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

Anything but this...

It's amazing to me how the past few weeks of my life have unfolded. Through absolutely no master plan of my own, life has shown up to give me exactly what i have needed. The layers of each event have built this mind blowing feeling of assurance and grace in me that i have been craving for quite some time. --So here's the odd bit, in spite of all these happenstances (and mind you not all of them easy or wonderful--just what i needed) i have been fairly unable to articulate in this space what has been going on for me. The past few days as i have finally come to rest at my own home and had time to unravel my feelings, i recognize a resistance to write anything in these pages unless i have come to the perfect conclusion, made lemonade from my proverbial lemons or resolved the inner angst that plagues me.

i am called to ask myself--and you, what kind of learning process do i share if all i write about is the end result, none of the-along the way- underpinings for peace, love and understanding?

( i had someone accuse me of being a drama queen this week, what's that all about if i don't even share some of the drama along the way?)

I spent the last week with a truly perfectly called-in group of people--each one showing up with their own strengths and weaknesses, willing to learn as individuals and as a whole. as i sat before them, asking for understanding, connection and insight; i was overcome by their intention for acceptance, unconditional love when asked for it and willingness to witness the journey each member of the group had shown up to take.

and what did i learn about myself? i was asking to be seen--in the small and tiny ways that so many of us are afraid to share about ourselves. it took me almost the whole week to voice this request, to actually verbalize what i so needed from these people that they were so willing to give. this was not a request that might be classed, in most senses, as one of mythic proportions; and yet, the import for me is grand!!! Funny thing is, i was totally willing to do and say that for any person in that room--but was too afraid to ask for it myself. how does this fear get to boss me around? how does it get control of what i do or say? how do any of our fears get to be the thing that controls our actions, rather than our strengths or aspirations?

perhaps there is something to be said for making lemonade from those old lemons anyway. . . we, each of us, come into this world with the things that already hold great import and merit for us, things that we want to share with the world; but the way we learn to do, share, be in the world isn't always the easiest. i guess what i'm trying to say here is that i intend to write some of the hard things too, not just the glossy moments...so cross your fingers and we'll see what the little fingers type in the way of exposition.

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Now playing: Elvis Costello - (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding?
via FoxyTunes

when the essence leaks right through

a little over a week ago i stood in a room of full grown adults; all of us looking sheepishly around at eachother as we began to breathe heavily through our noses...

and then ever so slowly some timidly began to dance. "was this the start to some strange erotic, orgy-like group ritual"--you may be asking yourself (well i suppose that remains to be seen)? but for the moment it was merely an experiment in "getting cooked"!!

"oh now she's gone off the deep end" you say, "i'm not reading any further", but lest you sign off this downright righteous tome without discovering my topic and going to your grave convinced that my soul will rot in purgatory i urge you to stick with me for a few more lines...there was a time in the history of the world that in addition to getting very still in prayer and meditation to invite a closeness with spirit, or indeed being bathed in spiritual guidance, people from wisdom traditions all around the world used to really get their spirit moving (cooking things up), breathe in and out as if their lives depended on it, and move their bodies like their souls had something to dance for.

"why in god's name would those crazy wisdom tradtionalists do such a thing"? you may be asking
i'm told and am now learning for myself that it was exactly that, in God's name--is why the Quakers did it, in Allah's for the Sufis, it is Brahma, Ganesh, Vishnu and Shiva (among many others) for the Hindus, and the "Big God" for the Kalahari Bushmen. and "what is it exactly everybody's doing?" you ask again. among the many traditions around the world it has been called
Chi/Qi—China Yesod--Kabbalism, Prana--India, N/Om--Kalahari, Tumpinyer Mooroop--Australian Aboriginies and Manitou--Ojibway and the list goes on and on and on

and it is ecstatic breathing, dancing, movement--what has been described by Bradford Keeny, author of Shaking Medicine as "sound poetry, and sound poetry then turns into singing. Shamans, whether they're in the Amazon or whether they're the Lakota medicine people or the Bushman healers, are all about "catching" the songs. Their belief is that the Big God who expresses the Big Love can only share love through the rhythm, the beauty of song."

for our crazy little band of experimenters it was just that, an experiment, a foray into the unknown(surely unknown to us) to see what there was to see. and what did we see there? well nobody fell to the floor overcome with the spirit, no one was immediately called upon to be saved, but what i like to think happened was that we were called upon to remember, remember and awaken to something our wise ancestors knew for generations, centuries and eons before we let our "big minds" get in the way. In the middle of feeling silly, breathing heavy and shaking our tailfeathers one of our number reminisced out loud about the best time he can ever remember being moved by the spirit when it came to music was listening to "in a gadda da vida" the long version. he and his friend danced like wild men for a full 17 minutes...two teenage boys unaware of space and time and self and self-consciousness for almost 20 minutes. As he painted the mental picture for us, for a few short minutes we all returned in space and time to the moments when music, dancing, breathing heavy have truly removed our attention from our physical space and put our attention on something entirely "otherworldly". these are the moments when our skin just doesn't matter anymore and true essence starts to leak right through.

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Now playing: Iron Butterfly - In a Gadda Da Vida
via FoxyTunes

stars or diamonds? it's all good...

last night, after a long day of playing with kids in a very inspiring(this means mary poppinsish and equals extremely tiring) and ultimate 'auntie' like way i entered my brother's house with feet ever so slightly dragging for yet another family gathering. it was my sister-in-law's birthday, her 40th, not to be missed--a big day for anyone and because that number is getting ever so much closer for me, all the more real.

in a large family like mine, gatherings--especially on a sunday--seem to come around more often than not and sometimes my boundaries pull a full stop and require that i abstain from participating. a house full of children, siblings, guitar hero, jacuzzi water fights and any other number of fantabulous diversions can only go so far into the goodtimes zone some nights when all you want is a little down time, a hot bath, maybe a good book and solitude. but we all don't know what's good for us all the time do we? i really did want to go to the b-day party, i just wanted the downtime as well--and since there's always more time for down, off to the party i went.

i have to admit, i was a tiny bit excited. i actually had an awesome gift to give-- a little homemade delight that came straight from the heart and lifted my spirits just in the making. how great is that, to begin to shift the tired and overwhelmed energy--really just by thinking of someone else with warmth and love as you make them something tiny and thoughtful? why do all those wise sayings of 'find yourself in service' or 'get outside of yourself to find the love' begin to ring so true in this instance? when i gave the gift, my sister-in-law was delighted with it, but i'm not sure that's even what did it for me, it was really in the space where i imagined giving her spirit a gift of myself that i was able to warm the very cockles of my heart. (so funny, actually spotted a tray of 'cockles' straight from new zealand the other day in the grocery store. have you ever even known what cockles were? they're sort of like mussels--but the image is so much more complete for me now. kind of like,if you open them up, they are even shaped like a lumpy and imperfect heart).

the evening progressed, songs were sung, crepes were made, snow angels straight out of the jacuzzi were attempted and overwhelm returned to gray the edges. then a moment of transformation overtook me, and i abandoned my tired ego to the joy of the evening...in the room just off the kitchen, two little girls sang into their microphones with wild abandon!!! They didn't care that adults and teenagers looked on laughing, they didn't care that they had never even heard this song before, they only cared to wrap their arms around eachother and rejoice to 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' !! how can they even read the words fast enough to keep up with the song, much less imbue it with such real emotion? a momentary illumination took my own heart, i questioned this week about just what it is parents are teaching their children, the much more important and very life changing question is ..."what are the children teaching their parents?".


aha, notice taken, joy expressed, and cockle-warming diamonds dancing all over the sky.
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Now playing: The Beatles - All You Need Is Love
via FoxyTunes

which comes first...the dance or the song?

Slipping the earphones on her ears, a light shines in the dancer’s eyes and radiates through the room; the space trickles with the sweat of anticipation. her body moves to the inaudible thrumming of the music, bodies respond with a palpable need to hear the pulsing electric current streaming into her ears. She isn’t the most graceful of dancers and there are even comical moments in timing and rhythm, but that isn’t the attraction thing at all—no, it’s this inner vibration that is better than perfectly ripened fruit, better than running an 80 yard touchdown, better than belly laughing until you cry because the whole time you are watching her at her finest, you feel awakened to your finest. You become aware of yourself in ways you never knew before this moment. All this--taking her in so completely at home and in love in her own body and soul and with the moment—awakens a desire from deep within your soul, so much so that you can’t deny your need to be encompassed by that feeling. You crave her in your presence; want to soak up the energy dripping from her fingertips, see her look deep into your eyes and know you so plainly. There is no need for words or explanations--your own soul has been peeled like a grape, exposed and raw; scintillating and almost painful as the warm air dances all prickly over your newly exposed self--you can’t help but hope the little breeze of attention will settle on you and set off the sensations all over again.

Physical desire screams in your brain, begging for a moment to breathe--her eyes dancing past; already knowing you for all your faults and loving you for all your beauty. The scream deepens and burns as you witness the fragility, power and humanness of the dancer; stronger still is her passion, creativity, adventure, whimsy and delight—this may not be your typical response to the dancing few, but then this is no ordinary dance.

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Now playing: Arctic Monkeys - I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor
via FoxyTunes

shadow dancing

journal entry November 10, 2007 from the desert
--into the west, shadow work
i'm on a solo meditation on the broad, red-rock. the sun shines brightly warming the air, but not strong enough in its wintering zenith to heat the face of the stone. a very light breeze plays with the baby hairs along my hair line and the same playfulness is matched by the two courageous crickets that keep me company. clothed in their camouflage browns and greens they must feel a kinship as my garb is much the same.
one little fellow felt so kindly he hopped right onto my thumb and began munching. i never realized crickets had such clenching little jaws and quickly let him know i was not on the lunch menu this day. my stillness and observation call to mind certain moments in childhood when, at the end of a long hot day swimming in the summer sun, i would lay my tired body down on the warm cement poolside, its slightly tangy smell of metal would mix with the chlorine in water dripping from my nose and eyelashes. the long shadows cast by the sun as it set in the west painted a shadow of my profile on the sidewalk, and as my body dried in the sun, i would make faces in the shadows--noticing my lips, my nose, my long luxuriant eyelashes that dripped with pool water--and i would hum a little tune inside myself; pleased to be so still and breathing in my own essence so deeply.
now sitting here upon this rock i am called to wonder--is it that our shadow work frightens us because of the danger held within--or is it simply because we have lost contact with that "deep within"--the place which holds our heartbeat and hum--that would love to be held and warmed in the sun, hummed to and rocked, recognized for its own song, its singular reflection? this moment, this now of awareness is welcome--i do not jump to care for the shadow--my shadow--because it is in pain, but because i love it, i am grateful for the awareness it brings , the depth it creates, the song it sings.

waxing gibbous

ok, so where the hell did the term "waxing gibbous" come from? i'm sure with just a bit of research the answer would be mine, but that's not the answer i seek. really i'm looking for something the other side of the gibbous moon. they say that accidents and suicides increase every full moon and there are some months when i can absolutely understand why.

i can't provide any concrete reason and all indicators should point to a thanksgiving-glazed over sense of bliss, but the ebb season has kicked in with a vengeance! this commentary in no way discounts the many people and experiences for which i am viscerally grateful, that sometimes makes the ebb all that much more difficult to be in with any sort of grace. when there is no real reason to be unhappy and malaise seems to haunt my every thought, it gets a little much to understand. when i really take this feeling out and poke it with a stick, it isn't actually anything resembling depression, i don't have a name for it, just a sense of square peg in round hole

so maybe that's it, i keep on trying to wrap my fucking brain around the situation and it doesn't have a thing to do with the thinking part of me. this is a lesson i seem to need to learn with some consistency of late, that i choose to live based on intuition and feeling, asking that my everpresent "figuring things out" ego/brain dynamic duo kick in really more as a tool than as the director of this one act play. this lesson takes discipline...and honestly, sometimes more discipline than i seem to posses. this is where the whole "lama school" thing really calls for some kind of guru.

maybe that's it, what i am looking for is someone to just spill this all out to and get the ultimate answer, what is this and how do i fix it? damn, even as i say it, my inner-guru is already shouting the answer while standing on a podium in some sort of very large hat...a la rick moranis in space balls. so since i have already spilled it all out to me a million times, the little man with the large hat is screaming get over yourself, you know this isn't real and it will pass so just ride the wave. that feels like a really good answer, but doesn't serve my current need for wailing and gnashing of teeth. ahhh, how do we ever break the terrible cycle of seeking drama?

maybe that's it, just a great big sobbing fest, mirror staring, zit-picking extravaganza. i seriously do think there is something to be said for the sobbing therapy. my mom and a friend of hers--both therapists--came up with the "sobbing therapy" the other day on a road trip, and as they shared their recent lives with eachother, they decided that it would be great to just cry it out even if the tears were crocodile. i like this crocodile drama idea, everything feels stuffed inside and just needs to come bursting out in extreme loudness, breaking of a little bit of glass and maybe just a little hard core dancing to very loud music.

ahh, and now i feel calm, the right answer just appeared in this rant, hard core dancing therapy. this will have to be further discussed in later blogs because now is the time on schprokets when we dance!!!!

thoughts on the labyrinth

i wrote the poem below last year amidst a great deal of chaos in my life. i have been revisiting its themes of late and sensing a different approach. Feeling some pieces of my life to be in a bit of chaos at the moment i read into my own meaning and am a little put off by it. who is this girl and how did she sound so enraptured with absolutely everything around her? while i still love the message of truly entering the dance, boldly stepping into the journey knowing that movement is the direction which brings change, my mood right now isn't feeling all glorious and groovy about the path.

rather i feel quite unsure...what is in front of me, i honestly haven't the faintest idea. i have some pretty clear intentions for myself, and i have learned that specifics are where things can get sticky, so while there are ways i would like things to look in my life, i am feeling this deep underbroiling shift. wow, on the constantly rolling waves out here on the sea of life, how do i gain my sea legs before i drown?

i have this idea that life rolls by us in these patterns of ebb and flow. while it may seem desirable that things are always going my way, i have learned the value of the waves flowing in the opposite direction from time to time. that's where they seem to be flowing right now, not actually against me, just opposite from how they have been flowing. typically i would want to interpret this as just plain against me, but i can't really say that now. it feels more just like i needed some learning from another source or an awakening from alternate resources. so the universe starts to shake things up for me when that kind of learning is at hand. some days it really is just not so easy to embrace the big waves in the spirit they were intended, as some kind of thrill ride. (now i understand how silly i have been to speak the words outloud..."i'm a bit of a thrillseeker")

at any rate, the labyrinth winds on and i weave my way, i'd fancy a scooter about this point in the game for a few moments of leisurely cruising.

Labyrinthine Life

Winding in, gathering up, collecting all
Starting a journey, uncovering where healing steps lead
Do craftsmen commence their plan at its end or is it in beginning a craft that
paths bend towards reward?
Each step a choice that leaves a choice behind, no wonder shoes are so adored
Each pair marks a moment, an occasion, a fleeting glimpse of lessons learned and meaning gained, soul’s therapy revealed in pampering each precious toe
Feet set firmly on course; walking running tripping down, up and around.
Each bump in the road unearths a moment’s memory; how the wind blows, when children play,
Will there be dancing and singing—there is love and laughter.

Reaching center, becoming still, conscious and aware
Hand on heart to hear the rhythm beat its song—is it nourished, cared for, cherished?
Slowed steps at center, closer attention to soles, shoes, path—sticks and stones
Grateful for mercury’s thrumming wings guiding feet to halcyon heights,
And the soulful grounding of steps in guarded message and symbol’s gilded tongue
What a gift this place—right in front of us,
Life’s edges become clouded outside this moment;
And what gods we think ourselves in judging past and future by casting suspicion on the now?
In time, perspective shifts, mirrors reflect another image,
a story untold, a way not yet made known;
How now to learn the fairytale’s end, but to turn again and enter the maze

Arms open wide, wrapped around middle, raised in praise
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may
Dare we recline as Ophelia, blossoms upon our lips only in death?
We must not refuse to plough the furrow, gather the wildflower,
harvest the thistle and drink the blessed wine,
With fermentation, gestation, determination reaching unchallenged heights and countering blows in glorious song.
Life’s coil, poised to spring, unveils evolving plot
Light shone on fear reveals and releases its mystic power,
Urging us to leave known and familiar; embrace unseen and shadow
Choose a new path, conjure undreamed frontiers, birth brave new worlds
Grab your slippers and enter the mist dancing, rejoicing
A voyage is not sailed; passage not conquered,
way not made clear for those who will not begin the journey,
Paint each little piggy, thrust on your shoes and join the throng with those who run the race; not to win—but to run, to spin, to love

august 2006

desert dreaming

Our band of night weary travelers sits gathered by the fire in the warming morning light while a few of the group, unwilling to relinquish the powerful hold night’s vision still imbues, cling tightly to their rumpled sleeping bags. in sacred silence we each welcome the warmth and power of sun and fire into our own days.

what a strange sense of community, with no shared words--only shared space, each one taking on a task as the need arises, start the fire, make the coffee, lay out the breakfast food—until, finally the silence is broken and our dreams intertwine for the day.

the drum beats out the rhythm--arise, awake, come together--bring your spirit and attention to this place, this moment. Last night on the mesa i welcomed in the spirit of the dream for myself in ritual with tobacco, smudge and spirit; the clear chill in the air held at bay by a well-worn down blanket; the light of the stars, intensely singing their own night song, calming the cares of the day and lulling me toward my bed and dreams.

as mates and strangers, we band together on this mystic journey among the bold red rocks--with common history or newly gained common ground, answering a call that cannot be ignored--to step into the circle of this now, this here; to join the dance--awake to this dream and live.