Arunachala Shiva

Winter is blowing in on the wind as the darkest night of the year descends. Even with the south Indian heat in the air, I feel a chill. It’s going to be a long night.

So I’m settling in, the loving gaze of Lakshmi Ma looking down on me from the walls of my guesthouse room, the silhouette of the mountain visible against the night sky, the resident cat, Cookie, curled up next to me purring contentedly. I’m glad one of us feels contented.

 

For no reason I can name, I feel off.  It’s been a nagging feeling, one I’ve easily and genuinely pushed aside in moments throughout my travels so far, but one I’ve not been able to overcome or fully understand. If I’m honest, it’s not actually bothering me all that much. The melancholy, the loneliness, the sense of being a bit lost. I’m no stranger to the way transformation works. There’s a reason we use the phrase “dark night of the soul”.  Things very often get very dark before the blaze of enlightenment shines upon you.

And so I barely slept last night despite being totally spent from twelve hours of travel.  Somehow I found enough energy today to ground into my newest destination, Thiruvanamalai. The city itself seems pretty unremarkable at first glance, save for the presence of Ramana Maharishi’s ashram, but I didn’t come for the city. I came for Arunachala, both the mountain and the temple, which honor Shiva in the form of fire.  No coincidence that I should be moving through some darkness just as I prepare to stand before the light.

I ventured out by bicycle, weaving my way among the motorbikes, auto rickshaws, pedestrians, cars and cows. My heart hurt at the sight of forlorn animals amidst piles of garbage, even more so than it did at the sight of humans suffering through their plights of poverty, disability, ignorance and disease, and yet the tenderness was fleeting. It was almost as if I’d momentarily lost touch with my depth of feeling, a very strange and unsettling sensation for one who usually feels so deeply.

Then it came back.

 As evening arrived and the solstice began, I visited the Arunachala Temple for the first time. It is an truly impressive sight to behold, even if it leans toward being a spectacle with the lines of pilgrims – women clad in red and gold saris, men in black dhotis – everywhere as priests covered in ashes scramble about attending to their business. Thankfully the business of one such priest was to lead me and a few others along the fast track into the inner sanctums where we’d sit for a brief puja (offering) in the holy and hallowed chambers of Shakti and Shiva.

My mind delighted at the sight of Shakti even if my body didn’t feel the usual sensation that arises when communing with the Goddess in this way. But when I was brought in to see Shiva, whatever switch that had be in the off position in me definitely turned on.

The heat from the oil lamps seemed to bounce against the dark, stone walls and penetrate straight to my core. I was sweating immediately, though not the dripping, I-just-did-a-great-workout sweat, but the radiant warmth that emanates from a heart set on fire. Tears came to my eyes that gazed transfixed at the magnetic beauty of the Shiva Lingam before me. My whole body came alive at the intensity of the experience, my name being entered into the string of mantras chanted, offerings exchanged, light taken into the upper chakras, ash smeared on foreheads and garlands placed around necks.

Then it was over.

 I emerged buzzing with this energy that now had a name: Shiva. My feeling off still doesn’t have a name, but the resonance of the Divine in me at this moment surely does: Nataraja, the Cosmic Dancer, the Destroyer, dancing in a ring of fire, beating the drum of creation, stamping out ignorance, symbol of liberation.

Fitting for the welcoming of the new season. Fitting for this new chapter I am writing in the book of my life.

Back with my Beloved

I am here, again, back in India, experiencing the madness and the magic that is her trademark. She is a land of extremes, a land of oxymorons and sometimes-strange juxtapositions, of opulence alongside filth, aloneness felt among a throng of people, a sense of going slowly amidst constant chaos. She is a land I love, and like all love, it changes over time.

Returning to her for my third visit, we meet with the awkward familiarity of lovers who’ve been apart for a while. She knows how to receive me now, and I her, yet there’s an adjustment period, feeling each other out slowly even as we embrace fervently. I dive into her, hungry for the taste of her signature sweetness, then pull back, quickly intoxicated and unsteady from the drunkenness. In sleep it takes me time to adjust to her, crashing from the sheer exhaustion of all it took to reach her and the daylight hours spent taking her in voraciously only to awaken frequently in the night as if I were newly sharing my bed again.

So it was this time around, different than the times before. It took me pretty much all of my first five days in Mumbai to begin to feel like myself with her. It actually took me leaving Mumbai to head for higher elevations, cleaner air and clearer skies, a true Indian hill station retreat, for me to wake up feeling properly grounded and truly present for my beloved.

Like all women who know their worth, she demands I be fully present for her. Only then will she open to me and really let me in.

And she has. She opened to me and bid me welcome into a realm that feels quite like heaven on earth.

I write this from Govardhan Ecovillage, a most inspiring and precious sanctuary of devotion to Mother Bhumi, Mother Earth. After hearing of the incredible work being done here thanks to the wise and loving vision of Radhanath Swami, a much-adored leader of the ISKCON community, I knew I had to come and see it myself. This year has been largely marked by my initiation into permaculture, living in community and a profound deepening of my spiritual path. While I am not a devotee of this lineage, I have been fortunate to spend many a memorable moment in the sweet company of members of the Hare Krishna community, so being among them here is easy and comfortable for me. Being with my beloved Bhumi is effortless ecstasy. It is here that I can finally be fully present to India. It is here that I feel I can simply be.

I realized while in Mumbai that despite genuinely appreciating and enjoying the sights I visited, the temples I prayed in and the encounters I had, I wasn’t fully there. I’ve gotten very easily adjusted living in close proximity to nature in my new home in the redwoods and hilly terrain of northern California. Being in such a metropolitan environment, even one surrounded by the sea like Mumbai, forces me to close off parts of myself without my even realizing it. That partial shutdown doesn’t allow me to be totally available to anything or anyone. I need nature, Bhumi, my true love, to feel whole. That’s quite a revelation for a girl who has lived her entire life in a city.

Driving to GEV, even as I fought back carsickness bouncing along roads in desperate need of repair that are typical of rural India, I felt a sense of calm coming over my body and mind. The embrace of the Sahyadri Mountains surrounding me, the lush green from so many trees, the brilliance of blue in the midday sky and the sounds of birds singing sweetly were all balm to my soul. I’d glimpsed that feeling in moments in the days prior – exploring the stunning caves and carvings of Shiva on Elephanta Island and meditating in solitude in the breathtaking Vipassanna Global Pagoda – but they were fleeting, and the knowledge that I would settle here for a few days put me at ease.

There’s a sensitivity to my system that I didn’t feel during my prior encounters with this great love of mine. She’s been working on me even while I was away, furthering my initiation to her wondrous ways, casting her spell. She’s making me more discerning and challenging me to uphold her highest standards in situations that are at times tricky to navigate. Again, it is her demand of my full presence, and she is testing me to ensure my worthiness.

Yet I clearly understand that I am not proving my worth to her. No.  She already knows me better than I know myself. And so these tests are for me. All of this is so I come to know my own worth, my own truth and to understand not only what I’m made of but also what I’m made for. This whole love affair is an elaborate teaching, and I, the eager student, bow humbly at my guru’s feet.

I feel full of adoration and awe, full of excitement to be back with her, my teacher, my lover, my mother, my India. This leg of the journey has only just begun, and yet I know it will be the most powerful and potent one yet. I am in deeper communion with her than ever before, intent on opening fully as a channel for Her grace to flow through- that is why I came. So the “why” is clear. The “what” is the mystery set to unfold as I travel on.

Motion and stillness, silence and noise

Driving home tonight I marveled at the slender, sensuous sliver of moon adorning the dusk sky. I quickly called to mind the voluptuous fullness of the blood moon I watched eclipse nearly three weeks ago though it feels like just yesterday. How quickly this construct we call time passes by!

 

In the space between these vastly different vantage points of mother moon, I too have passed quickly through a vast range of experiences and energies. When last I sat to write I was preparing for my first foray into Vipassana Meditation, ten days marked by silence and stillness, or so it seemed to my uninitiated mind. That same mind was cranking out all sorts of thoughts, worries and fears around the prospect of entering into that space, and I was bracing myself to be confronted with substantial difficulty and discomfort.

Ah, constructs of the mind!

In all my inner fuss over the challenges that lay before me and the practices, routines and rituals I’d have to set aside for this period of time, I hadn’t given much consideration to the fact that I would be receiving what I now know to be a beautifully profound yet surprisingly simple set of teachings around a very specific meditation technique, and staying so very busy with that would leave little time for missing what fills my space and time in day-to-day life.

Stopping to fill my proverbial cup at the hot springs en route to my Vipassana retreat, I found myself deeply drawn to a man who was sharing with me in a ritual honoring the full moon. As we got to talking and exploring this magnetic pull, I learned he had recently had his own experience in the silence, and his guidance to me was simultaneously vague and deeply reassuring: “You always have your breath” were his words to me. That seemed logical enough. Focus on the breath is front and center in yogic practices, and breath is the most essential element of life for us. So yes, of course I always have my breath.

Yet in his knowing words was a deeper implication that I would only come to understand through my own direct experience working the Vipassana technique and, more importantly, allowing it to work on and through me. And therein lies the true magic of Vipassana, in my opinion. It is a time tested (ya know, just 2500 years or so) and there are people all across the world from all races, faiths, etc. who attest to its efficacy and adhere to its wisdom. Yet there’s no way I could have fully understood it through them, just as I couldn’t really understand it through the people in my life who have sat in this silence and encouraged me to enter it as well. I had to have my own direct experience.

And that I did. After soaking my body in the healing waters of the hot springs, nurturing my soul with the magic of the blood moon and stirring my spirit through the spontaneous and fortuitous connection that came about during the ritual, my tension eased, and I began to truly open to whatever it was that Vipassana would want to give me. I arrived at the retreat center the next day energized and excited, every cell of my being aligned and inspired to embark upon this journey inward. I was ready.

Save for a brief settling in period the first evening, the vow of Noble Silence was taken almost immediately and the structure of the schedule we’d adhere to fell upon us. Up at 4am with every moment allocated until 9pm. No exercise other than walking. No talking, gesturing or eye contact among students. No dinner. No writing. No reading. 

Inside of all that “no” I found myself open to a giant “yes”. It started on Day One, which was actually the day after we arrived. As soon as we began to receive instruction and I began to attune to the rhythm and flow of the center, something in me relaxed and started to open into a state of total receptivity. It was my intention to open to a full embrace of everything and anything that wanted to show up in me throughout this experience taking hold viscerally, and from there I dropped in with surprising ease.

This is not to say I was instantly sitting in perfect stillness and experiencing bliss. To the contrary, the first few days included trying out a wide variety of cushion configurations to get myself as physically comfortable as possible, and I believe it was Day Three when I wanted to jump out of my seat, cross the meditation hall to the men’s side (did I mention the sexes are totally separated?) and find the guy breathing like Darth Vader so I could strangle him. Day 5 included a serious debate about whether or not I should reach out to my ex-husband to share the astonishing array of memories and insights that were surfacing around him and us. Somewhere around Day 7 or 8 I found myself scripting a YouTube parody of sitting through a Vipassana retreat, and I got stuck on creating a third verse to the song ;-) Challenges of all shapes, sizes and humors arose.

But challenges also pass away. Like waves in the ocean, no sooner do they arise only to disappear back into the vastness. Nothing lasts forever. Not our moments of sublime joy or our tortured sadness. Not the sweet sensation of new love or the searing sting of betrayal. Not the height of orgasmic pleasure or the ache of chronic pain. Our lives, as we try to define and know them, are predicated on total impermanence. All that we are, right down to our physical bodies, arises and passes way.

That is the fundamental lesson that Vipassana, just like practically every wisdom path, teaches. There is no point to attachment because everything, and I do mean everything, changes. That’s just the nature of things. Vipassana provides us with a direct experience of this phemomena via the technique being taught. It encourages the necessary strengthening of equanimity given the ephemeral nature of our very existence and that of the thoughts, objects, relationships, etc. that we attach ourselves to.

But reading my words can’t really impart this any more than reading the words of any of the great saints and sages of the world can without you embodying their wisdom for yourself. And it turns out that Vipassana Meditation is a highly embodied practice! I expected stillness, and yet experienced near constant motion as I sat for over 100 hours inside of ten days. I committed to silence, and yet engaged in a deep inner dialog and subtle conversation with everyone around me, even if our lips never moved.

In that space I accessed memories long forgotten and tapped into insights that existed on subtle conscious planes. I made amends, made love, made music. I played the role of both teacher and student, imparting lessons to myself and then integrating them into my being. It was totally fascinating, and though my commitment was to cultivate neither cravings nor aversions, but maintain balanced, harmonious equanimity, I must say I quite liked it!

I liked being with my breath and my sensations. I liked the peacefulness and the simplicity. I liked playing within my own energy field and sensing into that of those around me without the usual distractions of our modern world. I liked watching the evolution of my mind and body over the life of the retreat. I liked walking among the pine trees during our breaks, breathing deeply of their delicious scent when the sunlight hit them, and communing deeper than ever with Mother Nature since even in the silence I could still talk to her. I liked consciously practicing metta (loving kindness) toward myself then gifting that to others with renewed understanding and commitment. I liked bonding with new friends beyond the limitations of words and form, then meeting each other within the world of words and form.

And I liked coming home. I liked returning to the feel of spring water on my bare skin, penetrative eye gazing, lingering hugs and intriguing conversations that first day back as I revisited the springs with fresh energy. Back in my space, I like engaging my housemates in conversation as we pass each other. I like waking up in the morning now and delighting in sitting in “stillness” and “silence” for an hour, which would have seemed like a bit of a chore, or at least a duty, previously. I like sharing my enthusiasm even while knowing it isn’t for me to actually give that to anyone else. I couldn’t even if I wanted to. Each one of us must experience it directly.

My belief, my hope and my prayer is that we all will. If not in this lifetime then in the next, or in however many it takes for this pathway to peace to pervade the hearts of all beings everywhere. When we truly understand the temporal, transient state that is the underlying, and unifying, characteristic of all aspects of life as we know it on earth, we shift. We shift into our highest consciousness, our pure Truth, the essence of the witness who sees this all yet remains unchanged.

And it’s such sweet comfort to know that until we get there, we always have our breath.

Bhavatu sabba mangalam. May all beings be happy.

(If you’re interested in learning more about the technique and retreats, visit http://www.dhamma.org )

Entering into silence

I awoke early today under the light of the moon, me who is a child of the light. Rather than sunbeams reflecting off rolling hills while birds sing their morning song, I was greeted by the spotlight-like intensity of the glowing moon, just shy of her fullness, blazing a beam of insight through the dark night sky. No birds called to me. There was only stillness and quiet. What better metaphor for the journey I am about to enter into.

Today I depart to enter into silence. Today I will turn away from the oh-so-many outer distractions, indulgences and influences that fill my vision and play upon my energy to take a journey inward. Today I will silence my phone, silence my to-do list and silence all that exists outside of me in an attempt to reach something akin to silence within. I will cast most of my life into darkness and focus my beam of light on my inner world just like the moon piercing the vast blackness of night.

I’ll be sitting for my first-ever vipassana meditation retreat. And if the word retreat conjures images of luxury and pampering, you are mistaken. By all accounts this practice is quite austere. Sparse, simple meals and accommodations, just the bare minimum to support you while your days are spent largely in stillness and with almost total outer silence.  No eye contact. No conversation. No reading, chanting mantras, prayer beads, yoga asana or journal writing. Basically everything I do in the course of my normal daily spiritual practice must be put aside and everyone I turn to for sharing and support must be cut off in order for me to commit to this experience. I am easing in with a day of nature, then comes ten days of dedicated vipassana practice followed by a final day of words and outer engagement being reintroduced before returning home.  

 You may be wondering why on earth I’d voluntarily choose this for myself. So am I.

I woke up this morning with a runny nose and an itch in my throat having gone to bed feeling 110% fine last night, a sure sign of my body protesting my heart’s decision. I’ve gone through the mental checklist of all the things I’ll be missing out on while I’m away, weighing them on a proverbial scale against the very substantial weight of this undertaking.  And I’ve already begun to feel the wave of contraction creep through me as emotions such as fear, intimidation and worry arise in the face of this profound experience.

And that is exactly why I’m going.

I’ve taken some major leaps toward the things that I’m afraid of lately, and yet I know I’m not done. Maybe I won’t be done after vipassana either, but my gut and intuition both tell me I must do this regardless. When I refer to my gut, I’m referring to my lower chakras, and when I refer to my intuition, I’m referring to my higher chakras. That they are all aligned behind this choice is all the confirmation I need to take yet another leap. Only this time, unlike some of the recent leaps I’ve taken that were actually away from certain things that were no longer of service to my highest vision of myself, this time I’m leaping right into the fire so I can be burned away and arise anew. This is my phoenix moment.

I’ve conditioned myself to be quite masterful at moving through emotions I don’t want to feel. Get knocked down? Not for long. Dust it off, stand a little taller than before, keep moving. That’s me. Resilient. Brave. Strong.  Yet there is a piece of me who carries those bruises and scars. There is a place inside where I am the shadow of who I show myself to be most of the time. Reticent. Fearful. Weak.

I don’t want to be fragmented any longer. So I’m going within to claim these pieces of myself and integrate them into the whole for I know that it is only in my wholeness, in the whole of my pain as well as my pleasure, that my full passion and purpose can pour through.

I am claiming the child within seeking approval and a sense of safety. I am claiming the woman who longs to be held in loving, lasting partnership. I am claiming the mother who aches to know the ultimate act of creation and service. I am claiming the priestess who has held herself back and kept herself small. I am claiming the author who has yet to commit to letting her voice be heard. I am claiming the friend who desires to get as good as she gives. I am claiming my grief, sadness, loneliness, pettiness, weakness, anger, lust, greed, yearning and everything else that lives in the darkness of my shadow, claiming it so I can bring it forward to become one with my light.

This sense of separation I’ve lived with, that most of us live with, is a prison. It keeps us locked away from the fullness and richness of our lives.  The truth is I actually love my life and recognize the abundance of blessings in it already. So imagine how it would be then to grow that love and increase that abundance by bringing ALL of me forth into the light of my life? And if I can manage that, how sweet will it be to eliminate any sense of separation between me and all my brothers and sisters, the flora and fauna, and the Mother who birthed us all?

My journey into silence will not be easy. I anticipate feeling pain on every possible level. I’d be lying if I said I’m fully prepared for that because how can I be? I’ve never done this before. I have no way of knowing just what will arise throughout these ten days. I know what my intention for this experience is. I know I have the power to choose my reaction to this experience, just as I can choose what it is I need to burn away in the fire of purification so that I may arise anew.  So I choose integration. I choose wholeness. I choose to bring darkness into light. I choose a life lived fully and authentically. I choose my phoenix moment. 

See you on the other side!