10 minutes...

nothing.

25 minutes...

"nada".

40 minutes...

zippo.

(maybe it doesn't work on me!)

at an hour, the novelty of waiting had worn off.

i figured i was immune.

it was 9 p.m and i realized i had agreed to do this stupid till sunrise.

my little mat on the floor was comfortable, so i said "fuck it" and went to sleep.

when i woke up i was floating deep in outer space.

as i regained my bearings i realized that i was trillions of light years away from earth.

i was so far away that i knew i would never see anything or anyone i loved ever again.

this is where i would be for eternity.

as i digest the magnitude of my predicament i begin to glide through the infinity of stars.

i notice that they're not stars as we know them

it's as if picasso had painted outer space.

colors, cubes and angles.

i'm suddenly overwhelmed by the majesty of my surroundings.

this is the most beautiful place i've ever been in my life.

as i'm distracted in awe i can sense a presence behind me.

it's a woman.

i turn to see her but she's unseeable.

i can feel the warmth of her energy close behind me.

as close as she could be without touching.

she's happy i'm here and i can tell she will never leave me.

somehow i know she's been waiting for me.

her voice centers directly behind my right ear, as if her lips were only millimeters away

i turn again craving just a glimpse of this beatific goddess but as i move she moves.

i can tell i'm not meant to see her.

but i'm okay with that, because every second with her quenches my lifelong thirst

she is everything: lover, teacher, mother, protector, guide.

she is all i have ever dreamed of and everything i have ever wanted.

i can tell she knows everything i need to know, and how to get everywhere i want to go.

she is my goal, my solution, my answer.

she is the top of the mountain, and the sky beyond.

"where are we?" (i say softly)

"what do you mean, silly?" (she says in a tone that melts away everything but bliss.

*this place is beautiful!" (i say)

"this is not a place, silly" (she kept endearingly calling me silly)

"i've never seen anywhere more beautiful than this!" (i said)

(...she laughed)

"why does that make you laugh?" (i asked)

"this is you, silly" (she said)

"huh? what do you mean?

"this is not a place, this is you"

... my heart begins to race as i look around bearing witness to the grandeur of this infinite paradise.

"wait a minute" (i say). "all of this is it me?"

"yes, silly!"

"i'm this beautiful?"

"of course you are!" (she, says)

her words unlock the emotional floodgates within me.

i begin to sob and purge a lifetime of insecurities, self-doubts and inadequacies violently flushing out of me.

simultaneously, the revelation of my inner beauty fills my heart and mind with possibilities.

if i'm this beautiful, i don't need number one movies to feel good about myself.
if i'm this beautiful, i don't need hit records to feel worthy of love.

if i'm this beautiful, i don't need jada or anybody else to validate me

if i'm this beautiful and i have this internal sanctuary i can always return to that i don't need anybody to approve of
me. i approve of me!

i am enough!

this was my first tiny taste of freedom.

an invisible yoke had been lifted from my neck.

all of my kneading and grasping and clinging and lusting and demanding and maneuvering and reaching and
craving, all of the insatiable desires that it kept me on my hamster wheel of misery were falling away.

i no longer needed to chase the proverbial carrot on the stick.

i wasn't starving anymore.

in my 50 plus years on this planet, this is the unparalleled greatest feeling i've ever had.

in the following two years i did 14 ceremonies.

in eight of them, the woman i would come to know as mother showed up. each time with detailed advice and
instructions.

three of the times that she did not appear were among the most hellish psychological experiences i've ever endured.

in my second ceremony mother repeated for what felt like five hours straight "stop talking".

she said it so many times that i wanted to bang my head on the floor.

she was referring to the constant inner chatter that runs incessantly in my head: planning, strategizing, debating,
assessing, critiquing, self-judging, questioning, doubting.

she pummeled me with the phrase, thousands of times: "stop talking".

and at some point, just before sunrise, i noticed it.

silence.

my inner roommates had stopped talking.

it was euphoric.

mother let me bathe in the piece of my inner quiet tube for about 40 minutes.

then without words she conveyed why i needed to stop talking.

in essence she told me i should be still and i should be quiet in order to better observe and understand the people and
circumstances around me.

she had watched me batter myself for so many years trying to impose my will on the world.
her point was if i stopped talking and thinking so much i could see and sense the universal tides and i could align my
energies to them and achieve twice as much with half as much effort.

i heard an echo of gigi's words to me so many years before.

you know, if you stop talking so much maybe you could see some of them hits coming.

minimizing my talking became my practice for maximizing my awareness.

i had always seen the world as my battlefield.

i now understood that the true combat zone was my mind.