Leaning into Expansion
On the heels of the Summer Solstice; the creation energy that comes along with it for some of us can also sometimes lead to an ebb right after. At least it usually does for me, and then my energy turns towards expansion. How can I expand more into love, into my own consciousness, into my senses, and into life as an experience and an experiment.
Expansion to me has a different feel than creative action. I am more comfortable in creative action....really.Expansion feels like riding a wave, it feels like butterflies in the stomach which I used to confuse with anxiety (and truth be told expansion can still sometimes make me a little anxious). Like I am physically so much more than what is encased in my skin suit. And sometimes that feels a little scary. Like being on the edge, looking down and not seeing the bottom.
And jumping anyway.
The other day when I was doing my Kundalini yoga practice I was doing a kriya for some undetermined amount of time, and I just felt waves and waves of love wash through me, in me, from the Divine and out again, in the infinity. Over and over. These experiences are fairly common for Kundalini, but this was like any other I have experienced before. And so with expansion comes deep love, or is it the other way around? To know you are pure LOVE, that you are loved, and that you love deeply, is the expansion. It also shifts perspective. Sometimes I get in my ego mind, we all do. This was a recalibration for me to examine why I do what I do and do a check in to make sure its all from a place of love, not fear, not scarcity, not for recognition.
For me, expanding means to embrace new experiences, to engage all of my senses, sometimes one at a time with focus, sometimes taking one object and engaging every sense to observe it. For example, a rose not only smells Divine, it looks Divine, it feels Divine, it tastes Divine, and if you listen closely it sounds Divine. Hearing a rose is a new experience that expands me beyond my logical mind capacity. To look beyond what is right in front of me and open to new possibility. To ask the question, what does a rose sound like. That is expansion; asking the question to which you have no answer.
What ordinary thing can you experience in a new way?
Or what brand new experience are you musing on embarking upon that may be scary for you? Are you willing to try anyway? I am spending time with horses, at a some point very soon I will be riding one. WHAT! 47 years old and I am going to start riding horses? Am I nuts? Especially when every person who is a "horse" person doesn't hesitate to tell me about their injuries. Its like hearing horrific birth stories when you are pregnant. I would much rather be in ignorance. Not really but still. That stuff is like fodder for my inner worry wart. But I will do it anyway because I know that there is expansion in being a little scared and doing it anyway.
I am expanding in my work, and how I present it. I am expanding in my art practice and feeling more like working in the abstract in one moment, and then something really detailed the next. I am in the paradox. I am really, really enjoying the intuitive abstract painting, it really is play time for my consciousness. Without these experiences life would not be as rich. Without riding that wave between deep love and a little fear I wouldn't know how to love MORE. 6 years ago doing any "art" was not even in my consciousness, until it was. And then I stepped from the edge and nothing has given me more access to my inner landscape than doing it, as well as, teaching it. When you teach something to others, when you "show up" even when it's scary, when you allow yourself to be visible, when you are not perfect, you get to examine ALL of the stuff. All of the voices, all of the inner critic, all of it, and you get to transform it, in the act of doing it. What are you willing to expand into in order to share your gifts with others?
As we enter July and the fruits are coming into harvest, I invite you to engage all of your senses while enjoying them. I would love to hear how you are feeling at this stage and cycle of your journey. I am always here with eyes to witness, ears to listen, and a heart to feel as you navigate your way through your expansions.