Oella Fall Potluck

I'm feeling very sleepy, and glad to be tucked under the comforter right now. Today has been a wonderful day of sunshine and connecting to beautiful people. It has also been a day of surprises, and confusions. I feel like I have fewer answers than ever about some things. But in the same breath, I feel like I have greater clarity about some of those very same things. And I am grateful that I enjoy the juxtaposition.

It is a challenge to type much right now, after a somewhat nasty fall today. I woke up this morning feeling very clear that I needed to walk to Main Street and spend some time writing on paper about things that I wasn't feeling inclined to bring to this blog, and as I made my way down the street, my dear neighbor Lynn and her boyfriend Skip drove up. We stopped our ways to chat, and then moved to a driveway to continue the chatting as another car came by to pass. As we parted ways, and they drove uphill, I turned to walk downhill, and BOOM! Out of nowhere, I was falling to the ground. I landed on my left wrist first, and the scrape is deep and painful. My knees were both scraped, too, through my pants. I rolled over to check out the damage and was grateful that my favorite linen pants hadn't been torn in the fall. But my left hand was looking pretty nasty. As the day continued, the wrist began to feel bruised and swollen, and has become hard to move. I am sure that with rest it will be fine in a few days. But for now, it does limit some things that I need to do - tomorrow's teaching artist work won't happen, and massaging on Tuesday, too, will need to be rearranged.

I had a most incredible night at the Oella Community potluck last night. These community gatherings always bring together amazing folks, both new and seasoned, and my soul is filled to the brim with joy and goodness. It's funny, last weekend I spent time dancing, and found that I had confronted some major fears about dancing. And last night, in addition to playing drums and rattles and flute, I found myself deeply called to sing...in spite of my fear about singing. It seems to me that these fears that I have held are disintegrating right in front of me. I didn't do anything to get over my fears of dancing - I just decided to dance. I didn't do anything to get over my fear of singing - I just followed the spark in my heart to sing. And I wonder, is it really that easy all the time? Is it my own thinking and tightness that get in the way of letting go of every fear that I have?

There have been so many things shifting within me in the last month. From having had the realization that I am no longer the isolated, introverted loner that I used to be, to letting go of these recent fears about dancing and singing...it seems that many of the fears that I have had about the ways that other people think of me/judge me/receive me have been largely washed away. And what I am feeling now is that there is this great freedom to just be who I am, to follow whatever passions I have, to love myself and others for who they are, and to know that the only true limitations within my life are of my own creation. It's funny...back in Peru this summer, I felt too shy to freely sing out in ceremony...and last night, I sang out joyfully without fear, by choice!

But there was a shadow of darkness in the atmosphere for me last night. An old fear came to visit as a messenger. The fear of being fully alive and expressing myself authentically and joyfully...the fear believes that if I am like this, then I will be "too much" for other to take, and that I need to temper my own expression, my own joy, my own full personality in order to be accepted. And now, I don't buy it for a minute - there was no part of me that was going to go back into suppression, into hiding, into restraining the fullness of who I am. NO WAY!! But there was a shadow of doubt that maybe I was right in some ways in that old story - that maybe there are some people who just can't handle my intensity...or perhaps some people are still in hiding too, keeping the fullness of themselves deeply buried within, barely allowing the jewel of their beings to shine brightly. And while I can empathize with that, and have been there, I see the truth of my own growth - I am not there anymore. I am so lucky to have felt genuine acceptance from my community, to know that I am loved and embraced for who I am, without reservation. And I am also deeply lucky to have found this within myself too, no longer beating myself up and wishing I was different in this way or that way. Nope, I feel like I am finally able to start understanding what it means to accept what is. And it's not like I imagined at all. It's way better, in fact. =)

Dancing my way Whole

I have never been much on dancing. Sure, there have been times here and there when I have felt drawn to get all decked out and head to a club to dance - usually with all my favorite gay guys. These dance nights usually involved alcohol, and were filled with techno music about love and sex and the like. And while I have gone along with those dance nights, they have never felt comfortable to me. I never craved them. There was something raw and animal that was very alive in dancing in those environments, but the undercurrent of sexuality was always somewhat creepy to me. I never wanted to go dancing to check out men, and sure didn't want them checking me out too closely! As a larger woman, dancing has always made me feel like hiding in the corner. I mean, if dancing is part of the whole "meat market" of "hooking up" - as it has felt to me - then of what value am I, a larger woman, in a sea of skinny, "hot" chicks?

Well, I am endlessly grateful that I have been letting go of this kind of thinking over the last few years. Through Kundalini yoga, I began to release my fears about what would happen if someone saw my curves jiggling so much...and it has come in deeper and deeper to my way of life. As I have come to accept and love my body more, I don't feel so much like hiding. And tonight at the Dancing Lodge, that has been transcended more than ever before.

What a brilliant - if not new - possibility: that dancing could be a celebration of life in a much deeper way, of connecting to the Great Spirit that flows livingness through each of us! Tonight I *loved* dancing. Loved it. Completely. Uninhibited. Free.

If I am able to accept myself fully and completely, then I will be able to show up in my life without being afraid of how others will feel about me, how they might judge me, and *everything* is better. And if I am able to allow my body to be free to express itself without any fear of judgement, then I will inhabit every beautiful corner and curve and twist and turn and feeling that comes through this physical form, beautiful as it is.

Dancing solo. Dancing and moving, finding the ways that the body can move when given space for that expression. Patterns emerge, patterns are broken, moving and stillness flow one into the other, sometimes without warning. There is a kind of knowing that is within the body that is deeper than the mind. It is primal, instinctual, intuitive, it is its own rich expression of living. And to explore space - within and around me - was a beautiful adventure. The conscious choice to leave behind fear, to leave behind thinking, to just feel and move. Incredible.

Dancing in partnership. The beauty of being held and received as my body expressed my experience in this day. If my mind had had any opportunity to consider it, the answer would have been "fuck! I don't know how to do that!" And yet, given no opportunity to *not know* meant that the body had the chance to express itself before the mind could enter. What power there is in allowing dance and movement to tell this story. And moving into partnership, into trust with one person, then another, then another - oh, how many ways there are to dance with others in this world! Twirling one after another into the center of trust, letting life carry us forward with no fear, no question, only moving and connecting. I was deeply moved - in fact, I now feel like I know what trust actually means in a much richer way.

Dancing in community. Holding space. Aloneness and togetherness, dancing in rhythm. Oh, the joy of moving together, of savoring each person's sweet jewel of being. And to come together without the story, without history, without names, without reason, only to share in that togetherness. And even being alone is held sweetly within community. There is space there to be alone without being isolated - and that is a true gift. How many ways there are to dance, walk, sing, create, be in this world! To come together to embrace those different ways of showing up in all their beauty - oh, yes, this is the world I want to live in!

Dancing to the Great Spirit. Body as prayer. Motion as prayer. Breathing, sweating as prayer. Surrendering everything as prayer. This is holy, this is sacred, timeless, transcendent. And this is what I have been longing for deep in every cell in my body.

What if we could show up together, bringing all of our presence, and sitting aside the details of our lives, and embrace each other for no other reason than our shared humanness? What if that shared experience burned away the ordinary boundaries that keep us living in such separation? What if I could openly and freely express huge, powerful LOVE to a room full of beings without having any motive other than loving them, and loving myself? This is the world I want to live in.

Tonight I prayed with tobacco, asking that this heavy, tight, sharp heartache would be lifted. I prayed that this time of sorrow wouldn't shut me down further, protecting my heart from more pain from loving and letting go. I prayed that my heart would be stretched ever wider, so that I would be able to love even more, even deeper, so that I would gladly and willingly accept the pain that may come from loving so completely. I prayed that my heart would let go of this protection that has come through my nervous system, trying to keep me able to function in my body, in my world, in a time of such intense sorrow. I prayed that the fear that has been knocking at my door would be washed away in a flood of love and dancing that tonight's sweet Dancing Lodge Ceremony was sure to bring. And I showed up, fully ready to surrender everything to the fire of dancing.

I moved in more ways than I ever have before. I felt the sweet gift of bare feet on the floor, and sweat trickling down my back. I felt the joy of sisterhood, sweaty and swaying in a flow of connection. I felt the power of masculine energy, and the power of feminine energy, and the incredible appreciation we share for each other. I felt rose petals under my feet, dancing the joy of peace, and of living rich and fully alive. I danced the overwhelming sorrow of loss, and the blessing of a love that is so huge that this much pain could be possible. I danced in connection to all that I know, all that I love, all that is true and holy in this world.

And for the first time in almost two weeks, I felt really, really happy.

I prayed once more, after the ceremony had ended. I prayed that when my time to leave this sweet Earth comes, that I may be so completely centered in love and in the ways that I may serve this world through that love, that there is no room left for fear.