Just when I get accustomed to the harmony and flow of life, a curve ball smashes a dent in my figurative skull.  Several.  Big ones.  Fast balls, see.

Last week, Orion, Hijo and I jetted off to LA for a mixed-bag adventure.  On the menu, in a primary sense, was a visit with Zen, Orion’s younger brother – the one written about lovingly here, in reference to his battle with lymphoma. We stayed at his cute 50′s style cabana in Reseda, and it was my first in-person meeting with Zen and his really lovely wife.  Out of the gate, I loved them both, energetically and in that what-a-cool-human sense.  But because Zen is deep in the thick of his battle with cancer, there is such complexity brewing – every word, every emotion feels loaded and fragile.  It was, admittedly, hard to talk to him.  My issue – I wanted so much to wave a magic wand and feel his soul melt into life and his being feel light and happy again, instead of toxic and doomed.  I had hoped to come in with some tools of assistance, but I felt an immediate barrier.  Even still, the first night went really well.  I gave Zen several gifts – one a juiced-up power object (tourmaline, the shaman’s stone) that has been sacred to me for some time now.  Our dialogue was open and deep, and I felt so honored to have this immediate connection.  But by the next morning, that dissipated.  The reasons, in a relative sense, were twofold – 1) Zen was feeling like poo that morning, and ended up back at the hospital for most of the following day, and 2), Orion woke up in a seriously foul mood, which I then in turn allowed to sink me into a tough space as well.  That would be the theme of the trip – Orion and I were nasty to each other at times, uncharacteristically so, and it kept throwing me for loop after loop after loop.  Tears were shed one morning in the yard as we dissected these blow ups.  I felt unheard, way too vulnerable, and fed up with the self-imposed lockdown on speaking my truth about our interactions.  All gifts, but shit if that wasn’t a powder keg of a scenario.  Looming around a beautiful soul who is facing his own mortality has a natural effect of asking me to do the same.  I reveled in the lack of separateness – because while the ego really wanted to look with sympathy on Zen for his really challenging predicament, the truth is his story is my story, and I could not diminish our shared experience.  I looked it him and felt what it was like to think you’re dying of cancer.  I looked at him and wanted so badly to help him change his story, in part because I felt it as my own.  But then the higher self would chime in, remind me of the perfection of his dance, how it is his path to awakening, if he chooses it, and the sympathy dissolved into the only thing that remained – unconditional love.

Even with this knowingness, I kept my distance from Zen the rest of the trip.  My head surmised that was his wish, but in the nothing outside of self exists realm that I abide by, it was clearly my own.  I’m still often not willing to call out the elephant in the room, and to really stare down the Very Big Topics.  But I trust that it just wasn’t my place to intervene at this time.  My desire to do so was simply egoic.  I looked in Zen’s eyes and felt the barrier.  A wall we both constructed.  And I knew it wasn’t appropriate to try and blaze on through.  So I watched from a distance, sometimes in tears, but always with my heart.

And in the meantime, during all this interplay, the snaps between Orion and myself were coming in spades.  My head spun from the frequency and depth, and I wound up unraveling.  Seemingly confused by the negative interchanges.  By our very keen inability to communicate clearly.  I tried to let it break my heart, but I kept getting self conscious about the surroundings – not my home, not my place to let it rip, in the presence of people facing huge life challenges.  Who am I to come unglued because of spats with my partner?

We made our way home, and while things were peaceful on the surface, I was seething inside.  Angry at myself for what was transpiring, and trying desperately not to project all this on Orion.  By the time we were back in Vegas, it would seem the worst was over.  But then a blowup came worse than all the rest of the week’s crisscrosses combined – mainly because I finally stepped up and spoke my peace, in a very non-peaceful way.  I saw the charge rise up again in Orion, and had reached my capacity to try and process without kicking and screaming.  I brought out the expletives and just unleashed.  Not surprisingly, he didn’t take my projections well – and basically sent me away.  Reached his capacity as well.  So I did something I’ve never done before in our relationship – I left home, and checked into a hotel.  I didn’t actually think I’d sleep there that evening, but the just in case thoughts prevailed, and all I really wanted was a safe haven to decompress inside.  I had previously made my way to my old home, which is now inhabited by a super amazing friend and her equally amazing husband.  I wasn’t sure if they had moved in yet, so I made my way to what I had hoped would be a private haven – then I saw their furnishings inside, and my heart just collapsed.  This was the house I had bought – my first home purchase – thinking maybe I’d live there forever.  Or at least a really long time.  Now it was almost in foreclosure, claimed again by someone new.  And this homeless girl allowed those emotions to just. . .rise to the surface.  So after a good hour spent meditating in a nearby park, I checked in to a local hotel and pondered what might be next.

Orion and I ended up reconciling via phone shortly thereafter, and I made my way back to the new home which didn’t yet feel like home.  As we discussed what had transpired, I suddenly heard myself speaking words I had silenced for sometime.  They centered around my communication challenges with him, felt primarily whenever I hit that fragile emotional place.  The truth is, the deeper I hurt, the more I feel rejected by the one I love (and, in turn, by my own self).  When I’m clear, I know that Orion’s intent in those times is to fight back against my ego, to not let her run the show, and to not become condescending to the part of me that wants to believe this world is real.  I get that he has the highest intentions.  But none of me feels loved during this part of our dance, and it just came to a head in this particular conversation.  I still don’t know what it all means.  I heard myself tell him how devastating it is to feel danger when all I crave is love and warmth.  At the same time, I’m grateful for the really harsh way he treats me in those moments, because it forces to get me clear on what’s really going on, and look inside for unconditional love, not out.  So I’m not sure which part of me is really asking for him to be gentle with me.  And I’m not sure it’s a sincere request.  All I knew in that moment was – I have to tell him.  I have to tell him how much it hurts me to see his anger, his robotic, cold cold reflection, when I’m in my deepest breakdowns.

Then came today’s Sangha – our weekly Sunday meetings with our Enlightened Master, Mac.  Conversations always swarm around the absolute – about the true nature of reality.  Today was a special day – sparsely populated, very direct, very focused.  Orion is off flying to Shanghai, so I was the sole host.  One participant, the Poet – named as such because *everything* he speaks is poetry – talked about the Buddhist notion of “entering the stream”.  This is an act done by the individual who is willing to let down self – to enter the stream and be in the flow of life, not a driver.  No identity at all.  It isn’t enlightenment per say, but it is a stripping down – a willingness to be without ego.  A proverbial gesture of nakedness and vulnerability.  I buzzed as he relayed the notion, and willingly reentered the stream.

This day was magical.  As the Sangha ticked on, all but three of us left.  Guru Mac, Fire-Friend, and myself.  Mac even gave me a foot rub today, as we went deep into the nature of emotions.  I can’t even process how honored I feel to have had this experience.  And through the interchange today. . .I am just now realizing. . .I got my answer.

Mac helped me categorize emotions in a sense – to understand that they spring forth from one of four scenarios.

1) Phobias – the stories our minds create around fears (example – I’m afraid of cockroaches and totally freak out when one is near)

2) Psychosis – illogical, emotional responses to things that don’t even exist (example – My life is a mess because my fear of cockroaches permeates my every day experience)

3) Neurosis – the externalization of illogical fears (exampled – I won’t go in that house because it might have a cockroach)

4) Real (in the relative sense) – emotions that spring up because of actual life events

The first three are tricks – tactics the mind employs to maintain control, and to keep a grip on the perceived sense of reality.  The last one is the only logical place to let emotions run free.  If your dad dies, let your heart break.  If life is throwing you curve balls, let your emotional self feel whatever he / she needs to feel.  But if your mind is creating emotions that do not reflect what you know to be true in your circumstances, do not be fooled.

So I bring this back to my week with Orion.  I think in part our conflicts came from our inability to talk about what was really bothering us.  We projected on each other, rather than talk about the heart of the matter.  And my conversation with him regarding my apparent “needs” shows me the places in which I am not “in the stream”.  I basically voiced to Orion that his way of being didn’t fit my script.  I still say there’s real validity in needing to be treated with kid’s gloves on occasion, but *only* when than emotional need arises from real circumstances, not those created by my mind.

To put this in tangible terms:

What feels right, in the highest sense, is to feel safe and loved and nurtured when the shit hits the fan.  If my brother is dying of lymphoma, if the whole fucking world is imploding, than yes, please, show me some mercy until the floods subside.  But if I’m acting out from any of those phobic/psychotic/neurotic spaces, do not play my game.

It seems futile to dissect the past and analyze when Orion showed me that harshness and when he didn’t – I’m simply grateful for the clarity of where I stand emotionally.  This is all centered in self-integrity.  If I keep that in check at all times, then some part of me will know when the mind is playing an emotional game.  In those moments, if Orion reacts with toxic glances and out-lashes, it shouldn’t matter – nothing is as it seems at those times, and it would just be the ego who wanted to be protected.  That’s the rub, of course, because when I fall into the illusion, I do so because of my ego.  She’s extraordinarily crafty, and she wants to be validated – and is bloody sick of my “you are not real” light of truth.  But I feel like this is another big light in the realm of self-discovery – to insist that I be aware of the source of emotions.  I trust that what transpires between my partner and I will follow suit, and will reflect back exactly what I need.

A big blog post for a very big week.  Facing mortality, blowups with loved ones, footrubs from a guru.  That this is my life makes me eternally grateful.

“Waiting on Sunday to drown. . .”

(Tori Amos)

“Here we are on a journey from birth to death, with an opportunity to contribute a verse to the song of life. I want to sing of a deep awake world. I want to sing of a new tribe of compassionate, creative, wise, liberated, erotic, sublime, appreciative, unique individuals, living lucidly as one and many… If you do too, let’s sing together and raise the roof.”

How Long Is Now?, Tim Freke, 2009

A little over four years ago, on that first fateful date with Seeker, he gave me a copy of a little book called Lucid Living, by Timothy Freke.  I read it the following day in one sitting – only took about 30 minutes to digest, but the impact was profound enough to shift the course of my life for good.  It packs a punch, this little morsel, and I remember exactly where I read it (in bed, broad daylight, hungover from too much drinky with Seeker) and how I felt as I meandered through it (shocked, thrilled, awed, and holy shit – SAFE.)  The book outlines a little of life’s mystery – creating a beautiful metaphor between lucid dreaming, and our so-called “waking” lives.  It is audacious and yet loving, profound yet simple, and I started looking at my world in a new light after having read it.

Tim made such an impression with this bitty beast, I did a ton of research on the author himself, and found he had created a group called the Alliance for Lucid Living.  The ALL, for short, is a group that supports people who have found their way to this awakening – to bring us all together so we can keep talking the talk, and walking the same – with support and love.  I joined straight away, and started receiving the infrequent but magnificent emails.  I watched Tim’s schedule, noting that while he did all these intriguing workshops and talks, he didn’t do them often in the states, and never in a place I could actually attend.  As I read more of and about him, however, he quickly reached hero status to me – he’s written 31 books, has a freaking awesome, British sense of humor, and just absolutely exudes Big Love (one of his trademark phrases).  I was simply enamored with his mission to awaken people to their true natures – to show the door to the Oneness with such gentleness and humor.  And success.  He has legions of folks, myself included, testifying to the power of his philosophies.  His ideas are tried, tested, and true – I’m living proof.  He helped me wake up.

Then came the day I had been waiting for.  An ALL newsletter in the summer of 2009 revealed that Tim would be speaking at the Science and Non-Duality conference in San Francisco, and putting on a day-long retreat as well.  Orion and I made immediate plans to attend both, and we had an absolute blast.  The workshop did a number on me.  Not only did I start to really feel this space of Big Love that Tim talked so much about, I got to meet this Hero of mine.  Some of us even had dinner with him afterwards.  And as Orion and I sat talking to this remarkably humble, brilliant being, we said simply “Man, come to Vegas.  We need you out there.  We’re ready.”

A few months of correspondence transpired, and lo and behold – we actually inked this desert dream.  Tim and his long-time friend and assistant Anthony came to visit us last week, here to infuse Vegas with a big beautiful wake-up call.  I had one of my heroes STAYING IN MY HOME.  We spent the week together.  He makes it hard to hold him in hero-status, however, as he’s just so human.  So full of love and lacking all that superiority business.  I, at least, had a fucking fabulous time.  We had a sushi dinner to introduce him to the community, along with a local radio interview (which Orion and I were blessed enough to assist with.)  Then we had a Stand Up Philosophy events, another trademark of Tim’s, where he gave a teaser for the Main Event and gave people a glimpse into his insight and offerings.  It was a fantastic night.  50 or so seekers heard some truth, and felt a connection beyond their separate selves.  That would have been enough.  But the money shot was coming.

Last weekend, we hosted Tim’s famous Magical Mystery Experience workshop in our home.  20 folks from literally around the world (Mexico, Britain, Ecuador, Los Angeles, Las Vegas) joined us for a deep dive into the great mystery of life and love.  Tim combines a lot of revealing, insightful banter with a bunch of intensely beautiful exercises.  They all help each participant celebrate their separate consciousnesses (for without them, we would have no identity, and no ability to reflect and experience on what we *really* are, in that awesome oneness sense), and to step outside this space and into the realm of that glorious Big Love.  It’s a tough process to describe.  But oh my god is it ever powerful.  I cried a whole lotta happy tears all weekend.  I got to share this heart-exploding experience with some of my Very Favorite People (BFF + her Painter partner, Orion, several angels from Vegas, etc.).  And I absolutely, unequivocally fell more in love with myself, my friends, and the whole wide world.

Tim doesn’t pretend to have all the answers.  He’s refreshingly honest in the way he readily (and humorously) admits what he doesn’t know.  Which, as he states it, is just about everything.  But what he does is re-awaken us to the deliciousness of life, it’s very mystery and magic.  And he’s figured out a very gentle, hugely effective way to lift folks right up into the space of oneness – of complete and utter love like you’ve never experience.

Words simply cannot express how huge and awesome this weekend was.  Tim gifted us all with unspeakable awakenings, allowed us to bond and feel the oneness with each other, and just as precious to me, became a real friend to Orion and myself.  It’s quite a miracle when someone who literally changed your life from afar suddenly becomes a very real fixture in your waking world.  First Tori Amos, now Tim Freke – and this time it’s much more real.  I really couldn’t be more grateful.

We’re doing it again this September – we’ve tentatively chosen September 3-5 for the next big event – another Magical Mystery Experience, complete with a Standup Philosophy Event on Thursday, September 2nd.

If you gift yourself with only one consciousness exploration this year, this is really, truly The One.  I’m a retreat junkie – I’ve been to many experiences that are crafted to help wake us up to who we are.  But none are more powerful – in the most gentlest of ways – than Tim Freke’s Magical Mystery Experience.  This is a safe, intimate, heart-expanding experience, and everyone who came last weekend had a profoundly beautiful time.  We’d love to see you at the next one.  I’ll keep this blog updated with the next go-round, but seriously, set your travel plans now if you aren’t already in Las Vegas.  You deserve to know this love.  I sure as hell do, and every cell in my being is still rejoicing.

* Takes place in a remote retreat   * Men and women are separated at all times   * Retreat uses “noble silence” – this means we don’t utter a peep to each other during our stay, nor do we make eye contact.  This is to maintain a respectful vibe, and to allow us to fall deeply into our processes.   * We meditate for a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes a day, broken up only by meal breaks.  * Evenings include a 90 minute video discourse from Guru Goenka, the current enlightened master presiding over this process.

Going into this adventure, I’ll admit I was more than a little petrified.  I could barely eek out a solid 10 minute meditation, let alone a gargantuan 100+ hour 10 day meditation extravaganza.  As the day drew closer, so did my panic level.  But then a funny thing happened.  On the day we drove the four hours to our destination, I hit my most peaceful, surrendered, happy state.  I knew what I was about to experience would be colossal, challenging, beautiful and nightmarish.  But I found the space within that said Yes to it all, and thusly gifted myself with a graceful, joyous entry into the unknown.

The first night we arrived, we all had a last talkie-filled dinner, heard the instructions from a staff member, and hit the start of noble silence.  Along with the first meditation.  I hit my stride right off.  The first few days, actually, were easy-peasey.  I bounced around the campus with a vibrant grin, absolutely loving the vegetarian fare, the quiet pace, the delicious silence, and the very relaxed meditations.  For those first 3 1/2 days, all we did was focus on our breathing – specifically the area around our nostrils.  Anapana meditation, as it’s referred to – and oh my God, I just LOVED it.  I had gone into the Vipassana journey expecting serious rigidity – insistence on sitting still during the hour+ meditations, staff-hawks watching our every breath, bamboo rods smacking me when I had a twitch.  And none of this transpired.  It was an honor system, anything goes experience (minus talking, and the meditations WERE required) – I found it simply lovely.  Not easy, but awesome.  My ego was doing backflips.

On day four, dubbed “Vipassana Day”, the whole experience got kicked up about four trillion notches.  We learned the real Vipassana meditation technique, founded in core Buddhism, which involves the following:

* Observing sensations in every part of the body   * Sending our awareness part by part throughout the body, and noting what is  * Reaching a state of equanimity for all that is uncovered, whether or not the sensations are painful, pleasurable, or anything in between  * NOT MOVING ON IOTA FOR A FULL SIXTY MINUTES, NO MATTER WHAT

It’s the last one that got me.  I see myself as a fidgity, manic, energy-crazed creature who moves, almost all the time – even in sleep.  This is why meditation was always a challenge – I had an internal dialogue that told me I couldn’t sit still.  And it’s external as well – I’ve heard such feedback since I was a screechy tyke.  Going into the first 60 minute “Sitting of Strong Determination”, as they refer to these particular meditations, I was all aflutter.  I felt like there was no freaking way I could bang this out.  Not move for a full hour?  While scanning my body and remaining neutral to all sensations?  Shit – getting my dream threesome with Monica Bellucci felt far more probable.

And yet, I wanted it.  I wanted this victory so bad I was dizzy with my focus.  This meditation was a crucial one, because if I failed, I’d have resistance for the entire rest of my journey.  I needed to prove something to myself in a big, big way.  So I dropped the rest of the meditation technique for this particular sitting, and simply promised myself I wouldn’t move.  The entire 60 minutes, I ran one thing and one thing only through my over-active noggin: YOU ARE NOT MOVING.  There were profanities, as well as gentle guidance, included in the midst, but that was the gist of it.

Of course, I chose a position that would prove to be insanely painful in about, oh, 2.5 minutes.  Great.  An added challenge.  I took it all in with all this new gusto.  Nevermind the screaming pain in my right hip.  Forget about the intense muscle cramping in the lower back.  Just sit still, for chrissake, and show you have the cajones to get through what thousands before have done with ease.

When the meditation ended, I cried.  Seriously.  Because I had actually done it.  Not a muscle moved for the full 60 minutes.  No, I wasn’t exactly equanimous to the pain I had experience.  Nor was I above the absolute elation I felt to having accomplished my goal.  But all that was fine – I had laid the needed foundation.  I could freaking DO this.  Hot. Dog.

The rest of the retreat was a veritable roller coaster of emotional mayhem.  For the most part, I stayed in a very peaceful state.  But around day 8, ego started having a field day.  She was already screaming up a storm in the internal dialogue, having gotten wind of all this no-mind meditation crap.  She had long since been playing god-awful muzak on repeat in the headspace – shit like Lady Gaga played on repeat, at increasing volumes, despite my efforts to turn it off altogether.  But I understood her resistance.  I was taking away a big chunk of her power.

So she retaliated with annoying pop tunes and large doses of anger.  I wasn’t so fond of Guru Goenka’s evening discourses, nor his horrifically repetitive audio bookends to each meditation.  The man insists on chanting / spinging as entries into and exits out of each meditation, and I am not exaggerating when I say that is the WORST VOICE I HAVE EVER HEARD.  He plays it up for emphasis, too.  That’s how these enlightened chaps roll.  They live to torture our egos.  And I live to take it in

ANYway, I finished the retreat with flying colors, and was so, so proud to see how well Orion did too (although not in the least bit surprised.)  We had ourselves a grand contemplation during those 10 days, and left with heaps and heaps of satisfaction and gratitude.  As we drove home, we laughed about the egoic resistance, the fact that Orion almost got kicked out for exhibiting “unstable” tendencies (stories for another time – and man are they GOOD), and the wild things we witnessed internally and beyond.

We marked Vipassana as a very successful venture, right away.  Yet it wasn’t until 2-3 days later that we really started feeling the benefits.

Orion and I had a another awakening the Monday after we returned – one that actually happened *simultaneously*.  We had never experienced a unified transcendence before – and laughed later about how un-surprised we were that we had managed to manifest such a thing.  Anyway, as the no-mind state really started to permeate into our cells, we both experienced another layer of ego-death.  It was so magical and meaningful/less that I really can’t describe it.  But really, what we learned about Vipassana is that we really don’t know what happened there, on a mind-level.  It changed us, that’s for sure.  We got closer to the Truth, which is really the core reason why we do *anything* these days.

How this all relates to the now: I am deep into the awareness that I have been resisting this lessons in mass quantities during the last 30 days or so.  I have an earache, jaw pain, and several angry teeth that tell me this and more.  These are signs that my body has been talking oodles to me, and again, I have chosen not to listen.  Even though Vipassana taught me this was, in part, the path to enlightenment.  It starts in the body, and I feel that to be absolutely True.  So here I am, trying to ignore my pain and messages, trying to focus fully on the external world and ignore the main priorities – to transcend into the ethers of awareness and know the true nature of reality.

That’s what happens when I touch the sun – I fall back down to earth, and ego clings all the more ferociously.  I am grateful to my body for alerting me to my unconscious ways these days, and am taking steps to come back into the nothingness.  Meditation, shamanic journeys, and a heightened sense of awareness are all on the menu.  As always, it feels so lovely to wake up again.

Would I do another Vipassana?  Probably not.  I recommend it whole-heartedly to anyone who feels the calling.  For myself, I just didn’t jive with Goenka in any fashion, and feel a big block to going deeper with his teachings.  That said, I am *all* about the silent meditation retreat – and will actively seek out another opportunity to try something new in this space next year.  Feels like a lovely yearly tradition – to shut up for 10 days and listen to what is.  Maybe then I will learn to do so all year round.

“You want a love which is born out of meditation, not born out of the mind.”

- Osho

Like many angst-ridden goth-wannabe teens, I had a viscous streak of suicidal ideation.  It started through an innocent fascination with death, and before I knew it, I had actually named my suicidal thoughts “consumption”, as they were truly becoming all-consuming.  I wrote poems and short stories, and invariably, the main character would off him/herself in some dramatic fashion.  I was insanely drawn to dark art, films, books, etc. – anything that brought me into the deep reaches of the lowest imaginable notes.  I loved the dark side and shunned the light, often in a literal fashion (I was known to actually put aluminum foil on my windows to keep out any shred of light, at all times.)  As I got older, into my early twenties, this became a full-on obsession.  And yes, I played the role of a happy-go-lucky college student, which was in part quite genuine, but I was far, far more fond of that tortured, pain-ridden artist.  Alienated and misunderstood.  Really freaking serious about finally taking the bull by the horns and seeing what this afterlife business was really all about.

I know now, and knew then, that I wasn’t really serious.  It was just a game, just a role that I happened to have a true affinity for.  I did trip up a time or two in my effort to make others believe the dance, and came close to actually doing the deed.  But grace wouldn’t allow a tragic mistake.  Either that, or I’m smarter than I thought I was.  Whatever the reason, I’m still here, and as time wore on, the role got old.  I transformed into someone more fond of the higher notes.  I recognized the immaturity of my dark world-view, and started adopting something I deemed far more authentic.  Ayahuasca, too, helped kick out the old dark obsessions.  She showed me tangible results of what indulgences in such so-called “negative” forces really does.  Yes, it’s all divine.  Yes, it’s all God.  But I don’t have to live my life in complete desolation and misery.  And as it turns out, it’s way, way more fun to giggle and frolic.

Yet there’s a constructive, wonderfully uplifting aspect to my suicidal past.  Now that my path is more clearly illuminated, I suspect there was way more at work back in those days of consumption.  On the surface, it would seem that I was simply a sad little teenager, falling prey to the self-pity trap, and indulging in a role I really wanted to be true.  By claiming myself the wanting-to-die goth-girl, I kept the world at a distance, and freed myself from vulnerability.  I never had to admit to what I truly felt, in any moment, because I was too busy playing the part of the wanting-to-die pixie.  That’s not to say that I didn’t want out – sometimes in the worst way – I just know I over emphasized my sincerity, because there really was none with regards to the actual finality.  I have always, always loved living.  This is why I gravitated to all that dark, gut-wrenching expression – it actually made me feel.  And in a very real sense, that was living to me back then.

Today, I am a profoundly joyful woman very consciously on the path to enlightenment.  And lo and behold, there’s a hell of a lot of talk about dying in this beautiful game.  Enlightenment, it is said, represents the chance to die before you die.  To allow the very possibility of death, so one can lay down the ego and actually experience the true nature of who we are.  How exciting, then, that I get to bring back the old role.  Only this time, it actually has to be genuine.  But I’m not out to kill myself, really — I’m out to transcend the story of myself.  This is WILD.  And WONDERFUL.  Full circle doesn’t even cut it.  I’d like to think that old me was really on to something.  That I was playing out this desire for liberation long before I ever knew what it was, and what was possible (not that I really know yet – the finger is just pointing ever closer to the moon.)

There’s even more delicious irony in all of this too.  All of my enlightened teachers caution that suicide is not a viable choice.  This puzzled me at first, because as I hear them speak it, once you self-realize, you recognize that this is all a dream-state game.  So why would one’s choice of an exit actually matter in the least?  I can’t say I know know, but this is starting to make sense.  The state that you are in when you finally do exit your body is integral to the experience you create when you reach the next state.  Whatever that will be.  I’ve heard others express this before and it has (and still does) confused me a bit.  That means to me that if I’m struck by a car tomorrow, out of the blue, and go out in a state of traumatic resistance, I’ll immediately be thrust into a similar repeat.  Seems a little unfair to punish the unaware, right?  Well, there’s the rub.  There is no such thing on the highest level.  In other words, if that is my fate tomorrow, I had that in the cards all along.  I, the higher self, the master of this manifested existence.  It may not be my time to “wake up” and become enlightened.  It may in fact be a life that I need to learn more lessons seeped in trauma.  Of course I hope this is not the case, but hope doesn’t amount to shit in this game

So where’s the moral of this story?  First of all, kudos to the old self for recognizing that the willingness to let it all go – to truly die – is actually a golden ticket.  And even more kudos for having the wisdom to not actually do the deed – to just cultivate that willingness, and continue the game of the dream-life.  Nowadays, I choose to nurture the willingness to detach and let grace lead me where she will.  Pranananda has said to me before – Your life is not your own.  That’s starting to make an amazing amount of sense.  It does not belong to the egoic self that wants to drive the boat.  My life is the divine.  It is not, and can never be, my way.  Because “my”, in that little ego-sense, doesn’t even exist.  And so I shall enter my Tantric meditation tonight, in full willingness to embody my divine-identity Kali, and drop the story of me in the most complete fashion available in this current energy realm I’m swimming in.  That is to say, I’m off to die.  Or at least to practice.

God.  Wow, what a powerful word.  It’s one of those word-bombs that almost always elicits some sort of response in folks.  Heart-stopping reverence.  Stomach-turning resistance.  Even God -apathy is stronger than an army tank.  Whatever emotion you have when you hear / speak the word, it’s likely to be potent.

I’ve run the gamut of responses to the G word.  Growing up, I was a devout, very sincere Catholic girl (no uniform, sorry).  I was confirmed in high school, and gladly drank my blood-of-Christ Catholic koolaid.  I was a eucharistic minister, altar girl, and overall Good Christian.  Until the hypocrisy as I saw it was revealed after a friend’s suicide in college.  I eventually found that Catholicism didn’t support who I came to be, so I exited stage left and never looked back.

After this stage, God became a dirty word.  I detested the reference, because with it came the baggage I had carried from the guilt of a failed Catholic.  That was my story back then, and it stuck for years and years.  In order to heal the anger / betrayal I carried from those early years (all made up in my mind, of course, but it felt real at the time), I had to make God a swear word – something I developed a figurative allergy too.

Yet the secret truth is, all this while, I prayed my little heart out.  I stayed very, very connected to “my” version of God – a less human, more altruistic, awareness-laden God.  Yet I didn’t call Him / Her by that three-lettered name, as it still represented an omnipotent, scary-strict, angry fellow who would cast me into hell for batting the wrong eyelash unless I asked someone wearing a collar for forgiveness.  So while I still held tight to my notion of a greater energy beyond my human frame, I didn’t have the heart to call it God back then.  The word I most adored during those days – The Universe.  It came to match a more story-less, warm + fuzzy vibe, and that worked for me.

Nowadays, The Universe is just too small a word, and I’m right back to loving it up with God.  Only He / She has morphed into something / someone more recognizable : me.  Not the small egoic me, but the “big” I, the one connected to the universal consciousness.  The part of me that is pure awareness, and not a conjured fairy tale.  The only piece that’s truly real.

How this happened is really magical.  It really started when I met ex-boyfriend Z.  He and I connected on MySpace, of all places, and it was just an insanely “right” union from the get-go; one of those clear moments that “higher” forces were at work.  That’s how it felt then – that my hands had come off the steering wheel and something really big had just been sparked.

Z introduced me to the concept of enlightenment, and I took to it like a manically hungry child.  Eventually, I got to meet Pranananda, an enlightened master who has dedicated His life to helping us all wake-up.  Pranananda absolutely enchanted me, and scared the bejeezus out of me too.  The Man carries an *incredibly* tangible energy, something that still makes me shake every time I’m around Him.  He’s the most “Godly” gentleman I had ever come across.  But there was one troubling aspect – He used the word God.  A LOT.  A bazillion times per sentence sometimes.  And it drove me a little batty.  How could this new beautiful paradigm of enlightened spirituality use the same word I once ran full speed away from?

Of course, Pranananda uses the term God regularly because He knows it pushes our collective buttons.  Just hearing the name uttered brings up the shit we’re trying to hide from, quite often, and P asks us to really look at what we’re feeling around this (and, really, every) matter.  What that did for me – well, I felt that pain of separation that I had created.  First, the idea that spirituality had ever done anything to hurt me – I had to cry that one out in a big way.  It was untrue, of course, but I held it to be so for a long, long time, so there was a big release that had to occur.  Secondly, I got the chance to redefine the word God.  To see / feel it in a different light.  And to realize there was no man in the sky ruling over our every move, or watching without compassion, or moving us around like chess pieces – whatever it is that we believe.  No, God was much, much closer than that.  He was deep inside me, radiating out of the eyes I peered through.  Hiding in those spaces I thought were empty – waiting for me to wake up to the reality that there was no separation from “me” and divinity.

The funny part of this awakening was that it did actually have its roots in my Catholic upbringing.  I remember the bible teaching me that God made men (and women) in his likeness.  I should have taken a clue right there to the Truth.  Of course He did, right?  There is nothing that is not God.  The bliss we feel when we’re connecting with love – that’s God, of course.  The hatred we hold for the bastard that broke our heart – also God.  The breath of newborn baby – that reeks of God.  But so does the gum wrapper someone just tossed on a railroad track.

As I came to own the divinity of all things, I had no choice but to finally look within.  It’s a scary thing for me, honestly – holding myself as that powerful and Godly.  It’s such a dramatic shift from the old way of being.  When you accept yourself as all-God, and nothing but, you don’t get to hold anything back.  There is no longer a spectrum of comparisons – in other words, my compassion = God, but my anger does not.  No, it’s all-encompassing.  And that’s very confusing for the traditionally programmed mind.  When I step back into the big view, however – wow does it ever make sense.  Every thought I’ve had, every move I’ve made, every tear I’ve cried. . .has brought me to this moment.  The realization of who I really am.

Peel back that pesky little ego – which is, of course, comprised only of the stories we choose to tell ourselves – and there we all are: God.  Not Gods and Goddesses – that’s an important distinction.  We aren’t our own brand of divinity – we are just IT.  From Hitler to Gandhi, and everything in between.  We are all here acting out our passion plays, playing our amazing life-games, so that we can wake up to what’s real.  What’s real is awareness, and awareness IS God.  It’s an absolutely gorgeous realization – and one that sometimes (still) terrifies me.  I am not fully realized, but these things I speak of I feel very, very deeply.

I do know there’s still a story or two inside me that tells me this isn’t true.  If they weren’t there, I would be enlightened.  I still play the separation game, maintaining that pieces of me are disconnected from the whole of divinity.  As much as I can intellectualize that this isn’t the case, my state of being proves that I haven’t surrendered to the truth just yet.  And there’s no guarantee I ever will.

Lately, I’ve noticed a bit more sleepiness in my way of being.  I have been more immersed in the Maya than in past days / weeks.  And that showed up today via chest pains and a general agitation from things that normally make me coo and melt – namely, the God-cat Mr. Boo.  So I allowed myself the luxury of a brief but deep meditation, and I found a piece lingering in there that still desired that old separation.  Why, I asked her?  Why hold tight to the notion that we are separate, alone, and not-so-divine?  Because, she answered – if I know wholly and completely that all I am is God, “I” will die.  I teared up and sent her an energetic hug.  I keep forgetting that there’s a piece of me that does need to die in order for this transcendence to occur.

So this was a good reminder, this light shone on the fear of death.  It’s an ego death, not a body death, but it feels like the real thing.  It really, really does.  And there’s nothing I can do about that but keep feeling the genuine love I have for myself, and keep going deeper into the ownership of the falseness of the ego.  The ego, too, is of course God as well, but she has to totally let go in order for grace to step in.  Maybe that’ll happen, maybe it won’t.  One thing I do know – I’ll die trying, one way or another.  All roads lead to God anyway, so I have nothing to lose.

What a word, that.  God.  I wonder what it will mean to me tomorrow.

Back on the eve of Christmas Eve, I found a rare quiet, completely solo night to myself, and felt it right to go deep with the plants again.  My previous Huachuma ceremony was my only to-date solo excursion with Grandfather Wisdom / San Pedro, and I felt like I learned volumes about the energies, especially when it came to me as conductor.  I was ready for round 2.

As always, I set intentions and created a sacred space for going in.  I felt it wise to keep intentions simple and direct this time, and asked the spirits to just show me truth – whatever that might be mean.  I had hit a big wall mentally as of late, and was bloody sick of my mind’s insistence that *she* knew the truth.  I wanted to consult with a higher source.  With that, I gulped down the vile concoction, lit my candles, laid out the mesa (display of sacred items that are used as powerful portals in-ceremony) and hunkered down for the reveal.

Right away, my head kicked into turbo mode.  She had a lot of input on this whole truth matter.  And all of it, out of the gate, was pretty freaking negative and constrictive.  She started making a laundry lists of all my blocks – the reasons I could not yet own the truth, and why it was only a dialogue in my head.  Observer-me disagreed.  We countered with a readiness, an openness, an insistence that no, higher self is ready to show herself.

Mind was having none of that.  She showed her muscle in full effect.

I kept trying to surpass the mind chatter, to dive deeper into the present moment.  But all my mind wanted to do was jerk me into the past or the future.  I curled up by the fireplace, eyes closed and contemplative, but internally, a bloody war bubbled up. Here was some sample chatter:

“The problem is you’re too damn lazy to advance past where you’re at, you hardly ever workout or meditate and besides that those things don’t work, it’s just banter from wanna-bes that masquerade as gurus, and you know better but even still you couldn’t be a guru, it’s not your time, there’s karma to pay for and the like, and you don’t even believe in karma, so good luck with that, because sheesh we are such posers, such a fake little role-player, even when you think you’re being real it’s just a game just a game just a game.”

To which another I within would respond “That’s not true!  SHOW ME TRUTH!”

We played this game for eons.  A few hours or more.  I had some poignant moments at the altar / mesa, but I started really illuminating the hamster in the wheel, spinning along in my humdrum head, trying to keep me from being present.  I felt that anchoring myself deep into the present moment would take me right into the heart of Huachuma’s power, and that I could find my real answers there.  So I scampered upstairs to the bedroom, turned off all the lights, slipped on a blindfold, and fell into sivassana – my favorite meditation pose.  Lying on my back, palms up to the skies, body relaxed and surrendered.

The games continued in my mind, even in this sincere effort to just relax and escape the brain banter.  Instead, she kicked it up another notch.  This time, she hit me with a challenge.

“I’ll show you what’s true.  I’ll show you I’m in control.  I’ll make your cell phone ring.”

“Bullshit you will, I turned my cell phone off when I came up here.”

On cue, the cell rang, and I about freaked out.  I didn’t pick it up, but stared intently at the unknown number.  Then I yelled my demand.

“Leave a message, and it better be TRUE!”

The voicemail bell chimed, and my heart freaked out.  I played the message and had to laugh at the irony.  

It was static.  Nothing but fuzz.  1 1/2 minutes of white noise.  At least we were getting closer – that felt more honest than the nonsense that had been stewing in the mind space all night, so I felt like progress had been made.

Back in meditation mode, things really got dicey.  I could not get around my mind.  She would lead me down a rabbit hole, baiting me with what felt like a real-time revelation, but before I knew it I’d be spelling out a grocery list, fretting about the upcoming Vipassana retreat, lamenting the lack of Orion’s naked body in the bed, on and on and on some more.  But as this volume exploded within, so did a few nuggets of wisdom.

“You can’t beat your mind at her game.  You’re using your mind to chase your mind – she’ll find darker and deeper holes to hide in, and you’ll never cease this game.  Don’t fight fire with fire.”

That, and:

“Use the tools you have in this illusion to *escape* the illusion.”

That one got me.  I had avoided calling on the spirits nestled in my objects of power, because I have come to own the true illusion of this maya-world.  But it struck me that these entities were no more or less real than, say, Orion.  Or Mac.  Or Pi.  And i”m aces at using them to help me out of the madness, so why not extend this to all the manifestations I have gifted myself with?

Yes, that was making serious sense.  And that simply meant I needed to take off the blindfold, go down to the mesa, and use Huachuma in the highest way possible.  With eyes and heart wide open.  Enough with the mind war.

I grabbed the book on my nightstand as I descended the stairs  - “Enlightenment for Beginners” by Chuck Hillig.   That seemed relevant.  I then turned on the Adyashanti recordings Orion had recently burned for me – tuned in to the “Direct Path” dialogue.  I had all guns a-blazin — tools to the hilt.

Truth was hitting me from all sides.  Adya talked about the blazing obsession with truth the most sincerest members of the spiritual path tend to uncover, and I resonated like a mad-woman.  He coupled that with the inevitable “aloneness” stage that hits fast and furiously, and I felt the tears flow as I knew that all too well.  Then I thumbed through Chuck’s book.  Holy cow did that do a number on my head.  It is a brilliant unfolding of – OMG – the truth of who we are!  The way we’ve projected every aspect of our worlds – the movie, the move screen, the projector, and the space between!  

And yet, eegawds, I was not satisfied.  Because it only felt like my mind was in the game – trying to insert herself into the “realness”, when in fact she was the ego-generated, and thus part of the illusion.  And so I didn’t *feel* this truth – it was only be intellectualized.  

But that would have to be enough.  I spent 8 hours in ceremony, tearing down the walls of illusion, and the end result was both profound and meaningless.  Yes, I owned into the core of my being that my mind does not hold the path to enlightenment – she will never share anything but relative truths.  And yes, I once again confirmed that I am – we all are – part of one masterful, God-head awareness.  And that I wasn’t any more or less enlightened than Jesus – I just wasn’t ready to step into that full realization.  I could feel him, and all the other masters, calling to me, whispering “wake up wake up wake up” into my ear, and yet – that block.  That ceiling.

I laughed it off and said thank you to my spirit friends for showing me all this and more.  I couldn’t force it – another priceless message.  My wanting truth wasn’t enough – I had to own my own integrity in every single moment, stay present and detached, and let grace do her thing – if, and when.

Tough lessons, but beautiful all the same.  I climbed back into bed exhausted, brow-beaten, but a little bit wiser in the heart-space.  And ready to get up the next morn and keep on keepin’ on.

“I run into your thought from across the room
Just another trick
Can I weather this
I’ve got a fever above my waist
You got a squeeze box on your knee
I know the truth is in between the 1st and 40th drink”

-Miss Tori A

Two very distinct and paradoxical reasons have kept me from blogging lately:

1) So bloody much has happened it’s daunting to try and cover all the ground in a genuine, detailed fasion

2) Much of what keeps transpiring is from the space where words cannot go, so how does the unreal ego / identity self truly convey what is?  She can’t, she won’t, and yet it’s so cute how she tries.

Here I am, trying.  Playing in the illusion of the word space.  *splishy splashy*

Shpongle is playing – “Botanical Dimensions”.  Appropriate and inspirational.  Here I go.

I will soon post a full report on the latest Huachuma adventure, #7.  I cannot dishonor the massive revelations by making them footnotes.  Likewise, I recently returned from a ridiculously profound 11 day silent meditation retreat, following the Vipassana technique.  That’s gotta be at least 2 big downloads.  For now, I’ll just speak what is, in this space, in this smattering of awareness.  

First, the “apparently” tangible spaces: big changes.  Huge.  Happy, scary-in-a-good-way, heart thumping cliff dives.  I left the current day job today – a space I’ve been truly joyful in, challenged, and appreciated for well over two years.  As far as office jobs go, this has been my favorite.  I have never had an office environment that allowed me to be who I am before, in complete freedom and acceptance.  That’s been huge, as it’s provided the space for me to go deep into the enlightenment game, and not make any apologies along the way.  Sure, they’ve labeled me a bit strange in these parts, but I can’t think of a place that wouldn’t be true.  Except in Sunday Sangha, the weekly spirit-family that talks nonsense and yet understands each other.  Yum.

But something found me literally out of the blue these last few days – an opportunity that felt so all-over right, I had to jump in.  I’m now VP of Production for an online children’s content group.  I’ll be working *remotely*, from my happy little home space, on beautiful, uplifting, feel-good projects for little people.  The team I’ve connected with (only via phone thus far) are absolutely stellar beings, and I’m overjoyed at the intense challenge, and the chance to do it all from my sacred space.  This will mean more face time with Orion and Hijo, and *that* is worth it’s weight in diamond dust.  The new occupational adventure begins.

The other big news – I’m finally diving headfirst into Tantra.  This is a path that has been on my radar since teenage-dom, truly, but it’s never called loud enough for me to go full-on.  I can’t even say I understand one iota of what I’m getting into, but like the job above, it just feels right.  Pi has kindly taken on the role of teacher for those of us interested in taking on the task, and I’m melting with gratitude for what I feel this means.  Getting closer to him, to Orion, to myself, to God.  All the same, all different – all just freaking awesome.

I know that Tantra will / is shaking up my paradigm of sexuality too.  I know that I will enter into energetic spaces that are powerful and vastly unfamiliar.  This is another step in the self-transformation – dropping the identity to become divine.  I finally have a partner that makes this feel real, safe, possible – in every way.  So why not, you know?  The energies are calling.  I know this will require surrender like I have never known – just what Ayahuasca has been preparing me for.  Integrity in the truest sense.  A willingness to go deep into the emotional spaces.  So in addition to the Jnana Yoga fun I embark on every week with the spirit-family, and almost every waking moment with Orion, I’ve got a new game to play.  One that requires me to use my body to transcend.  That’s the big daunting prospect, as we have only recently become friends.  I am finally in the place of feeling mad-comfortable without clothes.   I used to refuse to look at my naked body in the mirror, and now I look to her with fondness and love.  Shower her with compliments and acceptance.  That alone is a miracle, so what does Tantra have for me next?  Woof, I can’t imagine.  But all systems go anyway.  It’s really starting to get fun in these parts.

I did my first Tantric ceremony this weekend, solo, building a mini-temple in my bedroom and practicing new meditation methods and body affirmations.  Lots of time spent naked, laying in front of a mirror, being with what is instead of what I want to be, body-wise.  And finding such a peace, such a vast amount of gratefulness, for the image that is reflected.  I saw how it wasn’t “me” that I was looking at, just this lovely house that has agreed to carry this energy for a duration.  Knowing that my body is the only thing that is mortal, I’ve suddenly felt such a softness for her, such a need to take good care and spoil her while I can.  Enough with the horrendous thoughts about her imperfections – we had over 3 decades of that.  Time to play a different game.

There’s a rightness to all these big shifts, a sense that I’m a tiny piece of popcorn about to explode to the next fluffy level.  There can’t be any knowingness of what that actually means, but all senses are buzzing with approval.  I’m right where I need to be, following the intuitive guidance system, and feeling my heart open more and more.  Knowing there is no “I”, only a We.  All of us, one masterful God, pretending to play separate games, pretending that there is anything other than divinity in our midst.  Silly humans.  We do love a good acting shenanigan.  But my favorite part – unraveling that game.  Full exposure.  All naked and shivering, starring into the light of what is – and isn’t.  

As a woman in this Tantric dance, I get to be the darkness.  The room by which the energy enters.  Woman is the environment in the sexual act, the part of the duo that holds the space and allows the light to enter.  There is no light without darkness – darkness is always there, holding court, wrapping its arms around illumination, and everything in between.  The space where everything and nothing dwells.  What an honor to hold that capacity, to get to own that knowingness as Orion and I see each other as Divine.  Not just in our minds, but with all of our beings.  I can’t think of any greater adventure – to use our bodies in order to leave our bodies.  Oooh, tingles.  

*Flittering away*. . . .

“If heaven and hell decide / that they both are satisfied

Illuminate the “no’s” on the vacancy signs,

If there’s no one beside you / when your soul embarks,

I will follow you into the dark.”

- Death Cab

As we noodle down the treacherous and oft overwhelming path ala enlightenment, many of us pound our heads against spiky walls out of sheer paradoxical frustration.  It seems every luminous enlightenment being speaks a different language.  Sometimes it feels like no one is really pointing at the same moon – that this is all a crazy game with no real ending.  That there is no such thing as realization at all.

And yet, when dropping the logical constructs of the mind, there is more than just a something there, drawing me into its womb-like clutches.  What is it, really?  I don’t know.  But I’m learning one alarmingly simple yet devastatingly challenging way to get there.  I have a lot of wise teachers feeding me equal doses and beauty and bullshit, and in their cryptically direct banter, I’ve found one radiant consistency.  Mac said it this weekend, and I’ve heard Pi and Pranananda say pretty much the same thing – whatever (or whomever) you choose to get you there, it doesn’t matter.  Just surrender.  Completely.

Just.  Surrender.  Hah.  Just like I (think) I know what enlightenment is not, I’ve uncovered a million ways / reasons / opportunities to *not* surrender.  I have never fully surrendered to a lover.  I never surrendered to authority of any kind – parental, priestly, etc.  Ayahuasca, though she’s given me no reason not to, has never felt me hand it *all* over to her.  There’s always a shred or more held back – just in case.  To keep the illusion of control.  To have a tether into this world, into my mind, in case this is all just a load of baloney and I give away everything – thoughts, heart, breath, life – for a naive, selfish notion that there’s something more.

But here’s the rub.  I have been granted a whole gaggle of spiritual experiences.  Ayahuasca has shown me the primal energies from which I came from – the golden threads that lead all the way back to the beautiful nothingness.  Huachuma showed me my true God reflection in the face of a sacred stone in Peru.  I have *almost* dropped the “i” now on several occasions, becoming the all – and feeling what it is to be the movie, the projector, the observers and the space in between all three.  And no matter how strong my ego becomes, no matter how much that uncertainty wants to scream out her cautions – I don’t believe them.  I don’t believe much of anything anymore.  But I do know there’s more beyond what “I” know.  

I can’t stop what’s coming.  It’s inconceivable to me to go back to the unconscious self.  I’m not really in the state of seeking, but I sense with an insatiable magnetism that there is more to know.  I travel deep into my heart space an unequivocally realize there’s nothing else for me but this.  Not awakening itself, necessarily. but the walk to greet her.  The willingness to own my divinity.

Mac told us last week to stop calling this enlightenment – to hold it as liberation instead.  This facilitated a great shift in me later that week – I came to know in every cell that absolutely nothing about me has to change in order to awaken.  Nothing.  I don’t have to be less egoic or more pious and meditate 20 hours a day or eat raw vegetables with unsoiled hands.  There is nothing I have to do or be, because nothing about me dictates this liberation.  It was a massive relief, a huge opening that allowed me to feel whole and complete.  I could have hugged myself.  Instead, I stared at my reflection in Orion’s beautiful eyes and felt the truth.  This is who we are.  And it’s in those eyes that I found a key.

This game is all about surrender.  And while I understand it doesn’t matter what you surrender to, as long as you do it completely, I realize my mind isn’t going to accept just any authoritative illusion.  I intend to work on surrendering to everything and everyone in every moment, but in order to amp up the game, I’ve chosen two very specific targets.

One is obvious – ayahuasca.  I’ve danced with her almost 2 dozen times now, and I know we have more time to know each other.  I can conceive of a complete willingness to surrender to her chaotic yet nurturing strength.  But those opportunities are scarce – a few times a year or so.  Still, I feel in my heart she can take me there.  I know that *anything* can, it’s just that I feel I can convince my mind to give me one minute of freedom – to hold her breath, and that of my body, and surrender to death by the vine, in order to let light in.  Yes, we can do that.

The other is, in many ways, far more terrifying.  I’m in tears just feeling the very real willingness, and the very real fear – the former from heart, the latter from mind.  I will surrender to Orion.  Not him as a human, per se – as an unreal ego – but as my connection to Shiva.  I can’t remember a single time in the last (almost) year that I’ve known him where I’ve been able to see anything but his greatness.  I have never known a more pure and unconditional love.  I trust his intention, I trust his own connection to divinity – and so, I can’t shy away.  We’ve started practicing tantra together – a very respected yogic path to enlightenment – and I feel as though. . .well, we’re on to something.  It’s both thrilling and horrific.  Whee.

Kat – the name I have for my little egoic self – is so fucking scared of this.  But in a moment of incredible clarity this weekend, I was able to pacify her long enough to open a huge portal for us.  I gave him complete freedom to be who he is.  I dropped the restrictions previously agreed upon in our bond, with respect to sexuality, and asked him to just be.  Integrity is still integral, but rules no longer apply.  And although I shake at times when I realize what this could mean, I also know that this is part of my divine surrender.  I trust the universe (me) to manifest the best possible outcome for us both.  But if I tell God I want it my way only, there’s nothing else He / She / We can do but give it to way I demand.  I’m past that now.  In this relationship, I will not be ruled by fear.

So there I’ve done it – dropped all sense of security and yet, at the same time, promised to throw my all into surrendering to this, my partner and love – the God that he is, and the God that I can allow him to show me.  Kat is so fearful she’s barely uttered a protest.  It’s paralyzing and beautiful.  There’s such a rightness to this act that I feel a glow inside, way deeper than any perceived tremble.  

I want and deserve my pot of gold, should the universe see fit.  And I’m showing Her I’m willing to drop *all* attachments to awaken.  I guess that’s why they call it liberation.  Just the act of doing so makes me feel so much closer.

Calling for my soul / At the / Corners of the world – (Tori Amos)

Artwork by Kari Minnick

I’m in a perpetual “wha?” state as of late, more than a little flummoxed by the odd energies I’ve fallen into.  My chosen perspective in the highest sense is to embrace said-frustration, say yay to my mass confusion, and transcend the urge to, well, feel it.

That only feels like half the story, however – like I’m ignoring a chance to dance through the whole spectrum.  So allow me to indulge in the ambiguity.

Sheesh, it’s so ambiguous, in fact, that I hardly know where to begin.  I’ll go first to my feelings.  I am absolutely submerged in the duality of emotions.  There’s someone I feel rather threatened by – his energies / message feel harsh and egoic to me these days, if I’m speaking from one of my many perspectives.  On the other hand, I can see the self-projection of this reaction clear as day, own it as my own distortion, and cease to view him in any other light but that of divinity.  And when I ask myself – which one is true?  Is he full of shit and spouting mindless drivel?  Or is he a sage showing me wisdom and self-illumination?  Self answers – why yes, he is!  Both of these and neither of these!

To which I say – Grrrrr.

Conversations have been laden with miscommunications lately, and they’re not normally even my own.  I have watched over a dozen times this week as people interpret statements in multiple ways – none of which mirror how I see things.  I realize that’s always, always happening, and I’m simply casting a light on this revelation.  We humans, damn, we just don’t communicate well.  We pretend to, in all earnestness, but because our own little world view is so incredibly snowflake-unique, we just can’t see it any other way but our own.  So we walk around understanding on a higher level (although not always in tune with such things) and pretending to understand on the mind-level.  It’s a very interesting game.

Last night I had a dream involving Hubby (a best friend in LA who was always been my “gay husband” – in other words, my intimate other half that is repulsed by my plumbing).  We were talking about a major life decision I was trying to make – whether or not to accept a job at Disney (where we both first met – and BTW, this job offer is entirely fictional.  I am not poised to return to Mouse-hell). I surmised with Hubby whether or not accepting the job would give me a color on my rainbow-colored easel.  In my dream-world, everyone carried around a flat easel-like object covered in fabric that reminded me of the outside of a tennis ball.  When a decision was made that allowed for personal growth and transformation, one got a color on their easel.  That was my focus in the dream – I didn’t want to do anything that would be, in essence, colorless.

Hubby challenged this.  He mused that I cared only about gaining colors, not about living.  He stated he had no clue how many colors his easel had, as it wasn’t his concern.  He just wanted to be present, to live, to be happy and suck the marrow dry.  I got this perspective, and then started discussing the “game within a game” concept – that coloring in my easel was equal in meaning to not coloring in my easel – it’s all the same in the end, regardless.  The act of gaining colors was just a distraction for my mind, something for her to focus on, as real transcendence occurred.  Hubby stated I spent more time helping others get colors than filling in my own, anyway, and I challenged him there – stating there was no difference between a color on, say, Seeker’s easel (he also appeared in the dream – a very prominent ex-boyfriend) than one on mine – it was all mine, ultimately.  That whole oneness thing.

The dream really hammered into the heart of my confusion.  It’s as if all this effort, all these hopes and dreams and truth-tellings and heart-pours – they are all, in the highest sense, meaningless.  I will return to the source and achieve enlightenment whether or not I always tell the truth.  Choose to be a murdering freakfest or hug it out with one and all.  It’s all. . . the same.  I’m just looking for the right distractions that divert my attention long enough for the *real* truth to float on in with any sort of staying power.  But even then – hell, I’m not sure that works either.  

It’s all about intuition, at the end of the day, and I guess that’s where I’m lost.  I have a hard time deciphering between bona fide internal knowingness and the often uber-convincing egoic chatter.  Kat, my alter EGO, talks a *very* good game – she often masquerades as the enlightened one, as she so desperately wants to be in on the secret.  And can’t be.  So, until I get very, very clear on which Me is attempting to guide the proverbial bus, I suppose confusion is the delicious dish I must just feast on, with gratitude.

So, yay for the head-spinning WTF is happening outcries.  I’d like to see my mind get so worked up over the inexplicable little world I’ve now adopted that she just implodes already and lets the God-head take over.  I’ll keep being confused by what it is I’m actually trying to do.  I’ll keep feeling confused about what teachers are telling me, the games Orion is playing, and the various voices in my manic being.  

Down deep, I can admit – I get it.  Somehow, some way, it’s clear.  I don’t have the words – they can’t access this knowingness.  And so those words that do appear speak only of the small mind.  This I know.  Illumination doesn’t come through the mind, which is the source of all words – so just know that if you could sit across from me now, if we could see each other. . .we may echo our confusions, but a good old-fashioned eye-lock would reveal something vastly different.  We could hold each other as mirrors for just a moment, and see that we do, in fact, Know.

Now that’s a revelation.

It’s a phrase that has been running in my noggin incessantly these days — “Nothing is as it seems.”

But what does that mean, exactly?  What am I trying to tell myself with this bizarre little nugget of wisdom?

It came to me today.  During coffee with a new / old soul that has already transformed me.  I’ll call her Shakti.  She has been integral to my most recent unraveling, and the profundity is starting to materialized.  Lest I think that this mind I’m wrestling with isn’t a powerful beast – I had another borderline mental breakdown last week, involving perceived infidelity and a wild little spiral, of which Shakti helped to orchestrate, albeit unknowingly.

Orion is a tough one to be in love with, from an ego’s perspective.  He does not feed me “forever baby” bullshit, as we are now-focused beings that don’t dare promise anything of tomorrow.  I am also aware of his adventurous past, and he’s wonderfully honest about his desires and intrigues.  To sum it up, the boy is very sexual, very *very* charming /attractive / magnetic, and he isn’t brainwashed by the typical monogamous “supposed to do” programming.  These are all things I positively adore about him, in the highest sense, but a comfortable ego they do not make.  Also a stroke of perfection, as it allows me to be uber-honest with myself about my fears and insecurities.  If I try and project that stuff on him in a distorted fashion, he has none of it – just a neon sign that says “that shit don’t work here, yo”.  And so if I want harmony and honesty with him (which, of course, I really do), then I must only be truthful about what *I’m* experiencing, and not so quick to blame one smidgen on him.  There is no him in the grand scheme anyway, righto?

And so it goes that a week or so back, I decided to freak myself out.  I came home from work after an estranged day of communication with Orion (only my perception, mind you) to find he wasn’t home.  Unusual for that hour.  And my first instinct, clear as a church bell, was that Orion was spending time with Shakti.  I called him, he answered, and guess where he was?  Yup, at her house.  I promptly hung up and dove into my ego’s projections.  He’s cheating.  Found greener pastures.  Connecting with someone who can hand me my ass in the spiritual space.  There goes the house of cards.

I lay down in bed in a meditation pose and went deep into these stories, without resistance.  My body shook, my heart slammed away inside, and my head went on a wild ride.  I felt myself saying internally that I deserved this anyway, that this was karma.  But I allowed myself, every so briefly, to believe the story – Orion was with another woman.  I felt it with every cell.  

And then I laughed out loud.  Hysterically.  Belly shaking laughter that ripped me out of my meditation and back into the Maya, this time with a new point of view.

It took the rest of the evening to totally dismantle the false programming, and a really wonderful heart-connected talk with Orion, where I confessed the whole shebang.  But by then, I saw what was *really* happening.  My mind tried to paint me a picture of infidelity, in order to finally get me back under her spell.  Orion is often the villain during those power plays, as no one has ever supported my ascension more than him.  Once again, I came to know how nothing is what it seems – and that’s just the tip of the spirit-berg.

This all helps me recall a moment after the second Ayahuasca ceremony – my cracking open experience.  I had finally pulled myself out of the devastating funk I had fallen into that day, and fell in step beside Denise, a lovely wise woman from Colorado.  I don’t recall which one of us said it first, but we lamented on how “normal got erased last night.”  And then we laughed at the concept and the truth of it all.  We would never see things the same way again.  That has proved to be mind-shatteringly true.

Coming back to Shakti, as I sat across from her today and heard he sincerely tell me she loves me and trusts me, I could only grin and sincerely tell her the same.  This is the other piece of the puzzle, of course – ego wants me away from her as well.  She’s very, very powerful – more in the ownership of her divinity than just about any other woman I have met.  She and I are starting a very electric bond now, and the depths of where we will likely go together is not something I can begin to put my head around.  I know this, and therefore understand how it is I tried to keep her away with a wildly false made-up tale.  

Fear is a tricky one.  But I’m finding the corners where she dwells in, blasting her with the light of integrity.  I will not be tricked out of my awakening.  Writing that makes my head buzz, my eyesight brighten, my skin spring up in awareness.  I will not hold myself back from my divinity.

Getting in the car after the coffee time with Shakti, I couldn’t stop chuckling to myself.  At the synchronicities, the perfect unfolding, and the thought that maybe, just maybe I’ll start catching these little tricks a little earlier.  That maybe I’ll own the knowledge that “nothing is as it seems” so much, I start seeing what really is.  Yeah, strike the “maybe” business.  I’m on my way.  And I know just the people who can keep reminding me of the Truth.