the inner garden blog

resistance

" . .  joy is only possible when we greet all energetic circumstances equally . . .

In the most simplistic terms, the main character of (a) negative emotional charge is that it is uncomfortable (& that the body rejects it by manifesting resistance through physical symptoms).  it is trapped, blocked energy. it is often the childhood impulse for joy that has been limited, judged, withheld from our consciousness

our resistance to its inherent compulsion to move causes friction & this friction causes heat to seep into every aspect of our life experience.  this internal heat literally causes our life to become hell.  we are so used to this inner heat that we often do not even know it is occurring

yet, outwardly we manifest a reflection of this inner heat in our outer world.  our outer experience has become a veritable cesspool of combustion.  We mold our outer experiences by heating them up, by boiling them and by burning them.  we practically heat all of our food, and many of the liquids we drink, from coffee to alcohol, generate heat in our experience.  many of the substances we are addicted to eating, like sugar, cause heat in our body.  we even created cigarettes, a means to burn and heat up the air that we breathe.  our outer forms cannot move through this world without this process of combustion . . . our intense resistance to being authentic fans the flames of this resistance . . .  "

~ the presence process by michael brown

i do not publish this lightly.  i know it is overwhelming.  i was so struck by the above statement, read just a few months ago, 2 years after i began this journey of changing both my diet and my life after the serendipitous trip to wigmore with my sweetheart in february 07.  All i knew at that time was that when i did as I was told (which i only did because it was the only food available, i knew nothing about raw or living detox or diet, i was just going for a whole lot of lovin & the beach & the sun & away from NYC), i ate the food, i drank the rejuvelac & coconut water, i got the multiple colonics . . . & slowly, or not so slowly, as mentioned in another blog post, the joy came back to the surface . . i didn't even know that it was missing . .

but i definitely knew when it was back, or not back, it felt so new it was hard to know that i was actually remembering something . . . .

suddenly i was writing everyday, early in the morning & whenever i could fit it in & i spontaneously began an even earlier in the morning meditation practice, in the middle of the night, one that sprung from the loins of me ;), deep inside, organically, without any prior training or inspiration, like breathing, a practice that continues to grow today

& as i have mentioned all too often in my classes & here, i am def no angel, i crave the cooked stuff still & eat it with semi-regularity, but i always miss the joy & i know where to find it & the magnet of this joy keeps me coming back to the clarity, the simplicity of green, like home

in the last six months, kingsley & i have been working with the book quoted above, the presence process, a ten week meditation practice that breaks down into fairly simple weekly lessons that you can sit with on your own without moderation, lessons that in turn break down how you learned what you believe about yourself & about the world that surrounds you, your everything . . . & bit by bit, if you allow yourself, you begin to see that there is a whole lot more room to your the everything that you have always believed to be you, to be your life . . like those dreams you have when you realize that there is a door somewhere in the home that you have lived in all these years & just beyond the threshold is an immense & beautifully appointed ballroom, marble floors that you just swim on, float on, no fly . . yeah, kind of like that . . . something you never saw before

layers of joy

 

(photo & journal entry from our first trip to wigmore, march 2007)

layer after layer, the joy comes back to the surface

you could say that steve & i are abusing the stuff: the wheatgrass, the joy . . . but who really knows, as joy is in such dire shortage these days . . .

you can overdo anything i suppose.  they do a lot of talking here about cravings, things that drive your life, things you lose your present state of my mind for

i have been meditating like crazy the last few days, one could think that I am overdoing it -- the sitting, the meditation.  i have been working on moving negative thoughts off my heart & lightening it.  i see these negative thoughts like logs, heavy & somewhat compact – something you need effort to move but you can use your body weight behind it and it solidly leaves the mind & body.  you find this negative thought by your emotions.  you can feel the negativity come in.  this is not an intellectual process.  if you are feeling good, joyful, then your intent & desire is vibrationally in sync with your heart.  you feel at peace, you feel warm, you feel love, joy.  you can feel this sensation change, it goes off track, zips up in a cockeyed way, you feel like something sticks in your gut, your back.  it is a vibrational shift.  if you can catch it when it happens, it is pretty easy to replace that thought with something positive & you will know that it is positive because it will feel good.  that's how you know you are in the right place

the theory is that you just have to keep guiding your mind back to the highest levels. That is it, a training.  So when i am triggered -- angry, jealous, etc -- i can replacing those feelings and their feelings of exclusion and abandonment with feelings of inclusion and being held, being safe

and this is where we get back to the greens, the wheatgrass.  as i feel the vibrations of the food & the plants here at wigmore inside of me, i soften.  although high, I expand rather than contract, which is how i feel on other stimulants.  When I take in the wheatgrass & the chlorophyll, i soften & then i like to lay my face on Steve's chest & remember something i have never remembered before

i am smaller now, here eating this raw energy food, & I compact down to a tiny nugget, curling up into a ball in his arms 

i have been imprinting this state as a state of joy

i was sitting in my Sugar, Starches and Caffeine class the other day & another layer of joy surprised me.  it rippled in and up & i felt the lightness in my heart, the feeling of hopefulness i felt in September or just before, in the end of August, when I was preparing for school & buying everything new.  it was the feeling of being gifted with so much blankness 

i could grow into myself.  there was so much space to be me, bright & shiny

i have been swimming almost everyday, a few times a day.  i don't swim in the ocean that much in the North.  i like the way the cold rearranges my molecules but I have to run right out & i don't get to be carried by the waves --  that lifting and placing back down, that lifting & placing back down.  if you catch the wave before the crest you can do this, rise and fall.  this is a layer of joy.  it maybe a new imprint of joy but it reminds me of others: a child's toy I don't remember, something bouncing & it oddly reminds me of Lalita's fingers placing my curls inside the bonnet today in class, before learning how to make the smoothie, how she took her time and pushed each curl in so gently, the light in her eyes holding mine.  that was just this morning.  i have to remember that imprint that love

the ocean tides and the heart, the love on the inside and the outside being the same.  the touch, the joy, the being held, the green -- all the same