Ever shifting energy
Flowing in, through, around me
Cleansing aching soul
Haiku 5
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Haiku 1
You want in my pants?
You want in my pants? You’re gonna have to pay. Not like you may think.
To get in these pants requires vulnerability, truth, sensitivity and communication. Yes, plenty of communication, specifically about you and your feelings, your fears, failures, successes. I want to know all of you, not just what you think I want to see, not just the comfortable stuff. Why?
Because I want someone to see and love and appreciate all of me. I want curiosity.
I want to be surprised–not in a way that makes me realize you have held back, but where you reveal your jewels of the heart.
Alone again
Just because I want it
doesn’t mean I
Need it
To get through the day,
the night,
the internal strife
That bubbles up
when emotions fall
Left alone to Feel
Resisting the body’s urge to heal
through rest, relaxation,
internalization.
Comfort beckons through the arms
of another
Yet alone again I am
Surrender to the space,
enveloped in arms of mine
Catharsis rolling down my bicep
Manicured fingers wrapping gently
around my ribs
Feathered head bed
Just a blip
In life
Just a moment
of strife
In a full life
Wrap the blanket around you, cuddle in.
You’ve got this.
The Power of Performance
When my body was suddenly covered in goosebumps, I knew I was on the right topic with my tea date. After nearly 2 hours of talking about life, career, parenting, politics, we came back around to performing, something that I know deeply, both as a performer on stage and as a person “performing” in life for love and career and social acceptance.
The world is our stage, and we can either sell our soul trying to appease this audience or that audience. Or, we can be authentic, and find that instead of feeling depleted, we are left overflowing with joy.
Have you ever been to a performance where the artist somehow brought you closer to yourself? Where you found yourself more deeply connected to your own body and sensations and emotions, and those of everyone around you? Where the light, the air, the sounds, are almost palpable?
I know that feeling, and I relish that feeling. It’s called being connected, and I witnessed it yesterday in untrained dancers “performing” in a Tantric Dance of the Sacred Feminine at Inlakesh Festival. After getting in tune with our bodies, eyes closed, we all formed a circle and held space for 2 dancers at a time. They kept their eyes closed, and just let the movement come, big or small. Amazingly, the smallest movements were certainly the most powerful. Why? Because they came from the center of their being.
Couple one was a large man with a sarong draped like a cape across one shoulder, and a petite woman, both of them coincidentally Asian. The man was quivering, so large and powerful, yet obviously intensely sensitive and sensual. The lady was very reserved at first, yet it wasn’t long before she was overtaken by something glorious, sensuous, powerful. Afterward, shaking and eyes alight with wonder, she said it was like the heavens poured into her.
Couple two was a younger girl, strong and pretty, who shook her hips and arms like one would “expect” to the music she was given. The other lady was tall, full-bodied with voluptuous hair well past her waist, a classic face with rosy high cheeks, an absolute pleasure to look at. When she danced, it was like watching Kali. She was soft and sensuous, yet in her dance was fire and brimstone, earthen love and watery seduction.
Fast forward to African Dance later that day, where the heavens again poured into and through me, and my movement became pure devotion. I reached a point in my dance where only the intent drove the movement, my body lit up with an electrical charge, and I had seemingly boundless energy that I poured right into the other dancers. At the end of a full and energetic (and SUPER sweaty) class, we took turns performing improvised solos. One of the movements of the class is deeply devotional and exuberant. In a gesture of bringing my hands close to my heart, and collecting all the joy therein, then offering it forth to each and every dancer in the circle, one at a time, I poured my heart and joy out, shared my love, and channeled an immense amount of energy. I looked directly into the eyes of each of them, some alight with wonder, love, awe, and some with uncertainty. They felt it. I gave all I had to them, and in that exchange, I filled up with more love and joy than I can imagine on a daily basis.
(Photo from Oneworlddance.com ….Sarah Mansare is the teacher and the person that really turned me onto this dance, this culture, this amazing affirmation of our potent life force and capacity for joy and giving)
I leave these experiences transformed from the inside out, each time more and more certain of why dance means so much to me, why and how it can be good for others, to connect to themselves and therefore to others.
There is little (or nothing) more vulnerable and empowering than dancing our truth, and in that instant lies the power of the heavens and earth combined.
Everyone can have that.
I hope for everyone to experience that interconnectedness, to realize that authenticity is the true pathway to connection.
What I want from you
‘It’s easy to reach out to someone who is loving you, because it relieves you of the duty of loving yourself.’ ~Amy Baker
I stayed away from intimate relationship for nearly a year for a reason. It’s hard. And not in the effort way. It’s hard because it brings up your shit. Insecurities and fears that lie dormant while you are single and taking good care of yourself suddenly crop up. And being in relationship is also EASY because when it’s good, we don’t have to give ourselves the loving we need to feel good. But that filling up from someone else’s overflowing cup is unsustainable.
Conscious intimate relationship is incredibly hard, because it demands that you own all your shit, that you allow your vulnerabilities, and that you take full responsibility for your happiness. Therefore, you must get to know yourself. So, in a weird roundabout way, conscious relationship requires plenty of alone time to get to know oneself.
I have been thinking hard about what I want in relationship, and what kind of relationship I want, if any. I realized so many things these past two weeks, pondering over stuff while the man …shit, I don’t even know what to call him. I was calling him my beloved, but things changed in me recently, and I think they changed in him, but we haven’t had time to talk about it. I may have screwed up asking for an open relationship. What people don’t realize when I say I want an open relationship is that I am NOT asking for something flippant or on the side. I AM saying I want a relationship. It just is going to have different boundaries than the typical monogamous relationship.
And I actually realized that I don’t necessarily so much want an open relationship. I want the communication that I feel is necessary for that type of relationship to occur. So what I really want is someone and something REAL. I want to give my partner enough freedom so they can feel comfortable being themselves so I can see who they really are. I want to get to know the real person. And yet, it ends up backfiring. I guess I will have the same issues regardless….but I digress.
I have been feeling like I need to fix myself, like I can’t be broken in front of anyone, and that I only deal with my shit on my own, and there is a lot to be said for taking care of your shit on your own. But I think there is also a lot to be said for accepting that we are imperfect, and we have pasts that shape us in many ways. While we try to overcome those shadows, some we aren’t aware of yet, and others we just aren’t clear of. And that’s O.K.
For me, things get good, and I find myself waiting for the other shoe to drop. I recognize it every time, and just because it’s familiar, doesn’t make it easier. It’s often hard to tell how much is intuition, and how much is reactive programming.
So, some things about me that I am accepting and telling partners about:
- I want and need open, honest, regular communication. Openness and honesty create intimacy with me, which creates trust. Lack of disclosure about who a partner is spending time with is pretty much a deal breaker. Is this largely due to being cheated on by my ex husband the whole 6 years we were together? Perhaps. But it’s what I want and need to feel emotionally safe and close to someone. If someone wants to get to know me, then they need to be open, upfront and honest about everything.
- I want to be wanted. It’s important to me that you want me in your life. If not, then why spend time together? I don’t believe in just filling an empty space. You know those sweet things that you did in the first month or so? Don’t stop. We aren’t done courting yet. Thinking of me? Please let me know. It feels good to know someone is missing you.
- Vulnerability is sexy, so long as you are owning your shit. So is knowing and expressing what you want. I strive to do that and don’t always succeed. You know what else is sexy? Admitting you were wrong. That is so hot!
- I like touch, and cuddling and sweet, tender kisses and hugs. I am not a sex object, and while I have a sex drive to match or beat yours, that is not the only thing on my mind and it doesn’t fill my heart like tender caresses and holding me like someone who is cherished. If you want to keep me around, be tender more than you are horny.
- I have fears. Despite all of the work I have done on myself, and all of the years of counseling, the fears come up. When things get really good and beautiful, I start waiting for the other shoe to fall. I don’t know how to stop it. I just know what it is and try my best not to react to those negative thoughts and feelings. It’s really more a sinking in my gut and a low-level vibration of panic. I fear that the one I am loving will not love me once he sees all of me, that somehow I am not lovable as I am. SO, I am working on loving all those pieces of myself. I actually like myself a lot, so not sure why this comes up so much.
- Just once, I would love if a man could see me falling apart over a fear (no matter how stupid), and just hold me and love me for being vulnerable, for doing my darnedest to work through all the mental crap I have dealt with over the years. If they only knew how much I have overcome. Love me for my weaknesses as much as my strengths, for my strength is born out of allowing and dealing with my weaknesses.
It’s not that I don’t want you
To my current and future lovers…..
It’s not that I don’t want you, that I wouldn’t welcome calling you mine. Au contraire. I want nothing more than to be someone’s beloved…. to be held deeply in the heart of one I call my beloved.
It’s that I don’t want the relationships I have had, and so in order to not fall into those patterns again, to create something I don’t fully know yet, I must break the mold and start anew. Crush the clay and rebuild.
And so I risk losing you so that I can avoid losing myself in you, for surely if that happens, I have lost you already, or will lose you soon. No, I would have lost you from the beginning, for if you stayed, it would be for the wrong reason, the wrong person, like so many others in my past.
Yes, I risk losing your love so that I may ensure I stay whole in myself, for then I have all of me to give to you. And if you leave a whole person, then surely it was not meant to be and I will have nothing to lose, for I kept myself whole.
What a beautiful thought….2 whole people merging to become more than they are alone…. yet staying separate and whole throughout it all. I want to know that I have given all of me to you, in those moments of merging. And I want to receive all of you.
That is beauty.
That is truth.
That is what I want.
I told my mom tonight I am putting myself in the fire (of relationship). I am not sure how or if I can handle the person I am with being with another person intimately. I don’t know that I can handle being with more than one person intimately. It’s not really about that, to be honest. It’s about being in that uncomfortable space, that place that causes so many of us to dive into the “comfort” of monogamy. It’s predictable, or so we think.
I told my mom that I have jealousy issues that come up when I am in a monogamous relationship. Yes, I have jealousy issues, so I have decided to put myself in relationship where I may be sharing my partner. Why?! Because it is the only way I can get over it.
For me, it is about communication, about allowing myself the time to experience what comes up for me with the space to work through it. I know flirtation happens, and affairs happen, and people are attracted to each other for whatever reason. Sometimes, we confuse emotional or even cerebral attraction with sexual. Sometimes, drawing that boundary around the relationship creates a tension that actually draws a person more toward what is “forbidden”. Take away that invisible boundary, and the tension dissolves. Then, you can see the attraction/energetic pull for what it really is.
What if we allowed ourselves to have whatever connection felt right with someone, and did not stop it because of fear of what our partner may or may not think? What if we were supportive of the other having these relationships?
I love knowing that my current partner and I have options to be with other people and still spend precious time with each other. There is never obligation, only desire and enjoyment. I love that. We allow each other choice, with compassion and forgiveness, every day.
He owes me nothing, and I expect nothing. I want honesty and openness and will draw the line there, but I can’t expect it of him. Just one day at a time. It’s scary, because my fear says he will not find me interesting enough to stay….Yes, the tears on my cheek as I type tell me this is true…that I have this deep-seated fear that I am not lovable. That can’t be true, since I had 3 men want to marry me. I just was with men who didn’t love themselves, and I did not love myself enough to stay whole. Everyone is lovable. Everyone deserves love.
It’s time to come together with someone in a whole-hearted, whole-bodied manner.
So far, it’s going great.
Not always comfortable, certainly not familiar, but most definitely right.