Tales From the God Life-Falling Into Love...

"When you are falling , dive."Joseph Campbell

This Summer has been an over the top flow and fall into the deepest love, mystery and unity I have ever known. Even while surfing these currents of grace, I wipe out and stumble back into ecstasy, forgetting, then remembering again, and again.

This last month of delight kicked off with serving the Global Youth Peace Summit (check out the slide show of beautiful peeps from around the world). This life changing experience was a homecoming and has shifted the course of my life, forever. It deserves it's own post, TBA. Mid month was chock full of communion with family, friends and inspiring dance, music ,travel, play, wilderness, and immense beauty (two weeks at California Brazil Camp). And, it was all topped off with Bhaktifest last weekend. That is where these tales from the God life emerge today.

In the words of mystic, Meister Eckhart, "If the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is "thank you," that would suffice."

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!

Bhakti : is defined by Wikipedia as a practice or active involvement by the devotee in divine worship. It conveys a fully engaged, devoted relationship with God.
Bhakti Yoga is the"yoga of the heart" or "the yoga of love and devotion".

I have been bhaktified. I felt right at home steeping in the bhava of ecstatic, unlimited divine love, invoking God's presence through chanting in kirtan, asana, dance, music and meditation for 4 days, and nights . The exquisite Joshua Tree desert setting, and camping under the big stary sky heightened the potency. Living within an eco-village of a several thousand others aligned in an agreement field of love, devotion and vitality took it to a new level of pulsating life force.

I have been delivered to a deeper intimacy in my direct relationship to the Divine... I have fallen deeper in... into the generous love, into the mystic. And so, what can I do, but dive? My heart continues to wash with tears of joy, humility, gratitude and blessing. I realize now, that as I danced and chanted, in prayer for hours upon hours, I took my vows and my bows to the One that is everything, everywhere.

My work now, is to remember. How does one sustain this open hearted, luminous inner body, that is merged with the one and celebrated in the many? Practice. Being that frequency and ground within humanity, within the Universe, is really all there is to do, or rather all that is worth being. Yet, I forget. Do you? Where does my devotion go when I lock horns with my husband, when my beloved, whining child is pulling on my energy, when I feel hurried and hassled by the logistics and details of the marketplace, when my nerve endings feel I might explode and lash out- and sometimes do?

For the record, I did not even have a single grumpy moment at Bhaktifest. It was easy to relax open as love there...24-7. Yet once home, I witness and observe, as I sigh heavily, roll my eyes, and feel annoyed at how the daily details of life "pull me away" from my God center. This is a lie. Actually, every moment is offering an invitation to practice, to remember, to go deeper into the heart of God, and stay there. If God is with in us, and we are also within God, then all of life is worthy of my devotion. And, if everything wants to drink from the love, then the grumpy mood, whining child, marital spats, life tensions, falls and forgetting can have a drink as well.

Humility is key on this path. True devotion, with a humble heart erases greed and arrogance, melts away fear and anxiety, transforms selfishness into selflessness and hatred into love , restoring the deep peace that is our birth right. No matter how often I forget, my practice of remembering Bhakti Bliss is vital to survive and thrive in the day to day, ordinary, "chop wood-carry water, mundane life.

The ante is up. I have tasted this nectar and there is no going back. That would be death, or foolishness, ignorance and sleep at best. I will chant and dance the sacred names to ground me, and integrate inspiration from the brilliant yoga teachers, incredible kirtan artists and musicians, I joined in practice. I will remember the treasures shared in darshan with many bright, sage bhakti elders of various traditions. The wisdom transmissions direct from ancient lineages of awakened beings were IN THE HOUSE!

One timeless teaching that I will pass onto you comes from Swami Rad, "Every living thing is seeking pleasure...", he said, "for humans, the pleasure of the heart, which is love, is the only pleasure that truly satisfies the soul or essence. This pleasure of love flows from our love for the Divine." No material possession, accumulation of goods, success, ambition or sensory pleasure will ever be enough to fulfill the real need and purpose of the heart. Meanwhile, the thieves of time will steal away our lives as we pursue pleasure elsewhere, aimlessly, endlessly, unless we stop and remember. Only the love of the Divine will do. " It is our nature to be in eternal, unlimited, divine ecstatic communion forever."

As the Upandishads tell us, "Meditation is the bow, devotion is the arrow, love is the target." Join me and aim well, sweet bhakti brothers and sisters. Practice hitting that target over and over again. The only real fulfillment in this life is merging in divine bliss with the ONE. Then, from that satiated, centered, full place, the only natural next step is to serve life. May we offer ourselves, in gratitude as a living, breathing sustainable force of peace and love in motion.

"The door is round and open... Don't go back to sleep."
Rumi

LOKAH SAMASTA SUKHINO BHAVANTU
May all beings everywhere be happy and free!

Devoted,
One Love, G

Your Second Chance at LIFE is Here, Now.

Lately the offering of heartache as blessing has been strong in my psychic/dreaming space. Today's post comes with loving intentions that it will touch a place in you that needs to bloom open.

Five years ago, in 2005 I was pregnant. I was thrilled, terrified, excited and awed. At 13 weeks , just past my first trimester, I started bleeding and over the course of the next 24 hours, painfully labored and miscarried.

The mystery of life and death moved through me. I plummeted into a deep depression and crisis of faith. I found myself grief stricken, broken hearted, confused and angry. For the next many months, I found it challenging to get out of bed and face the day. Residing in the world of the living felt hard and heavy and I wished at times that life would just go on without me.

Thanks to the love of community and engagement in creative expression and sacred movement I was able to embrace this passage with breath. It was a dark wormhole of transformation. I cried an ocean of tears during that time and I often wondered if my true joy and trust in life would ever return.

That season:

• I humbly learned that being in "God's Grace" did not mean always having "my way".
  


• I discovered that my broken heart was more of a being broken open. My capacity to love, was expanded beyond measure.
  


• I embraced and honored the sober reality of death and the temporal nature of so many aspects of life on Earth.
  


• I was returned to the Source of what is Eternal.
  


• I was able to see, even in the depths of it, that I was being held in grace all along, and that this devastating experience was actually an offering. As beloved sister, teacher, Vanessa Stone would say, it was my perfect prescription for awakening.

That miscarriage was my first intimate experience with death. Moving with and through that process deepened me spiritually and matured me emotionally. It served my evolution in countless ways, that in turn, allow me to serve others. Death and loss became my calling to life... to fully receiving and being alive.

For many months I grappled with fears. I was afraid to open up and trust life and love again. I was afraid of pregnancy. Would I even be able to conceive? Would I be able to carry full term? Could I handle going through this ordeal again? Would I ever get another chance?

There was a turning point where I tuned into a cellular wisdom that said that as long as I was still breathing, it was my responsibility to give my best to life. I remember weeping while listening to Second Chance, a song by Deva Premal and Miten. It pierced right through me and spoke directly to my heart... (Take a listen). My fetus had died. The dream of how that particular reality might unfold had died...but I was still alive. I realized that as long as I was still living, I belonged to life! This was my second chance. Right here, right now.

And so, I became a devotee of life. DEVOTED...to the core.

Fast forward to last week, March 31, 2010. Kenya, Talia and I attended an amazing Kirtan concert of Krishna Das and Deva Premal and Miten. We all relaxed into a sweet communion of devotional chanting. At one point, Miten started strumming that beautiful song... "And my heart whispered inside, the moon rose and the angels sighed...and they said,
Here comes your second chance, you better believe it. Open up and receive it...Take a deep breath, this is your second chance." In a flash of memory and a flood of tears, the entire experience I just shared swept through my heart, bursting it open even more. I had come full circle. My 3 year old daughter was cuddled sleeping on my lap. I had gotten my second chance at pregnancy, at motherhood, at life. In total trust, in pure love, in deep gratitude, I wept and sang my way through the rest of the concert.

Whatever the circumstances of our heartache, we all endure our darkest nights. And, with grace, we do come out the other side. Perhaps, like me, you have discovered that we are capable of accessing infinite "second chances". As Miten said last week, "every deep breath is a second chance". As long as we are alive, it is never too late to detangle knots of contraction, worry, or fear...To dislodge clogs of grudge, bitterness or hurt...To soften a hardened heart and surrender...To receive ourselves as devotees of life as we move on as love. This awesome great mystery of life, of living and dying all within eternal being, is a boundless well of blessing and opportunity.

What does your heart whisper inside? Need a second chance? Here it is...

"...And we all come and go like waves in the sea each with our own responsibility to leave this world more beautiful than we found it..."