Falling into the Heart

Home - Eulogy

2011-08-05T20:43:00.000-07:00

In 27 days, I will move out of my home of 9 1/2 years.

When I think about it, I ache sometimes. And other times, I feel totally exhilarated by the possibilities of new change. Back and forth these two feelings go, as I ride the wave of the reality that in 27 days I will move out of my home of 9 1/2 years.

July was a time of intense mourning. 779 Hollow Road is the first home I've ever truly made for myself. When I came here, I was looking for a more interesting place to be, someplace near a town center so I could walk there and be in community. (I didn't even know what being in community was yet, though.) I knew that I wanted to have a place to create a flute studio where I could teach and have a beautiful space for working with my students, and this house has been perfect for that. When I moved here, I loved the thought of living in a quaint little historic town, perched on the edge of a state park, with a train going by in the distance. It all fit my vision of the perfect place to live. And it has been the perfect place to live! Here, I have learned what it feels like to know and love my neighbors like family, to truly be who I am. I have learned what it means to create a home that is a true sanctuary, a space that is an external expression of my innermost being. My home has also been a sanctuary for others - I have opened my doors for parties, potlucks, drum circles, women's circles, energy healing shares, musical rehearsals, and beloved friends. I have always wanted to open my door and leave it open for all of my people to feel welcome. And I have done that, and it has been wonderful. On my 35th birthday, just a few weeks ago, I felt the fullness of that openness. More than 30 of those who are dear to my heart came to help me celebrate, and I was full and brimming over with joy and love.

But living here has been more than just community and this house. It has also been a decade of learning what it means to live in deep connection with the land. When I moved into this house, there was nothing growing by the sidewalk, just a long stretch of gravel. It was ugly. I asked my landlord for dirt so I could grow a garden, and dirt was gladly provided. Now, I see trees shading the sidewalk, I see butterfly bushes thick with blossoms, providing nectar for bumblebees, hummingbirds, and butterflies. I see flowers in bloom for most of the green seasons. I see plants others label "weeds" growing happily, because I've decided I like them and want them to stay. I've seen the lilac bloom every spring, and have been filled with joy to sit by the window in the living room and take in the heavenly scent. I have watched the magnolia blossom and grow, and also be broken down by the heavy snows. I have buried my first cat beneath her gentle boughs, as well. I see herbs and flowers coming up in new places that they seem to have chosen for themselves, though the original was brought in by me, and planted elsewhere. I love that, too. To know that I have been the caretaker of this land, and to see how it has grown so lush and beautiful because I have cared enough to love the Earth through planting green growing things.

And the River. The holy sacred River. My beloved Ganga Ma, sweet waters that have taught me so many things. I have learned the deep blessing of knowing the way she moves, whether low in drought or high in raging post-rain rush. I have learned the ways of moving in her waters, of finding rocks to hinge my body from to lean into her current. I have learned the place of each rock in my special spot, and can find them by feel and by knowing as I move in her waters. I have sat upon my rock, and have enjoyed the feeling of the warmth of the sunlight after the sun has begun to sink behind the trees - the rock will stay warm for hours after the sun has left. I know the rush of her water, the different songs that different parts of her current sing, and have offered my own songs to her as well. I have come to know the sweet smell of River, which is most clearly inhaled when I am very still, and breathing in very slowly. Each time I have gone to enjoy her waters, I have known the holiest of Baptism, as she openly receives me back into her sweet flow. I have never known a feeling of home more than in this River. I love her like any being I have ever loved. I love her completely.

Sigh. And now, the ache in my heart has grown stronger. As I imagine myself leaving Oella behind, I understand how powerful it can be to truly have a sense of place. Place on the Earth, place in relationship not only with humans, but with the natural, wild, sweet Earth. I have never consciously known what that is before living here, and I am grateful in my bones for even being able to comprehend what that means, to know where I am, and to know who I am in relationship to that. I haven't met too many people who understand what I'm talking about either. That makes me sad. It seems that we know who we are in relation to our families, our neighborhoods, our churches, our friends, our schools and workplaces, and our homes. But how many people truly know what it feels like to be rooted in the land, in the Earth herself? I am grateful for knowing that and feeling it here. And knowing it and feeling it so deeply in my heart makes the ache even stronger because I feel the process of uprooting myself now growing so strong. This is the end of a sweet relationship, the end of a marriage between myself and this place, and for that I will continue to mourn. My heart is heavy in sadness. And I know that the time to leave is here, and I must move on. The River has taught me as much, that we must keep flowing. I must keep flowing.

Dancing with My Sister's Questions

2010-11-10T16:41:00.000-08:00

Today I had a great conversation with a friend, and it seems that we have been sitting with some similar questions recently. In her own blog, she posted the following questions:

Does the overlap between new theories of quantum science and ancient metaphysical and shamanic principles lead you to a perspective focused on personal desires, intention and goals, and/or to a mystical experience of awe, wonder, relatedness?
What point on the spectrum of and/or resonates as a personal place of balance?
What is the impact of that point on personal consciousness and action? On others, human and nonhuman? On the planet?
How does this experience shape personal choices regarding responsibility and action?

I am not terribly well informed in the world of quantum science. My primary exposure to this was through the film "What the Bleep" when it came out, and I must have watched it about 20 times in all. I also once went to a lecture with quantum scientist Amit Goswami, and it was truly wonderful - though I believe that he is considered "way out there" by much of the school of quantum physics. What little I have read in his books is certainly fascinating, and resonates with a knowing that is deep within me. While my own depth of understanding in the field of quantum theory is certainly limited, I have a cursory understanding, which is probably just enough to understand the question and to begin to play with it.

I think I understand the question to be one of personal focus. As modern theoretical sciences have begun to uncover information that seems to resonate with ancient truths found in metaphysical traditions - shamanic traditions in particular - does the individual to whom these ideas are revealed experience an intensification in wanting to fulfill personal desires, intention and goals, or does the person experience an intensification of the mystical experience of awe, wonder, and relatedness, or some blending of the two? It also seems that my friend is suggesting that a blending is essential, only natural, and that makes sense to me.

Let's say that I have uncovered one of the most mysterious secrets of all: I have the power to affect my reality through my mind, my intentions, and my beliefs. This is certainly the most heavily marketed of the ideas I recall from "What the Bleep." So, if my mind affects my reality, then I damn well better get it in check so that I can magically manifest the life I've always dreamed about... This has been a popular conversation topic among the new age community for years. How can I get the angels, totem spirits, energy particles, thought waves, universal energy (insert your favorite here...) to favor me, to give me what I want, what I need, what I deserve. The cult favorite film, "The Secret," was about exactly this. And true, in my reading about Peruvian shamanism, there are certain rituals that one must do in order to affect the inflow of good fortune into one's life - whether making a despacho offering, or pouring out some of one's beer onto Pachamama in gratitude, or some more complex ritual. And indeed, we all have needs and desires, and it is only natural to want to have those needs and desires fulfilled. One thing that crosses my mind, though, is this - ancient Earth-centered spiritual traditions were making rituals to Spirit in order to pray for these needs to be met, often hoping to fortify the survival of the people in a most rudimentary way. Please bless our family, our baby, our crops, please bring good weather, please help us to buy a new bull so that we can plow the field more easily. And what crosses my mind when I think of the new age tradition of manifesting is that the whole notion of please bless has been dropped. Instead, people tend to hold so tightly to the belief that through their own mind and intentions they can manifest anything, and that there is no need to pray, to seek connection with Spirit. In fact, it often seems that prayer has been dropped altogether as people practice manifestation: I am the master of my destiny. I am abundant, I am driving a new Lexus, and my bank account has six figures in it. As we have moved further and further away from feeling the sharp edge of survival, and deeper and deeper into an existence that is easily explained and controlled by science, the need for prayer has shifted. And too, the attitude of humans has shifted a great deal. When you're praying to God that your family may survive the year, there is an essential quality of humility - you are truly in the hands of God to keep you alive and well. But when you trust science to fix things when they go wrong instead, and when your essential trust is in the human mind, you no longer need to rely upon an imaginary power to keep you safe and alive and well. Science will cure it, science will fix it, science will control it. God is no longer necessary, and prayer is absurd. Hence, as I see it, the huge upsurge in atheism in the world right now. But what is still sitting there beneath the surface is that we're still here on this planet for reasons we can't comprehend, we have no idea how we got here, no idea how long we will stay, and no essential understanding of what the whole thing is about.

Science and modernity have brought a lot of really great things into existence. I am grateful for being able to take a hot bath, for having an ipod filled with amazing music, for the flute that I play, for having been blessed with the opportunity to fly to amazing places across four continents. I am glad that if I break my leg, I can have it taken care of in a hospital and I will probably heal completely. I am grateful that I have access to an abundance of food and water, that my home is warm in the winter, and that I can sit here and write on this computer, or at the very least, on paper with a pen in a lovely color. I am glad that we have ways to manage our waste so that plague and other diseases borne of poor sanitation do not cause great harm in my life. I love that I have fingernail clippers that keep my nails nice and smooth, because it might make me crazy if I had jagged, pointy fingertips. Really, there are so many things that I appreciate in this modern world, and at the same time, I feel the deep need to acknowledge that much of what we have created is wasteful, extravagant, foolish, and extremely harmful to the ecosystem that is this planet. A planet previously revered as Mother, Pachamama.

Once, I was talking to my friend Gray in Peru. He had been living there managing a guesthouse for a couple years, and had walked by the Urubamba River every day, watching and connecting with the people there. Along the riverbank, the men were hanging out, and strewn all around was garbage. He noticed that they had thrown more down, and he approached them to talk. He asked them why they were throwing their garbage on the riverbank - garbage that was plastic. The men, illiterate farmers who probably lived in simple homes with very little in the way of modern amenities, men whose first language was Quechua, and were likely to be struggling to communicate in Spanish as much as Gray was. Their answer? The river will wash it away. Now, it's easy to get angry at such ignorance. After all, the plastic garbage will simply end up on another riverbank somewhere further along. But in a culture that is not yet accustomed to plastics and other materials that simply do not return to nature in the course of even several natural lifetimes, this is difficult to explain. When these farmers throw things onto the riverbank, they were still connected to the thought that whatever the Earth provides, she will take back. And in the world of food scraps, bones, plant matter, and the like, this is essentially true. It's difficult to explain to an old farmer that we humans have created this plastic substance, which is cheap to produce, and is considered absolutely disposable, even though it will persist in the ecosystem for more than two hundred years. Plastic, the brain child of a culture addicted to fast, cheap, and easy - a far cry from a culture that still plows its fields with the power of bulls, while barefoot men guide the wooden plow from behind. A far cry from a culture that refuses to mechanically thresh its wheat because that would cause damage to the individual grains.

I realize at this point that I have gotten a bit off course from the original question, though in a direction I find valuable and absolutely worthy of consideration. One thing I want to revisit is the flip side of the coin I began with: I have the power to affect my reality through my mind, my intentions, and my beliefs. When focused on self interest, this power can cause great harm. If I only consider my own needs, my own desires, my own wishes, and forget that my own life touches every other one in the process, then I will make foolish choices, and my power will invariably cause harm. But when I realize every choice I make to fulfill my needs, desires, and wishes affects the whole, and that with great power comes the need for great responsibility, everything shifts. Power without wisdom is the game of fools.

What would balance look like? If I were to combine the wisdom of ancient traditions - traditions that honor the mystery of life and Spirit, that humbly bow in reverence to the Earth, and live in true interdependence with all of life - with the discoveries of science - that we can create ways of living that offer greater security, heath, and ease in our daily lives? I believe that is the direction in which human civilization is headed, though it seems to be moving slowly.

The advances of post-industrial human civilization are not going anywhere, in spite of my greatest fantasies. So, it is my sincere hope that the human species learns, collectively, that we are by no means the most important species, nor the creator of this world. Indeed, in the last hundred years, we have become its destroyer. We carry the seed of God within us, and indeed, we do have the incredible power of consciousness and the ability to affect our reality through our thoughts and intentions. But we are merely carriers of that seed, and we remain here, alive in this great mystery! When the experience of power and control meets unwise, immature minds, great foolishness is the result - it's like a small child realizing that it has the power to pull the legs off a daddy-long-legs spider (which I definitely did as a child, to my great horror now). When we realize that we are blessed with the seed of Divine power within us, we must become wise carriers of that power, and make choices that are in alignment with the truth that we humans are merely one small part of the great interdependent web of life.

Fallen and Lost

2010-10-21T07:36:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, I took a sub teaching job at a high school in Columbia, a dance class. What unfolded was the day from hell. I got to the school and realized that the teacher I was working for had neglected to tell me which space was hers for parking, and spent 10 minutes driving in circles until I found another teacher who could point me in a direction to an empty space. By that time, I was late arriving in the building, and classes were going to start in 5 minutes. I checked in with the office, and was handed a piece of paper telling me where to go, and then when I asked where the classroom was located, the woman brushed me off with an irritated, "down the hallway over there" and I headed out. I walked "down the hallway over there" and found no dance studio at all, but ended up locked in a corridor and unable to get out. I banged and banged on the door, bruising and cutting my hand, finally getting someone to let me out. This teacher led me to the proper classroom, and I walked into a room full of bitchy 15 year old girls with attitude seeping out of their pores.

Plans? Nope. This teacher didn't leave a single note for what I was supposed to do. I called the office once, then again, asking for them to find some kind of plans. They didn't. Finally, when a particularly bitchy foursome put on their ipod and proceeded to blast gangsta rap, I went over and told them to kill it. They were nasty, and probably deserving of a good ass-kicking, but I just walked away. I finally was told by the office to put on a video...which one, they had no suggestion. I found something and put it on. The bitchy girls continued to be bitchy, and loud, and then proceeded to direct their bitchiness at me. I went to them and told them they were too loud and that they were being rude, and that if they felt the need to continue, I would happily have them removed. They continued, and I put another call into the office to have them removed. At that point, the office decided they needed me in another classroom. I happily took the switch.

Math class. I did have a couple free class periods, which is rare at this school. They tend to really use sub teachers for all they can, with little appreciation. Finally the fourth period class arrived, and I was only one of three teachers in the room. The other two took care of things, while I sat back and pretty much helped with discipline. This was a class full of kids who were barely passing Algebra, and some felt the need to share with the whole room that they were, in fact, failing the class. I have rarely been in a classroom like that, full of students who are so rude and disrespectful that they will outright disrespect teachers to their faces, shouting and making threats, using obscene language at top volume, and generally refusing to participate in the class. It was like being in a circus, or a zoo. And in spite of my usual intentions to find the ways that kids are not being served and respected, all I could think about was how this class of students was a joke, and how unevolved they were. They were, for the most part, just not very smart, and it is a huge dicouragement to me when I consider that these are the "average" kids in one of the best school systems in the country. If this is "average" then there are a large majority of kids in this country with this kind of point of view. They don't want to learn, they just want to play with their electronic devices and feel like they are entitled to certain things - entertainment, respect, and no responsibility for themselves. It made me angry, and hopeless. There was no spark evident in most of these kids - no spark to learn, to fulfill their potential, to contribute something of themselves to the world. Just to get what they want, and if they don't, they'll pitch a fit.

I was slated to leave the school before the last class of the day, but the office called me at the last possible moment - the end of the previous class, after the bell - to tell me they needed me in another class to cover. They gave me a room number. When I asked who it was, and what class, I was told they had too much going on to answer those questions, to just go there. I was once more put off by the disrespectful, demanding attitude of the people who run this school. Part of me definitely wanted to go to the principal of the school and tell them my experiences there. But the other part of me said "fuck it." I can simply refuse to go there.

I left the school feeling edgy, aggressive, and pissed off. I had a huge headache. I was hoping that getting my hair cut would help with the day, and then had planned to go to DC to meditate. I ended up having an impromptu afternoon coffee date with a friend, which was a blessing, for sure, and then went off to have my hair cut. Which was also a major disappointment. The haircut was adequate, but not good - especially for the cost, and set off a whole new level of sadness, since my amazing stylist of many years died suddenly back in the winter. I left in tears, feeling crushed by the day. I didn't go to DC, I just didn't have the energy for anything more. I spent the evening in tears, wondering why I even bother to try to do anything at all.

I am still sitting with that. Why fucking bother is the question in my mind right now. Why bother going to get my hair cut and paying a lot of money for it when what I get is mediocrity. I could have gone to the Hair Cuttery, or just dreadlock my hair and not even think about it at all. Why should I bother to go into schools with an attitude of compassion and listening and wanting to contribute when I am faced with bitchy, entitled attitudes of children who don't have any desire to grow beyond their childish demands. Why should I bother making any contribution at all to a culture that is shallow and immature, that seeks entertainment and the most fancy, shiny new device, seeking happiness in material garbage? Let the fucking culture die a poisonous death. I don't care. I won't feed it, support it, help it along, or contribute to it in any way. Let it rot.

Which leaves me feeling lost and confused and full of sadness. I feel like a fish out of water. Sure, the water is poisoned, and I don't want to be in it. And now, I'm mostly not in it. But where am I? And what do I do now? I am not at all regretful of my path. I know who I am, I know what really matters in life, and I know that I want to cultivate my life from those points of view. But how do I do it if I feel like I am doing it alone? I don't have the energy for it. Not to swim upstream in the very poisoned water I have made such effort to pull myself out of. I don't have any answers at this point. I feel lost.

Honoring My Heart

2010-10-15T08:41:00.000-07:00

Today I feel like my heart has been dropped on the floor and kicked around a bit, and like my guts have been scooped out. I feel betrayed by someone who is very close to my heart, someone who is beloved to me. Someone who has asked more of me than I am able and willing to give, and who at last has shown their true colors - clearly letting me know that my boundaries are something that they cannot honor, that their needs are more important than mine. While I see that this is not at all born of malicious intent, it has become a persistent issue in our friendship, and has finally cast a crushing blow. And the truth of that is staring me in the face, unwavering. It would take more to heal this situation than I believe this person is capable of at this time. And I feel a tremendous loss. Just a week ago I told this person, "I hope that you will always be in my life."

But having someone in my life when they can't respect my needs and boundaries is not okay. Having someone in my life who questions those needs and boundaries for their own selfish reasons is not okay. When someone I love very much questions my needs and boundaries for the sake of trying to get their own needs met, I am called to question the real motivation of this person's desire to be in my life. In their point of view, I hear this: "if you truly value me and love me, you will sit aside your boundary and make me happy by fulfilling my need." In NVC language, this becomes a demand when there is no room for "no, that's not possible." And to me, when someone who claims to value my friendship deeply, it would only be natural that that person wouldn't want me to betray myself and my own needs in order to fulfill theirs. For me, I would never ask someone I deeply care about to violate their own boundaries for my sake. I would do my best, in fact, to make sure I didn't violate those boundaries because they clearly serve the person I care about. To me, that is love.

And here I am, knowing that I have done the right thing in upholding my needs, restating my boundary, and honoring myself. There have been so many times in my life when I let my own boundaries and needs go in order to be the very thing that someone else wants. I have done this out of the desire to please others, and I have done this out of lack of self-love and self-respect, believing that my own needs didn't count as much as the needs of others. After all, I do want so very much to be liked and accepted. I want to be dear to people, I want to be loved.

In the past, though, "I want to be loved" meant that I would do a lot in order to receive that. I was able to dissociate from my own feelings and body in order to just go with the flow, to live easy-breezy, to not ask too much from other people, because if I did ask too much, they would leave me standing there, alone and unaccepted. I felt so much lack of acceptance as a kid and a teenager, and as I became an adult, I wanted to do the exact opposite. Whatever would make me lovable and acceptable and valued to others is what I wanted to do and be. But in the years since my spiritual practice took serious root, I have had to face this part of myself again and again. This part of me is rooted in fear - fear that I'm not worth much, that my needs don't matter, that I'm not of value on my own, that I must do and be something in order to be accepted by others. And in the last year, I have spent a hell of a lot of time disengaging from these beliefs. They are lies. Absolute lies.

Being authentic and true to myself are the very essence of my path. Living from the pure voice of my heart is the ground of my being. I still fail plenty at these things, but I am now firmly rooted in the practice of returning to them as I return to the breath in meditation. I am who I am. I am an amazing woman, a beautiful woman, a woman with many gifts and a lot of love to share. I am a nurturer and a caretaker who gives freely of her time and energy to those in her life who she cares about. I am a powerful, passionate, and creative soul, and my heart extends to a family as large as my scope of feeling and vision can extend. I see God in everything, and see beyond the illusions of personality and worldliness a great deal of the time. I see the best in people, their purest essence, and love that - even when people aren't living from that place. I love myself so much that I absolutely refuse to betray myself or lie to myself or bring harm to myself ever again, so long as I can help it. If this means that I will spend the rest of my life alone, friendless, loveless, abandoned by everyone but God, then so be it. But I don't actually believe that's going to be the case for a minute, either.

So today, I mourn. I mourn what has been a beautiful friendship in my life, one that is deeply damaged now. I feel sorrow, knowing that I have honored my own deepest needs in this situation ... it may mean that by trusting and loving myself this much I may lose this person in my life. If that is the case, I have to trust life, and know that it was meant to be this way.

Cleaning out my Life

2010-10-10T11:31:00.000-07:00

It's a beautiful afternoon, and I'm sitting on my porch. I spent a few hours today hanging out at the Catonsville Farmers' Market with my friend, and we shared some really great conversations. It's a blessing to know that I'm not alone in going through some things, thinking some things, feeling some things, and right now, this friend seems to be on the same page with me a lot of the time. She is a beloved sister to me, and I am glad to have her in my life.

Since Friday afternoon, I have been filled with anger, rage, and frustration. I feel it in my body, a fire that is ready to unleash itself on anyone who pushes things. I feel it in my mind, showing up as rigid intolerance, utterly unforgiving, wielding a sharp sword of clarity and ferocity. I feel it in my heart, in my heart's unwillingness to stay open and soft, in a mode of protection that is unwilling to risk something so precious as my sincere true lovingness in the face of so much that isn't deserving. My heart is a sacred jewel, and must be earned, and my mind and body are poised like a wild animal, or a legion of warriors, ready to attack at a moment's notice when someone unworthy dares to cross the line. I dare them to try. They will be ripped to shreds, struck by lightning, and speared by a thousand sharp swords in seconds.

I am a woman who has committed herself to nonviolence and self-awareness, to living in heart-centered ways, and to embracing tolerance, understanding, and love in all that I do. And, that said, right now I am feeling like my peaceful, loving, accepting, and open nature has offered my heart up freely to people who may not be prepared to truly love and honor it. And I'm pissed about that. Pissed at those who I have let into my life who are not evolved and aware enough to receive the precious gift of my love, who are too clumsy and self-interested to truly honor my place in their lives. And pissed at myself for being so naive and trusting, believing that I am impervious to this kind of suffering, just because I have spent so many years forging a deep, committed spiritual path, and because I've spent so much time facing and working through my own deep issues. Right now, I feel like curling up into a cocoon, holding myself tight with all the love I have, and pulling a cloak of spikes around that cocoon, to puncture anyone who dares come too close without careful invitation.

I am a tolerant woman, full of understanding. I have sought to understand where all people are coming from in their feelings and choices. I have studied Nonviolent Communication to help with that process, both with understanding others and myself. I have cultivated the practice of slowing down, trying to observe what is happening with some degree of objectivity, and then checking in with the feelings and needs for myself and whoever else might be involved in a given scenario. My heart longs for every relationship that I find myself in - whether it is with friends, family, colleagues, or a lover/partner - to be rooted in this kind of communication. And, that said, the truth is that many people just don't want to show up that much. They don't have the time or interest to go into that kind of process of self-exploration, or to share a process of exploration together. They're too busy, or too afraid to face something so real, or too wrapped up in their own situation to bother. And I find myself full of longing - longing for more intimate connection with people who just aren't capable of offering that. And I must be a fool, because my loving heart keeps making the space for them, and expecting things to shift.

Today, I feel inclined to begin a major purge of the people in my life. I don't know that I'll actually follow through with doing it quite yet, because I love who I love, and don't particularly enjoy feeling lonely. But what I am feeling is that if there are people in my life who truly make me feel loved and appreciated, who make time for me, and who are excited about being around me, and who contribute to my life and heart in sincerely meaningful ways, these are the people I want to hold close, people who will be invited inside my prickly cocoon. But those people who love basking in my radiance, who get a lot out of what I have to offer, who are wishy-washy and noncommittal, who enjoy my company when it's convenient for them, and whose sincerity is questionable from day to day, these people who are simply takers of my light and love simply have to go. It may come as a wild outburst, or a door slammed in their face, or perhaps just my disappearance altogether. No matter. I am coming back into my own heart now, and nurturing myself there. I want to live honestly and authentically, and want to be around people who are reliable and loving and real and open and sincere. I want to be around people who inspire me and who I inspire, who are thrilled to have the blessing of my company, and who show up fully on a regular basis. All else is a waste of my energy.

Loving With Abandon

2010-10-07T06:54:00.000-07:00

I awoke to purring, my kitty had leapt up onto my pillow during the night and was snuggled down really close to my head. This morning, the sky is bright blue, but it is still quite cold. Now, as I sit wrapped in a blanket and in my meditation shawl, he sits near me, purring away, occasionally rubbing his head against the screen of my computer, beckoning me to love him instead of this plastic device. So, I reach over to him, and love him. He is my truest companion, and without him in this last year I don't know if I would have made it.

As I sit here writing, my heart steps back in time one year ago today. Right about now, I was sprawled out on the bathroom floor, trying to comfort my dying kitty as he struggled and howled. I wept, I tried to love him with my hands, and I talked to him about how much he had blessed my life for thirteen years. He would lay still, and I would look really closely to see if he was still breathing, then he would squirm and moan again. It was the most heart-wrenching thing I've ever witnessed, and the taste of my sorrow is still palpable if I allow my attention to settle there for long. He died one year ago today at a little after 11am.

One thing I've learned in the last year is that the more I grasp to hold on to those beings who have touched my heart, the greater my suffering is when they leave. Another thing I've learned is that while choosing to numb out and love less is appealing in the face of imminent sorrow and loss, the one thing that brings true meaning to life is loving with utter abandon, without holding back. And I've spent much of the last year vacillating between feeling truly loved and held by those who care about me, and feeling utterly alone in a world that doesn't have time to even acknowledge my existence. This inner struggle persists even today, on occasion, when I fall out of the present moment awareness I have worked very hard to cultivate, when I am sucked in by the mind's questioning undertow.

In the last year of my life, I have felt greater loss than I have ever before known. I have felt my own body betray me, I have felt the world crumble around me. I have wondered if I would live through these challenges, and both collapsed into the despair and hopelessness of living a life that is full of loss, and have scrambled with sheer terror to escape from the hungry maw of my own mind's fear. Death became my greatest fear, having witnessed it for the first time one year ago today. Death stalked me some days, chased me some days, and sat breathing heavily down my neck for more nights last winter than I care to speak about now. And the harder I tried to swim away from death, the more tightly I became enmeshed in his nets. I was caught. I would writhe a while, trying to get away, and then, exhausted, would collapse into despair once more. All the time, my mind spinning in its questions, wondering "what is the point of it all" and seeking with ferocity to find some kind of answer, any answer at all, something to hold on to to prove to myself that I could stay afloat. I became a refugee within my own life - running from death and despair, always running, trying to escape the inevitable.

There were a few things in this past year that were utter saviors, and without them I don't know if I could have had the wherewithal in myself to make it through the year. Weekly acupuncture was a miracle, and my acupuncturist showed up for me with strength and compassion and really helped to give me my ground again. I began seeing a counselor, and the months I spent going to her weekly or biweekly really helped me to face my inner demons and to understand myself in a whole new way. In January, too, someone really amazing showed up in my life, and his love and kindness brought healing to my heart in ways that I could have never imagined. And finally, I returned to work with the Medicine, which has helped me to heal my anxiety and sorrow and despair more deeply than anything else can. My community, too, has been an incredible support system ... from taking my panicky phone calls, to listening to me, to opening the door to me after yet one more insomniac night of anxiety and fear. The kindness and generosity that I was offered in this last year have touched me so deeply. Whereas once I believed I could - and should - be able to handle anything and everything on my own, in the last year of my life I learned that I truly cannot, nor do I have to. I can allow other people to hold me, I can trust them and allow them to love me as much as I have tended to love them. And now, my heart is open wider than ever before. The slashes of loss have healed a great deal, but they have allowed me a far greater capacity for love than I had before. And maybe that's one of the key lessons of this Earth plane of existence ... to allow loss to open us beyond our ordinary capacity to love, and to move it into a realm of infinite loving that is our true nature.

And now, I have survived a year of loss and mourning, and have come through the other side of that year with a heart opened wide to the sky. I have spent so much time sorting through the content of my life, facing the dark parts of my psyche and personality, observing my patterns and habits, noticing my resistances and fears, and dismantling the questioning mind - at least a little - that causes all of my suffering. I have found that much of what used to matter to me just doesn't matter anymore. The simplest things bring me the greatest happiness: sitting on a rock in the river, reclining in the sun, listening to the wind in the trees, making a pot of soup, sharing the company of my loved ones, listening with my full presence to those who have something needing to be heard. And love. LOVE. Love matters the most of all. At this point in my life, it is my most sincere wish, from the depths of my heart, that I finally meet the love of my life. I have so much love to give, so much kindness and compassion to offer. Spiritually, I feel like this is a frontier that will offer me so much opportunity to grow and deepen my capacity to love and serve. And I am finally able to receive love, too, to allow love's intensity to penetrate my walls and pierce me, to transform me. In this year, I have met several men who truly touched my heart, and yet it seems that none of them are truly prepared for relationship. I pray with all my heart that in the next year of my life that I will find my love. If one thing has been true throughout this year, and is still true today, it's that I don't want to do this life alone. Not anymore. That is my most sincere prayer.

One Year

2010-10-05T06:44:00.000-07:00

One year ago today, I learned that my beloved feline friend Familiar was dying. I spent three intense days attending to him, sitting present with him, and saying goodbye as he slowly left his body and this Earth. It was the first time that death touched me with such profundity, and I was left in a state of emotional pain that ripped through my life with a dark ferocity I had never before known. My life, in this past year, was filled with inconsolable sorrow, and my mind was sent into a tailspin that continued to rip through my life with desperation. I became enshrouded in a darkness and fear that seemed to want to consume me, to swallow me whole, and to dissolve my body and mind into its own acrid wastage. My heartache was unbearable, my fear was overwhelming, and my life fell apart. I didn't know if I would survive it all.

And here I am. Alive, breathing, more awake than ever before. The suffering of this year of my life brought me to my knees, and taught me so many things. I have learned that in spite of the sharp loneliness I often feel, there are so many beings who love me, and who will hold me and support me if I allow them into my life. I have learned that people are not always who they seem to be, and sometimes the ones who seem to be loving and kind are sometimes only acting out of self-interest. I have learned that there are no rules, not really, and that in the face of great sorrow, love and comfort can reach from beyond my own small view of what is really okay. I have learned that my own mind creates all of my suffering, and that only by training the mind through meditation and contemplation will I be able to let go of the misery I create for myself. I have learned that boundaries are often really important, and that my ideal wish for there to be no boundaries causes harm in my life sometimes. I have learned that the things I fear the most are not really real. I have learned that only by letting go will I fall into a state of deep peace, and only by practicing letting go again and again will my life become rooted in that peace. But more than anything, I have learned that love is the only thing that matters. Loving those beings who I love with total openness and abandon is surrendering to the truth. And when my time to die comes, I will regret nothing if I have given all I can give of my love.

My dear sister came from Peru in August and we shared in some beautiful healing ceremonies. These ceremonies were powerfully transformative in my own life, and helped to shift me beyond the dregs of this year of falling apart. I am grateful for this healing and teaching, grateful in my bones, in my cells, in my heart. But, to loosely quote David Deida, knowing the truth is easy, feeling the truth is profound, and living it makes all the difference. Now, I am in a time of integration in my life. How do I carry the profound teachings I received in those ceremonies into my life and allow them to live through me? By staying truly present. By listening to life as it shows up around me and within me. I must remember what I have been shown, and I must remember it with vigilance every single day. Also, the great gift of those ceremonies was this beautiful opening of my heart. The more I am able to stay present with that open heart love space, the more I will not be pulled back into the whirlwind of my mind. So, I sit to meditate.

It seems to me that by fully feeling the sorrow and loss of the death of my little kitty last year, I was able to surrender to a ferocious process of breaking down that is now allowing me to live from a place of deep openness and trust. In that, I am so grateful to you, my little buddy, for showing me the way to love ever more deeply.

Heart's Longing

2010-09-30T08:24:00.000-07:00

I just finished my morning meditation practice, and before the final bell rang, I received a beautiful insight. I had been sitting with this longing in my heart, feeling it burning within me. Right now, the longing is tied to a particular person I'm hoping that will open up to me, and I have been feeling filled with uncertainty around that, wanting some clarity. In my meditation practice, I sat present with the feeling of longing, disengaging from the story, and simply feeling into the heart. The story that wanted to emerge was suggesting that if this person can't give me clarity, that if this person can't trust me and open up to me, then I will close the door to my heart and walk away. Each time my mind wanted to re-emerge, finding some solution that would make this feeling shift, I sat there, disengaging from the story, feeling what I was feeling, the burning of this longing in my heart. And there, the jewel at the end of my sitting, this insight emerged: what if I breathe into that longing and allow it to open me further and further? What if, instead of closing and withdrawing from the situation that is feeding this feeling, I simply let go of needing any particular answer, and just allow it to burn on and on? What if I allow it to push open the door to my heart even further, and allow myself to feel love's longing within me? What if I allow my heart to stay open even in the midst of uncertainty or pain? Yes, there is something profound to be discovered in that practice.

Last night, my evening was filled with insights. I felt like I was receiving nonstop transmissions from Spirit for hours, and while it seemed like I was sleeping, the quality of awareness wasn't exactly sleep. It was more like a trance, in which I was able to surrender to the current of knowing that was offering me its gifts. My heart was full of longing then, too, and I was told that there is nothing that cannot be solved, healed, or brought into the light when a heart-to-heart connection is made. I saw the image of beings coming together, and touching at the chest, truly heart-to-heart, and was filled with a feeling of light and peace. The deep feeling of comfort that filled me was sublime, and I was grateful that my little kitty was there, right beside me, to share this feeling with me. We snuggled up really close, and I felt what a blessing it is to be so close to another being, totally free of expectations, totally free of fear, totally in trust and presence and love. As the insights continued, I felt my awareness leaning into the music that was playing, Jai Uttal, Ben Leinbach, Jarah Tree, Diego Palma, and others. I felt this profound sense of the present moment, and I felt my whole being riding the very edge of the music - and I understood in such a clear way what it means to be truly surrendered to the present moment. The present moment is like the edge of a knife, like the passing of music, like the edge of body and breath as the air comes into the lungs - what is that edge? The edge where my body meets the air, where sound meets my awareness, where my heart meets the heart of another, where the inbreath meets the outbreath, where living and dying are suspended in a perpetual moment of now. In that moment, any awareness I have about who I am falls away into simple am-ness, simple beingness, and nothing is more sublime. Even the edges melt, and I feel myself expand beyond the boundaries of what I perceive to be "me" and I feel no limit at all. Just riding the waves - the waves of sound, of breath, of living, of loving. Surrender.

What I fear is so small beside this state of surrender. What I long for is so small beside this state of love. What I am is so small in this world when it sits beside who I am in my true nature, who we all are in our truest nature. I want to live from that place, and I want to let go of all that keeps me from living there. And truly, I see that all that keeps me from living there is within my own mind.

Beyond Preferences

2010-09-29T07:08:00.000-07:00

This morning as I was sitting in meditation, a beautiful insight came to me. In meditation, I welcome the inbreath and outbreath, the cycle of flowing that simply is what it is, day after day. In meditation, I welcome sounds to come and go, choosing to have no preference or reaction to them, neither to name them, but to merely witness them coming and going, like the breath. Too, thoughts come and go, and some pull me into their trance, and others don't, and I recognize them all as thoughts, coming and going, having no substance, only persistent stories. But what would my life be like if I truly carried this very same perspective into the happenings of my daily living? What would life be like if I was able to surrender my personal preferences and ideas and desires in the same way that I surrender to my breath, to the sounds around me, to the coming and going of my thoughts?

I am human. I have preferences and desires and ideas about how I'd like my life to be. I prefer silence to noise, I prefer a clean kitchen to a dirty one, I prefer slow days with little on the agenda to fast paced days with a hundred things to try to accomplish. I prefer clear communication to vague, I prefer flow over stagnation, I prefer love over fear, and I prefer peace over conflict. In the world I dream about, I would live in a state of perpetual love and peace with all the beings I love, and we would all communicate fearlessly and with clarity, and we would all understand each other from the heart. We wouldn't be raping the Earth, we would be honoring it, and doing all we could to live in harmony and equilibrium with the rest of the living world. We would all have free access to clean water, organic food, good education, alternative and allopathic medical care, and community support. We would all have nothing but love and peace in our lives, our communities, our towns and countries, and all unnecessary borders and barriers and boundaries would be naturally released because we would have evolved beyond the need for those things. We would spend our days with those we love, and spend our time doing what makes our hearts sing, and we wouldn't have to be involved in working for money just to survive in a world that doesn't make any sense at all. There would be no need for government because we would all hold enough personal responsibility to make choices that were for the good of all, and there would be no need for laws, because we would be in tune with the most basic natural laws of the universe. Conflict and war would vanish spontaneously because love would be our very basic nature, and no one would want to enforce his or her personal preferences on anyone else. The ego would dissolve, and we would all surrender into a life of utopian goodness. We would live our days and nights in a state of bliss, and would die happy without any hesitation, since we lived our lives with such joy and fearlessness. Yet here, too, in this utopian vision of life on Earth, I share my own personal preferences, which are clearly in direct conflict with the way the world is in this time. And because utopia is not reality, I suffer. I see the way the world is, and I am full of mourning, full of loss, and some days, full of anger. My own personal preferences add to the mix of multifarious conflicts that already fill this place, and instead of feeling more at peace from my rumination about the ideal world, I become filled with sadness.

What if I could cultivate a practice of sitting here, breathing into the moment, accepting whatever is happening, no matter what? What if I could hold the mantra "it's okay" in my heart, no matter what comes? This is the path of meditation, after all. And if I could truly take this practice into my life, I would be embodying my meditation in a much higher way. I'd be walking the walk, not just sitting on the cushion.

Truly, I see that my preferences send me into a state of tantrum sometimes. I want what I want, I want it for a good reason, and I want it now, damn it! I clearly know that I am right in wanting it, and I want it in spite of what may be coming my way instead. Anyone who gets in the way of what I want is public enemy number one, and I will do my best to get them out of my way. What is born in this kind of thinking? War, conflict, separation, hatred, judgment. Nothing that I want to feed in myself or breed in the world, and yet there it is. Now, most of the time, I feel like I rise above this kind of thinking in my actions. But this is the point of view of the ego, and whether I'm having a tantrum like a three year old child, or a highbrow battle of intellect in a real-life chess match, when the ego drives my living, I am in conflict with what truly *is* in my life. Sometimes it isn't about what I want, but instead about what I believe, what I know, or what I feel, but the result is much of the same thing: being in conflict with life. And I'm starting to see how I can let go of that a little more than I have been.

Easy? Hardly. As I sit present with a particular thing right now that is pushing me, triggering a lot of preferences within me, I feel like I am squirming in my own skin. But I want *this* and I know I deserve it! I am worthy of it! I will turn away from whatever is not it! I will feel angry with whoever doesn't fulfill my desires and expectations of life being like *this* and will slam the door on it all. I will sit in my own little world and wait for life to show up the way I want it to be, or I will wait forever. On and on it goes, this idea that I have created about how I want life to be, my personal preference in the matter creating a more and more elaborate vision and story. But the truth is that life is the way it is.

Yesterday, as I was walking from a school to my car, this idea came to me: "This is your life. Right now. Whether or not it's what you want it to be. This is your life right now." Indeed. My culture has taught me - and probably everyone else - that what we do here is create ideas about how we want life to be, and then we work forever to build that. Even though I feel like I have surrendered the materialistic view of how life should be, I am still caught in the trap. My own vision involves things that my ego considers far more evolved than materialistic gains - spiritual growth, personal evolution, cultivating creativity, creating community and deep relationships, natural/organic/ecocentric living, and allowing my life to serve as a contribution to things that matter to me. I care very much about these things, and I choose to invest my energy into cultivating a life of these things. But in truth, I have very little control over what happens in my daily living. And when I am in a state of surrender to whatever emerges, and when I can show up with my heart open no matter what, then I am truly living this life. Otherwise, I am refusing to live when life isn't what I want it to be, and the only one who suffers in that case is me.

Gratitude to my practice, and my guides, for offering me these bits of wisdom and guidance.
Om shanti, shanti, shanti.

Falling into Authenticity

2010-09-26T18:14:00.000-07:00

Last night was so amazing! Three hundred people gathered in Washington at the Freer Gallery at the Smithsonian for a concert with MC Yogi. In this beautiful, small auditorium, we rocked out to his amazing, positive yoga-inspired hip hop. I imagine that this space usually holds a lot of classical concerts, and probably some really interesting lectures, and to have him in there, leading us in the chant "Ganesh is fresh!" was probably one of the funkiest gatherings ever. It gave me great joy to dance and sing and play along with everyone in a space where I might normally feel inclined to keep my voice down!

One year ago, MC Yogi came to DC, and I was there. One year ago, I had yet to start allowing myself the expression of dance. I remember enjoying jumping around last year, but still feeling pretty uncomfortable in my own skin. And last night, when he led a "Jai Ma" chant, and called for some women to come dance with him on stage in honor of the Divine Feminine, I was there! I knew I had to go! Just a year ago, thoughts would have swirled through my mind: someone might see me, I can't dance, etc. And now, I just don't care. I love to move my body, I love to feel the energy flow through me, my whole body a prayer to Life.

Some people have a checklist of all the things they'd like to do in their lives, a bucket list. Go to Paris, jump out of a plane, get rich, have a family, buy a big screen tv, etc. While I've never had much interest in creating that kind of list, I have done enough amazing things to fill one up. But the truth I'm seeing now in my life is that my own checklist, if I have one at all, is about letting go of fear:

* dance on stage with one of my favorite artists - check

I am feeling drawn into reflection quite a bit right now. I think that's in the energy of the fall, really. And since the last year of my life has been so much about standing in the fire and having a lot of my reality burned away, it's feeling like a natural time to investigate these changes more fully. Last fall, right after the MC Yogi concert, my whole life changed. My kitty died. And my whole life was thrown upside down.

I have learned a lot in the last year about what really matters. I have no energy to devote to trying to be anything other than my most authentic self. Life is so fleeting, and I have discovered that the essence of the deepest fears I carry within me are not truly fear of dying, but fear of not fully living while alive. And now, as I move forward into each day with my heart open, I am choosing to really live from that authenticity, no matter what. And what a relief that is!

Renewal - The Second Year

2010-09-25T09:25:00.001-07:00

It has been right around a year now since I started this blog, entering the journey of falling into the heart with every moment, every breath, every thought, every action. Last fall, I sat on my porch, allowing myself to give my attention to the world around me, to the trees moving in the wind, and the light in the sky, and to my own internal wind and light and motion. Little did I know that my whole life was getting ready to shift in ways that I couldn't have imagined. My heart was getting ready to break, and my understanding of life would be called to the table again and again, and I would be stripped bare of everything that had previously brought me to experience comfort, stability, and assurance.

Sitting here on my porch, a year later, many things seem the same. The same view, these beautiful trees and this blue sky. I am still myself, and my life still resembles the life I had one year ago. But there is a depth of knowing and understanding that has come to me that speaks beneath this moment of sameness. In this year, I have indeed fallen into the heart. And in the process of falling out of the mind, there were bitter, harsh, brutal periods, internal turmoil, anxiety, darkness, despair and hopelessness, and fierce resistance to what felt like my own annihilation. I spent months wondering if I would survive it all. In truth, part of me did not survive. The part of me that was keeping me bound up in a life that was small and controlled, a love that was conditional, and expectations that anything at all must happen in the way I want. In falling into the heart, I have fallen into the truth that there are no guarantees of anything at all. Waking up in the morning and breathing and going about my day are not a promise, but a sweet blessing that I now receive with a level of gratitude that I couldn't have imagined one year ago.

I have spent much of the last year in touch with my story. The story that has defined my life, my persona in the world, the way I respond or react to circumstances, and how I integrate those experiences into my life are all things that have come up for consideration. And I now see how much of the way that I have chosen to interpret those stories has brought me suffering. I see how my own emotional reactivity has created more pain than I needed to carry. Thich Naht Hanh once said that when we allow ourselves to "therapeutically" express anger by shouting or beating the sofa with a bat, for example, we are practicing being angry, as opposed to letting the anger out. And I see how I've been doing this in my life. I've been expressing anger, fear, insecurity, pain, loss, suffering, sorrow, hopelessness, and despair for so much of the last year. And now, I see that through the vehicle of my own words, I have been practicing the very things I have longed to move beyond. There is something in this process of writing about my life that has taken me away from the direct experience of what I feel. And in the several month hiatus I've taken from blogging, I have found a deeper, renewed sense of connection with my own inner being through sitting silently present, witnessing what simply is within me, free from any need to interpret, describe, or define. And I am feeling that this is much more what I need at this time.

Which makes me consider where this blog will meander in its second year ...

I am still deeply committed to speaking my truth from a place of vulnerability and honesty. I am still very much interested in exploring life through the written word. But I am seeing how vulnerability and honesty are possible without allowing my life to bleed forth with such abandon onto the page. There is a fine balance between surrender and abandon. There is a fine balance between vulnerability and exposure. And there is a fine balance between honesty and personal integrity. The balance is what I hope to navigate as I move forward. I have fallen through the rusted funnel of my mind's darkest labyrinths, and I have found my way through the maze to the sweet space of the heart. From here I begin, renewed.

Longing

2010-05-26T17:15:00.000-07:00

Hot and sweaty and tired. Today was a day filled with working. Which is good. Working means that I will be able to afford my expenses in these next few months. And I am grateful to have the option of a flexible part time job that doesn't require me to do anything too out-of-bounds. I'll take it. If I am able to work almost ever day until the end of school, then I will be just fine all summer. No expensive travel plans, though, which is a bummer. But I feel like I'm supposed to be here right now. I have a garden to tend, and a lot of projects to explore fully. I am exactly where I need to be.

But in the bigger picture, I spent the first few waking hours of my day in anxiety and despair. While I have gratitude for what life has given me that sustains me creatively and physically and emotionally and spiritually, I see so much in my life right now that feels limited and not in alignment with the highest vision that I hold in my heart for my life. I will take this work as a substitute teacher to fill in the gaps of my employment, but it doesn't give me any great joy, it doesn't make use of most of my gifts, and it doesn't contribute to the world in the way that I know I want to contribute. I'll be able to pay my bills for the next three months, and for that I am grateful. But I am not content with just working to pay the bills! I have known that for my whole adult life! I am an artist, a visionary, a dreamer, a creative, passionate soul. I need to know that my energy is going into something amazing that will touch lives beyond the mundane grayscale of daily life. My work as a flute teacher, as a teaching artist, and as a musician - these things have moved into that truly meaningful realm. But these things are also coming up for consideration now. I will teach flute lessons happily until the end of time, and I hope that the universe delivers me more students in the years to come. I also deeply love my work as a teaching artist, but at this point, funding has all but evaporated, and if I am to continue doing this work, I will need to dive deep into networking and getting clear on what it is that I want to offer. My work as a flutist has waned in the last few years, as I have let go of my connection to the familiar realm of classical music. I have little interest in investing my energy there, but can do it if I need to. But now, I feel a new wave of creativity coming, a new investment in the sacred improv work I have loved with all my heart. I am excited and nervous to see where this will go.

What I do know is that I don't want to be doing anything just because it helps me to get by, or because I am capable of doing it if I need to do it. That, to me, is the heart of apathy, the most boring, grayscale, flatland version of living that I can imagine. That was the source of my despair and anxiety this morning...seeing the ways that my life has slipped, even slightly, into the realm of half life.

Work is only half the story, too. The other half is this isolation that I feel in my days, this loneliness that haunts me in the shadows of my awareness. I have spent so much of my life as an independent woman, happy to roam hither and thither without a care in the world, needing no one to keep me company as I soar into the inner reaches of my being, and into the outer reaches of the world. I have learned so much in this approach - I have learned that within me is a resourceful, brave, fearless, adventurous spirit that knows that anything is possible. To quote Tracy Chapman, "I've been places where I question all I think I know." For sure. I have found that much of my life has felt held back and weighed down as a result of trying to share it with others. I have been frustrated by people who are wishy-washy and never on time. I have been irritated by people who are noncommittal and scattered. I have wanted to feel free and unencumbered, able to follow my heart and be spontaneous. And I have found that that has very, very rarely happened when I am with other people. So, for much of my life, I have chosen the solitary high road, and not regretted it for a moment.

But now, I am feeling something else settle into me. I am feeling the gifts and blessings that are possible in sharing my path with someone. I am also seeing that perhaps part of the frustrations and irritations that I have felt with others were half based on my expectations and half on my not being able to express my needs in a clearer way. I also feel that part of my frustrations and irritations with others were pointing me to the truth that I was walking in the world with people who may not have been serving the unfolding of my highest truth...and I was probably not serving theirs either. And that's okay, it is what it is. But I want to be more mindful from now on. I want to trust the feeling in my belly completely, and to listen to my heart completely. I will know the truth if I do.

I don't want to do this life alone. That is the bottom line. I have sought community and companionship, and have become a networker and gatherer of good people. I have brought people together and into my life and into my home, and I have felt the definition of family expand on and on. I have loved that my life is filled with so many beautiful beings, and that I have been given the opportunity to share life with amazing people. But deep in my heart, I yearn to meet the man I will spend my life with. I long to meet the one who will pierce my heart with his presence and love, who will accept me for all that I am, and who will enter into sacred relationship with me. I feel that there is a deep part of life that I have not yet known, not really - living in communion, in service to the Beloved through the beloved, in true love practice. I have had enough relationships to know that I have not yet been there, not at all. And I have spent so much time feeling content in my independence that I haven't sought this. But now, it haunts me every day. I long to meet my love.

Making Mistakes

2010-05-24T14:40:00.000-07:00

I've had a nice little break from blogging these last couple of weeks. If by "nice" I mean that I have been in the process of experiencing the fallout from my last blog writing, and from trying to figure out what it means to "follow my heart." I have been venturing into a minefield of my own creation, and have been learning how to really screw things up in my life with exquisite lack of grace. Now, I am left feeling lost and sad. I may or may not be able to repair the damages done here, and some things will surely be washed away. I am left here with a lot of confusion and sorrow, some anger, and some frustration - both with others and with myself. What matters most, though, is that I thoughtfully consider these situations, and allow them to teach me.

What I am sitting with now is patience and understanding and as much self love as I can manage. It would be very, very easy for someone with a tremendous capacity to be hard on herself to be caught up in judgment and criticism and self-loathing right now. It would also be easy for me to choose to take in the judgment and criticism and anger of others right now, and there are certainly some people who hold that in regard to me right now. But I have learned beyond any question that punishment never works - whether from self or others - it only drives in more anger and frustration and guilt and shame and self-loathing. And I have danced with those things for a long time in my life. I don't want to keep revisiting those old habits. They haven't worked before, and they surely won't help anything now.

I think I'm entering into a new chapter of my life. The late fall and winter were such a heavy time of feeling swallowed in anxiety and darkness. Now, with the coming of spring, I have entered into a time of creating drama and learning how to make mistakes. Back in the winter, I wasn't sure that I would survive the darkness, and felt like I was falling into the abyss most of the time. Now, I know that I will survive, but I feel like I can't help but fuck things up. Neither one is the life I want to live, and at one point today, I felt like I couldn't take any more! The anxiety crawled up my leg and wrapped its fear around my throat, and I felt like an animal caught in a cage, wild and out of control, ready to fight its way out. I wonder how much of my fucking things up lately has come from that wild, scared animal part of me?

There are no clear answers. There are no guarantees. I am as bound by karma - the laws of cause and effect in my life - as anyone else. I have spent a lot of my life as a perfectionist, the good girl, the one who seems to do no wrong. Maybe this time is necessary so that I learn how to be as imperfect as possible in order to find middle ground somewhere. All I know is that I want to live with authenticity and honesty, I want to embrace Love, Truth, Peace and Joy in my life in every thing I think and do, and want to follow my heart. I don't even know what that means right now. And that's okay. I am going to sit with this for a long time, I think...

Beyond Mind

2010-05-10T11:32:00.000-07:00

Last Friday I made a breakthrough. I allowed myself to sink down past the surface level of my emotional reactivity that was triggered by random things that have little to do with my life. And I came into contact with a pit of fiery anger that boils within me unconsciously, deep down, holding me back from living the fullness of the Love that is my true nature. I held nothing back, and allowed the anger to speak what it has stuffed down inside of me and hidden for years and years. For once, I suspended the tight grip that I hold on what I allow to fly out of my mouth - or my hand - and let it rip. I set aside the part of myself that is "evolved" and "wouldn't dare speak such a thing" and I let go of words and thoughts that have been fermenting in the depth of my psyche. I let it all fly, and what came out was, initially, the height of "jackal" speaking, within the realm of NVC. My jackals howled and wailed and hissed and spat. I hurled it all forth. And it began to mutate, from deep anger and bitterness to some sense of perspective, then to seeing how it all connects to the deepest Truth and Love that reside within my being. These dark places, when held back, will always keep me from living the deepest Truth and Love possible.

This is the part - the free and uninhibited release of the Jackals to speak their piece - that has held me back for so long. The part of me that has held it all back has said, "oh, it's fine really, there's nothing wrong, I don't have any of that kind of stuff in me." And that hasn't been working - it has been a cover up of the pain and deep wounds within me that long to be healed, but cannot be healed until I am willing to see them and allow them to come out into the light of day. The poison must be drained from the wounds in order for the wounds to heal.

Here's the thing - I KNOW beyond any doubt that I AM NOT my MIND. I KNOW that this poison that flew out of my mind and through my hands is not the truth of who I am. I know that it is garbage that must purged. I know that there is a much deeper place of truth within me, that is the very core of my being, and the very core of all beings. But as long as I hold it in, pretend it's not there, and live in deep denial, pasting on a false identity with all those I know, and creating a life built around that, I will be living with little authenticity. The love I offer and feel will be small and conditional, based in illusion - essentially living a lie. And I also see that when people - myself certainly included - live in this degree of unawareness of their own pain, with no sense of self-reflection, and with no longing to heal and release these wounds with their poison and pain, they just continue to create a world based in the very same lies and wounds and pain. I am deep, deep, deep in the process of unlearning this way of being. I am not willing to live this way any longer. I want only to live authentically. I want only to live in Love, Truth, Peace, and Joy. I will not settle for less.

But I am now caught by the reactions others have had to my words. I should probably have had better discretion and considered the potential reaction of other people before posting my writing online. There are those who have no idea what I am talking about here - those who still identify with their minds, and believe all the thoughts in there, and must adamantly repress anything that doesn't fit with their version of reality. Those who can't comprehend that the mind, when not thoroughly disciplined to be in service of the heart, is the epitome of madness, running and spinning on its eternal hamster wheel. Monkey mind, as the Buddhists call it. I am grateful to know that I am not my mind. I am grateful to be able to listen to these kinds of thoughts - bitter, angry, harsh ones - and listen more deeply to them and what they have to tell me. I am grateful that my spiritual path has helped me to cultivate a sense of observation much of the time, and that this observer is able to allow thoughts to pass in all their wildness, and to maintain a sense of objectivity much of the time. Certainly not always. There sure are times when I am caught up in emotional response - as when my anger or sadness are triggered full force. But a good deal of the time, I am able to move into self-reflection and work to understand what is going on within myself. Not always right away, in the midst of the reaction - but always in reflection, at the very least. This is my practice.

What I am feeling more clearly than ever before is what it means to to not take things personally. My sister was screaming at me, and trying to engage me in a fight that was not based in anything pertinent to the issue at hand, and she entered into petty, vindictive attempts to inflict guilt and punishment, and to try to control me. I defaulted to a clear understanding that her response is not about me, fundamentally. And I am not taking it personally. My mother's friend entered into the same conversation, to a lesser degree, with attempts to make me feel guilty - and I was clear that I didn't need to take it personally. Finally, my mother sent a message, filled with rage and upset, and I was able to stay with not taking it personally. I have never before seen more clearly that I don't have to get caught up in the drama, that I don't need to make some desperate attempt to smooth it all over. I am only responsible for my own mind and my own reactions. And I am choosing not to take this personally.

I have spent too much of my life taking things very, very personally. I have felt like I must satisfy other people's needs, to give them what they want from me, to keep the peace. But I see that I've been doing that at my own expense. I have not felt like I could express my truth in the moment. I didn't feel like I could say "no." I didn't feel like I could say when someone was making me angry or uncomfortable or when someone was being inappropriate. I learned to stuff it, to swallow it, to just smile and bear it, to deal with it in my own private hell later. That is really, really harmful. I have been living this way for years and years, since I was a kid. It sure is convenient for everyone else, that's for sure. But it's not REAL. It's me pretending to be fine with whatever even when it's not the truth. It's me pretending to be something I'm not. I yearn for acceptance and authenticity, and I am deeply longing to live from my heart, my truth. I am seeing more and more clearly how I have been blocking these very things from being possible, too. I was socialized to be that way - I was taught to live that way by others who were taught the same thing, and who don't even know what I'm talking about. And that has made me really angry. People who don't know who they are have been teaching others to not know who they are, and on and on and on it goes. Until it doesn't anymore. I am not going to play that game anymore. I want to really know who I am, how I feel, what I want, and want to stay connected to that truth in every moment of my life. This is revolution. This is unlearning. This is the way home.

May 7, 2010

2010-05-07T20:43:00.001-07:00

I have deleted this blog due to too much drama.

I should have had better discretion before posting something so personal.

Blessings.

Moving into Clarity

2010-05-05T06:47:00.001-07:00

Sometimes clarity comes like a bolt of lightning, showing the way to the deepest truth. In those moments, there is no fear, no hesitation, no doubt, no questioning. When this clarity comes, its revelation is powerful and alters everything in the way of its full realization. This past weekend was full of these kind of epiphanies. I was given the gift of profound insight and clarity, and my heart was opened all the way to the sky, knowing that love and courage are powerful, and that they will always lead me home, to my heart.

In the depths of night, these flashes of truth are the very ground of being. But with morning light, I found myself re-emerging in the world, and in the reality I have created for myself. My choices – whether conscious or unconscious – have created the circumstances of my life. And this is the truth of real-life karma – the laws of cause and effect. I am bound by my choices, my thoughts, my actions. But I am also grateful for these experiences of profound insight to offer me an opportunity to make different choices. I have the opportunity to recreate my life in every moment. That is what I am sitting with now: staying connected to my truth and listen to my heart, even when my past choices come flooding the moment with their fallout. I also see right now that everything in this life is like a sandcastle – the waters will come and wash everything away.

There was a moment in Saturday night's ceremony when I experienced a strange moment of deja vu. I was sure that we had just finished singing the 53rd hymn, but suddenly we were on the 51st. I looked down at my book, not finding the words that were being sung, and looked ahead of me, seeking the number of the one we were on. I was stunned by my discovery, that somehow I was ahead...yet I had been singing along and had found no discrepancy before... I was puzzled, but given the insight that sometimes life gives us these kinds of blessed opportunities – to move back in time with ease and without hesitation. Life always offers the chance to make new choices, to step into deeper truth, more profound love, to embrace authenticity. These are things I have longed for in my life, and things that I have pursued with passion for years. But this weekend, life ushered me into this in a whole new way.

What does it really mean to follow my heart? And how do I let go of things, while connected both to the clarity I feel and the love and kindness in my heart? Not only that, but what do I do with the noise that surrounds me – actual noise, psychic noise, and mental noise – as I try to listen to my heart? Most of us haven't been taught how to live from the heart, to live from truth and love – I know that I haven't been, anyway. Doubt and hesitation are nipping at my ankles at this point. It's a real challenge to walk in this world and to make choices from the perspective of my highest truth – there is support for that, for sure, but there is much more unconsciousness that surrounds me. People are often just trying to get by in the world, doing the best they can in the moment. But that's not my way, it never has been. I am a Warrior, fighting to live in my highest truth, connected to the deepest desires of my heart.

I have basic needs that must be met in life in order to take care of my body and worldly existence. We all have that. But I also have deeper needs, needs that fulfill my heart's desire, my spiritual evolution. These are food for the Soul, and we all have that too, but it tends to be neglected more easily. And to the degree that the heart and spirit are neglected, we are filled with anger and sorrow, and our lives become full of despair and meaninglessness. We then make choices that contribute to our superficial, fleeting happiness. We entertain ourselves and drink and smoke and have relationships and buy things and have life that fulfills the bare minimum needs that must be met so that we don't just kill ourselves overtly. But in those choices, we are killing ourselves slowly, and the misery and flatness that fills our lives erodes our connection to our deepest truth, and to our heart. What we are left with is hostility, bitterness, hollowness, shallowness. And to me, this life isn't worth living.

It's easy to generalize and observe this around me. To speak in words of “we” and “they” without taking it into myself, my own life. But that is where I must take this – into my own life, my own heart and soul. How have I been compromising the depth of my heart? How have I settled for shallowness and escapism and fleeting happiness? In what ways do I need to reinvest myself in my own heart's deepest joy? My work. My creativity. My love life. My contribution to the world. Even some of my most basic needs.

I have been lonely and full of longing. I have been lost in the ways that I fit into the world, in the ways that I contribute. I have been hesitant to offer myself with boldness in my creative pursuits. And I have wanted to stick my head in the sand and not deal with some of the most basic things. I have made as few choices as necessary to get by in the world. I have been trying to survive, to just get by. And all the time, I never quite saw that in myself. I have always wanted to embrace my truth, to be loyal to my highest dreams, and to honor my life's visions. But I now see that I haven't been doing that. I have not been bold. I have not been committed. I have not been willing to take risks. I have not wanted to trust that the Universe is conspiring to give me exactly what I want. I have not believed that it was possible to really have the life I want. I have not believed that I deserve to have everything that I long for in this life. I have not always been this way – but in the last year, I see how I have moved in that direction. And now, I have seen the light...

It takes boldness and courage to stand up in the light of day and ask life for exactly what I want. I have been taught that I should take what I get and be happy with that, and that I shouldn't ask for too much because that's selfish. I have been taught that life will be full of pain and suffering, and that my dreams are never going to actually come to fruition, because that never happens. I have always laughed in the face of these kinds of beliefs, balking at such small-minded misery. And in spite of that, I see how I have believed the very things I balked at. Not consciously, and certainly not admittedly. But I have.

I want to live my life with passion and boldness, truth and love. It will take courage to step beyond doubt and fear. It will also take clarity and commitment to continue moving toward my heart's true desire. And I am moving in that direction, one day at a time. I have been passionately inspired to put together a benefit concert to raise funds for the flooding in Peru – and the creative component of that is in complete alignment with what I truly yearn to do, musically. I have longed to find ways to contribute my time and energy to something meaningful and fulfilling, for my life to be of service in a greater way. I have known what I was willing to walk away from, but hadn't had a clear picture of what I wanted to move toward. Now, I am moving in that direction. This project will be amazing, and I am stepping beyond the inertia that settled into my musical life years ago.

I have been stirring in the realm of love relationship, as well. For so much of my life, I haven't put too much value in relationships – feeling that they were a distraction more than anything. I have really come to hear the longing in my heart, though. I am longing for a relationship that will truly transform me, to surrender to the practice of love that will utterly pierce my heart. I have been in relationships that were just fine, that served some small need in my life at the time, but none have had the potential to really, truly bless my life in a profound way and leave me changed. I don't care so much about the comforts of sharing life, of having an other half, of having a routine and rhythm that includes another in my day-to-day existence – although those things are fine and wonderful, and I would welcome them. I do care about entering into a relationship based in the deepest possible love, Love that transcends two individuals with bodies and needs. A relationship that is rooted in personal growth and evolution, in spiritual practice – and a relationship that IS spiritual practice. A relationship that is kind and gentle and bold and clear and real and passionate and spacious and deep. One that is grounded in reality and full of acceptance and honesty and good communication. I have always had so much love to offer, and have offered it freely. But now, I am also ready to open my heart, to be vulnerable, and to allow love to enter me, to pierce me, to transform me into a servant of Love in ways that I have never felt, but have intuited. I will accept none less, and I know that I deserve none less.

Whole-hearted living. That is my mantra now. Letting go of fear and complacency. That is my mantra now. I don't need to wait for life to give me these things, to show me the way to these things, to encourage me to choose these things, for others to live it by example. Nope, I need to embrace them within myself because I know they are the key to living my truth, living authentically, living my heart's desire. The only person who will suffer if I choose anything less is me. But the best part of it is that if I choose to live this way, in spite of all doubt, fear, and adversity, I will inspire others to do the same, and will be working to create the world I want to live in, one day at a time. Now, that's worth it.

Heart's Authenticity

2010-05-04T05:57:00.000-07:00

When I don't follow my heart, I suffer. I may not even realize that I am not following my heart, but I will still suffer. My heart's desire may seem impossible, foolish, unlikely, ridiculous, impulsive, impractical, or childish. And my mind will instantly begin dismissing this desire for all those reasons - having already made up its mind that there is no way we're gonna indulge or even consider it any further. Then, there is emotional response and bodily feeling - the reactions that result from ignoring the heart's desire, and then choosing to dismiss that truth for things far more reasonable, practical, possible. Choosing what makes sense over what makes my heart sing.

And now, I sit here in the cool morning air, hearing bees buzzing by my window, and birds calling to each other in the trees, and I know that the whole world out there only knows living from truth, from the heart. Birds sing because that's all they know, and bees fly by because it's what they do. Trees stand up tall to the sun, leafing out in lush green, because it's why they are born to this world. The whole wide natural living world lives from the heart - living Love, Truth, Peace, and Joy as a natural state. There is only that way. Even in the natural world when there is killing and dying, there is only following nature's directives for survival and need.

Sometimes I think the words "I think, therefore I am" are some of the most destructive words ever spoken, and yet, they are revered as one of the most fundamental basics of being human, and embracing philosophy and higher mind. I used to have a bumper sticker on my car that read "You don't have to believe everything you think." I loved that one, and when I bought it, I wasn't completely clear on what it meant. Over the years, though, I saw it daily, and began to get it. By the time I crashed my car last November, I got it. I really got it. And yet, I must have got it only conceptually, because now I see just how many ways that my mind has been controlling me, owning me, below the radar of my own carefully cultivated watching.

I wonder how many people who are afraid of mind control - conspiracy theory people who fear the government and the hidden agendas and the aliens, etc - are actually just not aware that the deeper aspect of their fear might just be that they are controlled by their OWN minds - and feel the fear that comes in the belly as a result of living in fear. I mean, I am sure that there are plenty of things that go on beneath the surface of appearances in this world - and that the media are biased in what they choose to tell us, but I have too many things to keep me busy than to spend my days in fear of the government, the aliens, the corporations, the secret societies, whatever. I know that I have a lot of choice in my life, and at this point don't feel any fear about those kinds of things. But I digress - I wonder just how much of the fear that people experience and label "mind control" is actually literally MIND control, being controlled by a mind that is not disciplined, and not rooted in following the heart at all costs.

There is no fear in the heart. There is only fear in the mind. The heart knows. But there is so much chatter in an undisciplined mind - so many voices, so much chaos, so many beliefs that come from the self, the childhood, the family, the culture, the education, the media, whatever - that it is often hard to hear the voice of the heart, the voice of that inner truth. It's in there trying all the time, communicating and not feeling heard. This, I now see, has been the very story of my own suffering for so long now. I have struggled so hard with not feeling heard - it has been one of my primary issues in all that I do, and in every relationship. And in this moment, I am seeing for the first time that I have been longing to be heard by others in such an intense and demanding way, but what I have actually been longing for is to really hear the longing of my own heart, to listen within and truly hear what is being asked there. My heart has been ignored for a long time.

The small pleasures of my heart have gotten through on occasion. In creativity - cooking, painting, arranging my home and my altar, in being in nature, in the books I read, in the things I choose to wear, and in surrounding myself with color, in the music I listen to, even in the spiritual mantras that I post around my space. There have been many ways that I have created a soulful life. But in this moment, I am seeing how these little things are simply small heart pleasures. The little stuff that makes me smile, that creates the world I want to live in in the most cursory way, that makes my life a living work of art. But these things are so small - really superficial, honestly. When compared with the yearning of my deepest heart, which I am finally in touch with in a profound way, these things are merely candy. They may be sweet and fun, but they do not sustain me. If I am going to live from the heart and follow my truth in a profoundly authentic way, I have to go way, way deeper than that.

I have been making choices from somewhere else most of the time - from my mind for sure, with perhaps glimmers of my heart's song trickling in, little by little. But I now see why my life has been feeling meaningless for these last six months, why I have been so desperately afraid of my own death coming before I have truly lived. In order to truly live, I need to honor the truth in my heart, I need to embrace my own authenticity with utter solidarity. It's funny - these are things I have already been aiming to do, and thinking I WAS doing, but I now see how it was only conceptual before. There was a smallness to the truth and authenticity I was following, and it was appearing in my life as "just okay" and "quite fine" and "good enough" and I was complacent and stagnant, in a holding pattern. I have been in a holding pattern for a long time now. In my work, in my social life, in my love life, in my art. I mourn all that time now - all that time when I didn't quite know what was wrong, when the low-grade fear filled my belly, and my heart felt collapsed, and life felt two-dimensional, and I wondered what the point of living was.

I was sitting with the question, "what is the point?" for the entire winter. It was almost a mantra. I get it. My heart WAS collapsed. There was no point, and is no point to living a life that is rooted in following my days with halfheartedness, half-life, half-devotion, half-inspiration, half-clarity, half-passion, distrust, indecisiveness, flatness, gray-space, and complacency. There is no point in living that life. And the fear in my belly was my heart's message that things couldn't go on like that. My winter of anxiety was my heart's desperate plea to find a new way. Now, it is early May, and the way is being revealed.

I don't honestly know how my heart feels about a lot of things. I thought I knew, but I didn't. I know how my mind feels, for sure. But my heart is full of wonder and discovery, and in this moment, I feel totally new. My heart is finally going to be given space to express its voice in my life. There is still a sinking feeling in my belly - fear that the change that is coming in my life will bring more pain. But if I trust the truth of my own heart, the letting go will hurt less and less. It will be soothed by a balm of honesty and authenticity that is full of freedom and peace. If I follow my heart every day, then I will be able to fall asleep at night without any fear, and I will be able to die to my life when the time comes without any regrets.

Heart and Mind

2010-05-03T06:07:00.000-07:00

I feel utterly rearranged. The profound insights that were given to me this weekend are still sinking in, and my body and mind are reeling. In this moment, I feel something inside of me trying to resist allowing this change to settle in, as if it's all too much, and will require too much. I have seen the depth of the madness of mind gone out of control, and I have seen the profound height of love when fully surrendered to the heart. And now, as I sit here in my ordinary life, I know that change must come - conscious change, rooted in courage and truth.

Partly, it feels like a dream - like the weekend was an intense, wild, powerful dream that penetrated the depths of my being, and offered me insight and wisdom into the very ways that I function in this world. Mind, and its tendencies, and how they affect the way I see the world, the emotions that move through me, and how my reality is created within that. Heart, and the ways that mind tries to convince the heart that its way is filled with madness and unreality - and how the heart's truth is the only thing that makes life worth living. I experienced intense struggle and misery, judgment, fear, collapse, resistance, then sorrow, then tenderness, understanding, and the most intensely piercing love I have ever known. And I see now that I have resisted love with great intensity. I have feared it. I have pushed it away. I have lived an existence that was content to feel small love, to accept that as enough, because it is safe. But it will not transform me. And that is the most profound beauty of love - that when I truly surrender to it, it will utterly transform me.

What a blessing that this insight does not merely come in a theoretical, metaphoric, intellectual way. It offers me understanding on this level, for sure, but then dives deep into the ways that I live. I have seen the chaos of my mind, undisciplined and out of control. I have seen the way that my emotional state becomes chaotic as a result, following here and there, reactive and unstable. And I see how this whole process creates misery. The mind is a tool, I am not my mind. But until I rein it in, breaking it like a horse, I will be bound by its wildness, and I will suffer. But beyond mind is the heart. The heart lives beyond logic and practical, rational choices. It lives beyond justification and the stories I tell myself to validate what I think and feel and choose. The heart is pure, it is true. It knows, and it tells me what it knows. And I see how I have disregarded that as impulsive and impossible for my whole life. No wonder I have been through this intense time of breakdown, and have felt that my life was meaningless. As long as I am not following my heart, I am not living my truth. I am living halfheartedly, falsely, and life shows up in that same way. I accept things that are "just fine" and "quite good" - and when things that are "amazing" and "incredible" and "too good to be true" come my way, I disregard them as exactly that - "too good to be true." I push them away, unconsciously, because I have not believed they were actually possible.

There have been a few times in my life when I have been touched by profound intuition, and have made crazy decisions that seemed impossible. I have followed my heart in these choices, and my life has been profoundly blessed. Walking the Camino de Santiago is one such thing. Going to Peru to do Medicine work is another. But much of the time, I have simply decided to leave things alone, to make choices that are convenient and comfortable. And now I see that I can't keep doing that. If I do, I will die while I am still alive. I will move toward living an existence that is gray, that is half-alive, that is not entirely true, that is filled with soul-level boredom, and I will continue to feel like my life is meaningless, slipping by into the void.

Life is really fucking short! I have known the truth of how I want to live. I have spoken it. I have been moving toward it. But in some way, I see that it hadn't penetrated me yet. Fear has held me back. Fear of making a wrong decision. Fear of failure. Fear of causing trouble for others. Fear of looking like a fool. Fear of causing harm. Fear of all of these imagined things. Truly, fear of being who I am. Fear of authenticity. Fear of living my truth and following my heart, no matter what. But now I see that anything other than that - living my truth and following my heart - is an absolute waste of this precious life.

I have some major things to bring into alignment here. I have some letting go to do in my life. It is scary - now I am back in the light of day, sitting in the life that I've created by the decisions I've made. I have to walk with courage and let go of any reliance on outcome - I have to choose what truth comes from my heart, and then trust that life will carry it into the winds of manifestation to become what it will. I have to let go of things and people who don't uplift me into the highest, finest version of myself. I have to let go of relationships not based in authenticity and courage and truth. And I have to make things right with someone I have hurt in my unconsciousness - if it's not too late, that it...

I now understand the emotional chaos I have been experiencing - it is the result of my choosing to live in compromise with my truth and integrity. Of not listening to my heart, disregarding its knowing as impossible and irrational. Of not living fully in accordance with the highest truth I seek. And of not being willing to trust love, to allow it to truly touch me and pierce my heart, opening it to the light that is within it. My heart has been telling me its truth anyway, but I have not been listening, and there has been deep conflict within me as a result. I know now that if I follow my heart in everything that I do in this life, I will be able to sleep at night without any fear, and I will be able to die to this life without any regrets. I pray from the depths of my soul that I move toward living that authentically from this day forth.

Beyond the Judge and the Victim

2010-04-30T07:43:00.000-07:00

“Your heart is a magical kitchen. Open your heart. Open your magical kitchen and refuse to walk around the world begging for love. In your heart is all the love you need. Your heart can create any amount of love, not just for yourself, but for the whole world. You can give your love with no conditions; you can be generous with your love because you have a magical kitchen in your heart. Then all those starving people who believe the heart is closed will always want to be near you for your love. What makes you happy is love coming out of you. And if you are generous with your love, everyone is going to love you. You are never going to be alone if you are generous. If you are selfish, you are always going to be alone, and there is no one to blame but you. Your generosity will open all the doors, not your selfishness.” ~ Don Miguel Ruiz, “The Mastery of Love”

Some days, I am swallowed up in the battle inside of myself between the Judge and the Victim. I spend all my time navel-gazing, sorting through all the beliefs I have about how I'm not good enough in this way or that, and then feeling like shit when that message penetrates me to the core. No matter what I do, nothing is ever good enough for the voice of the Judge. And no matter what evidence there might be to the contrary, the Victim in me believes the Judge, and collapses into despair. The Judge hates everything. There is not a single thing I can do to argue my case against this vicious voice. It is loud, it is aggressive, it is angry and frustrated, it is very convincing, and seems very logical and rational in its approach. What can I do in the face of this? Well, I suppose there are many reactions I might have as the Victim. I might get angry and rebellious and tell it – and everyone – to fuck off. I might get scared, and cower in fear, hoping to hide and not be seen. I might just numb out, and just start walking away, filled with apathy. Or I might collapse in sorrow, overcome with despair. One thing is certain – there is no joy and gladness possible in this dynamic.

Where did this voice – the Judge - come from? It seems like my very own much of the time, even though I know in my depths that it is not the truth. It is the voice that has kept me from taking chances in my life – telling me that I will fail and look like a fool. It is the voice that has made me afraid of failure and looking like a fool, as if these are things that exist independent of my belief in them. Is it possible to look like a fool if I don't care what other people think? Is it possible to feel like a failure if I don't have any external standard – set by someone else – by which I must measure myself? Why do I care so much about what other people think about me? This voice tells me that I will never be beautiful enough – there are so many women that are more perfect than me, more beautiful faces, more sensuous voices, more gentle presences, more attractive bodies, more brilliant minds – and it goes on and on. This voice convinces me that I will never stand a chance in meeting a man who will love me for all that I am, and I may as well give up now. That even if I do manage to connect with a man who seems to be interested in connecting with me, that I shouldn't trust him. He probably just wants to use me, to take what he wants from me and then walk away – that no man in his right mind would actually choose to love me for real.

This voice – the Judge - tells me that nothing that I am, and nothing that I do, will ever be good enough for me to live here in this world and be happy. This voice tells me that what I want is not possible, that I don't deserve it, that I am not worth it. I am not worthy of love and companionship – and if I do happen to find something that seems like those very things, it is an illusion, and I might as well see it for the lie it is. I am not worthy of a place in this world – I do not belong, I am worthless, I am not worth the very skin and bones that I inhabit – and if I don't work really, really hard and do as much stuff as possible to validate myself, then I will be destroyed. Slowly or quickly, it doesn't matter – I will be destroyed. I will never experience happiness, or feel a sense of belonging in this world.

As I am sitting here, listening to this internal argument, I am struck by how close I feel to the other voice – the voice of the Victim. I feel less close to the voice of the Judge, and feel inclined to call it by “he” as if it weren't coming from within me. That's very interesting to me. I wonder if that's because the voice of the Judge was instilled within me from outside – from “the Dream” as Don Miguel Ruiz calls it – and that the voice of the Victim is cultivated from within, in response to the abuse of the Judge. That makes sense, really. I mean, I don't need to cultivate a defense until there has been some experience of attack. “We learn to deny ourselves and reject ourselves. We are never good enough, or right enough, or clean enough, or healthy enough, according to all those beliefs we have. There is always something the Judge can never accept or forgive. That is why we reject our own humanity; that is why we never deserve to be happy; that is why we are searching for someone who abuses us, someone who will punish us. We have a very high level of self-abuse because of that image of perfection. When we reject ourselves, and judge ourselves, and find ourselves guilty and punish ourselves so much, it looks like there is no love. It looks like there is only punishment, only suffering, only judgment in this world.” (Ruiz)

The voice of the Judge is learned, and the voice of the Victim is a response to the Judge. No wonder the Victim feels closer to me – it is weak, collapsed, sad, hurt, and powerless, but it is also born of the belief that all the beliefs of the Judge aren't fair, that something better is possible, even if unlikely. The Judge is powerful, demanding, harsh, cruel, and hell-bent on misery. The voice of the Victim believes that something is really wrong here, that things feel really bad, that I deserve something better, but can't find a way around the vicious attack from the Judge. The Judge's lies keep the Victim powerless. Until...until what?

What is important here? What seems essential is cultivating a sense of observation that can identify who is speaking within me, who is taking over from moment to moment. When I am angry and vicious, when there is no possibility of anything going right in the world, I am being controlled by the Judge. When I collapse into despair, feeling like life is misery and that my life will always feel like a waste, I am being controlled by the Victim. In order to heal from the control of these voices, I have to be aware of when I am being ruled by each of them. In order to heal, is it necessary that I listen to all of the beliefs that each one holds to be essentially true? Hmmmm...I'm not sure. Maybe it is important to listen to each one – if I can maintain my objectivity, I can hear what each one believes, what each one does in response to those beliefs, how each one tries to control me. But it requires tremendous fortitude to be able to listen to the fullness of each of these voices without being pulled in by their madness, without being hooked.

When these voices hook me, I reinforce their beliefs. When I am able to see the light beyond these beliefs, I shatter their hold on me. Byron Katie's work brings me forever back to the questions that shatter these beliefs. “Is it true?” She says that when we are in conflict with reality, then we suffer. What we must do in order to be happy is to accept what is, and to love what is. NVC has taught me to listen beyond the Jackals – the thoughts spouted by the Judge and the Victim – to the true feelings and needs there. Some of those feelings and needs are basic to being human. I wonder, though, how many of those are rooted in core beliefs that are in conflict with reality...

Sometimes it's hard to know where to begin when I am hooked by these beliefs. Which practice will I default to? I have so many! I have NVC: observation, feelings, needs, requests – listening to the Jackals, feeling what is in my heart, and listening to what needs are at the heart of the matter. I have yoga and meditation – staying present with the breath as I experience what arises. I have so many books written by people who guide me to the light, who reflect the truth, who remind me what is real. I have my rudimentary knowledge of Byron Katie's work. I have Ecstatic Dance, returning me to the body to move through whatever gets stuck within me. I have Medicine work, which connects me with the utterly transcendent Divine so that I may learn directly from Source. I have counseling – which provides me a safe, sacred space in which to sift through the murk of my psyche. I have acupuncture, which can bring me back into balance when I am pulled off course – mind, body, and spirit. David Deida looks at things in three levels: function, flow, and glow – therapy, yoga, and spirituality. Some of the things that I engage in here are at the function level – therapeutic. Counseling, acupuncture, NVC, Byron Katie. These things allow me to see my mind and emotions and responses, and to work within them toward healing and wholeness. Others are flow level – yoga, embodied practices. Yoga, Ecstatic Dance. And still others are glow level – spirituality and contemplative work. Meditation, reading spiritual books, and Medicine ceremony work. I am so blessed to have so many resources that are available to me at any time, anchoring me to the Truth if I can choose them in the moment.

But the truth is that I don't always choose them in the moment. The Judge says, “wow, you must be fucking dense or something...” The Victim would reply by feeling deflated, saying, “life is really hard.” But if I choose a practice in that moment, I allow myself the opportunity to rise above the murk and lies. Sometimes I feel blindsided by the Judge. Sometimes I don't even notice that the Judge has spoken, and the Victim takes me over without me even understanding what has occurred. The other night was a brilliant dramatization of all of this. I was working in the ceramics studio, alone. I was trying to complete a small porcelain bowl, and it had gotten too dry and began to crack. In spite of my best attempts, it was not salvageable, so I had to give it up. I raised it up and shattered it on the table, pissed off. I began to work on a new porcelain bowl, and continued working on a ceramic colander that I had begun two weeks prior. It was also beginning to crack, but I decided that there was no way I was going to let it go. It wasn't too far gone, and I was going to try to patch it and finish it. I became more and more frustrated, and while I made progress, the littlest setbacks in my work sent me to the edge. I threw a water bottle across the room. I shouted, I cursed. I felt so angry I could have heaved the table across the room. I felt powerful and furious – surely trying to find some strength and control in a situation that was surely beyond my control. Clay will do what clay will do, and there is little that I can do to change that. Eventually, after I finished my colander and my porcelain bowl, I had hopes of doing some more work with glazing. Suddenly, the music stopped. My ipod had frozen, and I couldn't get it to come back to life. At that point, I was at the absolute breaking point. I was overcome in fury and wanted to hurt someone – or myself. Screaming “fuck, fuck, fuck” at the top of my lungs, I abandoned my working, and left. By the time I made it to the car, I was ready to die. I felt that my anger had collapsed on itself, having no hope of creating any effect beyond my own inner emotional state. I felt utter despair, and wept for my whole drive home. “What's the use of anything, I just want to die.”

I was so swept away in this emotional avalanche that I couldn't see what was actually happening. My frustration at first had been justified. I had spent valuable time making a porcelain bowl, and was unhappy that it was falling apart. But I didn't remain with that singular event. My mind went nuts, and I began to be angry because “everything I do is a waste. I can't do anything right. I am an utter failure.” Whoa...all because a porcelain bowl got too dry and fell apart? Really??? And then, just when my Judge had overreacted completely, the Victim kicked in. “I want to die. I can't do anything right. Life is not worth it. I give up. I am a failure. I am worthless and a loser.” So, all because a porcelain bowl didn't work out, I was ready to totally hate myself, abandon myself, kill myself. It's scary how fast this kind of response can come along. It moves at a speed that slips beneath the level of conscious awareness. After having just spent a few weeks studying the Bhagavad Gita in my Philosophy and Practice of Yoga class, I am inspired to embrace the warrior that is within, stronger than these beliefs and lies. I am inspired to stop in the moment, to resist the overwhelm of these emotional responses, and to listen more deeply to what is true.

It is not true that I am worthless. It is not true that I am a failure. It is not true that life isn't worth it. It is not true that I am willing to give up so easily. It is not true that I am powerless. It is not true that I am not worthy of love and joy and happiness. It is not true that I am not good enough, strong enough, beautiful enough. It is not true that I don't deserve the life I am living. It is not true that I must work endlessly to earn my right to be here. It is not true that while other people may judge me, criticize me, reject me, and try to cause me harm, I deserve these things, that those people are right. I am only able to take in the judgment, criticism, rejection and abuse of others if I am already judging, criticizing, rejecting, and abusing myself.

I want to be happy. I want to live a life in the Light. I want to live Love in everything that I do. I see now that much of the happiness, light, and love that I have embraced has merely been an attempt to escape from the misery I experience in myself, in my life. But this happiness that is an escape is always going to be ephemeral, temporary. I have sought to escape the Judge by fleeing to ethereal realms of lightness and joy. I have sought to escape the Victim by fleeing to acceptance and peace. But what I have found is that this is small joy, small lightness, small acceptance, and small peace. The Love I yearn for is a love that is powerful and undying. The Joy I yearn for cannot collapse under any weight. The Peace I yearn for is so eternal that it swallows the possibility of war once and for all. And all of these must come through knowing Truth that cannot be proven or disproven, but felt and known as the Source of All.

When I seek Love outside of myself, I will only find small love. Love that can change depending on circumstance or the weather. When I seek Peace outside of myself, I will only find small peace. Peace that is biding its time, holding its tongue, not wanting to rock the boat. When I seek Joy outside of myself, I will only find small joy. Joy that treads water, hoping to stay above sorrow, yet remembering suffering all too well. When I seek Truth outside of myself, I find only truth that can change depending on paradigm or epistemology or science or religion. Small truth, peace, joy, and love will just keep spinning the cycle of suffering into lies, war, sorrow, and fear. I choose to anchor myself to the practices that return me to Truth, Peace, Joy, and Love at all costs, in the face of all experiences and appearances, no matter what. I am a Spiritual Warrior. I have chosen this path, and I will not give up now or ever. I pray that Spirit will continue to bless my life by sending me exactly what I need today and always.

Love and Fear

2010-04-28T09:36:00.000-07:00

Today I've got nothing but this excerpt. It says everything, I mean EVERYTHING that I could hope to uncover in myself right now.

From, "The Mastery of Love" by Don Miguel Ruiz

Love has no obligations. Fear is full of obligations. In the track of fear, whatever we do is because we have to do it, and we expect other people to do something because they have to do it. We have the obligation, and as soon as we have to, we resist it. The more resistance we have, the more we suffer. Sooner or later, we try to escape our obligations. On the other hand, love has no resistance. Whatever we do is because we want to do it. It becomes a pleasure; it's like a game, and we have fun with it.

Love has no expectations. Fear is full of expectations. With fear we do things because we expect we have to, and we expect that others are going to do the same. That is why fear hurts and love doesn't hurt. We expect something and if it doesn't happen, we feel hurt - it isn't fair. We blame others for not fulfilling our expectations. When we love, we don't have expectations; we do it because we want to, and if other people do it or not, it's because they want to or not and it's nothing personal. When we don't expect something to happen, if nothing happens, it's not important. We don't feel hurt, because whatever happens is okay. That is why hardly anything hurts us when we are in love; we aren't expecting that our lover will do something, and we have no obligations.

Love is based on respect. Fear doesn't respect anything, including itself. If I feel sorry for you, it means I don't respect you. You cannot make your own choices. When I have to make the choices for you, at that point I don't respect you. If I don't respect you, then I try to control you. Most of the time when we tell our children how to live their lives, it's because we don't respect them. We feel sorry for them, and we try to do for them what they should do for themselves. When I don't respect myself, I feel sorry for myself, I feel I'm not good enough to make it in this world. How do you know when you don't respect yourself? When you say, "Poor me, I'm not strong enough, I'm not intelligent enough, I'm not beautiful enough, I cannot make it." Self pity comes from disrespect.

Love is ruthless; it doesn't feel sorry for anyone, but it does have compassion. Fear is full of pity; it feels sorry for everyone. You feel sorry for me when you don't respect me, when you don't think I am strong enough to make it. On the other hand, love respects. I love you; I know you can make it. I know you are strong enough, intelligent enough, good enough that you can make your own choices. I don't have to make your choices for you. You can make it. If you fall, I can give you my hand, I can help you to stand up. I can say, "You can do it, go ahead." That is compassion, but it is not the same as feeling sorry. Compassion comes from respect and from love; feeling sorry comes from a lack of respect and from fear.

Love is completely responsible. Fear avoids responsibility, but this doesn't mean that it's not responsible. Trying to avoid responsibility is one of the biggest mistakes we make because every action has a consequence. Everything we think, everything we do, has a consequence. If we make a choice, we have an outcome or a reaction. If we don't make a choice, we have an outcome or a reaction. We are going to experience the consequence of our actions in one way or another. That is why every human is completely responsible for his actions, even if he doesn't want to be. Other people can try to pay for your mistakes, but you will pay for your mistakes anyway, and then you pay double. When others try to be responsible for you, it only creates a bigger drama.

Love is always kind. Fear is always unkind. With fear we are full of obligations, full of expectations, with no respect, avoiding responsibility, and feeling sorry. How can we feel good when we are suffering from so much fear? We feel victimized by everything; we feel angry or sad or jealous or betrayed.

Anger is nothing but fear with a mask. Sadness is fear with a mask. Jealousy is fear with a mask. With all those emotions that come from fear and create suffering, we can only pretend to be kind. We are not kind because we don't feel good, we are not happy. If you are in the track of love, you have no obligations, no expectations. You don't feel sorry for yourself or for your partner. Everything is going well for you, and that is why that smile is always on your face. You are feeling good about yourself, and because you are happy, you are kind. Love is always kind, and that kindness makes you generous and opens all the doors. Love is generous. Fear is selfish; it is only about me. Selfishness closes all the doors.

Love is unconditional. Fear is full of conditions. In the track of fear, I love you if you let me control you, if you are good to me, if you fit into the image I make for you. I create an image of the way you should be, and because you are not and never will be the image, I judge you because of that, and find you guilty. Many times I even feel ashamed of you because you are not what I want you to be. If you don't fit that image I create, you embarrass, me, you annoy me, I have no patience at all with you. I am just pretending kindness. In the track of love, there is no if; there are no conditions. I love you for no reason, with no justification. I love you the way you are, and you are free to be the way you are. If I don't like the way you are, then I'd better be with someone who is the way I like her to be. We don't have the right to change anyone else, and no one else has the right to change us. If we are going to change, it is because we want to change, because we don't want to suffer any longer.

(p. 59-64)

The Divine

2010-04-27T09:48:00.000-07:00

The Divine is the formless, transcendent unity in the manifest, the very essence of all that exists and all that is unmanifest in this and all worlds. The Divine is the life force within all that lives, moves, breathes, and dies. The Divine is the light in the sun, the reflection of light in the moon, and the orbit that the Earth passes through in order to create the shifting cycles of day and night. The Divine is the water that nourishes the forest, and the light that shines upon that water. The Divine is the forest that provides food and shelter to all those who seek refuge there. The Divine is the berries that feed the birds, and the birds that feed the cats, and the cats that feed the wolves. The Divine is the flexibility in the branches of the trees, as they sway in the gentle wind, and as they bow graciously in a ferocious thunderstorm. And the Divine is the power of the thunderstorm that rattles the Earth, sending beings fleeing to shelter wherever they can find it. The Divine provides the cave, the burrow, the hollow that serve as that shelter, and is the lightning that strikes the tree and the ground. The Divine is the instinct that drives each being to find shelter, to take what is needed to live, and to surrender to the arms of death when the time has come. And when that time has come, the Divine is there waiting with open arms to embrace each of us in the transcendent unity that we can only intuit while living in this realm of karma and change.

The Divine is what wakes me up in the morning, and is the one that has given me this body without asking anything in return. The Divine offers me the gifts of pleasure and pain, a mind to approach with discipline and humor, and the inner strength to face life. The Divine sends the wave of knowing that has guided me when I have been lost, and in times of darkness and despair. The Divine has given me company for this life, companions with whom to share the joys and the sorrows. The Divine has given me all that I need in order to survive in this world – food, water, shelter, and safety. The Divine has given me gifts of creativity and intelligence so that I may make sense of my life, and express myself in whatever ways move me. And the Divine has given me endless opportunities for intimate communion with it, available whenever I choose to enter into its holy realm within my own being. The Divine has given me the capacity to experience love and fear, truth and deception, joy and despair, peace and conflict. And the Divine has given me wisdom to experience Love, Truth, Joy, and Peace that transcend duality. The Divine has given me the freedom to dance through this life – and all lives, past and future – with endless opportunities to learn, grow, expand, and surrender. And the Divine has planted within me the seed of ultimate wisdom that leads me along the path to Self, one day at a time. I bow in humble gratitude.

Meditation

2010-04-27T09:42:00.001-07:00

I sat quietly, palms resting on my lap. Cool wind blowing in the window. Uncomfortable. Cold. Unevenly cold. Warm legs under a blanket, cold face and arms. Cat snoring, irritating. Trucks coming down my street, clanging and banging and engine roaring. Smell of diesel. War begins. Can't the wind just stop blowing, or just be warmer? Can't the cat shut up? Can't trucks like this be banned? My mind spins on and on. Tightness in my chest, shoulders rounding forward. The desire to stretch, to open up – I stretch, my vertebrae and sternum pop and crack. I breathe. Mind spinning, returning to a conversation from last night. What is wrong with him? Why can't he just speak to me, why does he always retreat? Fine, whatever. I don't need him anyway. I write him off, I try to block him from my mind. I remember the other one, the one who does listen, the one who doesn't retreat, even when I am intense. I focus on what it feels like to be accepted, and then, my mind returns to the other one, the one who has left me feeling irritated. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh! Enough!!! I can hardly stand myself. I would love to jump up, to move away, to leave behind this madness in my own head. The one who accepts me must be crazy. The one who retreats is the wise one. I imagine writing an apology email to him. What can I say that sufficiently explains that I am aware of the insanity within myself, that I am pulled by it to varying degrees from day to day? Then, a deeper thought arises. What if I merely sit here, without retreating from myself, just breathing into the madness? What if I do nothing, merely accepting this space to allow the madness to settle? Yes, that is much wiser...

I feel the urgency in my body, and I feel the superficiality of that urgency. I feel the depth below it, vast as the open sea. I feel how I spend so much time frantically treading water, trying to keep from sinking into the madness, reaching out to this or that, hoping not to drown. And I change my mind. I stop struggling. I allow myself to be pulled into the depths of this spaciousness, and I breathe. I make the commitment to myself to trust that I will not drown. The urgency settles. The madness settles. The need to do something settles. I can simply be here with all that arises around me and within me without having any reaction at all. What if I were to come here each day? Honestly, I am beginning to see how insanity comes from choosing not to meditate each day. The mind reaches and grasps, trying to make sense of life, trying to find some solid ground. It reaches out in every direction, frantic and wild. That is its nature, when allowed to run rampant. Choosing to sit in meditation is choosing to see the mind for what it is, and not giving in to its wildness. It will settle when given the chance. Why do I keep forgetting this?

Finding my Way

2010-04-26T16:28:00.000-07:00

From dictionary.com:

in·se·cure
/ˌɪnsɪˈkyʊər/ Show Spelled[in-si-kyoor]
–adjective
1.subject to fears, doubts, etc.; not self-confident or assured: an insecure person.
2.not confident or certain; uneasy; anxious: He was insecure about the examination.
3.not secure; exposed or liable to risk, loss, or danger: an insecure stock
portfolio.
4.not firmly or reliably placed or fastened: an insecure ladder.

It's true. I am subject to fears and doubts. I am lacking in self confidence and self assurance sometimes. I am not always confident or certain. I am uneasy relatively regularly, and have experienced deep anxiety. I don't even need to venture beyond the 2nd definition of the word "insecure" to see that I must be. It's true. I am Angela, and I am insecure.

val·i·date
/ˈvælɪˌdeɪt/ Show Spelled[val-i-deyt]
–verb (used with object),-dat·ed, -dat·ing.
1. to make valid; substantiate; confirm: Time validated our suspicions.
2. to give legal force to; legalize.
3. to give official sanction, confirmation, or approval to, as elected officials,
election procedures, documents, etc.: to validate a passport.

When I am feeling insecure, I seek validation outside of myself. I long for acceptance and approval from others. I long for confirmation that what I know is known by others, that what I feel is felt by others, that what I think is in the minds of my fellow human beings. I seek validation from those around me, those who I trust, those who I resonate with. I deeply appreciate when the people in my life can reflect to me my own light and truth in those moments when I am feeling rusty and dense.

vul·ner·a·ble (vŭl'nər-ə-bəl)
adj.
1. Susceptible to physical or emotional injury.
2. Susceptible to attack: "We are vulnerable both by water and land, without
either fleet or army" (Alexander Hamilton).
3.Open to censure or criticism; assailable.
4.Liable to succumb, as to persuasion or temptation.
5.Games In a position to receive greater penalties or bonuses in a hand of
bridge. In a rubber, used of the pair of players who score 100 points
toward game.

I am totally susceptible to physical and emotional injury, and totally susceptible to attack from other human beings, both those who intend me harm, and those who unconsciously bring it. I am definitely open to censure and criticism, and feel tremendous hurt sometimes in the face of that. I am not likely to succumb to persuasion or temptation really. I have a strong will, and the moment I decide to walk away, I will. Within the realms of black and white, I am not vulnerable at all. I can make a hard, life-altering decision with relative ease, and can say "no" to anything I feel a strong mind about. But it's the infinite gray spaces between deep, knowing intuition and deep, clear thought that leave me defenseless, vulnerable.

I am insecure. I require validation. I am vulnerable. Not always, though. I am not only insecure, I am open. I not only look for validation, I look for authentic connection. And in vulnerability there is a softness, a touchable quality that consciously surrenders defense. I am all these things.

I am unearthing things within my psyche at breakneck speed. I am uncovering dark, foul parts of myself that haven't seen the light of day since childhood, or before that. I am entangled in a web of stuff within my mind and body and heart that I have a hard time making sense of. I am in a continual process of learning and unlearning. I am in the least stable place I have ever been in my entire life. I don't have any answers anymore. What I am learning is that sometimes having a breakthrough means having a breakdown. It's not pretty, it's not contained, and it's not predictable. It's messy and chaotic and fiery. It's like a detox for the mind and emotions.

I am no longer in a period of breakdown. I have been shattered thoroughly. I have fallen to my knees, and have been humbled completely. Here I am, sifting through the rubble. Old beliefs, old patterns, old habits, old ideas, old pain, old fears, old poison. Even though the form that once held it all together inside of me has been broken apart, all this still remains.

When I was in Peru in December 2007-January 2008, I was volunteering for earthquake recovery in Pisco, south of Lima on the coast. This is coastal desert land, and as we worked to finish tearing down homes, haul away rubble, and begin the process of rebuilding, we inevitably unearthed things in the sand. One day while working on leveling land for a temporary home, I was asked to dig post holes. I used a shovel and a pick-ax, and as I began the project, I found all kinds of things in the first foot of sand. Underwear. Newspaper. A child's artwork. A gold tone watch. And photographs, like the kind from school photos. The family whose land we were working on were housed in a giant army tent adjacent to our work site, and as I found these things, I made a heap of them right beside their doorway. As I found each object, I wondered, who did this belong to? Was this person killed in the earthquake? Will this object mean something to someone in this family? And right now, as I am thinking about the rubble in my own life, I am thinking of how much care I offered each of those found items in the sand. What would happen if I offered the same kindness to myself as I uncover each new wound, each new pattern, each new belief - all old, but newly unearthed following my own internal earthquake.

Life never used to feel this way. So much uncertainty, so much impermanence. I used to have such a strong sense of self, and such strong "boundaries" - or walls, anyway, I used to be fierce and powerful. I was insecure then, too, but I had so many layers of defenses built up around that soft place within me that no one could tell. But beneath all those defenses, I was still cowering there, longing to come out into the light of day and be seen, beheld, loved for who I really am. I wasn't so vulnerable, not really. Nothing could touch me. I was the pilgrim, the wanderer, the seeker, the one with the epic book collection, the epic travels, the epic philosophies and ideas, all the answers. I was solid and clear. There was power in that. And in the intensity of facing death and loss, all of that crumbled. Every last little bit of it crumbled. All the philosophies and ideas in the world didn't matter. All the stories of travel, all the spiritual books didn't matter. All the assemblage of ideas about who I am didn't matter. Death swallows all of that. And being the one left behind here, I am finding that grief is the gaping hole left behind - leaving me insecure, vulnerable, and seeking validation. I seek validation not for my ideas and my personality so much as for my true need to understand why I walk here in this life. Death swallows it all, so why are we here walking through this life?

David Deida says it well: No matter how much money or love you have made, one day your legs will become cold and numb, your heart will stop, your breath will cease, and all will disappear. In some now-moment as real as this present one, your life will end. Are you ready for your death? Are you ready for the death of your children, your parents, and your friends? A picnic with your loved ones. Fried chicken and cold beer. A gentle breeze. Laughter. Suddenly your heart stops. A final glimpse. Fade to death. I am insecure because I know that one day I will drop dead. Guaranteed. I am vulnerable in that. Deida continues, Are you ready? Have you loved fully and given your deepest gifts? A life lived well embraces death by feeling open, from heart to all, in every moment. Wide open, you can offer without holding back, you can receive without pushing away. Wide open, heart to all, you are openness, unseparate from this entire open moment. Every part of the moment comes and goes as openness. And that's where I know I keep failing. I keep trying, hoping that my effort will gain some solid ground here, that if I try hard enough, I will be able to feel like I am not slipping into the void. And right there are the void's hungry, wide open jaws, pulling me in...

Nothing short of profound grief and loss could have brought me here. Not a 500 mile trek across a holy road in Spain. Not all the Ayahuasca ceremonies in the world. Not the most incredible holy sites. Not even the most incredible, blissful love. But the trek showed me that inside of me is this indomitable strength that can move mountains. The Ayahuasca ceremonies have showed me that living from the heart is the only way to experience true connection and joy in this world, that there is profound interdependence that transcends anything my human mind can comprehend, and that I am inseparable from that interdependent web of life. And the most blissful love can magically suspend time and mind in a place of eternity and pure connection that make life worth living. And in the face of grief and loss that has been all-consuming in my life, these things sure do add up to something.

I am feeling in this moment that what I need more than anything is people who can be stable, solid, loving presences in my life as I find my way. People who can receive me in my learning and unlearning, and who can hold space for that intense process. People who see the light in me in the midst of the darkness that is raging. People who can offer gentleness and firmness in truth and love as I make my way along this path. People who will help me to see the truth and love in me when I forget. People who will stand by me gladly as I falter, and who will extend a hand when I fall to the ground. People who will lift me up into the highest, finest version of myself, and who will allow me the gift of offering them the same in return. Day by day, I am standing here on this Earth, finding my way. The road is not clear or certain, and I feel alone a lot of the time. Sometimes I don't know if I can do it. Sometimes I don't know if it's worth doing at all, and I collapse into despair. But within me is strength, power, knowing, creativity, love, radiance, joy, truth. I pray that life continues to send those to my path who can help me remember that when I fail.

Swept Away

2010-04-24T07:34:00.000-07:00

I feel the flux of spring pulling me this way and that way and this way again. The temperature gets really hot, then really cold, then hot, then fog, then cold nights and hot days, then moderate balance all the time. And that's what I feel inside of myself right now, too. I have always been an emotional person, a sensitive person. I am passionate, I feel things deeply. My sun sign is in Cancer - one of the most emotional signs. My moon sign is in Aries - one of the most fiery, impulsive signs. And my rising sign is in Scorpio - another tremendously emotional sign. I am a Chinese dragon, once more fiery. Water and fire, water and fire. I am the swell of the sea, calm and gentle, then raging into a tsunami. I am the glow of a warm fire, bringing people together in love and laughter, and I am the raging forest fire that destroys thousands of acres of pristine woodland. I am peace and I am violence. I am calm and I am ferocious. I am deeply wise, and I am an impulsive child.

Yesterday I was swept away in a torrent of anger that was all consuming. It's hard to know, sometimes, what will carry me into that state of feeling. I was already exhausted, and my body was aching, then my stomach began to hurt. All these things heightened my sensitivity, making me long to be gently cared for, taken into someone's arms and held gently and lovingly. But I didn't take myself into this place of gentleness, and there was no one else around to do it either. Instead, I found myself dealing with little annoying things, and my already sensitive state of being went into overwhelm pretty quickly. I just wanted ease, peace, flow! Instead, I found myself spiralling into anger. I couldn't find my cell phone. My internet wasn't working, and I was interrupted mid-conversation with someone. It was too hot to be out in the sun, and too cold in my house. My body ached, and every movement was uncomfortable. Sitting was uncomfortable. Searching for my phone was uncomfortable. My belly hurt from the body pain. I had eaten chocolate, and that made my belly hurt more, as well as the sugar and caffeine making me shaky. Sounds started to get louder than they were, intruding into my state of irritation. People talking loudly, kids bouncing a basketball and screaming, lawnmowers. Phone found, text sent, internet not working, not working, not working. For a month it hasn't been working well, and for the last two weeks of that, I have had a brand new laptop, with no possible issues. What the fuck, what the fuck?!?!

Suddenly I was at war with anyone who wanted to breathe in my direction. Nothing was good enough. Everyone was the enemy. Most of all, I was the enemy.

What the fuck was I doing up so late the night before? And what the fuck was I doing sub teaching? Is that the best I can do to get by in this world? What the fuck am I doing with my life? Wasting it, wasting it, watching it float by... And what the fuck was I doing that landed me with a muscle spasm that intense? And what the fuck could I do about it? Nothing at all. So, what the fuck was I doing, wasting my energy on the internet, like I do so many days? How much fucking time of my life do I waste on Facebook, once more wasting my life, watching it float by? And what the fuck was I doing, running around on a Friday evening, angry at the world? I wanted to hurt someone, or myself. I wanted to taste blood, or spill my own. I wanted to crash and be free. I wanted out. Fuck this. Game over. Done. Really?

There is so much energy in this powerful feeling. There is so much energy in the all-consuming sadness I felt a few days ago. There is so much energy in me! And when I focus it in this kind of way, all I am doing is undermining myself, my power. I hate the world, and I hate myself. Nothing is right, nothing can be made right. Everything is a problem, and I am alone in the world, seething and angry, ready to die. Fuck! I don't want to live like this...

If I could harness the energy of feelings as powerful as these, and channel that energy into something else, then I would be one hell of a powerful woman. I don't want to just follow the dictates of my culture, though, and push away the complex, uncomfortable emotions and just be happy in a sticky, sweet, fake kind of way. There is something authentic about these raw emotions that seems really worthy of honoring. I don't want to try to train myself into just feeling the "positive" emotions and blocking the "negative" ones. I see how a lot of the "positive intention" people want us to set a mantra and chant ourselves happy. "I am whole and happy each and every day." Fuck, dude. No, I'm not. Not even if I fake it 'til I make it, repeating that hollow bullshit every day! I think there's something deeper than that. Not moving into preference for happy feelings over angry ones. I think there's something really powerful in allowing them all to show up fully, to listen to them fully, but to simply remain present with them, not pulled this way and that, tumultuous and wild and out of control. I want to feel exactly what I am feeling in each and every moment. I want to surrender my preferences to just feel happy all the time, and to push away the darkness, lest it swallow me whole. But I also want to be still and present and calm and strong in the face of all of it. It's something I can only imagine at this point.

Seeing Clearly

2010-04-23T13:30:00.000-07:00

The faint early morning light is glowing outside the window, and there is a chill in the air. I am not used to being up so early, and after a night that was later than I would prefer. But the cobwebs are clearing from my wakefulness, and I am feeling pretty good this morning. My eyes are tired, as is my body, but a glow fills me. My body is still, vibrating with goodness and flow. I feel energy circulating within me, and I am light and open, radiant. I am grateful for having spent my Earth Day in creative, heart-centered playfulness, in love.

And now, I am back in a school subbing for the first time in months. Today I am playing science teacher – chemistry, physics, anatomy & physiology. An easy day, I am hoping. A day of handing out random assignments and keeping a bunch of high school kids from burning the place down. And a day of reading and pondering. It's not the most meaningful work, but it's also not bad. I am serving a need within a system that is serving a need. Today I'm willing to play my part in that.

Feeling deeper now. Connecting with the part of me that comes here to the page to express, to contemplate, to celebrate and mourn. What within me yearns to speak in this moment? Oh, yes. There has been something stirring within me since Wednesday, my day of inconsolable sadness. I am wanting to touch in with resistance and abandonment, these two elements that seem inextricably entwined in my life.

When I was 18 years old, I fled my hometown. Not in any kind of teen angsty kind of way, but to go to college in Baltimore, to the Peabody Institute, the music school of my dreams. I was ready to leave behind my family, to leave behind this small town and all its conservative, small-minded values. I was ready to walk away from who I had been, and to become who I really was. That choice was perhaps the best one I ever made in my life that far. I entered into a community of creative people, and found my tribe. I entered into school, studying and practicing what I loved most, and dove into it with my entire being. I had the most incredible experiences, and met the most wonderful people, many of whom are still dear to my heart now. I entered into the life I had always wanted.

And at the end of four years, I was burned out and tired, and I walked away. I couldn't care less about playing the flute or about Peabody. I was done. Once more, I fled. Not geographically, for I have remained in the general area of Baltimore-Washington, DC ever since. But still, I fled. I didn't want to be bound by the smallness of the Institute, or by the smallness of the classical music profession. What I am seeing now is that this began a pattern in my life that has carried forth ever since. I have walked away from many things – from people, from work, from my art, from just about everything that I have been deeply connected to. It came to me in waves earlier this week just how profoundly this pattern has affected my life, too. It almost seems that everything I become close with I must eventually choose to leave. And I want to dive deeper into this pattern.

Push pull energy. I want so much to be deep into what I love. I love the intensity, the feeling of being absorbed, of merging in unity. I love the feeling of my boundary being blurred into something larger than myself. I love the feeling of being utterly absorbed in the creative process, of making music or writing or art. I love being utterly absorbed in learning, feeling my whole being become devoted to the process. I love being utterly absorbed in relationships, too, losing myself in the larger picture, feeling how my living and loving contributes to others, and how their living and loving contributes to me. And at some point in this absorption, I become overwhelmed. I begin to feel lost and scared, and something deep and primal within me yearns to reassert my identity, my separate self sense. So, I push the world away from me, and re-establish my own boundaries. I feel my me-ness re-emerge. And so I have lived, feeling the tides of connection coming closer and then retreating, ebbing and flowing like the sea.

This ebbing and flowing is the ebbing and flowing of self and other, of fear and love. Of wanting to be whole on my own, and of longing to live deeper than that. Of fearing the possibility of losing myself in the midst of togetherness, and of love that couldn't care less about that, yearning to drown this little ego identity in the flow of radiant living love. What will happen if I surrender to love, to the whole, to connection, to let myself be completely engulfed within that? In essence, I see this as the yearning to return to God, to surrender to the divine, to give it all up to what is most holy in the universe. This is the deep yearning of the spiritual path I have been called to follow, the yearning that awakens my heart each day upon this Earth. But it is also terrifying sometimes. It is annihilation, it is death, it is being swallowed as an individual ego being, and being transformed into a spark of light in the whole. And that is terrifying! So, I resist, I pull away. I am not ready to die, I still have lots of living left to do here.

Resistance at this deepest level makes so much sense. Resistance at this level, at the level of this ebb and flow of human and divine, is the dance of Life. It is a dance of resistance that emerges from deep within my cells, a dance between my primal animal nature and my profound spiritual nature. But this resistance ripples out into my life in ways that are far less profound as I assert my identity and self in the world. I have been caught up in this resistance so many times. I resist that which attempts to define me, limit me, consume me. I am Angela the intellectual, the flutist, the pilgrim, the writer. And I have balked at each of these things. I am intellectual, and can speak about many diverse things, but I am also deeply intuitive and don't care to rely on knowledge alone. I am a highly trained flutist, but sometimes would rather play a drum around a fire, or improvise on a simple bamboo flute while sitting on a riverbank. I am a pilgrim, travelling the world in search of the divine, but I am bound by no culture or religion, I am making my own way. I am a writer, but don't seek money or approval through this form, my deepest commitment is to my own soul as I approach the page. It is all on my terms. I will offer only what I want, I will be only what I choose, and if you challenge me to be what you imagine is most logical, or most purposeful, or most practical, I will spin on my heels and walk away from you. Who the hell are you to limit me or define me? I pack up my ideas, my music, my language, my heart, and I stuff it all into my pilgrim's rucksack, and hit the road.

And there I am, alone with my rucksack, filled with the jewels from within my deepest heart, and feeling alone and abandoned. Where did everybody go? Hey, don't you want to come along this road with me? I see how I have walked away from everything like this so many times. I have fled conversations, I have fled gatherings, I have fled my art, I have fled work that pays the bills and work that fulfills me, I have fled relationships and friendships, I have fled what gives me grounding and history, I have fled anything that questions me in any way, I have fled whatever makes me uncomfortable, I have fled whatever feels too close or threatens to limit me. I have fled my music career. I have fled my massage training. I have fled my mind. I have fled my heart. I have fled my own skin. And each time I run away, I am fleeing myself. I am abandoning myself. Instead of sitting still with a situation for long enough to gain real insight, I have sought escape at all costs, fearing my own annihilation. And yet, on some deep level, that annihilation is the very thing I am seeking...

The very things I yearn for most deeply in my life at this point are requiring that I stop fleeing, that I stop resisting, that I face myself. I can push away any person that makes me feel uncomfortable, who questions me, who challenges me, who threatens my sense of self in some way. Or I can see past that fear and stay present and true to who I really am. I can feel the discomfort, the questioning, the challenge, and not flee. I have enough clarity and integrity to be able to discern when I am actually being challenged or threatened in a way that is harmful, and I can have enough faith in myself to know when walking away would be the most self-loving choice. But instead of that, I see how I have made it a practice to push people away as a visceral response to anyone who comes within my sphere of living who might make me the slightest bit uncomfortable, even when it might be in alignment with what I need to learn and face in order to grow. I have been impulsive and fearful a lot of the time in my relationships with my fellow human beings. I have formed deep and meaningful connections, for sure, and have felt great trust and love in these relationships. But I have sometimes also been bored by the safety of them, yearning for something else, something I couldn't quite name. I have longed for total acceptance and I have also been bored with that, and felt like walking away from that, too. What a bizarre pattern, spiraling into every facet of my relating with others.

I have also fled the very things I love to do. I love to play the flute, and at this point, I have walked away from performing, and have only the bare minimum of work needed to get by in the field of music. It is true that I no longer have much interest in classical music. I am yearning for something deeper than that, to enter into a deeper relationship with my art, with improvisation, and with creating music in a freer way with others who share the same vision. But I am in a holding pattern, not yet freely entering into this creative process. I have yet to redefine my art, and I feel it stirring within me. Will I get out of my own way and allow Spirit to create through me? I love to write, and at this point, I have never really, fully given much chance to it beyond my own needs. Do I really want to put my writing out there into the world? I think so. Writing fulfills me, and I have been told that it has touched others, too. I have plenty to say, and I love the dance of entering into life through the written (and spoken) word. Yet, I have hesitated. I have a 600+ page master's thesis on pilgrimage sitting atop a shelf in a closet, essentially three books waiting to find their way to the world. I have a poetry blog, a pilgrimage blog, an Ayahuasca blog, and this daily blog, all drifting in the ethers of cyberspace, finding people here and there. But is there some other commitment that writing could become in my life? I haven't ever made any serious attempt toward being published. What if I began to explore possibilities for that? What is there to lose? And my most recent pursuit, massage. I have been finished with massage school since mid-December. I have made no effort at this point to get licensed, and to begin a practice. Will this become the next path I walk away from? Or will I push past my own resistance and enter into a dance with my creative offerings, and allow them to become sacred offerings from my heart, sacred offerings in service in the world?

A couple of weeks ago, when I went into ceremony, I was surprised to feel my resistances fall away. I stood there, and couldn't quite remember what had been wrong in the first place, why I had resisted the community and the spiritual practice that had touched me so deeply. I had been so afraid of losing myself, of being overtaken by something that was dangerous. But the only danger was in surrendering the kicking and screaming of my own ego. The only thing to lose was my separate self sense, my aloneness, my own feeling of being abandoned. I can see that I have been afraid of the very things I have longed for in the deepest corners of my heart and soul. I long to feel deep and meaningful connection. I long for tribe, community. I long for a deep, soulful relationship. And I have resisted both of those. I long to know that my life matters, to make a meaningful contribution to the world. And I have resisted offering my gifts, the very things I have to offer from the purest place within my heart and soul. As I sit here, seeing the truth of this more clearly than ever before, I am stunned to see how I have been blocking myself constantly. I have sabotaged myself. I have denied myself the very things I have wanted most. It has never been true that what I long for is not possible. It has only been true that I couldn't stop my fearful patterns – I couldn't see my fearful patterns – for long enough to allow my heart's desire to manifest in my life. I am sitting here in a place of quiet compassion right now. I am practicing having compassion for myself, for the truth that I have not seen this pattern, and that it has ruled my life in my unawareness. And I am grateful today for seeing clearly.

Longing

2010-04-21T06:35:00.002-07:00

Life is nothing if not an adventure in contrast. Yesterday in the afternoon I felt full of love and truly alive. This morning as I awoke, my belly was filled with a stirring sense of dread. My heart was filled with sadness and longing, a kind of low-grade despair that fills my body with inertia. Being engaged in meditation practice with Pema Chodron's words at my side will surely be a useful tool today as I sit with this feeling, choosing patience and presence instead of reactivity and escape.

I breathe into my body, feeling the contour of this discomfort, listening for the messages of this feeling. I believe that these kinds of embodied feelings - as opposed to emotional feelings - are true north, pointing me to something that needs acknowledgment. In my practice of curious exploration through Nonviolent Communication, I would begin to face this feeling by making observations like this (or if there were an external experience, I might begin there). So, Pema's wisdom is getting me to stay here and present with this feeling, not fleeing into distraction, for long enough to begin embracing NVC. I am so lucky to have these guides for my life.

The next piece is to observe thoughts - jackals. I hate waking up feeling this way. Fuck, will life never just let me be happy day after day? Do I have to spend so much time feeling like shit? I am such a melodramatic narcissist. Why must I spend my days gazing internally, playing in this crap? I don't see other people feeling this way all the time, and spending hours upon hours of their lives gazing at their navels in hope of finding some sense of happiness. People just live, they wake up and go to their jobs and live. Why the hell does it all have to be so complicated? And what the fuck am I so miserable about?

I have a feeling emerging - loneliness. And more jackals, more thoughts. Lonely? Of course you are. You spend all your time obsessing about yourself! This little feeling, that little feeling, this or that isn't right in the world, this or that isn't right in your life. You are nothing but a dreamer, drifting in the realm of possibility all the time, and never happy with things the way they are. And now, the need behind the feeling - I am needing deep companionship. More thoughts continue - your life is filled with people! Filled with experience! What the hell are you lonely for?

What I am feeling now is a shift within me. Moving away from the violence of the jackal's judgment and attack - which here has been internally focused, trying to convince me that my feelings are not valid because I shouldn't be needing what I need. I am feeling like I have found the jewel within this morning's wakeful sadness.

I am feeling lonely because I am needing deep companionship. I am taking a pause now to just sit with that, breathing into it, accepting where I am this morning.

David Deida says that we attract people into our lives who are where we are, who are as open as we are, who show up as much as we are willing to. I am seeing the truth of this play out in my life right now. I am seeing how my own heart's deepest yearning has been blocked by my own hesitation and fear. At this point in my life, my heart's deepest yearning is for relationship, for intimate partnership. I could certainly continue living as I have lived, and life would go on as it has. I could continue to get wrapped up in my life's mission, and reinvest myself in my spiritual practice over and over again. But what I have been feeling with increasing intensity is that I have come as far as I can come along this path while alone. I don't want to do it alone anymore. I want my life's mission to be in partnership with someone I love. I want my spiritual practice to be in partnership with someone I love. I have had a million excuses in the past why I didn't want to go there. Men were distractions, and the highest form of love had little to do with romantic intimacy. Beneath that was a whole lot of fear that I wasn't worth very much, that I was not lovable, not really. But as I have faced these things and moved into healing, and letting go of the lies I have held to be true, I now feel just how strongly I have pushed away from one of the most beautiful parts of life. I can't even comprehend where my thoughts came from before, they make no sense to me now. And what I am left with is this deep longing.

I can look into every relationship I have ever had and see how I attracted to me only what I was willing to receive. I drew to myself relationships that never really blew my heart wide open because I was afraid of that, of losing myself in something so utterly beyond my control. And while there were beautiful experiences in each of those relationships, and in the moment I felt the gifts of what they were, I can see how I got exactly what I asked for. Relationships that weren't very deep, had no grounding, and had no room to grow. I don't want to be in a relationship that feels like I will be living in one room with a man for the duration! That makes me feel stifled, and want to jump out the window! But that is exactly what I have manifested in the past. Now, I want to dance with a man in every room in this spectacular mansion of life, and then jump out the window together and enter the wild world outside.

I am grateful for books that have been sent into my life right now, books that are feeding me with contemplation about relationship. Dear Lover by David Deida. Enchanted Love by Marianne Williamson. The Mastery of Love by Don Miguel Ruiz. The Spirit of Intimacy by Sobonfu Some. Deida blows me away all the time in his knowing. You don't want a rigid man, but you want a man whose heart's courage and authentic truth runs deep. You want a man who feels you, listens to you, considers everything you have said, and then claims you, taking you to where you couldn't tell him to take you, even if you tried. He takes your heart to new depths of adventure and openness, and he shows you new aspects of life. You can - and should - give your man your fullest expression of feeling, offering him your feedback, your love, and your responsive heart's spontaneous expression of pleasure and pain. A really good man will embrace all the feedback and feeling you have offered him, consider everything you have showed him... Um, yes. And, How would you live and move right now if you were open in the fullest loving you can imagine? Right now, the only way you can know that you are not being fully loved is because you can intuit how it would feel to be fully loved. The only way you know that you are not open in divine bliss is because you can intuit a way of opening that is more divine, more blissful, than you are allowing yourself to open now. You already intuit your deepest divine love and gifts, right now. If you didn't you wouldn't yearn as you do. Sigh. Marianne Williamson gives me hope: We cannot remain who we used to be, once love has made it over our walls and begun to change our hearts. And that's where I sit today.

Once more, I am returning to the wisdom of sitting present and doing nothing. I feel all of this stirring within me. I feel the truth of Deida's and Williamson's words echoing within me. I see the ways that I have created relationships that have no longevity or possibility in the past, and I surrender them all to the fire. Sometimes, my Aries moon nature kicks around inside of me with ferocity, demanding that I move on to the next thing already, to cut ties with what feels so uncomfortable and just make a new beginning. Then, my Cancer sun nature clings tenaciously to the beauty of what I have been given, not wanting to let go. Both of these parts of my nature just want to be happy. So, today I breathe. I see, too, how the fears that I have carried have manifested what has come to my life now. I don't crave complication or drama, yet that is exactly what I have been given. Sometimes it's hard to know when to let go, and when to remain present through the challenges.

I am praying for clarity. I pray that the Universe will guide me in ways that are more clear than they are right now. I feel clear about what I want in a relationship, in the idea realm, anyway. I spent a long time recently getting clear about that in my blog, "Him." But in a more situational way, I am asking for clarity. I am not merely sitting here lonely, daydreaming of love in my life someday. Life has brought me experiences right now that are really requiring me to embody this question of relationship. What I hear very deeply in this moment is that I want to be with a man who is truly available on all levels. Whose life situation isn't too complicated to really allow me inside. Whose emotional situation isn't too complicated to really allow me inside. Someone who can freely and openly love me exactly as I am, and stand beside me and help me to grow while he does the same. Someone who can talk with me about the mysteries of the world and life, and who will not be too closed to sit and cry with me. Someone who has a lot to teach me and who is open to what I have to teach him. Someone who is courageous enough to enter my life and claim me as his, or to walk away if he knows I'm not it. Someone who is ready to commit to the beauty of a life together, in spite of the challenges. Someone who can make me laugh and smile and who can also hold my sorrow and anger sacred without retreating. I am here praying for life to send me a true intimate life partner. I am praying for clarity and courage.

One more thought from Deida: If you want a man who can offer his deepest consciousness and create a sacred relationship with you ... then feel, trust, and offer your heart's deepest yearning. Then, your love's most divine longing and deepest wisdom will choose the man you truly value and inspire. Your relationship will reflect your heart's most sacred light.

Okay

2010-04-20T17:25:00.000-07:00

I feel about as full today as I ever remember feeling. This afternoon as I drove home from yoga, I rolled down the windows and blasted Michael Franti as loud as I could stand it, singing at the top of my lungs. I flowed down the road, every thought, every breath a prayer. I felt free, really free. In those moments, I felt completely surrendered to the moment, loving as much as I knew how, accepting everyone and everything around me with as much heart as I could manage. This afternoon, there has been nothing to do, nothing to be, nothing to achieve, nothing more than feeling alive in the world. I grooved to the music, and offered my very being as prayer to the Earth I moved upon, and the beings I moved among. I was consumed in the joy of this beautiful afternoon, flowering trees dripping heavy with their finest splendor, and lush green bursting out everywhere.

This is the way of the world. Just when we think that death has claimed everything, when the cold, brutal winter will splinter everything in its icy grip, life persists. Life persists. I feel it all around me as the world flows back to its eternal living majesty. I also feel it within me, as I feel the tempestuous seas within me calming to some sense of peace.

I have knelt to greet the hyacinths and tulips, and have leaned over each day to meet the sweetness of the lilacs. I am beginning to know many of the plants around me now in all their seasons. I know where the poke berry plants will come up in the garden, and I know the mullein down the street, its soft, gray-green leaves already fully emerging. I know the trees all around me, though I don't have names for them all yet. I know their rhythm. I know the cycle of the magnolia tree, her shiny, rubbery leaves resilient through the winter, and her fragrant, leathery white blossoms giving way to brilliant red seed pods, then to hard brown cones. And I am starting to feel the rhythm of humanity within this cycle of nature here. My experience of the rhythm of seasons is surely different from those who live in close communion with the land and rely upon it for their sustenance. But I am understanding the energetic shifts that come with each time of the year.

I feel the roots of spring in me, digging down deep, looking for nourishment to blossom me wild and joyful and abundant and full of love. The summer sun will ripen my heart and mind and soul. I can't wait to see what life brings to me during this time. The winter was brutal and cold, and ravaged me. I am so ready to receive the seeds of life here, to welcome whatever life has to offer me. I have spent much of this day deeply bowing in gratitude, hardly able to contain the feeling I have - an almost overwhelming, ecstatic feeling. There will be another fall, and another winter. But now is the time to grow and fortify my heart. To embrace this ecstasy fully, to allow it to transform pain into wholeness, to transform fear into love, to transform doubt into trust and faith.

I have been waiting for there to come a time when life would once more feel like everything is really, really okay. Today is that day.

Don't Take Anything Personally

2010-04-18T06:40:00.000-07:00

It has been years since I first read "The Four Agreements" by Don Miguel Ruiz, and since that first reading I have read it several times. I am feeling today that perhaps my time is coming to read it once again. Its wisdom is simple and eternal, looking into four simple practices that can change your life. I have just pulled it out, and am reminding myself of these four agreements:

*Be impeccable with your word - Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

*Don't take anything personally - Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering.

*Don't make assumptions - Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness, and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

*Always do your best - Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse, and regret.

I have come back to these ideas over and over again, and can usually figure out where I am needing to work by which agreement I am forgetting in the moment. But right now, I can see that I am doing pretty well with three of these. There is one that is a tender spot, a trigger, that is needing to be taken deeper into my awareness, the second agreement:
Don't take things personally

In this moment, I can hardly comprehend how it is possible to not take things personally in close relationships that are so deeply personal! I am so grateful for the people in my life who are serving as valuable mirrors in this process. I am also grateful for those who can love and accept me through my process of growing and learning, who can reflect to me what I need to see without trying to change me. In this moment, I am still fresh with morning wakefulness, and feel these little epiphanies that have been left as gifts of the dreamworld, though I don't recall my dreams from last night. Epiphanies about what it means to be strong and full of love and resilience. Epiphanies about what it means to be vulnerable instead of being fragile and sensitive. Epiphanies about deep acceptance of myself and others. Mostly right now, I feel this energy moving in my body, as things are being rearranged. I am grateful for this time to sit with this shift, and to explore these epiphanies more fully.

I am remembering a passage from Pema Chodron's book "Practicing Peace in Times of War" - one of my new favorite books:
If you dissolved your aggression, it would mean that other people wouldn't have to walk on eggshells around you, worried that something they might say would offend you. You'd be an accessible, genuine person. The awakened people that I've known are all very playful, curious, and unthreatened by things. They go into situations with their eyes and their hearts wide open. They have a real appetite for life instead of an appetite for aggression. They are, it seems, not afraid to be insecure.
I am thinking not so much of my own aggression - which there surely is plenty of - but my own sensitivity to life. The ways that I do take things personally. Sometimes, my sensitivity feels deep and psychic, utterly beyond thought and reaction. I feel energetically overwhelmed by a person or a situation. Sometimes it is purely energetic - there is no exchange that serves as a catalyst, but merely contact with a person. Sometimes it feels energetic as well as situational - I feel like I have entered a toxic dumping ground of energy, whether with one person or many, or even within a particular environment. In this case, I am now starting to see how the initial felt reaction is then made worse by my own thinking, largely unconscious, sometimes becoming vaguely conscious. Many times, though, my sensitivity occurs in direct response to other people and interactions with them - sometimes directly personal, sometimes not overtly personal at all. And there I go, taking things personally. I follow the downward spin, caught up in my emotional response, followed by thoughts, followed by more emotion, followed by more thoughts. Pema Chodron talks about this a lot in "Practicing Peace:"
In Tibetan there is a word that points to the root cause of aggression, the root cause also of craving. It points to a familiar experience that is at the root of all conflict, all cruelty, oppression, and greed. This word is shenpa. The usual translation is "attachment," but this doesn't adequately express the full meaning. I think of shenpa as "getting hooked." ...Once you begin to notice it, you feel like this experience has been happening forever. That sticky feeling is shenpa. And it comes along with a very seductive urge to do something. Somebody says a harsh word and immediately you can feel a shift. There's a tightening that rapidly spirals into mentally blaming this person, or wanting revenge, or blaming yourself. Then you speak or act. The charge behind the tightening, behind the urge, behind the story line or action is shenpa.

Shenpa is the response of taking things personally. Pema Chodron continues:
Now, if you catch shenpa early enough, it's very workable. You can acknowledge that it's happening and abide with the experience of being triggered, the experience of urge, the experience of wanting to move. It's like experiencing the yearning to scratch an itch, and generally we find it irresistible. Nevertheless, we can practice patience with that fidgety feeling and hold our seat.

I read these words, and I feel a few things within me. One is the voice of the warrior in my spirit. She says, yeah! Let's go! I will sit here in my discomfort and do nothing until it is utterly burned away. I can take it. Another is the voice of the indignant one within me. She says, I will not sit around for this! I will not take in other people's judgment and criticism, I will not stay here for this bullshit. I deserve better. Then there's another, saying The world is too much, I can't take it anymore, there is nothing but harshness and insanity all around me, and the pain is unbearable, I crumble. The first voice is the voice of my spiritual warrior, the one who wants more than anything to face life, to face the world, to face myself, and to jump into the fire of love, letting all else be burned away. The other two are reactive voices, voices caught up in shenpa. One aggressive, wanting to fight a righteous battle, the other weak, wanting to collapse into despair.

Right now, I can see how much of my life in the last six months has been spent with that third voice. I have felt overwhelmed by life, by the series of major life events that have triggered great despair and fear and broken me down. I have felt swallowed in darkness within myself, and within the world around me. I have crumbled, hopeless. I have feared everything I can imagine fearing. I have felt the depths of sorrow and suffering. I have been lost in an existential crisis so deep and gnarly that I couldn't even remember where I had come from. I did not expect to survive it. And here I am anyway. In emerging from this crisis, the second voice kicked in pretty strongly, trying to take back my power. Instead, I now see how I have sometimes been like a wounded animal, hiding in her cave to lick her wounds and slowly return to strength and health. I have taken steps into the world, trying to return to life as usual. I have met with resistance in myself and others, and I have taken things very personally on occasion. I have been up to my eyes in emotional reactivity, completely triggered, caught up in my own limited story. I have felt inclined to want to crumble back into my cave, not moving for days, just barely breathing enough to stay alive. Some days, it seems like anything and everything can cause me pain. The wind blows in a certain way, and I am in tears. Old anger or pain is triggered by a passing thought, and I am lost in it, seeing the whole world reflect the story that this thought creates. I have floated back and forth between weakness and collapse, and righteous indignation, alternatively attacking others and withdrawing into myself. And I see now, in this moment, how I bite the hook, how I take things personally, how I let this escalate to war within myself.

In the last week or so, the first voice has been emerging with greater and greater strength. The voice of my own strong, abiding Spiritual Warrior Self is returning. And she wants to look deeply into this process of taking things personally. She wants to explore it with openness and curiosity. And so, I return to Don Miguel Ruiz:
Whatever you think, whatever you feel, I know is your problem and not my problem. It is the way you see the world. It is nothing personal, because you are dealing with yourself, not with me. Others are going to have their own opinion according to their belief system, so nothing they think about me is really about me, but it is about them. He continues, As you make a habit of not taking anything personally, you won't need to place your trust in what others do or say. You will only need to trust yourself to make responsible choices...you can travel around the world with your heart completely open and no one can hurt you. You can say "I love you" without fear of being ridiculed or rejected. You can ask for what you need. You can say yes, or you can say no - whatever you choose - without guilt or self-judgment. You can choose to follow your heart always. Then you can be in the middle of hell and still experience inner peace and happiness. You can stay in your state of bliss, and hell will not affect you at all.
I long to live this way. I don't completely understand it yet. But I feel it stirring deep within me. I love the idea that I can be so centered in my heart and my truth that I am always in the flow, never retreating in pain. I love the idea that one day I will be able to laugh at those who judge me and criticize me, not taking it personally or believing that their opinions could be true. I love the idea that someday I might be able to stand in the face of utter madness and un-love, and hold love and peace and truth and justice and light and joy in my heart, and in the world. I want to be that healed!! I want to allow myself to carry that healing for the whole world, with no exceptions. So, today I begin.

Him

2010-04-14T20:34:00.004-07:00

I have never, ever been in a place in my life where life was insisting so much that I really consider what I want in a romantic relationship and life partner. I have spent much more of my life single than in relationships, and have found most of the relationships I have been in to be full of dissatisfaction and distraction. I have often preferred to spend my time alone than to delve into the world of dating, and have sometimes spent months and months without even considering getting involved with men in an intimate way. In the relationships I have had, I have always longed for deeper connection, more understanding, and true common ground ... and I have never found anything close. Usually, following a break up, I have felt so disillusioned that I cant' see the point in re-entering this game of pseudo-relating. The love was never profound enough. The physical intimacy was never deep enough. The conversation became tired and required so much effort. But now, life is asking me to step beyond these old experiences, beyond these old beliefs, and to really explore what I want in a love relationship. I am listening.

There have been no stellar relationships. Not yet. But plenty of learning experiences.

There was the creative guy. With him, I always felt like an experiment, like I was under a microscope. There was plenty of intellectual connection, but so little emotional intimacy or affection. He had a very high opinion of himself, and could barely see beyond his self-interest to connect with me. On again, off again, it eventually fizzled.

There was the sociologist. I could never tell what he was feeling. He was intense, but the intensity had little depth. He loved to hear himself talk, and loved having an audience. He was deathly afraid of emotion, spirituality, and psychology. Our connection was intellectual, and we could dream up any adventure or fantasy. There was very little emotional intimacy, and the physical intimacy was never worth much.

There was the alcoholic. He was a hopeless romantic, for sure, and I felt totally adored. He was patient and adoring, and was devoted to me, and we fell in love very quickly. Our connection was pure chemistry. We had little common interests, and I often felt trapped by his impression of me, the hippie chick. His alcoholism eventually destroyed any possibility of relationship. Communication became sparse or hostile, and I completely lost trust in him.

There was the one who I fell hopelessly in love with for years and years, without ever telling him. He eventually came out of the closet to me, and destroyed my whole world for a little while. Fortunately we're still close.

There was the one who lived far away, and we shared love letters for two years, all by mail. We were young, and our letters were clumsy and hand written, but full of sincerity and affection.

There was the one who I knew only through two months of Tuesday lunch dates, who seemed to be so uncomfortable in his own skin, and wore the same clothes every Tuesday. We played chess, and talked about strange things. Eventually, he left in the middle of a lunch date, informing me that I had given him a lot to think about. I never heard from him again.

There was the one who was so vastly different on the phone than in person. Intimate sharing - sometimes bordering on too intimate - by phone contrasted with anxiety and extreme discomfort in person. Always late, always dealing with something else, and often putting me on a pedestal. He wondered if I was a lesbian because I was a strong woman.

These are the ones I am remembering best from over the years in this moment...

And now, the universe has danced others into my life, others with greater potential than any of the ones above, with greater depth of love and connection in some ways, but greater impossibility in others. Sometimes I just don't know what to do with it all. Sometimes I want to just walk away, to retreat into the life I lived before. Alone, but simple. I don't need sex. I can go a long, long time without missing that kind of connection. Years even. But what I am realizing is that I want to share my heart with a man who can hold it sacred, who can worship its radiant light and love, and honor that with his own radiant light and love. I want to share my life with a man who can walk this path alongside me. There is great strength in unity, and great power in love. I want to share my life with a true intimate partner. I want to feel the power of WE that can transcend anything I can do, be, or learn by myself. I see it happen all around me all the time. I know that it is possible. I have avoided it, I have feared it. But now I am ready to welcome that into my life.

What I know for sure is that the greater clarity I find within myself, the greater my chances are of manifesting and meeting a man who will be able to meet me where I am. So, that is what I am sitting with tonight. What do I really want in an intimate partnership?

I want to be with someone who will understand me and accept me as I am. Who will be able to stay present with me in all the variations in my feeling and being, without turning away or shutting down. Who will not try to convince me that I should feel a particular way, or constantly try to interpret, fix, or define my feelings. I want to share my life with someone who will really listen to me and take in my words, even if he doesn't always agree with me. I want to be with someone who openly and freely appreciates me in all that I am, and who expresses that without any hesitation. I want to be with someone who is affectionate in his presence, in his touch, in his words. I want to share my life with someone who understands what it is to be on an intense, committed spiritual path, and who has already chosen that for himself as well - not that his path must be the same as mine, but just compatible. I want to share my spiritual growth and evolution through relationship, as well as personal healing - love is the fire that heals all. I want to be with someone who is really open minded, and who is willing to see beyond his own views to the bigger picture. I want to be with someone who is interested in personal healing, and who is facing the demons and darkness within himself boldly, with candor and humility, and who can share openly about that process. I want to be with a man who holds peace dear to his heart, who can enter a practice of Nonviolent Communication with me, and to embody that practice together in a relationship. I want to be with a man who is not afraid of being open and vulnerable, and who can speak from the softness of his heart. I want to be with a man who can imagine physical intimacy as a practice in surrender to the Divine, and who is interested in cultivating a practice of sacred intimacy. I want to be with a man who cares about the state of the world, about the environment, about sustainable, green living. Who cares about education and children, and can share an ongoing conversation with me about what is truly valuable in learning and cultivating the mind. Who can understand what I mean by indigenous lifeways, and who will want to follow me - or lead me - to remote, beautiful parts of the world where people still live in communion with the Earth. Oh, and I would love to share my life with a man who can truly join me in living in sacred communion with the Earth, who cares about the land and the trees and the water as All My Relations. I want to be with someone who is a grounded dreamer, a visionary, a soulful being with a wide open heart, and whose ideas are not merely theoretical, but deeply embodied in practice. I would hope that he is not terribly materialistic or concerned about amassing wealth or property. I would also hope that he is responsible with worldly matters, and can take care of the basic requirements of living from day to day with enough competence that all of the rest can fully blossom. If he also happens to love to do the dishes, and isn't a slob, all the better.

War and Peace

2010-04-13T05:45:00.000-07:00

The sky is gray this morning, but the birds keep on singing. They spin their symphony alive each morning, and even on days when I haven't had enough sleep, I am grateful to be pulled back into wakefulness by their song. Here I am, alive for another day on this Earth. Near me, a sweet little kitty, purring his song gently as he sleeps on my pillow. Mornings like this are such exquisite gifts. I appreciate days when I don't have to rush off to be somewhere in particular too early, and can just sit and be present with the morning.

I awoke following dreams that have left my heart heavy, and my belly churning. Dreams of Laura, who died of cancer last August. Dreams of hollow, empty places and echoes of the past, of things that are never the same after they are touched by loss. And I feel that in my heart, even now. When I got out of bed this morning, I was heavy with the sadness of these dreams.

I've been reading a lot of amazing books lately. Dear Lover by David Deida. A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson. The Bhagavad Gita. But the one that has touched me the most deeply has been Practicing Peace in Times of War by Pema Chodron. It's a book I kept meaning to read each time I heard someone read from it, but kept forgetting to get it. It came into my life last week at the perfect time, and touched me deeply with her messages of deep, inner peace. Removing the seeds of war within myself...that's the process.

It's not a lack of love that keeps me from living in deep peace. On Sunday, as I listened to the guidance of the universe in Ceremony, I could see that there was no more love to be found within me. Only the ways that that love is blocked. The feeling that came to me was pain in the heart. Before, I had always understood that heartache comes from the heart caving in on itself, deflated, empty of love, and needing to be filled. Now I clearly see that heartache comes from a heart being so filled with love, filled to bursting, but not able to freely share it, to let it pour forth. Holding back love is the source of this pain. And I can see that the holding back of love is only the beginning of suffering - when the mind tries to process what is happening, to find some solid ground, a whole reality is created. Separation is created. I am this and you are that is created. Conflict happens.

I had a conversation with a friend yesterday that really brought me into contemplation. His point of view was one of embracing radical authenticity and honesty, which are practices that I deeply value. But the question that came into my mind that has lingered was of the real nature of that authenticity. Am I most authentic when I embrace my personality and ego as they arise in each moment? Am I being authentic when I honor the voices inside of me, even when they may not be the voices of my highest self? Am I being honest when I let those voices direct my life? Am I being authentic when I choose restraint, and see the motives behind each thought and action? Am I being authentic when I choose to speak and act only from my highest, finest self? Am I being authentic when I listen to my own dark voices, but do not let them move me? I have been exploring the fine line of difference between repression and restraint in my life for weeks now. These questions have been alive in the unspeakable reaches of my mind, but through reading Pema Chodron, I have found some understanding that has really touched home.

The mind is a hamster wheel. It is a biocomputer that processes whatever it is given. It spins and churns sensory input, and intellectual input, and whatever other kinds of input that appear. It is a tool. It is not the truth of who I am. I am not what I think, I am far deeper than that. However I choose to discipline my mind - or not - will affect my entire life. Feeling is a barometer and emotions are the weather. Feeling, deeper and embodied, is my true north, and will guide me into the truth of my life. Its sense impressions cannot be easily named, but located within the body. Emotion is different from feeling in ways that I find it difficult to articulate. It is reactive, it is nameable, and can often be traced to a particular thought or experience. But all of this - mind, feeling, and emotion - is a swirling soup of life experience. I see how very deeply I get caught up in it all. Personally, I trust feeling the most, and mind the least. I know there are others that revere the mind for its potential for logic and evaluation, and find it much more consistent and trustable. But when I touch in more deeply, I find that beyond the closing and opening of the mind, beyond the changing faces of feeling and emotion, is choice. If I choose to be disciplined, and commit my life to something greater than my own moment-to-moment changing experiences, the whole picture shifts. And this comes back to war and peace. If I choose to step beyond my small perspectives of mind, and beyond my ocean of feeling and emotion, I find that the battlefield is always internal. Whatever battles I am choosing to enact in the world - righteous or justified or not - are battles that are occurring within me first. And I also see that whenever I am choosing to enact those inner battles in the world, I am feeding war.

I don't want to feed war. There is nothing within my little frame of reference that is worthy of war. None of it. All the yearning for personal authenticity and radical honesty is not worth it. All the longing to truly know myself and be myself is not worth war. And this is where Pema Chodron has blessed my life so much. She says, a good definition of peace: "Softening what is rigid in our hearts..." war is never going to end as long as our hearts are hardened against each other. She continues, whenever we harden our hearts, what is going on with us? There's an uneasiness and then a tightening, a shutting down, and then the next thing we know, the chain reaction begins and we become very righteous about our right to kill the mosquito or yell at the person in the car or whatever it might be. We ourselves become fundamentalists, which is to say we become very self-righteous about our personal point of view. Yeah. Is finding the authenticity within my own personality worth that? No. Not hardly. Rumi inspires me here, Out beyond ideas of wrong doing and right doing, there is a field; I'll meet you there.

It's all about what I choose to practice. Pema Chodron continues, We label our story lines "thinking" and let them dissolve, and we come back to "right now" even when "right now" doesn't feel so great. This is how we learn patience, and how we learn to interrupt the chain reaction of habitual responses that otherwise will rule our lives...From your side, you can keep going in the conversation, but now with a kind of innate intelligence and wisdom called prajna. I am such a beginner with this. I have been reading about this practice for so long. Since I was 22 perhaps. But I am only now just beginning to understand what she's talking about, to feel it in my life. I have wanted peace, but I have fed conflict. I have hated war, and I have lived war. I am not willing to do that any more. I lay down my resistance like a pale corpse and surrender to the truth of Love. And now, the practice begins.

Gazing Beyond

2010-04-07T12:22:00.001-07:00

We stood in two lines, facing each other, men and women. We stood silently, like a grove of tall trees, immersed in stillness. The connection was palpable, deep. There was music playing in the background, something timeless and meditative. For a minute, perhaps, we gazed into each other's eyes - focusing on the left eye since it's hard to focus on both - and offered presence and connection to each other.

What a curious, beautiful thing! To gaze deeply into the eyes of another being, one whom I have never before met, and to meet his or her essence. I found myself able to stay in Witness perspective quite easily, in spite of the variety of perceptions coming to me. First, there was my own mind, curious about what this other person might be noticing or thinking about me. Second, my own sense of response to what I felt in the other person - an embodied perception, different from thought. Third, and most magnificent, my perception of the other person, their presence, and their fluctuations within the moment of our gaze. What an incredibly intimate, touching experience to share.

The deepest truth that came to me was that of Beauty. Each of these beings were amazing! Totally beautiful. For me, it was impossible to enter the realm of judgment and evaluation when gazing into the depths of another person. Beyond his or her fluctuating presence, there was a mystery inside of each one, a mystery that offered its living presence without any hesitation. Just like the trees and flowers bursting into the most radiant, ecstatic expressions of their natures, each of these human beings - in spite of the details of their lives - were doing the very same thing! Living themselves alive in the moment. No matter what we are each doing with our lives, or healing through, or caught within, we are still living ourselves alive in the moment.

Beyond that radiant living light essence of each person, I did connect with a felt sense of the person's energy. Some impressions came with images. One woman felt like an Egyptian queen, but her abundant beauty felt dry like the desert, eroded somehow. Another woman felt like the ocean - her emotional depth was tremendous, and she felt nurturing and full of love, yet beneath that, sorrow. One woman's eyes seemed to struggle to stay with mine, and her blinking was rapid and fluttery. As I felt into that, I could feel fear and resistance, as if staying present with me was almost more than she could bear. One man's gaze was so bright and joyful, still and deep, I wanted to laugh and fall into his energy. Another man was full of strength and power, yet I felt like it was impossible to connect beyond that - his essence was that of a warrior. The last man was purely happy, he felt like everything I would want my grandfather to be - slow and patient, accepting and trusting, full of love. It was a gift and a blessing to connect with so many people in such a brief time in this way. And it makes me realize that truly intimate moments like this happen so rarely in my life. Even with those who I know best, and who know me best. Even with those with whom I have shared physical and emotional intimacy. We spend so much time speaking and living within our stories and images and perceptions of each other based on language. This exploration was free of that, pure and immediate and powerful. Now, I imagine what it would be like to share this level of connection with all those beings I know and with whom I walk in this world.

I was grateful that my own self-consciousness faded away rather quickly. I have spent so much energy in my life worrying about how I am seen and perceived, always assuming that if I merely reveal myself as I am in the moment, it will be unacceptable somehow. Not only is that filled with deep self-judgment and so little acceptance, it is filled with self-absorption. All of it wastes so much energy. I see how much energy in my life has gone into this kind of unconscious thinking, and I mourn all those years when authenticity was too scary to even come near. Also, I celebrate that I am no longer willing to stay there. But it is deep; this way of thinking has roots that are pervasive, like weeds. Weeding is a neverending process, it seems...

I can see that the very intimacy I have craved in all my relationships has been blocked by my own self-consciousness. My own fear of not being worthy of the relationships that I have been given. I have spent a long time trying to be good enough in every possible way. I have been so concerned about the opinions others have held. I have felt isolated and alone, and have tried to convince myself that that is better, stronger, easier, more evolved. And I have been a fool. I have created an image and surrounded my real self with it - and I have felt imprisoned by it. This image has kept me feeling alone and isolated, and has never, ever served me in any deep, meaningful, loving way. How many times have I actually been told that I am not good enough? How many times have I been rejected? So few, so very few. My fear has kept me imprisoned in this madness. It has all broken down, and broken apart, and here I am, sifting through the rubble day by day. I see that the light that I see in others has been right there within me all this time. All that I see and experience is a reflection of the Divine heart within me, and within all beings. How have I been keeping myself out of that equation for all these years? And what a blessing it is now to really go through all the pieces of my life and pull up these weeds, these lies that have grown deep in my psyche, deep in my body.

I am not alone. I have never been alone. I have never been abandoned. I have never been worthless. I have never been ugly - inside or out - and I have never been damaged. I have never needed to validate my worth through actions or knowledge. I have never needed to prove anything to anyone. I have never needed to earn my existence here on this spinning, living world - not any more than the trees or flowers or rivers or bumblebees or clouds or deer or squirrels. How have I held myself to another standard than the rest of the living world? In truth, I - and all beings - are so interconnected that there is no possibility of isolation outside of our imaginations. I am held lovingly in the arms of this sweet existence, and every need that I have ever had has been freely provided for. I have air to breathe, water to drink, food to eat, a place to sleep, and an endless landscape in which to explore. I have a mind that can contemplate the mysteries of the universe, as well as ponder my place in the whole. I have a heart that can radiate open as Love, wide as the universe, deep as the ocean. I have this body that allows me to feel and move and come into direct, intimate contact with the rest of this world. I have a creative spirit that allows me the freedom to express myself in language and song and dance and art. I don't know where the thoughts come from that fill my mind, and I don't know who the One is that notices those thoughts, and knows that It is beyond them. I don't know where the Love comes from, either, but I do know that it fills me, it flows me, it radiates me alive, and guides every single facet of my life. Who am I to think that I don't deserve to be here? Who am I to think that I am not worthy of this life? I am here. End of story. I can spend my days digging around in the silt at the bottom of my consciousness and be stuck there forever. Or I can walk strongly and lovingly upon this Earth, and live LOVE in everything I do, everything I think, everything I am. That sounds like a lot more fun.

Heart Song

2010-04-05T05:50:00.000-07:00

Today is a beautiful day! I feel so blessed to wake up to the sound of birdsong in the tall trees that surround my house, and to feel the cool morning air on my face, while buried deeply beneath the soft down comforter. The sky is cloudless and blue, and the sun is already bright. Trees are in full bloom, and starting to grow their leaves. Daffodils and hyacinths are fading, but their fragrance lingers, and each day I am filled with delight as I walk past them. Each year, they are the first bright beacons of spring, singing their song of joy and renewal with no reserve. They inspire me. Here are beings that don't question their fullness, and offer their blooming without hesitation, in full surrender to the light of day. I can learn so much from them!

How would life show up if I followed their lead? If I was able to leave behind all the things that hold me back, all the pain and suffering and ideas and imprints from the past? If I dropped fear and moved boldly into love at all costs? What would I be doing right now? How would I be living right now?

The first thing that comes to me is that I would SING! I would sing all the time, no matter who was listening. I would sing fearlessly, and I would make it up on the spot, or I would write my own songs. I would give it no matter who was there to receive it. I would drop the mind that speaks as a professionally trained musician, the need for excellence, the voice that says I can't do it well enough to matter. I would write good songs and bad songs and silly songs, and I would sing them to the trees and the sky, and to whoever among my fellow humans would care to listen. I would let go of the need to be perfect, and sing along with whoever is singing. I would offer my own song to the world just because it is there, within me. Not to perform, not to get attention, not to be famous. But just to sing, to offer the song within my heart because it's there to offer.

The second thing that comes to me is LOVE. I have spent so much time in my life immersed in an internal world of love, and I have kept it mostly internal. I have held back in fear. In spite of that, my life has blossomed into its own expression of love, but there is so much that has gone unexpressed, so much ecstatic feeling that has been set aside. I have found safe ways of loving and being loved, allowing others to get close, but not too close. I have both yearned for Oneness, and feared being dissolved within it. I have danced around it, but pulled away. What have I feared? Being destroyed, being hurt, being abandoned. And true, all of these things have happened. But here I am, still overflowing with love, still seeking to live my life as the highest possible form of Love's expression. What would it feel like to know, deep in my bones, that I have never truly been abandoned, not even for one second? What would change within me to know that the pain of being hurt is what pierces my heart, allowing even more love to flow through me? And can I let go of the fear of being destroyed and dissolved, knowing that in my deepest essence, I am utterly indestructible? If I let go of these things that hold me back, how would my life be different? I would be able to drop the smallness within me and let go of the fear. I would express my love without reserve every single day, all the time. Every word, every touch, everything would be Love, dancing with itself in every form.

I have lived with many lies. They have brought me so much fear, and have held me back from living the fullness of Love that is possible. These lies have led me to believe that I am never going to be good enough, that I am worthless and broken. And they are powerless, once I see them as mere illusions that have clouded my dream here in this life. I don't buy it anymore. I hear the lies within myself like old, scratchy records. I feel the ways they have grown deep roots in my body and mind. This time has been a walk through the valley of the shadow of death, and I have feared every single possible evil. Each shadow has made me jumpy, and I have withdrawn, covering my eyes in fear. I am finished allowing them to own me. I will not go on living this way. I have seen too much Light and Truth to be bound by this old stuff. I used to think that I would never be able to do enough, or be enough, in this world before I die, and that my life would feel like a waste. Now, I have wandered around in that swamp for a long time, and I have explored it thoroughly. What I actually fear is that I will never live with utter abandon, I will never trust the fullness of who I am, and that I will live my days trapped by these lies, never fully living my life as an ecstatic expression of LOVE.

True Roots

2010-04-03T06:37:00.000-07:00

For the last couple days, I have felt strange fluctuations within myself, moving between a coarseness, and playfulness. I have felt inclined to step boldly beyond boundaries I usually hold in place, and have wanted to push others just a little. I feel it in myself as I sit here right now. The coarseness wants to move away from the vulnerability I have felt so much lately as I open deeper and deeper into the wounded places of my being. It wants to say "oh, fuck! Come on! Get over it already!" It speaks in a very familiar voice, one that has pushed me in this way for years and years. Then, the lighthearted voice chimes in. "Lighten up already! Come on, you know you want to play! Don't take yourself so seriously!" The caustic voice is certainly strong and controlling. I trust the playful one more, for it is a voice of joy. But I see that both of them are dancing with each other while beneath them, another voice is still yearning. One that longs to be safe and accepted and loved. "You're being weak and needy," claims the caustic one. "Just relax and play" says the light one. "Just give me some space" pleads this vulnerable, healing one. "I am strong and light! But I will be more authentically stronger and lighter and more full of joy if I really hold these tender places within."

I wonder quite often how healing actually occurs. How do I know some deep wound has been really truly healed? I've been told that I will know that when it doesn't hurt anymore, when it cannot be triggered. I understand that, really. But I know that time and time again I have thought some things were healed, and then, out of nowhere, WHAM! I realize that there is more to release, more to bring out into the light. I would love it if there was more clarity in this process! But I also understand that the heart is a mystery, the psyche is a mystery; none of this realm is linear or logical. There is nothing to hold on to. I must merely find center within myself and then swim in the flow, wherever it takes me.

I feel some anger rumbling beneath the surface. I feel it in the way that my face doesn't want to let go of its seriousness. I feel it in the tension that is lightly draped throughout my body. I wonder what it is pointing me toward. I wonder what I am overlooking right now. As I sit here, touching into it, there is something about playing it safe that is arising. That's interesting...

The little girl who grew up in an emotionally volatile home yearns for safety and stability. She wants to know, deep down, that everything is okay. She has felt the burden of her sensitivity, flowing without control or choice along the waves of other people's feeling, as well as her own, simultaneously. She remembers the desire to balance things, to ease conflict, to try to find peace at all costs. She gave as much of herself into that as possible. She remembers being given plenty of things, and she remembers the way that shifted into not being given the things she wanted. I'll give you everything, followed by I can't give you much. But now, she sees that these material things were the only level at which this exchange could occur. On the emotional level, she was left adrift. A basketcase mother and a shut down father, one shrieking, the other stoic. She found it much easier to live in an interior world, in retreat. She didn't find solace in friendships, either, as she felt tethered, not allowed space and freedom to really engage in intimate friendships. Feeling no boundaries between herself and her mother, bombarded by her mother's emotional drama, betrayed by her breach of trust, and feeling no personal space in the physical world, she retreated deeper and deeper into her interior world.

These coping mechanisms of a child have become deeply entrenched patterns in my life. Somehow, in spite of the deeply intimate friendships that I have, and the love and acceptance that shower me, I find that on some level, automatically, I am still engaging in those very same behaviors. I have spent much of my life in deep exploration of my interior world. That has made me a soulful woman, an artist, a spiritual seeker, a poet. I have become much more at home in that interior world than in the world around me. I have created personal space that is more than I could have dreamed possible. My home is my sanctuary, beautiful and creative, totally safe. I have drawn to me beautiful people who have offered me acceptance and stability and love. These people have become my Soul Family, a safe harbor for all that I am, all that I experience. I have felt deep respect and trust with these relationships, and have felt the value of appropriate boundaries in feeding that trust and respect. In spite of the deep emotional damage my childhood dealt to my psyche, Life has freely, generously, and powerfully given me all that I need in order to heal.

I have heard myself cling to "yes, but" thinking. Yes, the Universe has given me all that I need in order to heal, but these wounds are so deep. Will it ever be enough? I see the ways that I have not been able to trust all that I have been given here. As a little girl, I had no choice but to trust what I was given, to accept it. Seeing how much pain that has caused, and how much damage was done, part of me has been guarded ever since. How can I trust again? This may happen again! I must always be on my guard, waiting and watching... And I have done that. I have questioned everything, I have questioned everyone, I have kept my distance. And I have felt isolated, alone. I have felt like an alien, like a refugee. Like I will never, ever feel any true sense of belonging in this world, in this life. No wonder I have been so deeply devoted to a spiritual path! If this world has caused me so much suffering, perhaps if I retreat into others, I will finally find safety, belonging, love. And yet, here I am. In this world. Right here, right now.

The old ways of living are clearly not serving me anymore. I am grateful for so much insight into the things in life that have created this way of being. I have often felt the burden of it, and have wanted to slip away from the weightiness, from the suffering of it all. But I see how that is not possible. The only way out is through the fire! In a sense, I am creating a map of my life, a map of cause and effect within myself, and in this process, uncovering "X marks the spot" where the deepest pain is buried. Now, I must excavate each pain, and hold each one lovingly, with full awareness and acceptance. These are the treasures that will season my heart, and offer me true roots into compassion.

Changing

2010-03-31T07:50:00.001-07:00

I stood with my therapist, in tears. Across from me, an empty chair. She had asked me to speak to the chair as if my mother was there, listening. I was struck by the idea that talking to this empty space in this chair wasn’t any different than trying to talk to my mother when she is present, and that ushered forth a wave of sorrow, followed by a wave of understanding. My mother has bipolar disorder, and has likely had it for my entire life. My seemingly “normal” childhood was actually a time of tremendous instability and little acceptance and affection. And now, after spending weeks delving into the depths of this primary relationship, and the ways it has created particular responses within me, I am starting to see the big picture a little more clearly. The voices inside my mother’s head never stop, they pull her in a thousand directions. She has no filter, no boundaries. Whatever comes through her mind comes out her mouth. Up down up down. Joy, hatred, anger, judgment. Round and round. It is this way now, and it was this way then. While my basic needs were provided for, and I was rarely physically abused, I am coming to see that there never was a time of true emotional safety. There was never any true intimacy. There was never a sense given to me that I was accepted and loved just as I was, and that nothing I could do would ever change that. There were no boundaries, no privacy, no personal space - my mother would say anything to anyone, even things shared in confidence. There was emotional chaos pretty much all the time. I have always been a sensitive being, and there were times when I would get sick from all the chaos. I would be rushed to the doctor because I couldn’t stop throwing up, and the diagnosis was always the same - nerves.

I learned coping mechanisms. Two have been particularly strong in my life. First, escape. If there is noplace that is sacred or safe, then I need to go somewhere else, to flee, to leave the room, to leave the country, or to leave my body, just keep moving. The second is striving, trying, accomplishment. I see the little girl perspective so strongly in this - maybe if I do well enough, get enough awards and attention from others, become the most incredible musician, accomplish the most incredible things, just maybe then I will be loved and accepted. Just maybe then I will deserve to be loved and accepted. Maybe. This second one is very much alive in my life right now, and is the thing that I have written about previously. I am now beginning to see where these deeply entrenched feelings of being worthless have come from. If I was given my life by my mother, and then, somehow I wasn’t acceptable enough, not worth listening to or loving, not good enough, I would need to do something really big to earn this life. Maybe I could convince her otherwise. I have been trying, unconsciously, ever since.

I have a deep need for stability and safety in my life. I hate feeling hurried, and get caught up in emotional turmoil when it seems like people don’t have enough time for me. I really hold off on revealing the truth of who I am until I feel an undeniable sense of trust and acceptance from others. Life in general tends not to offer these things, and I have tended to retreat and withdraw as a result. I have lived in a cocoon, throwing myself into one endeavor after the next, working to become the most perfect, most lovable, most incredible person I am capable of becoming. I have achieved worldly success. I have drawn close to me an array of wonderful people, spanning six continents, who have reflected back to me all that is good and whole and worthy within me. And I have still continued to search, since I have yet to find solace in the company of my mother. It has come in glimmers, just occasionally, but never for long. And I am starting to see that I may never get that. She is mentally ill. She may not be capable of giving me the very things that the little girl inside of me has been desperately searching for.

Now, healing comes. Every day, more insight fills me. I have made the space in my daily life to really go into this process. My life has offered me this intense time of breaking down so that I can release all that does not serve. I have support in my life, I have friends who love me no matter what, who will listen to anything, who accept me exactly as I am any day of the week. Now, I must learn to see these old patterns when they emerge, and see them for what they are. Slowly, lovingly, I can let them go.

Transformation Walk

2010-03-30T07:58:00.000-07:00

My mind is racing, and my heart is burning. I am grateful that the distress I feel is only low-grade, and isn't moving into the realm of anxiety. Feeling uncomfortable has become business as usual in my life for now, and I am even getting used to that. Even though I see it and recognize it, I am not free of it. My belly is filled with yearning, aching, swirling. And if you asked me to put words to it, asking what is the matter? I probably couldn't answer you in a straightforward, easy way. I come to words, language, writing to attempt to grasp the ungraspable. I feel the futility of it most days right now, and yet I feel the desire within me, unwavering. I will show up at this page, right here, right now. I will fish for words, impressions, imagery, linear and nonlinear, clear and abstract. I will do this for as long as it calls to me.

Most days right now are filled with ordinary living. I get up, cook, shower, walk, breathe, read. My life looks ordinary. But beneath the surface of my living, change is occurring at a pace that is dizzying to me. I wish I could find the words to describe what is happening within me. I wish that I could understand it more myself. But I also feel that it is beyond my understanding right now. It is out of my control completely, in the way that my cells continue to be born and die every second without my knowing, without my input, and without my participation. There is a cosmic process, a mystical order to some things, and while I may feel them, observe them, and find fleeting words to describe them, I may not ever truly understand them. This is not new - I have always known it. But what is different now is that I am not still trying with all my being to understand, to be able to put rational, logical mind-based understanding on things that are utterly beyond the capacity of the human mind. I am mostly okay with not knowing. I am listening very, very closely for guidance as I walk along this path that is my life, my transformation. But mostly, I am simply allowing it to unfold.

What I understand right now is that for my whole life I have been trying to control things. I have been trying to be something in particular, though the particulars have changed. I have been trying to be the best version of Angela that I can be. I have found that isolation and solitude have really helped that process. I have found that my mind has idealized my world, and myself. I have found that my own limited thinking has caused me a lot of pain. I have found that my own criticism of myself has been almost unbearable, the criticism that has come from outside of me has reinforced my own criticism. I have felt unworthy of living here on this Earth. I have felt like I must be something other than human, infallible, perfect. I have succeeded, too, in many ways. I have been the best student, the smartest, the brightest, the best flutist, better than anyone around me, I have been the hardest worker, the most creative, the most prolific, the deepest, the most spiritual, the most well read, the world traveller, the most successful. I have lived up to my own demands for at least a short time in each of these things. But they have been destroying me slowly. And I am no longer willing to continue.

I have recently come to discover that I have never experienced true intimacy and safety and acceptance within a primary relationship. I have experienced significant instability and judgment in my life from an early age, and in some way, that became the ground that I learned to consider normal. I came to expect that those who claim to love me will also criticize me, and cause me to question myself. I came to expect that those who claim to love me will also cross my boundaries, push me, and cause me harm. I have allowed this to continue for years and years, and have considered myself to be at fault when I am no longer able to take it, and collapse in a state of heartbreak and despair. I have expected that those who claim to love me will only love the image of me, the object I present myself to be, what I am able to give to them. I have expected that they will not really want to hear what is burning in my soul, that they will not be able to lean in close and listen to my heart's dreams, that they will not have the time to sit with me as I mourn pain and loss. And each and every time, I have been right. I have been met by exactly what I expect.

My walls have been torn down by this time of breakdown. The images I once held about myself have been shattered. The things I thought I knew about myself, and about others, and about life have all blown away. The resistance to feeling all that is within me has been washed away. The beliefs I once held about myself and my path have all come into question. The voice of control and idealism that has led my life this far has been caught in the snare. I have lived with so much violence inside of myself. I have created so much war within my own being. And now, I am very, very tired. My whole being has been taken apart, and I have been walking through this fire of purification for months and months. This process is no longer under my control. It is not within my timeline. It is not even within my understanding. All I can do is show up each day and breathe and listen. And I see now, more than ever, that solitude is no longer an option. I have never been alone, and I am not alone now. The fierce independence with which I once walked through my days doesn't even seem real to me now. The walls that once kept me separate from the world around me, from those fellow humans around me - they have been utterly destroyed.

I have learned to pray. I asked to learn to pray on July 3, 2009. I have learned to pray.

I am waiting

2010-03-29T11:53:00.000-07:00

I am writing here
because you can't hear me.
While our fingers may touch
and our eyes may meet and part,
there is no communion
between our souls.
Words spill forth,
coming and going,
touching into details about
the weather
and the season
and this and that,
but never settling deep
below the surface
of clouds and flowers
and all appearances.

Lightness can be comforting.
It can smooth away all the rough edges,
and sweep away the pain of
lifetimes
of very real human suffering.
But when those rough edges become smooth,
something deeper becomes exposed
to the light of day.
Something vulnerable,
something naked,
something once hidden very deeply.
And the dust that was once
and again
swept beneath the rug
begins to pile up,
and spill out once more.

We trip and fall on the bumps and lumps
and suddenly,
the lightness becomes glaring,
a farce.
A lie.

I stood today,
facing an empty chair.
Though you were not sitting in it,
I felt no difference.
Are you there when you are there?
Do you hear me
see me
know me
any more when you are sitting here before me?
And do you even know what that means?
Is it even possible for you to stop
within the echo chamber
of your own mind
for even a moment,
just for a second,
and allow the light of another to enter?
It seems to me that within all that
endless chatter
and forced lightness
there is a barrier,
allowing nothing to enter or leave.
Do you feel that?
Do you feel like you are in prison?
Rattling there, within the walls of your own mind,
what do you feel?

I cannot ever know
your experience.
I cannot ever know what it
feels like
within your body
mind
soul.
I may never understand
what your days are like,
what your demons tell you
in the small hours of the morning.

I have been trying for
so
many
years
to penetrate
the high walls of your fortress.
Flashes of love
and caring
seep through sometimes,
and are quickly swallowed by
the wild battalion of
swirling thoughts,
all competing for
center stage.
One of them surely must
hold
center
stage.
Maybe they all just need to battle it out,
up and down
and love and hate
and apathy and sorrow and joy
all swirling there,
as they do in each and every one of us.
Is there no center?
Who is the One who orchestrates here?
Do you know?

I give up.
I cannot reach you.
I have done everything within my power
to earn your love
to earn your acceptance
to earn your connection.
I have filled my life
with achievements
and stories
and I am tired now.
None of it has ever gotten through.
And I am left with the question,
who am I living this life for, anyway?

I want to be seen for who I am beyond my doing.
Beyond the layers of collected identity.
I want to be accepted for who I am,
body, mind, and spirit,
with no qualifications
and no exceptions.
I want to be known,
met in the depths of my soul.
I want to be loved
with the full knowing of who I am.
I have walked away many times now,
but I cannot walk away any more.
I don't have any answers now,
all the old ones have expired before my eyes.
I am waiting.

Earth Song

2010-03-28T12:27:00.000-07:00

There is a song in this Earth.

Somewhere between the dying wind
and the melting ice
and the blossoming Lilac
is the song that slips into my
fading consciousness
just before I fall asleep.

I hear Her whispering to me,
calling my name,
showing me the way.

It lives within the resonance of the
still, humid
afternoon Sun,
and in the warmth that lingers
on the boulder's face
long after the Moon has risen
in the cool
orange
purple
charcoal
sky.

This sweet nectar
lingers
just beneath the sound of the
cicadas
in the stillness of deep Night,
and when their song has
finally faded,
when every song has
surrendered
to the
pervasive
silence,
there it is.

As I sit here beneath the full Moon's
pale glow,
my body sways gently,
and above me,
the Willow's leaves begin to rustle.
My breath is shallow and slow,
for I do not want to miss even
one
sweet
moment.
We lean in closer, the Willow and me,
hoping to discover
the sweet secret that
is whispered here.

Something within me begins to stir.
The Willow, too, seems to feel what I feel,
and her leaves dance upon the gentle wind.
I push my body to standing,
and feel the cool, damp soil beneath my feet.
High above, within these graceful branches,
a lone bird begins to sing.

The Invitation.
My heart begins to pound,
and as the bird's song becomes more bold,
I feel the Willow join with her own sweet offering
as she dances joyfully with the wind.
Deep within my own flesh,
beneath the sound of my heartbeat,
and beyond the rhythm of my breath,
a vibration fills me,
strong and low.
Swaying beneath the tree,
wind flowing through my own body,
sound begins to emerge -
Sound like none that has
ever
escaped
the walls of my creation,
strange and not quite my own.
Where is this coming from?

The horizon
appears
just beyond the mountains.
The deep black of night
surrenders
into pale morning light,
violet and rose,
and I realize that I have
always
known this song.

Teach me to listen more deeply than my own mind,
and to surrender to your light with the grace of
the first light of day. Aho.

Ropes

2010-03-27T08:48:00.000-07:00

I am sitting here on the ground
surrounded by remnants of frayed rope.
Hemp rope, rough and scratchy.
My hands are red and burned,
and my body is bruised.
But the pain in my body is
small
right now,
when compared to the
existential pain
of so many years
of trying.

If I wasn't an optimist,
I might envision this
the ultimate
cosmic
joke.
Each time
a new rope descended from above,
I reached up,
grasping with the full force of my human strength,
willing to climb
all the way
to the sky.
And each time,
just as I found my way
through the clouds,
and began to
acclimatize to the
thinning air,
SNAP!
The rope would give way,
and there I was,
falling falling falling
through the air.

If I was paranoid,
I might imagine the
Great Council of Beings
up there, laughing at me.
Yep, she fell for it again!
Ha ha ha!
Not only once, or twice, or even ten times,
she fell for it every day for more than
thirty years!

But I am not paranoid.
Not really.

And the Great Council of Beings
up in the sky
is not laughing.

Back in July,
I found myself deep in the woods,
praying that I might learn how to pray.
Not the eloquent,
self-conscious kind of prayer
that called me up another rope,
but the kind of prayer
that the trees offer the Sun
day after day,
grateful and utterly open.
The kind of prayer
that makes me forget my name,
that makes me forget where I am,
and where I have been,
and where I'm going.
I didn't even know what I was asking for,
not really.
But they did.

The clouds burst open,
and it rained like no other day
had ever rained.
Cold filled me to the bones,
and the shivering consumed me.
Lost.
I may die here.
I am a refugee.

They came to me with ropes,
and in the quickened
moments of
all-consuming desperation,
I reached up to each and every one.
One by one,
they gave way,
falling at my feet.
There is no way out.

I fell onto the muddy Earth.

I have been sitting here for a long time now.
For a while, I believed that I was being shown
the only way out.
Now, the mud has dried on my bare skin,
and I have learned to listen
more deeply than before.
I see that there is no way out,
no more than there ever was a way in,
and
it's time to
burn these ropes.

River

2010-03-26T07:48:00.000-07:00

Breath moves through me
like a serpent,
undulating my flesh along this land.
Breath moves through me
like the tide,
swirling the sea,
dancing through my translucent form.

Morning rain, falling all around,
fragrance of sweet, rich Earth.
Wind moves through the trees,
bare and lithe,
awaiting the breath of Life
to blossom them green
once more.

I, too, have been waiting for the
breath of Life
to blossom me green
and blue
and all shades of passion
and peace,
all textures of livingness.
I have been waiting for the spring rains
to flood my body
with their nourishing waters,
and to fill my heart's longing
with Love that knows no opposite.

The rains come
in torrents sometimes.
The river spills her banks,
and the water rages wildly,
purifying all that falls in her path.
Everything is washed away,
swept along in the
quickened currents
of the power of
Life
right
now.
Deep scars of change
are carved
into the landscape,
and searing pain
floods the memories
of all those who remember
a time
before,
beyond,
between,
somewhere...

I touch my damp forehead to the
muddy riverbank.
Her waters have receded now.
I have been given my life
as a gift,
and now I return to the trees
in silent prayer.
The walls of my heart are shattered
as the song within me erupts,
wailing
mourning
breathless.
There is no way to return to the way it was before.

Between this place of
sorrow
and morning's faint light
is the seed of
God's fire.
Within the forest,
veils of light,
pink, green, blue.
I humbly accept her bounty,
and carefully wrap
this glowing ember
in these soft strands,
a cocoon.

Glow turns to smolder
as the sun's glorious rays burn through
the thick fog of early morning,
and the gauzy veils of
my heart's chrysalis
are burned away.
Stepping gently into the
full light of day,
my heart is flooded with
a love
that knows no opposite,
no beginning,
no end,
no object.
A love that
aches within these boundaries
of body,
mind,
time,
space,
yet pours forth within these limitations
because it knows no other way.
This love has become the torrents of
the river,
overflowing beyond her banks,
mere veins carved in stone,
and floods each and every corner of this land
until no place
no one
no thing
is left untouched.

Awakening - Four Poems

2010-03-22T20:54:00.000-07:00

No Ideas

I have absolutely
no ideas
now.
I give up.
Hope is of no consequence
for
I am only
interested
in

THIS

breath

THIS

moment...

Shit.
Who is pounding on my door?
Can’t you knock like a
civilized
human being?
Is it a matter
of such
desperation that you must
rattle the walls
of my
simple hermitage?
Fine!
I’ll open the door!

Wow...
No one will ever believe...
this...

_________________

Today at 2:30pm

I celebrate
the Great Mystery
that dances each of us
into the world,
teeming with possibility.

And has the Great Mystery
come to your door yet?
Knocking quietly,
unassuming,
waiting for you to invite it inside,
having no idea that you were
meeting your maker,
today at 2:30pm,
while you’re between errands,
and all of a sudden
there’s a fire on the stove,
and the phones are ringing,
but you only remember having
one phone before...
And your front door has come
unhinged, and into your
living room has come a
swarm of bees, dancing
with a flurry of butterflies...
and wait a minute,
isn’t it winter, and the
bees should be sleeping,
and the lawn doesn’t need
mowing either,
but instead of grass,
there seems to be
nothing but blossoms
unfurling their fragrant,
sensuous red petals,
beckoning you outside...
but the stove is still on fire!
And what about those bees...
there were bees...
but the intoxicating fragrance
lures you out anyway,
out into the brilliant
sunlight...
No, but the lawn is grass,
what are these...
red...
(sigh.)
(smile.)

Dear one, why do you struggle so?
Where do your ideas come from?
Winter?
Grass?
Fire?
In the Great Mystery, creator and
destroyer are one...
lie down, surrender to this
blissful red dream.

__________________________

Mid-Morning's Knowing

The rusted funnel of
my consciousness
wanders among the
clouds
of mid-morning's knowing.
Only the butterfly
understands the
tunnel of lightness
that has opened,
that has swallowed me whole,
resisting nothing,
saying nothing,
holding only the knowing of
trust
and
faith.

Mere words
cannot encompass
the promise of
daylight,
or even one fine
dim moonbeam...
and who's listening anyway!
Now the drum of
the infinite
Oneness
has begun to play.

And if you drop your agenda,
only this moment is
pregnant with
the opportunity to
blossom -
or erupt -
into the ferocity
of the
rays of light dancing
wildly on the surface of the Sun,
and an infinite amount of
power
becomes available -
if not easily attainable.
Nothing is impossible.
The sky keeps expanding
and the further along the road
you meander,
the closer to heaven you feel,
until...

This
moment
has arrived.

Heaven is no place.

God is no one...
but everything...
the very fabric of Life.

Breathe in.
Breathe out.
The rhythm of the very air
pulses our
limited forms alive,
living consciousness.

All the churches would
crumble
if we knew this,
really, they would.
All their dogmas
doctrines -
dos -
don’ts -
suddenly seem like
made-up
Monopoly rules.
That's $50 if you
land on Park Place...
no, make it $150.
Right.
Rent.
I get it.
HA!

Yep, the walls would
erupt in insidious laughter,
and people,
once filling the aisles with
impoverished souls
full of guilt and
hostility,
would run away singing, dancing,
peals of laughter echoing
off the decrepit stone walls,
and cast away their
beliefs and superstitions
like moth-eaten nuns' habits
and dive, naked and shameless
into the effulgent,
glowing sea.

The stars have extinguished
my searing pain and
I will never know that
form of limitation again.
Only limitless freedom.
And now, life begins.

_________________________

Field of Stars

I walk forever through a field of stars,
One foot in front of the other,
Here, the land ends the mystery begins.
My heart has burst and my love cannot be contained.

One foot in front of the other,
The rhythm of ecstatic joy drumming on and on,
My heart has burst and my love cannot be contained.
The radiance of life is brighter than I ever imagined.

The rhythm of ecstatic joy drumming on and on,
My feet carry me into a tradition of mystical discovery.
The radiance of life is brighter than I ever imagined.
In this great simplicity is the great secret of eternity.

My feet carry me into a tradition of mystical discovery.
Lead me down this path, I bow in honor of the divine.
In this great simplicity is the great secret of eternity.
The earth beneath my feet is a sacred altar.

Lead me down this path, I bow in honor of the divine.
I offer my song to the earth, my thoughts belong to the sky,
The earth beneath my feet is a sacred altar.
Breath and light are bliss beyond compare.

I offer my song to the earth, my thoughts belong to the sky,
I walk forever through a field of stars,
Breath and light are bliss beyond compare.
Here, the land ends and mystery begins.

______________________________

Transcendence - Three Poems

2010-03-22T20:32:00.000-07:00

Mid-Morning's Knowing

The rusted funnel of
my consciousness
wanders among the
clouds
of mid-morning's knowing.
Only the butterfly
understands the
tunnel of lightness
that has opened,
that has swallowed me whole,
resisting nothing,
saying nothing,
holding only the knowing of
trust
and
faith.

Mere words
cannot encompass
the promise of
daylight,
or even one fine
dim moonbeam...
and who's listening anyway!
Now the drum of
the infinite
Oneness
has begun to play.

And if you drop your agenda,
only this moment is
pregnant with
the opportunity to
blossom -
or erupt -
into the ferocity
of the
rays of light dancing
wildly on the surface of the Sun,
and an infinite amount of
power
becomes available -
if not easily attainable.
Nothing is impossible.
The sky keeps expanding
and the further along the road
you meander,
the closer to heaven you feel,
until...

This
moment
has arrived.

Heaven is no place.

God is no one...
but everything...
the very fabric of Life.

Breathe in.
Breathe out.
The rhythm of the very air
pulses our
limited forms alive,
living consciousness.

All the churches would
crumble
if we knew this,
really, they would.
All their dogmas
doctrines -
dos -
don’ts -
suddenly seem like
made-up
Monopoly rules.
That's $50 if you
land on Park Place...
no, make it $150.
Right.
Rent.
I get it.
HA!

Yep, the walls would
erupt in insidious laughter,
and people,
once filling the aisles with
impoverished souls
full of guilt and
hostility,
would run away singing, dancing,
peals of laughter echoing
off the decrepit stone walls,
and cast away their
beliefs and superstitions
like moth-eaten nuns' habits
and dive, naked and shameless
into the effulgent,
glowing sea.

The stars have extinguished
my searing pain and
I will never know that
form of limitation again.
Only limitless freedom.
And now, life begins.

___________________________

Please

How much quieter the ranks would usher forth
if the path wasn’t so strewn,
one broken being after the next,
quivering boulders and bleeding windfall.
The flock undulates with an unseen pull,
the drive to over-step, over-come,
over, over, over...

Now, in this place beneath the quickened waterfall,
I have learned a new approach
that honors all time and even the
verdant mass of webbing roots asks
for forgiveness when their own strength
moves into an uncontrollable fit of expansion.

A little light-filled being has found our
conversation and
even the trees have pulled their chairs closer,
hoping to hear,
no,
to feel the secret
he has come to share
shhh...now close your eyes.

Whoosh...
I have fallen through the
steely gutter into volcanic reality;
My hands have fed the spring-green leaves
and the umbilical pulse we share
is now finalized in the tapestry of
earth and stars.

_________________________

Infinity

As you draw those lazy signs of infinity
on my flesh,
you remind me that there are
some days
that really need no form,
and they are beautiful
in just as many ways
as a perfect day,
planned and arranged,
ordered and successful,
tidy.

Infinity
is rarely tidy.

Wander through the woods with me,
just occasionally,
and maybe we will hear the lonely cry
of a tiny bird
flying high above the trees...
he’s decided that winter isn’t so hard
after all
and here is really a good place to be
for now.
In counterpoint with our
footsteps and breath
is the fresh rush of freezing cold water,
almost silent in its ever present
echo.
(Sometimes it’s really easy
to forget the things that are always here,
like the sky and the ground.
But not today.
The birds have reminded me about the
sky and the ground
today.)

Today,
Infinity is the tip of your finger,
dancing its way across my
limited point of awareness.
This moment is
just enough.

Belonging - Three Poems

2010-03-22T14:25:00.000-07:00

The Space Between

In the space between
here
and
here
ring a thousand thousand
temple bells...

If you listen
very
closely,
you might remember them
from long, lazy summer days,
reclining beside the swimming hole,
the cicadas offering their song
to the wind,
and laughter echoing off the
rough
stone
walls
of the cave not too far away,
the cave where you liked to hide
during thunderstorms,
but you always told Mom that you were
playing at Maggie’s house.
She just couldn’t understand
the magic
of the earth’s rumbling
from the inside,
rivulets of muddy earth slithering all around
like shimmering serpents
from another world.
The earth’s own lullaby
would always lull you to sleep
or into some kind of trance
or meditation
but you didn’t know what that meant back then...
you were only nine years old, after all.
And just before you would wake up...
back to reality...
there in Mother’s womb,
you’d hear them,
the distant chiming of
bells...
But the moment you’d open your eyes to seek the source of the
mysterious melody,
you’d find yourself face to face with
a cricket
or grasshopper,
or once, a couple of small field mice,
glistening, beady eyes chiming
like the toll of the distant chapel?
No, it couldn’t be...
that makes no sense.

Soon enough,
doubt overtook magic.
There never were any bells.
It was only a dream.
Will those damn crickets
SHUT UP?!
You don’t have time to go to
the cave,
You haven’t been to the swimming hole
since at least a year before
you learned to drive.
And the shopping mall was really much more interesting,
who wants to go swimming in a muddy pit
so far away
from civilization?!

The last vestige of imagination is
sold on the
black
blue
white
red
yellow
GREEN
market.

Bells are only for
Christmas,
for the volunteer
working for the Salvation Army.
And we all get really tired of that
awful noise and harassment
really quickly.
Enough with the DAMN BELLS!
You need a scotch on the rocks,
and when will the kid quit crying.
God,
when will it all end?!

All you really need is
the space between
here
and
here.

Can you remember?

___________________________________

Shabby Blanket

The warmth of this moment
is a blessing.
the cold winter’s gale is blowing
ferociously,
and I have no scarf or mittens,
my coat is merely a child’s
baby blanket,
bundled tightly around my shoulders and neck.
It’s threadbare in a couple spots,
that’s probably why it was in the trash.
The family at 143 Elm Street
threw it away last Thursday
after they returned from Macy’s with
a new, soft red one.
But it was my luck in wandering
through town at the right moment.
This old blanket will serve me just fine,
and I said a prayer for those folks for
blessing me before Christmas with
this old blanket.

Now I’m home,
the rusty old yellow train car
to the side of the tracks,
you know the one on the way
out of town?
The one with most of the windows
still intact.
I think the lettering on the side
used to advertise
shaving lotion,
or was it Coca-Cola?
It’s been too many years.
Not that it matters,
this old tin can is of no use to anyone,
save me,
and I’m sure that the folks in town are
glad
that the railway graveyard
is pretty far out of town.
It would spoil their
perfectly manicured lawns
and bright white fences
to have me too close to their suburban dream.
It reminds them that their American Dream
is filled with rainbows
and garbage,
with wealth
and
unspeakable poverty.
But that doesn’t bother me too much,
not really.
I’m grateful, actually.

Would you like to step into my humble abode?
Pull up an apple crate, and I’ll make some
apple leaf tea.
I know, that sounds strange,
but I picked the leaves myself
after dark
two nights ago
at the orchard
half a mile away from here.
It’s really quite refreshing once you’re used to it.
And bless you for joining me this evening.
It’s not often that young people visit
a crazy old bum like me
out here in the train graveyard.

They don’t remember,
or don’t want to remember
that once I had everything
they had.
I wanted everything they wanted.
I was the head of the University’s
English Department,
with a PhD from
Stanford.
I painted my fence white every Memorial Day.
No, they don’t want to remember.
It scares them too much.
They think their world
is so solid.
Secure.
And to sit across from me in this old car,
to look me in the eye,
to see the
remarkable contrast that is possible
in one man’s life.
Unimaginable.
They don’t want to think about it.
They are content to
get all worked up over the evening news.
To worry about the rising cost of gasoline
and how the kids need new sneakers and video games,
and the cruise to the Caribbean they simply
MUST
take this summer.

No, I wouldn’t go back to that life.
I live this way
by choice.
I know it’s hard to fathom,
and please don’t misunderstand me,
that’s not bitterness
you detected in my voice.

Ah, regardless,
there are things I’ve seen
in this way of life that
I would never have seen
otherwise.
Things I’ve felt
and known
that can’t be experienced
in the comfort
of society.
It’s my choice, yes,
and tonight
I’m grateful for this
shabby
blue
blanket.

________________________

Grapes

A small bowl of grapes
sits on the table beside my bed
withering.
I have not thrown them away,
for I have not been there for
a long time.
You see,
the little old lady
from the apartment downstairs-
Mrs. Mason-
brought them up to me
one day last September.
She had grown them in her
tiny second floor apartment.
How she can grow grapevines
indoors
is beyond me!
So, she brought me her harvest,
and told me
that this bowl of grapes
represents all the blessings
she hopes will come into
my life
in the coming year.

An incredibly generous gift, really.
Mrs. Mason turned
ninety-one
last January,
and traversing the rickety old
wooden staircase
isn’t easy for her these days.

We sat and shared tea that afternoon
in my tiny
apartment,
and she told me
about her marriage
of sixty-eight years,
and her fourteen children-
all boys!
And how she always wanted
a daughter.
Even though she has
great-grandchildren older than me,
she’s taken me
as her daughter now.

After she left,
I spent an hour
picking the grapes from their
woody vine.
Thirty-two.
And somewhere in my
rapt contemplation,
between my bed and the
coffee table
it hit me
like a bolt of lightning.
I’m living in a bowl
of grapes.
This path that I’ve been
walking
is so limited.
I’ve been stuck in the
shallow end
of the pool for about
ten years too long-
and I don’t have to
anymore.

Suddenly
it felt like the top of my head
blew off!
It was one of those days
when everything
converges,
and
I felt like I could
cure the common cold,
read hieroglyphics,
finally crack the code of
James Joyce’s
bizarre Finnegan’s Wake,
and single-handedly
halt the
global warming crisis,
all by the workday’s five o’clock
end.

Out the door I went.

Sunday on the Porch

2010-03-21T12:08:00.000-07:00

Porch sitting. My first day of the season when all I feel called to do is sit here on the porch and listen to the world. It is warm, and moving into overcast. I'm told it will rain tomorrow. One of the trees in my neighbor's yard is glowing with yellow fuzz, the first chutes of life dancing on the still gray branches. There are some kids bouncing a basketball across the street, talking about nothing in particular, shrieking now and then. The dogs on the other side of the street have been barking off and on all day, and I am getting tired of hearing them. They are little yippy dogs, and the neighbor there has eight - yes eight - of them. These things tend to make me a bit cranky, and shatter the peace of what my porch sitting is at its best. But I am also trying to relax, to enjoy the humanity of it all. This is what we humans do here on Earth. We live our threads as we do, day after day.

I'm listening to one of my favorite songs by my brother Jarah in Peru. "Invisible Indivisible" - "unspeakable radiance in my heart ... unspeakable radiance we hold..." It speaks to me of everything that I feel in this moment. "Prince of love, carry me, carry you 'till we meet, 'till we part." "Past all time and space to places long forgotten, deep and holy..." As I sit here on the porch, I feel still. I feel my heart glowing radiant and bright. I feel all the beauty and joy in the world flowing through me, and all the sorrow and loss too. And to feel so much existing inside of me at once ... "this sorrow, this joy, this let go, this hello, this goodbye..." I am utterly pierced by the River of Love as I sit here.

The Magnolia, which I have now watched for more than half a year, still sits where she did, now a third shorter than last fall. The snows of this brutal winter splintered her height, yet there she stands, the guardian over the final resting place of my little kitty. I feel like her in many ways. The winter has broken both of us down, brought forth tremendous change and transformation. And yet, here we both stand, glowing in the faint afternoon sunlight, a testament to the tenacity of Life.

I went into ceremony on Thursday night for the first time in half a year. Three dreams had called me there, each with increasing clarity and persistence. I knew that it was time to listen, and I am infinitely grateful for stepping beyond my fear and returning to this part of my path. It was intense and scary at times. I was taken into the depths of my search for belonging, community, relationship. She brought me tremendous insight into my actions and thoughts, and the ways that I want connection, and then pull away from it, interfere with its flow, and doubt the truth of it altogether. I love this about the Medicine, the way that she shows me my patterns in the most loving, compassionate way. She does not fix my life, but merely shows me the truth, and opens my heart again and again so that I can have the courage to grow beyond these limitations, and love myself through that process. I am deeply humbled.

She went into my anxiety, too, and all the fear and lack of trust that accompanies it. She coaxed me gently, saying "calm down, it's okay, just calm down." She showed me how I get all stirred up, and try to flee my body. I have never more clearly felt the limitation of being alive in the body, and how uncomfortable I was in my own skin. My hands were burning hot and sweating, my feet were cold, my insides were writhing and tremendously uncomfortable, my heart was full of pain, and I wanted to bolt the room, bolt the house, bold my body, or to at least tear out my hair and scream and beat my head against the wall. I felt all the misery of my body, and of this feeling of being trapped within it. And all the while, She whispered to me, "breathe, calm down, it is all going to be okay."

(There was more written here, but it was lost. I am not feeling quite up to rewriting right now...)

Just Enough

2010-03-17T17:27:00.001-07:00

This winter I sank into the cold, dark days, into my own inner cold darkness. Anxiety riddled my body and mind, and I found myself falling into a seemingly bottomless pit of sorrow and fear. What is the point of this life anyway? Why am I here on this planet? Everything is meaningless... The turmoil of the mind and the misery of the body became a heavy burden that my heart could hardly bear. Day after day, I felt the presence of death walking beside me, breathing down my neck, holding my arm in his icy grip. Fear crawled up my legs, and clawed its way into my heart. At night, my heart would thunder in my chest. I tried to steady it with deep, slow breathing, but a sense of despair and hopelessness clung to me with a heaviness that seemed impenetrable. Will I die before I have given any gifts to the world? Am I wasting my life here? Has my life been worth anything at all, or will I die having lived for nothing?

Some days I received the gift of perspective, and would sift through the content of my life so far. What have I done that has meant anything here on this Earth? Is my life really a waste? In those moments of grounded clarity, I knew that I was doing my best. I am a member of a community that values connection and spiritual growth, and I have been an integral part of bringing people together for the first time, as well as in regular community gatherings. I am a musician and teacher, and bring together classrooms of bright students to explore nonviolence and peaceful protest through music. Also as a musician, I connect with others to offer music to the world in a variety of ways - classical music to those who yearn for refined musical expression through traditional forms, and improvization to those who are open to follow the thread of creation from moment to moment. I have been a part of a sisterhood of women related by spirit, not by blood, and have brought forth love and acceptance to them as they share their paths, as well as profound questions that call me forward on my own path. And in this moment, I am realizing that the truest gift I bring into each of these groups is not a particular doing, but more a sense of beingness - a sense of the true value of togetherness as we all dance in this world - with curiosity, tenacity, love, and authenticity.

I get very caught up in the particulars of my offerings. Have I done enough? Have I taken care of my share of the work? Have I earned my place in this group? I struggle with fears that I will be judged, shunned, abandoned if I don’t contribute enough. But how much is enough? This is the ultimate question, indeed. As long as I follow the inner imperative that tells me that no matter how much I do, no matter how much I give, there will never be a contribution good enough, I will always be left with a feeling of inadequacy, of needing to earn my place in the group, in my life, on this Earth. In a culture particularly driven by excess, I learned from a young age that bigger is better and that there will never be enough for all of us. Every man for himself. Scarcity thinking. I am starting to see beyond this, though. Could it really be possible that I am enough just by being present with all that I do? That my very being is plenty? Is it truly possible that I might be able to enter into community to offer my gifts without this drive, without this desperate imperative? Is it possible that I could take into consideration what must be done, and offer my service in ways that resonate with me deeply? Is it possible that I might do this without placing my own intrinsic worth in the hands of others? Is it possible that by merely showing up with love in my heart and willingness to serve in my spirit, that whatever efforts I offer will be received as an honest gift to the world?

Forgiveness

2010-03-09T05:56:00.000-08:00

I awoke this morning to feeling warmth under my down comforter, and to the sound of birdsong, wild and joyful, outside my window. Another cloudless blue sky bright sunshiny day.

I have spent time in meditation this morning, and in weeping. In this moment, I am feeling connected to that space within me that is deep and unwavering, and the river of tears has come into flow as I have seen clearly some parts of myself that I don't like very much. But the tears speak not so much of the loathing of these dark parts, but more of the compassion that arises as I see that these dark parts are not the truth. I am moved, and feel such deep humility.

I feel like things are coming and going so fast now. And I don't mean the world around me - though that is ultra fast, and I can't seem to keep up most of the time. No, right now I mean things within me, things I'm being shown, old patterns that are coming up, and being ripped away. Sometimes, even in the course of one day, I feel so much change within me, so much learning and shifting, that I hardly know what to do with myself. Is this what the Mayans were referring to as their calendar approaches 2012? Who knows. But in my life, I feel like I am being pushed to grow, to release, to walk through the fire and be transformed, and with little time to think and consider. No time for that, just go now, and trust yourself and the universe...

I have asked for this, too. I have eagerly sought it. I have chosen the life of the seeker, the life of the pilgrim. I have read the stories about enlightened ones, and yearned for that myself. I have read the books that guide me toward spiritual awakening, and have prayed that I might truly awaken. I have pushed the envelope, and claimed to be willing to do anything to move in the direction of Truth. And now I see that there was a whole lot of ego in that.

When the life of the seeker and pilgrim have become hard, I've wanted to quit. I haven't wanted to actually suffer in order to grow. I have read about how hard the road to enlightenment is, and have expected that it surely wouldn't be that way for me. I have danced boldly around this path, wanting it more than anything, but not wanting to have to go through what would inevitably need to happen in order to LIVE my Truth. Fortunately, the honest truth behind my prayers and yearning has been stronger than my ego's desires to "be more spiritual." And in the last six months of my life, I have been put to the test. Now, I see just how theoretical my spiritual path has been. I have wanted it, but I have wanted it to remain within my limits, within my control. And life has ripped me apart, showing me that all I can really do is surrender.

As I walk through this time of fire and change, the blessings of Madre Ayahuasca's teaching have come to show me the way. Even though I haven't been in ceremony in half a year, her teachings remain strong and present. I remember one ceremony last spring. I was shown an image of myself, washed up on a poisoned shore of a poisoned river. The water was black and dead. The shore was littered with garbage, toxic waste, excrement - and there I was, strewn among the poison. I wept, seeing that there is a part of me that feels just like that: garbage, poison, toxic, worthless. This part of myself has been coming up a lot in the last week, too. I haven't always been aware of it, but have been really struggling with my own worth. There have been days when I have felt like I don't deserve to be a live in a body, to be drinking water and breathing air among human beings, and among the living world. Where do these ideas come from? Are they from emotional trauma that comes from my childhood? Are they from the collective conscious, and from old religious beliefs about being cast out of the Garden? Part of me believes that it may not even matter where they come from. That it matters more that I am able to be present with them when they arise, and heal them through love and acceptance. So, this morning, I am sitting with that.

I know the Truth in my mind. I know that it is not true that I am poison. But until my whole being feels and accepts that, there is healing that must be done.

It's no wonder that I have a deep desire to escape, that I feel like a refugee, that I can't relax for any significant amount of time. If there is a part of me that believes that I am not worth the very skin I live within, how could I ever be still?

Can I stay present with these feelings? Can I breathe into them? Can I listen to these awful beliefs within myself, and hold them lovingly? Can I forgive myself for falling from the truth?

Breathe in.
Breathe out.

Water . Trust

2010-03-08T19:19:00.000-08:00

The great sea has set me in motion.
Set me adrift,
And I move as a weed in the river.

The arch of sky
And mightiness of storms
Encompasses me,
And I am left
Trembling with joy.

~Eskimo song

I am the sea. I am the essence of water spirit. Within me moves great torrents, tumultuous waves, mounting to tsunami on occasion. Something in my spirit urges me into wildness, into ferocious, powerful madness, to rip up the trees and foundations and to turn the land to mud, to flush away all that ever was, all that could ever be washed away. Within me is the spirit of Shiva, the destroyer, the transformer, the fire of change, the spirit that burns away all but what is true. Within me is a wild, raging energy that is more powerful than anything I can imagine, and when it rips through this small human being-ness that I embody, day to day, I feel washed away, too. I feel my own foundations crumble and melt. And I am left in the spoilage of my own creation. Today has been such a day.

The power of water has swept through the Sacred Valley of Peru, and my brothers and sisters in Pisac, and in the surrounding villages and towns, have experienced a lot of damage and loss. The river has spilled its banks twice now, and homes have been washed away, roads and bridges have been destroyed, and there have been lives lost, both human and animal. Farm fields are damaged or destroyed, too, causing a lot of loss of food for the people who live there. The power of wild, raging water has affected the lives of thousands of people there. I am told that several women lost their lives as they were trying to move stones from the river, stones that were blocking the flow...

Trust. Today has shown me that I have a lot of work to do in my own life in order to fully embrace trust. The opposite of trust, it seems to me, is fear. Not distrust, but fear. If I am fully alive and present with what IS in this world, then I am embracing a state of trust, and walking in a practice of trust. With that comes a whole lot of acceptance, and a whole lot of surrender. If I'm gonna be able to trust anyone, I must be able to accept what comes fully, and surrender my own ideas and desires for life to be any different. This isn't new. I probably have said it a hundred times, and have probably thought it thousands more. In fact, after one particular Ayahuasca ceremony, I can clearly recall walking along the back road in Pisac with Daniel having this very conversation. The Medicine had shown me that trust was a choice. That even if in my very next breath someone could appear behind me and stab me to death with a knife, I would be given the opportunity to choose to trust life anyway. I get to choose whether I walk around in the world afraid of being hurt, afraid of suffering, or whether I walk around in the world in a state of openness and trust.

That choice has been easy for me in some respects. The part of me that is bright and loving and connected chooses trust freely. But that part isn't fully integrated into my being. There is a darker part of me that trusts nothing, no one. This part is wary of everything. It wonders why people don't hide bombs in paper bags on the road that will blow up when someone drives over them. It wonders if my gas stove is going to blow up. It wonders if the people I know best will beat me or kill me. It wonders if Iran will drop bombs on Washington, DC, and whether or not I will survive if that happens. It wonders if the glue that holds reality together will one day melt away, and all that I think I know and see and love will vanish completely.

But the truth is that all that I think I know and see and love *will* vanish completely. I will be betrayed by life over and over again. People will come into my life, and they will leave. Beautiful beings that I love with all my heart will die. I will give my heart over and over again, and sometimes it will be bruised and broken. The Buddhists tell it best - life is suffering. I find myself falling into despair when this becomes so clear to me. And I have spent the greater part of the last six months in deep despair. The bright and loving part of me just wants to move back into the freedom and joy of living from my heart, and trusting life once more. And part of me wants to at least *look* like I am going on with life as usual, loving and trusting and joyful. But there is something inauthentic about that, about wanting to pretend that I am not still filled with despair. And what I'm starting to realize is that it's possible to feel both at the same time. In this moment, I feel great sorrow and despair in my heart, and some low-grade fear about death and the unknown. There is still mourning in my heart, too, mourning a lot of loss, and a lot of change. But alongside these things is hope and lightness, the kind of trust that comes in the way the trees send out their buds before the final frost. A deep knowing that life *is* trust, and that spring will renew all that winter has crushed under the weight of so much ice.

What would it look like to practice trust in my daily life?

To feel the part of me that prickles and stirs and churns with uncertainty and fear, and to breathe into that with courage? To know that I am more than my mind, when the thoughts of a million and one reasons *not* to trust threaten to overwhelm me? To stand present with the inevitability of death, and choose to trust life anyway? Even more than these, to sit patiently with myself as doubt and fear fill my heart and body, and to trust myself completely? The last one is the hardest. Even harder than trusting other people - trusting myself.

Trusting myself.

When I sit here and feel into that possibility, it sure does bring up a lot of fear. I mean, if I trust myself, then I will have to really, fully take responsibility for my life. And while I feel like I choose that anyway, this touches a very deep place of personal responsibility within me. If I trust myself completely, then I will have to trust all my decisions. I will trust that all the things I get involved in are the ones that are best for me. I will trust that all the people I include in my life, all the relationships and friendships, are exactly what I need too. I will trust that my own inner compass will guide me in all that I am, and all that I do. Wait...I pretty much do that anyway...hmmm...

So, the problem appears when my mind takes me into doubt and blame. Doubt that my choices are the right ones. However, I am learning right now more than ever that there are no ultimately right or wrong choices... Hmmm...so, it seems like doubt may just be a relic from very old patterns within me. Blame is much sharper, and carries much more energy for me - and tends to be self-directed instead of aimed at others. If I truly do own responsibility for my whole life, and trust the universe and myself that all is exactly as it should be, then the only person I can blame when things fall apart is myself. Again, this seems like very, very old stuff. Deep inside of myself, I know that there is no one to blame for the suffering and pain of life. I don't blame you, or the government, or the church, or even God. But there is some part of me that still blames myself. This still carries a lot of heat for me, blaming myself for things. "You fucked it up completely..." Familiar words in my mind. (sigh)

Forgiveness, then...I must forgive myself for not being perfect. For not having all the "right" answers. For not being able to be all things to all people. For not being able to save the whole world with no exceptions. For not being able to endure more pain and suffering without crumbling. For having blame and doubt. For making a thousand thousand mistakes. For not being stronger. For not being enlightened enough. For not being able to save my little kitty from the waiting arms of death. For not being able to reach out to Ed one more time, hoping that maybe I could help somehow. For not being able to tell Kenny how much I loved him. For not being able to save my parents from sickness and suffering, and for not being able to talk to them about it right now. For not being a more compassionate listener. For being afraid that the world is going to crumble in any moment from underneath my feet, and that I will be left falling falling free falling... As I write this, I am awash in sadness. Can I really forgive myself for these things? Can I really hold my heart in my hands with gentleness and love, and know that I am really doing the very best that I can?

(silence)

Words like trust and forgiveness are starting to mean something completely new to me. And in this moment, I am moved by the power of life as my teacher.

Listening to the Wind

2010-03-06T07:41:00.000-08:00

I awoke this morning with the sunshine. Almost two hours before my alarm went off. It is clear to me what's happening - SPRING is happening! I am being called out of my dormancy by the powerful uprising energy of spring. I am waking to the sound of birds singing, and the energy of thaw and mud. I couldn't be more joyful about it, either! I have survived the darkest, bleakest winter of my life.

There were times during this darkness when the sorrow, despair, loss, and anxiety threatened to consume me. I have never been through a time when I felt closer to my own extinction. This has been a time of going through the fire, of having so much burned away. My ideas about life, about who I am, about my path, about other people, about what is right and wrong in this world, about meaning and purpose - all of these things were shredded, ripped away, burned up, and shed. But somehow I am emerging in a way that is NOT scarred, NOT jaded, NOT shut down, NOT bitter. I am emerging as from a cocoon, softer, more open, and with fewer answers than before.

The other day, between my two Thursday classes, I found some space in the sun to have my lunch. I squished my way through the mud and climbed up onto a rock in one of the gardens. The wind was a bit brisk, but the sun was wonderful, and after I finished eating, I sat there, just taking it in. The wind began to blow, and while my first response was to shiver (I was wearing a skirt, and was a bit cold) my second, and stronger, response was to listen. The wind doesn't have any sound of its own, it only makes a sound when it meets an object that resists its dance... I sat up taller, and listened more carefully, barely breathing, yearning for more understanding.

The sound of wind in tall, dry grass. The sound of wind around buildings. The sound of wind around my body. The sound of wind in the trees, in the dead leaves. Yes, it was true. Each time I heard the wind, it was only because the wind was meeting resistance. And of course, this is a truth that I know well, for it is only through the wind from within my body meeting the sharp silver plate of my flute that music is borne.

I became aware of the power of edges...it is in these places where things meet that the apparent universe is borne into sensory experience. Light falls upon an object and reflects - and we see. Wind meets objects as it flows, and we hear. The body meets an object, and we feel touch. As I sat there, I tuned into the edges, the meetings that were happening all around me, the resistance that occurred when two things meet. Woman walking in high heels. Clicking against the sidewalk. Earth and feet in a dance of resistance. Resist, surrender, resist, surrender - her footsteps were indeed a dance of moving into the Earth, and moving away from the Earth. Togetherness apartness togetherness apartness. And too, the wind dances in sound and in silence - swirling around form and waiting in stillness, swirling and waiting. Taste is a dance of the same longing - the satisfaction of good chocolate, and the absence of it. The fragrance of hyacinths in spring, entering my body, touching my heart, and drifting away as I exhale, as Spring exhales into the full glory of Summer. There is this dance of togetherness and apartness, of desire and satiation, of receiving and letting go, of touch and release. The very edge of these dual forces meet at an edge that the wind showed me - the edge where apparently separate forms meet and touch and resist and dance. The whole manifest world is making love with itself in every moment, dancing itself in embrace and surrender.

No wonder we humans love to make love so much...to dance with each other in the ways that the world dances with itself in each moment.

The Wheel of the Heart

2010-03-02T05:32:00.000-08:00

This weekend I went down to Chapel Hill, North Carolina to be with my dear friends Catherine and Jesse, to deepen my Nonviolent Communication practice, and to join in the ecstatic dance of life in Dancing Lodge. Dancing Lodge draws us through the four quadrants of relationship to life: the dance of Self, the dance of Partnership, the dance of Community, and the dance of the Universal All One. My body was yearning for this movement, this prayer, this mythic, nonlinear meditation so that I could enter into questions that I have been sitting with recently.

My hope was to explore my woman-being in this dance, to move into the depths of my feminine heart, and to feel a deep connection with the part of me that resides there. To practice moving in the world with a deep connection to my heart, to my radiance, to my receptivity. And as I have come to expect from all ceremonial space, the insights that were gifted to me during Dancing Lodge were completely different than I could have expected. I was shown how I fall off center, how I intuitively flow to fill all available space energetically, and how I lose myself in the midst of that. My water nature is deeply receptive, and tends to flow around all obstacles, to embrace all things, to hold space for all that arrives. But I am learning that my true water nature is more like the ocean - all things arrive into her depths, and she is still the great Mother of all, holding all things within, but never losing her deep power nature. The ocean doesn't get rocked by the boats upon her surface, or the whales swimming deep in her belly. Not at all. Too, my own sense of being a container for all things tends to overwhelm me - I feel like I have lost my center, my sense of self - energetically, I tend to feel deep connection, deep intuition with the presence of other humans, and not always by choice. Like the waters, whatever spills within them cannot be easily removed, and I tend to feel this energetically with people in my life. When what spills within me is love and joy and connection, I am aglow with life energy! But when what spills within me is toxic, conflicted, or volatile, I find my own waters swirling with those things. Water takes in whatever is poured into her, and like the oil spills and toxic wastes and excrement, the entire ocean is slowly poisoned by diffusion. I know that I have a lot to learn about how to purify myself of these kinds of energy. I have a lot to learn about how to allow these things to flow through me and not become absorbed. I also have a lot to learn about how to be a powerful container for all, without becoming rocked by the boats upon my surface and the whales in my belly.

So goes the dance of Self, solo.

But what has been coming up more powerfully in my life is the dance of Partnership. Things are coming up to teach me so much so quickly. Past has danced around me in the form of an old partner, one who wants to reconnect with me in some way. The past with him feels like ancient history, and I feel like I have grown exponentially since we parted ways. The reflection of that change is a gift. When I entered into the dance of relationship with him, I carried great pain and violation in my heart and body. Our connection was primarily of the mind, and our conversations were often non-personal and arguement-based. Our heart connection was small and fearful, and our body connection was rough and angular. Now, as we have shared some conversation, I feel that we have already shared all the connection that is possible - our conversations still tend toward the non-personal, and his tone still tends toward arguing. His heart is still absent. My ocean yearns to hold him in a Mother way, to rock him gently and let him know that tenderness and surrender are possible, and that the risk is worth it. But he will be as he will be.

In the dance of this present moment, I have connected with another partner, one with the most difficult of circumstances. In our togetherness, there is great heart and great lightness and freedom. His mind spins with the stories of his life, stories that he is allowing to define him and hold him within their walls. My own mind has been through some process of discipline in my spiritual practice, and yearns to connect with him, to show him what it would be like to enter this moment of now, and live free of those burdens. Our heart connection is open and radiant, and connected honestly with the limitations of his story, and in spite of those limitations, I feel deep acceptance and joy in being present with exactly what is possible in this heart connection. I am receiving that without any desire for it to be different, and this is new territory for me. The mirror of our connection is a powerful teacher for me right now, and I am grateful for all that it is.

In the midst of this present moment dance, the future has come to haunt me. The part of my heart that yearns for a heart connection without limitation. That wants to meet a partner who is ready to meet me where I am on my spiritual path. My heart longs to connect with a man who can meet me in my strength, my passion, my heart. In the midst of my present situation, with its beauty and limitations, someone danced across my life who could mirror to me what I am truly longing for. Partnership that is sacred, that is bold, that is powerful in shattering the walls of the heart, and feeding the fire within. In spite of my own wounds that believe that I will never receive what I truly want in a relationship, that I will never be truly loved for all that I am, this man appeared like a shooting star in my heart. He reflected to me what I yearn for in partnership - one who is devoted to loving and worshipping the radiance of my heart. One who loves all that I am, without fear. One who is ready to arrive on this path with me, carrying his own path too, and to grow together in deep, soulful partnership in spite of all fear. This brief, fleeting connection with the dance of the future completely blew me wide open. Tears spilled forth for days. Burning filled my body. My mind went completely still. And then, just as quickly as he appeared, he vanished - indeed, like a shooting star. Perhaps the Universe merely took over him for a brief moment, soliciting him to carry forth a reflection of my greatest desire, my deepest longing, telling me that it is possible, it is true, I am worthy, and it is coming. My heart is saddened by his disappearance, and my mind is longing for understanding. In this moment, I have to trust that he was merely a messenger of the truth, not the one who I will enter into the practice of living that truth with.

So, the dance of partnership is open and I am calling on all my teachers to come to me, to show me the way. I am listening, and I am praying.

The Way of the Heart

2010-02-26T05:49:00.000-08:00

I'm really glad to be heading to North Carolina this afternoon. Dancing Lodge. And NVC. Two of my favorite things! Both are practices that shake me down out of my head and lead me to fully inhabit my body, and to surrender to my heart. I feel like the timing couldn't be more perfect. Now, as high winds blow ferociously outside my house, and the snow is beginning to fall, I am hoping that travel conditions don't become too difficult.

In the last week, I have felt tremendous shifts of energy and presence within my body. I have felt sweet aliveness flowing into parts of myself that haven't felt alive in a long, long time. I have felt blocks in my energy blown open, sliding away as the heavy, icy meltage of the winter. I feel a warm, radiant glow in my belly, and a powerful fire in my heart. It has been a long time since this bodily expression of love has filled me, and I am grateful. I recognize how this used to be a normal state of things, normal before all the challenges of my life came to push me into crisis, to confronting things within me that needed facing. And now that this feeling has returned, part of me wants to hold on to it for all it's worth. But I realize that what is more important than the feeling itself is the practice that connects to it. Can I breathe into my own resistance even when my heart is breaking? Can I stay connected to my heart in the midst of fear, or anger? Can I breathe my body and heart into openness even when it seems too scary, when it doesn't feel safe? I'm being given those opportunities now, as well.

What would it be like to live this open, this on fire, without needing life to show up in a particular way? To root myself in the practice of truly opening as LOVE in the midst of pain, rejection, sorrow, whatever? It sounds impossible. What would it be like to open this deep in the midst of my own mind's worst spinning, too? Sounds even more impossible. Yet, that's what I am feeling called to do. As I awoke today, my body was filled with tightness, fear, loneliness. My body wanted to close, to shut down, to just go about life today as a shell of being, not as a radiant heart of being. But as I was laying there in bed, awake, I rode the breath. I took the breath into my belly where the tightness was holding. I pushed gently into the resistance. I took the breath into my heart, where fear was holding, and pushed gently into it. Today these things feel pretty strong - the fear and the tightness and the resistance. Can I choose to accept where I am in these things, while also knowing that they are merely clouds blocking the sun that burns brightly in the center of me? Today, the answer is yes.

The way that energy is moving through me right now is unprecedented in my life. I have had a number of powerful energetic shifts, some ecstatic, some scary. This is more ecstatic, for sure, but also fills me with fear. I get the feeling that life as I used to know it is never going to return, and I'm mostly okay with that. But I also feel that the barriers that have kept me in my own separate existence are really being broken down. I am no longer strong enough that my heart can shut down effectively. I am alive in the web of life - I am affected by living in this world - that I can no longer resist. My heart will fill up with love, and it will shatter. Sometimes even within the same moment.

Love Practice

2010-02-25T16:56:00.001-08:00

I've spent a lot more of my adult life single than in relationships. I could offer a long list of reasons why. I've held on to my need to be fiercely independent, and can't imagine being pinned down. I've seen what relationships tend to be - codependent, clingy, needy, broken people trying to fill their cracks through each other. And I've wanted no part of that. I've also seen what marriages tend to become - traps set up by fear, materialism, and habit. I have ran far away from getting too deeply involved in any of that. While my life has had little romantic love compared to a lot of people, it has also had tremendous freedom - freedom to learn, to travel, to wander, to explore, to grow spiritually. And until recently, those things felt much more important than any "mere relationship."

This winter has been a time of going within, of facing some of the deepest darkness that I've held within myself. I haven't been able to hide from that darkness, nor escape it. It has filled my whole body, it has become the very fabric of my experience. I have felt utterly alone, standing at the edge of an abyss that seems bottomless. I have felt the strong winds from within that abyss pulling me into it, and I have clawed and scratched my way back up to the side of the cliff each time I have started to fall in. The terror, the sorrow, the anxiety have become palpable through this winter. I have tasted them, touched them, felt their grip on me. I have looked into the eyes of death time and again, fearing that my turn, too, will come before I have lived fully. Everything I have ever held on to has slipped away. Everything I have loved has turned to vapor. Everything I thought myself to be has simply vanished. The texture of my reality has been so utterly transformed, that almost nothing remains from before this Dark Night.

And now the energy of spring is upon us.

In each relationship I have entered into, I have worked carefully to guard the doors to my heart. I have hidden behind a veil of openness, and only let a tiny bit of the sunshine within me shine outward. I have allowed the shell of a love relationship form around me, but never have I let love burst me open like the sun. Those relationships fed me as much as they could. But I entered into each one knowing that they would never work. I knew from the first or second encounter with each one that this man wasn't right for me, not really. And yet, a part of me yearned for the little bit of love they could offer me, and to share the little bit of love that could squeeze past the tiny crevice in the door to my heart. Sometimes the intellectual connection was fabulous - and I felt loved for my mind. Sometimes the physical connection was incredible (and sometimes not) - and I felt loved as a woman. But I have never felt fully embraced and appreciated and accepted for the fullness of who I am. I never let myself get involved with a man who could love me like I want to be loved. Too scary. Too much doubt, too little trust. After all, with all that fierce independence, I might be caught like a butterfly, able to breathe freely no longer...

Things are changing though. So fast, things are changing. I feel the way that resisting love is resisting the flow of life through the universe. I feel the way that I become tense and closed, and the life force doesn't flow through. And I also feel in those moments when I allow love to flow through me without any hesitation, how I am filled with radiance and light. And I guess I'm starting to see how relationship offers a practice of that. I think I've held myself away from the messiness and chaos for as long as I can. And now, the joy and love are calling me forward. My practice, now, is to face that resistance day by day, to breathe into it, to explore it with gentleness and curiosity.

My Story

2010-02-13T09:59:00.000-08:00

I couldn't be more ready for spring. After two massive snowstorms in one week, I am feeling totally over winter. And after losing two friends in the same week, I am really ready for some joy in my life.

I completely understand on an intellectual level that everything is a creation of my mind - my reality is rooted in my perception. And I also see how my life has become dark as I have experienced a long list of challenges. And I understand that the more I keep that list going, the longer it will grow. Here's how my mind works:

My life changed in October. My beloved kitty died. The heartache was unbearable, and I felt as if I, too, were dying. And when the fog lifted just a little bit, I totalled my car. My chest was injured, and is still causing me some discomfort. And with the need to act quickly to deal with insurance and replacing my car, and with finishing massage school, I didn't have time to deal with the emotional fallout of that accident. Until I finished massage school, that is. At that point, in December, I began to have intense anxiety and panic attacks, and my body went into a powerful, scary expression of that anxiety. In the midst of that, I went to Tennessee to visit my family for a week, and the anxiety split me wide open. I couldn't stop shaking, and felt pain and strange sensations in my whole body. I was terrified, and began 2010 in a process of trying to heal from that. I started having weekly acupuncture, cleaned up my diet quite a bit, and got myself into counseling. And then, Ed died. And then Kenny died. And in the process of all of that, my neighbor started talking about Iran and uranium and the potential for a major disaster involving bombings, and we were stuck in the apocalyptic snows, unable to get out, unable to do anything about any of it...

There is a story that has started in this. I feel myself pulled into it just writing about it here, and have felt pulled into it as I have shared it with people, too. And I see how my list of horrible things just grows the more I choose to keep that list. There is also some angry, aggressive sense of "poor me" and victimhood within it, and I hear it and know it. I am so glad to have cultivated my observer well enough to at least see how I'm caught up in this. But here, standing in the midst of being caught, I also don't see how to break free of it. My head is above water, but I don't know how to push myself out of the water completely...

Avatar and Mother Earth

2010-01-16T07:26:00.000-08:00

After a long, seemingly endless time in the dark of my own soul, I am emerging again. And I am emerging with anger and ferocity that I have not felt within myself in a long time. It is an anger that guides me toward true north, and helps me to shed all that does not serve.
And now, my anger is in response to the movie "Avatar," which chronicles the destruction of a beautiful planet by the US military, in hope of raping and pillaging the land on that planet for their own greedy purposes. To me, this is the truth of the very story that has been happening right here on Mother Earth, and it is a story that I have been familiar with for a long time. And it is a story that has plunged me into the depths of despair and hopelessness, feeling that there is nothing that I, just one woman, can do to make a difference. But in spite of that hopelessness, this anger is rising within me again, rising like a phoenix from the ashes, pointing me in the direction of my own life's deeper purpose.
This morning an old friend of mine published a comment on his facebook wall about the movie, saying that it was far from a "life changer." He is from the south, a good Christian man, and while that has rarely felt like an intrusion into our friendship, the undercurrents of our vastly different beliefs have surfaced on occasion. And here, I can't help but wonder, do the vast majority of Christians really, truly believe that the Earth is here for our domination and taking, and that it doesn't really matter what happens here, that only what comes beyond this life is of any importance? Because if they do, there is truly no hope for the planet. We will collectively continue to rape and pillage Her until we become extinct ourselves. Do these people *truly* believe that Jesus wants it this way, that this is the will of God? Do they believe that honoring the Earth herself as holy and sacred is profane and dangerous, pagan, even evil? I can't even begin to comprehend that way of thinking and living.
There is no Daddy God in the Sky out there who is going to save our wretched asses from our own foolish actions!!
In order to really "save the environment/planet/Earth" we must move beyond the simple ideas we have implemented that are just not enough. Recycling is good, and should absolutely be required by law...and it's not enough. We must use less, change our attitudes, leave behind our disposable culture. Reusing is essential. We are lazy fucks, for the most part, and need to get over it. Reduction of our waste generation is absolutely required. Wealth does not equal the choice to manufacture endless crap, then cast it aside, and then manufacture more endless crap. That is childish and fickle at best, and is causing great destruction. Beyond this, energy use is changing, too. Hybrid electric vehicles, solar and wind power, and the like are really good steps in the right direction. But we still demand what we want when we want it. What will bring us to CHOOSE to use less, drive less, need less? We are slaves to our comfort, to our convenience, to our whims and desires, and they are costing a great deal more than money.
Ultimately, there is no true solution possible unless we step down from our high pedestal as humans, the dominant species, and become a part of the family of Mother Earth, along with the plants, minerals, waters, and animals. We must drop our human-centric nature, and learn to love the whole Earth as our brothers and sisters, ancestors and children. AHO.

Christmas Stress

2009-12-26T13:10:00.000-08:00

So, the days have rolled by, and the blogging has slowed down. Today I am out in Abingdon, VA at a coffee house, Zazzy's, and am enjoying a day away from the family. I am having a particularly difficult struggle right now. A struggle that involves some very, very old family patterns. I am writing with some trepidation, since my mother often reads my blogs. But I am desiring to return to the intention of this blog - to speak the truth of my heart without any censorship, and to offer that up to the universe. I love my mother, but she is very, very difficult to be around. Hence my retreat to this coffee house.

I have had a fall season filled with intense stress. I have lost one of my kitties, I have watched my beloved neighbor move away, I have lost my bamboo flute, and I have totalled my car - an accident in which I was somewhat injured. And I am also grateful that I have had many blessings through this hardship. I have the opportunity to love my little Friday kitty more than ever. I enjoy my visits with Lynn more than ever. I have also welcomed her former tenant, Alan, as my new housemate. I have met an awesome bamboo flutemaker, Billy Miller, and have three of his flutes to try for now, and he thinks he can fix my broken flute, too. And I am grateful that the money my insurance company gave me for my totalled car was enough to provide me a significant down payment for my new car - a green Prius - which is giving me incredible gas mileage, and is really, really nice. So, I am able to see the blessings in the midst of the darkness. But, in spite of that, I am finding that my body has accumulated a great deal of stress.

I am endlessly grateful that I have a wonderful acupuncturist who has helped me through these events. I am also grateful to be seeing a wonderful herbalist now, and I am sure that the herbs I am taking (tea and tincture) are really helping. But these things take time. And in the meantime, I am not feeling like my usual strong self. I am feeling exhausted. I am not able to handle as much stress and chaos as I might usually be able to handle. I need a lot of peace and tranquillity in my life right now. And this little jaunt to Tennessee has been more than I am feeling able to handle with ease right now.

My mother was diagnosed several years back with bipolar disorder. And the last two times I visited - last year for Christmas, and this past May - seemed very different from previous visits. Last year at Christmas, my mother was peaceful and easy to be around. She was also on medication for her disorder. I had never felt more heard by her, nor more connection in our conversations. Last May, things were a little less flowing between us, and I learned that she had decided to discontinue her meds, due to expense. She seemed more moody, more snappy, more negative than last Christmas. She was harder to be around, and I found myself wanting to avoid her. I don't want to do that, though, and that's where I find it hardest to deal with. I love her, and I want to know her. And sometimes things are good. But when she started to go off her meds, I saw flashes of the old mom within. Now, a year later, I see the very same woman I walked away from years ago.

I have changed in this time, too. I have pursued great healing within myself. I have let go of my anger and resentment toward her. I have committed myself to the choice of not going back into a place of hostility and anger. And I am grateful to my Nonviolent Communication training for providing me a series of reliable tools. I can now see her behavior and patterns without being angry with her. I understand what is going on. I see that she can't help it. And in spite of that, in spite of the compassion I feel for her, I am currently feeling that it is purely toxic to be around her. She gets very, very caught up in negativity. And I just don't want to be around it. Last night, I felt so stressed out that I snapped at her a few times. I just needed peace and tranquillity. But what I had instead was my mother rambling on, talking talking talking about whatever crossed her mind. It seems as if there's no censor between what rolls through her head and what rolls off her tongue. And the noise of ceaseless chatter alone is enough to make me crazy. Add to that the nagging, complaining, pouting, demanding, passive-aggressive controlling ... and the absence of meaningful talking, and the absence of listening, and I'm just exhausted. Being that I'm already working with my own high levels of stress, this has put me over the edge. And I just can't take it anymore.

I wish that I could have a conversation with her about this. But I feel convinced that she just doesn't get it. She likes to just "yah-yah-yah" and "be funny." She likes to narrate all the activities of her day. All of them. She likes to grunt and moan as she expends effort doing the things she is doing. She likes to complain about how she does everything with no help from dad. She also likes to gossip about all the problems in the neighborhood. And if there's nothing else to talk about, she will reach back into her mind and withdraw some long past event when she was wronged, or when demands were made on her, unfairly. Victim complex plus martyr complex. And for years, it made me angry. Right now I feel no anger toward her. I just feel overwhelmed by it all. It, to me, is the behavior of one who has no interest - or ability - to remain aware of her own behavior, or take responsibility for herself. And perhaps that is the truth of her illness. And beyond that, I am clear that I will not put myself through this kind of toxic crap. Right now, my own system just can't handle the stress.

So, today I'm out. I went to the health food store in Bristol, VA. I wandered there for ages, since they're going out of business and offering some good deals. Then I headed to Abingdon to find this coffee house, and to have some peace. I am feeling so exhausted in my body, and in my head too. I slept very poorly last night. I would love nothing more than to return to my own little sanctuary, to spend the evening having meaningful conversation with someone, to let go of the stress in my body. I am indeed thinking about going home early. I hate that I may miss getting together with some people, and that I may not make it to Asheville this time. But it will be what it will be.

Welcoming Willow

2009-12-03T21:05:00.000-08:00

Between busyness and an inconsistent internet connection at home, I have fallen out of my daily blog. And I have had much to write about, much to explore. Today, I begin anew, re-dedicating myself to my process of daily writing, charting the days of one year of my life. And now, as I sit on my bed, little Friday has curled up around my left knee, purring loudly. He is warm and sleepy, and is going to lure me into his world very soon, I can feel it.

My car was totalled. In the last week, I have been through the torture of trying to find a used car within a reasonable budget, as well as reliable and fuel-efficient. I have also been through the final surrendering of my little blue Honda Civic, the first car I ever bought, and the beautiful collection of peace-centered bumper stickers she held. Serena, you have served me so well, and I bid you farewell. Now, my life has come to include Willow. 2002 Toyota Prius, emerald green. I could never have imagined getting a new-to-me car right now, not unless the universe made it necessary, and brought funds through the settlement from my car insurance company. Man, the change just won't stop these days...

But I am content with a nice, new car, a hybrid, with a navigation system, and a reliable way of charging my cell phone and playing my Ipod. That's a treat, for sure! And tonight, I got up to 44.5 miles per gallon driving home from massage school. That's a blessing...if my driving can cause as little harm to the Earth, then I am much happier!

Thanksgiving

2009-11-26T21:23:00.000-08:00

What an amazing Thanksgiving. I am too tired to write much right now, but want to acknowledge the beautiful beings that graced my day: Ali, Ali, Forrest, Caitlin, Peyton, Sara, Max, Tiny, and Friday. Thank you all for being in my life.

An especially beautiful day, too, since today is my 12th anniversary of bringing Friday kitty into my life. Twelve years ago at Clinton Adams' Thanksgiving gathering for students, he introduced me to this sweet little skinny kitty. And now, so many years later, he is a round little Buddha. My life is especially blessed by him.

The conversations tonight were so open and real and beautiful. I am grateful to have connected and listened and spoken with such wonderful people. Each one revealed something that was so rich and brought much meaning to my day. I am endlessly grateful.

I am also grateful for a suggestion from Ali: what if I didn't replace my car at all, and worked to live as a pedestrian, and perhaps rent a car when I need one, or take public transport? What if, indeed... Quite possibly, this is the best suggestion I've had in a long, long time...hmmm...

The Heart of Thanksgiving

2009-11-23T18:28:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving week is here. And I have so much to be grateful for in my life. I am going to enjoy spending time each day devoting my attention to all the blessings my life has generously given me. Most recently, I am grateful to be alive and well in this body that I call my home. After my accident, I am feeling a renewed sense of gratitude for my life. Especially since during the previous week I spent a lot of time saying "fuck it all" and "what is the point of this life anyway?" I wonder if I had given more energy to that kind of thinking whether my accident would have turned out any differently... What I do know is that life gives us all opportunities to check out or to decide to stay around. And I am feeling pretty clear right now that I am exactly where I need to be. This life has a lot more to offer me, and I have a lot more to offer it.

I have a bright red rental car right now, and was able to go to the body shop and empty my car of so much crap. I was told that they should have an opportunity to check out my car tomorrow and hopefully determine the cost of repairs, and whether or not my insurance company will pay for those repairs or total the car. Either way, it is pretty much empty now. I took away bag after bag of stuff: two large plastic garbage bags filled with glass and plastic recycling, a bag of clothes and shoes, another bag of papers and binders, and several more bags of random stuff. I even found an umbrella! I didn't know I even owned one...

I am also grateful that I could go grocery shopping tonight. I pulled out a cookbook from a Buddhist monastery, and found a couple of heavenly sounding recipes. One was for quinoa lentil mushroom loaf, and the other was for sweet potato burritos. Unfortunately, I ended up needing a lot of ingredients, and headed out to Trader Joe's and My Organic Market. By the time I got home, it was nearly 8pm, and my steam for cooking up a feast had withered. So, tomorrow night I will have good things to create, and that sounds wonderful!

One of the things that I get frustrated with this time of year, though, is the whole speedy convenience living of it all. Trader Joe's was filled with tables and shelves of ready-made foods that would be luxurious and tasty for the holiday. And there were tons of folks flocking around them, picking their treasures. It makes me sad, though, that people are no longer willing to devote some good time to preparing this feast of gratitude. It has become, largely, just one more obligatory holiday where so many people just go through the motions and create the feast without any connection to the meaning of it all. Now, sure, much of the meaning could be found within a bunch of white religious zealots who sailed their ships to the New World and began spreading plagues and dominating the intricate balance the indigenous people held within the natural world. But somewhere deeper, I find this holiday a time of celebrating the harvest, the bounty that Mother Earth has given us yet again. Celebrating the beauty of togetherness, and creating food in community. Of celebrating gratitude for all that we receive. And there is something that makes my skin crawl about the whole way people buy the ready-made pie without knowing who made it, and without knowing where it came from, and without caring a bit about those things. One more way that Americans want what they want, cheap and convenient and easy, without needing to contribute much of themselves to it, other than money. *shiver*

And with these things in mind, I am feeling super-inspired to cook. I am feeling grateful for having a lot of time this week. I am also feeling grateful for the slowness I have been inviting into my life since I began this blog, contemplating voluntary simplicity. To me, cooking a feast to share with my beloveds is the very essence of what makes life worth living. And *that* is something that I am grateful for this Thanksgiving.

Gratitude

2009-11-22T21:22:00.000-08:00

For the moment, the only place in the house with a reliable internet connection is on the floor at the top of the stairs. This is going to likely limit my blogging for tonight...it's cold, and my body isn't terribly comfortable in any position right now.

One small rant is necessary now. I am absolutely done expending energy on people who can't show up. I am a person of integrity. When I say I'll show up, I will be there. If I have issues making that happen, I will communicate it. And I have little tolerance for people who don't respect my time. Is it so hard, really, to make plans and stay with them, or just NOT make the plans in the first place? People who are consistently late really get under my skin...and people who are consistently significantly late lose me entirely. I simply will not bother to maintain any kind of relationship with people who live that way. I am committed to showing up in my life: on time, authentic, honest, fully present to the best of my ability. And I really do ask that in return. When that need isn't honored - the need for consistency, respect, trust - I need to take care of myself and walk away. Just sayin'...

Life feels strange right now. With the car accident making me less than mobile, I have a very free week ahead of me. My students on Monday and Wednesday have cancelled for Thanksgiving, and I cancelled my DC work on Monday, since I couldn't get a rental car in time. I have very little in the way of committments this week, other than Thanksgiving itself. I also cancelled going to work in the student massage clinic on Tuesday night. My body is still in far too much discomfort to manage that. So, I will enjoy this gift of time and space that this accident has provided me, and wait until the insurance company has given me the word on my car. Maybe I'll be spending some time this week car shopping...

For now, I am happy to be alive and well, reading Harry Potter, and enjoying these days in ease. My body does ache, and my right breast is purple from bruising from the seatbelt, but I am in one piece with no significant damage. That's plenty to be grateful for, indeed.

Crash

2009-11-20T18:21:00.000-08:00

Too tired to touch it much tonight. My body aches, and my head feels heavy. If my car is determined fixable, I will be thoroughly stunned. I slammed so fucking hard into the woman's car who was in front of me, and I am still reliving that moment of impact. I am completely flabbergasted by the whole thing. I have no idea how the accident happened. I was clearly at fault, but have nothing but a blank spot in my memory of what preceded the impact. All I know is that I was driving and paying complete attention (as opposed to the many moments when I drive and do many other things) and the next moment, my car is slamming into hers, and my chest began to ache from the impact. I thought at first it must have been from hitting the steering wheel, but tonight a friend suggested that it could be from the way I was holding the steering wheel at the moment of impact, that the force of that was carried into my body, and has thoroughly bruised and strained my muscles in my chest. It is rather uncomfortable, but it could have been way, way worse. Seeing a large kitchen knife beside my gear shifter after the car had stopped was the thing that sent me over the edge. Knowing that that knife had been in my back window since June, and could easily have stabbed me in the back of the head...yikes.

But I am blessed and safe and only jarred and bruised. My car is probably totalled. What a day, what a day...

I am without a car through Monday, for now, too. The rental car places were fully booked for the whole weekend, and I am at the mercy of my feet and friends to get me where I need to be. I am hoping for an acupuncture appointment tomorrow, but that is dependent upon getting a ride there and back...I am praying for that. God knows I could definitely use some needling.

For now, though, I am warm and cozy, here with my kitty and the first Harry Potter book - which I am reading for the first time. A little magic in my life couldn't hurt. =)

Night Rain

2009-11-19T19:18:00.000-08:00

A thunderstorm is gracing this lovely evening. It’s been warm and misty all day, and tonight as I returned home, the mist turned into a more steady drizzle. A light, lovely fog has lingered since morning, too, adding a stunning haziness to the clear edges of the world. What a stunning evening this is, too. It’s warm and humid, and the sweet, thick smell of wet earth permeates the night. It is delicious, heady, and intoxicating. I have been lulled out onto the porch by this glorious rainy evening, and am grateful for the temperature, which allows me to linger without the least bit of discomfort.

Dare I mention how strange it is to experience a thunderstorm in November, and to enjoy an evening that is likely near 60 degrees? To keep my windows open, just a little, each night as I go to sleep, though Thanksgiving is nearly a week away? Each year, I play a little game with myself: how late can I wait before turning on the heat? And last year, I made it to mid-November before freezing my ass off. Right now, it’s later than that, and I haven’t yet felt any need to turn to heat. Global warming, anyone?

Surely it is. Mother Earth is doing her best to keep balance in her ecosystems, but change is clearly here. Is she ill? In spite of the common belief that she is dying, that she is terminally damaged, I have my doubts about that. She is changing, for sure. She is doing her very best to purge the damages that we humans have wrought upon her sweet soils, and rivers, and oceans, and skies. If necessary, she will purge us right off her surface, I have no doubt. When there is an imbalance of harmful bacteria in our human bodies, our immune systems kick in and oust the invader that is causing so much trouble. And true, bacteria live in our bodies in great balance much of the time. It’s when the tipping point is reached and illness occurs that the purging must begin. And all this changing in our weather patterns is Mother Earth’s global immune system trying to set things right.

God bless her, for sending these beautiful purging rains to cleanse her of the harmful, toxic elements that we have hoisted upon her systems in our ignorance. And God bless this heavy rain that now falls. And God bless this sweet sacred Tobacco that has brought me into a deeper, more intimate connection with this night, with the cool air, damp and sweet.

Thunder rumbles again as the rain becomes heavier and heavier. And as I sit here on the porch in the candlelight, I am feeling good inside. Simple. Sweet. Content.

It has been six weeks since Familiar kitty died, six weeks yesterday. And I am feeling my body return to its own state of equilibrium, releasing the pain of sorrow and grief. My life continues, and I am grateful for that. There is electricity in the air tonight, and I am feeling alive and alert, and grateful for having a life that allows me this connection with Mother Earth. A television flickers in a house to my left, and I wonder if those people have any idea what splendor they’re missing. While they sit in their house following sitcoms or dramas or news, out here Mother Earth is telling her own story, a story of renewal and simplicity and ease and necessity and life. Lightning flashes brightly, followed three seconds later by deep, rich thunder.

Life as Art

2009-11-18T20:32:00.000-08:00

I have missed writing more in the last two weeks than since I started writing, including yesterday, and just before I went to sleep last night, I thought about writing just to capture some words on the page. Then, I told myself not to do it. There's no point in writing a paragraph that says virtually nothing just out of obligation. But obligation aside, I have committed to writing this blog pretty much daily, and today I am renewing that committment.

It's been a full week already. Yesterday Alan moved most of his stuff into the house, and today he finished. In preparation for the move, I also spent a lot of time cleaning the carpets, as well as going through all of my stuff. There is so much crap that I have accumulated in this house over these almost eight years! And it's so good to go through and downsize. Just today I freecycled a pair of hiking boots, as well as the frame to a futon that had been given to me. If I only can keep this stamina for a while, I can hopefully get rid of lots more crap that I don't need anymore.

As I type, Friday has crawled onto my left knee, and is happily purring away, licking my fingers and the back of my hand. What a beautiful kitty! Yesterday, as I steamed the carpets, I made sure he was far away from the noise. I let him out onto the porch, and he spent some time nestled under a table that is covered in a bright Bolivian tablecloth...under the table is a box filled with dry spearmint leaves. He love to crawl in there and munch on the minty leaves and just hang out. He spent a lot of time there yesterday, but when I went to go check on him and take a break, he wasn't there! To my surprise, he had snuggled up into one of the porch chairs, and was curled up on a cushion. He picked the chair with the most sunshine, and was super adorable. I got my camera and took probably forty photos - I particularly loved the angle of the bright sunlight as it defined his white little whiskers, and the texture of his fur. Too cute!!

Today, too, as I began to make more order from the mess that has been my home this last week, I thought about life as art. About how I choose to live in my space. Now this isn't the realm of deep philosophical or metaphysical stuff...that is the stuff of my inner life, for sure. But in my home, I choose to live artfully. Not fancy, not expensive, not terribly particularly. But in ways that express the color of my soul. I love this! I am not choosing to follow any fashion trend, nor any fancy, exclusive interior design style. I'm not going for any "look" or anything. But what I have managed to create in my space is some kind of bohemian whimsical art. The art of living, indeed. I love the thought that all arenas of my life can be expressed and experienced as the art of living. My spiritual life, my work life, my home life, my relationships. All are art! And I have had these wild and fun visions of painting murals on the doors of each room. Since I'm not a gifted or experienced painter of representational art, it's guaranteed to be somewhat childlike if it's not a mess. But I'm okay with that. I've already had a blast in my previous forays into painting the walls - from the wavy divisions between contrasting colors, to the sun on the wall of the living room (sadly covered by a bookshelf now), to the massive tree painted in the hallway. What's next, that's the question...

Moving On

2009-11-16T19:47:00.000-08:00

Aaaahhh. The last night in my house as a single inhabitant. Tomorrow Alan moves in, and I begin the journey of living with a roommate. It seems like exactly what needs to be happening in my life right now.

Alan is an ideal roommate, I think. We know each other pretty well, but aren't best friends. Less likely to drive each other crazy, I think. Also, we have been communicating very well as this whole process has come about. I hope that will continue, so that we can both live happily in this small-ish space. Also, best of all, Alan loves Friday kitty like no other. Other than me, of course. Honestly, though, if I were to die, I would want Alan to take Friday - it is a perfect match. And having a scenario where Friday kitty gets even MORE love than he does now is really great!

The poor little guy is probably very confused right now. He spent the evening under my bed as I steam cleaned the carpets. The only thing worse than the noise of a vacuum cleaner is a steam cleaner! And Friday HATES the vacuum. I hate it that he has been hiding like that, but he's surely in the quietest, safest place for him while all that noise is going on. What will he do tomorrow when I steam the carpets in that room, I wonder? For now, he has come out of hiding, and is wandering around the house, rubbing his soft body against the endless stacks of stuff. How's that for making friends with chaos? Oh, my little Buddha cat, teaching me yet another piece of transcendental wisdom. =)

I'm told that tonight there will be a major meteor shower, and I wish I had the stamina to stay up and stare at the sky. But it's getting cold out, and I got up at 6am to go to DC by 9am, and then taught flute lessons, and then spent the whole evening cleaning my carpets. I'm pretty much beat about now. Maybe I will go crawl up on the roof for a little while and commune with the sky and some sacred tobacco.

It hit me tonight as I was sitting on the toilet that I am getting used to living without Familiar kitty in my life. And I spoke those words to him, as if he were with me. I kind of feel his presence there with me in the bathroom where he died sometimes, and it doesn't freak me out as much as it did a few weeks ago. I miss him still, and I feel like my life will never go back to the way it was before. But I am starting to feel that my life is going on in spite of the sorrow. And of course it does, of course it must. Sometimes I think that that is the hardest part...knowing that life does go on in spite of the pain and suffering of loss. It almost feels like it shouldn't - it's not fair to go on living without the ones I love! But I also can acknowledge that thinking like that just brings more suffering. All I can do is breathe into the pain and watch as my own life lives itself beyond that dark shadow that death has cast upon my heart.

Tribe

2009-11-14T21:25:00.001-08:00

I'm too tired to write much tonight. But the blessing is that there is movement within me. It comes from a place of not knowing what will be, but of coming up for air after a long, long time in the water. I don't know what life is, what the point is, or what it's all about. I may never know. But for tonight, I am feeling a little more okay with that. Thank god for my tribe, and for coming together in full honesty and openness and authenticity. THIS makes life worth living.

Suffering

2009-11-13T20:38:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting here in my bed, right next to Friday, who has claimed one flannel-covered pillow for his own. He's purring and not purring, off and on, and looking up toward the ceiling. Something is in the attic, skittering around. Sounds like a squirrel, too big for a mouse. Right around the time that Familiar kitty was passing, I heard squirrels in the attic - or on the roof, not sure which - all the time. I haven't heard any for a few weeks, though, not until the last couple days. Friday looks so puzzled, his eyes following the skittering beyond the ceiling. I wonder how they get in there!

In the midst of the darkest week I've had in a long time, I did manage to get to yoga class...not one, not two, but three. In spite of the anger and frustration and sadness that have been the most prevalent emotions this week, there is some little voice within me that says, "hey, this used to really be good - do it now!" I'm going to trust that, and also have no expectations.

Yesterday, one of my dismal posts on Facebook asked what people thought life was about. One man replied that life is about learning through suffering. His words hit home right away. I seem to recall that his kitty passed the day before Familiar kitty - so he is surely going through some of the same feelings I have. Learning through suffering. I've sure been feeling the suffering part, but I have wondered all day what it is that I'm learning here...or resisting learning...

One thing that I am clearly resisting learning is that fingers are for loving kitties...not typing! Friday has relocated to my right knee, pushing my keyboard off to the left, and keeps insisting his head under my typing fingers, clearly showing me what really matters. Bless this being. Bless him. He is the best teacher I've got right now, that's for sure. He's given me a reprieve for the moment, and has moved on to licking my hand as I write here.

Suffering. Everything and everyone that I love will leave, die, fall apart. That is the very truth of living, and the very truth of suffering. The more I love, the more pain I will feel when the loving is interrupted. So, there's a part of me (and I doubt I'm alone here) that says "fuck it! What's the point anyway?!" Why love if it's going to hurt so much later. But the truth is that I feel things really big, really deeply. And I've done enough intense, deep spiritual work that there's no turning back now. There's no shutting the door to my heart. It just doesn't make sense, it's no longer an option. And in the reality of that, suffering seems to be the only option. And I think the reason I've been feeling so angry this week is that that really sucks! So, the more I open my heart, the more pain I'm going to feel. Great. Check please...

Today as I was driving in the pouring rain in Baltimore - feeling supremely bitter and pissed off - I thought of two things. First, if life is nothing more than waking up, eating, pooping, and sleeping again, with maybe a bit of working for money thrown in, then FUCK IT! I'm not playing anymore. I will lay in bed all day and piss myself and shit my pants and starve first. I know, it sounds ridiculous. But what's behind that madness and anger is outrage - that I demand that life be more than this, that I absolutely insist that my life have meaning. And that's probably a blessing - the energy of anger pushing through the murk of sorrow. Second, the thought came to me that in spite of the devastation of experiencing death steal away the life of my little buddy while he was in my arms, I have not died. And there is part of me that feels guilty for that, that while my little kitty is gone from this world forever I am here, and am supposed to continue living. But besides that guilty part that feels like I shouldn't go on living, that I should lay in my bed and shit my pants until I die too, there is another part that says, "hey, I'm still here..." and wants to LIVE out loud, fully, richly, just like I always have. One voice says, "shit, get over this, you're wasting your own sweet, precious life!" And another says, "this pain is so deep, you will never survive it."

And beyond those voices and those feelings, there is the sunrise and the sunset, and rain and wind and clouds and starlight, and sunshine. And there is a Magnolia tree watching over the decaying body of a being that was once my dear friend. And that dear friend is probably still lingering somewhere nearby, waiting to show me what I'm supposed to learn next from this whole ordeal.

He came to me in my dreams three nights in a row this week. Once, I was in a high school classroom, with other people who I went to high school with - and there he was, trying to squirm out of my arms, trying to get out into the hallway and explore. Another dream, I was obsessing about his losing weight and being super skinny. I can't recall the other one, exactly. But what was so lovely was touching him - the sensation of having his body in contact with me - that has been what I have longed for and missed so desperately. In spite of all the esoteric teachings - and my own experience - that say that the body is only a shell for the Spirit, it is my full experience in this reality that I relate to other beings by touch, by speaking, by sight and sound - through the physical senses. That is so hard to let go of.

So, what am I learning here through this suffering? A question to continue pondering...

Feeling Lost

2009-11-12T17:27:00.000-08:00

I don't like spending time with the dark parts of myself. I am a being who is usually very much drawn to the light. I'm not talking about day and night here, but inner realms and experience. I am not drawn to negativity, pessimism, depression, or hopelessness. Not that I don't experience them in my life, because surely I do. But I am naturally drawn to joy, optimism, love, and effervescence. Angela "Blueskies" is hugely fitting to the state of being that is most natural to me. But it's been quite a while since I inhabited those states of being on a regular basis. My name right now may as well be Angela "Thundercloud."

Anger has been barging its way into the hopelessness and sadness these last few days. At first, I thought it was coming along with my cycle, the usual anger and aggression that often accompany it. But this has lingered and intensified. There is a track in my mind that feels like a tiger, waiting silently, patiently to strike to kill anyone who crosses me in the slightest way. This part imagines confrontations, and imagines scenarios and outcomes that involve tremendous violence in words and actions. Now, I haven't been acting upon any of these scenarios, but I have been watching them, especially these last couple days. I haven't even seen any point in leaving the house. It seems that when I do, unbelievably frustrating things happen.

The question that has been a recurrent mantra in my mind has been "what is the fucking point of any of this?!" I feel like a hamster stuck on a wheel, or at least in a little shitty cage. But I KNOw that I'm that hamster, stuck on a pointless fucking wheel, inside a prison of a shitty cage, and I KNOW that there's more outside of it, and yet I can't seem to find the way.

I have experienced firsthand - in ceremony and in meditation and in community - the most incredible beauty in this world, in this life. I have felt the sublime power of love. I have felt held in the womb of Mother Earth. I have seen things I couldn't have ever believed, and felt things that called into question everything that I have ever known. And in spite of all of that, the death of Familiar kitty has marked life with a heavy darkness. And part of that darkness has disconnected me from those truths that come from living in the Light. I remember them as a novel right now...characters and scenes from a life that are bound to the page, yet not my own.

I posted a question on Facebook the other day: "What gets you out of bed in the morning?" The answers that I received were depressing beyond my imaginings. I also had included an aside to that question, "besides the alarm clock or coffee," hoping to suggest I was looking for the *meaning* of getting out of bed in the morning. Not once person who answered went there. The answers? The dog, the cat, the kid, hunger, needing to pee. And honestly, these are the things that I have been feeling in my life, lately, too. Never before have I felt like I got out of bed for food or a piss. I got out of bed because the light of day pulled my spirit into the world to LIVE. But right now, I am feeling that I, too, get up to eat, poop, and sleep again. And after living my life from a place of intense meaning and connection, living with these things as my drives is the most devastating thing I have ever known.

I cannot wake up in the morning and get out of bed if all there is to my life is eating, pooping, making money, and sleeping again. If that's all there is, then let me die right fucking now.

I already know, somewhere deep inside of me, that there is way, way more to life. But when I try to go there, it's as if I'm dumb or something. Like the part of me that knows that has been blocked off somehow. And yet the question, the longing remains. I know that a new pair of fuzzy boots is a great thing, but it doesn't give meaning to my day. Stuff doesn't give meaning to my day. Material things don't give meaning to my day. Their absence can be a pain in the ass, for sure - as it was tonight, when I discovered that the tape deck in my car no longer works, and that is what I use to play my Ipod - but that's not living and dying. It's a fucking tape deck. And the boots are fucking boots. I also know that getting rich and buying a fancy car and house won't give meaning to my life. It's just more stuff that might make me "comfortable" and make me feel "abundant" but it's essentially just more garbage.

What about finding a partner and having a family? While these things certainly do add some sense of meaning to life, undoubtedly, and provide some sense of structure to daily living that is rooted in living communally, when it comes down to it, unless the deeper meaning of life is clear first, these things just become another path toward material living. Getting the right stuff for the couple, getting the right stuff for the kid. And good god, raising a kid in a material paradigm? That makes me want to die, too...

Anything external, really, is guaranteed NOT to add meaning to life. Those things are just distractions. It's the inner stuff that really gives meaning to my day. And it's relationships, too, the ways that these inner worlds of people (and animals) come together and create the world together. And right now, I am feeling betrayed by that. All those years of loving, and one day it's all gone. It's as if it never happened - except in my heart, that is. How is that fair??? When I go down this track of thinking, then I feel like there's no point to life at all, we're just waiting around to die. And it's no fucking wonder that all the religions have made up things like "heaven." That's the greatest comfort ever, believing that at the end of the line, we'll be reunited all together in one big angelic party, with harps and clouds and that crap. I don't buy it for a minute.

The Buddhists really do lay it all out with no bullshit. Change happens constantly, and there is no external God to believe in. All we can do is accept that everything is going to fall apart, and love in spite of that, with as much compassion as possible. Life is going to pull the rug out from under us again and again. And eventually, it will be our very own body that has the rug pulled out from under it. As much as I try, I can't find anything in that that encourages me to embrace a spiritual path even more fully than before. If anything, I feel inclined to come back to my original question: "what's the point anyway?" I don't buy into any of that heaven and angels crap, and haven't since I was a child. The coddling of religion offers me no solace at all. But I have been spiritually motivated for years - right now, I can't even feel connected to that.

Well, at least I am walking in circles with the question...

Moving Through

2009-11-11T21:00:00.000-08:00

I'm feeling tired, but stirred up. It's been a quiet, rainy day, and even now, I can hear the rain falling on the roof outside. I love rainy days. And I am grateful to have spent most of this one in my house, working on making sense of the mess that has been created as I'm making room for Alan.

The worst part of today? Remembering Familiar kitty's sad little weak body suffering on this day five short weeks ago. I ended up in a slump on my bed, burying my face in the pillow, weeping. And right there beside of me was sweet Friday, letting me hold him so tight, not complaining a bit. He didn't mind that I squeezed him like a teddy bear for probably twenty minutes, and didn't care a bit that once the pillow was wet, I buried my face in his soft fur, making it damp, too. And I was so grateful for him, this sweet being who exists just to LOVE! I don't care if I sound like a cat lady. I love this kitty so much. I love him more every day. And right now, I don't know what I would do without him.

Once I felt the sadness recede, I began to work on the next stage of organizing and cleaning and moving things around. Today was a furniture move day, and I have gotten most of what needs to happen finished. One more thorough day, and that room will be clear for Alan. What remains to be done is installing shelves in the closet in the music studio, and really making the most of that space. That, and the basement! There's a good bit of stuff ready to go down there now, but I need to make some more room first, and rearrange things there, too...

It's good to have something like this in my life...major changes have been coming, and they have been overwhelming. But this change, this change in my living arrangement, is one that doesn't feel like it is happening to me, but is instead one that I am engaging in. I am peeling away the layers in my house, and rearranging things as necessary, and as I like. Getting rid of stuff, too, is good. It's not going anywhere fast right now, but the piles of things to go to Goodwill are sizable, and there are things that need to go to the dump, too. A good purge in my house is long, long overdue.

I've been feeling called back to the Medicine, and in particular, back to Santo Daime. There are some hesitations, too, though. I'm wondering if my nervous system is strong enough to handle that kind of experience right now, or if it could make things worse. Especially given the interference I have experienced in this group, I am hesitant. If I knew that I could just go and allow my experience to unfold freely without people trying to talk to me in the midst of it, or trying to control the situation too much, then I would probably go. I have some darkness to face, some fears and a lot of sorrow. But it seems that the time just isn't right yet. That's fine. I can wait until the time is right.

Coming Apart at the Seams

2009-11-10T20:53:00.001-08:00

Sitting here on this quiet night, a sweet kitty resting his head on my right ankle as I type. The window is still open just a couple inches, ushering in fresh night air on this relatively warm evening. In this moment I am feeling calm and fine. What better thing could I ask for on this sweet night than peace and quiet, and a companion to share it with?

Throughout the day, though, I have felt like I am on a roller coaster. From anger to defensiveness to judgment to resentment to devastation to sadness to despondency. Yes, my cycle has begun, and the emotional upheaval will settle. But the truth is that each of the things that have sent me on this wild ride hold a kernel of truth in them, and point me toward something that is unsettled inside of me.

Today I went with Lynn to see the new house she will be renting after the settlement on her house is complete. Another ten days, no more. And as much as I wanted to know where to find her, and to help her move a few things, it was so sad to go there. The reality of her leaving the neighborhood really hit me in the gut. And I thank god that I moved in across the street from her almost eight years ago...she has blessed me in more ways than I can ever, ever imagine. The thought of not saying a daily hello, sharing hugs and tea and joys and sorrows, talking to the trees... Well, it sure is going to be a challenge to not loathe the new neighbor who is pushing her out. We sat on her porch after the movers left, and chatted in the overcast afternoon light. Train tracks nearby...that's almost like Oella. And big trees, and the house is nice enough. But it's a boring, soulless neighborhood. You can hear the noise from the highway nearby, and there is no character to the neighborhood. Just a street with houses on it, and people doing what people do everywhere. The thought of her being tucked away in that place, behind so many warehouses and industrial areas, and in the line of airport traffic... Well, perhaps for her, it will be exactly what she needs for now. But for me, I know I would wither. I am learning that there are two key components in a place to live for me - community and connection with Mother Earth. From there, there is no forest or river or lake close by. And a sense of community is surely much, much more than people passing each other on the street, living in tolerance of each other from behind their own doors from their own private property...

It seems that these requirements are no longer a part of what is considered a basic human need... People choose a place to live based on a whole different set of values. I wonder if the person who is buying Lynn's house looked beyond the charming house with a wooded lot behind? Or is it all about the property? People seem to want walls and land, and not really consider the bigger picture. As for me, I don't give a damn if I ever own a house. But I know I need to be able to be in the woods without much effort, and I need a real sense of community. Otherwise, I see nothing that makes it worth getting out of bed in the morning. Really.

Change just keeps on coming. Tomorrow marks five weeks since Familiar kitty passed. Lynn will be leaving in a week. My bamboo flute is done for. What next??? How is it possible to surrender to the flow of life when I feel like the river is going to drown me in this madness of change? Must I live in a constant state of distress, wondering what will be next...who will die, who will leave, what will break or be taken...on and on and on... I don't want to live with that kind of thinking. But it is what I am feeling in my life at the moment. Hence the despondency that filled my evening tonight. I feel like any move I make into trying to enjoy life is only a thin veil covering the hopelessness I feel right now. Everything is coming apart at the seams. My very reality is coming apart at the seams.

Coming Up For Air

2009-11-09T18:30:00.000-08:00

This Monday has been way better than last Monday. Last week, my cell phone wasn't working, my bamboo flute was found destroyed, and everything seemed to go wrong. Today has been pretty good, overall. Once more, in the school in DC, doing programs about holidays - today was about prankster holidays: April Fool's in the US and Dia de los Inocentes in Latin America. What fun, singing with the kids! And on the way home, I decided to do a little shopping - this only happens about twice a year, and I made the most of it. It wasn't too awful, but I did leave with a headache. Bummer, two headaches in two days...

And it is surely days until my cycle begins, too. Headaches before that make sense. I have also been noticing that there is an aggressiveness in my mood these last couple days. Another sure sign. Add to that the fact that my skin has gone nuts, and I am surely in the thick of hormone soup! The aggressiveness is an interesting piece of it, though. Before I get my cycle, I often feel like a wild warrior woman, ferocious and strong...almost like I could rip into a leg of some dead animal, and eat it raw. Not that I would, being vegetarian and all! But there is something in me that kicks into fierceness right before my cycle comes. I find my mind wanting to respond in a defensive way, if not downright antagonistic. I don't often let this come into play with others, but it is certainly interesting to watch!

I am sitting here, now, in my soft, comfy bed. Last night I put on the flannel sheets, and fluffed up the feather bed and down comforter. What a soft, cozy nest! Add to that the best little golden kitty Friday, and I could happily never leave home again. I love him more every day. His uber loud purring is rumbling here next to me, and he has snuggled up next to my leg, to be as close as possible as I write. Thank god for this kitty! What a blessing he is in my life.

I feel like I am coming up for air. I feel like the darkness has plateaued for now. In spite of the fact that I wanted to invite it to go deeper within me, perhaps facing it in that way was what needed to happen in order to bring some surrender to the whole state of being. Things are shifting around. Alan will move in soon, my house will no longer be all my own. I am opening my life up to new possibilities. Tonight I went to a new Kundalini yoga class in Baltimore. I am not feeling so thoroughly haunted by death right now. I feel its presence in my life, for sure...but I feel like it has stepped back a little for now. In spite of the fact that I have been feeling the dark presence of death in my life for so many weeks now, there is still something in me that wants to live. And not only to just live day by day, going through the motions. But to LIVE out loud, to live deep and rich and full. Maybe the presence of death has refueled my desire to live. To really live.

Partnership

2009-11-08T09:00:00.001-08:00

It's been plenty of days since I last sat on the porch to do my blogging. And today is stunningly beautiful! It's probably almost 70 degrees, and not a cloud in the sky. I love it! I am feeling a walk in my future, maybe in the woods, maybe to Main Street along the trolley trail. Feet and breathing and a beautiful fall day with almost all the leaves off of the trees...mmm...

I'm also noticing this remarkable transformation of the Magnolia. Last Sunday I went to offer Familiar kitty some blessings underneath her beautiful boughs. The cones were still fuzzy and pink, but the red seeds were beginning to emerge, little jewels in the velvet. Today, the cones are looking brown and studded with these bright red dots! I wish I had been able to watch it emerge day by day. But I am grateful to have even been able to watch her transformation this much! Never before did I know the cycles of Magnolia.

In spite of the fact that my house is a mess and I have lots to do, and in spite of the fact that I had a fun night in Baltimore last night with Michael, I have been finding myself feeling a bit lonely this morning. Especially after last Sunday's brunch! It's so nice to have a gathering in my house, to bring people together in an informal, chill gathering and just see what emerges. I am forever more in awe of the changes that I am observing within myself. I am finding that I really am no longer a loner. I'm also finding that in spite of the fact that I am feeling ready to be in a love relationship with someone who's really on the same page, I am not at all wanting to be absorbed into that whole dynamic of "cult of pairs" as Michael calls it. Sure, that kind of intimacy is necessary for any relationship to thrive, but I am longing for the kind of connection that is bigger, too. Community. And anyone who comes into my life, romantically, needs to be interested in the same thing. Coming together to come together in a bigger way. Partnership is what I crave. Not just a lover. Not just someone to be entertained by or with. Someone who can stand strong beside me, and who is ready to see how the power of two can create even bigger togetherness and power and love in this world.

Is that really too much to ask?

I was talking with Michael last night, and one of the funny things that crossed my mind is that it would be an awesome experiment to somehow go on 100 dates with different men. Keeping myself open for real possibilities, and keeping the idea of a fling totally out of the picture. It was inspired by Dancing Lodge a few weeks back, when we were dancing in pairs, and kept changing partners every couple of minutes. It was amazing to feel how the energy and dynamic between each pair was so different! The ways we came together, sometimes playful, sometimes mirroring each other, sometimes completely out of sync - these were incredible ways of relating that were utterly nonverbal. And *this* is the heart of what would make going on 100 dates so interesting. To "practice" showing up authentically with new people, to experience the difference in dynamic between myself and so many others, and to seriously stir the pot.

This stunning day beckons, and I must answer that call.

Continuity and Change

2009-11-07T14:00:00.000-08:00

Today has been a good day so far! I'm currently sitting at City Cafe in Baltimore, one of my longtime coffee shop haunts. I just had a haircut with Kenny, who has been pretty much exclusively cutting my hair since I was 19. That's 14 years! His work is wonderful, hands down. And as we were saying our goodbyes, I felt moved to offer him gratitude for his being one of the constants in my life when there has been so much change.

I remember sometime last year Ali saying to me how nice it was to have history with each other. At the time, it hadn't really ever crossed my mind, but her words resonated strongly within me. It *is* really nice to have history with people! Especially given that there is so much change in life...especially in my own life lately. With the truth of things being that change is the only thing that doesn't change, it feels overwhelming to me that anything can be gone without any notice. But when things do show up over and over again over so many years, there is something deep and sweet that grows. A sense of belonging. A sense of connectedness. And I love that.

There were years and years when it seemed that in spite of my best intentions to have peaceful, dependable relationships with people, there was always some kind of conflict erupting. It seemed like every year someone major in my life would either move away or there would be a conflict between us, and the friendship would come to an end. Add to that a few major breakups and the pain that followed. For years, it seemed like there was a revolving door on my life, and nothing would settle. The truth was more that I wouldn't settle. And I wanted friendships on my terms. Sometimes those terms were entirely agreeable. Those people have been around for the long haul. But sometimes those terms were not part of the agreement, and I just couldn't understand what was wrong. I get it now...

I am super grateful for the ways that Madre Ayahuasca has shown me these things, and asked me to clean up my life. No more loose ends, no more unresolved conflicts...even when there is no fixing, it seems that now there is no inner conflict that allows things to linger on and on. I am grateful that I have been asked to go within myself and see my own patterns, my own bullshit, and to see the truth. And I am willing to continue this work for as long as I live.

I now see that the revolving door of friends and loves was just a part of my spiritual practice starting to take root. I can love anyone. I can talk to anyone. But those people who I will form the most powerful and intimate relationships with need to resonate with my path. What a blessing, now my life feels so full of exactly that. I have a TRIBE of souls all over the world who resonate with this path. And even better, I have a TRIBE of souls right here at home who also resonate with this path, and who seem to want to share that in our daily lives. It's still not as much as I'd prefer, but I'm working on it. =)

What's been so hard for me lately is knowing the truth of change. Of feeling just how easily my reality in this world can be ripped apart, and there is no going back to the way it was. There is no normal. There is only what is right now. And god, that hurts so much. I have been feeling lately like there is no point to even trying to love life with death haunting me as it has. But in this moment of clarity, I am understanding that the truth of change is even MORE of a reason to love more deeply, commit more thoroughly, and to be exactly who I am in the midst of all of that. Life goes by so fast. Maybe if I wasn't on the spiritual path that I'm on, it would be possible to sink into the shallow waters of living in illusion, chasing material pleasures, and fulfilling all the statuses that are available to fulfill. But I KNOW in my bones that none of that matters. There's no un-learning what I have learned. And now, I see even clearer than before that nothing lasts. Nothing. Not my surroundings, not the people and animals in my life, nothing stays the same. Even my own body changes every day, and will one day no longer exist.

I know that I am not at the bottom of this well yet. I know there is deeper to sink into this truth. I am willing to go there, with all the darkness that accompanies it. But I also am committed to knowing what life *is* beyond intellect and philosophy. I want to sink all the way into this murk of not understanding the point! I want to make myself available for death to reveal to me what the point of life is. I already feel it being revealed in my body, but just ever so slightly. I don't want to push it, just so that I can feel happy again. It will take as long as it takes. I am willing to wait in order to really know more fully.

It's tricky...there are people who want to fill in the blanks for me, for sure... People always want to share their knowing and their wisdom and their philosophy. And there are times for sharing those things, absolutely! But right now, I know that I am ripe for the Universe revealing these answers to me directly.

Changing my Space

2009-11-06T20:17:00.000-08:00

Today has been a day filled with impatience. I awoke early with lots of ideas for how to begin clearing out the space that will become Alan's room and bathroom, and decided to tackle the bathroom. Before 10am, I had cleared out the medicine cabinet, the under sink cabinet, and the linen closet. What I had was a whole lot of stuff that needed a new home, and not a lot of clear ideas on where it would go.

I spent some time measuring, and determined that I would probably do best to get a new cabinet of some kind for my bathroom. For so long I've had an old night table in there, one that was painted kelly green, and had been gifted to me. It was fine for holding towels, and also had a little drawer. But it wasn't going to be enough to hold all my first aid, toiletries, and towels. In addition, I thought it would be a brilliant idea to make the most of the little nook behind the bedroom door. I figured that I could add three shelves there and turn it into a second closet of sorts. What will live there? I have some ideas. Extra linens, for sure, and blankets. The overflow of towels. The plethora of bags that I've managed to acquire - some girls love shoes, for me it's bags! Who knows what extra stuff will end up in there, too, but it will be a good use of space, especially now that I need to be more mindful!

One of the added bonuses of going through this process of reorganizing my space is purging. Getting rid of what I don't need or want. Part of what is tricky here is figuring out what to do with some things that can't go to Goodwill. What do I do with an old electric toothbrush that is in perfect shape? Or shoe polish? Or the odd pieces and parts of things that I still have and use - with the exception of those odd pieces and parts. I have a hard time just deciding to toss things in the garbage. I know that those things will end up in a landfill, and will become just one more thing in the huge heaps and piles of garbage that are mounting in epic proportion on this planet. And as much as I don't want to hold on to useless crap, I really don't like the idea of throwing away things that someone somewhere might have a use for. I guess there's always Freecycle...

So, today I rendered my green bathroom livable in a new way, and cleared out the pink bathroom. There's more to do. Tomorrow, I will hopefully be able to install these shelves, and begin to optimize that space. Then, it will be time to tackle the closet in the music studio/healing room. I have an idea to move the cedar chest into the closet, making some more floor space available. That will necessitate me getting rid of a file cabinet and a bookshelf that holds a lot of music. It seems reasonable to build some shelves into that closet, too. Potentially two. I'm thinking it would be great to have one shelf that would hold all the music, and another that would hold some office stuff, like my printer/fax machine. Oh, the great blessing it would be to have all of that accessible but out of sight. I'm going to work on that this week, for sure.

What I am already seeing is more space in spite of the fact that I am moving stuff into less space. The top of both of my closets is pretty spacious right now. I even have some floor space in my bedroom closet. The basement is even more cleared out after I finally got rid of all the recycling. And surely, there will be some stuff that will end up down there in totes, if not on the landing. I finally got all my camping/trekking gear together into a single tote, for example! It's been all over the place for ages, and now it's all together. I love it!

One day at a time. Little by little.

No Escape

2009-11-05T20:48:00.000-08:00

Today, after a long and powerful acupuncture session, a bright rainbow emerged outside the window. The sky changed from blue and airy to a dark, bruised shade of gray, and there, in the midst of golden afternoon sunlight, this bright rainbow emerged. The light at the end of this dark tunnel for me? God, I sure hope so.

From the way that my acupuncturist, Star, described the treatment, it was basically a long process of clearing out energy, followed by a Chinese medicine version of the Soul Retrieval. I think she called it a "shin disturbance." And I was there for nearly two hours. What a blessing.

This summer in ceremony I found the part of myself that is just waiting for "it" to be "finished." I would find myself sitting in ceremony, which I had willingly and joyfully chosen to participate in, and there I would be, cringing and holding on for dear life, wondering when it would be over, bracing for the worst. And I would work to relax that reaction, calming myself down, reminding myself that there would be incredible wisdom in the process, and trusting that it would not kill me. Indeed, it didn't. And as has been the case so often in ceremony, what I learn within those sweet hours is infinitely important to integrate into the ways that I live in my daily life in the world.

All of this crossed my mind as I was laying there in the treatment room, with needles down my back. If this is ceremony - which ALL of life IS - what is it that I am being asked to learn and know and feel?

I am sitting with this in truth for the first time right now. What is it that this flatness and fear and meaninglessness and powerlessness are trying to teach me?

The first thing that comes to mind is how I am always looking for a way out. An escape. The part of me that believes there's an expiration date on how long suffering should last, or believes that I should be able to just push it aside. And god knows I have lived that way for much of my life! Fear is cowardly, sorrow is weak, and the rest of it is just plain inconvenient. But I know that these are merely harsh thoughts that don't want me to experience life as it is showing up. And the truth is that what is showing up right now is pretty damn persistent. Thank god there is acupuncture and massage and aromatherapy and Friday kitty! These things really do help. But the truth is this - I want out. I want to move on from the pain of heartache, but my nervous system just can't shake it all off so quickly. This sorrow that has come from the loss of a significant life companion will not pass with the sunset. And as long as I resist what is true, it will push back into my life. Can I honestly just show up and feel what I feel, let it exist for as long as it needs to? Today Star said, "what you are feeling is exactly what you need to feel." Wise words, words that I have often spoken to myself. But in the midst of a huge spin, these things seem too scary. And the more I withdraw from them, the more powerless I feel. The more powerless I feel, the more my mind reacts, and the more meaningless my life seems.

There is another part of my mind that has emerged in ceremony, too, that is involved here. The part that is afraid to be trapped on a hamster wheel, and says "oh, god, is this happening again? Will it always be this way?" This is another part that wants to flee, that feels like there is no growth, no change, no possibility. That part keeps wondering, will I always feel like this??? Will my heart always feel heavy, forevermore? And if it does, I just can't stand it!! But the truth is that change is always happening, I am never in the same place twice, and what will I do if it never, ever shifts...

The power comes in my choices. I can choose to accept exactly what I feel in each moment. I can choose to explore that with curiosity, and without labels. I can also choose to stay connected to the love and divinity beyond this momentary experience of discomfort. Instead of sitting around waiting to die, and waiting for everyone and everything around me to die, I can go dance or sing or play or watch the clouds in the sky. The truth is that I am dying in every moment, and so is everyone else! So???

I feel like the secret is in embracing my feeling in my body in every moment while not allowing the mind to dominate with its fears and imaginings for even one moment. Freedom to the body and heart, discipline to the mind...yes.

One Month

2009-11-04T19:51:00.000-08:00

Wow, I actually can't believe that I missed writing two days in the last week. Sunday and Tuesday. Sunday, probably because I was involved in the Day of the Dead Brunch, and yesterday...well, not sure why. Perhaps because there's a lot on my mind, and it's sometimes easier to look away. I could feel the tendency wanting to emerge again tonight. The "oh, well, it's so late anyway, you may as well not bother." But here I am anyway. Showing up on the page.

Sweet Friday just made his way to my bed, where I am sitting to write this. He's perched himself on my left knee, and is purring away.

Today marks one month since Familiar kitty passed. It's unbelievable to me, still, though the reality of it is completely clear. What I am in touch with right now, below my own surface, is this darkness. This voice within me that says, "what's the point of anything. We're all just waiting to die." Isn't that a song by Gillian Welch? Well, it is haunting my spirit right now, and in spite of the fact that I am able to function and even experience some level of joy and goodness in my life, this undercurrent has become pervasive.

When the truth of death sits this close, I know that I can't help but come to confront all of my fears, all of my doubts, all of the ways that I make meaning in my life. There is the question in me, "what's the point of life?" And this is a question that I, in one way or another, have been asking for years. While I am deeply committed to living as fully consciously as I can, to facing my demons, and to keeping my heart open in the midst of great suffering, what I feel right now is a flatness, a flatness that has come from something within me not wanting to feel this much pain, trying to protect me. But it is only protecting me from the suffering of loss, not from the fears of the reality of death. I literally feel like just collapsing face down on the floor sometimes when this powerlessness comes over me...I am powerless to do anything in the face of the neverending flow of living and dying. Death is already at hand, and is sucking the juice out of living, too, for me right now.

There is such a pull to want to just get on with things. It comes from within me, and definitely comes from the outside too. Whether it's someone trying to smooth over the pain with some lofty spiritual philosophy, or with some lighthearted banter, no one wants you to feel sad and flat for long. It's a bummer. And I'm definitely going about my life, doing what I do. But what is the point of doing what I do, waking and sleeping, and eating and bathing, and all that other stuff that fills up the days? In spite of the truth that I KNOW there is more to life, that there is a true sweet divine order to the universe, and that I have tasted that sweetness firsthand in profound ways, right now, there is no sweetness. Well, there is this kitty on my knee...

I know all the good answers. Life goes on. I have to choose to make meaning in my life. Love is powerful. Tears are perfect. I've said all this a thousand times, and heard it thousands more. But I am driven by the truth of what I feel within, and what emerges within right now is some shade of gray, lying limply on the floor, wondering what it's all about.

I hear that question emerging over and over in my life right now. What's the point? I've long since given up any ideas that material gain is the point, that success and status and accomplishment are the point of life. And I have often felt that connection, love, community, peace, simplicity, and the like, are the point of life. Love is surely the point of life! But right now I just can't get back to that. These are merely intellectual concepts that don't have any hold in my current experience.

So, for now, I am going about my days, trying to live peacefully and simply. I would love to have my life back. Any day now, universe. Any day.