Sleeping....

I am so tired. I just feel like sleeping all day, rather than driving up to see Ammachi right now. I've done Bound Lotus, and sung a bunch of mantras, done my other meditations, eaten a little bit, and gone back to bed.

Day 50 of Bound Lotus (again...he) ...and back from Ram Das Puri

It's also the 172nd day of doing the Releasing Fear meditation to Aadays Tisay Aadays.

Last night, I began Kirtan Kriya for 31 min, as suggested for processing the work from Summer Solstice. It was so pleasant. Sweet even. I slept listening to Nirinjan Kaur's "Jai Te Gung" on repeat, and awoke to look at the patterns of light on my bedroom wall over the Planetary Yantras. I felt like a little girl again. Like the way I used to feel as a small child when our family came back from a summer camping trip. I feel so much love, the presence of my mother, and of angels. I never thought I would say that!

And yet I'm very tired too. Tired but happy. Hungry, but not really anxious to go out into the dimness of the world to forage for food. Out I went anyway. My doorman wanted to know about the trip, and smiled at my joy. The apartment manager only perked up when I mentioned troubles on the trip. Typical of her. I love her, but she looooves to be miserable. She's resistant to my no longer always resonating with her in that way...too bad. :-(

I went around the corner with my head held high, and found some veggie wraps just behind the door of O.R. Juice and Smoothie. I retraced my steps and went to Bissinger's, where Tambora and the girl behind the counter ended up giving me free chocolate! Then on to Straub's for a larger jar of raw Tupelo honey...craving it for some reason...like I did chocolate after Winter Solstice.

Back home I got really tired. I think the vibration of people in the CWE was so low compared to where I was that it drained me. I put Aap Sahaee Hoa on repeat and napped while giving myself Reiki. Then I got up to do the 'Creating Self-Love' set, which physically hurt my chest a lot, so I must still have a lot of hidden anger... Then back to lie down.

Sleep and Bliss

After arriving at the Drury Inn in Joplin, Missouri after 11 pm, I was overtired and sat staring at the floor for an hour. Then I grabbed my D-core pillow and fell asleep without brushing my teeth. I awoke groggy and weak at 8:30 am, asked for a 1pm checkout, and took advantage of the last fifteen minutes of the Quick Start breakfast to have a waffle, 3 cups of O.J., and a biscuit with blackberry jam.

In my room I did Chhe Kriya, Bound Lotus, and the Banishings and Rose Cross. I showered, languished in the bath with truly warm water, drank some electrolytes, and got on the road after thanking Mina for my late check-out. In Rolla, I ate at Subway, and met some guys from L.A. driving to Maryland. I said I was so happy to see spinach again in a Subway, after being in the meat-lover's paradise of Texas. They said that Subways in California have avocado slices. I need to move!

I sent Sat Inder a text hoping he had a safe trip, apparently just as he arrived home! Then 2 hours later I was home, doing Releasing Fear and finishing just as Dad arrived to go get a piece of chocolate with me. I bought us each a jar of honey, and we sat in The Chase as he told me that he fell at the church last Thursday. He acts like he feels old. He calls himself a slob, and yet he seems happy. I just wish he would do some Kundalini Yoga. But he's so worried about if it jives with being Christian. But Kirtan Kriya...if he would just try it.

Leaving Amarillo for 'The Hotel Tulsa'

I awoke from a long sleep and promptly did Bound, Chhe Kriya and Releasing Fear. After slathering myself with more coconut oil to ease the eczema and heat rash, I ate at Subway, and got on the road to sing Sadhana, the Divine Birth mantras and listen to Ashana! I had a lovely but long drive through Texas, past Oklahoma City, and landed outside Tulsa at a Days Inn from Hell. The lady behind the front desk was sweet, but her boss from India was wierd. And the minute they finished an overly lengthy process of checking me in, rain started heavily outside, making it an ordeal to empty the car. As the thunder and lightning crackled, and I painstakingly moved my luggage with three trips up the elevator, I felt a funky vibe in the hotel.

A huge number of club kids were there, reeking of dozens of kinds of perfume, and each one looked like a zombie on either coke, X, or heroin, or copious amounts of alcohol. They bitched that I didn't say hi, and because I had a disgusted look on my face...but they WERE disgusting to be around, and it was making me sick to my stomach. When I decided to leave, the manager took it personally and tried to block me from leaving. It was like The Hotel California!!!! I told him I'd just been in the mountains of New Mexico, camping, eating vegetarian food, and not being around a bunch of drug addicts and alcoholics, and it was too much. Culture shock. I pushed past him and left.

An hour later, I holed up at Joplin's Drury Inn, courtesy of the kindness of Liz at the front desk. It was Sweet Dreams...truly. Safe and sound away from the junkies and pimps. I felt like Dorothy clicking her spangly red pumps. Half-way home in the storm.

The Last Day...

I awoke ready to shower and pack up my tent. Not ready to leave Ram Das Puri, but tired of the heat and dryness. I did Chee Kriya and Bound Lotus... Then said goodbye to Kristikka and Sat Siri and her son Rajpreet (Sebastian). We promised to see each other next year, and they packed up and left. I wrapped myself in a shawl to prevent burning, and worsening of my eczema, and covered myself with raw coconut oil to stop the itching, while I quickly made 3 more trips to the car with my things, and then swept and packed up the tent.

Then I took a much needed warm shower (for once it wasn't cold), and headed for the car with the last of my things. I passed Sat Inder on the way, and he said he'd come by my tent but I wasn't there. He said he'd taken Amrit and Sikh Vows, which I figured he had. I was sorry I hadn't been there, but I wasn't doing well with getting up at 3 am. I am very happy for him though...

Lunch was being served, and I saw Jiwan Shakti, my 2nd Tantric partner, and so we sat and ate together in the Admin trailer, with a beautiful white-haired woman who was none other than Prabhu Prakash Kaur, the head of Administration! I love her voice. We talked about Sikh Karas and sprouts, and making Golden Milk. Then I left and said goodbye to Pavan Deep and Sat Inder, and promptly got off in the wrong direction down the mountain, but Sat Inder helped me out.

At the end of that long, rocky road, I stopped to get gas and realized how spacy I was...I then drove that way through Santa Fe, and onto the wrong highway through the sagebrush. As I listened to Simrit Kaur singing Akal Moorat, I fell in love with the mountain I had just come down from, and began to cry. I cried even more when I finally saw a gas station: Pecos River Station, with hummingbird feeders, and I saw my first ever real hummingbird! What magic! I cried as I listened to Snatam Kaur's "Poota Mataa Ke Asees", knowing that the singing of it is healing for my relationship with my mother, just as I had known instinctively 2 days before White Tantric Yoga.

I cried on and off until arriving in Amarillo, Texas to find that almost every room had been rented by Jehovah's Witnesses. That grounded me a little, and then I crashed when I finally found a room.

Exhausted after Tantric...

Day 3 of White Tantric Yoga...

with Guru Simran Singh Khalsa.

I'd had permission to skip kitchen Seva, and so did Bound again, and went to the Tantric Shelter much earlier. Guru Simran had asked to partner with me, and he pointed out his mat and sheepskin dead center, away from the sun. This kind old man, 76? I believe, was the one who gave me a Heart-to-Heart at my tent. He'd also given me the Chee Kriya to do for a protective circle, much like the Banishings and Middle Pillar Exercise and Rose Cross Ritual that I did not want to do, because I was afraid that some more Christian-oriented types might think strangely of me for doing it. He was also the person I helped set a tent up for someone else with. Very kind and easy to be around. I was overjoyed just to relax. The meditations were intense, but I made it through almost everything. I needed to sleep, and he wanted to as well, and touched my thigh, but I asked him not to...

During the last meditation I had to get up because I was exhausted. In the bathroom I saw blood in the toilet, wondered whose it was, and realized it was mine. I'd bled through my whites. I went back to my tent and washed them out, and then came back just in time for the Blind Walk, which I decided to skip, being quite exhausted and having no desire to fall and twist my ankle from fatigue.

Someone mentioned going into Albuquerque to see Ammachi for Devi Bhava as well, but I couldn't come up with the energy. I went to bed and slept, and slept, and slept.

Day 2 of White Tantric Yoga...

with Hari Prashad Singh.

I was too tired to get up and work in the kitchen today, so I slept until 5:30 am and did Bound Lotus so I wouldn't be worried about doing it later. I ate a Baraka Bar and an orange for breakfast in my tent, then went to the Tantric shelter. I was stressed out with the sunburn and eczema on my arms and shoulders, and was starting to get upset because there were no spaces out of the sun. A woman who was going to partner with me, started an argument with someone she knew, and I told her I had to leave. Then I walked past a woman I knew from the kitchen and there was space beside her. I asked if it was available, and at first she said no, but then looked up and said, "Oh! It's you! Sure!" She said she just knew it was as important who was to the side of you as across from you.

So I found a space and went looking for a partner. A woman told me just to put my hand up, and the minute I did, a guy with a red beard said, "Do you need a partner?" His name was Hari Prashad. He was going to be a monitor, unless someone right then raised their hand, and I did, so he partnered with me. He is going to S.F. to meet his new wife after this...she doesn't do Kundalini Yoga.

The first meditation was hard, and the second. We sat perfectly still through all of it. Toward the end, I began to cry, then laugh at the same time, then I felt intense rage well up, rage at myself for what I went through years ago in that abusive relationship with that Kurdish asshole, and my body began to shake violently. I was shaking so much I was vibrating like a hummingbird! Just when I thought I couldn't take it anymore, and wondered if Hari Prashad could stand to see the rage in my eyes, the meditation ended. I let out a cry that sounded like a moan and a scream. The girl from Poland to my right rubbed my back, and so did the other woman on my right. My partner said, "Wow! Props to you for riding that one out! You are really getting your money's worth! That was intense!"

I felt like something deep and profound had changed within me, and yet somehow very calm. As I sat for a few minutes, the women on either side of me massaged my back, and my partner gave me a hug. I returned the favor by doing some Thai massage for the lady to my right, and massaging my partner's hands that were aching. Then I got up to go and get some Ginger juice at the Oasis Cafe, and passed my Seva leader. I told him I had not been able to be in the kitchen that morning as I was so exhausted, and that I unfortunately needed to ask if I could not come in tomorrow, because I was worried I wouldn't be able to do the White Tantric otherwise. He said I should take care of myself and that obviously the White Tantric was working! I laughed and went back up to the pavilion to lie down. Then I proceeded to feel really, really queazy, and realized that I had not had enough water or electrolytes, because I hadn't needed to pee in a long time. The queaziness got worse, even though I drank, and so I finally got up and went down to the First Aid trailer.

A wonderful woman named Onna Lo was there, and she held my hand while I felt sick, and then gave me a Pedialyte popsicle and had me lie down. I kept trying to get up and go back for the rest of White Tantric, but she said that I was way too dehydrated, and had better keep resting. I then slept like a brick, missed my partner coming to look for me, and finally woke up, and just rested. Onna got to go and do one of the meditations,and then came back and talked to me, and we talked about our mothers, babies, and families, and loss. I really grew to like her very, very much. And we exchanged e-mails before I went back up to tell my partner that I was okay. By then, White Tantric was just finishing up, and I gave Hari Prashad a hug and went back to rest in my tent. The rest of the day was rather uneventful, and I slept deeply.

Day 1 of White Tantric Yoga...

with Amar Bir Kaur (Valeria Grunnebaum).

I woke up and did not have time to do Bound because we had to be in the kitchen at 5 am to chop veggies for two hours, before White Tantric. I was frustrated because most of the time there were not enough things to do, and I could have been doing Bound. I said so, and this woman across from me made it her mission to see if I could let it go, just by watching me and turning to her husband and saying, "She can't let it go." I wanted to say neither can you, bitch, but I just moved to another table and started chopping onions.

I know I was partly angry because I had visions of Amar Bir picking another partner the way Sat Inder did. I did not want to be late. When I finally was able to get there, Amar Bir was waiting. Even though the monitors had continually pressured her to get another partner. She said she told them I had to work and would be late. I was so relieved. It really hurt and made me cry when Sat Inder basically dumped me on my first day of White Tantric, but Amar Bir, without knowing it, was making up for it.

And on the Spanish side I did not have to worry about the sun at all. Amar Bir had told me this was an added benefit to being Spanish-speaking: the area reserved was way under the shelter, next to the Gurdwara. This meant no dirt and debris on my sheepie either.

The first set was 62 minutes, and was purely cooling Sitali breath. Sweet. Wonderful. The next was also beautiful. We had an easy lunch of yummy Tantric burgers, and then time for a nap and stretch. This woman next to me was watching everything I did, and commenting on my looks and flexibility. It was so draining, that I got distracted, and actually pulled my left hamstring. This will take weeks to heal. I finally asked her to stop watching me, and, amazingly, she finally did...after she'd sucked quite a bit of energy. This is a problem, because I can't do the Banishings here without drawing attention, you know, invoking Isis and Osiris....

Dreaming of Love...

After a long day, starting with Bound Lotus, and the vegetable chopping in the kitchen, I took my bowl again, like Oliver Twist, up to get lunch. When I sat down to eat in the Tantric shelter, a man named Patrick came to sit with me and we talked about music, and his working in the producing room with Michael Jackson and Jimmy Page. Something about the conversation lifted something in me to the surface...

When he left, I found myself beginning to cry deeply. I sat gazing out over the landscape and the white tent tops, feeling like a Bedouin, and the tears kept coming. The blue topaz clear sky merging with the dusty, red ground and green scrub of Georgia O'Keefe's landscapes was so beautiful. But then, I felt very, very alone, even with everyone there. I felt like a ghost. I felt dead. Then I began to laugh, and a young girl walked by looking at me very funny. I thought, forget her, this needs to come out. So I laughed, and then I cried again, and then I laughed and cried both at the same time. Just then I looked up to see a very small boy, maybe 4, right in front of me at eye level. He gazed into my eyes with this mischievous, conspiratorial sort of look. I paused. He went away. I cried again.

He came back with his sister, and they both gazed at me. They smiled. I smiled back. Then I saw their mother, who smiled and waved. Their job done, they ran back to their mom. It was then I realized the music had triggered the grief. It was Snatam Kaur's "Poota Maata Ke Asees", which translates as: Oh, my child this is your mother's blessing. It can be sung by mothers for their children, but also by a child for a mother. I felt as if my mother were sending her blessings~

I decided that I needed a heart-to-heart, and so went to hospitality to sign up, but despaired of waiting. Very tired, I went back to my tent, and saw the lady who, with her son, had been talking way late into the night. I asked if they could stop talking after 10, or just whisper, and she got really mad. I held my composure until she left, and then sat down and cried. Lo and behold, an angel appeared in the form of Guru Simran Singh Khalsa, who asked if I was okay, and then listened to me cry, and held my hand.

He understood my need to sleep, and why earplugs don't work, after years of growing up with a mother who tried to keep me from sleeping deeply...with her timer rigged to the light switch, stereo and radio. He asked me what I was doing to protect my energy from people like the lady and her son, and I said I couldn't do the Wiccan Banishings there, or the Rose Cross. He mentioned something about having once practiced Santeria, and then told me how to do a kriya called Chee Kriya. He also said I should work to build my aura and electromagnetic field as well... He really helped me, and then asked to do White Tantric with me on the 3rd day.

I slept easily as the woman and her son stopped talking at 10. She heard me. And I heard my mother.

Going to Solstice Alone

I taught this morning, and my classes are dwindling, even though I am teaching better. Sat reminded me that when his style of teaching changed his class attendance dwindled for a while too...he said if they really like you, they'll come back. His class was wonderful! I got into a really fucked-up version of headstand that Edward Clark teaches, and it felt awesome!

Flying high on Yoga, I came home to have an hour-long drawn out conversation with the fellow I would have been driving to Solstice with...peppered with a "Weeeeeeeell..." everytime I asked a fucking question. It was so damned annoying. Then, I found out it isn't possible for him to drive 20 minutes down 70 to I-70 to Forest Park Parkway, just so I can leave my brand-spanking new car in the garage. But that, even though I can sort of see his side, isn't what really upset me. It is the WAY that he said "No", almost with anger in his voice, because I'd disagreed with him that my car would be safer here in a garage on a 24-hour camera than at his place.

That anger at such a simple thing, compounded with his immature behavior toward women since I've known him... Well, let's just say that I should have known better than to agree to ride with him. Ultimately I only have myself to blame. I knew what he was like, and I know he's really just being ignorant because he isn't ever going to get laid by me. Classic!

So, the man I love, and have loved more than anything, someone OTHER than this person, said to me, "What were you thinking?", and he is right. I just started packing, and then went to borrow that sweetie's backpack. Inside were a pair of sunglasses I had been missing from a trip we took years earlier, where I had been more than a pain, and he had been quite the gentleman at the time...though he had his bad days too. He just wasn't petty about it, like this guy.

Meanwhile, I get to drive alone, listen to whatever I like, stop and do yoga whenever I feel like it, and, most importantly, enjoy the drive, instead of enduring it. I don't have to be pressured by him one more time to read his book.

"Dancing Across Borders"

I took Jen's class this morning, and found myself getting into Hanumanasana completely! My arms were raised and I was amazed! My standing backbends are also almost to the point where I could drop back...I thanked her for a lovely class, chatted with Jeremy, and went home to sit for Bound. Afterwards, I did more cleaning and then went to see this incredible movie about a Cambodian dancer, Sokvannara Sar, who came to America and studied ballet at the unbelievable age of 17, blowing everyone's ideas about how young you have to be to be any good at ballet. He beat the odds with dancing, and I can do it with my life!

Kundalini Kriya for Creativity and the 5th Chakra

I did Bound early this morning, and then went shopping for a tent. After hanging out in it to meditate, do some Reiki, and just generally get acclimated, I did loads and loads of laundry. Then I taught class, and loved the Kriya I chose! Along with my neck traction, this should give me back my cervical curve...

Quitting D's...

...and the courage it took to stand up to a control freak, is something I could never have done or had the ability to do calmly prior to beginning Bound Lotus. My aura is getting stronger, my skin thicker. In a good way, I'd say.

...or is it |1| ?

On January 27, 2006, after a short impromptu organ piece by David Knox, filmmaker David Lynch introduced his new film "Inland Empire" to Chicago's Music Box Theater by quoting from the Aitareya Upanishad:

"We are like the spider. We weave our life and then move along in it. We are like the dreamer who dreams and then lives in the dream. This is true for the entire universe."

I wrote today. I haven't in a while. And as I felt as if I were pulling my intestines up through my nose, I thought of Anais Nin when she said that some mornings you feel as if something is stuck in your throat and you get up to spit it out, or something like that. I've only written two pieces before that wrench the gut...this makes number 3. Is it the charm?

...or is it |1| ?

Number |1|. With a red square drawn around it.

If I'm cryptic, it is because I refuse to tell the whole story. Not now. And now, I am off to see the Wizard, as my mother used to say, and do Bound Lotus. Life is like that.

"All Day She Sits Upon the Stair,

Or on the chair, or on my hat..."

Or on my blanket to do Bound Lotus. And then the laundry. And then vacuuming. Cleaning. Eating salads with chives, lettuce and black truffle oil. Thinking of Sobin. The Fly-Truffler. My Father. Eating poppy seed toast lost in memories. Watching all eight scenes from Lynch's "Rabbits". Looking at the oxo kitchen utensils in a wierd way. Reading. Always reading. Eating melted chocolate. Valrhona. My favorite. Did the lights go out? Recovering from Memorial Day. I was day-dreaming. Thinking of "Naked Lunch". Reading Phil Hine.

"Periodic descents into the Underworld are a necessary phase in the cycle of personal development, and is also associated with depth psychotherapy."

Anything less is a spiritual bypass. I wouldn't say that a spiritual bypass is what most New Agers are doing, but if they aren't, and they are delving like me...then, they can't talk about it to most other New Agers. It's like the family secret. You can't tell. Can't talk. It would ruin the bliss. But as Ammachi says, "It takes us a long time to get to the bottom of our anger."

And Phil Hine continues in my head.

"According to the Western Esoteric Tradition, one of the key stages of initiatory confrontation is the encounter with 'The Dweller on the Threshold'. Less prosaically, this phrase refers to the experience of our understanding of the gulf between the ego's fiction of itself and ourselves as we truly are."

I am frightened at times. Like Bernadette Roberts. This work is harder. It is nice to come up for air, but sometimes the tunnel is so deep you have to keep going. You can no longer bring up just a few diamonds and pearls of wisdom, proclaiming yourself enlightened. You have to go back down again. And again. And again. Just like the sun. This work is hard.

"This necessitates the acceptance of light into the dark corners of the self, and the acceptance of our short-comings, blind spots and personal weaknesses as aspects of ourselves that we must take responsibility for. The recognition that we are, ultimately, responsible for all aspects of ourselves, especially those bits which we are loathe to admit to ourselves, is a step that must be taken if the initiatory journey is to proceed. It is not uncommon for people to remain at this stage for years, or to come back to it, time and time again. Such ordeals must be worked through, or they will return to 'haunt' us until they are tackled, else they will become 'obsessional complexes' (demons) that will grow until they have power over us. There are a myriad of techniques - both magical exercises and psychotherapeutic tools which can be actively used to examine these complexes, but the core of this ordeal is the beginnings of seeing yourself. In shamanic cultures, physical isolation from the tribe is often reinforced by physical ordeals such as fasting, sleep deprivation, and exposure to rigors of heat or cold - all powerful techniques for producing altered states of consciousness."

I'd venture that making dragon bowls sing, watching David Lynch surrealist video clips while alone for hours, and doing Bound Lotus are of the aforementioned techniques.

Phil Hine goes further.

"The initiatory cycle can be likened to a snake sloughing off its skin."

Or a butterfly's cocoon.

"As we reach the initiatory stage of descent into the underworld, so we are descending into the Deep Mind, learning to rely on our own intuition about what is right for us, rather than what we have been told is correct."

I think of David Lynch and his interviews about the creative process and 'true' enlightenment. A kind, gentle old man, whose films are exceedingly dark. He owns both his demons and his angels. Would Christ have been murdered or Osiris dismembered if we could all own our demons? Is it all a metaphor? Metaphorical questions. Paradoxical even.

And then there is Natalie Goldberg in "Writing Down the Bones":

"Yet it is good to know about our terrible selves, not laud them or criticize them, just acknowledge them. Then, out of this knowledge, we are better equipped to make a choice for beauty, kind consideration, and clear truth. We make this choice with our feet firmly on the ground. We are not running wildly after beauty with fear at our backs."

After a while every child has the choice to grow up, and let go of a need for father figures or mother figures...the New Age makes that harder to do. We are always looking for wisdom in someone else's words...what about listening internally, stilling the mind, and hearing the tortured voices within as well as the lightness? Inanna and Erishkegal are one woman, not seperate sisters in the Sumerian myth. They are symbolic of the one who has pretended to have no darkness within them, who goes back to hold their own hand in the darkness, while radiating the intense light they have developed in the upper world. When you are healed enough, you must go back for those abandoned selves in their tortured cells. Without them you are neither whole nor human. I have no wish to be a cartoon or cute pink characature of myself. I wish to be REaL! So I delve into the darkness...where it is sometimes dangerous...but I have selves to care for there. They are worthy of love as well.