Sleeping Beauty

I asked myself to devote 40 days to chanting. I wanted to see what would open for me, and the following are my embodied results: I am day 37. So close now.

Day Thirty-Seven

A devotional practice is done with faith and trust, knowing what is needed will be what I receive (which is not always the same as what I want). I do not think these concepts and values come easy to me. I can say the words do the actions but, have I the faith, and trust in me that this practice will work? I often think I am the exception to the rule for something that is good and beneficial. This is me thinking I am the only one devotional kriya’s will not work for. The truth is I cannot deny the light shining onto me and the subsequent shadows that have been cast and brought into the open to be reconciled. (I do not want to say heal as that suggests I am broken, and I need fixing, I do not need that).

Reconciliation between the light and shadow is what is occurring during the duration of my devotion. I have known about my shadows to some extent; Intellectually that is. This 40-days is a magnet drawing them all to the light so I can deal with them in a conscious manner. My practice is offering a way through if I choose to do the work that comes up. It is not a magic pill, and I need to be a collaborator and co-worker with the universe. Life needs my participation.

Chant

My chant today was just a day of chanting. A few itches and a need to scratch. A few eye openings to make sure my friend Hugo the pug was still with me in the room. I few stumbles in the silent chant with a reminder to think of the seed sounds saying them within the chamber of my mind.

The hardest part for me is in having faith that I am drawing light down the crown chakra and out the third eye. Not a new worry you have heard it before. I am really being asked to have faith and trust in myself.

In all it was just another day of practice. Done. Completed. One day closer to the end of the 40 days.

Reflection

Stop, start, pivot, change your mind and go again. These behavioral patterns come to the forefront as I move through the days. There are layers and layers of adaptive behaviors that need to be cleared away before we can find the original behavior that started it all. It is an endless scraping off layers and cleansing happening while I chant, reflect, and adjust my view on myself and the world at large. It is seeing the endless spinning and my self-imposed inability to move forward in life that is slowly becoming more pronounced as I gradually find it harder and harder to move forward. It is the recognition of not being able to find my priorities in the last few days (weeks, years, decades) being a symptom of discomfort in doing the work to create my goal. The inability to decide my priorities feeds into my inability to move and therefore leading me to stay frozen in my life.

I have often described myself as a water molecule in a block of ice, just vibrating on the spot. I remember seeing this in my science class when growing up. It showed the changeable and adaptable nature of water. It showed the molecule could flow as water in its natural liquid state, how it sped up when evaporated and how it slowed became solid and vibrated on the spot. The vibration and inability to move past the other molecules in their frozen state stayed with me and in time it became how I could identify what was happening within me. This chant, this container of 40 days of devotion is essentially the Bunsen Burner we used in our science class to get the water to move between states from ice to water and vapor.

Today this practice feels like muck raking. It is dredging up patterns of behaviors that do not serve me. I have felt stuck for years, but I am seeing this is a safety mechanism that keeps me like a sleeping beauty stuck in slumber until awakened from her spell and curse. What will wake me up?

My devotional practice of the Kirtan Kriya for 40 days is the call being made seeking to be awakened to fulfill my potential and releasing the blocks that prevent this. My practice is a call into the universe; the radio transmitting my wavelength. Hello, is anyone out there? Or as the lyrics of Lionel Richie song Hello “Hello, is it me you’re looking for?”

Card

The question today is “What can you tell me about the blockages being cleared in these 40 days?”

I can hardly believe my eyes when I see who answers this call.

Snake — guardian of unawakened magic and creative potential.

Snake! Three times in four days! Snake demands to be heard. What am I not getting about awakening my potential. Am I Sleeping Beauty awaiting a kiss to awaken and call my soul to life.

What am I not seeing? I am seeing how I sleepwalk parts of my life but how can I change this?

Snake tells me when in balance it is prosperous, creative, and charismatic. When it has issues it starts, stops, and feels blocked. To balance this, it calls for meditation, and particularly kundalini practice. Kundalini is awakening the snake residing in our root chakra and inviting it to move through our body. I am confused about what I am not seeing.

See you tomorrow for day 38.