desire, does not, equate to being valued

what I never
learned
from my mother
was that
just because
someone desires you
does
not mean they value you.
desire is the kind of thing that
eats you
and
leaves you starving.

“Just because someone desires you, does not mean that they value you”.

Read it over.

Again.

“Just because someone desires you, does not mean that they value you”.

Let these words seep deep through you, through your veins, your bones, and settle, albeit uncomfortably, in your mind.

These are the colours of your self-esteem.

I encourage you to do so because these are profound and meaningful words from a wonderful poet/artist, Nayyirah Waheed. And with anything profound, you need to read it more than once for once is never enough.  Read it a hundred times if you can. And if you can, leave some space between each reading, as each time a different word or phrase will embed itself within your soul.

Now when I say soul I don’t mean soul in the overused new-age sort of way.  No.

When I say SOUL, I mean SOUL.

When I say soul I am talking about who YOU are at the very CORE of your being.

The centre of your SELF. The ESSENCE of you.

That part of you that lies right the centre of your chest or in the depth of your belly that when you press hard, it hurts.  It is the ‘I’ within that you may have just started to explore its existence. The ‘I’ in you that you may probably spend your entire lifetime trying to figure out.  And you never will.  So give up. And just be. I have.

Anyway.

Nayyirah Waheed is phenomenal. She is phenomenal because she has the capacity to talk to me even though we’ve never met in a language that surpasses mere words. She reminds me that I’m alive. And I’m grateful to anyone who can do that. Her words have the capacity to remove all the debris that have formed and gathered itself on your psyche like rust on steel; cutting through the crap, stripping it away, leaving your heart bare and raw. She then leaves you to do the polishing work yourself. She starts the process but you do the work.

I’ve posted some of her pieces on my blog before from her anthology of poems called ‘salt’.  Perhaps her words may resonate with you too?  Let me know, if you want.

Be kind.

no patience nor energy

Meryl Streep is one of my favourite actresses and in a recent article in the elephant journal she says:

True freedom is understanding that we have a choice in who and what we allow to have power over us.

Each individual’s day-to-day level of agency varies with lifestyle and a host of socio-economic factors, where at any given moment some people actually have less choice than others.

But many of us only think we are lacking in choice.

(The next time you think you “can’t” be outside because it’s too cold, think about a prisoner who really does not have the choice to go outside).

True empowerment is about recognizing where the choice is and then moving in directions that reinforce not only our joy and presence but also this feeling of knowing that we have choice.

To me, that has everything to do with who we interact with—how we treat others, how we are treated.

We all have to deal with—welll, a**holes—sometimes. That’s just a fact. Thickening our skin is necessary. We can’t hide from the world just because people are jerks; to an extent, we have to learn how to deal with them. We have to learn this to survive.

There will always be jerks. Sad but true.

But life is too short to feel small on a regular basis, to be in close proximity to this kind of energy any more than is necessary. We may try to be tough, but it can wear on us—especially the extra-sensitive souls.

This quote has been floating around the internet as something that Meryl Streep said (wrote), but should be attributed to Portuguese self-help author José Micard Teixeira.

“I no longer have patience for certain things, not because I’ve become arrogant, but simply because I reached a point in my life where I do not want to waste more time with what displeases me or hurts me. I have no patience for cynicism, excessive criticism and demands of any nature. I lost the will to please those who do not like me, to love those who do not love me and to smile at those who do not want to smile at me.

I no longer spend a single minute on those who lie or want to manipulate. I decided not to coexist anymore with pretense, hypocrisy, dishonesty and cheap praise. I do not tolerate selective erudition nor academic arrogance. I do not adjust either to popular gossiping.

I hate conflict and comparisons.

I believe in a world of opposites and that’s why I avoid people with rigid and inflexible personalities. In friendship I dislike the lack of loyalty and betrayal. I do not get along with those who do not know how to give a compliment or a word of encouragement. Exaggerations bore me and I have difficulty accepting those who do not like animals.

And on top of everything I have no patience for anyone who does not deserve my patience.”

Regardless of who said it and why I love this quote very much.

Here’s to Meryl’s and your, grace and beauty.

how a 10 day silence cured Leah Cox

Having once attended a 10-day Vipassana course, I know, only too well, of both its demands physically and mentally along with its healing blessings.

You find out through the all-silent retreat just how strong (or not) your mind is and how able you are to be within yourself with just your thoughts 💭 and feelings to keep you company. Oh, and of course, your rumbling tummy! I thought I would die but I didn’t.

I urge you to read this excellent article by Leah Cox as posted in the Kindness Blog:

How 10 Days of Silence Cured My Binge Eating Habit – by Leah Cox.

http://dhamma.org

fourth sign of the zodiac

While “Wild Geese” remains a favorite, I was especially taken with a four-part poem titled “The Fourth Sign of the Zodiac,” found in Oliver’s sublime 2014 collection Blue Horses: Poems (public library). It is partly a bow to her recent triumph over cancer, and partly a score to the larger tango of life and death which we all, wittingly or not, are summoned to dance daily.

Like so much of her work, it is an uncommonly direct yet beguiling love letter to vitality itself, poured from the soul of someone utterly besotted with this world which we too are invited to embrace.

THE FOURTH SIGN OF THE ZODIAC (PART 3)

I know, you never intended to be in this world.
But you’re in it all the same.

So why not get started immediately.

I mean, belonging to it.
There is so much to admire, to weep over.

And to write music or poems about.

Bless the feet that take you to and fro.
Bless the eyes and the listening ears.
Bless the tongue, the marvel of taste.
Bless touching.

You could live a hundred years, it’s happened.
Or not.
I am speaking from the fortunate platform
of many years,
none of which, I think, I ever wasted.
Do you need a prod?
Do you need a little darkness to get you going?
Let me be as urgent as a knife, then,
and remind you of Keats,
so single of purpose and thinking, for a while,
he had a lifetime.

How many roads did St. Augustine follow before he became St. Augustine?

People are more apt to remember a poem and therefore feel they own it. And can speak it to themselves, as you might a prayer.

Mary Oliver

light

rumi’s wise words

You think because you understand ‘one’ you must also understand ‘two’, because one and one make two. But you must also understand ‘and’.

Powerfully put.

Rumi is an excellent Professor of the Natural World, teaching respect for nature by highlighting the wonders of the natural environment. Humans must treat nature respectfully and lovingly, by preserving it, not wasting it, and studying it carefully as God’s Viceregents, to recognize and respect the Creator behind the creation. Rumi never allows his students, nor his readers, forget that the universe guides us to higher knowledge of our Creator and Sustainer.

His beautiful words live on till today, and here are some of my favorite quotes by Rumi:

And still, after all this time, the Sun has never said to the Earth, “You owe me.” Look what happens with love like that. It lights up the sky.

Travel brings power and love back into your life.

Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.

Only from the heart can you touch the sky.

If light is in your heart, you will find your way home.

Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.

Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.

Whenever we can manage to love without expectations, calculations, negotiations, we are indeed in heaven.

Listen with ears of tolerance. See through the eyes of compassion. Speak with the language of love.

Be like the sun for grace and mercy. Be like the night to cover others’ faults. Be like running water for generosity. Be like death for rage and anger. Be like the Earth for modesty. Appear as you are. Be as you appear.

Whoever’s calm and sensible is insane!
You are not just the drop in the ocean. You are the mighty ocean in the drop.
When someone is counting out gold for you, don’t look at your hands, or the gold. Look at the giver.

When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.

Dancing is not just getting up painlessly, like a leaf blown on the wind; dancing is when you tear your heart out and rise out of your body to hang suspended between the worlds.

Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

Try not to resist the changes that come your way. Instead let life live through you. And do not worry that your life is turning upside down. How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the one to come?

Two there are who are never satisfied — the lover of the world and the lover of knowledge.

Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.

Peaceful is the one who’s not concerned with having more or less. Unbound by name and fame, he is free from sorrow from the world and mostly from himself.

Set your life on fire. Seek those who fan your flames.

And finally, I have never been happier to quote someone so wise – “Either give me more wine or leave me alone.”

may love be with you all days, not just on valentine’s

Happy Valentines Day to those who have found love, in whatever shape or form, and to those who are still hunting, don’t give up. If you feel bad, send yourself a card. You must be worth it…

The quote above is by Jeanette Winterson and is one I like for it speaks of not only loving another in whatever shape or form, which includes good friends and people you care about deeply, but ultimately it is about loving and cherishing the one who looks back at you when you look at a mirror.

There are many things that have been said about Love over time.

C. S. Lewis, who was a very wise man, in his book the The Four Loves:

There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.

Quite profound I feel and true. You may as well be dead if your heart is closed off.

Another writer once said:

I simply want to tell you that somehow I can’t imagine life without you…

I love you, I want you, I need you unbearably… Your eyes — which shine so wonder-struck when, with your head thrown back, you tell something funny — your eyes, your voice, lips, your shoulders — so light, sunny…

You came into my life — not as one comes to visit … but as one comes to a kingdom where all the rivers have been waiting for your reflection, all the roads, for your steps.

So I leave you with this… Love yourself in ways you never have before and the rest will follow, as it surely will. It is my hope that you find love today and always.

Be kind to yourselves.

on friday the 13th, i have 13, zen inspired, valentine’s cards

There is a Buddhist teaching found in the Sallatha Sutta, known as The Arrow. It says if an arrow hits you, you will feel pain in that part of your body where the arrow hit; and then if a second arrow comes and strikes exactly at the same spot, the pain will not be only double, it will become at least ten times more intense.

The unwelcome things that sometimes happen in life—being rejected, losing a valuable object or person are analogous to the first arrow. They cause some pain.

The second arrow, fired by our own selves, is our reaction, our storyline, and our anxiety. All these things magnify the suffering. Many times, the ultimate disaster we’re ruminating upon hasn’t even happened.

So fret not, I believe, is the lesson here along with living and accepting your suffering. After all, no mud, no lotus. So if your painful arrow comes from unrequited love, breathe that in, and breathe it out.

Trust in the process.

Water the flowers 🌸 in you, and in others.

Enjoy these cards….

my love letter to london

My dearest London,

Our anniversary is coming up. Tell me what would you like sweetheart?

Another Eye? Or a clock tower?

How about another river that flows through you and your many nooks and crannies? As the wise philosopher Heraclitus once proclaimed, one can never step in the same river twice but you and I both know the Thames needs a respite from all who have muddied your waters. I’m sorry if I’ve added to it on many a boat ride I’ve taken to visit your sister, Cutty Sark.

I think we’ve been good to each other. We’ve had our falling out from time to time but show me which couple hasn’t.

You know our relationship is one that fluctuates from love to hate at any given moment in time. This can’t be helped. You can be so cold in your ways always wanting more from me, everytime. You take and take! But I’ll give you this — unlike previous lovers, you’ve not made me any promises. So no promises broken as none were made. And I must admit that in my more contemplative moments I do know you’ve given me a lot, well all that you can at least and for this, I shall always be grateful. We don’t talk about it much but I know that you know only too well that I left my previous lover KL, in the Far East, to be with you. And although there have been moments I’ve longed for my old love I know that I could never leave you. You mean too much for me to walk away. And I hope, in my own small, silly and many clumsy ways I’ve given you something back too?

So let me know my darling what you’d like for our anniversary. It’ll be 13 years soon and what a whirlwind of an affair we’ve had. I quietly look forward to more.

I ask only this — please be good and gentle to me like you know I will, to you.

All my love,
A xxx

love letter to london, #3

We’re all right mugs, aren’t we? Falling in love with London, I mean. It’s been four years, for me, and we’re still in that mad, infatuated phase when you just can’t get enough of each other. We spend every weekend together, and invitations from bemused friends as far-flung as Milton Keynes..! go politely declined. Hell, even a trip to Zone 3 requires at least four weeks’ notice and a damn good reason. Like a funeral, or some sort of fabulous pop-up restaurant.

And it’s the most high maintenance relationship I’ve ever had; more demanding than the most jealous of lovers and more expensive than even the boyfriend who consistently nicked my moisturiser for two whole years. Caught in a city crammed with cocktail bars, cabaret clubs and Michelin star-spangled restaurants, we Londoners live our lives in a perpetual state of FOMO. It’ll suck you down and spit you back out, empty-pocketed and bag-eyed, but dripping with stories and memories of good times past.

Occasionally, someone breaks free of London’s siren song and heads – literally – for the hills. Hills, or another faraway metropolis, where the price of a roof to call your own falls somewhere within the great bell curve of possibility. The rest of us, content to spend our years gleefully hurling tens of thousands of pounds into that yawning black chasm called Rent, wish them well, and carry on.

Like I said, we’re all mugs. It’s crazy the things we do, isn’t it, when we’re in love?’

Read more of Emily’s musings at curious-london.co.uk