The Emperor

   
                    *warning, this contains a graphic meditation and also mentions abuse*
     
     Holy Shit balls! That was interesting. Quite a way to create an introduction. One of the thing that I do every morning, that is if I haven't woken up late, is I pull an angel oracle card, reflect on it, and toke notes on any information that I get from the card. Today I pulled creative writing. I knew that later on today I would be attending Michelle Blooms class Healing the Tarot:The emperor and decided that I would have my creative writing piece be about the meditation that would happen in the class. In the past on days where I have attended classes like this I would often pull The Learning and Teaching card.  It has been pretty current. I haven't ever written much about these classes or these works that I have been doing and thought that writing would be a good way of Teaching and Learning. So voila, there is how I came to decided that my writing piece would be about todays meditation.

     First off a little introduction. Every month Michelle Bloom teaches a class called Healing with the Tarot and each month we go through, in order, one of the archetypes.  She discusses what the card means, characteristics all that kind of stuff and then everyone pulls cards to get a reading for "What does the (insert archetype of the month here, in this case the emperor) have to teach me. We then do a reading, she has always been great help for me reading the cards as tarot does not come as intuitively, I feel like that is an incorrect statement, as the angel cards. She gives ways in which we can work with that archetype through the month, how to create an altar for it, what types of stones would be good and why, and any other information. Then the guided meditation where we go and meet the archetype and and receive whatever type of information there is to receive. In the past these have all been quite magical and left me feeling upbeat and wonderful. Todays mood wasn't the case and I felt the "oh fuck here comes the shitball" when she said that when she did channeling for this it was going to be especially significant for anyone that has a dysfunctional or abusive relationship with their father. Yes, she did just mention the F word. I knew I was in for it. I thought later on, well if there is one thing that I have learned is that there are lots of people who have very hurtful relationships with their fathers.  I could feel myself getting tense, I began to doodle and I felt the urge to disassociate as people talked about their abusive relationships with their fathers.

     We partnered up and did a four card spread. The first card was to be; What does the emperor want us to focus on internally. The second card was to be what does the emperor want us to reflect on externally. The third card was to be what does the emperor want us to let go of and the fourth card was to be the theme for the month. I pulled The Seven of Wands, The Hermit, The Eight of Swords and the Six of Swords. Michelle helped me come up with a concise sentence after my partner and I tried to interpret it and the message was "I need to pull away from the world and focus within"

     Now it's time to meet the emperor. Everyone closes their eyes, and my guard drops and I lose the of I am cool and strong exterior and the tears start to fall down my face I feel myself choking up.  I will from this moment on do my best to write about the meditation.

     I am traveling in the air, my heart sends a root down to the center of the earth, up from that root energy travels to my body and there it goes to my heart and my heart blooms a gigantic flower that blooms out of my body and takes up all visual space.

     I am then walking down a staircase, it is not like the staircase in the past meditation that was one that went to a hobit hole. This one was made of marble. I could see that I was wearing elegant clothes, I might have been the empress at this time. I ascend the stairs and come to a door, the door is made of marble, crystal and rubies and some other blue stone. Engraved on the door is a cobra head.  We are to open the door and step into our sanctuary. Except when I open the door there is only a cliff there, I have a fear of heights and a fear of falling, there is nothing in my sanctuary except for fear. So I know I don't want to stand on this ledge so I use my powers and build a house, but my house is floating in air so then I build a tower of earth to meet the house but the house is still in the air, so then I build an ocean around it so there is no more this falling feeling. I do my best to try and make this place peaceful but it isn't so. I can't remember stuff that happens here either that or the order is all a mess so I am going to gloss over it. The emperor comes and he is dressed as a man of royalty and wearing a purple robe. We talk. He tells me that I am loved and that I am not alone, that I have all my ancestors and spirit guides here and they love me and will always be with me and are her to help me in my journey.

     The emperor then transforms into a black cobra, I had a nightmare about black cobras last night, I also have a fear of snakes. The cobra bites me over and over. The emperor is attacking me. This is not how guided meditations are supposed to go, they are supposed to be lovey dovey and make you feel good. The cobra kept on biting me so I had to take my sword and decapitated it. Then when it was time for me to become the emperor another black cobra entered the body of the emperor and then entered my body by going up my vagina. I think I might have began thinking about how I don't want to be here anymore, how I want the meditation to be over. More stuff happened and then she said it was time to leave our "sanctuary" and when I did, the land behind the door, where the staircase was was more like my sanctuary than the land of the emperor. There were flowers and birds and everything was happy.

     I was not so happy. I felt totally disregulated by the stories people shared, by confronting my own memories and by this super scary guided meditation. I told Michelle about it cause I didn't know what to make of it. Why was it awful and scary and terrible? I told her and she said "Sounds like you have some fears to deal with."  Also, that not all work is beautiful. Some of it is very dark and scary.

     So, I have the choice of working with this. I can make an altar, put a photo of my father in the center of it and work with the energy of the emperor.  I am feeling pretty hungry, zapped and like it is time to close this piece up. There is more that I learned about the emperor that would be good to share and I don't feel like doing that now. I think I've done enough work for now. If you want to learn more about the emperor and how working with the emperor if you have had a dysfunctional or abusive relationship with your father, let me know. It was pretty mind-blowing and pretty accurate the stuff I learned today.

     I feel a bit strange sharing all of that, I don't really know what the purpose was and today I wrote down in my book that I would write about my guided meditation and post it here. So there you have it. Goodnight, Good Morning, Good day, may there be some good and love in your life.

xoxo

Chrystal Brooke

OM MANI PADME HUM

   

      Since december, The Tea & Chanting Sangha has been working to accumulate 100,000 recitations of OM MANI PADME HUM for all those affected by police violence, brutality and militarization. Yesterday, we met our goal and accumulated 101,276.  When I found out I rejoiced. With time, dedication and perseverance we had met our goal.

     Towards the end of the collection, I learned that it was ok to do recitations while walking, all this time before I was doing recitations while sitting. While I could get some done my body would get really tense and would want to move. I took my recitations off of the chair and they went with me when I walked anywhere. Often times doing more recitations was a motivation for me to walk to the store to get a shot of wheatgrass, take the time to walk to the pretty overlook of the river with trees in the distance.

     The days leading up to this I had a feeling that we were going to reach it soon and when I was faced with this I noticed there to be a certain sadness in my heart.  Doing these recitations became such a big part of my day and I knew that after we reached our goal, I wouldn't know what to do next.    It made me remember a talk I had with a cousin who is also an artist. We talked about the wonderful feeling of finishing a project and also that sometimes sadness came along with that. How one could cling to the project that had been completed for one might not know what will come yet, or if there is something to come, there might not be the attachment for it. It's interesting that of course attachment comes up in this. It is something that I have been being more mindful of since someone introduced me to the concept in December.

     Before I began collecting recitations of OM MANI PADME HUM for the Tea & Chanting Sangha, I wasn't really involved in a chanting practice. It was interesting to just dive right in. We would get together once a week online and chant for 40 minutes. I had never done that before, and we would do it at a pace that at the time I could not keep up with, but through practice became more plausible.  The amount of recitations I collected daily also grew with the discovery that chanting can get rid of anxiety! Seriosouly! This was a most amazing discovery for me for I have been struggling for a very long time with anxiety and trying to cope with it without the use of medication has been extremely challenging. It's absolutely exhausting most times. I noticed after the first 40 minute chanting session that we had together that afterwards I felt this sense of peace. Kind of like after getting acupuncture, or maybe working out for some or having sex for others. A couple days later I had been struggling with my anxiety, I remembered that moment after chanting where I felt so at peace that I thought it would be worth a try, if it doesn't work at least I will have had a break where I could get my mind off of the anxiety. I did 5 recitations and my anxiety was gone. I was so happy that I think I cried. My anxiety did come back four hours later, so I just did more chanting and then it went away again. My therapist was so happy when I shared this with her. I don't know if I would have learned this had I not just found myself engaging in the practice of the collection of 100,000 recitations of OM MANI PADME HUM.

     Being able to collect these recitations was really important because like many people I was upset about what was happening with Ferguson and everywhere else around the world were police officers were using their power in excess and no longer protecting the people they serve but rather killing and beating them without any justice.  I've only been a part of one protest (other than the ones I do on my own by choosing where I spend my money, who gets my time and how to protect the environment) and it was a really peaceful protest on a college campus.  As of today, the idea of being in a crowd protesting makes me feel incredibly anxious, maybe one day I will be able to do it without having a panic attack but that day hasn't yet come. I've had several panic attacks at Burning Man in the crowds there. Reciting OM MANI PADME HUM, educating myself more, and opening myself up to what it really meant to be someone of privilege allowed me to be at a space where I knew I was doing something. I was working hard at envisioning a world where police are there to love, protect and be a friend of the citizens of this planet.  With that being said, I know that this is a small step in this grand scope of social justice. I know there is more work to be done.
   
          May all beings be well. May all being find peace. May all beings receive justice.

Offerings

     After a lovely day attending an online retreat of the Tea and Chanting Sangha, I was ready to go for a walk, get the blood moving, feel the cold air on my skin and go on adventure. I was pleased to find all types of offerings along the way, things that spoke to me as either magical, strange or poetic. So I decided to take some photos and share them with you. 

 Someone spread some rose petals on the ground

                                      

                                                Wishing you many blessings!

That was Sexist and I'm Sorry

     In my last blog post talking about many things including getting over ways that I have allowed myself to be treated in relationships. I repeated a saying that at the time made me laugh, I was sad and feeling dis-empowered, and having something or someone to laugh at I think made me feel better.

     As I was writing yesterday, I had this inner voice that wanted me to delete the story where I recount a friend of mine said "Really, all this just over some dick." I had this idea that now that there is an audience that maybe it would offend someone and then I had to ask myself does it offend me? As a woman, I don't appreciate being treated like a sex object unless I want to be treated like a sex object and have given consent to it.
   
     When anyone say "he/she's a pussy" it really bothers me.  That a part of my body would be used as an insult to someone else. Ironically, it is also a part of my body that politicians fight over and other people fight over. So here I am, being a hypocrite. Telling a story in which a man is summed up to be a part of his body "a dick." I imagine that this might not bother many because it is more socially acceptable in our society to use this terminology. I imagine men out there though who would be really offended by this. I imagine that some of our male allies would find this degrading and not reciprocal of how they fight for our equality.

     I am sorry that I put it in there. Today I almost erased it. I think that writing this though is better than erasing it cause erasing it would not have led to this regretfully inspired repeating of the story and shedding light on maybe something that isn't often talked about.  I'm sorry that I repeated a sexist remark. Neither of the subjects that were written about were only sums of their body parts. They were beautiful people. Beautiful, flawed, intelligent, creative people and no although the sex was usually good, they don't deserve to be degraded to a part of their body. Name calling, though it can make someone feel empowered. Is simply not right. Reclaiming power from within, respecting oneself, making decisions that coincide with the heart and values, those are all empowering. After repeating that story, I felt disempowered, ashamed, thoughtless, inconsiderate...the list of judgmental words can go on.  For now though, I mainly want to say that I am sorry and I will be more mindful of how I deal with pain and feeling disempowered as a result of relations with other men.

     Do you think I should erase the part in the post? It brought up a good topic, and that topic can be talked about here. I really would love your opinion

"I'll open like a daisy every morning. I'll make my work."

     I'm on Vacation. The first day that I woke up I was so happy I cried. I felt like I had finally made it through some fucked up whats the word, jungle jim...not its like a course where you do different stuff like run under something and jump over something else. Crap, concussion brain. Obstacle course!!! That's the word. I've been trying to think of it for a week! Anyways. I had arrived. I was hungry, tired, and the energy that I had pent up to just make it here released. I had so many plans of what I was going to do go the the gardens, go to the tree, I realize now that if I tell all my plans then my secrets of what I love so much here will be out. so for now, I am going to keep them mostly to myself. I am just in that kind of mood. Well, I had my plans and the universe had its plans for me.  Be exhausted for several days, have your birthday, have the pre-requisite exhausted birthday breakdown, have fun with all your friends on your birthday and catch a cold. So yes this is the first time I am in Hawai'i where every day I have eaten chicken soup rather than piles of papaya.

     "Relax. Don't do anything" These were my orders and my body was making sure that I followed. So days of adventures were replaced with adventuring to the health food store to spend way too much money on kombucha, stay healthy stuff, wheatgrass and other produce, seriously it is sooo hard to not spend too much money at the health food store here. I also went to longs as well where everyone had the plague, so I stopped going there. Yes there is a nasty plague that is spreading and I haven't been doing much besides eating soup, looking at the ocean, watching some bad tv, reading, doing my homework which I wasn't stoked about, my practice, watching storms come across the ocean. I watch the ocean a lot. I joke and say that I am hanging out at my place, by the ocean, my own personal big natural sedative. I feel like I am a different person here though and the inevitable choice of returning "home" makes me sad just thinking of it. I don't want to leave the ocean behind. I love the ocean. But I have to leave.

     While I was here I did do one thing that I wasn't supposed to do. I got upset. I was doing this class where you in essence prepare to bring in all the magic you want to create in 2015 but first you have to look at 2014 what didn't work, what things from that year you want to leave behind, how you will change. It required lots of writing and delving into the past and that was not something that I was happy about doing. My anxiety about it all got kind of bad and I almost stopped doing it. I began to think that going over the past year wasn't healthy for me. But I made it through. I did my releasing ceremony, if you are ever going to burn a piece of paper in your house just be mindful that it creates lots and lots and lots of smoke, I wrote everything on a letter, I wrote everything I was grateful for, the things I wanted to release, the person I am and how I am going to be that person. It did involve lots of smoke.

     One of the hardest things to confront, was that I allowed someone else to treat me like shit.  Or maybe I allowed someone to treat me in a way in which I felt shitty. And that this had been a pattern. Not only had one significant person done it but others had as well. Speak up Chrystal! Be Authentic! Yes with a capital A. This is what I tell myself.

     I was reading Lena Dunham's "Not That Kind of Girl," which I almost regretted reading because it was sometimes triggering in a bad way and she wrote a bit that really spoke to my heart.

     "The way I saw it. I was fully capable of being treated with indifference that bordered on disdain while maintaining a strong sense of self-respect. I obeyed his commands, sure that I could fulfill this role while still protecting the sacred place inside of me that knew I deserved more. Different. Better.
But that isn't how it works. When someone shows you how little you mean to them and you keep coming back for more, before you know it you start to mean less to yourself. You are not made up of compartments! you are one whole person! what gets said to you gets said to all of you, ditto what gets done. Being treated like shit is not an amusing game or a transgressive intellectual experiment. It's something that you accept, condone, and learn to believe you deserve. This is so simple. But I tried to make it complicated.
I told myself I'd asked for it"-Lena Dunham

     It hurt my heart to look back and see the times where I compromised myself, my values for what my friend would say "Just some dick". Yep one day I was crying over a boy and my friend said "Really, all of this just over some dick. That's all he is is a dick" I won't ever forget it. Unfortunately if I let a "dick" treat me in ways I didn't like to be treated because I didn't speak up, I also let other people do it as well. In hindsight I wonder if my anxiety has just been a symptom of not speaking up.
Ugh, I am so over thinking about it and yet, I know that I need to hold this pain close to me for I need to know that it is always an option. That instead of believing I am deserving and lovable, instead of using my voice, I can be quiet in complacency as my values, beliefs and time are trampled over. I remember walking in the rain one day, realizing that I felt like shit and not thinking that I could do any better. Not in 2015, no ! NO! NO! NO! I will be authentic. I will not let the judgements or opinions of others stop me from speaking my truth and doing the things that I value. I have found happiness within and I am released from this conditioned idea that my happiness should be interdependent on whether or not I am in a relationship and how successful that relationship is. I know that I may have fucked up before and I am doing the work that needs to be done that corresponds to some of my values, especially when it is hard. I am still a work in progress, I got lost for so long in the wants, desires, needs of others that I kind of lost myself in some ways and I am exploring my dreams, I am following my heart, and I know that I am deserving of my dreams. That this life is a kingdom in an essence and I am a queen. I can decide who comes who goes. I can decide the laws. I can speak up.

     It hurt to see how I treated myself. How I let others treat me. It's time to bask in the sun of being treated well, being loved, being loving and being kind to others. To being authentic, even if, especially if I will be judged by it.  As Ru Paul says "What other people think of you is none of your business" I love quoting Mama Ru! Mama Ru, if you ever read this. I love you!

     "And I imagined my own pain, my anger magnified by fifty in the man who would send that email, the person who believes that life is a zero-sum game and girls are there to be your props, that anyone else's artistry is a mere distraction from the Lords grand plan to promote your agenda. How painful that must be, how suffocating. And I decided then that I will never be jealous. I will never be vengeful, I won't be throated by the old, or by the new. I'll open wide like a daisy every morning. I will make my work. -Lena Dunham

Think Kit Day 3 LOL

I have emerged from NANOWRIMO, travelled across the pacific ocean, and am somewhat settling into rest and relaxation, I am, just not enough yet.

Despite using some of the last of my energy to yank words out of my body, I accidentally signed up for a mother writing challenge. I don't know if I am committed to it yet or not. I do want to be able to just chill out so I am only keeping a short list of to dos. So we'll see how this goes. For today though, I am going to do it. I hope you get some laughs.

Todays Topic
Let's loosen up: share a side-splitting story from the last year. What made you laugh out loud until tears formed? What made you giggle every time it was referenced? Whether it's a story, an image, a video – we want to hear about the banana peel on the floor, your best practical joke, or gems from the mind of a three-year-old. Whether it's sassy, sarcastic, or just plain silly: make us laugh!

Humor can definitely be a coping mechanism for me. When done right it can make me laugh during the hardest of times.  It is a beautiful gift to get a break from despair and be able to laugh and cry tears of joy rather than sadness. This year there were two moments that I can think of now that made me laugh during hard times

Here is one of them. I can't remember what challenging situation this made me laugh during. I hope that it makes you laugh to

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdX_OBUeHb4

This one was also a pleasant joy during a tough day. If you haven't seen it yet, I hope you enjoy it. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRBAZJ4lF0U

The Quest for Inspiration

     I haven't been living up to my hope of checking in here and creating something once a week. I've had the blinders on and my tunnel vision has zoomed in on National Novel Writing Month. It's pretty fun. November is National Novel Writing Month. The goal is simply to write 50,000 words in one month and yes, they can be 50,000 words of nonsensical hoopdidooda if you like. 50,000 words is roughly 1,667 words per day. I literally didn't think of doing it at all until I found myself wandering around a bookstore with a fever, on steroids and wearing a unicorn onesie the night before the first day, it was Halloween.  At 11:45PM, 15 minutes before November 1, I was still trying to figure out what, and how to download the software I would be using to write with and also setting up my account through NANOWRIMO.  Being that I was sick and on drugs, I decided that the only way to do this was full steam ahead. So I have been doing lots to get my word count to 43,000! the last three days my word count has been at its lowest. somewhere between 1,000-1,500 if I had been writing at the rate I was writing at I would have already crossed the finish line.

     This is my fourth time doing NANOWRIMO and my first time ever being ahead of the word count and let me tell you it is a whole different view from a head of the game. I can do things like think about how my novel is having an existential identity crisis.

     For me, to be successful at NANOWRIMO means to silence the critic and move ahead. And if silencing the critic is not possible one must still move ahead. Making decisions, making things happen especially when everything is either confusing or boring is necessary.

     It's nice to have something that has a beginning and an end, that has defined parameters and that sweeps in and stirs up life.  It totally makes life different.  There is always the word count. Rather than simply going out for the night and leaving the to do list to the curb, there is the voice that says "you could write more" With every decision that I make there is always the poking of the piece.

So what am I writing about?  The quest for inspiration....To find out more about NANOWRIMO visit http://nanowrimo.org