Around the House

Just some pictures of how I’m expressing/honoring my spirituality in the new apartment:

My altar
The horned goddess

a large stone with quartz crystals in it with items I’ve made honoring possibility and growth.

This rock garden acts as another altar for me. Many of the stones are ones I’ve drawn nature themes on.

Images of fairies and angels feed my soul.

An image I call “faerie twilight” always puts me in a receptive mood.

Images of my inner child and highest self…

This image reminds me to offer the essential sacrafice

Bonus image:
A drawing I made earlier this week. I call it “Summoning the Spirit Within.”

African Ancestor Root Healing Ritual with Masankho

My friend Darcy and I went to an African Ancestor Root Healing Ritual last night with storyteller, dancer, healer and educator Masankho Banda. Since we were told to bring a blanket and pillow, I thought it would be some deep meditative experience. My expectations were happily upturned and we spent the time doing a series of dance rituals!

We started with a dance of self. Next we danced to welcome and acknowledge the ancestors. Then we danced a dance for each direction, which was amazingly powerful and the directions told me that since they are always present for me and always watching, I should consciously tap into them and their power more often. We danced a dance for welcoming one another that was also a dance to ask for those who need to see us clearly to do so. I cried through a good portion of that, praying for my parents to see me as I am instead of who they have told themselves I am.

Next we danced a dance for our children and all children. I danced thinking of Clarissa and was filled with such great joy as the dance acted out the way parents must help or not help their children and have the wisdom to know which to do when. Afterwards, we talked about the children of the world who are in need. We all blessed the necklace made by a girl with AIDS in Africa who has amazingly reached puberty and I was led to talk about how I was  abused as a child and how my life is full of love and light like I would never believe back then, to reaffirm everyone’s hopes that the children of the world in need will find the help they want. While speaking, I suddenly had to gasp to breathe and I started shaking and crying. One of the other women came over to hug me, remind me to breathe and to ground me. We stayed in one another’s arms until I had calmed and the enormous rush of energy had passed through.

Next we did the dance of acceptance. We gathered everything in our past and let it go. Gathered all we are now and let it go, then pulled in future goodness towards us.

We next had a session of meditation laying down with the drum Masankho played for us creating a strong heartbeat for us to follow. My sacral chakra felt very strongly activated and was vibrating in tempo with the drumming. I still feel the transformation most strongly there. I woke up and noticed how light and airy it and my energy feel. I know I let go of somethings and felt some blocks in my mind and body had been cleared away.

We ended with a dance to thank the ancestors and allow them to go back to what they were doing.

The night ended with lots of hugs and thank yous and extremely positive energy. I am so glad I went!!! I can’t believe I almost didn’t. Masankho will be back in town in November so I look forward to seeing what other opportunities will arise.

Energy Work, Brain Cleansing and My True Self

Lately with all the crazy energies flying around, I have been forced to deal with old hurts and fears I hadn’t fully acknowledged or released. I also had my priorities re-aligned and am feeling fully in touch with my soul’s purpose.

My friend Darcy who is working to become an energy practioner (click here for details on having her work with you) gave me an hour long session on Friday night. I had some major AHA! moments in between feeling sleepy and contented. She had an amazing OM chant going on in the background and I immediately felt relaxed and in a receptive state. I meditated on Gaia for a while as different feelings and thoughts emerged and left.

I finally started meditating on my future daughter, who has come to me in many visions and to whom I can communicate very easily on a soul level as we prepare for her entrance into Earth. She showed me that I was afraid of her abandoning me because I have had two miscarriages and that I was not trusting her and the Universe as I needed to, being ashamed to be honest with others about how real and alive she is to me. She told me that she has already agreed to be with me as my daughter and that I should trust in this. She showed me herself as a brilliant star, as a baby, a teen, and an old woman, before fading back into a baby. I felt her weight on my chest with her head on my shoulder and I wanted to cry from the joy and peace I felt. She even showed me a vision of me decorating her nursery for her to help me believe fully in her future entrance into my life (which will change everything for me!)

I also forgave myself and my mother for the mistakes we made in our relationship with each other, and had some more realizations about the spiritual aspect of my childhood imaginings and their effect on my life.

The next day, I had my regular meditation session with friends although only one was able to come. We had a very good session that was powerful for the both of us. I received some very strong images and good wisdom, though my head felt as if it had been peeled back to expose my brain to the world. The feeling led me to draw this:

Our meditation led us to merge fully with our Souls, to really SEE it. My hair and eyes and skin grew brighter and my entire body became more elfin in the mediation. This also helped me become more attuned to my soul name & titles: Fire Flower, Truth-Bringer, Lady of the Flame and Shadow, Goddess-Warrior of ALL-THAT-IS, which I feel now is a proper definition of myself instead of something I have to live up to. We connected with the Christ grid that is both surrounding and within the Earth, which activated my third chakra very strongly. It was exhausting and exhilarating.

Sunday I spent going through the rest of Brain Respiration by Ilchi Lee. Once again, I did a meditation where I looked at my brain and cleansed it in a stream of energy. This time it was pink where the new shiny bits have started healing the scummy rotten bits I had to cleanse a few weeks ago. And when I shook out the “dark energy” it was like a sprinkling of pepper instead of the stream of blackness that flowed from it last time.

One of the last exercises was to meditate in order to see your soul’s vision play out. I did this and saw myself dancing around the Earth planting roses and bearing fruit for others out of the tree growing out of my head (an image I’ll probably draw soon). I saw myself giving birth to Clarissa (my daughter) as if in a womb myself, painless and joyful. When Clarissa joined me on the Earth, still connected to me by the red embellical cord, she and I started dancing in a new pattern (one she taught me) and in this new pattern all the other people on the planet started dancing with us until we were all vibrating at such a rate that we were shimmering and on the same level as our star families who embraced us with open arms.

It was the perfect accumulation of all the work I’ve been doing: to see this vision and to know I can trust the Universe to bring it to pass without my having to force anything. I can simply allow and be my True Self and watch the future unroll beautifully.

I am so blessed.

Honoring All Gods

Monday night I was chanting “I honor the divine within” and I reached down to touch my animal familiar, Frederick who was sitting all happy wearing his happycat Buddha face, and he gave me a vision. He was sitting in a silk kitty kimono and hat in a Buddhist-like temple full of worshippers chanting and prayer and offering him delicious treats in golden and jade bowls or incense and bells and songs. He was in his full might and purring mightly and I bowed down three times before him.

The vision gave me a deep sense of respect for him and for all animals and I realized that I’d still been identifying too much with my monkey mind that thought itself so superior from all the other “poor dumb animals” instead of realizing we are all expressions of god and equally amazing. I felt ashamed by my pretension and glad that I was shown the error of my ways. I felt much more in touch with the divinity in all of us, and I wrote this poem:

The Gods’ Masked Ball

The gods are among us
every day, walking with us,
laughing, crying, smiling, dancing and we
refuse to see them
as if the masks of meat and fur, shell or bone we wear could hide
the glory of divinity. It pours out of all of us
in codes we all could read should we take a moment to cipher
them. Study the spirals weaving a dance of
joy in your heart. Read them with
a mind that seeks patterns out of nonsense
and you will create new forms as you
create your own reality, finally
at one with the god behind your eyes and fingers.

If you’re interested in reading more of my poetry, you can find it at my deviantArt page.

Visions

My girlfriend and the picture she drew for me

When my girlfriend visited me, she drew a picture of our dreamed-of future farm (where we want to live out our days being self-sustaining and close to nature) with my energy flowering/flowing out of it in rays with little hearts in them. Since then and since I’ve been chanting, I’ve (and the cats) have been seeing love flow out of me in purple wavey currents with hearts in them. I then realized that flow is the same as the river/ocean I see running through the gardens of animal spirits in my chakras. It is beautiful and freeing to watch the energy pulse through and beyond me. The cats like to sit near me and bask in it when I’m especially vibrating on a high wavelength.

I also want to be sure I’m not neglecting meditation, just sitting with my breath, even though I am chanting a lot now. For a few days I let the chanting replace the meditation instead of realizing how well they work together and that I am stronger and calmer when I do  both. This means I have to really get myself up in the morning and take advantage of my quiet alone time before my darling wakes up.

My first intimation I received linking angels & bees

I did that this morning and as I meditated was given a vision of the angels/devas/earth spirits working in my chakras as flowers like big fuzzy bumblebees. Which is funny b/c I made the above art work (it’s a drawing w/ dangling charm) MONTHS ago that related angels to bees and it tickled something in my brain that I didn’t come to realize consciously until now. They were cross-pollinating the energy in me because I have been welcoming them into my life to work and change me. They showed me that this is one way in which kindred spirits far away from one another are able to share ideas, if they’re on the right wavelength and are allowing the angels to work. It’s also why many times in history the same idea has sprung up in two separate continents at the same time. The angels are here to help us be better humans the way bees strengthen the diversity of flowers by spreading the pollen far and wide. It was a beautiful and sweet vision with which to start the morning.

I also decided to try to use my crystal divination set daily. I used it Sunday, missed yesterday, but used it today. Each time I use it, the messages become easier to see. It is such a joy to be advised by caring entities about what I should be watching for on my path for the day. It helps me to stay centered and to be aware of my reactions and to respond from the heart and from spirit instead of from ego and emotion. I’m so grateful my beautiful girlfriend gave it to me.

I’m also thinking of getting a set of rune stones. I wasn’t interested in runes for divination previously, but I also wasn’t in tune enough with my guides to listen to them that way. I think I’m ready now and as much as I love the crystal set, I think the runes allow for greater possibility and nuances in the divination that I would be wise to take advantage of.

I am getting better at being my true self more often. I had difficulties in the past expressing my spiritual side to my lover and I’m getting better at it now  because I am focusing now on whether or not he’ll think I’m crazy, but on what he needs to know to really know and understand me as I want him to and trusting him to be big enough to accept new ideas of me than he had before, hoping at the same time that it will help him widen his perspective and tap into his inner power.

I’m also hoping that I will keep this same idea in mind in all my relationships and not be afraid of rejection but to live my truth without hesitation. You know, walking in love, not fear.

If you’re interested in seeing more of my art, as well as poems, etc., please visit my deviantArt page.

Singing Bowls

Last night I went to my second Joey Klein Singing Bowls event, where Joey Klein – an energetic master – leads one in guided meditation to the sound of crystal bowls being played. The crystal affects your energetic body in awesome ways and the meditations have so far both led me to have really joyous visions where my guides were actively interacting with the meditation and my higher self in a way that is new to me.

This time, as we were led to follow a great beam of light I was met part way by an energetic body. At first I was confused since I knew I was supposed to keep going, but this being had stopped me. Then I recognized her as a guide, bowed to her and asked her to help me continue on my way and off we went!

We were led to the “womb of creation” where I met Krishna as an incarnation of Vishnu greet us. We all held hands and danced around in this womb which was also a garden. (Krishna’s been on my mind a lot lately, since I‘ve been chanting his name and the image of the flute I’ve been seeing as a pillar of strength also is associated with him, since he plays a flute. I’ve seen a couple statues around locally and I plan to get one to further invite him into my life).

Then we sat together by a small pool and watched the rest of the guided meditation happening through it. The meditation was to see ourselves as an infant of light taking on human form, being born and knowing ourselves as light. In the past, I’ve only felt sorrow when thinking on my birth because my mother decided she didn’t want me after the doctors told her I was a boy, and being the way she is, she just never really changed her mind. So the thought of being unwanted in the womb always grieved me before.

But this time, watching it happen in the garden/womb of creation with a guide and Krishna with me, I was totally okay with it. I saw myself as being born into the life that would mold who I needed to be and I didn’t attach anything further to it and I was happy and content to simply be.

It was a wonderful gift and I feel blessed. Also, the more I trust in my guides, the more they help me. It’s marvelous to feel so supported in all ways. It’s something I’ve really longed for in my life and didn’t think I could have. But, of course, I already had it and didn’t realize.

Urban Shaman

Lately my connection with nature and nature-as-teacher have become increasingly more necessary in my life. I’ve been spending more time outside and the change it makes in my emotional and mental well-being is dramatic! I’m loving my path right now and how it’s  changing me, making me stronger and better and more capable of helping others.

My guides have been letting me know I’m on the right track through a book my little brother lent me called Secrets of Shamanism: Tapping the Spirit Power Within You by Joes and Lena Stevens. Three of my favorite bits so far:

“When you practice shamanism you become a change agent in the drama of evolution. More than that, you release yourself from the illusion of isolation and step into the reality of the interrelationship of all life. Finally the practics of shamanism leads you to eventually align yourself with the healing forces of nature. You find balance and integration. You know who you are and where you are going. [this is something I've been dramatically experiencing of late]

“Shamans…emphasize the importance of being able to ’see’ the result before actualizing it physically. [this is what I meant last post about my partner being able to imagine the future with me] And yet they are also aware that people can only achieve as much as they can truly imagine for themselves. Thus a shaman will work at heightening a person’s level or ability to have, do and be. The ability to imagine raises our ability to have. Like a muscle that needs to be worked, strengthened, and stretched, imagination requires exercise. Shamanism is in part a strategy for expanding and empowering imagination.”

“The shaman knows that each [element of nature] is vital to basic survival, and a personal relationship with them is critical to living a successful life. Furthermore, the most compentent shamans know that these powers are all representatives of the greater spirit that unifies the cosmos and is the true source of life itself. By communicating to the sun or the moon and thanking them for their warmth and light, the shaman through humility, grows powerful because [s]he speaks directly with the source of life itself.”

I am loving this book because it’s like my guides patting me on the back the whole time, saying “see! look how on track you are! now pick up things you’re needing from this and let’s do more!!” It’s so exciting And since my partner and I changed our relationship status, it’s been so easy to share my spirituality with him. I love it! All the other people I’ve been with were intimidated or upset by this side of me so having someone celebrate it with me is pure joy.

Power Stones and Spirit Bells

Yesterday, for instance, the Universe guided me to pick up 3 stones on a walk, which I then decorated as I have been doing recently with symbols (above). These rocks seemed more powerful than the others I’ve made and the symbols are very strong ones for me. They kept calling to me all day and I knew they were a special gift for me to use. The rock pictured on the left is the Raido rune, the reverse is a book (my guides like to communicate through what I read). The center rock is a heart, the reverse is a bear with teeth bared. The rock on the right is a knife blade and the reverse is the incisor of a wild cat.

I’ve pulled out my spirit bells (pictured on either side of the rocks) and went outside to shake them and wait for the Guides to talk to me. I discovered by holding on to the bells themselves, I have rattles! This was really fun to discover because I’ve been wishing for rattles and here I already had some!! I shook my bells/rattles, swayed side to side with my eyes on the rocks and their symbols, and mentally chanted “love, healing” over and over until the sound and the spirit came on me and I thanked the Earth below me and the Sky above me, my guides and the energetic beings around me and they told me that I should always remember that I can change perspective when I need to and find my calm and that they are always there for me.

I felt full of energy and hope and light and joy and my head felt particularly cleansed and airy (I’m guessing as part of the result of doing a mental body guided meditation with some friends on Friday where we pulled down energy into our minds) and was able to go inside and was able to simply say to my partner what the messages I’d received were and know he’d be joyful with me. Then I was blessed with a 20 minute power nap! I went inside and was so sleepy I fell asleep and let the energy wash through me, invigorating me when I woke up. I tend to lack the ability to nap so this was a very special gift indeed!

I’m so grateful for the energies that support and love me. I love living a miraculous life.

Accepting and Relearning Old Lessons

Trifecta (featuring my primary relationship's power animals)

With all the crazy energy circulating lately I’ve been ruminating on past lessons, gleaning more from them now that I did at the time.

For instance, one of the most powerful prophetic dreams I’ve ever had was a warning/promise about my eventual marriage and the way it would require an incredible amount out of me. The dream consisted largely of my wandering around in a strange city that looked like Greek ruins being stared at by people in togas as I walked around half searching for something, half running from a pursuer, all the while with blood pouring out of deep gashes in my wrists, elbows, throat, etc… but I’m partly made of marble myself so all that blood loss doesn’t really affect me. The lesson from that I didn’t see before was that even when I thought I was at my weakest, the essential part of me was never changed or damaged by the experience.

I gained acceptance of the flower for my birth month (September/aster) that I always used to dislike as a kid by finding an aster blooming in my belly. Turns out the aster stands for love and patience, two really big ongoing themes in my life.

I’m also re-learning just how perfect for me my darling partner is. I’ve been realizing that what sets him apart from my other lovers (besides being incredibly more awesome and caring) is his ability to dream with me about a shared future and to work towards making that a reality. That was missing in all my other relationships and it made them seem lifeless to me after a while. If you can’t grow together, you’re just dying a little bit each day. This lesson was driven further home for me today by the daily email from DailyOm talking about squirrel energy. My partner is the squirrel to my tree (also my penguin and fellow rabbity-thing – which is what the above triptych is about) and reading this made me so happy, because it just shows me another way in which to rejoice in how he’s so perfect for me:

Affirming an Abundant Future
Squirrel Medicine

Native Americans considered all living beings as brothers and sisters that had much to teach including squirrels. These small creatures taught them to work in harmony with the cycles of nature by conserving for the winter months during times when food was plentiful. In our modern world, squirrels remind us to set aside a portion of our most precious resources as an investment in the future. Though food and money certainly fall into this category, they are only some of the ways our energy is manifested. We can conserve this most valuable asset by being aware of the choices we make and choosing only those that nurture and sustain us. This extends to the natural resources of our planet as well, using what we need wisely with the future in mind.

Saving and conservation are not acts of fear but rather affirmations of abundance yet to come. Squirrels accept life’s cycles, allowing them to face winters with the faith that spring will come again. Knowing that change is part of life, we can create a safe space, both spiritually and physically, that will support us in the present and sustain us in the future. This means not filling our space with things, or thoughts, that don’t serve us. Without hoarding more than we need, we keep ourselves in the cyclical flow of life when we donate our unwanted items to someone who can use them best. This allows for more abundance to enter our lives, because even squirrels know a life of abundance involves more than just survival.

Squirrels use their quick, nervous energy to enjoy life’s adventure. They are great communicators, and by helping each other watch for danger, they do not allow worry to drain them. Instead, they allow their curious nature to lead the way, staying alert to opportunities and learning as they play. Following the example set by our squirrel friends, we are reminded to enjoy the journey of life’s cycles as we plan and prepare for a wonderful future, taking time to learn and play along the way. (Source)

I also re-realized why I can’t have a relationship with my parents, especially my mother. I need to foster emotional health and healing for myself in order to share it with others and being near my mother is like having a raptor shred my heart relentlessly and that’s not something I can heal from and still have energy to do everything else I must do to function in this life. I think this has helped me finally accept that I can’t expect support to come from my parents, as I’d always wistfully hoped would happen in a perfect world where they would accept me for who I am.

I’ve also learned to accept that mine is a path of struggle that will probably be bloodied emotionally over and over again, but I’m big enough to handle it. I’ve been able to see things and respond with “well, here’s a new challenge” instead of the self-pitying and shaking my fist to fate that I used to waste my energy on.

My many issues with child birth (which was linked to my creativity in many ways) that you may remember if you’ve been reading this blog a while have come compltely full-circle and now I’ m waiting with joyous anticipation for the time when the Universe will let me know that we’re ready to bring the little soul, who’s already waiting for her new life to begin, into this material plane. I recently watched Orgasmic Birth, a documentary showing real births where women are beautifully transported into ectasy while delivering children and it was so beautiful and powerful that I cried through most of it. I know the Universe and I will be working on making my childbirth glorious like that and I’m excited to see the changes that this single goal is working in my life and mind.

Generally I’m just happy that I seem to finally have my life in balance, that I’m contributing to my community and creating a beautiful life I love. The recent shifts are really doing amazing things for me. I hope you’re able to enjoy it too.

Hafiz’s Gift

I’ve been feeling very tired, emotionally drained and unsupported lately. But something that has been bringing me comfort and moments of joy is The Gift, a book of poetry by the Sufi Master Hafiz. I tend to write down inspiring or touching things that I read. The selections below are all handwritten into my journal; all are taken from The Gift, some are full poems and some just fragments:

We Have Not Come to Take Prisoners

We have not come here to take prisoners
But to surrender ever more deeply
To freedom and joy.

We have not come into this exquisite world
To hold ourselves hostage from love.

Run, my dear
From anything
That may not strengthen
Your precious budding wings.

Run like hell my dear,
From anyone likely
To put a sharp knife
Into the sacred, tender vision
Of your beautiful heart.

…

For we have not come here to take prisoners
Or to confine our wondrous spirits,

But to experience ever and more deeply
Our divine courage, freedom, and LIGHT!

Even
After
All this time
The sun never says to the earth,

“You owe
Me.”

Look
What happens
With a love like that,
It lights the
Whole
Sky.

Like
A pair
Of mismatched newlyweds
One of whom still feels very insecure,
I keep turning to God
Saying,
“Kiss
Me.”

When all your desires are distilled
You will cast just two votes:

To love more,
And be happy.

I know the ectasy of your heart’s wings
When they make love against the Sky.

Something divine happens to the
Heart

That
Shapes the hand and tongue
And eye into
The world
Love.

I cannot sit still with my countrymen in chains.
I cannot act mute
Hearing the world’s loneliness
Crying near the Beloved’s heart.

Love Is the Funeral Pyre

Love is
The funeral pyre
Where I have laid my living body.

All the false notions of myself
That once caused fear, pain,

Have turned to ash
As I neared God.

What has risen
From the tangled web of thought and sinew

Now shines with jubilation
Through the eyes of angels

And screams from the guts of
Infinite existence
Itself.

Love is the funeral pyre
Where the heart must lay
Its body.

Your love
Should never be offered to the mouth of a
Stranger,

Only to someone
Who has the valor and daring
To cut pieces of their soul off with a knife

Then weave them into a blanket
To protect you.

The Vintage Man

The
Difference
Between a good artist
And a great one

Is:

The novice
Will often lay down his tool
Or brush

Then pick up an invisible club
On the mind’s table

And helplessly smash the easels and
Jade.

Whereas the vintage man
No longer hurts himself or anyone

And keeps on
Sculpting
Light.

Indeed God
Has written a thousand promises
All over your heart

That say,
Life, life, life
Is far to sacred to
Ever end.

Blessing Like Ammachi

The following passage is from Cunt: A Declaration of Independence by Inga Muscio. If you’re a woman and have never read this book, you don’t know what you’re missing:

“Ammachi is a woman from India who comes to America and has these ashram things. The first time I went to her ashram thing, I had no idea what it was about. I saw a bunch of mostly white people dressed in white clothes who bugged me with their “Oh, I am so very holy and drink herbal tea constantly” vibration.

“But the music was amazing.

“Ammachi sat in the front of the room on a bunch of pillows. Musicians, attendants, children and flowers surrounded her. Thousands of flowers, like when Princess Diana died. She sat there with her eyes closed, and chanted. Probably, she was meditating. Wearing a flowing white sari, she was covered with chiffon, silk, everything soft and whispery. I figured she understood the concept of an ashram far better than I, so I did the same as her. Closed my eyes, sat and listened.

“This lasted a long time, but like in a dream, I don’t know how many minutes and hours passed.

“Then there were the rustling sounds of people standing up. I opened my eyes. Everyone was forming a double-file line that led to Ammachi.

“My friends told me she was gonna bless people, so we queued up. The line was very, very long, snaking throughout the entire large building we were in. If it had been a line at the post office that I absolutely had to stand in for some reason or another, I woulda sold my soul to the person in front to give me cuts. But this line was different. The music and nice quiet felt good. Being blessed by an incarnationg of the Goddess is also much more alluring than overnighting IRS forms.

“Before I knew it, I was next.

“An attendant led me to her and kinda helped me kneel down right. Ammachi seized me gently – if you can imagine that – and pulled me into her lap. She cradled me, murmuring sweet chanting sounds into my ear. Her body engulfed mine and I relaxed – almost melted – into her. My face buried in her shoulder and neck, I breathed in her smell.

“This is when I really, truly started to freak on the wonder of Ammachi. After holding hundreds of people in this manner, you would think she’d start to kinda stink. I was nowhere near the beginning of the line. The sun set and went down, down, down, down to Australia while I stood in that line. A lot of people were in her arms before me, but the woman smelled like flowers. Not perfumey at all. Like if you covered every inch of your bedroom floor with freshly cut bouquets of jasmine, gardenia, roses, yacinth, carnations, sweet peas and freesia is what she smelled like. And this smell wasn’t coming from the flowers around her, it exuded from her skin, the fabrics of her sari and veils. It filled my whole body, permeated my pores. Her smell made me so giddy the attendant had to help me stand back up again. She stared deeply into my eyes and pressed flower petals and chocolate kisses into my hand.

“I stumbled away like a drunk.

…

“For a whole week afterwards, my entire apartment smelled like Ammachi. Everywhere I went, I smelled her smell. Walking down the street with one of my friends, the smell of Ammachi would assail me. I’d go “Damn, do you smell that?” And my friend’d go, “Car exhaust? What?”

“As Ammachi’s smell faded from my life, I started thinking about what happened when she blessed me.

“It was the first time in my life I felt loved. Physically, emotionally, psychically, spiritually, deeply loved from the epidermis of my skin that featured a couple of ugly zits, to the core of my heart that is still traumatized by the death of my brother, abortions, meanspirited lovergirls and other nasty hurts. It is a consciousness-broadening freak-out to feel love in this way.”

***

I want to be like Ammachi – not in particulars, but in general – I want to love so deeply it pours out of me in a physical scent manifestation.

I have a vision of myself radiating light, warmth, comfort and the scent of roses, past judgement, past fear and full of gentle power.