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my life . . . a waterfall of fire

When I rest in Nature, I remember how permeable, receptive, & responsive I am to her cures.  Simply by being in her presence, I find no need to remove or transform any plant or mineral; I am comforted, confirmed, renewed & rewilded, I am.  Through many years of practice in Ayurveda & Yoga, I have found a world of Nature within as well, & experience daily the ways in which living forces move freely from my environment inward, & my heart outward, in a rhythmic pulse, slow & wide.  No matter where I roam I am Nature, I am her pulse.

Nature & Ayurveda saturate & flow into this pulse in my mind & body, & I love the freedom & fearlessness of making use of anything imaginable as a medicine.  Nature, Ayurveda & Yoga entwine as allies, helping me to form medicine from my breath, my thoughts, my wisening hands; to draw medicine from Shabda, Sparsha, Rupa, Rasa, & Gandha . . . sound, touch, vision, taste, & smell.  Hidden, root remedies & rituals of Ayurveda are wrapped in the artful, elegant, scientific, mathematical, musical & methodically precise logic of natural law.

Life for me is ever inspired by living close to Nature, & my world vision is ever expanding through travel & study with teachers who I feel give knowledge freely from their hearts. Tapasya began early for me, on the Indiana farm where I grew up, & the summer that I turned 9, 1973, I left the comfort of my silent & nourishing covenant with Nature for my first airplane trip on my own.  When I reached my destination, no one was in the airport to meet me.  Wandering toward a sunny spot to wait, I met a group of Monks who surrounded me, & gave me a small book of Sanskrit verses & fresh yellow flowers.  They spoke to me as if they knew me, as an equal; they shimmered & glowed & smiled together as if they were one being. 

I read the verses many times, keeping them for many years, & arrived home from my journey to decorate my room in a bright orange & yellow spectrum; crystal beads swayed in my eastern window. Facing East each morning, I began to create my own form of movement & breath that I felt was worship of the Sun. Later in life, I discovered the profound practice of Surya Namaskara, & the Darshana of Yoga.  I discovered that this is the way of Sanskrit, of Sutras sung or simply read, to unfold petals of knowledge from a hidden source within each being, often quietly, silently, & fully over the course of a lifetime . . . of many lifetimes . . .

Study of fine arts, languages, & chemistry ensued, archaeological work in Portugal, travel through Europe, islands of the Mediterranean, & the American Southwest.  Around age 33, I was blessed to begin Yoga studies within the lineage of Sri Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, at Yoga East, in my very hometown.  Through expert guidance, I completed a Hatha Yoga Certification, discovered the nuances of Vastu, and began to learn the wisdom of Ayurveda through a correspondence course with Dr. Robert Svoboda.  

Although I always feel closest to the element of Apas, Water, a waterfall of fire would be a better description of my early life & Sadhana.  Travels for study & returns home coincided with earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, snowstorms, wars, bombings, & terrorist attacks.  I was in New York with my friends & teachers from Yoga East with Guruji, Sri K. Pattabhi Jois during 9/11, very close to the twin towers.  People from around the world had gathered to practice, so we practiced, every day following the tragedy, within the remaining void & silence.  The continuity of collective breath & sweat seemed to wring the fear & grief from my heart, stoking Tapas & leading to my study in Guruji’s Shala in Mysore, India the following summer.                

While in the Indus River Valley, I met by serendipity Dr. Talavane Krishna of the Indus River Valley Ayurvedic Center.  His kindness & encouragement during my stay & treatment there firmly grounded my desire to understand & meld the knowledge of Ayurveda, Vastu & Jyotish, all of which I could feel as a unified, sublime, earthly & cosmic energy coursing through the Center & gardens.

The inner call to meditation there was a palpable, a demanding, gravitational force of Nature.  Among many lasting treasures that I found in Mysore is my hand-hammered, silver, Ayurvedic tongue scraper in a blue velvet case, which I still use every day! Among treasured memories is chanting Sri Guru Gita on the rooftop after evening monsoon storms,  amidst pendulous blossoms & marauding monkeys.

Feeling more at home in India than ever in my life, while practicing & observing in Shala every day, I began to understand the fine art of Vinyasa Krama, an Ayurvedic medicinal sequencing of Yogasana, Pranayama, & the natural pathways they form into meditation. I began to experience the support that a life steeped in Ayurveda could give to an inward quest; a life rich in Rasa.   In India, everyone treated me as if they knew me dearly, as a long lost daughter, even the wandering Sadhus.

One day, a group of Sadhus beckoned me into a close, low cave near ruins outside Mysore, to sit with them in meditation & Puja.  They did not want me to leave, & I often feel that I should never have left India, I loved her so.  My deep experience of belonging, both in the cave, & in India, seemed to leave me open, or I would say emotionally vulnerable & surrendering to unspoken love & knowledge from Nature & the Universe;  knowledge of the Vedas is still constantly returning to me in new forms.

Gurugi & Amma

Courtesy Sri K. Pattabhi Jois: A Tribute

Eddie Stern & Gwyneth Paltrow, 2002

Home from India in 2002, I began Ayurveda study with Dr. Vasant Lad, traveling to New Mexico to attend summer seminars.  Simultaneously, I found Sufism with Adnan Sarhan; chanting, drumming, dancing & whirling in the nearby Manzano mountains, New York & Spain. 

Again, time passed, & years of study in Visionary CranioSacral Therapy translated into prenatal care of mothers & their special needs children; care of dogs, horses & goats. During these years I worked as a fine gardener & muralist,  learning from native plants & ceremonial herbs; caring for a Kiva, serpent mound, a meadow moon circle, forest labyrinth & orchids.  Fourteen years of consistent Ashtanga Yoga practice melded with several spent exploring Yogasana & Pranayama with a lifelong lineage teacher of BKS Iyengar’s tradition.  Qigong , Taiji & Taiji Jian study under the open skies with Taiji Grand Master Ding Mingye fulfilled my childhood  dream to become Grasshopper.

“One’s destiny is in one’s own hands . . .

the Guru only makes this much understood.

Swami Vivekananda

The fire & flow of my Sadhana changed as I traveled between many small, rural communities to teach & offer therapy sessions.  For 8 powerfully transformative years my Sister & I shared the home-care of my Mother.  During our time together, the longest relationship of my life, my Mother taught me how to fulfill a covenant while remaining free.    She left me a gift, allowing me to attend Dr. Lad’s 2 year program of medical & spiritual Ayurveda at The Ayurvedic Institute.  

There, during the Covid pandemic, my class became the first to extend our student clinic outreach internationally via Zoom, helping clients all over the world to use their natural, local & home resources as Ayurvedic remedies.  Beyond the program, I spent 6 months training in Shamana & Shodna therapies in Dr. Lad’s Panchakarma Clinic & Spa, while tutoring institute students in all aspects of Ayurveda, especially Sanskrit.  

In my last, personal Ayurveda session with Dr. Lad, he told me that my deepest desire & Dharma was to heal humankind gently & subtly through herbs & Mantra, & encouraged me to spend my life close to green, growing entities & the sounds of Sanskrit;  to emerge, speak, & allow myself to be seen honestly he said, would help free the minds of others.  

It has been my experience that my Gurus often see me not just in the present moment, but also as my past & future selves, & I know that it may take some time for the impression of their words to emerge as potent desire from my own heart  .  .  .  I find myself still waiting, for a heartsong to surface, or maybe to soak into me from the hidden mystery of a nearby lake where I love to float, as light on water.  

Since leaving Dr. Lad & New Mexico in the summer of 2022, I have spent time once again sequestered in Nature; nesting, foraging, eating, shooting bows & arrows, sharing bonfires, laughter & stories . . . learning from Nakshatras & Mantras, sleeping & dreaming, teaching.  I have been following clouds, buzzards, hawks & planets over the fields.  Rest has been needed, in the eye of our world’s present storm.  

Always returning home by my own road, or waterfall, the smells of cows & rain in the fields & the night melange of wild rose & honeysuckle is so divine; as is to listen to birdsong & frogsong, & seek out the trails of deer. I hope that this time, I have returned home as a more compassionate listener, to the place below the stars where I was born & to all my relations . . . the old waters & trees, the meadows of dew-soaked fauna & flowers.

Now, at age 60, Sadhana flows more as a cool wellspring from within, with Pranayama & meditation as my primary Yogic companions. I spent a long, cold winter in one sunlit room, nestled here on 200 Kentucky acres, receiving from Nature & meditation the design, the new, virtual honeycomb structure of Shamana Eco Ayurveda.  I wanted to create a way of working which would roam with me & become a living, foundational stone to place in an intentional community that I hope to found soon.

Prana, as a friend, now teaches me daily what the Cosmos desires from me & what has already passed into acceptance & forgiveness.  As one, life & Sadhana are now burnishing me, into a kind & compassionate listener; into someone who feels at home speaking & teaching anywhere on earth, with honesty flowing in clear passage to the world from my heart  .  .  .