PlantShaman's Enlightenment Blog

I promised Tantra at the end of the last post.  Tonight, there’s a whole lot more brewing.

Orion and I have been entering officially into Tantric spaces about once a week these days – this has been consistent for many weeks now.  We keep marveling about how we instinctively fell into so many Tantric rituals without really being aware of it – so much of what we’re learning are practices we’ve already been shifting into.  It’s marvelous in that sense – the energies are very much the leaders of the show, not our individual selves.  Tantra appeals to me in part because of this required surrender – when I really let go in the sacred spaces Orion and I create, there is no more “I”.  There are moments of such intense freedom, I often shutdown or have an emotional response as a result.  How can that be?  Intimacy still scares the flipping tar out of me.  ”Me”, the fragile little ego-state, the part that is in the continuous process of transforming, dying, and rebirthing.  The endless loop, until it is no more.

Our Tantric experiences as of late have been really vast and mystical.  In one, Orion asked if he could just. . .adore me.  He spent the entire time kissing every inch of me, as I lay surrendered on our crisp white duvet, used only for these rituals.  And when I let the intense sincerity of his adoration really land within my being. . .I cried, steadily, as I am right now.  The reasons – they are many.  On one level, it felt / feels so electrifying to receive such pure, divine love.  And on another level, I felt the direct contrast of the old energies I used to harbor and protect – the self-destruction, the worth issues. . .all the ways in which I didn’t love myself.  And so in those moments, I felt both in equal doses – love and adoration for myself, and that old angry, destructive programming.

Other Tantric times have been vastly different.  In one, I felt the need to balance the energies and spend time adoring Orion.  Although I feel like I’m almost always in that space, it felt magical to adore the divinity in him, without the rest of the stories.  When we walk into our sacred space, we are no longer Kitty and Orion: we are Kali and Shiva, our chosen god-identities.  And because we drop the stories of ourselves, surprises keep surfacing.

What I am facing with fierce intensity these days is the extent of my previous, and to be honest, still-present, self-destruction.  Every time I start eating or drinking things in an unconscious state, I acknowledge the inherent destruction.  I’ll be scarfing down a pile of junk, all the while in full awareness of how this is not out of love, but I don’t stop.  I choose to continue the damage.  The excuse mentally is always long and convoluted – it doesn’t really matter what I eat, one cheat-session doesn’t hurt any, blah blah blah.  The truth is, it’s not out of love, it’s an urge to keep me from being intimate *with myself*.  I am starting to really understand this impulse.  The healthier I am, the more undefended and raw I am.  And in turn, I have way more energies to pore into the divine transformation.  My beloved ego doesn’t like those spaces – she likes what is familiar, and escaping in food is very, very familiar.  But the food, and the layers of fat that have developed as a result, act as a barrier between myself and my power, in a sense.  It creates a very real feeling story of my lack of self-worth.  I’ve been falling for this trap a whole lot again – a very familiar dance for me. But this time around, it feels deeper and more mesmerizing than ever before.

This brings me to the present.  I just finished my first day of the new apprenticeship.  It took me 9 hours to get here and I didn’t land until the wee hours.  A few hours of sleep gave me just enough vibrancy to be heart-spaced and open to the experience, and even though I got lost (just 2 miles to my destination from my hotel, and still. . .it’s a gift), I still felt fantastic when I arrived at my Teacher’s house.  She and her space are both profoundly divine.  Earth-Teacher has an incredible quiet strength, but she greeted me with a truly sincere and supportive embrace.  My other apprentice travelers are equally warm and wonderful.  There’s four of us total, plus Teacher, and it’s an absolutely perfect mix.  Today was an introduction of sorts – we settled into our collective energies, listened to Teacher share some core concepts of the Plant-Work, and embarked on a few magnificent experiential journeys.

Through it all, my theme for the day was intimacy.  Our work early on in the day allowed us to drop intimacy walls with each other and start feeling that ever-present connection.  That came very easily – a marvelous revelation, as this used to be a gargantuan battle.  Proof that all these exercises really do work to get us into our true natures.  I’ve come along way since the first MITT session.  Later on, we spent time with plants – just feeling them.  Feeling being the operative word here.  The core of the work I’m embarking on is feeling – a stark contrast to the Jnana Yoga I have energetically engaged in every Sunday with the Sangha crew, and every seeming moment with sweet Orion.  Jnana Yoga is an aggressive path in many ways, as it’s a mental attack at enlightenment concepts, and serves the engager by exhausting him or her intellectually until they finally surrender into something other than their mind.  I play this game with sincere muster, but it has shown it’s limitations to me – or maybe it’s my limitations with it.  Regardless, all the talk and experience of *feeling* today *felt* freaking fantastic.  In many ways, my internal self was saying “Girl, welcome home.”  But in others. . .well, I just felt like a fish out of water.

I have tools to protect my ego in the mental spaces.  There’s a sense of control in there, and that’s why I love to play there.  Feeling offers me no such luxury – it is the ultimate in surrender, as it forces me to A) experience exactly what IS inside of me and B) drop the desire to control my external experience – that is, to look good / normal / sane / stable by NOT being emotional.  I, like many of the rest of us, have been programmed to believe that showing emotion is weak, and not really welcome in most spaces.  That’s obviously not true, but it’s an insanely powerful belief.  I’m willing to drop that story, and as such, man are there some emotions in there.  Ayahuasca has helped me *immensely* to allow those to brew up, with meditation + Vipassana also offering huge leaps in this arena.  And here I am again, diving into another fiercely intimate adventure.  I know the five of us are going to have some mindlessly powerful experiences.  One day in, and I’m already having responses.  I’m so happy to be here, but so freaked out at the same time.  The perfect place to be, really – actively pushing the boundaries of comfort.  And in a way the feels absolutely perfect.  Safe, in an unsafe way.  Mmmmm duality.

Tonight though, I’m feeling more than just a joyful gratefulness for finding a new shamanic home in this apprenticeship.  My favorite friends in the desert are having a very, very special, bonded evening tonight.  A ceremonial celebration all their own.  Orion will be there – as will, well, just about everyone else that I feel an intimate bond with back home.  So yeah, there’s some serious sadness in not getting to share that.  As much as I know I’m right where I need to be. . .I *want* to be there, with them.  To have both worlds accessible.  And so I’m sulking a bit in my cheap hotel room.  There’s also a horrifically intense fear of the lack of boundaries Orion and I share.  I love our independence, I love our lack of rules and structure.  We fully support each other in being whomever we are called to be in every moment.  I would not change a thing about this openness, and yet, it paralyzes me sometimes, because of how much it forces me to trust and surrender.  Ego doesn’t want to trust and surrender, she wants to feel as if everything is under control.  Yet there is no such thing.  And when Orion and I enter the altered, no-holds barred spaces, either together or separate, all the fear and pain surrounding intimacy and trust surface within.

Here I am, in this bizarre scenario.  A Motel 6 in a tiny town in New Mexico.  Day one of a shamanic apprenticeship – learning to see and experience the world in a different way – like, as Teacher said today, an undefended child.  Sitting here with the knowingness that my friend-family are falling into an intimate, connected space without me.  Not knowing what any of this really means.  Afraid of beginnings and endings and deaths and rebirths.  Looking in the mirror and feeling hatred for the body I see looking back, who just looks back with innocence and neutrality.  It’s all so familiar and foreign at the same time.  Yeah, like an undefended child – I am protection-less and raw.  What is there to be protected from, anyway?  You can’t protect yourself from life.  And really, when it comes down to it, who would want to.

And so I’ll spend some time crying and feeling tonight.  Allowing the perceived separation to wash over me, so that I may reconnect with the oneness that is always waiting.  Every moment is a choice, with regards to how we experience it.  I will feel what I need to, without resistance – all the while keeping a direct connection with my beautiful observer.  The one looking down with a smile and seeing all that is.  No judgment, no duality, just awareness.

I am grateful for all that is – this ocean of tears, the trembling rising up and out of my body, the child that looks back at me in the mirror, the many faceted journey I am on.  Teacher said today, one of her favorite bumper stickers says “Remember who you always wanted to be.”  Me, I always just wanted to have adventures – to travel everywhere, to do everything, to love everyone.  Tonight, I can honestly say – mission accomplished.

Tags: Apprenticeship, Earth Medicine, Intimacy, Sacred Plants, Shamanism, Tantra