Embody Shakti

Guru's Grace

 

Yesterday I was pulled by the heart to sit and chant the Guru Gita. I don't chant this very often, but I listen to it quite a bit. Appreciation, gratitude, and a sense of wanting to chant and offer all the fruits to my teachers past and present. Especially the present. Things feel so precarious lately I find that I am constantly leaning into them and at times rebelling against the whole darn thing. Can I let it all go and just attend art openings, drink wine, and worry about what I would do instead? I indulge this fantasy from time to time. Its such a waste of time. Life has given me this movement. To not be satisfied. To always want to know the secret side of things. 

Recently I received several emails from a sister yogini traveling in China living our her dharma. She has the heart of the tiger. How she writes of constantly cutting the "me" and the "mine" and is surrendering everything about how she feels her life should go. Releasing her independence in order to serve. Remembering the true heart and sacrifice of the Bodhisattva. I immediately can't help but contrast it to all the personal branding in spiritual practice these days. The building up of the identity into some kind of personal power.  And here my sister is...quietly wielding the sword of truth and disappearing in each action of its cutting. After I read each email I ask myself if I could do it and then I inwardly bow to her and pray for her strength, perseverance and also her happiness. Its also funny to me that I am receiving these emails now when I am sitting in such confusion. And soon I will be sitting with my Beloved yogini teacher.....one on one.....far away from home......and ready to give my head to the chopping block. Although there is no idea what form that will take.

I chant the Guru Gita with a beautiful recording by Sharon Janis. It is slow and full of such devotion. It is the sweetness that is important to me to feel and allow it to churn in me so I have something tangible to offer up. It is slow enough that I can scan the english in my booklet and let my heart break with the gloriousness of Shiva's words to Parvathi. Yet in the midst of tryng to make a purely unselfish offering I can't help but feel the depth of my own need for something. I don't know what it is.....it only grows.

Shiva Kaal Ugranand is a profound Tantric. Another being who cuts through to the heart of things. An uncompromising teacher. The embodiment of the secret union of utter ferociousness and the fragility that is needed to sit as That. I hold him quietly within. For some reason, I cannot shout praises toward him or make huge gushing proclamations. For any of you who know me, you may notice that the things that are most precious to me...I utter not a word...except here and there. This has always been my way...I don't want to share. I want some things to remain virtually mine in the quiet spaces. This is where I feel my heart...in the silence.

My phone is on the floor and sending an alarm which beeps loudly and cuts into the atmosphere. I forgot to silence it. Ugh....the world pulls....my attachments.....testing my discipline....fighting with the pull to just "see who it is".......I relent. A moment of sheer un-discipline......Its a FB message with this video attached. From Shiva Kaal Ugranand.

His statement on the video:

The Guru-disciple relationship

 

I watch at least 10 times. I cannot explain what it does to me. The Shakti! The energy it invokes! The action of the Mother!

Perfection. A Grace. A Transmission.

Jai Guru!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

Lullaby

 

Tonight Dear One,

the fortress of compassion stands guard

She lulls the demons into a stupor,

mace ready to slam down should they stir their sleepy limbs.

Tonight, the heart glows its golden light

circling the mantra bright.

Soft paws with daggar claws 

Let the lion's roar 

shake the bones awake

and put the mind to rest

While the Mother holds you at Her breast

In the morning the sun will rise

awareness opens your sleepy eyes

Ride the lion in the daylight hours

Mantra holds the midnight powers

 

 

Death by Beauty

 

(for "the Boy", the midwife of my death)

 

Beauty stalks the Lover

Beckoning into death

 

Sensate seduction

The Mirror

“Look at me!”

 

“Taste Me”

“Consume Me”

"Become Me"

 

Dissolve into disorientation

Ouroboros of Eros

Arising from Chaos

 

Primordial beat of the Death March

Beauty holds the pulsation

Her sword, the conductor’s baton

 

Objectless desire

Die here

Again

Beloved

Many years ago the Beloved starting coming into my dreamtime.  He would take the form of an old lover and beckon me into the consummation of  earth, air, fire and water. Each time was an alchemy of the heart. I knew not to worry about the form or the vehicle in the dreamtime. Once it was Krishnamurti before I even knew who he was.  The dreamscape was a modern American home. The young man was an Indian man in his twenties in a western style suit. I was beholden by my immense love for him. The most exquisite thing I have ever felt, awake or dreaming. Imagine a year later when I picked up a Krishnamurti book and discovered there a picture of him in his twenties in a western style suit.

 

Last night the beloved boy came again. Continually awakening I was, and then diving back in.  How my heart was bursting like pomegranate seeds spilling forth. Layer after layer of seeds, hidden in caverns as the flesh is pulled away. Delightfully I bleed this ruby red juice and we swim in it.  I die in this place with him and we shine like dolphins and there is no greater happiness.

 

These dreams are always about the boy. The beauty of the boy. I say boy, not man because boy captures something about the wildness. But not the immaturity. I have been in love with this boy for eons.  I have never sought him in worldly relationship. He doesn’t live there except in glimpses or reflections. To analyze it as an integration of my “masculine” is a reduction of the immensity of  the Love. It is a much larger mystery. One that feels thousands of years ripe.

The beauty of the boy. It’s a mantra in my heart.

Language of the Twilight

photo: Padmakara            

Mother

My heart wont cease it’s spinning

Like a web it weaves

Of your golden honey

And I want to taste every drop

 

Mother

My skin has become your drum

That the grandmothers spread upon the desert floor

And spread the medicine to tan my hide

Bom, bom, bom!

 

Mother

Does the wind carry my breath

Or simply merge with yours

As if it were ever mine?

A marriage of eternity

 

Mother

My blood carries you forth

But where is the world who will receive

The transmission of the clan?

 

 

Mother

I am this

And I am not this

Why does it matter?

This girl will not be here again

What is the echo of a life?

 

Mother

Why hide your self  in these bodies

Where no one thinks to look?

I have pointed to you

And they are too busy

To become still with their own horror

 

 

Mother

I am drunk

And am feeling non-chalant

My stillness has opened the lunatics laugh

And every gesture is your praise

 

 

Mother

I fear that if I merge with you

I will lose the sweetness of loving you.

Always you point to the self-serving

Even here

 

 

Mother

It all fails

Falls short

Only the subtle whispers of the twilight

Are the scriptures I hear

 

Asana- sit in the seat of Power

 

Each month when I bleed the totality opens.I feel my skin become transparent and stretch. Opening to the hollow bone. The SHAKTI is BIG and the Mother awakes in me. She laughs and wants to challenge the status quo even in "spiritual" circles. Boredom with the false humility's. Take your place. Take your action. Allow the Mother to move within you and Mother all things. Take your Mother Fuckin' place ( as in She is a Baaaaad Mama Jaaaama! Jai Ma! Jai Ma!)  and develop relationship with the seat of power. This is what will humble you.

Let go of the sentimental and let existence tear you open. The horrible gift of compassion. Compassion: to feel strongly. To feel the suffering strongly. Let the surge of passion arise and meet the injustice with the sword. How can this not be love? Only the awakening of the Mother can help one meet the suffering.

Pick up the sword and let down the armor. Will you let the blade cut your own defenses and touch the horror of the world? Do not look for the joy. It will find you in the bare naked, defenseless and exhausted place. Surging in the veins and rising into the laugh of the lunatic. This is the sweetness I taste.

Causeless joy.

 

Please stand for these women Gulabi Gang

 

For Everybody

Jessica MacGowan/Getty Images

 

 

I am sweeping vigorously. Mopping the spots and drips.

It’s always the movement.

In between the pushing and pulling of the mop the tears flow.

Troy Davis’s face flashes in my eyes.

 

Last night I heard the news. We executed this man.

7 of 9 recanted

A witness saying they were threatened by another not to come forward

No physical evidence

 

 

The night before Sept. 21, 2011

I was Dancing the mutuality of Love

Ecstatic embodiment

Wisdom

At the end of class I felt the whole world was healed

That there was enough for everyone

And no one had to resort to fear, violence or

“isms” of any kind.

 

 

My partner reacted to the news with disgust, anger, rallying against the powers that be.

His long time watching of the system, its flaws and the escalating of suffering.

I just wanted to stay with Troy.

The profound sadness that we failed this man.

I would rather be wounded by the suffering than hardened to it.

I will shout later.

Now, I feel the pain.

 

My traditions say that death is a celebration.

He is released from the samsara of suffering.

This I believe. But my sorrow remains.

It should remain. We have so far to go

and I am sad for all that we miss out on

by not reaching our potential

as Humans.

 

The Movement.

Rev. Al Sharpton writes this morning,

“to mourn without moving only compounds this most egregious injustice.”

This is the practice. How to move when hope is slayed. When failure has occurred.

May we all find this movement.

To turn within and heal.

To turn to the person next to us and extend our hand.

To keep Dancing the mutuality of Love

Especially while weeping.

Power of Fragility

The identities are the hardened layers of protection against the fragility of the shocking moment when realization hits that there is absolutely no control. This encounter is such a crushing touch, that one must surrender to it in that very moment. Even if it is just for the moment. Everything is constructed to brace against this moment of feeling so small and so insignificant. But there is an opening here- in this surrender that cannot come through invocation or demand. The realization that somehow you belong in this place. That in this small opening you must become immense. To step in and become. There is no step by step. No connect the dots. Only the opening to the utter fragileness as it reveals itself. 

Tra la la la la , part 2

 

The fierce quality awakens. Is it merely a matter of waking up on the wrong side of the bed? Or have I awakened with the sword in hand? Fire is blazing. Come close. Join the bonfire. Surrender your head. Surrender your hope. Come rest on this burning bosom and I will rock you awake.

I stand sword in hand. A sly smile. I know you Mother. This pregnant space where all has already been done. Where the form has not manifested yet, but it is all dead by the time it has been born. The form merely a shadow, an echo, a reverberation that will manifest long after the fact. We dance in this charnal ground, stamping on the samsara of false goodness. We howl the stratum of time. We touch the causeless joy. Hopeless.

Come close, my precious.

 

 

 

(For part one, visit here)

 

 

painting: Kailash Raj

Sonic Howl

 

I've always had longing. Too much perhaps. There are times when it goes underground and I think I may have grown up. Moved past angst. Attributed it to fantasies. Felt relief at my sudden maturity. But something always happens. I wish I could name what that something is. I must be made of longing. I must be made of ache and desire. I am always yearning for Shiva's hand upon me. The feeling is so physical, so visceral that I can feel my fingernails growing and move towards my chest to tear apart the flesh and expose the bone beneath. Then the bones must turn to dust and lay bare the beating heart, the blood, and the rhythm. Then I would turn to the closest one and say, "See? See this? This is what is true."

How do you explain this to people when you are trying to compose a newsletter? When you are supposed to list for people "what they will get" if they come to your workshop? Do you tell them what they might actually "get"? The desire to tear themselves open and touch the primal howl? That this howl may be such a sonic vibration that it could tear away the remaining threads of what they think is precious? The things that we are trying to make secure by attending this workshop and that seminar? Eating these particular foods and trying to secure our place in the spiritually, politically correct?

That this howl will dissolve your ability to censor so as not to offend, so your classes can fill and you may have a full tank of gas for the week? See, my hand has frozen and I cannot press the delete button.

I am not a romantic anymore. This longing is simply the stuff of which I am made. I examine it from all sides. Try to take it apart and find its components. But the more I tear it down the more it reveals that it is empty and I am fascinated by how it disappears right through my hands-like grasping at a cloud.

This is what is here. What is now. Tomorrow I will be different. I always am. I will look at this and wonder who wrote it. I will probably be practical and do laundry. Clean the bathroom. Maybe I will move quietly in these tasks and hold the longing as a secret and invisible friend. This friend who moves me in certain directions and quest for certain experiences. The one who is always planning the next encounter with beauty and makes clucking noises, "tsk, tsk, tsk" at the mundane. The one who waits for me to complete the tasks, feed the cats, do the dishes, and finally pulls me by the hair in a frenzy that ecstasy cannot wait any longer. The one who turns reality on its head and says, "no, no, no no more tasks, no more practicalities. "Now sit. Now sway."

 

photo: Graciela Iturbide