I grew up in a culture with a father and teachers- in a community that was frightened of women’s animals. By animal I mean the primal, ferocious, raw, screaming, clawing, chaotic aspect of the feminine. The feminine that will not be silenced, orderly, rule-following, and will stand sexy and powerful on her own. This is not to call all of these people out as bad or wrong- they are in a long line of patterned patriarchs who gain security through being around “safe” women. After all, a woman’s animal is ferocious, unpredictable- and that can be intimidating (and undermine current “way things are”).
But, and here’s the thing, we women (all of us really) need our animals. It’s our primal instinct, that part of us that defends our sense of worth, individuality and power until the end. Not power over others, yet power birthed from standing in a healthy sense of self: the power of being a beloved, worthwhile child of God. It can be said that a person who knows their power in this way can never be a slave of anyone or any thing.
Ini and I have been fighting for days. It seems this full moon has brought even another layer out of the subconscious stew, revealing more and more growth, transformation, learning. Our animals have been beckoning each other. Claw, talon, tail whip, verbal slash- we’ve been “in it”. I am grateful for this heightening; I’ve come to fully know my animal. I have a deep feeling I’ve needed to let it out, to test it, to know if someone else whom I’ve put deep trust in cold hold it. And he can.
This type of relational transformation, this carving out and testing has helped to whole (heal) me. It’s given me more self possession. It shows me that perhaps I don’t have to let my animal out every time now that I know it’s there. Through this I’ve come to know my animal more, and like the person who knows their boundary and doesn’t need to scream it to be heard, I can speak it and so it is.
Culturally speaking, in the lineage of generations of patriarchy, we all need to bring in this ability to hold an empowered feminine. This is the work of people with male, female and whatever bodies, not solely of a feminist movement. Yes, it is scary, both on a personal and collective level to allow this level of animal in- but we must do it to move from a level of suppression (of creativity, individuality, universally empowered and free humanity) to one of full-life.
This may be one of our greatest cultural taboos- the fear of strong women. Generations of patriarchy have indoctrinated and carefully trained women how to dance with power in subversive and behind-the-scenes ways. Women hold power, it’s just usually handed over on the surface- and they follow this route for their own safety and success. Yet for us to evolve in the necessary ways, straightforward demonstrations of feminine and masculine desire, attainment, sexuality/passion, and strong self-hood must come in- one animal at a time.
so
in love with my wild wild self
the embrace of the earth shoots up my legs
tendrils growing through the mass of my feet
i hug myself and worlds contract within this warmth.
my own heart leaps in the face of extreme human suffering
the girl strung out in relationship with meth
the man with codine and self hatred
loud with the voices of wanting, of desperation
calling out for something to ease the pain of inner turmoil
to make everything alright. just alright. like in the hug of mama’s embrace.
my own heart leaps God’s love toward them on the path of life until we all know that we are good enough
children of God’s own creation, sprung out of the earth
like the feet and mouths of the earth eating itself
the time is now, brother sister,
the veils all drop down. we know ourselves as spirit-earth-walkers
embedded in the mass of time, materialized like the oak leaf
in the sands of time, walking, what is the cause of our being here
one friend leaves his body,
“do not call it a suicide,” he writes in his last note
“instead, know that I have continued on my journey into the
realm of spirit; man-walking without a body.”
and, “perhaps now i will be your guardian angel.”
what is the cause of his self-killing? the recent scorpio new moon
paired with the eclipses? we are living in extreme times
yet, perhaps we are just seeing through the veil
Time becomes constant; i mean: there is no time
the only time we have is no time and the veil of the ancient temple is rent
there are no priests and priestesses besides ourselves.
and, i mean,
I am you and you are me, are we ……… and God is among us
there is no future salvation or damnation or eternal elation
it is all here in your smile, and mine. in your hug. in this embrace.
and in the dance of hearts with babies being born and friends leaving the body
i see with clear eyes the dance of human life how short of time there is here
beneath this blue blue sky
upon this good green earth.
As we make our way throughout the United States of America, I am reflective on the use and ownership of land- of the rigorous, insane (literally etymologically, unhealthy, unwhole) and whole sale theft and disrespect (can’t really find a fitting word strong enough for what actually took place) on the part of the pioneering and enterprising Europeans to the native groups of this land. Nearly everywhere we go there is the sorry story of some native group pillaged and removed from their homeland.
I feel a sense of loss for their vibrant and wise indigenous (of the land, of a place) cultures. Poignantly do I feel the absence of my own generational land-based heritage. Instead of being something intimately known and loved, land is a commodity, something to own.
There are two songs here that reflect well some thoughts/feelings I have journeying through this land, reflective on history. I want to share them here:
The Nightwatchman – Take Away My Name
and
Diane Cluck – Sylvania
Medicine for the People – My Country
2014, for us, started in Peru, in South America, which is, indigenously speaking, very related and in kinship with ancient native trade routes, customs and beliefs stretching all the way up to what is today North America. I cried many times then feeling the connection the people have with the land, with pachamama. In March, Ini and I went out to Massachusetts to pick up this veggie oil car we love and use so well. I distinctly recall sitting on the Boston Commons watching a squirrel scramble up trees, Unafraid of people or heights. The commemorative placeholders and memorials in that region are largely Patriarchal in heritage and remembrance. A very clearly delineated His-tory.
Then, an image of homesteading on an Appalachian mountainside. Fresh, cool mountain stream. Generations of people “eeking out a living” in this fertile land. At the local library, I read accounts from ancestors of people who neighbor the land we’re on who say, “Wake up, it’s time to hoe. After lunch, more hoeing. When I close my eyes I see corn and beans.” Their descendants now have a garden, yes with corn and beans, yet also with a motion-controlled radio to scare away deer. Living on the land is tough, they all seem to say. After a few months of dipping my hand in these waters, though refreshed by the mountain spring water, I realize I’m not quite ready to go “back to the land” in such a vigorous -or isolated- way quite yet.
So back to Indiana, my place of birth and raising. Will I follow the footsteps of my forebearers? Start a business, get a 9-5 working for the Man? I am not quite ready to start a large-scale alternative project to What Is. But we gotta eat, after all. Can’t live on idealism. Yet, the inner drive wants nothing to do with the machinations of my father. We do not see eye to eye; we hardly see the same world at all. Again, jumping the nest after touching base with the karma of birth, we are freebirds once again, taken by the travel.
Boulder, Colorado it is. Yet when we get there to meet some teachers who drew our attention, we find the land far commercialized from the initial hippy hay-day we heard it once was. No fodder for us, we continue on the travel. Well out of vegetable oil fuel for the car, we are now running mostly on the dinosaur bone and ancient fern slop that dictates the actions of so much of our warring and exploitive governmental system. It’s against our internal compass, but it’s “the way things are now.” We continue along on the highways, occasionally off-roading it, like so many others channeled and funneled along the main stream.
Yet we are not mainstream. For the first time in my life, I catch people stopping to stare at me, whispering about our rig (the car is full!) or possibly about me. I’m not really sure, but I feel the difference. And I continue to feel how far I’ve strayed from being a good daughter of the Patriarchy.
I am not loyal to my government or the mores of the cultures of this land. So much of it ain’t sitting pretty with me.
We continue on through the ancient dwellings of the Southwest, reaping inspiration each step of the way. Pueblos stretching across miles of desert aligned to star and moon, equinox and solstice. These people were in rhythm with the earth. Give me some of that old time living! And the living ancestors of the people of Canyon de Chelly, still farming and shepherding amid the deep canyon walls near the ancient petroglyphs of old. (And even these Navajos were originally removed from the canyon only to be allowed to return a few years later, most of them dead or ill, spirits sick.) So many times I catch wind of what the native peoples did (and at times still do) and I think, “That’s the way I want to live! How to do it this day in age of rentals and bills and impossibly expensive land?”
As Thoreau once said, perhaps the person who seems out of sync with the dominant culture is just marching to the beat of their own, privately heard drum. In the old days, this internal que could be called someone’s daemon, or creative spirit. Now the church, as in so many cases, has skewed the meanings of old words and daemon is too close to the evil in demon to be commonly employed, Yet it is this creative force which leads me into the future, into the bright realm of possibility, the unforeseen.
Now we are in California and I already, in some ways, feel “at home” again (though Ini and I have established a pretty good home on the road). The freedoms in the air of this most western point on the map are historical as well as current. Diversity is rich, as are alternative lifestyles and natural beauty.
I still don’t know where we’ll land for now; I remain curious about that. Until then, we continue following the trans-migrational rhythms of cyclical nomadics or seasonal workers from coast to coast.
So much of this country is in dire need of soul. And chances are it’s not going to be found on the TV. It’s so important that we can still see our night sky. It connects us Ineffably and magically with so much of what it means to be human. Spend more time outside. Breathe in the winds. Go hug a tree, really. Give thanks for water. Cities and waters are too often polluted. We need to start caring about the places we live, it’s our only way forward if we will pass on any beauty to our future generations. This is a message we so desperately need to hear, and the indigenous cultures, among other uprisings, have it.
I am not Navaho. Duh, anyone can see that. I am white. And what is my inheritance? Is it being able to read the wind in the trees? Knowing I sprung from the earth like so many mushrooms?
My plight is not the plight of so many Navahos today. Rich dad poor dad, learn the rules of the game. How to win. From birth, given the rich white mindset of entitlement, of the oppressor. I am given inherent privilege that cannot be won, lost or stolen and taught independence and one up manship. My inheritance says, Always go into business alone. You can’t trust people. Those streets aren’t safe. It isn’t safe to be a woman. God only thinks its cool if men lead and speak in church, and are heads of the households. Those people are poor because they are lazy.
And, to top off all of these shenanigans, This is just the way all these things are.
But I want the inheritance of understanding the wind, reading a rock, presence, intimacy with the external world instead of domination over it. The wind in my hair, the earth in my toes, my heart open, understanding of oneness. I do not want to be Navaho, but I do want to be earth-child-woman-lover.
So I went out and got myself a turtle rainbow family. I learned to trust people and absorbed the old wisdoms that people who live close to the earth and store potatoes know.
Now I am earth bridge spirit walker. Like all of us could be, sprung from this same earth like so many mushrooms. Human at last. My inheritance formidable.
We are maybe not as firm or as steadfast as we thought we were. We are more porous. Leaky. Searching.
We are so full! Ever-wafting the breezes of the night watchmen. How old do you think I am? I am as old as the cypress trees. I smell it coming every time it rains.
We have to bring back our animal. Shake off the colonization. Take off that old pelt; frisk yourselves and each other of it. Know yourself as spirit animal. Reach deeply into your own core and come out throbbing.
There is no future. There is no past. Speak! for the infathomable and glowing now. Let it haunt you on your day breaks. Carry it with you as an old friend. Caress it as it beseeches you for its favorite food. Concede. Continue.
We are all pressed by our souls to do these things. What my animal wants may not be what yours has a tongue for. But they all love the open air. Let it out to breathe. Bark. Whisper. Feel the moon press upon your ancient forbidden crown. Feel your eternality grow in the space between breaths. Press the middle of your ribcage between your breasts. This is where magic happens. This is what we live for. Let this ripen and fruit and fall from your tree in a myriad of successions.
Be poor if you will, yet hone this. Do not forget though your oppressor calls you in to punch the clock. This land is your land. There is no time. Be like the root in the ground that no one sees or assumes is breathing. Breathe still. Know the vibrancy you carry may be buried in the ground and keep rowing anyway. Your root will find you. Watch as it beckons your strange animal. There is nothing to fear. You are your own best friend. Your animal, piqued, will always lead the way home.
We need to make major changes in the way we do business. We’ve heard, even scientifically proven now, that global warming is real and human influenced, yet why isn’t our behavior changing in the face of these necessary shifts?
Think of human kind like a great organism. It’s impersonal; it moves around based on the mass of its thoughts. In this way it’s like a well run riverbed. The mass of human thoughts dictate the direction of the rut that is formed. It’s impersonal. This is what we call the mainstream and in the past, it has taken about 30-40 years to incorporate the leading edge. An organism this big takes time to change its course- imagine rerouting the mighty Colorado river, for example- it would take a lot of energy to shift the inertia.
Yet all of the signs point to _We must change if there is going to be the continuance of human life on this planet_. We are not living in step with our environment and we may be thrown off the back of momma earth like so many fleas on a shrugging gorilla.
A lot of this has to do with our current religious paradigms which perceive humankind as “something other than or above the earth”- when in reality we are highly evolved self reflective consciousnesses of the earth itself. We are the earth- thinking in our human way. No separation there- think of human beings as the earth arms thinking and feeling and observing, reflecting on what is. Our body a hologram of what is around us (patterns of streams in our blood).
Media, the Internet, books, television all play a part in deciding where that collective consciousness goes. Yet there’s a small voice inside of us which leads us toward evolution. It’s the voice of the intuition, the instinct, perhaps the “voice of god or goddess” to some. This voice and our emotional feedback loops (pain, happiness, fulfillment, alignment) all lead us forward.
Entheogens (literally within-god; plant medicines like psychedelic cacti, leaves, roots and fungi) have been an extraordinarily important part of my path now, as well as being and sleeping outside. Any contact with nature is good. Eating nature in the form of the entheogen and taking its consciousness on for a time is a very fast and efficient path toward evolution. These open doors and can perhaps expedite or illuminate our evolving paths. But be careful, you may be pushed to start exceedingly more and more thinking for yourself after these experiences. It may not be as easy to fit into the mainstream after these awakenings. This can feel dangerous and perhaps it is, to the status quo, external and propped up within our internalized paradigms.
While culture, the collective mind would have you be stuck in stasis, in the flow of survival and the current “way things are”- its incredibly important that you listen to your own voice stream now. That’s how we shift and evolve.
The outliers must lead. They must use the media sources and Internet especially so that many people can catch wind of the hints of evolution. In this way, perhaps the main stream can shift in 10-20 years instead of taking the 30-40 it took before. If it is evolution, people will feel a resonance. The right people are looking for these words for it is our biological and holistically encrypted imperative to evolve, to take part in the evolvement of our species.
woke up last night as i slept out in open air, grateful for another night to be sleeping there, so raw and pure beneath the stars. what has started as a temporary travel has morphed into this life style that i love … not sure if i could sleep as comfortably inside of doors anymore .. at least for now..
when i awoke, wow it’s only 11:45PM, it’s not even tomorrow yet! i was invigorated with thought streams i’d like to share from the following dream line…
“we evolved around my footsteps for a while”
They are Shooting film, there are footprints in the sand…
As an actress/explorer finds out certain truths, she says as if impersonally, “we evolved around my footsteps for a while.” We witness.
~~~~~~~~~~
Each of us is , at times, pushing the edge of our collective envelope and as we do so, in our own ways, the collective can witness us and so evolve.
There are many of us from arts and sciences, the humanities, agriculture, healing modalities, etc who are pushing the edge of this envelope. We each do our part for evolvement is not limited to any genre. Therefore we understand we work together something like a family unit, each with our individual roles that help move us along.
What we do, then, is ultimately for the collective, that our species can evolve.
I am journeying through Kansas now. Everyone seems to hate Kansas, but I am finding it beautiful. It is hot, but some nice shade will dampen that beaming sun. I could get lost in the gaze of the rolling hills. It is a place my soul can dash and romp. Everyone seems to hate Kansas, even the people who live here, but I am finding it quite fine — so spread out. There’s room for everyone!
Last night we arrived at our campsite around 1 AM. We’d driven all the second half of the day after playing at the City Museum in St Louis earlier that morning, after a really successful couchsurf the night before. We were going to stop earlier, but our campsite spot was no longer accessible. So we rode on through Kansas City and Topeka. I had thoughts of my grandmother, Rosemary, who was born in Kansas, though I’m not sure where.
The moon was brilliantly wholing in the sky. Lovely to watch as we careened along I-70. She followed us along the highway, as she’s apt to do anywhere in the world – always peeking in like a good friend. I feel at home when I see the moon- seeing her as I do everywhere I go. She and the herbs I carry along for morning and evening tea are signposts of the home I carry with me.
I am full of thoughts of the What and Why of my life and the Where, but practicing 1..2…3… I can only take 1 step at a time and this is my spiritual nourishment here. Stretching in a rest stop off the side of the high way, dancing beneath the mesquite and scrub oaks, breathing in the hot traveling air. These are the moments of my so-far day. The music I know and tunes I don’t — belting em out as I learn em… this is the step 1 of my time. Which is the only step I can ever know… the step of Now… and this is the golden mean of life… What is present now… beyond the thoughts of the past or the hopes and fears of the future.. There is the present moment now to breathe into and know that this is all that I ever have… this moment.
And amid the fears and the joys filled with the cascading emotions in between, I am rapt in the attention that Now… Now… Now filling and leaking and draining and saturated with pain and pleasure is all I ever have. So it becomes less about Getting Somewhere… Leaving There… and Arriving Here… but about the moments in between… Here… Now… Here… Again.. here.
There is bright sun. It is morning sun in the summer. I have arrived to the platform just in time. The platform at the nearby nature preserve, the platform that sits in the middle of the wild field. There is a mowed pathway to the wooden platform. The path is full of black eyed susans, lavender bee balm, young poplars, raspberries and, as I make my way, a red tailed hawk soars across the field near the adjoining tree line. I’ve brought my journal, a book, a yoga mat and my hat. I’ve put my sun screen on and I have an extra shirt.
It is very breezy out in the middle of this field above the plants on the platform. The sun shines through the surrounding forest creating the most lovely orange glow. Being in this space allows me to feel easily thankful and I breathe deeply as I do upward & downward dog, bend over and touch my toes and reeeeach! for the sky. I practice yogic breathing exercises and expel all the stagnant air in my body. I remember many things as I do these exercises and I am again amazed at the shifting realities of consciousness – how a change in setting, posture, stretches and deep and slow or shallow and rhythmic breathing can change thoughts, perceptions and feelings- in a term, they can change reality. The air is so fresh and I’m able to deeeeeply take it in after the breathing exercises. I feel renewed, as if I am a new person with new thoughts, a more flexible body, surround and filled by a lightness without and within.
I feel the soft yet hot morning sun glaze over my skin. I adjust my pose so my face isn’t directly in it and I continue breathing and stretching until I lay on my mat for some deep relaxation, to feel how my body has changed after all of the stretches and breathing. As I lay there in silence, the birdsong plays in my ears, along with the rustling of the cottonwood tree’s leaves. The field is a place of much activity and yet, unlike a busy city, it imparts a sense of peace. A playful rejuvenation. This field is a tonic and I give thanks again that such places exist in the midst of cities and towns, sometimes, as in the case of this one, right off the edge of the highway.
prompt: “Write in different places – for example, in a laundromat, and pick up on the rhythm of the washing machines. Write at bus stops, in cafes. Write what is going on around you.”
falling leaves as they come 