Hello friends,
Happy Gregorian New Year <3
How are you doing out there? Are you still breathing? Sleeping? Eating? Are you okay? These are serious questions for serious times…..
I have started this first week of this year in a deep funk that I am struggling to shake. I think there’s just something about beginning another new year into what feels like the now never-ending pandemic with numbers and transmissions sky-rocketing everywhere (with state governing bodies and corporations that are continuing to prioritize profit over people!) that just feels extra doom-y.
Every morning I wake up and try to coax myself out of it: “Today Naomi, you are going to be grateful AF for all your blessings and you are going to snap TF out of it and see your cup as even MORE than half full! You are going to turn this shit around!” but until today nothing felt like it was even mildly lifting. This funk feels like it’s in my bones like it’s sucking the life out of me as we speak.
As a cancer sun-sign, I am definitely already sitting on the sensi side of life but it’s becoming almost unbearable, the smallest thing has the capacity to tip me over the edge into a deep mood I struggle to swim out of. Any kind of share has me in tears, everything feels so emotional like the tears are just part of speaking now. I don’t mean to be dramatic, I really don’t but it just is what it is right now and I just can’t seem to help myself.
I tried to write out some intentions for this new year but somehow they all feel out of date. They feel somewhat frivolous and flippant like they belong to an old version of myself that’s not really here anymore. Like my old yearnings aren’t cohesive to who I am now except I’m not sure what I want any more going forward. I feel as though a stripping down of myself is in order. I want to tear everything apart and start again.
I am currently 1 month into a Kundalini Yoga teacher training program and every month we are given a kriya (a kriya is a series of postures, breath, and sound that work toward a specific outcome: here it’s transformation) and mantra to work with. This past month we were given a Kriya called ‘Param Karam Dharam’. It’s a kriya designed to aid in the process of transformation, to help align yourself with your life’s purpose, which feels so appropriate to end/start a new year and for where I am right now. It’s a beautiful routine consisting of 4 simple yet powerful standing postures that symbolize: being open to whatever is coming, finding balance, taking action, and feeling deep gratitude for the things that have come. I am attaching the video for the kriya here.
The accompanying mantra is from a collection of sacred writings from the Sikh Siri Guru Granth Sahib is ‘Aap Sahaee Hoa’, which roughly translates to ‘walking into the unknown without fear. That line to me is everything I want to embrace and hold at this moment in time. It’s so simple, but feels so powerful, try and say it out loud to yourself with me:
I walk into the unknown without fear
I walk into the unknown without fear
I walk into the unknown without fear
I walk into the unknown without fear
I walk into the unknown without fear
So this year, I am simplifying my intentions down to this. All I want and yearn for is to walk into the unknown of this next year and the years that follow without fear. Whether it’s truly possible or not this is the intention I am holding in my heart. If love is procured to be the opposite of fear, may this walk into the unknown be illuminated by the light of love, for me, for you, for all of us.
Happy new year, blessings to all <3
4. I walk into the unknown without fear