I AM BREATHED; THE WALLS COME DOWN

• Today's suggested practice: Day 9 of this month's practice... (see below)
• My playlist while writing today's meditation: Rostropovich playing JS Bach, Cello Suite No. 2 Rostropovich Berlin Wall Checkpoint Charlie Bach Sarabandehttps://www.youtube.com › watch
• My morning practice: 5am: 75 minutes, physical , yogic practice, including Meditation for Grounding & Opening the Heart (I’ll be teaching this at the Nov 11-13 #Menswork retreat)
• My vulnerability practice: This ache, this impatience, this tenderness. Slowly I let it breathe me, allow it to have its way, and begin to notice how powerful I am, feeling it all…
• ▶ The November 16 11am co-ed group features guest Katrine K (you may know her from her @darkfemininedesire work on Instagram). Register at sacredbodies.ca/monthlywork

Hans Peter Meyer

VIDEO

No devilry here, just a playful recognition of my sacred purpose, to take down the walls…

https://youtube.com/shorts/Vk9ocxCg0QY?feature=share

TODAY'S MEDITATION

Walls come down…

Remembering November 9, 1989 when the people of Berlin took down the Wall that had divided them, and the world, and Rostropovich played Bach’s Cello Suite No. 2 at the now redundant Checkpoint Charlie.

It is only because she is so tender that I am not able to feel my tenderness. It is only because of her sacrifice, her willingness to stand in front of me, so often, without walls. And for me, to see her, without walls, and without the sensibility to see her, to really see what she was offering: a way to take down my walls.

It is only because of this loss of her tenderness —her eyes, her breath, her tears— and only because I know this loss and how my walled heart broke her, taught her to build her own walls rather than hurt some more, only this painful loss teaches me to the man who steps forward to offer my oh-so-tender heart, to be the husbandman of this tenderness, this vulnerability, this love that cannot live within walls.

I am listening to Rostropovich playing Cello Suite No. 2. Over, and over.

In 1989, on November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall cam down. Rostropovich managed, when all the world was clamouring to be at the front row seat to this example of anarchy tumbling the monument to totalitarianism, he managed to fly by a friend’s plane from Paris so that he could sit before a gathering crowd and make his offering of music to this moment. An offering on top of all the suffering he and his family had endured for opposing the Soviet Union as citizens before being exiled. Stripped of citizenship. So he played.

How long did he wait for the Wall to come down? The physical wall went up one night in 1960. The “Iron Curtain,” as Churchill famously called it, had already been drawn across Europe and the world not too long after the defeat of Nazi German in May 1945.

On October 19, 2015 I danced to Rostropovich playing this piece, unaware of its history, aware only that a woman had walked into my life and I wanted to dance with her. That was another wall beginning to crumble. But that too took years. Too many years for her tender heart. Exhausted, sacrificed, she struck the final blow to my walled heart with her leaving. And then I was left only with the rubble, and the wall that she’d built to protect her heart. A wall I’d helped her build with my thoughtlessness. My casual callousness.

I didn’t know about the connection between Rostropovich, the Cello Suites, and the Berlin Wall until this morning.

I woke feeling the wall between us in the deep silence. It was good to remember that walls come down, and that what takes them down is rarely something thought-out, planned. Rather, it is the persistent presence of our love.

Sometimes the crumbling of walls is accompanied by fanfare. Other times, by a bow moving across a cello’s strings. At still other times, by the tears of tenderness that dissolve it all into something bigger, deeper, truer than can be imagined.

I am also reminded this morning, to allow myself to be breathed. To breathe deeply, and know that there is in me a deep longing for love, a longing to love, and that, freed from my walls and fear of hurt, my habit of protection, that is what liberates me.

TODAYS INSPIRATIONS

…it’s important to be conscious of your breathing without taking credit as the breather...without taking the credit, you experience no debt or doubt.

This is known as humility, but it’s more than humility...it’s a state of total surrender to being, and the boundary between doing and being is difficult to travel. It’s knowing that everything is being done with your hands and mind, while not being the doer. A meditation to work with this power is consciously breathing without being the breather. (Guru Singh & Guruperkarma Kaur)

The Conscious Warrior is committed to feeling deeply, rather than numbing or succumbing to comfort or addiction. (John Wineland, Precept 4)

You are beautiful. (My beloved, my Oracle & Siren)

TODAY'S SUGGESTED PRACTICE

Day 9 of this month's practice, take 1 minute today to sit and listen to, or chant, the deep Aum (Om) mantra... The “universal sound”…

Please read through first, then ...

• Today, sit (or stand) in stillness as you listen and chant, or simply listen to this mantra, let this question stir within you…. Where is the wall that separates you from this tender experience of life? Breathe into that place, and let your love —of self, of life, of the smell of the November air— let your love breathe you.

• Begin by closing your eyes and aligning your body into its truest, most elegant posture, tucking your chin to lift your heart, tilting your pelvis to straighten your spine. Become still, more still than you've ever been. Your alignment is the physical training for trustworthiness. Bring your hands to your heart, right (masculine) over left (feminine).

• Focus on feeling the vibration. That is all.

• Set your timer for 1 minutes or listen to the mantra sung by Sad Guru here: https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxyG7B0jR_kH8VHLIUixJH6bABoGRAFBKu (I recommend setting your timer for 11 minutes and having this on repeat).

• As the timer signals or the mantra ends allow your eyes to slowly open. Take three, relaxed breath cycles, no pressing, no effort, and feel yourself full, without thoughts, open. Safe to receive. Then, step into your day, letting the mantra echo as a nourishing vibration whenever you become still. You don't need to DO anything. Let the world come to you with its demands, its complaints, and yes, its endless tide of gifts and blessings.✨