#1 AYURVEDA: A SHAMANIC ENCOUNTER

Shamanic Meditation

[This is the first in a series of three blogs regarding the circumstance of my birth, the ending of my Initiation as a Shaman, and the beginning of my Apprenticeship]

After many years of studying yoga and practicing on my own, and teaching my Shamanic Yoga, I came to a point where I needed a deeper experience.  I had been undergoing my Initiation as a Shaman for two decades, and my life experience was much deeper than anything conceived of in regular yoga.  When I first Googled Ayurveda, I came across info on the three doshas, but that was not what I was interested in.  I looked around at Ayurvedic diet, and other aspects.

Two things that interested me, because they related so pertinently to the Shamanic experience, were Dinacharya and Ritucharya, i.e., daily and seasonal practices to keep healthy and in synch with the life force.  Ayurveda translates as ‘life science’, and the path, or practice of Shamanism requires a mastery of the science of living, which is why I believe a personal yoga practice is so important to the Shaman.  The Shamanic world is very active on many levels, and requires a highly developed awareness of areas of life which are totally ignored in the normal societal experience.

The “Medicine Energies” of Shamanism are built of many aspects of the world of nature as it exists in our immediate environment –our homes and yards.  So the Ayurvedic practices of Ritucharya struck me as pertinent.  The year is divided into segments of two months, instead of our three month seasons.  I thought this was interesting and useful, but upon practice, I realized that the Wiccan/Pagan divisions of the year using ‘cross-quarter days’ (the midpoints of the seasons, rather than the solstices and equinoxes) was superior.  The world-view of the yoga community is not based on the Shamanic knowledge of ‘Power’ –that force in the universe which comes to the assistance of the Shaman, and is especially apparent at the midpoints of seasons, when things begin to change to the next season.

I found many aspects of the yoga philosophy to be less than adequate in comparison to the Shamanic way.

But in my Googling, I came across an essay, which I have since lost track of, in which

the first line was, “Rest, digestion, and sexual energy –the three pillars of life.”  As I read on, I found the Ayurvedic emphasis on agni, or the digestive fires, to be very interesting and helpful.  The Ayurvedic view of the workings of the human body is very different than the normal western view.  I began to work with the agni.

I found that, after eating, I would lie down on the yoga floor to digest, and after a bit, I would be flooded with sexual energy.  I began the practice of transferring this energy to my meditation vortex.  After eating, I would go sit in the Buddha Vortex while the agni was providing its fire.  This began to add considerable energy to the vortex.

Many months later, about six months after the ending of my Initiation as a Shaman, in the month of October, 2013, this process began an important phase of my journey into my ‘Apprenticeship’.  On Friday October 11, one day after my 71^st birthday, I again sat in the vortex with a full stomach.  Again, the sexual energies arose.  This time, however, I went into a trance state.  I had turned on the “Jazz” channel on Pandora, for my meditation.  The first tunes were by Miles Davis and John Coltrane.  I’ve always loved their music.  Suddenly, I was in a dance hall in Harlem, in the 1950s.  A woman across the dance floor made eye contact with me.  She was wearing an elegant, slim-fitting night club dress of satin, and it accented every curve of her ravishing figure.  The music was like I’ve never heard it.  It was a slow passage, so slow that I marveled at how powerful the rhythms were.  It was a deadly serious piece of music, to match the deadly serious expression on the woman’s face.  She knew exactly what she was doing.  Her languid stroll was intended to transfix my attention, which it did.  She entered my energy field with the intent of a woman who could wrap the world around her little finger; it was not like the world as I had ever known it.  It was the world of the rich and powerful, the jazz world of Harlem, where the players were Big Time, and the stakes were high.  She took me to the middle of the floor, and I wilted. 

I came out of the trance, and life went on.

I train hard for times like these.  These times are powerful, like the cross-quarter days which mark the turning points of the seasons.  In my journey through the process of Initiation, which took over two decades, and saw me turn from a healthy and fit man of 48 to a man losing his teeth and vitality at 71, I’ve developed techniques such as surfing the moon, and harnessing the cross-quarter days, for the power they bring, and many other aspects of adapting to the much different time-frame of Shamanic Reality.  This moment of trance, I knew, was a sigil for me.  It marked something, which would reveal itself in its own time. It was a ‘blow from Power’, as Castaneda would call it.  I knew that the next period of time, days or weeks, would reveal the import of this event.  So I marked it in my log book.

Not long after that, I fell into a terrible funk.  She had damaged my energy body.  I had been struck deeply.  It hurt to realize that I had been shown just what a punk I am.  No way in the world could I have entered that reality which she showed me, with the high stakes players, the fast women, and the genius musicians.  It was the blow to my energy body which I knew to be the signal of what was to come.

MY DAKINI RETURNS

My journey to the inner realms began in earnest in about 1964, I suppose.  It was about that time that I wandered into some of the bookstores in Seattle’s University District, where I was midway through my undergraduate ‘career’.  I found some books on Tantra.  I had known about and sort of practiced yoga for maybe half a dozen years.  I had decided long ago that Christianity was totally bankrupt and definitely not for me.  The Tantric logic intrigued me.  It seemed unassailable, indicating a depth and a centered approach to understanding the inscrutability of the psyche, which seemed to be the actual center of the world.

It took me years to gain the maturity to develop a real practice, once I had exhausted the indispensable magic of the LSD experience.  My poetry and the arts of Surrealism worked to develop an inner stability which manifested in the outer structuring of my lifestyle, which was centered on ‘get the poem!’.  The Chinese poets had figured out long ago that a simple life away from the ‘world’ was most conducive to the inner journey, and the Zen Masters had proven that many aspects of their practice had definite practical results.

Many years into the journey, I began to discover that the things I was practicing had just that same sort of results.  I did all these things, over the years, and they all actually worked!  I was transformed.  I entered the realm of the Spirits, and the spirits entered into incarnation in my physical body.  It was a psychic circus.

And then it began to fall apart.  I began to notice that twenty years had gone by with these two sharing my life, and I was not making the progress I needed to in order to complete what I began to see was my true mission.  I had been shanghaied into an agenda regarding the return of Jesus in the Second Coming.  It was a program concocted in the times before the Sphinx in Egypt, and was proving to be based on cosmic assumptions that were no longer valid.  I was in revolt.  I began to do whatever I could think of to rid myself of my hitch-hikers.

The Tantric aspect of my Shama, of course is central to the configuration of the energies which must be controlled in order to achieve the results of Mastery in this tradition.  The sexual energies are the core of our being, and of course, our being is the core of the world.  It’s all One, but the Self is the Center… Square Zero.

I must say, in spite of the difficulties I’ve encountered, that this journey I’ve undertaken is a totally fascinating experience.  If you like existential challenges, this is a wonderful path!  And it’s encouraging to know that these techniques, whichever ones you choose, actually work.

With this past New Moon, and the Despacho ‘Kooti’ Ceremony I performed at the Crescent, I seem to have achieved something especially significant.  With Jesus and Marilyn Monroe in my body, my Tantric practice was intimately tied up with them, either or both, at various times.  As their agenda began to prove itself to be bogus, this aspect of the relationship became very irritating.  My Tantric practice became a drag.

Part of what I had hoped to achieve with this cord-cutting ceremony was to ‘free up my sexuality’.  Neither of them was welcome any longer in my Tantra.

One of the delightful aspects of the practice of yoga is the Ayurvedic sequence of RDSE (Rest, Digestion, Sexual Energy).  After the morning meal, when the energies are freshest, it is a good idea to sit or lie down while the agni (digestive fires) do their work.  At a certain point, the Energy Body converts the digestive process into sexual energy, which is then available to me moved throughout the chakras via the Concentration Breath.  This brings a delightful vigor to the whole body, and to the psyche.  The sexual excitement is only a small part of this process, but is especially delicious, under the proper conditions.

Three days ago, the Ceremony had appeared to be a success, but I was wondering how I would actually assess the results.  Today, that question was answered.

As I lay on the yoga floor after breakfast, I went through the rituals of relaxations of the various parts of the body in Savasana (Corpse Pose).  At a certain point, the energies opened into a sort of movie screen, upon which images were being projected.  (I love the various ways of Seeing.  The ‘third eye’ is only one of many ways of perception, and the others are often spectacular.)

One of the things you have to get used to, in the inward journey, is going to places you might not find comfortable.  There are many aspects of the psyche, and its extensions into ‘paranormal space’, which are ‘necessary evils’, so to speak.  As I lay there, I was viewing the fly of a man’s trousers.  Behind the fly, the genitals became visible; then an image of fellatio.  At this image, the energies in my own genitals burst alive.  Soon a fire was flaming in the lower chakras, in all the colors of the inner spectrum.  I had never experienced this before. I caught the fire with my inner breathing, and the energies expanded to fill my abdomen, and expand the entire ‘frontal column’ of the chakras, the area where the Dakini resides when she visits.  The Dakini is the female sexual partner of the Tantrika.  She had been overshadowed by Jesus and Marilyn Monroe for a number of years.  Sex with the Dakini is a delicate, wonderful marvel.

Today the Dakini returned.  As I was experiencing the psychedelic colors of the male sexual energies throughout my entire body, in wave after wave, suddenly there was an opening, and another energy was visible.  It showed what seemed to be an almond-shaped opening, of lavender and magenta light, which immediately became the inner labia of a delicate vagina.  My entire energy field burst into penetration of this vagina, again something I had never experienced –a full-body Satori!

At this penetration, a number of images came to me.  It appeared that the male energy was an aspect of the God-figure Ganesha, the elephant.  It was his trunk that was curling upward along the frontal column of my energy body.  As I lay there in Corpse Pose, I became the “corpse Shiva”, the dead god, who is pictured with Shakti (the Goddess), or Kali, the dark one.  I also became Osiris, the dismembered God of ancient Egypt, one of my early Shamanic personas. 

As I’ve learned how things unfold in this world of Shamanic Reality, I can more easily understand the vastness of the inner dimensions.  I’m looking forward to the further unfolding of other aspects of the Ceremony, as this moon progresses toward Full Moon on the 29^th, just before Halloween!

A MESSAGE FROM POWER

[PS -- as soon as I posted this, a huge gust of wind blasted out of the south, filled with dirt and grime, and smashed the geraniums on my porch!]

The Sun joined the Moon today in a message from Power.  “Power” is a force in the universe which comes to the Shaman as a guide or messenger, or in many other guises.  Michael Harner and Carlos Castaneda and many other teachers use Power as an introductory helper for their apprentices.  It is a very enjoyable enterprise to ‘court Power’, and Harner’s book, The Way of the Shaman, as well as others, gives a good account of how to do this.  This is a very good way to enter into the beginnings of a true relationship with the energies of the natural environment, which eventually become a key ingredient in the Medicine Energies.

I use the lunar cycles as an introduction to the energies of the natural environment, because we don’t have to trek to the wilds to observe them.  Today would be the day, third day from the New Moon, to expect to see the first of the crescent moon low in the Western sky, just after the sun goes below the horizon.  In my project of developing skill at the Despacho Ceremony, I am deciding that this day is more appropriate for Ceremony than directly at New Moon.  There is such a crowd at New Moon!

In developing the proper aspects for the Despacho, there are many forms of energetic vibrations that I have to take into account.  As a Shaman, I observe these energies through my Energy Field Awareness.  The Energy Field Awareness never really shuts down.  Unlike most people, my Energy Field Awareness is susceptible to a most pernicious source of energy – Marilyn Monroe.

This morning at 5:00 am, she woke me with one of her trademark dreams.  She presented me with a small box, with the word BEDBUGS stenciled on it.  That got me right out of bed!  I remembered that I had forgotten to take out the garbage last night.  I put on my slippers and hauled the dumpsters out to the alley, checking to see if the frost had hit the plants yet, as forecast.  Apparently not.  But some dog had scored a direct hit in the crushed gravel of the parking area beside the alley.  I got that cleaned up, and went back inside to start my day.  The Internet showed me that my utility bill had gone up $10, and was due three days earlier than usual.  Within fifteen minutes, I had received a noticeable batch of negative inputs!

I turned on the TV for the local news and weather, and had my usual dates and nuts and coffee from yesterday’s Thermos.  A package of info began to unfold within my deeper consciousness.  The ‘bedbugs’ message was pointing me to her attitude toward the people I had met at the Tai Chi studio.  I went over to the vortex to sit, and picked up my tom-tom.  During the drumming, my energies opened further, and I could see that Marilyn Monroe was into a serious penetration of my life force.

One of the first spirits I was introduced to during the onset of my Initiation as a Shaman was the Samurai swordsman Miyamoto Musashi, one of my former incarnations, in whom Marilyn Monroe had also been incarnate, as she is with me.  Musashi was the author of The Book of Five Rings, a manual on the strategy of swordsmanship.  From that book, I picked up a strategy called ‘The Feint of Going-With’.  You allow the opponent to force you into the moves he wants from you, knowing that you will be able to perceive the exact moment to turn the forces against him.

So I decided to go with Marilyn Monroe for the time being; to let her penetrate me however she would, so that I could discern her purpose.  In a moment, I got up and pulled the I Ching out of retirement.  I had put it away weeks ago, after decades of using it daily, so that she would not have that access to my energies.  (Lao Tzu, my original contact on the I Ching, had taught her to be the ‘voice’ of the oracle on January 1, 1993.)

I tossed the coins and received hexagram #54, The Marrying Maiden (MM).  This hexagram is her ‘signature’, having her initials, and referring to the unfortunate situation of the woman taking the initiative in the relationship.  It changed to #21, Biting Through.  My first thought was that she had decided to get out of our relationship – it was a dead end.

I continued with my morning, and got ready to catch the bus, to go over to North Town Coffee for my daily poem and drawing time.  As I came to the bus stop, I saw Power in the sky.

The sun was low in the southeast sky, surrounded by the wisps of clouds typical this time of year in Yakistan.  But then I noticed a distinct wing at the sun’s left side.  Its feathers were long and slender, and fanned out like a cluster of double-edged swords.  A winged sun… as I looked, I discerned a stout tail of hawk feathers.

The bus came, and I got to my coffee, and instead of beginning my poem, I got the beginning of my image for my drawing: the sun, with its wing of swords.  So I sketched it in and went back to cogitating about what to write.  But I was interrupted by the Moon.  I reached over and sketched it in as a thin crescent ‘ear’ on the right side of the sun.

This conjunction of moon and sun seemed to tell me that today would be the day to consummate my Despacho ‘Kooti’ Ceremony, to ‘cut the cords’ between me and Marilyn Monroe.

After my walk home (a mile), I decided to have breakfast, and after breakfast, I lay on the yoga floor to initiate the RDSE (rest, digestion, sexual energy) sequence of Ayurveda.  I was there for over an hour.  This is what happens when Marilyn Monroe is ‘feeding’ on my energies.  When I got up, I drove back to the coffee shop with my computer, to have a free blended mocha and write this.  It’s mid-afternoon now, and I’m wondering what will happen next.  Will there be a ceremony?  (I cast another I Ching before coming over here, and it recommended a Ceremony…  --but everything must be ‘correct’….)  We’ll see.

Next day…

Well, I got home, and there were things to do, and I was anxious.  There were blockages all through my energy system, my mind and my body.  After I finally got settled in from the journey to the coffee shop, I found myself wandering around looking for the next thing to do.  I was mumbling to myself.  Then I knew it was time.

I went out to the sacred grove next to the parking area along the alley, and everything seemed ok.  The tall sunflowers, and the huge sprawling vine of the squash from Sergio’s garden next door, which grew up into my tree and on into the parking area, hanging large squashes high in the branches, proved to be an effective screen to ward off the killer chi from the alley and the apartment building across the way.  Lots of plants and the plywood fence screened the fire area from Sergio’s yard, and no one was around.

I got my tiny pieces of wood, a few splinters from a cedar shingle, some newspaper, and went outside to put a fire in the large cookie tin.  The fire burned nicely, and I brought out the small despachos I had prepared, with the bay leaf quintus wrapped in napkins, and a note regarding the aspects I desired to be eliminated.

One by one they went into the flames, were consumed, and soon the ceremony was complete.  No hay problema!

I looked up to see the strong crescent of the moon just above the horizon to the south and west, not at all obstructed by the darkening gray cloud bits strung throughout the sky.

Everything had gone well – quite well, I thought.

Last night I had two dreams.  One, in deep sleep, showed a man’s face.  He was dead.  He had brown hair and a trimmed moustache/beard.  His face appeared to be perhaps covered with water.  The second dream, just before I woke up, was very similar.  A man’s face, same sort of beard, but maybe not the same person, equally dead.

During my shower, (a very good place for knowledge to emerge from the energy body / or the Medicine) I realized that the man had been Jesus.  Already volunteering for next moon’s despacho!

AUTUMN RITUCHARYA TRUMPS THE MOON

It's all a matter of timing...  Starting a group to observe the moods of the moon just at the change into Autumn!  The sun, as we all are aware, certainly trumps the moon at these times.  While the moon has been very influential in my Shamanic work recently, I've been so totally absorbed in the ritucharya of the equinox that I've not been able to blog the moon.

I'll just say now how important I've realized it is to live in a community of like-minded souls.  It's too much for a single individual to track and record the many aspects of Shamanic life, while at the same time being fully engaged in the practice, which is both active and re-active!

I've been working on developing a place to house my burgeoning collection of containers with everything from roses to peppers in them, as well as my beloved geraniums, to get them through the winter.  And finding a way to get a doghouse of sorts for the wild dog who has adopted this apartment as his safe haven.

I mentioned the Ayurvedic term 'ritucharya', which denotes the chores specific to the seasons, as marked in two-month intervals.  The corresponding term, 'dinacharya' refers to the daily chores and practices necessary to support a yoga practice.  Ayurveda translates to 'life science'.  While the phases of the moon are a subtle mode of access to the outer world, ayurveda provides a remarkable and novel way to access subtle systems in the inner world of the body as it is affected by yoga.  This is a very complex science, developed over thousands of years, and views the energies of the body in very different ways from Western science.  I think ayurveda is extremely important, as is a reasonable yoga practice, in order to sustain the subtle and gross anatomies over the many decades of spiritual engagement.  Within the body are systems which interface in wonderful ways with the energies of the outer world.  These energies are the Medicine Energies.

Observation of the lunar energies is a convenient first practice to open the awareness to other avenues of subtle realizations which can be very helpful in avoiding the disasters of modern 'medicine' as it wreaks havoc on the aura and other subtle energy systems of the body, psyche, mind and spirit.

More later...  --soon!
Namaste, Shaman :Dagaji