I awoke this morning with the sunshine. Almost two hours before my alarm went off. It is clear to me what's happening - SPRING is happening! I am being called out of my dormancy by the powerful uprising energy of spring. I am waking to the sound of birds singing, and the energy of thaw and mud. I couldn't be more joyful about it, either! I have survived the darkest, bleakest winter of my life.
There were times during this darkness when the sorrow, despair, loss, and anxiety threatened to consume me. I have never been through a time when I felt closer to my own extinction. This has been a time of going through the fire, of having so much burned away. My ideas about life, about who I am, about my path, about other people, about what is right and wrong in this world, about meaning and purpose - all of these things were shredded, ripped away, burned up, and shed. But somehow I am emerging in a way that is NOT scarred, NOT jaded, NOT shut down, NOT bitter. I am emerging as from a cocoon, softer, more open, and with fewer answers than before.
The other day, between my two Thursday classes, I found some space in the sun to have my lunch. I squished my way through the mud and climbed up onto a rock in one of the gardens. The wind was a bit brisk, but the sun was wonderful, and after I finished eating, I sat there, just taking it in. The wind began to blow, and while my first response was to shiver (I was wearing a skirt, and was a bit cold) my second, and stronger, response was to listen. The wind doesn't have any sound of its own, it only makes a sound when it meets an object that resists its dance... I sat up taller, and listened more carefully, barely breathing, yearning for more understanding.
The sound of wind in tall, dry grass. The sound of wind around buildings. The sound of wind around my body. The sound of wind in the trees, in the dead leaves. Yes, it was true. Each time I heard the wind, it was only because the wind was meeting resistance. And of course, this is a truth that I know well, for it is only through the wind from within my body meeting the sharp silver plate of my flute that music is borne.
I became aware of the power of edges...it is in these places where things meet that the apparent universe is borne into sensory experience. Light falls upon an object and reflects - and we see. Wind meets objects as it flows, and we hear. The body meets an object, and we feel touch. As I sat there, I tuned into the edges, the meetings that were happening all around me, the resistance that occurred when two things meet. Woman walking in high heels. Clicking against the sidewalk. Earth and feet in a dance of resistance. Resist, surrender, resist, surrender - her footsteps were indeed a dance of moving into the Earth, and moving away from the Earth. Togetherness apartness togetherness apartness. And too, the wind dances in sound and in silence - swirling around form and waiting in stillness, swirling and waiting. Taste is a dance of the same longing - the satisfaction of good chocolate, and the absence of it. The fragrance of hyacinths in spring, entering my body, touching my heart, and drifting away as I exhale, as Spring exhales into the full glory of Summer. There is this dance of togetherness and apartness, of desire and satiation, of receiving and letting go, of touch and release. The very edge of these dual forces meet at an edge that the wind showed me - the edge where apparently separate forms meet and touch and resist and dance. The whole manifest world is making love with itself in every moment, dancing itself in embrace and surrender.
No wonder we humans love to make love so much...to dance with each other in the ways that the world dances with itself in each moment.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
The Wheel of the Heart
This weekend I went down to Chapel Hill, North Carolina to be with my dear friends Catherine and Jesse, to deepen my Nonviolent Communication practice, and to join in the ecstatic dance of life in Dancing Lodge. Dancing Lodge draws us through the four quadrants of relationship to life: the dance of Self, the dance of Partnership, the dance of Community, and the dance of the Universal All One. My body was yearning for this movement, this prayer, this mythic, nonlinear meditation so that I could enter into questions that I have been sitting with recently.
My hope was to explore my woman-being in this dance, to move into the depths of my feminine heart, and to feel a deep connection with the part of me that resides there. To practice moving in the world with a deep connection to my heart, to my radiance, to my receptivity. And as I have come to expect from all ceremonial space, the insights that were gifted to me during Dancing Lodge were completely different than I could have expected. I was shown how I fall off center, how I intuitively flow to fill all available space energetically, and how I lose myself in the midst of that. My water nature is deeply receptive, and tends to flow around all obstacles, to embrace all things, to hold space for all that arrives. But I am learning that my true water nature is more like the ocean - all things arrive into her depths, and she is still the great Mother of all, holding all things within, but never losing her deep power nature. The ocean doesn't get rocked by the boats upon her surface, or the whales swimming deep in her belly. Not at all. Too, my own sense of being a container for all things tends to overwhelm me - I feel like I have lost my center, my sense of self - energetically, I tend to feel deep connection, deep intuition with the presence of other humans, and not always by choice. Like the waters, whatever spills within them cannot be easily removed, and I tend to feel this energetically with people in my life. When what spills within me is love and joy and connection, I am aglow with life energy! But when what spills within me is toxic, conflicted, or volatile, I find my own waters swirling with those things. Water takes in whatever is poured into her, and like the oil spills and toxic wastes and excrement, the entire ocean is slowly poisoned by diffusion. I know that I have a lot to learn about how to purify myself of these kinds of energy. I have a lot to learn about how to allow these things to flow through me and not become absorbed. I also have a lot to learn about how to be a powerful container for all, without becoming rocked by the boats upon my surface and the whales in my belly.
So goes the dance of Self, solo.
But what has been coming up more powerfully in my life is the dance of Partnership. Things are coming up to teach me so much so quickly. Past has danced around me in the form of an old partner, one who wants to reconnect with me in some way. The past with him feels like ancient history, and I feel like I have grown exponentially since we parted ways. The reflection of that change is a gift. When I entered into the dance of relationship with him, I carried great pain and violation in my heart and body. Our connection was primarily of the mind, and our conversations were often non-personal and arguement-based. Our heart connection was small and fearful, and our body connection was rough and angular. Now, as we have shared some conversation, I feel that we have already shared all the connection that is possible - our conversations still tend toward the non-personal, and his tone still tends toward arguing. His heart is still absent. My ocean yearns to hold him in a Mother way, to rock him gently and let him know that tenderness and surrender are possible, and that the risk is worth it. But he will be as he will be.
In the dance of this present moment, I have connected with another partner, one with the most difficult of circumstances. In our togetherness, there is great heart and great lightness and freedom. His mind spins with the stories of his life, stories that he is allowing to define him and hold him within their walls. My own mind has been through some process of discipline in my spiritual practice, and yearns to connect with him, to show him what it would be like to enter this moment of now, and live free of those burdens. Our heart connection is open and radiant, and connected honestly with the limitations of his story, and in spite of those limitations, I feel deep acceptance and joy in being present with exactly what is possible in this heart connection. I am receiving that without any desire for it to be different, and this is new territory for me. The mirror of our connection is a powerful teacher for me right now, and I am grateful for all that it is.
In the midst of this present moment dance, the future has come to haunt me. The part of my heart that yearns for a heart connection without limitation. That wants to meet a partner who is ready to meet me where I am on my spiritual path. My heart longs to connect with a man who can meet me in my strength, my passion, my heart. In the midst of my present situation, with its beauty and limitations, someone danced across my life who could mirror to me what I am truly longing for. Partnership that is sacred, that is bold, that is powerful in shattering the walls of the heart, and feeding the fire within. In spite of my own wounds that believe that I will never receive what I truly want in a relationship, that I will never be truly loved for all that I am, this man appeared like a shooting star in my heart. He reflected to me what I yearn for in partnership - one who is devoted to loving and worshipping the radiance of my heart. One who loves all that I am, without fear. One who is ready to arrive on this path with me, carrying his own path too, and to grow together in deep, soulful partnership in spite of all fear. This brief, fleeting connection with the dance of the future completely blew me wide open. Tears spilled forth for days. Burning filled my body. My mind went completely still. And then, just as quickly as he appeared, he vanished - indeed, like a shooting star. Perhaps the Universe merely took over him for a brief moment, soliciting him to carry forth a reflection of my greatest desire, my deepest longing, telling me that it is possible, it is true, I am worthy, and it is coming. My heart is saddened by his disappearance, and my mind is longing for understanding. In this moment, I have to trust that he was merely a messenger of the truth, not the one who I will enter into the practice of living that truth with.
So, the dance of partnership is open and I am calling on all my teachers to come to me, to show me the way. I am listening, and I am praying.
My hope was to explore my woman-being in this dance, to move into the depths of my feminine heart, and to feel a deep connection with the part of me that resides there. To practice moving in the world with a deep connection to my heart, to my radiance, to my receptivity. And as I have come to expect from all ceremonial space, the insights that were gifted to me during Dancing Lodge were completely different than I could have expected. I was shown how I fall off center, how I intuitively flow to fill all available space energetically, and how I lose myself in the midst of that. My water nature is deeply receptive, and tends to flow around all obstacles, to embrace all things, to hold space for all that arrives. But I am learning that my true water nature is more like the ocean - all things arrive into her depths, and she is still the great Mother of all, holding all things within, but never losing her deep power nature. The ocean doesn't get rocked by the boats upon her surface, or the whales swimming deep in her belly. Not at all. Too, my own sense of being a container for all things tends to overwhelm me - I feel like I have lost my center, my sense of self - energetically, I tend to feel deep connection, deep intuition with the presence of other humans, and not always by choice. Like the waters, whatever spills within them cannot be easily removed, and I tend to feel this energetically with people in my life. When what spills within me is love and joy and connection, I am aglow with life energy! But when what spills within me is toxic, conflicted, or volatile, I find my own waters swirling with those things. Water takes in whatever is poured into her, and like the oil spills and toxic wastes and excrement, the entire ocean is slowly poisoned by diffusion. I know that I have a lot to learn about how to purify myself of these kinds of energy. I have a lot to learn about how to allow these things to flow through me and not become absorbed. I also have a lot to learn about how to be a powerful container for all, without becoming rocked by the boats upon my surface and the whales in my belly.
So goes the dance of Self, solo.
But what has been coming up more powerfully in my life is the dance of Partnership. Things are coming up to teach me so much so quickly. Past has danced around me in the form of an old partner, one who wants to reconnect with me in some way. The past with him feels like ancient history, and I feel like I have grown exponentially since we parted ways. The reflection of that change is a gift. When I entered into the dance of relationship with him, I carried great pain and violation in my heart and body. Our connection was primarily of the mind, and our conversations were often non-personal and arguement-based. Our heart connection was small and fearful, and our body connection was rough and angular. Now, as we have shared some conversation, I feel that we have already shared all the connection that is possible - our conversations still tend toward the non-personal, and his tone still tends toward arguing. His heart is still absent. My ocean yearns to hold him in a Mother way, to rock him gently and let him know that tenderness and surrender are possible, and that the risk is worth it. But he will be as he will be.
In the dance of this present moment, I have connected with another partner, one with the most difficult of circumstances. In our togetherness, there is great heart and great lightness and freedom. His mind spins with the stories of his life, stories that he is allowing to define him and hold him within their walls. My own mind has been through some process of discipline in my spiritual practice, and yearns to connect with him, to show him what it would be like to enter this moment of now, and live free of those burdens. Our heart connection is open and radiant, and connected honestly with the limitations of his story, and in spite of those limitations, I feel deep acceptance and joy in being present with exactly what is possible in this heart connection. I am receiving that without any desire for it to be different, and this is new territory for me. The mirror of our connection is a powerful teacher for me right now, and I am grateful for all that it is.
In the midst of this present moment dance, the future has come to haunt me. The part of my heart that yearns for a heart connection without limitation. That wants to meet a partner who is ready to meet me where I am on my spiritual path. My heart longs to connect with a man who can meet me in my strength, my passion, my heart. In the midst of my present situation, with its beauty and limitations, someone danced across my life who could mirror to me what I am truly longing for. Partnership that is sacred, that is bold, that is powerful in shattering the walls of the heart, and feeding the fire within. In spite of my own wounds that believe that I will never receive what I truly want in a relationship, that I will never be truly loved for all that I am, this man appeared like a shooting star in my heart. He reflected to me what I yearn for in partnership - one who is devoted to loving and worshipping the radiance of my heart. One who loves all that I am, without fear. One who is ready to arrive on this path with me, carrying his own path too, and to grow together in deep, soulful partnership in spite of all fear. This brief, fleeting connection with the dance of the future completely blew me wide open. Tears spilled forth for days. Burning filled my body. My mind went completely still. And then, just as quickly as he appeared, he vanished - indeed, like a shooting star. Perhaps the Universe merely took over him for a brief moment, soliciting him to carry forth a reflection of my greatest desire, my deepest longing, telling me that it is possible, it is true, I am worthy, and it is coming. My heart is saddened by his disappearance, and my mind is longing for understanding. In this moment, I have to trust that he was merely a messenger of the truth, not the one who I will enter into the practice of living that truth with.
So, the dance of partnership is open and I am calling on all my teachers to come to me, to show me the way. I am listening, and I am praying.
Friday, February 26, 2010
The Way of the Heart
I'm really glad to be heading to North Carolina this afternoon. Dancing Lodge. And NVC. Two of my favorite things! Both are practices that shake me down out of my head and lead me to fully inhabit my body, and to surrender to my heart. I feel like the timing couldn't be more perfect. Now, as high winds blow ferociously outside my house, and the snow is beginning to fall, I am hoping that travel conditions don't become too difficult.
In the last week, I have felt tremendous shifts of energy and presence within my body. I have felt sweet aliveness flowing into parts of myself that haven't felt alive in a long, long time. I have felt blocks in my energy blown open, sliding away as the heavy, icy meltage of the winter. I feel a warm, radiant glow in my belly, and a powerful fire in my heart. It has been a long time since this bodily expression of love has filled me, and I am grateful. I recognize how this used to be a normal state of things, normal before all the challenges of my life came to push me into crisis, to confronting things within me that needed facing. And now that this feeling has returned, part of me wants to hold on to it for all it's worth. But I realize that what is more important than the feeling itself is the practice that connects to it. Can I breathe into my own resistance even when my heart is breaking? Can I stay connected to my heart in the midst of fear, or anger? Can I breathe my body and heart into openness even when it seems too scary, when it doesn't feel safe? I'm being given those opportunities now, as well.
What would it be like to live this open, this on fire, without needing life to show up in a particular way? To root myself in the practice of truly opening as LOVE in the midst of pain, rejection, sorrow, whatever? It sounds impossible. What would it be like to open this deep in the midst of my own mind's worst spinning, too? Sounds even more impossible. Yet, that's what I am feeling called to do. As I awoke today, my body was filled with tightness, fear, loneliness. My body wanted to close, to shut down, to just go about life today as a shell of being, not as a radiant heart of being. But as I was laying there in bed, awake, I rode the breath. I took the breath into my belly where the tightness was holding. I pushed gently into the resistance. I took the breath into my heart, where fear was holding, and pushed gently into it. Today these things feel pretty strong - the fear and the tightness and the resistance. Can I choose to accept where I am in these things, while also knowing that they are merely clouds blocking the sun that burns brightly in the center of me? Today, the answer is yes.
The way that energy is moving through me right now is unprecedented in my life. I have had a number of powerful energetic shifts, some ecstatic, some scary. This is more ecstatic, for sure, but also fills me with fear. I get the feeling that life as I used to know it is never going to return, and I'm mostly okay with that. But I also feel that the barriers that have kept me in my own separate existence are really being broken down. I am no longer strong enough that my heart can shut down effectively. I am alive in the web of life - I am affected by living in this world - that I can no longer resist. My heart will fill up with love, and it will shatter. Sometimes even within the same moment.
In the last week, I have felt tremendous shifts of energy and presence within my body. I have felt sweet aliveness flowing into parts of myself that haven't felt alive in a long, long time. I have felt blocks in my energy blown open, sliding away as the heavy, icy meltage of the winter. I feel a warm, radiant glow in my belly, and a powerful fire in my heart. It has been a long time since this bodily expression of love has filled me, and I am grateful. I recognize how this used to be a normal state of things, normal before all the challenges of my life came to push me into crisis, to confronting things within me that needed facing. And now that this feeling has returned, part of me wants to hold on to it for all it's worth. But I realize that what is more important than the feeling itself is the practice that connects to it. Can I breathe into my own resistance even when my heart is breaking? Can I stay connected to my heart in the midst of fear, or anger? Can I breathe my body and heart into openness even when it seems too scary, when it doesn't feel safe? I'm being given those opportunities now, as well.
What would it be like to live this open, this on fire, without needing life to show up in a particular way? To root myself in the practice of truly opening as LOVE in the midst of pain, rejection, sorrow, whatever? It sounds impossible. What would it be like to open this deep in the midst of my own mind's worst spinning, too? Sounds even more impossible. Yet, that's what I am feeling called to do. As I awoke today, my body was filled with tightness, fear, loneliness. My body wanted to close, to shut down, to just go about life today as a shell of being, not as a radiant heart of being. But as I was laying there in bed, awake, I rode the breath. I took the breath into my belly where the tightness was holding. I pushed gently into the resistance. I took the breath into my heart, where fear was holding, and pushed gently into it. Today these things feel pretty strong - the fear and the tightness and the resistance. Can I choose to accept where I am in these things, while also knowing that they are merely clouds blocking the sun that burns brightly in the center of me? Today, the answer is yes.
The way that energy is moving through me right now is unprecedented in my life. I have had a number of powerful energetic shifts, some ecstatic, some scary. This is more ecstatic, for sure, but also fills me with fear. I get the feeling that life as I used to know it is never going to return, and I'm mostly okay with that. But I also feel that the barriers that have kept me in my own separate existence are really being broken down. I am no longer strong enough that my heart can shut down effectively. I am alive in the web of life - I am affected by living in this world - that I can no longer resist. My heart will fill up with love, and it will shatter. Sometimes even within the same moment.
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Inside a hostel in Cusco, Peru