On Christmas Day

There is a new quality of exchange – conversation with the You/I interface – I aspire towards in 2019. It took writing the following, after a period of silence, then more silence still before the aha of this wish made itself known. I am a sucker for voluntary evolution and recognize this can glutton out to a proportion that kills the original pure impulse to grow. This makes for a lot of silence, in my experience, anyway. Watching children grow just in the physical sense,, there is often a movement out before shooting up. Both seem necessary. The movement up is silence, while the out engages the mouth – eating. Sometimes illness will proceed a growth spurt. So in this vein, I write now. What follows these words was written days ago and I offer it here as a way of paving the ground for the fresh quality of dialogue I envision.

My mentor once told me, years ago, that he writes when he’s sick. I had my understanding of this at the time and already knew enough then to sense that my understanding was incomplete. Naturally time and experience have expanded this understanding. Words are part of creation and in the right hands can point to the Glassblower whose breath we want to be falling back towards. To speak is a sacrifice, in a way, for speech is annihilating of the repose in presence.

I am sick at the moment. It is Christmas day and last night a very rough bridge was traversed. To put it in my teacher’s terms, the night was productive, but left the physical reality of this day difficult. Vulnerable – my word. I do not know whether or not he was speaking of my experience. I do know that when I gave sign of receiving the communication in the way I did, he said a subtle non-sequitur of a yes.

Many bridges have been crossed or burned since my consciousness started to reclaim intentionally fragmented parts of itself. I can often sense when this will happen. But not always, and last night was one of those.

Today all this body wanted to do was rest. And cry. I had been trained to suck it up. And I did, so I could perform the duty of going to the ashram as I said I would do, as I’d been asked to do more often. Not just a duty, for it held hope of company, I mean real company, company with whom one is as if naked, completely understood. And the possibility of play. Humor spawned from this situation is far more palatable than the relentless irony of teaching impressions life within this particular course can deliver.

The two dogs that act as guardians at the ashram barked once, mildly, upon seeing me, then came over in a friendly way to greet me, which I did happily. I came into the dining room and was greeted again – it was a quiet gathering and a discussion was taking place to do with a project. I sat down and took in the atmosphere, then came back to my solar plexus where I hoped to resonate my question, the question I held for the day. A fairly regular practice. My question was not well formed, but had to do with listening.

More specifically, I had been given feedback that I had not yet truly given God the reigns, to put it simply, bluntly. And this is tricky stuff because I am quite confused on the whole God thing in a way I never allowed myself to be before. Yet oddly I feel closer in many ways than ever before. And miraculous beings seem to come into my life letting me know this feeling is not just a figment of my imagination – or rather, any more so than my hands typing on this keyboard.

Without going into the details, which are too subtle to really convey, my effort to give of myself in the assembly failed miserably. My being there was exposed as a lie. I deeply wanted to stay home, alone, to get through the integration of the night’s events.  But I evidently needed to see what I did. With just a few lines that were not obvious, a lot of information was delivered. Experience has taught me to not take for granted what I hear at the ashram, or anywhere now, really. The world is the ashram. Nor is every transaction meaningful to my process in the same way. But my hearing has become more acute – though not yet enough. As is often the case, it was during my ride home, when I broke into tears over my cluelessness, that I came to realize just what had taken place, and the profound compassion behind the action taken. Or this is how the three dimensional tactile hallucination shook down on this day. Like I said, I could be fooling myself.

Everyone else there had their own interpretation of what took place, and viva la difference! I can’t help but marvel over the layers of life cake I see sometimes. Each person will take from the table their meal. Some walk away with a meal of judgment. And perhaps there is judgment present in me to be calling it out. Yet it is time to speak.

I have kept silent for a long time. And likely will again. Like right after this blog post, doubtless.

While I’d been encouraged to visit the ashram more often, obligations to a life of full time employment that feels at the same time to be aligned to my calling and the very mysterious process of awakening has rendered me unable to visit.

I check in with my ashram family periodically for balance, scrutiny. But it has become clear that things are different. It seems I must find a new touchstone. And this gets back to the question in my solar plexus about giving God the reigns. Or call it the One, the Truth. No going outside anymore, what I’m looking for is within.

Within – that’s not really the right way to say it. God, Guru, and Self are one. My relationship to this truth has changed. I have been shown in the most extraordinary and compassionate ways that looking outside of myself is futile..

Nor is it to say that I can’t or don’t learn from others. It is closer to truth for me to say that others are part of what I am and present themselves with messages. The truth of silence, however, rings louder.

It seems to be a part of my course to be ostensibly alone, very alone, for long stretches of time. I mean in ways that the average person can’t fathom. It has just been the life track I took on.While I am at the moment imbalanced – healing open wounds out loud, for Christ’s sake – I accept completely and unconditionally my state of solitude. I write this to myself wholeheartedly right here and now. And to any aspect of my being in the form of a person who might read it.

And speaking of Christ, right here and now – the dude was a magician, it can be safely said. Perhaps he came in with a lot of development, but also developed some potent energy as he lived his life, according to the story that men have told of him through the ages. Got help along the way, so it would seem, during his “lost years”, but definitely was alone. As a matter of fact all the major dudes were alone because you can’t be anything but alone to die before you die. So I’m in good company in my solitude. Not to say I’m anything like any of the major dudes. Nor that I wish to be.

I don’t want to be like any story. I’ve lived around a major dude. And I don’t even want to be like him, because it is impossible.

There was a time, before my brain changed and reorganized perception to provide mirrored reflection 24/7 of the nature of my awareness (too often not a pretty sight) – and many other effects besides – there was a time when I would have seen the day’s events differently. I would have felt insightful and intelligent in my outsider posture. I don’t.

One of my jobs within the context of the school/ashram was to commit to memory and perform a play that contained all and everything about the dharma as it is expressed in this tradition-less tradition. It is a comedy, and repeatedly the audience of practitioners of these ideas have laughed gleefully over some potently accurate demonstrations of how this tradition-less tradition works.

Gabriel, the Archangel, is repeatedly told by the Lord herself in no uncertain terms that Angels don’t evolve. (But they do). The minute Gabriel becomes aware of the extra points on his horns indicating evolution, he’s knocked down. (Extra points on his horns, yes, and there is at least a double entendre here.) Repeatedly the Lord uses resistance training to try to get Gabriel to see something about self-initiated evolution, which is the only form of evolution there is. (With a little help from a Friend)

It is pointless to make a claim in this game. And heaven knows, I have been trying to find a way to play a different one, but for whatever reason some big something or other – Guru, God, or Self – or Whatever – seems to want me to play this one. I don’t get it, really, ‘cause I complain a lot (in the confines of my converted goat shed dwelling place or car) and repeatedly say I quit quite loudly. But it is kind of like when you’re having a baby and you reach that place after hours of labor where you say, okay, that’s it, I’m done, I’m outta here, and the midwife is calmly looks at you and says, “Okay honey, now push.”

The object is to make friends with resisting force – open up to the contractions. (By the way, fear based adaptation is not making friends with resisting force – just sayin’.) Just like developing a muscle, resistance is necessary – that’s the way it is set up.

There’s much I don’t say here, suffice it to say. At one time I would have marveled over how those who seemed to judge me during today’s events can seem to remain convinced of their interpretation of what took place. I marvel at certainty like that now.

I also marvel at the absurdity of some of the lyrics to the Christmas carols played in a store run by a corporation that would, in a heartbeat, (I use the term loosely), tar and feather the hell out of a dude like Jesus if he did his moneychangers thing to the disruption of their bottom line. And people harmonizing their voices is a beautiful thing, but it would be lovelier still to see the results of actual practice eliminating the throw of the first stone of judgment once and for all.

And on that note let me say – I don’t know that what I sensed and saw as judgment really was. I don’t know much of anything but a pretty perpetual state of uncertainty, punctuated by moments of doubt.

But following the flow of tears earlier mentioned, as I drove, there came upon me a strange feeling that I’ll call peace for lack of a better word. And I marveled over (I do a lot of marveling, don’t I?) how the ashram and those in it played their parts perfectly, brilliantly, to give me the experience I had that I daresay was ultimately one of enlightenment. But I’m not making any claims.

It hurts to not be a part of the mix. Yet it is indelibly so. And I know I have provided the fodder and backdrop for similar experiences in others once upon a time, there at the ashram. I cannot assume the role those who provide the constant setting that has become synonymous with the ashram provide. Something happened to my consciousness and it is just plain different now. I will eliminate the possibility of growth as a reason, lest I be tarred and feathered along with Jesus. Growth doesn’t happen in this game. It is only diminishing returns, disappearing extra points on horns. The horn of plenty is actually the horn of nothing. And it is not to say that those in the constant setting don’t change either – I saw that the ashram is the ashram is the ashram, regardless of people inhabiting it. Taking things personally is silly in this respect.

All is as it should be in a setting like the ashram, which must, by the very nature of its intent remain, in a subtle way, the same. And I for some strange reason have the experience of change.

When, out of loneliness I try to fit myself into a square peg, the compassion comes through my mentor – or some unreasonable facsimile thereof – who tirelessly resists my need to be accepted, or verified, or helpful, even with what seem to be the best of my intentions. That’s what it seems like to me anyway. Maybe I’m way off in my interpretation. All that is wanted from me, I’ve been told, is the truth. Today, yet again, I lied. I was called on it, and saved from losing the momentum of last night’s difficult work all in one deft move.

I don’t want to be like my teacher, I can’t be. I’m not that brilliant, I didn’t come in fully conscious as he did.  I don’t want to be a part of any club or school, or ashram, or culture, from one perspective. I need love and family – or that illusion a little longer, admittedly. But I more need and wish to awaken past any story, whether it be my own, or Christ’s or Buddha’s or Mohammed’s or even EJ’s. I like company. But mostly the kind that I can see in the eyes knows the quality of solitude of which I speak. The solitude of freedom, or at least its quest.

Thank God I only celebrate Winter Solstice, for Christ’s sake. But if I did celebrate Christmas, I would wish for all, without tears, the feeling of peace I was given, albeit briefly, on that ride home from the ashram. Peace.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Masked Angel of No (a Work in Progress)

The other day I was at the grocery store getting a few groceries after teaching a flamenco class. I hadn’t eaten much earlier in the day and consequently I was quite hungry. I’d also received a bit of disappointing news regarding income, and the combined stresses played their notes raucously within my empty belly as I stood silent waiting to pay.

Upon first coming to the line I’d noted the rather tall man in front of me – I had received a little electrical jolt I’ve now become accustomed to receiving that lets me know some exchange is about to take place. The clerk ringing people up was new at it, and she seemed flustered. Money….

The morning’s meditation session was suddenly recalled. With this I relaxed my posture and stood still in a deliberate way. The moment I did this the fellow in front of me turned, looked at me with a smile, winked and nodded. He was up next to pay for his items and gave the clerk a large bill that wiped out her drawer. In a voice that matched an appearance not unlike a younger Bill Murray he said, “Aww, now see, I’ve wiped you out of all your change. I hope no one else behind me needs money. And I can’t even change my mind.”

She kept diligently counting as he turned to me brightly, “See how I am? Well, I think we should just burn it all. Put it in a great big pile and burn it. Oh wait – I did that last week. Oh well, one of these days people are going to understand that this is not a “For Profit” world.” He then left, change in hand, with an air that was not unlike a younger Bill Murray.

He was a Masked Angel of No. This is one of many such encounters now that things have shifted for me. The lesson of not for profit or personal benefit comes in countless forms and the depth of cultural conditioning about this revealed in a myriad of ways. It makes for a lot of No in my life – seemingly. A shift of awareness can render these nos as resounding yeses.

No is just the reverse of yes – two sides of the same coin, yet there can be worlds of difference as a consequence of one or the other. We see it in the realm of power and money. No, yes, power and money combine in structures that appear to affect consensus reality. Really it’s all happening at once. But in the dream, there seems to be cause and effect. Power players will play both sides of the yes no coin for the cause of power. We can count only on one thing, any position relying upon these foundations will eventually change.

For example, recently women have been giving voice to events that were once silent due to well established relationships of no, yes, money, and power in the world. I can’t say I trust this trend. It’s the stuff of the same dream. For the moment, I see waking up out of the dream as the only possible way of finding resolution. You don’t wash a wound with blood – while I see the swing of a pendulum as a possible indication of early stirrings, the media trending of this discussion, the snowball effect that reminds me of a marketing tipping point, invites me to keep it at arm’s length. There’s a lot I could say about that 2 word hashtag that’s been going around. Volumes, in fact. But I’m not willing to risk the cost of substantiating the dream.

Waking up can mean remaining silent even as the banners of disclosure are flying high. Because to wake up we are asked to do something with our talents that lie outside the boundaries of time and space. Granted you need some time and space to “do” anything at all. But it is possible to carve out a bit of time and space for “applied spirit”. Some of the carving tools are best honed through silence, some through speech. I pray for knowledge of the difference. But sometimes the knowledge comes in the form of a mistake. A no, if you will… yes?

It took a big no in my life to bring me to the place of seeing that I had unconsciously adopted a set of values that others held within the context of my artistic practices – well, one in particular. These values were not my own. Steeped as I was into the culture of this art form as it exists in my general vicinity, I fell into a sort of hypnosis. I was given the grace of rude and painful awakening and learned many things.

Classified as weird, my intelligence actually found the values and habits of those I unconsciously emulated were, from the perspective of my own true nature, equally weird. Copping to this was uplifting. With the big no I volunteered to take, which was to give up a position I held, a flood of new ideas started to pour through. I found that what I really want to do is produce work that transcends tradition, and above all, the personal. I aspire to produce collective work in which no individual’s name is mentioned, for I have become sick to death of this kind of attention calling that has been accepted as an intrinsic part of artistic creation.

This art form which started in very humble roots has progressed to become a rich person’s sport. The sense of community that I was fortunate enough to have experienced in the early days of my learning has fraction-ed off into subgroups and the hope I once held of growing community has been pretty well dashed. I simply don’t have the financial resources to play the game as it is being played now. And while that hasn’t stopped me in the past, intelligence tells me the way has not been made clear because I was not in alignment with the truth of soul.

From the microcosm of this small art world I’ve seen a little about the impossible challenges we meet in addressing global issues. Asleep in the dark I have mistaken my own shadow for a monster. And others are seeing monster shadows in the dark, mistaking them to be outside of themselves. Genuine communication through this density cannot take place. It takes a special force to bring one to the possibility of seeing this. The Masked Angel of No is an agent of this force. Those who are involved in the dream for furtherance of the dream and hence of sleep will use any opportunity as a means to that end. And masked angels can be surrounding the sleeper at every turn, but he or she will only see them as a substantiation of the dream.

A distinction has been realized between the call of creative force as opposed to the call to be an artist. Creative impulse is everything. Artistic creation is almost like the afterbirth by comparison. Creative impulse is the prompting of the greater force of creation. Much of what happens in a culture that is oppressive to our essential nature opposes the creative impulse and glorifies the personality of the artist and the tradition that offers the functional delusion of continuity. As a consequence of this and the money/power piece of the cultural survival game, we have learned to hunger for greater audiences as artists. We may even have learned to depreciate the practice that keeps us at the ready to host the creative impulse. That practice has a far greater range than drill work. To breathe our creative life signifies the cultivation of that which is essential in us, from which the spark of creation can be ignited. The wellspring of creativity is love the force, not love the hallmark card or meme.

I certainly fell for the trap of the cultural aspirations, anyway. I mistook them to be my own. I lost touch with my practice just relative to myself as a changing, impermanent creation. I started seeing the tool as the end in itself, and stopped cultivating the presence that can use this tool. I stopped listening to what was screaming from my own heart, thereby effectively blocking this force – love – from sprouting a new expression.

There’s a Rumi story about a priest who, before his parishioners, prays very fervently for the less devout, the flagrantly greedy, those who have no concern for others outside of themselves and their own selfish agenda. The congregation finally asked why. “Because they have done me such great favors! I befriend and trust them, they effectively beat me with their behavior, abandon me on the street, and I realize yet again that what they want I do not want. They return me back to my original place of friendship with God.” Praise be to the detractors.

The creative impulse, whether in practice or performance IS what is most vital. This underlines the importance of never doing anything for applause. Don’t be motivated by it. And this has been a fundamental problem, I now see, when dealing with those for whom applause is the point. I’ve made mistakes here. And my biggest mistakes tend to happen around keeping others from suffering as I have suffered. Believing myself to know how to do so – having this quality of arrogance. To unlearn these and other flaws has meant a lot of separation from others. I eat a lot of humble pie.

Yet I am always in the company of a Witness. It is this audience that is most accepting and most demanding at the same time, for it requires of me nothing less nor more than the truth of the given moment. To seek audience approval dishonors this Watcher. The work I do to excel, accept, and hold space to the fullness of the moment, this seems to please my Friend. And there is so much work to be done! But it is this Friendship that I most wish to cultivate. To gather with others and bask in this Friendship together would be exquisite.

The character of Kelly has an extreme history. Yet even through the most difficult of these circumstances she nevertheless sought community. There is still present in me this movement, but ground down to acceptance of what is. Recent events have prompted my speaking here, after silence through storms and slander in a small community where I have breathed my art forms as best as possible for decades. Praise be to the slanderers!

No sales pitch. A self reminder. And a bit of a coming out as a bonafide wierdo with changing creative aspirations that don’t glorify art or artists. An aspirant of invisibility who has become more willing to sacrifice identity in order to better host the creative impulse. A crazy who finds herself increasingly more at home lost than found. Who doesn’t belong to any clubs or cliques, but is in company finer and wilder than she ever could have imagined. Peace.

 

 

 

Egyptian Grace

Self-knowledge is a reductive process. Discovery of what one is not allows one to sit more loosely in the essential emptiness of what is. Like the distillation of essential oils, the vehicle of the plant matter is removed to reveal the essential life within. For the moment, my life distillation process has brought me to the place of Egyptian Grace.

In the midst of great change, it became clear that working in the context of the Perfumerie was no longer right activity. Notions once held about all and everything were revealed at their source to be ill founded, leaving me in a state of thorough bewilderment. It turns out bewilderment is not so bad. It has been a truer medium for real transformation than asserted self-definition.

I delight in creating things people enjoy, find helpful – love. To have presence of creative consciousness means more to me than you can possibly know. Finding this out took some absence of doing, and again, the presence of bewilderment. Then one day I made something – a new cream – that I shared and others liked. A lot, in fact. It was based on a recipe known as Egyptian Magic. The original recipe calls for bee made nutritional components – honey, beeswax, propolis, royal jelly, and bee pollen brought together into an anhydrous cream with olive oil. I modified this and added more nutritive fixed oils such as jojoba, argan, rose hips, pomegranate, and coconut with great results.

As I considered what to call this formulation, Egyptian Grace presented itself. With this came an unfolding vision of the next manifestation of my work with essential oils. Egyptian themed essential oil perfumes formulated along with a few creams and unguents.

I am not alone in the experience of looking forward to the ritual of using my creams. Yes, wonderful skin healing, de-wrinkling, radiant things happen to the skin. But more than that, there is a particular atmosphere, an experience of rightness that goes beyond skin care. And this is my interest over and above any cosmetic result. The aim is not to anoint the dream, but the essential reality behind the dream.

The ancient Egyptians are considered by many to be the true founders of aromatherapy. Hieroglyphs on the walls of temples document hundreds of recipes, many of them variations on Kyphi, a formulation that was used for healing and ritual. (Kyphi will be among the Egyptian Grace offerings) Formulations on papyrus were found at Edfu, where there was a perfume making lab, used by high priests and alchemists for ritual and healing. Magic and healing went together – rightfully so. The ancient Egyptians put a lot of attention on the sense of smell. They knew of the vibratory effects of essential oils, and their ability to raise atmosphere.  Essential oils activate the pineal gland, thus accessing one’s connection to the divine and the ability to transform negative energies.

The ancient Egyptians lived with strong awareness of death as part of the life cycle. They were given perspective that enabled them to see negative energies produced and perpetuated through past trauma could block them from moving forward in their afterlife voyage. They used essential oils as agents for clearing negative energies, as well as elevating their state of being to be in resonant identification with deities.

Those who formulated these precious aromatics necessarily led disciplined lives. It was not only a question of producing an aromatic, but creating an energetic tool for identification with the divine. Cleanliness as next to godliness was quite literal. The work was consuming for not only did precious and costly ingredients have to be collected, but precise knowledge of how they were to be brought together with exact timing was necessary. Some of these formulations could take as long as a full year to prepare.

Egyptian Grace reflects a way of life. A way of life that moves upstream. Realizing consensus reality as a movement away from origin, the aim here is back into the sun – not the one you tan by. These products are produced in this context. The distillation process of self-knowledge has led to greater emphasis of energetic reality. Removal of the dross yields energy that with skill and training is experienced as an increase of attention and greater awareness. This applied to the creation of helpful tools such as aromatic formulations that align with what the ancients knew about energetic reality will produce effects that no commercial perfume or cosmetic can possibly duplicate.

Following is a list of the products thus far. It is developing gradually as I obtain the raw materials needed to perfect formulations I list below as being up on the board.  Help is needed to launch this in earnest and I would love to hear from you if you are interested in investing in some way.  I will eventually crowdfund once things are in place, such as packaging, and a good video.

1. Bee Grace – An anhydrous (no water) cream made of highly nutritive fixed oils combined with all the wonderful things bees give us. It is exceptionally healing, soothing, moisturizing, with antibacterial and detoxifying properties.
2. Essential Grace Cream – A rich moisturizing cream that blends highly nutritive fixed oils (e.g. Rose hips, argan, apricot kernel) with pure essential oils, floral waters and aloe butter. The moisturizing activity in this cream differs from Bee Grace in that floral waters are delivered into the skin, while in Bee Grace, the honey acts as a humectant, attracting moisture from the atmosphere. All of the nutrients are deeply delivered into the skin with the help of fractionated coconut oil. The essential oils include Sandalwood, which has scientifically been shown to activate skin cell healing and regeneration, Somalian Frankincense, Turkish Rose, Geranium, and Jasmine. The healing atmosphere produced is palpable – in fact one client suggested that it can be rubbed over the heart as a means of protection during difficult transactions or while traveling.
3. Essential Wet Cream – A moisturizing toner with nutritive oils that have been married to essential oils and floral waters. The fine mist can be sprayed on before applying Bee Grace or used alone.
4. Oasis Wet Cream – A balancing and healing agent with floral waters, nutritive oils, vegetable glycerin, and essential oils chosen for their ability to correct any imbalances of the skin. It is a great night time application that is light but effective.

The following products are formulations up on the board:

Nu Regenerative Cream – A hydrous formulation that will incorporate the bee nutrition,  nutritive oils including Tamanu, Baobab, Marula, and Rose Hips, essential oils of Sandalwood, Rose, and Frankincense, and targeted bio-actives such as a stabilized form of Vitamin C.

There will be 6 essential oil perfume formulations offered to start – Kyphi, Pharaoh, Queen, Blue Lotus, Water Lily, and Ra-Re Sol, a formula with Somalian Frankincense and Myrrh. Eventually formulations will be made specifically for massage and anointing. I will also continue to offer custom blended perfumes but with open emphasis on producing agents of transformation and transcendence. It is high time Grace comes out of the consensus closet.

 

Some Notes on Effacement

The glory of an impeccable moment alone is sacrificed here for the sake of beauty shared. This photograph represents a moment when the course of my life on this day brought me to a silence that was not the silence of a dog eating a carcass, or lack of words. A silence of what is. A silence of being breathed.

Never mind the perfection of this moment in the symphony of the day, which was more Stravinsky than Bach. My head was lifted by the Breather to witness this. A purring cat named Spot I was busy petting had nudged me out of the story line enough to allow. I was astonished at the beauty. It was a love letter. They are all around me, those ambassadors from absence imploring me to leave for home. Sometimes as a bird song, or taking on the form of an absurdity, objects that seem to defy gravity, or sounds with no sensible origin. Sometimes it is much more direct. This seemed like one such private moment.

Often I can’t bear the beauty alone. I have to share it even when I suspect it is not the right thing to do. I am guilty of casting pearls before swine. And being swine before pearls.  Yet right/wrong thinking is useless. I have seen that the only possible way through is in self effacement – and I write this in that spirit. Understand that the beauty of this photograph is tainted, it reflects a cast shadow – my own.

Self-effacement has traditionally been thought of as a means to transcend the body and its habits into the realm of spirit. It is a terrible thing to witness, when conditions are ripe for it, how one has been eating clay when light and water and real substance is so constantly offered. How one has interpreted kindness as maleficence and maleficence as kindness because of the sickness embraced as part of the illusion of time and bodies and stories, all of which are meant to wash us clear to absence. Hello, I must be going.

But the fact that some traditions have a history of torture chambers in the name of their particular brand of self-effacement as they interpret it from a source they may be far away from gives it a bad name. Effacement can be thought of in birthing terms. The cervix becomes effaced, thinning in preparation for the baby’s exit. The new moment of creation from absence to presence comes into being using me, you, and your unspecified pet as a vehicle. The thinner the medium the better. In this way even the proverbial bear shitting in the woods can be sacred.

How does self-effacement work practically in the birthing perspective? It often takes on the form of silence. I will give voice to yet another silent moment here, now that it has sufficiently passed to offer an example.

I was talking to someone that I’d just paid a debt off to. The conversation was off the topic of the debt, talking about my Flamenco classes and the upgrade I needed to make in music for them. I said that first I had to pay off my auto repairs. It was said lightly, as a note of what I wanted to do for my class. In a particular tone of voice that spoke more than the words he said, “Like everyone else.” These three words felt loaded with his personal suffering.

This person had gone on two vacations over the course of two or three months, to his time share rental, smiled through a newly crowned tooth, eats meals of meat in a house he owns on an almost daily basis, had just funded two parties and purchased a major luxury appliance. By contrast, I make many meals of canned organic beans I buy for 99 cents at the Grocery Outlet. Plantains I get two for a dollar. Eating is often painful because a tooth I have that anchors a bridge is rotten, has been for years and needs to be extracted, but I can’t afford it. So I use oil pulls to handle the toxicity quite successfully. Vacation is a foreign word. I traveled to the Bay area a couple of years ago when I was graciously given the opportunity to study Flamenco with a great dancer. My parties consist of buying a piece of fish from the health food store when I get some extra cash, and if I am house/cat sitting, sharing a bit of it with my friend Spot.

I am given the grace of many things. Presently I am in a beautiful environment as you can see from the photograph. The things I do to earn money are to my aesthetic. I have two nice rooms to live and work in. My friends help out enormously because despite my simple life, and my constant efforts, ends don’t quite meet.

But in that moment I felt such a – vibe – coming through those few words, I have to admit. A vibe of consumerism which carries with it the potential for a particular kind of self pity. With all this man has, still he had to use the moment to express what he did. I assume responsibility for feeling what I did. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was in that moment to simply dismiss it and move on to a better topic. Once alone, I processed the exchange. There is a feeling of unfairness that must be overcome in order to be true to myself. I had to self-efface to a place beyond this feeling. Because my life is as it is. I have done so much excavation work and followed disciplines in an effort to change the story line – until I realized that changing the story line was not the thing to do.

With some effort I was able to see that I don’t need or want the same things. A shift has happened to me that shows me I don’t want what I once thought I wanted. My heart is in love, but I don’t have a name for what it is in love with. It makes my life, that is, the story line, quite miserable often. When I seek satisfactions it is like I am dead and trying to live in a body that I can no longer claim as my own. Even things that I once considered refined have been exposed as coarse. Whatever the beloved gives me, that is what I can have. And trying to explain the subtleties of this – and its all subtleties, is next to impossible.

My friend is a good guy and leads a different life. The reductive life does not speak the same language as that of consumerism. Judgmental thinking is futile and just in this little event we can see how difficult it is to conceive of what it would take to know world peace. I look to self-effacement as a possible way through. And silence was the way in that moment. It could be that another moment of self-effacement would demand my speech. One of the lessons I am repeatedly given from different angles is that I am not my preferences. This means that even though I may prefer to speak or not speak, that preference does not necessarily indicate alignment with the truth of what is at any given moment.

So much of our conditioning is geared towards consumption and accumulation. And being the alpha of the situation. What we really want in our hearts is not consumable. It has more to do with diminishing returns. Well, that seems to be the case if you are what Rumi called a Lover, and I don’t have a better word for it. But it is this kind of  accumulating conditioning that creates rules and systems one applies toward getting something wanted, even reward in Heaven. The thing about Lovers is that they are considered alive to the degree they can die.

Effacement is a thinning out process, it allows birth by getting out of its way. Birth and death bear a definite relationship, don’t you agree? The veil between worlds is thinned then parted for entry or exit and unless you are made of stone, this can be felt. One can create conditions that might be more or less helpful to the process of effacement, but the minute we move into a right/wrong thing a shadow is cast. This is the stuff out of which war, spiritual torture chambers, and the shopping mall is made.

I know of someone who accumulates all kinds of food processing appliances upon embarking on a new project of weight loss. They lose money to gain things to help them lose weight that they gain stressing over the money they lose. But this person will not sacrifice their own story, will not do the self-effacing work – that is, will not open up to reveal a new self by getting to the fundamental issue behind the consumption and control. I see this because I have been guilty of consumerism of clothes and decorations all designed to keep me from looking at what I have despised about myself. We are conditioned to reach for more over the true solution of choosing less.

The diminishing process has the constancy of change. That’s why rules and systems are useless, for the most part. Another small example – I caught myself while driving in a thought loop of worry over my finances. No surprise here. I then sought to remedy this by reciting a gratitude list. A thing that has worked for me in the past. To this the Beloved responded with mockery and disdain. I took the cue and saw how I was using gratitude as a trick to obtain a state that I felt was righteous. The habit had presented itself to seek the right way of thinking to get at “the Secret” of manifestation of things – money, comfort, security. I forgot to be. It is not about fixing the story. Its about authenticity in being, apart from story line and conditions.

The effacement of a Lover has a language and that language is communicated through mirrors. I see my own shadow in the witnessing of others. In self-effacement one’s mirror gets polished. And in this polishing, one learns the language of mirrors.

I don’t say as much as I used to. Still, its often too much. It is rare for me to not feel as though I am in a foreign country where I don’t know the language very well. I used to be quite articulate, and now I mostly feel like a walking avalanche. I have a lot of learning to do about the language of mirrors – and silence. But sometimes its just too beautiful to bear alone. And sometimes in my own kind of greed I have to capture a moment and share it, perhaps avoiding an intimacy of stillness and silence that I can’t bear yet. This was such a moment.This too shall pass.

The Persistence of Flowers (Notes on Awakening)

Showing this work in progress is no simple matter. All manner of consideration looms up at me and yet underlying, there is a simplicity that I want to cultivate and grow before I no longer have this body. The simplicity of a child who likes something and wants to share it. But truth be known, this enters the realm of the complex because for me there never was a simple time.

As an infant, throughout my childhood and adolescence, I underwent experimentation that one might associate with Nazism. Strange but, if memory serves, true – those who were responsible for overseeing the kind of experimentation and unimaginable abuse experienced were Nazi scientists who continued their experiments after WWII right here, in Amerika. As far as I’m concerned this country has never been the land of the free.

True freedom is a state of being that is sourced within, not without. It certainly helps to have the right conditions for the cultivation of freedom, and what this country purports to be would seem to fit the bill. But if you look at what we collectively have done with our “freedom” it raises questions. We are enslaved to habits of living that perpetuate hypnosis – from football to Good Morning America. Society has unconsciously trained us how to feel, what to wear, how to heal (drugs and retail therapy), what to want, what to eat, how to react, what to do – ideas of right living that support mass consumerism and the resulting imbalances that have made for the turbulence we now face. We have been taught that the pursuit of happiness means going after more things of hypnosis, a hypnosis that by its very nature is designed to enslave us miserably.

It is now, in the wake of long held back memory, memory that was blacked out intentionally under the effects of drugs, hypnosis, shock and threat training, and as a means of survival, that simplicity becomes a genuine possibility for me. That said, let me make something clear. While memory awakened reveals a thoroughly destroyed childhood and an apparent absence of human compassion, it simultaneously exposes an equally profound presence of “something” benevolent that held me throughout. Whatever this agency of benevolence, it remains present with me now, in my awakening. And it demands of me activity of freedom, presenting in full blown three and sometimes four dimensional simulation the absurdity of what I have come to accept as real about myself and my world out of sleep. Whatever this agency is, it is not without humor. In fact humor is a hallmark. Brilliant sight gags and puns with psychic guns mercilessly destroy any internal drama bubbles formed around the secret I didn’t know I was keeping.

The story of what happened is not the point. I speak it to free it. And hopefully to awaken you just a little bit. It ain’t no big thang. Certainly not in the eyes of those agents of benevolence of which I speak. Soft, pink, and fluffy does not describe this kind of – love – for lack of a better word – that will do everything in its vast capability to see to it that I do not get attached to any form of its expression. Or my own expression, for that matter.

But I digress. For the moment, being and speaking as a work in progress is the thing I am exploring. A work in progress is in one sense, without fixed identity. And what is it to be free but to be selfless? Not bound to or by identity. The benevolent force needs the absence of identity in order to have the space to come through. It is BIG, too big for identity. At least to my experience. My history creates quite a compelling story, and even speaks to the strength of spirit – a great human interest piece. But it limits me to an identity that bears the weight of that history. The idea, from what my benevolent friends seem to be communicating, is to let go completely of anything that binds me to identity and yet maintain an ability to function. You gotta see what you are holding onto first. Simple, not easy. I confess I never knew how much I secretly thought enlightenment was like a plush toy until awakening got this vacuously real.

Tomorrow, if there is such a thing, I may look at this series of moments spent here processing words and wonder how I might have come to think this was a good idea. It will be obvious I have let go completely when I no longer need to even mention the past. I’m not there – here – yet. Nevertheless, I do have something I want to share. Simply, delightedly.

This art work in progress is called “The Persistence of Flowers”. I have surprises planned for this piece, though experience, particularly creative experience, never seems to go as planned. Nevertheless, it is intended to reflect the persistence of something essential through the demolition of form. I dedicate this work to all invisible agents of benevolence everywhere.

Peace and Love. Make that a Grande. Hold the fluff.

 

Alighting

I have been waiting to land at some place of completion that would give me the language to speak what needs to be spoken. The wait has become foolish, a trick of the old paradigm mind, which is being sloughed off. Right/wrong, reward/punishment based thinking doesn’t serve me. My mind wants so much to alight somewhere. For the moment, to awaken means to no longer alight anywhere. And at the same time, to stand my ground consciously, with intention. To live in perpetual uncertainty punctuated by moments of repose beyond what is certain or uncertain. This makes it difficult to write, because to write is to alight. And yet it is possible to write a light.

I am now in a world where I am given a picture of how my mind works, the overlay revealed in full length mirror reflection from several angles at once 24/7. For the first year or so of this ‘training’, I learned to read a language that uses impression and coincidence in a way that engages the attention differently from how it is normally engaged. Decades of inner work within the context of an esoteric school prepared me for this new form of training. To remove what disables one from self-knowledge is hard work. it took a master enlighten-er to give a distinct and practical meaning to the concept “self remembrance”. By his shamanic hand – and I mean this quite literally in a way I will someday share – I was moved to remember something deeply forgotten.

From the time of early childhood up until my twenties I was experimented upon in such ways that the memory was completely blacked out. Horrible things were done to me with the intention of probing into a wide (extreme) range of human experience and psychology. That this happened to me has been verified by a trusted friend who also happens to be a former NSA member. My stepfather was my handler, he worked for Army Intelligence and it was through him that both my mom and I were enlisted into this very special “service”. As my NSA friend said, things were done to me that no human being should do to another human being. He chose his words carefully, as he is adept at using awakening language in a way that is both cryptic and revealing. I have come to see that language as we tend to use it supports and perpetuates the dream.

My research has taken me into the realm of MK Ultra – the CIA project on mind control, and there is much material out there, including declassified documents, that addresses the nature of the experimentation. There are many reports – as I have been told, there are literally thousands of us experimented upon, involving major hospitals, schools, universities,and government buildings. My research has also taken me, by necessity, into the realm of the alien question. In and through all of this I have begun to piece together a background story. It is not my intention to educate you on any of this. I do recommend you inform yourself.

Well informed and applied spiritual practice prepared me for the integration of awakened memory. The rage and fear that I always felt beneath the surface now was given a raison d’etre, or so it would seem. Initially I was enraged at the US government, military, and its lack of disclosure. Angry at the poverty and ignorance that fostered the choices leading to the experimentation. MK Ultra, surveillance, implants, Wiki leaks, the Illuminati. I can look on my Facebook page and find more to corroborate the corruption that I have felt on a very intimate basis. My friend just cited a Harper’s magazine article on drug legalization in which John Erlichman, Nixon’s domestic policy advisor, said flat out that the Nixon administration had two enemies – “the blacks” and the anti war far left. By heavily criminalizing drugs, then using the media to associate marijuana with hippies and heroin with “the blacks”, they sought to disrupt any power these communities may have. This is how it works, evidently. And there is likely an equally calculated reason this article came out. Standing Rock? There is a deeper secret here, I will bet. The now obvious lack of disclosure about such projects as MK Ultra has been replaced by Wiki leaks and in a whole other realm that to my eye deeply connects all of this, the secret space program.

In a very real way, my past is of little consequence except insofar as it impedes the genuine experience of the present. My recent training has (often ruthlessly) brought to light habits of mind and identification that serve to perpetuate the sleep of conditioned response.. This in a way that has been unprecedented in my many years of spiritual work. Self pity is not allowed. I am forced to see what the past did to condition me, and special conditions are given to help in the change of trauma based habits. This is necessary, for to remember is to lose at a rapid rate many traits that had been in place for the purpose of hiding my secret from myself. Much like what will have to happen to the world at large if it is to undergo real change.

There is a lot in place simply because the world cannot face its own awakening. We as a race, the human race – you and I – must see our own predilection towards destruction of others and self. Our consciousness, in its state of identification with overlay stories tends to fulfill the impulses of territorial conquest and maintaining status quo over loving kindness toward the greater good and real change. You have to want to know yourself well to be exposed to the awakening conditions that will show you how deep this stuff goes, and just what you are doing to stay asleep.

To my view we are slowly being primed and tested through the media for a disclosure that is inevitable. I see some film and television productions considered to be fantastic entertainment might in fact be based on real events, and audience reaction is being monitored. While awareness of the issues has become a mandate for intelligent being, awareness of our awareness is even more critical. It is very difficult for me to believe that what is presented as news, even alternative news, isn’t some form of controlling contrivance, or a smokescreen that is hiding what is really going down. But I can’t settle on that difficulty of belief. A place beyond belief is called for. We are given the story of freedom of information via alternative channels, but like all phenomena, it is nonetheless illusory. And being socked into the story, any story, whether it is alternative news or your own treasure, without equal or greater attention of presence, effectively renders you asleep.

I don’t consider myself a conspiracy theorist, rather, an awakening human being with a burgeoning intelligence that has been given the advantage of compelling conditions for honing my critical faculty. I have much to say, extraordinary stories to tell. but all I will offer at this moment is a wisdom steeped in uncertainty.There is a big question mark where there used to be an exclamation point or period.

A methodically constant conflict of data that is of a distinct nature is part of my training experience. One result is question marks that resolve straight into the heart.  Buddha, Jesus, and all those beautiful major dudes look a lot different to me. From where did this information come? I really don’t know anything but a story.  How can I know that Buddha even existed? I can be shown artifacts galore, but there remains a question. And it doesn’t matter whether or not he existed. Some of what is present in the teachings of these great masters resonates in the heart unconditionally. This heart intelligence serves as a moment’s reference, refuge, sanctuary. The moment is the only real estate anyone ever has to claim.

If you have ever had all you buffers blasted off at once by shock, you may have witnessed, as I did, that the one watching was not sophisticated enough to come up with a reaction like rage. It simply was there, stunned into a state of simple, pure being. And as any major dude with half a heart surely will tell us, any minor world that breaks apart falls together again. After the shock and window opening moment of pure essential living, the reaction of fear and rage falls into place, or catatonia sets in.

We consider the horror that many people are facing with outrage that seems righteous. But consider the possibility that this kind of reaction, unchecked, contributes to the reality that produced the problem to begin with. That is what I have been shown through my own experience, anyway. Rage must be dealt with , not denied, but there are ways of dealing with it that feed awakening rather than perpetuating the nightmare. Namely, look deeper inside, check out your mind. Breathe into your moment. Use the energy to know yourself deeper than your temporary identification.

Do you know how you think, the patterns of your thought, how they came about? Do you know the hooks that capture your attention? Do you know how you make a story so real that it moves you to secrete the chemicals responsible for the sensations you feel? Even as you simply gaze at digital images on a flat screen? Can you smell your own adrenaline? Can you be sure that you were not triggered into having the reaction you had intentionally? That your rage or sadness or whatever feeling you can identify as a reaction isn’t displaced away from its genuine source within? Knowledge of self is power. Unconsciously being manipulated takes away the power that all your media information gives you.

I’ve been brought to an activism of consciousness, the 24/7 call of duty to awaken. It has meant the sacrifice of many cherished beliefs, identities, activities, of friends, family relations, and even spirituality as I once knew it. I have been blessed by the presence of angels who have supported this process. Awakening is by and large reductive as one is demolishing the overlay that impedes authentic being. One of my angels helped me to see what’s happening as construction of a valve that channels from the hugeness of all possibility to the microcosm of my particular facet of the great diamond. This over the destructive view that all the demolishing of matrix can foster. I am called to see things that pour tear salt into gaping wounds. But in so doing, I make real my freedom and power of choice toward authenticity. To make choices of genuine inner freedom can only serve the greater whole. The take away for now is to resist the urge to alight on belief and conclusion. Fly inwards toward the source of light.

Flamenco Dojo, Movement Mojo

My study of Flamenco dance has been vitally instrumental to a profound process of healing. There is indication that it is in my DNA – my paternal grandfather and grandmother, who played Flamenco guitar, came from Andalusia. I never met them, for my mother never married my biological father. Who she did marry, and the extreme circumstances of my arising in the Washington, D.C. area formed the basis of what needed to be healed – trauma so extensive it was blacked out of memory until a few years ago. I mention Washington, D.C. quite intentionally. My story will be told once I have found the right language, for it is timely and ultimately a testament to the strength of spirit over corruption. But I will say that the ugly underbelly we see that has become commonplace news relative to what takes place behind closed doors in our Nation’s capital has been rampant for decades. And it ultimately ain’t no big thing, in the light of soul.

The recovery of memory under benevolent conditions that have enabled deep healing has meant for me the loss of many traits that held my secret in place. Personality traits built upon trauma have been shed as a result of remembrance. Throughout this awakening, the grounding and enlivening force of Flamenco.

I have spent most of my adult life in artistic pursuit, but in pursuit of art as it applied to the spiritual. I had many mystical experiences due to the open state that was one result of extreme circumstances intentionally imposed upon me. Eventually freed of the oppressive circumstances, I was educated on the use of different art forms as perceptual tools for the exploration of consciousness and as a doorway into spiritual realms.

Awakening is a complex matter, and very simple at the same time. It is bound to be a process that is unique to each individual. It is a reductive process in that one is removing that which is overlaid on top of what is our most natural state of pure being. That state is neither awake nor asleep, it just is. Awakening is really a relative term. But overlay also has its relative reality, or seems to, and how it comes about will be unique to each individual life. Correspondingly, the removal of matrix from the diamond of pure being will necessarily be equally unique.

Because of the extreme way in which overlay was created in my situation and the remembrance that has exposed it as such, I have been given an interesting vantage point for seeing the nature of the ego’s composition. From my perspective it is comprised largely of conditioned responses as learned through experience within family and other human tribe social structures. Trauma plays a big role. It forms as if an anomaly, a mass of energy that one adopts adaptive behavior around. Triggers and filters formed will help to amass more energy around that anomaly. A reality structure is thus created. This stuff is embedded into our muscles, affecting how we carry ourselves, how we walk, how we view the world.

To give an example of what I mean, after several years of unraveling memory and gradually strengthening in the process one day I woke up from a dream indicating a new layer was about to be uncovered, and I could hardly move from the pain located in my groin which had no physical basis, such as an injury. The pain lasted a couple of weeks until finally I was guided to see that the gripping sensation was my own rage. With full acknowledgment and acceptance of that buried rage, my memory awakened to a very specific category of brutal events. And with remembrance, the pain went away.

In learning new movement we will encounter postural habits that are not only physical but have corresponding thought/feeling. These habits have formed through repetition, unconsciously. To learn new movement, especially movement that bypasses the range we normally are limited to in our lives within social structure, is an opportunity for awakening.

I have learned that what we do, our activity, in and of itself does not matter so much as the consciousness behind that activity. And because Flamenco is such a demanding, complex, and endless art form, particularly for those of us not born into the culture, I have found it to be an excellent tool for expansion of consciousness. To learn is a lifetime dedication. But there are elements of it – such as the development of listening attention through deep repetitive listening of rhythm, for example – that can yield healing results within a relatively short period of practice.

To choose to practice counter rhythm with the metronome of a turn signal at a stop light instead of letting my thoughts of tardiness get the better of me has resulted in better living. Taking thought/feelings of oppression into the dance studio and applying myself to practice of footwork instead of falling into patterned thought that feeds negative states has helped in my ongoing awakening.

As I said, awakening is a tricky process. We are trained through media and our social conditioning to glorify negative states and unconscious behavior patterns such as the disease of consumerism. We are unaware of how we think and to become aware of our own thinking processes and the underlying beliefs we have unconsciously adopted about the nature of reality is a very difficult thing. We need help, and like Flamenco, you really gotta want it. Meditative, mindful practices certainly help. And by working with the body we can both see our unconscious patterning and begin to make changes. The body can often prove to be easier to work with than the mind.

Posture leads to mood – this is something I witnessed in some of my theater training. I’ve learned some esoteric movements, called unlocking postures, designed to key us to deeper levels of concentration and corresponding consciousness. There are other practices that I will be introducing in the upcoming workshop that can help us bypass our usual learned and conditioned postures with their corresponding thoughts and emotional patterning. It is my intention to provide a safe space for the exploration of this work with movement and rhythm and a forum through which one can gain practical data that can be applied to one’s life, to awakening, to healing. If you are local, I hope you can join me in Flamenco Dojo, Movement Mojo. Experience has taught me a lot about how movement and rhythm can be used to benefit our lives in ways that will surprise and delight. And delight’s a good thing to pass along, don’t you think?

No Thoughts on Work and Soul Food

The Great Work is not social work. It is not artistic creation, much to the chagrin of my artistic self. It is not what I once thought it was. In fact it’s not anything I can think. Anything I can think of to speak is but a box that will be destroyed. However, I can say that at this stage of my experience, the Work has much to do with resistance. And resistance takes on the form of coincidence control, which is, from what I’ve been told by an expert I trust, always benevolent. ALWAYS BENEVOLENT. The demolition of boxes – which include all and everything that a self can point to in its individuation, is a given. Resistance training of the soul is extraordinarily unromantic, unsentimental, and as cold and ruthless as the ocean or outer space. Tough, but blow your mind awesome.

Compassion in the form of caring for those in need may become an expression for Work. This I don’t know for a fact, but I surmise from what demolition and resulting exposure has shown thus far which is, there is no one Way. Artistic expression in the form of what some systems call “Objective Art” may also serve as a medium through which the Work is expressed. But in both categories of activities, there is a trap of perceiving the moment’s means as an end in and of itself.  Not to mention the trap of sentimentality, which has a sneaky way of presenting itself as righteous among those who claim to love the Work. But watch what happens when you call out sentimentality, or devotion, which can be a close cousin to it. Watch what happens when you actually take on the resisting tinge of the Work. How quickly the beatific smile of the devoted social “worker” or “work” artist turns into a killer’s glare. And I am painfully aware that I am looking at a mirror reflecting the state of my consciousness at any given micro moment. You can’t win for losing.

I do not love the Work. In speaking about the Great Work, it is like I’m telling a fairy tale – because like anything else that can be told, it is a story. But it’s a bit of a horror story, really, without a happy or unhappy ending, as there is no time to speak of. I use the term because it is the one used to point to what is actually pointless – you can’t point to it ‘cause when you do – chop, chop goes that tree, and voila, nothing is there. That is if you are actually working at resistance training for soul growth. Not pointing to a museum enshrining the time, place, and people of a different era. Then you got a big ole sequoia that takes a lot of chopping.

But I digress. A thing easily done when you realize you are talking to yourself again and you want to avoid the issue. Let me get back to what I wanted to say to whoever or whatever happens to be within earshot. I have said a lot of “no” here because experience of resistance training is very much about no, but one finds that it takes a lot of no to make the right kind of yes. A monumentally subtle yes. Sentimentality tends to have a lot of obvious yes to it from the get go. Yes, I love you. Yes, you are wonderful. Yes, you have every right to feel hurt over your experience. That kind of thing. So does artistic expression in the ordinary sense. Yes, that is beautiful. Yes, you can really dance. Yes, how amazing that you made that. And so on. But it seems that these yeses don’t make soul.

There was a time when I spoke in terms of being a Lover – in the Rumi/Sufi sense. My book, “Journey to the Heart of the Maker” reflects this perspective. Like nostalgia, mystical experience ain’t what it used to be. I don’t know if I’m much of a Lover anymore, but Rumi, a great Lover, sure has a way of saying things just right. He says that the soul is like a porcupine – it gets strong when you hit it with a stick.

And it seems some of the richest food given for soul to grow – the fine pastries – are a form of resistance. They taste like poop to me still. But I am grateful for the feast that is given to me daily, nightly, 24/7. The feeding has been accelerated. Exalted conversations, accomplishments and other such happinesses have been replaced by a new kind of culinary language altogether. A coincidence controlled language of hummingbirds hovering, circling, going east and west, coming toward me or away, peeking in the window not bothering to eat – every direction and action speaking volumes of mirror reflection. Bird sounds, house creaks, deer (particularly distinguished ambassadors), “chance”encounters with passersby dressed up as daily bread. And the very special idiom of longing for a Friend that will never be seen. This too will be chopped.

Farruquito – Moving in the Fullness of the Moment

Just the fact that I was able to attend this workshop was a small course in miracles. Well, not that small. Fear almost stopped me from going right up until the last minute. Thankfully I got over it.

Ronnie McKee was a brand new person in my life, a Flamenco student who had just been studying intensely in Spain for five years. A strong woman, she can readily take command of a situation and it was no surprise to learn of her previous elite business associations. I was both intrigued and daunted by her presence in my class considering she had studied with some very astute Flamencos.

She was best friends with the late great La Faraona, Farruquito’s beloved aunt and thus is friendly with the family. When she told me she was going to attend a four day workshop in San Francisco with Farruquito, I sighed my customary mental sigh of longing as it was so far out of my financial reach I could not even take her urging me to go seriously. But then she made me an outstanding offer I could not refuse – she offered to pay my way in exchange for private lessons. I will always be grateful for the gift of this opportunity, which to my view was nothing short of miraculous.

As one would expect, the material Juan had to share was juicy. We worked in the Tangos, Bulerias and Solea palos. His approach to Bulerias stuck in my mind – think in sixes, and know that a remáte can happen at any point in the compás. He was not keen on numbers and urged us to fall out of the habit of thinking choreographically in those terms, as numbers are for accounting. As artists, we want to use a different aspect of our being, apart from the reality of our day to day structure.

At the same time, he spoke often of finding the dance expression as it naturally comes through you. He urged us to learn the various parts of the choreography with our whole bodies rather than isolating the upper body work from the feet.

At one point he watched as we struggled with something and turned up his attention on our struggle. What he saw was a group of students fall into nervous embarrassment and he stopped, taking the opportunity to deliver a very important impression. Respect and an open state of receptivity are appropriate and useful to learning, even essential – but never shame or embarrassment. Never be ashamed of the body as it learns. He emphasized that he does not put his attention upon students to illicit shame or embarrassment, but to see how the body can better facilitate the movement.

He went on to say that though he has been performing throughout his life he still can get nervous prior to going onstage – such as at a recent big show in Spain where out in the packed audience were top notch Flamencos. However when he gets on stage his mind is as it must be, not on himself and his nervousness, but expanded to include all the elements contributing to the present moment on stage. He moves in present moment. We all were quite moved by his speech.

Flamenco is not just about the dance and music, it is about presence in one’s life. Everything present in the performance space will affect the dance. If his hair is down it is one thing, when worn pulled back it will be another kind of dance. He demonstrated with his shirt how he would use it if unbuttoned as opposed to buttoned. He obviously is a person with a lot of attention that has been developed through his craft. That attention combined with his years of experience infused the space in such a way that it felt as though these impressions were being burned in deep.

I imagine it was much like this when his grandfather taught him as a young child. Juan would refer to his grandfather as el Maestro and his respect and love were clearly evident. He spoke of how el Maestro was capable of performing fast and fancy footwork, but he noticed that it would be that single perfectly placed full forced gorpé (striking the floor with the flat foot), done with presence, that would receive the olé.

Something happened during those four days of study with him that continues to unfold. While other choreographic concerns have had to be prioritized over practice and study of what was given during the workshop, nevertheless his influence remains present in my work. He gave me the gift of potential – I walked away from his classes more alive in my potential. This surprised me. I danced those three hours nightly with a hairline fractured big toe, on four or less hours of sleep. I was among young experienced dancers with capabilities that were way beyond my own, and there were other factors present that I found daunting. But through this the power of my potential remained. According to Juan if you can feel, as he pinched his own arm to demonstrate, you can dance. It seems he created a magnificent space for this to be realized.

This experience is now conjured up in memory when life feels like one big demolition derby which is often, I must say. It helps me to feel grateful. I am grateful for the dance. I am grateful for gratitude. Gracias, Juan.

Ranting Vs. Wonder

The one thing we all bear in common is our own uniqueness. Al Pacino said that, though his authorized biographer told me he never heard him say it. The media told me he said it. It left a lasting impression – I read this in a magazine at 14 and didn’t understand it but knew it meant something special. Still holds meaning for me, perhaps more than ever. To get to our own deep means to get to our collective whole where we meet.

Conditions supporting our individuality would necessarily promote freedom and trust in the unique expression of the whole that the individual is. Those conditions would include granting someone the being-ness to change. If one is going to transact with another in time and space granting that person the freshness of a new moment would be natural if it were your habit to be in a new moment.

More and more I appreciate the state of wonder. In that state new reality constructs are made possible to explore. When this state is present so am I. The body is soft and fluid. As I write, I am in the state of wonder about what is going to be written next even as it is being written.

When I am ranting I can’t be in wonder. I am shouting out my story. That’s just me. It might be different for others. I only have my own sense of what is real and true to go on. And based on that sense, when someone is ranting, I am being told a story in which I am not interested. Especially those same old stories about the same old stories.

We seem to be at endgame. I’ve had dreams of this time in my life, I now realize, going back many years. I wish to use the fact of my embodiment differently than what I’ve been told to use it by men throughout my entire life. Yes, men. I love them. But think about it – is this not and has this not been mostly a patriarchal dominant world for centuries upon centuries? Words and impressions coming to me about my embodiment in relationship to spirituality have come to me through male conduits or women living under the dominance of men. Yes, when it comes to spirit, ain’t no big gender thang, but just as soon as you start putting it into language to teach gender comes to play to shape things a bit. The Tao te Ching is perhaps one of the most feminine of the doctrines. “Return is the movement of the Tao. Yielding is the way of the Tao.” Translated from the Chinese, there is no gender distinction, and nicely, in Stephen Mitchell’s translation one will find passages evenly distributed with he and she.

Words don’t count from one perspective, and yet they do. Look at how long the words of Al Pacino have stuck with me. The many words and activity I’ve engaged in around those words relative to my development as a being have been influenced by yet more men. And that’s cool. I will admit at this moment even this communication bears that stamp. I am stammering – let me just say it.

I have to move with the change within. People are ranting about that.

Rants are ineffective with me. Old methods don’t resonate truthfully for me. I honor the place they have served in my life with gratitude. And with others they are effective, no doubt. But I have to admit where I’ve been sitting for some time now. I have family, and I feel there is something I am a part of that goes beyond family. Whatever that something is, it is not bound to one form. Some are trying to tell me, it seems, that it is bound to one form.

If you want to use an audience and media for ranting that’s your business. It makes me feel badly to see someone rant – badly for them. Interpreting my thoughts or activity in terms of your well established boxes is also your business. But I’m not going with it just because you have put me there.

Even under extreme circumstances as a child my move was toward community. Toward others. The grit of humanity. I hate some of the smells people can produce – that part sucks. Lots of stuff sucks about humankind. But I can’t dance with anyone else’s story anymore about how I’m supposed to interact with my body on this planet to live an enlightened life. All I’ve ever heard has come from the mouth of a man. Unless you are in a woman’s body right here right now you won’t know what it is to have heard only the voices of men telling you what to do with body/mind/spirit. I can’t help but wonder, if a man had the ability to bear a child, would they have chosen the words and methods chosen that have so cut us off from the wisdom of these bodies?

I don’t know, but I really don’t think so.

I do know my heart is deeply active in the movement that is going on and I  trust its intelligence.

There is a lot I don’t know, I know. I’ve made so many mistakes in my life. Yet no one else knows what is right for me but I. A conundrum, one that I can no longer attempt to solve in the way I have been trying.

My daughter once told someone at three that I just didn’t know what to do with all my love. Thank God I didn’t shove that experience into a box that disabled me from seeing it in wonder. There is so much of what I can only describe as love that blasts through my chest sometimes I can hardly breathe. It may start as a point of light, but it expands out to include all. I’m going with this. I have to. It has to move where it’s going – that simple. If you need to hate me or call me names, okay. That’s not what’s happening here – in fact if you wanted to know what was happening here, all you would need to do is ask. Shouting out your story about me, I will figure you are too busy to bother listening.