Showing posts with label aboudanza. Show all posts
Showing posts with label aboudanza. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

I'll be your Huckleberry

V
Artiste avant
Adventurer
Atop, a humorous note.
Teakettle brass
And caramel
A sea without a boat.

Conceptual weaver
Reader of ways
High-hedged labyrinth.
Curiouser and curiouser
This place is hidden
Black velvet hyacinth.

Desert maiden
Her Heart a tree
Ever-breathing, layered knots.
Ahead, the red-rocked peaks
of fire and earth
Through speckled sun she walks.
                                       -Tessa

How beautiful is that when the first person to ever call me Auntie, gives me this for Christmas?

Saturday, November 5, 2011

which came first...jazz music or feelin' jazzy?

i'm just wondering who invented the word jazz?  was it a bunch of musicians who were just scattin' along and thought it sounded just like it sounded...an onomatopoeia for the muzic, so they called it jazz? or did the word exist as a feeling and the music couldn't help but add it's much more than two cent's worth?
it's just that i'm sitting in this completely wonderful, totally packed and kinda grungy coffee house on a saturday afternoon and a wonderful jazz combo of old folks is just going to town.  the room is bubbling up with all kinds of wonderful conversations, people meeting eachother, many sitting alone with their computers and the craziest melange of chairs, hard and soft, old and new.  seriously, there are at 40-50 people encroaching all over their personal bubbles of space because this music is going and snow is fresh outside, winter is upon us and we want to snuggle indoors.

i ask you starbucks, barnes & noble, corporations far and wide...do you truly want to cut off the spontaneous human element that much?  take away the soft chairs so people can't linger and connect? thoroughly regulate just how much time equals your one cup of coffee's worth sitting in our indoors space?  or how about this...provide a product, space to gather, creative offering that draws people in because it is inviting, encouraging and engaging?  those people come, not because there is a reverse psychology appeal between supply and demand...we might not have enough space for you to stay long, but you can at least try to hang out for a minute; but because the space to be open, connecting and organically taking root and growing  always has room for you. it is from this space that true abundance and success begins!

perhaps this is why jazz is the perfect american music...it allows the space for collaboration, room to grow, connect, jump in or fall out according to harmony and dischordance?  so enough with those corporporations that limit me in this way, that's just plain anti american!!!  and totally un Jazzy!!!!

Saturday, August 7, 2010

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?

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

stand like a tree

i started this story over a year ago (chapter 1 Life on Earth) and have written a few versions for myself of the next chapter. over the past several weeks the next chapter has all but leapt from it's origins and i thought i would share it with you...

chapter 2

As she stepped over the garden wall, the girl child began to run. She had practiced this running thing inside the castle many times, especially when she wasn’t supposed to be prowling about; like the time she fell asleep in the throne room only to awaken to the hushed tones of constance and one of the scribes as they discussed the terrible illness of the queen’s mother that had come so quickly and without warning that no one had been able to wish her a fond journey as she left the palace seeking a new home for her sprirt . the ever-so-small girl child ran like the wind on her very tippy toes unheard as she was unseen, leaping into the menagerie of animal topiaries in the courtyard where she wailed and grieved the loss of that kind spirit who sometimes did notice the rustling undercurrent as the child passed by and kindly hummed a lullaby or two thinking fondly on younger days.

Well this time her running was full of joy, it was as if her sturdy boots spurred her to greater speeds, energetically springing from the ground, eager to tap out the rythm of horsed hooves on hard ground. She soon became so warm that she shed her warm fur robe and laid down her bag and baskets; knowing she could return for these later; hers was a sprint of utter blissful abandon.

Deep in the forest a clearing opened in front of her where a glint of light filtered down through the massive leaves of ancient maples and sycamores. The cool green light reflecting there stopped this newly born forest sprite in her tracks. The only sound she could hear was the enormous pounding of her heart right up in her ears and the rasping breaths filling her lungs with the scent of newly turned earth. There was even the slightly tinny flavor of slowly growing moss on the wide low branches of the trees here, only just moistened by the morning mists.

As her breath began to pace itself inside her lungs the girl caught another sound here in the clearing. The forest lichen clung deeply to the ancient runic stones spread about the clearing and the rhythm of another beat sounded in her ears…these anciently placed monoliths seemed to be in a dance of their very own partnering only with the sprites of the trees surrounding them. Without hesitation, our sapling tree druid reached down and slipped off her boots—feeling the heartbeat of mother earth below as she pounded out the rhythm of this lifegiving dance. It was suddenly apparent that what had once appeared to be a still and frozen clearing was really a much more stately and graceful dance floor than any even lady chatelaine herself had favored.

The leaves and light the trees and stone were weaving the most ethereal and golden path of essence through this clearing and the dance had been going on for centuries. Roots and moss began to cover her own bared feet as she lent her soles to the dance, and her arms lifted into the air, reaching to join the lofty tops of leafy trees where the warming sun sounded out the cadence of the dance. This golden union lasted years, or maybe just a moment but in that moment her veins and nerves sunk like energetic roots deep in the earth sharing a secret knowledge and imprint that rises from the earth to empower and awaken them with the wisdom of lifetimes–imprinting there a blueprint for guidance that cannot be forgotten no matter how distant the connection may become.

Her arms and even the hair on her head rose with the spirit of her soul in song to the sun, which in turn rained down lilting notes of symphonic light filling to overflow the harmonic connections to the child’s heart and the surrounding spirits of the dance. The deep rich resonating vibration that filled the clearing became the stuff of legends. The music of this moment rivaled that of the lady Florence and became the life pursuit of many a –court musician to capture it in notes and instruments.

In that priceless moment , as the girl’s spirit joined with earth and sky, the living spirit of the woods and the world, the lords, ladies and courtiers of the castle reawakened with a gasp. They too had felt what had never been felt before . and with that, the young lovely knelt down slipping back on her boots and turned to venture with great anticipation even deeper into the waiting forest.



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Now playing: the cure - Just Like Heaven (acoustic)
via FoxyTunes

Sunday, October 12, 2008

The sway of genius...


i will be the first to admit that it has been too damn long since i have spent any real time writing. personal writing time has been incredibly limited of late; however, i will say that i have come to the coffee shop at least 6 times in the past few months with the intent of getting a little introspective, drinking a little warm brew and seeing what comes out of the mix. i did the same thing this morning and what rose to the top? 3 hours of responding to personal e-mail, visiting friends' blogs that i haven't seen for ages, reading a few chapters in books that have been buried under finance reports, spreadsheets and business requirements documents.

and through it all a few thoughts finally took form that felt like something to share more than something to pack away for later...

one e-mail i got held a simple personal call to action... or sort of action, really more an internal attitude adjustment whenever we/i feel action might be required...
T.I.T.L.
"trust in the love"

when faced with the pressures of life, the pain or adversity or joy that shows up in our relationships, interactions, internal journeys and public endeavors--the admonition to see that love is at the root of all these experiences builds the lens and the attraction that love really does conquer all.
when life comes at you in the full force that it has a tendency to do, how can we respond/interpret/act in a way that becomes something we can embrace as a means of helping us on our way to happiness and fulfillment? Turning this question on myself, i love the portence of the quiet statement above. it beckons me to trust that life is always holding me in a sincere and purposeful, loving embrace. the intention for all of the experiences that life sends at me is to find the love there, the beauty, the support, the means of holding me in the greatest aspect of caring and fulfillment that i welcome as a method of learning life's lessons and moving into the fullest and most joyful expression of me.

in my reading today i came across a quote from Heraclitus--predating socrates and plato, "ethos anthropoi daimon". meaning can be interpreted in ways too numerous to count, but for me today the path i went down was this...

frequently interpreted to mean "character determines fate", i meandered through the possibility that character is something we build, it takes an infinite number of tiny moments; becomes much more the wave than the particle, and this for me is the "sway" with which we walk. not just our physical step, but our internal urgings, emotional responses, unique means of being in the world.
along with the sway comes our personal call to perform--not just the loud, public, celebrated performance that sometimes defines a man or woman; but the intimate, constant, glorious and terrible pursuit of our own genius that creates the path of the soul.

so for me this is the sway of genius--daily essence of self moving towards the inner call of the soul, in tiny- inner heartbeats, infinite strokes of genius, creating our own path of learning; may not be extreme, may not be famous, may not ever seemingly appear to deviate from the norm, but we know on the inside how we respond to our own essential call to genius. how we match the burning inner need to realize certain aspects of our own genius on this journey through life.

it was the tiny and meaningful statement of "trust in the love" that honed this realization for me today. life is built to love us/me into the most perfect sway our/my own genius can create. there was a photo accompanying this Trust In The Love...the author's child in a pumpkin patch, how else can this beautiful child behave than to trust that pumpkins will grow, mom will think he is amazing, dad will tear up when he balances on his bike and souls will rejoice as he grows in love!!!(i hope she won't mind that i included that picture bursting with potential above.)

"All life is sorrowful; there is however an escape from sorrow; the escape is Nirvana – which is a state of mind or consciousness, not a place somewhere, like heaven. It is right here, in the midst of the turmoil of life. It is the state you find when you are no longer driven to live by compelling desires, fears, and social commitments, when you have found your center of freedom and can act by choice out of that. Voluntary action out of this center is the action of the bodhisattvas – joyful participation in the sorrows of the world. "
The Power of Myth Joseph Campbell

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Now playing: Peter Cincotti - Sway
via FoxyTunes

Monday, April 28, 2008

and the mind stood still...

self examination has come to some sort of a standstill with me. it feels like learning about the balance between abandoning the machinations of the mind-the control factor it exerts, and opening myself into some place of spirit wherein the beauty and simplicity flow.

as i mentioned below, i spent 8 days in baja this month, no tourist spots, no glam shopping, not a lot of contact with people; just one day after another of waking up with the sun and surf, feeling my toesies in the glorious sand, wading through tide pools (being bit by a mini-octopus --sort of payback i guess because i'm sure i've had one of his cousins for lunch at the sushi bar one time or another)
and soaking up the essence of breathing.

it took me about 5 days before my internal chatter finally shut off and i just started hearing the most amazing things, the sucking in of water right before the clam squirts its indignance at the interloper, the heavy breathing of a worn out puppy, the tiny sniffles of a child being deeply comforted by his mother...my own soul seemed to express all these emotions as the week went by and my own inner-child was nourished and treasured by mother-earth with abundance and bliss.

and through it all i felt blessed, blessed by warm fresh tortillas daily made from the tortilleria; the most alive beach i have ever relaxed on: with fishermen, eels, herons, seals, starfish, crabs--all manner of life;
and the love and company of people who had literally been strangers the day before.