I came back.

Had a glass of water.

Paced around the room.

Knew what needed to happen.

Found the opening.

It was obvious.

I had to set up a new section. And I knew exactly what to call it and where to put it and how to describe it and how it would work.

So I was teaching about how Dance of Shiva is all about the relationship between deconstruction and rebuilding. Create and destroy. Take something apart and then build something new with the old components.

That’s why Andrey calls it the liberation of consciousness. Because you can take any pattern — physical, energy, emotional, mental, spiritual — and use the parts of it to bring in the new pattern.

And the new pattern heals the old pattern. Patterns rewrite patterns. It’s like homeopathy but bigger.

Here’s the problem with epiphanies.
Those Shivanautical moments of bing and zing that show up and make you go oh.
They’re really hard to explain to anyone outside of your head.
Because a lot of the time they sound kind of obvious.
It’s kind of like big spiritual truths.
Right?
Like you have a serious moment and [...]

ometimes twice.

On the beach. To The Clash. With words and sounds and seriousness and silliness and transcendence.

And my mind is boggling at all the incredible things that came from practicing with this amazing group of (extremely brave and tolerant!) people.

So over the next week or so I hope to share with you some of the extremely weird and fantastic things I have realized, discovered, seen, re-seen, understood, processed or been given.

Because ohmygosh. Big big stuff.

I was standing outside the door of my bedroom. The space that I want to bring more grounding and stability to.

And realized it was flanked by trees.

There is a tree on the mezuzah (you might have to wikipedia that one, sorry). And a tree is the central theme in the gorgeous painting I bought from Leah Piken Kolidas, which hangs on the other side of the door.

Right. The space I want to ground is surrounded by trees on both sides.

Also the room itself has lots of wood. And a brown floor. And all the other colors are first and second chakra colors. Hello, grounding.

Other people’s cool stuff.

Some super interesting results from some of the people who got to do Shiva Nata with me at the Sacramento Biggification workshop last week.

One of the themes we were working with was finding out what our internal resistance has to say.

I’m just going to put some of it out here because it’s so beautiful. And so familiar.

When the stuck stops talking and starts watching.

“One of the things I noticed about my resistance is that in the beginning of the day, it was muttering ‘hippie shit’ into my ear and in the early afternoon, it was “worried” about the car.

But halfway though the Shiva Nata session, it shut up entirely and was just watching me to see what I was doing.

It went from a child having a tantrum to a curious child learning.”

Uh huh. I know that moment too.

Oh, odds and ends from my Dance of Shiva practice journal.

Or, more accurately, a bunch of post-it notes.

But yes. Things I realized this week after Shiva-ing it up here and there.

Oh, bless your heart. Of course, sweetpea.

No one likes Shiva Nata. Well, that’s not true. Lots of people do. I have no idea what’s wrong with them though.*

* It’s probably the students who have done it with me in person when we get all silly. I’ll bet they like it. Ridiculous.

But really? Not liking it? So completely normal.

Thing 1: You might surprise yourself by having fun.

Sure, I have been known to say that it’s not fun.

But that’s my experience. And my particularly twisted sense of humor.

Don’t let me dictate or define your experience for you. It’s your experience.

Help?*

*Is there a word that goes in the blank? Am I even in the right direction? Is there a better title I’m not thinking of? Do I need to devote my practice for the next few days to finding a perfect simple solution? Brainstorm and namestorm with me, please!