Next location...

Well, I'm in my next location. Somewhere I've never been before, Myrtle Beach, SC. It's a quaint little town that is on the ocean and where I'll be staying is walking distance to the ocean, but for now I'm staying at my friends house.

In perusing her yoga books I found a book on Tantra by David Hawley, well known for his books on the sub-continent. But his wife, Shambavi Chopra, is who changed my life with her book Yogic Secrets of the Dark Goddess. I was afraid of Kali before that book, but during my reading of it slowly fell in love with her and invited her into my life. Not that you have a choice, once she shows up, she is in there whether you like it or not! And so it goes...

The book is a generic overall of the things I mostly know already, but put in a much simpler tone that even surprised me when it poked some things I thought I knew already. I'm just skimming through it and glancing at whatever jumps out at me and yet it's still having some profound aha moment effects!

I'm to the point of just about complete bottom, and this is apparently where I needed to be. My finances are completely gone, my students and teaching Ashtanga Yoga is completely gone. Amongst other things, it seems that she wasn't going to let me settly for any level of comfort, and so she slowly took it all away from me. All my preconcienved notions I have of who I am, or rather of identifying who I am with what I do and the external things that come from that are being smashed, even now as I look right at them. And I'm seeing that that is okay and with it I wouldn't be this clean slate I'm becoming. A clean slate is where we are meant to be, and yet why do some of us fight against that so hard on a daily basis?

I remember seeing two women arguing in Mysore on my first trip, looking almost like they'd come to blows, but did not. Then the next day holding hands as they walked down the street, completely seemingly oblivious of the previous days argument. Someone told me oh yes, they let go of things here on a deep level. The underlying thing was their love for one another and friendship, that couldn't be affected by their surface level argument, so they are letting the disagreeing about that subject go. That blew my mind and made me realize we in the US, probably in most places, have a lot to learn about attachment.

So, I still have a place to stay, a bed to sleep in, food to eat so far, and so I guess there are new levels for me to go to still but the ideas of myself, who I am, who I want to be, who I think others see me as, are being called to task, and so my work is to let them go. Not as easy as it may sound of course, but here I am.

I lie in bed thinking myself into a depression this morning, and lie there longer until I saw a bit of hope and remembering my Abraham and Seth teachings started to shift my mind about them, finding some things to appreciate and raise my vibration enough until I could finally get out of bed, do a bit of asana and pranayama, shower, do my pooja and visualizations, sit with them, then read a bit of that book and now write. So I'm okay, just feeling my way through this stage of existence. Also doing my best to try and not just be waiting for India to open up their borders and allow me back in so I can get to my guru and start my studies with him. I'm trying to be here now and work with what is there before me, not always an easy task when what you want seems so far off, but here it is in an okay place to be.

I fought hard to keep my connection to Tucson and Arizona, even staying there 3 weeks longer than I was supposed to and now seeing that I should have left when I was supposed to and move on from there, but I didn't do that and that is okay. Now I know, they no longer want what I have to offer, and I no longer feel an attachment to teaching there, the places there or the things I left behind. Maybe, at least mostly, there are a few things and friends there that I do miss, and will, but I'm not there anymore and likely never will be again, so move on man, move on!

Okay, enough ruminating, enough being where I am no longer. Time to be here, and move into whatever is coming into play in this east coast ocean town. I invite it all in and see how the flow works here, won't you join me?

Retreat...

Well, this past year has been a strange adventure. Most of the time I have not been happy with it and complained a lot but then I started to appreciate what I was getting out of it and it shifted, is still shifting and I'm waivering on my positivity like crazy but am doing my best.

I was supposed to leave Tucson in May to go visit family for a week, then to Budapest to teach for a month before heading back to India to do a little tour around to a few Shakti Peeths that I really wanted to see and feel the energy of, Kamakhya again of course, and Varanasi which I want to make peace with after a turbulent last time there and then back to live with my Guruji indefinitely. But of course that didn't happen.

So I found a place to stay and stayed in Tucson until the exact day that I had arrived the year before. On that day my sister and I took a long drive back to my moms house, where I stayed for about 5 weeks. Then I moved to Omaha and lived with my cousin, visited with my aunt for about another 5 weeks. Before heading back to Tucson to dog sit where I had been staying before I left, only to end up staying at my friends off the grid desert house for another 3 weeks about an hour and a half from Tucson.

Deciding I would make these three weeks a retreat of sorts, thinking I needed to re-kickstart my asana practice and dig deeper into my daily poojas. Only to find out after 20 years of asana I'm still pretty good with it and the poojas are good too. So started driving into the local little mountain town, Bisbee, and really found I loved it a lot. Met a few people around town there and a few in Sierra Vista, another local town. Discovered some spiritual sites, some great hiking spots, etc. If you're connected to me on Facebook or Instagram you can see pics of most of these things there.

But I am ready for the next phase of my journey. It's too cold here in the desert for my liking when there's not the ability to turn on the heat very often and I need to live in a place of my own, not feeling like I'm under someone's feet or living off of them.

The next stage is back to Tucson for a day then to Phoenix to fly out to Myrtle Beach, a place I've never been. But a long time student and friend of mine lives there and actually has been trying to get me there for a while and has a house for me to stay in until India finally reopens their borders to the likes of me, a tourist.

Somehow I'm still on a tourist visa in India, even though I feel like I belong there and have more connections there than here. I would even take citizenship if it were an option, but it's not yet. Unless I can find the right help to work on it with their way of doing things, lol. But I digress.

So I'm hoping to teach in Myrtle Beach, enjoy the area, maybe more, who knows. I've never been, but do know it's warmer, is on the ocean and I don't believe will get snow, which is anethama to me. That starts Saturday, it's Tuesday and the days seem very slow. But from being out here my mind is mostly very quiet and I'm feeling pretty peaceful. So, on with it...

Strange times...

I know this phrase is over used, and that is exaclty why I used it as the title of this article. These actually are very normal times, the planet creates a new virus every so often to cull the population that is slowly taking it over. I could have just said culling the herd, but that may not sit very well with anyone. And we're all fucking tired of it, so that's all I'll be saying about that. What I'm really tired of is being locked out of India, it is my home. No, not legally, I do know that, but in my heart. And yes I would like to make it legal and get citizenship there. Once I get back and to my guruji there will be some things to come up that can help that happen, universe? You listening? Good... Neither is this post to just bitch about things as they are right now. That's happening way too much these days methinks and I'm over it. It's time to appreciate things, to shift our focus and to make peace with the way things are and move through them. My "normal" life for the past 5 years was to live in India and travel to Europe to teach, make euros, then back to India to live, maybe travel around and experience new places, but mostly live in Mysore. So when I got this gig in Tucson I was excited because I would make decent money, but then when I returned to Mother India I could travel around to some Shakti Peeths before settling in with my Guruji and his family near Mysore. And was getting to teach in a new place, Budapest, before going back. I was very excited and happy for this phase of my life. But, of that didn't happen. All things changed last year. But that afforded me to go inside, and now staying at my friends place out here in the desert, off the grid, is the final chapter of that going within. And being mostly alone out here I'm really getting to see my crap when it comes up, but also I'm seeing those things that I thought were shot that are not. Seeing all the good stuff that is still there for me as well. I had been having a terribly hard time getting so early to practice the last few months, and here my goal was to restart my practice. To my surprise it's just been sitting there waiting for me, and is fine. Getting to sleep to a more decent hour and then do it at my own pace has proven to be quite the surprise. I figured I'd be struggling through it again, but no, it's just like hey, here we are and there you are, finally come back to us. Now let's do this together, again. That was nice to discover. And my poojas that I do daily, I've been doing them for a while, so they are set and good. I was just looking to find the juice in them again, and I have started to, which is also nice. The quiet here, that was surprising how nice that has been. I love it. And they have place where they light fires often so I'm treating it as my smashan and meditating as an Aghori would on a dead body, next to it, feeling my layers burn away. That is also nice, along with taking walks in the desert. Relearning how to focus and create my reality in the way that I want it, and accept it when it's not there yet. That has been the biggest reason for this retreat, and that I feel I'm achieving. Also to find that deep faith I once had, not just focusing on how to make enough money, or to be somewhere that I'm not, and be someone I'm not, yet. All thsoe things are falling away too, and I'm finding that okayness with them as they are. That feels nice too. So I guess everything is just nice right now. And I'll take it, nice is so much better than where I was. And is a good place to start working on where you are and where you're heading. Nice. Not a word I like or use very often, but for sure a word I'm happy to feel and be a part of these days. These strange days...