A 'Stalk' on The Wild Side...

A 'Stalk' on The Wild Side...

Seek, Explore, Unleash the Wise One in You

 Are you ready to get all powerful and native

to GO FORTH  and be a
 FORCE OF THE AWSOME?

 Life is too short to do it any other way!

Can you remember being that kid on the roof up there with your red cape flying?  I mean it, remember being a kid and making a game out of hunting down the biggest, baddest adventures and mysteries on the block?  I can remember getting all outfitted up and setting out in the neighborhood to peek into all the scariest places i knew about...I would wait with my best friend in the whole world at the edge of the golfcourse until no carts were in sight...and then dash onto the field and into the sprinklers to get completely wet and cooled from the intense summer heat;  i stealthily followed my older brother around on his own adventure route, who had threatened life and limb if i did,  from a very safe distance and watch him catch lizards--wishing for the day when i would be fast enough to catch my own; i would even sneak into the huge unlandscaped backyard at the end of the block--where i was pretty sure a single dad lived who had most likely eaten all his children--to kick up storms of powdery white sand--pretending i was a giant walking on clouds.  The adventures of the wildchild--daily slips into imaginary realms, yearnings for moments of heightened awareness--we all were born with this. Somehow the gift our spirit enters this world with is an inner youthful one willing to explore, approach our most profound moments with stealth and attention, focus for extended periods of time on the things we were most afraid of, but that promised thrills beyond imagination.

And then our wildchild meets maturity..welcome to adultville, land of commonsense and avoiding doing anything scary at all.

What happened to that wild being inside of us that knew the worth of getting very still in the darkest corner just to have a chance to see Santa go by? Where did the little one disappear to who knew somewhere deep inside the only way to spot a fairy was to slip effortlessly and silently through the dappled light and shadows along the forest trail?

How about a little epic awesome! How about stepping back into moments of anything is possible when i walk the edge of shadow and light, use all my wild jungle hunter skills to stalk the place where i pass through fear and discover the light?  This is the exact notion of Stalking Our Wild Side, where our ageless selves have the power to unearth the 'danger zone' in the light of day. 

How about this?

Rather than never attempting to observe what exists in the darkest places for ourselves, to recognize that on the other side of fear exists the next level of our greatest high; how about getting fully outfitted into the best cape and boots ever and leap into that adventure?

It's pretty epic to consider that all i might need to get to awesome is the right cape and boots! 

Tools, timing, stealthy stalker instincts...
How about somma that to bring on the Epic Shit!

   SHAZAM!   (and all those other superhero secret passwords)
 Let the Epic Begin!

6 Degrees of Indra's Net

     Sometimes i think if i were a composer and notes were words it might be easier to sit at the piano to write my thoughts; I would just be the music inside pouring onto the page.  With that in mind' i sing this little tune...

It's been hard to write this month; the music is a little dissonant and i feel sort of in the "thick of the trees", but it's in the writing that the song streams again and i get a better view of the "forest". Life never ceases to amaze me with how intricately its purposes weave through all our many connections.  How the 6 degrees of separation between one person i know and another are not just accidental degrees and when Indra's net of connectivity reveals how much we each are a part of the ONE.  the line in the pattern of the weave that connects me from one to another always tempts me to pick through the intricate design;

how the melody flows from one person to another; one experience to the next; always building on those chords and making the refrain that much more sweet?

This week I went to an earthshaking, heart-beating, drumming, healing night of greatness.  The drummer who began our beat, Toby Christensen (introduced to me by a friend from home), told the group of his own learning in a time spent travelling and exploring his gift with a woman from the West African Dagara tribe.  The further he got into his story, rhythms and beats i realized he was speaking of one of my dearest teachers in 9 Gates Mystery School.

Sobonfu Some 

As Toby began our night of drumming, i set my intention for a rhythmic prayer of healing and with this layer of meaning and relationship i joined in the soul-clarifying work of the drum for myself and so many in my circle-- lessons i recognized from my own study with Sobonfu.


This night of drumming stands out as a pivotal moment between the struggle for understanding i have felt in the past few weeks and the guidance this struggle gives as i prepare to return for another journey in my mystery school training.

in preparation for this journey, I've been clearing through the pressing work on my desk.  this week marked the beginning of our year end campaign for donations, and i began a series of personal calls with major donors.  my deepest desire in these connections is to create a bridge between the heartgiving, passion building spaces of my donors to the needs and deep openings of my programs and their participants--a way to invite their own hearts' song by connecting through spirit and giving.  even as i write this part i start to laugh because the day i sat down to make these calls i lost my voice.  along with a strong cold that i have this week, came pretty intense laryngitis and i wasn't able to make a single call.  So i started writing e-mails, opening deeply to spirit and the words i felt guided to write to these donors.  really simple e-mails, but at the end of a few days of this process i realized what a strong gift the power this listening provides.  when in full voice, i typically find myself ready with some seemingly brilliant thought to share or guidance to offer...and through this week learned, on a much more present and demanding note, the power of listening intently with my heart and getting out of the thinking space of my brain.(a brain/ego set upon producing a clever bit of info or string of words)

Now as i sense the beat calling in the "tribe" of 9 gates--those souls who still unknown to eachother are already members of a deeply heart-bound tribe--i feel so blessed for the very real lesson of listening.  Returning with the intention of service i am so grateful to learn yet again how to get out of the way of old physical patterns which demand attention for the conversational brilliance of an egoic chatterbox, and opening to a deeper space of listening; opening to the opportunity of being of service, answering a request of need, recognizing the wisdom of spirit as it calls for what it needs and i make myself available to answer that call--truly both for myself and others.

Ah the space here of a sounding board, where words truly do become a rythmic song and all the coincidental and synchronistic moments of learning reveal their melodic weave.

Poetry Monday--just a day early, that's all

zero circle...

...be helpless, dumbfounded,

   unable to say yes or no.

   then a stretcher will come from grace

        to gather us up.

   we are too dull-eyed to see that beauty.

   if we say we can, we're lying.

   if we say No, we don't see it,

   that No will behead us

  and shut tight our window onto spirit.

   so let us rather not be sure of anything,

   beside ourselves, and only that, so

   miraculous beings come running to help.

   crazed, lying in a zero circle, mute,

   we shall be saying finally,

   with tremendous eloquence, lead us.

   when we have totally surrendered to that beauty,

   we shall be a mighty kindness.
Rumi

Evolution of Right Speech

I'm not sure what these 4 images mean...they are something i drew illuminating my own journey of using my voice in right speech.  I have found there is much i have to share that remains unshared, much to voice that is unheard.  i invite my spirit and voice to sound out the heartwrenching tone of my soul--whether this song is sung on key or not, it is a note that is called to join the throng, and without it, the cosmos would not be complete.

what comes around, colors my world

one of my journal pages from a recent moment when i was flooded with information and couldn't take it in intellectually. i switched and started with colors and shapes and here is what i ended up with. then i came home and found this start to a blog. ok, so they both are far from perfect, but the synchronicity could not be ignored, at least not by me:)

this week is completely different. i'm so much more willing to be in my moments, expect good things and am actually finding that to be true. once again a reminder of how life moves in ebb and flow, and where i'm standing in the tide makes all the difference on how i experience the truth.

i am learning that as i trust emergence, the beautiful things for which i seek...i.e. "how a little lama finds her way in the world" seem to just show up gloriously. and when i integrate all my allowing spirit with my silly little old ego, i love what bubbles to the surface!


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Now playing: Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová - Falling Slowly
via FoxyTunes





Lisa J. Winston Photography