I feel, like so many of us, bone-breaking tired. Lines cracking across my forehead, tired. Slow sighs expelling into guttural groans, tired. Stomp my foot for no particular reason, tired. "I really, really don't know" shaking my head, tired.
Stumbling through this weariness, anger, confusion, and fear, I've been seeing a shadow in my side-eye. To follow this form was, for me, a truth apparent:
Spiritual art is the heart of the new world yet born.
We are creatives that must midwife us into the future's next stage. This means that our loving creation is the response to despairing desperation. Each of us, on this precarious precipice, are reaching toward an inevitable destruction. Spiritual artist-warriors possess the gentle strength to hold along the edge, touch the bright being inside, and enter the hot terror toward home. We made home before, we continue here, and make, make, make all of the way through. Our divine choice: transform, this way or another.
I'm convinced, more than ever, that if transcendent politics were the answer to 20th century moral crisis, the art of justice is our healing for 21st century violence. We need courage, imagination, truth, wisdom, in being, more than ever.
Saturday, August 16, 2014
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Scarcity & Abundance Scale
Last week a wise friend reminded me that the very definition of our lives is to be in mystery, yet only during certain times are we aware of it.
A blessing coming out of having more flexibility in my life is that I've been given the chance to study the differences among people faced with the utter truth of life's mysteriousness, whether by choice, "accident," or "directioned" stumble. Clearly, my observation is as much of a self-study as anything else.
For reasons beyond me, these times seem harder than most. Almost everyone that I know is dealing with something heavy. I notice that difficulty, challenge, and hardship are collapsing all around us, mostly in the form of grief that hardens over transitional wounds. More tiresome, some of us are holding many tests at the same time, which feels overwhelming at best, and soul-breaking at worst. We rage at divine cruelty, disengage from reality, or find other ways to cope.
But I'm seeing, time and time again, that those who tend to respond with resiliency maintain equanimity, while those who tend to respond with rigidity simply don't. These patterns are beyond being negative or positive-we can be "positive people" who aren't holding life's challenges healthily or be "negative people" who are entering life's mysteries with tremendous grounded-ness. I think that it's more complex than that.
I'm beginning to observe the stuff that equanimity is made off--the presence to appreciate both of scarcity and abundance in our lives. As we allow ourselves to feel of both sides of the scale, so to speak, the easier it is to accept where we are, and navigate where we're going. We hold what we hold, what we hold, what we hold.
This doesn't mean to me, however, that we have equal amounts of both scarcity and abundance or that we choose to notice the plentiful and ignore the absence. Instead, it means that we recognize that scarcity and abundance scales exist by nature (yin and yang qualities) in which we see less scarcity where there is more abundance, and more scarcity where there is more abundance--as it is. Beyond that though, those who tend toward resilience, because they hold a deep sense of equanimity, are able to see the infinite scales that exist before them--not the few that represent the aspects of our lives on which we choose to focus or over which we obsess. In a sense being more present opens us up to the scales that populate the detailed and miraculous mechanics of our existence.
I want to be one of those people who tend toward resiliency, so I am choosing to smile at abundance, to nod at scarcity, understand the purpose of both as necessary and complementary elements, and most significantly, visit all of the scales in my life. This way I'm smiling more often (as I see abundance), gain extra clarity (as I see scarcity), lean into impermanence (as I recognize that shapes will readily shift), feel spaciousness (tending to the many scales that exist for me in this dimension and others, and being fully present for each visit).
Please remind me how I'm doing when we speak next!
A blessing coming out of having more flexibility in my life is that I've been given the chance to study the differences among people faced with the utter truth of life's mysteriousness, whether by choice, "accident," or "directioned" stumble. Clearly, my observation is as much of a self-study as anything else.
For reasons beyond me, these times seem harder than most. Almost everyone that I know is dealing with something heavy. I notice that difficulty, challenge, and hardship are collapsing all around us, mostly in the form of grief that hardens over transitional wounds. More tiresome, some of us are holding many tests at the same time, which feels overwhelming at best, and soul-breaking at worst. We rage at divine cruelty, disengage from reality, or find other ways to cope.
But I'm seeing, time and time again, that those who tend to respond with resiliency maintain equanimity, while those who tend to respond with rigidity simply don't. These patterns are beyond being negative or positive-we can be "positive people" who aren't holding life's challenges healthily or be "negative people" who are entering life's mysteries with tremendous grounded-ness. I think that it's more complex than that.
I'm beginning to observe the stuff that equanimity is made off--the presence to appreciate both of scarcity and abundance in our lives. As we allow ourselves to feel of both sides of the scale, so to speak, the easier it is to accept where we are, and navigate where we're going. We hold what we hold, what we hold, what we hold.
This doesn't mean to me, however, that we have equal amounts of both scarcity and abundance or that we choose to notice the plentiful and ignore the absence. Instead, it means that we recognize that scarcity and abundance scales exist by nature (yin and yang qualities) in which we see less scarcity where there is more abundance, and more scarcity where there is more abundance--as it is. Beyond that though, those who tend toward resilience, because they hold a deep sense of equanimity, are able to see the infinite scales that exist before them--not the few that represent the aspects of our lives on which we choose to focus or over which we obsess. In a sense being more present opens us up to the scales that populate the detailed and miraculous mechanics of our existence.
I want to be one of those people who tend toward resiliency, so I am choosing to smile at abundance, to nod at scarcity, understand the purpose of both as necessary and complementary elements, and most significantly, visit all of the scales in my life. This way I'm smiling more often (as I see abundance), gain extra clarity (as I see scarcity), lean into impermanence (as I recognize that shapes will readily shift), feel spaciousness (tending to the many scales that exist for me in this dimension and others, and being fully present for each visit).
Please remind me how I'm doing when we speak next!
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Jump!
Friends, earlier today I launched my website. It's essentially a freelance website all about me. I didn't expect to feel so exposed when it was live because I've written about extremely vulnerable topics on this blog and elsewhere. It explains the reasons why my subconscious dragged on this project for several weeks. There's the leap, and then, there's the free fall for all to see!
Today, more than ever, I'm grateful that I have a solid meditation practice to ground me--remind me that I am joined to forces which are powerful, hopeful, and purposeful.
But before meditation I was letting the vulnerability sit in the middle of my stomach like a giant floating lead ball. I watched it as minutes passed, then a couple of hours. I saw two three things. First, that I felt more raw about a website with little curating. Unlike a blog entry it isn't a glimpse into a window of my life--it's who I strive to be and what I do to align to my aspiration. I'm more out there than usual. Second, I have a critical community reflex. I love my political leftist comrades and communities but we oftentimes apply our critical facilities too sharply on one another, so in some ways, I'm waiting for the punches in the name of purity. Third, the website is unwittingly part of my self-love practice, because during my meditation, I had to shower myself with reminders that I'm brilliant, talented, and deserved to shape how I spend my time, and create my livelihood.
The latter was especially a new place to be. Only a few days ago was I able to say that I've left almost organization that I was paid to work for because I had either outgrown my role or I grew too weary trying to move the group toward its professed transformative vision.
I'm tired of doing that, painful, difficult, exhausting work. I'm tired of being told that I need another credential. I'm tired of being "realistic." I'm tired of putting "focus" on only one set of my passions. I'm tired of my energy and abilities being so under-valued that it's assumed that I'd work for free, especially by entities & people with resources. I'm tired of working under less dedicated & less skilled folks who come from money, who are dudes, or who simply made more conventional choices. Enuf!
Now, I know enough to shape my vision, and I've got community behind me. I bare it out on a website but honestly, I've been walkin' this way for a while.
Today, more than ever, I'm grateful that I have a solid meditation practice to ground me--remind me that I am joined to forces which are powerful, hopeful, and purposeful.
But before meditation I was letting the vulnerability sit in the middle of my stomach like a giant floating lead ball. I watched it as minutes passed, then a couple of hours. I saw two three things. First, that I felt more raw about a website with little curating. Unlike a blog entry it isn't a glimpse into a window of my life--it's who I strive to be and what I do to align to my aspiration. I'm more out there than usual. Second, I have a critical community reflex. I love my political leftist comrades and communities but we oftentimes apply our critical facilities too sharply on one another, so in some ways, I'm waiting for the punches in the name of purity. Third, the website is unwittingly part of my self-love practice, because during my meditation, I had to shower myself with reminders that I'm brilliant, talented, and deserved to shape how I spend my time, and create my livelihood.
The latter was especially a new place to be. Only a few days ago was I able to say that I've left almost organization that I was paid to work for because I had either outgrown my role or I grew too weary trying to move the group toward its professed transformative vision.
I'm tired of doing that, painful, difficult, exhausting work. I'm tired of being told that I need another credential. I'm tired of being "realistic." I'm tired of putting "focus" on only one set of my passions. I'm tired of my energy and abilities being so under-valued that it's assumed that I'd work for free, especially by entities & people with resources. I'm tired of working under less dedicated & less skilled folks who come from money, who are dudes, or who simply made more conventional choices. Enuf!
Now, I know enough to shape my vision, and I've got community behind me. I bare it out on a website but honestly, I've been walkin' this way for a while.
Monday, January 20, 2014
Reveal
I haven't written a blog entry for three months. Often, this means that there's little revelatory insight about which to connect with others. But my recent absence is because there's almost too much. Nearly everyone close to me has felt, has been swept, or is mercifully directing the immense energetic shift that arrived with Venus in Retrograde. Since, there's been no hiding.
I've moved homes, quit my job, forgave a person, contacted my birth-father, published my first essay, and had a change in my romantic relationship in the last three months of 2013.
Some of these changes were foreseen, others weren't--but they each came fast and furiously, without my oh-so careful consultation. The magical quality of these changes were that they didn't happen to me; rather, like so many people, as I felt the strong planetary pull after at November's end, truths made themselves obnoxiously known. And, when the Universe crashes down on you, and laughs at your astonishment that things changed, I recognized the spiritual test as one not about the Universe's audacity, but as one about making choices or, well, not.
So I decided to leave my job. Then, more truths surfaced, and I made other changes. I stumbled onto yet more truths along the way, and I chose to take every risk--choosing the choice that I would "never" make. I continued to follow and choose following the light on the dark footpath. Soon after, I found the capacity to go beyond making negative choices to making positive ones: if there was ever a time to manifest my intentions, it was now. The intuitive rabbit hole was a miraculous gift wrapped in packaging that shed to quickly that I almost doubted that it was given in the first place.
While giving chase, and at times, being chased, I've asked others: what brings you to center?
What gives you the courage to stay acutely present through unpredictability, to just hold heavy uncertainty for your well-being, security, and future, to become your own lover amidst narcissism and ego-trippin', to return to yourself, and all of that which you bring, after checking out for a few days?
The resounding response was that no one knows. Neither do I. But it's been a beautifully graceless, and supremely humbling journey so far.
My transformation is centered around deepening my self-love. Over the last year I gathered that to genuinely love myself that I must end the sabotage and I must collect my power. If I had offered myself as much care, attention, and gentleness as I'd thought, I wouldn't be so estranged from myself that I couldn't recognize my powerful selves--the possibilities that could, but weren't, the places where I was living through my imagination, the worlds in which I aspired and achieved as easily as I breathed. I wanted to say "yes" to every part of myself that this new path revealed but I was reluctant to unleash this power without the wisdom to harness it. It exists but must be excavated.
On my best days I get much closer. I shovel these parts into the outside world with fervor. To reach these parts, I'm called upon to intensely listen to myself in one ear, and listen to the Universe in the other. Deep listening for me, takes the form of total surrender.
In this practice, I have no option but to completely trust myself. Or when I've felt too small, I've entered the warm embrace of the Universe. When I return to center, I can hoard all of the tangible and intangible twists and turns because they are unmatched against my infinite resources. I have every ability and influence that I need or could hope for. I feel the continuity of lifetimes of wisdom, and that of the world, to actively shape my reality in the present moment. These are very good days. I have them sometimes :) for which I am very grateful.
Love as a practice of faith is a strong force.
I've moved homes, quit my job, forgave a person, contacted my birth-father, published my first essay, and had a change in my romantic relationship in the last three months of 2013.
Some of these changes were foreseen, others weren't--but they each came fast and furiously, without my oh-so careful consultation. The magical quality of these changes were that they didn't happen to me; rather, like so many people, as I felt the strong planetary pull after at November's end, truths made themselves obnoxiously known. And, when the Universe crashes down on you, and laughs at your astonishment that things changed, I recognized the spiritual test as one not about the Universe's audacity, but as one about making choices or, well, not.
So I decided to leave my job. Then, more truths surfaced, and I made other changes. I stumbled onto yet more truths along the way, and I chose to take every risk--choosing the choice that I would "never" make. I continued to follow and choose following the light on the dark footpath. Soon after, I found the capacity to go beyond making negative choices to making positive ones: if there was ever a time to manifest my intentions, it was now. The intuitive rabbit hole was a miraculous gift wrapped in packaging that shed to quickly that I almost doubted that it was given in the first place.
While giving chase, and at times, being chased, I've asked others: what brings you to center?
What gives you the courage to stay acutely present through unpredictability, to just hold heavy uncertainty for your well-being, security, and future, to become your own lover amidst narcissism and ego-trippin', to return to yourself, and all of that which you bring, after checking out for a few days?
The resounding response was that no one knows. Neither do I. But it's been a beautifully graceless, and supremely humbling journey so far.
My transformation is centered around deepening my self-love. Over the last year I gathered that to genuinely love myself that I must end the sabotage and I must collect my power. If I had offered myself as much care, attention, and gentleness as I'd thought, I wouldn't be so estranged from myself that I couldn't recognize my powerful selves--the possibilities that could, but weren't, the places where I was living through my imagination, the worlds in which I aspired and achieved as easily as I breathed. I wanted to say "yes" to every part of myself that this new path revealed but I was reluctant to unleash this power without the wisdom to harness it. It exists but must be excavated.
On my best days I get much closer. I shovel these parts into the outside world with fervor. To reach these parts, I'm called upon to intensely listen to myself in one ear, and listen to the Universe in the other. Deep listening for me, takes the form of total surrender.
In this practice, I have no option but to completely trust myself. Or when I've felt too small, I've entered the warm embrace of the Universe. When I return to center, I can hoard all of the tangible and intangible twists and turns because they are unmatched against my infinite resources. I have every ability and influence that I need or could hope for. I feel the continuity of lifetimes of wisdom, and that of the world, to actively shape my reality in the present moment. These are very good days. I have them sometimes :) for which I am very grateful.
Love as a practice of faith is a strong force.
Sunday, January 12, 2014
Weathered Home
Last fall, a person that I love joined me in a writing project with the theme: short poems inspired by lines of the same. This means that one of us wrote a poem, and the other wrote another poem borrowing a line from the previous poem. It recently re-appeared into my life, so I took it as a sign to share. Thanks for reading.
Weathered soles hold up our
Weathered souls
Wandering steps
Self-possessed
Wondering, whether
This heel marks home for
Weathered souls upon these
Weathered soles
Yet, as leaves turn, weather learns,
Toward which way, or as some say,
An uncertain, whethered way,
For with each foot-fall weary,
Wake pieces of Earth, into
A trail of ancestral secrets
Waxed upon land, many years old,
Wherein healing magic lives,
From weathered souls, standing upon
Weathered soles.
This place, we call home.
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