The Institute of Divine Universal Royalty

This is a birthday card I made for Corwin, a volunteer. I am the chair for the Institute of Divine Universal Royalty, so it is my job to celebrate birthdays. The card is the chicken's revenge. Corwin eats 9 eggs every day, so because of this the chicken is taking a dump on his birthday cake. Posing with the card is the lovely Misha.



This is Nicole, one of my gurus.


This is Joseph, I guess he can be a guru too.

This is Nick Atlas, and he is also a guru for me. He makes artwork from photos of drops of water just like I do!

Elena, she has a Prius and wears colors very well. Total guru.

Horses

I am blessed and lucky to have teachers who work with the volunteers. Living in a guest center, a lot of the teaching is geared toward guests, so there isn't much opportunity for ongoing study with one teacher. But there are two teachers (in addition to the head of the volunteers, Cristie, who I also consider a teacher) who offer weekly classes only for volunteers so we can have an ongoing progress. I really appreciate this. I also really feel compelled by these individuals and I am glad that out of ALL of the (25 or so teachers at Kripalu) I get to work closely with these three. I connect to them.

Jovinna Chan is one of my teachers I will discuss in this blog. She is a dancer and actress and yoga teacher. I really don't know that much about her. She is holding space for a once weekly contact improvisation for volunteers and we have met twice. So far it has been pretty powerful for me.

Contact Improvisation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_improvisation) is basically exploring movement. It doesn't have to look like dance and it doesn't have to look pretty. It just is what it is--communication with the inside of my body, communication with the outside of my body. Energies intermingling. My energy encountering another energy--a wall, a floor, a person, another part of my energy--and seeing what happens when they combine. I think what is so powerful for me is how raw it is. When I feel something I have no choice but to let it show what it looks like. If I feel something that isn't pretty there is no learned dance step I can put in its place, it can only be what it is.

This is interesting for me in the consideration of the visual art work I have been making. It is very beautiful, but there is no grittiness to it. No darkness. I am wondering if this baseline my work lacks also makes it lack depth. I think about my work and Anish Kapoors work, his work also has a feel that evokes responses from the energy body, but there is a darkness and mystery to it. I feel like so much in my life I haven't encountered constructively the darkness of my own, but have pushed it aside. Meaning sometimes I don't know what makes me mad or sad, for example, I just feel the feelings come up and then I react. I want to get to a place where I can understand myself and my reactions a little better so I can be more knowledgeable and skillful when I encounter them and STOP reacting, to move beyond that. To be more aware of myself. I have been noticing a lot of my barriers coming up lately and I want to explore them.

So in this contact improvisation a lot of other people's energy is pretty mellow. I have been noticing my energy body in general tends to be REALLY inward and quiet or REALLY extroverted and zany. This is a strange state to exist in and I do seek balance, but at the same time I am not trying to stifle what I am just doing naturally. Anyway, in this dance, a lot of people dance in a really 'flowery' way and I find myself engaging in that soft way sometimes, but sometimes the energy comes up in a very dynamic, gritty way. Sometimes as I am moving in this way I feel very vulnerable but also powerful.

Jovinna was talking about how when you dance with horses you can't look at them but you feel and follow their energy. When they open up a little to you you can open up a little to them. It is a very gradual process but before you know it you are dancing with the horse. She chose me to give an example to the class and told me that she was the horse. We circled around each other in the room while the class observed. She would stop, I would stop. She would bend her knee and hold it in the air, I would do similar, sensing what she was doing so it wouldn't be exact. She would open toward me and dance in some and I would do the same, moving closer. We switched roles and I was the horse. The feeling of opening up and knowing someone would be engaging directly with me was such a vulnerable feeling for me. From the outside, I don't know what it looked or felt like, but on the inside I was completely engaged. There was this other being completely encountering me. I was in control but Jovinna was still trying to enter my realm. I had to let her in-it was inevitable. I would pause and feel her pausing. I would open and she would react to my motion, moving closer. The closer we got the more scared but curious I became. Finally we were there and completely giving, taking, moving in and out and she was matching my dynamic step. She was engaging in the force that I am just learning how to engage in in myself. I didn't have the option to opt out or step away, because I was the one who allowed the moment to happen. I got exactly what I asked for and she didn't let me escape and I had to not only let myself out but let her in as well. I felt like my buttons were being pushed! And I liked it. Maybe on some level I have learned to avoid having my buttons pushed.

After the dance I felt spooked. I didn't know what to do so I walked over to my water bottle and took a drink. I didn't know if I felt completely empty or if I was going to start bawling at any moment.

After class Jovinna told me that I had something very special inside of me that is going to come out. I know every human being is special and I know I have been told similar things before and sure enough they (the special things) have shown themselves to me. Now more are coming out I guess. My body is a conduit of purpose. But to have a teacher, a powerful, skillful, insightful teacher, hold me and stroke my hair and whisper that in my ear, that was a feeling I haven't felt in a very long time and it felt incredible.

Pictures

Here I am in the woods. And below are some new things that I have been making in my new office.

Inspiration for the new things--I picked it up at auntie monica's house from a crate and barrel catalogue.


Yes I spelled catalogue in the sissy way.


My new bunk.

My new office.


My new closet space.
I like these wavy trees.
This is what I see when I walk out my door in the morning.

Many Truths

So I decided that the experience of living in the nation's largest yoga center lies somewhere pretty evenly between normal culture and alternative culture (i.e. for the sake of argument, off-the-grid places, ashrams, and other intentional communities. This means the transition to either pole would be relatively smooth. But which one is more appealing? This also means that alternative cultures seem more accessible and perhaps more natural.

I took a hike in the rain yesterday with my friend Nicole. We found ourselves sitting on a collapsed pier at the edge of an abandoned pond. As we merged with the rotting wood, raindrops and each other, the experience expanded and smiled and discussions traveled into realms of string theory, fearlessness, supply and demand, mother earth, and seeing just how far we're willing to acknowledge our power to will time and own each moment, existing in the endlessness of every one.

Just before then I felt forever in the way the water held its monastic presence; so still underneath the patter of the raindrops I almost willed myself to believe I could walk on it. Transform myself into matter that could do such things. Instead I became wood and similarly still, endlessly happy in the moment, realizing the largeness of who I am beyond what I can see but still knowing, still feeling. Feeling my limited scope amidst my huge being. And I pulled that moment and stretched it about as far as I was capable to do--maybe as tall as those trees surrounding me. Maybe I was all of those trees surrounding me.

There is a good quote from Ghandi: The way to get to know yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. I look at myself and my life before this seva (sanskrit for 'selfless service', a term for the jobs we do here) and karma yoga (one of the eight branches of yoga, basically volunteering) and I don't feel like I have changed per se. I have been through experiences which have fundamentally changed who I am, but fundamentally here I feel very much the same, more myself even. But the most notable difference I think is my feeling of not needing anything. I used to always feel like I didn't have enough money, or I wasn't where I wanted to be in terms of location or career. But here I feel satisfied. I don't find myself scheming or trying to figure out improvements for my life. I do have goals, but they don't feel as fear-based as before. I have said before and have decided before that I don't think that fear and God have anything to do with one another and I want to walk with God. That is something I have always worked toward and here I feel it with more clarity than I ever have I think. I also remember for my senior art show how I made that light box piece which was a silly comic strip called "Dre's Lil' 7th Chakra Primer" and in one of the squares it said, "I always feel like I'm at the wrong place at the wrong time." And here I never feel that way. This is a really happening place and I'm at the center of it. Not to say that my life is all action all the time, far from it, but where ever I have been finding myself lately, it consistently feels correct. It's where I am. Not the place itself, but me. I am the right place and the right time. And I feel like I've learned this lesson now and I think I will always feel this way.

All those things, status and career and locations and possessions, seem like distractions that get in the way of life actually happening. I mean, all of those things happen, but it seems like they happen better when inadvertently so, unattached to fear.

Another aspect of this is my increasing view of the decreasing importance of money. This has been a gradual development since college for me as many of you know, but this idea of mine also seems to have more clarity here. Here I feel like it could be perfectly conceivable to become completely monastic and live by the whims of what the universe gives me. We get to experience this on low levels at Kripalu. There are plenty of community items such as books and clothes that volunteers share, and it has me reflecting on how much space and material effort it takes to maintain such collections when one lives in a real house. But they are really just temporary things. I mean sure I really like having some of my favorite items and my durable, functional, nice things, but for the most part clothes are pretty interchangeable. And sometimes I find nicer things than I can find on my own when allow myself to let them find me. Same with books, you read it, and then do you really need it? Most books that is, I really like having a few favorites of course, but really. I think books are meant to be shared. The universe allows us to keep that which we actually need. I think I also decided yesterday that that's why music is mostly free now--we're entitled as humans to it. The real experience comes from spending time in the presence of the artist's vibrations (i.e. a concert), and what's beautiful about that is you don't acquire material possessions, you acquire a beautiful memory which is worth more money than a dust collecting cd.

Anyway so I am feeling like the further I am getting from my fears (which seemed to be tied to material possessions) and the fuller my life is feeling from what I am allowing the universe to bestow upon me, the more expansive I feel. And it is a pretty exciting feeling. I have very high expectations for myself.

Signing out, with love.