Summer Solstice...the actuality of it

I keep getting emails from folks, "I expected you'd have a blog up about your experiences by now"! Well, I don't think I'm ready yet, not even now as I type it!

So here it is.

I had a wonderful drive with my friend Pavan Deep, singing, talking, sharing, not-talking/just riding along. She is a very easy travel companion, doesn't even snore. Then we got there, to Espanola and spent the night with her teacher Pritpal Kaur. Very good experience, even woke up super early for sadhana at the ashram. Wasted a bit of time walking around town after breakfast, saw Yogi Bhajans property, his ostriches and peacocks and horses, illegally I may add, but it all turned out okay. Then we decided to head up the mountain to Ram Das Puri at about noon, which was way too early but we didn't know that then.

Got up there and put up our tents and ate dinner and I was having issues about being in the tent. I was already having them, but now the reality of it had manifested, and it as a borrowed tent and the zippr was not working so well, hmmm. So went to bed, no biggie, heard coyotes much of the night, and their babies, still no biggie.

The next day we worked set up crew a little bit, not much, but a bit and then it was time for bed again. The zipper broke completely, then there was a windstorm. I was having an emotional breakdown because of all this and then had the still moment. The aha moment that let me let go and completely surrender to the process and booom! The wind stopped and I fell asleep, got up the next morning too late for sadhana but early enough to drive into town and buy a new tent, come back and put it up and move my shit over. It was my first transformational experience of the 12 day/11 night time period spent in this dry, very dry, dirt infested, cold water shower taking, did I say dry?!? place.

Then the luggage crew experience started, its lovely. Lots of hard work but majorly great because of the amount of folks you meet and create relationships with, both on the crew and the people you are serving as well. So mostly the rest of that week went that way, I went to sadhana only a few times but had deeper ones than ever and enjoyed Mirabai Ceiba, Snatam Kaur, Sat Purkh Kaur, Dev Suroop Kaur and many others voices performing the prescribed mantras each morning. Even in my tent or the shower I would sing along with them, since you could hear them all over the camp. I did take one awesome class with Mahan Rishi Singh Khalsa, an amazing guy and had a block around my heart space move during that one!

The actual solstice, the 21st, a Monday, was the day big things happened for me. I awakened to take a sat kriya class which has been changing my life lately, and we did it for 31 minutes along with a talk and warm-ups. Then at 10:30 class with Gurmukh, the lady who got me into all this wonderful stuff. A class mind you that both tore me up physically and cracked open my heart spiritually. It was amazing and there were about 1100 people in the class with me, crazy amounts of energy! Lots of blocked energy got cleared out that day, especially after that and then the four hour Sat Nam Rasayan class I took next. Its a subtle energywork built around healing and cleared me out completely. Not going to elaborate too much on that art, you can google it to find out more if you like.

Then the three days of white tantric yoga began. I started the first day with Penny as my partner but it was too much for me. I felt so clear from the day before that I don't think I needed it. So I left at noon and went and watched the luggage tent for a while and had a few things to move for people. Then the second day I monitored, so I sat in line for someone when they needed a break, bathroom or otherwise. Very odd experience. But I did the third day and partnered with Dev Suroop Kaur, a lovely songstress amongst other things in the Sikh/kundalini community.

Friday was back to business as usual doing luggage and eating and all that. Then that night was the last night celebrations, ransabi (all night kirtan) and the amrit ceremony at 3am. I was lined up to take amrit, but couldn't sleep much, so much energy bouncing around the mountainside. So was up at 1:14, taking a cold shower, and getting dressed for the ceremony. My choli on, my kirpan on, turban to be opened up on top and on I went.

The ceremony itself will be described another time, it was lets just say, intense, long and transformational and I shared it with 29 others for a record of 30 people tkaing it at once. It lasted 4 hours and 40 minutes and then we were out and celebrities of a sort. Many greeted up with Wahe Guru Ji Ka Khalsa, Wahe Guru Ji Ki Fateh (the typical Khalsa greeting when they meet another amritdhari Sikh), which was great to be able to say and actually be a Khalsa! Very good stuff.

Then the leaving, the drive to Colorado SPrings for the frst night of the trip home where we got to see Garden of the Gods, Pavan Deep had never seen it. Then drove to Omaha to stay at my aunts for the night and then home on the 28th of June, having left the 13th. Gone 15 days total and still processing all the stuff that went on.

That, very perfunctorily, is what happened. Now the stuff that is going on inside will take another time to come out, or maybe even more than that. Its still in there purcolating, pumping around,figuring out where it goes and to what purpose its being used. And may not be able to be typed out or verbalized for a while.

Its all good though, just good stuff. Okay, off here for a while. Soon.

Sat Nam