You can read my current post at Wordlust Paperfetish. I’ll post here soon. Must gather my thoughts:-)

-grizelda

I am transformed here, and stripped bare.

…now when I think of all the red inside me,

I understand that I don’t bleed; I burn.”

–Cindy St. Onge – “Poems From the Grotto”

I participated in my fourth Inipi cermony yesterday. The number 4 is important in Lakota ritual, and my life path number happens to be a 4.  I should have been prepared for something auspicious.

I hadn’t drunk enough water during the day. That probably partially accounted for how miserable I was into the second round. But as that round got underway, I thought to myself, “this is never as bad as people say it is. what is the big deal? I’m fine. I can handle this. It’s a piece of cake.”

I could hear the arrogance in my own thoughts. The Inyan Oyate , or Stone People in the center of the lodge glowed red hot, and I thought about their suffering, their sacrifice. I was humbled.

This isn’t about how tough I am,  I thought, or about how much pain I can endure for the sake of endurance. It’s about being vulnerable and open and flawed and ultimately purified. I thought that if creatures as sturdy as stones could suffer the sacrificial fire for the sake of my transformation, the least I could do was admit that I was uncomfortable.

And that was all it took. By the middle of the second round, I was nauseous, light-headed, and felt like I would pass out. How hot it was in the lodge wasn’t even an issue by this time. I was at my limit. I was on the verge of asking that the door be open so I could leave.  But this is the purpose of the Inipi ceremony, to inhabit these borders, to push beyond what the body can endure, and to challenge what your mind has always defined as possible and impossible.

When I closed my eyes to try to think of something besides how dizzy I felt, I wanted to go to sleep, but I was afraid I wouldn’t wake up. So I struggled against the heat, and wanting to throw up, and almost losing consciousness. This is where and  how the heat and the prayer transforms the pilgrim. The lodge was pitch black, but I kept looking in the direction of the door, a way out I couldn’t see, but knew was there.

The second round was mercifully divided into two mini-rounds because the heat was excruciating. After I had cooled down some, I realized that I had only experienced external discomfort in previous sweat lodges. This was the first time I had felt that misery on the inside, viscerally.

There were still two more rounds to go, each hotter than the last. At some point during the third round, which I’ve always called the  Skin Searing Round, ancestor spirits present in the lodge were sucking me into Lakota folklore as I envisioned the Great Mystery and Tunkasila playing tether ball with the planets.

This was the spiritual ass-kicking I had always believed the Inipi ceremony to be, but had never experienced until last night.

I am humbled and grateful.

Mitakue Oyasin

It’s been almost a year since I decided that the crux of the Law of Attraction is this: You must find a way to be happy with your crappy life, and you must stop wanting.

Besides the fact that like does not attract like (anyone with a high school education in physics knows that opposites attract, hence polarity), I realized that shrewd, ambitious gurus do attract the money and trappings of success that they want by selling books, tickets to lectures, videos and recordings, and by espousing so-called ’secret teachings’  of prosperity and manifestation.

So they’ve been busted.

But the question remains: How can I get what I want?

The answer: Gravity.

…..

Yup. You must have mass to attract more mass. That’s it. Plain and simple.

So how do your desires acquire mass?

They must vibrate. You must say them aloud, i.e. prayer.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word WAS God.”

There it is.

I’m not saying that you must pray TO anyone, or anything. You just have to give those thoughts some density, some weight, something to bend the space/time fabric. That’s all.

Say what you want. Create your own dark matter. Do it.

Did you know that Desire and Star are somehow, mysteriously, related etymologically? Wonder why?

Numerologically, Desire, Density, Magnetism, and Word all reduce to 6, which is a number that attracts things to it because it creates a void, a vacuum by giving, from service, from loving.

Look at the number 6. Just look at its motion. If you draw it starting from its center, the momentum will continue in spirals, like a galaxy. Do you see it?

That anything in this world exists at all, is because of desire. The desire of Consciousness to know itself, to express itself, this is why. For every question that begins with why, this is why. Desire, wanting, wanting to know, wanting to become, wanting to experience, wanting  wanting wanting–this urge is the force that has created everything.

You are this urge. Everything in your life revolves around this urge, this pulse, because your soul–that dense, irresistable singularity at the center of your experience  has pulled your life and everything and everyone in revolutions around it.

We agonize over which direction to go, which step to take first, because we want to make the ‘right’ choice. As we mull over our options, we get bogged down  in the emotional language of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. In the process it becomes difficult to sense what we wanted to do in the first place.

I think that in many cases, we’ve  not asked the question we really want answered. If we haven’t asked the question, we can’t get the information we’re seeking.

When we say we want to make the ‘right’ choice, what we really mean is that we want to make the ‘easy’ choice—the decision that will have the fewest ramifications and require the least amount of work, hassle, and explaining.

There’s nothing wrong with that.

So if what we really want is to make the easiest choice, then we should ask that question  to get the answer we need in order to proceed. There is nothing wrong with wanting to walk the path of least resistance. It’s efficient, clean, and direct. No judgment there. When we ask the question this way, we’re not cluttering the decision making process with our ideas about right and wrong, and about all the different  consequences with their attendant judgments. If we want to proceed in the direction that will get us to where we want to go the fastest, with as few obstacles as possible, then we must ask that question specifically. “What is the easiest thing I can do now?”

I’m trying to eliminate the word ‘right’ from my vocabulary. True ethical dilemmas aside, this word is rife with judgments and baggage, and part of the baggage is the word wrong.

We move forward or don’t based on our judgment of pain and failure, versus pleasure and success. Both success and failure are temporary, so why judge them and make the feelings associated with any experience linger long after it naturally passes? This again requires diligent presence and awareness of the moment. This is what the energy of the number 5 (in numerology) teaches us. To remain emotionally supple and open, letting experience pass through us instead of closing around it, blocking off possibility.

 …Just different outcomes.

Choices and their consequences have been on my mind lately.

I’ve been immobilized by the fear of making the wrong choices most of my life, so I opt–usually, to not take risks. True to the adage, I have ventured little and have gained little. But what have I lost? Faith? Trust? Opportunity?

Perhaps.  But can I change this reptillian-brained need for security and step outside my comfort zone? I’d like to. I keep falling into that self-sabotaging excuse, “Once this and that are in order, I can then take this particular action.” I’ve convinced myself, as so many people have, that unless certain things are in place, certain other things cannot be undertaken.  “I shouldn’t quit my job unless I have another one lined up. Otherwise, I won’t have any money coming in, and the bills won’t get paid, and I’ll lose my car and house, etc.”  Or, “I don’t want to start dating until I’ve lost 15 pounds and have cured my acne, because I’m not lovable just as I am.”

I’ve created a story of consequences, which may or may not happen, and am losing the best years of my life to conditions instead of experiences. If all experiences, illusory as they are, pass through us and from us, then why become attached the outcome, especially before we actually experience the outcome? Instead of dwelling in defeat or gloating in success, we can consider that  each moment, each consequence is a question asking: What will you do now? What will you do with this information? This gift?

We judge results based on how they make us feel, and then either complacency or fear keeps us from flowing into the next lesson, relationship, adventure. We judge ourselves as well, not wanting to be perceived as foolish, moving through life so very measured and calculated for the sake of appearances. What if nobody is watching us? What would I do if I thought no one was keeping score?

My determination for the New Year is this:  I will take more risks and I will make decisions based soley on my wishes.

There are no bad consequences; just new information that I couldn’t have gained without committing to one action or another.

Happy New Year

The idea of going ‘inward’ to find truth, or the concept of an ‘inner’ self or a ‘higher self frustrates me.

I can no more grasp the locus of my  inner self than I can my heart, brain, or lungs. I’m told that  my vital organs are also within me, but I can’ t see or feel them–as long as they’re functioning properly. I see the rise and fall of my chest, but I’m not convinced there are lungs inside of me. I’ve never seen them, but if I were cut open, I can reasonably expect that these organs I’ve heard about would be there–quite pinkly proven.  If I have difficulty imagining my own physicality, then trying to wrap my mind around an intangible part of myself is just impossible.

How high up is my higher self? Step-stool high? Binoculars high? Hubble telescope high?

How do I know I’ve probed far enough toward my inner self? Is it like jabbing a finger inside my ear until I hit a tender spot?

I’m certain that what is meant by ‘higher’ self describes an evolved self rather than a geographically elevated self, but the concept still makes me want to look up. I’m hung up on the actual locus of these ’selves’ and want so much to find them and integrate them into my experience, but my quest is unresolved and fruitless, and it makes me wonder about ‘where’ any part of my ’self’ really is.

Maybe there is no locus at all. Maybe, attempting to pinpoint any supposed aspect of myself is like the ocean trying to find the wet spot. There is no inner self or higher self. There is only the self, examined or unexamined, conscious or unconscious.

It’s right here.

In summary, people who are marketing their spirtual epiphanies, I mean, sharing them, are people who’ve already tasted success. They are people of means. Their spiritual ’success’ journey doesn’t start at a bottom point and progresses upward, they start at a fairly high level.

Not fair.

I can no longer take these people or their discoveries seriously. I’m waiting for someone to write a book who has been dirt poor and has a high school education–and who isn’t a Baptist minister. Whatever they’ve done to turn their poverty into prosperity is the message for the masses. 

 Educated, degreed, yuppified gurus have  no credibility. How can I relate to teachings espoused by the elite that are obviously meant for their peers? They haven’t figured out anything. Until they can reveal a formula which is applicable to everyone from all backgrounds, they haven’t really discovered anything.

 The rich have always delved and dabbled in esoteric teachings, the occult, new age, and other marginal spiritual practices to alleviate boredom. They’re not really looking for a way to make their lives better. Why would they need to do that? At one time,  long after it was a crime punishable by death, witchcraft was the ‘new age’ practice among the aristocracy. Then it was seances. And then it was TM. And after that came the ashrams, and yoga, and the spiritual sherpas going by the title Rimpoche. You see where I’m going.

I’m looking for something that will not just comfort or palliate, but a teaching that is truly instrumental in shifting hopelessness into happiness. Not just a suggestion of personal power, but a demonstratable, repeatable process for exercising will.

How does an ordinary person with no physical means transform her life? The lost bee finds the flower.  I can’t remember the name of the man who wrote that, but I love that thought.

 I am the lost bee.

I’ve noticed in perusing the selections of new age, self-help books that the writers and spiritual teachers who are having these epiphanies have something in common: They are educated professionals. Not necessarily trained in  fields like divinity or even psychology–although a number of practicing ’shamans’ and gurus have backgrounds in counseling, these people figured out the meaning of life. For themselves anyway.

These are people who have had material sucess, and more often than not, they come from wealthy, or at least upper-middle class families. At some point in their lives, they decide to travel, to abandon the trappings of their comfortable lives. What this means is they visit exoctic spiritual locales like India, Peru, China,  and Egypt. They’re usually well connected with other wealthy friends and acquaintences who set them up with this guru or that teacher, or some healer in these remote places. They experience an opening, an awakening, or a healing that sounds something like: “cha-chiiing!”

They come back to their river front homes and write their books, and because they have important connections to somebody who knows somebody in publishing, they get a book deal and speaking engagements, and the whole merchandising  kaboodle.

Although they all profess that what they discovered is an innate ability or knowledge posessed by everybody, sometimes they trademark their esoteric little treasure:The Reconnection® and Psy-K® are two that come to mind right now; I know there are others.

Who are the people these things are being marketed to? Most of them are also educated, well-off professionals. These are people who have the means to go off to secluded ashrams and temples to ‘find themselves’. These are people who in their youths, have wealthy parents and trust funds cusioning their yuppie vision quests, and in their 40s on, have savings, or the support of a spouse, or make a good living in a profession. So they spend their money on crap like crystals and meditation classes and healing and blessing sessions and pilgrimages to whereever. They have a disposable income with which they can play Quest for Enlightement. They have the time and the means to contemplate the deeper, vaster meaning of their lives, because they are not so bogged down with things like debt, and juggling which credit card to use to buy groceries because there isn’t enough money in the checking account to cover the electric bill and pay for milk and toilet paper.

The eduacated and well-heeled in this world have also had the luxury of not believiing anything. I’ll say right now that the first atheists were the priests of the Old Testament, or Torah. If they really believed there was a god, they wouldn’t have dared to make such arrogant, self-serving, humanity-sacrifcing pronouncements. Their ‘law; was concerned  cheifly with real estate and offerings owed the temple. The priests were the first kings of this world, and ruled the superstitious peasants through fear. They could not have actually believed in a just god who would mete punishment to the evil, or the priests would have been certain of their own punishment.

So the rich can toy and experiment with spirituality, and they have through the ages. While the impoverished and uneducated are left with their superstition and are controlled by the ruling class through fear-steeped religion. In a nutshell, the ruling-elite are entitled to Conversations with God, and the rest of us are left with fundamentalism.

“A narcissist is someone who has a problem with me being the center of attention.”

–Cindy St. Onge

I realized this week that compassion is a kind of arrogance. It is an assumption that one is better off than the observed other, that one is handling his or her pain so well that he or she can acknowledge that the other is not. When the pretense is stripped completely away, I understand that the compassionate urge isn’t to rescue someone from thier suffering, but to draw attention to the fact that I am above my own suffering. Every emotion, every act, every intention desires attention.

And, if we’re are all expressions of an original consciousness, a prime mover, then there can be no such thing as selflessness. If we are truly one, then we are always acting in our self-interest.