The Mystery of How I Got Here and Finding My Way Back

Whiteside Mountain Vista ©Lynne Buchanan

All Rights Reserved, Watermarked by Digimarc

This morning I went for a walk on the mountain near where we are staying in North Carolina.  For some reason, I decided to go down this narrow trail a little before the summit, which is a lot safer since it has a fence to keep you from falling over the edge.  The view looked stunning.  I wondered for a moment if I should continue following the path, or if it was too dangerous since the rocks were very wet from the rain and there was such a sheer drop.  Then I noticed a mall mound with some grasses growing out of it.  There were shrubs most of the way there that I realized I could hold on to, and then I inched the last few feet on my bottom.   The wind was blowing quite a bit and the sky was putting on quite a show.  The sun was going in and out of the clouds and its rays were lighting up the moist rocky outcropping where I was perched precariously.  I sat a little stiller than usual taking it all in, alone in communion with the heavens.  I wasn't quite sure how I was fortunate enough to get to such a beautiful spot at precisely the right moment.  After all, until very recently, I was petrified of heights.  As I had made my way there, I felt like I was being directed by some higher power.  Whether this was true or not I had no idea, but it had felt so strongly like that is what I was supposed to do that I hadn't been able to stop myself.  I drank some water and had a snack and marveled at all I saw.  Then it got colder and colder and the fog started blowing in.  I decided it was time to make my way back.  When I turned around, I realized I must have been insane!  The rocks looked even more slippery.  I crouched down as much as I could, remembering the story I had read of the heroic rescue on this trail and realizing there was no one here to help me.   Fortunately, all went well and I made it back to the main trail, though my heart was pounding for quite awhile.  I felt so alive and supremely grateful to be here.

The Significance of Natural Beauty and Form

Lily Revealing Natural Fireworks © Lynne Buchanan

 Perfectly Arranged Lily ©Lynne Buchanan

 Pink Lotus ©Lynne Buchanan

Sunflower Jewel ©Lynne Buchanan

 All Rights Reserved for all images, Watermarked by Digimarc

I am continually amazed by the miracles in nature I observe every day, though some days I am blessed to witness more miracles than others.  All of these photographs were taken on a recent trip to the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina.  The lilies and lotuses were so beautiful they almost didn't seem real, and the heart of the sunflower looked like a jewel.   The pink lotus looked like the idealized drawings of lotuses we are given to copy in Sumi-e painting.  It was gently opened to reveal an unblemished yellow center and each petal traced a perfect arc.  I could have stayed looking at those flowers all day–examining the relation of their petals, studying the modulation of hues, appreciating the patterns they created on their own or within the framework of the lily pads that surrounded them, sensing what parts of my soul experiencing their beauty touched.  

The depth of my connection with nature coupled with these amazing specimens made me realize why nature is the foundation of mathematics and physics. The sciences arose to measure and comprehend the miracle of existence, and much of western and eastern thought centers on this theme as well.  Though it is easy for some to get lost in pure ideas, it is rewarding to spend time appreciating that which  thought tries to explain and to note that no single discipline can ever capture all facets of these jewels of nature.  No matter how our conscious mind tries to categorize individual elements of nature, life can never be fully explained.  There is always the magic that eludes such reduction and experiencing this magic is what I live for.   

Recharging at Robinson Preserve and The Desire to Give Back

Wayne Taking in the Sunset (photograph made with the iPhone and the Schneider wide angle lens) and Quirky Tree Pointing the Way, Robinson Preserve (photograph made with the Nikon D700)
© Lynne Buchanan, All Rights Reserved, Watermarked by Digimarc

These photographs were taken on a recent expedition from Robinson Preserve, a beautiful area in Manatee County where residents can launch kayaks, walk, ride bicycles, fish, and otherwise commune with the nature after a hectic day.  I was stunned to find such a beautiful and pristine setting so close to downtown Bradenton.  After paddling through areas with mangroves and birds, we reached the place where the Manatee River merges with the bay.   You can see the iconic Sunshine Skyway Bridge in one direction all the way to Ana Maria Island in the other.  It was so peaceful and quiet and the vista was so broad and expansive.  The water was very shallow though the sandbars were still submerged, so we got out and walked our boats to travel further along the coastline.  Immersed in this setting, it felt as if the whole universe was before us full of potential and devoid of problems.  I looked over at my friend Wayne in the light and watched him take it all in, recharging himself from all his cares.  It wasn't hard to figure out why he also said yes to becoming a Global Climate Reality Leader.

On the way out, I had noticed this quirky tree and was captivated by it's charming, crooked way of being, standing there above all the other trees, in such a non-ordinary way.  I didn't stop to photograph it on the way out since I had arrived late and knew we were heading to the bay, but I made a mental note of how unusual it was and thanked it for being.  On the way back to the launch, I was rewarded by this incredible view of the tree in sky just after the sun had set.  I loved how the arc of the tree seemed to carry through in the wisp of white clouds, and the way it was framed by the orange sky and blue clouds.  There was so much movement and stillness at the same time, all held together in that precious moment by the complimentary colors nature had painted across the sky.  This was the kind of scene that spoke to me.  We each had our feast and were ready to return to shore, renewed and ready to face another day.

There is a reason places like this exist and a reason they are called preserves.  Cities make conscious decisions to ensure the continued existence of green spaces and natural environments for their citizens because they are aware of how beneficial it is for people to take time out and recharge, so they can be better citizens of the planet.  As climate change is becoming more severe every day, we have to extend our thinking beyond preserving little areas of nature to preserving the whole natural world. Climate change brought about by carbon pollution and other human induced factors is threatening the earth.  The rise in sea level is an imminent threat to our beautiful coastlines in Florida and is creating a myriad of problems that will affect the entire state.  The letters so many people, even those with inland homes, have been receiving about drastic hurricane increases is evidence of this already.  Spending time in nature in my home state helps open my eyes to the value of all life, and every time I am given the opportunity to appreciate such moments I am deeply grateful.  This gratitude makes me want to help preserve what I love, so this beautiful coastline will continue to exist for years to come.

Expand Beyond the Limits of Your Wildest Dreams–This Right Belongs to Everyone...

The Edge and The Calling of the Cliffs @Lynne Buchanan

All Rights Reserved, Watermarked by Digimarc

Tonight was my last yoga class at Garden of the Heart in Sarasota.  I will be going on a journey in the fall and then moving to north Florida.  My students have taught me so much that I wished to leave something for them in return.  I asked for guidance about what to say to them in this final class, and these words poured out from me in a matter of minutes.  I know they did not come from my ego.  They came from some higher wisdom that is way beyond me and which I am so grateful to connect with in those rare moments in which I am truly able to hear.  This is what came to me.  The words do not evoke my personal story.  They speak to the potential that is the birthright of everyone who lives or has ever lived.  I was just a channel...

So often we place limits on ourselves.  Our ego wants to keep us safely in the same place.  Even if we don’t like exactly the way our lives are going, at least it is familiar.  Yet, each of us is capable of so much more than what we can envision.  In order to get there though, we have to let go of a lot of things that are tethering us to where we are and we have to turn inside and listen to the voice of our inner wisdom.  It is not that we need to do everything alone, but we have to be willing to make changes and keep our ears open to new voices and new directions. 

We often talk about letting go of the old to make way for the new.  Usually we are referring to destructive patterns that do not contribute to our highest good.  Sometimes, we have to let go of things or relationships that are not destructive at all and that really served us at one time.  My daughter has to go off to college and learn to follow her own calling (though she has come so far already even living at home), and I have to leave the Garden of the Heart Yoga Center, my students, parents, and friends in Sarasota.  Leaving behind these sorts of bonds is much harder, though we always carry a piece of each other in our hearts after any meaningful interchange.   Yet, there are times in our lives when we feel a calling inside and that calling takes us away from the familiar, even when it has helped nurture our growth.  We come to a new place that requires new paradigms.  In astrology, these are called times of transit.  In yoga, we talk about Kali, the destroyer, coming and wiping away all that was known so we can rebirth our universe.  These times, as Sandra Ingerman told us, can be the best of years and the worst of years.  Really it is all change that we experience every day, just on a much larger scale. 

Once things have been set in motion and you start down a path of seeking an authentic life, you can’t turn back.  It can be frightening and unsettling, mainly because the ego cannot envision what is going to happen.  It is like you are standing on the edge of a giant ocean which you can’t see the other side of.  You can't help but wonder if you are a good enough swimmer, if you are strong enough, if you will see your way over the breaking waves, or if you will just swim in circles and end up back where you started.  If you start to drown, will someone appear to throw you a life raft in time? You could play it safe and stay on the shore wondering what is on the other side, but then you would miss the opportunity to actualize your dreams which can only be done by diving into this moment and the next with every fiber of your being, both physically and spiritually.  

At such times, I look to Moksha Tandava, Shiva as he engages in the dance of ultimate freedom fully incarnate in this moment.  I purchased a Moksha Tandava statue from Manoj Chalam at one of John Friend's workshops that I attended right before I discovered my calling to become a yogic photographer and I have practiced before it every day of this remarkable transformation I have been experiencing and which each and every one of you can experience if you so desire.  Manoj sent me an explanatory email about the statue.  He said the freedom Shiva experiences is expressed by the flame in his hand that represents "Jnana, where all the lifetimes of darkness are lit up with the fire of Knowledge."  The drum Shiva holds symbolizes the fact that time and space exist within us.  Manoj said one side represents the world of multiplicity and one side symbolizes pure non-dual consciousness.   The murti depicts Shiva with his feet above his head and his heart fully open as he swans dives into the moment.  Manoj said when the head is down and the feet are up, the concept of being a "doer" is turned upside down and all we are left with is effortless grace and faith. Yet, Shiva still has to keep his hand on top of Apasmara, the mythological dwarf who represents ignorance and epilepsy.  Apasmara is our small mind, which keeps trying to tell us we can't do things and causes us to worry and panic.  These karmic patterns never completely vanish and in a way form our personalities.  Even Shiva, fully incarnate in the moment and ultimately free, still has to keep a watchful eye on the parts of himself that could cause him to place limits on his own freedom.  Manoj writes, "Shiva also reminds us of the grander ideal we can all live for.  He brings out the yearning some of us have to make an impact on people and society and leave a legacy beyond the transitory nature of our lives." The statues are so powerful because they don't just exist out there, they represent archetypes that exist inside us all.  This dance is not just for gods.

When the time comes for you to push your edge so far that you suddenly find yourself swimming towards the other shore, you will know.  The calling inside will be so strong that you won’t be able to ignore it, despite all the protestations of your ego.   When that happens, you will have to place your hand on top of your own ego and keep it where it belongs, subservient to your expanded state of consciousness.   You will discover yourself turning inside to listen to a new voice, a voice you have always known but which has been muffled.  When you tap into this place, you can expand beyond all limitations that prevented you from living up to your fullest potential.  

At the start of our paths,  this voice is barely audible.   We aren’t ready to fully hear it, so we allow other voices to drown it out.  Yet we hear whispers from time to time.  As we move further along, this longing to hear our own true voice becomes stronger.  We begin expanding in our hearts and consciousness and as we develop inner strength and trust in ourselves, we are able to hear it more clearly and we begin following it with courage into the unknown.  We stop second guessing ourselves and develop more faith in both our inner wisdom and the universe, and with that comes a more graceful state of being. 

When we start really hearing, we follow up on hunches we would have ignored.  We see the gifts the universe is providing us with, no matter who they comes from: people who are younger or older or than we are, experienced or less experienced, naïve and intuitive or highly educated in something we are drawn to.  Teachers and students become one and the same.   We see each interchange as an opportunity for learning and growth and we notice how the universe points us in directions by giving us seemingly random gifts of people or circumstances that we would never have even noticed before.   

It is exciting and terrifying, but when we allow ourselves to connect with the Moksha Tandava inside, we wouldn’t have it any other way.   Though we don’t know if we really are good enough swimmers and our egos still try to tell us not to jump, we jump anyway.  Really this is the nature of our lives every single moment, though some cliffs are taller than others.  We practice by taking little jumps until we leap further and further and finally believe we can and must take the big plunge.  Our experiences teach us that our faith is not groundless, that we are not alone and that we will be supported by currents that we can feel even when we can’t see them.   So keep practicing. This is the point of our yoga. 

The Process of Noticing How Pieces Come Together in the Puzzle of Our Lives.

Monkey Puzzle Tree ©Lynne Buchanan

All Rights Reserved, Watermarked by Digimarc

Sometimes life seems like a big puzzle. We do so many different things and try on so many roles, each one seemingly disparate or so we often think at the time.  I worked in the art world in Washington, D.C. and New York City.  Then I raised three children, the last of whom is leaving home at the end of next month, I also studied and taught writing, and in my free time I ran marathons and did triathlons.  Now I teach yoga, am a photographer, and do volunteer work in the hopes of preserving our environment for my children's children.   While I was learning these roles, I was totally focused on each one.  It seemed I did one thing and then another, like I was changing the channel on the television set I rarely watch.  It made me wonder who, if anyone, was really behind all these roles, and if I would ever progress enough in any one area for my efforts to amount to anything.  I was envious of people like my middle son, who seemed to know exactly what he wanted to do while he was still in high school and has deviated only slightly, from physics to higher level math. 

Lately, I have realized that comparing myself to people and seeing myself as a lesser being was just one of my ego's ploys to get me to stop stepping out of my comfort zone in order to pursue my dreams.  We can't ever really compare ourselves with anyone else because we all have different experiences that help shape our unique natures, and no one can ever be better than we are in being ourselves.   I am also starting to realize that although I thought nothing I pursued related to anything else I did, my life is actually coming together.  As we start our journey, our steps are tentative and our understanding of who we are beneath all these facades is unclear.  At first we just notice isolated synchronicities, but then they occur more and more as long as we remain open to following our paths and don't get stuck along the way. The more we grow, the more our fundamental nature begins to crystalize and the more clearly we are able to envision how we can live best, celebrating our individuality yet recognizing that we are part of a web of life that is of equal value to our own existence.

Tranquility in the Lake District ©Lynne Buchanan

All Rights Reserved, Watermarked by Digimarc

Though I wrote in my last blog that it takes discipline and effort to stay true to my dreams of a positive reality, I am also realizing that it is important not to over effort and to recognize and celebrate the moments of ease, beauty, and clarity that we are sometimes blessed with experiencing even when we are still in the valley.  When the earth is in such perfect balance, as it felt to me this morning in the Lake District, it makes it easier to connect with the sense of balance in myself.  I do not have to try as hard and can just bask in the warmth of the sun and feel the gentle breeze and be fully in the moment.  The more I grow, the more I realize that it is this state of easeful being that I am opening myself to, as I allow the spirit of nature and the earth to teach me how to find my way back to where I already am and celebrate all I discover with a full and open heart.

Of course nature is not always as sunny and benign as it is in this happy photograph (as my friend and color processing mentor Alain Briot described it.)   The earth must continually rebalance itself, as it is having to do more and more due to our interference with natural cycles as we pollute the earth and it's waterways and contribute to global warming.  Violent storms and floods or droughts and fires are often just around the corner, but despite all these human created challenges to the earth and our personal and global existence, I cannot forget these positive moments.  These memories of times when the earth and I were in perfect balance and yes, very happy.  These images remind me that it is not too late to bring myself and those I come in contact with into greater balance and in so doing to reflect that state of balance back upon the world and help heal the earth just as the earth heals me over and over again.  When we are in a state of balance, then we are kinder to ourselves, to the people around us, and to our environment.  Our messages are more effective as well, when they are not as strident, since too much force and anger in our words and delivery causes people to become defensive and shut down,  When we speak from a place of love and compassion about what matters most to us, preserving a beautiful world and working towards global peace that includes even those who disagree with our political views, the people we hope to shift are more likely to be able to remain open in our presence and let our words land.  

Sometimes We Can't See the Convergence of Our Paths Until We Climb Higher

Loch Katrine from Ben A'An ©Lynne Buchanan

All Rights Reserved, Watermarked by Digimarc

Sometimes I can't see the convergence of my paths, the way my journey is coming together and unfolding in a more unified way that reflects who I am and what I truly believe in when all the layers of my old roles fall away.  Sometimes I feel lost and alone, like I speak a different language and my path is off kilter.  I know this is the human condition; just when we think we are finally finding our way, something happens and we lose sight of where we are going again.  Storm clouds form on the horizon and I become fearful of all the unknowns.  Suddenly there seem to be too many threats to my future and the future of this planet.  The problems seem insurmountable and I wonder how I can inspire others to keep hope alive, so that they might be motivated to walk away from a life of greed and dominance over the earth and join me in working for the common good.  I believe positive activism is far more effective than painting a totally negative picture and threatening people. 

Yet, even when these moods of despair overtake me, I know deep inside that if I just climb a little higher, I will catch a glimpse of where my path is leading.  I might discover it parallels and may even converge with the paths of other like-minded people in the not too distant future.  Instead of running in mental circles in the same old valley every day, I make the effort to put one foot in front of the other and lift myself up.  I ask myself, like Sandra Ingerman suggested, "What am I thinking now?"  If I discover I am using words that will create a negative reality, I reframe my thoughts to look for the positive lesson in whatever situation I find myself in.  It takes discipline and effort, but so does climbing a mountain and the view and fresh perspective are totally worth it.  I have been told I am a dreamer and a romantic, striving for some unattainable state, but actually I believe I am a realist who won't get trapped in the wrong reality.  I am not afraid to dream a new dream and even when it seems my dreams aren't quite coming true, I do believe in their power and know they manifest in their time and not mine, and so I keep climbing.