I am filled with a holy emptiness, fed by the unseen.  The hunger of my belly wanes. It is day 9, and I slept at last, all night.  In meditation the practice reveals itself. Inhaling the suffering and pain in the world, exhaling love and compassion.  Breathe in, breathe out. The observer, my sentinel is ever present. I am at One. I surrender fully to my Beloved, to the lotus feet of my sat guru, my true and essential nature. Communion.

My awareness becomes more subtle, my energy more enduring.  My mind giving way to gaps of nothingness.  I feel the natural world in every cell of my body.  As I walk the river with my Sara, the light on the water becomes the light in her eyes. The underlying patterns of relationship reveal themselves. I experience the composition of vibration that creates all worldly form. I am a child in wonder of existence.

I find my rhythm in this alchemical body.  I feel the elemental forces silently at work within me. Earth, wind, fire, water, and ether. Together they create this divine vessel.  In the midst of their transformative chemistry, I sit crossed legged, eyes closed, in the heart of my heart. I work with my medicines from the plant and mineral kingdoms, the animal totems, that have seen me through the most arduous of physical and emotional challenges.  They carry me.

There is a stillness within me that is unchanging, a peace that is ever present.  I hear, like a mantra, the beating of my own heart. I know that seeds are being planted in the darkness of my womb.  These seeds are a portal to a life that is awaiting.  I can see images faint and fleeting of traveling to distant lands… My vows are to serve all of humanity, to awaken divine consciousness, and create peace.  I know that this process is an initiation, an ever deeper distilling of my own Being.  I trust in this.

I walk with all of those who have gone before me, who have fasted, prayed, and meditated for the benefit of humanity.  I take refuge in these great souls who knew that nothing is a sacrifice when it is a holy decree.  I weep at the beauty and grace that has been my life.  I am eternally grateful for all of the experiences that have illuminated the truth of my indwelling divinity.  That have brought me to this moment of consecration.

My beloved,

Lead me from the unreal to the real,

from darkness to light, from death to

immortality.

Om, santi, santi, santihi

santidevi

The breath deepens, there is nothing to fear.  I know this descent.  From the seen to the unseen, from the topside to the underworld.  The attachments, fine as thread, thin.  I loose my name, my gender, my body, the story of who I am.  It is consumed in the great sacrificial fire.  I am purified, made whole and holy.

As I descend the voices grow distant and faint.  I begin to hear my own heart beating.  In the silence I am absorbed.  The outer world recedes and my senses are heightened.  The feral part of me, instinctive and sure footed emerges.  She was named long ago by spirit… “Sees in the Dark.”  Medicine and talisman she is the embodiment of fearlessness and wisdom.  I trust in her power and knowing, in her ability to navigate the perilous with courage.

As the ground beneath me disappears I hear the words… fear not.  Every part of my mortal self wants to flee. It is fuel for the flames. I have great compassion for this part of myself that feels so transparently vulnerable and transient.  It desperately wants to have an identity that isn’t subject to change, a home that is constant, relationships that endure.  This self becomes microcosmic in the presence of the incorruptible spirit that sustains me.

I walk into the pyre a willing surrender, a sacrament.

There is nothing of intrinsic value that is ever lost in this process of calcination. In fact it is through the burning off of the profane elements within my own psyche that the essence of my Being is further illuminated.  I am transformed in this fire, all that inhibits or limits the expression of my true Self is destroyed.  The afflictions and habits of mind, the attachments, the worn thin identities and egoic ambitions… all is turned to ash.

The forces within me know exactly what I need in order to be distilled and refined.  The outer world responds in correlation by giving me time and space.  I curl into my womb, I inhabit myself.  Licking my charred remains, the salt of tears fallen, I bow.  My beloved I will follow you where ever you go.  I will follow you on this never ending path into the darkest night.  When I am nothing more than ether I will shroud your body and whisper all the languages of your name…

In the borderlands of my death and resurrection, I dance in the rain…

santidevi

The spring equinox is an auspicious time.  The light and the dark merge and there is for a brief time an integration of opposites. This transitional period creates an exceptional condition in which the possibility of  uniting the opposing forces within is heightened.  The conscious and the unconscious, the masculine and the feminine, the seen and the unseen.  This phase can be likened to a hypnagogic state, or the midpoint between waking and sleeping.  One is both awake and asleep concurrently this produces a third state one that is not divided.  This naturally and spontaneously allows our consciousness to transcend the limitations of duality and  experience our true nature.

The equinox is known as the in-between time where the veil between ignorance and Truth thins.  A mystical portal from the unreal to the real emerges out of the mists of consciousness.  It is a highly spiritualized period that supports the Sadhaka [spiritual aspirant] in Sadhana [spiritual practice]  Meditative practice is particularly important at these points of transition.  Your body is the alchemical vessel of the Divine.  Within you these forces influence your consciousness and your experience.  Allow your awareness to relax into the interplay of these cosmic energies, become the observer of this ancient ritual.

The soil of your unconscious is particularly fertile when the dark and the light are merging, thus it roots your Sankalpa [resolve or intention] and gives rise to new life through rebirth.  Be receptive to the ebb and flow of these primal forces.

The spring equinox is the return of the solar, the energy of the masculine and the active principle, as represented by the pingala nadi.  The feminine aspect  is the receptive, and lunar or ida nadi which recedes as winter comes to an end.  This is a natural cycle that continuously plays itself out in the human body.  When these two energy channels are balanced the sushumna or central nadi opens and so to the possibility of transcendental experience.  

The sun symbolically represents the unified being, the Source of all creation.  Like the phoenix that rises from the ashes of the fire of transformation it signifies the purified and non-dual Self, the Absolute.  It is a living expression of our immortal nature, the light of pure consciousness.  May spring deliver you newly born.

Love,

Santi Devi