Fairy tales are archetypal stories in which we encode and pass down our
collective understanding of the development of the human psyche. Adam Sandler
and Drew Barrymore’s ‘50 First Dates’ is a modern iteration of ‘Rapunzel’ from
the Brothers Grimm, the story of a maiden locked in a tower. Like Rapunzel,
Barrymore’s Lucy finds her way forward through sacred union with the King’s Son,
Sandler’s Henry.
I’ve always loved fantasy stories. Magic, forests, mountains. Symbols,
talismans, including special weapons. My favourite part was always when the
hero, lifted out of his ordinary world and into the magical, is training up and
mastering skills. Not the most exciting part really, but it was to me. It’s
the part before the danger, when there are still mentors, and a clear path to
mastering new skills. But that’s not the Hero’s path. The Hero’s path is to
face the unknown, do what’s never been done, that which only they can, and must,
do. It wouldn’t be much of a story if Harry Potter went to Hogwarts, stayed in
school, and maybe followed Dumbledore into battle against Voldemort. Perhaps
that’s why I’ve always kept coming back to these stories.
Feelings are signals. Emotions are energy evoked by internal or external
triggers, and the act of emoting is how we move that energy (or not) through our
bodies. For example, sadness is a feeling. It signifies a loss. The tightness
in our chest, the tension around our eyes, the eventual welling of tears and the
release as they fall from our eyes is emotion.
Gratitude is a big word these days, with gratitude journals, and gratitude
practices. It strikes me hearing the phrase “Of course I’m grateful,”
especially once someone else has expressed their gratitude. It becomes
something we perhaps feel ashamed of not feeling or expressing because then
perhaps we are no longer deserving of the thing we have received. But we might
not always feel grateful even when we think we should, and that’s okay.
One of the practices of mindfulness meditation is the following: to observe
thoughts without engaging with them. This practice is also known as ‘noting’.
To perform this practice, one simple notes that a particular thought has arisen
and continues to observe the mind for the next thought.
A lot of spiritual aspirants at some point on their journey try to ‘transcend
the ego,’ an idea I’d like to explore and challenge. I’d argue that the ego is
necessary to make sense of our worldly experience. While one may find bliss in
moments of transcending the ego, the ego remains an essential part of worldly
being.
Tidying is the act of confronting yourself; cleaning is the act of confronting nature.
–Marie Kondo, Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up
Chakras are energy centres with the body. Each chakra is associated with a part
of the physical body, but they lie within the subtle body. The subtle body is
not the physical body; in place of the physical components of the body, the
subtle body is concerned with energy centres and energy flow.
Traditional keyboard design is based on typewriters, which had to handle the
mechanics of the moving keys. Modern keyboards no longer have such constraints,
and modern keyboard design has evolved considerably. In this post I will go
over various aspects of keyboard design.
The Little Prince was written by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and first published in 1943.
I read it for the first time this year and this post is about my
interpretation of parts that resonated with me.
My initial interest in astrology stems partly from curiosity of what it is, and
partly because it has such a great historical and cultural impact. What I found
was that it has much more expressivity than only the 12 signs, which is all I
used to know. I found that it helped my explore my own personality as well as
come to know personality types that are very different from my own. This post
aims to give an overview of what I found to be the fundamentals of astrology.