Searching for My Self

I’m really grateful that I’ve learned to feel her.

I’ve spent so many years walking down paths hearing her call but not been able to find her.
Before I couldn’t hear because of the tv, the traffic, the gossip, the prominence, the prestige.

Ten years ago, I decided to turn that volume way down and to listen when she called.
I left the designer clothes and my comfort behind and followed her voice.

Sadness.

Longing.

Yearning.

Sweet sadness.

Along the way, I’ve been blessed to meet many guides; I prefer to call them midwives.
Those who could help me learn a new language.
See different way points.
Many, who would teach me how to laugh while I cried.

Some, who taught me to use my heart and breath as circuitry.
I learned how to power my own journey.

Because of that, I kept going on.
I stopped traveling.

I stopped seeking a normal job.
I rented a home.

Became a preschool teacher and a cook at a Quaker School.
I worked 7 days a week.

I gave up the chase for all the “important things” that stratified society demands we strive for...

And I dropped into what called me from within.
I stepped up to the opening of a dark cave.
I gathered all the courage I had, took a deep breath... and walked inside.

It was dark.
It was wet.
The air was cold.
It felt hollow inside.

Every step I took echoed forward and back from me and I went on.
Searching.

For my self. A feeling.
I eventually found her, my self. The one who was inside the cave of my heart.

The one my attention was distracted away from...

The one I never knew existed because the tv, the traffic, the gossip, the prominence, the prestige got to me first...

When I got to her she was almost lifeless.
Holding on to the last tinge of hope...

Bless her for waiting for me.
Bless her for believing I’d find her... for believing in me.
I picked her up, gray, wet, skin and bones... cold.
I carried her into the belly of the cave and with her I sat.

I thank the Mother for this invisible, other worldly connection that summoned me to this plane, to this place, to her.
I’ve sat with her for a little over 10 years now. 

Initially, I built a fire to warm her and to warm the cave.
I added a beautiful thick red wool woven rug.
Then incense and fruits.
This comforted and relieved her.
Her belly relaxed.
She ate.

She warmed. She laid in my lap as I prayed to know her.
The warmth got into her bones and the sweetness nourished her heart.

And I breathed.

For 10 years I breathed my life, the life, our life into her.
I sat. I moved energy though me. I Evoked Reverence.
For my life. For my right to life. And breathed that into her.

As she came alive we danced. There was music.

Through somatic psychotherapy and EMDR therapy, I learned how to came back to her over and over and over again.
I learned where I lost her, when I left her, and why.
Pieces of myself.
Hiding in the coat rack as my parents screamed at each other when I was five.

Fear.

Ostracizing myself for being from the country not the suburbs in 5th grade.

Shame.

Fearful of being exiled from a faith that’s people seemed to preach one thing and do another as soon as they left the church.

Estranged.

Each time, I traveled back to her and found her where I’d left her.
I brought her back with me.
I thanked her for doing her best to protect me and for using the tools she had at the time.
I told her each time that I was here now and that she was coming with me.

That she was safe.

For ten years, I’ve sat with her in the cave of my heart.

I’ve prayed to her. I’ve washed her feet.
I’ve brought her sweets, flowers, and beautiful offerings... Then she changed.

One day a new sensation was present.
As I walked into the belly of the cave of my heart...

She sat grand on a chair as big as the cave as The Mother.
This was a profound time in my life.

I continued to sit but now when I sat I chanted to her.

I washed her feet. I anointed her with oils. I brought her offerings.
I became the one who needed support and guidance.

For years, I sat at her feet praying.
Then one day she came down off her chair and held me.
She washed my feet.
She held my face in her hands and touched my forehead with hers.

And we breathed.

Jaws, throat, shoulders relaxed with the exhale.
Belly, root, legs relaxed with the inhale...

Then a wind began to blow and I saw a mirror.
When she moved I moved.
My cry became the howl of the wind and her joy of life.

Relieved.

Jai ma.

We were one in the same.

Sometimes I pray to her.
Sometimes she holds me. And other times, I find distant and forgotten pieces of myself that I bring to her and together we integrate and revive.
I’ve spent 10 years re-membering myself.

Every time I come upon a new part... I bring it here and begin again.
Now I know the way in.
Now I know how to conjure the path, reach out to the guides, and use the tools...

I walk this life on its edge to continue re-membering my selves.
To unify the known and left behind.
The shadows and the bright.

Helping as I go.
Suffering as I go.
To honor her. To be honored by her.

To not take a moment of this life for granted.
To be alone but never alone and always home.

With the her in everything and within you.
And as I continue this work... I wake up to the worlds outside of myself.
I have the ability to go outside of myself and my comfort.

I am able to be scared in the world. And trust myself.
The work I do now is out in the world.
But I always take it back with me into the cave of my heart.

Back to my seat.

Back to myself.

Breathing Life Back In

Today I’m exploring my anxiety.
My anxiety tells me to go and do!
I ask why?
She says because you’ll feel better.

I ask her why I don’t feel good.

She screams ,”Go and do!!”

I know this feeling.

From practice I know her.
So instead of going and doing... I sit down and surf her wily waves.
Until I get to a deep heart cry.

Here I ask, “Why don’t I feel good?”

My cry tells me that this is not a cry of not feeling good.
This is a cry out for care.
This is the cry of an exhausted one

Who never gives up.
Who takes care of me to the most intricate and detailed degree.
This is my caretaker saying please don’t turn away.
Please don’t go out there and do.
Please don’t neglect me.

Please just sit with me, hold me, and breathe Life back into me.
So today I’m sitting with my Anxiety.

Today, I’m bearing the discomfort of my desire to fight or flight... to go out there and do.
Today, I will sit through the fits of my external self and rock her (with yoga asana, meditation, candles, music, a bath, good food, and soft things).

Until I can get to the one deep down beyond the protections of my self/my shield/my ego.
Then, once I’m through the gate, I will honor her.

It is in this place of disarmament, of tolerance... Where my heart, my caretaker can take the stage and be revived.

Where, as I sit and breathe deep breaths into my body... she is strengthened.
Where she dances on stage.
As she is strengthen... my resolve, my dharma, my nature is made clear to me again, to my mind.

I see now what it is I’m meant to go out and do.
As she is revived,

My heart.

My caretaker.

The connection to the other worlds and languages comes through me and out into the world.
The one my anxiety demands I go out into and do!
For the sake of my reputation... and image.
The one my heart is here to serve.

So take care.
Take time.
Sense the desire to go outside of your self.
The sense of fight and flight.
Begin interpreting it as a call to come back home.
As a call from your most precious in tune self... To sit down and conjure her up and breathe life back into her.

So you can walk back out into the world and do the work you’re meant to do and be seen doing.

A Love Song for Creation, Pt.4

You knocked but I couldn’t let you in yet. 

I was experiencing the taste of love unified

I’d come from nothing, just an urge to be

All the way to this feeling, Love

I was in the space between the leaves as they rustled

I was the wind that blew through her hair

I was her relief and also her breath

As she danced in my divinity, I danced too. 

I wasn’t ready yet to let Love go. 

But it was time.

You knocked.  

You drew me back from my immersion 

Into the visceral 

Into remembering

Ananda, Spanda, All of it, Everything, I am

You whispered your musings to me and told me it was your turn

You told me it’d be different

My urge to be had created this

My longing to feel

You knocked again, and this time came in

Terror, Love’s sister.

Here to sing your song

A Love Song for Creation

Your song being part of the totality of this Great Truth

Equal in right to be here now.

The other side of Love. 

But Different. 

You were to come in as Love was being hanged 

You caught her at the end of her gasped and strangled exhale

And held on

And as she passed you entered into the world through the hearts of each person who watched their Mother be hanged. 

It was a new day

A dark day

A day the people were told not to grieve

While this was supposed to be your birthday

It became the day you were exiled.

The day you were rejected

The day the map disappeared.

The people did not mourn the lost of Love

They never felt their feelings

They buried them

And as a result

Another emotion was born

This was the day Hate came

The people hated what they felt

They hated Terror

They hated you

Instead, of feeling you Terror, they cast you away

They never realized what they felt

That, that Hate was for the one who took Love from them

I tell you this story now to share the way I saw it

Terror, you are part of Love. 

There can be no love without you.

You are strong in your purpose

You make people feel. 

You wake people up. 

What happened on that day I was hanged 

The pendulum swung fast and far 

And the hearts of the people got stuck halfway through their pain

There was no grieving. 

There was no being held. 

The process of evoking you was not fully completed

The knowledge and map that comes from traversing through you, Terror was never experienced. 

I tell this story today, so that the people

Can welcome you once again, Terror

On their knees

Just as they revere and pray for Love

So that they may release Hate

And come full circle 

Back to their Mother

Through Love's Eyes, Pt.3

My father used to always tell me that loving God and having a good heart was our religion

We would read scripture together daily

He was a preacher and I was in training

While we both knew I’d never be allowed to be a preacher, that was a man’s job

My father treated me as if I were apprenticing for that duty

I didn’t go to school like the others 

Instead, I spent my time with family, learning the intricacies of devotion

Whether through song, prayer, or worship in the woods around our town

Sometimes, I’d sit out under my favorite nectarine trees just gazing out into the tall grasses

My mother, who taught me to sing, would always tell me that God was in our breath

And all we had to do to be with God was breathe

I did that a lot. It came naturally to me

To sit, especially in the woods or under those trees, and be with God

Sometimes I’d wake up out of my seated prayers and see that the school kids were looking at me

I never knew how long they’d be there but I didn’t mind

Sometimes at night when my mother would brush my hair she’d ask me why I didn't want to play with the other kids

I'd tell her different things, but it always came back to the fact that there was too much noise

I could never get motivated to go out beyond my recall and into the world of others

 I was happiest while studying with my father, singing with my mother, or praying with my grandparents

I liked the way it felt after a couple of hours of deep devotion 

Silent

The air viscous 

It buzzed as if it was alive

I liked that, the interference

I’d look out my window and see the lightning bugs and think they too could feel this holy place. 

My mother got pregnant when I was 17

My sister was born, a beautiful little girl

But my mother died during that process

My father was old, so I raised her. 

I was to be a mother only

It hurt to know that I would never be the preacher at our church. 

I knew all the hymns, the stories of the bible

I knew where our community had come from, was made up of, and who was in it.

I’d spent my whole life preparing to take over for my father

We both thought the community would be happy with this

My father told me a few years later that he’d been talking with the townsmen and had told them he wanted me to preach and that they’d laughed 

We’d find out a few months later that these men had taken it upon themselves to get in touch with the Baptist Church to see about replacing my father. 

My father died during this time. 

My sweet little girl and I would go out into the woods and cry and sing and pray for him.

We’d pray to the Earth, let her hold us as we cried and watered the ground with our tears.

Sometimes we’d stay out into the night and be overcome with grief. 

Like little foxes, we’d circle our fire and howl and yip out our pain. 

It was like cry singing, howling. 

Sometimes we’d see some of the townspeople at the edge of the woods where we were

I always thought they were there to commune too

We’d stopped going to church at this point.

A new man had come to town 

He threw away our holy books for new ones

He was stern and cold. 

He talked a lot but his words were so empty. 

It was like he was trying to talk his belief into being 

But all he really did was severe his connection 

My connection

To that which was right there waiting in the silence

One time, while he was talking I was overcome

His noise was unbearable. Empty.

As if to stop him from continuing, I extended my arm out to touch his chest, to place my hand on his heart

Nothing.

I felt nothing.

I was stunned

I’ve always felt everything so strongly, even the faintest of things

Without hesitation, I asked him to put my hand on his heart

Which he did, surprisingly

I told him to stop talking.

That he was using words to try and evoke the feelings he knew he needed to feel

I told him that he needed to feel the feelings first and then learn to describe them second.

That his words were hollow.

That they distracted me from being with God.

(My father was a man full of feelings. His sermons captivated our hearts. He really was just an Instrument for the Divine.)

This new preacher slapped my hand away from his chest and rebuked me. 

Warning me to never speak to him again. 

I speak a lot with my presence so I just thought what he meant was to go away. 

So I did. 

I took my worship out into the woods where I could trust being left alone 

Where someone else's words couldn't sever my connection to the Divine

And I was left alone until one day the new preacher came and got me

I was kneeling down onto the Earth watching butterflies dance between the dandelions when he came

He put his hands on my wrists and pulled me up from my altar. 

“Townspeople want to see you.” he said. 

It always takes me some time to come back to myself after praying. 

It took a little longer this time because I was pulled away while in prayer.

When I came to my senses I had a rope around my neck. All the townspeople were in front of me. 

I looked at the preacher and for the first time could feel his heart. 

The feeling I felt shocked me. 

I caught eyes with the neighbor boy and felt sadness.

I saw him struggle to breath, like something was caught in his throat.

Funny thing is that I had a tinge in my through too…

In that moment I heard my mother

She told me to welcome this feeling called Terror

So I did

Then the floor fell out from under me.

(Continue to Part 4)

Growing Up with Love, Pt.2

We’d grown up with her. 

We would all be playing and we’d see her skipping rocks by the river or singing in the front pew at church. 

She was the preacher's daughter. 

She was kept separate from most of us kids. 

She and her mother practiced singin.

Her father and her studied scripture.

Her grandparents taught her how to pray.

We didn't really know until we were teenagers that she was different than us.

It was like she couldn't function socially. 

Sometimes, we’d be walking by her house and she’d be sitting under the nectarine trees

We’d try to talk to her but when she’d look up she wouldn't speak 

Her eyes always seemed distant, like they were portals that belonged to somewhere else

Eventually, we stopped talking to her

Years later her mother had another daughter and in that birth, had died. 

Naturally, she raised the girl. 

By this time most of us were married, some with children, others with children on the way. 

We got to see a new side of her because of her litter sister. 

She was so in love.

She would run, just as she did as a little girl, through the woods 

And skip rocks with her little sister

We would hear them laughing and singing… sometimes we would even come up on them praying in the woods.. 

 We didn’t understand her. 

She was rather peculiar.

She was like a child, but she was an adult.

Our entire town knew her from the church and because she was the daughter of the preacher I guess we all just assumed that she was always talking with God.  

When her little sister was about seven, their father died and we got a new preacher. 

Our new preacher was fancy and he valued fancy things. 

Being country and hill folks, we found our value in each other not in fancy things. 

He bought the church new hymnbooks. 

We did not know any of the songs in these books.

Most of the songs were solemn, void of much feeling.

But, we followed our preacher's direction and sang them solemn songs.

What was once a vibrant community became hollower and hollower over time. 

I guess the solemn songs were not the way she wanted to grieve her dad’s death or worship so instead of coming to church, she’d take her little sister out into the woods and together they’d sing the old songs. 

Honestly, some of us would skip church and just sit on the outskirts of those woods to listen. 

They sounded so beautiful. 

Some of the girls would be teary eyed listening to them. 

We’d see them twirl and spin and sing and cry and pray. 

Sometimes, they’d lay down onto the Earth as if it was their Mother.

Sometimes they’d be out there all day and even into the night.

And at night sometimes, we’d hear them howling. 

We didn’t know what to make of it. 

We just went along with our lives.

One day something felt amiss. 

There was a frenzied energy in the air. 

Seemed like something unusual was happening, so I followed the business and noise until I got to the center of our little town. 

I froze when I got there because of what I saw. 

There was the preacher in the town square on a podium. 

He had her with him. 

She had a noose around her neck. 

All of us stood there confused, shocked. 

We waited for the preacher to speak and while we did I looked into her eyes like I used to when we would see her under those nectarine trees.

But this time for the first time

(Not even at her father's funeral)

Her eyes, those portals, were closed

I flinched when I saw

A new feeling crept into me, it hurt my stomach

Clenched by throat

Something horrible was about to happen

In the place of her angel eyes was fear. 

The preacher spoke

“This woman is a witch.” he said. 

“She is possessed with a wild and dangerous spirit that is coming for each of your souls”

He looked at her and then out into the crowd and then to me. 

“For this she must die.” said the preacher. 

I looked back at him and then to her and we caught eyes. 

Then he pulled the lever, and she was hung. 

My breath got caught. 

I couldn’t breath.

I couldn’t believe this was Christianity. 

That this was Love. 

I’d never seen a lady, nonetheless a holy lady, be hanged before.

(Continue to Part 3)

Lost in the Divine Ambrosia, Pt.1

I was in a reverie brought on by singing a song of the Mother.

My heart open.

I was swirling in the arms of the Divine Dance.

Singing with Grace into Oblivion.

No separation.

Soothed by Faith.

I belonged. 

I was Lost in the Divine Ambrosia.

As I was lulled by this harmony,

I was offered this remembering…

A noose around my neck.

Terrified.

For the first time, I was separate from her.

Separation, a foreign feeling.

Before this I’d known no stranger.

Division had been summoned. 

And an unsung feeling was consecrated, 

Terror.

She coursed through my veins and seized my heart.

Then the floor fell from under my feet.

And I was hanged.

My body hung limp,

For all to see.

I was a sacrifice. 

The end of a ritual to evoke and unleash Terror.

A wake up call.  

She was here now.

And hearts were susceptible 

I relived being hanged.

Visceral.

Like the welling up when the need to cry comes. 

An unbearable pressure.

Up through my throat.

My teeth clenched.

When the floor fell,

A shock surged through my body.

My breath hung.

The Mother fled.

Out through the top of my head.

Stunned with this vision I wept. 

I howled. 

My throat burned with the remembering of the flow of power that was strangled out of me.

Then I heard her. 

The one who was hanged.

Her hands, one on the back of my neck, the other on my heart. 

She whispered.

“It is time, sister, to sing again.” 

“You’ve lived in Love. You’re living in Terror.”

“It’s time to heal this trauma.” 

“Build the bridge from heart to brain. Retrain.”

“Evoke Me Once Again.”

“Reclaim what was driven out of you.”

“Unify Love and Terror.”

“Lose yourself once again in this ancient longing.” 

“Embody Me.” 

“Lead Again.” 

“Sing.” 

** This writing has several parts to it that are numbered with title. I received these memories over a period of 12 months.

(Continue to Part 2)

Instrument of Wonder

At the turn of darkness to light, the full moon

I sat in the feeling of being hunted down, terrorized, and found.

I saw it. I saw them coming. I felt the fear. I tasted the response to hide. 

It wasn’t me or mine.

But it was that of a light keeper hiding in plain sight.

This part I don’t know.

She has to swallow that terror and alchemize it or she will always be able

to be hunted and prayed upon by the darkness.

Menaced by the lost and lurking.

What are the prayers?

The Dali Lama chants the Maha Mrityunjaya.

What is my prayer?

Who or what will midwife me through the terror?

Keep me safe while I traverse the lands of scarcity, ruin, bodily fluids, debauchery, lose of container and control.

Please call the midwives together for this return, Mother.

How many walls or sacred tools and energy and time can I keep between “my” sacred and that which is sacred; that which lurks?

My dharma is to unify with the darkness and midwife unity into consciousness. 

To play. And pray.

And I need all of the helpers now. Please present yourselves.

Please bring the knowledge and the tools. Please guide my way.

Please have my back and breath.

I am laying myself in your hands with awareness.

May the web of ancestors and the lineage of the light keepers open themselves to me and show me the path.

Make the path visible.

Guide and walk with me together now as we have always done forever.

I remember.

I am here now. 

I am this form.

Shake off the dust of my pyramid.

Let the great winds blow through the hillsides and caress my body.

Let the leaves rustling with the wind be my ears.

The grasses dancing be my digestion.

The soil thick and rich my nervous system.

The water, my breath.

Let the animals be my blood.

And all the people of the Earth and their movement be my migration, my circulation.

Posses me. Fill me.

Make me an Instrument of Wonder.

And bring me my floor.

On my knees I bow down and touch the Earth.

United. Hands on me for prayer.

You are welcomed. You are here.

You have arrived.

Honor the Discomfort

There is little that can be done to change uncomfortable situations, especially the ones outside of ourselves. Though we try with all of our might to control or avoid them, still they come. To deal with it, some of us fight while others fly. We spend a lot of energy looking externally for something or someone to relieve  the discomfort. 

The wisdom of Yoga says something about this… When Discomfort shows up, it is the messenger of an important message from our intuitive, wise, and true Self. If avoided, ignored, or neglected Discomfort will grow, the suffering will increase, and a medley of other equally uncomfortable or unfortunate events can come together to amplify it. All of this is Discomfort saying,  “Turn towards me, I need you. I have direction for you”

This message is subtle and may seem insignificant compared to the loud repetitive messages of the Ego oriented consumeristic world. Be thin, wear this, youth is God, flexibility is the point, have the right car, be the perfect family, smile, be happy, etc. 

I learned how to really endure and listen when I was asked to sit in chair pose, Utkatasana for 5 minutes. Try it yourself real quick. Unclench your jaw, keep your breath flowing and easeful (no power Ujjiyi breathing here), tailbone tucked, chin draw in and spine extended…. Fingertips and crown of your head to the ceiling, tailbone down.. Your breath keeping you erect and supported.  Just relax and witness. 

Witnessing the discomfort that I felt in those 5 minutes enraged me. My mind went into a frenzy. I felt victimized. My mind told me I didn’t deserve that. I felt angry at the teacher for making me feel that way, how dare her.

Once it was over and I fell into Savasana. I cried, I felt a huge release of tension and the surrendering of discomfort. I’d literally never gone through discomfort before, all the way to the other side. I had never held my mind accountable to that degree. And when I did, what flowed through me after all the rigid thoughts and judgements about the discomfort, was the support of prana (energy) that was waiting on the other side. 

It felt like relief;  like everything was going to be okay. I had built a bridge. Beyond the guardian we call discomfort is sweet relief. That is what is on the other side of the bridge. Our aversion to move through discomfort, victimization, anger, etc. is what keeps flow, safety, trust, relief beyond our reach.

Discomfort often creeps in, hits hard (if we oppress it) then demands, “Sit down with me,  breath, and support me. Do not neglect me, don’t turn away or numb yourself into forgetting… Sit with me.”  We often do not hear the message that way. Often that moment looks like all hell has broken loose in our lives, our health, our families and friendships. Like a beautiful disaster has been orchestrated so we can have a minute for ourselves. 

Why is it that we can only find these moments from hardship?  Yoga is a practice honed in observing the patterns of imperfection and distress in our life and turning towards discomfort when it crops up rather than away from it. 

The more we show up, the more willingness we will find, the easier it will be to hear the message. If you practice this Yoga earnestly and with dedication, you will discover how you will be naturally supported in this effort.

I am not saying it’s easy or enjoyable or that it happens over night. It’s a lifetime practice. First, decide that you will turn towards discomfort because the more we turn towards our discomfort, the more we turn towards ourselves. Learn to sit with it. You will find that this practice can be your homecoming rather than the source of your suffering.

As we learn to be steady and easy in our asana, like in the long hold of Utkatasana, and begin to trust that relief follows, we practice enduring discomfort, listening to its message, and experiencing relief. We might even learn to Honor the Discomfort and thank it for being our Guide.