I had enough. The sangha was not helpful anymore. It was pulling me down.
I was beginning to feel ashamed for having something to say.
I was, once again Too Much.
So I left.
I didn’t think I could breathe without them. But I’m doing just fine.
I’m like the kid who thought she was drowning in an in of water. Someone said, ” Lift up your head and stand up.”
(Update: November 16)
Well! That sounded pretty damn crazy!! If you didn’t know the whole story it would sound like a telling interview with someone about to be admitted to a nice soft room with cozy, padded walls.
The whole sound and vibration thing is about my long time interest in the healing properties of sound. I think that the human voice can be one of the best healing tools we have. I am intrigued by how energy and intent is delivered by sound. The reason I was so upset was that I felt no one would hear what I was trying to say.
The whole issue at Sangha got out of hand because there was some kind of wall between me and the people I tried to talk to…everything came out distorted and no one got the message…or so it seemed.
Somehow I was talking about things one one level. Then, whatever I said was distorted into some other message…IDK!
IDK what kind of shift occurred, but there was some weird shift all the same. I get a mental image of the worm hole scene in the move Contact. I will try to explain it better later on. https://youtu.be/scBY3cVyeyA
Sometimes it hurts so much to get out of bed I have to sing the gratitude song before I can do it. “Thank you for this day, Lord, thank you for this day, this healing, this healing, this healing day.” It is a beautiful chant I learned at thanksgiving last year when I moved in with mom. I’ll tell you who wrote it at the end of this post. I am writing on my tablet and it’s too hard to switch around trying to find the song on YouTube. I’m such a caveman on the computer I’ll end up erasing everything or emailing embarrassing pictures to Facebook if I try. For now let me just tell you it is a chant that has served me well; I sing it when I’m happy and when I’m in pain, when I’m scared, grieving, worried, despondent–whatever human experience I happen to be having, I sing that song.
It is possible to be grateful no matter how miserable a person is feeling. In fact, gratitude may be the very medicine for what is causing the misery.
Sometimes it’s not the stuff that is happening that hurts as much as it is our running away from it. We don’t want to have a headache so when we get one we start freaking out and adding all sorts of worries to it like, “Oh no, how am I going to climb Mount Everest now? Or How will I mow the yard, go to work, feed the masses, wash the dishes.” And so on. So we fight the pain.
Here is what a wolf in a vision taught me to do. I had been having one of those days and I was crying. In my mind’s eye, I saw a black wolf walking in deep, white snow. He was entering a thickly wooded forest. He turned and made eye contact with me, his breath curling blue into the air. I understood that I was to follow him, to walk in the steps he made in the snow. It didn’t matter that he was a wolf and I am human—it was a vision where anything can happen. I understood what he meant. I knew that I was to follow my pain in exactly the same way: carefully, mindfully, each time I take a breath, I need to notice the pain. Where is It? Is it hot? Cold? I try to describe it and ask if it has something to tell me—a message of some sort. Then, when the pain disappears, I am home.
We go out and then we come home again, following our pain or our bliss. Maybe when we realize this we will realize that we never left home at all. Maybe it has all been “home” after all.
It is amazing where the pain leads. I usually worry that pain will prevent me from doing the most important thing, but time and again I have been proven wrong. When I follow where pain leads, I find my life’s sacred path. and It is the same path that I walk when I follow my bliss.
Stay on the path. Let’s go home together. What stories we will tell!
This was in my Facebook feed this morning and it grabbed my attention. The guy who posted it has had many close calls with death, so he holds on to his life with a special tenacity. It seems that Life keeps calling him to go deeper into her mystery, and he always says “Yes.”
He is one of the most vivacious men I have ever known, and I only know him a little, I only know him from the posts he has made, and by the friends he associates with. But there is a quality about him that tells me he says Yes to life over and over, whether it is a battle cry or a whisper, he says Yes. He encourages people and gives strength, hope and love, he is compassionate in politics and I don’t think he has ever met a stranger.
His name is Atma Jodha Singh and you can find him on Facebook. He is truly remarkable.
This is a shout out to the resilient. Thank you for your courage and for the way you love this sweet ole world.
I do not know who to give credit to for this meme. I found it on Facebook.
There is a beautiful chant called The Great Song of God or the Sri Guru Gita. It takes about an hour to sing if one knows the chant well and chants with concentration.
When I heard it I had such a longing for God. It made me feel the way the singer feels in the Starfield song A Cry in my Heart:
There’s a cry in my heart
For Your glory to fall
For Your presence to fill up my senses
There’s a yearning again
A thirst for discipline
A hunger for things that are deeper.
So I decided to borrow the tune to the ancient Sri Guru Gita and make a version of this devotional song that I could memorize and chant from my heart.
I was a practicing Catholic at the time, so there are a lot of references to the divine as the shepherd, and the living water and such. I’m ok with that. But there is zero hellfire and brimstone. Religion has many flaws, but it has value too. Wisdom is to know when to listen to the still small voice while dissolving all the hate that creeps in.
Here are the lyrics to my version. It is nothing as grand as the Shri Guru Gita, but it was my heart’s desire to tell all I knew about about the Beloved.
O my beloved creator, lord of my heart, at your word all things came to be, spiraling stars and swaying trees, I am blessed just to witness these things.
You made me to hunger and thirst for your word, to crave your life-giving drink. Like a mother feeding her baby, so tenderly do you care for me
Like a Shepherd watching over his baby lamb, you are near to me, never far away. Even when I wander and I’m lost and afraid, you know where I am and you rescue me.
Teacher, you lead me from darkness to light, make a way for my journey day and night. Though the path be steep and the Journey long, you strengthen me with your immortal song.
I am not yet as you would have me to be, but by your grace I live day by day, to absorb the water from the rock, to let your holy spirit form me.
Let my very self be transformed. Pour your life into me Messiah. Let my heart of stone become tender flesh, an efferent pulse of your holiness.
Each morning I come to you in prayer and you wash away doubt and worry. Then I wait for you to hire me, to put me to work in your vineyard.
I keep vigil for your counsel Lord, let me listen with an open heart. Put a gatekeeper at my lips, let my understanding deepen.
O grant me discretion and wisdom, respect for the Lord and piety, let courage keep me on the path and quench my thirst with your teaching.
Temper my voice with silence, teach me to listen well. If I listen to your still small voice your endless wonders are revealed.
O God, if only my soul could be like a perfect rose on a perfect morning, my perfume I would offer you, I would live and grow only to please you.
Now today is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad. Let us magnify the Lord together; let us praise and exalt him forever.
Ever since the singing tree experience (when I was eight) during which I heard and felt God singing/living/breathing/laughing/living/loving through every cell of my being, I’ve craved a regular spiritual practice. But wanting something and having it are not the same thing.
There were times when I had trouble convincing myself that getting out of bed would be a good idea. It seemed much safer to hide deep under the covers.
These psalms helped me get past that. I recorded them so that when I didn’t have the strength or motivation to read them, I could just click and listen. Soon I had them memorized and they became part of my flesh and bones. In fact, once my son said something about college that made me happy and I said, “Oh! You have made my heart happier than when grain and wine abound!” And I meant it. Lol.
asingingtree 