Kundalini Splendor

It was New Year's Eve and I was alone.  This was no problem, since I had been with friends at a spiritual gathering all afternoon and now was happy to be  in my own home.

Something had come up in our conversation about sound as related to the chakras.  One ancient Hindu theory holds that each chakra emits a special sound, and when it does so, that is proof of an awakened Kundalini.

I myself have never had such an experience.  Nor have I had the distance viewing or distance hearing that some have spoken of.  However, my friend described her own awakening that had included much sound, not in each chakra, but first as one note, then as the sound of everything that exists, then one and all at the same time.  This overwhelming experience had seriously unnerved her, almost shattering her psyche.  She never repeated it.

I stepped over to my bookcase to see if I had anything that would speak to the chakra/sound  topic.  I have many books on Kundalini, Tantra, energy healing and the like and now I stood in front of them seeking something on this subject.  I pulled out three books on tantra and thought how I would love to have time to read them once more, rather than being so bound to the computer for so much of my time (my choice, however).

Then the unexpected happened.  I felt soft Kundalini stirring in the root chakra.  It was gentle and sweet and filled with bliss.  So I did my familiar practice of moving my hands in circles up my body and as I did so, there was soft and blissful awakening in almost every chakra.

This was indeed a novel experience––Kundalini aroused not from reading but just by the presence of sacred texts.    Each time it is something new, something I have never heard of, something precious. Indeed, the process never ends.  It is always something unexpected, something more refined, always more subtle.

And I have never had anyone who could explain any of this to me.  Each of us is unique, and must make the journey for ourselves.  Sometimes it is a lonely path, however much bliss or ecstasy we may encounter on the way.  I think of John O'Donohue's words when he spoke of being 'betrothed to the invisible."

Then I sat down and asked for an image, and I saw (inwardly) a mother with a child in her lap.  I do not think it was the usual Mary and Baby Jesus representation, but rather pointed to the birth of the New Year and also, for me, the birth of a new self with the coming era.
But, of course, we are all of us being constantly born anew, with each instant of time as it unfolds.

And then I realized this image carried an even deeper message.  We are––all of us––being reshaped into a new configuration, the divine human.  This is the omega point that Teilhard spoke of, the destination foreseen by such writers as Shri Aurobindo.  We catch glimpses and taste of that new state of being now and again, but the progress itself is clear.
It is happening world wide as more and more are undergoing spiritual awakening, often propelled by Kundalini itself, for Kundalini is the god force, the goddess force, the ultimate creative energy of the universe itself.  It is source and end, beginning and ongoing process that never ends.

We are here at this time in history to witness and participate this marvelous transition of the human into the new formulation.

Happy New Year indeed, and blessings to all.

Dorothy

The Visitor

A knock came at the door.
"Who is it?" I cried.
"It is the Friend," said a voice.
"Go away," I shouted.
"I don't have a friend."

Next day, another knock came at my door.
"Who is it?" I demanded.
"It is the Friend," repeated the voice.
"Go away," I ordered.
"I don't have a friend."

On the next day, the knock came again.
This time, I decided to peer
through the window
to see who was was making such a racket.

And then I saw myself standing there,
waiting to come in.

Dorothy Walters
December, 2016

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT:

Advice for Pilgrims

Carry a heavy staff.
You will need it,
some of the roads are rutted and steep,
blocked with boulders
and fallen trees.

Take a large water bottle.
There will be springs
along the way,
but many have dried
with time
and are no longer shown
on the maps.

Walk in shoes you already
know about.
Let them carry you where
you are trying to go.

Don't read too many guidebooks.
The were written for
other travelers,
people looking for
caves and cathedrals,
renowned repositories
of the dead,
humming with visitors.


Keep to your own path,
bed beneath the trees.

When night falls,
count the stars over your head.
That will tell you
how many days
you still have to go,
how long to journey's end.

Dorothy Walters

The Anatomy of the Inner World






The Anatomy of the Inner World

This is a place you enter
without key or combination.
It is where your spirit lives
when you are out
doing errands
or at the theater with friends.

It is always waiting,
like a constant lover,
a devoted friend.

It keeps changing
how it looks,
becomes a shape shifter,
a floating image
in the trees.

But when you find it again,
its face is always familiar,
like the one you looked
at so carefully
after you were born.

Sometimes it is a rose garden,
sometimes a temple,
sometimes the rose itself
unfolding.


Dorothy Walters
January 6, 2008

My long time friend Jan Elvee sent me this poem this morning.  At first, I saw the title and thought, "My, that looks interesting.  Wish I had thought of that."

Then I noticed that I had, in fact, written this poem many years ago, but had long ago forgotten about it.  So it is a "found lost poem."  Thanks, Jan.

Dear Viriditas Community,

Are you looking for a powerfully sacred and nourishing way to start the New Year? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to immerse yourself in the beauty and joy that comes through the music of St. Hildegard?

On January 7th at the Viriditas Studio from 3:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. I will be offering the second group event in the series Healing With Saint Hildegard. I will be using St. Hildegard’s spectacular song O Viridissima Virga in our soul healing process. This song speaks to that part of our soul that is destined to blossom forth and give fragrance to this barren world of ours.

Is there something dormant in your soul that is yearning to blossom forth? Is there something stirring deep within you, but you are not sure what it is? Are you looking for more strength and courage in your life? Please join me on January 7th and give yourself the gift of immersing yourself in the nourishing power of this gorgeous music. Click here to purchase your ticket today.

Once again David will be accompanying me on the keyboard. This is going to be a stunning event.

May Viriditas be with you!
Jeannine

Copyright © 2016 Jeannine Goode-Allen, Viriditas Productions Company, LLC, All rights reserved.

Our mailing address is:
Jeannine Goode-Allen, Viriditas Productions Company, LLC
800 Zamia Ave.
Boulder, CO 80304

from
Jerry Large / Columnist for the Seattle Times

Originally published December 26, 2016 at 6:00 am Updated December 26, 2016 at 12:07 pm
Franz Wassermann, 96, wrote a letter to politicians that he shared with friends and family. (Jerry Large/The Seattle Times)

Born in Germany in 1920, he watched the Holocaust unfold as a youth, and he sees danger signs in the United States today.

Franz Wassermann is not the only person worried about his country. But he is among the few Americans who’ve seen a country upended by words and actions that most people didn’t take seriously, until it was too late.

Wassermann, a 96-year-old retired psychiatrist, has never considered himself to be a political activist. But this, he believes, is a moment that requires his voice, so he composed a brief letter, which he sent to Washington’s U.S. senators and shared with friends and family. His grandson’s partner sent a copy to me, and after I read it, I visited with Wassermann in Seattle’s Green Lake neighborhood to hear more of his story.

Here’s how the letter begins:

“I was born in Munich, Germany, in 1920. I lived there during the rise of the Nazi Party and left for the U.S.A. in 1938. The elements of the Nazi regime were the suppression of dissent, the purging of the dissenters and undesirables, the persecution of communists, Jews and homosexuals and the ideal of the Arians as the master race. These policies started immediately after Hitler came to power, at first out of sight but escalated gradually leading to the Second World War and the holocaust. Meanwhile most Germans were lulled into complacency by all sorts of wonderful projects and benefits.”

He sees similarities in our country today, early warning signs of what could happen if people go along imagining that there is no real danger.

In our time, he wrote, “The neo-Nazis and the KKK have become more prominent and get recognition in the press. We are all familiar with Trump’s remarks against all Muslims and all Mexicans. But there has not been anything as alarming as the appointment of Steve Bannon as Trump’s Chief Strategist. Bannon has, apparently, made anti-Semitic remarks for years, has recently condemned Muslims and Jews and he and Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the pick as National Security Adviser, advocate the political and cultural superiority of the white race. At the same time Trump is trying to control the press.”

Wassermann wrote that the entire Nazi ideology is in place and wonders how far it will go here. “We can hope that our government of checks and balances will be more resistant than the Weimar Republic was. Don’t count on it.”

I want you to listen to him because he has seen it before. Wassermann was 12 when Hitler came to power in 1933. He said the German economy had been in bad shape for a long time, and no one seemed to be able to do anything about it. The Nazis were the last party left to turn to.

The party negotiated a softening of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, which punished Germany for World War I, and the party was praised for speeding up construction of the Autobahn highway system and creating the Volkswagen. The nation acquired new territory. Everything seemed wonderful, Wasserman said. But it wasn’t.

Some of the worst was hidden from the public, but there were people who knew.

Wassermann’s father was a professor, his mother a pediatrician. His uncle ran a factory, but for all of them life changed, a little at first, and then it got rapidly worse. The government decided Jewish people shouldn’t be professors or hold leadership positions.

Wassermann’s father was forced to resign his position at the University of Munich in 1935. His uncle was removed as factory director and went back to his chemistry work, then after a time he was sent to load people onto trains. Eventually he himself was loaded onto a train and killed soon after.

Wassermann’s father left in 1937 to take a two-year position at the University of Chicago, but Wassermann said the government confiscated his mother’s passport and told her they would hold it for two years, essentially keeping her hostage.

Wassermann joined his father in 1938, and his mother was able to get out the next year and get his older sister from France, where she was studying, and come to America.

Wassermann kept all the letters that crossed between family in Germany and America in those years and translated them into English so that they could be a record of what happened. Actors read from the letters in two performances this year in Seattle.

And now he is reaching out in this letter of warning, which concluded with a plea:


“We have to counter this trend toward fascism in every way we can. Being alert to all manifestations in word and action. Alerting our representatives and urging them to act. Writing to newspapers. Making our friends aware. Demonstrating when appropriate.”

Could our democracy be subverted in some way similar to what happened in Germany? Only someone who doesn’t know history would say it absolutely couldn’t happen. We are responsible for protecting our democracy, which means recognizing danger signs and challenging ideas and actions that violate the ideals we claim as our own.

“I didn’t see it coming” is no longer an excuse.

The Holy Longing
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Tell a wise person, or else keep silent,
because the mass man will mock it right away.
I praise what is truly alive,
what longs to be burned to death.

In the calm water of the love-nights,
where you were begotten, where you have begotten,
a strange feeling comes over you,
when you see the silent candle burning.

Now you are no longer caught in the obsession with darkness,
and a desire for higher love-making sweeps you upward.

Distance does not make you falter.
Now, arriving in magic, flying,
and finally, insane for the light,
you are the butterfly and you are gone.
And so long as you haven't experienced this: to die and so to grow,
you are only a troubled guest on the dark earth.

Translated from the German by Robert Bly

Recently, a friend sent me the following commentary from a well known poet.  I was moved to write a response, and include my own reaction below.

In many ways the last election represents this adolescent breaking through of hidden unspoken forces through a locked and repressive exterior form. The gridlock was not just in Congress, but in the whole bankrupt almost oligarchical political process that had served its time, and the way all of us have been sustaining the lock though our self-referencing communities of mutual agreement. The representative who has ridden the wave of those forces to the presidency may exhibit many of the characteristics of an adolescent himself, but the forces and necessary conversations his emergence represents are no less real and are something any mature mind should consider. His emergence points toward a chaotic turbulence followed by a new order, an order we need to be extremely vigilant in helping to shape no matter whether we have called our selves liberal or conservative or something in between. One thing is certain, those who elected him will be just as disappointed and sometimes horrified as those who now oppose him, while those who voted against him will be surprised and sometimes a little disorientated by the dismantling of previous imprisoning norms they are glad to see gone.

None of us know what lies ahead, we could be in for four bumpy, very disturbing but at times, strangely gratifying years, we could also be seeing the attempted rise of Fascism in America, with all its disdain and oppression of individual rights and the rights of minority communities. This is a crucial threshold that requires all of us to be in the conversation, all of us to be just half a shade braver, half a shade more willing to meet the ‘other’ in our societies, including a previously middle American society that now itself feels marginalized; half a shade more willing to speak from emerging uncertainties into public forums, rather within our familiar communities of locked-in demands and dogma.

American or not, no matter where we live, we are all on this planet tending to live and converse in our own self-reinforcing echo chambers on all sides of the political equation, we all act as if our version of the future is the only one that should prevail. Dominated by the very gadgets and social media platforms that are supposed to facilitate communication, none us have been having a real conversation. Otherwise we should not have been so surprised, as we were on both sides, by this result.

His commentary is thought provoking, but not necessarily one I endorse in all aspects.  In fact, it leads me to a response as follows:

“all of us have been sustaining the lock––" Speak for yourself here.  I am unwilling to share the blame for institutions and dominant structures in our society that I have no control over and seriously oppose.  Yes, I speak with like minded people, but in the same vein I seek out others who are also aware of spiritual possibilities and cultural offerings. that I value.

What “imprisoning norms” will we see  gone?  Compassion?  Tolerance? Inclusiveness?  Democratic and human values?  He needs to be more specific, not just ramble on in “high falutin” abstractions.  I am not sure what his point is here.

I do not think that my view of the future is the only possible one, but I hope it is one that those with heart and soul dedicated to the betterment of the society at large would agree with.  I do believe that the possibility of a fascist dictatorship is quite real and is one possible scenario of our future (chaos, economic depression, military takeover, installation of the strong man who will bring order to society—historical plot going back to Shakespeare, among others).  Another possibility: “hero” of present moment collapses of his own excess––Greek hero who falls through hubris.  Familiar story.  And another one:  demented “hero” of the time dies sudden death through asasination or illness (many psychics predicting this now).

 I am not “dominated by gadgets and social media” and never have been.  Nor has the above writer.  I am intolerant of generalities that include me in the overall features of a society that I have in fact rejected from an early age.  I have paid the price for this (social isolation, being  labeled as “the other”, always seen as the “outsider”, etc. etc.) as has anyone who rejects the cultural trance of the society at large.

I have been “having a real conversation” with others (colleagues, students, writers, friends) on these very topics for a very long time.

And, one more point.  Though this writer has inspired and encouraged many, he has not had a deep spiritual awakening so intense it changes his entire being and opens a vision of a far different world.  He takes us to the gate, but does not enter, though he offers comforting portrayals of the human dilemma before the lightening flash (or slow alchemy) of transformation.  I am with Teilhard, Bede Griffiths, Andew Harvey and others who envision a universal process of human evolution, all operating to rebuild the inner structures of the human configuration, even as the outer structures are falling apart.

Who knows what will happen?  The divine human as an actual possibility?  Who can say what is evolving even now.

Mystery prevails.

Pee Jay is based in Malaysia. Here is his story in his own words.

Kundalini Energy Of Awakening : An Inside Story

The year was 2012. I was in the midst of still recovering from the passing of my daughter. Nothing seems to interest me and nothing that I was doing in my life seemed significant to me. Everything in life, seems like an illusion and I was just doing it for the sake of doing it.

There was a deep sense of void inside me, an emptiness that cannot be filled. A sudden deeper interest and curiosity in spirituality started to overpower me. I always had spirituality deeply rooted in me. Since a child, I always wonder about many things that my parents don’t really know or at least they pretend like they do. All of a sudden now I find myself spending time researching about Third eye, kundalini, chakra etc. Somehow I found a video by Samuel Sagan and I started practicing awakening the third eye through meditation techniques almost as if I was guided to do so.

A few hours later, after meditation, I felt something changed; something different then. What I discovered shocked me; a presence of magnificently bright indigo light dancing dynamically in between my closed eyes. I was confused what this might potentially be; am I imagining or is it something that my retina is causing? Soon I realized that this bright indigo light changing color dynamically; there is a green now dancing within the indigo. I asked and wonder; ‘What is this?’. Is this what it meant by opening third eye? I imagined opening a third eye, literally means the ability to see future and past events flashing in your vision. I tried to massage my forehead to see if it disappears; it seems to be permanent light when I closed my eyes. Maybe this is an assurance from soul that it is here to assist me as my higher self. I lived with that assumption for the time being until I research more details about it.

On the same day at night when I went to sleep, something happened to me that changed my life forever. I went through a massive Kundalini awakening experience in which I only realized what it was at the later part. I was about to crash on bed after hours of researching about Kundalini, chakra etc over the net. It was about 2am and I was still on the bed, sitting contemplating on the earlier third eye event. What happened next really startled me; right before my eyes suddenly a 4 dimensional colored, somewhat transparent and moving vision started appearing one after another from left and right side.

I began to pay attention to the details of the visions; what seems to be like an advance extraterrestrial technology slide show. The visions I saw clearly nothing that I have ever seen on planet earth; it is extraterrestrial in nature. I saw many different types of weird shape beautiful creatures that seems to have different colors of light on their body. The closest living creature that I can relate to from the earth is firefly bug. However, these creatures are extraordinarily beautiful texture, design and has a dynamic colorful light on them. I felt my heart speaks to them in the language of love; I didn’t felt threatened or any fear towards them.

While I was mesmerized in shock with the beauty of what appearing to my vision; it suddenly faded away. I realized something else is happening to me; some kind of sensation and vibration all over my body. It felt like I am about to be taken over by electricity charge on my body but still subtle. There was a lot of movement inside my body and spine. The energy rose suddenly in my spine and exploded in my crown chakra like a fountain or volcanic eruption. I thought I literally exploded and attempting to look above my head. I can visually see the electric energy mixed with many colours but mainly bright white light shooting high piercing my room ceiling into the sky.

Moments later it became a two way direction; It wasn’t only shooting up but I was also receiving it from the galactic almost like an upload and download of this energy. This took place for a good 20 mins or so where my body kind of frozen with very little movement. It became so intense as if 10,000 volt of electrical energy just striking with great force and intensity through my crown from above. It felt almost painful experience but same time in extreme ecstasy. My body got lifted from the bed and all I could possibly do is surrender to its power. Gradually I could see its reducing in intensity and suddenly disappeared; my body just fell on the bed. My heart palpitating trying to catch my breath; I am just shocked what I just experienced.

light-body-activation

While I was still sitting on bed, something dark started to appear on my bed. I couldn’t see it clearly at first and then I saw it; a spiralling vortex of energy looking like a wormhole. It became bigger in dimension and I felt a sense of pull while I was staring at it. Within a split second, I was sucked into it; I could almost hear the speed it pulled me into the vacuum. I am now somewhere else, definitely doesn’t look like my bedroom. It’s a different dimension in space; how did I came here ? Wait ! Where is my body ? I don’t seem to possess any human body ; I have obviously travel through time and space. It is not possible that I am here without form but I seems to have awareness and thinking. My heart starts opening in this vast infinite space. I could only describe this place as  "Blinding shiny darkness ” with glitters of stars.

I recently watch a video from David Icke describing his experience in a same way. at least I know I am not alone. It felt like home ; I said to myself ” Please take me, I just want to be here “. I have been shown the ultimate or perhaps an experiential answer to ” Who Am I ? “. I only felt unconditional love like I never experienced before. This must be heaven or a little taste of what it is like to be the creator ? Aren’t we all at the core level of our being are infinite consciousness, co-creators and pure love energy ?

A voice from far ; seems like coming from earth saying ” Go back to your body, go back!“.  In the twinkling of an eye, I disappeared and appeared back into my body and back into my room. I felt like screaming! I looked around and saw my wife sleeping, almost wanted to wake her to tell her what happened but chose to tell her in morning instead. She was in awe listening to my story and perhaps a suspicious look that I may have gone little insane lately.

This experience changed my life forever with new perception about life and wisdom from above. And also an affirmative assurance that there are extra-terrestrial out there making contacts with humans.

I experienced similar second Kundalini rising experience 10 days later. This is no coincidence, this is a message for me showing me glimpses of the spiritual path that awaits me. I was never the same person since then as I realized that I have began to miraculously possess healing, channelling and clairvoyance abilities.

Much Love and Light.

PeeJay

(https://www.facebook.com/kumaran.krishnen )

PeeJay Kumar
Healer, Channeller and Spiritual Teacher at Starfield OM
PeeJay Kumar has been in Holistic Health, Healing & Wellness, for nearly a decade. He opened his private practice, “Alternative Healing & Crystal Modalities” with a mission to treat the body, mind and soul as one and help humanity. PeeJay uses his knowledge and training of energy and the arts to assist others in working through their physical, emotional or artistic blocks to express their greatest longings in their lives and careers by releasing trauma or fear, and to attain optimal health. He is also a healer and self taught spiritual starseed.

He is now actively developing his spiritual movement in Malaysia and rapidly attracting like-minded to his spiritual business : www.starfieldom.com

A Poem on Hope

It is hard to have hope. It is harder as you grow old,
For hope must not depend on feeling good
And there is the dream of loneliness at absolute midnight.
You also have withdrawn belief in the present reality
Of the future, which surely will surprise us,
…And hope is harder when it cannot come by prediction
Any more than by wishing. But stop dithering.
The young ask the old to hope. What will you tell them?
Tell them at least what you say to yourself.


Because we have not made our lives to fit
Our places, the forests are ruined, the fields eroded,
The streams polluted, the mountains overturned. Hope
Then to belong to your place by your own knowledge
Of what it is that no other place is, and by
Your caring for it as you care for no other place, this
Place that you belong to though it is not yours,
For it was from the beginning and will be to the end


Belong to your place by knowledge of the others who are
Your neighbors in it: the old man, sick and poor,
Who comes like a heron to fish in the creek,
And the fish in the creek, and the heron who manlike
Fishes for the fish in the creek, and the birds who sing
In the trees in the silence of the fisherman
And the heron, and the trees that keep the land
They stand upon as we too must keep it, or die.


This knowledge cannot be taken from you by power
Or by wealth. It will stop your ears to the powerful
when they ask for your faith, and to the wealthy
when they ask for your land and your work.
Answer with knowledge of the others who are here
And how to be here with them. By this knowledge
Make the sense you need to make. By it stand
In the dignity of good sense, whatever may follow.
Speak to your fellow humans as your place
Has taught you to speak, as it has spoken to you.
Speak its dialect as your old compatriots spoke it
Before they had heard a radio. Speak
Publicly what cannot be taught or learned in public.


Listen privately, silently to the voices that rise up
From the pages of books and from your own heart.
Be still and listen to the voices that belong
To the streambanks and the trees and the open fields.
There are songs and sayings that belong to this place,
By which it speaks for itself and no other.


Found your hope, then, on the ground under your feet.
Your hope of Heaven, let it rest on the ground
Underfoot. Be it lighted by the light that falls
Freely upon it after the darkness of the nights
And the darkness of our ignorance and madness.
Let it be lighted also by the light that is within you,
Which is the light of imagination. By it you see
The likeness of people in other places to yourself
In your place. It lights invariably the need for care
Toward other people, other creatures, in other places
As you would ask them for care toward your place and you.


No place at last is better than the world. The world
Is no better than its places. Its places at last
Are no better than their people while their people
Continue in them. When the people make
Dark the light within them, the world darkens.


- Wendell Berry

_____

ANNOUNCEMENT: ANDREW HARVEY'S INTERVIEW OF DOROTHY WALTERS NOW CAN BE SEEN ON YOUTUBE.  LOOK IT UP ON YOUTUBE UNDER
"DOROTHY WALTERS AND ANDREW HARVEY" OR ELSE GOOGLE "DOROTHY WALTERS" AND THIS WILL ALSO TAKE YOU TO THE INTERVIEW.

THIS INTERVIEW TOOK PLACE A YEAR OR SO AGO.

Mirabai Starr is one of the most beloved mystical presences among us today.  She is an acclaimed translator of John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, and others, and has also written much on the inter spiritual connections of all the major religious traditions.  Robert Bly has served the cause of poetry and spiritual writings through many years.  He has helped thousands through his work, including publications, workshops and his own poetry, for decades.

Be sure to read "The Dark Night of the Soul" by St. John of the Cross (1542-1591.)  It is a major classic in mystical literature, and is one that looks on our relationship with God as lover/beloved connection.  (For me, of course, this love occurs often for those with awakened Kundalini––I call it the "Beloved Within.")  

Mirabai Starr

Love Poem to Robert Bly

You may never read this, Robert, but I have to write it.  I know you know what I mean.

I’ll tell you exactly when it was that I first fell in love with you.  I was sixteen years old, living on my own in Mendocino, far from my family in Taos.  I had dropped out of high school to pursue a spiritual quest, but then Jerry Brown found me.  Well, not Jerry himself, but a mandate he had put in place as the governor of California to track down all high school dropouts and offer them an alternative program to graduate.  So a couple of young hippie teachers in a Volkswagen bus plucked me from my tree-house in the redwoods and allowed me to customize my own education.  Which, you will be pleased to know, consisted primarily of poetry and drama and music.  Meanwhile, I continued to call out to God with all my might.
One day a van pulled up to our portable building next to the football field overlooking the Mendocino Headlands and a troop of men and women in flowing tunics and colorful scarves piled out, followed by their troubadour: you.  It was the Sufi Choir, and their composer, Allaudin, had set your translations of the poems of the great Indian mystic Kabir to music and created a choral symphony, which they had taken on the road.  I have no idea what brought you all to our little seaside village, but there you were.  The minute I heard the first song, I was smitten. Are you looking for me? / I’m in the next seat / My shoulder is against yours.
The next evening you were giving a poetry reading in nearby Fort Bragg.  You were going to debut your new translations of the great poet saint, Mirabai (my namesake).  When you found out my name was Mirabai and that I was an aspiring poet myself, you looked at me (very earnestly) and asked me (very politely) if I might be willing to read some of the poems with you on stage.  Yes, I said.  Yes.  And I did. Be ready to orbit his lamp like a moth giving in to the light / To live in the deer as she runs toward the hunter's call / In the partridge that swallows hot coals for love of the moon.
Many years later, in my thirties, I found myself teaching Philosophy and World Religions at the University of New Mexico in Taos.  I assigned Dark Night of the Soul, by Saint John of the Cross, to my Humanities class because I had been captivated by the great Spanish mystic ever since I was twenty years old, living in Sevilla and studying Spanish literature.  John of the Cross is the Rumi of Spain! I declared when I first read him in his original language.  This was before you, Robert, had published your translations of Rumi, whom I knew primarily as a Sufi master through the arcane translations of your predecessors.
Anyway, Dark Night, as you well know, started off as an ecstatic love poem to God that poured from John’s heart following his miraculous escape from nine months of captivity in a Carmelite monastery where he had been held in punishment for his efforts to support Teresa of Avila in her reform of the Order (But that’s another story.  I translated her next.  I was unstoppable!).  The nuns begged their priest to explain how this semi-erotic rhapsody might serve as a guide for the inner life.  John obliged with a 200-page commentary that brought me to my knees in awe but left my students cold.  My friend Sean convinced me to try translating it myself – the poem and the commentary -- and I did (not without the usual resistance: Who me?).  It sold quickly, because you, Robert, had opened the way for fresh, contemporary renderings of mystical masterpieces.
Fast-forward another decade.  I was forty-six, and had been invited to present at a conference on the Golden Age of the Andalusia, held in Granada, Spain.  I was to speak on the roots of Judaism and Islam in the writings of the Spanish mystics, John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila.  You were there, too.  You had recently turned eighty and you made it clear that you weren’t going to do many more of these journeys.  My husband and I ate dinner every night with you and your wife, and I finally had the opportunity to tell you about the impact you had had on me as a translator and a human being.  I gave you a copy of my translation of Dark Night and you signed a tattered copy of your book, The Winged Energy of Delight, which I had carried with me across the world. I couldn’t fully decipher your handwriting, but it said something about offering me the grapes and chocolates you had stolen over the years.  Fondly, Robert.
The next night you were scheduled to give a poetry reading in the Flamenco Theater in Granada.  Once again – thirty years after the first time -- you invited me up on stage with you.  I read each stanza of the poem, Dark Night of the Soul, in Spanish and you alternated with your own English translation.  Here’s the opening of my version:  On a dark night / filled with love-longing / undetected I slipped away / my house, at last, grown still.  We gazed into each other’s eyes as we sang this love song, and everyone – all 500 people – melted away and there was only us, calling out to God, recognizing each other’s souls.  I lost myself / forgot myself / I lay my face against the Beloved’s face / Everything fell away and I left myself behind / abandoning my cares, among the lilies, forgotten.
I am in my mid-fifties now, which must make you over ninety.  And so I hasten to add this little epistle to the storehouse of love letters you must have received in the long course of your career as a conduit for the mystics, you beautiful, wild, fearless man.  I hope your wife will excuse my infatuation.  I know my husband does; he’s also smitten with you.  He’s one of those early Men’s Work Vietnam vet guys whose lives you also transfigured, remember?

With love from Mirabai, a not-so-secret-anymore admirer

Announcement:

What:  Dorothy Walters and Andrew Harvey reading poems and book signing for Some Kiss You Want: Poems Selected and New by Dorothy Walters

When: Friday, January 6, 2017, 7-9 p.m.

Where: Boulder Caritas Center, 5723 Arapahoe Avenue, Ste. 1A

Cost: Members and students, $10.00  Non-members and all others,  $15.00

Some Kiss You Want is Dorothy's latest book, consisting of the best poems selected from her four previous volumes of poetry:

Andrew Harvey and Dorothy Walters will read poems from her new collection “Some Kiss We Want: Poems Selected and New” as part of a book launch for this volume.  Andrew wrote the introduction for this book.  The reading will be followed by discussion and book signing.  All who love sacred poetry are invited to attend.

Dorothy Walters experienced dramatic Kundalini awakening in l981.  She told almost no one of her experience until she met Andrew Harvey in San Francisco some fifteen years later.  He encouraged her to write sacred poetry and has been instrumental in her literary and spiritual development ever since, writing introductions and offering encouragement for many of her subsequent published volumes of verse.  She has now published four volumes of poetry.  “Some Kiss We Want” is a selection of the best of the poems included in those works.  She has also published a spiritual memoir detailing her Kundalini awakening experience in “Unmasking the Rose: A Record of a Kundalini Initiation.”

“Some Kiss We Want” has received widespread praise and acclaim: 

"These astonishing poems in Dorothy Walters’ "Some Kiss We Want" are at once a revelation and an incantation, humble and illumined, ecstatic and naked in the raw wounds of awakening. They are imbued with the fiery taste of the constantly disappearing sacred on the tongue. Mainly they are a call, as Walters says, to “ forget everything you know and open.” —Eve Ensler, playwright, performer, feminist, activist, The Vagina Monologues; In the Body of the World; The Good Body

In “Some Kiss We Want,” Dorothy Walters effortlessly weaves mystical jewels from all the living traditions—Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and the Abrahamic lineages—with succulent poetic language. The tapestry that emerges from the warp of wisdom with the weft of beauty is a magical carpet. Fly this book straight into the arms of the Beloved.—Mirabai Starr, spiritual teacher, writer, mystic, The Interior Castle: St. Teresa of Avila; The Showings of Julian of Norwich; God of Love

"Of all modern visionary poets, Dorothy Walters is, to my mind, by far the wisest and most radiant. . .Read these poems carefully, and tears of awe and gratitude will come to your eyes, and you will be forever subtly changed.”––Andrew Harvey


Andrew Harvey is a world renowned spiritual teacher, writer, poet, workshop leader and counselor for vast numbers on the spiritual path.  Among his varied activities, he leads groups to India to visit the sacred sites, to Africa to view the white lions, and to Bali to experience the spiritual atmosphere of this ancient culture.  He has published over 30 books and is recognized as a major authority on the poet Rumi, whose work he has translated and written about.  He has been hailed as one of the most important spiritual figures in our time.  Andrew Harvey is Founder Director of the  Institute of Sacred Activism, "an international organization focused on inviting concerned people to take up the challenge of our contemporary global crises by becoming inspired, effective, and practical agents of institutional and systemic change, in order to create peace and sustainability." His most recent publications include “Play it More Beautifully: Conversations with Seymour”; and "Evolutionary Love Relationships: Passion, Authenticity, and Activism” (with Chris Saade).

 "Every age has its teachers, who keep the eternal truths alive for all of us. And when a generation is very, very lucky, it encounters a teacher so illumined that the words he delivers must be illumined as well. In the case of Andrew Harvey, the light he sheds is like a meteor burst across the inner sky.”––Marianne Williamson

Beautiful music by Kabir!

www.CaritasCenter.org
5723 Arapahoe Ave., Suite 1A
Boulder, CO 80303
303.449.3066

Sudden Turns

I want to live my life all over again, to begin again,
to be utterly wild.
                                       (Mary Oliver, “A Meeting”)

Do you want to live your life again,
to let that wild thing inside you
have its way this time,
to not hold back when the invitation
came on the silver platter,
the one which would have changed
your life forever.

Do you wish you had stood up
and said your truth
in a louder voice
even when the others didn’t want to hear
what you were saying?
Do you wish you had told them
how wrong they were,
how they didn’t understand?

Do you wish you had picked up
and moved to the mountains,
even if the snow blocked the door
in winter and the streams froze over,
and gone swimming naked in the pond
that summer with the stranger
who stopped by,
or hitchhiked through Greece with
a backpack and a smile.

Would you give up all the things
you did in exchange for what you refused,
surrender all those treasures in your
memory box,
the times when you were,
in fact,
quietly, suddenly wild,
took the unexpected turns in the path
which brought you here,
the place you are now,
this life you love
and would not trade.

Dorothy Walters

Creek Water

Tumbling and shouting
like clowns
being poured out of
a barrel,
the creek is in full riot gear,
with a sound track
like an orchestra
tuning up
for a big performance,
harmonious cacophony
of individual voices,
heedless
of whether
their own matches the others
or not,
unconcerned with what audience
 might be watching
or listening,
whether they are happy
or sad,
whether they notice
or are unmoved.

Underneath it all
the plunk, plunk
of the steady
bass, somehow holding
the ensemble
together.
like a conductor
beating time
with his baton.

Light streams over the surface,
pieces of broken glass
shifting in patterns
too quick to comprehend,
 a mobile artwork
that defies
interpretation
by its swift changes.

At times, you need to let go
of all your puzzlements
about the meanings of things,
what it is all about,
why things went askew
when they did,
who you might have loved
in your life
if you had met them
in time,
and just sink to the very
bottom
of this well of stillness,
endless quiet
of not asking,
with only the many throated
voices of the stream
leading you deeper,
into the untranslatable
silence
of this,
the moment revealed
at last.

Dorothy Walters
September  2012

(from Stephanie):

Here is a] winter solstice prayer I wrote, compelled by the 9/11 disaster in 2001. Sadly, the world could use the following prayer as much now as ever. It was published in an anthology of prayers: WomanPrayers (HarperSanFrancisco, 2003).

Invocation to the Light
A winter solstice prayer after the tragedy of 9/11

On this solstice eve
with the world poised at the precipice
waiting to plunge or cross over
I call upon all the angels of mercy
who have ever shed a tear for the human race
I call upon all the guardians of peace
who have ever raised an olive branch or let fly a flock of doves
I call upon all the mystics
who have ever crossed a desert in search of the truth
I call upon all who have journeyed to the underworld
and returned with the wisdom of the dark
I call upon all the ancestral spirits who know the pain of parting the veil

I call upon the guardians of the four directions of the universe
O East, O South, O West, O North
help us to open our hearts to your weeping whispers
I call upon the luminous, numinous Center of the orb
O help us to embrace again the mystery of unknowing

I call upon all the animal messengers who hold the secret of oneness
I call upon all the faeries and sprites who dance in the forest
I call upon the undines, the gnomes, the sylphs, and the salamanders
the oracles of the mountains and the sages of the springs
I call upon the elves
the pookas
the djinns and the genies
the heavenly nymphs
the houris and peris
the cherubim
the seraphim
the celestial choir
the witches
the magi
the prophets
the messiah
saints and avatars
paragons and virtues
archangels in waiting
wings, haloes, and music

I call upon the three Fates
the three Graces
the nine Muses
and the seven Sisters
all the gods and goddesses
of a thousand names and guises

I call upon the Angel of the Abyss with the flame in his hand
the Angel of Memory who knows where we’ve been
the Angel of Truth
the Angel of Hope
the Angel of the Apocalypse who rides into the night

O come to us now
All forces of light
help us find our way through the wilderness
open our eyes to your sight

© Stephanie Marohn, 2001

Neeta, who lives in India, recently sent me the following account of her remarkable experience.  I have edited it slightly for continuity.


THIRD EYE ACTIVATION EXPERIENCE by Neeta Sharma Kumar


I could not sleep during the entire night of 25 November, 2016, and I could feel my body and mind become very active and energetic. Suddenly my forehead and above started to emanate very bright light from golden sparkling balls of light around my head and around me...as if the golden light was filling up the entire bedroom. I was sparkling and sending out light.

This part of my head – my entire forehead and above–– had transformed into a bluish sparkling huge flow of light continuing above to infinity.  I couldn’t see the end of the extension but blue luminescent light was continuously flowing into me. Suddenly, there appeared a disc like a ring moving around me in clockwise direction around my forehead and then the beautiful blue colour changed into mixture of green, magenta, blue  and yellow colour. My entire face, forehead and the extension above to infinity started to make beautiful patterns and mandalas.  I continued watching my reflection in the mirror with my open eyes. This was very different and indeed a new experience for me.

My awareness shifted from above to my throat, chest, heart, arms, hands, abdomen, legs and feet. My entire body from head to toe had transformed into sparkling blue and gold, and was emanating sparkling light .

My body started to sparkle from each cell ( I could see this with my open eyes) which then  started to change into tiny pixels and then to emanate layers of blue, golden, green, yellow lights. My palms up to my wrist started to itch and rubbing those areas made pale golden light from my fingers leading to web like palms and I also saw webs of light from my feet and toes.

I started to move my hands like the actor did in Dr. Strange. I could make a globe of pale golden ball of light. I  continued trying to create portal of light for some time and  then I brought focus back to my  body. I continued healing my body, mind, soul and letting go. The process continued for some time and then shifted to heal my son who had sustained a fracture in his right elbow and right ankle. Also I healed my husband and then I cleared, healed and filled my house with this light.

Once again it filled my body with light and I felt this continuous flow of light, unconditional from above through me to earth, including each and every life, soul, nature, and elements. I experienced unity consciousness, knowing that we are one and realized that AS ABOVE SO BELOW. The light continued to move from earth to each and every planet, star, satellite, and sun in our solar system as well as those in other universes, constellations, and galaxies.  This cosmic consciousness...just kept expanding continuously into the infinite. I could feel myself merging into light and consciousness...experiencing expanding consciousness...continuing expansion.

I would now continuously see in my vision in the blue background like a canvas two closed huge eyes with a huge third eye in the centre.  I started to see first through right eye different civilizations, war, destruction and through my left eye beautiful civilizations and   dimensions. Finally, I started to move inside my third eye and continued my journey  through a series of  doorways, gateways  and entered inside a  very beautiful building. Waiting there was a golden figure in energy form only. This energetic figure accompanied me for my further journey. We continued to travel till we reached three figures, again in the form of energy. I was introduced to all three of them one by one. The thought came to my mind was that these were Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahesh. And then all three figures transformed into one huge figure–– Krishna. Krishna opened his mouth and I witnessed his viraat swaroopa ( like what he showed to Karna during the Mahabharata War  as  mentioned in Holy Gita).  I felt as though I was moving from Microcosm to Macrocosm and finally into Megacosm...something like a journey into consciousness and awareness. I am still in awe ....and gratitude.

(Here are further references for Neeta:

My page Anjul-Jyoti- Hands of Light link - https://www.facebook.com/Anjuljyoti/

My account Neeta sharma Kumar link- https://www.facebook.com/neeta.sharma.777

My group based on my healing technique:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/conversationwithdisease/ )






Hi Dorothy,

I am sending my experience as attachment.

My page Anjul-Jyoti- Hands of Light link - https://www.facebook.com/Anjuljyoti/

My account Neeta sharma Kumar link- https://www.facebook.com/neeta.sharma.777

My group based on my healing technique:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/conversationwithdisease/

Light & love,

Neeta Sharma Kumar

THIS YEAR THE EVENT WILL BE HELD AT THE SOLSTICE IN BOULDER, SATURDAY, 7-9.  INCLUDES MUSIC, DANCING, CHANT, AND THE READING OF RUMI'S POEMS IN THE ORIGINAL PERSIAN.

Here's a short video clip from last year's Dancing With the Beloved event!
Hope to see you this coming Saturday!

Pouria Montazeri added a new video:
Be melting snow...

Be melting snow,
Wash yourself of yourself.

Subhān Allāh, Lā ʾilāha ʾill ʾAllāh

—————————
Original:

From the collection of Rumi’s ‘Divan-e Shams’ (Poem # 2172). The following is the 8th line of this 9 line poem.

“…God [what you are seeking] is nearer to you than yourself
why seek outside,
Be melting snow
wash yourself of yourself…”

نزدیکتر است از تو با تو، چه روی بیرون
چون برف گدازان شو، خود را تو ز خود می شو

*Subhān Allāh (سبحان الله)

This phrase is an invitation for removing any anthropomorphic elements or associations with God and therefore an invitation for purifying our own hearts from all that we are not (false identities and associations). Thus, its literal meaning, “Glory be to God” is effortlessly proclaimed and manifested, for:

*Lā ʾilāha ʾillʾAllāh (لا اله الا الله)

“There is no-thing, but God (The One Being)”

* Video ( a very short clip from our Rumi - Dancing with the Beloved: an observance of Rumi's 'urs: 'wedding night' event at the StarHouse)(LAST YEAR)

Strawberries Ripe

Whatever you have done in this world,
whether you carried
  each day heavily,
 like a plate of fish on which
only the skeleton and scales remain,
bound for the discard
almost
before the meal has begun,
or whether
     you awoke joyously,
crying,
yes, this is the day
the orchard is ready,
the strawberries
ripe for plucking--
      whichever way
you greeted your life,
put on it your special stamp,
that day will remain forever,
part of the great mind,
the memory of how it is
to live on this earth,
with its many
hollows and hills,
its constant rippling
up and down
across the changing surfaces,
carrying us always
to the next destination,
another arrival.


From:  A Cloth of Fine Gold
(now in Some Kiss We Want: Poems Selected and New)

What is it?

It has to do
with love.

It has to do with energy.

It has to do with the god force energy
that runs through everything.

It has to do with how we feel
when we are finally connected.

It is God
moving through your body.

It is the Beloved making love
with you from within,
even when you are not
expecting it.

It is you
coming home to yourself
at last.

Dorothy Walters
December 2, 2016

Shamanic Healing: Wisdom with Bevondaar Somé from Burkina Faso
potluck dinner and talk

Friday, December 9
5:30 PM - potluck
6:30 PM - 8:30 PM - presentation (donation)
Saturday, December 10
3:00 PM - 7:00 PM - healing sessions (diff. loc.)
call Ynyra at 303-862-2323 to set up in advance

Wesley Foundation/Chapel at C.U. - Boulder
3240 Folsom Street
Boulder, CO 80304

full details on Facebook here   RSVP

Kirtan with Laura Moses Granger; Friends
incl. Robert Rand, Ky Gabriel, Melody Mischke Anno, Chuck White ; Stephen Bross

Friday, December 16, 7:30 - 10:30 PM

Please join us for our monthly Maha Kirtan at The Lumber Baron Inn Gardens every 3rd Friday! This is a magnificent space!

$12 suggested love offering

Lumber Baron Inn; Gardens
2555 W 37th Ave, Denver, Colorado 80211

facebook details here

Celtic Shamanic Journey
w/ Scottish ordained Druid, Jude Murray

Thursday, December 15 at 7 PM - 10 PM

Join us for TheikoSoma's Inspired Word, Bread and Dance on December 15th!

Jude  will tell the story of the Tuatha de Danaan - the "old ones" - original people of Ireland- as a guided meditative journey which will also talk of the "thin places" - those places where the veil between this world and otherworlds is thinnest accompanied by drumbeat. Participants will meet their ancestral guide(s) who will offer them a gift from their own story. Celtic chant will bring the journey to completion

Wesley Foundation/Chapel at C.U. - Boulder
1290 Folsom St, Boulder, Colorado 80302

Suggested Donation $15.00

full details on Facebook here

Dancing with the Beloved
with Pouria Montazeri

Saturday, December 17 at 7 PM - 9 PM

Beloveds,
Mark your calendars for this special heart fulfilling evening where we will get to celebrate Molana Rumi’s life during his Urs, Wedding night, the commemoration of his passing (December 17, 1273) with live music, Rumi's mystical poetry (from original work and language ‘Persian’) and deep chants & zikrs in a sacred circle.

Tickets:
$22 online * $25 at the door

Solstice Center, Boulder, Colorado
302 Pearl St, Boulder, Colorado 80304

full details on facebook here

Note: Melissa wrote the following as a response to another writer's account on FB.  Since she published it as a response, I took the liberty of republishing it here.  I am always grateful when people are willing to share their experiences, for I believe what one friend said, "We must be teachers to one another."

Melissa Eshwa Reed

I too am a kundalini survivor. And I moved through her rising alone. And having survived her deep cleansing and radicle intuitive openings I bridge worlds. I attempt to walk in balance deeply mindful of the internal power to manipulate, morph, and change energies as an accelerator, via negative intention, or by healing transformation. The bliss was once profoundly overwhelming, clear seeing deeply painful, and purging of lifetimes of trauma disorienting. But I have arrived and my vessel wonders, what now? What now do I do with the knowledge? But she continues to work through me in mysterious ways. We are keepers and tenders of the fire.

Melissa Eshwa Reed

I love that you write of fear of going insane. When subconscious trauma catapults to awareness simultaneous to the awakening of the siddhis there is so much confusion. And many people in the absence of teacher become lost between realms of existence completely dissociated from our reality in earthly duality. I will always be grateful for the inner knowing I had to stay centered and for my spirit guides who helped me get grounded when I nearly spun off. No more fear. Not after what I emerged from.

Psalm 129

Discover in the Great Silence the mystery of who you are,
and be true to your Self.
For wherever you dwell, there is beauty;
Infinite Love is everywhere.
Know that the beauty hidden within your soul
is seen by the eyes of your heart.
Let the still small voice of the beloved
guide you by day and comfort you at night;
Then you will be blessed, and, in turn,
be a blessing to the world.

Psalm 129 (Nan Merrill version)

This rendering is from Nan Merrill's lovely volume titled "Psalms for Praying: An Invitation to Wholeness."  Nan was a very close friend of Patricia Lay-Dorsey, my friend who in effect founded this blogsite.  Nan is much missed for she was a light in this world. 

One Woman's Kundalini Opening

In the beginning stages of this I considered contacting a therapist because I actually feared I might be losing my mind, but knew that if I described golden colors, vibrating, hearing voices, having visitations by people not really there, not being able to control my mind writing poetry...they would lock me up as quickly as possible..lol...or at the very least prescribe serious medication that would dampen this experience. Someone I know from a health forum (who also felt she might be losing her mind during a major opening years ago after delving into some kind of spiritual type of Tai Chi) was helpful in encouraging me to just stay with the experience. I'm not sure she had a Kundalini energy jolt during her awakening, but the Energy did manifest for her via her spiritual practice.

I don't feel fearful about going insane anymore -- I'm just experiencing reality in a new way, and when awareness shifts too quickly or in major ways one can feel insane. I think it would be helpful to have a teacher or mentor, especially if I delve deeper into meditation. I do get the message from my inner guide however, that I should NOT be doing deeper meditation at this time.
Years ago, in fact when I was majoring in Women's Studies, I lived in an ashram for some years and meditated frequently, and so I am familiar with Kundalini. Ofen I have had minor Kundalini jolts, and had a particularly intense one a day or two before the Kundalini blast when I was sitting outside (during the 'poetry obsession' that was beginning to engulf me) and wanted to write a poem about two pecan trees in my garden. I knew I had to feel them to write the poem, and so I entered into them and WHOA what a blast, and a poem began with two names, "The Trees Said Hello" and "Kundalini Tree Dance". I feel that this is what catapulted the major Kundalini blast which came a day or two later.
I was trained in Reiki and so am familiar with feeling energy in my hands. Now I feel the energy in my entire body, vibrating.

Though I am frequently giddy with high feelings and love of the Universe, along with this comes more intense pain than I've ever known. One of my main goals since the Kundalini surge has been to face this pain instead of letting it stop my growth.. .

Anyway, I've always had the feeling that one can love no matter what happens, and that this was my mission in life, and that this love transcends what is thought of as the 'physical' by most. But this now is something on a much deeper level. It could be that not all parts of me knew this, and the strangest thing is that I feel more grounded than I've ever felt, and now know that the world is erotic, and that there really is no difference between physical and spiritual (though I may have given off a spiritual vibe in the past to people, some part of me was in outer space and not really here until this Kundalini jolt). So in a way, this Kundalini jolt was also a 'soul retrieval', and at first I thought that's all it was. But why am I making a distinction as it's really the same thing :)

The big Kundalini surge was scary. I was plastered back into my chair and could not move. I felt as if I were in some kind of rocket taking off at the speed of light and it was forcing me back into the chair. There was a strong sense of everything going faster, faster. My body began vibrating intensely and I could see the energy in my body in some strange way.

The next day I saw energy emitting from my hands, like a kind of golden cloud. The postman's eyes opened really wide when he gave me some mail when all I did was utter a simple sentence. I decided I should stay in the house and not contact anyone.
I felt giddy with love. Listening to music the vibration was so intense I had to turn it off. When I tried to work in a virtual world I could feel someone's energy to such a degree (and it was a sickly thing I felt from a particular woman) that it scared me. I was thinking 'my god this spiritual dimension is all very intense', and a voice said to me "you've only put your toe in". . . .  [sometimes I felt bad because I was afraid] I was hurting people because they felt pain over wanting what I had. I realized I could not even go anywhere where I had to react to people at that time, as too much was flooding in.

This is an impressive description of a Kundalini awakening experience.  It contains many elements common to others' experiences and some which are unique to the writer.  I would like to suggest that the experience of pain is not a factor to block the energies but rather a way of calling your attention to places where blocks exist so that you will notice them and do all you can to release them.  Pain––as well as rapture–– is part of the overall process of rewiring your nervous system, and it generally passes away over time.

I was especially interested in her comment that she is sorry than she cannot help others to experience the same bliss, for she knows that her inability to share in this way makes them frustrated or sad.  I have also felt the same, especially when the process involves ecstasy or rapture.  Everyone wants to enter these states, but they appear to come as a gift of grace, rather than as a goal to be reached through striving.  One faces a dilemma: whether to remain silent and live in isolation or to speak out and risk some sort of envy or even  resentment as a response.

Moments of Transcendence

 "And then, unexpectedly and inexplicably, it happens...

My train of thoughts jolts to a halt, and the whole world starts vibrating, sending seismic shudders through my soul. I feel as if the top of my head has just come off and the sky has poured in. I'm overwhelmed by awesome, unfathomable, breathtaking mystery. I don't know anything. Nobody knows anything. Life is a miracle of such enormous proportions that the mind can't possibly comprehend it.

I seem to have inexplicably slipped into another reality in which the colors are brighter and the birds sing symphonies. I'm immersed in wonder. I feel a bizarre sense of oneness with everything around me, as if I'm the universe looking at itself, amazed by its own beauty. I'm utterly happy for no reason at all. I feel certain beyond doubt of the goodness of all that is."

Tim Freke

Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.

JOHN MILTON, 17TH-CENTURY ENGLISH POET

The Knock

A knock came at my door.

"Who is there?" I asked.

"I am the friend," came the answer.

"Go away," I shouted,

"I have no friend."

Next day the knock came again.

The same exchange followed.

Then the knock repeated on the third day.

This time I peered through the window
to see who was so persistent.

I saw myself, standing there,
waiting to be let in.

Dorothy Walters
December 2, 2016

      SNATAM KAUR AND THE KANSAS PLAINS

Snatam Kaur exits the old Kansas courthouse.
(Close your eyes just a bit
And you might see Wyatt Earp riding up from the dusty plains)

White turban, scarf flowing, Snatam dances to the rhythm of the earth.

I was once in that ancient courthouse.
Fighting for my wife to keep her kids
The audience looking for horns on my lesbian head
As I tried so hard to look human.

Come On Snatam, let's dance, I'm free.

     By Luna Bliss (Laine Thompson)

I remembered Luna Bliss from many decades past when she was a student at the Kansas state university where I taught.  Her wife was indeed facing possible loss of her children because she was a lesbian.  And indeed,  at that time lesbians were seen as virtually wearing horns on their heads.  All these years later, Luna is following a deep spiritual path and the world looks at lesbians with a very different perspective.
I was delighted and surprised to hear from her today after so many years.
~~~