Embody Shakti

Twirl

 

inhale

exhale

repeat

this heart does not slow its beat

five tracks running

a human trifle

anguish, loneliness, laziness

each so delicately layered with union & bliss

 

What is all this?

your Divine Madness Ma?

Mistress of the multitudes

of wisdom movement

What have I done?

You have released the bow

perfect aim

body slamming into the self-deceiving

what is the ground if there is no reference of illusion

where do the ponies run

without the circus music

and the clowns

and the costumes?

how will they know where to go?

what to do without the cyclic wheel upon which they run?

 

Oh, this is mad!

what does the cloak matter?

why, just pick any one of them

put it on

and twirl

twirl under the illuminated night

twirl under the siege of fright

spin the gossamer robes of form

until the ribbons of bound existence torn

leaving threadbare the strands of time

Ma howling so sublime

 

photo: Rafael Aviles

 

The Clinging, fire

  

 

 I.

 "But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."
(Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)

 

 

I go to lunch with the disciple and Bhairava. It is refreshing to have periods of silence that no one seems pressured to fill. I am utterly surprised at how comfortable I am with this. As casual as I try to be he must know that I am hyper sensitive to how I am being perceived. How I am trying to constantly give clues to what a good practitioner I am. Again, I am surprised how I do not make myself wrong for this.  Eventually conversation arises. Pleasantries. Getting to know you speak.

 

“What do you do?”

“It sure is raining hard”

“How long have you lived here in Cupertino?”

 

and so on.

 The conversation leads to India. The Bhairava speaking a bit on his last trip there. I mention how I want to go to Varanasi. The Bhairava says, “We will go. In the Fall.”

In a split second I finally dare to look him direct into his eyes since my first moment meeting him. He seems to know I will do this and meets my gaze.

 

He is serious.

I laugh.

It’s all I can do. I cover my mouth, as it almost seems too much to allow a giggle to escape. I knew I would go to India with him. I knew a month before I came here. Yet I am still shocked. To Varanasi. The one place I have always wanted to go. The one place that wets my eyes with tears when I see photos. The one place that I actualy know the smell of through my dreams. How quickly this grace emerged.

At this moment, I do not know if I will go.

 

 

 

 II.

 "Who are YOU?" said the Caterpillar.
This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, "I--I hardly know, sir, just at present-- at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then."
(Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)  

 

This night I attend the evening sitting with the orientation of “for everybody”. The Bhairava introduced this the evening before and it struck me profoundly. I do not understand why. Compassion, devotion and offering are not new to me. I also let go of self-cherishing which somehow in this particular sitting translated as letting go of “self-preserving.” I had been trying to do this the first 48 hours. Trying to keep myself intact. Trying to decide if it was safe.

 

When letting go of the self-preservation I felt the reality of sitting for everybody. Words emerged like a mantra buzzing to life within me.

“Sit with Shiva for eternity”

“Sit with Shiva for eternity”

“Sit with Shiva for eternity”

 

On and on. As this mantra was humming I received a powerful teaching (transmission?) Shiva would be the eternal ground for me. His tenacious love for Shakti (me). This understanding was no mere intellectual philosophizing. I touched it completely. I could fall apart, dance, rage, fragment, and bless. Shiva would be there. I understood in an instant that the Bhairava, the teacher, the guru transmitted and held this grace. It would be him that I would need to lean in to.

I wept.

I wept and could not stop.

I wept at the opportunity to put both feet in.

That I was not in control anymore.

I weep now writing this.

 The sadhana came to a close. We all sat in silence for some time. Then in the purest gesture I have ever felt, Bhairava offered his hand to help me stand.

 

 

 

  III.

The arousing (shock, thunder)

Shock bring success

Shock comes oh, oh!

Laughing words- ha ha!

The shock terrifies for a hundred miles,

And he does not let fall the sacrificial spoon and chalice

                                 Hexagram 51. Chen, I-ching

 

 The time with the Bhairava had many layers. When alone, my body had reactions like those of a shock. Elevated heart rate, some anxiety, major flight impulses, and some spaciness. In the sadhana I had none of these symptoms.

I have been home 3 days and I am still having flashes of shock. Life’s daily tasks are difficult.

I reflect on the last evening.

The laughter began right in the sadhana for Bhairava and one disciple. I inquired whether to join. I could go either way. I decided to stay focused and complete the sadhana. Afterwards, the mood hit again.

Non -stop.

On and on it went. Divine madness. Oh, the delight for me. Total intoxication. In waves it kept coming. Another gift from Ma. I felt like she was pleased with our efforts.

 

I will go to India.

Ma, please make me ready

 

 

Terrible Beauty

 

"To behold the beauty you must behold the terrifying." -Parvathi Nanda Nath

 

Ma slyly pulling threads

undoing me

it was her own fabric

the pattern she wove me into

is now the one that dissolves

I walk on each thread

like a tightrope

 

Today I suffered at another's suffering.

I can't quite get this

the pain inflicted on an innocent

and after all that

"this dog loves people"

How?! How?!

and I want to take everyone in my lap

and crush them with this sadness

until they break open.

 

I laugh at this image

human pinatas

"whack!"

out spills the demons

"whack!"

out spills the moralities, the hurts, the pride

"whack, whack, whack!"

and we all dance

and sing mariachi

 

softness permeates the loft this afternoon

curry wafting

cats sleeping

and the simpleness of it all

consoles me.

 

every night, I will come meet you Ma.

I will open my heart for your Dance

and drink of your nectar

Tear me open to the terrible

just to behold your beauty

self-preservation cast aside

an unnecessary veil to your touch

 

Sit with Shiva for eternity

Sit with Shiva for eternity

Sit with Shiva for eternity

Sit with Shiva for eternity......................

 

 

 

 

 

 

An Inside Job

Feeling Fierce.

A rabble.

A rant.

Recently, I wrote on the way desire has been distorted. Today I write about power. The phrase that has turned up in recent classes is Power, Heart and Vision. Heart and vision seem to be socially acceptable, but not power. Especially with women. My heart always sinks when women wont hold the sword and develop a relationship with power. When the power that is our source is denied we deny the whole foundation of who we are as women. I especially want to pull out my hair when the power is diluted with conceptual language.

I see so much Goddess reference these days. Be a Goddess in your business, be a Goddess in the bedroom, be a Goddess by using this product, be a Goddess by eating this, be a Goddess by taking a spa day. What the HECK?! Has anyone taken the discipline and developed the fortitude to find out who She is? I see advertisement after advertisement that says if you are successful in all the above ( business, bedroom, food, relaxation) then you will be a Goddess. In my opinion, this does not mean you are a Goddess. You are, perhaps, a functional human being.  Her title has been co-opted as another frozen perfection for women to have to fit into. Another veneer. Case in point, just saw a book titled, "Goddess on the go, a Guide to Being Irresistible." Now don't get me wrong. I have not said there is anything wrong with the aforementioned.  Having it all can be an immense satisfaction. Being lucrative can certainly able one to serve their community with more ease. A passionate relationship can certainly be a vehicle for Divine love. But the hard truth is that an intimate exploration and relationship with Goddess does not guarantee these things. Most likely She will "play" with all that is fixed in ones life and at one time or another all these things will go. If the "goddess identity" has been so wrapped up in these veneers, then where does the Goddess go? Again we are regulating her to an external identity. Relegating ourselves to external identifications that "prove" we are Goddess. I say that these things are hidden disguises of the "good enough" button for women. "If I am just good enough then I will have all the love, worship and admiration I desire."

We even have to be "bad" in the right way.

In Tantric tradition, Shakti is power. As in "IS". Nothing can happen without Her. Nothing. For those that ask, "Well, what about the heart?" Yes, yes, to the heart! But what makes the heart beat? Power. Energy. Electricity. All the different aspects we see of Ma, all the different Goddesses, are different movements of the same power. And until we understand how this power moves within us and how consciousness flows from this power we are denying the primordial building blocks of who we are as women, the physical emanations of Shakti. A practitioner explores this power deeply and their own relationship to power. Everything has power. Plants have their shakti, emotions have their shakti, even our own physical organs have this shakti. There is even power in our higher perceptions- Drishti Shakti.

If we do not develop a relationship with power then we do not come into relationship with all that is. The web of life. All that is. Many of us subscribe to these belief systems. We hold them as wonderful ideals. But how does it become a real experience? Power is that which animates everything. Shakti/power is the power which links all things together. When energy flows, this is power, and this is Shakti. We cannot think this into being. I see many women sidestepping this power through the vehicle of "good enough" and "being good." By not wanting to create waves, by grasping at external identifications, and believing that a woman's return to power is just patriarchy in reverse. Not so. When we stop referencing patriarchy we will understand that women wielding power is not even in the same paradigm as patriarchy. Women wielding power from the developed nuances and awakening of Shakti is a power for victory over that which represses. A liberation for all. Not the patriarchal paradigm of collecting power to repress and control. Developing an intimate, unafraid, exploration of how power and consciousness moves within us takes us back to the original definition of power and energy. The flow of power between things. The inclusiveness of power.

Empowered.

This empowerment does not source from a perfection of functioning in society. Not from empty product and promises. It sources from a deep surrender, deep devotion, and "tasting" in all ways the subtleties of consciousness as it moves within us and feeling the nuances of her AWAKENING.

Its an inside job.

 

The Seventh Veil

 

I am at the last veil of nakedness. Thin fabric giving the illusion of opaqueness. However, with the right light nothing is hidden. Lets call this light Chinnamasta Devi. Commitments to the next relationship have been internally made and I cling to this veil like a blankie.

Truth be told I am weary of the dangerous edge. The paradox of the burden of unburdening. Yet I am attracted to the glint of the blade like a child with shiny objects. I never wanted a tiara, but a sword. I knew as a child I could pull it from its stone. I did not want wedding dresses & prince charming, I wanted the skull on a stick like Vasalisa in Baba Yaga.

My impulses are too strong. I am too compelled. Perhaps the weariness is a worn and true path. Lose the will to fight. Become discontinuous. Step out of the momentum and become dispassionate. Its true, I alternate between the passion and the dispassion. Two sides of the same coin, made from the same source. Sometimes heads, sometimes tails. Same, same.

The original power of Chinnamasta has now become introspection of what actually powers my motivations? So I sit, dispassionate, untangling the threads of karma from divine impulse. They remind me of Ma's hair. Wild, free, untamed and streaming in every direction.

Ma has given me everything I have wanted. She is a good Mother.

The Arousing Thunder

 

Dec 3, 2010 Chinnamasta Sadhana Day 18

 

Everything is here.  Totality. All the residues. Deep karmic undercurrents rising to be seen. In the past when there has been the tilling of deep karma there has been frustration. Maybe even hoplessness. Right now it is a joy to see them. I know this seems odd. But it tells me the sadhana is moving things. The writing process of these subtle nuances is so challenging. But now there is joy. The joy comes from actually touching places that are so mummified in denial that it feels ecstatic to unwrap them and let them breathe. To begin to turn the karma and look at it from all angles and reflecting all different shades of light and dark. To see these things just as they are. Seeds of action. Life resurrects in their unwrapping.  I also find relief. The perspective has changed to utter fascination as to what will happen as these knots untie. For the moment I am not worried about the outcome, just studiously feeling to where they will lead depending on the depth of my identification with them. Like a child who pulls different knobs and buttons on toys to find out what function they perform. Some buttons you know will lead to a certain result. Good or bad. But sometimes you have to just keep pushing them to be sure. Right now Chinnamasta is showing me the joy of all things. The joy of consciousness rising and regenerating. The joy when liberation bursts open from the shackles of dullness. I feel fed. I am being regenerated. The shakti of the shakti is coursing through the electrical impulses in my body and allowing alert & awake perception.

 

The arousing thunder.

Laughing words.

“Ha ha.”

Sacred Gestures

photo Lisa Leone

 

Ok, get ready for one, big run-on sentence. There is a stream of consciousness flowing and I am afraid I will not catch it. Words have been hard to come by. Now there is a flood.

Desire. What a loaded word. Loaded with repression. Loaded with distortion. It seems we have two stances on desire. Attraction or aversion. How many know that desire actually moves us towards space? To rest in one's desire instead of a beeline of movement to an object of desire is quite a meditation. There is a beautiful discipline to the surrender of desire's natural movement. Now, we may be so accustomed to desiring people, places, and things that this may feel like the natural movement of our longing. But what if we mentally erased the object of desire from the field of our awareness? What then is desire's movement? Desire must fall back on itself creating a whirlpool of movement. Like a snake continually coiling and uncoiling itself, all the while referencing a still space at the very center as there is nothing to grab onto. One must just ride with the movement. Until one discovers one is the emanation of the movement. Non-dual awareness. A space where we are not operating from the karmas, but from this natural movement. A practitioner in the flow of spontaneous, unobstructed movement is a living mudra of divine gesture. Spontanous, unobstructed, movement has a different flavor than momentum. Momentum is a one track groove with a certain and direct course. Like an arrow and bow. Movement from the resting field of desire has no reference. It does not start anywhere and ends up nowhere. A continuous conciousness aware of itself with no mind. Everything lives (and dies) here. Each moment is fully complete as it arises and falls in a stream of divine play. Sacred gestures may be fierce, compassionate, ugly, graceful. All are born with the first movement of desire falling back in on itself. We are the participating observer. We neither cultivate or deny desire. It is just there, within us, as the natural emanation of the moving, living cosmos.

Causeless Joy

 

For the Shakti's of Joshua Tree, October 2010, and all those that would burn in Her joy

 

Matangi beats the drum of the Earth with frenzied limbs.

Her heartbeat woven with the strings of the veena

Plucking, plucking, plucking

The strands of conceptual awareness

Weaving them into an illusory fabric

To burn in the fire of Chandali

 

Matangi calls her attending Shakti’s

To Dance Her desire

The spanda of attraction.

Emerald green face

Revealing the erotic grace

of the Mother that births.

 

Oh, what to say, what to say?

I want you to know what cannot be said.

The ear must be put to the ground

To hear Her reverberations

To dissolve the irritations

And touch the causeless joy

 

Louder, louder!

Mother dances and hollers

No, she does not lull us to sleep

With lullabies

With lies

that women must weep

 

Matangi Ma

Spontaneous Queen

With freedom to roam

Mysteries of Earth and sky

Who offers us everything in her bliss

Where oneness and separateness kiss

 

 

Involution

 

subtle body

supple body

shining body

electric light body

rainbow body

every body

embody

body

of

mind

bindu

drop

grace

inverted space

Tra La La La La

   artwork by Sohan Qadri

Yesterday I touched Space.

Or did it touch me?

I know that my fear touched me.

My awe.

I understand now, those that retreat to caves.

Those that gaze into the fire

and enter its consumption rather than watching their world crumble.

The relationship,

the career,

the identities, 

Ma is demanding.

She wants and wants.

A mirror of my own hunger.

Forget the Devil, this is where I have sold my soul.

To my ache and my desire.

To the doorman, I am the same.

To the grocery store clerk, I am the same.

To my neighbors, I am the same.

A women/girl with long hair and a large tattoo.

Someone who likes to laugh, cook, watch funny films, make funny voices.

A martini now and then. 

One olive, a little dirty.

" La, la, la, la, la"  she says.

"Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha" she says

"Ma, Ma, Ma, Ma, Ma" she says

All this fed by the burning

the slithering of awakening

Inside this woman/girl are thought of daggers,

hibiscus, incense, and intoxication.

Thoughts of ashes and cremation grounds.

Thoughts of wisdom of breasts, and blood and bone.

Inside this woman/girl is a thousand crows

a feline ferocity

a million rising suns

and a river of lunacy.

"La, la, la, la, la" she says.

"Ha, ha, ha ,ha ,ha" she says.

"Ma, Ma, Ma, Ma, Ma" she says.

                       -Nisha Bhairavi