Thursday, March 18, 2004
Kundalini and the Bridal Night
No doubt about it, Kundalini is like a marriage. First comes the ceremony (the preparation) followed by the night of love. This is the bridal night, the time of discovery, of intense, unbearable bliss (and some pain as the virginity of the old spirit is relinquished), and continuous, wild inner celebration. At last, the inner voice says, I have found it. Finally, I have arrived at my true destination, the home I have dreamed about, the lost Eden I have sought for so long.
The world without wears a face of luminous beauty. Every one and everything is exquisitely lovely. All of humanity reflects the perfection of the divine, and there is no separation between the self and others.
And the ecstasy, the lovemaking, continues unabated for days, for weeks, months even. It is said that some never return to their prior state, but remain always wafted onto another plane, somewhere beyond the merely human.
Then one day, there is an interruption. Something doesn't feel right. There is pain, unease, a general sense of malaise. One senses that this is not a perfect union after all. Bride and groom discover they are not an ideal match, the house is too small to accommodate two such separate beings. There are differences, disagreements--and the newlyweds realize they are not really a single entity , but dual selves who have cast their lot together, made eternal promises they can never undo. And, in the case of kundalini, it is as if two individual consciousnesses, two very different natures, are trying to occupy the single house of one body/psyche, trying to meld themselves together into a wholeness, each striving to merge with a stranger.
And from this point on, the struggle continues. Amidst the pain, the suffering, are nights of utter euphoria, days of unimaginable transcendent bliss. But, sooner or later, ecstasy is replaced by suffering, anguish takes the place of joy, and one wonders what sort of bargain has been struck.
And so it continues, month after month, year after year, until at last the warring partners make peace, each having given up something of value, each having received some priceless treasure in return. The merely human has surrendered a major portion of ego in order to know this unsuspected reality. The energies which emanate from the "higher" source as kundalini have entered and transformed matter, but this physical home lacks many of the freedoms of the totally discarnate state. It learns not to call upon its partner so often, to respect the limits of the other. And like a fickle lover, it sometimes disappears without warning, seems to abandon altogether the faithful spouse left waiting behind, wondering what has changed.
But, somehow, the energies always return, manage through now familiar paths of seduction to enjoy once more the good graces of the ever forgiving partner. And after a difficult and seemingly endless process, they are finally fused together, they are indeed a New Being. They are ready to set forth, to become visible to the world and reveal the results of this arduous alchemy, humanity not perfected but indelibly transformed.
(copyright, Dorothy Walters)
The Woman Who Slept with Shiva
I called him down,
and when he came,
I opened my arms,
as if to a lost husband, or child.
I thought I would turn to ash
in that brilliant flame,
my body, lustrous
as a star,
surrendering its defining atoms of gold,
its threads of memory, even,
to that blinding dance.
Everything dissolved
into a wave of feeling
till nothing was left
but the essential light.
Then I came back.
I slipped away
to the scullery,
and my bed at the top of
the attic stairs,
where I keep my amulet,
and my bracelet of stone.
At first I stayed silent,
thinking of what it might mean.
Now I am telling my story,
but no one wishes to hear.
They say they must tend to the weaving,
the harvest ready to come in.
They worry about sons
who complain of the brides they have chosen,
about daughters who scorch the rice,
and forget to put salt in the soup.
They think that the heat has gotten to me,
recall that my mother's father
was always a bit strange.
I think I have been
on an improbable adventure;
at night I dream of a face
I can't quite see,
although I almost glimpse it, at times,
in the pitcher I carry
from the stream at morning,
in the violet clouds
that gather at dusk.
from Marrow of Flame
God's Mistress
The other bears
his ring and name.
I lurk in doorways,
clothed in shadow,
waiting for a touch
so intense
I no longer care
what they call me,
or whisper about in the kitchens.
I am the wanton who keeps close company
with what the fathers denounce
and the many shun.
When god comes calling on
his whore,
the sidewalks empty,
and all curtains close.
from Marrow of Flame
The world without wears a face of luminous beauty. Every one and everything is exquisitely lovely. All of humanity reflects the perfection of the divine, and there is no separation between the self and others.
And the ecstasy, the lovemaking, continues unabated for days, for weeks, months even. It is said that some never return to their prior state, but remain always wafted onto another plane, somewhere beyond the merely human.
Then one day, there is an interruption. Something doesn't feel right. There is pain, unease, a general sense of malaise. One senses that this is not a perfect union after all. Bride and groom discover they are not an ideal match, the house is too small to accommodate two such separate beings. There are differences, disagreements--and the newlyweds realize they are not really a single entity , but dual selves who have cast their lot together, made eternal promises they can never undo. And, in the case of kundalini, it is as if two individual consciousnesses, two very different natures, are trying to occupy the single house of one body/psyche, trying to meld themselves together into a wholeness, each striving to merge with a stranger.
And from this point on, the struggle continues. Amidst the pain, the suffering, are nights of utter euphoria, days of unimaginable transcendent bliss. But, sooner or later, ecstasy is replaced by suffering, anguish takes the place of joy, and one wonders what sort of bargain has been struck.
And so it continues, month after month, year after year, until at last the warring partners make peace, each having given up something of value, each having received some priceless treasure in return. The merely human has surrendered a major portion of ego in order to know this unsuspected reality. The energies which emanate from the "higher" source as kundalini have entered and transformed matter, but this physical home lacks many of the freedoms of the totally discarnate state. It learns not to call upon its partner so often, to respect the limits of the other. And like a fickle lover, it sometimes disappears without warning, seems to abandon altogether the faithful spouse left waiting behind, wondering what has changed.
But, somehow, the energies always return, manage through now familiar paths of seduction to enjoy once more the good graces of the ever forgiving partner. And after a difficult and seemingly endless process, they are finally fused together, they are indeed a New Being. They are ready to set forth, to become visible to the world and reveal the results of this arduous alchemy, humanity not perfected but indelibly transformed.
(copyright, Dorothy Walters)
The Woman Who Slept with Shiva
I called him down,
and when he came,
I opened my arms,
as if to a lost husband, or child.
I thought I would turn to ash
in that brilliant flame,
my body, lustrous
as a star,
surrendering its defining atoms of gold,
its threads of memory, even,
to that blinding dance.
Everything dissolved
into a wave of feeling
till nothing was left
but the essential light.
Then I came back.
I slipped away
to the scullery,
and my bed at the top of
the attic stairs,
where I keep my amulet,
and my bracelet of stone.
At first I stayed silent,
thinking of what it might mean.
Now I am telling my story,
but no one wishes to hear.
They say they must tend to the weaving,
the harvest ready to come in.
They worry about sons
who complain of the brides they have chosen,
about daughters who scorch the rice,
and forget to put salt in the soup.
They think that the heat has gotten to me,
recall that my mother's father
was always a bit strange.
I think I have been
on an improbable adventure;
at night I dream of a face
I can't quite see,
although I almost glimpse it, at times,
in the pitcher I carry
from the stream at morning,
in the violet clouds
that gather at dusk.
from Marrow of Flame
God's Mistress
The other bears
his ring and name.
I lurk in doorways,
clothed in shadow,
waiting for a touch
so intense
I no longer care
what they call me,
or whisper about in the kitchens.
I am the wanton who keeps close company
with what the fathers denounce
and the many shun.
When god comes calling on
his whore,
the sidewalks empty,
and all curtains close.
from Marrow of Flame
