I want to share with you a new book that I was introduced to when on my booksigning tour. On the way to Santa Cruz, I stopped and visited Alice Gardner who just finished a book with themes similar to mine. It's called Life Beyond Belief and it is a beautiful, simple summary of just that--what does life look like when you begin to live from Presence.
I was especially moved by the following paragraph: A common control pattern involves a resistance to letting go of a low self-esteem state that prevents us from engaging in work in the world that is visible of significant.
At the end of my talk that I gave to different audiences, I shared a quote by Gangaji: Women know a lot simply from what their bodies have gone through. We know a lot about meeting suffering, about what passes, what comes and goes. Women know an enormous amount about the broken heart and vulnerability. It's time for women to stand up. Not like men, but as ordinary women, telling the truth. There has been enough hiding.
Then I shared how difficult it was for me to do that--to stand up and claim what I know. But that is exactly what is needed at this time. One woman in the audience in Santa Cruz said that when she heard me say that, she felt her own self being called to stand up, too--to stop hiding. "You don't have to be awakened to claim the truth of what you know," I said.
It wasn't until I read Alice's book afterwards that I saw how this hiding is actually a control pattern. This constriction is subtle, but as soon as you recognize it, it is obvious. So I encourage all of you to go ahead--claim what you know. Stop hiding! Let Life have its way. It's going to anyway.
You can find out more about Alice's book by going to her website: www.awakepublishing.com
And if you haven't been to my website, check it out: www.extraordinarywisdom.net
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Friday, November 23, 2007
The Dragon Lady Story
Welcome friends.
After my west coast tour with my book Ordinary Women Extraordinary Wisdom, I got the sense that there might be a need for a dialogue about the book and about people's experiences on the direct path of awakening. I'll get things started with an excerpt from my journal in response to satsang with Jeannie Zandi (though she isn't in the book, she was one of my first interviews--if you'd like to know more about her, check out http://www.jeanniezandi.com/).
October 23, 2007 Jeannie’s satsang
Jeannie. She asked us to see if there was an image in our mind when we were sitting in the "vastness of our being." And I saw a flower continually unfolding as if in time lapse photography. Then there was a drop of dew on it, sparkly and fresh. When she turned to me and said, “and what is it for you, Queen Rita?”, I described all this and then sang the “little drop of dew” song. She held me in her powerful, loving gaze and asked, "Are you willing to see how gorgeous you are?" I began to tear up and nodded yes and felt myself really claim that—my beauty, my vastness. Ahhh…then she invited me to hold out my hands the way she was holding out her hands…arms outstretched, palms up, chest open as if to say, “Behold, I am the One”.
It felt very right. Powerful yet also a kind of receiving. "I don’t want any less," I cried. I don’t want to go back to the safe and the familiar and the small. She invited me to drop the ‘cute’, saying that when I do, the love that I am will slay me. "That’s a little scary," I said. "And that’s also what I want. More than anything." A dangerous prayer, she said later when she described this longing we have.
The next day, she suggested to another woman that all she needed, all she wanted, all she longed for was right here, touching her heart. It’s all inside. Not outside. I felt a tiny bit of tightness, anxiety in my chest when she said that. I felt that again when we did a private session in the morning before she left, sitting on my bed in the warm sun.
It’s fear, I said. Then it would subside, and I would return to this peaceful vastness, no fear, just quiet and calm and stillness. Then it would return again and I named it, “I am not enough”. This dance continued--fear and peace coming and going, coming and going.
When I was feeling the stillness, the warmth of the sun, Jeannie suggested that I drink it in, let every cell in my body be bathed in this light, this warmth, this peace. “Let it have you,” she invited. I am saying a dangerous prayer. Let it have me, let love have me. It’s not so scary when I see it as love, instead of emptiness or formlessness. Though I feel that emptiness, that space, too. But there’s a different quality to it now.
Then she asked, “what is here now?” Tingly feeling in my hands. “And where is rita?” I smiled. “Hmm…she is over there, like a set of clothing hanging on a hook.” This wasn’t just some thought. This was a feeling. “Rita is not really real. She has some reality, but only relative. What is here now is only molecules moving around and a seeing. I could call it awareness but I don’t want to put it in a conceptual box.”
She asked me to talk about this as me. “I am molecules moving around. I am a seeing. I am energy. I am love.” She repeated the “I am love”. And I heard it come from deep inside her. I said it again, saying it slowly and fully. “I am love.”
Somehow, as we explored the sensations in the body, an image of a dragon arose. Fire roaring out of its huge powerful jaws. It stands so proudly, fiercely. I felt this power, this fierceness. The life force. Destructive and creative, both. Then a thought came, this will all fade when I open my eyes and have to drive to Montrose today. Jeannie smiled and pointed out how the mind tries to reconstruct ‘rita’. Putting together the old familiar habits, patterns, thoughts. Moving to the future and creating a problem to solve. “It feels safe to do that,” I said. And she asked, “Does the dragon need safety?” We both laughed! How absurd to think that a dragon would need safety. It stands strong in its power. No false constructs needed.
Then she invited me to rest in this sense of dragon, the vastness and power of Dragon. And open my eyes from that space, looking out as if from windows, empty eyes gazing out. We gazed at each other for awhile, and I said, “dragon meets dragon.” Our eyes filled with tears. “Precisely,” she said. Then we got up and looked at the snowy mountains. “The mountains rest in me, in the vastness of who I am” she said. I tried that on. OK, I can imagine that. Instead of me resting in the vastness, I am the vastness in which all things rest, all things rise and subside again. I let that be felt in my body.
Dragon lady goes to Montrose, said Jeannie. OK, let’s see how life is lived from this new perspective.
After my west coast tour with my book Ordinary Women Extraordinary Wisdom, I got the sense that there might be a need for a dialogue about the book and about people's experiences on the direct path of awakening. I'll get things started with an excerpt from my journal in response to satsang with Jeannie Zandi (though she isn't in the book, she was one of my first interviews--if you'd like to know more about her, check out http://www.jeanniezandi.com/).
October 23, 2007 Jeannie’s satsang
Jeannie. She asked us to see if there was an image in our mind when we were sitting in the "vastness of our being." And I saw a flower continually unfolding as if in time lapse photography. Then there was a drop of dew on it, sparkly and fresh. When she turned to me and said, “and what is it for you, Queen Rita?”, I described all this and then sang the “little drop of dew” song. She held me in her powerful, loving gaze and asked, "Are you willing to see how gorgeous you are?" I began to tear up and nodded yes and felt myself really claim that—my beauty, my vastness. Ahhh…then she invited me to hold out my hands the way she was holding out her hands…arms outstretched, palms up, chest open as if to say, “Behold, I am the One”.
It felt very right. Powerful yet also a kind of receiving. "I don’t want any less," I cried. I don’t want to go back to the safe and the familiar and the small. She invited me to drop the ‘cute’, saying that when I do, the love that I am will slay me. "That’s a little scary," I said. "And that’s also what I want. More than anything." A dangerous prayer, she said later when she described this longing we have.
The next day, she suggested to another woman that all she needed, all she wanted, all she longed for was right here, touching her heart. It’s all inside. Not outside. I felt a tiny bit of tightness, anxiety in my chest when she said that. I felt that again when we did a private session in the morning before she left, sitting on my bed in the warm sun.
It’s fear, I said. Then it would subside, and I would return to this peaceful vastness, no fear, just quiet and calm and stillness. Then it would return again and I named it, “I am not enough”. This dance continued--fear and peace coming and going, coming and going.
When I was feeling the stillness, the warmth of the sun, Jeannie suggested that I drink it in, let every cell in my body be bathed in this light, this warmth, this peace. “Let it have you,” she invited. I am saying a dangerous prayer. Let it have me, let love have me. It’s not so scary when I see it as love, instead of emptiness or formlessness. Though I feel that emptiness, that space, too. But there’s a different quality to it now.
Then she asked, “what is here now?” Tingly feeling in my hands. “And where is rita?” I smiled. “Hmm…she is over there, like a set of clothing hanging on a hook.” This wasn’t just some thought. This was a feeling. “Rita is not really real. She has some reality, but only relative. What is here now is only molecules moving around and a seeing. I could call it awareness but I don’t want to put it in a conceptual box.”
She asked me to talk about this as me. “I am molecules moving around. I am a seeing. I am energy. I am love.” She repeated the “I am love”. And I heard it come from deep inside her. I said it again, saying it slowly and fully. “I am love.”
Somehow, as we explored the sensations in the body, an image of a dragon arose. Fire roaring out of its huge powerful jaws. It stands so proudly, fiercely. I felt this power, this fierceness. The life force. Destructive and creative, both. Then a thought came, this will all fade when I open my eyes and have to drive to Montrose today. Jeannie smiled and pointed out how the mind tries to reconstruct ‘rita’. Putting together the old familiar habits, patterns, thoughts. Moving to the future and creating a problem to solve. “It feels safe to do that,” I said. And she asked, “Does the dragon need safety?” We both laughed! How absurd to think that a dragon would need safety. It stands strong in its power. No false constructs needed.
Then she invited me to rest in this sense of dragon, the vastness and power of Dragon. And open my eyes from that space, looking out as if from windows, empty eyes gazing out. We gazed at each other for awhile, and I said, “dragon meets dragon.” Our eyes filled with tears. “Precisely,” she said. Then we got up and looked at the snowy mountains. “The mountains rest in me, in the vastness of who I am” she said. I tried that on. OK, I can imagine that. Instead of me resting in the vastness, I am the vastness in which all things rest, all things rise and subside again. I let that be felt in my body.
Dragon lady goes to Montrose, said Jeannie. OK, let’s see how life is lived from this new perspective.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)