Mind The Gap

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I don’t mind, actually.

No, not the sort of gap pictured – that could end a little messily at the wrong time.

I mean the hiatus; the space in between; the fallow period – call it what you will.

Elsewhere on this site I have explored whether being in that place ,willingly or not, is such a bad thing. See  Hiatus (Never Mind The Gap!) and In Transition  ,for example.

In the not too distant past, I found myself in a major life hiatus. At first I resented being in nowhere land(or at least that was how I saw it to be ). There were none of the usual markers and signifiers that routine and being busy, busy offered.

What I slowly grasped was that there I did not need to prove anything to anyone, did not to need to analyse the situation,  or agonise over what was next .In fact I just had to – be. That was uncomfortable for me but massively liberating in the end.

New things and miracles happened without me chasing them. This blogsite is not named accidentally.

It’s often said that we learn most from adversity or our mistakes,and that may be often true. However I think that the real progress is made in the “after space” of those things .

Self-realisation and change occur in that gap in events where motion stops, and we have time and permission to rest with our being and the universe.

You just can’t squeeze that shit in walking to the shops or in a coffee break between jobs….

 

 

Labels Are For Jars

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 “How many cares one loses ,when one decides not to be something ,but someone.”

        – Coco Chanel

This quote has almost been my mantra in the past year or so.

The creeping realisation came that I was defining myself by my various jobs,roles and external expectations , not by my core,essence and natural intuition. And I was losing myself in the process.

The labels that the world uses to pigeonhole us should not stick to us through everything , or anything all really, but they do .

Be warned ,you might just have to break a jar or two to lose those labels, and just be someone – you.

Glass broken, cares lost….

Temple And Courtyard

The third post in this series….this time the sweeping beauty of a Buddhist temple.

Factoid: I had cause to visit this place a year ago. You can light an incense stick from a candle and  make a prayer offering at the altar near the entrance. I burnt my finger in the process. Let out an undisguised and pithy expletive in the close presence of a monk. Hastily apologised. She smiled and said “That shows good self-awareness”. You have to love those who see the positive in anything….

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Buddhist Temple, East Tamaki, Auckland NZ