"They won't care how much you know, until they know how much you care"

The day before yesterday, when I was at my sickest, I called someone I know who's stepfather just died of cancer. I listened attentively over the phone because I DO care. I know what it feels like to lose someone to cancer. I did not offer advice. What advice does she need? Just an ear to hear her. I couldn't hug her physically because she could conceivably have caught the physical illness side of what is going on with me. So I listened. I took the time. I can listen, but you have to ask.

No advice. I too have spent my life wanting other people to know how much I know, afraid that without my intelligence I am nothing. That is neither rational nor intuitive. It isn't being kind to myself or anyone else. Dad reminded me yesterday, when I said I realized I was a Know-it-all just like my friend: "They won't care how much you know, until they know how much you care."

Bound Lotus was so easy last night. The day before was the most excruciating it has ever been, and yesterday the easiest. I forgot to sit up and do the half-bind. The pain turned into bliss, albeit a soft, quiet kind of bliss. Today, after lots and lots more sleep, I feel even better...I've just been in the crucible burning up dross as an alchemist would say...it happens. It is part of life. A friend from Luggage Seva at Solstice said, when I apologized for not being able to pull my weight and being a little bitchy, that it is no worries. Life has it's ups and downs. Every day can't be blissful. When I took my first Reiki attunement, I needed that constant bliss so much to heal. When I asked my Dad why he wouldn't to be blissed out every day, he said: "Because that isn't real life."

Real life has pain and joy both. Some days are better than others. Today is better than yesterday. Yesterday I had a fabulously wonderful conversation with one of my bosses, but I was still sick. It didn't change that. It did make me smile though. We laughed. I coughed. I pulled the phone away from my mouth so I wouldn't blow her eardrums out. Today's a little better.

Bound Lotus was almost as easy as yesterday, and I find myself wanting to get back into the swing of my magickal practices that I left behind while at Solstice. Yogis get a little to airy, and my practice of Banishings and The Middle Pillar and The Rose Cross keep me grounded. I think I should not have stopped doing them. With a little more perspective behind me, and some dissillusionment, I think I shall continue being my happy combination of semi-Hindu and Pagan. For one thing, I'm not into wearing white all the time. But the physical yoga practices are very healing. Like Saul David Raye, I pick and choose. I resonate most strongly with his style of teaching; it allows me to fully integrate all the different parts of myself, including the sensual side that doesn't seem to fit with the Sikhs and Kundalini Yoga.

I've been thinking I don't need anyone else's advice about how to be who I am. What works for them may not work for me. So as I go into the New Year, I'll take my cue from Queen Victoria: listen to suggestions but make my own decisions.

40 Days of Moon Kriya to End on Feb. 2nd

Alternate title: "Damn Snow"

If it snows one more time this week I'm gonna scream. And yet snowflakes under a microscope are so pretty. In St. Louis: just slush and black ice. So my black mood continues. Whatever. Yesterday I felt as if I were literally burning at the stake. Hot air in my throat. Feeling like I'm gagging on dirt clods. Bound Lotus did NOT bring up good memories. This stuff is old. Old, I tell you. And every day here at the Circle P Dude Ranch is the same. Pretty much. Funny I'll finish this 'Moon Kriya' for processing White Tantric Yoga on, none other than Groundhog's Day. My mother's birthday. The day we watch the damn groundhog squint his little eyes in the sun hopefully. I feel like Bill Murray. Where's my toaster? Hah. Cynicism is at least a sign of life. Screw this trying to "coax" myself into a good mood. I feel like shit, and have since Monday. Every damn day is the same, and Bound Lotus sucks. I hate it. Blah, blah, blah...

I miss everyone in Florida. St. Louis blows. Not that I want to go to Florida, with all it's covert racism, but, you know, maybe, um, California, where I belong. I feel like a duck out of water here. I don't want to stay here. I don't want to date anyone who lives here. I want to leave. I hate the winters here too. I look at the clock and I wake up and start coughing AGAIN! If it weren't so wet and cold I could go outside. I just want to sit under my favorite ginko tree. I hate this weather. I'm not a happy camper. Not at all. And if people don't like it, well this is how I feel. This is my blog. This is how I feel right now. I'm still doing the work. Still chanting, still doing Bound and the Moon Kriya. We'll see.

Yesterday was 57 days of Bound Lotus. As many years as my mother lived. I plan to live beyond that, if I can get through this crap. It's like cleaning a huge cobweb and dust covered mansion. "May the flowers of devotion bloom in the gardens of my heart." But the 'Secret Garden' feels dead and old. Where's my little bird to take me over the wall?

Some people just don't get it. There is a lot to be said for attitude, but sometimes you are just sick because you did TOO much, and got exposed to too much rain, cold and snow. But everyone who is a control freak likes to believe that they can change everything with a snap of their fingers. As this crud got a hold of me, I've absolutely loved hearing from certain individuals how THEY aren't going to let it get to them, and THEY will stay well. Arrogant. I've also been told - by people who only text messaged me and e-mailed me, and never heard my voice or how PHYSICALLY sick I was - how my problems would magically all be solved if I just stepped outside of my little cave into the cold air and had lunch dates and talked to people. Yeah! When you sound like you have tuberculosis and have to spit wads of white goo every couple of minutes people will just be banging down your door to have you in their restaurant or kitchen. But you know, if you really knew me you'd know this, cause you'd have picked up the phone and CALLED me.

I've been sick. So crucify me. It must be all my fault for not reading Louise L. Hays damn book before this crud took hold. Some illnesses have to happen. This New Age bullshit of blaming the victim for having to walk through the fire, and this namby-pamby feel-good-all-the-time crap is not reality. It is living in a fantasy world!!!!! A fantasy world. The movie "Beach" comes to mind. What is the difference between screaming in pain like the dude in the movie did because his leg got bitten off, and screaming in pain because you've coughed so much you are coughing up blood and you now sound like Lauren Bacall? Besides the 'obvious' difference that I'm not missing a leg...none!

Just people who can't be present for someone else's pain and grief that needs to be released. When you can go and visit someone who is letting go of grief decades old and be with them instead of texting them, my God, let alone lecturing them about how "they just need to get out"...THEN you might have the authority later, if they are well physically but have been mucking around in grief for too long, to tell them to get up off their duffs. Until then, until you can spend time holding the gaze of someone in tremendous mental pain - GFY.

That having been said, it's funny how my voice no longer sounds like Lauren Bacall, and the coughing is not quite as severe...enough, not to go outside, but to go downstairs and say "hi" to the people in the office and ask about their step-fathers who have passed away to cancer, and their new boyfriends, and then....share some chocolate and a smile. Albeit, with some distance because the coughing is still there. Maybe what I needed was not a lunch date, but to tell someone off for being an asshole.

Amazingly, it seems, I feel so much better. Know-it-alls. I used to be one. I thought my mother was a failure for getting cancer, and not maintaning a positive attitude. I wanted to believe in all that Louise L. Hays crap ( not to say that in lots of cases it isn't true what she says...what she says does seem to have a lot of merit - just not in every case), and crucify my mother for not getting well. But you know what? She healed her soul before she died. She healed her soul. And that is what I am doing. It hurts, it's painful, but I think I can get through.

One last note: I wasn't looking for advice. I was looking for compassion. A warm hug from someone up close and personal. If you believe all that New Age stuff to a fault, put your money where your mouth is, and hug me while I cough like I'm gonna die of tuberculosis tomorrow. Don't text message me, hug me. Hold my hand, look in my eyes and smile. BE the human contact you say I need. And that goes for everybody who has ever said to me when I've been sick this and "wanting", calling, asking for company to watch a movie or share lunch; the way they've said: "Call me when you feel better." NO! Get your selfish ass over here with some chicken soup today...or are you afraid you'll catch it, and you don't really practice what you preach?

One final note: anyone who doesn't like reading this particular post in all it's raw pain and honesty...doesn't have to read it. Suit yourself. Have a nice day. Love and light. I can tell myself tomorrow will be better...

"Sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care..."

Yesterday was truly awful, but today is a little better. I have some energy back, and I used it to make a big pot of Yogi Tea, or 'WaheGuMoo' as they labeled it at Solstice. It is so nice. I can't believe I was able to do Bound Lotus last night! Or even the Moon Kriya and the chanting of "akhan jor chupay na jor". I wanted to do the Kirtan Kriya for women too...maybe I can start that today.

This particular kriya can cleanse a woman's aura and subconscious of past sexual experiences. According to Hari Kaur Khalsa in "A Woman's Book of Yoga":

"Each act of sexual intercourse deeply imprints itself upon a woman. You are the receiver of the seed, and even though the act of sex may end, it remains in your psyche as an imprint, like an image imprinted on the film of a camera. The male gives the seed to the woman, and when intercourse is over, he does not carry as deep an imprint on his psyche. Many women have difficulty healing after negative sexual experiences because their pain becomes so deeply rooted."

She also says:

"Kirtan Kriya is the meditation for both for balancing your eleven Moon Centers and for helping you go through transitions with strength and stability. The first version is specifically for women... Kirtan Kriya is also a healing meditation for women trying to let go of past relationships with men, and is helpful in eliminating both the physical and mental associations with these men. Kirtan Kriya can give a woman a brilliant internal radiance that illuminates her aura and presence."

Somehow I don't think this Kriya is gonna happen. I'm freaking out. I can't breathe again, and my eyes have turned red. Watching the movie "Chocolat" I started to hyperventilate when Josephine left her husband. I felt as if I was on fire, burning, tied up, with no way out, panicking, and I wanted to just die. I heard myself moaning, as if my body were someone else's. I wanted to leave my body and just die the way a friend's stepfather with cancer just did before they ever put the port in for chemo. He left his body. He didn't have to go through chemo and feel the burn of radiation like my mother, he just slipped away. I want to slip away not from life, but from this pain. Bound Lotus is sheer Hell. I've done it. And now all I want to do is cry, but I can't or I won't be able to breathe. My nose and lips are raw and cracking. Nothing but constant pristine white mucus and cobwebs to breathe through.

The only thing that has brought some measure of relief is a Kundalini meditation for Emotional Balance where my hands are pressed under my armpits, and my shoulders hunched forward and pulled up to my ears. The grief and pain I'm experiencing are overwhelming and this is my only relief. Sat Inder says this is what White Tantric Yoga brings up to be released. Oh my God, please help me make it through. I can't even worry about work or appointments, or teaching right now. Thank God I don't have to until next week.

Requesting a Spiritual Name...

All last night, while in the midst of coughing up thick white mucus, and getting up several times just to breathe, I dreamed I was doing several Kundalini Yoga sets in this order: Chanting the "akhan jor chupay na jor" with the hand movements I'd just read about before bed on www.satyasingh.com/fromfeartolove, doing the recommended Moon Kriya for processing the openings from Winter Solstice and the Water Tattva, and Kirtan Kriya (p. 63, "A Woman's Book of Yoga"), a meditation to balance a woman's eleven moon centers: Hairline, Ear Lobes, Inner Thighs, Belly Button/Back, Back of Neck, Lips, Cheeks, Breasts, Eyebrows, Vagina, and Clitoris. I woke up wanting very much to have two things: freedom from breathing difficulties and throat chakra issues, and a Gurmukhi spiritual name from 3HO. I got up and found my birth certificate, which it turns out I did not need, and signed up online. In 2-3 weeks I should know... I noticed there is a name that sounds like my legal birth name, and then Lakshmi and Saraswati are both names that could be given. Adi Shakti is one I love too, but I'm sure whatever name I receive will be a blessing and be appropriate for me.

I think I'll go and do the Kriyas in the order in which they were in my dream, followed by Bound Lotus, and begin my day in love and light and happiness even though I feel quite sick. I slept from 9 to 1am, then 2:30 to 5:30 am, and 6:30 to 7:30 am. It is a total of 8 hours, which is more than I got most days at Solstice, and my sleep was choppy then too because of the coughing. I really want my lungs to be clear and to breathe smoothly. I'm not wanting to whine, but why do I have to have such severe throat chakra issues? It keeps myself and other people awake, and is socially isolating. It sucks. Besides that, my throat is just almost raw to the point of bleeding. I want to breathe!!!!!!!

Today is sheer Hell!!! I'm sick as a dog. Sat Inder called about doing Sat Nam Rasayan and possibly a Reiki attunement, and he seems to think I just need to get outside, "out of my cave", as he says. The hell I do. I've got chills, a fever, the flu, full-blown and raging by now, I'm on my period, and I have a splitting migraine. The cold air outside makes me cough, and that makes my head feel like someone is whacking it with a machete. I feel like shit. Complete and utter shit. I hurt everywhere... my muscles ache, almost excruciatingly - it feels like I have Chronic Fatigue (myalgic encephalitis) and Fibromyalgia all over again! This SUuuuuCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't want this...I don't want to sit in Bound Lotus.

It is now 10:23 pm, and after calling my dad and asking him to hold me in his prayers that I may get well AND do Bound Lotus on day 56 and not have to start all over again, I have done it. I had the worst panic attack and intense anxiety I've ever had, wailing and screaming in pain and sheer mental agony. I thought I'd stopped breathing. I shook uncontrollably and fought off the intense urge to vomit. It is done now, and the peace I feel tells me that part of the resistance was purely psychological, with the raw parts of my mind resisting being touched, but I'm still sick. My head still hurts and I have a fever. Still. Winter Solstice was too intense. It was too hard. Too much. I feel like a butterfly trapped in a cocoon of pain.

Bound Lotus, Moon Kriya, and Kirtan Kriya

It feels as if the energy present during Kundalini Winter Solstice is infusing itself into my surroundings. When I awoke, the energy in my bedroom felt clear. The room feels huge! It feels somehow very different. When I first woke up, I didn't even know where I was...but the way I've always wished for my whole apartment to feel like my meditation room does is now a reality. I feel that peace in every room. This is from all of the chanting, the singing, the pujas, kriyas and yoga I do.

I'm drawn to several practices, chanting in Gurmukhi and Kriyas, that I want to do in conjunction with Bound Lotus, as well as for the 40 days of clearing from White Tantric Yoga. The 'Moon Kriya' I've already done for two days at Sat Inder's suggestion. But I also want to chant the "akhan jor chupay na jor" to release fear and create trust in my inner guidance. And this morning I found a Kirtan Kriya for women to heal and release attachments to men from past sexual relationships. It is to release the seeds implanted by sexual intercourse and to let go of the past. I think I need to do these practices, and be willing to let go of some others. I also feel that Yogi Bhajan was supposed to be my teacher back in 2000, but I avoided him and the opportunity to meet him in his lifetime. When I got too sick to do asana practices I was drawn to Amma.

But now it seems the torch is being passed to Yogi Bhajan. Amma is like my mother, but she gives you the fish. So many people coming to see her are not growing any further, not because she won't help them, because she will, but I think because it is too easy for them not too. They come to her for energy instead of learning to tune in and create their own. I know this is judgement, but her teachings served their purpose for me at a time in my spiritual growth when I needed my hand held tightly as I crossed the street. Now it is time to explore what is on this side of the street, and let go of my mother's hands...both the spirit of my birth mother and Amma.

I will still go to see her, but I feel she is telling me to move on from her classroom to the next. It's like Yogi Bhajan is my new homeroom teacher, but I'm free to still take a class with Amma if I want. I'm cool with this. It seems like the next step. And on day 55 of Bound Lotus, I'm in the middle of the 90 days it takes to create a new change. It feels kind of like a Square Dance, or more like Contra-Dancing. I can hear the caller saying: "Turn to the left! Promenade!" White Tantric felt like that with all of the geometric lines, and the energies moving on the diagonals.

I went to see the movie 'Avatar', and found myself missing everyone at Solstice terribly. When the blue people, the Na'vi, sit in circle and circle around from the waist and shake their arms and chant, I realized that is what we all would have looked like doing White Tantric Yoga. And the soul tree would be the facilitator and the spirit of the Siri Singh Sahib. This movie that is so popular is dead on about saving the earth, about searching for the peace of nature instead of cars, diamond rings and watches.

I listened to the bani 'So Purkh' today in English and it is incredibly beautiful! I want to fall asleep to it. I asked Dad if I could sing it for him and he said yes. This is a chant that only women sing, and they sing it for the men to heal them of wanting to start wars, to make them saintly, and to heal anger and deep grief. It is so beautiful! Who knew that Bound Lotus would take me to these places in my soul that I have been? Only God.

Bound Lotus on the Road Again...

We stopped last night in Valdosta, Georgia and I did Bound Lotus at about 7:30 am on my brown lambskin stretched on the floor of hotel room 224 at the Quality Inn. Sat Inder let me comb it out last night, and then borrowed it to practice on this morning. I feel as if he sort of blessed my practice. In my warm-up I came into Eka Pada Rajakapotasana again with my foot touching my head. Sat Inder said I breathe through my mouth that far back and I need to breathe through my nose. I did last night, but I think that was because the sky was my ceiling. A white ceiling feels contracting to me. The sky feels endless. This makes me want to do my practice outside more often...

Last night Sat Inder and I decided to begin 40 days of 'The Moon Kriya' that is recommended to process the three days of White Tantric Yoga #22. It made me laugh hysterically, or maybe I was just tired. Sat Inder said there's a lot going on with that Kriya... I did it again today, and it was much easier; I think I did 'process' quite a lot of stuff on the drive back while talking to Sat Inder and listening Sada Sat Kaur's "mantra masala". Sat Sundertat and Jot Niringen told me about it. I'd heard 'Wah Yantee' first and fell in love with it.

We also listened to the a Capella CD "from fear to love", and the chant: sa re ga ma pa da ni sa ta na ma... To elevate you and make your voice sweet and pure. Then Sat Inder put on a version of: akhan jor chupay na jor... to change fear to trust in your inner guidance, and I cried and sucked in a lot of cool air while listening. Afterwards I had spontaneous shaking and twitching that seemed like something deep was clearing. I came home and hugged Paul so hard when I saw him. He was happy to see me. He's like an uncle to me... I love being home in my own bed, but I miss Winter Solstice. Even if Summer Solstice is 4 x's as many people, I have to go!

Bound Lotus by the lake...

At 12:40 am or so this morning, I did Bound Lotus by the lake with a friend who has been doing Bound Lotus for 4 and a half years. In my warm-up, I found that I was able to get into Eka Pada Rajakapotasana not only close to what I could do before I fell on my head, but beyond. I found my feet and held them to the back of my head, which I never dreamed would happen this year, much less after the injury. I was so filled with gratitude that I cried to the heavens, literally, doing yoga under the beautiful sky! Then Bound Lotus came easily and blissfully. I actually lost track of time. It was a Merry Christmas under the stars...

Then Santa came and left the morning dew on my pillow and lambskin as I slept under the stars for the second time in my life, this time gazing at a beautiful tree covered with Spanish moss. My friend and I shared an orange and then went to sleep, awakening under a blanket of morning dew. As magickal as that was, I do hope my things dry before we leave, especially my brand new down pillow.

And on this Merry Christmas I go to work at the Luggage tent with all my fabulous friends and Luggage family.