Yesterday was Mary Magdalene’s memorial and my desire to spend it in a women’s circle came true. I went to an Indian sweat lodge at a friend’s place. It was held exclusively for women and each and every one of us felt the strong, natural, raw feminine energies that are present when women gather in a circle, sing and share. The feminine energy has a lot to do with the feeling of support that I was talking about yesterday, and it has nothing to do with shame, comparison, or jealousy. The sisterhood means we are all equal in front of The Great Spirit, Wakan Tanka, God and/or Goddess, the Universe, and at the same time every one of us has a special flavour to her essence.  At one point in between our chanting, our fire-keeper (also a woman) went from sitting to lying down on her mat, opened her legs and showed her yoni to the sacred fire in the middle of the circle. Can you imagine how relaxed she must have felt? Being natural is what happens when you shave off of shame.

As this was my first sweat lodge ever, I didn’t know what to expect and I felt a bit of tension. However, everything turned out amazing, though: Svarun visited me and talked to me about our mission, and at a certain point I even had a totally unexpected vision of a totem animal. All of this was possible because of surrender. During the second break, where we delved deep into the relationships with fellow humans, I felt the urge to run outside and lie on the ground, tummy side down. In the moment when the cold, humid grass kissed my hot body, I had this transcendental experience of not being totally in the body anymore, but somewhere in between. It was then when it crossed my mind: “The Indians really knew how to push their bodies to the limit and make them surrender to the experience, so that the soul could have a spiritual experience.” All in all, we had an amazing time.

As we were closing the circle this morning, one of the women said: “I wish I knew how to keep this elevated feeling forever, but it always vanishes after a few days.” I remembered my experiences of flying high and then crashing down low when reality hit in with bills to pay and things to take care of. It’s a contrast. One day you’re all centred, calm, hyped up and blissfully aware of all and everything, and then the next day you’re back in a non-tidy home, back in all of the relationships and back running out of time to do your yoga. Abraham says we should love this contrast, but sometimes it seems like a really hard thing to do, doesn’t it? I mean, who wouldn’t want to be high-flying all the time? The thing is, if we were flying high all the time, it wouldn’t even seem that high anymore. Until there is a contrast, we can’t really grasp how high we actually were. Life doesn’t go straight down the road, it goes in circles so that we are able to: a) appreciate how high we can get, and b) train ourselves how to go back up as quickly as possible. Practicing how to get on a higher vibration gives us power, gives us strength, and it convinces us that we are the captains of our boats.

How do we do it? The best way is to be mindful when something awesome is happening by closing our eyes and becoming aware of everything that we are feeling. A tingling in your nose? Mouth corners up? A beating excitement in your chest? Stardust on your crown chakra?

Consider it all.

Memorize how it feels when you are flying high, and where in your body you feel it.

Practice applying the indicators when you don’t feel on top of the world anymore. The will is the key.