crown of violets

{inspired by gala darling}

Magical Sunset
Originally uploaded by San*
“There is no exquisite beauty… without some strangeness in the proportion.”
- Edgar Allan Poe

As a child, I’d never consider myself beautiful. I thought I was too odd to be anything lovely. Now at twenty-two, I’ve come to accept all the ways that I am unique as expressions of my inherent beauty and sacred self. Beauty is so much more than a shape, a size, a colour, or an image. We find beauty in those things, but beauty itself goes beyond that. What we understand as beautiful is what we find pleasing, whether it be physical, emotional, spiritual, or intellectual. We nourish all the ways we are unique and beautiful by accepting that we are expressions of the love that surrounds us and accepting ourselves as sacred.

Accepting the self as sacred is a choice to acknowledge that all you do and all that you are is beautiful and loved. We are the physical manifestation of a divine dream and we are meant to celebrate this, through our actions and our words. The world wants us to live beautifully, with soulful pleasure at what we are creating.

We carry with us an inner guide that directs us and helps us follow our path. Something special that is born when we enter into a physical form, something that wouldn’t have existed without this union of body and spirit. You can call it the soul, the essence, the imagination, it doesn’t matter. I’m fond of the term “inscape”. For spiritual discussions, I tend to refer to it as our “dreaming”. It is unique and the soul of what we are, the child of our physical and spiritual selves coming together for this moment in time.

The inscape is the distinctive and inherent quality of something. It is dynamic and ever changing, like our personalities. It’s what we carry with us, what we create from. Inscapes can be similar, but no two can ever be exactly alike. Our inscape holds the keys to unraveling the mysteries of our gifts and can help guide us in our journey through life. Our purpose is to flourish and it tells us what we want and need. Like dreams, it communicates with the waking mind through symbols and affinity. Affinity is the feeling of being connected to something and our affinity for certain symbols are sign posts drawing our attention to objects and moments. Anyone who
follows a spiritual path or has ever been attracted to another person understands this feeling instinctively. How we listen to these feelings decide the path our lives will take. The world gives us what we bring to it. If we follow our path with delight, our path will bring us delight.

We can begin to unravel our inscapes through paying attention to the symbols that call to us. Symbols are often used by our subconscious to get messages to us, like while we’re dreaming. By actively working with these symbols and affinities, we gain skill in decoding the messages around us and which ones we want to respond to. Explore your start chart, birth signs, or personal associations. What do you feel drawn to? What does it represent symbolically? Believe nothing, entertain every possibility. Read favourite stories for inspiration and watch your emotional self for responses to different characters, objects, or settings. Use those feelings as a guide.

The other side of living beautifully, with deep soulful pleasure, is by actively expressing and celebrating the mysteries you uncover while delving into yourself. Celebrating the inscape manifests for me as a spiritual and artistic process. I take the things that attract me in my daily life, research them, deconstruct them, explore different sides, then put it all back together in a way that I find pleasing. Express yourself through what you fill our days with. Any aspect of your life is an opportunity to celebrate your unique spark. Rework your wardrobe to include only the colours, styles, and pieces that make you feel incredible. Make your personal space a sacred space, filled with things that inspire and delight you. Celebrate your body by indulging your senses. Surround yourself with food, music, activities, and company that nourish your soul and inspire you to be your best and brightest.

Let your inner voice be the final word on the beautiful life you’re building for yourself. Your life is meant to nourish and express the essence of who you are and what you contribute as a co-creator of the world. embrace it, love it, let it shine. Define for yourself what is beautiful to you. Be courageous and loving with yourself, humbled by and generous with your gifts. Love yourself fiercely and dedicate yourself to your beautiful life.

Thank you, stars
Originally uploaded by ::Miguel Vila::

When we say something is beautiful, what we’re really saying is that we find it pleasing. We feel distaste for things that don’t please us, that we have no affinity with. We pull towards us what we feel a connection to. This deep attraction feels good, it pleases us, so we are attracted to beautiful things. We desire.

While many of us share common ideas of beauty, we also are wildly different in what we feel desire for. We are even wildly different from one moment to the next within ourselves. We are creatures in flux, change, motion. Our perception of beauty is tied to something deep in us. We are creatures of both sensuality and spirituality, we love harmony as much as we love chaos, so we are drawn to things that are both like us and different. We seek both ourselves and strangeness in what we are drawn to.

The moment of attraction is like a sparkling warmth that fills me from the inside out, sweet and sharp electricity across my skin. It can come with a person, a really good piece of art work, a delicious meal, a new idea that’s just what I’ve been waiting for. It can be a cold shiver down my spine, with just enough bite, dazzling and breathtaking. Desire is elemental, essential to our being. It’s what drives me to create, to explore, to dance. It’s the drive to express, to give of myself, to take into myself. Without desire, we’d probably fade into entropy, slowing down until we stagnate or fade. We’re like the stars, needing just the right mix to keep sparking, keeping igniting, renewing ourselves, burning brightly until it’s time for us to go out. Until then what we truly desire is to burn ourselves perfectly with everything we’ve got. We want to give our gifts away, to hold nothing back. We want to shine.

Fire Dance
Originally uploaded by The Eternity

I enjoy beauty for beauty’s sake and seek it out in the world around me. That includes cultivating the grace already inherent in me, refining my talents and skills so that I can become a clearer channel for what calls to me. We are all diamonds in the rough. By both giving to and receiving from, we co-create with the world and become the ambassadors of what we want to see in it. We learn, we teach. What we desire also desires us. The more we let those energies flow through us, the more we embody our dreams.

This year, I’ve been taking the opportunity to explore things I’ve never really made the time for. Dancing has been a passion of mine for years, though I’ve never made it a consistent part of my life. I’ve danced to give expression to sorrow, anger, joy, and I dance for celebration. To start, I’ve taken to dancing at least one a day, preferably in the morning. I pick any kind of music that catches my fancy and let go whirling, stomping, swaying, whatever I feel like. This puts me in an incredible mood with which to face the day. I love my morning practices on my own and I feel that dancing for my personal enjoyment brings out the soulfulness of it, letting me express my emotions better and better. But I’d like to devote time to improving my skill and I’m excited to start balancing that with studying with instructors who will really challenge me.

My personal style of dancing is very much like Middle Eastern dance and I’d love to take a belly dancing class. Middle Eastern style dancing is a very sensual form of dancing and the style of music and richness of the performances I’ve seen are quite alluring. Belly dancing helps you get in touch with your sensual self and provides lots of creative opportunity for putting personal pieces together. Studying will definitely improve my personal technique, as well as introduce me to new movements and music. Community centers often have classes several months long throughout the year but I’ve found a couple of teachers in the city through the internet who hold classes in their own space, so hopefully I won’t have to wait until the next cycle begins at the centers.

Ballet looks light and airy but demands a lot from dancers physically. It’s much more formalized and I like the challenge of it, especially beginning as an adult. Royal Dance at the Forks will be holding fall classes in beginner ballet and the Royal Winnipeg Ballet also offers adult classes. Both are central locations and are good schools. I’ve always been a little weak on the constitution side and ballet will definitely challenge me to build strength and endurance in a completely different way than belly dancing.

Because I try to find balance in everything I do (and because I’ve been threatening forever ♥), I’m also going to finally sign up for a yoga class. My friend Rae-annon has repeatedly shown me the wonders of yoga even walking me through some workouts in the morning while I was staying with her. Besides being a wonderfully centering workout, yoga will help me improve my flexibility and energize me during the influx of demanding physical activity. It also has spiritual ties to many disciplines that speak to me. Like all the best pursuits, it inherently supports the whole vision and the type of energy I’m attracting into my life.

Cyprus Aphrodite Birthplace Sunrise
Originally uploaded by springtide9

“What is a teacher? I’ll tell you: it isn’t someone who teaches something, but someone who inspires the student to give of her best in order to discover what she already knows.” ~ Paulo Coelho (The Witch of Portobello)

A temple is a sacred space dedicated to sharing the teachings of a specific deity. It can also be a place of public worship, though I’m not much for distancing aspect of worship. To carry a temple means to carry a sacred space where teachings you’ve been given can be shared with others. It expresses acceptance of the teacher in all of us and a willingness to return the generosity shown to us by the divine.

There are many ways to carry a temple. A temple can be as elaborate or simple as you like. You can have an urban temple, an outdoor temple, you can have both. For some people, the altar makes the temple. For others, their body is their temple. My teachings reflect a temple dedicated to sensuality, pleasure and creativity, but also delight, enchantment, and adventure. Anywhere those energies exist can be viewed as sacred and I try to express them daily, through my thoughts, actions, and celebrations. Because I walk with a spirit that celebrates the inner divine, most of my personal temple practices don’t seem to need much more than my loving attention. I believe that my senses are meant to celebrate my physical universe and find the pleasure in daily things. My life is my dedication.

Even so, I feel like to grow further I’ll need to create a temple space for my companion work. It’s important because I’ll learn to create a physical space that will nourish the inner space to flourish. It will need to be a nourishing space where we can find harmony between the physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual selves. It needs to be easily accessible from both my home and gardens, as well as reasonably accessible to any travel routes. My city celebrates a lot of festivals and cultural events that I would love to explore more. We have winters that can turn harsh so I’ll need to be close to both food and drink and any other supplies I or a guest might need. There will also have to be plenty of plants. Celebrating what I want to explore will probably be the most fun about creating this space. It’ll have to be a space where art, creativity, pleasure, sensuality, and a fair amount of plants come together. It not only has to have space for everything I like to do, but space for what guests like as well. It needs privacy, warmth, and lots of opportunity for play.

Creating a temple space opens me to a more interactive experience with the spirits I feel affinity with. It is place for them to draw strength from. Like a home, a sacred space fills us with warmth and love. It feeds the little golden flame we carry inside, warming us wherever we go.

{ by Hieronymus Bosch }

“If woman lost us Eden, such as she alone can restore it.” ~ John Greenleaf Whittier

While I don’t know too much about Mr. Whittier’s work, I thought this quote was particularly interesting and very fitting with the work of art I’m contemplating today.

The Eden depicted in this image is another manifestation of a common human theme of paradise, places of beauty, pleasure and delight where every creature lives in harmony. Paradise is woven into the fabric of our deepest dreams and desires, prevalent in most types of mythic literature. These places are compelling to us, places where our desires and wishes are fulfilled. We are searching for happiness and fulfillment. Paradise promises that we can have that the moment we walk through its pearly, ivy-twined gates. It can seem a far cry from the world we’re surrounded with, but perhaps paradise is closer than we’ve ever dreamed.

It comes as no surprise that many of images of Paradise are depicted as gardens. Gardening has only been a part of my life for the past six months and I never could have imagined how much it would change me. The effects have been gentle, but universal. It’s through working in traditional gardens (gardens planted according to the ways of indigenous peoples) that I’ve truly begun to understand the beautiful simplicity and masterful complexity of Nature. Gardening has kept me fed through the winter, as I try to remove my dependence on industries that worship money and follow a spirit of dominance instead of love. It has provided both sustenance and a sense of security as food prices soar. It has awakened a deep sense of connection to the earth that a childhood spent with electronic devices and indoors didn’t foster. It has nurtured and given expression to the healer in me and allowed me to take my health and happiness into my own hands. The garden has empowered me. It has centered me. It has allowed me a space to open myself to love and beauty. Nothing is as sensual as working in Nature. The garden is full of colour and sound, wonderful tastes and intoxicating smells like the sweet smell of wild strawberries as the earth is turned, the cool taste of dew that collects in squash flowers, lemon balm and basil covering my hands and filling my head as I gather their leaves for tea.

Working in the garden has also given me a sense of responsibility through my growing connection to the earth. As I walk through my city, plants and trees become less generic. I naturally pick out the plants I’ve been blessed to learn about and begin to see at the natural abundance that surrounds us. These are familiar friends and energies I see in my own space, that I tend and work with. I feel a connection that can only grow as I learn more and more. I see the plants I don’t know and think about how very much I have to learn and where that will take me. Plants travel the earth and we follow them. We are travelers and adventurers and the land calls for us to explore it. We have nothing to fear, because plants are always around us.

Wherever you go, Nature is there. We have certain gifts that other animals don’t, but that doesn’t mean that we’re outside of Nature’s domain. I can easily name dozens of plants and animals that can do things I’ve yet to learn how to do. We as people like to think we are observers, but we and all we create are just as much a part of Nature as the plants, the animals, the stars, the very sky itself. Nature extends from the core beneath us to the natural world to the physical universe. The universe has been making different types of life for a long time and we are simply another piece of the puzzle. Nature’s got the big stuff covered. When I think of that and see how surrounded by abundance I am in the garden, I feel at peace. There’s always something to share and learn. I know all of my needs will be met, that I live in a beautiful world, full of harmony and delight. Sounds a little bit like Paradise.

Perhaps instead of a place, Paradise is a way of living. Maybe Paradise can be found in something as simple as living in harmony with our environment. As we grow in our understanding of how our past decisions and current actions affect the whole of our planet, those that choose love consider how their actions ripple outward to shape the world they live in. We make decisions that will bring health and happiness to their lives and spread it to everything we encounter. This feeds the spirit of love, generosity, and harmony in our world that understands that all we need to live in harmony with Nature and to find Paradise is to be our true selves, the powerful, creative and loving creatures we were meant to be.

Sacred spaces are spaces dedicated to the divine, spaces where we let our love shine. In sacred spaces, we gather and hold rituals of celebration, living and loving and giving of ourselves. We part, taking a piece of that sacred space with us, only richer and never poorer.

The most obvious examples we have of sacred space are temples and churches. Given my history, and how I view the divine, I’m more inclined to temples and natural spaces, but a sacred space in really anywhere where we invite ourselves to be touched by wonder, mystery, and enchantment.

One of the ways I’m learning to invite sacred space into my daily life is to accept that they can be any place at any time. My city is full of parks, doorways, gates, different types of energy centers. There are many churches, social clubs, and meeting places. All of these places can be sacred. My body is a sacred space, my room is a sacred space, my mind is a sacred space. This website can be a sacred space. It’s where I take what I’m being given by the world around me and pass it along. Like all energy centers, sacred spaces can flow in a creative, harmonizing way, or get blocked. They can work as part of a harmonious whole or drawn in power from a source and suck it up, drawing it in and letting it sit stagnant. Inviting love and creation into this space allows me to be sure I’m aligning it correctly. It can become an energy center for good, for communication, for sharing ideas. My hand shapes how this website affects the people it comes across. A website itself is a neutral tool until the creator directs it to suit their will and purpose.

Part of understanding sacred spaces is opening myself to the responsibility of them. When I go out into the world, my energy spreads to everything I encounter. When I chose consciously to share love, beauty, and wonder – that spreads to the people I encounter and colours the energy they feel from me. Love and beauty spread and I have to acknowledge my spiritual, sacred self in my daily life. As I allow that energy to flow, I in essence become a sacred space, one where I am saying yes to my role as both a teacher and student, a channel for divine energy, for love.