Category: Personal growth

Attachment, inspiration, meditation, mindfulness, Personal growth, spirituality

Holy Ground

Adele Satori
Before I knew of such things as chakras, and Saturn returns, I drew this oh so long ago

Recently I’ve begun training to become a meditation teacher, and all of us in the virtual class are so exuberant, and diving in full soul.

Many are sharing pictures of their meditation nooks/spaces/rooms. Beautiful spaces all, complete with lovely tapestries, altars, and such.

I have little informal I suppose you could call altars throughout my house. Little groupings of items collected or gifted over the years. Musical instruments in one corner, the marble cafe table from an ancestor’s store with the shop bell, crystals, a microscope and discarded cards I find on walks. But I really don’t have any one spot I consistently go to set my mind free.

I thought of the Martha Graham quote: “Wherever a dancer stands ready, that spot is holy ground”…and then I realized. I am my meditation room. Wherever I am, I take my holy ground with me. Wherever I can fully be in the moment.. watching ocean waves, or leaves fluttering on a tree, or follow the path of birds riding currents on air, get lost in music I am creating. All of it is a variation on meditation as I see it.

There is great comfort and joy and something special about having a traditional place to contemplate life, the Universe and everything.. the buildup of energy there is tangible. It’s why sometimes people venture into a church or temple without knowing exactly why, other than the pull was there, and comfort and perhaps realizations were found.

I am so grateful that I can find this wherever I go- on the train, on a bench in a park, on a walk and stopping and overlooking the city.

My body is my temple, and my mind, its rooms.

Creativity, focus, inspiration, meditation, mindfulness, Personal Development, Personal growth

Singing on the Trail

Adele Satori

On my way back down the mountain today, in the distance behind me, I could hear someone singing.. singing deeply from their soul.

I slowed down so I could enjoy the singing. My Spanish is not wonderful, and it’s not in this clip, but I could swear at one point they sang “There are not words in my mouth that say how I feel in my heart”.

My brain shot back in time to a job I had where the custodian, from Laos, sang all the time. He told me the days he sang loudest and longest were the days he was missing his country the most.

I remember years ago I would hear people randomly singing or whistling through their day, and I don’t really hear it much any more. That in part is what made today so special.

I would like there to be ease in the world again where when people felt it rise up, the songs would come, and mingle with those of the birds like they did today.

Affirmations, Attachment, Creativity, focus, goal setting, inspiration, journaling, mindfulness, passion, Personal Development, Personal growth

Shining Brightly

Adele Satori

I’ve been working through Danielle LaPorte’s “The Desire Map”, and at one point she talked about burning journals. So radical, so empowering.. so…. scary!

Journals are archives of our lives. A way to go back and revisit, and perhaps relive past pains and triumphs. Some of it, to me, might be worth preserving, but a lot of mine are deeply private thoughts I just had to let out “somewhere”. It’s an odd attachment to the past, even if they lay like mine, hidden away in a closet for years, or like the one I started this year with the intention of writing every morning. I stopped March 18th- the day everything shut down due to the pandemic.

I’m seriously considering it. It sounds freeing and energizing… much the way clearing out closets is. I don’t want to cling to the past, to who I was. I want to celebrate who I am, and who I am becoming.

In the first exercise, there is a writing prompt “What I know to be true”. Without hesitation I wrote “I am an amazing person who has deeply internalized that shining brightly is arrogant and vulgar. Whoa”.

The pen dropped out of my hand. I realized that has so long been a mantra shaping my life. Odd a little, as for many years I was an oboe player, and they are a bit the rock star of band and orchestra music. One hundred bars of rest, and then a sweet solo to open people’s hearts.

But that is a skill I channeled and honed with hours of practice. I applied my intuition to interpret what the composer wanted to convey. It’s not me being me in all my quirky, sometimes inappropriate, glory. Or expressing my thoughts, or creating my own music and art. I’ve long served and supported the ambitions and ideas of others, but often put aside my own passions “for later.”

Thing is, I have learned along the way I can be of service to others, while also honoring my own passions. Even my life mission statement of two years ago “I am a life long artist dedicated to creating excitement and enhancing life experience using my creative gifts while walking with others on our creative journeys” puts others first.

I can put myself first, and still be compassionate, loving, intuitive, and of service. I can incorporate the current life mission into my new one.

I’m going to create my new life mission statement.. right here, right now.

I am filling myself up with so much love, expressed through my creativity, that I cannot help but shine brightly and be a guide for others by the example of my own life.

Whew?

Are you ready?

I am!!
*******************************************
You can read Danielle LaPorte’s blog entry about burning journals here: https://medium.com/@DanielleLaPorte/burn-your-journals-maybe-either-way-heres-some-inspiration-on-letting-go-a3f5ff67fcf6

and learn more about the Desire Map process here:
https://www.thedesiremap.com/

Creativity, focus, inspiration, mindfulness, Personal Development, Personal growth

What Lays Hidden….

Adele Satori

I’ve been in dormancy since March it seems.

Not unlike this Calla lily, which has sent up only leaves for years, until now. Dormant in blooming for so long I can no longer remember if it was pink or white when I first brought it into my garden.

It has chosen to burst out of its dormancy in these glorious sunset colours.

So many of us have have been forced into a dormancy of sorts recently.

I’ve delighted in seeing people rediscover things they enjoyed when times were less busy. Things core to their being.

What has been laying dormant in you?

What is longing to burst forth in colourful glory?

What juicy truth is at your center?

Creativity, inspiration, mindfulness, passion, Personal Development, Personal growth, spirituality

Crafting the Spirit Defined, part.. erm.. something.

Adele Satori

Sometimes the words of others describe so well what I mean by crafting the spirit. Today’s quote comes from this week’s Rob Brezsny’s Free Will Astrology:

“Even if you don’t call yourself an artist, you have the potential to be a dynamic creator who is always hatching new plans, coming up with fresh ideas, and shifting your approach to everything you do as you adjust to life’s ceaseless invitation to change.

It’s to this part of you — the restless, inventive spirit — that I address the following: Unleash yourself! Don’t be satisfied with the world the way it is; don’t sit back passively and blankly complain about the dead weight of the mediocre status quo.

Instead, call on your curiosity and charisma and expressiveness and lust for life as you tinker with and rebuild everything you see so that it’s in greater harmony with the laws of love and more hospitable to your soul’s code.”

You can read more here: https://freewillastrology.com/