Eric Stoneberg

On Sept 24, 2011 I swam 10k down the Hudson River

to raise funds for Million Trees NYC.

It’s not too late to make a contribution by clicking right here. 

The city of Cusco in Peru is decked out in rainbow flags, so much so that upon our arrival we joked that it looks like an over the top gay pride extravaganza. Turns out that the Peruvians consider the rainbow one of their most important totems and every day is a rainbow celebration. This rainbow totem has become very dear to me too, especially as it saved my ass during an epic 10k swim down the Hudson River last weekend. More on that in a bit.

On one of our first day trips from our homebase of Pisac in the Sacred Valley our teachers brought us to Wallkai Willka, a sacred waterfall whose name means “The Rainbow Waterfall.” It was a dramatic drive through the Sacred Valley and and then up and over the serpentine Andean ridge. During this drive we saw what was basically an Incan travel plaza. The long distance runners paused there for fresh water – and also to deposit their fatigue into an enormous stone called a Wakka. Yeah, I think we should put some giant Wakkas in strategic places all over Manhattan. A place for us to deposit our grumpy exhaustion sounds like a most excellent idea.

After a nice picnic lunch and about half a dozen cups of coca tea, we made our way up to the waterfall. Our teachers told us that this particular waterfall had called them there as a place from which to explore the source energy of the mountains nearby. The water flowing down holds the wisdom from the surrounding glacial mountaintops. And in the celestial tradition, mountain peaks are like accupuncture points on the human body. Except these points connect to the greater body of the universe – and to distant star systems and supernatural worlds in other galaxies. Let’s just say their worldview is REALLY expansive. This particular place had given them quite a charge – for days after their discovery of it they couldn’t sleep – and it took them some time to understand how to hold the vibrant energy of the place. They talked about this place as a generative spot for creativity as well as spiritual cleansing. They described the earth – Pachamama – as an infinitely creative power that holds us and gives us life just like our own mother. And that this spot was a perfect place to initiate ourselves more deeply into the inherent creativity of the Andean Cosmology. A place of birth. Interestingly, after visiting this waterfall and connecting to its energy, at least two women in our group who hadn’t had their period in many years started to menstruate.

We cleansed our hands and faces in the icy cold waters of the falls and those in our group who already carried a mesa, or a medicine bag of sacred stones called cuyas, ritually cleansed that as well. We meditated next to the falls for what seemed like hours but was probably about 45 minutes. The misty wind off the edge of the falls was so freakin’ cold as it dove into the folds of my wool garments and scraped against my nerves. I think it was here that we learned one should turn inward to meditate with an open mouth, breathing through both the mouth and nose simultaneously. That was so different than anything I’d learned in the yogic context it was a challenge at first. Plus as a kid my dad used to tell me “Close your mouth! No one likes a mouth breather, makes ya look dumb!” Probably in the Indian landscape it’s generally best not to breathe the fecal air of the temple through one’s mouth, whereas the Peruvian vibe is like so CLEAN it’s practically stamped USDA Organic. Sitting there with a slack jaw and and open mouth seemed to create a deeper opening inside me. Like my loose jaw opened something subtle low in my gut. During a lot of this meditation I kept my eyes open and as I stared at the black, wet rock behind the waterfall I could see the stones shapeshifting into faces and jaguars and birds and all kinds of wonderous forms. The animistic totems of the Andean Cosmology spun before me like a kid who turns clouds into animals and other shapes. Trippin!

We were called out of this meditation and brought into a circle with the rest of our group. At some point we did another hug ritual as I described in one of my last posts, embracing every member in our group. Our group was becoming really cohesive by this point and all the ritual embraces worked to fuel the love we were starting to have for the Andean Cosmology. Then we sat on the earth again for more open-eyed meditation and were given the instruction to look up at the horizon, where the jagged mountains met the sky. Something curious happened to me and I figured out why this waterfall was called the Rainbow Falls. As I looked at the place where the earth met the sky, the entire sky started to fill with an intricate matrix of rainbows. Hundreds and thousands of interconnected rainbows weaving through the sky then touching the earth then creating a complex web of light between every object in front of me, including all the members of our group. Oh my god. And I’m not even on drugs. Breathless, I started singing along with Kermit the Frog in my own mind as I recognized profoundly that the whole world really IS a rainbow connection for the lovers, the dreamers and me. This vision lasted for just a few minutes but made an indelible impression of my heart, mind and body.

Last weekend I participated in America’s largest open water swim. A 10k race down the Hudson River organized by NYCSwim. I trained for it by just swimming, like a whole lot, during August and September. I wanted to do this swim for the same reason we went to Wallkai Willka, to connect literally and spiritually to the source energy that flows from the north towards NYC through the Hudson River Valley. I thought it’d also take my urban shaman profile up a notch in ways I couldn’t yet imagine.  Since coming home from Peru I’ve also been more intrigued to connect on a subtle level to my ancestors. And I know that the Swedes and Norweigans who are my lineage must’ve been masters of the water. As I jumped into that 67 degree Hudson in my black and gold Speedo (another nod to my childhood roots of the 3 Rivers of Pittsburgh, Pa) I was like holy shit, I’m never gonna finish this. I’m going to die. Today.

Then I just swam and swam and warmed up and I felt amazing. At times during my swim I felt more powerful and more free than I’ve ever experienced. And then I reached Sputen Duyvil, the southernmost section of Riverdale where the island of Manhattan comes to a head in Inwood. “The Devil’s Whirlpool.” Suddenly the water became very, very cold again and I became aware of a powerful cross-current. I started gagging. Hard. Pausing to tread water I lifted my head up and couldn’t see the next marker, nor could I see another damn swimmer. No helpful guardian kayakers anywhere nearby. And that police rescue boat was really, really, REALLY far away. Gagging and coughing like a maniac I realized that this could easily be the end of me. Here I am, floating along all by myself, gagging and wheezing. I told myself this must be part of the cleansing process, don’t freak out, just find your breath. As I regained composure the sun came out and several hawks flew right over my head. Close. A gift of strength. Keep going. As I swam again I started to see in the brown salty water ahead of me the same scene I saw at the Rainbow Waterfall in Peru. A matrix of color – spinning and crescenting and interlacing in front of me. Just a momentary flash of fear, “oh god I’m about to have a seizure.” But no, I knew it was another gift from the Andes. A reminder that this swim is giving birth to something new in me, a courage and conviction I didn’t know I had before. At the same time, Akhilandeshwari’s root mantra entered my mind and breath and body like that goddess herself was screaming her power into every cell in my body.

The whole swim took me 2 hours, 10 minutes and 51 seconds. That’s a long fucking time to swim continuously. Not only did I have a potent connection to my Andean experience, but the whole swim was an epic practice of mantra. I’ve been steadily collecting and initiating the powers of the gods through meditation for more than 10 years, learning most of them through the heart of my tantric lineage as elucidated by Douglas Brooks. As I swam, I invited these old friends to come to me. I tried not to initiate them myself but rather listen for them, receive them as they wanted to come. It was surprising at times who showed up. Baby Ganapati, the first and most simple practice I ever learned, brought me so much joy, laughter even, as I swam. The practice of mantra is said to give us access to non-linear time, eternal time. That 2 hour swim felt like 20 minutes. And also like 2 days. I’m still remembering little moments of it all these days later. To swim the river like this is to experience the full spectrum life’s essential flavors. I highly recommend it. So who’s in with me next Fall?

We are all great rivers flowing to their end

Swirling inside us is the silt of ages and creatures and lands

and rain that has fallen for millions of years. 

All this makes us cloudy with mud

Unable to see ourselves.

As we reach for clarity and the open sky 

A voice keeps saying the same thing:

Come now and be blessed. 

Come.

– Hafiz (1325-1389)

The first day of our studies in Peru this past summer our group visited the workplace and healing center (Casa de los Apus) of our primary teacher Adolfo near his home in Cusco. Cusco is situated at a little over 11,000 feet and some in our group were having a challenging time acclimatizing. Me, I kinda felt like I was subtly rolling on MDMA those first couple days. A not so unpleasant pulsation of lightheadedness that was also pretty euphoric. Cusco is a very hilly city. On a flat map your hotel might only be a kilometer from a nearby attraction you wanna visit. But the process of getting there might require quite a breathless trek up and down a steep grade.

When we showed up to Casa de los Apus on the outskirts of town, it was an epic climb up several hundred stairs. No railing. And then we all had to pee. That was another couple hundred feet up to a lean-to structure with a hole cut in the middle for a squat. The views of Cusco were breathtaking and so I wasn’t bothered to much by our bathroom situation. (Though that breathless gasp for air upon enetring this lean-to after the climb was one I’ll never forget.) Cusco is a city that was built by the Incas in the shape of a jaguar. Seriously. The teeth of that jaguar are a cool zig-zagging fortress of  Incan construction you can still visit called Sacsayhuaman. The name Cusco means navel, and it was the belly button of the Inca Empire. Today it is the main center of tourism in Peru.

On that first day of study we learned so many fundamental teachings that would carry us through our week together. We learned a ceremony called HALPAI, sharing coca leaves for harmony and connection with others. Our teachers told us that the thing we all came to Peru looking for was the one thing we could not buy because it wasn’t ever for sale : Love. Love, they said, opens all doors in the Peruvian Cosmology. Never easy to find, love they said, must be cultivated and learned.

In our ritual coca leaf exchange we literally got a demonstration from our teachers in the art of the hug. Most of us I think learn affection by example from our families as we grow up and I had certainly never had a “hug demo” before. My own family was pretty affectionate and I always thought I knew how to give and receive an excellent embrace. Two of our teachers, Climaco and Adolfo, showed us the art of the brotherly (or sisterly) embrace. It was profoundly moving. As one who teaches a yoga style that’s particularly touchy-feely – where hugs are passed as freely as handshakes are in some business circles – I realized that most of those embraces barely skim the surface of connection. In the Peruvian Cosmology, among ones clan, the hug is never superficial. Its purpose is to transmit and create power. Hug your fellow journeyers, the told us, with the intention to connect to all of your heart’s desires as well as all of the elemental forces of nature. That’s a tall order, but one our group practiced and became more comfortable with as our studies progressed.

“Sincerity,” Adolfo told us, “is the 1st principle of the Andean Cosmology.” To speak what you genuinely feel or believe, without shame, is the first step to opening “fountains of power and light” within you. Since coming home from Peru I’ve been training for a 10K open water swim down the Hudson River. There have been moments along the way when I’ve thought I was crazy to try such a thing. Though I was a swimmer in high school and probably swam 10 times that distance every week I could barely complete 20 laps when I first started up again. I went to the river several times and shared my doubts. I meditated next to the Hudson and expressed my fears. Out loud. Every time I did this I leaped forward exponentially in my progress on the next swim. Even the elite guards at my fave summer spot, High Bridge Pool (apparently only the best city guards get placed there because it’s the deepest pool in Manhattan) were impressed. And I was proud of my advancement. Speaking my doubt to a source of power as profound as the Hudson River, empowered me to complete my qualifying swim last week. 3 miles without stopping in a pool. That was 98 laps in a 50 meter pool. Maybe not for Michael Phelps but for me, EPIC. Took me an hour and a half.

Speaking my fear, confronting it rather than ignoring it, was huge. I also got big juice for that qualifying swim from the heart of my Indian tradition. During Hurricane Irene I happened upon a mythical creature I had always assumed was a crocodile. The Makara. Makarasana usually has been translated to me as “crocodile pose.” I never questioned it or explored further. I don’t know how I chanced upon the Makara during the hurricane, but I was thrilled to learn that this mythical creature replaces my own astrological sign of Capricorn in the Indian calendar. I always thought I was the earthiest of earth signs as a Cap. But no. The Makara is a sea monster! Often with the body of a croc, the nose of an elephant, the tail of a peacock and the feet of a tiger or jaguar. Wo. What a sammelena. Sammelena is a word that describes combinatory mixing, often of deities in the realm of mantra meditation practice. Sammelena is a visionary way of describing a world that’s all mixed up, where different pieces comingle to create something more than the sum of their parts.

The makara combines the animistic elements of all of my most favorite deities. Akhiandeshwari’s crocodile, Ganapati’s elephant, Subrahmanya’s peacock, Vyagarapada’s tiger feet – and a little Peruvian jaguar from Cusco flavor thrown in to the mix. In addition to sincerity, a foundational belief in the Andean Cosmology is that in order to plug in to the power or healing you crave, all you have to do is believe that you are worthy, and that you CAN plug in. The morning of my qualifying swim I asked the makara to embody as me, to give me the strength and forbearance through an epic swim. It worked. I swam that day whirling a potent combination of mantras dedicated to my favorite deities and that 90 minute straight swim passed in a flash. Well, maybe not a flash. But it as a great swim.   I am so excited – and scared – for the September 24 swim I’ll make on the Hudson. But I will ask the Hudson River to embrace me lovingly like I pacticed in Peru. And I will also call upon the great Makara to give me strength.

I’m completing this swim to benefit Million Trees NYC. They plant trees on the streets of New York, particuarly in places where there aren’t many or where there are high rates of childhood asthma. If love is something we must cultivate and learn to do better, then this is one way I’m expressing my love for the City. I always considered myself a tree-hugger. But like a lot of my previous hugs, I think I was a pretty superficial one. It takes time and patience to cultivate a city, to cultivate a tree. On Sept 24 I’ll swim for a profound connection to the waters near NYC which flow with subtle wisdom drawn down from the great northern forests. And I’ll swim for the trees. And I’ll swim for all of the monsters of the Sea. We are a combination of everything we’ve already been, and all that we long to become. I’d love for you to support me here.

In July I spent two weeks in Peru leading a yoga & shamanism adventure with my dear friend on the spiritual path, Kay Dougherty. This was Kay’s 6th trip to South America to study and work with her mentors who are Celestial Shamans of the Andes. Most folks hear “Peruvian Shamans” and immediately conjure an image of botanical wizards from the Amazon with their healing plants like Ayahuasca and San Pedro. (If you have no idea what I’m talking about check out this brilliant travelogue by Kira Salak.) The Celestial Shamans are another breed within the Andean Cosmology and tend to source their medicine not from herbs and plants – though they do that too – but more from supernatural mountain spirits and distant stars. Intrigued?

More and more spiritual seekers in North America are looking south for experiential wisdom from the indigenous cultures of Central and South America. The Dalai Lama’s recent visit to Peru cemented this trend. Many of us who study yoga have long looked to the esoteric traditions of India to inform our spiritual vision. While I continue to study and practice and teach the Goddess lineages of Hindu tantra, I also see deep curiousity in the faces of my students every time I teach a yoga class and bring up the subject of Peruvian Shamanism.  Kay and I were blessed to take 21 visionaries with us on this sojourn, and we met countless more on our travels. Folks are looking for more than an exotic vacation, they are looking for the wisdom & power & a profound spiritual connection to the planet we call home. The Celestial Shamans with whom we lived and worked over the course of our travels gave us just that. I’m sure that I’ll be processing and downloading the experience for many months to come. This summer I haven’t been blogging much because frankly, I’ve been meditating more than ever in my free time. My experience with the Shamans blew open worlds of beauty inside me that I’m just starting to understand. I’m ready to emerge now and write down some of my thoughts from Peru.

Today more than any other day in recent memory, the Earth is reminding us just how powerful she is. The entire City of New York is going on lockdown as Hurricane Irene approaches. Tomorrow at 12p the MTA will suspend all rail, bus and subway lines. Shit. Close down the city that never sleeps? This is monumental. Some of my FB friends are inviting me to 60 hour underground dance parties at fortified locales deep in Brooklyn for the weekend. In another life, without a kid… hell yeah. Have fun, ya’ll. I’ll be thinking of you fondly. There’s a swell of adventure in the air. And also dread. With the big anniversary of 9/11 fast approaching and the earthquake 3 days ago that sent my Harlem townhouse apartment rocking and rolling like a giant ship at sea, folks here are anxious. Many of my most advanced students fell out of tree pose this week, laughing uneasily at their own lack of ease in what they consider an easy balancing pose.

For all the power that flows through this vibrant city, nothing and no one is more powerful than the ground we stand on. Though we’ve civilized this land by enshrouding it in cement, the land below our sidewalks holds the memory of what it once was – the most biodiverse nook on the eastern seaboard. Manhattan island is situated in a pleasant vortex in which the flora and fauna from the great northern as well as southern forests converged. It was once a brilliantly diverse natural environment.

I’m not necessarily bemoaning the loss of that. I love culture. I love urban life. And I like to think that that myriad diversity, though thoroughly built up, still exists here. It lives not in the landscape of trees and plants but in the radical diversity of the people who call NYC their home. Of COURSE the diversity of humanity would make a home on the most biologically diverse launchpad in the New World. Consciousness always aligns with itself. Just last night I met a young fellow from Los Angeles, the new boyfriend of a dear old friend, who had never visited New York before. When I  asked him his impression he said, “The coolest thing about New York is how you’re all in it together. In LA I avoid certain neighborhoods because the people there are different, not just racially or economically mind you, but just different. Here you might see someone totally different than you and engage them in a meaningful converation. I’ve done just that a few times today already.” [glee in his eyes as he registers that reflection] “It’s exhilirating! It’s just really, really beautiful.”

I couldn’t agree more. Anytime you crack your own shell and receive a shared experience with someone who’s so totally different than you – well, it just feels good. It feels good because, as I would say to my yoga students, it’s the source of you really are. And we humans have a profound desire to connect with our source energy. Your life after all is the fruit of loveplay. I’m not gonna go explain the birds and the bees now, I’m sure you get it. Desire isn’t just something you have, it’s literally who you are at the source of your life. And you know what’s crazy? A lot popular yoga traditions run around spouting a fundamental belief that desire is the cause of suffering, that desire is a big old problem, a “bad” thing you need to solve or get past. I wouldn’t go there if I were you. Desire is the thing that’s going to heal you and heal this planet. Let’s all get better at our desires, not expunge them.

The Shamans I studied with in Peru said that in order to heal yourself, the first thing you need is a desire to do so. Add to that a belief that you CAN heal yourself and you’re well on your way. The brand of Shamanism I studied is “Celestial” – that is, unlike their Amazonian counterparts who source “Botanical” wisdom from the healing plants of the soil, these guys draw source wisdom from a mountain cosmology that plugs into other planets in distant parts of the Universe. Trippy? Hell yeah. Add to that, all of these guys (and ladies) BECOME powerful Shamans by getting struck by lightning. That’s right. They don’t necessarily go LOOKING to get struck by lighning, but when it happens they get a download of information into their subtle bodies that can takes years to unpack and learn from. This is like their initiation. And it takes the whole Indian notion of Shaktipat, the power of the Universe that “crashes” into you and steers you toward higher level of consciousness, to a whole new level. A literal one. These Shamans also liked to tell us that we deliberately CHOSE planet Earth as our home on which to embody because she is such a wonderful place to evolve and heal. These people were the absolute most grounded and earthy beings I’ve ever known, each of them living very close to their agrarian roots, and not nearly as Nu-Agey as I may be making them out to be here.

Every morning they encouraged us to cultivate a subtle connection with that day’s particular landscape – by simply asking. Out loud. Arms outstreched. It went like this: “Good Morning, Pachamama. [Mother Earth] It is I, your son, Eric Andrew Stoneberg. Please receive me. Good Morning, Father Sun. It is I, your son, Eric Andrew Stoneberg. Please receive me. Good morning local spirits of this land. It is I, your brother, Eric Andrew Stoneberg. Please receive me.” I felt kind of hokey the first day, but then I realized that the landscapes actually WERE receiving me, opening me to deeper spaces in meditation than I’d ever experienced – teaching me about my fears and foibles, embracing me so spaciously that some of my old thought patterns seemed to dissolve as if by magic. I’ve kept up this daily practice here in NYC, and though it’s hard to quantify the result in tangible day to day results, the practice – asking to be received – daily – full name – has shifted my feeling for the local landscape. I love it more than ever.

Here’s my meditation journal entry from Aug 10, 2011 : Today I saw NYC and the counties north of the City from like a Google Earth, bird’s eye perspective. Very cool. Felt like I was flying above the Earth! Amazing feeling. Saw all of the reservoirs that supply our drinking water. Then suddenly it was like the first layer of the earth got lifted off and I got to see all the intricate underground water systems that flow south toward NYC. Millions of branching currents, twisting and winding south. The Hudson River. A voice (a woman’s?) entered my mind and explained the magnitude & beauty & complexity & scope of these systems, more to awe and inspire me I think than anything. It seemed pretty sophisticated, her explanation, but I don’t remember any of it. It was like a total download from my cuya. [more on cuyas, sacred stones from Peru, in another post] Then my bird’s eye view honed in on my immediate neighborhood in Sugar Hill. The voice said, “There’s great stress on all of these water systems right now, especially near your own home.” Bang. Eyes opened. Fuck. I hate when meditations end so abruptly.

Two days later, on Aug 12, there was a massive water main break 2 blocks south of me. The original Croton reservoir line runs straight down St Nicholas Ave (my street) from the Bronx and further up, the Catskills, and it basically blew up and made a HUGE sinkhole. Folks south of me have been without gas pretty much ever since. Several blocks are closed down and the holes in the streets are EPIC. I’ve peered down them. Ancient infrastructure. Literally hundreds of men have been working on it round the clock. Including lots of engineers in suits and ties and grave faces. Tents and catering for the workers (I stole an apple) and men with blueprints shaking their heads. Then the earthquake this week. That day I asked a worker how it was going. “Between me and you bro? This town’s held together by one giant fucking bandaid and it’s about to fuckin’ tear. But fuck. Where the fuck else you gonna live, bro? Right? Tea Party’s ruining this country. At least we’re safe from those fuckin’ loonies here. Look at us, bud. Two white guys in Harlem. Safer here than fuckin’ Tea Party Land. Fuck that.” He smiled a big Irish grin and I laughed my ass off (the Queens accent killed me). And I thrilled in a very human connection with someone whose life is so very different than mine.

“Good evening, Mother Earth. It is I, your son, Eric Andrew Stoneberg. Please receive me. Please protect my family from the approaching storm.” The greatest healer on this planet is the planet herself. All we have to do is desire to love her more and better. And she will continue to give us everything we are, and everything we need.

Irene is a name derived from the Greek word εἰρήνη (eiréné) meaning “peace.”

Hot off the press! I’m thrilled to be able to share a powerful set of teachings this Fall in upstate New York with Douglas Brooks. The idea for this retreat started a few years ago when I was in my early months of sleep deprivation after the birth of my son Jasper. My morning meditations at that time were particularly lucid, full of color and light and diverse emotion. And one morning I started to learn a practice that kinda, just like, CAME to me through the ether. While meditating, I started to hear sets of words and phrases in sankrit. I’m no sanskrit scholar and I’ve barely scratched the surface of this complex and magical language so I didn’t really trust what I was receiving. The next day there was more: my teacher’s teacher who we affectionately call Appa came to my meditation and explained more about the practice to me. This was a meditation first for me, to receive complex teachings while seated with my eyes closed. I was like, um, this is pretty weird. And cool. And a little bit scary.

I asked my teacher Douglas about what I was hearing and he said nonchalantly, “Oh that’s the kavaca. We’ll learn more about that someday soon.” What? Well, I started applying the mantras I had learned to my daily practice and all I can say is that they made everything more vibrant, more juicy. I’m so thrilled to learn and share even more of these special practices this Fall. Douglas just sent me a description for the retreat we’ll host together at Lake Rahasya Retreat House in Bristol, NY on October 27, 28, 29, 30. Save the dates. More details to come soon.

In the Shadow of the Ferocious Light: Tantric Meditations on Siva Bhairava

(That curly haired fellow with the dog above is Lord Bhairava.) 

Starting sometime last Fall, my friend and colleague (and bonus! close neighbor) Siri Peterson and I became pretty much obsessed with the ten great wisdom goddesses, or Dashamahavidya. We read as much as we could and poured through our notebooks on the subject, having spent considerable hours studying the ten great ones with both Douglas Brooks and Sally Kempton. And then we took a group of adventurous students with us to Nicaragua for a surfing and yoga retreat this past February and used this set of ten shaktis as a thematic point of departure from which to explore our week in Central America. I loved it all. And from Siri I learned how to invest in these energies profoundly in an experiential classroom setting. She didn’t just talk about these goddesses. She BECAME them. Her moonlight asana class on Kali (in which we sat dangling our legs off the edge of a 70 foot yoga deck in the dark) remains one of my favorite classes of all time. It’s fun to invest oneself in these energies, these powers – because that investment yields not only the feeling of an enhanced reflective capacity but also artful, evocative experiences. And that’s the whole point of yoga – to love your life – as art.

As I prepare for my next retreat to Peru this summer I’m particularly drawn to Bagalamukhi, the crane-headed goddess. She is thought to be one of the great healers among the set of Dashamahavidya. With the head of a crane she signals the long and narrow passageway of time that often passes between the head and the heart in the process of healing. While we may have reconciled the past in our minds (with whatever tools and coping techniques we had available to us at the time) there is often a long gap between those turnings of our mind and our heart’s healing. Bagalamukhi is the permission we can give ourselves to cultivate this healing through a narrow passage of thought and feeling.

Half bird, half human images also appear in the mythic consciousness of the Indian imagination in the form of the gandharvas. The gandharvas are a rabble of sexy characters closely associated with Lord Skanda, Shiva’s peacock riding son, who keeps their close company. Included among the crew of gandharvas are bird-headed men who are the physicians to the gods. Intriguing to me are the human/bird characters who are at the forefront of the indigenous healing traditions of Central and South America. There is some way in which ancient, shamanistic healing traditions – across cultures and continents – assume a bridge between worlds in the process of deep healing – and these bird creatures are the intermediaries between the human and celestial realms.

Bagalamukhi is called “The Paralyzer.” This delicate, crane-headed character often wields a club, a hefty blunt weapon like a baseball bat somewhat incommensurate with a delicate bird. She uses her club to nail down the tongues of demons, thereby paralyzing them and basically forcing them to shut the F up. Lately I’ve been thinking that this energy may be a key ingredient to our personal healing, especially those wounds that haunt us in the form of the stories we continue to tell ourselves about our past.

Here’s an example. When I was in 3^rd grade, I started playing the violin in school. I don’t remember choosing the instrument – I think my parents inherited a violin from another relative; and thus I began a hand-me-down musical career. I HATED practicing and playing that damn thing. My violin teacher, let’s call her Ms K, was a morbidly obese, mad, screaming witch. She was the first adult I remember (who wasn’t my parent) to yell and scream at me at the top of her lungs – and I was terrified of her. But not so terrified that she scared me into actually practicing. Instead I channeled my creative practice into imagining all of the ways I might kill this woman. My favorite method was to pretend that by taping needles to the end of my bow I could pop and deflate her and she’d sink to the ground like the Wicked Witch of the West. I can’t even remember all of the other ways we must have tortured this woman, but I know that I was MEAN.

During the final concert of the year, the culmination of our tortuous year together, Ms K put me in the back row along with a few others and said to us, “Don’t play. Fake it.” What an awful, terrible woman! How dare she! I was devastated and embarrassed. Now I had a perfect story in my arsenal to prove what a wicked witch she was. And I got to play the role of the virtuous victim, forever degraded by a grown up who should’ve known better. From the raw ingredients of this moment I also got to have an excuse why I suck at music. “My teacher told me I stunk and put me in the back row and told me not to play.” The real truth is, I hated violin and I didn’t put in the work I would’ve needed to in order to play in that concert. Some further research into the subject of Ms K has revealed to me that she was literally jilted, left at the altar (!) just a short time before she began attempting to teach me the violin. No wonder she yelled at us so much! She was in pain. And she had a bunch of little monsters constantly reminding her just how mean and cruel boys can be.

Just the other day, when I wanted to belt out the lyrics to the new Lady Gaga anthem that I had on top volume during a plyometric cardio workout I hesitated – even though I was all alone. “Don’t sing out loud, you’re a terrible musician, just listen.” Two seconds later I called forth the power of Bagalamukhi. “Shut the F up! Nail down that demon!” It’s been years and years that I’ve been telling myself that story, “You’re not good enough. Fake it in the back row. Don’t play.” Man! I’m done with that shit. In order to BE done though, I need to remember to get out the club every time I put myself in that back row. It’s a process to be sure. Every day I need to get out that darn club, sometimes in the area of music, but also every time I lie to myself “I’m not good enough.” It’s been 28 years of that same old story that started in third grade – that’s a long time between a little boy’s choice to play the victim, and my grownup heart’s healing.

If anyone has ever told YOU not to play (and because you’re human I’m sure that someone has, if not in music then in some other arena) do yourself a favor. Get out a club. Pin down that demon. Tell it to shut the F up. And then sing along with Gaga:

Whether life’s disabilities

Left you outcast, bullied or teased

Rejoice and love yourself today

‘Cause Baby you were born this way

PS – Dear Universe: Please hook me up with Lady Gaga’s creative team so that I can become her personal teacher of the tantric visions of the Divine Feminine. I’d love to see Bagalamukhi make an evocative appearance in Madison Square Garden. And I definitely want a front row seat to sing along.

written originally April 10, 2011, revised and posted April 28

This afternoon my home was filled with a brilliant constellation of yogis who came over for an Indian lunch and teachings drawn forth from my tantric lineage of Sri Vidya, or Auspicious Wisdom. My wife and I have come to celebrate this monthly ritual as a time to seriously tidy up the house – I get down and dirty with my toilet bowl for a deep, deep clean. We also prepare by immersing ourselves with extra dedication in the days prior to these Sundays in the contemplative practices of mantra we’ve come to love over many years of dedicated study. This weekend’s topic was Chinnamasta, the Self-Decapitating Goddess. Always a crazy, sexy, cool topic for yogic inquiry. I’ve been pretty obsessed with Chinnamasta of late.

I’ve written about her before here on this blog, but to summarize – she stands for the capacity to self-reflect so sharply, so profoundly, that she is no longer willing to listen to old, limiting beliefs. She has given herself permission to move beyond her ordinary thoughts and instead affirms the inherent power inside her so radically that she’s willing to cut off her own head to drink it up. Yum.

We spent a lot of time this afternoon digesting not only our lunches, but more than a little technical history of tantric thought as it’s evolved in time. Chinnamasta is an important character for the Shakta (Goddess) lineages of tantra because she proposes a vision of empowerment that happens from the inside out. Traditionally, Shaktipat is defined as the “descent of power” and a process of initiation by which a guru empowers a disciple’s spiritual practice. Chinnamasta radically subverts that traditional approach. Instead she embodies a process by which one relies not on an outsider or guru for such a gift, but rather, one’s own power of self-inquiry and self-reflection. The sword with which she removes her own head is that blade of inquiry. Chopping off her very own head is not a violent, injurious act; but rather an outcome of desire and self-permission. My teacher Douglas has said about her, “We all feel things profoundly and deeply and Chinnamasta is that presence in us – the desire and permission to experience the whole of ourselves. She is the longing we all have to imbibe the power of our own direct experience.”

The weapon she uses makes a horizontal cut. In this way the flow of her power swings laterally along the horizon. And so she is a powerful representation of flow and movement for the information age. I have come to reflect on my own life so much more clearly over the past few years because I’ve been reading blogs and other material written by a community of fellow seekers. To read about someone else’s insights is a lateral process of discovery. I don’t have to get privileged access to a singular being who has all the answers. The community itself is the power – and the process of reading and reflecting moves across a horizon of ever-expanding knowledge. That lateral swing then gives me access to my own power. And I get to imbibe the resonance of my own direct experience through someone else’s writing- often in the form of a silly or snarky quip that is a friend’s status update!

So what happens when a group of seekers come together in person to meditate on such an energy? In Shakta lineages, the “guru” is not a single solitary figure who dispenses spiritual power. Instead, the community of seekers itself is the guru. As I’ve already described it above, this is a great model for our time. Shaktipat is then not the thing we get, but the thing we come together to have – and share. Rather than going to a guru to get an initiation, we come together to have an experience, to share. I taught today’s group Chinnamasta’s bija mantra as it was passed to me. And then we sat and breathed and closed our eyes and took it to heart.

Lately I’ve been cueing my students to ask the particular form of deity we’re exploring in meditation, “What do I need to know from you today?” “What insight would be valuable for me at this moment?” In my own practice I’ve discovered that going into meditation, particularly deity meditation, becomes more fruitful with an open question such as this. The more we do not know, the more we can know. Ask and you shall receive. And so, having spent several minutes entering the Chinnamasta bandwidth so to speak, we asked this question, “Chinnamasta, what would you like to share with me today?” A few seconds later, a jazz saxophonist literally started to blow his horn right outside my house. It sounded like he made a home for his music on my front stoop. Now, I do live in Sugar Hill, Harlem, a neighborhood in which most of the most famous jazz musicians of NYC live or have lived. But the timing of his play was pretty uncanny and I can’t remember a time when a street musician took up residence directly on my stoop. (Or maybe it was a she? I always think of sax players as men, but soulful Lisa Simpson subverts that expectation nicely.) So this sax player moved through a wild riff of explosive notes – some pretty, some vulgar – and then culminated with a rendition of “Summertime.” Summertime, and the livin’ is easy.

The cool thing about this message from Chinnamasta is that we all got to interpret it personally. And yet the experience was collective and communal. And likely would not have happened had we not come together for the purpose of exploring this Chinnamasta this afternoon. For me, the song represents hope. And play. In my wildest dreams I could never have predicted that Chinnamasta would reveal her message in this way. Mantra can be like that if you want it to be, a playful unfolding in which anything can happen for no reason. When I hear Summertime, I am instantly transported to a good feeling. That musician just played her horn with no concern for technique or perfection or getting it right. Her riff sounded, interestingly, like one who deeply wanted to imbibe the power of a direct experience. The riffs at times were a mess, squaky and uneven. But there was also an ecstatic rendition of an American standard. And perhaps a message foreshadowing events for a brilliant summer 2011? Yes, I should think so.

Summertime,

And the livin’ is easy

Fish are jumpin’

And the cotton is high

Your daddy’s rich

And your mamma’s good lookin’

So hush little baby

Don’t you cry

One of these mornings

You’re going to rise up singing

Then you’ll spread your wings

And you’ll take to the sky

But till that morning

There’s a’nothing can harm you

With daddy and mamma standing by

Summertime,

And the livin’ is easy

Fish are jumpin’

And the cotton is high

Your daddy’s rich

And your mamma’s good lookin’

So hush little baby

Don’t you cry

Join me in Sugar Hill for another Sunday of good company, tantric philosophy, mantra meditation and lunch. Mother’s Day, May 8. We’ll explore Lalita Tripura Sundari, the ultimate Mama. RSVP to easnyc@gmail.com

Chitra : “Multi – Colored” – Distinctive among the set with silken garments of diverse and variegated colors to remind us that the world is full of difference, but never seperate. The goal of our yoga is to revel in diversity. Chitra is another word for FICTION. Art deliberately distorts life. May you receive your life as ART. You are the artistic expression of the Divine, so express your humanity – your divinity – as art. Be the author of your own life. You’re always authoring, whether you know it or not. And so tell a grand tale. Keep good company. Wax and wane with your own reflective process. Express beauty in whatever diverse, multi-hued way you choose! 

I leave tomorrow for Nicaragua with a brilliant crew of yogic seekers & adventurers. And so ends our Nitya cycle. May the rest of your February be super duper FANCY. 

Jvalamalini : “Garland of Flames” – This Goddess of dreaming repose is evoked on or near water, and carries among her treasures a turtle. The turtle, for a tantric yogi, stands for one’s capacity, desire and commitment to meditate. Not withdrawn from the world, the meditator draws in to the worlds within. The yoga for such a person then looks patient, forbearing and self-contained. The inward-turning yogi is protected by her or his practice, like the turtle who draws in to her shell. She is a garland of flames because her inward turning practices have given her, in time, a capacity to express herself authentically. Her heart’s expression is like a garland of flames. The purpose of meditation is not to get better at meditation, but to bring that reflective power into waking consciousness, to be a lucid dreamer of one’s waking life.

“Love the life.” 

SARVAMANGALA : “All – Auspicious” – Decked in rubies, the sun (Surya) sits to her left, the moon (Soma) to her right, and she is lit up from within as well as from the fire (Agni) that sits behind her. Her forgiving eyes are distinctive – one is like sun, the other, moon –  and both are filled with compassion. She confers KECHERI, the feeling of moving freely in the vault of the sky. She is an expansive, unencumbered moment. Sitting up after loveplay, you see all the world auspiciously because everyone you meet belongs to some clan, some kula – perhaps even yours.