first lodge

There I am, brightly colored silk skirt wrap to her ankles, black tank top, pink cardigan. I am walking against most of the traffic coming home as I make my way down the path to the Central train station. I have a loaded backpack with wine, tambourine,extra clothes and more. I am carrying a belum stretched out full of drums, whistles, candle and more on the left shoulder, while the right hand carries another bag with a length of drying Elder, a smoker and more.
I imagined myself quite an odd sight, but the city crowd is used to much stranger visions and so I sailed by with only polite glances my way.
Jingle jingle jingle. All the way.

Off the train again, another 15 minutes to go down crowded streets to Sandra's house.

Only three of us. And we gather, and we talk and the mood is gentle and charged and flowing.
This is my first real rodeo. And I am intending to leave most things to memory and feeling.
After the conversation turns deep and conscious, there is a moment of lull, and I feel it. It's time.

I lit the smoker, bring the women in the room. One crone. Very auspicious.

In you I see the beauty

Flowing to the Ocean

Elder's inaugural magic

Aphrodite to heartbeat

Two tambourines

Whistle

Heart drum

And the whole time a little burning smoke to take it all up up and away.

There are always tears, there are always revelations.

And I let it have it's way with me and my ears and my tongue and my heart.

We ate homemade Greek food and drank wine and fermented ginger beer and danced for each other and cooed over furry ones.

The moon shines even on the underside, she wins out over pollution and city lights.
We do not ever see her rise here, the buildings are too many and too tall and too close.

But still she rises.

Sensitivity in a chatterbox city can be taxing, but I would not trade it to be numb to her glow.

Merry Meet

Merry Part

And Merry Meet Again.

roads not taken

I am sitting at work because the appointment I travelled in for called earlier to cancel, although no one is there on Sunday morning to receive the call.

So, here I am, for the second time in 2 days, waiting at work because of an appointment that didn't show up.
I am crushed, but also exasperated as I am very busy otherwise and have many undone things awaiting attention as I show up for people who don't show up for me.
I recieved a message from Amy about South America today and so, I started to spend time looking up things about a shaman from there. While watching a video, the door which I believe I locked opens and in walks a fiercely radiant young woman my age asking after a massage.

Now.

I am due to meet people in an hour and a half and since I am using public transport on a Sunday, the next train was in 56 minutes. So, I quickly figured I could not give her an appointment.
I told her I was sorry that I couldn't, and I was. I apologized too much I think.
She left and I felt deflated, the way you feel when you have done something stupid and wrong because of hard-headedness or some other terrible reason.

I sat contemplating what that meant. It was clearly a message.

And what I have come up with is this, which I do not want to forget.....

If I want to live a life of joy, if I want to serve my highest purpose and work towards a worthy goal, then I must learn to hear with my heart and be willing to compromise seemingly concrete plans for a curvier path when conditions change.

I have often been too impulsive and often too rigid. And it must be with the heart that I hear, it must be with the yoni that I respond.
Oh dear Sophia, please be my ally!

The wolf, she knows how to play, but when there is something to hunt, she is focus itself.
The horse knows how to relax, but when there is a race, she becomes the wind in a moment.
The honeybee knows how to sip honey, but when the sun shines, she will transform the sun into ambrosia.

I bow at the feet of these creatures to help me remember this wisdom.

have been

I have been dreaming vividly lately.
I have been working hard enough to sap the energy from much of the rest of my life.
I have been realizing that I am walking a delicate balance between holding on to the thread of my true dreams and making enough money to fulfil them and not permanently damaging my body/self in the process.
I am realizing the reason why it takes generations to get out of poverty.

It is my father who can stand on his head and kept bees.

It is my mother who donated the color of her eyes and her fierceness.

And, I have been contemplating why I have been happy to keep so much from my parents, to stay far away physically and mentally.
Further, it is perfectly acceptable for me to determine who in my life shares in what.

For a long time I have let anyone in on most of it, trusting,and they often broke apart and smashed things that were too delicate to be exposed...ideas just surfacing or forming, feelings just noticed, plans and intentions barely begun.

I have been an open book, believing people who loved me or cared for me would be gentle with my pages, appreciate what was there.

But we don't do that.

We read things in others' lives that we are afraid to read in our own and we react. We burn and condemn. We scribble out, we question where these things came from. We attempt to destroy in others' what we cannot look at in ourselves.

Wanting to merge with all, I have confused openness with union.

I have finally understood that no one can read the whole book.