Whisperswords

But they didn't want to hear my word..... They wanted to hear my whispers as I stumbled lone pilgrim down this path of devotion.

On Rats and Ahimsa

So the other night I woke up to noise coming from down stairs.  I got up, went downstairs and crept through the living room.  I could hear rustling behind some boxes (we are moving) in the dining room.  I grabbed a broom, and went over to the boxes.  The noise stopped.  Using the broom I pushed the boxes to the side when suddenly a rat jumped out and ran right at me.  I hit it with the broom twice, and it ran off to the the side.  Somehow I had ended up in the kitchen defending the rat hole with the broom.  The rat tried to run into the kitchen but I again landed the broom on it.  It flew off to the side and ducked behind the stove.  I pulled the stove away from the wall, but the rat wasn't there.  I looked under the stove, but it wasn't there... Then I heard it.  the rat had crawled up inside the stove.  I pulled the bottom drawer out of the stove and low and behold I could see the rats tail hanging
down.  "Scissors" I though, but luckily I couldn't find any.  I found a kitchen knife though.  With out

McDunalds Chocolate Shake Recipe... (Sort of)

Wow I am really excited to share this elixir I've been making.  It has a texture and consistency that can only be described as like a McDonald's Chocolate shake.  Here is the catch though... It is warm and has no chocolate in it.  It may be one of those things that other people won't fully appreciate, but I am so enamored that I thought I'd break down the recipe.

McDunalds "Chocolate" Shake (for trademark reasons of coarse I had to change the name to Mcdunalds)

 

ingredients:

4 cups warm Tea:

• Reishi (Ganoderma Lucidum)
• Birch Tinder Polypore (Fomes Fomentarius)
• Artists Conch (Ganoderma Apalatum)
• Chaga (Inonotus Obliqus)
• False Turkey Tail (Stereum Ostrea),
• He Shu Wu (Polygonum Multiflorum)
• Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera)

1 or 2 bananas (depending on how sweet you want it)

1/2 cup brazil nuts

1 bunch chicory (enough so that the perimeter of the stems together is about the size of a 50 cent piece)

3 tablespoons maca

1 tablespoon chlorella

1 tablespoon kelp

1 teaspoon zeoforce

directions:

I prepare the tea the night before and leave to simmer in a crock pot.  The drink ca be ade with hot tea, although I prefer to let it cool a bit before I blend it up.

In a high power blender combine everything but the chicory and blend.  Stop the blender add the chicory (at this point I find that a tamper is useful) and bring the speed back up on the blender.  Blend until smooth.  I know that it is perfect if it is steaming ever so slightly.

Pour into a glass and enjoy with a glass straw.

The 100 Percent

In the infinite stillness of now, I accept This.

Everything is constantly changing when we overstand the past.  When we consider the future, we can understand that everything and everybody is becoming.  But if we release the past and future, there is only This.  In the infinite now I am.  Unchanging, divinely perfect, I am This.  There is no that.  This is all that there is.  Anything I say about this is mind.  This is where Purusha resides.  This is I am.  To dwell in This is to be immortal, unscathed and complete.  Ferociously Divine, I am all that I experience unseparate.  

The Third Eye is about to Crack open.

Drinking the Essence of the Goddess

The infinite can be glimpsed through multiple levels of meaning.   What is in the water you Drink?  Chemically, Electrically, Emotionally, Energetically? 

Moving back to Minneapolis after 2 years in the Mountains of Western North Carolina, one of my biggest concerns is drinking water.  It may sound strange, but Drinking pure wild mountain spring water, free of fluoride, has been a Yogic Initiation.  One reason I can explain, a vein which is comprehensible... is that I finally experiential have understood that water comes from the earth.  While I intellectually knew this, my water still came from a tap through a filter.  Drinking water directly from the earth is something very intimate, you could call it Drinking the Essence of the Goddess if you want to be Poetic.  Less comprehensible perhaps is that drinking wild water is

Doesn't matter if you think they need vegetables....

... if its a candy crowd you better serve up candy.

Black Dog Effect: The Burden of Expectation

The other day while working out on an isolated farm in the mountains a stray dog wandered up.  He was a large and looked like until recently he had been well cared for.  He was clearly hungry, and his protruding ribs showed it had been a while since his last meal.  Although I had no food to give him he followed me around as I worked at various tasks.  At one point I drove some way and he trotted a long behind.  I stopped, got out of the truck to load some wood into the trailer, and I saw the black dog walk behind the truck out of my view.  As I turned and looked to my left, I could see 100 yards down the road that the black dog was slowly trotting towards me.  I was momentarily disoriented, until I realized that I must not have really seen the dog walk behind the truck.  In an instant my mind righted the situation to what I thought was possible and without a thought I "realizes" that I had been mistaken.

Teacher Takes Many Forms

As I watched the dog approach me up the road, suddenly the first Dog came out from behind the truck and I realized now that there were in fact 2 almost identical black dogs. 

What amazed me about the situation was my minds quick and instinctual almost imperceptible ability to discredit what my eyes had just seen and rewrite the event in a way that "made sense".  I literally had not believed my eyes, even though they had accurately described the event that had taken place.  I could see now how far I have to go in my Yoga practice.

Yoga could be described as the practice of direct experience.  Yoga practices seek to quite the mind so that our consciousness can have the experience of what this is, not what we think it is.  The mind constantly "adjusts" the world to appear how we expect it to.  Due to subtly of these corrections, they are most often not as obvious as in the case of the Black Dogs.   How often do we discredit a situation as impossible when really that's not true of it.  "I can't do that" we say.  And with others, how often do we experienced someone not as they are, but as we think they are.  We dismiss whats really happening because the mind thinks it knows better.  How many times is our experience of the moment actually an after thought constructed by the mind based on expectations from past experience or conditioning. 

There is a mantra I sometimes repeat to dissolve the burden of my expectations.

May my subtle eyes be open to experience not what I think it is, but what it is.

Rama Sita vrs. Wallstreet?

Were Rama and Sita fighting Wall Street's Evils?

In the Epic History of the Ramayana it tells how the Goddess Earth (Bhumidevi) came to the Creator Lord Brahma begging rescue from the evil king Ravana whose armies were plundering her resources and creating environmental destruction through war and evil practices.  Interestingly Ravana is described as having ten-heads.  While if taken literally this sounds quite fantastic, it is an interesting parallel to the personification of the corporation in our modern times.  Could it be that Monsanto, BP, Halliburton and Wells Fargo our modern day "Ten headed evil Kings",  are the collective expression of 10 individual heads (a corporate board) who plunder the Goddess Earth's resources and destroy our environment through war and evil practices.

The Ramayana goes on to tell the story of how Rama, the Avatar who along with his divine consort Sita, became embodied in these dark times with the sacred task of ending the 10 headed King's evil rule.  Rama is known in Hinduism as Maryada Purushottama or the perfect man in harmony with his dharma or highest calling.  This literally translates as the Lord of self Control, or the Lord of virtue.  Sita too is considered to be the embodiment of Maha Lakshmi and the perfect expression of womanhood.  She embodies the characteristics of generosity, courage, light and wisdom.

Although popularly considered to be actual historical figures, could it be that Rama and Sita, rather than individuals are the collective embodiment of righteous warriors who at one time in the fog of human history stood up to and overthrew the greed and destructive practices of the Corporation Ravana.  Is it a stretch?   Sure, but scholars has spectated that authors such as Patanjali and Veda Vyasa, rather than individual persons, are the collective writings multiple people.

Reading a summary of the Ramayana I couldn't help but draw parallels with our current situation.  As corporate greed reigns supreme, plundering the earth and driving to extinction plant and animal, what is at stake is our very humanity.  To remain complacent is to aid Ravana in his destructive and corrupt greed.  As humans and protestors in the US and around the world awaken to "Occupy" the world in which we live, I am reminded of Rama and Sita who fearlessly overcame all obstacles in the divine and selfless pursuit of balance and peace.