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.

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

Just in time for the new year, there are numerous endings, beginnings, and transformations.  Mostly, I am staring down the truth of my divine creations – and acknowledging that the being beyond my false sense of self has everything under control.  Go, that-girl.  Go go go.

Backstory time – what’s a blog without the details?

Pi is a controversial but sacred soul.  He’s reached enlightenment (I rather dislike the “reached” descriptor, because it was gifted rather than attained, but whatever – he’s There.)  He’s new to those spaces, however, and because he doesn’t fit the mold from which most of us craft our completely false sense of true self-realization, he’s a button pusher like no other.  I met him early this year at one of Orion’s events.  He immediately had a very positive effect on me (how many peeps can say THAT, Pi?)  But our second conversation – that’s when the party really started.

It was February 13th, day of the divine romance (so dubbed by Guruji P), and Z plus the ashram crew had arrived for a big enlightenment event.  Lots of folks came, including the beautiful fiancee of the man I was about to fall madly in love with.  I, however, was still fully with Z, and realllly committed to making the evening a huge success for him.  This was his night, his chance to share his toe-touch in the other world, and he was mad nervous as public speaking made him waddle and sweat.  The evening went quite well, however, and everyone stayed to socialize after the big speeches commenced.

Pi had some rather animated discussions with various members – a trend I would realize in the coming weeks.  He’s just aces at exposing and dismantling belief structures, so he’s rather like a human bug zapper – people gravitate around him, protest and argue, then either surrender to his rightness, or storm off in a huff.  Usually the latter.  Anyway, several folks had  had their fill of Pi – including Healer, who was completely flummoxed by Pi’s insistence that A) he was in fact enlightened and B) he had no big-huge-godlike-divine-world-changing-purpose.  Since this did not fit with Healer’s current “enlightenment picture”, the conversation had been heated.  But suddenly, there we were – Pi and myself – eyelocked on the couch, and immediately engaged in the most unexpected conversation.  The room had also mysteriously cleared out as we began to speak – everyone scampered off to the kitchen, except us.  He said words to me that were clearly, clearly channeled from outside his mind, and they were so spot on targeted to my innermost self, I was pretty much flattened by the intimacy.   The topic: Tantra.  Something I held a deep affinity for, but next to no knowledge – and Pi said some pretty out-there, but perfect for me, goodies.  Once our chat ended, Pi took his exit, and I was left feeling completely and totally altered.  An attempt to traverse the room ended in a near flop-over.  I was giddy.

And later that night, through a completely unplanned and totally cosmic conversation with Z, our relationship ended.  I had no memory then (or now) of how that happened, or what was said.  But he heard something in my words that I didn’t consciously put there – it was rather like the channeling Pi had done for me.  Z said to me, about 4 AM, during our really heated exchange – “Do I hear you breaking up with me?” And tearfully, yet  stoically, I said – “Yes.”

That was the boulder, sent rolling down the hill.  And today, another boulder was pushed off to follow. 

In the months since, Pi and I forged a deep but short-lived bond, then mutually accepted significant distance so that other connections might neatly form.  Both of us, actually, created a beautiful connection with Orion.  Orion became the love of my life, and one of Pi’s closest friends.  I bowed out of the intimacy out of respect for both men and honoring what felt right, but I’ll admit – ever since then, in growing doses, I have missed that Pi-connection.  We see each other alllll the time, so it’s not a withdrawal in that sense, but I knew what a profound teacher / friend he was / is for me, and my egoic self felt really jealous at the relationship I saw with Orion and Pi.  I had a sense of loss there without really understanding why.  Finally, in the last week, I acknowledged this to Orion, and this morning, did the same to Pi.  Why?  Because it’s time to change the game.

It all began on a couch with a chat about Tantra.  And early next year, Pi is starting a Tantra meet-up group — a group I’m more excited to attend than any other.  Patience has paid off.  I just trust that this is a wonderful next step for all involved.  The rightness of the timing, integrity, and true intentions of all involved is just mind-numbingly beautiful.  It has already meant that I should be so lucky as to grow even closer to both Orion and Pi.  I’m seriously spilling over with gratitude.

And as this all transpires, an ending has landed at my feet as well.  One I’m both shocked by, and completely un-surprised over.  Yes, both.  Shaman and part of the affectionate Dynamic Duo – the team I’ve been working with on Aya this last year – well, that’s a donesville chapter.  There’s no dramatic story around the why’s – it’s just time.  My heart said so.  I’m closing a door so I may clear space for my next mentor – one I can go even deeper into this process with.  Here and now, I am called to own these shamanic energies I have been gifted access to – not unlike the way Pi owns his Tantra wisdom.  I was not feeling that unfolding with D1.  But this isn’t the easiest of door-closes.  I literally just gave up my easy access to Ayahuasca. My shaman who made house calls.  I will finish up a promise to connect a current wave of seekers to him, but I won’t be attending – which, I’ll admit, hasn’t fully hit me yet.  Or rather, hit the emotional side yet.  But make no mistake, this is hardly the end of my Aya chapter.  I have a conference / workshop in March that just found me (literally five minutes before the falling out with past-shaman), and if that doesn’t lead me to the next connection, something else will.  Ayahuasca is already working on this with me, I can feel that.  So instead of lamenting a loss, I’m excited for a beginning that hasn’t (tangibly) begun.  How’s that for abstract?

There’s so much more happening, but these are the current heart-stamps.  Orion and I will be ringing in the new year together tomorrow, and we’re 1 week away from the “I met you exactly one year ago” marker.  Amazing.  That same day, we’ll be motoring down the highway to our 12 day silent meditation retreat.  Oh, the places we go.  And the love that we know.

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)