EVEN DASAS GET THE BLUES

SO, the young dasa with the glasses.
The girl who looks like she should really have a few piercings
and probably has twelve body tatoos under her robes.
The one who teaches Kundalini yoga.
That one.
So, she decides that we need to be prepared to reenter the world and
so today, rather than sticking with the regular meditation and chants
she shows us a video of Sufi dancers
twirling twirling, heads tilted, eyes open,
a tough black robed cleric checking their progress
(how do those hats stay on?)
and she tells us that today we will do sufi dancing, spin
spin til the kundalini rises.

Now this group has been in darkened rooms, chanting and  meditating for almost a month
There are women and men of all ages and stripes
some almost 80 and some as young as 19
but we all trust the dasa and as she puts on the music
and the lights dim
we begin to spin and spin and spin and
bam. bam bam,
one hits the floor,
another the wall..
The Chinese girl
hightails it to the bathroom and just makes it to the sink to spill her hallowed guts,
the 75 year old Chinese doctor has had the sense to stay seated,
the Brazilian salsa dancer that does hot rollers every morning,
hits the floor and stays there
not moving.... and not moving... and not moving
eyes rolled back...

and then the lights are on
and then we sit down again and ignore the various bodies strewn against the mats and marble
and then, prepare for the next yoga
Bhakti.. the sacred praise one

That dasa is borderline
gorgeous passionate
but there are days I wonder if he might indeed do great in a Madras in Afghanistan..
a little TOO passionate if you get my drift
and sensing the dis-ease, disonance, disquiet and
damn plain dizziness of dames and gents alike...
he makes the wrong move
tries to get us back by pushing

you know... like when the scene isn;t working and you push it
speak a little louder, trying to get into the moment,
hit the laughline expecting a gaffaw and get nothing...
and flop sweat begins to pour
and you get faster and louder and
i used to compare it to REALLY bad sex...

so he starts chanting.. and Chanting and CHANTING
willing his HOLINESS into our heads
and.. well, suffice to say it wasn't working.
Folks retreated to the back of the room.
Earplugs went in and all of a sudden his chant
which I am sure he is praised for
sounded a bit TOO MUCH like it was coming from some prayer tower in Iran
and welllllll it
fell flat.. really really flat.....

 we all got thru that....
little yogis that we are

and then they ran out of food at dinner
and then.... welll...

it helped to remember that there is a truly gorgeous yoga called
NADA YOGA which always goes well.
you sit and listen to music
gorgeous music for 14 minutes
then the music goes off and  you block your ears
and try to hear the music again
hear it from where it lodges itself inside of you.
now there;s a great use of the divine.

i'll send love and compassion to the guys who didn't do so well today
we get it
even the holy ones,
even dasas
sure do get the blues...