An Invitation

An old man came to my house
and asked me
if I would like to attend a Pathwork
workshop.

He had only one tooth in the front
and it was hard for me to make sense of what he was saying.

When I finally figured it out
I relaxed,
and he became an older woman.

She had her teeth
and silver hair.

I told her I would consider it
perhaps on my way back into the country.

I showed her to the door
and stood speaking with her
through the screen--
she on the outside
me on the inside.

I invited her to come back anytime
to visit me
though she was unsure my father
would allow it.

You are very welcome,
I insisted.
To come and see me anytime.

With that, the dream ends.

oh well

An Open Love Letter

I want to meet you in Cancun. I will go with you, in the moment of passion and desire, wherever we choose to go.

We will travel together, and know one another, far too intimately for the length of time we have known one another.

It will be totally spontaneous. It will not be in alignment with my doctor's advice or my bank account's balance. But I won't care. And neither will you.

In fact, the love between us will heal the universe in a profoundly unique way. And somehow we will be together through all odds to the contrary, and our lives will be benefitted tremendously by it. Even subtly. Even in ways we may not understand now, or for many years to come.

In fact, we will both resist. You cannot understand the depth of my feelings; I cannot contemplate your aloofness. And your vulnerability. Here we will meet. Because we are both willing to be vulnerable with the other. We allow the other to show themselves, in order to know themselves. And we eagerly await every opportunity to know the other in some more subtle nuanced way.

We may never really touch one another. We may always look slightly askance at the other and ask what they are doing here, in my life. How did we get here? and what are we doing? we will ask ourselves. And yet, the answer will be so obvious in the fact that neither of us could find any other way to cope with life except to be together.

Love is what was always there between us.
And what is our absolute honor and precious gift
to be able to express.

If I could express love
and you could receive it
life will complete itself.

How Many Times

Will I hear the click click of my father's lighter?
Will my mother attribute all my skin and weight problems to nuts and carbohydrates?
Will I awake with a sense of what I should do and immediately rebel?
Will I go for just a little more sweet dessert?
Will I ask myself what I should do?
Will my dad say, it doesn't matter. Or, the only real explanation is the Annunaki. Or, honey, you've got to get over using this word: "God".
Will I hear the coffee grinder in this house?
Will my mother say "Barama"?
Will I wake up in this room and bemoan the fact that I am here?
Will I check my gmail inbox? And find nothing, again? Or find another message from a friend which delights me?
Will I wonder what my purpose is?
Will I be discouraged by the thought of what COULD HAVE been?

How many ways can I say thank you for what I do have?
How many ways do I regret every second of intolerence or discouragement?
How many ways does the universe inspire life and growth each and every day?
How many times has the moon been through it's luminous to dark cycle?
How many days will the sun rise? Set? Shine?
How many lives will I lead?
How many people may I smile at?
How many people may I wonder with?
How many people may I offer a kind word?
How many chances will I have to forgive everything about my parents and everyone around me which ever once disturbed me?
How many chances do I have to get it right?
How many times am I allowed to fail?

dear infinite presence and everything true I am with you. Help me always be clear on this.

Dream Dictionary

Gratitude briefly overwhelms.

I dream I am in a place...a museum, an airport, I don't know exactly. Somewhere big, amidst a group of people, on a trip of sorts.

I find myself sitting next to Laksman. We go together over to see Ronela, who sits a ways down. There Laksman asks me why or if I am still angry with him. Why am I upset with him? I am surprised by the question, for I feel I am the one who is hurt, rejected, and he gives me the impression that somehow he feels that way from the way I am acting.

Interesting point happens that I stand up to look over because I think we left our physical bodies where we were sitting before. Indeed there they were, Laksman and I, sitting next to one another, just our bodies. Strange.

I think I will go back to get my body and he comes with me. Ronela is full of love and groundedness within her being. This is how I perceive her in real life and it throws me off completely because I feel it is in relation to Laksman, like she is so secure in their love and connection...a way I also felt...before her.

Coming back to our bodies, there is a slice of cake to celebrate the birthday of the girl sitting beside me. Actually I realize it is my half birthday as well.

In the dream I hug Laksman, put my hand to his hair...

I awake feeling terrible, unhappy, miserable. What is going on? I can't figure it out. Last night I passed these two on the beach and it affected me for the next two hours in a state of emotional limbo and longing and sadness. What needs are not being met? How do I honor the experience of this woman I am living through? What needs to be communicated?

Is it true that actually it is I that is hurting him and not vice versa?

Stick to simplicity...each day I long to see him and want to invite him over or to see me. but two times already have I done so and been rejected with silence. Then later met with a hug and half hearted attempt...then to see them together on the beach...how to be honest about Laksman? Still so much unknown. Somehow I don't feel I can just cross him off from my heart, and alas because I am so attracted to him it's very difficult to simply say ok we are friends.

He has encouraged this in his way as well. To tell me not to let go the romantic feelings for him, though now is not the time...what am I to do? It leaves me feeling disempowered, surprise surprise, unfulfilled emotionally and sexually by him, and yet somehow there is an open longing as if he would satisfy these desires...

So I want to say to myself fine I will just no longer offer you my emotional and sexual needs because with you they are frustrated, yet there is something unspoken. Feels so much like with Luc, like part of me knows that maybe we won't be together, or rather it is my lack of faith in the power of love, and so while I want to say hands down, take me, i want you completely. i am scared to death of rejection, and scared that if i get what i want, it will no longer be what i want. like i felt before...though i tried so hard to supercede my own limitations with that through awareness and felt i did an ok job.

so emotional maturity is lacking b/c still I fear of rejection, fear the risk, that it might be the wrong thing to do, etc.

so then the emotionally mature thing to do might be to simply confess to him my feelings AND request a response. i feel like i know what he will say, especially now i've waited so long and hurt myself so much in the process. he will say not now, he will say it is so amazing with her there is no one else i want to be with.

and so what? will it hurt him to do this as an exercise in the expression of myself?

am i being honest that i even want to express these things? oh god. how do i deny your grace?

how do i deny who and what i love? it is such an abomination. i am full of sorrow and regreat that i have lived like this.

i love you. thank you for whoever opens the eyes in the morning and propels me forward.

let not the dark thoughts have any power over me, but let them be lifted easily from my being and light shone where i need to see.

Thank god for the presence of god. Forgive every miserable second in which I forget and allow the feelings of despair to come over me. dear god forgive me these weaknesses. help me to find the strength and the courage to live a life dedicated and surrendered to your divine will.

i love you.

What it was like to be enlightened

What was it like to be enlightened for a day?

It didn't even last quite that long.

There was a moment yesterday during the afternoon meditation when I got to a point of general blurriness, mild dulled down anxiety and in general a sensation that I could go no deeper in the meditation. It was time to switch off.

unfortunately, there happened still to be another hour left in which because of the pressure of the group around me meditating ardently, I was forbidden to do anything that resembled anything other than meditating.

So, what to do? I forced my eyes closed again and recognized in this feeling that it was very familiar. Nauseatingly familiar. It was the same feeling which had driven me to various cups of coffee, tea, ice cream cones, internet searches and mindless conversations over the past couple of weeks and god knows how long before.

It was the exact inner sensation which continued to keep me from doing spiritual practice.

It was the sensation I found inside when I thought of doing my daily meditation and which was indeed so uncomfortable that I allowed myself to skip it, increasing the uncomfortable feeling for the next day in fact.

So, again the question, what to do? Okay, I say to myself. Bring it on. There is nowhere for me to run here. Let's see what the heck is going on in this here mind which is so scared to go a little deeper into myself.

I don't remember EXACTLY what happened. I thought of using the meditation technique (that was the point of the retreat, after all) and so I asked myself, 'who am i?'
and then, who is so scared? who is thinking these thoughts? who is asking these questions? who am i?

these questions were in the vein of suzanne segal's questions after her experience of spontaneous and unstoppable witness consciousness. gradually and suddenly, the way started to clear before me as I turned each thought upon itself and asked who thought it, etc.

and there i experienced a sense of void, of sense of no-bodyness. that indeed, the parts of me which were scared, were not actually real. they were shadows, they were pathology, they were all manner of egoistic and deluded ways of thinking attached to the idea that I am a woman named me with my past and this tight ball of accumulated ideas and assumptions and ways of viewing the world which accounted for my reality.

what am i going to do? who is going to do? i ask. indeed, the interesting things are many. for one, the inquiry took on a new level of reality, of seriousness, of honest self questioning. i was filled with a sense of awe, and purpose, surprising as it may seem since what i found was spaciousness and emptiness, yet at the same time the thoughts continued constantly to arise so my purpose was to question each. allow and question.

then when the meditation was concluded, my body pleasantly numb and i asked who is going to do yoga practice? and then it was as if i could really just watch, and when i watched, i did just what was appropriate for me in that moment. no lazy self willed laxness, nor over ambitiousness. there was a bit of reasoning but in a healthy way, as in, i have forty minutes, how best to allot the time, and then i simply went through some postures, pranayama, etc and laid down for relaxation at the end. it wasn't a spectacular yoga session by any stretch. i didn't push myself much nor go too easy on myself. I didn't do much of anything really. it was as though the body and mind and everything just acted upon itself as it would and i was there simply, there.

and then naturally the lecture started and i took a seat, listened and took notes, all the while inquiring within myself, especially when thoughts arose which were clearly pathological, or unhealthy. such as, oh look at how beautiful is laksman, and arnaud, and what is she doing and my her body is spectacular. each time i thought these things i asked, who thinks this? partly the answer is some openess, some spaciousness and non answer, then partly the clarity comes that all these thoughts are coming from the immature and unhealthy ego structure which is comparing, judging, criticizing, etc. based again on assumptions and ideas.

at the end of the session i come back to my house with a sense of awe, as though coming upon it for the first time, like oh yeah, u live here? there is some fear of a scary movie which came up a few nights ago and i see how much deeper is the attachment to this fear.

I utterly surprise myself by sitting down to do japa yoga. I had completed 7 in the yoga hall with 14 left but in the past weeks have skimped on discipline so sadly from above mentioned inner state that i hardly had any will to make myself do much of anything except eat and play on the computer. but i didn't see what else i should do. i mean, i could lay in bed or read or whatever but it was obvious from a previous agreement that i should do the meditation.

who is doing the meditation? god knows.

still, there was some inner resistance and boredom at times and i noticed another microcosm of a bigger trend in my life. like i decide to do it, then spend most of the time asking if i am really gonna do it, am i gonna finish it, etc. causing that i do not go deeply into the meditation at all b/c all the time i'm squirming and thinking maybe i'll just quit.

after awhile i think i will just do it already, and relax into it, but still it is a bit difficult. however i know all along that actually i will do it b/c at this point i sat down and started and whenever my mind strayed again i asked, who am i?

it seemed that nothing was real about me except the answer to this question, and indeed the only worthwhile things to do were either to strengthen this reality, which can't really be done but to purify all that which obstructs it can.

and i saw quite clearly how much my laziness and the rest is the result of self-will fear and pride. Do i have so much pride that i cannot make an effort when things become more challenging? it appears so.

luckily this new key of who is lazy? who is full of pride? was wiping clean the slate of false images in a way which freed up loads of energy to do simply what needed to be done without my interference. in fact, any interference from me simply made it much more difficult to complete the task at all.

i go to sleep around 11 oclock and set the alarm for six. i wake up around 500 or so and go back to sleep, dreaming about babysitting with parris and siblings and i was giving them choices. i awake to the sound of a big palmetto bug landing on my pillow and i sit up immediately and turn on the light as simply as can be, no complaint involved. the bug crawls off my bed and i simply get up and do vamana dhauti, which i decided the night before in clarity would be good to do.

then i did neti, then some stretching and walked to the yoga hall b/c it seems ridiculous to drive after all. all the time i am asking myself who i am and full of the sensation of getting out of the way so that what needs to be done simply can be done.

getting dressed is much easier than it was the day before when i was again concerned with my image and couldn't decide, etc.

i sat as the monitor and went quite easily into the state of self inquiry and now involving the emotion of love and longing which could have seemed contradictory at first for simply there is no one there then what to feel love and longing? yet the reality included more than simply no reality.

i was aware all the time that this state would be deep and great and that again it will pass, as always, because now i have been practising long enough and have an idea of my pitfalls to know it is back and forth all the time with me. i may be in high states, or deep states, and then come back to myself as a mundane woman with utter attachment to the material world and negative thinking etc. how to make this a lasting experience? i didn't even want to ask b/c i always failed at doing it before.

indeed by the time i returned home after lunch it was fading and i lapsed enough with the vigilant self questioning that while i was in the bathroom shaving off all the hair from my body i thought fuck i will renounce spirituality once and for all because it causes too much confusion in the question of what to do with my life.

i want to learn how to ride horses and ride them in the evenings next to my husband.

how do i get over the false belief that what i want and what god wants for me are mutually exclusive?

how to integrate, it is as often these experiences. my mind is such an escaper and fearer of life that i want to use this as a means to get out for good. god just let me out.

let me be free from all effort to develop and change and be a better individual. indeed it seems the best way to develop would be to stay in this pure state and allow god to do all the 'work' for me. yet the work is to stay in the state...so alluring are the mental fluctuations still. who is still such a spiritually unevolved human being????

thank you god and jesus christ for your reality.