Let Beauty Prevail
I thought I could skip over feeling [anything] about 9/11.
Justified enough time had passed, nothing impacted me significantly : except everything subtly.
Obviously it is always a date that stood out :
One year we flew home from living in Germany for 6 months. One year I hoped that our third baby did not decide to be born on that date. This year I went to the eye doctor.
I believed all it is now is a date in history. Next chapter. Shut down any feelings. In the past, move on…
Then a few days later I got in the bath and listened to Bruce Springsteen’s The Rising album and bawled. Transported to that time as a sophomore in high school just north of NYC. To all that was lost and would never be found again, to the tremendous courage and fear and confusion and unity that emerged.
Now 19 years later smoke and ashes brew on the opposite coast. And every consequent event seems so catastrophic. I wonder is this unique to this time we are living? Was there a time where things were peaceful and secure, where that was guaranteed?
While I am personally safe, or perceive to be : I feel so deeply the tragedy sweeping through this world : like an untamed fire blazing to clear a new way. I pray to find a way to transmute my tears into a healing salve I can offer.
I don’t claim to be an activist. I wish I was. Although, I do believe in change, equality, and justice for all. So maybe I’m just a quiet one, who makes art to process it all and finds beauty not as distraction, but as a medicine that permeates deep, where not much else can reach.
Here I sit eyes wide open, heart wide open : even though it is so easy and tempting to close both.
My Artist’s Life
Is poetic, multifaceted, and deeply messy.
My artist’s life is oriented to what is life giving, what is life affirming.
My artist’s life is spacious. There is time for stillness. I slow intentionally to notice my surroundings, for I know within the presence is the gold.
My artist’s life is forgiving.
My artist’s life is feminine, divine, and sourced.
My artist’s life is continuously emerging, and has the ability to coax beauty from the heartache and the tangles of life.
My artist’s life is as wide is at is deep, as solid as it is pliable.
My artist’s life is a healing, a growing, a transmuting.
My artist’s life is rich. My intention is alive, my being is embodied.
My artist’s life is the recovery of my heart, and all that resides within.
My artist’s life celebrates all, and grieves all.
My artist’s life is being all of who I am, everywhere I go : integrated.
Dear September,
I welcome you, but I also cringe slightly at your arrival : because with it you have brought cooler temperatures that reminds us fall is near. The idle days of summer have vanished and the rhythm of new beginnings here again.
The changing of seasons and the passing of time is a given, it has been the only constant I have experienced and yet it still takes me by surprise.
I find myself mourning summer – even though I was very tightly wound at times… Still, as it slowly dissolves, it feels like a loss.
Through the absence of what no longer is, I feel the accumulation of the absence of so many other things in my life. Things that were once there, and now no longer.
I realize this is a privilege to have only to mourn this, and not the injustice too many battle daily. While the world is upside down, my world is still recognizable. I still feel the ripple of grief in all its forms : about a season changing : which is natural and practiced, and everything else going on that is new and not so new…
All of it is the visual representation and the visceral feeling of time passing.
What can I do but notice, and tenderly witness what was? As I do so, my arms will be open wide again. Embracing a space that seems / feels like a void. A space waiting to be filled with new stories. September 2020 stories. Similar to past Septembers, yet completely unique to oneself. Allowing memories that I will be mourning when fall gives way to winter.
Inherit Value
What if I valued myself through my compassion, reverence, patience, and courage to keep my heart open?
What if I valued my capacity to connect with source, myself, or even my willingness to try?
What if I valued myself for the space I let be, bowing to it, rather than being so quick to fill it?
What if I valued myself based on the size of my heart, rather than the amount of money I generate?
What if I valued myself on the kind of woman I am, rather than the kind of work / career I build for myself?
What if I valued myself on my thoughtfulness, rather than all the things I don’t seem to know?
What if?
I will.
I value myself for my tremendous ability to feel and heal, to transmute, to create, to drip with love and satisfaction simply because I am.
Can I open myself all the way to myself, to others? To receive all aspects of me and then receive depths of love.
Like a flower, I will always be opening.
There is Room
Here.
For you, for all of you.
There is always enough space, as you climb and are lifted into the canopy.
There is plenty of space for you to rest and to bloom.
Protected and safe.
There is so much to say.
My ears and heart are opening even wider.
I listen and take it in. I integrate to become integrated.
Imprints
Of what was.
Deep honoring of shadows that are forever present and pleading to be welcomed and embraced.
I will infuse with tenderness the next time I am engulfed by darkness layered with unanswered questions.
I will catch the form of what is becoming.
I will allow it to come into focus, and practice patience when it becomes blurry, or hidden for periods of time.
It / (you) will be revealed.
It / (you) will be illuminated.
It / (you) will be healed.
///
“She asked for peace, unwavering faith, deep alignment.
You must when praying for freedom from suffering be prepared for what is hiding in shadow to be pulled open.
For it is only then, our request is able to be answered.
So the question for you my beloved is are you ready to endure being carved open by the light?”
-Sarah Blondin
Shed
Deep healing has never been sourced from comfort.
Birth, death, trauma, loss, crisis, etc : act as a gateway into a complete new way of being, demanding our complete attention and energy to find the best ways to move forward.
To remember what practices ground us, and lean on those even more.
This is a bridge we are crossing.
We won’t be here forever, and this will be forever imprinted in our being.
Now is a time to lighten the burdens of our neighbors however we can, listen tenderly to the earth, spot divine miracles amidst the turmoil and uncertainty.
Here we get to shed all the fluff.
Cry, grieve, release what you held so tender. What you once called home. That you knew intimately. We are in a deep transition that is messy, heartbreaking, and heart expanding. I am right beside you.
Let this be the beginning of one long and never ending prayer that continues to be spun in our collective consciousness.
I see you here and in all of this.
And together we will rise, as we always do.
Celebration
What if I lean into celebration to recalibrate my cells?
Noticing what is vs. what is not.
What is present vs. what is missing.
What is inherent in me vs. what is perceived to be lacking.
I welcome deep reprogramming from all directions : past, present and future. Receiving the love that I have been unable to let in.
My nose has been pressed against the glass searching for the imperfections, the shortcomings, the gap of where I am and where I want to be. Completely missing the inherent magic in right where I am.
I am coming into deep acceptance of myself and opening up to love in all forms.
…
“It is not the weight you carry but how you carry it : books, bricks, grief – all in the way you embrace it, balance it, carry it.”
-Mary Oliver from the poem Heavy
Creative Expression
I was asked by the mighty Marie of Move It Studio to lead her teachers in an afternoon exploring the relationship between self care and creative expression. This was an utter joy. Here is what I wrote in preparation of our time together, very much inspired by where I have been, and all I am learning from Anahita Joon while in a 6 month feminine leadership program.
It is a sacred act to engage with creativity. It can transport you beyond time and space. It can become a prayer.
We are conditioned that creativity as a means to express one’s heart is frivolous. It is devalued in a world that favors productivity.
Therefore, it is a radical act to engage with your spirit while you create. What can lay quiet as you go about the day : you will begin to hear the longings within. You will allow your energy to flow and invite the receptive part of you to lead.
I am happiest when I am in a practice of my own creative expression. Even though I KNOW this, I still let my paintbrushes go unused, my jewelry supplies lay dormant, words that would love the release of pen to paper instead swirl in my mind, my body begs to dance.
“But it is not practical, worthy of my time.” my mind quips.
I am luckiest when I listen to my heart who says, “Sweetheart, go ahead and make something that wasn’t there before. Delight in the process.” Then I make for the sake of the release it provides, and the inner dialogue begins to shift.
Tender Transmutation
Please transmute the pain, the grief, the sadness that has gathered from my attempts to hold it all.
Bring me to the end of this thread that has run its story. Let it be complete. I see that the heaviness is intertwined with comfort : because it is familiar. Let me find sweetness in the unknowing.
Allow these subtle structures that are crumbling be an invitation to receive exquisite support. I open myself up to genuinely receive it.
Let my cries for something other than what is be a prayer for what is coming.
Let the guilt for my repeated mistakes dissolve and in its place : forgiveness.
Let me stand firm in my center and not be swallowed by the world around me. There is enough room for me and I will not be crowded out.
Let me feel the rawness of the elements as they cleanse, rather than resist to what feels painful.
Transmute the perceived harshness into tenderness, please.