The Seductive Madness ~ Episode Four

The Seductive madness….. 

Here we stand, elbows resting wide on a 5 bar gate, a metal one. Mud everywhere the eyes can see, luckily we brought our boots.

And there in the field, staring right at us, is a very large Ginger Bull. A proper Bull. Bits n’all.

He is gigantic, massive, overwhelmingly so, and yet, all you can focus on is the ring in his nose.

The large brass ring though his nose.

I wanted to see if you would be stunned, fascinated and silenced by the Ring in the Bull’s Nose.

And boom! You are!

I know you so well and can smile: You are trying to energetically pull the ring with your mind, seeing, in your mind’s eye, if you can pull him closer with the sheer force of your will pulling on the ring in his nose.

You actually want to bring this massive, dangerous beast, with all his attendant dramas, power and terror, closer to us.

You are mad!

And yet: This is no less mad than your fascination with The Promised Land on the other side of the shiny screens that you gaze at, fall into, stab at, believe, long for, hold all the time, like a small unhappy child with a sliver of an old blanket and a thumb in the mouth……

You are the one being led by the nose, you are the one with the ring that is being pulled by your mind’s eye. The complete and relentless fantasy of what lies beyond, has you totally enthralled.

And you are monotonously becoming blind to everything that is real, existing, beautiful, magical, natural and Timeless.

You are becoming a Lotus Eater. Seduced by What is Not.

You. You are being led by the nose into a Land that gives only Illusions. If you need a reminder of how to become still enough to play in these realms please go back to Episode One and revisit A dive, a dip, a trip.

Kindly Gently Slowly

We are home now, boots are washed and shiny in the sunlight as they dry off.

You are watching me write, yet quite in a dream about eating The Lotus, dreaming of far away lands, promises, images and pictures that are not real because real does not seduce in the way an instagram filter does. There is an app for that…. and in your minds eye, which is Oh! So busy, you think about getting another app to take you….. as I start a new page tilted…..

Kindly Gently Slowly

How mad is that? As a title….. you point and laugh, pushing your hair back as you stand up, indignant: your enchanted reverie ruined.

On what planet is anyone looking to be kind gentle and slow?

We are busy! We rush! We cannot sit still! We move fast, break things and endlessly swipe and scroll. We are important and must not be caught napping.

Do you know how fast things are happening now? You stab at me as you ask, as if I was a Bumpkin, straw in my hair, looking for a telephone box.

You begin to stride around, arms flailing as you manically explain to me, your voice rising, the pulse in your throat throbbing…

Don’t just sit there, staring at me, you shout at me.

I don’t flinch, I don’t move, I don’t react.

I sit, gently, kindly and slowly.

How mad is that? That I don’t join you, that I don’t feel silly and humiliated. I am not upset, offended, justifying, explaining, embarrassed…..

You have run out of steam now and finally flop down beside me, knees apart, elbows resting on them, bowed over, head in your hands, fingers in your hair, breathing fast, shaking slightly in response to having been so angry with me, so quickly.

And now you feel slightly silly, I can sense it, and you lean back with a dramatic sigh, eyes closed, dust swirling around you in the beam of sunlight coming through the window, hitting the old sofa in your room.

I watch the dust in the light, dancing, swirling, gently falling.

Gently

And as I watch, silently, you open your eyes and look at me. I can see you, out of the corner of my eye, and I smile, gently, and keep watching.

The Dust in the Sunlight.

Not intently, not squinting or frowning, just gently, loving to see such beauty in such a simple moment.

Mystified by my unruffled presence, you follow my gaze.

Your breath slows down and so you smile. This makes your eyes twinkle in the light and the twinkle relaxes your forehead. Your shoulders drop and you sink a little lower against the support of the sofa.

I notice your hands unclench and your breath becomes quiet.

The dust has almost gone now, in this gentle stillness, and there is only the beauty of the light creating so much contrast in the room.

I love being with you in this silence, in the middle of the morning, no sense of rushing or need, just

The

Absolute

Love

Of

What

Is

….

Kindly

Is your gaze kind……? Do you consider your gaze to be kind?

Has that ever been asked of you, by you, by another?

You turn to look at me.

I ask you now and you level a gaze at me that does not appear to be kind. Perhaps you want to say: What on Earth are You Asking Me?

And so I ask again: Is your Gaze Kind? Are you aware of being kind when you look upon Another, upon a Child, who surely is equally Another, on a Dog, a Tree, A View?

Is your gaze kind? Or is it searching, critical, fearful, judging, cowering, worried, needy, sly, covert, blank, staring, angry….

So many words to define The Gaze. So much power given and so much power taken.

Can you become aware of your Gaze? Does it matter to you, the power that you give, and the power that you take?

Does it matter to you how utterly unconscious you are of the Consciousness That You Bestow Upon Another?

And equally, how much does it matter, the Consciousness That Another bestows Upon You? I am quite, quite certain, that for the most part, this Gaze upon you is Paramount: Utterly Affecting, if it is not Benificent.

You look at me, searching your thoughts as I speak, wondering what is your relationship to this. What do the cogs of your mind, as they whir, I can hear them, what Heath Robinson Contraption do they create, with those pulleys, ropes, beams and struts?

Have you ever Considered, The Consciousness That You Bestow Upon Another?

And as the thoughts are created in response, how does that Gaze Change?

I see you thinking, considering, rolling these concepts around like a plump raisin. I see it in your eyes, your Gaze is thinking. Not enquiring, not searching, no longer fearful or angry. Your Gaze Changes and you look at me now, Kindly. It is a Very Beautiful Gaze, gentle, accepting, interested.

I know now that you See Me. And I really can say, with my hand on my heart, that I See You And It Is Good.

We exist in each other’s Kind Gaze.

Extrapolating Awe & Wonder

I am gentle and relaxed in this warm light and watch you as you stand up to meet and turn your face into the beam of light, letting the sunlight flow over the contours of your face.

Your eyes are closed as you lift your face up, to Bask in the Beauty of the Light.

As you lazily move your face in the light you feel the light changing in your mind’s eye, and I can see how the contours of you become light, liquefied. A flow of form moving with you as you feel the warmth of the light on your skin.

It is quite a beautiful sight to watch, so much so that I feel compelled to stand too, to find my own beam of light and to move my own self within its love.

If you do not have a beam of light available play a game and pretend that you are in a shaft of light. Perhaps coming down from a stained glass window, in a Cathedral. Imagine the light making a pool around you, and hitting the York stone paving that you stand upon.

Or perhaps you prefer to be in a forest with a canopy of pale green, early summer beech leaves above your head. Find a spot, in your minds eye, where a shaft of light breaks through and stand just there, face tilted up into the vastness of the light, that has come so very far, to gently alight upon your skin, bone structure, eyelids, ears and throat.

Move your face gently in this light and notice how the colours change in your eyelids, how you become aware of the transparency of your ears, the line of your jaw rising over the throat. Feel your eyebrows as the sunlight moves over them, and notice how beautiful it is to be so still….. so gentle…. so kind…. so slow……

Slowly

Copy me……. raise your bare forearms up in the beam of light that crosses in front of us.

We are lying on a large bed, in a dark room with one very lovely shaft of light.

You are laughing again, and it is a kind, relaxed laugh as you wait to see what I do.

My arms are bare and I lift them up in front of me, your gaze follows how slowly and languidly and I move my hands around each other.

Languid is such a beautiful word, you say, languidly, with the sound of your smile in your voice.

And Sensual is another lovely word, I reply, with a smile.

As my hands move in the strong sun light they create a beautiful picture in slow-motion. The light through my fingers,reflected into the room as it bounces off a palm, or back into my palm as the fingers move though the light, sensually and languidly.

You have leant back, now, head on one side just watching.

The Slowness is Beguiling…. there is another word, you say, drowsily.

Join me… and you do, slowly, languidly, sensually and with such a beguiling beauty, I gently lower my hands and give you the beam of sunlight.

The Beam of Light

Come sit.

Come sit comfortably.

Come sit with me.

It can be in a chair, it can be on the floor, it can be on the edge of your bed. Sit so that you can sit straight. Legs crossed if you’re on the floor. Or you’re just sitting beautifully, relaxed but spine straight.

And now put your right hand in your left. You need the right hand on top. The hands are relaxed in your lap.

Your eyes are closed. Your tongue pulled back, pressed up inside your mouth. Try and keep your eyes closed and allow yourself to soften. Allow yourself to become supremely kind, gentle and slow.

Soften. Soften your face, your forehead. Soften your shoulders. Allow your breath to become very gentle.

And then you’re going to take your attention to inside your body.

Inside your body, imagine that you can be deep, deep inside your pelvis. In the back of your pelvis in your sacrum.

You’re in a place, energetically, called the lower triangle. It’s a very extraordinary place filled with magic and wonder.

Your eyes are closed and your breath is gentle.

You start to hear a sound, like a shamanic drum. You hear it deep down below you, a monotonous shamanic drum. The sound which, as your ears attune to the listening, you can hear is a mantra. A mantra is a series of words. I Can I Am. I Can I Am… just hear it.

Bring it closer, bring it up… I Can. I Am. Just listen to it. Monotonous, repetitive, rather seductive as a sound. Bring it up.

Bring it up. Feel it, in the back of your pelvis.
Bring it up. Feel it, behind your intestines.
Bring it up. Feel it, just behind your diaphragm. You can almost feel it vibrating in your diaphragm.

I Can I Am. I Can I Am.

Keep your focus, keep yourself gentle. You might feel that lumbar cerebral spinal fluid pulse. This is the sound that the pulse makes.

Feel it resounding in your diaphragm. Bring it up behind your heart. I Can I Am.

Bring it up. Feel it, echoing, in your lungs.

Stay with that sound. Stay with that mantra.

Bring it up, and it compresses as it moves up through your throat. As it comes up to the back of your skull you can feel it, inside your skull, the vibration of the mantra.

Move it up to the top, underneath the crown. Feel it. And then bring the mantra, bring that pulsing sound, to just behind your third eye, in the middle of your forehead.

Allow your forehead to be aware of your third eye, and allow your third eye to open. Your beautiful, vertical eye, allow it to open.

And your third eye opens and a beam of gold light pours out from your third eye, Illuminating the Universe.

In front of you there is a beam of gold light, shining out into the universe. Allow your mantra. I Can I Am. Allow your mantra to tumble out into this beam of light. See it in your mind’s eye, this continuous pulse of sound, beaming out, into the universe.

See the dust dancing in the beam of light and your mantra pouring out, Into the Universe, on a beam of gold light.

I Can I Am. I Can I Am.

This light, this beam of light, it Penetrates the Heavens, penetrates the Etheric Realms, penetrates through All of the Darkness. This beam of light is an extraordinary Connection to the universe.

And as you look in your mind’s eye out, you will see hundreds of thousands of millions of beams of light, from all of the people around the world, meditating, beaming gold light out with their mantras, their prayers, their asking, their listening, they’re pouring out of these beams of gold light, the dust dancing in the beams of light.

You’ve seen something extraordinary, you’ve seen something wondrous.

You’ve seen the power and the potency of the stillness that you can come to.

Close your third eye and, gently, allow the mantra to rise back up, under your crown…
… to move to the back of your head
… to slip down through your throat,
… to slip down between your lungs, behind your heart
… to slip down, past your diaphragm, to slip down behind your intestines.

Gently, allow it to sink beneath you.

And perhaps now, as the sound sinks away, deep deep down into the lower triangle, you might notice that you’re barely breathing.

You are so still. You are so gentle.

You are so in harmony with this stillness, this gentle, kind, slow, stillness, that you arrived, you have landed.

You are in a state of Absolute Presence.

To experience Carolyn Cowan in class or workshop please visit her website. Credits: Text, video & concept – Carolyn Cowan. Interview with Betty Martin. Hand star: Catherine Page. Video edit: Tom Vereker. Sound Mix: Tati Rabell, Layout: Sophie Budden. Music from the album Cycles of Gaia, produced by Inner Vision@Studio Nana which you can listen to on Soundcloud by clicking here. And Maze from the album Ashland Ghosts by Lamplighter.

Links: Betty Martin Online. To be able to purchase and to read a free chapter of her book The Wheel of Consent please click here

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