SUMMER OF LOVE

(Preface: Photo above is four years old.  Today, I am a little curvier.  This is not false advertising, rather it is story telling.  I am still sporting the same bikini, however it will bee retired come the end of this season.  Back then, my Spirit was hurting - I had just moved out of a co-dependent and abusive relationship and I also had just completed another soul crushing experiment known as grad school.  While at Swami's then, all I could do was to quietly sit and gaze out at the horizon.  Now, I am happily more weighted and grounded, rooted and clear.  Also, sharing the above pushes my edges to not care what anyone thinks.  All I know is that if it gets you to read what follows....)


It's July 15th, and for those of us residing in the northern hemisphere, we find ourselves at a half way point - caught up in the full throes of the Summer of LOVE, 2013.  Yesterday, on the way to Dance Church, O. and I were speaking into how profoundly healing for our Souls all of the time spent bee-ing held in the great womb of the Earth has been.  At Swami's yesterday, a group of fifteen of us - children and adults alike - swam, dove, screamed, cheered, caught big waves, duck dove under other big waves and more, together just off the shore in Encinitas.  When a few of my peers commented that it was their first time in the water in awhile, I cajoled them to commit to spending the rest of their summer daze in the ocean.  "Let's heal, friends!"

During an extremely uptempo and heart-acceleratin' session of Dance Church, during which DJ God was at the sound system, we found ourselves shriekin' and calling, whistlin' and hootin', cryin' and hallelujah'ing - "Lord, have mercy!" ; )  I gazed around the studio, at our collective space and at the faces that remain, for the extraneous fluff has fallen off - those who participate only to stroke their own egos or to take from the experience rather than GIVE to it are not currently present.  Instead, it is the US who have been at this for years - rubbing up against one anothers' edges, smoothing our individual surfaces in the process and honoring that our biggest work in this lifetime now is showing up, week after week and moment after moment.  Committing and present to our very simple and extremely flawed humanity.  

There's no fame or fortune here, no glamour or haughtiness.  There is only this - bee-ing in our bodies, warm hearts ferociously on fire, silent mouths gasping for breath, expressive loins answering our Souls' calls for greater expression in our world, now.  Now.  Not tomorrow, not when we're rich, not when we've saved the planet and everyone is following in line.  NOW NOW NOW.  In your body, out of your mind.  In your heart, out of the fear.  In your lungs, out of the morbidity.  In your gut, out of the complacency.  NOW.

Some of "US" at Eveoke years ago - bad news has it that this amazing non-profit is losing its phenomenal studio space at the end of this summer.  This makes us all very sad....