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Chapter Five

Kundalini, Here I Come

Rio Caliente Spa is tucked into the Sonora Mountains of central Mexico about an hour’s drive from the airport in Guadalajara. At its source is a volcanic river, making its way downstream through wild high desert once inhabited by the Quichol Indians. The spa was built in the early ’60s at the source of the hot river as a retreat for people who wanted to soak in its healing waters. People primarily came down from the cold New York and New England winters to “take the waters,” as Charles did, in 1968, when a yoga teacher of his in New York City first introduced him to Rio Caliente. Some years later it was a favorite place of his to hold retreats.

In my roaring twenties, I was introduced to my chakras and to yoga. These were my thrilling thirties, and the expansion of love inside me was happening at a fast pace. At Rio Caliente, with the many hours of yoga practice with Charles, my heart chakra finally exploded into shimmering shards of diamond light. I was in the company of twenty-two kindred spirits committed to time spent on our lumpy Mexican yoga mats and all that could happen there. At an altitude of 6,000 feet in the magical valley of primavera (eternal spring), I knew for the first time what a chakra looked like in full bloom and I knew how it felt!

From that day on, it seemed I tasted the smell of the wild sage covering the mountainous terrain for hundreds of miles around the spa. I could feel the lithium from the mineral-rich waters of the volcanic hot river that snaked its way through the valley for several hundred miles to the Sea of Cortez; it coursed through my system once it penetrated my skin. My eyes became a brighter shade of blue from the inner light that had awakened in me and they dazzled all who came under their gaze. I was in a naturally altered state from fasting, cleansing, soaking in the steam cave or the rushing river, and experiencing massage and healing treatments from Charles and other healers like the Rolfer Owen James, polarity therapist David Fuess, and John Sanderson, who offered and taught massage. Long hikes down-river deep into shaman country fed the adventurer within me as I felt delivered into an invincible state of vitality, health, and expanded awareness.

Between the intoxicating location with its beauty and warm sunshine, the six hours a day of yoga practice, the new friends, and the guidance of Charles Muir, who was fast becoming a friend as well as a deeply inspiring yoga teacher, the experience at Rio Caliente was life-changing. I knew that feeling this much love for everyone and everything was the way I wanted to live my life. I worked to maintain this state when I returned home to Ojai and continued my yoga classes, long hikes, and bicycle rides through the orange groves in bloom. I continued seeing Rick every week as our marriage transitioned into a friendship of wishing one another the best that life could offer.

In July, on my second trip to Rio Caliente, I stayed for two weeks of both beginner and intermediate yoga classes. I assisted Charles in teaching basic Hatha yoga to two husbands whose wives were in Charles’ class, and I assisted David with many of his polarity and massage sessions. Gigi came to Rio for a week and had a hot love affair with one of the massage therapists on staff, while I enjoyed flirtatious early stages of a love affair with David. This passionate affair lasted a delicious six months or so before I met another man, a chiropractor from Malibu, and canceled a vacation in Hawaii with David the day before we were to go. To say that in those days I was unconscious of how my actions impacted others would be an understatement. I’m not proud of it. I just wasn’t ready to be in integrity with the heart of another.

Life as a single woman in Ojai was a balancing act between aloneness and loneliness. The Malibu chiropractor turned out also not to be “the one,” and I was on my own again when the divorce with Rick was finalized. It didn’t take much more than a visit to a divorce lawyer in Ventura—one hundred and fifty dollars later my marriage with Rick was over. Neither of us wanted the cost or the anguish of a contested divorce.

Arnie and Rick, these two who had been my closest companions and who sincerely cared for each other, were a foundation for me as I continued to grow, living on my own and being a long-distance mom as I drove into Los Angeles every few days to help Arnie and his new wife, Nancy, with Robin, to discuss school changes, her time with friends, to give her rides here and there, and to simply have time together. I treasured the time I spent with Robin, Arnie, and Nancy, and Rick, too, all of them offering a much needed reminder that I was loved and forgiven for my inconsistencies.

And then the pioneering spirit called to me once again.

One early autumn evening, I went to a party in Malibu hoping to run into that lovely “not the one” doctor of chiropractic at a cliff-side house overlooking the sea. Not recognizing anyone familiar, I took a seat by the fire with my drink. A tall man approached and stood beside me. I looked up into a pair of piercing blue eyes gazing invitingly into mine.

“I’m Ron,” he said, offering a hand. Crow’s feet crinkled the corners of his captivating eyes.

I introduced myself.

“Kern?!” The name seemed to get stuck in his mouth on its way out. “Are you sure? That doesn’t sound like the name for such a beautiful woman.”

I laughed. “My name is Carolyn. I’ve always hated it.” I told him I was named for my great-grandmother, Caroline, and I had thought for some time of changing my name to hers.

He tasted the name like a connoisseur tasting fine wine. “Caroline.” Spoken in his magnetic, mellifluous voice, that name suddenly sounded like the most beautiful name I had ever heard. From that night forward, I would be Caroline. Everyone who knew me as Kern or Kernie would have to adapt to my new, beautiful name. That night, too, I decided to give up Arnie’s last name and Rick’s last name, and claim my middle name as my surname: Graham. It was my grandfather’s surname.

Ron sat down beside me, set his drink on the coffee table so he could face me with all of his attention, and we talked with ease. He was divorced, a TV actor with his own series, a river guide, and a tree surgeon. I was impressed by all the ways he made a living. I also liked the soft way he spoke of his three grown children and how much he shared with them. He was fifty-one, older than any man I’d considered being with before (to a thirty-six-year-old twice-divorced woman, fifty-one was much older).

I searched for something to say. I wanted to be as interesting to him as he was to me. “I live in Ojai,” I told him, “And I do yoga and professional massage. I’ve lived in Kansas, Florida, New York, Colorado, and California. I’ve sailed from England to Spain, and I rode horseback for a month in the Rocky Mountains with my former cowboy husband.”