The Beauty of Ferocity

She is burningly fierce and infinitely gentle. Her ferocity knows no limits, but she knows where to direct it and when to apply it. Her beauty is unparalleled, her face reddened from the heat of her own passion and rage. You are either with her or against her. She is so powerful that there are twelve forms of her, each form displaying a specific aspect of her personality and power. She has a closet full of outfits but favors dressing in vivid red from head to toe. In her four hands she holds prayer beads, a book, and makes the gestures of fearlessness and of graceful offering. Draped around her neck and shoulders is a garland of severed heads, her chest and face smeared with their blood. From the midst of the gore, her three luminous eyes shaped like lotus blossoms shine like the rising sun…

The Goddess Bhairavi represents that intelligent ferocity that resides within us. When we stand up for something we care about, when we leap to defend someone we love, when we plunge wholeheartedly into our own passions and beliefs, or eliminate something detrimental to our lives, we are Bhairavi. Undeterred. Without doubt. Taking no prisoners. Fiery. Infinite. Bhairavi is always within us – she is a part of who we are. What is interesting is when she appears – what it is inside and outside of us that calls her to the surface.

To receive beauty and grace in your life, you sometimes need to be ferocious. First you need to cultivate a clear analytical intelligence that enables you to discern what benefits you and what is self-destructive. Once you have determined this, unleash Bhairavi. Sever what isn’t serving you. Do so with precision, clarity and deep self-awareness. Own your choices. Don’t be subject to her. Be her. Be terrible in your raging beauty, standing up for what you believe in, whom you love, and who you are in the world. Be passionately ferocious and fiercely graceful. Like Bhairavi, you become as luminous as 1000 suns.

The Beauty of Celebrating Yourself

In order to give to others you also need to give to yourself. In order to be a good friend, family member, or partner you have to be good to yourself first. You have to love yourself. In the yoga I practice we begin with the premise of self-embrace. This is not any sort of narcissism. Rather it is a reverence for nature, of which we are a part. It is an appreciation offered to the people who created, advised, guided, and supported us: family members, teachers, and friends.

A close friend who spoke English as a second language once said to me, “I am so conceited!” When I explained to him that conceited was probably not the word that he was searching for, he explained, “What I mean is that I love myself…I mean, I’m the only me there is. If I don’t love me, who will?” And then he said, “Don’t you love yourself?” I never had anyone ask me this before, so I briefly outlined a few of my faults and then a few strengths. He laughed at me and said, “No, that’s not what I mean. I mean, don’t you love you?” It took me a minute, but I finally said, “ …I guess so. I mean…yes!”

The exchange took place just a few years ago, and in retrospect, it is one of the best gifts anyone has given me. He helped to give me the gift of myself. The more I embrace myself, the more I am able to offer love to the people around me. I am better equipped to be a friend, a teacher, and a family member. So this December, in the midst of my gift buying and finishing up of 2010 commitments and goals, I also plan to take fabulous care of myself. Because I love me.

The Beauty of Asymmetry

Asymmetry (Via NotZolddLab.)

Beauty resides in the asymmetrical, the not-quite-matching-up-ness of things, the unexpected, the quirk. Think of the crack in the vase that accentuates the beauty around it. Symmetry can be beautiful in its evenness, but too much of it becomes stasis. Sameness. Predictability. Beauty lies in surprising contrasts.

Instead of viewing asymmetry as a flaw, entertain it as possibility, as an opening. When things don’t match up perfectly there is a friction – the extra screw after you have assembled the Ikea shelving. It drives you crazy, but then again, it gets your attention. It makes you look more closely because there is a role for you – something you need to do – a way to involve yourself. A grain of sand inside an oyster can create a pearl. The displaced thing, the flaw, produces beauty. In our best moments, we can recognize that our flaws and asymmetries can sometimes be our assets. Without asymmetry there is nothing to negotiate, no space of possibility – nothing to work on or to address.

Someone asked me once why I chose to create drawings on ordinary white paper instead of beautiful handmade rice paper. The reason was that the rice paper was already finished as far as I was concerned. It was so perfect and symmetrical that the only interaction with the paper that seemed appropriate to me was admiration. There was nothing further that I wanted to do with it. What do you do with perfect symmetry?

What is that part of you that you view as a flaw?
How can you begin to see it as an opportunity to create beauty in a way that is uniquely yours?