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.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
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.
“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.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
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?
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?
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