Tuesday, July 27, 2010

On Community


"This being human is a guest house.
Every morning, a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness...
Welcome and entertain them all!
He may be clearing you out for some new delight."  --Rumi

Friday, July 23, 2010

Unmasking the Box

Blank slate,
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.

A Few Words on Biology


Nancy was blunt and to the point.  “Dance is the by-product of people wanting to get laid,” was how she told it.  Lucy needed to have a mini-Ricardo, you see, so she puckered up her lips, applied her rouge and dramatically pranced around the stage of life.  When Ricardo wanted Lucy, he would puff out his chest, waddle around his territory and bellow out in his deepest baritone, “Lucyyyyy!” 

Nancy’s last, main stage performance showcased her choreography from past decades as well as embraced the humor and musicality that she is renown for.  Most poignant was her newest dance piece, called “From Lucy to YouTube” - a comedic, 2-minute lecture on the sustainability of dance.  Nancy began this investigation of humanity by addressing why we Homo sapiens sapiens initially began dancing.  In a brief video montage, she implied that our human call to dance was merely Darwinian in theory.  In other words, in order to propagate our species we needed to have sex.

By no means am I here to refute biology.  In fact, all we need to do is observe the environment found directly around us to witness the truth in this fact.  Birds execute daring dives and flamboyant sequences that can include wing flapping, head dipping and elaborate stepping as part of their courtship rituals.  Jumping Spiders perform intricate footwork, along with coordinated vibrations, in their attempts at catching the attention of prospective mates.  And, Seahorses can carry out a several hours long, elaborate movement pattern that, if successful, ends with the female depositing her eggs into the male’s pouch.  These physical rituals can also include the display of colorful pageantry, the demonstration of bold gesticulations and the sounds of piercing harmonics, or shrill calls.  Sight, sound, scent, taste and touch all play an important role in the sexual reproduction antics found within the animal kingdom. 

In us humans, we find the same preening, as well as roaring hormones, in almost any Saturday night social scene.  In these venues, members of both genders brush up against one another after pain staking preparations have been taken in choosing the perfect outfit.  Every single hair has been coiffed into the right place while gel, cologne and perfume have all been liberally applied.  Entrances and exits are made with erect postures, slow strides and narrow glances.  Non-verbal signals and silent cues are continually responded to and sent.  A collective consciousness is at play in which the survival of the fittest is acted out; meanwhile, cultural norms dictate who has the most mating success.  These standards typically reward those who best mirror contemporary sex appeal.  Thus, it can be inferred that rather than being an elitist and exclusive art form, dance is, instead, a biological necessity deeply embedded in our DNA.

Stone's Throw Photography, 2010

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

A Note on Sanity

What is it to be sane in an insane world? 
What is it to find balance in a civilization dangerously teetering on a brink?
What is it to cultivate a rhythmic harmony deep inside, even as a wider world around you
crashes, roars and shakes
in violence, turbulence and tumult?
What is it to keep coming back to ONE, collective beat?
To that unique sonata, a mesmerizing overture, and the steady lull of a pulsing crescendo?
To the stagnant repose of gestation and waiting, to the hearty symphony of a brilliant cacophany?
What is it to be insane in a sane world?

I DON'T KNOW.

Yet, what I do know, is that when I try to meet others in this moment now ~
when i attempt to let go of all that has come before and when I relinquish
my need to plan for what is to come ~ I fall further away from the madness. 
From the delusional stories that fill my fictional time with "He said, she said's",
"could have done's, would have done's," and with the tension of holding on. 
To a past that may or may not have ever happened and to a future that is yet to come.
I fall further away from the anger and the apathy that gripped my soul, for years rendering
me inert and unable to move, with spirit, mind and body all in motion. 
I fall further away from any ideas of separation, distinction and other. 
I fall further away from my conditioning and back into Sacred Time. 

When I step onto a dance floor, when I leap into another's arms and when I discover solace in the intimate gaze of a stranger's eyes, I mark a return to the Great Well of Be-ing.
In pleasure and, sometimes, even in discomfort, I dip my cosmic handle into its murky, emerald pool.  I drown my ravished tongue in its sweet, pure liquid.  Like a fountain of youth, this underground spring has me taking on my myriad of selves. 
I take on the fetus swimming in a warm pond of blood and bodily fluid.  I take on the newborn violently exposed to light, air and touch.  I take on the baby learning to walk.  I take on the toddler learning to talk.  I take on the child wanting to play.  I take on the juvenile experiencing flesh wounds and the deep cuts of popular culture and social rejection.
I take on the insecure girl-woman who just wants to be loved.  I take on the inner child who missed a deeply intimate relationship with her daddy.  I take on the old, wise woman whose joints are fluid and who has palpable grace etched in her face.  And I take on the mother from whose womb all life sprung forth.  I, once again, take on the black void of death, destruction, creative force and birth. 
I take on me, and I take on you.
I take back time and I give
I give and I give and I give and I give until my muscles can no longer extend, until my smile is replete, until my back is sore and my heart is strong.  I give until my voice is but a distant echo in the remnants of your memory.  I give until my spinning silhouette disappears.  I give until my shadow has been brought back into the light.  I give and I give and I give and I give.  I give when I am being told "No" and "Stop," and I give when the signal is brightly blinking red.  I give when the music ends and I give some more so as not to waste a drop.  I give to feel and I give to learn.  I give to experience all that you yearn.  I give some more and I give no less.  I give and I give and I give and I give.  And when all the giving is done, when the tick tock of the steady clock has stopped, when there is nothing new under the sun and when the twinkling stars no longer shimmer or wave, when the giving and the taking are once again one, we'll dance.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

The 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 being
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 now
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 native
flora and the blooming 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 right
a moral superiority to be held high above
the bent heads of sinful, ignorant masses.

And the long, summer shadows of existence
dance on.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Lessons on Love

I:

Connections can, and do, exist in the strangest of places.  Sometimes, they can be discovered where you never would have thought to look, let alone contemplated experiencing, because you've become so conditioned by what you think (is "right," is "the way," is socially acceptable, etc).  

II:

Diving in, to physical contact (be that kissing, touching, holding, caressing, dancing, or copulating), is the most immediate way to discover whether or not a deeper connection does, or even can, exist.  Again, you may find yourself pleasantly surprised with where, and who, your body biologically responds to.  


III:

Let go of a desire to control an outcome.  For years, I, personally, could not intimately communicate because I was fearful of being judged and rejected.  Therefore, in my ego's twisted realm, I always maintained an elevated status (no matter how delusional this "status" was) - even as I suffered greatly from the lack of trying to express my real, authentic feelings.  The isolation that usually resulted was always a crushing blow.

Begin by honoring your feelings.  "Wow!  I really love this person," is how you feel.  Perfect.  It is more than okay to feel what you feel.  Then, recognize that your need to share these feelings is far greater than whether or not the person on the receiving end feels reciprocally.  "I don't need this other to love me in return," is your intention for giving yourself permission to show up with your feelings, express them and then let them go.  

IV:

Move on when the writing is on the wall.  Listen to and heed the unspoken words, as well as the subtle actions, that simply state that you will not be loved, adored or ravished the way that you deserve to be.  Loving others is always dependent upon our ability to love ourselves - first and foremost.

Acknowledge the strength in vulnerability it took for you, in those few, brief moments, to give your love freely.  However, also recognize if the mutually supportive love that you need, in order to keep coming back to this encounter, will be forthcoming.  If not, give gratitude and thanks for the lesson(s) and move on.  Yes, it can be (and it is) this simple!    

V:

Only when you are being continually ravished, enjoyed, tasted, LOVED, listened to, heard, felt, and asked questions, THEN keep coming back to the middle and showing up to the conversation, to the encounter and to the dance.  But, only then.  Yes, only then.




So, my friends, here's to more people and experiences blowing the lid off of what I/we think.  
Here's to diving in and tasting love's ripe fruit as well as its bittersweet aftertaste of disappointment.
And, here's to being alive, and fully HUMAN - 
experiencing, feeling, sharing, letting go and moving on!



Yours in the dance,
eternally...

--CHC

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

When We Were Simply One

Meet me in between
man and woman
earth and sky
joy and pain
flesh and spirit
bitter and sweet
meet me in between
the duality
the division of wholes
violently ripped in two
meet me in between the
exhale and the inhale
between the expansion
and the contraction
between the push and the pull
half a heart awaits its next beat
half a soul awaits its counter balance.

Meet me somewhere along
a road less traveled
walking nimbly out past the break,
past the mountains and the hills
the sunrises and the sunsets
past the point of no return.
Meet me




Meet me in between
here and there,
now and then,
forever gone and only to return.

Meet me

 in stillness


       in silence
in nothing to do'ness.  In nowhere to be's
and no one to see.
  Meet me here, on this screen.
Meet me there, in the mirror.
Meet me, anywhere,
on the street, in the dog,
in the tilted grin of a beggar.
In the sugar spilled on the counter
the crystals reflecting the glory
of all that once was and is never
to be
again. 
Meet me
again.
Meet me



Meet me in between
me and you,
us and them,
yours and mine.
Meet me where the clouds
part, in the distance between
language and knowing,
between custom and instinct.
Meet me between the breath
after the exhalation, in clear
space and an open conduit.


Meet me in the middle
of a dance floor,
on a field in a farm,
or on a trampoline on a lake on an island in the Pacific Northwest.
Meet me in the distance that lay between us
like a Grand Canyon awaiting our fall
meet me beyond Eden
back in sacred time
when we were simply
one.
                                         


We were simply one.



Meet me


                                           (Desert Morning over Joshua Tree National Park, 2009, Photo by CHC Designs)

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Mulch Ado About Nothing





















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.

Eternal woman,
revolving man
their cyclical, infinite dance
around a great fire in the sky
persists.


 Photo collage "After the Burn" series, CHC Designs, Rancho Cuyamaca State Park, San Diego, Ca. 2005

Monday, July 12, 2010

Ever the Fool

The Benevolent Presence of Swooping Hawk looks down upon us from above at
Rancho Cuyamaca State Park, in San Diego, Ca. 2005 Photo by CHC Designs

"And so it is.  The Fool is born and the journey of life begins.  
Infinite spirit embodies and craves the experience of every freaky beautiful thing life offers. 
The Fool dances, 
bounces, chases butterflies and tweaks the dragon's tail, all to please the infinite spirit inside her.
She roars laughter,
and breaks into song unexpectedly.
Unpracticed and a little out of tune, the Fool is the essence of expanded possibility, that far-out place
where the mind melds with the cosmos.  Practicality bores her.
Economies of energy make no sense.  Her cosmic energy can never dry up, be sold, or run away.
Far from worried about falling to her death, the Fool radiates a carefree attitude.
Although she is unaware of it, magic watches overs her.  The Sky responds to her openness
with a circular pattern in the clouds above her.  The pattern is a protecting presence, perhaps
responsible for lending the Fool butterfly wings so as to whisk her out of harm's way.  
However, the open jaws of cynicism lay all about her, eager to taste her virgin flesh.
The cynical world lusts after her, hoping for her demise in order to prove that its own sterile dullness
is the true reality.  But the Fool sails gaily above such insanity, not even pausing to acknowledge
the toothy presence.  The innocent Fool has, however, chosen to be born into this maddening world.
She flies into the unknown,
leaving the rock of the familiar behind.  Along the way, the Fool will encounter many crocodiles.
She is a risk-taker.  Thus, she will learn many painful lessons but, within the mouth of each lesson, an
enlightened hand holds a fragrant flower.  The Fool's reward for the chances she takes on her drive to
fully experience the world is the flower for the flower represents the intact innocence of the Fool.  Although her experiences with the crocodiles are always transformative, the crocodiles can only mold her innocence - not destroy it.
The Fool is the first member of the Cosmic Tribe.  Her number is 0 - the indestructible archetype of the egg, symbolizing the pre-existent wholeness within emptiness.  The Fool is nothing that doesn't get in the way.

Play the fool, my friends!
Follow your heart's joy, and chase those butterflies!
Be optimistic about the outcome of a risky venture.
Invite frivolity and the boundless energy that comes with it into your life.  
Now is the time to remember the limitless possibilities surrounding you.
Step out, take a chance on life!"
(from Stevee Postman's The Cosmic Tribe Tarot)
Swooping Hawk, Acrylic on Palmbark, 2005, Painting and Photo by CHC Designs

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

[com/post]

My Victorianism

A backlit silhouette
of milky curves
and 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 exotic terrain
the 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 reaches down down down
they grab hold

a cosmic collision
fire and water
air and wood
earth and sky
body and spirit
male and female
radiating, penetrating

shifting plates
upthrusting rock
shooting out shooting out shooting
pow!

a black hole
and another universe is born.

(re/post)

What is Intimacy: A Survey

Is it a kiss on the lips?
Is it sex?
Is it my laying on top of Natalie - draped across her pelvis?

Is it a conversation?
Is it sharing tears?
Is it eye contact?

Is it a willingness to meet in the middle?
Is it an agreement?
Is intimacy what we do only with our lover?  Parents?  Family?  And close friends? 
Is intimacy possible in a larger community?

Is intimacy taking things personally? 
Is it what we do to each other - how we dive below one another’s surfaces?
Is intimacy discovered in both the exertion of our own personal boundaries as well as the pushing open wider of these same perceived limitations?
Is intimacy choosing to inquire, “What’s wrong, and how can I assist you?”

Is intimacy found in the sharing of the body/your body/my body?
Is intimacy a worthwhile pursuit when, sooner or later, someone always/usually gets hurt?
Is intimacy necessary?

Are you afraid of intimacy?  Am I?

Do you crave intimacy?  Do you need it in your life? 
If so, how much of it do you need?
Can you imagine being intimate with a perfect stranger?  If so, how?
Can you be intimate with someone that you are not sexually energized by?
Do you seek intimacy out?  How?

Is intimacy staying on topic?
Is intimacy discovered in only the day-today?  Can it be found in an improvised, fleeting moment?
Is intimacy touch?  Is it contact? 

Will it hurt me if I am intimate with lots of people?
Will it hurt me if I am not?

Is intimacy sharing what is on your mind, and in your heart?
Is intimacy standing up for what you believe in?

Is intimacy a location?  Is it a place that we can all somehow arrive to? 
If so, can we arrive there together or do we have to take our own paths and journeys along the way?

Is intimacy a smell?  Does it make me want to come, or does it repel me off and away to a further distance?

Is intimacy a visual aesthetic?  Do I subconsciously choose whom I can be intimate with based upon the age and pigment of another’s skin, a lilting tongue, the amount of flesh that hangs from the body, or this other’s physical abilities & makeup?
Can I be intimate with someone who does not believe what I do, who does not think as I do, and who does not want what I want? 

Can I afford not to be?

Is intimacy a currency?  Is it something that can be exchanged for power, resources, time, or energy?

Is intimacy a wink?  Is it a flash of a smile, or a wave to the hand?
Is intimacy real?  Or, can it be argued that we cannot know intimacy with anyone but ourselves?

Are you intimate with yourself?  Am I?  If so, how?

Is intimacy a feeling?  Is it sensed, intuited and embodied?
Can intimacy be sustained for a long period of time?  Does it wax and wane? 
Is it possible to experience intimacy in short bursts?

Is intimacy the breath?  Is it life?

Is intimacy being and feeling vulnerable?
If so, how and when do you experience vulnerability? 
And, when do you refuse to allow yourself to be vulnerable?

Are you vulnerable?  Am I?

Just what is intimacy?

danceswithdogs