I got invited to meet the Dalai Lama in one of my favorite places on Earth. He is living in the Himalayas in Dharamshala, India where he is living in exile from his home in Tibet.
This was clearly the opportunity of a lifetime.
I had just read the book Healing Back Pain Naturally where I learned Dr Sarno’s theory on back pain. He says that humans have a tendency to use physical pain as a distraction from emotional pain.
That resonated true to me. It feels like I have uncried tears in my lower back and leftover trauma from my four day labor of my son and unprocessed emotions from moving through a divorce.
So when I landed in Delhi I said out loud to two of my friends, “For the first time in my life I am craving three days in the woods where I can just cry.”
That night we flew to Dharamshala and I promptly tested positive for covid.
A clear reminder that I am in fact a powerful manifesting witch and that words have the power to cast spells. Note taken Nature.
I took another test. And another. I finally accepted reality. I messaged the retreat organizers and they let me know that my two dear friends had also tested positive.
We hadn’t flown together; it was just a “coincidence.” The three of us formed a quarantine team and had an amazing time.
I can honestly say that besides my initial five minutes of shock, I had zero minutes of FOMO. My body and mind were able to instantly recalibrate to the new adventure Nature was giving me. I gladly accepted the invitation to slow down and tune in to the frequency of this oh so sacred land.
One of my quarantined friends is a very powerful energy healer. We were doing a ceremony in the woods and I kid you not, 30 monkeys surrounded us and started watching. For a long time. They were speaking to us, my friend was speaking to them. It felt like an invitation into playfulness and harmony with Nature.
That night, my same amazing friend facilitated a four hour ceremony where I wept and wept. So much intensity was purged. It felt like the uncried tears in my back had the time and space to come out.
The next few days I went on solo hikes and enjoyed waterfalls. Being in India feels like a version of home to me. This is where I first knew I would become a meditation teacher, on the banks of the Ganges in 2009.
So back to the Dalai Lama. Good news. I tested negative in time to safely join the group for the meeting at his residence. It was the last day of the trip and I was overjoyed.
We went to his private residence and got to see his home temple. The prep to meet him is likely much more thorough than to meet any president. This one man is both a spiritual and a political figurehead.
We all tested for covid 2x. We were searched, went through metal detectors. Our phones were taken, all of our bags were put in storage, then we were ushered into a room filled with photos of male spiritual leaders lining the top of the walls.
I always wonder where the women are being honored and quoted.
You could feel the anticipation thicken as the minutes clicked by. None of us knew exactly when this 87 year old living saint of sorts would enter. Some of my new friends were meditating, some weeping, some rehearsing their questions.
When he started making his way down the hall you could feel the energy raise.
When the moment arrived and we laid eyes on him the first thing he did was let out his huge signature belly laugh. He certainly is in on the Cosmic joke. I was struck by his childlike quality.
He gave a moving lecture about Unity and the importance of treating each other like brothers and sisters. He shared that war and funding military budgets feel like the old way. Countries fighting and killing each other for greed, oil or profit is the old way of thinking. We need a new way. A world where we truly treat each other as family. He spoke on compassion as an action. And that true compassion is not tolerating the suffering of people you love.
One of my favorite things he shared was, “There is no need to kill anyone. No matter what they did to you. They are going to die anyway.”
After many laughs and delights we had the chance to ask our questions.
We asked him if he had any words of hope for our kids and younger generations who are feeling hopeless about the future due to the bleak projections of global warming, food shortages and the inaction from most political leaders to take bold enough action to move towards planetary regeneration.
And that is where everything in my body said no. I disagree. There is something we can do.
And with so much respect to this living master, these sounded like the words of someone who will not have to live to see the fall out and the untold human suffering if we don’t take action.
Now I see that on one hand he is right. If we don’t take decisive action then 20 years will be far too late to reverse the effects of climate change. Most of my scientist friends say we have 12 years before we have an irreversible runaway train on our hands.
Then it hit me. What if we were to use just a portion of one country’s military budget to fund some of the groundbreaking (and highly profitable) climate regeneration technology?
My friends at Project Drawdown estimate that it will cost about 6 trillion dollars of investments in new energy and agriculture solutions to turn things around. For scale we humans spend 1.5 trillion dollars a year on military budgets.
Now I know my Florida Junior Miss may be showing right now, but hear me out…
What if the whole planet agreed to take a 4 year sabbatical from killing each other and invested those same resources in creating a planet where humans can do awesome stuff like breathe air, eat food and not be cooked to death?
1.5 x 4 = 6. I’m not a math major but it does seem smart to reinvest those resources now vs waiting until we bankrupt ourselves recovering from floods and hurricanes and droughts and water shortages and mass human migration.
We would be healthier and richer on the other side
After all, it does seem silly to spend all this money killing each other when we are going to die anyway. And a lot sooner if we don’t turn this ship around.