Fall-ing into Au-tum

Fall-ing into Au-tum

Leaves release trees
and fall to the ground like liquid golden sunshine

Waves of color ride the wind
and like my heartsong they dance
Asking nothing of everything
and everything
of nothing at all~

The sun grows more and more weary
as the light lessons
my world slowly fades to black

The cooling of life around me readies for stillness
for death

The world of shadows prepares for their long awaited dance
Resist all you wish
the call still comes
as music of the in-between

I know this place
And it knows me
And it knows you~

Let us walk this dance alone
together~

Saffire Bouchelion
11/6/2010

*Spoken words over original music on my CD set to be released in December 2010~

Returning to Center

Spirit, I am no one
So that you may be all things through me~
As I gain power,
I continue to funnel my gaze
and my power
toward that which I choose to see as my life
With Gratitude
And with Love~
SB
4/4/2010

I know this as a truth, as my truth, even though I can’t say that I can truly feel its depth in this moment. We returned from a wonderful vacation, the best and most wonderful I have ever been on in fact, and my tires have been burning rubber for my first few days back, no real time to process and feel the transition. As I waken this morning, things have indeed ground to a halt, for a few moments anyway, and the silence is deafening. I have actually had as many musical gigs in the past 4 days as I’ve had in recent memory which has been great. Unfortunately the music that was generated was largely mediocre. Now each time that this was true it was due largely to circumstance, but this is not an excuse in my book. I havd lived the first half of my life on a steady diet of excuses, victimhood, and fingerpointing and none of it really did anything but allow me to justify remaining just where I was. I’ve been weaning myself off of this bitter brew ever since, sometimes more successfully than others. Being as pro-active and pro-creative as I now seek to be, medioctity in any form is really not ok with me. I am more than this, we all are actually, but I can only claim it for myself. I truly choose to live my excellence this day, delivering the full potency of my beingness and my magnificence in every moment. To lead by example and uplift and inspire all with whom I have contact. This does not necessarily translate into being big nor loud as this fullness is just as much about stillness and gestating the possibility of what could be. So I drop the stress and the trying in this moment and allow pregnant possibilities to be born through me this day. And as I ride the bus to my wonderful class today I vow to strive to make a difference, through deep embodiment of the sacred, one heart at a time.

I wrote this one on my trip…

Poetry Mind
Takes reality and distills its Spirit
Allowing my to sample and suck
the honey, the nectar

To hear its’ music
and dance amongst the notes and rhythms
discovering stillness and shadows and spaces in between
that have seldom been seen
And may, in fact, never have been

Shodow puppets upon the walls of this mind
Allowing me once again to find
That these keys of perception
have been left upon the table

The doors have been unlocked
And because it allows me to see more
I’ve decided to walk~

SB
9/18/2010

Blessings on your sacred journey this day~

Bullfight~San Miguel Pt 3

When we first arrived in San Miguel, the friend that suggested we make the trip all but insisted that we immediately buy tickets for the bullfights comming up as part of the Bi-Centennial celebration. I had some trepidation, to say the least, but we were so lost in the magic of being here that it just seemed to be an enevitable and undeniable part of the experience. So we bought the tickets without much of a second thought…besides, it was so far in the future, as if that would somehow lessen the impact of what was to come. Trust me when I say that it did not~
As the day neared, I found myself asking myself more that once, “Am I really going to a bullfight in a few days? Really?” I am the first one to be seduced into deep appreciation for how different peoples construct their realities and lives. I believe that it is one of the most beautiful aspects of being a human. And, I am all about walking the edge. I have lived much of my life from there in fact. Still, sometimes things take you further that you feel you should go, or at least further that you want to. This was definitely one of those times.
The night before was my birthday and we had an amazing time hanging out with old and new friends, drinking great tequilla, a bit of dancing, watching the city’s fireworks from high up on the hill, and hanging out in the hot tub under a glorious sky. One of the people I was luck enough to connect deeply with on this journey, who also attended my Birthday celebration with his sister, wife, and daughters was an incredible jewler named David Godinez. I will likely have more to say about him in a later post. Being a native, in the few snipets of time I got to spend with him I learned much about the incredible richness of the history of this land and her people. As I’ve said, perhaps more on this another time.
The next morning comes, along with sleeping in, and breakfast, and the hot sun, until at last it is time. My heart is not sure how to feel about what we are going to see. The truth is that I really had no idea, and I tried to convince myself that it couldn’t really be that bad, right? As we travelled the now semi-familiar streets to our friend’s house, she came to the door much more dressed up than I personally had ever seen her, not that I’d known her that long or that terribly well. Still, she being from this area and all, it was obviously an occasion that people dressed up for. OK, sounds good to me, lets go.
She live just a few blocks from the bullfight ring, the “Plaza De Toros”. It was a short walk, but the foot traffic thickened quickly during the last block or so. We were also trying to sell our extra ticket, but quickly abandoned that idea (scalping bullfight tickets? Couldn’t have seen that one comming!) It was busy and crowded and loud and festive, not unlike going to a baseball game. As we were almost to the gate in I looked to my right to see a man in full regalia posing for photos with a handful of unbelievably gorgeous Mexican Ladies who later turned out to be the main Matador. There seemed to be very little rhyme or reason concerning how one was to get to their seats. You just sort of had to get there. Once we were situated it was fine. People were selling popcorn and cups of local fruit with chile’ on them, and drinks etc, just like our sport events here. I got to see why our seats in the shade cost more as the folks on the other side were pounded by the relentless sun for the duration of the event without a moment of relief. The band would play the same local sounds that I’d heard daily during my time here, then stop , then start again. This was to happen throughout the entire event. At one point a carraige pulled by two horses rode the main Matador another man, a woman, and some children around the circular arena a number of times. The first time or two the crowd cheered and the horse drawn party waved and smiled, but the crowd quickly lost interest and watched patiently while the final laps were made. A few more false starts from the band and out came about 20 or so men, dressed as elaborately as you would imagine. Then out came the matador for the first round, more cheers. The men retreated to their 4 respective slits in the otherwise solid 5 foot high walls, with each opening covered by another 5 foot high wall, each measuring about 4 feet accross. The Matador and 2 or 3 other men with capes more pink than red remained inside. Enter the bull…the games have begun. What happened next was exactly what you might expect yet more gruesome than you’d imagine. After a few passes with main guy and the bull, the field was soon filled with 6 or so men with capes, plus the Matador, swishing and swirling capes, dizzying the bull as the bull was stuck and stabbed again and again and again, its huge brown body gushing blood out of the multitude of wounds inflicted upon it, but still it charged, causing more than on of the “assistant matadors?” to dive over the wall to his own safety, but as soon as it was clear he was back in the fray. More swirling, and stabbing and bleeding and dizzying. About 13 unforgiving minutes later, the bull finally fell, likely as glad to be done with it all as I was. Some man, who I will call “the finisher” came out with his knife, about 8 inches long, and stabbed the felled beast in the back of the head and cut off his ears, the expected trophy for the Matador to whom he hands them as the crowd cheers. The body is then attached by chains around the head and dragged around the field, by the same carraige-pulling horses from earlier, a display of triumph I suppose, and then dragged off the field and the gates close behing them. I felt like I had just witnssed a gang killing of a rival gang member. There wes little to no artistry from what I could see and I was very deeply disturbed. Actually it was more like shock really. Some men came out and readied the field for the next round. My stomach was slightly sick as I sought to understand and not judge what I had just seen. Being a meat eater, the irony of my reaction was not lost on me. If I can eat it, why can’t I watch it being killed, or even kill it myself? Thus is how removed I personally, and perhaps most who read this are from the cultivating of our food. Interesting, to say the least. I have also been told more than once that the bulls raised for this purpose are treated like kings and usually live and eat better than the people that their final moments are designed to entertain. Also, I am told that the bulls are in fact eaten and their hides used as well. I cannot prove or disprove these things, but it would be nice if at least this was true. And even if it is, it doesn’t really soften the visual blow to the heart of what I saw.
Round two, and this Matador is even more ornate than the first one, full of pomp and fire. He struts around the field and awaits his dance with his beast. This bull is even bigger and more robust than the first, immediately chasing anyone he see over or through the wall. There are really only two “assistants” this time, but the dance is really between the Matador and the bull. The man has an amazing style and it looks much more like what I expected a bullfight to look like. His use of the cape to dance with the bull was mesmerising instead of dizzying. He was cocky, yes, he would have to be, but he was also keenly aware that he was in the ring with a beast that was bigger than him and could easily kill him and he respected that. As he taunted, and teased, and stabbed and eventually killed the beast, I could tell that he also had respect for it. At one time the beast actually had him up against the wall and gouged him pretty good. He could easily have been a goner and his crew had to interceed in a hurry to distract the bull from inflicting further damage. He also had a couple of assistants on horseback, though they didn’t do much. During one particular horrifying moment the bull had one of the horses, who were blindfolded for obvious reasons, up against the was and was ramming and gouging the poor horse who was now bleeding through a visible hole gouged in it’s side. Still, bleeding but less gorey than the first, the bull did fall…then “the finisher”…then the ears….then the slight limp to bow to the crowds, trying his best to show that it wasn’t as bad as it likely was. More music and the field was prepared once again. It was not as bad as the horrid first round, but it still went from a proud and raging beast to a slump of soulless meat in under 15 minutes, all for our viewing pleasure. I cannot honestly say that I myself was actually pleased however.
Alas, one round to go and this time it was “the man”, who was evidently a very famous Mexican Bullfighter. This entire round was to be on horseback, with only one assistant. This man was a true artist of the form. He had as much command over his horse as he did with his deadly blades as he did over the audience. His bulles was by far the biggest and meanest, breaking the gate of the hinges that he entered through and running for the first man he saw, not only chasing him over the wall, but doing his best to break through the wall to get to him. After the last round I was really afraid for the horses most of all since there was obviously no hope unlitmately for the bull. At last the bull saw the man on horseback and the games were on. Ever couple of swords or so the Matador would ride off through the gates and reappear moments later on a new horse. I suppose not being blindfolded, the experience was even more traumatic for them than it was for me. As i’ve said, this man was an artist and would deliver his swords over his head, backwards, twisted and barely mounted upon his steed and all within a very small area upon the beasts back creating very little blood. As the beast was weakening he let his assistant do a bit of the dance to do the final weaking and tiring of the bull. He then got down off of his horse, and ordered everyone back. He walked right up to the bull and put his knee right between the bulls horns and on its skull. With a yell and a nudge, the bull fell over, never to rise again.
There is everything to say and nothing to say about this amazing, horrifying, and disturbingly magnificent display of man against beast. It is what is. I am glad I got to experience it…and I doubt I’ll ever go again. Wow the things we humans create to do with our time huh?
Let me know your thoughts~

Birthday in San Miguel, 2010

I was born 47 years and 15 hours ago on September 15th, 1963 at 11:46 PM.  I’ve always thought that if you were born within 15 minutes of midnight on your birthday that you should be able to celebrate both days according to the bylaws laid down by the “birthday police”.  Of course this potency has been greatly diffused by those who believe in birthday weeks and birthday months, so on another level, what does it matter?! I cannot say what I knew and didn’t know, or thought and didn’t think about the possibilities of my life back then, but I’m sure that the storyline was quite different from the way things panned out. Yeah, I could never have seen this life comming~
Where is the line between wanting and wishing and intending and hoping so much to bring certain things, certain experiences, into your reality, and then having the expereince where so much of it effortlessly rushes in that it actually becomes overwhwelming? From poverty consciousness, to abundance, to entitlement, to gluttony, to realignment, to forgiveness, to ease? The path gets even more labrynthine when you notice that any variety of moods and emotional states can accompany each one of these stages, including being conscious or unconscious about it all as we are travelling it. There are simply no right answers…or are there?
I look at my Facebook page to discover that over 100 people have taken the time to wish me happy birthday, some of them expected, some irrelevant, some downright surprising, but all were welcomed. The bottome line here is that it is wonderful to be seen, supported, and acknowledged, and toward that end I say a huge Thank You to each and every one who took the time to post me. Still it comes back to this, What did the bag of bones and flesh known as “I” who was busy discovering linoleum and carpet and dirt 47 years ago imagine that he would create with this existence…and have I succeeded yet?
A little over an hour from now we have tickets to go witness a bullfight…yes, a real and actual dance that ends in the killing of a bull. I have very mixed emotions about this, and perhaps even a judgement or two, despite the fact that almost every movie I see, especially American made, and including the comedies, has someone at least getting shot if not terminated in some other more barbaric fashion. The list of ironies and contradictions continues when you consider what a meat eater I am. Mostly chicken and fish but still. Even though I am a staunch believer in the thought that I should be willing and able to grow, stalk, hunt, and/or kill anything that I eat, I have made no real steps toward making it happen. So, what does that make me, in the scheme of things? Not really intended to be a make-wrong of myself or anyone else, it’s just something that I think we all might want to contemplate deeply during the approaching times of change.
Next up…”The Bullfight”

San Miguel 1

 

And so it is,  I am sitting underneath a flowering vine-covered awning, sheltering myself from the sudden rain here on my second full day here in San Miguel.  Not unwelcomed, but surprising…spoken like I actually have ANY idea what typical weather is like here!  I keep having to scoot my table and chair back toward the wall as the rain becomes more and more angular and aggressive.  Then just like that, the storm seems to have changed it’s mind and set out in search of some other place it has decided it needs to be.

                                                                                                                                                       Life has been wonderful, non-stop, and full of surprises since my arrival here.  What it hasn’t consisted of so far is much downtime and rest!  It has been as magical as promised with many wonders to come I’m sure, and already thoughts of the possibility of relocation here have begun to flash through my mind, much as they did for me in Amsterdam.  Though it feels much  simpler and more feasible to consider doing so to Mexico than to Holland, it’s all just a wonderful fantasy at this juncture.                                 What seems to be true most of the places I’ve visited, Amsterdam, Bali, Mexico, is the bouquet of colorful caracters I’ve met in the form of the ex-pats.  The storylines and the reasons for which people have ended up living in places other than their countries of origin are often quite varied and  fascinating.  Equally are the ways by which they have created the means to do so.  And even when you get their story, it often feels like you aren’t getting the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help them God!  But what is that anyway really, to get someone’s truth?  You can spend a lifetime discovering someone. At most what you are getting is their truth in the moment and , if they really are seekers of “the truth”, even this will be at least slightly different the next time you meet them.                                         Every time I have the honor of getting to travel, I find myself spun open and out into a place of questioning my, and everyone else’s, realities.  What are our bottom lines and why?   Mostly a person only has the time, or makes it for such contemplations, when one is away from their everyday routines, which some would call their realitiy.  This would once again call into question how it became their reality and why.  And so it goes~    Then there is the seeming fact that so many of the faces that I encounter seldom if ever have the luxury of such ponderance,  busy doing things like surviving and helping their families to do the same, and often clinging to a God who may never appear to them in the way they think “He” will. Or who perhaps appears to them in every word and every action, for they truly move from their hearts in all things.  Whatever the reason, this at least giving them something to believe in that is bigger than themselves and their circumstances. As I wander these streets, seeing faces who are slightly foreign to me, and for most of whom I am likely VERY foreign, I cannot help but wonder,  “Am I and can I ever be more than an odd curiosity for them?  Being seen as someone who has more money than them, and who will hopefully be departing with some of it their way in some way, shape or form?  Is there any way in which I can or will actually enrich their lives for real?”                            The rain has ceased and the sounds of the town have returned, taxis, voices, and church bells all in the mix.  My first night here, after an amazing meal, we walked to The Church, the Parroquia, to discover hundreds of people gathered there. As we turned to see what everyone was on about, the church lights, and all those surrounding the square went black!  As if cued to our arrival, and with music ranging from intense choral to traditional Mexicana to ambient groove playing loudly, we witnessed a breathtaking light show with projected images which was projected upon the church itself!  I have never witnessed anything like it.  It was quite spectacular and I spent most of the next half hour trying to keep my mouth from hanging open in disbelief. It was as if the very walls were alive, swimming with vibrant imagery.  A technicolor sentinel witnessing our watching, and watching our witnessing. In the presense of such stunning beauty we were all equal and we were all one, staring on in childlike awe.                                                                                                               

This was my experience merely 5 hours after arriving in this magical place. 

I hear the church bells ringing once again.  It’s time to go and get ready for the next miracle~

Uptown~

Here on the 7th floor, you are somehow high enough to see for a good distance, yet close enough to feel a part of it all.  I can see life happening and feel it moving.  If someone were to look up they could easily see me standing naked at the window.  Not that I do this terribly often, but one does have to get up in the morning and make the bed, does one not?!

Its all rooftops and bridges, Starbucks and boutiques on this side of town.  Small dogs, high heels, and yoga mats.

Accross the street sits a park measuring a square block.  With layered ampitheater-like cement and grass sitting steps on two opposite sides of it,  and art-deco style walkway joining them, the park manages to be manicured on one side and wonderfully wild and unkempt on the other, including a marshlike pond housing a few indecernable fish in its cloudy depths.  

Here on the 7th floor I can simply step inside when the breeze cools me too much and still maintain almost the same view.  These are the places that I would often pass by and wonder who, as in” what type of people”, could possibly live here?  Accompanying these thoughts would follow the requisite judgements about “who they must think they are”.  Well kids…you know who they are?  They are simply more of our brothers and sisters trying to navigate this thing called life the best way they can figure out how to.  They have children, and jobs, and dreams of better things.  Some of them “get it”, and some of them don’t.  Some of them care deeply, and some of them never will.  And some of them are the most sweet and loving people you could ever hope to meet, like my lover who owns this condo, and this balcony.  She is an absolute goddess of sweetness and regained purity.  Her eyes and smile radiant with the love of somone who has managed to create a successful business and still reclaimed their light.  It’s quite a thing to experience actually.  And yes, of course,  some are just unmitigated assholes.  Kind of like everybody else in the world…..Yeah,  just like that actually.                                                                                                                   

 You know what IS cool about hanging out with people who have money though?  Everything works!  I mean all their shit works…all the time!!  Things like the jacuzzi bathtub that fills up in under a minute, then with the simple push of a button…magic!   You gotta love that! 

 So now, for however long it lasts, I get to play around with being “That guy”.  The one who lives part time on the 7th floor, with the view of the St Jhon’s Bridge, the Steel Bridge, and Union Station, all from the balcony. 

 Hey, I wonder how cool the view is from the 8TH FLOOR?!!!

Just sayin’…

Talking Trash

Walking home from the bus today I saw my neighbor, W, out doing his thing in the front yard.  As we have hundreds of times before, we engaged in the wonderful ritual of talking sh*t, or talking trash. It is an amazing, beautiful, and inportant aspect of life as an African American, though many of us do it in our own ways.  Topics can range from deeply poingant to irreverant, to completely irrelevant, none of which actually matters nearly as much as the ritual itself.  Talking trash trumps being dog tired. Even if I’m too exhausted to even think about speaking with my roomies, who I love by the way, I can easily get myself outside to engage W in a few minutes of trash talk.  It’s as though it says that my soul sees yours, my brother, and I recognize and acknowledge that you are here.  It is a soul to soul communication that allows each other to laugh at ourselves and everything in general, and nothing in particular.  It’s funny because even though I am a Black Man who teaches and plays African Drums professionally and has done so for over half my life, no one would accuse me of being overly engaged in African American culture in the typical,and perhaps expected, sense.  But I am also no”Uncle Tom” either…I’m just me, much to the frustration and confusion of those who I encounter.  This has often caused THEM to talk trash about me, but in a very different and much less positive sense of the word.  But talking trash with W is clearly a ritual that feeds and uplifts us both.                                 This man works as hard and as much as anyone I have ever known, and you can see it in every well earned wrinkle on his forehead.  He is a big, beautiful, and rugged salt-of-the-earth type person who works and lives hard to support his family.  Shaking his hand is like grasping on old leather mit, it feels like strength and integrity, with just a hint of exhaustion at keeping it all together.  He’s always working an angle “trying to get that paper” as he calls it, working his regular job (or two), whatever they are, buying/fixing up/and selling cars, and when he’s home he’s working in or on his yard.  He’s the kind of person who most likely hurts in his body much more than he’d ever let on.  In his world he can’t because he’s got ” business to take care of”.  I would love to have a wad of money, just so that I could leave some where only he would find it because it is clear that as a man he would never accept it.  He has earned everything he owns from hard, bootstrap pulling, nose to the grindstone type of work, and he doesn’t want or need anybody’s handouts.               So what I can offer him instead is some soul to soul food, some presence, and some love.  This is for those among us who seem to be made of the very earth upon which we see them walk every day.  Those who always have a smile and a laugh, even though half of their teeth are missing and a few others are going south.  People like W are the ones who hold the earth together so that the rest of us can see where the hell we’re walking.  Excuse me, I gotta go pay my respects and get my trash talk on~

Father’s Day

Lying in bed now after a pretty good night of sleep.  I wanted to and planned to go to Ecstatic Dance this morning and become one with the beautiful throng of writhing, sweaty, dancing bodies, but when it came down to it, I just couldn’t rally.  No regrets, yet at the same time I wish I had gone.                                                                                                                                                                                      It has become a habit to listen to the sound of the tires of the cars that pass by my house to hear if they sound normal of “slushy”.  Alas, slush it is, which means that this day,  the day before the First day of Summer, it is still raining and grey overhead, and we still haven’t seen the sun!, Unless you count an hour here or half a day there.  I cannot say what effect this has had on my overall health nor that of  those around me really, but I know that I could certainly use  more warmth and outside time about now.

So, Father’s Day.  Such a loaded statement lately, or so it would seem.  In these days where every woman is a Goddess….Isn’t the logical and correct correllation that every man is also a God?  Yet that part of the equation seems to have fallen through the grates of our collective mind.  One of  ”the ones”  that I grew up hearing was my Mother constantly telling me that “Beauty is as beauty does”.  I’ve always tried to hold to this as a truth in my life.  To expand on it, Goddess is as Goddess does and  God is as God does.  From here we could likely have as many different opinions are there are stars in the sky concerning what qualifies one as a God or Goddess, what attributes, and what behaviors?   For many reasons, God the Father has gotten a bit o a bad rap the past few thousand years, and I understand the ins and outs of this as much as anyone, trust me!  But regarding the new updated God/dess sensibilities…If it is a movement toward everyone more fully embracing their own Divinity, I couldn’t be more in!  This is a goal that more and more of us are, and need to be, moving toward.  If it is intended to facilitate the empowerment, healing, and integration of  the human race, again, I’m in.  However, if it used, as I have unfortunately seen it be, as yet another tool to create more seperation, division, and more of the “I’m better than you because I have these body parts and you don’t” mentality, then I am decidedly NOT in.  The days of  all women being considered inferior and or/subservient to men simply because of their gender, and in the name of “God” needs to end.  Along those same lines, the whole New Age “everyone with a Yoni is sacred, wonderful, and beautiful and everyone who doesn’t have one sucks!” mentality also needs to be over and done with.  We are all reflections of God/dess, we are all made up of the same stuff as God/dess, and ultimately we all ARE God/dess.  We are all here together and we are all important, irrelevant, sacred, profane, Loving, angry, beautiful, ugly, enlightened, ridiculous, and perfect in 0ur imperfections.  We all love… and hurt those we love… usually accidentally, but sometimes on purpose, and we all REALLY need to forgive and get over it, including me.

My Daughter, Yemays Oshala, is 21 years old now and attending school in Berkley. I haven’t spoken to her since I called her on her birthday which is on Christmas.  She never called to say thank you after getting the bouquet of flowers I sent and I haven’t heard from her since.  I don’t particualrly expect to hear from her today, though part of me would love to be proven wrong about that.  I got a text from my mother today about it all.  Alas, things would be different…if they were different, but they aren’t right now.  They could and hopefully will be someday.  Again, forgive, get over it, and move foreward, consciously creating what I want as I go.

It is an amazing life…Get on with the living of it!

Happy Father’s Day~

***********

Speaking  of which….PART 2!!

I am summoned out of bed by a phone call, though at this point I cannot recall if I made or received the call!  Two friends just finished a photo shoot and are ready for food.  Sure!  Comeon over!  Well, what was going to be a small breakfast for 3 quickly exploded into a meal for all in the house at that time, and the first official meeting of the “Too-Much-Fun-Club, HomeEdition”. It was wonderful and fun and healing and generated enough juice  to power the city of Portland  through the Summer, despite the current lack of sunshine!  It is the feeling of Home and community that I have always hungered to have in my home and in my life.  I’m not sure what shifted during my time in Europe this past time, but I am so  happy to begin to ground it, and manifest it!  It is one of the first times I really connected with the feeling of being a Father and it felt wonderful to be acknowledged as such.  Dancing, Community, Celebration, and prayer.  What more can I ask for?  Perhaps next time I will get to celebrate it with my Daughter too!!  That would be Cool!  Yeah, that would pretty much rock!!

Pray the prayer

Dance the Dance

Sing the Song

Live the Life~

Sabou

I Am…

I am a very busy person.  Sometimes I’m busy getting an incredible amount of things done but mostly I find myself busy not doing much at all.  It could even possibly be said that often I’m busy avoiding the expereince of, or the connection to…Love.  When I slow down enough, from doing nothing, this appears to be a bottom line.  Mind you, this is not by intention or design, but somehow seems to be true nontheless.  All I need do is look at the reflection, or lack thereof, in my life.  This seeming fact has  broken my heart continually throughout my life and has caused me to create a labyrinthine path between myself and love.  Again, not my intention, but an understandable reaction to a life of being abused,  misunderstood, feared, and projected upon. Sound familiar? It is an aspect of this life-journey that I am ready to shed…Again.

I have been a very fearful person unfortunately.  It is how I feel I was raised, to be afraid of everyone and everything.  Add that to having had paralyzing asthma for the magority of my life, and it’s amazing that I can ever even get myself to leave the house.  That being said, I DO leave the house, and have been able to continually create amazing things both inside it and out.  I have really mastered the art of “feeling the fear and doing it anyway”(Thank you Susan Jeffers).  While still afraid much of the time, I no longer allow that fear to dictate my actions…for the most part.  The irony, of course, is that there is plenty to be afraid of in the world, especially other people who are  living even more from fear.  Fear cloaked in greed, hyper-reactivity and the need to have at least the appearance of control of everyone and everything around them.  Our world seems to be run by them, constantly devising ways to take more from their fellow humans, essentially telling them what to think and how to behave toward the end of their greatest profit margin.   I cannot help but wonder how we as a species arrived here.

All of this leads me to where I really want to be…which is living from LOVE.  I have pondered so many times exactly what that means.  At this point it seems to be mostly a mental construct, though I certainly have flashes of the actual experience.  But how is it to live there all the time, or even most of the time?  “Those who seem to know” say that the choices in life are to live either from fear or from Love.  As far as that scale goes, I definitely am more on the Love end of things, and spend more time in action than in reaction.  But I think hat there is another level.  To come from Love, lead life from that place in EVERY interraction, how does that work?  I spend much time endeavoring to create community for others through my classes and  music, yet the feeling of community in my own life feels to be lacking.  There are a few people I have it with, of course, and I am more grateful to them than I can say, and despite having families and full lives, they squeeze me in when they can. But I see myself at the hub of an active and thriving creative community that vibrates and pulses with life.  Where beautiful, authentic creativity flows forth like the water of life that it is and that inspires it.  Where are those people for me?  Who and where do I need to go and be to have that?  This is the real question of my life at this point.  So many times it has looked like something was beginning, only to have it dissolve away.  Sadness again. Yet I am being constantly shown that I am somehow still moving in the correct direction despite appearances.  Such is the stuff of faith and trust~

I am a musician, and my Band, the Infinitia Art Ensemble will be doing our first actual recording of a demo 2 days from now.  Aftr 7 years of working to create this, I seem to have creatd an equilibrium and a stability within the band’s fragile structure, the walls of which will become greatly fortified and reinforced by this recording.  The sales and gigs which will result  will move me, move us toward a huge goal of mine which is to finally make a top-notch CD of my music and tour it.  This is my intention and my prayer.  It has been beyond a dream to successfully tour (as in MAKE money and present consistently masterful classes and workshops)  doing my lifes’s work, and this has indeed happened through the SHAMANTRA work and Nia and I couldn’t be happier about it.  However I have wanted to do the same with my music for much longer and have yet to do so, so now my focus goes there as well.  Wish me luck!!

And so it goes.  My eyes and heart open ever wider to make more room for Spirit to enter and guide me to my deepest and highest self.  I will continue to be ever lighter about it all…it’s still too easy for me to get very damn serious about the whole thing. 

Riding my Dragon (aka getting all "Avatar" about it!)

Pray the Prayer

Dance the Dance

Sing the Song

Live the Life!!

SaBou~

Budapest Love

SHAMANTRA weekend in Budapest!

My first time in Budapest was roughly 4 years ago and I was lucky enough to find myself handed my own apartment to stay in for 2 weeks in Buda, the part of the city where the castles are housed.  To see that castle and church all lit up like Disneyland (please excuse my American-ness here!) every night just up the hill outside my door was a sight that I will never forget.  It was absolutely magical and enchanting.  It was quite a bit to take in really, being so unlike anything I had ever seen in real life.  All I had to do was walk up that very steep hill and I would be there.  Once there, I would turn around and see the beautiful Danube river behind me, and resting along side it was the Parliament building, lit the same way, with all of the glorious lights reflected toward me accross the water.  Again, a sight not soon forgotten.  Walking those cobbled streets,  many of the buildings’ ages were measured in centuries instead of decades.  It was there, behind the hilltop church that sits beside the hilltop castle that I made one of my big life purchases, a very large piece of local-ish Amber cast in Hungarian silver.  It was so huge (and costly) that I had to visit it several days in a row before making the decision to buy it.  My Virgo brain had to grapple with deciding if I was being wasteful and extravagant, or simply commemorating my first trip overseas, to Europe, as a visiting teacher and workshop presenter.  I’m glad I bought it and any time I wear it to this day I get regular comments about it’s beauty.  I have become known as a bit of a gem and jewlery hound, and I believe it was this piece that really gave me my big kick start.

 

 

Budapest SHAMANTRA Workshop Day 1

 This blog, however,  goes out to all of the wonderful Hungarian women I had the pleasure of meeting at the retreat in Budapest just over a month ago.  Thank you again to Andi  for bringing me and allowing me the time to spend with her wonderful Nia community there and  too, for hosting such a wonderful workshop.  The location was amazing as well. The following photo was the view from my balcony @ Visegrád Retrat Center, not that I got to spend much time in my room over the weekend!  Our intensive weekend was  exactly that, and it was a pleasure and an honor to see the opening and expression, the healing and releasing that I witnessed through the SHAMANTRA work and through Nia.  Our live-drumming Nia class was also an incredible experience.  SHAMANTRA continues to reveal itself too me as I consciously (though at times VERY s-l-o-w-l-y) work myself more and more toward mastery, seeing the work through the lense of different cultures and peoples and places.  There were moments of such sublime surrender and stillness.  Times where there was nothing left but to simply be there.  Magic happened.  It was especially touching to my to have many of  the older women in the group come up to me and thank me repeatedly for the experience that SHAMANTRA gave them.  I find it comforting that my journeys along the edge and into the unknown continue to produce good fruit for those who choose to participate.   It is interesting to travel and teach in countries that speak languages that have little if any relationship to english.  One really cultivates an attitude of independence within the context of conversations.  Sometimes the conversation is held in english for brief pockets of time, during which times I am usually the subject at hand.  But more often the conversation carries along fine without me, with a particular line or phrase or something especially funny being translated for my benefit.  It really gives one the chance to witness people, and to observe the energetic flow of conversations.  A few had good english-speaking skills, a number of them spoke enough to hold a conversation, and many spoke almost no english at all.  My time amongst the Hungarian Nia community however, and that weekend in particular, we all spoke the language of Spirit together as expressed through the heart.  Thank you so much my ladies of Hungary, we will do our dance again together soon!  Until then, my heart is with you~  

The view from my balcony @ Visegrád.