Here, Now

A evening spent amongst local poets,
mainly a bunch of old, white men "praising" the "long dark nights" of the Soul. 
And, it's cool - the changing of the guard is a gradual process. 
This is just the way it looks, here, for now.

Up on that stage in my red dress and faux-Frida, Hallow's Eve look,
I spit my post-feminisism rant.  "GOD HAS CURVES, yo!" I was frothing at the mouth.  Witnessing my hip-gyrations and feeling my rhythmic flow, their resounding applause followed.  I don't think they know what him them.   "Punch You in the Face!" the featured artist later intoned, his prose sing-song read by a masked luchadore. 

Black booted feet traversing the small business of a local man selling books and mementos, the edges of my memory traced familiarity.  I've been steadily marching towards this beat since the day I was born.  I just never knew.  I never knew.  Always and ever only a feeling - a sense of magic, a touch of the witch's wile.  Something is different here, but what it is I don't know.  I guess I am Spiritual but even that felt odd - an unfamiliar taste that hinted at a much deeper, darker truth.  I just didn't know. 

Running barefooted through the era of Reagonomics, our western counterparts were writing in our beecoming.   
"The Dark Feminine Has Risen," they intuited.  
Goddess Incarnate once more walks upon this Earth ~ just in time to right the heavy imbalance, to lighten our burdened load.  White Buffalo Calf Woman.  Innana.  Ishtar.  Isis.  The Black Madonna.  Durga.  Kali.  Kwan Yin. 
ALL MEDICINE WOMEN.  Here.  Now.

And, Now
I KNOW.
I KNOW.
  

Sundays at the Park

There's this swesome sculpture at Swami's Park on the 101.
Have you seen it?
It's the face of a Moai - monolithic human figures carved by the Rapa Nui people from rock on the Chilean Polynesian island of Easter Island between the years 1250 and 1500a.
Only, our modern version here in Encinitas was carved into the trunk of a still rooted tree that was cut down by the city government a few years ago.

Are you familiar with the tale of Easter Island (as we call it)?

Polynesian people settled on Easter Island in the first millennium CE, and created a thriving culture, as evidenced by the moai and other artifacts.  However, human activity, the introduction of the Polynesian rat and overpopulation led to gradual deforestation and extinction of natural resources, which caused the demise of the Rapa Nui civilization.  By the time of European arrival in 1722, the island's population had dropped to 2,000–3,000 from a high of approximately 15,000 just a century earlier.  In recent times the island has served as a warning of the cultural and environmental dangers of exploitation.

Is this 'art' a sign, an omen, of the time to come?  Beecuase if we don't learn from the mistakes of our past, if we don't listen to the whispers of this now.... and, I have to bee openly honest about how much it hurts to live in a spiritual mecca town and to bee surrounded by peers who still erroneously beelieve that the new consciousness that our planet is calling for - and demands - is about money and inauthentic power (i.e. fame, material wealth & success, etc.)

Rather, the way forward is about CONNECTION, INTIMACY, and SENSUALITY.  It's about your experiencing an ABUNDANCE of this in your LIFE, with yourself, others and Planet Earth.  It's about EMBODYING this TRUE PROSPERITY.  The beeautiful thing about this park, and this sculpture, is that every Sunday, from 2pm till dusk, you will find an intergenerational and diverse community of people gathered.  

Families, parents, friends, strangers and peers sitting together, breaking bread, dancing across a slackline or with hula hoops, practicing Falun Gong, and more.  And, you are always welcome to either JOIN US or to embody the solution in your town, with your neighbors.  The SOLUTION IS SIMPLE- back to Earth basics.  No thinking needed.

p.s. This music/song has such sweet significance to my life, dating back to when I was fourteen, and a part of a performance art marching team in high school.  xoxox.

Cara's Video Blog for October 29, 2013

GO HERE TO VIEW VIDEOBLOG

This was what I really wanted to share with you all today.

My earlier blogposting from today was just me finally calling out someone else's bull$hit
...
(after privately putting up with it for too long now)!

I have gained more clarity and comfort in expressing and delineating my boundaries in this year of the Snake.

Here's to your doing the same.

not a victim

Hey Cara,

 

How are you girlfriend?

 

Can you please die so I can live. Jump off a bridge. Whatever.

 

Whatever I've done (showed up in a fucking garden one too many times) can not compare to your daily rape and violations that have been going on for years and years.

Jerk yer meat to this motherfucker(s) How many are there??????????????????

I don't work because of you, bitch.

You've fucking won. I can't live unless I go to those

fucking retarded meetings and there is no fucking way

I'm going to those retarded stupid meetings with your sick sick psycho games. 

 

You're a smart motherfucker. You have blood on your hands, bitch.  

 

Thanks, Fiona

 

Subject:	pleasekillyourselfNOW
From:	Fiona McLean <fionamclean@sbcglobal.net> (Add as Preferred Sender)
Date:	Tue, Oct 29, 2013 4:13 pm
To:	"cara@beelovenow.org" <cara@beelovenow.org>

 

"REVOLUTION is not an event, it's a PROCESS"

I've got this tale inside of me that I really need to write.  It's about power and emasculation, it's about anger and man's sense of powerlessness.  It's about civilization as we now know it and how it is on a crash course for catastrophe if we do not change our ways now.  
The headlines on the paper are grim.  "BAD NEWS FOR PEOPLE WHO LIVE ON PLANET EARTH" the Huffingpost had one little box shouting a few days ago.  I couldn't even bring myself to click on it.  Meanwhile, the state of Texas is attempting to have the voting rights of women removed.  What?  Yeah.  

In a cultural studies class as an undergraduate student at Sonoma State, my professor began by defining his credentials for us on the whiteboard.  "B.S.  M.S.  PhD." he wrote out with chalk.  "Anyone know what this means?" he asked.  "BULLSHIT.  MORE SHIT.  PILED HIGH and DEEP," he said.  I sat up straighter and listened a little deeper after that beecause, obviously, this man was willing to spit the truth.

An African-American man in his middle ages, he then went on to ask us, "Which do you think will be eradicated in this country first?  Racism or Sexism?"
We had a colorful debate and then he gave his answer.  "It's a man's world, folks," is essentially what he said.

And as I look at the "progress" currently beeing made in the world - within the civil rights movement and the naturalizing of gay marriage in many countries across the world as well as the legalization of marijuana and the acceptance of it as a much less harmful narcotic than alcohol, I also notice how women remain much more likely to make news headlines beecause of what they were wearing and how they looked and especially for "losing the weight after the birth of their baby."

And, I'm like, "Wait.  What?"  THIS AIN'T PROGRESS, yo!  It' s more of the same - wrapped up in a different colored turtle neck.  In all these images coming out of Washington regarding the recent government shut down, the photos show these pasty white, curmudgeonly old senators who look like walking death.  They have no vitality, whatsoever.  And, I'm like "who elects these people?  We really expect them to guide us towards the light of chasing LIFE?"  (Thank God Marianne Williamson has declared her run for Congress.  This thought alone brought some bright HOPE into my world this week.)

Yet, while watching television with my mother yesterday and really enjoying seeing the induction of both Public Enemy and RUSH into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I couldn't help but notice that, wow!, there are not really any women represented on that stage.  "Women don't make music as much as men?" I asked myself.  HA!  Then, my mother sent me to Wal-Mart to buy her groceries.  SIGH.  Yet another reminder, all too up close and personal, how deeply ingrained in our American psyche our unsustainable way of unconscious taking is.  PLASTIC BAGS SHOULD BE ILLEGAL NOW!  (to beegin with.)

"The Earth is resilient," my lover responded the other day, as I was lamenting about how we need to change our ways now.  "I'm not worried about the Earth," I told him.  "It's US that is at stake here.  This is about the evolution of our species.  And, I don't know about you but I refuse to beecome a robot."  "Ha, ha, we won't beecome robots," he absentmindedly chuckles in response, as his fingers type out a quick text, and his vision remains firm on the numerous web browsers on his desktop, a place where he streams Facebook all day long.  "Hmmmm... yeah," is all I think in response.  

REVOLUTION IS A PROCESS, Friends.  
It's time we woke up!

NO MUD, NO LOTUS

"NO MUD, NO LOTUS,"
the sign reads, as I saunter into work to (finally!) pick up my paycheck.
Tasting the sweetness of this simple statement, a shit-eating grin enlivens my face.
We're all trying to buy our way to enlightenment while forgetting that the only way there is through the thick sludge. 

I walk into the back room where a gorgeous bouquet of pink roses and carnations awaits my arrival.  "Happy Birthday," my co-workers cheer.  "Who are the flowers from?" their inquiring minds want to know.  And I laugh at the messiness of it all and how learning to respect myself - by putting me first - has been the toughest lesson yet.  In fact, I am still tending to it.

Last night, while tending to the needs of a soul sistar, her eldest son beecame enraged.  Charging at his younger brother, I jumped up to place my body in the way of his oncoming attack.  Pressing his belly into mine, his arms and fists went wildly careening beehind me where his younger brother found refuge.  His love for me coupled with the lack of resistance that he met brought his  emotional body to its breaking point.  He removed himself from the room, threw his withered soul onto his mom's bed and cried his almost ten-year-old eyes out.  Soon, she left me to tend to cleanup time in order to hold, support and listen to her sweet child.

In those moments, I felt a little deeper into this collective mess that we're all in.  Last weekend, after that Full Moon Lunar Eclipse and a Friday night spent attending a few of my soul sistars' graduation from ShaktiRising and then helping to hold ecstatic dance space, I awoke Saturday morning with a profound clarity.  "It's anger," I said to my lover. 

In full compassion and self-understanding, I knew then where my adulthood of resistance and resentment was rooted.  As I traced all of this un-expressed e-motion back, I saw its beginnings - helplessness.  Last night, that was what I once again saw in motion - the consequences that powerlessness wreaks in our lives.  It reminded me of a time when, as a girl child, I was forced to retrieve the thick, leather belt so that my sister - my beloved teacher and most favorite person in the whole, wide world! - could receive a beating with it right there in front of my eyes. 

The noxious pit that sinks into one's stomach in these moments doesn't go away - it grows and grows and grows, until we're addicted and distracted, we're homeless and distraught, we're allowing for continued abuse and disrespect.  We're so confused we can't even see straight.  It takes a lot of undoing.  It requires great effort to allow the fake lotus to drop away and to stay firm in the muck - trusting that the only way back out, is through.

SOLUTIONS ARE SIMPLE

There's been a maelstrom of news stories regarding children killing others on their school campuses of late.  Young people are bringing guns and knives to school and are killing, either in cold blood or by accident, their teachers and friends.

Now, I don't know about you but I was raised with a BULLY (two of them actually).  The biggest bully in my life was the same person whom I had to return home to, again and again.  Yet, even after each beating and every verbal attack, I never once contemplated murder.  Rather, there was adoption (by Huey Lewis and Madonna, no less!) to fantasize about as well as the option of running away (which I did, three times.)  And, forgive me oh heavenly Saint, but I am sure I may have, on one occasion or two, prayed for early deaths - either mine or theirs.  But violent fantasies of blood shed and gore?  It just wasn't in my lexicon.

Now I know I am not special.  For one, I am surrounded by peers who were also raised in highly dysfunctional families in which addiction and rage blew like a common breeze.  They, too, are still tending to the wounds of their most primal upbringings while also questioning how to co-create something harmonious.  And, I really don't beelieve the world is all that different of a place today than it was last century - yes, there are more people on the planet and yes, we have easier access to mind-boggling media and senseless imagery but people remain,  for the most part, inherently good.  So, what then is driving our children - our most precious youth - to kill?

Don't say cyber-bullying or violent entertainment, please.  Taking our kids outside and away from the screens is the easiest option available to us.  We can do this right now, at any moment.  We can just stop - and tend to the gardens of our children's , as well as our own, Spirits.  And I'm not talking about church - unless it actually has a garden.  I am talking about the places and spaces where we can be free and joyous, embodied and playful, loving and in touch - with ourselves, each other and planet Earth.

All too soon, some backwoods politician will suggest, "I recommend that all American children pass through metal detectors upon entrance to their schools and that we then lock the doors behind them," and we the people, tired and weary from so much time spent not feeding our deep hunger for real time connection, will simply jump on yet another nationalistic bandwagon to hell.  The loss of our civil liberties requires little effort - meanwhile, the energy it requires to shift the direction of all of this is great.  Still, passing on jail - for my children, as well as myself - is always my choice. 
What's yours?

I contend that our children are killing each other, themselves and us because of:
-a lack of understanding the dire consequences of our direct actions.  They are, after all, being raised in a culture that refuses to acknowledge the reality of global warming while a 24/7 365 days/year marketing machine idolizes mass consumption and allows the loss of sacred life to be dismissed casually, without remorse or regard.
-the breakdown of community, the loss of a sense of beelonging and the continued fragmentation that "family" endeavors.  
-and the narcissistic Individuality that social media perpetuates.

Now that we have some awareness of the problem, SOLUTIONS ARE SIMPLE.  You can create your own right there in your own neighborhood - let's make the Olympics a community activity that happens every summer; 
let's create our own "American Idol" competitions amongst our neighbors; 
let's grow food and break bread together; 
let's all pray in whatever way feels right to each of us individually as our children are encouraged to walk around, ask questions, try different ways of beeing on, all the while they are beeing fervently loved and shown that they know how to listen to the unique stirrings of their own hearts and that they are always equipped to make the perfect, most harmonious decisions for themselves - no matter how different from our choices these are.

We can do this, friends.  It won't bee easy and it requires us sacrificing what we "think" is good for us.  And that's the thing, we have to let go of our heads - for our future's sake.

River of Tears

"A winner, a champion, will accept his fate.  

He will continue with his wheels in the dirt.  

He will do his best to maintain his line and gradually get himself back on the track when it is safe to do so.  Yes, he loses a few places in the race.  Yes, he is at a disadvantage.  

But he is still racing.  He is still alive. 

The race is long.  It is better to drive within oneself and finish the race behind the others than it is to drive too hard and crash."  

--from Garth Stein's The Art of Racing in the Rain

Plump tears ran down my face, filling my pillow with their sweet wetness.
My Soul experiencing a cleansing, my eyes a release, it was the best birthday gift.

"Why are you crying?" he inquired, after I voraciously consumed Garth Stein's The Art of Racing in the Rain, a novel he had just, hours before, given me on my thirty-seventh.

It was a quiet day, spent in solitude.  With little to no telecommunications or virtual connection capacity, it was just me and the sound of crashing waves.  He stopped in, mid-day.  "I couldn't not see you on your birthday," he said, presenting a reusable bag filled with 'white elephant gifts' - three books and a small stuffed animal, representing Hayao Miyazaki's "Totoro." 

I noticed my inner child pouting, beecoming defensive and wanting to push away.  I allowed her some of her childish petulance and then I leaned into him and admitted to the obvious.  "I am hurting," my wise woman said, as he just held me in his arms, rocking me like a babe in a manger.

Later that night, I cried fat rivulets of tears, as I reflected on purity and innocence, joy and pain, and a beelief system in something greater than this.  We just laid there with him allowing me to bee exactly where I was by rubbing my back, then I answered his question.  "LOVE and beelief make me cry.  They are just so intrinsically beeautiful.  So, I just cry." 

Last year, for my thirty-sixth lap around the sun my focus was on mastery - especially where LOVE was concerned.  As a result, there has been a shedding of a skin called ego, a sinking into a shared intimacy in which there is no question as to the depth of our closeness (thus I am free to exert my vital life force energy elsewhere), and an exertion of boundaries.  This year, my focus is on embodying prosperous solutions for a collective way forward, which is, ultimately, my feeling of what bee-ing "number one" looks like.  Watch me now!

"The car goes where the eyes go."  

--Racing in the Rain

  

LIVING THE SOLUTION

I guess what hurts the most is my own lack of embodiment.  I do, after all, call myself an 'Embodiment Artist.'  It's a tall order
to walk one's talk.  

It's my birthday too
and, mainly, I am giving myself sleep this year.
I am exhausted from months spent tossing and turning in tension and fear.
It's a common refrain - all about money and resources, or a lack thereof.

I thought that going without, that consuming and having less, could bee a viable option,
but it's not.  Not in the city center, and perhaps not in the country either.  "Just Bee-ing" is only one half of the solution.  Yes, we do need to demand that this is enough, that what we have now already is perfect, so "Thank you, but no more" to the cheap plastic products made in China, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, Mexico or wherever, that basically end up in the Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Dump.

Last week, I applied for a gig at a nature-based daycare right here in the backyard of a Leucadian suburban hOMe where a pig sauntered in and out, a row of raised garden beds sat pillaged by said pot-belly, and three chicks grew under a warm heat-lamp in the garage.  The business owner needed to create a means to sustain her family so that she could raise her two boys at home.  She also prepares locally-sourced vegan meals for the daily dozen children of the twenty-three families that she serves weekly.

Today, one of my best friends of fifteen+ years sent me a happy birthday email.  She lives in upstate New York on acres of land with her wonderful husband where she provided sixteen families with Community Supported Agriculture boxes just this past season - all by herself!  Meanwhile, her husband also worked hard to spearhead their town's weekly Farmer's Market.  Mind you, she does all this while working full time in a region that has a winter season - meaning there is no year-round planting to bee done or benefited from. 

Nostalgically poking through Facebook, I looked at the profile of a man whom I enjoyed a brief love affair with at the end of my undergraduate school career.  He is an electronic musician who has spent the past decade creating musical instruments from recycled materials and found objects.  He has been an Artist in Residence at a Bay Area garbage dump, taught inner city youth how to build their own bicycles from "scraps," has traveled extensively performing his unique sounds on rebuilt electronic equipment and more.

These are just a few solutions for embodying balance in one's everyday life.  As Daniel Quinn, a man whose novel Ishmael profoundly drove home the predicament of this 21st century, eloquently spelled out in his follow-up book, Beyond Civilization, the answers for what comes next lay in how we choose to respond to what is beyond our unsustainable ways of taking with our community and home based solutions.  And, me, well, what lay ahead in this year is my EMBODYING all of this.  I don't have much aside from CREATIVITY, TALENT, BRILLIANCE, GREAT HEALTH and a DANCING SPIRIT - oh wait!  Actually, this means that 
I HAVE IT ALL.  And, YOU DO TOO!  

Well, then, let's join hands and hearts in digging into the Earth's Soil and Re-Creating a Soul-Full Existence on Our Shared hOMe of Planet Earth.  

eXposé

It's been a week of feeling FEAR.
Yesterday, it swirled like a swarm of anxious hornets in my belly
reminding me of 2006 when my emotional health collapsed and I tasted
depression first hand.

Depression is simply repressed emotion. 
Years spent avoiding naturally creates this.
We can dance our way back into feeling 
all of this - so that we can move it
on out
of these feeling human bodies.

You, my astrological mirror, came into work though
and we worked through some "stuff" together.  I appreciated your raw honesty - sharing how you felt judged by a patriarchal voice that was emanating from my Body Mind.  I am willing to look at this beecuase it is so painfully apparent.  It hurts - beeing judged and, especially, judging Others.

I am chuckling about how all of my "judgments" have come back to bite me in the butt. 
It's a balance ~ this allowing ourselves to bee human.

I also shared how appreciative I am for the arms that are currently holding me.
I feel safe to fully expose myself - to bee in my discomfort without running off to try and avoid what is.  It's shitty, yet I guess this is just me - demonstrating how to value poop as equally as we value money.

I also had to honestly admit to myself how let down I feel.  Years ago, a psychic gave me a Chaldean numerology reading that said that 10/21/13 was my year to bee "#1."  Naturally, I took this to mean that I would have my books published and my own publishing company, my debt paid off and an abundance of dollar bills flowing in, an ease with which to consume, and more.  Being "#1" surely means that I have proved my worth and that I am recognized by the world outside of me as beeing "valuable."  Right?  

In the imbalanced world that we've been raised in, yes, and from the materials-based value system that has been forced for millennium now, yes.  What about from a harmonious and sustainable perspective that is steeped in the new consciousness that is coming, however?  Being "#1" just might mean that I am ONE - at peace with what is, in harmony with our One EarthBody and comfortable in being alone, all one.  Perhaps, "beeing in my Power" does not mean that I am exerting power over others but, rather, acknowledging my shared humanity and existence on this planet Earth.  

There's an amazing calm that touches hOMe after the storm.  This morning, I touched forgiveness for myself, and all of us - after all, how am I/are we to embody any of this when I/we live in a civilization that avoids the dire consequences of our daily actions?  It's okay - we're all okay for exactly where we are.  It's natural to simply bee microcosms of the macrocosm.  It's not "bad" any of it, but we do have to 'wake up.'  We need to gut ourselves and feel this global shit - LOVE is counting on us.

Xposed

There is a lump of coal sitting in my gut.
Jet black, I am suffocating in its smoke.
It is consuming me whole, weighting my Spirit, enslaving my Soul.

Last night, I laid in it - choosing not to distract myself
but instead to just bee with it.
And, it's painful.  Tossing and turning, it rocks me in its wake. 

I've spent the past few weeks pointing out the contradiction in others.
Ha!
Now, I am sitting in my own hypocrisy.
And it's absolutely shitty.

So, I figured that I may as well just expose myself here,
as an early birthday gift for me, from me and to you.

What I want you to see I willingly expose
what I want to hide, I toss into a closet and barricade.

What I don't want to share is all the years I spent
ditching out from job to job, sometimes with no communication whatsoever.
Just an empty space where a person and a service used to bee.
 There have been too many moments spent falling asleep at a job where the paycheck was the bottom line and my passion was absent.  There have been too many days spent surfing the web, revisiting the same sites over and over again, distracting myself from really listening.
(What does my heart sing for?)  

There were too many "mistakes" - easy steps mis-taken beecause I was simply not present in these moment now.


There's been too many years spent pretending that none of this is so, by trying to smoke it out of a pipe as a cloud of THC encircled my head. 

There's been so much avoidance - refusing to answer phone calls or open mail. 

There's been so much refusal to "work," even just simple part time jobs in order to just keep an income flow - no matter how small - and, as a result, too heavy a reliance and leaning on others who either weren't asked permission or simply felt taken advantage of.

There's been too much taking advantage of and taking for granted, especially when it comes to my/our dear Mother.

There's been so much resistance to what is - to leaning in and doing what needs to bee done; to accepting that a balanced life means doing what I don't necessarily want to do; and to surrendering to the plain, simple fact that "THIS IS IT." 
(I type this Thich Nhat Hahn quote a lot, but I don't embody it.)

There have been too many too many white lies, too much taking what isn't mine, and too much abusing of a system that I knew was unsustainable.  There is a $175,000 (w)hole with my name written all over it - at least I now know where bottom is.  It allows me to see a way out.   

There have been too many men where I just gave away the temple that is this, my human body, without real respect or regard for my whole beeing health. 

All of this swirls like a turbulent tornado in the depth of my gut. 
IT FEELS SHITTY.  And even though I also experience a sense of unworthiness and undeserving associated with it - such as, "Who the Fu$k am I when I am so obviously flawed and blame worthy?" just typing this has me chuckling. 

Our actions - past, present or future - don't define us.  
WE JUST ARE.  And, everyone deserves forgiveness, second- and third- chances, and a push of the "RESET" button.  EVERYONE.

I am willing to receive your constructive criticism of me. 
Please.  By all means.  Yet, pointing a finger in judgment and saying, "Narcissist" helps not. 
Gentle guidance is welcomed. 

In the end though, no matter what we do or say - beecuase I understand that we are all doing the best we can - it is imperative that I/we step out of my/our own way, acknowledge that we are all here together - hurting, fearing our past mistakes and how they affect our present circumstances as well as our future possibilities, and crying to bee woken up! -
WAKE UP!  

We need the important medicine we each individually bring to the emergency room. 
Beecause that's what's out there/here. 

LIFE $)@%$!!!!!!

"Do you feel stressed?" he asked me yesterday,
as he sat across from me while lovingly looking at my face.
"I don't really feel it," I honestly acknowledged,
"the anxiety and tension has just beecome a 'normal' way of bee-ing."

"I know it all shows up in my face, though. 
In my jaw, and more," I say, sheepishly looking away from him,
a little embarrassed by his clarity at seeing me.  It's uncomfortable,
this level of vulnerability and rigorous honesty.  "I don't want to bee seen this way," 
I wave a hand in front of my face.  "I want to wave a magic wand and just
pretend that it's great."  

"You have to allow yourself to feel it all," he says,
repeating an epitaph that I have spent the past few years diving into.  
It's a slow skin to shed, these masks of pretense: of light and happiness because
"I am this (white western woman who took advantage of an unsustainable monetary system that allowed her to travel, eat, shelter and educate herself)
and my life looks like this (fed, clothed, sheltered, educated, etc)
when it could look like that (rummaging across a great trash dump in urban India; living in the favellas in Brazil, or South African, or Haiti; etc)
so who am I to whine or complain or bee truly honest?"

"You have to acknowledge how shitty it really is before it can get any better," he advises.  And I see a woman from a few years back, the weekend after I was told the Prosperity Hive was no more, saying, "It's okay for it not to be alright, Cara."
"There's this little voice here telling me that I don't deserve to admit how bad it is because then I am just 'feeding the negative vibration on the planet;' that I have to put on this visage of gratitude rather than bee forthright in saying,
"LIFE FU$KING SUCKS!"

Beecause it does - 
sometimes.

Oh, New Age'ism - what a pitfall you can bee!

The thing is though - the suckiness can bee experienced as an inherent part of life.
And life on planet Earth is painful!  There is death and pain here -
gravity sees to it.  However, life does not have to bee experienced as long-term, self-imposed
suffering.  This is always "the choice."

"If we're just consciousness reflecting itself," I said yesterday,
"then who is the "I" choosing here?"
He laughed in response, "Now, I feel like I'm on drugs."
"Yeah, me too," I chirped, seeing the fluidity of time, rippling in my eyes.

JUST BEE CONSCIOUSNESS.

Rolling with the claps of thunder,
crashing with the waves,
rising and falling,
tumbling onto shorelines,
eroding coastlines and shifting continents,
floating on the breeze, steaming from the core,
bubbling and oozing,
sinking and dying,
withering and graying,
puncturing and penetrating,
absorbing and receiving.
MEETING IN THE MIDDLE
of whatever is to come,
whatever is to come.



 

RESET!

"Our theme for the evening is 'resetting,'" she said, and I knew then that she too has also come into alignment with Jose & Lena's monthly Power Path calendar.  On Friday night, she led fifty of us into a powerful sound healing on these southern shores, alternately beating her large Mars gong with a mallet as a woman sat beeside her similarly playing her smaller, round Venus gong.  All the while, the sun was setting, a waxing moon rising and we lay on our backs absorbing all of these soothing vibrations. 

Her and I we had to move through a similar 'resetting' earlier in the week by delicately tending to unresolved feelings from a summer misunderstanding.  "It's like a broom," she said after the hurt, anger and pain had been swept away.  "You gotta tend to sweeping out what's under the carpet in order to keep the house clean."  "Yeah," I responded, chuckling at the obvious witch reference, "and I am not interested in tending to all relating-ships this way."  "Me either," she flatly stated, looking me square in the eye.

The thing about INTIMACY and LOVE is that, well, they are beeyond rational words.  They are irrational.  Meaning we cannot use terms, language or formulas to try and describe these must have life experiences.  Rather, they are found in the gaze between two sets of eyes, in the gleeful hop of an innocent dance through time and space, and in the riff of one deftly played instrument off of another.  There is no mind that can analyze the data and formulate an equation.  There is only the heart - it's own divine tune a melody that can not bee often heard due to all of the "static" in the air: the iPods in the ears, the iPhones in the hands, a culture convincing us that 'normal' looks like actively disregarding our wild nature. 

And, well, I guess I feel as though I've pushed that internal reset button myself because so much has melted away, so much skin has been shed.  A clarity has taken hold as to what LOVE feels like and it certainly doesn't feel like judgment or someone not showing up for me unless it is for her or his own direct benefit.  I've been shedding things, as well as relating-ships, that were simply gathering dust in this house that is my life while offering little to no regenerative feedback.  It feels good.  My house has grown smaller in one sense and expanded greatly in another. 

I've shed the fear, as well as the scarcity mentality, that I "need" any one thing or person in my house/life.  This world is chock-full of people, places and things that can meet my human needs - for love, attention, and affection.  My job is simply to allow myself to bee open to trying on as many of them as possible while letting go of any need to hold on.  The best fits stay of their own accord ~ because of a light, joyful and regenerative exchange.  Then, the work of 'tending to' beegins: the regular dusting and vacuuming, sweeping and cleaning as well as the occasional carrying of the heavy rugs out to the porch, where they are beaten and allowed to gather sun as the just mopped tile floors lay drying.

I've also fully surrendered to just 'bee-ing.'  Finally!  A desire to prove my worth and to demonstrate how valuable I am has faded into the ether.  I am just am.  By simply beeing here on planet Earth now, I am deserving.  I don't have to prove anything, to anyone.  There is nothing to chase, no one and nothing to bee had.  THIS IS IT!  

And If I can do all this,
then so can you!

JUST BEE
it's the greatest gift you can give 
to both this planet as well as your Self.

WILD WOMAN

"A wild woman is extraordinarily herself.  

She does what is natural to her without inhibitions, which means she can do and bee anything.  

A wild woman is spontaneous, bold, sexually alive and takes risks, 

leaps before she thinks and is willing to express all of herself.  

She is untamed by herself or others.  

She says and does what she feels.  

She can bee quiet and thoughtful, fierce and angry.  

She's joyful, laughs loudly, plays hard, screams and mourns her losses. 

 A wild woman will at times bee unsettling to herself and others.  

She can even bee (oh no!) offensive.  She is loved by many, but can bee threatening to others.  

She has discovered her wild nature and is willing to express it."  

--from Laurel King's A Whistling Woman is Up to No Good: Finding Your Wild Woman

Falling, again, into the palms of the Universe, he catches me without complaint.

He and I, we have known this dance for eternity. 

Consciousness is my lover, gently he kisses and adores my face, 

my mask, my 'cara.'  For I am his beeloved, his sweet habibti 

  حَبيبي ‎

This bird, grateful and brilliant as she is,

is also tired of merely fluttering from nest to nest. 

She is ready to fly, to take off, wing tip to sky,

and soar like the condor, or eagle, or giant raptor that she is.

Her beak beckons, her vision expansive,

tail feathers beating from beehind,

it is only a matter of time.

Still, she marks the passage of this now,

with fallen footsteps along these Encinitas streets,

as a tumultuous shore rumbles down beelow.

Know perspective, only space.

Earthly chatter grows loud and diminishes around her.

She sinks into presence, it's the only gift she is permitted.

The dust settles.  The chirping bird song of her heart

a distinct tune, shared amongst too few.  For it's a call 

not all are willing, open and able to receive.

And she has long come to terms with this nature of reality,

so she allows and surrenders,

she softens and receives.

She rests in preparation as her Lover

the great Father Sky awaits her return.

Opening and turning, 

willing and waiting,

a great rhythm plays out.

Rap, a tap tap,

bam da bam bam,

boo bop she bop,

bop,

no time, only space.

 

"DON'T LET THEM TAME YOU.

YOU WERE ONCE WILD HERE."  

--Isadora Duncan

YOU!

YES, I am writing to YOU!
Who are you?
YOU ARE ME.

Is it really this simple?
(YES!)
So, then, how do I treat myself?

For years now, lost amidst the confusion of
primal upbringings and societal conditioning,
I wasn't so good to myself.  I spent too much time
avoiding.  Skipping short term pain beecause of fear
only to create long term suffering for myself.  Ouch!
That hurts ~ badly.  And, just beelow all of my own anger for my past choices and
decisions is a whole lot of sadness. 

These days, though, I am sinking deeper into
allowing myself to just BEE ~
especially in and with discomfort.

In the process, I am also learning what LOVING my Self looks like.

Once upon a time, I ran haphazardly forward, grabbing anyone's hand,
shouting "YES!" to the Universe and flinging "I LOVE YOU's" at the wind.

It felt great and so contrary to all the years that came before, hoarding my love and
affection, deeply afraid of rejection and judgment, yet silently craving and begging for it only to then perpetuate that which I feared most - a self-fulfilling cycle that I was unconsciously addicted to.
"Just love me!"  "Ouchhh.  No, not like that." 
"Like this."

If anyone asks you
how the perfect satisfaction
of all our sexual wanting
will look, lift your face
and say,
Like this.
When someone mentions the gracefulness
of the nightsky, climb up on the roof
and dance and say,
Like this.
If anyone wants to know what "spirit" is,
or what "God’s fragrance" means,
lean your head toward him or her.
Keep your face there close.
Like this.
When someone quotes the old poetic image
about clouds gradually uncovering the moon,
slowly loosen knot by knot the strings
of your robe.
Like this.
If anyone wonders how Jesus raised the dead,
don’t try to explain the miracle.
Kiss me on the lips.
Like this. Like this.
When someone asks what it means
to "die for love," point
here.
If someone asks how tall I am, frown
and measure with your fingers the space
between the creases on your forehead.
This tall.
The soul sometimes leaves the body, the returns.
When someone doesn’t believe that,
walk back into my house.
Like this.
When lovers moan,
they’re telling our story.
Like this.
I am a sky where spirits live.
Stare into this deepening blue,
while the breeze says a secret.
Like this.
When someone asks what there is to do,
light the candle in his hand.

Like this.
How did Joseph’s scent come to Jacob?

Huuuuu.
How did Jacob’s sight return?
Huuuu.
A little wind cleans the eyes.
Like this.
When Shams comes back from Tabriz,
he’ll put just his head around the edge
of the door to surprise us
Like this."  --Rumi


However, I had to learn
not to avoid the pain, nor to fear the discomfort
but how to just bee with all of it.
With each trembling footfall forward,
I strengthen my own sense of Self and inner clarity.
Today, I say "No" resolutely, so that my "YES!" may
resound through time and across space.

An eternal ripple ~
L~O~V~E.

Look With Your SOUL

Something new sets in,
what it is I can't quite explain
or define,
I simply know that it is different.

It's a comfortable ability to say "No,"
not from a place of resistance but rather from a place
of deep listening.
"No, I will not hug you," because it is not in my highest good to do so.
"No, I will not call you, or reach out to you," based on someone else's ideas of familial loyalty, popularity or feigned friendship.
"No, I will not apologize," out of shame or guilt.
For I am committed to my heart and its honest yearnings.
 
It's a willingness to accept the inevitability of change - a letting go of things that simply weigh One down.  "I am now down to three bags of clothes," I told a sister the other day. 
"And, it's still too much!  How many items of clothing does a person really need?  Maybee, I can get it down to one full outfit per day, which would make seven pairs of underwear, socks, tops and bottoms."  (I am not quite there yet, however.  As there is still that city-voice of "What if's..")

It's a welcome respite into the sweet embrace of a LOVE that I've always known as abundant and protective - the safe, nurturing arms of Mother Earth as well as Father Universe.  I am their beeloved offspring, of this I have always known - even when my faith faltered and my trust wanes.

It's an innate knowing that not only am I deserving and worthy,
I AM ALSO POWER~FULL.
And, that my POWER is not measured by anything outside of myself; it can never bee taken away.  IT'S MINE - to give and to hold.  It's a treasure trove of exotic jewels and priceless gold that cannot bee seen by the human eye.  

Only, IF YOU LOOK WITH YOUR SOUL,
will you see it shimmering and shining,
INSIDE OF ME,
INSIDE OF YOU,
the precious lotus,
the answer we have all been seeking,
a LOVE that never dies, hurts or betrays.

POTENT.  REAL.  And, ETERNAL.
True, Authentic POWER.  L ~ O ~ V ~ E.

a few thoughts on LOVE

"You need to write about me more," he cajoles.
"Ha!  You need to write about yourself," is what I think,
but I don't say it.

My appreciation for him is profound.  Finally, after all these years
of just wanting someone to practice LOVE with, here he is -
ready and willing.  It's not rocket science, ya know?

It's simple.

Consistently choosing to fully accept someone and to love him or her unconditionally.
Meaning not: I love you, but please don't wear that shirt.  Or, I love you - now can you connect me to your wide web of 500 followers?  Meaning: I just love you.  Period.  You don't have to do anything for me to love you.  And, you don't have to give me anything.  I just love you.

Having a solid, foundational base called friendship that is the platform from where 
a desire to communicate all that needs to bee expressed resides.
Meaning not: I expect you to bee a mind reader so I will withhold communicating any of my "needs" to you.  Meaning: This is a small thing, but I am just curious what your current relationship to online dating looks like?  Or, this is important to me,  can you please not use your iphone - unless it is an emergency - while we are eating meals together?

Releasing any needs for a specific outcome and letting go of what tomorrow may, or may not,
bring. 
Meaning: It's okay that we have different desires in the long-term   We can trust that this is perfect now; we can love each other deeply and profoundly even if it, in this context, is not 'forever.'

Feeling inspired to keep showing up to this dance because this is the training ground for whatever is to come next -
whatever is to come next.

However, all of this beegins with the Self - Can you and do you accept yourself - as you are right now, in this moment; perfectly imperfect?  Are you honest with your self - about your needs and wants, your desires and dreams?  Can you let go of needing to bee right or perfect?  Can you let go of any ideas of who you think you are and, instead, allow yourself to bee shaped and transformed by new experiences?  Can you honor that just by simply bee-ing you are worthy of LOVE; that you are deserving? 

The other day, I said to him, "Ya know, I do really like who I am.  Bee-ing in intimate relating-ship is a wonderful opportunity for me to see myself and I like Me.  However, I don't feel the image in the looking glass mirror completely conveys what I feel on the inside, so I don't really like looking at my mirror reflection."  "How do you feel on the inside?" he inquired.  "Like a fat, jolly Buddha," i quickly chirped.  "Why don't you practice seeing this is the mirror then?" he advised. 
"Great idea!"
(And, that's many of the reasons why I love him.)

A Truth About ABUNDANCE

"If money and poop are comprised of the same energetic worth," I tell him,
"then it's no wonder that I've spent an adult life flushing money down the toilet!"

Excitedly waving my hands through the air, I continue, "I'm ready for compostable toilets.
My excrement has value and can bring forth new life.  It is time I use it.  In fact, I wonder:
if I change my relationship to all of my waste products, will I also change my relationship to money?"

WHEN WE ALL CHANGE OUR RELATIONSHIP TO OUR WASTE PRODUCTS, 
from what comes out of our bodies to what we consider "trash",
WILL WE ALL TRANSFORM OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH PROSPERITY.

"The thing is, though," I go on, a wandering sage missing her pulpit, "life over the course of the last half decade has taught me a truth about ABUNDANCE."  

"TRUE ABUNDANCE is not discovered in the ease with which one can consume things.
This is the biggest misconception of our time that my peers must rewrite within them, now. 

TRUE ABUNDANCE IS EQUIVALENT TO 
THE DEPTH OF INTIMACY THAT ONE SHARES WITH OTHERS IN THEIR LIVES
AS WELL AS TO 
THE AMOUNT OF OTHERS THAT ONE REGULARLY REVELS IN CONNECTION, TOUCH, JOY, VULNERABILITY, AUTHENTICITY and more with."

JOIN THE MOVEMENT.
Use your bowels to replenish the Earth's soil.  
And, let go of any false sense of a 'known self' that keeps you feeling separate and distinct from those around you.  You are not special.
You are merely a human beeing who needs love and attention - just like the rest of US.  
Give it freely, and you shall receive.

YOU SHALL RECEIVE.

Power Flow

We're hungry.
Otherwise, we wouldn't force so many of us around the world into a place of extreme poverty and, thus, hunger.  We have been painfully creating this mirror reflection in hopes that, one day, we will collectively wake up and tend to our collective Soul's needs.
("WAKE UP!"  Please.
I am begging you.)

It's a hunger of Spirit that we are suffering from.  Chasing money and things, fame and gratification, won't bring what we're seeking any closer - you know this.  It's a form of noxious death with no sacred awareness.  So, why keep doing what we've always been doing?  Especially when we have all heard the adage that this is the definition of insanity.

I know you're not insane.
I know your heart - for it is my heart - and it beats for LOVE, TRUE LOVE.
For unconditional acceptance, for a sense of beelonging, for a community to hold you, to look you deep in the eyes and truly ask, "How are you?" 
"HOW ARE YOU?"

I care.  I will stop to listen - to truly listen with my whole bee-ing; without anxious thoughts of how I am going to respond, or what I need to do or say, running through my Body Mind.
I won't request payment or a transaction of some kind in exchange for my attention - for our worth is found in our simply beeing here, now.
And, I won't try to "fix" you.  I will just let you bee.
Unless Spirit moves me to offer, of course.
Then, I will ask, "May I?"


"MAY I?"

FEELING ALTERNATIVEs

"What are you afraid of?" he keeps asking, as I sit perched above his naked chest, with my new moon blood smeared like a sticky adhesive between the contact points of our pelvic brains.  I am tired of perpetuating the same old story while living in the shadows of too much time spent processing about all of the "why's" and "why not's," however.  With my two hands crossed upon my heart, I reply, "I am not afraid.  I am feeling."  

"I feel that man who came into the store the other day," I say, "how he blamed "the Asians" for the desecration of our world's oceans, claimed that he had been "awakened" since his major heart attack a month ago and, then, cynically advised that we should just eat all of the seafood we want since "they" won't stop and the oceans will soon bee devoid of all fresh, mouth-watering life anyway."
"Might as well enjoy it while we can," he suggested.

"That's you," my lover responds.  "Yes, I get it," and, in those moments, it was clear - here was an image of me; blaming "the capitalists" for the raping and pillaging of the Earth, yet still fatalistically taking advantage of and abusing the current financial system because "they're not going to stop."  It was a painful reflection that my compassion was attendant to, even as I chuckled at my desire to resist this man's blatant racism. "What about what the Americans are doing?" I poked back, as my chest began to rise.  I knew it was futile but I am only human, what can I say?

Beeing in relating-ship with a man who deeply understands that 'the inner is the outer' is refreshing, to say the least.  Nonetheless, listening to his words about how he "loves money" remains a bitter pill to swallow.  Noticing how often he clears his throat, I speak into the catch in his fifth chakra.  

"It hurts," I immediately say.  "I know it's not personal.  It's just that money and poop are the exact same.  When you have money, your vision remains unchanged - it's simply a greater ease with which to consume that you are seeking.  This isn't sustainable and it is simply more of the same."  

"The thing is," I continued, "I am in LOVE with this planet, for ITS BODY IS MY BODY - there is no separation between.  I love you and I love me," I tell him, as brown ringlets fall in waves around my face.  

"Thus, I have to use my voice to speak up about possible solutions as well as sustainable medicine for our collective movement forward.  If I do not, then any notion I have of 'enlightenment' is an illusion.  And, as much as I want to push you away and resist you and your thinking, I can not - otherwise, I create constriction around my heart.  

I have to simply LOVE YOU."

There is no other alternative.  

WATERFALL

"When he found out who was going to bee watching him, he started dancing around singing, "Oh, happy day!"  He never dances and sings," she said.  "Well, I must bee doing something right in the world, then," I responded, as she continued to ready herself for her overnight trip.  In the end though, I let him down - I didn't live up to his expectations.  Instead of gently pushing for us to do something fun and out-of-doors, I allowed him and his brother to spend way too much time doing what they think makes them happy - tucking their eyes and noses down into the media of ipods and ipads.  He was sorely disappointed when I dropped him off at school today and all I could do was to feel it all.

The boys call me "Waterfall" because on the day I took them up to the mountains, we spent hours traversing upstream, bee-ing present to all that is and observing the abundance of life that surrounded us.  Here, in the city center, I feel preoccupied with the pursuit of money-making, I feel tense about how I am going to support myself and, as a result, I completely and totally lack both presence as well as vitality.  This was highly evident in how I chose to bee with them, even though my time spent with them is short.  And, unfortunately, this time can not bee reclaimed ~ for it's all we ever have.

I'm still exhausted from the complete disruption of my natural rhythm over the course of the past two months.  I am looking to reclaim this, as well.  I do my best to show up to your play - "100% San Diego at the La Jolla Playhouse - and then to Dance, where Steve-o and I drop into our sexy partner dancing which keeps me feeling bad a$$ and where I remember how to bee vital and alive, innocent and joyful.  Why can't we just make the world one huge dance floor? 

Along the way, my nose too is also tucked - this time into Phillip Shepherd's New World, New Self: Recovering Our Senses in the Twenty First Century.  There, once again, I find myself and the thoughts, feelings, ideas and intuitions that I have been sensing as well as writing about for years now.  So, then, I shall keep on keeping on, knowing that I am IT embodied.

"...so we are persuaded to separate from the body and live in the head, assured by a culture that passes off this pathological disassociation as completely normal, natural and unavoidable.  Once we are caught in the prison of our craniums, we are unable to join the world - though our hearts yearn to do so.  Instead of joining it, we think about it, and analyze it, and judge it.  That's just how we are, and it's what we imagine the normal human state to be.  By contrast, certain other cultures tell stories about humankind's partnership with the living world, and foster an embodied sensitivity to it."  
(pg. 3)

"WE ARE LITERALLY HYPNOTIZED FROM INFANCY BY THE CULTURAL MILIEU IN WHICH WE ARE IMMERSED; WE SEE THE WORLD THE WAY WE ARE ENCULTURATED TO SEE IT.  A PRIME TASK OF ADULT LIFE IS TO BEECOME DE-HYPNOTIZED, "ENLIGHTENED" - TO SEE REALITY AS IT IS."  

--Willis Harman, Global Mind Change