MEXICAN OPALS — (A True Story)

I had the good fortune to have come of age in the early 1960’s. The joke is “if you remember the 60’s, you weren’t there.” It was a wonderfully wild time to be alive and young. I have to chuckle recalling Timothy Leary’s admonition; “Don’t trust anyone over thirty.” We were the children taught to get under our desks and cover our heads if there was a nuclear attack; is it any wonder we grew up questioning the accepted reality? One, not living during that accelerated ‘Enlightenment’, can’t begin to imagine the period. As one song yelled “Kick out the Jams… Mother-Fucker!” It amazes me how conservative culture has become—in part a reaction to our concentrated, undisciplined and naive wildness.

“Turn on, Tune in… and Drop-out!” My rebirth had accelerated beyond a place where college related to my experience. A strange brew of experimentation and idealism fueled a lifestyle for many of my generation. Consciousness expanded by grass and psychedelics. A foolish war in Southeast Asia fought against on the home-front. Demanding civil liberty and human rights for racial minorities, sexual diversity, equal status for women — we were the warriors fighting for a New Age, and we found comfort during our struggles in each others arms. A sexual revolution unparalleled raged in a time period when sexually transmitted disease was easily controlled with antibiotics and Aids didn’t exist. Effective birth control was just invented.  “Free Love” was our slogan and such a glorious period of random coupling!

Mexican Opals — Weight Loss Through Yoga, Jewel in the Lotus

Mexican Opals — Weight Loss Through Yoga, Jewel in the Lotus

You could safely hitchhike, probably picked up by other rebels and offered a joint. Many of us floated around on journeys of discovery. A good friend and kindred spirit, Scott Rund, returned from an extended adventure in Mexico. He had sent me magic mushrooms in a jar of honey he’d been given by a shaman in Wahaca, and on his return showed me two long cylindrical jars full of raw opals The beautiful gemstones were in water and still had bits of the rock they had been imbeded-in attached.

“I’ve decided, every time I sleep with a girl — I’ll give her one of these opals.” I remember thinking what a great idea, a sharing, after a sharing. Little did I realize how many mornings I’d wake after a night of blissful copulation and look over onto the bed stand or dresser of my impromptu perfect lover — and see one of those distinctive beautiful raw opals.

Mexican Opal — Weight Loss Through Yoga, Jewel in the Lotus

Mexican Opal — Weight Loss Through Yoga, Jewel in the Lotus

Telling this tale causes me to reflect on some lessons I might share as we are just starting this New Age where once again we’ll be using our bodies in a dance of liberation. This new dawn of Tantra. How easy it is when you have many varied partners to see them merge in your awareness, to be all one woman — each woman, all femininity. Yourself — represent all masculinity. How easy — especially then, on psychedelics — now, the heightened conscious gained through yoga making the drug no longer necessary — to merge with your partner in your embrace. A yin/yang with the dividing boundary dissolved, flowing into each other — Being One.    Realizing that One is Divine.    That One is All.    That One is Us.         We are Love!

KUNDALINI MEDITATION 8

379177_384153358348287_1306741558_nKnowing the true origin of all good, effort becomes efficient as the illusions of human politics are exposed. Many paths, some more appropriate to each individual’s circumstance, offer real freedom. Any situation can be utilized. No sadness, because all souls return eventually to their source. No status, no competition. When compared to the backdrop of infinity, we’re only beginning. Ultimate love, where everyone makes it, no one is lost, all come home. What we’d deemed sin is mere dallying on the way. Our efforts are less important than the sincerity with which they are performed.67922_471113726285693_1174051803_n

KUNDALINI MEDITATION 7

559977_207253539414885_561017467_nAt times we feel things are right, somehow connected and positive. At other times in our wandering, we have a sense of aloneness and feel out of sync and disconnected. It is as if a beam were shinning down and we feel love when we’re in its warmth, and loss when we’re outside its light. The soul, traveling through its incarnations, circles ever further from its point of origin. As it gets closer to the source of the beam, the beam narrows and gets more dense. The distinction between being ‘in’ and ‘out’ becomes greater. The traveler no longer circles randomly, but through trial and error finds direction. With intent, a crossroads in development of the soul is reached. The Godhead is actively sought. God, divided into innumerable fragments, formed our existence. God, a part of everything. Now a piece of that everything discovers God in itself and seeks its way back to the whole.

Numerous lifetimes of searching and we locate the exact direction to the source. No longer weaving ‘in’ and ‘out’ we have direction and look out of the heart center up the spine to a star shinning bright, guiding us as the Three Wise Men of biblical myth were guided to an incarnation of the Godhead extant on the physical plane. Visualize that star behind the throat. “I Am” — the word, the way, the path. Effort is made to draw closer to the source of all pleasure, understanding and meaning. Other worldly pursuits aren’t abandoned, but are now seen as tools for learning lessons that will help us draw closer.DSC0073web

KUNDALINI MEDITATION 6

309828_399191510166651_1556835886_nThe physical universe is so huge and vast, of which we know so little, but have the audacity to reduce in our minds to three dimensions: length, depth, and height. Simplistic conceptions are even more impaired attempting to explain the spiritual. Observing this physical plane and pausing to reflect on the wonder of the realm we inhabit, take a slow breath through the nose, counting to four as you inhale. Hold that breath for two counts of eight and then exhale to a count of eight. Ponder the Biblical expression, “God so loved the world that he sent his son”; translated, the spiritual placed itself in a physical form so as to be able to experience this amazing physical universe. When each child takes its first breath, a soul enters that body to utilize for a lifetime as a vehicle to experience the physical plane. Forced head first into the world by the contractions of the birth canal, the newborn is lifted by its mother to her breast over the heart center.DSC0005web

Relax your breathing to its natural pattern, watching the young mother gazing down on the child suckling at her breast while the infant’s hands idly grasp, feeling her hair. Experience love, the rhythm of the mothers heart beating through its four chambers. The cross, mystic symbol representing ‘four’, a crossroads. Time, the fourth dimension, carries the being through the experience of human love: mother, father, siblings, family, a warm puppy, a close friend. A crossroads is reached, emotion in an even higher form: Awareness of God. With birth the individual travels outward through time from its starting point, in ever expanding circles of experience.734322_292470130876497_1531336399_n

KUNDALINI MEDITATION 5

OUR SUN

OUR SUN

Sun — center of our universe, source of the energy that supports life on earth. The imagination floats up from the sun, out through the solar system, passing each planet in turn. Up ever further until we see the sun as only another star in a constellation of stars. Then the constellation recedes until it appears no more than a spot of light among billions of lights forming the Milky Way. Further out, until the galaxy appears but a tiny star among trillions of other galaxies, then outward to the edge of our universe. Looked at from the side, it looks like a little loop of energy.

Back down to earth, we return with the speed of thought. Behind the diaphragm, our lily gently rocks on the water under the warmth of the sun. Dragonflies dart by, birds sing, and fish swim below the surface. What an amazing world. Attention microscopes down to a lotus petal. Down to the individual cells. Down further to the molecules making up the cell, then the atoms forming the molecules. Further down to the electrons, protons, and neutrons that comprise the atom. On down to the quarks that are the building blocks of the protons and neutrons. At this minute level, the distance between the matter that forms the subatomic particles is so great that it is, in its own scale, as great as the distance between the stars in the heavens. Our physical universe is mostly energy with very little matter. Further yet our imagination carries us, till we see what comprises the quarks, looked at from the side, little loops of energy.

QUARK

QUARK

KUNDALINI MEDITATION 4

522529_279120852191180_1202913849_nSimultaneously, the stem shaft of our plant breaks the surface of the water, basking in the warm orange light of the sun as it filters through the dawn atmosphere above. The plant stem opens, releasing two beautiful leaves that rest and bob on the water in the warm sunlight like the leaves of a lily. The water gently rocks the lotus leaves. The water below, the sky above. The vagina contracts, savoring more stimulation, causing the penis to throb with increased feeling. The vagina contracts in response, the penis swelling again with its good fortune. The two work together and against each other behind the navel, contracting and expanding. Duality exists in all its forms of expression: in and out; soft and hard; male and female; the relationship represented by the yin yang and either/or thinking. The one is made aware of itself through interaction with the other.

Sexual yearning intensifies; the waves undulate, rocking our lily. A carnal exclamation rises from the soul. All is beautiful lust as a tidal wave of passion breaks. The vagina pulls all creation in as the penis explodes, bursting with ecstasy. The union is complete. The two become three as great spurts of sperm splash mixing with the orgasmic cervical secretions and a wondrous blossom opens. A lovely lotus flower with a thousand white petals holds its face up to the sun. The sun looks down on the lily with warm rapture and the lotus follows the suns nurturing rays back to their source above and behind the diaphragm.

 

A YOGA ADVENTURE — What Goes Around, Comes Around

During the summer of 2010, I went on a tour of Northeastern India. The tour was presented by Know India Travel and was titled “Great Indian Religions and Cultures”.  Organized by Kelly McHenry who works as a librarian at Seattle Central College – in love with the country – she had led nine tours previously, mainly so she could share in the enjoyment of the experience.

The itinerary was planned so we explored mosques and temples of all the major religions and visited the Taj Mahal the final day. One thing that added so much depth to the experience was our guide, Dr. Arvind Singh. An expert on Indian religions, history, and culture; when we saw something exotic he could tell us what we were observing.

We flew into New Delhi and visited the beautiful Muslim Red Fort. On we traveled overnight by train to Amritsar, to the heart of Sikhism, the amazing Golden Temple. Then we took a long bus ride into the foothills of the Himalayas, to Dharamsala. This is the residence of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile.

To get there, we bused over winding narrow roads with spectacular views looking over cliffs deep into mountain valleys with the headwaters of the Ganges winding through. At one point we met another bus coming the other way, where some of the road had partly washed out. Our driver backed to the outside edge of the road to let the other bus pass by. Looking out a back window, I could see the very rear of the bus hanging over the precipice with the back tire only a foot from the red clay drop-off, down what looked like miles, into the valley below. The other bus passed and we continued up the mountain, business as usual.

We arrived in Dharamsala just before dusk, and our hotel was right where the road entered town. We had another fabulous meal and went to bed. I’m in the habit of waking at 4:00 in the morning getting up and doing some yoga and meditating. I wake exactly at 4:00 without an alarm. I was surprised, when we arrived in New Delhi near midnight two days before, that next morning – after a 17hour flight and half a world away, I still woke exactly at 4:00 India time.

After my yoga that morning in Dharamsala, being from Seattle, I started to look for a cup of coffee.  I walked out of the hotel and into the dusky predawn morning. I’d only gone a few doors when an old man left one of the houses ahead, waving over his shoulder to an elderly woman in the doorway whom I took to be his wife. Walking a few yards ahead of me, I was intrigued by his wholesome grandfatherly appearance.

Ahead and behind us, as if on cue, persons were leaving other residences and all walking the same direction with us. I soon noticed each person had a string of beads in their hand. After only five blocks, we started to leave town on a well-tended path into the woods. The spirit of the occasion caught me up and I continued along following the old man, who somehow seemed my guide. The dirt path wound through woods that had much the same appearance of mountain terrain in the Pacific Northwest. At intervals, at the side of the path, were rows of prayer wheels that each passerby would give a spin. To our left, between the evergreens, we looked out over deep valleys filled with fog. Some of the walkers were monks and by their dress, what I took to be the female equivalent. Most appeared householders. The trail wasn’t crowded with ten to twenty feet between walkers, but I noticed all seemed to be softy repeating “ Om…Mani, Padme…Hum”.

courtesy Fabi Castro-McLernon

Dharamsala, home of the Dalai Lama’s Temple Complex

After a long time, I began to wonder if this was a holiday and we were a procession to another village and made a silent plan to find a taxi on our arrival to get back to Dharamsala. After a good hour, we passed below the walls of what appeared a large temple complex, walked around the temple and into a town. I was taking in the strange narrow streets with seemingly crooked multi-story buildings clinging to the steep hillside as I wandered three blocks into town. Ahead I saw two persons who were members of my tour and for the first time realized we’d made a big circle and I was back where I’d started. Later I learned this walking meditation, this circumnavigation, is a ritual many of the local residents perform every day. The temple was Suglag Khang, the place of worship of His Holiness, The 14th Dalai Lama — Tenzin Gyatso.

KUNDALINI MEDITATION 3

ENTWINED

ENTWINED

Focus your attention at the base of your spine. Establish a point of awareness in the blood and tissues, feeling energy accumulating and increasing like an electrical charge. The vital saltiness of your blood, so like the primordial sea from which life arose. The electricity is awash in the correct combination of chemicals and nutrients. A spark! The spark of life. A single cell is the point of your awareness; a living being receiving stimulus from its immediate surroundings through chemical molecular attractions and repulsions. Attracted toward what feels good, it avoids what is unpleasant. Sunlight streams through the salty liquid from above like consciousness streaming down. The cell can use this energy supporting its life, a sun eater.

Basking in the sunlight of your mindfulness, this sentient being prospers, growing, stretching the bounds of its cell walls. This sensation of expanding wellbeing increases, becoming sensual. This sensuality radiates out from the point of awareness, pleasurably arousing the sex organs. The focus is upon a seed bathed in vitality. Joyfully, the seed sprouts roots to absorb the enjoyment. Energy converges on the lower spine and radiates out between the legs. The labia and testicles, flooded with awareness and blood, pleasurably take notice of themselves.

As the awareness increases, so does the pleasure, further stimulating awareness. The seed gathers energy and splits, sending up a sprout as the waves of electrical pleasure radiate up the vagina and the penis becomes engorged with blood and starts expanding. The seed pushes its roots deeper into the nourishment, drawing up fulfillment. Its stem pushes upward through the salty red liquid. The vagina opens, yearning with desire for more of the pleasure. As the penis swells, parting her lips, it moves deeper and upward into the warm wetness — the greater the sensation, the greater the ecstasy, the greater the focus. The vagina welcomes the engorged shaft until the intumescence parts the cervix.541421_485141444882147_2111622326_n

KUNDALINI MEDITATION 2

HOW TO RAISE YOUR VIBRATION

HOW TO RAISE YOUR VIBRATION

Attributes of each chakra can be experienced when centered and still with attention focused inward. It might be noticed, for example, that each area of attention is accompanied by a tone. That tone becomes higher pitched as focus travels from the lower to higher chakras. Similarly, visualization of each chakra might be awash in a hue – the lower chakras with deep reds, then oranges, then yellows and up the spectrum as consciousness ascends the levels. This association can be explained by contemplating how we’ve come to understand nature works. Our very limited understanding of the universe shows that nature repeats herself, using the same solutions on ever-grander scales in the creation of our reality. By observing phenomena within the narrow range of our senses, knowing that we can visually perceive a very small part of the light spectrum, and are only physically equipped to hear a tiny portion of the waves we call sound, we can carry our understanding beyond what we can personally experience, knowing that patterns repeat themselves. All energy expresses itself in waves. By observing and reflecting on the small portion of the wave lengths accessible to our physical sense organs, we can make assumptions about energy not so plainly perceived. A relationship becomes apparent between spiritual energy and energy on the physical plane. In tune at various levels, the wave lengths correspond or harmonize.

The physical evolution of the species on earth has a parallel pattern in the development of a human child in the uterus. A single cell divides into groups of cells that specialize into organs, nerves, bone, etc. Some cells specialize to become the ever more complex nervous system and brain, wiring and intelligence necessary to direct all of the cells. A similar pattern of increasing complexity and refinement can be observed when awareness travels up through the chakras, a condensation of our spiritual evolution.

An issue that should be discussed before we begin our meditation is fear. There may be unresolved anguish over the unknown, reservations about completely letting go, distrust or a feeling of vulnerability. It’s helpful to remember the natural tendency of life in the universe to evolve to a higher order. By facing our fears we come to understand them for what they are and, in effect, defuse them.