"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.