Change

I am home again, back in my own house, sitting in my own bed, beneath the warm blankets. The night is cold and quiet, and I am joyous to have a sweet golden kitty on my knee. He purrs on and on, completely content with this moment. I am completely content with this moment, too.

So much is changing in my life. I had dinner with a friend tonight, and through our conversation, I began to realize some deeper shifting that is happening. I reflected back to 9/11, perhaps the first time in my life that I had ever been called to think of my life in terms of living and dying, and what I wanted for my life. At that time, I was teaching flute lessons at a music store in Ellicott City, more than forty students, and five days a week. I was living in a small apartment complex that was okay, but not great. I didn't connect with people there, I didn't know my neighbors. I spent a lot of time commuting. And at the time 9/11 happened, I was also subbing for a friend of mine who had just had a baby, and needed a teacher for her beginning instrumental music classes. I was all over the place, I was working nonstop, and my life didn't feel rich. 9/11 struck me in the gut, with so much sorrow and so much fear surrounding me. It was right around then when I turned off the TV, turned off the radio, and walked away from most print media, too. Something inside of me was calling for another way of living, one that felt more meaningful. And a few months later, I moved to Oella.

In the years since I came to Oella, so much big change has happened in my life! I became interwoven into an amazing community, both in my neighborhood, and on Main Street. I began working in music totally as a freelancer, with a music studio in my house. I began to travel the world, and began my spiritual path for real. I started to write, and went to Goddard for my master's degree program. I broke away from my family of origin, and have now healed the old wounds there. I have redefined pretty much every part of my life, cleaned out the old cobwebs, and claimed it for what is truly in my heart. All of this came from my willingness to feel the deep question that came from the events surrounding 9/11: if I were to die in a year, what would I want to be different?

And now, another major event has come into my life surrounding life and death: the passing of my first little love, my life's companion for so many years, my Familiar kitty. Once more, I am faced with the question: is my life totally in line with my heart's true joy? Life is so ephemeral, and death is always so close. Is there anything that I need to release here in order to truly live fully?

I have thought of moving to Peru for a long time now. A LONG time. It has called out to me for years. I have felt more at home there than anywhere else, and have found deep peace in my experiences there, both in ceremony, in connecting with the people, and in the land of the Andes mountains. And I promised myself a long time ago that I would not run away to Peru. That I would only move there if I was running *to* something, not escaping anything. But honestly, every time I have considered living there, I have always been considering the ways of living and thinking and being that I would love to leave behind. Peru has awakened me on a lot of levels, and opened my heart and mind so deeply! But even now, if I were to move to Peru, I would be going there as a refugee from a culture that I feel no connection with, that doesn't meet my deepest needs.

This weekend, while at the Compassionate Classrooms workshop in Durham, NC, I had the blessing of connecting with some really wonderful people. I attended as a teaching artist, not a classroom teacher, as many of the attendees were. And beyond the wonderful ideas for using NVC in my work in classrooms and arts integration programs, I was surprised to feel something else stirring...something old and familiar that breaks free now and then, the lioness of idealism within me roaring to dive in deep in order to bring change to the world. This inner lioness was stirred up, too, by one of the wonderful facilitators of the workshop, Catherine...who is quite the lioness herself.

So, today as I drove the five hours north from Durham to home, I found this inner lioness purring and prodding me to think about some things that keep coming up for me. The biggest piece is about wanting to really live my life in service of others, and in a way that makes a real difference. I want my life on this planet to matter! And this feeling wells up from within me strong like a river, like a moth flying toward a flame. Over and over, the way that has come up is in the realm of teaching. I have considered going to school to receive my teaching license many times, most recently last fall, right around now. But each time, what has stopped me is the bullshit that surrounds being a teacher! Once, it was the requirements of the school that halted me. I simply couldn't imagine having to go back and take freshman level "requirements" like algebra and PE, just in order to qualify for a music teaching certification. I walked away. And since, I have considered what would be needed to do a master's degree in education...it would take 1 1/2 years, most likely...but when I consider what the job would actually look like, I have felt disheartened and again, walked away. I figured that at best, I would connect with kids and be a great teacher...and at worst, I would be seen as a subverter of the system, and fired. But now, once more the idea is surfacing. Oh, the thought of being a classroom teacher who is *also* an arts integration specialist, and who is *also* passionate about NVC! Oh, the thought of it just makes me buzz!

What if I could be a strong, loving presence in the classroom, and work to change the system from the inside out? What if I could drop my feelings of powerlessness to make any change in the world, and step into my power, beginning to create the world I want to live in? Today as I sat with all of this, the thing that flashed like lightning through my mind was "huh...I don't need to move to Peru after all." I can stay right here in my own country and instead of feeling like a failing martyr, I can stand full and strong in my power, and work to make change from the ground of peace and love. Peace and love as *practices* and not just hippie ideals. Peace and love with tools and vision and community. Now that's worth waking up for in the morning.

No hurry here. I am just grateful to sit present with these ideas as they come, and am grateful to feel supported in considering the real possibilities. But just like the months that followed 9/11, I feel a strong wind of change blowing through my life. And I am ready and willing to bow to its guidance, and follow the truths that emerge.

First day of Fall

The first day of fall, the autumnal equinox 2009. Time of shifting, of changing, of surrender. The season of harvesting what is ripe, of gathering the goods of a season's sunlight, and of going inside. I have usually declared fall my favorite season, and that still seems fitting to me today. There is some un-nameable quality that comes with the first chill in the air, a quality of longing, of bittersweet, of the sweetness of letting go. I love this time.

Creating this blog came to me just moments ago, completely spontaneous. Several friends of mine have decided in the past few years to track their lives for one year. One friend kept a blog, another is journalling her year in photographs. I have never felt particularly inclined, before now, to keep a daily live-journal style blog...but tonight something came over me, and I decided to indulge it. Here we are.

I am entering this fall season with great reflection. When we entered fall last year, I had just returned from a truly transformative trip to Peru. I had spent 2 1/2 months living in Pisac, participating in ceremony, and the dark, difficult stuff in my life had all been stirred up, shaken well, and much of it purged. I entered last fall with the clarity that my life needed to change in some major external ways to align with the inner changes that had come in Peru.

The biggest change that came was following the inner guidance that was leading me in a new path in terms of "right livelihood" and work. I did an aromatherapy training course with my dear friend Amy, and that was just incredible! I also decided to finish my Reiki training so that I could teach Reiki to others. The biggest piece was deciding to go to massage school. And now, I am a little more than two months from finishing that!

And too, I returned to Peru for most of the month of August this year. Not nearly long enough, but plenty powerful nonetheless. I can see how the changes that needed to come in my life following last year's journey were very much in the realm of healing my worldly life: relationships to others, relationship with work, relationship with myself. But this year's journey has brought much more subtle layers of work, in realms that are difficult to articulate, but no less powerful.

Part of what has been challenging me since I returned from Peru this year is not at all new: the cultural chasm between here and there. I long for community in my bones, I long to live in my heart all the time, I long to live as simply as I can. And that is so difficult to do in the midst of a culture that lives in isolated suburbs, that honors the mind above all else, and values nothing more than excessive consumption under the label "abundance." I have been feeling like a fish out of water. Or worse, a fish in toxic water, who knows she's in toxic water, and can't seem to find a way out of the fishbowl.

One of the most powerful messages I had in ceremony in Peru this year was about how I sometimes feel stuck, totally powerless. And I have seen that emerge since I have returned home...but I have seen it for what it is, with full consciousness. And I see the ways that I WANT something to be different, but when I feel powerless, I don't realize that I can CREATE something in the direction of what I'm wanting...

My dear friend Aleksandra has posted the following on her facebook page:

"if you want to know your past look at your present moment, if you want to know your future, look at what you are doing now"

When I read this tonight for about the hundredth time, I decided to create this blog. To track my own process. In order to look more at what I am doing now to more consciously create my future. I know what I struggle with, what makes me crazy, what makes me feel like I have no place in the very culture I was born into. I also know that what I resist will persist. So, I foresee this blog being a couple things. I see it being a process of holding myself accountable for my very own desires...for seeing how the present moment shows up based on the tendencies of my past, and to stand in a place of powerfulness in this present moment, to create a future that is moving in the direction of my desires. I also see this blog as an experiment in total authenticity and honesty...I am not writing for you, but you may read if you wish. I do this all the time on paper, but tend to write for others when I know it will potentially be "seen." This blog isn't meant to be entertaining or witty, nor will I censor or edit. Finally, I see this blog as an interesting way of following my own life for one year...with some regularity I hope.

I want to write a bit about the name I chose for the blog, but that will need to wait for another day. Enough for now.

Lokah samastha sukino bhavantu.