Recently I have been faced with coming to terms about what I believe to be true about navigating egos in the Default World. Mine, others' and especially the dynamic between. More specifically with the 'cult of personality' concept. In the past, in my personal and professional orbit, it was sometimes a deeply humbling realization that sometimes people had gathered around something I was working on because of me. Like, me, as a personality - sitting there at the head of the board table, years younger than anyone else speaking and acting as if I knew what I was doing. In actuality, I was winging it like 95% of the time and it really just boiled down to me having the confidence to be the one to lead the thing, whatever it happened to be.
As I began to realize this phenomenon with at least a couple of organizations I founded over the years, I also realized I also had to slowly back out. Like I had to, for the health and vitality of the idea. I mean, what if I got hit by a bus or moved to Paris? I wanted people gathered around the idea, not me! Especially if I want those ideas to stick and further the community around that idea in an evolutionary direction. My decade-long task became investigating questions like how do I build myself OUT of something as I'm building it UP? What foundations and orientations are necessary to hold an idea down long enough into reality for others to take ownership? How long does that process take me to execute and establish? Am I even crucial to the process? How do I build something with a Leave No Trace ethic with regards to my ego? I have several strong data points in my career around failures and have learned through experience some of the tell-tale signs of this 'cult of personality' phenomenon. [Blessedly we're not there with my current day job and my past experiences have allowed me to navigate some of these potential situations with a little more grace and elegance, thank Goddess!] It's a balance though, right? Sticking around long enough to facilitate an idea to stick without the sticky personal attachments that can go along with it... I'm musing all this because the discernment shifts a little bit in the spiritual and religious dimensions of our relationships. Like, how do I discern clearly (and with kindness) when I do sniff out one of these 'cult of personality' situations? It can be tiring to hold on to skepticism and yet that's exactly where I'm at sometimes. I just wanna open my heart and trust and heal and go for it! For real, if you have insight about this, lay it on me. I genuinely want to hear. For now, I breathe, smile, open my heart into what I'm doing at this moment and forget about the rest. And, it probably goes without saying, I remain a humbled, free agent, yo! All this even as things get further complicated when I ruminate on the Aurah-as-a-creative-instrument phenomenon I am exploring these days. I don't know what the answer is but I acknowledge the paradox. The picture below was taken by my dear friend Erica the other morning as we wandered around in conversation over coffee. I think my facial expression says all this better than words ever could. May it be so.
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Could ya feel the eclipse? I sure did. I could certainly feel the energy of everyone making a big deal of this thing. All the weirdo premonitions. The astrologers. The pilgrimages to see totality, dude, totality... The hullaballoo on social media. I think the technical term is tizzy. I could also feel the sensations of the eclipse itself quite clearly. The temperature dropped by about 10 degrees. The wind was cool. Everyone was outside and talking and looking up. I just observed and tried not to let too many words in the way. I had lunch with my favorite university professor as the eclipse began because I wanted to chat about the whole Aurah name thing. The insecurity that creeps in. The crippling self-doubt. The drama and theater of making a choice of this variety - that is, adopting a spiritual alter-ego-pen-name to support the earnest effort to release my ego. A thorn to remove a thorn, as they say. Why can't I be quiet and shy about my personal spiritual journey like any normal person? As we walked back to the school to join in the social viewing on campus, we walked on the moon shadows. The moon danced in front of the sun and everyone looked up to see her creating a giant collective shadow over all of us. It was wonder-full. And the energy was thick. A ton of doubt kept creeping in. What am I doing? GAH! And so, after a year of studying the Full Moon with the Full Moon Salon (tome forthcoming), I crept over to Aujah's house around 7 and we ritualized the New Moon with a despacho. I think I need to study her (meaning the New Moon) next. I don't know what form that study will take, but the discipline to do it is totally there. May it be so. A despacho is a creative exercise that hails from Peru but it has some cross-cultural elements to it that lead me to believe it's not isolated to the Andes Mountains. There is no wrong way or right way to do one. It's a commonsense endeavor that isn't a bunch of bullshit when you understand how it works. We set up our table with tried and true accoutrements and made it as beautiful as possible. It was a strong combination of masculine and feminine energies and symbols that lead into the central despacho-making vortex. The despacho base is simply a sheet of paper. Onto it, we placed all the elements - earth, ether, vegetation, hair, blood, other essential ingredients of the physical world. We spoke into it. We placed intentions. We articulated things we want to give up. Most importantly, we spoke into the despacho our gratitude. Gratitude for the mysterious pronoia that the Universe is conspiring to support us. For life. For the audacity to make such a beautiful thing to be a container for our intentions. That the desire to embody kindness and truth and presence and clarity is a worthwhile endeavor for all of us. Aujah and I called Audah and patched her into the circle so that her voice could also reverberate into the despacho via speaker phone. She had made the journey to see the eclipse totality and could not be there with us in person. After many good laughs and conversation, we took the despacho packet, now tied up with ribbon, out to the fire pit and burned it. May it all be so!
It's beautiful to say goodbye. To release. To die to what no longer serves me. And, it's a joy to be baptized into what does. The photo above was taken on July 4 - Independence Day. I whopped off the hair a few days later on the July 8 Full Moon. Seemed obvious. All of it. Now? The boy-child and I are home from our epic explorations on the other side of the planet. Many words have been written about our adventures in Myanmar - longhand and in my journal. And with the viewpoint of someone with freshly-shorn antenna (my hair) in the heart of Theravada Buddhism. I'm pretty sure I started another book in the process. The third in a series, I might add. Unified Field Theory of Oz (the school paper that sits on this website as a podcast), Full Moon Salon (drafted June 2016-June 2017) and now this one, title to-be-determined.
So with that said, I harness the energy of Tortoise. There is no urgency to sprint to some finish line to make all these things so by some specific deadline. My challenge is to slow down, with intention, to articulate what it is I really want to say. THAT is the luxurious task at hand with all the new work. I'm fulfilled at the day job drafting planning documents and spreadsheets and to have this juicy writing project to work on too is so fulfilling. As a friend recently shared At the end of this life, I'd rather regret doing something than not trying at all... That's how all this feels. May all beings be happy and may it begin with me. May it be so! Aurah. I mean, where did this come from? As much as this whole thing was a school project, it just wasn't and isn't. It still lives and breathes; and not just with me. There's a little group of us that's playing with the same plot line I'm playing with which is "I'm authoring my life and it's pretty amazing..." Aurah literally means 'goddess of the dawn wind'. It also means 'intimate parts' and 'emanating glow' and all combined maybe it means I voice what it means to be simultaneously emanating a glow while sharing intimate stories? It's all that, yes, using these surface definitions. But it's way more than that too.
Here's how I can best explain: Aurah is the single word that encapsulates a series of qualities. When I hear others call me Aurah (as some have sortof started to call me - and yes it's awkward sometimes) I am immediately reminded of what state of being Aurah is and specific Christ-like qualities that I seek to cultivate in my life in an active manner. The qualities are: presence, kindness and clarity and Aurah is the name I give the being I AM when I embody those qualities. My Default World name is lovely and I'm delighted to have it, it's served me so well, however Aurah is feeling more and more like who I am and who I want to be. Who I want to move through life as: present, kind and clear. It's really simple. Audah reminded me on the phone this morning of this same phenomenon all throughout pop culture and beyond. That is, adopting another name to make art with. It's empowering! Samuel Clemons had Mark Twain. Charles Dodgson had Lewis Carroll. Ricardo Basoalto had Pablo Neruda. And Beyoncé has Sasha Fierce! The list is extensive and impressive, which is helpful when I wonder if I'm going mad. This whole Aurah-thing isn't terribly different from those examples and besides I like being transparent (clear) about it. May it be so! I took a bath this afternoon. A long one. I had the house to myself and so I took advantage. I sang a couple of recent songs that have come to me really loudly and loved how they echoed in the tub. I could see the sound waves in the bathwater and imagined that same reverb in the whole house. I realized a ton of stuff about the desire to cut my hair, the nature of bangs and straight hair, what I'm hiding with the bangs and of course the vanity of having very long hair. Am I like Samson and I'm about to lose all my power when I cut off my hair? Or am I like Siddhartha and sense a way to annihilate my ego once and for all? Am I a paradoxical Both-And? Oh shit...
My bangs need a trim right now, at this moment, and knowing that it's two weeks time until the July full moon and the big chop-off is maddening. I can see how I might start to feel like the proverbial overgrown Buddha statue, deep in the recesses of southeast Asia. In two weeks time, I will be so ready for a haircut, with so much pent-up angst and irritation at hair being in my eyes and no longer merely covering my forehead, that I will run as fast as I possibly can to my hair appointment to excavate what's underneath. Two days later, not randomly, I leave for southeast Asia with my son... To make that excursion with a backpack, my boy and a pixie cut sounds like that makings of an Oz story, to be sure. I had made a deal with both of my kids many years ago not knowing how I was going to pay for it. The deal was that I would take them anywhere in the world for their coming-of-age-celebration as long as it was a developing country. They had to look up what that meant and then choose to accept my offer or not. With few initiatory rituals in our country to usher children into adulthood, a lot of kids get a car, have a Sweet 16 party or perhaps a quinceanera. I took my girl to India just two summers ago. We backpacked all over Rajastan for almost a month. Long-haul trains, unbelievable heat and staggering poverty were balanced by seeing first-hand the Taj Mahal, experiencing the smells of bodies burning in Varanasi and exploring the deep connection of our mother-daughter bond. My goal with these offers to my children? To plant a seed of actionable compassion in their lives. For them to want to understand for themselves why there's so much inequality in the world. Why gratitude matters in doing their part to make the world a kinder place. My boy chose Myanmar and we leave two days after the next full moon. My ultimate take away from this hyper-realized salt bath was a reminder of this: the simple freedom to choose is at the Center of what it means to be the Paradox of mySelf. The freedom to cut my hair off, for example. Freedom to choose my clothes. Freedom to close my eyes. Freedom to go within. Freedom to observe real close. Freedom to extend my exhale. Freedom to die. Freedom to generate. Freedom to extend my inhale. Freedom to choose love. Freedom to open my eyes. Freedom to smile. Freedom to move about! Freedom to be kind in all the ways. Always. Also, Aurah rhymes with 'Tara' and both are one letter off from 'Sarah'. What's my name, again? Point is, Tara feels like a guide. May it be so! Audah, Aujah and I were talking last night during our Summer Solstice gathering - because of course we had one. Is what we're doing, like, a thing? And by thing I mean - realize and own our goddess-nature, take action around it and sometimes make others uncomfortable because they don't understand? I feel it rising in all three of us at amazing speed. Channeling it with love is the task at hand for me. I see how it's super easy to derail completely into "OMG, what would so-and-so think about all this?" or "Am I nuts?" when the reality is I'm not nuts. And, I kindly don't give a fuck what anyone thinks about all this. I'm centered in a state of love and light emanating out ceaselessly in the darkness of mis-understanding. I know this is True, with everything that I AM.
So we gathered for the solstice. Aujah hosted at her home and had created for us a giant altar with three seats for us to sit, chill and ruminate about how to best serve the planet. I delivered a snake that I had picked up for Audah. I rescued that snake from Ross Dress for Less on Friday night and spent the weekend charging her up at my house. This snake sat on my meditation cushion and guarded my "hippie locker" (my son's name for the cabinet where I keep all my incense and stuff). Audah named her Cleopatra almost immediately. Cleo, for short. We ritualized the whole experience with a flower meditation and burning off what is no longer serving us. I asked to release the illusion that the ball's not in my court at all times. The ball is always in my court! As a sentient being, I have the power of choice in every breath of my life. Even if my power to choose only allows me to exude kindness and not take physical action. Even as my last breaths are being had on earth, I have a visceral sense that I could still choose who I AM until my last breath is gone... May it be so. I'm feeling called to cut my hair. Not in a crazy-ass-traumatic-Britney-Spears way but rather in a it's-time-for-new-antenna way. My hair is ten years old! All those Burning Mans. All those Vipassana retreats. My children's childhoods. Graduate school with my beloved teacher. Tons of travel. There is a lot of information in this hair that grew up and out of my crown chakra. What am I thinking? Well, I'm thinking it's time to wipe the spiritual blackboard clean and grow new antenna. Besides, I've had a pixie cut before. As much as this is a big ole deal, it's just not. It's hair and it'll grow back.
So why now? I'm harnessing the power of a pre-existing set of agreements to travel for work to San Francisco and for adventure with my son to Burma, with consideration of the moon phase to determine the most potent course of action. It seems obvious to me that I work with what is already in motion to be bold, be fearless and to go for it! So much of my identity is wrapped up in this here hair. When it's down, it's stunning. Strangers stop me and tell me so. And when it's up in a knot and held in place with one of my magic wands, I'm uniquely focused on whatever task is in front of me. I remember back to times when I had super short hair. Previous lives when I was up to other things. The most profound thing I remember is how serendipitous life was with short hair. It's a thing with me, actually. I am inspired to consider that phenomenon might happen again without the distraction of so much information hanging off my head in the form of hair. It's like pruning back the roses. New blooms appear when I cut the overgrowth. Same with the hair, I think. It's nature doin' its thang. I'm just making room for more flowering, that's all. It seems really obvious and lovely. Also, I have other things to be inspired by - rewards I'm building in to celebrate taking the plunge. I've commissioned three new dresses from a custom pattern I'm having made that is an amalgamation of three different articles of clothing I have: a boat neck shirt that flatters my neckline and covers the chest tattoo, a dress-shape from a garment I bought in India two years ago and finally the length of a third dress. I'm also adding a belt and zippered pockets. And the fabrics? Oh my, let's just say they're high-vibe! I'm thrilled to have a series of Aurah-costumes in the works. I'm also working on a series of ceremonies to punctuate the whole sequence of events. Eyes wide open, complete with a death, a bardo experience, a re-birth and of course a celebration! More soon. So much more. Two parting comments:
My first big adventure as Aurah was to India last Spring when I traveled with this lovely bunch to Sikkim. They are all retired scientists and professionals and we toured the Himalayas together for a couple of weeks. I spent most of my free time writing my paper Unified Field Theory of Oz as we moved from town to town in Sikkim. At the end of our trip, I went on a solo mission to Calcutta and Belur Math and the home seat of Swami Vivekananda in verify an energetic connection between him and L. Frank Baum and possibly the book that started it all - The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. As a deep sub-plot character in the fourteenth and final book named Aurah, it seemed obvious to me that this was the perfect experiment. Wild adventures ensued! I promised Team Sikkim that I'd share a copy of the self-published version of Unified Field Theory of Oz just as soon as I get copies in...
It was lovely to connect with them all about a year after our grand adventure and have dinner together last night. We laughed, ate Indian food and re-lived parts of our travels together. An excellent time was had by all! I'm in San Diego for a work conference. It was probably no mere coincidence that I arrived on L. Frank Baum's birthday. I played hookey from the conference one morning to visit Coronado Island which was Baum's retreat after the smash success of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - the book that would posthumously be the world-wide hit movie.
The Hotel del Coronado was The Royal Historian of Oz's winter home and the place where he would pen several of the subsequent Oz novels. Later, he would even rent a home on the island to continue to visit what he considered paradise on earth. With year-round perfect weather, San Diego and Coronado Island would prove time and time again the ideal back drop to draft his world-famous books. I visited as Aurah. I continue to verify the energetic connection between Baum and the Default World through this artistic alter-ego of myself. I stood on the beach and looked out at the Pacific Ocean. I couldn't help but see Rinkitink and Bilbil washing onto the Island of Pingaree in the book Rinkitink in Oz. And as I roamed the Hotel del Coronado and explored its over-the-topness, I of course thought of Princess Ozma and her royal accoutrements. I even bought some crown place holders in the gift shop. I watch in wonder as I continue to explore as Aurah, well after I turned in the paper for school. Picture below from the hotel's website. It's Baum reading his stories to the children on the island. With one accidental "delete" I wiped out the original Oz podcast series (the one with all the pictures and colorful commentary on a weekly blog) that I managed from December 2016 to February 2017. In hindsight it was the best thing ever! Because now I had the motivation to get my act together and re-organize the website and understand better what I really want to do with all this Oz material. What would turn me on completely? What does Aurah-as-Me want to share with the world? I love to witness the connections between things and events and write about them. I love a big story-arc. I love to capture the details I notice and to process them with the written and spoken Word.
So I made some changes. I placed a simple list of recordings on the Oz Episodes page and password-protected it along with this unfolding blog / podcast recordings page and the About Aurah page. With one deft move I shield my sisters Aujah and Audah from being collateral damage of any kind, should anyone in their lives link either one of them up with an unconventional "art project" such as this. Their pictures are all over the place, after all. In addition, I have created a safe space for myself to express. A free place of expression where I can navigate the Default World as Aurah with less worrying and fretting. I know my programming really well and I know what I would do if I allowed my Presence to falter and slip back into the default samsaric state for any length of time. Besides, I've just asked some in my "inner circle" to start calling me "Aurah" which could get awkward real fast. And if I don't articulate it, then I'm not consciously authoring my life, now am I? [Not true anymore. All is transparent now.] My Default World can get a little stressful sometimes and I have my ways of dealing with it - meditation, books, workshops I attend, yoga and more. I manage a decent-sized team and raise lots and lots of money for a wonderful organization in my community. Sometimes my role there has a very public face and I would prefer not to fret about jeopardizing my opportunity to work there or the organization's reputation in any way. I am only here to serve my community. I leave in a couple of days for a work conference in San Diego and one of my team members reminded me yesterday that Coronado Island is just off the shore. In a flash I remembered that L. Frank Baum wrote several of the Oz books while living on the island. Looks like Aurah is going to pay a visit. Adventures are almost guaranteed... That's what this blog is for. I see that now. May it be so! |
DescriptionPeriodic updates from Aurah in the Field. Adept Archives
June 2020
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