i am grateful for…
1) last night’s screening of “one track heart: the krishna das documentary” at lincoln center. j. and i were unsure where to pick up tickets, then we saw a man who looked like the right demographic heading to a building with purpose. “yes, we should follow those trousers,” said j., pointing to the baggy, hemp-y looking pants on the guy. and as we neared, “we can also follow the smell of patchouli.” indeed, if you smell patchouli near lincoln center, something yogic is afoot.
2) how KD says in the film he was finally, through the grace of his passed guru, able to get out of his own way. dissolve the barriers–his ego and knots around success and its spoils–from truly playing the music of his heart. he realized, in a vast sense of peace, that he’s a wave in the ocean, or just the water itself. a wave rises and crests, and “that is a life,” he says. it’s all temporary, it’s all passing, so what’s there to get bunched about? a beautiful, hard-earned revelation about humility in the face adulation; the ego that trips us up and out with its grasping needs and confining beliefs; and actually experiencing the temporal and infinite all in one reality-expanding sweep. sweet.
3) the moment in the film where KD and nina play for a famous guitar player who is now immobile from ALS. you can see the joy on the man’s face, and the poignant care his mother has dressed him with, and it just hit me so strong: this is all so precious. these bodies that function. the freedom of movement. health, feeling good. being here at all. it’s all so crazy-precious and i wish i could remember this more. i wish i could remember this in each breath. and i am grateful for the incredibly poignant reminder. the still face blinking with radiance of remembering the heart.
4) in the Q&A after with jeremy frindel (the filmmaker), david nichtern, KD, and sharon salzberg, i could feel my hand getting twitchy to raise. but i had no question. until the end neared, and i could feel the familiar heart-hammer that comes in quaker meeting, that moment when you know you must speak. when it’s not an ego thing (entirely), but a heart-bursting thing. so i raised my hand, even though my question had nothing to do with filmmaking, but rather wanting to ask my heart’s question to the brilliant, tough, real spiritual teachers sitting 10 feet away. my question was about opening my heart and i figured, yeah, it’s off-topic, but i’m pretty sure there’s at least one other person in this room of 200 who might have the same question. so, i asked: “the music gets me to feel the tender part of my heart. how else can i do that? how else can i keep the guck away and the tender part open?”
sharon, awesomely, called out my wording. “i’m often struck by how students use words. there’s no ‘keeping’ anything ‘away.’ there’s renewing, revisiting, coming back to that place,” she said. and, she said, as maharaji said, “serve others.” yes. i love that. return. return. return. give. give. give.
5) the woman next to me who asked right after, “do you meditate?” HA! because of course, that is the closest thing to an it that’s it, that “keeps” my heart reasonably clear and open. why oh why then, do i “keep” neglecting to do it?
6) getting to say hi to KD when we walked in and getting a bristly cheek to kiss and familiar eyes to say hi in. both he and sharon were so present, so very right there in my brief interactions. felt like home.
7) afterward, eating yummy indian food and having almost no desire to stop at lululemon. being filled with love and grace and spirit–and channa masala.
8) mango lassi. mmm.
9) that things are building for our luminous love wand campaign. fears and doubts arising, but hope and enthusiasm surging too. good. and such good partner work–b. and i taking turns doubting and believing and supporting each other through each.
10) emailing my entire j-school listerv about the wands. yes, hi, all my colleagues who work at respectable news orgs: i’m selling a spiritual sex toy. some snark back, but a couple sweet emails of support. this is what putting oneself out there feels like: terrifying and exhilarating: “this is who i am. this is how i be.” so far, so good.
11) oh–and being in the film! spotting myself dancing in ecstacy in a green shirt (anahata chakra, baby!) to a KD kirtan at kripalu I didn’t know was being filmed, from a couple years ago. i look actually lost in the music. and it makes me remember that it’s that room where i first experienced kirtan 20 years ago, when gurudev brought in a buddy from india and we all grooved and bopped and wriggled to the sitar and harmonium and tabla and i felt wild and wow and like, this it IT. this is home. this and silence. and i cried and cried (because that’s what kirtan often does, unleashes the boundness in my heart) and everyone was all in white and a sister devotee turned to me, gazed in my eyes and said, “you are so deep.” and it terrified me–because it felt true and not true and just like maybe something you say at an ashram kirtan where everyone is convulsing with shakti. it stuck, though, and i’m still not sure what to do with it.
12) so many people being drawn to the name. it is significant, i think, how our longing is magnetized, met.
13) this poem, which KD read to close the night:
Love Dogs
A Poem by Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks
One night a man was crying Allah! Allah!
His lips grew sweet with praising,
until a cynic said, “So!
I’ve heard you calling out, but have you ever
gotten any response?”
The man had no answer to that.
He quit praying and fell into a confused sleep.
He dreamed he saw Khidr, the guide of souls,
in a thick, green foliage.
“Why did you stop praising?” “Because
I’ve never heard anything back.”
“This longing you express
is the return message.”
The grief you cry out from
draws you toward union.
Your pure sadness
that wants help
is the secret cup.
Listen to the moan of a dog for its master.
That whining is the connection.
There are love dogs
no one knows the names of.
Give your life
to be one of them.
