Transitions of living

As you remember I was dissolving a relationship with the consort and strengthening one with Prima Amiga. After I left Maui I went on a ten day meditation retreat and further contemplated my actions since the consort still wished to be involved in being a primary guide to my life. I had a wonderful retreat and upon returning  contacted the consort . We agreed to meet in LA at a TIbetan Doctors office. The doctor she introduced me to. The meeting between us went very well and she has become a devotee of Maharaji( Neem Karoli Baba) . When we parted it was on the best of terms.
I then went to Charlottesville Va where Prima Amiga and I restored the rather fractured  relationship that we had had. We worked laughed and played together to the delight of both of us.
When I returned to Phoenix I found an email from the consort asking if I was going to Virginia in August saying the answer would effect the relationship  . I responded affirmatively and she responded saying that should could no longer help me.
It is for the best. And maharaji has a new devotee.  Strange world that we live in.
I am seeing lots of doctors right now for four month checkups which are doing well. The drugs and heat are tough to deal with but I have weathered an emotional storm that has left me with a solid foundation of a loving relationship that would not have come to this place had the consort not come into my life. It caused Prima Amiga to reevaluate what she wanted , it gave me a chance see what true love looks like . And lead the consort to a guru.
Life is amazing.

Responses and Reactions

I am having a difficult night. Today was the day that Zometa ,the drug that takes calcium from the blood and puts it onto the bones, was administered today by transfusion. It was not a difficult process or painful.  THe reaction that has taken place is not like the original reaction to the drug, which was  an intense overwhelming one of pain and fever like symptoms accompanied by exhaustion and sleep ,  but rather it  is insomnia ,  achiness , and hot flashes.

THe body is reminding me that it needs appropriate loving attention which I am giving it in the manner that I best understand. THe hot flashes are accompanied by visions of abandonment , desertion , and loneliness. All of which I have learned to witness as the grasping of the mind , and in this case the mind reacting to powerful drugs.

In dealing with these circumstances I have opted for a highly unusual approach of meditation and alternative therapies , combined with allopathic medicine. The results have been in the words of many of the physicians remarkable. I will continue in my unorthodox approach . My guru's most famous disciple , Ram Dass gave me the key to this approach in telling me early in the process to follow my heart.  It has been my approach to everything and everyone and remains so . 

Very influential and wise people have come into my life and helped me on that path . Often suggesting yet even more unorthodox methods. When my heart tells me to follow that path I have done so even when not understanding but having faith, Clarifying what following my heart means has been critical to developing the discrimination that is required to choose finer and finer methods of healing the mind , body and soul. No one by my guru  knows what that looks like and I have to feel , look , and listen ever more carefully to what is my path. I having been learning to distinguish  what are the desires of others in whatever reality they are operating from, no matter how loving it seems to them, and  what my guru is guiding me to do. Often painfully for everyone.

When I returned from Hawaii I went into the ten day Shamatha meditation retreat that allowed me to practice letting go . It was accompanied by the deep desire to learn to  work with everyone who was part of my life in healing ourselves.  This physical life will be attenuated by the disease process. It is also being enhanced by that same process. Those who enter closely to me are changed . Their lives  are entwined with mine and proximity to one who is rapidly transforming has a definitive effect.

That effect may or may not be what their conceptions of how something that is  transpiring is suppose to happen but that is what change is about.  If one holds to the conception of how change is suppose to take place then the true birth of the new cannot happen. The process of birth cannot be resisted or ignored.  It may not even be postponed . It can be aborted but only at great cost.

Enounters

         I have been in Charlottesville Virginia for the last week. It was one of the best weeks I have had. I did very little but work hard , cook , make a bed ,and enjoyed myself with someone I love.
        The work was hard . We weeded a large yard with a device called a hula hoe which cuts plants off below the surface from their roots and sometimes pulls the roots out also. The work was simple the hours were long the joy was wonderful. There was not a great deal that was said as communications became  simple and direct. It lead to an understanding of each others meaning at the basic meaning of who we are and what we are to each other and with each other. When we did talk in the evening it was to root out the differences in our perception to understand what the other persons weaknesses were and to allow for those understandings to be clarified and discussed .
        My prima amiga had just returned from Bernie Glassman's bearing witness retreat held in Poland at Aushwitz. The Nazi concentration camp. To meditate in a place like that where so many souls were so violently separated from the bodies is inspiring and taxing. The effect is profound and moving and leaves one  deeply touched.
        My prima amiga talked of her experiences at length. As much as she said I could not help get the feeling that the words were only a poor substitute for all she had felt and I am sure that there is much that she must look at to grasp the deeper meanings from the teaching that she received.
        For myself  it is somewhat difficult to express what went on emotionally since this is a work in progress.
        I understood how tragedies in my family from 50 years before I was born brought forth in my life suffering that I could not understand . I was afraid as a child that my parents would leave me. It never happened and they did no such thing but I was terrified of the situation. With a little reflection and kindness that was given to me I began to understand that my grandmother had treated my mother with a great deal of emotional distance. My mother was the last of 6 children four of whom had died before she was born. My grandmother in her grief had learned not to be too attached to her daughter since she had no idea whether she would live as she had lost so many before my mothers birth.
        As children mature they move away from mom into the world , when they become frightened they run back to mom. Safe again they return to the world. Only to return when in need of reassurance.
         If a mother cannot be there for the child in a healthy manner the child can become very anxious. ANd so it goes for generations. I got to see this in action and realize now it has effected my whole life. Since I do not have a lot of other vices which can substitute for that missing affection the process wells up  at inopportune moments and keeps me from being fully present with those whom I am around.
         The joy of Vipassana Buddhism is that as one practices the art of awareness which is mind blowing simple to understand and demonically difficult to put into practice. As the emotion courses through watch the body I watch as things get tight, loosen, constrict again move to another part of the body and become loosened yet again. Easy to describe but difficult to do when you are caught in some overpowering state of mind.
        Oh well practice practice practice. Seems I have to learn the lesson over and over .