it's all in the cards.
Moment to Moment,
#2 in Minor Arcana
(from the Osho Zen Ta'rot deck)
"The past is no more and the future is not yet; both are unnecessarily moving in directions which don't exist. One used to exist, but no longer exists, and one has not even started to exist. The only right person is one who lives moment to moment, whose arrow is directed to the moment, who is always here and now; wherever he is, his whole consciousness, his whole being, is involved in the reality of here and in the reality of now. That's the only right direction. Only such a man can enter into the golden gate.
The present is the golden gate.
Here-now is the golden gate.
...And you can be in the present only if you are not ambitious - no accomplishment, no desire to achieve power, money, prestige, even enlightenment, because all ambition leads you into the future. Only a non-ambitious man can remain in the present.
A man who wants to be in the present has not to think, has just to see and enter the gate. Experience will come, but experience is not to be premeditated.
Commentary:
This card challenges us to move away from our preoccupations with other space and other times, and to stay alert to what is happening in the here and now. Life is a great ocean in which you can play if you drop all your judgments, your preferences and the attachment to the details of your long-term plans. Be available to what comes your way, as it comes. And don't worry if you stumble or fall; just pick yourself up, dust yourself off, have a good laugh, and carry on."
YESsssss.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
The Escape Artist
Yes, I seek to out run, to travel beyond and to hide in thick plumes of ash and smoke, this weeping wound which proves inexhaustible, is irreplaceable and is but a mirage. Yes, I seek to escape my own self-imposed human suffering. Like the whirling dervish who spins his way out of this realm, like the wizened yogi who bends her way onto another plane and like the sitting Buddha who meditates into silence, I too attempt to spin, bend and meditate. I too attempt to move myself from this human existence, from this perpetual, binary dance of pain to joy and back again. I too try.
My practice is no different from theirs. My suffering is theirs. My desire to seek nirvana, my hunger to expand beyond the mere confinement of flesh and bone, my thirst to once again reside in pure, undulating waves of pulsing energy is all of ours. Yet, like them, after every moment of achieved enlightenment, I must return, here, to myself. No matter how fast I spin, how hard I bend or how deep I bow, I cannot escape this. I cannot outrun this existence. I cannot flee that which makes me human.
So, instead, I try to keep showing up. Here in San Diego County, I try within a community of movers tat come together three times a week. When I first entered this group, I quickly became judgmental and rigid. I witnessed individual bodies writhing in shared space, but I did not note a deeper engagement. On the surface, all I could see was trance dance mysticism. There seemed to me to be little connection between music and meaning, movement and action, mind and body.
Initially, my rational, reasoning brain told me that this was not the place where I would find what I was seeking. As can be my usual response, I turned around and walked out. But, where was there to go? To a nightclub with its gyrating rhythms of pop culture and its noxious fumes of insecurities? Or, how about to a dance studio, where I would be encouraged to copy the people around me and non-verbally told to stay to the back of the room until I had proven my ability to dance like the teacher? I could stay home - and I did, just as I have always relegated myself to do - but what am I learning then?
After years of staying away, I finally ran back in. I had finally realized that, although I cannot change certain situations, I could certainly change how I entered into them. In other words, I had the power to affect my own intentions. Instead of looking outside of myself for the answers, I finally chose to focus in, to inhabit my needs, so that I could then share and luxuriate in the union that I was so desperately seeking.
My practice is no different from theirs. My suffering is theirs. My desire to seek nirvana, my hunger to expand beyond the mere confinement of flesh and bone, my thirst to once again reside in pure, undulating waves of pulsing energy is all of ours. Yet, like them, after every moment of achieved enlightenment, I must return, here, to myself. No matter how fast I spin, how hard I bend or how deep I bow, I cannot escape this. I cannot outrun this existence. I cannot flee that which makes me human.
So, instead, I try to keep showing up. Here in San Diego County, I try within a community of movers tat come together three times a week. When I first entered this group, I quickly became judgmental and rigid. I witnessed individual bodies writhing in shared space, but I did not note a deeper engagement. On the surface, all I could see was trance dance mysticism. There seemed to me to be little connection between music and meaning, movement and action, mind and body.
Initially, my rational, reasoning brain told me that this was not the place where I would find what I was seeking. As can be my usual response, I turned around and walked out. But, where was there to go? To a nightclub with its gyrating rhythms of pop culture and its noxious fumes of insecurities? Or, how about to a dance studio, where I would be encouraged to copy the people around me and non-verbally told to stay to the back of the room until I had proven my ability to dance like the teacher? I could stay home - and I did, just as I have always relegated myself to do - but what am I learning then?
After years of staying away, I finally ran back in. I had finally realized that, although I cannot change certain situations, I could certainly change how I entered into them. In other words, I had the power to affect my own intentions. Instead of looking outside of myself for the answers, I finally chose to focus in, to inhabit my needs, so that I could then share and luxuriate in the union that I was so desperately seeking.
7 Years is a Lifetime
Was is it a broken mirror
Spilled from my careless hands
Broken into many bits,
into shards of unwanted reflection
Is that what determined this fate?
N-o-w reminds me of 2003, seven years ago, when I quit my job working the front desk at prAna's newly-established Vista headquarters and moved my stuff out of my parent's North County suburban home and into a quaint, little casita in Golden Hill - a hOMe I shared with a young man who could not accept his self and definitely not me, nor those moments, then.
Seven years it has been since I first became familiar with the city of San Diego - riding my bike and walking along these rolling hill, city streets, with the opaque dim of Tijuana laying to the south and the sweet-tooth inducing Mission, Pacific and Ocean beaches to the west.
Seven years it has been since I was first introduced to a vibrant, local culture that included Sushi Performance & Visual Art, Lower Left Performance Collective, Jean Isaacs Dance Theatre, San Diego DanceJam and so many others.
In 2003, I was a college graduate, a world traveler and an educator who reveled in story as the fabric of our existence. Unfortunately, I somehow mistakenly thought that mystory wasn't "complete" - that something was always missing, like the mirror of an intimate relationship, another degree or a job at a university. Some thing was necessary to cover up and mask the very real, human me.
So, i kept running. away. Escaping. or trying to. and thinking that I could hide
and elude.
that i could flee
from that which makes me human.
Spilled from my careless hands
Broken into many bits,
into shards of unwanted reflection
Is that what determined this fate?
N-o-w reminds me of 2003, seven years ago, when I quit my job working the front desk at prAna's newly-established Vista headquarters and moved my stuff out of my parent's North County suburban home and into a quaint, little casita in Golden Hill - a hOMe I shared with a young man who could not accept his self and definitely not me, nor those moments, then.
Seven years it has been since I first became familiar with the city of San Diego - riding my bike and walking along these rolling hill, city streets, with the opaque dim of Tijuana laying to the south and the sweet-tooth inducing Mission, Pacific and Ocean beaches to the west.
Seven years it has been since I was first introduced to a vibrant, local culture that included Sushi Performance & Visual Art, Lower Left Performance Collective, Jean Isaacs Dance Theatre, San Diego DanceJam and so many others.
In 2003, I was a college graduate, a world traveler and an educator who reveled in story as the fabric of our existence. Unfortunately, I somehow mistakenly thought that mystory wasn't "complete" - that something was always missing, like the mirror of an intimate relationship, another degree or a job at a university. Some thing was necessary to cover up and mask the very real, human me.
So, i kept running. away. Escaping. or trying to. and thinking that I could hide
and elude.
that i could flee
from that which makes me human.
Monday, December 27, 2010
(final meandering for today)
Disappointed and let down
my expectations were not met.
I wanted to transcend
my humanity.
I wanted to touch grace,
feel saintliness
and Be.
I wanted to find it, in a circle
in small communion
wrapped tight within
the sheltering confines
of a downtown, art building.
Nirvana did not hit.
Enlightenment was not found.
No paradise gained
nor heaven experienced.
(It was
only and ever,
this.)
So, i tried my best
and offered, when i could, love
support, touch and contact
i spoke words
of encouragement and positivity
and then
i headed out the door
up the hill and on my way
to my daily ritual
of walking, breathing, feeling, listening, sensing and seeing
the Golden Hill around me.
Gethro stopped me first.
With his Bob Marley beats and blankets hanging on the metal wire,
of a fenced in, cement-lined, city block,
like sheets blowing gently on a clothesline.
"What'd you do to Sam?" he inquired.
He schooled me on his morning practice,
of pen-etched sketches drawn in his
hand-held, children's diary
with silver lock.
A day after Christmas
and the well-wishers
and singular day of Atoners
had disappeared.
All that remained
was a concrete jungle,
black and whites perusing the streets,
and people emerging from fitful slumber.
She saw me, first.
Like a moth to a flame, she was pulled towards me.
"Merry Christmas, " she slurred.
"To you to," I merrily chirped.
Her arms came away from her chest, she spread them wide
inviting me in for a hug.
A black eye was near to healed,
her broken and deformed nose was almost straight.
"He did this to me," she said.
"I went to the cops.
I thought he was my friend."
Looking deep into her glazed eyes, i offered all i could,
"Stay away from him. He is not your friend."
Our paths diverged.
Emotion finally hit, and i breathed in ~ on feeling.
"YESssss," i felt,
"THIS IS IT."
(A HUGE and heart felt "Thank YOU" & deep gratitude to the almost-thirty members of our CommUnity who came in and out of our Underground Hive's doors, over the course of this past weekend. Also, to Aubrey Kelly and her phenomenal Watsu skills - it was my Be-ing plunged, underwater without any effort by me, that allowed me to experience the slowing down of time - the oozing and melting into a primal fluidity that my thirsty spirit had been craving.)
(And, afterward, i could only drive up to 30mph on these city streets!!!!)
You have all helped to revive my ailing spirit!!! ~~~~ Merci Merci Merci
my expectations were not met.
I wanted to transcend
my humanity.
I wanted to touch grace,
feel saintliness
and Be.
I wanted to find it, in a circle
in small communion
wrapped tight within
the sheltering confines
of a downtown, art building.
Nirvana did not hit.
Enlightenment was not found.
No paradise gained
nor heaven experienced.
(It was
only and ever,
this.)
So, i tried my best
and offered, when i could, love
support, touch and contact
i spoke words
of encouragement and positivity
and then
i headed out the door
up the hill and on my way
to my daily ritual
of walking, breathing, feeling, listening, sensing and seeing
the Golden Hill around me.
Gethro stopped me first.
With his Bob Marley beats and blankets hanging on the metal wire,
of a fenced in, cement-lined, city block,
like sheets blowing gently on a clothesline.
"What'd you do to Sam?" he inquired.
He schooled me on his morning practice,
of pen-etched sketches drawn in his
hand-held, children's diary
with silver lock.
A day after Christmas
and the well-wishers
and singular day of Atoners
had disappeared.
All that remained
was a concrete jungle,
black and whites perusing the streets,
and people emerging from fitful slumber.
She saw me, first.
Like a moth to a flame, she was pulled towards me.
"Merry Christmas, " she slurred.
"To you to," I merrily chirped.
Her arms came away from her chest, she spread them wide
inviting me in for a hug.
A black eye was near to healed,
her broken and deformed nose was almost straight.
"He did this to me," she said.
"I went to the cops.
I thought he was my friend."
Looking deep into her glazed eyes, i offered all i could,
"Stay away from him. He is not your friend."
Our paths diverged.
Emotion finally hit, and i breathed in ~ on feeling.
"YESssss," i felt,
"THIS IS IT."
(A HUGE and heart felt "Thank YOU" & deep gratitude to the almost-thirty members of our CommUnity who came in and out of our Underground Hive's doors, over the course of this past weekend. Also, to Aubrey Kelly and her phenomenal Watsu skills - it was my Be-ing plunged, underwater without any effort by me, that allowed me to experience the slowing down of time - the oozing and melting into a primal fluidity that my thirsty spirit had been craving.)
(And, afterward, i could only drive up to 30mph on these city streets!!!!)
You have all helped to revive my ailing spirit!!! ~~~~ Merci Merci Merci
This Be-ing Human
We contradict ourselves,
we hurt one another.
We step on each other's toes
and we fling one another to the ground.
We toss each other off
like faint breezes blowing in the wind.
We pretend that we aren't home,
that we don't see the mirror reflection.
We exude and we evade.
We call and we come hither.
We anticipate and we wonder,
"What's next?'
and "Why?"
All is par for course in this delicate dance
this horizontal mambo
and vertical dive
this multi-sensory experience
and poly-dimensional delight
this Be-ing human
tonight.
we hurt one another.
We step on each other's toes
and we fling one another to the ground.
We toss each other off
like faint breezes blowing in the wind.
We pretend that we aren't home,
that we don't see the mirror reflection.
We exude and we evade.
We call and we come hither.
We anticipate and we wonder,
"What's next?'
and "Why?"
All is par for course in this delicate dance
this horizontal mambo
and vertical dive
this multi-sensory experience
and poly-dimensional delight
this Be-ing human
tonight.
Wanting to Transcend the Individual, Capatalistic I's
"Because i don't live in either my past or my future. I'm interested in only the present. If you can concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man. You'll see that there is life in the desert, that there are stars in the heavens and that tribesmen fight because they are a part of the human race. Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we're living right now."
--from Coelho's Alchemist
The fact remains that what i am is
Human.
And that these feelings,
whether positive or negative
good or bad,
are simply par for course
for this Be-ing human.
Personally, i have only recently allowed myself -
i have only recently dropped deeper down into this experience of -
Be-ing human.
Of trying to connect with and from my heart
to myself and others
to this Earth and all of its majesty
in words and action
in song and dance
in music and meaning
in sound and silence.
So, why then, would i want to transcend it?
Why would i still -
even after all of the postings to the contrary,
even after all of the espousing upon the "Here & Now" -
want to escape it?
Why would I desire to move beyond it?
To seek a way out of
this?
As Benjamin says, time after time again:
"You are Perfect."
What he means is: As i am N-o-w, in all of my
judgment and withholding, in my erection and righteousness,
in my desire to protect and defend.
For part of this be-ing human is
an animal response
a willingness to risk one's life
for death
for feeling
for standing up strong, proud and free
for this Be-ing
here
and
n-o-w.
A Human Experience, take II
A "Christmas Ceremony" was held here,
underground the Hive, on Christmas evening.
I wanted so badly - i needed -
a "transcendental, spiritual experience".
I wanted to transcend - to move beyond - this Be-ing human,
and into an "enlightened" state of pure
love, compassion, light and positive vibration. I wanted time to melt,
and to feel all of the self-imposed separation between
me and you, between good and bad, right and wrong,
to evaporate -
like water molecules being turned into a gas.
Yet, as hard as i tried - to sit in meditation, to pose in posture,
to be still and silent, to listen in the dark - i just couldn't
escape
my annoyance, the frustration, and a real
lack of compassion.
So, i sat in it.
And, i stewed.
"Damn him," i judged.
"What makes him think he is so entitled as to just take
from me?"
The epitaphs ran rampant.
"Why is she so insecure? And, that other one just plain crazy?"
I couldn't let go.
(What were all these looking glasses reflecting?)
Thus, i continued to sit in it.
For i intuitively understand that whatever it is that my mind is perceiving, that my body is feeling and that my spirit is whining about, it is always and ever about "Me."
It is I who is not content.
It is I who is dissatisfied.
It is I whose needs are not being met.
underground the Hive, on Christmas evening.
I wanted so badly - i needed -
a "transcendental, spiritual experience".
I wanted to transcend - to move beyond - this Be-ing human,
and into an "enlightened" state of pure
love, compassion, light and positive vibration. I wanted time to melt,
and to feel all of the self-imposed separation between
me and you, between good and bad, right and wrong,
to evaporate -
like water molecules being turned into a gas.
Yet, as hard as i tried - to sit in meditation, to pose in posture,
to be still and silent, to listen in the dark - i just couldn't
escape
my annoyance, the frustration, and a real
lack of compassion.
So, i sat in it.
And, i stewed.
"Damn him," i judged.
"What makes him think he is so entitled as to just take
from me?"
The epitaphs ran rampant.
"Why is she so insecure? And, that other one just plain crazy?"
I couldn't let go.
(What were all these looking glasses reflecting?)
Thus, i continued to sit in it.
For i intuitively understand that whatever it is that my mind is perceiving, that my body is feeling and that my spirit is whining about, it is always and ever about "Me."
It is I who is not content.
It is I who is dissatisfied.
It is I whose needs are not being met.
1997
"Deborah spoke of lucid dreaming.
I intended to dream about flying.
Instead,
i borrowed an old man's bicycle
and i rode it over water." --chc
Untitled
As a frog jumps from lily pad to lily pad,
as a child skips through a game of hopscotch,
as a grandmother slowly scuffles the contours
of a local shopping mall,
a dog rolls around in glee.
As a quarter spins to a final resting place,
as a horse gallops toward the deafening finish line,
a mortician pulls a cart into her deathly office,
a bird flies above and a mangled gnarl of kelp is dragged from the sea.
A humped camel traverses the dusty desert sands,
and i
RUN TO YOU.
I intended to dream about flying.
Instead,
i borrowed an old man's bicycle
and i rode it over water." --chc
Untitled
As a frog jumps from lily pad to lily pad,
as a child skips through a game of hopscotch,
as a grandmother slowly scuffles the contours
of a local shopping mall,
a dog rolls around in glee.
As a quarter spins to a final resting place,
as a horse gallops toward the deafening finish line,
a mortician pulls a cart into her deathly office,
a bird flies above and a mangled gnarl of kelp is dragged from the sea.
A humped camel traverses the dusty desert sands,
and i
RUN TO YOU.
A Human Experience, take I
I spent the past week, uptight, and stiff as a nail.
I awoke, eager - as always - to enjoy my early bird practice;
of either a morning stroll, time spent in reflective writing, or both.
Yet, as the meandering morning turned into a short day, my joy would wear off
and i slowly succumbed to a growing petulance. The two others with whom i share intimate space would not be on the receiving end of love, affection,
touch or communication from me. Instead, i felt the piercing angles of resentment - discomfort, annoyance, aggravation, disgruntlement, ruffled and dismayed. i judged these others, for Be-ing: for making noise, for sharing space, for taking up room, for breathing.
One of my painful truths is that not only can i fall into this feeling-state, of resentment, but that i can also convince myself that it is normal, okay even, and that i can reside here - permanently. But, then, (THANK GOD FOR THEN), i am welcomed back, open-armed, into a community where i am encouraged to join a puddle of people oozing across a dance floor, when i am inspired to lift my voice and cry out, "Ommmmmmmmmm" and in which i re-member how to re-connect and feel. (YESsss, Thank Goddess for them!)
Due to the sweeping change and great transformation that is taking place both in my personal life as well as in the universal motion of life, my energetic body requires a current pulling in; a contraction and containment. In other words, as of late, i have not really been dancing, touching, loving, holding, caressing, talking, sharing or feeling myself, or others (at least not the 3x a week that i require). Allow me to demonstrate compassion for myself, however, by recognizing that my "resentment" arises not as a natural predisposition but, rather, as a direct consequence of not acting upon these, what i call, "biological necessities." (Again: touch/contact, communication, community and connection.)
i have been parched, to say the least. My spirit grows withered, and i suffer. In my psycho-somatic, physical body this symptom is made manifest and arises as a recurring ailment of dehydration, which leads to headaches and/or migraines. I am a thirsty camel in the desert, deprived of water for days on end. Slogging across shimmering oases, a dry tongue sits fat and heavy in my hot mouth. I envision reflecting glass pools of aquamarine, primal fluid. I see it in my mind's eye, i taste it in my constricting throat, yet i keep stumbling upon my own two feet - right, then left, always reaching out for that which i "need," which is, somehow, always outside of me.
hmmmmm....
I awoke, eager - as always - to enjoy my early bird practice;
of either a morning stroll, time spent in reflective writing, or both.
Yet, as the meandering morning turned into a short day, my joy would wear off
and i slowly succumbed to a growing petulance. The two others with whom i share intimate space would not be on the receiving end of love, affection,
touch or communication from me. Instead, i felt the piercing angles of resentment - discomfort, annoyance, aggravation, disgruntlement, ruffled and dismayed. i judged these others, for Be-ing: for making noise, for sharing space, for taking up room, for breathing.
One of my painful truths is that not only can i fall into this feeling-state, of resentment, but that i can also convince myself that it is normal, okay even, and that i can reside here - permanently. But, then, (THANK GOD FOR THEN), i am welcomed back, open-armed, into a community where i am encouraged to join a puddle of people oozing across a dance floor, when i am inspired to lift my voice and cry out, "Ommmmmmmmmm" and in which i re-member how to re-connect and feel. (YESsss, Thank Goddess for them!)
Due to the sweeping change and great transformation that is taking place both in my personal life as well as in the universal motion of life, my energetic body requires a current pulling in; a contraction and containment. In other words, as of late, i have not really been dancing, touching, loving, holding, caressing, talking, sharing or feeling myself, or others (at least not the 3x a week that i require). Allow me to demonstrate compassion for myself, however, by recognizing that my "resentment" arises not as a natural predisposition but, rather, as a direct consequence of not acting upon these, what i call, "biological necessities." (Again: touch/contact, communication, community and connection.)
i have been parched, to say the least. My spirit grows withered, and i suffer. In my psycho-somatic, physical body this symptom is made manifest and arises as a recurring ailment of dehydration, which leads to headaches and/or migraines. I am a thirsty camel in the desert, deprived of water for days on end. Slogging across shimmering oases, a dry tongue sits fat and heavy in my hot mouth. I envision reflecting glass pools of aquamarine, primal fluid. I see it in my mind's eye, i taste it in my constricting throat, yet i keep stumbling upon my own two feet - right, then left, always reaching out for that which i "need," which is, somehow, always outside of me.
hmmmmm....
Sunday, December 26, 2010
I am Sorry, for Yesterday..
"Because it seems to me that a man who remains consistent his whole life must be an idiot. A growing person has to contradict himself many times because who knows what tomorrow may bring in. Tomorrow may cancel today completely." ---Osho
Saturday, December 25, 2010
~~~~~~~THIS IS FOR YOU/(me)!!!!~~~~~~~
open closed
trying to connect
desiring intimacy
needing so badly
to be held, and supported
to be loved.
yes, this is ALL of our stories.
sometimes we are sooooooo stuck w/in our stories - of fat/thin/he said/she said/not enough/too much/they did this/i want that/ugly/sexy/unloved/abused/mistreated/etc - that we refuse to
get out of our own way.
therefore, We CHOOSE NOT TO SEE that others around us have their stories too!
My story
Flinging my body through time and space is the way in which i best express mySelf. It has always been a way out for, and of, me; a way out of how trapped i
can feel within this skin and bone, this muscle and memory. Dance and movement are when i can try and really let my guard - these walls of defenses and fortresses of hurt - down, at least long enough so that i can attempt to authentically communicate with others. As a developing human, i have been slow to come into verbal communication as a comfortable means of human-to-human contact. So, i dance to connect w/ both mySelf and others, which deepens my dance with mySelf, which deepens my dance with these others/my community,
and the cycle goes, on and on.
Thus, when you refuse to at least try and meet me - on a dance floor, in the streets, while walking the dog, (because of whatever self-limiting & preconceived notions you attempt to espouse - of which i simply do not have the patience to stand around and listen to; excuses serve no one), i feel - your refusal. your denial. your unwillingness. yet, you ask me to come into your space - in community, at your home, etc - and i feel expected to try and meet you, in the middle, there.
Do you see the contradiction?
And, perhaps, more of why some of us may struggle to "meet" you?
(Meeting is movement in each direction, movement on both sides...)
So, you come out and dance(live/work/love/cry)
for you.
Great. That's awesome.
Big hand for you.
Big man gets out there and dances.
Woot woot.
How about, instead,
you come out and dance
for us?
Maybe then, you will begin to feel and learn more about this thing we call "CommUnity?"
And, then, you can really speak from an honest, heart-centered place of unfolding, softening, willingness, with a desire to compromise.
It's just a thought...
("You're sooo vain, you probably think this blogspot is about you."
--a 21st century carly simon)
trying to connect
desiring intimacy
needing so badly
to be held, and supported
to be loved.
yes, this is ALL of our stories.
sometimes we are sooooooo stuck w/in our stories - of fat/thin/he said/she said/not enough/too much/they did this/i want that/ugly/sexy/unloved/abused/mistreated/etc - that we refuse to
get out of our own way.
therefore, We CHOOSE NOT TO SEE that others around us have their stories too!
My story
Flinging my body through time and space is the way in which i best express mySelf. It has always been a way out for, and of, me; a way out of how trapped i
can feel within this skin and bone, this muscle and memory. Dance and movement are when i can try and really let my guard - these walls of defenses and fortresses of hurt - down, at least long enough so that i can attempt to authentically communicate with others. As a developing human, i have been slow to come into verbal communication as a comfortable means of human-to-human contact. So, i dance to connect w/ both mySelf and others, which deepens my dance with mySelf, which deepens my dance with these others/my community,
and the cycle goes, on and on.
Thus, when you refuse to at least try and meet me - on a dance floor, in the streets, while walking the dog, (because of whatever self-limiting & preconceived notions you attempt to espouse - of which i simply do not have the patience to stand around and listen to; excuses serve no one), i feel - your refusal. your denial. your unwillingness. yet, you ask me to come into your space - in community, at your home, etc - and i feel expected to try and meet you, in the middle, there.
Do you see the contradiction?
And, perhaps, more of why some of us may struggle to "meet" you?
(Meeting is movement in each direction, movement on both sides...)
So, you come out and dance(live/work/love/cry)
for you.
Great. That's awesome.
Big hand for you.
Big man gets out there and dances.
Woot woot.
How about, instead,
you come out and dance
for us?
Maybe then, you will begin to feel and learn more about this thing we call "CommUnity?"
And, then, you can really speak from an honest, heart-centered place of unfolding, softening, willingness, with a desire to compromise.
It's just a thought...
("You're sooo vain, you probably think this blogspot is about you."
--a 21st century carly simon)
Friday, December 24, 2010
(you will appreciate this..) [i know i sure do]
"YOU MUST CARRY A CHAOS INSIDE YOU TO GIVE BIRTH TO A DANCING STAR." --Nietzsche
Pulled from the Osho Zen Ta'rot deck (that sits on my most beloved altar) today
(which was recently bequeathed to me, on my 34th birthday, from the lovely
and amaZing Devi Kirn):
"BREAKTHROUGH" (the Jack, or #11, card in Major Arcana)
"To transform breakdowns into breakthroughs is the whole function of a master...
It is the great adventure in life to go through a breakdown consciously. It is the greatest risk because there is no guarantee that the breakdown will become a breakthrough....Your chaos is very ancient - for many, many lives you have been in chaos. It is thick and dense. It is a universe unto itself...Meditation is the method which will help you to go through the chaos, through the dark night of the soul, balanced, disciplined, alert.
The dawn is not far away but before you can reach it, the dark night has to be passed through. And as the dawn comes closer, the night will become darker."
"All of us occasionally reach a point when 'enough is enough.' At such times it seems we must do something, anything...Allow yourself to take the risk of shattering old patterns and limitations that have kept your energy from flowing. In doing so, you will be amazed at the vitality and empowerment this Breakthrough can bring to your life."
YESSssssss!
For all of us who are on the path
to our own Hero's Gold!
Pulled from the Osho Zen Ta'rot deck (that sits on my most beloved altar) today
(which was recently bequeathed to me, on my 34th birthday, from the lovely
and amaZing Devi Kirn):
"BREAKTHROUGH" (the Jack, or #11, card in Major Arcana)
"To transform breakdowns into breakthroughs is the whole function of a master...
It is the great adventure in life to go through a breakdown consciously. It is the greatest risk because there is no guarantee that the breakdown will become a breakthrough....Your chaos is very ancient - for many, many lives you have been in chaos. It is thick and dense. It is a universe unto itself...Meditation is the method which will help you to go through the chaos, through the dark night of the soul, balanced, disciplined, alert.
The dawn is not far away but before you can reach it, the dark night has to be passed through. And as the dawn comes closer, the night will become darker."
"All of us occasionally reach a point when 'enough is enough.' At such times it seems we must do something, anything...Allow yourself to take the risk of shattering old patterns and limitations that have kept your energy from flowing. In doing so, you will be amazed at the vitality and empowerment this Breakthrough can bring to your life."
YESSssssss!
For all of us who are on the path
to our own Hero's Gold!
A little Christmas un-cheer from me to you...
(preface: this piece was written in december, 2001, and i was pissed off!!!!)
inside i feel conflicted
here in this "powerful"
and "free"
american country
where its citizens are saturated
with words and images
of war and hate
of destruction and death
and taught to believe
the jargon
the propaganda
the loss of innocent lives
as merely
an "eye for an eye."
("an eye for an eye creates a society of blind people.")
who scramble down the pedestrian-choked sidewalks
of rockefeller center consuming their insatiable, capitalist needs
while red, flashing lights dance across the nbc studio's outdoor billboard
announcing "victories"
cities lost and "war criminals" gained
and I walk by
in my newly acquired brown, leather boots
and burnt-orange, 200+ u.s. dollars bloomingdale's coat
made in india, or perhaps it is mexico, or even hong kong
but surely it is not
the states.
we cry
that we now stand "united"
and proud to be americans
while billion-dollar u.s. corporations still deny
their own fellow patriots a worthy place
in the job market
by manufacturing their products abroad
the mark up making a world of difference
only to the pockets
of those elite, rich few,
of those same men who create
these guns, bombs and wars
and who we vote into office
time after time again.
so have a merry fucking christmas
(or hannukah, or kwanzaa, or ramadan
or whatever the fuck you practice)
may we reap the blood, sweat and tears
of the billions of other inhabitants of this Earth
may we clink our crystal champagne glasses
and toast "cheers"
"salud"
"prost"
"sante"
to this new year
yet another year
when others will starve, freeze and die
suffering
struggling
to survive
from one day to the next
while we grow
fat and miserable
and yet always secure in the knowledge
that tomorrow will always come
and that what we put off today
can always be done.
i await the moment
when this finely-tuned sheltering bubble
will burst.
--chc
(i still relish the hard, recklessness of anger as it pours off of
my tongue whenever i recite this poem ~ YESssssss!!!)
inside i feel conflicted
here in this "powerful"
and "free"
american country
where its citizens are saturated
with words and images
of war and hate
of destruction and death
and taught to believe
the jargon
the propaganda
the loss of innocent lives
as merely
an "eye for an eye."
("an eye for an eye creates a society of blind people.")
who scramble down the pedestrian-choked sidewalks
of rockefeller center consuming their insatiable, capitalist needs
while red, flashing lights dance across the nbc studio's outdoor billboard
announcing "victories"
cities lost and "war criminals" gained
and I walk by
in my newly acquired brown, leather boots
and burnt-orange, 200+ u.s. dollars bloomingdale's coat
made in india, or perhaps it is mexico, or even hong kong
but surely it is not
the states.
we cry
that we now stand "united"
and proud to be americans
while billion-dollar u.s. corporations still deny
their own fellow patriots a worthy place
in the job market
by manufacturing their products abroad
the mark up making a world of difference
only to the pockets
of those elite, rich few,
of those same men who create
these guns, bombs and wars
and who we vote into office
time after time again.
so have a merry fucking christmas
(or hannukah, or kwanzaa, or ramadan
or whatever the fuck you practice)
may we reap the blood, sweat and tears
of the billions of other inhabitants of this Earth
may we clink our crystal champagne glasses
and toast "cheers"
"salud"
"prost"
"sante"
to this new year
yet another year
when others will starve, freeze and die
suffering
struggling
to survive
from one day to the next
while we grow
fat and miserable
and yet always secure in the knowledge
that tomorrow will always come
and that what we put off today
can always be done.
i await the moment
when this finely-tuned sheltering bubble
will burst.
--chc
(i still relish the hard, recklessness of anger as it pours off of
my tongue whenever i recite this poem ~ YESssssss!!!)
I Am Not Afraid...
to piss you off.
Whether its my words on war or my thoughts on religion.
Sometimes, it is even what i speak to your face.
One of my truths is that i do not fear conflict.
(It is one of the consequences of having grown up in my hOMe.)
In fact, i believe that conflict is a vital and necessary part of life.
It is only through turbulence that we grow, after all.
In this era of superficial niceties, i find honesty refreshing.
In fact, i demand it. You speaking your truth is music to my ears.
Sometimes, your truth may hurt and puncture my Be-ing ~ and,
i thank you for it. It's the opportunity i need for deep reflection.
In this generation of quick catch-phrases, of 140 characters and
faux-"consciousness," i honor and revel in your anger, in your depth
of thought and in your willingness to question.
In fact, i beg that you feel, deeply - if what you feel is
pissed off, then great!
Anger is and can be a catalyst.
It is also one of the first steps in healing, as well.
So, get angry ("'cuz if you're not, then you aren't paying attention")
and once you've grown bored of this energy
let's meet back in the middle,
and figure out where we can GrOw
together
from here.
i'm counting on you.
Whether its my words on war or my thoughts on religion.
Sometimes, it is even what i speak to your face.
One of my truths is that i do not fear conflict.
(It is one of the consequences of having grown up in my hOMe.)
In fact, i believe that conflict is a vital and necessary part of life.
It is only through turbulence that we grow, after all.
In this era of superficial niceties, i find honesty refreshing.
In fact, i demand it. You speaking your truth is music to my ears.
Sometimes, your truth may hurt and puncture my Be-ing ~ and,
i thank you for it. It's the opportunity i need for deep reflection.
In this generation of quick catch-phrases, of 140 characters and
faux-"consciousness," i honor and revel in your anger, in your depth
of thought and in your willingness to question.
In fact, i beg that you feel, deeply - if what you feel is
pissed off, then great!
Anger is and can be a catalyst.
It is also one of the first steps in healing, as well.
So, get angry ("'cuz if you're not, then you aren't paying attention")
and once you've grown bored of this energy
let's meet back in the middle,
and figure out where we can GrOw
together
from here.
i'm counting on you.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Yellow, Bermuda Buttercup
Brilliant, vibrant blooms
bursting eroticism
you offer up your glory
a shining rejoice
for the illuminated beams
that feed and fuel your Be-ing
yellow, unfolding buds reflect
the light pouring upon you from above
bell-shape and buxom pattern refracting
the dark, dank blanket of warmth and seed
of earth and soil, water and air
yet every year the dusty and dry summer comes
and you like a ship passing in the harbor
pass like a faint breeze blowing in the afternoon sun
petals browning and wilting in an ephemeral wind,
emerald stems fade and you fall back
into a bland, depleted soil
into a shallow, barren ground where suburbs and cement,
skyscrapers and excrement lay rotting like 40-ton whale carcasses
washed up on these warm nights, in these San Diego bays
and still the hand of time plays on
marching toward no culminating end
no grand finale
no final location where we all just throw our hands up and exclaim,
"Yea! We're here!"
and "We finally made it!"
instead, only the same tick tock
that vigilant repetitive pattern
of on and on and on
in and out, ebbing and flowing
to and from
no end point and no beginning
only this
bursting into blazing glory and
fading
(if we're lucky) with grace and ease.
Yes, only this.
bursting eroticism
you offer up your glory
a shining rejoice
for the illuminated beams
that feed and fuel your Be-ing
yellow, unfolding buds reflect
the light pouring upon you from above
bell-shape and buxom pattern refracting
the dark, dank blanket of warmth and seed
of earth and soil, water and air
yet every year the dusty and dry summer comes
and you like a ship passing in the harbor
pass like a faint breeze blowing in the afternoon sun
petals browning and wilting in an ephemeral wind,
emerald stems fade and you fall back
into a bland, depleted soil
into a shallow, barren ground where suburbs and cement,
skyscrapers and excrement lay rotting like 40-ton whale carcasses
washed up on these warm nights, in these San Diego bays
and still the hand of time plays on
marching toward no culminating end
no grand finale
no final location where we all just throw our hands up and exclaim,
"Yea! We're here!"
and "We finally made it!"
instead, only the same tick tock
that vigilant repetitive pattern
of on and on and on
in and out, ebbing and flowing
to and from
no end point and no beginning
only this
bursting into blazing glory and
fading
(if we're lucky) with grace and ease.
Yes, only this.
Cultiver Son Jardin
My garden is within
I sow my internal landscape,
churning a rich, nutritious soil
for a long time hidden in the barren shadows
and raking any fossilized remains,
breathing life into dead, organic matter
and turning it back towards the light.
Now I plant the seeds,
some fertilized, pregnant and plump
others merely too immature for development,
a finger's length down into an amended compost
where with sweat and toil, with labor and love
an all-encompassing force will be pierced.
With due diligence and daily discipline
like the sun's unequivocal offering and the Earth's gentle help
a focused caring and an attentive watering
of passionate purpose and vulnerable surrender
in simultaneous pressure and release, with guidance and support
the divine acts of listening and responding give way
to sprouting seeds and growing sprouts
to thriving plants and planted trees
to the diving roots and an expansive canopy
under which, gently stepping back and trusting
that the universe will offer up
its glory
its sustenance
its bounty and beauty
this moment ~
n-o-w.
I sow my internal landscape,
churning a rich, nutritious soil
for a long time hidden in the barren shadows
and raking any fossilized remains,
breathing life into dead, organic matter
and turning it back towards the light.
Now I plant the seeds,
some fertilized, pregnant and plump
others merely too immature for development,
a finger's length down into an amended compost
where with sweat and toil, with labor and love
an all-encompassing force will be pierced.
With due diligence and daily discipline
like the sun's unequivocal offering and the Earth's gentle help
a focused caring and an attentive watering
of passionate purpose and vulnerable surrender
in simultaneous pressure and release, with guidance and support
the divine acts of listening and responding give way
to sprouting seeds and growing sprouts
to thriving plants and planted trees
to the diving roots and an expansive canopy
under which, gently stepping back and trusting
that the universe will offer up
its glory
its sustenance
its bounty and beauty
this moment ~
n-o-w.
An Interlude
Civilized man sought to turn me
into his beast of burden
with enforced wake up calls
and a daily, repetitive pattern
of sleepwalking through the weekly grind
loading piles of manure onto a steely spine
teeth set in stone
jaw becomes rigid
legs hoof it up
a diverse terrain.
Post-human seeks to turn me
into an automaton
with virtual realities
and nanosecond convenience
of robotic maneuvers
and speed of light processing
veins become plasticized, tongues parched
and a lead heart
still-born.
The wilderness of my soul
grows vacant and weary
it withdraws
from societal expectations,
of compulsory compliance,
of must do's and gotta have's.
The wilderness of my soul
grows worried and perplexed
it contracts
at further separation
between.
For my spirit is a garden
it sits in a dank and dark repose
gathering puddles of photosynthesis
and pools of stored nutrients
chromosomes and cells slow to accumulate
yet awaiting the moment
to burst forth and emerge.
Without soil to dig down,
dirt to cover up,
air to inflate,
wind for dissemination,
water for hydration,
and light for sustenance,
What seeds shall be sown?
What bulbs will bloom?
What, then, will grow?
into his beast of burden
with enforced wake up calls
and a daily, repetitive pattern
of sleepwalking through the weekly grind
loading piles of manure onto a steely spine
teeth set in stone
jaw becomes rigid
legs hoof it up
a diverse terrain.
Post-human seeks to turn me
into an automaton
with virtual realities
and nanosecond convenience
of robotic maneuvers
and speed of light processing
veins become plasticized, tongues parched
and a lead heart
still-born.
The wilderness of my soul
grows vacant and weary
it withdraws
from societal expectations,
of compulsory compliance,
of must do's and gotta have's.
The wilderness of my soul
grows worried and perplexed
it contracts
at further separation
between.
For my spirit is a garden
it sits in a dank and dark repose
gathering puddles of photosynthesis
and pools of stored nutrients
chromosomes and cells slow to accumulate
yet awaiting the moment
to burst forth and emerge.
Without soil to dig down,
dirt to cover up,
air to inflate,
wind for dissemination,
water for hydration,
and light for sustenance,
What seeds shall be sown?
What bulbs will bloom?
What, then, will grow?
Shadow Dance
"Out beyond wrong-doing and right-doing, there is a field.
I will meet you there."
--Rumi
Delicately, I tread
senses heightened and acutely attuned
to the swaying
a pendulum of love's mercurial flow.
To one side, a balance tips
its reflecting glass plate projects powerful, potent beams
consciousness, mystery unseen, sweetness tasted
a lightness of be-ing
is measured.
On the other spectrum, a metal shaft slides
colliding heavy mass shakes a boiling, magma core
every animal whim is taken without
regard without remorse without conscience without
be-ing.
It too is measured accordingly.
And yet, when all is said and done, when the Earth has stopped spinning and
the sun has stopped burning, in the end, both are the same
one continuum, the same peace
a vibrant thread weaving a brilliant tapestry of motion and movement
through space and time a rocket ship blasts, unyielding.
Love is just the pause in this moment n-o-w
to honor the light, of course and to
reflect the dark, to bring it out into the open
to hold it close, lick its wounds and release it back
unto its wild, natural state
born to run for ever free amongst the blooming
flora and the native fauna of an alien planet
amongst a whole world
where the duality of good and bad,
light and dark have yet to create a wrong and a right
a moral superiority to be held high above
the bent heads of sinful, ignorant masses.
And the short, winter shadows of existence
dance on.
I will meet you there."
--Rumi
Delicately, I tread
senses heightened and acutely attuned
to the swaying
a pendulum of love's mercurial flow.
To one side, a balance tips
its reflecting glass plate projects powerful, potent beams
consciousness, mystery unseen, sweetness tasted
a lightness of be-ing
is measured.
On the other spectrum, a metal shaft slides
colliding heavy mass shakes a boiling, magma core
every animal whim is taken without
regard without remorse without conscience without
be-ing.
It too is measured accordingly.
And yet, when all is said and done, when the Earth has stopped spinning and
the sun has stopped burning, in the end, both are the same
one continuum, the same peace
a vibrant thread weaving a brilliant tapestry of motion and movement
through space and time a rocket ship blasts, unyielding.
Love is just the pause in this moment n-o-w
to honor the light, of course and to
reflect the dark, to bring it out into the open
to hold it close, lick its wounds and release it back
unto its wild, natural state
born to run for ever free amongst the blooming
flora and the native fauna of an alien planet
amongst a whole world
where the duality of good and bad,
light and dark have yet to create a wrong and a right
a moral superiority to be held high above
the bent heads of sinful, ignorant masses.
And the short, winter shadows of existence
dance on.
Untitled
Under a brilliant, southern sun,
up an undulating, mountain road,
in the relic of a historical outpost
[summer's awakening]
outside the small, a-frame of a quaint, country home,
before long awaited nuptials,
after loss sustained by natural disaster
[gave birth]
just beyond,
a border -
arbitrary, human lines drawn
across divides
[to chance]
twin soul stars converged
a fateful, gravitational pull,
brought two independent galaxies colliding
(one the sombrero,
the other a spiral)
centripetal and centrifugal forces produced
a vibrant smile, a twinkle in the eye,
Orion's bow striking Cassiopeia
directly in her hardened core.
It was
spontaneous combustion.
As friction builds,
heat ensues,
tension climaxes,
pressure erupts
and a new universe unfolds.
Evolving woman,
revolving man,
their cyclical, eternal dance
around that great fire in the sky
persists.
up an undulating, mountain road,
in the relic of a historical outpost
[summer's awakening]
outside the small, a-frame of a quaint, country home,
before long awaited nuptials,
after loss sustained by natural disaster
[gave birth]
just beyond,
a border -
arbitrary, human lines drawn
across divides
[to chance]
twin soul stars converged
a fateful, gravitational pull,
brought two independent galaxies colliding
(one the sombrero,
the other a spiral)
centripetal and centrifugal forces produced
a vibrant smile, a twinkle in the eye,
Orion's bow striking Cassiopeia
directly in her hardened core.
It was
spontaneous combustion.
As friction builds,
heat ensues,
tension climaxes,
pressure erupts
and a new universe unfolds.
Evolving woman,
revolving man,
their cyclical, eternal dance
around that great fire in the sky
persists.
Perfect Reflection
I am the grass on a cool, winter day,
I am the sun, radiating warmth and heat,
I am the wind whispering in your ear,
And I am a cold chill shaking its finger in your face.
I am the tomboy, getting dirty outside,
I am the spoiled brat, spewing saliva and raging his fists,
I am the bald-headed anarchist, who fucks the police,
And I can be the yin to your yang.
I can be the glue that holds us together,
And I am the gum beneath your shoe.
I am the baby, protected by fierce others,
I am the little girl, moving in the mirror,
I am the virgin, giving it up to a Joseph,
I can be the sigh, and the one to just say "No!"
I can be the rock climber, setting routes around the world,
I can be the pro BMX'er, who takes a spill,
I can be the gold medalist to any Olympic judge,
and I am the promise you make to yourself.
I am the performer, taking center stage,
I am the van Gogh, cutting off my ear,
I am the sonnet of a time now past,
I can be the word, and I can be the page.
I am the smooth-skinned pin-up taking space on your wall,
I am the superficial glance of a passing fancy,
I am the philosophy major, and the analytical bookworm,
I can be the tomorrow and I can be the hell.
I can be the Victorian explorer, experiencing dark passions abroad,
I can be the deep bronze of a southern California tan,
I can be the actor in any reality show,
I am the fashion icon, the mangy mutt and the sleek ride,
I am the commerce and I am the sell.
I am the tragic victim, the abused child and the neglected dog,
I am the everything, with all that I am,
and I am the nothing with all that I am not.
I can be me, on any given whim,
and I can be you, without having to be told to.
I am the one, giant beat,
I am the temporary n-o-w.
For I am the moment,
I am the kiss,
I am the "yes" falling from your lips.
I am
the perfect
reflection.
I am the sun, radiating warmth and heat,
I am the wind whispering in your ear,
And I am a cold chill shaking its finger in your face.
I am the tomboy, getting dirty outside,
I am the spoiled brat, spewing saliva and raging his fists,
I am the bald-headed anarchist, who fucks the police,
And I can be the yin to your yang.
I can be the glue that holds us together,
And I am the gum beneath your shoe.
I am the baby, protected by fierce others,
I am the little girl, moving in the mirror,
I am the virgin, giving it up to a Joseph,
I can be the sigh, and the one to just say "No!"
I can be the rock climber, setting routes around the world,
I can be the pro BMX'er, who takes a spill,
I can be the gold medalist to any Olympic judge,
and I am the promise you make to yourself.
I am the performer, taking center stage,
I am the van Gogh, cutting off my ear,
I am the sonnet of a time now past,
I can be the word, and I can be the page.
I am the smooth-skinned pin-up taking space on your wall,
I am the superficial glance of a passing fancy,
I am the philosophy major, and the analytical bookworm,
I can be the tomorrow and I can be the hell.
I can be the Victorian explorer, experiencing dark passions abroad,
I can be the deep bronze of a southern California tan,
I can be the actor in any reality show,
I am the fashion icon, the mangy mutt and the sleek ride,
I am the commerce and I am the sell.
I am the tragic victim, the abused child and the neglected dog,
I am the everything, with all that I am,
and I am the nothing with all that I am not.
I can be me, on any given whim,
and I can be you, without having to be told to.
I am the one, giant beat,
I am the temporary n-o-w.
For I am the moment,
I am the kiss,
I am the "yes" falling from your lips.
I am
the perfect
reflection.
Monday, December 13, 2010
(because i always like to come back to Him & this topic ~ LOVE)
If anyone asks you
how the perfect satisfaction
of all our sexual wanting will look,
lift your face and say,
like this.
When someone mentions the gracefulness of the night sky,
climb up on the roof and dance and say,
like this.
If anyone wants to know what "spirit" is,
or what "god's fragrance" means,
lean your head toward her or him
keep your face there close,
like this.
When someone quotes the old poetic image
about clouds gradually uncovering the moon,
slowly loosen, knot by knot,
the strings of your robe,
like this.
If anyone wonders how Jesus raised the dead
don't try to explain "the miracle"
kiss me on the lips,
like this. Like this.
When someone asks what it means to "die for love,"
point here.
If someone asks how tall I am, frown and
measure with your fingers the space between
the creases on your forehead.
The soul sometimes leaves the body,
then returns.
When someone doesn't believe,
walk back into my house.
Like this.
When lovers moan
they're telling our story.
Like this.
I am a sky where spirits live,
stare into this deepening blue,
while the breeze says a secret.
Like this.
When someone asks what there is to do,
light the candle in her hand.
Like this.
How did Joseph's scent come to Jacob?
Huuuuu.
How did Jacob's sight return?
Huuuuu.
A little wind cleans the eyes.
Huuuuu.
And when Shams comes back from Tabriz,
he'll put just his head around the edge of the door
to surprise us,
like this.
Mevlana Jelauddin Rumi was a prolific Sufi poet
who spun around the earth over 800 years ago.
"Your essence is hidden in dust.
To reveal its splendor
you need to burn in the fire of love."
(YESsssss ~
Burn Baby, Burn!!!!)
how the perfect satisfaction
of all our sexual wanting will look,
lift your face and say,
like this.
When someone mentions the gracefulness of the night sky,
climb up on the roof and dance and say,
like this.
If anyone wants to know what "spirit" is,
or what "god's fragrance" means,
lean your head toward her or him
keep your face there close,
like this.
When someone quotes the old poetic image
about clouds gradually uncovering the moon,
slowly loosen, knot by knot,
the strings of your robe,
like this.
If anyone wonders how Jesus raised the dead
don't try to explain "the miracle"
kiss me on the lips,
like this. Like this.
When someone asks what it means to "die for love,"
point here.
If someone asks how tall I am, frown and
measure with your fingers the space between
the creases on your forehead.
The soul sometimes leaves the body,
then returns.
When someone doesn't believe,
walk back into my house.
Like this.
When lovers moan
they're telling our story.
Like this.
I am a sky where spirits live,
stare into this deepening blue,
while the breeze says a secret.
Like this.
When someone asks what there is to do,
light the candle in her hand.
Like this.
How did Joseph's scent come to Jacob?
Huuuuu.
How did Jacob's sight return?
Huuuuu.
A little wind cleans the eyes.
Huuuuu.
And when Shams comes back from Tabriz,
he'll put just his head around the edge of the door
to surprise us,
like this.
Mevlana Jelauddin Rumi was a prolific Sufi poet
who spun around the earth over 800 years ago.
"Your essence is hidden in dust.
To reveal its splendor
you need to burn in the fire of love."
(YESsssss ~
Burn Baby, Burn!!!!)
Sunday, December 12, 2010
A Tale of Prosperity, take II
According to dictionary.com, pros-per-i-ty is defined as a "successful, flourishing or thriving condition, especially in financial respects." Prosperity can also refer to good fortune. However, there are a few truths found within plain old fashioned "luck" - one of which is the heartbreaking inequity of life as we know it. Luck and fortune can be foretold at birth, much like the Oedipal story that predestines a man's life to fate. Where one is born and to whom both affects and alters the paths we choose as well as the choices we make along the way. I have been fortunate to have luck on my side ever since I last came into this current existence (back on October 21st, 1976 in a suburb of Toronto, Ontario, Canada).
Although luck has always smiled sweetly upon me, I have certainly had to trudge through my own fair share of mucky shit and into the deep mires of human suffering in order to arrive here, n-o-w. It hasn't always been pretty. In fact, there have been times that have been down right ugly and painful. Nonetheless, they have led me to where I am, n-o-w - which is claiming PROSPERITY as not just my own birthright but as yours, too. As staking a rightful claim to PROSPERITY for ALL San Diegans in a city where skyscrapers are popping up at an indeterminable speed and, yet, the everyday person is being sold news that their city is near broke and unable to pay for healthy human services, such as shelters for the homeless, libraries for the youth, and senior centers for our elderly, among other things. For this reason, and many more, prosperity - today, right n-o-w - is a dire necessity.
I've spent most of my adult life not really believing that I deserved to fulfill all of the dreams that I have spent a lifetime dreaming of or to give myself the fighting chance to, at least, die trying. I have spent too many hours at jobs that fed a consumer way of life while leaving my spirit parched and my soul withered. I have slaved through 9-5 days of carrying a capitalist economy on my strong back while earning mere pennies for paying the rent and other supposed necessities. I have succumbed to the numbing coma of must do's and gotta have's. I have committed to others out of tradition and societal mores even as our relationships sucked the energetic life force right out of my beating heart.
At some point, the soul aches. My spirit cries, "Basta!" "Enough!" Enough of the madness and the subjugation. Enough of not believing in me and my Goddess-given rights and talents. Enough of following the crowd simply because doing otherwise would render me different or "weird."
Yes, enough.
This is enough.
This moment, n-o-w.
The shopping malls fill with silent footfalls as the music keeps marching time.
What we seek cannot be bought, or sold. What we seek - what our deepest of hearts truly long for and desire - is not found with-out. It is within you, n-o-w. It is your racing pulse, your pumping blood and your lightness of be-ing. It is the gifts that brought you here, n-o-w, to share with the magnanimous world around you. Offer up your sweet fruit, whatever that may be. A twisted sense of humor, a brilliant smile, a helping hand. Keep offering until you don't think you can offer any more. And, then, get up tomorrow and do it all over again. This, my friend, is not just PROSPERITY ~ it's LOVE. It's why we're here. All else pales in comparison. When we finally learn this is when the thriving, flourishing state of true health-wealth follows.
May it BE
and so it is.
Although luck has always smiled sweetly upon me, I have certainly had to trudge through my own fair share of mucky shit and into the deep mires of human suffering in order to arrive here, n-o-w. It hasn't always been pretty. In fact, there have been times that have been down right ugly and painful. Nonetheless, they have led me to where I am, n-o-w - which is claiming PROSPERITY as not just my own birthright but as yours, too. As staking a rightful claim to PROSPERITY for ALL San Diegans in a city where skyscrapers are popping up at an indeterminable speed and, yet, the everyday person is being sold news that their city is near broke and unable to pay for healthy human services, such as shelters for the homeless, libraries for the youth, and senior centers for our elderly, among other things. For this reason, and many more, prosperity - today, right n-o-w - is a dire necessity.
I've spent most of my adult life not really believing that I deserved to fulfill all of the dreams that I have spent a lifetime dreaming of or to give myself the fighting chance to, at least, die trying. I have spent too many hours at jobs that fed a consumer way of life while leaving my spirit parched and my soul withered. I have slaved through 9-5 days of carrying a capitalist economy on my strong back while earning mere pennies for paying the rent and other supposed necessities. I have succumbed to the numbing coma of must do's and gotta have's. I have committed to others out of tradition and societal mores even as our relationships sucked the energetic life force right out of my beating heart.
At some point, the soul aches. My spirit cries, "Basta!" "Enough!" Enough of the madness and the subjugation. Enough of not believing in me and my Goddess-given rights and talents. Enough of following the crowd simply because doing otherwise would render me different or "weird."
Yes, enough.
This is enough.
This moment, n-o-w.
The shopping malls fill with silent footfalls as the music keeps marching time.
What we seek cannot be bought, or sold. What we seek - what our deepest of hearts truly long for and desire - is not found with-out. It is within you, n-o-w. It is your racing pulse, your pumping blood and your lightness of be-ing. It is the gifts that brought you here, n-o-w, to share with the magnanimous world around you. Offer up your sweet fruit, whatever that may be. A twisted sense of humor, a brilliant smile, a helping hand. Keep offering until you don't think you can offer any more. And, then, get up tomorrow and do it all over again. This, my friend, is not just PROSPERITY ~ it's LOVE. It's why we're here. All else pales in comparison. When we finally learn this is when the thriving, flourishing state of true health-wealth follows.
May it BE
and so it is.
Friday, December 10, 2010
A Tale of Prosperity
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| "A Red River Runs through Us, We Are All Connected," Celebrate Solstice Rain Dance 2009, Eveoke Dance Studio |
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| "We Honor the Dark" San Diego, Ca. |
 | |
| "Full Circles," Prosperity Hive |
When do our tales begin? And, where do they end? What makes a tale worth telling?
Is your life tale worth telling?
(of course it is)
How do we craft and construct a compelling narrative - one that pulls us in, inspires us to m~oVe, take part and ACT in this moment,
n-o-w?
I don't know.
I never know.
I just like asking the questions.
Yuba calls me, "Cara-hageous!"
And, perhaps, this is a path towards courage ~
merely having the audacity to ask questions.
Listening is also vital, for it isn't simply enough to ask. One must have the
patience
to actually stick around and
listen for what comes.
(P.S. there is NO one "right" way or answer.)
(P.S.S take deep breath in here. and again.
repeat and repeat.)
personally, the more i breathe in, ask, sit down
and l~i~s~t~e~n - to the mangy mutt barking on the street corner, to the timeless wisdom that arises from deep within my spirit, to the quiet tragedy of a world gone mad - the less i "know," yet the more prosperous i feel.
personally, my tales always begin
right here
right n-o-w,
hearing the black winged crow cawing outside
across these San Diego rooftops
watching a thick marine layer recede back into vapor feeling energy trapped and stuck around my lungs, and heart chakra my breath is shallow my mind a bit distracted seeing a southern sun's rays fall across our wood floor experiencing this, nothing more nothing less. just this.
i am okay with this.
and, i hope you are too.
nonetheless, i especially enjoy when this moment, n-o-w, includes YOU.
when we are celebrating and reveling together.
when we dance and we sing, when we drum and we chant.
when we simply enjoy this be-ing human
this shared journey
on our great spaceship in the sky
as we tumble in ease and grace over and under
revolving
circling
supporting and experiencing. nothing new under the sun. just this. only and ever this.
(i want to celebrate solstice again. perhaps here, at the hive. tuesday, dec 21st. evening ceremony & ritual. anyone?)
(i want to celebrate solstice again. perhaps here, at the hive. tuesday, dec 21st. evening ceremony & ritual. anyone?)
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"Together, We Endure,"
|
Monday, December 6, 2010
Learning to Love, take II
It is only recently that I have been learning how to love others. Which is ironic, because what I have always sought comes back to me tenfold when I freely offer it. Yes, love begets love. Learning how to love, though, is difficult, painful work. Naturally, it has been my community - my brothers and my sisters here in San Diego County, who are not my blood relations but who are my spiritual guides on dance floors across our shared hOMe - who have been teaching me over the course of the past four years. I am so eternally grateful for them, for you.
As Sally recently told me, "You have only recently learned how to give, Cara." And, she's right. For love is not about taking. It isn't about how much attention, or anything else for that matter, one accrues. Love is in the offering - of shared food, of shared moments in time spent listening with one's whole be-ing, of shared presence, of holding space for whatever the moment elicits. Love is also in the listening to one's self - to have the courage to walk away or to even stop listening when the exchange is not reciprocal, positive or feeding a higher vibrational good. Love is in the small exchange of thank you's, appreciation and the sweet words of positive encouragement and feedback. Yes, love can also be brutally candid and honest. We need to hold each other to higher standards and have the courage to admonish one another when the darkness is too pervasive - when it is creeping towards swallowing the lightness of our be-ings.
I still dance and wrestle with my own darkness. And, it's okay. Because I am learning how to love even this. I am flawed and I am human. I am imperfect and vulnerable. I do not wish my shadows away. For they are a part of me. The question, then, becomes: how can I continue to harness compassion - for myself, first and foremost, and for others? How can I learn to let go when I fall for the absolutely wrong man and, instead, allow myself to be loved by someone who can, and wants to, meet me in the middle? How can I learn to dig deeper, breathe and love even when someone triggers my defenses, intentionally pushes my buttons and tries hard to sway me from my resolve? It isn't easy, friends. And, I am still making plenty of mistakes. But, for once in my life, I am committed. I am committed to PROSPERITY - both my own and ours. I am committed to finding the middle ground between the abundance of our American ways and the lack found at the root of our western dogma. Sometimes, this PROSPERITY merely looks like a sweet smile offered to a stranger on these downtown San Diego streets. Other times, it looks like an extension of my warm hand in offering an introduction, a name and a face. "Hi, I'm Cara." Most of time time, however, PROSPERITY is the recognition that what we have - in this moment, right n-o-w - is ENOUGH. No more, no less. This is it. And, this is all it may ever be.
Can you live with that?
If not, then do what your body, mind and spirit needs n-o-w!
Feed it. So, that you may die comfortably.
Acknowledging your death, which could be right here, right n-o-w,
is the freedom and the liberation for you to fully LIVE n-o-w.
YESssss, live fully and
know
I LOVE YOU.
As Sally recently told me, "You have only recently learned how to give, Cara." And, she's right. For love is not about taking. It isn't about how much attention, or anything else for that matter, one accrues. Love is in the offering - of shared food, of shared moments in time spent listening with one's whole be-ing, of shared presence, of holding space for whatever the moment elicits. Love is also in the listening to one's self - to have the courage to walk away or to even stop listening when the exchange is not reciprocal, positive or feeding a higher vibrational good. Love is in the small exchange of thank you's, appreciation and the sweet words of positive encouragement and feedback. Yes, love can also be brutally candid and honest. We need to hold each other to higher standards and have the courage to admonish one another when the darkness is too pervasive - when it is creeping towards swallowing the lightness of our be-ings.
I still dance and wrestle with my own darkness. And, it's okay. Because I am learning how to love even this. I am flawed and I am human. I am imperfect and vulnerable. I do not wish my shadows away. For they are a part of me. The question, then, becomes: how can I continue to harness compassion - for myself, first and foremost, and for others? How can I learn to let go when I fall for the absolutely wrong man and, instead, allow myself to be loved by someone who can, and wants to, meet me in the middle? How can I learn to dig deeper, breathe and love even when someone triggers my defenses, intentionally pushes my buttons and tries hard to sway me from my resolve? It isn't easy, friends. And, I am still making plenty of mistakes. But, for once in my life, I am committed. I am committed to PROSPERITY - both my own and ours. I am committed to finding the middle ground between the abundance of our American ways and the lack found at the root of our western dogma. Sometimes, this PROSPERITY merely looks like a sweet smile offered to a stranger on these downtown San Diego streets. Other times, it looks like an extension of my warm hand in offering an introduction, a name and a face. "Hi, I'm Cara." Most of time time, however, PROSPERITY is the recognition that what we have - in this moment, right n-o-w - is ENOUGH. No more, no less. This is it. And, this is all it may ever be.
Can you live with that?
If not, then do what your body, mind and spirit needs n-o-w!
Feed it. So, that you may die comfortably.
Acknowledging your death, which could be right here, right n-o-w,
is the freedom and the liberation for you to fully LIVE n-o-w.
YESssss, live fully and
know
I LOVE YOU.
Learning to Love, take I
When I was a girl, all I dreamed of was love.
It was what I sought. It was what my spirit craved.
It was a deep need ~ a tangible sensation that I could not quite describe yet knew was vital.
For the most part, however, it was absent - at least in the way that I needed it.
The love that I initially grew within was fierce and painful. Sometimes, it struck me - with a leather belt, with a swift slap across the face, with a fistful of hair being pulled from my scalp. Sometimes, it looked like a white bar of Ivory soap being disgustingly dragged across my teeth. The most hurtful times, though, was when it sounded like, "You good for nothing lazy lout." Or, "You bitch!" Sometimes, it sounded like the upstairs bathroom window being slammed shut and the heavy commode doors, to where my father's thick leather strap was kept, being opened. When I was girl, love was not respectful. There were no words with which to share the hurt feelings of days passing. Honest vulnerability was viewed as a weakness - it was something to be ashamed of and hidden.
When I was a girl, my first true love was gymnastics. Physical movement has always been my refuge - the place where I could fully express my deepest longings, my sadness and my pain, my elation and my joy. On school campuses, I gravitated towards the grass fields for games of softball or tag, towards Chinese jump ropes, to jungle gyms and swings, to anything that kept my body in motion while creating relations with others not through words but through touch, contact and movement. I've never been one to be able to stand around and talk. For the truth of the matter is, I am still learning how to communicate honestly and with vulnerability with my fellow humans.
As I grew into my developing woman's body, I began to attract more attention based on how my physical appearance was unfolding. I mistook this attention for love. How desperately I craved it, yet how ignorant I was of what love actually is. So, I sought more attention. I sucked it up like a fish out of water. I took and I took and I took. I gave very little because I was afraid - for the only love I knew physically and emotionally hurt me.
I left San Diego County, and all that I had known for twelve years, for a college located six hundred miles north. My own rife insecurities broke me open. I had sacrificed my voice, my humor, and my personality, for this so-called "loving" attention. I grew angry - angry at men and society for reducing me into an object to be externally consumed (although, now I get that I reduced myself). I rebelled. I shaved my head and then I refused to shave. I refused love when it was offered and I continued to pad my still unfolding curves with the thick walls of fear, insecurities and anger. I removed myself from most conventionality and spent much time alone and in solitude. I tried to learn how to love myself. For the first time publicly, I opened up my mouth and spoke one of my truths, of growing up with domestic violence. The gaping jaws of my peers, after telling an April Fool's story from my childhood when my mother pretended she was going to beat my siblings and I, showed me that this was not normal behavior, Cara. This was not okay. What, then, was okay?
So, I walked and rode my bicycle. I painted with watercolors and sang to my heart's content - Ani DiFranco & the Indigo Girls are still on the top of my play lists. I continued to write - writing has also always been a refuge. I tried to make food in the comfort of my own kitchen - steamed zucchini and broccoli over rice was an easy menu item. I danced and I danced and I danced. I still didn't know how to love others but I was learning how to take care of me. I was learning how to feed my spirit.
It was what I sought. It was what my spirit craved.
It was a deep need ~ a tangible sensation that I could not quite describe yet knew was vital.
For the most part, however, it was absent - at least in the way that I needed it.
The love that I initially grew within was fierce and painful. Sometimes, it struck me - with a leather belt, with a swift slap across the face, with a fistful of hair being pulled from my scalp. Sometimes, it looked like a white bar of Ivory soap being disgustingly dragged across my teeth. The most hurtful times, though, was when it sounded like, "You good for nothing lazy lout." Or, "You bitch!" Sometimes, it sounded like the upstairs bathroom window being slammed shut and the heavy commode doors, to where my father's thick leather strap was kept, being opened. When I was girl, love was not respectful. There were no words with which to share the hurt feelings of days passing. Honest vulnerability was viewed as a weakness - it was something to be ashamed of and hidden.
When I was a girl, my first true love was gymnastics. Physical movement has always been my refuge - the place where I could fully express my deepest longings, my sadness and my pain, my elation and my joy. On school campuses, I gravitated towards the grass fields for games of softball or tag, towards Chinese jump ropes, to jungle gyms and swings, to anything that kept my body in motion while creating relations with others not through words but through touch, contact and movement. I've never been one to be able to stand around and talk. For the truth of the matter is, I am still learning how to communicate honestly and with vulnerability with my fellow humans.
As I grew into my developing woman's body, I began to attract more attention based on how my physical appearance was unfolding. I mistook this attention for love. How desperately I craved it, yet how ignorant I was of what love actually is. So, I sought more attention. I sucked it up like a fish out of water. I took and I took and I took. I gave very little because I was afraid - for the only love I knew physically and emotionally hurt me.
I left San Diego County, and all that I had known for twelve years, for a college located six hundred miles north. My own rife insecurities broke me open. I had sacrificed my voice, my humor, and my personality, for this so-called "loving" attention. I grew angry - angry at men and society for reducing me into an object to be externally consumed (although, now I get that I reduced myself). I rebelled. I shaved my head and then I refused to shave. I refused love when it was offered and I continued to pad my still unfolding curves with the thick walls of fear, insecurities and anger. I removed myself from most conventionality and spent much time alone and in solitude. I tried to learn how to love myself. For the first time publicly, I opened up my mouth and spoke one of my truths, of growing up with domestic violence. The gaping jaws of my peers, after telling an April Fool's story from my childhood when my mother pretended she was going to beat my siblings and I, showed me that this was not normal behavior, Cara. This was not okay. What, then, was okay?
So, I walked and rode my bicycle. I painted with watercolors and sang to my heart's content - Ani DiFranco & the Indigo Girls are still on the top of my play lists. I continued to write - writing has also always been a refuge. I tried to make food in the comfort of my own kitchen - steamed zucchini and broccoli over rice was an easy menu item. I danced and I danced and I danced. I still didn't know how to love others but I was learning how to take care of me. I was learning how to feed my spirit.
Friday, December 3, 2010
Learning to Trust, part deux
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| Love, Compassion, Joy & Serenity, Nov 2010 |
For months now, I've been trying to both really listen and respond quicker - to these moments n-o-w.
I am still learning how. Thus, when the opportunity to document friends' art and dance shows arose,
I jumped at the chance. With the Paso y Palmas performance at the Centro, I borrowed a friend's tricked-out Nikon SLR 50,000 (or, sumpin' like that) 'cause I figured that my straight point and shoot wasn't a "professional" enough piece of equipment. Not fully comprehending the technology, I didn't know how to allow more light in through the shutter. As a result, I didn't trust my ability to capture the vital moments of passion and drama that oozed (for two full hours) so, instead, I snapped and snapped and snapped away. With close to two-thousand images to choose from, I spent way too many hours laboring over uploading photos while deleting others. (&, I won't even fill you in on the other hours spent transferring images to another computer just so I could burn discs!)
The following weekend, I was again on hand to capture a fleeting experience. This time, I was armed with my point and shoot. However, before I arrived onto a wet and rainy UCSD campus, I had spent the morning down at the La Jolla Cove wandering amongst the stunning shoreline while caught up in a flowing river of time. I stopped in to the Living Room Cafe to gather myself and enjoy lunch. I also enjoyed a wonderful conversation with my table mate. I stuck around a little longer than I would have liked, so as not to be rude to my new acquaintance. With minutes to spare, I rushed out the door and headed up the hill. I knew that I should just relax and savor the ride, yet I became fearful that I would be "late." The driver in front of me was uninformed of my endeavor, however, and refused to drive any faster than 20 miles up the slick road - regardless of how closely I followed on his tale and how impatient and frustrated I became. Yet again, I knew that I should just trust - that all is in divine perfect order, always. But, I didn't. Instead, I became emotionally moved and anxious.
Naturally, I arrived with plenty of minutes to spare. While at Richard Cohen's lecture, I opened up the shutter wide on the point and shoot. In some instances, I pointed my device and waited for a full minute before the shutter clicked. I chose to trust that the mystery that was being revealed that day would also reveal itself within my camera. That night, while uploading the images onto my camera, I cried copiously over what I unearthed. "Don't you see?" I kept asking myself, as I rocked back and forth. "The brilliance is illuminating." For there it all was - love, compassion, joy and serenity - as told by a merry cast of pre-evolutionaries. The beauty is, sometimes, so overwhelmingly tragic. It's so ephemeral, so nonsensical. It just is. I can't explain it and, usually, when I try to, I simply end up hurting myself. My ego wants to know, though ~ it wants to know why my body is pulled in certain directions and why my heart yearns for some thing. It wants to know "why..." I am happiest when I admit that it's all a simple mystery. Maintaining this belief pattern requires much trust on my part, however.
And, this week, the trust has been hard to come by. I feel scared, nervous and overwhelmed. I am fearful about what is currently unfolding in my life. I am afraid that I will not be able to rise to the challenges that these moments n-o-w are demanding of me. I just want to pull the blankets over my head and reside in my state of short-term comfort. I am afraid of the discomfort that is awaiting...
Nonetheless, I breathe in, I think of you and I remember what you've shared with me. I pray that our paths will cross again and that we will revel in more of the mystery together. Yet, I surrender to the fact that this is it. And that this is all it may ever be.
Learning to Trust, part uno
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| Pasos y Palmas, Nov 2010 |
I've stayed too long in relationships, and sometimes even with organizations, that didn't serve me out of fear - fear of the unknown, fear of short term pain, fear of life. Thus, my refusal to listen has always caused myself, and in some instances others, pain and suffering. By no means do I regret this past of mine, for it has led me here and I am eternally grateful for this moment, n-o-w. Nonetheless, I recognize that the stress that I have both accrued, as well as reside within, has all been of my own doing. Damn. I have no one to point a finger at and place blame. It is always and ever me, even when I fool myself into judging otherwise.
Monday, November 29, 2010
There Is No End-pOint
no final destination to reach,
no place and space sometime somewhere else
when the drama, misery and pain of Be-ing
no longer exists and when all that you have been seeking
is finally sought.
There is no end point,
no ultimate pinnacle of success,
no millions of dollars awaiting you down the line,
no apex of the American ladder,
no person sitting so high on her mighty steed,
no ascension of a spiritual throne,
no tomorrow that will be more than this.
There is no end point
no grander, better dream
and no frighteningly good, something different.
There is only and ever this
this momentary beat
and collective pulse
this moment
now
this presence
this love
this freedom.
There is no end point.
This flowing river
is a continuum
with no end
and no beginning
no could have, should have and would have been's
no rights or wrongs
no moral superiority asserting a death-defying dogma.
Its steady current merely carves a path
cutting its swath through space and across time
while simultaneously being held and contained by the banks
of mud and root, rock and soil
of earth and light, shadow and terrain.
There is no end point.
There is no far-off better you
no distant, safer shore to sail to
there is nothing more than this
this quiet stillness
and black void
this cyclical nature of birth and death
and around again.
There is no end point
only the simple repetition of in and out
in and out
in and out
out and in
lungs, breath, heartbeat
human-animals copulating,
Earthbody growing up,
Earthbody growing down,
universal motion moving away from
and cosmic consciousness moving towards.
There is no end point.
There is only and ever this.
And the sooner we recognize this
the quicker the liberation
the more comfortable the journey
the softer the blow
of being these spiritual beings
simply having human experiences.
The faster we come to
the more time we'll have
to stand outside of the monkey mind,
ephemeral feelings and fleeting emotions.
To recognize it all for what it is
simply water flowing under the bridge
nowhere to get to, and no one to be
only this
here
now.
Meet me.
Unmasking the Box
white canvas
a resilient clay to be shaped and molded
empty vessel, waiting container
a precious metal to be distilled and poured
black as night, thick as day
a timeless thief lies in wait
anticipating
chewed off fingertips
of the artist
the sweet whispers of the chisel
the hard lines and the rough angles
of custom and culture
and a smooth sanding of time.
Indian Goddess
(Kali Ma)
a Frida look-alike
hints of the exotic
tempered with a dull sheen
she's a pin-up without a poster
a Jewish princess
dark features reminiscent of the Moors
she tumbles in fluid and grace
revolving brilliant beams
refracted in the spinning light
a kaleidoscope of color, shape and wonder
dancing
in the exertion and the friction, a heat index rises
from the center out, the sculptor melts the coagulating putty
now, a pulpy mass grey with brackish specks of dirt and grindstone
he turns the palm-sized ball
over and over and over again
in his calloused hands, in his palms of wretched delight
a myriad of possibilities
sits
in wait.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Tales of an Avid Documentarian, part deux
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| Four Sacred Elements and a Fifth |
Last weekend, one of my best friends asked me to capture her performance in a lecture presented at UCSD in celebration of the 2010 UCIRA State of the Arts conference. Professor Richard Cohen presented a twenty-minute lecture in which he expounded upon "the mystery" and how we need to bring it into academia as a bonafide inquiry of research - outside of the conventional paradigm of scientific data and theological explanation.
The reformance art piece that sprung up around him as he spoke - emerging both from within the audience as well as outside of it - embodied both the subject matter as well as the four human qualities that Professor Cohen chose to focus on as an entry point in which all of us can tune in to this mystery - with, in and through love, compassion, joy and serenity (LoCoJoSo).
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| Space Child Spirit |
The four sacred elements of air, fire, water and earth converge from the corners to form our material world. However, life and her conscious off spring cannot evolve without the fifth sacred element - Spirit. Spirit is represented by a human space child. The Cosmic eye gazes out from the space child's heart, reminding us that LOVE is our highest conscious expression. When he opens his heart, the space child opens to the entire Universe, and within this greatly expanded sense of self, he contains galaxies of limitless potential. He has merged with the cosmic mind. His pose and aura reflect the sublime feeling of being the Universe that created him. In this state, all walls come down. The small contains the very large and distinctions dissolve into grand swirls of energy..."
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| Love is simultaneously the greatest mystery of all and it allows us to revel in the great mystery |
Tales of an Avid Documentarian
 |
| La Escencia Dance Company |
Life, Through a Lens
“The creative artist is fundamentally a religious person." --Minor WhiteI was ten years old when I was first given a camera to use at my sole discretion. It was fifth grade camp and, although I had spent the summer flying the ~3,000 miles across the country from San Diego to New Jersey on my own solo adventure, it was my first time away from home with my peers. My mother had packed my duffle bag, including in it her point and shoot device.
Today, as I look back through not just my own photographs but those taken of me upon school campuses and elsewhere, I recognize that, like physical movement which afforded me an opportunity to connect to my classmates in a non-verbal way, the camera was yet another tool for providing me access into other people's worlds - an entrance within which I did not have to rely upon the bumbling messiness of the spoken word.
 | ||
| Sabor Mexico Theatrical Dance Company |
I arrived at the witching hour and scoped out my spot in the Centro. Naturally, I found the best seat in the house - I sat at the corner of the upper right stage where, with one of the transitory walls of the art gallery directly behind me, I was out of the audience's line of sight. I was, however, directly beside where the dancers sashayed, twirled, pranced and played. Their vibrant fabrics of flowing colors and dripping passion oozed and passed right by me. In some moments, the swish and spin of these costumes came into direct contact with both the camera lens and myself. Together, we all danced.
As a dancer myself, how do I capture the fleeting ephemerality of movement?
How can I convey and share the passing of space and time with others after the moments have passed
and with this marvel that we call technology? I don't know but, these days, I am more willing to try than I ever have been. These days, I simply keep putting one foot in front of the other and walking forward. It is all there is to do...
 |
| DanzArts |
Thursday, November 18, 2010
MAGIC moments
They're everywhere.
If you stop long enough,
listen with your whole be-ing
and wait
~patiently~
they come...
First, like a trickle of water
dripping out of the faucet.
Then, as a steady stream
of synchronicity.
Next thing you know,
you're pleasantly bathing
in the brilliant pool
of alchemy.
Diving into this body requires a certain
refusal, however.
A denial of what you have been told
is "right" - those must do's and gotta have's.
A rejection of the subliminal messaging
that you have been bombarded by since birth.
An awareness that "truth" is relative and that
those who usually speak it are either crucified,
children, or drunk.
MAGIC is in this moment, n-o-w.
You just have to open yourself up
once again
to its quiet stirring
to its faint pulse
and to its animal magnetism.
Sometimes, you even need to be
broken open.
The monotony and repetition of this
of civilization as we know it
dulls us
it lulls us into a
laconic apathy.
Fight
fight
with all your might
there is a reason
why
the heart is the size of a fist!
If you stop long enough,
listen with your whole be-ing
and wait
~patiently~
they come...
First, like a trickle of water
dripping out of the faucet.
Then, as a steady stream
of synchronicity.
Next thing you know,
you're pleasantly bathing
in the brilliant pool
of alchemy.
Diving into this body requires a certain
refusal, however.
A denial of what you have been told
is "right" - those must do's and gotta have's.
A rejection of the subliminal messaging
that you have been bombarded by since birth.
An awareness that "truth" is relative and that
those who usually speak it are either crucified,
children, or drunk.
MAGIC is in this moment, n-o-w.
You just have to open yourself up
once again
to its quiet stirring
to its faint pulse
and to its animal magnetism.
Sometimes, you even need to be
broken open.
The monotony and repetition of this
of civilization as we know it
dulls us
it lulls us into a
laconic apathy.
Fight
fight
with all your might
there is a reason
why
the heart is the size of a fist!
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
"So If You Want It, Come and Get It - for crying out loud...
The love that I was giving you
was never in doubt
Let go of your heart
let go of you head
and feel it now....
Babylon."
These decade-old lyrics, sang by Brit David Gray, now serenade my open ears
as I quietly sit in an Ocean Beach establishment. Immediately, my body, mind and spirit is swept away back to a time now relegated to that fictional realm called memory.
With my mane of thick, brown curls infested with lice, I awoke on my 25th birthday in a sprawling bed in an upper-crust town home in Vienna, Austria. I had spent the night before waxing poetically - over education and politics - with my Austrian friends and their well-to-do parents. I marveled at the luxurious state of my life, even as my six-months spent working the international school camp circuit left me scratching my head in embarrassment. Months before, while living and working in a chalet on a mountain slope in Anzere, Switzerland, my English roommate had introduced me to Gray's White Ladder album. And, there I was, on the dawn of my 25th with the catchy prose playing out like a broken record in my traveler's bed and body. That refrain "Let go of your heart, let go of your mind" arose from deep within the pits of my subconscious - serenading me into consciousness.
I don't know what any of it "means."
These days, I am simply just trying to listen
and respond.
Nonetheless, I still don't "know" what I'm doing - any of it.
And, maybe, that is the beauty of it all...
One thing that I do know, however, is that Todo Mundo has a refrain about "Babylon" in one of their songs. Santiago Orozco and his band of wandering Gypsies will be rocking today's Ocean Beach Farmer's Market.
Come check it out and join us on a street side dance floor with ambling views of a rollicking Pacific. We'll be looking for you...
was never in doubt
Let go of your heart
let go of you head
and feel it now....
Babylon."
These decade-old lyrics, sang by Brit David Gray, now serenade my open ears
as I quietly sit in an Ocean Beach establishment. Immediately, my body, mind and spirit is swept away back to a time now relegated to that fictional realm called memory.
With my mane of thick, brown curls infested with lice, I awoke on my 25th birthday in a sprawling bed in an upper-crust town home in Vienna, Austria. I had spent the night before waxing poetically - over education and politics - with my Austrian friends and their well-to-do parents. I marveled at the luxurious state of my life, even as my six-months spent working the international school camp circuit left me scratching my head in embarrassment. Months before, while living and working in a chalet on a mountain slope in Anzere, Switzerland, my English roommate had introduced me to Gray's White Ladder album. And, there I was, on the dawn of my 25th with the catchy prose playing out like a broken record in my traveler's bed and body. That refrain "Let go of your heart, let go of your mind" arose from deep within the pits of my subconscious - serenading me into consciousness.
I don't know what any of it "means."
These days, I am simply just trying to listen
and respond.
Nonetheless, I still don't "know" what I'm doing - any of it.
And, maybe, that is the beauty of it all...
One thing that I do know, however, is that Todo Mundo has a refrain about "Babylon" in one of their songs. Santiago Orozco and his band of wandering Gypsies will be rocking today's Ocean Beach Farmer's Market.
Come check it out and join us on a street side dance floor with ambling views of a rollicking Pacific. We'll be looking for you...
"Cultiver Son Jardin"
My garden is within
I sow my internal landscape,
churning a rich, nutritious soil
for a long time hidden in the barren shadows
and raking any fossilized remains,
breathing life into dead, organic matter
and turning it back towards the light.
Now, I plant the seeds,
some fertilized, pregnant and plump
others merely too immature for development,
a finger's length down into an amended compost
where with sweat and toil, with labor and love
an all-encompassing darkness will be pierced.
With due diligence and daily discipline
Like the sun's unequivocal offering and the Earth's gentle help
a focused caring and an attentive watering
of passionate purpose and vulnerable surrender
in simultaneous pressure and release, with guidance and support
the divine acts of listening and responding give way
to sprouting seeds and growing sprouts
to thriving plants and planted trees
to the diving roots and an expansive canopy
under which, gently stepping back and trusting
that the universe will offer up
its glory
its sustenance
its bounty and beauty,
this moment ~
n-o-w.
I sow my internal landscape,
churning a rich, nutritious soil
for a long time hidden in the barren shadows
and raking any fossilized remains,
breathing life into dead, organic matter
and turning it back towards the light.
Now, I plant the seeds,
some fertilized, pregnant and plump
others merely too immature for development,
a finger's length down into an amended compost
where with sweat and toil, with labor and love
an all-encompassing darkness will be pierced.
With due diligence and daily discipline
Like the sun's unequivocal offering and the Earth's gentle help
a focused caring and an attentive watering
of passionate purpose and vulnerable surrender
in simultaneous pressure and release, with guidance and support
the divine acts of listening and responding give way
to sprouting seeds and growing sprouts
to thriving plants and planted trees
to the diving roots and an expansive canopy
under which, gently stepping back and trusting
that the universe will offer up
its glory
its sustenance
its bounty and beauty,
this moment ~
n-o-w.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
The Space In Between
Brilliant red dress. Dark ringlets falling on strong, broad shoulders.
Passion dripping as she snaps two fingers and motions for a moment.
Humor is discovered in the unexpected.
Big lifts and fancy flourishes.
An alchemy of repetition and improvisation.
A battle cry for attention,
perhaps.
Yet, as always, it is in what the eye does not see. It is in the time that oozed, uncaptured and not documented - forever free to roam among that mystery realm between fact and fiction, between here and there. Between now and all the years that came before spent building trust. Now, like water, it flows under a bridge and, in a mere flash of a second, your eyes catch a floating reed, plump, squishy and out of place. The judgment flares.
Nonetheless, what remains is still there..
a relationship.
A dance between too perfectly flawed human beings.
His strength helped to propel and lift her out of an anxious depression.
Her willingness to let go fuels a dynamic tension.
Surrender feeds a mutual fire.
And, friendship burns...
Friday, November 12, 2010
Here I Am
These days, more and more, I am giving myself permission
to show up.
To share my raw vulnerability, to expose my shadows and to display my flaws.
In the process, I am also allowing my Self to revel in my light, to exude my beauty and to experience my divine. I am letting go, more and more, of my fears
of being judged and "not good enough."
I am making mistakes and enjoying every step of the process.
What I used to internalize as negative and/or "bad," is now, simply, par for course.
I am learning
lessons too vital to be overstepped.
I am trusting that
this moment
n-o-w
is perfect.
I am listening
to what my heart says
to the quick pulses that throb out from our collective consciousness.
I am feeling deeply
as I always have
yet with a quicker response time
to you, and your be-ing,
to our shared dance
as we continue to revolve around
that great fire in the sky
and as we continue to evolve
into the night
into what comes next.
And, whatever that is,
just know,
I'll be there.
to show up.
To share my raw vulnerability, to expose my shadows and to display my flaws.
In the process, I am also allowing my Self to revel in my light, to exude my beauty and to experience my divine. I am letting go, more and more, of my fears
of being judged and "not good enough."
I am making mistakes and enjoying every step of the process.
What I used to internalize as negative and/or "bad," is now, simply, par for course.
I am learning
lessons too vital to be overstepped.
I am trusting that
this moment
n-o-w
is perfect.
I am listening
to what my heart says
to the quick pulses that throb out from our collective consciousness.
I am feeling deeply
as I always have
yet with a quicker response time
to you, and your be-ing,
to our shared dance
as we continue to revolve around
that great fire in the sky
and as we continue to evolve
into the night
into what comes next.
And, whatever that is,
just know,
I'll be there.
Giving My Self Permission: Showing Up, Take II
So, I ran and I eluded.
I hid and I cowered.
I escaped and I fled.
I played the irresponsible, flaky one.
In sixth grade, I began ditching classes with a peer who has
since perished in a car accident. I quit gymnastics and joined
an activity that all the local girls in my neighborhood participated in -
the Vista drill team. I took up and then let go of softball and tennis.
In ninth grade, I wandered around the beloved streets of my local 'hood,
smoking pot and tagging stop signs with graffiti. My best friend and I were busted for shoplifting at the local CVS and then I was arrested for a minor in possession while strolling to a party in Carlsbad. At seventeen, I gave my virginity away to the class slut. I almost even got kicked out of college before I had even started classes - I had to beg to be admitted in a written letter.
Although my headaches, which had plagued my high school career, disappeared while I was at SSU, I fell back into a deep, cellular patterning. Once again, I had found a mutually reciprocal relationship with an action that fed my being. As a Modern Dance major, my world expanded profoundly and my unadulterated joy for pure movement lent itself positively to my life. Nonetheless, I simply stopped showing up. I ditched classes, preferring to stay wrapped tight within the warm confines of my cozy bed. I'd tell my friends that I would make an appearance at their weekly parties. I would ride my bike over to their L-Street house, walk up to the door, hear the revelry and then turn around and go back home. I did not understand my own behavior. It was unconscious and severely painful. Yet, I could not stop repeating it.
I hid and I cowered.
I escaped and I fled.
I played the irresponsible, flaky one.
In sixth grade, I began ditching classes with a peer who has
since perished in a car accident. I quit gymnastics and joined
an activity that all the local girls in my neighborhood participated in -
the Vista drill team. I took up and then let go of softball and tennis.
In ninth grade, I wandered around the beloved streets of my local 'hood,
smoking pot and tagging stop signs with graffiti. My best friend and I were busted for shoplifting at the local CVS and then I was arrested for a minor in possession while strolling to a party in Carlsbad. At seventeen, I gave my virginity away to the class slut. I almost even got kicked out of college before I had even started classes - I had to beg to be admitted in a written letter.
Although my headaches, which had plagued my high school career, disappeared while I was at SSU, I fell back into a deep, cellular patterning. Once again, I had found a mutually reciprocal relationship with an action that fed my being. As a Modern Dance major, my world expanded profoundly and my unadulterated joy for pure movement lent itself positively to my life. Nonetheless, I simply stopped showing up. I ditched classes, preferring to stay wrapped tight within the warm confines of my cozy bed. I'd tell my friends that I would make an appearance at their weekly parties. I would ride my bike over to their L-Street house, walk up to the door, hear the revelry and then turn around and go back home. I did not understand my own behavior. It was unconscious and severely painful. Yet, I could not stop repeating it.
Giving My Self Permission: Showing Up
I was nine years old when I stopped showing up.
Gymnastics was my first love.
I took to the floor like a bird takes to the air.
Little compared to the experience of feeling my narrow legs, brown from the southern California sunshine, pounding down sprung-floor mats. I reveled in my agility at throwing myself backwards into space, performing a full, upside-down 360 degree turn and then landing on both of my feet again. It was a natural high that fed an innate yearning located somewhere deep within my young being. I soared in my nimbleness as I exuded power, strength and daring.
On our expansive, elementary school playground, I would entertain my peers with these same feats. "Do it again, Cara!" they would cheer. I rarely refused their pleas. I fashioned myself after Nadia Comeneci, the first perfect 10 Olympic gold medalist in the '76 games. As I practiced in the grass straightaway found in my parent's North County, suburban yard, I would see Nadia in my mind's eye. I would pretend I was her.
Contrary to all appearances, however, my home life - though comfortably situated within the same walls of the same house for the entire duration of my primary and secondary school career - was anything but stable. My mother's emotional health swung extremely from one side of the pendulum to the other. Some days, she was my best friend and the most hilarious of confidants. Other days, she was an evil Dr. Jekyl who flew into violent rages over the smallest of infractions, such as spilling milk on the kitchen floor.
By the time I had reached fourth grade, I had learned how to consciously manipulate a situation. I would return home from school, after being dropped off in the streets of our rolling neighborhood, knowing that my mother had not worked that day and wondering what kind of mood I would find her in. To fend off any coming attacks, I would pretend that I was feeling ill - usually with a headache - so that I could beg for her compassion and empathy as soon as I walked in the door. My attempts, even when failed, far outweighed being chased around a coffee table by a giant, mad woman wielding a leather belt, spewing venom and threatening my physical being. Pretense was the sword I used to with which to shield myself from, once again, being emotionally, verbally and/or physically abused.
One spring day, while at gymnastics practice, my innocent coach encouraged my mother to come over to our class and bear witness to my skills. Over and over again, my coach had me perform the same, basic exercises on the vault and horse. In those moments, something in me came unglued. My eyes welled up with tears as a deep sense of "not good enough" spread out from the core of my being.
After five years of nourishing a mutually reciprocal relationship with this first love of mine, I simply stopped showing up. My parents would drop me off at the local recreation center and I would pretend to walk in through the main gym doors, waiting all the while for them to turn out of the parking lot so that I could veer to the left and head up the hill, where I would spend the hour playing on the Lincoln logs in the park. This pattern persisted for a year.
In fact, as some of you may know, I spent the entire two decades that followed not showing up. The headaches became my only real ailment that, to this day, I still suffer from and the subconscious conditioning of those three little words still play out their noxious tune, "not good enough."
"You're not good enough," a popular refrain chimes.
Gymnastics was my first love.
I took to the floor like a bird takes to the air.
Little compared to the experience of feeling my narrow legs, brown from the southern California sunshine, pounding down sprung-floor mats. I reveled in my agility at throwing myself backwards into space, performing a full, upside-down 360 degree turn and then landing on both of my feet again. It was a natural high that fed an innate yearning located somewhere deep within my young being. I soared in my nimbleness as I exuded power, strength and daring.
On our expansive, elementary school playground, I would entertain my peers with these same feats. "Do it again, Cara!" they would cheer. I rarely refused their pleas. I fashioned myself after Nadia Comeneci, the first perfect 10 Olympic gold medalist in the '76 games. As I practiced in the grass straightaway found in my parent's North County, suburban yard, I would see Nadia in my mind's eye. I would pretend I was her.
Contrary to all appearances, however, my home life - though comfortably situated within the same walls of the same house for the entire duration of my primary and secondary school career - was anything but stable. My mother's emotional health swung extremely from one side of the pendulum to the other. Some days, she was my best friend and the most hilarious of confidants. Other days, she was an evil Dr. Jekyl who flew into violent rages over the smallest of infractions, such as spilling milk on the kitchen floor.
By the time I had reached fourth grade, I had learned how to consciously manipulate a situation. I would return home from school, after being dropped off in the streets of our rolling neighborhood, knowing that my mother had not worked that day and wondering what kind of mood I would find her in. To fend off any coming attacks, I would pretend that I was feeling ill - usually with a headache - so that I could beg for her compassion and empathy as soon as I walked in the door. My attempts, even when failed, far outweighed being chased around a coffee table by a giant, mad woman wielding a leather belt, spewing venom and threatening my physical being. Pretense was the sword I used to with which to shield myself from, once again, being emotionally, verbally and/or physically abused.
One spring day, while at gymnastics practice, my innocent coach encouraged my mother to come over to our class and bear witness to my skills. Over and over again, my coach had me perform the same, basic exercises on the vault and horse. In those moments, something in me came unglued. My eyes welled up with tears as a deep sense of "not good enough" spread out from the core of my being.
After five years of nourishing a mutually reciprocal relationship with this first love of mine, I simply stopped showing up. My parents would drop me off at the local recreation center and I would pretend to walk in through the main gym doors, waiting all the while for them to turn out of the parking lot so that I could veer to the left and head up the hill, where I would spend the hour playing on the Lincoln logs in the park. This pattern persisted for a year.
In fact, as some of you may know, I spent the entire two decades that followed not showing up. The headaches became my only real ailment that, to this day, I still suffer from and the subconscious conditioning of those three little words still play out their noxious tune, "not good enough."
"You're not good enough," a popular refrain chimes.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
In Honor of the Season...
Death Becomes Me...
Wasted moments,
spent fretting
over what to wear
what to think
and what to say,
death becomes me.
Wasted words flung haphazardly
into the chaotic drums of
empty ears.
Wasted moments, wasted ways,
the wasted wilting
and we turn back
towards the Earth, towards the source
from where it came from itself
from its own
wasted wilted withering.
With every breath
spent in solitude in an open
airy breathy silence
death becomes me.
Another wasted day
spent pulling in,
caving, hoarding
contracting and
restricting
death becomes me.
Another void
of choke infested streets
of mindless chatter and the
pitter patter of feet running
and skimming along the delusional paths
to freedom and independence.
Wasting wasted
adding to the piles
of cheap plastic crap made in China or Mexico
or Sri Lanka but surely it is not the States
the lawn chairs, am/fm radios
and other Wal-Mart grade land-filling shit
wasting away in piles the size of small department store buildings
flung like cancerous tumors into the backyards of our neighborhoods
into the family rooms of our homes
into the very heart of our animal nature
turning our wilting ways
and our wasted days
into mindless chitter chatter
and our running feet sent a pitter-patter
on these streets to nowhere.
And death becomes me.
Wasted moments,
spent fretting
over what to wear
what to think
and what to say,
death becomes me.
Wasted words flung haphazardly
into the chaotic drums of
empty ears.
Wasted moments, wasted ways,
the wasted wilting
and we turn back
towards the Earth, towards the source
from where it came from itself
from its own
wasted wilted withering.
With every breath
spent in solitude in an open
airy breathy silence
death becomes me.
Another wasted day
spent pulling in,
caving, hoarding
contracting and
restricting
death becomes me.
Another void
of choke infested streets
of mindless chatter and the
pitter patter of feet running
and skimming along the delusional paths
to freedom and independence.
Wasting wasted
adding to the piles
of cheap plastic crap made in China or Mexico
or Sri Lanka but surely it is not the States
the lawn chairs, am/fm radios
and other Wal-Mart grade land-filling shit
wasting away in piles the size of small department store buildings
flung like cancerous tumors into the backyards of our neighborhoods
into the family rooms of our homes
into the very heart of our animal nature
turning our wilting ways
and our wasted days
into mindless chitter chatter
and our running feet sent a pitter-patter
on these streets to nowhere.
And death becomes me.
Friday, October 29, 2010
On My Dance, Take I
Come into
my witch’s cauldron
big, black pot
with iron, clawed legs
and a wide base, for rooting down down
down into a fiery pit.
Brewing, stewing, steaming and rising,
swirling, twirling, bubbling and oozing.
Step into
my curandera’s cocina
where leaping frogs, slithering lizards
and reptiles
with pitch-forked tongues
rest dreamily as one wandering eye
marks the time
of fluttering butterflies
and creeping beetles,
an Earthly, potent magic
assaults the senses.
Pungent, putrid, and foul-smelling,
Fetid, fragrant and divine,
aromas
of the sacred and the profane.
Ride with me
on my bruja’s highway
with its twisting turns and angular perceptions
a fluidity of space
as flying forms
evolve in the night
and as we
blast on through
to the other side.
Walk with me
on my shaman’s land
holding my hand, stroking my cheek
and whispering words
of an uncommon language,
of places too celestial to tell
of a world too godly for thought
and of an existence deeply rooted and tied
to all that is
painful, joyful and complete
sad, excruciating and extreme
whole.
my witch’s cauldron
big, black pot
with iron, clawed legs
and a wide base, for rooting down down
down into a fiery pit.
Brewing, stewing, steaming and rising,
swirling, twirling, bubbling and oozing.
Step into
my curandera’s cocina
where leaping frogs, slithering lizards
and reptiles
with pitch-forked tongues
rest dreamily as one wandering eye
marks the time
of fluttering butterflies
and creeping beetles,
an Earthly, potent magic
assaults the senses.
Pungent, putrid, and foul-smelling,
Fetid, fragrant and divine,
aromas
of the sacred and the profane.
Ride with me
on my bruja’s highway
with its twisting turns and angular perceptions
a fluidity of space
as flying forms
evolve in the night
and as we
blast on through
to the other side.
Walk with me
on my shaman’s land
holding my hand, stroking my cheek
and whispering words
of an uncommon language,
of places too celestial to tell
of a world too godly for thought
and of an existence deeply rooted and tied
to all that is
painful, joyful and complete
sad, excruciating and extreme
whole.
('cuz it's just #$%^&*( HOT/Rad/insert your adjective here!!!!!!
A backlit silhouette
milky curves,
softening angles
she lends a hand
up
a powerful force
this thing called desire
its roots
root
rooting her
down down down through the earth's crust
exploring the exotic terrain
in wet jungles of possibility
he lurks lurks
lurks like a prowling cat in the grass
in the knee high, high grass
spinning, twirling, a kaleidoscope of shape, form and light
she rises she reaches up up up
(photosynthesizing in the light)
he extends, he reaches down down down
they grab hold
a cosmic collision
of fire and water
air and wood
earth and sky
body and spirit
male and female
radiating, penetrating
milky curves,
softening angles
she lends a hand
up
a powerful force
this thing called desire
its roots
root
rooting her
down down down through the earth's crust
exploring the exotic terrain
in wet jungles of possibility
he lurks lurks
lurks like a prowling cat in the grass
in the knee high, high grass
spinning, twirling, a kaleidoscope of shape, form and light
she rises she reaches up up up
(photosynthesizing in the light)
he extends, he reaches down down down
they grab hold
a cosmic collision
of fire and water
air and wood
earth and sky
body and spirit
male and female
radiating, penetrating
piercing
shifting plates
upthrusting rock
shooting out shooting out shooting
pow!
a black hole
and another universe is born.
shifting plates
upthrusting rock
shooting out shooting out shooting
pow!
a black hole
and another universe is born.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
It IS Personal, take II
For too long now, I have hidden my gifts.
I have withheld them, and tucked them away.
I have refrained from offering them.
I've been afraid.
Deeply fearful of that which I ultimately want
which, like everyone else, is simple and basic -
I want love and attention -
my irrational and immature fears of being rejected and denied
have merely been
self-sabotage
for I have suffered greatly as a result of my own withholding.
When I do not offer my gifts
which is the deepest act of LOVE that I can commit
then I hurt myself. And, quite usually, I do not
receive the love and attention that I so crave, and need.
WE ALL NEED TOUCH & AFFECTION - it is a basic human necessity, ya'll!
So, although I may have gifts that are unique to me, I am not special in
any other way. I am human, just like you. I hurt and I bleed.
I seek and I desire. I love and I cry. I am here and I am gone.
I am present and I am missing.
Now, when I feel the sharp sting of the insecurities of others, the bite is less acute.
I'm learning how to keep offering, even when I'm told "No" and "but."
I'm giving myself permission to keep showing up in light of the laughter haughtily
flung in my haphazard direction. I'm rooting deeper into my own soul-consciousness
so that I am no longer blown around like a reed in the wind. In light of the judgment
flung at me and regardless of the contractions that are taking place as a result of my
own expansion, I keep TRYING ON LOVE.
And though it's scary, new terrain - it's liberating.
For it's the other half of my freedom
(that I have already spent a lifetime seeking).
It's here, n-o-w.
Balanced and full.
Still and powerful.
Ripe and destroyed.
In and out,
out and in,
over and over again.
Nothing more,
nothing less.
Just
this.
I have withheld them, and tucked them away.
I have refrained from offering them.
I've been afraid.
Deeply fearful of that which I ultimately want
which, like everyone else, is simple and basic -
I want love and attention -
my irrational and immature fears of being rejected and denied
have merely been
self-sabotage
for I have suffered greatly as a result of my own withholding.
When I do not offer my gifts
which is the deepest act of LOVE that I can commit
then I hurt myself. And, quite usually, I do not
receive the love and attention that I so crave, and need.
WE ALL NEED TOUCH & AFFECTION - it is a basic human necessity, ya'll!
So, although I may have gifts that are unique to me, I am not special in
any other way. I am human, just like you. I hurt and I bleed.
I seek and I desire. I love and I cry. I am here and I am gone.
I am present and I am missing.
Now, when I feel the sharp sting of the insecurities of others, the bite is less acute.
I'm learning how to keep offering, even when I'm told "No" and "but."
I'm giving myself permission to keep showing up in light of the laughter haughtily
flung in my haphazard direction. I'm rooting deeper into my own soul-consciousness
so that I am no longer blown around like a reed in the wind. In light of the judgment
flung at me and regardless of the contractions that are taking place as a result of my
own expansion, I keep TRYING ON LOVE.
And though it's scary, new terrain - it's liberating.
For it's the other half of my freedom
(that I have already spent a lifetime seeking).
It's here, n-o-w.
Balanced and full.
Still and powerful.
Ripe and destroyed.
In and out,
out and in,
over and over again.
Nothing more,
nothing less.
Just
this.
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