Knock-Knock-Knockin'

The new moon was in Pisces. This monthly lunar reset heralded new beginnings. As with the unknown, we couldn’t see it. Still, it rested in the constellation marking the end of the stellar year.

The water sign, depicted by two fish swimming in opposite directions, represented duality. With connotations of Christ, it symbolizes the completion of one cycle and incredible potential in the next. The fertile ground of the coming year lay open to be sown, for us to renew and begin once more.

“Who is the experiencer?” 

The Zen koan reverberated through the smoky air onto my eardrums. Its vibrations mingled with my brain waves as I began to digest its purpose. I sat cross-legged with the others enjoying the start of our evening’s adventure.

Four months ago I took my first journey within the magic of this teepee. Here I took my place again, one year to the day from arriving within this region of Australia. Its original custodians knew it to be a place of healing for the feminine, by the divine feminine.

This tract of earth that I returned to was sacred. I had felt it viscerally, vibrantly alive on my last visit. Imagine a Garden of Eden set upon a semi-tropical mountainside, painted with exotic flora most might only see in picture books. This starts to sketch an outline of our setting.

I came back to share another inward exploration with dear friends. Living communally, we were family by this phase of our time together. After hearing about my prior experience, one of them voiced an idea for a joint venture into the astral. First the thought had been given life through words. Now its manifestation neared full realization.

Our gracious host and wise guide, she who had proposed the koan, soon invited us to reach for realization ourselves. Of what though? Our true nature, our bliss of Being. This is our birthright. What better time to know it than now? 

Here amongst blessed souls, along with our ancestors and the ancient guardians of this living land, we were welcome to recognize what we already were. Illusion alone kept us from apprehension.

I’ve written before about the sacredness of Life. Words bring thoughts to fruition, accelerating them into manifestation within our third dimensional reality. We can elevate ourselves to higher realms by stepping into the sacristy of our vocabulary. By donning the robes of pure speech we might reach hallowed ground through our voice. 

Our guide extolled the virtue of selecting speech wisely. She highlighted our addiction to idle chatter, and the deficit of consideration in most conversations. We have the choice to filter the extraneous rambling that often fills our minds and mouths. Before we speak, we can use space and stillness to distill our discourse, leaving the clarity of the vital to come forth. 

I pledged to respect her request as I shared the essence of my experience the following day. I will try to do similarly here, transmitting the essential aspects of the wisdom I believe I gained. I choose my words carefully, not from fear of rebuke but with regard to their impact on another’s being.

Sweating knee-to-knee with my fellow journeyers in the temazcal, I had an answer for the prior day’s koan. These tools of the Zen masters are typically rhetorical. They’re meant to short-circuit the mind, tripping it on the path of logical calculation. After I humbly proposed a response, our host encouraged me by confirming the question indeed had an answer.

“Who is the experiencer?” I repeated. “The experiencer is that which experiences.”

Profound, I know. Certainly you are impressed. 

Sarcasm aside, please continue with me. 

If the experiencer is what experiences, then its existence depends upon experience. Thus, it must seek continued experience to sustain itself. Otherwise it perishes. And it will act ceaselessly to survive.

I have been the experiencer my whole life. Or rather, I have been fooled to think so. I believed it was my identity, entranced by the illusion of the things in this universe – both physical and mental – with which I interacted. And I have been deceived by the fallacious and rapacious need to always seek more.

Layering one experience upon the next, I construct an identity that I mistake as myself. Then I futilely attempt to preserve it at great cost. Its foundation is false, so eventually it will collapse. 

The motivation I entered this weekend’s ceremony with was a microcosmic slice of my life’s effort. This sample of my faulty patterning lay prone like a specimen between glass slides, coming clearer into focus under the scope of heightened awareness. 

There is a fear that I don’t know what is happening. I don’t know the Truth: of existence and of who I am, both the same. I’m addicted to the empty promise that more knowledge from another experience will allow me to relax after finally “figuring it out.”

On my previous visit I had a peak experience, one I described as the “best-worst” or “worst-best” moments of my life. I was propelled with violence and vigor through fantastical realms, tumbling into an endless chasm of worlds. Within these I encountered entities lightyears beyond my mind’s minute catalogue.

The initial ride left me begging for words to approach an adequate description. As spirit slowly released me from its grips, I was able to receive invaluable bespoke lessons within a steadier state of mind. These teachings were served with a dash of supremely intelligent humor and compassion to boot.

This time I hungered for something that might replicate, or even surpass, the magnificence of the last. Instead my time with the Divine, Grandmother Spirit, was softer, subtler, incomparable with the past. Each time with her is different. My mind remained present throughout the evening, never fully lifting its judgment from my consciousness. I still labeled and assessed all that occured from the perspective of my personality.

The messages from this session gained color and clarity with time, like a freshly exposed photo soaking in the solution of the developer’s tray. 

I have sought to know and align with Truth. I pleaded for it in my intentions before the ceremony. What I learned – what I was reminded of, actually – is that Truth is everywhere, always, here and now. Because the Truth is simply what is. 

The Truth is not any of the things that I experience. Things are creations within the universe. What is created will eventually be destroyed. What is born will eventually die. Things are impermanent. So how can anything without permanency be real, be True? 

Our host guided repeatedly: If it’s in the past, it isn’t here, so it isn’t real. 

Only what is always here is real. The Truth is that ever-present, infinitely still space from which the universe is created. 

Source. Reality itself. The foundation of the world, the universes. It never moves, never changes.

The thing with things is that the Truth hides in plain sight within them. And really, it is always right in front of me, within me. Truth sits ready for me to merge with. It waits patiently for me to set down my bodily senses and the stories of my mind. 

I can be Truth if I become simple, silent, still. 

The next reminder came. To see and be myself – my true nature – return to meditation and mindfulness. Calming the mind and coming to evermore stillness: these are the keys to clearing my vision. As the awareness of the patterns of my mind and my emotions and feelings expands, I am able to let go more readily. 

What am I holding onto? What must I release? My false identities – and the stories they deceivingly weave – that blind me from the bliss of simply Being.

Many call this process healing. What is healed? The pains inflicted by events that restrict my awareness into a sense of separation from the whole. 

The root of the word heal: To make whole. 

The root of whole: Holy.

My healing is complete when I return to my true nature: pure, unlimited, unconditionally loving awareness. I am whole when I realize my unity with all existence, and beyond.

The medicine we received in ceremony is for our healing. To lead us back to our original state. But the medicine isn’t the Truth. And it isn’t the way either. It is a tool that shows the way there.

A bandage doesn’t heal a wound. It protects the skin to allow it peace and space to repair itself. 

This medicine gives us fresh perspective, tranquility, and reminders of what we’ve forgotten so we can heal ourselves. But I don’t need it to arrive at where I’m headed. And it showed me that it’s not going to take me there anyway. 

This path is for me to walk, not anyone else. It is a difficult one, but I chose it for myself. Nothing else will navigate it for me. In any case, I’m already There. I just don’t see it yet.

Medicine is everywhere. Surely, the sacrament that was offered is one of the most potent I have received. It is a supremely wise guide.

Yet, signposts abound wherever I look, in everything I encounter. Any thing I experience grants an opportunity to get my bearings and move forward. In each moment I have the choice to recognize the illusory, impermanent nature of all things material and mental. With that true vision, I can see into and beyond them to arrive within the Truth that is always there.

Bitter medicine is often quite effective. Its effects arrive almost as quickly as the sour face that follows swallowing it. 

I never fully left my mind behind throughout this session. I craved more of the elixir than I had already received. I teetered along the precipice of my familiar reality, waiting to leap into infinite unknown others. I felt I needed another dose to push me towards plummeting and tumbling once again. 

Eyes closed for most of the sitting, they opened upon intuiting another serving. Their first sight was of the last glass being served to my next-knee neighbor. I blazed an avaricious gaze as he tipped his head backwards. I felt cheated, that I deserved more. I thought selfishly that our host should have known to save some for me. 

My thirsty stare moved to the empty bottle from which the last serving just left. A label on its side marked the date of the former brew: 10/3/20. My face and heart smiled widely as I registered the lesson of my greed for more tea. 

While sharing my intentions at the start, I said I knew my mother was with me. Her presence was incontrovertible now as her birthdate, October 3rd, shined back at me from the clear jug. It was the invitation I required to finally sit back and relax. 

Mother always knows best.

I absorbed the sweet melodies of the minstrel who sent waves of love through his vocal and guitar chords. I joined my voice with his and those who shared theirs to weave a most healing harmony.

I was reminded of a song I heard years back around another fire on another mountainside with hippies in the Himalayas.

Toditas mis penas se acabaron. Pachamama está de fiesta.

 All my sorrows are over. Pachamama is celebrating. 

I mistakenly remembered the first line as La música es medicina. Probably because that affirmation rings loud and true to me. The succor of music’s vibrations has been one of the sweetest medicines of my life.

Pachamama, Mother Earth, was celebrating indeed.

She dances when we are happy. She plays along with us in the sanctified space she selflessly holds for us. All she wishes is for us to experience our highest joy, unimaginable.

The door to the temazcal shut again right before my turn. Many stories had been shared from wide open hearts, which helped open the petals of my own. Darkness washed over us as steam sunk into our skin and penetrated our lungs. 

During the first two doors, songs took form through thunderous drumming and call-and-response chants from ancient lineages. The third door was dedicated to gratitude, and we merged our voices within it in another harmonious fusion. One by one we lent our notes, discovering a key to dance around. We built towards slow crescendos, oscillating between ascent and fall. A melody unfolded that only this collaboration of souls could create.

The waves of this devastatingly beautiful force penetrated my chest, breaking down the defense of my mind almost immediately. My stomach and ribs heaved with a downpour of tears. There was no controlling the explosion of emotion waiting to burst forth. 

It was possibly the most gorgeous song I had heard up to this moment in my life. Showered within its grace, I felt as if I was hearing my mom say I love you from the absolute purity of her being. Whenever I could recover from choking on the sobs rattling from me, I continued my contribution to the tidal surge of love. It kept coming. I wept along in it.

When the heavenly round closed, we each spoke the names of our parents. My turn arrived, and I composed myself with a deep baritone invocation of Great Spirit. I gave gratitude for all the open hearts that surrounded me now and the night prior. Then I attempted to offer a portion of the wisdom I reaped in this time. I considered my words carefully, attempting to honor their sanctity, and that of my fellow mates in soul land.

In the closing moments of our weekend, the endless goodbyes finally concluded as we danced and sung together one last time. Our faithful bard sent hips and arms swinging as he strummed his chords, and we chanted along to sounds of the wordless, heavenly lyrics.

I write these words outside the God-filled garden that I cherish, and to which I wish another return. I have the choice now to honor my experience by imbibing and integrating its lessons into my life. The choices I make determine how I will participate in the happenings and relationships that I encounter. 

To know and be myself, my true Self: this is my birthright. My life’s work is to claim it. For this I require a calmer mind, still and focused upon that highest desire.

I don’t exist in that space at this moment. I have not opened the greatest gift that lies in front of me. I will likely continue to make mistakes. That is, act out of alignment with the Truth of who I am and of what is. 

The connotation of sin today is overly negative. But the translation of the Bible’s original Aramaic is something akin to “missing the mark.” When Adam and Eve chose to bite their apple, they entered into duality in the realm of good and evil. Their original sin was deviating from the target of uniting with all Being, and the Source of it.

I still see myself as this, and you as that. In reality, we are the same. Deeming one as higher and the other lower dooms me. It keeps me from realizing the Truth. Leaving judgement behind is my path to remembering, without judging myself when I forget.