Attachment to the inner attracted the outer.

Preference for emotional and spiritual intimacy attracted mere mental and physical intimacy. 

Preference and attachment to anything creates the experience of the contrast and thereby cultivates suffering. Such is the price of choosing to play in duality and separation consciousness.

Stepping back, releasing attachments and preferences, moving into equanimity and freedom from cycles of self-perpetuated and co-created suffering. I no longer am available for these games born of unconsciousness and conditioning.

And who would have known? Releasing attachments and preferences creates spaciousness and a vast vista of possibilities, which let what once was desired fade into obscurity. Conscious reality is a force of merciless destruction and indomitable truth and beauty.

I bow in gratitude to all the teachers and catalysts who helped me learn these lessons, blessing you and your gifts, no matter if they came dressed as joyful or devastating visitations.

I am complete yet remain forever unfinished.

Photography by Lopamudra Talukdar

The post Completion appeared first on Venuskind.

“But man always takes upon himself an endless burden. He refuses to let go of anything from his past, and so he stoops more and more beneath the weight of a useless accumulation. Have a guide for part of the way, but once you have travelled that part, leave it and the guide behind, and move on. This is something men do very reluctantly; once they get hold of something that helps them, they cling to it; they won’t let go of it. Those who have made some progress with Christianity do not want to give it up, and carry it on their backs; those who have made some progress with Buddhism do not want to leave it, and carry it on their backs. This weighs you down and slows you terribly. Once you have passed through a stage, drop it; let it go! And move on!”

~ The Mother

Photography: Madisin Rian by Jamie Nelson

The post Let it go appeared first on Venuskind.

Maybe because it never takes the brilliant and colorful form of the “Indian summer” where I grew up but is a rainy and uncomfortable prelude to the desolation of winter. Maybe because my ancestral lands never see a leafless tree unless it is dead and this image is deeply associated with death in my bones?

Intellectually I got why others perceive and embrace this season in a different way ever since I was a kid but emotionally it remained alien to me.

A few years ago something shifted in me and I could sense past the death of summer, the rains and carcasses of trees into the deeper alignment we have with these cycles internally. Now I welcome fall as a beloved friend modeling and reminding me gracefully of the most profound experience our human existence holds for us. 

When I am asked to let go of something that has grown dear to me, may it be a thought pattern, behavioral habit, place or person I have learned to emulate my tree teachers in lightening up the beauty shared and the gifts received in blazing colors of joy and aliveness before I leave them behind or let them go.

In doing so I have been initiated into one of the secrets of Life and its cycles. I have been granted a taste of the sweetness hidden behind sadness of letting go and witnessed sadness make way for a luminous awe for life, gratitude and a deeper trust.

Gained insight and trust that every autumn serves my rebirth when I let go of what no longer serves my soul, realign, rest, reflect and revise to create my next cycle from a higher template. Having gone through enough cycles of death and rebirth I have a knowing that spring will inevitably come at the perfect time and not only wash away heaviness accumulated in the stillness of winter but enliven me with its brilliance, beauty and overflow of creative energy.

Autumn has a magical meaning and feel to it for me now, which goes far beyond the holidays or creature comforts it is often associated with. The kind of magic and sacredness which life reveals to us when we unlearn our misperceptions, surrender to this journey and open ourselves to the depth of Soul’s wisdom and Spirit’s dance.

And just like that I am no longer bothered by the bleakness of dark grey skies, rains or cold anymore but lead home to my inner sun and process of looking back in gratitude and resting in a peaceful now as the seeds of another summer form and germinate in my heart and soul.

Photography: Unknown

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