Wild Imagination Lives

After Loss

2010-06-27T10:54:00.000-07:00

In the Four-Fold Way, Spring is about paying attention to what has heart and meaning. This Spring I experienced a series of deaths. Everything fell away but grief and loss and letting go. Clients and teaching gigs disappeared, making way for what was to come. While fully inhabiting mourning, I also wondered what was coming next.

Like water flowing downhill, new life and potency fills any void. But it often doesn't feel fast enough. We feel the drought, the lack, and forget to notice all that makes up the dry creek bed. Being curious about what is here at rock bottom soothes our impatience and strengthens our trust in the cycle of change.

Out of my dad's passing came tremendous creativity, love, and healing. My siblings and I shared live music, original writing, video, and artful crafts in our homemade memorial ceremony. And though the reason for gathering was sad, it was a great family reunion. Lots of laughter and reaffirmation of who we are as good, kind, and loving people. This strengthens me and has been deep soul retrieval.

I've also let go of the story of struggle in building my practice. Allowing more ease and organic growth to arise. It certainly helps to be working with a great coach, clearing limiting beliefs and taking concrete action. And while I don't know what exactly is coming for Wild Imagination, I'm dreaming it up again as a way to restore Beauty and Balance.

All this life arising, right in tune with Summer, the Visionary season and my next post.

Creating His World

2010-05-03T14:02:00.000-07:00

I saw a great documentary film Marwencol, which is all about the healing power of one man's imagination and his desire to create something good after something very bad happened. Mark Hogancamp was beaten into a coma, losing much of his memory of his previous life. So he embarks on another life of his own making, filled with art, imagination, and connection.

He's created a 1/6th scale WWII Belgian village called Marwencol in his backyard. He painstakingly turns Barbie dolls and hobbyist figures into alter egos of himself and friends. By doing what pleases him and following the story, as he says, he's fashioned his own form of physical, emotional, mental, spiritual therapy. He sets up and photographs scenes of American GI's, SS men, a Belgian time traveling witch, and myriad cat-fighting women with fabulous outfits and guts enough to save his own alter ego's hide.

Story lines are funny, human, romantic, and yet often turn violent. Justice is always restored. By following his passions, to create and follow the story as it unfolds within him, he both creates and documents the ongoing life of Marwencol.

Check it out! Marwencol will be in theaters and on PBS in the next year.

Plum tree teachings

2010-03-13T16:01:00.000-08:00

Ten days ago the 20' plum tree in front of my house did a slow motion dive onto a car and needed to be cut down. This Standing Person (indigenous people call trees Standing People) was a guardian to the house and provided a great home for chattering and preening finches, sparrows, hummingbirds. It also offered partial screening for my bay windowed studio room. Now the house feels a bit naked and exposed to the street.

Initially I was sad, but have accepted that this poor tree was living on borrowed time. It had never been pruned properly, hadn't bloomed well this year, and apparently had serious root problems. I wonder what in my life has not been well-grounded or has been too top heavy to flourish. What wants to be uprooted to make more space in my life?

And as we take our time to replace it with another tree, I'm getting used to more light, more space, and our house being more visible. Perhaps the plum tree bowed out so we can have a bigger perspective and connect our inner worlds and the outer one.

I'm thinking of all this while my 15 year old cat's kidney problems are being diagnosed and my father falls further into Alzheimer's and physical decline. Mostly I am holding a space of curiosity about what new thing comes on the heels of loss. As Winter gives way to Spring, new life unfolds.

How have you experienced loss and its unexpected gifts? Would love to hear. RIP, plum tree. Thanks for everything!

Not Missing Out on Winter

2010-02-20T08:05:00.000-08:00

(This bit of fiction came out of timed writing in Laguna Writers workshop this week. Here's the cleaned up version. I'm including it here, for it reflects where some of us are with seasonal cycles.)

     Spring arrived yesterday, but I wasn't answering the door. Or perhaps I was out getting turkey meatloaf. It was a pajama day for me, unlike the wishful lollers in Dolores Park wearing flip flops and tank tops. I just pulled my East Coast coat over the Italian men's pj top and old baggy ass sweats. Stomper boots kept me grounded, not getting carried away by the promiscuous Chinese magnolia defining magenta on Hancock. I was still hibernating.

   Spring arrived yesterday, rang my doorbell and waited. She looked up and watched the Tibetan prayer flags being pushed around by the wind. The plum tree was like me, not getting enough sun to bursth forth and blossom. Spring looked inside my mailbox - phone bill, junk mail, a catalog from an expensive clothing store.

     Spring took her bright pink shiny hardcase on rollers and sat on the studio bench outside. She fingered the individualized clay tiles, looked up at the sign. Yes, a pottery studio. Spring wanted a clove cigarette, but realized she no longer smoked, giving way to her delicate petal lungs. Spring looked in her handbag and left me a calling card:

     "Dearie, missed you today. Be back soon. Get ready." And this is what I found, walking home with my turkey meatloaf and digging in the dusty copper mailbox. Her note all fresh and frothy.

      I unpeeled my coat, dumped the note, and headed for the kitchen. I put the turkey meatloaf in the fridge, made some Mexican hot chocolate with almond milk, and got back under the covers where I belonged. The lump at the foot of the bed moved, and my cat shimmied out, disoriented. He flopped down by my hand topside for a belly rub, while I sipped the Mexican hot chocolate.

      Warmth went through me, and I tried not to think of Spring's threatened return. She'd come and stay and be too cheery, and the apartment would feel too small. I'd have to make up work gigs in other places. Leave her here with her fairy dust wands, while I hunkered down in some friend's walk-in closet, guest room, or far off cabin.

     For now I wanted to still the hands on my alarm clock, keep time with my cat purring under my fingers, and grow my Mexican hot chocolate belly. I had five weeks until equinox, dammit, and I was going to have my Winter, no matter what anyone else thought. Spring was coming for sure, but my cocoon pod time would not come around again for another year. I wasn't going to miss out on the big, delicious Nothing this time. Something always comes from Nothing, that I knew for sure.

Red Fox

2010-02-16T15:48:00.000-08:00

Certain times in my life I'm graced by magic. I go out into nature or for a wonder walk in the city and get slammed by the beauty of life. That's what this blog is about, staying awake and open to beauty, and therefore experiencing something wonderful. Cocooned for most of the Winter, the most astounding thing to me lately has been my warm blankets.

On Valentine's Day, I was sitting on a bench in the arboretum of Golden Gate Park with my man. We were talking about things that were causing us stress: money, work, sex. After 23 years together, we were feeling humbled by our everyday struggles. Trying to hold space for all that amidst the enormity of our great good fortune.

He sighted it then, a keen-snouted, bushy-tailed red fox, coming out into the open and disappearing into the underbrush. We were maybe 30 feet away, but this gorgeous creature was meant for us.

That red fox was like an arrow. Its keen snout and ears pointing the way with a lush full tail streaming straight out behind it. With luxurious thick-looking fur and clear markings, he or she looked well-fed on quail, squirrels, gophers, and other fellow park residents.

Elation might be the right word, this lightness in my heart and the happy-making repetition of our sighting. Later I found that the red fox brings the Medicine of kundalini energy, sexuality and life-force; shapeshifting; and knowing when to hide and when to come out into the open.

Dear Red Fox, Thank you for bringing hope and the power of shapeshifting. As Winter melts away into Spring, we're all counting on your Medicine to renew and revive for another round on the big wheel of life.

24-3-7

2010-02-05T17:13:00.000-08:00

Winter is the season of mending and tending. Relationships need care all year round, but the dark season somehow illuminates where we need to clearly say NO or YES to people and situations that are not right for us.

One of my teachers Angeles Arrien has a 24-3-7 rule. When a problem arises, it's your responsibility to address it within 24 hours. If you can't do that, do it within 3 days. And if you can't do that, do it within 7 days. A week is enough time to be unresolved with yourself and with another.

24-3-7 holds space and time for a truly creative response to the problem. For visually dominant people - those who sense the world most strongly through sight and images - it takes a long time to even realize that something off-kilter happened. Then it takes more time to know their feelings about it and to get clear on a creative response. 7 days gives even slow processors a limit to being swamped by a problem.

If you are somatic or kinesthetic, you are at an advantage in knowing sooner that something needs to be addressed. The wise body does not lie, gives clues to what is amiss with common symptoms like insomnia, upset stomach, or headache.

This happened to me recently with a client. It took telling the story many times to colleagues before I heard what I was saying. I did not feel good about working with this person, and my body symptoms were saying NO. My process unfolded slowly over the week, and by the time I was clear, I had to wait a few more days to be able to reach this person. I said what I needed to say to this person, and it was done within 7 days.

Even if you are a slow processor, fearful of speaking up and rocking the boat, do it. Take that 7 days if you need to, but listen to your wise body and practice saying NO to people, places, things that are not right for you. It opens the door to be able to say YES to what is nourishing for your journey.

Choosing the Story

2010-01-26T17:48:00.000-08:00

Something hard happened to me recently. When I asked what I was to learn, my inner knowing answered: What do you want this to be about?

You mean, I get to choose? I get to write the story?

I decided I wanted it to be an end to choosing fear over love. And so I am in this practice of trusting in the good, trusting that the Universe is a loving place, trusting that my inner process is taking me where I need to be. This, as opposed to trying to control things out of fear.

This sounds so simple, yet it is a profound shift. How do I contribute to my own well-being, rather than suffering?

Would love to hear how you choose your story.

2010-01-25T12:08:00.001-08:00

Linda Mastrangelo is a great resource for dreams and dreamwork in the Bay Area.
http://ping.fm/y4Vvc

Creative Fulfillment and Loneliness

2010-01-19T18:05:00.000-08:00

We need the womb of winter to incubate and grow new life inside us. We cultivate seeds of intention for what we are creating in the world. Sometimes that means introspection and solitude, sometimes it means connecting only with friends who totally get you. Mostly it means being a little slower, quieter, and more spacious.

A friend is making a book, fulfilling a dream in words and images. It seems like the perfect winter project. Yet she is in heaven and hell. She could choose heaven and immerse herself in the joys of the creative work before her, doing what she loves, and bringing her vision into vibrant, living form. Or she could choose hell and bemoan the isolation, her recent heartache, and be looking elsewhere for salvation. I hope she can find more space for all of those feelings.

I realize this has been a common theme around me. Another friend is devoting a lot of time and energy to her creative life and trying new things to grow and heal. Yet in this self-care mode, she's coming up against a core loneliness.

When in a creative groove, do we always meet our loneliness? Does fear of loneliness keep us from going deeply with our creative work? I wonder about my novel/s, languishing for my lack of disciplined, consistent attention. Perhaps that's just a judgment. I do suspect my characters just go on living and changing and have infinite patience with me to catch up.

There's that old belief that writers live a lonely life. But tonight is a time for company, to be with my characters and to write in the company of others. In the rainstorms of winter, a safe haven.

Thank goodness for the writing workshop. That is one way I balance creative time and mutual support. How do you?

(Collage: Friend And Flow Detail 1, by Carol Harada 2010)

2010-01-19T16:36:00.001-08:00

Made a sample Medicine Pouch for upcoming Feb 6
Dreamwork & Shamanic Arts workshop
www.wildimagination.org/images/TibetanPouch.jpg

2010-01-12T09:03:00.001-08:00

Here I am painting with words. www.wildimaginationwrites.wordpress.com

Ready for anything

2010-01-11T18:21:00.000-08:00

If I can't take what happens, I'm not ready for anything. - John Cage, artist, composer

According to Angeles Arrien's Four-Fold Way, Winter is the season of the Warrior. We embody the Warrior when we show up and choose to be present. Doing so means we are ready and willing to be with whatever is here. One way I'm accessing the Warrior is by volunteering at the Reiki Clinic in San Francisco.

In Reiki, we practitioners simply show up and serve up Universal Energy to the client. The client's body-mind system knows where and how to direct that flow of energy. Relaxation, releasing, and self-healing all take place organically. Being a practitioner means showing up, getting out of the way, and trusting the process.

Being a strong conduit for Reiki and holding space for what wants to happen is a very Warrior activity. Oddly enough, it feels easy, effortless, as if you are really doing nothing. We take for granted the huge gift of our Presence. By choosing to show up and be Present, we lend ourselves as witness and create and maintain a strong container for healing.

Anything can happen in life. By showing up and choosing to be here, we are saying we can take it. We can respond with full hearts and clear minds.

2010-01-08T15:47:00.001-08:00

Just finished Be the Blessing Jan. newsletter Sign up on www.wildimagination.org

2009-12-31T10:31:00.001-08:00

The body is the sacred sanctuary of the soul.-Ilana Rubenfeld. Be good to your body today and tonight.

2009-12-18T18:43:00.001-08:00

Creativity for life! Thomas Berry says, "Wildness we might consider as the root of the authentic spontaneities of any being. It is that wellspring of creativity whence comes the instinctive activities that enable all living beings to obtain their food, to find shelter, to bring forth their young: to sing and dance and fly through the air and swim through the depths of the sea. This is the same inner tendency that evokes the insight of the poet, the skill of the artist and the power of the shaman."

2009-12-15T13:26:00.001-08:00

My belief is in the blood and flesh as being wiser than the intellect. The body unconscious is where life bubbles up in us. It is how we know that we are alive, alive to the depths of our souls and in touch somewhere with the vivid reaches of the cosmos.
- D.H. Lawrence

2009-11-06T15:13:00.001-08:00

is planning Dreamwork & Shamanic Arts workshops with Dan Gronwald. YAY!

2009-11-05T22:40:00.001-08:00

"Imagination is intelligence having fun."
- anonymous

Wonder Walk #425, 781

2009-10-26T12:39:00.000-07:00

In a dark funk, I went for a Wonder Walk with my man yesterday. Expect amazement, beauty, and interesting things -- you'll undoubtedly find them. Our wonders:

1. Rubber bats flying above a doorway. The bat man joined us in admiring the big bellied spiders and their webs, so common this time of year. One spider was wrapping up bug bundles, making lunches for the week. A guy wire ten feet above the web anchored it in place from a high tree branch. Bat medicine and Spider Medicine = spiritual rebirth and creativity.

2. A tall tree stump carved with buffalo, bear, eagle, snake to honor native ways. The eagle's broken beak => challenge in grasping what is nourishing.

3. I retrieve a small plastic skull for the family who's dropped it from their porch above while stringing ghoulish lights. Returning awareness of death/dark as part of life/light.

4. Spying a few stenciled koi on the sidewalk. They are life-like with individual orange, white, and black markings. They turn the sidewalk into the surface of the pond. We recognize them as escapees from the school of stenciled koi in our neighborhood.

5. The silver 4" disco wedgies, Marc Jacobs wellingtons, and full array of baby shoes, sneakers, and boots now used as planters for succulents and perennials. They are lined up around one side of the restroom pavilion in the park. What shoes to fill, and with new life.

6. The soul-streaming golden light at the top of the park. Occasional squeaks from the toy that a standard poodle pounced on. The cool breeze that made us turn for home.

What wonders can you see with fresh eyes?

falling in with kindred spirits

2009-09-27T22:53:00.001-07:00

Tonight I was drumming with two other people for a group of shamanic journeyers. It's a simple, rapid, steady beat. Anyone can do it, as long as you listen and resist the urge to speed up. I've drummed many times with Greg, but only once with Anna, yet the three of us fell in together so seamlessly.

I experienced the wonder of being One - with the drumbeat, with each other. I wasn't doing the drumming, the beat itself was carrying me and moving my hand.

I invite you to notice when you synchronize with others. Going on a hike, playing pingpong, cooking and doing that kitchen island dance. Two pendulum clocks in the same room will over time synchronize to move together. Wordlessly working or playing together, we sometimes have the divine experience of communion with each other.

There may be oxytocin and dopamine flowing as we are unconsciously bonding and feeling the pleasure of being with kindred spirits. There may be heart beats and the breath slowing and deepening together. All I know is that it is happy-making.

Ancestors and the Creative Fire

2009-09-10T12:52:00.000-07:00

In this detail from a recent collage, a kimono-clad woman bows to a circle of people. She reminds me that my work is a ceremony, an offering of just the right Medicine. The words around her: Inspiring Life's Journey and Respectful Exchange. She is close to the earth, grounded. She is ready to serve.

Perhaps she is an Ancestor called home by my creative fire, the sparks I'm fanning into flame.

In o-bon, the Japanese Ancestor ceremony, it is bonfires that guide the Ancestors home. Family clans gather in mid-late summer to clean up graves, give thanks to the Ancestors, feast, sing and dance. After a good long visit, people float lit candles on the water to send the Ancestors back until the next year. Both the quick and the dead are renewed.

I remember as a young girl stringing leis with my grandmother in Hawaii, preparing for an aunt and uncle arriving late for o-bon. We walked in the dark, following the sounds of celebration to the neighbor's luau, bearing long white strands of starry blossoms. We kids called it the 'bone dance' and watched the old ladies make their careful steps with sweeping arms and moon fans. They wore their light summer robes and sandals. I remember fire and night.

I haven't celebrated o-bon in many many years. But every time I write or make art, it seems as if the creative fire itself invites the Ancestors in. They help me and I hope that I help them in carrying forward this spark of life.

The Veil

2009-08-10T16:00:00.000-07:00

The ancient Egyptians intimately connected life and death, with their mummification and preparing the dead for the next life. I made this collage in the spring. Rediscovering it now, fiddling with it in Photoshop, adding the sands of time, I see it freshly.

You see, an important stranger recently died, someone I'd sat with in healing ceremonies a few times.

In the week between his accident and his death, I felt inexplicably happy for him. Several others and I just kept seeing his smiling face that whole week he was in a coma. I felt no worry, knew he was somehow fine, despite the medical prognosis. I knew he was preparing for some next big thing and was already free.

I can only hope that he did not suffer, that he was in essence gone at the time of the accident. Perhaps he was just patiently waiting for his loved ones to get used to the idea of losing him. I like this idea, for he was a truly generous person.

These are the mysteries. We don't know. Years ago a close friend, trying to prepare me for the loss of him, told me that the relationship continues. Over the years, having him as an Ancestor, feeling his continued care, I really get how the love continues in a different way.

For many people around the world, this is not news. Still, we are pitiful humans and we get attached to that smile, the enfolding arms, the smell of each others' hair. Even though we can't have them back, we can choose to carry on with the love.

We can serve our Ancestors by living our lives well and heeding their teachings. My husband and I are keeping a spirit plate for our important stranger's year of transition to Ancestor land. We give food offerings to fuel his journey.

And we can look to them for support in the myriad of invisible, palpable ways they are here to back us up. I feel their love and blessing in all that I do. I choose a connected world.

lost and found

2009-08-04T17:42:00.000-07:00

My husband learned one great thing in all his years of architecture school: finish that sketch.
So no matter how bad things seem to be going as you are creating, it's good to complete this one pass. Perfectionism kills. You might glean that one essential bit you would've missed had you crumpled and tossed too early.

So I'm catching up with this old post to see what comes...

The flash of blue caught my eye. Unnatural in the plum tree's burgundy branches. A sparrow had a blue faux feather in his beak, turning his head this way and that so I wouldn't miss it. A welcome pause in writing or doing yoga or whatever had me parked in the studio. He looked like he was eating cotton candy at a state fair, it was that blue.

I must tell you, this was just after GLBT Pride weekend here in the Castro at the end of June. A bit of boa lost in the fun, repurposed to feather a nest.

I imagine him weaving in this neon blue fluff, perhaps among the glitters and spangles already gathered. Perhaps the sparrow was going to trade it for more practical twigs with a raven? Or maybe it's just what we all do, take in something new, see if it can work with what we've got.
And we mix and match and create.

And what would the mama sparrow say? If she's sensible, she accepts the warmth, the softness, how familiar. Woven into the inner part of the nest, to avoid drawing undue attention to her vulnerable young, it just might work. If she's got a gleam in her eye, as taken by beauty as I was seeing her mate, then she might just chirp: Fabulous!

Failing to Imagine, Learning to See

2009-06-30T13:31:00.000-07:00

In Visionary summer, I wanted to take a fresh look at my work/art/life plan. For some strange reason I couldn't see anything with my mind's eye. Who do I want to collaborate with, what do I want to create, what do I want to experience? My attempts to dream life into being went nowhere.

How mortifying that Wild Imagination should have failure of imagination!

But it's hard to dream big when we are feeling small. If we are unable to see anything ahead, it's time to see what's right here. I had to look at my anxiety and fears about no money, no support. I had to name my limiting beliefs. I had to face what in me felt hopeless, helpless. I had to be compassionate with these parts in me and agree to coexist peacefully. Maybe you know what I'm talking about.

I also had to let things be. In taking a pause, I got to fill up on reading about, of all things, the genius in each of us that relentlessly shapes our lives. I also had a most profound nature experience: the swift river flowing over immovable me. I understood how I am sculpted beautifully over time by life, like the granite boulders in the wild river's current. I felt grounded, joyful, satisfied. No pressure to do, just the bliss of being present and awake to incredible simple beauty. A day like that just fills my soul.

And now I have to pay attention to unexpected opportunities and support coming along - the days away at the river, a trip to see family and friends, a teaching gig, an inquiry about commissioned art, a new service project. These things pop up most often when I'm at my lowest, as if the Universe is saying: don't give up, keep going.

So that is what I'm doing.

Calling all Amateurs

2009-05-18T08:14:00.000-07:00

If you can talk, you can sing. If you can walk, you can dance. - African saying

I love to move spontaneously to music. Someone asked me once if I was once a modern dancer by profession. I had to laugh. I have no innate sense of rhythm. I can't memorize steps. I'm quite clumsy, rather shy, and I don't have abs of steel. I am an amateur. What inspired her to ask must be the way I melt into the pure pleasure of sound and movement. I get transported.

Creative people know and seek numinosity, and we are all creative. Remember the last time you were so absorbed in what you were doing that you lost track of time? You became it -- the sound of your boots on the trail, the colors mixing on the canvas, the lullaby you sing to your child, the tales coming from your inky fingers, the chopping of the vegetables. Numinosity is total presence, being immersed in the moment, feeling fully alive and connected.

Amateurs get a bad rap in a culture that elevates experts above passive, disempowered consumers. But amateurs are lovers, those who follow their bliss, do things purely out of love of this numinosity. Amateurs risk being called nerds or geeks or wannabes, but a person who is passionate about something is a truly alive being.

When we are so absorbed, we soothe our nervous systems, regulate our heart rate and breathing, and get those endorphins flowing. We get happy. And that carries through to the end result.

Imagine a meal cooked by a harried, resentful, burnt out mom who's just rushed home from work. Hear the plates being plonked on the table. See the morose family sitting there. Taste the undigestible obligation. Now envision a potluck whipped together by friends who love to cook. They invent new dishes out of missing ingredients. They sing and dance to their favorite tunes. They are grateful. Totally different experience for those creating the meals and for those dining.

And finally, imagine a meal cooked by rote by a disconnected, bored professional chef. It may look all pretty, but there's no love, no soul. And substitute any profession for 'chef' and you see the negative impact of soulless production.

As an antidote to the endless craving-consuming cycle promoted by our culture, we are each called to be amateur, lovers of...something. Where can you experience the love of the thing you are doing? That's where you can extend happiness and connection in what you offer up. Be brave, be daring. It's amateur hour, in the best sense.

Taking a bite out of life

2009-04-21T13:17:00.000-07:00

Never eat anything bigger than your head. But if you tend to take on more than you can chew, you might take a lesson from the seagull I saw yesterday. Three starfish arms dangled from his open yellow beak, his lunch stuck mid-swallow.

First he tosses back a large purple red starfish that could do all sorts of wrestling holds on his head. Imagine gulping an octopus the size of a large pizza! A sea star isn't nearly as wily or wiggly as an octopus, but you get the picture. It goes down part way, and immediately the gull must be thinking, "Oh crap! What have I done?" Biter's remorse. We all know that bitter taste.

He tries to swallow. This thing is lodged! He tries again to stretch his neck and swallow, to no avail. To anthropomorphize, maybe embarrassment gives way to a tamped-down panic. "I'm glad none of my friends are around to see this! Just stay cool. Everything's fine. Oh crap!" We who watch this gripping drama through the binoculars start to think this amusement might turn tragic.

The seagull manages to fly to a rock close to us. Those three arms still dangle. "Should I drop it before I choke to death?" Here's a great illustration of how we all on occasion have a hard time Just Letting It Go. Well-trained dogs are smarter than us at times.

He finally lets out a cry that must be distress, and we take heart that his airway isn't totally blocked. Another gull arrives, but does not seem to have any emergency room techniques. He must have eaten already, for he shows no interest in the strange meat.

Now we start to think that the distress call was actually boasting, the gull warning off the newcomer. "Get away, it's mine. All mine!" He easily coughs up the starfish onto the rock, to our great relief.

But no, he will not let it go for even a minute. He pokes at it some more with his beak. After the starfish is tenderized or a better grip is taken, the first seagull tosses back the starfish. Again the three arms dangle. He throws his head back. He does it again and again, and by some miracle the five arms go down. His neck bulges alarmingly with that spiky fist in there.

It's like a Rohrscharch test. Is it perseverance that wins the day? Or being willing to be foolish?

Is it important to do it yourself by trial and error?

Am I taking on something with too many directions?

A friend was sobered that one mis-step could suddenly mean life or death.

I take this away: it's time to be quiet and digest the immense nourishment I've been given. Really receive it.

What do seagull and starfish say to you?

Polishing our Edges

2009-04-15T14:28:00.000-07:00

Many of us are lone rangers longing for community, yet wary of being swallowed up by a group. I enjoy my solo time and working one-on-one with people. Yet a deep longing for belonging keeps me joining circles just to learn how to be in community.

My teaching partner Dan has concluded that every group, no matter what the stated common goal, is really about learning how to be oneself in a group. Spiritual teacher and right livelihood guide Rick Jarow goes on to say that work itself may be just an elaborate excuse for us to mend our common karma. My biodynamic craniosacral therapy teacher Gary names our group identity plainly: we as a training group are tending to traumas big and small held in our individual 'social nervous systems' and that of the group as a whole.

In other words, we need each other and we need practice. How else can we learn to communicate, cooperate, and resolve conflict?

People drawn to monastic life have their edges 'polished' by living and working in close, communal quarters. It's easy to be spiritual with your own practice and nobody around to ruffle your feathers. But we serve each other best as mirrors and teachers. What a gift when I become aware of my reaction to X's behavior. Now we're in spiritual practice! My noticing wakes me to what must be my own area of next growth and healing. I bow to X for being a perfect reflection for me.

Any well-facilitated group can be a strong, fluid container that gives breathing room for each individual and encourages cross-pollination. That's how I like to lead and hold space, and how I like to participate. I feel safe to be open and purely myself, excited to learn with the group. I get over my shyness and play well with others.

Our human frailties arise quickly in groups. Alliances are bound to happen as we are drawn to and repelled by certain others. But how do we form bonds, not cliques? Do we understand that everyone is here in this particular group for a reason? Can we enlarge our compassion, inclusion and our willingness to be with someone different? Especially if we don't like him/her? What do we do when we feel exiled? Do we hold leadership or sit back? What do we do with our judgments?

All these questions apply to our inner relationships as well. The more self-compassion we have, the easier it is to meet another openly. And the more we allow our edges to be polished in community, without losing ourselves in group think and group speak, the more we can be truly present with ourselves just as we are.

Call and Response

2009-04-07T12:52:00.000-07:00

Always the world is calling to us with beauty, with love. Are you there? it asks. Are you alive? Do we take time to see, hear, taste, touch, smell what the world offers? If we are at least a little sentient and awake, how do we respond? We need to share our stories: Yes, I'm here. Yes, I'm alive.

My body is still resonant from a recent kirtan led by Jai Uttal and friends. We friends and strangers gather to sing and chant Hindu devotional songs. The meaning of all the songs is the same: I love Creation, Creation loves me; YAY Universe; thanks to the Gods/Goddesses. And because it is call and response, you just listen and receive this passionate music and respond with the purity of your heart. The room was alive with all kinds of voices. From afar the meditation hall must have pulsed like a giant heart.

Each round builds in energy, and the group entrains. The full-bodied ecstatic waves of energy are so wonderful to feel as air and sound travel throughout my cells. One cannot sit still. We are literally moved. The silence is full and delicious during meditation between songs. And the frogs outside harmonize with us throughout.

Yes, I'm here. Yes, I'm alive. Yes, I'm grateful. Yes, it's wonderful to be together. Out loud and in silence. Yes, this is my body. Yes, this is us.

Feeling Ground and Rising Up

2009-03-30T14:41:00.000-07:00

Being in the body means giving ourselves up to gravity and touching earth. Sitting in meditation, we root ourselves through our sit bones. Our feet, legs, and bottom meeting the ground give us great stability, out of which our spine and consciousness can rise naturally. A sprout reaching for the sun.

Grounding allows us to first be here, then rise up, reach out, and connect with others. Without grounding we can be floaty and a little too untethered, not productive.

In one of my recent Collage Circles*, one participant had abundant fiery energy wanting more focus. I encouraged her to pay attention to the ground of the paper she would work on and the edges that would contain her process. Being aware of containment offers safety and can actually create more space for what wants to happen.

She made a two-sided collage, with lots of movement and images transcending the board. One corner was a pop-up section with a plant stalk or snaky thing coming out and up from the flat surface, then connecting back down to the board.

A revelation: energy can go up and out AND can also feed back into the source. This was very moving to her, that her process could be inherently regenerating, rather than scattering and exhausting. All that energy could move, but she could stay here in ground.

Sculptor Martin Puryear often uses the form of some heavy solid thing with an upraised arm. The ground and anchor allows extension, suspension, lift and creates a great dynamic tension, a wonderful feeling of aliveness and presence.
http://mckeegallery.com/nggallery/page-219/page/163/

If you'd like to explore this more, contact me for embodied practices to connect to ground and movement in your life.

*Next Collage Circle 4/25: www.wildimagination.org/calendar.htm

At Play At Work

2009-03-17T09:22:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago I met one of those great flight attendants who make travel worth it. What Kenny radiated most was an authentic sense of caring and playfulness. His safety spiel was a rapid-fire riff.

"Don't be unfastening your seat belts before the sign goes off. I know who you are. Don't do it," he teased. With this human touch, I felt his genuine concern for us, his charges.

Kenny was a natural performer and clearly loved making us smile. He chatted easily as he poured the ginger ale. When he came to my row, I told him I was happy he was having fun.

"I always have fun. I don't like mean, grumpy people," he shook his head with a furrowed brow. Clearly he'd made a choice getting up that morning, or walking into this life, just as we all can.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. said, It's faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes a life worth living.

I didn't get to ask Kenny, but my guess is his faith is in people. What about you?

Love over Fear

2009-03-09T15:10:00.000-07:00

A common theme this week has been Love over Fear. How do we do the next right thing with love and trust, rather than panic and fear and desperation? How do we attract more of a good thing?

It's so easy to get caught in the fear and uncertainty as the economy as we've known it seems to be dissolving. What new form is coming? Is this too little too late to save our society? What can I do? You may be feeling triggered just reading these words. Stop. Exhale completely and let your breath naturally fill you up. Do it again. Again. Again.

Place your hands on your heart. Yes, right now, as you are supposed to be preparing for a business meeting. It only takes a minute. Connect to all the positive change that is happening right now in your body as it renews itself. Your heart pumping, slowing from anxious pitter patter to a deeper sure rhythm. Slowing down enough to remember the wholeness that underlies all discomforts.

Compassionate self-touch is love your cells understand. While you're at it, think of someone you love, someone who loves you. Yes, even let that smile come to your face. Love over fear can happen in a few breaths. You get to choose. The fear may still be there, but it may not have you by the throat.

Place your hands on your belly. Let your breath drop below the diaphragm and calm you down immediately. The belly expands with fresh energy on the inhale, and releases unhelpful thoughts and fears and toxins from the body on the exhale.

Nothing new. Essential to remember. As we practice being in loving presence with ourselves and others, we make more space around the fear and infuse that space with a whole lot of love. And as we know, so much can happen in that more open-hearted space, where we are connected with ourselves and each other.

Being Love

2009-02-17T07:34:00.000-08:00

LATE FRAGMENT

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

- Raymond Carver

Magic happens when we are busy being love. I don't mean being 'in' love, as if it were a substance we swim in. But being love, the walking talking ocean itself. Touching everyone and everything with our gentle wave, bringing love to everything we do.

A friend described her life of late: providing great service to people at work, realizing some visionary projects and handing some off to others, paying off debt and saving for the next big thing, tending the relationship in a new way with her life partner. She is happy, excited about life, and at peace.

Part of me is pure envy listening to all this wonderfulness. And still I am awake enough to recognize that she is Being Love. She's crossed into new territory. And she is making a difference. I am Present enough to be happy for her.

I try to remember moments of being love. Setting out for a hike, anticipating adventure. Making my husband laugh. That still, crackling point when a counseling session opens up and my client and I are deeply moved by discovery. Making art when I let it make me. Allowing myself to be all broken in front of other people. Letting their compassion mosaic me back together. Noticing that my cat has hypnotized me once again into giving him a belly rub.

How do I get back to this being love when it feels so far away? The envious part of me desperately needs to know. Does the self-care routine come first? My friend has fine-tuned her nutrition, rest, and yogic spiritual practice. She actively loves herself with the basics every day.

Or is it an internal action? A surrender to love, a YES to life, a declaration of I am here. It probably doesn't matter where it starts, as acts of self-love or reaffirming belief in love and the goodness of life. Just that it starts. In deep winter, with our much needed rains seeping into thirsty earth, seeds of being love are being fed.

Creativity in Business Relationships

2009-02-09T17:45:00.000-08:00

I asked my husband the furniture designer* where he sees creativity in business. He says it's all in the relationships. There's the client, vendors, collaborators, assistants. Say a client wants you to make X. You say YES, even though you've never done it before. You seek out someone who knows more about X. You envision how you could work best together, meet them, present your ideas and remain open to theirs. Others have the right materials or technology or know-how for these aspects, so you bring them in too.

You nurture all these relationships to be mutually beneficial, staying focused on creating X together in the best way. There's lateral thinking, flexibility, and intuition required to go where the relationships and the project are really taking you.

And ultimately, it might not be about X at all.

Rick Jarow, a favorite spiritual teacher on abundance and right livelihood, says our work is just an excuse to heal relationships and mend our karma. Tell that to corporate America. As we've seen too often recently, people do horrible things to others and the environment, then wave it off: Oh, it's just business! It may be business as usual, but it's usually not just.

Beautiful furniture, or whatever the offering, may be merely a benefit of developing a network of trusted collaborators. Tending relationships with creativity in mind goes a long way toward healing the wound of extreme self-reliance. Abundance for one, abundance for all.

*Check out www.gobuildstudio.com to see simple, elegant, modern furniture.

Recipe, No Recipe

2009-02-02T10:00:00.000-08:00

Sometimes it goes like this: Open fridge. Stare. Close door. Spiral light bulb flickers on above your head. Check cupboard, spy tin of sardines. Forage for leafy things, peppery things, orange things, more green crunchy things. No bread, but a few crackers. Go back for salad dressing, a bit of goat cheese. Pumpkin seeds?

Wash, chop, toss, add, arrange, serve. Lunch! Enjoy.

Other times it's like this: Pull out the disintegrating page torn from the old Moosewood cookbook. Gather measuring spoons to follow the recipe for cornbread you've made 523 times. This ritual needs no improvements. Every time it comes out perfectly; you are astounded again.

With creativity, recipes are only a starting point. The choreographer, dancer, children's book illustrator and author Remy Charlip created a series of Airmail Dances. He made spare line drawings of dancers in a series of simple poses. Mailing them off to trusted choreographers, he encouraged them to fill in the rest. A different dance for every choreographer, ten thousand ways to connect the dots. Remy gave space for others to create in the present moment in their own dance language, inspired by these simple landmarks.

Consider how you cook, garden, be with your children, do presentations, lead meetings, make love. There's room for creativity and experimentation in all these things. Where would we be without Jimi Hendrix's version of The Star Spangled Banner? What if Luke Skywalker had not used the Force?

There's also times when we need the comfort of the consistently astounding. We just need to awaken in the present and remember to be astounded, even if it's for the 523rd time. One client was running on automatic, producing without a sense of fulfillment, "missing all the good things." Recipe or no recipe, that is our task, to not miss this being alive.

Freeing the Hostage

2009-01-26T07:20:00.000-08:00

An old friend emailed me something about being "held hostage" by creativity and failure. If I may translate, he was expressing a desire to engage his creativity in some tangible way and felt the preemptive fear of failure. He was identifying with some part of him that was kidnapped by another. The violent image speaks to the very real urgency of freeing what is held captive.

Let me reassure him and all of us. Our creativity is natural and essential to each of us. It cannot be taken away. But it can be undiscovered, unclaimed, neglected, forgotten, disowned, banished, rejected. Our creativity is our inherent human ability to imagine and manifest what is needed next. It is letting our hands be hands, connected to our hearts and extending out into the world.

My friend lives in a society with a long history of world-shattering art and architecture. He is also a product of US culture, which revolves around producing, advertising, buying, and consuming. No matter, there's always a place for the handmade life. Our soul life depends on it.

Many of us in the US distance ourselves from or neglect to claim our everyday creativity. We are told it's only for artists, special people. We take the creative process out of cooking, parenting, intimate partnership, friendship, housekeeping, fitness, finances, work and turn it into obligation and put it at the bottom of the list of things to do.

To free the hostage, I would ask what part of us is holding it hostage? What does this part want and not want? What is it worried will happen if the creativity is allowed to run free? Is there some participation it wants? Or does it just want its point of view to be heard?

In situations like this, if there's a lot of broken trust, it may take time for the 'kidnapper' to release what's being held. It's vital that we give compassionate awareness to it and really listen. Reflecting back how it feels, what it's saying, will often magically allow it to relax and see it doesn't need to hold any other part of us captive.

We need to bring our mindfulness and kindness to parts of us that feel mistreated and driven to desperate acts. We can bring everyone home safely and return to our creativity all together.

Something Always Blooming

2009-01-19T11:21:00.000-08:00

Like everyone and their cousin, I am trying to take better care of my body. I don't like the 'e' word that sounds like demon banishing, so I say 'body in motion' or 'joyful movement'. Motivation can be tricky, for the part of me that would rather stay cozy in the blankets doing sleeping yoga is very strong. So I must lure myself out to the cardio hills and stairs with promises of beauty and the wildly disciplined drumming of Babatunde Olatunji.The endorphins are a bonus.

The plants conspire with their endless creativity. Amidst the running up stairs or purposefully striding uphill, I pause and notice what's around me. One foggy morning I met potato vine flower flashing a yellow eye at the center of deep purple, a no-nonsense kind of beauty. Bare cherry tree sprouting tender red baby branchlets a few millimeters long. Reddish purple cyclamen pushing up out of the cold, moist earth. What bravery!

On another morning, clear and cold in another microclimate, I found a tiny barrelly cactus with green torso, its head and little arms a fiesta orange and yellow. Try being grumpy now. A perfectly fragrant pink rose, just at my nose level, reminds me of the one in The Little Prince. Birds of Paradise, here? You've got to be kidding. And it goes on.

What's so easy to observe in the green relatives is sometimes harder to see in me. Where am I sprouting, emerging, braving the fog and cold? What beauty and joy am I sharing with others?

Like this new habit of joyfully moving with the hills and stairs, it takes practice to be honest with myself. The part of me doubting by own growth, beauty, creativity and impact on others may always be here. But the more I connect daily with the wild and cultivated nature around me, the more I get in my bones that I am just like the green relatives. There's always something blooming in some corner of my wild inner garden. If I look for beauty and signs of life, I will find them. Somewhere in me, fertile ground is producing and supporting life.

So walk out, expect to meet signs of life wherever you are. Be met with beauty and be amazed.

Making Space for Change

2009-01-12T09:31:00.000-08:00

After not collaging or writing much in late fall, I wondered where my creativity was going. I actually asked myself this while spackling and painting my new healing space. I somehow forgot I was pouring my art and soul into an 11' x 11' x 11' room.

Need is the mother of invention. Months ago I left a rented office situation and didn't want yet another office that didn't feel like me. It finally dawned on me to transform the junky guest room into my new healing space. A tarot reader who knew nothing about my work expressed great urgency about home improvements, work environment, and finances. Doh!

My creative process over time went like this:

dissatisfaction, desire, visioning

incubating

research, investing, gathering materials

deconstruction, recycling

prep, painting, installation, decoration

test-driving, feedback, aesthetic fine-tuning.

Most of this is in collaboration with my husband, who has the can-do to complement my vision. It's contagious. I'm ridiculously proud that I installed the dimmer switch all by myself without burning the house down. I tell all my clients. I'm still in fine-tuning - I am a dimmer switch! Yet in a relatively short time - VOILA - I am sitting in a beautiful new space, ready to receive and happy to serve an abundant flow of clients.

The feng shui people are onto something. My new healing space is in the life path/career part of my house. How could we have let it get all junky?!? What's sad is that this is the very last room in our flat that we've upgraded to be all nice and beautiful. I'd been putting my livelihood last, a refugee without a proper home. For my work and my husband's the more beauty, grounding, comfort, quiet, warmth, the better. I'm grateful we know how to make an inviting beautiful space and that my healing work with clients finally, finally, finally has a room of its own.

*I'm leading collage workshops starting 1/31. Check out www.wildimagination.org/calendar.htm

New Year Magic

2009-01-03T12:36:00.000-08:00

I did a wonder walk through the fog with my man on New Year's Day. What I want to say about that: it's good to start your year daring to be a fool for love. On Van Ness Avenue, near the serious opera hall and spiffed up city hall, we looked up and found a hawk soaring. Fairly low, it looked down at us while hunting for lame pigeons. We do what we always do with high fliers. We stuck our arms out and echoed their soaring, swaying back and forth with our long fingery wings.

I called to one, then two of the beautiful relatives, that we love them. It's thrilling, my heart leaps when I see the wild in the city. I tell them I love them and thank them. People around us are giving us the hairy eyeball. We point, "Look at the hawks!" But they just pass us by and don't look up.

I believe that the animals, our relatives, only let themselves be seen by those with eyes. I have eyes, my man has eyes, and certain of my friends have eyes to see the magic in the world. I am grateful they are here. Hawks are messengers to Spirit, so whenever you see one, send a message of thanks, love, and blessing. Use that acute vision to hone in on what will feed you well. And ask for what you want.

I wanted to feel myself alive in the city I love, exploring with my man, being a body in joyful motion. And so it was.

And, in the End...

2008-12-30T15:36:00.000-08:00

...the love you take
Is equal to the love you make.^{In these final hours of 2008, it's good to recall this bit of wisdom from the Beatles. Those with whom we share moments of love and understanding are our profound mirrors and teachers. Of course, they are our friends and family, the long-term reflections of our own human frailty that we find in our lives for some strange reason. Mirrors and teachers are also fleeting strangers, like the people on the train who laughed with me about some such urban craziness. (See my 2/21/08 post.)

Where did we extend our love, forgiveness, and understanding this year? To whom? In what circumstances? How did we stretch our hearts? And what were the rewards? Conversely, where did we withhold or step back from meeting another with compassion? What did that experience give us?

My late friend Randy was fond of saying hearts break, yes, but they break OPEN to get bigger. And as we enter a new year, we can be on the lookout for how best to tend our hearts, meeting ourselves with compassion and care. When we do that, we feel safe to keep ourselves open to life and other people. So along with your resolutions, consider what shape and size you want your heart in 2009. Mine is going to be shapeshifting, but mostly roundish, so that it can roll around and play with others.

Blessings for this passing year and all the riches it has brought.}

We did it!

2008-12-22T11:18:00.000-08:00

My close family of friends started a meditation group right after 9/11/01 to allay our fears and practice peace together. I remember Lou's intention then was to release 'against-ness'. He wanted to let go of opposition and retaliation on a personal and global level. At last week's meditation, I expressed wonder that we'd been circling together on and off for seven years. Considering the tremendous openings for healing change in the culture, David joked, "We did it!"

And in a way we did. Along with everyone else who took 9/11 as a call to go deeper to what's important and authentic, reach farther beyond our comfort zones, and connect with others despite differences. According to my teacher Angeles Arrien, when we use our unique gifts and talents, the Earth can heal herself. In other words, the more we humans are in balance, the less harm we do to ourselves, other beings, and our world.

Each of us can make a unique contribution through work, service, family, relationships, creativity, healing, and spiritual practice. If you don't feel you are already contributing the way you'd like, what is stopping you? These times are calling us out to participate, so consider what you need to feel safe and supported to take baby steps forward. We need you.

The Pause

2008-12-16T14:59:00.000-08:00

A while back I missed my Friday morning routine of house plant watering. So my maidenhair fern, which had grown several lush arms, is now all crispy. So again I cut it back to black stubble and wait for new tender green fuzzy spirals to emerge. I have yet to nurture this plant to fullness, and yet it still comes back, as if it trusts untrustworthy me to return to this practice.

After beating myself up about it, I see I am consistently inconsistent. I can sustain a yoga routine for a few months, then I miss a class and that's it for three years. Or only remember to take my blood pressure when my doctor's appointment is looming. Anything that is a routine routinely gets interrupted.

But perhaps this is not a bad thing. In that time out, maybe my energies are needed elsewhere. And coming back to a practice after a break, we may be chagrined, but also refreshed and ready to commit in a way that's more fitting. After all, the point is not to become robotic and perfunctory, but to actively choose to show up.

I'm wondering if it's just me or if it's a universal human thing to break out of rhythm. The pause is a space where integration can happen naturally. My birthday today,Winter Solstice this weekend, and New Year's beyond that all say the same thing: time for another round on the great spiral of life. But they are all pause points too. Time to reflect, revisit our vision, recalibrate our trajectory. A pause to get current.

In this winter holiday season, I hope you get a chance to slow down enough to pause and choose what's important now.

Z is for Zeitgeist

2008-12-08T12:31:00.001-08:00

I've always liked the word 'zeitgeist,' meaning the spirit of the times. Some visionaries sense the zeigeist and have their finger on the pulse of what's happening now and what's needed next. Take President-elect Obama, who seems to have ridden the wave just slightly ahead of the crowd. He's not too far ahead, just clearly evoking the visionary leader in each of us that's longing to make a difference. The resonant field now offers us a new way to be as a whole, together.

In the healing arts, there's a certain zeitgeist that's been emerging for a while now. It's about human to human parity as healing partners. My intention as a healing practitioner is to collaborate and create with the inner healer of my client, making space for their own expertise about their own process. We've seen enough harm in the fixer/rescuer healer mode, what herbal medicine woman Susun Weed calls the "heroic" mode. It can be very disempowering to one identified as wounded and in need of rescue, having their own inner resources bypassed. It's just as harmful to those overidentified as the giver, the expert, if they don't see that the healing process is sacred and innate and ongoing. Something to align with and support.

So you might feel into what zeitgeist you're noticing in your world - could be in relationships or work or common themes in your community. Are you aligned with the spirit of the times, holding back or running way ahead?

Y is for YES

2008-12-01T10:56:00.000-08:00

How do we know when we get to YES? People often say, "I just know when it's right." But what tells us this is so? As always, the body is our ally here. What we're looking for is a felt sense in the body - an image, phrase, movement, gesture, sounds, texture, sensation, emotion, any and all of these.

I once experienced that internal YES as one of those wooden ball-on-a-string toys, as if I had one inside my belly. You let the ball drop, swing it upward a little, and try to catch it with the cup in the handle you're holding. The trick is not to try too hard. When the ball lands, when it's caught itself, there's a satisfying CLICK. I experienced that sensation of things falling into their right place at the right time. That YES clicked deep in my belly. I could feel it, even almost hear it. So satisfying, content, fully present. And trusting in something beyond my trying to control the pace of things.

The shift from NO to YES is palpable. I'm paraphrasing my dear friend Howard DePorte*, a gifted mediator who says this about his clients getting to YES:

People know they've gotten to YES when they no longer feel the energy in their brain. Many people come to mediation intent on outsmarting someone, getting the advantage, winning. They sit pitched forward, ready to
do battle.

Through transformational mediation, a shift happens. People become more receptive and drop down into the heart. They often find empathy and connection with their former opponents and identify with them as fellow humans. You can actually see their shoulders relax as they sit back. Internally, they may feel more liquid and experience relief rather than resistance. With greater fluidity things move, like smiles, laughter, even tears. They tend to think better then, more creatively, because they are now thinking with the heart. Ultimately that awareness can drop even lower, from heart to belly, that other place of knowing.

*If you'd like to experience that transformation in a dispute or conflict you are having with others in your life, please contact Howard through www.pointmediation.com

So consider what felt sense let's you know it's a YES. Deciding what to eat for dinner, choosing how to spend your day off, discerning what you need to say to your colleague, making love, making art. The body will speak in different ways at different times, but it surely does speak. How do YOU know when you're at a YES?

X is for X Marks the Spot

2008-11-24T15:09:00.000-08:00

X marks the spot. We hold a picture up at eye level on the wall, then adjust it higher or lower. We then move it laterally, until we instinctively know That's it! So we mark it, nail it, hang it. We step back and savor where and how it wanted to be all along.

We can do right placement with objects, and we can practice it with ourselves. I moved to San Francisco somehow knowing it was the right environment for who I am and who I'm becoming. We are beings existing in space AND time, so right timing is just as important. I wrote about that some weeks back, that timing is often beyond our control. But we can try. I suspect right placement comes first, having some physical place to show up and say I am here. When we place ourselves well in space and time, with intention, life just opens up.

A friend and I are both redecorating rooms in our respective homes. Getting current by recreating our external places to match our insides. Her touchstone is that the parts and the whole should make her heart sing. This phrase and its accompanying emotions and sensations allow her to check in: Does this material's texture do it? What about that color? This style of furniture? This heart singing is an essential quality to creating a home that feels like it's really hers.

I'm seeking to create and experience a grounded and uplifted feeling in my new healing space. That means putting in a chair rail, with a darker color below and above it all warm light and possibility. Something soft under foot, no clutter, a gauzy curtain to block out the ugly light well. The room's palette comes together, all with the sense of that grounding and uplifting.

When placing ourselves well, we take time to check in with ourselves to find what is just right. Like Goldilocks, we assess: too this, too that, just right. We muddle our way through by trial and error.

But how do we know we've gotten to YES? More on that next week...

W is for Wanting

2008-11-17T09:58:00.000-08:00

It would be simple if we could just acknowledge that we want what we want.

Instead we want something and skip to the getting, as if to make the wanting itself go away. But we don't often rest in fulfillment either. We are somehow unsatisfied with the having. So we quickly find more wanting. To break this frenetic cycle, we can bring mindfulness to our wanting.

Say I have a craving for chocolate mint chip ice cream. Instead of rushing out to the corner store, I could pause as I tie my shoes and and say to the part of me that wants ice cream Yes, I know you're here. And then listen.

What do I really want? In that pause between wanting and acting, I might learn that the craving is really a longing to feel full. Hmm, curious. Just in the wondering, I find that there's more to it. Feeling full here means there'd be no space for worry about X. More curious!

So it's not about the ice cream. It's about not wanting to deal with the worry about X. This other part, this worry about X, clearly needs to be given some space of its own. So I could say Yes, here you are to that part worrying about X. I might then learn that it's trying to protect me from something bad happening. And the only way it knows how to do that is worrying. And that it wants this other outcome.

I acknowledge that wanting. Letting all the wanting be here is so powerful. And it calms down the need to take immediate action on any of them.

So acknowledging the wanting in ourselves and in parts of ourselves can open up the way to our deeper wisdom. It doesn't mean that I have to act on anything that the various parts say, unless it's good for our whole being. It is vital to validate that they want what they want, to make space for inclusion.

When a craving, a yen, a desire strikes, take some mindful time to be with it first. Let me know what unfolds.

V is for Voice

2008-11-10T17:02:00.000-08:00

In last week's election we Americans in record numbers voiced our preference for a new direction. Choosing new leadership is just a beginning to manifesting our collective values. Mindful public policy and its skillful execution is the next challenge. In using our voice daily, not just on election day, all of us can tap the power of aligned thought and word and action.

Our words and our voice are so powerful that we can do great good or great harm with them. Mindfulness is the key. Don Miguel Ruiz's first agreement is Be impeccable with your word. Don Miguel goes on to advise: Never use the power of the word against yourself. Never repeat lies and harmful stories about yourself. Never break your word to self or others.

Notice today what non-supportive stories you tell about yourself:

"With my luck...."
"I don't know how...."
"I always...."
"I'll never...."

Notice how you do or don't use your voice when:

-You feel something's wrong.
-You see someone mistreated.
-You really want to say No, but say Yes anyway.
-It's time to ask for help.

Take care to use your voice well, to choose your thoughts, words, and actions. We all have
the power to tell our unique stories that serve our destinies.

U is for Uplifting

2008-10-27T15:53:00.000-07:00

Within the voting booth and beyond, we are asked to choose well. The major personal and collective consideration seems to be: do we choose to act with loving intention or to react out of fear and anger? Can we be uplifted and uplifting AND stay grounded and rooted?

Visionary leaders use the power of the word to uplift and inspire people to mindful action. Imagination is so important, to dream what has not yet come into being, and to call it forth with our words and actions over time. Forty years ago the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. articulated a vision of true equality, and with Barack Obama and all of us, King's dream is taking form in an unexpected way. Obama himself has captured the imagination of many, welcoming participation with just three words: Yes, we can.

Uplifting oneself and others is not a Pollyanna, goody two shoes endeavor. Uplifting is sensing the whole, seeing the dangers, and choosing the good anyway. There's courage and rigor in choosing again and again into creative possibility. We can determine much about our lives just by where we place our attention and invest our energy.

So just notice if you spend your time and energy and thoughts on being connected, whole, uplifted or if you let yourself be bound by hopelessness and helplessness. And notice what you would prefer. You have the power to choose. In what way can you uplift yourself and someone else today?

T is for Timing

2008-10-26T23:07:00.000-07:00

A single friend is "not looking" for a life partner. He's just living his fascinating life and staying open to finding true love along the way. He's written down every quality he prefers in a companion, so his intention is clear. Yet it's hard for him to trust his Be Happy Now policy, when he's lonely and can see nobody on the horizon. We can all sympathize with the familiar impatience and frustration of wanting, moving toward, but not yet having.

One friend said with full trust, Oh, it's just Timing.

Manifesting maven Rick Jarow says, "When one door closes, another opens, but all too often there is a long hallway in between." We are asked to keep the faith, act as if we already are whole because we are, and take baby steps along that long hallway. Manifesting is such a mysterious process with its own time and rhythm.

To everything - turn, turn, turn

There is a season - turn, turn, turn

And a time for every purpose under heaven.

-lyrics by Pete Seeger, sung by The Byrds

We can be doing everything right on the way to our stated goal: clearing blocks, clarifying intention, taking daily action, receiving support. But when we're attached to a specific outcome, including a specific timetable, then we are veering away from the actual process that is happening right here, right now.

We don't even know if we're going to see the results in this lifetime. Consider Vincent Van Gogh. He only sold one painting, and yet he continues to inspire generations of artists and art lovers. Or anyone else following a life dream. Maybe the end result isn't it after all, but what we discover along the way.

Where in your life is it time to give it up to Timing?

S is for Showing Up

2008-10-23T15:07:00.000-07:00

I'm going to help a friend pack up for a move this weekend. This is part of my m.o., showing up at a significant turning point after a long absence. Maybe it's a dramatic gesture to be just as important as the everyday reliable friends. Or it may be the healer in me responding to a cry for help. Whatever the case, I can show up for my friend it that way.

My teacher Angeles Arrien holds that Showing Up is the essential power of the Warrior, the Leader in each of us. I try to gauge how well I show up and make myself available to life. Where is it easy and where is it more of a challenge for me to be present? This year I've learned about what I prioritize based on what's been easy to commit to and where I say YES. Writing, my family, my home, certain deep friends, a new training make me say YES. And I see where it's harder to show up fully in certain aspects of my work practice and exercise routine.

The hardest thing is how often we don't show up for ourselves. Our feelings of abandonment are transformed when we can just be present and meet ourselves consciously. No fixing or healing, just meeting. I've had the great experience of being received by my own compassion in Focusing. I've felt a necessary connection made by hearing my own words and stories read to me. I've known the back and forth of therapeutic touch. My body-mind is beginning to remember how to stay rather than run off. And it feels good.

It's a lifelong process, this business of showing up. What allows you to show up - in your relationships, at work, with your creativity, with yourself?

R is for Receptivity

2008-10-13T17:11:00.000-07:00

I was sharing with a friend a short story I'd written. She wondered how I'd come up with one particularly striking image. The truth is stranger than fiction. I pretty much wrote down exactly what I'd seen. This specificity helped ground the scene in a way, which I might never have been able to imagine. Creative people know, and we are all creative people, that a large part of our work is to live with eyes and ears open. Our receptivity and the open space we hold are essential to our capacity to synthesize and create.

When we are too full of distraction, there's nowhere for new energy to come in and stay. We become like an overflowing closet. That's when we need spring cleaning, to clear out the clutter in our minds and our internal creative space to allow the energy to flow again. This could mean literally cleaning up our writing space or art studio, sweeping the dance floor.

Or it could mean properly storing our odd thoughts, idea seeds, scraps of dialogue, or stray images. I use my laptop or my journal. Raymond Carver apparently kept his scraps in his bathrobe pocket. Jotting things down, doing sketches, playing with movement and gesture are ways to give things raw form and reassure them they can have your attention at the right time. It gives you something solid to return to.

Once those are given initial form, there's a clear arena for what wants to emerge. Again, it's listening, watching, being curious about what is going to show up. Why is it that I can trust something will come in my creating life, when the same uncertainty in other aspects of my life just makes me anxious? I think it has to do with practice. Some people, especially meditators, know about the comings and goings of ideas and energy and have a broader perspective of nonattachment.

So notice where you are receptive and where you need to clear out some space for new energy to come in.

Q is for Quality, not Quantity

2008-10-08T22:08:00.000-07:00

I splurge in little ways to stay open and abundant. By choosing quality over quantity and taking time to savor, I give myself a greater experience of being alive and connected and present. Sometimes just a taste can open up a world.

Each step of creating an organic heirloom tomato salad can be savored. Selecting the ingredients, I can feel sense the water, earth, and sun dense in the flesh. I can smell the vines, almost feel the pricklies. At the check out counter I chat amiably with the cashier with the faded Maori chin tattoo and am grateful we have money in the bank for this and that she’s here being of kind service. In my kitchen, preparing and arranging the food I lose track of time, move efficiently and with the forehead numbness of pure intuition. In the thrall of everyday creativity.

Eating, slowly taking in this delicious fruit, is a whole mindfulness meditation. I so enjoy the natural sweetness set off by just enough salt. The golden yellow, the green stripes, and the shadowy red fill my eyes. And I laugh with my man at how outrageously good something so simple can be. How lucky we are.

A little luxury is good. Once I paid $3 for one fragrant, softball size peach in Tokyo. Totally worth the memory of peach juice in August running down my face. It didn’t cure my homesickness, but gave me a much-needed connection to the earth there.

Experimenting is good. I brought home the exotic dragonfruit to try, because I’ve never been to the dry tropical places it grows. The magenta fleshed fruit is definitely something to be eaten in appreciative company. I had the pleasure of oohing and ahhing over it with friends who’d come for Sunday brunch.

Receiving is good. The time we went housepainting up the coast, the art teacher had brought one precious truffle from her home in the south of France. Shaved finely over an angel hair pasta appetizer, it was earthy sublime.

Opt for quality over quantity and connect - to the earth and her bounty, to deep nourishment, to each other, and to the seasons. All this lived experience expands out of the relatively brief clock time needed to prepare and eat a side dish together. And that's the key, time shared. I'm convinced it is our most precious resource, how we show up awake and alive to this moment with each other. Here I’m talking about food, but for you it could be something else. Where do you choose quality over quantity?

P is for Perception

2008-09-29T16:32:00.000-07:00

From my father I inherited the ability to see what's wrong. A pathologist, he spent most of his life in front of a microscope hunting down the cause of diseases. But I was made for the more elusive task of being Medicine and seeing beauty. It takes a lot of practice to choose moment to moment to focus and build on what's right in the world and in myself.

On a beautiful hike yesterday I watched my mind do its habitual thing. Tree stumps and ugly military bunkers bummed me out, so that I didn't really take in the serene views of the bay and the city and the lovely sailboats. I was too busy imagining horrible things - my cat dead upon our return home, my partner mangled in a bike accident, gloom and doom. Each time I became aware of my tragic daydreams, I physically made an X in the air, a sign to the Universe that I'm not putting any more energy into manifesting those thoughts.

Try it now. Let a worst case scenario come up in your mind's eye. X it out and say 'that doesn't have to happen.' Then imagine something yummy, productive, helpful, ideal. Does it make you smile or laugh? Spend some time with that imagining and mark it with a + plus sign. Say 'thank you' for it already manifesting.

When I'm feeling grateful and open and willing to play, the world opens up with wonders. What lens are you using to perceive your world?

O is for Openings

2008-09-25T12:37:00.000-07:00

In a recent movement workshop, we were instructed to walk, skip, leap in whatever direction at whatever rate through the studio. I sped up. Nearing a wall, I'd push off with my hands and ricochet in another direction. Walking fast backwards, we were coached to say "thank you" if we and another collided. It didn't happen. Without knowing each others' ever changing trajectories, without disrupting my instinctive arc, I kept finding the open space to move into. I left open space in my wake for others to enter.

Why doesn't this seamless hive intelligence happen on the street? I believe it's because we often tune out our awareness of being part of a larger group. Cell phones exacerbate the situation. In individualistic driver mode, we don't necessarily look for openings, but wonder why everyone isn't getting out of our way. In our public life we don't have the same agreements or intentions as in a movement workshop.

It made me remember other larger groups, other dance spaces filled with forty or fifty people zipping across the room, nobody colliding. It's as if we were all aware of being in relationship to the whole. My small 't' taoist friend Howard often says that he follows the openings, looking for where there's already flow and movement in his life. That's what we all were doing in the larger dancing group and so the whole group body flowed.

I like that, being welcomed forward by the seemingly empty space or life openings. Opportunity knocks and we answer or we don't. Nature abhors a vacuum, so invites us to fill it momentarily by our stepping forward or leaping into it. What openings are beckoning for you? What invitations do you ignore or resist? Do you get stuck in setting your trajectory to where your way is blocked?

N is for Nourishment

2008-09-15T17:53:00.000-07:00

I'm convinced that self-care is the Achilles heel of so many of us in the healing arts. And parents raising young ones. And teachers. And anyone dedicated to service. I'm confounded by how loving, patient, giving, accepting we can be in our daily work with others, while forgetting to extend basic nurture to ourselves. Without sustaining ourselves with consistent deep care, our work is truly unsustainable.

So in search of elusive balance, this year I've been following what nourishes me. Keeping up my own creative practice and playing well with others is vital. Yes, it's true. I am my own kindergartener! This has led me to join a writers workshop, create and teach a dreams and collage workshop with a friend, make occasional art dates, take movement exploration classes, and give myself a retreat with kindred spirits. It continues to be a year of rich inner life, which has served me well.

A nutritionist I know calls those things that most feed us 'primary nutrition.' So not just food, air, water, rest. It may be hanging with people who know you best and love you anyway. Being your sensual self. Hula hooping, old car souping up, refining your barbecue sauce recipe, learning more Italian. It could be something no one's ever heard of, yet is important to you.

How do you know what feeds you? Follow the soul longing. What would you regret not being and not doing at the end of your life? Which people, places, things inspire you? Who and what helps you feel aligned with your higher purpose, even if you don't quite know what that is?

Now that I'm tending to what's important, I'm getting a clearer sense of what is enough. I don't have to chase after every retreat or training or book or experience to complete me. I can discern and follow what nourishes me. And filling myself with my true life, I'm reaching the tipping point of naturally spilling out in generous service to others.

M is for the Great Mother

2008-09-08T10:13:00.000-07:00

On a recent walk I passed a tall wooden fence with a bougainvillea poofing out over the top, creating a leafy roof a few inches above my head. I could not see the very top where magenta blossoms were reaching for the sun. Most people are taller than me, so I felt this as a rarely occupied place of refuge on a busy neighborhood sidewalk. I passed under it quickly, then something made me return and stand under this bushy vine's canopy.

I pulled the earbuds from my ears and turned off the MP3 player. I swept my troubles away to be recycled into more fruitful energy. That spot smelled earthy and green and the dark stillness pulsed and carressed me. My skull felt like it could breathe better, like during a Reiki treatment or craniosacral therapy. The soles of my feet spread and took root. It was being held by the energy of the Divine Mother, a strong nurturing feminine presence or the plant's calling out those qualities in me.

It could be that the boug's longing to climb up and over the fence of the front yard of the unseen house was what made it so strong a protective presence. Having reached more freedom, it could hold itself up as it spread out thickly and offered shelter. Don't we all know people like that, men and women who have climbed up through addiction or hard times to stand firm and offer a space of comfort and leadership for others? The best healers are like that, alchemizing compassionate service to others out of their own struggles to be free.

I carry the Great Mother essence in me strongly, even though I have no children. As an artist and healer it's part of my journey to know that nurture for myself and to offer it up in the form of beauty, attention, caring. No matter our sex and gender, how do we bring nurture forward in this wounded world? Even when our own personal mothers did not have what they needed to be able to offer us whole and consistent nurturing, we can learn from nature and other mothers how to share Love Medicine. We can celebrate the seeming chaotic wholeness in our ever changing lives. Just by taking a moment to feel our body as part of the greater body of the Mother, the earth, this world, this belonging.

How do you experience the Divine Mother?

L is for Luck

2008-09-01T11:17:00.000-07:00

I was surprised to find myself engaged in deep conversation with my seat mate for the whole duration of the flight. Usually I travel in my own cocoon of solitude. Something in me recognized Wayne as an 'important stranger' and this meeting as just the Medicine I needed. Perhaps you know people like Wayne, or maybe you are like him - uplifting, grateful, blessed, curious, open, willing. Essentially happy. It's contagious - even now when I think of our unexpected meeting, I am all those things too.

Wayne told me he wakes up thinking, "Please, God, let me help just one person today." He really means it, and I felt happy to receive help arising out of his solid intention. I'd been wondering how to find a great general contractor for my parents, whose home we are de-cluttering and prepping for eventual sale. Wayne owns many rental properties in that area and highly recommends his own meticulous contractor. I gratefully took the referral.

What luck, right? I never stated the intention to find a contractor, just put it on my back burner to 'figure out' later. With natural ease a great lead found me. Just because I was open to it.

Wayne and I are kindred spirits: went to the same university years apart, and both of our career paths have led to more joyful purpose. He's inspired by his wife's courage facing cancer and looks for and thankfully receives the miracles of her healing. He passes on hope in the telling of her courage. We shared about experiences caring for parents in assisted living and how illness can strengthen family ties. We agreed that it is the greatest gift to be able to serve from contentment, joy, and satisfaction. I walked away feeling grateful and happy, offering blessings back to his wife and family.

So here's what I think about luck. Wayne, like other friends aligned with their divine life 's purpose, make their own luck with their intentions. They show up to serve others for the sheer joy of it. He seems to expect to find common ground, anticipating the discovery of just how he's already connected to a new acquaintance. A natural networker looking to serve. I've decided this is a key to my happiness, setting the intention to connect with people and being open to what connections are revealed. Finding another in the flow of giving and receiving. Let me know how luck and intention have served you. I'd love to hear your stories.

K is for kinfolk

2008-08-28T19:06:00.000-07:00

I'm on a family visit, helping out my ailing parents find more supportive living arrangements. I could not be here and be truly of service to my mom and dad without the loving support of My People. Most immediately, I mean my beloved younger sister and her wild and wonderful husband, my brother-in-law. We plan these trips together to offer mutual support and have fun and kick ass on cleaning our family's homestead to prepare it for sale. My brother and older sister do the same, forming the elder sibs team. Not only am I lucky enough to be related by blood and by marriage to these amazing people, I also get to enjoy them as my chosen kith and kin. Friends who are also relatives are a double blessing.

What would we do without our kinfolk, those people close to us, whose souls sing with ours? When I stop to think of the circles of kin I have, it's like the water rippling out from the center of a lake, where I've cast a stone of longing for belonging. My man, my mate, is my main anchor back home. My parents, with whom I feel closest than I ever have, are another anchor for me now. (Perhaps it's because I'm now interested in being of service to them, rather than obsessing about what I didn't get from them when I was a young one. Surprisingly enough, I am acting like a grown up! Watch out, it may happen to the best of us!) My friends, my clients, my colleagues, my teachers, my ex-friends - all these ripples of kin surround me, support me, and I carry them all in my ever enlarging heart.

Of course, this leads me back to my favorite theme, gratitude. I'm learning to let in the support of my kith and kin, to belong, to feel connected in the giving and receiving flow of Us. Who do you count as Your People? Make sure you let them know often that you love and appreciate them. It'll bring a smile, a tear, a heart opening laugh. Try it and let me know.

J is for Juice

2008-08-19T11:56:00.000-07:00

It's hard to do anything when you've run out of juice. My cell phone needed a new battery, had a hard time staying recharged. We are like that, sometimes needing a brand new reservoir for our liveliness.

It's good to inquire where our juice, our life energy, our oomph really lives in us. Is it living in a far mountain cave, dodging the snow leopards? Is it so far beneath the surface it hasn't seen the sun in years? What we call depression, what indigenous people call soul loss, can feel like this.

To retrieve parts of our soul, we can turn to the natural world, even if you're in the city. The elements rebalance us.

Water: drinking lots of good clean water helps you filter out the toxins of daily life and literally restores your body's flow of water in, water out. Taking mindful baths or showers washes away whatever clings to you from daily exchanges. Floating in water helps us receive the support that's always here for us. Just listening to the waves and tides retunes us to our own rhythm of gathering force and letting go.

Earth: just feeling the physical support as you sit is enormously restorative. Notice your feet on the ground and the chair rising to meet your bottom and your back. Rest into that contact and support. I like the image of the earth mama raising her giant palms to meet the soles of my feet with every step. If you're able, taking a walk or hike is powerfully grounding and lets us return to the divine source in us. You know how refreshing it is to eat good root vegetables, how it literally keeps us in the here and now.

Fire: being out in sunlight gives you energy, lightens your mood, dances well with your biochemistry. Being around warm and loving people, feeling our heart fire, can be incredibly healing and rejuvenating. Playing with simple creativity engages heart fire. Ritually burning what we don't need anymore is helpful, writing down habits, patterns, beliefs that are ready to be transformed and burning the paper can powerfully make space for more helpful ways of being.

Air: Tibetan Buddhist tonglen breath practice transforms our demons into allies. It goes something roughly like this: holding an image of the divine within you, breathe in something that you'd like to transform. Say it's your lifelong anger at your brother. Breathe it in, give it to say your inner Quan Yin or Jesus, then let it go on the exhale with a blessing to yourself from your inner divine. Then do it again and breathe out a blessing to your brother. Repeat as needed, sending out blessings to your brother repeatedly and to others who come to mind. Forgive little and big things. Transforming anger makes space for fresh energy and lightness. Don't be surprised if your brother calls, just because he was thinking of you.

These are some ways to recharge your battery and find your juice again. Let me know about your favorite ways to juice up.

I is for the big 'I'

2008-08-08T11:18:00.001-07:00

Each of us is a vast universe, with many facets, parts, impulses. So what do we mean when we say 'I'? As in:

I'm exhausted.
I'm really upset with you right now. I'm furious!
I don't know what to do, and I'm starting to panic.

Here we are talking about the small 'I,' a voice within us that is not the whole story. It's helpful to ask ourselves in those moments, "Is all of me exhausted, or is this just one part of me speaking at the moment?" Checking inward, notice where you feel the exhausted part hanging out. It helps to contain it and make it tangible. What's the physical sensation, emotion, image, sound, memory, or movement? What's it here to let you know?

Wait a minute, just who is this part going to feel safe to share with? Enter the big 'I', the most wise and compassionate self who can accept everything because it is everything. Imagine your best, most trusted person who listens so attentively and multiply by a thousand. Total acceptance, compassion, openness, curiosity, interest, engagement, spaciousness, patience, empathy. No judgment. In fact if there's judgment or impatience or snarky remarks, that's another part horning in on the action.

So often with one part arises its counterpart. So in the case of "I'm furious!" there's the part that feels furious and perhaps another part that makes it not ok to express fury. "That's not ladylike." Or "Getting angry doesn't help." Or "What are you complaining about now?" Anything but the big 'I' conveying to this part, "So, I hear you saying that you're furious." And waiting for more it wants to say about all that, which it will probably do because - big sigh of relief - the big 'I' is actually listening. We become totally trustworthy when we step into being the big 'I'.

The big 'I' is big enough to contain within it any internal conflicts. Our inherent wholeness, who we really are, has no reason to judge the judging parts, pick favorites, or pit one against another. If you find yourself siding with one or another, it's time to step back further, recognize yet another part that is something other than total acceptance.

So next time the small you is suffering, see if you can step back into the big 'I' and be there with the part that is suffering. Witnessing, listening, empathizing, reflecting back what we're given, is much better than fixing. Practicing being the big 'I' gives us opportunities to experience our wholeness.

H is for Humility

2008-08-04T14:54:00.000-07:00

I was once given a sacred instrument for prayer, rather it was bestowed upon me. The bestower jokingly said, "Earn This." If you ever saw Saving Private Ryan you know these words and their enormity. It's no joke to be deemed worthy of having a sacred thing given to you. It's overwhelming and scary sometimes. It's daunting to consider how you could possibly live up to the expectation of being/doing enough to carry the gift forward. Truly humbling.

The parent given a child to raise, the artist with her gift, the one who fears his own power. All humbled. Do we/they have the courage to know our worth and embody it?

This life is so big, deep, vast, wide, and graced. Do you ever list everything in your life that is good? Do you pray?
You can spend a lot a lot a lot of time in prayer just saying thanks, which is something I used to do with the aforementioned sacred instrument. In the end, you have to say "and thanks for everyone and everything else in my heart." It is humbling to recognize the immensity of our hearts and all that touches us. The word 'humble' is related to 'human' and 'humus.' Bringing you to your knees, prostrate even, down to earth. Close to all the people, places, things that hold you up.

Recently I came up against this familiar painful sense of not feeling worthy of all the amazingness in my life. I heard a little voice in me agree that you can never do enough. This overwhelming fear of failing has been sitting on my joy for a while. YOU CAN NEVER DO ENOUGH. Hearing this was sobering, it was the bald truth, and I felt the meditation bell moment of accepting it. And then in the face of that truth, the little voice went on to say: BUT YOU CAN TRY.

It reminds me of TaKeTiNa, a fun and challenging whole body learning through rhythm. TaKeTiNa is about community, call and response, bicameral brain coordination, stress reduction, and many other things. But the whole point in learning these increasingly complex polyrhythms the indigenous way is this: you are bound to fail, to fall out of rhythm. It's human, humbling.

The trick is to let yourself fail and fall out. By listening and going back to the basics, your bodymind is caught up by the group, and you fall back into rhythm again. The being out of sync and being exactly on the beat have their own rhythm. Your unique pulse of learning and integrating. It is bliss to be completely at one with others in song, motion, blood and bones in joy. And can you be kind to yourself, laugh at yourself when you're thinking and thus falling out?

What humbles you?

G is for Go

2008-07-28T18:58:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine likes to remind himself about pacing: Slow, Flow, and Go. It's a good teaching for me to come back to exactly where I am right now, before I go rushing off ungrounded.

Slowing down to acknowledge how things are with you now is a kind of gentleness towards yourself. Yesterday in a movement exploration class I found myself trying to do things right, pushing, going too fast. Working way too hard to try to get into ease and flow. But pressure brings constriction, the opposite of flow.

I wasn't giving myself time to rest in the physical support that was there. The floor meeting my hand, the chair holding up my hip, the breath and sounds that help extend and suspend the limbs. I couldn't feel any of that, just frustration. I wasn't letting myself rest in what did feel good and nourishing. I was missing the moment.

So that's the pushing the river. On the other hand is inertia, forgetting there's always one step we can take. We can get self-indulgent, fall into our helplessness and hopelessness. Sometimes the best action we can take is grounding in the body and be present with what's here, even if it's terrible pain and discomfort. Can we just stand it, since it too is part of us? Making effort for the good is honoring where you are right now and supporting where you want to be.

We've all had enough practice bulldozing our way through what we call resistance, with mixed results. What if we could just take a moment to be really present and notice what is here and what is needed next? So where do you Slow, Flow, and Go? And where are you stuck?

E is for Emptiness, F is for Fullness

2008-07-14T17:41:00.000-07:00

Facing the blank canvas, the big nothing can be terrifying. In a culture that prizes mastery over the Mystery, experiencing emptiness can make us truly uncomfortable. Other cultures make room for emptiness. Think about zen gardens, where the 'negative' space hums in relation to the rocks and trees. Consider the Navajo people who view their land, not as mesas lost in vast areas of nothing, but large potent areas delineated by land formations. The interval or what's in between is full of possibility.

In our lives when it seems like nothing is happening, the Mystery is moving. It might not be apparent, like a stream that goes underground for a span, then emerges where we're not looking. How do we hang out with the Emptiness?

Can we be thankful for the letting go, the making room for what comes next?

Fullness is a fearful tendency in our culture. We fill our homes with stuff, we fill our bodies with stuff, we fill our days with activity. When there's no discernment about what is enough, we over-consume and take on too much. People who want a relationship are sometimes so busy avoiding being lonely that they forget to make room for another person to enter.

There is another sense of fullness, the image of a cup spilling over. To be filled with so much joy that it has to be shared, or so much sorrow that it naturally moves out with tears. Our body-minds know how to self-regulate if we pay attention.

Where are you on the spectrum of emptiness to fullness?

D is for Dedicating Merit

2008-07-07T11:52:00.000-07:00

Somewhere along the way I learned to Dedicate the Merit. Dedicating Merit is a practice of generosity, connection, and blessing. Buddhist in origin, it's about making effort for the good, and offering the benefits of that effort to others.

I used to be part of a sound healing collective, where we'd take turns doing improvised ceremonial healings for each other, using shamanic voice and all kinds of instruments. Wonderful compositions were created uniquely for each person. We each received the benefit of this vibrational restoration. And at the closing circle we always named those to whom we wanted to send the benefit of these healings. Some people would direct this extra goodness to loved ones or the earth or people they were struggling with.

Dedicating merit can be an everyday act. All the effort of my climbing hills and stairways in my neighborhood this morning generated the merit of a healthier body, more energy, clearer mind. I receive that for myself AND dedicate the merit to those who are not able to take such walks, like my friend recovering from ankle surgery. I dedicate the merit and give it out to her and those unable to enjoy the yellow monarch butterfly, the beautiful unknown plants, the friendly dogs and their people, the heatwave. And the way the ground rises to meet me tired feet.

What merit would you like to dedicate today? And to whom?

C is for Commitment

2008-07-02T15:25:00.000-07:00

I wear two simple silver rings. On my left hand is a ring with a medicine wheel on it, to remind me to return to the sacred center even while traveling through the cycles of life. It reminds me of my wedding ceremony with all the celebrants in a sacred circle. In each cardinal direction sat representatives of the distinct life phases on the medicine wheel. I remember the red, round altar of candles on the floor, with our tobacco prayer ties spiraling out from the center, lit by our wedding participants' candles.

On my right hand is a spoon ring, with one end a spiral for water. Traveling along the ring, there's a sunburst for fire, smooth space for air, and finally markings that feel like seeds, plants, and earth. I remember nature and the vital forces within and outside of me.

Both rings remind me of commitment. It is a challenge to balance commitment to my sacred marriage and commitment to my sacred work. And really they are the same, to stay connected to what is truly important - the sacred and how it manifests in all I set sacred intention to. When I forget to wear them, my hands feel naked and vulnerable.

What reminds you of your commitments?

B is for Being With What Is

2008-06-23T12:12:00.000-07:00

The core of many spiritual practices is learning to BE WITH WHAT IS. Some call it acceptance or surrender or letting go of our attachment to how we want things to be. When life's big challenges loom large, it takes courage to show up and stay present with whatever vexes us.

As a big fan of Focusing, I am learning to sit with It. Stepping into Presence allows me to be with anything that comes up and wants my attention. By maintaining the compassionate, open, and curious stance of my most loving and wise Self, I can really hear Its concerns and extend empathy. Often just being heard allows this something to relax or shift.

The story goes that Tibetan saint Milarepa invited the demons of anger, greed, fear to come into his meditation cave and have tea. The point is to make space for what's here anyway, to invite it to be here in a more compassionate space. By being with what is, we get to stop fighting ourselves. And that is one way to see and bring beauty into the world.

For more info, see www.FocusingResources.com

A is for Absorption

2008-06-19T15:05:00.000-07:00

Jumping back on the runaway horse of my blog, I want to write about absorption.

I recently had the chance to play with my one-year old friend Kaia. She's just finding her legs, enjoying her rootedness in standing and walking/falling with first steps. The moments of being with her while she crawled, sat, climbed, clambered, and stood in a little rocking chair totally absorbed me. It took my full awareness and responsiveness to prevent her from taking a dive, and yet I gave her lots of room to explore.

In describing this to other friends, they reflected back that I am that way with clients and with friends in deep discussion. I'm a 'spotter,' one said. It's like a dance. I move with, providing contact and/or supportive space for what wants to happen next.

In this absorption I can easily lose track of time and sense of separation. Being in that creative, responsive flow, being in the zone, is being one with another. In those moments I'm fully alive and bring that aliveness and trust in the process to another.

How do you experience absorption?

Next entry starts with a 'B'

Pregnant Pause

2008-05-02T23:09:00.000-07:00

This spring has left me exhausted and preoccupied by the generational shift. My parents are going into assisted living, and we siblings need to take care of them now. My routine, such as it is, has fallen apart. This is a good thing, an opportunity to get current with how I want to be as a grown up and master of my fate.

The pregnant pause, I've been calling it. This falling out of rhythm to fall back in. Athletes course correct and it happens minutely every time you turn the steering wheel of your life. It's usually asking me to show up for my life and giving me an opening to do so. In journaling, Focusing, and other deep inquiry, I'm making a loose net bag to gather and carry the jumble of my life.

PS: On my street the Ruby Slippers I wrote about in the spring have run off, but same-sex weddings are here to stay. Not that marriage is for everyone, but civil rights certainly are.

A Valentine for Orange Man

2008-02-21T20:14:00.000-08:00

We were riveted by you as we rode home on BART on Valentine's Day. You gave us color therapy and laughing yoga, made the whole train car laugh. You were way better than a box of chocolates, although perhaps equally nutty.

We couldn't overlook you, a tall muscled man in bright ORANGE nylon piped shorts and matching hoodie, orange translucent knee socks, and your bright orange backpack. The tennis racket's handle stuck out with faded pink tape. You came bopping into the center of our train car, your hood barely containing your oversize earphones and permed poodle hair.

Who wouldn't love you, a tall, athletic secret Asian man. With your zebra skateboard and unbounding energy. You were kung fu-ing, boxing, and jiving all by yourself in the open space by the train doors. The tall talmudic Berkeley cyclist next to you lowered his head to get out of your way or not be laughing in your face. The dressed to the nines daters across the aisle ducked their heads and guffawed into their hands. We all wondered if you were part of the Jamie Kennedy experience or some other hidden camera deal.

My love & I watched you openly, artists appreciating your bravado, brio, and brawn. You did pull ups on the hang-on-don't-fall-over bar, and push ups with your orange butt and too much information in the air. The man in the seat ahead of us held his phone out to capture your solo, but I haven't found you on YouTube yet.

Orange Man, you lit up our night. At West Oakland, my love asked the spirits to watch over you as you picked up your board and exited. You didn't hear when I started the big round of applause as the train sped on. Some might have been laughing at you in judgment. But we felt the relief of being human, together. Appreciating that still, some people know how to let their freak flag fly. Go Orange!

Ruby Slipper Stories

2008-02-02T14:12:00.000-08:00

I live in the Castro in the heart of San Francisco, a neighborhood rooted in gay liberation. My heart soars every time I see the pair of small ruby slippers that sparkle in mid air, dangling from the telephone wire crossing my street. No stinky old sneakers for us! Some kind person with good aim rocketed them there last year.

The ruby slippers remind us in the age of increasing gentrification: honor the soul of this place. Remember refuge and belonging. Never give up the freedom to live out loud. Make room for others’ authenticity. Enjoy the humble magic in being who you truly are. Those we lost to AIDS, our too young Ancestors, say there’s no time to waste.

We need stories like water, like air. The Wizard of Oz and The Red Shoes both tell the tale of the soul’s longing for an authentic life. You’ve never seen the Wizard of Oz until you’ve seen it in the grand Castro Theater, among costumed audience members who shout out their favorite lines. Who doesn’t identify with Dorothy’s desperate search for home? In The Red Shoes the poor little girl ‘rescued’ by the rich old lady desires only her tattered handmade slippers. She becomes obsessed trying to recapture what came from her own heart and soul.

There’s no place like home. I’ve found it here among my Tales of the City diversified family. I’ve also found my heart, my mind, and my courage. I even work in the neighborhood, where director Gus Van Sant and team are filming Harvey Milk’s story. He was the first openly gay city supervisor, who was later assassinated along with Mayor George Moscone in 1978. A new generation of people, for whom sexual identity is not a big deal, need to know that this current openness came from a continuing long struggle to transcend fear. We need Harvey’s story and his guiding wisdom as an Ancestor, to keep inviting people to be who they are.

Water of life

2008-01-08T21:16:00.000-08:00

Today our toilet was blowing steam from beneath the closed lid, the tank having mysteriously filled with hot hot hot water and sending out burnt vapor. It sounded and looked like a hell mouth opening up!

It gave me a chance to remember that we are all connected in this building: us tenants, our contractor landlord and his errant knight plumber, and the downstairs ceramic artists who alchemize out of earth, water, air, and fire. We take for granted that most of the time healthy veins and arteries keep things moving in our dear 1870's building.

Recently an oil tanker ran into the Bay Bridge, causing a nasty spill into San Francisco Bay and our coastal waters. People came out in droves to rescue oiled birds and clean up beaches they love so much. Feeling spurred people to action.

Hillary Clinton notably showed great emotion in New Hampshire the other day. For someone so controlled and often sharp edged, she revealed her human frailty by speaking from the heart and nearly crying. That has been the demise of other politicians, but letting people see her real, unscripted self won her some votes.

And here winter rainstorms and high winds have conspired to uproot our trees, wash away embankments, and keep some of us in the dark while PG & E wires us up again. What are we taking for granted in our fast lives? For some, candle light means we talk close and get enough sleep. For others, it's a reminder that technology is one thing, forces of nature another.

Thanks to the water for teaching me about the flow of emotion, how it needs to be released at regular intervals.

Subject to Change

2007-12-03T10:53:00.000-08:00

This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on seas and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.

John Muir, that great friend of the wilds, knew that Nature is constantly in motion. Each being follows its own rhythm and cycle of change.

Those creative people who are naturalists of the human condition, experience metamorphosis in themselves and others all the time. Those with longevity, like Bob Dylan, have many lives and modes of creation as they chase their ever restless curiosity. Ever willing to be transformed, they transform others. Fans who get attached to one period or epoch may not fully appreciate that art and music and all things alive never stand still.

Even if you do not consider yourself creative, you are nonstop creative process. With each inhalation, you take on new form. On the exhale, you dissolve. We have an idea, try it out, retune it, and launch it out in the world. The response we get and our urge to create again leads to another branching idea and project. Living, breathing humans are transformation embodied.

We may shy away from this notion, for it returns us again and again to the dreaded Not Knowing. We get attached to what we know and are fearful about losing that certainty. We get stuck. We forget to wonder at the new beginning that this ending brings. If only we could trust the flow of life, we'd be carried on by the creative process and our soul evolution.

As always, to be continued...

Flying into Windows

2007-11-26T15:57:00.000-08:00

Thud, thwack! The goldfinches are at it again. Maybe it's the angle of the light reflecting off our bay windows. Maybe the birds are brain addled or berry drunk. Or maybe they're just like us.

For whatever reason, our goldfinches have taken to flying into our closed windows. Their chests go thud, and their beaks and claws scrabble against the glass. I once watched one rise up above the sill triumphantly, after dozens of attempts to fly up. It paused there, then went right back to the launchpad branch. Thud, thwack, scrabble.

I've tried to hang things in the window, tape colored paper there. I've talked with them through the open window, to warn them about hurting themselves. They cock their heads and look at me, but apparently I don't speak finch.

I take them on as mirrors and teachers:

- in what ways do I repeatedly slam into windows?

- what am I trying to reach on the other side?

- am I persevering or just not learning from my mistakes?

How pitiable we all are. Or is it faithful? Without memory of failure, we launch ourselves with strong wings.

Welcome!

2007-11-19T13:11:00.000-08:00

I'm writing out of a desire to connect with other people who root themselves and their creative lives in the natural world. I'll be sharing how contact with nature in the city and beyond sparks my art and writing and my daily life as a work of art. I invite you to share how nature supports your creative life.

- Gratitude and Blessings, Carol