Surviving Kali Yuga (Playing the Long, Long Game)

The shit is getting real.  All of our reactions are appropriate at this moment – denial, hope, abject terror, despair, sadness.  The search for understanding.  Deep grief.  Me, I am angry.  My fellow countrymen would rather be governed by an insane aspiring dictator felon than by a woman.  Or the Russians (Chinese, Saudis, etc.) had a hand in this.  And don’t get me started on Elon Musk.

When the shit gets bad, I look to Hindu cosmology for a greater perspective, to see what the ancient holy ones in Mother India, the progenitors of our yogas, have to say.  And these boys were in it for the long game.  They believed the timespan of our universe ran in cycles, and each cycle lasts 4,320,000 years.  The long, long game.  Each cycle has four stages called yugas, and in each successive yuga, spiritual qualities degrade.  Alas, dear friends, we have the great misfortune of living in the last yuga - Kali Yuga.  Kali is the goddess of destruction and death.  In Hindi, the word “Kali” means black.  This is where we live—in a yuga marked by selfishness, preoccupation with worldly goods and riches, environmental damage, and war.  Sound familiar?

I wish this weren’t so, but here we are.  I have no idea how bad things will get.  Damage to our democracy (flawed as it is) may be reversed later down the road, but damage to our environment will not.  Kali Yuga.  I share this not to encourage apathy or nihilism, but to help explain why things are so bad.  Let’s not pretend otherwise.  Things are very bad.  Yes.  But the lesson of Kali Yuga is to ultimately surrender.  We are specks in a vast universe of space and time.  It is OK to feel powerless because we are ultimately powerless. 

At the same time: we are also beings of light.  The same Indian philosophers who warned of Kali Yuga understood our true nature as souls only.  Souls that last indefinitely, because this moment is but one brief wink in the endless eye of time.  For Kali Yuga isn’t the end of time; when it’s over (in 428,899 CE!), there is a pause and then the cycle begins again.  We return to Satya Yuga, the era of truth.   

So be good to yourself and good to your people and know that we are not lost.  We are just learning lessons from this dark age, as our souls return again and again and eventually emerge in the age of truth, victorious. 

In the meantime, here are some survival tips for this moment:

1.)   Rest as much as you need to rest.  Believing the world will end burns through a lot of emotional energy.  Give your mind a break by noticing the breath.  Count the length of your inhale and then make your exhale a few counts longer.  Great for trying to fall asleep.  Even if you don’t, your body will relax from the extended exhale and concentrated focus on the breath.

2.)   Move your body.  Even if you feel exhausted, remember that movement will help you.  Stress creates hormones that need to be run through your circulatory system.  If you tend to anger (like moi), then move your thighs by running, biking, squats, or holding goddess or chair pose.  This encourages your body to produce more testosterone and you can move through that anger faster.  Walking clears the mind like nothing else.  Of course, there is the physical practices of yoga, and I uploaded a special video to help you rebalance during this time.

3.)   Let go of media.  Yes, media is great for trying to process the shock, but after a time, you will be reading and re-reading the same things again.  I did it on election night, and again the morning after.  Don’t get stuck in the echo chamber of everyone’s upset.  Take a break and divert your attention to anything else.  If you must do media, decide beforehand how much time you want to invest, and then keep track of your time.  Keep that boundary and be serious about stopping.

4.)   Up your levels of happy chemicals.  The above steps contribute towards this, but there is more.  Connecting with others in your life not only to remind yourself of your community, but to increase your serotonin levels.  Hug anyone you can find.  Be with your pet.  Get a massage.  These increase oxytocin.  Of course, sex is a classic go-to for this.  So is chocolate, so eat as much of it as the law will allow, and don’t feel guilty.

5.)   Feel in percentages.  It is easy to get overwhelmed with difficult emotions such as anger, sadness, fear, and despair.  Because of this, it’s easy to shut down and numb yourself to feeling at all.  Instead, know that you need to feel these emotions, but don’t feel so much that you fall apart entirely.  Ask yourself – how much is safe to feel now?  50%? 25%?  5%?  You can build up over time, and remember, time is endless.

6.)   Pray to Divine spirits.  In this moment, let’s remember we have help.  However you conceive of the Divine, go there: gods, goddesses, earth spirits, plant spirits, animal spirits, angels, fairies.  Thank these good spirits for protecting you; thank them even if you don’t believe in them.  Your gratitude will strengthen that protection and help you stay safe in perilous times.

Only Sensation, Madam

I’m crying because it really hurts. It hurts even though an hour ago, I took half a cannabis gummy with three ibuprofen. Each day I take pills, they take longer to have an effect, which is to make me feel normal. I don’t often use gummies because I’m pretending my life is fine, everything is fine, so I want to keep myself clear to see clients and plan my vacation and read my emails as if nothing’s happening. As if I am fine.

This is why we humans, with our big dumb egos that fool us into pretending that we can control our reality, have pain: to cut through the bullshit and stop us when everything is not fine. Pain is what brought me back to the clinic for a second time. (The first visit, when I had no pain but felt weird stuff in my belly, I was told I was feeling my own poop, so I should eat more fiber, including psyllium husk, which made me look like I was wearing a basketball in my pants.) For Visit #2, the pain was hardly noticeable, a prod down past my stomach, a little poke. But the painful lump I felt was on the right side, down low, where it might be my appendix. The second doctor said no, appendicitis pain is steady and gets worse. I was sore to the touch, but my appendix was fine, my urine tested fine. If it gets worse, go to the ER. It didn’t. The pain was dancing with me - a prod here, a few minutes of ache, then it vanished.

This dancing, glancing pain even allowed me to perform an intense weekend of Thai bodywork, twelve massages in two days, with the help of micro-dosing cannabis gummies, which caused the pain to step aside. By the end of the weekend, I could barely move my arm, but my stomach was all right.

Two days later, a Tuesday, I was back to my original doctor for Visit #3. I could still feel the lump, and the pain dance had resumed. I reported its patterns: worse after meals, worse after movement, pain while driving when I used my right foot to hold the gas pedal down. The doctor still believed the lump was a bit of stubborn stool. If so, this little piece of shit was set on killing me, as the pain had begun dancing faster; by Friday, I decided to do the very most disgusting thing a person can do - go through a colonoscopy prep - to soften and flush this thing out of me and stop the dance. On a phone call, my doctor agreed to the prep and advised: If it gets worse, go to the ER.

After shitting myself all night brought no relief, the volume of the dance jumped to an 8 out of 10. On Sunday morning, my husband Woods Man and I went to the ER, where the doctor chastised me for not taking any pain medicine. I tried to explain to him that I needed the pain to get me there, even if the pain still came and went, like a message on a staticky radio.

Now, Wednesday, Woods Man and I strap on our skis and go out on last night’s inches of first snow before the morning rains come and wash it off. I need fresh air and exercise, a break from telling people the bad news I got from the ER, where a CT scan revealed the lump’s identity. It is wonderful skiing in the light rain, no sticking, just gliding through the snow and taking photos of the misty hills in the distance.

A momentary break in the dance

We avoid steep slopes, as what goes down must move herself back up, and moving my right leg is part of the pain dance. But Woods People on skis have to do it, sooner or later the lust for speed returns and we decide to zoom down a steeper hill. As I start down, a blast of protective energy from the center of my body causes me to tense up - to protect myself from falling - and I pull my skis into a snowplow so fast that I wobble.

As we slice through the wet snow on the way back up, the pain returns, despite the half-gummy and 3 ibuprofen. I ask Woods Man if he has any weed. Yes, he does, but oops, no lighter, which is just the same as not having any weed. Without the promise of relief, the pain has stopped dancing and settled in to my body. Women, imagine this pain as a menstrual cramp that doesn’t stop cramping - a clenched fist inside. Guys, imagine someone punching you in the stomach. Women could also imagine a punch in the stomach.

We slog back to the car, punch in the stomach, no weed. I revert to yoga. I hear an Indian voice inside reminding me that all pain, even this one, is only sensation. I can simply witness it and note its characteristics instead of getting swept up in the drama of pain. Only sensation, madam, the voice adds because it’s Indian, and because I will be turning 50 in 11 days.

Thinking of my 50th birthday adds to the clenched fist in my gut. Less because of the insult of time aging me - though I fear I will age so much during this trial - but more because Woods Man and I, along with thirteen other friends from all over the country, have plane tickets to fly to Belize and frolic on the beach together. Our plane tickets are for next week. After spending my 40th birthday in Montreal, hung over and depressed by the loneliness of winter, I resolved to enter my 50s somewhere warm, surrounded by friends. I began planning the trip in April; it is now late November, which means I have been dreaming of it for several months. Never have I organized a group of friends to travel in this way, and this trip has become a bright beacon for me.

But this pain. When we get to the car, I am panting. Instead of getting a diner breakfast, our original plan, we go home. I finally crack open the Gabapentin I got from the ER. I smoke a joint, chanting Om Nama Shivaya, as I always do, paying homage to Lord Shiva, the Hindu God of yoga and of stoners. Then I spend the rest of the day in bed.

Lord Shiva Himself, in his own pain dance

I marvel at this: only three days ago, we were unsure if an ER visit was warranted. Now I am crying because it really hurts. And I am crying because I fear that we might not go to Belize with all our friends after all. The ER doc, when I told him of our plans, suggested that the surgery I would need could be put off for a few weeks and that I could take some pain meds and still go to Belize. Have some fun! I miss that guy, who knew not to tell me that I have to cancel my trip in the same breath that he had to give me some bad health news.

My health news was so bad that his urgent referral got me an appointment at a bigger hospital the very next day, two days ago. There, a gynecological resident examined me and confirmed what the CT scan showed: the lump is not stubborn stool but a large mass on my right ovary. There are other masses, too, including a smaller one on my liver. But this is not why I am crying, because cancer is still something that happens to other people, including my brother, who is currently struggling with cancer that spread to his lungs after ravaging his kidney.

I am crying because it hurts - punch yourself in the stomach - and because the resident was quick to deliver another blow. She told me that it’s not advisable to travel to another country with a mass so large that it has shoved my uterus aside and presses against my bowel. “You don’t want a bowel obstruction in Belize,” she said.

She’s just a resident, I told myself, hoping when I get to see an oncologist, she will agree with me that I should have some fun. That night, however, I awoke at 3 am and remembered an intention I set for myself a few years ago. Since the day I set it, this intention visits me in the night sometimes, not unlike a bad dream. Seated before my altar, immersed in a wave of yogic bliss, I made this intention: to release my ego during this lifetime.

Noooooo, screamed part of me, the same part that screamed again at 3 am. For the ego I planned to release is more than just the part that brags upon success; the ego is the part that wants success, that wants everything it wants. And the bigger the want, the better to release the ego when it is lost.

Om Nama Shivaya. Lord Shiva brought the Belize birthday dream to me when I was in Belize in April. I was staying on San Pedro, a tourist town of sea resorts, golf carts, and day drinking rum drinks, and felt underwhelmed by the place. But on a snorkeling trip, we stopped at the little island of Caye Caulker for lunch, where a local guy in Rasta dreads came by with his basket of cakes.

“Got any special brownies?” I asked him, tired of day drinking.

He did. I gave him ten bucks for a little packet of brownie dough wrapped in plastic. “Eat half,” he told me. And I know that when the Rasta cake guy tells you to eat half, it’s best to eat half.

Within the hour, I was getting my hair braided on the beach. The lady tugged at the mats in my hair, tangled from snorkeling. She used this green goo to straighten it out, but mostly she tugged and ripped at my hair with her comb. Only sensation, madam.

Stoned, I fell in love with Caye Caulker, which had few golf carts but was quiet with bicycles. It was small enough that everything was on the beach. I returned the next day, ate the other half of the brownie dough and wandered around, trying to decide where to hold my 50th birthday weekend. I found a resort made up of brightly-colored cabanas and spent the day there, dipping in the ocean, rocking in a hammock, and imagining that my friends would fill the place for my big birthday.

When I sobered up, I still planned to organize a trip to the cabanas in Caye Caulker, but I doubted that anyone would want to spend the money and time to go away with me. The value in cannabis for me - Om Nama Shivaya - has always been its power in allowing my mind to shift past worry and self-doubt. However, when I sent a group email proposing the idea to nearly everyone I knew, I was amazed to find that people wanted to come. And be with me.

Now I am crying because my friends have spent their money and planned to take a trip of a lifetime with me and I have a clutching fist in my gut and an appointment with a gyn oncologist in two days. Woods Man and I consider shortening our trip, to reduce the chance of bowel obstruction, but we suspect what the oncologist will say.

Because Lord Shiva got his joke on me. He gave me the dream and waited until the very last minute, when travel arrangements become nonrefundable, to take it away. On Friday, the oncologist will show us the CT scan, revealing not one but two large masses that she describes as the size of cantaloupes. Seeing the urgency of the situation, as I can barely move from the pain, she will fit me in to surgery the following Wednesday. The same day we have tickets to fly to Belize.

This is why Lord Shiva is called The Destroyer. He can take your life, or he can just take your ego. And what is left?

Only sensation, madam.

Ocean of Faith

For the students of Sraddhasagar, born November 21, 1959, died January 17, 2022

Her name meant Ocean of Faith. She was a true teacher because she didn’t force her lessons nor did she back away from them. She taught yoga in the context of Indian thought, alongside Ayurveda and Vedic astrology. From her I learned my true planetary guide, my ishta devataa, is Saturn, a taskmaster who bestows discipline. She taught me that this discipline is not something to rebel against, but my gift. Herself, a Vipassana meditator, she sat and witnessed her inner being for an hour every day. Probably more.

Her name meant Ocean of Faith. She explained that spiritual names aren’t for show, but to remind ourselves of our path. For my first teacher training with her, she had to rely on her name when only a couple of us enrolled. Even she, a well-known teacher with a devoted following, could be tested. Her faith paid off—at the last minute, enough of us joined to form a group for an experience that would change us for good.

Her name meant Ocean of Faith. She was vata dosha, of the air, her hair a wide river of curls. Slight of stature, a tiny thing, she shocked me during a chanting lesson when she came to my mat, eyes locked into mine, and barked from the gut: SUT! The power of her sound cut through me, and I got it then—we are moving energy. We are not playing at this.

Her name meant Ocean of Faith. When she taught us to breathe fire, she emphasized that we do so while maintaining quiescence of mind. Quiescence—the word itself a glittery fish. When she taught us how to instruct our students in rapid movement, we were to balance the practice by including a break after each exercise, what she called a “moon pause.” She taught us balance; she taught us balance. She balanced our lessons in breathing fire and rapid movement with yogic sleep. This mix allowed me to achieve the thing that had eluded me for 25 years: sobriety. When I broke down in class and fled the building, she came out and sat with me. As we talked, I saw how disconnected I had become. She helped me connect to myself, a gift I could never repay.

Her name meant Ocean of Faith. At my second training with her, she was unwell and enlisted help. We began in early March 2020, days before it all went amiss; the help got frightened and left. The gift of discipline helped her rise up, Durga the Warrior Goddess herself, and declared the training would continue, that we were self-contained and safe. In the frantic start to the pandemic, we sat in a group and she encouraged us to look for the blessings, to stay bright in the dark, to be strong and have faith. We finished together in full wellness.

Her name meant Ocean of Faith. She taught Conflict Resolution using yoga philosophy to liberate people from the turbulent waves of their minds, the waves that cause conflict. For hundreds of people around the world and at home, she clarified the goal of yoga: to shift from the judgments of the ego to the higher mind, which is clear and serene. Quiescent.

Her name meant Ocean of Faith. That faith is now in us, her students, who all have stories like these. She gave us this work to do; she gave us the tools and the will. Her body is gone, but her work continues. She is dead, but her faith is alive.

My Kundalini teachers: Hari Jap in center, Sraddhasagar on the right

Wizard Wisdom

Need to tame the evil clowns in your life? Fill your pocket with these scraps of wisdom:

Feel the inner vibration and be in love with yourself.  

You are the light of the world!   

Bliss is your birthright. Claim that right and be happy! 

The world is lucky to have you in it! 

Step through the open door to the bounty of life waiting for you. 

Live by the light of your infinite shining soul. 

Decide to be abundant by living in gratitude.

Worship the Grace that lives within you. 

Go beyond your self-imposed limitations.  Tap into your limitless Self.   

Fall in love with your inner beauty and know that you are Divine.  

Enjoy everything and resist nothing.  All will be well. 

Keep going!  This life is just a game and you don’t have to win to win.  

Delight in the ups and the downs, and rest in the middles.  

New Stories (Mad Libs Style)

Nothing is ever the same, especially now. It is spring in an era of renewal and re-creation--it's time for a new story! As yogis, we know that we can create our own reality. And yet, the mind craves the familiar stories of the past, which may no longer be true, if they ever were. Because of that, it's easier to remember what was/how it's always been than to create new stories for ourselves.

Luckily, I have created a tool to help you draft your new tale: The Mad Lib Life Creator! I got the structure--you fill in the dreams. Print it out or write it down so you can keep telling yourself:

It is easy for me to have _________________________________ (noun #1).

Because I have this _______________________ (noun #1), I feel _____________________ (positive adjective #1).

When I feel ______________________ (positive adjective #1) , my whole world seems ________________ (positive adjective #2).

When that happens, I can give __________________________ (noun #2) to others.

I no longer need to fear ______________________ (noun #3) because I trust that ____________________ (divine noun) is nurturing me.

---

Need some new words? Give these a try:

Nouns for #1 and #2:

Love Grace Money Joy Peace Fulfillment Creative Work Wisdom Friends Extra Time Ease Self-respect Health Romance Chocolate

Nouns for #3:

Lack Judgment Loneliness Anxiety Boredom Anger Sadness Desperation Despair Bad Breath

Positive Adjectives:

Connected Radiant Happy Blissful Fulfilled Joyful Divine Lit up Satisfied Magnificent Healthy Powerful Generous Content Holy Beautiful Calm Vibrant Uplifted On Fire Delicious

Divine Nouns:

My Higher Self Mother Earth God The Universe Goddess My Inner Wisdom Providence

The Great Soul Cosmic Energy The Universe Bob

Jungle Machines, Desire, and the Everything

First, know that God, the word God, is shorthand for Everything. Everything, Everywhere, with one exception: our mean little thoughts that insist that we are separate from this Everything that is God. It’s the ego, that bad-day voice that tells us that we’re victims or losers or jerks, and the only thing that is not God.

Because God is Everywhere, there is no reason to go anyplace. Yet, I left anyway. Pandemic be damned, I wanted to go to the tropics. Even if Everything that is God also includes snow and ice, and therefore more snow and more ice must mean more God, as it all piled up, I found it harder to find God—or anything else—so I fled to the land of flowers.

Second, know that I have an agenda. I have been writing the story of my life, how I went from hating myself to finding God in the snow and in the flowers and in the streets and in the pain and in the blessings. I’m hardly perfect in this finding, which is why I’m writing a story and not a sermon. The pandemic, through its gift of time, has helped me tell this story. But the story has become a mass of tangled vines. Because when you write of your life, you can write about everything, and when you write about God, you can write about Everything. Everything times two is a jungle of words and themes and passions and images. So I went to where they know how to use a machete.

My manuscript, plus sparkling water.

I masked up, got on a plane with no passengers, and landed at my friends’ beautiful home in the jungle, where even an atheist could see God popping out everywhere: in each palm frond and fresh banana, in every exquisite flower and butterfly and bird whose unreal colors appeared to be painted on. I found the sound of the cicadas to be the most godlike of all. Their high-pitched buzzing rattle pulsed through the hot green landscape, penetrating the mind and blurring the boundaries between self and other. The lesson of the cicadas: what is out there is also in here—nothing is separate from Everything.

I did not let this paradise distract me from my agenda. In between dips in the river and photo forays in the garden, I worked on my manuscript. The afternoons were hot, so I sat between two fans and drank iced water as I typed on my laptop. When my friends went to the beach, I stayed home with my machete. I did join them on a trip to the farmers’ market, where I bought a bag of my favorite food: eight large avocados for under $5. I didn’t realize that I’d left the bag in the bathroom until we’d driven the half-hour back home.

Mourning my abandoned fruits, I went back to work. Suddenly, the screen of my machine stopped showing words and scrambled itself like an old-time television. My story was now a flashing mass of horizontal lines. My heart stopped.

This was the moment when my years of practicing revealed themselves. Despite my mounting panic, I found a small clear space. I calmly shut off the machine and prayed. After a few minutes, got my normal screen back. Now the grief of lost fruits was entirely replaced by joy. I needed the threat of losing something huge to release the loss of something small.

Two days later, when I turned on the same machine to teach my remote yoga class—to give others an experience of Everything—the horizontal lines came back. Again, I shut off the machine, but felt less calm. Indeed, this time when I turned it back on, there was no joy.

When things do not go as you wish, trouble starts; and that is the true time of test, that is the time for your practice. (187)

My practice. That morning, my practice meant not giving up. My friends lent me one of their machines for the class, then helped me research ways to fix the situation, enlisting several of their friends and tech support people. They also found me a monitor to hook up to my ailing machine (in case it was just a screen issue), and let me use their machines for a full week while we waited for their friends to come back from the far-off city with the connector part I needed to hook my machine to the monitor. (Having the part delivered in two days would not happen. The closer one gets to the real Amazon, the farther one is from the American Amazon.). Third, know that when I say “God,” this very much includes the generosity of other people.

Until my broken machine could be recovered, my story—all 247,000 words of it—was lost to me. Because I used a specialized author’s software, I hadn’t saved any of it to the cloud, and my backups were back up in the land of snow and ice. Until the part came, all I could do was be in Everything—for starters, I went to the beach. I got a massage. We hiked up rivers to hidden waterfalls. I drew plants in a sketchbook.

I took the time to be with butterflies.

I also read Osho, an Indian philosopher guru who always shows up when I need him most:

Desires are the chains that hold you. Each desire forms a fresh link in the chain…the more desire, the stronger become the shackles that bind you and the thicker become your prison walls. (157)

No bullshit—I knew Osho was on to me. My desire to machete up my manuscript so I could transform it into something I could share, or even publish, was a major shackle. I’ve invested almost 10 years of my life in this project, with its fits and starts, and my desire bound me up tight. I knew this because when the connector part finally arrived and we hooked it up and discovered that the once-working monitor was now dead, I kept pushing forward. I would accept a neighbor’s offer to buy an monitor that I could borrow. He told me the store and gave me the specs he wanted. At the store, there were no monitors. They could order one for me, but it would take too long to arrive.

You will experience these moments in your own life when all your faith will be shaken and your mind will cry out, “What is happening?” (181)

Except I knew what was happening—I was being tested by the Everything. Could I give up my desire to machete my manuscript on this vacation?

Yes. Yes, I could. But I could only do that by replacing that desire with other ones—fresh links in the chain. Now I had a rental car and could explore sites for future yoga retreats. I could visit other beaches. I could go to the mountains. I could completely ignore Osho’s words (“To abandon all thoughts of destination is the destination itself.” (193) and go on a bender of desire.

I was told that I had to see Playa Ballena at low tide when the sand bar is revealed in the shape of a whale’s tail. The next day, low tide would be at 5:30 am, so I got up with the howler monkeys and left before 6. I drove to the beach, a national park, but the gate was closed. If I was really listening to Osho, I would have accepted this and left:

From the very beginning you should not make any effort to change your circumstances, but leave everything in {God’s} hands. (188)

But then I saw a man leaving the park by crawling through a gap in the barbed-wire fence.

Also know this about me: if I can sneak in, I will. I approached the gap, but when the man saw me, he said I wasn’t allowed inside. (At least, this is what I assume; my Spanish comprehension is never good, and definitely not at 6:20 in the morning.). So I waited for him to leave and then slipped through the fence. The thrill of breaking a rule, combined with the beauty of the early-morning beach where a gentle sun warmed the sea mist, got me high.

This plus adrenalin would get you high, too.

High enough that as I walked along the shoreline towards the tail, which I could see in the distance, and heard a man whistling at me, I decided to ignore him. Like he would just forget about me, the only other person on the beach! A hefty guy wearing only swim trunks, he shouted and waved as he ran towards me. Realizing there was nowhere for me to go, I stopped for him and hoped that he wouldn’t have a heart attack. When he got to me and finally caught his breath, he said that the beach was closed and that if the police found me, it could be trouble. I could keep walking if I wanted to, but he wanted to warn me. (Or something like that—again, Spanish.) He then plunged into the water where he inexplicably filled his plastic bottle with seawater. I too wanted to swim, but was loathe to leave my backpack on the sand with a strange man around. When he came back on shore, his tone had changed: I was to leave, now. He told me his first and last name, maybe suggesting that he worked there, and said I could get “arrestado.” The word was clear enough, even to me, but he also demonstrated it by holding his arms behind his back, wrists shackled. Regardless of whether he was full of shit, having him there was a buzzkill, so I gave up my desire to walk the tail and went back to my car.

My desire for early-morning ocean was not to be ignored. The town beach was nearby, so I parked again and walked to the water. This time, a uniformed man told me that this too was part of the national park, which was indeed closed on Tuesdays. He suggested another beach that was open, and so I continued on my new quest, my body craving the feel of salt water on skin. I drove down the coast and found the turn onto a steep gravel road going down. At the bottom, a stream appeared to be running through the road. My rental does not have 4-wheel drive, and not desiring to get it stuck, I turned around, made it up the hill and parked on the side of the road. I decided to leave the car and walk, but I felt nervous about this. Although there weren’t any “no parking” signs, I’d heard about people losing their license plates when parked in the wrong place. La policia will come by and just take the plates without warning. However, I didn’t want to attempt driving through a stream in my rental, nor did I want to give up and just go home. So I imagined protective light around the car and walked to the beach.

After a ten-minute walk, I got to the entrance. This time, I was greeted by three teenagers staring at their phones, presumably there to charge people to park. “Buenas dias!” I said.

“Buenas!” the kids called back, faces down. I walked right in, and God was waiting.

When you chase desire, new ones come fast. I wanted to go into the water, but I didn’t want my phone stolen. I put my phone with my belongings up on a rock at the water’s edge. At first, it was a relief to be in the water. But I kept glancing at the pile of my stuff and hoped it wouldn’t get washed out to sea. And I kept wondering if I would still have plates when I got back to my car.

Then I thought of Osho’s ideal of the devotee:

The perfect devotee has no complaints; his confidence in Him is complete: whatever You will is best for me… (182).

Did being the perfect devotee mean that broken computers, stolen phones, missing plates were all to be accepted gratefully? To understand these headaches as lessons, or simply as the inexplicable whim of God’s will? My practice, as I walked out of the surf salty and wet, was to imagine myself finding my rental car was plateless—or towed—and accepting that as part of Everything. I laughed out loud. Having heard so much Spanish already that morning, a Spanish phrase echoed in my mind: no importa nada. It doesn’t matter.

As I left the beach, satisfied with my morning plunge and curious about the state of the car, I mused as to what I would do if the car were gone. My best plan, as the perfect devotee, would be to put on more sunscreen and start walking.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to prove myself that morning. The car sat where I left it, plates on, protective light in place.

The status of my other machine, however, remains a mystery. I won’t know until I get back to the snow and ice if the information on my computer can be saved or if the backups really worked. Lastly, know this: I am not a perfect devotee. I want my story back regardless of what God wants. I realize that writing my story can be an egoic undertaking that separates me from Everything—if I think of myself as someone special with a special story. But if my story helps others find God, the Divine Sparkle in Everything, then it’s good work. Besides, people need something to read on the beach.

And now I see an opening. A tiny, dust-sized opening in my desire that allows me to maybe remotely imagine myself giving up my story, freeing myself from the task, if that’s what the Everything wants.

Leave all to him. The only grip you have to loosen is the grip on yourself, and everything is solved. (203)

In the meantime, I found my machete. Taking a break from staring at the vines on my screen got me clearer on what my story is to be. Everything, I am ready.

Fresh coconut, anyone?

Quotations are from The True Name, Osho’s commentary on Japji, the Song of the Soul. Full Circle Publishers, 1974.