Moving Into the Bhav

...and so I haven't written for many, many months. I sit today in the middle of a ranch in Ukiah, at a beautiful wooden home rented by Tanya and Tristan, listening to Krishna Das as Tanya does her yoga outside on the porch and I do my yoga inside. I spent a few days on the other side of the ranch working the land and interacting with nature. I held in my hands the many layers of nature that need to be nurtured and cultivated before it ends up before me for my consumption. I likewise realized that the identification of myself solely as "a lawyer" denies the many layers of Kyra that I am: a country child who loves mud, an adventurer exploring different perspectives, an inquisitive nature that can only take in answers through actual experience, a woman with bearing that has issues of childlike neglect, a woman with grace that fumbles daily and stops herself regularly to choose courage, not fear. Gratitude, not desire or pining for something else. I am blessed. I am unemployed. I am homeless. I foresaw all of this in the breathwork I did shortly after my return from India: I stand on a rocking ship in a tumuluous storm. Waves are crashing all around and spraying me. The wind is blowing everywhere. The sky is dark. Yet, on the deck I stand, I keep my footing. I know that this is a tumult of darkness that I must go into, and in doing so, I find my footing and my connection to Spirit. I've molted the external protections and am completely exposed. What now? What now? What now? After months of striving to understand, I'm finally inspired to write again...so much has happened...I have my feet on the ground. They are on a conveyer belt. I play a supporting role. It's not all about me. I surrender to Grace and experience that love can not exist if fear is in the way. So, I look at the fear, I nurture the fear and the fear absorbs into courage. Love. I surrender to love.
I have been 'home' in the United States. I studied yoga and ayurveda for many months, living in Berkeley. It was a language that I could relate to. The language of experience. Yet, I stayed in that bubble and didn't reach out to any buy my mother, sister and a very good male friend. Eventually, that male friend became my lover. I wouldn't allow myself to open up beyond my yoga mat for anyone but them, not even myself. I was grateful for a male energy with an ivy league law degree and a great passion for spinning fire and creating community. He, too, left his legal job to travel the world and explore. He returned in a state of flux, like me, and we understood eachother. He also studied female orgasms and was a blissful lover. He told me that he loved me again and again. And this was enough for me to be sated. I didn't mind so much that he had other lovers. I just ignored that. Until....he told me that one of them was a friend of mine. Ouch. I stopped. And then I missed his counsel. We started again. Yet, the sweetness was gone and I felt a portion of myself compromised every time. I began to resent him. And myself.
I volunteered for the San Francisco Municipal Transit Authority in the taxicab division and deeply considered my eventual role as a taxicab prosecutor when funding came through for a position. I grappled and grappld with being inside a room with no windows, but relished the idea of stability and an income. I loved the idea of regaining my confidence in the legal world and finally being able to take credit for my own work, as opposed to earlier work where I did the legal research and writing and my boss (either firm partner or federal judge) affixed his name to the work. I experienced the pride that came from my intellect and keen legal acumen. I spent so many years honing these skills. They flowed out effortlessly, but the surrounding environment was stale beyond belief.

I studied Shadow Yoga with Scott Blossom and learned to transfer energy through the different areas of my body during my yoga practice. I convinced myself that I could study with Scott and balance the stagnation from a return to this type of job. I signed up for djembe lessons. I found a place to live in a conscious home. It was all lined up, even though I didn't resonate with the pulse of San Francisco anymore....nor the job. I promised myself that if I didn't get the job, I would leave San Francisco and trust Spirit just a little more to guide me in the right direction.
I volunteered in August and learned that funding wouldn't come through until September. The idea of volunteering without pay and living in San Francisco at an acquaintence's house where I did not feel comfortable didn't feel good. As I was walking home from volunteering in late August, I decided that I'd spend September in the flow. I wondered what to do about the room I was leasing. At that moment, the landlord, my housemate called me, and screamed in a rage about the fact that I had moved his drum set in order to lay down my yoga mat. I told him that he never used it and said repeatedly that he didn't even want it there anymore. I told him that I needed more space than just an 8x10 room to live in for $900/month and had previously asked to spread out just a little. He said he liked things as they were. So, in a fit of desire to practice outside of my 8x10 box, yes, I moved the drum kit, delicately, aside. I laid down my mat and my practice was beautiful. Well, he didn't get this and proceeded to scream. I suggested that I move out post Burning Man (one week away). He bellared his assent. I arrived home to his glaring face and crashing doors and boxes as he prepared for burning man. He was seething rage. It was crazy. I was scared. I called my lover and left a voicemail that I needed to be with him that evening. He texted me back to love myself that evening. I thanked the Universe: the job, the home and the man were clearly not working. San Francisco couldn't have screamed anymore to me, "Get Out!" So, I packed up my belongings the very next day and moved everything into 10x10 storage. I actually had more space in storage for $120/month!
I hightailed up to Tahoe to stay with an old friend, Cheri. And there, the healing continued. Fresh water, a compassionate friend, a reconnection to love that I'd isolated myself from before. We went to Burning Man and I had an amazing time: wide open. connected. blissful. radiant. powerful. creative. sexy. intelligent. inspired. loved. absolutely in my essence as shakti. I taught yoga, I played, I connected, I released and I bonded with people. I finally cracked that self imposed shell of exile and related to people again. Wide open.
Cheri, Shanti and I returned to her place in Tahoe for an additional week and I spent time with people who were simply laid back and happy, notwithstanding a very low income. I liked their vibe. It felt nice. Cheri and I decided to go to Bhakti Fest in Palm Springs the following weekend b/c we actually live Bhakti and this is who we are. So, I went.
In the bliss of the realization that I just needed to trust and surrender, I ran into friends from Thailand and India and NYC and parts of CA and my life. All of this through yoga. The bliss again came through yoga. It always has. I met a beautiful man from Mississippi there. I'll go to visit him. He feels good, very good. He lives a life of offering yoga to others in transition, in the pain of our western paradigm. He struggles himself. He's real. He's good. I like him.
After Bhakti Fest, I learned that I didn't get the job in SF. My ego was evicerated. My gut was relieved. I gave thanks again to the universe. I cried and cried and cried. I asked what felt good. Mississippi. That doesn't make sense. Then, again, it does. So, I go there and make no decisions until I experience for myself what it is that feels so nice. As always, I learn from experience. Yoga.
I went to another festival in Yosemite thereafter and saw the trimming culture of leathers and feathers and techno. Not my scene, but again, these people are relaxed and happy in their unconventional ways. I ran into another friend from Thailand. He invited me to join him and his girlfriend in the Tahoe hills for a few months of work. We can continue to do shamanic journeys and yoga. Another way...but, it doesn't feel quite right.
I moved stuff into my mother's place to feel some semblance of a home. I came up to Ukiah to work. Tanya and I are exploring me joining her practice. In working the land, I saw the many layers of existence and the many layers of protection/ignorance that I've laid over my identity. I finally allowed myself to molt the lawyer label and feel connected and grounded in the wonderful person that I am. I can do anything. I don't know what. I don't know where. This is a further discovery. But, I trust. I surrender. I will go further with the flow. The flow resonates sweetly with the man in Mississippi right now. That makes no sense. But, oh well. I'm looking into Costa Rica options since I'll be there in January for a wedding (Tanya and Tristan's!). There are people that know people. My call of yoga has a place there.
What will happen? I don't know. I'll head to Rusty's class today to celebrate with the teacher who taught me 'courage, not fear' so many years ago. Then, I'll head to my ayurvedic kula to celebrate the final day of Navaratri - the 9 day goddess festival. At the height and the low, in the confidence and the quivering, the yoga is always there - a light beacon within me that holds me steady and loving.
The neti-neti (not this, not this) continues. Yet, before I discriminated with fear. Now, I remind myself again and again to discriminate constructively - with courage and gratitude. The flow is here. I'm part of it. I surrender. Jai Ma!