Little Flares of Coiled Delight

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“Life is your art. An open, aware heart is your camera. A oneness with your world is your film.” ~ Ansel Adams

The other day I had to pick up a new headset for my iPhone. I was down in Palo Alto, so I headed over to the Stanford Shopping Center. This is one of the most beautiful outdoor malls ever created…mainly for the flowers planted all around the center.

I hadn’t realized just how out-of-sorts I was feeling until I saw these Dahlias. As I stopped to really look at them, I realized just how much joy seeing the beauty in flowers brings me. They bring me home. I begin to breathe more deeply. I being to smile a soft smile. I feel joy, that soft easy joy that is such a field of contentment. This joy is the joy of an open aware heart that meets life without expectations.

Returning Home

In Women Who Run with the Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estes writes about the periodic need of women to go home, to return to the soul. Sometimes, we need to really get away to some place earthy and enchanted to remember the depth of what we are, and sometimes we can find a mini-retreat of sorts to reconnect to the soul.

As I continued to meander through the mall looking at flowers, I found this one. From the front, it is gorgeous in its openness. It’s not at all symmetrical. It has its own unique arrangement of petals. I loved that about it. Then, (and I don’t know what possesssed me to do this!) I looked behind it, at the back of it, and lo and behold! – there were these beautiful little curls that you see in the top image. I think she invited me in…

Seeing the coiled flares of delight she’s got going on behind her, sort of like under her skirts, caused me to wonder (I love the word wonder) what flares and curls and pink petals I’ve got stashed away, just waiting for a moment when the light shines upon them calling to them to come out of hiding. I know it’s something to do with bawdiness and laughter, delight and belly-shaking glee.

I know I’m shaking off the voices that have caused me to continue to believe that logic and reason reign supreme over delight and wonder, that having things figure out is much more important than settling down into the utter delight of not knowing a damn thing and being open to the delight of discovery, that clarity of argument will always win out over the powerful peace that comes when something is just what it is without the need to get anyone to understand. Ha…how totally devoid of delight, glee, and eros these voices were that I came to internalize!

How about you?

What coiled tendrils and flares are you keeping to yourself? What would others see if you were to give us access to those parts of you you’ve yet to unfurl, that you long to unfurl? Notice the uniqueness in this beauty. Where, and in what, does your uniqueness just wait to be invited out?

Where is that bawdiness in you, the place where delight, desire, and a good belly laugh are all that’s needed?

What mini-retreat might you have at your fingertips just waiting to take you home, back into the arms and lap of the goddess who delights in those little flares of soul?

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Life’s Darshan

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That which God said to the rose, & caused it to laugh in
full-blown beauty, he also said to my heart. ~Rumi

The other day, I had Darshan with Amma. It was delicious because it was filled with laughter…laughter mixed with love.

Amma is a woman, some say a saint, who has given her life to selfless service. She has created a global web of humanitarian services that are empowering women, feeding children, and responding to the immediate needs of millions of people affected by both natural and man-made disasters.

And, every day of her life, she spends hours giving Darshan to those who come to receive it. Darshan is a Sanskrit and Hindu term meaning sight (in the sense of an instance of seeing something or somebody), vision, apparition, or a glimpse. It can also mean to experience a realized Being, one such as Amma.

During her Darshans, Amma hugs you. You kneel down into her lap, and she hugs you. Now, this isn’t just a hug, it is a HUG. Everyone’s experience with Amma is different. Usually, I am simply filled with love.

The other day, it was a hug filled with laughter. As the woman ahead of me was receiving her Darshan, another woman brought a baby over to Amma and the baby began to laugh. Amma laughed. The baby laughed. Amma laughed. They began to just grin at each other, and I was kneeling right in front of the whole shebang as it unfolded.

I just watched the playfullness of the baby, mirrored in the playfullness of Amma. You know how laughter is contagious? Well, the virus began to spread. I reached in for my hug and as Amma hugged me, she was still laughing. I could feel her entire body moving as she heartily laughed. I mean REALLY laughed. And, she has this deep, earthy laugh that makes it all the more compelling. My entire body began to laugh, too. I experienced sheer delight as I was held in the arms of this incredibly strong and lovingly compassionate woman.

Love, laughter and delight.

This past week, I also spent time with my granddaughter Aveline, and my niece’s twins, Eli and Hannah. Again, laughter. So much laughter at the sweetest things, the simplest things, the most unexpected things. Bugs. Berries. Peek-A-Boo. Dancing when there was no music to be found. Dancing at the drop of a note. Fascination with the littlest details I pass over every day.

Aveline is twenty-one months old, and Hannah and Eli are twenty-months. There is a wonder and curiosity at this age that is totally contagious.

With babies and children, one moment there’s laughter, and in the next, crocodile tears; one moment there’s amazement and wonder, and in the next, the need for a generous, big mama hug. These babies in my life are always giving Darshan.

Laughter, delight and amazement are qualities of the feminine aspect of life, qualities always available to us all, when we step out of our analytical minds and into the graces of the heart. From here, we can see, know, feel and touch things we miss in the ‘figuring-it-all-out’ places of the mind.

Life is full of so much turmoil right now. And yet, wonder and curiosity, hugs and amazement, love, laughter and delight are here, too. Just maybe, we might find a way out of all these seemingly intractable problems by remembering the innate, spontaneous movement of love that appears when we remember our own innocence and listen for that which caused the rose to laugh in full-blown beauty.

Life is always offering Darshan. Are we curious enough and open to receiving it?

And, you?

What Darshan have you received lately? From life? From children? From who knows where?

This post is part of Dian Reid‘s blog challenge at Authentic Realities. Check our Dian’s blog challenge to learn about discover other bloggers writing about Self-Evidence and Authenticity.

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