Loving Our Inner Wild Nature

Fact:

I am a divine child of God with an unbreakable spirit and infectious optimism.

That is all I need to be.

Inspired by James Allen “As A Man Thinketh“

Wildlife and the wild woman are both an endangered species. Over time, we have seen the feminine instinctive nature looted, driven back and overbuilt.

For long periods it has been mismanaged like the wildlife and the wild lands.

For several thousand years, as soon and as often as we turn our backs, it is relegated to the poorest land in the psyche.

The spiritual lands of the wild woman have, throughout history, been plundered or burnt, dens bull dozed, and natural cycles forced into unnatural rhythms

to please others.

It is not by accident that the pristine wilderness of our planet disappears as the understanding of our own inner wild nature fades.

From Women Who Run With Wolves.

Running To The Truth, Instead of Hiding From Fear

Hot Yoga is not for everyone. Especially for those living in sticky, humid, steamy climates that reach upwards of 95 degrees in August by 10:00 am in the morning. For 90 minutes you are involved in a practice of moving meditation with a room full of others stretching and attempting to twist, reach and conquer the chatter of your mind and the stiffness of your body in 105 degree heat.

At the end of each class, our teacher may or may not say something prophetic – something mind opening –

As David, my yoga teacher said the other day –

There is nothing to hold on to – nothing we need to carry with us – we came into this world with nothing and we will leave with nothing. There is nothing to do, nothing say, nothing to be afraid of my dear.

Facing Our Fears

Tara Brach in her book Radical Acceptance on surrendering into the darkest of our nights. We must practice. Practice holding our fear near our hearts. Facing our fears is a lifelong training in letting go of all we cling to – and it is a training in how to die. Holding our deepest fears with kindness and resting in our seasons.

And how Rilke has poetically proclaimed – we practice daily by resisting nothing that happens, we remain openly awake with awareness.

This is the place that has room for both the living and dying.

How dear you will be to me then, you nights
of anguish. Why didn’t I kneel more deeply to accept you,
inconsolable sisters, and surrendering, lose myself
in your loosened hair.

How we squander our hours of pain.
How we gaze beyond them into the bitter duration
to see if they have an end.

Though they are really
our winter-enduring foliage, our dark evergreen,
our season in our inner year–, not only a season
in time–, but are place and settlement, foundation and soil
and home.

The Select Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke

Can You Change your Personality If You Change How Your Neurons Fire?

As a change of mind changes everything – even the brain itself.

It turns out that DNA expression is far, far more malleable than previously suspected. So malleable, in fact, that behavior, and more specifically, personality alone can cause it to change.

Just when it seems like scientists have everything figured out, high-level human studies into the nature of epigenetic mutation continue to reveal disruptive insights into the complex nature of mind-body interactions, such as the recent study published in the prestigious journal PLOS One, which suggests that the benefits associated with regular practice of yoga, meditation, and other related relaxation techniques influence our DNA quite readily as well.

Featured Artwork

Aykut Aydoğdu is a Turkish artist and graphic designer that produces surreal artworks with hidden meanings and thought-provoking visual metaphors.