Listening to the Wind

I awoke this morning with the sunshine. Almost two hours before my alarm went off. It is clear to me what's happening - SPRING is happening! I am being called out of my dormancy by the powerful uprising energy of spring. I am waking to the sound of birds singing, and the energy of thaw and mud. I couldn't be more joyful about it, either! I have survived the darkest, bleakest winter of my life.

There were times during this darkness when the sorrow, despair, loss, and anxiety threatened to consume me. I have never been through a time when I felt closer to my own extinction. This has been a time of going through the fire, of having so much burned away. My ideas about life, about who I am, about my path, about other people, about what is right and wrong in this world, about meaning and purpose - all of these things were shredded, ripped away, burned up, and shed. But somehow I am emerging in a way that is NOT scarred, NOT jaded, NOT shut down, NOT bitter. I am emerging as from a cocoon, softer, more open, and with fewer answers than before.

The other day, between my two Thursday classes, I found some space in the sun to have my lunch. I squished my way through the mud and climbed up onto a rock in one of the gardens. The wind was a bit brisk, but the sun was wonderful, and after I finished eating, I sat there, just taking it in. The wind began to blow, and while my first response was to shiver (I was wearing a skirt, and was a bit cold) my second, and stronger, response was to listen. The wind doesn't have any sound of its own, it only makes a sound when it meets an object that resists its dance... I sat up taller, and listened more carefully, barely breathing, yearning for more understanding.

The sound of wind in tall, dry grass. The sound of wind around buildings. The sound of wind around my body. The sound of wind in the trees, in the dead leaves. Yes, it was true. Each time I heard the wind, it was only because the wind was meeting resistance. And of course, this is a truth that I know well, for it is only through the wind from within my body meeting the sharp silver plate of my flute that music is borne.

I became aware of the power of edges...it is in these places where things meet that the apparent universe is borne into sensory experience. Light falls upon an object and reflects - and we see. Wind meets objects as it flows, and we hear. The body meets an object, and we feel touch. As I sat there, I tuned into the edges, the meetings that were happening all around me, the resistance that occurred when two things meet. Woman walking in high heels. Clicking against the sidewalk. Earth and feet in a dance of resistance. Resist, surrender, resist, surrender - her footsteps were indeed a dance of moving into the Earth, and moving away from the Earth. Togetherness apartness togetherness apartness. And too, the wind dances in sound and in silence - swirling around form and waiting in stillness, swirling and waiting. Taste is a dance of the same longing - the satisfaction of good chocolate, and the absence of it. The fragrance of hyacinths in spring, entering my body, touching my heart, and drifting away as I exhale, as Spring exhales into the full glory of Summer. There is this dance of togetherness and apartness, of desire and satiation, of receiving and letting go, of touch and release. The very edge of these dual forces meet at an edge that the wind showed me - the edge where apparently separate forms meet and touch and resist and dance. The whole manifest world is making love with itself in every moment, dancing itself in embrace and surrender.

No wonder we humans love to make love so much...to dance with each other in the ways that the world dances with itself in each moment.

Surrender

Tonight when I arrived home, I decided to follow the suggestion of a yoga teacher friend of mine, and spend twenty minutes in a supported chest opener pose, and wow! I feel really calm and centered right now. I reclined on the floor, with my back arching over a rolled blanket, and my head fell back onto a pillow, and my arms open at 2/10 o'clock. I brought my feet together, and let my knees fall open, also resting each one on a pillow. There I remained for twenty minutes, listening to this beautiful music, "Devi Prayer" by Craig Pruess and Ananda. My body struggled to really let go, but moments washed over me when I was not merely lying there on the floor, but deliberately surrendering myself to the ground beneath me.

My nervous system slowly began to release, and I could feel the way that my body and mind are still in a state of emergency. While most of this state of being extends from the trauma of being with Familiar kitty as he passed, I believe that it goes beyond that immediate situation. The speed with which we live our lives in this part of the world is its own trauma state, and the anxiety about this, then the next thing...our nervous systems are all spun up into a state of madness. Fear of keeping our lifestyles, fear of making enough money, fear of maintaining our jobs, fear of not being successful, fear of the economy crashing, fear of the swine flu...it just goes on and on. And while most of these things don't come up in my life on a regular basis, I am certainly at the energetic mercy of a culture that I swim within...until I consciously work with that to shift things within myself.

As I reclined on my yoga mat, being held by soft pillows and covered by a warm blanket, I heard my mind grasping, reaching, searching...in essence, protecting me, trying to make sure things are safe. And there is a voice in my head that believes that even here, in my home of nearly eight years, in this sweet neighborhood, and on this quiet night, I might be in some danger. Okay, it is not likely! Another voice in my head knows that and tries to dismiss this one. But there the other one remains, in constant duty as a sentinel. A plane could crash into the house! Or someone could break in! Or a fire! Or or or or or orororororor...on and on and on. And once my rational mind has dismissed all of those possibilities, worse ones arise... Ones that sound insane. Energetic violations and dangers. What if the ghost of Familiar kitty comes to do yoga with me, as he always used to do? Or what if there are other energies there, just waiting for me to relax and surrender, to then feast upon my unguarded being? And then, worst of all...the danger isn't external, it isn't even external energetically...it is my own body! My own body is the threat to my safety! It's not a robber or a ghost that will bring me harm...it is my own cells, my own body will destroy itself! Sigh...I can't live like this.

It's a good thing I already know that I am not my mind. =)

In ceremony a long time ago I became aware that I didn't know how to relax. Gradually, I have been coming into a place inside of myself that can soften into life, whether things are easy or difficult, fast or slow, peaceful or tumultuous. But this loss of my kitty has thrown all of that off. What a gift this is, showing me how I have not yet really mastered this process of relaxing. Heehee. It is a gift, for sure. The truth of groundlessness has been revealed to me in the most undeniable way. I spend time every day in a place of knowing that death is sitting right beside of me. That everything that I create will be destroyed. That everyone and everything that I know and love will die, and life will go on living itself alive. I am powerless to do anything about that. And sitting with that as my companion each day has not been easy...it is a hell of a teacher, that is for sure!

What I am coming to understand is hard to articulate right now. It is connected to the esoteric teachings of so many wise beings. About life and death and spiritual practice. About surrendering everything into the fire of love. About dropping the ego. About...hmm...well, the point behind everything. I can't give it words yet, because I know I am still lost in the fog. But what I can see is that every idea that I ever had about life and death and spirituality were much more intellectual just a few weeks ago. Even Madre Ayahuasca couldn't give me this teaching. I am beginning to understand why they have always said that wisdom comes through life experience. No esoteric teaching, no book, no philosophy could have ever really brought me into facing life and death like this. Not even close.

As I was there on the floor, working to relax and surrender, the thought crossed my mind, why would I be afraid if the ghost of Familiar kitty did come to do yoga with me? Why would I automatically fear any energetic presence that might come into my space? Just like Javier would have guided me to do, I turned the automatic fear response around. I relaxed into the idea of both, accepting their possibilities, but also looking into them directly. Turn around and face the monster that is chasing you...right? As I put my attention upon this, a lightness filled my body, and I felt like I was floating. I let my breathing settle and felt the energy move within me in the most gentle, yet radiant way. The music, totally sublime, carried me through this inner space, drifting in the lightness. And I began to relax.