Psalm Isadora Yoga

THE SLEEPER MUST BE WOKEN
Sometimes life seems like a waking dream...

I watched an old sci-fi movie yesterday, Dune, directed by David Lynch. There is a young prince about to leave his home planet to embark on a great calling with his father. His father says, "I will miss the oceans here. But change is important. It wakes something up inside us. It wakes the sleeper. The sleeper must be woken." Science fiction and fantasy stories always tap into deep collective subconscious words and symbols. When I heard this dialogue, it felt true to my bones. Yes, I thought, the sleeper must be woken. But who is the sleeper?

Sometimes it seems someone else is looking through my eyes...the watcher, the dreamer, and the sleeper. Sometimes this happens during deep meditation, or even if you have never meditated, you may wake up one day and wonder, "whose life am I living?...or "who am I?"....or "for what purpose have I come to live in this body?" Such questions can jar us from our normal, comfortable reality.

There is a song from the 1980's by the Talking Heads:

"And you may ask yourself
how do I work this?
And you may ask yourself
where that large automobile is?
And you may tell yourself
this is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself
this is not my beautiful wife!"

A question used for thousands of years by the yogic seers was, "who is dreaming when I sleep?"
This question is used in jnana (knowledge) yoga, as a way to engage the mind to meditate on an unanswerable question a question with a non-linear answer that makes us dip our toes into the vast inky Mystery that is always lapping at our toes, on the sandy shores of our waking consciousness. It invites us to go deeper. Do we dare? To go deeper without getting lost, this is not always easy; it is a razor's edge in between.

This is what waking up looks like:
In the vast expanse of the ocean of life's mystery, you have tied your small boat to the shore to cling to some sanity. You have organized your life in a way that feels safe, controlled. But one day you feel your heart call for more, to explore the deeper seas, to search out exotic islands and perhaps even paradise. Even though you are afraid, you know you must follow your hearts calling and take the risk to go on the hero's journey, to integrate, heal and find your passion, purpose and power. You pray to whatever gods you believe in and untie your boat to surf the magic of the seas. Sometimes the sea is calm and sometimes it is a tsunami. But you let go of trying to control it and surf it with grace, magic and the practices of your path. Many people are waking up; it is a good time to be alive.

I travelled teaching in the Midwest this summer. I met a lot of people who don't do "yoga" like in a studio. But they are doing YOGA because they are looking around at their lives and realizing they want more. The old answers, goals, politics and religions aren't satisfying their thirst for truth anymore. Yoga is self inquiry. Waking the Sleeper. This process is not easy, and sometimes it shakes your foundation, because your foundation was built on things you don't really believe in. Built on other people's dreams. If your sleeper is opening its eyes into your waking life, things might begin to look strange and different. Your heart may begin to feel longing for deeper personal truth. If your sleeper is woken, it is too late to put it back to sleep, so then you must find a good path to walk to be on the journey of waking up and knowing yourself. Dream the dream awake dear friends, lovers and burners. Find a good path, good friends and good teachers. You will need these things on your life-adventure.

When I teach I say, "If you are in this class, you came today because you are seeking some change, you hold some prayer or intention to heal and grow beyond what you have known". To bow to the past, to honor the wounds but to step boldly forward into the unknown. If you keep doing what you have known, you will end up with more of the same. So if you are here for change, we will have to step into the unknown. This takes courage. We will take a left turn to activate the right brain, where the sleeping potential lies. We will take a left turn counter-clockwise to undo what has been done. The energies of chaos churn the sea of possibilities. You take your etch-a-sketch and shake it up to make a new picture. But first it must be shaken to create something new. To do this kind of strong practice you need a good teacher to rely on and an understanding of the science of yoga, how it is affecting your brain. Yoga means "union" and tantric means "weaving". To weave opposites into union through the science of yoga and tantric. The opposites of the conscious and subconscious mind. The subconscious is a great sea of the numinous, the unknown mystery. It is strongly activated by symbols, ritual, breath work and sensations. What happens when we begin to wake the sleeping dragons in our sea of subconscious material? Strong emotions of anger, rage and sorry may rear their heads after being repressed for so long. "Crazy" thoughts may begin spinning in the mind. We must return to the root, to the beginning of ourselves to unravel our own mysteries.

Though I was born Christian, I found myself drawn to yoga to heal old traumas and then to tantric to unravel my inner mysteries. These sciences helped me with the existential questions I struggled with as long as I can remember. As a little girl, I used to lie in bed at night, not sleeping. Staring at the wall and out the windows, wondering about angels, aliens and praying to god as I lay alone. I have a Native American friend who says, "At the end of the day, we all meet the creator alone". Which I take to mean, at the end of the day, we all wrestle with our meaning in the great void of mystery alone. We spend our lives on the journey to understand, to feel complete and illuminated. When I was that young girl, I asked, "What am I doing here in the world!" "Why is there so much suffering?" "Where is god?" "What will happen when I die?" and I spent my life searching for this truth that kept me up at night. Sometimes I searched in dark alleys, but still from the same drive to see and know it all. Gnosis means to know. To know one is the process of illumination. The longer I practice, the more I see this as a journey of having all the parts of myself revealed and learning to accept, love and forgive. To embrace my light and my shadow, to become united and complete.