Wisdom Wildness Wonder

Let the living world around you love you back to life…

For me the best cosmetic in the world is being cracked open, whether that be by dancing deep until we glow with sweat and all we have shed, by some wonderful wild orgasm that comes wondering through us, by a good cry that comes and washes us clean, or by time in nature and big beauty that holds our heart some and lets us expand into our shiny sensate-selves. I’ve just had a good dose of time with fine folk in far-out places and I can feel how the land loves us back to life

Something happens when we spend prolonged periods of time outdoors. Nature not only nurtures us it is also amazing at holding the heart. There maybe times in our lives when the humans around us cannot meet us in what we are going through. They may not be able to meet our grief, our anger, our sorrow and our tender hearts, because they are afraid to go to those depths in themselves.

Nature has never failed to meet me- deeply, solidly and time after time it has held both the big brightness and the tender broken places within me with honour, heart, hope and brought some healing. Sometimes we don’t know exactly what it is we are feeling- there is just some kind of subtle somatic sense of something moving though, a feeling that some aspect of our psyche is shapeshifting.

Sometimes tears come spontaneously in nature- we get to see the beauty in front of us- to get out of the hamster cage of the mind that can be our usual human habitat and to move into the terrain of Terra Incognita- the removing the way that the cognitive captures us and the coming into full feeling of just what is.

When we are outdoors it is somehow easier to feel into our backbone, into the earth under our feet-, we feel into the way the sun or wind touches our skin. We realize we are not alone with whatever it is; that there is an entire world around us and that we are part of it. That there is life our there beyond our own story, beyond our own suffering, beyond our own current sense of self.

We can learn to to listen to the land. To read the revelations in the living world beneath our feet, to read the bare branches of trees like books.

One of the most profound “sermons” of my life came from silently watching a slug (I’d previously squirmed at slugs, partly from having been fed one on the underside of a crisp at primary school by the class bully, partly from that awful sensation when you feel one awkwardly squodge beneath your bare feet…) Yet this time I’d been living off grid for ten days and we were 3 days into an “enlightenment intensive” 18 hours a day of deep dyad enquiry into embodying big mind. I walked oit into the weak sunlight by a soggy welde stream and literally fell in live with the slug on the rock in front of me. The habituated squirm softened, I saw his amazing sensual shiny skin- so juicy! The patterns on his back. The way he was unprotected in the world with no shell and his tender slug feelings finding his way through like the rest of us. His squidge was delicious, his need for water for him to be well so obvious. My heart cracked at this creature who I’d previously judged as ugly. he wasn’t a mistake or a mis-calculation, he was just himself perfectly there in the slow sun. Then it hit me in a big blast- if this dear sluggy self was perfect just he was, and if this ugly sluggy was so bewilderingly beautiful and so utterly meant to be here then so was I. If he wasn’t a mishap, a mistake, he’d developed as part of the perpetual process- Also prefect imperfect and finding a good way though, tender feelers out…As cliched as it sounds, I couldn’t maintain that the slug was delicious and divine and keep myself out of that allocation of acceptance too.

What if we were wiser, wilder, mor e wonderful than we thought? What if we had great goodness within us? What if we are literally perfect amidst all of our imperfectness?

The world will mirror aspects of ourselves back to us- we may see the hawk high above taking in the big view; bunny’s tender heart may resonate, broken sticks may mirror signs to us; or the way that the ants work with a dead mouse – recycling her back into something ese may show us something about the circles and cycles of it all. Death and rebirth moving on through in perpetual motion, we’re just passing on through, we may as well relish and cherish it while we can.

Being embodied on earth may bring us back to eros-to our natural urges to live and love. Nature can bring us strongly back to our sensuality and our sexuality. There are few more delicious things than hot afternoons, bare feet in cooling water and smooth river stones to lay ourselves down on. We can unfold, unfurl, unleash some aspect of ourselves out nature. We are not bound by house rules, under house arrest, dressed in our sunday best so we meet the cultural community standrads. So wander free. Feel into it all. Let the living world around you love you back to life. Let your dear heart be held- even if you don’t know who or how that will happen, the animate world beneath your feet will rise up and meet you. We do not have to do it alone- we can choose to be woven into the web of life; to let life in and to let life out! Take the time…go wander for a while….

What if Rock and Roll is actually religious experience? Community, communion and the power of coming together….

It was my first full blown transcendent experience- a literal religious revelation that life could feel this good, this connected to the collective, this full of aliveness- this visceral, this sweet sense of belonging was like nothing I’d ever come close to.

It was my first stadium rock concert! I was 13 at Guns n Roses in London’s Wembley stadium with 72,000 other people (including my friend’s Mum who was supervising us there). I swear to goddess, that shared spiritual sadhana is not Gun’s n Roses raison d’être! Mindfulness for the mainstream was so not their mission! They were singing about whiskey, women, doing drugs and dropping’ out; guitars, guns and living the masculinised hideously misogynistic make-the-most-of your-gang(bang)-of-groupies good life! Not a “sermon” you’d ever feel likely would change your life for the better!

Yet that day truly touched me forever. Somewhere on that central London football-field there was a group unified-field of bass -fuelled big belonging like I’d never felt before. Lighters held aloft, to stomach churning sound, under wide open skies. It was a tribe of misfits and mavericks, of a place to be truthful about being angry, confused and deeply disillusioned with the corporate promises of coming adulthood.

Music in our teenage years has some hold on us – as we differentiate from our parents and seek to individuate into adulthood, music is a road map, a container for our collective pain and pathway seeking. Lyrics are potent poetry. Album art captures and shapes our psyches. Musicians can hold the daring, the speaking up, the stepping out that we wish that we could find in ourselves. We literally look for rock n’ roll role models, for well known north “stars” that we can navigate our way by; artist who can take in the collective psyche and sing it back to us- holding up a mirror to our collective mind.

For the sake of our ear-drums (as well as our wallets!) at some point we get to find collective group experience in other ways than literally bone-shaking loud stadium rock.

A few short years later I was using fake ID”s to get me into London’s dance floors – place of wild wonder and regularly available ways to deliver that same “feet in the beat”, giant group field of full-bodied fun that so fulfilled.

London’s wave was rising: drum and bass, techno, house, acid house. Big names and even bigger sound systems were sweeping through the city. The cult of the DJ was in full force. Hell, we even had a self appointed ministry of sound! People were explicit about using music to express themselves. I imagine that the early 90’s rave days in London we’re a little like the sixties in San Francisco. Something substantial was happening, the underground secret scene was going overground! Thatcher and money-making as a the main mode of societies worship was being laid to rest and there was some kind of calling in within the collective consciousness of something else.

So I found that same soul-satisfying stadium-shaking sensation happening again and again amongst the multitude of basement clubs hidden across the city; often housed in warehouses or under railway arches- the rave scene inhabiting the sweet underground spots found underneath the infrastructure of industry.

The group field was once again undeniable. It was like a generation of lost souls looking for something to believe in and finally finding it for a few short years. Self expression was coming to the forefront with crazy couture costumes and phosphorescent performance pieces.

London’s thriving gay clubs were my safe place, a sanctuary of sanity and self expression. As a small group of way-too-young-to-be there female friends we could go and dance and dance and dance amongst friendly faces; scantily clad, uninhibited, uninterrupted and safe from strange straight men trying to pick up on our blatantly underage, unsupervised asses. So we went there whenever we could -seeking the salvation it seemed that only all night dancing could bring. Ecstasy and MDMA was rife and real part of the party-scene then- it’s a substance that I’ve never tried so I cannot speak to that (although the “contact high” of joy in those rooms was real enough- and I’d happily take in the atmosphere -whilst totally content to be avoiding the “comedown crash” that many who partook fell pray too come Monday morning…)

I do know that many natural endorphins piled through my system in response to some lilting 128bpm melody mixed with the relentless tempo of dum and bass, drawing me ever closer to my own totally substance-free embodied ecstasy. Personally speaking I swear that there is so.much.god to be found in dirty baseline! The sense of us all dissolving into one single beat-seeking breathing sweat-soaked body, literally cleanses some part of my psyche and soul- in some deeply satisfying way that a sage smudge stick never quite has done to the same extent!

God bless London’s safe and sane all night public transport system and the fact we could travel the 30 miles home on a shiny red double decker night bus for £3 at 2am when everywhere shut down for the night! The city was crime free and carefree enough then that we were blessedly always ok in our pre-mobile phone meanderings there. We we were unfolding, unfurling and unleashing our adolescent sensation-seeking within London’s multi-cultural global grooves. They were wonderful days of awakening! Music was taking me places I couldn’t take myself, and I was blessedly far too young to let a lover in to my life, to take me there in those under-aged times.

Decades, about a billion dance floors, a fair few hundred festivals, several countries and some two continents later, music can still so get me there! Efficiently, enjoyable, with full emotion and sometimes that sense of the deeply ecstatic comes to visit when I dance in a big group field (be that a big field or a big group- or both!) Music is a true mistress to me- I love the way she can turn me around, spin me upside down, touch me deeply, take me through landscapes that I’d never otherwise have seen.

Music remains a muse to me, a must have, a momento-mori that takes me back to places and loves and lives that I have long since lost. It is my minstry and my way of moving with the mystery. Music calls forth hope within my heart, it still speaks truth to power, lyrics legitimising our dismay, despair, desire for a better way. Music unifies -calls some aspect of ourselves forth. Dance is still my dharma. I still pray most profoundly at around 100 decibels on big sound systems! I daresay in mid-life I “should” start to think about sitting down and shutting up, take up some sedate hobby and hobble away quietly, content with the life I’ve led! Sorry it-s not going to happen! I came here to dance!

May we continue to be moved! May music keep motivating us. May we we turn toward our aliveness and whatever calls it forth from us. May beat, and bass and melody and harmony keep tending to our dear hearts. May you find communion, community, music that call you forth- whether that is via techno or harp, dubstep or folk-rock. Whatever floats your boat! (My palate has progressed considerably since those awkward teenage rebel rock years!) I wish you listening habits that bring you inspiration; tunes that touch you in places that suprise and stir you. I wish you a rock and roll rebellion, an uprising of longing-for-life within your heart that keeps you daring and dreaming and dancing on through… May your desires disturb your day to day regular rut, may you follow your feet, may you settle only for heart-swelling, stadium-shaking soul-satisfaction in your life! May the piper-of-pop lead us out to the fields so that we may dance again- feeling free under those wide open skies…

Finding Faith

Finding faith: I can’t tell you what to have faith in, that is none of my damned business! In this day and age we are presented with a positive pantheon of possibilities of things we can believe in. For sure, science is fine thing to believe in- (reality rocks!); yet I reckon the panthemism of the wisdom to be found in listening to stones and rivers and sky and soil is a wonderful thing to listen in to too.

In these times more than ever, we see that belief is subjective. God/dess/nature/soul/regular-religion is not a game of top trumps. There is no sanity and not much kindness to be found in “my deity is better than your deity” (I think most of us still collectively shudder to think of the horror of anything “trumping” anything at all….)

In my mind these deities would sit in circle. They would have some kind of common room where they can all hang out and speak about the things they are struggling with in creation, over a nice cup of iced coffee! They may or may not exist! I’m not even sure that it matters- (though I love the description of the old horned/horny god of the forest getting more and less potent/visible over the centuries as more or less folk believe in him in the Tom Robbins fantasy fiction books….) –

For me science and faith are fine bedfellows and I wish them a long and happy life together.

I still find that often faith is what catches us when we fall. I’m so sure that it really matters what we have faith in (although plenty will disagree with me and that’s fine- I’m unwilling to fight some sort of religious war with you over this! ) There is much empirical evidence that we thrive best when we overcome that sense that we have to “do it all” alone with only our separate selves to rely one. So much of the current scientific trauma research led by pioneer thinkers such as Gabor Mate is uncovering that it is not so much what happened to us that causes the trauma, instead it is the lack of support with what happened that causes the need to numb out/ space out/ seek substances. Support, feeling woven into the web of things is where it is at. Hopefulness, heart open, feeling held and skilful holding matters. Community counts for a lot.

I do believe that faith is what catches us when bottom falls out. Having faith in something sustains- to have some sense of something that we can trust in is a profoundly life enhancing thing for a human to have. We can find faith in the support of friends and family; in our daily walk with our dog -or- in a daily walk with our god; in the group we sit and share with each week- be that a gender circle/ gardening group, a 12 step fellowship/ stitch & bitch/ stitch & witch/ a special interest zoom room. If you have faith in science, soccer and your bi-weekly swimming practice I dare say that will serve you deeply too! If you have a faith in traditional religious sense- then especially good for you; I genuinely respect that and trust that it will serve you well and it can be tough thing to hold onto in these times- so go you! If you have faith in “the freakin’ process” that will likely work well too! If you have faith In your own ability to shape-shift situations- then that is great too; if you are finding soul-sustence in some obscure credo you met on the net/ in the back of a bookstore then good for you – as long as it harms no other go, please go right ahead…

I reckon that there is great reverence to be found some healthy degree of irreverence too- in not taking ourselves, and our little lives, with absolute somber-seriousness. Humour helps. Balance is a beautiful thing. Holding it lightly is a life affirming exercise.

The cat of “the correct credo” is firmly out of the bag and long since lost in in the streets amidst the “cult of consumerism’ – this weird westernised world in which we live.

For me praise is a high form of prayer, there is much “holiness” to be had in noticing the things in life that delight us, I truly believe that being grateful for the amazing place in which we get to live is a wise way to get “there”! Someone once said the devil is in the details- but quite frankly- to hell with that!- I reckon that actually it is the divinity that is found in the details – in witnessing sunlight on water, in the silence of sunset, in the ladybug on the leaf, in the way the wind moves across the green-field; in finding the ghostly shadow of a snake in his silent empty shed-skin on the path we walk each day. So may we forage for faith. May we find it growing wild by the wayside, undomesticated, unplanned in its planting but defiantly reaching upwards anyway, blooming bright, tangled up with the rest of the natural world…

The potency and power of the pause-place

Or how to drop the worrying when we are waiting for big news

The pause place. Sometimes we find ourselves betwixt and between, waiting for: news, for a decision, on an offer we have made, to hear on an application, for results of something, or for a nations to process paperwork in line with its rules and regulations, and many more possible permeations of watching and waiting- feeling some sort of stuck….

It can easy to feel that we are at the mercy of something outside of ourselves in the time. We can feel like life is the villain -making us a victim, with nothing to do sit and sweat it out until something outside of us shifts.

In someways that is true – we cannot control life. We get to do our best, try hardest and then life will do whatever it does. We are ultimately powerless over people, places and things. Yet I know that sometime those times can feel stressful. It can be hard to let go and let life do what it does. It can be hard to trust in the proverbial process, or ti give it over to something great than us to handle it. Sometimes patience is preset and we can wait graciously, yet at other times we may be itching to get somewhere. To be on our way to “over there” On some level we know that trying won’t change anything – yet we do it anyway. We somehow feel that by ruminating and running over scenarios, time and time again, then maybe we might change something!! For sure, occasionally we do come up with good solutions yet mostly we just waste our life energy away and cause ourselves a whole heap of suffering along the way.

It’s a core truth that our life is still happening- even when we are anxiously waiting for something! We each only have finite number of days and we’d be wise to live them all fully- even when it feels like we are in holding pattern until we hear. How can we drop down into the moment, feel our feet on the earth and walk well thorough this day? Yes- even – or especially- if we are waiting on news outside of us or things that we can’t yet see the outcome of.

In these tricky times we have to learn how to develop trust in ourselves. We have to figure out for ourselves that we will always find a good way though, however the outcome goes. In these moments We get to consciously choose to see that we will find ways to be happy.

Sometimes getting what we want will be an amazing gift. Sometimes not getting what we want turns out to be an amazing gift too- sometimes in some way that we couldn’t possibly have seen at the time!

This moment is a mystery, we don’t know how it will go. We never really know how our lives will go.

It is a peculiar paradox as we are both powerful- we can shape our lives, train or re-train, take action steps, get going, make things happen and move metaphorical mountains! Yet at the same time sometimes reality throws some mighty wondrous wild cards our way and we simply cannot control it all.

As Rachel Naomi Remen writes “We have not been raised to cultivate a sense of Mystery. We may even see the unknown as an insult to our competence, a personal failing. Seen this way, the unknown becomes a challenge to action. But Mystery does not require action; Mystery requires our attention. Mystery requires that we listen and become open. When we meet with the unknown in this way, we can be touched by a wisdom that can transform our lives.”

So find some goodness in this moment feel into the heart, look up at the sky. Maybe place you hand your heart and whisper you got this. Make a clear choice to put down worry.

I once worked with mentor who made me write a specific future fear that I was wresting with down on a post-it note. He coached me via a potent technique that taught me to get clear on how much time I was worrying each day, When I was fretting about how the situation would turn out he made me hold the post-it note, physically hold it in my hands- so as to be clear I was consciously holding on to it and worrying! I was totally allowed to worry all day if I wanted to- I just had to make sure I was holding the post it! If instead I decided to trust life, to let go for a while -and to trust in how it would all unfold and then to focus on fun, of joy or doing something that inspired and nurtured me instead, then I could stick the post in in a special sacred space in my house- physically set it down. Acknowledging that I was trusting in life to handle it. That practice taught me so much about the habits of my mind and how often it went towards worrying about the future. Sigh!

There is much medicine in knowing how our own mind moves and in choosing to place our attention on what uplifts and inspires us instead. Post-it’s hold much wild wisdom. So does going and doing something fun! let go and let life….

#perhapsitistimetopracticewhatipreach

The Beauty of Boundaries

We are only truly at choice when we can say yes and no as easily as each other and do not stray into the terrible territories of people pleasing.

No is a fierce force that will protect life. It will serve us to know what we do not want, as much as what we do want. Sometimes no is reclaiming a boundary that has been buried and stepped on that we haven’t had the heart to uphold.

Sometimes a no is mandatory, a mantra, a momento-mori to remind us that there is more to life than whatever it is we are currently doing that we need to shift up.

If we are wise we will no as call of the wild. It is a call that too much has been asked of us an start tit is time ti go tend to ourselves. A battle cry for better times “ I’m sick of this shit: something has to change here. And soon”

Deep feeling caring types may all override their no- until it come out like a lions a roar in midlife. Back off, I’ve given to much and there are resentments coursing through my blood! Like Pele the Hawaiian volcano goddess who both flows regular rich red lava and occasionally explodes, wanting to purge the layers of heavy lava that is holding her down and keeping her trapped in. No ideally happens befor the fiery explosion, so it can come as a kindly spoken thing! Speaking (politely or passionately) will surely relieve the pressure- maybe it was no big deal to whomever was asking anyway.

No is what happens when we finally give ourselves enough empathy to acknowledge that enough enough and however much we can self care our way through whatever it is – that SOMETHING NEEDS TO CHANGE!

Sometimes our no is a simple- “meh I don’t fancy it”

And somedays it is fierce thing that caps lock is entirely appropriate for in order to crown its own sovereignty….

No is a threshold, a choice point, a crossroads. It is an ode to change, to not stay still with the current status quo. It is a potent protection of our own life energy. It is a knowing that we have our own backs, and that therefore we can be trusted as truth tellers. It is taking a stand – somehow next to ourselves.

Walking with grief

If you are walking with grief then let this time take you down, let it season you and scar you, let your skin feel the rawness of real life, trust that you are being made in these fierce fires, that good things are coming through.

Grief can be like a lead insole in the bottom of our shoes. It’s thin yet heavy. After a while we don’t notice we walk around with it anymore. Yet there’s a sense of increased gravity, that lightness and levity are harder to reach than they once used to be; that we are somewhat dragging our feet through our days.

Trust that although this time is unchosen and unbidden, the broken-heartedness will make you in the end. Trust that your humanity is increasing, your mortality is bringing what matters most to the fore-front; that your ability to deeply live your love is coming through. Trust that although this time is uncomfortable that you will be held, that your heart can stretched to sustain you in all of this, that your are being initiated as an individual. Trust that you will come through with something to offer- a depth, a delight in life, a deliberate intention to live and love more fully.

Let’s face it- feeling fully from time to time is a precondition of living life as more than a prefrontal cortex attached to a meat based operating system!

We will get to feel the deeper currents under the surface busyness, we will notice the beauty more too- the moss in the crooks of the trees, the way the wind moves through the leaves.

When we grieve we will come into deeper contact with what is. More here- seeing what is now missing in our loss, yet also seeing clearer what is now here too… the gifts that we have been given and how precariously precious it all is…

Intimacy with the Wild Within

Many of us remain a mystery to ourselves. Our inner landscapes can remain unchartered for decades until some great outer experience suddenly summons us to deeply question what it is that we really feel about it all. Personally I reckon that becoming intimate with the wild world within us is the most important journey that we can possibly take.

I’m not talking intimacy as a sexual thing here (that’s a whole other article…)

I’m talking about touching and being touched by life.

I’m taking about knowing and being known by life- by that subtle sweet thing that animates us.

I’m talking about coming into close contact with the somatic, subtle sense of our own body.

I’m talking about being with the tender beauty of being with our breath, our body and the place in which we sit/stand/dance/meditate/move; as we stay with it all for a series of unfolding moments. I’m talking about the sweet serenity that comes with being soaked in the sensate. Think of when you’ve danced hard, or jogged or made love -and how at home within yourself you generally feel afterwards.

There are so many landscapes within us that we can come into closer intimacy with. The terrains of the body’s inner experience. The fecund and flowering things within us; the tight buds that want to blossom. And the pockets of death and decay from the things we overlooked to tend to- they will need their honouring too.

We may well need to consciously cultivate an intimacy practice with our own inner experience, invite ourselves in deeper. Take time to explore the wild places within us.

The tempo of our times is fast and much draws “us up and out” of ourselves. A million mundane things are demanding our daily attention with persistent push notifications, buzzes and billboards. It is no good imploring ourselves to harridly hurry up and connect! To become intimate with our inner experience we have to give ourselves time- thick, rich, velvety time!

We can start with shifting down a gear. When we slow down we will get to see the subtleties of life. The way that the wind is blowing the trees outside, the flicker of the candle flame, the movement of breath in the sleep in cats body next to us. There is much beauty in being with these micro moments of life. Life is really made up of a series of snap shot moments anyway- I believe that it serves us greatly to build our ability to be present for and with them.

When we practice staying with the somatic/felt senses, then we are building our own ability to be present with ourselves. We are putting aside distraction technology and talking and coming in closer to the sense of life within us. Sometimes for me, my awareness practices see like they are just another task to do. A way of maintaining wellness that has to be slotted into my schedule. A perfunctory pause. I know that it is way more delicious when it feels like a space to unfold into. A gift that is given. Some unharried moments when I can be and be in good relationship with myself.

We can then consciously invite ourselves into intimacy with our own experience. Cultivate curiosity. Lean in and learn about ourselves.

Intimacy and being known requires a deepening, a dropping in, a providing a sweet, safe space to see what unfolds. We give so much of our life energy to those around us and to all the tasks of our days that need doing. It can be deeply replenishing to bring all of their energy back into ourselves and let it sit and settle for a while. Intimacy is a tender thing that we will need to give ourselves time to cultivate. Intimacy with our own experience will show us what is so. Why not write from the body? “I am your thighs and I want to tell you…… “ or “I am your spine I’ve been wanting to say…..”

Seeking spaciousness

Like any good wildlife observer when we get to our sit spot we simply take a seat, back off and make space and allow the curious creatures inside us to enter in! If we are always busy crashing and bashing the wild things we hope to see may not come in close!

If we are so upfront, eager and up-close anyway, then there is literally no room for things to come in the closer- be that to another person, or our own inner world….

By simply making space to be with our inner experience we are creating space to know ourselves deeply. When we know ourselves we are clear on our own motives we have space to be skilful and we can act wisely, as we are in touch with our own good guidance.

The nuances of noticing.

Being intimate isn’t something that we can do with our mind. It’s a subtle thing- sensed in the body. We need to be located in the here and now in touch with all of her senses in order to be truly intimate with life. In intimacy with our experience there is allowing of our somatic sensations-the beating heart, the buzzy belly, the muttering mind.

We are both supremely strong and simultaneously vulnerable, vital, porous things underneath all the protective layers that we have built up on top. When we stay with ourselves – simply the somatic sensations of the body- without believing the accompanying story; then we make a space to be able to be with ourselves.

We can learn to listen in so much closer into the body over time, to focus on the felt sense. We can even explore how much can this physical form flex inside without me even moving a muscle? What happens to my heart if I breathe in deeper and slower? What is the “internal weather system” that is moving through me right now?

Hide!

Birdwatchers go to hide to see their favourite creatures, We may need to find our own form of hiding too! Switching off our phone, blocking out alone time in the schedule and giving ourselves a languid and lovely few hours to unfold deeper into our own feeling body.

So sit still in this hidden secret spot and see what shows up at your door….

Allowing the animals to enter in

If we were to speak in metaphor we could say that the psyche is full of curious creatures, they shape shift and show us strange signs. As we sit still in our hide these curious creatures may well show up from within us. We get to watch them as they enter in.

When these creatures of our consciousness show up may we not judge them. May we simply observe them, staying still and seeing what happens if we offer them the spaciousness and graciousness to shoot at them (with camera or gun!) but instead to let them roam free and show us the habitual move that our mind makes.

May we trust that if something in our mind is growling then it’s probably because it’s hurt or afraid underneath. May we compassionately see the thorns in these creatures paws that make them angry or angsty. May we see the unseen creatures too that we can vaguely sense the outline of in our lives- the wise old owl within that has some oversight on the whole thing. Or the shaking mouse who may think we’ve forgotten to see him and jut wants to know that there is somewhere safe to go where he won’t be stood on or chased by the cat.

In allowing all the animals within us to approach us then we are actually coming into closer contact with our humanness- in all of its feeling-full experiences.

Socialising with the unseen.

There our times in our lives when we will crave company and it will simply not be easily evadible to us- be that because of covid or crazy schedules.

There is something important in the aliveness of nature. In the fact that it has a physical life force that flows through it. We can see how plants are- blooming or dropping, growing through cracks in the sidewalk or rising above the city.

It can be immensely reassuring to hang out in nature. To know that they world around us is a living breathing thing. To feel our reciprocal relationship with the trees as they take inner carbon and breath out oxygen as we contribute the opposite process. Nature provides a sense of living “otherness” – an intelligent animate world around us that can do a great deal to lessen our aloneness.

“I never really understood the word ‘loneliness’. As far as I was concerned, I was in an orgy with the sky and the ocean, and with nature.” – Bjork.

We can literally speak to the sky, or to the fire. To call out to the winds or to lay our weight down on earth and ask that she deeply holds us. The Buddha reached down to touch the ground to call on it as a witness to his moment of awakening.

It is radical in this day and age to be resourced. To not be bonkers busy and depleted.

It is almost counter cultural to feel well and happy here.

May we be radical rebels and feel part of it all:

Connected,

Curious,

Choosing to continue to cultivate intimacy with our inner world.

Freedom and fierceness

For years I’ve followed freedom
As my true north
A compass in my core-
Yet something also gets lost if we don’t commit to showing up day after day. Form can bring phenomenal things. A practice is a potent way to change our lives.
Forever freedom has a shadow- if we always get what we want and follow this whimsical thing or that one, then we never get to work with the trickier places in our own lives.
There is fierceness that gets cultivated when we must knuckle down and sustain showing up. A warrior is not a bad thing- it’s simply a way of moving through the world in service of an aim. It’s a badass way of being. Sure sometimes we must surrender and at other times we must set our sights on some target and push through every.single.thing.that.blocks.us – be that a barrage of words inside our internal world or a some substantial barrier in the outer world. Seen or unseen, internal or external blockages sometimes we need to hustle a little in service of our heart.
Politeness is perfectly important. Yet sometimes directness is important too- our nervous systems may feel more safe if all of the subtexts are on the surface.
We may need to fight- and by that I mean fighting for ourselves, rather than aiming to be against anything else as a psychological standpoint.
These days more and more, I want to be the belle with the balls more than the belle of the ball….

The regalness of wrestling

We get made by the things that break us. I know, I know, it sound like some pathetic platitude for when times are tough. But really, we so get made by the things that we just can’t seem to find our way through at the time.

Sometimes we will seem to be locked inside of ourselves unable to get out. Sort of stuck, floating in some murky swampy soul-soup. Sometimes we will be distant and disassociated even from ourselves, struggling to get back in touch with ourselves. Sometimes we will need to work hard at the qualities that will sustain us and see us through-the grief, the fear, the furious what-the-actul-fuckness.

I know some of you will have the kind of nice nervous systems, or good parenting, or privilege that means you don’t get to go to these places. If that is so then good for you!!!! Keep doing what you are doing!

And yet others will need to work at balance, they may have histories or biochemistries that means the dark swings by from time to time.

Yet there’s good in the dark. I know my dears it doesn’t feel good. It feels shitty and hard to sustain yourself through. It feel bleak and barren sometimes there. These are the places that you don’t want to touch. These are the times that you simultaneously long for someone to walk beside you. And it may also be the times when your shame my come calling for you, stopping you reaching your to the near and dear ones whom would be with you. That culturally-conditioned inner voice that says “I don’t want to be seen in this state…Society says I must feel fine all the time or else it means I’m really fucked up…” Don’t listen to those voices my darlings. Their names are doubt and despair. Yup- they are part of this human experience too.

Yet the dark is where things grow. It is where the seeds germinate. It is where the baby gestates. It is where the big-bang of existence comes from and goes back to -inside the big black hole of space-time. After all, we too are the mystery of matter materialising and de-materialising.

Theres is doorway in this a darkness. a threshold. A radical rite of passage. A way though that maybe isn’t one that we are particularly pleased to see!!! Nonetheless it is the path underneath our feet when the moments come.

A rite of passage traditionally had some element of near death experience in it -something in us dies. Something that wasn’t working – be that on a personal level – or some part of global society that was a shambles held up by the monumental momentum of consumerism and capitalism. Maybe this is what these Covid times are teaching us. At times life will touch us terribly. It will take it’s toll. We will get humbled by our own humanity, both personally and as a global society and economic system.

Sometimes we get to be on top. We learn things, work thorough them, work them out. At other times life throws us down, mounts us and forces us to surrender to being there in the dust, face down amidst a chaos that we can’t control!

Maybe what gets made in these moments is that we get super skilful at surrender- at ways of finding good grace with the things that don’t go our way.

It’s like aikido- if you soften with the blows then you can use that energy of attack coming towards you to turn things around for your own good. We just have to get super skilful at working with energy- our own and that of life coming towards us.

Maybe what we wrestle with is just what is needed for building our metaphorical mental-muscle mass. Our soul-strength. Our capacity to hold and contain the multitudes within us.

The key to the things we believe we can’t handle and the things that we think we can, is generally the resources that we have available- internal, external. Our perception of potency matters often more than our abilities or intellect (think of certain world leaders that have reached the top with a lack of either it seems!!!)

In these times we may have to work harder at trusting, at finding faith. If we take the fairy story of the children that find their way home via the trail of breadcrumbs back through the woods that glistening under the full moon and guide them safely him again. It begs the question what is our personal bag of breadcrumbs? What thread can we follow when we feel lost and like we don’t know how to get out of it?

Find that thread and follow it my loves… Relish in building your inner-resources. Call in the qualities of the heart that will sustain you.

So why not place your trust in trust my dears. Have fierce faith in faith. Hope for more hopefulness.

I say this not as some glib exercise in semantics- but as the mental muscles that we can exercise when there’s nothing else left to “do” in the material world. Qualities of the heart get grown in these times.

Fear has a voice that generally says “I can’t”.

Resilience builds up a tool belt that says “you so can…”

Cultivate your “can” in those times when it’s all that you can do. Believe in your being bigger than whatever fear or doubt is wandering through you.

Trust in trust my dears. Have faith in having faith. Hope for more hopefulness….

“Last night a DJ saved my life…” why movement matters

“Last night a DJ saved my life…”- a catchy little line conveying a common experience (hopefully an over-exaggeration)- yet all too often the dance does so substantially enhance my experience of reality. The real joy of going for refuge in something of substance- which in the case of both of the dance and the dharma is no physical thing that can be held on to. yet I’m pretty certain both will help hold us through a helluva lot more than some other options..

So maybe let’s skip the i-need it now electronic emoti-conned; stay buying some more sh*t, stuffing it all down inside, shopping on high street; just shoving all that innate intelligence way down under, fawning over flat screen TVs and imbibing taco-bellshit…. let’s cut back on the “consume, conform and don’t even consider what might actually matter to you” media weapons of mass induction, let’s not even go there…

Here listen, lean in together, come home within you. We got this. Stay still with it, the grace, the grief, the glory, the guts of this thing. Hold it all in heart, hear it, here we can find a good way through… face it. Feel in to it, find out what you want, what actually means something, how we might show up in life and somehow serve each other.

For me the dance floor remains this space for grace to come through. A crucible for community and coming to greater consciousness. Space to be bold, brilliant, broken, fierce, furious, feisty, jaded, joyfilled, sober, surrendered , soulful, sassy and sweet.

To roll with whatever rocks us.

The dancefloor, dharma hall, dojo- s’all same, same different. I’m pretty clear I will continue to devote my life to being on this dancing path … Perhaps we can all be bodhisattvas in some small way just by being in the body and being together. Show up, sink in, stay with it. together we got this…