I have been so energetic and happy for the last two months, I think for sure there’ve been times that I uber-annoyed my facebook friend list with too too exclamation-y posts. My body has been walking around vibrating like a thousand trapped butterflies within the sheath of my skin, fluttering to be free. 5 ½ hours sleep has been the regular nightly average and I’ve had maybe one of my most productive stretches of time, ever. I assume this is what crack feels like, without the negative side effects.
People that talk about “feeling the energy” surrounding them, used to irk me to no end. And now, look ma. Here I am.
In the stuff that I teach, there were two approaching milestones, a big trainers conference in LA (the first of its kind) and the approaching date of February 11th 2011, a day that the final energetic switch is supposed to happen to propel us to the highest states of consciousness of all time. (Don't even bother the seatbelt or airbag prep for this one-- you're gonna have to completely let go to get there.) I literally could feel them coming, in my body—it was resonating with the approaching greatness, in all its butterfly crack-i-ness.
These are the big guns. Move over small peanuts: peace of mind, healed relationships, just a little more joy, we are talking huge quantum leaps these days. This is another dimension. We are talking about, and seeing, enlightenment, full God-realization, normal people going in and out of Samadhi. Urban moms, dads in jeans and gym shoes, regular people: FULLY AWAKE.
I meet these people. They are totally normal. You’d never know. The higher the state, the less affected they are. Their reason is grounded, their outlook gorgeous in its simplicity and practicality.
The LA conference was mysteriously looming, and out came a couple of grey thought clouds circling. In hushed whispers of guilty apprehension, we spoke in tinges of worry going in. There was a new process to be revealed. It was our job to spread this learning. It was kinda being kept top-secret and rumored to have the gurus at the forefront, when oneness has always been about—hey, bring whatever feels good to you here.
And so my thousand batting butterflies and I get to LA, and they go into overdrive inside of me. Joy joy joy, the excitement is palpable. The sunshine, the people, the vibe is dazzling.
As we get into the weekend and into the new processes, I am thrilled, beside myself with giddy. There are more traditional Indian practices being intertwined, practices that are already a regular part of my daily life, pujas, aarti, kirtan—it’s like my two worlds of spirituality are meeting in marriage. We’re given information for practices I’ve been doing for years and it feels like coming home.
Then we come to the first big process. The first step for what we are supposed to bring home with us to our communities. Our monk tells us how powerful it’s going to be. That it will knock some of us off our feet.
Hours past chanting, meditating, clearing, centering, we get to the thick. And sure enough, people are falling over. Literally. Fainting, screaming, going into fits of shaking. Knocked out, and troops of volunteers have to carry a substantial portion of people away to lie in another corner of the room, because they are OUT cold. It’s like a scene from the Arthur Miller play THE CRUCIBLE. People are going wackjob.
And there’s the inside voice that comes up. “What the f**k is happening here???... OMG… this has gotten SO weird.” Apprehension. Worry. Can I see my friends in on this? Will New York ride this weird train of woo? I see the thoughts. I let ‘em hang.
I woke up at 5:30 that morning. Still on New York time. We started at 8am, it was about 11pm at this point. I was on my last legs. It was my turn to go up. I stepped forward, wanting it, and…. Nothing. Nothing at all. I waited. Nothing.
I went to savasana in a corner of the giant conference room with my pillow, maybe thinking something would seize me as I lay down, but nope, nothing. I was bored. Irritated. I looked around after a bit, I wanted to hold space of support for the people who had yet to go, but I could no longer muster it; it was past midnight and I thought, dude, I need to go to bed. We were starting at 7am tomorrow. I needed some sleep or I would bite someone’s face off.
I was feeling tired, disgruntled, slightly confused. Disappointed. Arriving to my room well after midnight, my roommate emerged from the shower, towel drying her long hair. I was relieved to see she hadn’t held out to the bitter end either, and watched an “utterly jealous” reaction float by that she had washed her hair—I was desperate to find time to do mine.
We broke our mauna (silence) of two days, both exasperated, unsure.
“I don’t know if I can get on board with this…” we echoed. The screaming, crying people. The fits. The shaking. The overall total weirdness of it. It brought up every judgment and conditioning. I was in ecstasy when all the processes looked the way I liked them to. When it got uncomfortable? I wanted out.
As I lay down to sleep, it hit me. All told, it probably took about two minutes, but the greatest fear and desperation of my life came rushing at me like a tsunami. I cried out to my guru, in anger, total helplessness.
I was paralyzed with fear unlike any I had experienced.
My. Life. Is. Nothing. This is a fraud. Everything I believe, hold dear, my world, my soul: vanished, annihilated, missing, a lie. Everything.
“How dare you? How dare you come into my heart and take me over and betray me? How dare you leave me behind, alone without you?” The fear, no the abject TERROR seized my body, and I went to the now automatic place of summoning the guru to witness it, and I could not. I could not even form the words of the mantra in my mind—I was furious, abandoned. Utterly alone.
This was my Gethsemane. Without a doubt. In the bible the Gospel of Luke quotes “Jesus' anguish in Gethsemane was so deep that ‘his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.’” Mine was sandwiched in between too big, too soft Sheraton pillows. Damn Sheraton pillows, why didn’t I bring my travel tempurpedic? I was bitter, barren. One of the greatest songs in musical theatre history is a five and a half minute epic “Gethsemane” in JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR. My experience was more desolate, dissonant, shorter than this show-stopping rock ballad. There were no lozenges in my green room to soothe.
“Screw you. Screw this. I can’t believe I dedicated so much of myself to this, to you, and now what? What is anything anymore?” This was my LIFE. This was my everything. Not just the most important thing, THE thing. And now this? This weirdness? This mania? This nutbag assortment of absolute bizarre insanity? Where is my mac daddy Bhagavan who fills me with the sparkly shiny awesomeness? He was gone. I couldn’t even see his face. I was pissed. Desperate. My foremost thought was, “Why have you forsaken me?!?”
It was the most acute emotion I have EVER experienced. It lasted a short total of two minutes, and I dropped to sleep, sucked into a vortex of calmed darkness.
The next morning I awoke at 6am tired, spent, neutral. We had a morning chakra meditation and were to connect with the guru afterwards and I sobbed. Sobbed. Sobbed. I wanted them back. Please, I begged. I need you. I need your love. This HAS to be real. You must be what I have seen you to be. Please come back to me. Show me, show up. It’s you. It’s all you. Take over.
You must show me. I cannot go back to New York and stand behind this and bring this to people who trust my discerning opinion and real, gritty outlook, without the goods. I cannot, I will not, go forth blindly in faith with this. You MUST show me something. I need to know. I need to know RIGHT NOW.
I had time to shower before the afternoon session. Just this, felt so incredibly comforting. Pujas of devotion followed and I saw my love was back, vast and devoted, but my negotiation firm. I needed to see the money.
We sat in preparation and the handsome man next to me, some years my senior, leaned over and whispered in my ear. “Some ride, huh?”
His eyes twinkled, almost wickedly in his knowing.
Our gaze locked and we had the silent acknowledgment of people who had been through it, who had found groundedness, only to be thrust into the unknown again. He introduced himself as Bill. He was not some wackjob off somewhere, he was right here. I was so grateful for this exchange. For his teasing, for his generous smile.
And the process went on. This was it. This was the one they called the bulldozer, and today was only just the preview, the real money was supposed to rain after the February 11th date.
When it was my turn to go up and take a blessing from the Sri Murthi, which is a picture, but actually carries the living presence of the guru within it, the terms had been set. I knelt, it was go time, I placed my hands on the feet of the gurus in the image and then… got… lost… completely.
Involuntary bawling. Blubbering. Snotty, not pretty, blubbering. I wore a lot of mascara today. That was not a good idea. Sobs so great my chest heaved, I, almost hyperventilating. There was no emotion, no thought preceding this. It was waves of energy, coming from the Sri Murthi—a kind I had not felt before, gentle like an incoming Caribbean tide, as warm and as slowly deliberate. My palms were sweating; moisture wicked from them to the glass over the image. This was not something I was doing. I had not worked myself into this state—I had absolutely no control over it. I heard myself sobbing and I had not made those noises before. After some time, I stood, cautiously, a little wobbly, but on my own two feet and went to lie in savasana.
Relief. Hope. Gratitude. Grace. I was lost and I was found.
Later I realized, I would not have been one of those convulsing people. I always want the real, the practical, why would the paranormal “the Crucible” version take me over? It wouldn’t because I didn’t expect it. I wouldn’t have been knocked flat because I didn’t want to be.
Which of course now has me rethinking that entire supposition, um, kinda WANT to be knocked over, so will need to reframe that in my mind. Or have a good old convo with the holy ‘rents. Next time? I’ll bring my tempurpedic pillow to lie on; knock me flat—I’m light, I’ll be easy to carry.
But this time, I had seen exactly what I needed to see. All had been perfect. Not pretty, but perfect.
Our monk said “if someone told me that standing on my head against the wall spelling backwards from Z-A would bring me enlightenment, I would do it. I would do anything, provided that it works.”
I started this whole journey not ever thinking I would be where I am. The rest of the conference, I floated. That night I had thai food and went to bed early. The next, I donned four inch heels and watched some of my dearest friends rock out in their superstardom at a hot venue in LA, we wrapped up the night with two in the morning veggie burgers at the Roosevelt hotel.
I giggle more. Only joy meets me. Things are effortless.
There’s nothing but love here. And if a few hours of conference room weirdness, a few hours of taming and letting go and surpassing the mind, of letting go of anything I hold dear so that all I hold dear is brought to me in brighter, vibrant waves of experience and passionate process that is life? If that’s all it takes? A brief shot of pain, confrontation, surrender for endless amounts of bliss? Even if it looks ridonkulously bizarro? That’s it? Ok, I’m in.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
the step by step guide to finding your guru
Step #1: Wait.
That’s it. That’s the guide. Just the one step.
Makes for an efficient, although not very enlightening blogpost, so let me expand on that idea.
I had a most delicious synchronicity this past week. In the awesomeness that is facebook, (I know some people pooh pooh the ol’ FB but man I love it. I’m just a facebook chippy, precisely for things like this,) in its awesomeness, surfaced the first guy I dated in college via a thread of a mutual friend’s newborn baby pictures.
We dated for a month. A couple of months? I have a picture of him from Easter at our house in Chicago where I am wearing a hot pink linen Ann Taylor blazer that I still (although absolutely unsuitable for New York) own. That summer we whisked away to Vegas for an epic three days of concerts with Dave Matthews opening for the Grateful Dead; my best girlfriend and her own fraternity boy leading the way. If I recall correctly, I was a freshman, he was a senior and it had an expiration date stamped on it from the get go; we, not having too much in common other than chemistry. And I don’t mean a science class.
Doing the FB “hm, I wonder what he’s been doing for the last 15 years” drive-by, I see we like the same books. Some of them woo. His posts are meaningful, smart. Was he this smart then? I didn’t remember that. I’m happy to see he is married and thriving elsewhere. My belly gets all toasty to see people well.
A week after we friend each other, he posts a quiz to his friends on FB. Its answer being, the sanskrit mantra that I call mine. These are the words that I say more often than possibly anything else, and there he is on FB, all, asking people if they know what it means.
Out of all the mantras in the world.
The one I use, from my peeps, my guru, if you will, which was injected into me by some divine physician, similar to a little kid who gets a shot in the ass when his mom is distracting him to look the other way in the doctor’s office at the kitty poster. Haven’t seen this guy, or perhaps even thought of him in a decade in a half, a week after we “friend,” he posts that? Odds please? I mean, c’mon people.
And although that synchronicity was indeed lovely, that’s not the point of this story. The point is the mantra. The way that mantra, that guru, snuck into my little life and implanted itself forever in there, was so surreptitious, so patient, so in-for-the-long-haul and confidant of its own organic process, that I didn’t even know it happened.
Guru means someone who spreads the light. So, anyone can be your guru or teacher. In fact, ironically enough, the more advanced we get, the more we see everything and everyone as a guru until that moment when it all merges and we have no need… but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Traditionally, a guru is the mac daddy of all teachers. The master. Usually an enlightened person, because the thing about an enlightened person or master is, you can’t ever get ahead of them. They are an unending resource of wisdom and grace, so although we can go through dozen of other teachers along the way, to find a mac daddy (or mac mommy I suppose) is a one shot deal. The umbrella teacher: you don’t have to go elsewhere, so in a way, to find this person is like the most efficient thing that can happen when desiring a focus for a spiritual path. You found someone you vibe with? Good, now listen to ‘im.
It helps if they are alive, because then there’s a flow, an influx of information. I had/have nothing against the Virgin Mary, for instance, I just find that, for me, she didn’t make a very good conversationalist. But if you can go in your heart and talk to Mary today as your personal savior, well, God bless you sistah, all the power to you.
But really, you don’t have a choice. You don’t find the teacher. He/she finds you. The zen saying is: “when the student is ready the teacher appears.” Think “Karate Kid.” Think “Dirty Dancing.”
Mine totally snuck up on me. I think He knew that I wouldn’t be receptive to guru-dom and any kind of devotion that would entail. (A then Type A controlling New Yorker? I was ripe, but not willing.)
First, he introduced himself to me via a total Brazilian hottie. I mean, I don’t care who or what you are into, a Brazilian hottie is just, across the board, damn good marketing on the part of the divine.
After the initial intro, for years there was this mantra in my life and I was following this weird instinctual pull to organize, participate, but it wasn’t until I was in Australia and someone asked the Brazilian hottie at a yogi party how we know each other, and I heard her answer: “We have the same guru…,” that it hit me. I have a guru? Huh, I guess I do. And that Guy brought she and I together. I hadn’t seen that. She had.
But what's most marvelous was that just around that time, He started to show up. I would get pockets of information in an instantaneous download. Like, a whole slew of knowledge, that I didn’t have one moment, would suddenly be there the next, as though it just uploaded in the computer of my mind. I didn’t have to learn it, I didn’t have to go figure it out or research it, it was just there, this knowing. And I immediately equated it with him; I intrinsically knew that’s where it came from.
It wasn’t a conversation the way we'd think of one. It was literally an instantaneous knowledge. I wondered if that’s what people meant when they said “Jesus spoke to me.” This was not an intuition, a gut feeling, a leaning. This was: this is DONE. I was surer of that info than anything else in my life. I didn’t choose to be sure, that’s how it presented itself: as fact.
And although this was pretty f**ing miraculous, I didn’t get all “saved” and start going nutso over this guy. I played hard to get. I wanted to keep my options open. What, you want a lifelong commitment from a couple spectacular experiences? Dude, you’re going to have to work a little harder than that.
To make things more complicated, there was another guru that led me to this guru. I feel like they tag teamed me. Getting me to India. Getting me onto a yoga mat. Introducing me to the Brazillian hottie.
When I was practicing yoga abroad, I was so very way out of my league, next to some of the most advanced teachers and practitioners in the world, dedicated but absolutely lower-than-remedial compared to the people around me. I had a deep respect and admiration for, but didn’t feel any specific personal connection to the yoga guruji. It was only when he passed away three years later that I realized how much he lived in my heart.
When I heard of his passing, the most profound grief I have ever experienced seized me. Its intensity shocked me. Nothing had ever come close to this loss, this deep a pain and sorrow. It only took hold of me for a day, but it was inconsolable and at the same time, outrageously gorgeous in its depth of feeling. (I have the capacity to feel this? Oh my, marvelous.) In that day, I saw lineage, tradition, why people held such devotion and respect for their teachers in the world of woo. I watched my own teacher grieve his master, his father. Such love for someone who has shown you how to live a life worth having.
I’m not really sure if everyone has a guru. I’d assume they do. I mean it wouldn’t really be fair otherwise, right? “Oh Margaret- well she was good four lives ago, so yes, give her a guru, but Hank? Oh Hank’s been a total ass for eons. Let’s let him suffer though some karma payback. He’s just shit outta luck this go around.” Mm, no. That doesn’t seem fair.
But on the other hand, things are accelerating so quickly these days, in a very short while, if not already, the mystical middleman may no longer be necessary.
In the Indian tradition the antaryamin, the indweller or inner witness is the consciousness inside you. And there are all different levels of what a guru can be, so they don't have to be a small Indian person or a divine inside you, it can be sports, your children, your art.
Our gurus are each other; eventually they are ourselves. I must caution though, that most of us can’t just jump straight to ourselves. Until we get to a place where we’ve sussed it all out, let it all go, “wood-shed” and shined a light on the structures of our mind, healed our hurts or identified our conditioning and attachments, anything we think may be intuition guiding us might actually be the ego. So it's not just "wait." It's work while you wait.
The self-as-guru is not a one-stop shop. I don't think yet, anyway. In a way it’s childish to think that we can do it all ourselves. It’s impossible because the ultimate realization is the connectedness of all that is. We need peeps on the way. Then we get to ourselves. The step by step process is in fact: 1) guru 2)yourself 3)you're one.
And going back to the FB friend who posted that mantra? What’s the connection there? Why now? Maybe a little joke from my guru saying, “Hey babes, let me blow your mind even more. I’ve been with you all along. I’ve had my eye on you. Didja know that? You’ve been safe. And we’re still gonna hang ‘cause we’re all tight like that, but you’re getting to the point where you’re not gonna need me anymore. You’re gonna swallow me up so whole inside of you that there won’t be anyplace that I end and you begin. I’m not going anywhere, but you’re good to go. So go, lady. Go.”
That’s it. That’s the guide. Just the one step.
Makes for an efficient, although not very enlightening blogpost, so let me expand on that idea.
I had a most delicious synchronicity this past week. In the awesomeness that is facebook, (I know some people pooh pooh the ol’ FB but man I love it. I’m just a facebook chippy, precisely for things like this,) in its awesomeness, surfaced the first guy I dated in college via a thread of a mutual friend’s newborn baby pictures.
We dated for a month. A couple of months? I have a picture of him from Easter at our house in Chicago where I am wearing a hot pink linen Ann Taylor blazer that I still (although absolutely unsuitable for New York) own. That summer we whisked away to Vegas for an epic three days of concerts with Dave Matthews opening for the Grateful Dead; my best girlfriend and her own fraternity boy leading the way. If I recall correctly, I was a freshman, he was a senior and it had an expiration date stamped on it from the get go; we, not having too much in common other than chemistry. And I don’t mean a science class.
Doing the FB “hm, I wonder what he’s been doing for the last 15 years” drive-by, I see we like the same books. Some of them woo. His posts are meaningful, smart. Was he this smart then? I didn’t remember that. I’m happy to see he is married and thriving elsewhere. My belly gets all toasty to see people well.
A week after we friend each other, he posts a quiz to his friends on FB. Its answer being, the sanskrit mantra that I call mine. These are the words that I say more often than possibly anything else, and there he is on FB, all, asking people if they know what it means.
Out of all the mantras in the world.
The one I use, from my peeps, my guru, if you will, which was injected into me by some divine physician, similar to a little kid who gets a shot in the ass when his mom is distracting him to look the other way in the doctor’s office at the kitty poster. Haven’t seen this guy, or perhaps even thought of him in a decade in a half, a week after we “friend,” he posts that? Odds please? I mean, c’mon people.
And although that synchronicity was indeed lovely, that’s not the point of this story. The point is the mantra. The way that mantra, that guru, snuck into my little life and implanted itself forever in there, was so surreptitious, so patient, so in-for-the-long-haul and confidant of its own organic process, that I didn’t even know it happened.
Guru means someone who spreads the light. So, anyone can be your guru or teacher. In fact, ironically enough, the more advanced we get, the more we see everything and everyone as a guru until that moment when it all merges and we have no need… but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Traditionally, a guru is the mac daddy of all teachers. The master. Usually an enlightened person, because the thing about an enlightened person or master is, you can’t ever get ahead of them. They are an unending resource of wisdom and grace, so although we can go through dozen of other teachers along the way, to find a mac daddy (or mac mommy I suppose) is a one shot deal. The umbrella teacher: you don’t have to go elsewhere, so in a way, to find this person is like the most efficient thing that can happen when desiring a focus for a spiritual path. You found someone you vibe with? Good, now listen to ‘im.
It helps if they are alive, because then there’s a flow, an influx of information. I had/have nothing against the Virgin Mary, for instance, I just find that, for me, she didn’t make a very good conversationalist. But if you can go in your heart and talk to Mary today as your personal savior, well, God bless you sistah, all the power to you.
But really, you don’t have a choice. You don’t find the teacher. He/she finds you. The zen saying is: “when the student is ready the teacher appears.” Think “Karate Kid.” Think “Dirty Dancing.”
Mine totally snuck up on me. I think He knew that I wouldn’t be receptive to guru-dom and any kind of devotion that would entail. (A then Type A controlling New Yorker? I was ripe, but not willing.)
First, he introduced himself to me via a total Brazilian hottie. I mean, I don’t care who or what you are into, a Brazilian hottie is just, across the board, damn good marketing on the part of the divine.
After the initial intro, for years there was this mantra in my life and I was following this weird instinctual pull to organize, participate, but it wasn’t until I was in Australia and someone asked the Brazilian hottie at a yogi party how we know each other, and I heard her answer: “We have the same guru…,” that it hit me. I have a guru? Huh, I guess I do. And that Guy brought she and I together. I hadn’t seen that. She had.
But what's most marvelous was that just around that time, He started to show up. I would get pockets of information in an instantaneous download. Like, a whole slew of knowledge, that I didn’t have one moment, would suddenly be there the next, as though it just uploaded in the computer of my mind. I didn’t have to learn it, I didn’t have to go figure it out or research it, it was just there, this knowing. And I immediately equated it with him; I intrinsically knew that’s where it came from.
It wasn’t a conversation the way we'd think of one. It was literally an instantaneous knowledge. I wondered if that’s what people meant when they said “Jesus spoke to me.” This was not an intuition, a gut feeling, a leaning. This was: this is DONE. I was surer of that info than anything else in my life. I didn’t choose to be sure, that’s how it presented itself: as fact.
And although this was pretty f**ing miraculous, I didn’t get all “saved” and start going nutso over this guy. I played hard to get. I wanted to keep my options open. What, you want a lifelong commitment from a couple spectacular experiences? Dude, you’re going to have to work a little harder than that.
To make things more complicated, there was another guru that led me to this guru. I feel like they tag teamed me. Getting me to India. Getting me onto a yoga mat. Introducing me to the Brazillian hottie.
When I was practicing yoga abroad, I was so very way out of my league, next to some of the most advanced teachers and practitioners in the world, dedicated but absolutely lower-than-remedial compared to the people around me. I had a deep respect and admiration for, but didn’t feel any specific personal connection to the yoga guruji. It was only when he passed away three years later that I realized how much he lived in my heart.
When I heard of his passing, the most profound grief I have ever experienced seized me. Its intensity shocked me. Nothing had ever come close to this loss, this deep a pain and sorrow. It only took hold of me for a day, but it was inconsolable and at the same time, outrageously gorgeous in its depth of feeling. (I have the capacity to feel this? Oh my, marvelous.) In that day, I saw lineage, tradition, why people held such devotion and respect for their teachers in the world of woo. I watched my own teacher grieve his master, his father. Such love for someone who has shown you how to live a life worth having.
I’m not really sure if everyone has a guru. I’d assume they do. I mean it wouldn’t really be fair otherwise, right? “Oh Margaret- well she was good four lives ago, so yes, give her a guru, but Hank? Oh Hank’s been a total ass for eons. Let’s let him suffer though some karma payback. He’s just shit outta luck this go around.” Mm, no. That doesn’t seem fair.
But on the other hand, things are accelerating so quickly these days, in a very short while, if not already, the mystical middleman may no longer be necessary.
In the Indian tradition the antaryamin, the indweller or inner witness is the consciousness inside you. And there are all different levels of what a guru can be, so they don't have to be a small Indian person or a divine inside you, it can be sports, your children, your art.
Our gurus are each other; eventually they are ourselves. I must caution though, that most of us can’t just jump straight to ourselves. Until we get to a place where we’ve sussed it all out, let it all go, “wood-shed” and shined a light on the structures of our mind, healed our hurts or identified our conditioning and attachments, anything we think may be intuition guiding us might actually be the ego. So it's not just "wait." It's work while you wait.
The self-as-guru is not a one-stop shop. I don't think yet, anyway. In a way it’s childish to think that we can do it all ourselves. It’s impossible because the ultimate realization is the connectedness of all that is. We need peeps on the way. Then we get to ourselves. The step by step process is in fact: 1) guru 2)yourself 3)you're one.
And going back to the FB friend who posted that mantra? What’s the connection there? Why now? Maybe a little joke from my guru saying, “Hey babes, let me blow your mind even more. I’ve been with you all along. I’ve had my eye on you. Didja know that? You’ve been safe. And we’re still gonna hang ‘cause we’re all tight like that, but you’re getting to the point where you’re not gonna need me anymore. You’re gonna swallow me up so whole inside of you that there won’t be anyplace that I end and you begin. I’m not going anywhere, but you’re good to go. So go, lady. Go.”
Friday, January 7, 2011
9 things you don't want to hear: a 2010 blog wrap up with perhaps some squeezable wisdom
click to read the fullest expansion of the theory:
you shouldn't schedule a date on a spiritual retreat weekend
god can be your gangsta rapper
spirituality without suffering is total bullsh**
life will screw you. that's only so it can make sweet love to you later.
they say a sex break can make you shinier
god is a drag queen
f*@# spirituality
blessturbation-- yes, we can
bile and upping consciousness... ew, really?
you shouldn't schedule a date on a spiritual retreat weekend
god can be your gangsta rapper
spirituality without suffering is total bullsh**
life will screw you. that's only so it can make sweet love to you later.
they say a sex break can make you shinier
god is a drag queen
f*@# spirituality
blessturbation-- yes, we can
bile and upping consciousness... ew, really?
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
the amazeballs muchacho of authenticity
When I was in Chicago last month, I was to meet my sister’s boyfriend. I don’t need to get into specifics, but let’s just acknowledge that my mom won’t even consider an introduction. She refuses to accept that they are together and wholeheartedly disapproves of the entire situation. Mom’s kinda playing the old-school, unfair, crazypants card here, but so it is.
My sister is in love. No one can dissuade another from being in love. However, that does not stop my mother from continually trying to get me to instead push my sister to date the son of the sausage king of Chicago, whose own mother once met my sister and has been dropping the son as bait ever since... (I did mention both that my sister already has a boyfriend and that reason has yet to arrive in these proceedings, right…?)
This whole family balancing was an interesting, precarious, Jenga process of assemblage because it made me question my own judgments, expectations of what I want sis’s boyfriend (now, maybe perhaps potential future husband?) to be to (oh so selfish) me; it shined a Fresnel on the structures of the mind for prissy, pretty mags. Rather than pre-define him by my societal or cultural prejudices, I wanted to be clear on what my sister deserves and so first I had to define what that is.
I want any boyfriend/potential husband to be sophisticated, well-read, sharp, liberal, charming and most definitely funny, because really, his sole purpose at proposed future familial excursions is to keep me entertained. And he’d get big points, of course, if he owned a beach house. Big points.
Ok, so once I got the nonsense of what this little “mags” body thinks she wants for her sister, I thought I’d get real and take some time to think about what was important for her. What do you want for those you hold dear?
People might say: All I want for them is to be happy.
But, sometimes don’t we see people who are “happy in love” and yet something doesn’t smell quite right? They aren’t really the fullest expression of themselves while in love with that person or perhaps they’re sacrificing an innate part of their core to be with him/her? And you/I/we, in turn, miss that person?
In my musings, I think what’s key is to have someone to turn you on. And I (for once) am not talking about sex here. Does my sister’s boyfriend bring out the best in her? Is she the most grounded, light, fun, giving, and dependable version of herself both with him and outside of their time together? Are her priorities in order? Or is she taking on his characteristics, bending to be in his world?
The same questions can be applied to a spiritual person or practice. A lotta people can get wrapped up in something “woo,” and we think, um, where’d they go?
I had lunch with a colleague (a beautiful teacher in Chicago) and she spoke of people being able to traverse dimensions and go to different planes of consciousness. That’s cool and all, but my wiring is practical. I want to be here. When the last guy I was dating expressed a distaste for the woo making people float in lala land, or live in some kind of alternate reality, I determinedly responded, “I don’t want to be anywhere else! I love New York.” I’m not reaching for the clouds. I’m grounding to the pavement. (and it’s sparkly in New York, btw, have you noticed?)
When you first meet someone who’s enlightened, it’s kinda disappointing. Unless you have a previously bestowed love for them or you’re far enough in your development to be sensitive to higher frequencies and can tap into that kind of vibration, usually they’re just lumps of bones and mass, all ordinary.
You want them to be all, like, walking on water with firecrackers shooting out of their forehead, and you end up on a cold, damp floor in a four-foot cave across the world, or at a lecture in midtown, and see this little person sitting there all normal and scratching their nose, and maybe (depending on how “famous” they are), dozens of people around ‘em perhaps fanning or primping pillows for him/her, and think… This is it? What’s the deal here? Unless they are tapped into a deep meditative state or some such, when they are hanging around they are doing just that—hanging.
It’s a little disarming at first because we want them to be so much jazzier. We think every moment of life, particularly in the presence of the “enlightened,” should look like it’s been bedazzled within a millimeter of itself. When we asked monks in Fiji and India what they do when they’re not teaching, you know what their answer was? “We really like action movies.” “We have huge games of cricket.” They’re on Facebook.
With all the enlightened folk that I’ve come into contact with, and I am so so grateful that there have been many, here’s the common thread. They’re just regular. If there is any spangly brouhaha surrounding them, they are not organizing it—they just happen to be in the middle of it. When the ordinary is spectacular, that’s when you’re awake.
There’s the old zen adage, the finger pointing at the moon is not the moon.
If you’ve found a teacher (or a lover,) when you are in their presence, no one else exists; the rest of the world falls away. But they are not the moon, they are the pointer. The moon is you… their job is to bring out the best in you. The real you. Eventually the rest of your world falls away and you encompass that “now-ness” for yourself and others.
It’s only natural and enjoyable, that in the early flush of a relationship, romantic or spiritual, we take on the characteristics of our new love. This is part of the excitement that this kind of discovery can bring to us and provides a fun and connective texture to our lives.
My sister is peppering up her lexicon with Spanish words, so we got a “muchacho” spiced in here and there. With her last boyfriend they liked to call each other “lover” over and over again, with varying degrees of emphasis, unendingly, in public. (Needless to say, I am really. really. really. happy that phase is over.) My friends toss around “amazeballs.” The spiritual vocab a la mode is “authentic,” it used to be “prosperous.”
The communities we choose are reflected not only in our vocabulary, but in our dress (Converse, barefoot, Louboutains?), stomping grounds (the bar, the temple) and sport teams (insert yours here.)
But it seems the fine line between fanaticism and devotion, between blinded love and a healthy relationship comes down to is: Is it bringing out the best in you and is it bringing out the real you? Are you attached to the finger (the teacher, the lover) or are you looking to the moon? (yourself. shinier. the ultimate inner bedazzle)
After I wrote this, I found the most emailed article in the New York Times in the last couple of days has been “The Happy Marriage is the ’Me’ Marriage.” It basically posits that helping each other’s self-expansion is what makes a happy marriage. Not a successful marriage. A happy one. Does the other person fuel your growth? (This was THE MOST emailed article in the New York Times for the last five days straight. Not politics, weight loss, will iPhone finally come to Verizon, or what’s the hottest new restaurant of 2011…nope, self-expansion. Times are a changing… but I digress.)
Everything is a process. I’ve been involved in plenty of relationships that weren’t supporting my higher good, and when I first found yoga, was so loud-mouthed about it I’m surprised I didn’t get slapped around. For all of us, of course, there is no wrong place, no wrong way to do it. There are appropriate times to hibernate in introspection or even get lost in a flurry of sex. But ultimately? Ultimately we want to get to the place where “muchacho” is a spice and not the main enchilada. Is the "muchacho" a life raft, helping us to cling to where we are, what we know? Or is it the key to our self-expansion?
It’s difficult to allow ourselves to get uncomfortable. We want it to be warm and fuzzy, familiar, easy. It’s only when we get out of the comfort zone, when we reach, confront the pretty or the ugly, that change takes place. This is the key point to distinguish—are we holding on to pleasure because it’s familiar?
By the same token, if we’re reaching for the shiny (yes, please! reach!) but there is still discomfort/pain/longing that arises, there’s just simply more to do. No biggie. Just a fact of life. “Your head has more mountain to climb.” We want to get to the point where sitting and scratching our nose is enough of a bedazzlement. Where authenticity to ourselves is not about us doing what we want, but us being ok with where we are. If not yet here, the “yay!” happiness follows. Promise.
I was asked to write an article for the (lovely, right on) www.amareway.org site about authentic happiness and this is the main essence of it all.
We can have our muchacho and eat it too. We want to have the moon, but at some point we need to let go of the finger. The ultimate universal relationship isn’t with our lover or our guru, it’s with ourselves. That’s why the self-expansion makes you happy in a relationship, it’s for you. Until we can be real to every moment, we need to be real to what’s within. That’s when happy arrives. And maybe it’s wearing a sombrero.
My sister is in love. No one can dissuade another from being in love. However, that does not stop my mother from continually trying to get me to instead push my sister to date the son of the sausage king of Chicago, whose own mother once met my sister and has been dropping the son as bait ever since... (I did mention both that my sister already has a boyfriend and that reason has yet to arrive in these proceedings, right…?)
This whole family balancing was an interesting, precarious, Jenga process of assemblage because it made me question my own judgments, expectations of what I want sis’s boyfriend (now, maybe perhaps potential future husband?) to be to (oh so selfish) me; it shined a Fresnel on the structures of the mind for prissy, pretty mags. Rather than pre-define him by my societal or cultural prejudices, I wanted to be clear on what my sister deserves and so first I had to define what that is.
I want any boyfriend/potential husband to be sophisticated, well-read, sharp, liberal, charming and most definitely funny, because really, his sole purpose at proposed future familial excursions is to keep me entertained. And he’d get big points, of course, if he owned a beach house. Big points.
Ok, so once I got the nonsense of what this little “mags” body thinks she wants for her sister, I thought I’d get real and take some time to think about what was important for her. What do you want for those you hold dear?
People might say: All I want for them is to be happy.
But, sometimes don’t we see people who are “happy in love” and yet something doesn’t smell quite right? They aren’t really the fullest expression of themselves while in love with that person or perhaps they’re sacrificing an innate part of their core to be with him/her? And you/I/we, in turn, miss that person?
In my musings, I think what’s key is to have someone to turn you on. And I (for once) am not talking about sex here. Does my sister’s boyfriend bring out the best in her? Is she the most grounded, light, fun, giving, and dependable version of herself both with him and outside of their time together? Are her priorities in order? Or is she taking on his characteristics, bending to be in his world?
The same questions can be applied to a spiritual person or practice. A lotta people can get wrapped up in something “woo,” and we think, um, where’d they go?
I had lunch with a colleague (a beautiful teacher in Chicago) and she spoke of people being able to traverse dimensions and go to different planes of consciousness. That’s cool and all, but my wiring is practical. I want to be here. When the last guy I was dating expressed a distaste for the woo making people float in lala land, or live in some kind of alternate reality, I determinedly responded, “I don’t want to be anywhere else! I love New York.” I’m not reaching for the clouds. I’m grounding to the pavement. (and it’s sparkly in New York, btw, have you noticed?)
When you first meet someone who’s enlightened, it’s kinda disappointing. Unless you have a previously bestowed love for them or you’re far enough in your development to be sensitive to higher frequencies and can tap into that kind of vibration, usually they’re just lumps of bones and mass, all ordinary.
You want them to be all, like, walking on water with firecrackers shooting out of their forehead, and you end up on a cold, damp floor in a four-foot cave across the world, or at a lecture in midtown, and see this little person sitting there all normal and scratching their nose, and maybe (depending on how “famous” they are), dozens of people around ‘em perhaps fanning or primping pillows for him/her, and think… This is it? What’s the deal here? Unless they are tapped into a deep meditative state or some such, when they are hanging around they are doing just that—hanging.
It’s a little disarming at first because we want them to be so much jazzier. We think every moment of life, particularly in the presence of the “enlightened,” should look like it’s been bedazzled within a millimeter of itself. When we asked monks in Fiji and India what they do when they’re not teaching, you know what their answer was? “We really like action movies.” “We have huge games of cricket.” They’re on Facebook.
With all the enlightened folk that I’ve come into contact with, and I am so so grateful that there have been many, here’s the common thread. They’re just regular. If there is any spangly brouhaha surrounding them, they are not organizing it—they just happen to be in the middle of it. When the ordinary is spectacular, that’s when you’re awake.
There’s the old zen adage, the finger pointing at the moon is not the moon.
If you’ve found a teacher (or a lover,) when you are in their presence, no one else exists; the rest of the world falls away. But they are not the moon, they are the pointer. The moon is you… their job is to bring out the best in you. The real you. Eventually the rest of your world falls away and you encompass that “now-ness” for yourself and others.
It’s only natural and enjoyable, that in the early flush of a relationship, romantic or spiritual, we take on the characteristics of our new love. This is part of the excitement that this kind of discovery can bring to us and provides a fun and connective texture to our lives.
My sister is peppering up her lexicon with Spanish words, so we got a “muchacho” spiced in here and there. With her last boyfriend they liked to call each other “lover” over and over again, with varying degrees of emphasis, unendingly, in public. (Needless to say, I am really. really. really. happy that phase is over.) My friends toss around “amazeballs.” The spiritual vocab a la mode is “authentic,” it used to be “prosperous.”
The communities we choose are reflected not only in our vocabulary, but in our dress (Converse, barefoot, Louboutains?), stomping grounds (the bar, the temple) and sport teams (insert yours here.)
But it seems the fine line between fanaticism and devotion, between blinded love and a healthy relationship comes down to is: Is it bringing out the best in you and is it bringing out the real you? Are you attached to the finger (the teacher, the lover) or are you looking to the moon? (yourself. shinier. the ultimate inner bedazzle)
After I wrote this, I found the most emailed article in the New York Times in the last couple of days has been “The Happy Marriage is the ’Me’ Marriage.” It basically posits that helping each other’s self-expansion is what makes a happy marriage. Not a successful marriage. A happy one. Does the other person fuel your growth? (This was THE MOST emailed article in the New York Times for the last five days straight. Not politics, weight loss, will iPhone finally come to Verizon, or what’s the hottest new restaurant of 2011…nope, self-expansion. Times are a changing… but I digress.)
Everything is a process. I’ve been involved in plenty of relationships that weren’t supporting my higher good, and when I first found yoga, was so loud-mouthed about it I’m surprised I didn’t get slapped around. For all of us, of course, there is no wrong place, no wrong way to do it. There are appropriate times to hibernate in introspection or even get lost in a flurry of sex. But ultimately? Ultimately we want to get to the place where “muchacho” is a spice and not the main enchilada. Is the "muchacho" a life raft, helping us to cling to where we are, what we know? Or is it the key to our self-expansion?
It’s difficult to allow ourselves to get uncomfortable. We want it to be warm and fuzzy, familiar, easy. It’s only when we get out of the comfort zone, when we reach, confront the pretty or the ugly, that change takes place. This is the key point to distinguish—are we holding on to pleasure because it’s familiar?
By the same token, if we’re reaching for the shiny (yes, please! reach!) but there is still discomfort/pain/longing that arises, there’s just simply more to do. No biggie. Just a fact of life. “Your head has more mountain to climb.” We want to get to the point where sitting and scratching our nose is enough of a bedazzlement. Where authenticity to ourselves is not about us doing what we want, but us being ok with where we are. If not yet here, the “yay!” happiness follows. Promise.
I was asked to write an article for the (lovely, right on) www.amareway.org site about authentic happiness and this is the main essence of it all.
We can have our muchacho and eat it too. We want to have the moon, but at some point we need to let go of the finger. The ultimate universal relationship isn’t with our lover or our guru, it’s with ourselves. That’s why the self-expansion makes you happy in a relationship, it’s for you. Until we can be real to every moment, we need to be real to what’s within. That’s when happy arrives. And maybe it’s wearing a sombrero.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
men: my 2011 minimalist manifesto
This week I met Everett Bogue, who I adored from afar. I tweeted him; a flagging follow up to a cheeky, but true-to-the-core email, suggesting perhaps a coffee or drink in his upcoming travels, and before I knew it, we had next day plans to cart around a sleeping bag in Chicago, which, incidentally, never ended up getting there.
Everett does not live outside the box. In his world, there is no box. He’s not off the grid; he’s above it. It was the snarky, youthful rebellion of his super smart pro-minimalist blog that attracted me to him, but it was fate, two open intuitions and matching gut instincts that had us traversing around Chicago on a late 2010, surprisingly sunny afternoon.
We talked about insane things. I mean, real things that are happening, but that are so far out of the mainstream that they’d be hard to believe. He opened my eyes to a fascinating digital lattice of rogue minimalists broncoing this world on their terms. Just shy of a decade younger, I also saw how differently, how much more quickly his mind could operate. How things that might seem abnormal to our generation, and crazypants to my mother, are enthusiastically welcomed with an open heart and mind. This is freedom. The capacity for this higher consciousness is going to be a no brainer for the youngin’s. It’s built in. Structures are falling, because they are not buying.
This year my new year’s resolution is to fully, once and for all, move over and let life take me. My mantra will be
I mean, I’ve pretty much been doing this for the last six or so years since that moment when everything fell apart. Just letting go, and letting it all brisk me along. Flight cancellation? No problem. A two-week trip turning into six months abroad? Did it. Didn’t get that fantastic job I thought was, for sure, mine? Ok, that’s the way it was supposed to be. But Mags’ particular mental kryptonite, even if I was my happiest, most flowing, easy self, across the world and deepening, or making money or riding high, (ok, and here I am... I'm going to cop to it) has been men.
By now, I was “supposed” to be married, with two kids in my West Village brownstone and meeting Bernadette Peters for routine lunch/shopping sprees at Bergdorf’s. Instead, I spent the month perched in legwarmers and sucking down green juice in my hometown, occasionally suffering through a Lifetime TV movie of the week to appease my mother. Which was, by far, my greatest familial sacrifice to date, and no small act of love on my part. (The Lifetime TV movies of the week, not the month with my mother.)
In the last six years, I have spent the very vast majority of my time alone. I see couples traveling together, comfortable in their familiarity—I don’t remember what that feels like. I don’t know what it’s like to have someone roll over and give you a kiss to wake you up on your birthday. This doesn’t bother me; it’s just foreign territory.
In the kitchen, precisely as I was typing this, my mother beseeched me:
“Just promise me one thing Margaret. You work so hard on your writing, yoga, your ‘oneness’ (picture her fleeting, disapproving nose-crunch,) promise me this year you will devote the same amount of time and attention to finding a man.”
Well mom, I’m sorry to disappoint, but this is, in fact, the opposite of what I am planning to do.
What I promise to do is honor every moment in front of me. Seize every experience as if my life depended on it, because quite obviously, it does. Breathe in the grit and the grime that is today and continue to plow through it in a state of unconditional, blinded love, even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts. Unconditional, blinded love for myself and everyone around me. I’m gonna get retro RENT all up in that piece and “No day but today” will be my theme song… and to do that, I am going to stop looking for a man.
Let me assure you that this does not come from some embittered space of being angry at men, or life, for not having given me a guy. Far from it. I love men. Bring ‘em on. What I am letting go of is the attachment to wanting men, from wanting to be married, from the desire to be one half a couple. I am not throwing men out from my life, I am taking a cue from Everett: I’m going minimalist. I’m opting for freedom, and for taking life as it comes.
So, what does that mean?
Well, it means no asking friends to set me up. No online dating. That handful of guys that I keep in my back pocket as a “maybe” “one day” “friends with benefits" “just for fun”? ? Done. Please exit the space of my mind. If you want reentrance, you better know how to show up for real. I’ve seen you do it before. You show up for business meetings and you show up for the superbowl. You’re capable.
Romances that have no shot of extending? Ok, that’s an adventure, those could work. (I mean, I’m not pledging to be a nun for God’s sake.) But keeping my radar up at a party? Looking down to check if the hot guy at the coffee shop has a wedding ring? Being a little extra flirty until the stranger references his girlfriend in the third sentence of conversation? Over.
If you actually saw inside my mind, you might think I’m being a little rash. I am hardly obsessive with any of these romantic thoughts. The guy who turned out to not like me so much last year (after seven months of me hoping he did,) well, he exited my thought sphere relatively quickly, but nowhere near as quickly as I would have liked. It was annoying as hell to know it wasn’t going to happen, and yet there he was, parked in my mind, lookin' all sexy, taking up space—I had no control over it.
I want freedom. Not from men. From my mind. Going minimalist does not mean giving men up entirely, it means living with only that which is necessary. And if we don’t have an equal energetic exchange… You are no longer necessary to my life. Consider yourself feng shui’d out. I'm streamlining my heart.
One of my favorite girlfriends (who also happens to be one of my smartest, most open, most generous, positive and grounded, drop-dead-gorgeous girlfriends) said to me while sitting on my couch a couple of months ago:
“You know, looking around at all the people I know, and how hard I’ve worked, all that I’ve accomplished and what I want in my life, I’m starting to wish and wonder ‘why can’t I just be married with a baby by now?’ “
Here’s my answer. Because you’re not done yet. We’re not done yet. Although I have friends who have thriving families with children in tow and still manage to be Manhattanite socialite butterflies and successful businesswomen, there is (of course, there should be) a different perspective in life when there's a family to consider.
And had I started my family years ago, everything in my life that to this date holds any real kind of value, a generosity for others, any actual ability for me to possibly be a stellar mother in the future, would not be present. There were marvelous places I needed to go. There were things I still needed to learn. Apparently… there still are.
This holds true for anything in our lives. The precarious existence that is this world sometimes does not afford us the thing we want at the moment we want it. Until we let go of the desires that bind us, we cannot ever know real freedom.
This is the freedom that Everett has. And ok, fair enough, who knows if he will want it ten years from now, but I will tell you quite earnestly that he is living in a new paradigm, partially of his own making, and inspiring thousands, if not more, to do the same.
I don’t need to tell the world what I want. It knows. There is a definite value to focus and intent, but really and truly? The more I let go, the more things come to me. I sit back and when the opportunity presents itself, then I leap.
It doesn’t mean I don’t take chances or action—writing to a complete stranger to get together whom I had found online? Never did that before. But it came from such a place of intuition and of selflessness, there was no need to pave a route, it was there. I didn’t need anything from Everett; I didn’t want anything from him. I liked his style. He seemed cool. If he thought I was a wackjob and didn’t want to respond, no biggie.
So, we’re coming to the precipice. We can hold tight to a rigid view of what we want it to look like, or we can let go of attachments and enjoy the ride for what it is.
If you had told me ten years ago my life would look like this I would have said: “no way.” For how many of us that does that truth hold water? If you had asked me last year what I want most in life, I would have easily spouted, “my partner in life and a family.” But that's not here. And the world knows better than I do. So perhaps that’s not my path. Maybe I am meant for different, more bizarre, perhaps greater things. I only want to: be. here. now. At my fullest. Whatever that looks like. So I’m letting go of my deepest desire because it’s been binding me. I opt instead for freedom. Scary, unknowable, uncomfortable, unprotected, sometimes lonely freedom.
“Ok, 2011. Whatever you say.”
Everett does not live outside the box. In his world, there is no box. He’s not off the grid; he’s above it. It was the snarky, youthful rebellion of his super smart pro-minimalist blog that attracted me to him, but it was fate, two open intuitions and matching gut instincts that had us traversing around Chicago on a late 2010, surprisingly sunny afternoon.
We talked about insane things. I mean, real things that are happening, but that are so far out of the mainstream that they’d be hard to believe. He opened my eyes to a fascinating digital lattice of rogue minimalists broncoing this world on their terms. Just shy of a decade younger, I also saw how differently, how much more quickly his mind could operate. How things that might seem abnormal to our generation, and crazypants to my mother, are enthusiastically welcomed with an open heart and mind. This is freedom. The capacity for this higher consciousness is going to be a no brainer for the youngin’s. It’s built in. Structures are falling, because they are not buying.
This year my new year’s resolution is to fully, once and for all, move over and let life take me. My mantra will be
“Ok, 2011. Whatever you say.”
I mean, I’ve pretty much been doing this for the last six or so years since that moment when everything fell apart. Just letting go, and letting it all brisk me along. Flight cancellation? No problem. A two-week trip turning into six months abroad? Did it. Didn’t get that fantastic job I thought was, for sure, mine? Ok, that’s the way it was supposed to be. But Mags’ particular mental kryptonite, even if I was my happiest, most flowing, easy self, across the world and deepening, or making money or riding high, (ok, and here I am... I'm going to cop to it) has been men.
By now, I was “supposed” to be married, with two kids in my West Village brownstone and meeting Bernadette Peters for routine lunch/shopping sprees at Bergdorf’s. Instead, I spent the month perched in legwarmers and sucking down green juice in my hometown, occasionally suffering through a Lifetime TV movie of the week to appease my mother. Which was, by far, my greatest familial sacrifice to date, and no small act of love on my part. (The Lifetime TV movies of the week, not the month with my mother.)
In the last six years, I have spent the very vast majority of my time alone. I see couples traveling together, comfortable in their familiarity—I don’t remember what that feels like. I don’t know what it’s like to have someone roll over and give you a kiss to wake you up on your birthday. This doesn’t bother me; it’s just foreign territory.
In the kitchen, precisely as I was typing this, my mother beseeched me:
“Just promise me one thing Margaret. You work so hard on your writing, yoga, your ‘oneness’ (picture her fleeting, disapproving nose-crunch,) promise me this year you will devote the same amount of time and attention to finding a man.”
Well mom, I’m sorry to disappoint, but this is, in fact, the opposite of what I am planning to do.
What I promise to do is honor every moment in front of me. Seize every experience as if my life depended on it, because quite obviously, it does. Breathe in the grit and the grime that is today and continue to plow through it in a state of unconditional, blinded love, even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts. Unconditional, blinded love for myself and everyone around me. I’m gonna get retro RENT all up in that piece and “No day but today” will be my theme song… and to do that, I am going to stop looking for a man.
Let me assure you that this does not come from some embittered space of being angry at men, or life, for not having given me a guy. Far from it. I love men. Bring ‘em on. What I am letting go of is the attachment to wanting men, from wanting to be married, from the desire to be one half a couple. I am not throwing men out from my life, I am taking a cue from Everett: I’m going minimalist. I’m opting for freedom, and for taking life as it comes.
So, what does that mean?
Well, it means no asking friends to set me up. No online dating. That handful of guys that I keep in my back pocket as a “maybe” “one day” “friends with benefits" “just for fun”? ? Done. Please exit the space of my mind. If you want reentrance, you better know how to show up for real. I’ve seen you do it before. You show up for business meetings and you show up for the superbowl. You’re capable.
Romances that have no shot of extending? Ok, that’s an adventure, those could work. (I mean, I’m not pledging to be a nun for God’s sake.) But keeping my radar up at a party? Looking down to check if the hot guy at the coffee shop has a wedding ring? Being a little extra flirty until the stranger references his girlfriend in the third sentence of conversation? Over.
If you actually saw inside my mind, you might think I’m being a little rash. I am hardly obsessive with any of these romantic thoughts. The guy who turned out to not like me so much last year (after seven months of me hoping he did,) well, he exited my thought sphere relatively quickly, but nowhere near as quickly as I would have liked. It was annoying as hell to know it wasn’t going to happen, and yet there he was, parked in my mind, lookin' all sexy, taking up space—I had no control over it.
I want freedom. Not from men. From my mind. Going minimalist does not mean giving men up entirely, it means living with only that which is necessary. And if we don’t have an equal energetic exchange… You are no longer necessary to my life. Consider yourself feng shui’d out. I'm streamlining my heart.
One of my favorite girlfriends (who also happens to be one of my smartest, most open, most generous, positive and grounded, drop-dead-gorgeous girlfriends) said to me while sitting on my couch a couple of months ago:
“You know, looking around at all the people I know, and how hard I’ve worked, all that I’ve accomplished and what I want in my life, I’m starting to wish and wonder ‘why can’t I just be married with a baby by now?’ “
Here’s my answer. Because you’re not done yet. We’re not done yet. Although I have friends who have thriving families with children in tow and still manage to be Manhattanite socialite butterflies and successful businesswomen, there is (of course, there should be) a different perspective in life when there's a family to consider.
And had I started my family years ago, everything in my life that to this date holds any real kind of value, a generosity for others, any actual ability for me to possibly be a stellar mother in the future, would not be present. There were marvelous places I needed to go. There were things I still needed to learn. Apparently… there still are.
This holds true for anything in our lives. The precarious existence that is this world sometimes does not afford us the thing we want at the moment we want it. Until we let go of the desires that bind us, we cannot ever know real freedom.
This is the freedom that Everett has. And ok, fair enough, who knows if he will want it ten years from now, but I will tell you quite earnestly that he is living in a new paradigm, partially of his own making, and inspiring thousands, if not more, to do the same.
I don’t need to tell the world what I want. It knows. There is a definite value to focus and intent, but really and truly? The more I let go, the more things come to me. I sit back and when the opportunity presents itself, then I leap.
It doesn’t mean I don’t take chances or action—writing to a complete stranger to get together whom I had found online? Never did that before. But it came from such a place of intuition and of selflessness, there was no need to pave a route, it was there. I didn’t need anything from Everett; I didn’t want anything from him. I liked his style. He seemed cool. If he thought I was a wackjob and didn’t want to respond, no biggie.
So, we’re coming to the precipice. We can hold tight to a rigid view of what we want it to look like, or we can let go of attachments and enjoy the ride for what it is.
If you had told me ten years ago my life would look like this I would have said: “no way.” For how many of us that does that truth hold water? If you had asked me last year what I want most in life, I would have easily spouted, “my partner in life and a family.” But that's not here. And the world knows better than I do. So perhaps that’s not my path. Maybe I am meant for different, more bizarre, perhaps greater things. I only want to: be. here. now. At my fullest. Whatever that looks like. So I’m letting go of my deepest desire because it’s been binding me. I opt instead for freedom. Scary, unknowable, uncomfortable, unprotected, sometimes lonely freedom.
“Ok, 2011. Whatever you say.”
Thursday, December 23, 2010
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.
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.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
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.
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.
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