Pump up the Jam

SENSE   since when does greater awareness bring shortness of breath?  am i foolishly under the illusion that i have any sort of awareness about anything?  sometimes ebb and flow is full of a helluva lot of ebb.  integration can mean that the new way really wants to upset my apple cart...and then here i sit with a bunch of bruised apples by the side of the road. 

SENSIBILITY   note to self -- even when i am on some level aware that my shadow is shifting, a new light is casting its gaze on me, and my ego is learning to relinquish its range of control over so many aspects of my life--simple does not mean easy.  right here is where i must remember to BREATHE.   (oh yah, that god CPR thing might be kickin' in right about now)  so don't mind the omnipotent beating on your chest when it feels like your heart might break right open...how else to 'improve the rhythm' than to inject a little baseline.

holy hot damn batman

and with the blink of an eye, what seemed so real, something to worry over, that brought great stress and anxiety is complete.  with the support of many unseen angels and the loving kindness of so many old and new friends what held all the mystic writing of a true nervous breakdown has been a gift of extremes...learning, hardship, stretching, friendship and eye-openers.  as i sit late at night under the full brazilian moon, with what appear to be 2 of the world's puffiest ankles attached to my legs--i recognize the mixed blessings of so many things.  my heart is full in awesome wonder at how the world yet again, shows up to be my safety net.  nice catch batman! y grace a deus:)

Serendipities

my neck does not quite have strong enough muscles to keep my head on straight from all the flip-flopping my little spirit has been doing this week.  thank heavens, literally, for the jumping in on so many moments of bits of blessing that intercede on my behalf.  as i progress in learning i get more and more convinced that i have built a pretty crazy ego in this lifetime.  there are all sorts of hoops i have set up over the years that i ask myself to jump through just to feel like everything is ok in my world.
where did these crazy notions come from?
now i find that it is only through tighter constraints with even bigger expanses available on the other side that i begin to clearly recognize how joyful it is to let go of ego altogether.  when that deathgrip of control finally gets so exhausted, worn out through all its incredibly silly machinations of apparent perfection, the moments of grace do this little snoopy dance of glee and start to slip in at the edges.  i am always loving how joyful synchronicities show up in my life and welcome the signs that they are winding their way toward my prayerful pleas.

Just such a synchronicity showed up in the form of a long-haired, soft-spoken, deep-thinking friend that appeared to be my co-leader this week. when it seemed i would be working on my current group solo and my neck started doing these funny spams of stress-related grips, an unlikely candidate was suggested to me and after a mad dash for a brazilian visa and several marathon phone conversations, here we are together leading this group as an ensemble.  and wow, my eyes are opened at how the learning comes.

"with arms outstretched still..."

turns out this last minute replacement leads ropes courses for inner city youth building life-skills and self-esteem, and with every question he asks, frisbee he tosses, and rope he ties to a tree i wonder at the power of the web to pull such a teacher into my path.  not that he is aware of this at all, or maybe he is...? (how does the saying go..."when the student is ready, the teacher appears")  in his own projects he leads group chats, what i call "Noticings"  he calls "Serendipities"  and they do abound.  for this i am grateful.  As the Angels Have been Called, the drums are beating right along with our hearts and hippie-like co-leaders appear as an answer to prayer.  i suddenly notice the clear, serendipitous gift i have been given and with arms and heart open wide, i reach out to receive this gift with all the magnanimous show of support, love and answer to prayer in which it was given.

Drinking from the Fire Hose

it's just 24 hours before 25 young men and women arrive for their 2 week excursion, i've been at our site for 2 days and what seems like 3 lifetimes since i got off my plane.  i keep having this vision of some kind of reality show where some guy named joe appears atop a high perch and announces loudly-- 
turn on the hydraulic, max-suspension, state-of-the art, smoke 'em if you got 'em FIRE HOSE.  
Whoa nelly, and i think somewhere deep down inside...did i shave my legs for this????
  Before y'all get too nervous or worried for my actual sanity or anything like that...let me start (well start now) by saying, i think i'm all right...in the words of the Monty Python Players..."i'm not dead yet".  i have to say in the past 2 days and 3 lifetimes i have thought many many times that if this were a year ago i might not be able to handle all this shit!!!  and now, today--it really doesn't even smell like shit.  wow, life has handed me a completely new service project, a coordinator who missed his flight and won't be here early to prepare, several in-country employees who suddenly don't work here anymore and a lot of possible drama about the how's and why's of that, two women who are my absolute heart connections that i will be eternally grateful for becoming their friends who can't welcome me into their home because of possible family trouble....these are just the highlights...and with every new rock that gets overturned i do this sort of ...am i drowning yet test, when i realize i can still breath, i take a deep one and keep paddling.

funny thing here--i've got muscles i never knew i had...muscles of expansion and contraction, of living in some serious ebb and then finally stretching for the flow that are now flexing their apparent JIEnormous selves.  or it may be what they say about an adreniline rush...when stress hits in the biggest of way, our hormones kick in to help us cope.

so here's the gratitude...i don't feel stressed.  hmmm, lemme check, no, not yet anyway (and i don't want to jinx myself because i've got some big weeks ahead of me) this brand new muscle i've discovered, i'll call it the River Breather, nestled right between the lungs --adjacent to the diaphragm, this one has been building for nigh on many months now.   the gratitude comes from the recognition of the tiny and persistent moments when holding the breath teaches the River Breather to build a bigger capacity, when screaming at the top of my lungs teaches the River Breather how to call in all angels and guides possible for assistance, how praying with all of my heart teaches the River Breather that there is absolutely nothing it can do--powerless to aid me at all, it stops breathing altogether to allow the true higher power of all i surrender my ego and will to , to step in and administer CPR ....

ahh there it is, now i see it...i thought this was a fire hose and it is godly CPR...it's all in the perspective isn't it...and last month i was the one PRAYING RAIN wasn't i?  silly wabbit!!!

chime in folks...how's the month for you?  is the fecund, fertile and final month of summer summing itself up with any learning for you?

And through it all, a river runs...

Next week i lead a group of 25 kids and young adults on a service mission to Brazil...along with all the powerful lessons of service, loving humanity and opening our hearts to so many who are so different from us...i imagine the opening of a perfect space for self-examination and growth has never been more serendipitously crafted.  While we all indulge our own sense of adventure through service and believe that we are really going to be there to help others, i am constantly recognizing the revealing truth--that the very biggest gifts of learning and growth will be internal, personal and life-changing--for myself included.  As i frantically buzz around completing last minute schedules and work plans, making sure i have put all motions into action that these kids can learn from, i have to laugh and recognize that the exponentially more astute and powerful godly practice of the universe has already called in all the characters, done so much homework and has the greatest possible solution already dialed in--not in a predestination sorta way, but in a do you understand the energetic web i'm weaving sorta way.

In our pre-planning conference calls with the group i often talk about the spirit of the "River", how we can plan and perfect whatever our tiny brains think they have some level of control over, but when we step off the literal and figurative plane of our previous journey, we step into the river--where the flow of spirit embraces, uses, bashes against the rocks and rolls up on the shore right where we are praying to be, whether we see it that way or not.  This thrumming sense is that of the subconscious and the Almighty joining a course of energetic flow as they follow the current of our own design.

As i set out on this fool's journey, I thank you in advance for the echos you share here--your own reflections on the current, i love how that resonance fills my heart with being seen. It seems that the world is in full tilt, and we are all in need of sharing our take on the spin. in my own vertigo spinning, left of center experience i am warmed by hearing the human side of all of your lives.

"when I am alone in the half-light...existence seems to fade to a being with my soul... Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through ."