Cosmic Dancer

 

One  must have a  chaos in oneself to give birth to a dancing star”

  Thus spoke Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche

 

 

We are a leftover of stardust.

I am on CERN campus, in Geneva. The guide is talking and my thoughts go to my travel throughout Southern India.

How come? What do physics and India have in common?

Well, I admit this might not be the most common thought coming to one’s mind while visiting CERN Headquarters, the world’s leading laboratory in fundamental physics.

Don’t get me wrong, I am very attentive to the guide’s talk!

Life in universe originated from star explosions – aka Big Bang – and for now, everything is clear.

This process released so much energy to create matter as well as anti-matter.  

I am totally fascinated to discover that we can see only the 5% of the overall matter, which includes planet earth.

 

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Exhibition “Universe of Particles” held at CERN in 2017

 

And the guide goes on … anti-matter annihilated during a collision with matter and created light. It happens that this is the same light we see every day when we wake up, thanks to light we can see the world around us.

Billions of cosmic rays, particles made rays of light (i.e. protons and neutrons) run throughout us ever day. Quantum physicists demonstrated that those rays are like vibrations, we cannot see them, but they exist.

 

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Sun rays reflected through my mala. Bains de Paquis, Genève

 

The same physicists – as well as interprets of ancient Hindu scriptures, the Vedas –  raise a fascinating question in this regard: if rays of light are vibrations, everything we see in the universe is made of extremely tiny vibration?

And here comes the intriguing question. Are objects, the world around us, including ourselves, made by tiny light vibrations, aka cosmic vibrations?

By the way, if you think to the sense of sight you might know that we can see through sight because of light rays, as physicists demonstrated and poets like Goethe had assumed.

Are vibrations infuencing the way we see the outside world?

Are our thoughts vibrations at all? Can we create the outside world by changing the frequency of the vibrations we are attuned at, exactly as we do with radio waves when we listen to radio? Or by practising the ancient art of meditation?

If the outside world is a creation of our brain, can we create it? Does the world exist outside of our mental representation?

 

The german philosopher Arthus Shopenhauer in The World as Will and Representation considers the outside world, what we see is in our brain through eyes, as an illusion. The whole world is an illusion, it fools us. It is a layer, it is Maya‘s veil.

 

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My view of the marvellous Lac Léman is gently veiled.  Bains de Paquis, Geneva

 

Matter doesn’t exist anymore if we are not here to see and to experience it. The philosopher was clearly influenced by the ancient indian textes, the Vedas, where Maya is “the principal deity who creates, perpetuates and governs the phantasmagoria, illusion and dream of duality the phenomenal universe”.

Not only Schopenhauer – who is reported to have red the Vedas – many philosophers and authors such as the German writer Hermann Hesse, who visited India in 1911 and the Swiss Psychoanalyst Gustav Jung, they all showed interested for oriental and religious studies, especially hinduism and buddhist philosophies. They travelled to India, like many intellectuals did at the beginning of the 20th century, as if the western society that witnessing the rising industrialisation process the could not fulfil their quest for spirituality anymore.

 

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Om Namah Shivaya

During my journey across southern India I was avid to see as many artworks as I could and to learn about Yoga, Meditation, Hinduism … and yes Sanskrit! I was particularly intrigued by Hindu divinities and philosophy.

One day, to my great surprise, someone looked at me and said with a certain confidence “so you come from Geneva, you must have already seen the huge statue of Shiva at CERN”.

Well … actually not. I didn’t know about it!

A two meters statue of Shiva Nataraja, Shiva the Cosmic Dancer,  stands on the Campus of the world’s leading center for research laboratory on particle physics. Seeing the statue was obviously one of the thing I did once I came back from my journey.

 

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The statue of Shiva Nataraja. CERN campus in Geneva, Switzerland

 

Shiva Nataraja, the Lord of Dance, the Cosmic Dancer is an hindu deity that, together with Brama and Vishnu forms a trinity called Trimurti. Brama creates, Vishnu preserves, Shiva destroys, in an endless dance of creation and destruction involving the whole cosmos and representing the dynamism of the eternal cycle of life and subatomic particles (depending on your Weltaschauung …). And here comes CERN and its laboratories on fundamental physics.

 

According to the Vedas three phases characterise the never-ending circle of a cosmos that dances around Shiva: creation, preservation and destruction. Its dance destroys to recreate the eternal rhythm of life, of creativity, of arts, of life itself.

 

The classical representation of Shiva, as pictured during the apogee of the Chola dynasty (around 500 a.c.) is surrounded  by small flames in vortex.

He embodies the dynamism of the eternal movement of the universe, the matter pulsing throughout the cosmos, like in a universal dance.

 

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Dancing Shiva. The God of transformation. Tamil Nadu, India

 

 

“I would believe in a God that knows how to dance”

Thus spoke Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche

 

 

 

The “unbearable lightness” of saying NO

I trust Milan Kundera will not bear a grudge against me for borrowing this powerful expression from his masterpiece. In effect, saying “no” (which in Italian, my mother tongue, I would translate with “basta”) reveals to be light as a feather only  once you have done it.

The DigitalNomad Kit @ Patnem Beach, Goa, India

Six years of progressive experience in Corporate Communication and Public Affairs in the expats hub of multicultural and multilingual Geneva (Switzerland) have been an exciting time. Yet, I decided to take a break from daily routine, job, university degrees, friends, family and unhealthy relationships (ok, I admit the latter counts for most of the things I wanted to take distance from) to realise my dream: going to South India to study yoga and meditation while exploring the cultural and colourful side of this magic, yet super chaotic country!

Et me voilà! Here I am, where the fascinating – now super trendy – yoga discipline was born thousand years ago, doing Surya Namaskar (aka “Sun Salutation”) on a warm sandy beach in Kerala and in Goa, the smallest state of India.

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Practising Setubandhasana aka “the wheel pose”

So far, I have never realised how deeply strengthening muscles and building physical endurance affect soul and mind – this is for real! – although I acknowledge that practicing in a Shala (the hall where students gather, “school” in Sanskrit) shaded by palms while looking at the sun swallowed by the ocean certainly helps.

To make this unique experience memorable and to share it with my loved ones and the community I have started blogging. I have always been an “aficionado” (… no, I didn’t write “addicted” …)  of social media and the “sharing-is-caring” pop culture. The first time someone told me: “Francesca, you should start a blog” it was in November 2014 during my last class of Corporate Communication at the Universtity of Lugano.

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My inseparable pink bike accompanying me throughout this journey

Here in India I have finally found the perfect recipe!

  • 1/2 cup of great inspiration
  • 10 cups of time
  • a pinch of courage
  • 2 teaspoons of pictures
  • 2 bowls of experiences ready for sharing

Preheat at 300 degrees, stir all ingredients, bake it and sprinkle with colourful pictures.

Shebelievesincolors is ready to be served combined with Instagram account and Facebook page. Now spread it all around.

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The sunset and the self

Charlie Chaplin and The Self

It was my second yoga class with Amala at the yoga retreat I joined early January in Goa, India. What I have always been trying to achieve with intellect and reflection, it came by surprise, on a Hatha yoga afternoon practice.

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My inseparable bike waiting outside the Yoga Shala

The Shala (the place where students gather to practice yoga, litterally “school” in Sanskrit) in the forest was lightened gently but progressively by sunset sun beams with an orange-like color. Amala started the class by taking us through breath techniques, known as “Pranayama”, from the Sanskrit words “prana”, breath, life force and “yama”, channeling, expanding.

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Wandering barefoot. “Orange” is the warmest color.

The purpose of the asanas/sequence of Hatha yoga poses we were asked to perform after the breathing exercises is to “create Space” in the sacral area, above the pubic bone and below the navel, to subsequently work, through quite hard body postures, on what is commonly referred to as”the second Chakra” or the “Sacral Chakra”, from the lumbar-sacral area of the body where it is “located”.

Well, I don’t believe in “supernatural” forces, but I do believe that we can experience ourselves not only as a mixture of meat, water, intellect and emotions, but as a wholeness.

The need for “Space” and “Centeredness” I was seeking, it just happened.

I had never felt so grounded to earth, full of creative energy and experiencing the empowering effects of Hatha Yoga at its fullest – I think I (re)found my SELF – CENTERNESS.

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Down to earth 

“The day I truly loved myself” is a poem attributed to Charlie Chaplin, probably written on his 70th birthday On April 16, 1959. Amala read us the poem on December 31st during the evening meditation.

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Amala reading aloud the poem @ Yogamagic Eco Retreat Goa, India

“When I Started Loving Myself
I Understood That I’m Always And At Any Given Opportunity
In The Right Place At The Right Time.
And I Understood That All That Happens Is Right – From Then On I Could Be Calm.
Today I Know: It’s Called TRUST.

When I Started To Love Myself I Understood How Much It Can Offend Somebody
When I Tried To Force My Desires On This Person,
Even Though I Knew The Time Is Not Right And The Person Was Not Ready For It,

And Even Though This Person Was Me. Today I Know: It’s Called LETTING GO

When I Started Loving Myself
I Could Recognize That Emotional Pain And Grief
Are Just Warnings For Me To Not Live Against My Own Truth.
Today I Know: It’s Called AUTHENTICALLY BEING.

When I Started Loving Myself
I Stopped Longing For Another Life
And Could See That Everything Around Me Was A Request To Grow.
Today I Know: It’s Called MATURITY.

When I Started Loving Myself
I Stopped Depriving Myself Of My Free Time
And Stopped Sketching Further Magnificent Projects For The Future.
Today I Only Do What’s Fun And Joy For Me,
What I Love And What Makes My Heart Laugh,
In My Own Way And In My Tempo.
Today I Know: It’s Called HONESTY.

When I Started Loving Myself
I Escaped From All What Wasn’t Healthy For Me,
From Dishes, People, Things, Situations
And From Everyhting Pulling Me Down And Away From Myself.
In The Beginning I Called It The “Healthy Egoism”,
But Today I Know: It’s Called SELF-LOVE.

When I Started Loving Myself
I Stopped Wanting To Be Always Right
Thus I’ve Been Less Wrong.
Today I’ve Recognized: It’s Called HUMBLENESS.

When I Started Loving Myself
I Refused To Live Further In The Past
And Worry About My Future.
Now I Live Only At This Moment Where EVERYTHING Takes Place,
Like This I Live Every Day And I Call It CONSCIOUSNESS.

When I Started Loving Myself
I Recognized, That My Thinking
Can Make Me Miserable And Sick.
When I Requested For My Heart Forces,
My Mind Got An Important Partner.
Today I Call This Connection HEART WISDOM.

We Do Not Need To Fear Further Discussions, Conflicts And Problems With Ourselves And Others Since Even Stars Sometimes Bang On Each Other And Create New Worlds.
Today I Know: THIS IS LIFE!”

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Lemongrass tea after morning meditation @Yogamagic Eco Retreat

I LET GO. Present tense

Getting rid is a common desire that most of us experience.

This year I had the most beautiful “turning” into New Years Eve ever. In Goa, India, I sat by the open fire experiencing a mindfulness presence of mySELF, like only meditation allows you to do, with a piece of paper to write down resolutions. The day after, on January 1st at 8 am., after the morning meditation, I burnt them into the orange of the fire, watching it disintegrate and disappear from our hands.

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By the open fire on December 31st @yogamagicecoretreat, Goa, India
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By the open fire on January 1st, 2016 @yogamagicecoretreat Goa, India

This was the best New Year’s Day waking up I can remember.

Since then, I use the present tense for every single intention I want to turn into resolution. Use the present tense, like you do when working in customer experience to manage customer expectations.

Use the present tense to manage your own. Allow your intentions for the future become your present.

I let go of what I don’t like, I create space for myself and new experiences. In the end, it all starts by creating space. Isn’t it?

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