It is early spring and I feel the earth begin to awaken.  There is a quickening, like the first felt movements of a fetus in the womb.  The past several nights I have listened in my deep sleep to my own heart beating… its rhythm a constant fidelity.  By what miracle have I been kept alive?

My heart pulls me into a landslide of emotion, missing the home of my belonging.  I ache with a desire that steals the breath, as if parted from a lover against all will and reason. The touch, the smell, the softness of place, I am inconsolable. I drive deep, past the abyss of loss, the tempest of yearning. My rapture, united with the power of my soul, and the holy grace of the Divine, will take me back.  There is never distance between myself, and what I love.  Time and space is an illusion, this is the truth. Where there is faith there is no need of hope, where there is no expectation, no need of patience.  I return to the sanctum of my own knowing.  Stay awake santidevi, the moment is now!

I give my time, my life’s blood to another. Earning a living, paying the bills.  I can resist this, or surrender. That is always the choice. How present can I be regardless of my circumstances? There is a part that wants to flee, to escape the monotony of routine and subservience.  Every moment, practice. Another sadhana designed to refine my consciousness, to deepen my awareness, and fulfill my dharma. I watch the conditioned mind  mistake “my experience”, as the totality of my existence. I come back to the breath, to my beloved.  I relax into the spaciousness of being and I let go.  I accept “what is” with equanimity, and watch the resistance dissolve into ether.  Becoming water, there is no obstacle. There is no box that can contain me, no four walls that I cannot transcend.  I become peace in the midst of continual chaos, ever free…

I was born on March 14th, 1960 at 6:38 pm at a small hospital in Cozad Nebraska. The date, time, and place, of my appearance on this earth.  I have lived for 50 years much to my amazement, as I never expected to live to be 30.  We can never predict the duration of our lives, the events that will shape, influence and to a degree define our course. What a blessing to have lived this long, to have been given the opportunity to know a deeper level of truth, of spiritual awakening and liberation.  I give thanks this day, for the love that has nurtured me whole, for the unseen world that has revealed itself time and time again in luminous and inspiring ways, and for the Divine within this sacred body that continues to carry me forth.  When I disappear, I will take this with me…

love,

santidevi

P.S.  My sheela arrived from Ireland.

I begin to find my feet.  Nothing feels entirely familiar at the moment.  I was internal for so long that engaging in the world seems utterly foreign.  It is as though I am here for the first time. The solitude and silence that characterized the duration of my fast, has lent a simplicity to my life.  There is a natural, slow rhythm that defines my movements, the tempo of my mind.  My consciousness has become more flexible, more fluid… less contracted, unattached.  When one is completely emptied, the truth becomes self-evident. Being stripped to the bone, I was left with the “so ham” of my breath, and it was enough.  The extraneous was shed without any sense of personal loss… What is intrinsic endures, the immortal is without end.

It is as though my body, for the first time in my life has “embodied” the vastness of my Soul, and has submitted completely to it’s sovereignty.  The two are now as One. Synchronized as it were.  I FEEL the innate and indwelling intelligence directing my experience.  I FEEL its Presence. There is a new-found acuity that illuminates my Being, a softness that has penetrated my heart.  It was as if I was never born, or will never die.  There is a sense of being ETERNAL, here in this moment.  So grateful for the forces that tirelessly shook me loose.

I listen to the leaves fly, as the wind carries them in dust devil spirals into the air. People scatter in the high desert tsunami… winter has arrived.  I watch the snow fall.  Snow has a silence that intrigues me.  I watch it accumulate in fragile impermanence.  The trees bow to the seasons arrival. Non-resistance. What I know, I have learned through observing natural phenomenon, it has proven to be a master teacher.  It has taught me that every act is purposeful, every experience, in its essence, benevolent.  It has shown me that there is a field where all things manifest and take form, return and dissolve, in an endless unfolding. The miraculous, being no more then its humble expression.

The retreat is cancelled.  I bow.  I wonder how I will make my living?  I arrived home from India exactly a year ago to an economy that was breathing its last, my income evaporated over night.  By the grace of a dear friend and student I have been kept afloat while I have tried to resurrect my livelihood. It is incredibly humbling to be dependent on someone else’s generosity, to need financial help for the most basic of necessities.  The ego will always surface when our very survival is at risk.  I have watched the parade of emotions in response to my circumstances, deep uncertainty, underlying anxiety, sheer terror!  Moments of genuine clarity, unrelenting faith and invincible trust. Navigating unchartered waters that have challenged me to practice what I know to be true, to abide in that, despite the hell storm of an ego that felt suddenly extinguished.  Staying the course, persevering in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles is the only difference between success and failure, between the heroines journey, and the refusal to heed the call. When we give up on what we know we are to do in this world, there is a loss of Soul that is more dismembering then any earthly trial could ever be.

I remain true to the one thing that I must… my Self.  I do not know How I will continue to fulfill this dharma that has shaped my life.  The beauty is I don’t have to know How.  I am still learning how to discern when it is time to wait & when it is time to act.  When we are anxious about our uncertain lives, it is human nature to want to Make something happen!  This is reactive and fear based.  Understandable yet not wise.  I am here to serve, to awaken those who are ripened and willing.  The form that takes is truly irrelevant.  I am reminded of this today.  My blessed Shannon, a light in the tyranny of darkness, illuminated my heart from the throes of a discouragement that had taken hold of me. In her presence I found my Self again.  Thank you Shannon, for bringing me to the sanctity and sanity of the present.  This is what we do, this is who we are.

I have always found my way, even in the dark.  Resources have quite magically appeared and by grace, allowed me to continue my work.  Nothing has changed, everything has changed. The mind both binds and liberates, I choose liberation.

santidevi

Surrender requires humility, humility requires surrender.  When we stop resisting and judging what “is” we begin to experience the divine intelligence inherent in the phenomenal world. This same intelligence reveals itself within our own nature.  Contrary to what one might theorize this revelation does not inspire arrogance or self importance but true humility.  For there is an immediate transcendental awareness that this power does not originate from the individual “I”.  It eclipses it.  

I invite you to surrender.

Santi Devi