Monday, June 17th, 2008

If you love something…let it go.

If it is meant to, it comes back to you…

Such simple words to contain such an unbelievable secret, and incredible mystery. I used to think these words were a consolation only, something to comfort yourself with when you could no longer hope to have what you once dreamed of…but that was many, many years ago.

That was before I had had the chance to find out about the good side of giving up…giving in. Giving over. Giving over to a bigger wave in the universe when it has clearly swept you up and you are fighting it, thinking that somehow the universe hasn’t heard your prayers or understood you properly. You feel that to let go in that moment would mean letting go of what matters so much to you…but then the moment finally comes when you just have to give up anyway. You have worked all the fight out of yourself. You let go of all the holding in your tight muscles, and you give in to the wave…and then, just when you think it is all over…it takes you someplace.

It doesn’t just take you someplace, in fact, but exactly where you wanted to go in the first place…or better.

Ironically, it is usually the times that I truly have given up, and maybe even grieved because I have let go so entirely of something I wanted so much, that I find that most sacred surprise. That I find that the universe had it in store for me all along…that my intuition was right about it coming into being…I just had to let go first.

So often in the metaphysical world we focus on holding the intention (an absolutely vital and imperative step to be sure) and very little on letting go of it afterward. We are supposed to inhale, yes…but then exhale too…and to do this over and over again. Hold, and let go. If we do it often and fast enough we see the greater rhythm and picture behind it all…and they feel like two parts of one body…one whole cycle. A grief is always going to bring a new life…no matter how unlikely. A loss is always going to bring some kind of ultimate win. We just won’t always know it when we let go…it is part of what makes the letting go so deep.

Because when we finally figure out that the universe isn’t going to leave us alone and wanting forever, no matter what…we begin to understand how really loved we are. And then we can let go in a whole new way…the way someone lets go when they know they are loved. Loved, looked after, cared for and adored. We begin to understand that our needs are always going to be met…are always being met in each moment. The universe loves us so much that it will even help us meet the difficult circumstances we have asked for as souls in order to heal and open even more to the incredible brilliance inside of us. But never, not for one second, does it leave us alone. There is no moment in the existence of all things that we are not adored, held, and watched over. We just don’t always know it.

So when you let go of something, with trust and courage, you are opening more widely to receive, and making a space for the universe to show you that it knows exactly how to give you what you need and want. We are leaving the process in very capable hands…hands we cannot see…and leaning back into the chair of emptiness and love, both at once. We are curling up inside a warm, invisible place, and telling the universe we are ready to heal, to be held, and to trust. We don’t have to do it all by ourselves. For we are the universe, and to try to work without it is like not using our own beautiful limbs, or heart.

I know…I know weary warriors…we want to win the battle we have been fighting all our lives, and for so many before. We don’t want to surrender. We don’t realize it is the way to win. But it isn’t because we don’t really know or trust that in our hearts. It is because we have been fighting the good fight on this planet for so frigging long we just don’t know any other life anymore. We have stood alongside one another, and watched one another fall. We have made the most of nothing but potatoes, and small rations, and cold nights. We have been fighting the fight of the light. And now we can just be the light.

But what will we do with our skills?…we wonder. How will I put to use the hardy and hard-earned prowress and strength? What did we win with all of our effort and blood? Who did we protect and what did we save? We saved the very heart we built up the fire in to fight with…we saved what is within. And where will we put all the energy we invested?…in finding, and then reveling, in the joy. Because it is coming, even in the face of the old world passing. And we will need all the presence we have ever known as beings in order to really experience that kind of bliss. It is what we worked and waited for. Now we just have to prepare to receive it. By letting go.

There is no special way to do it. You can keep your sword, and your shield. They will look good hanging on the wall above your hearth fire…as relics of a world long gone, in a time that most will have, blessedly, forgotten. We will be the storytellers again, and we will sit together…those of us who remember now will remember it all then too…and look deep into each other’s eyes, and maybe cry a little…and definitely laugh.

See you there.

Love, Jennifer

Sunday, June 1st, 2008

Why am I like this?

Why, oh why am I like this?… I thought as I literally ran through the great, columned halls of Karnak temple. Everyone else was poking around like a good tourist…but I had to be running, top speed, ready to take a left at the perfect moment and head off onto the desert-sand path toward my destination…

Unless you have been someplace like Egypt it could be very hard to imagine a temple big enough to “run” through…but, for anyone who hasn’t been there, let me invite you now to visit in your imagination the temple of Karnak–the largest temple in the world. Running through it is like running a football field…or two. It seems to go on forever.

This isn’t necessarily because it is cohesive and grand. Grand it is…cohesive only in a fashion. It didn’t start out so big…it is just that every successive pharaoh couldn’t seem to help but make an addition, until it sprawled like it was reaching out in several directions…wishing to engulf the world in either absolute sacred power or the desire to pretend to own it in stone. Or both.

And running through it I was just reminded, yet again, of how different I feel from most people. Not, however, for the reasons you would think. Not because of my psychic gifts or past-life memories, no. Because of the fire inside my heart that I can never quite seem to put aside the way so many people do. It sounds lovely in writing…maybe even beautiful. It is…beautiful. But it burns and it puts me out on a limb, pushes me at ledges and edges and onto the fringe of who I think I am. It is exposing and ever-risky. Again, sounds cool, definitely isn’t sometimes. It is intense. Always, always intense. And the only thing worse than going with it, is fighting it. I can’t deny it. Maybe that is what I sometimes strangely envy in many people…the ability to deny it. Though I guess that would be slowly dying for someone like me. Still, it is a fantasy I sometimes enjoy in the midsts of being so often a pioneer and so rarely a settler.

Why was I running through Karnak temple that day? Because I had gotten my heart set on something. A situation most experienced people would warn one not to indulge. But what would be the point of living if we didn’t let our hearts get set on anything? I guess we would all be good buddhists, but even a commitment to compassion is something to set your heart on. Anything worth anything at all is. In fact, though I am just about done with over-differentiating gender in human or energetic form, I am just about to label myself a permanent follower of the goddess and leave it at that. Because I don’t want to only follow the middle path, and I don’t want to find freedom from suffering by experiencing detachment from desire. I want to build up so much bliss through the vehicles that bring me joy, that I am simply better and better at picking myself up and brushing myself off when the attachment to desire doesn’t work out and knocks me onto my knees. I may end up with scratched-up skin but with a little antiseptic and a band-aid I am as good as new…and certainly and completely alive. I am not afraid of scars. I didn’t come here to be detached. I could have stayed in “heaven” for that. I came here to live. I came here to love, and get my heart broken…and keep loving. I came here to be destroyed, and recreated, until there is nothing left but my essence…and bliss, even in human form. Why would I slow down that process with too much moderation?

Don’t get me wrong. It doesn’t always have to be a roller-coaster. But it can be sometimes even in the midst of or pursuit of peace. And it isn’t only about setting one’s heart or intention, but also about knowing when to let go. For knowing when to let go is one of the finest arts in existence, and I hope to become truly brilliant at it in this life. But I have found I let go best when I have also known moments of holding on with everything inside me. In fact, that is generally when I have known miracles to occur most often, and dreams to come true. To trust the instinct of the heart, against all odds and at whatever cost, is the most incredible of alchemies and not in any way the easiest.

You see, there is a very special statue at Karnak, in a chapel on its outskirts. It is one of very few statues in Egypt actually remaining in the sanctuary built for it. There she stands….complete….timeless in her sacred room. She has the body of a woman, the head of a lion, and eyes that look right into your very being. You can touch her warm, black skin of stone. She rivets you, and you never leave her presence unaltered. She asks you with her absolute presence if you might ever dare to be completely who you are, without shame, and never hiding.

And so, even though we had arranged for me to be one of the afternoon speakers instead, and though I knew we might not even be able get access to her chapel for our group, I went around at dinner to talk to each of the other several presenters on the schedule with me that day anyway. One by one, with brief negotiation, everyone agreed that if I could secure us entry we would all share that space and time to present that day.

So the minute our bus pulled up to Karnak I was out, wildly seeking the man with all the tickets to get mine, and peeling off across the new plaza and into the great pillared halls. I felt my heart pounding and my body in absolute single focus. I thought about the other presenters at the event who were so easygoing about where they wanted to teach and when. That is when I thought, as I ran…why am I like this?

And then all of the sudden it was quiet. Everything stopped. I was standing outside her small temple and the energy was already sweeping me in and up. There was a tourist policeman walking high up on a wall above me. He smiled down at me, this girl who had come running out of nowhere, and quickly I felt welcome. I knew it was about to be worth all the effort and more. He gestured downward and in the distance I saw the temple guardian approaching quickly, his galabea flowing behind him as he jogged toward me, also smiling.

I didn’t need to ask if I could enter. He was already pulling out the keys. I asked if I could bring a group, and he smiled yes. He wouldn’t even take any baksheesh (tip). And then he let me in and there she was. For a few brief moments it was just she and I. She beckoned out of the darkness, light haloing her glowing face, and I felt like crying. This is always how it is, I thought. This is what comes of having a heart on fire that you can never seem to ignore. Yes, you burn. It often hurts and things don’t always go the way you want them to…but when they do it is sensational, absolutely otherworldly and indescribably beautiful. And when this is your aim you do end up having more of these moments than most. It is the only reward of burning.

So I sat with my old friend. I sit with her often, but there is something so special about seeing her in a form. About feeling her hands and looking into her eyes. Ancient Egyptians believed that statues truly lived and breathed…that if a statue lost its nose it died. I know it is true, because she breathes, and her heart beats, and, as always, she speaks. She spoke to me of the lion-hearted…the courage it takes to simply be who you are. So this is what I offered my meditation and chanting on when, happily, the other presenters and the group of forty people we were with that day finally turned the corner of the desert path and saw that I was there as planned…and broke out into huge, knowing smiles.

We shared an exquisite time in that small room. And Sekhmet touched so many hearts, as we all felt the lioness within…breathing.

I know I look like a young woman, which I always get a little kick out of when I look in the mirror and realize it. Though a perpetual child in so many respects, I am truly older than the wind now, and I know it. I have been around enough, and remember enough of it, to know what matters. And still, in some deeper ways than ever I am only just now truly embracing fully the true power of self-validation over self-sublimation. I don’t want to set aside my humanity to be divine. I am divine. And I am human at the same time. It isn’t anything to consider separate. It is the divine that is speaking through my humanity, and showing me things I would never otherwise have seen. I love even my needs and my weaknesses. When they are honored they fly off like birds and become something else. Everything is always becoming something else. You just have to wait, and trust, and find something that you love, or at least that helps you get through, while you do…

So run. Run away when you have to, but don’t forget to run toward too. Run toward what you want with your whole soul…one way, or another, you will get it.

Love, Jennifer

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