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2012 – The Year of Our Enlightenment

Jan 9th, 2012 by

Sitting down to write these words, my heart is in explosion-mode — my God have I missed this space.   There’s no where else I have had the courage to be balls-out honest, in every way – and really, as I have learned so well, that is one of many keys to this spiritual ascension we are all so hip to.  Evidence that perhaps the ego has had her lazy way by hiding.  But at least I’m here to spill.

Hi.  I have missed you.  I have missed this opportunity to surrender.  There has been no lack of effort and intent on this end to unravel, and the results have been insanely successful.  Rather than a play by play of circumstances, I will just tell you the Truth.

There is a space outside the mind so vast, so infinitely beautiful, it terrifies many of us to get there.  “I” was blessed to slip through the eye of the needle in November, during an insanely amazing Ayahuasca journey.  In a nutshell, it went like this:

- Girl spends five years climbing the spiritual mountain, taking any manner of sacred substance to exit stage left, studying with a myriad enlightened teachers, marrying a spiritual powerhouse and perfect mirror, and engaging in brutally honest self-inquiry.

- Girl takes part in ump-teenth ayahuasca ceremonies in November – three in a row.

- The first is a marvelous re-introduction — an opportunity to unravel the mystery of fear, and the realization that fear is the opposite side of the same coin that empowerment lives on.  Girl chooses empowerment, and transcends fear of the unknown.

- Girl has a hilarious night 2, thinking in fact that she won’t even drink aya that night, that instead she will just be of service to those who are Going Big.  The shaman instead pours a 3x the usual dosage and tells her to “trust.”  What the hell.  In she goes.  And it is AWESOME.  Heinously powerful.  Yet the shift she had been dreaming of occurs – the ability to be in multiple spaces of consciousness at the sane time.  The ability to have the massive personal experience, and be very, very present in the room.  Hands are held, heads are caressed, tears are shed with others – all while the internal revelations are revealed.  Absolutely epic.  A true shamanic step UP.

- Girl then resolves to go very, very big on the final night.  The only intent is to surrender – seriously this time, with no fingers crossed behind the proverbial back.  No expectations of reward either.  Just this desperate, sincere request to the medicine that She help girl just Let Go, at long last.  Girl does just that.  So much so that she dissipates – goes into the ethers of the Void, and does so with complete awareness.  No more I.  No more anything other than Everything.  It lasts twenty minutes or so.  Then “she” comes back.

- Girl takes a while to figure out what the hell just happened.  Then it starts integrating, revealing its mysteries.  Girl can’t really describe what the new state of consciousness is – the same, but vastly different.  Personality has returned.  Animation has returned.  As has the awareness that this is a magnificent, profound dream – created by the Source, which is anything but personal.  And officially, and always for every more, All Is Full Of Love.

So where does that leave “me”?  The exact same place I was before – but this time, with a heart-spaced knowing.  I look at the world of people now and see masks that attempt to cover the Oneness, yet they are all so transparent.  I don’t see the egoic “me” everywhere, but I do know the essence of ALL is US – separation is an absolute joke.  Finally, the awareness of my celluar being has caught up with the wisdom my heart always knew.  I wish I could dole this out like mashers at a shelter.  I wish all egos would drop for just an instant, so all apparently separate beings would know who the unified WE really is.  Oh my goodness ya’ll, it is BEAUTIFUL.

My own work has just begin.  Knowing is not an end game, not so long as my spirit takes a body.  There is a newfound urgency around life, along with an awareness of the lack of meaning – at least in the way I used to hold it.  Yet there is strong awareness that the part of this consciousness that thinks itself real will always do so, and gets to be honored in this space.  It is play time, in the highest sense.  Time to be love, in every way possible.  And that is an infinite learnign process.  Good thing, or I would fear getting bored!

And so I can’t help but ponder as 2012 has now tackled hugged us all – how will this story continue?  I foresee a billion and one awakenings, the majority shifting into oneness consciousness.  And with that, a helluva lot of destruction and chaos.  That’s the rub of duality – it’s the structure by which our balance depends on.  You know the old saying – Take the good with the bad.  Well, I would add to that – see the bad as good, too, and you’re literally in heaven.

As I lay in bed the night after the unraveling, an image appeared to me in my lucid state – a mirror appeared, and in it I saw my smiling face, with a beautiful red dot in the center of my third eye.  That red dot represented Enlightenment.  It was always there, not under, but above my nose – waiting to be rediscovered.  As it is for us all.  There is nothing to seek, nothing to wish for, nothing to find – just your true self waiting for you in every moment.  And while there is no formula by which this is revealed in all it’s glory, just know it is possible, for all beings.  This seems to be the year for us to realize that, too.  Why not, ya know?  God placed this burning desire to Know Ourselves in each and every unified heart – seems silly to postpone the inevitable ;)

Happy New Year.  What an unspeakable joy to ascend with you.

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Posted in Ayahuasca Ceremonies, Shamanic Ceremonies, The Path of Enlightenment | 1 Comment »

Reemergence Made Manifest

May 28th, 2011 by

Three days shy of the 36th birthday, and I’m finally logging thoughts in here – first time this year.  Laziness?  Desire to hide?  LIfe just taking over?

Yes.

Also, an overwhelming amount of truth to tell.  That old – where to begin? – stressor, which leads to complete abandonment.

And yet I’m back.  With a burning awareness that it’s time to bleed in here again, to expose and reveal and purge all over the bloody screen.  God, I really miss the written word.  I’ve avoided the power of a typed-up chaotic brain / heart dump for months now – years, when it comes to my full on fiction writing and poetry – and I know a great deal about why.  It’s not a new revelation, but one that’s unraveling before my observing one-self, so it bares noting these days.

What is it the Genie in Aladdin said?  All the powers in the whole wide universe, locked up in a teeeeeeeny living space?  Yes.  That’s the rub, isn’t it?  This being I share space with has complete awareness (complete?  That may be exaggerating – at least partial.) that she is omnipotent, in the truest sense.  That with any level of drive, focus, discipline and fire, anything/everything can and will change.  And yet the temptation to just keep it status quo, to fly under the radar and commit to the mundane, not the spectacular, has continued to win out.

I should qualify that with an “apparently.”  What has been real in these last five months is a full on dedication to integrity, and there’s nothing small about the truth.  And because the willingness has been so genuine, shit has hit the fan.  Spirit is just emerging from a 10 day jaunt into the untamed spaces – man has the world been a chasm of darkness lately.  I literally let myself rip in two.  On the surface, brought on by the death of two cats (two whom I attached to in the most devotedly human way) and a third that was extricated from a less than ideal home situation, and into something that we hope is more for the greater good.  And yet, I let it break my heart.  Ripped wide-fucking-open.  And as I fell and felt and swirled, Orion (husband) flew out into the expansive spaces, and, on many occasions, laughed at the sad little clown girl.  I don’t blame him, this isn’t a victim outlet speech.  Just an acknowledgement that I created, seemingly, a complete and total separation, and the opportunity to *feel* divided, to the core.  SUCH pain.  Not suffering, mind you, as I stayed unwaveringly present through the madness (at least that’s my perception), but yo damn, that is a convincingly dark space.  So dark I found myself smashing my head against a wall, wanting OUT goddammit.  Feeling the disease of the past and future focused mind just became unbearable.  Then, of course, at some point I surrendered, my spirit filled with helium, and the veil lifted once more.

Now, the giddiness is back – the eyes-wide-open awe and wonder.  A few major revelations have surfaced, but those don’t want to be shared just yet – there are potential actions involved with all, and nothing has emerged as “it’s time” or “the right course.”  In that “waiting is” stage, and it’s lovely.  But what IS true and very loud/proud — this god-being is really, really ready to go BIG.  What does that mean?  Engaging in the three intuitive paths that keep neon-flashing behind my mind’s eye.  I’m not confused about how to unlock the next layer of out-of-the-way empowerment.  They are: Taking better care of the body (workouts, food, tinctures, yoga), meditation (which takes care of the mind, or no-mind), and writing (what my spirit loves the most, but mind resists the most.)  Pretty simple.  On paper.  But there’s a sense that truly engaging in all three will send me into. . .well, as a dear friend put it recently, “We’re not starting a new chapter.  Honey, this is a new book.”  And whose ego doesn’t fear change?  Ahem.

But here I am, apparently turning 36, and emerging out of a transforming year of 7′s (35 is a multiple of 7, and as the theory goes, since we regenerate every cell of our physical selves every 7 years, we do the same for our spiritual.)  This body/mind no longer feels immortal, and the urgency is almost choking at times to just BE who I really am.  Not a small, shrouded, scared little version of said-god-self, but IT.  HER.  Unmasked.  Vulnerable.  True to her word (to all, but most especially myself.)  And pedal to the metal with all that has always intuitively said “Do This.”

Which is why I’m here.  In part to immortalize the intentions, and in part to actualize them, as writing (and exposing truth) is at the very core of this awakening, and this being.  The ego known as Kitty – she writes.  Always has.  One of the purest forms of how divine expression manifests through me.

So while this particular post is a tad indulgent and mememe, it’s also a tangible ember to ignite this fire again.  We are all god, pretending to be separate selves.  If we follow our heads alone, they may lead to magnificent relative successes, but usually with a sense of emptiness.  Following intuition can lead to an unpredictable, seemingly unsafe, wild unfolding adventure – but perhaps with a sense of oneness.  Of wholeness.  And if you’ve had that. . . no amount of material success can match it.  Freedom is the flavor that trumps all the rest.  And having written this, I’m one step closer.

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Posted in The Path of Enlightenment | 3 Comments »

It’s Not Personal. It Never Is.

Dec 29th, 2010 by

Sages and meditators for the last bazillion years have spoken about the internal deep dive – the search for the self.  It’s a marvel that everyone I know that has taken this trip with earnest has the same results – they can’t find themselves.  This identity that seems to run the show 24/7, with personality traits and dreams and attachments and dislikes, et al – it doesn’t exist.  Not in the truest sense.  We get to experience the notion of a self so that we know we are alive – so that we can, one by one, wake up to the knowledge that we never existed.  And in that, that there is no separation.  That. Is. Fucking delightful.

That’s been stewing today as the notion of emotions has been swirling through me.  Where do these fascinating little good and bad flare-ups come from?  As I talked to Orion about this via Skype (he’s in Australia, flying a trip to Sydney), we landed on a key premise – that emotions and feelings are different animals.  I like this division very much.  Emotion, therefore, becomes elements of our thoughts.  I ran through the list of ‘em, and this resonated.  Jealousy is conjured up when my mind thinks someone I love is giving affections to someone else.  Anger appears when mind thinks she’s been wronged.  Sadness says hi when something I was attached to does not play out as I wish.  The list goes on.  Emotions, in this manner, are stories the mind creates, which the body reacts to.  They are anchored in the past (I can’t believe that happened.  I’m so angry at him for doing that) or the future (I’m so afraid he’ll leave me.  What if I fail at this again?).  Everything not occurring in the present moment is a creation of the mind.  Have you ever noticed how you’re mind is never actually present?  It’s a wild realization.

Feelings though – what the heck are they?  I consider feelings those spontaneous responses within the body and the spirit that happen moment to moment.  Love is the obvious go-to – it’s always there if I’m not writing a story of resistance around it.  Think about how it feels when you totally surrender to any given moment.  Sensations abound – and while fear may be lingering (I’m so afraid of this vulnerability omg what am I doing. . . .) when you let go, it’s just insanely liberating.  There’s an intense feeling of trust, of freedom, of bliss.  Even if it feels risky.  Feelings, therefore, are whatever is genuinely flowing through each moment you take a breath.  They are the sensations in the body, which are expressing What Is inside those bones and tissues.  They are communications that simply tell you what is really transpiring in your duality.

So what of this self then, this being that appears to experience all of this?  It’s the part I love the most – the fact that the one thing many of us (especially Americans) cling to the most is not in the least bit real.  We live in a world where individuality is coveted and prized, where people wear their identities like badges.  ”I am this and I am that and I always do this and I never do that!”  We talk about finding ourselves as if we really know what that means.  If we did, we would realize it’s a laughable, win-less quest.  Unless it means to find that we aren’t real.  That the notion of this person who has all these experiences. . .it’s the cosmic joke.  We get to *feel* as though we’re real, as consciousness without apparent separation is totally unconscious.   So the divine split into billions and billions of pieces so that it could experience all the infinite experiences and feelings repeatedly, all at once, over and over.  And then pieces of itself awaken to their glorious nothingness.  What a fucking fantastic unfolding.

My mind today created many things to react to, and I felt the internal response.  Sometimes attachment.  Sometimes fear.  Sometimes melancholy nostalgia.  But then I would ask “Whose emotion is that?”  It wasn’t mine.  I can’t find the source of me.  I can only find a single source – and it *feels* like a vast, infinite, identity-less chasm of love, bliss, and liberation.  That space I feel when I drop the need to be me is an incredible nothingness where everything dwells.  I realize that isn’t in the least bit sensible.  Nothing about these no-mind spaces makes sense. . .to the mind.  They’re not supposed to.  They can’t, really.  But the heart this body embraces – she swells and expands and it feels like. . .well, home.

And so that is my current focus / task.  To take all that is happening, all that “I” am feeling – in every moment – and to remember that it’s NOT personal.  It can’t be, because “I” don’t exist.  It’s not personal if someone is raped.  It’s not personal if someone wins the lottery.  It’s not personal if someone falls in love.  It’s just the all experiencing the all.  All the beautiful damn time.

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Death and Life: The Great Illusions

Dec 18th, 2010 by

Last Sunday, a gorgeous burst of light named Wayne Steinart seemingly left the world.  I know this gem back from my early days as a Producer at Disney Online.  He ended up marrying another co-worker, one of my favorite mega-hot  5’10″ blondes, Miss P.  They were the kind of couple I wanted to be in at the time – effortless, mind-blowingly well-matched, and crazy in love.  Right about the time I settled into my marriage to that very dream guy, she loses hers.  It’s been heart-wrenching.  But I’ve used it as a chance to go deeper into what it really means.

What does it mean to die?  I had oodles of time to ponder such things as I zipped off to LA in a puddle jumper plane, connecting through Palm Springs (the only way I could get there on short notice during the holidaze.)  It led me back to that core question – what are *we*, anyway?  Separate, identity filled beings, or big cosmic jokes?  Both, apparently – but one is closer to the Truth.

As I sailed through skiffs of effervescent clouds, looking down on their shadows as they waltzed across mountain tops, I marveled at how real at all seemed.  At how real *I* seemed. And yet when I try to pin down that concept – that obligatory “I” – there is nothing there but a sense, a wish, a wannabe.  When I go into this essence I label as mine, it’s evident “I” don’t own it at all – it’s just the apparent perspective, this first person view.  What’s more real is that oneness.  There is nothing about “my” identity that is any different from anyone else – just an identification with a handful of specific traits.  Yet I can be any / all of the roles that I see playing out before me – it’s just impossible (so it seems) to play them all at once.  And so there’s a choice – whether it’s mine or Divinity’s, I don’t know – to be a certain aspect of the All, in every moment.  But that seems that the big haha-I-got-you is this — the notion of “me” is just an aspect of the All.  I felt the undeniable reality that I am Divinity – every last cell of it.  Everything is possible.  It’s just that I can only see one tiny sliver of What Is.

So as I found myself missing Wayne, aching for his widow, and wishing peace for all of us who don’t really understand this crazy life-game, there also played across my lips a gigantic smile.  Something really magical is always, always at play – when I fall into it, the gray matter is blown to bits with the love divinity has for me.  It IS me.  Many of us play this wild game of self-destruction and apparent self-loathing – yet, it seems, we are really, really on to something — this is the very crux of awakening, it it is allowed.  There is no “me” to hate / destroy.  That’s only an idea.  As I flew to be with my old work family, I kept thinking, “We came from somewhere, perhaps that’s where we return.”  But it feels now as if I was missing something – we are were we have always been.  There is no coming and going – no life and death.  Just the perception of.  Trying on different masks.  Wearing different parts of our whole.  What else could oneness do but pretend to be separate?  It feels like the only way to realize that there is oneness after all.

And so I thanked Wayne, sincerely, for being a piece of the oneness to help me fall further into the truth.  The visitation, therefore, felt wonderful – even in its massive sadness and injustice.  Those can fit into the idea of oneness – because if all is Divine, EVERYthing fits.  There’s nothing to do or undo – just authenticity, however that feels in every moment.  It was extraordinary hugging all those beautiful souls and thinking – “I love you.  Me.  Us.  I love.”

And yes, it seems to be true that beings come and go, but those in the current view, I see clearly that those are only aspects our ourselves that keep popping up and disappearing.  Think about it – the All would have a lot of facets, a lot of roles to play.  Infinite possibilities.  That makes for a chaotic play, you know?  And we, as the apparent separate consciousnesses that fall in love with the idea of ourselves, and those around us – man, we fall to pieces when favorite parts come and go.  But lest we think we are crying for those that have apparently “passed-on.”  We are crying for the idea of ourselves, desperately missing those to whom we have attached.  And, of course, the fear of that great mortal unkown – because we can’t know, until we’re there – and then we’re lucky if “we” are still conscious enough to take it all in.

I sit here now and fully own these beautiful concepts.  I don’t feel like Kitty.  I feel like the eyes/ears/nose/mouth/touch of consciousness, playing out the very specific actions and emotions that it wants to place in the world.  Makes it clear why authenticity is so tethered to the Divine, no matter what it looks like – this is what “it” wants to be.  God, the universe, divinity – whatever you want to call it.  It’s moving through each of us, as apparent separate beings, with a bold and boisterous acorn of intention.  When that’s repressed, in my experience, it feels like poo.  When it’s released, it feels like. . .aw wow, just fucking perfect.  It’s so much better to be authentically sad than inauthentically happy.  And so even though there’s some awareness of this magical drama that’s unfolding, this wannabe “I” willing goes into the grief of loss.  It’s impossible to know if and when I’ll ever see the uniqueness that was Wayne again.  And that hurts, because he just rocked.  So that is true, but so is the illusion of it all.

What a freaking beautiful paradox.  Let’s all love this perfect mystery, and every facet of it – ie everyone in it.

“Is your place in heaven / worth giving up these kisses?” – Tori Amos

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Formerly Known as Girlfriend

Dec 2nd, 2010 by

Wedding Day - Shiva and Shakti

The problem with deeply personal tell-all blogs is that if you don’t update them regularly, and you have one of those turbo, everything-happens-everyday lives, it’s tough to know where to pick up again from after even the teeniest of hiatus.  Alas, it’s been exactly three months, and keeeeriste, I’m overwhelmed with things I’ve gotta spill.

There’s Peru.  A three week Huachuma-filled journey.  But that will have to be in zee next send-off, because that’s just not the Now.  It impacted and changed the Now, as every moment does and doesn’t, but it’s not what is currently flowing. . .

What is in the mind’s eye is family life.

I dropped off Hijo and his stepbrother Teller (he reminds me so much of Teller from Penn and Teller, so goes the moniker) this morning at school, and then promptly bursted out with a “OMG I HAVE KIDS!” exclamation.  There’s a whole new sense of love and respect inside me now that I am MARRIED – it’s really hard to describe, and was impossible to anticipate.  I wake up every morning with Orion and say “Good morning Husband – I love you.” And when he calls me Wife, my toes curl and my eyes well up.  And yet, nothing else has changed.  I still egoically fear losing him – that’s not something I dwell on, but the ego is aware she has not “won”.  There is no safety, no resting on laurels – marriage to us means a declaration of how much we love each other, not a promise that we’ll tolerate the other’s unconscious behaviors.  We are still the now-focused couple, holding each other to the standard of greatness, and mirroring back those blasted distortions.  Yet the universe feels different to me now – I’m more in integrity with what this man and his amazing son mean to me, and now they know it too.  Everyone does.  That means something, in a relative sense, and I’m giddy to be in the experience of this reality.

This also means that I am now officially a pilot’s wife.  A few year’s back, I remember joking about how I’d rather have unlimited travel benefits that a huge pile of cash to spend on travel, as that was far less stress.  Way to manifest, kitten-girl, way to manifest.  I am now free to move about the world.  Literally.  And we’ve already done so – I joined Orion on a flight he flew to Shanghai over Thanksgiving.  Hearing his voice on the intercom, I welled up with thoughts of “Husband”, 33,000 feet above the world.  I tallied up in my noggin the estimated amount of air travel I’ve had the incredible fortune of enjoying this year – it’s gotta be close to $100k.  And I’m just getting started.  I shall enjoy this gift to the fullest, and write about every adventure – try and share and articulate the way the world looks from every angle, in every corner.  Sometimes my head gets in the way with ponderings of worthiness, or of “how did this happen” woes, but mostly I just receive this fortune with huge freaking bursts of enthusiasm.  We’re planning a trip to Ireland for a belated honeymoon – that’ll be the first “vacation”, outside of the jaunts I take when Orion flies the plane, that we have in the works.  I always intend to keep my eye on the next destination – that’s the gift of freedom.  It doesn’t get any better for a double air sign.

And here we are, nearing the end of another year – so dubbed the “Year of Adoration” by Pranananda, one of my most cherished spiritual teachers.  Man is that ever appropriate.  As I’ve gotten very serious about the task of falling in love with myself, that has naturally opened up the well of infinite adoration for all those around me, and way way beyond.  It’s also opened up the next round of intimacy issues – and alas, there are still a-plenty.  I froze up at a rolling party just recently, actually – surrounded by beautiful, judgment free folks who just wanted to embrace my being, and instead, I closed down and fled, in a figurative sense.  There is still work to be done with respect to openness.  I still get fucking terrified of balls to the wall intimacy, and I can’t say I really know the whole story why.  I’m also very aware of continuing body image issues, and self-destructive tendencies.  So those get the spotlight yet again.  But with love and compassion this time – not the usual barrage of negative internal banter – that voice that prefers to yell and chastise my every move, rather than make space for all those emotions, and their ever-present counterparts.  Being married helps this all – ego loves being a wife, and takes comfort in what that communicates.  How much Orion loves her / me – well, that helps give us courage to go deep and heal.

Future dates with Huachuma and Aya promise to help unravel these layers all the more, but I won’t wait for those to get busy.  It’s all in the here and now, always always.  Just writing these words helps illuminate the truths all the more, always always.  So good to be back.

Next time, there’s the big Peru update, the last weeks of the Apprenticeship, the big across-town move – man, things never slow down, eh?  Not that we’d want them to.

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Posted in Unrelated Truth-Pours | 6 Comments »

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