Welcome to India II

There is a cave on the river Ganga (India part II)

filtered through time and perception- through stars and shifts of moons-
through the faint whisper of the lotus flower- through the echoes of a guitar, whose sweet strings reverberate into infinity- through the thought of making love- the softness of my fingers against my own cheek-

And the words of Anand- let pain transform you- don't let it become misery- be honest to yourself-don't let the memory become a misery-

(And memory?)

who needs memory when one has love?

who needs equations when one has transformation?

Who needs to feel pain when the rain beats gently against your heart?

And who needs fire?

I did.

The day after the fire ceremony my body began to turn against me. I couldn't eat, and then I was starving. I couldn't sleep for days and then I would be exhausted; but when I wasn't tired at all, I could sleep forever. I began to burn from the inside out. Feverish, aching. My body was transforming. The likeness of a dagger inside an angel formed in blood red directly over my heart, and later over my throat. My Samsonite hair become a noose. My dreams were wild. And most of all?

I lost it.

It burned in the fire.

Everything that "could" go wrong in my life back in the states went wrong, or so I thought. Legal situations turned against me. Checks didn't come and money disappeared. My doctor called with bad news. Very bad. Or so I thought.

And that was the gift. In regard to each and every piece of bad news, which I kept asking for again and again, there was not a thing I could do, except to ask India how I could love god more. Every surrender was the breath of hallelujah. Nothing made sense and I was wondering why I ever gave my life to the Ganga? I wanted to die. But dying was not my choice. My only choice was to learn the fine lines of latitude and longitude in my own heart, and ask again, how can I love god more? 

What it took to discover the gift-

Two and twenty of us, piled into three vans. A windy road with no safety railings, no safety belts, nausea. Winding and winding and winding, twisting and turning and the sun setting over the misty green Ganga, the moon above the high himalayas. 

We drove a good forty-five minutes until we reached a monastery. This monastery was on the banks of the Ganga, next to a cave 18 miles long underneath the himalayas. The cave had been used for thousands of years for meditation- thousands of years by humans, millions by angels. The monk in charge had not left in almost sixty years, since he had arrived, not even to go to the doctor, let alone to walk down the to the corner drug for a pack of cigarettes and some M and M's. 

The peak of fire. I fell to the concrete laid before the entrance to the cave and felt daggers in my heart. The daggers pinned me to the ground and I had to stay. My mind revolted. (You're going to die! Run! Kill yourself! Jump into the current and fly away forever! Too many reasons for being alone! Too many reasons to be alone! You must leave now!) And those daggers stabbed and stabbed and I felt I must stay at this place forever because I was locked through the impossible chains of blood and flesh. Erin sat in the back of my mind as some other being came forth, and more beings, and more beings. I became truly afraid that I was possessed, especially considering the dreams of demonic possession that had been coming and coming since the night of the fire purification ceremony- and for years and years before this trip, before I even came to California- from childhood... the dark wood of the railings of my stairs, running from malign spirits in the forest near my home, falling into the swamps and meeting a horrible mass of ash and anger...

And then Anand announced we would enter the cave.

Eyes wide like moons, my voice gone. I watched my body rise. And we were in the cave.

I felt an eternal presence deeper than anything I had ever yet felt in this life memory. My heart lifted and with an exhalation, the demons left. They were not allowed in this cave, and never again were they allowed in my being. 

I loved the cave. I loved the floor of rock and earth. I loved you, and I loved me, and I loved each and every silk thread between us. I loved the mountain for which this cave was a womb, and I prepared for birth.

Inhale. Exhale. Love. Inhale, fullness. Exhale, emptiness. Love. Seven chakras in alignment, kundalini rising, beauty, love, my heart, ancients, Babylon, whispers, tongues, secrets, the dance of Shiva, my spirit dancing in the silence, children birthing through my birth and rebirth, the christ and the buddha, in the midst of it all and in the mists of it all was this being- I thought her name was Erin- but she may have lost that name, and let herself be without identity and without idea. Beauty on fire, vulnerability leading to destruction, the phoenix? my life. In, and out, and...

Suddenly it had been hours. Everyone and everything was gone except for a flame threatening to extinguish, and the gentle cough of a monk behind me. Was I being rude? I wanted to cry for joy and shout to the Lord! To dance and jump and beat my drum and play my lute! To sing and sing and sing! I had found my home! I was never leaving! Tell my mother to come for a visit, I wouldn't be making it home for Christmas.

And the monk coughed again. Somewhere, I heard laughter. I knew then, this cave was the blessing of my birth, not my home.

A smile in my heart, and I, the daughter of gods, and the silent wife of dreams, left the cave, to bathe in a new hallelujah and be nourished by the sweet milk of the mother Ganga.


--


Erin Muir




I, the fiery life of divine essence, am aflame beyond the beauty of the meadows, I gleam in the waters, and I burn in the sun, moon, and stars. With every breeze, as with invisible life that contains everything, I awaken everything to life.
-Hildegard von Bingen