Sour, Bitter and Pungent

I am not in a good mood at all, so if you are reading this be forewarned. On my list of bad little boys and girls who will never ever get even one slice of my banana bread are traffic cops, child molesters, and anyone else who pisses me off. I WAS in a good mood, until a cop pulled me over, after teaching my 6:15 am class for what amounts to be $16 of pay, to write me two citations primarily to meet his quota. He knew it was...he couldn't even look me in the face. He was embarrased. I have nothing on my record and he could have just issued a warning for recently expired plates and an insurance that simply didn't make it from the coffee table to the glove box last week. He can kiss a certain part of my anatomy along with the female cop years ago who stole my prescription Xanax for panic attacks off my kitchen counter, the two male cops who rested their hands on my thigh while issuing speeding tickets in their police vehicles, the one who kept trying to intimidate me while he lived in my building, and the ones who ignored me when I neede help with a stalker. No sugar-coating here. I think it is pretty clear how I feel about cops, including the ones that I see speeding to nowhere because they think they can. I'd like to meet a cop who is not a schmuck and is a decent human being. I have yet to do so. So much for my yogic attitude.

As for child molesters, well, someone I used to know fairly well has seriously abused people I love and he'll never see the inside of a jail cell for it. Not only that, but the bastard has a new family to abuse. I'd have compassion if he wanted some help, but he wants none, and a Buddha or all-forgiving person I am not. If there is a hell, well... Sorry, I'm pissed. I could pretend to have Tourets and fill up the whole blog with what I think of that man. Hatred. Rage. I'd like to tie him in a knot rather than get into Bound Lotus today, and I'm exhausted to boot.

I'm finally getting ready to sit for Bound Lotus and I hope I find some peace there, and a place where I can find some compassion for people I dislike intensely for very different reasons. I'm disgusted with cops. I feel anger, rage and almost pure hatred for child molesters. Funny that I can talk about them both in the same breath. I make no apologies. This is how I feel today...so truly angry, bitter, sour (as well as pungent for other far more humorous reasons), that I could spit. I haven't felt this angry in years. May today's Bound Lotus bring me peace. I go to sit.

Another dopeless hope fiend

I saw this bumper sticker the other day on a car, and it sums up the way I feel this morning for 3 reasons: (1) I'm not much on drugs of any kind these days, so I really hope whatever was flushing itself out of my digestive system last night is done, (2) I feel like I'm hallucinating when I think about going to Kundalini Winter Solstice in Florida, and (3) I hope that in commiting to 1'000 days of Bound Lotus I don't - literally - go through some of the 'crap' that Gopi Krishna describes in his book on Kundalini, which I was reading on the toilet last night.

I think of searing fire up the spine, and lo and behold, while holding Bound Lotus my shoulders burn as if someone put Red Tiger Balm on them. I don't know what I'd do without the Ray Man Shabd.

Why did I put off doing Bound Lotus until 10:31 pm? Hm? I could have worked on knitting my lovely little gold cap with flowers tomorrow...why am I risking sabotaging this practice more than halfway through the first 40 days of a 1'000 day practice? I must have some inner problem with the changes it will bring. That particular little personal demon needs to take a nap.

Pain is a great motivator...

I've had plenty of opportunity all day long to go into Bound Lotus. Did I? Nooooooo... I taught this morning, bought bacon chocolate for my frustratred friend and delivered it to her, worked on crocheting a shawl and some beanies for the Kundalini Winter Solstice Celebration, walked in the park on this fabulous 67 degree day, ate and did laundry. THEN, at 8:38 pm I finally sat down to Bound Lotus.

For the last week I've had relatively no pain in my neck, and so the primary motivator to do Bound Lotus as a reduction in pain is not there. However, Bound Lotus also reduces anxiety and tension, and after coming out of it I feel at peace. I also feel full of energy...so it would be better to do it earlier in the day, not right before I go to bed. Also, my neck itched quite a bit while in Bound Lotus, though once I chose to ignore it, the itching very quickly disappeared. That isn't always the case.

Oona, Bound Lotus and Shamanic Healing

My day began with an incredible amount of energy, and then the awareness once again that my monthly cycle is upon me again. This is the second month that I had no typical warnings of cramping, bloating, fatigue or intense irritability. I do not have the periomenopausal symptoms I was getting either: no night sweats, no insomnia, no severe mood swings. All thanks to Oona. I love it! It is a specific formulation of Chaste tree berry and Black Cohosh. I have taken these herbs before, but they've never had this effect. It must be the way the herbs work synergistically, as well as the fact that this company is very particular about using all of the parts of the plant. They also are picky about when and where they pick the plants. These are things that so-called rational minds tend not to understand the necessity of...

I felt so fabulous sitting in Bound Lotus! It actually felt good for most of the time. Usually there is some discomfort. I even tried coming into full Lotus on each side for a minute, but that proved to be rather taxing for my left knee, so I came out. I can sit in full Lotus on each side, but not, apparently after half Bound Lotus for 10-12 minutes. I wonder I'll be able to hold Full Bound Lotus at the end of 1'0000 days?

I went to see the movie "The Horse Boy", about a six-year-old boy named Rowan with autism. He is so socially disabled and exhausting to care for that his parents decide, of all things, to take him to Outer Mongolia to be healed by shamans. This isn't as far fetched as it might seem, and in my opinion from watching the movie, the shamans actually heal the boy. Only an idiot or a stubborn mule of a person wouldn't be able to see that (hmm, there's my judgemental side). The shamans heal him. They don't cure him. He still has the gifted traits of autism, but not the debilitating ones. And there are advantages to being autistic, such as astoundingly one-pointed concentration, organizational skills beyond compare, and a vast reservoir of creativity. I've often thought that both my father and myself were dysfunctionally autistic on the mild spectrum, having learned through modeling how dispense with some of the aversive traits and keep the others. My dad can memorize poetry at the drop of a hat, and I have an amazingly photographic memory. I can recall information from books along with the page numbers. I should have been a spy. Phoenix Lei - Agent 88.

Namaste and Thank You...

I did the Kundalini warm-ups for the Neck & Shoulders, some of which help to break up calcium deposits, and then the exercises for Circulation. These are repetitive and tough, just like the Kundalini Yoga Sets I did so many years ago in 2001. They were called "Let the Liver Live" and "To Relieve Inner Anger", and I did Them both for 40 days, and then made it to 72 before quitting. During the in which I did it for 40 days, I made sure I lay in Savasana for at least 10 min., and did a meditation for "Removing Fear of the Future" for 31 min. While doing this, many people commented on how pleasant I was to be around; they literally buzzed around me. Then I continued the set for healing the liver and did not do the meditation. I found myself so full of rage and anger it was unbearable! Instead of going back to the meditation...I quit.

I don't want to have that happen with Bound Lotus. I feel the Ray Man Shabd coming to mind sometimes during the day when I get anxious. It's mostly irritation and anxiety this time around - not anger. I meditate daily, but I wonder if I should be doing the meditation "Developing Human Kindness" after Bound Lotus?

My pain in the neck is gone!!!

Well...pretty much. The doc says I'm astoundingly better. Bound Lotus rocks! I love chiropractors! Yoga rules! Saul David Raye is the bomb!

But anyway, my neck is better, and it looks like I might be taking a well-timed Winter road trip to Florida for the Kundalini Winter Solstice Sadhana Celebration with a friend who has a Yoda on his dashboard. Since my Dad is kinda like Obi Wan-Kenobi, I guess I'll be Lucia Skywalker slipping on over to the light side and crocheting myself some fabulous white and pastel beanies for the occasion. Don't get me wrong, I still do Yoga to Led Zeppelin and wear my Jimmy Page & Robert Plant 'Walking Into Everywhere' T-shirt, but Ammachi likes popular music too. When I went to see her in 2006 they said her chauffeurs went to turn off the radio and she asked them to leave it on. She was bouncing her head to the music. So, Snatam Kaur, Deva Premal, B-Tribe, Led Zep, Bjork, Procul Harum, lemonjelly, Krishna Das...they all co-exist on my shelf.

Bound Lotus tweaked my shoulders a little this evening, but it was fairly blissful to finish it as my Dad knocked on my door. I'd just finished lying in Savasana when he knocked. I felt a difference in the way we spoke. I thought of how every time I've gone to see Ammachi with some friends of mine I've felt so energetic and fulfilled while there, and so exhausted and sick when I came back from the drive with them. They are good people, but they suck the life out of me - literally. I went to visit one of those friends last week, and BOOM! I got sick.

What they do to me I used to do to people all the time, and I didn't realize how bad I was anymore than they do. Good people like I said, but very draining. So there are people who wear a lot of white and pastel who can wear you out, and people who wear whatever who don't, and vice versa. Clothing choices, musical choices... I went to see the movie "Pirate Radio", and I loved it as much as "It Might Get Loud". I love Rock and Pop. I love Sanskrit Chanting and Moroccan Trance and New Age Flute music, just not much into groups like, oh say, Ministry. I'm not interested in feeding my anger. But I do love loud rock n' roll.

I think life is fabulous with all it's variety. I love life. I hope with the practice of Bound Lotus I'll be able to experience more of it without draining people like I still can at times, much less the horendous way I did years ago. It's funny in a way when I see people behave like energy vampires now...you can't fool me. I know what it looks like, and just because people listen to 'spiritual music' doesn't mean they don't do it.

We all do it to a certain extent. Everyone shares each other's energy. We just need to plug into the Source more often. Yoga helps us do that, and so does music. After all, the naad, the Sound Current is what it is all about!

My demons in their cloaks, Alexandra David-Neel style...

I don't like these parts of myself that I'm seeing. I feel better than those bitches from last night because I feel like I'm doing "real" Yoga, and they aren't. I guess I'm arrogant as well. I am.

Last night I did my practice at 10:07 pm. Kinda pushin' it. My right hip was so mellowly open, especially after the therapist worked on the 'knot' around the sciatic nerve of my right leg. I'd wanted to scream while she did this, and as I thought this to myself, she responded as if I'd spoken. She said, "Yes you did want to tell me about it." It's not the first time she's read my mind.

Amazingly, my left hip opened for the first time in my life in full or half-lotus. There was pain, but not much. Overall, the practice was soothing my little "wild things". I think of how much I loved the movie version of Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are". I'm on the island with my demons, smashing huts, igloos...and yurts...just the Czar's soldiers when he massacred the Russians from the steppes with their dark hair for real in the last century, and in the Russian film: "Song from the Southern Seas".

Back in the 30s, before the Tibetan exile, a western woman snuck into the holy city of Lhasa, and studied the practice of 'The Ritual of the Chod' with the lamas. There she succeeded in bringing a personal demon into personified form, at first as a shadow in a cloak that grew, over time, to have piercing eyes and sharp teeth. This conjuration was to be able to fight it. She'd only studied for a year with the lama before trying this, not the traditional 5 or 7. There are stories of people being killed by their personified demons. I surmise that the problem might believing in them too much as the great sage Milarepa discovered.

Demons. Ha! Making peace with the personal ones is all good and well, because we create them ourselves, but what about those that are other people's creations? Take for instance the three forms of Tantra according to Yogi Bhajan: White for healing and spiritual growth; Black for manipulating the energy to control another human being as my former wanna-be cultleader friend practiced; and Red solely for sexual purposes. Of course...the reality is also it is never really that Black and White, so to speak.

For years the Dalai Lama has been patiently stating that most of us should not even attempt most tantric practices until we have mastered the Three Principle Paths of renunciation, bodhicitta and correct view. To wield that kind of power...with a grasping hand full of ego? And yet I'm trying to get to Florida for 3HO Winter Solstice Celebration and White Tantric Yoga. Am I ready? Once, I gazed for 10 minutes into the eyes of a manipulative lover whom I thought was as harmless as a spoiled little child, and what I saw in his eyes was truly frightening. Is he not my mirror?

At the chiropractor's office I did a new exercise called 'Wall Angel', but as therapist commented it felt more like a 'Wall Demon'! Only yesterday while doing my yoga stretches for Bound Lotus, I felt moved to lie on my back and make Carpet Angels. And yet demons posing as hapless humans were in my dreams...one who lured my friends and I from a bar-hopping stint into a living room far from safe. Another, who loomed like my old nemesis, and tried to get me to climb up a towering yellow stilted house with only slice of apple for food. My instinct told me I'd starve to death up there with whomever else he had trapped; mud wasp that he is...paralyzing the caterpillars to store as future food sources. Such vivid dreams in technicolor...

In this waking reality, I sit again for Bound Lotus and it is a soft surrender into the pillows with so little pain that I almost slumber. I should not leave the practice to be done so late in the day. Too risky. I might fall into a dream and forget...