Each Day, R/Evolution

The Purpose of Emotion

The Purpose of Emotion ( Rumi )

A certain Sufi tore his robe in grief,
and the tearing brought such relief he have the robe
the name faraji, which means ripped open,

or happiness, or one who brings the joy
of being opened. It comes from the stem faraj,
which also refers to the genitals, male and female.

His teacher understood the purity of the action,
while others just saw the ragged appearance.

If you want peace and purity, tear away
the coverings! This is the purpose of emotion,
to let a streaming beauty flow through you.

Call it spirit, elixir, or the original agreement
between yourself and God. Opening into that
gives peace, a song of being empty, pure silence.

Emotions are signals - from the consciousness and spirit through to our conscious awareness - they are materialized messages from our intuition meant to awaken attention to our present experience.  Emotions are gifts - they are experiential proof of our soul's experience as we interact with others and the world.

Although I allow my heart to guide me, I do not let my emotions - especially those of anger, bitterness, regret, etc. do anything but watercolor my reality. Holding on to perceived slights, voids, dissatisfactions, and even "righteous indignations" only manifest dis-ease.

Emotions are meant to be fluid and ephemeral markers of experience, but are not the lessons themselves.

Deadly Yummies - Pasta with Chocolate Recipe

pasta with fruit and chocolate
Originally uploaded by mollykiely

So my Filckr friend Molly posted this arresting photo of "Pasta with fruit and chocolate."

I've been quietly obsessing about how this would taste.

I hacked my own version. I would highly suggest that you do NOT attempt this recipe or anything like it, if you value your figure. I am pretty sure that I just gained 5 lbs.

Carmen's Pasta with Chocolate Recipe

Ingredients:

Trader Joe's Pappardelle Egg Pasta
Frey Supreme Swiss White Blueberry Chocolate bar - crumbled
2-3 tablespoons of marscapone cheese

Cook pasta.
Mix crumbled choc and marscapone in, till it gets all melty like.

That's it.

Now pick up a piece of the creamy pasta with a fork.
Twirl.
Bring it to your lips.
Let the silky creamy sweet pasta slide into your mouth.
Chew, taste the sauce and bite through the tender al dente pasta.
Swallow.
Smack your lips.

Don't look back.

Empathy vs Sympathy vs Telepathy . .

"Empathy may be painful to oneself: seeing the pain of others, especially as broadcasted by mass media, can cause one temporary or permanent clinical depression; a phenomenon which is sometimes called weltschmerz.

One must be careful not to confuse empathy with either sympathy, emotional contagion or telepathy. Sympathy is the feeling of compassion for another, the wish to see them better or happier, often described as "feeling sorry" for someone. Emotional contagion is when a person (especially a child or a person in a mob) identifies with strong emotions others are showing and becomes subject to the same emotions themselves. Telepathy is a controversial paranormal phenomenon, which differs in that empathy is based not upon the paranormal but upon sophisticated processing of what is seen and heard in the usual way.

Sympathy is, "I'm sorry for your pain."
Emotional Contagion is, "I feel your pain."
Empathy is, "I understand how you feel."
Telepathy is, "I know how you feel because I'm reading your mind.""

More here.

R/Evolution June 2008 - CDJ Updates

Six months into this year. Almost 12 full months since I gave birth to Phoenix.  Worlds of professional projects and logistical movements and now I find myself in the middle of yet another Mercury Retrograde and I tell you, life is still whirling around me, offering me all sorts of tantalizing options.

Trajectories implore me to choose them.  Opportunities are everywhere.

But my main focus for this past year, of course - the "maternal preoccupation" that overrides all else - has been my baby son.

I will always be able to manifest new opportunities, pluck out new threads from the quanta.  But these are the days where he is being shaped, where he is looking to me to know what to do, and how to be in the world.

This is a big responsibility - none of us wants to consciously pass down a legacy of fear, limitations or emotional baggage to our children.  We want them to embrace all the possibilities of the world, we want to give them the world, as much as we can.

I know this - that I would rather train his mind to be disciplined and determined than buy him toys.  I will encourage his problem solving and strategy skills, his cleverness, his strength, his freedom to express. I will teach him that there is always a way to get what you want - when you know what you want, and you want it enough.

My in-laws are visiting from the UK - and spending time with their grandson, finally.  It's so lovely to make memories together with family.  And I am so blessed and thankful to have such closeness and unconditional love in my own family. 

I feel as if I've been sleep-walking for the past few months - and finally, perhaps as a result of my recent illness, the fever has finally broken and I can see more clearly my purpose and my goals, my true allies and the best uses of my energy in this lifetime.