Stung by Devotion

I remember the very first time it burst open within me.

I was in India, studying Ashtanga Yoga in Mysore with Sri Pattabhi Jois.

On each New Moon, he'd sit up in his special chair on his humble but rarified stage, and all his (many dozens of) students were invited to line up, come before him, descend to their knees, and gently kiss his Lotus feet.

The first time I did this....offering such humble homage to the genius and mastery of my Teacher, my heart shattered open into one thousand little Lotus pieces.

And then suddenly: huge voltages of Shakti ravished my body.

I trembled and cried -- and-- PROMPTLY, as invisibly and stealthily as possible, I silently slipped back in line, tear stained and body quivering from head to toe, so that I may come before him again, descend to my knees, and gently kiss the Lotus feet of my Teacher.

Had the ceremony not come to a close and he escorted from his chair, there would have been no better possible use of my life than to stand in line over and over and over again....swollen in longing, aching for not one thing more than my knees on the hard wooden floor, my lips wetted with a strange desire to be as light as the wing of a butterfly against the slightly swollen foot of the old cataracted man sitting before me.

This was the moment I was stung by Devotion.

This was the moment that catapulted me out of the deadened echo chamber of half-heartedness (the devotional kiss of death that Richard Rudd has channeled so stunningly). It opened up within me the rightness of coming to my knees as practice -- in an ancient, timeless homage to the Godhead (as localized within an imperfect human being.)

This is the way Desire becomes ART for the Feminine -- we cast spells that summon life (read: the MASCULINE) to create frames that we may animate with the effulgent fullness of our expression.

In my Devotion, I am a MASTERPIECE.

This moment of knees against cold hard floor, heart splayed open, Shakti on fleek.....began a nearly decade long (ongoing) practice of coming to my knees in prayer, in ecstasy, in celebration -- and in grief.....and often, in a Shakti-drenched orgasmic melange of everythingness.

And now Devotion has come for me once again:

this time as Teacher of this frequency.

DEVOTION: THE FLAMES OF PURIFICATION:

A 6-week course for Women.

This journey is deep and potent.

* All the places of density and stuckness that keep you away from the deeper truth of your ACHE to be swelled with Devotion will be touched...with a feather caress -- and the occasional Cosmic 2x4. ( just keeping it real real )

* All the places that have been calcified and marbled within you of Feminine arrogance, entitlement, and egoic victimhood -- leaving you frozen in a story about men and 'the masculine' that serves *at best* only the grayest of your gardens -- will be excavated.

* You will be brought to your knees....and once upon them, we will ask of you to open your knees....your heart.....and your Eros...a little bit wider....and a little bit wider still.

(THIS is how the Devotion gets IN, ladies....)

* You will be amongst deeply magical Ones....Feminine criaturas from across the globe....the married, the maidens, the mothers.

All gathering to be held in the conditions that allow Her to wholly OPEN.

And only then will you be sweetly, tenderly, wretchedly stung....in Devotion.

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