capricorn angel

An Invitation

2010-02-19T22:18:00.000-05:00

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

2010-02-04T20:35:00.002-05:00

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

2010-01-10T13:51:00.002-05:00

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

2009-07-04T22:25:00.002-04:00

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

2009-06-24T04:02:00.003-04:00

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.

Yes

2008-11-12T10:47:00.002-05:00

Yes, it looks like I will strike out again.

What am I doing? The dance. I am practicing the dance of discovering who I am. I want to attract my lover. I want to wake up because I feel His presence very near.

I have decided to go it alone, again.

And just what am I thinking? If I can do this, I can do anything else. So why this?

Part of me asks, why am I leaving? And part of me feels that this is the best way to go. Not because I am running from something, though I have left for that reason before. Now I feel to leave because the universe uplifts me to do so.

How will I support myself?

Trudy says that He loves me so much, yet he will never force himself on me. He will allow me to travel the path I desire towards him, and he will always be with me, even when I think he is not. He will not allow me to go too far astray. Yet I still must use caution, exercise wisdom in judgment.

For, she says, you do not want to go down a path and become too entrenched only later to find that it is a dark path. Go very, very, SLOW, she says.

What is the end of this yoga? She asks. Union with the divine, I answer. But there was first a slight hesitation. Because part of me feels inadequate to ever attain such a lofty goal, and fears I will fail on the path. But this thinking is false humility, perhaps. And shows a lack of faith that the said goal is, in fact, attainable. Cautioned as we always are by how few attain the true realization.

It is indeed a supreme goal, and one which may take considerable devotion and effort on my part. However, with true faith in His supreme compassion, and in the essential teachings of yoga--that we are, in our essence, the same as That--it is not only possible, it is inevitable.

I ask what the goal of her path is. She says the promise of a better life beyond. The deepest peace in her heart which she knows protects and nourishes her, and will be there to greet her upon her departure from this world.

She encourages me to remember the shortcut, the book of His word. And to listen to my heart. She can feel His presence there, and she urges me to listen to that voice which guides me truly.

As she describes His nature, my eyes fill with tears, for truly, that is how I also experience his love. It reminds me of the way I am loved by my teacher.

As I keep in heart the desire to benefit others, to share the wisdom teachings which have helped heal much of my own pain, clarity eases confusion and fear.

And I see that I have already ventured farther into the path than I was conscious of doing. I did move quickly, eagerly, and then did reap the effects of this aggressive haste in the form of confusion, anxiety, and the necessity to re-trace my steps so that I could make sense of where I came to be.

So here I am. And I did nothing alone. This act must be consecrated. I am blind without Him.

Vandana Shiva

2008-11-11T15:08:00.001-05:00

It’s not about how much wealthy nations can give, so much as how much less they can take.

http://www.odemagazine.com/doc/28/two_myths_that_keep_the_world_poor

I should have slapped you

2008-11-06T14:51:00.002-05:00

I thought about it, as we embraced, and I stepped back to look up into your face.

I raised my arm, to a vague look of surprise and then nothing, as I let it fall easily against the side of your bearded face and merely said, it's good to see you.

Good to see you?
Good to see you?

I should have slapped you.

But I instead felt myself embraced by you, led by you to the place of our most awkward encounters, the bed, and into a realm of repetition of the disharmonious frequencies between us which would likely have been alleviated had I but slapped you.

I think you would have liked it. A cold, hard slap coming from a woman whose heart is so torn for you she knows and doesn't care what an idiotic jerk you are.

Thank god I learned from months of silence and reflection through the onslaught of inner emotional turmoil that we are clearly in no capacity presently to truly serve one another through an intimate relationship.

It doesn't harm my love for you in the least, that you are such a "d-bag" as my brother lovingly called it.

And it clears up a lot of the confusion.

Before, I could not accept that I could love so deeply, desire so purely in the depth of my heart, a man as unschooled as you are in the art of intimacy and love between a man and a woman.

Now, I know that I do in fact love you, as deeply as ever before, awakened in a moment of remembrance your eyes, your consciousness. You are one of the most painful mirrors I have ever held myself up to. I know this pain is good pain. And it is some of the worst inner emotional pain I have ever experienced.

And I love it. And it doesn't affect my love for you, my desire for you.

It does affect our relationship in present time. It cancels the possibility that we will realize the glory of uniting our polarized ends with one another.

Not forever. And only at some level, that of this physical world, this reality.

As God, we will forever remain one and the same.

This is God's greatest grace in the realm of relationship. The truth that ultimately, there is no relationship. What feels like separation and challenge between us, what causes such distinct sharpness in my heart, is only the ignorance of that ultimate reality.

I wish I could tell you. I wish I could be true to just how real I love you, yet our interaction prevents it at every turn.

So a great lesson is learned. I cannot force you to love me as I love you. Or want me as deeply as I crave you.

Because I am such a lie, and that is how you see me too, it is that much harder for me to wake up from such slumber and be the love I am for you.

Inside I am striving also to be one with you. To be worthy of your love. To be worthy of your recognition of me as love.

I don't see it happening any time soon. This is so deep in fantasy it's not even funny. Something to honor for the preciousness it awakens in my heart, and let go like a bag of bricks.

i love u i hate u i love u. when u are shiva you will watch me dance through this.

Embracing ALL

2008-10-27T09:21:00.002-04:00

Embrace all, give all.

What amuses me is that after telling my boss at work that my weekend was, in short, terrible--psychologically--he commences to describe an extremely similar sounding weekend--one in which he slept a lot, watched TV, and got nothing done. Only he described it as pretty good overall. Whereas I felt beset by a dark outlook, and the regular slew of depressed negatively self absorbed patterned thinking and behavior. Oh, it was pretty funny, to watch me turn into a wind up doll of a human being and enact a personality and behavior which I simply despise but feel totally trapped by.

On the bus I take to mantra recitation and recall the sentiments of St. Theresa of Avila which console me deeply. She would pray always to have God with her, on her side, for she recalls too clearly the Hell awaiting her should she miss the mark and fall from grace.

After two days without the consolation and light of inner wakefulness that Hell is engraved clearly in my mind, and I see that it is not God who turned away from me but I who turned away from Him. And it is so miserable to be worth humbling myself to the prayer of His company! (2 days!? Am I super wimp? Or the absence of His wisdom becomes more and more difficult to bear...)

Speaking to my father about God breaks me. Is it because I am attached to some Judeo -Christian sense of God the Father, a vehicle of mass control, as my father posits?

Or is it because I long so deeply for Him that I cannot bear to dispute His existence, or listen to my father condemn Him to be the result of so many humans' painful conception?

It becomes more clear. The science of yoga is my only friend, besides the Self. Of course I become confused when I eat foods which "breed evil in me" (my own phrase :), live without a constant steady practice, do not have regular sex and/or constant sublimation of sexual energy. So what? Is it still so interesting to wallow in the lower wails of the mind that is lost and confused?

It is a definite Hell, a miserable place from which I only crave to awake. Initially, it makes me crave to go to sleep--it lures me in. It is the veil of ignorance--the most painful aspect of which is the ignorance of ignorance, which can be seamless in that in one moment somehow it seems acceptable to act, speak, and think in ways which judge and demean myself and others. It is anger and depression, the enemies of Self-Realization.

It need not be about personal responsibility or creating a professional image or anything else, when the fact is simply that I long for Him. I long for freedom of consciousness, which I remember in experience.

When Claudiu started the retreat, he claims we suffer because we "forgot" who we actually are. And this seems ludicrous. How could we forget something so glorious and joy filled that we are God?

Yet, we do, I can attest from personal experience. And then I remember, and pray, and see that my existence here on Earth is akin to that of a worm (thanks for the terminology St. Theresa), in it's pitifully painful self absorption. The reality that ignorance of God is the cause of all suffering comes closer. And I could also say, secularly, ignorance of our true nature, but I like God.

Next note: I manage to live in misery only because I believe there is somewhere else to be. My mind becomes separate from my body. I imagine that it is this place, these people, etc. which contribute to my misery and fantasize that there exists another physical location in which I could be happy. Happiness based on exterior circumstances.

Which is not to say that there are not more supportive and conducive environments for different aspirations and purposes, this is clear, but my own pretty psychological disconnect seems predicated on the basis that if I could escape--things would be different. And it's the escapism that feels so threatening, as it shows a lack of present time consciousness.

Usually when I go into this state I turn away from God, spiritual friends, and anyone I know is superior than me, in that it seems they are free from these lower states of consciousness, or at least from believing in them/acting on them. And I find people, like my poor parents, who will take me and entertain me no matter what. And I am humiliated by this. They show themselves to be superior than me and free me from the burden of the grudge I tried to hold against them. Thank you.

This morning I awoke and said thank you, for this turmoil, for this suffering, thank you God for allowing me to turn away from you and indulge in such pitiable behavior. Thank you for letting me leave you.

Usually now I feel guilty and terrible and even more embarrassed. This is certainly a reasonable outcome. From the standpoint that I do deserve a negative judgment and punishment for my ignorant behavior.

Who was it who said that God's judgment is far better than Satan's punishment? The sentiment is clear--better to turn to the light and expose the darkness, as painful as that will be, than from fear of light, turn to the darkness and go deeper into that suffering.

God your light is too precious to treat with such ignorance!

So many times before I thought that God doesn't care what I do or whatever, by which I mean that His reality is entirely unaffected by me. Hallelujah! Praise Shiva the Destroyer! It is the case, oh, it is the perfect man who will love me no matter what! And upon this realization, what have I but endless buckets of gratitude that it is the case! That I cannot destroy your light no matter how miserably dark I become. All these "tests" of God's reality, or rather, tests of my faith, as they say--well, isn't it that once the test is passed, the lesson learned, one can move on?

Walking down the hall I do this for me. I woke up this morning, to my surprise. No one is going to save me. God exists as pure love and the only reason for my existence at all. The world exists as it does, with its cause and effect nature, with all of us doing our best within our limits, seeking freedom to know He who is the essence and source of our world. A freedom we create for ourselves, as exemplified by the Buddha. A freedom gained by pure love and surrender, as Krishna teaches in the "Uddhava Gita". A freedom experienced through realizing the God-essence of our own being, as taught by Jesus Christ.

Oh, it is the science of spirituality which draws me near.

And enough of this meandering mental hell realms which deserve no credibility but the light of insight. But I won't make a plan for the future about how to practice more, eat better, exercise, etc. I have made and broken these plans for far too long.

And it seems this evolution has been experienced so many times before, and the saints live and have lived to teach and remind us of God's endless love for us. So why bother to write? Why bother to walk this path? God is, what else is there? Even if God is not, what else is there? Well, everything.

I woke up this morning, to my surprise. Here I am. And so I must be.

Praise love. Dear God, you see me for who I am that is me, and who I am that is you. You are the truth beyond my limited understanding. I pray you always keep me with you and hold me by the hand of sweet joyful remembrance of You should I be tempted to stray...your truth consoles my soul.

Endless Saturday

2008-10-25T15:07:00.002-04:00

I feel like I have come full circle.

Back again in an inner space which lacks spaciousness, probably prompted by monthly changing hormones and so there is nothing to take seriously, but then, there is nothing to EVER take seriously.

Bitch, whine, poor me.

Ok, so I dreamt about Barack Obama last night. He was endeared to my friend. Then it turned out he also had been into Agama (note name similarity) yoga in the past. And i feared for the media to discover that he had Swami for a teacher (akin to his provocative preacher, Rev. Wright!). I awoke in some paranoia in the early hours, fantasizing that Obama was in my dreams due to super subconscious infiltrating devices. I chanted myself back to sleep, as I had many hours earlier.

How I want to blame, blame, blame. Now I think it may be not only the energy of our particular family but very much that of the society at large. The egregor of consciousness of mainstream America, as viewed on TV and on highways and malls and corporate chains, etc. A culture of IGNORANCE. Why do I fall for it again and again? it's just what they want! A person who is too scared to actually CHANGE anything, ok Obama, but also raising of consciousness!

Why don't I meet anyone new or interesting around here? Why am I so scared to change? What on earth am I holding onto? How do I become this person so uncontrolled, negative, mean, pathetic, more than anything else. My god. It is so embarrassing to be alive as myself today, I said to my mother, after giving her the lay down, one up-ing myself with what I think is real wisdom but so unskillfully delivered. God, what about skill?

What about the willingness to WORK? To step out of myself, where I simply simmer to death, in order to do something useful for the other.

So today I feel back into this consciousness of insecurity, that sense that every time the light shines through and I feel elevated, this state of hopelessness is just on its heels. And who shall win? The struggle continues.

Krishna speaks of his most beloved disciples and I think, ha, never shall I manage to make myself into any so exalted as to be named as one of HIS most beloved. And what is my goal in life?

Running through the woods, dreaming of his eyes, his face, his wisdom, his anything, I wish I could be someone that he loves. Who am I talking about? Some idea of God imposed on some idea of a man? God I don't know anything. Except what I know. Why do I default into this familiar habitual "safe" land of NO RESPONSIBILITY?

My life set up in such a way that I somehow feel like I CAN AFFORD to wallow in this state of consciousness for even ONE SECOND? Dear god it is the example as put forth around me so I do not blame but recognize the influence of resonance.

There are the two things right. The influence of the others will make me become like them (you are your friends) and then the alternate principle that being around others who are different may bring out the differences (Lion stands out from the Sheep). Sheeple, people. Why can I not bring myself to BE and admit TO BE one of those glorious humans who give themselves to God, to live beautiful lives full OF PURPOSE, DEDICATION, COMPASSION, DISCIPLINE, LOVE POWER BEAUTY.

How much can I allow myself these unbelievable luxuries as I look around into poverty of spirit. But then, as I was there--that poverty of spirit was with me. Oh GOD HOW MAY I SERVE YOU?

This is the farthest thing from serving myself! GOD just choose and move on! Why How can I not/stop learning this lesson? By getting it! Translation into ACTION.

Mi amor. This is not what I thought it would be. This is not the liberation I thought I experienced last week. This is the bondage I've been unable to enjoy for years upon years. Self Knowledge hurts. Upon what path shall I walk to survive in this world? And not only to survive, but to THRIVE.

I dream of being back at Agama and I am so grateful and thrilled to be back by the ocean. I awake and think I would so much prefer the idiosyncrasies of Agama's administrative machine than the dysfunction of my family any day!

When did I get so lost? What patterns have i frightfully repeated so often and made it thus harder for myself.

Krishna says the path of devotion and surrender is the easiest, the most accessible to receive his love. The path of detachment, disciple, control of senses, etc., is possible, but much more arduous. The arduous path, that seems to be my lot. And yet, what a funny funny joke that is!

How arduous it is to abuse myself by myself with leisure and free time and plenty. Oh, god, it is such a shameful embarrassment to dishonor you in this way.

I beg forgiveness, I pray forgiveness, and pray for the light of your consciousness to stay with me always that I shall not, by your grace, engage in such indiscriminate behavior as a dumb animal may.

Why do I fear surrender? As if God in his perfection would take me to do anything I could not? For if it is true surrender, He is with me.

Well, this is a lot of ramblings and fantabulous promenades from second cakra, lower level, whatever, just a wobbly step on the path...

Relationships through the Cakras

2008-10-22T11:30:00.003-04:00

As I sat last night in meditation, my mind humming the same old tunes it's been singing at least for the past year, which are an echo of that song that's been playing in my head since I can remember becoming aware of my body.

Oh, I want to be beautiful, it is my responsibility to god to have the best, most healthy body I can. Ok, I actually believe this, in a way. But there is a difference between knowledge and mental rhetoric which translates into ice cream eating over real action towards achieving said goal.

Body consciousness. Why, I ask myself, AGAIN, has it been so challenging for me to really change my eating patterns and habits and simply take off the weight I feel so burdened by? (We're talking 15 pounds here.)

Ok, these thoughts only come after I've eaten something heavy, and sweet, like the coconut milk (sweetened only with agave nectar) ice cream and chocolate cookie (homemade with sugar) I finished a little while ago. Sugar induced svadhisthana sheepliness.

What is about my attitude that is wrong? (How else do I explain my behavior? Does not right understanding lead to right action?)

Well, usually I think of hunger as an ENEMY. I feel it creeping up on me and my pitta consciousness becomes aggravated easily by it. It is one of the small things in life I have any control over--which quickly becomes a joke and a lie as I satisfy such cravings for food with foods which often lead to more and deeper cravings.

Now, a craving, is not something that is easily controlled. It can be satiated for a time, and for a long time, I thought this was the answer to a craving.

Nevermind the constant teachings from the scriptures and masters regarding the importance of mastery of the senses. What does that mean? These masters must not have lived in the world of refined sugar and such blatant advocacy for a life lived based primarily on gratification of sense to know what we're up against!

However, I do believe they had human bodies, in which sensual desires are apparently a great part of the territory.

Here is the recent leap in my thinking: Become friends with hunger. I've tried many times to become friends with my body. All the time I fight it, I don't want it, I will eat whatever it tells me to to allay it. I call this sugar addiction. People's relationship to food varies from constantly obsessed with it to barely aware that it exists as the foundation of the physical body.

Becoming friends with hunger, or perhaps I should say, my digestive fire, feels like a step up to Manipura cakra. In muladhara, I eat for survival. Imbalanced, this would mean overeating for fear that future food supplies may be interrupted. (Totally irrational based on ALL my life experiences.) In svadhisthana, which is where I've lived inharmoniously lately, food fulfills various cravings for needs ranging far beyond that of food for survival. Food is to indulge the sense of taste, fill the void of sexual lonliness, etc.

In imbalanced Manipura, hunger/food is the enemy. Actually, it seems food has little role in Manipura, since here it is burned by the digestive fire. It is a raw material once again, as it was in Muladhara, only now at the elevated process of actualization of food as the basis of the physical body.

Anahata is the relationship of lovers.
Vishudda, student-teacher
Ajna-perfect balance of male/female
Sahasrara--no relationship, total oneness, no differentiation

Basically it is all about embracing. Embracing everything, as He does.

an open letter to my lover

2008-09-07T13:09:00.002-04:00

who is not my lover. a letter of the deepest regret.

Yes, I feel this way. Yes, I have felt this way before. And I feel it AGAIN. and it is what it is.

It is this time, with this YOU. I am walking in the forest and I see my life before me empty of YOU. Tears come because I cannot...the pain of the emptiness, of this void, is the worst emotional pain I have experienced.

Realism...the practical reality is that nothing worked. there was harmony, but followed so closely by disharmony and dissatisfaction I am embarrassed...I have so much regret for these negative states of mind which I allowed to be expressed to you. Thinking you would see through me, love me through me no matter how I appeared. Because that's how I feel about you. I loved you before we met. To me it was an obvious and easy coming together in which we would deal with whatever challenges for the mutual benefit of our own growth and Love.

was I so wrong? That the rules are not what I thought they were. It matters. It matters. It matters what I said, how I looked, how I treated you, as those things all mattered very much to me. Oh god. I would try forever.

If it is the best...if this is the best you can be for me because it is the best for you...then I can only hope to meet you in the land of self realization. I don't know. Painfully I do not know. If only I knew how to be that you might love me...

Almost all of my closest advisors say this is holding on, they warned me from continuing with you from the beginning. They scared me from opening myself to me as they called you names and warned me that if we did get involved I would probably freak out and it would then be so hard to get away. How could I fear such a thing with a man as like the air as you?

I don't know about my advisers. How I prayed pray pray to know myself. That someone would know me. How can anyone know me before I know myself? and how can I know who I am as I judge and evaluate every little thing?

God please it hurts. It hurts and there are beautiful trees and the forest and the birds singing all around. And the river rushing, and the people there smiling with their family and it just keeps on hurting. The pain is like a cross, and the problem is that I believed the others that I would be better off free of the cross altogether. But I don't know...how can this be? God may I offer all of my ignorance, as vast as it is, to you? Would you accept it, from such a low life as I am?

Yes, freedom from the cross must be the goal. The spiritual goal mirrors the life goal...more space, more freedom of choice...God oh God how could that fall apart? How could it just...fall apart...

A friend said she spent five years trying to get someone who didn't want her to want her. How painful...she said all her relationships, no matter what she did, would just fall apart in her hands. So it may pass. I consoled myself remembering that all this too will pass. I can let go the pain of the attachment to a man. Music consoles me. the thought of his happiness consoles me.

and it is all a crazy reflection. Happiness is important. It does matter. I love you.

i feel the hormones tempting me towards unhappiness...

2008-08-28T14:09:00.002-04:00

What are we doing here?

an answer flashes through my mind yesterday in Allison's intro class:

to Manifest God on Earth.

then it feels like a big, duh.

Like this quote from a famous sculptor: I saw the angel in the rock and I carved until I set her free.

Deepening my faith. Letting go of resistance, darkness, pain, etc etc etc. This seems like a worthwhile purpose.

Oh girl, what is it that wants so desperately to be free? L-l-l-love..........

under the influence of St. Theresa of Avila

2008-08-27T13:56:00.002-04:00

how do you bear to think of me?
To say often
betrays what a powerful man you are.
Your words propel me into spacelessness.
awe, wonder.
where there is no stream of thought with any quality enough to provide an explanation.
You--think of me?
What world do you live in, I ask myself?
Where I present anything at all worth a second of your precious mind, time?
How you embrace me--
it almost hurts.
it definitely hurts.
because to be who you see when you look at me--
I feel is a practical impossibility.
You scare me to death on the side of greatness.
I fear all I've done to thank you for this is fall.
For where else can I go from such an insurmountable high?

Where you offer warmth, intensity, and care,
I run.
What can your thoughts do for one as ungrateful and irresponsible as I am?

And yet to refuse you -- to turn away
Here lies the treasure box of all pain.

I could never deny what I know as your gifts (nor fathom those yet unexperienced)
but how I can accept them knowing I will simply abuse them?

what promise can I make that I have not already broken a thousand times?

Last night and this morning

2008-07-31T12:47:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, Grace's mom wrote if I could care for the wonder child while she went to yoga. Had not she requested me, i would also have attended a class. I love Grace as deeply as ever I have loved, and give thanks for the opportunity to encourage another to attend yoga.

side note: on the walk downstairs through the sunlit atrium to check the mail i thought i ought just to give up on everything, even on yoga, even on the path. what else calls me with greater transcendental perfect beauty than yoga? naught. yet do i resist its full embrace and cause such suffering through it i want just to let it all go...

continued: I go to grace's and she comes and sits on the porch swing. her hair is down, undone, she wears a white t-shirt and long pink skirt which often shows her big white cotton underwear. I plop down next to her on the porch swing and she groans. I laugh. Porch swings are one of my favorite things in life, I say. She tells me that Panda is doing very well here, and also that she would like to be in my wedding. She says if she is under 10 years of age, she will be the flower girl. If over ten, a bridesmaid. I go along with her laughing, fantasizing what a fabulous affair it would be. She says her grandfather is a retired priest, would I accept a priest who is 72 years old? and he wears a hearing aid, is that ok with me? without a question, of course. She says the ceremony shouldn't be long, and I say well, there will be a consecration, and all the rest, ok, how about 40 minutes? she says. 30 minutes will do. I imagine the beautiful women in my life who i would invite, and wonder how they would come together, and know it may never be. and that it is best in that way. our dream was enough for me.

We play inside taking care of bunny. she tells me she teaches panda so many things, such as reading, how to take a poo and a pee in the bathroom, she says he lives on opposite schedule (sleeps through the day) and she makes him sauteed bamboo. She cracks me up in surprise many many times.

She is not hungry but wants to eat before bed or else she will wake up hungry. finally we go the kitchen and she eats a few cherries and carrot sticks before declaring she is full.

we go to her bedroom and she is excited for the back massage i will give her. laying down, i will sing to her. but not twinkle twinkle little star, she says. so i sing an aladdin song and she laughs at me (a whole new world) and after more giggles and rolling around she gets on her tummy. she asks me if i meditate every morning and I say no but i bring my awareness into my heart. she says it's nice to do something quiet every day first thing in the morning.

I sing her hush little baby making up the words and it becomes a constant meditation and refrain sung without thought from my heart, anytime you need me, i will always be here/anytime you want love/i will always be here. over and over with the back of my fingers caressing her soft back skin and actually i think she fell asleep. (before she said she ALMOST fell asleep last time with the back rub.)

I went out and was chewing on gummy bear vitamins when her mama got home with friend from class. mama said once she told grace i was coming she asked all for me. i said she missed her dad and then her mama while they were gone. she was glad to hear it. she said she was so spoiled with how much me (and parris) loved grace, and with the Friends school approach as well. I said filling a child's heart with love is hardly spoiling them.

at home i sat down with mom and dad and commenced another philosophical discussion initiated by dad this time, actually, which continued through astral travel and mom's seeming cynicism towards Monroe into self-hatred complexes and all the rest.

I had decided that I don't want any more 'issues' as with a talk with Joe at work I said Oh I love issues. and then reflected, what? I love issues? No wonder I have so many!

i read for awhile on erica jong before going to sleep around midnight, it was so lovely as always reading late at night in my bed there, so comfortable. but the morning I am loathe to rise as each morning meets me and i sleep until 8:26, realizing if I do not catch the 8:40 bus...so I am up and grouchy immediately and boil tea and dad says me and mom walked out of the rooms at the same time and mom has to know what I am making with my water and i am irritated that she cannot wait five minutes until i leave the house to attend to her own coffee drinking needs.

tea, i say through the bathroom door. dad says two can boil water and when i return she has added another pot of water to the same burner. hil-fucking-arious.

i want bread, rethink, no time, toast and butter it and put it in a plastic bag. a cop is passing our house and i run down the hill. the bus arrives immediately and i am on my way.

Joe makes a joke about it being my friday and he should "make" me come in on friday. I want to punch his idiotic pretentious bullshit face in and say, it is too early for me to talk. thank god for restraint sometimes.

but it comes before long i am walking to the global cup cafe and spending 8 freaking dollars on vegan spring rolls, vegan cookies, and coffee. i want to feel sick, obviously, and i soon do.

the day is passing by and I am in the email and reading all through the blog of a pretty 25 year old in tucson who is extremely happily married with a daughter and the question of PhD now or later on her mind. she is a socialite extrovert writing her days on the computer and bring love and light into the world no doubt. her friends comment with crazy heady god talk about following His path and it may be different than you imagined and all the rest. I realize I really do have a strong-ish still prejudice against christian-judeo god bible talk. though Sufi god talk which I read yesterday made me swoon in love. how far am i from the embrace of god? this fucking far.

I can't stand this job, I want to run so far from my life it's hilarious considering that I have the easiest life. and who wants ease? i want a challenge and yet when challenged I don't know how to stand up. go ahead and cry, elijah, go on and sing, elijah. i swear to god if you will find happiness all in life is served to its utmost. anytime i remember this truth all the rest of this bullshit falls away.

Do i think thinking it through will eventually help? Mom tells me her deep spiritual insight when she was on acid along in shoulder stand many years ago about the self-hatred coming from her mother.

In the article, the woman reasserts that God wants everything, especially the things we think are un-spiritual. god i want you! what do i say when you apparently turn your back on me? know that to be an illusion? believe it to be the best thing you can do for me? for yourself? i guess we tried hard enough, i guess your knowledge is the true knowledge? join myself to a fanatic? oh god, in the Sufi article it speaks that the path to god is to give up all thoughts of success, and I thought that 's what it is to imagine life with you and yet that's all I would want. How can I say that? How could I desire it? maybe you won't allow it, so far that seems the case. god will not allow me to suffer too much on His behalf. How I wish that he would! For does he not test those that he loves? Ha. Ha. Ha. How do I know the truth?

If I think about you I want you in the same way I in a frenzy in meditation feel the painful longing in my heart for God. In the article she urges we do not cut ourselves off from this longing. if allow it to overcome then what will come to pass? I become so disillusioned by the mundanity of this life i want simply to wander and roam, stay outdoors, and leave the land of my father in order to seek my own realization of truth. but there is duty, bound, the woman is in her way so much more stuck.

i want to be stuck with you and you won't allow it. not so far. or i won't allow myself. not the right match.

oh but every time i return to embracing life i desire you so deeply. how many have been loved and lost?

sufi crazy god talk

2008-07-30T16:12:00.001-04:00

The only betrayal is when we close our heart to the pain of separation, when we protect ourself from the violation of His touch.

http://www.goldensufi.org/paradox_toc.html

what is easy?

2008-07-30T12:26:00.003-04:00

when i can reflect and see what openings I did miss. Let go.

what opportunities for bliss and happiness did exist? which i was not patient enough to cultivate? which i overlooked in my ignorance.

It was but a few weeks before I decided to save my orgasms for a man to give me, for god to give me. and in fact, i received but one before feeling it myself and from thence did hell break lose, in a dreary cold kind of way.

how does this universe work? I cannot have you because i have not abided by the rules! that is what i feel in this moment, that is what i know to be true. for had i followed the laws of nature, would you not desire me so deeply that to resist me would cause such unbearable suffering as not to be at all a possibility?

oh that there are some laws outside myself, such is an illusion unless i am there. dualism. non dualism. all are encompassed in the absolute, and in the dual. by the dual world there are so many laws outside oneself which must be obeyed lest the suffering of ignorance crush you. Then let it crush you, as it only crushes those parts of yourself which are full of false illusions anyway.

to abide in the non dual state of unity of god is to be free, to be free from the rules of the world--because you are the rule of the world. how can you make a "mistake" from the point of view of unity? how can you transgress against the will of god if that will is none other than the only thing that actually exists?

god you are my favorite classroom i have ever entered. while you berate me and hurt me and challenge me there is no stopping my hearts desire for you, oh my god, it just burns as brightly as ever, no matter how you push me away. am i mistaken to think of you as the god you claim to be? will i ever win your favor? or has my thinking just diverged from that non dual thread which holds we are never separate so what is there between us again?

in my heart i know we are one. in this world of action, also we are one. though it appears that we stay separate. respect for the nature of things is ideal for happiness to be experienced.

how then can my thoughts and experiences be analyzed? is the lesson I am learning through you applying only to you or to all things? because it is written in our astrological fates that with a character such as you it will never do to be resentful and focus on the separation. to relate with one such as you, must be done through the consciousness of oneness with you. sounds like the way to relate to god and by god it is because you are god, as i am, as we all are.

your distinctions betray your realization. i think it is not for a woman to reason with a man. by which i mean, nature cares not for the wars and political and spiritual arguments of mankind. sure, she is affected by how much love and bliss she is permitted to bring to the world, but she insists at every turn, in every crack in the sidewalk, on offering her deepest gift of love and beauty no matter how hard you try to make it ugly.

my feelings for you have nothing to do with your position in the world as a teacher or deeper more significant place in which you see yourself. my feelings for you arise from a desire to be love, to grow and shine for you that you may be free of that which oppresses you and realize the beauty that is me. yes, from He was She created, but only through Her will He be realized, the soft overcomes the hard, it is a neverending spontaneous co-existing cycle out of time and distinction, this game, this play. this fabulous sexual dance.

so now we are not together and that is a sign that i am not together with myself. my Desire to be together with myself only creates more Desire to be together with myself. I am already inextricably together with myself to the point that no matter this illusion it can never be reality except so long as I allow it. god what grace. so full of grace.

respect

2008-07-29T15:48:00.002-04:00

when it becomes clear that you are not listening, i will stop talking. to continue shouting would only evidence my own ignorance.

these are thoughts i feel coming from you, and also myself. That now you determine our distance from one another, showing that you do not feel that I have heard you. And I feel i have put my ignorance and love on display for you to see for yourself, and your judgment has been separation. I wrote to you that to love through rejection is perhaps the hardest task of the world, of the woman. I do not know that I ever recovered from your first, fifth, etc., rejection. So that I did still reject you constantly, and finally you throw your hands up, and in the most tender message to me which you have written, you declare space. you greet me with "blessed love" and end with my most favorite, tender signature, yours. and i know that you are mine, that together in our hearts we are one and the same. Pity organizing ourselves here in the physical world has turned out to be such a difficult challenge.

So on Friday when I read this response to my call for depth between us, I cried and cried, for a little while, even though in my heart nothing at all has changed. Can I love you through this rejection? No doubt. Will I ever see you again? Who knows. I feel like my interpretation of reality with you has been so skewed what else can you do but cut through with the sword of refusal? I know you had to do it, I practically begged you for it. Well, I begged for that and total possession.

Last night I woke up at 2 in the morning after being in a dream with Luc, practicing presence to such a degree that I woke myself up I felt so awake. Then I drank and felt something on my lip, a bug in my glass? and threw the cup gently to the floor.

In the morning I lay dreaming about Grace, being Grace like, we were going out to the mall in the morning and she had many demands. i wanted to go have a coffee. there were many people all around, and I just lingered around there in the mundane dream world with zero inclination to raise myself from the bed and come to a job where I would just be sitting and sitting and sitting.

I read over old emails, I allow the status of relationship to settle in.

Last night I went to a yoga class in Carrboro with Nice, whose main influences are Angela Farmer and Victor Van Hooten. We basically rolled around on the floor, slowly slowly, massaging our backs against a brink and stretching open for an hour and a half. It got too cold but it was an amazingly gentle and opening class, so perfect in its way for me. In the final of savasana I felt my body open in desire for deep orgasm and imagined my consciousness at the level of my cervix as my body writhed and twisted and burst in all directions on his lingam. I even fantasized for a second to go to his place, and say nothing, because words have gotten me precious nowhere with men, in terms of satisfying my body's desire for orgasms. So I would take you in my mouth and with the power of my desire be taken by you.

Of course the class ended and I questioned it all, would he take me? Do I trust him to allow myself to open with him anyway? No. I see the world close in on me. I go buy a salad, get lost (not really but in my head) driving around to find a place to eat in peace but end up going home. eating up, ice cream, then with mom and dad talking about spirituality and all the rest.

"So much is said in the silence, why would you want to miss it?" - Manorama

That is how in some ways I can enjoy so much the silence between He and I. oh, illusion. oh how much deeper must i be to relate to him. deeply in action. deeply in integrity. the lie that is myself, is not a lie at all!

Simply be, accept what is in front of you with love and gratitude. would that you would be in front of me again...but that is not the nature of things. so that i in patience attend to when we may be drawn to one another, in whatever forms, we be.

slow lifting of the veils I pray

2008-06-30T11:15:00.002-04:00

Why do I want to feel miserable? miser-able? able to be a miser? able to take for myself without giving to others. god what pain and suffering exists which I test am I still allowed to experience it? Sure, you say, I say, sure I am. Is this what elijah means when he says I am borderline between the spiritual life and the mundane world of affairs? That my consciousness may come on board, but it may not?

In this moment that inspires anger and hatred, which are obvious signs that my consciousness is lowered. Else I hear that and am either not bothered at all or I am inspired to rise to the higher levels of consciousness. But you know, this too shall pass. To hang on to the negativity is as stupid, or really stupider, than hanging onto happiness and the like.

My mind is telling me that I feel terrible, and then it convinces me to do things to my body which I don't think will benefit. It is trapped in some lower level muladharistic and just general lower mind shit attached to the physical world and myself as some kind of a separate individual. It is full of the rebellious mode, as in I had self control and restraint and now it's like I cannot, I have to pay for it. my mind did its same old trick trying to convince me that I will do some big cleanse or whatever to lose weight and purify but of course that just leads into more dangerous territory. it is call imbalance. it is a bit dangerous, for myself and those around me. and then i judge myself and that just doesn't help much either. how many times have i been through this cycle? when am i ready to give it up for something deeper?

for example the deep orgasm?

I just don't CARE about anything! but even that is a lie. I am just lying to myself and I can't stand it. I don't want to reach out or ask for help cause who is there who can support me? and yet i need support, clearly, which I don't want to face. I want to be ok, alone, independent, don't I? I want you, I want you, I want you. And what does that mean? How do I desire a man who doesn't even recognize me? Or who actually does recognize me as someone I do not wish to be? He doesn't recognize me as girlfriend or lover. He sees me as an acquaintance. I do not see him as an acquaintance and to act as such is false and causes suffering. but what am i to do?

How many times have I witnessed this cycle? It got so out of control in Thailand, or so I fell into believing, that I thought I had to come home to get a grip. Which of course I have and have not really got a grip. At some levels I have seen through myself very much, but it hasn't penetrated deeply enough as it is not spontaneously affecting all my actions. It's like I am not even here because I don't know why I am here. I want to be with him but I haven't a clue how to be with him or be a woman he would be attracted to, anymore than I already am. People prove themselves in action, it seems, here in this world, and I don't know what to do. Or perhaps I do. He says the path is hard, takes a lot of deep thinking, grace, and spiritual insight. He sees himself as having attained the final realization and so he is finished, at some level, and wishes to die. He also wishes for the acclaim a Libra-Leo moon is entitled to in this incarnation, and doesn't feel he has any effort to put forth in this direction. If he would want me, I would join with him to serve him, but it would be challenging as that being said doesn't mean I would hand over my powers of reasoning and personal beliefs. What are my personal beliefs and how do I live by them?

Sometimes I feel to think after my own spiritual development actually leads to much less. In that I become self absorbed in my own reflections and ideas of how to improve, when actually I need just be in this moment, love the other, be free. Give up expectation, and just do what I love.

That is you. How can I have expectations? Why am I so scared of Power? I am scared of his power which is simply a projection of my own power. what's to worry about, I will never be able to compete...oh there it is AGAIN!!! It is as if I am competing, I am in competition with myself, and then with others. It's like I want him to give me something that I want and as if I have to compete to get it. It's as if I have to compete against my lower nature to get the higher consciousness. Is it not a competition? It is simply an opening, a greater opening.

Appreciate for what is, love what is. desire none else. I love you. be free.

Morning savasana

2008-06-25T09:41:00.003-04:00

The snooze button is not such a good friend to me.

I doze off after relaxing at 7 am in bed, after a short tired practice which I never really woke up into.

In the dream, there is a small boy child, and I talk with him, hold him, and realize he is the same man who I am in love with. In the morning I think it is E. I talk with him, and once I realize that it is him, I am even more loving and open with him, holding him and laughing and discussing what's to be done. We are in a shop, planning a birthday party I believe. It reminds me that once u love someone, it's like your love can become some overarching thing and embrace all of time and place. did i make friends with E. as a boy?

ok friends and lovers, i am going to do a strange thing. a wax.

Being Myself

2008-06-24T10:20:00.002-04:00

This is a private blog. As far as I know no one has ever read it except me.

he says, i will teach when i am sure that the path is worth it.

HE says, I am just barely on the path. I have come forward and then regressed since meeting him. Now I am only just slightly ahead of where I was before. What do I think he is referring to? My state of consciousness. This too, is always changing. How enlightened I am, how focused on God, other, non-selfishness. Even this is not something to be attached to. But know what is the right manifestation.

He says it is not about good and bad, but what is RIGHT. After being near to him he brushes off my energy. It is gooey and svadhisthanistic. Why did I think for a second that spell check would correct that for me?

I talk with Omri who discusses balance. How hard it is to be with an untantric woman, how imbalanced most people are. The low level of spirituality in Israel. I say I am seeing a man who is moving to Israel. He says, oh, so you are coming to Israel. Ha. He has no idea the nature of the relationship. E. says he will do his best to keep things casual between us, but will not put restrictions on sexuality. i.e., if he feels like fucking me, he will try. He says he is not very attracted to me. This is not a test for him. If it is for me, that is telling for me, not him. It is not an audition, he says.

Omri talks about balance. I can hear his heart on the page and it fills me with affection.

I need to make space for the experiences I desire in this life. Do I even desire experiences? I said to him, i want to be pure enough for you. you don't even know me, i believe is his response. never before has my divisive selfish nature been so painfully highlighted as it is with him. It is like I could feel the pain of truth just being in his presence so much more acutely last night. When he said we could go on a trip together somewhere, the beach or the mountains, which would he like, he asks, it was so painfully just what I wanted to hear and also painful in that it doesn't add affection or change his feelings for me that he may want me.

He says he does not think that we want different things, we want the same things.

how will i receive a man who can open me sexually to god if i continue pleasing myself?
how will i balance another and bring love and blessings to your life if i am not balanced myself?
My actions of the past reveal the extent of my ignorance and selfishness, given power too soon and just abused it.

It's about service, he says, work. work is good, cause it makes us feel worthwhile. we must work. we must serve. i must go back and do the work i promised to the school.

Also thinking about Swami's healing center. Wonder if I could help set that up, where would be a good location. They are open, America or Europe, also desiring an ashram. How to mobilize forces, myself, to envision a life?

but you know, my sweet gorgeous love, that i felt in the way of anguished ecstasy last night. Anguish at the truth which destroys my illusions. ecstasy in the presence of you, the preciousness of you, which makes the preciousness of life more clear.

you said to me, i love you too. and i had not said to you that i love you, but i was thrilled to know that you know i do, and that you love me too.

the sabbath

2008-06-21T16:49:00.002-04:00

If you are not in your position at all times, you do not exist. --E.

Any moment in which I am unaware of God, I do not exist, because I do not exist at all separate from the Divine Consciousness.

You are evil, because you have used what you think you know about me AGAINST me.

Who is the one with the divisive nature? I want to surrender all kind of antagonism towards you. I tell you when you say I worship a different god than you that it is not true. We worship the same god, I insist. There is only one god, there is only one absolute truth.

Everything he says to me is true, at some level. He says to me that it is only when I realize and accept his realization that we can even begin. We pause, we are in the woods. Want to keep walking, he asks? No, I have something to say. It is within me and I muse at the fate of my life, the circumstances in which I am forced to speak.

I know that I want you, I say. I need you, at some level. He smiles, thank you, he says. In my mind I think how Swami knows that we want him, and so he takes us, whether we are consciously aware that we want and need him or not. In that way, when we do realize it, he is already ours.

This man, on the other hand, I feel like he pushes me away, highlights all my pride and aspects which keep me separated from god, so that it is like a knife, destroying the illusions of separation in a much sharper way. Because I see somehow that it is actually I who pushes him away--he is completely available to me am I to be my true self. Masculine or feminine approach?

We sit on the log on earth on a quiet summer day. I am silent and appreciate deeply in my heart this moment of presence.

Later on, after we have walked and returned and he has met my parents, he turns to me and says, you know, you looked the most beautiful i have ever seen you today, sitting on the floor in your parent's house. I smile, I am such a dead giveaway. Am I? Because I was so happy there, with these people who I love in conversation. Seeing this man be with me with my parents. And smile, and engage, and be a vulnerable, kind hearted, seriously thoughtful person. Then again, every time I see him, he says I look the most beautiful that he has ever seen me.

The storm is coming, the day has been rather lackadaisical, she doesn't really know what to do nor does she remember if she ever wanted anything anyway. She wants to fall deeply in love to the point of obliteration of herself.

Love

2008-06-19T10:03:00.002-04:00

What are correspondences? Swami loves to make connections, to see the correspondence of all things on each level of reality.

In the Kathopanishad, it says 'the manifested Brahman should be reached. The unmanifested should be known.'

My body is aching today, mostly around my shoulders, because I went to super macho physical worship Anusara 2+ yoga class last night. We did arm balances and wheel pose flips and one armed headstands a la tripsichore. it was about the most un-safe yoga class i ever went to. and perfect for my state of mind. because where is safety in the realm of utter destruction of my delusions? I cried in savasana, a few tears, as I had a vision of our beings here on earth. I saw that actually we are puppets, we are mere instruments of god, yet we think we are real. We think we are acting independantly, and it causes so much unbearable pain and suffering, but only for ourselves. god always knows we are His.

And it seems silly to want to get back to being a puppet and so it is exalted as a conscious choice, that that is the true mystical pinnacle of the human experience, to choose to be one with god's flow of energy. to release the illusion that I am in control of anything whatsoever, and allow myself to be guided and LIVED by HIM. only my consciousness of it brings the unity--creates the purity and essence of the point of the whole experience. This is our natural state, so many say. The others claim that we are sinners, but it is really all the same.

In relationship with him the pain of his abuse is laughable, the pain of letting go of my false wishes from him excruciating. This is also why I cried there, in savasana, a long savasana, I relaxed my entire body, I felt myself humbled by the strength in the room. I felt myself letting go of identification with myself, a renunciation of the constant barrage of identity enforcing mindstream. all the thoughts about him, about our relationship, should we shouldn't we, how can we, he doesn't fit into my life, oh wait, he fits more perfectly than anyone else. he refuses to be identified with me, only i can choose to identify with him but even that--is it a test of my loyalty, will I ever win him?

It seems all I can do is let go as completely and purely as possible. and when that is truly my state, there will no longer remain this residue of what if? What if I let go and then he wants me? No, not even this. Simply, truly, let go. with all my heart.

So my mind tells me I am depressed cause it is processing refined sugar and stirring up some non-existent intimate moments with him. thank god he never really gave me anything to hold on to in the first place. Again, I can thank him for that.

truth

2008-06-18T16:23:00.003-04:00

to me it seemed inevitable that we would be together as soon as i met you, before i met you, as soon as i heard you were available to be met.

this all makes perfect sense with you as god.

you see the inevitability of our relationship, of our connection as human beings. this is not something i know the answer to yet. i am in love with god and will open myself to him in all ways. the fact that you refuse me as i am, and can see straight through every lie and ignorance which i carry around, is perfect as it is. i must embrace myself, because i am myself. and i will love honor and worship you as god, and i must be strong enough to reject you as a mean ill mannered man. but god i have seen your heart and it is the most precious thing in this world, in this state. and i will never forget that.

Dreams and Disciplines

2007-08-19T10:17:00.001-04:00

coming slowly into this world again...slept past the early morning rise point again...

dreamt of Mai, my dear friend Mai was there and we hugged and I was so happy to see her though I sat apart from her on the bus...a girl from Agama, who wanted more money than I really owed her, Amy was there and then eventually I was there in a huge white fluffy robe with bub, my hair combed over and seeing myself from outside I looked very nice, we were going to sit in the lounge in order to find a lover for the evening. I started having second thoughts as I went to the bathroom...randomness...

I awoke with a preliminary grogginess and disinterest in practice and therefore in life today. but alas in the bathroom i remembered i am studying neuro linguistic programming from last night and i love it and i am getting to it without a feeling a guilt.

now with a smooth cup of guilt free sugar and milk coffee i can feel the blur of second cakra but i don't care and actually am not thinking so much like that. let's just see. i can't continue fighting, i am here and so can be who i am here, knowing that shortly i will return to the land of yoga etc etc.

I love NLP they reference negative/unproductive states as self loathing, lonliness, anger, seriousness, etc. hehe. god i read this stuff and think there are so many areas I want to improve in!!!!

it is amazing that my dad doesn't at all feel the drive for self improvement, assured that he is perfect as is. such a wonderful complimentary teaching for me!
thanks dad!

Marco

2007-08-14T15:59:00.001-04:00

I talked to Marco and want to make a few quick notes about what he told me.

Family myth: My family will always try to hold me back from doing what I truly need to do. It is the pull, without which I may not have the force to go. He put it as all things have a challenge, a test, and this is one of those.

The dream I had where I was at the airport completely unprepared for my trip to thailand and very upset about it has the meaning that I am growing and changing away from my little girl self, the part of me that never wants to change, and never wants to leave home. It will always be there, I must be aware and forge on.

Be careful with astral travelling as you can lose soul matter if you don't really know what you are doing.

The first thing he says when I say I will start teaching is do you know how to protect yourself? Cause there are all kinds of energies out there and especially when you start teaching you've got to know how to purify and how to get free from darker energies. And with sexual practices you must be careful who you are with as it develops karmic links and can lead to the accumulation of certain more negative energies.

About the dream I had with him in it where he gave me this amazing neck stretch, he said another friend of his said he did the same thing to her in a dream.

His teacher is caroline something in canada. she gives him practices and he has an hour long practice he does everyday which gives him protection.

26 is a big year; so is 33 and 34. This will be a big one for me, he says.

There are always tests and challenges on the spiritual path, more and more as you continue on. why, i ask? why isn't the nature of the world bliss? It is, he responds, it is only suffering when you forget that.

"Yoga starts outside the classroom," is a line from a yoga teacher he liked. Bring it into your life. It's when you can feel the bliss and peace in the midst of the everyday that you are truly being spiritual.

And always listen to the feeling behind the self, in regards to other people, situations, everything. It is your higher self and it knows best.

alas alack, thank you for your wisdom and teaching, dear Marco La.

A Night at a Baba Lover's House

2007-08-14T15:39:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was a big day for bub and me. We drove from our house in chapel hill at 10:45, hit the gas station, realized I forgot the IPOD charger, went back for it, then hit the road for real.

Or so we thought.

On the highway the car starting shaking, a thing which I had noticed driving Bunk to the airport and had ignored. Later I noticed that sensation behind my heart which Marco told me about warning me something about this trip.

We stayed under 65 mph where it didn't shake but it was hard to keep up and put me in the right lane with the trucks. So we got off in Graham, thirty or so minutes outside home, called an anonymous mechanic, asked a guy for help, went to one station where they couldn't help us for awhile, then finally found ourselves at the Ford Dealership. They looked at the car; Bub found out the apartment she wanted was taken. They told us one of the tires was ready to explode and lucky it hadn't yet. I splurged for four new tires plus balancing and alignment for a total of $267.00, telling myself if I had really sold my car on the market I would have had to take care of that. So I thought it was a favor, a responsibility of mine, really.

Onwards, we detour to get an organic coffee at a Whole Foods Bub tracked down. Get a coffee and cookie, feel it distance me from reality. In the car we listened to David Deida, Eckhart Tolle, Mickey Singer a little.

Finally arriving in Asheville we go straight to Bub's old house to move the remaining stuff and then visiting her old roommate Nina in her new house.

Back at the grandparent's house where we are staying she gives me the tour of the nearly twenty portraits of Avatar Meher Baba, the guru of Topher's grandparent's who left the home they recently bought in Asheville to move back to Maui. They have tons of great books by spiritual masters and stuff on the astral worlds, all my favorite stuff.

Before bed, and after a long talk about her feelings about her relationship with Topher and an admission from me about why I'm returning to the yoga school, we got in bed and watched a 52 minute documentary on the life of Baba.

Baba is nuts, like most spiritual masters from India I hear about. Silent from 1925 to his death in 1969, awakened by an old woman aged 120 whom he met at the age of 17. After five years with her she kisses his third eye and he is awakened to the realization that he is God. He meets the other five great masters of the time, according to them, and soon has disciples, builds an ashram, then leaves the ashram for pilgrimages. Builds a mental hospital, saying many of these people are really just god intoxicated but he is the only one who can see it. At one point he goes wandering and enforces a rule that no one should show any emotion except cheerfulness, no matter what.

He is gorgeous in his youth and firm in his repeated statements that he is an Avatar, he is the divine love. He makes many trips to America and Europe, having a bad car accident in the U.S. in the forties, which makes him suffer pain the rest of his life. He says all of his suffering is for the universe, for he is the universe and pays its karma.

We go to sleep, I am mystified and in all of this incredible spirit and the life he lead, unbeknownest to me before this night.

I awake after a short nap it seems, still very tired and the light from outside shines in my face and the intermittent noise of cars going by on the highway outside irritates me. I feel the coffee still in my blood and notice this opportunity, on top of all the hassles of the day before, trying me. I try to come up with a mantra to ease myself away from the anger. I try a few but feel such a blank, nothing seems to do any good.

Finally I close the blind, put in earplugs, and begin the call "I pray for the presence of God in my heart". This soon puts me to rest and I enter the dreamworld.

I awake at one moment in the night to such a feeling of bliss in my heart that I know my prayer has been answered. I feel a moment of gratitude before going into sleep again.

There I dream that Mr. Mahaley, my elementary school French teacher, is my school advisor. I am totally attracted to him and can hardly keep from touching him and expressing fully my sexual desire for him, but I know this is not an appropriate situation for that.

It is my turn to see him, Bub is there waiting to see him also and along comes another students.

We are in his car somehow and I notice the back door is open and command him to pull off onto an overlook to close. Outside the car it is invisible and I have to guess where the open door is and kick it shut.

Then I am holding his face in my hands and staring into his eyes, "I'm not going to hurt you," I say, and notice a flicker of doubt come into my mind as I wonder why I am always attracted to men without as much experience as me, forcing me to be the leader. But I instantly let it go, embracing the situation I am in and knowing I must be completely present in order to communicate the truth to him.

Then we are naked and Uncle Kevin comes up, reminding Mr. Mahaley that there are other students waiting to see him. Without embarrassment, he holds me down and invites Kevin to tickle me. Instead I manage to tickle him while he lies on top of me and we all laugh and laugh.

I awake laughing and cheerful, Bub also awakes and we know it is time to get up to start the day.

dream dictionary

2007-08-10T13:31:00.000-04:00

Last night I dreamt that I joined the TTC at Agama again. It was a new group of people. There was a man there flirting on and off with me, I spoke to him in a low voice, as the group sat around a circular table and I wasn't sure if the others were listening or not. I told him I did not mind the ambiguity of the sexual intentions in our relationship, in fact, I enjoyed that there was the possibility that we could have sex, if desired, without any long term commitment, and if we did happen to fall in love, then no worries either way cause if it happened we would both know and that would be that.

The thought rolled in my head, why did I enroll in this course again? There was movement, packing, outdoors, sunlight. I don't remember so much else, meeting the people, seeing the group and not being too thrilled.

Mom wrote and said she dreamed that my left eye was falling in and out of the socket. I was unaware, but she trying to get me to go get help without freaking me out, so she was speaking calmly to me. it is bub now with the cut over her left eye and dilated pupil. this happened to me nearly four years ago--different, but left eye blindedness, optic neuritis.

The Free Will story

2007-08-10T10:48:00.000-04:00

Q: Are we mindlessly trapped in karmas? Is there a way out?

1. Desire is the precursor to everything; it is spontaneous to existence. It characterizes the lowest form to the high mystic who desires freedom. It also characterizes this universe, whose desire is to Become--to unfold as this great space-time. If a desire is pursued with appropriate action, then it manifests as karmas in its journey toward fulfillment. Any desire can be fulfilled. All it needs is correct and persistent action and, of course, time.

2. In order to pursue a desire, a person needs power. Free will enters the picture now. Free will is the precursor to choice, to any decision. It is the power of the decision whether to fulfill this desire or not. This is the fork in the trial of life where the fate of a desire is incessantly tested. Free will is the embryo of the great power--intent. Once the choice is made to fulfill a desire, then awareness is diverted from other areas of a being to bring this desire to fruition. now the person is set upon fulfilling this desire. This soon becomes a drive. And this drive generates a mindset. The mindset is the next step in the germination of an intent.

3. While free will sanctions the use of free awareness, or astral energy, to fulfill a desire, the drive enables the acquisition of the necessary knowledge and ingredients to put the desire into action. Therefore, in its simplest form, karma is action...The connotation that karma is this mindless cyclical force of reaction to an initial desire or action is a result of ignorance of the nuts and bolts of the karmic theory. Karma means action. An action resulting from a desire can be terminal to itself or it can sprout more desires for similar experiences. These secondary desires will grab awareness, and lie latent, like seeds. Seeds of desire are precursors to action to be. When the space-time is appropriate, these dormant karmas sprout new desires and actions. People mistake this intelligent process and call it fate. Hence the use of the terms "predestined," "fated," "destiny," and so on. But we can clearly trace these karmas to a previous action, which in turn emerged from an initial desire and free will.

4. Awareness could continually be invested in th pursuit of any desire, causing cyclical incarnations in bodies and space-times suitable for their fruition. Cyclical processes have no free will involved in their operation. The energy of awareness feeds the flames of desire and action, driving them through this process...Free will itself can act as an inhibitor to this cyclical process--free will, which originally made the choice of pursuing this desire. Free will is a combination of pure energy--astral energy that powers the astral body, and energy of awareness that makes up the dream mind, or astral mind. This awareness is the consciousness of pure intelligence. By intelligence, I do not mean the intellect and reasoning power that defines aspects of the physical mind. Pure intelligence is from spirit, from the higher mind.

5. There is no such thing as a stupid choice. A choice is a choice. The higher mind, the pure intelligence, has no such divisions as stupid or bright, good or bad. For it everything is divinely blissful.

1-4 above all quoted directly from Kali's Odiyya chapter "Stirring a Primal Force."

"by giving and taking, [the universe] maintains equilibrium. But when desire becomes cyclical, then it continues to take and does not give. at the point of extreme excess, this desire grows into a demonic voice with an enormous appetite. This upsets the rest of the support system to which this voice belongs. This support system is its immediate nature. The only way to restore this balance is to cut off supplies to this voice. Once the surrounding systems are upset, and cut off the only source of energy to this voice, then the voice begins to starve. This is the beginning of pain. Our body mind's reaction to restore balance and settle back into equilibrium thus appears punitive. In truth, we punish ourselves by letting these demonic voices take over our spiritual resources."

"the grace of the Divine Mother surrounds us. It is always granting our desires...Excessive pursuit of desires brings about imbalances and generates painful endings. When the demons of desire run away with a being's spiritual resources, the being cries out to th Divine Mother. The spirit yearns for redemption. This yearning attracts divine grace into the constitution of free will. Divine grace now backs free will that is made up of astral energy and consciousness from the higher mind. The force of this holy alliance is so great that it pulverizes any demons and assimilates their energy into the higher mind."

quoted as from above.

life, dreams, practice

2007-08-09T13:05:00.000-04:00

I awoke this morning from a dream in which I was on the telephone with a man. I could not really hear what he was saying (dad says you never can hear people over the phone in a dream) but I gathered, after much confusion on my part, that he actually wanted advice about how to approach the people he was coming to teach. Once I knew what he wanted (I was in the capacity of just answering the phone when he called and it took me awhile to realize that he actually wanted MY help), I talked on and on. Interspersed it seems I was trying to cuddle with Luc, my long time ex, yet I could not relax, either because the phone rang or another reason.

Isabelle did not wake up when I got up. I came to office very tired, vaguely entertaining the idea of buying a coffee but it was like there was no power behind the idea and I quickly gave it up in favor of a cup of green chai tea.

Mom sent me an email asking if Isabelle was hiding something, complaining that she felt alienated. I replied with soft words about her trauma and reassuring her that we were not trying to alienate her. I softened my language even more, concerned that Mom would take it the wrong way, but she replied with a thank you, saying she put the email in her journal.

I was very hungry but controlled myself in order to practice yoga over lunch. I enjoyed the sublimation so much yesterday I wanted to repeat it. My practice today was six sun salutations, the warming exercises, trikonasana, ten minutes of uddiyana bandha (start to feel bliss of sahasrara and longing for god), five minutes of nauli (it is easier than yesterday), agni sara (very powerful, brought to a heightened state), cobra pose (feel great bliss, near sexual arousal), ardha matsyendrasana, and sirsasana (about 1.5 minutes--better than yesterday). No time for relaxation so I chant for one minute in my head and return to the office, picking up my lunch on the way and repeating precisely the interaction I had with Kevin yesterday in the staff room. (His head is down, almost through his apple, reading a magazine, "hi kevin," I say, opening the fridge. "Hey!" he says sweetly, looking up only as I speak and immediately returning to his reading. I grab my food and exit.)

Dan is in the office and says I have just missed Lili, my TA from my study abroad in beijing, and I am sincerely bummed. It would have been great to see her, I say. He catches me up a bit, she's almost through with her PhD. I stand and for a moment feel very high, I feel energy pulsing all around me and notice Dan steps back a bit, but goes on, we laugh about the laid back education at Antioch, which just closed its doors to students. He said they could not attract enough students--like their philosophy is outdated and not financially viable. Because how many rich people want to learn how to meditate and talk about spirituality for $40,000 per year?

Now I have taken the Sweetish Bitters 15 minutes ago and it is nearly 1/2 hour after practice, so I am ready to eat the aduki beans and avocado I prepared this morning for my lunch!!

I noted in the cold upstairs room the benefit for fasting through the morning, holding off on food and taking the time to practice. For it was a sublime experience, small as it was contained in that hour. What a reward worth staying for.

I had the sensation of just up and down, back and forth. Now I am enjoying the practice, last week I was a fiend for sugar and caffeine.

the Lake, the Goddess

2007-08-08T09:16:00.001-04:00

We all have feelings, don't we?

Each of us may have been triggered by one thing or another during that staff meeting. Staff meetings are prime territory for re-stimulation.

and then my sister called. And that was nice, she is coming home soon. A beautiful non-Western native English speaker walked in with a soft spoken inquiry into the general arena of study abroad.

My body feels slightly upset that I did not practice postures yesterday. How can I feel this? I went swimming and stayed playing in the water for hours yesterday evening. It was so much fun with my brothers, they were doing back flips off the dock, Trev is amazing at them. He becomes better looking every day. My oldest brother got in last night from san diego for a visit and he is his same self. Reckless, joyful, diving repeatedly to the bottom of the lake, bringing up mud in his palms for proof of the twenty foot decent. Then there was Nils, his good friend for a long time, who leaned over the dock trying to catch a little fish in his hands, "Bear Grillz style". And me, occasionally going on the dock and jumping and diving back in, mostly just swimming around, floating on my back, treading water as I watched them be active. The sun set and lit up the clouds overhead so that my brother standing in the pink gold light of twilight appeared to glow.

I laughed a lot and it was a great release. It was nice to just hang out with the boys without tension and enjoy my brothers' company, even feeling Nils more and more like a brother, seeing his humorous side and being in such a loving mood.

Yesterday as I flipped through online photo albums of luscious men and women at the yoga school, I realized after awhile that I was viewing it all through the lens of my own insecurity. My mind was saying, oh my god, are these really my people? Remembering the depth of the relationship between Shambhu and Sandhya, I wondered what could our spiritual connection be? Reminding myself that I did not have to stay there, feeling amazed at their closeness and wondering about myself. But then I saw what I was doing, and I could feel happy for these happy social people in the photos, without jealousy, or insecurity.

By the way, I totally love Rod Silver (code name). He is an adviser in this office whom I have known for a long time, having met with him many times about my own study abroad experiences. He is married with three children but alas, there is something so supernaturally sweet and sexy as hell about this big, tall, short haired, big eyed possibly 40 something of a man. An early Sag, one of the most attractive times of the year for me in terms of the opposite sex. If I didn't think he would be compounded with complex feelings, I would seduce him. But a married man in this culture, that could only cause trouble, especially based from lust. Oh, Kali. Let not my lust lead me astray, away, from you.

While I floated in the lake last night I felt the pull of my heart towards you.
As practice I listened to the yoga nidra by Rod Stryker upon going to sleep with the intention of surrender.

I had this sensation of reckless abandon after dinner, when I could not be satiated, it seemed. And with that loss of control I felt my overself come in, take me to the lake, and remind me that surrender is the best option, for how can I take care of myself...

2007-08-07T13:07:00.000-04:00

I want to talk to my sister.

I finished reading this most extraordinary autobiography, "Kali's Odiyya: A Shaman's True Story of Initiation" last night. It was so powerful and I am beyond myself trying to interpret how such events could occur in this universe.

I started the cleanse, excitedly, (remember Prabha encourages Shambu to act out his karmas with zeal, not attachment or indifference, but zealously), I don't know about zealously, and am now still quite hungry after a tasty lunch of summer vegan rolls.

And, remember that all desires are little attempts to be closer to God, the truth within each and every one of us. As I lay on the couch blanketed with my sister's shawl and my feet cozed into white socks, I released myself into Wah!'s chants to the mother. They say god responds to our yearning.

There is so much out there to read and practice and know. In the Art of Dying workshop I took earlier this year the teacher said that all you can take with you to the other side is your knowledge. I have heard this reiterated in other traditions, but I wonder if my initial interpretation was incorrect. For it is not your book knowledge that you take with you, but your spiritual knowledge. It is the state of your mind which you take with you--the knowledge refers to the knowledge you have gained in the purest and truest way, which is through deep meditation and introspection.

Excerpt from "Kali's Oddiya"

2007-08-06T15:05:00.001-04:00

"Strict control of the mind is not necessary. Only constant practice of ritual and intent is required."

"Ritual consists of actions done with intent. Meaning is irrelevant. Intellectual understanding of the ritual and the chants is counterproductive to the fostering of faith and intent...in the beginning some rituals are for integrating karmas into the intent. this produces bliss instead of guilt. Later, there are rituals that probe and extract power from Nature. Then there are rituals that convert this power into expanded awareness and growing freedom." The power and grace of the adept is vastly important.

"If karmas force sensual desires in your mind, then let them have their way. These thoughts come only now and then. But soon after they subside, use your free will and perform tenfold actions of a divine nature. By allowing the karmas to bloom, you will release energy trapped in them, thus exhausting the karmas. by performing acts of a divine nature, you will build up karmas that will you to the Divine Mother.
"On the other hand, if you project revulsion toward these karmas--shut them off and negate them--you will only succeed in creating a dark shadow person out of all these desires inside yourself. Once you have given life to the shadow being, it demands to be fed. When you deprive it of food--fulfillment of its desires--you act violently toward it. This is nothing but self violence, and that is the very first thing these scriptures ask you not to do."

"Do not split your mind with these cogitations. The Divine Mother loves, and this sensory world is Her beautiful body. All your desires are fragmented attempts at adoring and experiencing Her divine beauty."

"Only surrender can manifest worship. Acts of passion, if sanctified, can be transformed into articles of worship." Desire, passion, attachment, etc. are unrefined forms of love, with the highest form of love being worship.

"Lust is an act of violence, and guilt depreciates the joy that life is, and will lead to mental problems." Both lead to bondage. "Lust feeds your self-importance, which draws you into the hands of the demons. Guilt weakens your mind. It splinters the mind, making it feeble and unfit for the pursuit of freedom." Act with intent and complete surrender.

?How can an odiyya have an intent of his own, when he has surrendered?"
"When self-importance if surrendered, all that remains is unlimited awareness and one desire--the desire for freedom. Intent emerges out of these two."

Dinner Time

2007-08-03T18:09:00.000-04:00

In my mind it said go ahead, eat. Then it began to sing it's nauseating song of "defeat, defeat." I couldn't stop eating and got full.

Mom said, "You succumbed. I can see why."

Something about this true reflection of my inner self, displayed by my all seeing mother for me to hear out loud, angered me. A part of myself I prefer not to face. Why see it like that.

She comes to take a taste. I say no. I don't want to see my trespassing affect her. She can't eat this stuff, it makes her sick, yet she wants to anyway. I can't stand watching her, her desire to eat things she KNOWS make her feel ill unabated.

"Just a tiny little bite," she says, as she dips a sliver of a chip into the dip. "It's sooooo good." She croons as she walks away.

It is too late for me. This time the true sense of irritation and near fury arose. Just like it used to, unquestioned, when she did irritating things like that.

What had been an enjoyable dinner turned distasteful in my mouth. My own irritation had ruined my meal. I continued to eat, in this way punishing myself to some extent. Poisoning my self in a small way, eating without really enjoying, eating beyond full and wishing along the way to have enough room to shove more down. And feeling fat.

I turn to Win, not angry with him for his usual silence but just defeated. I watched the sensation in myself and didn't care much for it, nor much to change it. I feel myself going into the same space I was in before when I was here. Not practising and becoming involved with my own neurosis. Calling myself pathological, realizing this sensation becoming like the one I tried to run from in Thailand. It had crept up there and I knew I had to get away to break the cycle.

How do I get away from myself? I even desired a beer, remembering that this used to be how I felt all the time, only much more unconsciously. Now, as I feel it more consciously, it's like just feeling it is enough to bring to unconscious cause I can't stand it. I shouldn't be here, I want to be in Thailand where it's better, I want to be alone, and I know it is none of these things. Or is it?

I'm back with ice cream. Is someone out there saying I clearly have an eating disorder? Cause I don't think it's a real disorder til I am on the verge of death. I would never go that far. This is merely a bit of a pathology I haven't been able to get a handle on and I would like to know why.

So I read about poverty and starvation. It is as though we are balancing each other unconsciously, but both at such ends of the scale it is not good for anyone. While I stuff my face, they starve. I am trying to fill the emptiness, the void, ignorning that this is God. I feel the imbalance of the world and am trying to make up for it in the wrong way.

Now I just feel rather ill. I see the food churning in my belly and it is so close to me I can't get away from it. That is the delusion. Take care, my love. What is the purpose of this? How do I be free of this demon once and for all?

Dreams

2007-08-03T09:42:00.000-04:00

So, after the tarot reading, the Heirophant's hello, and a renewed sense of cheerfulness, I visited many people in my dreams.

First I go into a room where there is a large gathering of family. Grandmom, Louis, Lynn and my parents and others sit in a big circle. I go up to my uncle and stick my cheek in front of his face for a kiss, then go to greet Aunt Lynn. Not much more happens here that I recall.

Then I am with Luc and we are on campus, looking for a parking space, deciding to park somewhere under a large constructed roof and hoping we won't get a ticket. Then we are in a house and grace is there, dressed in a beautiful red outfit. I am irritated at some point with the situation, but consciously become more relaxed as Luc and I work together to prepare dinner or something of the sort. I notice the mood shift in myself in the dream. It is a repeat of last night talking with my parents, when my mom turned to me and said about my dad, "he just loves to hear himself talk. He sounds like he knows what he's talking about because he has this deep resonant voice, but if you look of most of the things he says they are based on nothing. He is talking out of his hat, as my father used to say." There is part of me that is irritated with her for always pointing things out about dad that seem to me obvious reflections of herself, and also it just seems like a divisive sort of speech. But then I see her as a little girl, and her father saying, "look at that guy, just speaking out of his hat," and the closeness she may have felt to him while he shared that information, that judgment of another, with her. Then dad returns and smiles, saying, "I just love these kinds of conversations." I reply: "And I just love listening," ironically a bit, and he laughs, "I know, otherwise you would have left." Mom then says something under her breath and points to dad, and I am again irritated, now I think she is acting really childish. I say so out loud, but then consciously it seems choose to change my attitude, instead of angrily pointing out her childish behavior, I laughingly tease her for being like a child and pretending that dad can not hear her. Dad laughs as well, and so does mom. In this way I am able to see mom as the fun loving person she is and make what I would otherwise interpret as divisive speech into a joke that we bond over, affectionately teasing mom and her childlike ways.

A similar mood change is reflected in the dream, when I am irritated with Luc then somehow become happy and communicative.

Later I am with Jackie and Leigh, high school buddies, encouraging Leigh to take a day of silence for its many benefits I know she would enjoy.

From there I hear clearly my name, "Rowe," and I wake up, the sound so clear I am sure it came from this world. But of course no one is there and I don't know where the sound came from. I am shocked awake and realize I have to pee quite badly so I get up and go. It is 5:50. I think it is my self calling me to wake up, as I have been sleeping late and suffering for it the past week. Now I am awake in such a way that going back to sleep seems an unattractive option for I am a bit fearful and disturbed.

I'm sorry, whatever benevolent force called me, for still I went back into bed, a bit fearful and looking around until I dozed off again, this time into a dream time almost mirroring real time. There I am with mom and my sister going to a yoga class though at what seems sort of like a daycare center in a mall. I dream of coffee for the second time in a row (yesterday I also dreamt of coffee and extended family members), going to buy a cup while waiting for the yoga class to begin. In the mall Bub gives me her credit card and I walk into a shop, only to discover that they do not sell coffee as I had expected. I return to them and enter the classroom, class will start soon at 7:30. Michel is there, with dark hair and looking young, attractive. I greet him. I am wearing Bub's flowing white skirt and wonder if I can practice in it. I go into the bathroom in the dream but don't end up going.

When I wake up it is 7:30, just as that class was to start, and I must get up in order to make it to work on time. Without thinking I put on the same white skirt I wore in the dream, recalling easily that it is Friday, the day of Venus, who is in resonance with the color white. I decide to fast, easily, and choose not to wear the necklace I have worn all week as a show of some sort of purity in non-adornment, though the white skirt if flowing and cozy to wear. It is only later that I consciously recall wearing that skirt in the dream.

Alas, who was it who called me like that?

Evening Talks and Tarot

2007-08-03T09:11:00.000-04:00

Last night I did a lot of conversing upon returning home from work, via my brother, who came to pick me up. I hope that satisfied the five elements of a right decision.

I talked with him while he circled the fan and scrunched up his face responding mainly to my dialogue on death and the importance of facing things with "no! why!" and then laughing that it was fun to just that. I found it fun too and curious trying to decipher if what he was saying was an accurate representation of his actions, which speak for themselves. His case is one of non-commitment, non-choosing. Though he said a very interesting thing which is this: "You don't
start having experiences until you commit one hundred percent." I interpret this as the idea that you don't gain admittance, or have the mystical experiences you learn exist, until you commit 100% to them. I guess there is adequate evidence against this.

In any case, after awhile he got tired of the talk, unsure of whether he was gaining any ground, if it mattered that he gain ground, and probably wanting to get back to his video games since he claims he spends all his time trying to avoid these types of conversations with us.

A walk with mom and youngest brother around the block, talking about death some more. Win says he thinks I am brainwashed into believing in God and all this stuff. I asked why it isn't brainwashing that he doesn't care about God way or the other. And I laughed, saying I chose this option, I looked around and picked a program, i.e., I want to "brainwashed" this way.

Inside talking with dad and mom in the living room. Maybe it's the lack of interaction at work that leads me to be so talkative later on. We talk about the seven kinds of twin souls, which Olga says there are seven and only seven, which are: Healer, Magus, Teacher, Messenger, Protector, Warrior, Executor. If you find which one is your essence and become one with it, it is the fastest way toward self-realization, or the land of Shambhala, a.k.a. Belovodia, whichever name you prefer it refers to the mystical land of eternal beings guiding humanity from an Enlightened energy and perspective. Who wouldn't want to go there?

Or rather, become there, as the idea of going somewhere is often called erroneous. I think you can look at things in at least two different ways to interpret what is actually the same phenomena.

So, I ask the tarot cards who or what my twin soul is. I am looking for a major arcana, something obvious. I get a situation of cups, which mom interprets as my ability to go to extremes in order to get what I want--read, Psyche taking the mask off Eros and then later (8) going into the underworld to retrieve him after making that mistake. The Moon is looking over the situation while the Page of Pentacles is underlying. I see femininity and the Goddess overlooking and something to do with money...

In the immediate future is the Nine of Wands, one step before the close of the Golden Fleece hunt in the story of Jason, and it seems to imply that I will be recognized for my efforts--a bit of a mystery.

Then, finally, come Temperance in the position of the final outcome. She is the feminine, feeling aspect of the Goddess who is constantly keeping the balance. She is also a messenger, delivering messages from Hera and Zeus to the humans. Her drawback is that she is always serving someone else and can at times be "wishy washy" as she can equally see the feelings of both. In this description is a nice description of the difference between feelings and emotions. Emotions are visceral responses to a situation while feeling is intuition, of a higher order.

An interpretation online:
http://www.tarotteachings.com/temperance-tarot-card-meanings.html

I feel that the card of Temperance represents either a Messenger or an Executor--as she gives messages while also managing the balance between people and gods.

One final card? Ok. I send the thought that let this card be a final clarification of the ones before. It is the one I had my eye out for all along. It is the Heirophant. He is a philosopher, half god, half centaur, who blazes his own path based on connection to the divine through his own heart and self. Mom says oh, it just took the third try to get the right card, but that is you. It is sweet, for a few weeks ago I asked the position of a certain person in my life and the response was the Heirophant. I thought this was his way of saying, I am here with you. I took it as such and also noticed the ways in which this character informs myself.

http://www.tarotteachings.com/hierophant-tarot-card-meanings.html

I went to sleep focusing on my astral and pondering the role of Messenger, one I had not thought to associate myself with before. There is something humble and sweet about it, and I even think that with the yoga I will teach at Agama I am more of a messenger than a teacher, simply sharing the practice rather than really waking people up such as the Buddha had.

Truth, beauty, happiness, health, light

2007-08-02T13:32:00.001-04:00

Let's take two example questions, one big and one small, in order to analyze the meaning of the following five attributes.

1. Should I return to Thailand to teach yoga?
2. Should I walk home from the bus stop or call my brother for a ride home from work today?

Both of these questions are important to me; they are not random questions in which I am not invested.

TRUTH

What does it mean for a decision to satisfy the requirement of truth? What is truth? I think that each of these attributes must be interpreted on your own for each question. Why the RIGHT decision for me might be to return to Thailand to teach yoga, it may not be RIGHT for someone else according to how it fulfills these attributes for them. Remember, Olga says the RIGHT decision must satisfy all FIVE requirements. Let's try not to deceive ourselves.

What does a RIGHT decision have to do with truth? My ideas are that the right decision may: lead you toward truth, by what you truly want, in truth be the right thing to do. Lead yourself and OTHERS to the truth.

1. If I return to Thailand to teach yoga, a.) will it lead me towards truth? b.) Is it what I truly want? If I answer yes to these, then it will be the right thing to do according to truth.

2. Will taking the bus home or getting a ride lead me more towards truth? This is impossible to say. Again, what is truth? Is truth GOD? And which do I truly want, to take the bus or get picked up?

BEAUTY

I am already feeling pretty stumped here. Let's look at beauty. For a decision to satisfy the beauty requirement, how about the RIGHT decision leads you to beauty, creates beauty for yourself and others. Is beauty GOD?

1. Will returning to Thailand to teach yoga create beauty? Yes, it has a lot of potential to do that, though it depends on my ability to create beauty. Will returning to Thailand to teach yoga lead me to beauty? Again, if I create beauty, I will surely be led to beauty. If not, no.

2. Taking the bus and walking may create more beauty in my body through exercise and lead to more beauty in the environment saving on pollution of one car. However, getting a ride may create beauty in my relationship and he may go out anyway in which case it is fairly even so far; again dependent on my own ability to create beauty in whatever I do.

HAPPINESS

The RIGHT decision should create happiness and lead to happiness. What is true happiness? That which lasts forever, right? Is happiness GOD?

1. Yoga in Thailand. Although I am again struck with the same issues as above, as in, the happiness created and lead to will depend on my ability to create and lead to happiness, in this case I know from past experience that yoga is an extremely reliable tool in terms of creating happiness. I can give an almost full YES that going to Thailand to teach yoga will create and lead me to happiness.

2. Taking the bus may create and lead to happiness for myself and others if it is what I want to do, in which case I will enjoy it and smile at others and bring a positive mood. If it is not what I want, then it will potentially not create happiness. Same stands for getting the ride.

HEALTH

The right decision should create and lead to health for myself and others. This I take as physical, mental, spiritual, and psychological health. A lot to ask for!

1. Yoga in Thailand. Similar to above. Very good track record to health being created and sustained by a good yoga practice. Spiritual health is developed along with the others. Health of the planet a bit threatened by the long plane ride I take to get there but may be negligible compared to other long term benefits.

2. Taking the bus: health of body improved through walking, health of planet improved through conservation of resources, [conflict in mind: health of body improved through walking but what if i take a walk later with mom thereby improving two persons health over one?]
Getting ride: health improved over joy of getting a ride.

LIGHT

The RIGHT decision should bring more LIGHT to myself and the world.

1. Training in yoga and learning to teach will clearly bring more light to myself and the world.

2. Taking the bus may bring more light to the world as an environmentally friendly decision.

In conclusion, I realize that going through this task has not clarified so much whether the decisions I make will bring these aspects into the world as much as made it clear what I actually WANT to do. And then when I know what I want I know that that decision is the one which will satisfy all five aspects. For example, today I want to get a ride home and since that is the case, I can see that it is the decision which will satisfy all requirements. Or am I just blinded by laziness?

How about the question of should I go to visit Mai in NY before I go to Thailand. Truth is brought by being true to myself, beauty the same, happiness the same, health the same, and light the same. These questions are tools for which to understand whether a decision is what you truly desire. And because I believe that God is what we all truly desire, in fact, then discovering our true desire is discovering God. what a dream it has become!

I thought the point would be that it is not always easy to make the right decision. But that contributes to the cloud around knowing whether a decision is right or wrong when you know you want to do something which is not RIGHT. For example, have coffee. If it is what I truly want, it is right, because it will lead to the five aspects. However, if I know it will not lead to the five aspects and do it regardless.

I am beginning to realize the prison of intellectualism.

Friendship

2007-08-02T13:03:00.000-04:00

I just had lunch with my best friend since I was 13. Is this a good reflection of myself or what? What kind of relationship has formed over all these years?

Well, what interests me is that as we grow older--at least as I grow older, and begin to solidify or form some basic beliefs, I am more interested in how others live their lives and somehow my interest is often mistaken for criticism. It is not always a mistake. And how to tell the difference, for myself and for others, is not always obvious.

What is the tension between Lis and I? I see it as clearly a reflection of the tension within myself. I have noticed a tricky cycle beginning in me. It is the cycle of excess, of waste, in which I lose interest in the disciplines that make my life meaningful and give it shape in favor of an energy that causes expansion and destruction. Excess yin, anyone?

And so if manifests in less ability to be happy and detached. The trick is that my mind doubts that happy and detached was ever really good for me at all. In fact, this part of myself, this memory demon, this devil, this gap, this neurological habitual pattern, whatever you call it, wants me to believe that the best thing for me to do is abandon all the practical knowledge I have gained, both intellectually and practically, in favor of its own modus operandi. The part of me that doesn't want to do this, my good fairy, if you will, gets distorted in the mix into what I call the "Redemption Pattern". The redemption pattern works like this: I go into excess (for example, a cup of coffee when I know it will cause negative feelings, followed by a cookie and later another drink, spending excess money and earning excess calories which put pounds on me I will not dispute that I don't want), and then the good fairy turns to work in its favor by saying, go ahead and go into excess now, because tomorrow (which never comes as such) I will go on a great diet and feel so much better, but today it's ok to have that extra caffeine/sugar/etc.

Even recognizing it, I fall for it. How do I battle this clever demon? It makes me wish to move to a monastery where all I eat is gruel to subdue this gnawing sensational desires! I either want to stuff my face until I am sick, or starve to make it through. This is what I call excess.

What about the middle path which I love so much? Granted, I would consider this pathology as middle path pathology. I don't really make myself sick eating too much, nor do I ever really deny myself in compensation. I have a middle ground yin imbalance.

The hard thing is that almost everyone around me has a middle ground yin imbalance. It is the "normal" way to be here in mainstream america. And although I don't want to be this person, somehow not to be feels in itself as though I am trespassing, or breaking the rules. When in fact, to act on this way, I am breaking my own rules.

What is the benefit of having bought a syrup based chai in order to process this and write it down? Would it not be better to simply do 45 uddiyana bandha's and fast for a day? Certainly it probably would and I can't find a logical argument against that except my own weakness. Why is it that I do not want to have the energy I had even just last week, when during lunch break I would go and do my yoga practice instead of drinking extra sugar and caffeine?

My brother put it eloquently yesterday when he said he was afraid that if he went out and explored the world, he would have too much energy to be able to stay at home and play video games. I asked what the benefit of playing video games was that it is so great to keep you from exploring something that would give him more energy.

But I know exactly what he means. It is escapist denial, as our friend put it.

Escapist denial is exactly how I manage to make choices which to do not benefit my true desires and goals in life. I escape from reality into the substance of abuse and deny that it will have any effect. The reason I like it is because it is extremely habitual.

now, as I asked before in a previous post, how I do break this pattern, or, in other words, get a new program? I don't want my perspective getting caught on this one note over and over the way it does, yet my ability to control it is precisely the issue.

Olga Kharitidi discusses the art of making a decision, pointing out that the ability to truly make THE RIGHT decision comes from discovering your own true will and making a conscious decision from this place. This implies that anything you do which is not done from this space of will and consciousness can not be classified as decision making, when in fact you are simply following the flow of nature, or karma. The final decision to make it seems is to flow with nature, as the Taoist advises, somehow joining the masculine act of taking a decision with the feminine nature of going with the flow. This, I imagine, is at least one step towards the ultimate union.

Actually I never thought of that before and I like it. It finally clarifies some of Lao Tzu's complicated yet extremely simple teachings.

Kharitidi says the a decision can made consciously when you test it for five conditions. Anytime you make a decision, big or small, you must evaluate that it fulfills the following five qualities: truth, beauty, health, happiness, light. Now, one might take a crash course on what these five attributes mean before they become the guiding post of your life.

organizational woes

2007-08-02T08:11:00.000-04:00

Ok, this may sound obvious to most of you, but I just realized something upon waking this morning.

It Is: there is nothing "wrong" with the lack of organizational routine and practice in my life, it is me and purely me who becomes extremely ill at ease in a life without a consistent spiritual practice. The point is that there is no objective truth to the universe that says in order to lead a spiritual and meaningful life one must get up every morning and do hours of practice and eat a completely pure diet, etc. etc. This is the conditioning of my own mind! It all goes back to the way my mind interpreted the way to understand and practice the teachings.

It is still helpful to know, and in fact I think there may be some larger organizational principle to human life, clearly evidenced by the way humans consistently organize themselves into units, groups, etc. Though honestly, I think it may not be the same experience for all of us. We all come here with our own program and interpret reality through those filters.

So a little triumph in figuring out another lens through which I am predisposed to see the world, and hence judge my own experience in it.

This is one of the reasons why lately I have become less inspired, less happy. I attribute it obviously to the fact that my practice has diminished due to working 40 hours per week which miraculously drains my inspiration to do anything else (despite that my "work" is hanging out in an office playing on the computer and reading all day). But further up, a meta realization, if you will, is the lens I use to judge that if my practice is decreased and along with it, obviously, my desire to practice, this removes what I consider the "good" organizational structure from my life (this is constantly recurring, by the way) which increases my sensation that something is "wrong" with me and the way I am living my life. I have simply replaced the organizational structure of practice and discipline with a job and hanging out with family and sleeping in the off time, which leaves my soul lacking.

Alas, what is wrong is not what I am actually doing (albeit there is something to that of course), but how I perceive what I am doing.

I am constantly playing out this game in my head, going from being "good" to "bad" in terms of my diet, practice, relationships, etc. And the "bad" aspects are simply representations of me getting stuck on some aspect of behavior which I get drawn into , a heavy energy, which takes me away from seeing what is going on in this moment, which may be out of my organizational reality of "goodness" but which may, and most definitely does, open doors in a thousand other directions could I only perceive them. It is the rut of guilt and focusing on what is wrong which keeps me from realizing that everything is right and, more importantly, LIGHT.

It is like a faulty program that has a glitch. If I go off the radar screen it is like a broken record. What do you do when your cd starts skipping? Or, in this case a better analogy is when it gets stuck on one note and won't move on. The obvious solution is to skip to the next track. If it continues to ruin the entire album, you may buy a new album. Read: get a new program.

I might say, it's not so easy to get a new program, it's not as easy as going out to the store to buy a new cd. It's more like I ordered this one cd from the netherworld and it finally came after a long wait and now it's fucked up so I'd better try to work on this one cause getting a new one could take a hella long time. Is that how it is? Or am I in the land of plenty perspective programs? Is it easier than I ever imagined to change my program? Well, let's look at past experience.

It hasn't been so easy but at the same time that may be because I never believed it could be so easy.

day 6 in the office

2007-07-31T13:02:00.000-04:00

It is day six where I work as a receptionist in the study abroad office. It is not something you want to hear much about because almost nothing happens. Clearly, since I have used my time today to start a blog.

To speak of larger issues, I would like to announce that I am a woman, an electron, so to speak, feeling somewhat detached from the nucleus. What is my nucleus? Well, this morning I spoke with a good friend online and he discussed his romantic situation.

Stuck energy is what I have. Potential and heavy.

Isabelle left this morning with her lover. They were snuggling in the morning before I left for work.

There appears to be little to discuss and I suppose that is why I have never succeeded with blogs before. What is there to engage in after all? And, this, precisely, sums up my lousy mood for today.

Thank you.