Reflections on Togetherness and Aloneness, 7/1-7/2

I am here to deepen my spiritual practice. To face my own crap. To be in ceremony, to grow! And anything or anyone that doesn´t serve this path must go. And now, my next ceremony intention is starting to emerge: togetherness and aloneness. I want to learn to be with others, but without losing my own center, to flow with the variations in community and solitude from a place of love, and with ease. I want to learn to fully receive others. To learn to listen to them, to be fully present to them. But all without losing my center, and without getting caught up in myself.

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Feeling good, and quiet. My yoga practice is deepening more than ever before. This morning I practiced for two hours, including my meditation; my mind is really beginning to open. I´m not feeling hurried to go on to the next thing. I´m just enjoying yoga while practicing yoga! So very beautiful!

I got a confirmation email from Diego, okaying my coming to ceremony tonight. One more ceremony with this beautiful group of people! Yesterday I had a hard choice to make. In the late morning, Javier knocked on my door, telling me that he had heard me playing the flute with drums the night before...except that I hadn´t been! He was sure, but I assured him that it wasn´t me. He then told me that he was heading to Tipon on Wednesday (today) to do San Pedro ceremony with some others. And he really wanted me to come. But I had already planned to do ceremony with Diego, and I told him as much. I asked if he would go again, and he said most likely yes. The choice was easy enough, though, I had already wanted to do ceremony with this group at Diego´s, and tonight is their final one. I am looking forward to doing ceremony with Javier sometime soon, though.

I´ve got a clear idea of what I´d like to declare as my intention for tonight´s ceremony:

TOGETHERNESS AND ALONENESS

I´ve been spending a lot of time alone in the last year, healing and finishing my degree. I´ve come to be more happy in my solitude, and have found great joy in living simply. But, as I´ve already written, I have been clinging to that, resisting getting too involved with others, besides my close community. Now, the time has come for me to consider the reasons for my resistance.

First, I have been resisting any scene that is involved with drinking and partying. And I know that´s because of my previous circles. I don´t want to be involved in anything like that ever, ever again. But I´m also in a very different place now. I am not going to attract that kind of toxic company to myself again. Yet in some way I´m holding on to that possibility. As someone said the other day, it´s time to rewrite my story!

I have been struggling to be comfortable with myself in the company of others here, and at home too. I just did it again just now, I fled Ulrike´s Cafe as soon as people I knew were starting to arrive. Now, yes, I want to be alone to concentrate on my writing. But the feeling of wanting to flee was strong in my body. Funny, I used to flee my body more, and tolerate social situations. Now I´m more likely to flee the situation. And I suppose that is somewhat better, since I am no longer abandoning myself! But I am also aware that I have been doing one or the other for the greater part of my life.

In essence, I tend not to be comfortable with myself in the presence of others. For whatever reason, I believe that I have to be somebody...as Paul put it yesterday, to perform. And if I don´t feel like performing, I flee into solitude. What would it take for me to feel comfortable with myself under all conditions? To be able to feel at ease with others, no matter what? Hmmmm...

It´s as if I can´t be myself with others. Not all others...I am clearly comfortable with my close friends and can be come comfortable - by force or effort - around those that I am often arround. But a feeling of ease doesn´t come easily with others. So, what do I have to face, or to release, in order to be at ease with myself in the company of others? Two things come to mind: First, be, not do. Second, accept myself as a being, and stop worrying about doing!

It all does come down to performing. And why is it that some people make me feel at ease immediately? No need to perform. I can just be myself with them, and I yearn for that. But for some reason, others make me feel the need to perform, to meet their expectations. To entertain them somehow. How much of that is my own intuitive sense, and how much of it is just me?

Surely there is a part of myself that wants to be accepted and loved. That part wants to perform, to be something special, worthy of the acceptance and love that I crave. But some people make me feel at ease right away. Is it their own self-acceptance and lack of expectations that makes me feel so comfortable? That surely plays some role.

And in romantic love relationships, I have felt for much of my life that I am not loveable by myself. That I must do things to make myself more special, worthy of love. And I have done a great deal of work with this self-love. I now know that I am special and loveable and attractive, and yet some of that still lingers. Habit? Sure. Once more, it´s time to rewrite this story.

One layer deeper: it´s about identity. Ego. And reinforcing the image of who I am. To get to the pure essence of my being, free of all images... the things that I like, or love, or do, they are not me. They are my story, but not my being.

So, that is something that must be shed. My identity. Ego death. Once my being is free of my identity, there is nothing keeping me from being exactly the same alone as in a crowd. So, my intention:

I ask that Mother Ayahuasca guide me through shedding the layers of myself that are not my pure being, and in doing so, bring me to encounter the pure essence of myself. And in doing this, it is my prayer that the obstacles and barriers between myself and others will be dissolved, leaving me free to be myself in all circumstances of aloneness and togetherness.