The Liminal Realm

So who remembers the seinfeld where george's dad invents a new "christmas" holiday called "festivus"  and hauls around this strange festivus pole and tries to get everyone to consider it as an option?  ok, so i'm not going to start carrying around a new kind of tree (although strangely enough i did invent a newish tree kinda thing this year, maybe that was the start of this notion?--see my last post for "new tree expose' ")  But i am formally proposing a new holiday type thingy for your consideration...

i mean, what is new year's really about anyway, right?

every year we all jump on the bandwagon of setting new resolutions, and according to Oprah's experts, we go about falling off that wagon approx. 6 weeks later...that's it, just 6 weeks to change your life every year and then it's just too damn late for a whole notha 10.5 months. 

so i'm protesting new year's this year...no more resolutions, no more starting over, no more clanging pots and pans to welcome in a celebration of all things failed 6 short weeks from now.

here's how i look at it?  what the hell were we thinking?  if you come at this from a straight seasonal approach, we are within a week(ok a tiny bit more) of the shortest day of the year, it's freezing cold out (at least in my neck of the woods), the earth is lying fallow, chilled to the bone while all the seeds planted from the mulching upturning of earth in the fall are just waiting underground, gestating in their seed juice, knowing inherently what they are called to do, but also smart enough to answer the call when the season is right.

this in between time, the space where the world is taking a deep resting breath, where the silence of snow wrapping much of the northern hemisphere( ok at least it is cold enough for it, can't account for lack of moisture in the stratosphere...that's a whole 'nother discussion about nourishing and resources for yet another metaphorgasmic chat at another time) is a chill enough blanket; this is a time when our own energetic rhythms are calling for the feeding that comes from a deep subconscious sleep, when all the 'amniotic' hubris of self-creation gently rocks our souls in what ma in her nightshirt and pa in his cap lovingly refer to as....' a long winter's nap'!  So what's all that clatter on the rooftop about?  what is that magical dream of eight tiny reindeer and the fat man in red and white(btw the universal colors of the red cross, the suggestion of greater causes of heart at work in the world, opening heart and coming to our aid)...hmmmm, perhaps the mystic appearance of our own willingness to suspend the disbelief of the 5 senses we know in our physical realm might not be the only sense we have.
Perhaps this winter's nap is an invitation in THE LIMINAL REALM?  well i'm no genius, interpreter of all things mystic and magical in the world, but i have had enough 6 week cycles of goal and release, that i am eager to seek for a deeper meaning in what the new year might bring.
So here's what i'm proposing... 
how 'bout the fortnight from new year's eve straight on through to jan. 14th become our own celebration of the "Liminal Realm"; a true Hol(y)days celebration and exploration of the internal spirit planted deeply within each of us?
How about giving this physical realm a break from all these goals set and broken, timing and germination thwarted to peek our heads out of the earth long before the seed is set to sprout?  what if instead we honored the planting?  what if we went within, with great stillness began to observe what great intentions we have been calling in since the days of high summer, light and harvest?  how cool would that be to allow that GREAT NOTHINGNESS OF EXPLORATION, allowing the seeping in of the mist of spirit at all the edges to inform our waking senses of just what might be at play deep within the earth.

How would those 14 days look?  maybe lot's of time choosing not to go to one more party, do all the returns that are so pressing, come up with a whole new Franklin Planner full of next year's plan....perhaps in the long silence, that place of allowing; a prayer for inspiration might actually create enough space that from the deepest of liminal spaces, where belief and disbelief get right on out of the way, will emerge a sense of knowing just what is being created, germinated, sprouted, nourished deep within our hearts and beings, waiting only to emerge when once it's named and whispered into the ethers...those forces of spirit hear the call and respond with the force of the angels (well, 'cause that's who is actually listening, on our side, willing to jump into action when a prayer for assistance is spoken, muttered, shrieked, signed and heck...even karaoke style sung into the cosmos!)

so consider this the formal LIMINAL HOLIDAY MOVEMENT...2 whole weeks to allow our winter's nap to really take root, speak to our hearts from a deep realm, open our spirit to what feels really important and becomes the joyful thing we resolve, intend, open up to all year long, in each little and big moment of expression, connection loving and growth into which we choose to breathe!!!! this is what feels like it might truly be a real expression of self in the Holiest way of all during this Hol(y)day season. What's the hurry anyway?  why be so attached to only what you resolve the last night of the calendar year? How about that just being being the start of how and what we notice our highest- self stepping forth to claim in each waking moment?

p.s.  i think this feels like a really yummy new year's card too, so please consider this the news of my year until you hear otherwise( at least a fortnight!)

love and other lushy stuff,
lama

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!!!!

The Warrior's Lament or With Arms Outstretched Wide

A few years ago I participated in a 7 day personal vision quest with a group of about 10 people. Three full days and nights of the quest were solo and fasting in the wilderness.The pre and post days were spent in preparation and follow-up with the group in the wilderness as well. I experienced some major personal revelations/visitations during that solo time on the mountain, and my learning and own awareness continues to unfold as time keeps on slipping into the future from those mountaintop moments. A few months back I met with my good friend and facilitator of the visionquest journey--who was interviewing me for his dissertation—a piece on the vision quest experience. I was really curious to hear his observations and asked if i could read it when he was done--so i just got it and read it and here is what came of that...

It’s so funny how shocked I always am by an outsider’s perspective on my own inner journey. I have had several moments sitting on the therapist's couch when I have learned some really surprising bits about myself 

and have felt none too settled as I digested the curious information.

This is how I felt as I read his paper—shocked, surprised, even troubled by the summation he had come to on my personal learning from the journey. Is this really what came across as the most important piece of information I had shared? Could he have possibly been not really listening to what I had to say? Is it possible that he came into the interview with so many preconceived notions that he only heard what he wanted to? Well all of this is possible and actually even probable—I’m of the opinion we typically only hear what we want, and only as it relates to us most of the time. However with all those disclaimers being made, I also came to another conclusion that was quite surprising to me...

I had learned something much bigger, more powerful and poignant than any of the conclusions he came to about what I shared, but he could only base his observations on what I told him; He wasn’t up there on the mountain with me; He didn’t stand on the edge of that cliff with me, chest bared, long hair whipping in the wind as I wailed out my own personal lament, crying to the ancestors that surrounded me to ‘come running’ as if from Rumi’s stretcher of angels; 

How could he have known any of these things...

because I didn’t tell him? 

Not only didn’t I tell him, I considered the knowledge, the personal revelation, the intimate experience to be in fact so intimate that I could only reveal it in the verymost intense and 
deeply in touch of moments that few on this plane would ever know it.

So why when I read his observations was I so offended that he hadn’t read it in my essence 
as if from the ethers?  Oh the personal indignation, nostrils flaring, quippy dismissal—I moved effortlessly into fullblown denunciation without much provocation(all with at least a small maintained sense of humor about the whole thing)  that I had to let go even that fact that I had read his paper at all for a period of time.   As I caught my breath, let a few weeks pass, reread the paper a few times—most importantly reviewed, expressed, defined and embraced the big lessons that sit so profoundly on my heart from this experience, I realized that I had fully protected, guarded and strong-armed any intrusion into that space, even from the most well-meaning of inquiries.

And here it is… How else is it possible that others come to know those places in me, other than if I choose to share them?  I am the keyholder and gatekeeper—wow, I get all the power.  But what’s that guardianship worth if there isn’t anyone to share it with?  Realizing all this, I look at some of his observations and the pendulum swings back…maybe he wasn’t entirely off the mark, maybe he was able to come to some conclusions about what I had told him that really did have something to do with what was going on for me…and then a little more breath, allowing, okayness sneaks in.   and so we are both right…there is more to share and more to learn…and just like that,

now the way is made open.

i ask you, is this the eye of God?

i'm not quite sitting on the dock of the bay, but the view from where i am atop the trees of the amazon is not one to scoff at. from my perch in the trees it would seem i am just another creature of the jungle...and my lovely friend (her partner was just a tad bit more shy) appears to be questioning me as much as i am questioning her. do you think perhaps she thinks me god as well? in her world that girl with the crazy, frizzy (thank you rain forest humidity) hair could be the strangest thing she has ever seen and just might be considered some kind of celestial visitation. (since i have added a little more blond to my hair of late, everyone thinks me a tad bit heavenly)

my question really is, why isn't that bright eyed, alert and a little bit cunning bird in front of me the god i am looking for? and perhaps she is...i really couldn't ask to be placed more squarely in the heartbeat of the world or perhaps the cosmos than where i am sitting right now. i am breathing deeply, opening heart and eyes...from this stance layers peel away and i feel stripped bare and vulnerable and like it that way

Life by the Drop

At what point in my life did I switch from being the one who sought my thrills in adventure to the one who sought my thrills in the stillness? This isn’t to say that I don’t want to be involved in amazing adventures, doing amazing exciting things; because I do, but these are not the things that I actively seek to fulfill my heart.

So what do I seek? At this moment I’m sitting looking out at the atlantic ocean, a gorgeous breeze cooling my oh so foolishly sunburned legs and listening to my friends talk about how they are so energized by building their network marketing business. We have just spent the last week volunteering in the slums of rio, connecting, working with people who live in the hardest and most desperate of conditions. One evening we sat talking with a group of young men, they have lived the hardest of lives, their career paths are a choice between drug dealer or dirty cop—they have never even known the concept of choosing to do something one loves—perhaps they don’t even have the smallest idea of what they love, their biggest dreams are somehow focused around sleeping a full night in their own bed, with no bedbugs eating away at their skins, while the sound of gunfire outside the thin walls serenade them into a false sense of security for the moment .

By a sort of blessed grace, this group has been swept out of the favela. Living together in a home outside the slum sponsored by the nonprofit we were volunteering for. One of them, Sidney, spoke of his emotional breaking point a few months ago. One night, laying in his cramped and dirty bed, he suddenly felt that if he didn’t find a way to leave the favela immediately he would die—selling drugs, living in the terrible hand-to-mouth existence dangerous drug culture—it was the beginning of the end for him, either the actual end of his physical life—he could actually feel that he would end up dead soon, or that he must end his way of being, the only life he had ever known. He began praying to his god that very night, “please find a way to take me out of this”.

My heart just absolutely jumped out across that room, encircled his beautiful smiling spirit with my own. I felt tears of joy welling up in my eyes as I was overcome with gratitude that he had found a way out of the only life he had ever known, into this new and shining opportunity for a new way. We talked for just a few moments after the group broke up, and with a translator he told me that he was overcome with a feeling of “saudade” for me --if my translation is correct—a feeling of longing and missing for me in his heart. Tears sprang into my eyes as we shared a brief moment knowing that we cared so deeply for someone in the world that we didn’t know at all, but knew entirely at the same time. In my world, I feel hardly old enough to be out of my own childhood, and in his world I am old enough to be the mother that loves him fiercely with all her heart.

These are the moments I seek. They appear in the oddest of ways. Of course this was a huge and obvious one, but they all come wrapped in different packages and I feel so blessed to get still enough to notice them when they appear. The past year for me has been full of very big moments, lots of traveling and larger than life ways of being in the world. And through so much of it I am learning how the exact opposite is the moments in which I find my soul… lying under a cedar tree on a moonless night, quietly hearing more than seeing the family of deer steal by on their way to slumber; listening to the visions in my mind long enough to see the story that unfolds and sharing it outloud; stepping into a kitchen full of the smells of love being simmered on the stove and spread out as a feast before the family…

So is the adventure the trade-off? It’s not that I am called to abandon the glorious pursuit; it’s just that somehow the inner adventure of the soul now is a stronger and more glorious call. For this I have felt my own “saudade” so many times—and now joyously breathe in the blessed moments of soul adventures as they fill my moments and my soul.

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Now playing: Stevie Ray Vaughn - Life By The Drop
via FoxyTunes

same bat channel

whole new format--o.k., not really new and not different so much as just a little bit shorter.

what i want to know is how do people with full time jobs have time to fully service a blog of this nature, live a normal life and put in 8 hours+ a day? when i was just a part time worker of the world i still couldn't put the time in here that i would have liked to.

so here's my question, am i just not that hard of a worker, maybe not really that great of a writer, are others more passionate about their job--or maybe just their writing, have some discovered the secret to the space/time continuim that allows for expanding time where it is needed and contracting where it is not, is there somewhere a perfect voice recognition technology that will record my thoughts in the car and deliver them in perfected format to this blog, how do i get the sounds of water running from the shower out of the recording--that's where i seem to have my most perfect thoughts....and sometimes in that in between sleep and awake moment, when the luminous nature of the soul steps in to usher me to the other side--but it's just about then that my motor writing skills are at their worst and i never seem capable of breaking free from slumber's grasp long enough to jot a thought or two down? (how's that for a question)

anyone out there with all the answers????