Living in the Valley of Death

Since my pilgrimage to Bhutan and with this trip, consciously, again preparing for a life/death/rebirth experience, I made specific plans to have appointments and "things to do" on my calendar for when I returned.  I learned from my 2014 pilgrimage to Tibet and circumambulation of the holy mountain of Kailash which is a very real life/death/rebirth experience, if you are fortunate enough to make it round.  Since it is a challenging trek and does get to elevation heights of over 18,000 ft., I was not naive to think I would make it, yet was diligent and mindful to do the best I could.  And I did make it.  In the months to come after returning home and not having any thing planned or goals set, I began a year-long decline of mind, body and spirit.  Perhaps, this was now a new kind of pilgrimage of life/death and rebirth.  Another layer of disintegration of self.  Quite excruciating in the emotional pain scale.  Yet, hind-sight, so very necessary.  

Slowly, with assistance from family and friends, a trip out of the Valley of Death started to happen and onto the surface of Life and beyond to the heights of other areas that were not necessarily new to me, yet different.  

Then 2016 and the divine Call to Bhutan came.  It wasn't what I had thought I wanted in a trip there.  Yet, receiving the invitation of Ian Baker who was my guide in Tibet, I knew deeply that I needed to go and go now.  The phrase, "time is of the essence" was repeatedly said in my head.  When I said, "yes, I will go", such a release was experienced of joy and relief.  Tears fell like a dam just breaking apart to let the waters free.  

It was an amazing trip which I traveled to on my own.  Hop-scotching to the other side of the world, reconnecting with a dear friend, Yvan Cohen, in Bangkok and meeting up with Ian and joining a broad-spectrum of individuals who all enhanced my journey. More stories will come from this trip, Tibet and on, I am sure, yet, this entry wishes to acknowledge the present moment and the rising out of, yet another, descent into the very depth of The Valley of Death to come and write about it here and now.  

One evening on the trip Ian shared that we would have an opportunity to experience a chod ritual conducted by his friend named Karma Lhatrul Dorji Rinpoche and brought there with another friend, David Verdesi.  I had a flash in my awareness that there was a picture of a Tibetan chod practitioner that I had seen on Ian's website when I was considering going to Bhutan for this trip.  I got goose-bumps and know I must attend.  

I go to the top floor of the hotel where there is a meeting room we were to meet in.  I await there as others come and then Rinpoche comes in and I greet this friendly, intense and very-feeling individual with a hug.  I'm nervous and excited for this experience.  

Chod in a very basic sense is a ritual that the practitioner performs while a participant lays down and offers to the demons, hungry ghost and forces, the person's own body and negative karma so that the person can be released of these blockages that make them ill in many ways.  The demons, hungry ghosts and other forces that may show up are actually transformed into allies that come and support the participant.   This is my very basic explanation of it and I ask forgiveness not to express it well here...yet. It is so much more also.    

I loved it! I won't get into the details here and now, yet, this experience resonated with me very deeply from both the participant end and also I was so intrigued and aware of what was coming through Rinpoche on some level. I wished to know more and felt like a dry wrinkled-up sponge and had just had a few drops of water placed on me and I began to expand. I learned that there would be another opportunity to experience this on another night. I couldn't wait. 

Another few days had past and at a different city and hotel, Rinpoche shows up.  I go up to him to let him know how this chod experience is feeling so meaningful to me.  I ask him if women are taught it also.  He smiles and said it was transmitted originally by a woman. Well, there you have it!  I had to learn this.  I wish it could be by him, but not now, yet, perhaps in the future.  

After returning home from Bhutan, I innocently began exploring chod on youtube and reading about it when finding sites through my google searches.  I had watched a talk by the Lama at Tara Mandala retreat center on the history of chod and the woman, Machig Labdron, who was the initiator of it.  As the days turned into weeks away from my return from Bhutan and "normal" life stepped in, I was drawn to other daily life rituals that needed attending and the chod exploration went into the background and died off.  Well, so I thought.

Down, down, down I went.  Another descent yet, this was so different than all those before.  I had become a lot more disciplined in my physicality with walking several miles almost daily, started to eat better foods such as kefir and fermented foods yet also struggling on a spiritual level and slowing down on my meditations.  It all felt odd and I was questioning absolutely everything!  Why am I here?  What is the point of life?  Perhaps death is a much better "place" than this living side.  I had such answers to many questions from different aspects of myself if you would look at it from a depth-psychology perspective.  I had questions, I had answers and I deeply knew NOTHING!! I was dumb-founded and exhausted. 

Death came into my awareness and living world also, as I had the opportunity to help a friend and his family go through his dying process.  (See earlier blog post "For Dale".)  I started to get more withdrawn and exhausted physically.  I would walk to keep my physical body moving because I knew I could and so many people that I knew could not do this.  So, as I walked, I did a dialogue with reviewing Death and Life and how Death is always there, always since our entrance into this world and will be with our last breath and exit out of it.  Why this? Why that? and on.

Last night, I did a meditation with a demon that I saw in my awareness that represented the struggles I was having and how I have been fighting with this demon.  All the energy it took to fight it.  Yet, not knowing what I was doing, when I was just drawn to let go and in meditation just to allow the demon to eat me up, the flesh, bones, blockages and emotional pain, I finished a few minutes later feeling better!  Lighter somehow and in less pain.  Was this demon my representation of Death? Perhaps.  I have, for a large part, been comfortable with death in working with dying people, ill people, animals, plants, etc.  Yet, this was now a whole different ballpark or arena I have stepped into.  It was deeper and more expansive feeling.  

With my letting go and allowing the Demon of Death to be my ally, I think I have struck a new way for me to Be. To live, actually. Life/Death/Rebirth...again.  I see that the chod practice from two months ago actually began a process of eating away so much of what wasn't my true self.  I had to descend yet again, be dismembered and annihilated, yet again.  To walk in the Valley of Death and not the shadow of Death, to be right there with it, hand-in-hand  is what I feel brings no fear of Death.  Thus being in accord with Death and also more balance with Life.    

And the rebirth begins...

Honoring all those that have helped me on this journey of Life/Death/Rebirth, thank you. A heart-felt offering of Bobby McFerrin's rendition of Psalm 23....The Feminine recognition...Bowing deeply to the energies of Machig Labdron, Yeshe Tsogel, Simhamuka/Senge Dongma and Troma Nakmo and so many more.


Bobby McFarrin's Psalm 23...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9fzWq-d8jU