poison oak awakening

this past week i found myself exploring the kinesthetic sensations of a toxic oil/heat rash. Quite an adventure and an education! Having ignored any signs that there might be poison oak vines in the field i was helping to clear, the arrogance of my denial was overcome by the fire-plants inflammatory touch. As it dawned on me, over the next few days, and I realized what had scraped and seeped and licked and inflicted its way into my dermis, i began to explore a world of raw sensation we don't usually get initiated into (fortunately!) The intensity of burning; the ferocity of an irresistable urge to scratch and claw and rub and soothe; the virulently firing nerves on and just below the usual protective surface of skin; the experimentation with a variety of remedies, homeopathic, allopathic, drying, cooling, moisturizing,... all of this provided a fantastically unusual experience with going thru something i wouldn't have chosen but received anyway!

what does poison oak teach? Some say: boundaries. to respect the gates of the forest. to be awake and look, to pay attention to our movements in the field. to recognize the shadow of nature as well as its beauty and light.

a friend of mine, Ronda Mikolaitis, died this past year. She was an ardent nature lover, leading wilderness hikes for years before, ironically, she contracted lymes disease from the very goddess she loved! Nature is Kali, bestower and destroyer. Transformer. Not just benevolent. Earthquakes and tornadoes and fires and tsunamis and ... poison oak. admire and respect. beauty and power. arrogance does not do. we will get humbled before what is much greater than us.

some patches of skin now feel lizard like. i allow myself the pleasure of hot showers, of cool baths with oatmeal, the anti-itch creams and gels have offered some relief, the heavy hitting cortisone and steroidal creams have subdued the hyper-activated immune system reactivity, aloe juice cools, ice cools, the pleasure/pain sensations of scratching have been, at moments, blissful and ecstatic! I'd say this has been a remarkable ride, making the most of the immense discomfort that has arisen this past week. I have hung out and expanded/deepened with some friends, seen #30 clients and 3 movies, played bughouse chess, hosted rhythm matrix at tranquility salon and, this morning Equinox, sat with Adyashanti and a non-duality sangha at satsang,... and now write this. I feel totally blessed, moving through and beyond the nasty curse of the plant into relief.

the I Ching reading I found myself called to is #30 FIRE. sun and moon cling to the sky; plants cling to the earth. Clinging to what is right with double illumination (fire above, fire below) develops the world. as the 3rd yang reads, in the fire of the setting sun, either you drum on a jug and sing, or you sigh the lament of the elderly, which is unfortunate. image: how long can the fire of the setting sun last? needless to say, this P.O. process has been illuminating! and fortunately, intensity subsides and resolves into regenerative healing. so I feel graced.

Adya spoke this morning of embracing all, resisting nothing. I smiled during his entire talk. what is difficult wants to be accepted by us. to resist reality is futile; reality always wins! this week i have been granted the kind of experience that fulfills this principle. accepting what is, including the discomfort, calms the inflammatory/ reactive tendencies in our system.

How can you relate to this? what have you been resisting that needs to be met? are you ready to let go of your lament? I am.

Navigating Intimacy

i am contemplating intimacy in depth these days. wondering about essential ingredients in the processes of cultivating and deepening authentic connection and sustaining profound, embodied, essential contact. when I asked my FB friends to chime in on the subject of intimacy, this is what we came up with:

openness. curiosity. inquiry. dropping defenses. vulnerability. honesty. a sensing of resonance. mutuality. respect. authenticity. responsiveness. willingness. a sense of humor. playfulness. allowing. surrendering.

what is essential to you in being deeply intimate? How do you create and cultivate intimacy in your life?

to me, intimacy, like a good conversation, is a spiritual practice, involving deepening consciousness with/in oneself and may, as an advanced spiritual, sexual and developmental practice, engage another being in a way that greatly expands and deepens heart and soul. As a partnership path, the potential, synergy, activation, co-creativity abounds with possibility. Yet intimacy can also often go awry. What begins with a passionate start can fall off the cliff! Intimacy can grow into intense conflict, a sense of entrapment, a sense of betrayal and loss of the promised land! How does that happen? How can we both avoid the pitfalls and optimize the potentials for growth??

that/this is what I am dedicated to studying and presenting on these pages.

A good friend, Samantha Sweetwater, had her birthday party the other evening. One thing she said is that she "starts with how she doesn't really know the other". That is radical openness. I like that as a starting and a returning place in authentic relating: Not knowing who the other is. Not labeling them, categorizing them, defining them. So easy to control our worlds by naming, projecting, assuming, limiting and otherwise not see the others true self! We falsify ourselves with our ego identities, lose ourselves and lose sight of who the other is. Our relating then becomes rote, superficial, constructed.

Defining an intimate moment too soon can stifle its growth. "Premature relationalization" is what i am calling that tendency to define something before its time. In the phase of early dating it can be wise to refrain from such stifling practices as: talking about other relationships, talking about other people, talking about relationship(s) at all!

In middle phases of relationship, commitment does of course come into play. Deep intimacy requires a strong container. Relationship agreements, sexual dynamics, emotional needs all need to be negotiated. Our question is: how do we create an optimal holding environment that is neither too restrictive nor too loose?

more on this subject soon...

please leave comments on what interests you!!

be well, be intimate with life! Practice being openness!

see into yourself deeply and into those you chose to be intimate with.

Deep Archetypal Masculine Poetics

Deep Archetypal Masculine Identity, Being and Action includes diverse, distinct and distinguished energy forms: King, Lover, Fool, Magician, Father, Warrior, Witness... Light and Shadow elements in our culture, growing and becoming aspects of personalities we "fall into"... petty tyrants, bullies, dumb-schmuck, trickster, angst ridden, rageaholic; unrealized/frustrated masculine... partner of the divine feminine. One who learns to yield and surrender. Poet. Mystic. Provider. Son. Brother. Uncle. Master. and Servant... the masks we wear.


Inquiry: what other essential roles and perspectives hath the masculine? and what current constructs, identities and energies of the feminine are at play in your own imaginarium?? Divine Child, Goddess, Queen, Princess, Sweetheart, Dominatrix, Friend, Huntress, Ex, Boss, Mother, Teacher, Muse...


Further Inquiry: What are your particular gender gifts? How does the deep masculine and feminine manifest in your own unfolding? Are you giving your gifts over, surrendering into your self and your generativity? Are your families, friends, colleagues and lovers hearing you and you them? Are you exchanging brilliant thought forms with each other and if not, why are you holding on to ancient secrets, denying or holding back on your own genius and subsequently not fully realizing the collective/ collaborative projects that potentially may manifest between us?!

One such creative collaboration I am wondering about is Ritual Theatre: what does it look, sound and feel like when we consciously and intentionally enact/embody archetypal image/energies in relation to the issues of our time: ecological uncertainty, political unrest/upheaval, threats of conflict, illness, financial breakdowns, divorce and social isolation??

We need fresh vision and intentional, strategically informed actions. We need to source/access primal energies that inspire, inform, enlighten ourselves and each other with epiphanies and meta-transformative insights. We are capable of shifting our perspectives and our identities, of expanding and evolving our essential nature and more substantially fulfilling our purpose for being. We are each singularly creative, each with our own genius and qualitative contributional capacities.

Where can you join ? What inspires your deep internal process? How do you tap into the deep masculine and feminine potentialities within your own self?

Please feel free to comment on this, to share your own vision.
This has been inspired by some family interactions around my dad's recent illness and some epihnaies I experienced tonight; as well and importantly, by my whyze guyz mens circle; and by R Moore and D Gillette's book: King Warrior Lover and Magician

Is there an inherent meaning to life, an over-riding, capital P, Purpose?? If not, then our sense of meaning and purpose is constructed, fabricated, invented, chosen, cultivated, devoted to, selected and committed to… from a great pool of possibilities. Purpose may come to us as a revelation, may be revealed to us in glimpses, may become apparent in a flash of a moment or in an intuition.

Some discover a deep sense of purpose that is deeply resonant with their essential natures. That is my Purpose, to resonate with a deep sense of intention in my life, to be aligned with vision and committed to action that matters! Many form goals that are secondary tier, not ultimate, and that is good enough – they don’t expect to find ultimate purpose – and good lives are humbly lived in accordance to basic goals and values and ethical principles. Perhaps purpose is inherently small p, non-definitive, and distinct to each of us.

Here is my attempt to define Purpose:
To live fully, to experience, explore, discover and express my true nature and evolve a cohesive narrative, to live and explore life’s unfolding, to experience, receive and respond to the miracle that informs and surrounds us, to inquire and investigate, to enjoy and partake, to serve and be served to value and love and embrace and cry and dance and sing and laugh,… To cultivate character traits and embody principles and qualities such as courage and wisdom and kindness and strength,… with discipline and awakened attention. Purpose is Intention is Focus is Direction that guides actions in accordance with our leading-edge truths. Focusing with single-minded attention on multiple possibilities, gathering vision like flowers in the meadow, directing our dynamic life-force, realizing and living fully our soulpath, thru the contours, convexes and concaves of this world-crucible with clear intention, cultivating our intention, our sense of direction, with exquisite care. Our paths, filled with possibilities and potentials, push and pull us, portending inevitability. Our destination is the sum total of all of our experiences and choices.

As Rainer Marie Rilke says: “what we chose to fight is so tiny, what fights with us is so great!” Shaping and being shaped, honing and being honed, that is the dance. We intend and activate possibilities as life needs, kneads and feeds us. Quality matters. Heart matters. Presence matters. Bringing ourselves to each moment, each situation, each relationship – fully, wholly and completely – is what matters. Discernment matters.

Purpose is priority and order, the ability to recognize what matters in the moment and to act. Purpose is why we are here. Its constructed, derived, evolved; its contextual, versatile and variable. Its quest and path, ease and struggle, simple and infinitely complex. When we arrive, purpose is fulfilled, answered, completed; then, we can surrender intent and focus, draw water from the well, drink and be quenched, perhaps sated and nourished. In time, purpose will resurrect, be born again and take us on our path once again. Thus we renew. So I say, savor moments of arrival as well as moments of departure. Leave and come back, go and return and trust in return, in redemption, in resilience. In your life, teach others to intend and fulfill, to strive and surrender, to let go and trust in home-coming. Purpose is making meaning of our suffering and our lives and making meaning is fulfilling and redemptive.

What do you feel is your sense of purpose?

What motivates and drives you??

Pleas contribute your vision to this blog!!

Michael g

Vision

Gathering seeds and planting them, seeding the cycles of growth, sensing into what’s hidden beneath the obvious, seeing the big picture in the details, embracing vision in totality… With a soft focus, we relax and allow the images to form, receptive to guidance and intuition. With a hard focus, our intensity burns through barriers seeking clarity, truth and direction with principle and purpose. Beautiful colors and patterns appear as food for the soul, through the windows of our eyes, outer and inner. The eagle and the mouse both exist within us as capacity, as potential and as resource. In our minds eyes we can see where we are, where we’d like to be and where we are going, as our being gathers direction and our inner GPS guides us. All inner resources can be turned towards that which our vision reveals. Vision can be myopic, kaleidoscopic, tunneled, grand and vast, compassionate, limited, shamanic; astounding is the breadth and scope of all that we can barely glimpse: angels and demons, beauty and suffering, life and death are all included in whole of our existence, which we may comprehend. Standing on top of the mountain panoramic vision opens to immensity, while appreciating also the lines on a leaf, the intricacy of microscopic detail. Behold! Light, illumination, beauty and terror, sparkle and scratch on the surface of our vision, entering our consciousness in moments we are gifted and blessed to glimpse! Seeing what is behind, around, before and along-side us, the currents of our vision are as great as the oceans we swim in. Vision is a candle dancing in the dark night. Vision is the sun rising and setting, the clouds gathering, images birthing and dissolving, a chaotic/busy desk and a clear mind. Vision gathers and leads our hearts along paths of unfolding experience.

Free-Form Expressive Dance as Path

This is our Temple, Dance is our path, our meditation, our holy offering, our devotional practice, our mirror, our path to ecstatic union w the sacred embodied, our own unique and shared, collective expression of the divine creative urge… You find yourself in a roomful of moving, pulsating, vibrant, consciously kinetic beings,… you explore the space, ground your being on the floor and play with the openings, the personal, the interpersonal and the meta-spacious,… its like a dream, music bodies moving whichever way bodies prefer to move,…

We dance to ground our sense of Belonging on this earth, to deepen our sense of being at home here and now, in body, soul and community…

We dance to release our thoughts, to liberate ourselves from mental slavery, from the minds’ labyrinths and amazing mazes, to emancipate ourselves from the tyranny of the verbal.

Our language becomes an alphabet of movement.

Innate, proprio-ceptive, kinesthetic, spatial intelligence thrives with us on the dance floor, living and breathing in our blood and bones, muscles and glands, awakened and ignited, celebrated and inspired.

We meditate on and in patterns and rhythms and breath and sole to the floor walkabout,… there we are: body, mind, heart, soul and presence. Our companions may or may not be previous acquaintances; a sensual dance evolves w someone whose name you do not know; this is part of the altered space you are in, names are not needed in necessary in this social space, you can dance beneath, around, under and over names. We can watch, listen, launch, glisten, laugh, cry, sing, try, relax, serve, connect, be shy,… for this is an elegant mirror of the soul.

Improvisational, Free-form Dance is a mirror, reflecting us in and thru various lenses and filters:

Breath: grounding in your breath, you feel tired or energetic, nervous or aroused, and notice your state of presence.

Impulse: how does your body want to warm up? What is your soul yearning for, aloneness, contact, slow movement or fast, stillness or raucous contact? You can follow your impulses and see where they lead! You can find another soul to dance w and see what the synergy of that combination feels like. Where do these impulses come from – head, heart, belly, feet,… your dance partner?

Beauty: the beauty around us is a reflection of our own light.

Dance is an intra-psychic exploration. We observe what arises in our consciousness and we move in accordance, or as counter-point. In avoidance or in absorption. In identification or in projection. In defense or in pure openness and ecstatic bliss. In mental pre-occupation or in release of thought and in blessed awareness, in clear pools or in kinetic breezes. Any and all states of consciousness may show up: our maps inform our movement, and we dance to explore new terrain, new territory, and to refresh and shift our perspectives, with each movement and turn! We tune in to the moving center and watch what shapes it acquires and takes on, and then, what happens next. We enjoy surprises or stay w the familiar to ground and source our true being, beneath the intellect and thought and plan… we allow our moves to emerge from the grooves, from the beats and rhythms that our maestro DJ spins… and from the fountain of potential within and around us… we dance in the fountain of frothing bubbles, , the cauldron of passionate energy, élan vital’, creative source… and the more we immerse, the greater the swim! The more we tune in to the currents, the greater our lift into the breeze and passageways! Our spirits our nourished and our souls more deeply grounded in presence and expression.

Free-form, Improvisational Dance is a co-creative interplay, a synergy, a meeting space of artists, muses, warriors, sisters, brothers, lovers… each sovereign and each a mirror. We sense our bodies, our souls,… and others in the interpersonal space, in a grand synergy of possibility in motion. Eyes may meet, glance, gaze or avert, windows into our souls, into exchange, into curiosity and the unknown, into the familiar and into meeting… We sense the resonances and the harmonies, the rhythm and the beat, and feel ourselves drawn or deflective, joined or repelled, sensitive or disinterested, hunting, gathering, warrior-like, or fools dancing on the edges of time, all archetypes collected and combined, to what depths? To what expanse? who leads, who is follows, how consciously connected is the attunement,… these personal elements may dance in the mix. When we follow the contact and not control where it leads, there can be some exciting turns and unexpected moments, graceful, awkward, elegant, clumsy,… surrendered to the moments journey

Dance is a relational mirror: single or coupled, how does your relational status play out on the dance floor? What are your parameters: as a couple, these need to be clearly negotiated or your relationship can find trouble! For there is enticement and attraction, sensual play and shakti flirtation, meetings of the soul and myriad possibilities “on the floor” that suggest “off-the-floor” possibilities… some come for that, for the dynamic interplay. Others more committed to the intra-psychic explorations and not drawn to the dyadic except in special conditions. How is that for you?

Relational elements in the mix: Entering, being chosen, trios, entrapment, choosing, hunting/ stalking/ pursuit, discovery, delight! Clumsiness and grace, laughter and prayer, sacredness and irreverence… we share a devotional path…

Spirals and circles, lines and angles, repetition and chaos, wildness and stillness, stretching and reaching, flowing and flying,… the bubbling cauldron of our collective soul.

We sense the space, the meta zone, the emptiness within and between and around all of us, where we are free of our words, free to move however we like, we dance on the margins of the page, in the sphere of potential...

and we sense our tribe, our community of co-liberators and free spirits, our collective-kinetic, pulsating, vibrating soul-bodies moving in transcend-dance, beyond ego and self and thought and singularity, like a pod of dolphins, moving as one, in stellar moments of tribal consciousness, connected beyond separate boundaries, attuned in the dance, surrendered to the flow and the beat

We give thanks for music and the muse, this moving art-form and our co-conspiralators,… our feet and our ears and our hearts and our release, for the dance of our souls and our lives and our inter-beings, our center and our Source.