Mendhi Project Part 2: Reflections

It is really important to me that I journal reflections about my experiences. In going over these I have noticed that I do not remember what I would have liked so I plan to do this with more frequency.





Zeek was my first victim. I got the message for a lot of fire and arrows and expansiveness. It was a nice experience. We sat in the sun by the beach. May 11. I received the message, "One Eye Open, One Eye Closed."



Later that day I did Gary's hand. He is much more sensitive and the drawing came out more dreamy and expressive. Some sort of fish that is also a submarine.


Josephine's wrist was an interesting experience. I felt like her body was asking me to lay the lines down in a particular way. When I was halfway done, she exclaimed, "Gosh Dre, it looks like one of MY drawings." Her body was pretty specific.


Carly's ankle was the start of my experiences being more prayerful. As I worked we didn't really talk, and my prayer at the beginning was powerful. I felt her spirit guides as well as mine. I noticed particularly that some things that I wanted to do I was asked not to do. I was asked to leave the design open. The big flower on the ankle is looking over the little flowers and that was important for some reason. She is either the large flower herself or being looked out for by this 'big mama' flower (that's what it is called) or both.



Renee's experience was interesting because I don't know her as well. The design started out more quaint and ended up being rather psychedelic.



Ellen, who is one of my closest friends. I thought the design would be crazy but the body asked for something traditionalish. I was also asked to write "Ma".



The experience with Nicole was intense. Her body literally displayed the line for me and all I did was trace it. She told me she asked her body for clarity. As I did this one my whole body was lit up and vibrating. We worked on her right (masculine) side. I am very interested in healing the masculine in order to heal the feminine. The act of creating this was very methodical and focused.




I worked around Jasmine's tattoo. Again, the skin showed me what to do. The patterns were so different. The speed as well. The creation was more frantic.

Mendhi Project

I have taken on a new project. A new inquiry into the healing of the divine feminine that combines some pertinent aspects of my life.

Background:

As an artist, I have struggled over the past few years with the idea of 'object making'. As life is inherently transient and full of change, how logical is it to create something that exists stiffly in time. I understand that having a beautiful painting in the living room and being with it daily can be a powerful transformational experience. However it is still a challenge to know what a burden 'stuff' can be. And I felt funny about adding more 'stuff' to our material world. Thus I switched to digital artwork. Which I am extremely grateful for because it has informed my pattern making and my brain in terms of knowing how to explore potential. Which I don't think I could have done on the earth realm. However I don't care for working away from the earth. I missed the act of having supplies and being in relationship with them. I missed creating things with my hands.

Starting in February I became a teacher of Yoga Nidra. I have kept this teaching practice twice per week for the past 3-4 months. Through this practice the act of release and letting more powerful forces 'work through me' has become increasingly more important. I have started to communicate sincerely and directly with my guides and give up my labors to a higher purpose. This non-attachment to outcome is also a key element of the practice of Karma yoga, which happens to be the focus of my practice this year living at the Kripalu Center. So as I relenquish control, I have started to notice an astonishing power of healing that moves through me and not from me. Many people have experienced profound healing with me, but I didn't 'heal' per se, I simply held the space to enable it to happen.

In April I received an interesting attunement that seems to complement this established yoga nidra practice. I attended a weekend program with Sri Raniji and she and her assistants gave me heart blessings all weekend long. This was the point where I felt my communication with spirit become more clear. I also have an easier time living from my heart since this experience.

A couple of weeks ago I went to see one of my favorite teachers Jeff Triplat. One of the main ideas I have received from his teachings over the past nine months is that light comes from darkness. That a reawakening of the divine femine is COMING and coming from a deep scarring of the divine feminine that exists currently. All false constructs are currently breaking down and we are moving into a period of peace. I, in my own small way, am going to be facilitating this healing as well. This is important to me.

The large connector to all of this that around the time of the heart attunement in April I became aquainted more clearly with a spirit who is telling me that in order to heal the feminine pain in my lineage and in the world, I need to make art about it. She was pretty emphatic. So I have been asking for a lot of guidance on the way in which I am supposed to do this. Or, in the latest words I have been borrowing from Jeff, "Let me know what it is I can do to bring about heaven on earth." And it has been coming to me with rapidly accelerating clarity since the beginning of May. It wants me to work with an ancient feminine art form, henna, and channel healing energy to body parts in the form of these unique and sacred imprints. I don't quite understand it yet, but I wake up with an incredible sense of purpose since I have started this practice. When I am not hennaing I think about hennaing. I am ordering nicer materials and researching techniques. Finding more about this seemingly alchemical and personal art form.

We Live in Public

Recently I've been thinking a lot about this movie I saw at the t/f festival. This is partially why I have been not blogging/facebooking. I'll blog about it soon enough though if I'm supposed to.

MY BRAIN, MY BAD

So I got into a conversation about how I learn. My friend asked me why I haven't read the Bhagavad Gita and I said it's because I don't learn through direct transmission. I'd probably in all reality read it if I was asked to in a dream. Let me explain.





Here is an example of a normal learning experience for me. Yesterday morning I had a dream in which I was teaching Yoga Nidra. I was communicating something very abstract and real. Its farfetched clarity is key to my flavor of intelligence and nothing I could possibly read about and register through 'direct transmission' in my waking life. As I was meditating yesterday morning I recalled what I could of the dream, namely the sensation, and I asked that if that teaching needed to move through me, that I could have the courage to allow it. It so happened that I taught last night. I have to say some of the words I used surprised me and I said some things in certain ways that I wouldn't have expected. Afterwards I spoke with my friend who received the practice and she shared her experience in the form of, "When I heard these words from you, this happened." From this roundabout method I was able to learn a 'truth' about the practice of Yoga Nidra. I learned a specific teaching at a specific time that was exactly right for me. At the same time I embodied the teaching. To take the energy of even finding a book with this particular teaching (which I'm not sure I could have learned from a book anyway), I would have to have really good luck and expend a lot of energy at the same time, probably taking in a lot of unnecessary information along the way. Because I wasn't taking in a lot of unnecessary information, I was able to receive the teaching with clarity. It doesn't do any good for me to tell you what the teaching is because you will get it in the way you need to simply by interacting with the flavor of you that is me.

T/F Weekend in Columbia, MO

Richard and I got in town friday afternoon, bought tickets for our first documentary, and ate ice cream at Sparky's. It was good, so we manned up and ate some more. Realizing we were missing the parade, we ran up the street to say hi to Ann Mehr and join it.



We bumped into Floppy at the parade. He was all decked out to play bike polo.



We enjoyed being house guests at the Mehr's.



We got coffee with Ken, who I was really glad to see. Here he is schooling Richard on Patanjali.

true/false weekend

I am going to talk about something I see
only because I see it in myself, not because it is true.
I don't know what true means anyway.

I notice a tendency for some to get involved in yoga because it brings them in touch with themselves. I will not analyze why or how. But in the beginning this is not a very sober event. You see What the Bleep and read some Deepak, and all of a sudden there is this idea that anything is possible, and there is such excitement around this and liberation.

However, the difference between liberation as an idea and liberation as a path are two very different things. There is this idea that once liberation is identified, it should be easy to liberate, but again, the idea realm only is part of the body, and we cannot grow through ideas alone. The path travels through the body, maybe then the person does a back bend in a yoga class and has a heart opening, maybe they cry, maybe they see an experience and let go of it. This is it, they think, all of this suffering can be released through my body. I should be a yoga teacher.

Places like the Kripalu Center are full of people like this in their teacher trainings, it seems this way to me anyway. They are all high on light right now and that's great, but I feel like shit right now and to see them running around so light makes me a little sick. I shouldn't be so judgemental--maybe they have dwelled in the darkness in their spiritual practice. Or maybe they don't need to on their paths.

I guess what I am saying is that there are no easy answers. And it seems like you would have to be kidding yourself to be a teacher when you are still on the early stages of this path-less path. Maybe it is part of the path. They are probably just fine. It just sucks to be dwelling in my shit right now and see people running around high on light because they haven't looked at their darkness lately. And of course, that's not really what is happening--that's me seeing myself in something I project to be happening. Nothing is really happening is it?

Nothing really would have to happen for me to abolish my suffering. What's there already isn't the question, it's what is getting in the way of what's there already and the job for me lately seems to be something of a detective.

I have spent so much time in my life not owning the behaviors and views I have had that have been limiting myself, and now they are confronting me headfirst.

I don't think that I still should necessarily be with Derrick, and I don't think that I was blaming him for any of my problems when I ended things in September. I believe the tone was 'I need to learn about myself, and I can't do that in the context of a relationship". I still stand by that. But I saw him last saturday for the first time since then and it was hard in terms of me owning all the little problems I had with 'the relationship' and realizing that actually they were really just little problems that I had with myself. It was hard seeing him seeming well adjusted and moving on with his life. And me feeling like I'm so face to face with my darkness right now. I had to watch my ego wanting to be 'wanted', I had to watch my ego be 'jealous', I had to watch my ego wanting 'superiority' to gain control over the situation. I didn't let any of that happen, i just let myself feel the hurt. I felt coldness in a place that used to feel warm, and emptiness in a place that used to feel full. It sucked.

I know I'm being hard on myself, and I'll take it easy, but this is just where I am right now. It's also hard because I know there is some perfection to what is right now, but it's doesn't make me feel 'light' or like a 'winner' which is perhaps what I may have used to expect back in my What the Bleep stage of spirituality when I thought about 'divine perfection'. This just makes me feel the finality of 'myself' and it is incredibly sobering.

There is also some self-hatred present which makes my path of learning how to love myself even more of a challenge. But self love is my goal, so I have to rise up to find it even more at this time as much as ever.

Stories About Stories (Babies Making Babies)

It smells great here in Kansas City.

The sky is blue, there is NO green on the trees (we ain't got evergreens like you do, oh no, no hills neither). Sixty some odd degrees it reached today, in this somewhat desolate, meaty aroma-ed atmosphere. I feel sweet; going outdoors without a jacket is so liberating.

The trees are haunting here. Their gorgeous skeletons look so dry I almost can't believe they will grow leaves again, and they look so defiant--jagged branches plunge out, violent and graceful against periwinkle background. The wind blows through them and rolls over me as I wander through loose park, straggling behind, hearing in some places my dear angel Kelly talking about birth politics with Heather.

And my vibe is still, I stand still, what feels to be stiller and stronger and more distinctive than ever before. Everything has changed. Everything is still. I am still.

Some emotional opportunities have come up so far that I would normally get swept away in. I have noticed a temptation to do this, and even an inclination or beginning of doing this, but the stillness seems to pervade and interfere. And through this stillness, this space held, life is allowed to happen. Healing and progress allowed.

Amidst this I find myself catching myself. Being close to home is allowing things to hit me close to home. I'm seeing some more things, things I wouldn't have thought of myself so I'm glad I didn't try to.

Today I spent the day with dad. He is a sweet man and so emotional. He has a very active mind so it is interesting to be around that energy. He is also very well endowed with earth energy and being around him feels constructive. Makes me feel more like manifesting those things I'll be doing, I'm starting to see the process with which I am able to snatch things from the sky with my fingers and mold them and turn them into life. We ate an amazing lunch at the good Indian buffet. We bought reeds for his Selmer Mark 6 saxophone. We went to Whole Foods and he had fun checking everything out, he got himself some multivitamins for 'mature' adults and kidded with the check out girl who relished in giving him a hard time.

I knew I was supposed to come to KC, of course I didn't know WHY but made a story about it anyway. Now that I'm here, things seem to be happening so quickly and so needily, like crying children that need to be fed NOW. At the same time I find myself catching time and hanging with its resonance. Finding myself sitting a lot, being, waiting. Opportunities and tasks popping up, sounds of helicopters in the air, a flash of de ja vu in the kitchen as I unload groceries. I remember this. I remember mom being out of town and what? What is this strange feeling that is coming over me again?

I cooked. We thought about turning on Seinfeld and did, but within seconds of sitting down to the food we both decided that it didn't feel right. Dad regaled me with stories with and without beginnings and ends, things got alluded to and conclusions were awoken to and I held space, watching him bloom. He loved playing soul music in high school and talked about his band leader, an original mc who took after James Brown. Talked about being led by feel rather than sheet music. Spoke with so much feeling and sweetness and nostalgia. Talked about things done and not done and would haves and lessons learned and the kinds of things my dad likes to talk about. Talked about fear and why he left music behind. Talked about growing up with two parents who were musicians, and how his dad didn't push him to take lessons until he wanted them, but then when he wanted those sax lessons how his dad had the connections to get him the best sax teacher in St. Louis. Life going on.

Right around then we got a phone call, it was my cousin Trisha from Louisiana who is not a frequent caller. Grandpa Joe, dad's dad, collapsed in the middle of Ash Wednesday mass. He had a heart attack. And that was the last five hours of my evening.

March 4th Update: My dad, expecting the worst, went to Louisiana to be with his family. However it wasn't my grandpa's time. Grandpa Merello is better, and with an adjustment in his vitamins and medicines, everything should be fine.