i lose my guru all the time

8/2/2019 i Lose My Guru All the Time

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June 18, 2008

This is a 1000 word essay which I wrote to capture the kind of longing and inner dialogue that goes on in

a soul of a seeker on the verge of letting go of form. It encapsulates my own contemplative journey

merging my years on the paths of Shamanism and Buddhism form & formlessness. I want to share this

piece because perhaps its speaks to others longing as well for that one thing or that one person that is

the answer.

So I think it could be beneficial but Id like to figure out how to get this essay into shape for submission,

if that is possible. Should I turn it into more of a story or leave it discursive & questioning. If I could

figure out how to take my natural prosey flow and make it the most readable, or digestible for magazine

publications, that would be awesome. I think the thing is, I dont know if I have a style or not.

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I Lose My Guru All The Time

By Antara Davis

Sometimes I say The Earth is my Guru and I consciously will it to rise from the ground

beneath me like a living statue of sand, as if I were some Merlina Magnificata. Yet the

moment my longing makes me reach forward to grasp the diaphanous hand, the form

disperses in the breeze. Sparkling particles of light merge into crackling leaves, fly into

jagged rocks along the shoreline, and hide in the wild horse mane of sea spray. In the odd

moment when I catch the guru-light smiling inside clouds reflected in asphalt puddles,

blackbirds splashland to disperse the light, contented in their momentary tub. And so it goes,

the more I want form, the more it is frittered away how frustratingly educational.

So life goes on, and the teachers take form as woman, man, earthquakes, fires consuming my

favorite redwood forests, and yes, the yappy white lab next door. Nothing is just the way it

seems. It keeps you on your toes, this awakening business. It vacillates from the hard work

of training my pompous-ass mind to effortless acceptance and the big toothy smiles of its all

good.

In my current reality, it appears everything solid is being rattled. It is as if the mindless

consumer flea-ridden paradigm is an indignant dog trying to shake off the wet. So, just like ye

olde Tarot card The Tower, that which no longer serves the whole is being released and the

whole world is watching and scrambling for cover. In these times of a collapsing economy

and supposed looming disasters, I want the guru to caress my face with rain and cleanse my

fearful drought away, to tousle my hair with encouraging winds and prod me forward, to

soothe me with turquoise waves and the security of a warm financial sun. And guru wouldnt

be guru if he didnt reprimand my willy nilly mind with bolts of lightning and send me flying

into consciousness.

My precious idyllic teacher will grasp my brown feet with her own wet mud fingers and keep

me glued to the power of each step. Never mind that the step is painful and teaches me to

walk a differently, with eyes more open than ever. Recently I took a nasty fall on a roughly

paved path and gouged two glorious holes out of my right knee. It took 2 weeks for me to

walk right and bend the offended appendage normally. I keep hearing stories daily of

assorted friends falling, breaking, straining and bruising all over the place. Yup, it is all part


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of the training, the development of agility, of balance, of using the tools weve been honing

for years.

Then there are the times of equinimity when I am sitting still in the various power spots of

Santa cruz and I toy with notion of self as artist creator, playing with the starstuff of matter to

express my love for the Divine. For example, in my magical make-believe way, I gather clay

in my earthy hands and make play-doh planets so I can cherish guru-mama in return, so I can

see it all in this one form, turning it over and over, holding & marveling. Creator creating its

creator, endlessly mirroring and I wonder, is that how YOU do it guru?

And so it is that my house is one big altar containing bodhisattva altars and homages to the

sacred round every bend. If I cannot dwell in heaven now, I will bring it here to me. When I sit

in the sands of Twin Lakes Beach of my hometown Santa Cruz, I cannot resist making sand

mandalas of feathers, shells, kelp and twigs. Its far too difficult to restrain my need to write

huge lovenotes in the sand to Yemaya, the sky gods, and the wetsuited boogie boarders

riding one in.

Once in the aquamarine waters of Maui, I floated facedown with my snorkel mask on and

became completely relaxed listening to my slow rhythmic breathing. My intention was to

patiently wait for fish to show up. Since they werent, my focus shifted to my shadow floating

amongst a white-light web of dancing water reflections shimmering on the pale ocean floor.

In a moment, down was up, and it appeared as if I was a form in the web of life strewn across

the sky of existence. I wondered if this was what it felt like to live within the guru, swimming

inside like a smitten blood cell.

Was it my breathing or did I relax enough to breathe the gurus circular breath with him,

pranayam with his puja eyes;

With conscious awareness, I can walk upon her holy body with every appreciative step, and

dreamily lay upon the oiled and scented guru every night. This state of mind is the fruit of

diligent desire to know the beloved. One shaman teacher told me you must entice the Divine

like a lover, by offering your love like trinkets to the gods, by studying at the feet of those

who carry the scent of lovers sated.

So at this point along the path of disappearing gurus, I leave guru jasmine flowers at the feet

of the guru willow tree. By allowing guru endless forms, form disappears, the form is all

encompassing, there is no end, there is no beginning and you realize you are part of guru too.

How could all the earth and all form be guru yet not you? Not me? Its all guru.


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What do I bow to for I cannot find gurus singular form. Where then is its temple for I cannot

find the walls. Whose feet shall I kiss? Is there no more bowing then? Could it be that my life

can be lived now as one long bow, as an eternal kiss to the guru that is everywhere. Shall I

live my life gently then? Kindly, loving, seeing only beauty even in the most heinous?

Oh to understand the marriage of emptiness and form, the blending of the beauty way with

way of the void. There is not one without the other. I want to take the shimmer of my

indigenous bones and fan the embers alive with the breath of the invisible. I am the petulant

child that wants Gaia and Buddha to marry and my eyes blur with green hills and starry blues,

and the sun and moon merge with the clash of cymbals.

Heaven comes to earth to sprinkle its starry seed in me. And I thirst for the water to take it

deep into the earth and be held in its warmth, for the lifeblood that will soften the shell so I

can crawl out and back up to the light. I am that seed, I am that opening, I am that blending,

that holy seed child.

And I want to know and bow to the sacredness of my origins, of my truth, of eternal wisdom

that haunts me, chanting the earth is my guru. I lay my body down, I kiss the clay feet which

crumbles at my touch, diamonds are everywhere. The forms are only carvings consisting of

magical stuff, diamond dust. And the rubies and emeralds and sapphires glinting in the

shadows of ignorance sing their crying songs, lamenting the blindness of such dry eyes. And

the grief is unbearable and the beauty stark like one stainless white rose blooming in a field

of carnage.

The cacophony of clamoring souls makes me want to run but instead I reach out my hand to

remember, to tell them I wont forget the suffering and how endless that chain is of life

beyond life, of planet beyond planet of beings who wait for the ones who dare to feed the

bellies empty and forgotten. I touch upon the sadness of eons, the vastness of the work, and

see few warrior souls standing mountains away from each other but willing to bear the torch.

And I dont know that I am that, just that there is so much work to be done and if writing is

my way, then get out of my way, for if word is sacred then sacredly shall it be written, and

with reverence shall it be spoken, no, sung to the echoing void. I am a lone violin watching

the setting sun, pulling the shadows towards me like a blanket of slumber. The earth in all its

violent shades and tired softness, a cactus earth with velvet petals, shocks me from my


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complacency. With skulls on her belt and jagged teeth she holds me like a newborn to her

breast and I am fed. And her drum heart awakens in mine.

Fragile bubble of the moment, you are my universe, my fleeting lover ever changing, the one

I long for, your edges just beyond my reach. There is nothing to do but dance in the world of

form, create with honey eyes and hummingbird hands and wait for the wind to touch me and

the earth to sing me back.

My guru has taken form but it is too big to see at once. In the dollhouse of my mind I make

clay versions so I can cherish it back, the way it cherishes me. So I can create it, that way it

creates me. For now, I am in my guru, on my guru, my guru is vast. The earth is my guru and

I the chela, devoted student and lover. I offer an orchid to the mango tree and the tree

shivers deep praises to the wind.

i lose my guru all the time

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