grab life by the arm....

''grab life by the arm and tear chunks of flesh from its bones with our teeth...''

'100 months' john hicklenton

the sun makes a rare celebrated appearance over the skies of manchester...bringing the bluest of blue sky space...the lighting up of paving stones, arms exposed, wheels glinting, warming skin as one moves to the city beat...maybe the sun knows that its a special energetic day today..the summer solstice...the highest 'yang' point of the year...the longest day...maybe it came out in tribute, basking in its own glow :-)

whilst reading about this shift of the cycles of the earth, i am struck by the fact that today and from this week onwards, we are at the turning point towards 'death'....yikes...did i just write that??!! well..yes...as the sun stands still (the meaning of solstice) it, if you like, now turns around to make its journey inwards, slowly of course (thank god), but inevitably...

the quote that stands at the top of this post i have had stored in my phone for a while now...one of those pieces of word jigsaws that makes a mark, that resonates somewhere well below chin level (if i recall correctly, this '100 months' book is a graphic novel...hmmmm..i love graphic novels!)..i like its almost untamed, wild and animal like tease of how to live life...indeed i have been reflecting lately on whether we really choose to live 100%...do you give 100% of yourself, to your family, your time with friends, in your lovemaking, to the service we call work, to walking the sun shined streets of your home place?..do you allow yourself to receive 100% of what life offers to you, letting it seep into the very fibers and pores of your cells, blood, memory, to become integrated in deepest wisdom, foolish adventuring and knowing experience?...my guess is that, like myself i quite frankly must add, you do not

to practice turning up in all of who we are and how we are into the play called life everyday is the practice of inviting ourselves more fully into being 'alive'...to each moment..to every emotion...every thought...pleasant or otherwise...all of our tools n techniques gleaned from perhaps a multitude of life long learned discilplines gear us towards this simple premise...be awake..be alive..listen..feel....and soften to fold our kindness and curiousity around all that arises....its our responsibility, 100% to choose either to react (usually through fear), or respond (through love and faith), to the patterns and often chaos that is part of being in the ocean of life


it does feel as though the times we live in are creating a mass of possible change and with that, a sense of chaos...can we dance with the chaos? surrender into its frenzied whirl just enough to ride the waves? in doing so we have a real chance of (cheesy cliche alert!!), swimming in the sea of life ;-)


i am exploring all of this in the ongoing quest towards a life lived more fully...sure, i recognise how often i can disappear 'under water' for a while, bobbing in the mass, waiting to pop up somewhere new, blindly hoping for perhaps jonahs whale to pass by, carry me, and force me out on a pale of exhaled breath and a gallon of water, onto shores new!....hmmmm, perhaps not taking responsibility here me thinks!...not to mention i will not have been paying attention to the journey (shit another new age cliche) or the view!!...


the solstice reminds me, and oh god, how that reminder is always a welcomed balm, to stand still...to stop...to drop into being....to feel it all in its imperfectly perfect play of pleasure pain and the passing moments of time...i am learning, slowly, often with a bucketload of resistance, to embrace it all, knowing as i give in and do so, i can, effortlessly surf the seemingly impossible wave (well, i might as well make it a hat trick!)...

water teaches us flow, yet fire is the element associated with this summer solstice, and the task of 'going through the fire', standing in its heat, offering all that we wish to burn up, is the key here...open your heart...soften your belly...and invite into the party all the absent parts we have chosen to leave tucked away, locked up and hidden, that which hurts or pinches the tissues of our memories, all the points and parts that gnaw away at the wonder of our wondrousness, poisoning ourselves against, well, our self...as we drop and pour this obscure and oppressing tangle, the fire in its alchemy blows all to ashes, relieving us, lightening us, allowing the gradual sigh of release into the quiet whispers of the next moment....here we are...here we are...

so as we approach the knowing of certain death, one day, some day, we may be sure, with a heart centred certainty, that we gave as much as we could, to the 100% of our uniquely grit n gift filled life!

as stephen levine, meditation and buddhist teacher advises, 'complete your birth before you die' 

solstice blessings lovely beings

xxx