It's been quite a while since I wrote on here, I'm not sure why but I started writing on Facebook, had great responses and discussions so kept going with that. Now that they closed my old account and those threads are no longer available to me I remembered I have a blog that I can also write on, I know, I know, I'm ditsy.
Arizona has proven to be a great thing and exactly what I needed, other than my body hating the level of dryness that exists here. I'm used to so much humidity in the midwest and in India. But I've got some great students who are Ayurvedic practitioners who are taking care of me with oils and advice that are helping so far.
I keep sitting down to write, either here or on Facebook, and nothing comes out, or it starts and I get away from the flow which then fucks it all up and I start typing about the weather or bitching about something. I am not here to bitch. I know I bitch a lot, but its about time I started focusing on where I want to be rather than where I think I am.
I am never in as bad a place as I make it seem, or seem to tell myself it is. I have done this almost my whole life and keep thinking I've gotten over it and no longer do this, but I do and I'm seeing it finally, so no more if I can help it. And I can! Nobody else can.
Teaching has been great, I've even been able to get up and do my practice almost every day so far before teaching, that is something I had been having trouble with. But here I'm mostly alone so have no distractions to keep me from doing what I feel like doing to support my life and my teaching, and teaching Ashtanga is why I'm here so it needs to be my main focus. I have most of each day free to focus on other things as well, so it's all good.
I've spent a lot of time reading tantras and other cultural studies about places in India that interest me, this is something I have a hard time doing when I'm in Mysore. I know too many people there and socialise a lot more so when I sit down to read I feel distracted and can't focus on the material, here I seem to have no problem with that.
Being alone a lot has been odd because I used to relish in my time to myself, but I guess since I spent so much time in India the last year I've gotten used to being around people almost all the time, so I've felt a bit lonely. I'm not lonely, I'm just fine as usual, it's just a story I told myself I guess and now I have to write a new one! So I'm working on that. Now that I finally have a new laptop and some good Microsoft programs and a lot of extra storage space maybe I can really start to work on my writing in the way those psychics, astrologers and friends have told me I need to, in book form. Hmmm, a novel idea!
The more I read about Kamakhya the more anxious I am to get back there, and from what I hear now it used to be even more esoteric than it still seems to me now. But since the government took over regulating it the hours changed and most of the rituals are less dramatic than that used to be, including that they used to be in the middle of the night sometimes. So amazing, but even so the energy there is something I can never explain fully to others as well as being a force to be wreckoned with.
I'm also chanting a new mantra in the mornings that I learned from the Kamakhya Tantra, its long and its powerful, I'm loving it and seeing how its making me feel has been interesting. I'm focusing more and more on Kali Ma being Kamakhya as it states in that Tantra, it also names that Durga is the same as well, and if you really just get down to it all is Maa, especially the Devi versions of the Gods, they are all her and that is why Kamakhya is depicted with so many different heads and different skin tones on each head to show that she is manifested as all version of the Goddess you can think of. So powerful!
Finding this more full version of non-duality has been the most fulfilling thing to me, something I got a taste of at the Kamakhya temple, but also from my guru near Mysore who built a Pratyangira temple there. Another esoteric version of Mac that many have never heard of, but she is also from the Sri Vidya kula side of things, and is worshipped in his home state as a version of Bhadrakali, so still supporting the oneness of it all.
I love this stuff, I love all of it, I love all of you for being so supportive in all my ups and downs and crazy tangents I get off on in my writing, but most of all because you are me, and I am you, and if you can't love yourself how in the hell you gonna love somebody else? To quote my favourite drag queen...
