Friday, May 7, 2010

The Dissolving of the Kingdom and Entering the Gates of Heaven

It’s time. The Queen is ready to go. She has surrendered and let go of everything. She has let go of fear and negativity. She has a strong court she cares dearly about that surrounds her and supports her. There is the mermaid, with horns of a goat and the tail of a fish to guide her on her journey.

And now that the outer world and the kingdom walls are falling away, she has more confidence in herself than ever. So much confidence, that she now radiates with gold. Her gold is heavy in her body and grounds her with its golden glow. She feels it in her body, in her breath. All the terrible and crushing trials of time past have given her the strength, the courage, the wisdom and the persistence to bring her to this moment. Because the visions as the High Priestess and the love and encouragement of the King have shown her the way and cemented her in her certainty.

The outside world is waiting, as the winds of change have come, and its time for her to come out of the darkness and shine. It’s a new era. The Queen passes dissolves the walls of the Kingdom, walks through the High Priestess’s gates of heaven and is reborn in the World.

The Queen of Bohemia is simplifying her life and getting ready to travel with the kids and Storytime Yoga abroad.

This summer is going to rock. I’m selling most of my possessions, storing the rest, sending the kids to Texas for two months to be with their late father’s family, then by August taking the kids abroad on a nomadic tour to some places around the world with Storytime Yoga.

I’m heading for Buenos Aires June 2-18, then have the fantastic annual Mythic Yoga the Story in the Body retreat here in Boulder. Then I'm working on the East Coast with the niños at the Kripalu Kids Camp July 9-18 and I’m at the Omega Institute for the Storytime Yoga Children’s Yoga Teacher and Yoga Play Therapy training July 25-30. By August I may be in Mexico City with the kids for a training I’ve been invited to do, but afterwards I’m planning to stay several months in Buenos Aires, so that we can bring our little black-and-white duality dog, the most Honorable Sergeant Pepe (Prince Pepe don't forget he was promoted). Esme the cat will stay with Opa. From there I imagine I'll come back for a little while. I’m not sure, or perhaps to Lima where I have been invited to train and of course it is my life’s dream to serve and teach the little children of Latin America and take my children abroad to learn and be a yoga family and speak Spanish and oh, my! I can’t wait! I have surrendered and have no expectations, only to be present and joyful.

I would go stark raving mad if I were around my kids 24-7 because as a widow they are around constantly,and that's the hardest part. So I will have some local help, but I’ll be schooling them with a public online school. I’ll be creating yoga home school curriculum for my kids as family yoga with stories, yoga philosophy, peace and character education, writing, reading and oral projects, asana, local geography local cooking and culture, children’s ayurveda and service. Whew! Do I love learning and teaching and yoga or what? We’ll see which ones we get done or how it all ultimately turns out. I surrender and most of all refuse to feel pressure, for I want to go back to that space before the wounding. Before my husband’s suicide, when I was a stay-at-home mother, who cooked carmel-corn from scratch and had a gorgeous raspberry patch, sewed her children’s clothing and taught them at home and told them stories and practiced yoga.

I’ll be blogging about it with You Tube. My Storytime Yoga blog, The Householder Yogini, will cover my Storytime Yoga Children’s Mission, as well as the Queen of Bohemia Cleans her Own House with Mythic Yoga, using yoga, meditation, journaling and mythology for adults to work with life’s challenges for a peaceful, present and powerful life. All this and Storytime Yoga lesson plans of the above are all available when you subscribe to the League of Yogic Storytellers. Certified Storytime yoga teachers are also keeping their own blogs about how they use story and yoga in their lives, families and communities.

Many of my friends ask, “Why on earth are you doing this?” There are many reasons. First, I’ve been expecting the meltdown of the world economy for a while now, my father has been prophesying it since I was a kid, and everybody thought he was nuts, but he did survive Ambarawa 7 and everything he’s told me has been very accurate. The only real difference is that he says we are all going into the fifth dimension and the UFOs are getting ready to reveal themselves but the evil empire keeps holding on with one last gasp and disclosure is thwarted every date that is predicted for this event and I’m never sure about that even though I wish it were true to save us all and Star Trek and Buck Rogers worlds really do exist and are not just my fantasies.

I think the US is going to be a dangerous place, more than Argentina, which was one of the IMF’s first victims and has already been through an economic collapse. The King and I have been researching it for a while now, and Buenos Aires is my kind of town - more psychotherapists per capita than any other place in the world. They love old book stores and opera and naturally the soul of the tango speaks volumes.

I believe that with all the terror threats and our heinous war on Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan there will be strikes in the US. Redneck militia are already coming out of the woods previewing a civil war and there will be more nut jobs crashing into IRS buildings and scapegoating immigrants and Muslims as citizens acquiesce to loss of Constitutional freedoms at a rapid clip with state sponsored terror and propaganda and spiral into fear and chaos and sociel disorder. Greece will look like a TV show compared to what's coming in the Greatest Depression. What’s happening in Arizona is downright nefarious and it all looks like Germany 1933 to me, as we fuel narco war in Mexico with our US arms sales over Arizona’s borders. I’ve seen it all before because of all my father’s concentration camp stories. And just watch Adrian Brodie in The Pianist. It’s heinous. This stuff happens. Americans couldn’t believe it can ever come here. My eighth grade social study teachers in 1980 didn't know what I was talking about when my mother insisted I tell my teachers that my father is a child survivor of a Japanese concentration camp during World War II. But it does happen. I know. Lives change horribly and forever when one day soldiers are knocking at your door and telling you to pack only essentials before hauling you and your little children off to a concentration camp to starve and be tortured and they murder your husband in a forced-labor, Mitzubishi tin mine outside of Tokyo. It lives on for generations. And I have children to protect.

But not to fear, my time is here. It has all fallen into place. Time to get into action and go out on a mission. I’ve never felt so confident and clear of vision and purpose. I envision myself as the Queen of Gold, as I believe gold has been suppressed like Cinderella in the dungeon for a long time, while the ugly step-sister dollar charades around as the real value. But she’s really what’s valuable. And gold and silver will be re-monetized as the economy can’t hold up as the evil empire can’t hold up the debt charade any longer and has lost its grip so our gold comes back center stage. Out the Queen comes! And she shines! I am that Golden Queen.

Another reason I’m going is that when I was a stringer for the Bakersfield Californian newspaper back in 1996, I used to volunteer for religion reporting. I reported on Cuban ministers who described life under Castro, Greek Orthodox priests and the history of the Church, Hispanic Pentecostal revivals on Delano’s skid row, and old ladies who ran Bible classes for retarded adults.

I also did a story on a Mexican priest who was traveling around California and Mexico with the tilma of Juan Diego, who was visited by the Virgin Mary on the hill of Tepeyec, (which was built on top of the obliterated shrine of the indigenous earth goddess Tenotzin.) She appeared to him and told him to build a church on the hill, and sent her image emblazed on his cloak with a whole lot of live roses in the middle of winter as proof to the priests who would not believe the indigenous peasant.

After the telling of the story, the Father asked if I wanted to be blessed with the tilma. I said, "Yes," and he draped it over me and said his prayers. I prayed to the goddess, “Oh, may I be of service to these people.” I have always loved the poor people, especially the indigenous and children. How close they are to nature and spirit still, their folk customs and rich lives, yet oppressed and persecuted with great injustices.

I always loved languages and I married a handsome Tex-Mex trying to make it in a white-man’s world and gave birth Hispanic children. (He said I was Hispanic by injection.) I had spent three months in Ecuador in 1994, and befriended a little girl. I had promised to bring her to the US, as she had been abandoned by her mother and was living with her aunt in a potato chip factory that employed retarded children to package chips in the northern border town of Tulcan, Ecuador. Her name was Carmen, and I spent a lot of time with her and other children doing things together because I hate to see little children suffering. It’s an abomination really that it is allowed at all.

But when I returned to the states, I got busy, working in journalism, making plans to get married. Later I found out that Carmen had committed suicide by eating rat poison. She was only 12 or so, or maybe even 10. I can’t remember. But my remorse and shame was so great. I have always felt the desire to serve children to redeem myself of failing to keep my promise to Carmen. And to be guided by the mother to care for those children who suffer. If we can help them to ease their suffering and educate them for health and literacy with the tools of yoga and story I think the world will be a better place. And we should end war in the name of children, for how my father suffered and how it is an abomination and must be stopped.

Another reason is that I have a minor in Spanish. I love speaking Spanish; I love language. My latest book is the Spanish version of Storytime Yoga Teaching Yoga to Children Through Story – Yoga Con Cuentos – Como Enseñar Yoga a los Niños Mediante el Uso de Cuentos. Published by The Mythic Yoga Studio, LLC. (I finally got an LLC, seven years after starting the biz.) I love traveling and cultures and have been envisioning this since at least 1991. So there is destiny involved with vision. And I want my children to have that experience abroad, outside of the Geography of Nowhere America and suburbia and mythless society trapped in consumption that strangles my lonely soul. I crave a plaza filled with people, art and life. To be in rhythm and connection with nature and the mystery. To rediscover Christianity as well as pagan, indigenous roots and live in community (I will be visiting an eco-yoga farm in Argentina.) I’ll study with my kids the Bhagavad Gita and Yoga Sutras and connect them to their Judeo-Christian roots, while understanding our Muslim, and other religions and applying Buddhist meditation and philosophy. I will not regret leaving the dry, cold, windy, brown Colorado climate I have tried so many times to leave and all its sorrow, but I will also return a lot because there are so many people that I love who still live there.

So I will be on the Storytime Yoga Children’s Mission. Wherever I find some place. I hope you donate to the Mission and support me! As I am sustained by the grace of Lord Shiva. And it is an act of faith and deep love for children and the divine.

I am getting ready to move. The Queen of Bohemia is really cleaning her own house, because I am letting go of so much. Letting go of all the antique collections, artwork and yoga knick-knacks. Selling the Prius (La Gata Negra) so I don’t have to participate in hideous oil dependency that is killing our planet in the Gulf of Mexico as I write this . I am getting rid of about two-thirds of my possessions, but keeping the books and pictures, a few sentimental objects and the yoga props and educational materials. As that is my focus. And it has become so much ever clearer.

I have discovered that the more you let go of your possessions, the less anxiety you feel. You simply stand in the present moment, free of the distracting pull of objects and attachments. To have a simple life and release from the shackles of complexity our culture requires. All you have is your body, and the sensations of the present experience. I’m not sure how I will live without my I-Phone, but I’m hoping to get an I-Pad for educational purposes to fill that gap.

It was terrifying at first. To uproot myself, stir the pot. Oh, the cycle again! Here I go again, creating chaos! I begin to second-guess myself. But I feel pulled always, toward my destiny. The invisible hands massage the heart forward. So I’ve been gentle on myself. Sitting meditation every morning to stay peaceful. Packing it up slowly. I was pissed at Gilbert for putting pressure on me to show this house I’m vacating, for he popped up with little notice of showings while I was in the midst of packing and culling and complained of my artistic temperament and decor. It’s bare bones now, and hope to move a lot this weekend to get ready for the garage sale.

Today I went to get so many art objects and antiques stored at my father’s house to sell at the sale. It was as if I symbolically were finally getting out of my father’s house. I spent the day with him today to get the stuff and also to drive him to oral surgery for a wisdom tooth, since he is 77. It took longer than usual because they couldn’t numb him because he takes so many heavy medications for headache and back pain that he’s tolerant and it took a while to desensitize it.

I will no longer be a part of that filthy house, the desperate trap of despair. I am outside of the house. I am outside of the concentration camp. I am not a prisoner. I am free. I shine for myself, not to care for somebody else and support their dreams rather than mine, which I have done all my life. All this stuff and weight of the past are ready to sell at the big garage sale Friday May 21 and Saturday May 22, 9-4. Many neighbors are having a sale too with me! It will be quite a cleaning, physical and psychic.

Things I will be selling:

Edward S. Curtis original completion prints (5) Gorgeous, turn of the century Native American photographs, but I need the money for a new shopping cart on my website.
Taos pottery and other original artwork, prints from black tie silent auctions I attended with my late husband.
Sydney Solis original artwork. Rare and very valuable.
Antique doll, book, magazine, camera and salt-and-pepper collections. (Keeping the pin, magnet and weaving collections. My Oma started me collecting as a child: rocks, shells, coins.)
A jungle full of plants of assorted sizes. To loving homes only.
My son’s air gun collection (I told him the Xbox and Halo stay in the US)
A bunch of assorted antique bronze yoga knick-knacks, Buddha statues, etc.
A ton of books, art books, literature, poetry, travel, and some library discards given to me by my librarian sister.
Zillions of picture frames.
I never want to spend another winter in Colorado so out go all the winter clothes except the Ann Taylor long black coat, the Saks Fifth avenue wool wrap my late husband bought me on our wedding and the Sorrels for when I do come back and visit periodically and walk in the fresh snow and try snowshoeing or by chance need them because I’m caught in a the cold or blizzard.
Girl’s 4-piece bedroom set of fine wood, although my daughter destroyed it with pens and paint and her one-time step-sister burned holes in it in envy, but we spray painted over it and it looks great.
My son’s bunk bed and desk.
Cute rare pink color Buddy 50 scooter with low miles. Includes basket and helmet.
2005 Black Prius 74k miles
Hammer Dulcimer (Gave up lessons shortly after its impulse purchase while vacationing in Manitou Springs with the kids.)
Kitchen stuff
Kitchen table and four chairs
Lots of CDs (I-tunes is great!)
Shelving, nice chair, kids skiis and bikes, helmets
Clothes. (Gave the vintage dress collection to my Hare Krishna niece.)
Horrifying thought. I have a bunch of stuff at my Arvada house. I will have to contact the tenants to get it out and get rid of it. I was there recently and got my late husband’s collection out, but there is much more stuff, like a 1950s module stereo. It’s really cool!
God, so much crap to get rid of! How to list it all! Just show up! It’s all going! The scary thing is that this is my third garage sale of getting rid of stuff in the past 7 years. I remember my mother, always shuffling around piles of crap from one end of the house to the next in our messy house, throwing things down the basement steps and bringing other things up again. Buying crap from garage sales and getting rid of things in her blue Subaru, most of which remained in the blue Subaru.

I’m also going to have a party, and you are invited, so stay tuned for details when I confirm the date.

Finally, I cannot tell you the weight of a ball and chain that is removed from my heart. I drove to Denver Wednesday and handed the keys, leases headache EVERYTHING over to a property management company for Speer and Arvada because I decided I cannot depend on Gilbert and I need dependable people who don't piss me off. Two upstanding young men will deal with the late night calls, the undependable handymen who don't bring back toilet seats, the deposit of rent checks and the utility billing and collecting the laundry money. They can learn some Spanish and instruct Miguel, Sr. on the exterior painting that I had him get started. I wrote four new leases this month and had Gilbert fill the 2-bedroom. One girl is getting married so that's why they are leaving. I tried raising the rent on the nursing student in the one-bedroom but she flipped out, started crying, and I felt bad and gave the increase to her as a scholarship. She was very grateful. Thank God I don’t have to be pulled in that direction any more. I saved myself from certain death by exhaustion and dread. By clearing my plate of financial management (gave it to my bookkeeper) and running my business (gave it to my assistant, she rocks,) dealing with ex-husband crap (I gave it to my lawyer who filed garnishment of wages and until he files bankruptcy, like he keeps flapping his lips about there is nothing I can do except hold onto the piece of paper judgment that says he owes me $30k at 8 percent interest.) I have plugged the drains of energy. It’s a wash financially, but I was never a capitalist. It’s all dealt with now and I get to live my bliss, the most important thing. Maybe US real estate will tank even more. I got my Arvada property assessment notice, and the value is unchanged. Speer was underwater last year and I haven’t received this year’s value, Speer’s in a hot area so maybe it will improve. But I can’t worry about that. And considering the meltdown, I think it’s pretty much time to surrender and never think about it and leave it to the pros and the combinations of planets at certain times.

So this may be one of the last times I have a free blog, as my assistant insists I give away my best stuff for free, and she wants to make money because after all, this is a capitalistic society we live in, (heavy sigh) and that’s fine as long as children are not suffering and it doesn’t appear to be working right now and that’s why we need to do something about it. (something tells me that on Monday everything is going to change with economic collapse and all these plans could very well change. Such is the lesson of non-attachment.)

OK. That’s enough for now. I'm going to do some yoga and focus on creating a stable pelvis and my uddiyaya banda. It’s a Friday, and the Queen is going to start moving stuff to the storage unit tomorrow and is getting ready for Mother’s Day weekend. Because we honor the mother, that divine energy that is bringing balance back to the earth, putting the heart into the machine, and awakening the kingdom of heaven right here in this moment in this body on this gorgeous, incredible experience of being and love. And I will rejoice in the love that I feel for my children and being their mother. Hallelujah, says the Queen. Amen.

3 comments:

  1. I could never not remember you, but I'll be there to claim my Sydney Solis art, something tangible to look at and remember our all-too-brief time together this past year.

    Good for you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for this searing, i like yoga and yoga classless, because yoga is a wonderful think with regard to healthy lifestyle, Your class wound up being taught with a windy morning.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks for this searing, i like yoga and yoga classless, because yoga is a wonderful think with regard to healthy lifestyle, Your class wound up being taught with a windy morning.

    ReplyDelete