P.E. Kavanagh's Blog, page 6

Birthing Stars: More Tales from Alonnisos

You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.

Friedrich Nietzsche

 

In Greek mythology, the term Chaos refers to the “formless void” that eventually became the Cosmos. It represents the nothing that created everything – water, earth and air. Initially an indiscernible mess, transmuted by the force of progress to order and civilization.

I absolutely adore this version of chaos. Instead of being the force that thwarts us, it becomes the ground of all creation, the place from which all possibilities transform into realities.

Being a parent is chaotic.

Being an entrepreneur is chaotic.

Being in relationship is chaotic.

Being a human is chaotic.

There you have it. Inescapable.

Those are my personal examples. I’m sure you have plenty more of your own.

Right now, the one most present for me…

 Traveling is chaotic.

 My snow-globe life gets a vigorous tumble, and all of a sudden it’s raining sparkles. Patterns, schedules, routines and responsibilities are buried, not to be found until the shaking stops.

I understand how chaos can be unnerving. Trust me. (Just take my blood pressure anytime I approach my daughter’s room.)

Here’s my new question: What can be born here? (And hopefully the answer isn’t a brand new species of dust bunny.)

*When my day is no longer anchored by school drop-offs and pick-ups, what can be born in that space? Or is it better served remaining open?

*When the routines of when to eat, sleep and work are disrupted by time zones and culture, can a new way of being – a BETTER way of being – be born?

*When the chaos stems from an over-fullness (as it does for nearly everyone I know), what most gracefully drops away so that peace has the chance to root?

Science substantiates the Greek mythology – molecules bumping into each other (chemistry), planets bumping into each other (astronomy), or the infinite potential held in the space between quantum particles (physics). This is all the dance of creation.

Here I am, in the homeland of mythology and modern science, dancing with my own resistance to all I cannot control in my own life. Even in this moment, despite its perfection, I notice a dark cloud on the horizon, which could easily bring a violent storm.

 

 

How inconvenient it would be to be rained on. Could I find shelter quickly enough not to get drenched?

This line of questioning might keep me safe (and dry) but it frankly saps any possibility of adventure from the situation (as well as taking my attention unnecessarily away from the stunning beauty I’m currently experiencing.)

Here’s a welcome improvement: What can be born?

My answer in this particular moment:

Deeper enjoyment of the moment without the taint of worry

Access to the magic that turns fear into excitement

An anxiety-free plan to remove myself from harm

A greater trust in the Universe’s care of me

That’s a whole lot of good stuff.

 

Where in your life is the question desperately wanting to be asked? What can be born here?

Tell me below.

 

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Into the Heart of It: Tales from Alonissos

In the past 36 hours I’ve traveled through New Jersey, Zurich, Athens, and Skiathos (a large Greek island) to get to Alonnisos (a small Greek island).

I’ve been on a large plane, a medium-sized plane, a small plane, a boat and several taxis that ranged from a Mercedes sedan to a beat-up Fiat. I’ve climbed a cobbled hillside in unfortunate wedges, and sprinted through an ordinarily orderly airport. I’ve offered all my tissues to the distraught woman next to me, and received warm embraces from people I had not seen in a year, and who I was sure would never remember me.

With each step on this full journey, a layer of my high-brow, high-tech, high-output life is peeled away. I strip-tease into my own naked grace.

I don’t choose big cities any more – London, Paris, Tokyo and the like have lost their appeal. In my physical travels as well as the spiritual ones, I pass through civilization before getting to the heart of things. The journey takes me from disordered order to ordered disorder.

My soul seeks out the places where adventure and simplicity lie intimately together.  (Tweet that!)

Where life is pared down to its basic elements – eat, sleep, work. And love.

With every step, I release the familiar responsibilities (although not completely) and take on the chaos of existence. Up and out and through and beneath I go. The essence of who I am shifts from protected and productive to bare and open.

Thankfully my travel amnesia (the apparent first cousin to birth amnesia) has wiped out all memories of how challenging this particular trip is. I arrive in a ragglety-tagglety mess. But that last boat ride, where I allow the ocean breeze to whip my hair around my face, and the sun to fill me with energy, replenishes my inner reservoir. My body could sure use a nap, as could my mind, but my heart is vibrantly overflowing.

Even before I step onto the ground of this remote island, the pulse is tuning me to the heart of it. It’s just quiet enough for me to hear.

As I arrive, coming to terms with all that I’ve shed to get to this place – in my life, in my career – I allow the rightness of this moment to touch my newly revealed tender spots. The asynchronous beats find a shared rhythm. Within and without.

I will spend these two weeks enjoying some of my favorite things – writing, yoga, communing with seekers and creators. And let’s not forget the ocean, the food and… ahem… the men.

The anticipation tickles me like rising champagne bubbles, intoxicating me into the possibilities of what will be. I snuggle in and burrow down, trying but not trying to settle even more deeply into the heart of it.

 

Where do you go, physically or otherwise, to find the heart of it? Tell me below.

 

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Yoga and Ecstasy

She reminded me of a cat. Not a skittish house cat, but a fierce African jungle cat – a cougar or leopard perhaps. Muscular and lithe, with nary a wasted movement, she wore what one might find on a Brazilian beach so that we could view the entirety of her perfectly formed body.

Lisa, our teacher, consistently brought students to tears, followed almost immediately by their falling deeply in love with her. It surprised me that there were so few men in class – she regularly pulled her top and micro shorts up or down to show us the workings of specific muscles – but perhaps the men were most afraid of her. She epitomized Durga – fierce, powerful and divinely feminine.

With a flick of her waist-length honey blonde hair, she would own your body and soul.

Lisa taught the most intense form of yoga I had ever encountered, even in my 10+ years of devout study. The method was designed to break the body – literally – so that it could be rebuilt – better, stronger, faster.

I was the most advanced of the students in our advanced teacher training. My body was supple and willing, and I fully surrendered to her teachings. She loved me, and I felt like the chosen one.

She would bring me more deeply into poses than I had ever imagined, sometimes laying her entire body on mine for leverage to ply my bones and muscles into the desired form. I did things I did not imagine were physically possible.

We were doing a cleanse of the physical body that day, with an exploration of the chakras. It was as grueling as it had ever been.

We were in a twisted lunge – legs splayed, thighs burning, torso wrung like a dishtowel, breath entering only in small sips. And we stayed. And we stayed.

“The real pose begins only when you want to get out of it,” she would say, a quote from one of her teachers, BKS Iyengar. That happened within 30 seconds, and here we were, minutes later, wanting to scream or cry or vomit.

I was at the front of the room, demonstrating while she spoke. I closed my eyes, which was strictly forbidden, but I needed something to calm myself, to collect myself, to sustain what felt impossible.

An ocean of purple filled my awareness. For a brief moment I thought maybe I had just had aneurysm. Would I die here, in front of everyone?

The overwhelming feeling of bliss countered my fears. I began to breathe into the body that was no longer in suburban New Jersey, but had somehow united with God.

I saw everything, and everyone, simultaneously as pulses of love-based energy.

Sounds disappeared, except for a ringing Om which filled me from the inside out.

I am not sure how long I floated there, in grace and love and infinite awareness, but was awoken by the call of my name – “Pascale! Pascale! You may come out of the pose now.”

My body moved in slow motion, as if my parts were just getting beamed back from wherever they had been transported. I could not stand up. My legs had not arrived yet. So I sat, and dropped into a bottomless meditation.

Lisa began to understand something had happened to me, and approached me with the gentleness of a sleep walker.

“Just stay there, OK?”

And she continued on with the rest of the class.

I began to find my way back to the present and eventually completed the class with the rest of the students.

No one noticed, so entangled in their own physical exertion and emotional battles.

I could not speak about what happened, and left quietly.

When I returned the next day, all appeared normal, whatever that meant. From that day on, however, my study of the science of yoga died and I began to understand what I was doing as nothing less than a personal path to ecstasy.

Each breath, each reach, each burn, began to both include and transcend my physical body. Whether the experience was primarily intellectual, emotional or physical, each practice burrowed into my soul, demonstrating to me the deep veil of my thoughts and illusions.

I think about all those in the yoga community who have not been guided to this vista of seeing, feeling and knowing. I think about ‘trendy’ yoga, ‘elitist’ yoga and ‘make me bleed’ yoga and I hope that all those roads eventually arrive at the wide, vast field of self-awareness and the tangible experience of our undeniable divinity. I hope that ecstasy, in whatever dosage serves our human journey, takes its place on the mat once again.

 

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