I’ve only really started using mantras on a regular basis over the past year. My astrologer Vic DiCara (he also plays in hardcore punk band 108*) drew up my astrological chart using Vedic Astrology last year. After interrupting it he decided to prescribe a certain mantra that would help in manifesting my dreams to reality. You’re probably going ‘what the hell is a mantra?’ Let me explain:
Mantra is a practice that involves the repetition of a word or a phrase of words. At first it may feel mechanical but once you get into it you start to (hopefully) embody the quality or essence you are trying to invoke. You should try to be sincere when saying your mantra.
My friend Vic described the usefulness of mantras by telling me, “Practice the mantra with a given intention and need and you will find that need, will be addressed… the power of mantra is to open your mind and free it from habit. So doing the mantra enables you to learn the lessons of the planets as quickly and painlessly as possible, even enjoyably and blissfully in fact.”
I have found that putting both meditation and chanting a mantra (along with yoga) into my daily routine has helped give me a grounding and solid base in which to start my day in.
Mantra are used across many cultures (it’s not just an Eastern exotic thing), faith and philosophies. I have found that they help to give me clarity and boost my energy.
For more on mantras check out: The Power of Mantra, Gently Returning and History & Info on Mantra.
A song from the album Mantra by one of my favourite hardcore punk bands Shelter.
*108 trivia – 108 is a semi-permanent number; malas have 108 beads for use when reciting mantras; according to Ayurveda there are 108 pressure points in the body…
“Spirituality to me is the everyday practice of realising, reaffirming and getting in touch with why we’re on the planet, why we exist and what we’re supposed to do. Prayer, meditation, reflection, being involved with your community and spending time with your family and loved ones—it’s all spirituality. Everything we do is really spiritually based because everything we do comes from thought and intention, the material world comes secondary to that, those things come first they create the material world. Everything we do is in some way spiritual.”
~extract from my next book project in process… details soon lovelies!
“Be yourself, don’t take anyone’s shit, and never let them take you alive.” ~Gerard Way
“Well there is that common misconception that punk was this negative nihilistic thing, but that was never what it was about. It was about empowerment, individuality and some kind of “politicalisation.” I’m not talking about the politics that people see on the TV; I’m talking about a global politics. Trying to be in touch with the planet, to me, is my kind of politics. There’s a trend towards this passive consumerism these days whereby most people are emotionally detached from the planet. Obviously that’s going to lead us nowhere.” ~Don Letts (excerpt from Conversations With Punx)
You my new friend (and of course my long-standing friends that read this) are one of a kind. You are unique. You see life in your own special one of its kind way. No one else can ever do things the way you do them, you bring your own unique style & flavour to the party. And, what a party that is! Magnificent, divine and full of life!
Even if someone else was given the exact same information as you, we all translate it differently and put our own twist on things depending on our past experiences, upbringing, beliefs, outlook so we can only really do things our own way.
A big part of ‘doing you’ is knowing who you are and what you stand for and staying true to that—not allowing yourself to be swayed by your friends, family, group pressure or trends. A huge part of me has learnt so much about myself and who I am thanks to punk rock and hip hop music, culture and those that contribute positively to it. And although music is one of my favourite things in the whole Universe, I make sure I don’t let it define me.
Many years ago (6 actually, at the beginning of my book project)… I found myself having been involved with punk rock for over a decade. I had written fanzines, put on shows, manned merch booths, been a publicist, music critic, and activist; I had interviewed hundreds of bands, attended countless live shows, had a mail order, and been a noise maker in various bands that never made it out of the garage. My social life revolved around shows and I had met all of my friends at gigs. I was in deep. After a while it all started to feel uninspiring. Nothing excited me or provoked me to think. I had to get drunk and be surrounded by my tightly knit social clique for shows to be fun. I was in a punk rock bubble and the bubble become very cloudy.
I had always attributed punk (and hip hop) as contributing to my personal growth. I began to feel my growth as a person stall and become stagnant. Punk had always been a platform from which I could explore and find myself. The platform had seemed to become limited. I thought, “Is this it? Is this who I am?” I realised that my whole life was sadly based around a music scene, which in the grand scheme of things is minute. I had lived, breathed, and consumed punk, until it had begun to consume me. My perspective started to shift. There had to be something more, something beyond punk. I started to disconnect from what was going on around me. For the first time, I was alone in my punk rock world. I started to turn inward.
For me this was a really confusing time, I really had to focus on me and who I thought I was, who I was, and who I wanted to become. My journey through that is in part my book projects. Meditation & my Morning Page rituals really helped me during this time of self-exploration.
Advice from amazing people also helped! Exene Cervenka the remarkable front lady of Los Angeles punk band X chatted with me for my book and had the following to say… which I felt was really spot on in relation to Doing You!
Exene: I’m trying to take care of that stuff. It’s complicated because as you get older you have a lot of stuff you’ve been through and you look back on it all and you get an image of yourself. It’s not always the best image. Maintaining a healthy self-image and really loving yourself is something that’s really important to me. People let life get to them too much and they get beaten down by it. They become cynical and jaded. It’s really important for me not to become like that. When I look back and say I want to love myself it’s not because I’m running from my past, it’s because I’m learning to accept who I am with flaws.
Being yourself isn’t always going to be easy (with so many distractions out there and people & things trying to influence you and your choices)… a big tip I can give you though on the road to Doing You! is: stop caring what others think about you. If you’re constantly fretting about what this person or that thinks about you, it’ll be impossible to be yourself.
In my experience, any lasting thing in life is built rooted in truth. Ask yourself, what’s your truth?
“If I’m going to sing like someone else, then I don’t need to sing at all.” ~Billie Holiday
“Cherish forever what makes you unique, ‘cause you’re really a yawn if it goes.” ~Bette Midler
And don’t forget one of the biggest truths of all: you’re unique just like everybody else! (he, he :))
“The first Noble Truth is of the truth of suffering and the injustice and oppression that causes greed and suffering in our world and internally within the individual. The Buddha and Buddhists take it to another level of really investigating, asking, “What’s the cause? What’s the solution to this injustice, greed, hatred and confusion?” Punks for the most part don’t get there. Maybe they start saying, “Here’s the cause. We’ll become activists externally in some way.” It seems pretty rare for punks to really take on an inner practice of ridding themselves from the judgments, greed and hatred that cause suffering.” ~Noah Levine (an excerpt from my book).
A not negotiable in my life is meditation. Whether it’s my morning meditations, writing meditations, walking meditation or even just being mindful and aware of what’s going on around me and how I’m contributing to that energy and situation. It helps to keep me balanced, centred and to not get too much into my own head. It helps me to get in touch with myself. It helps me to be present in the moment.
A wonderful friend Noah Levine author of the books Dharma Punx & Against The Stream and founder of the Against The Stream Meditation Society has some helpful meditation MP3s here which could help get you started. The simplest advice he could give me when I asked about meditation tips is:
Awareness of the breath. There is a pretty pervasive misunderstanding of meditation. Most people think that if you are meditating correctly you don’t have any thoughts in your mind at all, that meditation is turning your mind off. Really, the foundation of mindfulness of breath is that thoughts are still happening, you’re just not paying attention to them. You’re not putting all of your attention or awareness in the mind, you’re redirecting it to the body and the experience of the breath. If the attention gets drawn to the thoughts you bring the attention back to the breath over and over—that’s meditation practice. It really works, but it takes a bit of effort. Eventually it gets a bit easier.
Thanks must go to a dear new friend that inspired this post without even knowing it. Connecting with others always gives me things to think about in my life. Maybe when interacting with others throughout your day today ask yourself, what am I learning from this person? There’s a lesson in all situations be them good or bad, we just need to stop and listen.
Art by Chainsaw Panda
