If there’s anyone out there that doesn’t want to believe things are a changin’, they are in for a bit of a rude awakening. Well, for all of us awakening may turn out to be a bit rude, because to paraphrase modern brillz sage Adyashanti: we don’t want awakening, we want our version of awakening. Rude, is therefore perhaps, inherent.
And although those who are actively seeking, or at least actively considering a clumsy tango with this potential beloved (those, such as yourselves) are awake enough to see that it is unfolding whether we want it to or not—although we may seem to choose it, it is becoming increasingly apparent that this is dropping (Snoop Dog) “like it’s hot”—our mom, our boss, our neighbor is going to begin to lose it too. We’re waking up.
Again Adyashanti offers in “The End of Your World” :
“’Oh, yes, let me sign up! I’m willing to lose my whole world.’ But when your world starts to crumble, and you start to emerge from unimaginably deep states of denial, it is something altogether different. It is something altogether more real and gritty. It’s something that some people sign up for and some people don’t.”
That sounds pretty sh**y right? Mags, why would I want that? Um, I’m ready to have wintry meditative hibernation scootch over-- Yankees spring training has already started, lady.
Sorry sweets, I’m telling you, it’s gonna happen. It’s happening.
Not just in my circles—other friends who are spiritual visionaries in their own right, on paths and teachings I’m not associated with, have been espousing higher versions of themselves recently.
My fave button-pushing, rogue, self-dubbed “cybernetic yogi” Everett Bogue checked in via twitter and between cities. We both agreed, we’ve “upgraded.”
“The new me is not fitting into old forms...” was posted on Facebook by a dearest, a longtime student and teacher of the Self. He is not sitting barefoot, in white, on a floor in India. He is a New York Senior Vice President in a global public relations firm.
The time it is taking for me to organize, vision, support and care within my own community has become all encompassing. Without my choosing it, it is suddenly: “ok, I guess I’m doing this all the time now.”
I don’t need to tell you. You know. Otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this.
What I want to talk about is one tricky aspect of this transition. There can be a sense of loneliness as this awakening starts to, for reals, sweep over our lives. What we’re doing is letting go of any attachments to what we think we are, and in turn, the Source of all that is fantabulous takes over instead.
Now, we’re always going to be the same “person.” I’m not going to awaken and become a unicorn walking around; that would super weird, make it difficult to get restaurant reservations and it'd just be a horrible waste of a spectacular wardrobe.
But, instead I become not defined by said wardrobe, or for that matter, by anything in my world. Whether positive or negative, nothing sticks. And in a way, this can come coupled with a type of mourning, because we are not our family, our lover, our job, the life we thought we so carefully constructed. Those shapes no longer provide us with comfort. They can present great joy, love, happiness, but it passes by in a warm flourish; they are not carried with us to buoy when a crap day rolls around.
Lonely is not the appropriate word for it. I think of a Polish word, smutný, which technically translates as sad, but for me has almost had a bit of a bittersweet meaning. If there were a positive word for lonely, that would be what it is, and perhaps we need to invent one. I bet the French have a word for it; they always vibe with those black and white, emotive juxtapositions.
As definition drops away, in tandem, things are taken away from us so that at times life “forces” this process of letting go, and that can (depending on where we are in terms of our ascent) be a painful and an outwardly seeming: totally unfair.
We lose ownership of anything in our lives, replaced instead by the Presence of experiencing it fully in the moment. I described it in an email to a girlfriend as “giving up the small for the All.”
This can be incredibly discombobulating, even frightening, which is why the process for most of us is a slowly unfurling organic flowering towards That Huge Understanding, rather than one big, dramatic, trumpeted BANG. If we woke up one day, just suddenly able to experience EVERYTHING, absolutement, it could be too much, on a very basic physiological level.
Because that’s what it is, experiencing EVERYTHING. Every cell pulsates with the present. To be anywhere other than exactly where you are would seem preposterous. No, that’s too strong a word—because the idea to be anywhere else, would simply never cross your mind.
In the courtship with our Awakening, we have it and we lose it. Over and again. And much like avoiding our suffering, if we have it and we lost it, we naturally reach to have it again. We reach for the love + comfort, because, obvi, we want it, always.
So life keeps things out of our reach so that we can experience uber-uncomfortability. It gets edgy out on the outside, so that we keep digging or wood-shedding or opening to that place of the main Truth that is our core.
Two of my closest friends, who I happened to marry about six months ago, are apart for the first year of their marriage because the gorgeous wife is on a Broadway tour. Theirs is one of the greatest loves I’ve seen. One could list any number of reasons, excuses, choices for their separation… she’s living her dream, after all.
I think the world has bigger plans for them.
There’s a depth and a solitude that needed to take place for their spiritual growth that wouldn’t have been able to happen in the newlywed year of marital bliss. Life has a larger Bliss in mind.
Although they are outwardly hottie pattotie rockstar creatives not to mention incredibly generous and loving and ridonkulously fun individuals, they are also serious students of this trot to Awakening. Life is saying, sorry, you can’t just spend all day Saturday practicing bringing the next little awesome version of you to this world—there’s more.
This is the overlying truth for everything. Life is this spontaneous unfolding that we are a part of, but we do not have control of-- a very tricky thing for our minds to wrap around, because for us to “understand” it, we need to be out of the mind.
Once we experience Reality, the moments of disconnect can be extraordinarily painful and, as I said earlier, lonely, as we settle into a new way of being and the old forms, relationships, comforts, identities no longer make the grade. It might for some moments feel like a disconnect, but what happens eventually and paradoxically is the ultimate *connect* because we feel more sensation, yet no possession of our bodies while in turn, connected to everything else.
It’s tricky because it’s not a choice—it just happens.
And there are actually two aspects of the loneliness I’m speaking to here.
1- loneliness in the process
2- (insert the positive version of loneliness) upon seeing
Loneliness in the process is the disconnect.
"Loneliness" upon seeing, is having it all, and knowing you didn’t do any of it.
Your business? Not yours.
Your partner? Not yours.
Compliments, praise, gratitude? Like eating a spoonful of New York Super Fudge Chunk, pleasant at the moment and then it dissipates into the past—it does not inform you, build you up or make you more than.
...not yours.
The contradiction that coexists is that there is more of all of it: you just don’t get to “have” it.
We, the world, will continue to unfold and extend until we are in that place permanently. The awesome thing is-- when we’re in that place of Being, and we see what it is, and we’re not scared of it, it IS the ultimate flow.
It is having everything we want, being provided for entirely and fully encompassed by purpose and love. Whether you're an executive vice-president, a Broadway dancer or a barefoot hippie.
No one can do this for us, so we may have to, for a time, learn to be lonely. It’s then and only then that we reach for the nourishment that really fuels our fire. And when we get there? Well, we’re going to have to find that new, positive definition for loneliness, because how can you possibly be lonely when you have it ALL?
Showing posts with label awakening. Show all posts
Showing posts with label awakening. Show all posts
Monday, March 7, 2011
Thursday, February 3, 2011
a tale of the world’s most spectacular cookie
“I want the one with the raspberry middle and the sprinkles.”
My fingers poked to the bottom of the white baker’s box
reaching for the aforementioned suspect.
“Oh you found the good one, it has both,”
an enlightened person replied to me,
as half a dozen of us stood
casually snacking around a Midtown West kitchen table.
Going in, the cookie was average.
At first bite, something shifted.
“Oh my God, this cookie is amazing.”
The cookie was not amazing.
The cookie was white flour and processed food coloring.
Give me a decent chocolate soufflé and I’ll write you a sonata about it.
Crème brûlée gets a cantana.
This kind of cookie was not musical inspiration.
And yet,
this was the most marvelous cookie I had ever seen.
The taste was (Katy Perry rendition) fireworks in my mouth.
More fascinatedly, its constitution was remarkable.
Small multi-colored sprinkle dots- magnificent!
A gooey, thick, marma-laden raspberry button center—genius!
The juxtaposition of the crumble as it cascaded my tongue,
licking my lips and lingering there like a lovers lazy morning,
embedded in my lip gloss... groan. yum.
This little bod’s a foodie and a snob about it.
Much to my family’s chagrin,
I cannot help that a discerning palate was bequeathed to this tongue.
The cookie was not good due to its sophisticated merging of ingredients.
Despite being hauled from the lauded Veniero's,
it was in fact, a simple Italian sugar cookie.
Here, it was spectacular because of its mere existence.
Most spec.ta.cul.lar.
Giggles came.
They would not stop.
Which looks crazypants when everyone else is standing around
having normal conversation over falafel and aloe water
and you are against the wall,
eyeball pressed to a cookie, giggling.
I stepped into the other room, trying to sequester my giggles.
They kept coming.
I noticed people were now staring at me bemused,
but really there was nothing to be done.
Obama could have been present
and the giggles would not stop.
All at once heat blasted my body.
I looked around as though the answer to its sudden appearance
would be found in the air around me.
“I’m schvitzing.” I announced. To no one in particular.
“I’m schvitzing!!”
I took the cookie, now only perhaps 37% eaten, with me into the kitchen.
I had never eaten anything more slowly in my life.
It was impossible to ingest the cookie at a more rapid tempo.
and
it was very very VERY important to not lose the cookie.
I knew what a toddler felt like clutching a biscuit.
The cookie was everything.
A decade ago I had considerable experience with MDMA,
otherwise known as the drug ecstasy.
This was what this felt like.
This was what this EXACTLY felt like.
I shuffled to the kitchen and
stuck my head in the freezer.
Sweat bundled to break through on my lower back and the cold felt:
winterfresh.
Look! Frozen peas!
I grabbed them.
(This was not my home. I grabbed my friend’s peas.
The thought to ask did not cross my mind. The pea package was just so pretty, and I?...)
“Oh gosh, so hot.”
It felt perfectly reasonable to hold the frozen peas against the back of my neck
and reach for the sink greedily refilling a too-small Dixie cup of water,
precariously balancing these items
all the while being extraordinarily careful that I did. Not. Drop. That. Cookie.
I cooled down.
The kitchen counters became parallel bars.
This was a spontaneously brilliant idea as I set a hand on each side to lift myself up.
Did I mention that this was an entire home full of people and I was not alone?
The cookie was carefully set on the black granite countertop to the left.
My legs swung to and fro.
“This is so fun! I wish I had this in my apartment!
You could, like,
wake up and have a morning workout
like an Olympian on the parallel bars.”
With knowing raised eyebrows,
two dearest near me let me be,
as they talked and I interjected in conversation
while I played on the countertops.
Blah blah blah blah, “iPhone, Verizon, next week!”
Blah blah blah blah, “rememember how they used to make us do one pull up in gym class as a measure of fitness? I still can’t do that.”
Now, there was nationwide conference call with our spiritual community,
so gingerly we were ushered to gather in the living room.
I sat on a couch I’ve sat on a dozen times.
I picked up the silk striped pillow I have seen 50 times.
“It’s so soft! Look how beautiful it is. Has the pillow always been this beautiful?”
I asked my hostess, knowing full well as the words came out of my mouth
that the pillow had, in fact, remained the same.
Uh oh. Momentary panic.
Where is the cookie?
There it is, 3/5th’s eaten. It’s right there on the arm of the couch where I just set it.
Phew.
For reals. PH-ew.
Look at my fingertips.
They were stained from clutching the cookie,
its sprinkles leaving rainbow kaleidoscope hickey dots
like seven different ballpoint pens
made out with my fingerprints.
Naturally, I ran to show my hostess in delight.
“Look! Looklooklooklooklook. The sprinkles stained my tips!”
She gently assured me that soap and water have magical powers of cleaning.
Settling in to an hour-long call,
out came a flurry of hiccupped burps and giggles.
I made an "oopsies!" face.
They eventually subsided.
When there was a pause in the call,
I happily finished the last 1/6th of the cookie.
Afterwards, in the foyer,
as I was trying to balance putting on my snow boots
and someone gave me a chair to sit down so that I didn’t fall over,
my hostess asked:
“Are you going to be ok to get home?”
I assured her. “I remember what’s it’s like navigating the city on drugs… I can handle this.”
This was my experience after an hour with four awakened people.
I’m off with these peeps to a whole weekend of this.
We, collectively, are on the brink of this, as life, but with balance.
As reality.
As a new world.
This seeing.
This wonderment.
World...
Man your bakeries.
*************************
"If you only knew what the future holds
After a hurricane comes a rainbow
Maybe you're reason why all the doors are closed
So you can open one that leads you to the perfect road
Like a lightning bolt, your heart will blow
And when it's time, you'll know
Cause baby you're a firework."
(yes, I went there)
"Firework" 2011, as sung by Katy Perry,
and written by the Stargate team
My fingers poked to the bottom of the white baker’s box
reaching for the aforementioned suspect.
“Oh you found the good one, it has both,”
an enlightened person replied to me,
as half a dozen of us stood
casually snacking around a Midtown West kitchen table.
Going in, the cookie was average.
At first bite, something shifted.
“Oh my God, this cookie is amazing.”
The cookie was not amazing.
The cookie was white flour and processed food coloring.
Give me a decent chocolate soufflé and I’ll write you a sonata about it.
Crème brûlée gets a cantana.
This kind of cookie was not musical inspiration.
And yet,
this was the most marvelous cookie I had ever seen.
The taste was (Katy Perry rendition) fireworks in my mouth.
More fascinatedly, its constitution was remarkable.
Small multi-colored sprinkle dots- magnificent!
A gooey, thick, marma-laden raspberry button center—genius!
The juxtaposition of the crumble as it cascaded my tongue,
licking my lips and lingering there like a lovers lazy morning,
embedded in my lip gloss... groan. yum.
This little bod’s a foodie and a snob about it.
Much to my family’s chagrin,
I cannot help that a discerning palate was bequeathed to this tongue.
The cookie was not good due to its sophisticated merging of ingredients.
Despite being hauled from the lauded Veniero's,
it was in fact, a simple Italian sugar cookie.
Here, it was spectacular because of its mere existence.
Most spec.ta.cul.lar.
Giggles came.
They would not stop.
Which looks crazypants when everyone else is standing around
having normal conversation over falafel and aloe water
and you are against the wall,
eyeball pressed to a cookie, giggling.
I stepped into the other room, trying to sequester my giggles.
They kept coming.
I noticed people were now staring at me bemused,
but really there was nothing to be done.
Obama could have been present
and the giggles would not stop.
All at once heat blasted my body.
I looked around as though the answer to its sudden appearance
would be found in the air around me.
“I’m schvitzing.” I announced. To no one in particular.
“I’m schvitzing!!”
I took the cookie, now only perhaps 37% eaten, with me into the kitchen.
I had never eaten anything more slowly in my life.
It was impossible to ingest the cookie at a more rapid tempo.
and
it was very very VERY important to not lose the cookie.
I knew what a toddler felt like clutching a biscuit.
The cookie was everything.
A decade ago I had considerable experience with MDMA,
otherwise known as the drug ecstasy.
This was what this felt like.
This was what this EXACTLY felt like.
I shuffled to the kitchen and
stuck my head in the freezer.
Sweat bundled to break through on my lower back and the cold felt:
winterfresh.
Look! Frozen peas!
I grabbed them.
(This was not my home. I grabbed my friend’s peas.
The thought to ask did not cross my mind. The pea package was just so pretty, and I?...)
“Oh gosh, so hot.”
It felt perfectly reasonable to hold the frozen peas against the back of my neck
and reach for the sink greedily refilling a too-small Dixie cup of water,
precariously balancing these items
all the while being extraordinarily careful that I did. Not. Drop. That. Cookie.
I cooled down.
The kitchen counters became parallel bars.
This was a spontaneously brilliant idea as I set a hand on each side to lift myself up.
Did I mention that this was an entire home full of people and I was not alone?
The cookie was carefully set on the black granite countertop to the left.
My legs swung to and fro.
“This is so fun! I wish I had this in my apartment!
You could, like,
wake up and have a morning workout
like an Olympian on the parallel bars.”
With knowing raised eyebrows,
two dearest near me let me be,
as they talked and I interjected in conversation
while I played on the countertops.
Blah blah blah blah, “iPhone, Verizon, next week!”
Blah blah blah blah, “rememember how they used to make us do one pull up in gym class as a measure of fitness? I still can’t do that.”
Now, there was nationwide conference call with our spiritual community,
so gingerly we were ushered to gather in the living room.
I sat on a couch I’ve sat on a dozen times.
I picked up the silk striped pillow I have seen 50 times.
“It’s so soft! Look how beautiful it is. Has the pillow always been this beautiful?”
I asked my hostess, knowing full well as the words came out of my mouth
that the pillow had, in fact, remained the same.
Uh oh. Momentary panic.
Where is the cookie?
There it is, 3/5th’s eaten. It’s right there on the arm of the couch where I just set it.
Phew.
For reals. PH-ew.
Look at my fingertips.
They were stained from clutching the cookie,
its sprinkles leaving rainbow kaleidoscope hickey dots
like seven different ballpoint pens
made out with my fingerprints.
Naturally, I ran to show my hostess in delight.
“Look! Looklooklooklooklook. The sprinkles stained my tips!”
She gently assured me that soap and water have magical powers of cleaning.
Settling in to an hour-long call,
out came a flurry of hiccupped burps and giggles.
I made an "oopsies!" face.
They eventually subsided.
When there was a pause in the call,
I happily finished the last 1/6th of the cookie.
Afterwards, in the foyer,
as I was trying to balance putting on my snow boots
and someone gave me a chair to sit down so that I didn’t fall over,
my hostess asked:
“Are you going to be ok to get home?”
I assured her. “I remember what’s it’s like navigating the city on drugs… I can handle this.”
This was my experience after an hour with four awakened people.
I’m off with these peeps to a whole weekend of this.
We, collectively, are on the brink of this, as life, but with balance.
As reality.
As a new world.
This seeing.
This wonderment.
World...
Man your bakeries.
*************************
"If you only knew what the future holds
After a hurricane comes a rainbow
Maybe you're reason why all the doors are closed
So you can open one that leads you to the perfect road
Like a lightning bolt, your heart will blow
And when it's time, you'll know
Cause baby you're a firework."
(yes, I went there)
"Firework" 2011, as sung by Katy Perry,
and written by the Stargate team
Monday, April 26, 2010
the processing princess
Today I cried.
And cried.
And cried.
And I am not, never have been, a crier. I’ve almost always been envious of criers. Even lying on a yoga mat, going through meditations dispelling grievances, I listened to a bestie’s unmistakable avalanches of tears in the nearby front row, admiring, “wow, she really lets herself go there… kinda jealous.”
Several of us participated in a weekend workshop whose main premise was to remove the barriers and charges that we construct in our lifetimes of conditioning via media and society, in turn releasing patterns of hurt from relationships and images of what we think things are supposed to look like. Awakening into a daily practice and journey of living a life of integrity and true authenticity. Geez louise, that sounds so blahbitty blah. I almost just fell asleep myself re-reading that just now.
It’s about being real.
Real in a society that prizes dramatic camera angle shifts and theatrical underscoring in game shows. Real when “have a nice day” can often be a rote response devoid of eye contact.
All this processing was not easy, but necessary. Beautiful, but sticky and unglamorous.
Thank God for two urban upscale chic twin sisters out from Cali who kept it all on the level and led us through it all, b.s. flowery spiritual pretension aside. Shout out to Catherine and Elizabeth, um, you rock beyond belief.
After a very long and gorgeously arduous Day One of our workshop, I rousted from leggings and blankie, quick-changed to designer jeans with a sweep of shadow from my Mac palette, and out the door to meet the person who is a new great joy of my life. Who I hope will continue to be the great joy in my life...
Instead of finding a sweet respite my (ugh, HATED this word at this moment) my f’ing PROCESSING brought up a state of irritability usually completely foreign to me these days. Grouchiness, disconnection, poutiness, exhaustion—all in the middle of what was supposed to be my awakening, enlightening, om shanti weekend. I was meant to be walking on water, bestowing virtual rose petals to those around me, blessing people with my angelic presence by having them waft through my wake, and instead I was stomping my feet on Houston like a sorority girl just shy of her daily minimum iced-venti-skinny-sugar-free-vanilla latte requirement.
The universe was telling me, sorry sweetheart—no comfort here, you’re going to have to process this one on your own.
And I did, at 4:30am sleeplessly and restlessly pacing in my kitchen, owning my own aggravations, taking responsibility for my reactions, and in that magic transmutation of accepting and letting go of our charges, awoke to a blackberry blinking with words of forgiveness, acceptance from the aforementioned person I would like to keep around in my life. I owned my own bull-sh*% and everything else worked out.
And today after another ridiculous day of intense exercises and meditations, of people moaning, wailing, growling, laughing unabashedly (so much so an outside observer might doubt the laughter’s verity,) I sat relatively calmly in a Neo state of observing, holding space. A slight nausea, a quickening of cell fluctuation and a determined quest during the break for a person holding chocolate to share, were my greatest outbursts.
Until the end of the day, when each of my friends, and several were present, went up to experience something known as mukti deeksha, which is not to be explained or fruitlessly detailed other than to say it is profound and sacred.
My ex and bestie got up and as I held my hands palm to palm, whispering silently to whomever was listening for his highest good, I broke out into rivers of tears. Maybelline Great Lash in Very Very Black waterproof (hardly) mascara staining my cheeks.
Vocal sobs. Not of pain. The emotion of the moment was too overwhelming to barrier behind tear ducts, too visceral to contain inside any subdued or appropriate behavior. (This was a safe space, this would not show up on YouTube, so you know, why not go there?) A moment of almost maternal pride, of honor, of deeply humble appreciation. As each of my peeps went up and the tears ebbed and flowed, it was as though watching family, the connection so strong, and like witnessing a sacrament, the experience so, for lack of a better word (or perhaps it is precisely the right one) holy.
Almost a decade ago, I threw vicious, stiletto-like puncturing wounds of words at the ex and bestie, on a more than regular basis, and wouldn’t be surprised it he reminded me that there was an actual shoe lobbed in the mix at any one of countless raging battles.
Twenty years ago, I stabbed my sister in her shoulder with a pencil. She has a small blue tattooed dot where the lead now lives, that she will still shuffle out in a show and tell of that obnoxious incident.
Whatever the reason, I used to be not nice and very very angry. As we all collectively went through layers and layers this weekend, excavating tombs of fury and resentment, I found that on all fronts familial and familiar, there was nothing left to unearth.
I had worked through it.
There are varying levels of “success” I’ve had in the dozen years since graduating college. Peaks from an outsider’s perspective could include stage door scenes of people lining up for photos or autographs during a successful run, awards, being able to walk into Louis Vuitton and drop thousands of dollars without the blink of an eye, personal triumphs that, not to mention, led to association at times with celebrities, political notables from Mayors to Presidents, first class plane tickets, invites to exclusive international clubs, stints in exquisite rooms at Four Seasons, Mandarin Orientals, Ritz Carltons the world over. These have not been the course of my daily life, but those peaks have been present and abundant.
Without a doubt my proudest moments have nothing to do with anything that might impress anyone else.
I had a strong reaction this past week when someone new in the picture pressed me to define what I was “doing” with my life. This person did not want to see my talents wasted, and it was a challenge to my ego, for shizzle. What I have been doing is unquantifiable and even I can’t take credit for it because it’s out of my hands. At best, I could point toward a room of sweaty, wrought people with a sparkle in their eye and say, “well, I kinda held a sign that pointed them here.” Not exactly press-clipping worthy.
My most significant triumphs have been private.
Non reactive behavior. A cessation of anger. Someone flicking me off or screaming at me and not having defenses flare up, but instead cocking my head quizzically and silently blessing them instead. A peace that has developed within me that is deep enough to withstand terrific earthquakes, and when they come, they are low on the rictor scale and disperse quickly.
Am I en route to saintliness?
Shall I never sin again?
Has anger or resentment taken a permanent vacation from the emotive contexts of my actions? Absolutely not. I don’t have the desire (or the wherewithal, let’s be honest) to be so virginally, crystal clear because I enjoy the grittiness of life too much. I like vodka. I love being passionate. I am innately feisty. What’s the point of existence if there’s no room for naughty?
But if my major weekend processing was about getting through a marginal princess moment, I think I’m all right.
If my biggest conflict was resolving misaligned communication with someone I care for, although unwelcome, uncomfortable and momentarily heart-wrenching, if we could turn that around in a matter of hours, I will warmly and eagerly accept a brief discomfort in the greater trade off toward authenticity. A wave of pain is so inconsequential when kept in perspective of a life that used to be an ocean of ungrounded grasping. That this was my largest disturbance in a world that used to be full of violence, selfishness, petty acting out and anger, is my most exceptional success.
This afternoon I went up for my own mukti experience, and as I stepped to what could best be described as a makeshift altar, I found myself again, overwhelmed by tears. To be humbled by grace, to feel for others more than I do myself, to know that all of that can only be present when I take care of myself first? Fountains of tears of gratitude for all that is, that I am a part of it, and it is a part of me.
And cried.
And cried.
And I am not, never have been, a crier. I’ve almost always been envious of criers. Even lying on a yoga mat, going through meditations dispelling grievances, I listened to a bestie’s unmistakable avalanches of tears in the nearby front row, admiring, “wow, she really lets herself go there… kinda jealous.”
Several of us participated in a weekend workshop whose main premise was to remove the barriers and charges that we construct in our lifetimes of conditioning via media and society, in turn releasing patterns of hurt from relationships and images of what we think things are supposed to look like. Awakening into a daily practice and journey of living a life of integrity and true authenticity. Geez louise, that sounds so blahbitty blah. I almost just fell asleep myself re-reading that just now.
It’s about being real.
Real in a society that prizes dramatic camera angle shifts and theatrical underscoring in game shows. Real when “have a nice day” can often be a rote response devoid of eye contact.
All this processing was not easy, but necessary. Beautiful, but sticky and unglamorous.
Thank God for two urban upscale chic twin sisters out from Cali who kept it all on the level and led us through it all, b.s. flowery spiritual pretension aside. Shout out to Catherine and Elizabeth, um, you rock beyond belief.
After a very long and gorgeously arduous Day One of our workshop, I rousted from leggings and blankie, quick-changed to designer jeans with a sweep of shadow from my Mac palette, and out the door to meet the person who is a new great joy of my life. Who I hope will continue to be the great joy in my life...
Instead of finding a sweet respite my (ugh, HATED this word at this moment) my f’ing PROCESSING brought up a state of irritability usually completely foreign to me these days. Grouchiness, disconnection, poutiness, exhaustion—all in the middle of what was supposed to be my awakening, enlightening, om shanti weekend. I was meant to be walking on water, bestowing virtual rose petals to those around me, blessing people with my angelic presence by having them waft through my wake, and instead I was stomping my feet on Houston like a sorority girl just shy of her daily minimum iced-venti-skinny-sugar-free-vanilla latte requirement.
The universe was telling me, sorry sweetheart—no comfort here, you’re going to have to process this one on your own.
And I did, at 4:30am sleeplessly and restlessly pacing in my kitchen, owning my own aggravations, taking responsibility for my reactions, and in that magic transmutation of accepting and letting go of our charges, awoke to a blackberry blinking with words of forgiveness, acceptance from the aforementioned person I would like to keep around in my life. I owned my own bull-sh*% and everything else worked out.
And today after another ridiculous day of intense exercises and meditations, of people moaning, wailing, growling, laughing unabashedly (so much so an outside observer might doubt the laughter’s verity,) I sat relatively calmly in a Neo state of observing, holding space. A slight nausea, a quickening of cell fluctuation and a determined quest during the break for a person holding chocolate to share, were my greatest outbursts.
Until the end of the day, when each of my friends, and several were present, went up to experience something known as mukti deeksha, which is not to be explained or fruitlessly detailed other than to say it is profound and sacred.
My ex and bestie got up and as I held my hands palm to palm, whispering silently to whomever was listening for his highest good, I broke out into rivers of tears. Maybelline Great Lash in Very Very Black waterproof (hardly) mascara staining my cheeks.
Vocal sobs. Not of pain. The emotion of the moment was too overwhelming to barrier behind tear ducts, too visceral to contain inside any subdued or appropriate behavior. (This was a safe space, this would not show up on YouTube, so you know, why not go there?) A moment of almost maternal pride, of honor, of deeply humble appreciation. As each of my peeps went up and the tears ebbed and flowed, it was as though watching family, the connection so strong, and like witnessing a sacrament, the experience so, for lack of a better word (or perhaps it is precisely the right one) holy.
Almost a decade ago, I threw vicious, stiletto-like puncturing wounds of words at the ex and bestie, on a more than regular basis, and wouldn’t be surprised it he reminded me that there was an actual shoe lobbed in the mix at any one of countless raging battles.
Twenty years ago, I stabbed my sister in her shoulder with a pencil. She has a small blue tattooed dot where the lead now lives, that she will still shuffle out in a show and tell of that obnoxious incident.
Whatever the reason, I used to be not nice and very very angry. As we all collectively went through layers and layers this weekend, excavating tombs of fury and resentment, I found that on all fronts familial and familiar, there was nothing left to unearth.
I had worked through it.
There are varying levels of “success” I’ve had in the dozen years since graduating college. Peaks from an outsider’s perspective could include stage door scenes of people lining up for photos or autographs during a successful run, awards, being able to walk into Louis Vuitton and drop thousands of dollars without the blink of an eye, personal triumphs that, not to mention, led to association at times with celebrities, political notables from Mayors to Presidents, first class plane tickets, invites to exclusive international clubs, stints in exquisite rooms at Four Seasons, Mandarin Orientals, Ritz Carltons the world over. These have not been the course of my daily life, but those peaks have been present and abundant.
Without a doubt my proudest moments have nothing to do with anything that might impress anyone else.
I had a strong reaction this past week when someone new in the picture pressed me to define what I was “doing” with my life. This person did not want to see my talents wasted, and it was a challenge to my ego, for shizzle. What I have been doing is unquantifiable and even I can’t take credit for it because it’s out of my hands. At best, I could point toward a room of sweaty, wrought people with a sparkle in their eye and say, “well, I kinda held a sign that pointed them here.” Not exactly press-clipping worthy.
My most significant triumphs have been private.
Non reactive behavior. A cessation of anger. Someone flicking me off or screaming at me and not having defenses flare up, but instead cocking my head quizzically and silently blessing them instead. A peace that has developed within me that is deep enough to withstand terrific earthquakes, and when they come, they are low on the rictor scale and disperse quickly.
Am I en route to saintliness?
Shall I never sin again?
Has anger or resentment taken a permanent vacation from the emotive contexts of my actions? Absolutely not. I don’t have the desire (or the wherewithal, let’s be honest) to be so virginally, crystal clear because I enjoy the grittiness of life too much. I like vodka. I love being passionate. I am innately feisty. What’s the point of existence if there’s no room for naughty?
But if my major weekend processing was about getting through a marginal princess moment, I think I’m all right.
If my biggest conflict was resolving misaligned communication with someone I care for, although unwelcome, uncomfortable and momentarily heart-wrenching, if we could turn that around in a matter of hours, I will warmly and eagerly accept a brief discomfort in the greater trade off toward authenticity. A wave of pain is so inconsequential when kept in perspective of a life that used to be an ocean of ungrounded grasping. That this was my largest disturbance in a world that used to be full of violence, selfishness, petty acting out and anger, is my most exceptional success.
This afternoon I went up for my own mukti experience, and as I stepped to what could best be described as a makeshift altar, I found myself again, overwhelmed by tears. To be humbled by grace, to feel for others more than I do myself, to know that all of that can only be present when I take care of myself first? Fountains of tears of gratitude for all that is, that I am a part of it, and it is a part of me.
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