...aren't in a stoppered bottle belonging to King Solomon...they are in every bottle of alcohol! And if you've made peace with your personal inner demons, they don't collude with the ones in the bottle. But most of us haven't. And I've heard it told there are yogis in the Himalayas who can drink alcohol and not get drunk. I'd say that's conquering your demons. But most of us haven't. And they don't call alcohol spirits for nothing.
Perfume is 'distilled' from living material too, and no wonder some scents are so incredibly intoxicating. I think, laughingly, of Brian Froud's pressed faeries! Maybe I'm serious, maybe I'm not. All I know is that on p. 83 of of Sandy Boucher's "Discovering Kuan Yin", she talks about a little girl attacked by the long, sharp, fang-toothed hounds of hell spoken of in Buddhist Sutras, and how Master Hua, the family's teacher, told them they weren't sincere enough in their efforts to work for her healing. The doctors could never find anything, but the little girl was dying nonetheless. They prayed the Great Compassion Mantra, they chanted to Kuan Yin endlessly...and she slowly recovered.
I'd heard a story that the reason Mahan Kirn developed that horrible nuerological disorder was because evil spirits were trying to attack Yogi Bhajan through her...? If it were true, I wonder about evil spirits and angels and demons? Do they exist? Only in our minds? But isn't the world OUR mind? So if we imagine it, do we create it? Everything? What was that quote of Shakespeare's: "There are more things in heaven and on earth than you have imagined..."? Or something of that nature~
~this world of ours~ how did it REALLY come into being? I mean the whole truth? All I know is that last night, after a late afternoon deep slumber from nowhere, I awoke with a horrible migraine, like the one's I had years ago. It would not abate. In the darkness I felt so much anxiety and panic that I wished I were in oblivion. I thought of alcohol, of weed, of chocolate, of sex with people I can't trust...and then I thought of Bach Flower Remedies in my kitchen: Cherry Plum, Rock Rose...Star of Bethlehem. I took them sublingualy.
In 20 minutes, as I folded into Bound Lotus, the intense panic morphed into a flood, an avalanche of tears, for almost the entire 31 minutes. Then I sat up to read Santokh's e-mails, and my e-mails, and I knew at least one realization which had shattered my equilibrium. I am Bi. And inside my head I feel like a freak, because society only seems to accept Bis as titullary material for horny men. And if I love a woman, I'm missing being with a man, vice versa. But I don't think I want more than one love relationship. And I'm sorry to say that hermaphrodites don't do it for me...definitely not the one I met. And this fear of being different, of standing out for more than a unique pair of jeans is draining, exhausting...
I sat, my hand resting on a piece of Deep Mine Drusy Quartz, letting it fill me with energy that I could feel like a drumbeat pulsing up from the earth, like an underground stream, or waterfall, like a great generator tingling beneath my fingertips~ I let my heart slow down, and I thought of the peace of Kuan Yin, Kuan Yin as the temple prostitute in one ancient story...healing men~ of The Red Thread Kwan Yin with her thin moustache.
A moustache~
...on the Mona Lisa.•*•.•*•.•*•.
Kwan Yin, whose statue in Jade I purchased in 2002, while sick with mono, strep and CFS. Whose cool green jade flesh I kissed as I laid roses at her feet during those many months in 2005 when I was to weak to stand, and could only chant, while inclining my head toward her resting on my bedside table. The Kwan Yin who smiled at me, the Kwan Yin some say is connected with the Virgin Mary, and hence the Black Madonna, and therefore Kali, and therefore Ammachi...Sri Amritanandamayi, my namesake, the incarnation of Kali on earth, with her Kali temple in India. Kwan Yin who is every goddess, who passes through 1'000 demons unharmed, because she is 1'000 armed. Every goddess.
To night, with my head still hurting, I take refuge with her beside my bed. And as I have no flower to offer, and it is too late at night to go to the store, I offer her the votive candle in a lotus-blossom-shaped holder. I sleep like a child, and awaken to memories~ not of demons, but of meeting the Dalai Lama in person when I was 18. In Anaheim, CA at an aerobics convention. I saw myself standing in an impromptu line with hotel staff, as he floated past like a sweet angel of mercy, kind eyes, gentle nods, in his ochre robes. And I thought...Kwan Yin is everyone. The demons are simply unruly children got way out of hand, and she can get them underhand, with one of her 1'000 hands.
I now know why Diane Stein, the Reiki Master, collects dozens of Kwan Yin statues. Imagine either an entire apartment filled with statues of Kwan Yin~ every shape and size, or dozens of roses~ even the scent of roses heavy everywhere in the room, as it was one morning in 2005, early on my path that began with Kwan Yin giving me her hand, like the detachable hand on many a Kwan Yin statue. The book about her that came to me after mom died in 1996....Kwan Yin, the princess Miao Shan in legend, whom I named a cat after~ Kashmira Miao Shan.
Kwan Yin protects with the compassion of the Virgin, with fierceness of Kali, and the humaness of Ammachi. She teaches with the steadiness of Yogi Bhajan. She floats in and out of my life like a rose petal on a lake. She hovered near me last night, and will tonight, and tomorrow, as the anniversary of my mother's death comes to pass.. This time without the grief-stricken anguish of the past. But with slightly painful and very fond memories of a woman struggling to heal her inner demons, just as I am, just as we all are~
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