The peacock's dance in the rain

 The peacock dances to the call of the clouds arching in rainbow like the train of feathers in loud vibrant colors. It playfully dances in the sudden showers of cloud burst without a care in the world, it's feet pecking the slush and the damp grass, one beat a time. It carries a whole world of joy in its one swirling move, the rainbow on its back shining in fresh rain drops, hopping and playing and responding to the coos of the cuckoo sitting atop a nearby tree.

This transient yet ethereal moment stood frozen in time as Lord Muruga smiled at his pet vehicle, the peacock, which had taken off at the sight of fresh rain, leaving behind His Master on trail.  

He was fond of his peacock as it pecked away at the hardened grime of karma in the hearts of Muruga devotees. It was the peacock's way of saying to not carry a heavy heart and just let go being pulled down by past, by difficult people, and by troublesome circumstances as it flew circling Muruga in the heavenly skies.

The spear and peacock are Lord Muruga's weapon and vehicle to vanquish the inner or outer demons in this universe through the slicing open of the veil of ignorance, separation, and past life karmas of that of His devotees and clearing their path towards oneness and love and surrender for Muruga. The human heart is caught in the want for belonging and being loved and assumes that earth is the place to be in order to get that. Earth is a stopgap and not a permanent place of stay as the human soul learns and forgets this over and over - the silver lining can never the cloud as human life teaches this lesson over and over and yet like raindrops that never satiates the full thirst of those on earth but yet brings moments of hope, joy, and childlike playfulness like the peacock are the moments that humans want to be more alive for. 

Stay awake to your awareness

 To not abandon my life, my reason for wanting to be inspired towards living with passion, with purpose, with good intent, and mindfulness are my goals

I have abandoned my life for far too long that I have lost sight of what keeps me connected to it anymore. Is it the fears, the anxiety that drew a blinding cover over my eyes that I need to be perfect in playing out the role I think I need to play in reality, and if not overthink my way through my mind overanalyzing the outcome of situations over and over again as if I need to and have to get the results right for each of the situations I interact or connect to. It's like I have unforgiving standards set for myself and for others that I expect they need to stick up for or just judge them away as if they belong in my judgements and not outside of it as simply humans like any of us.

The reality of life is simply accepting it for what life gives us - be it challenges, clarity, chaos, tears, pain, and a rush of so many emotions. Numb it as much as we want to, but life simply assumes form because of the way we project our emotions, feelings, experiences into it - it comes alive because we are still breathing life through all these forms and not only because we are living, functioning physical beings. Emotions won't take care of itself by itself as we need to process, regulate, and channel it for our good discerning, choosing, and deciding what feels best for us at that point in time.

This call for living, for not fearing to live no matter how painful, physically and emotionally it has been for me for a long time in the past is my main concern now. Not that the pains have magically vanished, but the compulsion to hold onto them, to try and see meaning in them, to imaginatively roleplay myself being more assertive, vocal, self confident, and resilient are few of the loops that made me feel placated but didn't help me move on and just made me feel stuck and stagnant for being me.

I didn't want to let others see that - to see how less inviting, dull, monotonous my life is and it has been that way for ages as if these aspects are enough to age me and keep me complacent and the grey hairs can just show up as random proof of this "being inside my mind almost always" aging.

To say the right thing, to be the right person, to do by others right, to also prove I am right were few of the unnatural things I boxed myself into as if I can't afford to be anything outside of this. And the extent of inner criticism is anything but normal -  no enemy would ever get this kind of treatment the way I treat myself - it's never been right to do this with me but in order to be good for others, for seeking their validation, acceptance and support, I had trained myself unconsciously as a survival habit. 

It was a mistake to be anything but perfect, always normal, calm, sorted, and everything in between - the huge gap of filling it by simply being natural, having mood swings, good days, bad days, and just having enough personal space to call it my own and learn to live in it and expand and grow in my own time were unknown things - the fog that made me more overwhelmed than the programmed ignorance I had put myself into just so that I would be accepted for who I am.

I have mourned it, this gap, this space filled with broken opportunities to be simply a human in other words and not a wooden robot who is stubborn and stuck in her own programming and needs to reboot to a connecting human frequency or frequencies from time to time. 

Self expression is a privilege for me, someone who is socially selective, an introvert mostly, and loves to read people and not open up to talk and share about my life so much unless the audience is receptive.  The quiet of my mind is a rare occurrence as what doesn't get spoken out, the right words, the right things to say gets replayed in various versions in my mind and so I naturally tend to listen a lot as if trying to find a voice in the midst of all my mental chatter.  

I crave peace, stability, and strength of mind which is not a reflection of my physical health as I had assumed it to be but a time to time fill (of mindful content and not unwanted dump) with enough appetite left for self love, kindness, and acceptance nevertheless of what my mind is for what it is. This acceptance has been a work in progress activity of awareness as they are the spots of clear light in tunnels of thoughts and triggers.

To be still alive to clear thinking is a blessing and staying awake to it however possible is all that mattes now.

Love Actually.

 What is love really? Is it the avoidance of fear of abandonment? Is it allowing your most vulnerable insecurities come up and finding the voice to actually share it with your partner? The moments, yeah, they matter -  the romance phase, honeymoon phase, and so on, but what matters more is are you still able to love yourself despite your truths showing up? It's not the inner truths or outer projections that matter, but how good you feel about being yourself. 

For starters, I had grown up is a severely emotionally neglectful family and since love was never expressed in any way that met my expectations, I believed that I just had to behave, say, act in ways that made me adaptable to what others thought or expected. In other words, I just became a sponged in version of my family and as a result learnt to neglect myself and what I truly felt about my life. 

I had made so much space for someone better, or powerful, or more controlling, and so much so that I gave up on taking control of steering being in the driver's seat of my life. 

Love is truly what makes you grow, not fit in with a picture of what others think is right. And you can never be right for others all the time or prove others wrong enough in order to be right. Love is hard since it's honest. It strips the need you think you need in order to warm up to being in someone's good books and just speaks volumes without having to prove you are right over others and just slip into quiet confidence which is distinct and unique to being you without guilt, shame, excuses or lies.

Love is not how we wish to stage so that others see us in ideal light but it's a flicker of hope, a small but significant spark to lead us to our inner darkness and back to meet our true self again -  a life spanning discovery in short where we keep rediscovering ways to honor and respect ourselves first and give the gift of kindness, truth, and service wherever needed in others lives.

Love is the ability to see ourselves even if we are incomplete, flawed, fragile, and so much more and not criticize away these unique aspects that make us who we are. Our life narratives need not be perfect but it can be one of learning to love, forgive, accept, and move on without having the need to prove to anyone anything about why we are the way we are -  just simply letting ourselves be and having the courage to fall, to rise, to endure pain, to seek support, to create space for rest, recreation, creative connections with your hobbies or creative pursuits, and to develop your own language for authentic self expression through your thoughts, words, and actions is all there is to it. 

Each to their own but this is my slice of love actually.

Cosmic power's drumming

There are so many places to hide that I don't wish to let myself out the door,

Locked in the twisted pathways of the tunnel, in and out of many pit stops there, as if a lure.

I felt the world outside the door to be too real,

And looking for my shadow in the darkness, a cold appeal.

I stepped out to prove many a point,

That I am no ghost and as painfully alive as a disconnected joint.

The single step to embrace my truths and everyday realities was not an exercise in emotional numbing,

But a journey of a thousand miles, an echo towards the future, and a call to heed to the cosmic power's drumming.

Don't be in hiding with your imaginations

 To feel real in my head, in my thoughts, in my day dreaming is alright. By imaging, fantasizing, I do not become weak. I just have a rich imaginative inner world and it's been a companion for filling up my thoughts and I had gotten so compulsive about staying in it that what could have been my strength in terms of expressing through imaginations and dreams on writing, through coloring, singing, and so many other creative pursuits became a suppressed way of "normalizing" my sensitivities, my physical health included. It's completely alright. As I think in hindsight, it was a placebo that became my comfort zone, my distracting space for lack of emotional regulation for frequent health sensitivities.

In fact my lack of accessing my emotions was the core reason for falling sick often. It's like making myself unavailable for my feelings, for what they wish to truly express, and what do my emotions want me to hear were all thrown out of the window as I kept looking for the door to be visible so that I can get out of this comfort zone.

Since my mother emotionally neglected me, I did the same with myself, and could not come out to express and ask anyone else for support as I was so loyally bound to her trauma and it didn't occur to me that I had and have the choice to seek support for some empathy and understanding from others. I felt like an emotional orphan growing in a physical body which is not letting go her mother's trauma for fear of coping up with anything new other than the trauma I had been already exposed to. 

When her trauma became my reality and when my sensitivity seemed a lot to take for me, I just shut myself down and the more I acted out in my imaginations and fantasies, the more I felt seen, atleast by me. It provided as the best accomplice for trying to stay invisible in a huge, emotionally chaotic family. 

Nothing is more real than my imaginations and the more that I started to live through them, the more I felt that I had a routine. It still is my routine and I do dislike switching back to actual reality to focus, but I think it's best if I learn to use my inherent imaginations and put it to good use through some form of creative outlet. And so expressing my imaginations will not be defense shield from trauma but a seamless outlet to self acceptance from within and out.

I never thought of imagination as a bridge between two worlds, but it sure seems like a beautiful way to bring myself together to offer the world my slice and view of life without trying to shy away, shrink or devalue myself for what comes out in offering through writing most likely, but there can be more to creativity than just one form of expression.

Self acceptance

Self acceptance is the real key, 

Don't go seeking approval from one branch to another, as you need to discern the forest from the tree. 

You stand out tall and authentic from the rest for who you are, 

It's clear, your stance on your life, even from afar. 

Don't stay stuck on how others see you and chop your self expression to half, 

You are not the herd, you can sometimes choose to follow, just like the trusting calf. 

Stay in your own line while allowing for others to pass, 

Don't stand too long as you need to move on and be your own kind of class.

Daily self love

It's a lot of tears for a love hardened so dry,

Nothing to gain but everything to lose if I don't grieve or cry.

Just how much suppression is enough to be all good for others?

Like a pile of sticks, stones, and dried leaves that wrap up my inner shell, my loneliness, in dusty feathers.

To embrace my true self now is to come clean with all the hidden pain,

And let it sweep the old for the new, nothing to lose, but a life put together to gain.

I had given up on hope and courage and faith on a power higher than my fears,

It took me decades to accept that I am sensitive but not kind to myself, a truth that shifted my life's gears.

Letting go all my inner criticism, an echo of my mother's projections, a long standing wound,

To heal is feeling fearful sometimes as the criticisms will stop to hound.

Self love is not trying to be good enough for anyone except you,

A mindful habit to hold your brokenness together and show some daily love and not just out of the blue.