PART ONE : The spiritual path is not about consolation but annihilation. It’s like giving up sugar………… Here in Italy that’s like giving up all breakfast options which are mostly about sweet cappuccinos sprinkled with chocolate powder and cream filled croissants because except for the occasional and pathetic attempt at a fruit bowl or a sugar laced milk yoghurt, in most hotels and bars, there’s simply nothing else on offer. The locals addicted to this way of eating, look at me horrified that I will be going without, having no idea that their choice of food to start the day is not life giving or remotely nourishing. On the contrary, it is they who are starving despite the layers of fat that any good pasta making wife will put on, as soon as she has found her man and settled down with children. I swear that no Italian can exist without a pizza and coffee. Truly. At my own home it’s not a problem to start the day with a healthy juice smoothie but travelling in Italy by train is really difficult, as there are no ‘Whole Foods’ supermarkets around the corner or at the stations where you can buy something healthy and nutritious and that does not contain gluten. For too long here in Italy, I’ve felt like a victim being so different to others but nowadays, finally, I’m stopping the endless judgement at myself or others for the choice I or they are making. Giving up sugar can take years in a culture where we have been indoctrinated and in bodies that have become habituated and adapted for years, such that withdrawal is like going ‘cold turkey’. There are many bypasses and distractions en route, as I found out when I substituted organic versions, only to find with horror, that many of these options like yoghurts, actually contained more sugar than the non organic ones. I soon recognised that this was all part of my own ability to swap addictive behaviours, to play lip service to it all, so it seemed different, when in reality I was still hooked and caught up in the same perilous denials. Suffering is a pathway to truth, not encouraged by our patriarchal culture that pathologises anything that appears to be a problem, desperate to fix and get to some perfect ending. Thomas Keating who recently passed away, says that ‘powerlessness is our greatest treasure’, even though everything in us wants to get rid of it. Our wounds ironically are our gift because this is where wisdom, grace, humility and compassion arise, as well as our sense of shared humanity. Eventually, we will all be led kicking and screaming to a place where we finally say ‘enough is enough’ to our own inner demons and the games we continue to play, whether this is in death when SHE will have HER way or whether we choose consciously to die before, in order to open into the potential transformation that happens when we give up control and everything is taken away. Sugar is alluring, the body is addicted to the immediate fix and sensation of safety and comfort offered. We feel back in control. Our stomachs are less empty. We are temporarily satiated. And, in my case when I used to be somehow drawn uncontrollably into drinking hot chocolates or chai lattes, when I was in deep despair, despite knowing it would be harmful , this addiction actually went right back to early childhood days with night time drinks like Horlicks, which all too often were offered as a substitute for genuine and crucially important emotional support. It’s only in my mature years, that I saw how often I would choose counterfeit spirituality and some quick fix option, rather than honouring what I really was feeling and needing at a deeper level. It’s only now that I see I wasn’t sufficiently embodied or resourced at an inner and outer level to manage what needed to be healed and forgiven. I wasn’t capable of making healthy choices, I’d negated myself for a lifetime. I didn’t know I had any needs , they were so suppressed and unknown. It’s only since I have regulated my nervous system after years of living hyper alert and outside it as a way to cope with complex trauma and shock, that I’ve been able to literally wean myself off many of my addictive behaviours. We have to be gentle with ourselves. Addiction is not a conscious choice as Dr Gabor Mate is so wonderfully teaching the world and, in the words of Dr Sumrok, and now my own, addiction should be renamed as ‘ritualised compulsive, comfort seeking’. When I crashed sick in Amma’s ashram over eleven years ago, after drinking too many hot chai drinks laced with sugar and condensed milk, I had to admit, that once again I was temporarily soothed with my desperate need for comfort and totally unaware of the reality of the diabetic crisis in India that was and is destroying families everywhere. It’s only in the last five years, that I have realised, every one of these supposedly nourishing drinks has at least six teaspoons of sugar in just one mug, to say nothing of the additives that are added to the caramel, chai lattes on offer as our treat to start the day. But as my shaman says, death is easy, living is hard. The living need to have their eyes open, not closed. It’s true, we are killing ourselves with kindness, when we seek to indulge as a way to cope with our daily misery and unresolved pain. The relief is short lived and with huge consequences that should not surprise us but invariably with our denials strongly in place, still does. How did this happen we ask, instead of seeing that the betrayal that is most painful to face, is what we do to ourselves, over and over. It requires enormous courage to face reality that most of society prefers to shove underground, the sugar sweet lies and deception, that prevent us from facing the hard truth that whilst painful, is the only key to liberation and freedom from slavery. We cannot keep running from ourselves, from the truth, there is no ‘away’, no place to hide, no place where we can put the plastic that doesn’t have consequences to the whole. I have reached that place of enough, of trying to do it on my own, in control, refusing to surrender, playing god. I’ve chosen counterfeit options because as a chronic co-dependent, I believed in everyone else, instead of trusting my own inner authority and sovereignty. I didn’t know this was the divine path ‘home’, that the light of who we are, is the I AM or IO SONO. I thought it lay outside of myself, that I was beyond redemption and unworthy without the validation externally. I thought the outside knew the answers, and like so many women, that I deserved to be punished. I’ve paid with my life force and chosen to betray myself rather than speak the truth, to collude with everyone and be part of the patriarchal problem we now find ourselves with globally. I didn’t know that this path of self denial is what allows in the dark, that when we are truly being our authentic selves, that this is when we are in connection with the light of the divine within us. Or in the words of Caroline Myss, I didn’t realise that speaking the truth and being congruent is the greatest thing we can do for ourselves and the planet right now. It’s only now that I can admit that I have had an addiction to sugar all my life without taking it seriously. I also have a very serious infection with chronic Lyme where eating sugar feeds the stealth bacteria, viruses and parasites such I’m giving them ammunition to continue to ‘take me over’ and which simultaneously weakens my immune system. That is the reality and it’s the metaphor that I’m clearly up against. So what do I choose? Do I pretend I’m not really eating too much chocolate, play the same cover up that was a pattern to not look in my family or do I face what I’m doing, look at it straight in the face and hold my craving addict in check so she doesn’t rule the show? This is the teaching of Robert Ohotto right now, as he asks us all to face our shadow victim archetypes like the co-dependent, the addict, the perfectionist and many others in order to move into more mystical and alchemic ways of living. Mostly I manage these days, my diet is very clean, still there are some gaps. Dark chocolate is one of them. Sometimes red wine as with chocolate together this creates acidity which feeds the pathogens. Still I’m human and sometimes I fail. But…..finally I’m not prepared to self abandon and close my eyes, the price has been too high. I am choosing to be myself with whatever it takes, to honour my light, to express what I’m feeling and whatever is needed to heal my body. Or as Mary Oliver says in her beautiful poem, when everything has failed, I am choosing to ‘save the only life really worth saving;’. This is not self indulgence or selfishness, this is the self love and transformation that is changing my life completely and necessary at a planetary level. This no as a complete sentence without need for justification, something we as women need to do more and more. Self betrayal is certain soul death. PART 2 : Lindt dark chocolate and the Black Goddess Today, in the Lindt shop in Venice station as I was waiting for a train change, I was reading the huge array of buckets with different options, the majority showing the first ingredient as ‘zucchero’ which means sugar, with only two showing the main ingredient as cacao. The one I chose was 70% cacao and fondant filled, with beautiful black and gold packaging that reminded me immediately of the Black Goddess, a beautiful statue of HER in Switzerland. An old addictive and craving self, wanted to indulge in all the colours and flavours, loading up my bag like a junkie, memories of days in trinket shops or New Age healing markets, over buying just for the sake of it……but I knew to override this life long, self indulgent urge that is more about sabotage and bypass than healing and evolving. That part tries to grab my attention but no longer has me in its grip as before. I’ve been to hell enough and am done with this brutal self abandonment, treating my body like an object, as a dumping machine and garbage can. So with new awareness and years of re-wiring, I chose the 70% chocolate balls. I actually hate milk chocolate now, even though as a child I was addicted to it, after weaning myself off for years, it’s now way too sweet for my system. I consciously chose the Black Goddess, accepting the refinement that only She offers as SHE clears us out of everything that does not serve. One chocolate ball is enough and I’m in heaven, no further fix is needed. Sugar is counterfeit spirituality and we need to recognise our addictions as we have been hooked for years. We are all starving for the sacred, for nature and HER laws, cut off from our real source of love and power, distracted by the quick fix of multiple distractions that keep us from our true nature. Actually there was a huge sense of relief, I was able to quickly read the other buckets just out of interest but not be drawn in, in the same way that I buy nothing anymore in pharmacy shops because I make my own healing balms and perfumes, preferring for years not to buy toxic toiletries. Life is actually much easier, there is less overwhelm if I stop resisting that I’m not part of the mainstream shopping mall, this aching to belong even though it’s clearly pathological. If I am conscious enough to give myself the healthy mother love that I never received, I don’t need to buy into all the other smokescreens and merry-go-rounds. I can buy one or two bio bottles of wine that I know and love, without having to search through hundreds of non bio ones. It’s quick and easy. I can let it be. My nervous system is less stressed because I don’t have to manage so many options and life is simpler with these clear guidelines and the strong containment that I have always longed for. So with this clarity, I focussed on the only two buckets with high cocoa ingredients and much lower sugar, reducing the over stimulation of having to make a choice from such an immense and diverse range of chocolates in at least thirty differently coloured buckets. As I write this piece I’m remembering the path I chose to step outside of the norm, to be one of a few who enters the bars in Italy, where there is nothing I can eat, as it all consists of gluten ,dairy and sugar or intensively farmed meats which are mostly pork and salami based. There is nothing to drink except stimulants and no alternative milks like rice, almond and oat, except occasionally soya. Only water. I feel like an alien from another planet and yet if I don’t judge myself or the Italians enjoying their choices, everything is fine, there is no resistance, no fight, no war. It’s finally over. I am me and they are who they are. I can stand on the edge and still be included in the overall ‘family’, order a teapot of hot water, put in my own Pukka tea bag called ‘love’ and eat my one 70% dark chocolate ball which is unbelievably delicious. It’s like refined wine, a small amount does the trick. For years I’ve had no need to eat a whole bag of milk chocolate which is intoxicating and addictive, and would leave me remorseful and sick, having sabotaged and self harmed which was an old pattern. However, I can still over indulge in dark chocolate choosing not to notice how many times I’ve gone to the cupboard to break off another piece, like a smoker lighting up for his regular fix. With my condition, a daily half bar of dark chocolate might not seem a lot for most people but it creates acidity and is self harming. Likewise if I drink more than a glass of wine, my liver cannot tolerate it. This is my reality because of years with chronic illness and pretending I’m able to consume what I could before having Lyme’s is ridiculous and still self sabotage if I dare to admit it. Discernment is everything, it’s how we learn as a result of past mistakes and failures. I have felt alone and lost being the only one not eating or drinking the same as others here in Italy and yet, and this is the key, it is this very path that has set me to stand alone, to separate out and to liberate myself from everything that does not serve. SHE asks a lot from us but there is no comparison, the refinement and beauty that is offered by walking HER path, this sacred feminine way, cannot be described in words. One mouthful is enough. I am fully satiated. And I do belong, nothing can ever separate me, it’s only what I have done to myself all my life as an outmoded way to survive. This is the spiritual path, it is one of letting go, of annihilation to all the comforts we have been so habituated to. It is not for the faint-hearted. There is sacrifice, we do have to give up control. And it’s not linear with some ending where we are sorted and fixed. I have found myself fighting and resisting my true path, saying no to HER all too often because it felt too much. SHE seemed to want my life blood and it’s only now that I’m seeing why, the depth of compassion she has for me as I’m trampled mercilessly, like the grapes in Rumi’s famous poem, to be made into refined wine. The path with the Dark Goddess, with Kali, is a powerful, intensely difficult and sometimes treacherous one. Everything is taken away, we are turned to the goo of a caterpillar. Even if I chant HER mantras, I cannot say I have chosen to give up everything willingly because I’m a control freak and it fucking hurts. I will hold on as long as I can because of my abandonment issues but brutal grace as HER, has come anyway, just as death will come for us all in the end. The butterfly needs to struggle as otherwise it will die, this is fundamental and fostering dependency as my mother did, only weakened me, such that I was always at the mercy of outside forces with no self reference and no way to trust myself. We were all caught in a healthy co-dependent trap, fused and merged without any separation. I could not ‘stand my ground’, my legs literally gave way as I was bedridden for years. Deep underneath all my polished and apparently powerful masks, was a terrified wretch who was utterly powerless and alone. This is where my healing has been these last years, this is the inner work we all need to do. Chronic and debilitating illness with a huge dose of trauma has been my alchemic initiation, but it is also a testimony to my ability to endure suffering and come out of the underworld transformed and hugely resilient. I didn’t ask for it consciously but that’s a good thing in truth. As Thomas Keating who recently passed away said “The spiritual journey is a commitment to allow everything you possess to be taken away before the dying process begins. This makes you of enormous value to yourself and to others because you have anticipated death and death is not the end but the beginning of the fullness of transformation.” Letting go also includes clearing out our addiction to refined sugar in all the ways that it’s hidden as well. Eating this one dark chocolate with a soft enticing centre, SHE reminds me to intensify my vow once again, to not default to the easy option. It is enough and I am enough, there is nowhere I need to get to and nothing more I need. I am grateful for the discernment that has been the learning gift and benefit from failing so many times and for the profound blessing and refinement that has been possible when, so often my soul chose to have me walk the ‘road less travelled’, daring to face reality, forcing me to take off my blinkers. Stripped bare of layers finally I’m seeing the purity of holy brokenness thanks to Vera Chamertin’s teachings, of being with the Dark Mother and surrendering a little more to the en-darkenment. I’m finally acknowledging the gift that is in my wounds, how it has brought me to my knees away from my arrogance, to give up the psychological war of self hatred and self alienation. And particularly now, daring to feel everything that arises as I find myself defrosting after fourteen years of divorce and letting the floodgates open, so that as grief finally flows, my life force returns. Grief as one of the last stages in the death process as Elizabeth Kubler Ross teaches us and closely followed by acceptance and…….. dare I admit it, some sense that I have my life back at last. How under all this apparent separation, running to avoid myself and my shadow, the Great Mother, SHE holds me if I only dare to soften and receive. SHE as me, holds it all in love and wholeness. SHE has always had my back. Suffering is brought back from exile. This is the real homecoming and the radiance we are all seeking that Mirabai speaks of in the poem below. "Mother of God similar to fire, ignite my heart in prayer. Where once I stood on familiar ground selecting my spiritual experiences like choice morsels from a well-tended larder, now my garden has gone up in flames and I thirst only for the living God. Let me find him, Mother, As you do Deep inside my own ripened being. Let me swallow the sacred and burn with that Presence, illuminating a way home to the Truth. Lit from within let my blazing heart become a sanctuary for the weary traveler until this long night lifts and dawn unfolds her new radiance." ~ Mirabai Starr
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