i come with a sword...healing abuse with anger

maybe this post has nothing to do with you, maybe you have no history of abuse. but the longer i teach, the more i see a lot of the reaching for love and light we are doing comes from abuse that needs healing.
who is the abuser and who is the abused? don't we all have to learn to love each other to heal, to see we are all one?

i have run into two camps, one that focuses on victimhood and blame and one that focuses on forgiveness.

the one focusing on victimhood and blame doesn't see a true transformation of pain is possible.

the one that focuses on forgiveness is often trying to take a spiritual bypass and whitewash the issues to move straight from the suppression to forgiveness.

i received this email recently,

I've got to tell you that I think it's the biggest fallacy in spiritual teachings that we've got to love our abusers; especially when the abuser is a parent. "Honor thy Father and Mother?" That's the first lesson in perpetuating abuse to the next generation.

I think that we don't begin to release the repressed feelings trapped inside us until we learn to DIS-honor the people who abused us. Otherwise, our unconscious minds won't let us access those repressed feelings in a meaningful way.

After that, we can work on healing the damage the abuse did to our neurology.

After that, we can love the abusers.

After we can express and integrate the repressed feelings of shame, anger, rage and grief, then we can reach a true kind of love, not a spiritual bypass.

This reminds me of a teaching of Jesus when he said,

"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law--your enemies will be in your own household."

a great deal of physical, mental and emotional abuse comes from our own families. it is a hard thing to understand being angry at the people you love. sometimes these relationships get worse before they can heal. the psychologist carl jung described this process as individuation. learning to separate yourself from your family, culture, society, to become self aware. in tantra, the healthy ego center is manipura, in the belly and solar plexus, in your guts. the element of this center is fire.

what place does a sword have in healing? sometimes a wound must be cut open to air and find healing.

Jesus also said, “Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword".

so jesus contradicted himself, as all great spiritual teachers do. truth doesn't fit into neat categories. this life and the spiritual path is a sloppy human interaction of fumbling towards love and forgiveness through human relationships.

anger is a double edged sword, it can be used to slice through and transform, or we can get stuck in the habit of anger and bitterness without the transformation. anger is strong medicine, but it should not be avoided on the spiritual path for fear of it's power. anger is an emotion close to the surface, grief lies sleeping deep below in our subconscious. anger can make us aware, if we are able to follow the reaction to it's source. anger always stems from an unfulfilled desire. the way of healing, letting and moving on is to grieve our unfulfilled desires, not suppress them. without fire, there is no transformation. my guru says, "keep the power in your heart, otherwise it can be cruel".

Tantrika on monogomy and polyamoury...

thursday, april 7
gibsonia, pennsylvania

i got an email from a tantrika sister
asking:

"As a tantrika, I find it appealing to explore my love freely, to explore the depths and heights of my sexual power and my own capacity to love, transform, heal and co-create magick. As a magician, I recognize that my magickal intelligence is in part formed through my capability to be, do and flow through or with any person(or thing) as I perceive them (or it) to be in a sense, a part of my own being. Loving, intimate and erotic relationships offer a unique opportunity to explore the perception of the self in relation to the other. In this way the sense of self expands through selfness, selflessness and oneness with all.

I believe that the tantrika is inherantly polyamorous. What do you think?"

yes i believe a tantrika is inherantly polyamorous but i believe that the word polyamory and its western definition often fall short of it's layered meaning for me

i do not know if i could love monogomously
it seems to be a thing that comes in the beginning very strong when i meet someone who truly turns me on
all my energy goes into the flame with them and i want to nourish that one seed
i notice it isn't my mind that does this
rather, it is like a force of nature
(are we really so different from dogs sniffing each others asses?
meat puppets for the potent alchemy of god's pheromones?)
as there are phases to the moon, there are phases to loving

sometimes the love waxes and sometimes it wanes
sometimes it is completely full and other times completely empty
one of the interesting things about comparing love to the moon
is that the full moon is the time of endings
when the fruit is most ripe, it is about to fall from the tree
and decay, ripeness giving way to deconstruction of one form
to feed the earth and become another
when my loving is as full as a full moon
as ripe as a big cheese moon
i hate to think it is about to fall
but isn't that what we see in nature around us all?

and when the moon is empty, desolate
that emptiness is close to being filled again
but it is so hard to see in the darkness, in the emptiness of the grave
where the formless mystery is stirring her sweet cauldron of spells
to surprise us as they mature and are animated into form

i have hurt many hearts and my heart has born much hurt
i like to stay in the game, keep my heart open
in that way i am a player
i do not have any specific philosophy on monogomy and polyamory
it seems people are wired different
some more towards stability and monogomy
some more towards freedom and polyamory
what i do notice is people tend to preach their path
the monogomists think it is highest to connect and find your many faces through long term union with one other face
and polyamorists think it is highest to let go of attachment and let loving come and go freely through many faces

i think i am both polyamorist and monogomist depending on my season and reason
and add a third, because i often travel my path alone with long periods of celibacy
(nobody expects that from the tantrika!)
maybe you could call that unigomist?

shakti energy is freedom energy
is it possible to drink from the left hand cup and not stir the chaos cauldron for societal monogomy?
that would probably be difficult.
i practiced tantra in secret while i was married
i fell in love with other men too
i am not married anymore
i have had men ask for me to give myself to them only and i have said no
i have wanted to give myself to one man only and sometimes they say no
i change my mind
but so the moon changes her costume
i do not think i am fickle
i move to the rythm of nature and change

there are many people espousing free love who are not in a right way with themselves
and they are using the others bodies
let's hope they are maturing
there are many who judge others sexual energy and who make cages out of monogomy
lets hope they can be less afraid
either can be a way to hide
most important i think, is the self enquiry to be willing to look and see who we are
no more free love, now it's real love!

this tantrika is not monogomous because she is making love to every atom of all the the worlds!
infinitigomous!

p.s. i reserve the right to change my mind

love
psalm
kamakhya devi

Why write a book? Who cares?

tuesday, april 5

pittsburgh, pa

i am finishing editing my first book, and i wanted to share the introduction:

freedom + pain + truth + liberation

why did i write this book? aren't there enough books already?

sitting and watching corpses burn in kashi, at the banks of the holy river ganges, i wrote:

" i wonder to myself, if i rip out my guts telling my story, will anybody care? will it change the world? i am driven by something unholy to be here, to write. i pray to the god of heaven and earth and the holy river that it will make a difference to someone, most of all myself."

my indian friend rohan told me, "all the world will be in your book, the the burning ghat, the shakti, the coming and going". he is silent for a moment. "sometimes with our eyes we see something beautiful, and then we don't see how difficult it will be. like the sun was beautiful this morning, but the burning body was hard to see. we see both. this is truth, no?" "yes, this is truth", i say, "satya". "in america, we say the truth will set you free". "truth is pain though, truth is hard, no?". "yes", i agree, "it can be. but the truth will make you free".

in the process of writing this book, i have doubted myself many times. i have doubted the importance of sharing my story, asking myself, "does anybody care? are you just making a big deal out of yourself?" i have doubted my talent as a writer, my ability to wrestle articulate words to share in language from the silent masses of emotional clay that form my personal subconscious. i have doubted the rightness of telling so much truth. it is the truth from my perspective and may not be the way other people in my life story see the truth of our experiences, but i have gleaned my stories to the bone, slicing away anything that was not true to me, so that it cut through many of my nerves in exposing these bones. sometimes i feel as if my fingertips are burning as i touch the pages of this book, the words are burning. i have asked myself, "is it the truth?" and this has been my measure of the rightness of carrying so many souls along with my own in this book.

much of this book was written by some force outside myself, my fingers would move quickly and the most difficult part was to sit there and witness my own life like watching a movie playing on the computer screen in front of me. many times i would cringe or cry or feel ashamed of myself. many times i had to get up and walk away. but always i was drawn to come back, to let this terrible force of creativity surge through me. and even when i doubted myself, i knew it was an important part of my souls purpose to write my story, to speak out to the great, nameless sky, to hear my own voice echoed in the void of all time. i say, brothers and sisters and gods do you hear me? do you bare witness to me baring my soul? and even in the solitary task of writing itself i am answered, i am met. i speak to the great invisible mind of the collective unconscious and i know i am never alone in this experience.

i have written to be exposed to others and to bear witness to myself. this book is a soul retrieval, shining awareness into the dark places and closets i have hidden pieces of me from me. and one day, when i was busy doubting myself, i got this letter from someone i never met, who was reading my blog on the internet:

You are a mirror to my unlived Self. I asked for inspiration, I asked for
something, anything to give me one morsel of hope today. You, Psalm, you speak my truth. You have the courage I haven't found. You gave me hope today. I have to trust and speak and stop being silent. My body pays the price of this with the pain I am struggling with. I have to embrace all aspects of Myself. Thank you Psalm. Thank you for being you. Your journey is bold,
brave and honored. I know it has not been easy. You are a pioneer and a wayseer. Blessings to you. May I find the courage to walk into the unknown.


"You are a mirror to my unlived self...I have to trust and speak and stop being silent. My body pays the price of this with the pain i am struggling with". I took a sharp breath in when i read these lines. yes to the soul, yes.

I hope this book gives freedom. i have broken the molds of a lot of "spiritual teachers" in exposing my own raw path in this book. i like to think that this book is crazy wisdom, a freedom teacher. may we all give voice to our unlived lives, and those we have lived but hidden in the shadows. may we remember who we are.

love
psalm