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!