GENEROSITY

2013 is almost said and done. 
In the past, I once enjoyed reflecting on the year just had while also filling up my Soul cup up with all that I felt I had 'accomplished' within the 365 day, solar year.  Today, I find my Soul cup so filled that, with each passing moment, I sink more and more into simply beeing here, now ~ 
PRESENT.  
The greatest gift.

What's to come in 2014 & beeyond is a MYSTERY and I sure hope that you will allow yourself to plan less and play more, to bee less methodical in your approach to life and, instead, more organic and improvisatory.   However, one key ingredient that I feel in my bones the coming times calls for is GENEROSITY.

Do you really want to make your dreams come true?  
If so, GIVE.  

GIVE free entry to your events to a handful of friendly volunteers, beecuase it will attract more people.
GIVE free advice and help to an obvious seeker lost on his path but trying so damn hard to find his route, beecuase it will earn you his respect.
GIVE LOVE BEECAUSE, in the end, IT'S WHAT YOUR HEART SINGS FOR MOST.

GIVE GIVE GIVE.

And, do it beecause you are WISE and beecause you know that in giving you shall receive. 
Bee so selfish that you put others' needs on equal footing as your own beecause this is what you want.  And, when you are not receiving what you want, ask and teach others how to give to you what you need.  

GIVE GIVE GIVE
and I will see you next year.

the last day of (Gregorian) 2013

http://angelicshamanministry.com/tag/wolf-medicine/

Whew ~ what a year! 
And, what a time this now is.
I'm sitting here in bed, in the early morning hours of a New Year's Eve, naked while typing this,
as my man sits beeside me, naked and typing out his feelings about how his fellow Brothers need to "Man Up" by beecoming emotionally fluent and accepting that beeing vulnerable is about beeing transparent and honest.
Whew!  Thank God I finally "Woman'ed Up!"  ;)

Recently, we were out to dinner with a group of long-standing community members when One of them exclaimed how his past perception of me was, "Cara doesn't need a man."  And, I'm like ~
"OF COURSE I NEED A MAN."  I need a man like a fish needs water.

Perhaps, my writing comes across as unfairly directed at men in regards to how much waking up the collective male psyche needs to, and must, do.  But, one thing you must understand, is that us sisters have spent decades now stepping forward, acknowledging our systemic oppression and then re-claiming our whole Selves by gathering together in sisterhood for the soul purpose of our healing.  Men, you must acknowledge how patriarchy has oppressed you, too - silenced your voices; cut off your balls; emasculated and victimized you; disconnected you from your intuition, your feelings, your sensing bodies, and, even, healthy, vibrant sex lives (pornography is not sex!); as well as brainwashed you into beelieving that anything other than gentle harmony is innate and natural to our human species.

Guess what?  
You can have lots of great, daily sex with a real human beeing who wants to make passionate love to you.  No force needed. 

However, I am not just here to call our men out, I am also here to support and love them.  To encourage them to strive for their Highest Selves, to LOVE them and inspire them with my soft femininity as well as exciting invitation. 

And,  I am also here to seek truth at all costs, even if it makes me 'unpopular' or a perceived 'threat' to any and all "establishments," or others.  As well, I equally aim to hold my sisters (and myself) accountable.  

Men, I will give you this ~ if, in getting to know any adult woman, she uses a baby voice to greet you or connect with you, RUN run RUN in the other direction.  Beecause, thus far, my experience has been that this is a tool of manipulation meant to draw you into a perceived safe space when, in actuality, it is more than likely a facade that hides a cold, hard woman beehind it.  


Trust Your Gut.  Follow Truth.  
(Even when it's uncomfortable.)

Yep.  We've all got boat loads of work to do.   
Here's to sowing the seeds for us all collectively doing this work ~ the most important of all ~ on this New Moon of 2014. 

 

 

Still Crazy After All These Years

One of the feelings that has been quite prominent for me this holy-day season has been about how we, as a human race, are in the midst of a great dying off.  Here in America, we primarily see it in  the scourge of cancer.  Recently, there was a popular photo series that went viral of a man recreating his wedding photos from only a few years ago with a then vibrant and beautiful wife who had since succumbed to cancer.  This time around, however, their three-year-old daughter had beecome mommy's stand in.

There was also a 'Make a Wish' Radio Program in which a woman who had passed away two years ago from cancer had, before her death, written a letter and asked a friend to hold onto it and only mail it when her husband, as well as father of four boys, had moved on with this life, and into the arms of a new woman.  In her last wish, she lovingly asked that this new woman bee pampered and that the family bee gifted a Disney vacation.  There wasn't a dry eye to bee found during the predominantly male radio segment when this final wish by a now, long dead woman was granted.

Even closer to home was the loss of a college classmate's wife to breast cancer.  Their Facebook photos show a happy life together in which she is radiant and glowing ~ an image of youth and health.  Now, their young child is also left without their birth mother.   And I am left wondering when this madness will come to a halt.  

The thing is LIFE IS THE BIGGEST RISK WE CAN EVER TAKE.  We are each born with a death sentence and it's called LIFE.  The task remains, then, how you choose to live it.  

Last night, we did what we are called to do together ~ create relaxation for ourselves right here at home by sitting in the hot tub under Jupiter, looking up in wonder and awe, then gazing at each other in love and amusement.  We pull each other close, taking turns offering one another an impromptu Watsu healing, then I request that we bathe in the cold pool too, so you pick me up, carry me to the pool and gently submerge our lower, over-heated bodies into the frigid water.  Sufficiently relaxed, we emerge with water dripping down our bodies as we sway and dance to Paul Simon's tune, "Still Crazy After All These Years" ~ holding each other tight in the center of an Encinitas apartment complex.  I am feeling vulnerable and exposed, yet you encourage the turning on of ecstasy and orgasm for others who may bee watching, so I just melt into your arms and you just hold me.

Later, we sink into deep sleep, relishing the feel of our naked skin making contact off and on throughout the night.  I awoke the other day with the thought about how we, as human beeings, are not meant, or designed, to bee alone.  THIS IS IT.  This morning, I ask you what you think Paul means in his lyrics.  "To not Engage in Life is Crazy," you say.  "Right," I quickly respond.  "And, to engage is CRAZY," you continue, "it's the greatest paradox of all."

http://wyldestonecottage.blogspot.com/p/what-is-shaman.html

Christmas Day 2013

Christmas Day 2013,
how do you mark the time?

It's the one day in America when consumerism and busy-ness
is left by the wayside, and quality time spent present
with our Loved Ones is the value.
Phew ~ feels like hOMe to me.

One whole day.
How do you spend it?

This time of year always has me in a reflective mood.

The other day, one of my mentors - who had to have her appendix removed this week -
exclaimed how, in certain Native American traditions, One does not dance the Bear Dance in
winter.  Now is the time for deep sleep and hibernation, for pulling in and staying warm, for burrowing and resting up.  Given that we southern Californians live in a perennial summer, how do we honor these most sacred of rhythms when we reside in a land and culture hell-bent on our forgetting?

As I reflect on the now, almost past year, I am filled with GRATITUDE.  My, what a year it has been filled with movement and motion, change and transformation ~  all that I ever really want for myself, really.  As a result, I discover myself sinking deeper into living my authentic truth with an open-heart while trusting that, whatever is to come in 2014 & beeyond,  both God and the Universe have got me.  I am Loved, fervently.  I am supported, deeply.  I LOVE, deep and true.  
I AM LOVE.

And, so are you.

So, may this bee my Christmas wish for you ~ 
to know this, to embody it, TO BEE IT.

Celebrate Solstice: HONOR the DARK

Tonight, we revel in the Dark.
Most Winter Solstice events that I have either participated within or am aware of, tend to usually celebrate the moving back towards the apex of the summer light.  Tonight, however, we're HONORING the Messiness, the Confusion, the Chaos, the Emotions, the Groping in the Dark and not knowing for what, the beeing pulled forward by not thought nor rationale but by feeling and a deep, embodied sense.  Tonight, we reclaim all that has been lost for more than a millennium and we honor a radical balance of our inner Masculine and Feminine, our Light and Dark ~ our very beeing on this planet Earth.
It's high time for this full reclamation.
The planet needs us now.
We need US now.

So, we hope you'll join us, where ever you are, in honoring your embodied wisdom - your inner knowing of what is harmful and what cultivates peace, which is your birthright of intuition.  We hope you'll root your seed dreams on these darkest nights of the year for a harmonious planet Earth upon which the process of reclaiming our once wounded selves is allowed to bee as spacious and messy as need bee.  We hope you'll sow light, freedom, joy, innocence, acceptance, vulnerability and courageous willingness in beeing with the darkness, the stillness, the quiet, the Death that winter brings and that is an inherent cycle of Life, for without any of this there is no Rebirth.

We hope you'll Dance.  And that you will know that Your Life is Your Greatest Dance.  Flowing in and out, out and in, of Relationship and Contact with Self, Earth and Others, of Intimacy and Relating, of beeing hurt and wounded and beeing alive and vibrant.  Balance beegins here.  The choice is up to you. 

ON INTIMACY

A few weekends ago, I had the privilege of studying directly under two Druids - keepers of an ancient wisdom - in their presentation of a dance workshop entitled, "Give Peace a Dance."  One of these men is the grandfather of our Encinitas Free-Form (or, non-denominational, if you prefer) Dance Community, which he and his son birthed  ten years ago.  During this amazing, winter weekend, I reveled not just in ample time spent back in the studio but in the embodied understanding that
I HAVE ARRIVED.  

Over the past four plus years, and under P's tutelage, I have worked diligently at embodying the concepts and ideas that these wise men were relaying through movement - essential life ingredients for how to sow awareness, presence and deep listening into one's life in order to flourish in this new consciousness.  Best of all, however, was beeing in the workshop with my Lover - someone with whom, after all these years, we simply flourish together while all of the projection and blame has flown out the window leaving mainly gentle, sweet LOVE with loads of SEX.  YES! ~ 

REGENERATIVE INTIMACY IS THE GREATEST INDICATOR OF OUR OWN PERSONAL EVOLUTION AND HOW FAR WE HAVE COME TO BALANCE OURSELVES ONCE MORE IN A PLACE OF SHARED, CONNECTED SPACE.

You think it would bee easy, right?  Seeing as how this is our natural, preferred state as human beeings?  Unfortunately, all the mid-20th century, modern push for single family dwellings and cookie-cutter suburban developments, all of the television and the media, the solo commutes in cars with music that caters only to one person's needs (i.e. car radio and/or earphones), all the convenience and drive-thrus, the single person bedrooms and one person per phone, computer, car, house, etc., has done is to render us more disconnected from each other, more isolated from our own feeling and sensing bodies as well as from true, sustained intimacy with others, our communities and our planet.  Do you want to know why our children keep arming themselves and walking into the prisons now known as public schools?  Look here.  It's simple.  And, it's up to US ~ we can shift this tide. 

Those who buy, sell and make the things want to keep selling in a product-based, results-oriented value system beecause the focus IS the bottom line.  US, however, we're tired of such scarcity mentality beecause we understand what it is breeding ~ a fear-based society that no longer has the social skills with which to have our most primary needs (for REAL-TIME SEX, LOVE, TOUCH, and AFFECTION) met.  

We can change this by making small yet life-altering choices, such as sharing everything we have, declaring that we do not need everything we are beeing taught to buy, and honoring that even our own 'weaknesses' do not have to bee changed beecause there are others whose strengths complement our frailties ~ all we need to do is partner with them.  The choice is up to you.   
What do you choose?

honoring the dark

I have't been typing here as often of late because my life is currently thick with VITALITY and real-time human connection that keeps me reflecting, digging and in amusement - daily.  As I surrender to the discomfort in my body that I am also experiencing in tandem with the depth of the intimacy that I share with dozens of people, I recognize that I HONOR THE DARKNESS by remaining pressed up against new and unfamiliar edges and planes while allowing the MYSTERY of all that I do not "know" to unfold and unveil itself around me.  To bee quite honest, this is new terrain ~ at least my recent adoption of an approach that is COMMITTED to my/the/our Highest Truth is.  Now, what the hell do I mean by that?

On Friday, I went into see a powerful, local acupuncturist.  After taking a hot yoga class this past week (my first official class in years!), I experienced the heigth of my body's mineral depletion - my throbbing right temple ready to burst forth into a major headache at any moment and my inability to replenish my electrolytes back into my body.  After thirty years of suffering from regular headaches/migraines as my main life ailment, I decided I had had enough ~ "I am releasing the illusion that I have to suffer," I told my lover in bed last night.  

What this requires, mainly, is for me to choose ME as my first priority by declaring that I deserve to energetically sustain my high vibration - everyday - and in most moments of my life.   See, I once erroneously beelieved that my monthly headaches were fair exchange for the high level of whole beeing health I radiate.   This is a falsehood, however ~ "I don't have to suffer - not one bit." And, here is TRUTH ~ suffering is optional.  Unfortunately, we've been raised and led to beelieve that suffering is a natural part of beeing human on planet Earth.  It's not.  

These Bodies, Hearts, Minds and Souls are naturally harmonious.  We seek to live in balance.  Obviously, clearing out the clutter of cultural conditioning takes time, and work.  I am working hard (spiritually speaking) so that those who come after me will not have to do so much backpedaling in order to flourish as we were all meant to.  I hope you will, too.

"Did I tell you how I got these headaches?" I asked my lover the other night.  He nodded his head "No" in response.  "When I was eight or nine, I would arrive home from school and, on days when I knew my mother was home because she did not go to work, I would feel anxious about what kind of mood I would find her in.  So, I would strategize outside the house's gate and, sometimes, I would pretend I had a headache in order to gain her sympathy immediately upon my arrival."  "Talk about manipulation!" he said in response.  "Yeah, well, I did it to avert a potential beating."  "I know," he said, patting my hand.  Remaining quiet, I thought to myself about how 'it takes One to know One.'  Indeed.

radical balance, too

I've been missing you.
It's true.
When I don't post here, I feel the lack of our interaction ~ even though I don't "know" who is reading this, or where. 
I've wanted to encapsulate the brilliance of this now - yet, in reality, words fall short of the embodied truth of experience.  Perhaps, what I wish most is that YOU are also experiencing a vibrant LIFE right along with me.

Tonight, I burst out into tears while strolling along a cold coastline with my partner.  Along with an amazing weekend that included time spent in the dance studio (aka hOMe) giving "Peace a Dance," moments spent sowing the magic of non-rational sound and movement with a group of 75 people all dropped into One mind during a phenomenal Ecstatic Dance session, LOVE, sex, work, walking, writing, and bee-ing, I've also experienced constricted dances with reactions from a fear-based place of scarcity. 

It hurts to bee on the receiving end of the judgment that is inherent in this place.  So, I cried, "Damn it!  I wish I could just bee like everyone else and project and blame and gossip."  (Not really.  But, I allow my inner child to stomp her feet every once in awhile.)  My partner, he just laughed, "I didn't know it affected you, Cara," he said.  "You're just so damn high-functioning."  "I'm human," I reminded him, "of course I feel it all."  And, then, I mourned for how I wish we could all just vibrate in this place where we're not projecting or judging, we're not blaming or wasting our precious energy on pointing fingers and talking about others.  Rather, we're taking full responsibility for all of it.  We're keeping our vision focused on our highest intentions for the good of all, including ourselves and this planet.  

On Sunday night, I took this BodyMind of mine on a stroll when my inner parent told my inner child to just "stay your course and keep on beeing YOU."  In that exact moment, I looked up at the night sky and a huge meteor burst into flame in the Earth's atmosphere and fell, with a brightly-lit illuminated tail beehind it, for a good forty to forty-five seconds.  WOW!   The Geminid Meteor Shower is in full effect and is on 'till Friday ~ so get out under that night sky and count your shooting stars~!

And I remembered this time last year, when you and I strolled through that Golden Hill Park and I counted eight ~ 8 ~ Shooting Stars as I laughed and chortled in glee.  The year that has followed has been illuminating, to say the least.  And, as a result, that number (8) defines this space of SOLID LIGHTNESS (or light solidity ; ) that I find myself evolving more and more into ~ RADICAL BALANCE.

re-RIGHTING popular Story

"Where there is hatred within,
train your mind to sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope; 
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy;
do not so much seek to bee consoled
as to console;
to bee understood as to understand;
or to bee loved as to LOVE;
for it's in the giving that we receive,
it's in the pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it's by letting go of the concept of a separate "Self"
that we are born to eternal life."  
--St. Francis

"SOME PEOPLE ARE SO POOR,

ALL THEY HAVE IS MONEY."  

--anonymous.

I'm tired
due to a SPACIOUSLY FULL LIFE.

I'm full of gratitude as well as the embodied understanding
that this now is perfect.  

All is unfolding exactly as it is meant to.

This is it!
And there is nothing 'more.'

MORE Soon.  xoxox.  ;)

(i have come to) BUILD A BRIDGE

http://www.crystalinks.com/shamanism.html

"There are, strictly speaking, no enlightened people; 

there is only enlightened activity."  

--Shunryu Suzuki

I apprenticed one of our local Medicine women here in Encinitas yesterday.  She is a powerful healer whom I have had the good fortune of working along beeside, off and on, for the past thee years.  Mainly, she begs me to apply my "Creative Director" talents to her home-based business.  (Yes, I say that with great humility as well as pride!) 

She works with our most primary heart beat and rhythm - the drum - as a healing tool for our personal and global consciousness.  One of her projects was teaching the art of drum circle facilitation to local Northern Iraqi's as a means of conflict resolution for the many diverse tribes there that were greatly affected by the war.  She also actively studied under Michael Bernard Beckwith of Agape! in Los Angeles for years, as well.  It is an honor to bee bowing down to serve those who have paved the way so that we could bee here now.  

Modern examples of ancient Shamanism, there are many ways to practice Medicine for the People today.  One of my sistars is currently studying the art of apothecary in Northern California in order to brings it into our local community, meanwhile I enjoy the luxurious use of her beach side pad.  One of my brothers, like Nahko beelow, is focused on his voice and music as a primary healing tool - and, beelieve me, what flies out of his mouth is pure heart and Soul.   I focus on our Body - on literal and metaphorical movement as well as intimacy and connection - since it is the primary tool we each came to this planet with. 
 
Listen with your heart to what your true gifts are and SHARE, SHARE, SHARE these with your Loved Ones, community and the planet.  Feel deeply, learn to think for yourself once more and beegin discriminating between that which is harmful for you and that which feeds your internal fire. 
You can do it ~ I beelieve in YOU.

 "How people treat you is their karma;

how you react is yours."  

--Wayne Dyer

MEDICINE WOMAN

Thanks Living

"It's intriguing the way you really work with the metaphor of Medicine," he said.
"When did you start doing this?"
"Just last year, really," I replied.
"An acquaintance had run a Chaldean numerological reading on my name and kept pressing that there was something really important associated with my grandmother and me.  In hindsight, I come from a lineage of Medicine women ~ although they had been brainwashed to assimilate to a forceful way that strips humans of their authentic power and, thus, were extremely disconnected to their own internal fire as a result."

Then, I remembered a conversation my sister and I had when I was a little girl and she, four years my senior, had come to embrace her love of animals and her desire to one day become a veterinarian.  "Cara, you have to bee a nurse, since I am not going to bee," she advised me.   "Noooooooooo," I whined in response, "I don't want to."  To this day, I remain adamant that I am not a western medical caregiver.  I simply don't beelieve in its ways.

Obviously, I am (relatively) young and have only recently embarked upon this self-ascribed journey of beeing a Medicine Person.  I look forward to where it takes me.  However, there are key indicators that delineate this path:

• The understanding that EVERYTHING is comprised of energy.  When I was girl, I treated all things - including living beeings as well as inanimate objects - with reverence and Love.  (I also had emotional eruptions the size of Mt. Etna - this was learned behavior that came with a lack of positive emotional development, however.)
  
• A commitment to moving towards the light, even in the midst of confusion and chaos.  Music and Harmony are an integral component of the Medicine Person's path.
  
• Creating Beauty by continually choosing to respond to the light and/or transmuting destructive, painful, turbulent energy into Harmony through the Power of Creativity, Reflective Thinking, and Heart-Centered, Embodied Practices (Walking, Dancing, Sex, etc.)
  
• Accepting Death, as well as Shadow, as an inherent part and important balance of life lived on planet Earth.  All things must die in order to bee reborn.
  
• Honoring Circadian Rhythms, both internal and external, as well as the Natural Cycle of Life ~ Birth, Death, Rebirth.
  
• Understanding that the Mind is not solely located in our Heads - our entire body is a breathing, thinking organism.  Whatever inflicted traumas or self-imposed suffering one part of us experiences, it is intrinsically connected to our Body or Mind, as well.
  
• Recognition that this Earth is your primary Body.  Whatever happens on and to this planet, happens to you!
  
• 110% Commitment to your own personal growth, development and healing; acceptance that your sole job is to aid in the evolution of the Soul you now carry within your Body during this lifetime; and full acknowledgment that this is the only path to World Harmony and Peace.
  
• An essential non-judgmental, embodiment practice in which One is feeding his/her internal innocence and joy, coupled with an expressive practice in which One is giving voice to her/his gratitude, ecstasy and fulfillment regularly.
  
• Regular celebration and reverence, as well as the diligent work of sowing the seeds and cultivating the fields, of DIVERSITY - including bio-diversity across the face of our globe as well as human diversity of shape, size, ages, abilities, tongues, forms of prayer, etc.
  
• Crafting MEANING in our lives not through external rewards or recognition, but through an internal commitment to living One's own "Hero's Journey," or "Love Story."
  
• Using metaphor for rewriting cultural narrative and story, and literally digging into the Earth's soil as a means to replenish the Soul of a (nearly) Depleted Human Species.
  
• Eating Earth-grown foods with as little processing as possible as often as we can, and using the natural healing elements found within the Earth's plants, trees, roots and more, to cure us of our ailments, dis-eases, etc.

NOW IS THE TIME.  
WE ARE ALL MEDICINE PEOPLE HERE.
JOIN THE MOVEMENT.

MY BIG DREAM

 Sitting on a rock outcropping while meditating on the surfers 
who were meditating on the waves
which was meditating on the ocean,
I reflected on the recent past.

In the springtime, I brought a then lover
to our Friday night Dance Jam! where one of our community brothers -
a powerful, ebony skinned, middle aged man who is lovingly affectionate
with men and women, and who is all muscle as well as elegance -
was dressed in a tight, metallic skirt above black tights and a garter belt.

Immediately afterward, my lover turned to me and innocently inquired,
"Is he gay?"
I just looked at him, shrugged my shoulders and responded,
"Does it matter?"

DOES IT MATTER?
Not, does it matter who you are or how you move through the world,
but rather, can you just let others bee without having to define them, and place them
within some neat, little box just so your tiny mind can attempt to "comprehend" who's who and
what's what? 

BEST YET, CAN YOU LET YOURSELF JUST BEE ~
can you accept that who you are is malleable and ever-changing,
that your beeliefs and ideas are perfect for now - whether or not anyone else agrees with you,
and that you can fart in public without shame, that you can jump up and down with joy and gratefully
experience beeing in your body and emoting expressively without needing a reason, or having to define a "why" and in complete and total acceptance that someone else, somewhere just may bee looking at you and judging, "who the hell does she think he is?" 
And, you'll just squeal in delight and exclaim, "ME!  I AM JUST ME."  
"So, why don't you get up and try JOY for just this once?"  
It may simply bee the solution to all of our woes.

THIS IS MY BIG DREAM FOR OUR PLANET ~
PLANET EARTH IS MERELY OUR PLAYGROUND.

IT IS WHERE WE ~ THESE GODS AND GODDESSES PARADING AROUND AS HUMAN BEEINGS ~
GET TO EXPERIENCE EVERYTHING/ALL OF IT.  

LET GO OF YOUR SUFFERING.  
ACCEPT THAT DEATH IS THE INEVITABLE SENTENCE THAT COMES WITH BIRTH.  
AND REVEL.  
(THERE'S NOTHING MORE TO DO.)

LIVING GRATITUDE

"Thanks Giving is Good,
but Thanks Living is Best," the sign reads on that wisdom board
found along a stretch of highway 78 in my hometown of Vista.
We drove by it yesterday as a devilish grin lit up my face.

The holy-day season of 2013 has slid into 3rd base.
It's a downhill ride from here.
How will you mark the time? 
 
A New Moon is tomorrow ~ keep planting those Soul Seeds,
my friends.  The dark of this season can bee the most nutritious of all.
What are you wanting to grow?
(Me?  I always aim for LOVE.  
Even when I know I am working with depleted soil, and immature seeds.)

We'll bee Honoring the Darkness for our Winter Solstice event come mid-month.
Typically, it's always been about calling Back in the Light, but I've grown to LOVE my Darkness and want to celebrate and honor Her, just as equally as His light.  Balance requires our radical awareness.  Are you aware?

It's been a full and spacious week.  Luxurious time spent with loved ones and old friends, experiencing healing as well as critical conversations that included bee-ing offered advice.  All one has to do is listen and receive.  DEEP LISTENING IS CRITICAL TO RECEIVING.  Moments enjoyed strolling along a sunlit and warm winter beach.  Hours passed throwing a Frisbee disc, tending to the needs of customers in a Spiritual gift shop and just bee-ing.  Very little time spent consuming mass amounts of any one thing - food, media, stuff, etc.  Dancing my ass off.  Making love, making love, love making.  Minutes ticking by of allowing my frustration to rise and bee given voice ~ I take full responsibility for all of it and I have to allow it to move and bee expressed.  Otherwise, it stays stuck like cement, damning my forward movement and leaving me feeling heavy with exhaustion.  This goes for my anger, too ~ like those volcanoes currently spewing lava across our planet, I blew my top and lost my center on Thanksgiving night.  Fortunately, he can withstand the gale force of my e~MOTION and I can let it go and move on. 
IT ALL NEEDS TO MOVE. 

So, how do we live our gratitude?  
How do we take this notion off of the bookstore shelves, out of the books 
and embody it in our everyday lives?
I don't know.
But I'm willing to challenge you to a duel....
We've got a month. 
Let's show each other how to LIVE OUR GRATITUDE FOR THE REMAINDER OF 2013. 
Let's "Compete" to See Who Can Give Thanks the Highest beecause it's fun and, in the end,
WE ALL WIN.