True, there were amazing threads of loyalty and devotion. Not to mention more plot twists and complications than an Italian Opera. But when I learned that the Ramayana is told very differently in Sri Lanka (that Sita left Rama on her own to be with the dashing handsome Ravana, rather than being kidnapped), I soured even more. That, and Rama insisting that Sita had to go through the fire before he’d accept her as his wife again, after having rescued her, struck me as the worst kind of male behavior.

Yesterday I was musing on things in general during my morning practice, and it occurred to me that the Ramayana has a very different interpretation that opens thing up in a new depth to the story. It’s really a metaphor for a shamanic soul retrieval.

It can be viewed on several levels – but the essence is that Sita’s abduction is soul theft. Sita can represent either her own soul (I see this in a few clients, where their soul has been stolen), the soul of the earth (she is the daughter of King Janaka and the earth itself), or even part of Rama’s soul. Or all three.

Since in this view this happens outside of ordinary reality, Rama (the shaman) cannot raise a regular army, or even some special forces, to recover Sita – he has to rely on an army of Power Animals – led by none other than the magical Hanuman. Many bears are involved too. Eventually the spirit army reaches the redoubt of Sri Lanka, probably only associated with the geographic island by later bards. A bridge needs to be built, which the spirit animals do, and the siege begins. Eventually Sita is found and rescued, and the demon Ravana vanquished – or in some tellings transmuted into the light – and Sita and the spirit army return to the forest.

The “trial by fire” is really a spirit cleansing by the elements – shamans often do this in some soul retrieval ceremonies – here with Sita’s friend the fire god Agni – and she is then restored to Rama’s side – or reintegrated with Rama, or herself, or the earth.

(In some soul abductions the captured soul part develops a codependent relationship with the captor, just as in ordinary real-life abductions. This needs to be healed before successful reintegration can take place, and the shaman may do this through the power of the elements in some way.)

Then it all makes sense.

I hope to be able to examine the epic more closely and see if this theory, this interpretation, holds up – or even goes deeper, or not…

If any of you have thoughts on this I’d love to see them!

Happy trails,
Stuart

What I like:

1. Speed – new machine goes really fast.

2. Interface is pretty. I like the really big display.

What I don’t like:

1. iPhone calendar still won’t sync. At all. All the other Outlook stuff syncs OK.

2. Palm TX won’t sync – and Palm has cut loose all tech support. Rumor has it that it will still sync over bluetooth, and I’m ordering a bluetooth dongle to try it out – the idea is that the Palm can fill in for the not-working iPhone calendar. If the iPhone ever syncs I won’t need the Palm (though the Palm calendar is much prettier and more useful than the iPhone calendar).

3. Wacom tablet drivers don’t exist – my tablet is too old. Again, rumors of a work-around, but haven’t tried it yet.

4. Networking is funky – has trouble seeing our network drive.

5. Goes to sleep really often – and when it does, it stops streaming audio. iTunes can’t keep it awake. I don’t know if WMP works.

More updates later…

Happy trails.

It came as three large boxes – the outside unit, the inside unit, and the hoses. I opened the boxes and took off the plastic and let everything sit in the garage a few days to outgas – the plastic really stinks. After a while the smell wore off.

I put the outside unit on a couple of 12″x12″ pavers from Home Depot, with about 6″ of gravel as a bed. One of the plastic covers (for the plumbing) was damaged, but it still works well enough that I’m not worried.

I mounted the mounting bracket for the inside unit high on the wall of the second story room we need cooled – it was a little tricky to get the screws (I used sheetrock screws) into studs and still use the holes in the bracket. It’s supposed to be accurately level so the condensation from the coils will flow out of the collecting pan and out the drain through the wall.

Then I cut the 2-3/4 hole in the wall for the plumbing and wiring – I had to get a hole saw for this. It’s a little scary to cut a hole like that in your wall! I lucked out in that it came out right next to the downspout so I could tie the pipes to the downspout.

Then I bent the pipes attached to the inside unit so they’d go straight out the hole when the unit was mounted, fed the attached cable out the hole, and carefully mounted it (takes two people). The pipes indeed went out the hole just fine, and the cables draped all the way to the ground and were long enough.

I attached the 25′ hose set (actually copper pipes with styrofoam sleeves) to the stubs sticking out of the wall, and carefully unwound them so both pipes, the cable, and the drain hose all came straight down the wall, and over to the outside unit. There was about 5′ more pipe than I needed, so I just made a little loop – rather than get tools to cut and flare the ends. The drain hose I left ending at the ground where it can just drip.

I had to wire up the outside unit – you really need an outside weather-proof disconnect box, and that was the hardest part for me – installing the conduit through the wall, making sure the wiring to the breaker box was good, and installing a dedicated 15 amp breaker. The cable from the outside unit to the disconnect box is fat – about 15mm, and I had to bore out the strain relief fitting to accommodate it. The cable from the inside unit, since it already had a Molex connector on it, would not fit in the strain relief fitting on the outside unit, so I installed it without. It just plugs together and supplies power to the inside unit, and control signals from inside to outside.

Connecting the refrigerant pipes is simple – I didn’t need the torque wrenches the instructions advised – just used a regular adjustable wrench, and you can feel pretty well when you have it tight enough. You pressure test the system by opening one of the valves (using a metric hex wrench) for a few seconds just 1/4 turn, then closing it, and checking each connection with soapy water. I had to cinch a few of them down a bit to get the bubbles to stop.

Here’s how you blow the air out of the system. Read the instructions, open the “liquid side” valve a few turns, then firmly press the Schrader valve on the “vacuum side” valve for 3-4 seconds. The air will blast out, and enough will be gone that it will work well. Then open both valves all the way (until the stops) for operation.

They supply two rolls of “tape” to wrap the hoses and cables with – but it’s really just like thin shower curtain vinyl, and if you drop the roll while you’re wrapping it, it completely unwinds all the way to the shrubbery below, and you have to wind it all up by hand. Just be prepared to be exasperated. I still have a second layer to go…

When I powered the whole thing up, nothing happened. I finally managed to open up the inside unit – you open the outer casing (to expose the filters), then remove five screws and pop off the middle casing (easier said than done, while standing on a step ladder!). The electronics is under a metal cover on the right, and after another screw I got that exposed. You can’t really get at the circuit board (it’s edgewise in the metal box, with no easy removal I could figure out), but I found that apparently the cable to the outside unit had pulled an inch or two, and one of the power connectors was pulled out of the circuit board. I couldn’t get any slack from the cable, so I made an extension and plugged it in. Replacing the middle casing is hard – it interferes with the vanes that direct the air and you still need to get it to hook at the top.

Then it worked!

It’s noisier than advertised, but it seems to cool (and heat) very nicely! Much of the noise seems to be from the slightly unbalanced squirrel cage fan, and various plastic things rattle a bit. It is a lot quieter than the old window air conditioner it’s replacing.

I’ll update more as I have some experience with it.

When we communicate we use words. We don’t need to use words to think, though there are plenty of kinds of thought that do. So, when we communicate about spiritual topics, we have to use words – at least in the traditional student-listening and teacher-talking kind of interaction. So, all spiritual communication is usually constrained by the subtle net of language.

This is one of the great things about Harding’s teaching (www.headless.org) – it tends to be more somatic, more sensory, and more experiential. The pointing (literally) of the finger, the view through the tube, or through the card, the emptiness of space – these get around the tight constraints of language. Words can describe the exercises. There’s a subtle trap, where you just read the words, understand them at the literal level, and think you know what they’re talking about – even if you’re a bit mystified and confused!

Meditation and other more physical spiritual practices (dance, chanting, ritual) also get around the limitations of words, though it’s also replete with subtle hidden sand bars and reefs. Easwaran’s “passage meditation” is particularly word-bound, being as that’s the actual practice. It is possible to reach a state of great stillness that way (he did, I’ve come close), but there’s nothing (except chance and grace) to nudge you over the edge, that infinitely receding horizon, into complete non-dual seeing.

So, tomorrow we’ll do the experiments, as well as have a period of silent meditation.

There’s another whole area where it gets confusing, aside from the problem that you can’t think about it – that is, more or less, that the complete non-dual state, the shining clear capacity of being, the dark and bright void – that it is capacity for everything. They call this “two way seeing” sometimes, and there’s definitely a duality of sorts going on – the emptiness and the fullness, creator and creation, Brahmin and Prakriti. I see this more as one tree trunk that has sap flowing both ways – perhaps a dangerous simile, but a nice idea. (I was thinking about the World Tree this morning – how it only sort-of looks like a “tree”. How it’s more the vast multi-dimensional knot that ties together all the worlds.)

Anyway, I’ve started writing again. I’m working on a piece I’m tentatively calling “The Two Horns of Death”. It’s an examination of the core issue in spiritual approaches to the issue death.

On the one hand, people like the non-dualists (Advaita Vedanta, Buddhism) have the doctrine of “no soul”, or anatma, which states that there isn’t a soul to die in the first place – it’s all an illusion. But on the other hand, the shamans know that there is something, some core essence, that clearly does not die.

So, I’m weaving these two seemingly contradictory views into some sort of mashup. I’ll keep you posted…

Happy trails!

(Note added later: The workshop is launched! We’ve had a very successful first weekend, and planning for the rest of the workshop is on-track. We’re scheduling a repeat for the 2010-2011 season! Contact us for details, or check the workshop website www.bodyspiritawareness.com.)

First I’ll give thanks, and express my gratitude to all of you, the people who are in my life. My wife Anne, my son Krishna and his wife Stephanie, my siblings Dan, Jim, and Jenny, and my dad Stu and his wife Carla. Also, my ex Sarah and her extended family. My clients and students, my colleagues and co-workers, friends and neighbors. Also thanks and appreciation to the various shamanic circles I’m a member of…

Then I go on and give thanks and appreciation to:

• The earth itself, our mother, for the loan of our bodies, for all the metals, oils, and minerals we borrow from her. For the loving embrace of her gravity. Thank you earth for the gift of my life.
• The waters; the springs, streams, rivers, and lakes; the oceans; the ice; the groundwater. The good sweet and beautiful water.
• All those who live in the water – from the algae to the fish; the many amazing invertebrates and the great whales.
• The plants on and in the land – for their food, fiber, medicine, and flowers; the fungi that hold the soil together.
• The animals – four footed, six and many footed, the no and one footed.
• The trees and wood, fruits and nuts.
• The birds with their song and flight.
• The air itself, and the movement of the air – the breezes and winds. The good sweet air, and breath.
• The weather – the clear sunny days, the storms, the wind, the calm. The beautiful weather.
• The thunders. Remember what the thunder said? Thank you thunder.
• Lightning – thank you lightning for the gift of my life.
• Electricity – and how we use it for information.
• Entropy, the loss of information, and thermodynamics and combustion, and fire. Thank you fire!
• The sun, the great fire, bringing life to the earth, and warmth, beauty, and weather.
• The moon, giving us the tides, the months, and eclipses!
• The planets and the solar system.
• The stars, the beautiful stars, and the Milky Way, our home galaxy!
• All the galaxies scattered along the cosmic web throughout the vastness of space.
• Space itself, and the “shape of space” – our familiar three dimensions and time. There doesn’t seem to be any reason it turned out that way, but it did.
• The sacred directions that define space, usually the familiar four cardinal directions, and above and below.
• The spirits of the directions. Each direction has a quality or spirit that is unique.
• All the spirits of what we call the “middle world” – including:
• The fair folk, the faeries, the little people – the people of the Sidhe, and those that I know who live there.
• All the other hidden worlds – there are many – including my private hidden world.
• The deities, the gods and goddesses, who live partly in the hidden worlds and partly in ours.
• The dragons; the dragons of the air, of the water, of the earth, of fire.
• The abstract spirits whose only manifestation may be a symbol, a color, an odor, a subtle sound. Some of them have a special place in my heart, and in other parts of my body.
• The spirits of the natural world – the elements, the elementals, the forces of nature, the powers.
• The great wild spirits that roam forever free.
• The spirits of thing, of place, of kind; the spirit of this place, this house, this yard, this neighborhood and city, this region.
• The spirits that are the great mountain that presides over this place, and the ridges, hills, valleys, and plains, and the waters.
• The spirits of the weather and the natural processes.
• The many people and spirits of the lower world, and of the upper world, including many good friends and acquaintances.
• My ancestors and blood line. It should maybe be called a fan instead of a line, since it double every generation back!
• My forebears, ancestors of my culture and thought, including the poets and philosophers, scientists and mystics, shamans and scoundrels, saints and teachers, the illumined beings and enlightened ones.
• Anyone I’ve forgotten! Especially these.
• Lastly, my appreciation to the creator and creation, God immanent and transcendent, Brahman and Prakrati, this magical two-way seeing where creation and creator are one!
• And lastly after the last, to you dear reader, who takes in these words and gives them life…

Appreciation and thanks, gratitude. The words before all else. Now we may begin.