Friday, June 29, 2012

REAL

Sportin' an Organic Tattoo
Fu$k!  This black water dragon year is no joke.  It's only been four months since the Hive was booted out of the Art Center.  That was hell, truth be told.  I felt completely abandoned by so many who thought only of their needs or projects when it was time for "fun" sleepovers and potluck dinners, yet were conspicuously absent when the work of having to clean, pack and move was imminent.  Granted, I didn't ask for help ~ I guess I just always assume that we'll pitch in and do what needs to be done in order to sustain our community.  (Kind of like the way I move through the world - others don't always ask me to step forward and lead; to pick up trash along the coastline on my own time, for example.  I just do - because it needs to be done.)  However, when I don't ask, I refuse others the opportunity for growth and deepening.  I get that now.  In a lot of ways, I believe that was part of the gift of the rattlesnake medicine dose that I received just one month later.

Welcome Home! ~ to the Roots Collective
Suffice it to type, I felt 110% depleted by the experience of the Hive, in so many ways.  I was grateful to have a friend's nourishing Carlsbad apartment to rejuvenate myself within for the first half of March.  Both RadSab and SA spent a night, or two, there with me, preparing for their departure to the SxSW Music Festival.  Radsab entered the apartment and exclaimed, "I was wondering where you would fall, Cara.  And, here you are - in a place that mirrors the Hive's high vibration."  I can't say the same thing about my parent's house, however - where I spent two months recuperating from my venomous bite.  And, c'est la vie - I recognize now how vitally important it is for me to have a sense of the place within which we are culturally situated.  The "reality" that we buy so willingly and that is sold to us so offensively is far from the truth that resides deep in my heart.
Chard & Painting, anyone?
I have been struggling to land, of late, and it's a bit painful because here I am in exactly the place where I am meant to bee - sharing a gorgeous, craftsman home on a hill above downtown San Diego with five, amazing women, three chickens and a flourishing garden.  Wow!  Thank you, Universe!  I RECEIVE.  And, I've been too hard on myself - judging me for my own inauthenticity and human contradiction.  Yesterday, one of my sweetest sistahs held space for me as I released what is a true sickness from my Spirit.  "I'm so tired of feeling like I am of little worth because of money," I cried.  "Especially when my power is so authentic.  My life giving force is situated in my bee-ing - it is my birthright and it is deeply entwined in my relationship with this planet." 
Yes, I surrender ~ to what is REAL.

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

FAKE

For the past few years, I've held this judgment in. 
Initially, it was the Joker-like grin of another staring into the eye of a camera that set off my immediate alarm as the metallic resonance of the word "INAUTHENTIC!!!!" rang in my mouth.  However, it's also been the celebrity culture statements of Instagram, Tweets and Facebook posts that have had me shaking my head in disdain.  "They're so fake" I'd lament.  Even when I was, sometimes, embarrassed to find my own name being listed. ; )

Then time slips by, change happens and the only guise I see looking back at me is my own. 
It's a painfully bitter pill to swallow.
"Ouch!" I retract from myself.  "You mean, I was judging myself the whole time?"
"FU$K."
Yeah.

So, here I sit and stew within a life that is just not working.  Sustainability appears to be a lofty ideal located light years away.  It doesn't feel good, even as it seems necessary.  I guess it's the only way forward - this acknowledgment of all that is broken as well as a dire need to forgive myself, first and foremost.  After all, to contradict one's self is human.  Perhaps these days, I can continue to simply celebrate that by allowing myself to show up in the world exactly as who I am - a HUMAN Bee~ing - I come a little bit closer to being "real." 

The difference between now and then, however, is that I'm no longer going to sacrifice the rife opportunities that surround me.  There's a vision I hold dear and although I'm nowhere near it yet, I glance around me and notice...

I'm sleeping next to a true Queen of sustainability and I'm working beside a real powerhouse.
So, I must bee on to something. 

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

LEADership




Watch Tanya Paluso and I discuss "Co-Creative Leadership" and listen to how we've been applying it to Tribal Truth - a leadership program in which women are co-creating the new paradigm of feminine collaboration.

Tribal Truth meets bi-monthly - our next gathering is July 19th, 6-9pm in the San Diego area. 

July's theme is INTIMACY & SENSUALITY.
(Two of my favorite things!)
(Below are some of Tanya's words about it... COME!)

"Are you in your body?

Or, are you in your head?

Do you have trouble connecting eye to eye with other people?

Are you present in your conversations or easily distracted by shiny objects in the background?

If you are someone who wants to be more confident in delivering your gifts to the world and just let it all flow effortlessly, then it is essential that you are present and in your body.

It is essential that you are open to receive.

It is essential that you allow others to see you.

This is intimacy.

Want more people to notice your gifts and services? It's directly linked to your ability to be intimate with others.

Want more money? It's directly linked to your ability to express your sensuality.

When you are in your body, people can feel you. You radiate. You shine. You are a magnet. You are irresistible.

This is your leadership.

This is why this month's topic is Intimacy and Sensuality. We want to see you turned on, sexy, alive, vibrant and open.

The world is waiting for you to expose yourself. That rawness, that vulnerability, it is so beautiful.

Come unleash yourself at Tribal Truth this month in the safety, love and support of the tribe."

RSVP here: http://www.tribal-truth.com/sd

Monday, June 25, 2012

from BABY STEPs to WALKing

"If one dream should fall and break into a thousand pieces, never be afraid to pick one of those pieces up and begin again."  
~Flavia Weedn, Flavia and the Dream Maker, © Flavia.com


SUMMER = NEW BEGINNINGS
Make your mark, now.
How do you
do?

JUST BEE.

Saturday, June 23, 2012

summer solstice 2012

 This Sunday, June 24th, Las Raices Collectiva - my home and one of San Diego's many living cooperatives, located on a golden hill in Sherman Heights - is hosting a summer solstice housewarming event.  From 4-7pm, the women will gather for intentional ceremony & ritual and then, at 7pm, all are welcome for a music, dance & art hoedown complete with chickens in the yard and a flourishing garden.  Bring food & libation of choice to share, as well as your instruments and personal gifts.  Bring your poetry and words, too.  Below are some of mine, written in 2010.


"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, a metal shaft slides
colliding heavy mass shakes a boiling, magma core,
in which every whim is taken without
regard without remorse without conscience without
bee-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 shining spectrum
a vibrant thread weaving a brilliant tapestry of motion and metaphor
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.

Friday, June 22, 2012

[frog]ger

We whiz in between the cars,
your hand pressing the accelerator
my arms 'round your chest.
Upright in red, against black leather seat,
head thrown back in delight,
we press the outer limits
of time and space
of earth and sky
spirit and form.
Perhaps life is but the milloscopic segments of an already written path
littered with ambling walks to nowhere, while miracles lurk below your feet.
Staring across a wooden fence, you look out and wonder "why?"
"Why?!"
It just is. Perhaps, it just is.
No rhyme or reason,
no specter nor sport,
only this, now ~
jaw agape, deep guffaws ringing through her helmet,
wind whipping her words away.
"Soy aqui," he cries.
"Soy aqui."
I am here, she laughs.
And, together, we are there.



Tuesday, June 19, 2012

A New Creation Story


Death and decaying falling off, listlessly fluttering like leaves in the breeze,
drying up, diminishing, dissipating, losing, losing, lost.

In a dream induced haze, I wander
wondering when
this construct, this facade 
this destructive bent will follow suit, will also come spinning
to its final halt.
 
Tragic, sad and withering, wrinkles emerge, deep and creased,
fingers absent-mindedly picked at
and a busy mind chirps on in endless epitaphs.

An imaginary divide it purports separation,
as I seek to escape its vice-like grip
but I am no more than a captive prisoner in its deathly hold
waiting out these days
willing new ways
as I cry and scream and shout
"Hold me!"
and
"Let me just hold you!"

Let these walls of textiles, wood, brick and mortar
of thought, dogma and morality,
of numbers, figures, date and time
fall off
into the wind
floating irreverently about
until they reach their one final note
cast off like the invisible chains they are
no longer keeping us
from one another
from the truth
that we all hold dear deep down
inside
the black bottomless pits of our
shared humanity, of our animal soles
of our wanting, primal nature.

Take me back to the time before
the fall
that loss of grace
and this notion of sin
take me back
to a green and lush planet Earth
where all species roamed free
to exert their own necessary whims
take me back
take me
back
take me
take.

Find me in a period when
my presence is worthy enough
when my actions speak
only of this moment now
when there is no
one
right
way
when we are
we just are
we were
are we
aware?

Monday, June 18, 2012

KISS


(I call it) MAGIC 

Your kiss
like dark, nutritious soil,
churned within the Earth and now contained
in the back of your truck,

warm and rich, fertile and waiting,
as you press, and I hold,
as you hint, and I respond, 
slow to accumulate,
yet awaiting the moment
to burst forth and emerge.

--2012 (in who is to know what will grow)


Your kiss
like black, spectacled reflections
under a sunny, San Diego sky as local beats
persisted and pervaded and night fell upon
our shoulders
and upon a cityscape
where starlight twinkled
and moonshadows danced
out and over
a quarter-pipe.

--2011 (in sweetness)

Your kiss
like giant space rock
bursting into flame
overhead
shot through
this wandering soulstar
puncturing its atmosphere
leaving it to burn
in orange anticipation and
in the heat of red's passion
awaiting
your lip's return.  
--2005 (in passion)




(Yes, she likes to kiss and tell.)

Friday, June 15, 2012

FLOW

After weeks of agitation derived from too much time spent caught up in a seemingly inescapable web of media and mayhem, of fear and loathing, I flew back into the gentle arms of a harmonious Mother.  She was quick to acknowledge my return with her intuitive signs and markers illuminating my path once again, from the audible sounds of soul mates repeating the same phrase, "HOT MESS!" to the visual letters of "SHAKES THE EARTH" jumping out at me from an article in an architecture & design magazine in a strange office.  And, my breath elongates as trust settles back into my bones.
I AM HOME.

At home, I hang clothes on the clothesline, tend to the chicken feed, water the garden and revel in a live, improvisational music and dance jam with my talented housemate whom I have shared an unfolding dance of harmony with for millennium.  I AM HOME.  Basking in the glow of our shared moments of fluid time and space, I grab a book from the shelf that speaks of this moment now and "randomly" flip to a page (much like a Ta'rot card reader "randomly" turns over the cards).

From Hazrat Inayat Khan's "The Music of Life," I read in the chapter about Knowledge of Vibration & INSIGHT:

"There are souls who sometimes seem to be doing nothing; & a person thinks, "Yes, they are most spiritual people, I suppose. But what are they doing?" because what we know about doing is hustling & bustling & being busy all the time.  However unimportant, yet something must be done; that is the thought.  But when a person is evolved, even if outwardly he may not seem to be doing anything, he is doing, and he can do, much greater works inwardly than one can notice outwardly." 

I find what I don't know I am looking for, skimming the two pages silently to myself.  Then, I share with her a few passages.  "That book is from the house where I stayed before I came to stay with you in the Hive," SA says.  I chuckle, close the book, and say, "Of course it is!"
And, together, WE ARE HOME.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

IMPERFECT

I'm imperfect, by all means.  "Perfectly flawed and flawlessly imperfect," is how I've said it for awhile now.  I take more than my fair share, even as I am provided for magnificently by the Universe, this planet and others.  I can take too much, especially from my own Mother.  So, I try and include her in my life, in my friendships & in my on-goings.  You'll see her in my pictures, in a video of me dancing, at the Vagina Monologues production and more.  I try and take responsibility in my relationship with her by saying "I'm sorry" when I've behaved UGLY (because I am human) or simply because she needs to hear it.  I offer kisses and an "I love you" when I can.  I'm still learning how to SOFTEN SOFTEN soften in this most primal of dances which mistakenly taught me that avoiding and suppressing VULNERABILITY is forward movement.  (When, in fact, it is actually stagnation.)

I also take too much from our Mother ~ sucking up & out her precious, internal resources as I fill gas tank after gas tank with petroleum or as I consume plastics at an irresponsible & reckless rate.  So, I try to not own a vehicle.  I try to rely on alternative forms of transportation, like a bicycle (Oh!! Especially like a bicycle!), and I try to re-use a lot a lot a lot.  I've learned resourcefulness and how to make lemonade from lemons.  I'm doing the best I can and I can always do better. 

It's been three months since the Prosperity Hive leaped out of the Art Center, two months since I was bitten by a rattlesnake and now I'm blessed to find myself living cooperatively in a lovely, craftsman home on a hill above downtown San Diego where the garden is flourishing and chickens strut and with five other women, including two farmers who fill our kitchen with locally grown produce every week.  It's a true embodiment of my heart-felt value system And, soon enough, we'll have a beehive in our backyard, too.  ; )

In my imperfection, I've also spent too much time judging others and, as a result, I reap the seeds that I have sown with my own two hands.  Staring my hypocrisy in the face doesn't feel good, yet what I'm learning is that the others with whom I have had preconceived "negative" notions about are exactly those who I am learning the biggest life lessons from and withFunny how that happens.  

So, even in my fragile and contradictory state, I am offered the opportunity for deepening into what I know to be a truth. 
I say "I love YOU" because every place my eyes fall upon is simply a reflection of me.  
And, these days, I'm just trying the best I can to show up and 
LOVE ME...

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

BURN

"A Truth Teller is a woman who offers what is deep in her heart - at all costs. She is empowered to use her voice, to reclaim her body, and to boldly lead in this new paradigm from a place of heart centered wisdom." 
-- Cara H. Cadwallader with Tanya Paluso in Co-Creative Leadership
 
 

Friday, June 8, 2012

vulnerable

I almost caused a car accident yesterday.
Highly agitated and lacking presence, I nearly merged into someone on the I-15.
Ironically, I was headed to a meeting with T, who was in her own
car accident just last week.  While socializing before our bi-monthly gathering of tribal sisterhood and truth telling, I consumed a glass and a half of wine as a way of soothing my discomfort.  It was a temporary relief.

I'm currently staring my ugliness, my fakeness and my lack of showing up full in the face and it sucks.  It's painful to look at my own disempowerment - to see how I have been avoiding sharing the fullest of my expression by hiding, always hiding, and to recognize how everything that comes back to me is simply a reflection of all of this.  I've been on my own shit list for way too long.  Yet, here I still sit, immobilized by fear and loathing.    

So, this morning, T hosts a conference call during which she gives voice to her own lack of authenticity and self-worth.  Her excruciating vulnerability gives me permission to do the same.  Not long after, as I sat down to write about my recent reflections in my most trusted journal, my cell phone rings.  I think it's the Universe calling because at 11:00am the number reads "000-000-1111."  "Our number is up," I think, as I reflect on how we've been brought together, now, to help each other EVOLVE.

Then, when I begin to finish this blogpost - a task I've been struggling to complete this week due to my extremely disharmonious state, even though your pageviews from Colombia to China, from the United Arab Emirates to Brazil, and from the Ukraine to India let me know that you're here waiting  - she texts. 

"What are my 3 best qualities?" she wants to know.  "Commitment, purpose and drive," I quickly respond.  "Yours are power, love and generosity," she easily replies.  And, I don't know what's to come, however I'm feeling that TRUST seems to bee all I can do now.



Monday, June 4, 2012

TEARS

"You can ring my bell, ell, ell, 
Ring My Bell,
My Bell,
ringaringaringa..."  
--Anita Ward

Break me open, with your rhythm and your dance,
Set me free, from these invisible chains 
of slavery
I impose upon my Self
the doors remain unlocked
yet the four walls erected around my brain convince me otherwise.

Three years old and the sound rocked me,
shook me from my innocent stupor,
taking me on a magic carpet ride away
from all of the spaces
of hurting and brokenness, of purpose lost and distraction found,
of pain and resentment, of brainwashing and subliminal messaging.
Do you know that I still struggle to free my Self?

Here I sit, on the precipice between 
all that has come before
all of the taking and disregard, all of the confusion and disrespect,
and all that is to come, 
all of the open hearted willingness to bee the harmony,
to bee the peace and the love.   

We are on the brink of righting true beauty.

My fear is a blanket, it covers my shaking body,
lulling me into a hypnotic state of feigned comfort.
It's call is a lull too hard to ignore as I question my own strength.
Do I trust myself with this now?
I do not know.

I totter like a baby, pulled towards a future that I can not fathom.
I am forced to release my expectations, yet what I feel inside is made manifest outside
for the numbers are telling.  Destiny calls.
What song it sings, only time will tell.  So, I reflect on my own sage advice,
"Choosing Love Means Choosing Work."

The path is clear.  The keystones have been put in place.
All there is to do now is to keep showing up and moving forward,
For soon enough these baby steps will once again become
a sure footed jaunt through this space time warp.

And I'll see you on the other side.
  
 

 
 


Friday, June 1, 2012

(baby steps)

"Vulnerable is THE sexiest way of bee-ing," she writes.
"With all of our collective focus on living our purpose and embodying our Godliness, we've forgotten just how important it is for us to be seen and heard when we fall off of our proverbial horses."

My horse has been an ILLUSION.
Now, caught within the painful visage of my own inauthenticity, I slowly dust myself off.
The road ahead appears daunting.  Perhaps, this too is only a mirage, however.  So, I begin the slow walk forward, one foot in front of the other - baby steps.