doves, they’re not just for Disney princesses anymore: sampling synchronicity

Early November, I was sitting on a West Village barstool a block from my apartment where I’ve parked a dozen times. Next to me was my newly befriended sweetheart of a neighbor as we sipped into #2 of 501 promised and future mutually contracted cocktails. My conversation suddenly halted as my head jutted toward the speakers, quickly and involuntarily, like a puppy’s face distracted by a dangling slice of salami. Over the sound system in the crowded joint came “Starlight,” a stray 2002 electronica song.

He looked at me quizzically and I explained,
“I’m sorry, that’s so bizarre… I LOVE this song—used to play it all the time and then hadn’t heard it in years. I rediscovered it this week, played it at my workshop and have been jogging to it all week. I can’t believe they’re playing it right now.”

“That’s weird.” He replied.

I think the “weird” might have been a reference to my sudden onset over-enthusiasm for the song, rather than the coincidence.

However, it was not weird or a coincidence, it was synchronicity. That seemingly random song was not random, it was a wink from the world.

I am super into signs. We can dismiss that as yet another quirky trait of the already off-center Margaret, but I posit that when we are open to more, we get more.

Synchronicity. Jung coined the term and defined it as “meaningful coincidences.” He called signs underlying psychic structures, meaning that’s the way our mind organizes them to make sense.

I used to look at synchronicity as a thumbs-up from the world saying: you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be. But along that vein of larger theories, if we’re always exactly where we’re supposed to be, then now I prefer to view them as a wink from the universe, telling me, “right on honey, this direction, keep moving this way…”

The more tapped in we are, the more the synchronicities happen. When you’re in a groove, and they come at you like a rush of tennis balls from one of those automatic machines, it’s delightful. The synchronicities start as small little signs, but when they get to be big things—meeting the precise right person at the right time for a next step in your business, getting information you need exactly when you want it, the “meet-cute” that shows up in real life, those are the juicy bits, when you’re in the flow and it’s effortless.

If we pay attention, life will give us these little moments of revelation. A synchronicity is on one level a cellular connection with that thing and therefore it’s a like a peek into a oneness with it.

Think of a conversation with a good friend, an advertising pitch or even a round of great flirting. Aren’t we hooked, enamored when a tidbit is referenced from a previous conversation or experience? We feel a connection when someone pays attention—it shows they care to notice the small stuff. We have the same ability to connect to ourselves this way, and in turn, connect with the larger scope of our lives.

I wrote this all two months ago and never finished my thoughts on this subject. This morning I awoke to an email from my bestie recounting a story to me, and this was the synchronicity it seems I was waiting for in order to complete this post.

This is a word-for-word paste from his email, although the names have been changed, and a friendly warning… this is about as capital “W,” Woo, that we can get with this concept:

The email:

“My cousin told me this story today. (We’ll call him Fred here.)

So, about 21 years ago Fred checked into Betty Ford for severe alcohol and cocaine addiction. By about day two he was in a total spiral. He was withdrawal-ing big time and was in the midst of throes of depression and hopelessness you and I could hardly imagine. (Fred’s coke and booze abuse made me look like a nun.) So, without any idea what to do he walks into the meditation room at Betty Ford.

He's not sure why he led himself there, but that's where he ends up and so he decides to try and meditate. It does not go well. Mind is going a mile a minute. But in a brief and exceedingly desperate moment he prays to God and what he said was a total surprise to him as it came out of his mouth.

He asked God to please show him a sign that everything would be okay. He had never felt that vulnerable and frankly never put enough stock in the idea of God to believe signs were even possible or valid. But sure enough he said it, and about ten minutes later he was struck by an incredible sight.

A little white dove flew down and landed right at the window of the meditation room, sat there for a second, then took off.

Fred had seen his sign.

It was the beacon of light and strength he used the next 28 days to get through rehab, and his talisman for faith the next ten or so years. But as his life went and other factors started to contribute to his new path, he very gently let go of the memory of the dove that day and collected new synchronistic moments that kept his faith strong.

Fast-forward 20 years.

Fred is in Palm Springs at Anthony Robbins newest weeklong seminar. He's sitting in a room with about 200 other people being led by Anthony Robbins in a meditation created by Ananda Giri and given to A.R. The meditation was deep and intense and it took the meditators on a kind of journey.

Fred said after about ten minutes he was in another place all together. He was letting go and just going on the ride. A little ways into the guided med, AR told the participants to feel as if they were flying, and to turn themselves into birds and to fly high and soar.

Fred says the images and sensations he's feeling at this point are completely out of his control. He's doing nothing but Being and he pretty much is the bird. At which point he turns into a dove, a white dove, who then finds himself flying over the desert, then towards a huge white building, where he then flies towards a window, lands on a sill, looks into the window and sees himself 21 years ago in the meditation room at Betty Ford looking haggard and scared, where he tells his 26 year old self that everything is going to be okay.

He was the dove that showed up at the window that day at Betty Ford.

He said he felt like he completely transcended time at that moment. The meditation dove was happening at the exact same time as the real dove, 21 years prior. And he experienced both perspectives. They were both him. He says he feels like he saw the innerworking of a synchronicity.”

I mean, dudes, c’mon… that story is ridic!! When something like that happens it is a giant puzzle piece that can offer us a completeness and connectedness to life that is inexplicably gracious.

Noticing the small synchronicities is the training ground for the big stuff. It’s the countless drills before you step up to the free throw line in the game.

I’m purposely flippant in these posts to underline the fact that there is no separation between anything holy or unholy, big or small, mundane or epic. It’s all the same thing; in these examples, size does not matter. Ok, a house music song on a neighborhood barstool is not as monumental as the two-decade long dove saga, but the attention is the same thing.

The point is, to be open.
To question.
To consider.

Because if a person is not open to having some kind of synchronicity within their lives, then you know what? It won’t happen.

You think that’s dumb and looney or hokey or impossible? Well, then you’re right. That’s not gonna happen for ya. Life reflects to you the way you want it to; the way you look at it is how things show up.

So maybe we won’t have some all-encompassing, blockbuster twenty year dove parallel synchronicity, but do we really want to cut off the possibility that something like that might be able to happen, somehow, someday, if not to us, at least for someone?

Today, keep your ears and eyes open… It doesn’t need to be huge, it can be something seemingly innocuous and simple, but pay attention and follow the thread; you never know what small thing can give you a glimpse into yourself… give it a try; after all, tis the season.

surfing the semantics of surrender

I’m not sure how much this is solely an American thing or if it is universally, innately part of our nature, but man oh man, we love flash. We want it to be a limited time offer, and we want to be in on the deal.

And I am not excluding myself from this, by any means. As you can see, I like my woo to be all funny, sexed up, downtown, sharp and sassy. The Bhagavad Gita is an enormous, gorgeous wealth of information, but I think I’ve fallen asleep reading it more times than not.

People get very excited about when something is marketed as "special." This little deeksha/blessing thing I have been doing has been every week, Wednesday nights, for four years. Sometimes two people have shown up, sometimes there’ve been 30. Once I had an impromptu, accidental, paint-the-town-red-bender the night before and I woulda paid my checking account balance to not show, and on any mid-summer’s eve I’d be perky and pretty in hot pink lipstick and a strapless floral sundress, but whatever my mood, I'd get there. The consistency of showing up is training from my Ashtanga practice where dedication is venerated more than progress or ability; as my yoga Guruji always said, “Practice and all is coming.”

Although weekly gatherings have been available for years to our NY community, this summer we had a “special” guest in town, and on a moment’s notice, on the July 4th holiday, 30 people found and made the time to cram into a midtown apartment and meet this man… that day some complained they wished there were more opportunities to get together in the city. (Um, there were.) Our tendency is to show up when we think it’s special, rather than with a more boring, unwavering practice.

So this week there was a little conference call with two recently awakened people who are now being shuttled around the country sharing their profound wisdom, ‘cause people want a taste of that. No, that’s inaccurate. They don’t want a taste; they want it all. They want freedom. Sugar, I want it all... Who doesn’t?

In this recent wave of enthusiasm, and a scrambling community hastening to share the sages, there was a last minute online talk available to be watched live one evening of the awakened guests. On the right hand side of the web browser was a simultaneous live chat.

First the talk was delayed, as the speakers had yet to come to screen.

The side bar chat hubbub read something like this:

“I don’t have video? Do you have video?”
“There’s no sound on mine.”
“Who is that person… have they started yet?”
“It says max number of users reached… help!”
“I’m so disappointed, I really wanted to see this.”

Eventually they started streaming and the content was marvelous, but then once again, the poor organizers, not having had ample time to present a seamless transition and despite valiantly trying to do their best, the fritz nevertheless took over.

There were a couple of schools of thought in the sidebar chat that emerged.
My favorite was between a beautiful poet and mother I know in NY and an unidentified other, who began to joke together, “Well, this is apparently the teaching we were supposed to get!” They took it lightly; they were cracking jokes that totes made me LOL. And I’m not by habit, an LOLer.

As they quipped their witticisms, and others identified the problems they were having in varying degrees of frenzy, one person added to the mix:

“Surrender… patience.” And then: “Surrender to the divine.”

Here’s the irony of that virtual exchange. The women joking about the technical difficulties and saying, “Well, this is the way it’s supposed to be…” were the ones surrendering, not the person who was beseeching us to have patience and surrender.

Surrendering is not a bargaining chip. That’s not how it works.

My best friend loves this word: surrender. I have never liked it. I don’t resonate; it’s bitter on my tastebuds. I think of: “you failed” or “we win.” It reminds me of war, or other masculine things that boys should be taking care of with grunting and big sticks. My bestie hearts “surrender” so much, he wanted to get it tattooed backwards on his chest so that when he looked in the mirror, he could see it properly. That’s a lotta love for that word.

I prefer the phrase: “letting go.” Or as the centuries old Buddhist chant ‘Nam-myoho-renghe-kyo’ postulates: I am in rhythm with the rhythm of life.

This is an ongoing discussion in my and bestie’s weekly hours of philosophical debate. As a whole, we cannot dismiss the discrepancy between the words so quickly as semantics, because in this delicate world of tiptoeing toward understanding, interpreting and experiencing the woo, semantics can make all the difference.

The person on the chat wrote: Surrender to the divine. For my money, I just don’t find that helpful. Five years ago I could have easily been infuriated with a “what the f**k does that really mean??” response. My sister is now doing this little thing that I do, and if I said that to her, she’d roll her eyes, get frustrated and go eat nuts in her room. If I said that out loud to a guy, I’d never date again.

In my interpretation, the person on the call was insinuating that if we “surrendered to the divine” that the technology would magically begin to work. (Disclaimer: I will fully cop to the fact that I may be wrong here, perhaps he or she did not intend that, and if he/she did not, apologies, but since this example can be easily used for anyone using this word/practice in this way, as many people do, I’ll dub this debate as valid nonetheless, even if I am wrong in this particular instance…)

The moment we use surrender as a bargaining chip, it is beside the point. Surrendering to the divine is just surrender to reality, surrendering to the present moment. Not changing the situation, accepting the situation and changing our perception of it. We let go of things, opinions, our stance on things, not so that we can acquire them, but so that we can do just that: LET GO and let them be what they are. Find the peace in the moment with what is actually there, not a fantasy of what we want it to look like.

Now, the catch 22 about surrendering or letting go is that once we really, really do this, is when something comes toward us.

There’s a guy that I used to be hung up on, and I swear to all things holy that he had some kind of internal GPS tracking system linked to me that would activate whenever I fully turned my back. He'd vanish from the chitta vritti of my mind, perhaps facilitated by my having met someone else, or being fully enthralled with another flourishing aspect of my life, and just when I had absolutely let go of any connection to him, he’d resurface out of the woodwork looking for me. Every time. It was laughable it happened so often and with such precise honing. On some plane, that I would never be able to pinpoint, someplace it was not even cognizant to him, he could feel my energy was gone, and he, in turn, being a guy, would want it back and would return, all sweet and wanting.

Doesn’t this apply to so many aspects of our lives? The thing is, with the guy, whenever I would do “work” to let go, it wouldn’t hold water. Until I really, truly let go of expecting any outcome is only when he’d show up.

On the call, surrendering was identifying the reality of the situation. Technical difficulties are here, and so, ok cool—love you all, happy holidays, a sign off, and we’ll all get a recorded YouTube clip emailed to us within the coming days.

Letting go is a major practice in these overarching ambitions towards awakening. Surrendering is allowing ourselves to surf the tide that is life and changing our perception is the sex wax that greases it to happen. The non-dualists would say it is already done. The Buddhists approach it from a different way and teach to welcome everything—to find the stillness within, no matter how rough the tide.

Tattoo it on your chest or take it as it comes; no one said it was easy, but it is simple, so we can at the very least try, and if we can try laughing, and with wetsuits?... well, gee, I think that's more fun.

the ick and the bitch: just like me

I ask my sister: “What’s your favorite food?” She tells me hamburgers.
Chocolate owns me.
Mom veers to beef stroganoff.

Our preferences are within us. We may shape our diets and lifestyles to scootch in a direction, but ultimately, there’s been a time when we’ve uttered “ew” and the person next to us is exclaiming, “yum.”

“True collective action can take place only when you, the individual, who are also the mass, are awake and take the full responsibility for your action without compulsion.” -Krishnamurti.

In the same way, we lean in to people, circumstances, and locations, events, which resonate. We’d never get anything done if our body didn’t tell us at six-years-old, “I want to play soccer” and at 25, “I want to make out with the blonde.”

Ramesh Baleksar, a recently passed enlightened teacher from Mumbai gave the example of a party. Even if you have 20 “conscious” people show up, they’re not naturally going to sit in a circle and kumbaya; this is not the way we are wired. We'll split up into four or five groups of people, as we’re drawn by an inexplicable vibration to that which is comfy... or hot.

Community, like-minded people, all of this is a vital, joyful part of living, but for growth, we need to confront that which doesn’t share in the matching t-shirts. The icky bits are the stretchy bits.

“Before you can act fully and truly, you must know the prison in which you are living, how it has been created; and in examining it without any self- defense you will find out for yourself its true significance, which no other can convey to you.”

Any judgments come up just as automatically as our preferences for blondes or stroganoff; we think we might have control over 'em, but we don’t. This is the stuff to notice, this is the “getting to know you” courtship with your mind.

The last time I was in India, the Big Daddy brought 200 people together from dozens of different countries so that you could watch yourself being internationally irked. Cultural differences are pretty obvious when you have Chinese women shoving you out of the way to get to the bathroom at a “spiritual retreat.” In the wings and downstage center, my opinions, judgments, preferences automatically came up for everyone around me.

One Japanese woman thought she was a animé messiah, consistently lead to call out to everyone in the room that they should be “laughing with the divine:” “It’s ok!! Laugh!!! Let go—laugh!!” This went on for ten minutes in one meditation. People called out to her to shut up (and let me remind you this was at an: Advanced. Spiritual. Retreat.)

Even if we don't act on these judgments, to say that we do not have them is bullshit. I’m sorry, pardon my French, but it is, it’s total bullshit. And that’s why someone reeks of inauthenticity when they walk around all spurious and holy.

The judgments are automatic. Judgment does not have to have a negative emotion or feeling attached to it; it just is. In relating how we could frame both a sense of “oneness” while housing a preference or judgment, my friend Adriana gave me a metaphor in India—“It’s like this crooked finger.” She shows me her finger, which is ever so slightly bent, one of the only imperfections on her Brazillian hottie bod. “I can see that it’s crooked, I don’t like that it’s crooked, but it’s part of me. So I still love it and accept it.”

Love and compassion, and their natural by-products collective action and “oneness with all,” can’t be forced. These sorts of warm, fuzzy things rise with practices and in time temper our judgments to be passing unattached clouds, just the silliness of the ego; judgment ceases to define who we are or who anyone else is. It happens and it goes.

On a deeper level, many teachings point to the truth that that which we dislike about someone else, or that brings up a reaction for us, is what we don’t like most about ourselves: we’re not accepting the icky bits. You know—the stuff that’s never going to go on the front page of your match.com profile—that stuff.

There’s a transcript being passed around in the woo circles from an interview with a recently awakened woman, and she said that P.A. (pre-awakening) whenever a judgment came up for someone else, she’d notice it, and add: (I would suggest doing this in your head so as not to frighten others) “Just like me.” I really like this, because it’s simple.

“Wow, she's got some balls-- check out that outfit, trash-shay.”… Just like me.
“Asshole!” (after they cut you off in traffic, stand you up, don’t return a call)… Just like me.
(my personal favorite) “Wow, that person takes themselves way too seriously”… Just like me.
“Margaret is so long winded, cheeky and full of herself”... Just like me.

I bring this up because I am helping to plan a wide-scale event on the East Coast for all this stuff. I am overprotective of my peeps, of these teachings, of this experience, because it is so simple, and we, in our enthusiasm for things can get caught up in a fanaticism very easily and get all crazypants or over-devotional with it, scaring other people off. I tend toward the real, the practical, the laid back dedication of the long haul daily practice and there will be many others present at this event that will not look at the world in the same way I do. There will be people who have closets of Christmas sweaters and count “Jesus Christ as my personal savior,” always using that complete phrase to describe JC.

I don’t find New Yorkers to be cynical or hard, but grounded, discerning and sophisticated. What plays in Ohio doesn’t play in New York. Honestly, what plays in Jersey doesn’t play in New York; it can get as subdivided as uptown and downtown or East and West side. Our inherent New Yorker’s egoic pride is yes, just that, an egoic mindset to be seen and dissolved if one is to “discover the manner of true fulfillment” as Krishnamurti puts it, but to ignore that it exists will not get us past it.

As we were on a conference call for this event, the person leading mentioned that one of the purposes of putting together an event like this was so that we could see the conflict and charges that come up between us in the planning and execution. To bring up our inner bitch.

And in case we think we may think we’re so non-judgmental, lovin’ Japanese animé prophets, Christmas sweaters and all those we come into contact with, with equal blissful abandon, I’ll insert the gentle reminder that it doesn’t need to be only people that can irk us. What about when something doesn’t turn out the way we want it to? The creative project that should have been done by now, that husband or life partner that hasn’t arrived yet or that business deal that fell through? Do we judge what life puts in front of us, or do we embrace every experience, ugly and uncomfortable as that which is necessary in the moment? The degree to which we accept the ick, is the compass as to how awake we are in our lives. It’s the other side of the “Just like me” coin… it’s “this is me.” That’s basically it in a nutshell: accept the ick, accept the bitch.

We cannot even think about collective action until we own up to ourselves, because once we do, a collective compassion arises naturally, there’s no need to work on it. “All of life is a movement toward our wholeness.” a translation from the Tao Te Ching, is pretty much my bumper sticker. In the moments of infinite love and bliss I have had (and they are and have been, thank you thank you, oh so grateful, countless) when the gritty ick or the inner bitch comes up, it’s not a la-di-dah feeling of overall oneness that helps a shift, it is a practical faith in this process. It is the responsibility of owning that there is something in it for me, and from me (“Just like me” no matter what it looks like. Whether it’s an “ew” or a “yum.”) These experiences are for me, for us, and the cozier we get with our inner bitch, the closer we get to a collective compassion. So when someone selfishly snags the last pair of Spanx at your pharmacy, preventing you from looking sleek at your office holiday party tonight, or a recipient isn’t as grateful as they should be for the iPad you gifted them, be pissed, be disappointed, and then remember: Just like me.

I don’t like God

It’s a frigid, but sunny Sunday Chicagoland afternoon. I am in a stranger’s home and we have had a couple of hours of loveliness and mediations and hippie things of this nature. I’m blissed up and blessed out and on cloud 14 when our super sweet hostess leads us into a Sufi meditation where we hold each other’s hearts, sing the chant and walk in circles, gazing into each other’s eyes, connecting. Oh no, oh gosh... it's been so amazing up until now. This is where she loses me.

It’s not that I have anything against the Sufis (love ‘em) or singing (terrif) or even strangers (yay, oneness and all that.) But singing, going around in a circle and gazing into someone’s eyes is not something I would want to do with the love of my life, much less someone I just met. There is no elegant way to escape, I am stuck in participating, and although it is nicer than I expected, I am still relieved when she calls out we are on the last go around.

Recounting the story to my bestie afterwards, he is bowled over in laughter in New York. “Hilarious that you made that happen for yourself… that’s like your worst nightmare!”

I don’t like God. Or rather, more specifically, I don’t like the word God. The only time I intend to use it is, legs wrapped around someone, in that moment of Ultimate Bliss that comes when our body and mind are absolutely, without a doubt, right where we are. There, let God twinkle in every cell of my being, let Him lift me to miraculous heights, let sweat pour down each of my chakras to the tips of my painted purple toes, drenching me in ecstasy and then, just before that other someone pulls me into a sweet kiss of closure, there I will loudly, gratefully, almost exasperatedly proclaim: OH MY GOD.

That’s about the only time I use the word.

I like the word divine, but even that is being thrown around so much as a substitute for “God” that I am growing weary of it. (So fickle.) Especially when it’s tossed around with a holy reverence. Sacred, I can handle. Holy? I look for the nearest emergency exit.

In all my travel I seek out and find little pockets of community to strengthen my practices. People so generously and graciously open their homes and hearts to me, and I don’t mean to sound ungrateful or closed off in any respect, but I kinda feel like my mission, should I choose to accept it, is not to preach to the choir. Anyone that can breathe in a room full of strangers to willingly “connect with their own personal divine and feel that love coursing through them” is not someone who needs my help. If you can feel that love coursing through you—awesome, go be one with Brahmin.

As you all know, I’m interested in the sophisticates, the skeptics, the rational. And/or those who are already on this rabbithole of a journey but want more reality, more practical, and less “hosanna.” I want to be at the end of a barstool in heated debate about philosophy with someone who is pushing back. It’s not that I want to convert them, I just enjoy the friction. It’s not necessary to win an argument, but if someone can at least open their eyes to maybe looking at something a different way, or if they can enlighten or sell me on their own theories, that is a successful debate. Even just the ping ping match of popping the ideas around stirs up further questioning. Perhaps it’s because I love a challenge, but juicy bits are there for everyone.

My teachers tell me that the most important thing you can do to deepen your practice is to cultivate a personal relationship with your divine. This is step #1 in my workshops. Since “divine” is already growing tired in my vocab, let me offer: stillness, excitement, sparkliness, love, insert your guru here if you have one, pick from any of the major religions for a guy or gal to focus on, pray to the superhero version of yourself, be zen and be nothing; whatevs.

The top tier of (for lack of a better word) enlightenment is (for lack of a better word) God realization. Until then, I choose to roll with a whole holy posse. My numinious crew. My entourage of bliss.

I’ve met sadhus in caves in India, but these peeps are not part of my posse.

You know those obnoxious Richard Meier buildings in the far West Village that line the Hudson like two disco mirror rectangles? Yeah, that’s where my main man resides. In the penthouse. He’s got a roof deck. And bling. I’m very fond of Indian tradition in that respect, I like to bling my divine, flower them up, incense the s**t out of ‘em.

There’s a little pink tinkerbell cartoonish aspect of myself that has shown up when I am taking myself too seriously in yoga. She reminds me this is playtime, not work, and I relax.

Endlessly long stretches of beach, dramatic canyons, my bike zooming uptown in traffic with Jason Mraz on my iPod, these work too.

Mostly it’s a twinkling that I find within myself—a place in my body, in my third eye or my heart, the place I calmly take a breath into to rise above the incessant fluctuations of the mind. I go to these places, and the vast landscapes remind me there is so very much more that little ol’ me, and also that I am a part of that greater thing. I give over worries, problems, constantly, consistently and will do until that moment it is no longer necessary, whenever that may be.

This may sound like I am living in lala land, but I assure you I am not. You can think I’m insane; I’ve been dubbed much worse. Both scientists and philosophers say that there is no difference in our mind in what reality is and what we dream reality is. Our brains perceive the informational input as fact, even if it is the fiction of mindstuff; we literally have a physiological reaction to thoughts the same way we do as events. So ok, maybe I call upon fantasyland; if my mind perceives it as real, what’s the harm? When I find I am holding on to tightly to the reigns of what I want any moment to look like, I call in a member of the crew and hand it over. It can be as simple as going with the flow, releasing it from your hands. Saying “you know what? I’m doing a pretty shitty job of this right now, why don’t you take over?” That can be in a yoga pose where I am stretching with aggressive ambition or too many thoughts over a cute boy. It can be frustration in stalled traffic or writer’s block. It’s fun. It’s a game. And it works.

Alcoholic’s Anonymous has long used the phrase “Let go and let God.” That seems so amorphous. Talk to the big daddy. Put him in a flashy penthouse apartment. Take a breath in your chest cavity at a time when you’re not holding a cigarette. Have a chat that is casual yet revered, whether it’s with a lover or friend, connect to that place, that person that knows best—that thing that can see the bigger picture when you’ve lost the faculty to do so. It doesn’t have to be so holy, it doesn’t have to be silent, and it doesn’t have to be “God.” By making that which is bigger than us something that is up close, real and personal, by being able to have a conversation with our higher self that isn’t all holy holy night, we access the resources of the infinite wisdom that threads throughout ourselves and all of existence. Even that sounds too grand. If nothing else, I’ve had many accounts that calling on the divine works great for finding parking.

your ego and those icky, scary deathly hallows

The ArcLight Cinerama Dome in Hollywood was fancy pants. After all it is (“Welcome to Hollywood! What's your dream? Everybody comes here; this is Hollywood, land of dreams…” -Pretty Woman, obvi) Hollywood, so it stands to reason that their theatres should have assigned seating, epic screens and validated parking.

Following my friends to our seats, I cooed at the ceiling, “It looks like we’re inside the Epcot Center ball!” (I’ve always had a bizarre affection for that giant Epcot golf ball… but I digress) It wasn’t my idea to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, but I was willing to come along for the ride.

I am not a Harry Potter fan. That is not to say that what I think J.K. Rowling has created with her empire is anything short of, well, a capital “S” Superstah fairytale international kingdom, well gilded with riches and notoriety. I am in curious awe, of course, of any realm so far reaching in scope and power, and kudos to her for the genius marketing of her corporate team’s vision to propel the mega world into mega bucks. Always a voracious reader, I remember being quite surprisingly captivated by the 1st book, that momentum propelling me to slurp up #2 and #3 quite quickly thereafter. By the time #4 came along, I had to wait for its arrival. The wait dampened my enthusiasm; I was jaded to quidditch as just another sport, and when eyeing its thick hardcover I remember surmising, “It was fun, but not fun enough to haul around with me as dead weight.” (I’ll refrain from any gauche relationship metaphor here.) I wonder had Kindle been around then, if it could have persuaded me into a perusal of #4.

I kinda assumed that the #6 film would give a once over, “last… on Harry Potter” sequence, bringing illiterates up to date with its characters, but it seems they deduced rather than waste time on needless exposition, to dive right in. So basically I had no idea what was happening throughout the first act of the film. It seemed very slow. And very dramatic. Soap operas seemed like sitcoms by contrast to the lethargic anticipation that was this 1st act.

Anyhow, I was oh-so-patiently waiting for the movie to progress for two and a half hours. About 2/3rds of the way through (I’m assuming if you care at all about HP you will have seen the film by this point and there is no need for a spoiler alert here, although, in any event, here: spoiler alert) there is the big scene between Harry Potter and his bestie Ron Weasley, where Ron has to face his biggest fears before they can progress.

Now in all the slow moving drama that precedes, some pretty big things are on the line. People are dying right left and center, there are battles and incredible healing powers sealing what would be fatal wounds, faces are rivers of tears and foreheads webs of wrinkled anxiety. People are being chased and go into hiding from monstrously hideous bad guys, all in a vast, disparately landscaped set of varying shades of darkness. It seems existence as their race knows it is ultimately being threatened and it’s up to HP and crew to do that “the one” hero thing and, in seven books/films or less, ya know, save the world.

So in this moment, where Ron has arrived in the nick of time to save Harry, up comes a swirling black mass of ghoulish black clouds, illustrated and sounded elaborately as Ron’s fears. Ron has to be able to face his fears in order to conquer them and save Harry. In the theatrical panorama that is the ensuing armageddon of the HP saga, are Ron’s fears centered around the expulsion of their race, or the fall of life as they know it? Are they masses of worries about those dying or of his own possible extinction? No… it’s all… “mommy didn’t love me, the girl I want loves Harry more, and ‘Harry can do better without you.’”

I loved this part of the movie, because this is where it got real.

It reminds me of the portion of Elizabeth Gilbert’s star memoir, Eat Pray Love.
(wow, aren’t I being a little media piglet with the topical blockbuster pop-culture references in this post) where she speaks about meeting refugee girls in a camp. Instead of being worried about their displaced homeland or future as a community, their counseling with her consisted of, “OMG—there’s this cute boy in the refugee camp, I don’t know if he likes me.”

This is the human condition. As much compassion as we can and do muster for the atrocities befalling many parts of the world, generally our greatest fears and our most prevalent thoughts are not of inhumanities elsewhere. The kryptonite that is our ego mind saddles us with the running dialogue of things close to our hands and heart.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Hallow is not in my daily lexicon, so I google’d it for the purposes of this blog. "To make holy or sacred, to sanctify or consecrate, to venerate.” The ‘deathly’ hallows could easily be defined as examining those darkest parts of ourselves by taking the ugliest fears and making friends with them, thereby transforming them to “holy.” Or as I would put it, as more one with ourselves. This is after all, what my teachers, Buddhist and Indian (and any wealth of other traditions) urge us to do. By facing the ego, we not only befriend it, but the ultimate spiritual enlightenment they say, is the ultimate death of the ego, creating an intrinsic sense of oneness with all. HP is another modern mass media outlet underlining that the courage to face these fears is where our greatest strengths lie. Hallowed be the death.

What I liked most about this Harry flick was not just the stadium seating and the company of my loveliest of friends, but that within the melodrama that is an uber-blockbuster and all of its surrounding brouhaha, the underlying message is simple. When the world is falling apart, start where you are. That’s why the Harry and Ron scene rang real—if your true fears are girl problems or jealousy of your best friend, be there. Be here. All you have is what’s right in front of your nose, and the healing can only begin when you get real about what’s really in your mind. To throw in a last pop reference, by the perhaps not so esteemed and yet still admired En Vogue: “free your mind, and the rest will follow.”

family matters

“Where are you headed today?”

A cute TSA employee strikes up a conversation with me as I wait for the conveyor to push my laptop through the scanner.

“Chicago.”

“Is Chicago home?”

No, he’s not cute, he’s out-of-place-for-airport-security dashing; this guy… this guy can frisk me, no problem.

“No, New York is home, but my family is in Chicago.”

“How long will you be there for?”

I raise my eyebrows, “A month.”

“A month! Now that’s some visit!”

“Well, my mom is sick and I want to go help her out.”

He’s flirty. Maybe slightly unprofessional, but I’m not filing a complaint anytime soon.

“Did she talk you into that?”

“No,” I raise my eyes to deliver the line straight on, “I’m just a really good daughter.”

We laugh. His smile is dazzling. How nice. On four hours of sleep, hungover, with no caffeine or food in my system, I am surprisingly chipper. Perhaps I am still drunk. The rest of the journey to the airplane is like this. Everyone seems more polite than usual. People are extraordinarily courteous. I see strangers talking, making connections, expressing gratitude. Holiday music piping through the terminal, perhaps they are all drunk on the season, now unabashedly in full swing post Thanksgiving weekend.

I am leaving one family to go to another. My soul is juiced up after an unexpectedly super fantastic six days in LA. I yoga’d it up, I sashayed for hours beachside, drank far too much alcohol and even more green juice trying to counterbalance it. I had a birthday, a reading, Thanksgiving with friends and family Hollywood Hills dinners. I bowled a strikingly (pardon the pun) awesome 167 at the Lucky Strike lanes. For my birthday I received the new Jonathan Franzen book and a deliciously sweet truffle of a weekend romance.

Several of my closest friends have moved here—it started five years ago with my bestie Broadway veteran Adam…simply the most charming, charismatic person I have ever known. Period. The West Coast has propelled him to the brink of interior design reality show stardom and he leads me around like a trophy fag hag, which I am more than proud to be.

The wave continues with David and Logan who for a solid seven years (along with our relocated Vermonter Tesha) were so close, they were not my crew. They were, they are, my tribe. At one point we coined ourselves ‘lodamate.’ T-shirts were made. I’m not kidding.

So with the mass exodus West, what’s a girl to do but head for a visit?

My amazon goddess oneness sistah Katie was trying LA on for size, there were yogis peppered everywhere and friends I adore from high school are here I didn’t even get a chance to see, the schedule was so packed.

Being with friends like this is being with family. These are the people who with ridiculous generosity offer, “Here take the keys to this apartment, we’ll stay together and you can stay there for free.” They respond to pick up requests without a moment’s hesitation: “of course.” They will brew you a pot of coffee when they have a house full of guests arriving to entertain and your lazy, tired ass should have made it to Starbucks on the way there. They have your back. This kind of love, the connection, the support, is what life is all about. I think of the yogis I met in India, who would fall in love and abandon their own continents to be with each other—I mean, that is an incredibly deep knowing. When you find this, you hold fast to it. You vacation together, you move to be near each other, it IS family.

As the jet-stream glides me eastward away from them, so grateful for the week I have had, my thoughts transition to this month with my “real” family. There is the old Ram Dass adage thrown around: “if you think you are so enlightened, go spend a week with your parents.” A month in my mother’s home will be the longest I have spent there in seventeen years. I’m not planning to lubricate the situation by running out for a case of holiday season Belvedere (our family is essentially sponsored by the vodka) but am instead placing my mother, sister and I on a one week cleanse and juice fast to start, which is going to stir up every irritability that ever existed in any of us. This will quite literally be, my most in-depth spiritual retreat.

Because the thing about family is, the comfort and the warmth and the ease that all the familiarity brings can also rear its ugly head as the place we feel most comfortable to be our nastiest selves. Often times our parents or siblings can bring things up in us, whether intentionally or unintentionally, that are the biggest thorns in our lattisumus dorsi. Something comes from one of their mouths that could be processed quite palatably from a stranger, but because our mother says it, there is all of this “stuff” attached to it.: expectation, charges of emotional hurt from the past. Discomfort when we don’t see eye to eye or they nag us for something we want to do or a way we want to be.

I joke with the TSA guy, and I joke here, but I’m pretty dead on serious when I label this a spiritual retreat. I fully expect to learn more about myself in a suburban Chicago household than I would spending a month in India with my teachers.

It’s leaning into the fire. Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön has a whole book titled “The Wisdom of No Escape” that speaks to this theory and practice. I will purposely be reaching for the irritations so that I can see how I react to them, notice this, and then in that inherent way that bringing attention to something and actually experiencing it rather than avoiding it dissipates it, this will be a month long meditative process.

Of course I go with excitement and love. I am fueled by the comfort and generosity I have with my tribe, to extend it to my family. Intending to learn and grow from any holiday stress that arises lets us all off the hook a little bit, doesn’t it? The world is a little jollier this month, decorated a little sparklier, as selfishness always seems to be ratcheted down a notch… And if everyone entered the season heart open, with a sprinkling of self-inquiry on mind, wouldn’t that make for a more enlightened December? Tonight the ladies of my family will feast, this weekend we will famine. I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the opportunities in love with those nearest to me in this life.

6:30am the next morning (4:30am LA time) my sister’s alarm in the next room agonizingly rousts me out of a dream, twice, from my best sleep in a week. "Why the f**k is a spaceship is landing in my room?!" I shuffle to her room intercepting the silence before the 3rd snooze. Desperately tired and annoyed beyond reason that she can sleep through the sci-fi, space-age, musically whirling futuristic noise that is her cell phone alarm clock, I am exhausted and murderous. I hate that she can sleep through anything; I hate that I cannot. I hate that she has to go to work this morning… "Doesn’t she realize that as my younger sister she should be sensitive and subservient to my every comfort and desire??," my thoughts mutter to themselves… opportunities for love... deep breath... stand-by… and… go.

the celibacy confab: merry christmas to me

My sexual over-enthusiasm may actually be a medical condition. I learned this when I casually mentioned to Adriana (pregs Brazilian bestie guru) on the last India turn that I didn't like necklaces—hated how constrictive they were along my shoulders and body and so always opted for bling elsewhere. She (a holistic practitioner and trained kinesiologist) asked a series of other questions and casually diagnosed I may be “lachesis” and suggested homeopathy.

“The Lachesis individual is like a highly strung bow, taut with sexual energy, which must find an outlet if it is not to backfire upon its owner.” says herbs2000.com. According to my research and understanding, it is not so much a condition as it is a designation. Like: Sagittarius, or American.

This designation has thankfully not parlayed itself into an unhealthy nymphomania—sex has never been a dangerous addiction or something casually pursued. My overall snobbery extends to my body; brains turn me on more than brawn, and if emotion isn’t present, neither is anything else. But I bring this up to show you just how important sex is for the mind/body organism known as Mags, because she’s thinking of giving it up.

“It’s not bramacharya if you’re just not getting laid.”

In the yogi community I resided in for a time years ago, this was an oft-spoken phrase. Inevitably a new arrival (myself included,) eyes blurried by an exotic “glamour” that something like living in India to practice yoga can provide for the ego/mind, wanting to stretch his or her vocabularic use of the yamas/niyamas would drop the bramacharya reference, to which would come the response:

“It’s not bramacharya if you’re just not getting laid.”

Bramacharya is celibacy for spiritual purposes. There are people (not only in India) who take on the life of a bramachari or brahmacharini (female) to specifically up their levels of consciousness and strengthen a connection to the divine. Although this can be a life-long devotion, it can also be utilized for shorter periods to gather energy and deepen yogic practices. This is not just a yogi thing-- priests, monks, nuns everywhere subscribe. Ghandi was a celibate. Earlier this year Lady Gaga advertised and advocated her own current celibacy.

Where I lived in India, the ratio of men to women was kinda like theatre camp. If you were a straight male, essentially you were a kid in a candy store. A dozen women for each man, all beautiful and fit, kind, and probably from an urban, more sophisticated area. Of course there were more serious ascetic yogis, who were far above carnal desire, but at the end of the day we were all human and a lotta people went through that town.

There, I was pretty much practicing inadvertent bramacharya, which, really didn’t count.
So in New York City in the fall of what has been a ping-pong match of a year, I want to ground boldly in one direction, maybe save on a couple of months of brazilians, and so am considering bramacharya. Not forever, but maybe until 2011.

Right now I’m in the inadvertent mode, but that stance could so very easily be swayed/broken/altered. Even as I start to ponder it, and I find myself midst cocktail conversation announcing I’m considering it, that inexplicable pull of the universe happens where letting go causes the vacuum of non-neediness to suck that very thing to you. Hotties start showing up outta nowhere. Everywhere I go is spewing smart, attractive, single men and they are glued to me. Did this happen before? Did I just not notice? Am I sending off a “hey pretty much considering being chaste for the rest of 2010 vibe” and they smell it, like a dog in heat that can’t have the one thing they want?

So the reason I’m considering it is because next month I’m taking some time to dig down and focus on my creative output. The 2nd chakra is the seat of all sexuality and creativity; the theory is abstaining from sex helps fuel the other. Kundalini drives energy up through creativity and then to eventual spiritual awakening and realization. Although I’m being glib about it here, Bramacharya is a serious yogic life long practice; it is said that a minimum of 12 years is essential for real spiritual progress…. So this little experiment, should I choose to accept it, is at best, Bramacharaya-lite. If it could even be dubbed that. Diet bramacharaya? Bramacharaya One?

Logistically speaking, once out of the dating game, it’s incredible how much time frees up when not seeing someone (or several someones as many are wont to do in our fine city of fair speci-men and women.) Suddenly stretches of hours, evenings, weekend mornings, are yours, tucked nicely back in your skinny jeans pocket.

I’ve always been incredibly good at entertaining myself because I tend to get bored of people easily. (Not a very generous spiritual perspective, but true nonetheless, although I’d like to think I’ve become more patient.) Many times I prefer to be alone than to be under-whelmed at a dinner, party, etc. I don’t have that FOMO anxiety (fear of missing out) in my blood. I’m fine missing out. You go right ahead; I’m going to go read. So, to have more of that time to myself is a gorgeous gift; I rarely get lonely, and if creative output is happening, well then forget it—that’s when I’m at my best, and who wouldn’t want to be there?

Yet speaking of entertaining myself, ah, how do I put this delicately? Well, it seems that sexy solo time must also be considered when pondering bramacharya. It’s easy enough to not go out with peeps for a few months, but if sexual energy is the culprit to be harnessed here, then it only stands to reason that we’re talking about an across the board hiatus, right? This… this (um, blush) is more of a substantive commitment.

And what’s the line? Is kissing ok? Well that kinda stirs up some energy, so maybe not. So, does that mean, no dating? How about no flirting? Do you just turn off the flirt the way that some people do when they get married? Just not go there?

And what’s the commitment? What if one of the best lovers of your life comes out of the woodwork for a roll in the hay and he’s in town from Nairobi, for one night only? Or a ‘friend with benefits’ has a serious crisis and “needs” you for stress release or comfort? Or a long lost love materializes out of the ether, suddenly and miraculously ready to commit—is a gal really going to prolong that spicy reunion for the sake of a temporary spiritual practice? I’m not fantasizing that these things will happen—but all probabilities need to be considered because this is, in essence, a sacred deal with yourself. And ya don’t wanna let yourself down. Not for Tom or Harry, and certainly not for dick.

So, I suppose bramacharya is on the ballot for December but this gal still hasn’t figured out which amendments need to be included in the proposition. She’d like to believe that the world isn’t so cruel that it needs to test her, but she also inherently knows that there will be some kind of spectacular challenge set forth. Some miraculously confronting Hail Mary testing text: “Mags! I’m at the end of your block with my bf and Bradley Cooper—we need a 4th for dinner… Come!”

The world does not respond to wishy washy. Particularly when it comes down to these sorts of spiritual practices; dedication is key. I’ve given up hot celebrity sex before when in love with someone else… the real question is, do I love myself enough to give myself the same respect? Can I calm my lascivious, lachesis’d self and get through the holiday season with second chakra energies working overtime on writing rather than writhing? Is there really anything to this theory/experiment at all, or am I just missing out on good times for no reason? Maybe this is what is meant by “buckle down”...? Ladies and gentlemen: (well, in my case, really only the gentlemen...) It may be time.

the bitch of bliss

Here are some raw deets. It doesn't start off so pretty, but it gets nicer later, promise.

Last December I spent a few sticky weeks in hometown Chicago, my longest stretch in years, to be supportive for my closest someone whom I thought was in an intense depression. She happened to be high on crystal meth the entire time. It was morose; I had no idea why.

This year breast cancer showed up for my mother. The first surgery didn’t take care of it. They had to go in again, and then of course, months of radiation.

A few months ago, the drug addiction my father had been battling and we’d been waltzing with for years came to a head, when he was beaten up and checked into a hospital. He was there for nine days and wouldn’t leave—too terrified to go home, too proud to admit what was going on or ask for help; he remained there as we scrambled remotely with police dealings and how to get his BMW out of the impound. My sister had to pull to the side of the road to manage panic attacks. My mother walled up.

The first relationship in years where I came close to someone I thought I could love for a while abruptly exited my life. I had no say in it.

…and for the first time in years, I went into debt to get by.

Anything that I thought I could hold onto, that could support me, was taken away.
Those are the facts.

Here’s the story.

The last two days I have felt my most intense connection with the world to date. I’ve had glimpses of this in the past, and I’m pretty sure it’s not here to stay, but I see the divine joke in it all. My hand in the matrix. I was walking up 6th Avenue the other morning, looked at a hotdog cart and understood that it came from me. Not intellectually. I made the cart. I was the cart. To have this kind of obsequious understanding about something so, not only ordinary, but dirty, seemingly incongruous with your life, is quite simply, everything. I try not to use the word ‘oneness’ because I don’t want any vocabulary so present in my life that I think it encompasses the answer, but really, there is no better word for it.

A person cannot know what this is until we experience it. I know I’m starting to sound like an MP3 stuck on repeat, but it’s true. And it’s a tricky little bastard. We start this journey, we get pushed or pulled or thrown in, for a little respite from our suffering. Yoga makes us feel better. Deeksha lifts our spirits. Perhaps we glow a little bit, in turn start to take better care of ourselves. But then… then, once you have an experience of the supreme understanding, you are pretty much f*%@ed. Because then, there is an involuntary evolutionary pull toward that day when you are That, and you know it, and every cell of yours vibrates with that truth.

And the ride sucks. It’s hard. There are many times that you want to throw your hands up in the air and you wish you could rewind. “Stop the World, I Want to Get off” is not just a droll name for a 1960’s musical, you feel it and you want to go back… to that bliss of ignorance. But you can’t. You’re on the road to the Ultimate Bliss. And you certainly can’t explain it to anyone who’s not there yet—your family, that guy you wanted to be your boyfriend, your boss when the work you’ve been doing up to now just isn’t cutting it anymore. “I’m sorry I’ve been out of sorts lately, I’ve just been consumed with learning who I am on the road to Ultimate Bliss.” I’m on that path and even just rereading that sentence makes me want to punch that person in the face.

Here’s why it’s all consuming. Because the love is so ridiculously vast. Once you have a glimpse of it, and you see that’s what there is, everything else is just so very unimportant.

And the paradoxical beauty is the side effects are miraculous. Relationships develop MORE meaning, not less. You saw my laundry list of less than stellar happenings above? They just happened. Emotions rose, and they dissipated. There was deep feeling, but there was absolutely no drama. Not coming from me anyway. And when it came at me? I did not participate in propelling the dramatics forward. To have that kind of equanimity when literally the sky is falling around you is an incomparable feeling.

I tell you this not to stir up any kind of empathy from you, I have no interest in that, and it doesn’t serve me; quite frankly, it would only be wasted if you had it. I say this to show you (and I purposefully laid it all out here, no vague veiled poetic metaphors about my circumstances, cleverly disguised for blogland) this work can and does have a direct correlation with our levels of suffering.

I experienced it; I was solid throughout. The family dramas?—I was like a little Buddha in the middle of it all, amazed at my innate tranquility. The guy? Well, that was the tough one for me. I really really really really wanted to play the blame game on that one. But I watched as all the emotions rose and fell, watched what the process of life brought up for me to see, watched how and why I created it for myself and it went by.

Here’s what else. I speak more to my mother every week than I do anyone else. I grew up angry at her, and since our relationship has blossomed, for the first time I have magnificent women in my life. A whole entourage, of the most gorgeous, giving, level-headed fabulous women in Manhattan. I dare anyone to find a sparklier group. This new level with my mother was not cultivated—it just happened.

My neighbor told me the other day every time he sees me ride around my bike it looks like I am in a little bubble of positivity. He said it really looks like that. And that’s what I feel. I am happy. Happy for no reason. Certainly not happy because the circumstances of my life are the best they have ever been, and yet I am beyond grateful. So grateful with all the beauty that surrounds me…. Because the beauty is in the dirt. When the angry or the sad day comes up, I pull out the dark lipstick, repeat Edith Piaf on my iPod, hope that it’s raining to support my mood and then I live in that aspect. It’s the sad scene of the movie. I’m the star, and it’s so much fun.

I’m well aware that I probably lost half of you with this post. If you haven’t yet started the ride, or are unaware you’ve started it, you will dismiss me, you will say I am not living in reality. And it’s quite literally the opposite. Reality is all we have. This is it. Now. All of this, all of this wading through suffering and stretching uncomfortably toward understanding is so that we can experience it, fully, without fear, with incredible amounts of compassion and love.

We don’t need to have catastrophic events to feel the suffering. I like to live large, so apparently my dealings prefer to be marvelously dramatic. Suffering of an “ordinary” level is just as painful—being trapped in the mind is just as constraining whether we are faced with drug additions or boy problems. Breaking free is just as remarkable, whatever and however mundane the circumstances appear to be.

The people around me are leading spectacular lives. Because they are real. We are all going to be there sooner than we know. You don’t have to take my word for it. You won’t, until you see it yourself. But I will say it anyway, it’s so so so much better when it’s authentic. And being authentic brings the bliss.

heart to hearth: cultivating generosity

Hyannisport. Mid-May, pre-season Cape Cod. The multi-million dollar home is a stone’s throw from the Kennedy Compound; its lawn nuzzling the Atlantic Ocean expansive enough for six shoulder-to-shoulder croquet matches. While relishing in the surroundings, post shower one afternoon, I wrapped myself in the softest towel I had ever experienced. Wanting to procure it for myself, I looked at the label: Neiman Marcus. Of course. Later I researched: $135 a bath towel. There were seven grand worth of towels in the house alone.

My ex and bestie is one of the greatest of all time, but he doesn’t have a mind for logistics. Or rather, he doesn’t have MY mind for logistics, which when thrown a potpourri of information will have it immediately organized, people inspired and bossed around, and all data cross-referenced and color coded in detailed printouts with back-up digital copies on the always carted Blackberry, just in case.

So when his family bid on the aforementioned private mansion at a charity auction and were unable to use its seven bedrooms for a week away, natch I was called to step in and figure out who went where. We weren’t quite given enough notice allowing peeps to plan proper vacation time off, so it became a hodge podge of guests; a puzzle of room arranging that required (in my mind) spreadsheets.

The bestie and I had just departed from a “woo” weekend workshop when we learned of the house. Needless to say, we were particularly open. I ended up inviting two people to join our vaca who were strangers pre-workshop. One was tall, gorgeous Katie. She radiated. I literally thought: Amazon woman, Greek goddess. Katie seemed like too confining a name for such epic female form. She and I complimented each other in the bathroom and came back to our seats only to find we were sitting side by side. We watched each other pull out a green juice from our respective bags with a manicured hand, at which point I looked her in the eye and said, “We’re going to be new best friends.” Once I found out she lived close to me on Perry Street, the deal was done.

Her own bestie in tow David was a handsome, quiet man with an unwavering groundedness and one of those bodies that is incredibly well cared for. (That’s the PC version of: really super yoked.) We didn’t speak as much, but in my mind, I grouped them together. I immediately adored the outgoing gal, and by default, trusted her entourage. They were shortly thereafter invited to the Cape with ten other friends.


In the road trip up, I gave the breakdown of that weekend’s guests to the guy I was dating at the time. (This was a fairly new relationship, and he did get mad props for being game to join. A dozen people he didn’t really know? Our first weekend away in a house that was provided by my Ex-husband? Creative and spiritual types that he had absolutely no close relationship with in his own world? Mad props.)

That being said, once I mentioned the two new additions to our group, he pretty much told me he thought I was out of my mind.

"You mean, you don't even know these people?”

I looked at him, all puppy-eyed and innocent (a recently cultivated look,) “I’ve never met them, but I know them.”

(Hm. Now looking back on it, this might have been the moment that the relationship took a turn toward its expiration.)

“Wow, I just don’t know anyone who would ever do that.”

“That’s how we roll. I can see they’re good people. What’s the worst that could happen?”

Well, lucky for me, so this story may somewhere, sometime veer near a point, only the best happened. Katie and David turned out to get gold stars for the weekend; their generosity was bountiful. An unecessary boon to all of us, for sure, and a windfall that was not even karmically mine—the house after all had nothing to do with me, I was merely the company manager for its arrangements.

After a couple of days of David and Katie’s general fun-loving magnanimous attitudes and deep awesomeness, even the guy I was with admitted, "I misjudged him. I’m touched that he would be so generous without knowing me.” The guy was given a book from the local Barnes and Noble and some excellent free therapy that he was enthusiastic about at the time, but that I’m not sure he ever heeded.

David and Katie grew to be good friends in separate ways. Katie was always great for a bright smile or a no frills soul excavation, and made the cut to the short-list roster for a “girls night” crew—my own “pink ladies” of Manhattan. I began to work with David as my network chiropractor and his insight and wisdom continues to floor me every time I think I can get away with a choice that’s less than what I ultimately deserve and he calls me out on my own sneaky ego-ic b.s. When I needed a space for my first Goddess weekend workshop, he offered his office flatiron loft with a generosity beyond measure: “It’s your first time, just give me whatever you want for utilities.”

Unbounded generosity from a heart-centered hunch and a pinch of faith. This… this is how I would like to see the world starting to work on a large scale. What if we trusted people more? What if we left places/spaces/events better than when we found them, to hold the integrity for having faith in that trust?

Jim Carrey spoke recently about how the “news has the media condense all of this negativity in one place and is not representative of what the world is, or what the world wants.” We have a misperception about the goodness of life. People are starting to shift that perception, because celebration is truckload of a lot more fun. Call it a vanity of self expansion: Faith makes you prettier. Integrity offers peace of mind. Generosity keeps the flow of abundance open.

Financially my friends run the gamut. There are a few who are by anyone's designation: wealthy, most are very well off and then I have peeps who have given up the exec life opting for something simpler, and those who have yet to get to that place they deserve in terms of prosperity.

I’ll tell you this much, what I see first hand, is that happiness is directly equated to what you give. Rich or poor, retired by 40 or juggling a day job to support a higher artistic vision, the people who give are shinier, happier people.

You can call it “pay it forward” “you give what you get” “as within, so without…” it’s not how much do you give, it’s DO you give? And in what spirit do you give? Reluctantly, because you feel like you should? Do you take into account how much others around you have and make up the difference because you know you can afford more? If money isn’t flourishing, do you give in other ways? There’s no wrong, it’s not a quiz, but really… look… do you give?

Money is just energy. It’s all just consciousness. And as all the “good” work we try to do on ourselves is not a one-for-one exchange, neither are the karmic backlashes of those times we remain tight-fisted out of “reason.” Greed, apathy, hoarding, these are unconscious exercises that lead to cancer, shutting down, a hardening of the heart. Our media only exacerbates the situation with it’s constant fear-inducing dramatics. Turn down the volume.

I’ve been (pardon the pun) on both sides of the coin. Even very recently, taken out by friends when things were tight, and I have in the past gratefully footed the bill when I know it’s tough for someone else. But it’s not about money is it? It’s about love, and with a card, a phone call in hearing someone out when you really have ‘better things to do,', making the choice to put someone's needs in front of our own when it may not be the comfiest response... what you give is what you get. When you gamble on the good, life will not let you down, and cultivating generosity will morph it into a natural practice.

The people who own that insanely awesome Cape Cod house are hugely active philanthropists. Their home (it was at least their 2nd, maybe even 3rd?,) covered in family photographs of smiling faces. They have the formula figured out, and you can see it in the walls—there is no end in sight to the richness of their lives. Prosperity consciousness always starts from within. Heart to hearth, that’s the path.

when life chooses for us

There was one full day that my iPod repeated Kelly Clarkson’s “Since You’ve Been Gone” a solid seven times. I pulled the rebounder/trampoline from underneath my bed and with some fierce fist-pumping, seriously bounced it out. In fact, I have an old iTunes playlist dubbed “screw you” which came in super handy for about 48 hours. The itinerary that week was: shock/pasta/wine, bouncing/punching/kicking and then my inevitable green juice cleanse/turn in/give it up/let go/figure it out.

One moment everything was perfect and the next I was jilted; inelegantly, impolitely and unconsciously. I did my best to not add any drama to the “story.” Still the (unsolicited, unanimous) response from my friends at the scene of the crime was clear: “what??” “are you serious??” “not ok” “game over” “done.”

There’s a Sioux legend that states: “The longest journey you will make in your life is from your head to your heart.” Here I had the reverse situation. My head, my friends and even my (usually zen and silent) hairdresser clearly pointed out the red flags and danger, yet still, my silly heart wanted it. Thank you, Kelly Clarkson, for bouncing me straight.

When my own emotional dust dissipated I was left with the question that had come up immediately, and finally the clear-headedness to approach it: How did I bring this to myself? What is it in me that caused this to happen? Am I really that dumb or is there something that hasn’t been cleared yet? And I sank in, I went deep, I unearthed a past hurt I thought was over—a trauma from my childhood I thought in all these years of “woo” I had worked through, and there it was, its sad little face, whimpering, “Hey, I’m still here.“ I pulled her into an embrace of acceptance and love… I hold this. I take responsibility for it. I bring the ugliness to light and so the story changes, NOW.

I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, there is something major and unprecedented up with the world as of late. There is quite simply no one I know who is on solid ground. Looking around at my friends, those close to me, anybody who is really working on figuring it all out whether though yoga, therapy, parenthood (rather than just blindly forging ahead in a chosen surface ignorance) is struggling/unsure/unclear in a major aspect of their life. Monstrous curve balls are being thrown in our faces, rugs pulled out from under us, or we’re stuck in patterns of indecision, restlessness, pain and almost everyone has really just about had enough.

A friend of a friend described it as constipation, which I think is most appropriate. We are on the precipice of something great but we can’t see what that is, and right now it feels like everyone needs a huge dose of emotional, spiritual or financial Ex Lax.

The peeps in India say two things—firstly I’ve been hearing for months that there is a giant energy shift in November, another in March and of course the upcoming 2012 brouhaha. Ok, November (jeez, there better be,) almost here, bring it. They also said this week that if we are in the midst of all of this existential suffering, if we are experiencing more of that than physical (i.e.: ‘ow, my bones are creaking, that f’ing hurts’) or psychological (‘why did he say that, what happens if she doesn’t call me, he/she/they had no right to do that, why are my bones creaking?’)—if those thoughts are secondary to a general “what am I doing with my life/what’s the purpose” malaise, then that means we are “guaranteed” enlightenment in this life and we should be celebrating the uncomfortability. Eckhart Tolle and his three years of misery were referenced. Props went out to David Hawkins.

Regardless of all that, we cannot know something as true until we experience it. Therefore, I am not offering you the information above as something I know to be upcoming fact. I’m not a fortune teller, I’m a downtown philosopher with a hole in the big toe of her sock and Lindt sea salt dark chocolate on her tongue, who can’t even fast-forward six hours to make a commitment for dinner tonight. I write it here, so that if it might happen to give you comfort, then that opportunity is there.

The last months, well, years, of my life have been consumed by an enthusiasm for this knowledge; by a desire to share what I have seen and learned most simply and humbly because the quality of my world is so much more excellent having been exposed to these things. The rewards of living a conscious life, again, cannot be known until experienced. Are we going to reach “enlightenment” in this life? To be honest, I don’t really quite care. I’m here. I show up. I’m present for my friends. Even in pain, I am clear-headed, this is all I know to be true. This is what’s real for me.

I was very recently asked by a skeptic, what happens if none of this stuff turns out to be true? What if there is no huge shift in 2012? What if humanity stays the same? What if this is it? And by the way, “you’re beautiful, smart, sweet… I don’t understand why don’t you really go and do something with your life?”

I wish I could say with authority that I chose this… this artist’s life, which is now morphing/merging with an even more amorphous (less practical, less definable, let’s be honest—less “marketable” artist/philosopher life.) Would more credence be given to what I was doing if I were made rich by doing it? In America, it sure would. But we don’t just live in America. We live in a realm bigger than this. I didn’t “choose” to be here, I just followed my heart and my intuition and know it’s not “me” doing it and the joy, the beauty, even in the pain, even in the difficulty, reflecting back at me both pre and post Kelly Clarkson bouncing is something I wouldn’t trade for anything. And I have exquisite taste, if I do say so myself, so that’s no small statement.

I didn’t choose it. It chose me. And I choose to have the faith that this is where I need to be at this moment, and that this moment is perfect. And to my friends who are so outrageously beautiful and inspiring, I say hold fast. The faith isn’t only for myself; it’s for you, for us.

Because even though I can’t lavish the people I love with the material things of this world in the way that I wish I could right now… even though things might be messy and muddy and mascara smeared… even though I’m a tiny woman with a laptop on a chaise in a Village studio, I might be tiny, but I’m not small. None of us are. And so we hang on to that faith, in each other, in something greater around us because we trust the beauty that is our authenticity. We trust that even when it looks ugly, that by choosing to live an integral life, the beauty is on the way. When everything falls apart, we find the courage to be brave, to be raw, to be present, to be real. And that to me, is the most important thing of all.

When God closes a door... He sends Morandi takeout

After an unnecessarily trafficked trek on the Merritt stalled our road trip enthusiasm, we appear late Friday evening and the festivities are already underway. The Longtrail keg is tapped, swirling in bellies amidst blueberry and maple syrup marinated pulled pork: just one of the highlights of a BBQ table squished with organic, free range, farm-fresh, local delicacies lovingly prepared by the transported, in-house New York foodie chef. The hot tub is warming up. The firepit is blazing. The bride and groom glow even in the dark, with a comfort and ease that match the surroundings of the Vermont retreat house they have rented for their nuptials.

Perhaps it’s because they are already into Longtrail draft #2 or #3, but I am pulled into animated and fierce embrace after embrace upon arrival. Shouts of joy and faces bright with expectation and happiness greet me as I am told they were waiting for us. It’s not me. They just wanted the community to be complete. The love is more palpable here than any I’ve felt. You could thrust your palm into the unusually temperate New England late September air and grab a fistful as though it were a firefly. You could pocket the love—it’s tangible; it’s there for the taking. There’s an unspoken agreement: please do so; we have enough to share.

I am to be officiating the ceremony the following day and I am honored, humbled beyond words to be included in something that is at the same time spectacularly real and cheerily glamorous: the union of two people, so outrageously beautiful inside and out. A couple who figured it out, and live life and cherish and respect each other in a way that is, as I will tell them later, a shining example for the world. What the world needs now, indeed. They are my inspiration.

The following afternoon, the day of the main event, I’m walking out the door for a quick, jaunty hike to a nearby waterfall with friends when an uneasy sickness comes over me. Suddenly I am woozy and tired, and so trust the feeling in my body and send them on, to instead rest for a few minutes in my lopsided bed within the house. Soon I realize it is not sickness, it’s almost a performance anxiety. I will be leading all through the ceremony, but also have an extemporaneous “homily” to put forth; a task that I have never attempted and a skill that is nowhere near a forte.

When we up our levels of consciousness, these are not easy transitions. Whether it be through cleaner eating, weekend workshops, meditations, deeksha—all of this stuff that we do?... the best analogy I have heard is that it’s like plugging a 220 volt appliance into a 110 volt plug. Our body needs to adjust to the higher frequency; to expand and encompass a more super-charged vibration. I realized, I’m not sick; I need to go make room in myself to hold all this love.

And I did that. With no official ceremony other than drawing from traditions that had left imprints in my experience, I saged the ceremony area and the house. I chanted mantras. I meditated, not for myself, but for all of us—to hold the space—to grow it larger to allow the highest level of love to reside. Ok, so apparently this is the kind of stuff I do now. Whether or not that did anything, I have no practical way of knowing. I guessed and threw some love in that direction. Did I feel better? Yes. Was everyone extraordinarily moved by the emotional ceremony the couple had so exquisitely designed? Yes. I made space, not only for them, but for myself, clearly and definitively outlining: this is what I want, these are my people, this is who I want to be, this is all there is, we all deserve nothing less, and we open ourselves to more.

And then a funny thing happened. Several hours later, something abruptly, unexpectedly removed itself from my life; an aspect of my world which I had devoted months of love and energy to—a turn that I thought could expand into a new path for this junket known as mags (I wasn’t sure, but the hopeful potential was there—the groundwork was laid, the creativity flowing, it was easily flourishing, it was joyful, it was sexy, it was fun…,) and then, without my having a say in it, in the middle of nowhere country, at 11pm on the night of this wedding, I find out it has exited. The prospect is no longer there. Gone, and I have no discussion or say in it and I do not understand it.

Really? NOW? At two of my best friends’ wedding? For reals? On the afternoon where people came to me with tears in their eyes telling me how moved they were by my words? Where I am more grounded and full of love and shiny than perhaps I have ever been (equated to both a goddess and Elaine Stritch, which, yes, seems totally incongruous and random, but still Elaine Stritch is awesome) this road abruptly evaporates before my eyes? It couldn’t have vanished, like, 12 hours later when I was driving back hungover on 91, playing with my blackberry in the backseat? Couldn’t have happened on the following rainy Monday, when I am too cozy to go into my office and am instead working laptop/undies/chaise lazily from home? Nope: had to happen THEN.

And so, by 11pm (six hours into drinking champagne/sauvignon blanc/pinot noir, post dinner, post cake-cutting, post dancing,) I find out and I am crying, well, no… sobbing, convulsing, mourning, on the back fire escape outside my room, desperately struggling to stay present to the moment while still sequestering myself from any of the festivities; trying to contain what has happened to only my own processing and not a disasterous soap-opera-esque wedding drama. A handful of the closest girlfriends I have ever had in my life all happen to be here; they whisper to each other, they come quietly find me, offering support, love, comfort.

And in the midst of a ceaseless sea of snot, I know the truth: the world took it away from me because it didn’t match what I was looking for. Today was a picture, an announcement, a declaration, for my friends, for myself, for all of us to choose the kind of people we want to be, the kind of lives we want to live and most importantly, HOW we want to live them, and this aspect did not match, was not ready to match, or did not want to match, and so it was taken away from me. It happened oh too too dramatically so that I could see how clear the message was.

I went to bed early to keep it close to my chest. The next morning, those nearest to me of course found out. They were warm; we kept the discovery at a hushed distance so as not to mar the perfection of the love cultivated by the weekend.

I was disappointed, angry, hurt, devastated, abandoned. The emotions rose and fell, mashing each other like the clustering of the foliage on the surrounding mountains, overlapping yet still somehow distinct. Witnessing them, I was already feeling the distance of the loss, choosing instead to stick to the vision that I deserve.

A 4am gluttenous fridge pasta raid somewhat assuaged the swollen-eyed, hungover car ride home. Musings over what lessons I need to learn and why I hadn’t yet learned them, why and how I had brought this to myself and what my responsibility was in all of it, my head already wrapping on to how life could be brighter once I got past this, faded to the background as the miles passed. Instead I tuned in to more imminent desires. Self-exploration: pause, food fantasies: begin. I craved pasta; bolognese which I don’t normally eat any longer, but f*&% it all, I'm not a saint and tonight I would allow myself comfort... later this week I’d inevitably stick myself on a juice cleanse.

I'm eyeing the bottle of pinot noir the bride gave me in the backseat (damn-- not a screw top) when an old flame and dear friend texts me. It’s not necessary to recount my loss and add energy to that “story,” so I simply tell him the wedding was “perfect” “so fun, full of love”… I use exclamation points and smiley face emoticons. I tell him I cannot wait to get back to my termpurpedic and order take out.

Half an hour after I get home to my village studio, the buzzer rings and there is a deliveryman from one of my favorite neighborhood restaurants. I did not order this, the old flame sent it as a surprise. In the bag is $50 worth of food—bolognese (he was not told I was craving this in particular,) a large salad and a rich, dark chocolate cake with hazelnuts nuzzling a spot of cream so fresh, an angel probably whipped it together with her wings.

My body tired, spent, in pain, almost cries in joy to the deliveryman. I try to reach the sweetie by phone to thank him, but he avoids my call and instead texts me things that are unusually lovable and comforting—phrases that seem out of place particularly since he doesn’t know of my mourning. He doesn't even know I need it.

And it is a delicious sign: this is what it’s supposed to look like. This is the universe supporting you. This is connection. This is you being seen, appreciated. I eat the bolognese and wash it down with the bride bottle of pinot. The next morning, one of the most brilliant directors in town with whom I have never worked, emails me: "Hello amazing women: I am sending this to a few wonderful actresses I know and admire."

When you uncompromisingly hold what you want in your heart, life will give it to you. When you let go, more comes in. It may not be pretty in the moment, but when we honor the truth of ourselves, unexpected surprises will picnic our path to ease us down the road. Thank you.

ok, I'm gonna go now... uh... can you come with me?

This go around it's my last day in India and I am walking through Chennai’s largest shopping “mall,” if you can call it that. Alone now, on a trip that was not about shopping, I take a couple hours to browse, barter and buy those pretty, unnecessary souvenirs that will sparkle against my wrist and warm my collarbone when the a/c is too high at the Angelika. I’m pretty much done, a bit tired and food deprived; my “over it” meter is approaching maximum, so when a shopkeeper shouts out to me, “Madam! Madam!” I don’t even glance to see where it’s coming from.

“Madam! Madam!!” He is insistent. I arrive at officially “over it,” and give him the international ‘no thanks/give it a rest’ gesture, walking, my behind to him and the back of my right hand up, as if to say, “enough, dude.”

He is running down the hallway, barefoot. He’s followed me so long that I think, “What’s up with this guy?” and turn to look. As brazenly annoying as some of these merchants can be, no one has yet to be this determined; a pitbull with a tilaka.

“You don’t look, you miss the best ayurvedic natural shop in the plaza! Please, madam, you come, you look.”

Ok, he’s right. I didn’t look and am actually interested in this, so I go to follow him.

When we sit (they always make you sit down in these stores) he looks at my tulsi mala beads, worn as a bracelet, and he pronounces the name of the guy I came to India to hang about, in question format, as if to say, “Your beads, they are from this guy?” I curiously answer, “Yes.” And I see him gesturing to a picture, prominently placed, clearly designating him as that guy’s Guy as well.

“You see, it is meant!” He smiles enthusiastically. The Guy is famous in these parts, but not so famous that everyone around here would know who he is and even a picture of him would be rare. It is the first one I have seen.

“You are supposed to meet me.” He underlines, satisfied. I smirk back at him, thinking the same thing. He knew I would think it.

I know you rationalists are going to surmise this is a little wack, but you know that already, so bear with me.

It’s not just that I literally had asked the big Guy for a way to clear up my “India spots” as my friend so gently coined them. It’s that everything has been so in-the-flow since being here that it’s hard to dismiss these seemingly small synchronicities/signs and ensuing intrinsic insouciance. I asked. I kinda thought I’d miraculously wake up one morning with no pimples. Instead I got a small barefoot Indian man chasing me down a mall hallway. Grace comes in every form.

There are other little incidents. Being the last of a 100 to leave for an outing, unhurriedly, everyone else stressing to scurry early, and then getting the blessing of road-tripping with a female monk. Going to see another holy lady, placidly pushing the minutes to get there to a really small window, and walking in to find the last three perfect spots open in the second row. She daintily shuffles in, petite and seraphic, so right behind us, someone might have thought we all shared a rickshaw. There are larger signs as well, things that have nothing to do with seating for sages, but these examples (For you and I, both) are more easily digestible.

I could interpret this level of ease as a feeling of being guided, or some kind of peace, thinking and knowing that it’s all going to be all right. Being comfortable with what is. That's been present and building for some time, but it's the newfound speed of it that is almost comically quick. A less secular way to describe it could be just following your own intuition, but having an unshakable faith that you know what’s right for yourself and those things popping up. But I’m talking about at every moment. Especially in the "ugly" ones. It’s easy to be grateful when all is well or when we think we've made it through a rough spot. And there is a world of difference between intellectually thinking it and believing that in our core when the sh** hits the fan. But if we're thinking it, the good news is, that means it’s en route to the core.

I’ve had phases, passing fancies and flirtations with this “guidedness.” This time around the bend it might be due to a larger understanding, but I don’t want to get so deep that I lose you just yet. And perhaps this is just still an Indian haze and I will go back to a lower rung of development as soon as I hit Manhattan’s sidewalks? Maybe I think the guidedness is here to settle down, when really he’s just a player, and in the morning I’ll wake up, mascara smeared from the red-eye, walk-of-shaming it from JFK to my apartment. Totally possible.

“Margaret, seriously, I mean move away from the incense and the voodoo and snap back to reality please. I read that facebook post about you eating a papaya like a monkey— time to get out of India and back to the city. In this world it’s every man for himself. Life is what you make of it.” This is the catch 22, that strange juxtaposition, because both are true. How can both be true? How can everything be taken care of and at the same time you need to work for it? Sorry, but I can’t give you a reasonable answer for that. Let's not go there yet. In the hours upon hours of philosophical discourse with my friends, we often wrap up with, “Don’t act like an enlightened person, if you’re not enlightened… Chai?”

What that means is, there are other levels of this universe we are not privy to, and you can call that spiritual or scientific or pure common sense, but I think we can all at least agree to stuff going on that no one can explain. Until we get there, it’s useless to ask why. And we don't need to act all noble, peace-like and selfless along the way, because really, we’re not that way. We’re human. Even enlightened people get pissed, by the way. My own personal big Guy has a rep for being what some have dubbed as ‘too passionate.’

We have to deal with what’s in front of us, and that will always run the whole gamut of emotions, but what happens is we start to let go of the suffering attached to it. There is joy, but no attachment to that joy as “mine.” There are tears, but they do not send us into a 3-day tailspin where the only people we see are the deli and liquor store deliverymen. When we experience what’s in front of us, for reals, that peace descends. Maybe one day (hopefully, fingers crossed, pretty please?) for good.

How does this relate to a barefoot Indian chasing me down in a shopping mall? Did I get absolutely hoodwinked and was my previous wish for an ayurvedic herb to help cleanse my kidney just a total, random coincidence? Have I completely gone over the deep end, and those close to me secretly (or not so secretly) think I’m living with fuscia colored glasses?

Perhaps.

I’m not saying I’m right. I could never know that for sure. But you know what? I’m happy. I’m at peace. And everything is happening with super efficient, effortless ease. If that means I’m out of my mind, I’ll take it.

Do you believe in magic?

“If my mother saw me right now, she’d think I was absolutely out of my mind.”

That’s what I was thinking. The point of course, IS to get out of the mind, and to get above that pesky thinking, but I don’t want to digress just my third sentence into this post.

I am in rural Southern India. I am sitting on a concrete floor, surrounded by five other Westerners and a few dozen Indians. Spellbound, transfixed, confused, intrigued. In front of me is a bearded 34-year-old man, hips cocked, grounded stride, wearing a lunghi, tied not around the waist as most men would wear, but instead as an almost makeshift tangerine halter dress. With a deliberate flick of his (her?) wrist, jasmine petals are delicately tossed against the backside of a cow. The cow stands proud, bored, chewing sugarcane, so used to the attention, she is beyond it. Cows are sacred in India. It’s her party and she’ll be indifferent if she wants to.

The man is known as Amma. At four years old, when most children are still aiming to get applesauce in a direct line from their spoons to their mouths, he (geez… she?) started performing his own pujas. (Ceremonies using incense, flowers, ghee, water, smoke, etc. to praise statues of deities and in turn ask for blessings.) At 16 he declared he was Narayani—the first ever incarnation combo of the female goddesses Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati: spoken of in sacred Hindu texts for thousands of years, but yet to make her glittering debut on this earth. Ta da.

It is one of the most provocatively bizarre things I have ever seen in my life. That Sri Amma is thought to be an Avatar (which has many meanings/interpretations but basically the gist is God in human form with superpowers and the like,) makes the entire situation that much more baffling. A bearded male, as female, God, tossing jasmine at a cow in an orange halter dress. The music accompanying is like modern jazz improv: not melodic: jarring and cacophonous, its builds deceptively exhilarating. We’re not in Kansas anymore.

Amma’s every move is deliberate… focused and efficient yet at the same time devotedly and slowly determined. It is almost sensual; a baffling display of divinity to witness in the flesh, at least from this gal’s limited perspective. Amma will be entirely encompassed by the puja, and then she unexpectedly darts her gaze out into her audience, here, in the cow stall, and will choose one person with whom to lock eyes. Sometimes she does this a couple of times in a half hour-ish puja, sometimes it is once. When her visage hits yours, it is absolutely disarming, dangerous almost. An electric bolt of something mysterious, secret, shared. This is not the round, nurturing gentle love of an older guru mother Amma who holds you to her breast. It is all woman, warrior, the matriarch, the boss. I have seen images of these versions of goddesses. I have never witnessed one in the flesh.

Rationalist skeptics could easily dismiss her as an elaborate drag queen act. I’ve certainly seen affected people from New York that were as dramatic, with better hair and fabulous shoes who would for sure advise to “lose the beard,” so to speak.

But I am here because a friend of a friend is a solid devotee. A talented Australian musician and his open and generous fiancée, both winsome inside and out. They share a fairytale love story with ensuing expedited proposal whose lovely, fated beginnings equal in measure to the drama of their current surroundings.

I had seen the musician perform almost two years ago in Sydney and that’s all I needed to know about his character. Whoever Amma was/is, the musician’s devotion to her and its effects on him were expressed as a handsome young man with groundedness, grace, wisdom, an affable happiness and humility. For my money, it’s tricky to find someone who is entirely devoted and yet still translates as genuine. Many can easily fall into the fanatic category and so be dismissed as loony tunes. The musician straddles this balance in such a bona fide manner, it makes you want what he has.

We all spend a couple of days here, ashram-ing it up, which basically means a lot of puja, a lot of philosophical discourse and a lot of coconuts. We follow Amma here, we follow her there. Due to the fact that she has very few Western guests (we are a half dozen at present, with hundreds of Indians filtering through daily) and that we are friends with the musician, we essentially get VIP treatment everywhere. Inner temple admittance, no lines, no waiting, always front row. Pretty incredible access to someone looked at in this light.

Our final full day my girlfriend and I put together a small basket. After the afternoon puja, Amma was to hand out holy water and bless items if asked. My girlfriend told me to hold the basket and I was nervous, shy. “What do I do? How do I do it?” It’s kinda daunting to approach someone people look at as God. We were ushered to Amma one by one. At my turn, I drank the water in one fell slurp from my right hand, as per usual, and balanced the basket in my left. I then haphazardly lifted my chin to find Amma pouring a circle of water around it. My eyes rose to meet her in thanks and then, in less than a second, our glance locked and it was… oh my… it was…

I don’t usually like to write about these experiences because words aren’t ever enough. They are so so very far away from enough. But I had asked that morning. I said, quietly, without even thinking about it—“I want to believe this. In you. Show me.” And in that less than a moment eye connection, it fell away. Everything fell away. I was swept into a tunnel of another realm of existence and she was gazing at me and the love was so pure, so deep, so unanticipated, so of another level I cannot begin to describe how in that instant everything made sense. It makes me groan to think of it. There is so much more to that brief split second, but compressing it down to words on a page, to a perspective so small it cannot even begin to mirror its majesty, is fruitless.

I asked for it, and I got it. I had a hard time moving, speaking, focusing my eyes for a good 15 minutes. The state probably could have lasted a lot longer but maybe it’s that on some level I felt I did not deserve it. How could a 5’ 2 3/4” bossy cheeky New Yorker hold such vast grace… even for just a moment?

The point here, to all of this, is not to intrigue you with mystical stories. Believe me, I have plenty and I don’t feel it’s my place to share them. But this one, this one was not mine. Amma is not my guru and she blessed me with a sensational love. That was a most gracious gift. I didn’t have an intrinsic belief but the respect for the musician and my friends allowed me the possibility of faith. Sometimes all we need is to leave ourselves open to the possibility. Just the smallest crack and the asking and it will blast us open.

There are essentially two ways to look at life. We can choose to look at the world as magic or not. Elephants, golden temples, supreme love, gifts and open-heartedness. Even if we don’t understand these things, they change us on a neurobiological level. These are stories I hope to save for my children one day to outline in spectacular detail as they lie snug in bed, rapt with attention. To show them the magic, the grace, the gift that can be generosity, friendship, love. I want to believe in magic. I think life is nicer this way. As they would say in India… isn’t it?