Well, after all my musings on the metaphorical need underneath my craving to get a hug from Amma…

I just had to go back for the real, literal thing.

It seems like it was meant to be. This morning I had a scheduled teleconference for work and it got switched to the afternoon. So I took that as a sign that I should go back and get that hug from Amma that I didn’t get yesterday. I did feel a bit guilty dropping Sami off at daycare so I could go do this totally selfish thing, but it didn’t stop me. In a way, I am doing it for him, too. I do believe that is true.

I got to the hotel at 10 am and I got a “G,” which meant that I would have had to wait until about 1:00 in the afternoon or so to receive the darshan, but then…some woman came up, just as I was at the front of the line, and asked to be moved to a later time! So I got a C-number, and only had to wait for an hour or so.

We sat in meditation for a while, and the disciple who led it reminded us with a sonorous voice that we are always in the embrace of our Divine Mother. We prayed to be like newborn babies, innocent of this world, just held by our Mother. We breathed in to the vibration of “Ma,” and out to the vibration of “Om.” We prayed for peace in the world, we prayed to be released of our own anger and fear.

I decided that I would have no expectations of the hug. But as I inched closer to Ammachi on my knees, holding a small bouquet of flowers as an offering to her, my heart started pounding and I felt these odd tingles and surges of energy. The vena cava, that big old vein that runs down the center of the body, started twitching in this weird way.

Before I knew it I was being pushed towards her and I gave her the offering of my flowers and she turned her attention to me and pressed me towards her chest and I was surrounded by her scent of jasmine and just sobbing, like the kind of sobbing where you are shaking all over, and I don’t remember thinking anything at all. She was speaking to me in Hindi and giving me these blessings in my ear in this almost unnatural loud, deep voice, but it wasn’t like she was shouting in my ear or anything like that, and I have no idea what she was saying but I was overwhelmed with love. It was all like a strange, beautiful, surreal dream. Was it 20 seconds? A minute? I have no idea. At the end of it she gave me a Hershey’s Kiss which I would have eaten, but I don’t eat sugar. I couldn’t do it, even for her. So I held it until it melted, instead.

After it was all over, I somehow managed to collect my things and stumble to an empty chair and I cried and cried and cried for the longest while. Full-on, snot running out of my nose, major water-works kind of tears. The kind of big-drama tears that Sami cries. There was not much thought-content behind the tears; it was just as if I was releasing some kind of long-held grief. There was also some sort of relief afterwards. Many minutes later, I could still smell the scent of jasmine that had emanated so strongly from her. Then I was terrifically hungry. Good thing I brought my lunch. I took it outside and the 98 degree heat felt wonderful after the mighty AC of the Hilton. I sat under a tree and I ate voraciously. I somehow stumbled upon the most delicious strawberries I think I have ever had in my life. It didn’t seem possible for strawberries trucked in all the way from California to taste this amazing, even if they were organic. The strawberries I didn’t eat voraciously; I savored their sweetness.

I have had this huge, festering mother-wound all my life, and somehow Amma helped me to heal it, in one embrace. Or at least, she helped me to really set on my intention more deeply to heal that wound. The way I view it, the darshan was kind of like a commitment ritual for me, to reconnect with that feminine side of the Godhead. She sure seems like she is tapped into one heck of a loving God(dess)?, to be able to give so much love so unconditionally herself.

The end of the workday couldn’t be over soon enough, so I could go get my sweet Sami from daycare. I took His Royal Yumminess to the pool and it was so delicious to hold his wet little body in my arms and just swim back and forth, back and forth, across the three foot pool. Every time we get into the pool, he has to show me the number “three” and the “no diving” signs painted onto the opposite ends of the pool. They are always fresh and new to him. “Diving,” he says quite seriously, pointing to the sign of the diver with a line crossed through it. Then I sit him on the edge of the pool and he dives over and over again into my arms, a mischievious expression written on his face as he dives.

Tonight, Sami slept so easily and so well. He did not go through his usual active period before finally settling down into sleep in my arms. Was it that I was more at ease? I sang “Moonshadow” by Cat Stevens to him, of which he demanded many encores: “shadow!” Then I sang this Thich Nhat Hahn chant “No coming, no going,” to him over and over as a lullaby:

No coming, no going
No after, no before
I hold you close to me
I release you to be so free,
Because I am in you,
And you are in me,
Because I am in you,
And you are in me.

The day had such a wonderful symmetry to it. It began with me being embraced by my guru Amma, and ended with me embracing my guru Sami.