From tonight’s “Making Love with the Mystery” writing class…unedited thoughts…20 minutes of raw, naked exposure. Drink from the Naked Heart:
The healing crucible of Love’s intimacy
Calling me to know
Slowly I open my eyes to see
A glimpse of the Lover I am
Of the Life that is birthing in each cell of my being
I am mad with Love
Angry, oh so angry
My innocence stolen
Clawing, fighting, teeth gnashing
Blood dripping from my hands, my heart
I pull myself back into myself
Wrenched free from my prisoner’s grip
I fight, I wail, I scream
I let loose of the grip
The monster man, the evil one
And I fall, I fall, I fall
Downward I fall
Stomach gripping, silent screams
The lost one spiraling downward
Hitting ground, dust everywhere
I lift my head and look around
Where am I?
Who am I?
Am I alive or am I dead?
Terra firma, new soil
Back in the Garden of Eden
Lush living, sensual innocence, sexual grace
I lift my face from the ground of my fall
And find myself once again
In the Lush Garden of Eden
Me, My Lover
I am my Lover in the Garden of Eden
I am the beholden one
I am the desired and the desiring
I am the one who longs to take me
Down under into the realms of
Sacred Romance
Where heat burns in my belly
Love churns in my chest
Here I am the star in the passion play
The play for passion
I play, I pray for passion
Red, red, ruby red loving
I am sprawled out on my Beloved’s bed
Ruby nipples exposed
Eyes dancing with desire’s longing
Radiance dripping from each pore
Love’s holy crucible
Making the elixir
Mashing poison
Extracting sweetness
The Beloved grooming me
Preparing me to receive
Love’s blessing
Ecstatic bliss
In giving, loving, receiving
I am becoming the honey sweet nectar
Of Love’s bliss
I am becoming pure manna
Nourishment, alchemy’s nourishment
for my Beloveds
My legs long spiral round
Twisting, turning, loosening
Belly warming, softening, extending
Breath deepening
Voice raspy
Moaning
Eyes glossy
Present moment here I am
Naked beauty trembling before you
I expose myself
My past, my failures, my regret
My present grief, my sadness
My dreams, my fears
I stand open, naked before you
I tremble with your gaze
Piercing through me
Reading me like a sacred text
You who can see
The sacred text of my living
I shake, cells vibrate
I disintegrate
Bones to ash
A pile of rubble on the floor
Before you
I the I Am
Still alive, still present
In the rubble
Waiting
Wanting her Lover’s breath to breathe
Her into being
She waits patiently
Dis-integrated
Distilled to essence
The fire’s work
Burned to ash
The monument to self
The false living
Dead-end loving
Misdirected, missed direction
Gone
Done
Now, nothing left
Nothing
Void
Vessel
God’s hand holding the dust of I am
Holding still
Wanting to live
Wanting to live
Wanting to be naked
Exposed
Distilled to essence
On the ruby red bed
of my Beloved
Exposed, full
Hot, radiant
Wanting to take her Lover
All the way home to God
Beloved, Lover, God
Trinity as One
The sun is setting on the days of healing
Of Crucifying, of Resurrecting
Beloved One
Anakha Shannon Coman
You dear one
Are coming home
Your innocence restored
Life and Living
Holy Ordered
At the new home of your Soul
Anakha, be still in the ashes
Wait patiently for
The Beloved’s breath to come
To bring you to
The ruby red innocence
The full woman’s radiance
Your essence revealed, restored.
Allow the birth, do nothing, Allow the Birth.
Come all the way.
Thank you to those of you that are witnessing this once in a life time turning into, becoming Love. I am humbled, I am wide open, I am trembling, I am scared and I so want, I so desire to fully make this journey, to be annihilated into Love, to become the holy vessel, the sacred crucible of Love. I, Anakha, the medicine, the elixir of holy, all-consuming, forever transforming Sacred Love. Amen.
Mt. Angel Abbey ~ A Visit on October 28th ~ The Gateway To Love
“Learning to surrender directly to love is often an agonizing process. You will be disillusioned of your dreams of comfort, security and romance. Every emotion that you have stuffed into your body without feeling fully will emerge for you to re-experience. Years of loneliness and ache will be exposed as your heart unfolds. Yet, when the time comes, you have no choice but to go through this process and learn to surrender as love, receiving and giving the bliss of deep openness with every breath. This bliss is born of your true nature – an eternal love that cannot be lost.” ~ David Deida ~
Caterpillar. Cocoon. Butterfly. Life. Death. Rebirth. The beauty of nature’s alchemy. Trees loosing, losing their leaves. Earth dampening, roots deepening. Sky darkening, clouds descending. This living into dying is within each of us as we journey into love. Annihilating the small “s” self, the separate self, to become and to live as Love.
This was…is the intention, God’s intention planted in my Soul, “to awaken the sacred heart.” The questions, “how do I become love? how can I awaken my sacred heart? how do we nourish one another in love? what is the stigmata of the sacred heart? what is the scent of the sacred?” This intention and these questions sent me into the desert for 40 days and 40 nights and they have submerged me in this dark night, this healing crucible, where all that is not love is being washed away, burned away so that the Love that is my essence, our universal essence can be revealed. Radiant, blissful, sustained and sustaining, eternal, effervescent Love. That is our destiny and destination. We can meander our way along the path. We can hide out in dark corners, cracks and crevices. We can pretend we don’t know the way, that we’ve lost the map. How long will we play like dead fish in this ocean of Love?
This morning I awoke with the monkey mind running…what am I supposed to do today…I should know…I should be clear…I should…I should…I should…job, work, business, run, yoga, write, yikes!
I have a job. A full-time commitment and full time employment. That job, that commitment is to live as fully and as deeply and as expansively this awakening into sacred love. To use every moment, every interaction and every challenge to expand and awaken love’s presence within me and within others. This is not a job for the faint at heart or for those seeking external benefits and immediate gratification. There are no 401K plans, stock options or medical benefits. The blessings and the bliss of Love are inherent and encoded in the journey and yet annihilation and crucifixion are included on the itinerary. There are stops and respites along the way, yet love’s fire is all consuming and it desires to swallow us up, to use us completely until we at last surrender into our one true purpose to live as love.
This is where our bliss lies…not in loving someone or something…not even in following our dreams…but in surrendering to and living as love. For in that living and in that loving we are breathing love…inhaling love’s presence…exhaling love’s scent. We live in love’s rapture and love’s energy flows through our hearts, our bodies…we light up like beams of beauty.
This is my destination. This is our destination. We are all on the journey. We are all on the Love train.
Today I wake with the soul, sole intention to love, to live as love, to allow love to unfold me into the next divinely human expression. I am in the goop of the cocoon. Imaginal cells are converging, new life is preparing to break through the cocoon. The butterfly within me will be freed, is being freed. Natural alchemy. Sacred Healing. Love’s arrival is on time, in time, every time.
Go forth Beloveds, go forth and live as love today, each moment, each breath bring your attention to this intention…feed Love with your Life Force, open and receive the bountiful Christ Force. Discover parts of your body, your mind and your heart that are resisting this surrender into love and breath them, be with them, hold them until they surrender at last into the bliss of naked heart living, ecstatic heart loving.
Cast me gently Into morning For the night has been unkind Take me to a Place so holy That I can wash this from my mind The memory of choosing not to fight If it takes my whole life I won’t break, I won’t bend It will all be worth it Worth it in the end ‘Cause I can only tell you what I know That I need you in my life When the stars have all burned out You’ll still be burning so bright Cast me gently Into morning For the night has been unkind ~ Sarah McLachlan ~ The night has been unkind. Parts of my life and my living have been unkind. I am awash in the sea of grief, swimming in the ocean of the Dark Night. I know this territory of the soul’s sojourn. I have been taken here before, held under by the Divine’s hands. This is the God’s handiwork in motion over the land of my Soul, my heart, my life.
I notice that I have been avoiding this blog — managing what I think is “appropriate” or not, what you can handle, what will be acceptable. God forbid I be too much, too raw. She’s lost her mind…over the edge…gone too far…well, it is all true. I am over the edge…spilled open…heart ripped open, chains flying, debris everywhere, my naked heart exposed grieving, crying, gasping for breath. Can she emerge, will she emerge from this spiritual madness, the raging fires of purification?
I am undergoing a soul resurrection. Pieces of me re-assembling, masks stripped, mechanisms undone. I am unraveled to the core…bared to the bone. The most vulnerable parts exposed. Self-worth, value, purpose, body image, ability to sustain…to succeed. I am drowning in self-doubt. I am experiencing the full magnitude of the wound. Like the Star Ship Enterprise flying directly into an unknown dark…I am facing the shadow, the sacred wound. I am in it fully…and I am standing still…no running, no fixing, no crying…just a full and present experience of deep terror, deep grief, deep doubt, deep….deep unworth. I will be present to this dark night…I will fully experience the nightmare so I can fully live the dream. I will penetrate the energetic prisons that have kept me small and quiet. I was so small…I had to be quiet. It was life or death back then. I had to save my mother, I had to save myself. Now, I let be, I let go and I allow the Divine Healer to save me, to salve me…to bring me into salvation, wholly, holly resurrected. I am becoming whole in the madness of this dark, damp murk. I cannot see, I cannot hear, I can only feel the fire raging in my heart…God is allowing me to burn, burn, burn. I am dying…soon I will be dead, nothing left of the former self…no trace. And then, silently I will be breathed again by the Divine Holy Spirit, breath to ash. I will rise one more time.
I am tired. I am done fighting. I am scared that I won’t make it through this and yet I am assured that I will. I know that I will. This was my intention…to live the full awakening of the sacred heart. This terror, this pain, this deep grief must have been felt by Yeshua as he lay there on the cross, betrayed, beatened, crucified, mocked. “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” To fully open to Love’s presence, to live the Sacred Heart…we must journey into the Dark Night, we must be willing to be crucified, to be pierced, to receive the Stigmata of the Sacred Heart. Then and only then will we carry the Scent of the Sacred. Then and only then will we be transformed into Love, by Love.
Waves of grief flow through me. I was so young when my stepfather raped me. Stole my innocence. Traded my beauty for his sickness. He played his part perfectly…stealing my soul…setting up this time when I would dive again into the mystery to retrieve the lost and rejected parts of myself. It was eight years ago that the memories, emotions and flashbacks began. They started after an intensely focused time of healing from an eating disorder and spending several years in deep personal awareness and healing work and undergoing deep neuromuscular body work.
I thought I was done with that. I was wrong…there was more…the core root still in place…poisoning my existence, tainting my living, squelching my loving, suffocating the radiance, constricting my voice, darkening my presence. This root has been pulled up. Now a gaping hole remains…all of me reeling, grieving, stripped again. I want this…I want this badly…I want to have this fully eradicated, to be crucified so that I can rise again in Truth. I want my life to be free, forever free of the imprint of this heartbreak, this soul rape. I want it over and done.
I have so much living to do, so much loving to do. I want to emerge and take my place in life as the mystic, artist, lover and healer that I am. I want to do this with gentle strength and powerful humility. I want to offer what I know to those that come after me, to those that walk with me and to those that came before me. I want to bring my gifts fully forward, to offer them with radiance and to receive abundance.
I deserve this. I have paid the price. I have taken the journey. I have surrendered completely. Now it is my turn. My turn to thrive, my turn to love, my turn to receive, my turn…It is my turn. I deserve this. I can do this. I will do this. I AM doing this now.
Please do not worry for me, do not attempt to save me. I don’t need saving or fixing. The Divine is in control and no harm can be done. This is what it looks like Beloveds when you surrender fully and ask the Holy Spirit to come have its way with you…to fashion you into love. It is not child’s play…as Rumi says, “Love comes like a madman, wielding a knife.”
Please pray with me during this resurrection. Please hold the space for life to begin anew. Keep watch with me, keep watch and pray, the Pentecostal outpouring, the descending of the Holy Spirit is just days away.
I am love spilling over, becoming sacred life. I will make it through, I know like I know like I know…that this time, I will come all the way home Beloved, all the way home to you.
I love myself, I love you. Thank you for bearing witness. Thank you my Beloved Community. Amen. xo, Anakha
I am sitting with Nichole after a very long day…wondering what to blog about. So much has happened today — inside, outside. I look over at her on the other couch and say, “to blog or not to blog?” She looks back and says, “holding space.” Hmmm…okay. “That’s what stands out for me about your day Anakha,” she says. Alrighty wise one…holding space it is!
Nichole and I were up early this morning and at the Multnomah County courtroom by 8:30 a.m. She had a “lapse” in her sobriety over a month ago — a weeble wobble in her recovery, a momentary glitch and because of her restricted sentence she had to appear before the judge. The question — would the judge send her back to prison for 3 years or would he keep her on probation? This is the question she has been living for the last 4 weeks.
The cool and oh-so-outstanding thing about Nichole is her razor’s edge integrity. She had over 2 years of sobriety when she found herself alone, packing up her mother’s belongings late one Saturday night. Her mother had relapsed and was in jail. Nichole was showing up to take care of her mother’s “stuff” — a lifelong pattern that started the day she was born. She went to the jewelry box to put some of her mother’s favorite earrings away. When she opened the box and looked inside she found a pipe and meth. She walked away, she walked back, she walked away, she walked back. She got high. The next day she rode the MAX back to the YWCA and told her case manager what she had done. She called her parole officer, her support network…she called me. She lost her transitional housing and has been living with me ever since.
So there I was, 8:30 a.m. seated on a bench in the courtroom behind Nichole and Suzi, her parole officer –holding space. The judge walks in and begins to read case numbers…I hear him say “The State of Oregon versus Nichole Nicholson.” Sounds heavy, although he looks like the sort of man that would be a loving father. I hold my breath and glance at Mike, Nichole’s boyfriend. He looks anxious…scared.
I turn back to look at the judge. He looks out from his bench at Nichole and says, “you called this meeting, I’ll let you start the conversation.” My mind does a double take while my heart registers the miracle. Meeting? Conversation? What happened to the hearing? My heart lurches and I look at Mike, my face scrunches up and I start to cry. Tears stream down my face as the emotions flow with the realization that this judge is here to listen, to be open. Our prayers have been answered, our intentions manifested. I realize that I have been holding the space for a miracle in this young woman’s life for the past month. I have been holding her intention, releasing attachment, and opening a space for grace — for a miracle, for another opportunity to begin again. At the end of the “conversation” the judge signs a paper and declares, “probation continued.” Nichole turns and looks at me with a big smile and says, “I’m free!” Yes Nichole…you are free. The tears continue to come as waves of relief and joy and gratitude flow through me.
Holding space. Holding space for healing, for grieving, for becoming, for transforming — for possibilities, for miracles, for new beginnings, for radical change. My naked heart holds space for it all.
I found this quote about holding space tonight…
“To hold space is to rest in the chaos that is darkness; a darkness that represents a vast field of unknown potential. It is this field that you are inviting to hum. From this field understanding will blossom, light will emerge, possibilities will grow.”
I am holding space in the chaos and in the darkness of my life…I am inviting the Divine Hum into this sacred turning and becoming. I see new life blossoming filling me with light…growing the seeds of possibilities I planted so long ago. My life is a constant becoming…I am the space, I am the holder.
I will be still and know that I am…I will rest in the chaos. I will trust in the creative process of life, death and rebirth. I will hold space for you Beloved. I will hold space for our collective becoming.
exposed, nowhere to hide everywhere all of me spilling open spilling over heart pounds mind races how do i go back? where are the pieces of that finely crafted wall? can i pick up a few, stick them back in place for awhile? can i run, leave… abandon and abort the mission my soul is aching to be free liberated from the constriction of this world this body this mind free to go free to fly free to be solo solitary quiet and inside. like the pomegranate split open all revealed for you to see too much too open i am unraveling from the inside no place to hold no place to cling no one to anesthetize my terror of living out of control vulnerable longing loving i am a beautiful passionate soft wholly holy woman birthing self creating life one breath one breath one breath at a time. shell cracked open raw beauty exposed i am the naked heart. i am.
I am feeling raw and open this morning, exposed and naked. Vulnerable. My message yesterday at Unity of Corvallis focused on opening and revealing the true self to ourselves and to the Divine. The pomegranate laid open, naked on the altar of God…every succulent seed exposed to the power and the presence of Divine Love. The pomegranate’s seeds are seeds of the true self — longings, desires, needs, dreams, pains, secrets, lies, failures, fears…all important, all held in the One…many seeds, one fruit. One succulent, beautiful, precious fruit. Evidence of the Promised Land — we will be freed from bondage and we will be delivered home. We will live the Kingdom…we will experience heaven on earth…we will embody sacred love — all in God’s time.
I feel waves of emotion moving in my heart and belly and mind. The dam has broke, the wall has come down once and for all. The bracing against life removed, dissolved, vanished. A rush of love and tenderness and passion flood my being. I breath and allow the movement to deliver me to a new station within myself. I feel my heart opening, wanting to leap out of my chest. I want to be held, touched and seen. I want to be loved, adored and caressed. I want so much from Life and Love. I am a tender bloom, blossoming in her own time, possibly out of season…but who cares. I am the sacred heart awakening and I am true love blossoming.
After yesterday’s service I sat with Rev. John and Gene and the conversation turned to reconciliation, responsibility and amends. Through our conversation I became aware of how my over expressed masculine energy has been hurtful and at times abusive to those around me. The primal fear instilled in me during the early years of my life has been a part of my nervous system, the program…protect yourself or be killed. As my mother has come forward to claim the power that she abdicated, I am freed to let go, to come undone and to allow the Sacred Feminine energy to rise and inform and infuse my cells, my being, my responses, my vision, my relationships — my life. The Goddess of Love, Aphrodite, Kuan Yin, Magdala, Mother Mary — they are within me and they are rising today.
I have laid it down…the burden of protection, of control, of over exertion, of force. The dam has broke. The water flowing. My heart opening. I am feeling out of control and yet deeply rooted. I am coming home. I am here now open, loving, receptive, giving, flowing.
I feel tender, precious and a bit scared of how this will be to live so unguarded and open, present and truthful. How do I live without the walls, without the abuse of power, without the manipulation, without the hiding, without the secrets…without…without.
How do I live the Naked Heart life? How can I give and receive true love? How can I embody radiant love? This is my assignment…this is my ” 24×7 job”…this is my book, my speaking and my teaching. To awaken the heart, to arouse ecstasy, to teach sacred intimacy and to embody radiant, Christic Love.
On March 19th, 2007 I sat on the veranda of our condo in Maui and made this entry in my sacred heart journal:
“I am ready God! Bring me the fire of the Holy Spirit — engage my Soul, ripen the fruit, use me to serve the sacred awakening. I am coming alive with the heat of the Holy Spirit, opening the mysteries of the Sacred Heart. Love melting into love, mystical marriage, sacred union.”
Three and a half months later I entered into the 40 day retreat with the question of “how can I awaken my sacred heart, what is the way?” It has been 2 months since I emerged from the retreat. During this time I have been “required” to address with courage and clarity, situations and challenges in my self and in my life that I had not been able to address until now. My deepest and most fortified core issues — the symptoms and the roots have been uncovered. And with as much Love for myself and others, I am spinning them, God is spinning me, into wholeness. Divine alchemy romancing the stone until it releases the diamond. This is the Dark Night of the Spirit…I am being uprooted, replanted. My new roots are just beginning to take hold in this nurturing soil of Divine Love. I am precious, fragile and I am strong and resilient. I am God’s flower. I am a sweet pea. I am a radiant orchid. And today, I am home.
I am falling in love. This Naked Heart journey that begins today will take us into the most precious and the most intimate and the most ecstatic and expansive and exotic and erotic and beautiful territory of the Kingdom. Our destination — the Promised Land. The price of entry — like the pomegranate laid open on the altar of God — we must reveal and surrender all of our selves, all of our living to the One.
I am mad with Divine Love, I am crazy for my Beloveds, I am the Naked Heart living. Come disrobe, dismantle, disarm, dissolve with me. LEt us swim in the ocean of sacred love. Let us breath in ecstacy. Let us birth a new mankind.
Amen. Anakha
From my Beloved Rumi:
Companionship With The Saints {Mathnawi I: 716-726}
The sword of spiritual protection is in the armory of the saints; for you, meeting them is the alchemical elixir.
All of the wise ones have said this same thing: the wise man is “a mercy to all the worlds.”
If you buy a pomegranate, buy it laughing and open-mouthed so that its laughing may give information about the state of its seeds.
Oh how blessed is its laughter, since it is showing its heart by means of its mouth, like the pearl of the soul from the open box of the spirit.
The laughter of the tulip was not blessed, since the blackness of its heart was revealed by its mouth.
The laughing pomegranate makes the entire garden laughing; likewise, companionship with spiritual men makes you one of such men.
Even if you are a hard rock or marble, if you come to the presence of a lord of the heart, you will become a jewel.
Put love for the pure ones into the midst of your spirit. Don’t give your heart to anyone except in love for those who have joyous hearts.
Don’t go into the lane of hopelessness, for there are still hopes. And don’t go in the direction of darkness, for there are still suns to rise.
The heart draws you into the lane of the people of heart, but the body draws you into the prison of water and clay.
Take care, and give food for your heart from the company of a sympathetic friend. Go and seek coming near to the goal from one who is advancing first.
Buy the pomegranate when it laughs —its laughter reveals the secret of its seeds. The garden answers the laughing pomegranate with bloom; In companionship with the friends of God
you will bloom as they do. ~ Rumi ~
I am pregnant with unmanifest possibility…I carry the 613 seeds I am the promise of the pomegranate I am Mother, I am Mary, I am the womb of infinite Love I am the fruit that nourishes the soul I am the sensuous she I am the swimming tides of the sacred erotic I am the Divine Feminine rising I am the oceanic awakening I am the resurrection and I am the ascension I am the holy fire descending I am the honey sweet nectar of Christic Love I am the union and I am the offspring of Yeshua and Magdala I am a new world order birthed and birthing I am Beloved union, I am dissolving separation I am the many, I am one I am here now Anakha Shannon Lee Coman Safe Innocent Whole Alive Gathered Grounded Grown Glowing Radiant Sacred Sensual Exotic Erotic Exposed Wild Free Woman After 40 years in the deserts of crucifixion, she is poised and ready to live the outrageous and utterly contagious Glory of the resurrection.
