I realised, is very challenging to do during winter.

Here I offer beautiful words from BOOK describing exactly what is currently occurring within my awareness:

“In tune with most mystical spiritual traditions, one of the key teachings of Druidry is perfect presence. Instead of spending our lives in a mist of memories, doing all we can to hold onto and recreate past experiences, and ever reaching into the future, clinging to dreams, shying away from fears of what might or might not happen, we bring our focus into the here and now. We self-locate: we find ourselves in time and space. It’s an elusive place, the present, for immediately we catch a moment it disappears into the past. Immediately we grasp where we are it is difficult, the currents of nature ensuring perpetual change. But we aren’t taking photographs, snapshots for the collection; we are learning to live, and to do so means learning how to stay in that flow of evanescent instants.”