Episode 63: Just me and The Void, having a time…
EASY HONEY!!! WHAT IS TANTRA?!? SPIRITUAL PRACTICE!!!! AND WE’RE BACK to me alone in a room with a vibrator and the Tao Te Ching!!! RITUAL UNION!! TIBETAN BUDDHISM!!! NO BIG DEALS!!! LOVE IS DEAD, and what’s more rock and roll than that!!! THE DEEPER YOU GET THE LESS THERE IS!!! MAGIC!!! I AM SO AWKWARD!!!! CHANCE ENCOUNTERS!!! & Cool. Great. I’m soooo comfortable.
Excerpt from the show:
“This week brought to you by things I never thought would be getting me through my breakup. My Exes! Just kidding. But not really. And no I didn’t sleep with any of them. And no I’m not planning to, but honestly, from the little note I got from M this week that just said a couple of random things followed by “I appreciate you.” Simple, sweet, and perfect. To a round of texts from N, asking me all the right questions, saying somehow just the right thing in commiseration. Sending me some music, making me laugh. (Like whoops, ayyyyyyyy, sorry I started an entire radio show about you, almost 2 years ago glad you still want to be my friend. It’s not about you anymore just whatever’s happening this week which happens to be that you were wonderful.) To a message from T saying “dude that sucks I’m so sorry, how are you?” I gotta say, I have loved some really wonderful people in my day. And was not expecting any of that. And the music… music has really gotten me through this last week. I’ve gone out, and listened to a lot of live music. Tried to be a human. And you know what else is getting me through this week. Taking things to the goodwill. I have now taken 3 truckloads of stuff to the goodwill and the dump respectively and it feels GOOD. I am literally and metaphorically clearing out space in my life for new things to come, and I booked a trip to the cape with a girlfriend for the end of next month. And y’all know what happens when I go to the cape. Magic. Magic happens that’s what. And the ransom kindness of strangers has gotten me through this week. Has helped me pick my heart up off the floor over and over again. My amazing friends have gotten me through this week, from a massage from one, to a late night campfire and loud drunken men playing loud drunken campfire music, to a big melty smile and hug from someone I used to have a HUGE crush on. Y’all remember awkward sexy time… enough said. That’s all gotten me through this week. My best friend from college coming up next weekend from the city has been getting me through this week. As have her many I love you texts even though I never responded. My Buddhist practices have been getting me through this week. And this week. I finally finished writing that 50 page midterm paper exam and ohh boy I think I’ll have to read you some section from it because it’s basically a dissertation on tantric Buddhism, human sexuality, meditation and mindfulness, movement, pleasure and connection. And I have to say, it felt like one of the biggest things I’ve accomplished in the last several years. That being said…. Ok. So you know I don’t drink, or do anything else fun, we’re right back to me alone in my room with the Dao Te Ching and a vibrator. But anyways, I’ve just gone through this epic breakup, one for the books right, and I’ve compartmentalized all of that so that I can accomplish this inhuman feat, and I’ve sat at my computer and just typed, for literal days on end, stopping to like, sleep here and there, and meditate, and eat food occasionally, and finally I’m done. It’s been edited, and polished, and formatted. And I put it together with my hours sheet for all the many many 200 hours I have practiced and studied for the last 6 months, and I sent the email. And then I’m just there, sitting at my desk, like well, what’s next? I can tell you why pleasure is medicine, I can explain lineage-based practices, I can explain the many causes of erectile dysfunction, I can tell you all about the 15 plus different kinds of orgasms estrogen-based bodies are capable of having and why, but I have no one to share in this celebration with. I’m just sitting here alone in my room with my dog, and now what? I make my bed and drink a seltzer water and, and, and…The one person who even has any understanding of how incredible it is that I’ve done this doesn’t want to be in a relationship with me anymore, and to be fair, after everything that went down, very much nether do I. But there was just this incredible emptiness. This epic loneliness that set it. I had done it. The severely dyslexic girl, who fought to be alive to see this moment, I had done it. And there was nothing. No big deals. Right? And I chose this life. I chose every inch of this life that has ever happened to me , you know except for the led poisoning, could have done without that. But even that taught me many lessons I wouldn’t forgo. So, here I am. In this nothing space. In this, and then it hit me…. In the teachings — as they are laid out, in this lineage — our ultimate nature, what we came from and are seeking to go back to is Voidness. Yes, that’s how they say it. In the Shangpa Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, I am a student of. Our ultimate nature is Voidness. And so there I was, just me, and The Void — suddenly inseparable. And I realized that I could just sit there, inside the nothing, and it was peaceful. It was calm. I was free. There was no need for anything because I was already home. I was already everything I needed to be in that moment. No celebration. That was the celebration. So I sat there, for a while. And I yelled into the void, WOOOO!! Hell yeah!!! And then I got up and I made my bed and I drank a seltzer water and pet my dog. And I think that was exactly as it was supposed to be. Wildly anticlimactic. Because isn’t that spiritual practice in a nutshell. It’s like we go into it thinking it will be this giant revelation, and then only to realize it’s just nothingness. Just me and the void, having a time. And that’s the thing. The deeper you get into spiritual practice, the less there is. The less possessions you want to own, the less “you” interferes with the flow of reality, the less noise or drama or complications there are. And maybe that means sometimes, less people to hold close, less celebration, less desires. But if it means that after all this, I can just sit with myself, and know peace. Isn’t that enough? Well, I guess it remains to be seen. But I can now say, “I need help get me to a hospital” in ASL. My basement is full of one less room of stuff. My mind is quieter and my heart seems to be holding out. So I guess you could say it’s been a good week. Minus my manic car crying episode this morning, ohh, and yesterday, ohh and the day before that. But at least I’m feeling, and to feel is to be all the way alive. So I’ll take it all. So I’ll start us off with one song that’s just been wreaking me lately, because it’s everything that going through heartbreak in a small town is, summed up in one perfect song, and Then I’ll play another good one. And maybe if you’re lucky After that I’ll tell you a story about a band I found this weekend and the beautiful humans that comprise it. And if you’re really lucky (or unlucky depending on how much the lineage and practice of Tantra interest you) I’ll read you some of my epic dissertation. So first up for you I have ‘Stick Season’ by Noah Khan, and I’ll follow that up with ‘She Moves In Her Own Way,’ by The Kooks, because it’s perfect, and I’ve been taking a lot of solace lately in some of my old favorites mixed with some new killers. And we all know, that’s an item on the Olivia-approved list for this summer.
