Setting the foundation, befriending
the dragon
by Deepam
I have hosted intensive
women's retreats at Jalbun Lodge, a spiritual retreat
centre near Orillia, Ont. These retreats have been
full of discovery and wonder for all involved, from
the facilitators and helpers to the participants
themselves. The space created works like a greenhouse
for the participant’s tender shoots of awareness to
spring into blossom in an environment safe from
judgment, obligation and punishment.
Between the nervous, timid, even reluctant manner of
the women during first hours and the bright, open,
laughing beings that depart a few days later, many
obstacles are tackled, resistance melted, discoveries
made, laughter shared, tears shed, songs sung and
truth revealed.
Connection to the source of power as well as to the
divine occurs through the body. Over the years that I
have been on this path of personal growth and
self-awareness, the biggest 'ah ha's have come through
taking the body past the mind. In other words,
engaging the body through breath, voice, shaking,
dance, yoga and drumming, so that the conscious mind
is engaged in the activity and relaxes enough to allow
what lies beneath to surface. In these practices, one
cannot be lukewarm; one must be total, then authentic
and often buried feelings can emerge.
This understanding has come from my own direct
experience. My desire is to provide the protected
environment needed for participants who are courageous
enough to enter their own interior realms through
engaging the body. I say courageous, because it is a
journey of circling back again and again to those
places of pain and rage sealed up too quickly. We
move, sing, breathe, drum and shout to open up those
places, expose them to our consciousness, and free
ourselves from the effort and strain of holding them
at bay. The body, which cannot lie, informs the mind,
which has protective mechanisms that have often
outlived their usefulness.
This work involves knowing all parts of ourselves,
even those that are uncomfortable, or that we may
consider unacceptable. In knowing and accepting these
parts, they cease to have power over us: the power
that makes us act reactively, unconsciously or against
our better judgment. In order for women to reclaim
their power, they must know intimately what has
disempowered them, cut them off from their source.
Even though we have discarded words like 'unladylike,'
the recoil from that sort of behaviour remains. The
majority of women aim to be 'nice' at all times, fair,
just, kind and so on. We can also be ravenous, wily,
cunning and driven. It is interesting to note how
willing we are to align ourselves with nature in all
her bounty and nourishing qualities, but either
consciously or unconsciously choose to disregard her
harshness.
Just as one prepares themselves to be in the wild, by
learning the land, its creatures and their habits and,
most importantly, by being intensely alert, one must
also prepare themselves for life's journey through the
wilds of their own inner nature. To naively believe
that by being nice and good one can properly negotiate
the vulnerability of being in a physical body is an
invitation to be challenged and tested. We shut out
the 'nasty bits' at our own peril.
To be fair, it has been culturally ingrained for women
to exhibit all the so-called positive aspects of the
feminine, and suppress the warrior aspects of her
nature. In order to survive, many of us have become
innocuous, servile, compromising. What happens is that
these other facets of ourselves are jumping to be
released and they show themselves only by squeezing
out in bitchiness, whining, temper tantrums, and
cattiness. Once we know these shadow sides of our
nature, and come to appreciate their value, we can
begin to truly integrate them into the full spectrum
of our potential.
We have such tremendous capacity to live a life rich
with experience and expression, yet most of us live
within such a narrow range. The good news is through
all of the work done in the past hundred years, to
wake us up individually and collectively, we are more
aware and stronger now. Many of us have built up what
one of my friends refers to as ‘emotional muscle,’ the
stamina to hold our own emotions, feelings and most
importantly, power. Not power over anyone or thing,
but the power inherent in knowing ourselves and acting
from consciousness and clarity. This is being in your
power. That is being fully alive.
When we have full contact with all of who we are, we
can meet the divine without shame or artifice.
Retreat
work and activities
In the retreats, we do powerful meditations developed
by Osho, an enlightened mystic whose ashram is in
Poona, India. Esana, my yoga instructor and
co-facilitator, warms us up and deepens our body
awareness and knowledge through Kripalu yoga. We
dance, sound, and breathe to break through barriers
that keep us from experiencing our full aliveness. A
day is spent in the bush connecting with nature,
each other and ourselves in unique and sometimes
challenging ways.
Tibetan Pulsing Streaming lets us integrate and
release what we have understood. Ned, my husband and
Jalbun Lodge’s Elder, conducts ceremony for us - at
sunrise and the sweat lodge ceremony to deepen and
ground all that we have unearthed. There are many
times when we gather in circle to share and clarify,
and sometimes just to chat, laugh, cry and sing and
drum/rattle together.
This work has been my liberator and it is my passion.
It is for those willing to be courageous, those who
sincerely desire to know themselves, hence to know the
divine/spirit/God/Creator, and who wish to exist here
on this earth to their full capacity as a woman and as
a human being.
Deepam,
2003
Deepam has been involved in
the therapeutic process
since 1981. She came to the spiritual master, then
Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh; later Osho, in 1983, and was
given the name, Anurag Deepam: Light of Love.
The following years were spent
in extensive therapies,
growth groups, and eventually trainings in the healing
arts. She became a certified Osho Rebalancer in 1988,
and opened a practice in Toronto that summer. Osho
Rebalancing is a profound system of bodywork
incorporating several therapies, including deep-tissue
massage, soft joint release, and breath work. She
completed both the basic and advanced trainings in
Osho Pulsation, a neo-Reichian system of emotional
release through bioenergetics, breath, sound,
encounter and movement.
In 1990, she became a
qualified Osho Tibetan Pulser,
which involves a complex therapeutic process that uses
the eye as a diagnostic tool to ascertain the root
causes for emotional and physical suffering. Blockages
in the electrical flow of energy along the bones of
the skeleton are apprehended and released through use
of the subtle pulse beat of the practitioner. Deepam
has been offering individual Tibetan Pulsing eye
reading and treatment sessions since 1990, and Tibetan
Pulsing streaming workshops since 1992.
In 1997, she and her husband,
Ned Benson, originally
from Rama (now Mnjikaning) First Nations, opened
Jalbun Lodge, Spiritual Retreat near Orillia, Ont.
Jalbun Lodge is a small refuge on the Head River
that offered traditional Native teachings, drum building workshops and
Sacred ceremony in a teepee setting.
Currently, Deepam runs the lodge one weekend a month from April to
October offering her workshops of self exploration through "stirring
the pot" with movement, sound, and meditation, alternatively to
mixed groups and to women. Through the winter she is offering a series
of six bodywork workshops, "Begin with the Body", an introduction to
Rebalancing, in Orillia, Ontario. Check the calendar link for dates.
For more information on Osho
and the programs offered
at Osho commune in India, visit:
www.osho.com