Holy Cow (or goat, in this case); It’s nearly mid-March and spring on Hvar!
While I spent most of February trying to stay on top of things (and feeling like a semi and sometimes complete failure at that, well, for the most part) the month managed to slip by without me posting a monthly blog post.
Ooops… shame on me! Here’s to celebrating my commitments to myself and my proud accomplishments, right?!
The thing is, I was a bit stuck with the topic for the month of February, which was related to the theme of love, a topic where a vast array of “experts” give all kinds of advice to the point that we often feel inundated with those tips and perhaps even depressed that we are not quite getting it right in one or more areas of the vast categories connected to love and loving relationships.
I didn’t want to add to the overkill, and certainly not make anyone depressed with my impressive insight on the topic (giggle, giggle), although I did want to share some thoughts on love, as that is the path I have chosen to lead me where I am today and it has brought many wonderful rewards and plenty of incredibly moving life lessons, so perhaps I do have something of value to share on the topic, afterall?!
All that in mind, I set about approaching the topic from a less-exploited angle, and I was getting somewhere (though not sure where, in fact, the whole piece was headed)... Admittedly, I never found the time to finish the post (perhaps I’ll get around to it in the future?). It had to do with the incredible love that is Universal Life Force energy and how it has ultimately influenced my path...
Blame it on the baby, blame it on the running list of things to do in preparation for the upcoming retreat season, blame it on the personal crisis I am going through on a daily basis of experiencing poor time-management issues (that surely many new mothers experience, too, right?!)…
Blame it on whatever, but the fact remains, I let myself down and missed the self-imposed deadline, again.
And, guess what? That’s okay, too.
If we don’t fail, it means we aren’t trying. And that means we are not growing. But when we keep on trying, eventually we will get it right! So onwards I go!
March is one of my very favorite and also one of my least favorite months and I am committed to getting a post out there. So here it is. (Allow me to ramble on...)
Why is this important to me, you may ask? There are no blog-police out there ready to arrest a person for failing to share their voice. And perhaps there are very few people actually following my posts, anyway!
The thing is, I do care, because I have made a commitment to freeing my throat chakra so that it flows more openly and meaningfully and broadly, as I am a communicator at heart, though I have not exposed myself intimately in a public way for a very long time (and for specific reasons, which perhaps I will address another time).
There are so many things I have wanted to share with you, dear friends, about life, about being an ex-“normal person” who rediscovered herself as a modern-day yogini, about being a spiritual being walking the path and sometimes getting lost or hitting a wall and having to take an unplanned detour, about what it’s like being a mom again after 21 years and running a business simultaneously at that, about what it’s really like to live in paradise - off season! - about what it takes to run and lead a retreat center… and about the essence of being a woman, or simply just being...
But, for now, I shall revert back to this post's theme, so beautifully inspired by the month of March.
And here you have it, the theme for this month is - Keep UP!
First, allow me to share why March is both one of my favorite and one of my least favorite months and then what I mean by keeping up. First, March is welcome because it’s that time of year when the signs of spring are all around us, popping up quite suddenly, budding and then miraculously blossoming, and continuing to do so to a further degree each and every day until we suddenly find ourselves completely surrounded by and immersed in the gloriousness of Spring!
The days are getting longer, the temperature is rising, the sun, when it shines through those infamous stormy spring clouds, does so with such radiance and awesome power that you can almost feel summer just around the corner, too.
The inspiration of March is undeniable.
But with that inspiration comes PRESSURE - the pressure to keep up, though you might be feeling "spring fever-ish", literally or figuratively or sometimes both. It can be very draining! And here comes that darn flu, just when you were building momentum, or some other annoying setback!
You’ve spent the past 3 or 4 months waiting-out the darkness (hopefully keeping one eye of awareness on the seeds of your intention for your life that you planted way back in November, December and January), knowing that you’ve got quite a wait still ahead of you before you will see any actual real physical progress on those intentions coming into full manifestation (that's summer's calling, by the way).
Well, March, along with April, offers both hope and despair in that respect. The hope brought on by the warming, longer, sunnier and more productive days, and the despair that accompanies the longing for those darn things to manifest while they seem to have a mind of their own, just like the weather itself... When will they poke through the surface and produce a sweet flower of hope and joy and inspiration and beauty?
So, although I am not (directly) bearing my heart on a personal level here in this particular post, my intention is to tell you the one thing I tell myself at this time of year.
And that is, “Keep UP!” And keep up with a committed passion.
Step up the pace of your conscious path-walking incrementally over the next three months till peak moment at Summer Solstice. As each day passes, so too do the days get longer, allowing you to make much more progress in shining the light on your hopes for your life in the upcoming future, and also in the NOW.
That leads me to my second bit of advice for March - BE PRESENT!
Do this by becoming aware of your breath. Let your breath clear your mind while you keep up with your commitments to yourself with a passion. You can practice this during your personal sadhana. Practice on the mat leads to mastery off the mat.
You can do it!
In my January post, I spoke about my usual end-of-the-year, start-of-the-New-Year rituals. In addition to taking life inventory - making a list and checking it twice - I also mentioned how my sadhana helps me to keep it all together, body, mind and soul.
Well, this month, one of the things I am stepping up is the pace and intensity of my personal practice because I need the strength, stamina and a high level of productivity to carry me through toward that peak moment when I come face to face with the beautiful blossoms I have planted for myself way back when.
I am committed to intensifying what I do and how often I do it, from every other day - which was just right for winter - to every day (or nearly) - with the exception of Sundays - a family day for us and a day when I might just like to be a little lazy instead - which feels just right for Spring, come rain or shine!
In addition to my sadhana, it is also the time of year when my required office hours start to increase as the enquiries and reservations come through at an ever increasing pace, until the very fine day when we open our doors for the new retreat season, which marks a time for a new groove altogether… So all I need to do now is keep UP and BE Present!
Hey, blossoming time is really just around the corner and I am GETTING READY for that beautiful moment (my third bit of advice for March)!
How about you?
What are you prepping for or what do you need to get yourself psyched up to do this springtime so that you can wreep the rewards later this year?
My sincerest overall suggestion to harness the energy of this month is to ask yourself what aspect of your own life you can step up to a new level of awareness and commitment to, and get to it - pronto, and with a feverent passion, a lust for life!
And, along with that, don’t forget to consider the path you’ve been on as of late, and whether you might need to tweak that a bit to get where you want to be right on time and in your fullest, most excellent state of Self.
I’ve made several other commitments to myself, by the way, which are of a more personal nature and which I am very excited about, too, though for now I will keep those to myself... my throat chakra needs some test driving, me thinks, before it reveals all!
I would like to share, however my biggest professional commitment and goal for this month is to get information out there about our upcoming events via an all new, 2016 Interview Series with Visiting Teachers, where you will have the chance to “meet” this year’s lineup of teachers in a more personal way (or continue getting to know them better, as some of them are returning guest teachers who we have already done preliminary interviews with).
Hopefully in getting to know the thoughts and intentions of our teachers, and in learning more about their own spiritual pathway, you will find yourself inspired by and resonating with the pearls of insight they share as they talk about aspects of their own life worth mentioning.
So be on the lookout for that and more.
Wishing you a successful, active, progressive Spring, full of inspiration, passion, attention to detail, courage, steadfastness, love and light!
Evening