Tape rollers and swiffers

I’m obsessed with tape rollers…and swiffers. This one got me thinking–

We walk around covered in the
world’s filth and don’t even know it.
We inherit
generations of ancestral addiction and trauma
and think
it’s our personal
failing. The words of hatred, denial, self-preservation
greed, and gossip swirl into the air
in search of a landing place….you, your ready mind.

We think our nasty little thoughts cursing those who’ve hurt us. We experience road rage. And of course millions take out their unprocessed anger and grief on their innocent animals and children eah day. We don’t understand energy and it’s mission.

And so we by the millions, sit in shame and don’t know what’s wrong with us. Mental health, chronic pain, suicide all on the rise and we are at a loss for how to move, how to deal with our pain.

Most people inside a bubble of aloneness, disconnected from community– a real place to regularly be seen and heard, to be challenged!

And so if we do not shake the dust off LITERALLY, we will live from our unconscious dirty little self. Our sin will devour us.

Our blame game will pre-occupy our minds and we will wonder why despair is causing us to self-destruct.

Watch your thoughts they become beliefs which become actions…if we do not find a daily practice of discovering the New Earth, we will live by the world’s domination system and call it normal. We will be slaves to a system of division and consumption, disconnection and personal agenda.

The Truth shall set us free– we are ONE humanity united under the unseen Father mystery, the manifest Mother who’s beauty abounds, who’s creative force compels us to choose better.

Choose life, choose to find your clean heart, your mind of Christ.

Ode to Jesus and Mary…Oliver

 

what a mess they used to make

a hostile takeover 

before

He sturdied me

studied me

made His body my  Sovereign guard

unexpected visitors

stormed the territory

armed

dangerous

i had no choice

(((helpless victim that I was)))

but to let them

have their

way with me

leaving me 

for dead

what bloody violence

before Her tender

breath of compassion

kingdom serenity

feelings once fueled by 

guerrilla forces

what binding blinding confusion

before His Revolutionary Logic

jumbled thoughts 

inexorable feelings 

sent to sabotage

and so

i prayed to jesus

and

to mary…. oliver

each seemed to know

exactly

what i needed from

them

Holy Water Tears

stretched wide across the chest

I send a deep breath beyond what’s pulled taut

into my low belly

where the ache lives (haunts)

much later, in stillness

the pictures flash across my mind

you and me

twinning

sisters, they’d say

whenever love’s torn in 2

the breach is gonna sear

So

I hand Her what feels burnt to a crisp

commanding SHE bring me closer to HER inferno

yes closer…I will not run

Just Dont allow my tears to put out

Love’s fire

Keep me blazing

with you

Burn down my resistance

to more LIGHT

I am an Animal

Let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Mary Oliver

Our President made a comment this week about some violent gang members but I only see it as the perfect opportunity to take back the term. We’ve moved so far away from our instinctual nature, that we no longer trust ourselves, our intuitive knowing. We’ve masked our needs and drowned our desires with food, alcohol and every other form of numbing. We need only to feel again what it means to be fully human.

Our howls for the pain of the world will release our stuck pain. Our growls for all the suffering will push aside the evil impulse to cause more pain.

We are animals- every one of us trying to hide what brings us shame. The lust, the gluttony, the need to feel safe so we attempt to surround ourselves with all the trappings of ‘things’.  It doesnt work. We are not safe.

Best to be wild. Be free. Be bold. Speak truth. Love will emerge…its covered over in fear of being seen fully.

How will you embrace your animal nature-

• yoga postures, breathing consciously?
• Lots of making love with self or partner– sounds escaping body, seratonin boost?
• Walking in nature, hugging the trees, gazing at the sky?
• Lying on Mama EARTH allowing Her to embrace you fully, your tears watering her spring growth.
• Making art or music?

Dance…for sure the easiest thing to do right this moment is to dance even as the world spins off of its axis, crazy with judgment, insane with separation anxiety.  YOu are a thread in the fabric of the universe–

You are one of the sun’s rays my love.

Teflon Girl

Insults hurled, barbs like arrows gaining speed
Far-flung language and under-handed jabs lobbed my way

Misfires? Maybe…

Makes no matter—I am Teflon Girl

The criticisms and hurts are only a mirror if I’m holding one

They no longer represent my Truth

Only That which serves the Highest Good in Me sticks

The oft-reported shortcomings have nowhere to land
Slipping and sliding into oblivion

I am Teflon Girl

Sturdy like armor, protecting what is of value
Preserving and insulating like a chest-full of that stuff
My heart beats on

I am Teflon Girl

Separation is a LIE

Back in May 2015 I was signed up for a weekend training in NYC with Phoenix Rising Yoga therapy.

The day before I had the thought “I Love learning new things; especially about yoga!” and suddenly a new deeper thought came in– ‘This isnt about learning dear. This is about healing.”  Woah!!  What have I got to heal?  Haven’t I done enough deep work during the 8 months of yoga teacher training I completed in Novemebr?  Such a silly girl– there is ALWAYS more to heal.

Upon arrival our very first partner activity is gently placing two fingers on one another’s heart- front and back.  As Lea’s hand approached my sternum, I felt as if she had to push through a dense block to reach me.  After a few minutes of silence and breathing together, she is  instructed to slowly remove her hands from me. 

I instantly burst into tears. We have only just begun and there are two more days ahead of us.

I go home and sleep like a rock for over 10 hours, missing my alarm.  Arriving late to class, I apologize and explain that emotionally I do not feel up to partner work and will observe for awhile.  Within 45 minutes I am curled in a ball on the floor and back asleep!!

Suddenly, I am awakened crying and feeling ashamed.  I glance around the room and see everyone assisting one another in hip-openers. They are rolling and stretching one another and no one is crying.  I hear in my spirit ‘The hips hold shame. Release your shame’.  I yell in head — You are not even experiencing a hip stretch!!  How in the world are you the one releasing shame??

The crying stops. The emotion passes and we take a lunch break.  I head outside to take in the hustle and bustle of New York’s Soho neighborhood.  I find a tasty Indian spiced potato flatbread and chow hungrily.  I am awake, alive, grateful and open.

The afternoon continues uneventfully and I head back to my friend’s house on the other side of Hudson.

Sunday morning and I had almost forgotten I would awaken in a strange bed on Mother’s Day. I am filled with sadness missing my mom and my children.   But my friend had very thoughtfully been prepared this might be the case and greets me with flowers and a card!  I am verklempt. 

Heading back into the Big Apple, I feel mature and excited for our final hours together.  Living in South Jersey and mostly working from home, I don’t enjoy these adventures often enough I decide.

It’s now about 5pm and we are just a few hours away from finalizing our level 1.  We are instructed while sitting cross-legged, to close our eyes and imagine being divided in half, top of head to seat.

My eyes fly open and I am filled with terror as I had felt my body violently sliced in half with a huge machete. I look around. No one else seems bothered.  I wait, feeling anxiety rising.

The teacher wraps up and asks if anyone has any feedback.  I say with a tremor in my voice what just happened.  I then begin to lose sensation in my hands so I stand up and begin shaking them, hard. 
The tears come hard and fast and I almost hyperventilate but then return to focus on deep inhales and slow exhales. I say I am ok now and retreat to the ladies room for some water and rest.

As the months have passed since that experience, I have contemplated numerous times what my body was releasing and relaying.  My birth father visited me once in the hospital Novemebr 5th 1965 and I never saw him again after that day.  I believe there was a part of my psyche that believed it had been ripped from him.

This part was integrated back that day relaying the message that I am healed, whole and fully connected.

God wants the body to function efficiently and effectively in unity. Therefore, what happens to one part, or what one part does, affects the whole. What we do does indeed make a difference because we are individual parts of a living, spiritual organism. Our actions will produce an increase of good or evil, efficiency or inefficiency in the use of spiritual resources, effectiveness or ineffectiveness. For me personally, the practice of YOGA (union, yoking) has been key in healing abandonment trauma.

To understand this, perhaps we need nothing more than a deeper awareness that, despite the way things may presently look on the surface, our worldview – how we look at life and all its jumble of events – is quite narrow compared to God’s.  We are not separate from God now or ever. Just as we cannot disconnect from our own arm, we cannot sin or feel enough shame to plunge us into eternal darkness.

Isaiah 60:19

No longer will you need the sun to shine by day, nor the moon to give its light by night, for the LORD your God will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory.

Once we see things from His perspective, we can see we bear a major responsibility to the body of Christ because God has included us in His great purpose.

Are you spiritually disconnected or knitted into the Body with Christ as the Head?  Actually, this would be a more accurate description –to ask your heart all the ways it has hardened from hurt and surrender to resurrected Love preparing a space in you for something new to be birthed this Christmas.

More human not less

More Human not less

If you’re anything like me, you may have spent some time and energy attempting to minimize the qualities of being human— e.g.

• jealousy
• distraction
• judgment
• frustration
• playing victim
• ungratefulness
• entitlement 

Just to name a few…

I have found the practices of yoga and meditation tantamount in creating space to actually begin to witness these thoughts and emotions from a place of the witness, allowing me to respond instead of react.

Case in point:  I’m on my mat and we have a substitute teacher for my FAVORITE teacher, whom I have not seen most of the summer.  I tell myself to let go any disappointment and remain open to possibility.

I don’t actually feel that great this morning-  tired, distracted by having had nightmares, and female issues.  I don’t push myself too hard physically and as the teacher advises “take what I need”; which is lots of time in child’s pose.

I notice my desire to have her nurture me.  I notice my wishing she would run her hand down my spine, making a connection and honoring my choice.  I notice disappointment.  I breathe and let out a big, loud exhale.

I see the other women: fitter, stronger, thinner.  I notice my initial comparison and decide to let that go too. Inhaling I choose space, exhaling I choose emptiness.

We are about to enter fish pose and I go to grab for my block. The teacher unwittingly grabs it before I can and places it under her spine to demonstrate.  I notice my upset.  I grab the other block near the top of the mat and I CHOOSE to breathe into the feeling of disconnection and judgment. I lie back, open my heart and surrender into the earth. 

I tell myself to keep using my tools: pressing into earth, relying on breath, and engaging my core (the VERY CENTER of me).

If we can notice we have given our peace away, it is much easier to draw it back to us. It’s living in the space of being off-center and not recognizing our own power over the situation which leads to a downward spiral toward moodiness, anxiety, over-eating, or depression.  

What started out as me not feeling optimally could have spiraled into me having a bad day and beginning a story in my head of victimhood, woe is me.  Eventually, I would probably take this out on my unsuspecting husband.

In savasana or final rest I fully embraced nurturing MYSELF, no one else needs to do this for me.  I fully leaned into being human and having thoughts and emotions that in the past may have led me to judge myself but now I see are not the real me, they stem from a place of disconnection to my true self.  My Highest self desires peace and wholeness and that can only be embodied when I can allow plenty of space for every human emotion.  I don’t dare ever again trap my wild, flourishing & tender self in a cage of disparaging thoughts.  I am F R E E !!!!

THE LIE OF FRAGILITY

Whose voice was it which said we are weak?  Whose voice was it which said the body is less  intuitive than the mind?

I lie awake home in my bed attentive to the sensation  of anxiety in my chest 8 hours post-surgery.  a story on repeat in my brain– you are not ok…you are not ok.  My  husband  tries to  comfort  me saying ‘i don’t know why you’re upset, you don’t have cancer’.   He’s right isn’t he?  I shouldn’t be upset…so now the message on repeat becomes- you have nothing to be upset over. 

And yet just a few hours  earlier  the nurse  repeatedly  yelled  at me  to “breathe deeply Anita!!”  So I would inhale  fully  causing the  machine to  stop  beeping  its  alarm.  Once  she even had to put the oxygen mask on.

This type of urgent instruction to a  woman  not  fully  conscious  and  in pain  will instill  trauma  in the subconscious and  become stored  in the  physical  body– that is certain.

The  mind will  not,  cannot  calm the body  in the midst of full-blown  anxiety with a false mantra.

“If we can truly be mindful of what is going on in us or around us–that’s how we can find or feel ‘the Spirit’ in it. Then our response to the situation will be originating from the Spirit rather than from our knee-jerk feelings of fear or anger or envy. And whether the response is to endure bravely or to act creatively, it will be done with understanding and compassion–which means it will be life-giving.” Paul Knitter

i am grateful that i did not fall prey to an old habit of  ignoring and  distracting  myself  away  from a shouting  energetic  presence.

Because one minute  I am telling  my husband  I need to  pay attention to my body’s signals and the next I  am ready  to  put on  netflix.  One  minute I  am  telling  myself just be grateful the mass was benign and the next I  am wondering why my heart is pounding and I want to scream.

When suddenly a prick of tears  threatened to fall that I made the decision to just get  still.  In that space of breath and  acknowledgement I  recognized  something  indeed was in  need of prayer.  And so i queried  my heart, ‘what is  going on  in there?’.

How often do we place a hand on our chest and listen for love’s blessing over our lives?  Because this is how we begin to heal…old wounds, new wounds, makes no matter– it can only happen in the very moment the body is relaying distress.

Are we so bogged down with being entertained/distracted from wholeness that we’ve forgotten how good a belly laugh feels or how rich and peaceful silence can be?  

Sure enough–within just a few minutes, a peace beyond understanding descended and I heard this message:

You have been through a LOT these past few months (unnecessary surgery, a full-blown panic attack in yoga class and preparing to meet my bio-dad for the first time in 50 years)…allow yourself the opportunity to reveal what is alive in each moment expressed through bodily communication.  It is really quite simple…WHEN we  pay attention.  I  suddenly felt  strong, empowered, connected and  ready to  fully rest.

We are not fragile: 
NO, WE ARE EMBODIED GRACE.  VOW TO NOT MISS THIS ONE PRECIOUS LIFE— IT’S A TRUE GIFT WORTH SLOWING DOWN FOR.

Eye Gazing in Prison on Holy Saturday

I spent Holy Saturday at the Philadelphia FDC 3South floor with 12 incarcerated women attending a 2-day Heart to Heart retreat. I was there to share the gift of yoga and meditation. The women really appreciate our visits and openly express their desire to learn.

Our last exercise was an eye-gazing and I was partnered with Smoke, an African American woman of about 35. Smoke smiled a lot and agreed that she was willing to try it but admitted it made her nervous to stare into a stranger’s eyes for a total of 6 minutes. I looked forward to it immensely- you hear how the eyes are the windows to the soul and what I have seen each of the prior 3 times is infinite love.

During the first 2 minutes we were instructed to repeat to ourselves ‘I, just like you, have experienced pain, grief and fear’. Smoke didn’t seem to have too difficult of a time focusing and we both had tears prick our eyes as at once we knew the other had certainly experienced these human emotions. Her body continued to move however, as she crossed her arms over her chest, pulling her arms into her gray T-shirt. I realized she was trying to keep warm while I had a North Face jacket on.

The second 2 minutes we were to repeat ‘I, just like you have experienced joy, love and peace’. This time Smoke nervously laughed a lot which made me laugh. She couldn’t keep our gaze going for very long and fidgeted in her shirt some more.

Finally, as we took a short break before round 3, I got up and put my jacket around Smoke’s shoulders. She vehemently resisted and tried to take it off but I insisted that she wear it for the last round and warm-up. It wasn’t a big deal— to me. We returned to our silent gazing and repeated in our minds ‘I just like you have dreams and aspirations for myself and my loved ones’. I just remember thinking, you have such a warm, inviting smile Smoke. I sure hope you see how beautiful you are when you look in my eyes.

We briefly circled up before departing for a few insights on the exercise. Smoke shared that she enjoyed it very much and that she could see right down to my very goodness. She repeated that she knew for certain that I was very, very good inside. Hearing this made my heart sing because I believe I was just a mirror for this brave woman. I came home and penned this poem for her.

Priestess, when did you lose your Head Dress?

beloved i have come to remind you of your internal compass, guiding you toward goodness.  you speak of guilt and shame, temptation and unruly thoughts.
as a child, one never imagines she will end up behind bars, locked away from society— a common criminal.  you are someone’s daughter.  if your earthly parents did not know better to tell you of your royal bloodline, it should be my honor.
there is no past. there is no future. just here and now where you make your peace, in this body you very well may abhor.
i have crept into the wilderness of your heart when  the darkness returned to breathe  you into newness of life. with each exhale, I, with a force and power heretofore unknown to you, release you from the ties that bind. emptying the trashy contents of your mind.
i have come prepared to speak words of SURETY and CERTAINTY. without a doubt, you once walked and talked like no other, the natural one. you did not pose, nor attempt to impress, attracting that devil named greed.
once you robustly sang lyrics  of a long-forgotten song in a soap shop, smelling the fragrance of the sandalwood (love) and the rose(hate), and scrunching up your nose to show exactly what you thought.
as you lay sobbing and crumpled like a page torn our of a diary, mumbling abouthaving lost something, not sure exactly what or where, in a hushed tone i say i see through your temporary breakdown and remind you that a bad day for the ego is a celebration of the soul.  i shall sing  leonard cohen’s infamous tune about cracks and light and shattering and all things working toward the highest good, if only you can surrender to the pain. this pain– name it.
it desires freedom!!!  exhale! let it go..
i will you draw you into the nonjudgmental space and capture the cruciform  juxtapositon of good and evil.  where gray pervades and paints broad strokes until the time comes to step back into the light, out of darkness where dirty underground creatures dwell .
your birthright is one of phoenix and pegasus, star, ash, flame and all things vivid and taking flight.

refusing to classify the profane as wrong
preferring  crow-speak over hummingbird
prison over church
its an upside down and backwards proposition .
replete with lullabys and magic
because the darkness will revisit
and you will likely forget for a while .
so gaze into my soul as i whisper

‘you are a priestess.’
press onward with purity of devotion
to transcend
beyond the cheating heart
and spiritual bankruptcy.
you are clothed in moonbeams
and crowned in angelic halo.
you cannot feel
the stardust in your veins so
i hold up a mirror that unveils its sparkle.
an invitation: place your hands over your heart
and repeat
THIS IS THE PLACE WHERE TRUTH LIVES!!
hello self that desires to FEEL– ALIVE, PASSION, Connection…these are not WRONG!!

my words spin out across space + time reaching into your heart and shaking it — wake up!!  you are still BEATING.

if i’m not a mirror i should drain my pen.