Rooted Expansiveness

The smell of it was everywhere.  Through every pore, both nostrils, my mouth, even my ears, the ghee was burbling out of me as sweat from my skin.  I turned my nose to my armpit - a sea of ghee assaulted my senses.  It smelled like the thick, rich, hot butter oozing out of every aspect of my being.

I woke from this dream with dry skin and no discernable smell of butter.  I washed my face, brushed my teeth and did some yogic breathing to greet the new day.  At 7am, I was given a glass of ghee and a prayer by Dr. Ashwin for the fifth day of ghee detoxification.  Yesterday, he said that I was at about 50% total saturation, but that the completion phase is rapid in the last few days.  If my dream meant anything, I'm already there on some level, or perhaps it was prescient of the future.  The following day, I felt like a giant butterball of ghee.  The light sweat from my morning asana smelled of ghee.  I felt like a tick full of butter, who could roll down the local hill and collect cow dung and tree branches as I descended with a great possibility of popping and making a huge mess!  Earlier in the morning, Dr. Ashwin scratched the top of my arm and took my pulse.  "You should be at 100% saturation by tonight; we will see by tomorrow morning."  I did what anyone can ever do in India:  put my hands together in 'namaste' and said 'very well' with a feeble smile.  He was right.  Today, I slept through the call to prayer and awoke to his gentle scratches on my skin and calming brown eyes telling me 'saturation is complete,' 'you make take hot bath - four buckets of hot water.' And so it is...  

The ghee detox is followed by three days of sweat treatment in either a hot box with a hole cut out of the top for my head, or through piped steam on my body like a massage, or through sevral buckets of a hot water bath.  In my case, Dr. Ashwin prescribed the least heating because MS symptoms can be exacerbated by excessive heat (true: see below walk story).  I will then have one to two days of purgation:  I'll take a shot of a medicated beverage and then eliminate four times either through my mouth or through the other end.  That will complete the detox process.  

Why would one want to saturate her body with ghee as a detox treatment?   As the most sattvic form of provision from the holy cow, ghee is believed to have healing properties.  In Ayurveda, ghee is a miracle cure-all remedy for everything from eye problems to constipation.  In my case, the ghee is actively attaching to the toxins in my body and lubricating them so that they can loosen up/decalcify and then  leave my body through sweat and purgation.  This ghee has been treated with special herbs to focus on my mind, body and intellect.  I asked Dr. Ashwin whether the mind and intelllect weren't the same thing.  'No, the mind is actively thinking; in your case the mind is very active."  "The intellect is a higher state of consciousness that is always present, but can get a little bit blocked."  "Once you are calmly rooted in your body, the mind eases and allows the intellect to come into the body."  "This is why this particular batch of ghee is designed to alleviate your symptoms."  This made sense to me.  I thought to myself that I couldn't envision a  better palliative cure or causal explanation for a disease of the central nervous system could be prescribed.  

I've been exploring these questions:  'What do you think might lie at the root of your illness?" and "What does your body need in order to heal?"  The answers that come up aren't easy to articulate; it feels more like a frenetic energy to an increasingly sensitive organism caused by overdoing.  The healing feels like pressing pause and surrendering in to the peace within my body rather than trying to shove it into something that is convenient for me to keep doing.  Naturally, I should be able to tap into rooted peace anywhere, especially since I was trained in pranayama, asana, meditation and bhakti for hundreds of hours in 2007 and 2008.   But since I stopped my practices in 2010, I haven't touched into them too often except for those rare times when I'm in nature and there are no plans to be made.  At that time, I feel a whoosh of synchronicity and my body is smiling.  THAT is what I heard in Dr. Ashwin's description of how ghee helps body, mind and spirit.  I like this treatment very much.  The four buckets of hot water felt delightful this morning.  Dr. Ashwin was right - it was just the right amount not to exacerbate my symptoms.  

In the meantime, harmful emotions and thoughts are also getting loosened up and clarified.  I've seen that I've lived a strong masculine pesence as a Taurus/Bull, lawyer/litigator, socialite trying to make sure that I'm well liked and all people are provided for.  Iin the Vedas, the right side is the masculine/sun side of the body.  The left side is the feminine/lunar/nourishing side of the body.  Indeed, I have felt scorched and imbalanced for the past several months.  My left side is very clearly telling me to nourish my feminine side -- to listen to her.  There is a purpose to be done in me through my feminine side that is being ignored.  Once I tap into that and trust it, I feel there will be great Grace, peace, power and purpose in my everyday being.  But I have to listen...

The other day, I went for an hour long walk with one of the ladies who is a 50-year old Swedish woman struggling with lifelong physical impairments due to being caught in a threshing machine as a six-year old girl.  She led the way in the sun as I followed along with my umbrella.  After 30 minutes, I had to sit down because both of my legs and feet were tingling in the sun.  It felt like electric shock pulses that were growing stronger and almost bouncing off of my legs.  So I listened and I stopped, even though I was embarrassed to ask her to take a break; after all I'm only 40 and to the naked eye in perfect health.  Not so on the inside.  I sat and focused on lovingly breathing fresh prana into my legs; I connected with and nudged the tingles down into my feet and into the earth.  The result was remarkable - it was as if I turned a jug of tingles upside down with fresh air and they literally poured out of my feet into the earth.  The connection with my nerves and my body was instant when I came from a place of gentleness and grounding and nurturing compassion.  What a gift!  I continued home for another 25 minutes and was just 5 minutes away when it happened again.  I didn't want to stop again - I was too embarrassed, so I ignored my body.  I then tripped on nothing a couple of times, once catching Ann-Catrine's shoulder as not to fall to the ground.  We were nearly home and suddenly my left hip seized up as if in protest.  It was completely stiff and I had to swivel walk to make any progress. It was as if I was a walking zombie.  Ann-Catrine apologized profusely and I told her that it was my choice and I'd simply overstretched my limits.  I made it home in this akward gait and collapsed on my bed for two hours.  I had dinner and then went straight to bed.  This was a good lesson in asserting the aggressive over the nurtuing.  Instead of pushing through, I should've honored the body by resting and giving it soothing attention to release it.  When I honored the feminine side previously, there was a beautiful, natural and nourishing relief.  When I didn't, the symptoms grew worse.  Is this not my body speaking to me directly?  Listen.  Indeed, Dr. Ashwin had warned me that during this treatment, I shouldn't walk for more than 30 minutes.  But, I didn't want to be restricted.  Dr. Ashwin sees right through it.  I trust this man more and more each day.  

The following morning, my whole body was stiff and I went up to the roof and rolled out my yoga mat.  The pre-dawn mist nourished my skin as the breath of prana lubricated my stiff joints.  Collectively, me and the dawn of nature blended to bring my body relief.  Through rooting, through breathing, through listening and nurturing my body in whatever pose felt right (and holding it for a very long, slow time), I brought my body back to health.  I feel that this is a macrocosm for what I will continue to do in my life.  Bring grace through rooting and connecting with the great source of nature; always healing; always rejuvenating - I will not stray from this practice again.  The sacred feminine left side - like the lunar energy of lubrication itself is so very rejuvenating, no matter what.  By finally paying attention in this manner, I have very much started over as a beginner with my breath and my body.  I am exploring and experimenting and re-learning that which I once taught to others.  It is very humbling and inspiring.  And feminine.

I have since walked only 30-40 minutes and have not had such an episode again.  I continue to experience emotional upswells of fear and anxiety in the not knowing, but they are growing less overwhelming as I find grace in my core.  Here, it is a soothing process.  Every morning, Dr. Ashwin brings up a cup of hot tea and hot water and gives me a blessing by touching my head and saying a prayer.  I feel like he's singing me a healing lullaby as I prepare to drink a cup of hot ghee followed by steaming herbal water.  I feel held and nurtured and cared for by a doctor who understands so much more than I do about the interconnectedness of things and the Grace of grounded healing.  Indeed, the energy of India is so vastly wise and spiritual --- again, I can't put words to it, but it's everywhere.  In the midst of MS, to have an Indian doctor give me a blessing with holy medicine designed to clear me out and connect me up with Source is the very aspect of healing that I couldn't touch as I drove from healer to healer to healer throughout the Bay Area in my search for trust.  Trust? Trust that I can heal through this.  Trust that I have the strength.  Trust that I can find the Grace.  India is a vast vessel of rejuvenating trust for me.  It undeniably shines the light back to me as the source.  If I'm unbalanced on the left, go to source to find the balance and then listen and nurture.    

Likewise, my lessons about self-created mental turbulence are increasingly clarified.  As soon as I let go of wanting to be invited in to people's experiences here, I connected bit by bit with people without even trying.  Likewise, as soon as I stopped lambasting myself for having jet lag, I realized how lucky I was to enjoy this sacred, quiet and cool type of morning all to myself.  And now, I'm sleeping in until 6:40!  I heard the woman from whom I felt actively disliked say that the 12-step recovery program saved her life and suddenly I saw her as a delicate and brave being who was on her own journey to healing.  Why would she want to give me her energy?  I'm guessing that my needy energy felt invasive.  I GOT it - in a flash.  And later that day, we had a nice chat.  Never mind WHAT her journey is, but it's not mine.  Likewise, the energies of all the people that I deal with day to day in the city and take on are not mine to become absorbed and worried about.  It's a constant drain of energy to be so sporadic with one's energy.  Of course, there are loved ones of whom this is beautiful.  But, I'm talking about virtual strangers and my preoccupation with making sure all of the ts are crossed and is are dotted all the time with everything.  When we entertain, I want to make sure everyone is having a good time and then spend hours cleaning up until the wee hours of the morning.  So often, the night has passed and I haven't connected with anyone and don't want to trouble anyone to ask for help, but feel energetically depleted.  This was supposed to be fun; instead I feel exhausted and wonder why I can't enjoy my own parties.  Recently, a friend asked if he could host a dinner at our house a few days after we had a holiday party.  The thought of it made want to crumble, but I didn't want to say no.  Matt gently suggeted otherwise, so it passed without issue, but THAT is an example of my lack of boundaries with energy in order to appease, as well as my desire for making sure that everything is lined up just right.  My housemate calls me 'The Falcon' because I notice every little thing that's out of place all the time.  That can't be healthy.  I get that.  In a flash.

As I delved into why I care so much about everybody being satisfied to the point of my own exhaustion, I realized that I have a fear of rejection.  I want to be included.  I thought abut my past relationships with people and saw a pattern.  Is it true that we re-live the same cycles of behavior and experience again and again until we simply recognize the pattern, merge with it and then let it go?  This is what I was thinking about.  As a child, my older sister wanted nothing to do with me, but I thought she was the sun, moon and stars.  I never gave up.  I still haven't.  But, there is a distance the size of Montana between us.  In first grade, the kids made fun of me for being pulled out of class for speech therapy classes.  I liked the counselor and ended up becoming a speed reader and placed in the GATE (Gifted and Talented Education Program), but I never really felt like I was like the other kids.  In third grade, the cool girls allowed me into their makeup club only after I acquired enough makeup and a purse to give to them.  In fourth grade, we moved from Morgan Hill and I was suddenly the new girl in a 'city' school.  When I wore flip flops and a torn gunnysack dress to a school outing, the kids pointed and laughed and laughed.  My sister transformed me into a cool kid, with feathered hair and painted nails, in 5th grade, but then the older girls would 'bark' and 'woof woof' at me when I walked by.  In seventh grade, I used to run to the bus after school so that the 'hair bears' - chicks with feathered ratted hair up to the ceiling and heavily made up faces wouldn't beat me up:  "I'm gonna kick your ass, bendeha!"  My best friend from 4th to 7th grade didn't defend me when her new best friend threatened to kick my ass for flirting with her boyfriend by asking him questions about himself while we were sitting across the table from echother at a big group gathering.  Finally, 8th grade was a transfer year and it took a while, but I gradually was somewhat comfortable, although never quite.  It goes on and on...basically, I've lived my life repeating this pattern.  Even becoming a lawyer was to prove that I was as smart as the rest of my lawyering family.  In fact, I never wanted to be a lawyer.  What I wanted was to be liked, wanting to be accepted, but never feeling like I fit in anywhere.  It's truly a pattern of self torment, judgment and pain.  I saw this so clearly as I sat for hours just meditating on it.  Merging with it.  Will this, too, melt away?  I believe with ongoing focus and compassion that it will.

  

What do you think lies at the root of your illness?  Fruitless energy being expended and expended and self-created and expended again.  What does my body need to heal? Learning to trust in my own being, focusing on my root, tapping into connection with the natural awareness that we all have.  Flowing.  Much easier right now in a sanctuary in nature and healing, but surely being re-introduced and saturating into my body.  The left side - the feminine side - has been hurting.  I honor her welcome her and will slowly slowly nourish her/me back to health.

Grace.

Two nights ago, Krishna Das led a kirtan for the seven of us staying here.  It was rejuvenating and soulful to sing to the deities with a man of faith.  He is a beautiful soul and I am most grateful for his gift of song.

Grace.

Yesterday afternoon, as I finished my yoga, I took the below picture of the sky.  It seemed like Mother India was reaffirming the vast possibility that comes with rootedness --- expansion into a beautiful, boundless sky of...

Grace.