Convergence Divergence

I came on this page to write a letter to someone, and then I saw the Daily Prompt: Blossom. I don’t know about you, but there is something about the word Blossom that makes my heart swell, and I am reminded of the quote:

The day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom -Anais Nin

And I find that I am up against some tightness in my life, and not sure where to “break through,” but I sure know I want to blossom again. I have been in this stuck place for quite some time, and the more I look at where I am and talk to the amazing entrepreneurial people in my life, the more it is clear to me that I don’t believe in what I do.

When people ask me what I DO for a living, I tell them I am a Pharmacist, but I don’t say it with pride, and it’s not that I loathe what I do, or that I am not proud to be a Pharmacist. The problem is that I don’t believe in our Sickcare System. We have hundreds of thousands of people trying to take care of our population, but the insurance companies have tied our hands behind our backs. We document in ways that are not meaningful, and we focus on externally defined clinical measures, and we reduce the time with patients to get more through, all so we can survive and keep our doors open.

The problem is that people are getting sicker, and the truly heartfelt HealthCare providers are either burned out and leaving, or they are starting concierge services outside of the System. Not everyone can afford this……But, I digress. I could go on and on about our SickCare System, but I am here today to put words to this divergence within me.

A little over a year ago, I realized I wanted to dance and perform again, so I found a small local dance company and performed with them last April. This January, I found some ballet and modern dance classes in Portland and San Francisco, and it was AMAZING to feel my body respond after 11 years off! And I come home to my tiny hometown of Ashland, and there is just not enough here to get me in dance shape and to perform. My work as Director of Pharmacy is certainly not fulfilling that part of me. It fulfills other analytical, strategic and creative parts of me, but it doesn’t touch me deeply like movement and dance. My work does not help me get closer to myself.

So, I decided to start bringing more somatic experiences into my life (stay with me…..I am going somewhere with this). By day, I was building my little Pharmacy empire, and on weekends and evenings, I was doing Contact Improv and going to workshops like Orthobionomy and the Psoas with Liz Koch. You know, my timelines are all messed up. This really started last year when I did Mogadao Sacred Sexuality Workshops with Sarah Byrden. The Mogadao work so spoke to me that I have done pretty much everything Sarah has offered in my area since then. I did a 5-day backpacking trip in the Trinity Alps with 11 other women (Sarah included) last summer, where I entered a portal of existence that felt more consistently awake to the synchronicity of life than ever before. Recently, I went on a writing retreat called Writing Back to the Body, with both Sarah Byrden and Kate Grey, in the most beautiful area of Hood River, Oregon. Wow! I couldn’t believe that all the times I had gone to Portland, I had not continued north into the Columbia Gorge. Put that place on your Bucket List! At the same time, I was starting an online course with Sarah to take more time to learn her work, which I had started in person with her the prior year.

So, now I have somatic experience, sacred sexuality work (which includes qi gong), and what is called the Gateless writing method at the most recent retreat working their magic in my life. The Gateless method is an amazing way of not only fostering an immensely safe and loving space between a room full of what may be strangers, but also a surefire way to turn off your inner critic and see what comes through. 

multnomah falls

Feeling radiant after a week of Gateless writing, sharing and loving

During the retreat, I realized that the Gateless method could be used in so many ways, and potentially with dancers. If I could have tapped into that and seen that the critical way is not the most fruitful way, I may not have put aside my dance shoes for so many years and I may not have suffered 24 years of shame and guilt and wondering. So much wondering…

It didn’t take long before I contacted Suzanne Kingsbury to sign up for the Gateless Teacher Training in July. I explained to her that I have this profession of pharmacy that I worked very hard for, and it allows me a good living. Yet, what I am most passionate about is movement and the spiritual alignment that happens through conscious movement. I explained to her that I want to find a way to marry what feel like 2 divergent sides of myself. I was offered the Golden Scribe scholarship, and am excited to say that I will soon be certified in the Gateless Writing Method!  

Yep, I signed up for the training, and instantly entered the Convergence Zone.

You know how sometimes your life goes through phases of being almost freakishly synchronistic? My last couple weeks were very much that way, and it has me feeling nervous and excited. I went home to visit family in New Mexico and to celebrate my sister’s wedding. Well, after 5 days of being with the whole family, they left town and I had a whole week to myself in my parents’ home.

Ok, you ready for this? The Mogadao Institute was founded in Santa Fe, New Mexico by Zhenzan Dao, the man that trained Sarah Byrden in the Sacred Sexuality work she teaches. He had been in silence for quite some time, and recently came out of silence and started teaching again in Santa Fe. I had the immense pleasure of entering 2 days of training with him and his students, two of which I did the backpacking trip with last year, and who moved from both Oregon and Montana to train with him! It felt so new and like a reunion at the same time.

I could write a small book about the magic of Santa Fe that week and what transpired in the classes with Zhenzan and his students, but I will save that for later. Suffice to say, the sky was alive, and so was my heart and my curiosity. I left knowing I would train with Zhenzan at some point. And that Wednesday, after gong fu and Mogadao yoga and then meditation, I met with my best friend Shane Robinson, whom I had met in Albuquerque 16ish years prior, and we had both lived in Maui at one point, and now he happened to be flying into Santa Fe! Lives converging on this planet over thousands of miles, over and over, I refuse to consider merely a coincidence.

Many other magical things happened, but the magic of the possibility of the Mogadao training and the softness and strength of reverence and daily attunement to our body’s needs speaks to a place in me that is timeless and not of this current realm of reality we live in.

And so, what led me to a Sacred Sexuality course was curiosity of having a more intimate experience with my partner at the time, and I was inspired from there to partake in my first backpacking trip, deeper communion with nature, more embodiment, a writing retreat, Gateless Teacher Training, and potentially training someday….someday with a monk named Zhenzan Dao in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Life is a beautiful unfolding of possibilities and connections. We have only to trust in that unfolding and allow ourselves to blossom into our desires.

To be continued….

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Older dancer

When I do a search on Dancemagazine site for “older dancer”, I find an article blurb asking “Why aren’t we seeing older dancers more often?” and when I click on the More hyperlink,…..the article is no longer there….

Kind of like the remnants of a dancer’s life.

Like amazing dancers who just vanished from the dance world, with only pictures and memories. It’s as if they died, but we have links to them. The links are just dead.

When I have experiences like this, and when I look for classes in cities I am visiting, and they have JAZZ40 (Jazz for folks over 40 years old), I start to feel like a senior citizen. All this at the same time I am thinking of starting dance all over.

Part of me says this is impossible. The pragmatic, scared part of me knows that to simply follow a “regular” career would be the easiest route, the safest route, the predictable route, with only the pain of numbness.

Another part of me, the warrior side, jumps at the challenge. “I can do anything I set my mind to” is her mantra. I have accomplished most of what I set out to do, although I have not learned to sustain anything. But, this is not something to conquer, although I would have to use all of those warrior skills to ensure I am safe and consistent and that I push through those tough times. This part of me knows what it takes, and stands at attention, ready to take on the next challenge I give it.

The weary part of me asks, “when will all these challenges end? I am so deeply tired.” This part wants simplicity, no goals, just time to ponder, and sleep, and feel what comes up. She wants to slow down enough to feel nature, to breathe in her surroundings. Slow down until the air breathes her, until the rumblings of the earth are the rumblings of her body, until the vibrations of the universe are the music in her cells. And then, she will be rejuvenated, and then she will tap into the wellspring of mana and let it flow through her.

And a deeper part of me knows that this is not a labor of a year, or simply a challenge. This is not something for which I instantly drop everything else in a brave attempt to reclaim what I laid down in shame. ..Something I picked up again, and again, and again.

This is a calling to be fully embodied, not just to dance the form I know best, but to yet again be a channel of light and love. This time, with more wisdom, with more gravity, more balance and sincerity.

This is a deep act of self-preservation in a world so confusing and chaotic, so wildly unnatural in its attempt to curb our true wild nature. Our wild nature IS balance. It is a natural, instinctual response to the vibrations moving in, around, and through us. It is not a set of societal structures and rules, but rather an inner compass based on wisdom, heart, and deep knowing. It is sourced from our genes and our ancestors.

I know not where this is coming from, except that I know a knot inside is coming unraveled. It’s a big one, a gnarly mess of shame, grief, unspoken desires and abandoned dreams.

It’s time for something new to be born from an old passion. When I left San Francisco Ballet School and abandoned a full scholarship, I told them that dance was a spiritual thing for me. I didn’t tell them the truth, that I couldn’t afford to survive. And yet, I think in many ways, I did tell the truth. Dance is my way of connecting to source, to being a channel of the FULL experience of life. It rolls in the past, the present, and future. It rolls in HUMANITY. It can be shared or it can be solitary, and either way it connects us.

I trust I will find people who feel the same way as me on my journey. This journey started 33 years ago, when I discovered ballet. While I may not have spent all those years in the studio, I have explored movement in many forms, and I keep coming back to the DANCE….

Dance is Life is Dance

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Turn of the Tides

I had my heart opened up.

Just enough to let the light in.

He didn’t try to do it. He didn’t do anything but smile, dance, and then hold me sweetly. My body remembered the sweet grace of a warm embrace, the mutual sigh of contentment, if only for that one shared moment.

And right on the heels of the night, Doubt came galumphing along. Doubt is an insidious character, the elephant that never forgets an infraction by anyone (real or imagined).

Doubt lacks compassion. Doubt assumes the worst. It’s a real downer.

And Yearning also popped in for a visit, which only made Doubt more insidious.

Tired of the chatter and confliction, I went for a walk in the park, something I had not done for much too long.

Walking along the creek, something softened in me. That sound, that rushing, undulating current of water always softens my edges, washes away my crusty armor, and leaves me naked, ripe for the taking, if only I allow it time to work its magic.

The water surged, welling up in my eyes, across my forehead, and deep into the belly.

“What on earth am I sad about?”

And at that moment, it was clear. I was mourning the loss of Nature in my life, of MY nature…..the familiar turn of the tides in me that I have turned from in an effort to be strong, to leave the painful past behind, to turn my intention to the future, toward stability and growth.

I have made it so I don’t have time for my dear friend and confidante. I shunned her because she washes away my armor, she opens up my soul and leaves me naked, bared to anyone who can See.

It’s scary being vulnerable, being true and open and honest. It’s scary opening up after a heinous divorce and then being let down yet again.

It’s scary to trust myself, knowing I have let mySelf down so many times.

My friend, no matter how long I neglect her, is there, reminding me to remain sensitive, to trust in the evolution of process. She is there in my orchids that took 18 months to bloom, and Oh! How they bloomed! And she is in my herbs, and drooping plants, and bright plants, and in everything that grows and dies in my life.

And she spoke to me at the park.

“Stop, and listen. Hear the creek, the rhythm, let it beat upon your back. Let the air rush through your lungs. You are alive as you can be. Isn’t it glorious?!”

And she showed me her treasures….tiny flowers nestled in the knot of a tree, nature’s flowerpot, mini worlds of fungi, lichen and moss, solo flowers standing proud, and then a tall, smooth tree that beckoned me with it’s quiet, unassuming strength.

And I laid my face upon its smooth skin and let my tears fall, and it held me.

No judgement, no expectations, no words of advice. It just held me, supported me and welcomed my tears. And I wrapped my arm around the trunk, so thankful for the unconditional and ever-present love, support and acceptance of my dear friend.

“It’s been too long, my friend, too long.”

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Days of Clarity

I am sitting here doing The Work, listening to videos, trying to go through thoughts and understand them. I have had some days of great happiness and clarity lately, in the midst of personal chaos. They are interspersed with crazy thoughts, sad thoughts, etc, but they are there.

I told my friend today it’s like there is this new trickle of goodness coming in, this golden stream coming in to my being. Like a new path of water, it is starting small, but as it wears away at the coarse soil in my mind and soul, it will grow, and eventually it will flow through my heart and straight out.

When I see the pond now, I love it. I don’t get on myself for not having it perfect. It is perfect right now, and I see how it is thriving.
I notice the landscape more, and when I water my plants, I don’t have the thoughts that I should have done a better job. I just am amazed at all of the bees on the basil, bees-and-basil-2and how the flowers are blooming, and how cool it is that the bunnies like those few plants so much, that they ate them down to the nubs.

The other night during the full moon, I sat out on the patio listening to my daughter sing and play the keyboard, very late at night. Not long ago, I would have thought she should be getting sleep. Instead, I sat and reveled in the beauty of my one and only daughter, singing so sweetly below. How beautiful to hear her soul pour out her windows!

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149- Tuning Out to Tune In

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“The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures. It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth in numberless blades … Continue reading

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145- For all the times I had no voice

For all the times I had no voice, for the spirit within that is unseen, unacknowledged, unheard. For all women and the times they had no voice.

My God, how sad that I have so often felt Just. Like. This….

Vit Gestalt performance from Karolin Kent on Vimeo.

Excerpt from the site:

‘Vit gestalt’ is inspired by the research around the issue of female oppression within societies. This piece discusses her social restrictions whilst portraying her as a proud and strong creature, fighting for recognition. Kent utilizes the mediums of performance and live-art in order to discuss this matter. ‘Vit gestalt’ delivers a strong visual and expressive image by blending subtle and grotesque expression, through a structured improvisation of movement and voice.

Performance at Halmstad gatuteaterfestival 2012

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143- So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

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This excerpt of T.S. Eliot’s work from Four Quartets: The East Coker speaks to my need for silence, and the innate uncomfortable-ness of that space between the light and the dark. It is in the anticipation of what lies beneath … Continue reading

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141- Going Inward

Photo by Lee Johnson www.collectivescience.org

I have found myself lately wanting to be alone, not to avoid others, but to truly BE with myself. I have so often over the years kept myself too busy and too distracted to spend valuable time with myself getting to know ME.

As my moon cycle approaches, and shifts are happening in my life, I feel a definite pull inward. Before, I would have pushed myself to do, do, do. Now, I am happy to have a good chunk of the day to relax with myself, and to honor my own personal ebb and flow.

I may even kidnap myself away for the rest of the week, like I would a lover on a honeymoon. Yes, a Self-Cation!

Going inward…. let’s catch up when I emerge.

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136- How We Perceive What We Receive

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The man I have been intimately involved with posted the following on my Facebook wall today: “There are two questions a man must ask himself: The first is ‘Where am I going?’ and the second is ‘Who will go with … Continue reading

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131- Relationship or Work Issues? Talk With a Horse

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I never thought horses could teach me about how I act in relationships and in my life, until yesterday. We were introduced to equine therapy, and I was amazed at the insight gained in just a short hour session where … Continue reading

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