Oh, Burning Heart!

Being back in Barcelona is a bit nostalgic. I recall the young woman who, only a year ago, wore strappy sandals and glitter on her eyes. She drank Spanish wine from long glasses and went to the salon to have her nails done. Pastel blue. Or was it green? There are no photos of her- she prefers to be in dark mode, as her father says.

Images don't give the entire story, after all. This narrative is long, and you'll be forced to use your imagination. Pictures are a bit boring, don't you think? Wouldn't you rather envision the finer details? I can say the sun rose above the trees. And you get to choose the portrait's colors, textures, sounds, and signs.

The men outside my window meet very early to smoke and drink their tiny espressos. Don't you want to conjure their outfits and hairstyles on your own? I could tell you, but it wouldn't allow you to develop your own mind.

Imagination is linked to empathy. How can you understand their suffering if you can't picture who and what someone else is?

I go so far outside of myself; sometimes, only the pain of my body brings me back! It's terrible to be this way, yet I crave it. I call it 'going under,' though some people would say it's channeling. The trending word is 'transmission,' but I hate following the popular motifs, so I've created my own world with words I understand. I'm telling you my secrets here if you even bother to join me and read my mind.

Yesterday, I went under for a few hours. You could also call this practice reiki, though it's more about probing into the subconscious than it is about giving and receiving through the light energy. Let me set up the scene for you so you understand.

I did a Kundalini practice as part of my daily 'what if' statements. The quest after the New Moon in Virgo (and my celibacy ceremony, which I won't tell you about today) was to sit for a kundalini practice each day, no matter what the external world demanded!

Yesterday, the practice was for the navel chakra and the heart. We need both, you see. The heart needs to be anchored in the navel-strength; otherwise, it floats up and out and latches on to all human pain. This is where I live, unfortunately. I call it the broken bird syndrome. So, I do a lot of navel-work and I'll let you know if it helps.

I did an hour class. Breathing, shaking, holding-holding-holding. The holding is the worst. We sat in one pose for five minutes with our arms out and our thumbs pointed. The angle to support the heart's energy and the direction of its force. Elbows inline with the shoulders. Palms beside the head. Fingers drawn into the palm and thumbs pointed toward the ears.

We took four sips in through the nose - hold at the top - four sips out the nose - hold at the bottom. Five minutes of this.

I think it's best to self-induce the insanity through these sorts of rituals and measures. I feel as if I'm drunk or high; it's glorious in a way. It's painfully poetic. The discipline to sit still in such a way for so many minutes. My arms were very cross and all I could do was sip-sip-sip-sip-hold.

It is better than getting high or drunk, of course, because the body is full of bliss upon release. When I laid my arms down, set my palms up on my thighs, and closed my eyes, I felt a rush of energy from armpit to palm! Blood and prana flowing, the relief of the muscles! The joy of the mind: I did it! I completed the task. We can do hard things. If I can do this, I can do anything!

In meditation, I breathed in and out evenly through my nose and held my palms open as a symbol of receiving. I do this often. I want to know what the universe wills to become through me.

Several minutes after I released my arms, I felt my heart contract. It was as if someone was squeezing all the valves closed, shutting off the flow of prana and blood from my heart center to the rest of my body. My chest burned! My body contracted; I could not breathe!

The last time I felt this sensation was after the episode with Zach. Remember that situation? I would link to the blog post where I outline the event, but I don't know where it is. So use your imagination: a man and pain and the burning of my tender heart.

I pressed both palms to the center of my chest and inhaled deeply. My body shuddered. I exhaled long and slow, down to the sits bones planted firmly on the Earth. Oh, Mother, I thought, let me breathe!

I sat like this for several minutes. Burning, contracted, straining to breathe. My hands were sweating on my body; my eyes pinched closed, and my breath was trapped in my lungs. My heart burned so bright and tight, letting nothing in or out.

Eventually, I surrendered and sat in the ache. Tears fell onto my thighs and yoga mat.

The pang was E, of course. He had sent me a text while all of this was occurring. I saw it afterward. I asked him if he believed in the human spirit, the soul (ruh), and he would not answer. This was on the New Moon, so perhaps he was as dark inside. He is very sensitive; he won't show it, but I feel it.

The unconscious is so alive in him that I respond to it more than what I consciously perceive and receive from him.

Marion Woodman says that if a person works with someone unconscious and tries to bring them to consciousness, it is a power trip, all ego. Georgina says there must be consent.

I never do anything with the impressions I receive when I've gone under. I write about it and attempt to unravel the mysteries of the subconscious mind. Ultimately, everything is a projection through the Self, anyway.

Last night, I dreamt about noodles. There was a large silver pot in the fridge, and the lid was off, and all the spaghetti had spilled onto the shelf. It was a bland, blond pasta no sauce. I wanted to serve it to my friends. I was in a carpeted room where everyone I knew from high school sat in a circle with their kids on their laps. The pasta was cold and sticky. It was not fit for serving.

I entered the room with nothing, and one girl stood up and asked me to teach a Kundalini pranayama to the audience.

I am not a teacher, I said; I am still learning.

What you know is good enough, the woman replied.

She sat down, and they all looked up at me.

I saw my old boss, the one who fired me at the tech company, in the doorway, watching. He had a blue shirt on and his arms crossed. There was a drone above him: he was filming everything. I had an image of waves and a wide blue sea, and the sky was filled with machines snapping photographs.

I took my elbows out in line with my shoulders and held my palms up to the sides of my head. I brought my index and middle finger together and curled the ring, pinky, and thumb into my palm. With the index and middle finger, I moved them together and apart, cutting, cutting the air like scissors at either cheek.

Sa Ta Na Ma - Sa Ta Na Ma - Sa Ta Na Ma.

I chanted each time my fingers touched. I repeated it over and over, and the audience joined me.

Sa - totality

Ta - creation

Na - death

Ma - resurrection

When I've completed the Kundalini practice with the group, they go back to playing games in a circle. The man in the doorway is gone. I walk through the doorway and down the hall back to the kitchen, where it is dark. I open the fridge and a light comes on and I stick both of my hands in the pot of noodles and eat the cold, sauceless pasta with my hands.

I woke up to the chattering of birds and a text from E. When I went to the internet to look for an interpretation of the Kundalini mantra, Sa Ta Na Ma, the first source that popped up had an ad with the exact perspective and color of the beach I saw in my dreams. The landscape was exact.

What does it all mean?

How to parse out the information. I can hear the neurobiologist I met on the plane: the key is always in the pieces you can pluck out. All the rest doesn't matter. It's what you choose to withdraw. It comes down to refinement and one little piece of data that informs what is to come.

E has just messaged me again. My stomach is in knots. He was in my dream a few nights ago. The face of the Vitruvian Man belonged to him, and I was on the other side. Did you know that behind the man inside the circumference of the circle, square, and triangles is the back-to-back with a woman? I did not know this; I have just found out.

The triangle pointing downward is for the feminine/Earth.

The triangle pointing upward is for the masculine/Sun.

The woman who sits here and writes is not the same woman who paraded so proudly in a yellow crop top last summer. She is subdued, withdrawn, contained. Feeling for what is going on underneath the noise on top. Silently is sipping frothy lattes with her hair drawn back in a simple clip. The quest is to use your imagination: do not believe everything you see.

Photo source.