Radical Transformation

Today in the garden the Echinacea is in full bloom and the butterflies and bees have arrived to enjoy it. That's why you'll never see a butterfly with a cold, or hear it sneeze. All that herbal medicinal goodness I think (wink).

Speaking of herbal medicinal goodness, next week is my 6-day Radical Transformation Through Ayurveda seminar with Vasant Lad. I'm slowly packing up to go, but am simultaneously wavering with fear. 7 days by myself in unfamiliar surroundings, away from comfortable home and wonderful J and adorable Vixen and the blooming garden and the good routines and simple things we have (not to mention away from the internet, gulp, but also away from the office, phew!)...I know I can't hold on to any of these blessings forever, and yet here I am trying, grasping. Clutching, even. Every day I'm thankful for my life but ahhhhh...attachment. That's something else entirely.

All of these spiritual/meditative practices I've been doing this year are (in addition to their other benefits) supposed to help with letting go of fear and attachment so I can leave this life thinking only of the next adventure — not clinging to this one. Clinging to this life is impossible and therefore useless. Do I really want to spin my wheels on useless endeavors while I'm here? And if I'm having this much trouble leaving for a week, what state will I be in when it's time to leave forever? A state of fear? A state of denial? I sincerely don't want that to be the case. So I practice. Leaving for a week is practice, just a baby step, really.

Did you know that when a caterpillar undergoes the process of changing into a butterfly it must first become a pupa and digest its own body from the inside out? Technically its death might be "partial" with some old cells remaining alive to create an entirely new form, but let's face it — for all intents and purposes the caterpillar/pupa has turned into a pile of goo. And from that goo of its old body come nutrients that will feed its new body. A body with wings, a body that can fly.

Talk about a radical transformation!

Every day I get inspirational posts sent to me from Guru Singh's blog, part of his series on Practical Enlightenment which I'm also enthusiastically listening to via podcast. Here are some thoughts he shared today...

As an adult — not just a chronological one, but an authentic one -- we are to travel through the years -- not inch by inch, but dream by dream . . . accomplishment by accomplishment. Any doubt slows this progress way down and becomes a blockage to the joys of progress. As a spiritually evolved adult -- a path-walker as it is known to the ancients -- the journey of an enlightened adult's life is to be measured in light years. Doubt and all the other childhood tools are disastrous and virtually unusable at this rate of journey. The preferred tools of this advanced evolution are tools of elegance and grace, integrity and courage; there is no place for arrogance; there is no place for power struggles; there is no place for the deceptions caused by fear, jealousy, envy and insecurity.