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I first published this piece in December 2016. It has taken on a new level of meaning with the unprecedented stresses we are facing globally in response to Covid -19. I am offering it again hoping that my process helps you name and gives support to yours.

Our world is in descent.

This summary of steps of a personal journey may help navigate the bigger picture.

Many life-changing events happened. I wasn’t willing. I was cornered – There was no way I could think or maneuver myself out of the situation and I didn’t see other options. With every ounce of fur, fang and resistance I could muster, I battled every inch as I stepped into the trenches to do the work. My resistance softened out of sheer exhaustion. Slowly I turned toward what I feared. I was confused and agitated. I unraveled. Descent into darkness was dismantling, disorienting, and dangerous. I didn’t know who I was, or what to plan more than a few days ahead. What was disallowed, repressed and unacceptable was unleashed. As my mind body processes were held in a frame of moral integrity and observing witness, until what is pervasive emerges. Guides support me in the process, I averted danger. Eventually, light emerges.

Cornered-

What is, is.  It won’t go away.

Resistance-

I feel how unacceptable, shocking, infuriating, terrifying and defeating this is.

Exhaustion-

At some point, I get worn out. When I get curious about the way that I experience my resistance, it begins to change.

Turning towards fears-

Underneath my resistance are my fears. I turn toward them, see them and name them. As courage builds, I feel them.

Confusion-

When I start to let go, assumptions, frame-works and belief systems fall away. In this place where I can’t locate myself, what opens up?

Agitation-

When I feel a large space without characteristics of identity, and there isn’t anything holding the fall, descent is frightening. I need to regularly soothe my anxiety to keep from meltdown.

Unraveling-

In this big space, what happens to “me”? What is asking for acceptance?

Danger-

There is so much that is at risk, the magnitude is overwhelming. Where do I engage to bring more safety? I prioritize needs and make sure that self-care is on the list. I do what is most compelling. Direct action helps dispel anxiety.

Unleashing what is disallowed-

I look at my contribution. Where am I interested in my own comfort at the expense of others or the Earth? When am I unable to fathom another’s perspective and go into judgment or dismissal? When do I condone racism, misogyny or religious profiling? What support do I need to make different choices? Where have I internalized these things in myself? What supports me releasing these patterns?

Moral Integrity–

Regularly affirming the intention to do no harm, and to support what is beneficial to all beings gives me a rudder when everything familiar is falling apart.

All Pervasive Love and Awareness-

I balance keeping my body healthy with letting go completely. I let go of thoughts, feelings, sensations and relax attention into what is groundless. I let go of trying. I rest.  Body and mind drop away. What remains is vast, luminous and pervasive. The mind extends beyond all reaches, limitations.  Love, awareness, energy pervade everything and everyone. Who and what I am becomes a thin veil,  conecting what is pouring in, to what is pouring out. There is no separation.

Guides-

These are my mentors, therapists, friends, rocks, animals, trees, practices and qualities of mind that remind me to stop resisting, to be present and meet what is arising. They hold me as I let go. They help me get up in the morning when I feel bruised to the bone and devestated and do what needs to be done. They support me to access seamless reality and remove obstacles that occlude it.

Emergent Light –

Death has been a gateway, an opportunity for new life. When I meet my own darkness,  dare the world to end in me, I live with less fear. I’m motivated to return to what is vast, timeless, and ever present. In the middle of THAT accumulations release and clarity emerges. There is reciprocity between people, culture, the physical world and “me.” Darkness is within the light and light emerges from the descent into darkness. My heart is full. I’m ready to do what is needed include meet my own human fraility in the journey of bringing relative and pervasive kindness and truths into the world.

The devil whispered in my ear, “You will not be able to survive the storm.”

I whispered back, “I am the storm.” 

Author Unknown

Photo Credit: David Allen and Stone Point Studio

Memorial Day 2020 COVID-19

I wrote this poem yesterday. I offer it, in case it touches you, and your greif today.

Amma Thanasanti

Greif Ritual

All of us who have lost loved ones,

Health

Homes,

Livelihood,

The world we recognize;

Basic Trust

We come together,

Strangers to each other;

Enter a space

Consecrated with prayers,

Mantras

The ache, the anger, the rage, the disorientation, the brain fog, the dissolution of dreams and purpose, the heart break, the tears that never stop, the tunnel without end; not having a future, disbelief, the endless fatigue, and hopelessness; Not being able to figure it out. Anxiety.

No one here is a stranger to grief.

Alter

Created from what we have lost

Greif framed-

Touch what is here,

Enter the territory

Voice grief

Give heart break sound

Watch the healing.

Agreements

Feel supports already present;

Earth,

Sky,

Ancestors

Animals

Accentuate Holding

Old Growth Redwoods, ecosystem of sharing; breathing together,

What you breathe out, I breathe in,

What I breathe out, you breathe in

Tidbits of identity,

We hover

Trying to land with each other.

Letting “I remember” catch our heart, speak through our body as memories spill out

Pausing to listen,

Witness each other

Songs

I am so sad and everything is beautiful

Taking a deeper dive into stories

Paint Grief’s picture

Sharing what matters most

Weaving Fabric of connection

Letting memories,

Open up the stream:

• • • I am so sad
    • I lost
    • I never said
    • I regret
    • It is not ok
    • I am afraid
    • I never had

All day

Open the field

Stay in deep water

Tend

Grief,

Group cohesiveness.

Evening

We enter the ritual;

Drummers hold the heart beat

Villagers keep the chant alive

Grievers walk to the alter

Ally joins as support

as presence

as witness

Grievers

Bear witness to all that has been lost

Heartbreak voiced;

Wailing, crying, shouting, screaming, moaning, roaring.

Tears and tissues,

As sacred offerings

It takes courage to

Enter deep water

Open grief

Return

Come back into the fold.

The village,

Attuned,

Embracing

Voicing;

We see you,

You did that well,

Thank you for what you have done.

Melting back into the village;

Chant and drumming continue

Until last wail is wailed,

Last roar, roared,

Last tear shed.

Integration and sharing

Closes the circle

Tear stained faces;

Flush,

Lighter,

Luminous.

On the other side of grief mountain,

Gratitude speaks

Numb bodies back on line

Vacancy filled with presence,

Pain body released.

Together

We move through grief;

Too big for any of us to hold alone.

Photo curtesy of Jeremy Bishop and Unsplash

Perhaps some of you can relate when I say that over the past few years the living daylight was beaten out of me. More often than not, days were a struggle. My energy was unreliable, and mind states were variable. Instead of a bright mind, mostly I was living with various shades of grey that affected my outlook as much as it described my energy. I came to India with a strong intuition that the Ayurvedic treatment would help.

The main Dhara treatment, dripping cool oil on your forehead while simultaneously pouring hot oil on your body, is designed to create a flow state and allow ones systems to come into a new homeostasis. It is effectively used for people with strokes, various neurological disorders, as well as sleep and anxiety disorders. Dhara treatment is deeply regulating to the limbic system. It’s not used unless you are able to stay at the hospital for one week after the Dhara treatment is over as doctors want assurance that you are reconfigured sufficiently before leaving. During the treatment, I felt as if I became more liquid than solid. Visually, my body appeared solid, but my internal sense was of a flow state, moving and shifting energy. I was at ease with this.

Before the main treatment started, I had negotiated with my doctor to allow me to go to the Snake Temple, a 10 minute walk away, as that was my favorite place on the campus. It was a relief she agreed. However, on the first day I was making use of my dispensation a mosquito bit me. I had an allergic reaction that took a while to settle. With my system extra sensitive from these treatments the wisest course of action was to follow thier recommendation – stay inside during the rest of my treatment.

Initially, I was restless. Since a young child, I have had the pull to be in nature, to go to wild places of beauty and power. When I’m in places like that I relax. I change focus from the thoughts and feelings I’m experiencing to resting attention in awareness itself. Awareness open and expands, becomes vast. I feel content and resourced; peaceful. Being confined inside the hospital, I was forced to look at the assumption and the duality that was underpinning my desire to go into nature. Nature is in nature. It isn’t outside. When nature is seen as the place where access to presence is possible, it is like the elusive lover that you can’t be close enough with. Rather than being a source of comfort, it is perpetuating a sense of dis-ease.

Ayurvedic treatment is designed to balance the elements of your body and detox. Between these that were holding so many roots of illness in place and the loving care from all the therapists, the therapy itself that rewires the brain, releasing the duality that nature is outside, and releasing more layers of greif, I began to feel the living daylight return; the luminous mind, the sweetness of kindness, care and goodness. It was like a clear luminous light all around and within me. Even when I felt momentary unpleasant experiences – oil that was too hot on my skin, a therapist moving my arm in a way that pressurized my joint and caused pain, the unrelenting solidity of the therapy table, smell of smoke from the field nearby, someone distraught around me, my predominant experience was being in a sweet, luminous loving light. I was swimming in it. After a while it started to sink in, continuing from one treatment to the next and then after I left the hospital.

Internal structures shape how I view myself, the way I think, the lens that I see the world through. They arise because of various conditions. Sometimes they release with insight knowing how they have arisen. Sometimes they release over time persistently noticing them and not get overly identified with them. Sometimes they release when they are replaced with something else to focus attention. Sometimes they release when you get what you never had. In my particular situation, these treatments gave me just exactly what I needed.

After 44 days of treatment, I left the Saranya Aryuvedic hospital and went to Varkala, a beach town 7 hours south via train in the Indian State of Kerala. It has been a tourist site for 20 years. For the past 2300 years it has been a pilgrimage place for people to do ceremonies for loved ones who have died. At the south end of the beach is a temple. In the early morning there were hundreds of Indian people engaging in the ceremonies, making offerings at the temple and at the individual Pujaris (people who do puja’s) that made sand mounds where they sat and conducted the ceremonies.  The Indians would take their rice offerings and feed them to the crows, putting flowers in the water, often going into the ocean fully dressed.

Pujari who did ceremony for mom, dad and grandparents with temple in background

I ended up staying in a spacious and quiet place a 4 minute walk from the beach. A large group had left the day before I arrived, and for much of the week I was the only guest there. It had everything I needed.I talked with the 5-year-old daughter of the owner, walked to the ocean, meditated and walked on the beach, swam in the 84-degree ocean water in the early morning and late afternoon, shopped, ate meals at various restaurants and slowly I started to feel less liquid and more solid.

After a huge day for me–waking miles, listening to music and singing at the beach, and meeting with one of my mentees online, my friends invited me to join them for dinner at 9 PM. It was the first time in over 30 years that at 9 PM I was able to go out. It was such a sign of life returning. I was bursting with joy!

After Varkala Beach I went north 2 hours to the Hugging Mother’s Ashram Amritapuri, also in Kerala.  I stayed there a week. So much happens at the Ashram! It is filled with chanting, ceremonies and receiving darshan from Amma-ji herself.

Amma’s presence is powerful. Her mind is not shaken by the changeable circumstances of the world. Her imperturbability combined with her resolve to help living beings is the compassionate grace that she exudes. What has arisen around her is mind blowing. This ashram houses, feeds, chlothes, provides allopathic and ayurvedic medical care and education for three thousand residential devotees. In addition, she has multiple universities. The school of engineering that is near the ashram is considered one of the top universities in India where seventy percent of the student body are women. Furthermore, Amma’ji has built many Allopathic and Ayurveda hospitals and an international philanthropic organization dedicated to furthering self-reliance in villages, education, environmental sustainability, empowering women, taking care of the elderly, orphans and disaster relief.

I loved listening to the women renunciants and devoties in the Kali temple – the most beautiful building with the longest standing time of Amma-ji’s darshans chanting the 1000 names of the Divine Mother, their voices loud and clear. It is healing to have the Feminine up held, honored and revered.

Earlier, while at the hospital I learned of the CoronaVirus outbreak. There were three confirmed cases from Indian Nationals who returned from China. They were isolated in a hospital and there were no secondary cases. All three recovered. While I was at the ashram, suddenly India had 30 new cases, all from foreigners. The government required all ashrams to have daily health checks and quarantine people coming from certain areas. As this was not manageable, Amma-ji’s ashram stopped allowing any new foreign or Indian people to enter and or the first time, cancelled public darshan.

I had planned to return a week early as I was feeling well enough to fly. I’ve had my own little adventures getting home. I had a sore throat. Ordinarily that would not cause me concern. But since we are in the middle of a coronavirus pandemic where sore throat presents in 5% of the cases, I wanted a doctor’s advice and assurance before I travelled. The Doctor checked me out, was not concerned, and was fine with me travelling home.

I returned to the US on Tuesday, March 10th.

My health and the living daylight have been restored. Filled with the blessings of the Holy Mother, so very glad to feel well and resourced, it is time I’m home.

Post Script – As the Ayurvedic treatment was so powerfully tranformative, I plan to return January 2021 with a small group of experienced students to  augment the Ayurveda with meditation and intentional community. Details will be soon posted on www.AwakeningTruth.org website.

I joined the Sonoma County Threshold Choir thinking Threshold might play a small part when Mom died. What transpired during her dying process, wake, and memorial was not small. It had a profound impact. For one, I let go of some deep rooted beliefs. One in particular, was feeling I was on my own to figure things out. Instead, I was opened to a vast, loving, and responsive field of connection. For Mom’s friends and community members, it created new ways to think about death and gave them never-before-imagined possibilities for conscious living, dying, and grieving.

A few months after I joined the choir, Nothern California had many terrible fires. In October 2017, in Santa Rosa alone, 9000 structures burned, including 5000 homes. 40,000 people had to evacuate, including nearly everyone in Sonoma County and the Valley of the Moon Threshold Choirs. Our rehearsals were a time to share intimate details of what we were personally navigating, what we needed, ways we could support each other and ways we could support the trauma and grief-stricken community all around us. Hearing each other’s stories and singing was bonding and healing. Sharing  intimately didn’t come as a result of the crisis; it was part of Sonoma County Threshold’s values of actively prioritizing self-care, and caring for each other as the foundation from which we did outreach to the community. Regular teachings and the practice of attuning to each other, as well as the song sister taking the reclining chair in the middle of the circle, and intimate sharing, happened at most rehearsals.

The fires and the residual toxicity had a big impact on my health. By January, I had to relinquish my apartment and leave the area. For 9 months I spent time between Northern and Southern California and Colorado trying to figure out why I was so sick. I was managing treatments alongside the care-taking and care-managing of my Mom. Whenever I could, I visited my Sonoma County home choir and other Threshold choirs, grateful to sing with song sisters, let the songs, singing and community anchor me during this intensely challenging time.

Two years after the fire, now settled in the East Bay Threshold Choir, I found myself again suffused by support leading up to and after my mom’s passing. This is what I share now.

***************************************************

It’s 3:30 in the morning. Nurse Israel was there on Tuesday. But was that last week or this week? Nurse Bob said she was over the worst of it. When was that?  When was her fever? When did Jesus say she wasn’t getting up again? Where am I?

In this in-between state between dreaming and wakefulness, I’m trying to piece together what happened. Then I remember – I’m at Susan’s. Mom is gone. She died. That’s what happened. I’m awake. My heart feels heavy, too heavy, and my body feels like I’ve been beaten up. I try to go back to sleep.

Here’s my story.

After some unusual symptoms, Tuesday April 30, I take my 89 year old Mom to the Emergency Room. She has pneumonia. The doctor discharges her under hospice care.

The next morning hospice comes and says that the labored way she is breathing is putting a lot of stress on her heart. She could be non-responsive in a few days. Mom wakes late, is groggy, pale and disoriented. She looks like she has been run over by a cement truck. She meets the hospice intake nurse. After 15 minutes, she is sitting upright, gobbles down an entire sandwich and says, “I’m fine, what’s the fuss all about?”

My brother, David and Sister-in-law Michelle are flying out tomorrow. I tell Mom. Incredulous, she says, “Did you ask him to come?” “No Mom, all I did was tell him what the doctor said: You’ve got pneumonia, you could die in a few days, it could take weeks or you might recover.”

“Why did you tell him I’ve got pneumonia? That’s scary.”

Later, I leave. Not knowing what to do with myself, I fiddle on my cell phone. An email reminds me that the regular Sonoma County Threshold rehearsal is beginning in 15 minutes. I text Venus Meher, the co-director. She replies, “We’ve got you and your Mama. Come.” There are 14 women in a circle singing. Venus pauses everyone, stands up, walks over to me, warmly embraces me, and quietly asks if I want to speak or if I would like her to summarize. I speak. Venus waits for my signal that I’ve shared as much as I need and switches gears again leading songs.

I become the bedside.

First sitting with the others, where I join in singing, Venus turns her attention to me, picks songs that cradle me in tenderness, speak to me, allowing me to feel the turmoil inside and connect me with grace big enough to hold it all. The combination of Venus’s attunement, the songs, the song-sisters presence and thier attunement as well, melodies and harmonies hit an empathetic resonance.

Like a flood bursting a damn, I’m sobbing inconsolably. My song sisters don’t miss a beat. Two walk over to be physically near me. Everyone continues holding melody and harmonies with their responsive, loving presence. In this tender, exquisitely attuned, and very safe space, I share intimate details of my complex relationship with Mom. I ask if there are any songs about the complexity of mother daughter love. The number of heads nodding, lets me feel the empathetic resonance and resounding understanding and agreement there should be. But no. Then I go to the reclining chair. Venus slowly eases the chair into its reclining position and then covers me with a shawl. Everyone’s attention is gently focused on me. I feel thier attention as if it were a down comforter – soft, holding, keeping me warm and protected as they weave a relational-field/blessing-field/prayer-field with songs. The safety I feel releases my most subtle tendency to scan and check if everything is OK. All my attention is available to be with what is arising. More tears pour out of me. Eventually I settle. This layer of frozen grief has thawed. I’m no longer numb nor feel like crawling out of my skin.

The next several days are a blur with activity and visits – family and close friends come. Threshold Choir comes three times and for two of those times my brother and sister-in-law from Colorado are present. In that safe space held in song, the closeness I feel with both of them reaches an all time high. Mom tells me she loves the Threshold songs. Her peaceful, radiant presence speaks louder than her words.

I return to my studio.

Monday, I call Mom and find her alert and energetic. “Do you want to go out to get your nails polished tomorrow?” Yes! I know this tone. It’s Mom’s signature panache and zest for life. I make arrangements for someone to take her. I sleep well, wake up Tuesday and do my protocols. At 9:30 am I call Jesus, the senior care taker where she is living. How’s Mom? In a somber voice he says, “I don’t think she’s ever getting up again.”

I drive 78 miles an hour to Santa Rosa. I arrive and find Mom in bed with a high fever. Nurse Israel comes and confirms death is imminent. I’m sure she isn’t going to last till morning and I stay up most of the night singing. I feel calm knowing these are perfect prayers for Mom, gently guiding and holding her. Confident there couldnt be a more perfect way of being together, now. I feel reassured Mom is calm, at peace.

Wednesday morning comes. I’m surprised Mom is up and wants to eat, or even engage. In the evening we go outside.

Thursday morning, Mom’s breathing has slowed. I move in close, hold her and resume singing. At some point, I climb into her bed, crawl above her pillow and straddle her, embracing her with my legs, while cradling her head in my hands. I feel clear and confident. I feel the poignancy of sitting and singing in this birthing posture. I call Israel. He comes and while supporting the sanctity of the moment, eases some of her struggle to breathe. I climb out of bed and come bedside, so he can shift her.  I wrap my right arm around her right shoulder and caress her chest with my left hand. Holding her tenderly in my arms, she passes.

Jerrigrace Lyons, a song sister for 17 years, comes over and helps me prepare Mom’s body. Jerrigrace started Final Passages 23 years ago when a close friend asked for a home funeral. She is having a major deja-vu. A few years ago, her mom died in the same room.

It is my wish to have a multi-day meditation vigil. Rev. Chris Bell is very supportive. Jerrigrace is stunned. This is the first time in this county a church is holding a multi day wake. We move her to the Unitarian Church where we set up a shrine with Mom’s body laid out in honor. The wake is interspersed with various chanting. Kate Munger comes with 15 song sisters from four different choirs. Again, Venus anchors.

Ensconced at church for the entire 4 days of the wake, I stay in vigil witnessing, attending to my internal ebb and flow of exhaustion, joy, gratitude, grief, relief, while sharing with dear freinds and community members who come to pay their respects. Members of the congregation feed me. Each meditation, meal, message written on the carboard casket, every expression of love, and story are a gift. This is time beyond time, surrounded by ones who know and love Mom and me. We grieve together.

Monday morning we take Marley’s body to the crematorium. When it is time to return for the cremation, I hit a wall. The cells in my body are in full revolt. Nothing wants to go; nothing wants to face the annihilation cremation represents. I feel like I’m killing her. I would have muscled my way back with the arid force of determination. Knowing that my Threshold song sisters are going to be there hold open a thread that keeps me connected to love. Venus is anchoring on her lunch break.

At Marley’s memorial Threshold again came en-masse. At different times, Melanie DeMore, Kate and Venus lead the congregation and choir. I could feel Marley rejoicing in this perfectly fitting life celebration. All the while feeling loved and supported, relieved to move between my roles as daughter, host and speaker and then seamlessly entering into the choir and sing, led by deeply loved and trusted song mothers and surrounded by cherished song sisters.

In hindsight, I can see that the values and practices of Sonoma County Threshold contributed to the overwhelming positive impact. Our rehearsals deliberately cultivated the skills of attunement, gentle loving attention focused on the song sister during our rehersal bedside, debreifs about actual bedsides and check-in’s that prioritized authenticity, depth and vulnerability. The safety these skills provided, made it possible for me to break open so fully and then speak candidly. This in turn seems to have accentuated the song sisters willingness to show up for many of the bedsides leading up to Mom’s passing and Threshold events during and after the wake. My own vulnerable sharing seemed to have further increased the level of attunement to me and my families needs.

For my brother and sister-in-law, this was the first death that from begining to end was a sacred passage after six traumatic deaths. The contrast was staggering. Friends and community members shared their gratitude. Fear was removed. Instead, death became a field of blessings; an opportunity to share love, be honest, reflect, connect and greive. What happened was something that they would want for themselves and their loved ones. For me the intimacy, overwhelming support and attunement filled me, let me make inroads into my heart broke open, feeling loved and just the right kind of care. Mom’s death has been an extraordinary, life changing event.

By grace of good fortune, we have video footage and many photos and sound recordings of the songs and chanting from the wake. If anyone has documentary film skills or knows someone who does, kindly contact me: thanasanti@gmail.com I would love to talk further. It would be a gift to share the transformative power of Threshold and conscious dying with others. A few of the photos of the last days of Mom’s life and this vigil of honor and grief can be seen here.  Her obituary is here. 

In 15 years of vipassana practice few experiences have engaged my mindfulness practice the way that my gender transition has.

This transition has been an opportunity to notice how powerfully conditioned the mind is to gender people, animals and other beings and objects. When I am walking around with my dog I notice that people often ask me, “is it a boy or a girl?” How is gender relevant in relating to a dog? I am guessing that gender comes into my dog’s experience in some way, but I haven’t noticed the experience of gender arising in my relationship with my dog. But nonetheless it is often the first thing people want to know about.

I spent the first 48 years of my life identified as female, though with considerable discomfort in that identity. I have spent the last two and half years identified as male in the world, with considerably more comfort. Did I feel like a woman, or female, those first 48 years? For sure not. Do I feel like a man now?  Well, no, not really. What does it even feel like to be a man or a woman? What does it feel like to be neither a man or a woman?

As I make this journey from an identity of “female” to an identity of “male,” what I notice more than anything is that my perceived experience of gender seems to be slipping away or dissolving. When I meditate and try to locate “gender” or “maleness” in my embodied experience, I just can’t find it. My muscles are more defined than they were a few years ago, does that feel “male?” My chest is now flatter, does that feel less “female?” In both cases I don’t really find the answer is yes or no.

I am not the first practitioner to investigate gender. 20 years ago Caitroina Reed, a teacher in the Thich Nhat Hanh tradition, came out whole, as a woman of transgender experience. And today, she is still pointing to the need to dissolve the gender binary in our practice. In 2010 Rita M. Gross wrote in Inquiring Mind, asking the question “How Clinging to Gender Subverts Enlightenment.”

My experience, and these writers, point to the paradox of gendered identity, to the way that it exists and does not exist at the same time. For me this is a direct experience of the teaching of anatta or “no-self.” As I investigate my own experience I find that gender does not exist. At the same time as I walk in the world and am perceived by others as clearly male my suffering is eased in a very real way.

I live in a world where having a clear gender identity brings ease to social interactions. In my many decades as a gender non-conforming butch woman I had to deal with anything from discomfort and embarassment, to fear and outright hostility, on a daily basis. Now as a trans man who easily passes as male, my social interactions on a daily basis are so much easier.

Why is it important to consider this question of gender and identity in the context of Buddhist practice? We have to look at relative and absolute realities in our lineage. On the one hand the teachings lead us to investigate the non-dual nature of all experience including gender. On the other hand our lineage going back to the Buddha is based in monastic communities where gendered hierarchy is the only way that power is held and communities are organized, and those notions of gender are extremely fixed. If gender doesn’t really exist than why are we taught to strive for a male birth and why are all Buddhas male?

At the same time we have the embodiment of compassion, the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, who is embodied in whatever gender is called for, as they respond to the cries of the suffering. They may be male, female, agender, or any possible gender. This embodiment of compassion as gender fluid deeply resonates with my experience.

With all the complexity of our lineage, I am deeply grateful for my practice as I have gone through my own gender journey. Bringing my mindfulness practice to the physical and emotional changes I have gone through as I transition has resulted in a deepening of understanding of the essentially non-dual nature of my experience.

(René Rivera will be joining Amma Thanasanti as an assistant in the Intensive course Re-Wiring of Joy and will co-facillitating the Webinar on Identity and No Self August 18.)

Bio:

René Rivera is a leader and bridge-builder, working and learning in all the spaces in-between race, gender, and other perceived binaries, as a queer, mixed-race, trans man. René has been a student of the Dharma since 2004 and has been a part of the East Bay Meditation Center (EBMC) Sangha since 2008, currently serving on the EBMC Program Committee and as a Community Teacher. He has participated in the Commit to Dharma and Practice in Action programs at EBMC and the Community Dharma Leaders program at Spirit Rock. He is part of the teaching team for the first ever residential retreat for Trans+ community on Sept. 12-16 at the Big Bear Retreat Center.

Photo by Ryoji Iwata on Unsplash

Yes Carl. The statement I made in our group, “There are no good white people,” took place in a context – we were talking about race. I wasn’t making an absolute statement that as white people we cannot find goodness inside of ourselves. What I wanted to convey is that as a white person in the USA, none of us has a free ticket that absolves us of racism by virtue of our goodness and commitment to harmlessness.

Racism has many layers. Some are overt: the intention to hate, harm, exclude or blame others by virtue of their skin color, ethnic origins or ancestry. Then there are many less overt layers that include unconscious bias, white privilege, and the ways that our white privileges come at the expense of others.

While we may have had absolutely nothing to do with setting systemic and structural racism in motion, advocating for the laws and social norms that keep them in place, or even liking that they are there, as white people, we still benefit from them. When we participate in the systemic bias that has been built into many aspects of our society and serves us as white people while harming people of color, we perpetuate racism. We don’t have a free pass – we can’t just claim that our goodness and commitment to harmlessness absolves us of responsibility for race-based oppression.

Once we understand the pervasive nature of racism, it can motivate us to stay aware, compassionate and connected both to our own assumptions and blind spots, to work to see the workings of our privilege, and to find allies in this journey of waking up together.

Maintaining our privilege is contingent upon maintaining our separation from others.  We have to “not see” the harm that arises from racism, and we have to cut off our awareness of the suffering of others.  This sets the stage for a perpetual internal battle between our hunger to belong and our sense of isolation and aloneness; between wanting to feel good about ourselves and a lingering sense of badness. We feel separate, cut off from ourselves, as well as others. As we wake up and let go of what keeps us from feeling disconnected, we open the gateway for seeing our place in the web of life. The more connected we are to the web of life, the less alone and isolated we feel, and the more aware we become of the harm that is arising from our automatic participation in a system of white supremacy.

It is sobering work. It takes maturity to seek out situations that reveal our blind spots and our complicity, to become aware of our ignorance and come to terms with how deep seated and systemic racism is in our society and to actively look at and feel the depth of the harm that has transpired. As we do this work, pools of shame, guilt, entitlement, desire for safety, fear, anxiety, feelings of superiority, self hatred, overwhelm, rage at the injustice, and heartbreak at the suffering can surface. Our meditation practice gives us an anchor in compassionate awareness where we can breathe with and through all of these feelings. Our friends help remind us that this is not personal, it is a feature of the racist beast that we are wrestling with. Our teachers, partners, and spiritual friends can mirror for us our goodness, and remind us that we are not alone as we find ways forward. And yet even though it is not personal, the more we feel racism as our responsibility to understand and help dismantle, the more connected we feel to the web of life.

Our increased connection then sets up a positively reinforcing loop that makes it easier to notice what is there, and facilitates shifting our perspective. We can stop splitting off parts of ourselves because they aren’t consistent with the idea of who we think we are. It can soften our tendency to separate ourselves from others around us. We can make choices not to perpetuate ignorance, hatred or harm and feel the way that choice positively impacts our capacity to connect and respond. Rather than being identified as “good” in order to seek a free pass, this is the goodness and commitment to harmlessness we can trust. As we grow in this work it can naturally extend into considering proactive ways to redress some of the harms that have and continue to take place.

At the beginning of the MMTCP course Konda Mason led all of the teachers and mentors in a diversity training. I was struck by her statement, “Race is everything.” How could something so highly conditioned and involving a sector of the population be everything- particularly for meditation teachers?

When I see how pervasive, deeply embedded and unconscious racism is, I understand that racism is not just about a sector of the population.  It a system of harm that involves us all. This can be seen in the enormous harm done to people of color, as well as in the ways that we as white people have had to cut off parts of our humanity in order to be complicit in the privileges we maintain. What we are learning as teachers is to understand the causes of suffering and find a compassionate response; this allows us to see how vast and complex this illusion we call race is, and how devastating and real racism is. As we look at identity as individuals, as families, and as communities, see social structures, and take time to be with the myriad of feelings that arise as we do this inquiry into race, we interface with conditioned truths.

This work requires us to cultivate compassionate awareness, rely on spiritual friendships, and anchor ourselves in relative as well as perennial and timeless truths. This helps me contextualize what Konda might have meant. From this perspective, I sense the veracity of Konda’s statement. If as meditation teachers, we understand race, we understand everything.

Warmly,

It’s 3:30 in the morning. Nurse Israel was there on Tuesday. But was that last week or this week? Nurse Bob said she was over the worst of it. When was that?  When was her fever? When did Jesus say she wasn’t getting up again? Where am I?

In this in-between state between dreaming and wakefulness, I’m trying to piece together what happened. Then I remember – I’m at Susan’s. Mom is gone. She died. That’s what happened. I’m awake. My heart feels heavy, too heavy, and my body feels like I’ve been beaten up. I try to go back to sleep.

It’s Monday, April 29. Jesus calls to tell me that Mom had a fall. She got tangled up between the handrail and the mattress. She was okay, though tired and having a hard time walking. Later, I speak with Anna, another caregiver who I love and trust deeply, who confirms that she is okay. I talk with Mom, and her labored breathing and readiness to get off the phone in 3 minutes, as opposed to our regular 30-40 minutes, is concerning. I call her doctor.

Tuesday, April 30: I wake early in the morning and do my protocols – double liver flushes followed by far infrared sauna to clear out the toxicity from the Bee Venom Therapy I’m using to treat late stage Lyme disease. In the middle of my protocols I have an insight – I have to get Mom on hospice. At 10:00 am I speak to the doctors who say that from the obscure symptoms she has been having I need to take her into the Emergency Room. I call Jesus and ask him to prepare Mom so I can take her to the ER. I pack, not knowing how long I’ll be away. On the freeway, I drive 78 miles an hour from my home in Piedmont to Santa Rosa. It usually takes 1.5 hours. I arrive in an hour. Mom is in a foul mood.

After driving in stoney silence, I say something: “Mom that’s the first time you’ve smiled in 20 minutes.” She says, “if you want me to smile don’t take me to the emergency room!” I tell her, “I’m gonna see if I can arrange it so this is the last time you have to go to the emergency room.” “That would be great,” she replies.

The attending physician orders lab tests and an x-ray. The lab tests are all clear. The x-ray comes back with a vague sign of pneumonia. I ask about mom’s prognosis: “She could go in a couple days, or it could be weeks, or she could recover.”  Mom was listening to this conversation, totally nonplussed. When the social worker comes to discuss hospice, Mom seems okay, particularly with the prospect she won’t have to go back to the ER again. We discharge from the hospital and Mom says, “Let’s go out to dinner!

We go to Goji’s Kitchen, both very happy to be in a familiar place.

Mom eats everything on her plate and savors her glass of wine. Her fortune cookie says, “A gracious host will receive you soon.” My cookie doesn’t have a fortune in it. There is a vividness to the evening –  the mood, a sense of suspended time, the colors of the table and walls, the sound of water trickling down the water feature next to us are all explicit. The messages are clear.

Wednesday, May 1, at Oak Meadow Lodge, where Mom has been living these past 6 months, I walk in and the staff are in tears. This is a complete surprise. “What did I miss?,” says Jesus. He is the senior caregiver/manager.  He tracks the minutia of detail as a way of caring deeply about his residents. The warmth he exudes caring for each resident is as if they are family.

There are no obvious signs Mom is so sick. The cognitive dissonance between the level of vitality she exudes and what the doctors are saying are hard to reconcile. Everyone is in shock.

Hospice shows up, talks with me, and assess Mom. The labored way she is breathing is putting a lot of stress on her heart. She could be non responsive in a few days. The first time Mom wakes that day is 2:30 pm, when she is ordinarily up at 10 am.. She’s groggy, pale and disoriented. She looks like she has been run over by a cement truck. She meets the hospice intake nurse. After 15 minutes, she is sitting upright, gobbles down an entire sandwich and says, “I’m fine what’s the fuss all about?”

My brother, David and Sister-in-law Michelle decide to fly out. They are coming tomorrow, Thursday, I tell Mom. Incredulous, she says, “Did you ask him to come?” “No Mom, all I did was tell him what the doctor said: You’ve got pneumonia, you could die in a few days, or it could take weeks and you might recover.”

“Why did you tell him I’ve got pneumonia? That’s scary.”

I leave Mom at Oak Meadow and return to Tricia’s house, my second home in Santa Rosa. Not knowing what to do with myself, I fiddle on my cell phone. An email reminds me that there’s the regular Threshold Choir rehearsal beginning in 15 minutes.  I text Venus, the director, tell her what’s going on and that I’m coming. She replies, “We’ve got you and your Mama. Come.” There are 14 women in a circle singing. Venus pauses, stands up and embraces me, and invites me to share. I speak. Venus waits for my signal that I’ve shared as much as I need and switches gears inviting the women to resume singing.

Threshold was started 19 years ago by Kate Munger based upon her experience of singing to a dying friend. Now there are over 200 Threshold chapters and 2,000 choir members worldwide. It is a free service that is offered upon request.

I have been singing with this choir for nearly 2 years. Venus and many song sisters know me.

Venus picks songs that cradle me in tenderness, speak to me, allow me to feel the turmoil inside and connect me with with grace – love suffusing that which knows and witnesses, but doesn’t cling or dismiss. The combination of Venus’s attunement, the songs, the sisters presence, melodies and harmonies hit an empathetic resonance. Like a flood bursting a damn, I’m sobbing inconsolably. My song sisters don’t miss a beat, continue holding melody and harmony while bringing forward their responsive, loving presence.  After many tears, more sharing and many songs, eventually I settle.

The next several days are a blur with activity and visits – close friends come, the Threshold Choir sings with mom three times, and Rev. Christopher Bell, the UU minister, visits twice. Mom is delighted to have my brother David and Michelle from Colorado. I feel their presence and support as a huge gift to me too. Mom is happy with friends around, and loves the Threshold songs. Mom insists on going out to dinner both Friday and Saturday night. Why on earth not? We relish it.

Sunday, May 5. I return to my studio in Piedmont. On Monday May 6, I call Mom and find her alert and energetic. “Do you want to go out to get your nails polished tomorrow?” Yes! I know this tone. It’s Mom’s signature panache and zest for life. I make arrangements for someone to take her. I sleep well, wake up Tuesday and do my protocols. At 9:30 am I call Jesus. How’s Mom? In a somber voice Jesus says, “I don’t think she’s ever getting up again.”

Once again, I drive 78 miles an hour to Santa Rosa. I arrive and find Mom in bed with a high fever. Nurse Israel comes and confirms death is imminent. I’m sure she isn’t going to last the night. I’m up singing threshold songs, Jewish songs, Mantras. I sleep less than 3 hours.

At 5:30 in the morning on Wednesday, May 8, Mom is up and needs to use the toilet.  Several more trips and half a bowl of strawberries later, with several friends lined up to visit, I head over to Susan’s to do my protocols. Evening time, and Mom is alert and wants to go outside. I take her.

She looks at me, “You must be crazy with grief.” Mom, you were 16 when your Mom died and everyone told you not to cry. I’m not 16 and no one is telling me not to cry. We know you are dying. We’re going to miss you terribly. But we’ll be OK. It’s not fun for you anymore. It’s time now for you to go.

When I wake Thursday morning, its 7am. Mom’s breathing has slowed. I move over close, hold her and resume singing. At some point, I climb into her bed, crawl above her pillow and straddle her, embracing her with my legs, while cradling her head in my hands. I feel clear and confident. I feel the poignancy of sitting and singing in this birthing posture. I call Israel. He comes and with masterful innocuous grace, completely understanding and supporting the sanctity of the moment, eases some of her struggle to breathe. He wants to shift her so that she is higher up. I climb out of bed and come to the bedside, where I wrap my right arm around her right shoulder and caress her chest with my left hand. Holding her tenderly in my arms, she passes.

Jerrigrace comes over and helps me prepare Mom’s body. Even though I see her last breath, I keep waiting for her to start breathing again. It isn’t until we prepare her body and dress her that it sinks in. This is a body. Mom’s gone. She isn’t going to start breathing again.

Jerrigrace Lyons started Final Passages 23 years ago when a close friend asked for a home funeral. She has helped many families take care of their loved ones naturally and gracefully.

Rev. Chris is very supportive. We move her to the Unitarian Church where we set up a shrine with Mom’s body laid out in honor. It is my wish to have a multi-day meditation vigil. Jerrigrace says that this is the first time she knows of a church holding a multi-day wake.

Thursday May 9. The day Mom passes. The regular Thursday night meditation group meet along with the Dhammadharini Bhikkhunis who bring their depth of presence. We do traditional funeral chanting. Friday morning, the ongoing meditation group that I started when I lived in Santa Rosa comes. Friday night the Bhikkhunis return with more meditation and chanting. Early Saturday afternoon City Zen members gather for sutra readings and chanting. Late Saturday afternoon Threshold choir returns en masse, with 15 song sisters from 4 different choirs  including Kate Munger, the founder. Again, Venus picks the songs and leads the choir. Ani Palmo offers Tibetan Buddhist prayers. Sunday, at the Mother’s Day sermon Reverend Chris speaks of Marley. The congregation is invited next door to sing UU songs around her.

The cardboard casket is in the back of the room. Nearby are art materials for visitors to decorate her casket. By Sunday evening, the outside and inside are covered in messages, pictures, paper flowers, and hand prints.

Ensconced at church, I stay in vigil witnessing, attending to my internal ebb and flow of exhaustion, joy, gratitude, greif, relief, seeing friends and sharing with many who come to pay their respects. Members of the congregation feed me. Each minute of meditation, meal, message of love, and story are a gift; to have time surrounded by ones who knew and loved Mom and me. We grieve together.

Sunday afternoon, I hear Mom’s voice in my head, “It’s enough already. I’m dead. Go enjoy life!”  Occidental Choir is performing in the sanctuary next door. I go and enjoy listening.

Monday early morning we take Marley’s body to the crematorium. The cremation is due to begin at 1:30.  When it is time to return to the crematorium, I hit a wall. The cells in my body are in full revolt. Nothing wants to go, nothing wants to face the annihilation cremation represents. I feel like I’m killing her. Knowing that my Threshold song sisters are going to be there helps add some positive motivation. I would have muscled my way back with the arid force of determination. My song sisters and friends hold open a thread that keeps me connected to love.

Outside, we are in a circle next to a tree, listening to crickets, water from the sprinkler, a bee flies right between us, a hummingbird buzzes us. With nature holding us, once again we sing Mom over the threshold. My song sisters hold, bathe, and immerse me in song until my resistance softens.

Tuesday morning I return to the crematorium with Susan. Anthony opens the oven door and I feel the 500 degree heat as I look inside. I pause, take in what I see inside the oven. I am calm and grounded. I see a skeleton visible in the ashes. I choose a few bones and return later to get the ashes after Anthony pulverizes the remains.

Leaving Susan’s house Friday is hard. I feel resistance as if I’m walking through molasses, packing my things, getting in the car and driving home. I feel apprehensive returning to my studio alone.

Mom died when she was 89, something my brother and I have been preparing for for many years. Anticipatory grief still doesn’t prepare the DNA, and the cells for this rewiring. I lean into the groundlessness and lack of mooring that Mamacita’s departure heralds and let the visceral nature of this journey unfold and guide me, hold me as I live into, now what?

Photos of the last days of Mom’s life and this vigil of honor and grief can be seen here.

Her obituary is here: http://awakeningtruth.org/blog/marley-obit

I’m grateful for each and every one of you, the family units, close friends, and communities that have been part of this process. Your love, care, presence, songs, chanting, prayers, meditation, thoughts of good will, messages and gestures of kindness near and far, for all that holds Mom, me, my brother and family and this process with exquisite grace.

With tenderness as we are all just walking each other home,

Amma

A celebration of life will be held on July 13 from 1-3 PM at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation, Santa Rosa, 547 Mendocino Ave, Santa Rosa. In lieu of flowers a donation may be made to Marley Fein’s Memorial Fund promoting health and empowerment to women and children. The first recipient will be Elder Woman refugees in Uganda who Marley knew and supported.

Donations to Marley’s Memorial Fund may be made online via paypal or credit card at:

https://bit.ly/2QaA84j

Alternatively, checks may be made out to David Fein and sent to: David Fein, ValuSource, 4575 Galley Rd, Suite 200E, Colorado Springs, CO 80915.

On May 9th we lost our dear mother, grandmother, great grandmother, friend, and beloved community member. Marley Joy Fein lived 89 magnificent, authentically alive years.

Marley Fein was born March 22, 1930, 3 months premature and weighing 3.5 pounds, to Harry and Edith Lazarus. Marley was their only child. Marley’s close family included Edith’s sisters Rose and Florence and Great Aunt Feigie. Pauline, Edith’s mother, had 5 siblings and Feigie was the one Marley felt the strongest connection with. Harry’s immediate family included his brother Sigmund and sister Sylvia Lee, father Isaac and mother Sabina. Harry’s last name was Lazarowitz. When Harry’s family emigrated from Brailia, Romania, they came through Ellis Island in 1913, and changed their last name (or it was changed for them) to Lazarus; common for Jews assimilating into this new land. Edith’s parents were Max and Pauline Pupko. Edith and her mother and father emigrated from Warsaw, Poland in 1908 when Edith was 4, travelling on the SS Kroonland from Anterwerp to Elis Island.

Marley was born in Chicago, a city she loved. She lost her mother Edith when she was only 16, a loss Marley felt all her life. Marley struck out on her own at an early age, determined to become an elementary school teacher. She went to Sullivan High School in Chicago and then attended the University of Illinois at Champagne where she received her BA, working as a cook to get herself through.

After graduating she camped across the country, her first time camping.  Eventually she settled in LA, began teaching, married Charles Fein, and had two children, David and Amma. When the marriage ended, she raised her kids as a single mom and lived in LA for 40 years. On her first camping trip as a single mom with her children ages 4 and 6 in Big Bear California, her car broke down and the maintenance man from DeBenniville Pines, the Unitarian Universalist (UU) camp, came to the rescue. This was Marley’s first introduction to UU, and she soon became a UU member. For decades Marley and her children returned to DeBennivlle Pines, which was like a second home.

In 1971 she took her two young children (9 and 11) to live in Spain for a year, living in both Majorca and Granada—it was a grand adventure for all of them. She taught in Burbank California for 33 years and retired in June of 1992. Marley was proud to be a teacher, and loved her students. Her teaching combined her panache for caring, humor, combining practical learning and fun. She talked about her students throughout her retirement and with Facebook got to reconnect with many of them. Marley was committed to social justice and participated in the 3 week school strike that took place in 1980. Though it was hard,  she was committed to seeing it through. At 86 she was still marching for social justice issue.

At age 57 she attended her first 3 day silent meditation retreat. Her last retreat was a week before her 89 birthday. When she retired at 62, Marley decided to move to Sonoma County, even though she knew only one person. Within six months of moving, she was part of a dream group, journal group, folk dancing community, a group to set up a cooperative housing community, and the Unitarian Congregation while she was substitute teaching. The next year she was adopted into the Freeman family to be grandparents to Becca and Travis.

Marley never looked back. She often commented on how lucky she was to live in such a beautiful place, loving the trees that lined the streets, the gardens and fields nearby and the sweet smelling air. Marley joined the Santa Rosa Creek Commons, a cooperative housing community. There she made many good friends and learned new practical and leadership skills during the 17 years of wholehearted engagement in the joys and challenges of community living. During the time at the Santa Rosa Creek Commons she shared her life lessons which included:

• Expectations bring disappointment
• Anger and resentment hurt me
• Family and friends are most important to well being
• Let go of past and future
• Live in the present
• Have an open loving heart.

Marley was courageous and fearless.  Marley and Olive (86 and 98 respectively) participated in one of the most inspiring Women’s Marches in the country. They wore their pink pussy hats and with their walkers, marched into the dining hall where almost all of 129 companion residents were disapproving.

Marley’s most outstanding qualities were her spirit of adventure, zest for life and genuine love for people. Together these combined to create her flair for authenticity, resiliency, maximizing goodness and opportunity in every moment. She would throw herself headfirst into things she was passionate about, often leaving those nearby bemused or breathless. She said “yes!” to trekking in the Himalayas in Nepal when she was 68, camping until she was 85, swimming with dolphins and turtles, folk dancing, and a visit to never seen relatives in Brazil. She loved folk art, live music (especially mariachi bands), speaking Spanish, babies, animals (particularly Chelsea and Lacie who were dog companions for many years), and engaging just about everyone she met in conversation. Most of all, she loved her family and friends.

She was very active in the Unitarian Universalist Congregation both in LA and Santa Rosa, and loved the annual family camps where she taught folk dancing, arts and crafts and tie dye.

She loved travel; her extroverted character revelled meeting new people and her inquisitive nature loved learning about new cultures. While her international travel took her around the globe to Mexico five times, the Bahamas, Guatemala, Ecuador, Peru, Nepal, India, Turkey, multiple trips to England, Spain, Greece, Italy; France, Hong Kong, Thailand, and Singapore, she also loved her trips throughout the continental US, the Hawaiian islands, Alaska and Canada. She loved sharing in her friends trips and insisted on having their itinerary so each day she could imagine where her friends were and what they were doing.

Although Marley suffered a number of medical conditions in her last years, she remained passionate about life and interested in family, friends, caregivers and current events. She loved going out to eat, taking a drive with a friend and being near a lake, the ocean or trees. Her last words were filled with care and kindness for others.

The way she lived and died was an inspiration.

Marley is survived by her loving family; her daughter Amma Thanasanti, her son David and daughter-in-law Michelle Fein, her grandchildren Sandi, Carolyn, and Wayne (no longer with us), Becca and Travis Freeman, and her five great grandchildren Rose, MacKenzie, Freya, Kaison, and Felix and her devoted friends, Helga, Sarita, Harriet, Joni, Nancy and Mac.

A celebration of life will be held on July 13, from 1-3 PM at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation, Santa Rosa, 547 Mendocino Ave, Santa Rosa. In lieu of flowers a donation may be made to Marley Fein’s Memorial Fund, which will promote the health and empowerment of women and children. The initial recipient of the memorial fund will be the Elder Woman refugees in Uganda who Marley knew and supported.

Donations to Marley’s Memorial Fund may be made online via PayPal or credit card at:

https://bit.ly/2QaA84j

Alternatively, checks may be made out to David Fein and sent to:  David Fein, ValuSource, 4575 Galley Rd, Suite 200E, Colorado Springs, CO 80915.

In 1995, I co-taught my first 10-day retreat. It was the very first monastic retreat taught at Spirit Rock. The meditation hall was brand new, and unpainted sheetrock covered the basement walls. There were backhoe tracks in the land surrounding the building. Everything smelled and felt new at Spirit Rock, and here I was, nun of 5 years co-teaching with a prominent senior monk.

During the ten day retreat, I took some yogis into the unfinished basement and led devotional songs. We opened our hearts and filled the space, lifting the ceiling with our sacred sound. I was aware of the contrast with the silent meditation hall above, and the dynamic tension of my precepts that gave preference to the joys that came from abiding internally in the place music comes from, rather than engaging in the external expressions of song or dance. I was on an edge with what was proscribed by my monastic vows. Even still, I felt the joy and togetherness of our bodies reverberating with inspiring music, filling the hallways with sacred sound. Our eyes lit up as we wrote the words of these sacred songs, mantras and texts in pencil on the walls. Our mood was buoyant. We felt alive. We called this the Bhakti Underground. Our time for song and singing was in the margins, not when we were scheduled for the meditation, where the real practice of awakening was taking place in the hall upstairs. I left the Bhakti Underground longing to do more; to combine meditation music and song and see how it all was part of awakening.

In 1995, I was a young nun in a community where, as monastic women, we were finding our voice in a context where we had less visibility, less access to resources, and less value as the monks. During each of the three Dharma talks I offered, I wove teachings that illuminated the way to freedom while validating some of the views of the establishment that I was part.

In one talk, I spoke about the importance of having the Buddha in an elevated place of prominence rather than on an equal level as Quan Yin. Spirit Rock puts the Buddha and Quan Yin on an equal footing as a way to say that both the male and female embodiments of the sacred were equally valued. Traditionally, as monastics, we put the Buddha in a place of prominence above any other image. If as a nun, I gave credence for positioning a Buddha above Quan Yin, then others may find it easier to accept. But more insidiously, I might win the monks approval. With a prominent monk’s support and approval, many things might be easier for me in my monastic life.

I look back at this experience, and the two other talks I gave, along with the numerous other experiences of pandering to the patriarchy in order to eek out more ground and safety for myself. It would take many more years of painstaking work before i personally and we as a group of nuns could name what we were dealing with and understand how our behaviour to eek out more safety and our ways of panderning to the patriarchy were both expressions of the system that we were part.

Fast forward 25 years, and I returned to Spirit Rock, now no longer a nun. I asked Melanie DeMore, a Grammy Award winning musican to co-teach a day long retreat combining meditation, movement and song. We were not going to be in the dim light of the basement; we were going to be in the grand hall, in the full light of day.

When I first met Melanie, a few years ago, I was struck by the way she used rhythm and song to connect us to ourselves and to each other. The late Ronnie Gilbert discribed Melanie as “power wrapped in velvet.” Melanie, a master of presence and energy, whose medium is music.

Yes, I waited 25 years to bring meditation, movement and song together and out in the open. Understandably, I was excited. But even more to the core of my joy, that day, teaching with Melanie, was about a different relationship with power, where we share it, and inhabit it in an inclusive way. It was about inviting all parts of ourselves to come home and be part of our awakening. It included everyone, and was an acknowledgment of what I have come out of and where I stand now.

I tingled with energy, and felt my body and the weight of my feet on the floor. I was deeply delighted to share the stage with Melanie, and we seamlessly lead back and forth. We turned our attention inwards, and brought the power of meditation into our bodies, hearts and minds. Movement and rhythm evoked full body awareness and aliveness. We had permission to feel our goodness, and let love wash over and through us. As we felt love in ourselves, our connection with each other deepened. Rhythm took us out of our heads, and connected us in a primordial heartbeat to something beyond time. Separation fell away. We were one people. As family, suddenly it became a priority that no one was left behind.

Power is tangible. It is not a special commodity for the chosen few, to win in order to leverage basic needs as I so often expereinced living as a nun in the monastery within a context that was defined by patriachy. There is no pandering. It is an aspect of presence, something to recognize in our bodies, to express through song, feel in the pounding of the sticks and clapping of our hands. It is the direct result of our meditation. There is power in love and abiding in pure awareness. Power is in each of us, everywhere.

At the end of the day, I looked around at the tears and smiles on people’s faces, at the countenance of people’s relaxed bodies, and rejoiced with pure, whole body joy. Power became an empowerment.