Saturday, December 31, 2005
TransformationThe year is closing in on us and I am feeling the yellowy fires of transformation moving its rhythmic breath through my days. I have been spending time cultivating my personal power, listening intently within and learning ever more how the external really does reflect the internal journey. As I write this, sitting in the printer’s shop, patiently waiting for my new cards to come up glossy and colorful, outside hundreds of local people stream past decked in brilliant, neon yellow in festive gaiety for the annual Sivagiri festival which indeed reflects my thoughts on fire, transformation, wisdom and intellect. Sivagiri lived in Varkala in the late 1800’s to early 1900’s and was a spiritual guru as well as a teacher, social worker, and gifted poet. The ashram here is dedicated to his life and teachings. So every year the locals dress themselves in the brilliant color of wisdom, the brightest yellow you can imagine, and walk happily for two days of speeches, dance and song.
Leon, Yoko and I held our own small celebration in honor of Winter Solstice, or Yule, to honor the return of the Sun King, when the Goddess gives birth to the God and light comes back into our lives. Of course, living so very close to the equator, this light shift is quite subtle. We celebrate the dry winds, ‘kite season,’ that are blowing in so sweetly now, finally drying out the remnants of month’s old mold and dampness. After lighting twenty oil lamps at sundown, we said simple affirmations for ourselves and our future as Yoko watched the lamps flicker with delight.
And everything is indeed changing: Yoko is walking and talking now, signing many words with her baby sign language, growling at her gorilla picture, barking at dogs. She has a lot to say and is increasingly more communicative and ever bright in her social chatter and expressions to the world. She loves to dance, to sing, to chant with me as I invoke the Goddess and the elements, to hug trees, to run and play with her friends next door, to scribble on papers, eat crayons and be naked (a free spirit blows strong). There are many babies and children around this year, both locals and tourist families who set up camp at the popular Juice Shack where the parents can hang around and gossip at the latest scandals that inevitably happen between such a sexually repressed society as India and wild women from the west, while drinking their yummy ice coffees and watermelon lassis.
The cliff is also changing, so fast now. In the last year we’ve seen twenty or so guesthouses spring up like mushrooms many with fancy marble interiors, pools and specialty Ayurvedic health services. The shops and restaurants are doubling in size, expanding to two stories and becoming permanent fixtures on the cliff. And so of course, the clientele is shifting then—the days of hippie backpackers are turning into richer European families on holiday (for the dark northern winter months at least). But with the development comes people who want to stick around for a while and some of them very interesting: more healers, more artists, more people with kids, more creative energy flowing through the red, dusty back lanes of Varkala cliff. Now, Rubybleu guest house is full of people, full of music and Reiki, laughter and Eno sounds drifting through the garden which has taken on a whole new level in its patterns of plants that Leon spends so much time with.
We are breathing new fire into the depleted sails of the rubybleu foundation as we have found some new projects to support. We visited the Balavihar School for children, most with cerebral palsy, and plan to donate money for beds and beddings which is one of their basic needs. Unfortunately families here, especially poor ones, are unable to financially and emotionally care for their disabled children and instead send them to places like Balavihar where the children are looked after by local women who are paid next to nothing. The school we visited houses twenty-seven children in three small rooms with almost nothing to stimulate or activate their minds or bodies. They are moving to a larger space and hope to receive money from the local government to expand the now basic classes. I was really moved by the poor conditions of the children’s home and hope to find a way to increase funds they receive so that these children are given more of a chance to expand their minds. I will be writing up a full article with Subhash, the social worker who is monitoring the project.
We have also come into contact with a woman who works for SEWA (Self-Employed Women’s Association) and she has given us some information regarding a school for older children from poor local fishing communities. The students are gifted kids who lack funds to acquire the skills needed to pass higher examinations that will enable them to enter the work force as adults. The school is in need of funds for the next year to continue and we will be visiting and possibly donating some money. Check in with www.rubybleu.org for more details in the near future or if you would like to donate money to these causes or others.
Meanwhile, I’ve finally started painting again after giving over of body and soul to little Yoko for the past year. I’m starting larger works, still obsessed with the female form but also branching out into impressionistic paintings of the ocean and chakra mandalas. I am also writing when I have time amidst my Reiki sessions and teaching which is really blossoming. This year I will be teaching my first ten day chakra course with another Yoga teacher, Asa Nystrom from Sweden which I expect will be a wondrous journey through the creative doors of spirit in human form using the chakras as our tool and guide. I plan to do another with Asa next season as well and will keep you all updated.
So tonight is the new moon and the new year coming in and I will celebrate alone, on the roof, quiet in the dark starry sky and reflect on this rush of power and light that is pouring into my life. My mediations have become more focused, more devoid of thought. I am contemplating the transcendence of duality, the power of process, learning how to subtly work with my own internal power. I feel I’ve become more patient in cultivating the Witness, the part of me that simply watches Life unfold without attaching emotionally, yet this is such a hard practice and ever more subtle. Tantra has been finding its way more into my life, the Indian philosophy and practice of using ritual to imbue form with spirit that, in many ways, parallels my Wicca practice. I have been leading Goddess rituals, acting as a priestess (although I have yet to be actually initiated as one) by invoking the elements, honoring the moons and opening myself to the divine Feminine and all her guises: wise and wicked, wondrous and wild.
And so to all of you dear people in my life, as we change and shift, transcend and grow I do hope your days are dusted with light and love this coming year, that you may feel your inner powers grow strong, that you too may shed whatever bears it’s unnecessary weight, so that you may dance and laugh and live as you are meant to: as a free spirit!
Love and joy to all of you,
Peace, katalin
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