The old Mum Bum

The

Difference

Between a good artist

And a great one

Is:

The novice

Will often lay down their tool

Or brush

Then pick up an invisible club

On the mind’s table

And helplessly smash the easels and

Jade.

Whereas the vintage human

No longer hurts themselves or anyone

And keeps on

Sculpting

Light.

- Hafiz - The Vintage Human (made gender neutral by moi)

I stumbled upon this Hafiz poem in my daily reading of his anthology, ‘The Gift' . And what a timely gift it was. Pardon my love for a mediocre pun.

We camped on the weekend with friends and I was sent the above photo on the long drive home. Now, most people may be captured by the cute baby being held on high by my glorious bloke, but ohhhhhh nooooo, not me. The old Jones laser eyes shoot straight to the *mum bum in red cossie and cue shame storm.  The flab, the cellulite, the hot disgust that people have to witness this thing. I should’ve had a sarong on. WHAT WAS I THINKING? Someone took a PHOTO! How can I instagram that bit of embarrassing reality????

A little dramatic I hear you say? Too many CAPS I hear you say? Well, yes… I don’t deny it. I did go to drama school. And I do LOVE a CAP.

But that - right there - is my mental barrage. The unfiltered, unfettered stream of thoughts that hit on a daily basis about any number of things.

But what continues to strike me though is how my sense of worth is still so closely aligned to my physical and mental body.  Oh and my age. Gender. Profession. How much I am or am not achieving/doing/creating/earning.  The labels I cling-wrap myself in can be suffocating at best. Little deaths of my spirit at worst.

But if I pause, breathe,  s l o w  d o w n  (my recurrent life lesson) I begin to witness an even more striking thing. It’s not that I’m less inclined to club myself Hafiz style these days, it’s that I’m becoming more aware of the clubby thoughts as they hammer… usually just after the hammer strikes, but catching myself nonetheless. WINNING.  Thanks, Meditation. And then I'm presented with the opportunity to change something. To question the outdated idea. To challenge the belief passed onto me from someone/somewhere/sometime else that doesn't fit or serve me anymore.

And what would happen if we really, truly, deeply began a process of Radical Acceptance? If we just loved the shit out of ourselves on a daily basis. If instead of the stream of criticism we had a gleam of wonder at our capabilities and what we can do for ourselves and each other. How we can get over the petty and small and embrace and dive into the greater waters of what's really important.

How well we love. How well we take care of each other. The kindnesses. The acts of service. The beauty. The shining lights that we all really are.

And in the moment of pause, of awareness, I have a small brain window to jump of out to a bit of bloody gratitude instead of all the self-flagellation. 

A tiny window for the sublime Rupi Kaur to breeze into:

Look down at your body

Whisper

There is no home like you

thankyou

- Rupi Kaur

Yeah Jones. Look at that Mum Bum and slap it with a big red THANKYOU. Caps and all.

*mum bum – the permanent line that appears beneath one’s buttocks that no amount of yoga, swimming, walking, butt clenches will ever remove.

your body is a museum of natural disasters can you grasp how stunning that is

— Rupi Kaur, milk and honey