Inner Surfing

Welcome back to my blog, to me and to you!

Haven't blogged for 7 months. Suddenly got the urge again.

Last night I was schmoozing with my brilliant and true friend Lion. We saw "The Illusionist" which you must see. Don't ask why, just see it! Later, in a typical Marin evening, we sat in my Mosh Pit and he channeled some helpful messages from my (recently-deceased) father and we chatted about surrender and my recent dramatic healing after 30 years of illness.

Those two subjects (surrender and my healing) are intimately entwined, by the way. I don't even know where to start to explain and communicate what has happened to me in recent months. I wish I'd been blogging, because it's been a wondrous journey. The short version is that I am no longer a chronically ill person.

As for the long version - I don't know what to do, how to communicate it. I'm planning a new training called Soulbody, probably this November (see soulwave website), to transmit what I realized, and what healed me. And there is a book about it all which is called something like Soulbody, A Radical Healing Journey. Chunks of it come through at my usual 4 am download hour.

INFO BACKLOG ANXIETY SYNDROME (IBAS)
Yet I sometimes get anxious, because I seem to be wired to make discoveries and pass them on. I could even make up a story that I HAVE to do this, for some karmic reason. It has seemed to work quite well up to now: my greatest sufferings have become my greatest breakthroughs which have become doorways for others to break through with less suffering, via seminars and now, again, private work.

The only problem is that right now I'm way behind in communicating what I am discovering. Although they continue to flourish, I'm not promoting seminars very actively these days. I have the belief that I need to communicate the information through books. Yet, as I may have mentioned somewhere, I have 13 books outlined on my computer, one of which I am quite far along with, and which is, appropriately, the introductory one. Inconveniently, the information that wants to come through is, perhaps, from book 8 or 9. I don't know quite what to do about this. In some ways I could truly say this Info-Backlog-Anxiety-Syndrome is my only "problem." And I'm sure, like all my other so-called problems, offering it up to the Divine will bring the answer in good time, whether it's someone to organize my writing or I'll just let it go and someone else will bring that stuff through, or something I can't imagine right now. I realize I'm not indispensable, but I do feel like a steward to some precious jewels that have been given to me to pass on...

CAFFEINE
Anyway, coming to right here, right now... I am zinging with inspiration and I want to talk about caffeine:

The short version is that in my 30-some years of being hugely health-challenged, plus the previous 7 years of being a health-nazi (my first spiritual trip was macrobiotics; I opened a store and restaurant before I was 18), I have eschewed caffeine. I have also lovingly (I think) harrassed others, in true health evangelist mode, about their caffeine use. I apologize! How wrong could I have been? For one thing, try googling caffeine: good or bad?. But there's more to this story for me.

For the past 3-4 years, I've been seeing a brilliant naturopath who prefers to remain nameless (Talking of life's work, which we will be, he charges cost on supplements and only does what he does because he is driven to do research to undo the ridiculous breakdown of our physical bodies). He unravels deep patterns of illness way below the symptomatic level. Recently he discovered that a major factor, one you cannot get around, in true healing, is what he calls "prenatal dependence."

ADDICTED IN THE WOMB
What's prenatal dependence? Most of us are addicted to some substance or other that our mother ingested when we were in her womb. (By the way, don't use this to guilt-trip your mother, or yourself if you are a mother!). Could be caffeine, alcohol, cigarettes - who knew back then?. In testing me he found (accurately) that my mom's drug of choice was caffeine (after all she was English - you can stand a spoon up in that tea).

To my amazement, he prescribed green tea capsules to counteract this. I was horrified, shocked, disapproving, furious, suspicious... you get the idea. He insisted that my organs had been developed in collusion with caffeine, and the reason they just can't seem to kickstart themselves despite decades of "healing my adrenals" ad nauseam, is that they need caffeine.

"So," I said, crankily, "You're saying that I should just go to Starbucks like everyone else?"

"No," he said. "Drinking caffeinated beverages can just continue the problem. They kickstart your nervous system in a shocking way, which further breaks it down. But if you take capsules the caffeine enters the bloodstream in a slow, time-released fashion which actually supports the organs."

To be accurate, his take is the you also have to heal the basic pattern with homeopathy and other methods. This abbreviated explanation doesn't really do justice to what my anon doc has discovered. Should we then smoke, booze, for health, you might ask? Yet I am amazed at what this has done for me, and it may help you - at least in the critical, guilt-alleviation department. When I started on the green T caps, I had already found my life energy again (yes, I will tell how in good time). But with the addition of this slow-release caffeine, everything started working better. I am now a gym rat with muscles and all, and I have normal days, like everyone else who, I now realize, is addicted to caffeine and has never bothered resisting it. Will they face the consequences later in life, or is this idea just another paranoid alternate health meme that is really an expression of our deep distrust of life?

I have sheepishly admitted my new relationship with caffeine to various friends who are yoga teachers, Buddhist meditators, "just-meet-it" Advaitans, and so on, and they all say, "Oh, I've never stopped drinking my coffee/tea/whatever." Where was I? Why didn't I notice? I feel like one of those soldiers after World War 2 who got stuck in the forest and thought there was still a war on years later. But I've noticed myself feeling the need to say to my friends:

'No, No, You need to take it through caps or it just makes things worse." But look! I am satisfying that proselytizing save-the-world need by this blog!

By the way, since I'm sure you are wondering, coffee enemas also satisfy the slow release requirement. I have a point here. I am fulfilling the title of this blog and you will see how caffeine, chai, life's work come in for a landing together:

HEAVY METAL DHARMA
So I am taking a spiritual retreat day, and I was settling down to read the latest issue of the Buddhist magazine Tricycle. Truly a cut above any other spiritual publication I know of. The latest issue has all kinds of goodies, including a great story about Tibetan Tantric language, one about a woman who has been dumped and follows Ammaji around India, one about how to respond to people who attack you. And, most amazing of all, there is a story about a heavy metal rockstar called Rivers Cuomo from the band Weezer (no, I hadn't heard of them either, but one of their singles was the most-downloaded song on i-Tunes last year!), who is a true, real Buddhist, following the dharma. He talks about how boring it is to be a rockstar, and... well, you should read it here. The Readers Digest version is that he is really, really doing what he's doing as his true life's work, not from ego. And he talks about following the Zen precept of telling the truth, even to the press, rather than putting a spin on things to make him look good. I think that was what inspired me to return to this blog.

CHAIBABA CHAI
I went to the kitchen very inspired about Cuomo and started heating up some Chaibaba Chai decaf. I am truly addicted to the taste of this stuff. I buy it in multiple bottles and my errands tend to center around the various places in Marin that serve it. But it does contain some sugar, albeit the organic kind. I wish they had a sugar-free variety. Then I would really have no problems. On a whim I called the number on the bottle and had an amazing, half-hour conversation with the Baba himself, Richard, who lives and works in Sebastopol and whom some of you know. I told him how much I love his product. He said that he is thinking of making a sugar-free version, but hasn't had time, as he is the boss and also all the employees of his company. He started explaining about the subtle blending of flavors, and how this chai recipe has been around since before time, and how he has a natural talent for cooking, and "knows" in advance how flavors will blend.

I found this fascinating and asked him more. He said (and I wrote this down as he said it):

"Of course, growing up in this society, I want to make a lot of money. But my business has been nothing but a loss - a tax credit. "

"Yeah, I know exactly what you mean," I said (and I do!).

"In fact, the only thing I get out of it is when people like you call me up and tell me that you really like it. This gives me a whole different angle on the meaning of satisfaction, knowing that I'm able to offer this to people, because I really do believe that people deserve to get good chai." chai link

I pointed out to him that although both he and I have made zero profit from our businesses in recent years, we are both somehow alive and well, living in the Western world of luxury. We giggled together about this miracle.

DEATH AND ATHEISM
Oh yes, and death: My dad died recently, aged 89. This has been a very big experience for me. And my mum is having extreme memory problems at the age of 87. I have been to England 5 times since last August, and I came back from my latest trip 4 days ago. I have tried to communicate to mum and my grieving stepmother my conviction that death is not the end of anything. They are, like many English people, deeply faithful atheists. This is a completely true perspective from where they are sitting, just as mine is from where I am sitting. I am just so grateful for mine. I am so grateful for everything: for Cuomo the heavy metal dharma dude, Richard the Chai Baba, my parents, the Love that is breathing through me right now...

and you

xxx