Monday, August 30, 2010

111 Days of Bound Lotus

Yes, if I started again in May, this is where I am at. I have begun to write more privately, because there are issues I am dealing with that have led me down a rather dark path to try and befriend some painful inner demons of hate. Among other things, I am planning my own version of a magickal ritual to heal my Erishkegal, and go down like Orpheus into Hades to retrieve Eurydice. It appears that like Persephone, I have eaten too many pomegranate seeds. These are seeds of anger and rage that have germinated and grown, have spread like weeds or dandelions, and every time I think I've cleared a field they come back in greater numbers.

This is the truth of what Tsultrim Allione writes in her book "Feeding Your Demons". The Hydra just grows more heads, and the last one is immortal, so burying it is pointless and worse. It will just give the demon greater power. So, in my version of the Tibetan practice of Chöd, without a bell, thighbone trumpet or drum, I am honoring my demons by dialoguing with them in the form of the Vodoun Loa/Lwa. Many of the older spiritual egregores in that religion are more daemons than demons, guiding spirits that have been demonized and and lumped in with those that actually are more demonic. In theory, Vodoun does not seperate good from evil, but in practice there are Rada Loa like Erzulie Freda, full of love and beauty, Papa Legba who is like a Ganesha of sorts; and there are Guede or Ghede who are the spirits of our dead ancestors, who cuss a lot and are disrespectful and a bit mercenary, but funny. The Petro Loa are like spirit egregores of all the rage, hate and pain within the African diasporic past.

I feel a connection to the path of Vodoun, and have begun to metaphysically clear the closets of my mind as well as my physical closets. These entities seem no different than the Tibetan Buddhist Wrathful deities that we must pass through and befriend. And the Tibetan brand of Buddhism blends with their native Bon religion, which seems much like the African Fon religion out of which Vodoun grew. And yes, there is evil, there are Bocors and Caplatas who exploit the Petro loa, just as there were great sorcerers like Milarepa in the mists of Tibetan Buddhist antiquity, and Thug Cults surrounding Kali in the Hindu faith.

But there are also those who have befriended Kali and allowed her to become a protectress. And the same with Ganesha in the distant past who became both a giver and remover of obstacles from his past as a more wrathful deity. My demons and Voodoun's demons can become daemons...guides and friends, no longer enemies. I don't want to fight anymore...I want to be friends.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Blissful Beauty

So even though it creeps me out that my ex of 10 years disrespected my recent request to be left alone, and sent me a sexual innuendo via facebook on Friday the 13th, no less, I am enjoying subbing classes. I had a wonderful group of students, and little Alexander came by to say hello. I feel the studio is blessed by his presence. And I got to try out new sequences of postures because the students at this studio are well-versed in the basics, and beyond. I love teaching! I love it!

Friday, August 13, 2010

Pavęlle, Æmmash § a black cat

...from PVELL ...PALE ...Aleph & Shamain (not Shaman). Shamain for Heaven, and Aleph, as in the miraculous mystery of... On this 95th Day of Bound Lotus, this is where my mind is...on this egregore no different in purpose than the changes wrought by the practice of Kundalini Yoga.

My day was hard going, with my personal demons rebelling against the disciplinary measures I've undertaken since November 3rd, 2009, compounded by what they feel is cruel, unusual, and boring punishment derived from my binding them with many more Kundalini practices. Sometimes it feels like smoking the rats out of the house. Today felt like poo (likely due to a subterranean and DNA-inscribed superstition of Friday the 13th which, though my ego likes to believe it does not heed, my subconscious does...), until I chanced to have a conversation with Harry (as in Harold Roth), about all things magickal. I had occasion to do this when I placed an order for incense. Specifically the Faux Ambergris I used for scrying the sephira of Kether on the Tree of Life in 08', as well as Crowley's Tetragrammaton, La Belle Femme Love Oil for Aphrodite, Tagriel's 26th Mansion of the Moon incense, and Bone Flower Necromancy oil. This latter sounded deliciously infused with the essence of tuberose, like the tuberose I planted under an overpass on highway 55, to negate a vicious memory of personal torture at the hands of an aspiring Beelzebub impersonator, already previously documented as an ex of mine. That little 'expose' had me standing behind a cement wall, looking like Kilroy, but with a trowel and a garbage bag containing said plant.

So.. after two hours of discussing the merits of Kabbalistic magick, I got off the phone feeling much better, and twisted myself into Bound Lotus before setting out to teach Yoga. At the designated studio, I drove up to find sweet little Alexander, the black cat who frequents the studio, parked under the window, waiting to be let in. His furry, purring sweet self graced our practice, while I taught my recently named new poses: Santocha Vyaghrasana § Nighudanagasana...or 'Crouching Tiger' and 'Hidden Dragon'.

A lovely dinner after with my newfound friend Maria rounded out my evening, as we chatted like old girlfriends. Old girlfriends I've never had before in my life! So tell me Kundalini Yoga is not like magick? And tell me that magick doesn't work as I contemplate creating servitors to protect me as I sleep, from people who would like to fuck me, and whom I don't wish to fuck because I don't feel they love ME, just my energy. Tell me magick doesn't work on this -Friday the 13th - as I complete my entire Banishings, Invocations, Middle Pillar and Rose Cross Rituals to cut cords and protect after my request to be left alone was ignored.

I will be sleeping like a baby. Dreaming of black cats and Pavęlle § Æmmash.

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Shaking Like a Leaf

This past Sunday I had an experience which I did not write about because it was so intense I still had to process it. I was at the very first Morning Sadhana practice for St. Louis, and as I listened to Sat Inder read Japji I felt tremendous peace. When we sang the Morning Call and the mantras, by the time we were midway through Wahe Guru, I was crying and shaking. As we finished I did not want to come back from the lightness I felt. Each time I tried to open my eyes or unwind from the pose, I felt tremendous grief, as if I would cry and not stop. So I sat. And sat.

Finally, I was able to move, and sit and talk with Sat Inder and Pavan Deep. Then I was able to get up and eat some granola with bananas and rice milk. Sat Inder and Guru Sandesh left, and Pavan Deep and I sat talking about the years we worked in the bars, and how hard it was to leave behind all the people who want to be miserable. I'd come home resolving to sing Japji and Morning Sadhana every day...wanting very much to let go of my inner demons from my past.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

It's August 3rd, (40 Days since White Tantric) and for once...

...it's a good day. I am NOT depressed. 14 years after mom's death, I feel normal. The last few days have been rough, but I've also been clearing from White Tantric, and this is the last day. How did that get set up that way? But White Tantric is the same time every year, so 40 days must always have ended on the anniversary of my mom's death. Strange that I'll finish 1'000 Days of Bound Lotus on her birthday, Groundhog's Day, in 2012. Kinda funny in a way...I think.

Monday, August 2, 2010

We keep circling~ coming back to old themes

Everything spirals and coils and winds and unwinds. I dust a little here, I dust a little there. I read a little from Virginia Woolf's "The Waves"...then Rachel Corrie's diaries, where she spoofs Anaïs Nin. Where she reflects on Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being". I finish "Orlando".

I go to get my back cracked. I have lunch. I run into Sat Inder and Danielle, and Sat Inder talks about how he does not have anything in his life that is not yoga. He offers that he might develop a hobby stitching Teddy bears. I think of my writing. Three manuscripts: "Flowers * .•....", "As Red ......•*•.....•*•....*•", and "?" When will I finish them? I re-read Idalith Marie's e-mails. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to kiss her?

Did I hurt Joe when I told him I was in love with a woman many months ago? All the games we've played...I'm no better than he ~ telling me all about Magan. We are mean to each other.

I read Gina B. Nahai's "Caspian Rain" and think: that was the Iran my mother would have lived in had she married the other man besides my father....

Idalith is interested in what I read, what I love...is Joe? Did Dad know my mother even though it took him years to realize that her favorite poet was not Elizabeth Barrett Browning, but Edna St. Vincent Millay? My mother the reader, writer of letters to the editor, of essay-long letters to me...my father talking on and on and on ad infinitum~ lingering in his library~ his house a library...House of Leaves. No wonder the book scared me. And the words of the Kennedy Sisters...Gray Gardens: "Oh, it's a sea of leaves...if you drop it, it's gone forever."???

The Goetic Demons...

...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~