Life has been really wild here since Rebekah and I came back from Shalom Mountain and since I started my Yoga Transformational Bootcamp a week ago. Rebekah and I are totally in-sync again, which is a beautiful thing when it happens. With 3 Morehouse teachers visiting for the Basic Sensuality course, life has become even more intense and chaotic than it was before – a bit too much even for me, I must confess. All normal scheduling and life-predictability has fallen by the wayside, polyphasic sleep is off, job-hunting is off… it’s a little scary actually.
And yet I feel so much energy (Shakti) flowing right now that I know deep-down everything is Ok. Producing our first Morehouse course has given me an excuse to get in touch with a lot of people, and even though I am getting mixed response to the invitation to come to our courses (the Evening with Vic and the Basic Sensuality), I have been having really excellent contact with people, which is deeply nourishing to me, so much so that I am determined to make this kind of reaching out a regular part of my life. I feel I have been quite self-involved lately, and that stage is coming to an end. Opportunities for service and contribution are sprouting up all over the place.
As if running Trellis and producing the courses were not enough, I have started four other personal transformational businesses in the last month (either alone or with Rebekah), of which two are already generating some income (albeit small amounts): we had new Relationship Coaching clients here on Saturday; the Yoga Transformational Bootcamp I am organizing has been going very strong, in less than a week it has become the core of my personal development program; and I have research clients for both Lifestyle Design Coaching and Polyphasic Sleep Coaching, which I am doing on a gift offering basis for now. In addition, there have been some important conversations and meetings regarding both possible work opportunities and our financial situation, which I am not going to share here (it’s a bit premature). I feel pretty confident that these conversations will give fruit within another few months, so I just need to find a way to bide my time until then. This has been deeply settling for me. I am thinking for now of short-term contracts that I can pick-up on the freelancer marketplaces (Guru.com, Elance etc.) and from my network – see Web Technology Guru (that’s me :-). I just need to put some attention on that, which I am planning on doing from next week.
Two other very important connections to note as well. Given the success of Yoga Bootcamp, I have wanted to get a Yoga Teacher certification, and I am going to take the teacher training at a place called the Yoga Life Institute which is quite near here. This is more than your average yoga teacher training, it’s essentially a year-long program in Yoga and Vedic studies. I can begin right away, it’s open enrollment. I am thrilled at the thought of having this kind of structure and discipline in my life, including being mentored, service and community-building opportunities at the school, and a supervised individual practice. An entire year of yoga and meditation daily are bound to have a profound positive impact on me. Secondly, I have made contact with a spiritual teacher in Swami Rudrananda’s (”Rudi”) lineage, his name is Swami Khecaranatha (previously Steven Ott), who has agreed to meet me in Berkeley at an intensive he is doing in July to see about working with him. This is the first time in my life I have ever considered taking a “guru”, but I have been so profoundly impacted by the Rudi teachings (described in John Mann’s book “14 years with my teacher”) that I feel very drawn to this. It takes a minimum 3-year preparation to be considered for the teacher training (and no guarantees!), and the training itself is 4-6 years, so this is not something to go into lightly. I will write more about this, including the nature of the practice, another time. Just to say that Rudi was an American born (Brooklyn Jew!) enlightened being who taught all of his life out of his Manhattan art-dealer storefront and never charged a dime for it. He died in 1973.
Given all this, you can understand why I may be feeling a bit overwhelmed. But it’s a good overwhelm. This afternoon, I spent some very good time with my step-daughter Ariana, who is 9, and it was the perfect thing to do in the midst of “a crisis.” :-). Truthfully there is no crisis, just a bit of work to do.
Despite many ups and downs, I am still deeply happy and confident about this radical experiment in passionate living that I am involved with. The experiment is defying traditional wisdom, even scaring me at times, but I am being moved by some great wave of life and I have given up resisting. It has been ongoing at this level of intensity now since last September (6 months and counting) and shows no signs of stopping; I have never experienced anything like this before. My writing has slowed down a lot, which is a good thing, as my energy is starting to move more outwards. I feel in many ways that the last six months have been a preparation for this next thing that is coming now, that I have been building-up self-confidence and some kind of internal structure during this time. I am anticipating that March and April are going to be an extraordinarily eventful and fulfilling time for me and for all of us here at Trellis, and that many gifts are going to be offered. I am happy and grateful beyond belief for all this.
