The Hunger, the Holy Grail

This was an email i received from a student after a retreat, i asked her permission to share the exchange. she shares nakedly about healing an eating disorder and sexuality. she titled her email "inspiration". the work is waking us up, opening us up to crack and spill the secrets and emotions we have nursed in fear and shame for so long. freedom and inspiration from mental and emotional bondage, stripping ourselves of the old clothes of family patterns and global dogma that doesn't fit us any more.

her email:

I hate the way of certain women
You know the ones...they talk of big concepts; Goddesses, union, energy, truth
But they act like the little girls of my elementary school days, giggling about boys (now called 'lovers'), clothing (now for yoga), and the color pink.

I am still an outsider, not quite understanding their language or culture.

We learn to wake up kundalini by having orgasms, but I already know how to have an orgasm. We're supposed to be powerful and wild, but I'm afraid to express myself except in front of my male lover(s)...and then I cry tears of joy and gratitude, I shake the prana out and the salt water roles down my face for he and I to taste.

So, I think I'll just sit here with the boys (men) who now feel awkward and guilty about their penises. Eventually, I will blend into the wall, small enough to slip through the cracks...

I would like to wrap myself in purple. It's really the best color, and that seems to designate me as "woman." I also have breasts, despite trying to starve them smaller. But, I am somehow not of the female species.

It's not that I don't love women...I love their long hair and curved shape.

I once had a female lover. I decided that I belonged with her...but she was only half-human (like my 'half-head' disease that brings such pain)...a mirror, she learned to be me with such skill that I could no longer see who was who, until the day she decided that she finally owned enough of me. By then it was too late...with her went my heart (which began to beat so slowly as it got smaller) my breasts, my hips...and life was slowly sucked out of me until I could not even see myself. I nearly disappeared...and even the bleeding head was not enough.

But, I often curse the God who said "no" when I wanted to return to the ash. I was still too big to fly away. To that I say, "fuck you, God." He is probably laughing now.

I often say to my yogi friends, "I've fasted enough for many lifetimes." I know hunger.

But, what am I hungry for? Certainly not those women. I fear them as much as I fear myself. The men are better...find me one with a heart that has space for me. I'm bigger now though and my size twos are tighter.

As a child I was happy to fold myself into a little ball to escape the monster. Ball Pose...comfortable but not very convenient. I have to make peace with my size, and my power.

One-hundred-twenty is the number they chose for me...and the trick is to not be bigger or smaller than that number. This means I also like 'size two' and the more vague, but important designation of 'XS.' I remember it being far more simple to count the numbers of food; twelve almonds, four raisins, one tablespoon of GrapeNuts. Emergen-C is only twenty, Vitamin Water is one-hundred for two. I recited the numbers over and over again...never having to write them down.

Sometimes I pray for that voice to return...the left brain that tells me what not to put in my body (sugar, salt, oil, grain). That voice knows that avocados are bad news. The voice still speaks to me but I have learned to filter some of it.

Other days I pray for myself to return. The prana in the kiss of the new lover. The ability to drive a car on an open road. The young musician who moves audiences to tears with little old ladies wanting to touch the hands that created that music (was I a saint?). The painter, the writer, the scholar, the yogi, the purple Shakti Queen.

In truth, I long for love. I long to be remembered by those certain women. I don't want the lover(s) to forget my taste. I long to be wild and powerful...and I hope that the world has space...

my reply:

very beautiful
please write more
it is important for yourself and others
yes claim your power
it is the holy grail
it is not always easy
but, like joan of arc
and all the witches, saints, martyrs and mystics before us
it is the road to walk
to meet ourselves
we cannot blame the world
or god
even though sometimes we have to
to get by
to take another breath.