Gabrielle's CD "Ritual" is playing in the background as I write ...
I found out during Sunday afternoon (Sunday 28th October 2012, "as the Nazarenes understand and tally the turning of the years") that one of my dearest teachers of my Wisdom Journey, Gabrielle Roth, transitioned out of this SpaceTimeEnergy nexus that we call "Life" a few days previously. Gabrielle Roth was great, great teacher to me.
I found out in a "strange" way. Kathy - my beloved, spouse, and fellow-traveller on our individual and shared Wisdom Journey - and I were chatting about Gabrielle. I mention her sometimes, for transformation was seeded and happened through that Dance. Kathy asked how old Gabrielle was. So ... I went to Wikipedia. I spotted her birth date immediately. And then ... I kind of looked twice ... with eye and mind ... and ... I noticed that there was an "end" date a few days before our Sunday. Oh my ...
"Strangely", several days before Sunday I had put Gabrielle's "Bardo" in the car. And I played it several times on short drives around town the previous few days. Strange because I pretty much never have played Gabrielle's music in the car - the music is not for that, for me. Though ... "Refuge" by the Mirrors and Boris Grebenshikov was for seven or eight years me and Kathy's most played "road trip" music. And it still gets played several times a year on our road trips. We growl like wolves at the beginning when some low sounds kick in! I don't think I put Bardo in the car on the actual day of her transitioning. Though ... it's possible. It was just one of those throwaway acts of everyday lived life that had no "significance" at the time. Of course, Bardo is a SpaceTimeEnergy state that consciousnesses "travel" through after "death". And, of course, I am now reflecting on me doing this "for no reason whatsoever". Hmm ... oh well ... And, of course, the guidance that is given to consciousnesses traversing Bardo is measured in human life days ... oh well ... and traversing Bardo takes a specified number of days ...
I signed up for my first Gabrielle Roth workshop in England (I lived in London at the time) in 1987 ... or thereabouts. I didn't keep a diary. I don't know exactly where or specifically when.
Some context ... This life I have lived several lives. Being a writer I some times call them "chapters" ... but they are not really. They are more and other. Lives strung together within one. However I do measure the timeline of my life in two parts - before Gabrielle Roth and after GR. I and my life changed. Over two, three years. Before ... I was training and practising as a Gestalt therapist. And after ... I realized that I didn't want to heal others by "therapy", but that I wanted to heal - consciousnesses, hearts, souls, the human GroupMind - through stories. And so I embarked on the long journey, longer by far than that of Odysseus, to "become" a writer, a writer of stories.
Memories. And reflections. And ... reflection upon reflection.
In the first workshop - somewhere in rural England - Gabrielle said to my friend ... I think to him and not direclty to me though it equally applied ... "what you're running from is what you're running with." Hah! Well ... that kind of message certainly cuts through.
During the first workshop I attened at Esalen she talks about "space". Space doesn't belong to anyone. "It's not your space!" Well ... how true; space is never ownable and is just there to Dance into and through. At this workshop ... or maybe it was the English one ... we dance to "Can You See Me". I "remember" this being at Esalen since I remember a big dancing space and lots and lots of dancers. Who knows? Memory is a frail and yearning thing. There were always so many musicians around. First or second Esalen workshop Frank Ekeh sat in. I still have the cassette tape of him and Steven Halpern. I really liked him ... gentle, sensitive, kind. One night Raphael played solo piano for us - wonderful, surging music. Other musicians I don't remember the names of. One of the two Esalen workshops I went to we spent an afternoon with so, so very, gentle music playing and us chanting, in the massage place massaging the musicians. Three or four of us to one musician. One evening, late, Boris Grebenshikov played for us. We all sat in a big, big circle, and he played his guitar and sang. One evening session, certainly on the first Esalen workhop the energy in the dance room was ... higher than the walls of Troy. Music as loud as ... oh ... loud ... I mean LOUD ... archetypal ... and shamanic. I had never ... and I mean never ... sweated so much. I was slick. Liquid. Hot. Ecstatic. Fearlessness abounded within me.
I remember driving down what I later came to know was Highway 1 with Gabrielle and two of her core posse all the way from I think South San Francisco to attend my first event at Esalen. Bear in mind ... this was only my second trip to the States - the first, three days in Boston where I don't think I was ever further than a few hundred yards from the Four Seasons where I stayed. And I was a recovering shy person. (Hi, my name is Rennie, and I am a recovering shy person.) So ... all that coast. All that ... California. We stopped at Nepenthe for lunch. Gabrielle had some kind of Asian chicken salad. Me too. Then Esalen. Evening. The first session. I knew no-one of the workshop participants. My fears as big as the walls of Troy! What is a recovering shy, Scottish person going here? Indeed. There was Guided Purpose that took me there.
I remember sitting in the Esalen hot tubs on the edge of the cliff. Being touched by stars of a different sky than that of Scotland. Or my childnood. I stil have a Taos drum I bought at the Esalen gift store. (Five or six years ago me and Kathy dropped into Esalen on our way home from somewhere and said to the guy at the gate we were going to the gift store ... oh ... long ... long gone apparently.)
Back from the first Esalen workshop, in my West London apartment I danced to Gabrielle's cassette tapes every day. We're still late 80s, remember. Every day. I was in transition. I was breakingBursting. I was dancing for my life. Oh yes, for my life. A few months of these days passed. I got a postcard from her. Signed "Raven". Something about just thinking of me. I travel light, this lifetime. Not much baggage. Possessions. But I did check before I began writing this, in the one box of old 80s/90s papers that I have. Not there. But I knew that before I looked. No harm in looking though. Memory humming as I leaf through the box.
I still have the cassette tapes. Dancing Toward the One. Initiation. Bones. Waves. All waiting all these years to be converted into MP3.
What happened next? Changed, I hummed and hawed, dithered and deliberated. Should I ... or should I not ... train with Gabrielle? I "went to India". And by "India", yes I do mean the place (and I've been there with more than one teacher), but I mean eternal, energetic, archetypal India. The India of Buddha and Krishna, of the Gayatri Mantra, of the Bhagavad Gita, of Hanuman and Lord Ganesha, God of Abundance and Compassion, both of whom I sing songs to some times now. And Love. I have Danced a long way from my Scottish upbringing.
Thank you Gabrielle Roth for all the Service that you did for so many! Dance through Bardo! (I am sure you will be much loved and much enjoyed there.) And Dance on. For there is only the Dance.
And a few last words between you and me, Gabrielle, from here "where" I am to Bardo. My story since our first dance, Gabrielle, has been "long" .. l o n g ... and perfect. Longer and more labyrinthine than any novel. And now I write stories. And I never knew that was my Life's Purpose until I met you. So, thank you! And ... y'know ... I still feel the Dance ... it's within ... it never goes ... it "helps" me write ... my body feels it every day ... Dancing is a state of Consciousness ... forget Higgs Boson ... what's really "there" where Higgs Boson is conceived to be is the Dance. Thank you, Gabrielle, for letting me find that out. Thank you. Seven times seventy times seven hundred thank yous.
Namaste! I bow to and honour the Light within you all ... and the Dance within which we all participate
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