poised to shoot

An innocent enough grin...

















Ha Ha! I've got you now Little Bunny Foo Foo!

















I takes aim for the jugular!

















Just kidding, everyone lived happily ever after...


The bow is the sacred OM, and the arrow is our soul.
Brahman is the mark of the arrow, the aim of the soul.
Even as an arrow becomes one with its mark,
let the watchful soul be one in him.

— Mundaka Upanishad

chöd

Namo.
I pay homage to the guru, to the dakini.
On the moon disk of her heart
Is the letter AH...AH...
















(Click on the painting to see Machig Labdrön's fearless grace!)

"There are many who wish to gain enlightenment
in a man's form, and there are but a few who wish
to work for the welfare of sentient beings in a female
form. Therefore may I, in a female body, work for
the welfare of beings right until Samsara is emptied.

To annihilate the four demons
Is the teaching of the great vehicle.
To neither reject nor pursue Samsara or Nirvana
Is the meaning of the Prajnaparamita.
Making use of unfavorable conditions
Was taught by the vernerable Machig.
To consider adversiy as a friend
Is the instruction of Chöd."

- Machig Labdron and the Foundations of Chöd

Once again, the drum beats my heart and the bell
calls me to splash in the rivers of infinity.
















One of my dear dance students has been battling a nasty cancer demon for several years. As I try my best to help her through the stormy waves of samsara, I feel myself gripped in a dead-lock stare with my own mortality.

By shear grace, the universe tossed us a rope, Chöd, the Tantric
Buddhist practice of offering everything you've got, which, when
one is passing through life's more dire of situations, one can find
that the only thing left to offer is the body... or as a recently seen
bumper sticker proclaimed, "Don't wait till you die to follow the light".

Chöd is a supplication to the great dakini, Machig Labdrön.
It is charnal ground practice so steeped in beauty and magic
that it drops me to my knees. We practice many hours each
week and continue to to be delighted by the wisdom of this
sacred puja.

I must mention how much gratitude I have for Alta Brown for sharing
her lifetime of practice with us and I bow with great respect to her
Guru, Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche for so generously keeping
these teaching alive for all to follow in his footsteps.

For more information/inspiration, visit Alta's lovely website: Everyday Chöd

around the world

Just for kicks, here is a quick reference point of what it
means to have RSD:














Who would'a thunk that such nastiness was/is possible
for a human body to endure? And yet, life goes on,
and something like this : Around the World
makes me so happy! Dang! Them Boyz can DANCE!

"I see first lots of things which dance...
then everything becomes gradually connected.
- Jim Morrison

aum cakes

We recently baked an aum cheesecake with a batch of
freshly plucked black raspberries from a plant me mum
started a couple years ago.
















Cheesecake is unbelievably easy to make.
We used crushed boudoir biscuits (aka: ladies fingers)
for the crust but any mild cookie would do or even
ground pecans and melted butter.

Crust:

2 1/4 cup cookies crumbs or crushed pecans
1/2 cup butter, melted

Filling:

1 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese, softened
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup milk
dash of salt
1 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs

Bake @ 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 25:ish minutes

You CAN have your AUM and eat it too!