I plan on, at some point, in the near future, beginning a practice of Doei Shabd Kriya to bring my focus more deeply to three bhandas of moola bhanda, uddiyana bhanda, and jalandhara bhanda, but more specifically to re-connect with the root chakra and it's connection to the ajna chakra. The ajna chakra is the command center, the site of the pituitary gland, and the seat of intuition. Everything about doing 120 days of Laya Yoga was for me about expanding my intuition. Part of that, I only realized very late into the practice, requires opening the root chakra, the mooladhara, and expanding that energy upwards to pierce through the knots, or granthis, and open into the sahasrara as expanded consciousness.
That top granthi, the brahma granthi, is a psychic knot like the others, that when broken, releases amrit, or divine nectar. My name, Amrita, seems apt. I've known, of course, that the kundalini energy needs to rise from the base of the spine upwards, but somehow, much in the way one might go looking for one's glasses while they are actually on the end of one's nose, I just didn't figure I would have to open up the basement floors and look at all the junk ~ the lust, anger, rage, hatred, fear and pain. Well guess what? I figured it out.
And something pulled me today not only to read more about Doei Shabd Kriya as a further continuation of practicing Laya Yoga, but to pick up Swami Buddhananda's book "Moola Bhanda: The Master Key". His words, first written in 1978, in India, touched not a nerve, but the base chakra:
"Breaking through the barriers
"Moola bhanda offers an infinitely powerful technique capable of breaking down the rigid barriers that have been built up in the mind over the years, thereby expelling deep unconscious conflicts and complexes that are not easily accessible to modern psychological techniques. This is because of moola bhanda's action on mooladhara chakra and the pranas of the body. Psychiatry on the other hand relies on drugs and other physical processes, or psychotherapy, which cannot get into the depths of the mind.
"Even abreaction therapy could not help some people, such as severe depressives too inhibited to release the required amount of emotion to break up the depressive condition. Perhaps this was because these more severe and long-term conditions had become cemented into the body and mind and thus were no longer amenable to abreaction, because abreaction only allows free unconscious material to rise and be expelled, not concentrating on the physical aspects of anxiety.
"Wilhelm Reich's work with repressed sexual energy exemplifies the above concepts. He formulated the concept of 'character armour' or muscle tension and posture rigidity which he says makes itself felt as 'character resistance' (instinctual desires and defensive functions of the ego).
"Character armour, for Reich, represented layers of defence mechanisms which had been psychosomatically transferred into the physical body and could be pictorially schematized similar to geological or archaeological stratification. As such it represented the 'solidifed history, of the patient, the deeper tensions being the oldest.' Reich states that conflicts which have been active at a certain period of life always leave their traces in the character, in the form of physical and mental rigidity. Each conflict forms a layer in the individual's character. Each of these layers in the character structure is a piece of life history which is preserved in another form, that is, physically, and is still active. He demonstrated that by loosening up these layers, the old conflicts could - more or less easily - be revived. If the layers were particularly numerous and functioning automatically, if they formed a compact unit which was difficult to penetrate, they seemed like an 'armour' surrounding the living organism. The armour may be superficial or deep-lying, soft as a sponge or hard as nails. However, in each case its function was to protect against displeasure.
"Reichian schools of psychology have developed various forms of exercises which resemble asanas and mudras, designed to release pent-up emotions, anxieties and repressions. These exercises concentrate on releasing prana, which they call bioenergy. (This reminds me of the Trauma-Release Techniques that I learned from Saul David Raye, as well as Kundalini Yoga Kriyas) Thus it is similar in many respects to moola bhanda and other yogic techniques. However, no abreactive, Reichian, or relaxation therapy in psychology has yet utilized the perineum in contraction, let alone the perineal body and cervix. ( This is key, really, because I doubt seriously that within the last 30 years anything has changed in that respect.)
"The technique of moola bhanda had been a closely guarded secret for millennia. By contracting the mooladhara chakra we have a more powerful technique than all the modern psychological techniques put together. They look like child's play compared with a technique offering infinite bliss, knowledge and enlightenment.
"We have seen many cases of severe depression clear up quickly and without emotional or psychic trauma through the practice of moola bhanda even though the individuals concerned were close to suicide. They experienced old memories, emotions, and experiences, but because of training in detached awareness, the memories passed into consciousness and out again, like bubbles floating harmlessly to the surface and bursting.
"So moola bhanda has the potential to release us from the depressions, neruoses and other psychological problems that dampen our joy in life and prevent us from fulfilling our potential, through raising of kundalini shakti. Moola bhanda is safe (when practised according to the instructions), efficient and simple. Coupled with its purgative qualities, capable of 'spring cleaning' the mental and emotional body, moola bhanda is a technique to open the door to freedom, joy and liberation."
This is incredible, I think, that I have never read this before. I am really convinced now that I need to more actively practice this in the future with Doei Shabd Kriya.
Though this is a lot of information for one post, I think the following is also rather pertinent:
"Moola bhanda is a psychic practice which manipulates the pranic body, especially apana, by contracting mooladhara chakra. It sends energy up to ajna and sahasrara chakras directly and thereby stimulates all the other chakras as it travels through the sushumna.
"The Chakras
"The chakras are whirling vortices of energy which exist in the pranic (etheric) body of man at the linking points between the body and the mind. They occur at the intersection of ida and pingala in sushumna, being psychosomatic points, where mind and body touch.
"There are fourteen major chakras. The seven lower chakras are: atala, vitala, sutala, talatala, rasatala, mahatala, patala. They represent evolution from basic anatomy structures to mineral life, then plant, lower animals, and so on. The seven main chakras (shat chakras) are mooladhara (perineal body/cervix), swadisthana (tip of coccyx), manipura (navel), anahata (heart), vishuddhi (throat), ajna (eyebrow centre, and closely related to mooladhara chakras), sahasrara (crown of the head; not always included in the shat chakras because it does not lie within the merudanda - spinal cord). Each higher chakra represents a more subtle frequency of pranic energy and a higher level of consciousness. They are like switches which turn on different parts of our psychophysiological mechanism."
Hm. Why did I not catch before how deeply an imbalance and blockage in the root chakra would affect my intuition? If the foundation isn't strong, how can the house stand up under pressure? Armed with more information for the journey, I will eventually embark on a practice of Doei Shabd Kriya, but meanwhile, my journaling and diary entries in blog format will go back to where they originally began: on the blog I created to help me stick to doing 1,000 Days of Bound Lotus. Sat Nam. Namaste. Wahe Guru!
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
As The Plot Thickens...
It always seems the 'The Morning After' completing a Kundalini Yoga practice for 40, 90, or 120 days brings a flood of newfound insights; as if the well of wisdom has now become deeper.
Sitting in my living room listening to Delerium's "Nuages de Monde" CD is making me flow to places in my mind and thoughts that are making extraordinary connections. It is facilitating the exploration of spontaneous impulses to draw several books down from my library-like shelves. This always happens when an extreme insight is on its way...
The 6th track on Delerium's CD is 'Tectonic Shift'. The way the music runs the gamut from minor to major and back to minor key is music to my soul on any day, but today in particular. I think of plates shifting within the earth, within my mind, and within my skull. My chiropractor has explained how the gentle adjustment techniques of NUCCA Upper Cervical Care can be felt as a shifting of the plates of the skull back into place. I visualize it as a three-dimensional puzzle, where someone has left the cardboard not a bit flush with the other pieces, and he is pushing it back in.
Along with that sensation and visualization, I see how, since everything comes from and is created by sound, the musical soundtrack to that 'tectonic shift' in my skull could be something like this music. A minor, skulking, cautious sound that morphs into joy, slips into caution again, then back into joy. Back and forth, as the plates continue to adapt to accepting the proper placement they have not felt in literally years!
When I open the CD booklet, the liner notes for several tracks grab my attention:
'Sister Sojourn Ghost', featuring Katharine Blake and Medaeval Babes ~
"The words to this song are made up by Katharine Blake in her own secret language, and so it is very much about the sound of the words and not the meaning. Originally she intended to replace them with 'proper' lyrics, but eventually liked the sound of the words so much she left them in place!"
This is marvelous! I feel as if my body speaks a private language of its own, expressly to me, and it will always be that way. No one, not even my former stalker, can crack that code. No one. Ever. That language is mine, and others, if they 'hear' it can only just revel in the musicality of it.
'Indoctrination', featuring Kiran Ahluwalia ~
"The rhythm of this track instantly gave me the feeling of momentum. I imagined an epic journey -- a caravan with a special quest. Once I got the idea of traveling to find something, then the words came to me... 'Chalo ni sakhi, dhundo moray mun ke khevaiya' This translates as 'Come with me my friend, lets find the one who will guide the well being of my mind."
For me that would be already found, in my Gurdwara at home, with the Siri Guru Granth Sahib. That would be my true Husband Lord.
'Extollere', featuring Katharine Blake and Medaeval Babes ~
"The words to this song are an extract from a Middle English poem entitled 'Love for a Beautiful Lady': they recount how the poet, ovrseas and parted from his loved one, pleads with the Northern wind to blow his beloved home to him so they may be reunited."
'Angelicus', featuring Isabel Bayrakdarian ~
"The pieces I sing are based on excerpts from medieval Armenian hymns, dating as early as the 5th century. Only the words Alleluia and Amen are sung and the rest are all vocalises. I've always believed that the profound music of the Armenian Church transcends cultural and language barriers; thus, one doesn't necessarily have to understand the Armenian language to 'feel' this music in their heart and establish a connection with the divine God."
I'd never read this before years ago when I bought the CD. I'd bought Delerium's first CD while in Chicago to see Bjork with someone who couldn't love me. Looking back, I see this as the true Source of all Love reaching out to me, and trying to help me see where he really was in my heart all along. And she is right, you can simply and utterly feel it.
Once, when I was all of 13, my family was in Cologne, Germany getting of a boat that had traveled up the Rhine River from Wiesbaden. As we stepped off, we came around a corner to hear the Latin High Mass in Cologne Cathedral. Its high black spires grew up as if from the earth like a rock formation against the rainy, gray sky...but inside, the light was visible. The sound was heavenly and healing. And even though I had studied one year of Latin already at prep school, I gave up trying to make out the words and just listen to it.
The beauty of communication without words is present for me in the music of the string instruments: of the violin and cello, of the bass. Hans Christian's recent CD of classical-based cello compositions make my soul sing. The titles of the tracks hold me in just as much awe as the liner notes for Delerium's CD.
And there is a little more to come...
Sitting in my living room listening to Delerium's "Nuages de Monde" CD is making me flow to places in my mind and thoughts that are making extraordinary connections. It is facilitating the exploration of spontaneous impulses to draw several books down from my library-like shelves. This always happens when an extreme insight is on its way...
The 6th track on Delerium's CD is 'Tectonic Shift'. The way the music runs the gamut from minor to major and back to minor key is music to my soul on any day, but today in particular. I think of plates shifting within the earth, within my mind, and within my skull. My chiropractor has explained how the gentle adjustment techniques of NUCCA Upper Cervical Care can be felt as a shifting of the plates of the skull back into place. I visualize it as a three-dimensional puzzle, where someone has left the cardboard not a bit flush with the other pieces, and he is pushing it back in.
Along with that sensation and visualization, I see how, since everything comes from and is created by sound, the musical soundtrack to that 'tectonic shift' in my skull could be something like this music. A minor, skulking, cautious sound that morphs into joy, slips into caution again, then back into joy. Back and forth, as the plates continue to adapt to accepting the proper placement they have not felt in literally years!
When I open the CD booklet, the liner notes for several tracks grab my attention:
'Sister Sojourn Ghost', featuring Katharine Blake and Medaeval Babes ~
"The words to this song are made up by Katharine Blake in her own secret language, and so it is very much about the sound of the words and not the meaning. Originally she intended to replace them with 'proper' lyrics, but eventually liked the sound of the words so much she left them in place!"
This is marvelous! I feel as if my body speaks a private language of its own, expressly to me, and it will always be that way. No one, not even my former stalker, can crack that code. No one. Ever. That language is mine, and others, if they 'hear' it can only just revel in the musicality of it.
'Indoctrination', featuring Kiran Ahluwalia ~
"The rhythm of this track instantly gave me the feeling of momentum. I imagined an epic journey -- a caravan with a special quest. Once I got the idea of traveling to find something, then the words came to me... 'Chalo ni sakhi, dhundo moray mun ke khevaiya' This translates as 'Come with me my friend, lets find the one who will guide the well being of my mind."
For me that would be already found, in my Gurdwara at home, with the Siri Guru Granth Sahib. That would be my true Husband Lord.
'Extollere', featuring Katharine Blake and Medaeval Babes ~
"The words to this song are an extract from a Middle English poem entitled 'Love for a Beautiful Lady': they recount how the poet, ovrseas and parted from his loved one, pleads with the Northern wind to blow his beloved home to him so they may be reunited."
'Angelicus', featuring Isabel Bayrakdarian ~
"The pieces I sing are based on excerpts from medieval Armenian hymns, dating as early as the 5th century. Only the words Alleluia and Amen are sung and the rest are all vocalises. I've always believed that the profound music of the Armenian Church transcends cultural and language barriers; thus, one doesn't necessarily have to understand the Armenian language to 'feel' this music in their heart and establish a connection with the divine God."
I'd never read this before years ago when I bought the CD. I'd bought Delerium's first CD while in Chicago to see Bjork with someone who couldn't love me. Looking back, I see this as the true Source of all Love reaching out to me, and trying to help me see where he really was in my heart all along. And she is right, you can simply and utterly feel it.
Once, when I was all of 13, my family was in Cologne, Germany getting of a boat that had traveled up the Rhine River from Wiesbaden. As we stepped off, we came around a corner to hear the Latin High Mass in Cologne Cathedral. Its high black spires grew up as if from the earth like a rock formation against the rainy, gray sky...but inside, the light was visible. The sound was heavenly and healing. And even though I had studied one year of Latin already at prep school, I gave up trying to make out the words and just listen to it.
The beauty of communication without words is present for me in the music of the string instruments: of the violin and cello, of the bass. Hans Christian's recent CD of classical-based cello compositions make my soul sing. The titles of the tracks hold me in just as much awe as the liner notes for Delerium's CD.
And there is a little more to come...
Monday, January 24, 2011
Finishing 120 Days of Laya Yoga!!!! Wheeeeee!!!
I am on the threshold. Do I continue? I don't think so. The instructions said to do this practice for 40, 90 or 120 days. There was no mention of doing 1,000 days. I feel drawn to continue with a form of Laya Yoga, just not this one. Maybe Doei Shabd Kriya? I want to expand my practice with mantra back to what it used to be before with Sanskrit mantra. I just recited the mantra in the language of men (out loud), of lovers (in a whisper), and of the angels (silently). And even though it is said that angels communicate through music, I want to hear the deeper music of the Naam.
Besides, when I finished 90 days, I felt a huge release of pressure and bliss began to flow over me. By the next day, when I decided to continue on to 120 days, I felt that pressure resume. I want a break. I need a break, and this practice was begun as part of a homework assignment for Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training which was to be done only for 40 days. It is the Level 2 teachers who are to do a practice for 90 days. So I went the whole nine-yards, and now I will stop.
I need time to say the Ra Ma Da Sa every day for my Dad, who is undergoing radiation treatment for prostate cancer, and my friend Dan, who has just been released from the hospital for colon and liver cancer. He has gone home to begin eating solid foods, and he and my father could definitely use some prayers and mantras.
Tomorrow, I will give my first attunement of the year to Reiki, and I have a lot to prepare for...the apartment is still a mess, and I need to revue the history of Reiki, and Usui Mikao's background with the Mikkyo mystical sect of Tendai Buddhism, with his family's historical connections to the Samurai warriors of Japan, and his status as a Shugendo practitioner, or Shugenda. I need to review the practice of the Three Diamonds.
But my mind is wandering...off to think lustful and loving thoughts about a man with curly red hair. For the last several days, I haven't really been able to keep him off my mind. Today, however, I will be taking a page from the book's explanation and claim that practicing the Ashtang mantra as a Laya Yoga practice will, among other things, help you to let go of what is not necessary to actually get things done. I can't have my mind distracted by my schoolgirl-like crush, so I, for the first time today, decided definitively not to let it come to bear while trying to focus on preparing for the attunement tomorrow.
And now, a measure of peace, much like the peace I felt descend yesterday during and after Gurdwara, has descended. Miraculously, the painful aching lustful desire I feel has dissipated somewhat...mellowed into warm and kind thoughts of friendship with love from the heart. It seems that if I want to access the strength to bring my focus toward where it should be for now, it is much easier for me to do it now than it was before I embarked upon this practice, and also, it would appear, much easier to do than it is for some men! I have had a bit of a taste, I think, of how powerfully the lower chakras can influence the male animal to have his attention where it should not be. If that is what it feels like, then I feel a little more sympathetic toward the male animal, but I still expect them to behave themselves...as I expect myself to do so as well. This is not the time. And having made that decision brings me a measure of peace that I have not felt in weeks.
I'd say this practice was a rousing, or 'arousing' success! Either way...
Besides, when I finished 90 days, I felt a huge release of pressure and bliss began to flow over me. By the next day, when I decided to continue on to 120 days, I felt that pressure resume. I want a break. I need a break, and this practice was begun as part of a homework assignment for Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training which was to be done only for 40 days. It is the Level 2 teachers who are to do a practice for 90 days. So I went the whole nine-yards, and now I will stop.
I need time to say the Ra Ma Da Sa every day for my Dad, who is undergoing radiation treatment for prostate cancer, and my friend Dan, who has just been released from the hospital for colon and liver cancer. He has gone home to begin eating solid foods, and he and my father could definitely use some prayers and mantras.
Tomorrow, I will give my first attunement of the year to Reiki, and I have a lot to prepare for...the apartment is still a mess, and I need to revue the history of Reiki, and Usui Mikao's background with the Mikkyo mystical sect of Tendai Buddhism, with his family's historical connections to the Samurai warriors of Japan, and his status as a Shugendo practitioner, or Shugenda. I need to review the practice of the Three Diamonds.
But my mind is wandering...off to think lustful and loving thoughts about a man with curly red hair. For the last several days, I haven't really been able to keep him off my mind. Today, however, I will be taking a page from the book's explanation and claim that practicing the Ashtang mantra as a Laya Yoga practice will, among other things, help you to let go of what is not necessary to actually get things done. I can't have my mind distracted by my schoolgirl-like crush, so I, for the first time today, decided definitively not to let it come to bear while trying to focus on preparing for the attunement tomorrow.
And now, a measure of peace, much like the peace I felt descend yesterday during and after Gurdwara, has descended. Miraculously, the painful aching lustful desire I feel has dissipated somewhat...mellowed into warm and kind thoughts of friendship with love from the heart. It seems that if I want to access the strength to bring my focus toward where it should be for now, it is much easier for me to do it now than it was before I embarked upon this practice, and also, it would appear, much easier to do than it is for some men! I have had a bit of a taste, I think, of how powerfully the lower chakras can influence the male animal to have his attention where it should not be. If that is what it feels like, then I feel a little more sympathetic toward the male animal, but I still expect them to behave themselves...as I expect myself to do so as well. This is not the time. And having made that decision brings me a measure of peace that I have not felt in weeks.
I'd say this practice was a rousing, or 'arousing' success! Either way...
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Dreaming my Dreams
I had my first Indian Gurdwara experience today through the kindness of Dharamjodh. Home after a beautiful day in the whiteness and peace of the snow, I feel so happy. I felt happy talking and chatting to 9-year-old Pavandeep. This is the Grace of the Guru. God Bless.
While at Gurdwara, one of the ladies with me on the women's side motioned to me to get up and said, "Your husband is waiting for you." I smiled hugely. Dharamjodh is my friend and brother, but I realized in that instant that I enjoyed hearing those words, and I would like for there to be someone in my future that those words could be said about and have them be true. That just makes me smile. And the more I thought about it, I realized that there is someone already for whom I wish that were true.
Where I really get nervous about this realization, besides the fact that it can't really happen in any form or fashion right now, is that I don't just feel warm fuzzies towards him, I feel a ravenous lustful hunger. This is likely partly due to the fact that I have for many, many, many years tried to remain celibate simply to keep from losing more energy than I had to lose years ago. It is also, because, as they say, I have "issues" down there. I don't like to feel my lower chakras at all! What is that quote from the Gnostic Gospels? If you bring forth what is inside you, what is inside you will save you. If you do not bring forth what is inside you, what is inside you will destroy you. Basically, acknowledge your personal demons, and accept that maybe they aren't demons really, but supressed parts of your psyche that are angry and bitter at having been supressed and repressed.
I know why I supressed my desire. In the past, I was always attracted to men who were extremely unhealthy for me, and fit easily into patterns of abuse that were already set in place. With all these years of work and meditation behind me to get out of those 'ruts' and 'bad grooves', can I trust myself now to make a good choice?
While at Gurdwara, one of the ladies with me on the women's side motioned to me to get up and said, "Your husband is waiting for you." I smiled hugely. Dharamjodh is my friend and brother, but I realized in that instant that I enjoyed hearing those words, and I would like for there to be someone in my future that those words could be said about and have them be true. That just makes me smile. And the more I thought about it, I realized that there is someone already for whom I wish that were true.
Where I really get nervous about this realization, besides the fact that it can't really happen in any form or fashion right now, is that I don't just feel warm fuzzies towards him, I feel a ravenous lustful hunger. This is likely partly due to the fact that I have for many, many, many years tried to remain celibate simply to keep from losing more energy than I had to lose years ago. It is also, because, as they say, I have "issues" down there. I don't like to feel my lower chakras at all! What is that quote from the Gnostic Gospels? If you bring forth what is inside you, what is inside you will save you. If you do not bring forth what is inside you, what is inside you will destroy you. Basically, acknowledge your personal demons, and accept that maybe they aren't demons really, but supressed parts of your psyche that are angry and bitter at having been supressed and repressed.
I know why I supressed my desire. In the past, I was always attracted to men who were extremely unhealthy for me, and fit easily into patterns of abuse that were already set in place. With all these years of work and meditation behind me to get out of those 'ruts' and 'bad grooves', can I trust myself now to make a good choice?
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Just before the 'Swan Song'
I've been drawing closer to finishing 120 days of Laya Yoga with the Ashtang mantra, after having originally begun it for 40 days! The instructions for the practice say that one can commit to it for 40, 90, or 120 days. Each time I passed a mark, I wanted to continue. 90 days were completed on Christmas, which was kinda cool, because the music from Sat Kartar's album that I was listening to, sampled Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite, specifically The Dance of the Sugarplum Faeries. What could be more dear to a girl's heart? And at that, a girl who loves to dance?
Speaking of dancing, I went to see "Black Swan", and was floored. Not only did I see exactly what that jerk was referring to when he tried to seduce my ass, but much more importantly, I was blown away by the beauty of the film, and the poignancy of Natalie Portman's acting.
I have to say that I am one of those high-falutin', intellectual, art-house film movie snobs, and yet I am deeply impressed by this movie. So what if it crosses into the horror genre? Psychological horror such as this is the thinking man's horror, and it accurately gives the feel of what it might feel like to have your mind short-circuit on you.
This movie also made me think of the young schizophrenic in Kathe Koja's story from the 90's ~ "Strange Angels". He is turning into an angel, and is falling for another angel against the wishes of a young man who is obsessed with him. "Black Swan", in my mind, is sort of an amalgamation of Phantom of the Opera, Mommie Dearest, and Koja's story. Plus, the stories that my friend Paul ('The One Man Riot') told me make it pretty surreal and dead-on about the schizophrenia. What I want to know is, was she imagining the ending as well? And did we, as the audience, start to believe the unreal as well? Which brings me back to Koja's book, because in that you can't tell if the friend of the angel is just hallucinating himself?
Additionally, for those purist ballet critics, so what if it isn't technically tight, and Natalie Portman's port-de-bras need work? Wasn't her teacher saying that technicality wasn't everything? Could any of the 'technically-oriented' ballerinas like Rojo put on the performance of their lives as actresses as well as dancers in a film? Maybe. Maybe not.
If someone made a movie about the downwardly-spiraling psyche of an exotic dancer, as a former one, I don't think I'd quibble over whether her pole-dancing was technically 'on' point. I'd be looking to see if they could portray the highly competitive nature of the lo-brow 'dance world', and the way the industry can make it hard to keep your bearings as you twirl and shake your bootie across the stage. Not to mention the damage to one's spine and knees with 14 years of excessive daily shoulderstands, headstands, forward rolls and other such ways to destroy your body. I'd be curious to see how they portrayed the way men in positions of power, old dancers obsessed with living through you, and cruel high-school tactics can make you feel as if you are going crazy.
I studied ballet, and jazz and modern. I never took pointe. I was an ice skater too. When the movie "Ice Castles" came out, I don't remember my fellow ice skaters and I quibbling over whether her double-toe loops or salchows were dead on, but maybe I just missed those conversations. When "Flashdance" came out, I didn't hear strippers attacking Jennifer Beale's technique. What makes ballet dancers so snotty?
Bottom-line, when we all can get over worrying about whether our port-de-bras, our booty shakes, or our salchows look perfect...at the end of the day this movie is an excellent psychological thriller that travels well the corridors of a young woman's mind crafted by her mother into a Bonsai tree, and now breaking the bounds of the tiny pot, and losing a bit of her mind as she does so much growing in a short period of time that her mind threatens to crash like a computer that's overloaded and never even seen McAfee to boot.
Food for thought, on why my mind seemed to crash so horrendously itself years ago...and why it seems to be 're-formatting' and cleaning the hard drive through Kundalini Yoga.
Speaking of dancing, I went to see "Black Swan", and was floored. Not only did I see exactly what that jerk was referring to when he tried to seduce my ass, but much more importantly, I was blown away by the beauty of the film, and the poignancy of Natalie Portman's acting.
I have to say that I am one of those high-falutin', intellectual, art-house film movie snobs, and yet I am deeply impressed by this movie. So what if it crosses into the horror genre? Psychological horror such as this is the thinking man's horror, and it accurately gives the feel of what it might feel like to have your mind short-circuit on you.
This movie also made me think of the young schizophrenic in Kathe Koja's story from the 90's ~ "Strange Angels". He is turning into an angel, and is falling for another angel against the wishes of a young man who is obsessed with him. "Black Swan", in my mind, is sort of an amalgamation of Phantom of the Opera, Mommie Dearest, and Koja's story. Plus, the stories that my friend Paul ('The One Man Riot') told me make it pretty surreal and dead-on about the schizophrenia. What I want to know is, was she imagining the ending as well? And did we, as the audience, start to believe the unreal as well? Which brings me back to Koja's book, because in that you can't tell if the friend of the angel is just hallucinating himself?
Additionally, for those purist ballet critics, so what if it isn't technically tight, and Natalie Portman's port-de-bras need work? Wasn't her teacher saying that technicality wasn't everything? Could any of the 'technically-oriented' ballerinas like Rojo put on the performance of their lives as actresses as well as dancers in a film? Maybe. Maybe not.
If someone made a movie about the downwardly-spiraling psyche of an exotic dancer, as a former one, I don't think I'd quibble over whether her pole-dancing was technically 'on' point. I'd be looking to see if they could portray the highly competitive nature of the lo-brow 'dance world', and the way the industry can make it hard to keep your bearings as you twirl and shake your bootie across the stage. Not to mention the damage to one's spine and knees with 14 years of excessive daily shoulderstands, headstands, forward rolls and other such ways to destroy your body. I'd be curious to see how they portrayed the way men in positions of power, old dancers obsessed with living through you, and cruel high-school tactics can make you feel as if you are going crazy.
I studied ballet, and jazz and modern. I never took pointe. I was an ice skater too. When the movie "Ice Castles" came out, I don't remember my fellow ice skaters and I quibbling over whether her double-toe loops or salchows were dead on, but maybe I just missed those conversations. When "Flashdance" came out, I didn't hear strippers attacking Jennifer Beale's technique. What makes ballet dancers so snotty?
Bottom-line, when we all can get over worrying about whether our port-de-bras, our booty shakes, or our salchows look perfect...at the end of the day this movie is an excellent psychological thriller that travels well the corridors of a young woman's mind crafted by her mother into a Bonsai tree, and now breaking the bounds of the tiny pot, and losing a bit of her mind as she does so much growing in a short period of time that her mind threatens to crash like a computer that's overloaded and never even seen McAfee to boot.
Food for thought, on why my mind seemed to crash so horrendously itself years ago...and why it seems to be 're-formatting' and cleaning the hard drive through Kundalini Yoga.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
The Radiant Body
I have a question for anyone reading:
Do you understand that building your Radiant Body means connecting to everybody in the sense that you can hold all the world's pain and happiness in your heart without it hurting from being so full of both joy and misery? That to get there you have to become neutral and able to get past aversions to misery and bliss, and conversely, attachments to misery and bliss? I myself am by no means there, but I am trying. If you don't wish to join me in continuing down this path to learning to care about more than the tiny finite self, then by all means stop reading right here, because you will then likely feel aversion to what I have to say next. Go on then. Go get high off some yoga instead. Hurry...your bliss is waiting!
If you are still reading, be forwarned that the rest of this entry on the Radiant Body contains all sorts of things designed to provoke both irritation and the pursuit of bliss...read at your leisure, and your peril......you've been forewarned.
I don't practice yoga and meditation just get into a state of bliss and stay high there, although it appears that many do. I practice them so that I may become so strong spiritually, mentally and physically that I may be able to 'attract' blessings not only for myself but for my family. Not only for my family, but my community. Not only for my community, but for people I don't even know, for the entire world. Not only for the entire human world, but the marine and land animals. Not only other moving life forms, but plants and the core of the earth, the lava flow beneath the water and the earth. Not only for the earth but for the entire cosmos.
When I can build my Radiance to the point that I can get beyond my attachment to having my 'bliss bubble' burst, or not be overwhelmed because my life is crazy, or not be dwelling in a state of lack feeling that my life is so plagued with calamity in one of the wealthiest nations in the world that I don't have time to worry about the status of the world... then I will feel I've actually come to understand what the whole point of meditation and building your Radiant body are for in Kundalini Yoga. It definitely isn't to parade around in a costume feeling like a bliss ninny.
No, that would be an addiction. It would be being stuck in Shakti Pad, unable to move toward taking one's vibrancy and radiancy and adding it to the efforts to heal the whole world and not just your immediate family. But that truly would mean I would be an 'Advanced Meditator', as our teacher called us all at our last training weekend. That would mean that I would no longer be running around trying to do as much Kundalini Yoga as I can so I can stay 'high' on something that won't send me to jail. That would actually mean that I would no longer be a spiritual child. That would mean that I understand what building the Radiant Body is truly for...not for being blissed out and unaware of what is happening in the world, or only able to handle what is happening to my immediate family. That would mean I could care about more than just my own father's illness, and my friend Dan's, and not be overwhelmed.
Here I am 'poking and provoking', and I have this to say to the world: If you don't like it, then don't read my blog and diary.
So, to continue upon yesterday's theme, I want to quote from Siri Atma S. Khalsa, M.D.'s book "Waves of Healing":
"Good luck comes to you, not because you deserve it, not because you want it, not because you are beautiful and not because you asked for it. It comes to you because of your electromagnetic field and the radiance of your tenth body. You don't have to speak a word when your radiant body is effective. Sometimes you misunderstand and think, 'I did it, I attracted it, I got it.' That is not true. It is your confidence and the strength of the radiant body which brings success. The physical body is just a basement; the radiant body is the top story, the tenth floor."
Ah! Now my dreams at Winter Solstice make more sense. I dreamed I was in a 10-story building, and every floor below the first was part of the basement. Each was gray and damp and empty. I'd cleared out all the junk down to the third floor. Then I raced to the top to get into the sunlight, and I awoke! I awoke at the top step of the end of the basement floors. I awoke at the 9th floor, stepping into the 10th. The 10th is the radiant body.
I am cleaning house!
"That's what Kundalini Yoga is about; it builds strength in you. You become you. All your fears, conflicts and duality go away. Your reality starts coming, and things come to you because you are very attractive. The attraction is not you; it is your absolutely radiant body. The radiant body is a shining armor around you for both protection and attraction. Its radiance depends on how deeply you consume prana each day by breathing deeply."
And Yogi Bhajan himself said this ~
"You are wrong if you think your intelligence works or your words are powerful or you are very charismatic. Actually, it is your radiant body, the glow, the shine in you that works."
The Guru Gobind Singh Shakti Mantra meditation works to build this, but so does any other Laya Yoga Mantra practice, and I am doing one. This one. So if you want the light within me, don't skim off the surface, go directly to the Source. Swim up to the surface and do the work yourself. Don't feed off of me. I am a Sikh. I will teach you, but I will teach you how to fish. I will not give you the fish of my body and my energy. I will lead you to the Source of the water in which your fish swims...maybe, if I want to. If I'm not in the space to do it, you can find it without me. You don't really need me. All you need is your Self.
Do you understand that building your Radiant Body means connecting to everybody in the sense that you can hold all the world's pain and happiness in your heart without it hurting from being so full of both joy and misery? That to get there you have to become neutral and able to get past aversions to misery and bliss, and conversely, attachments to misery and bliss? I myself am by no means there, but I am trying. If you don't wish to join me in continuing down this path to learning to care about more than the tiny finite self, then by all means stop reading right here, because you will then likely feel aversion to what I have to say next. Go on then. Go get high off some yoga instead. Hurry...your bliss is waiting!
If you are still reading, be forwarned that the rest of this entry on the Radiant Body contains all sorts of things designed to provoke both irritation and the pursuit of bliss...read at your leisure, and your peril......you've been forewarned.
I don't practice yoga and meditation just get into a state of bliss and stay high there, although it appears that many do. I practice them so that I may become so strong spiritually, mentally and physically that I may be able to 'attract' blessings not only for myself but for my family. Not only for my family, but my community. Not only for my community, but for people I don't even know, for the entire world. Not only for the entire human world, but the marine and land animals. Not only other moving life forms, but plants and the core of the earth, the lava flow beneath the water and the earth. Not only for the earth but for the entire cosmos.
When I can build my Radiance to the point that I can get beyond my attachment to having my 'bliss bubble' burst, or not be overwhelmed because my life is crazy, or not be dwelling in a state of lack feeling that my life is so plagued with calamity in one of the wealthiest nations in the world that I don't have time to worry about the status of the world... then I will feel I've actually come to understand what the whole point of meditation and building your Radiant body are for in Kundalini Yoga. It definitely isn't to parade around in a costume feeling like a bliss ninny.
No, that would be an addiction. It would be being stuck in Shakti Pad, unable to move toward taking one's vibrancy and radiancy and adding it to the efforts to heal the whole world and not just your immediate family. But that truly would mean I would be an 'Advanced Meditator', as our teacher called us all at our last training weekend. That would mean that I would no longer be running around trying to do as much Kundalini Yoga as I can so I can stay 'high' on something that won't send me to jail. That would actually mean that I would no longer be a spiritual child. That would mean that I understand what building the Radiant Body is truly for...not for being blissed out and unaware of what is happening in the world, or only able to handle what is happening to my immediate family. That would mean I could care about more than just my own father's illness, and my friend Dan's, and not be overwhelmed.
Here I am 'poking and provoking', and I have this to say to the world: If you don't like it, then don't read my blog and diary.
So, to continue upon yesterday's theme, I want to quote from Siri Atma S. Khalsa, M.D.'s book "Waves of Healing":
"Good luck comes to you, not because you deserve it, not because you want it, not because you are beautiful and not because you asked for it. It comes to you because of your electromagnetic field and the radiance of your tenth body. You don't have to speak a word when your radiant body is effective. Sometimes you misunderstand and think, 'I did it, I attracted it, I got it.' That is not true. It is your confidence and the strength of the radiant body which brings success. The physical body is just a basement; the radiant body is the top story, the tenth floor."
Ah! Now my dreams at Winter Solstice make more sense. I dreamed I was in a 10-story building, and every floor below the first was part of the basement. Each was gray and damp and empty. I'd cleared out all the junk down to the third floor. Then I raced to the top to get into the sunlight, and I awoke! I awoke at the top step of the end of the basement floors. I awoke at the 9th floor, stepping into the 10th. The 10th is the radiant body.
I am cleaning house!
"That's what Kundalini Yoga is about; it builds strength in you. You become you. All your fears, conflicts and duality go away. Your reality starts coming, and things come to you because you are very attractive. The attraction is not you; it is your absolutely radiant body. The radiant body is a shining armor around you for both protection and attraction. Its radiance depends on how deeply you consume prana each day by breathing deeply."
And Yogi Bhajan himself said this ~
"You are wrong if you think your intelligence works or your words are powerful or you are very charismatic. Actually, it is your radiant body, the glow, the shine in you that works."
The Guru Gobind Singh Shakti Mantra meditation works to build this, but so does any other Laya Yoga Mantra practice, and I am doing one. This one. So if you want the light within me, don't skim off the surface, go directly to the Source. Swim up to the surface and do the work yourself. Don't feed off of me. I am a Sikh. I will teach you, but I will teach you how to fish. I will not give you the fish of my body and my energy. I will lead you to the Source of the water in which your fish swims...maybe, if I want to. If I'm not in the space to do it, you can find it without me. You don't really need me. All you need is your Self.
Monday, January 17, 2011
A Sikh Princess in Shining Armor...
...with my kirpan, and a lion of a man at my side, is what my soul aspires to. Some days my mind has other plans. Today I feel on track. My grace, my radiance builds through the daily reading of the Siri Guru Granth Sahib, through meditation, through love, through the sangat of friends and teachers, and sometimes just from sheer Grace. It is said that if a woman practices Grace of God meditation for a year, her aura will become tipped with gold or silver. That, for some odd reason, makes me think of Anne McCaffrey's fire lizards. And then I realize that Menolly was working on her 10 Bodies. She had impressed 9 fire lizard hatchlings, and they hovered around her radiant body, feeding her radiant body with energy, while being encompass by it as well.
But I don't have any fire lizards. I do have 10 Bodies, though. And according to Tantric numerology, I need to work on the 9th and the 10th; the Subtle Body and the Radiant Body.
I have felt lucky lately, but not because I deserved it or wanted it. It is partly a gift, and partly due to choices which have allowed me the grace to consume a lot of prana each day through breathing deeply. And I am not averse to giving some other Terran animal a puff off my oxygen tank, but they need to use it to rise to the surface and breathe for themselves...not dissipate my oxygen by getting high off it, and blowing it all out. People who lament how little time they have for spiritual practices need to stop bringing jealousy to bear on others who do them, and start figuring out how to carve time out of their own days to do it. Lots of people don't realize how much time they fritter away with gossip, TV watching, and puttering around. Even for busy entrepreneurs, CEOs, moms, dads, airline pilots and others...time CAN be carved out. If you wish you didn't have the responsibility of a huge business on your shoulders, sell it, or get a partner, and cut your expenditures. If you wish you were single and didn't have kids, well, you have them, so enjoy them, and look for ways to make time.
I have not created a huge business, nor a growing child. That gives me more time to create other things. I don't have time for anyone's wishing and mopping about because they don't have the time I do. I would have liked to have had children at one point, but that isn't now part of my life. I eventually would like a thriving business, but for now I have the time to work on my spiritual growth and physical health. If I don't do these things before midnight every night, then like Cinderella, the party fades for me. I have to Keep Up! So if you've got issues with jealousy, get over it. The time I have is a necessity in my life right now. The things others have in their lives are integral to theirs. Each of us is doing the best we can with what we have. My gift is time. Your gifts are yours.
But I don't have any fire lizards. I do have 10 Bodies, though. And according to Tantric numerology, I need to work on the 9th and the 10th; the Subtle Body and the Radiant Body.
I have felt lucky lately, but not because I deserved it or wanted it. It is partly a gift, and partly due to choices which have allowed me the grace to consume a lot of prana each day through breathing deeply. And I am not averse to giving some other Terran animal a puff off my oxygen tank, but they need to use it to rise to the surface and breathe for themselves...not dissipate my oxygen by getting high off it, and blowing it all out. People who lament how little time they have for spiritual practices need to stop bringing jealousy to bear on others who do them, and start figuring out how to carve time out of their own days to do it. Lots of people don't realize how much time they fritter away with gossip, TV watching, and puttering around. Even for busy entrepreneurs, CEOs, moms, dads, airline pilots and others...time CAN be carved out. If you wish you didn't have the responsibility of a huge business on your shoulders, sell it, or get a partner, and cut your expenditures. If you wish you were single and didn't have kids, well, you have them, so enjoy them, and look for ways to make time.
I have not created a huge business, nor a growing child. That gives me more time to create other things. I don't have time for anyone's wishing and mopping about because they don't have the time I do. I would have liked to have had children at one point, but that isn't now part of my life. I eventually would like a thriving business, but for now I have the time to work on my spiritual growth and physical health. If I don't do these things before midnight every night, then like Cinderella, the party fades for me. I have to Keep Up! So if you've got issues with jealousy, get over it. The time I have is a necessity in my life right now. The things others have in their lives are integral to theirs. Each of us is doing the best we can with what we have. My gift is time. Your gifts are yours.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Great Teachers or Egomaniacs?
"Don't walk behind me, I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend." ~ Albert Camus
There are people who are great teachers, and they are those whom I will surrender to...Ammachi, Yogi Bhajan, The Siri Guru Granth Sahib, Guru Nanak. There are others who are learning, like me, and they are my friends. The minute I either sense that someone is dwelling in their ego, I will not follow them. If I, conversely, see someone giving their power to me, and I am humble enough to know that I am not qualified, I will not accept it. When I function as a teacher, I am a facilitator, not infallible omnipotence. Not even close. Nor are most people I meet. I do not want the cage or yoke of being treated as other than what I am; in other words, what Kate Winslet's character in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" describes herself as: "I'm just a fucked-up girl looking for her own piece of mind."
If you try to tell me what to do, I am going to watch you closely to see if you are just full of your own ego, or are really worthy of my listening. It's not likely, after what I've been through, that I would fall for a bunch of craziness like what came out of the mouths of Jim Jones and David Koresh. They were not true teachers. They were extreme examples of egomaniacs. There are smaller examples of egomaniacs, and at any given point and time, each of us can behave like one.
Moving on a path of spiritual growth brings a risk of potentially getting too big for your britches or your turban, as it may be. I hope and pray never to be like that. Yogi Bhajan always said that everything he taught came from the grace of Guru Ram Das. Before every lecture he chanted this mantra:
Teree Meher daa bolnaa
Tudh Aagai Ardaas
Guru Guru Waheguru
Guru Ram Das.
Oh, Guru Ram Das, this is my prayer to you.
May my words be from you and may my mind be a source of knowledge and ecstasy that wisdom may come as I act as a servant of the Infinite.
This is my prayer when I go to teach.
There are people who are great teachers, and they are those whom I will surrender to...Ammachi, Yogi Bhajan, The Siri Guru Granth Sahib, Guru Nanak. There are others who are learning, like me, and they are my friends. The minute I either sense that someone is dwelling in their ego, I will not follow them. If I, conversely, see someone giving their power to me, and I am humble enough to know that I am not qualified, I will not accept it. When I function as a teacher, I am a facilitator, not infallible omnipotence. Not even close. Nor are most people I meet. I do not want the cage or yoke of being treated as other than what I am; in other words, what Kate Winslet's character in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" describes herself as: "I'm just a fucked-up girl looking for her own piece of mind."
If you try to tell me what to do, I am going to watch you closely to see if you are just full of your own ego, or are really worthy of my listening. It's not likely, after what I've been through, that I would fall for a bunch of craziness like what came out of the mouths of Jim Jones and David Koresh. They were not true teachers. They were extreme examples of egomaniacs. There are smaller examples of egomaniacs, and at any given point and time, each of us can behave like one.
Moving on a path of spiritual growth brings a risk of potentially getting too big for your britches or your turban, as it may be. I hope and pray never to be like that. Yogi Bhajan always said that everything he taught came from the grace of Guru Ram Das. Before every lecture he chanted this mantra:
Teree Meher daa bolnaa
Tudh Aagai Ardaas
Guru Guru Waheguru
Guru Ram Das.
Oh, Guru Ram Das, this is my prayer to you.
May my words be from you and may my mind be a source of knowledge and ecstasy that wisdom may come as I act as a servant of the Infinite.
This is my prayer when I go to teach.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
I love my mother dearly
I am having a rough time. Winter Solstice White Tantric fallout is likely the primary culprit. If the nausea I felt during the full moon eclipse on the actual first day of Solstice was any indication of what was to come, then I am sure of it. Except I am also tired of St. Louis, and tired of having to greet the damn doorlady 'Pam' everytime I leave the building (as if everyone who lives here must say 'hi' each time they come and go...). She's like a female Rumplestiltskin. For that matter, I am feeling frustrated with anyone who can't see I don't want to talk to them. I think I am about to learn how to say those magic words: "I don't want to talk to you to right now, and if I did you would not see me trying to sneak out the back door past your nosy Enquirer-reading self." Well, maybe not the last part.
I surprised myself with how loudly I said hello back, when I was already on the other side of the glass, and she still insisted that I greet her. Everytime I leave the building she expects this, even if it several times a day. And she says hello so snotty and offended like. If it weren't for the annoying hurt tone, I'd think maybe she used to work as a prison guard, because her behavior makes me feel like I live in a prison.
I think it goes without saying that I am not remotely happy today, but I apparently fake it well. At least my yoga students seemed to like my class, and I laughed and joked with them.
I think the real problem though, is having skimmed both an e-mail on trauma releasing techniques and a book on dealing with trauma. The body's physiological response to trauma can manifest with an overproduction of adrenaline or opiates. It can manifest as asthma, skin conditions, anxiety, chronic fatigue syndrome from hypervigilance, insomnia, phobias, night terrors, and my ever-present, but now slightly more intermittent inability to sleep without the light on, unless someone else is in the room.
Jeesh! Even reading about healing the trauma from the last 40 years is frightening to me. Problem is, I know whatever happened to me as a little girl is so frightening that I can't even bear to remember it all. In fact I am pretty sure that at one point my mother may have tried to kill me, but I don't want to believe that. I love her. How could she do that. And Dad would never believe it. It would break his heart. So hopefully I am wrong. Maybe it's just, I don't know.
All I know is that listening to Snatam Kaur keeps me breathing. It stops the choking and gagging response. And without Kundalini yoga, I don't know what I would do. Probably be dead. So I guess I'll be sticking with Kundalini yoga, Sikhism and a daily practice of Sadhana. Sadhana in the ambrosial hours. It is so important now. So important. I am scared shitless of getting therapy. I don't want to know what I think I already know, because my mother is dead, and I can't go to her, put my arms around her and say I forgive her. But I do. I forgive her for trying to strangle me. I forgive her. I forgive her. God bless her. God bless my mother. I love her. And I know she loved me.
That damn cancer took away the time for us to heal together on this Earth. And I wish she would never have hung herself. Though she took my breath away, I wished she would have kept hers. I guess my worst fears are unfounded. I don't hate her knowing what she did. I love her all the more for trying to heal herself, for being the wonderful mother she became later. What a horrible secret for her to have had to keep to herself. It must have broken her own heart to have known she did that. But then I am not even sure she did do that? Did she? I'm not sure I wish I knew for sure at all. I just know I love her very much, and I want to tell her that whatever she did it is okay now. It's okay now.
I surprised myself with how loudly I said hello back, when I was already on the other side of the glass, and she still insisted that I greet her. Everytime I leave the building she expects this, even if it several times a day. And she says hello so snotty and offended like. If it weren't for the annoying hurt tone, I'd think maybe she used to work as a prison guard, because her behavior makes me feel like I live in a prison.
I think it goes without saying that I am not remotely happy today, but I apparently fake it well. At least my yoga students seemed to like my class, and I laughed and joked with them.
I think the real problem though, is having skimmed both an e-mail on trauma releasing techniques and a book on dealing with trauma. The body's physiological response to trauma can manifest with an overproduction of adrenaline or opiates. It can manifest as asthma, skin conditions, anxiety, chronic fatigue syndrome from hypervigilance, insomnia, phobias, night terrors, and my ever-present, but now slightly more intermittent inability to sleep without the light on, unless someone else is in the room.
Jeesh! Even reading about healing the trauma from the last 40 years is frightening to me. Problem is, I know whatever happened to me as a little girl is so frightening that I can't even bear to remember it all. In fact I am pretty sure that at one point my mother may have tried to kill me, but I don't want to believe that. I love her. How could she do that. And Dad would never believe it. It would break his heart. So hopefully I am wrong. Maybe it's just, I don't know.
All I know is that listening to Snatam Kaur keeps me breathing. It stops the choking and gagging response. And without Kundalini yoga, I don't know what I would do. Probably be dead. So I guess I'll be sticking with Kundalini yoga, Sikhism and a daily practice of Sadhana. Sadhana in the ambrosial hours. It is so important now. So important. I am scared shitless of getting therapy. I don't want to know what I think I already know, because my mother is dead, and I can't go to her, put my arms around her and say I forgive her. But I do. I forgive her for trying to strangle me. I forgive her. I forgive her. God bless her. God bless my mother. I love her. And I know she loved me.
That damn cancer took away the time for us to heal together on this Earth. And I wish she would never have hung herself. Though she took my breath away, I wished she would have kept hers. I guess my worst fears are unfounded. I don't hate her knowing what she did. I love her all the more for trying to heal herself, for being the wonderful mother she became later. What a horrible secret for her to have had to keep to herself. It must have broken her own heart to have known she did that. But then I am not even sure she did do that? Did she? I'm not sure I wish I knew for sure at all. I just know I love her very much, and I want to tell her that whatever she did it is okay now. It's okay now.
Friday, January 14, 2011
"...Just as her dreams came true, her fiction became fact"
Something pulled me this morning to re-read Jane Turner Rylands' short story 'Interpreter' from "Venetian Stories". For a brief moment, I wondered why? Was it looking at Toni's shoe photographs, and reminiscing about the stylish outfits I wore in Venice a decade ago, living a fantasy of being a mysterious incarnation of the Russian princess Anastasia? Was it missing the Prosecco and tiny sandwiches of prosciutto and arugula?
It was simply that this story, which I read upon returning from Venezia, was what set me on the path to weave the stories and fabrications of a life I truly did not have, which has finally almost completely become the life I have. I took the trip to Venice as a spiritual journey, having read another book about taking such journeys. I made a pilgrimage to the churches of Venice really. I have three glass birds of happiness and a blue silk scarf to mark that trip. I resolved to go to the opera before leaving, but did not specify the opera house. It seems the very day I was leaving, the opera season began. But on the Air France flight back, a man from Chicago invited me to the last of the season in Chicago's Lyric Opera ~ a Verdi.
I realized later that I had manifested that gift. I've manifested other gifts since then. Some wanted. Some unwanted. But through it all I know that without the creative force of the universe, none of it would happen. What more of my fiction will become fact? Like Bona's little baritone cat Musci, I am singing! It's a hokey little story, but beautiful. Very beautiful. Intricate like an Italo Calvino novel. What "Invisible Cities" await me? I think too, of Yogi Bhajan's words: "Compassion is the ability to forgive the unforgiveable". If I can let go into that forgiveness, my intuition, like Bona's may blossom like a fat camellia. Her story was all about 'intuition', which this meditation is for developing...how could I have forgotten? :-)
A lifetime ago it seems, but really a decade, I walked those calles near Campo San Stefano and the Piazza San Marco. Palazzo Priuli was my home for a while, just beyond a shrine to Mary, and the only Russian Orthodox Church in Venice. In my purple cashmere dress and black wool coat with a hat of silver fox, I wandered. But it was in the churches for the violin concertos and by the statues with the pigeons that my soul blossomed. I felt I had come home, that I had been there before, been a Venetian merchant's daughter, and before that a young Chinese concubine and geisha with bound lotus feet. I was in a lot of pain. Venice was healing.
Spending time sitting with the Flamenco guitarist from Yugoslavia, and sharing grapes. Wandering the island of Mazzorbo to see the cats and one large dog with eyes like a bear. Even through trusting an elderly gentleman there who broke that trust, I found peace in that city. At night I drank Grand Marnier and another famous drink of orange liquer I can't remember that is unique to Italy. I drank to drown my sorrows...I drowned many of them. During the day I sat near the Florian sipping espresso like I have never tasted before or since, and El Moros: hot chocolate with spicy pepper. The pigeons flew around me and I was transformed. Even when I came home, and back to the job as an exotic dancer that I truly hated but made the best of, that city held a sway in my heart.
When I think of it now, Venice, Italy is the perfect symbol for a lotus flower. The city has her toes in the mud, and her heart in the sky above the buildings the sun glints off of....forget the hanging preposition! It is a city, where, especially in the rain, a flower like me, a 'Heather', must use her intuition to find her way down the maze of calles. Walking the city is like walking a labyrinth. It is healing. And the nectar, the amrit, or Amrita, is there, was there, all the time. It was always within me, even when I came home, and against my intuition, went back to work in the bars on the East Side. How I originally got there, with an aura full of whiteness from two decades living with Spirit, is a long story. People who could see auras then asked me what I was doing there. They said I was an angel, and I suppose I was, for a time, until it beat me down and tore me up...ripped my wings and aura to shreds.
But when it was the worst, I decided to fly to Venice to drown my sorrows, possibly to drown myself, and the vibration in that city first matched my sorrow to lure me in, and then she, Venice, sent me to listen to my heart in every church I entered, every place I sat down. That city is everything about learning to use your intuition, and the stories in this book by Jane Turner Rylands evoke memories, lovely and painful memories all wrapped into one, of a trip that healed lifetimes in an instant.
I taught me I could manifest things into my life just by thinking about them, writing about them. And I have a wish, something as a gift from Spirit if it will ever be meant to be: to go back to Venice someday, and ride in a gondola. I never did that. I would like to ride in a gondola with a Wise Man and a cat on Epiphany. A man wise enough to know that I will never be with him unless he both loves me and marries me. A man whom I also love. I have an idea who that man might be, but maybe my idea is different than God's. Who knows? I have an idea it may feel as if I were one half of the couple in Gabriel Garcia Marquez' "Love In The Time of Cholera" riding down the river, but this river would be the Grand Canal. The great river, like the one in my poem I wrote so long ago, with new babies, souls, floating on lily pads, being pushed by women into the Canal of Life. That city was dirty and smelly, and pretty and beautiful at the same time...just like life. I dream of going back someday...
It was simply that this story, which I read upon returning from Venezia, was what set me on the path to weave the stories and fabrications of a life I truly did not have, which has finally almost completely become the life I have. I took the trip to Venice as a spiritual journey, having read another book about taking such journeys. I made a pilgrimage to the churches of Venice really. I have three glass birds of happiness and a blue silk scarf to mark that trip. I resolved to go to the opera before leaving, but did not specify the opera house. It seems the very day I was leaving, the opera season began. But on the Air France flight back, a man from Chicago invited me to the last of the season in Chicago's Lyric Opera ~ a Verdi.
I realized later that I had manifested that gift. I've manifested other gifts since then. Some wanted. Some unwanted. But through it all I know that without the creative force of the universe, none of it would happen. What more of my fiction will become fact? Like Bona's little baritone cat Musci, I am singing! It's a hokey little story, but beautiful. Very beautiful. Intricate like an Italo Calvino novel. What "Invisible Cities" await me? I think too, of Yogi Bhajan's words: "Compassion is the ability to forgive the unforgiveable". If I can let go into that forgiveness, my intuition, like Bona's may blossom like a fat camellia. Her story was all about 'intuition', which this meditation is for developing...how could I have forgotten? :-)
A lifetime ago it seems, but really a decade, I walked those calles near Campo San Stefano and the Piazza San Marco. Palazzo Priuli was my home for a while, just beyond a shrine to Mary, and the only Russian Orthodox Church in Venice. In my purple cashmere dress and black wool coat with a hat of silver fox, I wandered. But it was in the churches for the violin concertos and by the statues with the pigeons that my soul blossomed. I felt I had come home, that I had been there before, been a Venetian merchant's daughter, and before that a young Chinese concubine and geisha with bound lotus feet. I was in a lot of pain. Venice was healing.
Spending time sitting with the Flamenco guitarist from Yugoslavia, and sharing grapes. Wandering the island of Mazzorbo to see the cats and one large dog with eyes like a bear. Even through trusting an elderly gentleman there who broke that trust, I found peace in that city. At night I drank Grand Marnier and another famous drink of orange liquer I can't remember that is unique to Italy. I drank to drown my sorrows...I drowned many of them. During the day I sat near the Florian sipping espresso like I have never tasted before or since, and El Moros: hot chocolate with spicy pepper. The pigeons flew around me and I was transformed. Even when I came home, and back to the job as an exotic dancer that I truly hated but made the best of, that city held a sway in my heart.
When I think of it now, Venice, Italy is the perfect symbol for a lotus flower. The city has her toes in the mud, and her heart in the sky above the buildings the sun glints off of....forget the hanging preposition! It is a city, where, especially in the rain, a flower like me, a 'Heather', must use her intuition to find her way down the maze of calles. Walking the city is like walking a labyrinth. It is healing. And the nectar, the amrit, or Amrita, is there, was there, all the time. It was always within me, even when I came home, and against my intuition, went back to work in the bars on the East Side. How I originally got there, with an aura full of whiteness from two decades living with Spirit, is a long story. People who could see auras then asked me what I was doing there. They said I was an angel, and I suppose I was, for a time, until it beat me down and tore me up...ripped my wings and aura to shreds.
But when it was the worst, I decided to fly to Venice to drown my sorrows, possibly to drown myself, and the vibration in that city first matched my sorrow to lure me in, and then she, Venice, sent me to listen to my heart in every church I entered, every place I sat down. That city is everything about learning to use your intuition, and the stories in this book by Jane Turner Rylands evoke memories, lovely and painful memories all wrapped into one, of a trip that healed lifetimes in an instant.
I taught me I could manifest things into my life just by thinking about them, writing about them. And I have a wish, something as a gift from Spirit if it will ever be meant to be: to go back to Venice someday, and ride in a gondola. I never did that. I would like to ride in a gondola with a Wise Man and a cat on Epiphany. A man wise enough to know that I will never be with him unless he both loves me and marries me. A man whom I also love. I have an idea who that man might be, but maybe my idea is different than God's. Who knows? I have an idea it may feel as if I were one half of the couple in Gabriel Garcia Marquez' "Love In The Time of Cholera" riding down the river, but this river would be the Grand Canal. The great river, like the one in my poem I wrote so long ago, with new babies, souls, floating on lily pads, being pushed by women into the Canal of Life. That city was dirty and smelly, and pretty and beautiful at the same time...just like life. I dream of going back someday...
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Swans on the Lake at Bok Towers in Lake Wales
After Winter Solstice, I drove down the highway to visit Bok Towers, where my family used to go when I was a little girl. There, on that lake, are two swans. They came so close to me on that chilly Florida day, that I was able to take many beautiful pictures of them. One came so close that he almost touched my hand...
After Sadhana this morning I took my usual Hukam from the Siri Guru Granth Sahib, and then continued to read:
"The Guruward saints, becoming swans, ever peck the Name pearls therefrom. Day and night they ever take bath therein and wash off their filth of pride. Silencing their ego, the pure saint-swans, with love and affection, abide in God's ocean of the guild of the pious. Day and night they remain imbued with the love of the True Name and acquire an abode in God, the ocean."
How beautiful. This day is peacefully blessed. A meditation here for the heart, a meditation there for the heart's arcline that made me almost gag, and then breathe deeper than before...
An appointment made to do a Reiki attunement comes the day after 120 days of Laya Yoga... An appointment to teach yoga & meditation in the Kundalini tradition comes the day before...
Nam. Wahe Guru! I am blessed. With so much positivity, the negativity of myself and others fades away into what appears to be the black ocean, but it is never truly black~ there is always light.
After Sadhana this morning I took my usual Hukam from the Siri Guru Granth Sahib, and then continued to read:
"The Guruward saints, becoming swans, ever peck the Name pearls therefrom. Day and night they ever take bath therein and wash off their filth of pride. Silencing their ego, the pure saint-swans, with love and affection, abide in God's ocean of the guild of the pious. Day and night they remain imbued with the love of the True Name and acquire an abode in God, the ocean."
How beautiful. This day is peacefully blessed. A meditation here for the heart, a meditation there for the heart's arcline that made me almost gag, and then breathe deeper than before...
An appointment made to do a Reiki attunement comes the day after 120 days of Laya Yoga... An appointment to teach yoga & meditation in the Kundalini tradition comes the day before...
Nam. Wahe Guru! I am blessed. With so much positivity, the negativity of myself and others fades away into what appears to be the black ocean, but it is never truly black~ there is always light.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
A new way to do Laya Yoga!?
"There are two voices within us: One is the voice of the ego, and the other the voice of the soul. Justify yourself before the Creator, not before others. Consciously remember the link between you and your Creator. If you can stay free of entanglement from negativity, you are a living god on this earth. This meditation enables one to get lost in the sound current. 'Meditate and feel God for 40 days and you will be liberated.'" ~ p. 144, "Kundalini Yoga Sadhana Guidelines, 2nd ed.", 'Laya Yoga Meditation'
In less than two more weeks I will have done 120 days of Laya Yoga meditation. And now, I find that there are preliminary exercises for this meditation. Nadi Shodana, 10 breaths left nostril, ten breaths right; long deep breathing in prayer pose for 2 min.; Breath of Fire in prayer pose for 1 min.; long deep breathing with the hands in Gyan mudra and the arms up at 60 degrees for 2 min.
???? I never knew. It wasn't in our Teacher Training manual.
Also, this version recommends pulling uddiyana bandh successively higher and tighter with each "uh" sound.
I did this, and the meditation feels dramatically different. It is somehow deeper and richer. Sweeter.
So do I stop at 120 days?
In less than two more weeks I will have done 120 days of Laya Yoga meditation. And now, I find that there are preliminary exercises for this meditation. Nadi Shodana, 10 breaths left nostril, ten breaths right; long deep breathing in prayer pose for 2 min.; Breath of Fire in prayer pose for 1 min.; long deep breathing with the hands in Gyan mudra and the arms up at 60 degrees for 2 min.
???? I never knew. It wasn't in our Teacher Training manual.
Also, this version recommends pulling uddiyana bandh successively higher and tighter with each "uh" sound.
I did this, and the meditation feels dramatically different. It is somehow deeper and richer. Sweeter.
So do I stop at 120 days?
Monday, January 10, 2011
A Treasure Chest of Gems for Your Mind
I am devoted to the Guru. When all else fails, reading from the Siri Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh Holy Book, soothes and cools the heat of my anger. When I want to knock someone to the floor, and kick them in the nuts so hard I could do damage, nothing else will cool those flames but the Guru. The Guru has made me cry. The Guru has filled me with joy. The picture of a former living guru, Guru Nanak, has also softened my angry heart.
Tratak, or gazing at a picture, is a form of meditation. Reading from the Guru is a form of meditation. The Guru is the source for many shabds imbued with the naad, or sound current to heal the mind when repeated in meditation. Kundalini Yoga, the yoga of awareness, gives awareness, intelligence, intuition and compassion. It combines, or more accurately, has never separated asana, mudra, mantra, and pranayama.
"Unlike some approaches to the use of meditation, we use the full power and range of sound and language....Many meditations use language combined with rhythm and a special quality called naad. Naad is an energetic template formed in the root elements of a language. It makes sound penetrate, creates deep shifts in feeling, and opens intuition...A great source for this special catalytic language is from the Sikh tradition in the Siri Guru Granth Sahib. It is a source for universal sounds that capture the dance of the mind, move you to dwell n vastness, and move you to drop your neuroses and fears. It belongs to everyone. It is a treasure chest of gems for your mind. Those secrets that were discovered and left as a legacy by the Gurus are for this time. They are to serve the awakening of humanity as we mature into the new age and expand into space." ~ p. 140
These gems. The treasure chest in my meditation room cum Gurdwara is like a book from that old computer game Myst in my active imagination. The landscape of Myst for me was my mind, and the music playing as I travel down some of those dark corridors of pain and fear, apprehension and grief, is the music of the Shabd Guru imbued with Naad.
Tratak, or gazing at a picture, is a form of meditation. Reading from the Guru is a form of meditation. The Guru is the source for many shabds imbued with the naad, or sound current to heal the mind when repeated in meditation. Kundalini Yoga, the yoga of awareness, gives awareness, intelligence, intuition and compassion. It combines, or more accurately, has never separated asana, mudra, mantra, and pranayama.
"Unlike some approaches to the use of meditation, we use the full power and range of sound and language....Many meditations use language combined with rhythm and a special quality called naad. Naad is an energetic template formed in the root elements of a language. It makes sound penetrate, creates deep shifts in feeling, and opens intuition...A great source for this special catalytic language is from the Sikh tradition in the Siri Guru Granth Sahib. It is a source for universal sounds that capture the dance of the mind, move you to dwell n vastness, and move you to drop your neuroses and fears. It belongs to everyone. It is a treasure chest of gems for your mind. Those secrets that were discovered and left as a legacy by the Gurus are for this time. They are to serve the awakening of humanity as we mature into the new age and expand into space." ~ p. 140
These gems. The treasure chest in my meditation room cum Gurdwara is like a book from that old computer game Myst in my active imagination. The landscape of Myst for me was my mind, and the music playing as I travel down some of those dark corridors of pain and fear, apprehension and grief, is the music of the Shabd Guru imbued with Naad.
Friday, January 7, 2011
The Dogs of Time
"The Dogs of Time are barking the Dawn of Hours, hours of endless waiting." ~ from a poem I wrote when I was 24, 20 years ago...
The Age of Aquarius, the Water-Bearer, is dawning. The astrological sign of my mother's birth. The dawning of a new age. Listening to Mata Mandir Singh's "Turn of the Age", with it's version of 'The Age of Aquarius' and also 'Humme Hum Brahm Hum' is the background as I read from Yogi Bhajan's "The Mind: Its Projections and Facets":
"But those who belittle you and try to bring you down are just dogs of the time. They have to bark. They are emotional creeps who cannot do anything but what they do. Love them anyway. Be confident of your own consciousness and let life be vast and creative as it is....
...Don't get hurt by trusting them. Do offer trust to life. When you cannot trust, then at least love. Hatred will go against you and kill you. Vengeance will ruin and cripple you. Anger will rend and cripple your body, and initiate every disease. Your mind may drop those angers and mistrusts, but they leave a scar in the body and wear it down, so live with lightness and patience." ~ p. 114
Hatred. Vengeance. Anger. I've been down this path before. It made me sick with CFS, mononucleosis, strep, asthma, eczema, chronic bronchitis, unexplained vomiting, IBS and other things. It isn't worth it. Let life teach those people...as it will.
The Age of Aquarius, the Water-Bearer, is dawning. The astrological sign of my mother's birth. The dawning of a new age. Listening to Mata Mandir Singh's "Turn of the Age", with it's version of 'The Age of Aquarius' and also 'Humme Hum Brahm Hum' is the background as I read from Yogi Bhajan's "The Mind: Its Projections and Facets":
"But those who belittle you and try to bring you down are just dogs of the time. They have to bark. They are emotional creeps who cannot do anything but what they do. Love them anyway. Be confident of your own consciousness and let life be vast and creative as it is....
...Don't get hurt by trusting them. Do offer trust to life. When you cannot trust, then at least love. Hatred will go against you and kill you. Vengeance will ruin and cripple you. Anger will rend and cripple your body, and initiate every disease. Your mind may drop those angers and mistrusts, but they leave a scar in the body and wear it down, so live with lightness and patience." ~ p. 114
Hatred. Vengeance. Anger. I've been down this path before. It made me sick with CFS, mononucleosis, strep, asthma, eczema, chronic bronchitis, unexplained vomiting, IBS and other things. It isn't worth it. Let life teach those people...as it will.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
A Woman's Nobility
I am beautiful. I am bountiful. I am blissful. My strength, nobility, radiance and courage are in my 10th Body, the Radiant Body. If the key to balancing this is commitment and not cutting the hair, then I think I will finally reconcile to not cutting my hair. If I want to move past this pain I must also allow my anger to dissipate, and the best way I know to do this is Sadhana AND for me more importantly ~ meditative recitation of the Siri Guru Granth Sahib. This also brings the 11th embodiment. It heals me.
Yogi Bhajan said: "A woman without reverence has no strength. You must demand reverence. It's your right. You must command reverence. Otherwise you will be exploited and misled. You'll be cheated. Your essence of life is an essential part of your happiness. The benefit is that your energy will be restored."
He also says: "Each of you could have the most radiant Tenth Body! If you do not breath properly, with only an upper, shallow breath, you can be raped ~ not only sexually, but socially, and personally."
The veil of Maya gives us the illusion of separateness from our Source. The densest levels of this separateness are experienced as the earthly elements: earth, water, fire, air and ether. These are the Five Tattvas, which correspond to the 1st through 5th chakras. The Tattvas each have projections and attachments. They cannot be got rid of...only channeled better.
The projection for the Apas Tattva (that associated with the 2nd chakra), is Kam, or Lust. Yogi Bhajan says: "Instead of being lustful to exploit new bodies, a man can see in a woman, not an object of exploitation, but a mother or sister image to be respected. He can keep his dignity, keep his respect, and change his attitude from exploitation to service."
A woman retains the energetic imprints of any type of sexual encounter with a man for much longer than men do. We are just designed that way. I don't wish to have this imprint that I am carrying now, so I will likely do the special form of Kirtan Kriya. Respectful male companionship is all I will tolerate in the future. I need men in my life who know how to love with their hearts.
Until I find one of those I love and who loves me, no man will ever touch my private parts again. Now I am free to devote my thoughts to caring for those I love, and who need my prayers...
Yogi Bhajan said: "A woman without reverence has no strength. You must demand reverence. It's your right. You must command reverence. Otherwise you will be exploited and misled. You'll be cheated. Your essence of life is an essential part of your happiness. The benefit is that your energy will be restored."
He also says: "Each of you could have the most radiant Tenth Body! If you do not breath properly, with only an upper, shallow breath, you can be raped ~ not only sexually, but socially, and personally."
The veil of Maya gives us the illusion of separateness from our Source. The densest levels of this separateness are experienced as the earthly elements: earth, water, fire, air and ether. These are the Five Tattvas, which correspond to the 1st through 5th chakras. The Tattvas each have projections and attachments. They cannot be got rid of...only channeled better.
The projection for the Apas Tattva (that associated with the 2nd chakra), is Kam, or Lust. Yogi Bhajan says: "Instead of being lustful to exploit new bodies, a man can see in a woman, not an object of exploitation, but a mother or sister image to be respected. He can keep his dignity, keep his respect, and change his attitude from exploitation to service."
A woman retains the energetic imprints of any type of sexual encounter with a man for much longer than men do. We are just designed that way. I don't wish to have this imprint that I am carrying now, so I will likely do the special form of Kirtan Kriya. Respectful male companionship is all I will tolerate in the future. I need men in my life who know how to love with their hearts.
Until I find one of those I love and who loves me, no man will ever touch my private parts again. Now I am free to devote my thoughts to caring for those I love, and who need my prayers...
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