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.
Showing posts with label beauty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beauty. Show all posts
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Red Fox
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.
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.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Call and Response
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.
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.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Something Always Blooming
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.
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.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Welcome!
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
- Gratitude and Blessings, Carol
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