Bhagavan Das in the house again! I attended my second of four Tuesday classes with Bhagavan Das and his wife, Kali, at Harmony Yoga yesterday — the day of the infamous blood moon — more on the moon in a minute.
The class was a particularly humbling experience.
In usual form, my mind was ready to offer judgment during the event – running the gambit from thinking about better ways that Bhagavan Das and Kali could teach:
“He should really engage and let loose more” “They should let Kali talk” “She should stop interrupting him”
– to thoughts about my general discomfort –
“How much longer is this?” “My butt hurts” “I’m hungry”
No matter what my mind had to say about it, Bhagavan Das was working his magic. At one point during the class, both Bhagavan Das and Kali seemed to be emitting tangible white light. Still, my mind wasn’t quite ready to relinquish judgment.
The class focused on the first two chakras – Muludhara, the root chakra; and, Svadistana, the sacral chakra. Bhagavan Das used the metaphors of the hindu deities Ganesha and Kali to elucidate the deeper symbolism associated with each chakra. He and Kali led kirtan devoted to the deities, Ganesha and Kali, and had us chant the primordial sounds associated with the two lower chakras: lam and vam.
I left in sort of an agitated, hungry frame of mind. Then about thirty minutes after the class I had a huge emotional release of tears. That’s when the humility came in – no matter what my mind judged about the class or about Bhagavan Das and Kali – through some kind of grace I was still able to receive the teaching and to experience a palpable shift of energy throughout my body. I felt undeserving and filled with gratitude.
It was also moonday yesterday. A spooooky, bloody moon. OOOoooooo (and other spooky, scary sounds). Its funny, I first heard about the blood moon when I went to the HolyLand Experience a few months ago on free day. Did you know HolyLand offers one free day a year to maintain their religious tax-exempt status?
I talked to a man in the two-hour line-ride to get inside HolyLand on free day about the upcoming tetrad of blood moons. That is, there will be four lunar eclipses in a very short period of time this year. Apparently, when this has happened in the past, it wasn’t good.
My HolyLand-line-ride-friend told me that from his experience as an avid biblical astrologer, the blood moons we will experience this year are most likely a sign of the coming apocalypse.
Or…. maybe just some other major world event.
I actually missed the main event at HolyLand – “The Passion” reenactment of the death and resurrection of Jesus – because I was running short on time. Next year I’ll be better prepared on free day. I did see two young girls reenacting the bloody scene where Jesus is whipped while holding the cross. I’m not going to lie; I found it pretty disturbing:
I’m not sure why it disturbed me. I mean, I not sure what part of it triggered me – the exposure to bloody violence at a young age? The indoctrination? Where is my judgment coming from? After all, I love Jesus. I could write a whole post on Christ as a metaphor for each of our own individual paths to enlightenment through surrender to suffering – i.e., “the way of the cross.” And I really dig what Jesus was putting out there with his teachings – living a life of love in the present moment.
How did I just get on Jesus? I know Christianity and the Bible in general are polarizing topics.
Maybe Jesus is on the brain because Easter is on Sunday. On 4/20, actually. Which raises the question…
WWJD
to celebrate?
Speaking of celebrating, can you believe Wawa had free coffee for their 50th anniversary today!? I was seriously giddy with happiness when the clerk told me I could have ANY size. I was like, “I’ll take the large! America – Fuck Yeah!”
I’m kinda new to the Wawa bandwagon but I think I’m drinking the Kool-aid. It was really fun to get a free coffee while I ordered a breakfast burrito with the touchscreen computer. I felt like I was living in the future.
I hope Wawa doesn’t turn out to be evil and diabolical like Monsanto. If they are, let me stay blissfully ignorant a little while longer while I sip my coffee…
And I made t-shirts today for Sister Lotus Yoga and The Yoga Lawyer! They are just for me to wear when I teach so I can pimp my various undertakings. I felt like a kid getting a new outfit for the first day of school: I was silly excited.
And then, just a little while later, some old heartbreak was triggered and I was crying huge tears again. I could see that the trigger was just that – a trigger. No reason to take it personally. It was probably a God-send that I got to experience an unexpected trigger today and cry out some of that old hurt.
Lately I’ve noticed that my urge to cry feels a lot like my urge to vomit. I avoid it at first. Then I can feel that the bad stuff is surging and wants to leave my body. I feel it in my stomach and then in my chest. Then it builds and releases out of my throat as I scream and cry and cough it out. I feel much lighter afterwards; and I wonder how there can still be more “bad stuff” inside when so much has already poured out so many times.
So today has been a little up and down emotionally following Bhagavan Das last night.
On an up note, you may have previously seen the HolyLand and Wawa photos (featured above) on my Instagram page. Thanks again to blog-techie-wiz Monica at The Yogi Movement for teaching me how to move Instagram photos over to my blog. Without her my blog would still look like this:
Instead of the amazingness that you are currently viewing at theyogalawyer.com.
So at least my website looks pretty phat.
And the journey is feeling pretty good these days, ups and downs and blood moons and all.
#ganesha #holyLand #backtothefuture #420 #theyogalawyer #holyLandExperience #kelliHastings #LineRide #BhagavanDas #Easter #jesus #Kali #bloodmoon