Friday, November 30, 2012

STALKing

RootSTALK
rootsTALK
beef stock
a stocking stuffer
"stock the shelves," oh lowly slave
for the shares of the stock market are rising
there's jack on the bean stalk, it's a popular tale
only where is jack climbing to?
I plant my seeds where stalks of flowers grow
I stalk like a cat prowling in the night
"What is this stalking vibration?" I keep asking.
"It's okay," she says of this energy.
"You need to soften," he says, through her.
And, I overhear myself being dogmatic, black and white,
about tools that are meant to be used as a simple map.
After all, there is no such thing as masculine & feminine.
"What am I holding on to?" I wonder, as the Miser shows up in my cards.
"Ah," a quick, inhale in.  
"I'm holding on to my LOVE."  
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
So, I remember my generous heart and its primal desire to pour my affection upon my twin flame. I listen, once more, to the Universe's call; there's a destiny awaiting to unfold. Only it requires my action, my claiming my courageous counterpart, my speaking into what was already decreed millennium-ago.
"Ours was written in the stars." 
This melody cannot be chained.
This rhythm cannot be stilled.
For now I must sing, and I'm willing to whistle and to wait, to bend and to sway, to bow and to follow, to submit and to surrender.
It's already in me to do so, I simply had years of peeling back to do.
The labyrinth of my Temple begs an entrance.
Armed with a clearer image of what I'm looking for,
I go back to my wild ways.
Riding high above the grass,
eyes sharp and on the look out.
Now, in tune and aligned, I am again stalking forward - ready to pounce when the timing is right, SOFTLY.

Thursday, November 29, 2012

on TRUE LOVE

-->
Dreaming that love will save us, solve all of our problems or provide a steady state of bliss or security only keeps us stuck in wishful fantasy, undermining the real power of the love – which is to transform us.”   --John Welwood, Journey of the Heart: The Path of Conscious Love
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“Cultivating a generous heart is the primary quality of an awakened mind.”   --Sharon Salzburg 

--> “The aching need created by lack of love can only be filled by learning anew to love and be loved.  We all must discover for ourselves that love is a force as real as gravity, and that being upheld in love every day, every hour, every minute is not a fantasy – it is intended as our natural state.”   
--Deepak Chopra, The Path to Love
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“A good number of men simply decide not to commit themselves because they cannot face dealing with the emotional pain of love and the conflict it engenders.”  -- Guy Corneau, Lessons in Love
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“Like so much else, people have also misunderstood the place of love in life, they have made it into play and pleasure because they thought play and pleasure was more blissful than work; but there is nothing happier than work, and love, just because it is the extreme happiness, can be nothing else but work...” --Rainer Maria Rilke
 

from bell hooks', All About Love: New Visions
-->
-->
“When the practice of love invites us to enter a place of potential bliss that is at the same time a place of critical awakening and pain, many of us turn our backs on love.”  Pg. 114
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“Realistically, being part of a loving community does not mean we will not face conflicts, betrayals, negative outcomes from positive actions, or bad things happening to good people.  Love allows us to confront these negative realities in a manner that is life-affirming and enhancing.” Pg. 139
-->
“Women are often belittled for trying to resurrect men who choose lovelessness in order to bring them back to life and to love.  These men are, in fact, the real sleeping beauties. We might be living in a world that would be even more alienated and violent if caring women did not do the work of teaching men who have lost touch with themselves how to live again.  This labor of love is futile only when the men in question refuse to awaken, refuse growth.   At this point, it is a gesture of self love for women to break their commitment and move on.”  Pg. 160
-->
“If I were asked the single most frequent cause of the destruction of relationships…I would say it is selfishness.  We live in an age of narcissism and many people have never learned or have forgotten how to listen to the needs of other.  The truth is, if you want to make just one change in yourself that will improve your relationship – literally, overnight – it would be to put your partner’s interest on an equal footing with your own.”  Pg. 163
-->
“When we commit to true love, we are committed to being changed, to being acted upon by the beloved in a way that enables us to be more self-actualized.  This commitment to change is chosen.  It happens by mutual agreement…True love is unconditional, but to truly flourish it requires an ongoing commitment to constructive struggle and change.”  Pg. 185

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

NOT AFRAID

That Full Moon Risen,
She Walks Along These City Streets
where skyscrapers point upward
and earthly feet plod,
grounded
she knows her way,
steady
she's been plotting this course
for millennium.
She's been through it all
the burning and the judgment,
the rejection and the cruelty,
the madness and the chaos.
Only now, she has transcended
fearlessly walking through those licking flames
the bonfires of transformation
the centuries-old shame and guilt,
pain and sadness, the coat of arms, and prickly thorns of defenses
that she once barricaded herself within as she valiantly fought
to be here, now,
melting in the process.
No longer the victim or the martyr,
no longer the scapegoat or the oppressor,
she has landed, firm in her alignment.  A Queen on her mountaintop, an Empress of the heart,
she dances forward, swiftly, gently, as her General deftly commands the field.
A divine instrument, Qi courses, the Universe channels and she flows with the river of time.
A celestial cosmos swirls within her warm abdomen, where she breathes deeply, in and out,
out and in, purring like a black cat prowling a darkened neighborhood.
This alchemical journey back towards our radical wholeness?
All in the blink of an eye.
"You're like an onion," he says, as she gazes up into his powerfully potent baby blues.
"YES!" she responds.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

[coincidence]

After posting a piece that there are no "random" occurrences in this life,
I receive a litany of a stalker's madness.  It's a first in my short life and it's fucking weird!
I don't recommend it and, yes, I have been checking in with myself.  "Where is this energy coming from?" I keep asking.  "What have I put out into the Universe to have this come back?"  Even a neighbor/friend/community member has intuited this energy.  I walk by his house a lot because 1.) I am a walker and 2.) he lives only houses down from me.  This week, he sent me a "random" text jokingly asking if I was 'stalking' him.  God, NO!

Coincidence?

The stalking of this blog, along with a 'random' facebook email, came in full force last week.
Though, this has been an on-going event for months now - an unhappy someone has been leaving unsavory replies to this here writing.  For too long, I've allowed this behavior by either attempting to transmute the poison into sweetness or by simply ignoring it.  Now, I can't do either because none of those options apparently work.  I've taken measures, such as denoting the stalker's comments as "spam" and, now, you can no longer leave your comments after my posts.

My intuition is telling me that I know who this person is and as to why this person is projecting their pent-up frustration in this direction.  Yes, I know who you are - I see you.  I am sorry that you are hurting.  I have reached out to my strongest of divine warrior brothers for their protection and I will continue to do so.  Yo, Stalker - we have our eyes on you.  Of course, today's litany was so "random" and, surely, this is all just "coincidence."  Ha!  Yeah right.  My anonymous, virtual "stalker" is loudly screaming at me for a very specific reason.  The question now is "what is my lesson here?"  To press through the labyrinth of my own fears by placing a psychologically threatening barrier in my way?  Okay.  I accept.  Challenge is over. 

I won't stop writing.  (Or dancing, or singing, or living, or loving.) I may stop being - because death is part of life.  But, nothing you do or say or feel will change my flow.  I am committed.  I am here.  I am present.  And, I am not going anywhere.  So, take your stalkin' and keep on walkin.' 


{random}

There's nothing random about this.
Sure, maybee we still desire to pull the wool over our own eyes, to plead self-determinism and free will and to think that it's all just chaos without meaning.
Okay.
Go for it.
And, let me know how that line of thinking adds to your overall contentment in life.
Because, sure, we might not know why we are here or for what our purpose is, or why we choose to love in some moments and why, most of the time, we don't.  Yet, we do know how we feel - as we drag ourselves up out of bed to face another sunrise, another day of the weekly grind, more defacto moments that can not be denied - no matter how hard we try to avoid, elude or pretend otherwise.

There's nothing random about it - about the bed you're in, the life you're living and the path you've followed to this here and now.  There are, however, impulses that you've been pursuing - a scented trail that either excites you with its pungent aromas of adventure or that dulls your laconic fears with its lack of a risky musk.  For a long time, I followed the path of my tears - erroneously embodying that I had to hurt to heal and that my hard-headed ways would only bee cured by years of beating myself against the same invisible door.  And, thank you teacher - that winding road has come to a sharp left turn and I am out of there/here.

Yet, waking up is an ongoing process.  Perhaps, some of us were born to sleep so that others could awake?  It's all a dream anyways so, why bother, right?  If it's a dream, then what do you dream?  If it's a nightmare, then have you explored lucid dreaming?  The possibilities are ongoing - follow your heart's song.  It knows - it has always known.  Ever since you first came from Source, it knew.  Tap back in.  Feel.  Sit in silence.  Let the answers bubble up, from the mystery.  The way of forcing an outcome is over.

Unlike Facebook and all of our social media is teaching us, we are not born to be celebrities, basking in the stink of fame and wealth.  We are born to live in harmony and to bloom in a loving environment - after all, our human biology demands it.  We are innately designed to need meaningful touch and contact with our world, ourselves and each other.  It's simply our minds that convince us otherwise and keeps us separate from those around us - believing that we're special and that the future we're chasing will come, so long as we suffer through this now long enough.  Only, when it comes, we've become so desensitized that we don't have the ability to enjoy it or the intuition to know that "THIS IS IT."  Stop running.  Sit up.  Breathe in.  Bow down and exclaim your gratitude.  The Universe loves to receive your heart felt thanks.  It responds in kind.

There's nothing random about my running into a transient man whom I met last year and with whom I share a LOVE for the non-fictional word on a Thanksgiving day on a street corner on Broadway.  There's nothing random about my dancing and shimmying as he calls in our shared dreams.   There's nothing random about the money I had in my wallet in those moments, about how I didn't have to break one of the bills because the coffee shop cutie blessed me with a holiday drink and how I was able to place it all in R's hands as I leaped back to my 22nd Street house.  There's nothing random about his being black and homeless and my being white and privileged.  There's nothing random about how we have used tools of oppression to create systems of injustice.    There's nothing random about his reminding me of my purpose for being here, now - to prosper so that I may lovingly take care of my neighbors.      

So, I bow down, before my burgeoning altar, waving a stick of Paolo Santo as an Owl wing beats the air in front of my face.  I sit with my hurting, leftovers from the days before, as I silently ask the questions that are in my heart.  A response that comes (by way of my Osho Ta'rot deck - thank you sweet sistah DK for this bday gift) speaks to MORALITY.  "No matter what you do," some wise voice says to myself, "your actions do not define you, Cara.  Nor do they define anyone else.  Happiness is not based on what we get - it's a matter of simple being." And, I remember LOVE.




"Bodhidharma ... far transcends moralists, puritans, so-called good people, do-gooders. He has touched the very rock bottom of the problem. Unless awareness arises in you, all your morality is bogus, all your culture is simply a thin layer which can be destroyed by anybody....


"Morality has restricted all the juice and energy of life to the narrow confines of this woman's mind. It can't flow there, so she really has become 'a dried up old prune.' Her whole manner is very proper and stiff and severe, and she is always ready to see every situation as black and white, like the jewel she wears around her neck.

The Queen of Clouds lurks in the minds of all of us who have been brought up with rigid ideas of good and bad, sinful and virtuous, acceptable and unacceptable, moral and immoral. It's important to remember that all these judgments of the mind are just products of our conditioning. And whether our judgments are applied to ourselves or to others, they keep us from experiencing the beauty and godliness that lies within. Only when we break through the cage of our conditioning and reach the truth of our own hearts can we begin to see life as it really is."


Monday, November 26, 2012

Animal Medicine, too

Squirrels dance
feathery tails elongated
in the rising sun's light
hidden in the shadows
of immature palms
they jump and play
tumbling over a palm fruit
bouncing off of the soft brown fur of one another
their job now is merely to enjoy and collect
to store their spring bounty
to hop across dew-laden grass to stand erect
and on point sniffing at the air
sensing the vibrations
feeling their way into what is to come
only this now greets the whiskers
on their friendly faces, only this now of
planes arriving for a landing overhead entreats their ears
only this now birds chirping insects hopping
life unfolding eager to greet a new day ready
for what my come, whatever may come.

---2011, written from Grandmother's bough on that golden hill
and partially for you, sweet sistah Melly V.
whose thoughtulness & generosity has landed a squirrel tail
on the altar of one San Diego's Medicine Women. 
"Spinning Tales into Gold"
(And as for you, dear stalker - what to say?  I love you.  Today, I am struggling too, and I am honoring that the best thing I can do with all of my own energy and stalking is to channel it in a certain direction.  For me, that direction is writing - & it has been ever since I was a girl. 
How about for you?)

ANIMAL MEDICINE

"We can use animal imagery and other nature totem images as a way to learn about ourselves and the invisible world.  There are archetypal powers that reside behind and oversee all manifestations in Nature.  These archetypes have their own qualities and characteristics which are reflected through the behaviors and activities of animals and other expressions in Nature.

When we pay attention to and acknowledge a nature totem, we are opening up and attuning to its essence.  We can then use it to understand our own life circumstances more clearly.  We can share its power - or "Medicine.""  --from Ted Andrews' Animal Speak

For a long time, the power of animals was revered.  Each specific creature bears a certain design, given their way of life as well as essences while here on Earth.  The winged hold powers of vision given their gift of flight; although extremely adaptable and ancient, the reptile is also extremely sensitive to its environment given its close relationship with the ground; amphibians lead double lives; insects remind us of the power of transformation as well as metamorphosis; and on we go.  How do you know which animals are your totems, spirit guides and medicine?  You simply pay attention.  LISTEN.

In 2010, I was working with a local non-profit organization, helping it to break ground on its first 5-acre farm.  While purveying Poway property, I was stung in the face by an angry worker bee whose hive had just been relocated to that land the night before.  In that moment, I intuited that if I continued to charge forward in the direction I was headed (with that specific organization) then I was going to get "stung." 

Yes, I ended up resigning my seat on the Board of Directors not long after AND, later that year, I dreamed about a hive of bees swarming around my lower legs as I drove my mother's car up the I-5.  The morning after waking from that dream, the PROSPERITY HIVE was born and I dived deeper into the rich fertility, ancient symbolism and collective abundance that the Honey Bee (Apis Mellifera) both represents as well as teaches.

Then, this year, there was my snakebite.  I have yet to share that, just that day, I had set out on a new adventure with another organization and, again, I felt the hand of the Universe saying, "Cara, you are going to get bit!"  "YES, And?"  Sometimes in life, we need a penetrating sting, a swift bite or even a lightning strike to get us to "wake up" - to listen, pay attention, and act accordingly.  Obviously, there is no need to blame the bee or the snake for acting from its natural defenses - it is simply bee-ing.  And, here is where we can begin to see the power of MEDICINE - all medicines have the potential to cure or poison.  Balance is always key. 

So, after a phenomenal Thanksgiving weekend, some Animal Medicine that has been dancing around me is RAT MEDICINE.  While biking home along the Harbor from Ocean Beach on Thursday, I enjoyed witnessing the city rats scurrying from their nightly hiding places.  Then, Q & O were doing the same thing in O's car as they sat parked waiting at the Old Town Station for me to arrive, so that we could drive head north to a mask party in Solana Beach.  Another new friend mentioned rats during this same time frame so, in my paying attention, I investigate what wisdom dear rat has to share with me now.  (Of course, I like the Chinese way of honoring the rat as the first sign in the zodiac because it can represent fertility and wealth.  ; )

And, now, this morning, as I pulled myself from a warm winter bed into a pre-dawn morning, I look to our house's Animal Medicine Cards (by Jamie Sams - her writing on Native American shamanism is prolific; she's the granddaughter of a Seneca Elder; and she's one of my favorite contemporaries).  I "haphazardly" turned over the Antelope Card.  It screams, "DO, Cara.  JUST DO IT."  It also speaks of how, when humans were in great danger of extinction due to their nakedness and hunger, the 4-legged rode in and offered to sacrifice itself for the 2-legged.  When the great Ice Age came, taking meat for food, skin for warmth and more, meant that humans could survive the harsh era that was upon them.  The Antelope reminds us of how in knowing our death, we can truly live.  Antelope also forces us to act on behalf of self, family, clan, nation and Mother Earth.  "Antelope knows the way, and so do you.  Take courage and leap; your sense of timing is perfect.  When Antelope has bounded into your cards, the time is now.  THE POWER IS YOU." 

YES!


Sunday, November 25, 2012

STORY OUR, two

There's an innocent inside of me.  A virgin, she loves to hold hands with everyone and to naively run forth.  She believes in the unity of our strength as she understands that the only way to collectively break the jail down is by all of our pushing together.  It is hard for her to accept, however, that some  just don't want to escape their own personal hells.  So, she willingly experiences the consequences of her mis-takes, time and time again.

There's this whore here, too.  A sacred prostitute, she gives her sex as a means of healing, as a tool for loving and as a vehicle for shifting.  She always knows where her lover is located - in space and time, in mind and body.  Her twin-flame, he vanishes and reappears at will.  It is their eternal union that drives her.  Clear-seeing, she surrenders to millennium-old longings.  Her hunger vast; her thirst rarely vanquished.  Her raw power unequal.  It is her voracious appetite that has made her a threat - a deity to be competed with.  She has risked uncertainty and death, time and time again.

There's also a rebel.  This wild woman, she refuses to be led by anyone but herself.  She swims up stream, against the current.  This is the way of pro-creation and propagation, and she trusts that she has enough fuel for the journey.  She waxes and wanes, ebbing and flowing with the tides as they push her farther up this river of life.  Her vision sharp, her gaze fixed - she knows where she is going.  Silver scales shimmer in the light, she hides in the shadows of the rocks while brother Bear searches and dives for her fleshy meat.  She has been eaten and consumed, time and time again.

And, there's this Queen, as well.  A benevolent leader, her firm hand gently guides towards a prosperous and successful village.  She's tired of so many orphans running around, neglected and uncared for.  Her patience has worn thin with her brothers' internal battle for control.  She ignores most of them while her royal blood races, for she has taken responsibility and has her sights set.  Her kingdom lay ahead.  Her King - he's here, too.  Some days, he is like Sleeping Beauty - he needs to wake up from his centuries-long slumber.  Other days, he's fully embodied and present - his warrior nature reflected in a suit of armor as he tackles the sickening apathy of coercion and control.  His sword sharp, his shield glinting in the sun.   They have been reunited and defeated, time and time again. 

This Magician, a Medicine Woman, she stirs our ancestral pot of archetype and meaning.  In the beginning, it's uncut and unfiltered - pure ingredients directly from Source.  The slithering tail of the lizard; the wandering eye of the gecko; the verdant green of the Praying Mantis; the aromas of thyme and lavender, mugwort and wild willow; the pink hues of Rose Hips mixing with the earthy browns of Frankincense and Dragon's Blood.  In the middle, it's a burning inferno - churning liquid into matter, and matter into gas.  The alchemical process of spinning GOLD from simple tales.  What it all boils down to, however - even in the face of all of the death and the destruction, the birth and re-creation - is always the same.  It's LOVE.


   







Saturday, November 24, 2012

Mantras for this Now

Listening is the hardest part.
Which voice is authentic and which is forced?
My body, she doesn't want to expend a lot of energy right now - especially as dusk falls on these long, winter nights.   She calls for warmth, domesticity and sleep.  I heed her, because she knows - 
she always knows. 

I stopped in to visit my senior friends on Black Friday -
it's my way of resisting the 'what is' of the dominant paradigm.
However, my compassion was nowhere to be found as I struggled to present myself to the moments at hand.  The meditation CD, that BG has lovingly pushed play on every Friday since I stopped showing up, dripped with words spoken by that same damn talking head - only, this time, she sounded robotic and removed.  "Commit to your highest self," her feigned British accent droned on.

I asked E. how his Thanksgiving was.  "Nah," he responded, with a shake of his head.  "When you're allergic to bird, Thanksgiving is not a celebration."  "ALLERGIC TO BIRD?  It's just not possible," my inner wise woman cried.  A. was late to join us.  I motioned for him to move into a leather seat within our circle.  He eyed me, up and down, with his Latin stare.  "You gained weight,"  he said in his lilting accent, after our meditation was complete.  "Yes," I responded, without shame or guilt.  "Why?" he wanted to know.  "I just have," I replied, as he accepted my answer without question.

(Do I emotionally eat?  Can I layer myself with weight as a means of protection?  Was I over-consuming fat burritos because I have a depressed sense of self?  Am I dancing less?  YES!  To all of it.  "Am I depressed now?" I asked myself this morning, as I sat looking at my own shadow behaviors, as well as some of my addictions and over-consumptions.  Perhaps, there remains pieces of me that I continue to hide, repressed emotions that I avoid and a gnawing emptiness that I still try to feed through external stimulants.  And?  So bee it...)

My curves are simply back.  The only difference between now and my 20s, however, is that I am doing my best to allow my body to expand and contract - without fear that it means anything.  Can I cultivate compassion for myself in knowing that I am not this container and that it is merely an expression, responding in every given moment to external, as well as internal, forces?  Can I just let myself bee wherever I am?  (YES!)

So, G comes over and shares her story of near Adrenal meltdown in the Philippines, how her kidneys are taxed and she, too,  is undernourished (by lacking water).  Her reflection is just too potent to ignore so, after she leaves, I write down and color in my current mantras,  
"My presence is a gift."  AND,
"I AM NOURISHED BY UNCONDITIONAL LOVE."  
I am releasing my unhealthy addictions to having my deepest core wounds continually reopened.  Those veins are now closed - a new story has begun.

So, C. texts me and invites me to attend a theatrical performance with he and his mother, who is in town visiting him for the long, holiday weekend.  Again, I can't dictate where and how the honoring comes ~ I can only receive what the Universe sends.  Prior to the show, B. arrives and we pick up where last we left off - kind off.  Only this time I am gentler and I am acknowledging him for his specific gifts.  One truth is that I'm calling in the Divine Masculine for PROTECTION, as there's been some strange "stalking" energy of late.  (Yes, I am inquiring as to where this energy resides in me.)  Plus, when I asked B. for help right after my birthday last month, he showed up hugely by bearing Owl Medicine and ceremony.  

Thus, I'm learning to honor that my relationships can mirror life's natural cycles - there's ongoing and continual death, as well as rebirth and, sometimes, it's even with the same person over a short period of time.  So, I reciprocate B's generosity right back to him - giving him medicine this time, as well as offering him a down-home way of being and enjoying.  In the process, I sink further into embodying REGENERATIVE EXCHANGE.  Then, he says, "Where intention goes, energy flows. Where energy flows, LIFE GROWS."

 




Friday, November 23, 2012

my STORY/OUR story

There's this little child inside of me -
she likes to push people away, especially those her Spirit needs in order for her to evolve.
"Leave me alone," she cries, "I don't want to be connected with you anymore!"
She's miserable, as she mistakenly lashes out at all those who she desires, 
yet equally fears.  
Most don't understand her love language - it's backwards from a 
lifetime of neglect.  What she really means to say is, "Come - let's go deeper
into this labyrinth of play and imagination."

There's this woman here, too -
she understands that her defenses are merely her ego's resistance to the burning fires of transformation.
She exhales, deeply and on a long sigh, wondering when her surrender will be complete.
Bowing deeply, she submits, as she humbly acknowledges that she doesn't know
the way and asks for assistance.  "Please, help me," she motions with her palms upward, to the heavens.  Most don't understand her dance - it's slow and deliberate, like a Tortoise across the desert.  Yet, what she's really saying is, "Shhh, there's a tale that's already been told.  To hear its tune you must once again learn to listen to the stirrings of your own, unique heart."

There's also this Crone -
she gathers food from the yard, plants seeds and diligently tends to the soil of our Souls.
Her intuitive wisdom always knows - you can not hide your actions from her.  She reads your body, your eyes and your movement like an Owl scans the pitch black night.  All senses delicately attuned. 
You can not fool her, nor pull the wool over her eyes.  Sometimes, she plays dead.  Other times, she portends apathy.  She is like a cat in the night - lurking in the shadows.  Your illumination is merely a form of echo-location - she positions and steadies herself to pounce, sometimes, and, other times, to stalk.  "It's a jungle out here, you know?"

There's a dream that's unfolding, as well -
below a towering, giant Serpent yesterday, I shook.  "I'm afraid," I imagined I cried, as M. led me back in time on a Shamanic healing journey.  "No!  You are not," my beast spit back in my face, as we re-met on a dirt mountainside as an early spring sun headed west over the horizon.  M., on the other hand, saw the snake and I spinning and gliding along a gold-dusted dance floor.


There's a destiny that is ours to claim -
my inner child wants to run and hide from it, yet my adult self is malnourished from rejecting the indelible kiss that the Universe has marked us with.  Meanwhile, my Crone just laughs, uproariously.  She smacks me in the back of the head.  "Just keep baking the cookies," she replies, after I ask her how I can womanifest this song that loudly beats in my chest.

There's a me in a you and a you in a me -
we know our names, well.  And, we're married to ourselves - in our divine union we best play our parts, as these instruments fly open and so much harmony rises out.  Some call it LOVE. 
I call it STORY.
  It doesn't matter the term, for...

There's a mystery unveiling itself.
TUNE IN.



p.s. GT ~ this post is partially for you, from our Black Friday afternoon spent together.  "I'm hanging out with G today, and I don't know what's going to happen," I thought to myself earlier.  Yet, "This is it!" we always both agree - "these moments, now." 
You're a powerful reflection, dear sweet sister spider.  Our divine alignment is all the proof I need to know that I am not a crazy ol' bat but, rather, a potent weaver of metaphor.  I embrace our next twirl around this dance floor, called life.
To Quetzalcoatl and beeyond...  xoxo.
To omens rising and our shared divinity, too.



Thursday, November 22, 2012

food/resources GLORIOUS food/resources (aka thanks-taking)

(For us Americans) it's here - a gobble gobble and a thanks-taking (as M. refers to it).
A time to remember how we took what wasn't ours from a land that was already inhabited and then silently vanquished the 7 million people who were already here.  Ouch.  We can re-write this past - we can give voice to it, honor our Native forebears and invite back a renewed way of living in balanced relationship with each other, ourselves and our planet.  I beelieve.

During this past week, my sisters have been loving returning home from work to a house filled with the pungent aromas of fresh baked food.  They kiss me on the cheek and tell me that I'm the best housewife ever.  (YES!  ; ) I've been reveling in the kitchen, preparing:
Homemade Hummus - on Sunday, I climbed into the lemon tree and removed some ripe fruit as well as cut branches of basil from our plant in the garden.  Now, a fresh pesto hummus, as well as a beet hummus, sit in the cooler; 
Butternut Squash & Beet Soup with Red Carrots;
and my "Hodge Podge" Raisin & Chocolate Chip Cookies;
Thanksgiving, here we are!  How do you celebrate and revere your life?

On Tuesday night, our front living room was filled with radical  activists who are opposed to Wal-Mart's (and, thus, the Walton's) move into our neighborhood.  They sat together, plotting out their Black Friday strategies for momentarily distracting the already distracted from their delusion.  I teased, as I played domestic in the hearthstone with my sisters, about how I was going to be up at 3am and out of my camping tent so that I could stand in line at the nearest strip mall.  Ha!  Perhaps, it is no joke, however - this blatant disregard for all that is sacred by taking the boiled down fossil fuel from our mother's belly and barely paying unfair wages to a vulnerable people elsewhere as they are forced to produce cheap plastic products abroad while a meager few profit greatly from the exchange.   This is not exchange - it is pillaging.  

(Please, I beseech you, consciously consume - According to the Huffington Post, this pat Sunday, the World Bank issued a report suggesting that the climate could warm a full 4 degrees by the end of this century -- less than 90 years from now -- even if countries fulfill the modest emissions-reduction pledges they've already made.

Last night, a motley crew of local Socialists gathered in our front room to kick off the American holiday.  I made myself at home, grabbed a plate of varying food stuffs - quinoa salad, buttermilk biscuits, mashed potatoes and more - and introduced myself to the circle of my peers who, actually, look a lot like Star Trek fans.  The lone female in the group, more Goth and punk-like with her array of tattoos and facial piercings, was too absorbed in whatever was in her lap (a Smart phone, perhaps?) to acknowledge my existence.  It's cool - I don't need anyone's acknowledgment and I can certainly let people be exactly where they are. 

Eager to be known as card-carrying commies, I smirked at the notion that carrying something makes anybody anything.  Oh, silly folk - when will we all wake up and realize that EMBODIMENT is all there is.  How we live, each and every day, is the most tell tale sign of one's being.  All the rest is just blather from an inconsequential talking head and, goddess knows, this is what has gotten us into the mess that we're currently in.  So, let's stop all the talk talk talking and start really, truly LOVING - our selves, each other and our planet. 

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Opossum Medicine


"I pray to the birds because they remind me of what I love rather than what I fear. 
And at the end of my prayers, they teach me how to listen."
—Terry Tempest Williams       

I am having a really hard time letting go and as I shared with M. yesterday, I'm feeling kind of sad about this.  Holding on to the past only keeps me from living fully in this present moment.  When I don't honor myself by being here, now, then I grow resentful and angry (usually because I'm not tending to the little details that this moment calls for).  This never has anything to do with anyone else but myself.  So, in other words, there is no one to point a finger at - there is only ever me, to sit with and look at. 


So, on the day before Thanks-taking (as my sweet sister M. refers to it) I'm bowing down before all of my teachers. "Thank you," I say. "Thank you for showing me the way."  I know that this isn't personal - it's not about you, or me, or some perceived "US" that I wish I could hold onto.  Rather, it's about what we teach each other and the Medicine that we each, whether consciously or not, give in every moment and interaction.   

Sometimes, the Medicine that is called for is a swift bite, like a lightning strike from the Heavens or a kick in the butt from an attentive parent.  I don't blame my Snake for defending itself back in March, as it was I who unconsciously stepped right beside it as it lay sleeping in a summer sun.  And, I would never kill any creature in a fearful response!  Please, let the senseless brutality stop - in Gaza and here in our homes and our hearts, now.  (This is what I pray for.)

So, I'm doing my best to honor us by remembering what dances between us.  As always, it's the birds and the bees - the pollinators who communicate loudly, co-exist in harmony and flourish in community.  Can we simply bee the flowers who don't "do" anything but bloom, grow and attract to us that which we need in order to thrive and propagate?   (YES!)

Recently, a brother was speaking to me about Opossums and he openly wondered what they are good for.  Well, last night, I remembered (thanks to Jamie Sams & David Carson's Medicine Cards: the Discovery of Power through the Ways of Animals) - Opossum Medicine reminds us of the brilliant strategy of playing dead.  "Opossum has the ability to fight with its claws and teeth, but it rarely uses this form of protection.  Instead, the supreme strategy of diversion is constantly employed when things get a little too hard to handle...Rely upon your instincts for the best way out of a tight corner.  It you have to pretend to be apathetic or unafraid, then do it! ...Expect the unexpected and be clever in achieving your victory...Use your brain, your sense of drama, and surprise to leap over some barrier to your progress."  YES!

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

TRAINing ground

Sometimes, we don't know why we are doing what we are doing.  We simply feel compelled to act. Oft times, I've found, that even in the midst of my forward movement, my resistances and barriers - my ego's death grip - allow me but a slow crawl towards the change that my Spirit craves, yet my mind fears.  Personally, I'm a stubborn old mule with a very hard head - I guess I simply prefer to learn the hard way.  Grrrr... as this is what accounts for the burgeoning head of gray hair that has continually been sprouting on my noggin over the course of the past 10 years.  And, truth be told, I am done with this story - life is simple and enjoyable.  Period.

I spent four years getting my butt kicked both in graduate school as well as by a powerful man.  At that time, I couldn't listen, let alone follow the basic directions I was being given.  "Just write," my graduate mentor would plead.   "All you have to do is write, Cara."   Instead, I ran off - to Kauai and NYC, to the mountains and elsewhere - and I avoided reality, either by over medicating on marijuana or with sleep.  "Just write."  Another mantra from that time period was to "document, everything." "Just do it," our advisers begged.

As for my ex, his advice was less gentle and more brutal.  "You've forgotten common sense, Cara," he'd complain.  And, he was right - when I couldn't immediately find or do something, I would ask for help.  "Figure it out yourself," he would say.  "You were given a brain for a reason."  It took four years of knocking my head against the same walls before I broke on through to the other side.  

Sometimes, our training ground is what it is - we don't know why we feel compelled to stay in situations that aren't soft, yet we know there's a reason for all of it.   Now, today, I say, "Thank God for it all."

Monday, November 19, 2012

It's The End of the World As We Know It and I Feel Fine


I'm hoping that it doesn't start with an earthquake.  And, I'm knowing that it definitely began with birds and snakes,  Oh my!  So, the end of the world is here as we slip and slide into the holiday season of 2012.  Who woulda thunk it?  This morning, my bodymind is filled with nostalgia as I remember the last end of the world - when Y2K was our collective fear as I stood on a rooftop in Berzerkely, California, singing Stype's song while the sun went down on Prince's "(I'm gonna) Party like it's 1999."

Back in 1999, I was a recent college graduate, strolling the streets of the Bay Area and feeling absolutely overwhelmed as to how I was going to re-create the flourishing village feeling that I had just emerged from.  Thirteen years later and the bird song in my heart - a tune that cries for harmony -  remains.  Funny how some things just don't change.  While watching REM's live version above, I also reflected on SD's Michael Stype-impersonator, a musician who has his own rockin' sound and successful band and a peer whom I just so happen to share the same day of birth with.  Thus, I think of him, and the many other talented, brilliant souls that I consider myself lucky to bee surrounded by.  My marriage to music is a millennium-old, ancestral call.

As an artist myself, I intuitively understand the desire to reach throngs of people.  I empathize with the feeling of having a message within one's Soul that screams to be heard.  And, I see this reflected back to me in my musician brothers and sisters.  I know they feel compelled to fly 'round the world singing their songs of hope and sweetness, of loss and tragedy.  And, I guess with the end of this 2012, I am wondering what that future will look like: will we continue along our same path, as the technologies we create eventually merge with our human biology?   When I was twenty-three, what I prayed for most was the end of repetition - the 9-5pm slog of 365 days a year felt so very stifling and deadening.  I am not a robot - my Spirit doesn't do vacuous routine.  Yet, I look around and I notice my neighbors with their heads down, as they distractedly finger-pluck away the present moment.  Now ask yourself, what world is ending?  And, what world is beginning? 

Innocently, I had been excited to attend an annual pre-Thanksgiving event at a local author's ranch in Oceanside yesterday.  Only, I arrived there and I immediately missed my friends who surrounded me while there last year as well as the embodiment that we, the Soular Power Brigade, brought to that day.  I left early, with some heaviness in my heart, only to return hOMe, to Las Raices, where some of SD's finest activists (of course I am bias!  Duh. ; ) were gathered.  We sat together in the front living room, drinking homemade ginger beer and eating vegan Boston Cream Pie (WOW!~), as we each spoke into and shared about what fascinates us.  Again, I reveled at how fortunate I am to look upon others who have been living intentionally with the land as well as with each other (while also helping to plant seeds and grow food for local San Diego) for years now and to call them 'friends.'

In regards to what fascinated us, the day's topics ranged from spiders to a genetically-modified goat that weaves webs, from bows to soap, and from there being more than one human race to the privilege that we take for granted as Americans.  I shared that what fascinates me is how, as humans, what unites us is our capacity to feel - deeply.  We all know pain - it need not matter who hurts more.  It is our collective sadness that we can use to weave us back together into a vibrant whole.   

So, here's to a start of weeks of celebrations, reunions and consumption.  All I know is that the mantra that is reverberating the loudest in my chest is the words of St. Francis.
When asked what he'd do if he knew the world were to end tomorrow, he replied,
"I'd keep hoeing."

May we all plant fertile seeds of LOVE into nutritious, healthy soil/Souls.




P.S. Happy Birthday/Feliz Cumple, MAAG! I'll always love you & I am forever grateful for all that you fiercely taught this stubborn-ol' me!!! xoox.

Sunday, November 18, 2012

TRUST

Am I scared?  You betcha.  And, I am breathing into my fear, honoring it as exactly that.
"Sure, take a seat," I say to it, motioning to an imaginary table filled with faces, food and sustenance. "However, you do not run the show," I tell it.  "Your voice is merely one of many here."

I had been looking forward to riding my blue Elvis cruiser (what can I type? I got it for free!) down to yesterday's Little Italy Farmer's Mercato.   In living with two farmers during the past summer season, Las Raices was inundated with fresh food from two, large CSA boxes a week.  Thus, it had been awhile since I have had to make a grocery shopping trip to visit my favorite local family farmer's stands.  Suffice it to type, I was excited for the adventure. (Again, what can I type? I'm a total dork.)

Somehow, I had managed to forget that, of course, I'd run into many of my people while there.   From the street corners where musicians (aka my friends) were serenading the ambling crowds to hugging  passers-by as well as sitting with a sister whom I had not played catch-up with since January.  We sat together for a good hour plus - as I had to inform her of my initiation into snake medicine, and all that has come with it.

I rode home, the 22+ blocks back up that Golden Hill, vibrating on positive, radiant energy.

Just over three years ago, I dragged myself out of my stupor.  At that time, I went to bed every night wishing for a different existence and, sometimes even, death.  My soul felt vacant, as I stayed firm living in a relationship that was both abusive and did not feed my Spirit.  (A split, bottom lip from an MMA-style kick to my face on the night before Thanksgiving in NYC?  Yep.  I know the inside of the Octagon...)  Don't get me wrong - today, I love and appreciate my ex for all that he taught me.  One of my past patterns, however, has been to stay far too long in situations that, as a result of my staying, caused me far greater suffering.  So, at summer's end of 2009, I left my 4-year-old relationship, moved out of our home, finished graduate school and began actively applying language from Paolo Coelho's novel, the Alchemist, to my life.  After thirty-three years of living in fear and trauma, I chose to believe in my destiny, in the path of the highest good for all and in all of the magic included there within. 

And, now, today, I am surrounded by my Spiritual Soul Mates.  I dance with us, often - in the studio, at bars and, even, in cafes.  Without a doubt, I know that we have been brought together for a very specific purpose - I just don't know what that is.  I simply have to TRUST that all is unfolding exactly as it is divinely meant to.  This is the hardest part - letting go of trying to construct any meaning and simply letting the meaning construct itself.  I'll let you know how it goes.  ; )

Saturday, November 17, 2012

success

 It's an important word to explore.  What does it look like to you?  Because we certainly live in a time and a place when there are very definitive ideas of what makes a person successful.  And our sensitive bodies are bombarded by these notions every moment as they are splashed across all forms of our media and entertainment.  However, most of us are merely watching the news from outside of it - we are not the news makers.  So, how do we define this crucial need (to feel important and a sense of achievement) in our everyday lives?

Traditionally speaking, working to pay the bills and providing for one's family was a demonstrable way of feeling successful.  Yet, the nuclear family is a 20th-century relic as we no longer live such conforming, regular lives.  Today's post-modern family comes in as many hues as a Crayola box - two moms; two dads; single mothers & fathers; pods of polyamorous lovers; and tons of shades of divorce!  I can only imagine how hard it must be to feel successful when one's family has been split in half and while raising one's children part-time.  So, how do we re-define this word for ourselves, in every moment?

As a graduate student, I intellectually understood that my 'success' was not dependent upon the amount of work I produced - unlike Warhol's' mid-2oth century "Factory" led us to believe.  However, tell that to my body ~ peeling away the layer that is sewn up with the comparison to everything else around it takes time.  So, as this procrastinator struggled through a self-motivated master's program, I kept asking myself the question: "what does success mean to me?"

Over the last few weeks, I have had two very direct experiences that embody answers to this question.  While serving as a one-day mentor at this year's culminating Spirit of Leadership Conference, I sat with a group of ten teenage girls.  Together, we spent the day coloring, writing, talking, eating, sharing and enjoying.  We were celebrating each others' leadership.  One of the last activities we did involved a small, blown-up beach ball.  We were instructed to write our personal dreams on our ball with a black marker.  E, the 17-year-old sitting beside me, began by writing "COMPASSION" on our ball.  Our collective dream, in that moment, was to harness compassion, to be compassionate.  WOW~!  The other small hands then went on to write, "Happy," "Healthy" and more, before we elevated our dreams into the atmosphere above our heads, and sent them flying back and forth to each other

On 11/11/12, H.S. came over to spend the night at Las Raices.  We sat together in the front room, on a chilly Sunday night, chatting.  "I wanted to be here with you tonight," she said, "because one year ago today - on 11/11/11 at the Soular Flare in the Prosperity Hive - I first met you."  I leaned forward, into her and gave her a great, big hug.  "WOW!  Thank you!"  We then spoke about the deep healing that we had both just experienced as I told her about how my poles had shifted during that Saturday night's Ayahuasca ceremony. 

My sisters and I have been emotionally preparing to leave Las Raices by year's end and I have been going through and purging items that are no longer necessary.  The rain of the past few weeks has helped, too - soaking old things that were merely in boxes tucked under the outdoor balcony.  We've got our sights set on a half-acre property that is only a few blocks away.  M. is chomping at the bit to get her hands on that land.  And, in our new partnership, I am offered another opportunity for self-growth and expansion - for sinking deeper into my medicine woman ways, and into caring for the land as well as actively growing food and expanding our chicken brood.  I marvel at how it has only taken two years to womanifest the urban eco-village that I've been dreaming of and I am not in fear of perpetuating the mistakes of my past.  With each step, a new breath.  With every relationship, new opportunity.  Take it and run.  Let life play out its hand.  There is nothing to fear but fear itself.

Friday, November 16, 2012

EVERYTHING IS BEAUTIFUL


We can choose to view life as art. We can shift our gaze and see that you and me we just are and we can consciously choose laughter and lightness even as the reality of death and loss remains a natural cycle of life here on planet Earth. Because, in the end, it's all just LOVE.

Sister Speak Music with Sherri Anne www.sisterspeakmusic.com
Dancing & film by Cara H. Cadwallader themetaphorofmovement.com
Lyrics by traveling minstrel and his song "Om" in B.C. Canada
Filmed at Las Raices Collective, San Diego, Yes~vember, 2012

P.S. Yes, the video and sound quality of this film sucks - so, please be gentle with me. ; ) New/old technology coupled with my rusty skills is one "why" and one solution is: we are calling in a resident/community member master film maker. A visionary who gets that living sustainably in the here and now IS a way forward and someone who is excited to flourish within a vibrant community where love, hugs and kisses are the highest form of exchange. Our big project breaks ground next month and is our urban eco-village - there's already a stage on our 1/2 acre and we are equipped with the skills to start growing our own food, conserving our greywater & more. We need you ~ please inquire within: cara@beelovenow.org

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Buzz-y (Queen) Bee

Wake ten-year-old up in time for school.
Prepare breakfast and clean kitchen,
as I help take care of both my 46-year-old best friend as well as her son.
Three-hour long transit ride to move from North County to downtown
(San Diego ~ we gotta fix this!)  
Embodied coaching session with a graduate student for her master's thesis.
Check out potential location for urban eco-village, #1 ~ a half acre in Golden Hill.
(Whhhhatttt?!?!  Yeh-yeh.)
Dinner with one of my favorite local musicians as we plot out our version
of holiday giving.  "As performers, we have a responsibility to our audience,"
I share.  Quick stop into the local health store (Sprouts!) for Epsom salts and Dead Sea soap.
One hot bath and a full night's rest later...

And, the question I sit with this morning is:
"Why the need (or desire) to have an audience?
What's that all about?"
I dunno, truth be told.  I just know that we were born now,
with these tools at our fingertips & we can consciously choose to use them for a variety of purposes.
( I CHOOSE LOVE.)
I also know that I feel deeply compelled to write ~ to right my past, to tell my present and to foretell
a harmonious, balanced future.  C'est la vie.  (It is what it is...)
My heart of hearts tells me that this is what my soul mates want, too.
So, here we are....

And, there you are ~
in Russia, Australia, South Korea, Israel, Sweden, France, Canada & more.
You're watching me watching you watching me ~
WE ARE ONE.
I am happy and living in LOVE.  YOU are too, NOW.

(And, my past was really fucked up, as well.  Sado-masochistic ~ fucked up.  I know.  It sucks.  It hurts.  And, it is so damn amazing ~ if we just let it bee.)

The next post is for U.......................  xoxox.