Inspirations: Change & Re-Invention

Staring at the gates of spring while yet in February is like Oliver asking for more gruel. Remember the pitiful lines from the musical? “Please Sir, can I have some more?’ It ain’t gonna happen, and it is both foolish and brave to ask for what we do not have but long for, be it porridge, grass, or freedom. Important questions arise from silly meanderings of wishing for spring renewal, and wanting more porridge. How do we dance instead of sogg through these last, lock-down weeks of winter? How to move through months of sudden and extreme shifts without losing our core? How to be bold enough to stand up and ask for what the soul needs, despite what the world says we cannot be/have/do. These are difficult terms of battle. It is battle with the world, and more importantly it is within self. It is the unconscious sparring of ego with soul. The ego is horrified by the loss of work, lack of money, death of a known way of living….The soul, not so much. These two giants are often in unconscious conflict, especially when we wrestle through our nights. The soul says, “Bring it on!” The ego cries out, “No, no. I can’t do that.” And they pretzel-twist into endless configurations of love and hate. Observing and appreciating the ego’s earnest, longing love affair with the soul makes our interior colors deeper and richer. Conscious observation of these two in their Tango Danse offers space and time for balancing: fear with bravery, confinement with freedom, contempt with compassion. So, here we stand, staring at spring’s locked gates. Perhaps we are more conscious of our struggle, our underlying wish for days to be different? Now, in that small space between, we begin to breathe joy into the cold and… Read more »

New year, new roads, new intentions, old containers. When we can, we all turn happily from the weight of regret and misshapen dreams. Why can’t we create hoped for happiness all the time? What stalls aspiration and love? What imprisons us in poverty? Perhaps growing greater consciousness is the gift that sets us free, that gives muscle to pull anchor, set sail. Growing more conscious containers gives space for transformation of the old. Whatever is unknown requires this transformation, as well as bravery. A necessary skill is deepening our relationships….not only of self with self, and other, but self to ideas and events. Moving into the matrix of the many layers of relationship connecting us to our lives, we expand our containers. We need our loved ones for courage in unknown waters. We need expanded mind/body connections to support and comprehend the new. And we desperately require familiar, daily practices to provide a solid framework. Opening these many lines of communication, we move toward universal precepts. It is less about me-me-me and more about us. The powers of life –for the most part—live unconsciously. It is our demand for individuality, even for mortality, that creates conscious responsibility, and it is that choiceful, conscious spirit begging us to weigh anchor for uncharted seas, hand in hand, each captain of their own ship, as well as disciplined sailors working the rigging as a single body. Numerically, this new year of 2009, is an ‘11,’ a master number. It also becomes a ‘2’ …you and me, babeee. We are the ONE dedicating ourselves to wrapping our containers as gorgeous gift boxes for the world…. expanding containers of greater consciousness, wrapped round with ribbons of profound relationships, and luminous papers of love. Asana: Natarajasana/King Dancer, is a lovely, fulfilling pose. This time you are… Read more »

Along with loving a good lie, I often steal. Always aware when I’m lying, I’m only sometimes conscious of stealing, as I am about to do with this Daily Breath. Ann Morrow Lindbergh is the ghost of my inspiration this week. But most of the time I have no memory of who or what inspired and fired thoughts toward ‘my fabulous ideas.’ I realize that ‘there is nothing new under the sun,’ and that we all swoop in like Jackdaws after shinny trinkets, yet I am more pleased with my intentions when I give credit where credit lies, for some day I hope some one will steal from me, somehow remembering my name. Ann writes, “One must accept the security of the winged life, of ebb and flow, of intermittency.” This has always been true. We have always tried to ignore it. We need to live with interruption and abandonment more than ever, breathing into it profound acceptance. We are in the narrows and our only choice is for growth. We can do it through love, change, and acceptance of what is, or we can do it through holding tighter, dreading it to be different, or looking back to what was to make sense of what is. She writes of us, and our relationships, being as islands, “visited and abandoned by the tides,” then asks, “How can one learn to take the trough of the wave?” She didn’t know, but only stood and marveled at the fathoms of beauty lying beneath the water. In her wonder and recognition of a ‘secret kingdom’ seemingly lies her redemption. I close with her words, so exquisite they catch the heart and leave us hopeful despite no answers. “So beautiful is the still hour of the sea’s withdrawal, as beautiful as the sea’s return… Read more »

Exquisite webs are woven of intangibles, extruded from an inner force that is binding, tough, and relentless. Like love, they catch the light. Early mornings, with dew glazing their skeins, take our breath away, often when we least expect it. Webs…they come in every size, and shape, hidden away in the oddest places. Opening our eyes to their elegance, lest we sweep them carelessly away, we may treasure what was un-noticed. We may see indelible charms from changed perspectives. Like the pig, Wilbur, of Charlotte’s Web, my life nests in a web of friendships. Being an essentially solitary being, unlike Wilbur, sometimes I forget. The honoring of friends, present, and absent, who gathered forces around a small performance, made it a sweet success. This powerful web shapes a frame for trust that I will be held in finely woven nets not only for large steps forward, but more importantly, when I struggle and fail. The wonderful story of “Charlotte’s Web” continues to be read and watched because we need what Charlotte gave Wilbur! We need it now more than ever as our world shifts and wobbles before our eyes. Most of us are flying without a safety net, or the one we think we have is ripped and sagging, and any day…. we could become bacon. Time to re-weave new fabric, re-invent new nets. Hearts will expand to include more than we know, more than we are used to. Reaching out will not be an option, rather a saving Grace I shall return and listen to Charlotte talking with Wilbur, as she spins her webs, her life force, in her friend’s behalf, feeling the tensile strength of friends spinning nests around the steps in my life. May I, like Charlotte, be there to spin magic on their behalf. Asana: Create… Read more »

Whatever you feel is missing in your life can become your motivation now. Stand still and feel the cells of your body as a multitude of tiny vessels listening, waiting to be filled. How do you wish to fill them? Is it a choice, or does happenstance win out? Our consciousness is a vast filtering system, which is turned off, or down, most of the time. When on, our system chooses healing, joy, sharing, productivity. When off, anything that rubs up against us flows through. If you noticed toxic wastes seeping into your blood stream would you not do something? How many hours of TV violence slip through filling those precious vessels? We are never at a loss for garbage. It seeps in under the radar in an ongoing multitude of manner. Suddenly we find ourselves sick, depressed, tired, angry; on overload with un-chosen poop. Empty out. Start again. Be in that moment between breaths. Go back to standing still, visualize a conscious filtering screen around you. Becoming aware of every thought, event, action, that does not promote joy and well-being. Slowly feel your vessel fill with luminous life force. Asana: Baddha Natarajasana/Dancer Pose is a lovely expression of joy in action, a place where we feel light, and dance with the cosmos as we stand still and strong. Begin standing, Tadasana, reach the R arm back as you bend R knee, lifting R leg back. Turning R thumb up, reach that hand back, clasping inside of R foot, and strongly using the hamstrings, extend R leg back, thigh as parallel to floor as possible. Extend L leg deeply into earth through your tap root, pulling energy up. Extend L arm forward or up, lifting the chest. Stand and breathe, feeling your luminous self appear. Do both sides. Health Notes:… Read more »

As some of you know, I am creating a performance piece for Black Womanhood at the Davis Museum. Part of this exploration has been to re-weave my life back into that of my ancestors, known and unknown, black, white, and brown. My thoughts have traveled and woven around ancestors, both of blood and of choice, those teachers and mentors whose spirits run deep in my veins. Of course when one is wrapped in the energy of something, those things connected to it tend to fall out of books, off shelves, are uttered from the mouths of strangers….the great mysterious synchronicities of the Universe. It keeps us all believing in angels, no? When this page of nine ‘essential truths,’ that I named ‘Caffalisms,’ after Allan’s teacher/mentor, fell out of an old book, I took it as a sign that I might share it with you. I also took it as a sign that I needed to review, and re-vitalize these profoundly essential ideas within myself once again. I’m going to take myself to the mat to read and breathe, and hold each juicy thought in my heart before I take on the rest of my day. YOU? CAFFALISMS…..or Nine Essential Truths 1 ENERGY IS INDESTRUCTABLE, IT ONLY CHANGES FORM. 2 ENERGY FOLLOWS THOUGHT IMMEDIATLY AND SIMULTANOUSLY. 3 GROWTH CAN ONLY TAKE PLACE THROUGH CHANGE. 4 CHANGE IS THE RESULT OF MOVEMENT BETWEEN THE ACTIVE AND RECEPTIVE FORCES. 5 THERE ARE NO ACCIDENTS, ONLY THE CIRCUMSTANCES DIFFER. 6 SUFFERING IS A RESULT OF ATTACHMENT TO THE DESIRE THAT THINGS BE DIFFERENT THAN THEY ARE, OR DIFFERENT THAN THEY WERE. 7 WISDOM IS THE PRODUCT OF THE KNOWLEDGE AND ACCEPTANCE OF PAST ECPERIENCES–BEHIND WHICH THERE IS NO ATTACHMENT TO THE WISH THAT THE EXPERIENCES SHOULD HAVE BEEN DIFFERENT. IT LETS GO OF IDEAS,… Read more »

When we are small boats on high seas, how do we navigate towards land, and survival? How do we remain centered, on course, never mind at peace? I have no idea, being neither sailor nor particularly centered, long though I’ve worked at it. The arrival of the Equinox, a breath of pure balance before the Dark Lord of Night overcomes Lady Day, sets our course for the coming three months. This is a timely moment to question the journey we embark upon. Interrogations arise: What am I using for a compass? Do I have one? Do I know how to use it? Am I wearing a life vest? What does it look like? Does it fit? Where are my provisions? What have I grown and harvested that now sustains me? How important is my destination? With a first mate who lives by the axiom, “A good traveler has no set destination, nor time of arrival,” it’s time to discover how to actually do that. The ego that yammers to know ‘if I’m there yet’ needs assuaging. Is the primary criteria, ‘to be safe?’ If so, I have given away power to make really good life-decisions. The old saying, “A coward dies a thousand deaths, the hero one,” is posted to the mast. Have I grown faith and courage-muscles strong enough to hoist sail every day, no matter what winds blow? Are Practices in place so that when we take on water I will still ‘bail/Practice bail/Practice/ bail/Practice? Who’s on board my tiny vessel? Are they fine sailors, strong and true? Will they face fierce storms in loud song? Will they mind the rigging, fighting the good fight? Will they toss me overboard with prayers and laughter when it’s time for Davey Jones? “Avast me Heartey-Hearts, we cast off!” Asana:Parivritta Uttanasa/… Read more »

Summer has barely arrived and already I’m grasping. My eyes cannot take in the rise and fall of life. Blooms fill, fade, and drop away before I’ve had my fix. How to hold the beauty burgeoning from the earth before it surrenders to mulch? Just yesterday colors and scents blazed glory, the owl called twice, now they are lost before full savoring and appreciation. This flagrant abundance deserves greater honor for it is a full circle of life. It is their life, wrapped in their time of existence. Because it is not mine, my existence, my consciousness, is it any less? When I stare into the luxuriant face of a peony, I feel happy…a gift given without requirement. They do not need me to see their importance, or the significance of their life. Perhaps they are more enlightened than I? Do they fill every ecstatic moment with the bliss of being? Is their short span so full that at their end they droop and surrender willingly? Will I be so willing? Can I be that full of juicy living that I gracefully bow my head, loosen my petals to the wind, and return to mulch? Or will I grasp? If I am aware of my grasping now, will I learn to let go by then? Do I have only until tomorrow? Is it my job to allow summer to rise and fall, and rise again in its delicious rhythms? Will the cycles of bloom cascading/surrendering teach me nothing? Will my grasping give way to joyous acceptance? If I am present to this hot pink bud presence, that unfurling chartreuse leaf, and every sweet and bitter scent announcing arrival and departure, will I become willing to have my flower-life end when the owl calls my name? Asana: Uttana Padasana Lie on… Read more »