Desire

Tags

churns the spinal column, Desire, Fire, insanity, preference, Shadow Yoga, Tapas, Yoga

Towards the end of the class now, and I’m exhausted. Shadow Yoga always does that. Often I feel like I want to puke. Or cry. Or fall on the ground in a heap. Or all of those things put together.

Every movement is both not enough and too much. I can’t find the way to stop the ache in my body, but I’d rather not stop. If only my legs wouldn’t shake.

We need a bolster each and I stand taller than ever, gliding over to the props. The soles of my feet are tingling, but not in that pins and needles way. More in the every-part-of-my-body-feels-vibrantly-alive-and-yet-its-my-feet-that-feel-it-the-most kinda way.

They all look the same more or less. Long and roundish. Some blue, some lavender. And yet I notice I’m searching for the one I want above all others. Which strikes me as absurd. Still, in the mass of sameness, I crave differentness. I crave my preference. I seem to have some idea of what that preference is, despite a complete lack of distinguishing features from one to the next.

And then we lie over our bolsters, feet on a block, shoulders on the ground and relax. And I couldn’t care less.

That bolster-want was superfluous, of course. Redundant, but noisy nonetheless. And if I’d allowed myself to listen, I could’ve driven myself nuts and/or missed another minute or two of relaxation. It’s a tiny bit of insanity, is it not? To care about which bolster among so many is the best one for me?

Some would say that desire for a bolster is the same as the desire for enlightenment and understanding one’s essence nature…

There’s a searingly profound honesty in this yoga. Or perhaps it’s doing this kind of yoga at this specific time in my life? Or both? Anyway, it’s hard work and not just physically.

Every movement challenges what I think I know about myself because it’s all so unusual, supremely physical and requiring me to think about my body in ways I normally don’t.

Much of what we do churns the spinal column from the base of the skull to the tail bone and in so doing, churns those other hidden repositories of emotion and fear. The fear plays out in what my mind allows my body to do or not do. The emotion spews forth in the volume of my perspiration, and how often I feel like I’m about to vomit tears onto the floorboards.

Afterwards, it takes all I have to float down the studio stairs and out into the day…

~Svasti

It’s all in your head

Tags

Ahamkara, Chinnamasta, Cravings, Desire, Dreams, Guru, Headless, Ida, Kevin Costner, Limitations, Meditation, Nourishment, Pingala, Shakti, Shiva, Spirituality, Sushumna, Waterworld, Wrathful

Little known goddess Chinnamasta, a wrathful incarnation of Ma, who in effect is really Shakti, who’s Shiva anyway… is not as wrathful as she seems. Least, not in the way we Westerners tend to define wrath.

Looking so fierce and scary, she decapitates herself to provide nourishment for her companions, the three of them wandering as they are (but really, are Ida, Pingala and Sushumna).

The other two were hungry (spiritually, energetically?) and so without ego, Chinnamasta removes her head, providing the ultimate life-giving nourishment. In the process, ridding herself of an appendage that often gets us lesser mortals in strife. The ‘home’ of the mind (which has no home in the physical body), the ahamkara (I-maker/ego).

Headless… the very idea, generally considered gruesome, but I sorta know how she feels.

Or at least, my dream self does.

Vivid and seemingly non-stop in my formative years (circa primary school era), a series of dreams, a little bit like one of those American soaps you can pick up on ten years later – ever unfolding at snails-pace with lots of scenes repeated.

Everything submersed in water, a bit like Waterworld, except (thankfully) not starring Kevin Costner and my soporiferous thoughts occurred long before that movie regretfully saw the light of day.

Some water was deeper than others, but a fair bit was only chest high. The name of the game in this world – don’t lose your head.

Had to keep watch for the ‘knights’ (I don’t think they were knights, but they rode on horseback and carried swords). The thing to do if they were around, was submerge yourself fully, hold your breath and wait for them to go away.

Because, we all knew what happened to those who were caught: decapitation.

This water-covered world flooded my nocturnal landscape with frequency. But I’d be doing something a little different every time. Playing with my friends, at school or in some other part of the world I wasn’t quite familiar with. Each time they came, we’d duck. Or I’d duck, if alone. Each time we survived we congratulated ourselves.

Every so often, amidst this night-time play, I found myself in something of a predicament. Caught.

Then, my head was gone. My neck relieved of its weight, rolled off to who knows where.

Curiously, I did not die. In fact, with every passing moment I discovered the freedom of the headless. I could still breathe, and talk and think. I was not my head, my head was not me.

Running through my schoolyard, testing my new way of being. Found a horrified looking friend or two, and tried to say – look, there’s no need for your head! I’m still okay, I’m alive and now I don’t need to hide from the knights!

Was it terror, disinterest or perhaps disdain for something different? Or the lot? They weren’t buying it. They had no interest in this new, headless me.

Sure, it was strange but pleasant and yet, so lonely. No one else wanted to willingly have their head cut off, too. They kept up their ducking and hiding and their noggins on their shoulders.

And I… got bored being the only one with this kind of freedom. What fun is there, if you’re the only one?

So, by the powers of the dreamscape where all things are possible, I found my head re-attached. And life went on…

There’s much of life we think of as occurring in our mind. There’s much we create in our mind we think of as this world, much larger than it really is. Causing confusion and loss.

Loss – of a limb, an idea, thoughts or people from our life, generating heartbreak. We feel it in the chest region (at least I do, and cuttingly so) though that heartbreak is self-created and projected outwards, as though it’s happening to us, instead of coming from us.

Chinnamasta’s messages are many, but include the idea of self-love and self-sacrifice for the benefit of many, which in the end, benefits you, too.

Doing away with the need to duck and hide, and assuming the worst when, for all we know, there’s more freedom on the other side than we can ever imagine from this vantage point.

I know now, what it is I crave.

~Svasti

Hormonal warfare

Tags

Anxiety, Desire, Eye contact, Happiness, Hormones, Intimacy, Positive, Red wine, Senses, Sensual, Sex, Spring, Tapas, Waking up

I’m like a little seed, dusty and dry but full of potential. A seed that’s been sitting in the garden shed in the dark for a very long time. Waiting. With no reason to think there was a way out from that unnatural yet safe place I’ve sheltered in, weathering the storm of recovery.

Perhaps the change of season has something to do with it?

For rather suddenly I feel exceptionally alive! It’s Spring, not yet Summer. But the weather is becoming reliably warmer and more beautiful. There’s a flavour to the air. A warm caress on the breeze. Cascading blossoms of every colour to take in with the eyes and nose.

It’s almost like I’ve never used my senses to engage with the world before. Not properly. Not like this. I can feel every hair follicle on my head. No situation is without intense sensory involvement.

Could it be… could I be… finding some happiness? Possibly really waking up after this seemingly endless numb-out?

There are difficulties still, but they take center stage less and less.

However there’s one issue that currently looms larger than any other.

Sex. Intimacy. Or the lack thereof. I posted about this topic a few months back.

Once again comes into view. The first trigger was the boy who’s recently been paying me some attention in a coy kind of way.

That situation created a lot of anxiety for me. I didn’t know how to respond at all. Especially if someone’s not being up front. I can barely hold a decent conversation with the guy, as sweet as he is. I guess that means it’s simply not right anyway. Surely if it was, it would be much easier. That doesn’t stop the anxiety running ten to the dozen though!

And I’ve just begun to realise how often I go out of my way to avoid eye contact with men I don’t know.

In that respect it was tough starting my new job, in which I have to deal with new people every day at the moment. New clients to talk to regularly. Some of them are men. It’s been a swift learning curve though, so I’m grateful for that.

And yet… gawd, there are periods each day where I’m totally and completely overwhelmed by my desire to be, erm, getting it on!!

I have the hormones of a teenager.

Except for one very minor blip, there’s been nothing on the radar at all in the last three years. So I’m apparently stuck in this way a little… because I can’t wilfully lift out of this issue with the same effort I’ve applied in almost every other area of my recovery.

I’m afraid of getting what I want, and I want it badly… but I also don’t know how to get there. And if I do get there, I’m not sure if I’ll feel safe and secure.

Amusingly, I think all that sexual energy is being sublimated into other areas of my life. I nearly lost it completely over dinner with friends on Friday night. Granted, we were eating some of the most delicious tapas I’ve had in years. I was also drinking some pretty spectacular red wine… it was very intense and sensual.

I’m just grateful for the mercies of meditation practice that help redistribute the rest of that energy!

~Svasti