Dear Seamless One ,

I’m in the mood for short and sweet today:

I saw this recently, written by a wise Persian poet of long ago. It delighted me. It made me laugh, too.

Take a pitcher full of water and set it down in the water – now it has water inside and water outside. We mustn’t give it a name, lest silly people start talking again about the body and the soul. ~ Kabir

Too much name, name, naming lately and it has me a bit fatigued. Democrat, Republican, New Age or Christian, Body or Soul, Wrong or Right, This or That. So many things can be served better by less attention to naming. Naming can be important, but it can also create separation, setting things apart from each other, even at odds with each other. Especially things meant to be experienced together like people rather than factions.

Like body and soul. Are we really a spiritual being having a physical experience, or a physical being having a spiritual life? As Rumi suggests, why separate this, body and soul?

Body and soul – both equal in importance to why we are here. Both seamlessly who we are. To live on Earth, you really can’t have one without the other. Think about it: It’s not a choice.

The body needs what it needs: good nutrition, proper regard. It is not fed in the same way the soul is, though it is supported by the soul being tended to. The soul needs what it needs: pause, depth, self-awareness, and so forth. The soul isn’t satisfied with an apple a day, it has its own needs. But it is greatly supported by a healthy, well-tended body.

It’s not either/or. We are both of these, as one. Perhaps it is time to deeply understand the both-ness of things, letting them join like the twins they are for our sojourn here. Not ignoring our soul needs, nor over-emphasizing them. Not focusing more on the emotional than the physical, or giving more attention to the soul than the physical, or on any one of the seeming parts and pieces.

Not building identity around names and opposites like This or That. Instead, feeling human, not Democrat or recognizing one’s opinion without naming it the One right one.

All this separation into names and right and wrongs – and the division and acrimony it causes. It’s giving me a headache lately. I thought I’d just say so, in case you are feeling the same.

~ XOM 😊+😇 (humanly divine)

Article Highlights:

• I’m asking for prayers
• My new art practice
• Healing a tooth ache with art
• Igniting your kundalini fire

As we begin today, I wanted to clarify that the toothache mentioned here was by now a couple weeks ago. But I do want you to know that next week, on Wednesday, Oct 25, I’m having fairly extensive oral surgery. I wanted to ask those of you who might remember, and feel inclined, to help clear the drugs from my system afterward and facilitate excellent healing and a new infection free me.

Your prayers are powerful and I would love to have you at my back as I go under the knife 😀 . I’m really looking forward to having this surgery and getting my teeth taken care of at last. And putting an end to a long storied personal and family and ancestral oral history. Amen to all that!

I’ve mentioned here, briefly, that I’ve begun an art practice after being nudged to do so by Wisdom for more than 18 months. So in November of 2021 I jumped in the deep end and created some pieces to give to family when we got together for Christmas. They were well received.

I wanted to keep the art energy going so I decided to pick up art doodling again which I’ve done from time to time over the years while watching videos and such. I decided to think of it as art journaling and myself as an art dabbler. That allowed me to keep it casual and not start having a lot of mental ideas about why Wisdom was asking me to do art.

You know how the mind is: Are you changing careers? What’s this about, what does it all mean? What are you supposed to do with what you create? Why bother if you’re not doing anything with it? The mind can be such a pill, right? I avoided that by calling it journaling.

I set a few guidelines to help with that too. I didn’t want to be trying to be good, getting into the cycles of ups and downs that can come when you’re judging by proper art standards.

So my first guideline was: let every stroke, line, dot, color choice etc come from delight and personal preference. Not from color theory or composition, or any grown up idea about art. I decided to let it all be fun experimentation or creative impulse, not productive outcome.

I loved playing with crayons and paints as a child and that’s my aim – to be in a free, childlike place, immersed in the fun and joy of doing it. I’ve had soOoo much fun with it, taking it in any direction I want, doing anything I please. Including drumming-art-chant for the world, as you know. And now, a little art healing. Which is why I’m telling you all this today.

I had a recurrence of tooth pain on a weekend somewhat recently. My dentist wasn’t available so I was taking other measures to make it through until the Monday. One night I decided to try a little art therapy on it.

It may seem counter intuitive to try to paint while in physical pain because pain makes it hard to concentrate and one feels the need to lie about moaning. But, I reasoned, art is known to be therapeutic. I’d noticed when I was art journaling that it not only felt great mentally and emotionally, but my body was also responding positively to the art process. Maybe it could help the pain, which was keeping me from sleeping anyway. It seemed worth a try. (more…)

Dear Aspirant,

Perhaps you remember the first time you encountered your own indirectness? I do. I was sitting in a pub in London. It had been fun to walk to the pub with my friend and have a beer and snack but it was now super noisy and the fun had faded for me. And the smoke was really getting to me – cigarettes inside, remember those days?

So I asked my friend if they weren’t a bit jet-lagged and overwhelmed. Not at all, they replied, they were still having a great time – they weren’t at all bothered by the noise and were also capable of drinking a lot more beer than I can.

So I sat on for a bit and something unusual happened. The pub might seem a strange place for an Aha, but I was having one. My indirectness left me faced with a dilemma. Suffer or be direct.

It’s not that I’d never stood in front of this issue before – this was the 90s and I’d noticed this much earlier in my life of course. However, I’d more or less continued on as I was. Directness was still fairly sporadic for me. Like you perhaps. But now, in this noisy pub, things seemed to be adding up in a new way.

I saw this habit of indirectness anew. Many instances of it flashed before my eyes – it was a mini life review. I was feeling in me all the whys of it and the consequences. I was understanding how it worked and feeling the energetic drain of getting my needs met by projecting them on others.

You’re likely to agree that I’ve not been alone in this. It’s a part of early human training for many people unfortunately. Sadly, it keeps us from knowing ourselves more fully, except through projection. It doesn’t lead to deep personal intimacy.

I started something new there, in that pub. I told my friend I was going back to the hotel. I didn’t equivocate or explain or ask permission. I didn’t slip out unnoticed and without a word either… an old trick of indirectness. I just said I was ready to leave and I’d be back at the hotel unless I went for a wander first.

My friend enjoyed the social atmosphere quite a bit longer. They probably had more fun without me to tend to. I ended up meeting some lovely locals on a bench in the square. I had a great chat with them, picking up local lore. We were joined by a couple from Tasmania and were soon our own little social experience. This smaller, shorter and less overwhelming experience suited my preferences so much more. I loved it. It wouldn’t have happened if I’d kept mum and suffered through the smoke and noise.

I began from that time to make a greater effort to ask myself to be more direct. Which turned out to be VCool, of course, because more and more of my needs were now possible to satisfy. It’s such a relief to start to get better at this. Sometimes I still lapse though. It’s an old human habit, isn’t it?

I’ve been thinking about this lately because in my time in more Southern states I’ve had a question: is indirectness part of proper southern etiquette? I think directness might be considered… well… not quite right. It seems to make you stand out, in the wrong way.

So I’m musing into this again, thinking about that balance. It’s interesting to contemplate. And a good reminder for us all possibly, since so many of us are deeply trained to defer. It’s a practice – directness can be more of a path or a practice than a destination.

Occasionally I still envy people whose nature, or up-bringing, or astrology – or whatever – has made them very direct – or dare I say – even blunt, heaven forbid. I know that has it’s own challenges but mostly I see it’s advantages and greater freedom. And I aspire, I continue to aspire.

There are times though when bluntness just pops right out of my mouth, unedited. It always raises my own eyebrows. It takes me by surprise. It feels good, empowering. My mind often comes in later to regret it though, nervous and second-guessing… was it too much?

Some of you know what I mean. But I don’t pay that much attention to that anymore. The mind can be a nutter at times and it’s best put in timeout when that happens.

Aging helps, I’m glad to report- it gives more permission. For me anyway I more and more often have a feeling of simply not having time for self-abdication and other such nonsense any more. I’m glad for that. In fact, I’m celebrating that today. Here’s to being more and more directly who we really are. Life can serve us soOoo much better when we follow the Direct signs.

More directly yours,
~ Mayet Leilani