Category Archives: Spirituality

Convergence Divergence

Posted on by
Reply

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….

Share

I am not what I was

Posted on by
Reply

I love how clarity just happens, often when we aren’t seeking it. I was sitting on the couch the other day, pondering the concept of being triggered. It has become more and more evident how our triggers can either block us from living life or lead us to greater clarity and self-compassion.

And it dawned on me. I am not a wounded person. I am whole.

Suddenly, I had flashbacks to so many times I reacted based on a story in my mind, how as proud of being independent and positive I was, I still put myself in the victim role with stories of being wounded. Those stories suddenly didn’t matter. They were just….stories. At that moment, I didn’t identify with them. What happened next was a big, full, ecstatic and life-affirming inhale as my chest softened and let life in.

Does not being wounded mean we don’t get triggered? Hell no! What it means, for me, is that I have another chance to undo a negative pattern and redirect it through truth seeking and self love. I can get triggered, but not identify myself with the stories that caused the patterns.

I am not what I was.

I am.

Share

Permission to Be yourSelf

Posted on by
Reply

I recently realized something so clearly, and while at first it seemed so simple, so obvious, it was profound.

In my last relationship, I had met a man that I saw as generous beyond measure. His motto was “We, Us, Ours” and all that was his was also mine. We had fused, become one, and he wanted to share it all with me. It felt like an affirmation from the universe that someone finally wanted to share all of who and what they are with me. The abundance of spirit and the material world both collided and coalesced.

I also remember him saying in the beginning that I could do whatever I wanted. I didn’t have to work if I didn’t want to, or wear makeup, or dress a certain way. He also never said he would love me regardless of what I did, but did give me “permission” to be myself, for the most part. Of course, there was disapproval of certain actions, like dancing (which is my first love) but I was “allowed” to do them….At the time, all I heard was I could be Me.

I was sitting enjoying a beer recently when it dawned on me… I don’t need anyone’s permission to Do or Be anything. What I once saw as a generous offering to me was in fact a mirror showing how I didn’t give myself permission to do as I pleased.

I had put my power in someone else’s hands.

By putting that authority in his hands, I allowed him to control everything I did or didn’t do, simply through his approval or disapproval. I wanted to please him, so I gave up what I loved and did what I could that made him happy, which ultimately didn’t work. Why? Because I wasn’t being myself.

I realized I had given over all of my power, and I saw the detrimental effect it was having on me and thus our relationship, so I started taking back my power. I stopped asking for permission to do what I wanted, stopped waiting on his availability to plan my day and my week, and started doing what was best for my well-being. I spent more time with my daughter, got my Oregon licensure, got a job, bought some nice new clothes for myself, started yoga teacher training with my favorite teacher on Maui, and was really on the up and up when he left.

I don’t need anyone’s permission for anything I do or say.

It is a huge switch in my entire being to acknowledge that, to KNOW that. I am thankful for him reflecting that back to me, for giving me the permission I wasn’t giving myself, so that I could realize how I had given up my power.

How often do we give up our power in our daily lives? How often do you not question the status quo just enough to get the results you need? How often do you let things slide to keep the peace? So often, we actually create more peace when we speak our truth from a place of self-edification and knowing.

How often do you NOT give yourself permission to stand up for what you want? At a restaurant, if you ask for something and they don’t give it to you, can you remind them of what you asked for and request it clearly and nicely?

Do you find yourself changing your habits or dress to please someone else? Why? At whose benefit? More importantly, at whose cost? If that person can’t love you as you are, it’s best to let them go.

Now, if someone tells me I can be myself, I can say with all certainty, “You are right.”

Dancing again

Posted on by
Reply

It’s been years, and I had forgotten that all pervasive internal movement, the constant inner dialogue of dance.

Driving away, I find myself going through each movement, breaking it down into all its parts. I had forgotten how dance connects me to myself, how it reminds me of the interconnectedness of every little part of me, and how every little part of me connects to all that is around me.

Yes, how the smallest intentional movement can translate through your body and out into something big and beautiful, or something so small and profound. The dance inside mirrored out there, out in the world.

The unfurling of the soul.dancer swirl

I had forgotten how movement out there brings me closer to the movement in here, in my heart, in my very own body that remembers so much. The fascination of movement, and of slowing everything down to its infinitesimal purity, only to speed it back up again. And the test is to remain so in tune with the transitions that time stays slow, so that you can move like lightning.

That’s when life makes sense, when nothing else exists but the movement within and without, when my inner merges with the outer, I am space, I am flow, I am alive.

Share

Heap of Tired

Posted on by
Reply

It’s as if the sky is crying for me,

and the thunder wails for me,

so that I may relax into this feeling of despair,

so I may exhale into a comfortable heap of tired.

 

And the storm will pass, the tears will wash away,

and we will start afresh,

cleansed from the outpouring of our hearts

and the washing of our souls.

Share

Days of Clarity

Posted on by
Reply

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!

Share

Starting again

Posted on by
Reply

I am not even sure where to start, except that….

I MISSED WRITING!!!

Sometimes, we have to take an extended break from something to see how much it fulfills a deep need in our soul.

I took a break from so much that I love, in order to experience a new way of being. I have no complaints. It needed to happen. I needed the break, the fresh start, the time and space to work through so many internal issues that have plagued me (many still do, such is life).

Today, I went to Unity Church here in my new hometown of Ashland, Oregon. I had never been, but was graciously invited by a dear friend. The topic was Death, or rather some of the questions around those last couple weeks of life when someone is transitioning out of his/her body.

The speaker was the author Mary Landberg of Enduring Love: Inspiring Stories of Love and Wisdom at the End of Life. One thing (of many) that stuck with me was her stories of people essentially reliving their life’s passion. She spoke of a gifted quilter “sewing” invisible fabric, a fisherman casting his line into an “imaginary” lake over and over, an Ob/Gyn doctor putting on his gloves and preparing to deliver a baby.

It struck me that they were in this place with, as Mary put it, ‘one foot firmly planted where they are going, and one foot precariously placed in this world.’ And what they chose to act out and to experience are those things in their life that brought them joy.

It is so often the simplest thing that brings us joy, that carries us even to our deathbed. Each person knows what makes their heart sing. I love to dance. I love Truth, and I love to write.

When we are at the crossroad into the unknown and out of this bodily form, what will matter is how we lived. I talk not of regret, but of celebrating now what may seem small, but nothing that makes your heart sing is small. It is what feeds your soul, which in turn feeds the hearts and souls of those around you.

So, I sit here blogging again, because it brings me clarity and joy. I blog not because I want affirmation, but because by sharing our process, we all grow. In my search for truth, I seek greater authenticity. I seek to weed out all that keeps me from being absolutely authentic.

More on that in a future post. There is so much to share, and I am so thrilled to be back!

 

Share

12.21.12: The Day the World Ended….As We Knew It

Posted on by
1

12.21.12 was truly the day my world ended as I knew it.

I started a whole new book in my life. I am filled with so much love and appreciation, hope and light. The shift to all that I dreamed occurred. That internal shift is being reflected back at me at every turn, in every moment of my days.
So thankful to those who have helped bring me to this point, to those who explored the depths of pain and suffering with me, and to those who continued to see my light when I couldn’t, to those who patiently stood by, held space for me, supported my effort to transform my existence into something more TRUE to my essence.
I realized True Love in a man so full of life and love, a man that reflects back all of my inner beauty, and I his. I raised to a new vibration, and he saw me. It was finally time for us to come together, even though we had been circling each other for over a year.

We are writing a new book together, and it’s going to be amazingly beautiful. It already is!

Thank you, Universe, for providing me all of the lessons, however harsh, of the past few years that prepared me for a love so deep and true.

I bow fully in gratitude to the beauty of the universe we create every moment of our existence. May every human being feel great love within and see it reflected from without.

Share

Co(s)mical life

Gallery

Posted on by

I got busy with the Hurricane Sandy deployment and couldn’t keep up with the posts, but I will go back and post the pics, because it was an awesome experience. TONIGHT,… tonight…. I have felt so many waves of emotion. … Continue reading →

Share

153- Holy Past Blast Batman!

Gallery

Posted on by

This gallery contains 1 photo.

Life has been very full lately, largely of stressful things…. really stressful things. Yet, it is all balanced by so much beauty and support, that I honestly can’t complain. I don’t want to be in crisis mode all of the … Continue reading →

Share