In The Realm Of Senses

Curtain call

2005-08-25T00:44:00.000+08:00

It’s been awhile since I last blogged… mainly because I've had too many things keeping me more preoccupied than usual…

Due to certain reasons and pressures I regret to say that I am discontinuing this particular blog as much as it has been the cornerstone for all the changes taking place in this soul...

With this, my heartfelt thanks go out to all of those who have followed me through on this journey from start to end…

Your readership and suppport has helped breathe life into what began as a story of pain and grief into something much more… All of you reading have become just as much a part of my journey to healing and rediscovering the person I am through the offer of your kind words of advice and support... They have done nothing short of making a difference to the owner of this blog...

Know that even as this blog retires the story does not end but will continue to live on 'cos as she breathes…

she lives…

she loves…

she learns…

Adieu....

Recondite reasons

2005-08-24T23:36:00.000+08:00

Even though it may not be obvious, there is always a reason for every action…

-Joy Browne-

Nascency

2005-07-30T00:07:00.000+08:00

"The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new."

-Bhagwan Rajneesh-

Concentricity

2005-07-30T00:05:00.000+08:00

I do not usually talk about my daughter because that is how much she means to me… but everyone has had a significant ripple happen in their lives which is worth sharing...

That single nascency which causes meaningful undulations through the stillness of our core... finding its way to the vertebrae of our memories...

There have been many ripples and waves in my life, some cataclysmic... yet my daughter is the most impactful source of concentricity...

This is how I'd like to remember her... as that defining moment right before the profound stirring...

Standing still

2005-07-30T00:03:00.000+08:00

I was not aware of the stillness... until she came along...

Orange

2005-07-29T09:17:00.000+08:00

I took my daughter for a ride today...

I sat in the back with her while my mother drove.

She liked it... She doesn't normally get to sit in the back with me.

We passed a swampy area... a disused paddy field.

We saw those white tick-birds that sit on the back of the mud-wallowing water buffaloes.

The grass had turned orange under the setting sun and the light was coming into our eyes... but we didn't mind it.

I sat her sideways on my lap facing the window. Her head was resting on the place where my heart always beats. She sat very still listening to me naming the animals, her wispy baby hair tickling my nostrils.

That rush of warm maternal peacefulness sweeps over me...

A snapshot of an orange milisecond moment worth remembering...

At this moment... I am quietly happy....

Remembering roses

2005-07-27T22:56:00.000+08:00

I keep forcing myself to get to the endpoint but I am gagging on the answers and I don't want anyone to see me this way...

It's all getting a little too serious and driven...

Isn't the point of this pilgrimage not so much the final destination as the actual journey getting there?

Somewhere along the line... I've forgotten to take time to stop and smell the roses...

Speak or forever hold your peace

2005-07-26T16:42:00.000+08:00

There is something about having worn my heart out on my sleeve that I do not like... My thoughts have since shifted about having done it... Maybe it's because a certain amount of sanctity has been broken by laying myself out like this...

I feel the need to hold back and protect the contents of my heart... I don't know why... No, perhaps I do...

Maybe I'm not ready to get up close and personal with myself in full view of everyone...

Some parts must stay sacred if only to me...

Peregrination

2005-07-25T16:59:00.000+08:00

I've been thinking of some personal conflicts that have gone back a long while... This divorce is nothing more than deeper grief work for bygone childhood wounds ripped open by abuse and betrayal....

As I wonder through a maze of words belonging to self-help websites and books... I get abit lost and frazzled. All this focus on myself and singling out makes me very glum yet to get to mountains we must also cross some valleys...

I wonder whether I will be forever banished to the corners of this soul-searching plane... a girl that spends her remaining days reclaiming the misplaced pieces of her soul in the words of another...

How sad and strangely happy that makes me feel.... I sense this soul is a very strange one indeed....

Puzzling pieces

2005-07-25T16:27:00.000+08:00

Sometimes the missing pieces of ourselves lie in the past...

The Ten Rules for Being Human

2005-07-18T23:22:00.000+08:00

When you were born, you didn't come with an owner's manual; these guidelines help make life work better for yourself...

Rule One - You will receive a body. Whether you love it or hate it, it's yours for life, so accept it. What counts is what's inside.

Rule Two - You will be presented with lessons. Life is a constant learning experience, which every day provides opportunities for you to learn more. These lessons specific to you, and learning them 'is the key to discovering and fulfilling the meaning and relevance of your own life'.

Rule Three - There are no mistakes, only lessons. Your development towards wisdom is a process of experimentation, trial and error, so it's inevitable things will not always go to plan or turn out how you'd want. Compassion is the remedy for harsh judgement - of ourselves and others. Forgiveness is not only divine - it's also 'the act of erasing an emotional debt'. Behaving ethically, with integrity, and with humour - especially the ability to laugh at yourself and your own mishaps - are central to the perspective that 'mistakes' are simply lessons we must learn.

Rule Four - The lesson is repeated until learned. Lessons repeat until learned. What manifest as problems and challenges, irritations and frustrations are more lessons - they will repeat until you see them as such and learn from them. Your own awareness and your ability to change are requisites of executing this rule. Also fundamental is the acceptance that you are not a victim of fate or circumstance - 'causality' must be acknowledged; that is to say: things happen to you because of how you are and what you do. To blame anyone or anything else for your misfortunes is an escape and a denial; you yourself are responsible for you, and what happens to you. Patience is required - change doesn't happen overnight, so give change time to happen.

Rule Five - Learning does not end. While you are alive there are always lessons to be learned. Surrender to the 'rhythm of life', don't struggle against it. Commit to the process of constant learning and change - be humble enough to always acknowledge your own weaknesses, and be flexible enough to adapt from what you may be accustomed to, because rigidity will deny you the freedom of new possibilities.

Rule Six - "There" is no better than "here". The other side of the hill may be greener than your own, but being there is not the key to endless happiness. Be grateful for and enjoy what you have, and where you are on your journey. Appreciate the abundance of what's good in your life, rather than measure and amass things that do not actually lead to happiness. Living in the present helps you attain peace.

Rule Seven - Others are only mirrors of you. You love or hate something about another person according to what love or hate about yourself. Be tolerant; accept others as they are, and strive for clarity of self-awareness; strive to truly understand and have an objective perception of your own self, your thoughts and feelings. Negative experiences are opportunities to heal the wounds that you carry. Support others, and by doing so you support yourself. Where you are unable to support others it is a sign that you are not adequately attending to your own needs.

Rule Eight - What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. Take responsibility for yourself. Learn to let go when you cannot change things. Don't get angry about things - bitter memories clutter your mind. Courage resides in all of us - use it when you need to do what's right for you. We all possess a strong natural power and adventurous spirit, which you should draw on to embrace what lies ahead.

Rule Nine - Your answers lie inside of you. Trust your instincts and your innermost feelings, whether you hear them as a little voice or a flash of inspiration. Listen to feelings as well as sounds. Look, listen, and trust. Draw on your natural inspiration.

Rule Ten - You will forget all this at birth. We are all born with all of these capabilities - our early experiences lead us into a physical world, away from our spiritual selves, so that we become doubtful, cynical and lacking belief and confidence. The ten Rules are not commandments, they are universal truths that apply to us all. When you lose your way, call upon them. Have faith in the strength of your spirit. Aspire to be wise - wisdom the ultimate path of your life, and it knows no limits other than those you impose on yourself.

-Cherie Carter-Scott

Update: I've chosen to put up this version instead of the last one as it is more in keeping with the original text.

Pleasing the palate

2005-07-17T01:18:00.000+08:00

There are no neat palatable answers all the time yet we keep looking for them and that in itself is the indigestible truth….

The weight of truth

2005-07-16T23:23:00.000+08:00

Sometimes... the weight of truths are so heavy that even words alone are not enough to bear them…

Threadbare

2005-07-15T20:05:00.000+08:00

The hardest thing I could ever do is to be emotionally honest with myself…

The second hardest thing is doing it in front of someone else....

Freedom to fly

2005-07-02T11:02:00.000+08:00

It is by acknowledging and celebrating all that I am that I can truly free myself and learn how to fly…

The broken mirror

2005-07-01T23:16:00.000+08:00

I’ve given up too much of myself to be with someone…

Never really thought about the extent til I am back to being on my own again… All the usual compromises made in terms of freedom, time, space, plans et cetera…

But the one thing that was overlooked and sacrificed completely was that of my own self-image…

Without consciously realising it I had traded the image that I had of myself for the shinier, prettier and adored one reflected in the eyes of my partner…

I had come to believe that I was just fine despite whatever personal misgivings I had with myself…

I was more in his eyes then what I saw in my own…

I grew quite attached to this affirmation and with time I could no longer remember the original perception I had of myself…

So what really happens when we come face to face with rejection by the very ones we have leaned on for our affirmation?

When the mirror breaks who am I really after all?

Am I as a person… invalid, unworthy of love, undesirable?

Here is where the confusion begins… the murkiness of finding my own self-image and identity…

Perhaps I’ve grown too dependent on all things external to define myself and my own value…including past relationships… I have put the whole of my worth into them which was a mistake...

Unfortunately I got too caught up in the addictiveness of feeling good in my own skin with someone else that I was prepared to blind myself to my own choices… to the men I fell for…. their faults… their reasons for choosing to be with me… the unhealthy ways in which the relationships were conducted and allowed to develop… the tolerance for neglect and mistreatment… all in order to maintain this false sense of security within myself…

"He makes me feel good about myself, so he must be the One."

"He understood me and was willing to accept me for all that I am so he must be my Soulmate."

With the shattering of my mirror in A… I’m forced to look for the inherent and internal image of my own…

As I peer into the murky pools of my self… I am apprehensive… wary…

I know what ugliness and horrors lurk there in the deep dark caverns of my soul which is why I am fearful…

Shaped by past voices and shadows, I have sadly learnt only to look out for and focus on the flaws, the blemishes and the unsightliness that I own…

Repeatedly, I have embossed and enwrapped myself with these self-defeating perceptions and imageries…

It is a hard realisation to take to, that my original reflection was one that was already distorted to begin with… long before the mirror was completely shattered by A…

My past relationships have been nothing more than the nails in the coffin... entrapping me in my self-avoidance and false self-beliefs…

I am aware of what needs to be done…. to come to terms with myself which means having to come face to face with and acknowledging all that makes me both beautiful and ugly on the inside…

For without accepting myself in completeness, both the good and the bad… how could I ever learn to truly accept and love myself?

As I piece the shards of my fractured image back together again… the difference this time is that I will have to learn to value myself without totally depending on someone else…

I have never been down this path before… and I have no idea how and where it will end….

No doubt that I am apprehensive but despite that I am more than looking forward to finally getting to know the woman in the mirror who has long been denied her rightful reflection...

Wings

2005-06-30T23:57:00.000+08:00

I’ve grown tired of the very cage that I’ve locked myself in… I no longer see the need to keep myself in it…

It’s time to break free and take flight with wings that I’ve been too scared to believe that I have…

A sense of balance

2005-06-29T16:05:00.000+08:00

Life is nothing more than a balancing act....

Equations

2005-06-29T15:12:00.000+08:00

Chaos = Stress = Reorganisation = Renewal

= Change

Chaos = Necessary evil?

A plateful

2005-06-28T23:17:00.000+08:00

I’ve got too much on my plate again… going too far and too fast…

At this rate, I'm bound to get indigestion...

Touched by another...

2005-06-14T21:05:00.000+08:00

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Thank you for your voices...

International Webloggers' Day

2005-06-14T08:26:00.000+08:00

Awhile ago, I had an altogether different opinion of what a blog meant to myself… Initially I had it figured as a form of narcissistic self-expression… a place to plant introspective thoughts and deliberations… of making heads and tails of the confusion and mire that was present in my life…

But six months on... how this perspective has widened and deepened further…

Could I have ever anticipated the impact that this medium of catharsis would have on me? Absolutely not… Comfort and release was not all that this blog has provided me in the end…

As I leave the safe confines of my blog realm for that of many others in the big wide blogosphere, I am exposed to a rich and vast sea of diverse opinions, beliefs, attitudes and experiences… ones that I would be hard-pressed to encounter in the world beyond this virtual one…

As I swim in the words of another, I have been enthralled… irked… enlightened… inspired… saddened… appalled… unmoved… tickled… elated… and challenged in more ways than one… a journey to appreciate in itself…

I do wonder sometimes… what other impulses lay beneath this huge sea… Are they far different from my own?

I am often bemused by the desire of my own and others to indulge in voyeurism… It isn’t the most comfortable thing to do to disclose a facet that feels private and personal… yet why do we do it?

Is it a case of gaining acceptance and validation, to carve out a niche… as islands of thought and belief in a vast sea of anonymous faces and voices?

Or is it to seek a connection that is unavailable in the outer realm? Perhaps, to have free reign over a dimension that is often oppressed in the real world…

Could it be that we do not understand ourselves well enough? Is the connection we subconsciously seek really with our own selves as we venture out exploring the possible reflections of ourselves in others?

As we sink ourselves into a body of words belonging to another, we plunge into realms other than our own… from the comfort and safety of a third-party perspective… we explore… the sameness that resonates on a familiar plane to us and the differences that cause reverberations in our mindsets and our own stances…

However, the differences and voids that lie between each isle of thought can indeed be threatening at times…

How many times have I felt angered and stirred upon reading the viewpoints of other that are a far cry from my own… there were many times when I felt drawn to click onwards to safer reading grounds…

Yet despite the strength of the urges, I do not do so… I find myself compelled to understand these knee-jerk reactions better… What is it about these words that make me feel so threatened and unsettled? What do I not know… but perhaps, need to recognise within myself?

It is in these differences that I find answers … the missing solutions to the inner equations I am looking for, regarding myself and what is often misunderstood and misperceived with regards to the world at large…

How the hidden truths and untruths appear out of the shadows... and I confront what lives in the repressed backburners of my mind...

Perhaps these differences need not be an end to itself... but rather a means to an end…for something more substantive and purposeful within ourselves… These differences just fuel evolution… old theories and models of thought are reevaluated and previous beliefs and perceptions are either fortified, fine-tuned, dispensed with or redefined altogether…

I realise that I am being influenced as a mind and a person as I cross from one island of thought to another in the blogosphere… and I know that just as I am being molded, I am molding others with the substance of myself…

Who would’ve thought that one ripple of thought or opinion in all the cacophony and chaos of blogosphere, could cause a wave of change elsewhere…

This is a testament to the often underrated strength and power of our expressed thoughts and opinions...

And so today, I celebrate the impact of blogs on myself and others… how we shape the world with our voices…

After all that has been said about blogs, they are more than just a medium for self-absorption… more than just simple prosaic ramblings…

We are the voices of humanness… islands of humanity separated by the wide open waters of life… reaching out, reacting to or repelling one another as we seek to understand the inner truth of ourselves...

It's In Our Hands

2005-06-13T22:09:00.000+08:00

Video code provided by Music Video Codes

Look no further
Look no further
Look no further

Cruelest
Almost
Always to ourselves
It mustn't get any better
Off

It's in our hands, it always was
It's in our hands, in our hands
It's all there, in our hands
It's all there, in our hands

Well now
Aren't we scaring ourselves
Unnecessarily?
Aren't we trying too hard?

'Cause it's in our hands
It's in our hands
It's all here, it's in our hands

Look no further
Look no further

It's in our hands, it always was
It's in our hands

~Bjork~

In rough waters

2005-05-31T21:21:00.000+08:00

I’ve never been this far out to sea before. I am in unfamiliar waters...

I lose confidence with all the unfamiliarity... my bearings are gone. I am no longer sure which way I am meant to be heading...

The clouds overhead gradually darken and I am losing sight of my horizon...

The sea begins to change from one of calm and serenity to that of emotional distress…

The clear blue waters that I was floating in have since turned dark and murky...

The waters swell and rise and the waves of self-doubt threaten to overwhelm and push me under….

It is all too much… I panic. I am feeling terribly lost and bewildered…

As I thrash away in the water, I feel the all too familiar shackles of fear and pain forming, gripping my ankles and pulling me down like lead weights to the bottom of this terrifying stormy sea…

I am paddling with all my might to the surface…

I wish desperately for something or someone to save me… but hard-earned experience tells me otherwise, that it is only I that can do that.

I feel I am about to drown…

Keep going… keep swimming… I tell myself...

Keep going... keep swimming... don't stop...

Through the magnifying glass

2005-05-21T23:48:00.000+08:00

What do you do when history repeats itself?

When you have had a string of disappointments in relationships and love as I have, at which point do you start to move past the idea that this is perhaps all down to just a coincidence or a simple case of recurrent bad luck?

I just haven’t found the right person I initially thought… but when the third relationship goes stale like the first two, I can’t help but ask myself… Why?

I know that that finding a compatible someone with whom I feel great passion and affinity towards as well as a deep and meaningful connection with, comes with its own pitfalls and booby traps... One needs to be rather lucky to get it right the first time… However, I feel that fact alone doesn’t detract me from the issue of knowing my place in the scheme of things…

I could so easily slip into a comfort zone as I have done in the past and sweep it right under the carpet thinking it might not be as bad as it is… as tempting as the prospect may be… but I suspect I might be back at square one before I know it…

I know there is something I just haven’t confronted or bothered to deal with, within myself … about who I am, about how I perceived love and relationships and how I choose to see and live life….

Perhaps there is something in me that invites these sorts of people and outcomes into my life… like an invisible trail of breadcrumbs…

It’s time to open Pandora’s Box and investigate this trail further… explore the unknown possibilities… the ones I dared not think about initially that has brought me to this stage where I am right now…

I know I am taking myself to awkward places… ones I had not dared to venture into before… yet I am compelled to keep the impetus for my own truth and closure going, even at risk of opening a can of worms…….

The painful question that I never wanted to ask before is now staring me right in the eye….

Could this be about me as well?