The First Secret of the Nymphs for Embodying Bliss…
Friday, July 1st, 2011
The whir of the fan across the room is pulling me along, asking me to tell you what I know…acting like a wind that is beckoning me into the deepest places of what I remember…
Like you, many days I am simply in the great rush from one thing to the next. I am hustling into the car and back out of it, and walking briskly or half-running because I am late (punctuality is not exactly my strong point…)
But there is one central key in why, even with a hectic life, I am able to know and feel the power of bliss. It is what fuels me as I half-jog where I am going, and what puts the skip in my step as I hustle along. It is what makes me enter wherever I am going with a beaming smile and why no one ever seems mad at my lateness when I arrive. It is why I often melt people, and my own hard places when they begin to stiffen and ache…I do a lot of things (maybe too much) but I also do nothing…
But wait…perhaps I should tell you a story first. You see, I remember being a nymph. Yes, long, long ago in one of my more ancient memories I remember being a magical creature that was more of nature than human, more subtle than other form. I remember, most of all, how the earth felt against my body…there was the warmth of stone, wide and long under my body in the sun. There was the soft, moistness of moss and sweet grasses and little spring flowers. (For spring followed us wherever we went.) There was the delicious rolling of water over my skin, and the tender light of flames glowing around me at night. There was bliss. In fact, there was, in these particular times, nothing but bliss. Being among nature was all that it took to roll in waves of ecstasy…endlessly… But the nature I am speaking of wasn’t just the flowers or the voluptuous, swaying trees…It was our nature. It was simply being able to be with our own nature that generated the bliss.
I know that that magical land may feel the many ages away that it is, but in fact what made that magic in nature and within our own nature is still well at hand. We have just become as pulled away from it as if it were in another dimension that we can view but cannot feel. It is the feeling that the nymphs knew how to do, and I am going to tell you just how to open that gateway again…how to feel, like that, again.
It is, on the one hand, going to sound much too simple, and yet, when we try it, it may feel much too hard. I know that doesn’t make it sound like something to sign up for, but just keep in mind that the reward is bliss. And bliss?…Bliss changes your life. Bliss brings you everything your heart ever dreamed on a silver platter. Bliss lifts you up and shows you things you could never have imagined, and gives you new dreams, new hopes, new joys, new wants and desires. Bliss heals your body and gives you energy and inspiration. Bliss gives you wings. And, perhaps best of all and most compelling of all, bliss feels good. Is there anyone who wouldn’t like to feel good more often…or all the time? And really, ultimately it isn’t just that bliss feels good…it starts out feeling good, and then it feels great, and then it feels wonderful, and then it feels juicy, delicious, pleasureful, divine…and then it feels ecstatic, elated, blissful. It only gets better and better.
We may not think there is room for bliss in our lives. We may think that knowing bliss means we can’t acknowledge any other feelings or pain. We may think we are too exhausted, too far gone. But I am here to compel you to know that this is not the case. Bliss assists us in becoming all that we are, affirming all that is true to us, being calmed and comforted through any kind of pain, and feeling connected and supported in every step we take on this earth, and through this life.
So…how do I recommend finding this bliss? In little tiny tastes at first…in little drops of nectar like licking a bit of honey from your finger. I am going to tell you the first secret of the Nymphs for embodying bliss. It is all summed up in the Italian phrase “dolce far niente”…sweetly do nothing. I know…it immediately may sound boring or tiresome. If we are going to have free time we certainly don’t want to do nothing with it! And we don’t need one more meditative practice in which we have to be disciplined to find peace. That would surely not be very nymph-like anyway. No, I am not recommending you actually do nothing. I am recommending that you find out what happens when you make space for nothing.
The woman in the painting above is simply lying down on a soft fabric, with a comfortable pillow, a beautiful sunflower to look at, and a fan to cool herself. Some feathers from the fan are floating above her and she is simply playing with them, capturing and then letting them go…tossing them up again and letting them float again. She is idle and yet not truly, for she is also playful and absorbed, even creative. It is exactly these states that nourish us and bring us then into blissful states. Don’t you just want to be her right now? Warm and free?
Each item the woman has with her is important, and representative of what we must do in order to create the space to move more deeply into bliss. If she were too hot because she didn’t have her fan it would be distracting. If she didn’t have her lovely rug or pillow she might be uncomfortable, and if she had somewhere to be in five minutes, or even fifteen, she wouldn’t be able to relax. If she didn’t have the beautiful sunflower to rest her eyes on when she wanted to, or the playful feathers than came purely from the spontaneity of the moment, the experience wouldn’t have been the same. Indeed had she been in conversation or too busy doing a project she might not even have noticed the feathers. I want you to be able to notice the feathers. Just that. Because those feathers represent all the little happinesses and playfulness that you might otherwise miss, and that lead to bliss.
So, back to what makes me different as I bustle through the busy times in my life. What is different for me is that I have made a practice of bliss in my life. And it isn’t hard, or structured, or a chore. I am so used to giving myself even little moments of bliss that it happens very naturally for me now, even when I only have a tiny window of time. That is the benefit of learning to make that space, wherever you can. Because now I just fall into bliss whenever an open moment arrives. For instance, in the middle of a heavy work day when I have been on the computer for hours, I stumble outside in my bare feet and crouch down in the grass and pick strawberries in my yard…and I really taste them, and I get my fingers juicy and dirty. And I am certainly a nymph once more. I catch any space of even five minutes that is open, but I also make whole afternoons that are all my own. If we start with the five minute spaces, the afternoons will come.
Try starting with just an hour. Then an hour a week, then increase it whenever you can. You can even simply re-create what you see in this painting, but if there are no feathers just watch the clouds, or the way the light plays on the leaves of the nearby plants, or bring a flower and simply gaze into it. Get lost and let your thoughts get hazy, and, because heaven forbid, don’t do anything constructive on purpose. You will find, soon enough, that the most constructive, creative, enlightening states come from this…but not because you tried…because you didn’t. Not because you did something, but because you made space for nothing, and eventually, bliss filled it.
Love, Jennifer
Want to know more of the secrets of the Nymphs? Click here to read about the upcoming course this August, available anywhere in the world, The Spring of the Nymphs: The Secrets of Embodying Bliss
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