6 Degrees of Indra's Net

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

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

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

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

Sobonfu Some 

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


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

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

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

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

Gifts of the Desert

I feel quite certain Edward Abbey said something moving and brilliant about the gifts the desert freely gives; perhaps something like

how the sun and carrion scour our bones exposing a story our ivory is there to tell,

or maybe

the lavender hued shadows at dusk tempt us to look with the vision of owl, bat or mischievous coyote into the mystery where no sun's light casts our story into obvious relief. 

I invite you to seek out your favorite quote about these gifts(or write your own) and insert it here in your thoughts...(feel free to share if you are so inclined) for only you know exactly what mood and gift this moment asks to share with you.

this morning as i cleaned through a stack of papers in my room that clamor from somewhere deep within their pile "herein lies all the wisdom, all the answers, don't cast us away", but i'm never quite sure what to do with--i found the following birthday gift emerging to be heard and read and held, and it felt the perfect way to honor the turning of the season from birthday to autumn, from introspection to pruning and preparing for hibernation whence seeds germinated begin their coiling stretch in DNA code long since buried that ignites us all--and so i share it with you in joyful celebration of its expression.

from tessa at my birthday

Desert sun, radiant watch

the eye amidst the grass.

Stretching forth, the gnarled branch.

It holds the last rich seed.

An ancient crane, its song a sacred melody to the woman's bone.

The shadow of the red cliffs cradles,

ever holding, ever strength.

And high above, 

sent from the wind, 

a silhouette that calls you round.

A message from yourself.

You've seen its face and feel the stone.

The Place.

--in reaction,
a heart filled with tearful blessedness,
hearing the crane's cry, seeing the woman's bone
cradled deeply in red cliff's shadow
a message from self--this shadow stalks me,
warrior, shaman, sage
silhouette ever with me, silently willing and waiting to be heard
i am blessed and grateful indeed.

Co-creators all!

'WTF'..she asks herself when waking with the craziest migraine that ever snuck up on a sleepy sunday morning!

moments of wondering what the hell my spirit is up to--i think every now and then it steps up to test the things i say to see if i really mean what i am asking for...as in

"Allow myself to introduce myself"

1.  loving the hiking thing and having the most recurring hamstring tightness ever

2.  experiencing an incredible new lightness of being and hitting the top of the scales

3.  embracing the challenge and thrill of offering spiritual guidance and releasing my own attachment to having any clue how to guide myownself

4.  opening my heart to deeper loving and feeling dark moments of pure alone

5.  reveling in the self-discovery that writing brings and complete stream of consciousness writer's block

(i think there are many, many more of these i could identify, but it feels like empowering the grip of the self in me that laughably believes it is in charge of figuring things out)

so here it is for today, life isn't what i make of it...i sum it up into all these neat little boxes all the time, simple ways my brain can analyze and synthesize just what is happening in my world.  but if my world were up to the very finite reaches of my own brain, my life would be limited indeed.  so the true beauty here of all the hard stops and face-plants is learning to trust the amazing co-creator i am with the universe and know that as i call a way of being into my world, the very things to help me get that are what shows up.

here is the gift of this moment of awareness

there is an eye(I) within that does not require visual confirmation, it yields and flows as harmonics emerge.  there is no struggle for clarity and making sense--these are true functions of a limited vision; rather there is a Self that resonates in the equilibrium of the Soul awakening to its own return.
It is within the I(eye) of this hurricane that the deepest stillness resides.

Birthmonth

I'm a virgo baby and it's my birthday this month.  many years ago i adopted the practice of advertising my birthday to be exactly sure that friends and family had enough advance notice to celebrate me according to the many hints and requests i had given them.  This advance notice has truly evolved for me and it feels like it has become more of a huge set of bookends set around the month of September in which i insert as many intentional celebrations, introspections, retreats and dancefests/singalongs necessary to assure that , from the inside, i am able to celebrate my own life, know what it is that i even care about celebrating.  But this month has been a little different than past birthdays, and i am reflecting in what feels like a very different way this year.

Having just spent the month of August out of the country, out of my day-to-day life, focusing on spiritual practice and intentional open-hearted interaction, i have found myself feeling a little nonplussed this month because it feels like much of the birthday work i would normally do for the year was really taken care of last month.  And what i find myself in the middle of now is truly new territory that i both love and fear at the same time.  i find that i have enough awareness and caring for myself that i treasure the learning from my recent travels and hardships and embrace their value in my current days.  i.e.  after 30 days of being the most open-hearted, least reactionary and willing to take nothing personal person i have ever been while living abroad, i find that i am truly challenged with the notion of bringing this home and incorporating it into my daily world.  i also find that with the open heart came this willingness to risk in a way that hasn't been around for a long time...or at least that is what came home with me and started out the month.  Now i feel just a wee bit fearful because i notice old habits and protections slipping back in that i am no longer fond of.

So i am set with a Birthday Challenge of holding truer, examining more deeply, embracing more authentically this person of becoming and i'm afraid.  i don't know how to be a new me, i certainly don't know how to stay the old me and survive the inner fury.  But even more than surviving such a fury, i truly choose to step into this void, leap with abandon.  i find instead that i step with caution, tight hamstrings, puffy ankles and toes in need of a pedicure--and yet step i do--thanks to the many who have contributed to my general discomfort that i choose gratefully the risky leap rather than sticking with what i already know.

Pump up the Jam

SENSE   since when does greater awareness bring shortness of breath?  am i foolishly under the illusion that i have any sort of awareness about anything?  sometimes ebb and flow is full of a helluva lot of ebb.  integration can mean that the new way really wants to upset my apple cart...and then here i sit with a bunch of bruised apples by the side of the road. 

SENSIBILITY   note to self -- even when i am on some level aware that my shadow is shifting, a new light is casting its gaze on me, and my ego is learning to relinquish its range of control over so many aspects of my life--simple does not mean easy.  right here is where i must remember to BREATHE.   (oh yah, that god CPR thing might be kickin' in right about now)  so don't mind the omnipotent beating on your chest when it feels like your heart might break right open...how else to 'improve the rhythm' than to inject a little baseline.

holy hot damn batman

and with the blink of an eye, what seemed so real, something to worry over, that brought great stress and anxiety is complete.  with the support of many unseen angels and the loving kindness of so many old and new friends what held all the mystic writing of a true nervous breakdown has been a gift of extremes...learning, hardship, stretching, friendship and eye-openers.  as i sit late at night under the full brazilian moon, with what appear to be 2 of the world's puffiest ankles attached to my legs--i recognize the mixed blessings of so many things.  my heart is full in awesome wonder at how the world yet again, shows up to be my safety net.  nice catch batman! y grace a deus:)

Serendipities

my neck does not quite have strong enough muscles to keep my head on straight from all the flip-flopping my little spirit has been doing this week.  thank heavens, literally, for the jumping in on so many moments of bits of blessing that intercede on my behalf.  as i progress in learning i get more and more convinced that i have built a pretty crazy ego in this lifetime.  there are all sorts of hoops i have set up over the years that i ask myself to jump through just to feel like everything is ok in my world.
where did these crazy notions come from?
now i find that it is only through tighter constraints with even bigger expanses available on the other side that i begin to clearly recognize how joyful it is to let go of ego altogether.  when that deathgrip of control finally gets so exhausted, worn out through all its incredibly silly machinations of apparent perfection, the moments of grace do this little snoopy dance of glee and start to slip in at the edges.  i am always loving how joyful synchronicities show up in my life and welcome the signs that they are winding their way toward my prayerful pleas.

Just such a synchronicity showed up in the form of a long-haired, soft-spoken, deep-thinking friend that appeared to be my co-leader this week. when it seemed i would be working on my current group solo and my neck started doing these funny spams of stress-related grips, an unlikely candidate was suggested to me and after a mad dash for a brazilian visa and several marathon phone conversations, here we are together leading this group as an ensemble.  and wow, my eyes are opened at how the learning comes.

"with arms outstretched still..."

turns out this last minute replacement leads ropes courses for inner city youth building life-skills and self-esteem, and with every question he asks, frisbee he tosses, and rope he ties to a tree i wonder at the power of the web to pull such a teacher into my path.  not that he is aware of this at all, or maybe he is...? (how does the saying go..."when the student is ready, the teacher appears")  in his own projects he leads group chats, what i call "Noticings"  he calls "Serendipities"  and they do abound.  for this i am grateful.  As the Angels Have been Called, the drums are beating right along with our hearts and hippie-like co-leaders appear as an answer to prayer.  i suddenly notice the clear, serendipitous gift i have been given and with arms and heart open wide, i reach out to receive this gift with all the magnanimous show of support, love and answer to prayer in which it was given.

Drinking from the Fire Hose

it's just 24 hours before 25 young men and women arrive for their 2 week excursion, i've been at our site for 2 days and what seems like 3 lifetimes since i got off my plane.  i keep having this vision of some kind of reality show where some guy named joe appears atop a high perch and announces loudly-- 
turn on the hydraulic, max-suspension, state-of-the art, smoke 'em if you got 'em FIRE HOSE.  
Whoa nelly, and i think somewhere deep down inside...did i shave my legs for this????
  Before y'all get too nervous or worried for my actual sanity or anything like that...let me start (well start now) by saying, i think i'm all right...in the words of the Monty Python Players..."i'm not dead yet".  i have to say in the past 2 days and 3 lifetimes i have thought many many times that if this were a year ago i might not be able to handle all this shit!!!  and now, today--it really doesn't even smell like shit.  wow, life has handed me a completely new service project, a coordinator who missed his flight and won't be here early to prepare, several in-country employees who suddenly don't work here anymore and a lot of possible drama about the how's and why's of that, two women who are my absolute heart connections that i will be eternally grateful for becoming their friends who can't welcome me into their home because of possible family trouble....these are just the highlights...and with every new rock that gets overturned i do this sort of ...am i drowning yet test, when i realize i can still breath, i take a deep one and keep paddling.

funny thing here--i've got muscles i never knew i had...muscles of expansion and contraction, of living in some serious ebb and then finally stretching for the flow that are now flexing their apparent JIEnormous selves.  or it may be what they say about an adreniline rush...when stress hits in the biggest of way, our hormones kick in to help us cope.

so here's the gratitude...i don't feel stressed.  hmmm, lemme check, no, not yet anyway (and i don't want to jinx myself because i've got some big weeks ahead of me) this brand new muscle i've discovered, i'll call it the River Breather, nestled right between the lungs --adjacent to the diaphragm, this one has been building for nigh on many months now.   the gratitude comes from the recognition of the tiny and persistent moments when holding the breath teaches the River Breather to build a bigger capacity, when screaming at the top of my lungs teaches the River Breather how to call in all angels and guides possible for assistance, how praying with all of my heart teaches the River Breather that there is absolutely nothing it can do--powerless to aid me at all, it stops breathing altogether to allow the true higher power of all i surrender my ego and will to , to step in and administer CPR ....

ahh there it is, now i see it...i thought this was a fire hose and it is godly CPR...it's all in the perspective isn't it...and last month i was the one PRAYING RAIN wasn't i?  silly wabbit!!!

chime in folks...how's the month for you?  is the fecund, fertile and final month of summer summing itself up with any learning for you?

And through it all, a river runs...

Next week i lead a group of 25 kids and young adults on a service mission to Brazil...along with all the powerful lessons of service, loving humanity and opening our hearts to so many who are so different from us...i imagine the opening of a perfect space for self-examination and growth has never been more serendipitously crafted.  While we all indulge our own sense of adventure through service and believe that we are really going to be there to help others, i am constantly recognizing the revealing truth--that the very biggest gifts of learning and growth will be internal, personal and life-changing--for myself included.  As i frantically buzz around completing last minute schedules and work plans, making sure i have put all motions into action that these kids can learn from, i have to laugh and recognize that the exponentially more astute and powerful godly practice of the universe has already called in all the characters, done so much homework and has the greatest possible solution already dialed in--not in a predestination sorta way, but in a do you understand the energetic web i'm weaving sorta way.

In our pre-planning conference calls with the group i often talk about the spirit of the "River", how we can plan and perfect whatever our tiny brains think they have some level of control over, but when we step off the literal and figurative plane of our previous journey, we step into the river--where the flow of spirit embraces, uses, bashes against the rocks and rolls up on the shore right where we are praying to be, whether we see it that way or not.  This thrumming sense is that of the subconscious and the Almighty joining a course of energetic flow as they follow the current of our own design.

As i set out on this fool's journey, I thank you in advance for the echos you share here--your own reflections on the current, i love how that resonance fills my heart with being seen. It seems that the world is in full tilt, and we are all in need of sharing our take on the spin. in my own vertigo spinning, left of center experience i am warmed by hearing the human side of all of your lives.

"when I am alone in the half-light...existence seems to fade to a being with my soul... Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through ." 

August: an INNER course of action

The warmth of the sun, the composting time for the earth, planting deep roots and ridding ourselves of weeds that spring up unbidden...time to allow thoughts and patterns that no longer serve to be turned under, let the filter of Mother Earth and Sister Moon offer the gift of mulching, ebb and flow, seasonal shift.

Time for a personal inner search this month. I will be in Brazil for the month of August--what better place to observe and swim deep in the RIVER and invite a shift in current. This is a challenge, an urge from within, to meet my soul in the deep underworld of its growth and emerge into the sun with the piece of spirit that is calling to be heard.