Kundalini Splendor

I have recently come across a website operated by Lynn McTaggert, who wrote "The Field" and "The Intention Experiment." Lynn is encouraging folks to participate in various "intention experiements" to determine if thought can influence outcome in certain circumstances. This site also contains various forums for like minded people to connect and communicate with one another.

One of these discussions was of expecial interest to me--several people described their experiences during the "Light the Grid" ceremony which occurred earier. They were writing in response to a suggested list of topics, and the answers were quire interesting. This one from Katherine Downer-Verlinden struck me as being quite remarkable, so I am reprinting it here (with her kind perminssion):


What time was it where you were: 4:11 a.m.

Were you in a group? No..by myself..but not;)

What was the weather like? Cool but warm enough to be outside, no wind..very light clouds

Did you have anything to eat or drink beforehand? No...my body was so energized I wasn't hungry at all..or thirsty.

What did you do to prepare yourself and your area? I brought alot of crystals..I had planned to put them in a circle...but I kept getting intuitions...I had a spot picked and when I got to the place to turn to go there..I heard..go towards the sunrise..so I went to my other choice. I had listened to Mozart earlier and went to sleep..got up and left to my place...I went into a meditative almost hypnotic state..and felt this throbbing visualizing energy vortexes coming out of me made out of golden cords and light pulsing into the ground down to the core and up to the sky then branchinmg out to reach out to people..I wondered if there were others close by who were meditating or the cords were randomly searching...then my body started pulsating with yellow then white light...I even opened my eyes because I thought someone was shining a light on me lol..but it was me...I went back "down" and sarted to send pulses of wave light out over the water till everything became lighter (as in bright..like all the auras were glowing..of everything the water, trees, everything..the clouds..anyways...I kept feeling gratitude and love for all my human experience..all of it. Memories went through my mind...I had also given permission for my spirit to participate in case I fell asleep..yeah right lol..
I kept sending the light and energy out in pulses sort of looked like what I would imagine an EMP would...and for a bit the water seemed different...I have to think about it for awhile...I held onto a large labradorite wand and a grid feng shue crystal...looks like a grid..


How did you position yourself? Standing ? Sitting? etc. I was sitting on a folding chair with my feet in the water. I stretched out my arms at first, but it felt better to let them rest in my lap.

What did you experience? Did you visualize anything? I think I answered that...lol..at least the visualizing..
I felt light..not just lighter..but as I said yellow then white...like I was mist..a veil of white energy..yes like that, and like I was above the water..it's hard to explain but the water had this two dimensional quality to it. When I started the meditation some coyote started yipping then a bunch of dogs got barking..I wondered if the saw felt ot heard the energy wave..then a fish came up and bumped into my feet..and some ducks came and landed in the water..near me..maybe 2 1/2 feet away or so. I have to ponder on it awhile because I haven't experienced anything like it before...but it was like connecting with love..loving others..like making love through the energy with everything..and noticing it but just letting it all happen...I have had loads of energy all day...and my legs which are severely disabled have been tingling and twitching and my feet feel more sensitive..maybe they got a jumpstart lol..I also feel exceptionally focused and really deeply grounded..part of the core of the earth..oooh that was amazing..I could see it..like the mantle of the earth going one way and the core turning the other and this zhung zhung zhung throbbing vibrating right through me..it looked like the core of a star cluster..the earths heartbeat..i kept getting tears not crying but I think I was awestruck

Would I do this again? You bet..anytime

Someone once asked,
Who can know the rose
who has not been
cut by the thorn?

Who can measure the fire
who has not been
singed by the flame?

Who can savor
the well’s deep sweetness
who has not had the taste of bitterness
in his mouth?

Dorothy Walters
July 9, 2007

Marina Gamble is a poet of marked sensitivity and imagination. She kindly sent me the following poem, which was, she told me, inspired from reading "Unmasking the Rose." She told me that she has been "hearing poetry in her head" since she was a child, and assumed that everybody else did also until she learned otherwise years later.

I think we will be hearing more from her in future.

(I particularly like the image captured in the last two words of the poem, for this is exactly what kundalini in its full expression feels like).

An altar of gratitude

Yielding to the Source
Intimacy unfolding
Petal by petal

Eminent fragrance
Planted deeply in the roots
Spring forth a bird song

Everlasting glow
Of wine aged to perfection
Ripening the vine

Font of holiness
Born of pain and suffering
Baptizes beauty

Seek and ye shall find
A way to the opening
Of embracing God


Rest in unknowing
Bathe in the pure mystery
God consummation

Sometimes as Elation

Someone clever,
speaking of the
constant ascents and
plummetings of life,
the momentary thrills
of exaltation
followed always
by those too familiar
valleys of despair,
called this
relentless turning
“the Ferris wheel of life.”

Another, wiser perhaps,
saw the process as a chord,
as in music
where all the notes are needed,
pain and elation
equally essential,
to complete the final set.

I think of it as a clock,
with hands that go
ever around,
hitting each station
regularly in its turn,
sometimes as affirmation,
sometimes as resurrection
of grief,
never pausing in its
circling journey,
its perpetual spiraling
toward its unseen end.

Dorothy Walters
July 10, 2007

My good friend and fellow poet N. M. Rai and I had a great telephone conversation yesterday (we live on opposite sides of the country). Today I received this poem in my e-mail. I am convinced that this woman can write on any topic any time--and she produces very skillful work to boot!

Dorothy

(for Dorothy Walters)

We spoke yesterday.
Laughter bubbled
like spring water.
Of course, we also talked
about poetry,
how we've both become
sand buried by words,
how sometimes a line
will burn itself to beach glass
and capture the sun.

n.m.rai

Phoenix

We know that bird,
have eyed it furtively
from the dark corners of the wood,
have heard its wild call
scream through the awakening ears of dawn,
made answer ourselves,
tentative,
unsure,
seen its blazing colors
(crimson, golden, blue)
flash
against the mirror of the sun,
gazed in amazement
at its rapturous flight spiral upward,
then touch down
amidst the rocks
and scattered twigs below
to build its cinnamon cone again,
felt its pulse rising
as it prepares
to kindle its ancient flame
once more.

Dorothy Walters
July 9, 2007

Once a Vision Unveils

So what if most of it now
is merely recollection . . . .
Stunning former moments,
incredible episodes of the past.

Once a vision unveils,
blinds in its fullness,
it can never,
ever,
be erased,
its dazzle excised
from the template
of the mind.

Dorothy Walters
July 1, 2007

(inspired by Louise Gluck)

Down here
where darkness thickens
in this tight sleeve of earth,
and filaments of root
run netted like a brain,
we have forgotten
about light,
the candles of the sun,
lost emblems of that other world.

Here our only occupation
is patience,
our single hope
the whispered news
that one day soon
all this will change
and we will be transmuted,
distilled to pure color--
scarlet, sapphire, gold--
flashing banners in the breeze,
hands stretched upward
signaling to those who pass ,
see us,
what we have become,
this bright sensuousness,
unfurling edifice of joy.


Dorothy Walters
July 13, 2007

This morning, as I was idly browsing through the internet, I ran across these sites which carry the kirtans of Sahadev, a remarkable chanter who lives in Mt. Shasta. i highly recommend these to you. The radio station apparently carries the music around the clock.


http://www.myspace.com/sahadevmusic

http://www.live365.com/stations/sahadev

The Dissident

What must I do
with all this joy
caught in my throat,
so much remembrance
of awe,
the miracles repeating,
the things that came
into being
that were not supposed to happen. . . .

Dorothy Walters
July 13, 2007

So Early in the Day

Things coming forth,
a reality which is saying itself,
insists on being uttered,
shown,
no matter how much
the heart grumbles and moans,
says she is not ready,
unprepared for sublimity
so early in the day.

Dorothy Walters
July 13, 2007

The Visitation

Molecules stirring,
arm or cheek awakening to its own life,
its private trajectory of joy,
overtaken by a feeling
it has no name for,
some fragile rapture,
delicate cellular dance
brought about by nothing that is seen
or interpreted,
merely infusion of bliss,
final blessing.

Dorothy Walters
July 9, 2007

http://www.firethegrid.com

Next Tuesday, a signifcant event will occur worldwide. It is called "Fire the Grid." It calls for a worldwide hour of meditation and prayer to send energy back into the earth so that the original connection can be restored between humans and earth, humans and the divine source, and humans with one another.

The story behind this effort is quite fascinating, for it involves the deaths (of a mother and child) and a truly miraculous return. It is this woman who tells her story and has organized the procedure under the guidance of her spiritual saviors and continuing guides.

Who knows what power may be unlocked by such a coordinated global effort? I encourage everyone to participate--those of us who know kundalini and work for the betterment of society know that all things are possible, when the enrgies are sufficiently focused. The existence of the internet makes such an event possible on a global scale in a way which would not have been feasible in earlier times.

Here is an excerpt from the site:

(The) plan, was given to me by the same light beings that guided me while I was drowning in the lake. They have been with me since that time and have been delivering to me information about our world and how we, with love and unification, can pour our loving intention of peace and healing into this earth. They want to set us on the path for a healthy planet, viable and working now, and for the generations that follow. They also want to direct us to the way to enlightenment and union with the Divine.

The light beings use the term "fire the grid" when they speak of the energizing of humanity with divine power, on July 17, 2007. They say firing the grid will accomplish two things. First, it will pulse healing energy into the center of the earth and regenerate the core, or the heart of the planet. Just as we poured our energy into my dying son, we will individually give the gift of our true intention, the gift of our individuality and the gift of our healing energy. As they explained, my son’s energy field was badly deteriorated, as is the Earths. We must pour some of our living energy into the Earth, and the accumulation of our combined energy will regenerate the Earth. They told me humans are like little lightening rods, channelling God's energy to the planet. Because we have separated ourselves from our complete connection to The Source, by not having a fully functioning human grid, God's energy has not been able to easily flow into the Earth. If we choose to come together to rebuild our grid, then the natural flow of energy between us and God, God and the Earth, and from person to person, will be restored. Do you see what a wonderful gift you will give? This energy will live on eternally with the earth and its inhabitants; the splendour of the creator’s intention for us realised in the creation of this new energy field for our planet.

How do we do this you ask? The time has been set for July 17, 2007 at 11:11 Greenwich Mean Time. I have been given no indication about why this date and time have been chosen, but this date has been told to me over and over again. I have been asked to bring together as many humans as possible, throughout the world from every corner of the globe, to simply sit and pray or meditate for one hour during that time. Hopefully, with your help, we will amass a union of humans, such as the world has never seen. Loving humans with one intention - to heal our planet and awaken our souls to our true purpose… to become one with our Source of Light.

(Note: If you go to the website and read the text, it will give you the correct time based on your own time zone. It is 4 a.m. for the West Coast--alas.)

Perhaps it is time to forget who we were and become who we are.

1.

If We Could

If we could, for a moment,
just be still,
fold into that infinite
silence, where no thing at all dare intrude,
not the syllables of day,
nor the images of night,
and be with that which is,
its boundaries melting
into our own
for that small second of oneness,
then release,
an outflowing,
all gathered back
into where
the inscrutable races
through the thousand created things.

2.


If we could hold it,
oh, even for one brief moment,
let it brush through us
even as god’s wings brush
over the land
claiming all she passes,
if we could,
just for an instant,
allow ourselves
to be consumed, totally,
in that glory,
that infinite flame,
what might we then become?

(A variation on Rilke’s
“Book of Hours,” based on Denise
Levertov’s recasting of Book 1, Poem 7)

Dorothy Walters
July 8, 2007

Everything depends on it,
that fold in time,
the door swinging open,
new directions exposed,
arrows pointing,
everything saying,
here I am,
take me,
I am your lost becoming,
forgotten pole star,
the glass spilling over
just for you.

July 4, 2007

Bernini's Statue of St. Teresa in Ecstasy

I have been watching a television presentation on the life and works of the great Renaissance artist (sculptor/architect) Bernini, whose most famous work is his representation of "St.Teresa in Ecstasy." Though astute in many ways, the presenting commentator/critic like many other observers does not fully grasp the significance of the moment captured in the depiction, nor does he understand the true nature of spiritual ecstasy.

This amazing sculpture represented a major departure in the history of art, for it ignored tradition and revealed the saint not as a prim, austere piece of marble more or less removed from this world. Rather she is a woman in the throes of what the critic interprets as bodily orgasm, with the angel of her vision hovering over her, an arrow poised to thrust into her heart (the critic here slyly comments that the arrow seems to be pointed down to a lower region, that is, her genital area.) Many viewers have made suggestive comments about this piece, one wag commenting, "If that is the face of spiritual exaltation, I know it well."

What these male critics fail to grasp is that ecstasy is indeed a heightened sense of pleasure, often erotic in tone, something which can carry the human close to the state of physical release, but it need not do so. As one person noted, speaking of the kundalini rapture, "It is like sex, only different." (And I of course think Teresa is experiencing exquisite kundalini arousal, which often produces acute bliss or rapture. I think it is the means by which the divine communes with and transforms the human.)

So--the first error of interpretation of the statue (and of the state of spiritual ecstasy) is to assume that such rapture is the equivalent of physical orgasm. Indeed, bliss--often experienced in certain types of yoga or in the kundalini process--can be spread throughout the body, awakened by a non-sexual stimulus, and seeking no sexual outlet. Erotic in tone, yes, but not the same as the more familiar human experience.

Another major mistake that would be interpreters make about the statue is a misunderstanding about where ecstasy may occur. Ecstasy can arise in some specific bodily location, as the hands or arms (or cheeks or elbows), quite independent of the rest of the body. It can flow through the legs, or envelop the head, even reach into the brain itself.

Teresa said that her angel penetrated her heart again and again with his lance, and those who have experienced the intense opening of the heart charka know that this can be a rapture beyond all others. It is as if the heart itself became an organ of sensuous feeling, not so much a rival as a transcending of the more familiar earthly experience, sensation carried to a new level.

After kundalini awakening, this bliss of the subtle body can be at times be felt by stroking the aura (at a distance of a few inches), or making almost imperceptible movements of the hand, or moving the eyes back and forth. This state is not always reached (indeed, sometimes there is little feeling at all during one's practice), but when such awakening arrives, it indeed seems to be produced by an invisible angel, the "Lover Within," the ultimate Mystery.

Moment

I've moved away
from worldly relevance,
this inward turn
that slips me out
of the collective skin.
I speak to flowers
like a crazed saint of old.
There is no desert
to move to, no hermitage.

The moment is a monastery.
Mockingbirds wear
vestments of joy.
The touch of air on skin
is holy water.
Every sound is chant.
I make a joyful noise
that is often unheard.
It doesn't matter.

n.m.rai

I have long been an avid admirer of Mark Doty, who has written eloquently on a variety of subjects, in both poetry and prose. Recently, I have been reading his latest book, "Dog Years," which is a tribute to the gallant animal companions he has loved and lost over the years, and also a shrewd commentary on the key issues of our times. I strongly recommend this book, for its intelligence and wit and loving (but not sentimental) examination of the human-animal bond.

Reading this book led me to think once more about Mark as one who chose the path of the artist over that of the pure mystic/saint.


The Artist vs. the Mystic

Mark Doty once had an experience of ecstatic illumination. At the end of an acupuncture session, he was flooded with ecstasy and saw the world for what it is, an infinite field of light pulsating over and through all the objects that together comprise the material universe. He discovered what so many have written about and striven for: everything is light, everything is bathed in love.

I once experienced a somewhat similar experience, which I have tried to describe many times in various ways. When this pivotal illumination occurs, everything shifts into a new dimension, a different way of perceiving reality and oneself. It is as if all the moments of childhood and all that has gone before in one's life were collapsed into one, a single instant, like a breath or an exhalation, or a cutting glimpse into a lover's eye that tells the entire story. Colors now literally change hue, sound carries a different resonance.

For me, that moment was fate itself, consigning me forever into the ranks of those who abdicate insistent judgment (at least in these episodes of surrender), who are swept into the furious arms of an invisible lover, and thus are forever thereafter sworn to fealty and devotion to this utterly featureless but totally convincing reality. Not that I mind. Indeed not. Who would turn away from ecstasy, or the abrupt transition from the world of the mundane and usual into the hidden, secret places where final love prevails?

But Mark rejected the cosmic bargain, would not give up his innate right to observe and reveal the totality of what he saw, to become the gifted interpreter, the all seeing witness--even in the face of the ultimate, even as he was flooded with signs of election--indeed,what some in fact might term enlightenment itself. Who, moreover, could then translate those acute perceptions of what his attention selected as focus, into language chiseled and breathtaking, so that we too, mute auditors, could also partake of his vision, albeit vicariously.

How can we fault a male who reveals himself as a creature who (like us) weeps over possibly maudlin experience, when he, the ultimate Merlin of language, presents us a kind of etude or tone poem crafted from that experience, like some elegant masterwork composed in a lost century? How can we reject such delicacy of sensibility, such range of response? How can we not both admire and love Mark Doty? And, secretly, feel a kind of gratitude for his "sacrifice," his willingness to fore go the "nirvana" of absolute knowing for immersion in the provisional world of human affairs, the artist rather than the saint?

He wanted to see the world in all its complexity--its shadows as well as its highlights, its failures and deceptions along with its gifts of joy. At times he seems to immerse himself in the immediate experience, with the delight or despair of a child, someone not yet compromised by too much exposure to our flawed human realm . At others, he is the distanced observer, taking the measure of this world and its weaknesses, exposing its faults for all to see.

Yet even here, he approaches with a kind of loving tenderness, revealing our failures in the language of gentle lament rather than bitter diatribe or caustic attack.

And so he became a kind of artist/saint of language, his rich intelligence shaping a world multihued and brilliant, revealing new facets of reality for our pleasure and edification.

Here is a poem which I wrote about Mark Doty some time back, but which I am repeating here since it seems to flow naturally from the above reflections.


Mark Doty

(Once during an acupuncture treatment, Mark Doty, a brilliant writer of our time, experienced a full blown mystical vision of the universe as an infinite field of light. He chose not to pursue this esoteric path, but to continue his role as artist and poet of the more tangible realities.)

This man has learned
to hedge his bets,
not to go too far,
stumble into those
fog ridden realms
where the mystics
and crackpots dwell.

His laser eyes
scan a provable landscape,
exposing unexpected vistas,
unguessed shadows.. . .

His language is eloquent,
but he risks
only what is verifiable—
the scents and smells
of a summer day,
the revealed connections
of events and their origins,
pleasurable insights
into the hidden world
of a threaded reality
which startles but never stuns,
all well within the comfort zone
of our accepted possible.

His exquisite script
claims the world
as form,
thing seen anew
from a different angle,
something we covet,
yearn to hold close again.