the inner garden blog

valentine's day miami

layers of joy

 

(photo & journal entry from our first trip to wigmore, march 2007)

layer after layer, the joy comes back to the surface

you could say that steve & i are abusing the stuff: the wheatgrass, the joy . . . but who really knows, as joy is in such dire shortage these days . . .

you can overdo anything i suppose.  they do a lot of talking here about cravings, things that drive your life, things you lose your present state of my mind for

i have been meditating like crazy the last few days, one could think that I am overdoing it -- the sitting, the meditation.  i have been working on moving negative thoughts off my heart & lightening it.  i see these negative thoughts like logs, heavy & somewhat compact – something you need effort to move but you can use your body weight behind it and it solidly leaves the mind & body.  you find this negative thought by your emotions.  you can feel the negativity come in.  this is not an intellectual process.  if you are feeling good, joyful, then your intent & desire is vibrationally in sync with your heart.  you feel at peace, you feel warm, you feel love, joy.  you can feel this sensation change, it goes off track, zips up in a cockeyed way, you feel like something sticks in your gut, your back.  it is a vibrational shift.  if you can catch it when it happens, it is pretty easy to replace that thought with something positive & you will know that it is positive because it will feel good.  that's how you know you are in the right place

the theory is that you just have to keep guiding your mind back to the highest levels. That is it, a training.  So when i am triggered -- angry, jealous, etc -- i can replacing those feelings and their feelings of exclusion and abandonment with feelings of inclusion and being held, being safe

and this is where we get back to the greens, the wheatgrass.  as i feel the vibrations of the food & the plants here at wigmore inside of me, i soften.  although high, I expand rather than contract, which is how i feel on other stimulants.  When I take in the wheatgrass & the chlorophyll, i soften & then i like to lay my face on Steve's chest & remember something i have never remembered before

i am smaller now, here eating this raw energy food, & I compact down to a tiny nugget, curling up into a ball in his arms 

i have been imprinting this state as a state of joy

i was sitting in my Sugar, Starches and Caffeine class the other day & another layer of joy surprised me.  it rippled in and up & i felt the lightness in my heart, the feeling of hopefulness i felt in September or just before, in the end of August, when I was preparing for school & buying everything new.  it was the feeling of being gifted with so much blankness 

i could grow into myself.  there was so much space to be me, bright & shiny

i have been swimming almost everyday, a few times a day.  i don't swim in the ocean that much in the North.  i like the way the cold rearranges my molecules but I have to run right out & i don't get to be carried by the waves --  that lifting and placing back down, that lifting & placing back down.  if you catch the wave before the crest you can do this, rise and fall.  this is a layer of joy.  it maybe a new imprint of joy but it reminds me of others: a child's toy I don't remember, something bouncing & it oddly reminds me of Lalita's fingers placing my curls inside the bonnet today in class, before learning how to make the smoothie, how she took her time and pushed each curl in so gently, the light in her eyes holding mine.  that was just this morning.  i have to remember that imprint that love

the ocean tides and the heart, the love on the inside and the outside being the same.  the touch, the joy, the being held, the green -- all the same

the unbearable lightness of being

"As part of your healing, you must see each person you meet now as all of humanity ~ a mandala, with the whole universe residing within them, and they are desperate to open up and equally desperate to keep hiding, to say in pain because it feels safe.  Help them come out.  Help us all to be free . . . At every moment of every day be conscious, make effort to purify and upgrade your thoughts, vibrations, and frequency. Activate the four chambers of your heart, keep practicing that and then please tell us what it means and how we can do the same. 

Any pain, let it go, offer it up to the ocean in the dark hours before sunrise, do this over and over until you can go to the ocean with emptiness and only receive.

The universe wants to open you up completely – like a perfect lover . . . "

~new moon healing, ms propheta west 2/6/2008~

the wheatgrass is beginning to talk to me

i had woken up in the middle of the night & crawled out to juice some grass .  . . i did an implant at 2 in the morning and promptly fell back to sleep . .

i fell into that twitchy thick tremble of green that lays over sleep & i was instructed by the grass itself, through my slumber, to slow down

i had a dream of what clarity could be like

in that clarity, the grass said stop (again)

the grass said i was angry underneath & that anger made me always want more

that all this hurtling through my life had an annihilatory effect, like mowing down

but it didn't say stop with so many words

it was more like a wave

it was more cathartic, more somatic

the wind was blowing through the grass, in sheets, pressing, spreading

instead of growing up, vertically

the grass was pressing it's body closer to the earth

making love, pressing every square inch closer to each other

& somehow this pressing and expanding was connected to my breath

when my breath was deep & low the grass was pressed close to the earth

rich

when my breath was agitated the grass was growing high into the sun, getting leggy, losing chlorophyll

love

at the roots white, reaching

the grass was teaching me how to slow my breath (& through that everything else) and this was creating a horizontal effect that brought peace

it was a flat line, something that i would have related to death in the past

somehow the grass was teaching me how to turn down the volume so i could communicate with everything



i realized in my writing class the other night that it was my resistance to the real cellular message of the green light inside me that was making me cranky

the light right before my fingertips was just so bright

my proximity to all I desired was way too close

as indicated in the previous posts, i had begun to abuse the light, utilizing it, instead of closer connection to the divine, as a method to relieve my symptoms of discomfort, to get away from myself

be generous & gentle with yourself

this was compulsive & a true detour from what my cells really wanted me to do

liberation

why is it so hard

even my gratitude was utilized like a drug to save myself from sadness

i was holding on while I swore i was letting go

& i was cranky because my inner fingers were exhausted from gripping

. .

i wanna rock & roll all night . . .

january 21, 2008

on the Ann Wigmore website it is not spelled out what the detox process refers to.  there are photographs of living foods: energy soup, fruits and salads and there are pictures of people doing yoga on the beach and there are many references to cleansing but it is all rather mysterious . . .

on the first day of a two week program, in E & I (enemas & implants) class, Lalita has this wacky grandma buddha smile on her face like she's secretly hiding a big plate of chocolate chip cookies that she baked you herself.  . to really get the picture, you need to imagine her size (tiny) and her virtually unintelligible Argentine accent, or rather, clearly intelligible only through her huge lit up crystalline blue eyes. she holds up the various pieces of equipment for your new procedure: enema bag, castor oil, infant enema bulb, catheter and claps her hands in excitement

as you can imagine, you can hear a pin drop

this is the first day . .

everybody is nervous the first time

they do offer colonics at Wigmore, approximately 15 gallons of warm water maneuvered in and out of your colon via your anus by use of a gravity based system by the lovely and magical Eranna.  they are outside of the curriculum, optional (though highly recommended) and are for an additional fee.  some people have colonics every day while they are there, rapidly eliminating congestion & toxins from their colon.   this is no joke.  although extreme, you can completely change your health & radically change your appearance this way. John Wayne is famous for many things, and one of them was this outrageous fact discovered in his autopsy: 45 pounds of compacted shit was stored in his colon, we are talking months and months of meal, undigested and un-eliminated . . . Elvis was rumoured to have somewhere around 60 lbs rummaging around underneath that white jumpsuit  . .

i know this all is sounding far from erotic but bear with me . .

most people here have 3-4 colonics during their two week stay but in the meantime, in order to get the maximum prescription of wheatgrass oz. into your system, you gotta clean yourself out daily.  it is not a complicated process but it takes patience and, let's say, an open and inquisitive mind

now Lalita is laying on the floor, resting on her left side.  she has her knees bent and she is lifting her top leg hydrant style.  she usually has a volunteer standing next to her, holding the enema bag.  from the floor she cajoles the class to "rub your anus, massage your anus with a little oil, say "hello anus, don't worry, I am friendly . . . " and then to sneakily slide the catheter in with your friendly finger right alongside it

the method to this madness is to get everything super clean so you can thoroughly enjoy your wheatgrass, to the max.  the idea is that if you are clean inside, then after you insert the wheatgrass (through your now relaxed anus) you will be able to hold the 6 or 8 ounces of wheatgrass inside you for 15-20 min

& that your body will absorb it rapidly

as you can imagine there is a lot of fuss & candle lighting & essential oil annointing that goes on in the  love artist preparation of the enema area.  i am so lucky to have a room designated especially for enemas & implants in the little beach shack & have already had a few very special wheatgrass parties 

i personally like to stand on my head after an implant, which is really fun to do with a friend.  i  remember in the first pages of Permanent Midnight, when Jerry Stahl hooks up with this german chick & before she will have sex with him, she pushes a chunk of raw heroin in his butt & then they stand on their heads together in a hotel room

though not quite as mindblowing, & so so much better for you, the buzz from the wheatgrass is a powerful jolt and the longer you can hold it, the further this alchemical alteration will spread throughout the body

i usually stay on the floor for a bit first and make myself say a few prayers to stay in the moment, then I stand on my head for 5 or 10 minutes

that's about as long as I can muster, but it is enough

by the time my feet touch the ground, i am sinking deep into the crevices 

& this sinking within becomes more and more and more pleasurable as the days pass here, as the crevices become more lovely & more fertile

i feel deliciously weighted as the wheatgrass seeps into my system . . . my arms move through the air as if through liquid, the surfaces of my body where the weight means resistance ~ i.e. my back if i am lying down, or my feet if I am walking ~ become pourous vessels of love or more like tongues, actually, making love to the surfaces they rest on or tread, simultaneously absorbing them & nourishing them, inside & out

& this absorbing & nourishing transfusion of pure energy works in & out & between people too, pure love seeping out of your pores & into another

this effect is only fleeting, unfortunately, as most of these kinds of sensations are . .  as Lalita reminded me yesterday:

what is important is not what it feels like going in but what it is doing for you, inside you

tell that to my feet

they are in love

with everything

love, wheatgrass & magick

january 20, 2008

enough about heartbreak, let's talk about wheatgrass

this is where i have disappeared to in the last days: lit up, bright & shiny, lost (or found) in the moment like through the looking glass

& it is the chlorophyll that took me there

wheat is a much abused, adored and, like much of our food, a maligned substance.  the more i am learning about raw living foods, which is a huge subject and one just hinted to here and one to be explored further and further, what it is truly and what it means to me, but the more i live it and learn, the more i realize that it really about alchemy and really about magic, love magic . . .

first of all the love is in the plants

the love is in the growing

& by growing i mean the seed and the planting & the love it takes to do the work to grow the food

but i also mean the love is the actual growing . . what is in the seed that causes it to push it's way open into the world

everyday i wake up way before dawn, ridiculously way before dawn. i am so excited.  by just getting up and lighting the candles in my little beach shack and listening to the pound, pound, pound of the surf and padding over to the wheatgrass pavilion in my nightgown, i am making love to myself & i am deliriously happy. . . .delirious, really

close your eyes. nothing is moving. the roosters are crowing. the stars are still out, in multitudes

i reach into the student fridge to see what is still cut from the night before and if i am lucky it is empty.  then i get to go right into the greenhouse church for the grass

the trays are on the table. everything is green and silent.  the smell of the grass is 100 times more potent but just as narcotic as a fresh mown lawn.  i just want to lay down and kiss their feet, the wheatgrass cutters . .

& let me remind you that I am a coffee girl, with major ancestry . .

i can't say it enough, the love is in the grass

i get a couple of handfuls and go to the juicer.  you cannot push the grass.  it must be drawn through the blades.  you are extracting the love.  it takes it's own time.

i know the love is in the plants because i see and feel the transformation in myself and others on a daily basis.  it is palpable, visible.  one day afraid.  the next day, the face is open and the eyes are bright and there is the possibility for trust

these are not the enlightened here, or the highly evolved . . well maybe we are now, after two weeks of wheatgrass, but what i am saying is that even the most resistant, most hesitant pilgrim here at wigmore softens radidly once the green takes hold

there is no meditative process that i have experienced that delivers this kind of rapid result

& it is not narcotic nor hallucinogen, it is just food  . . .