Names of God, cat food and toilet paper

One of the 99 names for god in Sufism is "The Bringer of Death". Another is "The Bringer of Life". I get it, but it's nice to be reminded. It's all God. Me and my relentless conditioning tends to compartmentalize. We cross over in our skin suits and take it seriously. At times I weep in my forgetfulness. Max sits down and cries with me. He's that kind of teacher.  "Remember Mom, this being human is just something we sometimes do. You're one of the lucky ones, shaken awake by life's uncertainty. You took your skin suit off and carried me through that very thin veil. But once you take that thing off it never quite fits the same. It's not suppose to. And yet, it is an honor to wear one. Stay disciplined in the alterations and while you are at it please remember to pick up catfood and toilet paper."

I smile when people tell me things like "life is uncertain, that's so exciting". It reminds me of saying "Lila is winning the lottery". Well, that's one way to look at it. Now-a-days I might replace the word "exciting" with "terrifying". If you aren't slightly terrified then I invite you to try it on. That type of Authenticity is magnetic. Only then does Terrifying become Exciting. I think another name for God should be "the one who invites us to Live in our full vulnerability and then asks us to love from that place".

Everything is uncertain.

So line all your people up, especially the ones you are mad at. Tell them all you love um. Tear your own walls down. Dare to be wrong. Kiss their foreheads. Better yet, kiss their feet. This isn't going to last.

And yes, let love in.

Stepping into Studentship

I think they have always been there. I have to believe we step into studentship when we are ready, to do so pre-maturely makes it impossible to recognize the gift of true mentors, of true teachers. Max has awakened me to the myriad of masters in my near surrounding and the teachers in my everyday.

The everyday teacher is in the woman who is rude to you at the tire store, or the woman at the Hilo Farmer's Market who asks very loudly "How'd your baby die?" and when you pause with a look like she just stung you with a taser gun in the side of the head... and instead of her realizing that the question might be insensitive she then asks it again but this time twice as loud "How'd your baby die". As a student to life's mysteries as tempting as it is to teach her a lesson in manners, or sheer crumble by hiding in your car and telling all of your friends to never buy kale from her so that we have stake in attempting to destroy her livelihood, we are invited into studentship at that moment. Pause. Let's be honest. Revenge might feel good for a few days, years, lifetimes. If we take a good look at our habits, revenge can sometimes be sneaky and slide in behind our motivation, anger, shame, or fear. So be on the look out for your old habits of retaliation.  Don't get me wrong, people can be fucking ruthless and insatiable in their own agendas. BUT Max is inviting us to be awake enough to be able to approach these moments with "these people" as great teachings.

What we are up against Wonder Warriors is not the world, but the temptation to feel entitled in it. Max is asking me to be bigger than to fall victim to this current situation of him not staying in his form. I have to watch responses like "please give me a break or please be gentle with me... We just lost our baby". Sometimes that may be totally appropriate. But here is the teaching, loss is our common thread. Now that I have been shaken awake by the loss of my baby we must walk through the world and tend to our interactions knowing that everyone is experiencing or will experience incredible loss of loved ones.

We must be gentle with each other. The more intense the interaction,  the more gentle we are being asked to be. Max has widened our spectrum of compassion and he is asking us to truly hold every person we meet with the tenderness of a mother who just lost her child. We don't just get to be nice to nice people. We don't just get to respond to the callousness with lethargy. We don't just get to respond to the cruelty with retribution.

Then there are the Masters Max has given me. These are the people who have honed their skills so sharp that what they offer keeps me on that razor's edge of the grief of loosing my son and the realization of birthing my heart teacher. These offerings are the radical ones. The ones that keep me out of my head and in my heart. Like this one, "lucky are the ones who are blessed with a wound that only god can heal." Holy Hell if this is true, then what a gift Max gave. Not only did Max give me eight days to recognize my beloved and our love eternal, he actually swapped our physical relationship with a spiritual commitment so deep it is connected by the umbilicus.  The nourishment needed to heal this wound is fed only by that connection and source from which he came.   In all of this insanity there is gratitude.


I am deeply grateful to have you walking that edge with me.
Let Love In
Heather Bear

Christina Sell at Balancing Monkey for Max

We just keep practicing.

"The Return Home" a transcript of my first night teaching at Balancing Monkey

I stepped back into teaching at Balancing Monkey two Thursdays ago. Christina Sell wrote me on April 12 asking if her and her husband Kelly should still come offer the Anusara Yoga Workshop we had scheduled before Max's birth. Here was my return letter:


"My initial response was to move in the direction of re-scheduling you and Kelly in Hilo because it is such an intense and difficult time not only for me but also for the Monkeys. But this is exactly the reason why you have to come. I am certain we have connected Christina because of our deep commitment to walk further into the fire. Nothing about Max is easy. Nothing about Max makes sense. Everything about Max is the radical experience of loving and just how uncertain that journey is, but we do it anyway... I want to step back into Balancing Monkey with you and will plan to return to Hilo right around the same time.  I don't think anything about your planning on being in Hilo in June was hap-hazard. I am certain Max has been working on all these heart connections for a very very long time. See you in June Love Heather"


So it is I walked right into that fire and had Christina observe my first class back to move in the direction of becoming certified to teach Anusara Yoga.  No small task, but huge is the new small these days. Below is the transcript of the first fifteen minutes of my class.


The Journey Home, June 2, 2011. 
It is very clear to me that the mission of Balancing Monkey is to facilitate a practice that sharpens our physical and spiritual weaponry so that when life does present its battles, when shit does hit the fan our arsenals have been well prepared. I am also very committed to Balancing Monkey being a place of sanctuary, connection, and community in your life. Max has certainly taught me that we need each other. He is so happy to be with us and to have us all together in his home studio, so thank you for being here.


My story of the last nine weeks is not unique, even in all of its intensity. Max is teaching me so much, a really big teaching for me is that our pain is not quantifiable. We all have a Max story.  So I sit with you not as your teacher, but as a mom, as a sister, as a daughter and as a student of life's mysteries.  The Journey Home has nothing to do with going anywhere and everything to do with moving deeper into our own hearts. This Journey Home is a Hero's Journey and you my Monkeys, my family, my friends are being asked to make the journey with me. It is very clear to me that the reason Max chose me is because I know you. He knew that you would do the work, the work of the heart.  This work isn't complicated, but it is not easy. It is a constant practice of surrender.


What separates heroes from pedestrians is not the challenges of heartache, incredible loss, sadness, and deep pain. The difference is that heroes stay open to the possibility that within the affliction there is a greater truth. Heroes brave to ask deeper questions.  The real work is to stay open to our pain.  The quest is to move in the direction of our pain with both curiosity and courage. What we find when life forces us to hang off that ledge if even by our fingernails and we finally let go of thinking that we can control or avoid the despair... instead of falling to our own death, grace opens her wings and cradles us. Not only does she swoop, but she plunges, nosedives and darts to hold us in her feathers. Grace is always present. Life cycles are her way of reminding us of the precious gift. 


Grace is always present, whether we realize it our not. We are never without support in the light of illumination. This is in the opening Anusara Invocation Nispranpachya Shantaya Niralambaya Tejase.  


Grace is rooting for us.  There is nothing esoteric about this.  I am speaking to you now from not the teachings, but my experience of Max.  Grace wants us to be the Hero of our life.  Grace wants us to be a champion of our pain, all we have to do is open.  Grace is inviting us to bring light to our suffering by taking what might cause us to collapse, dim or completely shut down and use it as fuel for our own fire. This is that light of illumination. To shine brightly takes work my friends.


Opening to Grace is a practice receptivity but in my experience isn't gentle at all.  We sometimes have to rip open to grace, drag our heals, kick the walls and pound our fists on the floor as we open.  It's really frickin' messy and there is nothing gentle about it.   Being truly receptive is a bold vulnerability.  It takes practice. So let's do it.  Bring you hands together in front of your heart. Bow your head and close your eyes.  

Heroes in Halfshells

It was two months ago today that Max passed through me. He returned back into the breeze that makes the branches move, back into the space between breaths, back into the current of grace where we like to have our play dates and rub elbows with other great masters. Max is back to flirting with the pulsation, our electrical gadgets like tinker toys. His name just recently showed up in Kim P's telephone. We are quite certain that calling it will take us to Narnia, as if we haven't already been there. Max is in all of the magic. The more aware I become the more it reveals itself.

I am closest to him when I stay in the space in between... In between my agreement to adhere to the fundamental laws of this universe and my diligent bastardization of them. Life will not go back to normal, why would we want that? Normal is not our work. Being o.k. is being an abbreviation. How could you be living in your fullest form abbreviated? Staying in the un-o.k. is actually a very rich place to be. Grief, loss, heartache...these are some of the richest gifts life gives us. Please get out your jewels and strut your feathers as you beat your fists on the floor. Your beauty is your broken. Your wounds are your warrior paint. And like a hero in a half shell, your vulnerability is a lovely accessory that you can use for a fashionable sun hat when you aren't in battle. I am broken open not broken pieces that need to be fixed. None of us are.

Max is asking us to stay in between: in between enlightenment and doing the laundry. How effective can we be if we only stay in the awakening of the grief? How effective can we be if we only stay at the mountaintop? How effective can we be if we don't return home because no one will understand? Listen closely my warrior friends, it's not a matter of the world understanding or not understanding, that's too easy. That is your excuse to either stay on your journey or never leave the couch. What Max is asking us to do is make the return home and live the Hero's journey. The work is to utilize your crystal clear vision from the mountaintop and serve humanity.

Max is just getting started, so if you're in may I suggest you get pretty clear about what that is. How will you match your action with your heart?


In the meantime enjoy rubbing cosmic elbows with the hotshots in your half shell.

Max Love
Heather

Max's Rebirth Prayer

Today marks 49 days since Max passed through me. 49 days is a significant day of transition in Tibetan Buddhism. And although Max is very clearly an awakened being, I have roots with the wild crazy wisdom side if things. Jen Z, Ivy, and Jess joined me early this morning at the same shrine where on April 3 they kept 108 candles lit as the Tucson Warriors shared prayers and chants for Max. The cookies that Bronwin and Darren offered were still there on a little plate from 7 weeks ago. When I arrived a candle from the original offering was lit. Pure Magic.

The spoken word below is not a push. I wrote it as a love letter to read to my son. I offer it to you as a way to honor and share the awakening that has occurred in your life these last 49 days.

THE REBIRTH PRAYER
For Maximilian Ka'hanu Heintz
Love Mom

I am onto you death.
You and your handle bar mustache under that black hooded little number you wear.
You aren't scary and you can't take my son.

Max is bigger than your bardos. He built your bardos.
And still Max I remind you to fly my sweet beautiful boy.
Move through. Move over bacon because Max is very much in the house...this great big mansion of my heart.

Time travel Max in your interstellar space machine. King of angels. Teacher of teachers.
Play planetary marbles my Boddhisatva Baba Baby Boy.
You are free.
You are me and me you. We never leave each other.

You have my blessing, just promise to call on the magic cell phone.
I want to hear about all of your adventures. All of your love. All of your heartache.
You are not a story. You are not downloadable.
You are more and more alive as I become more and more awake.
But I need to know that you are safe, warm, fed, happy... My hero.

My Jambavan. I just need the reminder to just remember.
I remember. And sometimes the smell of your skin surrounds me and I feel you in every cell of my body and you breathe me.

You breathe me Ka'hanu.
And here I was holding my breath thinking you would leave me.

Release Mom
You can't loose me. You never have.
I am ever present. You sang to me Nischprapanchaya.
Jai Guru.
I am yours.
Body or not.
Mother and Son.
Hanuman and Jambavan.
This lifeime or the next.
We are love.

OK My Mirror Max, add smoke or not.
I see you.
Thank you for dusting my path and adding golden sprinkles.
I will walk it and dip my fingers in the frosting and put my head in the donut cabinet at the grocery store to taste the richness of every moment.

I have and will let you go without me now knowing that you always return.
So take pictures. I want details.
In the meantime I will swing in your sunshine and sing with the keepers of wonder.

Devastation, what a gift...

Thank you for your comments, your poems, your pictures, your hearts. Truly, they are a life line for me.


Many of you have written to me personally about wanting to do some mending but not sure how to begin. Let me start by extending my deep appreciation for you. You braving your anger. You braving your grief. You braving your hurt. You braving your worthiness. You braving your dharma. You braving to let love in.

I want to begin by inviting you to pay attention to your word choice when you speak about your relationships and be curious about if using words like "toxic" are really your egos way of guarding your heart. It is certainly easy to stay away from things that are toxic and no one will argue with you. But if toxic is your way of perpetuating an old story and you want to truly break through the bullshit and get to know your heart then simply start by changing your language.

What follows is a little of what I have shared with a very dear friend from SD that you might find helpful.


A big part of my process has been meeting people where they are at, not meeting people at a place that fits into the mold of where I think they should be at. Max is clearly not a practice of "should". Should is a practice of wishing things were different. We can wish all we want, but we cannot act from a place of wishing things were different. This may be a type of spiritual materialism; thinking how people should be in the world is somehow better than the way they are. This only fits our agenda and not our connection.

I have had to work through this in the relationships that are on my list to mend. Of course I want each of them to be incredibly enriching, heart felt and authentic, but it's impossible. Not all people have those kinds of relationship with themselves. I am not saying this out of judgement. It's just the way some of us move through the world.  I still am blessed to receive their love.  What's beautiful is that I get to explore all of the ways people share their love with me.  
All of us will to continue to act out neurosis, like the way we dish it out to compensate for our own insecurities. As a warrior what I invite you to do is bring people back to their hearts. Instead of rolling your eyes or changing the conversation or avoiding them altogether, remind people of the ways they love themself or ask her about the ways they don't. Start to change the language.  What will start to happen is that the time you spend together will start to serve the heart connection that you two have. It might not happen overnight, or it might. SERVE LOVE not your expectations.

The other thing you need to stop doing is being afraid for the other person. We cannot take away our parents pain. We cannot take away our children's pain. We cannot take away of lover's pain. We cannot take away our friend's pain. No matter how hard we try.  It's an illusion. This is a hard one for me too. But awakening doesn't happen if someone is coddling us. We would better serve by moving out of the way. I have had to do this with my mama. Of course I want to make sure she is ok. She lost her grandson and she has to witness her daughter suffering. But what I realized is that by me trying to make sure she is ok was actually getting in the way of what Max has to offer: The teaching of impermanence, the teaching of radical acceptance, the teaching of love as a birthright, and the teaching of the veil of separation.

Life is devastating. Life is also creative.  Let your people be devastated. They might need to be.   Death and re-birth can happen while you are still alive in this body. What a gift. 

Remember you cannot act attached the results. Stay in your heart and see where the chips fall.

I hope this is helpful. If not, trash it, but trash it with certainty. 
LOVE YOU 
Heather Bear

go heal a broken relationship... seriously, go heal a broken relationship

Master Kim P sat next to me on the airplane. It was 22 hours after Max passed through me. We were on our way back to the Big Island. Kim held my hand. All I could think about was how am I going to do this? How do I go home without my son? How do I return to a community where all the bustle was about Max's arrival? How do I return to my bedroom where he was born a healthy, wailing brilliant baby? Tears just streamed down my face. People are going to ask what they can do for me. What can I possibly tell them? Then BAM, another PUSH from Max. "Mom, when they ask, tell them to go heal a broken relationship". Side note here warriors, when I have birthed my Guru, teacher of teachers, master of masters named Max and 22 hours after he leaves his body of 8 days old, he tell me to not only go heal my broken relationships but tells me to tell people who ask what they can do for me, to go heal their broken relationships...YOU LISTEN.
As my arms ached to hold him, I went through a list in my heart of the relationships that I needed to heal. "Get busy Mom, you may not be here tomorrow, or worse those people in your heart might not be here". This is how I prioritized. When I went down the checklist I asked myself if I were to run into them, would I run the other way? Anyone who I would run away from got a phone call. It sounds funny to me now that this is how I proceeded, but I am telling you because it doesn't have to be complicated. It's not easy, but it's not complicated. You will hear this again and again from me. Actually if it becomes complicated you need to re-direct your intention. On the same note if it feels easy, you aren't doing the work.

Love wants to pour through us. Love wants to pour through you. But you and your grudges, you and your blame, you and your feeling victimized, you and your jealousy, you and your fear, you and all your excuses are great big blocks, huge dams that prevent that river of love to gush through every cell in your body. Love is your birth right. I know. I just held the purest form for 8 days.

Confronting the people that we have been most hurtful toward, and the people that have been most hurtful toward us is liberating. It frees us and them of the bullshit that has been trumping our deepest truth. Life is radically different when the truth is so palpable. We can only taste the truth when we confront our demons.

I am on quite a journey, and as some of you have said "an undeniable one". All of us are.
Here is the bottom line, if you can fix something, fix it. Go heal a broken relationship in the name of Max, in the name of me, but mostly in the name of the love truth that you are.

My midwife told my amazing sister who hadn't spoken to our dad for over three years to "just open the door and let the breeze come through". Amen April. You have to start somewhere.

Go open the door.

Max Love, Max Widom
Heather Bear

Heintz & Huelster families opening the door in Saint Paul, MN - March 2011