Receiving Puja

I started this essay on the flight home from Denver, but was unable to complete it until today. I think because i had to authentically read it again today and thank the universe and myself again today. Today has been hard, but I am so blessed. So blessed.

Receiving Puja

Its not often in my life that I have an opportunity to view myself in full power, grace and vulnerability, and yet I have been told I have had more of these moments than others do. I am told of people who walk through life blind. I meet souls who have never thought of their own power, grace or vulnerability, except perhaps in how others view them with these labels. I however, do. I wonder how I can pull down my walls and open up. I stay up at nights wondering if I carry myself in a way that puts my in the world I love in a way that allows me to dance with rather than steam roll over life and love. I pour myself a drink and debate whether I a doing enough. Do I live up to what I am meant to do.But then the gift came.Its not that simple. I can't say I was given a gift because I deserved it, because it was meant to be. Two masses drawn to one another as magnets in this huge world. So huge. The world is not getting smaller, she said. It's just as big as it's always been. We however are drawn to others who are as big as we are, as ready as we are. And I was ready.Saturday was the first time I'd received Puja, and the third time I'd invoked my god self. Oh, I've received hoochie puja before, taken from when HelasGythia said that she danced with fire and spoke with it, while others just did hoochie mama fire spinning. I raised my hand and confessed that I was a hoochie mama fire spinner. Oh, I've been to a few gatherings of tantric folks that they called pujas. But those were tainted. A lust in the air tasting like sweat and desperation. A need that cried out... if I show you how much the world loves you, will you show me? No, this taints it. This is not Puja.

Puja is an offering. It is bowing, kissing, holding heart space. It is you are beautiful and you are perfect mixed in with the divinity of being acknowledged in what is before you. It is not I love you, but you are love. You are loveable is too simple. It is more that this. It is not the passing statement, but taking of your entire being to show the being before you how amazing they are. And it is one directional.I tried to say Thank You afterwards, and she scooped up the words and handed them back to me nestled between her palms. Please do not taint this, she pleaded with her eyes, and I took the words back.She told me a tale afterwards of offering Puja to a tree. My brain skipped a beat, words of T. Thorn Coyle and Orion Foxwood buzzing in my brain. The souls of trees. The worthiness of these amazing spirits. Full circle in under a year, as if time were somehow so simple. Louise, the woman in the cottage, lives past and future, smiles and laughs as I pick up this thread again lifetimes later.8 months ago I first drew down my God Self. PantheaCon is one of those events that even though it takes place in a hotel, the brain lets that fact fade because the magic is so strong. The space becomes more than hotel, more than people, more than rituals- it becomes its own. And here I was surrounded by 200 or more folk in a ballroom, watching Thorn laugh and explain and place theory on the table then walk us into practice. Eyes shut, hands open, and breathe in. Pull in power and love. Breathe in and hold, and as I breathe out fill presence in the space and connect to my beingness there. Her words echo- “there is nothing excluded from the work of self possession.”

Breathe in again, deep breath and hold, and as I breathe out I fill the beingness of my animal soul, my lower cauldron, my lower chakras. Breathe in, fill and hold, and as I breathe out I fill myself and bring awareness to my middle chakras, my intellectual self, the trunk of my world tree and the self that analyzes it all. Finally on the fourth breath, aware of all before, space, animal and intellectual selves, I breathe in, hold, and breathe into my god self.

I breathed up and filled up my being, and as the I AM descended, and I knew it as the I AM, the truth of me, my greater purpose, my god self. Dharma is one of her faces. Purpose is one of his hands. Beingness is writ upon zir chest and Authenticity echoes in every pore. I breathed in I AM, and became the conduit for my eternal self to speak, to know, and in turn, empower me to do as I will. I. I AM.

It amazed me afterwards, and before we actually turned theory into practice, how many times I have let other beings ride me and use my form, when I had not ridden myself. A thousand reasons erupt from my tongue- second hand flesh, not my chosen journey, so many to serve, so little time... all excuses that fell away as I knew. Knew in my being. Knew my being.

Since that February evening, full of rose poems and Feri delight, I had only drawn myself down one other time- locked in a circle with a heavy metal circle locked around my neck and in the solace of solitude I spent forever in an hour with my God Self. I have tried other times in between and not truly succeeded. I have called I AM on the phone energetically speaking, and had me even visit during office hours... but the attempts at house calls have not worked. Oh, I certainly told myself it worked, or bathed in the high of the trying, but it was energetic wanking: calming, self loving, but not necessarily helpful for being fruitful and making life change. Fair, I could go on about the idea of masturbation as a tool for life and world change, but for now we'll work with a standing metaphor.She and I had been playing hard. Ropes and hands and hearts flying in a generic hotel room lit with the light of us. Switching at its best with both as Top, both as bottom, both all there. But those walls, right. Dive deep but come up for air my fear kept saying. They can't handle it... an excuse for you can't handle it.

But my gills itched and as we walked into the bathroom she caught my eye.

I would like to offer Puja to you...

Have you ever had Puja?

A wave of words that never crossed my lips. Oh, fuck, hoochie puja... oh no, she means it. I'm not worthy! Why am I not worthy? What do I need to do to deserve this? How can someone see me as perfect. She's just being nice. Its not a big deal. This is a huge fucking deal. If divinity is tapping into universal love like being plugged into the source, is she using me to reach that source? Am I using her? Am I already plugged in? A I allowed to? Will I be allowed to stay? Can I do this? What if she starts and finds me unworthy once she looks? What if I find myself unworthy. What if I cry. Run. Breathe. BREATHE.

So I breathed. I nodded yes, and when she began, I breathed.

As she touched my feet and gave thanks to all I am, I let myself truly go there again. Go back into the truth of my being and open wide. Open to being there with every pore. Open to being primal with every pore. Open to being intellectual with every pore. And once I was there, truly there, I opened up wide and felt I AM descend.

I laughed. The damn burst and I laughed. I see her face and know my path. I feel his hand pulsing inside mine and can act on my purpose. I feel my chest rise and fall filled with the core of my beingness and my skin sings with the authenticity of all I AM. I AM. I.

I am worthy.

I am deserving.

I am beautiful.

I am perfect in this breath.

I am loved.

I am going the right way.

I am capable of all of my greatness.

I am magnificent.

I am.

I AM.

I laughed. And laughed. And glowed.

I breathed in my grace, power and vulnerability... and was not afraid.

And saw myself.

Its not often in my life that I have an opportunity to view myself fully, and yet I have been told I have had more of these moments than others do. I am told of people who walk through life blind. But I am not they. In each day I see and meditate on all I AM, my universal will, my power line to God, my God Self, the Cauldron of my Beingness, my Gaurdian Angel, my Higher Self, my Truth... I continue to have more opportunities to be blessed.

And I am blessed. Thank you world, thank you self, for showing me I was ready for this. 

If so moved...