Reviving the Mad Hatter?

Ah! Reviving the Mad Hatter instead of Reviving Ophelia...this piece by Eva Soulu 'gets' me. I do love Alice!

Curiouser and curiouser... I dive into this practice, plumbing the depths...

Anais Nin: Swimming Through My Soul

I wept because from now on I will weep less. I wept because I have lost my pain and I am not yet accustomed to its absence." ~Anais Nin

...and thank you to Jim, Nancy & Faye...and to Chela and to someone whose name I don't know... a friend of Ramgeet's. And Yogi Bhajan and Sri Amritanandamayi Devi and Kalika and my father David, and Dan. 

So many people responded...Siri Amrit, Emma, Balprem, Renee, Tone, Trina, Susan, and Sukhmandir posted this:

I am sitting and realizing how profound the healing was... an incredible gift from my wonderful friend Ramgeet. Through her friend's gift (a friend whose name I do not know who just gave of his time and energy to release an attachment)... I may still be self-adjusting, but my spine feels light, my shoulders unburdened of so much pain. I feel such relief that I do not know how to accept that the pain is gone. It's gone. It's just gone. I am amazed. And I believe it now, though I could not quite at first. Anais words ring even truer for me today...soon this new way of being will feel more like home, as it truly is coming home to who I was so many years avon. I have not changed so much, I have only been given all the missing parts of my soul back. It was broken into a million scattered pieces like the Tikkun Olam of Judaism, and now it is whole. My soul is wholly mine again. God Bless.

God is indeed Great and I am in immense gratitude for the workings behind the scenes. And for the ways in which I sense the hands of Yogi Bhajan and Ammachi behind all this....

Siri Amrit said: "you even came through as my White Tantric Yoga partner at winter!"

She had said that her partner's face morphed into mine for a second. We had planned to partner, but I was not able to physically be there...

Tone said: "A quote from my beloved Anais that touches me deeply!!! LOVE. Thank you, precious Phoenix ~ You're a GEM ~ and I send you heaps of hugsss & smmmoochies across the pond ` Mwwaahhhh!! XOXOX"

Trina said she'd heard that she missed a great class this morning. The class was on the mediation stage of 'Politeness' and balancing the apanic energy, the lower three chakras, the lower triangle. Grounding into the earth. It WAS a lovely class! Everyone made it that way! Without them it would not have been so... I do not do that myself...it is Sarah, Jane, Heather, Megan, Donna, and others...

Susan said: "All the diaries of Anais Nin were my closest companions for many, many years. I devoured them all. And then went back to the beginning and started over."

Susan, I love the prose/poetry of her "House of Incest" too... I know the title is daunting for people, but the writing is so lyrical and heart-opening for me. So beautiful. Anais was close to my heart years ago, I own everything she wrote, but I just couldn't get back to it for a long, long time. Ramgeet did something very special for me that helped immensely! She is so kind! And now I'm just rediscovering everything I had to set aside. LOVE."

Gratitude to Kristen and Prakash Deep for seeing the attachment so clearly, and seeing what needed to be done. A thousand million blessings to you my dearest sisters! All the love your hearts can hold...

Asamidori sumiwataritaru ohzorano hiroki onoga kokoro to mogana (Ten)

As a great sky in clear light green I wish my heart would be as vast (Sky)
~ waka poetry by the Meiji Emperor of Japan

Renee: "So Succinctly moving."

God Bless you all!

Removing the Ties that Blinded

I know about grief. I know about ways to run from it, flying over oceans to see if the grayness will blossom into color again...

 ...or taking up new passions...I know about running. I can see when other people are doing it. And all I want to do most of all is say: "Here, try on my rose-colored sunglasses that I bought from the Versace store in Venice, Italy for $200 bucks back in 2003 when I was running from the gray skies." They might not have been the most prudent purchase, but I still wear them, and love how they make gray days rosy!

I have found the color in my world again!!!

Drenched in Rose

I was wearing my sample of By Kilian's Rose Oud today...I was rolling around on a bed of roses...have been all weekend. Tsk. Tsk. I should feel shameless, and I do! I have no shame!!! I have let that shame go...

Candace asked how long I thought it took to strategically place all those rose petals? She said that she used to love love love roses. That her first tattoo was a rose. And that Victoria's Secret made this lotion that she lived in years ago...

I wish that all one would have to do is be wet from the shower and roll around in them...that no one in this sexually repressed country would care if a nipple showed!!! Living in roses sounds lovely! Or being covered in Ayurvedic rose petal jam! 

Kakao Chocolate here in St. Louis has a wonderful Rose Petal Lemon Pepper bark that I love...

My dear friend in Norway, Tone said to me: "Madly in love with this picture, my dear Phoenix!! This is me every morning...in my dreams...for once I really wish the picture were in colors...I imagine the rose petals are soft pink. :) THANK YOU, divine sister XOXOXOO.

Tone has inpsired me immensely with her albums and pictures...and the way she tags people in them to help them heal...

Painting Mandalas with Friends

Christy's newest Sacred Feminine Mandala...

I have been invited to become part of a group of WONDER WOMEN who gaze at bindi points in mandalas as they color them through divine inspiration.

How did this come about? Because on the 10th of February I started a new Kundalini Yoga class at D's, and it follows Christy's class. At first she was stressed by not having been informed about the change to the schedule, because she had to end 15 minutes earlier with no warning...then she sent me a lovely e-mail apologizing for being stressed when she owed me no apology at all.  The a few days later she invited me to be a part of this group of women.

Interestingly, when they met tonight at her house in Creve Coeur, it turns out to be just down the street from my old friend Dan's house...the Dan who will only communicate through text now, because I scolded him about his father's hands grabbing my ass...but I still love my friend Dan.

And I love these mandalas! Healing imagery! Beautiful process...

I didn't go to this first meeting. I was afraid. Scared of all the new people. And it was lightly snowing too, so that figured into my excuse. When Christy told me that everyone had been looking forward to meeting me, I almost cried. I assured her that I would be back for the next session, which is on the 18th of March. Once a month. Girl time. Ladies in my age group. Mommas and daughters. Creating these fabulous mandalas...

The minute I saw this one, I knew it was a Kali Yantra! I knew it! I love Kali, part of Vaishnodevi and the shrine to Vaishnodevi on the border of India and Pakistan, where Yogi Bhajan's father made a pilgrimage with him to thank the goddess for his birth...where Yogi Bhajan himself has visited, and the very same shrine that represents an aspect of the Divine Feminine which Ammachi, Sri Amritanandamayi Devi, my namesake, is supposed to be a divine manifestation of. The Kali of the puja for Vaishnodevi that I did 3 times for Sola Shukravar...a practice that my old friend Jyoti told me about. A practice that young women in India do...a practice involving the sadhana of celibacy, that ends with an incredible accumulation of vast amounts of energy!!!!!

The above mandala was done by Eileen.

She said: "This is Mandala 16, Kali Yantra. Kali is the supreme goddess of time, presiding over the present moment that gives life its vitality and its transitory nature as well. I colored this design in three stages. In the center, I was concerned about grounding, grounding, grounding - and Christy I practiced the mudra you shared with us while creating. When I returned a few days ago, my gaze kept staying in the middle and going outward, rather stuck at where the petals were leading..." the rest is very private.

When I saw this I immediately went: KALI!!!?! Then I saw that it IS Kali. I love Kali! Some even say that Ammachi, the Hugging Saint, is an earthly manifestation of Kali. At her ashram in Kerala, India there is a lovely shrine to Kali.

Springing Up

I had the privilege tonight of walking into the room at  Washington University where I teach on Tuesdays, and hearing a cellist & pianist practicing Camille Saint-Saens' "The Swan" all the way to the end. I recorded it. The students thought I'd arranged for live music!

After class...I passed a male cardinal who looked sick. I got down next to him and just gazed and gazed. We were almost eye to eye. When I finally took off my glove thinking to lift him to safety out of the cold, he flew away. I took it as a sign that some people I know and love are tough old birds. Tougher and hardier and healthier than I was thinking! What a blessing...the whole day was a precious gift. A switch from yesterday. What a blessed relief!

In posting this again on Facebook, Cindy said to me: "Poetry! Phoenix, YOU are a spectacular little bird aren't you? At home among swans and cardinals, always rising up out of the ashes, up up and away!"

Cindy, Elmari, Lisa I am just blown away by what a sweet respite this day has been. Cindy the other day I was watching the movie about Edith Piaf, and did not realize that 'piaf' means sparrow. I love birds. Mythical and otherwise. And I love mending broken wings. Hard work. But rewarding. Gosh, I'm sleepy...

I forgot to add that I asked the guy if I could study piano with him before I realized what I was saying...my hands don't even reach an octave! He proceeded to show some fancy piano chord progressions a la Franz Liszt. Then he was off to Tai Chi. A Tai Chi practicing pianist...that was cool.

WaFfLes! WAFFLES!!! Waaaaaahfles!!!!! I'VE BEEN FLOCKED!

I AM SO LOVED.

Tears.

Blessings.

Infinite gifts beyond all logical comprehension.

Cindy, Amber, and Lisa...the trio who came to my Yin/Yang Flow class weeks ago and held hands across the floor in shavasana...along with their friend and mine Kristen........

have officially inducted me into their flock. They call themselves FLOCKERS.

Ha.

LOVE.

LIGHT.

Cindy's words: "YOU'VE BEEN FLOCKED. You are part of our flock, darling...always have been...we just had to find you on the journey.

I am very happy to be a part of the family! Are we like a murmuration of starlings? Swooping around...and dipping...into StL...into the IL-side...

I just have to add that I think this is the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me.

And then Lisa sends me a picture of these fabulous chocolate waffles with strawberries and white chocolate curls. Heaven. A girl after my own heart!

I'm Addicted to LOVE!

'Beyond Love' (prohibited) to be exact...

My name is Phoenix. I have a new addiction. Or rather, an old one. Perfume is a drug. To paraphrase Katie Puckrick...a spritz is a hit, an afternoon spent at the perfume counter is an overdose. Tuberose. That sweet muse who feeds you cake then bends you over her knee and spanks you... So inconsistent & insistent. I had a one-night stand with Ms. Tuberose last night. Best Valentine's date I've EVER had.

I'm enjoying fragrance and essential oils again for myself. For most of my 30s, I wore them for other people. Now it's for me. I'm in a love affair with myself, and Tuberose and Jasmine are my girlfriends who encourage me to cut loose!

I tagged Kate, Linda, Dianna, Cindy, Casey, Candace, Amber, Tone, Stacy, Sail, Susan, Adi Shakti, Lisa, Pamela, Courtney, Kristen, Ellen, Balprem and Elmari... women I LOVE!!!

Susan said she loves wearing Tuberose & Jasmine together...

I have a small bottle of Alchemy Works "Bone Flower Oil". The Aztecs called tuberose a name which means: bone flower. And the Victorians associated it with aphrodisiac properties and making peace with death. This one has some cool mossiness, earthy with Japanese Hinoki wood, but green & citrusy at first. It smells surprisingly light.

My little sample of By Kilian's "Beyond Love" is like wearing red lace undergarments underneath a nice white dress. Like feeling so full of joy, but having to sit still in church at the age of 5 or 6, when you are just so irrepressible that the adults around you are visibly annoyed. There is a certain feeling of the satisfaction of annoying them.

I have not tried Frédéric Malle's "Carnal Flower", nor Nasamotto's "Narcotic Venus"...but I am as curious as Alice.

Not so curious about "Fracas". I hear tell it is more for the mature palate, and I am most definitely not mature.

That "Beyond Love" has jasmine in it as well. Bliss. Pure bliss.

.....................................

Well, I certainly like this review on Profumum's "Tuberosa":

"We would call this a straightforward tuberose if it weren't for the fact that there is nothing straightforward about tuberose. Ever. It flirts, it teases, it beckons, it distracts, it wraps you around its little finger and whispers sweet nothings in your ear. It keeps you from concentrating on anything practical and tries to convince you to run off for the weekend. This is tuberose at her most bewitching - heady and creamy and fresh, with a flourish of white jasmine and a tantalizing whisper of something warm and spicy that gives this a playfulness that many big florals lack. And make no mistake, this is a big floral. A big, flirtatious, impossible-to-resist floral that will make heads swivel. Outrageously feminine."

I wonder if Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab has any tuberose-infused concoctions?

"The Caterpillar" at www.blackphoenixalchemylab.com/alice.html has jasmine...but no tuberose. A student recently let me smell her "Queen Alice". The whole Charles Dodgson collection sounds yummy! Tweedledee & Tweedledum, Drink Me... her, hee!

Elmari thinks I'm entertaining.

She said: "Now I am wondering...I loved Opium my absolute fav perfume for years. I have not looked at it for a long time... 2 weeks ago I started using it again just a tiny amount because it can be overpowering. But loving it. (Hubby noticed and brought me a big bottle from England as a little surprise gift.) But be it as it may... THE meditation we are doing...? I have also been mixing up different oils focusing on jasmine, rose, bergamot, sandalwood!"

My response: "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. .....YES! I said YES! The rose, bergamot, sandalwood...and our, iris, violet, vetiver, oak moss, daffodil, gardenia, orange blossom, myrrh, opoponax, um, um, um...

"I think it IS THIS MEDITATION!

"I LOVE a good perfume that misbehaves and does not do what it is told. <snicker>"

Fragrance is a healthier stress release & vacation from the ordinary than... oh, say... heroin? Perfume is my drug.

Balprem said: "Jasmine scent sounds lovely! I haven't worn perfume in quite some time. Heavenly from Victoria's Secret was a favorite and Chanel #5. Tuberose is a beautiful scent. Right now essential oils are what I've been using."

I said: Balprem I 've fallen in love with the By Kilian perfumes, because they are made the old-fashioned way, by enfleurage...not chemical extraction. They have concretes and absolutes in them as well, so more of the flower...but I'm loving my own blend of jasmine, rose, immortelle, lavender and bergamot that I made up several years ago...I put it in apricot oil. Yum. And I love the essential blends others have made too!

Balprem summed it up: "So Kilina perfumes are made in the purest way which would provide a much less irritating scent but perhaps a more expensive way because it is a natural process, possibly taking longer to produce, using more flowers but less waste as more of the flower is used?"

Sail wants some!

Yes! By Kilian. Is. Very. Expensive. A full bottle: $250. It's the real deal Lucille. I have a few samples. You can go to www.luckyscent.com and buy the samples for between $7-14 a piece.

Look up Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab too...they have a whole series of essential oil blends for $17 per bottle that smell exquisite!!! I'm curious about "The Cheshire Cat" and "The Caterpillar" and "The White Rabbit". I've smelled "Queen Alice" and love it!

I'll bet Tone Rini would love By Kilian's "Liaisons Dangereuses".

..............................................

Just found a passage in Gurucharan Singh Khalsa's book "21 Stages of Meditation", on the Stage of Delight (which we are working on in class), where he talks about savoring, tasting the rasa, the sweetness in life... he talks about a chef tasting his food slowly, deeply, observing every subtle nuance; this is what is happening for me with perfume!

...............................................................

UPDATE!!~

Erin Vehige contacted me through Facebook to become friends, based upon this post. I want to remember what she wrote, since it isn't always so easily accessible later through Facebook.

"Thank you for accepting my friend request. I almost never reach out like that to someone I barely know, but you tagged Stacy in your post about fragrances and I happened to see it on my news feed and thought it was so beautify a description! I am inspired to try this scent and to explore fragrances with that kind of passion! I'm sorry if this seems strange!"

It is a beautiful niche line of fragrances. My friend Chela sells it at Saks Fifth Avenue in Saint Louis.

Then.... I met Erin in class! She was curious about the gong too...and I was unfortunately a scattered mess, but, ah, well...

I told her that I was sorry for being a bit flighty, and that I had just burned a pot of soup! I think all this new vibration is making me a bit dizzy! Lol!

She replied back: "Oh it was so lovely meeting! And glad I could smell the scent you wrote about! I teach freshman writing and its rare for me to read something so eloquently written. I was so moved; I think it started to stir my own (lost) love of writing. Thank you for helping that! I do hope we have many more moments to chat, too! I will be making snow Angels tomorrow before the snow goes away for sure. It's a promise I've made to my grandma to enjoy her spirit with every snow fall! I'm excited."

Oh! That is lovely! How snowily lovely! Here's to writing and repeated readings of Natalie Goldberg's "Writing Down the Bones" & Clark Strand's "Seeds from a Birch Tree". Writing is bliss! Snow angels are bliss! Yoga is bliss! Bliss! Bliss! Bliss! AND WAFFLES!!!

~

ONE LAST UPDATE FOR TODAY!!!!

Floating on a cloud of tuberose, like the little girl gypsy I was... I feel the way you do after a rainstorm that slaps the fragrance out of all the rhododendron bushes outside, the hyacinth in the garden. Like a little flower with big dreams...

Listening to Fleetwood Mac's "Gypsy", and found this quote about Stevie Nicks lyrics...

"This song actually has a definite meaning, and it's beautiful. The first meaning is about Stevie herself, and the second, more emotional part, is about the death of someone, particularly her best friend Robin, who died of leukemia before it was released. That's what the line "I still see your bright eyes" is about. And "Lightning strikes, maybe once, maybe twice" - you'll only find a friend like that once, maybe twice in a lifetime. She's explained this in several interviews. Here's her explanation of the rest of it: "Oh boy, I've never really spoken about this, so I get verklempt, and then I've got the story and I start to screw it up. Okay: In the old days, before Fleetwood Mac, Lindsey [Buckingham] and I had no money, so we had a king-size mattress, but we just had it on the floor. I had old vintage coverlets on it, and even though we had no money it was still really pretty... Just that and a lamp on the floor, and that was it. There was a certain calmness about it. To this day, when I'm feeling cluttered, I will take my mattress off of my beautiful bed, wherever that may be, and put it outside my bedroom, with a table and a little lamp." On March 25, 2009 during a show in Montreal on Fleetwood Mac's Unleashed Tour, Stevie Nicks gave a short history of the inspiration behind Gypsy. She explained it was written sometime in 1978-79, when the band had become "very famous, very fast", and it was a song that brought her back to an earlier time, to an apartment in San Francisco where she had taken the mattress off her bed and put it on the floor. To contextualize, she voiced the lyrics: "So I'm back, to the velvet underground. Back to the floor, that I love. To a room with some lace and paper flowers. Back to the gypsy that I was." Those are the words: 'So I'm back to the velvet underground, which is a clothing store in downtown San Francisco, where Janis Joplin got her clothes, and Grace Slick from Jefferson Airplane, it was this little hole in the wall, amazing, beautiful stuff, 'back to the floor that I love, to a room with some lace and paper flowers, back to the gypsy that I was.' I love this song."...

MY NOTE: For anyone who has ever lost someone, some part of themselves, or is leaving behind a way of life... with nothing but a "backpack", may you sleep in bliss on a mattress on the floor covered with flower petals.

~Love to you Kristen Coyle.

My very, very first album ever bought, on the day that my sister bought Alice Cooper's album with that boa constrictor around his neck... was Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours".

Balprem said that her husband Rich bought her tickets to see Fleetwood Mac as a Valentine's Day gift, and that "Gypsy" is one of her favorite songs! Mine too! And I keep thinning of "Thunder" as well...in relation to a certain someone, being a little bit of a player... but we all learn our lessons with time and in time.

Valentines's Day Practice: HEALING THE WOUNDS OF LOVE!!!

"At that time, I was no longer what I always had been, but I was not yet what I had become." ~Sadhana Singh

"The invigorating effect secreted by my courage and grit had faded, and gradually I felt more and more like those 'words' [sic] in Gurdass Khalsa's poem:

"Those who wait to be reborn
In the glory of the name
They're like flowers in the rain
Waiting for the Sun
'Til their soul shall be reborn
In the body of a saint
Who shall live forever
In the hearts of those who love God."

~p. 78, "Everyday Excellence: The Art of Success"

Yesterday, I had posted what follows below for my father, but it links with today!

"To get a big head
Is easy.

Food on the table,
Cash in the pocket,
And you walk with a swagger.
Be street-smart

And you can rake in
Twice as much.
But money's like the leaves
Of a forest's trees.

You didn't bring it with you when you were born,
It won't go with you when you die;
Greater kings than Ravana
Have vanished in the blink of an eye.

Parents, children, wife,
You'll leave them all behind.
You must be mad, says Kabir,
Not to sing of Rama,

And to screw up your life."

~translation of Kabir by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra

From "Songs of Kabir" my baptismal anniversary present (November 19th) from my father... a wonderful Congregationalist minister with a deeply ecumenical spirit. Thank you Dad!

"Ravana, the demon king of Lanka (Sri Lanka? ~my note) and the primary antagonist character of the Ramayana, abducts Rama's wife Sita from the forest. To rescue her, Rama, helped by an army of  monkeys, fights a great battle in which Ravana is killed."

The leader of that army of monkeys, as the story was told, was Hanuman. The Hanuman Chaleesa, dear to my heart, is sung about Hanuman's bravery for the Lord. For Rama. Ra. Ma. Sun. Moon. Masculine + Feminine. Divine.

The bridge built from the mainland to Sri Lanka which the epic Ramayana told of...is actually visible from space through NASA's photography. Hindu friends of mine once showed this to me. It exists. Who knows if Hanuman was really a monkey...or metaphor for a strong warrior of the Lord?

Hanuman is who told Rama, the symbol of the Lord, that the demon king Ravana was lying...and that Rama's wife Sita was not dead...she was in Lanka. Ram gave Hanuman his ring to drop from the tree above Sita. She picked it up and said, in amazement: "Hanuman, where did you get that ring?" This was a sign to her that God, that Ram is ever-present."

It's all good. Wahe Guru. Namaste. Peace be with you...

The Hanuman Chaleesa is the song which I first heard, dropping like a 'ring' from the trees above me...to tell my soul that the Lord was there. I heard it back in 1998. The demon Ravana, whose clutches I was in, could not stop the Lord's servant, Hanuman, from singing to me. The Hanuman Chaleesa is dear to my heart. I think I still know it by heart. I played it for shavasana yesterday...to all y'all wit yo sneaky excuses ta get outta shavasana: Come to my class suckas...and it's the 1st dang thing on the menu. Sleep. Blissful sleep if you need it, and are weary... soul searching, chakra clearing if you wanta hop on board the yoga wagon!

........

Additionally...Found these words I wrote for a friend. They are a perfect description of what we are doing today in the meditation:

May your radiance expand beyond your wildest dreams and may you find the juiciness of the sweetest fruit in the core of your soul, in the garden of your heart. You are just pulling weeds. We all have to prune every once in a while. Then you can take all the birdpoop and compost it as well! Fertilize your dreams with the crap you are getting rid of!!! LOVE! LOVE! LOVE! Open hearts with your words, let your words open your heart deeper.

I confess that I bought a ton of chocolate for tomorrow too. All Kakao. And rose quartz that I'm attuning to Reiki, Sekhem-Seichim and Karuna Reiki. And I'm wearing my jasmine perfume...cause it's just that kinda day!

................................................

WOW!!! WOW!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WOW! ....

THE MOST INCREDIBLE DAY!!!!!!!! HEALING THE WOUNDS OF LOVE meditation with the students at Urban Breath Yoga, a lunch of pears and spinach and Kakao chocolate with Jen Potash, finding a beautiful blue apatite crystal at Mystic Valley, and giving away black tourmaline, rose quartz, sugilite, chocolate and By Kilian perfume samples to so many people!!!! ...including a stranger in the bathroom (now a friend) & the young woman who parks next to me in the parking garage...her brother is a percussionist, asked about my gong, and I told him about Memphis Drum Shop.

I am home, and so full of love I could burst!!! I'm celibate (as in no intimate partner) for 5 years & 45 days and counting...and I've never had a better Valentine's Day with a partner. NOTHING compares to today. No single man or woman outside myself has ever made me feel this beautiful, this lovely, this happy, this blessed on LOVE! Wahe Guru. All the people I love, myself & God & Guru made me feel this way...Immense gratitude to the Universe. If it got any better than this, I think I would pass out!

And Chela gave me a chocolate cake lollipop made by one of her friends + samples to take to two of my friends. We chatted for almost two hours about God & love, in a department store no less...and then I came home to see Wendy giving a spare car remote battery to a resident whose remote was broken. She always has everything! I smiled. Then some cool guy I've never met before named Scott made me blush sweetly...I am in utter bliss heaven! If I were to actually make love to someone feeling like I do right now...it would tip the balance and I would die from so much joy & go 'Straight to Heaven'!!!

And I gave money to a guy on the side of the freeway & he said: God Bless You. And God did.

Yantras, Mantras and JapaAAAAAAA!

"Students often learn the spiritual significance of a yantra from teachers or books by studying the symbolic meaning of its dot, triangles, squares, petals and circles. But not every yantra has all of these components. Some consist of only a triangle, others a circle, others more than one triangle or circle, and others a combination of several of these elements." ~p. 149, "The Power of Mantra & the Mystery of Initiation", Pandit Rajmani Tigunait, PhD ~student of Swami Rama from The Himalayan Institute

"The truth is, however, that only an awakened yantra has power." ~Pandit Rajmani Tigunait

Of the planetary yantras which I painted on my bedroom wall at the end of my first formal yoga teacher training in 2008, the one for Venus is what I focus upon each day lately. Each of these I only painted after doing arduous mantra practice for each mantra associated with the resulting yantra. Mantras are vibratory sound patterns from the heart of the Divine, and yantras are their corresponding visual form. But the 'mantra shakti' only emerges with time and grace, if it does at all. The truest yantra would be that which emerges only after arduous mantra practice from an individual student....not the forms created from a  book, even following explicitly detailed instructions. These were done with devotion and love though. Alas, the sable brushes I used seemed to have been consumed in the fires of devotion!

After posting this on Facebook, another teacher, Christy Ratliff Hayes, whom I had met again before my first New Kundalini Class at D's on Sunday -"Kick-Ass Kundalini"...wrote this: "Phoenix Amrita, I just invited you to a group that explores and colors mandalas. We post pics and share as much as we're comfortable. If you scroll down to the very first post, it explains. a few are coming over next week for potluck, coloring, and chat. Let me know, and I'll send you the details. I'd love to see you!"

I am not used to this...new friends inviting me over!!?! What is happening? This is amazing! I know it is partly because she was so stressed over having to end her class earlier from now on for mine on Sunday's, and we did chat back and forth amiably about that, and I didn't get angry as she seemed to be worried that I might be...why would I have been? She was just stressed about not knowing there was another class after hers...just as I would have been...but really...something more than just our kindness to each other seems to be afoot: Maybe the Lifting of a Demonic Curse and GRACE!!!!! WAHE GURU! CHERDI KALA!!!!!!!!!!!!

Princess Leia's Golden Bikini

I figured it out: It's a chore to teach a yoga class when the students won't breathe. It's a JOY to teach class when the students breathe!

I don't want to be the only one breathing for everybody...that's exhausting. Like night & day. It makes you feel like a slave instead of a servant. At least I know with Kundalini I can count on some freakin air flow in the room, lol! Here's to my practice to revive me...

And just FYI, unless there is a super good excuse, leaving in the middle of shavasana disrupts everyone else' practice. It is also: missing the point. Just so's ya knows.  And finally : this calls for chocolate. Peace out.

Amber Levora responded on Facebook: "Breathing a little extra for you tonight, slave girl. Is it wrong that I'm picturing you in Princess Leia's golden bikini?"

Laughingly, I repled: "LOL! Amber. My dad looks like Obi Wan Kenobi. I'm down with looking like Princess Leia. I can slap my hair into some bun ear muffs."

Praise the Lord!

Praise the Lord! The baby Jesus! Hallelujah!!! Guru Ram Das! Guru Arjan Dev! Guru Nanak! The baby Buddha, Jah! Wahe Guru!!! Sat Nam! Mohammed, Krishna & Radha! Gopala! Gobinde Gobinde...that was the most fun I've ever had teaching Hatha in my entire life!!!

Lol! I'm living! Loving having Catholic Cantors, Jesuit Priests, Disciples of Christ, Congregationalists, Buddhists & Agnostics in my class! This little Sikh is happy!!!!!!

Mark Mullen commented on Facebook: "how do you get such a class? I'd love to guide those type of people..."

I replied back: "I don't know Mark...they just showed up! A few have been coming for a while, but today was super special. I wonder if it had anything to do with sneaking them into a 24 minute shavasana to start class...listening to Ashana's crystal bowls recorded w the Ra Ma Da Sa mantra + Wah! chanting afterwards? Or my showing up early to do a 30 minute meditation practice before class? Probably all of that , fabulous wonderful meditative cool people to begin with and a whopping dose of Grace! I found myself asking people to talk about the instruments they played or loved too: the Jesuit priest is a saxophonist, the fabulously hip guy loves saxophone, several cello lovers, one piano player...their voices were like music to my soul! Wahe Guru. Wahe Guru.

Class afterwards at 6pm was good too, but wow!! The 4 o'clockers rocked my heart wide open again. Trying to ride these waves....it's like a huge sea swell. So freaking awesome. I don't even surf & I feel like I'm one in one of those tunnels...just so in awe.

All Is Well: Being Sensitive...

Today was our first conference call for this KRI Level 2 Aquarian Teacher Training Module: Stress & Vitality, and the meditation with The Mul Mantra. Before we began, I taught my Yin/Yang Flow class at D's Yoga Home, and, out of nowhere?!!, all my old students who had seemed to have disappeared while I was going through so much pain last year came back to class!!!!! I feel like something really huge was lifted yesterday...in fact I KNOW that something huge has been lifted.

Also, before our conference call, my dear friend Laura, Balprem, made a comment on my Facebook post about Michelangelo's Pieta and the process of release...to which I thanked her for bringing me back to that space with her comment, because I had been very angry that afternoon, and very hurt, reading a response from a teacher. I realized that teacher meant no unkindness, and was just overwhelmed with responsibility, and short by dint of not knowing how to quickly communicate 'love' over the internet and through e-mail. It's hard to fit the stuff in between the lines. Lots of us use exclamation points!!!!, smileys :) ;) :D O_o ...<doing the happy dance> asides ... and all-caps LOVE!!!!

When I received an e-mail later, my teacher had spontaneously added those sorts of things, but most importantly, I could feel that it was coming from a place of stopping to take a much needed rest...for a moment... in the HEART.

All of this, including our conference call, helped me to further ease the rage I had been in, which was only triggered by someone I love deeply, very deeply, who is like a mother to me, and a dear, dear, sweet friend. We get hurt, and allow ourselves to be hurt by those we love the most. And I AM sensitive...BUT, as Gurucharan Singh Khalsa wrote inside my copy of his book to me:

Amrita, Never doubt. Trust your heart. To be sensitive is a strength. Blessings on the Path. Sincerely, Gurucharan S. Khalsa

I was reminded that St. Therese of Liseaux tried really hard to be nice to a nun who was just awful to be around at times. Nicer than I have been this evening. I could have killed her with kindness, but when someone dished out more crap to me this evening, or what I thought was crap, I didn't mince any words. I wasn't sure what was the right thing to do anymore. I had said: I guess I'll just go pray or something. Probably. I know St. Therese probably had days where she just thought: This shit sucks ass. Ha.

...and praying worked. It worked very well. All is well, and all manner of things shall be well...

LOVE & TEARS II

In Michelangelo's Pieta at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, Italy in The Vatican City is the image of letting go, surrendering... to emotional release for the Madonna, and to the liberation of death for Jesus...this image is now making me cry again after what I just read in Sadhana Singh's "Everyday Excellence", & after doing the Kriya and the meditation for Grace. I feel that my decision to do an '8 Day Practice' of the kriya listed in his book + one of 8 meditations a day from Yogi Bhajan's 8 steps to excellence, is a direct result of doing our assigned meditation on The Mul Mantra. It inspires!

Today's meditation from that book in the series was working on the "celestial concept of the third layer of the human mind." Tomorrow's is on 'Determination', or persistence, perseverance tempered with unconditional love. As I read this...I remembered a term paper I wrote at the age of 24, long before my mother's death, about the scene in Thomas Hardy's "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" where Tess finds so many pheasants suffering in the boughs of a tree and beneath it; they are dying from injuries to grave to remedy from the callous wounds inflicted by hunters for sport. Tess, in her misery, feeling forsaken and helpless, rises to the occasion to avert their misery and break the necks of as many as she can...averting their agony further. I titled my paper: "The Compassion to Persevere".

Not only am I crying because of the memory of writing that paper, but for three other reasons. One, a cruel man from my past tried to steal that paper, the one I received an A+ for...but he did not succeed! Secondly, in Sadhana Singh's book he talks about the acting workshops he took using Stanislav's method acting, where, in a particular class they had two actors model Michelangelo's Pieta...the process of watching them assume this posture, literally an 'asana', a seat, a pose...became a transcendental expression of grace, determination, love & tears, and surrender for each person present; they were left speechless and in utter awe...

Lastly, a student of mine, Catholic and also Haitian, with a love for the goddess Erzulie, is reading this book at my recommendation. It is about accepting the challenge to face our deepest insecurities and surrender it all up to God, in whatever tradition, not just Christian, not necessarily Sikh, or Jewish, or Muslim or Hindu or anything else...just about surrender...true surrender that only comes with love, unconditional love...and with tears. Love & Tears. Surrender. The name of my perfume.

God certainly does work in mysterious ways...some of them heartbreakingly, neck-breakingly painful (like my cervical injuries could have been without grace), and some of them with a little chuckle at the 'pun' made on the name of that perfume I love...knowing that God is a punster like my dear Father allows me to relax and rejoice in the uncertainty of tomorrow and the grace of yesterday. I surrender to the Divine. Show me the way...

I will sit in my posture in Bound Lotus too...remembering this:

duyee kudrat saajee-ai kar aasan ditho chaa-o...

God sat in a posture to see the graceful happiness of Himself in His Creation. The words of Guru Nanak. The 1st Sikh Guru.

"The impact, sound, and flow of water breaking on a rock is different from that of waves breaking on a sandy shore. Rock will take a very long time to be carved and smoothed down by the sea. Part of it will become sand, and in a very long process, it will learn to let itself be run over by the sea. In the same way, man will learn to let himself be run over by the Divine." ~ Sadhana Singh

St. Therese of Liseaux is holding space in my heart right now. The saint upon whose tomb Edith Piaf prayed at the age of 6 to receive the miracle of sight after having been blind from age 4. Edith remained a devotee of 'The Little Flower' for the rest of her life. Her song "La Vie en Rose" has been playing in my head and in my classes for weeks now. And St. Therese? Someone told me once that she saw her hovering around me...that would explain the way, when at my wit's end, I have found the Determination & the Compassion to Persevere against seemingly insurmountable odds.

I posted this commentary on Facebook as well as mentioning this:

Thank you for taking the time out of your busy weekends to share in this experience of deep surrender for me...I'm still going through it. It involves a lot of painful as well as joyful tears. I am grateful for everyone's presence here. I am still so much in my ego though, that the refusal of some to take the time to read this hurts me immensely. I will get over it however, as it is part of the huge lesson that I am being given: respecting what people are able to give, accepting when they are not able to give.

Hail, Hail, Guru Ram Das, Heal the World!

The mantra is the seed. You are the only one who can take the spade and plant that seed in your heart of hearts. We must clear the clouds of self-doubt that corrode like termites and embody the Adi Shakti ~ the power of the Divine Feminine energy. All energy is feminine. The intellect to use it wisely is masculine. Purusha and Prakriti. In this Age of Aquarius to 'know' is no longer enough. We must be able "to heal simply by our presence, uplift with our aura, and transform with our word.

This transition, the change of the Age, is known by many names. Relative to stress, Yogi Bhajan called it the "gray period".  This is a time when many will lose their rhythm and their connection to the flow. Life will move faster than our nerves and personality can sustain. It will be very challenging to those without any tools to move past the stress. This "elementary stress" will be characterized by feelings of emptiness and meaninglessness. It is a period of "instant karma"..."when a single action done against your own conscience will result in immediate consequences." We are already seeing it in the wars, the natural disasters, the school shootings, gang rapes, murders, suicides... this massive, pervasive stress brought on by the Aquarian Age is ultimately not meant to cause such pain, but for those who insist on remaining in the Piscean Age paradigm of hoarding knowledge, trying to obtain power over others and get their energy from food and other people instead of from the spirit inside each of our hearts...those who would not trust that LOVE is the real source of energy...for those it can be tremendously painful.

"For many, it will be a devastating blow; they will feel helpless and consider suicide as an attractive way out of their pain. Out of that deep personal pain, they will turn to you for relief and react against you if you cannot deliver - there is no way out of it. We will be seen as healers, simply by our projection; there will be no need for claims. So, our radiance must heal and bless and uplift. Otherwise, hopes raised and dashed breed toxic and explosive resentments."

Our radiance must heal and bless and uplift. Otherwise, hopes raised and dashed breed toxic and explosive resentments.

There is no way out but UP!

I have learned from past mistakes...I hope. I believe. One student with Borderline Personality Disorder last year looked to me as a huge resource. I offered more than I had to give. I made promises that I could not keep. Not doing Sadhana was my downfall. She turned from loving me and all that she perceived I provided...to hating me intensely. I reacted poorly and called her a spoiled little girl. Nothing that I would ever want to hear myself. My shame over hurting her, turned into her threatening me with texts, e-mails, until I finally filed a restraining order. It was not implementable. Fortunately, there seem to have been no further repercussions.

Another student was present on the day that I foolishly taught a Rebirthing Kriya before I was ready to contain the intense energy that would well up from some people. It provoked intense sexual energy for one young man, who tried to diffuse it by approaching myself and another student. What a massive mess!!! I almost lost my job over that. Food for thought. JUST DO SADHANA. I am a person, we all are, all of us teaching this yoga, persons who cannot afford not to do Sadhana ~ personal daily practice IN THE AMRIT VELA...the pre-dawn hours from 3-7am when it is quietest, and our teachers on other planes of existence can come to us more easily and assist us, help us heal ourselves so that we can heal others. This is crucial. I know it. And yet I still resist. This is the ego. Sigh.

I left another student in tears because of my cruelty over handling her insistence on coming earlier and earlier and earlier and earlier to class, until the point at which she would come almost 30 minutes early between my classes and sit and stare at me, draining me, but denying that she was doing so. I've been told that she was coming for 'darshan of a teacher'. For blessing. That was probably true, but I was not strong enough to withstand it. I must rise. Rise like the Phoenix I have named myself after, rise like Cherdi Kala, the keep-up spirit, and heal myself more than I ever thought possible. I must become "a better conduit of the limitless healing space"..."be able to invoke that space in an instant".

The best way I know to do this is to DO SADHANA in any way I can. AND to guide the students in my classes to commit to healing themselves so that they may heal others...to not give up their power to me...hearing students say things like: "You are helping me to open my heart so much!!!!" sounds innocent enough, but it is a subtle giving away of their power. I am a provider of the connection, so that they may light their own flames, and then pass that on to others.

I say to myself: "Don't squander the light. Build it. Don't squander the light in your bank account. Let it build and gain interest. Don't dissipate it with wild sexual fantasies just because you are celibate and longing for the right long-term partner. Don't dissipate your ojas into shukran. Don't let the rasa and rasayana and amrit dry up through arrogance and laziness. The snake of kundalini will bite you in the butt if you don't keep playing Krishna's flute, leading the milkmaids, the gopis to a land of milk and honey. That land is right here within our hearts, if we just penetrate through the darkness with love. "

This... I say to myself.

LOVE & TEARS

Today began with a wonderful class filled with 8 students...the number of Infinity. Each of them, even the ones who had to come very late, who arranged to text me so that they could be let in the door, participated in the most incredible class yet! One student I had e-mailed the night before about 'Anam Cara', specifically a website explaining not only what spiritual friendship was, but how that translated into this particular website/community's way of offering Spiritual Directors. That student responded back in surprise saying: "Did you know that I am a spiritual director? And that I am looking for a spiritual director myself?"

Another student I had an intuition about...that she would show up exactly when I was about to get everyone else out of the first shavasana/relaxation period...if I just did the 'Transforming Negativity to Love' meditation first. I went to the door on instinct before she could even begin to text me; she had just taken out her phone and was standing by the door! The rest of the class was a kriya originally taken from GuruRattan Kaur's "Transitions to a Heart-Centered World", but used in Sadhana Singh's book "Everyday Excellence: The Art of Success". It was a kriya originally 'For Immunity', and then Sadhana Singh added it to his program to be used before each of the 8 meditations following. Powerful work from GuruRattan Kaur followed by the meditation series for RASA! This latter was from GuruCharan Singh Khalsa's "21 Stages of Meditation", the manual around which my Tuesday/Thursday day classes is centered along with the Transformation manuals, volumes 1 & 2. 

During the heart meditation of the kriya involving the 'Ardas Bhaee' mantra, I felt guided to have students hold pieces of rose quartz near their hearts. I would never have felt comfortable bringing the crystals into class were it not for my one student who had been to Winter Solstice 2012, and had been bringing her crystals into class. It was powerfully healing. 

After class, I shared chocolate and gave away some of my perfume samples from the 'by Kilian' niche perfume line. Real perfume made the way perfume was made an era ago. Not linear. Perfume that shares its secrets softly, just like the real flower essences gathered in the bouquet that made up the scent. I felt guided to do so as well, thinking of the information on aromatherapy in our textbook. 

After class, I had made plans for lunch with another student, and because it was pouring down rain, yet another student asked if I could provide a ride for her to work at a coffee shop further up Manchester. The rain came heavily and left as if we were in New Orleans...so she didn't need the ride after all, but as a result, we went to lunch there, providing my student unexpectedly with a new resource for dining around her strict dietary requirements. Not only that, but we both found that Mystic Valley's crystal shop was now right across the street, as well as Cheryl's Herbs where we both needed to pick up some things, and Kakao, a local chocolatier where I needed to buy some gifts for friends and chocolate for class on Valentine's Day next week.

After a beautiful and sweet morning and afternoon...

I made the journey to reconnect with my new friend Chela, and procure some more of that lovely 'Love & Tears' perfume with five kinds of Jasmine that is strangely deepening my meditation experience. Jasmine is very good for uplifting mood, relaxing AND energizing, and alleviating depression. I had a sweet, sweet, almost heavenly conversation with Chela about all things spiritual, finding that she is Methodist and looking to take up yoga with a deep spiritual but not religious connection. We talked about the perfume samples I shared, and discussed having her in class to share more about fragrance and its healing powers with the students. When I first met her I told her I had recently seen the phrase "Ape Guru Chela" in Sadhana Singh's book. It is a phrase that means: the student becomes the teacher. She has most definitely become my teacher. This young Methodist girl. Along with my student who is Catholic in the Haitian tradition, the one who loves the author Edwidge Danticat as much as I do. She is my teacher along with Gloria, Sarah and many others who are students. 

Love & Tears pour from my heart when I sit for the Aspect 3 meditation, and I feel as if this Mul Mantra meditation practice/Stress Backpack Meditation No. 6 is kind of like Chanel No. 5...or like 'by Kilian's' "Beyond Love" or "Prelude to Love". Chela explained that Kilian Hennessy, the creator of these perfumes, had created Love & Tears while going through a divorce. I feel that I am divorcing an energy that was never meant to be connected with mine truly...and waiting for the "Prelude to Love" to begin...

But for now...it is "Love & Tears". Love & Tears all the way...as Chela says. As the student says.

Anam Cara

"Even though life may have moved wearily and painfully through such a person, they have still managed not to let it corrode their soul. In such a face a lovely luminosity shines out into the world. It casts a tender light that radiates a sense of wholeness and wholesomeness."

-John O'Donohue, "Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom"

I'm not sure if my planned visit to the ashram will happen this weekend...I'd like to go, but I also have $200 worth of food that must be cooked after having no water on Monday all day when it should have been cooked, & spending the afternoon walking through the park today with a sweet woman enduring a painful breakup. I have a friend who needs kindness tomorrow too. I don't know what is possible. I will just have to surrender and see what appears on the horizon as the right things to do for my soul's care & for others.

5 Lotus Blossoms...

5 Lotus Blossoms...5 women in class today... all dressed in pink! (I almost wore a pink top by accident, but didn't). We did 5 variations on Hummee Hum Brahm Hum for opening the heart. A new student came who has been to Winter Solstice 2012, fallen in love with Kundalini and wants to live in an ashram. She brought her crystals, seemed way more grounded than I (must have some Kapha in her dosha), and said she's working on heart-opening stuff! Funny, but Thursday's class is on heart-opening too...then next Thursday is Valentine's and my schedule is to teach the Mera Man Loche for Healing the Wounds of Love! Maybe she'll be able to convince a family member to come, and they can stop worrying that she's in a cult. This young woman is a mover-and-a-shaker coming up. She'll blow me away soon! Yay!!! The more wide open hearts the better! And everyone was blissful! Three more dedicated yoginis + a lady who comes sometimes. Thursday will be rockin!

Joy!

"You should make yourself so happy, that by looking at you other people become happy." ~Yogi Bhajan 

These words showed up in my mailbox many years ago, along with an issue of Aquarian Times containing an article on Bound Lotus, the practice I have been doing for 1,194 days thus far. That magazine showed up back in November 2006. It came addressed to me as if I had a subscription, which I did not. No other issues arrived. Just that one. I tried Bound Lotus out then, but was too intimidated, and in too much pain to go forward. I stuck with my intense Sanskrit mantra practice. That practice, I am sure of it, brought me that further intervention from the universe. I put the quote that came as well on my refrigerator.

Today I can honestly smile at people do broadly on some days that my face hurts. When I finish Bound Lotus my skin is clearer. And when I chant the Mul Mantra I know where all of this guidance came from.

THE SHIELD OF LOVE!

TODAY... on my mother's birthday, on Groundhog's Day...I have had the most incredible healing...it began over a month ago...

Right around December 22nd a friend of mine was back in town from Hawaii, and she came over to have lunch, grab some chocolate and let me play the gongs for her. While she was here, and during the time I was playing the gongs, my shoulders began to hurt unreasonably in relation to the way my neck and shoulders have been healing after all of the cervical injuries. Specifically, a sharp, grinding pain occurred out of nowhere on the back of the ribs near the heart, but to the right. It was roughly around where I'd have significant pain after the fall on my head November 3rd, 2009. Most of that has dissipated in recent years...but it came back with a vengeance on December 22nd, along with frustrating and intense pain on the left side of my shoulders. I asked my friend to work on this, and she did.

She has a background in deep tissue massage, and while she worked on me, I experienced intense fear, crying, and memories of abuse. I apologized for all the tears, feeling unnecessarily guilty, but not telling her anything about the memories. She responded by saying that she had felt an intensely negative energy coming from behind me, and grabbing onto my left shoulder and not letting go! She described what the person looked like from whom the energy was coming. I knew who it was by her description. She said that she wasn't strong enough that day to release it for me, but suggested just constantly building my light, which I have already been doing.

I kept up on the path with the Aspect 3 meditation that I began on October 16th, the day after spirit voyage.com's Global Sadhana practice began. Then on January 20th, during the latter half of the KRI Level 2 Teacher Training Module Stress & Vitality in Kansas City, my meditation partner let me know that while she was doing the variation on Sat Nam Rasayan healing with the Guru Ram Das Miracle Mantra, she saw someone hanging onto my shoulders and shaking them violently. She described this person. It was the same description that Kristen gave. I told my teachers. I said I wasn't about to wait for the 'third' confirmation of what I had already known all along...I was still being tracked by this person energetically.

Last Wednesday a friend of mine offered the assistance of an acquaintance experienced in the removal of spirit intrusions/demonic energies. I hesitated at first, worried that her friend would be beset by trouble just through helping me, then I reconsidered. I accepted the help, on the condition that she inform her friend what he might be in for. Then I called for back-up. Reinforcements. Lots and lots and lots and lots of prayer from everyone I could call or text or e-mail that I felt would be on board with assistance. The last person I spoke to before going to sleep was Jim, who wished me a "Good Night". I had been so worried about sleeping, but I slept like a baby!

When I woke up my friend Ramgeet said that I "must believe that the shield of love works and surrounds you always." WAHE GURU!!!

This was the right time. I had surrounded my bed with quartz crystal, my meditation space with rose quartz and Danburite for the energy of love. I believe that this was the right time. Many people and much light were behind this release, Sukhmandir, Kirantana, SIK, KPK, everyone in my training, my Father, Jim & Nancy, Ramgeet, Matt, Ramgeet's friend...and I am stronger myself. A message needed to be sent of love, and it was...

I no longer feel like a puppet on a string...I was a butterfly trapped in a spider's web, but no longer...

I had almost no friends years ago when all of that abuse happened. But I am getting by today with a little help from my friends. And the lessons were there for a reason. They kept me humble. This was the right time, with a lot of love & a lot of strength behind the force to release me. I am grateful to my friend's friend and I believe that the timing was right, and that his efforts to help me were the final push to get that monkey off my shoulders. LOVE! LOVE! LOVE!

I AM LIGHT. No Fear! Only LOVE!!!

No Fear! Sadhana or bust! Holding the light!!! Sat Nam! At the feet of the Guru, & tonight again I will play the Rakhe Rakhanahar mantra on repeat for protection. Baba Siri Chand, Guru Nanak's son who was a sadhu, will prevail. No black tantric adepts abusing their siddhis...I AM LIGHT! We are LIGHT! We are One! We are warriors on this path. My 1st Sikh name was Santjeet. Spiritual warrior. I've never told anyone. I am sweet Amritaji, but I am a force of light to be reckoned with by the dark. The LIGHT will prevail! Always...unto Infinity & Eternity!

I'm still Amrita, with super special secret light warrior powers. Heh. If I roll my hair on the side like a breakfast danish, I could look like Princess Leia. ;) As Nirankar said, "You know I always felt there is a strong warrior hiding in you. But yeah. I like sweet Amrita. Confuses the heck out of the 'enemy'!"

Love & Prayers!

I found it difficult not to dwell in fear about sleeping well last night. I called several people, including some dear friends in Memphis, asking for prayers. I know I'm strong, I'll call on Baba Siri Chand again if I need to, I'm doing my meditation and I'll be fine...but I felt stronger with all those prayers! The power of prayer is immense!!! Yogi Bhajan did the math on that: it multiplies exponentially...so if 6 people are praying, multiply 6 times 6= 36 + itself, so...72 + the original number, so...78! It is no longer just 1....but the power of 78!!! And even Jesus said: "wherever two or more are gathered in prayer..."