Finishing 90 Days of Bound Lotus

Oh my God! It's here! I've never done 90 days of anything before, and I'm finally done with this second milestone to create a new habit. Wow! I'm speechless, but I'll catch my breath...

"Security is the ego's holy grail"

"Any way that doesn't keep you on the edge, keep you moving and growing and changing, is not really a way, but a trap." - Gabrielle Roth, 'Maps to Ecstasy' (p. 185)

I was blown away by Jan's class today. I told her I was coming and she made the theme around expanding to your inner light, and working on the shoulders and neck. I felt so much tightness in my shoulders release! Her adjustments were dead on, and she really helped me. I couldn't believe it a few days ago either when she called to see if I could sub her Tuesday class. She'd already found someone by the time gmail sluggishly got the message to me, but just the fact that she would ask is an honor. Anusara is pretty detailed on alignment, and I'm eager, but very green and new. I can see how Anusara will help get my cervical curve back, and I'm in awe.

On top of that, when class was over, and a couple of people I know got started on the subject of funerals, the Western culture's inability to accept death, a friend's recent death of his grandfather, the fact that a student of mine, a cellist, no less, died of a heartattack (I think around the time I was 'inspired' to listen to Jacqueline du Pre and read "The Cellist of Sarajevo"), and the upcoming anniversary of my dead mother's birthday, I could talk with them, and talk about all of this and stay oddly bouyant. I didn't drown in the misery and depression that was getting conjured up by all of us to be released. I could talk about my mother's Stage IV CUPS cancer and her death with an objective but compassionate view, and listen to these friends talk about the world as a painful place they want to escape from...I still seem to have issues with anger, but their issues with depression and grief didn't suck me in, and I could hear it and be present while not agreeing with their assessment of life. I think it is safe to say: I'm a Tantrika. I love life. I'm not looking for a get-out-of-jail free pass, and I think that life is NOT a trap, but a precious gift. That is why I love Wim Wender's "Wings of Desire". I think we are all 'fallen angels' who came here to experience the beauty of the world, it's rich colors and lovely sunsets, along with all the pain, war and misery. We came for love. That's what I think. And for the experience of life.

So much is happening! I've been able to carry on conversations with people and not sound pedantic, or wierd. More of a social life than I've had in years with people I actually like too. People who are good and kind and want to read books, things like "The Tao of Pooh", and not the grocery store tabloids. I was wondering for years where all the people I actually had something in common with were...

Since the Anusara Immersion, my head and lungs and heart are clearing from all the junk White Tantric Yoga brought up at Solstice. It is nice not to sound tubercular. New friends. Old friends from high school on the facebook account that I finally set up...people like Justine and Mariquita who I knew at GPS, a 25th high school reunion coming up that I didn't know about. I've had "the talk" this morning with someone holding a candle for me that shouldn't be, and it went well. We're both relationship addicts, but he doesn't know it.

It's funny, cause after the wierdness with him, I know the celibacy vows for me where a really good thing to take back in 2006, though I fell off the wagon in '07. That relationship was a disaster, and no small wonder! Old friends have told me they think it's great that I've been celibate and healing my issues, because when they knew me several years ago, I was hooked on relationships and sex. I was always busy looking for a saviour, like the Tori Amos' song says, and finding real trouble instead. Too much James Dean.

I'm still eating entirely too much chocolate, but I think it must be to ground me, and all the energy buzzing through me. When I did Bound Lotus, I didn't feel much but pain in my shoulders, and a strong resurgence of tightness in my hips that I ignored in favor of finishing Day 89; but the Moon Kriya made me buzzy. As in all over, but particularly in my chest and hands. It felt like a hundred bees humming in the hive.

Rebalancing my navel?

Last night I fell in love with teaching all over again! All my favorite students were there and it was a blast! Kristen is a Led Zep fan. Yay! This morning, with Sat Inder, did set to rebalance the third chakra. Then we had lunch at some fabulous place with fabulous Indian food. Fabulous! -my favorite word-

I finally did the facebook thing, and hooked up with Mariquita, Shelley, and Justine from HS...Justine remembers our papier mâché masks from Terpsichord, and she is right: I have an amazing memory. Having said that, I can't find my glasses. Wow! My 25th High School reunion is coming up...does it matter that I didn't get to spend senior year with all of these girls just because Dr. Hughes didn't want me there because I needed to take a reduced coarseload? I know they don't care about that, and they remember me....but I must say, all those years ago it hurt alot not to graduate with the girls I spent 9th, 10th and 11th grade with...anytime you want to apologize, Dr. Hughes, be my guest.

But anyway, onward and upward, right? Three more days to 90 Days of Bound Lotus!!!!! 5 more days to finishing the dreaded 'Moon Kriya' and processing of White Tantric Yoga. And now I'm clearing from a big Reiki attunement I just did for Sat Inder. His energy was so high already...this was a biggie! So I better go do Bound Lotus!

Mussy Bones

I woke up this morning with this phrase in my head: "I became so chilled by the violence to my soul that I had mussy bones." I thought, "What the heck are 'mussy' bones?" I looked up 'mussy', but kept thinking of 'must' too, as in grape must. You know, stomping on the grapes, expressing them of their juice. But 'muss' is to make a mess, to be disorganized. So the violence to my soul disorganized my bones and froze them...literally. Especially the sacrum and the pelvis. In that bowl lies my heart, my soul waiting to be expressed.

I love Yoga. I've been basically, for all practical purposes, teaching it since I graduated high school in '85 and taught it as part of my aerobics classes. I was good at it. Then I left what I loved. I stopped teaching from 1994 - 2008. I think I could have a tombstone that reads: Here lies (insert birth name). Died in 1994. Reborn as a Phoenix in 2008.

A friend who had to attend a visitation and funeral yesterday, said that most of the people were already dead. The word moribund comes to mind. In 1994 I was moribund. By 2000 I was just about completely dead. By 2003, deader than a doornail as they say in Tennessee. I'm still waking up like Snow White and Rose Red from a long frozen spell under the magick of 'The White Witch'...no more Turkish Delight for me. Saruman can gaze in his crystal ball all he wants. My soul is my own. I can taste the spring rain. Crunching violets like a Shakespearean ass.

No longer 'looking' at myself in the mirror, I SEE myself, just as I did in Jiwan Shakti's eyes at Solstice. To quote Gabrielle Roth again:

Seeing implies detachment. Looking implies attachment. Looking is with the eyes. Seeing is with the whole being...I look at people. But if I stare into my left eye in the mirror...

The Chocolate Diet

I'm on the chocolate diet. That is when you eat a piece of rich, dark chocolate whenever you feel like poo. 75-80% cacao. It's like sex. Need I say more. So my practice feels more like I'm tango dancing with Shiva. This is good, because I know I have a lot of stuff stored in my hips that needs to be released. Energetically. Could the kundalini be moving through the lower granthis? The last time I felt like this I was at Ammachi's in 2006. My whole pelvic floor is vibrating. It is sometimes like a flutter. At Amma's it felt like everything was drawing inside. I've had this feeling before, and regardless of what some forms of Tantra say, if I hold it in, it expands me. I begin to feel as wide as the sky. But it is difficult, because I just want to go find a guy and make wild, passionate love to him.

Hm. Not doing that. I like the expansive feeling for now...I wonder how Bound Lotus will be?

The Levee is Breaking....

I saw "Crazy Heart" with a friend yesterday, and it was so inspiring about coming back from loss, addiction and resurrecting the ruins of a soul... It made me think about how Jack White of The White Stripes said that when you are digging deeper into music, you are digging into the blues. Joy comes from letting in the pain and sadness, embracing them, being with them, like holding a friend in your heart who has lost a loved one.

So...I went back to my practice this morning listening to Led Zep again, because their music dips into the light and shade of my soul:

Stairway to Heaven
When the Levee Breaks
Ramble On
Dazed and Confused
Babe I'm Gonna Leave You
Whole Lotta Love
Kashmir (my favorite)
All of My Love
Bron-Y-Aur...

this was my practice. And my heart opened in the music like a flow, a dance with the dark, abandoned, lonely part of my soul. I need to dance this way to be able to hold a space for other's emotions. For me, Yoga is a dance of life.

6 more days to 90...

...and I feel as if 'Arrow' from the book "The Cellist of Sarajevo" is watching through her window for snipers, and protecting me. I will succeed! I will make it to 90 days and on to 1,000!

"Saved"...by Jimmy Page!

I think my Kundalini is rising, and I have a dangerously painful crush on someone who is off limits. But then, really, I think what is actually happening is that it isn't the individual man so much as the fact that he represents the kind of guy that I wish there were more of... Sensitive, Kind and Compassionate. Of course, I've had this ongoing crush on Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, and I think I'll focus on that. Much safer.

And look the sun is setting so exquisitely after the end of an enlightening and magickal weekend. I have other things on my mind. The Anusara Immersion was like healing balm for the wound cleansing that Kundalini Winter Solstice did. I wonder if this is like a 40-40-40 mantra practice; i.e., 40 days of cleansing, 40 days of healing balm, and 40 days of growing new skin, and a sense of peace? If it is: Jai! Yay! Yay Ganesha! Remover of Obstacles. Now for Bound Lotus....

It was harder today, with less of an opening, but still a beautiful experience like it has been the last few days... When I did the Moon Kriya and the meditation to Aadays Tisai Aadays, I immediately relived the moment when I lost the clasp of Jill's arms in a stretch, with her just three days away from a pregnancy due date. So dangerous. I was mortified. How could I be so careless...and she, who had much more to worry about than me, reached out to me and touched my hand. So kind. Nargiza from Uzbhekistan by way of Arkansas, Sara, Anne, Brooke from Chicago, Stacia....so many wonderful women. So kind. So full of love, tejase.. I miss them. For five days they were a part of my Yoga Kula...and JenTara, Jan and Brigette, Jill and others are here, but still...I miss them, and I miss everyone from Kundalini Solstice in Florida...Jot Nirinjan, Sat Sundertat, Hari Purkh, Santokh, my cabinmates from Japan, Pritam Hari and so many others...Noor Singh, Jiwan Shakti...friends for life, and if I go to Summer Solstice they will be there. If I go, too, to another Anusara Immersion the people I met here I may see again...maybe at the Anusara Grand Gathering in Estes Park. But I still miss them all.

4th Day of the Anusara Immersion

Bound Lotus came so easily today...after some incredible twists to open the hips, handstand in the middle of the room, and headstand in a new way, that will seriously help to recreate my cervical curve. Even shoulderstand safely with blankets! At lunch I did Bound Lotus, and my practice was sweet and full of gratitude. The feeling of opening and expansion from yesterday and Thursday stayed. And also from this morning, when we talked about Uttanita, or looking at things from a new perspective.

I see now how the unkind words in my head are mine, and no longer those of my stalker. His cruel words have been erased long ago...what I'm releasing now are my own cruel words...deeply in place before he ever arrived on the scene. I can see how he was responsible for a lot of pain in my life, but I have caused myself pain as well, and it has been easier to blame him for all of it. He did have some good points: he taught me to drive stick shift. So I realized this, in our morning meditation, and then when we practised, I cried. A lot.

So much that Anne thought I was gagging, and Martin began to lighten the mood by bouncing around the room, and changing his perspective by jumping from ladders to countertops and on the floor, like a little Hanuman! Funny that I'd sung the Hanuman Chalisa this morning while in the break room, looking at his coat. Ha! So I began to laugh while I cried. Hiding behind my hair while the tears flowed, I found myself grateful toward a man I just recently met, who has changed my life...someone whose kindness has touched my heart.

I thought about all the times too, when my stalker seemed to be trying to break the hold of the darkness surrounding him. I know what it felt like to be in the grip of it, and why some people personify the devil. Darkness in gross excess, with a closed heart can feel like the Hotel California. It can feel like no way out. Sometimes I could feel, years ago, a sort of evil breathing over me, through the walls and windows, suffocating me. Was it like this for my stalker I found myself thinking in Bound Lotus?

And then my practice was done. I hummed and sang along with Snatam Kaur, falling in love with Dayndaa Day. I chatted with Sarah, and then we practised some more, before heading to Jan's and a wonderful spread of food from all of us! Jan's barbecue beef, soup, salad, Anne's grandmother's torte, my split mung dal and lemon rice, cheese, crackers, chocolate, cider, wine, tea and cookies...little Sara and her yoga poses...Martin playing relaxed host when Jan or Mitch got shy...Conversations with Anne and Stasia about Anne's dog who died, and how fabulous dogs are...Stasia's teenage son who loves vegetables and meat...her Mediterranean eggplant-loving husband...Martin's brother and how he turned Fundamentalist, his Methodist father, and southern background...JennTara's guy who lived in Spain, and JennTara who majored in French and lived in Strasborg...

Then we watched Anodea Judith's video of the chakras, and I went home feeling all warm and as if I'd smoked a big fat Bob Marley joint. The rainstorm outside was like a late summer rain, making me wish I were in my friend's arms that I just met. I just wanted to be held. While I finished my meditations, I could not seem to stop thinking about him, and for the first time in years I had warm, loving feelings toward a man ( I mean besides my lusting after Jimmy Page), for this was more about kindness and softness in loving...real love. And I fell asleep imaging warm arms holding me and keeping me safe from harm, brushing back my hair.

Something in the Anusara?

Wow! I can breathe...Today's practice was incredible! More later...

Today is Day 80!

Wheeeeeeee!!!!

I did Bound Lotus on lunch break....

while taking the first day of an Anusara Immersion with Martin Kirk. It was easier to get into, I suspect partly because of all the physical opening and alignment we did, but also because of the way we were running Muscular and Organic Energy through the Focal Points of the pelvic core, the bottom of the heart, and the palate. Martin's teaching is so easy to follow. And I see now why Brigette's mom saw the connection between it and Yin Yoga. I also think it resonates very strongly with the teachings of Saul David Raye, though his work isn't so alignment-based. It is based on Tantric concepts, and so is Anusara. A love of life and being in the world and the muck out of which the lotus blossoms. Not like Advaita Vedanta where you are trying to get out of the world. The thing is I like it all! There are sides to me which are more inclined to the Advaita Vedanta teaching, and sides more inclined to the Tantric basis of Saul David Raye and Anusara. I think I might have been one of those full-on Advaita Vedanta types in a past life (you know, total renunciates and all...) and got sent back to fall in love with the world. If it is an 'illusion', as Advaita Vedanta teaching says, then it is a beautiful one as Tantra says...

Taking naps so I can rest up for my main snooze!

Yeah, I woke up. I'm still sleepy. So, I am going back to bed for awhile...again...maybe I'll eat some cinnamon toast first, THEN sleep. I'll do Bound Lotus when I feel like it...

Dancing my demons away...

Yes. I did Bound Lotus...inbetween teaching three classes, my own practice, the Moon Kriya, the meditation to "Aadays Tisai Aadays", and sacking out on the couch, in my apartment that looks like Taz took a whirling dervish spin since I got back from Solstice. It is hard to keep up. Especially after three days of White Tantric Yoga in December put its foot in my behind, and then drop-kicked me into January. But as Mother Teresa said, "I am grateful for what I don't have." Such as all the misery and real sickness that lined my days from 1996-2007. I am grateful my apartment is still standing, my car drives, and I have 'Real' friends now. People I can actually trust to not treat me with kid gloves. That is it, mostly. I'm grateful I no longer I have friends who would allow me to be a stunted little bonsai tree. I'm grateful I no longer have 'so-called friends' who would manipulate circumstances to create my demise, or get me to be fat, or ruin my life or my job. I'm grateful I don't have anymore friends who would sleep with my boyfriend, and then justify it by saying they weren't dating him. I'm grateful, most of all, I think, that I don't have a boyfriend. I'm telling the universe really loudly right now: "I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE BEING SINGLE!" Mom, I say, tell the men to buzz off. Yay for being single! Yay! Yay! Yay! What a fabulously funky lifestyle. Single. It's like really good chocolate.

Yeah. So that is what I am really grateful for...that and being able to backdate this post I forgot to type yesterday. ;-P

Speaking of which, I just woke up at 5:05, believing I heard my alarm, which I did not set, because I don't have to today. Because today is really tomorrow. Heh. I guess in advance of Groundhog's Day! I almost rolled out of bed to go teach a 6:15 am class 'on the wrong day'. That's stress. That I have, and I am not grateful for it. I am grateful for my pillow, which I will now use to go back to sleep. Yay! Yay for sleep! If you can take the day off, I highly recommend it.

Later, I shall wake up again, renewed, refreshed, and actually ready to post for the 19th of January...

Feeding One's Demons

...or the practice described by Tsultrim Allione, or what Gabrielle Roth suggests about dancing the Dark Mother's rhythm is no different than: Jungian analysis, The Tibetan Dance of the Chod, or 'Summoning Demons' to let them know who is in charge after successful completion of The Abramelin Operation in Western Magick (done long before Aleister Crowley got a hold of it - in Persia). This is all to lure the demons out of hiding, make peace with them, and let them know they can't run the show anymore; whereas before, the wreaked havoc in one's life like angry children tearing up the house.

When Gabrielle Roth talks about dancing to music to release your anger for spiritual growth by dancing to, for instance, Nine Inch Nails, or, for instance I thought of Stravinsky's 'Rite of Spring', Led Zeppelin's 'In the Evening' and 'Kashmir', or stuff by In Living Color, or Ministry, or FSOL's "My Kingdom" CD - none of which I've tried yet, but think I should. This is nothing more and nothing less than pulling everything out of the 'long black bag' we drag behind us that the poet Robert Bly talks about. The side of us that could wish someone death or misfortune can be brought out into the light, like luring cockroaches out of the house, so they can't wreak havoc anymore. But this way you aren't killing your demons, you are feeding them, luring them into the light, where they can be transformed.

The Kundalini set we did on Friday for releasing subconscious memories does this too...there are many ways to work this process. It is the process that the 13th c. Sufi (read: mystical Islamic sect) poet Jelaluddin Rumi talks about in his poem: "The Chickpea to the Cook"...the muck of the bubbling gelatinous mass of the Alchemist's Prima Materia is the same as Rumi's chickpeas, the same as lentils cooking for Mahkni Dal. Eventually, it turns into something beautiful. Like the silk moth wrapped essentially in vomit and putridness until the day it emerges into a state so far beyond what it ever dreamed possible. Essentially, for the New Agers out there: You can't get there from 'here', if here is only sweetness and light...without going through the darkness it is...

Apples and Pears

I did Bound Lotus too quickly today and almost hurt my knee.

The 'So Purkh'

Last night a student asked what I was playing during shavasana, knowing instinctively that it was a prayer. I told her that it was the 'So Purkh', a long Sikh prayer chanted by women to take the war and violence out of men and make them saints. I had heard it first, not at Solstice, but in Saul David Raye's workshop. I'd come in one day before the seminar, and he was playing it. I knew it was in Gurmukhi, because I had been learning to recite the Ray Man Shabd. My heart felt at peace, and when I found out from Saul that it was chanted by women for men, I thought, "But what about the violence in me?"

Saul said men had come up to him with tears in their eyes, asking what the music was because they felt their hearts opening. And granted, most violence is perpetrated by young adult males, but not always; all the violence in the world isn't committed by Clockwork Orange-style droogies indulging in ultra-violence or even just men in general, or human males in general. Some women are violent and some can be pathologically aggressive as well, and animals can be as well.

Yes, animals. While I've been reading Temple Grandin's "Animals in Translation", I read her descriptions of the different forms of aggression and then of animal violence. Some people like to believe that only humans commit rapes, murders, or wage wars. But male chimpanzees will have border wars and kill each other off, as Jane Goodall discovered. "Many animals can be horrifically violent for no reason, it seems, other than the sheer desire to kill and maybe even to torture. The man who tortured me for sport, like I was Tess of the D'Urbervilles, would have the world believing that this only proves his theory that Golding's "Lord of the Flies" is an accurate appraisal of the state of the world, but I digress. Violence is not the only thing in the world, but it does exist, and sadly enough, our beloved dolphins are capable of it too. Rachel Smolker, in her book "To Touch a Wild Dolphin," describes male dolphins who "commit gang rape, brutal killings of dolphin 'children', and the mass murder of porpoises." Violence is not the only thing, but it is everywhere, and in everyone... (still writing...not done yet)

Voltaire's advice:

"The most important decision we make each day is to be in a good mood."

And Power Yoga instructor, Baron Baptiste says:

"Mediation sets my mood. Usually upon arising, my mind calls me to immediately launch into my day, getting my kids off to school, getting dressed, checking messages, and making calls. At this point in my life, I know that this energetic pattern only contributes to mental chaos. If I've taken no steps toward establishing a change of heart within myself, then it will be no wonder that I'm feeling crazy and disconnected by midday.

"The flip side is that if I set aside twenty to thirty minutes each morning for meditation and prayer and just quietly sit with myself, my experience of life becomes very different, because I'm different. By sitting still my mind is renewed, and I anchor to something in me that can shine a light into my life. So before I do anything else, I've learned to commit to putting first things first. I anchor to myself. I make the connection to conscience, putting on my spiritual armor before I head off into my day. Before I even take a step outside my door, I set myself right." - from "40 Days to Personal Transformation"

For me, like Gabrielle Roth, I find that 'mine is a dancing path'. Once I appease my internal demons with movement, they will sit still. My little demons are hyper-active five-year-olds. I've been watching videos of Gabrielle Roth's 5Rhythms, and noting the parallels with not only Saul David Raye's style of teaching that I follow now, but with my own background in modern dance: Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham, and my dance teacher at G.P.S. - Peggy Thomas, who studied with Martha Graham. I love to dance!!!!!!! It makes me smile. It sets my mood to...

Albinoni's Adagio and 'Shopping Cart Rage'..

My day started out way better than it ended, yesterday. I'd finished "The Cellist of Sarajevo" and had a release of something terribly painful, to then find a great silence and deep peace. I went to Kim's class at D's Yoga Home, and she opened my heart and shoulders a little deeper for me, the way Keith has been doing the same thing for me in his classes. I was happy. Peaceful. Calm. I felt blessed to be alive and live in this country, where people aren't living under war or war-like conditions. And then I went grocery shopping. Something, an intuition, said inside for me to do it later, but I went anyway. Toward the end of moving through the aisles, this tall, angry African-American woman with a nasty scowl on her face looked at me so hatefully as she said "Excuse me," but pushed her cart into me on purpose. There were several people blocking the way in front of me, and rather than choose to wait patiently, as I was doing, she took out her aggression and selfishness on me. She said she didn't have all day and had to get back to work.

Finally someone ahead of us moved, just as I told her that I was waiting too. She then proceeded to ram her cart over my heels three times. I couldn't move any faster because there were people ahead of me. I told her she was running over my heels, and she responded: "Well good!!! Maybe that will make you move faster!!!!!!!" She behaved like a slave-driver, and I can't help thinking that not only was she in a hurry, but that she simply hated me because I was white. Inside I was like, "Oh my God! She's a bigot AND a slave-driver!"

I told her that she needed to change her attitude, and that she was being very rude. Other people stared. I wonder how many saw what she did, or heard what she said; but, no one stood up for what was right except me. It was demeaning to be treated that way... I felt alone, very small, and I felt dehumanized by her hatred. And then I took on her anger and carried it with me for the rest of the day, just like the people in the book I was reading began to hate their oppressors. I hated her for treating me like an animal, and practically cracking her whip. The rest of the day I hated her. I am still trying to let it go...and wonder if listening to 'Albinoni's Adagio' will help?

After all, music does effect change, and it affects emotional endurance. I'd definitely never be able to do Bound Lotus for 31 minutes a day without listening to the Ray Man Shabd. Nor the meditation I do to "Aadays Tisai Aadays".

Today Bound Lotus was ver hard to hold. And it wasn't just because of the anger - which does adversely affect the ease with which I can hold it - but also because my chiropractor and physical therapist are putting my spine back together again after losing some of the benefits of their work while I was gone to Florida. The therapist taught me exercises to open the shoulders, which are not like anything I've ever done, and to help realign my scapulae. It is interesting that the very exercise Mahan Kirn told me that I should do for 40 days also has the same effect of adjusting the placement of the scapulae. It opens not only the heart, but the lungs! And it, in essence, repairs my broken wing. My right scapula wings out like a broken wing. It has for years....I thought my wing would be broken forever. So long stardust!

Finishing "The Cellist of Sarajevo"

What was it Jesus said about how it doesn't merit a man to gain the whole world if he loses his soul? I never understood that, really, until I read this book. The characters who hear the cellist's music are transformed. It gives them endurance and energy to do the right thing: to not hate others when they try to project their hatred onto you. I've heard some special pieces of music in my life, and the piece the cellist played is called "Albinoni's Adagio", and it is truly beautiful! From 1945 to 1957, an Italian musicologist worked to try to recreate 17th century Venetian composer, Tomaso Albinoni's Adagio, from the four bars of the sonata's baseline that he found in the remnants of the firebombed Dresden Music Library. Though it is not the original piece, it is extraordinarily beautiful!

As author Steven Galloway writes: " That something could be almost erased from existence in the landscape of a ruined city, and then rebuilt until it is new and worthwhile, gives him hope."

The city is besieged, as my soul was besieged by one man's efforts to destroy it, purely, in this case, for the fun of doing it. That man always wanted me to write about him, and I will, but I will do it in my way, telling the truth, where his story intersects with mine. I have no need to mention his name, and cause slander. On the contrary, if he chooses not to disconnect his name from mine, he will reveal himself. I won't have need of that.

So this entry is about recreating something beautiful out of something terribly damaged. Otherwise titled: "Difficult people are your greatest teachers."

Some people make it really hard to love them, but who wants easy when you're looking for spiritual growth? Growing always takes effort. It is just so painful to realize that when you want to give up on someone you are also, in effect, giving up on yourself. Take one of my bosses for instance. She reminds me of me on both my worst and best days. I'd like to think that my bad days of being testy, touchy and unable to hear what people are truly saying, or responding kindly to people are in the past. They aren't. It is just that those days are fewer in number, whereas for this particular boss, it is every other day. Truly being around her is like walking on hot coals.

People used to say that about me. I hope it isn't true anymore. I may vent, or pour things out on paper, here on my blog, or too trusted loved ones, but I hope the people in my life don't perceive me as having several personalities - a few of them quite mean and very passive/aggressive - as this boss seems to. The hard part, is everyone eventually abandons her, and no one wants to tell her. But every time I want to walk away, I see myself distinctly in her shoes. How much can I take of her behavior, when increasingly, the damage she does emotionally and professionally doesn't get outweighed by her good days?

Seems not too long ago, people were kind enough, and willing to risk enough to tell me I needed to change or else I'd continue to be a very lonely person. Many people just gave up on me. They'd say: "She's 35. She'll never change." At 42, I'd like to think I have. I have a LOT farther to go...

Mozart's Piano Concerto in G Major

Yes. I did Bound Lotus today, and I do have more to say...

I've listened to the Ray Man Shabd. I've listened to Jacqueline du Pre's playing of Camille Saint-Saens "The Swan", and "Albinoni's Adagio". I think of Krystof Kozlowski's movie "Blue", from the Three Colors Trilogy. The flute player playing the remnant lines of a grieving woman's husband's piano composition on the street outside her window, and how it heals her soul. The movie was made around the time of the Siege of Sarajevo. The movie is a favorite of mine, and is deeply uplifting IF you watch it all the way through, and pay attention. IF.

Music can heal deep wounds. It can inspire, in a way that spoken language, and even comforting words cannot. This is what the cellist of Sarajevo was doing:

"When Kenan was told of what the cellist was doing, he didn't say anything but thought it was a bit silly, a bit maudlin. What could the man possibly hope to accomplish by playing music in the street? It wouldn't bring anyone back from the dead, wouldn't feed anyone, wouldn't replace one brick. It was a foolish gesture, he thought, a pointless exercise in futility.

"None of this matters to Kenan anymore. He stares at the cellist, and feels himself relax as the music seeps into him. He watches as the cellist's hair smoothes itself out, his beard disappears. A dirty tuxedo becomes clean, shoes polished bright as mirrors. Kenan hasn't heard the cellist's tune before, but he knows it anyway, its notes familiar and full of pride, a young boy in a new coat holding his father's hand as he walks down a winter street.

"The building behind the cellist repairs itself. The scars of bullets and shrapnel are covered by plaster and paint, and windows reassemble, clarify, and sparkle as the sun reflects off glass. The cobblestones of the road set themselves straight. Around him people stand up taller, their faces put on weight and color. Clothes gain lost thread, brighten, smooth out their wrinkles.

"Kenan watches as his city heals itself around him. The cellist continues to play, and Kenan knows what he will do now. He will walk up the street to his apartment. He'll take the stairs two at a time, not even breathing fast, and throw open his door. Amila will be surprised to see him, and he'll grab her and kiss her, like he used to do when they were much younger. He'll run his fingers through her hair, thick and the color of honey." (pps 186-187)

There is, as Temple Grandin states in "Animals in Translation", a connection between music and language. Music is a way of communicating beyond what language can say...the naad, the sound current, is universal. It is a universal language. The aborigines believe the universe was sung into being. In C.S. Lewis' "The Narnia Stories", Aslan the lion sings the world into being. Even in Winter, I hear the birds singing from my rooftop in the early morning, and I smile. Birds, speaking in the language of music, sing each day into being.

Maybe animals know more about how to be 'human' than we do.

In her chapter on 'How Animals Think', Temple Grandin reflects:

"Animals are the originators of music and the true instructors. Humans probably learned music from animals, most likely from birds. More evidence that humans copied music from birds, rather than reinventing it for themselves: only 11 percent of all primate species sing songs.

"Mozart was definitely influenced by birdsong. He owned a pet starling, and in his notebooks he recorded a passage from the Piano Concerto in G Major as he had written it, and as his pet starling had revised it. The bird had changed the sharps to flats. Mozart wrote, "That was beautiful" next to the starling's version. When his starling died, Mozart sang hymns beside it's grave and read a poem he had written for the bird. His next composition, "A Musical Joke," has a starling style. If a musical genius like Mozart admired and learned from a bird, it seems extremely likely early humans learned from birds when they were inventing the first human music.

"...Birds compose songs that use the same variation in rhythms and pitch relationships as human musicians, and can also transpose their songs into a different musical key. Birds use accelerandos, crescendos, and diminuendos, as well as many of the same scales composers use all over the world.

"...Ordinary song sparrows compose and sing sonatas," she says.

"Luis Baptista, curator and chairman of the Department of Ornithology and Mammalogy at the California Academy of Sciences until his death in 2002, has a tape of a white-breasted wood wren in Mexico singing the exact opening notes of Beethoven's Fifth." (pps 278-279)

Music is created through intelligence, but has the capacity to transcend the limitations of intelligence and move us into our hearts and out of our heads. While I struggle through winter, I find myself deciding not to be angry with the birds left in St. Louis for pooping on my car, and to smile when I hear them sing. Their voices foresee the coming of Spring, and are part of what gives me hope that I will finish 90 days of Bound Lotus, and the 40 days to process White Tantric. On Groundhog's Day, will there be another six weeks filled with sounds heal my soul?

Slowly letting go of Hatred and Fear

Last night, along with Bound Lotus and the Moon Kriya, I did all of the meditations we'd done in the Sat Nam Rasayan sequence with Mahan Kirn Kaur at Solstice. I also did a meditation to "Aadays Tisai Aadays" for releasing fear and balancing the emotions, one to "Aakan Jor" for releasing fear as well, and a short for creating security and balance. I felt like a million bucks!

Today, teaching class, I felt myself lose the flow, and dip into anxiety several times, but each time the balance came back. In the past, if I slipped into anxiety, it would be more like falling headlong with no way back up. Today, I was blown away by how much I could see happening with my students. I used to flounder around in anxiety about how to best assist someone, and I just seemed today to intuit where I needed to be to be of help. With a student's headstand, I knew instinctively when I could move my arms and place a hand above their feet to press into... This is mind-blowing! It is like someone other than the person I know as Phoenix is teaching the class.

At home, reading "Dibs in Search of Self" again, I find this:

"Dibs was certainly on his way but I wouldn't say that he had found hmself yet. He still had a way to go. His search for self was a tedious, troubled experience that brought him increasing awareness of his feelings and attitudes and relationships with those around him. There were no doubt many feelings that Dibs had not dug out of his past and flung out in his play to know and understand and control better. I hoped that he would find experiences in the playroom that would help him know and feel the emotions within him in such a way that any hatred and fear he might have within him would be brought out in the open and diminished."

I'd say the 'hatred part' is getting addressed too...

It is hard being different. It is hard being treated as crazy and sometimes stupid just because you are high-anxiety and have poor social skills, as well as major difficulty functioning in the average person's world because it feels so strange. It is, again, interesting that doing Bound Lotus eases my anxiety in ways that other postures, and other things do not. I feel like the discovery of so much about myself being in keeping with what is true about the world for those with Asperger's is tremendously calming. I think of that movie from the 70s: "Return to Witch Mountain", and I feel like the kids who are from another planet. People have made fun of me for years, saying I'm lost in my own little world, but I think, like most autistics, high and low functioning, my world is so much more rich with detail, that it is overwhelming. I think I've resorted to talking so much as a way to 'filter' what comes through, so it doesn't overwhelm me. Language is definitely a filter.

In Temple Grandin's book "Animals in Translation", the section entiltled 'Words Get in the Way', explains much, for my world was visually richer in both color and visual detail when I was a child who barely spoke, and also the year recently where I kept mostly silent, and spoke to very few people. What Temple has to say I think is very important. Very relevant.

"Research shows that language suppresses visual memory. This is called 'verbal overshadowing' and is a well-established phenomenon..."

Temple explains that a group of test subjects were required to view a videotape of a bank robbery, and then some participants were asked to write descriptions of the bank robber, while others did not. Fewer people who wrote verbal descriptions could pick out the robber in a photograph. But that isn't all!

"These studies have also found that language doesn't erase visual memories for good; it just suppresses them. When the researchers asked the people who wrote descriptions to do something nonverbal for a while, like work a puzzle or listen to music, their visual memories came back, and they could identify the bank robber's face as well as the people who hadn't written descriptions in the first place.

"I think for normal people language is probably a kind of filter. One of the biggest challenges for an animal or an autistic person is dealing with the barrage of details from the environment. Normal people with language don't have to see all those details consciously. But I see them, and animals do too."

During some months in 2007 when I spoke and interracted very little with people, but walked in the park and listened to the birds alot, I saw the most glorious detail in insects, leaves and flowers. A rich tapestry of color, detail sharperthan HDTV, dragonflies like stained-glass and exquisite filigree, birds singing absolutely beautiful compositions with melodies, trills and baselines from other birds. But also, sirens were excruciatingly loud, and I felt the pain of people in their voices and expressions. I literally cried with the trees in the park when some of them had to be cut down because of an ice storm. The birds, I swear, were singing dirges.

Phoenix Dan Cong oolong tea? Lei Zu?

The spiritual name I chose for myself: Phoenix Amira Lei, produces some interesting results upon googling. One is a female Hip-Hop vocalist in Raleigh, NC, and another is a website: www.tea-obsession.blogspot.com, which appears because of a post about a Chinese tribe called the Lei Zu, who lived on Phoenix mountain, and cultivated Phoenix Dan Cong oolong tea, a favorite of many dynastys, and also of this blogger and traditional Chinese tea shop owner in Los Angeles. Apparently, also, the Lei originally lived in Eastern Guang Dong province (where Phoenix mountain is located), but moved to the Fujian province after an earthquake during the Sui caused forest fires to destroy almost everything except maybe the top of Phoenix mountain.

Now, I'm not Chinese, but I learned to cook traditional Chinese food from the wife of my accupuncturist in Chicago, who helped me while recovering from mono, strep, and a debilitating bout of CFS in 2001- 2002. Quin Deng, as her name was then, allowed me to stay in her home, and fed me delicious green-onion pancakes with honey and oranges, rice soup, rice balls with veal, bitter melon, stir-fried eggplant and many dishes with tofu. Asian pears cooked with honey were also on the menu. Quin left to go back to Beijing one day and never came back. She didn't say so, but I knew she was leaving for good, and I refused to say goodbye. I've regretted it ever since. Her ex-husband sent me a letter less than a year ago, but I've never responded. I should have. I miss Quinn and her wonderful food, and have always felt a strong connection to China, as well as Japan and India.

I've spent most of my life denying my emotions, particularly grief, anger and sadness. I keep feeling drawn to do a Kundalini meditation for Emotional Balance, but am still doing this darned Moon Kriya, until Groundhog's Day, my mother's birthday. Maybe I'll start this other one then, also after 90 days of Bound?

Playing the Cello...

No, seriously, I don't, but I wish I did.

Anyway, I was thinking of Jaqueline du Pre and her version of "The Swan" that I heard in the movie:"My Summer of Love" several years ago. The idea for a home movie called "My Winter Solstice of Love" just popped into my head, and I think that pretty much expresses the sad state of affairs surrounding my mental constructs. In other breaking news, I ate lots of chocolate. And marzipan. I'm squirreling away oranges, which I love too, and worried about the Frozen Floridian Iguanas.

Some guy apparently went around collecting frozen iguanas and putting them in the back of his car, until they sprung to life from the warm air, like little gremlins and crawled on his back. This amazingly did not cause a traffic accident. What do iguanas have to do with Bound Lotus? Everything! I feel like a frozen iguana today. There is no temperature outside! It's zero. I've been looking at penguin videos. They are so graceful in the water...so goofy on land.

So, I have to ask, would Bound Lotus be easier under water? I mean I am deathly afraid of water, so I'm not planning on pulling a Houdini at the Y, but...just curious. Like Alice. Speaking of Alice, I feel like 'Alice in KundaliniYogaLand'. Know what Red Queen said besides "Off with her head!?" She said: "I always like to do six impossible things before breakfast!"

Here's my list -

(1) Full Bound Lotus
(2) Stand outside in a bikini doing Tumo
(3) Lick orange marmalade off of Jimmy Page's thumb
(4) Read "The Cellist of Sarajevo" in it's entirety [this could be done if I put off breakfast until midnight]
(5) Bend spoons with my mind
(6) Forgive the man who took my name, tried to destroy me, and stalked me...

This is hard. The layers of hatred run deep. I think I've found the last, and there lies another like a gaping, festering wound

Maybe the Sikh name fits: Victory of Saints, but do I have to be a saint to forgive this man? No. I don't even have to be saintly. I just have to let it go and dwell deeply in my humanity and love of life. I think of the way he told me that art was a useless frivolity, to just focus on surviving. He's wrong. Without creativity nothing lives. I think of the way he snickered at the words engraved above the back entrance to the St. Louis Art Museum: 'Art still has meaning. Take refuge here.'

Music heals the soul. Poetry. Literature. The Ray Man soothes my grief. Jacqueline du Pre soothes my soul. "Invictus", the movie and the poem, soothe my soul. "Grave of Fireflies" soothes me. "The Cellist of Sarajevo" soothes. The young sniper, Arrow, assigned to protect the Cellist, has taken a new name to give her courage for the task at hand, and to keep her precious true identity safe from harm, or so she thinks. But in doing so, she dissasociates from herself in a way.

It is so important to not lose one's soul, one's humanity. Three passages in the book have wrenched me from complacency over the grief and unresolved rage I am reexperiencing in the wake of White Tantric, also hearing the words of Yogi Bhajan, that those who dwell in the past have no future. And yet, like Inanna in the Sumerian myth, and like Dragan in the book, I must go back to heal the lost parts of my soul. In the book about Sarajevo and the Cellist playing Albinoni's Adagio I see:

"Although she has nearly completely lost sight of the person she was, she still knows who she wants to be, and as far as she can see, the only path leading her to this person is back through her former self."

I've grown and changed and healed so much before I ever took White Tantric, and I'm tired. I want to rest. But the forces of entropy don't stop. To certain people, if I give up, I'm an example to others who struggle that it might be too hard. Too hard to learn to love those who have caused unbearable pain. And here the book's words come again, reiterating the point:

"And he suspects this is what the men on the hill want most. They would, of course, like to kill them all, but if they can't, they would like to make them forget how they used to be, how civilized people act."

The Cellist of Sarajevo played for 22 days, on the site of the spot where a mortar shell killed 22 people waiting in line for bread. One day devoted the honoring of each person's life that passed. I feel as if the following words are just like Yogi Bhajan saying that when anyone holds a posture such as Bound Lotus for any length of time, the Universe will come to help that person. I feel that one of the things this pose is accomplishing, and that White Tantric has done is removing the crippling and numbing fear of having been under someone's thumb for so long, afraid to use my name, afraid to breathe, afraid to live:

"Nermin is looking at her.
'We need you to keep this man alive,' he says.
'I don't understand.' She's barely heard what he said and struggles to bring herself back into her situation.
"Nermin removes his hat and wipes his sleeve across his brow. 'He has said that he will do this for twenty-two days. This is his eighth. People see him. The world has seen him. We cannot allow him to be killed."

Today is Day 67 of Bound Lotus. Tomorrow is Day 68. Then 22 more days before I reach the 90-day milestone to create a new habit. I've never done this before...coincidence that I pick up this book today and it inspires me? I won't allow the inspiration to die. I'll make it to 90, and then 1,000. I feel it in my bones, along with the pain.

Reclaiming my Self...

Two things:

I know why I am so angry about the name, besides the fact that it offends my sense of sound; because I resent immensely ever having to create another name in the first place. The one I picked for myself, Phoenix Amira Lei, I chose because I had to. I can't even spell my birth name here, because then, in like five seconds, my stalker would find me. I don't want that fat bastard reading anything about me, much less having the connection to his purchase and ownership for the last six years of my legal name as a domain name. He owns it through GoDaddy!.com. He tried to feign ownership to everything I wrote on another site, including all of my poetry, short stories, and many essays. He tortured me for years, mentally, emotionally and sexually/physically. I had no friends. My mother had just hung herself when I met him.

He refused to call me by my name. I felt like 'The Boy Called It'. And then he took my name. I took another name, and it felt empowering, but having someone assign me a name I don't like reminds me of all this...

The second thing is that I have Asperger's Syndrome. It has never been officially diagnosed. Doctors thought I was stupid until my I.Q. tested over 150. When I was little no one knew what Asperger's was...they gave me Atavan for the rages and tantrums, which only made it worse. I had very few friends, and always have. It has been very lonely. Painfully, over the years, I have pushed myself to be less shy, and my vast memory has helped me to mimic and mask appropriate social interaction.

I began to teach aerobics purely by accident when my teacher was sick, but for years I could not mirror or face the students. Yes, I teach yoga, but it is a constant fight to look people in the eye. I get overwhelmed by large groups. I gravitate to corners and windows. I want my back protected. If you touch me and I don't know you, it can provoke intense anger, because it disorients me. I have pet topics I find it hard to shut up about. As a child, and still, there are certain textures, sounds, and smells I can't stand. I would spend hours as a little girl folding the seam of my socks in such a way as to avoid having it near my toes. Like Temple Grandin, I want pressure on my feet when I sleep. The idea of footbinding, therefore, sounded fabulous!

I feel more at home with children and animals. I often, still, have no idea what to say in social interactions. Teaching yoga works for me because what I say in a very real sense, is scripted. Once I get to know people, the awkwardness fades a little, but never quite enough for them to stop thinking that I'm either a little odd, crazy, or stupid, not listening, self-absorbed, selfish, wierd, lost in my own world...or I get labeled with socially-crippling psychological diagnoses that are not accurate.

I've often suspected myself of having Asperger's, and reading Temple Grandin's books, watching the movies: "Adam" and "Horse Boy", as well as interacting with a friend's son who is definitively diagnosed with it should have confirmed my suspicions. But I also don't want to believe it. People have always said "You're different," and that makes me lonely. Sometimes I want so badly to be like others, and not get the strange looks I get for talking while being unable to look at some one when the shyness comes up, for having people think I'm self-absorbed because I panic, draw a blank, and have no idea what to say, or ask to be socially appropriate. I don't want to be a dork or a geek, but I am.

I've lost so many chances at friendships, relationships and jobs because I can't always find my bearings. I get overwhelmed very easily. Sensory overload. And some things I detest vehemently. Certain sounds. Certain smells. When traveling, all the old rituals come out to ease my anxiety. I don't want my things touched. I need to follow certain chaining rituals like a cat (OCD is part of Asperger's), or I run the risk of feeling raw and exposed. What comes after that is anger. That is my coping mechanism to stop the sensory overload.

This name offends my senses. It isn't soothing to hear. It has triggered the glaring realization that I am an Aspie, and always have been...

I went looking for a book I wanted to read earlier ( on my meticulously organized bookshelves ), and couldn't find it. Normally this would provoke intense anxiety, but my eyes fell upon Virginia M. Axline's "Dibs In Search of Self", the 1964 classic on play therapy about a little boy at first considered mentally retarded until they found he had an I.Q. of 164. My mother read this book over and over and over when I was a child, trying to understand me and help me. She did a lot of things wrong, such as tying me up when I had rages so I wouldn't hurt myself; but she also loved me dearly, and protected me from people who said I was stupid because I never spoke or interracted with them.

To the man who stalked me, I was stupid too. Too stupid to see what he was doing. He called me dumb, but I could have been a doctor. I was a physical therapy major in a graduating class if 30, until my mother got ill and my safety net crumbled. At times, the whole world socially seems full of sharks, and things that overwhelm me. Sounds. Scents.

And here is Bound Lotus. My own virtual pressure machine like the one Temple Grandin created that she uses daily, I think, actually as a way to ground herself. Names, words, and mantras and songs...poetry I've memorized...these all ground me too. That and organizing my vast collection of crystals in rows, patterns and mandalas. Through it all, in these last 60-some-odd days, Bound Lotus continues to ease my tension and anxiety. How could I ever have thought to stop? The practice of Bound Lotus has brought me to insights such as these, and it heals my soul.

It is like a tourniqet to stem the flow of too many thoughts rushing in and overwhelming me.

I officially HATE my new name!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was having a relatively decent day until I got the e-mail from 3HO that I am now "blessed" to live with the name Santjeet Kaur. I can just count the number of times I'm gonna have to say: "Nooooooo... It's not 'Sanjeet', it's Santjeet. Thoroughly annoyed. Not particularly grateful. I don't like the meaning either: 'Sant' means saint, and I'm definitely not one. The name means saintly Lioness of God who overcomes all obstacles in her path. It also means that since saints supposedly don't ever say anything negative, I won't either...news flash! I HATE MY NEW NAME! So there!!!!

Oh, and wait, I forgot...it is Epiphany. Big wuh...'p' T do.

Screw Bound Lotus too! I hate the damn pose! I'll do it anyway, but I hate this fucking name! It makes me want to cuss like a sailor and develop Touret's Syndrome. I feel like I'm barking when I say it. Like I'm doing rounds of Breath of Fire. Even thinking about starvng children in Somalia who probably hate their names too, but don't have time to worry about it isn't stopping this temper tantrum. I felt funny growing up named after a flower, and I wanted an empowering name like Phoenix, but Santjeet sounds like I'm coughing up pghlem. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it, I hate it so much with a vehemance and intensity I never thought possible for a name. Why not something like Bibi or Saroj.... ????????? I HATE THIS NAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Putting it in all caps doesn't do justice to how much I hate this name. I want to put it on the wall in big letters and throw darts at it, I hate it so much. Saint-LY my ass. Overcoming obstacles? This name is an obstacle that I want to jump like a hurdle on the way to a different name. I don't like being overly feminine, but this name is so totally unfeminine to me it grates on my nerves to hear it come out of my mouth. I can't wait to sit in Bound and drown out the sound of this stupid name by blowing out my eardrums listening to the "Ray Man"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I refuse to use this name.

I'm sure plenty of Sikhs pick the names for their babies and don't ask anybody online to do it. While I'm at it, so much for picking the name astrologically, they didn't even ask for the 'birth time'. Thanks but no thanks! I pretty much liked my birth name, I just can't use it right now. I've wanted a spiritual name in Hindi or Gurmukhi for years...and something tells me if parents can pick their kids' names with checking in with 3HO...well so can I.

#*!?$@?!!#@!! name.

Takahata's "Grave of Fireflies"

In this haunting but lyrical animation done in stylized watercolors I would love to draw, I realized many things.......

The zinc-plate etchings I did in 1999, each one carefully stored on the shelves of my meditation room closet, are, like many of my other drawngs, more stylized and done in a way that would lend my hand to drawing Japanese anime. I live in the wrong country, and speak the wrong language for this...

Critic Roger Ebert's glowing review on the DVD extra, describes how, in Japanese poetry, there are 'pillow words' that link one image to the next, and as such, there are 'pillow moments' in this film: cutaways to gaze at the sunlight on the corner of a building, to watch a character adjust their clothing after a particularly difficult scene, pauses that do not tend to occur in more fast-paced American films and anime. Moments for contemplation and reflection, digestion and acceptance, or integration, if you will. Necessary moments, as these few weeks have been in my life, to process what has gone before...

The fireflies representing to me the thousands of directions in which my thoughts could go...thousands of directions my life could go...a sad movie, but filled with hope...no figs falling from Sylvia Plath's tree, but fireflies...sparks of inspiration...making chocolate...teaching yoga...drawing and watercoloring...my biggest loves. Expansive moments that come on the heels of the release of great pain. Tempting to do it all on my own like the boy Seita, but knowing I need more than a little help from my friends.

The little bonbon candy tin from Sakura is a unifying element in the thematic development. The original novel only describes it as a container for his sister's ashes, but the candies within were treasured by Japanese children through the war...

Too cold for yoga...

...it seems. St. Louisans seem a bit reluctant to get out in this cold. I don't want to either, but I braved 5 degree weather to teach at 6:15 am, and then ran some errands before going to see "Invictus", then teaching more yoga in the cold, and finally coming home to order a pizza from Papa John's and do Bound Lotus. Yay!

The pizza is my reward to myself for doing Bound Lotus, even today when the anxiety is so torturous. Aching to come out of the pose, I reflect on the days events: The movie "Invictus" based on Nelson Mandela's reliance on the poem as inspiration during 30 years of incarceration, and after...'I am the master of my fate'...each movement, each line from the actor's portrayal of Mandela reminded me of my father and his similar philosophy of life. His gifts to myself, my sister, my mother and the many others whose lives he's touched, are nothing that could ever be repayed, except with love. And as Mandela is described in the movie, so too, my father is not a saint, but a man, with a man's problems...but one of the kindest, most loving men I've ever known. I wish he could live forever...

In class today, toward the end, just before shavasana, I felt again a presence infuse the room, that has done so at each class I've taught since the end of the Kundalini Winter Solstice Festival. I am in awe each time, and wonder how to reconcile these moments with the bouts of intense resistance and anger I experience at other's attempts to shape the way I process all of this. I may be a recluse, but I'm not a Blanche Dubois by any stretch...what a cruel thing to say. If anything, I'm more of a hikikomori. Or have been. But even that has been about survival. No one but me will ever truly no how necessary these years of hibernation have been in order to heal.

Yet, if the hibernation, in Winter mostly, has not done me good, and if it did not serve me this last week while I was so sick, then how would these beautiful moments in my teaching have appeared like gems in the aftermath of the intensity of the White Tantric experience, and 62 days of Bound Lotus?

Wow!

It is pretty cold out there. I had to take a cab to go teach. I don't know if it is just too cold, or if I left the headlights on? Crazy frigid weather for St. Louis, that's for sure. Back home now I just want to sleep all day... From my window it looks deceptively pleasant outside. The cold is ennervating, and Bound Lotus doesn't sound very appetizing right now. Gonna take a nap and set the alarm.

I feel as if I am in a 'dry period' with Bound Lotus, where I am holding back. Part of that begin on the day I did my practice with someone else, who, instead of doing the practice with me, watched me. It kept me from fully loosing myself in the experience. My practice of Bound Lotus was not a performance for him to turn and watch on his mat, nor did my tears of joy and ecstasy that came in the meditative space afterwards require any consolation. On the contrary, he was not sharing the experience, he was intruding upon it.

This dry space I find myself in with Bound feels like a renegotiation with my spirit to honor the sacredness of the practice for me... In four years will I have come no further on my path than he has? That seems quite depressing. I find myself very disillusioned by his inability to find this space for himself after four years of doing Bound. He is mistaking the map for the territory. This is definitely a judgement on my part, but if he 'multitasks' while doing Bound and barely blinks at shavasana, no wonder he has not found the ecstasy within the pose. No wonder he thinks to find that ecstasy within me.

Judgement of him it may be, but a judgement necessary to keep me from falling for yet another guy who seeks to connect to their own Source through me, instead if directly to the Source. I'm nobody's extension cord. My practice of Bound, and my body and my life are not his for the taking... I miss my connection to Source, and I'm not going to get it back by dallying with someone who is obsessed with me. His obsession is draining, pulling me down. I'm going back to my practice, back into my center. He needs to find his own path. His own connection. What is most important is the surrender of the self to something greater than all of us, NOT surrendering that connection to another human being.

6 degrees and frozen birdpoop

It is scathingly cold outside! The Michelin man had nothing on me this morning as I took my frozen ass off to teach a bunch of students as crazy as me for wanting to cavort around in tights, albeit indoors, but in this weather! I say: Why not just live in Toronto? If it is going to be this cold. Certainly the public transport would be better. Better beer...but wait, ah, I don't drink. And I'm a traitor to the Clydesdales. No matter. Auggie has nothing on Belle Guel if I remember the taste correctly. But I digress. A trademark of mine. Digressions.

Here's another one: Those damn birds pooped on my car whilst I nipped in to Einstein's for a bagel. Finger pinchin' bastards. How did that happen in 6 degree weather? They missed Winter's curtain call.

Back to the task at hand. Warm-ups this evening came after a long and tragically delerious nap, with magically delicious Golden Milk après. Oh my God! My smartass self from more than a decade ago, prior to my 'dating Jim Jones phase' is back! All attempts at having a cynically dry sense of humor aside, I thoroughly enjoyed doing my warm-ups to Plant's "Big Log" ( no jokes please), "Ship of Fools", and "In the Mood". I appear to be in my 'Robert Plant period'.

Now for Bound: Today's very special posture is a bit spicy and piquant. Ah! Irreverance and sarcasm are so much more amusing than outright bludgeoning anger. And as a result of the reflection that tends to ensue while I lie practically hog-tied on the floor, a 'very special person' who hasn't gotten the message that I don't want to yak on the phone every single dang day is about to get a tiny taste of some spicy, piquant sarcasm with a dash of hot sauce. Pepe le Peu needs to get a clue. And if he doesn't back off, there might be a whole habanero in that sauciness. Don't twist the Kali devotee's arm. She doesn't like it. And she would be me.

Day 60 and Another 365 Days of Bound Lotus

"The best kirtan, or devotional singers, sing the blues."

Let me say that again: "The best kirtan, or devotional singers, sing the blues. All the great kirtan singers we know have this lamenting quality in their voice. Their voice is deep, dark, heavy. It's a sound characterized bt the tamasic quality if stubborness and the kind of intense attachment that leads to addiction... In the mundane world of ordinary life and romantic love these qualities should be tempered or overcome. But when we move into the elevated world of spirit, these dark qualities take on a celestial sweetness that can result in addiction to God. To be addicted to God is to be possessed by ecstasy and boundless joy... Singer Jai Uttal says, 'When we chant we are tearing open our chests, opening our hearts to reveal our true identity and finding God there.'"

- David Life, "Jivamukti Yoga"

Moroccan leela trance musician Abdenbi Binizi feels there is a connection between American Blues and the music of Ganawi trance:

"One night I was walking down the street in New York just looking at all of the tall buildings everywhere. I had never seen anything like it before in my life. While passing by a nightclub I heard a guitar playing. I stopped for a moment and listened. I started crying because the sound was so beautiful; it touched my heart very much. I found out later the music I was listening to was called the blues. The blues gave me the same feeling inside as when I am playing my music. Blues, like the music of the Ganawa, is from the heart, from the soul."

This quote is taken from the little book I have that goes with a trance CD from 1995, that contains the 'bee zikr' recording of the Naqshbandi Sufis, Healing Trance in Morocco, and a Balinese Temple Festival. I hadn't listened to this since my mother died, but chose to relisten just before going to Winter Solstice. Once in the big tent for White Tantra, the collective voices chanting sounded to me like the Sufi recording. And it was extremely healing. So were the evening Gonging concerts...

But...so is the music I listened to this morning. All of Zeppelin's "In Through the Out Door" (Zeppelin are and were masters of remastering the blues), Maroon Five's "Harder to Breathe", The Cure's "Fascination Street", the soundtrack to "Cool World", DB Boulevard's "Believe", Moony's "Acrobats"....ah! We're acrobats looking for balance..., Plummet's "Damaged", and Chaka Khan, the Cranberries, and Macy Gray's "I've Committed Murder", which I could sing in my now relatively deep voice.

It ALL touches my soul...from Plant singing as if to his dead child Karac on "In the Evening", and Page's heroin addiction-tinged solos in the same piece. "All of My Love" feels like a love song for the universe to me. Maroon Five's song and Macy Gray's were like protests for me, and I listen to techno and dance and float in a netherworld with no need for drugs. I listen to Sada Sat Kaur's "mantra masala", and I love it as much as FSOL's "Papua New Guinea". It is ALL music...to my ears. It ALL moves me.

Why does it have to be patently spiritual? It doesn't. To me Tantra is about learning to love everything about the world, even the pain. I don't want to increase it, but I don't want to run from it either. I want to feel...whatever comes, even if it scares me. Facing my fears until they realize there is no need to chase after me, because I won't run.

Today isn't as easy to whip out Bound Lotus, and I feel a little worse physically than yesterday, but emotionally better. It's just life. The way the cookie crumbles. Some days are better than others...