Wisdom - not something that I can go shopping for

"We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us... "

- Marcel Proust

I can be clever - please myself with my own humour, judgements, preferences and opinions. What I've learned with this - is that I am not always quite as clever I think I am.

The reason - some inherent wisdom (?) tells me - is that my cleverness is the harvest of the past and doesn't let me drink in the wonderful refreshing waters of the present.

Today, I am going to try to "smell the coffee" and not dwell on the slipstream past. Just how wise that will be...only time will tell...

PS: So that I am clear - the slipstream of the past very often means a "half-empty" low-grade depression that I find very hard to shake off...

The Mighty Breath

"First of all the twinkling stars vibrated, but remained motionless in space, then all the celestial globes were united into one series of movements... Firmament and planets both disappeared, but the MIGHTY BREATH, which gives life to all things and in which all is bound up, remained."

- Vincent Van Gogh

What this celebrated artist is getting at is that there in only one reliable thing in life.

Interestingly the only picture my mother had in her room was one by Vincent - in retrospect that choice seems to have reflected an empathy with his very troubled life, rather than his mysticism.

What these words say to me, though, are: if the MIGHTY BREATH is all that is reliable, and if I give more of myself over to its healing winds - surrender to them if you like - will the low level misery that I accept as "my life" start to fade? And metamorphise into a more rewarding, less self-piteous place to be... I believe it will...

Follow your nose - for a good night's sleep

In a previous post, I noted that right nostril air stimulates the sympathetic part of our autonomic nervous system - which gives us our "fight and flight" energies. Left-nostrilled air resonates with the parasympathetic part - giving us the space to "rest and digest."

Based on this , Swami Rama, in his Science of Breath, provides this advise for a good night's kip:

"...when individuals go to bed, they should lie on the left side for five or ten minutes, activating the right nostril to create increased body heat. As soon as they are warm and comfortable, they should turn ot the right, allowing the left nostril to open. Doing so relaxes, calms and prepares them for sleep."

Sweet dreams...it works