FREEDOM, It's an inside job

3rd Chakra-Solar Plexus:Color Yellow -Governs will, power, accomplishments, ego, control and freedom.

Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree

Tony Orlando and Dawn - 1973

I'm coming home. I've done my time.
Now I've got to know what is and isn't mine.
If you received my letter telling
you I'd soon be free,
Then you'll know just what to do
if you still want me,...

Where were you in 1973? Hm... I was a very young girl. Long dark hair - like an Indian Maiden, eyes the color of Hershey kisses, the legs of a colt and lawd what an innocent naive child I was! On Saturday mornings my cousin and I would don whatever outfits we could conjure up. Take needle and thread attach it to the end of a wad of tinfoil (fashioning a pretend microphone, one for each of us) and sing our hearts out out as the record players spun 45's. (vinyl records. Our favorite show tune was, "Tie a Yellow Ribbon", but we had a very impressive repertoire. What a rich memory!!! ...more to ponder on another day!

I say I was innocent and naive because I didn't have a grasp on what prison was. The song "Tie a Yellow"...lyrics said the guy was gettin out of prison and coming home. All I knew about prison was you went there for breaking the law. A place with stone walls and iron bars, that mostly contained men -or so it was - "back in the day"! The neighborhood I grew up in backed up to the "prison yard" Spaulding County Prison. The building looked spacious and the yard was several acres of nicely mowed grass, all was surrounded by a really high fences topped with spiraling jagged pieces of wire (concertina wire, but I didn't know that word then!). The prisoners were nice when they spoke to me through the fence. I wasn't afraid of them or anything - to naive I reckon. Of course, the guards would chase me off and scold them something fierce! Moma would'a gotten really mad at me had she known - especially, known that even when I wasn't sittin by the fence witnessen to 'em I was playing pretend at the creek, pretending that one of the prisoners had escaped and lived in the drainage ditch that ran underneath our neighborhood. Yea, I said witnessen! I thought it was my mission to share God's love with them poor fellas - God didn't not love them for breaken the law, it just broke God's heart, same as their Moma's! I still haven't gotten to the purpose of my blog though, have I? One more thing before I get there, a quote!


..."Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage;"
To Althea, From Prison
By Richard Lovelace

This morning in my meditation, the Bodhi Tree had a yellow ribbon on it. And yep, that old song came rolling into my conscious mind. I wasn't sure what it meant at the time. I just hollered for Lagan, my faithful spirit guide, and "magically" he appeared. As I asked questions - I got distracted, which by the way, is usual for me- my mind wandered to references of the color yellow. It's only natural for me to use Eastern thought when meditating - since that's where the practice began, so my reference was the Solar Plekus Chakra, it's your third Chakra. (keep up now, ROYGBIV - you know, the colors of the rainbow - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet!, and yes, they correspond to your chakras!) The solar plexus chakra is yellow. Hmm... Now had I seen something like a yellow bellied sapsucker (you know a bird) while I was meditating, my reference would be different as this implication would signify cowardice (you know what the Texans referred to the Mexicans as in the War in 1842, they thought Mexicans looked like they had yellow skin, so they called 'em yellowbellied implying the Mexicans were cowards!). But it was a yellow ribbon, so I knew - Freedom was what I needed to look at.

Not the kind of freedom from being in prison from breaking the law. I haven't ever been there. (prison that is, but only because I've always had a spirit guide in one form or another). Freedom from the prison of self. If I wasn't sure that's what the ribbon meant, I got sure real fast when Lagan took my hand and told me we had to go into the water! I'm telling ya now...I get very nervous going into that water, and not because I can't swim. The water symbolizes the subconscious - (look up Jungian Psychology, it'll help you understand better) In the subconscious there are repressed memories. The kind of things we don't want to remember because they are too painful for whatever reason. Pain is subjective you know, because of our references; personal histories,religious upbringing, or we were too young to process a traumatic event kind of memories! So, I don't like going into the water much in this case. But I did!

I dove in holding Lagans hand. Trusting aren't I? There were old chests in there today. Funny huh, how our mind processes information. At first I thought the chest might have treasures in them, but that was just wishful thinking. I am really good at pretending - but that's not what this journey is about! I had to open the chest and let the memories go. That's what Lagan said, "open the lids, the memories can't hurt you if the light shines on them." So I did, open the lids. There wasn't an entire city block of chests either, just two. Each had a handful of memories. Now don't get me wrong - they'll be more when I'm ready, but soul work takes time. And I'm working another spiritual program that helps me deal with lots of memories - in there we say "we don't regret the past, nor do we wish to shut the door on it." Plus, I spent years 20 to be exact in psychotherapy and I have a degree in Psychology so I have dealt with a lot of the stuff that has gotten submerged in my subconscious mind!

After I opened the lids on the chest, I began to cry. But I'm learning not to cry so much when I'm meditating. It's kind of funny, when I cry during mediation - there's this awful static like noise that comes into my conscious mind. Like somebody turned the T.V. to a station with no signal! The noise'll either make you stop meditating so you can compose yourself or you have enough trust in the process to shed the tears and continue on the journey. I've cried rivers in my life, I'm sentimental as all get out, but as I gracefully age I'm learning it's okay to cry some, but then you gotta get on with it! Life that is. When I came out of the water, my subconscious, I sat under the tree and meditated with Lagan.

What came to me was that I am my own prison guard! I keep myself locked inside the prison of myself. Cause ain't nobody else keeping me there. God forgave me. I try to do right today - be mindful of virtues, help others, do the next right thing, so God isn't mad at me, and probably never was. I heard the voice of God once when I was really sad, and he said, "Kimberly, It's not your cross to bear alone." Woo boy that'll sober ya up real fast! I got mad at God and tried to change religions, but God found me there too! I'll tell you about that another day - okay? So God forgave me - that's what Christianity is all about - forgiveness. Other Religions too! Just a word of advise though...it isn't nice to go around doing things you know in your heart are wrong...God'll steer ya even harder the right way when ya do that...you'll know God's there...you'll feel hands on your shoulders! Like when your Moma used to march you to your room to show you the mess you'd left when she told you to clean your room before you went out!

So, just for today, I unlocked the prison door and I'm letting myself out. Just for today, I am free and it's truly an inside job!

Peace

Ego

According to Freud,
“
...The ego is that part of the id which has been modified by the direct influence of the external world ... The ego represents what may be called reason and common sense, in contrast to the id, which contains the passions ... in its relation to the id it is like a man on horseback, who has to hold in check the superior strength of the horse; with this difference, that the rider tries to do so with his own strength, while the ego uses borrowed forces [Freud, The Ego and the Id (1923)]

This morning, I began my daily discipline of prayer and meditation by first praying in English the prayer of St. Francis, "Make me a channel...", then, I prayer in Sanskrit, Ong Namo Guru Dev Namo, "I call upon the divine inner wisdom...", next I did an energizing warm up with a breath of fire for several minutes. The warm up was completed with series of movements for ego eradication. This is my favorite part of the warm up because it's the thing I struggle with most. To rid myself of my ego - reactiveness, defensiveness and the ability to see myself in a more realistic light would seem to allow for a more peaceful existence.

Next I began my favorite Kundalini (basically it means an unlocking of the creative potential that already exists in every human!) Yoga Kriya (Sanskrit for "action, deed, effort"), WAHE GURU - is the specific mantra I use, it is the expression of indescribable ecstasy, of union with the infinite. This Kriya works on the subtle body. When the subtle body is strong, you are calm and masterful. I choose this one because it enhances the tremendous gift of intuition that I already posses. After completing the Kriya I did my relaxation of lying on my back in corpse pose. Of course, I could stay there and daydream for hours! But I was drawn to my meditation. The warm up and Kriya and essential components for meditating. They align my body with my head and heart.

The meditation I most often choose is a simple meditation for focus and sweetness. It is very specific and allows for training of my monkey mind. You know the kind that wants you to go, do, have to , need to - whenever you want to sit and meditate! It nurtures the ability to concentrate in action. Rather than to be reactive in life situations, it helps me to respond with a penetrating focus tempered with sweetness. Because of the posture of sitting in lotus and feeling your pulse it is easy for me to maintain. On the beat of my pulse I say silently Sat Nam which literally means truth manifested!

But to think that I sit for the necessary time period without struggle would be - not truth! My mind wanders as I meditate to the rhythm of my pulse. When I draw my energy back to my breathing and pulse I become calm. Sometimes, I let my mind wander. Today, I found myself on the path I was on during yesterdays meditation. So here is where the story part of my day really began! On the dirt path I saw to my right a huge body of water and out of the water rose a large beast. I became frightened and began to run along the path to distance myself from the beast. In the distance I saw a basket beside the path and ran to open the lid. A cobra came hissing up at me and I jumped...startled and again - afraid. As I took off running again all small creature came out of the woods. His voice was soothing and he felt friendly so, I began to listen to him. He was a guide of sorts kind of a "Yodaish" looking creature. He told me to slow down and observe the next basket and tell him what I saw. The second basket looked similar to the first in size and design but its color was green. I scanned my body for chakra colors - you know, red, orange, yellow, green - ah, green, the heart chakra. Does this mean envy ? "Yes", he said...so now, I'm back on the path of character development? "Trust your intuition". I scanned my body then scanned the basket - I didn't see any snakes, I wasn't afraid, I was curious and removed the lid. Inside I found kindness. A virtue? "Yes, It is impossible to feel envy and kindness towards the same person at the same time."

I'm sure you're asking yourself what I'm talking about. I wasn't exactly sure until I began to share this meditation with another. Actually it only came to fruition as I researched the beast in the water and learned that the beast represented my ego or my conscious awareness. I knew that being in the water represented subconscious thought but to see the beast at a distance rising up out of the water was a new image. Initially, I postured that I was running from my own ego because I tend to see my ego as dangerous. But now, I'm not entirely convinced that ego is all bad. In fact, as I puzzled over the image above, the symbolism of my mediation guides "maleness" has drawn me to a different conclusion. If on my path I am finding character development then it would be my super ego that has come into play. The super ego stands in opposition to the id. The super ego is where spiritual principle reside. Where the id is completely under the water (unconscious) in the dark! The super ego holds the ego ideal (or ideal ego) it is "an image of the perfect self towards which the ego should aspire! So, just for today my understanding of my ego as a beast, has been altered. The beast lies in the darkness - or as Carl Jung said, the shadows. And today, I will not be afraid of the shadows. I will expose them to the light of kindness!