Monday Mantra

Coming back into myself, my voice, my spirituality, my seat. When I come back, many things come back. Poetry, dance, yoga, and meditation to name a few. I've always loved mantra for meditation practice. The thing I love the most about mantra is that it can transform any place or any moment into a place or moment of meditation. I like to listen to mantra in my office, especially during stressful times. It never fails to transport me, to move me.
One of my favorite mantra singers is Snatam Kaur.  And one of my absolute favorite mantra chants by her is RaMaDaSa. The simplicity of these seed sounds never fails to touch my heart and bring me to a place of remembrance and gratitude.

I wrote about  this chant previously on this blog. Click here for that post; it includes information about the origin of the chant, it's meaning,  and a link to a video recording.

Namaste and here's to a great week!

Friday Inspiration

It's been a while since I've done one of these, but it feels like a good time to start again. Mainly because I'm in the midst of reading a book that is not just inspiring, but world rocking. The book is called The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield. I found out about it from one of my favorite podcasts, The Read.

This book is not for the faint of heart. Divided into three parts, it pulls no punches and allows for no excuses. The first part is all about resistance, and goes into explicit detail of all of the excuses we make for not doing our work, whether it be creative, spiritual, or otherwise. Having all of my excuses laid out in front of me was at once a slap in the face and a wake up call. How many times I had waited for tomorrow or until I had more time or until I was inspired, or until fill in the blank?

We all do it, and part one of this book was a good reminder that the battle is not outside the door, but within, against our own resistance. While there were many quotes from part one of the book and the book as a whole that resonated with me, today's inspiration comes from the chapter "Resistance and Fundamentalism":

The artists and the fundamentalist arise from societies at differing stages of development. The artist is the advanced model. His culture possesses affluence, stability, enough excess of resource to permit the luxury of self-examination. The artist is grounded in freedom. He is not afraid of it.

This quote is pretty loaded, but what resonates most with me is this idea of freedom. That the artist is grounded in freedom. That in order to have a creative voice, we must first be able to embrace freedom. And many of us, depending on the day, are not ready for freedom. We are not ready for limitlessness. I know that on any given day you may find me tying myself up in work or relationship drama or the internet. Anything to distract myself from that feeling of freedom because freedom is scary, and with it comes a great deal of responsibility. But this book confronted me with the absolute need to embrace freedom in order to fully step into the shoes of the artist/creative/expressive. And so I ask the question:

Are you ready for freedom?