>I laughed. I cried. It was better than CATS.
The workshop was grand, thanks. Self-costumed in a “Spiritual Gangster” flashdance outfit (replete with legwarmers, of course) I danced with abandon, loved like a four year old child on a sugar bent, felt an ongoing essence of oneness in the universe and at one point had a good ten minute period where I witnessed: “Holy sh#* I’m totally like Keanu Reeves in “The Matrix” where he’s breathing the world. This is AWESOME.”
There were many more deep, fun, funny, sparkly, crazy things that happened over the course of the workshop, but detailing them doesn’t really suit the practical or philosophical proclivities of this post.
Let’s talk about bile, baby.
We were there for energy, getting it, moving it, giving it, absorbing it, regurgitating it. And although you would think this’d be all easy, hippie, om shanti sunshine and snapdragons, each of us experienced severe physical reactions to what our bodies were processing.
For three days, in a direct juxtaposition to my constantly on-the-go nature and more recent well-rounded relationship with food, I tangoed with fits of narcolepsy and benders rivaling Anthony Bourdain’s most adventurous forays into food. Literally all of my free time outside of the workshop was in front of the fridge or on my mattress. An involuntary nap, and then multiple dinners and straight snacking until I passed out.
Outside of the townhouse walls where the workshop was held, there was something in my mouth or in my hand on the way to my mouth, and many times, both, at all times.
I visited the Fairway on the Upper West Side and the Gourmet Garage in the West Village within only a three hour window, vacuuming loads of groceries into my arms at each visit.
My friends suffered through my string of jokes: “I think I’m pregs with mukti.” “Just in time for Easter and Passover… kids, I think I literally may be housing the second coming of Christ.”
When two other slim, sexy girlfriends echoed “Ohmigod, TOTALLY. I CANNOT stop eating—it’s like it’s out of control! I’m so glad it’s not just me!,” I then definitively surmised in dry mock seriousness:
“Guys… It’s ‘cause we’re giving birth to the awakening.”
I was only half kidding.
It seems that the labor pains of life increase profusely when pertaining to pursuits in levels of consciousness.
The day following this workshop, the woman closest to me right now (who would really be more aptly labeled sister than friend,) had to cancel all of her clients and reached out through the course of the day in a play by play of her processing which was coming out of every uncomfortable end.
Another injured her hip to the extent that she was searching for crutches to borrow in Manhattan via Facebook status updates.
There are sacred ceremonies I have participated in, and although I will not detail them here out of respect to the secrecy needed in order to maintain their authenticity, I will say, that one sits down in a room of strangers, you are handed a bucket and a roll of toilet paper and you become intimate with those objects over the course of eight hours.
That stuff is weird.
And it’s gross.
Why do we need to discuss this, Margaret?
Although purging is its own rite of passage and many spiritual traditions will take on these practices as part of ancient rituals still subscribed to, we can manage without detailed accounts of classified religious sacraments or the likes of colon hydrotherapy and panchakarma for now.
What interests me more here, is the way that life overtakes our physical body when we don’t want it to, and how to get past it. It’s not knowingly and consciously undertaking a fast or entering a sweat lodge. It’s the car accident that wakes you up, the broken leg that slows you down just when you’d just hit your invincible speed, or puking your guts out after a weekend workshop.
There is some kind of physical transmutation that coincides with large amounts of change or energy going through the human body. On one hand, it is so impossible to believe that anything mental or “spiritual” could cause these kinds of physical reactions. One could argue, is it not psychosomatic? Well, precisely… what if it is?
What if the association between our brains and our conditioned thought patterns is so linked to our nervous system and physiology that the only way we can release these connections is through a physical dispelling or protection, manifested in various symptoms, whatever they may be.
If a door slams on my hand, I will cry. That is a release. If a guy slams on my heart, I will also cry. The same physical release, although one is an emotional reaction where the other is a physical pain. Is the door slam more valid because matter, velocity and the width of a doorframe can quantify it?
Our bodies and our lives speak to us through these experiences. What that means specifically is an ongoing exploration, but more pressingly, how can we process them? How do we accept where we are with grace when the better part of a rainy Monday is spent with a sweaty forehead dry heaving across the American Standard toilet logo? Or… can eating through four tubs of hummus, two chocolate bars and a pound of organic raw cashews justify as energy needing to ground itself?
Louise Hay’s work is a voyage into these concepts—correlating health and a conversation with our bodies. Her aptly titled “You Can Heal Your Life” is a bible for self-administered mind/body medicine. For example, for the friend/sister sacked with nausea, Hay would list the probable cause as “Fear. Rejecting an idea or experience…” and offers the new thought pattern of “I am safe. I trust that the process of life to bring only good to me.”
My nauseous sistah called me throughout the day yesterday, needing support. She’s so dear to me, I probably spend more time worrying about her than I do myself, the way we needlessly do with those close to us, in some kind of maternal instinct to want to take care of her.
I tried, but it seemed no amount of wisdom or words of solace could comfort her pain. She offered a respectful “I think you need to see that we are processing differently here, I really am not well,” when I think what she really meant was “bitch, I’m on my knees at death’s door, don’t tell me that a massage and a jog by the Hudson made you all dandy.”
What was I doing wrong? How could I help to ease her pain?… because my words weren’t cutting it.
Last night I watched the emotive “Ram Dass: Fierce Grace” documentary. Toward the end of the film he is a counseling woman whose lover had been brutally murdered. Ram Dass was able to be caring, giving her the space to express emotion yet still gently guiding her to experience her pain without wallowing in it. What was most beautiful and enlightening to watch was his reaction to the woman when she told him of her worry that she would not find a love like that again. The deceased boyfriend “visited” her later and told her there was a much larger love in store for her:
“This was small peanuts. And when you find that love, I am part of it.”
Ram Dass responded with an involuntary “Yum yum yum yum” (the bija mantra associated with the heart chakra is ‘yum’, btw) and then he broke out into tears. Tears of beauty; vocal, guttural sobs of empathic pain collocated to the extent that the joy and suffering were at once indistinguishable; a primal yin and yang exposition encompassing both the darkness of despair and a miracle of hope.
This was such a gorgeous lesson for me personally because it so clearly illustrated a twofold process of what we are looking for with comfort. And although he was concerned with grief and a tragic incident this woman was working through, we can use the same concepts in dealing with physical ailments as our bodies process the lessons were are struggling to incorporate into our hearts and minds. The vomit of life comes both in a physical and emotional realm.
We want to be heard/supported in the moment, and we want to be told it will be okay in a larger landscape of the world/life/day.
Faith can provide this for us. A friend may be able to lead us to that faith. If you have Ram Dass handy, it’s going to be a pretty spectacularly clear lesson.
However, there are times that no one can offer us relief or consolation. Although it may look like bile, or a fridge and tummy full of too much food, this, even, is a gift from faith itself so that we, in a last vestige of surrender, finally turn to seek that strength within ourselves. If we step up to take responsibility for even our most uncomfortable ailments, we open ourselves to the luster of life.
