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
Monday, March 30, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
At Play At Work
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?
"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?
Monday, March 9, 2009
Love over Fear
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.
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.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Being Love
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.
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.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Creativity in Business Relationships
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.
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.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Recipe, No Recipe
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.
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.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Freeing the Hostage
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.
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.
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