Walk the Talk

Its over a week into the new year. Eight days since I made my commitment to consciousness. How am I going?

A commitment to consciousness is no small deal and I want to, having declared to the ether, make sure that I talked the talk and walked the walk. The path to consciousness being strewn with hypocrites I want to make sure I don't become one of them. I see the path to greater consciousness as being one of constant work and improvement. It won't just happen over night. Although I did once listen to an Alan Watts bit of audio which suggests that we all hold a belief about how hard it is to free our minds, when actually it is just a simple case of snapping out of it, remembering our selves.

However I digress, and so rather than declaring that my resolutions are resolute and that if I miss one day I have failed, I choose to see them as aims for the year, I can assess their progress when I write next years list.

 I must admit something... funnily enough I haven't been totally conscious from the beginning of the year, I have daydreamed. But its not a failure just something to be aware of, each day is a new day.

I am keeping it simple, all I have been doing is half an hour of yoga per day and making that practice meditative by really focusing on my breath. Even just this simple daily practice has had a lovely effect of bringing me back into my body. To the now. And I feel that physical consciousness being remembered and felt more throughout each day. When I walk down the hall, wash the dishes, sit and write, smile at the children - I am there ( more often than before). In addition to the physical practice a small bit of reading per day, some wise words to keep the mind occupied and remembering.

However I have been taken by surprise that I have actually had a bit of a short temper, I have been feeling more forthright. Perhaps I have had too much coffee or no sleep and actually today I feel like I have turned another corner, and am feeling more calm. And so assuming it is the result of new practices I speculate that the anger is either my ego disliking being whipped into shape, throwing back its head in contempt, resisting the training or perhaps that I am attached to an idea of achieving the goal of consciousness, and so anything that makes my desire feel thwarted is angering me. I am blaming external influences for my sense of calm. I have actually felt like I could have chosen to be angry when I have been, I have seen the option and yet the decision has been made before I can intervene and I have gone with it. Hopefully as my consciousness increases I will be quicker off the mark and be able to stop the anger before it gets a hold.

Small step by small step will be the way until it becomes natural.

This Sunday is the new moon, the first of the year and a fantastic time to revisit those resolutions. Its like a second chance to restart the year. It is time to keep what I have started and add another simple tool to the disciplines. A daily meditation. Ideally I will build it up to a daily half and hour, however I will be gentle with my ego, so it barely notices me chipping away at its hegemony, and just start with a simple five minutes per day. At the opposite end of the day to when I do the yoga practice. Thus creating two points of stillness to navigate between, to shed some light on the day.

Be here this year!

About a week ago I heard one of the children scream for me in the night. I leapt up out of bed, turned on my bedside Salt lamp and eyes half closed stumbled towards the hallway to the children's rooms. I took one step into the dark hall and crunch a cockroach was crushed beneath my heel. Now the moral of this story may be that I need to keep a cleaner house, but that wasn't what came to my mind. Having checked the children were okay, my mind immediately tried to make meaning of it, to read the language of the universe. Was it an omen? Was I about to meet a grizzly end? We'll I decided to shoo away the more neurotic interpretations rather to see the universe giving me a metaphorical slap in the face and reminding me of my own impermanence.

It can be very easy to let time pass when you have a small family. Everyday is long and full and yet over before you know it. The days quickly turn into years. Some of this time is conscious but mostly it is passed in a dream, a dream which believes that our existence in this form will go on for ever. However when we stop and think about it we all know that this is not the case, yet we forget and waste this precious human life. A precious life which can be extinguished at any time. That one Cockroach wandering in the vastness of the hall happened to meet my heel. What were the chances? Neither of us expected it. I feel sad for the cockroach but the reminder of impermanence which could be a sad reminder actually fills me with hope and with inspiration. Motivation to use my time well, to be here fully living each moment.

Which brings me to another notion which occurred to me whilst cleaning the house for Christmas, (see I do clean). It was a full moon and I had read somewhere that this full moon would signify the culmination of all I had worked towards through the year. This notion appealed to me and so whilst I swept the floor I contemplated about which of my numerous projects I would give my time to. I had so much I needed to do and I wanted to culminate in something, something tangible. Then I heard a voice within myself which snapped me out of my dream, the voice told me that the only thing that was important was to be here. I like it when this sensible wise inner voice cuts through the chatter. And so I put notions of 'to do' aside and focused on the tasks in hand as best I could, bringing myself back as best I could when I remembered. It felt good and I had a far greater feeling of contentment I suspect than if I had managed to complete my lists in a frazzled half focused full moon inspired way.

So whilst I sit and pen my list of resolutions, like do Yoga everyday and become amazing at Hula hooping, I realise that there is only one resolution that truly matters and that is that I am here, living fully, conscious in the moment. And I suspect that if I can do that, the rest will just flow into place.

Happy New Year 2016 - Be Here