Did you know that...

You find, for the same volume, 10 times more adrenaline cells in a tear than in blood, which clinically explains the stress-release effect of crying (over bleeing, I guess :p).

Freaky. Crying IS the ultimate stree relief, confirmed!

Now

Now is where it all happens. As much as my mind tries to sink ever so much into the past, mine and that of the people I love most, nothing is left there to be found.

Now is when we experience the course of our Lives, and where we are given the power of choice, the ability to feel and the right to joy. Time is an illusion, scientists will agree, as the only instant of action and reality is now. I find striking that the universe allows us to see the past because light travel too slow in this wide open space, but even there, where we can see planets as they were thousands of years ago, we are looking at the current reflection of the past onto our Selves today. The perception, the understanding of what we believe to be seeing in happening now, no matter when or how the events actually unfolded.

And because there is only now, the why does not matter. Why does my mind keep clinging back to the past? Why is it trying to evaluate the Now based on events that have disappeared, and whose effect, the only way to experience them, are carried in the present moment? I am today the result of my past, but not just. Because I am much more complex than that. Similarly for other people and events. The present moment can not be reduced to the output of the past.

And yet, we all try to validate the present moment, or worse, evaluate the future, based on what has happened. Worse even, we evaludate the present and the future through our fantasies of what our past and that of others has been. Cynical, but ridiculous, that we would use outdated and unreliable information, processed through the drama-loving emotional body, to decide what to do today, how to feel today, and what tomorrow holds.

I am figthing hard, today, to block the past out. And to wonder why.

The solution is not to be found in the why, as if things that were explained were no longer causing harm. I have tried, it does not work. Instead, I am trying, hard as I can, to be here and now. To fend off the past's attempts at splurging back into my present experience. So that i can finally stop being blinded, and see, feel, experience the Now as it truly is.

The past sets bars, usually too high. The past wants us back or makes us feel we have eternally missed out.

But the Now is an open field. Where things happen as we live and direct them.

What am I feeling Now? What do I choose Now?

'Let us flow in the current of the present moment, without attachement and without detachement, without hope and without fear.'

I will try that today, after I've sucked up my coffee and completed my planning memo!

Change: do you make it happen, or do your set yourself up for it?

Not too long ago, I did a reading with an energy reader from Australia, who proved totally amazing and insanely humble. Besides all the amazing information and details she came up with, she said something at the end of our time together that struck me like lightening. It was so obvious and yet so profound that I lost the ability to talk (now, THAT is a miracle) and got stuck on the light of this Truth.

She said: ‘Change naturally unfolds when your energetic and emotional frequency is where it needs to be’.

Amazing.

Forcing change, creating change, enabling change, igniting change. Externally. Was that all a dream and lost attempt at shaping the world around me when I was not ripe inside? Does that mean that all you need to work on to change your world is to change your Self? Even more abruptly, is there any point at all in trying to shift our surroundings until we have shifted our inner world?

First of all, this is a new paradigm for me. Not that I have never experienced the organic process of changing naturally when you are spontaneously ready. I have experienced that many times over, when you are so ready for a shift that manifesting it is a necessity that could overcome any obstacle. When things are so clean inside and out that there is no more question. Just an answer. But I have never tried to make this a practice, and I often find myself in a place where I try to change things, rush others, stop some when truly, the winds are not there yet. And I feel it. YOU feel it. When you try hard and truthfully to generate something, make something happen and no matter how hard or honestly you try, it just does not work. That failure to manifest is often nothing but a sign that things are just not ready yet.

Does this mean that will power and hard work are useless? I think not. The way I feel this is that will power and hard work are both required to create an inner practice of aligning yourself with what you want to achieve. Use this energy to visualize, to feel, to align your heart and mind, to bring yourself to a place of certainty. Felt and experienced certainty, not theorized or intellectualized certainty. So often we try to feel with our heads, when we should feel with our hearts. And too often we try to act from our hearts, when we should act from our bellies.

All this is telling us – and ME – is that we should try on creating the space for change in ourselves, no matter what that requires. It is telling us that while it is important to keep an eye on the end-picture, we need to keep working now on creating the perfect foundation and environment for change. Talk to our hearts, build the belly and heart fires to allow the change to unfold from within, organically.

Surrender? That is probably what it really means. Not give up, but understand that deadlines and timelines are the play of our minds, wanting to show how much in charge they are. When they are not.

So can we allow our hearts to love that future we want to manifest, and our bellies to sustain the shock of the transformation we want to materialize? Can we allow ourselves to be the change we want to see in the (our) world?

Do we have the courage to wait?

Do we have the faith to trust?

Do we have the confidence to look within to act without?

Do we?

 

Do I?

You've been walking the ocean's edge, holdingup your robes to keep them dry...

Today, I was having lunch, then coffee with a lovely friend of mine who is just back from this amazing city that is Paris. She brought me back 2 little presents. One for me and one for me and the Lover. She will smile when she reads how I describe this. Anyhow, we started talking about how we are just so immersed in the present moment in our Lives these days, and that we wish we were independently wealthy to fully appreciate and dive into such experiences. Learning languages. Teaching yoga. Travelling to places that we feel pranically attracted to. So many things that would either have a cost, or require that we take time (but not money) off work.

There seems to always be that painful challenge in life where you either have time or money at a point in time, but that both resources, which are both needed to a certain extent, never can be managed or achieved at once.

And then we got to think… Why doesn't the Universe readily give you all the resources you need to fully manifest your potential in this lifetime? Why do you always need to work your way to something, in order to get to something else? And why does that rule just not apply to a minority of very lucky individuals, who seem to have been given both the gift of Time and Abundance at once?

So what is the point of never being able to fully immerse in the experience you feel you need to grow and develop all that you need to learn or work on? I will of course acknowledge the usual standard ‘perfect’ yogic answer, that you either don’t really need what you want, or that the work required to get there is what you actually need to derive your learning from. That sounds all really good and smart, but from a very pragmatic perspective, here is my issue. Where does a corporate job that takes up many hours, much presence and creates a lot of confusion and tension fit on my journey not too enlightenment (I don’t have that pretention) but to perfecting myself? Why does fitting a physical practice into a day require such pressure? Why does fitting a trip to meet old friends and dear family members create such a maze of decisions? Why can I not spend most of my time with my beloved to learn more about us, enjoy the presence of each other and learn from each other about who we individually are?

Why are there so many roadblocks on a daily and recurring basis between your Self and the Good? Why is there a shared social acceptance, for which even yogis have tried to find theories or justifications, that Life is not meant to be fun or filled with pleasure and leisure? Why have we all come to accept that once you become an adult, Life is just not as much fun anymore? And I personally don’t buy all the amazing theories that have been put together by philosophers, thinkers and yogis alike. Look at children. Why do we accept the fact that Learning and Playing is what should fill their days, week days and week ends alike, until pay-back time comes and they have to start being separated from fun all over again?

What can we do, as almost fully operating adults, to bring the fun back into our lives and refuse to accept the fact that LIFE SUCKS MOST OF THE TIME?????
I don’t have the beginning of an idea at this stage.

But I am working on it.
- I guess that finding a job that fills you with excitement is one thing.
- Making sure you don’t devote too much to work, no matter how much you love it, is probably another.
- Knowing what really matters in your Life is another.
- Winning the lottery is a great way, although it depends much on Ma Lakshmi.
- Spending time to really identify what rocks your boat and what makes sense on your path is super duper important.
- Reviewing whatever you think matters on a daily basis is required.
- Listening to your heart every morning when you wake up and every night when you go to bed is another.
- Letting your loved ones love you, and making time for you to receive and swim in that love is key from my perspective.
- Being creative to create new pockets of fun in your life is paramount.

For the rest, I hope to win the lottery and remain healthy and in LOVE, and enjoy that for at least a little while. Because I was thinking of the people who sadly saw the end of this incarnation in the crash of the flight from Rio to Paris early this week.

Some of them had probably worked a long time to afford that trip. Or some had just finally decided to stop it all and finally have fun. But maybe the lesson is that they waited too long?

That this trip that we all wish to take one day to claim reward for all the hardship in our lives should be taken today. Not tomorrow.

Today.

Maybe we should all leave our jobs at once. All of us. To render the system pointless and create a completely new paradigm.

That love and light and ecstasy is the natural rhythm of Life.

That we should not, collectively, have to work our asses off, in dirt mines or office cubicles, to eat, have a roof over our head, or attend school or trainings on things that are likely to change our lives. Time with our lovers and children and parents should not be subject to the pre-requisite of doing something that kills the little flame in your heart 8 to 12 hours a day.

There should be no prerequisite to ecstasy. There is no preparation for joy. It is happening now right here. In you!

NOW!

Rumi says...

You've been walking 

the ocean's edge, holding 

up your robes to keep them dry. 

You must dive naked under, 

     and deeper, 

           under, a thousand times deeper!

Gotta love it!

Perfect translation of the 'vibration' I was talking today in my blog. Go Olivia Ruiz!

Elle panique!

http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/search/olivia+ruiz/video/x94nig_olivia-ruiz-elle-panique_music

STOP IT!

Noticing when things go weird, and claiming your power to say STOP!

It happens all the time in our Lives, and it will happen again in the next. It happens to all of us, from the most casual souls among us, to those whom we believe to be evolved spirits or incredibly grounded beings. It happens all the time that at some point, when things are otherwise fine, a flame of doubt, a vibration of fear, a shadow of uncertainty will arise and create that all too familiar queasy feeling in your belly, in your heart or in your throat.

All of us, at some point, will not be sufficiently strong or grounded or rested to avoid the troubles spelt by this invasion of our Present, by images of our external mind, or unprocessed views of our Past and Future. All of us will start feeling this drain of Prana Shkati, like a pierced bottle at the root of our being, letting our sacred and vital energy flow outwards, depleting even further our ability to cope with this dramatic experience. All of us will experience that shaking moment where we no longer seem to be able to control our thoughts, our emotions, and inner flow, and when we seem to be bitten right on the neck by the long sharp teeth of our inability to stay whole and centered.
It happened to me not too long ago, in the most cataclysmical intensity that I have ever come to face in my Lifetime. And it is happening again today. However, I feel that today, I am able to see it coming, I am able to feel the rotten smell of that pranic invasion and to feel the presence of the beast behind my back. Last night, as I went to bed, I knew it was there. I could feel its glowing wet yellow eyes on my back. I could feel the hair on the little of my neck rise. I could smell around me the sudden withdrawal of air and space, as if I was suddenly being concealed in an air-tight chamber, knowing very well that oxygen would not take long to run out.

I felt it.

And because I was able to feel it, I am activating today all the protection I need to fight back in full potency, avoid another dramatic collapse of my energy and emotional level, and sustain the integrity of my sacred space and soul. How? Ah… That is an exceptional question. I do not have an answer, but I have many. We all have an underlying pattern when it comes to experiencing fear. Although moving into full analysis of the patterns as the attack hits is usually too late, you must be able to pinpoint immediately that gut feeling that is dawning upon you. But I will get back to that later. I will focus now on what can be done, from my humble experience, to push back the insanity, the energetic theft, the vibration of fear, right as it hits.

- Clear the space: as it hits, exclude from your pranic space anything that is not exclusively You: music that reminds you of something or someone, smells that pull you to loved ones, food that is not your very own favorite and most balancing option, clothes that you bought with or for someone, necklace, statues and other representations of living beings or ishta devatas (deities)… This very effectively helps you push back out anything that could be at the root of the intrusion, whether you am conscious of it or not. By reducing the clutter around and inside you, and by retaining or bringing in things that are very exclusively you (I do highlight the ‘exclusively’), you can achieve grounding and clarity at an amazing speed. This sounds silly, but in my case, it goes as far as wearing clothes or playing music that I purchased when I was single, wearing a perfume that I wore during my young adult (single) years, eating bread that I no longer buy but that I had the habit of eating daily when I was growing up…

- Cleanse the space: this is a tricky one. Cleansing is an important practice, but if we rely on external forces or faces to help us cleanse the space, we may end up putting in jeopardy the space clearing exercise that we have completed as an initial step. Cleansing should be done, in these specific moments of strong vibrational fear, exclusively from the inside to the outside, and with no reliance whatsoever on external media or intervention. I am very much in favor of using white sage or a simple stick of incense (light neutral smell only), and avoid as much as possible calling upon Gods, gurus or other incarnated energies to help me clear the space. While we all have (or should have) a protector, it remains an external force, and while its help can be of use, I personally talk directly to external energies as I walk around the house while burning sage, and invite, politely but clearly, all external energies, good or bad, to clear out and move away from my sacred space. This practice raises a very interesting question, which I have personally had to face: that of the vampire’s kiss. When cleansing, we always think of parting from the bad and retaining the good, but cleansing is a more dramatic practice than that. Vampires are not always intentionally hurtful or consciously preying on you: it is said that a vampire’s kiss gives you a moment of ecstasy before damning you for eternity. Good energies, such as love and friendship, are binding and limiting, and can be the source of attachments, that eventually lead to fear or neurosis, especially if the intensity of the vibration of that very emotion exceeds our energetic ability to deal with it (think of being insanely in love and forgetting your own good because your are so fully consumed by that tsunami-like feeling of Love). To give you an example, asking the energy of your Lover to leave you alone and to get out of your sacred space is interestingly one of the most potent cleansing practices you should do. Love should be retained, of course, but cleansing requires fullness, and the object of your Love should be asked to leave. Naturally, the obvious negative energies should be pushed back, but anything that can be or is a source of drain to the outside must be cleared as well. And the most positive and intense emotions and relationships in your Life fall directly under this category. So go ahead my friends, cleanse away, and be fair and balanced in this.

- Pull your aura in: and here we enter the really challenging practices, as they are to be performed at every instant of your day, whenever you prepare to re-enter the flow of your life after the clearing and cleansing is done. When you enter that space of energetic neurosis, your first goal throughout the first few days, as you roam the flow of your life, will be to stay drawn in, centered and to avoid the temptations of letting your energy leave you further. So you must pull your aura in. Visualize your aura like a bed sheet that people and events that surround you try to pull towards them. This is even more the case if you are the kind of person that people like to stay close to in order to feel taken care of, protected or inspired. This is typical of yoga teachers or people with strong energy fields. During these first few days, it will be your duty to avoid thinking of the past and future, of letting your mind be engaged in others’ flow, of letting your energy leak towards the people in your life. It is time to be Present inside! This is very true as well of people that you love or that make you feel secure. Your duty is to pull the pranic sheet back to you: as you walk in the street and someone or something catches your attention, refuse to let your mind and energy wonder, whenever you invoke the image of a loved or worshipped one to make you feel better, look inside and breathe into your heart and down into your belly. Be disciplined to the extreme about the flow of your energy, which MUST originate from within and move back within. I personally visualize 6 layers of protection, like plastic wraps a few inches away from my body, preventing anything from coming in and anything from going out. I breathe into my heart space, visualizing a cloud of prana flowing in my chest, and breathe out into my third and second chakras through raindrops resulting from the condensation of that pranic cloud located at the heart. When I see myself being pulled out of my protective space, I pull that tentacle of energy right back in and look down to avoid the temptation of dispersing myself or being drawn out. Simply put, pull your aura back in and keep it close to you, well protected within your pranic ziplock bag.

- Nurture yourself: this is the medicine that needs to be applied to promote healing. It can take many shapes and forms because we all come from different lineages and have different practices. So choose wisely and practice rigorously: meditate, move, write, cook, sleep, walk, swim, breathe. Do it. Just do it. Don’t expect any benefit beyond the practice, except the practice itself. The practice is solely here to ground you in the present moment, and to reload your energy level. Do each one of your practices with full intention, and with simplicity. And remember that at these times of danger and fear, more than ever, less is more. Do not engage in vigorous or new asana practices that you are not familiar with, or that are too draining and could lead you to feel depleted. Take it easy, nurture yourself and accept that when under the Attack, only your root and well-established practices will serve you.

- Stop it! Just remember that you are an expression of the Divine, and that although you are a part, a building block of a greater Universe, you, as an individual, are a full expression of the whole Universe in its entirety. You can watch what is going on inside you and - with full intention - decide to STOP IT! You can freely talk to your outer mind, with love and compassion, and tell it to stop it. You can caringly recognize your limitations and fears, and still find within the power to stop it. So say it. Mantras help, and they don’t have to be complex invocations in foreign languages. As my beloved Shannon told me so many times, tell yourself, at the appropriate moment: ‘I can stop this now!’. And you will.

And now you will want to ask: ‘should I not try to understand and figure out and comprehend and analyze and resolve and process, as a means of fighting the intrusion more effectively?’. It is key indeed to observe your pattern and witness what kick-starts it, whether it is an attachment to someone, a fear of loss or isolation or whatever else. You might even come to understand that very basic environmental conditions, from the weather, to your diet or a vacuum of activities in your Life can easily switch on the neurosis. The better you understand the root cause of all this, the more your will be able to see it coming. You may not be able to prevent it, but the earlier your will see it switch on, the earlier and the more effectively you will be able to activate the practices we have mentioned above.

And every time, it will get easier. Shorter. And you will feel further empowered as you start gaining fractions of control over your inner workings.

Just remember, you are the Universe. This is not happening TO you. This is happening WITHIN you.

So today, as the vibration strikes, I say STOP!

Being faithful

How do you define being faithful? Not in terms of manifesting exclusivity. Not in promising monogamy.

Here is what I came up with a few months ago with my dear friend Christine: 'Out of all the times I am going to be wanting to have sex, I will choose to be having it with you, or not.'

Being faithful is about intensity, but also about surrendering to your Love.

Ay mi amor, ay mio...

IY

When things come to an end…

Life is a river. Often, we try to preempt its currents and depth, but more often than not, true healing occurs when we allow ourselves to bathe in its flow first, and let it indicate to us where things are going. Recently, I have been reminded that when we resolve our energetic issues and heal our Pranic wounds, things organically become clear, and the shift spontaneously happens.

For a long time, I have been in a sea of Change, that I had been willingly invoking, and that had proven necessary on so many levels. Nataraja was showering me with his blessings and taking me down the road I had never travelled.
But once things clear and the inner sky becomes bright enough, it is necessary to acknowledge that time has come to honor the shift, and move on.

The pain and inner winding I have been going through in the last year has been necessary, and has allowed more than one amazing thing to occur. Love has ended, and Love has come to me again. My plans have been shattered, and a new Life has emerged, unseen but inevitable. People have left, and new ones have arrived. Most importantly, I have changed, and time for recognition has come.

This week, I am parting from two of the strongest energies that have guided my Life in the last 6 years. Last week, I have taken the last steps towrds something that had become obvious and necessary. Nataraja, whom I worship and thank always, had to move on from me to other grounds that need his Sacred Dance of Destruction - for I no longer need it. He is out of my house for now, and the space left behind will be occupied by none other than me. I have new partners too, the Lover and the Goddess, but I am now ready to move into the center of my Life, and lead from this place of clarity. And today, the person who had blessed my Life with Love and Presence and Devotion and Patience for many years is going too. Officially, but also energetically. The closure has arrived and can no longer be denied.

And so, in 30 minutes, I will be going to the French Embassy to dissolve the last thing that needs to be dissolved: my legal union to my ex-Life Partner. We have given each other all that we had to give. Too much some will say, but all that there was. As Rumi says: ‘give everything that you are, knowing it is nothing’. And as we have, it is now time to honor the end of that Sacred Cycle, and let Peace take residence in our Lives.

In an hour, I will be officially single. I will not give myself away to the new Love that has blessed my Life. No. I will occupy that space wholly. Challenging as it is for me, I will learn to step into my Castle and refuse anyone else to be there besides Me. It will not be easy, because it has been my habit to lean on others or allow others to be supported by me. Thanks to energy healers, friends and my Sacred Self, I have been able to discover and inhabit my aura more than I ever have. And from the top of this mountain that I have newly climbed, I will Love, be loved, and let the Creativity, the Self-Trust and the Love for the Universe grow. With no more expectations and the resolution to be within, here and now.

The practice is only starting, but old as I am getting, it is about time.

When things come to an end, it is time to rest. And to invite the fragrant flowers into one’s heart.

With Trust and Faith.

All Love.

All ways.

IY

The Holy Void

I am alone. I am not single. I am alone.

But the heart space is pounding.

For months now, I have been surfing an unexpected river of Love, of devotion, of presence and of intense pleasure. Not a day goes by without my feeling whole and blessed. Not a day goes by that I look at my Life and see treasures to enjoy and light to bask in. The challenges and obstacles are there, but they seem to have been brought along only to highlight how much stronger the beauty of the Shri is. Every day, whether I am alone or not, I am never alone.
He who has entered the castle of my heart has come here to open my heart. And he does. I am so in Love, so with Love that I drown in the oddest mixture of grace and uncontrollable vibration. His name does not matter. His looks, most attractive and acutely endearing as they are, matter not. I am at peace and at play just standing by his side. I am swimming in heaven when I fall asleep against him, only to awake lost in the delightful trap of his arms and legs. I crave his body and lips and stare and voice and scent. I crave being who I am when he is around. Rarely have I felt so moved to be more of myself, to immerse deeper into the fullness of what I can be.

He is a practice, and a challenging one sometimes. Seeing him relish in his independence and observing people ignite in his proximity… I wish I could save this only for myself, but it is the very fact that he is of the world and in the world that makes me vibrate with Love. I will never own him, and in this, I have found freedom. I must feel content - and do - with the fact that he is giving me everything, except himself. He has pushed me into my Shakti, Goddess, territory, in ways no one had before. It is blissful, but the control-freak, shiva side of me is struggling to let go. To surrender and just receive. And through this building the foundation of a future together. Not keeping things close and tight with the sheer strength of my arms. Trusting. Myself before him or the Universe. Accepting that I can only immerse myself in the delight of the moment, as it is, a great grand fulfilling and overwhelmingly catalyst of joy, while refusing to save some for later. Holding the moment as it is, not freezing it to save it for tomorrow.

I have, through the Love that has emerged around us in this most unexpected relationship, been given the superb opportunity to practice acceptance and standing still in the frantic tremors of my Heart. I am scared often. But I need only remember who I am, and who he is, to feel safe that what needs to happen will happen. Even miracles. Especially miracles.

And so I love. Whether I am alone or I am with him.

I love.

Because that’s what I do best.

I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way. Whoever brought me here will have to take me Home.

Hi all,

I have been silent for a while. And needed to. When one goes through intense motions of transformation, ecstatic and beautiful as they are, privacy is of the essence. And as I come out again, transformed, renewed and refreshed, I am ready to talk.

New job, flourishing love, resolved heart injuries. Plenty on the plate, and all under one single omen: simplicity.

I will see you all next week end for practice at Chevron and NAC. And Copper and I are preparing, if things work out between my schedule and Pure's space, a string of amazing community events, and primarily a Yoga Trance Dance to celebrate the opportunities that arise out of this amazing crisis we are all navigating through.

Remember that Love is not the solution, but all there really is to anything.

F

All day
I think about it,
then at night
I say it.

"Where did I come from,
and what am I supposed
to be doing?"

I have no idea.

My soul is from elsewhere,
I'm sure of that,
and I intend to end up there.

This drunkenness
began in some other tavern.
When I get back around to that place,
I'll be completely sober.

Meanwhile, I'm like a bird
from another continent, siting in this aviary.

The day is coming when I fly off,
but who is it now in my ear, who hears my voice?
Who says words with my mouth?

Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul?
I cannot stop asking.

If I could taste one sip of an answer,
I could break out of this prison for drunks.

I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way.
Whoever brought me here will have to take me Home.

This poetry. I never know what I'm going to say.
I don't plan it.
When I'm outside the saying of it,
I get very quiet and rarely speak at all.

Shams Tabriz, if you would show your face to me again
I could flee, the imposition of this life.

- Rumi, version by Coleman Barks

Grace...

pale sunlight
pale the wall

love moves away,
the light changes

i need more grace
than i thought

- Rumi

The Sacred Place

A sacred place…

Bells ringing in the distance. Invocations being ushered through loudspeakers across the space. The rumor of the crowd, proceeding towards the sacred gateways. The bright lights cleansing the emptyspace above us. Sparse furniture. Incredibly high ceilings, that let the sunlight through here and there… A sense of isolation in this crowded place. A sense of being at peace, of being with the One, of being the One. At home, but in the home of the heart. Where everything meets. Lights, Soul, Eternity…

I am writing, at last, and again, from this place that has become one of the most sacred for me in this last year.

Of all places… Really.

Really…

Come on…

Yes!

Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi airport.

Same coffee place as many times this year. Same seat as many times this year. Same inspiration and inner opening to the infinite as many times this year.

What, of all places, makes a space, like this place, confined to the extent of what my ipod lets through, Sacred to me? Is Sacred anything we make Sacred? Does the Sacred actually arise from within?

Here is what makes THIS place Sacred to me. Like no other.

It all started this year. Flying over to Japan with Shiva to assist her for a week-end and connecting through BKK. As I had left home, I had had one of the most challenging discussion in my Life ever. My beloved, then, and I had realized, not accepted, nor decided, but realized that we needed space. That our Sacred union was no longer bearing fruits or giving us a sense of fullness. My heart full of a terrifying and complex mesh of emotions that I could not make sense of, not even contemplate, I deplaned in BKK for a 4 hours stop over, and I sat. With my journal. And I sat. And felt. Felt with such intensity. What was there to be felt. And that was a defining moment of my year. Sitting on this seat, letting the energy move through me, painfully. Not refusing the harshness of it all, not judging my clasping and anger and devotion. Not even watching it really. Feeling. As my Tradition teaches us to meditate: let feelings unfold and stay with them until your have absorbed them in the space of the heart. And this is how an awe-inspiring and terrifying outpour of emotions started transforming that random seat in a neutral café in BKK's airport into a Temple of my Heart. A Sacred place.

Today still, I feel here, in this amazing space, the waves of energy that washed through me 8 months ago… 8 months. Today. Exactly today. I just realized today that today is 8 months to the day from that sacred day when I left my expectations. When I checked in my former life at the airport, and that ONE luggage got lost for good and never made its way back to me. A former Life that I worship without regretting it.

And again I flew through BKK in April, on my way to Japan again, with Catherine. My dearest friend… And then too, energy moved through me. Loss. The reality has sunk in, and the prospect of building a new Life, was dawning on me. And God was I trying hard not to consciously resist that Change, when all I was instinctually drawn to was digging my heels in the pranic sand of my emotional desert and, well, RESIST. I had met someone in Japan, and knowing that this would probably not lead to nothing, I had been reminded that I would have to go out into the world of dating again, and meet people, and put my Self out there and yuk, yuk yuk build something. Again, I was alone in that same café in BKK's airport, and feelings were still intense. I remember thinking: how do I make sense of this amazing new play of actions that I really really really did not want and that I still do not want to have to deal with? Why do I have to do this? Do I even have a choice? How does my spiritual practice apply to this? Oh well, easy one this time around. The Gita is clear. Do not refuse the terms and conditions of your embodiment. You are a soldier? Then fight! You are a corporate manager? Then manage (ethically)! You are a householder and a lover? Then hold that house and Love! Love. That was the word. I had to let Love run through me again. With the risk of losing it - again. Of being hurt and falling flat on my face. Again. AGAIN! AGAIN!
And then again, that seat took an even more intense pranic charge, as I let my feeling mind, that sacred heart consciousness, hridaya, take over the process.
In BKK's airport.

And then again, here I was in August. Unexpectedly. I was bound to India but a few days before departing, my dearest friend Annie and I decided to change our plans and make our way to Ayuthaya instead, the former Thai capital. Why? We will never know. All I know is we were both destined to sit in a certain outdoor temple complex, in a small shrine dedicated to a huge thin Buddha, and find a sacred yoni, buried deep in the Earth below an amazing Temple. And receive Sacred pranic slaps in our faces for the whole duration of the trip. Being told who we were. Realizing what we were not. Making peace with what we could certainly be but never would. Because it was not the dharma of this Sacred Embodied Incarnation. Intensity. Talk about intensity! Om Tat Sat.
And as I left (and waited for my delayed flight for 8 hours in my Sacred airport), I had time to look down into the Sacred Lake of my heart again. So much complexity had been dissolved. So much clarity had arisen. So much acceptance had come up in my heart. That was big: I had transmuted the pain, not dissolved it. And there was still Love. Infinite Oceans of Love. For myself, to start with, but also for my former Beloved. Still. With the acceptance that this Love would never be consumed, but would never die. Knowing. That amazingly powerful energy of knowing, at last. Jnana. Which I had oh so many times discounted as useless. The experience of sacred knowledge. Not wisdom, just knowing what is. Not the future, but what is to be known now. Or for now.
And again that seat, that café, BKK's airport. And for the very first time in a very long time. A smile. Faint. But a smile. On the corner of my lips. Because, very much because, as I had told to my pranic wife in LA a few weeks before (and for those of you who have explored the sacred scripture Vjnana Bhairava Tantra - I told her what I needed to hear, so I could remember it), everything is going to be just fine. Just fine. Fine. And knowing this. Not believing anymore but knowing, in some sacred place in me, was all I needed to gain. And I did.

And today, here I am again. November. BKK airport, same seat, same café. I feel, as I am writing these words, that I have been on a pilgrimage this year. A circumambulation around my Heart. A sacred journey to the infinite space of the Universe inside me. A discovery into a remembrance of my Self. And as I sit, once more, in that Sacred Temple of my existence, I contemplate, with peace and gratitude where I am. On so many levels, I am in a place of full resonance with the Universe, inclusive of its challenges and my fuck-ups. I am embodied to be here, and to go through these meandrous rivers of Experience. Because the remembrance of the Self, the splendorous recognition of being the One, lies in experience. Especially in the sharp and dark corners of existence. As someone told me long ago, the greatest light is to be found in the greatest darkness. And as darkness breaks, great Love and Ecstasy pours through, like juice out of a ripe orange. In the shape of so many things that we did not expect. For me, in the embodied light of He who Loves me to insanity right now.
As I sit one more time in this airport, I realize I am not a super-hero. I am nothing special. I am just a Lover. I am a struggling actor of my Life, with the volition, the iccha Shakti, to leap into the Fire and never resist it anymore.

Time heals burns and wounds. What is combusted beyond recoverability was needed to let go of. Discard the old so you can cultivate the new.

In peace, in ecstasy, in joyous Love. In harmony. In intensity. In the fire.


Closing with Rumi, as always:
'Go forward, knowing the path will vanish under you
Open your arms, knowing they will burn away
Give everything you are, knowing it is nothing
Bathe always in His river, even when it's blood.'

And Madonna, in style:
"To be brave is to love someone unconditionally, without expecting anything in return. To just give. That takes courage, because we don't want to fall on our faces or leave ourselves open to hurt.

What do you do?

What do you do when you feel a river run through you? What do you do when your mind is fogged with the most ecstatic clouds in the sky? What do you do when your heart is so fully dedicated to another that nothing else can step into it, or come out of it? What do you do when you are, quite literally, intoxicated with Love? What do you do when you are unable to move, plan, process and even eat? What do you do? When Love strike in all its splendor and intensity?

When your waken dreams are making you unable to function? What do you do when you want to own something that you do not want to possess? Because you want to be possessed? What do you do when you don't expect it and Love meets you? When you are overwhelmed with desire, dedication and merging energies? What do you do?

You bathe in it, immerse yourself fully in the experience. Accept that Life's rhythm, suddenly, gets interrupted and that the river runs through you, while all other streams dry up. You do not observe. You jump into that ocean. You do not meditate on it. You accept the experience of it as the meditative process. You drink of that cup with full intention and surrender...

And you smile. Faintly. Inwardly. As the sun in your heart reflects the light of the Lover into your Soul. And the moonlight casts its blue light over the pathways of your destiny.

What do you do?

You don't think.

You breathe.

You live.

You love.

Like this...

De cara a la pared...



Rumi says...

If anyone asks you
how the perfect satisfaction
of all our sexual wanting
will look, lift your face
and say,
Like this.
When someone mentions the gracefulness
of the night sky, climb up on the roof
and dance and say,
Like this?
If anyone wants to know what "spirit" is,
or what "God's fragrance" means,
lean your head toward him or her.
Keep your face there close.
Like this.
When someone quotes the old poetic image
about clouds gradually uncovering the moon,
slowly loosen knot by knot the strings
of your robe.
Like this?
If anyone wonders how Jesus raised the dead,
don't try to explain the miracle.
Kiss me on the lips.
Like this. Like this.
When someone asks what it means
to "die for love," point
here.
If someone asks how tall I am, frown
and measure with your fingers the space
between the creases on your forehead.
This tall.
The soul sometimes leaves the body, then returns.
When someone doesn't believe that,
walk back into my house.
Like this.
When lovers moan,
they're telling our story.
Like this.
I am a sky where spirits live.
Stare into this deepening blue,
while the breeze says a secret.
Like this.
When someone asks what there is to do,
light the candle in his hand.
Like this.
How did Joseph's scent come to Jacob?
Huuuu.
How did Jacob's sight return?
Huuuuu.
A little wind cleans the eyes.
Like this.
When Shams comes back from Tabriz,
he'll put just his head around the edge
of the door to surprise us.
Like this


Lhasa says...

Llorando
De cara a la pared
Se para la ciudad
Llorando
Y no hay mas,
Muero quizas
Ha! Donde estas

Sonando
De cara a la pared
Se quema la ciudad

Sonando
Sin respirar
Te quiero amor
Te quiero amor

Rezando
De cara a la pared
Se hunde la ciudad

Rezando
Santa Maria
Santa Maria
Santa Maria

Om Para Shaktiye Namaha

The Ocean is behind me, a great looking vegan dinner ahead of me. I spent the last few days - already - immersed in the lectures of an AMAZING Tantra teacher, Paul Muller Ortega, who is educating us, inspiring us and filling us with Damaru, the Creation power of Nataraja, the Cosmic Dancer incarnation of Lord Shiva.

Shiva, the Earthly one, my dearest teacher, is driving the students through ecstatic movements in the morning. So much to share in a few words, as my internet connection is limited. Lassia, Tandava. The combination of Shakti, subtle and radical, sweet and strong. Whole, but multiple.

I am in bliss, as always, as my dearest friends are around me, Shiva is blessing me with her teaching and fun, we are spending HOURS in the healing sulfuric baths of Esalen, which have been in use by native american tribes for years.

The fun is never ending: the lodge where the assistants' team sleep is... haunted. At least I am haunted. I was woken up on night 1 by someone walking on me. No one was there when i opened my eyes. Same last night, TWICE! And I was told today, as I asked the locals, that our dome, which is our room, is built on burrying ground. Of course. Lucky me. So now everyone asked me to talk to them tonight and see what 'they' want from me.

Anyhow, the Ocean is amazing. I am totally ecstatic, mind-blown by the teachings of Paul. Prashakti. The greatest. The source, of which there is no higher. The obligation to speak. To respond to the tickling of iccha shakti, will, determination. Never to stop talking and telling the truth, so that Saraswati, the incarnation that sits on our tongue, and controls the Flow of our speech, can reveal the Truth, sometimes harsh, sometimes not welcome, to our world.

Saraswati is the vehicle of Para Shakti, and self-censoring yourself, in words or action, is considering that the will and purpose of the Goddess is not important enough for respect or revelation. Ah, that makes a whole difference doesn't it? Speaking and teaching and revealing and expressing becomes an act of courage and love, as opposed to an act of immaturity.

So much more to come.

I am missing teaching. I am missing all of you guys. I am missing so many things. My beloved Marcel and Totoro, and for those who know, and wish to care, Jalil.

Words of Grace are the supreme Vehicle of Para. May they pour.

Om Namah Shivaya!

Om Namah Shivaya!

Om Namah Shivaya!

Jai ma Shakti! Navaratri

Om Namah Shivaya!

After a month on the road, and numerous adventures, I have come back to Singapore. The last couple of weeks have been amazing. Lead-assisting Shiva's teacher training in LA was blissful and ecstatic, though definitely not a walk in the park. An unexpected but transcending, I mean TRANSCENDING initiation into the path of Shaivism, several cathartic moments in meditation and practice, the bliss of being in a perfect spot with my dearest friends, and of course, participating to the Yoga Journal Conference in the awesome mountains of Colorado, covering both the Grand Anusara gathering and the Main Conference. Reconnecting with dear friends and teachers and making new ones have made the last 2 weeks... ABUNDANTLY EXCITING!

And now back home. And much to do.

But the big piece that I want to share with you, yogis and yoginis, is that while I was airborne somewhere between LA, Paris and Singapore, the great cycle of the Tantric ritual of Navaratri started. Navaratri is a devotional ritual inviting us all to renewal and alignment with the greatest Energies of the Universe. Beginning on September 30th, Tuesday until next Thursday, Shakti is celebrated for nine (nava) ratris (nights). For three days each, the form of the purifying force of Durga-Kali, the manifesting abundance of Maha Lakshmi and the creative wisdom of Saraswati are celebrated by hundreds of millions of Bhaktis all around the world. Whether you have been celebrating this amazing engagement of the creative nature of our Life for many years, or this is your first time, do not miss this amazing ritual process of connecting authentically to the power of Shakti. There are specific cycles, invoking different aspects of the Divine Mother:
- Days 1-3 (Tuesday -Thursday) Purification of Inner and Outer Obstacles on the Spritual Path with Durga
- Days 4-6 (Friday - Sunday) Worshiping the Healing Beauty and Abundance of Maha Lakshmi
- Days 7-9 (Monday-Wednesday) Awakening the Divine Wisdom and Creativity of Saraswati Ma
- Day 10 Victory of Shakti

Here are some suggestions for entering this ritual cycle with universal awareness:
- Create a sacred space: if you do not have an altar at home, now is the time to start. If you have one, clean it, reactivate it, devote yourself to it and place fresh flowers, incense and energy into it. Use colors, statues, scents that connect you with the power of the divine mother and feel no tension about what goes into it: this sacred space is utterly personal and need relate only to your vision of the Divine Mother
- Living daily practices: Before or after your meditation, pray and journal upon the qualities of Shakti that you can call in from the macrocosmic process to have effect within the microcosm of your being. Allow the shakti forces of purification, nuturing, creation and manifestation to reveal to you how to align with your highest vision in action for collective evolution. Not only write, pray and meditate but live what you are ritually invoking in your thought, speech, actions imbued with the love of life and the mother. Visit your local temple, like I did this morning, and devote yourself to Ma Shakti, in the form of mantras, prayers, prostrations, meditation, rituals or a simple visualization.
- Specific invocations for the dedication cycles: Chanting of kirtan for the divine mother in the form of Durga-Kali, Sri Laxmi Ma, and Saraswati, Chanting and listening of the Lalita Sahasranama (I will play this in class until next Thursday), chanting with Japa Mala 18-27-54 or 108 rounds of the dedicated mantras (see below)

Throughout the duration of the festival, I will dedicate each class to the aspect of the Goddess that we are within, starting with Ma Durga today. I will bring my usual 'mobile altar' along and we will start class with dedications to the mother, followed by a Sadhana (asana and meditation) invoking the inner reflection of Ma Shakti. In other words, be ready for backbendorama, with a twist (or more).

Here are the mantras for each cyle:
- Durga Ma (also known as Chamundi): Aim Hrim Klim Chamundayai Vicche or Om Dum Durgayai Namaha
- Lakshmi Ma: Om Shrim Maha Lakshimaye Namaha
- Saraswati Ma: Om Aim Saraswataye Namaha

Fasting in a way that is appropriate from a complete fast on fruits to eating vegetarian food to giving up regressive foods for your system is also traditionally part of Navaratri.

Let's all get ready for a week long of powerful dedications and practices, culminating in a Fire Sadhana next Thursday night for the Victory of Shakti!

Jai jai jai Ma Shakti!

Franck

PS: thanks to Ma Shiva for the info on Navaratri.

Why do we love who we love?

Why do we love who we love?

Love conquers all. Or at least we like to think so. And it probably does. In action movies, poems, some novels, many songs and, to some extent, Life. Or in mine at least.

So while I am airborne halfway between Paris and Los Angeles (and we say hi to Cat in Montreal as we fly over her head), let's play a game. I will play it publicly in this blog, because that's what gladly dysfunctional people like me (and most other yoga teachers) do, and because I see otherwise very little interest in writing a blog if you are not willing to be daring, creative or borderline inappropriate. As for you, you will play that game in the comfort of your own privacy, at home.

So here are the rules, which involve a heart-centered meditation (this IS, after all, a yoga-inspired page). Before you go on and read my prose, I invite you to sit down, close your eyes, breathe and exhale softly though your parted lips. Allow your heart to depressurize and soften. Bring the breath to the root of your spine. Keep the vibration there for a few slow, long, deep, relaxed breaths. When you are conscious of the energy resting there, allow your breath to rise up towards your heart, little by little, up and down, without letting it go any higher towards your head. And let the face, or smell, or voice, of each one of these 3 people spontaneously rise in you. Write whatever comes down. Don't judge. Let the Flow circulate. You may be surprised as to who and what comes up, they may not seem to be the most important people in your life today, and maybe they're not, but they are here now to teach you something very specific.

Then daydream, ponder, and let yourself go back to the deep roots of what allowed Love for that being to be unleashed. What music played in your heart? What vibration did they instill in you? What did they allow you to envision that you did not know was possible?


Here I go:

Person #1: my beloved ex
You are me. In you, I see a reflection of me, of my love, of my past, and of what I can accomplish. You are my wave, and I am your rock. You crash onto me and you soften my sharp edges. You are so ever present in everything, that I still wonder whether I can live without you. You have been the ground upon which I stand and the stars up to which I gaze. You have allowed me the hope and strength to manifest all that has arisen through me until now. You allowed my love to change without ever changing who you are. For all that, I love you. And for being real enough to notice the moment when we needed space. You were a visionary in realizing that we were too necessary to one another to realistically accomplish our respective dharmas, and rise. What liberated us bound us. What had made us grow as tall as giants had put a ceiling over our heads. You saw that. I didn't. And for that too, I love you. Into your eyes, my face remains. Always.

Person #2: my pranic wife
We met totally randomly in Venice, brought together by Coral Dear, and just for that, I knew I was going to love you. But then, you started shining your light, like a rising sun, over a calm ocean. Your smile and giggles started and have not ended yet. I love you. In that breakfast joint on Abbot. In that sweat lodge. Your silliness and simplicity, distracting one's attention from your intelligence and amazingly intense experience of this world. Your humility, intertwined with a total lack of shame. Your eyes, which open right into God. Your ability to manifest into the material plane all the Consciousness that overflows in your heart (is that Prakrti or WHAT?). Your strength and groundedness. But most of all, your fragility. Your truthfulness. Your tears. Your heart calling for me. When mine calls for you. Hugging you. Kissing you. Because I love you.
'You probably think I'm crazy, I don't want you to save me, don't mean to disappoint you, I 've never felt so free. If you could stand in my shoes, then you would feel my heart beat too.' (Heartbeat/Hard Candy). That's how I felt when I met you.

Person #3: the one who came out of nowhere and revived my heart (and then broke it, all in 28 hours)
I did not know we would meet until 15 minutes before we were introduced. I saw you and thought to myself 'nice, really nice'. And then we spoke, downstairs, in that 'shower bar' in Paris' 4th (and no, curious reader, I will tell you more about that place, it would not be appropriate in these pages :p) and you won me over. Completely smoothly. You made my heart beat. My face smile. My hands nervous, My mind race and my fires ignite. Out of the blue, unexpectedly, between a hand brushing a stranger's arm and a Desperado, I felt it. That vibration that I know so well. That sacred tremor. That Spanda that I am so intimate with I had to get it tattooed on my right arm. Love. Not for what we have been. Which has been, truly, barely nothing. But rather for what you made me feel and dream of. When the curtains of impossibility is pulled down in a second and everything, everything is totally doable again because of that one moment, one thing only exists that wholly captivated our mind. Love. Not (just) romance or sentimentality, but that primal irresistible pulsation at the root of the spine. That which makes us felt blissful. That which invoked that kiss in the crypt of this amazing Paris church. The hands constantly looking for each other. I love you for the song that you made my heart sing. Despite that which I am not sure about but which froze that pulsation. And brought me (I don't know you ever traveled as far as I did) to a halt. And for that broken heart. I thank you. With all my sacred breath. My heart is not dead. I can completely overreact and shoot up to the moon in 28 hours. To crash at its surface, ok, but shoot up, still. I love you. And to answer, again, your question of that first night, yes, I like romance. A lot. And I would have loved to get a change to give you a taste of it.

Done.

Those of you who are natural artists, whether you sing whenever you are alone, whether you act, whether you secretly write thousands of words each day, whether you paint life-size canvasses in your dreams or small cartoons in the corner of your pages, those of you will understand that I do not have a choice but to write these lines. And that I must have someone read them. I do not have a choice, if I choose liberation. And as the spanda of creation and expression rises, there is no outcome possible but to let it rise, besides spiritual suicide.

So as love rose, so did the pen.

So today, before you go to bed, love someone. In full consciousness and liberation. And tell them. Whisper it in their ear, write a letter or call them.

Love.

What I learnt this week...

Done. 10 days. California. Much yoga. A whole LOT of teaching. Plenty of sun. Little sleep. Many friends. Little time. Unlimited devotion. One of a kind teacher. Sixty five receiving souls. Some clouds. Five dozen hugs per day. Endless laughter.

Venice, CA, Shiva's teacher training immersion, September 2008.

I am drained. We started on September 10th, at 630AM, and I have been assisting the 65 or so teacher trainees and Shiva non stop with a team of prime assistants. I learnt that:
- when you do what you like with a group of friends and people who are open to receiving, work feels like dancing for hours under the sun on the beach
- the word jazz comes from the creole (Caribbean French) word 'jasi' which means 'aroused' or 'excited', because jazz was deemed sexual and immoral in the 20s
- I love Gina and she is my karmic sister and we have to teach together
- I can't have more than one burrito a day, even if Holy Guacamole cooks the best ones in the whole wide world
- students like my teaching, and primarily because i am clear in my transmission but informal in my communication
- I can stand the California sun for up to 32 minutes with an SPF45 sunblock and up to 18 seconds without sunblock
- sunburns hurt (I knew that before)
- if you meet people with the assumption that they are amazing beings, they usually end up meeting your expectations
- jet lag is worse flying to the US from Europe vs. Asia
- we are dissolving patterns through our practice that are no longer serving our evolution, to feel the potentiality of evolution and creation within us
- I could live in LA and be awesomely happy
- The Divine, Life, our true Nature is being, but also becoming. The divine is becoming because it is perfecting itself all the time.
- I can order frozen yogurt and toppings in Japanese
- According to the Dalai Lama, we are here to embody the transcendence
- I need to put on a bit of weight
- I now wear a size Small in the US
- I am blessed to be doing something that I love, being in a circle of people I adore, studying with incredibly talented river guides, being close to very wise people, and in love with the Earth, the Ocean and the Sky
- if our governments had spent the money they are spending now saving the financial system on saving the environment and improving health, food, and education, the world would be a different, better and more conscious place (and we probably would not have to save the financial 'world' with our taxes, so generations of traders can take un-calculated risks again in 2 years)
- I miss my dogs every minute of every day and I hate being away
- I will no longer travel more than 2 weeks in a row because i MISS teaching my usual classes, public and private, to the solar practitioners who show up, once a year or once a day
- It now costs one USD15 to check in a piece of luggage on US domestic flights, USD25 dollars for a second piece of luggage, and USD100 per additional piece
- I miss the 1008 blessings of married Life
- there are total psychopaths in this world, some of them even practice yoga, and most of them just need to GET A LIFE and take a chill pill
- I like to get my ass kicked in a practice, and I don't feel I have gotten my load until I am swimming in my own sweat and need to be wheeled out of the studio
- The is no benefit in moving from a symmetrical hip asana to an asymmetrical hip asana, and warrior 3 to half moon back to warrior 3 is not neutral on your hips, but rather screws them up
- I loved every minute of being surrounded by Shiva, Gina, Beth, Allez, Julia, Meg and the rest of the Universe
- I feel unreasonably happy driving down Rose from Lincoln and suddenly seeing the Ocean, like a sheet of diamonds, ahead of me between the dark blue sky and the white sand
- One Jess is good, too Jess's is better, three Jess's is not possible cause they are twins
- One should step into the realm of fear at least once a week, to stay away from the rotten experience of undeserved comfort

I am so sad to leave. However, I am just about to jump into an insane experience. I am at LAX, waiting for my flight to Denver. I will teach tomorrow at my friend Shan's studio for the Global Mala and then head up to Estes Park for a week in the mountains with amazing friends, and to practice yoga at the YJ conference. Or maybe just to chill, hike, cook, enjoy the hot tub and think things out.

Hari Om Tat Sat

Vive la France

So it's now been a week that I have left Singapore, and what a week. Have you noticed how Life accelerates while time shrinks when you are out of town and things are running on high?

The few days I spent in Paris were magical. Not the weather. Although, I have to say that I was invigorated, if not totally juiced up, by the cool windy weather. I finally was able to wear my best sweaters and jackets again, and felt like a million bucks in my old (read 'classic') winter clothes. My skin dried out, my gut is gone, all is good! But obviously, the real gift was to reconnect with all my friends, Guillaume, Sylvie, even Julien and Olivier. And it is then that I realized how much happier I am when I am surrounded by my tribe. My culture. My food! Not that I am significantly less happy whenever I am outside of France, but this is - against all odds and what I have chosen to believe for the last 10 years - home, after all. Life is sweet there, and so much less hectic, while still being completely captivating and buzzing. Less pretending and more being, I guess.

Anyhow, the week was fun. I took my first ashtanga classes in French, and - VERY surprisingly - loved it. At first, hearing anatomical and poetic invocations in another language is very odd, even if it is your mother tongue, simply because it makes every word so much more intense and meaningful and creates a sharp presence. It felt as if I had been invited to connect with the 'plante de mes pieds' (soles of my feet) or 'mon bassin et le cote de mon torse' (my pelvis and the sides of my waist) for the first time. It felt as if I was trying for the first time ever to 'atteidre le ciel avec mes doigts' (reach for the sky with my fingers). Fascinating. Totally mind-blowing, and it made the ashtanga primary series, which I know fairly well, totally new and captivating. Jai Jai Monsieur Jois.

And then there was the food (and plenty of it), from amazing croissants and pains aux raisins (some sort of superior raisins roll with cream) to ecstatic and quasi-orgasmic salads and cheeses. And the wine, ricard and other caperinha… Strangely, though, I did not put on weight, and actually lost some. I definitely must check that 'why French women don't get fat' book, it may very well contain the details of a genetic miracle I do not know I am blessed with.


Then there was the falling in love, floating above the skies, and then crashing down in the depth of the Earth, all within 28 hours. Paris, they say, is the city of Love, and it most certainly is. From people kissing and holding (more than) hands at every corner of every street to the romance-filled face of the city, Love is everywhere. And whether you plan it or not, it is bound to fill your heart at some point. Now, if you happen to be like me (i.e., slightly dysfunctional, likely to systematically make the wrong choice, trusting, and still very much optimistic despite some pretty rough recent life lessons), don't expect not to be brushed (or rather crushed - that was the case this time around) by the sharp arrows of Cupid. I won't tell you more, just because I have written something about that amazing Love Story, which I am reworking and will post next week.

Stay tuned.

And then there was home. My real first home. Montauban, a small city in the South of France. Old (founded in 1144), tiny (50.000 souls at most), peaceful (any more peaceful, it would be dead), and charming (because it's … old, tiny and peaceful, you guessed it). I flew over to Toulouse to meet my parents on Saturday morning (after - I must avow - 2 hours of sleep), and was welcome by the background of my youth. Things have not changed, and because I have left years ago, I am glad they haven't. As scary as it can be to go back to the museum of your early years, where the 'why I needed to get out of here' exhibition is always on display, it is so grounding to go back. I love my parents. I love my sister. I love, most of all, my niece, Lola, and my nephew, Nathan. I love the grass. I love the fields. I love the horizon. I love the pace and lights. I would never live there again in this Incarnation, and I love it all the more because of that.

And then there was a last day in Paris again, with Guillaume, stuffing our faces with some of the best tapas in Europe (yes, they are not to be found in Spain :p) and amazing Sangria. A last night of chatting away until the wee hours of the night, talking about Life. Life. And Love. Our Dharma. The present that is in preparation in our hearts.

And then off to the airport (which, again, surprised me with its cleanliness and efficiency - WHAT HAPPENED TO MY COUNTRY????). And a bump-less flight to LA (Sweet Shankara, thank YOU!).

I am now in California, sitting at the Rose Café, my emotional bunker in this town. The Great Pacific Ocean is scintillating down the road like a million gems, and the wind is blowing my way. I went for a run this morning, and am now sipping tea, waiting for my adored, revered and dearly missed friend Gina, who's coming to help out with Shiva's teacher training as well. I will catch up with Seane Corn in a couple of hours and attend her class, before heading out for dinner.

More friends and amazing spaces for the next 10 days. I am blessed, grateful, and totally intent on sipping every drop of the glass of my Life until the glass is licked clean.

Jai!

Franck

'THAT is the true experience of freedom: having the most important thing in the world without owning it' (P. Coelho)

'Say what you like, do what you feel, you know exactly who you are. The time is right. Now, you got to decide: stand in the back or be the star' (Madonna)

I will not die an unlived Life (July 29 2008)

Life is Bliss. Ananda.

No matter how harsh I think my life conditions are, at times (which is not often, mind you).

Life is Change. Life is Sacred. Life is Love. Life is Evolution. Life is delicious dishes and exquisite wines. Life is traveling halfway across the world to visit a foreign city and feel at home there. Life is meeting someone, never to be the same again. Life is crying to overcome a broken heart. Life is the smell of freshly cut grass on your way to work. Life is the most tantalizing sunset that blesses your reunion with old and new friends in Malibu. Life is the gushing waves of the great ocean licking the rocky coastline of Catalunya. Life is sitting at the edge of the Grand Canyon and watching the magnificence of the Universe unfold as the Light changes again and again and again and again. Life is tears on my cheeks as the sun disappears in front of my eyes into the Great Ocean off the coast of Kerala for the last time this year.

And yet, are we honoring this Life? Are we living ecstatically or are we living just because we have to? Are we doing our utmost to conquer the most amazing experiences that are just waiting to be had in this Incarnation? Are we certain that we will be old before we die?

What are we waiting for to fully spend each breath, and bear no remorse?

How can I, how can we be aware of our existence, of the immense impact of each of our Lives and of our Collective potency as Humanity and yet, not be moved into action? We are all blessed with Sva Vimarsa, the Awareness of the Self, and with Sva Sva Vimarsa, the Self's sense of being aware of itself. And yet we allow ourselves to be frozen into inaction?

I am aware of the potency of my actions. I acknowledge the power that I can unleash in my practice on the mat, and the forces I can create in my universe off the mat. And that bears great responsibility. Damn it, a true sense of duty, I should say. How can we live a Life that is the mere shadow of what it could be, given the wealth, education, and safety we are all blessed with in our societies?

Every second, you and I have a choice to negate our instinctual nature and refuse to change the world. Or we can choose, with every breath, to take this Life, this AMAZING LIFE, which we have been gifted by God, the Universe, your parents or Mother Nature - whatever resonates with you - and turn it into a field in which we can plant seeds and harvest miracles. Gandhi used to say that 'we are the change we want to see in the world'. And we are.

Surely, our impact can be as radical or as subtle as we wish, from Da Vinci's transformative effect on civilization to that of any one of us adopting a single stray animal from the SCPA before it is killed. WE CAN CHOOSE, at every opportunity, to live this Life, TO LIVE THIS LIFE EXTENSIVELY, or to crawl through it. We are all born with so many gifts... Some can draw, some can act, some can sing, some can cook, some can love like there is no tomorrow, some can inspire, some can convince, some can dance, some can empathize, some can turn their back and leave... We all are blessed with a wealth of potentialities and possibilities. But do you wake up in the morning with the determination of the warrior, set to fight his battle? Do we use our gifts for the benefit of the Universe or do we let them go to waste?

That book that you have always wanted to write will only be manifested if you sit down today at your computer and start. You long-renounced dream of going to Cambodia and teach mathematics to children as an act of charity will only materialize if you identify and contact a suitable NGO today. These regrets, which you bear, of never telling your estranged sibling, who is gay, that you love him just as he is, will never dissolve until you have the courage to pick up your phone, dial the number and say the words. NOW.

On the day we were born, we have all been presented with the canvas and the brushes needed to paint a most beautiful, meaningful and inspired Life. But do we? Or are we wasting yet another incarnation by dwelling in our own unbearable confort?

I choose, this year, in two thousand and infinite, to live my Life to the fullest. To stretch my energy into all corners of my existence. To leave no gold nugget lying on the ground. I commit to loving, standing up for what I believe in, renouncing what depletes my energy and manifest my potential wherever I can. I will not die an unlived Life.

Because when we are dead, there is really not that much we can do anymore, kinda. ;-D

Read out loud with me:

I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear
Of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days
To allow my living to open me,
To make me less afraid,
More accessible;
To loosen my heart
Until it becomes a wing,
A torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance,
To live so that which came to me as seed,
Goes to the next as blossom,
And that which came to me as blossom,
Goes on as fruit.

Dawna Markova

WHILE YOU ARE ALIVE (July 25 2008)

6AM. Still pitch black and cool outside. Birds have not started commenting on the weather just yet. It's all so quiet. And so is my heart. The ripples of my (very!) early morning meditation on the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra are slowly dissolving into eternity, as I sit on the cold hard floors of my living room, gazing at the dark trees out the window.

NOW, my heart is full and ripe. My two beloved baby dogs are resting in a half gaze on the floor next to me. Outside, nature is holding itself up with beauty in branches and clouds for me to enjoy. A few miles away from here, my beloved soul mate is sleeping in peace and health and space, and though we no longer belong to one another, we are there for each other at this very instant. Further away, my pranic spouse is teaching a class in her yoga studio in the sharp mountains of Colorado. And from the cold floor of my living room, I close my eyes and embrace her. Further out, more friends and family members are going about their day or night, unconsciously holding space for me in their heart.
And so do I. So many little cells in my heart, in which I hold pure love and adoration for so many special people. NOW, I take the time, which I never do, to acknowledge these connections, these love arteries that take us back to Humanity's heart.

Right NOW, with no validation needed, I know that I love and that I am loved in return. At this very instant, while I could choose to see myself all alone on the floor of an aging condo in Singapore, I am a container of love, bliss and ecstasy.
NOW. No point in looking back at a past that was so fulfilling and rich. At a future that is heavily pregnant with many amazing moments that I will grasp when they are ripe. Bliss is right now, at this very second. And then at this new second. And this one. And this one…
It does not end. The mere presence of my adored babies next to me, the bond that I formed or strengthened with my friends last week in LA (including an unexpected Pranic marriage to the sweetest woman on Earth), the connection that I share - heart and soul - with teachers and students friends, these trees, swaying in the morning breeze as the sun finally breaks out of darkness, just for me.

Life is bliss. Right NOW. Whether you choose to uphold the teachings of Eckhart Tolle (The Power of Now) or Elvis Presley (It's now or never), bliss, enlightenment, and exquisite ecstasy, whatever you choose to call it, is NOW. In the center of the Heart. In your heart. In mine. And in the eyes of my dearest souls, into which my face remains.

There is nothing to wait for. No further challenge to go through. Bliss is not a gift handed at the end of your earthly existence in retribution for all the fun and joy you have chosen not to have. Bliss, incredible and shockingly intense happiness is in the resonance of the Love in your life, to friends, to your teachers, to your Ishta Devata, and to yourself.

I will let Rumi close this blurp for me, because he does it best.


'Hope for the Guest WHILE YOU ARE ALIVE,
Jump into experience WHILE YOU ARE ALIVE!
Think……. And Think ………. And think …….. WHILE YOU ARE ALIVE.

What you call "salvation" belongs to the time BEFORE death.

If you don't break your ropes while you are alive, do you think ghosts will do it after?
The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic just because the body is rotten - that is all fantasy

WHAT IS FOUND NOW IS FOUND THEN!

If you find nothing now, you will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death.
If you make Love with the divine NOW, in the next life you will have the face of satisfied desire.

So plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is, believe in the Great Sound!

I say this: When the Guest is being searched for, it is the intensity of the longing for the Guest that does all the work.

Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity.'


Om Namah Shivaya