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.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
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
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
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Grace...
pale sunlight
pale the wall
love moves away,
the light changes
i need more grace
than i thought
- Rumi
pale the wall
love moves away,
the light changes
i need more grace
than i thought
- Rumi
Monday, November 24, 2008
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.
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.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
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
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
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
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!
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!
Thursday, October 2, 2008
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
