Gurus, Bones & Furniture (Repost from 2009)

I just rearranged the furniture to undo 500 years of repression & anger.

Surprising? I know, it is not my usual M.O.  I mean I love to rearrange furniture (After all I AM a woman in the time of "Real Simple" and "Martha Stewart" magazines), but normally the process is  a creative release at best and a distraction from negative feelings at worst.  Today the activity had more purpose - the healing of collective wounds.

It's been an unusual day. Okay, week. Okay, year.   I've been mad.  I mean M-A-D, mad.  The kind you can feel through walls, from the other end of the house.  Yesterday, as my partner and I did some errands on the way to the "Medicines From the Earth" conference, I stewed. Waiting at the juice counter at the grocery store, a thought congealed, "I've been angry for...god...I don't know how long...Years?  Decades? Eons? For a long, long time.  And not healthy anger of the lioness.  No this is the unbecoming repressed anger that gets stuffed down deep, deep into the bones and then seethes out into the ethers. 

 As the thought came further into my awareness I realized I wasn't just angry at this beautiful, sweet, patient, spiritual man I profess to love, I was angry at MEN.  All Men...many of the men I claimed to love...even beyond that.  I was just plain pissed off.

It would be so simple to blame it on my parents (sorry guys)...you know the usual stuff we blame them for. "She did x" and "he did y" (fill in the blank).  And sure there may be some truth to that...but since I believe I picked my parents to fulfill my Karmic destiny the story must go beyond that.  And since blaming them hasn't worked for me in the past...I figured I'd go where I felt it most...to these old bones of mine.

The bones...mmm...the bones...the heaviest part of our bodies..the part made of minerals...the part that correlates to earth...to ground.  Sandy my yoga teacher up at HI is doing some work on the energy of bones...but she's pretty tight lipped about it.  Recently, I've met some earthy Taoist practitioners who introduced me to the concept of bone beating.  Bone beating entails taping 20 or so wooden dowels together and rapping them against your body.  I know, I know...it sounds crazy...but so did beating yourself with soaked birch branches in the saunas of Finland...and selling your house to tour via motor-coach (Dad)...and canoeing down a flooding river (mom)...or loving your dog beyond your budget (sis).    I may be crazy, but I something about it feels good...  Like a great yoga pose that you need to relax into...something that clears me out...unknots old habits...reconfigures patters. Mixes up my DNA.

That DNA comes from my parents...and theirs from their parents...and theirs from theirs...and back and back and back. Really, I got my DNA from the original man and woman.  Its in every tissue, every cell.  And if I have their DNA, then I have their history.  According to Mayatitandanda (a beautiful Ayurveda practitioner), I have their memory in my bones. 

Well, I can think of a few things from my Northern European descendant's history that might make me a little ticked off.  I've been reading lately about the Enclosures of England..of the persecution of midwives and healers (witches)...and the dismissal of Mary Magdaline by the council of Nicaea.  I don't know about you but I might feel a little angry about being forced into a role that casts me as a financial burden because my skills of animal husbandry, herbology and midwifery is no longer valued in a newly commodified world.  I might develop repressed anger about being burned at the stake because I was a skilled healer, a beautiful (or for that matter, ugly) woman, or competition for the rising medical profession.  I might be irrationally pissed off because my role as equal and empowered partner was reduced to that of mere whore.  Yeah...I guess there is some unacknowledged rage in them-there bones.

Ok, ok, ok.  How does this relate to furniture?

We'll I was talking to a new acquaintance today and we were sharing how sometimes we feel permeable.  For example, how sometimes the strong opinion of another, or their perception of reality  can make ours feel less real.  It's like I'm not heavy enough to hold my own opinion in the face of others. I blow around in the the wind of their ideas. The alpha dog's wavelengths colors my momentary reality.   (And here's an interesting tidbit...the word Guru is sometimes translated to mean heavy.  Like a guru is heavy enough that the opinions, ideas, and realities of others doesn't affect his/her ability to know the real truth of things.)

Even when other people aren't around, but I'm in their space, I can be influenced by the conviction of their ideas.   I do a lot of house sitting. The feeling I have of myself can shift depending on whose house I'm living in.   (this week at a dog sitting job I was content and peaceful, last year at another job I felt brittle ...at my    And those walls are heavier than I am.

 Rosita Avril (the student of Don Ellijo Ponti and the women who has lived in the back of my consciousness since I met her  20 years ago in the jungle of Belize)...was lecturing today about the properties of water (not quite as heavy as earth...more like the consistency of blood...but that's besides the point.)    She was saying that if you're drawing yourself a bath (or tea) and stewing on something negative, the water will absorb that energy and you'll end up bathing in that negativity.   She referenced the work of Dr Masaru Emoto, who photographed molecules of water after they were prayed over (images like snowflake) and then molecules after they were cursed at (murky sludge).  Again and again he got the same results.   So, if the bath can absorb the energy after a short while, what would 20 years inside the walls of a house do?

You all know, I live in someone else's house...and I don't know much about them. From what I can guess, it was very traditional (in the sense of the 1950's traditional.)  I love it out here...its beautiful AND sometimes I feel unlike myself.  It's like it can calls me to play some role that isn't really me....or the role my grandmother played and hated.  So, today...after the whole anger thing about being a repressed woman...the discussion about heaviness...and the lecture on the vibration of water...  I decided to follow in the steps of my new acquaintance and switch up the energy of the place a bit.   I decided I needed to put more of my own positive vibrations into the place I live...to make this my temple...and to do that i had break up the old patterns...like breaking up scar tissue.  Since I can't tear the walls down...or even paint..I moved the furniture around.  Then I lit some incense; prayed to the powerful females I know; and did a little jig. 

If I can break up the scar tissue held in the walls of this house, even if it is only symbolic, then maybe I can breakup the scar tissue held in my bones. If I can build walls of positive vibration, then just maybe I can build a body of one.  And then maybe with a clear vessel I can truly walk in empowered love. 

Tomorrow is the new moon.  A great time for casting new intentions.  I'm having some women over to celebrate.  My intention  for this new moon is for us to support and encourage each other in becoming powerful, loving, receptive beings.  In loving ourselves enough we can let ourselves  shine...become empowered loving women, sisters, partners....and perhaps heal these collective wounds in our bones. Too often I find myself competing with the women in my life...feeling inadequate...insecure...and not enough. Then I get angry at my friends...at their successes..at their dreams.  I find myself being less then whole, less than loving, less than...well less then me.   (again I wonder if this is a throw back from my competitive childhood household...or from Junior High...which in fact could just be a throw back to  a time when women  had to compete with each other to find a good mate so we would be taken care of and survive.)

I want to create new soil in which to grow.  David Weiss is a agriculturist from South Carolina I met today at the conference.  His occupation is to put nutrients back into the soil to alleviate the Hemlock Wooly Adelgid blight.  He hypothesizes that if the soil is sound and full of the proper trace minerals and macronutrients then the tree will be healthy and can resist the disease.  I want to do the same thing in my life...i want to put the trace minerals and macronutrients of love, support and encouragement back into my soil so that I can resist the blight of anger, rage and blame.  There is so much love and support and encouragement around me.  From my dear, dear sisters to my profound brother...from my loving parents to my inspired teachers...I am loved and encouraged.  Since my bones have been carrying the vibration of anger...I've been a bit blinded to this.   

But I'm moving the furniture around...getting heavy and light at the same time. Creating more space, making better soil, and letting in the light.  It's a new time and a new tribe. 

Blessed Be. 

 

A PRAYER TO THE FAMILY TREE (AND OTHER VOICES IN MY HEAD): re-post from 2009:

I had dinner in the house of Magick and Mystery tonight. That’s what I’m calling a 19^th century brick Victorian gingerbread that you might find in an Alice in Wonderland scene, or (to honor the owner) a Tom Robbins novel.  It would take too long to describe it adequately, so instead just imagine Dr. Seuss meets Colonial England with a seasoning of chaos and inspired unexpected.  In the main boudoir (and it IS a boudoir, complete with grand piano and antique sofa) hangs a print by Norman Rockwell.  It is his family tree…the astonishing family tree. 

The image is of the red-haired archetypical golden boy of the 1950's.  And to his left is his proper-house-wife mother, and right his business-as-usual-bread-winning father.  As the tree goes back, the characters get more interesting.  There is the gypsy, the native American, and the pirate.  So unexpected, so passionate and exotic, so...ASTONISHING.

It got me thinking about my own family and their lineage. 

I always dread any neo-hippy ceremony when we’re asked to the “call in our ancestors”.  Don’t get me wrong…I’m grateful for mine.  I’m sure that I wouldn’t be sitting here now using these very real fingers to type this lovely diatribe if it weren’t for each and every one.   And I bet they were a fine bunch of folks.  But damn, some days I feel the weight of their souls in every cell of my being.  I feel the heavy dankness of each numbing addiction, every clinging desire, all ignorant prejudices, and all matter of beliefs, goals, truths and nonsense.  It’s heavy, inert, depressing.  Talk about a downer.

I wonder, why not an upper? Why not lightness?  Why not gaiety?  Why not love and beauty, support and guidance? I guess that’s the point when we’re asked to call them into the circle - to recognize their unique talents and strengths…their shared lessons…their exquisite gifts.  I wonder why do those things feel less alive in my bones than the grief, shame, hate, anger, jealousy, and greed?

Am I simply stuck in pessimism?  Falling prey to the negative vibrations of discontent learned from the world around me.  Instead of feeling the joy of my ancestors and their wisdom as they live on through me, perhaps I’ve adopted other voices from my past and allowed them to worm their way into my DNA?  The half-baked lovers, teachers and friends I clung to for refuge in times of unknowing who offered well-intentioned but potential inaccurate and even harmful advice?  Has those opinions of what is right and good turned into should’s and ought’s that now whirl like a blurry knife that slivering me off from my authentic self and family, requiring me to vigilantly question and doubt every minute experience?

In times like these it’s helpful to remember the wisdom of Buddha,

 “People with opinions just go around bothering one another.”

So with that, first let me call out to the universe of completion and rebirth, ”I no longer will fall prey to another’s story of reality.  I am WILLING and READY to trust my own self.  I am here to remember who I truly am and respect that above all other things. To be like Jesus or Socrates and DIE rather than give up the conviction of whom I really am and what I truly believe in.  Fools with opinions be damned. “

Second, I make a request.  “Family tree…I know somebody, somewhere was a great singer, a profound artist, a practical statesman and a masterful magician!  Let me feel those gifts coursing in my blood, singing in my bones, emanating from my aura.  Offer those gifts as my inheritance.  Grant me the permission to toss the Louis Vinton trunks and freight train baggage of disempowerment into the Ganges, Nile, or whatever sacred river you’d like.  The French Broad is just down the road. Will that do?”

With the anger, hate, shame, and guilt gone.  I want welcome you in as you are.  But, since I do not know you by proper name, I will call you into the circle as I know you to be.  Ancestors, I’d like to call in:

Wild flowers and fir trees…and the fig trees too.

….Quan Yin and Hanaman

Brother wolf and sisters eagle

The loving Tara and the fierce Sekmet. 

  … Armetis,  Maat, and some rich, dark African Queen whose name is unknown to me

Dragons…

…. and brightly painted Brahmin Cows!!!!

                                         …and great, great grand father tortoise too.

Deep pools of clear, lightly perfumed water from forest streams

       ….and newly formed cherry blossoms

Late night games of charades on the front porch

      …and canning the garden harvest into the green mason jars of my imagination.

Unicorns,

the Phenoix…

                        …and  the Siberian tigress

Magicians and Alchemists

            … Seers and Sages

 Medicine Women

            …Priestesses

Warriors: Zen, Hindu and wild women of the Americas. 

…Poets: profound and passionate

Music and Merry makers.

            …Scholars and pens.

The spirits of the small stone church west of Astorga Spain…

            …Ajax Mountain and the woods out back

The Calligrapher and the Archer…
  ....and  faery folk of my youth

            …and the soft subtle sweetness of my own heart.

I’m beginning to remember now.

The members of this lineage have been very patient with me as I learn to disengage from the world of black and white and good and bad.  I am coming back to the world of grey-dation…and with your help I am learning to live vibrantly there. 

Like the great goddess Durga who received a boon from each of the Gods and Goddesses of the Hindu Pantheon, each of you have give me a treasured gift. I promise to wield them all with great respect.  And allow myself to express the power of an authentic imperfect self. I remember you well…as you were…singing yourself into existence.

Dear Ancestors…I am honored to call you into my circle. I will never forget you again. Stay if you can, go if you must, A-ho and fair thee well.