LoudenMouth

The Secret Inflirates the Supreme Court

The Conservative majority must have watched The Secret. It's the only way to explain their specious logic.  They ruled yesterday to reject school action on race - that the race of a child cannot be used to determine where he or she will be sent to school.  Justice John Roberts commented in the majority opinion, "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."

Just think it and it will happen. Centuries of hatred and misunderstanding and discrimination will lift. Who needs to support this change with legislation or gasp, justice?

This cruelty and our insanely idiotic head-in-the-sand energy policy is not helping my Dad grief - the last few days have been like being in a long, narrow very deep cavern: not depressing rather very alone and deeply sad yet in a strangely spacious way. I keep begging him for one more touch, one more hug, one more something-- I can't even name what I crave but I sure feel it, and at the oddest times... watching an old man tottering down the aisle on the plane yesterday or in a conversation with Chris about naming our puppy (we're getting a new dog in August, a Schnoodle!)...

And all this while...    

            I revel in summer sweetness: piles of fragrant pregnant peaches, the first bite of the first berry crisp, eating ripe huckleberries while walking with Ann in the Grand Forest, pickle ball in the driveway, the scent of firs after a warm rain, and, of course, the light! Ah, glorious Northwest summer: 4:30 am bird rise and languorous never-ending twilight.

This is what consciousness brings-- pain and pleasure, dukkha and sukkha (literally sweet)-- that is, until we can embrace both sides and transcend duality.

Perhaps not today.

Ah, Kripalu

Is it the paper thin fresh whole grain spelt bread or the soy chocolate spelt brownies? Maybe it's the thrumming humming vibe of hundreds of people with open energy? Perhaps it's the sunset over the still mountain lake? Or the support given so easily by the staff and ny dear friend Barb who is my trusty assistant?

                Could it be the various yoga boys in their tank tops and malas?

Do the amazing women who have gathered to dive and swim and float into new visions of self-care have anything to do with the magic bliss of this weekend?

Yes, that's it! (That is even better than yoga boys)

Ah, the beauty and regeneration of body and soul that happens in these retreat circles. What gratitude I have for our courage to show up and do this thing we do.

We had a very juicy discussion this afternoon about desire: how it can get gummed up with  making a living or finding our "life purpose" (as if it were hiding somewhere) or being successful as in to follow your desire means you must do what you love and it must be big and reach millions and make millions...
Or how we can become all twitter-patted about what we should do with our desire--choose this person or that career... "Should I do X or Y?"
Or how we can become fearful we will sabotage our desire...

Yet all desire wants is to be tasted and experienced in the moment  Tasted and experienced right now.  And by doing so, our life unfolds and millions are reached-- or not, and people are married --or not, and we can't sabotage anything because all we have to do is find our desire in this moment and taste it, savor, it, roll it around on our tongue like a spelt soy chocolate brownie.

Yum! (Really)

Morphing Art and Me

Check this video based on 500 years of female portraits in Western art condensed in a three minute morphing wonder!

Check out this fun blog - oh, is that an interiew with me?  :)

Art Journal Musings

What can I bring to the circle? What mysteries might speak through me?

If only I will let myself see

                      through the aperture of desire.

What is True Rest for You?

Thank you for the most amazing tele-call today on how to use The Life Organizer -- it was so delightful and energetic and what great stories.

The question I asked the call was: What is true rest for you?
How do you unplug your body and really rest (think eye bag and ear plugs)?
How much rest do you need, even if you've never gotten it?

Do share!

Great resource here.

What if Nothing Was Requried of You? An End to Gluttony

I am a glutton. It's the passion of us 7's on the Enneagram (also perhaps Scanners or Renaissance Souls?). It may not be about food (although that fits for me) but a glutton for anything -- experience, doing, seeing, touching, hearing, learning, etc.. I can feel like a giant mouth searching for things to CONSUME.

Which can be really really fun, if I am keep coming back to the place of "Nothing is required of me, there is nothing to do, nothing to complete, nowhere to get to."  (I learned "Nothing is required of me from Maryam Webster.)  When I'm not in that place, that gluttony is far from fun--it's desperate, grasping, and driven. And did I mention unattractive?

Building on my last post, the best way to get to this place of acceptance / nothing required is through the body. For me, that could mean screaming, shaking, rolling on the floor moaning: letting my body vent the frustration it feels at being pushed and shoved into proving or accomplishing, letting my mind clear itself, letting my energy settle.

Then I like to practice what spiritual teacher Adyshanti calls True Meditation: "In true meditation all objects are left to their natural functioning. This means that no effort should be made to manipulate or suppress any object of awareness. In true meditation the emphasis is on being awareness; not on being aware of objects, but on resting as primordial awareness itself. Primordial awareness (consciousness) is the source in which all objects arise and subside."  SoundsTrue has two good introductions.

It means being aware without changing or manipulating what you are experiencing (that would include judging yourself for having said experience or wishing it away or blaming it on someone else); 

These days, it's a very challenging practice for me because it means being aware of my intense hunger to  DO. To be aware and not act on nor judge nor push away this desire is, at times, agonizing.

Can you relate? Are you a glutton, do you get trapped in doing? Do you find yourself going from one idiot task to the other (and feeling very virtuous while doing it--my favorites include folding the blankets in the living room, cleaning up art supplies, and cleaning up the kitchen). I'd love to hear about your doing...

How Can I Live in a Way that is Sustainable?

That's really the question we're all trying to answer, isn't it?
Personally. Globally. In our daily choices. In our search for work that fits us. In our efforts for grow our businesses in sustainable ways.

Another way of asking this question is, "How can I live in a way that doesn't continually deplete me?"  Perhaps a less positive take but it works better for me because it's more targeted to my challenge.

Thinking about this question on Sunday, I read Barbara Ehrenreich editorial in New York Times on the laws restricting dance clubs in Manhattan. Her newest book is Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy, Here are a few quotes:

"The Greeks danced to worship their gods — especially Dionysus, the god of ecstasy. But then the far more strait-laced Romans cracked down viciously on Dionysian worship in 186 B.C., even going on to ban dancing schools for Roman children a few decades later. The early Christians incorporated dance into their liturgy, despite church leaders’ worries about immodesty. But at the end of the fourth century, the archbishop of Constantinople issued the stern pronouncement: 'For where there is a dance, there is also the Devil.'

"The Catholic Church did not succeed in prohibiting dancing within churches until the late Middle Ages, and in doing so perhaps inadvertently set off the dance “manias” that swept Belgium, Germany and Italy starting in the 14th century. Long attributed to some form of toxin — ergot or spider venom — the manias drove thousands of people to the streets day and night, mocking and menacing the priests who tried to stop them.

"...hardly anyone talks about what is lost when the music stops and the traditional venues close...   in some cultures, ecstatic dance has been routinely employed as a cure for emotional disorders. Banning dancing may not cause depression, but it removes an ancient cure for it.

"The need for public, celebratory dance seems to be hardwired into us. Rock art from around the world depicts stick figures dancing in lines and circles at least as far back as 10,000 years ago. According to some anthropologists, dance helped bond prehistoric people together in the large groups that were necessary for collective defense against marauding predators, both animals and human. While language also serves to forge community, it doesn’t come close to possessing the emotional urgency of dance. Without dance, we risk loneliness and anomie.

"Dancing to music is not only mood-lifting and community-building; it’s also a uniquely human capability. No other animals, not even chimpanzees, can keep together in time to music. Yes, we can live without it, as most of us do most of the time, but why not reclaim our distinctively human heritage as creatures who can generate our own communal pleasures out of music and dance?"

Why not indeed? To create a sustainable life requires being in our bodies-- alone and in community: having fun, playing, even experiencing ecstasy together. I believe we need ecstasy, and a powerful doorway to that ecstasy is movement--of course, so is drugs and a lot of beer, but those aren't as sustainable.

Thoughts on how you have or would love to dance in the streets?

Nothing's the Matter, You're Just Empty

I adore this article by Adam Kayce.

What if when things feels wrong or less than about our dream life
    Or
          we feel scattered and wrung out about choosing, the first thing to do is to
          let ourselves off the hook? IT'S OKAY TO FEEL THIS WAY.

Then
           Remember that there is no problem. Where's the problem?  Show me the problem?

Then
           We can connect with our life force by noticing we actually have a body, (oh hi there, region below my neck!) and feel into our hearts, (oh hi there emotions) and ask for help from Source, ask to be shown what we need.

Then
           We can allow ourselves to receive what we need, which may include doing something, not doing something, or asking someone for help or support -- all in the name of filling up our depleted little selves.

P.S.
In a healing session with Shawn Murphey last week, I learned that when I can't receive from Source or nature or another human being, I can ask Source to help me receive.

Big Wow!