The Trappings of Ego

Spirit empty,
body heavy,
unhappiness weights a soul.

Bereft of any desire for change,
tortured from the inside out,
stuck in a desolate wilderness,

a pear-like shape crashes to earth.
It plunders in impatience and fear.

Touching upon this before,
timidly, fingers have traced an outline,
wearily, a mind has detected a nuance,
a fragment of something grander.

Gracefully, I have danced around the issue.
Running from it, I have hidden in the shadows
of looming institutions and places to be,
of pedestrian choked sidewalks and stale airport terminals.

I have masked it, in the everyday,
of sisterly love and the attention of others,
of 9-5 school, work, family, celebrations and gatherings,
I have pretended that the light is on,
I have been faking it all along.

What is this, this great freedom of being that with it comes chains
cold, steel links of slavery,
shiny, rose tinted illusory worlds,
and a confinement of thought?
What is this, this deep, weeping wound that bleeds
out of every crevice, nook and cranny?

I have rolled it up and tried to smoke it, I have peered into a bottle
and tried to drink it, I have kissed it wholeheartedly and made love to it on
a bed of nails, I have eaten it until my stomach felt close to bursting
I have drank its wine, pissed its stench, I have read about it, talked about it,
sat in parishes and prayed about it,
I have gotten down on my knees for it, I have even jumped out of airplanes
for it, still
it persists and it pervades

this existence

numb and unknowing,
it divides the whole,
in the depth of the gut.
It exceeds all definition, all words on paper,
all emotion, all expressed feeling.  What is this?

What is this when even in the midst of the rehearsals, plays and performances,
in the midst of finals time, and the first days of classes,
in the midst of travels to foreign destinations and exotic locations
even in the midst of new friends and flirtatious romances
a nameless void festers?

What is this?

I would prefer some temporary sort of contentment in lieu of this
aching, gnawing, endless nothing.  It is the why and how obesity is reached,
baggage to be pulled along in this life.  It is the accumulation
of material goods, the ball and chain of civilized life.
It is the busyness of soccer practice, piano recitals and part-time jobs.
It is the cut-throat world of advertising and sales,
the eat-shit-and-die, fake-ass smiles of politicians.
It is the harbinger of new sciences, it rings in medical breakthroughs,
and it smashes through glass ceilings.
It originates in this immensity.

Pleasure found in watching babies grow, in seeing dogs bound
from sea to shore after a beloved stick, reminds but fades away,
for I always return here to this state, to this great county of lack
and servitude.

A lighthouse on a distant shore I cannot locate
and though I know I can best access that revolving beam
when I am fully present and in the moment
when my skeleton is moving through this spacetime warp
I still somehow refrain,
from dancing
I still somehow forget
to sing
to free my breath and allow it the chance
to dance with angels, to frolic with demons
to be pure energy and to be free
of the trappings
of ego.

Perfect Reflection

I am the grass
on a cool, autumn day,
I am the sun
radiating warmth and heat,
I am the wind whispering in your ear
and I am the 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,
I can be the sigh, and the one to just say "No!"

I can be the baby protected by fierce others,
I can be the little girl, moving in the mirror,
I can be the virgin, giving it up to a Joseph,
I am the yin to your yang.

I am the glue that holds us together
and I can be the gum beneath your shoe.

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 year-long southern California tan,
I can be the actor in any reality show,
for 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 can be the one, giant beat,
I can be the temporary now.
For I am the moment,
I am the kiss,
I am the "Yes" falling from your lips,

I am
the perfect
reflection.

On Omens, Signs and Synchronicity

The All-Seeing Eyes at Liberty Advance, photo courtesy of Jack Rudra

A ripe, Harvest moon made its post-dawn way over a western horizon of rock-dotted hilltops found 4,000 feet up a southern California desert.  The illuminated orb sat, pregnant and full, in a dusk, early Autumn sky.  In an adjacent meadow, one hundred yards away, a mountain lion stood stoic in the drying grass, equally mesmerized by the magical sight overhead.  The playful cougar pounced, preyed and sat Shiva-like, upright and erect, as the second-hand of time marched on and as Swallows swooped and dove on warm breezes.  For an hour, I moved, breathed and embodied these visions dancing right in front of my eyes - they were as real as my heart beating and as true as my pulse racing.  In the silent stillness, I was fully present to this ever-unfolding moment and to the alchemy of N-O-W.

For years, I have asked to witness a mountain lion in its natural habitat and there it was, gracing me with its presence and ease.  Slinking like a cat, but built like a large dog, its long, S-shaped tail gave away its identity, even from my safe and comfortable distance.  The universe was offering me its bounty.  God was answering my prayers.  All I had to do was stop long enough to notice, listen gently enough to hear and feel deeply enough to experience.  All I had to do was set my intentions and pray. 

My 5'2" frame vibrated on mystical realms of fantastical reality.  I giggled hysterically and made love to the surrounding air currents.  I looked up once more at that rock face and, for the first time ever in my life, I recognized the Yin Yang symbol.  It has been there all along - the trust that everything is in perfect balance and the recognition that the constant interplay of masculine and feminine, of light and dark, of expanding and contracting and force and power is perfectly aligned.  Resistance is futile.
For perfection exists now.  It has always been here, present and ever-ready for me, for us, to simply take heed and notice.

I dare you...

The Gift of Words: Learning to Love, Step 1

"Lovers don't just meet somewhere.  They are in each other all along." 

--Rumi

Moon Shadow
by Cat Stevens

I'm being followed by a moon shadow
moon shadow-moon shadow
leaping and hopping on a moon shadow
moon shadow-moon shadow
and if I ever lose my hands
lose my plough, lose my land
oh, if I ever lose my hands
oh, well...
I won’t have to work no more
and if I ever lose my eyes
If my colours all run dry
yes, if I ever lose my eyes
oh well …
I won't have to cry no more.
yes, I'm being followed by a moon shadow
moon shadow - moon shadow
leaping and hopping on a moon shadow
moon shadow - moon shadow
and if I ever lose my legs
I won't moan and I won't beg
oh if I ever lose my legs
oh well...
I won't have to walk no more
And if I ever lose my mouth
all my teeth, north and south
yes, if I ever lose my mouth
oh well...
I won't have to talk...
Did it take long to find me
I ask the faithful light
Ooh did it take long to find me
And are you going to stay the night
I'm being followed by a moon shadow
moon shadow - moon shadow
leaping and hopping on a moon shadow
moon shadow - moon shadow
moon shadow - moon shadow
moon shadow - moon shadow

For YOU as well as the Harvest Moon & to a Fall Equinox

Openings

I climb a mountain, and meet

a blind man, together we sing

favored, Cat Stevens' tunes while our bodies

feast

on clear San Diego skies and our moonshadows dance

out and over an azure Pacific.

I engage bodily, with a certain bald monk, who reads to me,

centuries-old prose, Rumi, while we lay under

Arcturus, on dirt-dusted driveways in 

recently washed work-clothes.

I dig in soil, in my mama's dress

my hands reverberate on the land, together our pulse

becomes One.  Slowly,

a yard that is simultaneously mine and not-mine, becomes.

I dive in backwards, and 

upside down.  I wash

with strawberries and chocolate syrup.

I hold conversations in sound

and silence,

in music and meaning,

in dance and action.

I crave connection, and seek humility.

I desire nothing

more 

than to reach out and touch.

I feel, desperately,

alone, confined, trapped

within skin and bone,

muscle and memory,

nostalgia and fear.  Still,

the adventure keeps me moving, walking

new paths, pursuing

electric connections, exploring

fruitful ideas and excavating deep-

seeded e-motions.

8-5MondaythruFriday

24/7 365

65 years of this

then what?  Death

is written in these numbers

and figures which figure nothing

into my well-being, into my

depth of spirit.

Triumph is leading an embodied life

journeys taken, relationships pursued

and the pageantry of drama spelled out

explicitly.

More than

just  a tenet,

embodiment is a ten-cent philosophy that you can pick up

down at the local Barber shop.

It is found in the hum-drum,

in the expansive consciousness as well as

in the bottom of a beer bottle

in a broken down old bar stool.

An embodied life is lived

in the rawness of your humanity.

I have stripped myself bare,

right down to a bald noggin,

with a disregard for panty wearing and a preference

to bleed without a barrier, without

some stupid piece of cotton

stuffing me up like a dike.

I have laid myself down on some God's

marital bed, with only the wish

to steal a mere pittance from the riff-raff's

jean pockets in the morning.  I have been caught

transporting hashish across 

a foreign border and I have spent

36 hours in an American jail listening

to the tale of a woman who smuggled

crystal meth in via her vagina.

I have bedded down in the shadows between

a boardwalk and a beach, in the dark

corners of a city at night.  I have made friends

with 'street urchins,' beautiful, young men

who would sell their own bodies to earn a few

disappearing dollars.  Together, 

we would throw a beloved toy,

a Frisbee disc, around

the gardens of a Harare park.

I have come to understand

that there are not any actions that are either above

or below, for my uncle's fate of calling the streets

of Hollywood home, for the past twenty years, could

just as easily be my own.

I have come to understand that there is nothing

that separates heaven and hell 

from Earth.

For I am mammal, cut from the very same cloth,

as my other Earthly neighbors.

I am Homo sapiens sapiens

descendant of Homo erectus wielding

tools of millennium past and creating

nothing new under the sun.

For I am the son,

I am Atom,

child of that revolving star of brilliance

and great magnitude found

at the center of our solar system and I am

Earthdaughter, my seed

will beget many moon, to continue

along this great march of time.

I am 21st century human.

I live in the future,

I have lived before 

and I am living now.

True Sustainability: The Soil of Our Soul Gardens

"Reaching Across the Divide"

The ability to endure is a universally accepted definition of sustainability.  At least that's what Wikipedia says, so it must be so.  Here in San Diego, we have yet to collectively agree upon a definition of what sustainability looks like for the 3.1 million people in this specific region.  On this scale, is sustainability possible?  If so, how will we endure given our current paradigm in which 80% of our water is imported from the Colorado River?  What will happen when our city wells run dry?  Or, when the cost of what should be a basic human right is no longer affordable by the masses?  How will we survive when global warming, droughts and, thus, a lack of water have been turning the Southwest into a blazing inferno for the past decade?  

I know, these questions are seemingly too esoteric to answer - let alone ponder - and, here in southern California, we'd rather focus on the short-term of our tans, waves and weekends, while leaving the long-range planning for the generations who are to follow, anyway.  Yet, the ability to endure is affecting each and every one of us now.  For every four of us, cancer is eating one of us alive - from the inside out.  Today, our American young people are, more and more, being diagnosed with diabetes type II in childhood.  Heart disease is killing us and depression is causing great suffering among our family members, neighbors and friends.  We're sick and we feel hopeless.

I know the feelings well.  I too once succumbed to the gnawing ache of depression.  My emotional state began to wreak havoc on my physical state and, for the first time ever in my short life, my pap smear came back with an abnormality.  I was stuck in the fast lane of anxiety with shallow breath and an inability to quiet the never-ending barrage of thoughts tormenting my mind.  I felt hopelessly trapped in skin and bone.  I couldn't eat.  I lost so much weight that I looked pinched and thin.  I was miserable and I really believed that there was no way out.

However, I am not typing this to preach about alternative procedures, holistic treatments or, even, about the food we should be putting into our bodies, the air that should be less thick of carbon dioxide,  the water that should be pure of toxins and the amount of radiation that should be penetrating us daily.  Our culture and western civilization as we know it is now on a fast track, headed in a direction that we are all sure to find out about sometime soon - it is only a matter of time.  Rather, I am writing this to share that I now, honestly and wholeheartedly, believe that our ability to endure, our sustainability, is deeply rooted in each other.  You, me, us - we all sustain each other.  With our hugs and our kisses.  With our reaching across the great divide of fear and unknowing and extending a warm hand in greeting "Hello" or in offering help to a stranger in need.  With our listening ears and our feeling hearts.  With our abilities to be present - it is the best gift we can give, after all.  

True sustainability lies in the warm, dank soil of our souls where all we truly need is to be deeply held, and fervently loved.  True sustainability is found in the forgiving eyes of our dear ones and in the welcoming embraces of our community members.  True sustainability is letting down our guard and allowing our vulnerable, naked truth to be witnessed and expressed.  True sustainability is here, now.  True sustainability is the notion that "You Are Perfect" just as you are - even with all of your human flaws and weaknesses.

 

To the contrary, true sustainability will not be discovered within the antiquated walls of a crumbling classroom while students sit in bored silence.   Rather, it will be found in the recognition that the teacher is simultaneously the pupil, in the working together, side by side by side, and in the sharing of all voices equally.  True sustainability will not be found in purchasing eco-conscious products while supporting a still-green economics.  Rather, it will be found in acknowledging that what we have right this very moment is enough.  And, true sustainability will not be located in the eco-tourism vacations to neighboring lands.  Rather, it will be found in sitting down to a daily tea with your elderly neighbor, in smiling at a passing face, and in breathing through the uncomfortable rush that tells us to do otherwise.  Yes, I do speak from experience - at least where my health and well-being are concerned.

After my mental health breakdown, I re-committed myself to both the language of the dance and the same loyal community - week after week and year after year.  The anxiety and depression eventually dissipated.  Meanwhile, I returned to see my gynecologist and she found nothing but a tilted uterus.  Nonetheless, I remain vigilant - the garden of my soul requires much nurturing, care and work.  

It also needs you.

 And, it needs you to churn, till and rake your soil, as well.  

 In these coming times, let's sustain each other.

Thoughts on True Sustainability, Take II

"Friends and Neighbors"

This time around, however, I attempted to refrain from beating myself up.  I recognized that I am, every inch, a westerner.  I am an American.  Raised in a culture and a civilization dangerously teetering on the brink, my fellow neighbors, friends, co-workers, peers, lovers, family and myself constitute only 5% of the world's population and, yet, we consume over 24% of the Earth's energy.  I am not alone in my misery, nor am I alone in my desire to change.  Most of the time, though, I simply don't know how.  So, I look around me for mentors who model an alternative.  Ironically, last week, as I was openly questioning what sustainability is, I realized that for all of the good deeds and hard work that these others around me demonstrate, they are also equally striving to discover their own balancing points.

They strain their backs relying on bicycles to get from point A to point B as they navigate the everyday of their city lives.  They deposit their gentle love into soil that will never yield fruit-bearing trees.  They work tirelessly, without pay, and with little regard for their own health and well-being.  They give and give and give and give and expect nothing to little in return.  Really, this is sustainability?

What, then, does it mean to be sustainable? 

Thoughts on True Sustainability

L

"Fare Thee Well, La Milpa"

Last week, my own lack of energetic sustainability had me questioning just exactly what this word "sustainable" means.  There I was, at thirty-three years of age, riding a single gear, beach cruiser up these slanted slopes of San Diego from Ocean Beach to North Park and back again.  Humorously, I rode the lumbering piece of metal up to Jay Porter's new El Take It Easy, a self-ascribed gastro-cantina, to rub elbows, drink a few pints, and try some of Jay's infamous Tosti-Locos along with members of Green Drinks and Roots San Diego Sustainable Food Project.  A dull headache throbbed in my right temple, noxiously highlighting my current case of painful judgment and criticism, of casting stones and pointing my two, index fingers in an outward direction.  Last week was a sharp reminder that the contradiction of this being alive cuts both ways, for I was guilty - of being completely, totally and utterly fallible, imperfect and human. 

The mere act of riding that bicycle alone was tell-tale proof that I am not leading a sustainable lifestyle.  The energy it requires just to locomote that damn bike up any hill is not something any one person could sustainably commit to, day in and day out.  Yet, there I was, once again, reveling in a livelihood of extremes, which has been par for course in my lifetime; up and down, good and bad, rich and poor, fat and thin, active and non-active, quiet and busy, et al.  If there is some equalizing balance point where it all just seems to level out then I have yet to reach it.  How about you?

So, I felt the pain of all of my own self-imposed bullshit caving in on me.  Instead of trying to escape it, however, I simply sat in it - on the couch in a friend's beach-side apartment that I have been house-sitting for a few weeks now.  I know you hear me when I say that for as fun and rockin' as this party is, it also hurts.  It can be hard, tumultuous and suffering without any trying on our part.  The beauty of this life now is bittersweet and I refuse to pretend otherwise.  The shadow comes with the light ~ there just ain't no way around that.

An Olive Branch

Sangha

Teach me what I cannot learn alone.
Let us share what we know, and what
we cannot fathom. Speak to me of
mysteries, and let us never lie
to one another.

May our fierce and tender longing
fuel the fire in our souls. When we
stand side by side, let us dare to focus
our desire on the truth. May we be
reminders, each for the other, that
the path of transformation passes
through the flames.

To take one step is courageous;
to stay on the path, day after day,
choosing the unknown, and facing
yet another fear, that is nothing
short of grace.

- Dana Faulds

Meet Me

Meet me in between
man and woman,
earth and sky
joy and pain.
Between flesh and spirit,
bitter and sweet,
lost and found.

Meet me in the middle
of duality
the division of wholes
violently ripped in two.
In the middle of 
the exhale and the inhale,
between the expansion
and the contraction,
the push and the pull.
Half a heart awaits its next beat,
half a soul awaits a natural, 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 the middle
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 before the breath
and after the exhalation, in clear
space and an open conduit.


Meet me in the middle
of a dance floor,
on a field on 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.

"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.

The 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 ~
now.

Yellow, Bermuda Buttercup

"Wild Garden" (or, "CHC~Self Portrait circa, ummm, 2008-Today)

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.

Strength, Courage and Wisdom

"Strength, Courage & Wisdom" by India.Arie
(who was badass long before this year's little video snafu)

"Inside my head there lives a dream that I want to see in the sun
Behind my eyes there lives a me that I've been hiding for much too long
'Cause I've been, too afraid to let it show
'Cause I'm scared of the judgment that may follow
Always putting off my living for tomorrow
It's time to step out on faith, I've gotta show my face
It's been elusive for so long, but freedom is mine today
I've gotta step out on faith, It's time to show my face
Procrastination had me down but look what I have found, I found

Strength, courage, and wisdom
And it's been inside of me all along,
Strength, courage, and wisdom
Inside of me

Behind my pride there lives a me, that knows humility
Inside my voice there is a soul, and in my soul there is a voice
But I've been, too afraid to make a choice
'Cause I'm scared of the things that I might be missing
Running too fast to stop and listen

It's time to step out on faith, I've gotta show my face
It's been elusive for so long but freedom is mine today
I've gotta step out on faith it's time to show my face
Procrastination had me down but look what I have found, I found


I close my eyes and I think of all the things that I want to see
'Cause I know, now that I've opened up my heart I know that
Anything I want can be, so let it be, so let it be:.

Strength, courage, and wisdom
It's been inside of me all along,
Strength, courage, wisdom
It's been inside of me all along, everyday I'm praying for
Strength, courage, and wisdom"

(See her Acoustic Soul album for other examples of maps to borrow. 
Or, at the very least, you can enjoy singing along to it as you craft your own. )
 

The Map Maker

"When the façade of who you think you are crumbles, and the sexy truth of what you are remains. 

What remains is within - it is within."  

--CHC

Last year, one of my dearest friends dove a little deeper into the practices of eastern medicine.  Through regular acupuncture treatments, supplementing herbs into her diet and taking QiGong classes, she was attempting to unravel the repetitive patterns that develop with a lifetime of repressed e-motion.  Just as we still do today, her and I would find ourselves strolling along these San Diego shores playing catchup on our weekly lives while envisioning where an impending future may, or may not, lead us.  Casually, she would frequently refer to "the maps" that she was learning about.  She would speak of the body as being activated by a series of twelve main meridians in which energy flowed.  I had no fucking clue what she was talking about.

A few years back, another dear friend had loaned me Elizabeth Gilbert's New York Times best-selling novel, "Eat, Pray, Love."  Ben knew I'd love it and, indeed, the book has been seminal in my life ever since.  It wasn't just Elizabeth's self-deprecation, or dry wit.  It was the creative fire with which she constructed the piece and how the structure of her book is an allusion to a set of Buddhist prayer beads.  It was about how Elizabeth choose to re-new her view on life, this planet, our world - a place where self-realization can be discovered in a simple three-worded map.  Aside from being deeply moved by Elizabeth's tales of life lessons accrued, I attempted to emulate her.  For my MFA degree, I modeled my graduation thesis after the vertebral column - after all, my spine is literally the backbone of my work.  I produced the portfolio and got the degree, but the deeper meaning behind Gilbert's work was still lost on me.

Over the course of this past year, I have found myself ironically attracted to the words and work of sacred sex provacateur, David Deida.  Throughout most of my twenties, I rebelled against what I perceived to be 'traditional gender models' (among other things, of course).  As a result, my body, voice, expressions, feelings and even ways of moving through the world, became harder, stiffer, less fluid, less flowing.  Slowly, I fabricated and erected stone, wood, and other decorative façades all around me.  For the past three years, my renewed commitment to dancing coupled with my loyalty to the same community - in which we spend at least ten hours a week in non-verbal conversation - has brought many of my steely defenses either crashing down to the ground or burning up in the fanning flames of transformation.

As our community member Samuel likes to say, "Deida's work is simply a map."  As my friend Devi has known since she first began practicing Kundalini Yoga in the Himalayas decades ago, "The Chakra system is a map." And, as the stars have been winking at me since I was but a little girl, escaping the turbulence of my parent's home in order to seek shelter on sun-warmed sidewalks found underneath a dusk sky, "We are a map, Cara," they have merrily twinkled in their same, repetitive pattern, year after year.

Long time DanceJammer and San Diego's best didgeridoo player, Mitchell, is a Star Trekkie and astronomer when he isn't busking at Balboa Park on the weekends or when he isn't working as a cartographer during his regular, 9-5pm day job.  Recently, I ran into Mitchell on a sunny Saturday morning.  He shared with me the exciting news that he just purchased his first home and that he will be retiring from map making next year.  He doesn't know this but he has passed the baton on to me, for I am now ready to draft, create and follow my own map.  Today, I call myself a map maker.

However, my maps are not about some perceived destination; I have already discovered the treasure for where my map points to and for where it, ultimately, leads.  It is within - the pirate's booty, the sunken gems, the greener grass, the new world, the precious jewels, and the opaque pearls.  The hidden truth that I seek and yet simultaneously run from is within.  So, then, I ask: "What journeys do I want to craft for myself along the way?"  And, "what can I create that will help to support my adventure as my rocking boat bumps, crests, cruises and sways in the oncoming tides and in the violent swells that is this life?"  Also, "are there maps that already exist that I can borrow, use and receive support from?"

Indeed.

Eat.

Pray.

Love.

And that's just one of many.


WHAT MAPS DO YOU WANT TO MAKE?


 

The amazing Mitchell Walker

      

"The Sleeper"

the silent stillness
of vulnerable surrender
I ooze
into the One EarthBody
I re-embrace a fully human Self
the dynamic tension of my primal animal
subdued, at times, by an expansive consciousness
roots into my middle
at my core and at my center
angular limitations offset by sensual opportunities
this moment, now
forever unfolding
and always offering up
the precious jewel inside of the brilliant lotus
the SEXY TRUTH is
that what remains
is Within ~
it is WITHIN.
And
I am
the Sleeper.

On Waking

I've only begun to wake.
Groggily, I still, occasionally, toss and turn in fits of restlessness and resistance.
This coming to is something altogether new.


"When did you begin to emerge from your deep slumber?" the question rolls out of your mouth.
"It's relative," I quixotically reply.
"Perhaps, it was the impetus of last summer - of finally trying to choose to feed my highest good.   
Perhaps, it was simply fatigue.
I was tired.


I was tired of wishing for  more - for a taller, thinner, richer, smarter, more this, less that, smaller amount of something and extra helping of another "Me." 
I was tired of going to bed at night and praying to wake up in an alternative reality - one in which I am perpetually better and all that I am meant to be.
I was exhausted by a lack of vitality, a deep displeasure and a loss of excitement for my own day-to-day living.  
I was simply beat.




Perhaps it has also been the supernatural tonics of magic and medicine, methodically brewed for this moment, now, by local shamans and wise elders.
Perhaps, it was Grandmother Ayahuasca herself who promised that, with patience, my counterpart would be on the other side of the fanning flames.  Perhaps, it was she who whispered in my ear sweet nothings of deep humility, who encouraged fervent bows of extreme gratitude and who broke through my chiseled facade with her pulsing, deep rhythm ~ an evening in which I experienced the miraculous flow of time as though it truly were nothing more than one seamless river.  
Here in the caves, there in the spaceships - there is no separation between.


More than likely, however, it's simply been ME.  
My trying to tend to the garden of my soul.  
My doing my work - sowing seeds of love and transformation through the fluid language of the dance.  
My reflection and rumination upon intention and then utilizing it as a tool in my life.  As 
Dr. Wayne Dyer espouses, the power of intention is a life-changing force.


3 Questions for You to Use Intention In Your Life
(Wherever you are going, or wherever you are, you can use these three questions as a map to get you where you, ultimately, want to go.)
1.) What brought me here?
2.) What would I like to see happen?
3.) What do I need from this community/environment/experience?

The Burning the Burning the Burning

                                                            When Cuyamaca Burned, CHC Designs, 2005

It was the fall after the great firestorms of 2003, when the ash of smoldering pine forests poured down on the streets of San Diego, blanketing cars and rooftops with a wet soot that soaked into our collective consciousness and remained long after the brush fires were finally put out.  

During those long, hot October days, a miles-long plume of smoke floated over the mountains to the east as I navigated my car along the forty-mile stretch of interstate that lies between the city center and a north county.  Driving south for a weekend spent in the studio at the old Carnation building, I lamented to my peers that I felt immobilized by the ravaging that was taking place around us.  "The best thing we can be doing, right now, Cara" they shared, "is our work."  

Two years later, and I marked my return to those decimated and ravaged forests.  Walking along the ambling trails of a campground that had been spared the licking flames of a blazing inferno, I observed charcoal, pointed sticks where Pine trees once stood as I half-heartedly posed in hollowed trunks.  Burned from the inside out, all that remained were charred façades.  Hiking along those almost mile-high paths, I passionately empathized with the barren and burned countryside around me.  For the first time in my life, I truly discovered metaphor.

At twenty-nine years of age, I had finally come undone.  The hard defenses of fear, anger and sadness that I had padded myself within had been pierced - by my own willingness to walk into the fire of vulnerability and surrender.   I opened - wider and, in so doing, I intimately connected with the hollowness.  I deeply related to the burnt remains.  My soulspirit felt nearly vanquished.  My faux-marble bas-relief cracked and an outpouring of years of repressed emotion flowed out of me like a punctured tube.    

That was five years ago.  Today, I drive along the winding mountain roads that lead further north and I immediately recognize the signs.  The rolling, velour hills of sienna brown, burnt orange, forest green, and fading yellow, mesmerize my senses.  In the near distance, sitting above the verdant valley, upthrusting, granite peaks glisten and sparkle in a setting sun.  I pull the car over to photograph and to excitedly release an orgasmic "YESsssssss!!!" out into the wide expanse between earth and sky. Simultaneously, I also shudder in recognition ~ for my primal attraction is dangerously potent.  The tell tale signals that this region is meant to burn burn burn lay all around me.  The burning is once again upon us.  

All will be incinerated, consumed whole by the blazing inferno. Nothing will be spared.  And, yet, all those days that came before also taught me about hope and redemption.  After all, a forest needs fire to live just as the Manzanita tree needs fire in order to propagate its seed.  In order to give birth, be born anew, and continue to grow and evolve, the burning must transgress.  

There is no escape.  

Perhaps, this time around however, I can release my fear of pain and rejection.  Perhaps, this time around, I can surrender to the raw vulnerability and simply accept the true path of transformation.  Perhaps, this time, I can truly trust that what I whole-heartedly envision is patiently waiting for me on the other side of the flames.

Perhaps...

 

"Garner Valley," CHC Designs, 2010

The Shfiting Ground of Change Underfoot

"There is great responsibility in freedom."  --L.E.

Wandering around these Obecian streets, brunette, curly locks blowing wildly in Pacific breezes as flip-flop clad feet pad the narrow distance between a sandy shoreline and the cement pier, between a quiet dawn and a vibrant, late-summer day, the wise words of Voltaire greet my always-seeing, brown eyes.  "Cultivate your garden," the enlightened philosopher's words chirp out.  Like a bird in the far-off distance, Francois' lilting, French tongue is still audible after all these years.  "Cultiver son jardin," his voice echoes.  "Cultiver son jardin."

For too long now, I have mistakenly thought that this garden was a physical, geographical location, with mathematical statistics as well as X and Y coordinates that I could plot out on a linear map.  Enthusiastically,  I spent precious time and energy sowing a plot of land behind the duplex that my ex-boyfriend and I once shared in Clairemont.  With ax and shovel, I churned the semi-nutritious soil in the shadows of a crumbling façade as the everyday of a relationship that was simply not meant to be marched on.  The fruits of my labor yielded wild, yellow Bermuda Buttercups in great abundance.  After a wet spring, however, these vulnerable beauties quickly faded and died in the dry heat of a southern summer.

After four, turbulent years of refusing to listen to my intuition - to my bodymindspirit - I moved out.  I left a relationship that did not fuel my soul or meet my ultimate desire for deep intimacy.  I finally chose to work toward feeding my own highest good.  Yet again, I looked in directions outside of myself.  I eagerly jumped onto the local, sustainable food movement's bandwagon thinking that the illusive Garden of Eden that I was seeking was to be found locally, either at La Milpa Organica, at JR Organics or at Suzie's.  With each brilliant success seemingly came a tumultuous, and reactive, step backward.  Fields of Heirloom tomatoes sat ripe and ready on the vine while a mandated quarantine restricted their movement from farm to market.  A popular tide of buying locally grown food was rising, meanwhile a dangerous bill was being written.  Passionate leaders were taking to the movement in droves but were being driven off by a lack of energetic sustainability. 

Thus, the turbulence of change has been rocking the ground underneath all of our feet, for months now.  It isn't just the earthquakes and the free-flowing oil into the Gulf.  It isn't just the hurricanes and the melting Arctic ice shelves.  It's the folds of fabric - of friendship and interpersonal relating - that have also been violently flapping in the wind over the course of the entire past year.  

This time, these moments now, are palpable.  

The shift is here.  

Can you feel it?  

Do you sense it? 

Recently, an old acquaintance was honestly inquiring as to what all the brouhaha surrounding the year 2012 was about.  Mayan predictions and dooms-day headlines aside, what we are currently experiencing is, quite simply, the next evolutionary step of our species.  Our paradigm is shifting.  In the recent past, our evolutions have included the development and use of stone tools, the accrual of spoken language, the invention of art and city centers, and the birth of the agricultural and industrial revolutions.  In the last century, the technological revolution brought with it the computer and, yet another, change in how we communicate and function in this world.  Obviously, what it means to be human has been in a constant state of flux for millennium.  Actually, change has been the only constant we have known since the beginning of time - as we tell it.

What, then, does this next change have in store?

And, what does cultivating your garden have to do with it?

 

These Idyllwild Skies

"This clash of two minds fiercely independent on the side

when our observant eyes catch each other's soft smile

and begins this ride

and I feel like I've known you for a long time now...

You're a fighter, never losing patience,

Cara, my best friend, come on and smile with me"  --KGM

An undulating road winds east

beyond Temecula and through Aguanga out past

Phil Noble's Sage Mountain Farm

and onto Highway 371

where fields of amber wave in a warm, high desert air

and Garner Valley sits stoic and serene

eagerly, I navigate the familiar terrain

as my eyes greedily soak in towering, granite peaks

Slowly, my sputtering vehicle crests the last hill

and the small, mountain town

a mile high, and counting

comes into view

Tahquish sits chiefly above

nodding at my return, beckoning me back

to climb his slick, rock facade

Dusk descends and once again

the midnight sky is split open

broken in half by a coagulated mass

meandering like a drunken road

Great spirit hummingbird has busily pecked 

microscopic holes and brilliant specks into 

the interwoven tapestry above

a cosmic consciousness pours through 

bathing my milky skin

with its pure light

I breathe in

and center

I breathe out

and release

I breathe in

and honor

my home

this om

this One EarthBody

this momentary beat called Cara

this now

this silent stillness

I 

am.

"It Is What It Is"

bow slices across
these silent, still waters
the radiating pulse of a newly discovered, internal rhythm
plays out

swoosh swoosh

"it is what it is," some distant, wise voice beckons

rock falls
overhead
in the burning the magnanimous mass is reduced
molten magma leaves an illuminated trail
tracing its ephemeral path across my heart
with persistence, the rubble will fall
onto this earth
and into these liquid, primal waters
where right wrist twists, and a symmetrical oar
dives
into a black expansiveness

swoosh swoosh

the void below
reflects and mirrors
what floats above

swoosh swoosh

a deep reverie illuminates my soul
"it is what it is," the singer sings

swoosh swoosh

gone is the longing, departed is the seeking
the resistance has withdrawn
now
all that remains is the bow
silently cutting its swath across
these still, San Diego waters
all that remains is pure surrender
and raw vulnerability
"it is what it is"

swoosh swoosh

Rubbed Raw

"You were once wild here.  Don't let them tame you!"  

--Isadora Duncan, the grand matriarch of Modern Dance

In this new year alone, the turbulence has been continually shaking the ground below my own two feet.  And I have yet to really physically feel any of the 500+ earthquakes that have trembled this southern California terrain since April!
From imbalanced psychological states to violent communication, from a painful suicide to the death of my ego and from barren soil to unfertilized seeds, I have been repeatedly rubbed raw by the tumult of these times.
Most recently, the loss of La Milpa Organica - as a thriving and vibrant local farm here in San Diego County where people of all walks of life gathered in communal celebration and to witness the art of agriculture first hand - cuts deep.  It isn't as though La Milpa is some illusive Garden of Eden, free of human fallibility and contradiction.  Rather, it's a deeply human meeting place where we could gather to simply be FREE ~ free of OSHA and forced obedience; free of oppressive constructs and life-sucking dread; free of must do's and gotta have's; free of commercial refrains and noxious subliminal messaging.  La Milpa isn't perfect, mind you.

(What would perfect freedom look like, anyhow?)

I compare La Milpa to my favorite southern California hot springs - Deep Creek in Apple Valley, just outside of Victorville.  Deep Creek is a wonderland hidden below towering pines in a remote canyon, where a meandering Mojave River runs along the Pacific Crest Trail in San Bernardino County.  With a large, cold pond surrounded by seven hot pools (helpfully erected by humans), there is truly nothing like sitting naked in a hot spring as dusk descends overhead and as the sense of being held safe within the comforting womb of planet Earth once again settles deeply into your soul.
On busy holidays and on weekends, hiking the strenuous trail down to Deep Creek is best done early, before the tourists and the locals come out of the woodwork, like termites for a feast. On these days, I have been disappointed to discover my fellow revelers dressed in bathing suits, covering up their human glory with manufactured designs.  On these days, I always wonder why these revelers can't just go naked ~ like everyone else!  Why must they feel the need to still shamefully hide their naked vulnerability?  Why can't they go to the beach if they want to wear their swimsuits?!?!?!?
The recognition that I must work to preserve and protect these places, where we can still be relatively "free," dawns on me.

And, this is what La Milpa Organica has represented to San Diego County for the past seven years and to me over the course of this past year.  La Milpa manager, Barry Logan, isn't a farmer or a businessman.  He's a philosopher - hence, his and my connection.  From his vision, La Milpa grew into a haven for counter-culturals, post-modern revolutionaries  and neo-peasants.  All people - just like you and me - who simply want to experience what it means to truly sustain the Self along with the Whole.  Who want to amble in fields of gold, bare-footed and fancy free, humming melodic tunes while strumming funky banjos.  Who work together toward something bigger than one mere person ~ a just future, perhaps?  Whose very BE-ing reminds us that discovering and unleashing the unique rhythm of our own wild hearts isn't just for the privileged few - it is a neccesary mandate for a life well lived.
So, raise that hoe of yours and start planting the awesome gifts that you were born with - those "fertilized seeds" - into the soil around you.  When asked what he'd do if he found out that the world was going to end tomorrow, St. Francis said, "I'd keep hoe'ing."

The Pain of Transformation

It has been said that change is turbulent.

The evidence to support this statement is plentiful.  

Consider the transformations that you have experienced in your brief lifetime – 

from the discomfort of your teeth growing in to the aching onslaught of puberty and hormones; 

from the anxiety of beginning anything anew to the distress of changing schools, jobs or homes; 

and from the agony of the loss of a physical ability to the uneasiness of an alteration to your external appearance.   

Now, consider the time period that we find ourselves in: 

extreme weather patterns are affecting global climate; 

major earthquakes are regularly shaking the ground below our feet; 

burst pipes from offshore drilling had oil free-flowing into the Gulf of Mexico, for months; 

fervent zealotry between neighboring countries has reached fevered pitches; 

and primal fear has people arguing and fighting over resources, dogma and the impending future.  What ever it is that is happening, we are all palpably feeling it. 

Transformation is here, it is now.

Can you - do you - feel it?  How is it manifesting itself in your life?

And, most importantly,

what seeds are you sowing now that will help remind you of your fully embodied nature when the going gets tough and the tough gets going?  After all, the ride has only just begun.  Regardless of what may or may not come however, the reality of life is that this is one, big, HUGE, cosmic soap opera - 

a lumbering crab may be minding its own business but that doesn’t stop a hungry seagull from swooping down and scooping it up in its bill.  Yes, life is dramatic and it can be painful suffering.  Sometimes, there is simply nothing we can do to avoid this pitfall.  What we can do though is to, at least, try and have something steady and centering that we can hold onto as well as keep coming back to, especially when the world below our feet is shaking, rattling and rolling.   

Rest assured, we’re going to need it. 

An Interlude

Civilized man sought to turn me

into his beast of burden

with enforced wake up calls

and a daily, repetitive pattern

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

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?