Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Dear, Sweet SiStar ~


We first met two and a half years ago, working side by side in community organizing around food justice. I didn't imagine then that our paths would converge so deeply. I knew that you were a bad ass, American girl, fightin' the system, buckin' convention. However, you left for studies and travels through Africa and I remained here in San Diego. The Prosperity Hive was born where we grooved our asses off together at RadFest in June 2011 (as photographed above.)

Then, you graduated from State and the Prosperity Hive died. I asked to move the pillows, balls and hoops into the cooperative you had been living in. You said, "Sure," and placed the house keys in my hand. One month later, a rattlesnake took a bite out of me. After eight weeks of recuperation, I was once again ready to emerge and your house was now available for new roommates to move in. You asked me to join in the co-creation of a feminine collective. Las Raices was born and we women set our intention for the summer - we were focusing on our healing.

Our being roommates was a simple "Yes." You worked hard, saving your cash by riding your bike to the World Beat Center and carpooling down to Suzie's to swelter under the sun as a farm apprentice. As I willingly share with so many, you are the most vibrant activist I have had the pleasure of knowing. We celebrated your 22nd birthday on an independence day on a house on 22nd Street. However, this summer you were also very taxed and oppressively silent at times. Your anger was a mirror of my own as I sank into the reflection of me in my 20s - a young woman filled with the rage that only a breakdown in community can create. I breathed in compassion and exhaled out love and communication. You and I, we've always seemed to be able to meet in the middle.

So, tonight you left.  Headed south on your journeys - towards Chiapas and the Zapatistas - and for sinking deeper into your medicine woman ways.  Tonight, our room feels oppressively empty.  I've already adorned my body with the gold earrings and heart-shaped necklace that you left for me on our altar.   (Thank you.)   And, I already miss you - so sweetly - even though I know that time is simply an illusion.

As my mind danced in visions of our life long friendship, Anita and Sasha arrived at the door.  Time to drop into our bodies and our breath, into this beat and expression, into these moments, now.  And, the work goes on...

I look forward to seeing you womanifest your embodied medicine woman ways in the world very soon...
In sisterhood, always ~
 --CHC.

spiritual EVOLution

It's LOVE backwards, baby!

What if you were given every single moment leading up to this one
purposefully?
What if you were gifted all of your experiences in this lifetime, now, as a means to grow?
What if everything that hurts you, heals you?
What then?
 
What if you committed to your own destiny?  And to a path of the highest good for all?
What now?
Yes, what (a) now.

I began feeling today as though I was going to write about "Ethical BANKRUPTCY."
It's what I awoke with my dreams telling me to do
(and something else about "the Metabolism of a Goat," too.  ?!?!  I dunno.)

Instead, I am forced to deal with FEAR.  With militarism, men, violence, disease and war!
Usually, I like to avoid these things - I like to pretend they don't exist.  AND, I like to invite them into my life just so I can ask myself, "Cara, are you really a Medicine Woman?  Or, are you just talk?"

I can smell the fear.  It smells like a sweetly toxic perfume, filling our living room with its putrid scent.  I can feel the fear.  It calls my cell phone (Oh, yeah: I got a new phone - same line.  Doh! - I was reacting to another's rejection of me, what can I type?), sounding the alarm for painstaking moments when I am working with others in a small space or as I am riding my black cruiser along Harbor Drive.  It's five calls in twenty minutes time.

I can hear the fear - it wobbles in her voice, its stuck in her belly.  A centuries-old roar trapped within skin and bone.  And, I allow the fear because its natural.  It's also normal - especially given her experience of working for the military; with servicemen on the upkeep of their bodies and in the maintenance of their physical health.  It's normal given the roof that caved in on her head, as she rode in an armored vehicle through Afghanistan, sending broken shards of nose cartilage flying into her brain.  The pain and trauma her body is still re-living through is normal, too.


So, this is what this day brings - each day, something new.  Someone who needs my attention, my love, my support.  FUCK!  I don't know how I am going to navigate through this terrain and, chances are, I will fuck up.  I make so many mistakes because 
I don't know what I'm doing - I'm simply following the Universe's directions, here. 








Tuesday, October 30, 2012

MONSTER

"How old is he?" my friends ask, after I share with them his absolute refusal to even acknowledge my existence.  I just shrug my shoulders in response.  This situation is entirely too comedic an experience for me to allow the actions of another to weigh me down.  Besides, what I've recently come to realize is that the only thing I have any affect over in my life is the way I choose to respond in any given moment.  I simply prefer to release positive charges into this world because I believe in the law of attraction - the Prosperity Hive taught me this much.  And, why bother judging him when he's so good at judging his self?  All of this judgment has to end somewhere, so let it be me.

It wasn't all that long ago when I myself was a monster.  I thought and acted as though the world revolved around me.  I lacked presence and I couldn't hold space for another.  I thought little to nothing of the needs of others around me.  I spoke mainly of myself and my on-goings.  I was tunnel visioned and self-absorbed.  I felt entitled and special.  I had very few friends and little to no intimacy in my life.  I knew I wasn't happy but I didn't know how to change.  Worst of all, my mind would convince me that this was all "normal" behavior.  Ha!

Thank God for my sister.  She was the only person in my life who was willing to hold an honest mirror up to my face.  Yes, the reflection hurt for I didn't realize that I was so damn ugly!  Truth be told, I actually thought I was "pretty."  Ha!  And, although I internalized this message for far too long, I am so grateful, today, for the lesson.  "Thank you, Teacher," I say, as I bow deeply before her. 

You see, I like who I am, now.  I like my culture - my leaver way of not asking for anything, not expecting anything and being prepared for everything.  I like the way I hold deep space for others - allowing them to be exactly where they are without my forcing a way.  I like the way I am present to and for my soul sisters and brothers.  I like that I can be talking about me and my experiences and then allow the moments to be broken by children, animals and others.  I like that I trust that we'll come back to it, if we're meant to.  I like that we don't have to come back to me, and that's fine, too.   I like that I am humble and walk a path of humility.  In fact, I chuckle at the article I just had published in Radiance Magazine in which I use the metaphor of a turkey dinner to describe my family.  "As for me," I wrote, "I am like the round potato - a dab of bland warmth that mixes well with others."  HA!  It's more like, "a splash of fiery zest that wrinkles your nose, makes you sneeze and puts a pep in your step!"  Though, in reality, it all simply depends on the day.  ; )

May your days, and reality, be filled with less monsters 

(including yourself) and more LOVE! 

LIFT OFF


And the fears that once held me so captive, no longer chain my soul.  I'm learning to dance and sway to the tune of your rejection, to sit and experience the bite of your judgment.  You're invited to come and you are welcome to go.  My talons no longer sharply embedded and clinging to any premeditated plans.  My beak closed, ever-ready for the moment.  My expansive vision remains, only now I honor my knowing and the wisdom that is my birthright.  In my rebirth, however, I've slithered into a metamorphosis.  Quetzacoatl has risen.
Converging 
Death comes
as a welcome gift, its plumage outstretched
I wrap it around my chest.
swaddling the stilled baby,
there is no fear to be found, no wailing to be heard.

You offer ceremony, and I sink into 

our thick silence.  Bullfrogs illuminate 
the winter night with their resonance as a waxing, 
crescent moon hangs high above the sycamores. 
You dig, and I kneel.  You cut away, feathers and talons, 
and I smudge the air between us.

Time, a fluid river, runs between the child 

who ran through these same coastal desert hills and the woman 
who now offers life right back to the source from where it came.  Body to body, soul to soil.  One and the same, 
we are.  Together,
we sing the refrain.
 
 (*"Converging" is a re-post from January 2012)



Monday, October 29, 2012

The End.

Happy #36 To Me~!

TRANSFORMATION:
I just shared with B.L. how transformative of an experience my birthday was when, after gathering my nearest and dearest around me, I looked into all of their eyes and I spoke these words, "I am already successful beyond my wildest dreams because I Have You."

TRUTH:
In the end, what it comes down to isn’t about critical theory, rational thought, or academic scholarship.  In the end, what it comes down to isn’t about a humanist philosophy, a dialogic lexicon, or a rebellious constitution.  In the end, what it all comes down to is a mystery - the mystery of why we are here, and for what our purpose is; the mystery of why we hurt, and for why we choose to love; the mystery of life as we know it, and the art that we create in attempting to understand, shape, and define it.

For the mystery is beyond.  It cannot be thought, let alone defined.  It can only be felt, sensed, deeply experienced, and embodied.  Sometimes, some of us tune in to this pulsating beat and pen, photograph, paint, and even dance that which cannot be rationally understood.  Other times, most of us simply attempt to understand it through the processes of our own messy, creative practices.  Most times, however, it is a mystery what any one of us, in any given moment, is attempting to relay. Nonetheless, the mystery remains.  And this, my beloved community, is the nature of art and life at its finest.

Sunday, October 28, 2012

QUETZALCOATL

beyond the sands of time, lies a sacred river,
flowing and running, she carves her way through
flesh and bone, rock and stone,
his consciousness parted like a grand canyon shimmering in the light,
hues dancing, particles exploding
galaxies born in the night.
an eternal flame, her womb the warm meeting place
blue and orange swirling,
hydrogen and oxygen bonding,
his seed, her egg,
a timeless tale played out.
tumbling round and round again,
where they will end up
only Spirit knows
for now they remain
tossing and turning, leaping and jumping,
dying and crying,
mysteries of flight,
diving and rising, swooping and soaring,
crashing into construction and fright.
and still, the sacred serpent
slithers on by,
chasing its tale, consuming it whole
extinguished in the fight
QUETZALCOATL.

Saturday, October 27, 2012

OWL MEDICINE

"Brother, I need your help," I wrote in a Facebook email.
"Once again, I gave, he took and it hurts."
My powerful brother arrived at my door on Friday morning, carrying with him the warm body
of a dead Barnyard Owl.  "You've brought me my other wing," I cried.
"Now, I can fly!"

Last January, I received word that the Prosperity Hive's death was imminent and
then, that weekend, I was gifted my first, dead Barnyard Owl while at Vista's gem, the
Emerald Village.  At that time, another local brother artist led me through a ceremony in which we took the bird's offerings as we sang its spirit back to Source, returning its body to the soil.  Since then, I've passed many parts of that owl - talons, feathers and a wing - on.  The left wing I offered to an ex-lover's sanctuary in Carlsbad, where I immediately flew to after the Hive died in order to lick my wounds and nurture my depleted soul. 

A king, he is unaware of how our most primal woundings play out in these moments, now.  To protect his withering sense of self, he isolates himself and refuses to address the pull of his true purpose.  Matching my passionate fire, we met in sacred Time, but I wasn't really the one he wanted to meet.  It's a painful wound that keeps being re-opened.  Yet, he was always spot on in calling me out on how I can move through the world - as though life is meant to be difficult.

So, B. arrives and I gather my sisters around me.  Not too ironically, I'd been moving through a week when I was intentionally pushing one of them really hard - using Kali Ma energy to produce a shift in her awareness.  I'd spent the past eight plus months working by her side, on her personal passion, helping to birth it into the world.  Yes, she also happened to be the ex-girlfriend of said Carlsbad lover.  "Why" she wanted to know, "did you engage in a sexual dance with him?"  "I don't know," I shared.  "It's not me who is deciding my path, or our interconnections.  I'm simply listening and responding."

She arrived at my house this past Friday morning, too.  I shared with her what was taking place.  "Owl is my Spirit guide," she said, following a morning set in motion by hands far greater than ours.  K, who created our vibrant home and is leaving San Diego next week, lifted the Owl up and placed it on our makeshift altar.  B. sang four Native songs, chanting and "Hey Na"-ing as I rose and swooped with my wings in each cardinal direction.  "Don't think I know what I'm doing," he told us.  His chest vibrating with song, he concluded the reverie as deep purging racked his gut.  He, too, is exorcising his own violent dis-ease - the imbalance of all the time that has come before with forcing a way, taking what isn't ours and disrespecting life.

Before his sisters, he cried for Mama Earth.  "Please," he begged, "let me be humble without having to be humbled.  Please, be gentle with me."  Before his sisters, he cried for protection of his daughter and granddaughter, his son and loved ones.  Tears streaming from his eyes, snot hanging from his nose, his pure vulnerability was the ultimate, tell tale sign of a balanced masculinity.  It was with honor and privilege that we got to experience it.

Later, we reflected on this deep Masculine wound that we as women hold, feel and touch in our own Feminine bodies.  The emotional voids of our men.  The physical absences of our fathers.   Their continued rejection and denial of us, yes, and of their selves, first and foremost.  We miss them.  We love them.  We want to, once again, feel whole, held and nurtured.  This is what we pray for.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Snake Medicine

VIXEN.
It was an illusion he saw.
I couldn't meet the image that night, so I chose authenticity instead.
His resistances taught as a bow; vibration springing off of his body -
a suit of armor to protect his ego self's need for identity.
I could only laugh.
"You're bothered," he'd say.
"I'm not," I'd chirp.

A brief dance, he ran away the next morning -
fleeing his own defenses, his fear propelling his motion.
All I could do was to stand strong - like a reed blowing in the breeze -
to his internal battle.

He sought my medicine out and, for once in my life,
I received a full dose of his medicine straight down my gullet.
"Why?" he wanted to know.
"Dunno," I shrugged my shoulders in response.
I guess I'm just listening to the Universe.

And he perpetuates my worst fear; triggering my deepest core wounds -
rejection and judgment.
It hurts, even though I know it's not personal.
It stings, even though I know it's all his stuff -
the heavy baggage of being a late 20-something-year-old American artist & male.

His imprint now running throughout my body.

Shedding this skin is letting go of all of it - I know.
Shedding this skin is allowing for all of it, too.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

MEDICINE WOMAN: Doula & Mother

(Sometimes, leaning into the resistance IS also leaning out.)

Breaking through to the other side includes a lot of motion and a lot of push back.
FUCK!
A timeless ritual of birthing, all one can do is steady her mind within the process.  Focus.
Breathe.  Press.
And, PUSH OUT.
Bare Down.
Breathe.
FUCK!

Oh Brother, it's fucking that got us here.
A Co-Creative Act, on-going since time began,
his seed puncturing her moon,
her wild flow beckoning his hard shell,
divinity
dances
in this moment.

There's a temple awaiting our union.
It begs to be filled with the yin yang of our balance.
With you on your belly, protecting your stone, cold heart
and me on my back, laughing off your defenses.
Perhaps, one day, the veil will drop, the ice will melt
and you will awaken

to

Our bodies rocking in the light.  Our heart songs channeled directly from Source.
This rhythm can go on,
all night long.
This rhythm
sways,
to the tune
of a Universal tongue.
La lengua de amor, paz y libertad.
La lengua de mi corazon.

Lift your veil & be blinded by the light!
 


Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Day #2

Awake from deep REM sleep on my new Beautyrest mattress with gratitude on my lips.

Tend to the chickens and dance around the others sleeping in our collective space.

Touch in to Facebook and soak in all of the LOVE that my #36 brought in with it.

Get outside for fresh air, walking, jogging & running,
acrobatics at the park and then
entertaining the drunks - hanging about the roots of Grandmother (where I had spent the evening before with two of my brothers), they are drawn to the freedom I embody.  I allow them a few moments of my time while speaking to how much I love Grandmother and if they could "Please pick up their mess after their selves?" 
The most intoxicated of the two needs to hold onto my energy.  "Waitttt," he slurs, as I turn to run off.  "Run!" I respond, as I get him chasing after me, with the words, "Hey," intermittently slipping from his parched lips.  Naturally, he can't keep up.  For I am Warrior Goddess. 

My initiation is complete and I have resigned my throne - I don't want a drone or a worker bee.  This Queen wants her King.  So, she slithers up to a friends' house, also on 22nd Street.  The female friend isn't home but the male friend is.  We're both dancers and I ask to be honored.  "It was my birthday," I say.

He holds me, then begins to massage my belly as we breathe deeply together.  Sensuality is oozing as the primal sexuality of consciousness begins to rise.  We just are. Eventually he shares that today is a dancer's day of mourning; Gabrielle Roth has been called to the other side.  He considers her a mother-figure, he tells me, as we hold each other in front of a computer screen bearing her image.  I am cradling her son from my behind - this matriarch of movement. 

We press my edges.  I am open and flowing.  I am receptive and giving.  I am sliding across the sands of time, no longer allowing a sense of sharpness to pierce my smooth skin.  I bow deeply to his beeing.  Making LOVE comes in many forms.  Sex, however, is a natural byproduct of honoring, listening and responding.  So, I make my way home ~ to my King-size mattress.  Awaiting the day when your serpent awakes you.

Monday, October 22, 2012

SELF-CARA

Day #1 of 365 days embodying LOVE:

So, I overheard myself speaking to a beeloved sister, "I want to be honored.  I just don't know how to ask for it."   "I'll help you," she responded, willingly jumping into the fray of my life here in San Diego even though she resides in Oakland.  Sometimes, though, simply really listening to and hearing our own selves is all that needs to be "done."

My response was to ask C. for his help in making the initial invite.  Per my usual, I worked towards my 36th birthday as though it were a marker; a threshold through which I could enter one way and leave in a whole other direction.  Plans were intended, while allowing for the breathy expansion of organic life to naturally unfold.  The wet weather that this now past weekend brought with it certainly changed the trajectory of an outdoor garden party, and c'est la vie.

What did happen was a diverse gathering of brilliant community ~ children chased one another around the sprawling property on 22nd Street; little girls harvested fresh veggies from the garden; the boys fed the chickens; the kids & the adults danced with hula hoops, bounced on balls and spun fire poi; music was made; laughter had; and then we gathered.  In the living room, I asked each person to speak their name into our vibrant circle and then share a little bit about how they know me.  The LOVE, words and honoring that overflowed was a mirror - a crystalline lake that we each, sitting in that room then, could dip our proverbial soul cups into and drink from.  It didn't matter in whose direction the words were spoken, the positive vibrations of a timeless ancestry rose and pulsed throughout our bodies and hearts, dancing in the space between all that either goes unspoken or is simply beyond words.

For the past few weeks, I haven't been able to drop into REM sleep as I recently used to be able to do so successfully.  That, coupled with a weekend of only a few hours of rest, all adds up to an exhausted me.  After sleeping deep on my new California King, Beauty Rest mattress (Pa-dow!  The Universe has decreed that I now sleep like a Queen!  As it was a sweet gift that landed in my lap this weekend), I arose to once again rejoice in community with shared breakfast, stretching, conversing, reminiscing about all that came the night before & more.  As the exhaustion began to seep deeper into my bones and joints, I excused myself to bathe in an Epsom & mineral salt bath and to tend to my self care.  This is just one small way that I demonstrate my commitment to learning how to receive ~ by showing up and loving me. 

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Rebirth

"You're life is almost half over and you have nothing to show for it!"
A familiar refrain, it was leveled at me this past spring as I sat vulnerable and recuperating at my parent's home.  "You have all this," I responded, motioning around myself to the two-story home filled with the American regularities of domesticated life - two cars in the garage; stainless steel appliances in the kitchen; large screen HD-TV blaring in front of the Ottoman I was then occupying - "and, are you happy?"  Smart enough to know not to respond with this question to my mother's affront - as her denial is as long as the Nile - I instead honestly directed it at my father.   Caught red-handed, all he could do to respond was to walk away in defeat.

Tomorrow, I turn 36.  
Last year's #35 had a picture of me on this here blogpost, alone and smiling.  It's how I began the morning - I concluded that day facilitating a leadership training for a team of 3 others that I had brought together.  'Twas the gift I wanted then. 
By night's end on October 21st, 2012, I hope to have an image of me enveloped within tribe.  On this day, I will celebrate that, finally, after all these years, I am living in LOVE.  Sure, we don't own our home and we have very little by way of material resources but what we do have far outweighs all else. 
We have each other. 
We have hugs, kisses, conversation & communication, touch and intimacy.  It's all in varying shades of gray, of course, and there is certainly lots of room for growth & expansion. 
Nonetheless, it's the dream I've always dreamed.
I am already successful beyond my wildest hopes.  All else, from here on out, is simply icing on the cake. 

The rebirth that last spring's snakebite spoke of has arrived.  The story of the victim, abused & martyred, old me has died - taking with it it's "not good enough," scarcity mentality.  What's to come, only time will tell.  I have no expectations or ideas for something bigger, grander or better.
THIS IS IT.
Who's to come?
Well, that skin is being shed and
I'll see you
on the other side.
 

Friday, October 19, 2012

Dancing with the Devil

It's a phrase I've come to delight in, more and more.
Each time I allow myself to engage in a dance with that abhorrent, ugly, monstrous other,
I remember - "Oh, that's me!"  I am the devil, for I am just as capable of horrendous acts of unjust inhumanity as I am of reveling in the light of love, harmony, flow & Spirit.  It's simply fear that tries to convince me otherwise.  And, it's my fear that can keep me from integrating the dynamic continuum of my fluid existence into this lifetime, now.  Usually, it's that I'm afraid I will get hurt.

Prior to March 28th, I probably cowered at the notion of being bitten by a rattlesnake.  But, after all was said and done - the bite inflicted, my arrival into the emergency room as the venom coursed its way through my bloodstream and crawled its way toward my heart and as my left leg swelled into an enormous size while I sat through 6 days at Tri-City Medical Center - it really wasn't all that painful of an ordeal.  And, now, I am so grateful for the experience.  I wear my scar like an organic tattoo - it's a marker of my initiation as ordained by the Universe.   

Today, however, I've been noticing an irrational fear of sharks swimming in my psyche whenever I take a refreshing dip in Mama Ocean.  Sharks, unlike snakes, have danced throughout my subconscious, dream-state ever since I was a little girl.  Perhaps, it's simply a by-product of being part fish/mermaid who grew up playing in the Pacific.  I don't know, but I do know that my fear was alive and present when I was down swimming in the pitch black waters last Tuesday night.  Even now, as I think about it, I begin to feel a gnawing pit of anxiety in my belly.  My fear is real.  The pain that I fear, however, is more than likely not.

It was roughly two years ago, when I first recognized my willingness to dance with the devil in terms of my intimacies with others.  Swaying and gliding to the beat with those who think, feel and do as I do, is easy.  Yet, what I've been discovering is that when I allow myself to move in time and space with another whose values and ethos do not mirror my own, I end up deeply moved by the experience.  Yes, sometimes, I do get hurt, yet the lessons learned far outweigh any short-term pain I experience.  And, in the end, I always come back to my personal intention: Self Growth & LOVE.  Nothing else matters. 

Thursday, October 18, 2012

free flow

breasts hang, moments drip, like water
from a leaky faucet.
your voice soothes, a distant call
it beckons, "i'll find
my way
to you."
the sun rises, another san diego day,
calls.  traffic whizzes and birds shriek, piercing
the vibrant buzz of human movement - a repeititon
too monotonous for my soul.  I remain,
here,  almost ten years its been - again.
I remain, here,
patiently waiting.
hear ~ i am.
what's to come?
only time shall tell.
until then, the water flows and my breasts drip.
your voice distant, no longer a beckoning call.
the sun sets, and night remains.  grandmother owl
hoots her call, an ancient reverie vibrates my soul.
no longer a super skeleton, I AM.



Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Trusting Me, Trusting You

Trust ~ it's the theme of the week.  Perhaps, you've been experiencing this, too.

Personally, I've been actively examining how I hold my voice back, and wondering if this is the imbalance of my Divine Feminine who has, for too long, allowed for too much dis-ease or if it's merely a ripe, pregnant silence filled with fertility and possibility yet located within the deep humility of unconditional LOVE.  I dunno.

What's also become clear is that I don't trust I have what it takes to be able to share with you what I'm authentically feeling because I am scared I will hurt you.  I am afraid that words will tumble out of my mouth like daggers and that I'll mistakenly stab you with my misplaced nouns and adjectives.  I don't trust myself to not hurt you and I don't trust you to be able to take care of yourself.  Unfortunately, what all of this fear leads to is a lack of intimacy.

However, Deep, Raw, Authentic Intimacy is what I crave most.

So, you come over and we walk, hand in hand, to the park.  We're not lovers; we're brother and sister.  It need not matter who thinks what.  At the park, we climb into Grandmother Ficus as I watch you scale her thick branches into towering heights that have me on the edge of my seat.  But I don't respond, I simply allow you your process as you dazzle me with a fearlessness beyond my own. 

We play together, guiding one another on a 'trust walk.'  I've done it here, before, so I fall into a pattern of leading.  You, however, continue to blow me away with your intuitive ability as you teach me how to take the trustng deeper and to a whole new level. 

We make our way west where we dance in the sand to the rhythms flowing out of your boombox and then dive into the pitch, black ocean, naked.  I swim with my fear - it's a heavy weight around my ankles that eventually leads me back to shore as you and K continue to splash and revel in ecstasy.  Nude, I dance along the shoreline as the stars shimmy and twinkle overhead.

I'm afraid you're a tease, Mr. NYC.  I'm afraid I'm, once again, investing my seeds into infertile soil.  I'm afraid that I don't have what it takes to stand in my power and declare, "THIS IS IT."  So, I guess I'll just let it bee what it is and, maybee, in the process I'll realize that this is me trusting you trusting me.


Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Falling into (whatever is to come next)

Fresh Kombucha just poured into reusable containers now sits on a refrigerator shelf. 
The pungent scent of culture stains my fingertips.
Here at Las Raices Collective, transition is upon us once again.
K, my roommate and the most vibrant 22-year old activist I have had the pleasure of knowing,
is ready to depart.
Change ~ it's the only constant we can count on.
As the fall wanes into winter, many of my brothers & sisters prepare for southern travels.
The end of the world is beckoning us back,
to the beginning of time.
Me?  I'll still bee here.
Making the Kombucha and planting the seeds.
They say that when St. Francis was asked what he'd do if he knew the end of the world were tomorrow, he replied "I'd keep hoeing."
It's the sagest advice & a basket I'm willing to put all of our chicken's eggs into.

Monday, October 15, 2012

JUST WAIT

"Just wait," you say. 
Teasing me with your promises
as you fly away, 3,000 miles east. 
My body tingles in anticipation.  My pulse quickens, my mind dances...
Yet Grandfather Turtle has always guided my way, so I flow with the slow speed of this journey.
The release we collectively dreamed of will come,
it's simply a matter of time.  Trust is letting go of any
expectations for how it arrives.  Life has taught me this much.

"Just wait," I say, quietly and under my breath for no one
but myself to hear.  My blood primed, my breath deep.
My heart bursting, ready to break on through to the other side.
Still, I hold back, like a cat in the shadows, a feline camouflaged in the grass.
My gaze set on my target.  I am as relentless as your rat.
And patience is my virtue.
JUST WAIT.


Sunday, October 14, 2012

Still

Still, I type.
Still, I sit
in a
a pregnant, fertile, silence.
Still, I bee.
Patiently waiting the moment
to burst forth and emerge.
Yet, the stillness remains.
Still I weep,
still I dance,
still I sing,
stillness calls my Soul,
beckoning me back,
to when there was no separation between,
no illusion of something more,
bigger, grander, or better than this.
Still I call, harmonizing with your vibration,
wondering when the veil will drop and all will bee
revealed,
STILL.

Friday, October 12, 2012

TAPPED IN

In an era when human strength displayed as physical violence remains a form of entertainment, "tapping out" is celebrated as a means to remove ourselves from the unhealthy and life-threatening predicaments that we've put ourselves into.  Just ask any MMA fighter.  We can all relate, can't we?  We find ourselves chasing down that proverbial highway of success thinking that our piece is just around the corner as the bills amount, oil prices rise and as we feel frustrated by all of the damn traffic surrounding us.  That 40-hour per week job that once promised so much freedom now feels like a constrictive vice-grip as we unwillingly pull ourselves through the sludge of a repetitive, daily grind.  Yet, we hold on to some twisted sense of hope because we're not like the millions of others who are doing the exact same thing, day in and day out.  And, the illusion of separation persists.  So, we tap out for a week getaway to Hawaii.  Or, perhaps, to even find land, off of the grid.  Any which way, we just need OUT. 

However, per my radical usual, I'm pushing for an alternative.  True value resides in our tapping in deeper.  Sometimes, this looks like my tapping into the deep well of internal grief that my weeping Feminine wound bleeds for with every media image that distractedly takes us away from our own bodies as well as farther apart from each other.  Other times, it simply looks like my sitting up in Grandmother Ficus tree as my neighbors run circles around me at a Golden Hill park.  And, I know I'm really onto something when I don't have to speak the words on my tongue to another - when this person is simply tapped in too and picks up on the silent vibration, indicating that he wants to go where my mind was suggesting or by her simply giving voice to the heart song that beats heavily in my chest.  These days, it's the TAPPING IN that I'm living for.   

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

I AM

"How are you?" he asks, and I respond,
"I Am."  The two-dimensionality of words could never quite encapsulate me, in this moment now.  Yet, I'm expected to try every time we meet.
I AM.

What's beecome abundantly clear is that I am successful beeyond my wildest dreams.
Every day is something new; a person who needs my attention.  Together, we walk, arm in arm.
Sometimes, we drive to visit another in the hospital.  Other times, I bear witness as a wounded
warrior lay thrashing about - the dis-ease bee-ing exorcised from his body.  Most of the time, I hug and I kiss and I say, "I LOVE YOU." 
There's nothing more.

My success is measured not in those who return my affection, but in my willingness to continually offer my LOVE - even when it is rejected, denied or simply not met.  No longer clinging to a specific reflection, I surrender into where ever the energy is returned.  I receive.

YES!
There's nothing more.

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Final Moments

There is one quarter left of this 2012 (well, at least according to the Gregorian calendar.)
And, some believe that the end of a world is upon us.  What arenas of your life are you hoping this powerful time will help to smooth and sand down?  And, what are you co-creating during this potent period of manifestation?

Me?  Well, mainly, I don't really know - although I do recognize that I'm great at pretending otherwise.  Most of the time, my small, little brain gets in the way and I think that I have to do something in order to bee, or to experience happiness and contentment.  Yet, the Universe always creeps in to remind me otherwise.  What my heart tells me is that the answers do not reside in my fingertips on the keyboard (or the iPhone) as I distractedly make my way through "work."  Rather, what I beelieve is that my answer is found in you - in our connection, our simple smiles, knowing glances and meandering strolls. 

I once experienced my life as being achingly devoid - absent of intimacy and others.  It was a painful loneliness that I felt inept at changing.  And, though there are times when I can still tap this void within, I mainly celebrate an abundantly full life.  I count my blessings everyday for the myriad of others who fill my world ~ especially the vibrant diversity that this WE embodies.  And, I'm learning how to, more quickly, bow and thank even those who find refuge in taking an invisible dagger to the back of my heart.  It seems that the more I'm willing to put my whole self out into the world, the less painful the reflection of rejection is when it comes back.  I can receive your judgment because I've got a well of unconditional LOVE that I am often diving my cup into. 

It's amazing how regenerative an exchange this way of bee-ing in the world is.  And though we don't know what's to come, I'm trusting that it is perfectly unfolding just as it is divinely meant to.  Maybee we'll find ourselves together, watching the moon rise as a southern sun sets.  And, maybee, this is all it will ever bee - type on a screen and the hint of a timeless connection that history could never erase.   Maybee, this is all just a dream from which, someday, we will awake.  Maybee, we've been awake for far longer than we allow ourselves to know.  The possibilities are endless yet what remains is always the same.

It's LOVE.

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Resilience & Resistance

We finally received word yesterday that my uncle had been in the VA hospital up in Los Angeles for about a month now.  We drove up there to find him conscious and awake in a hospital bed that his wrists were tied to.  Stuck in isolation due to a Staff infection, both of his hands were in padded mitts to keep him from pulling out all of the tubes that were running from every orifice of his body.

Sixty-nine years of age, and my mother's brother has spent half of his life living as a transient, predominantly on the streets of Beverly Hills.  I was 12-years-old when he showed up, his long feet hanging out the back door of his brown van, on my parent's driveway.  He moved into my bedroom that year.  Meanwhile, I was transferred to my parent's room, and I resented him for it. 

My neighborhood classmates became accustomed to my uncle's visage.  On the bus on the way to school, they would spy him walking across the Emerald Drive bridge and they'd sing out, "Hey, Cara!  There's your uncle."  I would slink below the window frame, my knees brushing the front of the pleather seat in front of me as a rosy red color spread across my face.

As the years passed, he came and went back and forth between my parent's home and the streets.  Quickly growing bored of domesticated life, he typically returns to his ways of scooping change out of payphone return slots, digging through ashtrays for the remaining butts of cigarettes and more, once the rain has passed and his own ailments have subsided.  Perhaps, it was an early childhood filled with fear, control, and emotional and physical abuse that led to his alcoholism.  Whatever it was, schizophrenia has become the result all of it. 

Whenever I catch him speaking loudly to the faces inside of his head, as his face twists and turns into various features of expression, I loudly declare, "Who you talkin' to, old man?"  This small bit of acknowledgment never fails to produce a smile on his lips and a return back into this moment, now.  Perhaps, it's my way of saying, "Hey, it's me.  Remember, your little niece?  The one you'd picked up into your arms and passionately kiss as your grisly mustache tickled my innocent cheek."

Resistance may bee futile and it is certainly self-defeating.  Because there he was alone in that sterile hospital room, whispering to get him out of there as his muscles sat taught and pulling at the restrictions on his wrists.  His shoulders were hunched up and towards his ears.  I placed my hand on his heart, "Please, just relax - it's the only way you will heal."  And, yet, what is the option here?  Healing for what purpose - to leave the hospital and return to the streets?  My parents feel that this may bee a final call on my uncle's life, yet I recognize the tenacity and resilience of my familial lineage.  With resistance as an ancestral trait, our resilient lives are unfortunately made longer by the suffering and pain that we are choosing to endure.  I, however, am choosing to surrender this time around.

What do you choose?

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Breakthrough, III

In those moments, we weren't quite equipped to give our brother what he needed most.  And, it was a little bit of a messy, bumbling ride.  What to do?  Keep on keepin' on.  Eventually, the discomfort subsided, the music turned up and the living room transformed into a white spaceship blasting off into eternity. 

Still exhausted from the days of playing in tribe that the full, Harvest Moon brought out in me, I laid on the floor and enjoyed the show.  My brothers, with chests bared and sweat dripping down their backs, jumped, dived and rolled over, around and on top of one another.  They supported each others' weight.  They remembered how to just Bee, together.  I clapped joyously, capturing some moments on my trust camera and simply reveled in the sight.  Finally.  Thank God.

The palpable discomfort from our conversational circle was eventually transmuted as the men ran into and over one another.  With gratitude in our hearts, we closed our circle, said some goodbyes and fell into our individual piles on the floor.  Sleep ran deep, warming our collective space.  This morning, we arose with smiles on our lips and choosing to revisit anything unsaid from the evening before that needed to be completed.

Given spaciousness of time, our brother from the night before spoke to what he did not get a chance to express.  Personally, he is someone whom I have known since the night of the Prosperity Hive's birth and fear arises for me in our personal dance.  I am scared of what he wants from me and, as a result, I tend to keep my distance.  I push away, as I am too adept at doing.  Yet, here was an opportunity, to sink in and explore my own resistance.  After he finished sharing, and the space had fairly emptied out, I offered, "Can I hold you?"

Cradling him like a baby in my arms, we spoke softly of this now, of our shared deep fear of vulnerability and of how this is exactly what our world needs.  It's so simple - we just need to hold each other and feel acknowledged.  A few tears ran from one of my eyes and dribbled down my cheek as I gazed off into the eastern horizon where a warm, southern sun was beginning to make it's way overhead.  A new day has begun.

breakthrough II

So, I pushed away, as I am known to do,
and he moved in closer.  Puncturing directly my most foundational, root TRIBE -
because he's smart and he knows how vital it is to surround one's self with high vibration communities and activities as a means of thriving in a fear-based world.
I couldn't avoid the mother$%^&*( no matter how much I wanted to.

We danced around the edges of one another's pain for months.  Allowing it the space to bee without
trying to force an outcome or a result.  Sometimes, it's all we can do.
Then, opportunity knocks and I do what I can be pretty damn good at doing - I provide.
I provided a simple, possible solution to his request - something that did not involve me directly.
And, the Potent Potential Playground was born.

I've already called upon it as a space to hold our divine feminine work for last month's Tribal Truth Gathering.  And, true to my instincts, my sisters were impressed with the Divine Masculine container that it is.  Wood ceilings and a U-shape design, it's the perfect space for holding us, gently, as we come together to heal our centuries of collective wounding.

Last week, my sisters had my back, providing me with their listening ears and their sweet words of wisdom, tools and simple LOVE.  I heard myself saying, "I want to bee honored" as I also acknowledged that it is my responsibility to honor myself.  Last night, I walked into a home with our white, sheath fabric (from our Prosperity Hive & early Soular Powered days) draped on the floor, as red, rose petals were strewn about, and soft candles illuminated the National City dwelling.

I was welcomed with deep embraces from strong men who invited me to lay down and receive their hands-on, healing touch.  I didn't have to "do," I just had to surrender and receive.  YES!  Another brother had provided the fresh, organic produce.   We women gathered in the kitchen to prepare our evening's shared meal as the men tended to bee-ing men in the living room with movement and ritual.  We sat in a circle, prayed over our food and enjoyed intentional time and space.  Soon, I invited conscious conversation to the table and what unfolded was honest and authentic. 

The thing about authenticity is that it doesn't always feel good.  Sometimes, it's downright uncomfortable.  Such was the case last night when a truth was brought to light by someone who had been hiding in the shadows of suicidal visions.  How do we hold space for the darkness when we are coming together in the intention of sowing light?  I don't know, and we certainly are learning in the process.  What's most apparent, however, is that our true transformation resides in honoring this deep, dark pit of despair.  It's a place we collectively share.  It's what makes us human.  We can't simply cover it up and pretend it's not there - it's why we're sick, now. 



BREAKTHROUGH! (Thank $%^&*() God!)

This breakthrough does not entail the full break down of me, the spilling of years of unshed tears and the tapping of this deep well of grief that resides within me and that I tenderly refer to as my deep, feminine wound.  Rather, this breakthrough is simply my Divine Feminine beeing met, held, honored and supported within the nurturing, loving and sustaining container of the Divine Masculine.

Thank $%^&*() God
dess!

This story began millennium ago.
This tale started here in San Diego years ago.
And, this yarn has continued to unfold since C and I first met, within one week after the Prosperity Hive's dissolution.  His HUGE energetic current matched mine as our vibrating bodies met on the dance floor.  From the get go, we knew we were spiritual soul mates but that doesn't necessarily make for a smooth ride.  We dove in.  No, not to sex - this isn't about a sexual union, yet that doesn't mean that we can't co-create and make magic together.  Our partnership was sealed in a moment's time and then, life happens...

I get triggered.  Fears arise and I push back and run away.  It's not a new story. 
In fact, it's so $%^&*() old and I'm tired of it. 
And, I trust that life is unfolding exactly as it is meant to - even with all of the pain, hurt and drama.
At some point within it, however, I recognize that if I am creating every moment of it then, what do I want to create?  My humanity won't let me escape the reality of suffering, yet I can recognize that it's a choice.  What do I choose?

WHAT DO YOU CHOOSE?

(Love,
More.
More LOVE.)