You may recall the dynamic team of Tea Love (Yogi Mom in the making) and Bacon Little (Yogi son in the making) on their last adventures into their growth in light and love in the context of their day-to-day life of eating vegetarian style, fighting the GMOS and processed red sports drinks, shopping adventures as prime educational ground for kids to learn about marketing in the modern day world, and dinner time blessings/lessons in gratefulness were among a few of things discussed.
With summer winding down and school in full force again, I find myself wondering about kids and their comfort zones. I often think about these things in the context of modeling the type of person and behavior we wish our kiddos to strive towards. So, I knew exactly who might have an interesting dynamic to contemplate in this regard – Tea Love and Bacon Little of course! What were they doing over the summer to move beyond their comfort zones and to ignite their spirits?
As the end of the 2nd grade year was coming to a close, Tea Love had the whole summer lined up and what a great summer she thought it would be for her and Bacon Little. “I’ve got an amazing schedule planned for the summer Bacon Little!” Tea Love said with such devotion, compassion, and much excitement. Bacon Little, excited about everything and anything not related to school after such a hard working year, was doing the hip hop yogi skipmastics of his best year in the groove moments until Tea Love said “Theater Camp!” That stopped Bacon Little in his tracks and not in the good-be-in-the moment-meditative way either. He had a growl on his face. He was fuming. He was so angry. He was really mad at Tea Love. “I don’t like theater camp” Bacon Little smugly said.
His response was so deep and cold he began to embody the spirit of Iceman. It was like every word he spoke sent, instead of breath, ice out of his mouth forming trails of ice, jagged highs and lows, in which Tea Love found herself sliding roughly across and spinning in utter confusion.
Tea Love sat down to gather herself into a zen state and just breathed a few breaths trying to connect to divine guidance in this troubling situation. She looked up for guidance and suddenly an icicle hit her right on her third eye knocking some yoga sense into her. “I didn’t expect a zap like that, but I will accept my blessings with ease even if they don’t appear that way at the time” she said unequivocally. Furthering her transmission, she said quietly to herself “I’ve taught him to be open hearted and open minded.” Then continuing in her zen calmness, “Ah, he’s got too much Tamas working within his inner state.”
It was as if the earth shifted each time she spoke sending the Om vibrations deep down those around her and tilting the perspective to one willfully and energetically seeking a balance. “That’s it!” Tea Love said in relief. “I must guide him out of tamas and help him identify a more rajastic energy.” So that’s what she set off to do. Simple energy shifts are just everyday matters in the day of the life of a yogi mom.
For those wondering what the heck tamas is, worry no more. Tamas is one of the ways in which our consciousness can manifest. It’s a quality of delusion, obscurity, inertia, and ignorance. Rajas is another way in which our consciousness can manifest. When we express rajas, we are active and energetic, tense and wilful. We need a balance of these gunas (also known as qualities or attributes) as we shift through each day and different parts of our lives.
Tea Love identified the out of balance guna immediately thinking to herself, “It’s not that Bacon Little is inert or delusional, he just doesn’t know because he’s never tried theater camp before. It’s the ignorance combined with the fear that is the issue. When we try new things, that can bring up a lot of fear and have us question our self-confidence as we traverse the unknowns.”
As Bacon Little was still embodying Iceman, he said to Tea Love with full synthesis of all the information about theater camp and came up with a well devised answer, “Mom, I just don’t want to go to theater camp.” Continuing in his convincing researched analysis type tone, “I just don’t like it.” As if that answer would set him free, Tea Love carefully explained to Bacon Little “It’s ok to think you don’t like it, but you will never know until you try and try you must for if you do not try you will never know the gateway into the depths of your soul.”
She stayed resolute in her answer. Bacon Little annoyed by Tea Love’s philosophical jingle jangle looked over into her eyes and said firmly with pursed lips “Fine.” Bacon Little dragged his heels into his room and sat down with his arms crossed tapping his fingers on his desk to the beat of the Beetles classic, In My Life.
The day had come. That much dreaded day. Here it was. It was the first day of theater camp. Bacon Little dragged his feet into camp as Tea Love lovingly dropped him off with full encouragement that everything was going to be ok. Tea Love reminded Bacon Little “If you don’t like theater camp by week’s end, you don’t have to try again for a while.” She further said with confidence hoping to provoke some of Bacon Little’s own amazing light inside to guide him through his day, “It’s just one week. That’s it. Sometimes we try things we don’t think we will like, and then we find we love it. Just be open.” Bacon Little begrudgingly agreed and off he went to the dark corners of his fear and walked through it straight on with a warrior’s arrow of mindful focus and courage.
Tea Love walked to her car replaying the dynamic of Bacon Little’s fear about theater camp and analyzing the situation, “My how he has grown into such a blooming yogi.” “He did it!” she said with such burning excitement she could feel the energy rush down to her toes. “He walked through his fear and he did it. He walked into camp and didn’t turn his back on the possibility of another gateway.” As she was driving to work, she took note of the oak trees and their beautiful limbs and how symbolic those limbs were of the infinite possibilities in our lives to connect to new paths that open gateways to our highest Self. Her heart just smiled in ecstasy, “He just walked down a new path of experience. Though neither he nor I know where it will lead, he had the courage to find out.”
After the first day of theater camp, Bacon Little excitedly told Tea Love, “I love theater camp! I can’t wait to do 2 weeks next summer!” Tea Love said “What great news!” Furthering her message “You never really know what you will like, until you try it with an open heart and you did!” Bacon Little was talking so passionately and quickly about theater camp, Tea Love’s prefrontal cortex could hardly keep up. “I loved making the props!” he said only a zillion times in various light and love formations. “The skits were awesome….” Bacon Little tried to finish, but Tea Love couldn’t contain herself and interrupted, saying, “You held steadfast to your warrior focus, openness, and courage, and that dear sweetness sent you flying with precision in love through your fear.” Furthering her philosophical underpinnings to this wildly energetic conversation, “You shifted away from tamas and embraced the rajas needed to push you beyond your comfort zone.” Bacon Little looked at her with a blank stare and empathetically said to her, “I don’t know what that means, mom, really…. I just know it was awesome!”
She was so proud of Bacon Little for meeting his fear head on. She said with a gleam on her face, “All I did was love him, helped him see that he could move beyond his edge, and guided him to find his authentic voice.”
Tea Love guided Bacon Little to shift the balance of his gunas where tamas was on equal playing ground with rajas. She helped him see that we do not know so much in our lives beforehand. We don’t know if we will like certain things. But try them we must! For if we are not trying different things and pushing our edge, pushing our comfort zone, then what are we doing but living in a body that isn’t really living? And if we aren’t really living, aren’t we dying? Our souls, our spirits, our essence, doesn’t it just get stagnant? And what about our voices when we stay still in our comfort zones? Doesn’t our voice just get buried in the noise of fearful questions that don’t really matter? We get so lost in the noise that we can’t hear ourselves anymore. And when we can’t hear ourselves, we can’t really feel the exuberance in our cell tissues dancing life’s rhythmic order of love singing praises of “Go for it. You can do it. Experience all life has to offer.”
Tea Love helped Bacon Little find another melody. She helped him see that he had another voice and that this voice could be integrated with the other melodies of his life. She gave him the key to open the gateway to the deepest parts of his soul. And she did it with boundless love, contingent communication, and an environment filled with nurturing possibilities that soul shifted the balances of rajas and tamas. Tea Love showed Bacon Little that it is not fear that we should fear, but the turning away from fear that we should fear, because when we turn away, little pieces of our voice, of our melodies, die. Bacon Little found another life melody and Tea Love sat back and listened enthusiastically to his symphony.
Go find your melody, sing your tune, and listen to the symphony of love within.
Om Shanti Om ~ Athea
