Thursday, December 31, 2009

"They won't care how much you know, until they know how much you care"

The day before yesterday, when I was at my sickest, I called someone I know who's stepfather just died of cancer. I listened attentively over the phone because I DO care. I know what it feels like to lose someone to cancer. I did not offer advice. What advice does she need? Just an ear to hear her. I couldn't hug her physically because she could conceivably have caught the physical illness side of what is going on with me. So I listened. I took the time. I can listen, but you have to ask.

No advice. I too have spent my life wanting other people to know how much I know, afraid that without my intelligence I am nothing. That is neither rational nor intuitive. It isn't being kind to myself or anyone else. Dad reminded me yesterday, when I said I realized I was a Know-it-all just like my friend: "They won't care how much you know, until they know how much you care."

Bound Lotus was so easy last night. The day before was the most excruciating it has ever been, and yesterday the easiest. I forgot to sit up and do the half-bind. The pain turned into bliss, albeit a soft, quiet kind of bliss. Today, after lots and lots more sleep, I feel even better...I've just been in the crucible burning up dross as an alchemist would say...it happens. It is part of life. A friend from Luggage Seva at Solstice said, when I apologized for not being able to pull my weight and being a little bitchy, that it is no worries. Life has it's ups and downs. Every day can't be blissful. When I took my first Reiki attunement, I needed that constant bliss so much to heal. When I asked my Dad why he wouldn't to be blissed out every day, he said: "Because that isn't real life."

Real life has pain and joy both. Some days are better than others. Today is better than yesterday. Yesterday I had a fabulously wonderful conversation with one of my bosses, but I was still sick. It didn't change that. It did make me smile though. We laughed. I coughed. I pulled the phone away from my mouth so I wouldn't blow her eardrums out. Today's a little better.

Bound Lotus was almost as easy as yesterday, and I find myself wanting to get back into the swing of my magickal practices that I left behind while at Solstice. Yogis get a little to airy, and my practice of Banishings and The Middle Pillar and The Rose Cross keep me grounded. I think I should not have stopped doing them. With a little more perspective behind me, and some dissillusionment, I think I shall continue being my happy combination of semi-Hindu and Pagan. For one thing, I'm not into wearing white all the time. But the physical yoga practices are very healing. Like Saul David Raye, I pick and choose. I resonate most strongly with his style of teaching; it allows me to fully integrate all the different parts of myself, including the sensual side that doesn't seem to fit with the Sikhs and Kundalini Yoga.

I've been thinking I don't need anyone else's advice about how to be who I am. What works for them may not work for me. So as I go into the New Year, I'll take my cue from Queen Victoria: listen to suggestions but make my own decisions.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

40 Days of Moon Kriya to End on Feb. 2nd

Alternate title: "Damn Snow"

If it snows one more time this week I'm gonna scream. And yet snowflakes under a microscope are so pretty. In St. Louis: just slush and black ice. So my black mood continues. Whatever. Yesterday I felt as if I were literally burning at the stake. Hot air in my throat. Feeling like I'm gagging on dirt clods. Bound Lotus did NOT bring up good memories. This stuff is old. Old, I tell you. And every day here at the Circle P Dude Ranch is the same. Pretty much. Funny I'll finish this 'Moon Kriya' for processing White Tantric Yoga on, none other than Groundhog's Day. My mother's birthday. The day we watch the damn groundhog squint his little eyes in the sun hopefully. I feel like Bill Murray. Where's my toaster? Hah. Cynicism is at least a sign of life. Screw this trying to "coax" myself into a good mood. I feel like shit, and have since Monday. Every damn day is the same, and Bound Lotus sucks. I hate it. Blah, blah, blah...

I miss everyone in Florida. St. Louis blows. Not that I want to go to Florida, with all it's covert racism, but, you know, maybe, um, California, where I belong. I feel like a duck out of water here. I don't want to stay here. I don't want to date anyone who lives here. I want to leave. I hate the winters here too. I look at the clock and I wake up and start coughing AGAIN! If it weren't so wet and cold I could go outside. I just want to sit under my favorite ginko tree. I hate this weather. I'm not a happy camper. Not at all. And if people don't like it, well this is how I feel. This is my blog. This is how I feel right now. I'm still doing the work. Still chanting, still doing Bound and the Moon Kriya. We'll see.

Yesterday was 57 days of Bound Lotus. As many years as my mother lived. I plan to live beyond that, if I can get through this crap. It's like cleaning a huge cobweb and dust covered mansion. "May the flowers of devotion bloom in the gardens of my heart." But the 'Secret Garden' feels dead and old. Where's my little bird to take me over the wall?

Some people just don't get it. There is a lot to be said for attitude, but sometimes you are just sick because you did TOO much, and got exposed to too much rain, cold and snow. But everyone who is a control freak likes to believe that they can change everything with a snap of their fingers. As this crud got a hold of me, I've absolutely loved hearing from certain individuals how THEY aren't going to let it get to them, and THEY will stay well. Arrogant. I've also been told - by people who only text messaged me and e-mailed me, and never heard my voice or how PHYSICALLY sick I was - how my problems would magically all be solved if I just stepped outside of my little cave into the cold air and had lunch dates and talked to people. Yeah! When you sound like you have tuberculosis and have to spit wads of white goo every couple of minutes people will just be banging down your door to have you in their restaurant or kitchen. But you know, if you really knew me you'd know this, cause you'd have picked up the phone and CALLED me.

I've been sick. So crucify me. It must be all my fault for not reading Louise L. Hays damn book before this crud took hold. Some illnesses have to happen. This New Age bullshit of blaming the victim for having to walk through the fire, and this namby-pamby feel-good-all-the-time crap is not reality. It is living in a fantasy world!!!!! A fantasy world. The movie "Beach" comes to mind. What is the difference between screaming in pain like the dude in the movie did because his leg got bitten off, and screaming in pain because you've coughed so much you are coughing up blood and you now sound like Lauren Bacall? Besides the 'obvious' difference that I'm not missing a leg...none!

Just people who can't be present for someone else's pain and grief that needs to be released. When you can go and visit someone who is letting go of grief decades old and be with them instead of texting them, my God, let alone lecturing them about how "they just need to get out"...THEN you might have the authority later, if they are well physically but have been mucking around in grief for too long, to tell them to get up off their duffs. Until then, until you can spend time holding the gaze of someone in tremendous mental pain - GFY.

That having been said, it's funny how my voice no longer sounds like Lauren Bacall, and the coughing is not quite as severe...enough, not to go outside, but to go downstairs and say "hi" to the people in the office and ask about their step-fathers who have passed away to cancer, and their new boyfriends, and then....share some chocolate and a smile. Albeit, with some distance because the coughing is still there. Maybe what I needed was not a lunch date, but to tell someone off for being an asshole.

Amazingly, it seems, I feel so much better. Know-it-alls. I used to be one. I thought my mother was a failure for getting cancer, and not maintaning a positive attitude. I wanted to believe in all that Louise L. Hays crap ( not to say that in lots of cases it isn't true what she says...what she says does seem to have a lot of merit - just not in every case), and crucify my mother for not getting well. But you know what? She healed her soul before she died. She healed her soul. And that is what I am doing. It hurts, it's painful, but I think I can get through.

One last note: I wasn't looking for advice. I was looking for compassion. A warm hug from someone up close and personal. If you believe all that New Age stuff to a fault, put your money where your mouth is, and hug me while I cough like I'm gonna die of tuberculosis tomorrow. Don't text message me, hug me. Hold my hand, look in my eyes and smile. BE the human contact you say I need. And that goes for everybody who has ever said to me when I've been sick this and "wanting", calling, asking for company to watch a movie or share lunch; the way they've said: "Call me when you feel better." NO! Get your selfish ass over here with some chicken soup today...or are you afraid you'll catch it, and you don't really practice what you preach?

One final note: anyone who doesn't like reading this particular post in all it's raw pain and honesty...doesn't have to read it. Suit yourself. Have a nice day. Love and light. I can tell myself tomorrow will be better...

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

"Sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care..."

Yesterday was truly awful, but today is a little better. I have some energy back, and I used it to make a big pot of Yogi Tea, or 'WaheGuMoo' as they labeled it at Solstice. It is so nice. I can't believe I was able to do Bound Lotus last night! Or even the Moon Kriya and the chanting of "akhan jor chupay na jor". I wanted to do the Kirtan Kriya for women too...maybe I can start that today.

This particular kriya can cleanse a woman's aura and subconscious of past sexual experiences. According to Hari Kaur Khalsa in "A Woman's Book of Yoga":

"Each act of sexual intercourse deeply imprints itself upon a woman. You are the receiver of the seed, and even though the act of sex may end, it remains in your psyche as an imprint, like an image imprinted on the film of a camera. The male gives the seed to the woman, and when intercourse is over, he does not carry as deep an imprint on his psyche. Many women have difficulty healing after negative sexual experiences because their pain becomes so deeply rooted."

She also says:

"Kirtan Kriya is the meditation for both for balancing your eleven Moon Centers and for helping you go through transitions with strength and stability. The first version is specifically for women... Kirtan Kriya is also a healing meditation for women trying to let go of past relationships with men, and is helpful in eliminating both the physical and mental associations with these men. Kirtan Kriya can give a woman a brilliant internal radiance that illuminates her aura and presence."

Somehow I don't think this Kriya is gonna happen. I'm freaking out. I can't breathe again, and my eyes have turned red. Watching the movie "Chocolat" I started to hyperventilate when Josephine left her husband. I felt as if I was on fire, burning, tied up, with no way out, panicking, and I wanted to just die. I heard myself moaning, as if my body were someone else's. I wanted to leave my body and just die the way a friend's stepfather with cancer just did before they ever put the port in for chemo. He left his body. He didn't have to go through chemo and feel the burn of radiation like my mother, he just slipped away. I want to slip away not from life, but from this pain. Bound Lotus is sheer Hell. I've done it. And now all I want to do is cry, but I can't or I won't be able to breathe. My nose and lips are raw and cracking. Nothing but constant pristine white mucus and cobwebs to breathe through.

The only thing that has brought some measure of relief is a Kundalini meditation for Emotional Balance where my hands are pressed under my armpits, and my shoulders hunched forward and pulled up to my ears. The grief and pain I'm experiencing are overwhelming and this is my only relief. Sat Inder says this is what White Tantric Yoga brings up to be released. Oh my God, please help me make it through. I can't even worry about work or appointments, or teaching right now. Thank God I don't have to until next week.

Monday, December 28, 2009

Requesting a Spiritual Name...

All last night, while in the midst of coughing up thick white mucus, and getting up several times just to breathe, I dreamed I was doing several Kundalini Yoga sets in this order: Chanting the "akhan jor chupay na jor" with the hand movements I'd just read about before bed on www.satyasingh.com/fromfeartolove, doing the recommended Moon Kriya for processing the openings from Winter Solstice and the Water Tattva, and Kirtan Kriya (p. 63, "A Woman's Book of Yoga"), a meditation to balance a woman's eleven moon centers: Hairline, Ear Lobes, Inner Thighs, Belly Button/Back, Back of Neck, Lips, Cheeks, Breasts, Eyebrows, Vagina, and Clitoris. I woke up wanting very much to have two things: freedom from breathing difficulties and throat chakra issues, and a Gurmukhi spiritual name from 3HO. I got up and found my birth certificate, which it turns out I did not need, and signed up online. In 2-3 weeks I should know... I noticed there is a name that sounds like my legal birth name, and then Lakshmi and Saraswati are both names that could be given. Adi Shakti is one I love too, but I'm sure whatever name I receive will be a blessing and be appropriate for me.

I think I'll go and do the Kriyas in the order in which they were in my dream, followed by Bound Lotus, and begin my day in love and light and happiness even though I feel quite sick. I slept from 9 to 1am, then 2:30 to 5:30 am, and 6:30 to 7:30 am. It is a total of 8 hours, which is more than I got most days at Solstice, and my sleep was choppy then too because of the coughing. I really want my lungs to be clear and to breathe smoothly. I'm not wanting to whine, but why do I have to have such severe throat chakra issues? It keeps myself and other people awake, and is socially isolating. It sucks. Besides that, my throat is just almost raw to the point of bleeding. I want to breathe!!!!!!!

Today is sheer Hell!!! I'm sick as a dog. Sat Inder called about doing Sat Nam Rasayan and possibly a Reiki attunement, and he seems to think I just need to get outside, "out of my cave", as he says. The hell I do. I've got chills, a fever, the flu, full-blown and raging by now, I'm on my period, and I have a splitting migraine. The cold air outside makes me cough, and that makes my head feel like someone is whacking it with a machete. I feel like shit. Complete and utter shit. I hurt everywhere... my muscles ache, almost excruciatingly - it feels like I have Chronic Fatigue (myalgic encephalitis) and Fibromyalgia all over again! This SUuuuuCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't want this...I don't want to sit in Bound Lotus.

It is now 10:23 pm, and after calling my dad and asking him to hold me in his prayers that I may get well AND do Bound Lotus on day 56 and not have to start all over again, I have done it. I had the worst panic attack and intense anxiety I've ever had, wailing and screaming in pain and sheer mental agony. I thought I'd stopped breathing. I shook uncontrollably and fought off the intense urge to vomit. It is done now, and the peace I feel tells me that part of the resistance was purely psychological, with the raw parts of my mind resisting being touched, but I'm still sick. My head still hurts and I have a fever. Still. Winter Solstice was too intense. It was too hard. Too much. I feel like a butterfly trapped in a cocoon of pain.

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Bound Lotus, Moon Kriya, and Kirtan Kriya


It feels as if the energy present during Kundalini Winter Solstice is infusing itself into my surroundings. When I awoke, the energy in my bedroom felt clear. The room feels huge! It feels somehow very different. When I first woke up, I didn't even know where I was...but the way I've always wished for my whole apartment to feel like my meditation room does is now a reality. I feel that peace in every room. This is from all of the chanting, the singing, the pujas, kriyas and yoga I do.

I'm drawn to several practices, chanting in Gurmukhi and Kriyas, that I want to do in conjunction with Bound Lotus, as well as for the 40 days of clearing from White Tantric Yoga. The 'Moon Kriya' I've already done for two days at Sat Inder's suggestion. But I also want to chant the "akhan jor chupay na jor" to release fear and create trust in my inner guidance. And this morning I found a Kirtan Kriya for women to heal and release attachments to men from past sexual relationships. It is to release the seeds implanted by sexual intercourse and to let go of the past. I think I need to do these practices, and be willing to let go of some others. I also feel that Yogi Bhajan was supposed to be my teacher back in 2000, but I avoided him and the opportunity to meet him in his lifetime. When I got too sick to do asana practices I was drawn to Amma.

But now it seems the torch is being passed to Yogi Bhajan. Amma is like my mother, but she gives you the fish. So many people coming to see her are not growing any further, not because she won't help them, because she will, but I think because it is too easy for them not too. They come to her for energy instead of learning to tune in and create their own. I know this is judgement, but her teachings served their purpose for me at a time in my spiritual growth when I needed my hand held tightly as I crossed the street. Now it is time to explore what is on this side of the street, and let go of my mother's hands...both the spirit of my birth mother and Amma.

I will still go to see her, but I feel she is telling me to move on from her classroom to the next. It's like Yogi Bhajan is my new homeroom teacher, but I'm free to still take a class with Amma if I want. I'm cool with this. It seems like the next step. And on day 55 of Bound Lotus, I'm in the middle of the 90 days it takes to create a new change. It feels kind of like a Square Dance, or more like Contra-Dancing. I can hear the caller saying: "Turn to the left! Promenade!" White Tantric felt like that with all of the geometric lines, and the energies moving on the diagonals.

I went to see the movie 'Avatar', and found myself missing everyone at Solstice terribly. When the blue people, the Na'vi, sit in circle and circle around from the waist and shake their arms and chant, I realized that is what we all would have looked like doing White Tantric Yoga. And the soul tree would be the facilitator and the spirit of the Siri Singh Sahib. This movie that is so popular is dead on about saving the earth, about searching for the peace of nature instead of cars, diamond rings and watches.

I listened to the bani 'So Purkh' today in English and it is incredibly beautiful! I want to fall asleep to it. I asked Dad if I could sing it for him and he said yes. This is a chant that only women sing, and they sing it for the men to heal them of wanting to start wars, to make them saintly, and to heal anger and deep grief. It is so beautiful! Who knew that Bound Lotus would take me to these places in my soul that I have been? Only God.

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Bound Lotus on the Road Again...


We stopped last night in Valdosta, Georgia and I did Bound Lotus at about 7:30 am on my brown lambskin stretched on the floor of hotel room 224 at the Quality Inn. Sat Inder let me comb it out last night, and then borrowed it to practice on this morning. I feel as if he sort of blessed my practice. In my warm-up I came into Eka Pada Rajakapotasana again with my foot touching my head. Sat Inder said I breathe through my mouth that far back and I need to breathe through my nose. I did last night, but I think that was because the sky was my ceiling. A white ceiling feels contracting to me. The sky feels endless. This makes me want to do my practice outside more often...

Last night Sat Inder and I decided to begin 40 days of 'The Moon Kriya' that is recommended to process the three days of White Tantric Yoga #22. It made me laugh hysterically, or maybe I was just tired. Sat Inder said there's a lot going on with that Kriya... I did it again today, and it was much easier; I think I did 'process' quite a lot of stuff on the drive back while talking to Sat Inder and listening Sada Sat Kaur's "mantra masala". Sat Sundertat and Jot Niringen told me about it. I'd heard 'Wah Yantee' first and fell in love with it.

We also listened to the a Capella CD "from fear to love", and the chant: sa re ga ma pa da ni sa ta na ma... To elevate you and make your voice sweet and pure. Then Sat Inder put on a version of: akhan jor chupay na jor... to change fear to trust in your inner guidance, and I cried and sucked in a lot of cool air while listening. Afterwards I had spontaneous shaking and twitching that seemed like something deep was clearing. I came home and hugged Paul so hard when I saw him. He was happy to see me. He's like an uncle to me... I love being home in my own bed, but I miss Winter Solstice. Even if Summer Solstice is 4 x's as many people, I have to go!

Friday, December 25, 2009

Bound Lotus by the lake...

At 12:40 am or so this morning, I did Bound Lotus by the lake with a friend who has been doing Bound Lotus for 4 and a half years. In my warm-up, I found that I was able to get into Eka Pada Rajakapotasana not only close to what I could do before I fell on my head, but beyond. I found my feet and held them to the back of my head, which I never dreamed would happen this year, much less after the injury. I was so filled with gratitude that I cried to the heavens, literally, doing yoga under the beautiful sky! Then Bound Lotus came easily and blissfully. I actually lost track of time. It was a Merry Christmas under the stars...

Then Santa came and left the morning dew on my pillow and lambskin as I slept under the stars for the second time in my life, this time gazing at a beautiful tree covered with Spanish moss. My friend and I shared an orange and then went to sleep, awakening under a blanket of morning dew. As magickal as that was, I do hope my things dry before we leave, especially my brand new down pillow.

And on this Merry Christmas I go to work at the Luggage tent with all my fabulous friends and Luggage family.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Christmas Eve Day...

...at least Bound Lotus was easy, and at least I have some of Sat Sundertat's fabulous chocolate. That will get me through a 10 hour day of lifting luggage. Ick. I have high hopes of having a good day though. At least I won't be alone for Christmas. Last night we had a meeting in the Luggage tent about work shifts, and I volunteered for the next two days to work at 2:45 am, but Pritam Hari was so spacey he didn't write it down. Then Jot said I wasn't on there and they needed me for 2:45 - 8 am and then 12:15 - 6 pm. I asked how the hell I was supposed to sleep AND go to the one workshop I wanted to go to: Sat Nam Rasayan?!?!?!

They relented and gave me 12:15 - 10 pm.

So this morning I did Bound Lotus and cried. I'm so exhausted. So tired. Then I went to the workshop with Mahan Kirn Khalsa (teacher of Bound Lotus) on the healing technique of Sat Nam Rasayan. We did several Kundalini Yoga sets interspersed with lying down alternately to receive the gift of healing from our partners. The set with the hands in a Vulcan greeting really spoke to me. At the end, after writing down everything I could remember, and asking Mahan Kirn for advice, she said I should do that one meditation for 31 minutes a day...

Someone heard us talking and asked if I'd really managed to write everything down since this sequence is not in any book. I told him yes, and offered to e-mail it. In the process of talking, I discovered that he is almost done with 1'000 days of Bound Lotus! I feel so much better, so much a part of the sangha now, that I regret deciding never to come again to Solstice, and forgive my group for abandoning me. After all, who I was really angry at was my mother for leaving, and a little at Sat Inder for hanging out all the time with Hari Purkh and ignoring me. But that's so laughable that I care about that. It isn't important. My mother was in a great deal of pain and it wasn't about me. Sat Inder is just enjoying meeting new people that in less than a few days will be gone, and it isn't about me. Talking to Hari Purkh is what he needs, and Sat Nam Rasayan is what I needed.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

3rd Day of White Tantric and The Blind Walk


Yes, well, Bound Lotus was definitely difficult. More later. I'm quite tired.

Today is the third day of White Tantric Yoga. I am partnering with a guy named Leland, and he is very shy. Most of the exercises today were for 62 minutes, a few for 31. They were hard. Each is done seated in Easy Pose, with a repetitive movement of the arms for the duration. Many require constantly looking into the eyes of your partner, even if they are crying in grief and agony welling up from deep inside. The deep release I found practising with Jiwan Shakti does not seem possible today.

For lunch we have our Tantric burgers that are so delicious, and prepare for two more exercises, and then the Blind Walk for 3 hours! At first I look forward to this, surrendering to walk with 10 others in a line, with a leader, but within 5 minutes I'm angry. This bastard behind me keeps yanking my arm out of it's socket, and every time I try to shift my hand he grabs it in the same grip again, only tighter. I want to scream: "You goddamn fucking control freak let me go!!!!!!!!!!" Finally I do say politely: "You need to let go a little bit of my hand. I have a neck and shoulder injury." This has no noticeable effect. Eventually I say it again, and he snaps: "I'm barely touching you!" since we are standing and waiting for someone to pee, I let go his hand and fold my arms over my chest. One of the monitors tries to get us to hold hands again. I refuse, so they moved me between two other people. This works out wonderfully, except that we are walking for three hours! I am weak, exhausted, and aware that normally a Blind Walk is only for one hour.

When we get back to the main circle and the Water Tent, we are almost done, do I raise my hand to go and pee. After coming out of the porta-potty, I stand there waiting, and no one comes for me. Finally I open my eyes and see that my group has gone. I feel like the picture of myself at age 4, in the fields on top of Grandfather Mountain, crying in my little red dress. Another monitor sees me, and shrugs her shoulders. I've opened my eyes now, and I'm deeply hurt and angry. Livid with rage. Angry at my mother for getting cancer and leaving me, and us.

I stomp off toward the lake. Once I think I am out of earshot, I scream at the top of my lungs. I scream again and again and again. A woman on the lake hears me and answers back in pity which I hate her for intensely. I find my way to the black mesh fence that encloses the camp, and barely hidden from view is a large, vaginal-like opening that looks to be created on purpose. I hesitate, then step through to the other side.

Over here it feels lonely and empty. I feel completely alone. Cut off from people and God. The vibe is tangibly different. I walk around for a little, contemplating walking deeper in, just to let God know I'm angry. Then I realize that I'm only hurting myself. I come back through the opening, but I don't feel reborn. I feel lost...and very sure that I will never pass this way again nor ever, ever, ever come to another Solstice.

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

2nd Day of White Tantric!


I am amazed at how easy Bound Lotus was to do... I woke up with barely enough time, and did it very quickly and easily. I think this is a blessing and reprieve from the hard work to come. Everyone says that today will be really tough. 11 hours of yoga and meditation sounds tough. Yesterday was 8! My partner today was supposed to be Pritam Hari, but I couldn't find him, just as Sat Inder couldn't find me yesterday. So Jiwan Shakti was my partner, and he was very compassionate and kind. I cried through the first meditation at 62 minutes chanting Wahe Guru and making a clapping movement. The next one with Sat Kriya arms in front of us was so hard on my shoulders that I thought after 2 minutes of torture I'd never be able to do another hour. Surprisingly, I was able, and it moved the pain in my back 6 inches down. My shoulders opened deeply. They've never ever been this open before. But wow! All of these meditations are quite difficult. This is cleansing so much emotional pain and physical toxins from my body. My sinus drainage was black! I know that is gross, but it's true. I'm not sick, it's just White Tantric Yoga clearing deeply held toxins from my body. It was a black tar-like substance. I guess it is a form of Ama - toxins (not to be confused with Amma - The Hugging Saint).

I feel as if ojas is being created. This ama is being released, and it has happened before when I went to see Amma. I also experienced spontaneous moola bhanda today, just like I did with Amma in 2006. This is hard work.

I'm exhausted, and very glad that I bought lots of Indigo Nights organic fudge with dates and white chocolate yoga bars to snack on, as well as dried kale with soy protein. I keep running back to the cabin, and running into my cabinmates, Ananda, Simrat, Santokh, and Sada Ananda, or Kumiko. Kumiko and her teacher are here from Japan. They've taught me how to say hello for the different times of day: 'Ohio', 'Konichiwa', and 'Konbonwa'! I love Japanese! I'd love to learn to speak it fluently.

I've also, at some point, met this woman named Hydee, who I just love for no apparent reason. I haven't really talked to her, I just love her, and we exchanged e-mails. I met Gurunater two days ago, and bought a bloodstone mala from her. She said that people who take Sat Nam Rasayan like to use bloodstone malas, and I can place it inbetween my partner and myself during White Tantric. She pulled out 'Melody's' and said that bloodstone is good for healing lung problems and skin rashes, as well as processing healing work. This is good, as everyone tells me that one day of White Tantric us like a year of meditation, and I'm doing three! I'm grateful to have net Gurunater and received her advice. Everyone I meet, just about, feels like an old friend.

Monday, December 21, 2009

The Practice Before the 1st Day of White Tantric Yoga

I awoke at 2:45 am to cough for 20 minutes, and then sit in Bound Lotus. Yeah! Another day, but today I will be doing the 1st day of White Tantric Yoga with Sat Inder Singh. I'm a little nervous, and Bound Lotus was tough to do. I want to sleep, and my left hip has all of a sudden gotten extremely tight. I went to Tantric, and my partner for today already paired up with someone else. I was really hurt. I started to cry, and a man came up to ask me what was wrong. He said he'd be my partner. I had such a hard time letting go of the situation. It brought up lots of abandonment issues. I was angry. I cried all the way through the first eye-gazing exercise. The heart meditation was easier. Clasping opposite elbows (another 62 min meditation) made my knees hurt. This was a very unusual day.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Getting Bound Lotus done before Gudwara

The guitar strumming minstrel awoke us outside our cabin at 3:45 am, singing "get out of your bunk, you little lump", and "do breath fire until your blue in the face with the guru's grace..." or something like that. I woke up laughing - like Saul David Raye told us to do, and got ready to go to Sadhana first, but something said inside: Do Bound Lotus now, so here I am warming up...And so it goes. Day 48 begins:

Saturday, December 19, 2009

A little 'Lotus' in the 'Big' tent

I woke up at 3:30 and did a Ritam Yoga practice, because I miss Saul's style of teaching. By 4:15 I felt good enough to go to sadhana in the White Tantric tent. I joined in for some yoga and chanting, and then did Bound Lotus right next to the guy I met who is working with the kids. It was harder to clasp my elbows and do the bind sitting up because I was wearing more clothes; but emotionally and mentally it was like a breeze compared to yesterday. I barely coughed either. I really think that chocolate S. gave me was extraordinarily healing!

Friday, December 18, 2009

I just want to scream!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is so difficult. I feel so angry and frustrated with the women in my seva group. So bitchy and judgemental. Cliqueish. Boorish. I feel like kicking their asses. Sooooo angry. Angry at my mother for taking the easy way out of life...I can finally say she is a hypocrite, having scolded me for trying to commit suicide at 16, and then doing it herself 13 years ago. I wanta scream: "Hypocrite! Liar!"

I'm tired. Sleep-deprived. We worked for 10 hours in the rain yesterday. I just blubber my way through Bound Lotus, and use up a half roll of tissue. I'm in agony mentally. Grief-stricken. I feel like beating people up. I don't like these feelings. I want to get out of Bound Lotus, but I also want to stay in it and deal with these issues. Keith wants me to come to sadhana and burn up this stuff. This is scary and painful, but I want to grow...

By 11am I was chatting happily with some of my co-workers, and had succeeded in shutting out the reality of this one woman who was dragging me down and trying to hook into my energy. Such a Piscean attitude. But I know why she's here. I talked with a girl about 'Ringing Cedars' from Siberia, and some books on Anastasia. Then she asked me if I like chocolate, and told me that she heals people with chocolate. She makes it with raw chocolate, lacuna (?), essential oils like ylang-ylang, honey, chili and she grinds the chocolate for hours while chanting over it. She gave me a piece, and I just wanted to smell it. Then I ate it, and I felt so amazing! My coughing stopped for hours and I felt as high as a hot air balloon! Some guys from Chattanooga came in and brought chocolate too...homemade as well, with goji berries, coconut, hemp seeds... Fabulous! I feel so much better. Pritam Hari, our team leader, was so funny too...making me smile all day long. And after the rain, a double rainbow came out! This is year of the Water Tattva. Powerful healing for emotional issues.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Bound Lotus on the Bunk

Bound Lotus was not as easy today...it must be because it is day 45. I was all set, stretched out, and then my sinuses started acting up, and I was coughing really bad. I told myself to quit the crap and it stopped! Then I sat comfortably, finished, and went off to meet my service crew in Luggage.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

On the Road Again

I slept fitfully last night, awakening to a rather uncomfortable nightmare. At 2:30 am, unable to get back to sleep, I decided to do Bound Lotus and ease my mind for the rest of the day. It was surprisingly easy to do...I quietly stretched on the bed while Keith slept, and then did the whole practice in silence without singing. I was tired on the rest of the drive down to Lake Wales, but at peace.

Once here, I met Ananda and Akal Prema (Lauren), who is on her 100th day of Bound Lotus. She said getting past 40 days is really hard. She told me that when Mahan Kirn was doing it, all of these accelerated karmic things happened. For instance, her house in New Mexico at the ashram was on fire, and she asked Yogi Bhajan about it. She said she thought Bound Lotus was the most powerful practice, and that she shouldn't be having any problems because it would clear her karmic slate. Yogi Bhajan said no, and to be thankful for Bound Lotus, for before starting the practice it was her fate to burn in the house, and survive with third degree burns, which did not happen. What an incredible practice! I feel very blessed to be here in Lake Wales, and do not believe it was an accident that I came to this practice of Bound Lotus. Maybe falling on my head would have happened anyway, and without having committed to this practice just prior to the fall, maybe I would have been paralyzed? Who knows...

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Bound Lotus On the Road

I did Bound Lotus this morning, and have finally stopped to rest just outside Chattanooga, on our way down to Florida for the Kundalini Winter Solstice Festival. Coming into the pose this morning was relatively easy, and the rest of the day was a pleasant journey down with Keith. We just listened to music, sang the Hanuman Chalisa, talked, and I was actually able to do a lot of yoga in the car. Krounchasana for one, and a lot of shoulder rolls and neck circles.

Once we reached the Tennessee border, I cried. I haven't seen Tennessee since I came down here in 1998 with someone that I can't say I hate, but... Near the ridge cut, the view of the mountains is so....beautiful!!! I think it is prettier, in some ways than driving along the coastline at Big Sur. I miss Tennessee, and all its Fireworks shops. One of Keith's friends called Chattanooga a deeply spiritual place, and someone else said that St. Louis is like the heart of the whole world, and it is having trouble opening. If St. Louis is the heart, then Chattanooga is the Hrit Padma.

Monday, December 14, 2009

Exhausted but Excited

I don't really have time to write anything...but I'll say that it has been a really busy day. I squeezed Bound Lotus in between teaching classes and going to the chiropractor, while finishing my packing, cleaning and preparations for the trip. Just before bed at 9:30 pm, I finished the last load of laundry and washed my car. Doing the pose without much of a warm-up was hard on the knees, but I think I'm okay. I felt a little tight in the shoulders, and the chiropractor confirmed that it is probably because in class yesterday I tried to do headstand too soon. She said my spine hasn't quite stabilized where it needs to be, and so the muscles of my neck and shoulders are compensating to hold me up, and tightening.

So I jumped the gun, and I need to go back to taking it easy with the rest of my practice. I'm glad I haven't lost the momentum for doing Bound Lotus and that it is helping to heal my neck. I've done it for 42 days now. The first 40 days are to change an old habit, the next 50 to create a new one...

Sunday, December 13, 2009

The Alchemy of Change

Something feels very different today...it is as if a major blockage has been removed. I taught this morning, and people who I had not seen in a while came back. Keith was saying how we attract into our lives people who are dealing with the same issues. Three students were going through major or intense trials in their lives, just as I am.

I also took Keith's class for the first time in six weeks since I fell on my head. I was so amazed that my shoulders were very open by the end of the class, and I tried to do headstand. It came easily, but after I came down from it I felt a numbness on my crown. I don't think my spine is ready for it yet, but otherwise I feel as if I'm watching my body unfold from a cocoon of tightness. It will be interesting to see what my body can do after I regain my spinal curve, and what my mind can do after 90 days of Bound Lotus, let alone 1,000.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

"A Red-Letter Day"...40 Days!!!!

I found an old article in the January 2003 issue of Yoga International on making promises to the 'Self'. To a Hindu this is called a 'vrata', and it is a sacred promise, not to be broken. I've had trouble, lately, with sticking to the letter of my vow of celibacy and the Vaishnodevi Puja. On the tail-end of the 3rd 16-week practice every Friday, I've not only allowed myself to kiss someone passionately several weeks ago, but I was unable to stick with the fruit juice fast yesterday. I felt so sick to my stomach after talking to my 'aunt', who is a bit of an emotional vampire, and also from realizing I can't associate with my ex anymore, that I needed more sustenance. But I have a guru, Ammachi, and she has promised to help me if I stumble. When I did Puja last night, it was beautiful; I felt the energy and the blessings of Amma. I am completing the practice to the best of my ability.

However, practices such as Bound Lotus, by their nature must be strictly adhered to...even if I falter and my guru sends her blessings, if I miss a day AT ANY POINT on this 1,000 day journey, I must start again from scratch. Today is the 40th day. 40 days is how long it takes to change a bad habit. More devoted yogis than I have made it to day 39 of a 40-day practice and faltered. Were I to do so, it would be the equivalent of letting the soufle fall, or burning the perfect risotto. This is no 'tahdegh'; no burning allowed. In the alchemical kitchen this dish must be cooked to perfection.

In Joscelyn Godwin's "Harmonies of Heaven and Earth", he compares God to a great alchemist, turning to the analagous words of the Hermeticist, the language of the Golden Dawn magicians:

"Let us now expand the alchemical analogy used in the last chapter to a macrocosmic scale, and cast God - that is, God the Creator and Demiurge, not God the Absolute, which has no hand in history - in the role of the Alchemist. The entire human race , body and soul, is then his 'Prima Materia'. In this raw first matter lies hidden the seed or spark of divine light that, if properly cultivated, can come into manifestation as the philosopher's Stone or the Tincture, able to transmute every metal into gold. Thus the human race might, if the experiment succeeds, become the agent for the transmutation of the whole Earth, and even more.

"The alchemist is the most patient of men. Day in, day out, he works on the substance which he has gathered with such care: feeding it, cooking it, reducing it to a dry powder and revivifying it with dew and the extracts of green plants. He is always attentive to the configuration of the stars and planets; always he is praying. Sometimes he has to wait a whole year for the right season to arrive for a certain procedure; at other times he must seize the hour and minute, or all will be lost.

"...Every morning there is something for the alchemist to do in the laboratory. Every night, when the day's work is over, oblivion descends. Some days are simple repetitions of what was done the day before, and this may persist for months on end. On other days things move faster; the contents of the alembic may suddenly be transformed before his very eyes.

"The work done on such a day will leave the material forever challenged. These are the red-letter days, marking the stepwise progress of the Great Work. One day, when putrefaction occurs, as it must, the whole thing becomes a fetid, stinking mess. Yet by diligent washing, and gentle cooking, this horrid and depressing sight will change into something glitteringly white, over which the 'Peacock's Tail' may flash with it's unearthly play of colours, and from which a sweet perfume may rise. Can one not conceive of civilizations and cultural periods - days in the life of mankind - which correspond to all of these stages?"

Reading this, I first think of Gabriel Garcia Marquez' "One Hundred Years of Solitude" , then I reflect on how, in some ways I still think some parts of my psyche are still a horrid, fetid, stinking mess, while others are as pristine and clear as a flawless diamond. I think of Jimmy Page sitting in his house in the 70s, probably working The Sacred Magic of Abramelin, and quite frankly, I don't see a difference in the cooking process, just the result: he seemed to have been trying to turn 'Led' into gold/money, whereas I would ultimately like to transmute my soul into a golden light. I want my aura to be so huge that people who truly want refuge can find the safety there that they need, in order to begin their own journey. I would like to help others as I have been helped. My aura has just been a little fucked up lately...

Too much talking with people who seem to create entropy around them. As a friend said: If you hang around shit you can't smell it. At least for now...I will be gone, gone, gone beyond, gone to the other shore. Today I sit and it is a struggle against intense anxiety and doubts about the practice. One day, someday, though, like the poet Rilke I will be able to say with a knowing that is not knowing: "We are the bees of the invisible..."

Friday, December 11, 2009

The uses of sound: Mantra-yoga and Shabda-yoga

...of which the 'Ray Man Shabd' is both, are to be able to bypass the endless running thoughts of the mind, and become one with the sound, the word that brought us all into creation. And "as Debussy himself said, once the work is complete, the scaffolding can be thrown away." ("Harmonies of Heaven and Earth", Joscelyn Godwin - professor of music at Colgate University). Music is the magic that creates the universe. Brian Greene, in his book "The Elegant Universe", explains this in layman's terms through his explanation of superstring theory, and how these strings resonate like a violin. In a very real sense, musicians are the magicians who wave their instruments like the wands of conductors, and give us a taste on earth of the harmonies of heaven. And it is all divine. No part is seperate. The creator God, the immanent God, is wild and inspires music in many modes and styles. To say that something is Devil's music, is an expression of attachment to likes and dislikes, an inability to see that everything is made from this energy. Dualism is a creation of the human mind. The energy is simply there. Make of it what you will.

When I think of the musician as magician, I think of, yet again, Jimmy Page, and Mick Wall's words in the acknowledgments of his book: "...your right arm raised, the wand, your body bent towards them like a hook, your whole being at one with the column of light emanating from the stage, spiralling up and out and all around, a grand swirl of deep, dark colours that turned into a tower of steps, which you bade them all to take, one by one, just you, the piper, to follow. Up, up, up...the stairway..."

The Muslim esoteric order of the Sufis stresses 'sama', or audition, or hearing as the path. Listeners are transported to states of ecstasy through the recitation of the Quran, through devotional songs (like the Bhakti yogis), and instrumental pieces. The 'Whirling Dervishes', "properly called the Mevlevi Order, and founded in Konya, Turkey, by the Persian poet Rumi (1207-73)...practice a 'sama' of whirling dance accompanied by the music of the nay, or reed flute." It is only modern Christianity in it's fundamentalist form that has demonized the piper, the Robert Plants on their recorders, and the Jimmy Pages dragging their violin bow wands across guitars...

These Sufis, 'Lords of the Dance', are creating, evoking and invoking the divine in much the same way as modern Wiccans and Pagans, who see themselves as co-creating with God. Procreation is not the only way to create. "They dress in tall felt hats like truncated cones, and white gowns with broad skirts that stand out as they whirl. Their hats are said to be tilted at the same angle as the Earth's axis, and their dance to symbolize the movements of the planetary spheres as they circle in perfect order and love for their Lord. Rumi, in one of his poems, explains the purpose of this devotion:

'We all have been parts of Adam, we have heard those melodies in Paradise.
Although the water and the earth of our bodies
have caused a doubt to fall upon us,
something of those melodies comes back to our memory.'

"...What happens to the Sufi during the 'sama'? I will summarize the accounts of the philosopher brothers Al-Ghazali: Abu Hamid (1058-1111) and Majd al-Din (d. 1126) who both wrote treatises on Sufi music and dance. Both agree that 'sama' can bring one to states that are otherwise very difficult to attain. Above all, it arouses one's love and longing for God - just as for the ordinary person, love songs arouse sexual longing - and from this single-minded devotion comes a purification of the heart. Following purification come visions and revelations that surpass all other ambitions: a hundred thousand states in a world of lights and spirits otherwise undiscoverable even through the most perfect religious observances."

While listening to the Ray Man Shabd in Bound Lotus, I have drifted into a longing, and intensity, like that of a Romantic lover. I've been through whirling around my living room to the sounds of B-Tribe, through harmonizing along with Bjork on 'Vespertine', through doing Vinyasa to 'Kashmir' and 'Stairway to Heaven'...thinking of those forests echoing with laughter and those who stand looking, I read the words of Suhrawardi:

"The suprasensory realities encountered by the prophets, the Initiates, and others appear to them sometimes in the form of lines of writing, sometimes in the hearing of a voice which may be gentle and sweet and which can also be terrifying. Sometimes they see human forms of extreme beauty who speak to them in most beautiful words and converse with them intimately about the invisible world; at other times these forms appear to them like those delicate figures proceeding from the most refined art of the painters."

And the German writer Matheson, writing in 1757, said, " Those who cultivate the art of music are preparing themselves a path through the heavens to the place of the Blessed, just as surely as the most powerful geniuses. And the choir of divine singers exhorts the soul which rises to accomplish this ascent, or rather each one salutes it on it's way as it mounts from one heaven to another..."

The gift of reading Godwin's elucidative writing on music came from reading a quote of his in the liner notes of Dead Can Dance's CD 'Spiritchaser'. Thus I find the words as well of Macrobius, who says that many cultures, indigenous and otherwise, have the "...belief that souls, on quitting the body, return to the origin of music's magic, that is, to heaven." As I listen to B-Tribe and spin around my room preparing for Bound Lotus, as I listen to 'Stairway to Heaven'...as I sit, tied in a knot, listening to the Ray Man Shabd, I lose all track of time. On this 39th day of Bound Lotus practice...I feel I have died and gone to heaven.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Like a Trussed-Up Turkey...

This practice is tapas. It is the fire, the comittment that burns away impurities in the psyche; that burns away ama, creating ojas. It works better if you let go into the pose. On day 38, two days away from the milestone of the 40-days to end an old habit, and on the way toward 90 days to create a new one, I am very, very, very far away from mastery of the pose at 1,000 days. This is very hard. 40 days are symbolic, like Jesus' 40 days in the wilderness. This whole year has been the 'Shadow Work' I "skipped over" in my magickal training, and the practice of Bound Lotus has taken me into the shadows as well.

In the evening, after cooking more rice and lentils, I sit again. I'm anxious. My mind wanders off to think about likes and dislikes: of people, food, music, postures and the very thoughts I am having. I am attached to believing that my problems are created by other people. But regardless of what they do, I can choose how I react.

This is a hard lesson to learn. I feel like the little chickpea in Rumi's poem: 'The Chickpea to the Cook'; "smack me with the skimming spoon, boil me some more", I wish I wanted to say, but I'm at the stage of complaining to The Alchemist about boiling in his crucible even though I threw myself into the fire with the practice of Bound Lotus. Yet I know I have to do this Work, because a part of me is still languishing in the dungeon of my mind, hidden from view. There are so many little broken souls here...and not all of them are pieces of mine. Some belong to other people, but I'm the dark queen who has hung them up to rot.

Like the Sumerian myth of Inanna in Bolen's book, I am knocking at the gate to the underworld. I have nightmares, recurring dreams of a rat I can hear rustling around, unwanted thoughts, impulses, anxiety and depression. I feel as if the 'real rat' is the betrayal of myself I've done for so many years...

In my dreams last night, I found the rat. She was in my meditation room under my prayer shawl. I couldn't kill her. When she ran into the bathroom I was ready to beat her senseless, and grabbed her fat little body. Choking her with my hands, I narrowly escaped her long red tooth, before waking. Is this rat me? Am I like the 'fly' in the ointment toward my own healing? In my book on dream symbols, a rat symbolizes gossiping, judging others, and letting things gnaw away at you.

If this is the problem I have identified it. Anger, bitterness, resentment, rage toward almost all of the men in my life...AND most all: myself, but my feminine side. Some part of me wants kill her off. The compassionate, kind side is the one that was manipulated and hurt. This work is so hard, and it isn't pretty. It would be so much easier to just cook some more, or read, or do some other kind of yoga, or call someone. I hate this practice. I'm scared of it. Two more days seems like 1,000.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Yeah! The 'Ray Man' is on my iPod!

Last night, my fabulous friend Brad took the time to get this on my iPod so I don't have to worry any more about how I'm going to do Bound Lotus while out of town. Since an appointment of his cancelled, he even put my B-Tribe, Achillea, and Robert Rich on there, along with Karunamayi's CD that I use for puja on Fridays. I'm so relieved. He made me smile really wide, and that has been hard to do the last couple of days...I smile, but I haven't been myself lately. Bound Lotus really must work on deep-seated emotional crap; it certainly is giving me a run for my money.

Oh, and Brad also showed me the Tibetan Singing Bowl App. It is so stinkin' cool. I meant to play it in class this morning, but forgot. Oh well.My class this morning was fun to teach. I really like the students in the 6:15 am alot. Just a neat group of people. I look forward to it, and was worried when the howling wind woke me at 4:20 am, of all things. But no worries. Just flurries. And a nice class. I love teaching. It is what I want to do for the rest of my life.

I cooked all day today in bulk for the freezer, so I don't have to go to the grocery store when I get back: Split Pigeon Lentils with Mango, Makhni Dal, Sweet Lentil Dal, Spinach and Tomatoes with Split Mung Beans, and Lemon-Cashew Rice. Yeah! I've been doing Reiki on myself as often as possible. It really is lightening my mood. I'm ready to do Bound Lotus and curl up with Mick Wall's "When Giants Walked the Earth", and fall asleep.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Teaching Yoga can be extremely grounding...

Last night, when I taught my Monday evening class and subbed another class, I felt extremely grounded afterwards. Not only that, but I felt that since I was very spacey as I began teaching, I would just allow the energy to flow through me and be a conduit for whatever came through. As a result, the classes felt very inspired, and the students said so. I still don't want to teach my Monday class anymore because it will be almost impossible to find a sub for it during the winter. I'm not interested in wrecking a car I can't replace. I also don't like teaching classes where the students are typically unresponsive and barely say 'boo' to me. It's draining, and makes me feel like a servant. Yet I did find that last night's two classes were very rewarding to teach. It was a welcome relief to feel like somebody, after feeling insignificant to my aunt, made fun of by my accupuncturist's husband and business partner, and manipulated and used by a now ex-friend.

Though teaching last night grounded me, I still feel that my energy is way low; no pun intended, since in TCM 'Wei Chi' is protective chi. I'm planning on doing a crystal layout on myself sometime this morning before the day gets going, or else in the evening. That is, of course, in addition to Bound Lotus. And then at some point I need to get somebody to put the Ray Man Shabd on my iPod so I can take it to Florida with me. There is no way I could do Bound Lotus for 31 minutes without it. None.

Today alone, I suppose because I feel so tired and run down, it was mentally excruciating. I'm back to having near panic attacks. No dissociating today. I've come to the conclusion that my aunt is just funny - wierd, and my 'ex-friend' is a narcissistic sociopath. What else do you call someone who sounds like Willem Dafoe as he says, "Well, honey, I was just offering you a 'special' brownie. Hey, I thought you might like one." It sounds an awful lot like years ago when it was, "Hey, I know your trying to quit weed, but I just got this great purple stuff in," or, "Well, you may be fed up with me, and I know I can be an asshole, but you don't really want to lose your supplier do you?" Or, "Hey, I know you are trying to quit drinking, but did you drink any of that champagne I bought you for your birthday?" And last but not least, "Well of course you feel drained after sex with me, because there isn't any love."

But he's asked my advice on yoga classes and yoga mats now, said he wanted to come take a class with me, says maybe we'll go to a class together at some point, and then, probably because unzipping his pants in front of me didn't get him anywhere, he calls to tell me he went again to yet another yoga class, but with a girl. Probably the same girl he left to take to dinner after a walk in the park with me. When he disappeared from view for several months, I never should have gone knocking. He's been sabotaging my ass for years, and in reality, just like Led Zeppelin sings: It's nobody's fault but mine...for letting him do it.

Here's my new vow: no more falling in love with narcissistic, sociopathic, sadomasochistic, vampiric power hungry freaks who like to watch women squirm and pine away for them for years and treat them like dirt. I deserve so much better. I'm sexy, smart, kind, loving, intelligent, and sometimes hysterically funny, or so I'm told. He can go catch the slow boat across the river Styx.

Monday, December 7, 2009

Arousal of the Kundalini or something else?

I've had some uncomfortable emotional issues and reactions in the last few days...is it at all possible that the practice of Bound Lotus is arousing the Kundalini energy? In Lee Sanella's "Kundalini - Psychosis or Transcendance", he documents several 'sensations and happenings' around the arousal of Kundalini. I've had the tingling and throbbing in the mooladhara chakra area; I've heard the internal sounds before, though it was many years ago; and currently the changes in thought processes he describes, the detachment and dissociation, and the extreme emotions most of all are happening.

Today alone has been extremely wierd. I taught at 6:15 am, then went home to get some work, then to get my hair trimmed, did laundry, and then my aunt called. She made me very uncomfortable. Among other things, the fact that I am Hindu makes her uncomfortable. I felt like what I said just didn't matter to her. I felt lost in way. My only family I'm really close to is my father,and I would have liked to have been close to her. I got off the phone and sat in Bound Lotus anyway, and it was there that I began to dissociate. Time disappeared for me.

Later, at the chiropractor's, I felt very strange and very emotional. The therapist asked me where I was. She helped me come back. It would make sense why I was crying uncontrollably after my aunt's callousness, when I'd left myself vulnerable and raw, but just disappearing mentally? I'm six days away from having completed 40 days - the time it takes to break an old habit. Something tells me this is, in some ways, harder than a 90-day or 1000-day practice. 6 days? I'm more than a little freaked. I don't want to just disappear on people. It looks a little psychotic, and more than a little unprofessional.

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Sleeping with the 'fishes' and the crystals

As a little girl, from the ages of 7 to 9, I slept at the foot of my parent's bed in a sleeping bag. My nightmares were too intense. I dreamed I was drowning, and lay at the bottom of the ocean watching bubbles and the beautiful fish going past my eyes. I held my breath for a long time. The age of 7 was when I had developed asthma. For years after that, every April and May I slept flat on my back in a croup tent under my canopy bed, with a vaporizer just to breathe. I missed so much school. Friends were hard to come by that would come to visit, except for little Margaret Ann up the street.

In my mid-thirties, a Chinese accupuncturist and Chi Gong practitioner in Chicago, who treated me monthly as I was recovering from mono and battling CFS, told me that in TCM there a four kinds of asthma. One of them, the kind I had, was more psychological in origin, meaning that I could get rid of it, but it would not be easy. I did get rid of it, by telling myself I did not have it, and breathing through the throat constriction if I caught it in time. But two things bring it back: overwhelming grief, as when friends turn out not to have been friends at all, and were 'feeding you to the fishes' behind your back; and if someone is draining my energy concertedly.

My throat is my Achille's heel and it appears that some people are like kryptonite to me. Like the myth of Psyche passing by Cerebus with a cake in each hand, one for her entrance, one for exit, I went to sleep last night with a stone in my hand, and the light of Psyche's lamp burning overhead, so I could see. In the myth, Psyche is told that on her journey into the realm of Hades, she will be asked for help she must not give. I cannot help this former friend I 'cut ties' with last night. He was pulling me back toward the Abyss. I'm not interested in going there...so I hold onto my stone through the night, until morning when I can rebuild my energy even more now that he is no longer connected to me. With him gone, I can focus on the real task, my own doubts about the journey.

I wonder, sometimes, if I'll be able to do what I love, which is teaching, for a decent living. Some people do. When I taught aerobics in the 80s I loved every minute of it! I made my own music mix tapes, relished integrating the long, deep stretches with all the other segments of the class, and especially loved teaching 'relaxation pose', which was savasana...really. I perfected the art of doing visualizations. Then I fell through a hole in the earth for ten years. Even so, teaching back then was for minimum wage. I need to teach privately for this to work, for me to be able to focus entirely on teaching. This is what I want.

But there is also more teacher training that I need and want to take, and I don't have the money for it right now...so, I quit thinking about it for a while and go sit, uncomfortably and anxiously today, in 'my pose'.

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Banishing certain elements from my life

I think of how hurt I was by people who were only there for the good times, and disappeared when my mother got sick, when I got sick, when I fell into addiction and asked for help, gasping for air, literally, as I did so. The people, like boyfriends, who couldn't be bothered to help me as I projectile vomited from food poisoning, or even buy jello for me. The boyfriends who couldn't come to the hospital and see me, when stricken with mono AND strep, as I lay in a hospital bed on IVs and a catheter. The boyfriends who left me quite literally raw from their sex addictions who were angry with me because I screamed as it hurt to pee, and wasn't ready to have sex again quickly enough for them. The so-called girlfriends who responded by saying "Well at least you have a guy, I don't." The male 'friend' who watched a friend of his almost destroy me mentally, who watched other male friends of his decide I was a bitch because I wouldn't sleep with them, who watched his father grab my ass, who banished me from Christmas at their house because I spoke up about it, who watched a teacher friend of his unprofessionally hit on me and touch me, who said he couldn't understand why all this happened to me because, as he said, I'm just not that pretty. With friends like these...

I'm reading Bolen's "Close to the Bone" again, and coming across the description of 'Integrating Erishkegal', I smile. I have already wielded the power I gained during my last trek through the underworld. I've banished everyone in the list above from my life. Now it remains to forgive them. To use the word 'them' seems so uncolorful. There are so many other ways to describe them. It isn't banishing them anymore that's the problem, it is banishing the part of me that wants to continue hating them all with a vengeance. The part that never wants to forgive my grandmother for the sexual abuse, that relishes seeing her as the Wolf in a grandmother's nightgown to my Little Red Riding Hood. It's ironic that I had a little red coat. Ironic that I trust women more than men.

But what is even funnier - no simply UNCANNY - is how dead on the title of this post was today: One of those old 'friends' I mentioned having cut out of my life, well, actually, they disappeared and I went looking for them like an idiot about a little over a month ago. I should have just thanked my lucky stars they were gone from my life. But no. Today I was witness to that same person trying very discreetly to make me jealous by letting me know there are women who he doesn't have to wait for them to finish their vow of celibacy like me. A month ago he tried to tempt me to break the vow. He isn't capable of waiting until January 1st. That is less than a month away. What a small child.

Not only that, he tried to offer me something I used to be addicted to. It wouldn't be the first time. Misery does love company, doesn't it? So I did something today I never would have done in the past. After a peaceful and deeply healing Bound Lotus, and a movie, I did my Banishings, a few other invocations, and such. Liber Vel Reguli. And guess what? My coughing stopped immediately!!! So much cool air came rushing into my lungs! What an energy drain he was...

This morning while skimming Bolen's book I passed a section on how, in order to stay well, sometimes certain people need to be let go. And of course, Led Zep's song "That's the Way" has been playing in my head for days ... the words: 'I don't know how I'm gonna tell you I can't play with you no more..." I really was "A Fool in the Rain" the day I drove to his house in the rain listening to that song in mid-October. He is gone but not forgotten. I'll be kind when I see him, but I'm done. He hasn't changed, and finally, after ten years I can say he never really was the love of my life. People who deserve that moniker would never treat someone the way he has me. I'm glad it only took me ten years to realize it, and not twenty. For that matter, I'm glad I fell on my head.

Friday, December 4, 2009

Black is Beautiful!

I'll be wearing all this 'white' at the Kundalini Winter Solstice, and I have to say I'm a little indignant that I can't wear black or dark colors. It's the only thing about this whole trip that really bugs me, or 'flies me', so to speak. My wardrobe consists of predominantly black and dark colors. This presents a problem financially.

And black is also a protective color, a beautiful color. It is a color associated with the godess Kali Ma, who, like the saint Ramakrishna, I love. Not only that, but the living Hindu saint Ammachi, whom I am a devotee of, is supposed to be a living incarnation of Kali. (Irregardless of what 'Jack' thinks he knows...) Not that her devotees wear black; they don't. But it is only the Westerners who wear their 'Whites' as they call them. That and the female bhramacharinis. The bhramacharyins, the male renunciates, wear the ochre and gold robes. If I can't wear black, I'd prefer turmeric thank you. In white I feel like a damn bride. And I'm not the least interested in getting married, nor for that matter, in having sex. But that is a whole 'nother matter. Yes, I'm bitter about men thank you. Straight ones, that is. Crap. I'll have to gaze into the eyes of a strange man during White Tantric Yoga, I guess. I'm not liking that. And I don't like the fact that I don't like it either. It's this internal war going on inside me. One side of me loves men, the other despises them. I love my gay Yoga teacher. He poses no threat. I love Jimmy Page. Some people thought he looked like a girl back in the day, and he is rather feminine. It's macho men I don't like. Just like my mother.

Men who are in touch with their feminine side, like gay men, like straight men such as Saul, Jimmy Page, men I haven't met yet, who don't belittle the feminine, who see it as a strength. You know, in the yinyang symbol black IS the feminine color. Nuff said. On to "The Lotus".

I did an hour of Yin, while chanting my mantras. I did an hour of Saul's Ritam Yoga to B-Tribe's 'Sensual Sensual' album. After all, Saul did say to treat the moving meditation and worship of the Divine as something sensual. Not sexual. Not in the sense that our Western culture means it - but: Sensual: 'in love with life'. It feels good to move and enjoy my body without worrying that some man is going to think how the way I move will benefit him. It feels good to sensually enjoy the movement. Following the "drill" of Ashtanga Yoga the way 'some' people teach it in St. Louis is, apparently, not my thing; it also isn't healing my neck and back after the injury...Saul's Ritam Yoga is. And it is the warm-up to Bound Lotus for me today.

In the Lotus, removed one pillow, bringing my head closer to the floor. In the pose my belly nearly touched the floor. It isn't for lack of trying that I can't fully bind my arms. In the last five minutes on each side, I was able to come up into full lotus without pain and bind with one foot. This is a first! And only 32 days in, I believe. I feel fabulous. While I didn't do the practice this morning, I did it before 4 pm. Before my ritual Friday puja for Vaishnodevi, the manifestation of Kali, Lakshmi, and Saraswati. The principles of change, abundance and creativity.

I was worried that it would not feel right to do puja without all of the accoutrments, even though Amma says mental worship is the most exalted. I see why one starts with all the physical props, because it imprints the visual on your memory. In preparation for going to Florida and having to do the entire practice mentally, I did not have fruit or flowers to offer...just the cooked food, honey, milk and ghee, the flame for the Aarti, and a bathing plate for the deity. Having to visualize the offering of flowers enhanced my concentration, and it seemed as if the light on the room was visibly stronger.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

"A Tale of Two Sisters"

I liken Bound Lotus to a conscious choice to do the 'soul-work' that is imperative to do when one is terminally ill and has no other choice than to do this or die. Though my mother had cancer, I do not. I did have myalgic encephalitis, or CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome), severe Asthma, and a number of other problems related to a weakened immune system that left me in a weakened rage at the world's inability to understand how just the acts of breathing and lifting a fork were major undertakings. Many days only the mild exertion of washing the car or vacuuming, or taking a shower would leave me so weak I had to lie down or else I would begin vomiting, or have a coughing fit. The constant fatigue was bone-crushing and often induced a mental fog. I lived in a half-world. Believing I could get well, then chanting Sanskrit mantra, then Reiki, then crystals, then finally strong enough to do Yoga again, vegetarianism, and learning to find joy in life got me physically well. But mentally I'm still raw. I'd rather not elaborate on diagnoses in this arena...

This Bound Lotus practice, it is doing for me what often only gets done when a person receives a diagnosis of terminal illness. There are many "things" which the medical community deems incurable. This practice...it takes me down into my psychological depths "to be with the pain, the wounding and rage that is there - to that place in the psyche..."

The Sumerian myth of Inanna, the Queen of Heaven's descent into the Underworld to save her bitter and angry sister Erishkegal is about change:

"The descent part of the Inanna myth - the going through the gates and giving up symbols of identity, persona, defenses; being stripped, humbled, struck down, and left hanging on a hook, feeling like so much dead meat - is the easy part of the story to understand as metaphor. In our suffering and losses we have all been Inanna. It is much harder to accept that we are also Erishkegal, because she is a combination of disowned, unacceptable, or undeveloped qualities that become known only through a descent, through which we give up illusions, stop denying the truth, and lose our former (often one-sided) sense of ourselves. We may have projected these qualities upon others, or judged, rejected, scapegoated, and distanced ourselves from anyone who exemplified Erishkegal."

Such are the words of Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D. as she describes this process of myth. What she had to say next when I opened the book left me with an eerie feeling of reflection on the literal sort of 'disowning' my sister and I have done with each other, my own disowned parts of myself buried deep within me under the shadow of ego, and the 54 flies that visited me through my bedroom window last Fall...

"If I were telling you this myth because you were in the midst of a descent, and you had really listened, it could serve as an initiation story, a metaphoric for the journey that you know something about in the marrow of your bones. It is a story that can be taken to heart, long before the mind knows why. This was the case several years ago, when I told the story of Inanna and Erishkegal to Helene Smith, Ph.D., the director of a cancer research center, who had in the previous few weeks been diagnosed with breast cancer and was just recovering from surgery when I saw her. Helene's research was on breast cancer, and this turn of events might have remained a bitter irony, a mockery that diminished the meaning of her life work, had she not been able to see this illness as a rite of passage.

"Helene told of her experience in 'A Tal of Two Sisters' in a medical center publication (Susan Weiner with Helene Smith, "A Tale of Two Sisters" in 'Ways of the Healer', Fall 1994/ Winter 1995, San Francisco:,Program of Medecine & Philosophy, California-Pacific Medical Center), pp. 8-10.) She recounted that when she heard the story about Inanna's descent, 'I cried for the first time and that was really the beginning of my healing.'

"She went on to say, 'The meaning of the myth has taken me years to fully understand. I had a sister who died of cancer, and I had many difficulties with that relationship [this sister had been an Erishkegal to Helene's Inanna, in the contrast between her life and Helene's professional and personal accomplishments and recognitions in the world], so there was healing that was necessary for me to do at a symbolic level. But also, you see, we are all Erishkegal.'

"Helene saw that the two sisters in the myth 'are really the two sides of ourselves' that we need to bring together, make peace with, and show compassion for. 'It's your negative side that will destroy you positive side unless you are willing to recognize yourself as having both. From there I started meditating, and bunches of flies (those compassionate creatures in the myth who empathized with suffering) came to me in meditation to bring me back from the underworld. It became a real healing for me.' "

Having read this makes me think again about adding 'The Meditation of Change' to my practice of Bound Lotus. This meditation I found on p. 26 of the very same Nov/Dec 2006 issue of Aquarian Times, in which the article on Bound Lotus first caught my eye. It is a meditation to probe the ego to change and unblock the subconscious communication within your own soul to let you see your own maturity and potential for change - to remove doubt about the future. I am no longer afraid of the future, I have doubts about my continued success, and doubt, as Yogi Bhajan said, steals three feet of your auric radiance.

When do I begin this? I already did Bound Lotus this morning, coughing and hacking my way through it, and spitting up loads of pghlem at the end. Gross but true. Spitting up cobwebs it feels like, and always did for the years when I coughed everyday, all day. For the years when I looked in the mirror and thought, "God, not her again!" Well she's back. The side of me I don't like. I guess I'll have to make friends with her. As I say this, I realize that I am now my version of Erishkegal speaking. I don't like the sweet, namby-pamby, New Age Inanna side of me, nor her precious flies come to save me from myself. I killed them all last fall. "And what is all this crap about the color white too?" I think. Black is beautiful too.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Outside My Window

Outside it is raining, maybe it will snow. I hope not. Southerner that I am. Who knows in St. Louis? I have had a long day beginning with my 6:15 am class which I truly do love teaching. I love the early hours of the morning. The Amrit Vela beginning at 4 am and extending until daylight, seems to carry over until about 7 am anyway... I've got my plates renewed; clients taken care of; lentils, split mung dal, masoor dal and Kala chana purchased at Seema along with those precious curry leaves so I can cook in bulk again; five little beanies knitted for Winter Solstice, and a box of raspberries. Um! My Danish mother would smile if she were here.

I'm looking forward to Bound Lotus again. What were these last three days of hell for? Maybe I just needed to be alone for a while to heal. Away from people's judgements and confused looks at what they deem odd about me. I like myself. Too bad if others think I'm wierd. I also selfishly like the fact that I never married nor had kids, and therefore have no attachments to things like ex-husbands I'd prefer not to know ( my sister unfortunately has to speak once a week with the abomination that she married so foolishly more than 20 years ago).

I wish her the peace that Bound Lotus can bring for me. I'd like to give that to her. I wish for that man to be out of her life.

Arising from Bound Lotus like the goddess Inanna in the Sumerian myth, who goes to the Underworld to save her sister Erishkegal, I pick up Jean Shinoda Bolen's "Close to the Bone: Life-Threatening Illness and the Search for Meaning". The page opens at 66-67. This book is one of three in my lifetime which have struck me as luminous lights on their respective bookstore shelves. The other two are Tsultrim Allione's "Feeding Your Demons" and "Motherless Daughters". The latter literally fell off the bookshelf at me in late 1995, early 1996, while I stood in the old Library Ltd. In Clayton toying with the knowledge of my mother's recent Stage IV CUPS diagnosis: Cancer of Undetermined Primary Source. I knew she would die, and I knew as well that none of my friends had the balls to stay by me. They ALL left. And I became like Erishkegal. In pain. Angry. Able to strike someone dead with a mere baleful look, or so I wished. The only friend who stuck by me was dear Sonia Smith, who left me after I'd spent many years in the 'Underworld'. My sister left me too...only where she sees me as dark and wracked with clinging demons, so is she. We are BOTH Erishkegal, and the world had best beware. She and I, we are turning into Crones at our respective ages. Learning to be present and honest, blunt and straightforward like an old woman. Like the old woman my mother will never be...

Where will my sister and I be at 57? For my sister that is 11 years away, for me: 15. Who will be our loyal Ninshiburs as we move past that seminal age and live longer than our mother? Had my mother not been ill, would my sister have moved home before her husband hurt her eldest son? Would I have lived at night for so long in the shadow of a living demon I chose for a mate?

Now I see. As I read Jean Shinoda Bolen's book back then, I saw my mother as Erishkegal, myself as Inanna, but there was no loyal Ninshibur, and I rotted on the 'green hook' for 10 long years - "Ten Years Gone". For the last five I've been searching, venturing again into the upperworld. I was in Hades for so long, and there were creatures there who stood by me better than many here in the light, save for my father.

Thinking out loud, I realize that my father was our, my sister's and my, Ninshibur...though we chose not to believe. Or I did. And who was Inanna? My mother in my dreams, no less.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Lotuses and Chakras

Part of the process seems to be looking upon one's internal monsters with dread. Much like many years ago when I was awakened at night with visions of floating and luminous blue faces, some horribly disfigured, I have been seeing, in my reactions, parts of myself which are necessary to be whole; yet in my rejection of them, they have distorted into disfigured emotions. The past inability to firmly speak up for myself and others long ago distorted into rage, and it is resurfacing, through outward events, to be transformed. This "work" is not all Chakras and Lotuses. The process of moving from extremes of emotion, and through some confusion, may appear to the uninitiated as if one is a pinch crazy. What do they truly know of this internal process in their state of fear?

There really was nothing left to do but sit last night. The act of sitting in Bound Lotus has brought up deep-seated resentments and anger, rage and vitriol. To respond with these emotions to the situations of life, rather than a carefully cultivated calmness is part of the process. Once I sat for Bound Lotus last night, I knew there was truly no other way to get relief from my misery. 'A hair of the dog that bit me', if you will. And it was and is true. After Bound Lotus my rage and disgust, my indignance and frustration, softened into a peaceful enough state that I could sleep.

Today I am inexplicably filled with grief. I've been crying all day. I miss my mother terribly. I hate winter. Though this feels temporary it doesn't make it any less painful. I don't want to sit in Bound Lotus, I just want to curl under the covers and eat soup. I'm coughing a lot. I usually do when grief comes up, or I catch a cold, or both. It is difficult to breathe. No wonder I don't want to do Bound Lotus.

Finally, finally I go to sit in Bound Lotus and grab my phone to set the timer. After seeing a text message about Snatam Kaur, who sings the Ray Man Shabd, I cry all over my phone. I couldn't send a text back for a second and was afraid that my tears had ruined my phone, but it's fine...I was just crying to hard and fast to see straight. The crying got my coughing started again, and so I went to take the cough capsules my accupuncturist and Chinese herbalist gave me. I noticed that the primary ingredient is - get this: snake's gall bladder. That gives me an entirely different perspective on Kundalini Rising.

Bound Lotus was pure bliss, and no pain, no itching. I cried a little on my pillow in front of Ammachi's picture, and felt as if all this pain that came out of nowhere just lifted. Why did I wait so long? The pose WAS my only refuge at Ammachi's feet, beneath the Sri Chakra. The last thing I have to do before I go to bed is to say the 108 Names of Divine Mother and the Lalita Sahasranama. I've done that every day since July 6th, when I last saw Amma, only missing once: November 19th, my Baptismal anniversary. With this done I feel at peace for the first time since I woke up.

Monday, November 30, 2009

Sour, Bitter and Pungent

I am not in a good mood at all, so if you are reading this be forewarned. On my list of bad little boys and girls who will never ever get even one slice of my banana bread are traffic cops, child molesters, and anyone else who pisses me off. I WAS in a good mood, until a cop pulled me over, after teaching my 6:15 am class for what amounts to be $16 of pay, to write me two citations primarily to meet his quota. He knew it was...he couldn't even look me in the face. He was embarrased. I have nothing on my record and he could have just issued a warning for recently expired plates and an insurance that simply didn't make it from the coffee table to the glove box last week. He can kiss a certain part of my anatomy along with the female cop years ago who stole my prescription Xanax for panic attacks off my kitchen counter, the two male cops who rested their hands on my thigh while issuing speeding tickets in their police vehicles, the one who kept trying to intimidate me while he lived in my building, and the ones who ignored me when I neede help with a stalker. No sugar-coating here. I think it is pretty clear how I feel about cops, including the ones that I see speeding to nowhere because they think they can. I'd like to meet a cop who is not a schmuck and is a decent human being. I have yet to do so. So much for my yogic attitude.

As for child molesters, well, someone I used to know fairly well has seriously abused people I love and he'll never see the inside of a jail cell for it. Not only that, but the bastard has a new family to abuse. I'd have compassion if he wanted some help, but he wants none, and a Buddha or all-forgiving person I am not. If there is a hell, well... Sorry, I'm pissed. I could pretend to have Tourets and fill up the whole blog with what I think of that man. Hatred. Rage. I'd like to tie him in a knot rather than get into Bound Lotus today, and I'm exhausted to boot.

I'm finally getting ready to sit for Bound Lotus and I hope I find some peace there, and a place where I can find some compassion for people I dislike intensely for very different reasons. I'm disgusted with cops. I feel anger, rage and almost pure hatred for child molesters. Funny that I can talk about them both in the same breath. I make no apologies. This is how I feel today...so truly angry, bitter, sour (as well as pungent for other far more humorous reasons), that I could spit. I haven't felt this angry in years. May today's Bound Lotus bring me peace. I go to sit.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Another dopeless hope fiend

I saw this bumper sticker the other day on a car, and it sums up the way I feel this morning for 3 reasons: (1) I'm not much on drugs of any kind these days, so I really hope whatever was flushing itself out of my digestive system last night is done, (2) I feel like I'm hallucinating when I think about going to Kundalini Winter Solstice in Florida, and (3) I hope that in commiting to 1'000 days of Bound Lotus I don't - literally - go through some of the 'crap' that Gopi Krishna describes in his book on Kundalini, which I was reading on the toilet last night.

I think of searing fire up the spine, and lo and behold, while holding Bound Lotus my shoulders burn as if someone put Red Tiger Balm on them. I don't know what I'd do without the Ray Man Shabd.

Why did I put off doing Bound Lotus until 10:31 pm? Hm? I could have worked on knitting my lovely little gold cap with flowers tomorrow...why am I risking sabotaging this practice more than halfway through the first 40 days of a 1'000 day practice? I must have some inner problem with the changes it will bring. That particular little personal demon needs to take a nap.

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Pain is a great motivator...

I've had plenty of opportunity all day long to go into Bound Lotus. Did I? Nooooooo... I taught this morning, bought bacon chocolate for my frustratred friend and delivered it to her, worked on crocheting a shawl and some beanies for the Kundalini Winter Solstice Celebration, walked in the park on this fabulous 67 degree day, ate and did laundry. THEN, at 8:38 pm I finally sat down to Bound Lotus.

For the last week I've had relatively no pain in my neck, and so the primary motivator to do Bound Lotus as a reduction in pain is not there. However, Bound Lotus also reduces anxiety and tension, and after coming out of it I feel at peace. I also feel full of energy...so it would be better to do it earlier in the day, not right before I go to bed. Also, my neck itched quite a bit while in Bound Lotus, though once I chose to ignore it, the itching very quickly disappeared. That isn't always the case.

Friday, November 27, 2009

Oona, Bound Lotus and Shamanic Healing

My day began with an incredible amount of energy, and then the awareness once again that my monthly cycle is upon me again. This is the second month that I had no typical warnings of cramping, bloating, fatigue or intense irritability. I do not have the periomenopausal symptoms I was getting either: no night sweats, no insomnia, no severe mood swings. All thanks to Oona. I love it! It is a specific formulation of Chaste tree berry and Black Cohosh. I have taken these herbs before, but they've never had this effect. It must be the way the herbs work synergistically, as well as the fact that this company is very particular about using all of the parts of the plant. They also are picky about when and where they pick the plants. These are things that so-called rational minds tend not to understand the necessity of...

I felt so fabulous sitting in Bound Lotus! It actually felt good for most of the time. Usually there is some discomfort. I even tried coming into full Lotus on each side for a minute, but that proved to be rather taxing for my left knee, so I came out. I can sit in full Lotus on each side, but not, apparently after half Bound Lotus for 10-12 minutes. I wonder I'll be able to hold Full Bound Lotus at the end of 1'0000 days?

I went to see the movie "The Horse Boy", about a six-year-old boy named Rowan with autism. He is so socially disabled and exhausting to care for that his parents decide, of all things, to take him to Outer Mongolia to be healed by shamans. This isn't as far fetched as it might seem, and in my opinion from watching the movie, the shamans actually heal the boy. Only an idiot or a stubborn mule of a person wouldn't be able to see that (hmm, there's my judgemental side). The shamans heal him. They don't cure him. He still has the gifted traits of autism, but not the debilitating ones. And there are advantages to being autistic, such as astoundingly one-pointed concentration, organizational skills beyond compare, and a vast reservoir of creativity. I've often thought that both my father and myself were dysfunctionally autistic on the mild spectrum, having learned through modeling how dispense with some of the aversive traits and keep the others. My dad can memorize poetry at the drop of a hat, and I have an amazingly photographic memory. I can recall information from books along with the page numbers. I should have been a spy. Phoenix Lei - Agent 88.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Namaste and Thank You...

I did the Kundalini warm-ups for the Neck & Shoulders, some of which help to break up calcium deposits, and then the exercises for Circulation. These are repetitive and tough, just like the Kundalini Yoga Sets I did so many years ago in 2001. They were called "Let the Liver Live" and "To Relieve Inner Anger", and I did Them both for 40 days, and then made it to 72 before quitting. During the in which I did it for 40 days, I made sure I lay in Savasana for at least 10 min., and did a meditation for "Removing Fear of the Future" for 31 min. While doing this, many people commented on how pleasant I was to be around; they literally buzzed around me. Then I continued the set for healing the liver and did not do the meditation. I found myself so full of rage and anger it was unbearable! Instead of going back to the meditation...I quit.

I don't want to have that happen with Bound Lotus. I feel the Ray Man Shabd coming to mind sometimes during the day when I get anxious. It's mostly irritation and anxiety this time around - not anger. I meditate daily, but I wonder if I should be doing the meditation "Developing Human Kindness" after Bound Lotus?

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

My pain in the neck is gone!!!

Well...pretty much. The doc says I'm astoundingly better. Bound Lotus rocks! I love chiropractors! Yoga rules! Saul David Raye is the bomb!

But anyway, my neck is better, and it looks like I might be taking a well-timed Winter road trip to Florida for the Kundalini Winter Solstice Sadhana Celebration with a friend who has a Yoda on his dashboard. Since my Dad is kinda like Obi Wan-Kenobi, I guess I'll be Lucia Skywalker slipping on over to the light side and crocheting myself some fabulous white and pastel beanies for the occasion. Don't get me wrong, I still do Yoga to Led Zeppelin and wear my Jimmy Page & Robert Plant 'Walking Into Everywhere' T-shirt, but Ammachi likes popular music too. When I went to see her in 2006 they said her chauffeurs went to turn off the radio and she asked them to leave it on. She was bouncing her head to the music. So, Snatam Kaur, Deva Premal, B-Tribe, Led Zep, Bjork, Procul Harum, lemonjelly, Krishna Das...they all co-exist on my shelf.

Bound Lotus tweaked my shoulders a little this evening, but it was fairly blissful to finish it as my Dad knocked on my door. I'd just finished lying in Savasana when he knocked. I felt a difference in the way we spoke. I thought of how every time I've gone to see Ammachi with some friends of mine I've felt so energetic and fulfilled while there, and so exhausted and sick when I came back from the drive with them. They are good people, but they suck the life out of me - literally. I went to visit one of those friends last week, and BOOM! I got sick.

What they do to me I used to do to people all the time, and I didn't realize how bad I was anymore than they do. Good people like I said, but very draining. So there are people who wear a lot of white and pastel who can wear you out, and people who wear whatever who don't, and vice versa. Clothing choices, musical choices... I went to see the movie "Pirate Radio", and I loved it as much as "It Might Get Loud". I love Rock and Pop. I love Sanskrit Chanting and Moroccan Trance and New Age Flute music, just not much into groups like, oh say, Ministry. I'm not interested in feeding my anger. But I do love loud rock n' roll.

I think life is fabulous with all it's variety. I love life. I hope with the practice of Bound Lotus I'll be able to experience more of it without draining people like I still can at times, much less the horendous way I did years ago. It's funny in a way when I see people behave like energy vampires now...you can't fool me. I know what it looks like, and just because people listen to 'spiritual music' doesn't mean they don't do it.

We all do it to a certain extent. Everyone shares each other's energy. We just need to plug into the Source more often. Yoga helps us do that, and so does music. After all, the naad, the Sound Current is what it is all about!

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

My demons in their cloaks, Alexandra David-Neel style...

I don't like these parts of myself that I'm seeing. I feel better than those bitches from last night because I feel like I'm doing "real" Yoga, and they aren't. I guess I'm arrogant as well. I am.

Last night I did my practice at 10:07 pm. Kinda pushin' it. My right hip was so mellowly open, especially after the therapist worked on the 'knot' around the sciatic nerve of my right leg. I'd wanted to scream while she did this, and as I thought this to myself, she responded as if I'd spoken. She said, "Yes you did want to tell me about it." It's not the first time she's read my mind.

Amazingly, my left hip opened for the first time in my life in full or half-lotus. There was pain, but not much. Overall, the practice was soothing my little "wild things". I think of how much I loved the movie version of Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are". I'm on the island with my demons, smashing huts, igloos...and yurts...just the Czar's soldiers when he massacred the Russians from the steppes with their dark hair for real in the last century, and in the Russian film: "Song from the Southern Seas".

Back in the 30s, before the Tibetan exile, a western woman snuck into the holy city of Lhasa, and studied the practice of 'The Ritual of the Chod' with the lamas. There she succeeded in bringing a personal demon into personified form, at first as a shadow in a cloak that grew, over time, to have piercing eyes and sharp teeth. This conjuration was to be able to fight it. She'd only studied for a year with the lama before trying this, not the traditional 5 or 7. There are stories of people being killed by their personified demons. I surmise that the problem might believing in them too much as the great sage Milarepa discovered.

Demons. Ha! Making peace with the personal ones is all good and well, because we create them ourselves, but what about those that are other people's creations? Take for instance the three forms of Tantra according to Yogi Bhajan: White for healing and spiritual growth; Black for manipulating the energy to control another human being as my former wanna-be cultleader friend practiced; and Red solely for sexual purposes. Of course...the reality is also it is never really that Black and White, so to speak.

For years the Dalai Lama has been patiently stating that most of us should not even attempt most tantric practices until we have mastered the Three Principle Paths of renunciation, bodhicitta and correct view. To wield that kind of power...with a grasping hand full of ego? And yet I'm trying to get to Florida for 3HO Winter Solstice Celebration and White Tantric Yoga. Am I ready? Once, I gazed for 10 minutes into the eyes of a manipulative lover whom I thought was as harmless as a spoiled little child, and what I saw in his eyes was truly frightening. Is he not my mirror?

At the chiropractor's office I did a new exercise called 'Wall Angel', but as therapist commented it felt more like a 'Wall Demon'! Only yesterday while doing my yoga stretches for Bound Lotus, I felt moved to lie on my back and make Carpet Angels. And yet demons posing as hapless humans were in my dreams...one who lured my friends and I from a bar-hopping stint into a living room far from safe. Another, who loomed like my old nemesis, and tried to get me to climb up a towering yellow stilted house with only slice of apple for food. My instinct told me I'd starve to death up there with whomever else he had trapped; mud wasp that he is...paralyzing the caterpillars to store as future food sources. Such vivid dreams in technicolor...

In this waking reality, I sit again for Bound Lotus and it is a soft surrender into the pillows with so little pain that I almost slumber. I should not leave the practice to be done so late in the day. Too risky. I might fall into a dream and forget...