Tag Archives: spiritual community

Speeding Through

2 Sep

Speeding Through

Deep within the jungle of my unconscious mind a long-limbed spider monkey swings from the rafters of a bamboo hut.  Fueled by frustration she erratically sways from one beam to the next.  Her fingers and tail powerfully grip the smooth bamboo poles.  Her graceful movements tell a story.  First soft and steady, syncopated rhythms resound.  Without notice, she accelerates, becomes flailing, vicious, and violent.  She embodies the chaos of the spinning swirling infinite abyss, hands feet and tail blindly reaching for anything solid, teeth bared, voice wavering between shrieking and screaming.

She realizes she isn’t alone.  She focuses her frenzied assault.  Open hands become fists, tail becomes a whip, feet become cannon balls.  Every swing is a hold-your-breath-you-just-might-make-it… miss.  Spinning round and round this round bamboo room, whirlpooling the air, unable to leave, unable to breathe.  Her screams pierce the air.  In time they are reduced to hoarse grumbles.  The sheer effort is too much, she tires quickly.  Her movements falter, she moves as if through jello, thoroughly exhausted.  She finds stillness, cries, slumps into a pile of defeated furry limbs and tears.

This monkey isn’t real, you know.  She’s just a figment of my dream-self.  She embodies how I dealt with that heartache, I owe her my happiness.  Up until she came to me in a dream, I had different ways of dealing with pain.  I would curl in the kitchen cabinets when the monster was after me.  I would spend all night running away, hiding away, unaware that there was another option.
My monkey spirit taught me well.  She told me to speed through the hurt.  Accelerate.  Cry all the tears as they come, speak the words with the thoughts, move my body whenever and however it needed.  Dance it out.  Kick and scream, just like the toddlers do.  Have a tantrum, fully exhaust myself, and then fully surrender.  (Just like yoga class.)  The calm after the storm was buzzing with awareness and new realizations.

Inner wisdom whispered her secrets during those quiet dewy mornings.  Acceptance met my acquaintance, jealousy and fear left the building.  I embraced the hurt, I accepted it, and I learned that speeding through the dark allows me to live in the light.

And in the light is where I plan to stay.

Inanitah: Inspired by the stars

5 Apr

Inanitah: Inspired by the stars

The stars poke holes in the blackest night sky.  Ideas about self-empowerment, beauty in the breakdown, and dancing mercilessly into the void shine through.  The stars appear united from behind.  One cohesive blinding light.  Justice, love, truth manifested.  They poke holes in our being, our utter blackness, our own singular point, our void.

The night sky would hold no importance to me, no beautiful poetic narrative, if it weren’t for the stars.  These pieces of truth that manage to squeeze their way through pin-sized holes in the great abyss.  Moments like these, these points of clarity, are what makes ‘it all’ worth it.

The dark includes the twinkling stars, full of possibility.  Inseperable.  ONE.  Dualism is a way to reflect this universal truth into our earthly paradigm.  We often take the unknowable apart, and simplify the bits to fit our cultural commonalities.  Although divided, the story is reunited in daily acts.  Reunited in our full collective unconscious.  Memory soup.

Gazing up at the night sky on this very evening has allowed me a moment’s glimpse of the ‘one hearted way.’  I am inspired to more fully understand, to know it in my bones, to sow my seeds in it, to breath it, and become a living representation of it.

Actually,  we probably already have.  We probably already are.

Inanitah: A day in the spiritual community of Ometepe

4 Apr

Inanitah: A day in the spiritual community of Ometepe

Laying atop a bed of volcanic gravel, I stargaze through the roof screen of my tent. The jungle is alive. Howler monkeys wail and bark in the distance. Creatures scamper through the leaves surrounding my campsite. Insect voices fuse together in a cacophonous primordial buzz, enveloping most other sounds. It’s hard to sleep; grayscale moonlight creates a dreamscape of shapes around me. My pineal gland isn’t aware of nature’s trickery; though tired, I’m quite awake. I hush it to sleep, allow myself to melt off into the music of the night.

At 5:15 am three long gongs sound. Though hardly audible above jungle morning symphonies, I rub my eyes, spray myself down with herbal insect repellent, and quickly exit the solace of my tent to the twilight of the morning. I stumble, slip, and slide my way down the winding hill path to the mud-built structure we call the temple. This morning we practice Five Rhythms, a Gabrielle Roth moving meditation involving ecstatic dance to the five tempos that cycle through our lives. My body begins to wake up with slow circular stretches. The volcano wakes up too, and becomes visible in the misty haze. Our dance picks up, and we joyously move without preoccupation.

Breakfast is pinol porridge with sliced fruit, homemade yogurt, and fresh squeezed grapefruit juice. I fill my guaca bowl and take it to the stone amphitheater. Quiet morning conversations are heard as the wind whips through the treetops across the valley. The lagoon-topped volcano Maderas is alight with the rising sun in the east.

All visitors, volunteers, and residents gather for the 7 am meeting. We share work ideas, voice concerns and announcements, and discuss upcoming events such as a sweatlodge or yoga practice. Paul, one of the founders of Inanitah, keeps the peace in these group discussions. He seems to have a knack for bringing us back to our intentions and keeps conversations moving.

We scatter about the twenty-some acres of land to the various projects that are underway. Lately, I’ve contributed by organizing the library, carving wooden signs for the trash system, making the daily yogurt, building cobb walls for the tool shed, roasting coffee and cacao, and stuffing trash into empty water bottles.

By 10 am the sun is high and it’s getting hot. We gather under the grass roof of the bodega, chopping the scalps off young coconuts to rehydrate ourselves. Not long until lunch is served. Today we’ll have trigo with a squash, yucca, coconut curry, and a big green salad fresh from the garden. We fill our bowls again, enjoying sustenance in the blazing heat.

Part-time volunteers like myself have the afternoons free to read, make music, hula hoop, play with poi, enjoy the clothing-optional sunbathing area, or take a walk to the lake for a swim and some icecream. Afternoons are slow and lazy. We lie around in bits of shade with the dogs, panting and saving our energy for the 4 pm yoga class. Each day the different instructors lead us through various asana ranging from gentle to powerful. It’s a strange time to practice, but the golden curtains keep the light from the temple and keep the air a little cool.

Arising from savasana, the corpse pose, we see the amber sun sitting close to the horizon. Time for a jungle shower overlooking the incredible view of the active volcano Conception. Drums beat in the distance and the mosquitoes begin zzz’ing in my ears. The ever-changing colors fill the sky, decorated by silhouettes of dragonflies, butterflies, and blue ooraka birds eclipsing the light.

We say ‘hasta luego’ to our brother sun and set the tree-trunk tables in a long column in the temple for dinner. We sit for a family dinner, holding hands and each saying what we are grateful for that day. Some silly, some sweet, some really sincere… we connect before enjoying our final meal of the day together. The local fresh veggies and grains are so yummy, every meal could be the best one I’ve had. After dinner we sigh, lay back on the earthen floor of the temple as conversations deepen. Connections happen. Synchronicities about. We eventually make our ways back to our little campsites on the hill, sister moon lights the way as we pass into the space of dreams.