Part Twenty-Nine

Chilling, Thrilling Exhilarations!

Joan Ann Lansberry

February 14, 1998

LET THE LIGHT Oh give me windows, large breathing wide. Let me see sky, the eye of God; And let the light, the bright, the holy light illuminate all behind window and wall. JAL, 1979 or 1980?

(I've been digging up old treasures.)

Thoughts for Valentine's Day

Somebody loves me,
Somebody loves me;
I don't have to pull the
petals
off of flowers!
Somebody loves me!

JAL, Feb 18, 1987

(Laura and I had just discovered each other. I thought this poem a good transition, because both the earlier section and it are emphasizing DIRECT EXPERIENCE...Little did I know what sort of DIRECT EXPERIENCE I was soon in for. Read on.)

 

Meditations "The best way to take care of the future is to take care of the present moment...everything that is wonderful must be touched in the present moment." --Thich Nhat Hanh "Our capacity to love is an unstoppable essence that when nurtured can expand without limit." --Pema Chodron, March 1998 Shambhala Sun

February 15, 1998

Kundalini in the Supermarket

Walking into the Albertson's store, the words of Pema Chodron I have just recently read are simmering within me. "The capacity to love has no limits..." The music over the loud speakers must be a valentine's treat, for they have imported concert hall speakers. It hits me like a wave of eddies and currents. "I can fly high as an eagle...", the woman is intoning.

This mixes with the brew just fine. I can fly. I can fly high without limits. I can fly, fueled by the power of UNLIMITED LOVE. I can fly... This love wells up within me. A great wave of happiness washes over me. I have come to this ocean's edge before, certain that nothing greater could lie before me in the horizon. Surely I would sink downwards in love-happiness, death coming in a flame of glory. A flame soon consumed by eternity.

But perhaps not... Maybe I don't have to worry about that. Love is unlimited. My heart can just expand and expand.

"THERE'S NO END TO THIS!"

I burst into orgasmic brilliant joy. I have never felt so illuminated. Midway through a mundane supermarket, I am distantly aware of corporeal reality. Me in the long brown skirt and sweater, floating down the aisle, ...how am I perceived by others? Is this rapturous glow visible? They are all unaware. I must pilot this flight slowly down to earth, or I incinerate. I breathe, floating to a gentle landing by the time I reach the other end of the store. Bottles of expensive draught are stacked in neat rows. Liquid libations to raise spirits. I do not need these. I breath deeply once more. Plane is securely landed, pilot still somewhat stunned.

Later thoughts on this. . .

When I experienced this yesterday, I didn't know what it was. I thought it was just hyperemotional me being extrasensitive. So I filed away the transcendent emotional experience to memory. It was by reading one of the books we got earlier yesterday at the Barnes and Noble that I discovered it was Kundalini, a treasured and sought after mystical experience. A T Mann and Jane Lyle in Sacred Sexuality describe it thusly:

Kundalini is simultaneously a spiritual force and a sexual force latent within every human, which sleeps at the base of the spine, where it remains as a potent energy. When activated through meditation or aroused by sexual activity, it rises up the spine until it approaches or reaches the crown chakra, at which point the yogi or sexual initiate will experience samadhi or bliss. When kundalini is understood and its potency properly channeled, it is a powerful force for spirituality...

It's nice to know it has a name, other than "mental orgasm"!

February 18, 1998, 1:15am

I awake from a dream I have had. Visions of goggled aviators preparing for flight, their airplanes made maximum light for maximum height. The pilot and co-pilot's grim determination to focus on perfection of mission. They must have such perfect vision. The background of blue clouded sky awaits them. Their mighty deeds are caught on film, for they are Olympic flyers. What winning team flew where and how far? Did one couple have an unusually personal story? I am searching for notes I took for a journal entry about the Olympics and flying. Where did I hide those personal notes?

Details are lost in the awakening transfer.

February 19, 1998

"Remember your growing time? When all you knew of life was new and it seemed a divine call bade you spread your wondrous epiphanies to one and all. Oh yes, for surely you and only you in all the world, in all of history, had ever felt these feelings, thought these thoughts, discovered these delights..."

So Laura asks us to call into view our memories of youth in her article Sorcereress Supreme, title now changed to The White Goddess: A Paramythic Mythtery.

" 'Who, then, am I?' your spirit cried. 'What are these images, passions, cravings, melancholies, threatening to drive me mad? Am I myself, or made from pieces of my past and from the world wherein I live? Who am I? My Father's son? My Mother's daughter? Apprentice to heroes past and present, ancestors renown, simple clay molded by forces other than my own? Who, indeed, am I?'... "

Still young at heart, these passions surge through me yet. Perhaps the vintage of the brew has only deepened the richness of the flavor. And even thinking now, that my experiences are unique. Strange mortals, we.

February 20, 1998

Michelle Kwan captivated the audience during her short program.
photo from CBS sportsline.com

Tara Lipinski, an American teen only fifteen years old has won the gold. Her exuberance at winning was explosive. "Lipinski jumped up and down, stomped her feet in the kiss-and-cry area and shrieked with joy when she saw that marks that put her ahead of Kwan." The ecstatic enthusiasm was enhanced by her youth. Michelle Kwan, also from the US, had been expected to take first place. After all, she is the more mature skater, at all of seventeen. Michelle did skate very well, and had beat her in the U.S championships only last month. Lipinski "... had to scramble just to make the Olympic team." Yet Michelle had to content herself with silver and second place for:

There was no scrambling this time. Just spotless jump after spotless jump - seven triples, five in combination, including her trademark triple loop-triple loop and a wonderful triple toe loop-half loop-triple salchow that was the finishing touch of gold."(from CBS sportsline.com article)

Tara even amazed herself. " 'I can't believe it,' she exclaimed, hugging her coaches." But her four minutes of sheer perfection was real.

My heart speeds along on thin blade, as these skaters amaze with the power to perform such breathtaking feats. Those brief minutes of their flight across the ice leave me exhilarated. Their passion lifts me up and I soar, too, with these free birds.