Spring Cleaning with Devo Maheshvara, or When Grown-ups Throw Tantrums

It's just one of those days.. that's what we tend to say. To me, it's been coined a "devo maheshvara day".
It happens all the time, one or all of your plans fall apart... choice one, fight it and throw a tantrum and say "no! No!" stomping your feet, or choice two, deal with the strong emotions and let it happen as it is, as opposed to trying to control it, let it show you where to go and what to do. So what do you choose?

When things are smooth, its easy enough to think the choice is obvious. And through regular practice of yoga and mindfulness, we can cultivate the opening, the surrender, the faith in one's resilience and trust in life, it takes to abruptly abandon the expectations you had and to get in line with what is. We get tested.. and we can slowly see the hissy fit in all its immature uselessness and painfully obnoxious absurdity. Yet in the moment, when you are tenderly in pain, or in the midst of intense shock, pain, heart-break, frustration, rage.. it is harder to open to it with grace. As far as we have come, sometimes the Universe will up the ante until it breaks us, because that is just what it intended to do. "How cruel!", you say? Breaking us open is allowing us to become more free, to let go of unneeded and useless burdens and to spring clean the mind/body/emotions/energy to make room for brighter, more fitting, more magnificent energies to come our way. 

Years ago I suffered a lot in my body and mind, everyday. It was hellish. And I would break down and have tantrums fairly regularly, because my patience was always worn by bareing the burden of massive dscomfort in my own body all day, everyday, and serious chronic eating disorders. So maybe a good reason to feel shitty, but never an excuse to spoil the vibes and have a useless and anoying hissy fit. Oh well, live and learn. I felt the old discomfort the other day, due to holding onto too much energy and not finding work-life balance since my stay at Albany Med with my dad. I observed it, and calmly took care of the issue, and did my thing. That felt great. The universe sought to humble me, and to remind me how far I have to go and that we are never finished, so I had my ass kicked by God yesterday.  I derive peace from getting my work done, so when I had a hard time getting out of the house early, it was building a sense of lethargy met with frustration. It kept building as I couldn't seem to get out of the house for anything. Then my phone dies.. not the battery, I mean the sucker won't turn on, it acted totally dead. I don't have the money to replace that, I'm worried about making rent in a couple days. Then I find that there is an issue with the piercing in my nose, a piercing that I love, and have zero interest in getting rid of. I can't fix it myself, and I don't have a piercest I know to trust around here. Stalemate with the out-of-alignment metal in my nose- can't get it out to fix it, can't get it in properly, and it hurts like hell, I mean, this is my tender little nose and she is hurting with all this wiggling metal in her flesh and unable to go through the hole on the other side.. that broke me.. clock is ticking I have work to do, have to get out of the house, no phone to ask a friend who I can trust to fix my nose, can't fix it myself.. BOOM! Tantrum begins.. curse words I had no interest in every again saying flowed, and not quietly.. thankfully it was only ten or fifteen minutes, not an hour or two like it used to be back in the day.. and this was by far the worst dealing I have had with stress in a very long time.. even though, I admit, when my toddler karate kicks me upside the head while we are sleeping or axe kicks me directly in my eye socket, I cuss usually only 10% of the time now, the rest of the time I breathe, release, and help him move his dangerous parts away from my sensitive ones......

But the difference this time is that the tantrum was not only short, but I witnessed it the whole time. I am friends with Devo Maheshvara, the energy of loss, destruction, removal, that governs these sorts of days. Clearing away the old husks of habits, by dredging them up, forcing us to face their ugliness or our lack of agreeance in every embodying them again, so that we can release them. And VOILA!, we have made room for grace to flow to to become lighter, freer beings for the sake of all.. but it is mainly a process.. we have to instance by instance see these things happen, witness our habits, feel the embarasment and disgust, (painfully), and choose to stop ourselves. And then, when we gain enough of a foothold to STOP, even for a moment, just stop............

and don't think anything..


and now, this is what is happening, so how am I choosing to rise to the challenge?

So I fixed the phone, by finding my back-up battery, that worked it turned on.

And I caught the intuitive vibe that with the amount of gas I had in the car, my best bet was to head towards thus and such, and after driving for an hour and passing a few spots, one little lonely tattoo shop was my last chance before I must head to work, and lo! and Behold!.. synchronicity abounded and I knew I found what the universe wanted me to. It can be painful, I mean, I literally was led by a ring in my nose on this one. ;) The piercest was amiable, sterile, professional, very modest about the money it required, and happened to be very interested in yoga, so we talked, and he will also refer clients to me. I woke up with a desire to connect with more future students. And so it was. Led by a dead phone and the ring in my nose..

I love this process usually, I consider it an adventure, the Divine leading me through synchronicity and through the objects and experiences in front of me to a profound experience. Usually I hit the resistance and the recognition that things are falling apart, and I literally supplicate and ask, often out loud, "OK, I'm on it! Let's do this! Whats the agenda, what's next?" And it is a peaceful process, full of delight and wonder. Sometimes I guess, the violence is needed to redirect me still.

Once the piercing was fixed, I was off to work, and had a beautiful evening..l was once again flooded with love and gratitude for my role in this lifetime and for the community we are creating together through the yoga studio.. it is one of my most favorite places to be in the world, and I love practicing yoga in a community setting, more then practicing alone.
And the rent that I felt was not going to be made, well down to the dollar was brought to me. Just what I needed I was given. And I was full of gratitude.


This morning I had to change my nose ring, which I was a wee bit nervous about given yesterday's debacle.. and it took a few moments and it was in. BOOM! Independence only comes with a tender balance of letting go and full acceptance of our limits and the fact that we can't control reality, but we can choose how with react to it, and therein lies our power and the art of living.

Happy Spring Cleaning!!

Naïve Negativity Takes Its Leave

I have written many times of old habits "quitting me". When old comforts or ways of being becoming out of sync with one's new energy patterns, they fall out of resonation, and become obnoxious, or somehow ill-fitting and cause unhappiness and discomfort. This can be ways of expressing oneself, ways of viewing others, ways of dressing, speech patterns, hobbies, habits, posture, attitudes, ways of eating, daily rhythms and schedules, career paths, and the list goes on. Everything is in a constant state of change on the path, and like a hermit crab sheds his old ill-fitting shell, we can feel old ways no longer able to comfortably accommodate our newly raised vibrations properly. And so, usually in layers and groups, old ways quit us and we welcome a new shift, a new chapter of life.

Yet again, this is where I am, joyfully. Part of me wishes for it to be over, because I want to be matured into this lighter, brighter stage. Like puberty, this awkward transition phase is a bit uncomfortable, a little embarrassing, and exciting.

The many changes I am experiencing are of no consequence to readers, and each factor seems so inconsequential on its own but is adding up to such a profound inner shift that even my appearance has changed so drastically in two years. My personality is changing so much so, and although it isn't sufficiently strengthened in maturation that I could call it complete, I am like a little soft-shelled crab, vulnerable and guarded my transition with ample space and time to be alone, to avoid watering old habits. I will blossom more fully soon. I feel it happening. The stages of these transitions are fascinating, and I can track, over the last ten years, several smaller transitions like this, seemingly adding up to this grander, deeper, wider, vaster transformation, that I know is marking a significant turning point... Yet doubtless that this is far from the last one. These transitions make it clear that I have a long ways to go to total freedom, and keep me very humble in spite of my high self-esteem.

The particular habit I wanted to highlight, is a negative view of the world. This habit has been quitting me, especially over the last six years, and continues to quit me. In any instance that I would exert a harsh view of another's actions, or chastise them, fear them thinking they wish me harm, or see the world as violent and deadly, I have been proven foolishly and unabashedly, wrong. Dead wrong.

My teenage self was cynical, sarcastic, and sharply, bitterly, quick-witted. It was a charm of sorts in the teenage world, where it enabled me both to feel I fit in and protect myself with my coarse offensiveness should anyone come near to harming my delicate feelings. Then, after a few smaller instances of my heart cracking open to cleansing tears, and one particularly profound instance at the ashram when I studied yoga for the first time, where I cried so hard on a rocky bluff by the sea I was certain the few passersby were concerned if I was suicidal, I softened that abrasive edge. Ever since life has been polishing my edges, and I have been opening my heart.

Yes, bad things happen in the world. But if you walk around with a paranoid attitude, you doubly attract these things. If you endeavor to see the bad in others and the world you will not be disappointed. But if you govern yourself with complete honesty and openness, you will find yourself well-respected,and people only do violence to people they see not as people, but as objects. If you respect someone, however, you see them as a person, a being, and NOT an object, and cannot do them violence.

The few instances I recall where God slapped my cheek a little and then we laughed together over my ridiculous fears and closed-hearted judgments:

Walking one day down the street, early on in my yoga studio days, someone beeped to say hi as I walked down the street. Not recognizing the car or seeing the person, and where my head was in the moment, I thought the person was beeping at m e for some negative purpose ("get on the sidewalk!", or the famous comment I used to get at 25 years old, "why aren't you in (high) school? Why are you cutting classes?"). Thinking in my head I was being harassed, I flicked the person off! It was a knee-jerk reaction hearkening to my self ten years earlier and old entrenched habits. So then I found out it was a student friend, and I, needless to say, apologized profusely and felt like an enormous ass!

Or because I thought nothing of walking along most of a particular street before and after work (in a so-called rougher area of our incredibly-low-crime-rate blessed city, a ridiculous assertation in my book) one night, in the dark, a group of young guys was walking on the same side of the road as me, and uncharacteristically, a sense of paranoia spoke up within, so I crossed the street. I tensed up as they came closer, narrowed my eyes, put on my "hardened city look", and it ended up being my sweet neighbor and his friends. I was greeted with, "how are you tonight, sweetheart? Have a great night, honey!" Pssssht! I felt so stupid and laughed at myself all the rest of the way home.

Times I've said to myself, usually when tired, "asshole" of someone's actions, I have been shown that that "asshole" actually was a friend doing something thoughtful specifically for me that was unexpected.

The appropriate response is to let go of the out-dated views and habits as fully and quickly as you are capable, and to step as openly as possible into the next depth of revealing your innate beauty and greatness. Shine, and the faster the better. Abandon all actions that leave you feeling guilty or down on yourself, and change the habits or attitudes that have you acting so lowly toward other living beings, and towards yourself. Whenever you are frustrated or upset, whenever life dishes you a surprise you don't think you like, remind yourself to open. Don't close. That is the typical response. Be better then that. At every moment and possibility, open your heart wider, and never let yourself forget that everything that comes in this life is ultimately, an opportunity for spiritual growth and blossoming into our greatest potential in all ways. Whatever is, must be perfect. No resistance. Just be a reflection of your inner light in complete integrity with the truth of your conscience. Nothing more or less. Let the old ways fall away. Remember yourself as everything you admire most in others, and step into the role.

Love and light!

Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®

Red chai- better then coffee!!

And I don't say that lightly. I mix whole black peppercorns, cardamom pods or seeds, fennel, cracked cinnamon stick, fresh ginger slices, (about a teaspoon to a tablespoon of each and a few cups water) and simmer very lightly until I get light brown liquid, shut off, add the same measure of loose red tea.. Wait a couple minutes... Put honey or agave in your cup..Strain the chai tea into your cup and add almond milk.. Enjoy!!! I find it just a satisfying as coffee, (and NOTHING is as satisfying in the morning as coffee.. Except red chai!) and it has no caffeine!!!

Namaste!







Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®