Kundalini Rising

Yesterday I did my first 4 am Sadhana with Monique up in Hillhouse. I told myself it was just like waking up early for crew, except this was crew for the soul. At breakfast we had empowering female conversation, and a few men were brave enough to venture in to fill the empty seats, and soon we were all singing gospel to the bemusement of nearby participants. We also decided to have a Pep Squad and Rally to promote Kundalini yoga; we would be called, obviously, "The Kundalini Rising," and our cheers would fall along the lines of, "When I say Sat, you say Nam! Sat! Nam! Sat! Nam!" And other things that seemed foggily hilarious at 7:30 in the morning.

Then for the rest of the day I found myself entrenched in waves of rage, hitting me over and over again as I made bed after bed. I contemplated leaving and going home for five days, but I knew that was just escapism as usual, and so I breathed and brooded through it and after the shift Alex and Monique and I had more empowering female conversation in the cafe as is our tradition, and it all started to be ok again, as I knew it would be. Monique's theory is that the older the emotions, the harder they are to deal with, and I agree, because they are just THERE and stubborn and obstinate, and have absolutely no correlation to present reality. We just want to indulge in them because it's all we've ever known how to do. So I feel like I keep riding the waves to the other side of the anger, where I'm faced with these beautiful friendships and compassion and people who love me and support me and who I love and support in return. And all that love and connection is also terrifying for some deep-seated reason, which I haven't quite yet figured out, and so when certain triggers occur I start falling into the downward spiral again, with waves of fear and anger hitting me in the face, making it impossible to see clearly.

I'm resolved to the fact that I can't fix or change or alter, and so all I can do is ride it out. I'll tell you one thing I know, which is that as the anger clears, the horizon that re-appears is the writing. The storytelling. Going down and in and bringing back what I've learned and sharing it with other people, and then hearing their stories in turn, and so it goes. Because one day we'll all be gone and none of this will have actually mattered, but the stories will remain. The characters and the journeys and the richness that we believe to be our lives will spin into other lives and illustrate and entertain, and out of those moments will spin more stories, and so it goes and maybe that's all there really is. I don't quite get it, and the concept of this all going on eternally doesn't exactly comfort me, but so it is. We remember, and then we forget, we play, we cry, we hurt, we love, and so on. And maybe at some point we become love. And then we forget and it all begins again.

Yesterday Ji Hyang and I were trying to figure out what past lives we've been in together, and I suggested that maybe we were French Can-Can dancers, and she was about as enthusiastic about that as when I tried to get her to befriend Felix the rubber snake on facebook. Also, I won the latest battle with Arch-Nemesis Bruce Maintenance at lunch today when I successfully hid his rolling tobacco. Although, he thinks I jeopardized my own victory by "babbling incoherencies," which was really just me announcing my decision to turn "Arch-Nemesis Bruce Maintenance" into an acronym: ANBM, and repeating it several times. Whatever, ANBM.

And lastly, I stumbled upon this awesome website all about the art of non-conformity and making your living off of being yourself, and building empires and small armies of support. I agree with it all, except I'm going to have a LARGE army. I didn't spend a large portion of past-lives as a Mongol for nothing! And yes, I DO enjoy creating fictional past life stories and highly recommend it. I'm pretty sure they become true the moment we imagine them. Then again, maybe not. I'm getting a coffee-buzz on and it's probably best if I stop writing now.

Toodle-oo!