Vegetarian Lobster !!!

From Dance to Freedom

In a conversation with friends at the end of 2010 I realised my word for 2011 was DANCE. For me this represented so many qualities including  a deeper exploration of a somatic sense of knowing, finding and being in the flow, as well as moving in union with the energetic entities I meet along the way be they human or other than human. So often the movement I would make to describe this experience is the sign of the caduceus or the double helix. Caduceus is associated with Hermes in Greek mythology and Mercury in Roman mythology, both of whom are notable tricksters. The trickster is a figure in stories that often acts as the hinge or the pivotal point. They are much needed characters that offer moments of transformation and change necessary for a story to move forward. Interesting that this waving movement symbolised my meaning of dance. As I sit here dwelling on what has happened during this year I can say that many beautiful dances were co-created and there is always a dance to be found. Somehow the trickster knows when a situation or person becomes stuck they need some assistance to reconnect to the dance of life and flow again. I wonder, who were the tricksters in my life this year? I can think of one or two already !!! My inner desire remains one of observer more than participant. But hey, at last now and again I also get up and dance.

On my walks this week I have been asking myself what is the word that is emerging for 2012. And for now the word that resonates most is FREEDOM. I am not sensing a movement, sound or image to express my meaning for freedom just yet;,however, today FREEDOM FEELS GOOD. And while reading a book last night about a story called The Maiden Tsar, I came across these words by Marion Woodman:

"In life, we can be so over-whelmed by what is happening that ... we do not know whether we are driven by compulsion or by our own free will. To be asked the question in the midst of our apparently irrational behaviour, is an invitation to look at our behaviour as a way of finding within it what had remained hidden ... The drive that remains hidden is compulsion; the drive that is revealed is freedom. In the question [I am/you are] being invited to enter into [our] own authentic life. The authentic life is the transformation of compulsion into freedom without the loss of the energy contained in the compulsion."*

My interpretation of this is that for us not to be under the influence of our unconscious we need to wake up to our feelings of emptiness, lack of worth and disconnection from our bodies. By finding our loving connection to the inner positive mother, to the Great Mother, Pachamama - we can trust life and not fear life. And we no longer seek this yearning for security through external opulence, greed and possessions.  Instead we experience wholeness, balance and love. What marion Woodman calls the inner marriage of the masculine and the feminine. In so doing we find our freedom, we can let go of our fears and our actions and behaviours will be transformed and informed by a loving compassion that has always been there, that has always be part of us, it was simply hidden until we uncovered it and awakened to its presence. And it follows, what changes on the inside also changes on the outside - as within, so without.

Let it be ... FREEDOM it is for 2012.


* Bly, R. and Woodman, M. (1998) The Maiden King: The Reunion of Masculine and Feminine, Henry Holt, New York. (p.132)

You Were Made For This

My friends, do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world now. Ours is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people. You are right in your assessments. The lustre and hubris some have aspired to while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking. 

Yet, I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is that we were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement. I grew up on the Great Lakes and recognize a seaworthy vessel when I see one. Regarding awakened souls, there have never been more able vessels in the waters than there are right now across the world. And they are fully provisioned and able to signal one another as never before in the history of humankind. 

Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on the waters with you. Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in this stormy roil, I assure you that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder come from a greater forest. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless. In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. There is a tendency, too, to fall into being weakened by dwelling on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails. 

We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we more so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us, and we will know them when they appear. Didn't you say you were a believer? Didn't you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn't you ask for grace? Don't you remember that to be in grace means to submit to the voice greater? Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good. What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. 

We know that it does not take everyone on Earth to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale. One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these – to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity. 

Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do. There will always be times when you feel discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it. I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate. The reason is this: In my uttermost bones I know something, as do you. It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours. They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here. In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for. 

By Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D Author of the best seller Women Who Run with the Wolves

Celebrating the solstice be it winter or summer ... may you have a good day!

The solstice is arriving, the eight days of Hannukah are beginning, and Christmas Day is approaching. Something universal in the human spirit is rising at this time to celebrate the light that defiantly, brightly shines--even now, in what is in the Northern Hemisphere the darkest time of the year. While the lights sparkle and rich aromas and melodies rise up, the cold bites and the body yearns to hibernate.    

It can be one of the most wonderful, and, paradoxically, one of the most difficult times of the whole year. We are made to notice light and fullness, but also darkness and emptiness; we are reminded of our connectedness, but also of our aloneness. 

Every person we love (including every person, alive now or not, who we have ever loved) awakens our recognition of the Universal Beloved, That which is the essence of all that is lovable and loving, the One from whom we can never be separated. 

Giving gifts is a way to remind ourselves of love, to enact our gratitude, to express the spirit of generosity that is our only sanity. 

And yet so is being quiet and still, and noticing the fullness that is always already present. 

And so, of course, life requires us to choose again. To find our heart's "yes" to both light and darkness. To find a way to walk with love in this still only half-made world, this place where love is yet to fully take its hold. 

May your heart find a way to practice this holiday season. May you find a way to notice the light in the darkness in every single body, to notice the non-separation that lets you reach across the gaps that face you!

- These words are attributed to Terry Patton - Beyond Awakenings - although I was unable to find the link on google. They are not my words, nevertheless, I whole heartedly agree with the sentiment. - 

Do not turn away from suffering ...

Back in October I posted the words, "History is not an army. It's more like a crab scuttling sideways. And we need to be brave enough to hope change is possible in order to have a chance of making it happen." And I think of them again today and the reason is this ...

This photograph is of a female protester being attacked by Egyptian soldiers in Tahrir Square, Cairo over the weekend. It's brutal. It's shocking. It's inhumane. For me it brings up strong emotions and raises so many questions that I have no answers for ... most importantly it needs to be seen and witnessed. I want to look away, to make it stop, but that would be to turn away from the suffering and I can't do that. The suffering of the oppressed is everywhere to see in the world right now. As I enter Christmas week and I'm reminded this is the time of year to offer goodwill to all, I ask how can I offer goodwill to the soldiers in this picture? And I return to the words above and the message from Rebecca Solnit ... it is still braver to hope for a better world and be part of the changes towards that, than to descend into despair and cynicism. Change is possible and for the woman in this picture I can only assume she put her life on the line for that change, for that freedom and for that love. Inshallah I pray she is still alive and being cared for as I write these words. And I send my hope to the hearts of all those in Egypt as they make their transition. May it be as peaceful as possible.

Life is an ocean of motion

"If we are always arriving and departing,

it is also true that we are eternally anchored.

One's destinations is never a place, but

rather a new way of looking at things."

- Henry Miller -

My Monday Morning Feeling

Two More Five Minute Poems

I

To surrender unbiddenly
falling into the darkening
mystery unknowing of
my direction
wondering if I spread my
wings will I be able to
fly this time
Or will a mix of feather
and sinew befuddle the
betwixness of my fall
And yet directionless may
be someone else's judgement
of my stepping off
To me it appears the only
way to go.

II

I want to be a tree
a one legged ancestor
home to creepy-crawlies
and vestige to feathered friends
a place where squirrels
acrobatically balance on
my farthest outstretched limbs.

I want to feel each season
pass by me, the sap rising
up in spring as my verdant
coat enfolds me for another
year, where the suns rays
warm my wrinkled and
cracked skin.

I want to hear the cries
of the wind rushing through
me like a ghost on a mission
as I stand here in one
place, my only place
for an eternity.