January 1 2019

How do I begin writing about the miracles that have unfolded this year.

Not all of them are shiny and bright and glittering and glimmering from all seams— although some may have that hue.

Many of the miracles include the simple joys of the ordinary. Like the tone of my father’s voice, or the dance that once again revives itself as it swirls around the kitchen, or the bird’s song perfectly aligning with your motion. These are the daily miracles, the moments of clarity and the glimpses of centeredness that motivate me to keep going. The whispers by the wind, or the goosebumps that tickle you in perfect time, the kisses from the inside that wipe away the spaces that had been forgotten about one too many times push me towards an endless pursuit of enlivening each cell, each day. Reminding myself over and over again that each day the composition of my body is different, my mind has moved, my thoughts have changed, my song is deeper, my dance has expanded, my breath is more complex, my awareness is focusing, and I dive further into this blessed game of presence. I am so grateful for this opportunity, for all of the perfectly laid, insanely powerful, impeccably timed, purpose filled moments of my life that have led me here—to each blip of time, as I wade through this life. Even the times of hopelessness, despair, emptiness, and defeat have led me here. Every day I am grateful to my spirit for challenging me to open the next layer, for the deepening, for pointing out my weaknesses, for at times making me feel worthless, unworthy, unloved etc. For it is in (and through) those spaces that the contrast arises. For we must know separation to know unity. We must experience and feel pain to know pleasure. We exist in a polarized world, this is the work, this is the gift. Particularly now, the Mayan culture predicted that in 2012 a massive shift which only happens every 26,000 years began, which is the shifting of the poles. Only this process does not happen overnight. It will take 52 years for it to complete it’s switch, which explains why everything at times feels backwards, upside down, and inside out. I know for me, sometimes I look at a scene and feel like an alien. Facing the world as it is is at times a daunting task, and at times I have tended to check out, or opt to live in communities that live outside of the confines of this ‘reality’. I also know, the work is too grave and too dire to turn away from, but being honest about the confusion with which the world I face sometimes baffles me too is just a piece to this intricate puzzle. My mind working itself at a zillion words per minute, it is constantly rewiring itself and reworking its patters and trying in vain to create solutions to this time, this evolution this moment. I have kept my mouth shut, because I was waiting for a moment when I would know I was ‘fully healed’. That time is called the journey and it is a process that unfolds every single day. I know so much beauty awaits me, and that is the impetus to keep going. Once I began to follow my spirit, there was no down I wouldn’t survive for I knew the next up was waiting for me right around the corner. It was about trusting what’s in front of me, and diving as fully into it as humanly possible. For even if the learning isn't in that moment, it triggers something from long ago that I didn’t consciously know I was carrying. Be it emotions, toxic memories, contractions of my breath, spaces in which I disconnected, I learned to trust my environment as sometimes it needs to shake me a bit to awaken what’s been dormant in my bones. For the environment is simply a reflection of the self—and as humans we have a lot of shit we have to face if we want to evolve. It is not all rainbows and sunshine and unicorns. As they say, no mud no lotus, and boy is that statement true. Sometimes I'm even grateful Trump is our president, because he is truly in lots of ways an honest mirror to the way the masculine energy has simply usurped the human world. In my case, for example, the ways in which my feminine energy had contorted, contoured, and hidden itself from my very grips continues to amaze and astound me. Had it been able to trust me that little? was it afraid I would shut it down without a moments hesitation? Why had she been so thrust from her place of power and into the depths of the darkest corners of my being?

To begin was the child, creating the space for her to love and trust me again, to know I was always by her side the whole time. Perhaps all we’re ever looking for is the comfort that someone was there, watching, the entire experience. Making sure each boo boo was kissed and each victory was acknowledged. Being able to hold the container to now be the one I was always longing for, has shifted…well, everything. To not NEED the external to validate, to finally open honest communications that clarify histories of sordid knots and unhealthy loops. To honor the mirrors, but take them for what they are, and acknowledge that each of us have our own experiences on this planet. Their words may carry truth, but only I can know my own truth, stand in that, be of it, express it in every moment, and breathe it in to allow for a deeper one to grasp hold as each moment passes.

As the heart sheds its skins, and the layers of the blossoming flower begin to peel themselves open after being contracted inwards for so long by a child who wasn’t ready to feel her light in all moments, come bearing new layers, new moments when the light was something to be feared rather than honored.

To embrace creativity, is to embrace a love making, to the world as a whole, in every and all moments, and to take abandon to the wind as you’re left surrendered and in motion all at once. Where the act itself is the giving and the receiving, where the creating, becomes a fully embodied awareness, and accessing it at the highest level in all moments becomes the art. The artist is in a state of flow when creating art, but what if perhaps the call is to be the artist in all moments, for if life is truly sacred, if each moment is as abundant, beautiful, laden with color, life, vibrancy, vibration, may I enter into a state of awareness in all moments at this wonder. May I be blessed with the wear with all, the language, and the interest to be alight at the miracle of life in each and every moment that I breathe. In each moment that I choose to have my eyes open, may I allow the world to nourish me, and rather than run from the reality, turn to run towards it.