"Faith is the bird that feels the light, and sings while the dawn is still dark"

Listening again to the healing strains of Hans Christian's "undefended heart", I hear the swallows of Chartres, France on the recording. I miss the finches who nested on the roof of my building one spring two years ago, but I know with a knowing that is not knowing that I will be somewhere in the future where my ears will continually hear the birds singing. I wish I had gone to meet Yogi Bhajan back in 2002, but I did not. I know he is my teacher. He gave me my name Amrita Kaur, back in the summer of 2006, before 3HO gave it to me last April.

His fingerprints touch my life everywhere...even taking me to see my spiritual mother and guru Sri Amritanandamaya Devi. I am scared. I feel fear over making a move to San Francisco, let alone just booking an airline flight there to see LifeChiropractic's campus and meet again with Dr. Hari Simran Singh Khalsa. I am afraid of wearing my turban or bani again for some reason, as I did before I was angry with Sat Inder Singh. I know it raises the kundalini...I feel it. I miss the way I felt wearing it every day. And yet I like just doing the yoga too without all of the outward costuming.

It feels as if I were to take vows as a Khalsa and to take Amrit that I would be ensuring myself of never going back into the darkness, as I have toyed with for years. I've had power, felt the tease of thinking it is mine to misuse, and fallen so far down into many, many pits of despair and had to crawl back up, feeling as if I am in a pot of crabs dragging me back down. I've been there many times and don't want to go back to that darkness. If the path of Kundalini Yoga takes me into being a Sikh ~ which it does not have to ~ but if it does, and if it takes me back to school at 43 to help heal others and take away their pain the way mine has been, then maybe it is my path.

Reading Dharma Singh Khalsa, M.D.'s "Meditation As Medecine" this morning as Hans Christian's violincello fills my mind with song and birdsong, brought me to these words:

"For some reason, I had a sense that this was exactly the right thing to do. Finding your dharma, or true path, I think, depends on having a feeling for your own destiny, so that you know it when you see it. One fine day, you just happen to peek through a crack in your world ~ and there it is."

The dawn is still dark while peeking through that crack, and I don't know for sure if my father will be with me all through this journey to become a chiropractor, but I hope and I pray that he will. Is that close enough to faith? Until my faith grows stronger, I have the birds to keep me company, and the violincello.

3 pm at the Oasis

I am frustrated. My old, trusty 3G iPhone is on the fritz, and getting a new one seems to be more money spent, dipping into what was supposed to be paying off my bills; but if I need a new phone, I need a new phone. The old one is now an iPod. Sam & Keith at the Apple store are like very kind Adams in the Garden of Eden, the oasis that place is inside a Mall that feels like a desert of wanting. With their help, I am navigating my fear of technology, finding and weaving the pieces together that I need for my journey back to school.

Earlier in the day, when my phone went on the fritz, I had hopped into the car and driven to the Apple store to make an appointment for my phone. Then I continued on to my first visit back with Dr. Flory, my chiropractor. He said I was releasing so much negative energy that he could feel it. I told him what happened when Khalsa Kaur released a 13 year old pocket of rage in my lower ribs and tricep. How I'd remembered my rage and pain at being yanked up in the air by my arm and ordered what to do by someone from my past. I told him about the beesting remanifesting, and how it brought up memories of being stung as a child by 43 bees. I told him how my ankle had appeared to sprain itself one morning two days ago...but the original injury seems to have been at Winter Solstice, walking to my car. I had wondered why I felt no pain then. I'm angry, yes. I'm anxious, yes. I am bitter. But I am also happy and grateful. How do these all coexist? And why, if as Dr. Flory says, he is used to this kind of energy release, does it seem to be such a big deal for him to witness it?

Sam & Keith are at the Apple store today, and between them, they ease my anxiety. Keith, particularly, does not seem just knowledgeable, but wise...and patient. And present. That's what it is...they are present, like Emily the massage therapist was before my chiropractic appointment. Dr. Flory and I are having an off day, and other people are present to bring us back.

The Sweetness of Honey... the Sting of a Bee

9 Days ago, just before the beginning of 3 Days of White Tantric at Winter Solstice, a honeybee stung me on my right index finger. The finger of knowledge. Truth does sometimes have a certain sting to it. This morning, more than a week later, that index finger began to itch like crazy for several minutes. It never itched before. Then the spot where I was stung swelled up again out of the blue, and it looks as if there is a stinger lodged beneath the surface of my skin that has come up. It is very strange.

I've been reading a book on The Gong, and the importance of the 'unstruck' sound, or Anahat, which is part of the healing of the Gong. The healing is in the sound and the silence between sounds. I have no idea why this bee sting chose to remanifest itself now. I only see in my mind's eye the image of Michaelangelo's painting of the finger outstretched to touch a human hand. I think of how the Hindu goddess Kali has been visualized as being the mother of a thousand black bees humming in her long black hair...I think of my names...Of Heather, my given name, the name of a flower...of Amrita, my Sikh name, the name of the divine nectar, of the sweetness of Truth...Of my last name legally~ Beebe: the Anglicized version of what was once deBoebe 100 years ago...this name means beekeeper.

I think of a book of poetry by the Greek poets, including Sappho, called "The Sweetness of Honey and the Sting of Bees".

I only have these free-associations to go on. At 94 Days of Laya Yoga, I have no idea, no clear intuition of why this bee sting is remanifesting. None. I am at a loss for words now. I surrender~

A Laya Yoga Christmas!

The day is lazy and easy. The energy soft after the Tantric hustle and bustle. Ranjeet, Hari Purkh, Emma, and a few others were all on the schedule to work until noon. I took charge of the airport shuttle lists. It was amazing! Everything flowed, and within that flow I did Bound Lotus and then completed 90 days of Laya Yoga! Yay!

It was gentle though...like a summer breeze. I thought of the 70s and the Seals & Crofts song. I felt like I was five, and the colors all swirled around like leaves. Everything vibrated with energy. I did not want to leave, and so I went to see if I could help Guru Simran with his tent. He was having a horrid day. He's in charge of Grounds and the Port-A-Potties. After asking him three times if he was sure he didn't need help, he acquiesced. I swept ants from his tent, and folded and packed until all that was left was his tent to be packed. We did that as the sun was setting. He talked about all the people who come for the 'costume party' until they realize it isn't about the turbans or rings, or Adi Shaktis, though those things remind us and help us to stay on the path...but it is about Seva. Service to others.

I remember talking to Prabhu Prakash about the water bottles last year, and how people had put stickers with the words 'love', 'peace', and 'joy' on them. We'd said they should put the phrase 'willingness to serve' on them to infuse the water with that intention. It's not frou-frou...everything begins with intent. It all does. Even the finishing of first 40 and then 90 days of this practice began with intent. Now as I drive off after hugging Anand Whitney and thanking him, I INTEND to take this practice to 120 days....and maybe beyond!

The sunset is pink, the trees full of ripe oranges, and it is all swirling together like this page's background...like the words I wrote in a poem from 1990 ~ "Pink and Orange Dream". My heart feels rich and juicy like a Ruby Red grapefruit. But this fruit is not for plucking. It's mine to enjoy and share as I choose.

Shaking, Twitching and Rocking

Day 3 of White Tantric:

Last night Harijiwan Singh led a Gong Healing Full Moon Meditation. Hari Purkh came by to snag me and drag me, sleeping bag and all, to the circle. I lay down and partook of the energies, exhausted as I was. Harijiwan said this was an amazing time during which we could access incredible energy because of the lunar eclipse. I think the last time there was a lunar eclipse was in 1684? The Tantric facilitator said no one was on record documenting how that prior event felt to people, and that Yogi Bhajan had always said to keep a diary. She suggested that we document our experiences through this powerful, powerful time of releasing deeply held emotions. Harijiwan said there are forces on both the light and the dark side working to harness the energy. He urged us to work for the Light.

This morning's light came and I made it up for the third day with Ranjeet. It was hard with her. She moved a lot, but I like her. We had a lot of fun giggling over some of the hokey marches and music we had to listen to, and I felt awesome after the first two hours. Dharampal Kaur and Singh were across from us. I'd been next to them on the first day. Bear (with his turban-wrapped Yogi Bearjan) and his girlfriend were just down from us. Obed Moses and a young woman from New York were next to us. It was fun until the last two meditations.

For 62 minutes we'd be whistling. God! I can't whistle on the exhale. I hated it. I felt like a bazillion flies were crawling on me! I smacked myself in the head a couple of times spontaneously. It was awful. I had memories of having to perform oral sex for my tormentor years ago....needless to say I raised my hand for a monitor and then left, intending not to come back. Ranjeet had not helped. She kept gazing away. I was mad, I was hurt, I wanted to cry and scream and rage, just like last Winter. I literally stomped out.

In the cabin I ran into Emma, who held me, smoothed my hair, and let me cry. She said she knew about PTSD, because she had it. She talked about trauma-releasing techniques. I had experienced that in Saul David Raye's workshop in '09. She said that when the trauma comes up you can harness the energy through these techniques, much like we were doing in the Full Moon Healing Circle, but by purposefully shaking, rocking and twitching, like the Quakers. Sufi spinning and Kundalini Yoga were recommended too...

We talked and sat. Finally I made it back for the last meditation. I didn't want to abandon Ranjeet. We finished, hugged, and I went back to my tent to curl up again under the healing energy of the oak covered in Spanish moss. The home of dozens of spiders and creepy-crawlies as well as birds and green leaves and light. It's all part of the design of nature, I guess.

La Mujer Nobles

Day 2 of White Tantric:

My oh my, I like rocking the monitor, and arriving partnerless to just see who is there! I passed a few people, until a light just hovered over this business-like woman in square glasses. Her name was Teresa Gonzales. She and I spent the day doing all meditations with eyes open and gazing at each other. It was incredible! It was her first time, so I did not want to drop her gaze. Then I felt my eyes stop blinking, and everything around her became hazy, gauzy white. Then I could see her aura: green and gold beside her jaw, and pink above her crown with some violet streaks. I felt my own body's boundaries grow huge, and each time that happened she would cry. I could sense when that happened for her, because then I would cry.

We both were smiling at each other by the end! We talked and ate, and she asked about my family. I asked about hers. She said we both are healing mother wounds...ancestral karma...the mother lineage. I know there is a Mirabai Ceiba CD with a version of the Ardas Bhaee to heal ancestral wounds, but this was deeper. So beautiful! Teresa mentioned SatKirin's "La Mujer Nobles"/ The Noble Woman. That is who we are becoming. So much grace and love and respect is owed to women. Long past due.

...And Teresa was my mirror. I liked what I saw, even through the pain.

The Lunar Eclipse

This morning around 1:45 am, I awoke to feel very, very sick. I was sure that I would need to vomit. I really didn't want to in a tent. So I got up and went to the showers. I forgot all about watching the lunar eclipse. I never saw it. I ran into a young woman whom I later realized was Siri Amrit from Facebook, whom I'd met briefly last Winter Solstice, but didn't realize I knew her on Facebook. All these Sikh names and birth names. Ga! Anyway...she went to ask one of the Tantric monitors if I could come late, since I was sick. She came all the way to my tent to deliver the message. But I managed to make it.

I was seriously bummed that no one, except one guy I didn't want to talk to, had asked to be my partner. I felt frustrated. I didn't even realize how I make myself unapproachable at the same time that I come across as kind and caring. I must seem finicky like a cat at times. I did find a partner, a woman, which I preferred. Deborah. She was solid like a rock, and we finished the day with flying colors! Once outside the Tantric shelter, the light was actually vibrating before my eyes! Wow!

So dinner came, and Golden Milk. Ah turmeric, blessed turmeric to comfort my sore arms to bed under the deep shade of an old oak tree...

Tenting Under An Old Oak

Sitting in my tent after 3 days at Winter Solstice already, I have finally sat down to write. The oak tree is dropping acorns on my tent at night, which reminds me of the almonds falling on the roof of a cabin I stayed in in Jamaica in 2003. The birds are singing after the rain, the Spanish moss hanging in the trees is swaying in the cool, moist breeze, and I am about to take a nap before working the swing shift in the Luggage Seva tent. There aren't anymore spiders hanging around from last night, which is awesome too! I really don't groove on spiders in my tent.

I did Bound Lotus today in the Fire Tent at Sadhana, which was my first time doing Sadhana with more than 6 people. Though I went to Winter Solstice 2009 and Summer Solstice 2010, Sadhana was more than I could handle. Just doing Bound, Seva and sleeping were top priorities. White Tantric was very iffy then too. I hope to have more energy this year...and it seems to be working out that way.

Though it is wet, rainy, and cold at night, I am happy sleeping outdoors, in my own space, nestled like a bird or a squirrel amongst all my stuff. I like doing Bound Lotus and the Laya Yoga meditation in my tent, so this morning I was apprehensive about doing Bound Lotus in public. I do it alone, so this was a first. But I got to hear Gurunam Singh's rich voice leading Sadhana this morning, and Rakhe Rakhanahar was so beautiful! Wahe Guru was healing, and then I went to Gurdwara. I accidentally sat on the men's side and felt right at home, which makes me wonder again if I was a guy in a past life. I switched over to the women's side just in time for prasad.

I slept after Sadhana, and had the strangest dream of going down a spiral staircase into 10 levels of a basement in what was my house. Every floor was empty, gray and cold. There was really no junk visible...just grayness. Sadness. Loneliness. As it got colder, I ran up the stairs to come out of my dream, and realized that I was late for the Seva meeting. Umm.

Holed back in my tent after a breakfast of spicy onion and potato soup with bananas, I am ready to sit again for the Laya Yoga Ashtang Mantra meditation, before taking another nap. My back hurts a little and it makes me tired. This meditation, though, is really working! Among other things it is definitely deepening my intuition: I knew where Krishan Prakash' purse was and where Khalsa's boots were...driving down here a few days ago, I knew the weather was going to get really bad, and followed my intuition to drive like crazy to get past Monteagle Mountain in Tennessee, and into Valdosta, Georgia before safely stopping to rest.

This practice, as well as Kundalini Yoga overall, are like accelerated yoga for healing and cleansing. It's not a short-cut. Short-cuts are easy. This stuff is hard. It is accelerated. That is the best way I can think of to describe it. What took me five years to do before, can be done in a few weeks or months. I've been cleaning out the basements of my mind...now comes the refurnishing of the home in my heart!

A Much Needed Long Winter's Nap

It was -9 degrees (if you count the windchill factor), when I stepped off the train last night at 11:15 pm, to run like crazy for the toasty warmth of my friend Joe's car. "Hell must be a frozen wasteland," I thought..."heat would be Heaven."

At home, this morning, leafing through my borrowed copy of Charles de Lint's fantasy classic "Moonheart", I find that metaphor apt in relation to chasing down the missing pieces of my soul, my identity. If the Soul Body and the Subtle Body are deeply intertwined and leave the Physical Body at death, then for many years mine was hovering. The rathe'wen'a that work to keep the spark of Sara's soul from being snuffed out, parallel all the people, but particularly my father and my mother (on the otherside), who were working to keep my spark alive. If I am protective of my sleep and the healing benefits it brings, it is because, I never want to go back to being as sickly as I was years ago, and I know I need my sleep. When I came to Sat Tirath Ashram, I explained that concern. Nothing has changed in that respect.

After arriving last weekend expecting to share a room with one person, it turned into three, with no warning. Additional stress out of nowhere, with none of us wanting to sleep on a top bunk, meant for me, that my frustration at what seems to be a constant undercurrent of passive-aggressivity at the Ashram was confirmed more deeply. The comments made in response to my protests only added fuel to the fire of knowing I needed my sleep now more than ever...especially after falling down the stairs, pretty much right after hearing that we would all be expected to sleep in close quarters with tons of luggage between us. Not relaxing to say the least. Because I have no desire whatsoever to sleep in a bunkbed ever again, I will never stay in a cabin at Solstice. For most people, the intrigue of sleeping in a bunk wears off at about the age of 12 or 14. At 43, I know I don't want to be in the position again of knowing all of us are wishing someone else would take the bunk.

Not to mention the patronizing comments I listened to in relation to my protests at both the situation itself, and the lack of consideration to inform any of us prior to walking in the door.

When one is trying to find the lost sparks of one's soul, as many of us are, not just me, sleep is of the essence. If you can't sleep well, it is hard to travel deep into the dark corridors of the mind searching for more lost pieces and fragments. If you feel angry at the prospect of having to repeat yourself over the concern of respect for your sleep and reasonable personal space to retreat to, you do things like falling down the stairs...which I did. This made it excruciating to sleep the first night...with pain and jittery pain killers, and growing irritation that made it supremely difficult to sleep through snoring. The second night, with subsiding pain, a significant amount of venting, a nap alone, and no further threat of bunk bed coin tosses, I slept better. The snoring was no longer an issue. In fact, I sort of welcomed it to help my body and mind become gradually less sensitive to environmental strains on my sleep. Gradually. That's the key word.

If I never see another fucking bunk bed, I could live at peace.

Back at home for one night, in a warm bed with no bunks, and lots of space, I find myself like Sara in de Lint's story, resting softly in the light and core of my being, with the strength again, after a frustrating weekend, to search deeply for more missing fragments that hid themselves away years ago. Searching through the corridors of sleep last night was restful, and my aching body felt no more pain on my ten-year-old, but well taken care of, Sealy-Posturepedic. Like a cloud. Like Heaven.

Why again am I going to Winter Solstice? I feel like I need a week to recover from the Ashram. Both for sleep, and for the chiropractor to continue to heal my spine from multiple cervical and lumbar spine injuries. I am not at all sure of going to Winter Solstice. I am very sure that I like my bed, and my chiropractor, and I think I might like to hang around them both for a while...

On the Edge of Identity

There has been so much going on that I have a backlog of entries to update here...but barring that and lots of laundry, I am jaw-droppingly amazed at what this Kriya is doing for me. The mantra being chanted, the Ashtang mantra for the Aquarian Age, "suspends you above conflicts attracted by success and the activity of the Positive Mind". Considering the way people have been pounding away at my buttons, and one in particular who has just accused me of no longer sounding like the woman I sounded like at Winter Solstice last year, I am not surprised. Annoyed, but not surprised. Her issues, which span across such things as pissing off a horse who decided to bite her, bring up a lot of rage for her. I've seen that rage in me, and I want to progress past it. Funny that as I move deeper into reaquainting myself with the identity I lost, that she hears dissonance. I would venture that the 'distance' is the fact that I changed the status quo with her. People usually resist when you change drastically.

So, one of the other things this kriya does is "it makes you creative and focused on your real priorities and helps you sacrifice what is needed to accomplish them". I am sacrificing a lot! I sacrificed the rear end of my car to a drunk driver, in my opinion, so that I would get myself out of an uncomfortable work situation, and on to a new chiropractor who is NUCCA-certified and amazing! I had his number months ago and did not use it. The Universe kicked me there.

I've also sacrificed two friendships: one with my teacher that I wish I did not have to, and one with this young woman who I am glad is gone. I mean who needs vultures to pick over your raw spots? Really?

But more importantly, I have sacrificed the mantric seeds of pain, and the lingering effects of a concerted and probably 10-year-long magickal attack from a black Mage. Most of the time when people think they were under magickal attack, it's just their own issues. Magickal attack like that is rare, but it is an abuse of occult powers gained from either what amounts to Western Yoga of The Order of the Golden Dawn (a light path), to paths such as the Order of Nine Angles (one of the darkest I have ever researched and seen), to Eastern Yoga techniques. All of these, on the path of knowledge and wisdom can be used well or abused. What was perpetrated against me was flat out Black Tantric. I learned what I could, and I fought fire with fire, trying to stay in the light. With my efforts came power, and with power comes temptation. I am glad I weathered the storm, and know that it was not through my efforts alone. God was there. Family was there. Friends and angels were there, along with many personal and archetypal demons.

The magickal attack began actually in 1997, with the advent of a spiritual awakening through Kripalu Yoga. My attacker could not bear to see me follow the path of Light, so he did what he could to try to sever my connection to Source, and to almost completely destroy my sense of identity. He even chuckled when he saw my copy of Milan Kundera's novel "Identity", and said, that the woman in the story was me. He likened me to Sophie in Somerset Maugham's "The Razor's Edge", saying I would kill myself with drugs and alcohol. Over the years after I left him, I almost did. He said I could never leave him, and that if I did, I would never be free, that he would always be there.

Some people have said not to even speak of him, that he is like Chtulu, the great monster leviathan in R'yleh, the fantasy city upon which a magickal mythos is based through fantasy literature and what is known as Chaos Magick. But I speak of him because I am not afraid anymore. He cannot touch me.

And this mantra is doing what it purports to do: allowing me to consciously remember the link between myself and the Creator, etching into my subconscious memory what was almost completely erased long ago: the "memory and experience of my true identity". I know that I do too many practices, and had resolved, after speaking with Hari Simran Singh to drop them all except for Bound Lotus. Yet somehow, this one still begs to be completed on Christmas Day, and not sooner. I hope I finish this practice on Christmas Day at Winter Solstice. That is my wish and prayer. May the Light hold me safely to that goal and support me.

The Lilt of the Melody

This has been a truly wonderful day!! Lots of cats to pet (Chester, Rosy, Lacey...), a chiropractic adjustment to end all adjustments from Sarab Nam Singh Khalsa, special chocolate to share as a gift from Sat Inder Kaur, and the most beautiful sadhana. The resonance in my voice is back, and the coughing that started up this weekend is less. I have my lung volume back as well as the melodic lilt my voice was developing from the deep peace I was dwelling in, took a hiatus from and came back to...

It is nice to have come back into the light. Sat Inder Kaur was a great help this morning as we chatted about what was appropriate behaviour from my teacher and what was not. And yet this is a gift. He should not push the way he has, it alienates people, but he has also given me a venue within which to process very old anger from the days when I was beaten and abused, verbally and physically. Spirit seems to be working through him, using the situations to heal us both.

I am grateful to be healing. This weekend almost put me off ever doing Kundalini yoga again. I was mad at God, mad at the Guru, and had slammed the door to my meditation room so hard that things fell. I am not angry anymore. I am at peace. And in the interest of maintaining that peace, I will keep my distance for a while. Gazing at the feet I guess, and doing my best to remain neutral. Reading from the Guru in Sat Tirath Ashram's Gurdwara is very, very healing.

And petting the cats is healing. So many blessings. Whatever that sadhana CD was this morning, it brought me back!

Downloading Old Files

Wow. I woke in the middle of the night last night to finish this kriya, and wrote for a while. When I went back to sleep I had the most bizarre dreams. The first one was about my Dad, and in it I was facing a nebulous entity that I later realized was his cancer. I woke up hearing myself say out loud to it: "If you attempt to hurt him I will follow you to the darkest ends of the earth and kill you." I was shocked by my hatred of cancer.

The rest of the dreams seemed a strange way of processing stuff that must have gone deep into my unconscious years ago when the subconscious got overloaded; kind of like when a doctor's office puts old patient files in storage. I feel like these files, from when I was with the crazy Iranian terrorist I used to date, were some of the last of the seeds he planted.

Two days ago, upon waking up for my first morning at Sat Tirath Ashram, I danced and sang to my iPod. A little White Stripes, some B-Tribe, and whirling like Sufi got my energy back. I sat and sang along with Milla Jovovich, from her folk album from the 90s that I used to love so much. I had played it for the Charles Manson-wannabe years ago, and he especially loved that line about~ "no I haven't seen the flowers yet, from the broken seeds I planted. The ground is still too red from the wickedness you did." I have to say that I still feel I am uprooting seeds of misery that he planted, like dark, malevolent mantras intended to destroy the very cells of my body. I also think they were sort of like magnetic attractors that draw dark behaviour out of others, because though I felt fabulous after all of this, it changed quickly during the teacher training.

I could feel the frustration of someone sitting behind me as if they were staring at me with intently directed hatred and boring a hole in my head. I had worked hard to get past my own anger the night before, but this was really too much. I kept having to run energy through my aura to halfway protect myself, and by the end of the day the constant barrage of negative energy at my back took its toll. It was really, really frustrating. It was also tempting to return it, and to return the carefully hidden angry glances at me throughout the day. I chose to deal with it, by ignoring the person. In the book "Everyday Grace", Sat Purkh actually recommends the 'Silent Treatment' when nothing else seems to work, so that's what I did. It was damage control. It never ceases to amaze me how people who can be so kind and healing a presence can also be very unhealing.

By evening of that first day I felt sick. When I woke up yesterday at 1:30 a
after less than 3 hours sleep, I felt drawn to read from the Guru. The day before had taken its toll, but I needed the Guru more than sleep. And in fact I could not sleep, so I got up and read. I read until I felt healed. Then I read some more until I felt it was safe to leave the protective energy of the Gurdwara.

I have to ask rhetorically, because I know the answer: Why is it that when you are extremely grateful and complimentary to some people that they seem to try to do something to make you wonder why you ever were grateful to them in the first place? The answer, I think, is that we all, all of us, have a side, to a greater or lesser extent, that feels we do not deserve the compliments, and so we do something to try to make others hate us.

My own hatred in this situation was so intense Friday evening that I chose not to enter the sadhana room. I did not want to add my angry aura to a peaceful space. I sat with a now dear friend in the kitchen, and she held space for me while I felt the rage of everytime this exact same person has tried to push my buttons. My rage was cumulative and I had forgiven the infraction of my personal boundaries many, many times before, because I appreciate the gifts more than the pain. It all adds up though. And each time it happens again, you wonder how much more of it you can take and still forgive and love.

Though I by no means ever want to endure this behaviour again, I can use the experience this one last time. It brought up loads of the most deeply repressed and supressed rage at the crazy Iranian terrorist from my past, and, in a sense kick-started the down-loading of old junk that needs to be deleted from my brain. Junk that attracts this sort of behaviour. Like a magnet. But let me reiterate that others' responses in that vein come from the fact that they have that junk within them too.

There is always a healing to be had, a silver lining to be found, but that still does not make it okay to try to control someone, no matter how much you try to fool yourself and others into believing you are doing otherwise.

For myself, I will continue to heal the raw, angry places, and as Tibetan Buddhist nun Pema Chödron says...the places that scare me. And I will not allow any more of this controlling behaviour. I wish others the best in their own journeys. When they are ready to approach me on the same level I will be here.

As The Cocoon Spins

If caterpillars freaked out about 'dying to new life' and morphogenesis the way humans do, we wouldn't have any butterflies. Thank goodness some species aren't afraid to hum and sing and spin into a new existence.

Now that I think about it, chanting the Laya Yoga Ashtang mantra feels like spinning a cocoon. I can literally feel my DNA changing, spiraling, splicing...and helping me learn to let go of situations and friends that though they may have helped me often in the past, are refusing to let me grow and change. Good people who help others, and helped me, but aren't helping me now. This is part of the gift of doing Laya Yoga: to be able to let go of that which hinders.

Christmas morning is when I will emerge from this cocoon. But while inside the spiraling meditational vibration, I can see how some people think they are helping me, but are really helping their own egos, and trying, subconsciously, to prevent me from progressing. I can only imagine that even people who make it their mission to help others advance on the spiritual path, will sometimes balk when they see a student gaining on them, so to speak. If your ego gets attached to the idea of being in charge of other's spiritual advancement, you might not want to let them get to close to where you are on the path. That would explain the seemingly sabotagelike attempts to push my buttons, exhaust me, and do things like suggest that I not do this meditation for 90 days at 31 minutes, as the training manual suggests. Who knows for sure? It does seem a possibility.

Let me rephrase an old adage: If you love something (or someone), but they are hurting you more often than helping you, let them go. If they were ever yours to love, they will come back. If not, they won't. Either way, you succeed, because maintaining the status quo is not life but death. I want to live.

I've been trying to see all of the good, but it doesn't make it okay to continue allowing the hurtfulness just because there is also much good. There is still too much hurtfulness to be balanced out. And this is not my job. It's theirs. I feel like 'Yellow' in "Hope For the Flowers" walking off to let 'Stripe' do his own spinning thing.


Stay tuned for another installment of: 'As The Cocoon Spins'.

An Indian Summer Day...

I love the way I feel after doing the Laya Yoga meditation, yet the 40th day was really difficult until the end. I seriously hope the major work is done and these next 50 days will just be to carve it into my psyche in a gentle but lasting way. I don't want to go through any intense misery, deep rage or car accidents on Christmas; on the contrary, I want my Christmas to be peaceful.

Sat Inder Singh and I talked about Christmas in Forest Park today after he taught me the Ashtanga Primary Series. I truly miss the Christmases I had with my family when my mother was alive. Very beautiful and deeply spiritual they were. We lit candles and read from the Bible at dinner every Sunday during Advent. We sang carols at home and door-to-door on Christmas Eve. We went to the candlelight service and also to the Madrigal dinner at UTC complete with a Boar's Head and Wassail to drink and the University Singers singing carols while dressed in Elizabethan garb. We celebrated not only Christmas, but the 12 days of it, and then on the 12th day we celebrated Epiphany~ the day of the Three Wise Men. We opened wooden shoes and drove around to church member's houses to deliver packages of almond pound cake, frankincense and gold chocolate coins. We hung antiphons on the tree based on a Catholic tradition though we weren't Catholic, and talked about many faiths, because, as my father reminded me last night, he and my mother have always believed that there are many ways to reach your true Source.

As I reflected on this while talking to Sat Inder Singh, the light of the setting sun on the most beautiful Indian Summer day I have seen in a while lit up behind him as if his aura were all made of gold. It was very beautiful, and I found myself very grateful once again for his healing touch, kindness, care & love. He has been healing my spine and my heart in ways I'm not even sure he knows he is doing for some time now. He helped me get deeper in Urdhva Dhanurasana and into Bound Lotus. He is truly my best friend. I love him even when he is being a pain, and especially when he is so kind.

I love Yoga.

40 DAYS OF LAYA YOGA!

On this Friday morning, the 5th of November, I sat for 31 minutes of Laya Yoga meditation with the Ashtang mantra for the 40th day! It was peaceful, it was uneventful, and yet deeply energizing and healing. I sat for it right after Sadhana. Then the rest of the day got under way...

I spoke with the adjustor in charge of examining my vehicle for the insurance company of the woman who hit me, and he felt that my being finished with the chiropractor around 1 or 2 pm meant the whole day was a wash, and therefore we should meet on Monday. Except he would not commit to a specific time. He said he would call me at 8 am on Monday (how presumptuous to assume that would be okay) to discuss a time THEN. I suffered with that pronouncement for a half hour before calling him back and insisting he at least commit to a 'block of time'. I said I could not just leave my whole day open for him. He wondered why I was in such a hurry, since I have until next Friday before I leave again for Kansas City. Truly clueless and thoughtless, he still resolved to meet me around one. I hated having to harangue a commitment from him.

Then I went to the chiropractor. Uncharacteristically, they were on time. After a year of going to that office for a previous neck injury, I rarely have seen them organized either with time, attention, or the details of therapy and treatment. Everything is haphazard and slapdash. I have continued to go there because I work there in the adjacent yoga studio, and receive a discount on my treatment. When things are somewhat organized I get treated well. Way many more times than I can count though, they have skipped necessary treatments, forgotten to do therapies until I reminded them, and badgered me to get trigger point injection shots over actual traditional physical manipulation. Every time I say no. Yet they still push it.

This morning no exception, they spent 40 minutes using some sort of electrical apparatus involving lines drawn on my arms and gel placed there, while they sent minor shocks through my body over 3 dozen times. I'm not quit sure how cringing from pain like a bee sting repeatedly helps my neck and back? Not to mention that the recent injury to my spine occurred over a week ago, and when I attended this same office last Friday, all I received was electrical stimulation. No adjustment. No X-Ray. And fillng out the papers and having the nurse practitioner take my vitals and range of motion took an unprecendented 2 and 1/2 hours.

Finally, today, I think I am actually going to get treatment, but don't. After shocking me with their expensive and ridiculous equipment, a doctor recently added to the staff walked in, and proceeded to address his speech to the assistant as if I were not present. He waited for her to introduce him, as if he were royalty. Then he asked a series of questions, to which I responded. All of them could have been answered if he had actually looked at my file, which he held self-importantly in his hands as if he had read it. He wasn't even aware that I had been a patient there for year, nor of any details of my recent injury, let alone the previous one where my spine almost snapped!

After answering his questions, I asked if he had read my file, because many of the answers I had just given were there. He ignored my question to spend the next 5 minutes perusing them like Cliff Notes. Then he paused, looked up, and addresed me again, still without once looking at me. He asked another question to which I replied. He then informed that if "we kep(t) on at this pace, we'd be there until midnight." He also proclaimed that he would now resort to framing his questions in a 'yes' or 'no' fashion, and that I should respond appropriately.

I took the opportunity to fold my arms and cross my legs, as I lay like a patient awaiting shock treatment while simultaneously on the witness stand in a trial of my patience with an arrogant, egotistical and irresponsible excuse for a doctor. Many of his ensuing barrage of questions were not phrased in such a way as to allow for a yes or no response. Each time one arose such as that I informed him of the discrepancy, including the one where I was to describe the level of my pain. Definitely not a 'yes or no'.

Then I sat up, and informed him that all of this was a waste of my precious time, as visiting this office had been on many occassions prior to his recent employment. I stated succinctly how it was plainly obvious he had not done his homework on my treatment and was wasting my time grilling me with endless questions he would find the answers to in my file if he would only but look, and treating me as if I were on a witness stand, and not in a chiropractor's office awaiting relief from pain. I mentioned that their new-dangled expensive equipment had done nothing but cause me more pain, and all it amounted to were diagnostic tests...not actual treatment.

He finally got a clue and said he had not meant to offend me. I said, "Oh, but you have. And if this is your way of apologizing, then I accept, but this is likely the last time I will visit this office ever again."

Well then the staff came running to apologize and ask for a recounting of his words, which I and the assistant gave. They were appalled. I was appalled. They apologized, but I said I was done. And the minute I walked out the door, I felt as if a huge weight had been taken off my chest. For the first time in my life, rushing adrenaline, anger, even heart-pounding rage at yet another doctor's arrogance had not resulted in an inability to speak without being flustered, nor had it triggered an asthma attack, or constriction of my breathing at being basically told to shut up. Quite the reverse!

This meditation is designed to suspend one above conflicts, and help you focus on real priorities while sacrificing what you need to accomplish them. I have decided not to worry if this response to an arrogant doctor will potentially affect my employment. I have decided not to worry if the claims adjustor thinks I am a bitch for making him do his job.

And then I decided to go and see Emmet Schmelig for the most fantastic massage of my life! My whole body has been so tense and taught from pain for years, stemming originally from going over a cliff at 18 in a little Honda Accord, 25 years ago, followed by many more accidents and injuries. Between the tender, loving care I received from Emmet, and also last week in Kansas City from Sarab Nam Singh, I think I may heal from more than this recent injury! To also have stood up for myself without getting confused, doubting my actions, or coughing or gagging with what have become fairly infrequent asthma attacks, makes me wonder at how much healing this meditation has done.

I feel freer. I felt safe with Emmet in a massage situation, which has not always felt safe for me. I feel more whole. I feel vindicated. Respected. Finally, I expect that respect. I will continue, with the Grace of God to do this meditation beyond 40 Days. I intend to complete 90 Days on Christmas Day at Summer Solstice.

Incidentally, today I also sent off an e-mail, at a friend's suggestion, to see about serving on Gurdwara missl at Solstice, so I can both be close to the Guru, whom I have fallen in love with, and so that my back and neck can continue to heal. So much has happened in one day! The lightness and weightlessness I feel now after Emmet's gift of a much needed healing massage, is like the icing on the cake. Commitment to this practice, and commitment to honoring the expectation that others respect me and my time as well as theirs, and not just theirs, is phenomenal to say the least. This being one of the longer posts I have written, it seems appropriate in relation to not only the variety of experience on this 40th day, but the nature of the occassion itself. I refuse to condense this post down further. Ever word is pertinent, and voice will be heard. Too long have I cut off my ability to communicate out of fear. I do so no longer. I am not afraid of doctors, adjustors, spiders, or even ex-stalkers. Well, maybe I have a little fear left for spiders, but I am working on that with another meditation to release fear. This one, Laya Yoga, has helped me to let go of worrying about what other people think so I can function as a whole and holy human being. Bless Yogi Bhajan.

Bouncing Around the Sadhana Room

Funny that tomorrow marks 300 Days in a row of the Releasing Fear meditation, because a Tiger-striped Jumping Spider bounced into the meditation room this morning around 4:20 am! He sort of stopped when I saw him and acted like he was having a fearfully special moment himself. Having spent nearly my entire life so freakishly afraid of spiders that I have been known to throw books containing pictures of spiders across the room, I find it heart-palpitatingly funny that this big ass spider showed up today. Less than a foot from me during Japji, only my eyes bugged out to match his...whereas in recent years I would have spontaneously and uncontrollably let loose a hideous, blood-curdling scream! Thankfully, I did not scream over KartaPurkh, and Sat Inder Kaur was only moderately aware of some strange goings-on.

I tried to put him in a sour cream container, but was unsuccessful, so said spider is probably setting up shop under the bookcase, or lurking in the air vent. I trundled off to bed for a nap later, sincerely hoping that the spider got a clue and left the house, and if not, that my mouth would stay closed while sleeping just in case he were to bounce into the bedroom. After these early morning antics, the rest of the day was fairly tame.

Nectarian Gurbani

This morning I took the same hukam as on Sunday. It just fell open to 113, Sri Rag, First Guru (p. 375). After a difficult sadhana where I was twisting my own arm just to do it, reading this again was like pure love!

Compassion for a Murderess

After yesterday, I was longing for sadhana this morning. I sang from my heart, and I began to cry. I cried for all the people I have hurt. I cried because I have been hurt. I cried for the people who have hurt others. My mind was consumed with thoughts of how miserable it must be for other people trying to regain their identities and their lost memories after being brainwashed as I had been many years ago. I have almost repaired my hard drive, so to speak, with the Guru's Grace, but there are still some glitches before I can even get to where I was on my spiritual path before I met a Charles Manson-wannabe 14 years ago.

That man talked about and compared himself to the Unibomber, to Jim Jones and, of course, to Charlie Manson. He didn't let me see how dark he was, until I was already in his web. Even now, if I run into him, it is hard to extricate myself from his intensely overpowering and charismatic sway ~ partly because I am still afraid. And I am also still very angry. As Ammachi says, it takes us a long time to get to the bottom of our anger. I've been working on it for years and years, it seems. The rage seems bottomless.

I was in a cult with no name. A cult made up of women who signed their lives away on glossy 8 x 10 photographs, to a mastermind, a black magician, and a psychopath. He doesn't have a signed photograph from me, though, just a shelf full of video footage of his sexual abuse of me. I wonder, in light of my experiences with a megalomaniac, what the Manson girls went through?

My heart broke this morning for those infamous three: Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and most of all, Leslie Van Houten. I wish the parole board would let her go after 17 tries, and a clearly remorseful heart. After all, penitentiaries were originally named as such for the purpose of rehabilitating people, not sentencing them to an eternal hell behind bars.

I wish for Leslie that she could be free. Free of the memories of Charles manipulating her like a marionette. I think of the man who abused me showing me all of those movies: "Blue Velvet", "Sexy Beast", "Dust Devil", "9 1/2 Weeks", "Lost Highway" and movies about the Marquis de Sade. I think of how he took a movie I loved ~ "White Knights" ~ and pointed out how I was like the lyrics in one of the songs from the soundtrack: a puppet on a string... his puppet. The Rolling Stones singing "under my thumb!" on his stereo. I was literally dancing with the devil. People say he doesn't exist. I beg to differ. He lives in Missouri. He said I was like "Thelma and Louise", said he'd help me kill myself if I wanted him too. He would be Charles Manson himself if he could, if Charles hadn't done it first.

Was any of this like what Leslie and the others went through? The midnight violence to my body in cemetries and on the sides of freeways? The threats to kill my cat? Then the fake kindness and compassion. The hugs. The fake love. The listening with only one ear? The fun times...Chinese fire drills and swimming with dolphins all paid for in the night with my soul? The indoctrinations....hours and hours and hours of lectures, grilling, reviewing, recitation of his made-up mantras, the reminders that I was part of a family and had a responsibility to that family? Just because he held me as a cried for one day after my mother died did not make him a saint. Far from it.

If Leslie Van Houten went through that sort of awfulness and more, how do people hate on her? She isn't like Sandra Good who is not behind bars but should be. What a freak of nature she is, just like Charles. Just like the leader of the little cult I was in. God, if I could only go back and tell myself as I was forced to watch videos about the Manson Family and Heaven's Gate, that I was being shown by him exactly what he was doing to me, as he snickered behind my back! Shirley Manson of "Garbage" singing "Stupid Girl". He said that was my theme song.

Psychopaths. They ruin lives. One of them ruined Leslie Van Houten's life. And Sharon Tate's. One of them almost ruined mine. Nice try, I want to say now. Nice try. I have my soul and spirit back. I am a bride (a body) married to her bridegroom (my Soul). Charlie Manson took away those women's moral compasses, but Leslie found hers in the trash heap and fixed it up. Why is she still behind bars? Is there no mercy in this world for a murderess who will never murder again? I truly wish she would have stayed at Paramahansa Yogananda's Self-Realization Fellowship and not gone to Haight-Ashbury to meet Charlie. I wish I'd never worked in Sauget, Illinois.

It is what it is. My heart breaks for Leslie today. It breaks for the women who are still in the clutches of the man who had me.

Is it not ironic that I cannot seem to forgive my boss for being such a bitch, but I can have compassion for a murderess?

My 'Chitta' sheet (which is like a graph of my mind today)

This morning I finished sadhana in bliss! Chardi Kala Jatha is now my favorite with the traditional Indian raga. I was feeling really peaceful and as if my body were vibrating everywhere...then the phone rang. Some jerk was looking for the woman who had my number five years ago. Five years ago I used to get phone calls for her all the time. Finally they stopped. Then this jackass calls and refused to listen when I explained that I don't even know the woman, just her name ~ because I have heard it so much. He said, and I quote: "Blah, blah, blah! Just another sob story! Wah, wah!" Then he hung up, after he had called me!!!! I went off. Shaking with rage more than I ever have, my hands, arms and entire torso shaking, I called the company back, asked for a supervisor, threatened to sue for harassment if they ever called again, and yelled everything I was saying. I promised him that if anyone from his company ever called again, the first thing I would do would be to yell, and THEN I'd call a lawyer."

When I hung up, it took me a while, but I calmed down. I eventually went to lunch and forgave myself for screaming.

Lunch was so beautiful! I sat outside on the patio at Rasoi, looking up at the sun, and down at the green heart-shaped leaves in the planter. I watched as leaves fell from the trees and danced in the street. My food was delicious. Jagdeep and Prakash came to talk to me, and Jagdeep reminded me that her grandaughter's name is Amrita. I ate the most delicious Chana Dahl, the rice pudding was sweet, but not too much, and the sky was gorgeous! Birds sang and I listened. The light fell on my half-full glass of water, and reflected onto the table in such a way that I wanted immediately to paint in watercolors again, even oils! I could smell the linseed oil just thinking about it. I missed being an artist. I felt the love for it that I had before Mom died, and before I dated the devil. Fat little Mr. Potato Head.

The day was so exquisite. And as I walked home, a gentleman in a fedora tipped his hat to me, and did a little bow.

At home, I sat on the sofa, and gazed out the window in awe of how beautiful the day was...

Then the phone rang again. It was the boss everyone hates and wishes would die. Up to her tricks and antics to steal energy by either intimidating or berating people, or making fun of them, or belittlng them, she had a proposition for me that involved her new little protegé subbing all my classes while at KRI Teacher Training, but she didn't just mean the ones that still needed to be covered. She meant to take classes away from people who had gone out of their way to sub for me. I regretted having answered the phone. I usually let her calls go to voicemail because she is such an energy vampire. Everyone knows it, even she herself does. I really think she is an energy addict, she can't pull the needle out. So she got me.

Finally I managed to extricate myself from her spidery phone embrace, and barely in the nick of time. I was exhausted, but not sick, thankfully. I was very disoriented, though, and dizzy. Somehow I had the bright idea to go straightaway to my meditation room before going to teach, and to sit and do Laya Yoga with the mantra. When I finished, my energy was back!!! Maybe not as high as it had been after lunch, but normal. I then sat to read a hukam again, and my rage at my boss subsided. A few hours later it was back, and I found myself so angry I wished she would fall down the stairs, but then that is generally how I feel about her. She sucks. Literally. Nobody likes her.

And so I read again from the Guru. Afterwards a blanket of peace descended, and I wondered if I could ever help this woman figure out how to draw her energy from within, rather than from other people. Can I be the friend to her that other people have been for me? I think I could, but not while working at her studio. I need to quit working there. When I can afford to, I will. Besides that, it is too stressful. Working there when she is there feels worse than giving a lap dance at a strip club. If she worked at a strip club, the other employees would likely have shoved her in a locker and locked it. Unfortunately, today, with my mind fluctuating from positive to negative to neutral and back around, shoving her in a locker is what I really want to do...

It is hard, really, to think only of positive thoughts while doing this Laya Yoga. I keep trying.

Buzzing like a Bee(be)

This morning sadhana was sweet, and the hukam from the Siri Guru Granth Sahib was sweet:

"113; Majh, Third Guru (p. 375): The Nectarian Gurbanj is sweet. Through the Guru, scarcely any one tastes and sees it. He quaffs the supreme elixir, into him dawns the divine light, and at the true court he sings the Godly Word. I am a sacrifice, my soul is a sacrifice unto those who attach their mind to the Guru's feet. The True Guru is the true gift of ambrosia. Bathing therein the man is washed clean of his filth. Thine limits, O True Lord! no one knows. By the Guru's grace, some rare person fixes his mind on Thee. By praising Thee I am never satiated, so much hunger do I feel for the True Name. I see but One Lord and no other second. By the Guru's favor I drink the Name-Nectar. With Gurbani my thirst is quenched, and I am naturally absorbed in eternal peace. The invaluable wealth of God's Name he discards deeming it as straw. The blind perverse person is attached with another's love. As he sows so is the fruit he obtains. Even in dream he shall not obtain peace. The person to whom the Lord shows His mercy attains to Him. The Guru's hymns he places within his mind."

Repeating the Name man merges in the Name.

This was truly a gift this morning, because I was wanting confirmation that my name ~ Amrita Kaur ~ is my true name, and not simply my Sikh name.

The Jewel of the Lord's Love

I've been wearing my pagri, my turban. On Wednesday it brought me a new friend: Jagdeep Kaur. She saw me and asked if I was a student of Yogi Bhajan, an American Sikh. Her grandaughter's name is Amrita! She invited me to her house for Langar, Kirtan and Gurdwara. She blessed me. I am so happy still. I told a Sikh friend, and they were more focused on the fact that she is not an Amritdhari Sikh, rather than how wonderful it is to have another Sikh friend. There is a danger in spiritual elitism...you lose opportunities for more friends.

Just before I met Jagdeep, I had been listening to a recorded lecture by a British Sikh woman explaining how important the Sangat is to one's spiritual growth:

"A Bibi will help you on your path. Like-minded friends, the sangat, is the biggest help in overcoming obstacles on your path. If you take one step to the guru, he will walk toward you."

So, I want to wear my guru's crown on my head. When I look in the mirror I want to see my guru's sacrifice on my body, to walk the path and be reminded by my bani of the geis (vows) that so many have taken to be a good person walking the Sikh path.

I wish I had a proper pagri with an Adi Shakti gem:

"She is the most beautiful among women; upon her forehead she wears the jewel of the Lord's Love."
~ Guru Nanak Dev Ji

To me, moving onto the Sikh path is a natural progression from being a Hindu. Being a Hindu is fine. There are Hindus who who worship form, and also Hindus who worship the formless. There are Hindus who ignore ideas of caste. In Sikhism is a blend of openess to all faiths, with deep roots in the Hindu and Muslim faiths. Wearing the pagri is a way of reminding yourself how important devotion is, and the Adi Shakti seems to me to be much like the bindi Hindu women wear ~ it is the jewel of the Lord's Love.

Surrendering to a Healing Spiral of Kundalini

It seems that everything I do in terms of Kundalini Yoga is now entwined with Gurbani, the reading of the Siri Guru Granth Sahib ~ the Sikh Holy Book. Still practicing Laya Yoga and the Ashtang Mantra, I sat to read this morning. I read the following:

"21, Sri Rag, First Guru, (p. 71): To forget the Beloved, even for an instant, produces great affliction in the soul. How can honour be acquired in God's court, if He dwells not in mortal's mind? By meeting the Guru, peace is obtained and the fire of desire is quenched in singing the Lord's praises. O' my Soul, day and night deliberate over the excellences of God. Who forget not God's Name even for an instant; such persons are rare in this world. (Pause) When human light blends with Supreme Light and the union of wisdom is effaced with the universal wisdom, then mortal's killing instinct and egotism depart and suscepticism and sorrow afflict him not. The Guru-ward, within whose mind abides the Lord, him the Guru unites with Lord's union. If I surrender my body like a bride to the Master, the Enjoyer will enjoy me. Make not love with him, who appears to be but a passing show. That Lord Consort, on His Couch, enjoys the virtuous and chaste brides."

As I read I felt the strangest sensation of warmth at the perineum, which began to grow hot. I re-read the rag 10 times more, feeling that for me, it would be as healing as saying the So Purkh 11times is for a man. That was my intuition, and I was right. As I read again the heat intensified. It grew so hot I felt I was on fire! Hotter than any Reiki hands had every been. It quickly began to frighten me. I knew this was a form of healing, the Guru's grace, but it was too intense. I suddenly remembered that the ajna chakra, the third eye, is where the pituitary resides, connected energetically to the pineal gland in the crown chakra. From here supposedly comes the Amrit, the Amrita, the Divine Nectar. I imagined it flowing down like cool water to cool my blazing root chakra, and amazingly, it did!!!

Then the sensation of heat rose up my spine, like a bubble from a boiling pot, into my heart, where it seemed to burst and fall back down. It rose again more slowly with my visualization, and then it became almost like a flicker of a breeze, a cooling breath, blowing the energy up into my throat. I coudn't feel it for sure after that. It seemed to flutter and hang suspended in midair like a hummingbird.

But something happened. Something healed. Maybe it was a way of boiling off the residue from long past abuses to my body. It felt as if so much of the torture and abuse I endured beyond my curiosity was being lifted. That even the side of me still perversely drawn to pain because I knew it so well, was being healed. I think of Nirinjan Kaur's "Heal Me" and "Kaval Nain" as well. I'll have to go find the words and read. Meanwhile, I am "...back at my cliff, still throwing things off", like Björk in her song. I am sitting for Bound Lotus. Singing the Ray Man Shabd. I am sitting for Laya Yoga. Chanting the Ashtang mantra.

Bless the Sikhs. Bless all those turbaned heads. Bless Yogi Bhajan. Bless my father and his prayers.

Resonance & Light

The Darshan of the Guru, the sight and sound (shabd), is a blessing that fills me with intense devotion. Sitting with the Sri Guru Granth Sahib is sublime, peaceful, calming and soothing. After my experience Monday night sitting also near to the deep experience of Guru Nanak's presence, I am resting within an embrace of love I have not felt since I was 4 or 5 years old. I thought I would be lonely for the Guru, but when I unwrapped the Sikh Holy Book yesterday, I saw light coming from its pages. The resonance of my voice and any sound in the room is like that of a cathedral or church.

That resonance has been there before in deep devotion to Ammachi and to Vaishnodevi as a Hindu. It has been there in through my years of practicing as a Ceremonial Magician in the tradition of The Golden Dawn, but never this deeply. The resonance of Kirtan and the reading of the Guru is profoundly deep. The room echoes as if it were ten times its size.

And when I sit to do Bound Lotus now, and to chant the Laya Yoga Mantra in meditation, my eyes seem naturally to draw upwards towards the the third eye, the ajna chakra.

"Hope For the Flowers"

A new day, and a borrowed copy of the Guru Granth Sahib, with light visibly pouring forth from it, are healing my heart. In my notebook I have written the words:

"Hearing the Shabd Guru builds the knowledge within yourself. You might wish for someone like Yogi Bhajan to tell you what to do, but you already know it within you. You don't need to tell your stories...it is just garbage to be released.

~ Keep an altar to 'alter' yourself."

The act of worship keeps the adolescent (Shakti Pad) on the right path, when it is so easy to mistake one's ego for the voice of God or Guru. This is WHY I did not want to leave Sri Tirath Ashram without a copy of the Sri Guru Granth Sahib. It keeps me humble. It is obvious when reading it that I have done nothing purely on my own. But chanting Sanskrit and Gurmukhi mantra help with that too...no matter how much Sat Inder Singh thinks I should stop chanting so much. He is wrong. The chanting and the reading and the physical yoga heal not only my body, but my ego.

"Always try to increase Simran. It is always about meditating on the Nam. The path is difficult and you may falter, but remember Seva ~ selfless service."

So I read the Guru for Kyle this morning. I called and spoke to him. I continue to sing the So Purkh for my father, for Sat Inder and for Joe. I did my own practices too, to keep the oxygen mask on myself. Doing Laya Yoga with the Ashtang mantra for 31 minutes a day continues to be a healing balm for the junk released from Bound Lotus.

"When chanting, austere meditation and self-discipline become your protectors. Then the lotus blossoms forth, and the honey trickles out."
~ Guru Nanak Dev Ji

I, and everyone else, are like flowers to the sun.

As I left to sub a Yin Yoga class tonight, I asked for God's grace. I received it. The class was inspired. I let the poses flow where they needed to go...I read from Clark Strand's "Seeds From A Birch Tree", from the chapter on daisies. He quotes from Zen Master Soen Roshi's beautiful haiku:

Hana no yo no
Hana no yoh naru
Hito bakari

"All beings are blossoms
blossoming
in a blossoming universe."

We are like the butterflies in "Hope For the Flowers".

Walking 'The Razor's Edge'

Last night, after a beautiful day spent singing to the Guru, having lunch with Sat Inder Kaur at Baljeet's Korma Sutra, and a sweetly delicious Women's Yoga class where Adi Shakti Kaur got to do the 'warrior princess' la-la-la-la-la-la-la!! she had been longing for, during which my neck pain released, I had another quietly transformative experience. This time it was outside the Gurdwara. As I sat to eat a piece of raisin toast in the ante-room outside my bedroom here at the Ashram, I felt a presence of deep love and caring. As if someone were holding me, but without arms. I could see light around the fireplace and above. When I looked up, there was a picture of Guru Nanak! For a fleeting instant, I felt as if we were just married, and I was in my bridegroom's special room. But then I thought, "well maybe I am just feeling old ghosts here in this house, or getting nostalgia for my childhood...maybe remembering the peace of my home in Chattanooga, and the homes of my godparents, the Bertrands (Annabel and John) and Landis Gunn."

Maybe it was all of the above, and maybe it was Guru Nanak, but I felt such deep peace and love from my own heart. I began to feel as if my beloved were sitting on the sofa, cradling me in his arms, like a mother. I felt safe.

I tried to go into my bedroom and sleep, but I missed the presence in the other room. I fell asleep on the sofa for an hour, awash in a feeling of utter bliss. When I got up and went to bed, I felt lonely.

This morning I sang with Sat Inder Kaur and Karta Purkh to the Chardi Kala CD, which really expanded my voice! At the end I heard my voice as if from a distance, and it sounded like the voice of an Indian woman. We then took a Hukam, which Sat Inder Kaur read: page 452. I went back to read from that later, and it was such beautiful language that I could not seem to tear myself away...

I was scrambling again to leave. Trying to get a sub for my class tonight was of no avail, I had to leave the Guru and come home. All of a sudden life exploded me out of my bliss. Lynn's mother had died, and a relative of her husband's as well, and she was telling me all about it while I had to leave. Then Joe told me Kyle had had an emergency appendectomy, and was still in excruciating pain. Then the gas pump poured gas all over my car and tire for the second time, and I went from a state of peace to berating the station attendant and the customer service representative for BP.

By the time I got home, with a borrowed copy of the Guru wrapped in cloth, I had recovered from my frenzied state somewhat. I taught my class though, and it didn't go well. For the first time in years I felt arrogant and overly sure of myself. While I was lamenting privately the fact that I now seemed to be behaving as I have Sat Inder Singh behave on a few occassions...I thought, "Oh my! I am in Shakti Pad like he is! This is so hard!" I had no idea what he was up against, what with the ego expansiveness one moment, and a horribly deflated ego the next. What a roller-coaster. It sucks. I feel for him, and I do not look forward being in this stage of growth. How has he handled it with as much grace as he has thus far? It's rough. I forgive him for being such a monumental jerk at some times.

Thinking all of the above WHILE I was teaching, I was only vaguely aware of a student's discomfort with the flow of a class too intense for her, and yet feeling very frustrated with students who come to take a more advanced class when they aren't ready for it. I felt that she expected me to tone it down a bit, but if I did, the other students would have complained. I resented being called to teach a relative beginner in an advanced class where she did not belong. I knew it was not fair of me, and I was not, even in my state of having an inflated ego, able to seamlessly teach, as I have at times in the past, to more than one level...probably because my ego was so expanded. Jeesh!

She actually walked out on my class. That should have come as no surprise, but it floored me. I was devastated. I have never, even in the years during which I taught aerobics, had a student walk out. I pride myself, paradoxically, on teaching with a level of humility that allows me to approach teaching as a Seva ~ an act of service to others. A gift. A blessing. Tonight, I had changed. I had thought I was 'hot shit'.

I was wrong. I have been teaching by the Guru's grace and the Grace of God, until now. I guess I am not the only one who needs a little 'Ardas Bhaee' in my life to help me through Shakti Pad. God help me if I am ever an ass like that again. And yet, if I stay the course, it is almost certain that I will, yet again, be an ass. I truly do not want to be though. I hope people will forgive me. That is why I try to forgive them, even if I don't want to be in their vicinity while they themselves act strangely.

I am thinking of a quote of Guru Amar Das Ji:

"The path they take is sharper than a two-edged sword,
And finer than a hair."

I am like the chatrika bird crying pe-oo, pe-oo

With the crickets still singing in tandem with a solitary cicada, and the stars hanging weightless in a cool, indigo sky, I got up with a twinge of apprehension and excitement to sit for Sadhana and to attend Gurdwara for the second time this week, while in the Kansas City Ashram of Sri Tirath. I read Japji by myself, as no one else was there. At first I was sort of miffed, but found I was perfectly capable of reading Japji alone. Karta Purkh came down eventually, and we sang to Mata Mandir Singh's "Live from Sweden" CD. I loved how it tests my vocal range and seems to have expanded it.

Toward the end of "Wahe Guru" I did not get shaky, but I realized that I had not brought an offering for the Guru neither yesterday nor today. I debated about running back to the room to grab a few dollars. A small voice firmly suggested I do so. So I did. When I came back, the moment I began to sing again, my voice expanded beyond my imagination! I found myself promising God and Guru that I understood this lesson about not going 'empty-handed' to Gurdwara (the Guru's Door). I made God a promise that if I could sing as beautifully as Simrit Kaur and Sat Purkh, I would dedicate part of the money received to dasvandh, and repaying my father and Rick for their kindness in helping me climb out from under the depths of despair.

When Karta Purkh and I entered Gurdwara, he asked if I wanted to read a Hukam. I said "Yes!" and he explained the protocol of doing so. The book opened for me at page 662, and my eyes were scanning to the other page, but Karta Purkh said we usually read from the first whole paragraph. That Hukam spoke of how a thief in the eyes of the Guru can be invisible to the eyes of others, but not to God and Guru. I took it to heart. I had not consciously meant not to bring money either today or the day before, I just had not.

However, I had been wishing that I did not have to pay for my tuition or books. I felt quite guilty for wishing that. I had been ready to do so at the last session, yet Sat Inder Singh was in such a hurry. So now I owed for two weekends, not just one, and some books and CDs. I knew I needed to write the check as soon as possible, and was apalled at myself. Not only that, but I was feeling tremendous guilt for the years past, and all the financial help that my father and Rick provided. Granted, I needed it, but where the real guilt comes in is this:

When I first asked for help, my father did not take me seriously, because the last time I had fallen flat on my face and he helped me, I took it for granted. When I got well that time, I went straight back to what I had done before. So the second time I lied about how much help I really needed. I was so sick that I needed to not work at all for quite some time. I knew I was not fit for a regular job outside of the craziness of the strip club industry, and yet I also could not heal while working there. I tried to apply for several positions at a jewelry store and knit shop, but was so exhausted just from moving.

I had been struggling with Chronic Fatigue and was developing Fibromyalgia. I also had begun vomiting in the morning frequently, and several times losing control of my bowels. How could I possibly work? I couldn't even clean my own apartment. I knew that Dad wanted to know for sure that I had stopped working in the clubs, but I couldn't prove that to him by getting another job. At least the club would let me work one day a week, and ignore me if I had to lie down alot. It was a Catch-22.

So I lied. I told my father that I had jobs which I did not. I could have told him how sick I really was but I didn't...until later. I could have told him how I never wanted to work in the clubs again, but that wasn't true. I missed being beautiful and in control, admired and catered to by men. I loved dancing on stage. I tried to ignore how much I hated giving privates. But I wanted to get well and go back to dancing, like a true addict. I knew my Dad would not go for that, so I lied. Yet, in the process of getting well from all those illnesses and potential illnesses, I've found I really don't want to be a stripper anymore.

I've begun to teach yoga for the last 2 and 1/2 years and I love it! I love it more than I used to love teaching aerobics in the 80s, before I ever danced. I wish I could make more money at it than I do. I want to focus on teaching yoga, singing and chanting and getting better at it so that I CAN make a decent living from it while doing what I love. To do that, I still need financial help. Now I do not lie about why I need the help, but I do ask. I am not a thief anymore, but I was one once...and the Guru called me on it.

The Guru also let me have a bit of Grace: the next page over, 663, housed the words of a Gurbani hymn set to music by Singh Kaur that I love. I have often wondered where the Gurmukhi words to the 'Azure Salver' could be found, and there they were in the slokah that I tried to read first. I believe I was meant to read it too, but not before taking my medecine.

As I read the 'Azure Salver', the words inspired me to continue reading up to page 670. I felt my head begin to wobble from all of the wisdom overloading it about two pages before. I saw I was getting greedy for the Guru, and stopped before my head might have exploded (maybe), but I literally swooned at the thought of leaving the Gurdwara. I could not bring myself to leave. I had fallen in love with the Guru. I felt like a bride. Like a gopi for Krishna. Like a Bibi for her Guru Nanak.

I remembered Karta Purkh saying that I seemed to enjoy singing the mantras so much, and seemed to have a 'knack' for reading from the Guru in Gurmukhi, and that I should consider singing Kirtan and Rhehiras, as well as devoting myself to the Siri Guru Granth Sahib. I feel I have been a priest, a scribe, a temple consort, a geisha to a priest, and many other things in my lifetimes. I feel I am uniquely blessed in this lifetime to have the benefit of such a rich and varied karmic history to guide me now in the teaching of yoga and the singing of hymns and kirtans for the Guru. He will not fail me. He will raise me up and heal me so that I may heal others and repay the kindness of those who have helped to heal me, and who continue to do so.

May I be blessed to not only help my father on his journey through healing from cancer, but to sing from the deepest part of my heart out of love and gratitude for God and Guru!

Darshan of the Guru

I sat for Japji with Karta Purkh and Sat Inder Kaur, with Arjinder and David, and with Sat Inder Singh. I sang the Aquarian Sadhana mantras to the CD which Sat Inder Singh brought: Sat Purkh's "Beautiful Day", and it seemed to have a similar effect as I had experienced the first time I heard it. I'd thought the first time that happened might have been due to the number of people present, but I have since done Sadhana with four or five others, not having such an experience.

It was beyond words, really.

Yet, I can say that toward the end of "Wahe Guru", my body began to float, and when we finished I did not want to get up, so I began to cry. ...then to laugh. I could not stop it if I had tried. I did try to stand and almost fell, I was so unaware of my body, but David reached out a hand to touch my back, and it grounded me enough to stand and walk into the Gurdwara. Then I literally fell onto the floor. My body shook intensely as waves of energy spread over me, moving gradually down my spine, then stopping. It stopped and started twice.

When Gurdwara service was over, I did not want to speak. Arjinder and David were so kind to ask if I was okay and if I was 'back', but I wanted to just sit with the Guru. This still surprises me...to have such devotion to a book! And yet I know that the tenth Guru, Guru Gobindh Singh, authorized the Siri Guru Granth Sahib to be the Guru.

So this is devotion to God and Guru...

And an afternoon spent in quiet reflection.

For the Birds/For the Bees

Phoenix, Heather, Amrita, Brianna, Annalisa...take your pick. For three days at birth I was Annalisa, then Heather. For ten years I was 'Brianna'...the name and the persona. Then I picked the name Phoenix to protect myself from a Black Tantric magician who tried to steal my identity. Then I was given my spiritual name~ Amrita.

Into Great Silence

Jaap Sahib. The Ajai Alai. Words that can bring siddhis...the power to know what people truly mean behind their words. This knowledge can be tempered with compassion, and swirled into wisdom. How much wiser though to gain that gift from listening to the silent spaces between each other's words. When you know by grace from the heart, not from power?

My father in describing the peace of silence within which to gather yourself for a great task at hand, such as making your appearance at the doors of the underworld to get your CAT scan results, or driving alone to a place where your very DNA are pulled apart like Lego blocks to be rebuilt, told me the story of his great respect for Douglas Steer. Douglas Steer the Quaker mystic.

My father loves Albert Schweitzer. He tells the story of this man's unpretentious, unostentatious kindness to strangers. My father said another idol of his, Douglas Steer, had been, many years ago, on his way to meet Albert Schweitzer. Upon arriving in the city where he was, Douglas Steer refused a taxi to meet him, and walked. He said he needed time to adjust his spiritual garments for he would soon be in the presence of greatness.

So my father, many years later, went to visit Douglas Steer, who had visited Albert Schweitzer. When my father arrived at Douglas Steer's Quaker retreat on the train, he refused a taxi to the center. My father chose to walk. When he arrived, he said to Steer, "You should know that I walked to get here, because I needed time to adjust my spiritual garments." Douglas Steer blushed. So my father said, "Don't worry Dr. Steer, we are all just pointers." Dr. Steer smiled and replied, "Yes we are all just pointers."

I did not take the train to Kansas City for the third weekend of teacher training, but I chose to drive alone, because I needed time to adjust my spiritual garments.

Wet Wings Bursting Forth

On this, the final and 13th day of chanting for my teacher Thomas Ashley-Farrand since his passing over to the other side, I wish that he may fly like a moth to the flame of the divine and light his wings afire into bliss, until he is born into another incarnation on this earth. Having taken boddhisattva vows, I know that I will see him again in this lifetime, as a small child come back to feed the fire of devotion on earth. When he does, he will find an old woman smiling because she has long since opened her wings, shaken off the wetness, and flown to many flowers and carried the nectar of love with her. I remain forever grateful to him for his gifts to me when I might have died.

For now, I am not yet that old woman. I am only 43, but it is late in life to be just really spreading my wings. Yet, such it is, and so I have this to say to the world~

If a butterfly is about ready to fly for the first time, or the second as it may be, and is struggling to release its new wings from its cocoon, it is folly to try to speed up the process as an outside observer. A hand touching those wings, or trying to make them come out faster can easily leave the butterfly crippled. The butterfly needs to struggle alone to release its wings. The act of doing so strengthens them. It is a liminal moment...a crossing of a threshold.

I am there like the butterfly. I am struggling and making my way out of the cocoon.

I've been inside the safety of it for five years, inside the primordial soup of cells actually changing their DNA content. Now I can come out fully, and I know there are many who would like to help, who have helped in the past, but in this case, they need a hands-off approach. This is my journey to wholeness to make~ not my teacher's or anyone else who loves me~ it is MY journey out of the cocoon.

Before I made my cocoon of words and chants like silken healing threads to stitch, I was already coming out of the first cocoon. Someone touched my wings. Someone ripped them. A spider caught my butterfly body in his web and sucked the nectar out. My broken butterfly body was left for dead, its wings in shreds, its antennae mangled beyond repair. But someone else found a bit of nectar from the flower, the amrita from the heather, and mixed it with what was left of my once swollen insides. They made a new caterpillar of me, and I wove again~ this cocoon. Now my wings have cracked the surface. Once again.

"Please," I say to the world, "don't touch my wings. They are mine to stretch."

There comes a point in every student/teacher relationship when the teacher must let go, and the student must stop asking and trust their own inner connection to the source of being. I am at that point. My wings are wet and fragile. When they have dried, it will be safe to flit and play with the flock of other butterflies...to tease the caterpillars into thinking about spinning their cocoons. For now, it is my job and no one else's to squeeze my wet wings through the crack between the worlds.

And as I do so, my beloved mentor Thomas Ashley-Farrand has passed 13 days into the void. My father is making his journey into the unknown territory of healing from cancer. My prayers and my constant chanting are with them, but my hands do not reach out to touch their wet wings, nor would they touch mine. Thomas, my father and I, we know what can be said, and what must be left unsaid. And what must not be done.

Amrit(a) for the Bees

I was just feeling almost human again, after a night of releasing anxiety, when, instead of doing the rest of my Aquarian Sadhana practice late yesterday, I was unable to ignore a friend calling me a 'pansy' for asking them not to make me cry, and because I started sadhana late. I finally did Sadhana much, much later yesterday. Today I almost did not. Fortunately, I realized my desire not to would be an act of cutting my own nose off to spite my face, so to speak, simply because I resented being told what to do.

I am pretty self-motivated. The only reason I am actually doing sadhana every day, is because it keeps me from totally freaking out over Dad's cancer; but I can't get up always at 3:30 am to do it. Sometimes my head hurts too much, and that doesn't seem to go away, unlike queasiness from exhaustion, which seems to if I do sadhana anyway...the headaches stay. Unless I stay in bed longer. Other old illnesses have re-emerged as well. I can't always do sadhana so early. I mentioned it to Guru Sandesh and Sat Inder Kaur and they both said: "at least you are doing it! Sadhana is good whatever time of day."

And so is Bound Lotus, and the Releasing Fear meditation, and the chanting I am doing along with hundreds of other people during the 13th days since Thomas Ashley-Farrand's death from excruciatingly painful liver cancer. So is saying the So Purkh for my Dad, for Joe, and for Sat Inder Singh. So is my ongoing Sanskrit mantra practice that I have been doing all day long for years. And so is chanting the Laya Yoga Ashtang mantra.

Especially that.

Yesterday's text messaging brouhaha left me with dark circles, really, really bloodshot eyes, and a huge lump in my throat. Some of the things my friend said to me in the past have reminded me of the way the man who tortured me and stalked me for years spoke to me~ and yet my friend is a good person. He really does not mean to hurt me...and yet he does. When he speaks to me sometimes like that, he later pretends he was only teasing, or 'yanking my chain'; he wants to hide his darker side and pretend that it isn't there. I hear it and read it in his words. I am not stupid, and my intuition is not wrong.

I have decided that as much as I predominantly enjoy his friendship, I refuse to be spoken to this way anymore. And as much as he thinks I chant too much, it is the very chanting that I do that allows me not to indulge my own dark side and attack him intensely with darker thoughts than just pain. The way he badgers is too much. I can't take it anymore, especially with Dad sick.

And what is more, contrary to what my friend thinks, the chanting I do for my father can help him. The So Purkh. Ra Ma Da Sa.

The chanting of the Aquarian mantras and the Laya Yoga practice are healing me. Healing me in a way in which Bound Lotus is not. Bound Lotus seems to be healing the more physical problems I've had, while Sadhana takes away the anxiety, and this Laya Yoga practice is the healing balm. It is like sweet honey in the raw wound. Like the honey of my name Amrita, it has healed my heart and mind both yesterday and today. It has brought me peace since I began it. It brings me peace every day I do it, no matter what time.

Yes, sadhana and the other practices have a stronger effect if done during the Amrit Vela, but if I can't bring myself to do them then, I still do them everyday. Sadhana every day as soon as I can is my commitment. 1'000 days of Bound Lotus is my commitment. 1'000 days of Releasing Fear meditation is my commitment. 90 days of Laya Yoga for 31 minutes, just like Bound Lotus, is my commitment. That's more than most people do. If I fail to do them all during the Amrit Vela, maybe the honey, the nectar of the names spoken in earnest when I can do them comes anyway...

Like my name, Amrita, that nectar will always belong to me as a child of the universe trying deeply to open her heart, even when people step on it.

Just for today...

Today.

Just today.

Rawness. Pain. Grief. Anger. Hurt. Rage!

What do you want from me teacher of mine? Did you mean to wipe the smile of bliss from my face? Did you realize what you were doing when you did it? Do you know it now?

I want to let the floodgates open, but I am afraid of how I might hurt you if you keep standing there. You would be like a twig in the path of a roaring dam as it breaks. I want to scream and cry out in such agony. Everyone's tears are mine. The grief is unbearable. Leave me alone. Let me be in my grief. My grief at all that has past and all that may come. My grief tinged with some moments of bliss like a tiny pinch of glitter on a child's torn drawing.

Let me be. Let me grieve. Alone. For the babies, for my mother, my father, my sister, my nephews...for the whole world if I feel like it. Let me GRIEVE! Don't touch me. My heart is breaking. Your touch will make it crumble.

Let me be.

Alone.

Just for today.

Writing in green ink...

The Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (incidentally first his 'pen name' then legal name) wrote exclusively in green ink because it is the color of "Esperanza"...hope. I 'hope' Cross pen refills come in green? I think not...but I could be wrong. I feel like channeling some Pablo Neruda love.

And I think about how this kriya I am doing (Laya Yoga), helps one to let go into what is truly essential. For me, that would be hope for sure. Yesterday's meditation in GuruSandesh' class for envisioning our dreams on 10.10.10 had me filled with tremendous hope that my heart will open so wiiiiidddeee! Like Sade, I want my love wider than Victoria Lake, taller than the Empire State! I think of the Meiji Emperor's wanga poem: Like a sky in clear, light green I wish my heart would be as vast!

And then I think of what is truly essential. More than hope. More than faith (and lovely people with names like Faye and Tutu)...it is love. And as hokey and goofy as some people might think I am...so what? If looking up videos of 'Marcel the Shell with Shoes On' and Rick Astley Rick Rolls keeps me from agonizing too much over a loved one getting diagnosed with prostate cancer, early but in an aggressive form, then I say Marcel and Rick Astley rule! They along with chocolate, books, paints, yoga, walks in the park, and friends who truly care (and don't dump me the way they did when Mom died) are what I love right now. That and Björk. And flowers pressed in books. And Brian Froud's "Pressed Faeries" book. Hell, I love faeries! And I am not afraid to say so!

I love Antoine de Saint Exupery's "The Little Prince", and how he says what is essential is invisible to the eye. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. You can see it in an Instant Message if the sender sent it, you can read it in an e-mail. Words are powerful: spoken or written. My intuition always tells me if someone is really sincere. It's in their words. It's in their hearts. I'm looking for what is invisible to most eyes...the color green around someone's heart chakra. And I'm looking for green ink so I can channel the poet Pablo Neruda in my diary...

A Kundalini Christmas

I am highly amused. I personally believe in angels, and I think they like to play practical jokes and tease, and "poke, provoke, confront and elevate" as Yogi Bhajan would say. I also think they like to let us know we are on the right track, following the pieces of candy corn to treasure buried beneath a kriya, or under a tree. Either that, or I am an idiot savant like Rainman, and can count the days until Christmas, and know subconsciously that 90 days from Amma's birthday, when I began this practice, is December 25th! I know it is a 40-day practice, but when I curiously decided to see when 90 days would be up, I found, to my sheer and utter surprise, that the day will be Christmas Day. This is perfect! Ending the chanting of a mantra with a riff from "The Nutcracker Suite" on Christmas. I almost want to celebrate with milk and cookies.

But besides that, today was up and down. I had a beautiful morning Sadhana again, but the battery was low on my iPhone, so I didn't sing along with Bachan Kaur on "Angels in the Amrit", but instead with Mata Mandir Singh on "Live from Sweden". Let me break out the marzipan and pinwheel cookies of my Danish childhood.

I had a nice chat with Sat Inder Singh, and reconfirmed that I want to take Sikh vows and Amrit, though my body is revolting, by making me do Sadhana late. My inner demons in the closet, like a bunch of Voodoo Petro loa, are pitching a fit. I am painting over them. This is my way of doing therapy for my pissy inner child. Sat Inder says my real self is shining through more, and I think he is right! I feel more and more like the 'girl' I was before my mom died 14 years ago...before I dated Satan.

I am in awe of what Kundalini Yoga has done for my life, let alone this particular kriya. However, I almost didn't finish it today, because I was too busy looking at YouTube videos of Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, and the fake one with Rick Astley in it from the 80s. I almost fell off the sofa laughing so hard, and Rick Astley gave me butterflies, which scares me. I hope I don't have nightmares, and dream instead of celluloid faeries from the 60s.

Dreaming of Birthdays and Sugarplum Faeries...

Lying under the piano and relaxing as a child, I listened to Tchaikovsky's "Dance of the Sugarplum Faeries" from The Nutcracker Suite, which is sampled in Sat Kartar's version of the Laya Yoga mantra. I love it! It is so soothing. Looping this track 3 times gives me the 31 minutes I need to practice it. I tried this meditation months ago, and many, many obstacles came up to prevent me from completing it. I did not succeed. It was too hard then. We'll see what happens this time. These words are powerful, and like the practice of Morning Sadhana, which is shaky for me, they work on the ego.

The passage below from "The Aquarian Teacher", from which my previous quotes were taken, really stood out to me as a concise explanation of what chanting of any mantra does:

"The greatest challenge is the practitioner's own subconscious. The mind is not trained to base itself in it's relationship to the Infinite. It is based in ego. It is filled with reactive thoughts that try to maintain the attachments of the ego and try to avoid pain. When you repeat the patterns of sound and thought in a Shabd, thos thoughts counter the direction and intensity of the habitual thoughts. The Shabd provokes a release of the stored subconscious patterns of thinking and feeling. If, under the torrential flood of subconscious feelings and thoughts, you persist in repeating the pattern of the Shabd Guru, then the new pattern establishes itself. Your mind clears, and you awaken dormant inner capacities or enhance existing ones." (p. 71)

This has been my experience with chanting mantra since I began with Sanskrit mantra in 2005. It is a powerful practice, that has wrought deep changes in my life. It soothes the savage beast within me, the one that Bound Lotus and other practices are dredging up to be healed. Sometimes I feel a little like Tolkein's Golem, still afraid to trust, but this mantra soothes me.

Underneath the flood, I feel the calmness of the ocean floor, and then momentarily rise above the surface. I love this meditation! I feel like a thousand buzzing bees around a lotus blossom! What an awesome day and and awesome way to have a 43rd birthday! Sat Inder Singh Khalsa's class began my day, I got a free lunch, a cupcake, a chocolate chip cookie and a smile...then my energy waned from the high mold count, and this lovely meditation left me vibrating intensely! Then I had dinner with my fabulous father, and now I am finally home to do Bound Lotus before bed. What a wonderful and beautiful birthday with all the kind wishes from friends on the phone, through e-mail, in person and on facebook!

AWAKENING INTUITION

The science of Naad Yoga is thousands of years old. It is the science of creating essence or rasaa, juice. This 'juice' is the neurotransmission fluid of the brain, the chemical liquids which the brain secretes to transmit messages. The practice of Laya Yoga uses the universal sound current, the Naad, to transform consciousness. Specific sounds and words as mantras "which awaken perception and intuition, are the mantras of Laya Yoga.

There are audible sounds as well as subtle sounds. The audible ashtang mantra of Laya Yoga is this:

Ek Ong Kar Sat Naam Siri Wahe Guru

There is a special way to chant it involving the three key elements to enhance the connection to the sound:

RHYTHM: chanting in a precise rhythm of 8 beats.

PROJECTION: giving energy to the words by projecting from the heart, which balances the higher and lower realms of the universe and psyche. This is done actually by vibrating the mantra with the tip of the tongue against the hard palate, and speaking from the central channel~ the sushmuna ~while vibrating from the Navel Point. The push of energy from the navel causes the words to move into the anahat~ the area of the heart.

PRONUNCIATION:
Ek Ong Kaar -(UH)
Saa Taa Naa Maa -(UH)
Siree Whaa -(UH) Hay Gu-Roo

On 'Ek' the navel is drawn back to the spine. On each 'UH' the diaphragm is lifted up. The 'UH' sound is created through the movement of the diaphragm, not so much as a projection. The navel and abdomen are relaxed on 'Hay Guroo'.

The sound is created also through the inner projection, or visualization, of a spiral in a "3-1/2 cycle rhythm". While chanting, the sound is seen as spiraling up around the spinal cord in a clockwise fashion. This begins at the base of the spine and ends by spiraling into the Cosmos out from the top of the head. With each repetition of the mantra, it begins again.

You are also not to listen to negative or coarse speech from others during the time in which this mantra is practiced. Being mindful of your own choice of words as well creates the environment within which you may increase your creativity.

"This extraordinary Laya Yoga chant brings the soul and destiny present. It suspends you above conflicts attracted by success and the activity of the Positive Mind. It lets your activity serve your purpose. It makes you creative and focused on your real priorities and helps you sacrifice what is needed to accomplish them."

This is to be done for 31 minutes a day for 40-120 days.

I am choosing to begin with 40 days, and using Sat Kartar Kaur's version of the Laya Yoga chant on her CD: "Listen". This version has a riff from Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker Suite: Dance of the Sugarplum Faeries", which my sister and I loved to fall asleep to as children.

I will be doing this practice alongside my ongoing practice of 1'000 Days of Bound Lotus and 1'000 days of Releasing Fear meditation begun last year. This new, 40 day practice of Laya Yoga is part of my KRI Teacher Training homework assignment. It is a practice I have wanted to do for a long time. After finishing a 90-day practice of Maha Shakti mantra yesterday, on the 26th, and three 90-day mantra practices today (i.e., Dharti Hai, the Mangala Charn, and Jai Tegang for 9, 7 and 7 minutes a day respectively), I now have the time and energy to begin this new 40 day practice. It feels a bit daunting, but I am excited!

I feel blessed to have the opportunity to practice this 'technology of elevation' within the supportive environment of a community of seekers and Sikhs. Wahe Guru Ji Kar Khalsa, Wahe Guru Ji Ke Fateh.