Aquiring a Taste for Your Life

Your life might be an aquired taste.  Do you remember the first time you had a glass of wine, how awful it was? Do you remember the dawning of awareness, as you realized the depth, the complexity, the beauty?  Have you ever listened, as a vintner discussed what goes into every bottle, the effects of the soil and the atmosphere and the wood of the casks?  Or as a connesiour encourages you to absorb every last bit of flavor? Have you seen their faces light up as they describe what they love about wine?  
This is your life.  Your life is an acquired taste!  You have created your life.  You have done the best you could, given your particular environment, genetics, and karma.  You have crafted something, that just might be wonderful. Sit back, light a candle, and taste it. Savor it's complexity.  Consider the possibility that nothing in your life needs to change except the way you taste it.  Extract every nuance.  Give yourself a chance to sift through what you may have initially written off as unpleasant.  Allow the flavors to open and reveal themselves to you.  Let the bitterness, the grit, the swarm of seemingly conflicting impressions melt into a harmonious blend of experience.  Marvel at the richness and the beauty.
In my favorite Bukowski poem, 'The Laughing Heart', he agrees, 

'Your life is your life, know it while you have it.  You are marvelous, the gods wait to delight in you.'

Join them, all the gods, masters and holy ones.  Join the winos, and the beats.  Delight in your life.

Tantra Reading : The Radiance Sutras

When I was at Bhakti Fest in Joshua Tree last month, i met a man named Lorin Roche. He was a scholar and meditation teacher, and had spent several years working on a beautiful, poetic, practical, and accessible version of The Vijnana Bhairava tantra. The vbt is a delightful text that outlines powerful meditation techniques that can be used both on and off the mat, and allow one to see the sacred in all phenomenon. I really enjoyed meeting him, and taking his workshop, and I really enjoy the text. In fact, I used a reading from it in the wedding I performed just recently.

Be Wildly devoted to someone, or something.
Cherish every perception.
At the same time, forget about control.
Allow the Beloved to be itself and to change.

Passion and compassion, holding and letting go,
This ache in your heart is holy.
Accept it as the rise of intimacy
With life's secret ways.

Devotion is the Divine Streaming through you
From that place in you before time.
Love's energy flows through your body,
Towards a body, and into eternity again.
Surrender to this current of devotion
And become one with the Body of Love.


So check him out, he has alot of fantastic readings on his website, which i have been enjoying very much
http://www.lorin roche.com

Adorned By Moonlight: Prayer of the Great Bliss Queen

subdue the vagaries of mind. excellent.

Kali Ma's Dharma Talks

I like to listen to dharma talks as I drive to my morning yoga class. I have a ravenous appetite for downloadable dharma talks. I like my dharma talks high in quality, quantity, variety, and frequency. I find them nourishing, on a soul level, and interesting and centering for my mind.

I recently found some talks by a woman named Kali Ma. Great name. I think Andy Warhol was right when he said that Everyone is Kali Ma for fifteen minutes.

I found her website a bit confusing to navigate, but from what I could gather, she is a sincere tantric practitioner, with a grounded education in traditional Buddhist Tantric Yogas. I am always happy to see someone striving towards the authentic.

Her Dharma Talks are very nice, too. I have listened to "success and failure" and part of "the tyranny of specialness". She has a nice way of drawing the listener in, and uses excellent historical examples to illustrate her point. There are some occasional moments when her personality gets in the way of the true teaching, and slows down the flow of the wisom, but this is minor, and forgiveable. I can imagine that she will become quite a formidable teacher as she continues down her path.

You can download them here!