The Day of the LEAP

Inexplicable, Joyful & Absolutely Necessary!

February 29, 2012  Leap Day (do we actually call it Leap day?)  Truly a day almost discovered as if out of some hidden place that everyone goes about acting exactly the same as they did yesterday and will tomorrow without even realizing this mystic and liminal space that has shown up in our daily worlds as if it just belongs here.
FIRST THINGS FIRST
     The energy of the year we are in is one that has long been discussed and debated;  is it a new deadline on doomsday, a time of some prophesied Second Coming, perhaps the year of global crossingover?  There are as many interpretations of the meaning of this year as there are people living it, and from a sense of just adding up the numbers, slowing down enough just to add up the sacred geometry of 2012, we are smack dab in the middle of a year of CHANGE.  a year where life has sped up; events, traumas, moments of note are flying fast and furious and it is up to us to slow down, find the space of meaning in those moments...and step into our own place of change, progress, awareness in how we embrace this shift.

and nextly....
in the middle of all this Fast and Furious, we are presented with (is if a neatly tied package and gift from on high) the gift of a whole extra day.  the entire calendar has split wide open to grant such a day.  oh sure, you say, this comes every 4 years, what's the big deal?  well, there isn't one, unless you want to make it that way.  and i, for one, intend to do so.  Not with any huge party; horns blowing and lot's of drinking...really more of an inner big deal, if you will.  How do i intend to Leap into the energy of change that is knocking so loudly at my own door?  It doesn't feel like any sort of 'out with old, in with the new', it simply feels like a willingness to look at every moment with new eyes, being open to the possibility that i know nothing, the shelf life of all my assumptions on this earthly plane has truly expired and i am embracing the new truths that teach themselves to me in each moment.   Wow, that's a tough one!  my hands kinda move into the GRIPS just with the mention of all this letting go, how come i'm so trained to Fear this kind of Release?  Why are we (and not just the royal we, but the cultural society i have learned some of this gripping behavior from) so nervous about the letting go?

So just for this one day--all my beliefs, assumptions, common practices, habits of behavior--out the window.  In this beautiful, in between, mystic moment of a day that doesn't typically even exist in my year---i choose to behave and believe with the same come from.  Leap Day--Set up to make adjustments in our 'typical normal', repair the rift of time that the last 4 years (if not 4 generations or 40,000 years) have taken us off course from, even if every so slightly just in the microscopic methods.

So no more expectation of the END OF THE WORLD. 

This time of change is really just the beginning.  am i willing to put down my old ways, the heaviness of how i used to do it, allow for some bit of newness and lightness to seep in at the edges?  You bet i am!!!  Today i am new, Nice to Meet You!!!!

A man is born gentle and weak.

At his death he is hard and stiff.

Green plants are tender and filled with sap.

At their death they are withered and dry.

Therefore the stiff and unbending is the disciples of death.

The gentle and yielding is the disciple of life.

Thus an army without flexibility never wins a battle.

A tree that is unbending is easily broken.

The hard and strong will fail.

The soft and weak will overcome.

Lao Tsu

2012 Time to do a Little Shapeshifting

Well we've all been saying it for months at least, if not years...how life feels like life is going so much faster, how what used to be huge and major deals in our daily world have now become par for the course, how we feel like something is about to break wide open!!!

Welcome to the 'breaking' people--the breaking wide open and wrapping your arms around the notion that a new self is at your doorstep!  The energy of this year has long been building, it is a year of CHANGE, of growth and progress, of looking into the new selves we want to become and taking off our blinders of ambivalence and actually embracing the new Us's that have been begging to show up. 

'what is she talking about?' you say

So since i spent my wonderful 2 weeks of self-imposed retreat from goal-setting at the start of the year; goals, notions for projects, strong intentions have been bubbling up in my world left and right.  They refuse to be ignored.  But almost as soon as one idea feels really good, it exhausts itself and a new one becomes The Thing.  i might be nursing a tiny crick in my neck from all the "whippin my hair back and forth!" (big props to will and jada for nurturing this song out of their teenage progeny, willow.  i'm not sure what i might have labeled my own angst without that tune).  and now that i seemed to have dropped right onto the "Highway to the Danger Zone" (the song titles just keep rollin today it would seem) i realize it is not with a little bit of anticipation i keep craning my neck to see what is up ahead. 

and deep breathing is required...

i realize i have this pattern of calling all my practices and learning together and embracing a sort of stillness in the eye of the storm, and then shifting into heavy virgo planning mode to see how i can best approach the frenzy, whether it be a tempest in a teapot or the perfect storm.  i find myself doing the craning thing just now, what is up ahead, how can i handle it "the right way", what is it i am wanting to accomplish and how do i get it done?  this makes for a bit o' the mid-winter madness i'm sure many a groundhog has felt when upon witnessing it's own shadow turned tail and moved back into hibernation for a bit.

well i feel pretty certain i don't want to shift back into hibernation, i also feel like the time isn't quite here for immediate action--and so i practice what i know about the silence--welcoming the change, showing up for myself daily as the next steps present themselves, trusting that my heart and soul are very understanding bedfellows and they won't lead me astray as i, yet again, peel back the layers of who i am to reveal the new, fully, shape-shifted and mewling new babe underneath!  Gentle would be good here!  

reminiscent of this...And the Mind Stood Still and Sit, Stay...Stay....

Practice does not require perfect

If the information is new to you, i have been on a new year's quest for the past few weeks...a quest to go without...No plan to make any goals, resolutions and i am actually even shying sort of clear of intentions. 

Shocking, unheard of, degenerate...you say? 

this could lead to the downfall of society...
So the two weeks are at an end, and i am sort of resisting going back to doing things any other way.  i guess i am really loving this whole space in between where no need to categorize or assess my world exists; only a true desire to be actively engaged in the moment i'm in.
here's what i've learned during this experiment...i didn't really sit around on my duff and eat bon bons, in fact i decided to start a sugar cleanse.  that's right, you read me right...during my season of in between. i started a new eating plan.  "how does that work"?  you might ask....and i'll tell you.  it's perfectly awesome to take on things i want to do during this time, i just do it without the whole notion that i have a goal to lose a million pounds, earn a million dollars and sell a million copies of a brilliant new bestseller. There is no need to constellate my plan with judgement or assesment, just energize it with action.  i did the sugar thing because it feels like it gets in the way of my physical happiness.  in all of my stillness and noticing, i recognized some moments where sugar seemed to feed my sense of less than well-being.  so i chose to notice myself going without sugar for a bit.

i've spent 6 days so far in that part of the experiement, and on one of them i cheated.  that bummed me out, but mostly because i noticed an immediate emotional shift into negatory good buddie!  i don't really love that zone anymore, so today, i shifted back to wanting what it feels like in the sugar free zone.

next, i started making some behind the scenes approaches towards building my own website, making the contacts i need, considering what content is relevant, what i might have to share in such a formal way that is worth putting out there.  "what the freak!!!" you say, "how the hell is that not making any resolutions? this chick is a total bait and switch master!"  no, no, no, here's the deal, it hasn't felt necessary to make a goal that i have a live website by a certain date, with a certain amount of relevant information all live and ready to go.  it has felt relevant that i have some things i wanna do, and some things i wanna say and they are begging to get out...in a more formal and clearly designed way than a catch as catch can blog.  so i can't ignore that a great way to organize those thoughts, and then perhaps even grown them into some awesome workshops and projects that other people can get involved in, is to find a way to go public with.  well whaddya know?  in comes the website.  all of a sudden it feels a little fun and exciting to eek out a few minutes during my week to put some creative thought into that and maybe a few action steps to back it up. 
hmmm, still different from goals, but it feels like a really slippery slope i'm describing doesn't it?

so here's the deal, i'm so far from perfect that i am loving the whole concept of gently, kindly, lovingly letting myself off the hook on that one and putting down that expectation for good.  in return, i am really thrilling in the joy of the PRACTICE of my imperfection.  it is a daily habit i am starting here...noticing all the things in that day that support my total and complete well-being and finding a way to do a bit of that for the day.  i do like that way it feels if i practice that for more than one day in a row, in fact, i am kinda really liking what it feels like to practice on a daily basis...this gets me absolutely nowhere closer to perfection, just a whole lot more actively engaged in living, and i guess that feels pretty good.

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

What Price Perfection?

So for the past few years at Christmas, every time i go tree shopping or think about what i want it to look like i get this nagging feeling that it isn't actually a "tree" i want at all. The little inner juices of creativity within my have shoved one idea after another into my brain, hoping one of them would somehow see the light of day.  Well this year one of them finally did.  Instead of a yummy, pine-smelling perfectly shaped charlie brown tree, this is the idea that popped into my head...a light and air filled tree..a full 8 feet tall and packed with all things creative.  this baby took me over a week to assemble; that old joke about someone always falling into the christmas tree...well, that definitely happened as one huge and heavy ball broke off at the top and fell crashing all the other ornaments beneath it. (i just took a day off after that, so i wouldn't revert to the the fetal position and begin sucking my thumb).

And i love it, i've been playing all sorts of christmas music and feel like i go floating by it every time i am in the room...this simple bit of creative expression has set up a wonderful spirit of christmas for me...but here's the thing...

what's the deal with waiting years and years to try a fun idea like this?  why put so much pressure on myself that it has to be the coolest, most hip and creative idea or it isn't worth attempting? how many delicious, invovled, intricate, exuberant moments of creation have i stifled because "i wasn't ready yet"?  well here's what this feels like for me...i am so happy with this gorgeous bit of frippery that adorns my living room, but i am even more happy that some idea of creation got to take a little test run...

So i invited a bunch of sisters, nieces, grandmas and friends to my house tonight to make gingerbread houses.  i planned it last year with one particular niece who L.O.V.E. loves to bake, but we never got around to it.  the thing is, we wanted to make these "perfect" martha stewart type houses that only have royal icing, a little silver leafing and homemade gingerbread.  as the invite list grew, i grew worried that the other girls would not be happy to have such bald houses and would feel somehow bummed that there was more candy to "pretty up the place".  i had this inner battle going on inside of me.."no, it's my party, we'll make the kind of houses i want",  "i don't see anyone else offering to host such a thing" , "they  will see how beautiful these are when we are done and know it was worth it to do it my way"  what a funny self i am...really, why do i care how someone else decorates their house?  why do i care how much gorgeous frippery they decide to add over every single inch of the house if they like?
Here's what i hope...that in the true spirit of embracing all the powers of creation during this wonderful season of love and light...that i might allow the space for tiny and large creations of my own, that they may be as insanely flawed as ever, but beautiful all the same; and that my delight in this moment will far outweigh the need for perfection and recognize that the effort of creation is what makes me complete.

hmmmm....see how these lessons come around in this blog here Let Go and Let Guy

Teachers, Travelers, Tricksters and Thieves

ok, i really have written like 3 brilliant blogs in my own mind this past week while driving, really compelling stuff people.  and where is all that brilliance when i sit to write?  is it too much to ask for a voice command recorder in my car when i say something like..."recorder on, blog post activate"?

so since i haven't gotten that technology installed yet in my "starting to show its age around the edges" vehicle, i must go straight to the source and allow what comes up now to be the thing.  and here's the thing, it's about being open to what is...and the beliefs i have about that.  i guess this is sort of a Byron Katie question, but with a broader twist.  what i have been learning the past few weeks is about the way in general i accept circumstances, results, behaviors in my life as if they were the only thing that is true.  I know better than this don't i?

lemme paint a brief picture...Mercury has been in retrograde for that past little bit.  for those of you that question this whole astrological influence thing, that's o.k. you just go on questioning.  But i challenge you to do it while paying attention to what cycles come through your life.  for example, A woman's "moon" cycle rotates every 28 days, the tides as pulled by this gravitational force influence so many aspects of our own lives in their own ebb and flow.  and certainly what happens during Mercury retrograde seems to reveal more and more introspective places of examination and shifting.

In general, Mercury rules all means of communication, commerce, education and transportation and people who use their energy in these areas like; writers, spin doctors,teachers, travellers, tricksters and thieves.
And somehow this energy moves into energetic glitches in electronics like phones, cars, computers--something in their operating system seems to go awry.


So why does this seem important to share?
i've found myself all wrapped around my own need to communicate, from just making phone calls in general, to sharing my deepest emotions and feelings in new ways.  and during the past month, while this need in me grows to be more clear, transparent, open to connection and loving, by success at these connections has met with some interesting ripples in the process.  i find myself circling back around to old ways of doing things, wondering why i'm ending up here again, and then realizing that habit is begging to be let go on a whole new level.

Mercury's retro phase tends to bring unforeseen changes and blockages, 

but the aggravation and frustration that many of us experience during these periods

is often due to our own inability to roll with the punches. Is this due to our ego-fixation?

I think all that brilliant drive-time self-writing/ talking has been this subconscious beginning of finding a way to iron out the wrinkles.  It may be that some of those wrinkles are just perfect to learn to navigate around, and it may be that when this time of retrograde arises it is an offering.  Opening an energetic space to restructure how we think things "should be", how attached we are to our belief about the way a thing must look.

i like to think that with all these teachers, travelers, tricksters and thieves being triggered, it's no wonder i find my own face in each of these characterizations and that each demands its moment in the sun, with the light of exploration revealing what has been kept in the shadow until that moment.  and so, gentle, gentle, gentle...be kind to self, love what comes up--allow it to be the thing!

Funny how this introspection cycles, see what other Decembers have brought up in me here

Now is the WINTER of our discontent...oh good winter, welcome with your blankets of stillness and white

art by Lisa Van Sand

Did you know this line means that we are in the winter timing of all things "ebb" that keep getting in our face? (at least to me it does)  As i come up on the end of this year, i am starting to do a year end sum up in my head of where i've been and where i'm going to.  Lots of moments and situations feel challenging in my life.  sometimes challenge can have a negative underpinning, but i'm gratefully putting on this conscious choice of knowing that the things that show up in my life to challenge me are just what i've been asking for. Only sometimes, i'm not so great at matching up the challenge to the actual prayer i've uttered on its behalf.

for example...

Prayer/intention/ internal plea when i'm feeling all heavenly and nonplussed...

"Please let me be conscious of my own issues, don't let them become burdens for other people to deal with, please let me recognize them and shift within to allow a space for growth, maturing and love..."

sounds good doesn't it, can't you just picture a prayer like that?  even setting such a lovely intention feels all yummy and pure from the inside...and then what happens....


my take on the resulting 'opportunity to gain this strength i've phrased oh so eloquently'...

i park my car in the wrong place because i'm in a hurry to do someone else what feels like a gargantuan favor and they've already way overstepped what feels like appropriate levels of taking advantage...and my car gets towed, my tire goes flat, i end up in the biggest fight i've had in a year because of it...

 Now when i was all at peace and ommmming the crap out of that loving intention, i never knew i was asking for such a shakedown to get over my little ways of not clearly stating my boundaries, not lovingly holding my own space and letting someone else take on the consequences for their own learning..., and hey, why would i ever consciously think to shoulder someone Else's "prayer" of learning?  So i can lovingly give back what isn't mine to handle, learn or take on...but to feel good about it, i am learning that i must do it with awake eyes, not angry shrugs.  When i can hand back a big packet of learning without getting my ego in the way...my heart opens with huge ease, my sense of tranquility and peace on earth become the mainstay rather than the occasional visitor and i am happy.

My shit may not be all worked out, but wow, it's way better mucking my own stables than somebody Else's.  (sorry hope i didn't lose ya in the mixed metaphor journey, it's just that more than anything these pages are for my ego to catch up with what my soul has been shouting for eons--sometimes you just gotta work this shit out on paper!) So at last, here i am with some eyes wide open, seeing how life is answering these kind of prayers left and right, how i can get really clear with my own prayers and intention and lessons become so much more welcome and gentle, and how with that awake learning, my discontent is all kindsa wintered out!!!

and my heart is open to the Spring!

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!!!!

This is a prayer for the open hearted...

This prayer goes out in images, no words attached.  just an open heart and spirit, praying for the essence of the image.  The other day i sat down to blog and all i could add was the above pictures; not for some mechanical or formatting reason, but because it was all i had to say. i didn't even know what it meant.

So i've taken a few days to sit with and realize
there is often no reason to put words to expression,
no call for reason from form.
Sometimes simple expression is the meaning
and words just detract from what is being born.

what a stretch for the expresser in me, my medium is words;
how they sound together, or when juxtaposed against another.
the picture drawn from word's expression invites the mind,
the memory to launch the journey from which they're tethered.
and so the leap, with no words to support,
trusting that image will strengthen the cord.
when close in falling, almost touching the ground,
the vision that lifts us is what turns it around.

Let me say it a second time...are the voices inside worth getting out?

People you should see the pages of writing i have that aren't ever going to make it to this blog.  i sit down to write, pour some shit out...and it all feels too raw and personal to share here.  i'm not sure how that feels to you.  how vulnerable does just one seeker need to get in public? but that's the whole idea right?  or else why would i be writing this silly old blog anyway...so here goes my new attempt to share a bit o' the lama with y'all today:)

Let's get real,

the two minds of the lama...she who talks the loudest?

i've had a lot of people share with me that i speak and write very eloquently...in fact, some have gone so far as to say it's intimidating.  believe me folks, i don't share what i write or those 'compliments' in an attempt to garner support for the silky stylings of the lama fan club.  mostly i just pour stuff out, but what i am realizing is that the process of writing for me is one of synthesis...it isn't just stream of consciousness, but more assimilation.  a way for my brain to get up to speed with what has been on runaway for however long and is begging for a look to be taken at it.

Here's the conflict,
how do i take a look with my heart instead of just making the space for my brain to get involved? i do this review thing, this synthesis or assimilation, and i think it's part of an elaborate ruse for my ego to settle back into the fiction that it's in charge.  if my brain gets to wrap itself around all the thoughts and emotions that i am experiencing, then it gets to harness and dictate what choices/actions i will make next.  so there's the rub...i'm on this hugantic quest to get the fuck out of my ego brain and writing seems to put me right back there. (see if i use the f word here, you can tell i'm really fed up with this bit and while you might be offended you also might get on board and relate with how high my emotional frustration is...good girl ego felt the need to explain that one, brainy ego felt the need to qualify for good girl so she doesn't seem stupid...well fuck, anyone else want to chime in?)

so what's the goal...well according to my laughing yogini, there is no goal, there is only now...so that's what i got for today.