Flight to Seattle – 25 February 2009

I left Seattle on 24 October 2008. I’m returning exactly five months later. I originally thought I’d be gone two months. Originally that thought frightened me. Two months seemed like a long time. It seemed scary. *laugh*

I think my biggest learning from this trip is to do what scares me the most. If I fail, I just realize that nothing is different. Life goes on. If I succeed, I realize there is nothing I cannot do. Everything else becomes gravy. It’s the most liberating and freeing experience of my life.

There is a cat who is not happy to be on this flight. I can’t tell if it’s under a nearby seat or in the hold. I can definitely hear it howling and I’m sending it calm, peaceful vibes.

My seatmate is a likeable young fellow who has spent time in Bahrain in the military. He’s retired now and doesn’t feel like military to me. We had a great conversation the first hour or so about the wonderful parts of being in other cultures and meeting the people there.

I almost missed the first leg of my flight, from West Palm Beach to Charlotte. The ticketing area was nearly deserted and they had lovely wicker chairs near power outlets and I sat down and started sending email and chatting on facebook. I went downstairs toward my gate with 45 minutes before my flight, only to find the security line stretching across the entire airport. Where did all those people come from??? I had a lovely conversation with a young man from New York, also about the wonderful parts of being in other cultures and meeting the people there. He said he was getting the benefit of my India trip by osmosis. He said he was trying to teach his 12 year old son about the values of other cultures. The 30 minutes it took to get through security was very pleasant. I knew it would be fine and just let go. I was one of the last people to board the plane and that’s just the way I like it.

I’m very excited to be going home. I think the month on the East Coast was a very good idea and while not easy, it was perfect for transitioning to being back in the West. I can land in Seattle happy to be there instead of desperately yearning to leave.

Everywhere I’ve been so far, I’ve been seeing people and places with new eyes. I’m more connected and more detached at the same time. It’s a much more peaceful way of being than I’ve experienced in the past and I think it will deepen and broaden over time. I’m interested in experiencing Seattle in this way and looking forward to discovering exactly what that entails. I honestly have no expectations for how life is going to unfold, while maintaining a calm certainty that whatever happens will be perfect.

That last sentence is so foreign to who I used to be, that part of me screams, Who am I??? That which I Am just smiles and knows in response. Holy Mother, I like this.

I’ve been able to close my eyes and instantly sink into and merge with the Light and Oneness any time I choose, which is often. It’s lovely. As I was driving around Florida, I appreciated how totally supported I am. I gave up my story of not having much. I had a car to drive, great food, a beautiful home to stay in and a friend who took me diving for the very first time. She had this cute little air compressor in an inner tube called a Brownie and we did what was called hookah diving. It reminded me of those old diver helmets and suits with the attached oxygen hoses, except there was no helmet, the hose was attached to a mouthpiece and we wore regular diving masks. Diving is awesome! It’s a whole different realm, not unlike the realm of meditation. I loved it and will definitely do more. This is not the picture of a life of someone who has nothing.

I thought Florida was going to be the least spiritual of all my stops. Imagine my surprise when I found myself at a Wynne Paris kirtan on my last night there in a very authentic yoga studio with exquisite energy. Wynne is based in DC and tours around the country doing kirtans. I met him in Seattle last summer. He’s releasing a CD soon and it has Krishna Das on it and musicians from Def Leppard and Bruce Hornsby. When I was dancing and whirling and jumping to Hari Krishna, I thought I might just levitate. So much for my preconceived notions. I think I’m finally giving them up. Spirit is Everywhere and in Everyone. No one is served by me thinking otherwise.

There is twenty minutes left in my flight. Joy has been springing up and overflowing at random times today and this is one of them.

God is Real, God is Magnificent, God is Life, God is Love!

16 February 2009 – Virginia.

I’m still in Virginia. It feels like I’ve been here for months, not just over a week. I’m having an amazing time realizing there are communities here I feel just as home in as Seattle and India. That’s new. I’ve been mostly staying with people who don’t have Internet in their homes, so when I do hit the Internet every two or three days, I’m using that time for homework. That’s one reason why I’m behind on my blogging and I’m waaay behind on email.

I had an amazing day at the Satchitananda Ashram – Yogaville in the mountains on Saturday. They were having a free Introduction to Yoga workshop that included meditation at their LOTUS shrine, Hatha yoga postures, pranayama, kirtan and satsang. I kept breaking out in huge smiles in mid chant when I’d realize I was in Virginia chanting in Sanskrit.

Swami Satchitananda and his devotees are the creators of Integral Yoga and I wanted to go for two reasons. One, I wanted to immerse myself in the ashram/yoga space and kirtan. I was exhausted from driving one to three hours every day and reconnecting with friends and family, including a 79 year old aunt I’ve not had a particularly strong connection with before. Virginia is not a walkable place and I was quite depleted while getting virtually no physical activity. I knew immersing myself in the ashram would be rejuvenating and it was.

Two, I wanted to see what distinguished Integral Yoga from the forms of yoga I’ve been introduced to. I don’t see a lot of difference. They do slightly different mudras for the pranayama and place the pranayama at a precise place in the practice, but overall it seems to me to be Sivananda yoga. They also have a very specific way of doing yoga nidra, but again, fundamentally it’s not much different.

The ashram is mellow and very isolated, in the Blue Ridge Mountains along the James River. The energy there is very gentle and sweet. LOTUS stands for Light Of Truth Universal Shrine and was built in the mid 80’s to honour all faiths, including atheism, music and science and faiths not yet discovered. There are many icons for each faith represented and the building is shaped like a giant lotus flower. In the upper level meditation chamber, there are individual shrines around the outside wall with neon light beams going to the ceiling and a central light beam going to the ceiling where they all meet. It’s quite lovely. There is a miniature Mt. Kailash with an enormous Nataraja where they do daily pujas. Finally, there is Chidambaram, the mahasamadi shrine of Sri Satchitananda. I’m considering spending 2 – 3 days there this week, if something else doesn’t present itself. It’s nice to be immersed in a yogic routine and they have a nice library and satellite Internet.

After the workshop at the ashram, I spent the night with a Landmark friend and went to Charlottesville Unity church on Sunday, where they sang a couple of songs we sing at CSL. My heart burst open while I was singing and the tears started tracing lines down my cheeks. I was beaming and swaying and singing. After the service, while I was being introduced to one of the ministers, one of the backup singers on the stage came over to me and told me he could feel my energy up there and it totally grabbed his attention and he looked over to see me smiling and singing with raised hands. I LOVE hearing that it’s tangible.

After the Tuesday night Landmark seminar in Charlottesville, I sat up chatting with my hosts, dear friends I met doing Landmark work, and their 15 year old son. Their son is an amazingly aware and conscious 15 year old. He wasn’t at the Charlottesville seminar, but would be going to the Richmond seminar Thursday night. I was sharing stories about India and my cosmology and about what being a Tantrika means to me. I shared about loving having a body and not wanting to transcend or turn my back on this realm of existence, but to bring full consciousness and awareness back and live fully while here. He asked for clarification on renunciation, I don’t think there are many renunciants in the Charlottesville skater community, and we talked about what that was. He seemed mildly agitated, told me it was nice meeting me and went to bed.

At Landmark seminars, people get up and share what’s coming up for them in their lives. At the beginning of the seminar on Thursday night, my friends’ son got up and shared that he was incredibly inspired by my sharing about being fully engaged in life in this body, in this realm and it had fueled a brightness and energy in his next two days. I was extremely touched. My stories of being invisible and not making a difference are truly dead. It’s so gratifying to me to hear that I’ve touched someone by simply being me. That he shared that with the entire seminar, whoa.

I’m ready to move on and I can’t for another 5 days. I’m a bit agitated by this. I plan to use the time to rest and recharge, but I don’t know where I’m going to stay each night and that’s getting old. Next up is four days in Florida at my sister’s, then home to Seattle. I’m getting excited about being home again. Five months is a long time.

The Journey Continues

I'm going to continue updating this blog. I have so very much to say and I'm definitely not finished with my journey! I'm not sure what the new title will evolve to, but it's definitely going beyond India and beyond 2008.

I'm feeling so very blessed right now. I'm in a warm, toasty, homey apartment that is filled with love and cats. I want for nothing. I'm reclined on a gorgeous, comfy new couch with my laptop on my lap. Good music is wafting down the hallway from Kevin's room. The aroma of fine coffee fills the air from the kitchen. Snow is forecast. Amy will be home soon. It's so good to see her settled in somewhere where she can thrive and flourish.

I've just been pricing bus tickets (with free WIFI!) to DC to see a dear friend. She has offered me crash space for however long I want it, a ride to Richmond (where I'm headed next) this weekend, if I want, or I can stay alone in her condo while she's gone, if I'd like.

I've also been pricing plane tickets from Florida to Seattle at the end of the month. They're so cheap, it doesn't make sense to burn a frequent flier ticket, so I'll still have one in the bank for when I need it.

My homework is so much fun I can hardly contain myself. People are reaching out from Seattle and telling me how much they miss me and how much they're looking forward to my return.

I'm so very grateful that I can relax and recognize all the gifts that are showing up in my life. I'm so very grateful that I've done the work to put me in a position to receive all these gifts in my life. I'm so very grateful to recognize that there really isn't any work to be done at all. Now is the time to be open to the flow of Grace and receive. Lastly, I'm so very grateful for gratitude itself, because without it, none of this means anything at all and it would be a real shame to miss this.

Oh, Yeah. I'm Back!

Whew, there have been times over the last week when I thought I might not make it back this time. The darkness and despair was quite intense. I've got to say, it's really nice to be back :) Re-entry is a bitch. Two kirtans and a satsang in two days plus an awesome service at the Sacred Center of NY this morning has brought me back into the Light. I wept at the homecoming between me and New Thought.

There is one seemingly core concept of what I'd been studying in Tiruvannamalai that was going against what I believe about how the Universe works, and it had gotten skewed out of proportion for me. I got in a big way today that it's just more dogma. Screw dogma. I don't have to believe anything. Or, conversely, I can believe any bloody thing I want.

I am THAT. Being THAT, I can manifest or create ANYTHING I WANT in my life. To say that there is no "me", so there are no decisions that "I" can make is just Ballocks! OK, if people want to tread that path, it's totally fine with me, but it's not my path. I don't choose to give up choice any more than I choose to give up being in my body experiencing life in this realm. I AM AWAKE, AWARE, AND AT CHOICE. I CHOOSE CHOICE.

To say that I'm not "enlightened" because I believe in choice is, again, Ballocks! If that's enlightenment, I don't want any part of it, thankyouverymuch. Man, I really had myself twisted in a knot over this. Bloody Hell, how I get myself worked up about these things.

I got in a very strong way in church this morning that my dharma is to embrace the power of "and" in spirituality as I do in other parts of my life. I had to giggle, it's a theme in my life. I can live the Truth as I see it, drawing from all traditions.

This despair I've been feeling, it's a gift. It's part of God's riches. It's cleaning me out for something sublime. I've been allowing it, but reluctantly. Now, I'm allowing it wholeheartedly. I finally see that my teachers are right. There is no "wrong" way to feel. I really can't screw this up.

The Guest House - Rumi

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Halleluiah and AMEN! And SO IT IS!