“Freedom is the possibility of isolation. You are free if you can withdraw from people, not having to seek them out for the sake of money, company, love, glory or curiosity, none of which can thrive in silence and solitude. If you can’t live alone, you were born a slave. You may have all the splendours of the mind and the soul, in which case you’re a noble slave, or an intelligent servant, but you’re not free. And you can’t hold this up as your own tragedy, for your birth is a tragedy of Fate alone. Hapless you are, however, if life itself so oppresses you that you’re forced to become a slave. Hapless you are if, having been born free, with the capacity to be isolated and self-sufficient, poverty should force you to live with others.”

― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet 

Image: Unknown

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I will end this lecture by telling you that the fear is not real. It is truly an illusion, but you must go through it by feeling it. Through the gateway of feeling your weakness lies your strength; through the gateway of feeling your pain lies your pleasure and joy; through the gateway of feeling your fear lies your security and safety; through the gateway of feeling your loneliness lies your capacity to have fulfillment, love and companionship; through the gateway of feeling your hate lies your capacity to love; through the gateway of feeling your hopelessness lies true and justified hope; through the gateway of accepting the lacks of your childhood lies your fulfillment now. When you experience all these feelings and states, it is essential that you do not delude yourself into believing they are caused by anything you experience or fail to experience now. Whatever the now brings forth is only the result of the past which still resides in your system.

Through these gateways you will find true life. All the many temptations that beckon you to follow paths which imply that it is possible to find the spiritual reality of yourself without going through these gateways are wishful thinking. There is no way around what has accumulated in you and has poisoned your whole system- your spiritual, your psychological, and often also your physical system. This poison can be eliminated only by feeling wha you hoped you could avoid feeling. Then a new energy influx comes in ever greater measure. Many of you have experienced to some degree what I am saying here, and therein lies your growth. But you all have to go further in this regard. The self-punishment for hatred and spite, for cruelty and greed, for selfishness and one-sided demands upon others must be released so you can go into the terror of your fear, your shame, your pain. When you stop fighting this, you will become real, open, and truly alive.

~ Eva Pierrakos

Photography: Rakotzkybrücke, Germany via Isle of Skye

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“According to the tenets of Easter Occultism, DARKNESS is the one true actuality, the basis and root of light, without which the latter could never manifest itself, nor even exist. Light is matter, and DARKNESS pure Spirit. Darkness, in its radical metaphysical basis, is subjective and absolute light; while the latter in all its seeming effulgence and glory, is merely a mass of shadows, as it can never be eternal, and is simply an illusion, or Maya.”
~ Helena Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine

There is a bias in the spiritual communities towards the light born out of a rejection and fear-laced perception of darkness while professing to believe in the oneness of all. Something I have fallen into as well for a while as nagging thoughts and sensations pointed to the logical contradiction and incompleteness of this attitude, inciting me to keep researching and meditating on it. In time it was easy to perceive the avoidance and subconscious patterns of victim mindsets and fear programming at play in this as well as the dualistic and oversimplified christian narratives.

I realized that our understanding of darkness affects our capacity and effectivity in our shadow work. Therefore it was not much of a surprise to me how lacking the shadow work of those who hold on to the above mentioned light bias mostly is. How can you own your shadow aspects when you demonize darkness while aggrandizing light? Who will bear the pain or shame of facing that they are holding aspects of what they reject and deny?

To see darkness through the eyes of the eastern masters is to dive into the mystery and truth of the inter-oneness of Yin & Yang. To know the inherent oneness of light and darkness, to learn to recognize it in all that surrounds us and is within us. 

The nature of existence opens up to the observer who can let go of his attachments to dual perceptions of right/wrong, male/female, etc. Duality, though being a fundamental principle of our Universe, eventually merges into the oneness of consciousness on a higher or existential dimension. The inquiry into and contemplation of oneness are pathways of decolonizing and deconditioning ourselves in order to experience and know reality as it is and not through inherited and distorted filters.

Seeing darkness as a mother principle that birthed our universe of light and matter takes us closer to the creative potentiality of the void and allows us to meet our shadow aspects without fear and find healing through our curiosity, compassion and love for them as we do our self work.

Darkness is another expression of the One, nothing to fear, recoil from or oppose. What sense does opposing make in a universe where resistance creates persistence by feeding our energy to that which we fight?

We can calmly face it, shine our light of awareness on it and pierce through its Maya (illusion) to perceive deeper truths and principles at play in our moment and experience. We might even glimpse the “light of darkness” — its elegance and beauty in the universal play of consciousness as we perceive from higher mind and consciousness.

Artist: Unknown

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I still cannot quite wrap my head around the fact that we can think we are honest with ourselves and then Life holds up the most unlikely of mirrors up to us and lets us see aspects of ourselves and hear voices within we keep ourselves blinded to. We are truly complex and confounding creatures. What a humbling gift it is to be taught a fuller acceptance of ourselves as Life meets us with unwavering unconditional acceptance and love!

The ongoing focus in my self work has been on shifting my response to things which trigger my traumas or strongly emotionally charged beliefs. I have already come a long way but there are still these moments of defeat when my reactivities take over and I find myself locked into their play. This year I have been given new tools and the most challenging of contrasting teachers to understand and change my approach so I might be more effective in calming my mind body system when triggered and in totally dismantling the triggers one by one or in groups.

It always took a while to get to the root of a trigger or belief and a lot of energy and dedication to soften my reactivity bit by bit. But now I have received the tools to change it in one go, to create equanimity where once was the seed of fear, rage or feelings of unsafety and pain. 

What a gift it is when you find the right key and tools for a current layer of distortion you are focused on releasing and to see them work first once, then twice and then over and over again. 

To see shackles that held you for decades imprisoned fall off your being and breathe into this new freedom is the grace afforded me by this mystical and divine Life… I cannot help wishing with the same breath that the same grace may be given to all beings in all dimensions and timelines. 

May we all find our freedom and peace in the love and light of our true nature and oneness!

How blessed I am, how blessed we are…

Bowing in gratitude to the mystery and generosity of Life!

Photography: At the End by Adrienne McNellis

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„@harnaamkaur and I are tired of your shitty gender roles. We shot this series for @theparallelmag to challenge what people are “allowed to do.” She has a beard due to a medical condition. She loves it and kills it! As for me, I just want to wear a skirt sometimes cuz I think it can look dope! The fact we socially relegate these fashion and styling attributes to certain genders just seems so frivolous and dangerous when you consider how aggressive people get when their confronted with these things that don’t fit into their understanding of how the world works. At the end of the day, just be yourself and love yourself and don’t judge others who are living that way. Think outside the parameters that we are lead to believe are absolute and see the world as it is! Much love to all of you!“
~ stayragged.tumblr.com

This resonates very much with my love for freedom of self expression and a global unity in diversity.
And I have to admit my beard crush as a the passionately beard averse I am when I look at @harnaamkaur‘s silky beard.

Here is something to contemplate for those who feel the need to reject, denigrate and shame others for their self expression or body:

„I am fond of reminding my yoga students of the saying “It takes one to know one” when they become lost I condemnation and judgment of others. The world that we perceive is a reflection of our own states of mind and reveals our own level of consciousness. The world is little more than a Rorschach blot in which we see our own desire systems projected. We see what we want to see.“
Prem Prakash

Wouldn’t it be easier to accept all of yourself and find peace and joy within as without? At minimum worth a try or two.

?: @sophieephotos
?: @kateoffthewall
?: @roxannechanelmurray

The post On Gender Roles appeared first on Venuskind.

This mean ego move is not unknown to me, I have been doing this and might be in the danger of doing so when triggered, out of ignorance and lack of sensitivity.

I understand the discomfort with labels some might feel with a view to how many people utilize them as a means of setting themselves apart, exotizing the other or rendering the unique human being behind it invisible in any other way.
I get the subtle ways words and labels can have a self-limiting and -isolating effect if we are not mindful. “I AM” is a very powerful self programming sequence that can be useful or create unexpected suffering when chosen unwisely.

Rejecting the use of any labels or self chosen prescriptive of others is an expression of a lack of respect and understanding of another human’s equality and sovereignty. It speaks to me of the person’s lack of freedom to be all of who he truly is due to strict critical and judgmental self-management.
Not using labels, as a shorthand to convey multi-layered concepts, ideas or identities without adequate explanations is showing a lack in communication skills and understanding of its challenges. When you side-step labels to monologize on their content you might be in danger of being disrespectful of another’s time and communication preferences.
If using an appropriate label gives you a feeling of being “less than” our being out of your league and makes you reject and reframe the meaning the labels instead it speaks of old pain of being shamed to me.

I have compassion for internal conflicts and protective patterns but fiercely oppose the externalization that hurts another’s feeling or becomes part of systemic oppression.
Our discomfort and pain are invitations to inquire, to educate ourselves and use the tools of language even if they are lacking. When we follow that invitation and explore we inevitably will be met in our shared humanity and enriched by the diversity of lived and embodied realities and the kaleidoscope of insights it affords those open to receive.

The freedom of some to relabel themselves and their preferences is an act of liberation for all, opening the pathway to understanding our society and freeing ourselves from any label that limits our self expression.

Respecting everyone’s freedom of expression and choice of labels is a small admission fee to our own freedom, don’t you think?

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