What is reality?

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Reality. The stuff, the world; that which we live in. Right?

Or.
Is it perhaps what I make of the world I live in? Am I shaped by reality? Or do I shape my reality?

What do I bring, to the experience I have of the world? My world, rather than The world?

How do I warp the reality into my reality just by having myself be the filter that everything I take in, gets filtered through?

I don’t know precisely what my filter adds to reality as I perceive it. I don’t need to. But knowing That my filter adds to reality, as I know it, is crucial. Understanding this, means I know that no other person on earth can have the exact same experience of the world as I have. No one. Everyone has their own unique filter, through which we take in that which we live in.

So the next time you and a friend talk about a shared experience, and you cannot understand how your friend says X happened, even though you know for a fact it was Y. This is the reason. You both took in the facts of the situation through your personal filter. It’s a bit like applying a filter on a photograph in Instagram. The starting point is the same, but the result can be just about anything, an endless diversity.

Given that – what is reality, really?

Hyvens Salong med tankespjärnande samtal

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Städat. Röjd undan högar. Handlat. Lagat soppa. Förberett skålar med morot, och yoghurt. Dukat. Tänt ljus.

Före

Sen. Dyker de upp. En efter en. Initialt kom Ulf, min Hyvens kompanjon. Därefter. Gäst på gäst. Totalt sju personer, inklusive mig och Ulf. Alldeles lagom. Slevar upp soppa och går och sätter oss.

Kort introduktion av själva konceptet, som inte tarvar många ord. Huvudpoängen – att lyssna efter det du inte redan vet. Inte lyssna för bekräftelse, utan efter det andra, det som vidgar dina vyer, ger dig tankespjärn, sätter griller i huvudet på dig. Så väldigt enkelt. Och gisses, så svårt. Vanan att lyssna efter bekräftelse sitter där, stark, väldigt inarbetad, så djupt rotad att den blir osynlig. Jag märker inte ens att jag lyssnar på automatik, utan att faktiskt höra vad som egentligen sägs.

Kort presentation av de som sitter runt bordet och sörplar soppa. Och sen är samtalet igång. Böljar fram och tillbaka, handlar mycket om framtid och organisation. Om Varför. Motivation och engagemang.

efter

Tiden går snabbt. Innan jag vet ordet av har två timmar gått och det är dags att säga farväl, för denna gången. För jo, det blir fler Hyvens Salong. De är alldeles för intressanta och givande för att upphöra. Att under ett par timmars tid, få sitta i ett möte med människor som framför allt har ett gemensamt, i att vara nyfikna och öppna, ger mig ofantligt mycket. Jag lär mig, expanderar. Och att det inte har något syfte utöver att just bara vara en plats där ett samtal kan föras, ingen dold agenda, inga krav på resultat, progress. Att bara få vara, tillsammans med andra. Nästan absurt, men…. i mitt liv är sådana tillfällen oerhört sällsynta. Har du skapat utrymme för något dylikt i ditt liv?

 

 

Växtkraft, del tre

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Sonen förändras dag för dag, jag ser hans drag växa till sig, allt mer av de barnsliga dragen försvinner, och i dess ställe träder något annat fram. Som en skugga av framtiden. Jag börjar, allt mer tydligt, se glimtar av mannen han kommer att växa upp till. Jag önskar och hoppas den vuxna mannen tar med sig det bästa av de drag han hittills visat upp i världen, under sina första elva år på jorden.

Ömheten, kärleksfullheten, humorn. Förmågan att njuta, av beröring, av en kram, av att gosa med katt eller hund.

Det konstnärliga, skapelsekraften, färgkoordineringen och förmågan att se och själv skapa vackra mönster.

Intellektet, snabbt, porlande, med en stor vilja att lära. Läser, tittar, fingrar nyfiket på världen.växtkraft sonDet fysiska. I besittning av en fysisk säkerhet jag är avundsglad över, något jag ser i honom som jag aldrig själv upplevt. Tryggheten, vissheten i vad hans kropp och psyke förmår göra, och inte förmår. Han är säker till hand och fot, utmanar sig, men inte dumdristigt. Han vet sina nuvarande gränser och hedrar dem. Sträcker sig lite grann utanför dem, och tänjer därmed sakta men säkert ut gränsen för vad han fysiskt förmår göra.

Sonen min, du vackra själ.
Jag älskar dig. Bebisen du var, mannen du kommer bli.
Och mest av allt, den du är, i just denna stund.

Your writing has improved

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Your writing has improved, she said.

And I agree. I can feel it, experience it, as I write. But also as I go back a year, two, three, to revisit what I wrote back then. My writing has definitely improved, it’s getting better and better, and what I notice is how it’s taking on it’s very own tone and voice. My tone and voice, something that has never before been expressed and explored like it is now. Taking shape before my eyes, the lines, colors, texture of it gradually coming into being, letter by letter, word by word.

The tone and voice of the books I read (and I am an avid reader!), is something I give thought to. If the tone doesn’t reverberate within me, I put the book down (something which I never allowed myself to do before when I was still oh so harsh against myself. If I’d started to read it, I couldn’t be a quitter…. Oh Helena, how harsh you were…). Pick another. Start to read. Going for a book that vibrates in tune with me.

That vibration doesn’t have anything to do with the topic, or whether or not it’s fiction or non-fiction, No, it’s the use of words, how they are placed on the paper, the pace of it, sometimes who the speaker is, and how he/she speaks to me. There are writers whose tone I love, and those that I just cannot get myself to read.

And my tone is slowly growing, with each word I pen, with every blog post I publish (as well as those I don’t…), slow and steady, a blog piece a day, I am honing my skill at writing. The beauty of blogging is that it’s visible, my journey as a writer is there for all to witness, including me.

As I’ve revisited my blog posts of years gone past, I’m getting the feeling there are topics I’d like to get back to, write about, again, to see what I might be able to do with the same topic today, as a slightly better writer than before.

Better and better….

Don’t misinterpret me, to think I am judging what I used to do, as no good. I’m not. I am merely stating facts. There has been a shift, and hence, what I write today is, in my view, most often of a higher quality than before. But I am not judging myself for having been a bad writer before. No. I merely rejoice at the progression I notice, and take pride in it. Patting myself on the back, for sticking with it, for growing, developing, finetuning and honing my craft.

We all have to start from the beginning, learing the alphabet, to read and write…. and then, gradually, as we learn more and more, as we receive formative feedback, what we produce when writing evolves.

I am happy I’ve rediscovered writing, so that my writing also started it’s very own expansion journey. My writing was at a stand-still for many many years, hibernating, in a state of being neither here nor there, neither alive or dead.writing

But now. It’s alive again.
Out of hibernation. Expanding.

It’s the most wonderful feeling.
You know it too?

Graveyard ruminations

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I’m sad to see gravestones in Swedish cemeteries being taken down and removed, for lack of someone to care for them, or perhaps more correctly, pay for someone else to care for them. And I get it. I guess. Someone has to pay the price for it, and all that.

But still. Having spent a few precious minutes of peace and quiet at the wonderful graveyard of St Kenelm’s church in Enstone outside Oxford, I still mourn the fact that Swedish cemeteries are such images of straight lines, well kept graves, and neatly tended shrubs and hedges.

Because the magic get’s lost somewhere along the way. I love burial grounds, and perhaps that’s an oddity in itself (although luckily I know I have several friends who join me in this oddity. I am not alone!), but the real magic of a cemetery is never as well experienced as in a gloriously unkept cemetery found in such number on the British Isles (including Ireland).graveyardsLush greenery, old gravestones, where the writing is all but impossible to read, tipped over gravestones, broken ones, in all manner of disarray. Hundreds of years old graves with a fresh bouquet of flowers and a burning candle on it. Some clearly forgotten. Birds chirping away, the dapples of the sun through the branches of a tree, insects buzzing, a dog barking in the distance.enstone graveyardExperiencing such peace and calmness, my soul settling down into the bosom of my heart, taking it in, all of it. I sense love in the air at cemeteries. Perhaps that seems strange, but then again, grief is love with a twist of sadness to it, right? Looking at myself, I cry for those I’ve lost in this world, because I love them and miss having them around in the form I’ve grown used to. Walking around on a cemetery I feel closer to those who are no longer here physically. Memories of times gone by sweep through me, of laughter, conversations, smells and sounds of my childhood tickle my senses, making me believe, for a split second, that I am sitting at the kitchen table of my Momo, drinking a glass of her homemade pink saft…

Oh sweet memories.

I am grateful for having lived a life which has created a grand library of sweet memories to ruminate upon.

Podcast 45/52 – liberated being

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Short and sweet, another Good Life Project riff, on the word transformation and how it’s being used in the world of yoga, self-awareness and mindfulness. The term transformation, as it’s used in this crowd, really comes from is the sanskrit word/concept of jiwanmukta. And jiwanmukta isn’t about transformation, it’s about liberation. It translates into Liberated being.

BoldomaticPost_l-i-b-e-r-a-t-e-d-b-e-i-n-gWhen I listened to this podcast, there was a release within. A flash of lightning, an aha, that told me something I already knew, I just hadn’t put it into words. Jonathan Fields did that for me.

Liberated being – not transformed.
L i b e r a t e d !

So free yourself. Let yourself out of the cage created by and for you. Reveal what is already there, know there is nothing to transform. You don’t have to become someone else, transform into some other being, with different, better, more worthy traits and skills.

It’s all within you.

You cannot be found outside of You. You can only be found within.
So stop looking outside, thinking there’s something you can do, be, buy to find yourself. You cannot. Look inwards. Not to transform. To reveal. To get to know your true essence. To step into it, fully.

Sometimes. It scares me.
Becoming aware of my true essence, to feel, sense, notice it.
Other times, it’s the most divine experience, uplifting, hope giving, and enormously empowering. Because the power is there, within me. None else can empower me.
It’s within. I. Have. It. Already.

Let it out. Liberate it. Set it free.

It? Me!
Set me free. Let me out. Liberate myself.

Liberate thyself?

 

Near miss

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Driving north, for hours upon hours. Headed for a family celebration.

Darkness comes swiftly. Teen comments on the compact darkness, very different from the much-lighter darkness of the town we live in, which is, throughout, well-lit. Too well-lit, I sometimes wonder? Never that pitch black night, that only is experienced when far away from well-lit towns. Where the darkness is so dark, it’s as if it’s of higher density, more compact, the air itself has a richer texture to it.

Driving on dark roads, through the forests of southern Sweden, up through Småland and Östergötland.
Hubby behind the wheel, teen beside him, me and the tween in the back.

Wham!

Hubby slams on the breaks, and I look up, through the windshield. See a roedeer in the middle of the road, just a few meters ahead of us, looking me straight in the eyes. It skips towards the side of the road, and when we come upon it, it has just made it past the width of the front of the car.

Roedeer jittery jumping to safety into the forest, leaving us in equal safety in the car.

Near miss.

Heart pounding.
Tween asking why we slammed the breaks, being the only one who didn’t see the roedeer. ”I almost slammed my head in the car seat in front of me”, he whines, chocked when he hears what just *almost* happened.
Hubby driving on, shaken, like all of us, including the roedeer.

But for the quick reflex of hubby, what might have happened?
Gratitude filling me, all of me, from top to toe. Pulsing within, along my racing heart.

Near misses.
Sometimes, they bring a gift. A wake-up call.
Sometimes, they pass unnoticed, and the gift is not brought into awareness.

near missesThis near miss – a gift. Reminding me to make the most of what I’ve got, here, now, today, in this very moment. Enjoy what I have, and remember to take pleasures in the small things of life. Such as a look shared between hubby and wife, in the rearview mirror, as the car speeds ahead again, albeight a bit slower than before. The realization, in that shared look, that life is both precious and gorgeous, and we’d better make the most of it, because it can end, in an instant. And it will. Sometime. Until then, I’ll take this near miss as a gift of life, a reminder to live a life that matters.

Du fyller din tomhet med vad?

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Du fyller din tomhet med vad? frågade Miss Rafiki.

Varför skulle jag fylla den? Då vore den ju inte längre min tomhet?

Min tomhet är en del av mig, likväl som mina övriga sinnesstämningar, för det är vad det är. Ibland är jag hög, ibland låg.

Varför skulle jag försöka fly från dem? De är ju mina sinnesstämningar, som kommer. Och går. Kommer. Och går. Kallas livet.

För mig, att se, vilken sinnesstämning jag är i, ger mig, ofta, men inte alltid, möjlighet att se, krama, acceptera och låta vara. Förr eller senare kommer en ny sinnesstämning.

Det som för mig är viktigare är måhända att ställa frågan om jag ska agera utifrån min sinnesstämning. Om jag, i tomhet, blir destruktiv, apatisk, förtvivlad, kanske inte eventuella handlingar sprungna ur dessa känslor gagnar mig, eller min omgivning. Om jag, i tomhet, får energi att engagera mig, bry mig, räcka ut en hand till en annan själ, söka gemenskap, kanske eventuella handlingar sprungna ur dessa känslor gagnar mig, eller min omgivning.tomhet

Så jag. Jag fyller inte min tomhet. Då vore den inte längre min tomhet.
Däremot kanske, eller kanske inte, agerar jag utifrån den. Det är mitt val. Vad är ditt?

A library of Memories

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I have a grand library of memories within. 43 plus years I’ve lived and breathed upon this earth, in the form of Me. Thousands upon thousands of memories, shelved upon the bookcases of the library of Memories within. A little bit like the memory balls of Inside out by Pixar/Disney. bodleianBut as I’ve recently been in Oxford visiting the Bodleian Library, that’s the vision I see before me as I close my eyes and let my imagination carry me away, into the library of Memories within.

There are memories of all sorts there, all flavors. Happy, Ecstatic, Joyful, Sad, Grief, Troublesome, Painful, Sweet, Beautiful. And more, much more. Like a library contains books of different categories, so does my library of Memories. A multitude of memories, encompassing all categories (?) of the Human Experience.

I have, sometimes, felt weighted down by this grand library. Memories have stuck, top of mind, not wanting to (or being able to?) settle peacefully upon a shelf, next to other memories of the same type, or from the same time. A heavy load to carry around, dragging me down, draining me of energy.

This rarely happens anymore. I seldom feel burdened by memories and experiences. They just are. They exist. Nothing more. Nothing less. I don’t have to layer them with the rights and wrongs of my past. I feel. Fully. But no longer (as often as before at least) label experiences, and the resulting memory, as good or bad, as right or wrong, as worthy or unworthy.

Being ok with what is, both in the Now, and in remembering the moments of Now long since passed, makes a difference in everyday life for me. It helps me both feel – truly feel – that which I feel, while at the same time I observe myself feeling it. Not judging. That’s what it is. The difference. For me. Can you relate? Do you know what a difference it does to stop judging oneself, in any given moment?

Creeping up on me

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Afternoon has just come, I’m sitting on the plane flying home from #SethinLondon, and it’s all creeping up on me.

A lack of sleep. A multitude of impressions, of intake, words, questions, new friendships forged, heartfelt hugs from people I didn’t know walked the Earth a few hours before.

Slowing down.
Letting it sink in.
Exhale.
Feel like I’m coming in for landing, in so many more ways than physically.

The chill in the cabin makes the hairs on my arm stand up.
Inhale. Exhale.

Look out the window at the landscape of clouds, so many layers, thick, thin, white – grey – blue in a billion hues. Seen from above they truly form a landscape. Like moutain plateaus, separated by crevices, nooks and crannies, as well as the steepest ravines. Seen from below they look like a silken parasol, a light and flimsy fabric, yet still able to shield me from the sharpest rays of the sun.mattersYawn.
Chills running through my entire body.

Yawn.
Body telling me to rest. Close my eyes, take ten of solitude and silence.

Shake and shiver, tired, elated, inspired. And grateful.
For everything I have, all that I am, and all I will be.
All there will be.

Float away.
Happily.
I am alive, and I get to do work that matters. I get to live a life that matters. What a gift I’ve been given. And you too. You know that right?