But we are all nature - we are all made of the earth.
 "Turn your head around... it's all around you. All is full of love..." ~ Bjork
 "Unable to perceive the shape of You, I find You all around me. Your presence fills my eyes with Your love. It humbles my heart, For You are everywhere" ~ Hakim Sanai (from The Book of Everything: Journey of the Heart’s Desire : Hakim Sanai’s Walled Garden of Truth).
 I was thinking about my mantra practice and how I use it to help me calm down and focus. I find it very helpful to chant my mantra before settling into a seated meditation. I usually stick with one mantra for a while – until I don't. By that I mean that I am not tied to one particular mantra, though I tend to stay with one for a long time. I have a few that I go back to often.
Usually I know the mantra I want, I might refresh my memory by looking in a book or thinking about a recording I know. But a few years agao a mantra found its way to me! (Well, sort of). I'm speaking about the Gayatri mantra. This is an ancient mantra that is so so beautiful. I found myself very moved by it, drifting into a transcendent feeling of grace. The first word I used to describe it was 'Cosmic'. The strange thing is that I felt this on hearing it, before I knew what the words actually meant. The mantra was playing quietly in the background of a yoga session. I was immediately enchanted by the beauty of it. I didn't think to ask what it was. Next day, a friend mentioned a mantra that she was really loving and it turned out to be the same one!! Over the next few days I just kept coming across it – hearing it everywhere. It was calling to me. Soon I began listening and chanting along... I found I wanted to chant it several times a day!! I was hooked!! And all this without even finding out what it meant! It turns out that the Gayatri mantra has a deep and powerful meaning. Like all the ancient mantras its meaning is layered and open to interpretation. I guess you would need to chant it for a long time to fully understand it. The mantra came from the Rig Veda, an ancient Vedic text. It is mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita, where it is described as a poem of the Divine. On one level the mantra is an ecstatic salutation to the Sun deity Savitur – giving praise and thanks for his light. In ancient times people worshipped the Sun because it was (and still is) the source of all life on Earth. Its energy powers our planet. The mantra speaks of our place in the cosmos – the endless, timeless dance of planets and galaxies. But the mantra is broader than the literal meaning – it is describing the Divine light of the creator, the formless, nameless 'One', of which we are all part. It humbly asks for illumination and 'right thinking' of the intellect (or ego) to connect and align with that light. It is a devotion, meditation and prayer of gratitude all in one. According to Douglas Brooks, a professor of religion at the University of Rochester, the Gayatri mantra is truly sacred. "The sensibility it evokes is more important than the literal meaning. It's an offering, a way to open to grace, to inspire oneself to connect to the ancient vision of India," he says. "Its effect is to inspire modern yogis to participate in the most ancient aspiration of illumination that connects modern yoga to the Vedic tradition." I couldn't agree with him more. I experienced this mantra in my heart before I knew its literal meaning. This is a powerful, sacred mantra and I am blessed to be able to hear it and to chant it. I feel that this is a great mantra to chant when you wish to be of service and need guidance as to the best path to take. Align yourself with the highest power and you can't go wrong! There are many versions of the tune. It is worth noting that often the mantra is mispronounced by Westerners. I found a very helpful video on Youtube by Jorma Pohjola that explains it and how to chant it correctly. May this beautiful mantra fill you with light and love and blessings. For more information about mantra meditation, check out my little mantra book.  A walk in the forest has to be one of my favourite things. I walk and walk and soon my mind calms down and though I am still 'thinking', my thoughts are mainly about all the beauty I can see around me. That's why being in the forest makes it easier to practice awareness. It's the same on the beach – or anywhere in Nature, in fact. It must be because the contemplation of natural beauty is the closest there is to awareness itself. It is that 'love' connection. Love of Nature, the beauty and natural environment. And the trees... Oh the trees. Those noble standing ones. I had to stop every so often to take photos and to commune with them (yes, you know I'm a treehugger).  It was raining lightly, but that didn't matter. In fact it was welcome because it meant that even fewer people were venturing up the track. I like it that way – just me and the trees. The walk was up to the top of Conical Hill in Hanmer Springs. When I got there it was so amazingly beautiful – the mountain landscape with the mist lifting off the conifer trees. I had the look-out shelter to myself and I sat and meditated for a while. The gentle icy touch of a breeze on my face sent me instantly into awareness! Awareness is not about 'tuning out' the world. It's about being in it - in the now. Experiencing it without the dialogue of the mind. So I sat and was present as best I could be, with the dripping of rain from the roof of the shelter; the sounds of distant trucks; the constant song of bellbirds echoing through the forest. And all of it was just as it was. And I met it just as I was.
 I also do a bit of photography too – as you can see (!) But my point is that I write books, yeah I edit them too and am very familiar with publishing software, so I know the basics of design and I can lay out and style a book. Fine. But the marketing bit ? well.... Not so great. Or maybe I'm just still learning. I read an interesting article on the web today and there was a line that made me laugh out loud. 'If you self-publish your book, you are not going to be writing for a living. You are going to be marketing for a living.' I laughed because it is so true. And Ros Barber, who wrote the piece, went on to say that 'Self-published authors should expect to spend only 10% of their time writing and 90% of their time marketing.' Cough, splutter www-what!!???? Hmmm.... he does have a point. It is easy to get drawn in to the whole 'must push my book in everyone's faces' mode and to feel a kind of desperation around marketing on social media. I hate getting spam - and so I wouldn't like to feel I am inflicting it on anyone!! But I have to speak up a little, or no one will know about my book at all. My answer is to choose a middle way. I'm not going to devote 90% of my time to marketing – no way!! And if that means less books sold, then so be it. My plan is to write, publish, let go. I'll have to plug my books on mantras or kindness (ha ha – couldn't resist!) occasionally so that people know where to get them. But mainly, I need to get on with the next one.  I no longer post on Instagram or Facebook. But you can see videos featuring my photography on my Youtube channel.  Selfcare is something many of us struggle with. It is easy to care for a friend or even help a stranger – so why is it so hard to care for ourselves? Some of it is conditioning; perhaps we grew up in a household where it was better (by that I mean 'safer') to keep quiet about our own needs and help where we could. Perhaps we were subtly coerced into doing that or openly praised for helping others and we began to think that to help others was a way of being seen and being loved. We need to challenge those beliefs because we deserve love regardless of our usefulness. Or maybe we picked up on a vibe in society that gives special credit to people who help others and marks out people as 'bad' or 'selfish' if they don't. We have to challenge that too – and the language around it. Selfcare is not the same as selfishness. Selfcare is simply looking after yourself; listening to what you need and honouring yourself as an individual. How can you ever honour others when you don't honour yourself?  Selfcare is something I am learning myself. Every so often I embark on a 'Self-kindness practice' for a certain period of time - perhaps a lunar cycle (29 days). I find that this creates a vessel or container for the practice and helps me work through and gain insights. I highly recommend it.
When you start to practice selfcare, you begin to really understand yourself and your boundaries and this helps you to care for others. And it is also more authentic. There is no duty or compulsion. You give from your overflow; you give because you want to; because you have energy to spare. It is a win: win situation! But you won't realise this until you start to really look after yourself. Trust me and give it a go. It will be the least selfish thing you do!  People who chant the mantra 'Om' consider it to be the 'primordial sound' – the sound of the Universe itself. As such, it has no translation, a bit like The Tao has no translation either. Yet, perhaps... you could think of Om as being the lasting echo of the 'Big Bang'. (Ancient philosophy meets theoretical physics!) I like this idea, because recent studies have shown that the Universe is expanding and not only that it is accelerating! To me this demonstrates the creative power of Om. The Universe is not running down (as you might expect from an explosion). No, it is creating and creating itself.
Om is the simplest of mantras – and easy to learn. Some schools of thought decree an exact pronuncation, but I have never subscribed to this pedantic, narrowing view. There are not too many ways you could possibly pronounce it anyway. And Indian researchers, who have been studying Om, have found that it doesn't matter how you say it, how fast, or slow, it always has an essential 'Om-ness' to it. And it is this that meditators focus on when chanting the mantra. We inhabit a world of thoughts, perceptions and intentions. Just consider that for a moment. Mantras are 'thought vehicles' in a way, verbal (or internally expressed) representations of thoughts or intentions. Thinking of what 'Om' symbolises, It is a sacred, powerful sound. And when you begin to chant it, timing it with your breathing, perhaps you begin to understand how you are the breath and the breath is you; you are the Universe and the Universe is you. All of it carried on a sound... Om. This simple mantra and 17 more are in my mantra book. More info on this page. It's a question most of us ask at some point in our lives, if not several times. But in this case, I'm not talking existentially. I'm posing a question you may have been asking yourself: who is 'Beautiful Sky'? By now you may have seen the occasional poem or quote, and lots and lots of photographs. But who is the human being behind it all...  Well, I'm quite a shy person – it doesn't take a genius to work that out (!!) At a party you will find me in the kitchen (cos it's quieter) chatting to one or two people. Never do you find me 'holding court' in a crowd. And yet... having said that, on occasion I have been known to get up in front of a crowd of strangers to tell a story as part of The Story Collective. And anyone who knows me in real life can tell you the huge effort and anxiety I go through in order to do it. Hmmmm.... it seems that sometimes I am pushed out of my comfort zone. I am pushing myself again and this time it is to be more visible online. So please bear with me – it takes some getting used to (!)  There are not many photos of me, as I tend to be the one behind the camera rather than in front of it. But I appreciate that people might want to know a little bit about me. Ok – so I am a writer, editor and, most recently, photographer (there is more about that on www.beautifulskybooks.com). I am also learning to be more mindful and present. Last year I began to develop a practice for myself that involves mindful walking and taking photos. As a result of my mindful practice, I am listening to that little inner voice a bit more – or maybe it's becoming louder (who knows?) And the result was to combine my photos with a selection of my favourite mantras. And to write a book about it!! How joyful it is to do what you love!  But this book is just the beginning. I feel there are more books to write as I continue on my journey towards wholeness and presence. Thank you for walking with me so far. Be ready for more posts and photos to come...
Connect with me on Youtube. Feel welcome to leave a comment below. And so another year is upon us... and here we are, a little bit older, a little bit wiser? I guess so. At least I have realised one thing: I need my daily practice! So off I went on 1st January to 'my happy place'. And (in the words of Kate Bush's extraordinary song 'Somewhere Inbetween') 'It was just so beautiful, It was just so beautiful, It was just - so - beautiful...'  These days I don't make New Year's resolutions – they feel too restrictive somehow... a bit of a negative vibe about them. But I do take time to reflect on what I want less of and what I want more of. Less anxiety, more trust. Less worrying and more dreaming. Less consuming, more creating. Less procrastination, more action! And each year I have a word to reflect on. This year it is Transition. (Lots of depth in that word – lots of ideas and possibilities). Do you have a word? I highly recommend the practice of taking just one word and finding out what it tells you throughout the year. Don't get too hung up on choosing it. Just go with it – whatever word comes to you. (Sometimes the word shows itself in a dream!) Gift yourself this word, and open to it. Be prepared for synchronicities! We live in an amazing Universe!  I went for another walk this morning (2 Jan)... and I saw my friend the heron! Now, that has to be a good sign, right? I did a quick Google just now and was delighted to discover that one of the many symbolic meanings of the heron is 'easy transitions' Yay!! It also represents the 'in between' state of being (reference the Kate Bush song!) I do love a bit of Synchronicity! I hope you are feeling refreshed and ready for the new year. May it be just as you dream it to be. You are welcome to leave a comment – or just say hello!  |
My thoughts
A blog in support of kindness and looking after each other. 
Mantra book
I have a new Mantra book out, click here for details :)
Kindness book
Check out my book called Choose Kindness. Buy it from this link.
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