Showing posts with label body myths. Show all posts
Showing posts with label body myths. Show all posts
Friday, August 19, 2011
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Independence Day
The Queen of Bohemia has voyaged to the Great City beyond the desert kingdom. She loved it and her hair looked great. Such a new life, such a new beginning. She was oh, so well-received, the chariot stops along the way were sublime. She was overwhelmed with the art, the culture, and good architecture and soul everywhere. She drank a magic potion, she at the super foods. She has gotten super healthy and her body is transformed and her Queenly outfits new and fresh. Her transformation is complete. Yet now, she misses her children. She misses the King. She yearns to tie up her work in the Great City and continue on the journey to the final place of complete healing – home – to the place before the wounding, and to return to the land far, far away on the other side of the world.
I have been on the east coast for nearly a month now. Having arrived in New York City on July 1, it was a whirlwind of the great city, its art, food, culture, museums, theatre and walk-ability. The King and I had an incredible time, and I slowly let go of old clothing, old pain, old things that remind me of Colorado and the past. Ounce by ounce, the new me emerged, as I shed the heavy weight of yesteryear, the dead energies. I felt it in my body, I felt it in my soul. I don’t have the low-grade anxiety that I felt in my body in Colorado. Surely it’s the change in altitude, the energy, the dry wind and brown prairie and memories that caused it. Now I am free.
New York definitely is not Buenos Aires. You can still feel the edginess, the competitiveness. The buildings have that hard edge and the people are pushy and disconnected and you can detect the corn syrup lodged in the fat cells of their puffy bodies. Everybody is into psychic readings and street portraits. I visited Connecticut and Massachusetts for the first time in my life. Visited Yale campus and saw with my very own eyes a copy of the Guttenberg Bible. New York City was a cooker for the fourth of July, immersed in a heat wave. But it was truly a symbol of independence. The kind of independence that yoga brings and when you are so unbelievably happy. When you are truly in love. When you stop identifying with the ego and firmly root yourself in the transcendent. Everything becomes magical and possible. And so very peaceful. Nothing the outside world can dish up can affect the inner realm, and you just observe the outer world going by like a river. Sat Chit Ananda.
I taught at Kripalu doing my Storytime Yoga kids camp. It was a delight and a joy. Effortless being and feeling complete and whole. Feeling valuable and content. I have arrived. I am home. No place to get, nothing to do. Just be and be with the children. Kripalu wants me back for next year. What a great thing! Currently I am in a coffee shop across from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, where I am staying with my friend, Francie, before heading back to upstate New York to the Omega Institute where I will give a teacher training. Then it's back to Colorado for a short stop of tying up still lose ends and letting the kids say more goodbyes.
Above all, I miss my children. I call my kids and regularly talk to them on Skype. Such a wonderful tool that makes science fiction of childhood science fact. There’s not too much to do in San Antonio, as their cousins are older and not around. But they help out at their grandparents and uncle’s house, mow the lawn, eat a lot of barbecue. Their late father’s mother has terrible Alzheimer's and just got out of a body cast from a February car accident. Their grandfather at 82 isn’t supposed to drive but still does and I warn them not to get in the car with him! Considering that San Antonio is suburban hell with no where to walk to to be at any sort of anywhere with a there there, TV is the norm, however, they are also forced to read and play Scrabble. They are learning Spanish from the home health aide, which is a good thing. I also reminded them that their grandparents may not live much longer, so enjoy the moment. And you can always practice yoga, I told them.
I asked them to send pictures. My son sent pictures he took from around his grandparents' house. He sent me picures one by one of our wedding, of our family together when their father was alive, pictures of when they were little kids, big smiles and fat cheeks. I called him to see if he was happy. “Yes,” he said. “I’m sad that Dad died, but still good things happen because of it.” I was delighted at his intelligence and my heart melted. I congratulated him on that piece of wisdom, realizing how adolescents need guides for this part of life to answer questions. I reminded him of the Shipwrecked Sailor story, you cannot judge life. It just is. That is yoga, to see life as it is, and watch the mind and open up to the true mind between the thoughts. How exciting to teach youth at this age. How wonderful to have a child grow and learn to live in the world using yoga and story.
My ex is still trying to wiggle out of repaying his debt to me through bankruptcy. I told him I want my car back. I just let the lawyer take care of it. I have learned to navigate the difficulties, not let anything bother me, mostly. It takes a lot of mindfulness and letting go. Sometimes the demons slip in at night, or I talk it out with the King or a friend, but awareness certainly disintegrates the demons on the spot. Like Kali does to the demons. The blood from the demons don't have a chance to sink into the earth and sprout more demons. She prevents this by licking the blood up with her tongue. A daily sitting meditation and yoga practice does wonders for this. It is freedom. Salvation. An ocean of bliss.
At Kripalu, I ate organic, mostly non-dairy ayurvedic food for 11 days straight. I did at least one yoga class a day. Upon leaving, I was shocked to be in the outside world again. I stopped in a convenience store to ask directons. I was overwhlmeed and amazed at all the junk food packaged up. It was so alien. Cotton candy in a plastic container. In Buenos Aires I remember an old man still making it fresh the old fashioned way at the Sunday San Telmo fair. In the store it was a disconnect, an oddity. What is this? Food? Lots of crinkly packages, pork rinds, processed death in waiting. Francie eats gluten and dairy-free, so when we stopped in New Jersey near Bruce Springsteen’s home town, it was hard to find anything to eat on the menu besides a lot of dairy, barbecued wings or bread. We had some salmon and I ate a salad with blue cheese and bacon. The next morning we both had diarrhea! When I told the cashier at the health food store in Swarthmore about it she said, "Oh, you can't eat anything in Jersey."
At her house in Swarthmore, I returned to the healthy diet. Learned to love kale, quinoa, beets and daikon radish. It’s gotten so much easier to do and I can’t imagine eating the old crap, even if it means I can’t eat out much. Everything becomes so clear and free. My body feels great, it’s tone returning and I’m sure I’ve lost 5 pounds or something as my clothes are getting baggy. We shall see how this all holds up abroad! I did find a few vegetarian and health food stores in Buenos Aires. My daughter was thrilled about eating kale, beets and lentils, but my son less so. We shall see! I'm also excited about homeschooling the kids. To really focus on teaching them and un-schooling them by just showing up somewhere outside the US. Obama's race to the top - what a mess. That is not learning. That is competition and more neurosis disguised as education. I will also be happy to be away from the culture, where America thinks murder is funny. "Sunny with a chance of Homicide," is some show, a picture of an orange stabbed and bleeding on the side of New York buses. Angelina Jolie in Salt is the image for gun culture gone girly and unconsciously joining the ranks of the death cult our society has been in for the past 200 years. I finished reading "Bachelor Girl, the secret history of single women in the 20th century," by Betsy Israel. Required reading for all women. How men and the media try persistently to destroy women's power through the ages, yet wome prevail. I understand my mother, the war they waged against her to be anything but a stenographer or wife. And now they still try to destroy us with gun toting media whores. Yet we ignore it an move forward despite it, remarkably. Durga protects us. I had a dream of a lion chasing some people. So we are fierce! I also thought that the black women who were the sales women at Macy's were in credibly strong, to stand around all day surrounded by images of white women and culture. They still have their pride, their peace inside despite all this infantile crap.
I haven’t watched much television in seven years. I did watch the 2006 Olympics and the 2008 presidential elections. I thought I'd protect my kids from TV, but then Hulu and You Tube came along. I am aware of some things that are on TV because of reading the world’s newspapers every morning online. But I’ve never seen a reality show, don’t know what’s popular on TV or who half of the blondes in wedding gowns on the magazines at the grocery check out lanes are. But I did watch a little TV at Francie’s house last night. On the Discovery Channel we caught the end of a show called Hoarders. I was fascinated that other people live in the shame that was my childhood. Buried alive in things. I contacted the network, as they are looking for participants for the new season. I told them my father’s story. His migraine headaches, my mother, the war. I told them he wants it cleaned out before he dies. We all want the house cleaned out. The final psychic journey of the body, the heart, mind and soul. Really leave the past behind. Because it’s still in the body, still in the tissue. Getting it all out is a miracle, a healing extraordinare. We shall see if the producers call.
All in all, it’s a new life. The seven difficult years are over. The first half of my life is over. It seems like a dream the past, or a bad nightmare. I survived. I persevered, by sheer will power alone. The demons have made me strong, courageous and powerful indeed. The journey continues and I’m not afraid. The Queen of Bohemia has done a good and thorough job of cleaning her own house. And she has told her story. Now onward for the next journey.
I have been on the east coast for nearly a month now. Having arrived in New York City on July 1, it was a whirlwind of the great city, its art, food, culture, museums, theatre and walk-ability. The King and I had an incredible time, and I slowly let go of old clothing, old pain, old things that remind me of Colorado and the past. Ounce by ounce, the new me emerged, as I shed the heavy weight of yesteryear, the dead energies. I felt it in my body, I felt it in my soul. I don’t have the low-grade anxiety that I felt in my body in Colorado. Surely it’s the change in altitude, the energy, the dry wind and brown prairie and memories that caused it. Now I am free.
New York definitely is not Buenos Aires. You can still feel the edginess, the competitiveness. The buildings have that hard edge and the people are pushy and disconnected and you can detect the corn syrup lodged in the fat cells of their puffy bodies. Everybody is into psychic readings and street portraits. I visited Connecticut and Massachusetts for the first time in my life. Visited Yale campus and saw with my very own eyes a copy of the Guttenberg Bible. New York City was a cooker for the fourth of July, immersed in a heat wave. But it was truly a symbol of independence. The kind of independence that yoga brings and when you are so unbelievably happy. When you are truly in love. When you stop identifying with the ego and firmly root yourself in the transcendent. Everything becomes magical and possible. And so very peaceful. Nothing the outside world can dish up can affect the inner realm, and you just observe the outer world going by like a river. Sat Chit Ananda.
I taught at Kripalu doing my Storytime Yoga kids camp. It was a delight and a joy. Effortless being and feeling complete and whole. Feeling valuable and content. I have arrived. I am home. No place to get, nothing to do. Just be and be with the children. Kripalu wants me back for next year. What a great thing! Currently I am in a coffee shop across from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, where I am staying with my friend, Francie, before heading back to upstate New York to the Omega Institute where I will give a teacher training. Then it's back to Colorado for a short stop of tying up still lose ends and letting the kids say more goodbyes.
Above all, I miss my children. I call my kids and regularly talk to them on Skype. Such a wonderful tool that makes science fiction of childhood science fact. There’s not too much to do in San Antonio, as their cousins are older and not around. But they help out at their grandparents and uncle’s house, mow the lawn, eat a lot of barbecue. Their late father’s mother has terrible Alzheimer's and just got out of a body cast from a February car accident. Their grandfather at 82 isn’t supposed to drive but still does and I warn them not to get in the car with him! Considering that San Antonio is suburban hell with no where to walk to to be at any sort of anywhere with a there there, TV is the norm, however, they are also forced to read and play Scrabble. They are learning Spanish from the home health aide, which is a good thing. I also reminded them that their grandparents may not live much longer, so enjoy the moment. And you can always practice yoga, I told them.
I asked them to send pictures. My son sent pictures he took from around his grandparents' house. He sent me picures one by one of our wedding, of our family together when their father was alive, pictures of when they were little kids, big smiles and fat cheeks. I called him to see if he was happy. “Yes,” he said. “I’m sad that Dad died, but still good things happen because of it.” I was delighted at his intelligence and my heart melted. I congratulated him on that piece of wisdom, realizing how adolescents need guides for this part of life to answer questions. I reminded him of the Shipwrecked Sailor story, you cannot judge life. It just is. That is yoga, to see life as it is, and watch the mind and open up to the true mind between the thoughts. How exciting to teach youth at this age. How wonderful to have a child grow and learn to live in the world using yoga and story.
My ex is still trying to wiggle out of repaying his debt to me through bankruptcy. I told him I want my car back. I just let the lawyer take care of it. I have learned to navigate the difficulties, not let anything bother me, mostly. It takes a lot of mindfulness and letting go. Sometimes the demons slip in at night, or I talk it out with the King or a friend, but awareness certainly disintegrates the demons on the spot. Like Kali does to the demons. The blood from the demons don't have a chance to sink into the earth and sprout more demons. She prevents this by licking the blood up with her tongue. A daily sitting meditation and yoga practice does wonders for this. It is freedom. Salvation. An ocean of bliss.
At Kripalu, I ate organic, mostly non-dairy ayurvedic food for 11 days straight. I did at least one yoga class a day. Upon leaving, I was shocked to be in the outside world again. I stopped in a convenience store to ask directons. I was overwhlmeed and amazed at all the junk food packaged up. It was so alien. Cotton candy in a plastic container. In Buenos Aires I remember an old man still making it fresh the old fashioned way at the Sunday San Telmo fair. In the store it was a disconnect, an oddity. What is this? Food? Lots of crinkly packages, pork rinds, processed death in waiting. Francie eats gluten and dairy-free, so when we stopped in New Jersey near Bruce Springsteen’s home town, it was hard to find anything to eat on the menu besides a lot of dairy, barbecued wings or bread. We had some salmon and I ate a salad with blue cheese and bacon. The next morning we both had diarrhea! When I told the cashier at the health food store in Swarthmore about it she said, "Oh, you can't eat anything in Jersey."
At her house in Swarthmore, I returned to the healthy diet. Learned to love kale, quinoa, beets and daikon radish. It’s gotten so much easier to do and I can’t imagine eating the old crap, even if it means I can’t eat out much. Everything becomes so clear and free. My body feels great, it’s tone returning and I’m sure I’ve lost 5 pounds or something as my clothes are getting baggy. We shall see how this all holds up abroad! I did find a few vegetarian and health food stores in Buenos Aires. My daughter was thrilled about eating kale, beets and lentils, but my son less so. We shall see! I'm also excited about homeschooling the kids. To really focus on teaching them and un-schooling them by just showing up somewhere outside the US. Obama's race to the top - what a mess. That is not learning. That is competition and more neurosis disguised as education. I will also be happy to be away from the culture, where America thinks murder is funny. "Sunny with a chance of Homicide," is some show, a picture of an orange stabbed and bleeding on the side of New York buses. Angelina Jolie in Salt is the image for gun culture gone girly and unconsciously joining the ranks of the death cult our society has been in for the past 200 years. I finished reading "Bachelor Girl, the secret history of single women in the 20th century," by Betsy Israel. Required reading for all women. How men and the media try persistently to destroy women's power through the ages, yet wome prevail. I understand my mother, the war they waged against her to be anything but a stenographer or wife. And now they still try to destroy us with gun toting media whores. Yet we ignore it an move forward despite it, remarkably. Durga protects us. I had a dream of a lion chasing some people. So we are fierce! I also thought that the black women who were the sales women at Macy's were in credibly strong, to stand around all day surrounded by images of white women and culture. They still have their pride, their peace inside despite all this infantile crap.
I haven’t watched much television in seven years. I did watch the 2006 Olympics and the 2008 presidential elections. I thought I'd protect my kids from TV, but then Hulu and You Tube came along. I am aware of some things that are on TV because of reading the world’s newspapers every morning online. But I’ve never seen a reality show, don’t know what’s popular on TV or who half of the blondes in wedding gowns on the magazines at the grocery check out lanes are. But I did watch a little TV at Francie’s house last night. On the Discovery Channel we caught the end of a show called Hoarders. I was fascinated that other people live in the shame that was my childhood. Buried alive in things. I contacted the network, as they are looking for participants for the new season. I told them my father’s story. His migraine headaches, my mother, the war. I told them he wants it cleaned out before he dies. We all want the house cleaned out. The final psychic journey of the body, the heart, mind and soul. Really leave the past behind. Because it’s still in the body, still in the tissue. Getting it all out is a miracle, a healing extraordinare. We shall see if the producers call.
All in all, it’s a new life. The seven difficult years are over. The first half of my life is over. It seems like a dream the past, or a bad nightmare. I survived. I persevered, by sheer will power alone. The demons have made me strong, courageous and powerful indeed. The journey continues and I’m not afraid. The Queen of Bohemia has done a good and thorough job of cleaning her own house. And she has told her story. Now onward for the next journey.
Friday, May 7, 2010
The Dissolving of the Kingdom and Entering the Gates of Heaven
It’s time. The Queen is ready to go. She has surrendered and let go of everything. She has let go of fear and negativity. She has a strong court she cares dearly about that surrounds her and supports her. There is the mermaid, with horns of a goat and the tail of a fish to guide her on her journey.
And now that the outer world and the kingdom walls are falling away, she has more confidence in herself than ever. So much confidence, that she now radiates with gold. Her gold is heavy in her body and grounds her with its golden glow. She feels it in her body, in her breath. All the terrible and crushing trials of time past have given her the strength, the courage, the wisdom and the persistence to bring her to this moment. Because the visions as the High Priestess and the love and encouragement of the King have shown her the way and cemented her in her certainty.
The outside world is waiting, as the winds of change have come, and its time for her to come out of the darkness and shine. It’s a new era. The Queen passes dissolves the walls of the Kingdom, walks through the High Priestess’s gates of heaven and is reborn in the World.
The Queen of Bohemia is simplifying her life and getting ready to travel with the kids and Storytime Yoga abroad.
This summer is going to rock. I’m selling most of my possessions, storing the rest, sending the kids to Texas for two months to be with their late father’s family, then by August taking the kids abroad on a nomadic tour to some places around the world with Storytime Yoga.
I’m heading for Buenos Aires June 2-18, then have the fantastic annual Mythic Yoga the Story in the Body retreat here in Boulder. Then I'm working on the East Coast with the niños at the Kripalu Kids Camp July 9-18 and I’m at the Omega Institute for the Storytime Yoga Children’s Yoga Teacher and Yoga Play Therapy training July 25-30. By August I may be in Mexico City with the kids for a training I’ve been invited to do, but afterwards I’m planning to stay several months in Buenos Aires, so that we can bring our little black-and-white duality dog, the most Honorable Sergeant Pepe (Prince Pepe don't forget he was promoted). Esme the cat will stay with Opa. From there I imagine I'll come back for a little while. I’m not sure, or perhaps to Lima where I have been invited to train and of course it is my life’s dream to serve and teach the little children of Latin America and take my children abroad to learn and be a yoga family and speak Spanish and oh, my! I can’t wait! I have surrendered and have no expectations, only to be present and joyful.
I would go stark raving mad if I were around my kids 24-7 because as a widow they are around constantly,and that's the hardest part. So I will have some local help, but I’ll be schooling them with a public online school. I’ll be creating yoga home school curriculum for my kids as family yoga with stories, yoga philosophy, peace and character education, writing, reading and oral projects, asana, local geography local cooking and culture, children’s ayurveda and service. Whew! Do I love learning and teaching and yoga or what? We’ll see which ones we get done or how it all ultimately turns out. I surrender and most of all refuse to feel pressure, for I want to go back to that space before the wounding. Before my husband’s suicide, when I was a stay-at-home mother, who cooked carmel-corn from scratch and had a gorgeous raspberry patch, sewed her children’s clothing and taught them at home and told them stories and practiced yoga.
I’ll be blogging about it with You Tube. My Storytime Yoga blog, The Householder Yogini, will cover my Storytime Yoga Children’s Mission, as well as the Queen of Bohemia Cleans her Own House with Mythic Yoga, using yoga, meditation, journaling and mythology for adults to work with life’s challenges for a peaceful, present and powerful life. All this and Storytime Yoga lesson plans of the above are all available when you subscribe to the League of Yogic Storytellers. Certified Storytime yoga teachers are also keeping their own blogs about how they use story and yoga in their lives, families and communities.
Many of my friends ask, “Why on earth are you doing this?” There are many reasons. First, I’ve been expecting the meltdown of the world economy for a while now, my father has been prophesying it since I was a kid, and everybody thought he was nuts, but he did survive Ambarawa 7 and everything he’s told me has been very accurate. The only real difference is that he says we are all going into the fifth dimension and the UFOs are getting ready to reveal themselves but the evil empire keeps holding on with one last gasp and disclosure is thwarted every date that is predicted for this event and I’m never sure about that even though I wish it were true to save us all and Star Trek and Buck Rogers worlds really do exist and are not just my fantasies.
I think the US is going to be a dangerous place, more than Argentina, which was one of the IMF’s first victims and has already been through an economic collapse. The King and I have been researching it for a while now, and Buenos Aires is my kind of town - more psychotherapists per capita than any other place in the world. They love old book stores and opera and naturally the soul of the tango speaks volumes.
I believe that with all the terror threats and our heinous war on Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan there will be strikes in the US. Redneck militia are already coming out of the woods previewing a civil war and there will be more nut jobs crashing into IRS buildings and scapegoating immigrants and Muslims as citizens acquiesce to loss of Constitutional freedoms at a rapid clip with state sponsored terror and propaganda and spiral into fear and chaos and sociel disorder. Greece will look like a TV show compared to what's coming in the Greatest Depression. What’s happening in Arizona is downright nefarious and it all looks like Germany 1933 to me, as we fuel narco war in Mexico with our US arms sales over Arizona’s borders. I’ve seen it all before because of all my father’s concentration camp stories. And just watch Adrian Brodie in The Pianist. It’s heinous. This stuff happens. Americans couldn’t believe it can ever come here. My eighth grade social study teachers in 1980 didn't know what I was talking about when my mother insisted I tell my teachers that my father is a child survivor of a Japanese concentration camp during World War II. But it does happen. I know. Lives change horribly and forever when one day soldiers are knocking at your door and telling you to pack only essentials before hauling you and your little children off to a concentration camp to starve and be tortured and they murder your husband in a forced-labor, Mitzubishi tin mine outside of Tokyo. It lives on for generations. And I have children to protect.
But not to fear, my time is here. It has all fallen into place. Time to get into action and go out on a mission. I’ve never felt so confident and clear of vision and purpose. I envision myself as the Queen of Gold, as I believe gold has been suppressed like Cinderella in the dungeon for a long time, while the ugly step-sister dollar charades around as the real value. But she’s really what’s valuable. And gold and silver will be re-monetized as the economy can’t hold up as the evil empire can’t hold up the debt charade any longer and has lost its grip so our gold comes back center stage. Out the Queen comes! And she shines! I am that Golden Queen.
Another reason I’m going is that when I was a stringer for the Bakersfield Californian newspaper back in 1996, I used to volunteer for religion reporting. I reported on Cuban ministers who described life under Castro, Greek Orthodox priests and the history of the Church, Hispanic Pentecostal revivals on Delano’s skid row, and old ladies who ran Bible classes for retarded adults.
I also did a story on a Mexican priest who was traveling around California and Mexico with the tilma of Juan Diego, who was visited by the Virgin Mary on the hill of Tepeyec, (which was built on top of the obliterated shrine of the indigenous earth goddess Tenotzin.) She appeared to him and told him to build a church on the hill, and sent her image emblazed on his cloak with a whole lot of live roses in the middle of winter as proof to the priests who would not believe the indigenous peasant.
After the telling of the story, the Father asked if I wanted to be blessed with the tilma. I said, "Yes," and he draped it over me and said his prayers. I prayed to the goddess, “Oh, may I be of service to these people.” I have always loved the poor people, especially the indigenous and children. How close they are to nature and spirit still, their folk customs and rich lives, yet oppressed and persecuted with great injustices.
I always loved languages and I married a handsome Tex-Mex trying to make it in a white-man’s world and gave birth Hispanic children. (He said I was Hispanic by injection.) I had spent three months in Ecuador in 1994, and befriended a little girl. I had promised to bring her to the US, as she had been abandoned by her mother and was living with her aunt in a potato chip factory that employed retarded children to package chips in the northern border town of Tulcan, Ecuador. Her name was Carmen, and I spent a lot of time with her and other children doing things together because I hate to see little children suffering. It’s an abomination really that it is allowed at all.
But when I returned to the states, I got busy, working in journalism, making plans to get married. Later I found out that Carmen had committed suicide by eating rat poison. She was only 12 or so, or maybe even 10. I can’t remember. But my remorse and shame was so great. I have always felt the desire to serve children to redeem myself of failing to keep my promise to Carmen. And to be guided by the mother to care for those children who suffer. If we can help them to ease their suffering and educate them for health and literacy with the tools of yoga and story I think the world will be a better place. And we should end war in the name of children, for how my father suffered and how it is an abomination and must be stopped.
Another reason is that I have a minor in Spanish. I love speaking Spanish; I love language. My latest book is the Spanish version of Storytime Yoga Teaching Yoga to Children Through Story – Yoga Con Cuentos – Como Enseñar Yoga a los Niños Mediante el Uso de Cuentos. Published by The Mythic Yoga Studio, LLC. (I finally got an LLC, seven years after starting the biz.) I love traveling and cultures and have been envisioning this since at least 1991. So there is destiny involved with vision. And I want my children to have that experience abroad, outside of the Geography of Nowhere America and suburbia and mythless society trapped in consumption that strangles my lonely soul. I crave a plaza filled with people, art and life. To be in rhythm and connection with nature and the mystery. To rediscover Christianity as well as pagan, indigenous roots and live in community (I will be visiting an eco-yoga farm in Argentina.) I’ll study with my kids the Bhagavad Gita and Yoga Sutras and connect them to their Judeo-Christian roots, while understanding our Muslim, and other religions and applying Buddhist meditation and philosophy. I will not regret leaving the dry, cold, windy, brown Colorado climate I have tried so many times to leave and all its sorrow, but I will also return a lot because there are so many people that I love who still live there.
So I will be on the Storytime Yoga Children’s Mission. Wherever I find some place. I hope you donate to the Mission and support me! As I am sustained by the grace of Lord Shiva. And it is an act of faith and deep love for children and the divine.
I am getting ready to move. The Queen of Bohemia is really cleaning her own house, because I am letting go of so much. Letting go of all the antique collections, artwork and yoga knick-knacks. Selling the Prius (La Gata Negra) so I don’t have to participate in hideous oil dependency that is killing our planet in the Gulf of Mexico as I write this . I am getting rid of about two-thirds of my possessions, but keeping the books and pictures, a few sentimental objects and the yoga props and educational materials. As that is my focus. And it has become so much ever clearer.
I have discovered that the more you let go of your possessions, the less anxiety you feel. You simply stand in the present moment, free of the distracting pull of objects and attachments. To have a simple life and release from the shackles of complexity our culture requires. All you have is your body, and the sensations of the present experience. I’m not sure how I will live without my I-Phone, but I’m hoping to get an I-Pad for educational purposes to fill that gap.
It was terrifying at first. To uproot myself, stir the pot. Oh, the cycle again! Here I go again, creating chaos! I begin to second-guess myself. But I feel pulled always, toward my destiny. The invisible hands massage the heart forward. So I’ve been gentle on myself. Sitting meditation every morning to stay peaceful. Packing it up slowly. I was pissed at Gilbert for putting pressure on me to show this house I’m vacating, for he popped up with little notice of showings while I was in the midst of packing and culling and complained of my artistic temperament and decor. It’s bare bones now, and hope to move a lot this weekend to get ready for the garage sale.
Today I went to get so many art objects and antiques stored at my father’s house to sell at the sale. It was as if I symbolically were finally getting out of my father’s house. I spent the day with him today to get the stuff and also to drive him to oral surgery for a wisdom tooth, since he is 77. It took longer than usual because they couldn’t numb him because he takes so many heavy medications for headache and back pain that he’s tolerant and it took a while to desensitize it.
I will no longer be a part of that filthy house, the desperate trap of despair. I am outside of the house. I am outside of the concentration camp. I am not a prisoner. I am free. I shine for myself, not to care for somebody else and support their dreams rather than mine, which I have done all my life. All this stuff and weight of the past are ready to sell at the big garage sale Friday May 21 and Saturday May 22, 9-4. Many neighbors are having a sale too with me! It will be quite a cleaning, physical and psychic.
Things I will be selling:
Edward S. Curtis original completion prints (5) Gorgeous, turn of the century Native American photographs, but I need the money for a new shopping cart on my website.
Taos pottery and other original artwork, prints from black tie silent auctions I attended with my late husband.
Sydney Solis original artwork. Rare and very valuable.
Antique doll, book, magazine, camera and salt-and-pepper collections. (Keeping the pin, magnet and weaving collections. My Oma started me collecting as a child: rocks, shells, coins.)
A jungle full of plants of assorted sizes. To loving homes only.
My son’s air gun collection (I told him the Xbox and Halo stay in the US)
A bunch of assorted antique bronze yoga knick-knacks, Buddha statues, etc.
A ton of books, art books, literature, poetry, travel, and some library discards given to me by my librarian sister.
Zillions of picture frames.
I never want to spend another winter in Colorado so out go all the winter clothes except the Ann Taylor long black coat, the Saks Fifth avenue wool wrap my late husband bought me on our wedding and the Sorrels for when I do come back and visit periodically and walk in the fresh snow and try snowshoeing or by chance need them because I’m caught in a the cold or blizzard.
Girl’s 4-piece bedroom set of fine wood, although my daughter destroyed it with pens and paint and her one-time step-sister burned holes in it in envy, but we spray painted over it and it looks great.
My son’s bunk bed and desk.
Cute rare pink color Buddy 50 scooter with low miles. Includes basket and helmet.
2005 Black Prius 74k miles
Hammer Dulcimer (Gave up lessons shortly after its impulse purchase while vacationing in Manitou Springs with the kids.)
Kitchen stuff
Kitchen table and four chairs
Lots of CDs (I-tunes is great!)
Shelving, nice chair, kids skiis and bikes, helmets
Clothes. (Gave the vintage dress collection to my Hare Krishna niece.)
Horrifying thought. I have a bunch of stuff at my Arvada house. I will have to contact the tenants to get it out and get rid of it. I was there recently and got my late husband’s collection out, but there is much more stuff, like a 1950s module stereo. It’s really cool!
God, so much crap to get rid of! How to list it all! Just show up! It’s all going! The scary thing is that this is my third garage sale of getting rid of stuff in the past 7 years. I remember my mother, always shuffling around piles of crap from one end of the house to the next in our messy house, throwing things down the basement steps and bringing other things up again. Buying crap from garage sales and getting rid of things in her blue Subaru, most of which remained in the blue Subaru.
I’m also going to have a party, and you are invited, so stay tuned for details when I confirm the date.
Finally, I cannot tell you the weight of a ball and chain that is removed from my heart. I drove to Denver Wednesday and handed the keys, leases headache EVERYTHING over to a property management company for Speer and Arvada because I decided I cannot depend on Gilbert and I need dependable people who don't piss me off. Two upstanding young men will deal with the late night calls, the undependable handymen who don't bring back toilet seats, the deposit of rent checks and the utility billing and collecting the laundry money. They can learn some Spanish and instruct Miguel, Sr. on the exterior painting that I had him get started. I wrote four new leases this month and had Gilbert fill the 2-bedroom. One girl is getting married so that's why they are leaving. I tried raising the rent on the nursing student in the one-bedroom but she flipped out, started crying, and I felt bad and gave the increase to her as a scholarship. She was very grateful. Thank God I don’t have to be pulled in that direction any more. I saved myself from certain death by exhaustion and dread. By clearing my plate of financial management (gave it to my bookkeeper) and running my business (gave it to my assistant, she rocks,) dealing with ex-husband crap (I gave it to my lawyer who filed garnishment of wages and until he files bankruptcy, like he keeps flapping his lips about there is nothing I can do except hold onto the piece of paper judgment that says he owes me $30k at 8 percent interest.) I have plugged the drains of energy. It’s a wash financially, but I was never a capitalist. It’s all dealt with now and I get to live my bliss, the most important thing. Maybe US real estate will tank even more. I got my Arvada property assessment notice, and the value is unchanged. Speer was underwater last year and I haven’t received this year’s value, Speer’s in a hot area so maybe it will improve. But I can’t worry about that. And considering the meltdown, I think it’s pretty much time to surrender and never think about it and leave it to the pros and the combinations of planets at certain times.
So this may be one of the last times I have a free blog, as my assistant insists I give away my best stuff for free, and she wants to make money because after all, this is a capitalistic society we live in, (heavy sigh) and that’s fine as long as children are not suffering and it doesn’t appear to be working right now and that’s why we need to do something about it. (something tells me that on Monday everything is going to change with economic collapse and all these plans could very well change. Such is the lesson of non-attachment.)
OK. That’s enough for now. I'm going to do some yoga and focus on creating a stable pelvis and my uddiyaya banda. It’s a Friday, and the Queen is going to start moving stuff to the storage unit tomorrow and is getting ready for Mother’s Day weekend. Because we honor the mother, that divine energy that is bringing balance back to the earth, putting the heart into the machine, and awakening the kingdom of heaven right here in this moment in this body on this gorgeous, incredible experience of being and love. And I will rejoice in the love that I feel for my children and being their mother. Hallelujah, says the Queen. Amen.
And now that the outer world and the kingdom walls are falling away, she has more confidence in herself than ever. So much confidence, that she now radiates with gold. Her gold is heavy in her body and grounds her with its golden glow. She feels it in her body, in her breath. All the terrible and crushing trials of time past have given her the strength, the courage, the wisdom and the persistence to bring her to this moment. Because the visions as the High Priestess and the love and encouragement of the King have shown her the way and cemented her in her certainty.
The outside world is waiting, as the winds of change have come, and its time for her to come out of the darkness and shine. It’s a new era. The Queen passes dissolves the walls of the Kingdom, walks through the High Priestess’s gates of heaven and is reborn in the World.
The Queen of Bohemia is simplifying her life and getting ready to travel with the kids and Storytime Yoga abroad.
This summer is going to rock. I’m selling most of my possessions, storing the rest, sending the kids to Texas for two months to be with their late father’s family, then by August taking the kids abroad on a nomadic tour to some places around the world with Storytime Yoga.
I’m heading for Buenos Aires June 2-18, then have the fantastic annual Mythic Yoga the Story in the Body retreat here in Boulder. Then I'm working on the East Coast with the niños at the Kripalu Kids Camp July 9-18 and I’m at the Omega Institute for the Storytime Yoga Children’s Yoga Teacher and Yoga Play Therapy training July 25-30. By August I may be in Mexico City with the kids for a training I’ve been invited to do, but afterwards I’m planning to stay several months in Buenos Aires, so that we can bring our little black-and-white duality dog, the most Honorable Sergeant Pepe (Prince Pepe don't forget he was promoted). Esme the cat will stay with Opa. From there I imagine I'll come back for a little while. I’m not sure, or perhaps to Lima where I have been invited to train and of course it is my life’s dream to serve and teach the little children of Latin America and take my children abroad to learn and be a yoga family and speak Spanish and oh, my! I can’t wait! I have surrendered and have no expectations, only to be present and joyful.
I would go stark raving mad if I were around my kids 24-7 because as a widow they are around constantly,and that's the hardest part. So I will have some local help, but I’ll be schooling them with a public online school. I’ll be creating yoga home school curriculum for my kids as family yoga with stories, yoga philosophy, peace and character education, writing, reading and oral projects, asana, local geography local cooking and culture, children’s ayurveda and service. Whew! Do I love learning and teaching and yoga or what? We’ll see which ones we get done or how it all ultimately turns out. I surrender and most of all refuse to feel pressure, for I want to go back to that space before the wounding. Before my husband’s suicide, when I was a stay-at-home mother, who cooked carmel-corn from scratch and had a gorgeous raspberry patch, sewed her children’s clothing and taught them at home and told them stories and practiced yoga.
I’ll be blogging about it with You Tube. My Storytime Yoga blog, The Householder Yogini, will cover my Storytime Yoga Children’s Mission, as well as the Queen of Bohemia Cleans her Own House with Mythic Yoga, using yoga, meditation, journaling and mythology for adults to work with life’s challenges for a peaceful, present and powerful life. All this and Storytime Yoga lesson plans of the above are all available when you subscribe to the League of Yogic Storytellers. Certified Storytime yoga teachers are also keeping their own blogs about how they use story and yoga in their lives, families and communities.
Many of my friends ask, “Why on earth are you doing this?” There are many reasons. First, I’ve been expecting the meltdown of the world economy for a while now, my father has been prophesying it since I was a kid, and everybody thought he was nuts, but he did survive Ambarawa 7 and everything he’s told me has been very accurate. The only real difference is that he says we are all going into the fifth dimension and the UFOs are getting ready to reveal themselves but the evil empire keeps holding on with one last gasp and disclosure is thwarted every date that is predicted for this event and I’m never sure about that even though I wish it were true to save us all and Star Trek and Buck Rogers worlds really do exist and are not just my fantasies.
I think the US is going to be a dangerous place, more than Argentina, which was one of the IMF’s first victims and has already been through an economic collapse. The King and I have been researching it for a while now, and Buenos Aires is my kind of town - more psychotherapists per capita than any other place in the world. They love old book stores and opera and naturally the soul of the tango speaks volumes.
I believe that with all the terror threats and our heinous war on Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan there will be strikes in the US. Redneck militia are already coming out of the woods previewing a civil war and there will be more nut jobs crashing into IRS buildings and scapegoating immigrants and Muslims as citizens acquiesce to loss of Constitutional freedoms at a rapid clip with state sponsored terror and propaganda and spiral into fear and chaos and sociel disorder. Greece will look like a TV show compared to what's coming in the Greatest Depression. What’s happening in Arizona is downright nefarious and it all looks like Germany 1933 to me, as we fuel narco war in Mexico with our US arms sales over Arizona’s borders. I’ve seen it all before because of all my father’s concentration camp stories. And just watch Adrian Brodie in The Pianist. It’s heinous. This stuff happens. Americans couldn’t believe it can ever come here. My eighth grade social study teachers in 1980 didn't know what I was talking about when my mother insisted I tell my teachers that my father is a child survivor of a Japanese concentration camp during World War II. But it does happen. I know. Lives change horribly and forever when one day soldiers are knocking at your door and telling you to pack only essentials before hauling you and your little children off to a concentration camp to starve and be tortured and they murder your husband in a forced-labor, Mitzubishi tin mine outside of Tokyo. It lives on for generations. And I have children to protect.
But not to fear, my time is here. It has all fallen into place. Time to get into action and go out on a mission. I’ve never felt so confident and clear of vision and purpose. I envision myself as the Queen of Gold, as I believe gold has been suppressed like Cinderella in the dungeon for a long time, while the ugly step-sister dollar charades around as the real value. But she’s really what’s valuable. And gold and silver will be re-monetized as the economy can’t hold up as the evil empire can’t hold up the debt charade any longer and has lost its grip so our gold comes back center stage. Out the Queen comes! And she shines! I am that Golden Queen.
Another reason I’m going is that when I was a stringer for the Bakersfield Californian newspaper back in 1996, I used to volunteer for religion reporting. I reported on Cuban ministers who described life under Castro, Greek Orthodox priests and the history of the Church, Hispanic Pentecostal revivals on Delano’s skid row, and old ladies who ran Bible classes for retarded adults.
I also did a story on a Mexican priest who was traveling around California and Mexico with the tilma of Juan Diego, who was visited by the Virgin Mary on the hill of Tepeyec, (which was built on top of the obliterated shrine of the indigenous earth goddess Tenotzin.) She appeared to him and told him to build a church on the hill, and sent her image emblazed on his cloak with a whole lot of live roses in the middle of winter as proof to the priests who would not believe the indigenous peasant.
After the telling of the story, the Father asked if I wanted to be blessed with the tilma. I said, "Yes," and he draped it over me and said his prayers. I prayed to the goddess, “Oh, may I be of service to these people.” I have always loved the poor people, especially the indigenous and children. How close they are to nature and spirit still, their folk customs and rich lives, yet oppressed and persecuted with great injustices.
I always loved languages and I married a handsome Tex-Mex trying to make it in a white-man’s world and gave birth Hispanic children. (He said I was Hispanic by injection.) I had spent three months in Ecuador in 1994, and befriended a little girl. I had promised to bring her to the US, as she had been abandoned by her mother and was living with her aunt in a potato chip factory that employed retarded children to package chips in the northern border town of Tulcan, Ecuador. Her name was Carmen, and I spent a lot of time with her and other children doing things together because I hate to see little children suffering. It’s an abomination really that it is allowed at all.
But when I returned to the states, I got busy, working in journalism, making plans to get married. Later I found out that Carmen had committed suicide by eating rat poison. She was only 12 or so, or maybe even 10. I can’t remember. But my remorse and shame was so great. I have always felt the desire to serve children to redeem myself of failing to keep my promise to Carmen. And to be guided by the mother to care for those children who suffer. If we can help them to ease their suffering and educate them for health and literacy with the tools of yoga and story I think the world will be a better place. And we should end war in the name of children, for how my father suffered and how it is an abomination and must be stopped.
Another reason is that I have a minor in Spanish. I love speaking Spanish; I love language. My latest book is the Spanish version of Storytime Yoga Teaching Yoga to Children Through Story – Yoga Con Cuentos – Como Enseñar Yoga a los Niños Mediante el Uso de Cuentos. Published by The Mythic Yoga Studio, LLC. (I finally got an LLC, seven years after starting the biz.) I love traveling and cultures and have been envisioning this since at least 1991. So there is destiny involved with vision. And I want my children to have that experience abroad, outside of the Geography of Nowhere America and suburbia and mythless society trapped in consumption that strangles my lonely soul. I crave a plaza filled with people, art and life. To be in rhythm and connection with nature and the mystery. To rediscover Christianity as well as pagan, indigenous roots and live in community (I will be visiting an eco-yoga farm in Argentina.) I’ll study with my kids the Bhagavad Gita and Yoga Sutras and connect them to their Judeo-Christian roots, while understanding our Muslim, and other religions and applying Buddhist meditation and philosophy. I will not regret leaving the dry, cold, windy, brown Colorado climate I have tried so many times to leave and all its sorrow, but I will also return a lot because there are so many people that I love who still live there.
So I will be on the Storytime Yoga Children’s Mission. Wherever I find some place. I hope you donate to the Mission and support me! As I am sustained by the grace of Lord Shiva. And it is an act of faith and deep love for children and the divine.
I am getting ready to move. The Queen of Bohemia is really cleaning her own house, because I am letting go of so much. Letting go of all the antique collections, artwork and yoga knick-knacks. Selling the Prius (La Gata Negra) so I don’t have to participate in hideous oil dependency that is killing our planet in the Gulf of Mexico as I write this . I am getting rid of about two-thirds of my possessions, but keeping the books and pictures, a few sentimental objects and the yoga props and educational materials. As that is my focus. And it has become so much ever clearer.
I have discovered that the more you let go of your possessions, the less anxiety you feel. You simply stand in the present moment, free of the distracting pull of objects and attachments. To have a simple life and release from the shackles of complexity our culture requires. All you have is your body, and the sensations of the present experience. I’m not sure how I will live without my I-Phone, but I’m hoping to get an I-Pad for educational purposes to fill that gap.
It was terrifying at first. To uproot myself, stir the pot. Oh, the cycle again! Here I go again, creating chaos! I begin to second-guess myself. But I feel pulled always, toward my destiny. The invisible hands massage the heart forward. So I’ve been gentle on myself. Sitting meditation every morning to stay peaceful. Packing it up slowly. I was pissed at Gilbert for putting pressure on me to show this house I’m vacating, for he popped up with little notice of showings while I was in the midst of packing and culling and complained of my artistic temperament and decor. It’s bare bones now, and hope to move a lot this weekend to get ready for the garage sale.
Today I went to get so many art objects and antiques stored at my father’s house to sell at the sale. It was as if I symbolically were finally getting out of my father’s house. I spent the day with him today to get the stuff and also to drive him to oral surgery for a wisdom tooth, since he is 77. It took longer than usual because they couldn’t numb him because he takes so many heavy medications for headache and back pain that he’s tolerant and it took a while to desensitize it.
I will no longer be a part of that filthy house, the desperate trap of despair. I am outside of the house. I am outside of the concentration camp. I am not a prisoner. I am free. I shine for myself, not to care for somebody else and support their dreams rather than mine, which I have done all my life. All this stuff and weight of the past are ready to sell at the big garage sale Friday May 21 and Saturday May 22, 9-4. Many neighbors are having a sale too with me! It will be quite a cleaning, physical and psychic.
Things I will be selling:
Edward S. Curtis original completion prints (5) Gorgeous, turn of the century Native American photographs, but I need the money for a new shopping cart on my website.
Taos pottery and other original artwork, prints from black tie silent auctions I attended with my late husband.
Sydney Solis original artwork. Rare and very valuable.
Antique doll, book, magazine, camera and salt-and-pepper collections. (Keeping the pin, magnet and weaving collections. My Oma started me collecting as a child: rocks, shells, coins.)
A jungle full of plants of assorted sizes. To loving homes only.
My son’s air gun collection (I told him the Xbox and Halo stay in the US)
A bunch of assorted antique bronze yoga knick-knacks, Buddha statues, etc.
A ton of books, art books, literature, poetry, travel, and some library discards given to me by my librarian sister.
Zillions of picture frames.
I never want to spend another winter in Colorado so out go all the winter clothes except the Ann Taylor long black coat, the Saks Fifth avenue wool wrap my late husband bought me on our wedding and the Sorrels for when I do come back and visit periodically and walk in the fresh snow and try snowshoeing or by chance need them because I’m caught in a the cold or blizzard.
Girl’s 4-piece bedroom set of fine wood, although my daughter destroyed it with pens and paint and her one-time step-sister burned holes in it in envy, but we spray painted over it and it looks great.
My son’s bunk bed and desk.
Cute rare pink color Buddy 50 scooter with low miles. Includes basket and helmet.
2005 Black Prius 74k miles
Hammer Dulcimer (Gave up lessons shortly after its impulse purchase while vacationing in Manitou Springs with the kids.)
Kitchen stuff
Kitchen table and four chairs
Lots of CDs (I-tunes is great!)
Shelving, nice chair, kids skiis and bikes, helmets
Clothes. (Gave the vintage dress collection to my Hare Krishna niece.)
Horrifying thought. I have a bunch of stuff at my Arvada house. I will have to contact the tenants to get it out and get rid of it. I was there recently and got my late husband’s collection out, but there is much more stuff, like a 1950s module stereo. It’s really cool!
God, so much crap to get rid of! How to list it all! Just show up! It’s all going! The scary thing is that this is my third garage sale of getting rid of stuff in the past 7 years. I remember my mother, always shuffling around piles of crap from one end of the house to the next in our messy house, throwing things down the basement steps and bringing other things up again. Buying crap from garage sales and getting rid of things in her blue Subaru, most of which remained in the blue Subaru.
I’m also going to have a party, and you are invited, so stay tuned for details when I confirm the date.
Finally, I cannot tell you the weight of a ball and chain that is removed from my heart. I drove to Denver Wednesday and handed the keys, leases headache EVERYTHING over to a property management company for Speer and Arvada because I decided I cannot depend on Gilbert and I need dependable people who don't piss me off. Two upstanding young men will deal with the late night calls, the undependable handymen who don't bring back toilet seats, the deposit of rent checks and the utility billing and collecting the laundry money. They can learn some Spanish and instruct Miguel, Sr. on the exterior painting that I had him get started. I wrote four new leases this month and had Gilbert fill the 2-bedroom. One girl is getting married so that's why they are leaving. I tried raising the rent on the nursing student in the one-bedroom but she flipped out, started crying, and I felt bad and gave the increase to her as a scholarship. She was very grateful. Thank God I don’t have to be pulled in that direction any more. I saved myself from certain death by exhaustion and dread. By clearing my plate of financial management (gave it to my bookkeeper) and running my business (gave it to my assistant, she rocks,) dealing with ex-husband crap (I gave it to my lawyer who filed garnishment of wages and until he files bankruptcy, like he keeps flapping his lips about there is nothing I can do except hold onto the piece of paper judgment that says he owes me $30k at 8 percent interest.) I have plugged the drains of energy. It’s a wash financially, but I was never a capitalist. It’s all dealt with now and I get to live my bliss, the most important thing. Maybe US real estate will tank even more. I got my Arvada property assessment notice, and the value is unchanged. Speer was underwater last year and I haven’t received this year’s value, Speer’s in a hot area so maybe it will improve. But I can’t worry about that. And considering the meltdown, I think it’s pretty much time to surrender and never think about it and leave it to the pros and the combinations of planets at certain times.
So this may be one of the last times I have a free blog, as my assistant insists I give away my best stuff for free, and she wants to make money because after all, this is a capitalistic society we live in, (heavy sigh) and that’s fine as long as children are not suffering and it doesn’t appear to be working right now and that’s why we need to do something about it. (something tells me that on Monday everything is going to change with economic collapse and all these plans could very well change. Such is the lesson of non-attachment.)
OK. That’s enough for now. I'm going to do some yoga and focus on creating a stable pelvis and my uddiyaya banda. It’s a Friday, and the Queen is going to start moving stuff to the storage unit tomorrow and is getting ready for Mother’s Day weekend. Because we honor the mother, that divine energy that is bringing balance back to the earth, putting the heart into the machine, and awakening the kingdom of heaven right here in this moment in this body on this gorgeous, incredible experience of being and love. And I will rejoice in the love that I feel for my children and being their mother. Hallelujah, says the Queen. Amen.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
The Optimist Queen and her Transvere Abdominus
The Queen hiked up the mountain today, but alone, for Sergeant Pepe was getting groomed for the ball and to go as Prince Pepe instead. She hiked up, footing skillfully the ice and snow. She remembered her mountain goat self, her steady, rocky ascent uphill. And she remembered her reptilian tail, her fishy, watery instincts in her hips on down. She felt the bird bones and she was quite comfortable there as they propelled her on.
She wore her crown, with the big sparkly blue jewel in it, and she sang her song the Shaman gave her and the feeling that was in her body swept over her. It was a lovely feeling. When she reached the top, she did her usual proclamation to the big, blue mountain, and she said, thinking there should be something to affirm or overcome or wrestle or struggle with and instead she said, “I am at peace.” There was just the moment, and the moment was perfect. Even though the King was still at the bottom of the earth, she knows and feels the shift. He turned the corner, he is headed north again. Her heart is so relaxed and full at that moment it touched eternity looking at the mountain. The Queen’s court called just then. The King’s heart was at her Castle Door! “I’ll be right there!” And the Queen hiked back down the mountain, mindfully but very excited and with a quicker skip to her step.
The past few days have been nothing short of remarkable. It’s amazing how the more you surrender and the more you love the more things fall into place. I think it's because the mind is in harmony with the body and the body is in harmony with the environment, and that's when the boons come. That's what purpose myth serves. Then synchronicities show up. Because you live the mythic life. Things have their own meaning, their own story. You start with today and now and shape it the way you want with the ritual of images and words and intention. No wonder witches were burned at the stake. They were powerful!
I spoke at the Boulder Optimist Club today. It was good for me to go, even though I had a little bit of an upset stomach for some reason and felt a little sluggish in the morning and less than optimistic. I was invited by the 80-year-old widower, Carl, across the street. I had gotten him and my Dad together for lunch at my house to talk war stories no long ago. I like hanging out with old people. They have such great stories and history. So when he asked me I said yes, even though I don’t get paid.
I had a dream a few nights ago exactly standing and talking to the group exactly as I did today. In the dream I was giving a presentation, but said I didn’t have anything prepared. The dream was initially anxiety over the upcoming speech. I needed to think about it and pull it together. Finally I decided to just tell them about the dream! And not TELL them about yoga and story, but just ALLOW them to EXPERIENCE it. So I told them the Buddhist story of the Spirit Who Lived in a Tree, although I didn’t tell them it was Buddhist, and we talked about what images they saw. The Tree. The movie Avatar’s Tree is so powerful too. As if this basic life force and mythic image is erupting full speed ahead! The mother! Most people were senior, and one man was in a wheel chair from a stroke. I taught them how to breathe deeply and rhythmically and watch their thoughts. Then we just stood there in mountain pose, getting into our bodies. Just standing there in our bodies and noticing them and feeling them. I got the feeling that this was the first time for most of them they ever paid so much attention to the sensations of their body. Then they did tree pose, very simple, using the chair if required. I sat them down and then had them close their eyes for meditation and relaxation and told them the Christian story of Jesus on the water, although I didn’t’ tell them it was Jesus, just a master in a boat on the water with his 12 students.
It was nice to just be with people. Hear their stories. Old people like to tell stories. It’s nice to have somebody to listen to them too! Especially those old war stories. He made a point to tell my Dad's concentration camp story as an introduction. A woman bought my DVD. I thought, this was nice. I taught people to breathe, to notice the present moment. It was quite a joyous experience. It goes beyond any measurement our culture can come up with. For it’s measured in the depths of being, of the heart, and that’s where the alchemical story is taking place. As things transform, awaken, emerge. Truly a renaissance is happening to me, and to my heart and the person I love. And as much chaos erupts in the world, the reconsiliation of paradox takes place and there is just that much love, awe and wonder taking place. It’s all taking place in the heart and it’s fascinating. The joyous and loving feeling I had at the ceremony takes over, it lightens the heart, opens the throat. My bird sings, it’s joyous and flowering and so very, very new. Like the birth dream I had not long ago. The baby was coming out fast.
I’ve been having wonderful synchronicities with the King. As he has voyaged to South America and to Antarctica, to the bottom of the earth, to the fierce storms and winds and water, whales and iceburgs. While he was having his epiphany and turning point, I was having mine that same day. Yesterday, I knew it because our symbol, twin birds, showed up.
For in that day’s Shambhala meditation class, Contentment in Everyday Life, this woman I was paired with wore these gorgeous, Mexican twin bird earrings! I shared that last class was profound, as I felt the effects of meditation assisting in my mythic and heroic journey of getting over myself and the mire of struggle and relishing the freedom revealed.
It reafirms the natural goodness, the gentleness and openness of the human nature, not that there is some mistake, something must be fixed. That's how I felt my whole life. No longer. There are tools to assist us in life’s trials, but they are nothing to be of conttradition to each other to the joys of life, but to live in the paradox, and balance those out. Lessen the tension between the two opposites. Undo the complexes and patterning we are born into and are in this organism infused with energy and life force. How we undo the patterns and complexes to purely and simply bask in eternity.
We had been working with emotions last week. Seeing how they arise and working with them in meditation. I shared how this week I didn’t flip out and get my body worked up into a hot, angry fit filled with victimhood, self-righteousness and the need for justice when all in this just one week Speer tenant’s going to skip paying rent and use their deposit instead without my permission issues, repressed landlady who won’t let you paint your daughter’s bedroom something other than stark white issues, slimy ex-husband who isn’t paying you back the judgment you received because he allowed your house to go into foreclosure and not pay you $30k issues and other emotional issues reared their head.
The woman I was paired with wore lovely artsy clothes of red, and the twin bird earings. She’s a painter and a teacher. We had to share the feelings of trust and confidence we had in the past and now and how we may have had mistrusted or feelings of deceiving someone.
I told how the world wasn’t safe for me, didn’t trust many people, didn’t have much intimacy with people because of an isolated childhood with a violent schizophrenic mother and a concentration camp father. The present moment wasn’t safe. But to have the trust, love and confidence in myself that I have gained from showing up in the present and not identifying with my mind allowed a stability and a grounding to take place that my trust and confidence was found experientially through my body and awareness. And I found that the more you surrender, the more you align. And it’s very hard to do, that surrendering, but surely somehow it seems that the universe all along was doing all that icky devil stuff to you just to get you to give up on your ego ideas and point you to the light. And that ever since my ayayuasca ceremony it gave me the shift and incredible vision that I can never forget. The past is past and all that story gone. All I have left of it is a work of art in honor of all the love I have for it and the people in my life of past, present and future. Her story was interesting because she had the opposite, provided everything from her parents and had everything done for her so it created a terrible insecurity about herself, but that she is at peace with her artist self that even if she never sells a painting at a show that's not what it's about. it's about he making art. I really connected on that. We artists just need to create art. We do it for art's sake and because we have to! Hence my showing up at the Optimist Club or creating anything at all! And there is no clinging to an old story, no digging in the past anymore, but rather a starting from where you are.
The rest of the class was an Oniki traditional monk eating lunch. We brought each three bowls, each smaller than the other. We ate in meditative silence, and two women served simple food from bowls, tempeh, sesamea seeds to sprinkle on, mixed vegetables of asparagus, carrot and squash, brown rice. The second third pass was for condiments of tamari, salt or pepper and the sesame seeds. The third pass was for tea in the third cup. I had put food in it not knowing! And had to clean it out of the soy sauce!
We ate in silence, enjoying each texture, the sound of your neighbor crunching, of the different tastes and sensations. It was magical, so present and glowing reality.
Then a woman gave a demonstration on Japanese Ikibani, flower arranging. The two main stems, heaven and man, then the flower, earth. The stillness and arrangmenet meant to stop you in your tracks and point you toward eternity. It’s a doorway, a symbol that juts you beyond time and space and wakes you up to the now. Somehow I find lately everything is doing that - mountains, trees, chairs, flowers and art. Children's faces and even war and terror.
Later I drove to have lunch at Chipotle and conversed with the women in Spanish for my lunch. I stopped off at Guiry’s for art supplies before heading to my body work session.
I was blown away by this session and the depth of knowledge this guy, Jeff, knew. I had met him the weekend after my ayahuasca ceremony. Feeling self love gushing, I went to get a hair cut. I was early to the salon so I ducked in next door for a 10-minute massage for the pain in my neck I had from doing all the hot yoga classes and stretching the muscles so deeply only for me to stop taking the classes due to getting busy with kids and life again and for the muscles to cramp up severely and cause agony in the spot in my choulder from my car accident was 17 years ago and was nagging me all through the movie Avatar. So I had decided to do something about it and that's how I met Jeff.
I learned about my transverse abdominus muscle and how pregnancy separated it and was causing the destabilization in my pelvis and my organs and issue in my ascending colon because of undigested food! The work he did was hard to pin down, he had such an interesting style but I was so impressed with his deep knowledge of anatomy, the nervous system and how the body functions. I did decompression breathing, deep breathing all the way to the nerves in my head and slow exhalations, five per minute. He held the area of my udyaya banda and wehre the abdominal muscles separated and it was an incredible feeling. Like a psychic hole that was leaking out energy had been closed. And as he said, “You will be like before you were a mother.” Like a virgin again! So there is something to that process! It is an energetic feeling at the uterine, abdominal level. I also felt in one position as I looked down my body from the position on the table as if I were back in the hospital giving birth at one point. So powerful is the body’s memory. It was very real and huge. I felt so calm and peaceful and aligned after leaving there. And I naturally Googled everything on the muscle and what to do about it and look forward to more sessions because it’s so healing! I swear, all my health problems related to that issue! And I had no idea! And my son will be 12 this month!!!
And the Bohemian Bombshell never has felt more comfortable in her body, even thought she is plump, by Goddess she is full, FULL! Full I say! Full of life and it courses through her body, her breasts, belly, thighs, hips and arms. It just radiates life and all the good food of the earth moving through her in grace.
The Queen returned to her castle and found the King’s heart there. She knew that it was only a matter of time before the King’s body, mind and soul caught up and were here completely at the castle. And she’s so exited about that. But the Queen is at Peace. She’s at peace with everything right now. And she’s ticking down the days until the King finally arrives.
She wore her crown, with the big sparkly blue jewel in it, and she sang her song the Shaman gave her and the feeling that was in her body swept over her. It was a lovely feeling. When she reached the top, she did her usual proclamation to the big, blue mountain, and she said, thinking there should be something to affirm or overcome or wrestle or struggle with and instead she said, “I am at peace.” There was just the moment, and the moment was perfect. Even though the King was still at the bottom of the earth, she knows and feels the shift. He turned the corner, he is headed north again. Her heart is so relaxed and full at that moment it touched eternity looking at the mountain. The Queen’s court called just then. The King’s heart was at her Castle Door! “I’ll be right there!” And the Queen hiked back down the mountain, mindfully but very excited and with a quicker skip to her step.
The past few days have been nothing short of remarkable. It’s amazing how the more you surrender and the more you love the more things fall into place. I think it's because the mind is in harmony with the body and the body is in harmony with the environment, and that's when the boons come. That's what purpose myth serves. Then synchronicities show up. Because you live the mythic life. Things have their own meaning, their own story. You start with today and now and shape it the way you want with the ritual of images and words and intention. No wonder witches were burned at the stake. They were powerful!
I spoke at the Boulder Optimist Club today. It was good for me to go, even though I had a little bit of an upset stomach for some reason and felt a little sluggish in the morning and less than optimistic. I was invited by the 80-year-old widower, Carl, across the street. I had gotten him and my Dad together for lunch at my house to talk war stories no long ago. I like hanging out with old people. They have such great stories and history. So when he asked me I said yes, even though I don’t get paid.
I had a dream a few nights ago exactly standing and talking to the group exactly as I did today. In the dream I was giving a presentation, but said I didn’t have anything prepared. The dream was initially anxiety over the upcoming speech. I needed to think about it and pull it together. Finally I decided to just tell them about the dream! And not TELL them about yoga and story, but just ALLOW them to EXPERIENCE it. So I told them the Buddhist story of the Spirit Who Lived in a Tree, although I didn’t tell them it was Buddhist, and we talked about what images they saw. The Tree. The movie Avatar’s Tree is so powerful too. As if this basic life force and mythic image is erupting full speed ahead! The mother! Most people were senior, and one man was in a wheel chair from a stroke. I taught them how to breathe deeply and rhythmically and watch their thoughts. Then we just stood there in mountain pose, getting into our bodies. Just standing there in our bodies and noticing them and feeling them. I got the feeling that this was the first time for most of them they ever paid so much attention to the sensations of their body. Then they did tree pose, very simple, using the chair if required. I sat them down and then had them close their eyes for meditation and relaxation and told them the Christian story of Jesus on the water, although I didn’t’ tell them it was Jesus, just a master in a boat on the water with his 12 students.
It was nice to just be with people. Hear their stories. Old people like to tell stories. It’s nice to have somebody to listen to them too! Especially those old war stories. He made a point to tell my Dad's concentration camp story as an introduction. A woman bought my DVD. I thought, this was nice. I taught people to breathe, to notice the present moment. It was quite a joyous experience. It goes beyond any measurement our culture can come up with. For it’s measured in the depths of being, of the heart, and that’s where the alchemical story is taking place. As things transform, awaken, emerge. Truly a renaissance is happening to me, and to my heart and the person I love. And as much chaos erupts in the world, the reconsiliation of paradox takes place and there is just that much love, awe and wonder taking place. It’s all taking place in the heart and it’s fascinating. The joyous and loving feeling I had at the ceremony takes over, it lightens the heart, opens the throat. My bird sings, it’s joyous and flowering and so very, very new. Like the birth dream I had not long ago. The baby was coming out fast.
I’ve been having wonderful synchronicities with the King. As he has voyaged to South America and to Antarctica, to the bottom of the earth, to the fierce storms and winds and water, whales and iceburgs. While he was having his epiphany and turning point, I was having mine that same day. Yesterday, I knew it because our symbol, twin birds, showed up.
For in that day’s Shambhala meditation class, Contentment in Everyday Life, this woman I was paired with wore these gorgeous, Mexican twin bird earrings! I shared that last class was profound, as I felt the effects of meditation assisting in my mythic and heroic journey of getting over myself and the mire of struggle and relishing the freedom revealed.
It reafirms the natural goodness, the gentleness and openness of the human nature, not that there is some mistake, something must be fixed. That's how I felt my whole life. No longer. There are tools to assist us in life’s trials, but they are nothing to be of conttradition to each other to the joys of life, but to live in the paradox, and balance those out. Lessen the tension between the two opposites. Undo the complexes and patterning we are born into and are in this organism infused with energy and life force. How we undo the patterns and complexes to purely and simply bask in eternity.
We had been working with emotions last week. Seeing how they arise and working with them in meditation. I shared how this week I didn’t flip out and get my body worked up into a hot, angry fit filled with victimhood, self-righteousness and the need for justice when all in this just one week Speer tenant’s going to skip paying rent and use their deposit instead without my permission issues, repressed landlady who won’t let you paint your daughter’s bedroom something other than stark white issues, slimy ex-husband who isn’t paying you back the judgment you received because he allowed your house to go into foreclosure and not pay you $30k issues and other emotional issues reared their head.
The woman I was paired with wore lovely artsy clothes of red, and the twin bird earings. She’s a painter and a teacher. We had to share the feelings of trust and confidence we had in the past and now and how we may have had mistrusted or feelings of deceiving someone.
I told how the world wasn’t safe for me, didn’t trust many people, didn’t have much intimacy with people because of an isolated childhood with a violent schizophrenic mother and a concentration camp father. The present moment wasn’t safe. But to have the trust, love and confidence in myself that I have gained from showing up in the present and not identifying with my mind allowed a stability and a grounding to take place that my trust and confidence was found experientially through my body and awareness. And I found that the more you surrender, the more you align. And it’s very hard to do, that surrendering, but surely somehow it seems that the universe all along was doing all that icky devil stuff to you just to get you to give up on your ego ideas and point you to the light. And that ever since my ayayuasca ceremony it gave me the shift and incredible vision that I can never forget. The past is past and all that story gone. All I have left of it is a work of art in honor of all the love I have for it and the people in my life of past, present and future. Her story was interesting because she had the opposite, provided everything from her parents and had everything done for her so it created a terrible insecurity about herself, but that she is at peace with her artist self that even if she never sells a painting at a show that's not what it's about. it's about he making art. I really connected on that. We artists just need to create art. We do it for art's sake and because we have to! Hence my showing up at the Optimist Club or creating anything at all! And there is no clinging to an old story, no digging in the past anymore, but rather a starting from where you are.
The rest of the class was an Oniki traditional monk eating lunch. We brought each three bowls, each smaller than the other. We ate in meditative silence, and two women served simple food from bowls, tempeh, sesamea seeds to sprinkle on, mixed vegetables of asparagus, carrot and squash, brown rice. The second third pass was for condiments of tamari, salt or pepper and the sesame seeds. The third pass was for tea in the third cup. I had put food in it not knowing! And had to clean it out of the soy sauce!
We ate in silence, enjoying each texture, the sound of your neighbor crunching, of the different tastes and sensations. It was magical, so present and glowing reality.
Then a woman gave a demonstration on Japanese Ikibani, flower arranging. The two main stems, heaven and man, then the flower, earth. The stillness and arrangmenet meant to stop you in your tracks and point you toward eternity. It’s a doorway, a symbol that juts you beyond time and space and wakes you up to the now. Somehow I find lately everything is doing that - mountains, trees, chairs, flowers and art. Children's faces and even war and terror.
Later I drove to have lunch at Chipotle and conversed with the women in Spanish for my lunch. I stopped off at Guiry’s for art supplies before heading to my body work session.
I was blown away by this session and the depth of knowledge this guy, Jeff, knew. I had met him the weekend after my ayahuasca ceremony. Feeling self love gushing, I went to get a hair cut. I was early to the salon so I ducked in next door for a 10-minute massage for the pain in my neck I had from doing all the hot yoga classes and stretching the muscles so deeply only for me to stop taking the classes due to getting busy with kids and life again and for the muscles to cramp up severely and cause agony in the spot in my choulder from my car accident was 17 years ago and was nagging me all through the movie Avatar. So I had decided to do something about it and that's how I met Jeff.
I learned about my transverse abdominus muscle and how pregnancy separated it and was causing the destabilization in my pelvis and my organs and issue in my ascending colon because of undigested food! The work he did was hard to pin down, he had such an interesting style but I was so impressed with his deep knowledge of anatomy, the nervous system and how the body functions. I did decompression breathing, deep breathing all the way to the nerves in my head and slow exhalations, five per minute. He held the area of my udyaya banda and wehre the abdominal muscles separated and it was an incredible feeling. Like a psychic hole that was leaking out energy had been closed. And as he said, “You will be like before you were a mother.” Like a virgin again! So there is something to that process! It is an energetic feeling at the uterine, abdominal level. I also felt in one position as I looked down my body from the position on the table as if I were back in the hospital giving birth at one point. So powerful is the body’s memory. It was very real and huge. I felt so calm and peaceful and aligned after leaving there. And I naturally Googled everything on the muscle and what to do about it and look forward to more sessions because it’s so healing! I swear, all my health problems related to that issue! And I had no idea! And my son will be 12 this month!!!
And the Bohemian Bombshell never has felt more comfortable in her body, even thought she is plump, by Goddess she is full, FULL! Full I say! Full of life and it courses through her body, her breasts, belly, thighs, hips and arms. It just radiates life and all the good food of the earth moving through her in grace.
The Queen returned to her castle and found the King’s heart there. She knew that it was only a matter of time before the King’s body, mind and soul caught up and were here completely at the castle. And she’s so exited about that. But the Queen is at Peace. She’s at peace with everything right now. And she’s ticking down the days until the King finally arrives.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
The Flowering Tree of Roses in Winter
The Queen of Bohemia hiked up the mountain this morning with her trusted little dog Sergeant Pepe. For the Winter Solstice, she proclaimed, “I am the Queen of Bohemia. My kingdom is inside my heart. And my symbol is a flowering tree of roses in winter. “ And then she walked down again.
The solstice is my most sacred time of the year. I always feel its pull toward the darkness, and then the imminent rebirth. The most amazing time is that day before, when you just sit in the moment and allow the event. Everything just falls away. There is silence and presence. There is an emptying out, a sacrifice. A sacrifice of the self. Of all my desires, of all my fears. They wait silently while I contemplate the peaceful present.
A daily sitting practice does wonder to arrive at this. A mind can be trained. It can start to identify with that clarity and awe of the present moment. All the demons of my mind seem like little children begging for attention. But the present is so peaceful, so calming. I resist their cries.
I have always been attracted to the image of the Flowering Tree. The Sufi’s have it flowering in winter. The Hindu story is my favorite, one I perform frequently. And then you have Juan Diego and La Virgen, roses blooming in winter on Tepeyac. That metaphor for eternity, the spirit. It can get wounded, it can be healed again. But really it never was wounded, it never was healed. And with that every little action in the moment becomes so amazing. The touch of the keypad to type, the breath, the touch of clothing on my body. The complete surrender to reality and the ability to navigate my mind’s complexities assist in this divine amazement.
You’d think I’d be really pissed about what happened to me. But really it’s all just so beautiful. And the moment too precious to waste any more time or sorrow with it. It just is, the winter. You can flower in it any time. Everything gets revealed in it with the illumination of the heart. All questions and problems are answered in complete truth. All you have to do is wait and have faith.
The Flowering Tree. A tree pose, the pelvis and legs rooted in the earth and stable, the rib cage and heart, yearning for the heaven. That expansion of the Shri Yantra, energy moving toward the earth in one triangle, energy moving away from the earth in expansion. That’s how the planets stay in orbit, amazingly. This perfect balance of tension pulling and pushing. Are we all mini cosmoses? Only to realize this perfect replica in our bodies and the complete harmonizing with the rhythms of nature? What perfect flow, what perfect balance. To recognize that your power is identical with that energy of the universe. All fear drops away. All desires melt into dharma. The serpentine power. The tree, as below so above. And the serpent, energy, winding its way up to the top, and then back down again.
The flowers, the roses. The faith and the blooming of the heart. The throat must be open, the speech and the truth must flow. The breath moves through the body, pumps the heart. Camel pose, cactus pose. Opening the heart, surrendering.
Staying with the center. Listening and alert. Balanced and in tune with the body.
The answer to everything just comes at the right time, at the right moment.
And so the light has returned. The eternal life goes on. It crawls toward daylight of longer and longer intensities. An energy shifts, something new is born. I can feel it, it’s emerging like a bulb in winter. A blooming rose in winter on a tree. Where its branches were broken and leaves torn, they are mended. And the flowers bloom, gorgeous radiant, divine.
The solstice is my most sacred time of the year. I always feel its pull toward the darkness, and then the imminent rebirth. The most amazing time is that day before, when you just sit in the moment and allow the event. Everything just falls away. There is silence and presence. There is an emptying out, a sacrifice. A sacrifice of the self. Of all my desires, of all my fears. They wait silently while I contemplate the peaceful present.
A daily sitting practice does wonder to arrive at this. A mind can be trained. It can start to identify with that clarity and awe of the present moment. All the demons of my mind seem like little children begging for attention. But the present is so peaceful, so calming. I resist their cries.
I have always been attracted to the image of the Flowering Tree. The Sufi’s have it flowering in winter. The Hindu story is my favorite, one I perform frequently. And then you have Juan Diego and La Virgen, roses blooming in winter on Tepeyac. That metaphor for eternity, the spirit. It can get wounded, it can be healed again. But really it never was wounded, it never was healed. And with that every little action in the moment becomes so amazing. The touch of the keypad to type, the breath, the touch of clothing on my body. The complete surrender to reality and the ability to navigate my mind’s complexities assist in this divine amazement.
You’d think I’d be really pissed about what happened to me. But really it’s all just so beautiful. And the moment too precious to waste any more time or sorrow with it. It just is, the winter. You can flower in it any time. Everything gets revealed in it with the illumination of the heart. All questions and problems are answered in complete truth. All you have to do is wait and have faith.
The Flowering Tree. A tree pose, the pelvis and legs rooted in the earth and stable, the rib cage and heart, yearning for the heaven. That expansion of the Shri Yantra, energy moving toward the earth in one triangle, energy moving away from the earth in expansion. That’s how the planets stay in orbit, amazingly. This perfect balance of tension pulling and pushing. Are we all mini cosmoses? Only to realize this perfect replica in our bodies and the complete harmonizing with the rhythms of nature? What perfect flow, what perfect balance. To recognize that your power is identical with that energy of the universe. All fear drops away. All desires melt into dharma. The serpentine power. The tree, as below so above. And the serpent, energy, winding its way up to the top, and then back down again.
The flowers, the roses. The faith and the blooming of the heart. The throat must be open, the speech and the truth must flow. The breath moves through the body, pumps the heart. Camel pose, cactus pose. Opening the heart, surrendering.
Staying with the center. Listening and alert. Balanced and in tune with the body.
The answer to everything just comes at the right time, at the right moment.
And so the light has returned. The eternal life goes on. It crawls toward daylight of longer and longer intensities. An energy shifts, something new is born. I can feel it, it’s emerging like a bulb in winter. A blooming rose in winter on a tree. Where its branches were broken and leaves torn, they are mended. And the flowers bloom, gorgeous radiant, divine.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
The Birth of the Bohemian Bombshell
The Queen is born from the waters. Her bottom matsya self. Reptilian, earthy and watery. Her body is remade from the fires of the earth, the sweat of the rhythms and pulsation of life. Her heart opens, and her wings spread and her breath releases a beautiful new poem. A song, a mantra and it mixes with the air and sky until it waters down and fertilizes the earth she walks on.
I am the Bohemian Bombshell. I’m re-sculpting my body. I’m re-storying my Self. No longer do I carry the stories from childhood that were stuck in my body. I am re-patterning that groove in the record. I’m a hot yoga junkie now that I’ve tried out the Yoga Pod. I don’t get the headaches; it’s a shorter class and we do a downward dog!
Slowly the heat and the alignment and movement along with a new guiding myth in my life are re-shaping me. A rebirth. Just like after shavasana, there is something new out of that death period of rest. I have forgotten the terrible worthlessness, the shame. The shame of my house, myself, my body. This terrified little girl, so afraid and ashamed of her house that she could not call the police when she came home one day her senior year in high school and found that her little sister had attempted suicide. So ashamed that she had only herself to comfort her and she did it with bulimia, building more shame, more self-hatred. More hatred of her body, her self.
I will be 43 in 20 days. I have a new guiding myth. The Queen. I love my body. I love myself and I have value. I’m cleaning my house out swell. My body is full, 145 pounds typically. Up 15 pounds from three years ago. It's OK. It's right. Because I feel so good in my body. It’s strong and healthy. It's sensuous, sexy and beautiful. All my flesh, all my wrinkles and peeping gray hair. What a difference. My little girl of the past is OK with it too. She’s healed too. She doesn’t have to be 115 pounds like in her youth. She just gets to be healthy. She gets to be happy, trusting and safe. She gets to be herself. So everybody gets healed. Even my mother and father, sisters and brothers. It’s heaven on earth. And it’s in the body. It’s in the Bohemian Bombshell.
I am the Queen, the feather-plumed serpent, or the mermaid, half goat, half fish. The alchemical toad and bird chained together. I’m finally rooted, my energy balanced and back down toward the lower half of the body instead of rising in fear upward. I have a stable pelvis, that lizardly area, grounded and solid, and flowing freely with the energies of life. The hot yoga gets more deeply into my chest. For now my upper body lifts toward heaven. My heart, no longer a heavy stone, collapsing, pulling me forward and protected by rock-tight shoulders paralyzed by fear, but a bird, light, open and liberated. Free in the breath, present and powerful. And everything ceases. This is where Durga comes in. It’s that presence, unmistakable mother in her death and life. She’s in the heart, that amazing organ that has arteries running from it and to it, giving and receiving. It’s a Shiva consciousness. I can see more clearly my ego self because of the distance that mediation has gotten between me and my ego story. I like to reside in the Shiva spot more. It's an addiction. It’s protection, safety. It’s a silence that is yet so loud with the roar of the cosmos.
In hot yoga, I slow down to the heat and real rhythm of my body, notice every toxin in it. With my deep breathes I can feel every nook and cranny, any mis-alignment. It’s a slow melt, a smeltering, a crafting, as the new mythology kicks in. That I am of value and worthy. For I am the Queen of royal, cosmic blood. And my value does not fit in with the passing economic age of imaginary money, or even precious metals, but my value goes beyond, into something that cannot be measured by any earthly means. The value of my self and my work is not able to be assigned a measurable value, but it is rather unspoken, and connects to every living being on the planet. It connects and communicates with the herbs and the plants and the seas and water and the moon and the stars and the sun. It connects in faith, as it is confirmed and knows that an upheaval is necessary. To rebalance things. The classic Star Wars myth goes agrarian with kings and their peasants revolting. Politicians and proletariat. Corporations and taxyapers. So I’m not too worried any more. I’m excited. It’s time for some good action. We are all assigned our roles and so now it’s show time.
So is Birthed the Bohemian Bombshell.
I am the Bohemian Bombshell. I’m re-sculpting my body. I’m re-storying my Self. No longer do I carry the stories from childhood that were stuck in my body. I am re-patterning that groove in the record. I’m a hot yoga junkie now that I’ve tried out the Yoga Pod. I don’t get the headaches; it’s a shorter class and we do a downward dog!
Slowly the heat and the alignment and movement along with a new guiding myth in my life are re-shaping me. A rebirth. Just like after shavasana, there is something new out of that death period of rest. I have forgotten the terrible worthlessness, the shame. The shame of my house, myself, my body. This terrified little girl, so afraid and ashamed of her house that she could not call the police when she came home one day her senior year in high school and found that her little sister had attempted suicide. So ashamed that she had only herself to comfort her and she did it with bulimia, building more shame, more self-hatred. More hatred of her body, her self.
I will be 43 in 20 days. I have a new guiding myth. The Queen. I love my body. I love myself and I have value. I’m cleaning my house out swell. My body is full, 145 pounds typically. Up 15 pounds from three years ago. It's OK. It's right. Because I feel so good in my body. It’s strong and healthy. It's sensuous, sexy and beautiful. All my flesh, all my wrinkles and peeping gray hair. What a difference. My little girl of the past is OK with it too. She’s healed too. She doesn’t have to be 115 pounds like in her youth. She just gets to be healthy. She gets to be happy, trusting and safe. She gets to be herself. So everybody gets healed. Even my mother and father, sisters and brothers. It’s heaven on earth. And it’s in the body. It’s in the Bohemian Bombshell.
I am the Queen, the feather-plumed serpent, or the mermaid, half goat, half fish. The alchemical toad and bird chained together. I’m finally rooted, my energy balanced and back down toward the lower half of the body instead of rising in fear upward. I have a stable pelvis, that lizardly area, grounded and solid, and flowing freely with the energies of life. The hot yoga gets more deeply into my chest. For now my upper body lifts toward heaven. My heart, no longer a heavy stone, collapsing, pulling me forward and protected by rock-tight shoulders paralyzed by fear, but a bird, light, open and liberated. Free in the breath, present and powerful. And everything ceases. This is where Durga comes in. It’s that presence, unmistakable mother in her death and life. She’s in the heart, that amazing organ that has arteries running from it and to it, giving and receiving. It’s a Shiva consciousness. I can see more clearly my ego self because of the distance that mediation has gotten between me and my ego story. I like to reside in the Shiva spot more. It's an addiction. It’s protection, safety. It’s a silence that is yet so loud with the roar of the cosmos.
In hot yoga, I slow down to the heat and real rhythm of my body, notice every toxin in it. With my deep breathes I can feel every nook and cranny, any mis-alignment. It’s a slow melt, a smeltering, a crafting, as the new mythology kicks in. That I am of value and worthy. For I am the Queen of royal, cosmic blood. And my value does not fit in with the passing economic age of imaginary money, or even precious metals, but my value goes beyond, into something that cannot be measured by any earthly means. The value of my self and my work is not able to be assigned a measurable value, but it is rather unspoken, and connects to every living being on the planet. It connects and communicates with the herbs and the plants and the seas and water and the moon and the stars and the sun. It connects in faith, as it is confirmed and knows that an upheaval is necessary. To rebalance things. The classic Star Wars myth goes agrarian with kings and their peasants revolting. Politicians and proletariat. Corporations and taxyapers. So I’m not too worried any more. I’m excited. It’s time for some good action. We are all assigned our roles and so now it’s show time.
So is Birthed the Bohemian Bombshell.
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