On a recent hotter-than-hell weekend, I made my annual pilgrimage to Bhakti Fest, a festival of chanting, yoga, teachings of various heart-opening paths, and deep friendships in a community I have known for over a decade. The Mojave desert heat is inexplicably healing as it can wring out all your pain and sorrows like the ocean’s negative ions transform into an uplifted mood. I feel at home in the high desert in Joshua Tree, which provides consistent magic.
The desert holds mystical trees, massive boulders, slithering snakes, prehistoric roadrunners, and curious tarantulas that try to swim. I know they try to swim because we found one in the pool at the house where we stayed about four miles off the main 2-lane highway. The hilly, sandy, dirt road neighborhood where street signs were scarce. Sidewalks and street lights were nonexistent, which was only the beginning of the adventure. The sand formed speed bumps from the wind, causing a staccato reverberation into the vehicle’s movement, ensuring a speed of only 15 MPH. And on other roads, the mounds of sand were deep enough to get stuck if you didn’t have an SUV or AWD. I was familiar that some roads would end without warning or with a sign that read “No trespassing” in bold red letters.
The desert is not to be messed with.
The festival’s venue was an eight-minute drive from the house, and the three of us were confident in our navigation back to the house. It was only about three turns away, or so we thought.
We plugged the address into the GPS only to become rapidly confused and turned around.
The desert began to swallow us whole.
“Wait, what’s happening?”
“Isn’t it this way?”
“We already passed this.”
“I don’t remember this.”
I could sense my friends’ heart rates quicken as I energetically felt a quiet panic escalating in the car's safety. It felt like we were going deeper and deeper into the unknown as the sandy roads, cacti, and brush all began to look the same. And it was DARK. Darkness with only an ability to see where the headlights shone, like driving into a white-out snowstorm.
We drove down a road where about ten cars lined up for one house, and a guy stood outside suspiciously looking at us as I pretended to look like I knew where I was going. After that house, the path seemed to end in deep sand, so we had to turn around and pass by him again. He watched us pass by again with a blank expression that I didn’t spend much time on. I held my ground and refocused to get us to safety quickly.
Turning back onto the main road, if there was one, I thought it would lead us back to the two-lane highway that emptied into darkness.
As I saw headlights coming towards us, or so I thought they were, I began to slow down unsure of what was happening.
“Wait, do you see those people crossing the road?”
“No.”
“I think I need glasses because I’m seeing something I can’t describe.”
Straining my eyes, I witnessed the outline of a person in light from their head, torso, arms, and legs, walking with a straight back yet tilted forward in motion, almost gliding robotically across the sandy path. One “person” at a time crossed, and after the third, I refocused on where we were headed, leaving it be.
After about an hour of the desert sucking us into its portal of another dimension, we finally found our way back to the house.
What was the bigger message other than a reminder that the desert is a powerful conduit for trickery along with healing?
As the weekend of chanting, yoga, and music progressed, I carried a layer of cynicism and judgment for my heart’s protection and disbelief that the Divine even existed. Sure, I still meditated daily and honed my intuition with my angel and tarot cards, but was it all out of habit and ritual?
Some days I grasped for straws begging for the grief and fear to pass.
The anticipatory grief of the October 7 massacre was not far from my mind as the Nova Festival was certainly one similar to Bhakti Fest which brought peaceful individuals together to celebrate life.
I knew what it felt like on a visceral, cellular level to have parts of my Jewish family brutally murdered, even if I didn’t know any of them personally. The ancestral trauma ignited and simmered throughout the year, showing up in nightmares of riding trains and sobbing intermittently when witnessing the pure hate across college campuses, and cities throughout the U.S. and even in the small coastal town of Bolinas, California.
We can’t prepare for transformation as it is often an event presented in a shocking, jolting, earth-shattering way, typically through a loss or trauma.
One of the many beautiful parts of being Jewish is the rituals or instructions on how to manage life’s events. As a young person, I once found them to be annoying, tedious, empty, and without meaning. However, this year, teshuvah, or a “returning,” seems to be self evident. I always looked at the repentance ritual during these ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur with a cynical annoyance. Of course, I repent for my imperfections from my cutting microaggressions towards those I love or for omitting truths, and many other things I have done to be sorry for. Insomnia haunts me at night as the shadow arrives along with the transgressions mirror reflecting back to myself.
What haunts me now is the growing of Jew-hatred in the world.
What haunts me now is the greater world wishing we all would die.
What haunts me now is the silence of many.
What haunts me now is the disbelief of those who deny women’s assaults even with all the evidence.
What haunts me now are the student celebrations in the U.S. on October 8, 2023 and today one year later.
What haunts me now are the still 101 hostages still held captive.
What haunts me now is when my heart hardens for anyone who doesn’t see the truth that Israel is fighting for all of us against terrorism.
What haunts me now are the people of the countries surrounding Israel who don’t wish to live under their toleration regimes.
What haunts me now is the environmental disasters shaking Mother Earth caused by this fighting.
What haunts me now is the continued war, and all lives lost.
Over the last year of simmering, undeniable grief that keeps on giving, I have begged and pleaded with people I revere to have the same stance as myself. Sometimes, this was conducted behind a screen or through an email or on a rare occasion, in person. As part of my grief and fear, I wrote to a few of my teachers with visceral anger, demanding they take a look at their spiritual bypassing.
For those whom I’ve hurt by my own fear and grief with cutting, self-righteous, and shaming words, I am sorry.
I’m learning without letting go of allowing my own feelings to be present. There is no use in wishing people I don’t really know beyond a teacher - student relationship to see my point of view. The Middle Way involves being mindful, trusting in life, and embracing change.
In-person conversations with a set of safe parameters is the only way we can truly see one another as a path to peace. It’s unfortunate many of the conversations I have are with people who have the same point of view as myself. With safe parameters, we can remember not to cause harm or demonize one another. It’s hard to hate close up. Every single person’s welfare is necessary when navigating these difficult conversations.
What did the apparition have to do with it?
I have no idea but I got you to read this far, so thanks for bearing with me as I navigate this piece.
I can only say that it was a reminder that we are not alone in this 3D world. Our ancestors of human kind are with us always. They can provide wisdom, hope and reminders that there is more to life than this need to be right, clinging, and suffering. We have been here before and we are here again. There are miracles and beauty here within the strife, I have witnessed it consistently.
Humans have been doing this to one another since the beginning of time. People who stray from their hearts and live in their egos have always found reasons to kill one another.
And so while I have to let go and let it play out, I remember that I cannot control the egos who want war. And I’ll let my soul continue to guide me. I wasn’t born to fight. I was born to feel, to express, to love, to have joy and to live proudly in all that I am. I cannot control another’s path to spiritual freedom nor to their own righteousness as we are all on our own journey.
We have to take care of one another.
I also take my ancestral lineage to heart for without them, I wouldn’t be here. And I take my spiritual path to heart as well. It’s a both/and, complex and layered way to live so I defer to my soul who knows the way.
I only hope that I continue to find connection with those that I hold dear as my friendship circle contracts and expands in new surprising ways.
I’ll leave you with this wisdom from Baba Ram Dass in the video below about keeping your heart open in hell which I wrote about months ago. Through my often-cynical mind can be overpowering somedays, his teachings still provides a refuge. We have to hold it all and keep our hearts open. And I’ll keep hoping for verification of the other worldly as it brings me much hope.
Stay in love.
Shelley Durga
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