5 Minutes to Deep Peace on Thursday 9/13

You will be entertained at the very least and enlightenment is an option.

http://advancedmeditation.com/cmd.php?Clk=2095310

Thursday, 9/13, there is a teleconference call where you can learn more about this. There will be sample meditations and a chance at a free gift worth $400.

http://advancedmeditation.com/cmd.php?Clk=2095310 

Trust me. You want to try this. The IAM Meditations are the product of the fertile mind of Steven Sashen who is also responsible for much of the Shampoo Method we talk about here every day.

It’s completely safe. I’d trust this guy with my life.

This feeling, this is what we have all been looking for our whole lives. It’s like coming home.

Love, Ann  

Shampoo Series – Broken or Just Not Yet Blooming?

I started this blog over a month ago and I still feel like I’m fumbling with concepts that have to be experienced to be understood.  I have trouble thinking anyone can read this blog and “get” what I’m talking about.

I was thinking about Paul, about how we don’t seem to “meet” in most of my worldview and concepts. I mistakenly gave the impression that I felt he was “broken.” I was driving along one day, thinking about that, and wondering what would be a better way to say it, and I decided that it was closer to say he just wasn’t in full bloom. Maybe.

Then last night at a Gathering for the Work of Byron Katie, Sashen talked about cause & effect in terms of a rosebud.

What Sashen was saying is that we do these “non-technique techniques” and think that we caused something, when actually, if we threw the rosebud in a closet, it would still bloom.

Most likely, when we came back to find the rosebud in full bloom, we would think that our “technique” did it, when actually, the rose would have bloomed had we done nothing at all.

I used to think no one could have these “blooming experiences” with words. I was wrong. I’ve had some really amazing experiences from “just words” since then.  

“Which words?” you may be thinking.

The ones I write about here – The Work of Byron Katie, Instant Advanced Meditations (IAM) by Steven Sashen, and Jason Shulman’s book Kabbalistic Healing are my best examples.

But Steven is right. These are not “techniques” the way we usually think of them. And furthermore, when we use them to get some predictable outcome they don’t “work.”

Counselors & healers seem to think people are “broken.”

That’s part of why I have never worked as a counselor in an agency. The DSM IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Volume IV) is just a big storybook about how people can be “broken.”

I don’t buy it and I certainly can’t sell it.

Of course, what I do buy can still be used as a way to “help,” “heal,” or “fix” things.

The minute we do that they don’t “work.”

It seems to be when I just play around with them to see what happens, some of the most amazing things “happen.”

Sashen, Katie and Shulman, and come to think of it, David Deida’s “opening as,” and Eckhart Tolle’s Power of Now are all word-based things that seem to create some kind of “experience.”

I used to call those experiences “healing.”

But that would imply I was sick.

Was I?

I don’t think so. I was just doing what humans do.

Hopefully, Steven’s monthly IAM Chit-Chat tomorrow call will shed some more light on this . . . and how to talk and write about it.

Love, Ann

PS – I know Paul and some of his friends read this blog. Would you mind dropping me a comment or an email to say whether this is clear to you or not?  Thanks!

One Woman’s Beltane

“All women are she,”
Mykonos once told me.

“Treat each woman as the Goddess,
because she is.

Women are built to reveal openness –
they are nature’s mechanism of surrender –
and they wait for a man they could trust
with their utterly surrendered heart.

Few women ever meet such a man,
so most women suffer terribly, longing their entire lives.”

– David Deida, Wild Nights

Some of yesterday’s quotes, being from David Deida’s Wild Nights, were from the masculine perspective. You know, I appreciate what Deida says to men and I want any man that I’m involved with to know those experiences from the inside, and understand what it is to pierce and penetrate my heart (not just my pussy).

Today I want to think about this from my feminine perspective, though. For that Deida wrote Dear Lover and his books for both genders include some great ideas, as well.

From what I read, from a man’s perspective, the fear is of being engulfed, swallowed or smothered by a woman. But from a women’s perspective, my fear is of being pierced, penetrated, or wounded by a man.

Very biologically correct, hmm?

Both genders fear surrender to God, letting go, dying into God’s bliss, being lived and breathed by Spirit.

Deida refers to the “Him shaped space” that most feminine women have.

I know exactly what he is talking about.

I do long to be filled. There is space for a man inside me and I want that.

My roommate is surprised when I fold her sheets and wash blankets  for her, put away dishes and boils water for her tea for her before she wakes up. I explained to her that my nurturing energy has to go somewhere and until He comes along, she is elected recipient of some of that.

It feels hard to hold that space open, not try to fill it with whoever and whatever shows up next.

Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they’re yours.

– Richard Bach, Illusions

Naturally, I have opportunities to do that and I long to be filled.

Sometimes that is the healthy, kind thing to do for myself. It seems very stressful to me to wait, to hold that emptiness. Well, so it seems. Chances are good that it is my thoughts about holding that space that are actually the stressful part. I’m looking for those, checking them when I find them (often in my blog writing, thanks guys) and finding that Whole Place beyond peace/stress, right/wrong, empty/full as much as I can.

That’s the same temptation, for me, to surrender to Swami Vishwananda. I imagine that he can fill that space fairly well as a spiritual partner, without sex, without a traditional relationship. I was trying to explain that yesterday to Taylor. Taylor has no experience with the California type spiritual path of gurus, chanting, meditation, etc. although he’s lived here all his life. It’s a foreign world to him.

At the same time, I can feel his search. Taylor ran across me, so I figure he must be open to hearing some of this. Every man I meet seems to be. I talk with them, send them to the blog, to web sites, books, whatever comes up. Some of them hang around to become friends. Some don’t.

I’ve been doing Steven’s Goal-Free Goal Setting meditation nearly every day for a month now. I think I missed one day. And for nearly 30 days, the Goal is the same, maybe a slightly different aspect of it, but it’s the same.

About 4 or 5 times in each meditation, the instructions say, “Now, check and see if you still want that goal. Maybe yes, maybe no. Either way. See how wanting is different now.”

I do. And it is.

Yes, I still want to be married to a man who can fuck me straight to God.

With or without sex, by the way.

Yes, I can do that myself. Can and do.

And when I check, I still want a man to penetrate me, take me, teach with me, talk with me, sing with me, make love with me. Make love in our home, in our community, in our world, through opening to each other, through teaching, writing, singing, traveling.

I started to write that the picture gets clearer every day. At the same time it gets more open and more vague. There’s more space, too. Does that make sense? Can you feel what that would mean? (If not, try Goal-Goal Setting for 30 days and I’m pretty sure you’ll have some kind of similar experience. It’s one of the IAM meditations, the last one, because it includes several others.)

I’ll be teaching Goal-Free Goal Setting to a class in a government office in a couple of weeks. I am looking forward to that and I’d love to do more of it.

I just keep doing what I do, being who I am, and in the process I am bound to meet a man who’s doing some of the same stuff and looking for a woman to play with him.

I want to say that I have a little trouble with where Deida’s writing seems to come from. He talks about yearning, which is wanting, which is stressful. It puts me in a pretty nasty place, very masculine, going out to hunt for what I want. When I don’t find it, I feel stressed, angry, tense. 

That isn’t the clarity I’ve learned from IAM meditations and Quantum . . . well, Steven teaches Quantum Wealth, but I tend to take Quantum Relationships by my own personal focus during the class.  

The last few days I’ve had a very clear sense that this man is already inside me.

Literally.

Think about it.

My definition of God is “the whole that is greater than the sum of the parts.” It is like Matthew Fox’s panentheism – God in all things. Or Steven Sashen’s “All That Is.” (The title of one of his best IAM meditations.)

If I am part of that Whole, and what else is there?

By definition, that’s All There Is.

So, He is part of that, too, and we are already part of each other. All that remains is to look into each other’s eyes and find what we already know.

Well, that’s my Beltane fire. I think it’s time to have some chocolate coffee.

Love, Ann

“Look with your understanding.
Find out what you already know.
And you’ll see the way to fly.”

– Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull

“The Kingdom of Heavin is Within”

I once saw Mother Meera for darshan (blessing) twice in one weekend. I’ve also seen Swami Vishwananda for darshan, traveling to Santa Fe to do so, as well as to see Ammachi.

Why?

I definitely feel a high, bliss, a difference, a God-connectedness around these teachers (gurus).

I also feel that high, God-connectedness around my friend, Shakti. He was there for Mother Meera’s darshan, as well. I feel it around Sashen.

I feel it alone – often.

The list of things I have done that seem to lift me into bliss is too long to print here. It ranges from crying to cuddling to movies to music to meditation to sex to asking questions to just about anything you can name. Everything in life seems to lift me up at one time or another.  

Life is my church.

I was puzzling over the idea of surrender to a guru this morning.

What I wonder is this: if we are meant to find God within ourselves, how does it help to be a disciple or a devotee of a teacher, saint or guru?

I get that they are certainly a role model.

I get that when I’m around them it’s easier to believe I have this connection inside me.

I get that I can access it when I’m around them.

Any ideas?

Love, Ann

Shampoo Series – Intimacy

How do I say this?

I’m feeling really intimate with myself after 28 days of no orgasms and no sex.

Sure, I’d love to have someone to be intimate and deep with. I’ve often noticed the best way to . . . this may not make sense superficially . . . but the best way to have something is to have it.

That’s not as cryptic as it sounds.

First, wanting is always, always stressful.

Try wanting something and feeling peaceful about it. Seriously, try. There’s no way!

Wanting food is stressful. Wanting sex is stressful.

Wanting a relationship, wanting a job, all stressful.

This morning I listened to Steven’s Goal-Free Goal Setting with half my mind while IMing someone with the other half. I focused on a goal of relationship, sex, intimacy, vaguely, but the feelings were clear. Waves of peace with every step, every time I focused on the instructions.

Next, I was breathing in a hot bathtub and thinking about a song I like, “Come Through My Window” by Melissa Etheridge. I might see if I can write this insight into a parody if it doesn’t sound too forced, but that song was running through my mind.

I realized (made real) that monogamy, for me, closes the windows so that one man can come through the door.

Closing the door might be when I am only self-pleasuring and have no husband or sex partner.

Letting go of that I become permeable!

I felt like a bubble that was barely separate from All That Is.

I was laughing so hard my roommate, Tina, came to the door to see if I was okay. I assured her that I was more than okay and that I do that a lot. Sometimes I sob and sometimes I alternate between laughing and sobbing as thoughts, feelings and waves of energy move through me.

I was having a little conversation in my mind with Swami Vishwananda, too. I asked for help, and he was there, saying “You don’t need me.”

There was still surface tension. I still had and was aware of a body and tightness in my chest came and went as I breathed into it. I stayed there for a long, long while, then wrapped myself in towels and continued breathing in my bed.

That is the way to spend a Saturday morning!

I was considering Intimacy and the relationship between intimacy, conversation, sex and spiritual connection. They are so interwoven.

My preferences seem to rank this way:

1.  Spiritual Connection

How do I know when I feel this? Well, usually through conversation, touch or time together. It is most obvious to me when I’m with someone who holds paradox well. When someone understands that things are not good/bad, right/wrong, love/fear, but something that encompasses both. Try explaining that in a personals ad! Ha!

2. Conversation

Why is that next? Well, because it is foreplay… it truly does come first for me.

3.  Intimacy

I suspect that for me, spiritual connection & conversation are components of intimacy. At the same time, conversation and intimacy seem to be to be components of spiritual connection. Very interwoven here.

4.  Touch has to come last.

My being is a bit shocked by the realization. One reason is that I move so fast through the first 3 with some people, that touch can happen in … a few hours… with a few people, where the other 3 seem to be firmly in place supporting the touch I offer.

I have obviously overlooked the “time together” piece enough  not to be checking that when I meet someone who seems to be interested in a relationship. Something to be more aware of.

I realize these are close to the love languages. I definitely value gifts and acts of service. Those can demonstrate intimacy.

I was once totally thrilled when Cricket bought me a blender so I could make smoothies for him at 5:30 am before he went to work. Go figure. And he was phenomenal at fixing thingss – like the frayed cord on my Hitachi Magic Wand, bless his heart. Definitely value that stuff.

That’s what boys are for! Fixing isn’t in my skill set at all. I almost always need help.

Intimacy is showing up in another way for me right now. I have Pachelbel’s Canon in D at the end of my breathwork tape. I’ve heard that thing hundreds of times, hundreds! Somehow, this morning, listening, I heart subtleties in the violins… Christ… I even knew it was the violins… I never think of separate instruments much… and noticed a kind of dance they were doing in the piece. First, I was focusing on a harmony I don’t usually pay attention to, and then to notice the ebb and flow of the sound the way I did. I was totally blissed on that.

Must be the jazz.

Russ is going to get tired of being thanked for what I’m sure he perceives as being a selfish jerk. Somehow that was just what I needed. I hope his music, his life, become as intimate and blissful as mine have been lately.

Love, Ann

PS – My mother wrote today and asked me if I’d considered abstaining from talking about sex. I love that. I can find it. Sure, I can see value in that. I had one other person kinda tell me that back when I was working on these blogs last year. When it is the peaceful thing to do, I’m sure I will.  At the same time, I am not responsible for other people’s stress about it.  : )

Shampoo Series – Sex, Death and Love

“What would you rather consider besides sex & death?”

Not much I admitted . . . “

– David Deida, Wild Nights

I agree.

I’d add love to the list. Love is more than sex and death. I think Deida would agree.

I was talking to Jared last year right after we both met Swami Vishwananda. I remember saying, “That’s what enlightenment is. We both want to die before we die.”

It felt so good to share that space with him, with anyone. I’m sure that’s part of what draws me to love sex so much. I try to live what Heinlein writes, “Thou art God,” from Stranger in a Strange Land. Spider Robinson carries the message even further in Time Pressure and DeathKiller. Actually, that sort of thing is in both of their books. That’s why I read them.

But David Deida, ohmygod.

When men ask me, “What’s the best book I could read on how to relate to women?” or “What’s the best book on how to be a Dom?” The answer is the same, even if you have no interest in the latter.

Read Way of the Superior Man by David Deida.

Women, you want to understand men? Read that, too. Then go read Dear Lover by David Deida to understand yourself and what it takes to be who you are, which amounts to the “getting what you want” that we are so focused on. When you’re done with that one? Enchanted Love by Marianne Williamson.

Deida is very good at differentiating between gender and gender orientation and sexual orientation, which are 3 different things. Deida does not assume that all male-bodied persons have a masculine temperament, nor that all female-bodied persons have a feminine temperament. We don’t. We embody every note on a musical scale and every color of the rainbow, and many in-between. We play different ones, paint different aspects, all the time.

Orgasm is la petite morte for a reason. We let go of our fear and die into the moment.

Deida says that polarity is required for sexuality. That seems to be true. I’m submissive and feminine. I know it didn’t work so well when I tried to be dominant and masculine, since that’s not where I seem to live. I cannot quite imagine being in the middle of the spectrum. What is it like not to live at one end of sexual polarity? Are you sexual then? I have wondered about that. Or does such a person exist?

Do you have any comments to add? 

Katie says it, too, but not so erotically as Deida does:

“Love is so vast within itself. It’s where you die. You don’t die into fear; you die into love. It’s so vast that it will burn you up. It’s so jealous and greedy for itself mirrored back that it will leave you nothing. And when you’re feeling that if you don’t give it away you’ll die in it, it’s so vast there is nothing you can do with it. All you can do is be it.”

Byron Katie

Until we know that, we tend to want something. Katie also says, “Personalities don’t love, they want something.”  But the more we realize this, the more we are responsible for what we know.

Stereotypically, men want freedom and women want union.

Give it up. It’s hopeless on both sides.

Ironically, that’s the only way to get what we want.

Giving up is what all of these ideas I talk about bring us to.

Releasing & Receiving, Zooming in on Death, Re-Pairing the Universe, A Course in Miracles, The Work of Byron Katie, IAM – Instant Advanced Meditation.

Every one of them is about letting go, giving up, and practicing spaciousness, receptiveness, so that what we “want” can show up. I mean what we really want, too, not the car or the girl or the new whateveritis. What we think those things will give us – that’s what we really want.

Check.

What do you want?

Now, what do you think having that will give you?

Great.

Why not just go for that directly?

Or, as Katie says:

“When you come to the place where you don’t want anything from your partner, it’s like “Bingo! You just won the lottery!” If I want something from my partner, I need to take a look at my thinking. Because I already have everything. We all do. That’s how I can sit here so comfortably. I don’t want anything from you. I don’t even want your freedom, if you don’t. I don’t even want your peace. But if *you* want it, that’s all that’s left of my want. So I’m going to join you there, because I remember what it was to want. And if you’re not interested in your freedom, then that’s what I want. I want your heaven, I want your hell, I want whatever you want because I love you.”

– Byron Katie 

“Pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.”

– Kahlil Gibran

 

“Look with your understanding,

Find out what you already know,

and you’ll see the way to fly.”

– Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Do you want to know that place where Katie says “you don’t want anything?”  I do.

One way I practice is with these:

http://www.advancedmeditation.com/cmd.php?af=570391

Love, Ann

 

 

Shampoo Series – Why I Cry, Part 2

It’s only 10 am. Whole Foods is playing Miles Davis.

I had to ask nearly 10 people before a fellow customer piped up and said that was definitely Miles Davis. I don’t care that it’s only 10 am and there is no Scotch in my hand – I wanted to stay and listen!

Good grief! What is happening to me? Synchronous a la Celestine Prophecy.

I was going to finish doing The Work  on the rest of those thoughts about crying, but this morning none of those thoughts are “sticking.” They’re like Teflon.

Time to move on.

My friend, Russ, asked me why I cry.

He says he asked me several times and I brushed it off. I wasn’t conscious of it at the time, I was tense, but thinking back – he’s right. I did. I do that to everyone, especially lovers, Jared & Becky, the people I cry around the most.

God, what would we do without other people to notice these things and mirror them back to us?

“It is impossible to remember God in secret and alone. For remembering Him means you are not alone, and are willing to remember it. The lonely journey fails because it has excluded what it would find.”

–  A Course in Miracles (T 274/295)

 

Okay, so why do I cry?

And why do I brush off well-meaning friends who ask about it?

I cry because it’s hopeless.

I cry because I am upset.

I cry because I’m frustrated.

I cry because I’ll never find a man I love who loves me back, is compatible enough to live with, marry, and spend the better part of the rest of my life with and wants to do that, now, with me.

Oh ducks, I should just stop there. But . . .

Why do I brush off well-meaning friends who ask why I cry?

I brush off my friend’s questions because I’m embarrassed.

I don’t want them to know why I’m crying.

I think I should have this resolved by now.

I think they think I should have this resolved by now.

I’m lying to them and to myself.

I’m shutting them out, shutting out their help, trying to do this alone.

I think I should be able to resolve this by myself.

“When you meet anyone, remember it is a holy encounter. As you see him you will see yourself. As you treat him you will treat yourself. As you think of him you will think of yourself. Never forget this, for in him you will find yourself or lose yourself.”

– A Course in Miracles  

I’m going to do the 2 pithiest of those thoughts here.

I cry because I’ll never find a man I love who loves me back, is compatible enough to live with, marry, and spend the better part of the rest of my life with and wants to do that, now, with me. 

and

I brush them off because I’m shutting my friends out, shutting out their help, trying to do this alone.

Starting with the first one:

I cry because I’ll never find a man I love who loves me back, is compatible enough to live with, marry, and spend the better part of the rest of my life with and wants to do that, now, with me. 

Sidetrack:  I burst out laughing at brunch last Sunday and didn’t bother to explain myself. I laughed for several minutes. I had just had this same thought. I laughed because I’ve only fallen in love 3 times in the last 3 months.  With that sort of frequency, the odds of finding someone are greatly improved. It’s not as if I’m not meeting men who are potentially ready to go for it with me. I am.  

This is one of what Steven calls “my favorite ways to recreate that familiar sense of self.” From the time I loved my father, went down on him, went through that confusing time as a little girl, and struggled with the fact that he would never be mine, this has been a very familiar sense of self.

I’ve married 3 wonderful men, lived with 2 others and a woman who means the world to me. They all do.  

I confess. I’m at the turn around with this, but let me flesh it out a bit. Sometimes it doesn’t pay to skip steps.

Here is the thought again:

I’ll never find a man I love who loves me back, is compatible enough to live with, marry, and spend the better part of the rest of my life with and wants to do that, now, with me.

When we have a long, complicated thought, we already know we’re lying. The Truth is simple.

So, we break it down into pieces and investigate each piece, or we find the core idea. I’m thinking something like:

I’ll never be happily married again.

Yeah, that’s what’s at the root here.

Is it true?

Well, I can’t know that right now. I’m not there yet. But I feel that familiar tightness that tells me somewhere I’m lying to myself.

Can I absolutely know that it’s true that I’ll never be happily married again?

Nope. You lose me fast on “absolutely.” I can’t even absolutely know the sun will come up tomorrow. Don’t get me to lying.  ; )

How do I react – how do I live my life – when I believe that “I’ll never be happily married again?”

LOL (Sorry, I try to avoid IM text abbreviations.)

But I’m seriously laughing here.

I answer personals ads written by men who want “middle ground” relationships. I tense up. I feel unloved and unlovable. I get so intense and riled up that I push people away. I feel desperate. I feel hopeless and helpless.

Today, I’m going to use some of the sub-questions from the Self-Facilitation or One-Belief-at-a-Time Worksheet.

Whose business am I in when I think that I’ll never be happily married again?

There are, if you check, only 3 kinds of business: mine, God’s and someone else’s.

This one is clearly God’s and someone else’s.

When I say “God,” if the word bugs you, just read it as “Universe” or “All That Is” or “Helman’s Mayonnaise.” I don’t care and it doesn’t really matter.

How do I treat myself when I believe I’ll never be happily married again?

Not well. Badly. I tell myself I’m not good enough, not lovable, not pretty enough or thin enough, I’m too old or that I need a better job, better car, more money, or different interests (like snowboarding, hiking, skiing) that I spend too much time reading, going to seminars, having coffee or tea with friends. Basically, I’m a fuck-up and don’t do anything right.

Sound familiar? We’ve all done it in our own forms.

How do I treat others when I believe I’ll never be happily married again?

Intensely. I talk too much, try to share everything I am, everything I know. Or the opposite. I distance myself. I’m not genuine or in the moment. I am in the past or the future with my thoughts.  Which means nothing is real. That’s not where I am.

Does this thought, “I’ll never be happiy mmarried again,” bring me peace or stress?

Stress, most definitely.

Can you find one peaceful reason to keep this thought? (and if you find one, check)

I’m not finding anything peaceful in that thought at all. Wanting is always stressful. All ways.

On to the 4th question:

Who would I be without the thought, “I’ll never be happily married again?”

Relaxed, real, peaceful. Enjoying who I’m with and what I’m doing.

Oh, is that all? (dripping loving sarcasm at myself)

Turn it around.

I will be happily married again.

Is that at least as true or truer? Most likely. Feels that way. I haven’t had any trouble getting married 3 times so far.

I am happily married now.

*laugher*

Well, yes, to myself, to God.  Marriage meaning union, one with.

Basking a little in the relaxation this produced.

Do you see any turn arounds I missed?

Next?

I brush off my friends because I’m shutting them out, shutting out their help, trying to do this alone.

Hmm, also too long for Truth.

Let’s go with “I can resolve this alone.”

Is that true?

Nope.

I often joke that if we were meant to do this alone, we would be on a planet by ourselves, not one with 6 BILLION other people here with us. There is a clue in that. 

Can I absolutely know that it’s true that I can resolve this alone?

Nuh uh. Haven’t so far. I’ve always had help from above, a little help from my friends. You know?

How do I react – how do I live my life when I believe I can resolve this – my desire to be married – alone?

I shut out my friends. I shut out lovers. I shut out people who ask why I’m crying. I spend a weekend by myself, tense, trying to relax, succeeding some, but still shutting out what was bothering me. I shut out sex completely, starting 100 days of abstinence. I nearly shut out food. A fast would be good, but I haven’t been, really. I get very, very tired. I write lots of emails. I go to bed early or I stay up late. Neither one works. My sleep isn’t as restful as it could be. I feel guilty just being alive. I wonder about suicide. I wonder what it’s like to hit oncoming cars or fall off bridges. (I really want to delete those sentences, but I do that. I’m sure other people do, too.)

Sooooo….

Does this thought “I can resolve this – my desire to be married – alone” bring me peace or stress?

Stress, stress, stress.

Can I see a reason to drop this thought (and don’t try to drop it)? Oh definitely.

Can I find any peaceful reason to keep this thought (again, don’t try to drop it)? No.

Okay, then…

Who would I be without this thought?  (I can resolve this – my desire to be married – alone.)

Asking for help, letting Russ, Jared, Becky and others in, telling them why I’m crying, or at least why I think I’m crying – I have to start somewhere – peaceful, more relaxed around others, more genuine, more fun to be around, less intense, less needing to get it all out or hold it all in. More content when I am alone.

I have to laugh, too, marriage is usually two people. I mean, even if I do what Jared did and don saffron robes and swear obedience to a guru, or become a nun and marry God, there are still two parts to marriage in one way or another. How would anyone resolve that alone?

Sure, I could decide to be alone, celibate, a hermit in a cave. I’m still not truly alone. There would be all those rocks and thoughts that looked like they were there with me, the sky, the Sun, you know. I’m never alone.

Turn it around?

I can resolve this – my desire to be married – alone.

I can’t resolve this – my desire to be married – alone.

Is that thought at least as true or truer? Yes.

Is there another Turn Around?

I can resolve this – my desire to be married – alone?  

I can resolve my desire to be married with others.

Yes, that is at least as true or truer. Probably truer.

Hmm, what’s the opposite of married?  Single.

I can resolve this – my desire to be single – alone?

Of course. That’s at least as true.

I can resolve my thinking alone.

Obviously. Ain’t nobody here but us chickens right now.

I think that will do for now.

Love, Ann

“Your brothers are everywhere. You do not have to seek far for salvation. Every minute and every second gives you a chance to save yourself. Do not lose these chances, not because they will not return, but because delay of joy is needless.”

– A Course in Miracles (T 163/175)

Instant Advanced Meditation – Free Samples
http://www.advancedmeditation.com/cmd.php?af=570391

Love and Sex: No Middle Ground For Me

I’ve never had sex with anyone I didn’t love.

I certainly wouldn’t marry everyone I’ve ever had sex with, but I loved them nonetheless. I’ve had to divorce three very good men whom I loved, and move out of living with one woman and two men whom I loved.

The love was mutual, but for one reason and another, it was time to move on. I still love all of them, and I’m friends with 4 of the 6. I lost touch with 2 of them long before we had the internet.

When I was practicing polyamory, I argued that since we’re all connected, I could only love myself in another person, anyway. That’s so true. But somehow now, I’m drawn to monogamy, to the joy of finding the many in the One.

In my frustration (lies to myself) over not having met a man to whom I could surrender fully sexually, lovingly, spiritually, I was, until recently, attempting to satiate as much of my desire as I could with some kind of “middle ground” relationship.  

Somehow the more I tried to have this mythical (for me) middle ground, the more I attracted men who were closer and closer to someone I could love and stay with.

Oh wow!

My real desires are starting to show up. Fascinating.

Finally, the last man I met was so close that I couldn’t go on like that. He was both spiritual and verbal, in and out of bed. That was too close for comfort. Not only did he come to decide that there was no middle ground for him, he ventured to point out the incongruity in me. He is very congruently not looking for a relationship right now, though.

Yes, I’ve been here before. As recently as a year ago, I tried to stop seeing Cricket because I could never really let go and enjoy it. He once asked me, “In what way are you misrepresenting yourself?”

Hmm. 

That night as I was leaving, the radio was playing Sting’s Sacred Love. The Universe loves to give me clues.

“I’ve been searching long enough
I begged the moon and the stars above
For sacred love

I’ve been up, I’ve been down
I’ve been lonesome, in this godless town
You’re my religion, you’re my church
You’re the holy grail at the end of my search
Have I been down on my knees for long enough?
I’ve been searching the planet to find
Sacred love.”

Yes, that sounds like me, where I am, where I’ve been for a very long time. I think the main difficulty is that I’ve sent mixed messages. I think I can find a middle ground, but when I find someone I’m interested in, my real desire leaks out, particularly if they are similarly attracted.

I’m sure I have some fears, reservations and doubts that I will meet someone verbal, spiritual and as interested in me as I am in him.

Right now the radio is playing “Have a Little Faith” by John Hiatt. That was my break-up song with Sean, my most recent serious relationship (7 years ago). I integrated it by thinking of the lyrics spiritually, eventually, rather than as having to do with him. (Lyrics below.)

So now I think of Sean a little when I hear it, but I know my inner spiritual connection is the place for deep faith, not a person, which is exactly what this blog is about.

Jesus said it several ways, but my favorite is, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven, and all else shall be added unto you.”

I know this is true. How? Well, for example, I didn’t want sex for 3 months after meeting Swami Vishwananda. I felt so loved that I didn’t need sex. Frankly, I could use a little of that right now. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Until a few weeks ago, I answered personals ads that sounded like the man was someone I could connect deeply with, but wasn’t looking for a long term commitment. I intended to just enjoy sex with them while I could, until someone who was interested in a more lasting relationship showed up.

Of course, if you’ve been reading this past week or so, you know that this backfired.

My own desire for an ongoing, mutual, romantic, loving, sexual, spiritual connection finally came through really clearly to the point I cannot lie to myself any longer and accept the lie of a “middle ground.” 

I say “ongoing, mutual, romantic, loving, sexual, spiritual connection” using all those words that way because words like “relationship,” “partnership” (yuck, how clinical) and even “marriage” or “soulmate,” just aren’t specific enough for this.

Everyone has their own ideas about what it means to “be with” someone, and no two people will ever have exactly the same ideas about it. If you’ve ever dated at all, you’ve probably noticed.

Communication is essential, and even that isn’t enough.

What it really takes is for each partner to take full responsibility for themselves. Blame is always off-track.

Why?

Because each of us is only ever experiencing the relationship and the other person, in our own mind.

How could it be otherwise?

Sure, the other person may communicate. You may even believe you understand. Do you?

Blue.

What shade am I referring to?

Even if I say something that sounds specific, like “azure,” how many blues can be referred to as azure blue? And what if you don’t know the word, “azure?”

See what I mean?

No matter how hard we try, how specifically we communicate, and believe me, I’m good and I’ve tried, we must each recognize that ultimately we are each completely responsible for ourselves. No one else. Ever. Period.

So back to gurus.

It seems to me what happened when I met Swami Vishwananda was that he has an ability to accept, contain and reflect more love to me than I knew I had. I was sorely tempted to drop my nets and follow him. (See “Doms, Gurus and Multiple Surrenders)

Why didn’t I? Why don’t I?

I still could.

Well, because, while I might learn a phenomenal amount in so doing, and I know he’d do his best to reflect me back inward, back to myself, why not go to the Source to begin with?

Jesus said “seek” and he told us where to look: “The Kingdom of Heaven is within.”

The more I focus internally for that Love and spiritual connection, the more likely I am to resonate with a man who can be there with me in that space. The more likely that we will each take responsibility for ourselves. The more likely it is that we will be happy together for a very long time.

How could we not if we are already happy with ourselves?

I know this has been said forever in many ways and in many places. This morning I just had my own little epiphany about it, about why I suddenly committed to 100 days of sexual abstinence.

I know where my peace is. I know how to be there even when I’m crying, distraught, upset. It’s something I can’t lose. 

So why bother with being frustrated?

Why not just wait in that peace?

Why settle for a “middle ground?”

Why not just be where I am?

Surely, staying in my center will only make it that much easier for someOne to find me, to gravitate to who I am inside.

Now that I’ve examined some of the lies I was telling myself, that’s what I’m drawn to do right now. I’m looking to see where else I might be misrepresenting myself or incongruent in my behavior and thoughts.

I’m diving deep inside to see if I can find the inner place that Swami Vishwananda pointed me to on my own, and free myself experientially of thinking I “need” any more than that. I’ll let you know how it’s going.

Respectfully submitted, Ann

When the road gets dark
And you can no longer see
Just let my love throw a spark
And have a little faith in me

And when the tears you cry
Are all you can believe
Just give these loving arms a try
And have a little faith in me
And

Chorus:
Have a little faith in me
Have a little faith in me
Have a little faith in me
Have a little faith in me

When your secret heart
Cannot speak so easily
Come here darlin
From a whisper start
To have a little faith in me

And when your backs against the wall
Just turn around and you will see
I will catch, I will catch your fall baby
Just have a little faith in me

Chorus

Sung over fade:

Well, Ive been loving you for such a long time girl
Expecting nothing in return
Just for you to have a little faith in me
You see time, time is our friend
cause for us there is no end
And all you gotta do is have a little faith in me
I said I will hold you up, I will hold you up
Your love gives me strength enough
So have a little faith in me

Doms, Gurus and Multiple Surrenders

Deep, deep inside me I crave surrender.

I think every woman does if you look deep enough.

(Every man, too, although perhaps the subjective experience is different.  I’d love to see Comments on that.)

Categorizing this blog, I was surprised to see all the topics that I had not yet put in the list, used or written about. I did a quick review of my last 30 posts or so, out of about 85 and didn’t find anything about Ds or surrender, really. Maybe I just haven’t gotten around to it and the first ones aren’t yet categorized. Some of this could be there.

I was really surprised that I didn’t have David Deida in the Categories list. Well, he’s there now. Welcome, David. I didn’t find Marianne Williamson there, either. Welcome, Marianne.

I touched on a lot of this in the post just before this one, and in small ways all through this blog. Remember when the title was “Grateful for Incest? Yes!”  No, most of you probably don’t. I changed it because it was bothering people, particularly my mother. I don’t promise not to publish a book with that title, or change it back or use it in some way. But for now, it didn’t seem attractive enough. I’m not trying to turn people off. I’m trying to turn you on.

The whole point of these writings is very close to the subject of power exchange and surrender. I’m almost overwhelmed to state that. My mind travels to so many, many places on this idea.

Surrender to God comes first. 

Every surrender is surrender to God.

I surrender to write, eat, drink, bathe, defecate, read, learn, teach, make love. What is not, in its essence, a form of surrender?

Let me make it clearer, just in case.

In writing I surrender to words flowing through me.

Eating and drinking I take God into my body and surrender to the changes.

Bathing.

Sing hey! For the bath at close of day
that washes the weary mud away
A loon is he that will not sing
O! Water Hot is a noble thing!

                 – JRR Tolkien

Bear with me, this is going to be a very musical blog.

Defecation is a classic symbol of surrender, letting go. Anal sex is the same way. Might be part of why I like that so much.

Reading, learning and teaching all change us, whether we want them to or not. We cannot hear something new and not be changed by the knowledge of it. No way.

In teaching, ideally, I get out of the way and let Spirit flow through me.

Making Love

Ah, now we are getting somewhere!

Let me define a couple of terms first.

God – In most religious mythologies, including the Christian one, God is the Creator.

According to me, Heinlein, and many other mystics, in my own words, “God is the Whole that is greater than the sum of the parts.”

Sex – What is sex for?

Even the Christian churches say sex is for . . . CREATION.

I may not have sex in order to create babies (ever) but the potential is there and sex is a very creative act of surrender. Male or female. We let go or we do not come. The more we let go and surrender, the more blissful the experience.

I should interject here with some discussion of whether or not we can “cause” this surrender. No. Not really.

A Zen master said that enlightenment is an accident. Meditation just makes us accident prone.

Same thing with any blissful experience. Which experience is not blissful? I can’t find any. I’ve been blissed out on so many things and see the possibility in every single moment.

While I must surrender, I cannot actually cause surrender or control the depth of it, really. All I can do is practice and become … hmm… surrender prone.

What does this have to do with Doms & Gurus?

Well, quite a bit. I am submissive sexually. It’s not my only sexual expression. In fact, I can Domme when I choose, although I rarely choose to anymore. I got kind of burned out on that dating male-to-female submissive crossdressers. Four years of that left me wanting deeply to be the girl and the submissive. I enjoy vanilla sex, too. Although, I’m not quite sure what that would really be for me. I’m not even vanilla in missionary position. I have references.

Back to Doms and Gurus.

Last Friday morning, I spent a couple of really good hours crying at Jared’s place. He has turned the office into a temple room. It’s beautiful. So, sitting there with Christ and about a dozen other enlightened masters as my witnesses, I cried about the longing to surrender, and how to best do that.

I used to live there. Jared was going to sell the place, so I moved out and into Joy’s place. Then he changed his mind and I realized I had moved out of the ashram. I, who crave spiritual community, living with like-minded others, had just moved out of the seed of one. I still don’t quite get that. Oh, alright, his place is the “men’s house.” But there is more to it than this.

Jared swore brahmacharya vows to Swami Vishwananda in London in October. I wanted very badly to be there. I could have, practically speaking, but I was not seeing the open path. I’m sure there were reasons for that. I just couldn’t seem to find it at the time. I was so close, again. I was in Cork, Ireland just two weeks before. That story is blogged elsewhere.

What does it mean to take brahmacharya vows?

Everything. Total surrender. He vowed celibacy and obedience.

I’m a little jealous. I love Swami Vishwananda. I was there when Jared met him. We sat next to each other. Jared was crying his eyes out. I started, as I usually do, laughing hysterically.

There was a moment when I saw Swami hug someone.

The next coherent thought I had, and there was some measurable pause between thoughts, was something like, “I want to be loved like that.” I fell in love with Swami Vishwananda in that instant. I can never ever go back. We are responsible to what we know. I know love. I know surrender. I know what life and love can be. I cannot pretend I don’t. And yes, I’ve had similar experiences in a variety of contexts.

At the same time, I do not feel called, at this time, anyway, to swear celibacy and be a vegetarian, etc. Obedience? I’ve already sworn that in my heart.

When I saw Swami a second time, no, a third time, I saw him in Boulder in December, and chose not to wait in line for a personal darshan, but waited until the third time in Santa Fe with Joy.

“Well, I’ve got Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy, down in my heart.”

Sorry, Joy. Couldn’t be helped.   eg  I know you understand.

I knelt before Swami in Santa Fe with prayers in my mind. I had the thought, “I could surrender to this guru” followed immediately with, “I already have.” I knew this to be true. I have.

No, not at the expense of my own connection to God, not at all.

So far, it has done nothing but enhance that. I have been talking to Lena Phoenix, author of The Heart of a Cult (see previous blog) and her husband, Steven Sashen, author of The Anti-Guru Blog (see link to the right) about this. Swami is new. He’s 27. It is yet to be seen how he handles this power.

I told Jared that I don’t care how he handles his power. That’s his life. I cannot even get upset at the allegations of other gurus having sex with their devotees or at Rajneesh/Osho’s fleet of Rolls Royces.

Who cares???

It’s all good. And I know whereof I speak. If you are new to this blog, review the links on the right where I’ve done The Work of Byron Katie on incest. That may help you to understand. That’s what this whole thing is for. Do The Work on judgments of gurus and see what comes up, if you’re curious.

I want to share the inner peace, the joy, the gratitude that I have for surrendering to what is. What is, in my history, is that I went down on my father for several years. He penetrated me when I was an infant. A friend of his fucked me in the ass when I was 11.

So? 

It was not the end of the world, but the beginning. Ann, if a prelude to Anastacia, means “resurrection.” (see the Rise Again blog)

Back to Doms now. Where do Doms come in?

Well, that, children is a very good question.

It reminds me of the way Tom Robbins wrote about sex in Jitterbug Perfume. He says something about sex enters the picture, and goes off on a description of all the possible ways sex might enter the picture. Read the book. It’s juicy both spiritually and sexually, which is why he is one of my favorite authors.

I want to know where Doms come in. I want to know if I can hold the space of surrendering sexually, emotionally, physically, and more to a Dom who understands my need and my heart, who knows my spirituality and supports it.

Is there a context for this? Or would I be trying to serve 2 Masters?

I am sure that there will be doubts, challenges, stupidity, lessons, failures, experiences and resistances for me to go through. I will test and test and test again. I want to know my spiritual truth is supported by this additional surrender to a man, a human being, a lover and a Dom. If it isn’t, I’m outta there.

But not so fast. One step at a time. I may have met a man, a Dom, a spiritual heart who could potentially share this with me. It was the first and only time in my life that a man sent me something about David Deida before I sent it to him. Blew my mind. And I think he knows it.

Let us pray.

Amen, Ann

 “Sweet Surrender”

 by the immortal John Denver

Long may he live!

(with thanks to Jan Marszalek, my NLP teacher,

who ended every “12 Hour” workshop with a meditation and this tune)

Lost and alone on some forgotten highway
Travelled by many remembered by few
Lookin’ for something that i can believe in
Lookin’ for something that i’d like to do with my life

There’s nothin’ behind me and nothin’ that ties me
To somethin’ that might have been true yesterday
Tomorrow is open and right now it seems to be more
Than enough to just be there today

And i don’t know what the future is holdin’ in store
I don’t know where i’m goin’, i’m not sure where i’ve been
There’s a spirit that guides me, a light that shines for me
My life is worth the livin’, i don’t need to see the end

Sweet, sweet surrender
Live, live without care
Like a fish in the water
Like a bird in the air

Sweet, sweet surrender
Live, live without care
Like a fish in the water
Like a bird in the air

Lost and alone on some forgotten highway
Travelled by many remembered by few
Lookin’ for something that i can believe in
Lookin’ for something that i’d like to do with my life

There’s nothin’ behind me and nothin’ that ties me
To somethin’ that might have been true yesterday
Tomorrow is open and right now it seems to be more
Than enough to just be there today

And i don’t know what the future is holdin’ in store
I don’t know where i’m goin’, i’m not sure where i’ve been
There’s a spirit that guides me, a light that shines for me
My life is worth the livin’, i don’t need to see the end

Sweet, sweet surrender
Live, live without care
Like a fish in the water
Like a bird in the air

Sweet, sweet surrender
Live, live without care
Like a fish in the water
Like a bird in the air

Sweet, sweet surrender
Live, live without care
Like a fish in the water
Like a bird in the air

Sweet, sweet surrender
Live, live without care
Like a fish in the water
Like a bird in the air