Keep it simple, silly

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Nine months. Nine months ago I was walking along a windswept Santa Monica beach wondering what I was doing, where I was going and why I had left my home in Australia. Nine months ago, somewhere, a new life was conceived. Now the time has come for the birth.

Tomorrow is a very significant day on the Hindu calendar: Guru Poornima, the day they all celebrate their spiritual teachers. At the ashram where I’m staying, we’ll be celebrating Swami Satchidananda. Although, as this is an ecumenical place, there’ll undoubtedly be a few other celebrations going on as well.

There is so much to celebrate, after all. Every breathing moment is a spiritual teacher, another opportunity to approach the source. Life is the greatest spiritual teacher anyone could ask for, and everything in it is a part of that lesson. It’s a beautiful thing.

So tomorrow, just like a newborn child, I celebrate life. Tomorrow and today and every single moment that I remember how grateful I am for everything I have, for all I’ve been given. Though all I own zips into a backpack, the gifts that I carry are countless.

The last time I wrote was in San Miguel de Allende, among the cobblestoned streets and fireworks and sane disorder. One of the last things I did there was run a workshop on The Work, with 14 participants and two wonderful ‘staff’. It was a success in so many ways and I can only anticipate the next opportunity to share in such a way. From there to Mexico City, where friends continue to flourish and where, it seems, anything is possible. My last two nights in Mexico City were spent in gated communities, in huge houses where hired staff do much of the work. The following night I found myself in a crack house down a back alley in San Luis Potosi. It was so incredibly vibrant, with dozens of young people visiting deep into the evening, all wanting to know, “Why are you here?” and each apparently in possession of the same English phrase: “Suck dick!” It was hilarious.

I was on my way to a Solstice event in New Mexico, where I got to wear a turban, eat Tantra Burgers and stir up some Kundalini. For three days, over a thousand of us sat in long lines facing one another, chanting and doing synchronic exercises with our hands. It was tough. And it filled me with an energy that sent me spinning off like a top, taking me on a journey of 15 states in less than three weeks.

New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee (Graceland and Nashville), Kentucky, West Virginia. Stop for a few days at the Rainbow Gathering there. Meet new people, see many versions of me: who I was, who I could have been, who I could be, who I never want to be. Move on through Virginia to Maryland, where I stopped for a couple of nights just north of DC to catch my breath with a special friend I met at the gathering. Then Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois. Chicago, to deliver a car and see a friend who wasn’t really there – just like me. One night in the car, one in a fancy hotel, one at her friend’s place, and the ultimate one at Fat Johnny’s Last Resort Hostel. A fitting finale for a frazzled mind.

They say never travel faster than your soul can keep up, and somewhere between San Luis Potosi and Chicago it got left behind. I’m waiting here at Yogaville for it to return, in an envelope marked, ‘Not at this address. Return to sender.’ Last word I had was that it was due to arrive on Guru Poornima. Happy birth day! What better reason to celebrate?

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