Wednesday, October 26, 2011

When Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word



Two months ago, one of my absolute favorite dance partners left me a voice mail that was unapologetically pissed off.   Interpreting an action of mine as personal, he communicated how hurt and upset he was.  At the time, his message was received by me with a bit of a sigh, "Oh, jeez!  Here's yet another nail in my coffin," was how it felt in that immediate moment.  However, I found some humor in it, too, for the action he was referring to had absolutely nothing to do with him.  

So, water had traveled under our bridge for the past two months, during which we had not seen or spoken to each other.  Yes, it's true - I hadn't been in a rush to call him back to let him know that I wasn't meaning to hurt his feelings, either.  It wasnt' that I was holding any leftover sensations about his initial voicemail, it was just that I believe time unfolds exactly as it is meant to.

Last night, I quietly arrived into our regular Tuesday night dance studio, taking my rightful space upon our shared vinyl floor while giving and receiving hugs and love from my beloved community members.  Immediately, I saw him spinning and twirling various others in our community around his center axis and I knew that if I wanted to enjoy the depth of our dance then I had to simply make amends.

When the moment was opportune, we both walked towards each other and I flung my arms open wide, while exclaiming, "I'm really sorry that I hurt you with my actions."  It wasn't so much that I did anything "wrong" - it never is.  It is simply that someone felt hurt by my behavior.  Feelings are facts and I would never try to rationalize that someone's feelings are an unreal, made-up story.  They are feelings, plain and simple.  And, the quickest path back to good - that is, the easiest route of non-resistance - is to simply show up and say, "Hey, I'm Sorry."  

Saying "I'm sorry" doesn't cost us a dime.  It doesn't take anything away from us or our personal livelihood.  Saying "I'm sorry" simply means, "I care.  I care about you and your feelings and I will do whatever I have to to make sure that you feel good about me in your life."  Saying "I'm Sorry" are the two smallest words that travel the furthest distance.  Saying "I'm sorry" is the demonstrable action behind the words, "I Love You."  Love means little without responsibility.

With that, he responded with a flip of his hand, "I don't even remember why I was so pissed off," and then he swept me up into a flourish and for the next hour we danced, deeper and more balanced, than we ever have yet.  We enjoyed each juicy moment as raw sensuality pulsed between us.  We were above and beyond anything you will find on "Dancing with the Stars."  We were two Soular Systems, drawn together by the gravity of our own great mass, and excitedly playing out an electric dance of negative and positive, light and dark, of momentum and torque, and love and pain, right here in this lifetime, now.


Friday, October 21, 2011

Happy Birthday To Me!

Stoked on Be-ing Alive at 35
 "GIVE LOVE!  Give Your Love Away.  GIVE LOVE!  Give your love away.  GIVE LOVE!" 
the hip-shakin' rhythm and sweet tune of MC Yogi pours out of the speaker system, filling the Hive with its harmonious melody, greeting my senses on this October 21st, 2011.  Along with today being my 35th birthday, it is also - according to some interpreters of the Mayan Calendar - the mid-point of our global ascension into Unity Consciousness. 

"Just open up the door and let your love pour.. when we give love, we can never be poor."

Today, and everyday, I honor me, by showing up - in as many moments as I possibly can - with full permission to just BEe.  Loud and obnoxiously singing the refrains of a catchy tune, "The gifts of the Goddess, love, joy and peace.  The gifts of the Goddess, I am ready to receive."
Multi-dimensional and flinging my body up and down, out and in, side to side, around and over, I relate with all - Earth, sky, people, animal, insect, inanimate object.  Multi-sensory and deeply feeling all of the subtle as well as spoken signs, markers, dances, and stinging that we experience on this journey.  I honor me for being here, now.  I honor me by being here, now - as much as I humanly can.  And, I also rejoice when I am distracted, unfocused, contradictory and hypocritical, too!
I celebrate me by allowing myself to Bee Free.

Today, I celebrate...  Resourcefulness.  Creativity.  Connection.  

Today, I also celebrate YOU ... as the CD you gifted the Hive pours out of the speaker box.

"Let's say this is life, and I'm going to celebrate being alive."

As the painting we painted together, on my last birthday, hangs on my door.  As that painting hangs on material you gifted me for our group project.  As the organic food, like the fingerling potatoes grown in the nutritious soil of Sage Mountain farm, that you left by the Hive's door sit in your wooden bowl.  As I enjoy a breakfast made from the locally grown melon you gifted me.  As I wear the leather bracelet you gifted me, and the lapis verde beads that you wove and prayed over.  As I receive your offer and ask for a ride.  As my naked body is wrapped in the brown tank top, with dazzling neckline, you gave me on my 29th and as I twirl in the blue, floor length skirt you gifted me this summer.  As you watch over me from above, your eyes following my every move.  As you have always watched over me through a lifetime of adventures and questionable decisions.  As you built a loft within a loft.  As I still hear your footfalls on this honey-colored wood floor that you have lit up with your presence and music, your dance and conversation, your being and your love. 

"I give thanks.  
Give thanks.
This is how I fill my cup.  
I give thanks. 
Give thanks."

As we dance together on Wednesday nights.  As you taught me the simplicity of fresh-cut flowers from the neighborhood.  As you accept my open arms for a shared embrace.  As you question my actions and reflect my highest light.  As you create and I respond with my own initiative and drive.  As you receive my curiosity and inquisitive nature.  As you sit with my silence and my moodiness.  As you sleep within the safe yellow walls of the Hive.  As we break bread and build toward what is next to come...
another year
of making MAGIC.

TOGETHER.

"Don't worry, don't be afraid.  Every little thing is going to be okay."

Today, we call this alchemical process of turning what doesn't work (or hasn't been working) into Gold, 
"PROSPERITY."  

"GIVE LOVE!  GIVE YOUR LOVE AWAY!  GIVE LOVE! GIVE YOUR LOVE AWAY, now."

Calling it in... For ALL of US 

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

On the Visions of a Dreamer

The secret door on the side of Granny & Pop Pop's place in Jersey is now gone

I don't recall how old I was when I started dreaming of a house,
a very specific house.
Multi-level with winding staircases, it has rooms that lead into more rooms which are well lived in and used.  Plush beds have pillows and comforters laying on top of them, sturdy clothing hangs in closets and on open doors.  It is a well lived in and used home, and every time I return I am always both excited and energized by my experience.

A sense of awe usually greets my feet as they travail this now comfortable terrain on these subconscious journeys.  Into the dark trenches of the basement they tread and up into a dusty attic they climb.  Of course my house also has a hidden passageway - a secret tunnel that leads to a private space that only I have made myself unapologetically privy to.  Camouflaged in a wall, in a dark room, down a decrepit hallway, I sneak towards this secret space (although I did, once before, actively invite others into it and this may have been not long after we opened the doors of the Prosperity Hive).  Curiosity moves me toward this space - each and every time - even as my BodyMind fills with butterflies anxiously fluttering in my belly, for the ghosts of my ancestors live here.


In my adult life, I once felt like this.











However, this has always been an essence of my Spiri
This morning I came to consciousness fresh
from a dreamscape that included both this house, which has been a recurring dream that has graced my life since childhood, as well as a newer, repetitive theme of my running late for and missing an airplane.  For the past year, or so, I have been trying to take off on a destination to somewhere else.  I am always running late and procrastinating on gathering my belongings together.  In my dream, my anticipation slows my forward movement as the hands on the clock quickly tick toward departure time.  Obviously, this causes me distress which slows my motion down further.  As a result, I have yet to make it off the ground.  I have missed many planes!

This morning, my frustration came to a bubbling point as I threw a temper-tantrum and then cried my eyes out at my own failure to launch.  Today, not only did my male traveling companion make it to the plane on time but it was my parents who gave him a ride to the airport!  Insult to injury!

Ironically, I awoke in the comfort of the cave this morning grateful for this journey because I had finally transmuted my e-motion into a forward propelling agent.  Although, I didn't make it onto the plane this time, I allowed my tears to arise and fall as I channeled and then released my pent-up anger with a physical fit.  And, now, I am ready to fly.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Remembering How to Dream

 
 
"To dream ... the impossible dream ...
To fight ... the unbeatable foe ...
To bear ... with unbearable sorrow ...
To run ... where the brave dare not go ...
To right ... the unrightable wrong ...
To love ... pure and chaste from afar ...
To try ... when your arms are too weary ...
To reach ... the unreachable star ... "

This is my quest, to follow that star ...
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far ...
To fight for the right, without question or pause ...
To be willing to march into Hell, for a Heavenly cause ...

And I know if I'll only be true, to this glorious quest,
That my heart will lie will lie peaceful and calm,
when I'm laid to my rest ...
And the world will be better for this:
That one man, scorned and covered with scars,
Still strove, with his last ounce of courage,
To reach ... the unreachable star ..."

The musical, Man of La Mancha, was loosely based on Alex Cervantes' sixteenth century novel, Don Quixote.  Quixote is a kind, country gentleman taken with the written word who comes to believe that he has been called to change the world and right all of its wrongs.  He sets out on a journey of idealism to fight perceived foes even as the world around him tells him it can't be done and mocks him for trying.  In Cervante's book, Quixote symbolically goes to battle with the Catholic Church by taking on the flailing arms of the giant and brutish windmills in his imagined world.  He also pokes fun at a flock of sheep which represents the Spanish government for going to war during a turbulent time period.  
 
And, now, here we are, four centuries later, with our peers - our real day Don Quixotes and Women of La Mancha - showing us how we can dream the impossible dream once more.  From Wall Street to San Diego and from Defiance to Muncie, over 1320 worldwide cities have taken to the streets, demanding, "No More."  "Basta!"  "The madness of a civilization run amok must end."  "The buck stops here."  "Down with the capitalist greed and corporate personhood.  People over profits shall return to our democratic, American way once more."  They have put their bodies on the line in their reach for that unreachable star - for a vibrant, healthy Earth upon which every human being has an equal and fair right to shelter, natural food, pure water, work that feeds the Spirit, and a community that nourishes the Soul.  
 
Wherever you find your Self, now, be sure you're remembering how to dream - how to slow down and ask yourself the questions that our brothers and sisters are now urging solutions for.  Ask yourself, "Am I content?"  Meaning, "Does my lifestyle and way of being in the world feed me?  Does it feel good and peaceful?  Is it sustainable for me and my energy; for others and how I affect them; for the planet and how I live upon it?"  "If I were to envision such a world - where I am content and fed, in all ways - what would it look like?"  Challenge yourself to take that siesta and recall what themes emerge from your psyche, from the deep well of our collective consciousness.

This now is your movement~!  The Revolution is Within.  Dare to dream your impossible dream - dare to follow your personal star.  Dare to step outside of the lines and color in your world as you deem fit.  Dare to be called CRAZY.  After all, it was the crazy Quixote who, ironically, showed humanity the "right way" to live.  He has survived four centuries because of his universal appeal to all of us.  Dare to Dream Once More.  I dare you. 
 







And So It Is Written

I Am Sekhmet
 

"Lady of the Place at the Beginning of Time
One Who Was Before the Gods Was
Mother of All the Gods"

Transformative power of the Soular Flare,
she walks a desecrated plain,  
strident footfalls falling on a bloodied land,
the river runs red as the weak lay wounded at her feet,
for every birth must create a death
and so it is written.

 Satiated by the fall of a dark empire,
drunk off of Earth-medicine, she stumbles,
backward into joy, sideways into love and forward into the arms
of her own Shakti.

Creation and destruction rolled into One
like the Sun, like a Son,
only now it is her beauty, charm and grace that stops the senseless violence
dead in its tracks.

Sekhmet, the Flaming One, puncturing the mind
slaying its dragon, pierces the armor with a sword of truth.
With the roar of the Lion and the bite of the Cobra, she
defends fertile ground.  Her voluptuous nature mirrors the pregnant
moon above as it rises over a new world and a new way,
for she is the One who Comes in Peace.


Sekhmet, Shakti, & White Buffalo Calf Woman,
Nesert, Bast, and Hathor,
they ride again,
and so it is written.