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TO PENETRATE DEEPER THAN HER STORMS, HER CALMS, Part I

Rev. Hans Peter Meyer

• 6 min read
TO PENETRATE DEEPER THAN HER STORMS, HER CALMS, Part I

Apprenticeship to Love: Meditations on this Path to Authentic Relationship, November 9, 2023
• Today’s questions: Is there confusion or mis-alignment in your heart, your mind, your body? Can you feel deeper, into a still place that will hold your confusion? Do you want to be held while you find this still place within yourself? Who, besides yourself, can hold this spce for you? Are you ready to invite them in, to hold this space, perhaps even to hold you?
• Today's suggested practice: Day 3 of this month's practice, to notice & receive (see my "Short Practice,” below)
• My practice today: 4:30am: 120: yoga, mantra, and meditation for the 11/11 portal, with Kundalini Yoga School.
• My vulnerability practice: I quail before this deep and too-silent ocean, and still I step forward, my heart exploding to feel so much love...
★ FREE to everyone: Fabiola Perez and I will be doing an Instagram Live on Monday, November 13 at 7pm Pacific time on the topic of our upcoming Tantra+Tango for Couples workshop. If you're on Instagram, please join us here: https://www.instagram.com/sacredbodiesca?upcoming_event_id=18398690869021206
★ FREE for all Premium & Premium+ subscribers: Wednesday, November 15 I'll be hosting "Men & Dating," as the Apprenticeship to Love live virtual workshop. My guest will be men's coach Leroy Gordon. Register here

TODAY'S MEDITATION

Feel her.
Breathe her.
Know Her.

She is the source of everything. She is the ocean of love. She is the woman I love.

She is testing me. She tests my capacity to sail Her raging ocean storms, as much as Her still, silent, becalmed seas.

She is also the woman I love, and this stillness overwhelms me.

And she wants to be loved for all that she is, the storms and the becalmed lattitudes that defy crossing.
...
This morning I did a long, gentle practice. The intention of the class, to awaken the body to the ancestoral wisdom that is locked into us, residual and forgotten from generations past. Practically, the excercises focused on the kidneys and the lungs. Here our bodies store fear, and grief, respectively.

At one point my heart felt a familiar ache, breaking open to feel more, know more, love more.

We were asked: Become still and listen, listen to what words your ancestors speak from these places in your body.

My body is thick. Dense. It often takes me days of practice and listening to register its subtle knowings.
...
After my recent journey —into proximity with my beloved, into tango, into teaching new students, among other things— I asked the ones I consider to be wise in my life to listen to my confusion, and to perhaps offer guidance.

From one: I am proud of you, that you are committed to honouring what is your truth, rather than doing what most men would do, finding easier comfort.

From another: When you realize that your wanting is what stands in the way of who you are, then you begin to be that man.

From a third: The things you know to be true are true. The other things, not worthy of considering. Trust the testing.

There seems a pointlessness to ritual behaviour, to repitition for the sake of repitition. But I am experiencing how powerful ritual can be. It keeps me tender to this moment, the repitition serving to stir the feelings rather than dull me to them.

Her testing is ritual. A way of protecting in a hostile world, hostile culture. And, a way of proving myself. She will not blossom into her full-heartedness of her vulnerability without testing me for the frequency of trustworthiness she needs. To do otherwise would be reckless. And she has been reckless. And suffers still for that. So she tests. And I deepen myself and my rituals of devotion, and experience myself expanding beyond my wants.

There is always only this moment, this experience of love, this ecstacy.
...
What would my ancestors say? What wisdom do I hear when I still myself to listen?

Now, hours later, I feel this: I have neglected the arts of the sailor, the dancer. I've forgotten —never been taught, until late in this life— how to feel into Her, to fathom Her mysteries. Made flaccid by so many technologies of comfort and conquest I've forgotten the art of sailing, though I am remembering the art of dancing the polarities in my practice and excercising of tango.
...
I will be teaching an "absolute beginners" tango class to social dancers this week. There is so much to share. And, so much of it daunting. I don't want to scare them. The men who would lead, especially. But somehow to let them know: Tango may be the art we, and especially masculine-identified men who would lead in marriage as well as dance, can learn, to feel into Her, to begin to know Her mystery, to begin to more fully enjoy Her gifts.

Perhaps.

For the masculine, to dance tango is to learn to penetrate the beautiful illusion that tends to beguile and overwhelm us, and to feel what is at the heart of the experience of these two bodies as one.

This is no small thing. It is, perhaps, the greatest thing. Our work is to receive Her. All the rest is practice. Necessary. But only insofar as it feeds our art.

I am, again, torn between the metaphors of sailing and tango.

I am, again, looking for a way to know Her, and to hold her, the one I love, in this expanding heart, without want. Without expectations. Only with wonder, and awe at what she brings me.

.... continued in Part II

TODAY’S INSPIRATIONS

🌀 …Bhakti Yoga, the yoga of devotion is considered by many one of the most powerful ways towards Self-realization, leading you to the core of your True Self through direct experience.
…surrendering yourself into the repetition ...don’t be surprised you all of a sudden find yourself with a feeling of love almost exploding in your heart. (Kundalini Yoga School, Clear & Focused sadhana, Day 2)

🌀Men in general judge more from appearances than from reality. All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration. (Niccolo Machiavelli)

🌀Strong relationships don’t need agreement.
They need alignment.
Agreement is having identical opinions.
Alignment is having shared values.
Agreement is taking the same path.
Alignment is heading in the same direction.
Closeness is a matter of commitment, not consensus. (Adam Grant)

🌀 “Those who are certain of the outcome can afford to wait and wait without anxiety.”
... to remind you to stay true to that deep desire of your soul because it is meant to be. (Gabrielle Thil)

🌀The Conscious Warrior is committed to developing strength of the mind, physical body, and nervous system through dedicated physical, yogic, and meditative practice. (John Wineland, Precept 6)

🌀 Our “work” is to receive. The rest is preparation. (Leroy Gordon)

🌀I test you. (My beloved, my Oracle & Siren)

TODAY'S SUGGESTED SHORT PRACTICE

Day 3 of this month's practice, to move and to notice, and to receive:
Please read through first, then ...

  • Today, set two alarms, one for the early part of your day, one for mid-late afternoon when you may be feeling low energy.
  • When the alarm sounds, wherever and however you are, take five minutes to do this short practice:
  • First, ask yourself: Is there confusion or mis-alignment in your heart, your mind, your body? Can you feel deeper, into a still place that will hold your confusion? Do you want to be held while you find this still place within yourself? Who, besides yourself, can hold this spce for you? Are you ready to invite them in, to hold this space, perhaps even to hold you?
  • Then, follow the short practice here:
  • When you’re done, sit or stand for another minute or two, breathing gently, slowly filling and emptying your belly. Here, as you breathe into your fullness, ask yourself, Am I ready to hold myself? And if not, am I ready to ask another to hold the space for me while I feel into my own depth?
  • Notice if your body-mind feels somehow changed. And whether you notice a change or not, be content with yourself, exactly as you are in this moment.
  • Continue with your day until the next alarm sounds, and repeat.
  • If you are needing for space to be held, and there is no one you trust to do this for you in your circle of friends, your family, your spiritual community, please consider booking a short, 45-minute session at https://www.sacredbodies.ca/coaching. If you're an Apprenticeship to Love "early reader" please use the EARLYREADER code for a 25% discount. This may be all you need to find the clarity and direction you're wanting.