Flirting with insanity

sunday, august 15
cleveland ohio

i am waking up in a strange bed. again.
where am i?
cleveland, ohio.
how did i get here?
you flew here to teach yoga and tantra workshops and write your first book.
ok, right. and why did i think that was a good idea? what the fuck am i doing with my life?
it's ok. people like you. you changed people's lives with the workshop yesterday. life has meaning.
but what about the people who don't like me?
don't think about that now, it only drives you crazy. think about the people who do like you.
ok. whew. that almost got sideways.

i am reading about jung's childhood, his dreams and premonitions from a young age.
it triggers my own memory. being 8, being afraid to sleep in my own room at night because i felt evil spirits. dark, cloudy figures like a mist in my room. daytime was safe, night time was not safe to be alone. i was terrified, i was too proud to let anyone know about my fear. i would run in to grab my nightgown, holding my breath, and run out. every time i felt i had narrowly escaped a disaster. i would sleep on the couch in the living room. or in bed with my younger brother. what strikes me now, is how i did not want to show my fear, how determined was my pride, and how i thought i might be made fun of. or how i felt these very strong inner experiences would be denied as silly imagination by those around me. i somehow instinctively knew to keep my inner world to myself.

of course, looking back now, i could rationalize the whole thing. there was a strain in my parents marriage, my father was molesting my babysitters. my subconscious must have known this. but instead of consciously identifying the frightening presence as my father, i kept it in the shadowy realm of dreams and figureless mists that might take menacing forms at any moment.

but there were dark energies at play, were there not? the human drives possess us all at different times. it is easy to feel we are just living someone else's dream. dimensions. i caste a 2-dimensional shadow. i can see my shadow, but my shadow cannot move without me, like a puppet. so, is it not possible that we are actually 3-dimensional shadows of 4th-dimensional beings, who are moving the meat puppets of our bodies without our awareness? how can we talk to these other beings? how can i say, "i would like to play a new character please"?

in my life's searching, i look for how to do this, how to go "beyond" the normal, perceived reality to a higher state of consciousness to affect change. i have found this is done through trance work. i started with christian trance in the charasmatic church i grew up in. singing and shaking until the spirit of tongues came on, and sometimes people writhing on the floor. sometimes laying on of hands and healing prayers. in india i found tantra, where we use chanting and the sensations of the physical body to alchemize our dna, to become god-like. in turkey, i found sufism, where music, chanting, strong zikhir (breathwork) and whirling bring trance states to connect to the "other". in america, i found the lakota sweatlodge where the elements of the earth, fire, water and steam bring strong states of humbling and surrender to say prayers to the Creator aloud in the dark.

all these forms are reaching to the formless, to a way of speaking to something greater than our limited "personality". whether we call that God, Goddess, ancestors, Allah, aliens or my own higher Self, the name doesn't matter.

They say if you want a different life, dream a different dream. Change your mind. But i am not the only dreamer. this is a collective dream. and if i want to change the dream, i need to change myself and the other dreamers.

in group trance, the music, the chanting, the movements and physical sensations make all the dreamers vibrate on the same level, frequency. then as one mind, they can re-write unconscious agreements with their intentions and prayers. my guru says, sacrifice the small to experience the big. in tantra, we press the pleasure button to cross through the veil of the ordinary perception, of the limited reality we have collectively agreed to vibrate on. in the lakota sundance ceremony, the sundancers pierce their flesh and through pain they break through the veil. either way, strong body sensation transcends the flesh body to feel the astral body.

the medicine man or woman is able to focus their mind to form a container all the dreamers can participate in. the medicine person is specially trained or has the ability to hold attention and tap into the images and blueprints of the collective subconscious. they often have a particular deity or spirits that they communicate with, this helps focus the mind.

when i hold a ritual, it is to transform the dream and the dreamers. on a psychic level i work for change in my yoga, tantra, prayers and meditations. and on a flesh level i work with my own two hands to touch other bodies, to bring food, shelter, to share the ways of healing and empowerment i have found.

ultimately, i am circling myself. i am circling my own disappointments and pain and trying to make the world one that feels good and safe to me. i want to change the stories. but first i must accept them. i must see my own stories and i must accept where i am coming from. my own limitations. i must hold my own wounded child and be humbled that i do have wounds.

i used to think i would be perfect, elightened. i would not feel pain or separation anymore. in a great burst of white light, i would remember i am god all the time. but who is god? what is enlightenment? i must be careful not to replace old drugs i used to numb my pain with these new drugs of spiritual high. i am just trying to be the best person i can be.

ah. dear. writing is like strip mining my soul. pulling into the nebulous past of childhood memories. flirting with insanity. feeling the huge black abyss of the subconscious memory, the tug between that and my ego-identified memories makes me feel a bit schizophrenic. which mask shall i try on? which rabbit hole shall i choose? the red pill or the blue pill? the collective unconscious is a swirling tornado, sucking me to the bottom of our unexplored ocean with all the symbols and blueprints dizzyingly circling my tiny, finite existence.

i am psalm.
i remember this, i have forgotten that.
i have been a good girl and a bad girl.
i have been your mother and i have been your lover.
i make no apologies and i cry from the aching need to be accepted.
i still know to keep my inner experiences close to my chest, close to my heart. writing this book is my way of sharing what is mine and mine alone. and i stand alone, a small woman, facing an endless sky and i say, i will be witnessed. i will not be ashamed.