Whimsery in Action--pay it forward update

Sometime last december i made an offer to "pay it forward"--make some delightful bit of whimsery and pass it on to someone willing to do the same for someone else. i finally came up with what felt like the perfect idea while browsing for just the thing. i found the idea here (you gotta scroll down one entry)and whipped it up with great personal delight. It was a neck warmer--not a whole scarf, much more time consuming and basically we've all been there done the long scarf thing. this was just a tiny little neck muff if you will; and apparently it delighted many others because i sold 3 of them right off my needles before i was able to make one to send for this blog.
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Honestly, not trying to sell a thing, just bringing my knitting with me to work on and that's all she wrote, or knit as the case may be. Once i was even on the way to the post office with one of my treasures and my friend saw it and decided it was that exact "bit of fluff" that she must have. always one to oblige my friends, i let her have that one and started on another.
i must say, the efficient virgo in me is extremely pleased i am able to use up all sorts of odd bits of yarnas is evidenced by this bright little treasure, which is my own personal favorite and i have managed to keep it for myself--at least for the time being.(not the best of photos, doesn't do the colors justice)

This was the valentines treasure i made to give as a birthday gift a few weeks ago:)

So there's the proof of the craftiness in me and a reminder to my errant cousin, that she must post her pay it forward to receive her treasure.
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Now playing: chicago soundtrack - When You're Good to Mama
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Desert Child

This one isn't by me, it was written for me this year by a friend on my B-day. it's sort of been appearing in my dreams lately, and i find that i'm craving another dream in the desert. With the full moon upon me, joined by the lunar eclipse, i am eager for the new energy this dreams carries with it. Nice how a moment taken by another to really see just a little part of me imparts so much meaning. i am as full as the moon...

Your home, you’re home

In the valleys carved by water and wind,

These dry bowls where all bones show

Veins flow and rush to the Great,

Where hewn wheels carved ruts in salt.

From cities of sins to one of saints

To dwellings abandoned save for Fremont ghosts

And Anasazi whispers

You find shelter in the desert

Solace in exposure.

Your skin sparkles of mica, cheeks of quartz

Hair twisting ‘round like gold Mohave’s devils

Heart found huge at a narrow’s end—a

Wide, sun-beating valley of fire.

Hardened like a those of walk-a-bout’s child,

Feet that have led and sometimes followed.

Clear like a nighthawk

Clever like the crow

Laughing eyes open to a long, long path

To depths back and beyond.

In the gorge where the wren’s call clings

Down the cliffs like water,

Where coyote hitch rides on Highway 6,

Your home, you're home,

Desert Child

Pamela Ostermiller 09/12/07

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Now playing: Ray LaMontagne - Be Here Now

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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
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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
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Now would you teach that to your children?

I have this line of inquiry running in my head that seems to reappear with some frequency. i really wonder about the shit we teach our kids and how aware we are of what we want to pass on to the next generation. sometimes my reason for the question is so obvious like "why in the hell is that child dressed to 'kill' at 6 months old, killing doesn't really match with her darling multi-layered pink bow, nor the bubbles that she continues to blow?" but we can't help it can we, the outfit was a gift, it was too precious to pass up, it's funner than playing with dolls...
or "is it really possible that mom and dad are not aware how disrespectful and downright rude their kid is? if he pulls my hair one more time over the back of this booth, i'm going to pull his back"
and "if the boy just wet his pants as you were trying to force him to climb onto the pony's back, is there a chance he might not want a ponyride today? just wondering"
but much more that these painfully obvious things we as adults seem justified putting our kids through because "we had to learn it as a kid and so should they", i am questioning the behavior of adults and wondering just what the lesson was their parents were trying to teach them, and what the lesson was the kid took on into adulthood?
and what secret did this mom whisper to her precious cargo--to make him so eager to make his entrance into the world?(can i hear it next...)
mostly these are not extreme, terrible or obvious things--not things that parents may even be aware that they are passing on to their kids, it is really more like defense mechanisms, ways of rationalizing behavior or lack of integrity in choices--or outright fears that translate into dicey moments in all of our lives.
so i get it, there is no instruction manual to life, raising kids or being perfect. we are all just really doing our best, but i really do always wonder why we humans tend to shoot ourselves in the foot quite so often.
here's my point, at what place in human history did we learn to believe in our fears, choose life the hard way, let go of our inner guidance system--and then turn around and teach that to our kids as "that's just the way life is!"? i call total bullshit on this one--i really want to expose this practice for the bully that it is, the snidely local priest peering over half-glasses shushing the joyous children of the world, the bitter maiden aunt dried up from lack of proper care and feeding and insisting that those children be seen and not heard, the establishment or the "been there, done that" crowd...
rather why don't we teach our kids and ourselves that life is a tremendous gift, truly a puddle-luscious experience whose marrow we should spend our entire lives attempting to suck dry? this is my personal philosophy; there are unseen, unproven, whispered possibilities that circle our psyches all the time that i would love to hear trumpeted from the rooftops...life is so easy, you have an amazing power and gift and can create whatever wondrous dreams you conjure up, even when serious shit hits the oscillating fan it's because you asked to learn some stuff in this life--that doesn't mean it's not worth living--it means you were powerful enough to get what you asked for...so pay attention to those questions, be clear on your intentions, view life with the joy and delight that it was giftwrapped to be.
(photo credits tim gibbons, photog and filmmaker extraordinaire)
Notice this little chica? utterly fearless, has she ever learned the strange lessons our western society tries to put on us? i think not!!! i embrace this stance to open and let the wonderment in.
i was really writing this in response to a few fears i noticed in others this week, but really it's my own best advice(some showed up to be great mirrors for me) and i'll be the first one to step forward for a little self-mothering.
Hear that lama? puddle-luscious!!!! so let the marrow sucking begin!!!
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Now playing: Adam Green - Jessica
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sense memory extraordinaire

for me it is gloriously self-indulgent and provides hours of nostalgic enjoyment to let the mind ramble through favorite memories. i always wonder what unlocks the brain from one memory to the next, how exactly does the brain filing system work? these mysteries are neither answered nor explored in this excerpt. i just do a little of that self-indulgent crap and invite you to respond with the same...

sound of lawn sprinklers going on with
seeing the full moon come up over mount olympus
--this means summer is in full swing because i am laying out on granny's lawn, it's summer so our sprinkler use is turned to nighttime, and the moon just perfectly comes over the peaks to the east, the grass is still warm from the sun going down. then we scramble for cover

Sound of U2's 'with or without you' with
sight of my old friend don merril playing air guitar and grinning like a chesire cat
--he was the first one to really introduce me to the band U2 and their music became quite the presence in my college years--joshua tree was the soundtrack to my entire semester in jerusalem

smell of pipe tobacco with
walking to gemco
--at an age when i still considered walking to the local grocery store an opportunity for some social interaction(picture hanging out in front of 7-11) rather than driving. i would have to pass our neighbor's house who was a huge pipe smoker, and i loved the smell-sweet and rich. he also had his lawn mowed into a small putting green which seemed so funny to me, i mean we really lived in middle, middle america and can you just picture this dude out front smoking his pipe and putting on his own lawn? who does that??

Feeling the heat of the sun on my goosepimply skin as i warmed my body after swimming for hours with
Laughing uproarously with friends playing pool games for days on end throughout the whole summer...as a kid i never thought vegas was too hot in the summer, what is too hot when you can swim for 6 hours in a row?

feeling so tired and falling into bed begging my mom to
tickle my back so i could fall asleep...isn't there something so precious about the slowly deepening breath of a child as they fall asleep? makes it worth laying by them for millions of nights in a row just to recall that safe and warm feeling as a child:) we would beg our mom to tickle our back in church--sitting through the long services, i'm sure she just hoped we would be quiet long enough to make it out without her killing us.

sound of music blasting out of seriously rated speakers and the
beat pulling your body right off its seat for all night dancing and singing fests. what songs, beats, bands did this for you? off the top of my head...stray cats, der kommisar, careless whisper/wham, housemartins, modest mouse, trio, violent femmes, psychedelic furs, janet jackson, madonna, new order-blue monday, squirrel nut zippers, cake, sinead o'connor, hippy chick, squeeze, jamiroquai, no doubt, dave matthews band, alicia keyes, yeah yeah yeahs, michael franti and spearhead/skin on the drum, prince, the strokes, the kinks, sondre lerche and, and , and....who's ready to make their own list?(consider this paragraph the "currently listening bit"--now i've got to go and make a new playlist

if you live in a glass house

Funny how life brings it isn’t it? I mean we all sit in our glass houses hoping desperately that nobody among us thinks they are without sin, all the while looking for a chink in our brother’s armor—even if we aren’t his keeper. (how was that for mixed metaphor? at this point I’m not even sure what I’m talking about, but stick with me for a bit and we’ll learn together). This morning as I lay in my gloriously puffy bed with freshly washed sheets, reading e-mails, checking the news and wishing for breakfast in bed; I came across a thought of momentary noteworthiness that washed my struggling heart with serenity.

You see, I’ve had sort of a shitty week. Now I wouldn’t go so far as to say a totally shitty week, and it has got absolutely nothing on last week in the total stank department—in truth, things started to brighten up for me at least by Wednesday—so “sort of” really is a perfect descriptive in this case.(I’m just good like that.) What’s funny though is that the change from total to sort of just really insisted on inserting itself whether I liked it or not. And frankly I did like it; I have actually been doing some strange ritual of supination and begging this week and even considered various methods demonstrated in “agnes of god” for the truly devout to bring about a lifting of the proverbial gloomy cloud that has been pouring down, frizzing my hair and plainly ruining my make-up for nigh on a fortnight now.

When the breakfast in bed never appeared I roused myself for an outing to the local coffeehouse to enjoy a warm, ritualistic cup of eye-opener and some friendly banter. The banter was altogether at least 5 times as friendly as it has been for many Sundays and the learning was profound. My coffee companion began to describe a Sundance documentary by stacy peralta of "dogtown" fame called,"made in america" about the genesis of gangs in america and how they began from a genuine desire to build community and a sense of place in the world in the early 50’s—with no real intent or need for violence. My oversimplification (for literary purposes) of the plot linked my thoughts to the brief film I watched just last night about the favelas/slums in brazil and the nature of the gang violence and destitution lived there and the overall stinkyness of my past few weeks.
Then a little question arose in my brain or maybe from my heart…is it any wonder that the people of the world faced with amazing hardship and strife have a hard time rising above their trials when those of us with puffy beds and even the remotest possibility of breakfast being served there can’t seem to get out of our glass houses, quit trying to cast the first stone, wanting to find a chink in our brother’s armor and aren’t even the least bit interested in being his keeper? (not in the zoo sense of the word, but more in the jungle sense of “we’re all in this jungle together, why don’t we want to run in the same herd” sort of way).
The documentary told of how the men who started the gangs, or in their words—clubs, were looking for a place of fraternity where they could come together and form stronger bonds, hold their accomplishments up with pride—a place that wasn’t being allowed to them from the white community.
What is it in the nature of people that would not want another man or woman to be able to join with them because of a common bond? Why it is that human nature does not imbue in us an unquenchable desire to form these bonds wherever possible, to overcome our differences, rejoice in them and relish our similarities as well? When viewed in the global sense, this question is timely and oft disheartening…our nation and global village are crippled because of shortsighted behavior, but my question is posed on a poignant and purely personal level. If we can’t learn to see our literal brother or sister through the lens of unconditional love, even when they behave atrociously; if we can’t embrace our lover or best friend because we love them even when they disappoint us terribly, then at what point is it safe to say that nobody’s house will be left standing—glass or otherwise?
I don’t ask this question to imply that we should all abandon our opinions and differences, nor that we should hesitate to defend or even reveal them, I merely ask in recognition of my own learning…is there a way that we, as the closest of beings, can see each other in all our differences, embrace the fact that there are as many opinions and differences in this world as there are people and we are lucky to have people who love us enough to dispute those differences loving us all the while?
I suppose it was the experience of truly connecting with a few people this week, who while so different from me, were amazing and magnificent in their own right that I began to love them for it—which lifted the gloom, inserted the opportunity to connect through my heart, found the way to express diversity—even resolve conflict, all the while cradling it with compassion. It is this place which instills in me great hope for the people of the world—as we, as I, learn to see all my brothers with the heart--the differences no longer present a conflict, they present the opportunity to more deeply know another and through that, myself—and this will be our global village’s greatest triumph—whether we agree on it or not.

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Now playing: Peter Tosh - Glass House
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Sit! stay....stay.....

so i have to be fair and admit that many of my purposes for writing this blog thing are selfish, well probably most of my purposes are selfish--in fact, i'm open to suggestions about any reasons you can think of that this really isn't a wholly self-involved endeavor. that being said, however, i am coming to some really interesting realizations about myself as i write and read the things that appear in this blog. it seems i write differently for an audience, no matter how imagined or inflated in my mind that audience might be...i try to make more sense, come to some conclusions, be a little more reflective than i might be when only writing for myself. i get extremely stream of consciousness when it's just little old me, can't hold a train of thought to save my life, and certainly glad that so far it doesn't seem to be a requirement i care about when doing my personal journaling.

but should i really want others to follow along with general interest, a modicum of appropriate flow does seem important. so why is this point important right now? because when i review myself i find that i've made some really good points that if i would just pay attention to would really go a long way in helping me not to give in to my ultimate demise. case in point--the whole hiberNation theme--clear back in december i actually put it down in black and white that this season didn't feel like any other, and that my body and spirit both seem to really be calling for a respite. in black and white people, and yet here i am clear into january, new year's intentions clearly set and moving full steam ahead. aha, but here's the thing...(i love here's the thing don't you? there always seems to be some kind of thing) my only new year's goal this year was to live a life fully listening to my internal vibration, if you will. to actually pay attention to when my sense of inner self is vibrantly responding to what i am doing or if it is completely disgusted with my current choices.

now i don't mean this on the grand scale, well yes i do, but i mean it on the petite scale as well. to really start to listen to the little choices that lead to all the moments of my day....do i really like this music, does it open my spirit to connecting to those around me in the way i want to connect right now, how do i want to connect right now, do i want to bring that subject up with him or will it be o.k. to just handle it myself, do i want to go out tonight or is a hot bath just the ticket--these are all questions that play in the most brief of ways through my mind and sometimes i just ignore them, plow right on through with my original plan. writing this out like this makes the plan seem very simple and sort of juvenile, but you try it. go ahead, i dare you to be aware all day long about the tiny choices. the thing i like about doing this is the practice, if i practice just the tiny things, it puts me in the right frame of mind or into the zone to feel it when the really tiny tremors come up to help me pay attention to the important stuff--these are signals i miss all the time unless i am in the practicing zone.

back to the thing--if i am acting on this intention then here's what i hear right now...this is not the time to move into any kind of full swing. what actually feels really right on a vibrational level is to allow the learning to flow to me, not to check things off lists--just allow the space for the really good stuff to rise to the top of the list and become the thing i am in the middle of doing. my words in december are ringing in my ears..."the soulself understands the nature of a time for... allowing the universe to catch up with intention". how is it so easy to lose sight of that simple truth for me? does anybody else struggle with this one?

so i'm adding to the epiphany phrases that pop into my brain, the vibrational hints my spirit sends. last week it was let go and let guy,--the whole living in the now thing, but i want to amend that one... how does let go and let dog sound? in the same hibernation blog, i gave myself some inner coaching to Sit and Stay--the same instructions we give our faithful friends when we want them to slow down and take note of something we are trying to teach them, or not to get too excited, or to wait for a damn doggy treat. the dog's life can provide amazing insight into our human lives if we watch them for a minute. so lama, sit...stay...stay... strange as it may sound or read in this case--the phrase goes a long way towards quieting the errant mind and allowing the much needed respite.

(hmmm, so this posting seems totally stream of consciousness, hope it made sense to anyone else but me; if not, thanks for allowing the rant)

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Now playing: Elvis Costello - Alison
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Let Go and Let Guy

You might say that this week I truly, got religion. I have long been struggling with how to orchestrate my life in a way that brings true happiness and meaning, and I discovered that the answer was so much simpler than I ever believed. Many operate under the distorted opinion that we should turn our lives over to god; allow the will of that Holy Spirit to guide us in these latter days. We often hear the term, “let go and let god” in respect to this philosophy.

I must say that my conversion struck home as I deeply embraced the much hipper and cooler philosophy of “let go and let guy”. The learning came in such a simple way, from an arena for which I have long held mere disdain; and my eyes were nearly blown right out of their sockets when the statement hit me in all its brightness and perfection.

That Tuesday started like many others. after work i made a quick call to a friend, did he want to grab some dinner and a movie, hang out or anything that night—he informed me that he had other plans and couldn’t make it. Being the tight friends we are, I wondered what might keep him from spending a delightful evening in my company and so I asked. He already had plans for dinner and a movie with two other friends. The other two are also my tight buds and I began to grow suspicious, had I forgotten to shower that morning (he couldn’t possibly know that over the phone), had my belated christmas present of a regifted deluxe caramel apple less than impressed him, was it possible he was offended from the last time we got together and I left without helping to clean up the kitchen (after all he had 3 days worth of dishes going in that kitchen, was I responsible for all of them)?

Before I could offer lame apologies for any of these egregious errors, he set me quickly to rights by telling me it was guy’s night and the dudes needed some male bonding. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t begrudge the males their bonding time, and I certainly wouldn’t want them to start questioning how I hang with my girlfriends when they are not around, but I have spent unfathomable hours with these boys over dinner and a movie. I can hang with the best of ‘em and often do. Mind you, I don’t interfere when the lads head off to the gun show to get their concealed weapons permits, I’m never around when they out maneuver each other during their World of Warcraft battles wondering which allied town is under attack, and I make myself quite scarce when they need to really talk about the body parts of the ladies, but this was not one of those nights.

This was a night that we have spent together more times than I can remember, dinner and a movie, and this time the boys were calling it “guy’s night”. Never one to let sleeping dogs lie, I quickly ascertained that the purpose for the evening was not one of the 3 aforementioned reasons, nor anything remotely similar; it was just that one of the guys, who is actually a newlywed, had bestowed the guy night moniker on the evening when his lovely bride declared she was going to have a girl’s night and could he find anything to do? I made a few calls and procured for myself a highly sought for invitation and honorary “guyness” status for the evening if I proved myself to be able to hold my own during the night.

So here’s where this night goes from your basic hang out, to the elixir of hilarity. I had girded up my loins in the most heartfelt of approaches to not “out” myself as the pure, sissy, sweetheart girl that I am. (Heartfelt right…I know, with that attitude I should have never expected to make it through the night, if I had approached it with piss and vinegar, maybe a little braggadocio I might have been better equipped, but heartfelt just wasn’t getting the job done.) as I joined the fellas at the dinner table, I began to clear through the box of odds and ends that my totally bachelor, set in his ways, friend kept on his kitchen table to see if I could throw anything away or just clean out a little of the clutter—I did this while eating my dinner and the rest of the table threw down the gauntlet. My newlywed friend became irate, asking me if I seriously thought I could last the night if I started it by “multitasking”, “multitasking”. Apparently a one track mind is key to the pure enjoyment of “guy’s night” and this track was on food, not organizing! I was quickly informed that I needed to burp, fart or tell a really nasty joke pronto, or I would be shown the door in no uncertain terms. I welled up all my inner tomboy and let out what really wasn’t a half-bad belch, not anything to challenge the current table record holder. i immediately followed that move by swigging directly from the 2 liter container of soda that sat on the table just to up my game and it got me a reprieve for a few minutes.

at this point the discussion turned from who had the worst driving record to the philosophical gem of the evening. My moment of pure enlightenment…when the same newlywed who had been set free for the evening told me I needed to relax…just “let go and let guy”—so simple. Right then and there I was a transformed human being. All along I have been holding on to things the way my mother taught me, my “do unto others” mentality—it had never occurred to me that i might find a better way. There was no need to concern myself with the overall orderliness of my surroundings, no compelling reason I should make myself pleasant and friendly in the group, no burning compunction to somehow make the world a better place. These were all far distant ideas that couldn’t be reasoned out in the here and now, it would be much better to move straight to dinosaur brain and to “let go and let guy”.

How have I never picked up on these cues for easy living in the past? How is that I have spent the better part of adulthood seeking for personal truth and enlightenment, only to find such simple wisdom and guidance practically from the top of a cereal box? I spent the majority of a most enjoyable evening having my feminine errors pointed out to me, don’t wear a coat in the near freezing weather—that only makes you look like a sissy, don’t sit next to me in the theatre—it will look like we’re together, and finally, yes you will go to Alien vs. Predator, the Requiem and “you will like it”, even if it is the dumbest movie of the decade. It wasn’t until the newlywed broke the “guy code” and called his wife mid-evening that I spotted a chink in the armor. Suddenly all the bluster in the world couldn’t cover the fact that he was already missing his wife, what a wuss!! I was getting the hang of this “let go and let guy” business and I unleashed a maelstrom of education on this boy for not remaining true to the code. And then came the real essence of the lesson, I was quickly schooled for my overeager attempt to engage in guylike conduct...this was a “practice” not an “endgoal” to be perfected over a lifetime, and I shouldn’t be so quick to jump into the game. I had glimpsed the nugget of lesson, the true intent of “guyness” is to live in the now, not to hold onto all that other crap that sets my mind to whirling, oh indeed how unexpectedly had this simple truth once again taken the opportunity to teach me a most timely lesson of wisdom and grace?

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Now playing: Spandau Ballet - True
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