life Archives - Aesha Kennedy | Mindful Creative Living: Recent Episodes
Aesha Kennedy
Age GracefullyThis week I’m 71 years around the sun and I thought about the idea of ageing gracefully.
Firstly, I feel immense gratitude that I have had the privilege to live this long.
I’ve gone through many life phases and now consider myself an elder. A crone. A wise woman.
It’s such an honor.
It has been confronting at times to watch the body age. But wisdom shows me that it’s only my conditioning that finds it confronting. The years of seeing marketing ads, and magazine covers makes one think that ageing is a negative thing and must be avoided, in some way or product, to live onwards like a maiden.
Wise woman croneWell here’s what I read today and I LOVE this. Thank you Clarissa Estes Pinkola
“Dear brave souls,
I warmly invite you to come be at the fireside with me and the Dangerous Old Woman and the Power of the Crone. Who is the crone? She is the most dangerous, the most radical, the most revolutionary woman in existence. Whether in fairy tales or in consensual reality, the old one goes where she wants to and she acts as she wishes; she lives as she chooses. And this is all as it should be. And no one can stop her. Nor ought they try.”
And so my dear friends,
THIS
It’s coming up for all of us women, young and old, that NOW is the time to step into your sovereignty. I wrote about this in my blog, Sovereignty is the New Guru.
What that means is that we no longer can depend, nor should we, on outer authorities. It’s about stepping into our true power, and empowering others by doing that.
Being true to who we are. That is our power. When we understand and live it, we live as sovereign beings who contribute our uniqueness to the whole.
Keeping it real though ….
The body at 71 has more folds, more wrinkles, more sagging, more graying hairs, more SOFTNESS.
And also,
I’m no longer fearful of what it means to fail or take risks.
I’m open to trying new things that life brings my way.
I’m not so serious.
Life is not meant to be a suffering although there is so much of it on this planet.
I aim for JOY
I LOVE hard because who cares if you get hurt if you’ve loved with all your heart.
I know we CAN change what ageing means for the collective, one sovereign wild woman crone at a time.
The post Age Gracefully appeared first on Aesha Kennedy | Mindful Creative Living.
Hello friends,
What does it mean when we refer to release in the context of awakening?
I recently went on a 3 day silent retreat.
Not even a whisper, except the trees. No neighbors, and the natural environment was nourishing on all levels.
I was ready.
The opportunity presented.
Only three days and what a difference. I dropped into a deep silence, a presence that was so peaceful and restful it was like a magnet drawing me deeper and deeper into it.
Even now I can pause and that place (although it’s not a place as such) is there.
It’s always there.
We just cover it with our busyness and thinking and concerns and control.
What if we RELEASE and let go, even for a short time?Could you set up your life to regularly release what you think and awaken to the essence of what you are?
What’s helpful is a strong desire to know what you are, and an earnest commitment to that seed of desire blossoming.
The awakening of directly experiencing life as it is without a filter of thinking overlaying the experience.
A release of all you’ve held on to. And then an awakening shift. A felt silence that is not a sound or lack of sound. It is the ground of being that is so full and so empty.
No force is required.
When you flow with life, you know that no force is needed ~ Lao Tzu
To flow with life is to continuously release.
- Release control.
- Release believing in thoughts as reality.
- Release tension in the body, letting it soften and become receptive.
I noticed a few things leading up to the divine timing of the silent retreat and the shifts that happened.
- willingness to surrender. Surrender thoughts that incessantly run through commenting, describing, dramatizing. Let them come and go
- a deep desire to awaken from the dream of separation. When I feel that desire, I recognize it’s the most important desire in my heart. It’s not a desire as a concept. It’s living and breathing in me.
If you feel a call in your heart to enter more regularly this place of silence and alert stillness, please let me know.
There may be a silent retreat in nature for a long weekend that I might be able to organize if there is interest.
The post Release and Awaken appeared first on Aesha Kennedy | Mindful Creative Living.
What’s the difference between Neutrality and Mediocrity?There seems to be an attraction in this human life to high drama or even medium drama. Or drama full stop.
Maybe it’s the wisdom that comes from age and life experiences but I much prefer the calm lake to the whirlwind hurricane drama that has one on the edge of one’s seat, and then feeling triumphant when making it through. And conversely, down in the dumps when you don’t sail through like you thought you would.
I was pondering, (as I do) about the beautiful calm lake feeling that comes with neutrality.
It reminds me of this well known Buddhist saying:
Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.After enlightenment, chop wood, carry waterAn equanimous state where life events come and go and there is a consciousness of being that’s untouched, neutral to whatever happens in the moments, impartial because of understanding that things change and come and go in this life.
The Buddhist often describe this neutrality of mind as equanimity. A mental attitude of balance, impartiality, and detachment (which probably means detachment from identification with any thought).
Perhaps the ‘addiction’ to drama in our society is to counter the idea that being neutral is BORIIIIING..
It may also get confused with the idea of mediocrity..
And no one wants to be mediocre or feel mediocre.
But it’s not the same thing.
Here’s why:
Mediocrity is described as being average or ordinary. There’s a negative connotation to being seen or felt as mediocre, even though there is really nothing bad about being ordinary. And who’s deciding about that anyway.
Neutrality can be described as impartiality.
An absence of decided views, expression, or strong feeling.
This description might give a false idea that it means we are emotionless. A zombie. Have no feelings about anything.
Our current societies seem to view being mediocre as not something to aspire to and in fact do whatever you can to NOT be mediocre.
However, I tend to view neutrality as a gift
You feel EVERYTHING and yet there is NO DRAMA.Ahhhhh … I sigh at the very words, no drama.
Centered in the infiniteness of being a neutral observer, an impartial witness, where one can simply be equanimous with the movements and creative flow of life’s dance and enjoy the “movie”.
The post Neutrality is not Mediocrity appeared first on Aesha Kennedy | Mindful Creative Living.
All the world's a stageFor years I believed in the solidity of me.
This belief that I am a separate me amongst a bunch of other separate me’s all living in the world and suffering in our own ways wanting things to be other than what they are.
After years of yoga, years of searching, years of living with someone who doesn’t live in this realm of separation, I began to awaken to the reality that the person I call me is not a solid thing but only a bunch of ideas and thoughts and conditioned beliefs.
Nothing really solid at all.
At first I fought against this.
I wanted to believe I was this solid person who had choices and that I could alter things in my life if I wanted to. I wanted to believe because not believing meant I would then be letting go of everything I believed about myself up to this point. Deep down I knew that, it scared me, and I convinced myself I was on a path to improvement so I didn’t have to really let go fully. I didn’t need to let go of everything. Maybe just some things.
But my search for meaning and truth brings me to a point where the idea of being a solid separate self begins to dissolve and it’s either let go into the dissolution or, alternatively, keep holding onto the ego-generated idea of who I am and continue the cycle of disempowerment and suffering.
So I say YES to surrendering to this dissolution of false self.
It’s not easy.
The ego has had many, many years to set deep roots and is ultra-convincing that I’m a separate solid person who can run the show called my life.
Yet, here I am. Questioning and SurrenderingAnd what I discover is that one of the BIGGEST fears about all of this is that if what I call ‘me’ dissolves, then there goes everything with it. My work in the world, my relationships, my desires, family, friends. All will dissolve.
I don’t want those things to go, so I hold back from really letting go.
But this is the clever ego-mind making up the stories that all those things will disappear if I let go. But that is not at all what happens.
What happens is when the small egoic self dissolves then one’s character or persona is truly FREE to be authentically expressed. Free to let their ‘character’ play their part within the whole of humanity. Free of attachment to any identification.
All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players ~ Shakespeare
We all have our roles to play but we can’t do that if we are paying more attention to thoughts that tell us we are this or that. We can’t live being our true self when we don’t see the stage and don’t see the role we play for what they are.
When we see through the illusion and unreality of thoughts, we can awaken to the beauty of our character and appreciate our individual role played within the whole perfection of life itself.
The post All the world’s a stage appeared first on Aesha Kennedy | Mindful Creative Living.
A week without a doorI spent last week visiting family and stayed in a room without a door. Not only was it not a regular sized door, it was not a real bedroom. It was a dining room ‘space’ that had a complete opening facing the living room and kitchen area of the house.
I knew this was to be our ‘bedroom’ before we left our comfy home, and I was curious to see how it would unfold. I must admit I had many doubts.
Fortunately knowing in advance that this was to be our room for our holiday week stay I quickly ordered a comfy face mask for sleeping, plus my Loop earplugs for mornings when you know children wake up at 5:30am and don’t know what a soft voice is. AND when you don’t have a door.
Ummmm. Hmmmm
We also discovered that we didn’t even have a full size bed to sleep on together. This was a surprise. There was a single air bed, and a single mattress bed both on the floor next to each other with one much higher than the other.
Now I am a very adaptable type of person.
I travelled around India and was used to sleeping on concrete floors at times. But now being at the end of my 60’s and my husband 70, this was not quite the same.
No room, no door, sleeping on the floor. (could be a chorus to a song)
Living a week without a door or room to oneself revealed much. One could say I could see things clearly without the door.
I could see that my younger family don’t really get it. They don’t get we are not in our 40’s anymore. It’s not just the single bed, or the no door situation. It's also getting up in the night from the floor that’s not so easy.
Thank goddess for my yoga practice throughout my life that gave me the ability to actually do this, and in the dark.
Ummmmm. Hmmmmm
One good thing I discovered is that nothing really phased me much during my stay in this situation. I noticed, felt, and let things pass, without holding on to any of it, quite frankly. And I must make the point that it wasn't about numbing out drinking cocktails. I felt it ALL and then watched it pass through.
I stayed with my inner joy that is always there bubbling up larger than any Aperol Spritz, and I felt LOVE for the family. The little ones, and the adults.
In the past, these kinds of situations could have been grist for the mill, with my mind having a field day.
I must say this is a refreshing new way of being and I'll put this reflection of how I managed it all into the gift category of our holidays. The gift is, I wouldn’t have realized this inner shift towards joy and acceptance if not for the situation at hand. I was truly amazed at the ability I seemed to possess to let things come and go without any internal emotional drama, rehashing the scenario in my head, or any victim mentality.
I mean that IS the stuff of holiday family dramas, is it not?
Anyhoooooo I was able to stay out of being caught up in any inner drama, gratefully.
There were lovely walks in nature and beautiful gum trees and a river nearby. Balm for the soul.
That being said….
A few things became obvious staying in a room with no door.
I could see clearly.
I could see clearly that's why there is the option of online buying and delivery for presents along with Zoom calls, right?
Yours truly,
The Grinch that doesn’t need to steal Christmas because she’s quite happy without it.
The post A week without a door appeared first on Aesha Kennedy | Mindful Creative Living.
I recently heard a description that the sound of OM is an energetic expression of YES.
A deep yes to life.
The vibrational sound of OM is oft described as the sound of creation and it makes vibrational sense that this sound can be translated as an energetic yes to the creative life force flowing throughout the universe.
It reminds me of that wonderful artwork created by Yoko Ono in 1996.
It was a ladder you had to climb to the top, and when you got to the top you looked up and used a magnifying glass that was there to read the tiny writing above. And what you saw magnified was the word YES.
It was called by the NY Times a positive thinking artwork.
But I feel it points to more than positive thinking. It is pointing to something beyond the mind.
Yes as full surrenderA surrender to the illusion of the mind that separates us from all that is.
Without thoughts that separate, there is no sense of duality. There is only connectedness, oneness, and an energetic YES to all that is, and all that happens moment to moment.
Life flows through us, when we don’t resist or try to control it.
Being in flow in this way is a YES to life as it is.
It feels restful to flow with life even in the discomforts.
Trying to control life or resist what’s happening, is like an energetic no to life. And it can feel like struggle, suffering, pain.
Let go and let god. While you may not resonate with the word “god,” you get the drift.
Trusting in the bigger picture, the mystery of life, and learning to trust in how things unfold without trying to control it all.
There is thought and there is reality. And they’re not the sameThe two are not the same even though we may be so totally convinced that they are.
I encourage you to investigate this though.
Start to see that thoughts are simply thoughts and are not reality. Thoughts center on the past or the future and thus veil the immediacy of what’s right here now in all its spectacular splendor. Caught up in past or future thoughts we miss the moment before us.
Yes can feel like a noYes to ourselves sometimes results in a ‘no’ to the outer situations and circumstances.
When we say yes to ourselves we might find ourselves having to say no to others. This can be challenging for us, especially women, who have been trained to be more submissive, polite, don’t rock the boat, care for others first.
This conditioning is unhelpful, even when we’re trying to help.
So the next time you find yourself in a yoga or meditation class or perhaps on your own and you sing the sound OM, feel that opening in your heart and let yourself surrender to life. Let go of your need to control, and trust that the forces of the universe are always supporting you to be true to who you are and not what others would have you be.
It's a deep honoring of yourself as an integral, unique, expression of the whole.
YESYESYESThe post OM and YES appeared first on Aesha Kennedy | Mindful Creative Living.
It’s a funny thing about desires vs. conditioning. I remember a time in my 20's walking directly home after work in the city and I panicked. I had nothing to do. Most evenings after work I had something on. I was ALWAYS busy doing something. And this one day there was nothing to do after work […]
The post Soul-seeded desires vs. conditioning appeared first on Aesha Kennedy | Mindful Creative Living.
My Tasmanian Devil Mind I didn’t see any Tasmanian Devils on my recent trip down to Tassie. I did however unexpectedly encounter my own mind devils. Wandering in the most pristine place on Earth with remnants from ancient trees from Gondwana times, one cannot describe the magnificence of being in the presence of the land in Tasmania. […]
The post My Tasmanian Devil Mind appeared first on Aesha Kennedy | Mindful Creative Living.
Floating and SurrenderWithout warning I found I had crossed an invisible boundary and there was no turning back. I was in a dream swimming in a river by the ocean when the next thing I knew I had crossed from the calm swimming area into a strong current and choppy water. I could not return. Instinctively I knew […]
The post Floating and Surrender appeared first on Aesha Kennedy | Mindful Creative Living.
The shift from fighter to warrioress. My story.Struggle is an addiction to the “fight’. I’m up for a fight. Those who don’t know me intimately might not see that side of me because I appear as an easy going, peace loving, yoga meditation lover, and gentle soul. Or maybe I kid myself. Maybe EVERYONE I know […]
The post From Fighter to Warrioress appeared first on Aesha Kennedy | Mindful Creative Living.
The post No is a complete sentence appeared first on Aesha Kennedy | Mindful Creative Living.
[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.22.3″][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.22.3″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” custom_padding=”||0px|||”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.0.74″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”] The question I’ve asked myself is, what if we stopped focusing on the ego as the “bad guy”? Something to be rid of. Something that needs to die in order to be happier, more peaceful, even enlightened. What if we stop trying to […]
The post No need to get rid of appeared first on Aesha Kennedy | Mindful Creative Living.
[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.20.2″][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.20.2″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.20.2″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.20.2″] I love this so much. It’s a teaching that I first heard from Thich Nhat Hahn about pain and suffering. Pain is part of human experience. We cannot avoid pain if we are in a human body, but suffering is something different. Suffering comes with the shooting of the […]
The post Second Arrow appeared first on Aesha Kennedy | Mindful Creative Living.
Look into where a goal arises from. This is important as it makes a difference in how you feel and whether the goal is going to be effortless or … harnessed with frustration and struggle.
The post To Goal or Not to Goal appeared first on Aesha Kennedy | Mindful Creative Living.
When we feel disconnected from the oneness of life we search for ways to be more perfect as a human, which can lead to an exhaustive search
The post Unity in Diversity appeared first on Aesha Kennedy | Mindful Creative Living.