Soulmates

by Jessica Grose

  The sheriff nodded solemnly. “Did Ethan have any enemies?” When I laughed, surprised, he asked, “Why is that funny?”

  “It just sounds like something you hear on TV,” I said, grateful for anything that brought me out of reliving my last days with Ethan.

  “Well, they get some things right on those cop shows,” the sheriff said, smiling. He seemed less humorless than I had initially assumed.

  “No, he didn’t have any enemies, at least not from his life with me.” I paused. “But I’ve been wondering if he had any enemies at the retreat. Or any enemies wherever he was living.”

  “He wasn’t living at the retreat?” the sheriff asked.

  “I heard from some friends I made at the retreat that he was living elsewhere—that all the teachers live elsewhere. I don’t know where, though.”

  The sheriff wrinkled his brow just a little. He reached over and turned the camcorder off. “Off the record,” he said, “how has your stay at the retreat been?”

  “I’m getting the hang of things.” I wanted to be helpful to the sheriff. Always the overachiever, I wished I were able to give him even more than I had. “I haven’t really been able to learn much about Ethan’s life in the days before his death. The women I’ve asked about it said that Ethan and Amaya were doing something dangerous, but they wouldn’t give me any details about what it was.” I paused, because it was a struggle for me to say what I had to say next. “It sounds like Ethan and Amaya were both very well-liked there. Amaya especially.”

  The sheriff nodded. “Is there anything else, let’s say, useful, that you learned?”

  “I’ve learned a lot more about what Ethan’s life was like at the beginning of his association with Yoni,” I said. “In fact, I might have something that will help you with that warrant.” I took Ethan’s book out of my bag and slid it across the table to the sheriff.

  Ethan

  DAILY AFFIRMATION: “Spring is in the air again. All seeds on the planet are quietly starting to shine. Ready to stretch, open and grow.”

  —Yoko Ono

  I thought Dana would notice a change in me immediately. I felt the change in myself, even on the way home from what I learned is called Yoni’s Rite of Spring. I left the house on Herkimer after midnight, but instead of being afraid of getting jumped in what I knew to be a dodgy neighborhood, I smiled at every person I passed. They all smiled back, except for the one woman who said, “Back off, faggot.” I just bowed to her wordlessly and went on my way.

  Before I got on the subway, I had a fantasy that my apartment had transformed into some verdant forest while I was gone, and Dana into some sort of welcoming wood nymph. But my trip on the C snapped me back into my reality, and by the time I got back home, the old plaid Barcalounger and Dana asleep, mouth ajar, in our bed looked shabbier and more dispiriting than ever.

  I almost turned and walked back out the door right then. But seeing Dana asleep and vulnerable made me pause. I got undressed and took a shower, and while the water was sluicing down my face, I started to panic. What had just happened?

  When I got into bed I tried to meditate to calm down. I was nervous about what Dana would see when she woke up, and the serious conversation we’d have to have. I tried to keep myself awake so that the vibes of the ceremony would still be fresh in my mind, but I must have fallen asleep at some point because I woke up when I heard Dana turning on the shower.

  I got up and went to the kitchen, where coffee was already brewing, and made myself some green tea. I sat at the kitchen table and tried to be mindful of my surroundings—the scent of the tea and the silence of the wee hours—until Dana entered the room in her robe, toweling off her shoulder-length hair. “You’re up early!” Dana said. “How was work?”

  So much for her noticing the difference in me just by looking at my face. I opened my mouth to tell her the truth—that I hadn’t been at work, that my entire spiritual being had been altered—but instead I just croaked out, “Pretty good.”

  “Great,” she said. She glanced at the clock. “Shit. I can’t believe it’s already seven fifteen. The morning goes by so fast! I gotta motor.” She came over and kissed me on the cheek and then scurried back out of the kitchen. I could hear her banging around in the closet, taking a suit off a hanger, opening and closing a drawer, then stomping around in her heels. “Bye, hon! I’ll try to be home before you go to work tonight!” she said from the living room before closing the door behind her and clacking down the stairs.

  She didn’t even notice that I’d only said two words to her this morning. That she had no time to share my consciousness made the guilt I felt over my participation in the Rite of Spring evaporate. Lama Yoni always had time for me. And so did Amaya.

  DAILY AFFIRMATION: Personal growth requires equal parts patience and persistence.

  I didn’t see Amaya again until almost two weeks after our explosive meeting at the Rite of Spring. Our work schedules had not aligned. I don’t know if it was because our supervisor noticed that we were fraternizing or because the heavens ordained a pause between our first and second unions.

  Of course, I still dutifully attended my classes at the Urban Ashram every day. My first time back, Lama Yoni saw me at the end of a meditation class and brought me back into the inner sanctum. My heart was beating fast as I followed him behind the wooden accordion door. The feeling was familiar—it was the same one I had at my first junior high dance, when I was about to slow dance with my crush, Jamie Hines.

  Lama Yoni bowed to me, and I bowed back. His white hair flowed down his back, thick and lustrous. Yoni is probably in his sixties, but he has this remarkable deeply tanned yet unlined face. He was wearing a dark-purple robe. It’s a regal color, Amaya once explained to me, and so this particular shade is reserved for Lama Yoni. The dedicated yogis wear light-purple robes.

  I wanted to blurt out something about how honored I was to be included in the Rite of Spring, but Lama Yoni’s presence still left me tongue-tied. I was so awed by his absolute centeredness, I felt hopelessly messy by comparison.

  After a few moments of fairly comfortable silence, Lama Yoni said, “Yogi Ethan, I trust you have told no one about the details of our Rite of Spring?”

  “Of course not. I would not divulge ceremonial rites to anyone outside the ashram.”

  Lama Yoni nodded. “I knew we could trust you. Your dedication to the ashram has been noted. I would like you to start coming to our highest-level classes, which are not listed on the website.”

  “When are they?” I asked. The second the words came out of my mouth I knew they were the wrong ones.

  “They are scheduled according to the dictates of the planet,” Lama Yoni said. “Someone from the ashram will communicate with you the day before each class and tell you where to go and when to be there. I must attend to some pressing ashram business now. Namaste.” Lama Yoni closed his eyes and bowed to me.

  “Namaste,” I said, closing my eyes and bowing back. But by the time I stood up straight and opened my eyes, Lama Yoni was gone.

  I left the studio that day and waited for my call. I went to work at night and spent a nearly wordless weekend with Dana, who finally did notice something was different about me. “You seem nervous. Why do you keep flipping your phone open?” she said while we were eating lunch in Madison Square Park. It was one of the first warm days of the year and she had suggested we go outside for a little sun.

  “I just have some excess energy, I guess.” I was so excited about my progress at the ashram, I couldn’t focus on anything else. Now that I’ve seen so many others make this same journey, I know this is a common reaction to making spiritual leaps.

  “But you’ve been going to those yoga classes so much, isn’t that enough? Or do you need a higher-intensity workout?” Dana asked. “Maybe we can start running together again.”

  We used to run together when we first moved to New York, up a path next to the West Side Highway. We’d wake up early in the morning and lace up our sneakers and he
ad out the door. Then we’d have sweaty, athletic sex when we got back home as a reward. But that was before I started working nights, when Dana was still in law school and had more time.

  “Maybe,” I said, still holding on to the idea that our running together was a possibility.

  Dana smiled. “So I’m working on this case with a car company. I can’t really talk about the details, they’re classified, but I might need to go to Detroit for a week soon.”

  “That’s fine,” I said.

  “Good, because . . .” then Dana kept talking about work and I stared off into the park shrubbery and hoped that my phone would ring.

  DAILY AFFIRMATION: “Rivers know this: There is no hurry. We shall get there some day.”

  —Winnie-the-Pooh

  It turned out all that time playing with my phone was useless, because the call came in person. From Amaya.

  We were working the graveyard shift at the office. They only light half of the space, because there are only a handful of workers there in the middle of the night. I liked to use the handicapped bathroom on the dark side of the floor. It allowed me to have a moment of contemplative meditation while my body removed its natural toxins.

  I didn’t think anyone knew about this bathroom besides me until Amaya knocked on the door.

  “Just a second,” I said, trying to finish up quickly.

  “It’s me,” Amaya said. “Will you let me in?” I hesitated for just a second, and then opened the door.

  “Um, hi,” I said. And before I could say anything else, Amaya was on me. With one hand she started undoing my jeans while she kissed me. Before I could say anything we had tumbled to the floor. Her lower body was open to the universe—unencumbered by the garments that prevent a connection to the natural world. I didn’t think in this moment, because thinking would have ruined what was a true, otherworldly connection of souls and bodies.

  We came with equal tsunami-like force, simultaneously.

  That’s never happened to me with any woman. I only had sex with one other girl before Dana and I got together in college. It was a freshman-year fling. I lost my virginity to this sort of homely but sweet Minnesota girl, Melanie, who lived down the hall. I can’t even remember her last name now, but we were both eighteen-year-olds who were really terrible at sex.

  I thought about Melanie for a split second as Amaya rolled off me. Maybe it was so easy for me to go on this sexual journey because I’d had so little experience before. But I think it’s more because Amaya offers such a heady combination of spirituality and sensuality. It’s something I didn’t even know I was craving before I got it.

  Amaya sat on the toilet. I watched as she peed. “I’m letting your seed leak out of me like a river,” she said dreamily. It was graphic, but it connected our beautiful act to nature, which made it even more meaningful to me.

  “I’m not just here for work. I’m here to tell you about the class. We meet in Yoni’s inner sanctum Monday at midnight.”

  “But I have work Monday,” I said, knee-jerk, still tied to my responsibilities in the corporate world, though they were increasingly meaningless to me.

  Amaya waved it away. “You’ll have to figure something out.” She wiped herself and flushed the toilet. She put her hands together in prayer pose and bowed to me, wordlessly. She left the bathroom, and it was at least a full minute before I realized I still wasn’t wearing any pants.

  DAILY AFFIRMATION: “Love is an infinite commodity.”

  —Lama Yoni

  It was a brisk, clear night, so I walked the thirty blocks to the Urban Ashram. I wanted to clear my head before I had another Yoni experience.

  The studio space was dark when I got to the ashram. I’d never seen it that way before, and without the peachy lighting it looked much colder. Without bodies and mats and movement filling up the space, those empty hardwood floors looked barren. I shoved these intrusive, unpleasant thoughts away—they were just symptoms of my anxiety.

  The wooden accordion door pushed open right before I got to it. I wondered if there were cameras in the studio, since the opening of that door was so perfectly timed to my arrival. Amaya was standing in front of me, resplendent in her light-purple robe. She had freesias scattered throughout her long hair, and she smelled like fresh laundry.

  Without speaking she took my hand and led me to a circle where Lama Yoni was lazily strumming a guitar. He did not register my presence when I arrived. The same men who had been part of the Rite of Spring were in the circle, and now that I could get a more prolonged look at their faces, I realized they were guys I’d seen at the ashram classes. One was a meditation leader with a long beard named Abe, who always seemed like a good guy. He had given me shoulder massages because he told me that was where I held my tension.

  There were women here, too, and I could only assume that they were the ones inside the tent at the previous ceremony. They looked like they could be Amaya’s sisters, or at least her cousins. They were uniformly youthful and taut and their skin was face-wash-commercial clear. They all wore flowers in their hair and formfitting light-purple robes.

  Yoni kept strumming his guitar as everyone in the group stared at him. He did not look up once. I’m not sure how long we sat there before Yoni opened his mouth. “The lesson I want to give today is about love,” he said. “In our hyperconnected society, we give away so much for free. We can do so much so easily. You can go on the Internet and get information about hiking in the Himalayas without paying for it. You can find any song you hear on the radio. You can read all the sutras with the click of your little mouse.”

  I looked around the room. Everyone was paying rapt attention to Yoni. I felt immediately guilty for breaking my concentration to see what my peers were doing. The energy in the room was flowing toward our guru and I was trying to push against it. This is normal for early adherents to Yoni’s methods. You must push past these distractions to get to what is truly in your soul.

  “The one thing we hold on to tightly, with all of our intellectual and spiritual might, is love. We dole it out in parsimonious parcels, only to those we feel are worthy of such a precious emotion. But wouldn’t society be so much better, so much stronger, so much deeper, if we gave love away as freely as we give information?” Yoni put down his guitar. “That is a core tenet of what we’re doing here at the ashram. Giving our love away to everyone who is part of our humble little society. I want to welcome Ethan to the sanctuary.”

  Yoni stood and walked over to me. He put his hands on my forehead and used his thumbs to put gentle pressure on my temples. He started rubbing those pressure points in concentric circles, and I closed my eyes and sighed, like a dog getting his tummy patted. His touch allowed me to get rid of the nervous energy and comparison with others that had followed me into this experience. I could become centered into my own essence.

  “I also want to give him his new name: the name he will have at the ashram, and in his spiritual life.” I opened my eyes. Yoni stood in front of me and looked me in the eyes. “This name is a universal name. It means many different things in many different languages. In Burmese, it means ‘unbreakable.’ In Urdu, it means ‘universe.’ The name is Kai.

  “A thousand years ago in Tibet, there was a prisoner named Donen,” Yoni continued as he reached out and put his warm hand on my forehead. He said this quietly, as if we were in a private conversation, but I could feel the eyes of the rest of the circle on us. “Every day he and the other prisoners were whipped by a guard. This made most of the prisoners very bitter. They looked like they were holding lemons in their cheeks all day. But Donen was different. He did not have a sour expression. He always had a smile on his face, even as he would get his daily lashings.

  “On the coldest day of the year, when all the men were getting chilblains through their rags, one of his fellow prisoners asked Donen, ‘Why do you keep smiling? Are you a fool or just a madman?’ And Donen replied, ‘I keep smiling because I have love for every part of nature. I have love for you, and
for the guard who whips us every day, and for the frost that accumulates on our bodies.’ Donen knew that his fate was fixed, and that the only way to survive spiritually in this life was to give his love away, instead of hoarding it. Love is an infinite commodity.”

  Yoni stepped away from me then. “I want you to find a partner for tantra. You need to give your love away in this sanctum. We need to feel the thunderous love in this room.” I can’t reveal the details of our sanctum activities. You must follow Yoni’s teachings and reach the appropriate level of enlightenment before you can be privy to our most sacred rituals. But I can tell you the inner work and selfless devotion is worth it. It will change your life.

  Right before I left, Yoni put his forehead to my forehead and placed a light-purple robe in my hands. I stepped back and bowed to him. The turmoil I had felt since I started at the ashram had disappeared in that moment. For the first time in my life I felt like my body, mind, and spirit were all one, a pulsing, interconnected system that could not be broken.

  It was pitch-black outside when I emerged from the ashram. I was still in that postritual haze, but the cold predawn air woke me up. I felt simultaneously proud and terrified. This was not something I would have done even six months ago. What was I becoming?

  The next morning I woke up when Dana closed the door to our apartment. Shamefully, I was glad I didn’t have to face her, afraid that she’d immediately read the fear and excitement I was feeling. But the longer I stayed in bed, awake but immobile, the more my mind tumbled over itself. How could I keep going to Lama Yoni’s inner sanctum without saying anything about it to Dana? But how could I tell her? She’d either kick me out or try to get me to pull back from the Urban Ashram.

  I knew I was violating our vows, but Yoni’s message of sharing love is such a real one. I had spent so much of my life until that time withholding love. I just wanted to give it away.

  DAILY AFFIRMATION: Sometimes the families you choose are more powerful than the families you were given.