Day 7 - Catching A Breath (Not)

​​It's a little past ten in the morning now, which is probably a bit early to write about my day, but I'm technically a day behind and it is wonderfully, lightly rainy and the rain always makes me want coffee (seattle makes sense to me in that way), a desire which I indulged in this morning, so I am full of The Caffeine (a rare thing) and feeling a bit too twitchy to just sit and read SO HERE WE GO! 

Just to go back a little bit on yesterday, not much I promise, but I wanted to share a bit more about the incredible experience I had. There was many of them of course (I conquered a castle in the sky so... there's one for ya), but I want to write about The Big One. The Truly Important one. The Rare kind of one. One of those Life Changing moments, that aren't as completely, immediately life-changing the way you wish and think and hope they are like in the movies, but in a very real way each one is an Important Step, that now dwells deep inside you, and grows stronger only if you nurture it, and add to it. Like exercising your body, you don't see the results after one visit to the gym, but each visit is important, and collectively that hard work is what makes The Real Changes. Yesterday, was a mental day at the gym - and I got my ass kicked by it.

I started yesterday, as I often do, waking up from a really intense dream. This dream was very unique for me, in so much that it was one in which I was very upset (which is usual of all my dreams - dream jin is rarely just having a nice time of things. In fact, now that I think about it, I don't think that's ever happened..) but it wasn't an upsetting dream in itself. Usually, in my dream I am despondent, and wake up that way. But yesterday morning, I was upset in dream world, but I woke up feeling hopeful, and curious, and Lighter as a result.

My mother was there, in my dream, and I was confiding in her. This is important, because it has never happened before. Not in dream world, and almost never in the waking world either. The story of my mother and I is not a pretty one, nor a happy one, and after about four years of not seeing her, and very rarely talking to her, she died, in a sad, terrible, and lonely way, back in 2012.

This was a grand occurrence in my life of course, that ultimately set me on this path of full-time, traveling model-ness. Now for some really personal info - I used to dream of my mother fairly frequently, and every time it was bitter, and hateful, and we would fight terribly and ultimately I would beat her. And I would take joy in beating her.

After she died, it stopped for a while, but every now and then, I still dream of being in my childhood home, and for some reason I live there, we all do again, and my mother and I fight, and eventually it elevates to the point that I start hitting.

This happens with a couple others in dream world, my stepfather being one, who's an asshole but human, so probably has it coming but I should just forgive and let go, and my husband sadly being the other, who is a sweet, incredible man who has earned and receives all my love, but unfortunately along with that, all my hatred too. (My apologies to those of you that I just dropped the H-Bomb on, not many know that I am married).

For all of my adult life however, it is mostly my mother whom I physically attempt to destroy. In this dream though, she was giving me advice. She was listening. She was talking to me. And when I broke and started to cry, she held me, and into her chest I sobbed "Oh Mom..." and even in dream world I had the thought, 'Why does that feel so strange? Why does it feel so unnatural for the word "Mom" to come out of my mouth..?'

After I woke up, it occurred to me, oh yeah, because I don't have a mom, and growing up I never truly felt like I did either. There are few moments in my life I can think of in which she comforted me, and none of them involved me crying into her embrace, and uttering those words, "Oh Mom.."

And it felt so good to say. It was a warmth and a relief and a bittersweet feeling in my heart that I've never had before.

It was a gift, I think, for my mother to visit me in my dream, and to hold me, and tell me that everything would be OK, in a way that I don't recall ever happening in real life.

That's not to say that it never happened in real life, that my mom and I never had a moment of peace and trust together. I am actually fairly certain that, excluding my very young years, that it didn't ever happen - but one thing that I am skilled at is only remembering the bad, only seeing the bad, only feeling the bad - hence why these brief experiences of relief, of happiness, of stillness, of joy, are so precious and so. damn. strange. I fight them tooth and nail, but I'm fighting even harder to experience them more and more, and to learn to be a person who sees and feels and has faith in the good in life. And yesterday was a very, very powerful experience of all those things.

Have I mentioned our amazing, vegan Chef, Javier yet? I'm kidding of course - he's amazing and I need to stop writing about him so much, especially now that you all know that I'm married . . . And I will right after this.

Well, Javier has many gifts that he shares freely with the world, one of them being his instruction in a certain type of yoga called Kundalini (when I made a reference between Kundalini and cunnilingus aka oral sex, everyone gave me weird looks - but I felt justified in the comparison when our first instruction was to make sure that with every breath you squeeze in your anus and then your genitals and then your lower belly. so... yeah...).

Yesterday's long day was made extra long, as Javier granted us a great gift, and taught an introductory class of this style yoga at 5 in the morning. 

A brief description, besides your breath starting from you anus, is that you go through a series of movements, typically for about three minutes each - although gracias a dios the longest we went with each movement was one minute - all while utilizing "fire breath," short, powerful, rapid exhales, allowing the inhales to happen involuntarily. The entire time you focus on your third eye, and, of course, squeezing that anus, or, as darling Javier pronounces it, "anoose."

The class begins and ends with group chanting, and at the end is the most powerful experience of all. From some, ceremonious box, Javier opens and begins to play an instrument that I cannot describe, because I did not see it, and also, because I have never heard such sounds before, and cannot even imagine the instrument that would create them.

These incredible sounds occurred, whilst we laid there in the dark of the premorning, completely relaxed in body and, the intention is, completely relaxed in mind as well. And while we lay there in shavashana or Corpse Pose, Javier plays, and Javier *sings* and it is unlike anything you have ever heard. And with whatever the fuck that insturment is and with his singing, the entire room vibrates, the entire universe vibrates, and if you allow yourself to do so, you vibrate right along with it all.

And so I laid there, refreshed and relaxed and recovering from all the movement, all the breath, embracing the vibrations and thinking of this positive gift from my mother, of her kind words, her embrace, and her sympathy, and I did my best to experience each vibration.

You know how they say, to be more enlightened, you have to vibrate at a higher level? This is absolutely a literal concept, and I did my best yesterday to reach out towards that higher level and vibrate my way to a better understanding, and I felt it, I felt myself break through, mind and body fighting it every step of the way, but I relaxed and I breathed and I vibrated and I pushed through anyway.

The path to happiness, in many teachings, is to become an empty vessel, and to let the universe fill you with what it will, and to embrace that. I think it'd be more accurate to become an empty, hollow tube, and allow through you to flow the powers of the universe, both Good and Bad, and you hold on to none of it, you just lay there, hollow and open and allow these things to flow.

So I lied there, empty, open, and let this alien, hypnotic, unbelievable song and sound flow through me, and I felt within myself, my emotions, my being, my vibrations, all reckoned to a rocket, blasting through the earth's atmosphere, damned be gravity, forcing my way through, each layer thicker and more difficult and pushing back on me harder, but my vibrations rising higher and higher and the power of us, all of us, resonating within me, pushing me further and further to a higher and higher level. And despite the weight of gravity; my negative emotions, my emotional hang ups - despite god; what we are told is possible and what is not - and despite the difficulty; how easy it is, how often it has been that I have stayed, bitter and miserable and choosing still to wallow in depression - continuing onward and upward despite it all until finally, the breaking point, when everything vibrates through your bones, your teeth, your eyes, your skin, down to each cell, the energy of which we are all made of, vibrating higher and higher and higher and the crescendo reaching a point you do not think possible, your exhales, your "OHM"s louder and louder and with more power, vibrating right along the path set out by the sounds and song of our conductor, our light, our guide, our Javier, until finally when you reach the point that you must let go of everything that you think and feel and know, that it is all completely and utterly untrue and that you MUST let go of ALL of it in order to vibrate just a little bit more, a little bit higher so that you can join the entire universe which is always vibrating in and around you and along with you because we are all the same. fucking. thing. and it is at that moment that you inhale sharply in realization, and exhale everything, everything, everything,..... and you break through. you break through the last bit of atmosphere, the protective bubble, the barrier around which your entire whole world has been built, you break through and you are left floating in space... weightless. silent. still. empty. a hollow tube, with the entirety of the universe flowing through you.

and you stay there, breathless, only light, looking out over infinity as the world slowly, spins below you, and the sun shines out over everything, it's reach unending, and you see it. all of it. 

and then you inhale again, the sounds fades away, the song ends, and you land, lightly, back on your yoga mat, the sun barely peaking out over the mountains now. and that is when we sit up, and we thank each other and ourselves, and Javier, dear, incredible, powerful, wonderful, Javier, with his ready smile, his strong voice, and his fathomless, loving, brown eyes, and we bow to the light of each other, the light within ourselves, the light that we all share, because we are all the same, and karen sees me from her mat across from me, and she tells me "It's Ok," and I let it go. I let it all go.

For a brief moment, I sit in the warmth and understanding and shared experience of the people within the small yoga shala with me, in the beautiful, ancient, alive mountains of Spain, and I cry. I cry, without sorrow, without joy, I just cry, and I feel the relief and the beauty and the meaning of it all. And I take this moment, small and powerful, and I store it deep within myself.

This is why I am here. This is the gift my mother gave me. And this is that moment that I will add to many others, as I try my damnest to collect many of them, as many as I can and then more, and build them up, and use them to rebuild a new foundation for myself, a foundation of positivity and light and love and empathy. I will use this moment and others to fill in all the holes in my soul and in my heart, and create a life in which I choose happiness daily, and that I continue to manifest not just what I need but all the many, many things I wish to accomplish.

And I can't do it without all of you, the supporters, the friends, the 'fans,' the family that I have manifested, and the many more that I will continue to call into my life, and these experiences, that I so desperately need to help restore a sense of hope, and tranquility, and joy in my life, so that I can learn to sit back, relaxed, and be present in this moment, the only time that has any truth to it at all, and trust that I am exactly where I need to be, when I need to be there, and watch as my "purpose" isn't chosen, but is allowed to happen.

Thank you for reading, thank you for loving, thank you for supporting, thank you for being, and thank you for giving, in all the ways that you do. Thank you.

Namaste
JIN

PS the sun is coming out, and the rest of the day, besides hurting just all over but in a kinda-good way, I have planned to join in the vegan smoothie workshop happening in the next room, some reading, some writing, some sharing, more yoga, and I'm sure at some point, a caffeine crash and a lot of frustration along with it, and stress at the end of the day that I still have so much to do and didn't accomplish nearly as much as I need to just like every other day and dammit why did I eat so much toast!, all of which I will do my best to stretch and reflect my way through, and try not to direct my anger too much at my dear yoga instructors, as well as at some point a much needed bath.

PPS just as the universe intended, nothing went as planned today, it was full of stress and communications and travel and changes and phone calls in English and Spanish and none of the things just none of them but lotsa yoga and lotsa anger at yoga as I'm known to do but it all ended with a big ass glass of wine, fun conversation with such nice and incredibly wonderful people, new friends, and a little jam session with yours truly on the dijerido. As always, today has been a [terrible/terribly/terrible] Good Day. Grathias a todos. ​

at left; Javier and his magical, spiritual box. to the right; the aussie cuddle puddle