I promised myself a while back, if I ever got a taste of enlightenment, I'd try to describe what it feels like. Because if you're on a path, I think it's helpful to know what you're aiming for. And because despite everything, I didn't really find a good description anywhere, or at least anything that resembled what my experience was like in order to explain it. So my question was, either those doing the talking are missing something, not sharing, or on a different trajectory. Words like 'bliss', 'peace', 'rapture' and 'ecstasy' get flung around, but what does that actually mean? 'Ecstasy' is a word invented by people who don't experience a lot of it, and we just have to make do with inadequate vocabulary. It's my belief that in the higher realms there are probably entire languages devoted to expressing the many flavours, tones, harmonics, subtleties and varieties of love experience. I've been reminded recently how good it actually is. It's: peaceful, passionate, playful, tender, physical, total, dissolving, ecstatic, rapturous, prayerful, blissful, kissful, ravishing, caressing, extinguishing, re-birthing, romantic... And much more (like I said - inadequacy of words) It's not just about chasing inner peace. And I reckon that's worth a bit of inner work and meditation...
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On International Women's Day I have a question... So tell me: How many times better Than you must I be To be accepted as your equal? An A-lister, to your B The only thing you understand Is my tough love My mastery And you wonder why We are struggling to be free If I love you You're suspicious If I admire you I can't be serious If I'm nice You underestimate me (Consider it a friendly warning But don't do that...) I make it look easy And instead of virtuosity You see nothing I can keep pulling it Out of the bag But this is getting boring And it would be more fun To ride with you So I'll ask again As if to a friend How many times better Than you must I be With my bountiful skills In my feminine guise To be considered your equal? I have some more questions.... When female leaders are strong, they attract a lot of criticism. Or when they are perceived as weak, or just because they're there. They can be described as being 'masculine', 'ruthless', 'even worse than men' etc etc. I think we are still finding out what true female leadership looks like. How a woman would lead if truly allowed to follow her own inclinations... Is it possible to lead from a place of raw, unpolished vulnerability? Is it possible to guide from a place of feeling and pain? To what extent can a woman be sensual? Which qualities might you 'borrow' from each of these female leaders (below)? Which would you decline on? Are you judging them or loving them? Which other powerful women do you admire? (Top left clockwise: Baroness Thatcher, Catherine the Great, Queen Elizabeth I, Inanna) What is your relationship with the divine? Father? Mother? Friend? Spirit? What about Lover? Like really? Can you make love to your vision of God? Just the two of you? (Warning: your ego and shadow body won't like this at all. They will tell you all kinds of stories about why this is a big dangerous idea. If you're ready to take those fellas on, read more...) Sexual union is the highest form of worship because it implies complete acceptance. Think about it. If you were to make love to your deity, you would have to accept everything that the deity is and stands for (hard). You would also find you have to accept everything that you are - your humanity, physically, sexuality (even harder), and accept that you are accepted, even adored, for being just as you are (mind blowing). Just imagine. It would take years off your spiritual journey. You would be forced to integrate your shadow self and find yourself a more whole, total being for it. You would never have another bad relationship, because you’d have the gold standard to measure it against and no one could take that away from you. I don’t want to give anyone crazy ideas, but who do you call out for in your most intimate moments? Is the divine present? Who is the face of the Lover? Are they separate or are they ONE? If the Divine is your sweetheart, you will very quickly start to see all of life in a very different way. Like I said, don't get any crazy ideas...
You said 'Do more of what you love' But I looked at my life In despair As there were no more Minutes to be found And I know you're not sadistic (Honestly) So this must mean Something more profound I looked again at the strictures And the activity I could not have arranged it better If I was deliberately Seeking misery There was nowhere to go Nothing to do You told me 'Do more of what you love' So I went back to you and said: There is nothing left There is no other way You need to show me How to make love to my life Teach me how to make love To my day I bit my tongue three times this week. Owwwww! So I had to ask the glaring question...Why am I biting my effing tongue? What am I not saying? So many parts of our feminine story are missing from the dialogue. The unconditionality, the sensuality, the calling to account. This is the job of Shakti. Embracing the sheer complexity of all that is, has ever been and will always be. Tantra is like forgiveness in motion. It exists because we are all IT, and we are all one, and because there was a Hitler, and there was also an Eva Braun. They are both still here in all of us. Because the role of Shakti is to surrender, to remember, to use her whole self unashamedly, and raise her beloved to a higher place. It's not about rejecting or withholding. It's about kissing and upbraiding in a single breath. Caressing like a lover, and cuffing like a lioness to her cubs. Drawing lines, but going in. This is the power of the feminine. It's time to get our hands dirty, and call our beloved home... Why am I biting my precious tongue? The tongue is an organ of loving Feel the love flow between us The pouring, the gushing The gentle prattling to your sweetheart You just want to be known Confiding in me your lifetimes All of your stories your learnings I have the other half of these The wisdom, understandings I will explain it all, the primal rush The love play The way you slay me How whatever happens I still go to pieces when you play The symphony Between my tongue and my love The harmonics of good, and god-like And what is that! and ninja-sweet attainment I make it ok in you, the god in you The stuff that makes no sense in you Come home to me Why am I biting my precious tongue? Torturing this love organ When we are both speaking through it Giving and receiving When the chiding and forgiveness come in two When you finish my sentences, my being As brother-sister, one-it-y While you tickle all my love organs With your ecstasy, our laughter I have as much to give As to receive I am the engine that makes us go You need to listen to what I say As part of you I find the needle in your hay And know what to do It’s ok You slay me Come home to me I am not biting my precious tongue As an assassin Gently whispers in the ear Of his victim As he lowers him to the ground Eyes wide in wonder at his fate Awaiting the last breath You speak in tongues Like an incantation or last rite And soothing Stroke my hair So, when Babaji first came into my experience, I remember being under the impression that I was in a safe pair of hands... (Laughs hysterically) Well, kinda. You know, I didn't know that much about him. I'd never read Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi, so I did what any sane person would do in that situation - I Googled him. And I came across a couple of stories from that book, including this terrifying one which takes place in the Himalayas with Babaji and his group of disciples: So I read this story, and then I read it again. 'Phew, is that you?' I said. 'You're tougher than I am'. And I wasn't sure what I meant by that at all.... And I turned it over and over in my mind, but my mind couldn't make sense of it. But my whole being was switched ON. And I still felt safe, because the part of me that was real was safe, but really, this should have been a great big neon flashing warning sign. (Retrospect is a great wise thing). There was a lot of jumping. There might have been some pushing - the jury's out. Some of it was fun, some of it was earth shattering, some was excruciating in ways that I have trouble explaining in any kind of linear way. And bits of me were falling off all over the place, shattering, breaking, dissolving. And I would be asking around fifty times a day 'Are we there yet?' We must surely be there? You need to trust the one you've chosen to destroy you, even if you didn't quite see the whole of it coming at the beginning, and you need to feel as if it's a safe pair of hands. That it's worth all the jumping because you'll have a better experience after. Does your 'killer' look as if they're having a good time? This is important when it gets tough. So, lest we forget, as we talk about awakening, enlightenment, ascenscion, consciousness and all the rest of these words that get bandied around, this journey is about dying. Letting go of all attachments to the body, the identity, the morality, the respectability, the good, the bad and the ugly. Becoming completely empty so that you are like an open window for the divine wind to blow through. Getting over yourself and getting out of your own way. And laughing, because you can't continue to take seriously what doesn't exist. And really, if you're going to go, there are worse ways to go than by falling into Love... How can you measure abundance? I love the way this lady turns the tables on most definitions and measures it in her sassiness, laughter, and the 'diamonds' between her thighs. Added to that her mischief and her sheer irrepressibility, she's looking pretty wealthy. Maya Angelou: 1928 - 2014 And check out the live performance at the end. She switches up her own words and brings it sparklingly to life. Still, like life, I'll rise I like to play with my own stuff too. How about: Still, like love, I'll rise...? Still I Rise You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? 'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells Pumping in my living room. Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise. Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops, Weakened by my soulful cries? Does my haughtiness offend you? Don't you take it awful hard 'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines Diggin' in my own backyard. You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I'll rise. Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I've got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs? Out of the huts of history's shame I rise Up from a past that's rooted in pain I rise I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise There is a lot of chatter about 'abundance' these days on the airwaves. A lot of talk about removing blockages to this abundance. What they are usually talking about is financial 'success' aka performance, and often a successful romantic relationship. If you're really lucky you'll meet your 'twin flame'... The trouble is, these desires are mostly a result of projection, and therefore lack. You want these things to compensate for what you don't currently have as a permanent state. Try thinking about abundance in a different way. How much bliss do you experience when you meditate? How many layers of appreciation do you feel when you listen to a piece of music or watch a movie? How deeply into your own body can you go and how much of the universe can you find there? How many nerve endings are activated when you interact with another who is not your lover. How much self-compassion do you have? When you start to truly have abundance in this inner way, you could choose to live in a cave and feel as if you have the whole world. For me, abundance is characterised by a pomegranate seed. It's a little red, juicy jewel in which you can find everything. Try looking at one with appreciation. When I was teaching myself this, I spent some time clocking little 'jewels' that I found in my life, and endowing them with appreciation, collecting them like trinkets - gifts to me from the Beloved. It's a good practice - how much 'juice' can you squeeze out of a little pleasure? Can you find pleasure in something you would normally resist? Make it into a game. When abundance really happens, it would be unusual for your external circumstances to not reflect this. But that's not why you do it, because a critical aspect of this is surrender and letting go. You let go of your performance-led goals, and start living like a poet or an artist. Celebrate your own creativity in any way that pleases you. If you treat yourself with something nice, do it in full consciousness out of self-compassion and make sure you enjoy every drop. Re-define abundance, and it will be more likely to work with you. I wrote a poem about these jewels of abundance a while back. Always a good reminder..... Jewels that I find: Shining pomegranate seeds Raspberry-laden bush Sweet watermelon French fancies, battenburg and Swiss roll Our love in these Abundantly smiling Like rubies and pearls Shared moments of laughter Sparkling rosé Glasses clinking and tinkling You make me coffee And I kiss you You might be wondering why my writing is on the provocative side. Well the thing is, if you don't poke something, you don't see what it's made of. You won't find what unconscious beliefs are lurking unchallenged. You won't see what words and definitions spring to mind when someone's taken aback. If you cause a reaction, at least you have a starting point - you've seen where you stand. If not, a lot of lip service gets paid and no one makes any progress. How many faces of the divine feminine are there? We are beginning to rediscover these widely now through timeless archetypes of the 'goddess'. But how many faces of the feminine are actually allowed to be without attracting censure? You will find that when a woman puts her head above the parapet, she will immediately attract one or more 'definitions'. She may initially even like some of these definitions as they sound quite 'cool', but over time she'll find that they are essentially reductive. They are used to categorise and say, 'I don't have to engage with you fully as a serious being'. 'I know what you are - see I've got a name for it'. This occurs everywhere in our culture, you only need to look at the media to see. It's particularly prevalent in spirituality, where there is an unconscious culture of either the path of an 'aesthetic' or 'respectability'. It's very dualistic, which is what enlightenment purports to take you beyond, yet you see beings who really ought to know better still using stereotypes which are of no help to real women. Ladies, you are allowed to be female in all its guises, but you are also allowed to be not simply female: a whole being. You are allowed to play with many archetypes, and you're allowed to put them down. You are allowed to draw upon your positive male energy as and when required. You're allowed to be a mother, and you're also allowed to be something other. This is a long-y, but it's not boring..... This is not my name And this is not me either Neither one nor the other Nor anything in between You can't catch me like that With a label, with a small love... I dared to love and be dauntless And you called me a goddess You fell for me also So you feared I'm a witch I'm adept in a temple So perhaps it's a priestess I have children at home Now relax - I'm a mother But here comes the clincher: I embrace you as lover... I think you'll find All sorts of names for me now? You moved me You touched me You fired my divinity You wanted me Felt the flame Of innocent purity And as it turns out I'm not brahmacharyi Your expectations Are impossibly low Your responses Incomprehensibly slow Is your maya so great That you can't let go? If I quote a few scriptures You can call me a scholar Then I'll write a few lines And a mystic will be How about You give the lines to me? I have some words You can use: Lioness, leader, Razor-sharp mind Gun-toting, sharp shooting Kind Generous, loving Forgiving, chastising Delivering Lover of wine Guru, disciple Ambivalent everything Devoted, triumphing Shy Total, unwavering Trusting, surrendered Brutal From time to time Naked and soft Susceptible to loving Mover of energy Divine I am Shiva and Shakti Left handed and right Scales in balance But by you undefined As hero and maiden I'll slay you a dragon Then chain myself up And wait while you find me Don't try to contain me To own me with words To you I will not be bound This is my name The nameless ONE So take your angel and your Devi And your devotee and your nun And your good wife and your harlot And unite them into none Let me be empty Let me be loving Let me be free To respond to the truth To the love in you To the joy of infinity This is ME (Funny thing is, I don't think I read Shivoham by Adi Shankaracharya until after I'd written this. If you don't know it, here's a link with translation). You know what they say: (Knowledge breaks the chains of slavery)
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Tantra Mataji | confidence - freedom - passion |