Dancing Through Transition

Today we danced.
The woman who ran the dance encouraged us to pay special attention to the transitions between the music, between our dance partners and between the rhythms. Right away I noticed that my automatic response to transition was to slow down or stop during the transition, but I had an overriding intellect telling me to keep moving, keep pushing through, keep “doing” something. I had some mystery voice telling me that if I came to a complete halt I’d somehow loose my momentum and be unable to start back up again. And so I pushed. Sometimes I had to push hard, sometimes it was easy, but it was almost always a push.
And then I thought about my life, and all the times I’ve been in some sort of transition, as I am now. I’ve transitioned through my children leaving home, divorce, break up, unrequited love, hurt feelings, declining income, bankruptcy, shifts in my work, my family and my heart. Each time my thought has been to keep pushing, keep moving, keep doing. In fact, often times the doing-ness of the push would help me avoid and deny the pain or difficulty of the transition. Sometimes, I think the push is necessary. I have experienced times that if I didn’t push, I would come to a complete standstill and be unable to care for myself or my loved ones. And so push was all I could do. But there are other times when I could find a way to push and remain gentle and compassionate with myself as well. A way to push without avoiding or denying that change can be difficult.
Transitions can be scary. As my life continues to move into new territory, new relationships, new homes, new work….. these can all be unsettling and difficult. There are learning curves to be had, loss to be mourned, changes to be experienced – and all of these things have often times left me uncertain and frightened. There have been times when the fear is paralyzing, and others when the new opportunity is exciting and inspiring. Either way, change feels uncertain, and sometimes I believe it is in my best interest to slow down, and perhaps, at times, to even come to a stand still. To allow the movement to subside, allow the decisions to unfold instead of be pushed, and to simply sit in the uncertainty and allow whatever is next to show up. I continue to try and remember that the Universe is always on my side, always conspiring for my success and has my best interest at heart….. even when it doesn’t look or feel that way.
While I plan to keep dancing through the transitions, I think I'm more likely to slow down when necessary.

Wake Up

Every day I attempt to start my day in a way that leads to joy, love and possibilities. Take a listen to this and tell me what you think!
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On a Clear Day.......

Yesterday I flew home to Southern Oregon from New Mexico through San Francisco. Our plane left Albuquerque shortly before the sun had risen. Consequently, the flight West was accompanied by a beautiful sunrise. By the time we reached the Grand Canyon the sun was just lighting up the Western Ridge and the bright reds and oranges of the canyon walls were breathtaking. Soon we were over the glaring white snow covered mountains of the High Sierras. We flew directly over my childhood hometown of Mammoth Lakes and I could identify the ski runs, Convict Lake and see the tip of the mountain where the gondola runs. I looked North and gazed in wonder at the snow capped peaks as far as the eye could see. And then came the gorgeous San Francisco Bay. The sun was shining brightly, not a cloud in the sky, the red Golden Gate Bridge was radiant. I was even able to make out the building in the downtown area where I sometimes work. Rarely do I see the Bay Area so fogless and clear. As we continued North I was astonished at how crystal clear the sky was. Again, I could see rolling mountains and lakes and the curvature of the earth until it disappeared into the distant horizon. I could identify numerous landmarks along the way, and soon I could see the sun reflecting brightly off the newly white surface of Mt. Shasta. The surrounding dark green rolling hills seemed to go on forever. Suddenly, the captain made an announcement:

“Ladies and gentlemen, it appears there is a weather condition in Medford that may impede our ability to land. Current visibility is such that we cannot get permission to approach the runway at this time and may need to divert to Redmond.”

Redmond is 125 miles East of Medford and my head began to ache with the possibility of being loaded onto a bus for that long, curvy trek across the Cascades. I immediately began to doubt the information the captain had just given us. How could this be possible? It had been so crystal clear for my entire trip that there couldn’t POSSIBLY be enough clouds or fog or WHATEVER to prevent us from landing!!! I mean, REALLY, can’t he just look outside and see that it is crystal clear? And besides, its not even winter time yet so again, he must have bad information!!!

We circled Medford for about 10 minutes, and as we looked down out of our windows the report was confirmed. Everything as far as the eye could see was perfectly clear and sunny, with the exception of the little valley Medford seemed to be sitting in. Medford was solidly packed with fog. Perhaps the captain did know more about the situation than I did.

It wasn’t long before I laughed at how my own desire to get home had begun to cloud the facts we had been given, and how I used my own current experience to prove my own point of view. I began to use my own experience of cloudless skies to second guess the new information and reports of cloudy skies for others.

The same thing happened when I read a newspaper article yesterday about a law regarding child abandonment. Two years ago the State of Nebraska enacted a law called “safe haven”. The law stated that children could be abandoned at hospitals without parents fearing legal action. The law was created to prevent parents from abandoning their babies in dumpsters. It was decided that people unable to cope with parenthood needed a safe option. However, as it turned out, the law is now being used in an unexpected way. In the course of the past year over 30 children had been deposited into hospitals and abandoned there to become the responsibility of the state. The majority of these children ranged in age from 11-17. I was immediately appalled. How on earth could any parent simply drive their child to a local hospital and leave them there? One nurse reported a little 6 year old boy pleading with his mother, “mommy, I’ll be good, I promise I’ll be good, just don’t leave me here.” My heart broke, and I immediately began to judge and condemn these parents as unloving, uncaring and overwhelming selfish.

Then I read on.

The reasons for these abandonment’s varied widely. Some of the children left behind were incorrigible teenagers and the parents felt they had exhausted every avenue of assistance and were simply at their wits end. One young teenager had become so violent and aggressive he had become a danger to the rest of his family. One young single mother had done all she could do to feed and house her child, she was now homeless and hopeless and this seemed the most compassionate option for her child so that she would not have to live on the streets and be subject to the violence there. Another single father was mentally ill and feared for the safety of his child based on his own inability to cope.

These are people in severe pain and distress, more than I could even pretend to truly comprehend. Their lives were not the same lives I had lived. Their view from the foggy basin of the valley was not the same view from high in the sky as I rode along in the plane.

It wasn’t until we finally landed and I disembarked that I saw and felt how dark and heavy the fog really was. I quickly put on my jacket and wrapped my scarf tightly around my neck. The dense heaviness of the wet fog immediately soaked into my body and I could feel the cold dark oppression. Our landing had felt completely blind. There was zero visibility and it was obvious we were landing with extreme technological assistance. Only then did I have a deeper understanding that I only ever have a piece of the picture. I have only my own vantage point. There was obviously more to know and understand in just about any situation than simply what I knew to be true for myself.

I know it is said to “never judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes.” I guess this is just a long way around to saying the same thing. The cloudless flight reminded me that my vantage point of life is very limited and specific only to my own experiences-and the world is oh-so-much more than that. In the future I’ll be reminding myself gently to be on the look out for a more global perspective on life’s multilayered issues.

I Took My Heart Dancing

I took my heart dancing today
I was tired and didn’t want to get out of bed
But my heart tapped me ever so gently
“come on, lets go dance” she softly said

I took my heart dancing today
And was reminded how lovely she is
As I felt her moving and gliding and stretching
Whispering she says “thank you, I love this”

I took my heart dancing today
She wanted to take the lead
Sometimes my intellect over-rides
But She knows that dancing leaves her feeling freed

I took my heart dancing today
She stretched, she twirled, she leapt
As she moved across the floor of dancers
She saw she was growing weary of being gently kept

I took my heart dancing today
She knows my every move
The gyration of hips, the movement of arms
She was really into the groove

I took my heart dancing today
She pushed me and began to radiate
The feeling of heat down deep in my core
Inspiring and reminding me the dance is a cocreate

I took my heart dancing today
And poetry filled my soul
Words and music and harmonies
As we danced I began to feel whole

I took my heart dancing today
The many pieces of me came together
The unrequited love, the fractures, the pain
When suddenly the worries of my heart seemed to be light as a feather

I took my heart dancing today
It was nice to let her be in charge
I’d like to let her lead more of the time
She keeps my life feeling large

Take your heart out dancing real soon
I’m sure you’ll be surprised to see
The ease in which a mood can adjust
And the joy in taking time to just “be”

Dancing can bring new ideas
Adjust a dream, a vision, a hope
Shakes things back into perspective
And keeps you hanging on, even when at the end of your rope

So dance big, dance often, dance loud
Do it alone, with others or bust
Dance inside, outside or even in the pool
But dance your dance, its and absolute must

Wandering Aimlessly

Last fall I decided to change my life a bit. I was planning on traveling for the bulk of November and December and so it seemed to make sense at the time to free up funds for that travel and close my apartment. I put everything, with the exception of a suit case of essentials, into storage. When I returned from my travels I discovered I liked having extra cash instead of bills. I decided to keep the idea alive for awhile and started house sitting instead of getting myself another apartment. I liked not paying rent or utilities and having no space that required upkeep or attention. I discovered I could actually afford to work less and have more free time. So now, I live a life with very little overhead, part time contracts to pay the (few) bills and finance my travels, and plenty of time to wander aimlessly. It’s an interesting proposition for a woman like me who usually has more to do than I have days in the week to get it done.

Wandering aimlessly is not as easy as it sounds. It actually takes practice. My life is such that I could (and usually do) easily and quickly fill my afternoons and weekends with projects, people, events, and “stuff”. I have to consciously remember to not fill up my days, and to create space to spend time alone and wandering. And then I wondered, why do I want this free time? Why does it feel somehow important to learn how to wander aimlessly?

JRR Tolkien says “Not all those who wander are lost”. And while I am definitely not lost, I don’t have a full explanation for why this idea is important. However, I know it is and I am researching the reasoning. What I do know is that I am a “doer”. I always have more to do than I can get done. I usually have multiple irons in the fire and am rushing from place to place daily, including weekends. When it isn’t work related its social obligations squished in-between the rest of my hurried day. I am always headed to somewhere. My life has been this way by design. I enjoy being busy, feeling valued, giving back and creating change. I have also come to see all this “doing-ness” as a very masculine trait, and have learned that my masculine essence is highly developed. This has been a good thing, and served me well throughout my life. Now I have created the opportunity to explore my feminine essence in a deeper way. My aimless wandering allows me to literally roll around in creativity and flow. It provides the opportunity to experience on a very physical level what can appear when I create an opening for things to sprout. When my life is full and directed there is no room for new or expanding opportunities to come in – there simply isn’t space. I am learning to rest into simply allowing my days to unfold. It is an entirely different way to face my day.

I do find myself fearful about the future, and how I can possibly sustain this style of living. The “what if’s” can fill my brain and quickly jeopardize my serenity. However, it only takes a moments re-framing of what I’m doing to remember that everything is in a constant state of change anyway, and that regardless of how I live my life today its quite likely to be different tomorrow. Here is yet another opportunity for me to explore the feminine by embracing change and trusting both what is and what will be.

I don’t know how long this time of my life will continue, but I plan to use it deeply to investigate the feminine flow, to remain open to the blossoming of new opportunities, to radiate open heartedness and to, in the words of my brother, “examine the power of whimsy”.

Expansion Through Contraction

My journey of self-discovery continues to be both a blessing and a challenge. Not long ago I had one those moments of clarity, I call them epiphany’s, when I was feeling wide open. During these times my intuition is in high gear, my heart feels expansive, my vulnerabilities seem small and manageable, the world looks bright and anything is possible.

Sometimes this openness leads me to behavior that I call “overshare”. In my wide open expansion I find myself sharing with the man at the grocery store about the beauty of a kiss and the lady at the coffeehouse about the condition of my heart. During these times of clarity I am feeling open and present and available and vulnerable. I feel more in touch with who I am and what I want. It becomes easy to feel grateful and blessed. I am more alive and connected to the world around me than I could ever imagine. I walk into Sunday morning dance and instantly become one with the music, with the rhythm and with the other dancers. When someone dances up to me I welcome them in. We dance and move and connect and inspire one another. It is a beautiful and broadening experience.

But then something happened. I wasn’t quite sure what. Some sort of shift and the next time I walk into dance the advances of other dancers starts to feel overwhelming. I feel myself begin to withdraw and move away. I retract and dance alone, or leave altogether.

I recently had this experience in a big way. Not just about dance, but about life in general. When I had the opportunity to choose what to do with my weekend, I opted to stay home and hibernate. I choose to stay away from many of my normal social situations that I enjoy, and that typically feed me. I didn’t answer the phone when good friends called, and I opted out of many an invite. I went home and stayed there, ultimately for days. This wasn’t just a simple, “stay at home to rejuvenate” sort of week, this was a “stay away from me, I feel blue and stuck and miserable, I’m afraid and lost and confused” sort of week. This is a reoccurring event for me.

Shortly after my “dark week” I was talking with my daughter, who was in her 9th month of pregnancy. She had begun to have occasional contractions and I was astonished to see her sheer joy in the pain. She lit up when she said, “with each contraction comes an opening, isn’t it amazing that in order to birth new-life a pain-filled contraction is a requirement?”

Suddenly I understood that it is “heart contractions” I am experiencing. Often times the wider the expansion, the stronger the contraction, and the reverse is true as well. It all began to makes sense. As I open and expand, so I must withdraw and contract. It is a requirement of change, it is a requirement of growth, it is a requirement of birth, it is a requirement of breath, it is a requirement of life.

And so, like my daughter, who was feeling OVERLY ready to birth that new babe, I am ready to birth my new being. Now I say “bring it on, I’m ready for whatever my next expansion will bring.”

Transformation

I have often talked about my own transformations in life in relationship to this same natural wonder. There is another piece of this metamorphasis that is of particular relevance to me. That is the time BETWEEN being a caterpillar and being a butterfly. During this time the creature goes into a state of crystalis and spins itself a cocoon. While deep in the dark protection of its cocoon, the caterpillar becomes a sort of sludge....... DNA sludge to be more specific. It doesn't know what it is, doesn't know what it has been, and doesn't know what its is becoming. It can't crawl, it can't fly, it can't do anything. If you were to cut it open, you wouldn't be able to identify it either, it would just be a pile of muck. There have been times in my life when I feel like that pile of muck. Unsure about anything I think I know, unsure about anything I think I want, and certainly unsure about anything I have thought myself to be. And so, like the caterpillar, I take this time to retreat, go within, "hide out" and most of all be gentle with myself.

I think we need to do the same thing with our world, our culture, our community. We know things are not working as is, we know its not sustainable, we know something has to change. Perhaps it is time we are gentle with our world as well. A time to nurture, to care for, to protect, to love and to allow the next generation of ourselves to be born. It is, afterall, a time of great transformation.