Day 232 - A Year of Spiritual Awakening - The Times We Most Easily Find Ourselves...

Photo by Chang Duong on Unsplash

Photo by Chang Duong on Unsplash

Lesson 232: The Times We Most Easily Find Ourselves...

The times we most easily find ourselves as one of One are in times of great heart opening: the tantra of sex, birthing a baby, helping someone die, helping someone in tragedy. These are all times our hearts crack open, without fear.
— Sara Wiseman

Today we are to think of a time where we opened beyond ourselves and tell of our experience in detail.

One beautiful moment I have was with an elephant in Thailand on my volunteer trip. I am not sure why I decided to go volunteer in an animal project but the ad came up on Facebook, I was going through a tough time and I needed something for just me. I was going to travel to a foreign country on my own and wasn’t sure how that would go. I took the plunge and if worse came to worse, I could always buy a ticket back home if I couldn’t find the tour guide in the airport. Let me tell you, it was pretty nerve racking going through Thai customs by myself.

I didn’t know what to expect as I had never done anything of a tour group nor did I ever do any international volunteering. We travelled to a town called Surin. It was a great to see community and the villagers all accommodating and friendly to us tourists. Part of the experience was to feed elephants, clean them, cut bamboo for more food, clean their poo and then any other activities the village needed. It was life changing to say the least. My moment of being open beyond myself was a touching moment I had with one of the elephants named Kaewtar.

We are properly warned to not walk in between elephants or get too close as they can crush you in excitement. It seems pretty obvious that they are gentle giants. One day in the river as we’re washing our elephants, I decided to throw caution to the wind and place my mind to Kaewtar’s mind. I am not even sure why I did it. I just wanted to feel a connection. I believed I communicated with her through my mind to hers. She did her elephant rumble and I felt the rattling in my head. I don’t even really remember what I said to her but one thing I know is that I wanted her to be happy. She was a beautiful soul and I hoped that we could exchange energy for a moment. It was such an unforgettable memory that I will always cherish. There is not many people that can say that wanted to connect minds with an elephant.

I wasn’t sure what my spiritual path was yet, but there was something that told me to connect with this elephant, so I did. I feel like this was part of my spiritual journey to expand myself to be more open. I’m glad for the experience as it changed me and my whole life experience. All I remember is that I wanted to be better in my life. I wanted to be more to the world and that was a lovely gift to receive from an elephant.

Day 232 - A Year to Clear - Our Quiet

Lesson 232: Our Quiet

We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us that they may see, it may be, their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer life because of our quiet.
— W.B. Yeats

 

New week is a new theme and we have “cultivating stillness”.

This is quite exciting in that we all need those moments to quieten down the mind or what’s around us, right? So, I think this week we will explore new methods or practising quietening down things in our lives. This I feel ties in with self-care but also allows moments of clarity to come about in life. It’s possible that meditation is one of the solutions but I’m hoping for something else. Always up for new methods of being.