lama school

Come find me at TheLamaFarm.com

2016-02-26T15:18:00.001-07:00

Hey friends--this whole blog just migrated over to TheLamaFarm
come find me there...

The Bard at Large

2015-02-22T14:31:00.001-07:00

I recently completed a project proposal on storytelling as a tool for transformation. Defining the idea for others refined how this wonderful medium of pure auditory indulgence works such magic on our psyche. Who doesn't want to have a tale spun by a true wizard of storytelling?


'Raconteur Racoon' Jeffry Yeager

My own engagement with story has always been a palpable transformative experience. When I recognized how story was a tangible force of change in me personally was not until college, and I fed my hunger for change by reading. My infatuation at the time was for Louis L'amour; quick easy reads about larger than life Mavericks in the Wild West breaking rules and saving the day. I would read these tiny tomes of pulp fiction late into the night gobbling up the miraculous way the loner and outsider became the hero. It wasn't really until I graduated from college that I outgrew this need for Western gobbling and how it fed my own independent spirit, helped me filter through my need to break rules and absolutely fed my own perception of loving my own MacGuyver skills in the world.

At the same time I would read what I thought were 'important' books too. In fact, for a while I bought every copy of Anna Karenina I came across in the thrift shops because it was too big to carry with me, and I was always buying it again to pick-up where I had last left off.

But it was my literary 'indulgences' that seemed to weave together the fabric of my own transformation. For probably 5 years in a row I would re-read 'A Room With a View" every summer. The young romantic in me craving a wistful, coming-of-age begging for grounding in real life every time I had too much time on my hands and began to worry my life wasn't active enough for a smart young lady moving into productive life. And it was then I started writing; considering story and recognizing a growing need to tell my own .

As a transformative medium, reading can be too big an undertaking for the time or space we are willing to take for internalizing--we have been spoon fed our story for so long. Reading can take a bit more self-awareness to strip out the bits that apply to me, integrating their meaning so I am actually aware of it. Listening to a story is different than this. It slips in through the cracks of our self-assured or possibly protective exterior; appeals to our entertainment gene and digs right in to subvert and maybe even convert what the subconscious is calling for. Story slips right the border of what we think we know and goes to work on the deep-within we aren't even aware of yet.

Disney's Bard, the Rooster of Robin Hood

Most often I think we get our story from video, so prevalent, such a no-brainer to sit and watch. Here's what's tough about embracing story in this way--we often settle for the fast-food version of how this works! Aaaarrgghhh, Now don't get me wrong, I don't mean to blaspheme the holy cow of television and even more importantly filmmaking as storytelling. Screen story took the place of reading for me for over a decade in importance, and I still get lost in a film that works hard to engage me in that way. But I have learned it is the video reel playing in my own head when listening to a story that starts the transformation for me--it is an action verb in the way my senses engage. I become the casting director, the props master, the executive producer. There is no budget limiting my vision of the story. And I get to include an unknown element--I am not the director in these reels of story in my head--at least not consciously so. There are so many factors my waking self doesn't know how to play. I can't make the choice for a heroine faced with odds I have never encountered in my own life, or can I?

When I step off the page in story I get to be surprised by what my unconscious does to settle a scene. And it is in this way--not reading, but telling, speaking out loud--that the true Bard shares her gift. Each member of the audience, that's you and me in any given moment of listening, get's to contribute equally to the complete experience. A raconteur sets the mood, invites us to draw back the curtains and mount the production of the story most called for from our own experience in the moment of our imagination. The Bards of old traveled from town to town, sitting out late by the light of the fire, spinning yarns of nonsense and great import all at once. Society's controls for exposing intrigues were tightly guarded and public sharing of info contrary to local government or the reigning monarch was punishable by death even.


Shift in gears when story engages our brain. Photo courtesy of Huffington Post

But is was the gift and hidden meaning of the stories shared by these Bards that revealed truths to those who were willing to listen. Eager minds interested in understanding the layers of what is being revealed were ripe for this pastime. So let's frame that level of intrigue in what might be hidden now in the stories that stream at us non-stop. We are practically drowned in the flood of information which society may or may approve of sharing. How do we filter through what is important to us? Our 'storytellers' break every convention in shocking or taboo image making. In television and film, our senses can be overstimulated and desensitized by every sight, sound and often touch (like when our seats rumble, or our seatmate grabs us frantically when the villain appears). How can I filter these inputs and settle on what moves me in a way that matters? How do I know what is important to me?
I return to the story, I engage in every way I can find where stories are being told; in group discussion, in Ted talks, on my favorite radio program, in panel discussions where surprise questions bring phenomenal stories in response. I notice what stories grab me, where my imagination takes me as the facts unfold and how I am drawn in or done with it in that moment.

And I tell stories of my own, i write them, i sit with children and whisper them,

i share them at the dinner table, over drinks and by the fireside.

They go to work on me, they inspire my self-understanding, they transform like nothing else can.

Monk in the World Guestpost

2015-02-15T12:15:00.001-07:00

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of writing a piece for Christine Valters Paintner over at

It turned out to be this great moment of clarity for me, learning a bit about how I make a mountain out of a molehill, or something into this huge whopping truth, when it might just really be a piece of my experience and someone else would define the truth of it entirely differently. Here's a bit about how that unfolded for me...

A few years ago, I was on a sales trip to San Francisco, working at a convention center across the street from Grace Cathedral. I was exhausted from my work and searching for a few moments of peace and quiet. On the second day I stepped out of the convention center for some fresh air and caught sight of the cathedral set up on a hill, beckoning me to cross the street and clear my head. A posted sign read there was an organ and choir performance that day, the perfect opportunity to decompress.
As I entered the cathedral, I realized I was too early for the performance and heard the organist practicing. The space was cool and dimly lit from nearby stained glass windows. I quietly circled the main space and returned to the entry when I finally looked down. There at my feet, woven in simple variations of woolen dove grey was a huge labyrinth. A nearby sign stated it was patterned after the labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral in France, which I had been to years earlier. The sign further described the labyrinth as a meditation tool. It hinted at secrets of the walk and how levels of awareness were available to the devout practitioner.

Read the whole story HERE...

Difficult Questions and Beautiful Answers

2015-02-01T15:21:00.000-07:00

Feb 6^th and 7^th, 2015 The Lama Farm and Jung Society of Utah welcome the renowned poet, David Whyte, in a live poetry evening and workshop for an early Valentine’s weekend event. Whyte’s poetry readings and teachings take his audience on a fierce exploration into the frontiers of the beloved and undiscovered self. For this author it seems perhaps the boldest love affair any of us might hope to achieve in this lifetime—a love for our once and future self—reminding us of the beauty of an awakened life. Whyte’s venture into the inner-scape of self is entitled “What to Remember when Waking, Asking the Beautiful Questions.”

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the conversation…

All the birds and creatures of the world are unutterably themselves,

Everything, everything, everything is waiting for you.

—David Whyte “Everything is waiting for you”

Difficult Questions and Beautiful Answers

David Whyte is a poet, transformational teacher and organizational consultant. One might question how these three unlikely pursuits combine in a cohesive career, and be delighted to find it is Whyte’s most particular and profound gift of inquiry through poetry which invites participants in all three arenas to dare ask their own courageous, difficult and beautiful questions. In each of his disciplines, Whyte pushes his audiences to examine the inner world in our diverse and sometimes disconnected aspects of life and thereby discover how closely related the answers are in each. His impassioned and lyrical insight offer balm, guidance and practical application for everyday people grappling with a desire to reconnect or most simply, uncover their inner voice.

This February Whyte makes his public debut in Salt Lake City to ask those very questions. Over the past two years Whyte’s career has crystallized around the planet as his poetry and prose reach new levels of recognition and familiarity. With this notoriety, Whyte is sought out to teach and perform extensively to audiences entranced with the modern mystic nature of his voice and themes. Co-sponsoring the event are The LamaFarm a Utah mentoring and guidance organization cultivating inner-consciousness and awakened living and the Jung Society of Utah. Machiel Klerk, founder of the Jung Society, says “David Whyte's poetic vision is similar to the depth psychology of Carl Jung with the notion that the human is no accident but a carrier of meaning and of gifts, that there is an 'other world'. This is what Jung meant as he defined the individuation process and the collective unconscious. Poets explore these ideas in their own words suited for their time, and David Whyte does that magically.”

Whyte has authored seven volumes of poetry and four works of prose. To his devoted readers, Whyte’s poems cast a web of sonorous and earthy self-discovery. In his live readings, Whyte’s gift of penetrating human connection draws his audience into the same web. Shifting seamlessly between reciting his own poems and quoting the work of his favorite poets he weaves an irresistible spell of sound and silence. Whyte’s performances call to mind firesides of old, in which audiences disappear from the world of passive listener and enter into a journey alongside him—the journey into the self .

A native of England, Whyte now makes his home with his family in the Pacific Northwest. As a child, David, roamed the fields of his father’s Yorkshire, England, memorizing aloud—to clouds and cows alike, the poems of the romantic poets—Wordsworth and Keats to name a few. “My mother’s voice taught me a connection to Irish folklore tradition coming right out of the ground and imagination of the Irish.” And it was his “father’s Yorkshire which had its own storytelling tradition and lent a grounded, steady compassion and almost surreal honesty to the voice.” Whyte says, “In many ways I got schooled in the two ends of the spectrum in human voice.” “I was always naturally interested in the voice and memorizing poetry. I started quite young and constantly looked to the future with anticipation for building my repertoire; always thinking what the next poem would be, even if that were only two or three a year.”

It was perhaps through his youthful learning to recognize the soulfulness in others’ words that Whyte began his own development in understanding human expression of the inner voice. These early solitary recitations began a lifelong ‘courtship’ with his favorite poems and authors—well over 300 at last count—which Whyte recites in his performances as they uniquely apply to the present moment of his teachings.

By education and training Whyte began his formal career with a degree in marine biology, working as a naturalist guide and anthropologist in the Galapagos Islands, Andes, Amazon, and Himalayas. One can only imagine how he might have plied his craft as a wordsmith pondering anthropological insights and guiding human conversation along the trails and extremes such journeys offer. The combination of explorer of the natural world and guide to seekers’ paths shifted from geographical boundaries to human frontiers as his vocation in poetry emerged.

Speaking from his home last month in the Pacific Northwest, Whyte offered his perspective on his poetry and work and how he enters the conversation on the human experience. Whyte’s transition from geographic to human interior exploration suggests an underlying quest to discover his personal genius. “I think I always intuited the human voice as a representation of our identity in the world,” Whyte explains, “Everyone possesses a personal genius.” Whyte says finding, or at the very least seeking our authentic voice through asking questions of our deepest self is a means of uncovering this personal genius. “At the center of every conversation is an invitation, just as there’s an invitation in good poetry to the truth; to uncovering…your own particular way to be in that truth. It has to do with your own genius, not as Mozart, or Dylan Thomas or Madam Curie. I am thinking just of the way you hold life as an individual.”

Why is it so difficult to ask ourselves these questions and find our authentic voice? (VH)

Whyte describes his own experiences discovering a ‘hidden voice’ that needed to be remembered or gathered back into full expression within the body. “I remember when I was 13 or 14 [deciding] to have a consistency of voice no matter who I was speaking to; to have it grounded in my body.” Learning to express his authentic voice at that time, Whyte says ”Strangely enough, there are huge parts of your body you don’t want to be in because of the hurt and trauma of living, ways you do not want to share your voice. You actually try to escape from that psychologically, so the journey into the voice is the journey back into the body, actually being here. Poetry is a representation of that, an artful expression of the human journey.”

How does our authentic voice help us uncover our genius? (VH)

“Genius is not something we either have or we don’t.” According to Whyte, “we all have genius to be revealed, an identity to be shaped. By exploring our self-perception, releasing judgments we hold onto in our physical bodies we help reveal our genius, which is often buried in the darkest corners within.” Whyte describes a “fully-embodied” voice as the place from which he strives to share his poetry, a place that allows him to express his own genius. In an era when spiritual seekers ask questions for which they find no answers and mid-life crisis newbies don’t have a manual on which to cut their teeth, David Whyte gently and insistently urges us with his deeply compelling point of view to explore our internal frontiers for the answers. He explains how as our own voices explore difficult inner questions, we discover “the way the voice represents the frontier of what you think is you versus what you don’t think is you. Once these limits are exposed, [you] just might reach past them into the possibility of who [you] actually are.”

Whyte’s teachings will captivate Utahns at once for his guide-work in untamed frontiers and the discipline of his philosophical and contemplative tradition.

As a powerful storyteller, it is not uncommon for Whyte to recount experiences from his days as a trail guide and anthropologist and share poetry from his current walking retreats in Ireland, Italy, England and the Galapagos Islands. Such pilgrimages have long been a practice of the seeking soul. Here in Utah we are fortunate to have some of the most beautiful and untamed vistas of any wilderness anywhere on earth. We have the opportunity to take to the trails and mountains with similar intent, finding enough silence in nature to awaken, or free from sleep, a certain element of the unconscious mind and possibly begin to examine those interior frontiers. Speaking about ways to begin an ‘embodied practice’ for self-exploration, Whyte says “our great religious and contemplative traditions look at the way human beings are constantly being invited into the new, emancipated sense of self in the world.” Starting with the walks in the countryside he took as a youth memorizing a favorite verse, Whyte’s expeditions into exterior frontiers introduce an embodied physical practice for the parallel journey we are invited to explore in his poetry—to find our voice and honest expression of self.

The poet has spent years in spiritual practice uncovering his authentic voice. Whyte says “I sat Zen for years where the beautiful questions are known as Koans, an Eastern contemplative tradition asking the unanswerable questions.” Citing an example of such a question, Whyte asks “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” and goes on to describe what personal meaning such a question might hold by feeling into the places of the body that might be blocked by this query. A possible answer, he goes on is “how much of my life is real, how much is what I make up speaking back to me in my own voice?” Explaining how we separate from our manufactured perception of self, Whyte suggests we might discover “…a deeper, more foundational self. Starting there can feel like a kind of death, at least dismemberment or falling away. This is a letting go of a part of you that can no longer speak the truth.”

What are the ‘Beautiful questions’ you are asking us to remember when waking?(VH)

“These questions come from a part of you already knowing and calling you, one who already knows the new truth to which we belong,” Whyte says. “A place from which to speak, dance or shape a life that can distinguish the authentic you from the pattern of thousands of images told from the courageous human life at the center of your existence.” As suggested by answering the Koan above, we “[don’t want] to be part of some other life, body…but right here at this place, now! Taking only the steps you can take, speaking the only words you can speak, making the only life you can make.”

Why is the live interaction you have with an audience so profound? (VH)

“On stage, there is a kind of ritual invitation being made; strangely enough that invitation is to the silence that lies as a context for all the beautiful language and truths you hear in poetry. Quite often in a room full of people whether on stage or in a conference room, I’m following the listening in the room--where the silence is most profound.” When Whyte speaks to an audience, something almost alchemical happens in the interaction. As he describes “something quite new happens in performance; listening and responding to the profundity of the silence…that’s where the magic and the art form are and that’s where something new will happen at the same time.” Audience members engage in dynamic interaction in response to the poet’s invitation to discover our personal genius, to join what resonates from that selfsame voice of authenticity and honesty with which he speaks. As Whyte engages with an audience he dares us to ask the Beautiful Questions, to risk discovering our unexplored interior frontiers, not necessarily because of their innate beauty, but because of the beauty and genius we discover in ourselves when we ask them.

Valerie Holt is a writer, mentor and founder of The LamaFarm where the soul of the seeker rises from the ground we break, dig on purpose.™ She is thrilled to cohost David Whyte in February as he urges us to Remember the Beautiful Questions as we are waking.

see the article as it appears in the CATALYST MAGAZINE Here

Start Making Sense

2013-10-25T16:29:00.002-06:00

Before great vision can become reality there may be difficulty. Before a person begins a great endeavor, they may encounter chaos. As a new plant breaks the ground with great effort, foreshadowing the huge tree, so must we sometimes push against difficulty in bringing forth our dreams. Chaos-where dreams begin...

I Ching Hexagram #3

Brilliance from Chaos
mandala by Valerie Holt

Dharma: Finding sense in

the Order of the Universe...

Finding sense or order in life asks us to bring our 'A' game.

Consider this an invitation to get into

coaching mode for yourself--Time for an internal dialogue.

Life gets messy, chaotic even.

How do we incorporate the experiences of our own lives and those examples that we truly value, as a way to make some sense, find some wisdom, seek a path we actually want follow? So often we seek and seek, learn and learn, surf the waves of living and totally turf it on the shore...over and over and over...When someone has lived or survived a certain cycle of learning and whether they consciously choose to or not, they are holding out a light for all they are worth to make their way on the path in front of them without breaking their neck. We are each of us, doing this, in some aspect of our lives--

Showing the Way, Making the sense, Finding the path.

Take a minute as you read these words, reflect on your own Turf Sessions, call this the video highlights of the game. Now it's time to talk strategy--we're gonna call this part of living and learning the spin cycle and my suggestion today is that you start to reflect, apply a tiny bit of big picture strategy, find that inner voice of coach; dig a little deeper and amazingly you will see you have such inner wisdom, you are your best divine source for guidance--the best choice to bring order to your sense of spin.

The divine, still, knowing self that dwells right in your center--the Divine Wayshower--knows what it takes to bring your 'A' game--so it's time to start a little chatter,

wouldn't you say?

Getting to the insight or perspective of WayShower requires living through the Spin Cycle--cycles of personal growth. That means you gotta play a lot of games just to figure out how you like to throw, whether you are a fast runner or better at a slow game...

The Wayshower is a powerful archetype to take on, sit with, walk around and think about, or invite into dreamtime when learning to recognize inner guidance--start some inner chatter with this guy!

I like to picture the very humble image of a monk or maybe even a hermit-someone who journeys to the holy mountain to get some perspective and stillness. But the beauty of inner dialogue is that you get to choose any image you like that offers great perspective, wisdom, and most definitely humor in your life (it's really just Divine You in a new suit).

You could even sit with the image of a lighthouse, but one that is moving-not locked in place-and only just missing the rocks ahead in time enough to shine a light for those following behind because you are living this wisdom, learning it moment by moment and applying it in the very next moment when new rocks appear.

The rocks, Spin Cycles or cycles of learning are constantly arising as we make our way through life. When we understand this cycle is rotating through our lives--on huge major cog wheels, or tiny little spokes, they can be measured in generations, minutes, milliseconds or milennia--it is the beginning of understanding our own strategy for a successful Spin Cycle.

Here's the key... we become empowered in our own lives when we recognize & acknowledge the cycle. The Brilliance of this sense of Order is begging for its turn--this is your turf, why not master the spin?

We start just by recognizing...

big loves, Valilama

A 'Stalk' on The Wild Side...

2013-05-13T14:45:00.000-06:00

A 'Stalk' on The Wild Side...

Seek, Explore, Unleash the Wise One in You

Are you ready to get all powerful and native

to GO FORTH and be a
FORCE OF THE AWSOME?

Life is too short to do it any other way!

Can you remember being that kid on the roof up there with your red cape flying? I mean it, remember being a kid and making a game out of hunting down the biggest, baddest adventures and mysteries on the block? I can remember getting all outfitted up and setting out in the neighborhood to peek into all the scariest places i knew about...I would wait with my best friend in the whole world at the edge of the golfcourse until no carts were in sight...and then dash onto the field and into the sprinklers to get completely wet and cooled from the intense summer heat; i stealthily followed my older brother around on his own adventure route, who had threatened life and limb if i did, from a very safe distance and watch him catch lizards--wishing for the day when i would be fast enough to catch my own; i would even sneak into the huge unlandscaped backyard at the end of the block--where i was pretty sure a single dad lived who had most likely eaten all his children--to kick up storms of powdery white sand--pretending i was a giant walking on clouds. The adventures of the wildchild--daily slips into imaginary realms, yearnings for moments of heightened awareness--we all were born with this. Somehow the gift our spirit enters this world with is an inner youthful one willing to explore, approach our most profound moments with stealth and attention, focus for extended periods of time on the things we were most afraid of, but that promised thrills beyond imagination.

And then our wildchild meets maturity..welcome to adultville, land of commonsense and avoiding doing anything scary at all.

What happened to that wild being inside of us that knew the worth of getting very still in the darkest corner just to have a chance to see Santa go by? Where did the little one disappear to who knew somewhere deep inside the only way to spot a fairy was to slip effortlessly and silently through the dappled light and shadows along the forest trail?

How about a little epic awesome! How about stepping back into moments of anything is possible when i walk the edge of shadow and light, use all my wild jungle hunter skills to stalk the place where i pass through fear and discover the light? This is the exact notion of Stalking Our Wild Side, where our ageless selves have the power to unearth the 'danger zone' in the light of day.

How about this?

Rather than never attempting to observe what exists in the darkest places for ourselves, to recognize that on the other side of fear exists the next level of our greatest high; how about getting fully outfitted into the best cape and boots ever and leap into that adventure?

It's pretty epic to consider that all i might need to get to awesome is the right cape and boots!

Tools, timing, stealthy stalker instincts...
How about somma that to bring on the Epic Shit!

SHAZAM! (and all those other superhero secret passwords)
Let the Epic Begin!

April Fool's Day

2013-04-04T12:26:00.001-06:00

The Musing of a Fool:The Pause & Beginner's Mind

Are you reading for your own awakening? Every year as the days start to lengthen and the sun shines a little warmer, I can feel the urgency within me seeking .... something. This Spring is no different, and I am amazingly experiencing this so differently that it feels like a whole new me.

Let's start with the 'PAUSE', shall we?

That precious and exhilarating moment of waiting just as your legs crouch down and get ready to leap, the pause is about gathering in your breath, taking in the landscape around you and putting your intuitive strength of spirit on notice...now is the time for AWAKENING!

Sometimes all this motivation and heavy breathing can get the best of us before we actually know what is happening. This is where the notion of Beginner's Mind comes in; and for all you yogis and yoginis out there, I suspect you know right where this beginner's pause is leading.

Several years ago I began a consistent yoga practice, as opposed to the occasional stretch with a video in my living room or full-moon meditation at the spa, and oddly (just to me really) I chose Bikram Yoga as my entry into the practice. For those of you not personally acquainted with this form of yoga, it is a 90 minute, 26 pose, 105 degree dance with self every time you enter the room. For me, the dance was particularly inspiring (she says with tongue in cheek) because of my level of general fitness(or lack thereof) and overall intense need to analyze every moment of stretch as it arises. I had challenged myself (and won btw) to two 30 Day challenges, almost gotten my nose to my toes and in fact, touched my head to the ground in a backward bend. So you can imagine how pleased with myself I was when I mentioned to my yoga teacher that I had some goals to reach in my daily practice. She immediately giggled as if I must be joking, and with a prolonged looked that eventually shared her understanding that I was obviously not joking, she asserted,

"you get that yoga isn't about goals right?"

I most certainly didn't get that, and said as much, and her next statement, literally set me free!...this is the kind of truth we are all seeking, but generally don't hear even when it hits us over the head with a two-by-four..."yoga is just about showing up in the room, about being fully your best in every moment of your practice...as that moment appears...and then letting the moment pass'.( I'm pretty sure she said something wonderful just like this, but time has turned it into these words as the meaning has emerged for me.)

How is that concept even real?

I almost felt like it was an attempt at a poor planner's way of getting away with doing nothing. But that day as I entered the room, as if for the first time, I came to understand the truth

of Beginner's Mind. Rather than psyching myself up for all that is possible, mentally stringing together each step I will take and filling my otherwise stuffed mind with more plans to be perfect by the time I die, I simply took a very deep breath(the Pause both literally and figuratively), emptied my mind of everything that was coming unbidden to presuppose it knew better than my own innate sense of intuition and stepped into the best ongoing meditation I have ever ventured into. (read as, this is a practice and discipline that is now my best form of meditation in every waking moment of my own daily living.)

There is nothing that knows me better than trusting to my own divine guidance, opening myself to the very moment of inspiration as it appears, allowing the space to evolve and act upon new information at the very moment it becomes real to me. This space of being willing to put down the 'should have dones', the 'could have beens' or the 'supposed to be's' is the most freeing moment of putting down baggage...like the fool stepping out onto a truly joyous journey, there is no baggage to carry when we expect the moment and divinity of life to show up perfectly to support our path. There is no goal to set, when I remain true to the very demanding calling for authenticity and authoring of self in each moment with a beautifully opened and divinely attuned Beginner's Mind.

Listen, can you hear the beckon of the Spring?
Take a deep breath my friend, clear your mind and get ready for the ride!

I'll be your Huckleberry

2013-01-02T10:57:00.002-07:00

V
Artiste avant
Adventurer
Atop, a humorous note.
Teakettle brass
And caramel
A sea without a boat.

Conceptual weaver
Reader of ways
High-hedged labyrinth.
Curiouser and curiouser
This place is hidden
Black velvet hyacinth.

Desert maiden
Her Heart a tree
Ever-breathing, layered knots.
Ahead, the red-rocked peaks
of fire and earth
Through speckled sun she walks.
-Tessa

How beautiful is that when the first person to ever call me Auntie, gives me this for Christmas?

I AM The I (eye) of The STORM

2012-12-13T12:18:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was the last day in our lifetimes when the calendar will line up with such powerful repetitive digits...12/12/12. When the whole world is so busy looking forward to next week when 12/21/2012 hits our doorstep; the ebullient and life-affirming energy of the 12th Night stepped in and took my breath away.

so here's the thing, one could say I am into the power of numbers; not like watch out for that huge 3 looming over your head, but closer to the notion of the resonance--the sheer vibrational pitch--that dates and their energy offer us when we are open to receiving it--read as, pay attention there's some good shit about to come forth! Now even more than numbers i am into words---the vibration and meaning of our shared language can sometimes be so incredibly profound that it takes my breath away in the saying and soothes my soul in the praying. When i combine these two notions, i can often end up speechless just because of all the powerful understanding that comes through these ideas when i truly pay attention.

So to start with the numbers..

.as i started to look at the energy of this line-up of 12/12/12, i realized that it was a date for some beautiful self-expression, love of beauty and creativity, a completion and settling in of our heart space. Amidst this year of oft-times earth-shattering change, came a day right close to the end of the year that offers a summation of all things beautiful that we have made out of the huge storm of life brewing throughout this year of tumultuous energy. It purposely offered a chance to stop, reflect and encourage each of us to acknowledge what gorgeous mudpies we made out of the soup of our lives this year! This is a place deep within the Heart Chakra to sing out how much we love ourselves, how grateful and grand our own soul is, how fantastic and funny we are to friends, and how majestic and kind our hearts truly are.

Did you take that moment? it's not too late ya know!!! Consider this a free coupon to reflect, wrap your arms tight around yourself and all of those you love, and bask in the love that you have made in the world!!!

and with a deep breath, we move with that energy of deep self-love to look to the energy of 12/21/2012...(and i just freakin' love how these numbers delight me once again) the energy of this day, as promised and prophesied, is hugely about the end of the world...but this big "ENDING" completely up to interpretation. This means you get to make the sense of it that works for you...The energy it offers is to break our hearts wide open from the deeply introspective place of self-love i just told you to get in, and recognize that we are moving to a place of Universal Love for all mankind. The vibration of this date actually cries out as a wake up call! It beckons, begs and bargains for us to finally at the very gate of our endings, to wake up to our Universal beginning. How profound if we only are awake enough to answer that call. As the poet Rumi tells us "the breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you, don't go back to sleep". Listen to these whisperings, take them into your spirit, wake up to this time of shifting from knowing yourself in the internal and singular way that our ego would like to keep us and consider Knowing yourself, as the vast connected Brotherhood of Humankind--we are not separate!

And here's where the word thing really starts to kick in big time!!!!

This notion of Knowing ourselves...the energy of this year and now this swift and expansive 10 days from 12th to 21st is about knowing our hearts in a totally new way. As the storm, indeed the Hurricane of change rages all around us, we have the choice to become the I(eye) Am of the storm. "You will shelter me my love, and I will shelter you to!" are the sweet and haunting words the musician Ray laMontagne uses to encourage a different way. But i'm not sure even those words are enough...they are the start...the stilling of the moment, the tiny invitation to stop in the storm and find a place of respite, but where do we find this respite?

"And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land". Isaiah 32:2

When we consider these words from the view of our own enlightenment, our own path of stepping into the great I Am, ourselves as the divine, ourselves as the light when we allow it to shine forth from our very soul...This is when the tempest may rage all around us, but we become the very stillpoint in the the center. The energy center at the very core of our being, the heart chakra, has the capacity to expand from a place of just the little ole' me that my ego likes to practice that i am, way out into the fearlessly extraordinary place of the Universal I AM--at one with all. (this gives a whole new thought to the idea of what might be hinted at in the word and offering of Atonement doesn't it?)

Stick with me here because i have this huge stream of consciousness word thing that wants to get down on paper, so if you will indulge...

When we consider how from our very heart space we block ourselves off from self-love...we judge and hold ourselves as separate and less than...our culture will suggest that this is a call for repentance. Now consider the root of this word's meaning...in Greek the word for Repentance is "Metanioa"...and the literal translation of this word is "to go beyond the mind" into "the larger mind". If we can release ourself from the singular space of isolation within our own self, the place where we judge from separation and assess and figure things out in our brain; release into the expansive connection to the whole of humanity. we are not separate or isolated, the shared wisdom and energy that is available from spirit--we shift beyond the place of repenting in our limitations to rejoicing in the connection of the Universal heartmind--here is where true wisdom is found--we forsake whatever it is that makes us feel alone and isolated and leap into the space where we are connected, not alone, euphoric in this discovered place of oneness.

And finally to the true "Knowing" of ourselves...

'Tree of Life' Starlamichelle.com

In Greek, "Gnosis" is the word for "to know with intuition"...consider the often used (and sometimes with humor) to "know" in the Biblical sense...In Hebrew, the word Da'ath translates as 'lovemaking', but the Kabbalists use it to designate the very center of our beings, our heart space in the the Tree of Life and it is often referred to as that space or name which cannot be mentioned--perhaps because the very notion is so elusive, that the explanation must be learned from within, not taught from without (and yet, here i go because i just can't help articulating how lushy all this string of connections feels for me). Consider for a moment the joyful and exuberant place that lovemaking puts us, combine that sense with "knowing" with intuition. It is no accident that these two kinds of knowing are intertwined--there is a literal space of ecstasy to tap into when we allow the light of non-separateness, or nonduality to be the place our heart expands to, and the place we access our own deepest wisdom and knowing.

So if we truly come to "know" ourselves--we open into the place of wisdom far beyond what our limited ego and individual mind can offer

. "As long as you have an ego, you're on a limited trip" Ram Dass

To step outside of the place where our mind does all the thinking for us--the place where ego reigns supreme, into the the expansive energy of heartmind, where the very "knowing" of ourselves transform the notion we have of lovemaking at its very core. When we say I Am That I Am, we shift from the singular self of the eye, and expand into the universal and connected way of the I Am. We look into the face of God in every single face we encounter and are awestruck by the power of love that is found there!!! Repentance feels pretty awesome from this place, break our hearts wide open, go way beyond into the place where

I Am the way, the truth and the LIGHT!!! This light in our heart exposes all, enlightens all and shifts the tempest that rages all around us into an incredibly profound dance of light!!! To shift at that moment from just being a particle of light, into 'knowing' yourself to be the WAVE OF LIGHT is to find yourself as the I of any storm, the stillpoint of love, the pulsating, lovemaking, heartbreaking trascendant place of the divine. Here is where the true kundalini begins to rise and we recognize that we tremor in the expansive, connected, magnetic and magnanimous space this offers...With eyes (I's) truly open here, simply living is always some piece of lovemaking--an ecstatic and holy practice of Oneness.

So take a deep breath---these 10 days are the beginning of something truly grand. We are invited to step into the 'knowing' of ourselves in the expansive, vibrant and ecstatic place of the Wave of Love.

are you awake to hear this 'breeze at dawn' ? Do Not go back to sleep

You don't wanna miss RIDING THIS WAVE!

Right on through the I(eye) Am of this Storm

Many thanks to my teacher, Cynthia Bourgeault, and her teachings in "The Wisdom Jesus"

The Day of the LEAP

2012-02-29T09:55:00.001-07:00

Inexplicable, Joyful & Absolutely Necessary!

February 29, 2012 Leap Day (do we actually call it Leap day?) Truly a day almost discovered as if out of some hidden place that everyone goes about acting exactly the same as they did yesterday and will tomorrow without even realizing this mystic and liminal space that has shown up in our daily worlds as if it just belongs here.
FIRST THINGS FIRST
The energy of the year we are in is one that has long been discussed and debated; is it a new deadline on doomsday, a time of some prophesied Second Coming, perhaps the year of global crossingover? There are as many interpretations of the meaning of this year as there are people living it, and from a sense of just adding up the numbers, slowing down enough just to add up the sacred geometry of 2012, we are smack dab in the middle of a year of CHANGE. a year where life has sped up; events, traumas, moments of note are flying fast and furious and it is up to us to slow down, find the space of meaning in those moments...and step into our own place of change, progress, awareness in how we embrace this shift.

and nextly....
in the middle of all this Fast and Furious, we are presented with (is if a neatly tied package and gift from on high) the gift of a whole extra day. the entire calendar has split wide open to grant such a day. oh sure, you say, this comes every 4 years, what's the big deal? well, there isn't one, unless you want to make it that way. and i, for one, intend to do so. Not with any huge party; horns blowing and lot's of drinking...really more of an inner big deal, if you will. How do i intend to Leap into the energy of change that is knocking so loudly at my own door? It doesn't feel like any sort of 'out with old, in with the new', it simply feels like a willingness to look at every moment with new eyes, being open to the possibility that i know nothing, the shelf life of all my assumptions on this earthly plane has truly expired and i am embracing the new truths that teach themselves to me in each moment. Wow, that's a tough one! my hands kinda move into the GRIPS just with the mention of all this letting go, how come i'm so trained to Fear this kind of Release? Why are we (and not just the royal we, but the cultural society i have learned some of this gripping behavior from) so nervous about the letting go?

So just for this one day--all my beliefs, assumptions, common practices, habits of behavior--out the window. In this beautiful, in between, mystic moment of a day that doesn't typically even exist in my year---i choose to behave and believe with the same come from. Leap Day--Set up to make adjustments in our 'typical normal', repair the rift of time that the last 4 years (if not 4 generations or 40,000 years) have taken us off course from, even if every so slightly just in the microscopic methods.

So no more expectation of the END OF THE WORLD.

This time of change is really just the beginning. am i willing to put down my old ways, the heaviness of how i used to do it, allow for some bit of newness and lightness to seep in at the edges? You bet i am!!! Today i am new, Nice to Meet You!!!!

A man is born gentle and weak.

At his death he is hard and stiff.

Green plants are tender and filled with sap.

At their death they are withered and dry.

Therefore the stiff and unbending is the disciples of death.

The gentle and yielding is the disciple of life.

Thus an army without flexibility never wins a battle.

A tree that is unbending is easily broken.

The hard and strong will fail.

The soft and weak will overcome.

Lao Tsu

2012 Time to do a Little Shapeshifting

2012-02-09T17:24:00.001-07:00

Well we've all been saying it for months at least, if not years...how life feels like life is going so much faster, how what used to be huge and major deals in our daily world have now become par for the course, how we feel like something is about to break wide open!!!

Welcome to the 'breaking' people--the breaking wide open and wrapping your arms around the notion that a new self is at your doorstep! The energy of this year has long been building, it is a year of CHANGE, of growth and progress, of looking into the new selves we want to become and taking off our blinders of ambivalence and actually embracing the new Us's that have been begging to show up.

'what is she talking about?' you say

So since i spent my wonderful 2 weeks of self-imposed retreat from goal-setting at the start of the year; goals, notions for projects, strong intentions have been bubbling up in my world left and right. They refuse to be ignored. But almost as soon as one idea feels really good, it exhausts itself and a new one becomes The Thing. i might be nursing a tiny crick in my neck from all the "whippin my hair back and forth!" (big props to will and jada for nurturing this song out of their teenage progeny, willow. i'm not sure what i might have labeled my own angst without that tune). and now that i seemed to have dropped right onto the "Highway to the Danger Zone" (the song titles just keep rollin today it would seem) i realize it is not with a little bit of anticipation i keep craning my neck to see what is up ahead.

and deep breathing is required...

i realize i have this pattern of calling all my practices and learning together and embracing a sort of stillness in the eye of the storm, and then shifting into heavy virgo planning mode to see how i can best approach the frenzy, whether it be a tempest in a teapot or the perfect storm. i find myself doing the craning thing just now, what is up ahead, how can i handle it "the right way", what is it i am wanting to accomplish and how do i get it done? this makes for a bit o' the mid-winter madness i'm sure many a groundhog has felt when upon witnessing it's own shadow turned tail and moved back into hibernation for a bit.

well i feel pretty certain i don't want to shift back into hibernation, i also feel like the time isn't quite here for immediate action--and so i practice what i know about the silence--welcoming the change, showing up for myself daily as the next steps present themselves, trusting that my heart and soul are very understanding bedfellows and they won't lead me astray as i, yet again, peel back the layers of who i am to reveal the new, fully, shape-shifted and mewling new babe underneath! Gentle would be good here!

reminiscent of this...And the Mind Stood Still and Sit, Stay...Stay....

Practice does not require perfect

2012-01-15T15:47:00.000-07:00

If the information is new to you, i have been on a new year's quest for the past few weeks...a quest to go without...No plan to make any goals, resolutions and i am actually even shying sort of clear of intentions.

Shocking, unheard of, degenerate...you say?

this could lead to the downfall of society...
So the two weeks are at an end, and i am sort of resisting going back to doing things any other way. i guess i am really loving this whole space in between where no need to categorize or assess my world exists; only a true desire to be actively engaged in the moment i'm in.
here's what i've learned during this experiment...i didn't really sit around on my duff and eat bon bons, in fact i decided to start a sugar cleanse. that's right, you read me right...during my season of in between. i started a new eating plan. "how does that work"? you might ask....and i'll tell you. it's perfectly awesome to take on things i want to do during this time, i just do it without the whole notion that i have a goal to lose a million pounds, earn a million dollars and sell a million copies of a brilliant new bestseller. There is no need to constellate my plan with judgement or assesment, just energize it with action. i did the sugar thing because it feels like it gets in the way of my physical happiness. in all of my stillness and noticing, i recognized some moments where sugar seemed to feed my sense of less than well-being. so i chose to notice myself going without sugar for a bit.

i've spent 6 days so far in that part of the experiement, and on one of them i cheated. that bummed me out, but mostly because i noticed an immediate emotional shift into negatory good buddie! i don't really love that zone anymore, so today, i shifted back to wanting what it feels like in the sugar free zone.

next, i started making some behind the scenes approaches towards building my own website, making the contacts i need, considering what content is relevant, what i might have to share in such a formal way that is worth putting out there. "what the freak!!!" you say, "how the hell is that not making any resolutions? this chick is a total bait and switch master!" no, no, no, here's the deal, it hasn't felt necessary to make a goal that i have a live website by a certain date, with a certain amount of relevant information all live and ready to go. it has felt relevant that i have some things i wanna do, and some things i wanna say and they are begging to get out...in a more formal and clearly designed way than a catch as catch can blog. so i can't ignore that a great way to organize those thoughts, and then perhaps even grown them into some awesome workshops and projects that other people can get involved in, is to find a way to go public with. well whaddya know? in comes the website. all of a sudden it feels a little fun and exciting to eek out a few minutes during my week to put some creative thought into that and maybe a few action steps to back it up.
hmmm, still different from goals, but it feels like a really slippery slope i'm describing doesn't it?

so here's the deal, i'm so far from perfect that i am loving the whole concept of gently, kindly, lovingly letting myself off the hook on that one and putting down that expectation for good. in return, i am really thrilling in the joy of the PRACTICE of my imperfection. it is a daily habit i am starting here...noticing all the things in that day that support my total and complete well-being and finding a way to do a bit of that for the day. i do like that way it feels if i practice that for more than one day in a row, in fact, i am kinda really liking what it feels like to practice on a daily basis...this gets me absolutely nowhere closer to perfection, just a whole lot more actively engaged in living, and i guess that feels pretty good.

The Liminal Realm

2011-12-31T17:12:00.003-07:00

So who remembers the seinfeld where george's dad invents a new "christmas" holiday called "festivus" and hauls around this strange festivus pole and tries to get everyone to consider it as an option? ok, so i'm not going to start carrying around a new kind of tree (although strangely enough i did invent a newish tree kinda thing this year, maybe that was the start of this notion?--see my last post for "new tree expose' ") But i am formally proposing a new holiday type thingy for your consideration...

i mean, what is new year's really about anyway, right?

every year we all jump on the bandwagon of setting new resolutions, and according to Oprah's experts, we go about falling off that wagon approx. 6 weeks later...that's it, just 6 weeks to change your life every year and then it's just too damn late for a whole notha 10.5 months.

so i'm protesting new year's this year...no more resolutions, no more starting over, no more clanging pots and pans to welcome in a celebration of all things failed 6 short weeks from now.

here's how i look at it? what the hell were we thinking? if you come at this from a straight seasonal approach, we are within a week(ok a tiny bit more) of the shortest day of the year, it's freezing cold out (at least in my neck of the woods), the earth is lying fallow, chilled to the bone while all the seeds planted from the mulching upturning of earth in the fall are just waiting underground, gestating in their seed juice, knowing inherently what they are called to do, but also smart enough to answer the call when the season is right.

this in between time, the space where the world is taking a deep resting breath, where the silence of snow wrapping much of the northern hemisphere( ok at least it is cold enough for it, can't account for lack of moisture in the stratosphere...that's a whole 'nother discussion about nourishing and resources for yet another metaphorgasmic chat at another time) is a chill enough blanket; this is a time when our own energetic rhythms are calling for the feeding that comes from a deep subconscious sleep, when all the 'amniotic' hubris of self-creation gently rocks our souls in what ma in her nightshirt and pa in his cap lovingly refer to as....' a long winter's nap'! So what's all that clatter on the rooftop about? what is that magical dream of eight tiny reindeer and the fat man in red and white(btw the universal colors of the red cross, the suggestion of greater causes of heart at work in the world, opening heart and coming to our aid)...hmmmm, perhaps the mystic appearance of our own willingness to suspend the disbelief of the 5 senses we know in our physical realm might not be the only sense we have.
Perhaps this winter's nap is an invitation in THE LIMINAL REALM? well i'm no genius, interpreter of all things mystic and magical in the world, but i have had enough 6 week cycles of goal and release, that i am eager to seek for a deeper meaning in what the new year might bring.
So here's what i'm proposing...
how 'bout the fortnight from new year's eve straight on through to jan. 14th become our own celebration of the "Liminal Realm"; a true Hol(y)days celebration and exploration of the internal spirit planted deeply within each of us?
How about giving this physical realm a break from all these goals set and broken, timing and germination thwarted to peek our heads out of the earth long before the seed is set to sprout? what if instead we honored the planting? what if we went within, with great stillness began to observe what great intentions we have been calling in since the days of high summer, light and harvest? how cool would that be to allow that GREAT NOTHINGNESS OF EXPLORATION, allowing the seeping in of the mist of spirit at all the edges to inform our waking senses of just what might be at play deep within the earth.

How would those 14 days look? maybe lot's of time choosing not to go to one more party, do all the returns that are so pressing, come up with a whole new Franklin Planner full of next year's plan....perhaps in the long silence, that place of allowing; a prayer for inspiration might actually create enough space that from the deepest of liminal spaces, where belief and disbelief get right on out of the way, will emerge a sense of knowing just what is being created, germinated, sprouted, nourished deep within our hearts and beings, waiting only to emerge when once it's named and whispered into the ethers...those forces of spirit hear the call and respond with the force of the angels (well, 'cause that's who is actually listening, on our side, willing to jump into action when a prayer for assistance is spoken, muttered, shrieked, signed and heck...even karaoke style sung into the cosmos!)

so consider this the formal LIMINAL HOLIDAY MOVEMENT...2 whole weeks to allow our winter's nap to really take root, speak to our hearts from a deep realm, open our spirit to what feels really important and becomes the joyful thing we resolve, intend, open up to all year long, in each little and big moment of expression, connection loving and growth into which we choose to breathe!!!! this is what feels like it might truly be a real expression of self in the Holiest way of all during this Hol(y)day season. What's the hurry anyway? why be so attached to only what you resolve the last night of the calendar year? How about that just being being the start of how and what we notice our highest- self stepping forth to claim in each waking moment?

p.s. i think this feels like a really yummy new year's card too, so please consider this the news of my year until you hear otherwise( at least a fortnight!)

love and other lushy stuff,
lama

What Price Perfection?

2011-12-17T13:28:00.002-07:00

So for the past few years at Christmas, every time i go tree shopping or think about what i want it to look like i get this nagging feeling that it isn't actually a "tree" i want at all. The little inner juices of creativity within my have shoved one idea after another into my brain, hoping one of them would somehow see the light of day. Well this year one of them finally did. Instead of a yummy, pine-smelling perfectly shaped charlie brown tree, this is the idea that popped into my head...a light and air filled tree..a full 8 feet tall and packed with all things creative. this baby took me over a week to assemble; that old joke about someone always falling into the christmas tree...well, that definitely happened as one huge and heavy ball broke off at the top and fell crashing all the other ornaments beneath it. (i just took a day off after that, so i wouldn't revert to the the fetal position and begin sucking my thumb).

And i love it, i've been playing all sorts of christmas music and feel like i go floating by it every time i am in the room...this simple bit of creative expression has set up a wonderful spirit of christmas for me...but here's the thing...

what's the deal with waiting years and years to try a fun idea like this? why put so much pressure on myself that it has to be the coolest, most hip and creative idea or it isn't worth attempting? how many delicious, invovled, intricate, exuberant moments of creation have i stifled because "i wasn't ready yet"? well here's what this feels like for me...i am so happy with this gorgeous bit of frippery that adorns my living room, but i am even more happy that some idea of creation got to take a little test run...

So i invited a bunch of sisters, nieces, grandmas and friends to my house tonight to make gingerbread houses. i planned it last year with one particular niece who L.O.V.E. loves to bake, but we never got around to it. the thing is, we wanted to make these "perfect" martha stewart type houses that only have royal icing, a little silver leafing and homemade gingerbread. as the invite list grew, i grew worried that the other girls would not be happy to have such bald houses and would feel somehow bummed that there was more candy to "pretty up the place". i had this inner battle going on inside of me.."no, it's my party, we'll make the kind of houses i want", "i don't see anyone else offering to host such a thing" , "they will see how beautiful these are when we are done and know it was worth it to do it my way" what a funny self i am...really, why do i care how someone else decorates their house? why do i care how much gorgeous frippery they decide to add over every single inch of the house if they like?
Here's what i hope...that in the true spirit of embracing all the powers of creation during this wonderful season of love and light...that i might allow the space for tiny and large creations of my own, that they may be as insanely flawed as ever, but beautiful all the same; and that my delight in this moment will far outweigh the need for perfection and recognize that the effort of creation is what makes me complete.

hmmmm....see how these lessons come around in this blog here Let Go and Let Guy

Teachers, Travelers, Tricksters and Thieves

2011-12-12T17:39:00.002-07:00

ok, i really have written like 3 brilliant blogs in my own mind this past week while driving, really compelling stuff people. and where is all that brilliance when i sit to write? is it too much to ask for a voice command recorder in my car when i say something like..."recorder on, blog post activate"?

so since i haven't gotten that technology installed yet in my "starting to show its age around the edges" vehicle, i must go straight to the source and allow what comes up now to be the thing. and here's the thing, it's about being open to what is...and the beliefs i have about that. i guess this is sort of a Byron Katie question, but with a broader twist. what i have been learning the past few weeks is about the way in general i accept circumstances, results, behaviors in my life as if they were the only thing that is true. I know better than this don't i?

lemme paint a brief picture...Mercury has been in retrograde for that past little bit. for those of you that question this whole astrological influence thing, that's o.k. you just go on questioning. But i challenge you to do it while paying attention to what cycles come through your life. for example, A woman's "moon" cycle rotates every 28 days, the tides as pulled by this gravitational force influence so many aspects of our own lives in their own ebb and flow. and certainly what happens during Mercury retrograde seems to reveal more and more introspective places of examination and shifting.

In general, Mercury rules all means of communication, commerce, education and transportation and people who use their energy in these areas like; writers, spin doctors,teachers, travellers, tricksters and thieves.
And somehow this energy moves into energetic glitches in electronics like phones, cars, computers--something in their operating system seems to go awry.

So why does this seem important to share?
i've found myself all wrapped around my own need to communicate, from just making phone calls in general, to sharing my deepest emotions and feelings in new ways. and during the past month, while this need in me grows to be more clear, transparent, open to connection and loving, by success at these connections has met with some interesting ripples in the process. i find myself circling back around to old ways of doing things, wondering why i'm ending up here again, and then realizing that habit is begging to be let go on a whole new level.

Mercury's retro phase tends to bring unforeseen changes and blockages,

but the aggravation and frustration that many of us experience during these periods

is often due to our own inability to roll with the punches. Is this due to our ego-fixation?

I think all that brilliant drive-time self-writing/ talking has been this subconscious beginning of finding a way to iron out the wrinkles. It may be that some of those wrinkles are just perfect to learn to navigate around, and it may be that when this time of retrograde arises it is an offering. Opening an energetic space to restructure how we think things "should be", how attached we are to our belief about the way a thing must look.

i like to think that with all these teachers, travelers, tricksters and thieves being triggered, it's no wonder i find my own face in each of these characterizations and that each demands its moment in the sun, with the light of exploration revealing what has been kept in the shadow until that moment. and so, gentle, gentle, gentle...be kind to self, love what comes up--allow it to be the thing!

Funny how this introspection cycles, see what other Decembers have brought up in me here

Now is the WINTER of our discontent...oh good winter, welcome with your blankets of stillness and white

2011-11-27T16:38:00.001-07:00

art by Lisa Van Sand

Did you know this line means that we are in the winter timing of all things "ebb" that keep getting in our face? (at least to me it does) As i come up on the end of this year, i am starting to do a year end sum up in my head of where i've been and where i'm going to. Lots of moments and situations feel challenging in my life. sometimes challenge can have a negative underpinning, but i'm gratefully putting on this conscious choice of knowing that the things that show up in my life to challenge me are just what i've been asking for. Only sometimes, i'm not so great at matching up the challenge to the actual prayer i've uttered on its behalf.

for example...

Prayer/intention/ internal plea when i'm feeling all heavenly and nonplussed...

"Please let me be conscious of my own issues, don't let them become burdens for other people to deal with, please let me recognize them and shift within to allow a space for growth, maturing and love..."

sounds good doesn't it, can't you just picture a prayer like that? even setting such a lovely intention feels all yummy and pure from the inside...and then what happens....

my take on the resulting 'opportunity to gain this strength i've phrased oh so eloquently'...

i park my car in the wrong place because i'm in a hurry to do someone else what feels like a gargantuan favor and they've already way overstepped what feels like appropriate levels of taking advantage...and my car gets towed, my tire goes flat, i end up in the biggest fight i've had in a year because of it...

Now when i was all at peace and ommmming the crap out of that loving intention, i never knew i was asking for such a shakedown to get over my little ways of not clearly stating my boundaries, not lovingly holding my own space and letting someone else take on the consequences for their own learning..., and hey, why would i ever consciously think to shoulder someone Else's "prayer" of learning? So i can lovingly give back what isn't mine to handle, learn or take on...but to feel good about it, i am learning that i must do it with awake eyes, not angry shrugs. When i can hand back a big packet of learning without getting my ego in the way...my heart opens with huge ease, my sense of tranquility and peace on earth become the mainstay rather than the occasional visitor and i am happy.

My shit may not be all worked out, but wow, it's way better mucking my own stables than somebody Else's. (sorry hope i didn't lose ya in the mixed metaphor journey, it's just that more than anything these pages are for my ego to catch up with what my soul has been shouting for eons--sometimes you just gotta work this shit out on paper!) So at last, here i am with some eyes wide open, seeing how life is answering these kind of prayers left and right, how i can get really clear with my own prayers and intention and lessons become so much more welcome and gentle, and how with that awake learning, my discontent is all kindsa wintered out!!!

and my heart is open to the Spring!

which came first...jazz music or feelin' jazzy?

2011-11-05T13:48:00.002-06:00

i'm just wondering who invented the word jazz? was it a bunch of musicians who were just scattin' along and thought it sounded just like it sounded...an onomatopoeia for the muzic, so they called it jazz? or did the word exist as a feeling and the music couldn't help but add it's much more than two cent's worth?
it's just that i'm sitting in this completely wonderful, totally packed and kinda grungy coffee house on a saturday afternoon and a wonderful jazz combo of old folks is just going to town. the room is bubbling up with all kinds of wonderful conversations, people meeting eachother, many sitting alone with their computers and the craziest melange of chairs, hard and soft, old and new. seriously, there are at 40-50 people encroaching all over their personal bubbles of space because this music is going and snow is fresh outside, winter is upon us and we want to snuggle indoors.

i ask you starbucks, barnes & noble, corporations far and wide...do you truly want to cut off the spontaneous human element that much? take away the soft chairs so people can't linger and connect? thoroughly regulate just how much time equals your one cup of coffee's worth sitting in our indoors space? or how about this...provide a product, space to gather, creative offering that draws people in because it is inviting, encouraging and engaging? those people come, not because there is a reverse psychology appeal between supply and demand...we might not have enough space for you to stay long, but you can at least try to hang out for a minute; but because the space to be open, connecting and organically taking root and growing always has room for you. it is from this space that true abundance and success begins!

perhaps this is why jazz is the perfect american music...it allows the space for collaboration, room to grow, connect, jump in or fall out according to harmony and dischordance? so enough with those corporporations that limit me in this way, that's just plain anti american!!! and totally un Jazzy!!!!

This is a prayer for the open hearted...

2011-10-05T10:22:00.001-06:00

This prayer goes out in images, no words attached. just an open heart and spirit, praying for the essence of the image. The other day i sat down to blog and all i could add was the above pictures; not for some mechanical or formatting reason, but because it was all i had to say. i didn't even know what it meant.

So i've taken a few days to sit with and realize
there is often no reason to put words to expression,
no call for reason from form.
Sometimes simple expression is the meaning
and words just detract from what is being born.

what a stretch for the expresser in me, my medium is words;
how they sound together, or when juxtaposed against another.
the picture drawn from word's expression invites the mind,
the memory to launch the journey from which they're tethered.
and so the leap, with no words to support,
trusting that image will strengthen the cord.
when close in falling, almost touching the ground,
the vision that lifts us is what turns it around.

Let me say it a second time...are the voices inside worth getting out?

2011-09-22T10:14:00.000-06:00

People you should see the pages of writing i have that aren't ever going to make it to this blog. i sit down to write, pour some shit out...and it all feels too raw and personal to share here. i'm not sure how that feels to you. how vulnerable does just one seeker need to get in public? but that's the whole idea right? or else why would i be writing this silly old blog anyway...so here goes my new attempt to share a bit o' the lama with y'all today:)

Let's get real,


the two minds of the lama...she who talks the loudest?

i've had a lot of people share with me that i speak and write very eloquently...in fact, some have gone so far as to say it's intimidating. believe me folks, i don't share what i write or those 'compliments' in an attempt to garner support for the silky stylings of the lama fan club. mostly i just pour stuff out, but what i am realizing is that the process of writing for me is one of synthesis...it isn't just stream of consciousness, but more assimilation. a way for my brain to get up to speed with what has been on runaway for however long and is begging for a look to be taken at it.

Here's the conflict,
how do i take a look with my heart instead of just making the space for my brain to get involved? i do this review thing, this synthesis or assimilation, and i think it's part of an elaborate ruse for my ego to settle back into the fiction that it's in charge. if my brain gets to wrap itself around all the thoughts and emotions that i am experiencing, then it gets to harness and dictate what choices/actions i will make next. so there's the rub...i'm on this hugantic quest to get the fuck out of my ego brain and writing seems to put me right back there. (see if i use the f word here, you can tell i'm really fed up with this bit and while you might be offended you also might get on board and relate with how high my emotional frustration is...good girl ego felt the need to explain that one, brainy ego felt the need to qualify for good girl so she doesn't seem stupid...well fuck, anyone else want to chime in?)

so what's the goal...well according to my laughing yogini, there is no goal, there is only now...so that's what i got for today.

serendipity

2011-07-03T17:15:00.000-06:00

have i used that one before?
or more aptly asked, has it used me? the moments in between the arrivals and departures--the tiny bits that happen when waiting for the other shoe to drop-- have quite a way of showing up to teach me such big stuff...i find these synchronistic moments so deeply meaningful that i sometimes end up drinking too much from that cup and not simply tasting what is right in front of me.

This week i departed my full-time "employment" of fundraising and service/learning expedition work to "employ" myself a little closer to home. i've spent the past three years working for a cause based primarily in Brazil, and while it was so clearly the perfect place for me to be doing my thing during that time, it is so clearly now not! The clarity i am now seeking is a little more understanding on what my "thing" is and how i do it exactly. i talk a good game with great profundity, but can i match that in my walk?

i like the question, i guess i am willing to embrace being in that question for the time being..to notice my own willingness to show up in each moment, knowing that each one is some form of an answer to prayer. am i clever enough to recognize that answer, see how i have called in the moment to teach or gift me with deeper clarity on my own path.

These are the moments of serendipity, the answers to prayer, the funny little ways that life has of working itself out, and if i can remain open to delving into those moments, sharing with vulnerability my own experience from that place...i just might stand a chance of entering full-time into the real occupation of life...now that is worth the gamble isn't it?

life has a way of seeping in at the edges eh?

I'm a Magic Pixie/Storyteller, What are you?

2011-03-03T17:06:00.000-07:00

This winter has truly been a space of ebb and moving in fallow land to discover what might be growing just under the surface. For me this has been a therapeutic time of stillness, deep soil regeneration and wondering. i am in wonderment at how life continually blesses me with challenges and awakenings that coax my timid footsteps into clearer paths. i wanted to share just a bit of that learning, reaching out in connection and a willingness to be seen.

i meet with a group every couple of weeks that does some deep work/play on fundamental energy concepts of spirit and intuition. recently our guide asked in general "what are your intuitive gifts?" it's sometimes hard to just come right out and say it isn't it? or maybe that's just me. and sometimes i don't even have a clue what my gifts are. in that moment i wasn't interested in hiding my gifts, but claiming them--so i joined in by saying "i'm a storyteller". she said, "great, will you present to us next week?" i'm sure you can imagine my own shock and no meagre dismay at having to move from saying a single word about myself into actually turning on this so-called gift in front of a group that i consider to be quite gifted. What was i thinking, why did i raise my hand, how could i have dared?

the next week class was canceled, i had a reprieve i thought. but as time stretched out, my little ole brain got in the middle of things and started to second guess me all over the place. Several times i had to consciously switch off that chatter to allow the deeper knowing in me a place to work. and work it did...right alongside the brain that spent a long sick-day in bed, several tearjerking sessions evaluating my own worth and one or two silly, crazy arguments with those i love. i never even spotted one of the causes for all this turmoil was the shifting. all through the winter, so many things germinating inside that were just dying (or in this case LIVING) to get out.

when the evening came i was ready, that means i had calmed my tired mind and emptied it of expectation. (i did spend some funny moments making sure my house was clean, the good smelling candles were lit and i had a huge stack of possible props at hand--ahhh the busywork) when called upon i spent a few minutes in my own "small story"; sharing what felt like vulnerable details of my own earth experience and a desire to connect even in that place. But then i shifted in the "grand and mythic tale"--this always seems a suit much more fulfilling to wear. without having a plan, just the intention to invite story in, in the best way it would serve the moment, i opened my storybook and went. someone volunteered to have their story told, drew from a tray of archetypal objects (or just fun sand tray items really collected on my own journey through story) and off we went; weaving a story together that began in his own tiniest of places and ended in the biggest vision he could see of himself. (his words, not mine)

and then there was silence, how did that happen, what did i say, was that really real or am i just dreaming? the roaring silence filled my ears with the joy of filling space with a shared spirit--as i shared my own gifts, spirit raced in to fill me up, expand my vision and guide my tale; and those loving wonderful spirits in the room met me there, so willing and joyful to witness the journey.

I share this story as an invitation, when we share our vulnerable hearts with the courage to be seen, there is a gift created in that moment; a gift of the mythic character we each are being named and seen and celebrated. this is no small gift and it encourages the re-gifting by it's very nature. i thank you for so gently witnessing my own story and always offer that gift in return.

I saw this lovely little talk on TED recently that actually prompted me to write this up and share with more than my own small group that evening--i offer it as a tasty morsel of delightful insight and learning into our own magic pixie places:) Magic Pixie/Storyteller...a little TED piece about that gift

and ebb...

2011-02-22T13:30:00.000-07:00

A major obstacle to creativity is wanting to be in the peak season of growth and generation at all times . . . but if we see the soul’s journey as cyclical, like the seasons. . . then we can accept the reality that periods of despair or fallowness are like winter – a resting time that offers us a period of creative hibernation, purification, and regeneration that prepare us for the births of spring.
-Linda Leonard, from Call to Create : Celebrating Acts of Imagination

6 Degrees of Indra's Net

2010-10-24T13:56:00.000-06:00

Sometimes i think if i were a composer and notes were words it might be easier to sit at the piano to write my thoughts; I would just be the music inside pouring onto the page. With that in mind' i sing this little tune...

It's been hard to write this month; the music is a little dissonant and i feel sort of in the "thick of the trees", but it's in the writing that the song streams again and i get a better view of the "forest". Life never ceases to amaze me with how intricately its purposes weave through all our many connections. How the 6 degrees of separation between one person i know and another are not just accidental degrees and when Indra's net of connectivity reveals how much we each are a part of the ONE. the line in the pattern of the weave that connects me from one to another always tempts me to pick through the intricate design;

how the melody flows from one person to another; one experience to the next; always building on those chords and making the refrain that much more sweet?

This week I went to an earthshaking, heart-beating, drumming, healing night of greatness. The drummer who began our beat, Toby Christensen (introduced to me by a friend from home), told the group of his own learning in a time spent travelling and exploring his gift with a woman from the West African Dagara tribe. The further he got into his story, rhythms and beats i realized he was speaking of one of my dearest teachers in 9 Gates Mystery School.

Sobonfu Some

As Toby began our night of drumming, i set my intention for a rhythmic prayer of healing and with this layer of meaning and relationship i joined in the soul-clarifying work of the drum for myself and so many in my circle-- lessons i recognized from my own study with Sobonfu.

This night of drumming stands out as a pivotal moment between the struggle for understanding i have felt in the past few weeks and the guidance this struggle gives as i prepare to return for another journey in my mystery school training.

in preparation for this journey, I've been clearing through the pressing work on my desk. this week marked the beginning of our year end campaign for donations, and i began a series of personal calls with major donors. my deepest desire in these connections is to create a bridge between the heartgiving, passion building spaces of my donors to the needs and deep openings of my programs and their participants--a way to invite their own hearts' song by connecting through spirit and giving. even as i write this part i start to laugh because the day i sat down to make these calls i lost my voice. along with a strong cold that i have this week, came pretty intense laryngitis and i wasn't able to make a single call. So i started writing e-mails, opening deeply to spirit and the words i felt guided to write to these donors. really simple e-mails, but at the end of a few days of this process i realized what a strong gift the power this listening provides. when in full voice, i typically find myself ready with some seemingly brilliant thought to share or guidance to offer...and through this week learned, on a much more present and demanding note, the power of listening intently with my heart and getting out of the thinking space of my brain.(a brain/ego set upon producing a clever bit of info or string of words)

Now as i sense the beat calling in the "tribe" of 9 gates--those souls who still unknown to eachother are already members of a deeply heart-bound tribe--i feel so blessed for the very real lesson of listening. Returning with the intention of service i am so grateful to learn yet again how to get out of the way of old physical patterns which demand attention for the conversational brilliance of an egoic chatterbox, and opening to a deeper space of listening; opening to the opportunity of being of service, answering a request of need, recognizing the wisdom of spirit as it calls for what it needs and i make myself available to answer that call--truly both for myself and others.

Ah the space here of a sounding board, where words truly do become a rythmic song and all the coincidental and synchronistic moments of learning reveal their melodic weave.

Gifts of the Desert

2010-10-03T12:48:00.009-06:00

I feel quite certain Edward Abbey said something moving and brilliant about the gifts the desert freely gives; perhaps something like

how the sun and carrion scour our bones exposing a story our ivory is there to tell,

or maybe

the lavender hued shadows at dusk tempt us to look with the vision of owl, bat or mischievous coyote into the mystery where no sun's light casts our story into obvious relief.

I invite you to seek out your favorite quote about these gifts(or write your own) and insert it here in your thoughts...(feel free to share if you are so inclined) for only you know exactly what mood and gift this moment asks to share with you.

this morning as i cleaned through a stack of papers in my room that clamor from somewhere deep within their pile "herein lies all the wisdom, all the answers, don't cast us away", but i'm never quite sure what to do with--i found the following birthday gift emerging to be heard and read and held, and it felt the perfect way to honor the turning of the season from birthday to autumn, from introspection to pruning and preparing for hibernation whence seeds germinated begin their coiling stretch in DNA code long since buried that ignites us all--and so i share it with you in joyful celebration of its expression.

from tessa at my birthday

Desert sun, radiant watch

the eye amidst the grass.

Stretching forth, the gnarled branch.

It holds the last rich seed.

An ancient crane, its song a sacred melody to the woman's bone.

The shadow of the red cliffs cradles,

ever holding, ever strength.

And high above,

sent from the wind,

a silhouette that calls you round.

A message from yourself.

You've seen its face and feel the stone.

The Place.

--in reaction,
a heart filled with tearful blessedness,
hearing the crane's cry, seeing the woman's bone
cradled deeply in red cliff's shadow
a message from self--this shadow stalks me,
warrior, shaman, sage
silhouette ever with me, silently willing and waiting to be heard
i am blessed and grateful indeed.

Co-creators all!

2010-09-26T16:30:00.002-06:00

'WTF'..she asks herself when waking with the craziest migraine that ever snuck up on a sleepy sunday morning!

moments of wondering what the hell my spirit is up to--i think every now and then it steps up to test the things i say to see if i really mean what i am asking for...as in

"Allow myself to introduce myself"

1. loving the hiking thing and having the most recurring hamstring tightness ever

2. experiencing an incredible new lightness of being and hitting the top of the scales

3. embracing the challenge and thrill of offering spiritual guidance and releasing my own attachment to having any clue how to guide myownself

4. opening my heart to deeper loving and feeling dark moments of pure alone

5. reveling in the self-discovery that writing brings and complete stream of consciousness writer's block

(i think there are many, many more of these i could identify, but it feels like empowering the grip of the self in me that laughably believes it is in charge of figuring things out)

so here it is for today, life isn't what i make of it...i sum it up into all these neat little boxes all the time, simple ways my brain can analyze and synthesize just what is happening in my world. but if my world were up to the very finite reaches of my own brain, my life would be limited indeed. so the true beauty here of all the hard stops and face-plants is learning to trust the amazing co-creator i am with the universe and know that as i call a way of being into my world, the very things to help me get that are what shows up.

here is the gift of this moment of awareness

there is an eye(I) within that does not require visual confirmation, it yields and flows as harmonics emerge. there is no struggle for clarity and making sense--these are true functions of a limited vision; rather there is a Self that resonates in the equilibrium of the Soul awakening to its own return.
It is within the I(eye) of this hurricane that the deepest stillness resides.