This morning was wonderful! I taught class to new music: GauraVani's "Ten Million Moons", and Nirinjan Kaur's "adhara", which has a version of 'Jai Tegang', a Sikh prayer which I love, I think, more than the Reman Shabd. It was what I heard coming from Sat Sunderta's car on the last day of Solstice, while her friends were packing to leave as she lay sleeping in the back. Everyone, including myself, wanted to know what that beautiful song was...it turns out it wasn't Simrat Kaur like everyone thought! It was Nirinjan. The same voice that sang the 'So Purkh' I heard at Saul David Raye's. The 'So Purkh' that maybe I should be singing for someone to make them a saint, and to heal them, for it is said to have that power if chanted by a woman for a man...But 'Jai Tegang' is different. It is healing me. It is, apparently, very healing for those that were present in my class this morning.This music, the warmth of the studio, and my students made for a most beautiful class!
Last night, I'd taught my first Power Vinyasa in the same studio. I had the chance to show my versatility as an instructor, and was still buzzing from the gift. I'd been asking the Universe why no one ever asked me to sub Power Vinyasa, and the response came as a phone call to sub a class. What is that about 'ask and ye shall receive?'
But by doing Kirtan Kriya to heal past sexual attachments, I've asked for some pain and grief too. After teaching this morning, and then doing my own practice with some ecstatic dancing and vinyasa with poses I haven't done in a while...I came home to gradually feel exhausted, confused and very tired. I lay down to do Reiki, awoke 24 minutes later with a start, thinking it was already Thursday, and that 24 hours had gone by. I felt sick. I checked my e-mail and my facebook page to calm myself, and found an abstract sent to me on an NPR broadcast about rape on college campuses.
The story told about a woman who was taken back to a house from a frat party by two male friends she trusted, was raped by both of them as she went in and out of consciousness. There was no struggling, because she was too drunk. She just kept waking up to find them having sex with her. She'd pass out again, and they were still at it. A great wave of recognition passed through me. Rape does not necessarily involve penetration. Rape can be oral.
People in relationships sometimes fantasize about having their lover awaken them from sleep by lovemaking, but to awaken on the sofa of someone you've never had sex with, and find that they have removed your clothes and are performing oral sex on you while you've been passed out in a drunken and drug-induced haze is...well, it IS rape. This happened to me in March of 2000. I'd been invited to a Bar-B-Q by someone whom I had a crush on, but who was dating and practically living with someone else. So I would have liked eventually to be with him, but not in that way.
I had passed out from too much Grand Marnier, beer AND wine coupled with a lot of really good weed. Everyone had left, including his girlfriend. I remember having wedged myself into the corner of the sofa as people chatted, only to awaken in a pitch dark room with my lower body now completely nude, and hanging off the sofa, which means he'd positioned it this way. Only a necrophiliac could possibly enjoy doing such a thing. When I awoke, I instinctively pulled away. I said, "What are you doing?" I remember his words: "Well you can come, can't you?" A taunt. A challenge to a very drunk and confused woman who had awoken to find her body violated by someone she trusted.
I remember now, I had wished in the months and years following when I went on to imagine I had fallen in love with this man, dated him and carried on a friendship that the first time had not been this way. I convinced myself it was okay, but inside I hated him for it. I hated his philandering too, but I did choose to put up with it. Often, over the years I've thought back to that night, wishing it were different, and telling myself what I know he'd say, that I wanted to be with him. Yes. But not that way. Not that way...
No wonder I've had a harder time forgiving him than my stalker, whom I'd dated prior to him. My stalker had coerced me into performing his lurid sexual fantasies in places such as abandoned buildings, the side of freeways, outside churches and over tombstones in cemeteries. But I was conscious each time. I allowed it. I was lonely. I chose to do what he asked so I wouldn't lose him...and when I finally left him, he stalked me. Then I met this new guy, and got invited to a Bar-B-Q, and got raped.
Quietly, with no struggling, by someone I trusted...just like the woman in the story. And it is interesting that just like the day I remembered how my grandfather violated me, the realization of this rape was precipitated by a wonderful morning filled with love and light, that helped to offset the painful realizations.
After I cried.. ALOT.. I found my way into my meditation room, skipping my day of laundry and cleaning, to sit in meditation with tears streaming down my face, trying to forgive him. As of yet, I have not. It is too soon, after coming to honor the truth of what happened. Right now, I hate the bastard for raping me, though he would never call it that. It was rape. That is exactly what it was. True, I'd dreamed of being with him, but I actually wanted to be present for it. Not awaken to find him chewing on me in the dark like a vampire.
Interesting that since we broke up in 2001, and until I became celibate in 2006, he would show up pretending there was some chance of a renewed relationship, only to drain me sexually and then make it implicitly understood each time afterwards that he didn't want me for more than sex, and was with someone else. He'd invite me places so I could hope we'd be getting back together, only so I could see him with someone else. I believe I'd convinced myself I was in love with him, so that I could turn the blame for all his cruelty onto myself, not wanting to demonize this man I thought I loved.
But in many ways, his antics and cruelty did more damage than my stalker ever did. If I was under anyone's spell for the last decade, it was a spell cast by this man who violated my trust, my innocent desire for him, and who raped me. I keep hearing it over and over in my head: our relationship began with rape. Violation. Vampirism of energy. And then it continued. And I got sick with mono, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, constant respiratory problems worse than before I met him. No wonder that in past months I've felt ambivalent about talking to him or running into him. And in recent weeks I had developed an inexplicable (to me) distaste and outright dislike of him. Now it all makes sense.
Now, I just have to forgive him. It was easier to forgive my stalker. Easier to forgive my grandfather. And I've got to forgive myself for wasting almost ten years of my life pining after someone who raped me even before our first date. Someone who does not know how to love, and never loved me. Like the Zeppelin song: "Ten Years Gone". The day after he violated me, I saw him at work and tried to avoid him. He asked me if everything was okay, if I was upset by what happened...so he knew. The bastard. He knew in his heart of hearts he'd been wrong.
The whole relationship was tinged with violation of trust from the very start. Tinged with lies and manipulation for sex for all these years...I hope I won't forever, but right now I hate him, and I see why I've been chanting the 'Aakhan Jor'...to protect him from my hatred. The honest truth is I would like him to suffer, for all his twisting of the truth, manipulation, condescension, and attempts to keep from getting over alcohol, weed, and him. He was worse than my stalker. It was like sleeping with the enemy, never knowing that he was...
I had been very kind to him recently, trying to help him find his way out of the darkness, and eventually I will get back there. I will care again. But right now...right now I just want to listen to Nirinjan's 'Jai Tegang' and cry:
Jai Tegang
Khag khand bihandan khal dal khandan at ran mandan bar bandan
'The sword breaks through and cuts down the demons of the mind and body. This beautiful and powerful weapon adorns the battlefield of life.'
Bhuj dandh akhandan tej parchadan jot amandan bhaan prabhan
'It is an extension of the arm, unbreakable, terribly fast. It's awesome splendor overshadows even the sun.'
Sukh santaa kamang durmat damang kilbikh hamang as samang
'It protects the peace and happiness of the saints and destroys any powerful negative energy. It has erased the negativity and guilt that I carry. I seek it's refuge.'
Jai jai jag kaaran srist ubaaran mam pratipaaran jai tegang
'Praise, praise be to the great doer of the world, savior of the creation, my great protector, praise be to the sword!'
-words and trans.
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