The Gesture of Fearlessness

On this day, April 30th, I would have finished 90 Days of 'Praanpathi Namo Namo', but on day 86 I forgot...so I began again three days ago. I love how it makes me feel alive, and eases my breathing and my fear. In 8 more days I will have completed 120 days of 'Releasing Fear'. I think that has a LOT to do with all the rage, both current and old.

Also, on this day, exactly 65 years ago, the city of Munich became occupied by the Nazis. Writing about 'gestures of fearlessness' seems appropriate for all of the above reasons.

"One very simple mudra that is quite nice is the 'abhaya' mudra, also called 'the gesture of fearlessness'. It is depicted in statuary and paintings of both Buddhist and Hindu deities. Abhaya mudra symbolizes protection, serenity, and the elimination of fear. Simply raise the right hand to the chest at the level of the heart with the palm facing out and fingers pointing toward the sky." (p. 67, "Yoga for Magick", Nancy Wasserman, Weiser, 2007)

This mudra, is the one I came into spontaneously one day in the summer of 2006, while being stalked in the daylight as I walked through Forest Park, right next to Kingshighway, in a supposedly safe area. As dusk began to fall, the man got bolder, and then I knew it was for real. At first I stopped breathing. Then I turned and walked toward him, stopping short of a few feet, and choosing not to speak. The man asked my name. He asked if I had a boyfriend. I did not respond. He made the symbol for 'crazy'. I did not respond to his taunt.

I somehow 'knew' that he could understand me without words, so I projected the thought for him to leave me alone. He got cockier instead and strode toward me with his arms out intending to grab me. My left hand had my mala beads for chanting the Sanskrit mantra for Lakshmi, which I was silently chanting at the time, allowing me to remain somewhat calm; and I felt my right hand come up in the gesture of stopping him, which IS Abhaya mudra. At the moment my right palm faced him, I literally felt a shot of electricity come from my palm. Within seconds he fell back as if I had hit him without touching him. I was mentally really surprised, but my face did not register it, as I dropped my hand, walked toward him, and held out the same hand to shake his...my thought was to him: "Don't you ever do that to me again, or any other woman, and I want you to promise me, and seal that promise with a handshake." He stretched out his hand, which was trembling, and shook mine. I smiled and turned to walk away. When I looked back, he was gone, faster than lightning.

As I was writing these words now, my mystical Catholic friend from Monday just called! I'd told him this very same story on Monday, and he'd said that such things were possible, the Saints had done them, those who practice martial arts too, and usually, though, could only do it when it was really necessary. He said the balance was off with this guy, and what he and my father would call The Holy Spirit, and I would call the goddess, had entered into me for that time.

I later found a statue of Lakshmi in Abhaya mudra, and she sits with my statues, or murtis of Kali and Saraswati and Vishnu, as they are all a part of Vaishnodevi, the Hindu deity I am devoted to.

My new mystical 'male' friend with a human heart and kind soul, had asked which Hindu manifestation of the Divine I am devoted to, and when I am not busy pursuing the idea that God ultimately doesn't need a face, I am devoted to this deity. This is how I see God, so that I can conceptualize something that really is not conceivable.

In the words of the poet Rumi:

"Out beyond ideas of wrong doing and right doing,
There is a field. I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
The world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase 'each other'
Doesn't make any sense."

It doesn't make any sense, in the sense that it doesn't need to. Those experiences of Samadhi, of resting in Grace, are like the candy Ganesha throws on the path for lovers of 'the Friend', to let them know that consciousness is real. At least in my mind. Or maybe, sometime soon, I hope, in my heart. And the paths of the magician, the Mage, and the Mystic, are not that far removed. We live in a magickal world. And I am now ready to do Bound Lotus. Again. As Yogi Bhajan says, "Keep Up and you will be Kept Up".

Nick Drake's Pink Moon Thursday...

and "Mirrormask". If only while doing Bound Lotus on Day 178, I could succeed in swapping places with my little 'inner goth girl', and just join the circus, or be 20 again and join Cirque de Soleil. That would be so cool. I am looking for 'the charm' or the talisman or amulet - metaphorically speaking - in my heart. Or maybe just looking to get the splinter of ice out of my eye, like Hans in "The Snow Queen".

I taught class tonight to the music of folk artist Nick Drake, and his song and album of the same name: 'Pink Moon', in honor of the goddess energies of the moon, the Pink Moon, the Peony Moon, the Fish Moon. The moon that is now with it's silvery blue light, and peaceful quiet. I love the night. It is beautiful. It is unfortunate that yucky stuff tends to hide in it. I want to yell at the creeps sometimes: "Get out of Mom's velvety black darkness!"

I taught class like a workshop, helping students get into headstand, and Urdhva Eka Pada Rajakapotasana. They loved it! We played. We did something different for the Pink Moon. One student brought up the movie "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo". She and I seem to be not only on the same page, but we have a lot of rage. We also have respiratory problems. Is it inability to 'let go' per se, or is it simply that we are both old souls and we were once Russian Witches?

Pink Moon...

Day 177 of Bound Lotus is done...I met a man on Monday at the Saint Louis Bread Co. who turned out to be a Catholic on the surface, but an intrigueing Christian mystic beneath. We talked for two hours. We talked about every religion. We talked about how one of the things that causes inappropriate behavior on the part of men toward me is NOT that I think about it all the time and therefore draw it to me, BUT that a lot of men would consider me rather pretty, and it makes me stand out. That and my spiritual light is visible beneath the outer beauty, and some men, men who might not like women, let alone women developing their own power, would see this and want to quash it. Sexual harassment is a very traditionally easy way for a woman's power to be usurped. Funny that later that day I watched the movie that was, in it's original Swedish title, called: "Men Who Hate Women". I now know why I was drawn to pick up Phyllis Curott's "Book of Shadows", that I had read in 1998 while with the man who tortured me. I speculate that I did not draw him to me so much through the thoughts I had at the time, as that he is an 'old soul' who has followed me through the centuries of incarnations, and he had found me in this one too. I'm sure we met in Auschwitz. I'm sure he tortured me. I'm sure we met hundreds of years ago, and have often wondered if I was a 'wise woman', an herbalist or mystic back then who was tortured during the Witch Hunts. I think my breathing problems aren't just from this lifetime. I think that is why it feels so intractable. I don't doubt that there is a lot of truth to what Sat Inder says, but this wound in my lungs, and in my heart is centuries old. I don't care if it sounds crazy. It isn't.

I opened Phyllis Curott's book at random and my eyes fell on the words: 'Malleus Maleficarum'. This is the book, published by two Dominican inquisitors in 1486, and prefaced with the papal bull of Pope Innocent VIII from 1484, which has still not been rescinded, that brands Witches as worshippers of Satan. This book: 'The Hammer of the Witches', authorized the use of torture to secure confessions in the Witch Hunts that spanned centuries. This book was a bestseller, outselling everything except the Bible. It was a response to the growing power in the hands of women after the Crusades, when much of the wealth of Europe devolved into the hands of women who had been left to run the estates and trades while the men were at war.

The medical profession was also developing at this time, and it usurped the roll of village herbalists and midwives who were primarily women, making it illegal for them to practice by classifying their healing herbs as anything but, and "wiping out the competition by force".

'Malleus Maleficarum' was written by Men Who Hate Women...by misogynists. It's methods delineated to secure confessions were grisly and horrific. It IS S&M. It IS B&D. It IS what I saw in the above-mentioned movie. It WAS hatred of women mixed up with religion. As the result of a small faction of men in the Catholic Church in the 1500s, the Women's Holocaust came into being and spanned several hundred years. Hundreds of thousands of women were murdered all across Europe and Russia. And I'm sure I was one of them. I'm sure I was Russian once, and I am sure it was more than once. I was born angry. I was born livid with rage, and an axe to bury. I was a bearer of the labrys.

It is no wonder this is so hard to let go. The wounds are Old. Very Old. Most women were tortured into confessing and then murdered. They were raped, sodomized, sexually tortured with pins, needles and hot molten metal rods poked into orifices, including the eyes. Iron Maidens were used. The "witch's chair", an invention of a metal chair heated by fire beneath; the "scold's bridle", an iron cage that drove spikes through the victim's tongue (basically getting the 'nag' to shut up); and much worse were used.

One woman, Walpurga Hausmanin, a midwife in Dillingen, Germany, had her breasts and arms torn off with heated irons, her right hand was cut off, and she was burned at the stake. This was sanctioned by the bishop of Augsburg, who received all her property. Fear of women's power and repressed sexuality were the likely culprits. I feel like I understand now, why, ever since I was very little, before grandma ever touched me, before anyone else ever did, that I lived in fear of having my breasts bit off, or other things bitten off. I was afraid of fire, and born into a family who loved to build fires in the evening and sit by them to read. I was already letting go of fear back then.

I was learning about the goddess energies, about "Isis, Astarte, Diana, Hecate, Demeter, Kali, Inanna. Goddess of a thousand names." (p. 41) The Thousand Names of Divine Mother. The Lalita Sahasranama. Do you know that the so-called demon Astaroth in the Goetia, was really the benevolent goddess Astarte? Many of the so-called demons in the Goetia were pagan women goddesses demonized by the Catholic Church. Inanna, the Queen of Heaven, has been metaphorically coming to save her angry sister Erishkegal in the underworld. With her flies and loyal Ninshibur as helpers, just as Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D. describes in her book: "Close to the Bone". I found this book after my mother died. The goddess was leading me. I'd found the words of one of many Wise Women, and one who I am sure is a closet Witch, like me, if her later book, "The Millionth Circle" is any indication. A woman doctor. Then a high-powered, honest and good woman lawyer named Phyllis Curott, who wrote her "Book of Shadows" for me and others to read later...a woman of truth.

And then I met an old nemesis in my 29th year, and had the old wounds renewed. I've been healing those too now, and then this lawyer came along, making me uncomfortable for months until I stood up for myself, and almost lost my job because of it. But I look at the statue I have the Egyptian goddess with the head of a lion. Sekmet. The Egyptian goddess of destruction and rebirth (much like the Hindu Kali). "She's the sister of Maat, the goddess of truth, and she helps Maat by eating liars".

Day 176 of Bound Lotus...

...and I am still going, but in just 3 more days I would have finished 90 Days of 'Praanpathi Namo Namo' meditation, and I forgot. I have to start from scratch. I did 40 days of it, and was going for 90, as well as 40 Days of chanting the 'Pavan Pavan Guru' mantra. That too, I forgot. They were both the only practices I have loved doing every single day, and I forgot because I was too busy enjoying watching the guardian of "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" get 'I am a sadistic pig and rapist' tattooed on his stomach, while being trussed up as I was many times in the past, by someone I keep thinking I have forgiven. THAT past, from roughly 1996-1999, is what I apparently am really angry about. And it wasn't just a man in my story...there was a woman condoning it, besides me. My mind, twisted with grief then, and now twisted with rage, is still trying to recover the last pieces of the self I lost.

And though I missed finishing 90 Days of 'Praanpathi Namo Namo', it was worth it to vicariously imagine and process my anger and blinding rage. If I would have seen that movie last year, before doing Bound Lotus, I would have been crying, shaking, filled with fear and fearful memories. Now...tonight...I just laughed a sick little amused laugh as I watched the proxy for my rage suffer. I know that this kind of rage won't last, that I won't continue to hate the man and his wife for the rest of my life, but right now I do. I admit it. I felt sorrow for the movie character's victims and for myself, and the other men and women I know in reality who have been abused. I felt no sorrow or compassion for the perp, either in the movie, or in my vicarious image of the person who tortured me.

It is such a long road...this healing. But the good news is that I know I will come back to compassion. The good news is I am healing, deep, old festering mental and emotional wounds. The good news is that in 11 more days I will have done the "Releasing Fear Meditation" for 120 Days, to seal that into my being as a woman who is quite fearless. The good news is I will begin 'Praanpathi Namo Namo' again. The good news is: I am on Day 176 of Bound Lotus, and I have NOT missed a day of that.

It Doesn't Make Any Sense?

I had an experience once, back in June of 2008, where I was unable to speak, to feel a connection to my body, or my thoughts. It came during the juxtaposition of Yoga Teacher Training and a year-long Golden Dawn Magician magickal pathworking through the spheres of the Western Kaballah's 'Tree of Life' meditations. I meditated on one sphere a month. Some would say I had made contact with my 'Holy Guardian Angel', and had thus begun "The Great Work". Some Catholic thinkers I have read would call what I experienced the experience of No-Self. Yogis might call a stage of Samadhi. It was simultaneously one of the most painful, frightening and exquisitely beautiful experiences that I have ever had. As unnerving as it was, I was agrieved to see it pass...

Today, after wishing I could meet a friend as deeply open and versed in many spiritual paths as I, I met someone at St. Louis Bread Co. Out of the blue, like a rabbit from a hat, came this Catholic family man, open to some of what the New Age has to say, open to Hinduism, to Protestantism, Buddhism, Shamanism, American Indian Spirituality, and basically really a Mystical Christian like my father. A younger version of my father. A deep spiritual friend like someone I seem to have known forever.

I did not enter a space of No-Self while talking to him, but I felt understood, even as I could see he is human just like me and has some hang-ups. I came home refilled with a re-connection to my way of experiencing the universe, uncolored by other's, such as Sat Inder's attempts to define how I should see it. I see a light in this Dark Night of the Soul I've had for some time now, with the feeling of losing my connection to Source. I did lose it. I was listening to other people's ideas that don't resonate for me. It made me wonder how much I myself might preach when I teach.

What a nice gift of Grace in the midst of all this existential turmoil.

Breath of Fire and Sitalee Praanayam

This is interesting...Yogi Bhajan has this to say about Breath of Fire:

"It will take away all the possibility of those diseases caused by internal heat which affect your blood. Inner poison causes internal heat, which causes disease in the body. Move the navel like a foot pump to create a heat to counteract that heat. Keep the spinal fluid in that thirty-degree angle. Get the poison out, it's a very simple way to do it. If you are angry, if you are horrible, if you are miserable and you are willing to bust out, that's the best state of mind (because it indicates that the heat is moving out and affecting your emotions)."

Anyway, since yesterday, the rain has calmed what almost turned into an ER visit yesterday. I taught this morning, and enjoyed it. I took the asshole's class and enjoyed the class. Then I went home to embroider a little more on my jeans, do more Kundalini, and then teach again. While gazing out of the window as the class was in Shavasana, I felt myself melt into the strains of Albinoni's Adagio, and watched as the leaves on the trees and the clouds danced in time. A bird sat on a wire. Coming up on finishing several more Kundalini practices, I feel like I am sitting on a wire...walking a tightrope between blinding rage at the world and peaceful calm. I think the quote above explains why.

And Sitalee Praanayam? Apparently there is a way to use it with the projected thought that people you don't want to be around should leave the room. If only I would have known this before my little talk with the jackass lawyer. It certainly would have been simpler. I'm still so pissed at him. But, I have moments and hours when the rage dissapears. At least I am not afraid anymore.

Sometimes I feel like Sinead O,Connor in a room full of staunch Catholics...

...when I am around some New Age bliss ninnies. We all die eventually. THAT we don't have control of...So to paraphrase the poet Kabir, 'There is so much spiritual arrogance near the bottom of the ladder.' Spiritual Neophytism. Or as my dad the minister says: "There are only two rungs on the spiritual ladder, and those of us who think we are on the second rung have already fallen off." I know I have a lot to learn. Including patience for arrogance and preachiness.

Back to Bound Lotus. It is a daily struggle. And it isn't always sweetness and light. Much to the chagrin of the fluffy bunnies. Oh what fun it is to live with one's head in the clouds, presuming that others must be sick just because they aren't thinking positively enough. Sounds like the movie "The Beach", if you ask me. Bunch of jackasses with cell phones and computers, and no real experience, say, in a hospice, or at Mother Teresa's side. I'm working on not letting it piss me off, unsucessfully. But amazingly, contrary to what Louise L. Hays would say, I don't have a bladder infection from all this being pissed off at particular individuals whose snottiness and arrogance sometimes eerily remind me of the fellow who stalked me, albeit without his desire to hurt others. I STILL don't have a bladder infection, even though I have actively been trying to manifest it by being pissed off. I'd say the expirement in New Age bullshit and Christian Scientist cloned theories is a stunning failure! Horrah!

The Goddess Kali is about empowerment...

...not about being angry- a convenient misunderstanding for those who love to be freaked out by Kali. Many Hindu saints and sages were devoted to her as a manifestation of the Divine. She is a protectress. Of course there are the thug sects of Hinduism who are devoted to Kali and practice animal sacrifice, but then Shiva has some strange supporters too. For that matter, Christianity has some wierd history. Killing people by roasting them like butterball turkeys at a stake or in a Burning Man-sized cage comes to mind. All in the name of belief. And yet there are beautiful Christians out there who follow what Jesus actually taught, just as there are Kali devotees who are learning to love their jackass neighbors...

Back to Bound Lotus.

I'm laughing so hard I can't breathe! Ha ha!

If I have to wake up one more morning looking like Quasimodo because I had to endure the windows being open, I...uh, might actually end up in the ER. Please people, give a thought of consideration to those of us with allergies and respiratory difficulties and enjoy the outdoors....OUTDOORS. This season is one of the worst. For the past five years I've watched as each season gets worse, and yet I still remain off all the medications I used to need: Azmacort, Advair, Rhinocort, Mucinex, and others. I broke down this year and am taking Claritin. When I, or others, ask if you can close a window, don't ask if there is some medication we can swallow to drug us up...get your thoughtless ass outside, and enjoy the outdoors where it belongs. Outside. If I sound a little pissed it is because of years of biting my tongue and not telling clueless non-allergy sufferers to get a clue. Funny, having said that, I can breathe a little better. Ha ha! Maybe I won't have to go to the ER today, and maybe, just maybe, if no one else makes me endure open windows like they did yesterday, I can actually do Bound Lotus without suffocating.

Oh, and if I have to see one more thing about Abraham Hicks on my newsfeed, I think I'll scream. The level of annoyance I feel is on par with seeing Militant Pro-Lifers blocking a woman's entrance to Planned Parenthood. Both piss me off. This should, according to Louise L. Hays, give me a bladder infection.

We'll see.

And just as an experiment, I am going to constantly think about men sexually harassing women, and see if by next week I have a few more instances of it under my belt to prove that what I think about I draw to me. Right now, I am thinking about the Valrhona chocolate squares in my kitchen. If I think about them really hard, will they telekinetically fly around the corner and slam into my head like a magnet or a homing missile? Stay tuned.. If you see me later today, I may have chocolate on my forehead, or possibly, it could be holy ash from a Hindu Lakshmi Puja or Homa. Feeling very comfortably Kali lately...

It's 4/21!!! 'Chronically' late!

Happy 4/20 (late) to all the potheads out there. I can't indulge with you because for one it makes it hard to breathe, and for two, it makes me paranoid. Plus it screws up my aura and attracts vampires like catnip attracts cats. Take me seriously or not. Heh he.

But anywaaaaay....I did Bound Lotus again. Getting quite gumby-like about it too, I might add. And I fell asleep for the last half, on my easy side. Then, I stayed home with the other little piggies and did ten loads of laundry. My bed-liner, my quilt, every single towel, an entire drawer full of jeans, the contents of my unpacked suitcase from Christmas (would be scary if everything didn't smell oddly fresh and sweet from Solstice), and various odds and ends at the back of closets.

Then I embroidered a pair of jeans with a symbol for the goddess Astarte and one for Oshun, the Santeria goddess of love and prosperity. For any readers out there freaked by that, remember that author Ilanya Van Zant is a priestess in the Santeria tradition. I think? Beautiful symbol anyway...and I need all the love and prosperity I can get.

Kundalini Yoga?

What does not destroy me makes me stronger. Even last fall I would never have been able to take a Power Vinyasa class, let alone teach one on the same day, much less do my own practice on top of it, AND come into full Eka Pada Rajakapotasana. I would have put myself in the hospital with that and broken out in a heat rash. It certainly is nice to have all this energy. And if I can get myself to do Bound Lotus early enough in the day, the energy I have is astounding! I just hope I can breathe long enough through the pollen season to enjoy the energy!

My dad sent me a list of 10 common sense things to do (or not do) while making it through allergy season. I said, would that be things like, for instance, not licking your pollen-covered car? Or not writing your name on your pollen-covered car with your finger, and then sticking said finger in one's eye? These are common sense things not to do, just like you shouldn't put on spats and a white glove, and then wiggle your hand in the glove, pretending to be a squid while underwater with a shark. Easy common sense in pollen season is NOT going outside or opening windows. It works fabulously better, and is infinitely easier than so-called 'positive thinking'. I also prefer being shut indoors to taking an assload of drugs, just so other people can have their windows open. Selfish. Ha ha!

Nothing like sarcasm and a little pretzel twisting to ease the day...

Apparently my Throat Chakra is open...

...according to a facebook quiz. I also have the most in common with the Tim Burton character, Emily, The Corpse Bride...ha, ha, The Shavasana Bride. AND the Tarot Card that best represents me is The High Priestess. Just wish they had a pic online of the one from Aleister Crowley's Thoth Deck. For all those out there who might think that Crowley is really dark, I'll post a pic of The High Priestess from the exquisitely beautiful Thoth Deck. Crowley was just an extremely intelligent smart-ass who made fun of less intelligent human lemmings sometimes. I wish he hadn't been such a smart-ass sometimes, because his little jokes and plays-on-words weren't always perceived as such, but he ultimately meant well. He even posed as a Nazi sympathizer in a magazine publication during WWII, so as to incite a little hysteria, thereby, some say, getting the U.S. involved with the Allies against Hitler. It is too bad that he got addicted to heroin, but I think he ultimately meant well. And he was no more willing to put up with bull than I am.

Ditto The High Priestess and Emily The Corpse Bride. I think, by virtue of my sometimes long-winded posts that it is supremely obvious how open my throat chakra is too...or at least how open I am TRyinG to MaKe iT.

Bound Lotus was really peaceful

And then I sneezed. I thought I pulled my intercostals, but I seem to be fine now. Better to sneeze while impersonating a Cirque de Soleil acrobat than in my car while running a red light!

Class was great this morning! No bullshit. Everything flowed and I no longer feel the inhibition and anxiety I've felt every Sunday since February 21st, when a piece of plastic invaded my personal space bubble. I took Jackie's class and loved it! She is an incredibly wonderful and fabulously gifted teacher. I want to be her student regularly now, but my teaching conflicts with the time slot.

In other news, I still love my car...too.

Reading "The Baron in the Trees", "Jane Eyre", and....

..."The Book of Laughter and Forgetting". Reading to release.

My 'NAMES' belong to me!

A full week after completing 90 Days of Releasing Fear meditation and choosing to continue on to 120 days, and possibly 1'000 as well, I now have ownership of my legal birth name as a Domain name! .com, .net, .org! People have said they wouldn't worry about it, and that's fine...until it is their name. Also, it will be nice not to wonder if I ever will see a totally black screen titlled "Cleansing" when I look up my given name just because some asshole from my past thought it fun to put that up there. No more worries on that issue.

I am so relieved. Now if this sexual harassment stuff would just vanish from my life?

Bound Lotus was peaceful. For the last 5 days, oddly, my hips and shoulders have opened up dramatically!!! In Half-Bound Lotus I can grab my toe, and I can sit up in Bound Lotus, clasping opposite elbows. Both knees touch the floor on both sides! I've never been able to do that in my life until now! All this anger, white hot rage, grief, sadness and pain is coming out to be released.

As much as I hate to say it too, while I stayed indoors all day yesterday with virtually no allergy triggers, I watched my symptoms fluctuate in relation to my moods. When I got the news about 'owning' my domain names, my right eye immediately stopped being sore, and my coughing stopped. I was no longer gasping for air. Only when I put up a blurb on facebook about how The Little Mermaid sold her voice for a pair of feet, making me think of an old poem I wrote, did the coughing start up again...funny, it just started again now. Will I be taking my angry words about Louise L. Hays and Abraham Hicks back? Maybe not so soon, because even if it is true, changing your mental mindset enough to trust you won't die (literally) from being outside in the pollen with no medication in your system is very frightening indeed. This is very hard work mentally, and I still maintain that some people could be a little more patient and kind with their words, just like I could.

But bottom line: I see tremendous changes not only in store, but already!

Nietzche?

What (has)[sic] not destroy(ed) me has made me stronger. Bound Lotus, in the past few months has been like a nemesis in it's ruthless weeding of my ego, but the last three days since my employment was unfairly threatened, and my blood pressure rose from 113/56 to 165/130...Bound Lotus has been a saving Grace and healing balm. On day 163, after many months, I can sit in Full Lotus on both sides with both knees down for several minutes, followed again by Half-Bound Lotus, but this time not grasping opposite elbows the whole time. For a few minutes out of the 31 I can grab my toe on each side.

While I wait for the sadness, fear and deep pain underlying the white hot rage reaction I had to the threat to my employment, and the misconstruing of the appropriate delineation of my boundaries sexually and otherwise to die down, I have been reading and taking comfort from all of my beloved friends on the bookshelf, as well as off. An ordeal such as this in the past would have made me very sick as I would have doubted myself. I do not doubt myself now. I know that my actions were appropriate, and in response to intensely inappropriate behaviour on the part of another. And I have left the Goetia alone, finding my way back to the Kundalini Releasing Fear meditation and 'The Blue Pearl'.

The Blue Pearl Meditation? Or The Goetia?

One gives the benefit of allowing one's anger to be controlled. The other, the removal of spiritual and worldly dignities and prelaces, prompting someone standing still to run. In one hand the ebony wand (as opposed to the rosewood one), in the other, a cup of Yogi Tea. Decisions. Decisions. I suppose I shall do Bound Lotus while I contemplate. Then I may leaf more carefully through various and sundry books...possibly only for leisurely perusal and study. Many are beckoning me, riffling their pages. I've only just left off reading a dialogue of the man named Robert who casts such a sinister shadow in McEwan's "The Comfort of Strangers". Oh, for the two of us to be lost deep in the calles of Venice, late at night, while the floodwaters cover The Piazza San Marco. To see him walk across The Bridge of Sighs like the prisoners of old. To hear him sigh, but not out of relief. No 'passiagetta de mezza note' for me.

But on second thought, why raise my blood pressure any further with this exumation of white hot rage and anger from deep in the depths of my psyche's bondage to fears of the past? As a funeralgoer falls into processing old grief, so the invasive behaviour of one man has prompted the experience of old emotions buried deep. Can I not just let them go? Not once in my past as a Wiccan and Ceremonial Magician did I ever summon the Goes. Why should I now? What is this kind of anger doing to me but raising my blood pressure sky high? I want to let it go... All Ceremonial Magicians know of The Goetia, but it is rarely used. That is not The Way...tempting as it is. The Blue Pearl Meditation would better serve me... As I witness myself passing through and releasing deeply held, bone-crushing, soul-destroying anger and rage.

Leopardi's "L'infinito" and...

Reflections on those things which are obscure, profound, or indefinite.

"la luce del sole o della luna, veduta in luogo dov'essi non si vedano e non si scoora la sorgente della luce; un luogo solamente in parte illuminati da essa luce; il riflesso di detta luce, e i vari effeti materiali che ne derivano; il penetrare di detta luce in luoghi dov'ella divenga incerta e impedita, e non bene si distingua, come attraverso un canneto, in una selva, per li balconi socchuisi ec. ec.; la detta luce veduta in luogo, oggetto ec. dov'ella non entri e non percota dirittamente, ma vi sia ribattuta e diffusa da qualche altro luogo od oggetto ec. dov'ella venga a battere; in un andito veduto al di dentro o al di fuori, e in una loggia parimente ec. quei luoghi dove la luce si confonde ec. ec. colle ombré, come sotto un portico, in una loggia elevata e pensile, fra le rupi e i burroni, in una valle, sui colli veduti dalla parte dell'ombra, in modo che ne sieno indorate le cime; il riflesso che produce, per esempio, un vetro colorato su quegli oggetti su cui si riflettono i raggi che passano per detto vetro; tutti quegli oggetti insomma che per diverse materiali e menome circostanze giungono alla nostra vista, udito ec. in modo incerto, mal distinto, imperfetto, incompleto, o fuor dell'ordinario ec.

An ode, if you will, to what is hidden, unspoken, but known by the Infinite for Infinity. The 'double bind' of Bound Lotus. The knowledge hidden safely in the deep darkness of Infinity, and also of a woman's mind. Oscurita profundo. Excuse me, The Goetia is whispering sweet nothings to me. I must meditate. It is all on 'p. 58' if you look for it...

161 Days of Bound Lotus

It's done and I don't want to talk about it, except to say that way too many lawyers are liars, 'respected' or otherwise. That and a very large black fly sat on my head today and would not get off. It was kinda creepy. In fact, the whole day was creepy.

Bound Lotus is done again.

Sociopaths. Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em. I guess they make Infinity spiral too.

Bound Lotus is done.

I JUST PICKED VIOLETS IN THE PARK...

And I am still here! Not only that, I sat and had lunch OUTSIDE at Arcelia's with Cherie, John, Sat Inder, Kip, Jen, Jeff and Anita, and I breathed! I drove with the windows down to B & J Rock Shop for some Selenite, but bought a handful of Bloodstone for healing instead. I sat in Forest Park in my new Hyundai and, with the windows down and air conditioner on, I sang the Aardas Bhaee to heal my lineage of grief, the emotion associated with the lungs and heart. I thought of my Ajoite baby on her way, but already etherically doing her work, and then turned off the air-conditioning, rolled the windows down all the way, and felt the breeze ruffle my hair. I sang Aquarian Sadhana all the way to 'Sat Siri', and then got out of the car, while singing the 'Rakhe Rahkanahar' and sat in an Elm tree. I didn't die. I picked violets while singing 'Wahe Guru, Wahe Jio'. I drove home and am eating the rest of my Enchiladas de Crema. Tons of sour cream. Milk products no less.

I finished 40 Days of Subagh Kriya for prosperity today (following Sat Kartar's example), but what did the trick was the Pranayama Series Sat Inder had us do. It is on p. 50 of 'Transition to a Heart-Centered World'. I think I should do it every day. I am blown away... Prayers have been answered, wishes granted, illnesses released with the fear that is slipping away....I'm going for 120 Days of Releasing Fear to make it a part of my being.

I AM BREATHING. I AM ALIVE. AND MY HEART IS FULL OF LOVE.

90 Days of Releasing Fear meditation with 'Aadays Tisai Aadays', and...

...the purchase of a lovely little tiny piece of Hematite-included Ajoite to heal the throat chakra and ground it into beingness. Among other things. I've wanted a piece of Ajoite for a long time. I finally called Mary and Jennifer in Naples, FL at The Other Side of the Sun...www.theothersideofthesun.com...to buy my little girl. It is a celebration of opening into new light for me.

As was last night's Yin class at D's. I looooove that studio, the soft energy, the resonant acoustics, the ambiance, the people. I felt inspired to teach as Paul Grilley (one of Sarah Powers' teachers who studied with Paulie Zink) teaches, connecting a little more Yang with the Yin, and yet doing The Infant Series entirely on the back and belly. I suggested they explore their bodies' ability to move like babies creating their cervical and lumbar curves and rebelling in their ability to make little movements and slight playful changes in the postures. An ecstatic movement within the statically held postures. The words came as inspiration and from a place of peace that opened in the studio. I had a wonderfully lovely conversation about kids and being childlike with a lovely woman who came to class. She made me grin.

I have dreams of eventually drawing in the practice of mantras with Yin Yoga as Bernie Clark described in "YinSights", then teaching Reiki to the students so they can use it during Yinpractice, and finally...some day drawing in the Laying-On-Of-Stones/Crystals during Shavasana. The thought of it feels heavenly.

Also, just this morning, while processing some grief opened up during Danielle's class earlier yesterday, I read a thread on Jot Nirinjan's facebook page. Her friend Kali spoke of a book called "Homo Ludens", a sociological work written as a partly socially derogatory commentary on the lack of playfulness of the German Renaissance Movement which manifested as Nazism, or what author Huizinga called 'peurilism'. It was written during the rise of The Third Reich. My mother, ever the humanitarian, was reading this work years ago...

No more anxiety over the car...

It is mine for the duration, as long as I pay the loan. I was so worried about the loan going through even with a high credit score, because my income is spread out through four sources, and I haven't had car credit since before I filed bankruptcy 10 years ago. This morning my stomach was upset, I was in the bathroom for quite some time...I'll leave it at that...and I had to run down 11 flights of stairs to screech over to the studio in the new Hyundai, because all of the elevators were down, and I was late already due to being sick.

There were five people in class today! I felt off, but they all seemed to like the class. I taught Tripod Headstand, Bird of Paradise and Eagle, among others. I just wish I'd been a little calmer.

At home, there was a message to call the dealership. I started to stress, wondering if I had 'kept up' with Subagh Kriya for abundance yesterday, and I couldn't remember. I prayed that everything would be alright with the car, and then sat to do Subagh Kriya right away so I wouldn't forget. Right after I finished the invocations, the phone rang. It was the finance department calling to tell me that the credit union they tried first wouldn't take me, but they found another. Just .01% interest more. $1.20 extra a month. Yay! Jai!!!!

Then I saw there was an e-mail from Sat Kartar, who had inspired me to do Subagh Kriya, from reading her description of how helpful it was in Spirit Voyage's catalogue. Is it coincidence or Divine Grace? Or maybe Sat Inder said something to her...I guess he looked up my friend's page, huh? Anyway, still doing Bound. What day is it...? 156.

Re-reading "The Silver Metal Lover"

...by Tanith Lee. Also re-reading "White Oleander" (vaguely similar), and an article in Eleven on someone named Janelle who has the same eclectic music tastes that I do. She put out an album a while back titled 'Metropolis: The Chase Suite' about a young android running around a futuristic city. Sounds like Silver, Jane and Clovis. Or an amalgamation. Astrid from "White Oleander" sounds like Jane. Since everyone reworks everything into something new these days, couldn't I go back to creative writing, and write a story reminiscent of "The Silver Metal Lover", "White Oleander", "Return to Witch Mountain" and Neil Gaiman's "Sandman: The Dream Hunters"? Neil Gaiman himself rewrites old fairy tales. For instance, 'Snow Glass Apples', with Bebe Neuwirth reading on a CD version, is a rewrite of Snow White that is positively wierd and creepy. Snow White is recast as an evil, nonhuman, vampiric type 'girl' who...well, you should hear it. Other stuff by him can be sweeter too...

My point is, I can write, fiction and poetry, I can sing, I can dance, I can paint and draw. In other words, I could be a writer, performance artist, painter, poet and yogi. I once almost made it to the finals in the National Poetry Slam. Just not streetwise enough in my writing and delivery. Too academic. That's what I was told. Back in the day...back in 2003, when the world was rockin' around me, only three decades old, I didn't fit the mold, so they broke me. Open like a rock shrimp shell, but maybe I can do it this time...what the hell?

Less Than 72 Hours Later...

A crack in my windshield from a rock. WTF? Chips happen. Right. Could it have waited? Yeah. And I said that out loud to the heavens. Then I called Allstate, and drove to meet the windshield repair guy. I so want his job. Hm.

Besides that, I learned some new ways to strengthen and release the muscles supporting my neck using a 55 pd Bodyball. I'm gonna buy one! Even without a neck injury, the exercises will help people to come into backbends and open up in handstand, forearm balance (Feathered Peacock/Pincha Mayurasana), and Scorpion. Awesome!

All told today was busy and very exhausting. Consequently, I ate lots of chocolate. But not while doing Bound Lotus.

Oestre and Meditations for a Woman's Arc Line

On Easter, I wasn't surprised to see only 2 people in my morning class, nor no one in my evening class. I must say I was a bit jealous (just the honest truth) to see 11 at you know who's. I wondered if he would be ignorant to me, since he is just as capable of being angry, hurt and rude as I am. He was pleasant and funny, working on heart-opening poses, but making a point not to look at me until I looked directly at him and said thank you. A lot of what he said in his e-mail was true about me, but it is STILL also true about him, and he should take his own advice, and I told him so this past Friday. He is a wonderful person, but not as spiritually advancedas he thinks he is; most of us aren't though.

Anyway, it was a great class. His classes always are. Later, since no one came to my new evening class, I went to do Kundalini. There were just three of us. All women. So we did meditations specifically for women, one in particular to clear a woman's arcline across the heart (something men don't have), and release old impressions. Wow! When I finish with all of these other meditations I'm doing that one too..

I began to chant the 'Mera Man Loche' again (to heal relationships of any kind), and will begin chanting the 'So Purkh' tomorrow (just as I did for my friend - and ex - Joe, but this time for someone else...take a wild guess). Both practices will be for 11 days. I'm psyched. Joe said he had some dreams that sounded really healing on the last day of my singing the 'So Purkh' for him. He didn't know I was doing it for him either...

I LOVE MY HYUNDAI!

As in Hyundai Accent. 2009 with 6'791 miles at purchase, 60 months and full warranty, GAP, front wheel drive for Winter. Yay!!!! Gunmetal gray and waaaay cuter than a Honda Fit, I think. I feel relief. My iPod has been updated, my iPhone will be soon, and eventually I will have a new vacuum cleaner and a computer! So wonderful! As for the allergies, taking Claritin. It is better than 5 years ago when I took Azmacort, Rhinocort, Advair, handfuls of Mucinex, used a Nebulizer, and made trips to the Emergency Room. Of course, that's not good enough for Sat Inder. Out of nowhere, he just turned into a snotty, mean asshole and told me that it was 'Interesting' when I simply said I would not be doing stuff outdoors for damage control to the respiratory system for a while. When I asked for clarification, the response I got was to be preached at, told how to live my life, and indoctrinated with Louise L. Hays and Abraham Hicks stuff. Then I made a smart ass comment back on Facebook to the effect of: "Oh Great Yogi of immense knowledge, may I bask in the fluidity of thy wisdom," with no reference to him directly, and mentioned elsewhere how annoying it is to be judged by New Agers who think that if you were just positive enough, all your problems will go away, and it was on. A long snotty e-mail from him, and snotty comments back and forth between both of us, until I was finally like (to myself): "You know, I no longer look up to him, nor do I want to talk to him, or take his class. His head is getting to big for his turban, and I want to enjoy purchasing my new car." So goodbye.

I LOVE this car!!!!!! I can't believe I got the loan myself! I can't believe I have a credit score of 772! How did that happen? No proof of income, no tax returns, just 5.99% financing, my trade-in Miata, $1'000 down, the keys and a smile. Did I mention stick shift? Did I mention it has air-conditioning??!!?! Which I haven't had for a week with the Miata, in the burgeoning Spring pollen season, since my garage quoted me a price close to my down-payment for A/C Compressor, Drier and Expansion Valve + new Oil Cover, so that mounting oil leakage would not destroy my spark plugs. Clearly a new car was the best decision. I assumed I still had bad credit, and was looking for co-signers and finding none.

Now, it doesn't matter since I found out I have exceptional credit, which allowed me to let go of a car that has been a liability for a long time. I am so grateful. I feel as if I have a new lease on life without those car worries. So releaved. And no worries about scratching my eyeballs bloody or coughing up a lung from driving around with the windows down. A new car, a little Claritin, avoiding Yoga classes with open windows for a few more weeks, a little Bound Lotus and some Yogi Yea, and Voila!

OMG! I Just Bought a New Car....

...and Tales of Snotty Yogis. These highlights and more coming to an iPhone near you soon. And Bound Lotus is done for the day. Stay tuned for future updates and juicy details updated to this post. Try to guess which of the following phrases connects with the previous two titles: 'I love it so much I have to pinch myself before I touch it', and 'He's an arrogant jackass with a New Age superiority complex'.

Dear God, Please Let this day be a joke!

Jai Ganesha, Jai, Jai, Jai Lakshmi, Jai Saraswati, Jai Durga, Durga Ma, Ma, Ma, Amma, Amma, Amma, Ma, Ma, Ma, Ma, Jai Hanuman, Jai Kubera, Jai Krishna, Jesus, Lord hear my prayer. Wahe Guru, Wahe Jio, Wahe Guru Ji Kar Khalsa, Wahe Guru Ji Ke Fateh, Sat Nam. Amen, Amon, Aum. Please let someone say "April Fool's! You don't have to spend the money you've saved on another old car because you have NO credit. I'll cosign, and then sell it to you." Let my dead vacuum cleaner magickally replace itself too. Let everyone be blessed, but selfishly most of all, me right now, cause I'm freaking out.