The time will come,
when with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving at your own door,
in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other's welcome and say,
sit here.
Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine.
Give bread.
Give back your heart to itself,
to the stranger who has loved you all your life,
whom you have ignored for another who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs,
the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
Dereck Walcott
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Clumsy Stumbling Forward
“Don’t fix yourself up first, then go forth: the two are inseparable.” -- A Buddhist teacher
Saturday, January 19, 2013
The intelligence of 'Trance'.
There is a pain—so utter—
It swallows substance up—
Then covers the Abyss with Trance—
So Memory can step
Around—across—upon it—
As one within a Swoon—
Goes safely—where an open eye—
Would drop Him—Bone by Bone.
-- Emily Dickinson
There's an incredible book called The Inner World of Trauma by Donald Kalsched. In the book, Kalsched explores the way self-destructive habits get created in response to early traumas we might experienced. Essentially, he suggests that these self-destructive habits were ORIGINALLY intelligent because they allowed us to survive what was unbearable at the time. As we begin find a way to start looking at these painful habits later in life - the gift and burden of consciousness then becomes learning how to forebear what we once could not in order to give up what no longer helps us thrive.
The intelligence of the psyche will not allow us to go there, however, until we feel authentically safe enough to survive this kind of regression into old psychic injuries. In my work as a therapist, I often realize that the symptomatic 'acting out' that brings people into my office must then be intrinsically linked to an unresolved feeling of danger. Figuring out how to help people get safe in their bodies, safe in their relationship with me, and safely connected to their own inner reality feels like the heart and soul of what I might hope to achieve with each new person I see.
Lately, I've become convinced that figuring out how to create this safe space for someone else requires a certain reverence for the 'symptoms' themselves. When we approach our destructive habits with curiosity and compassion, I believe we afford ourselves a chance to learn how to follow their trail into an accurate understanding of their symbolic function. Once we can see clearly how our own attempts to survive our lives may no longer be helping us to do so, we might be able to forgive ourselves for holding on to what hurts us and begin to let go. It sounds like somewhat of a paradox, of course, but I truly believe that it's our capacity to honor the original intelligence that created these personal habits that imprison us the most, that then gives us the possibility to begin living beyond them.
Namaste.
It swallows substance up—
Then covers the Abyss with Trance—
So Memory can step
Around—across—upon it—
As one within a Swoon—
Goes safely—where an open eye—
Would drop Him—Bone by Bone.
-- Emily Dickinson
There's an incredible book called The Inner World of Trauma by Donald Kalsched. In the book, Kalsched explores the way self-destructive habits get created in response to early traumas we might experienced. Essentially, he suggests that these self-destructive habits were ORIGINALLY intelligent because they allowed us to survive what was unbearable at the time. As we begin find a way to start looking at these painful habits later in life - the gift and burden of consciousness then becomes learning how to forebear what we once could not in order to give up what no longer helps us thrive.
The intelligence of the psyche will not allow us to go there, however, until we feel authentically safe enough to survive this kind of regression into old psychic injuries. In my work as a therapist, I often realize that the symptomatic 'acting out' that brings people into my office must then be intrinsically linked to an unresolved feeling of danger. Figuring out how to help people get safe in their bodies, safe in their relationship with me, and safely connected to their own inner reality feels like the heart and soul of what I might hope to achieve with each new person I see.
Lately, I've become convinced that figuring out how to create this safe space for someone else requires a certain reverence for the 'symptoms' themselves. When we approach our destructive habits with curiosity and compassion, I believe we afford ourselves a chance to learn how to follow their trail into an accurate understanding of their symbolic function. Once we can see clearly how our own attempts to survive our lives may no longer be helping us to do so, we might be able to forgive ourselves for holding on to what hurts us and begin to let go. It sounds like somewhat of a paradox, of course, but I truly believe that it's our capacity to honor the original intelligence that created these personal habits that imprison us the most, that then gives us the possibility to begin living beyond them.
Namaste.
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Soul Dance
We have come to be danced
Not the pretty dance
Not the pretty pretty, pick me, pick me dance
But the claw our way back into the belly
Of the sacred, sensual animal dance
The unhinged, unplugged, cat is out of its box dance
The holding the precious moment in the palms
Of our hands and feet dance.
We have come to be danced
Not the jiffy booby, shake your booty for him dance
But the wring the sadness from our skin dance
The blow the chip off our shoulder dance.
The slap the apology from our posture dance.
We have come to be danced
Not the monkey see, monkey do dance
One two dance like you
One two three, dance like me dance
but the grave robber, tomb stalker
Tearing scabs and scars open dance
The rub the rhythm raw against our soul dance.
We have come to be danced
Not the nice, invisible, self-conscious shuffle
But the matted hair flying, voodoo mama
Shaman shakin’ ancient bones dance
The strip us from our casings, return our wings
Sharpen our claws and tongues dance
The shed dead cells and slip into
The luminous skin of love dance.
We have come to be danced
Not the hold our breath and wallow in the shallow end of the floor dance
But the meeting of the trinity, the body breath and beat dance
The shout hallelujah from the top of our thighs dance
The mother may I?
Yes you may take 10 giant leaps dance
The olly olly oxen free free free dance
The everyone can come to our heaven dance.
We have come to be danced
Where the kingdom’s collide
In the cathedral of flesh
To burn back into the light
To unravel, to play, to fly, to pray
To root in skin sanctuary
We have come to be danced
WE HAVE COME.
by Jewel Mathieson
Not the pretty dance
Not the pretty pretty, pick me, pick me dance
But the claw our way back into the belly
Of the sacred, sensual animal dance
The unhinged, unplugged, cat is out of its box dance
The holding the precious moment in the palms
Of our hands and feet dance.
We have come to be danced
Not the jiffy booby, shake your booty for him dance
But the wring the sadness from our skin dance
The blow the chip off our shoulder dance.
The slap the apology from our posture dance.
We have come to be danced
Not the monkey see, monkey do dance
One two dance like you
One two three, dance like me dance
but the grave robber, tomb stalker
Tearing scabs and scars open dance
The rub the rhythm raw against our soul dance.
We have come to be danced
Not the nice, invisible, self-conscious shuffle
But the matted hair flying, voodoo mama
Shaman shakin’ ancient bones dance
The strip us from our casings, return our wings
Sharpen our claws and tongues dance
The shed dead cells and slip into
The luminous skin of love dance.
We have come to be danced
Not the hold our breath and wallow in the shallow end of the floor dance
But the meeting of the trinity, the body breath and beat dance
The shout hallelujah from the top of our thighs dance
The mother may I?
Yes you may take 10 giant leaps dance
The olly olly oxen free free free dance
The everyone can come to our heaven dance.
We have come to be danced
Where the kingdom’s collide
In the cathedral of flesh
To burn back into the light
To unravel, to play, to fly, to pray
To root in skin sanctuary
We have come to be danced
WE HAVE COME.
by Jewel Mathieson
Monday, January 14, 2013
Mother God
"When by the flood of your tears the inner and the outer have fused into one, you will find HER whom you sough with such anguish, nearer than the nearest, the very breath of life, the very core of every heart". -- Sri Anandamayi Ma
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Tree of Life
On a warm night in January of 2009, while taking a very necessary year-long hiatus from independent adult life, I sat down by a tree in my parents' backyard and wept bitterly about my own feelings of alienation from myself. Sometime during that powerful release of grief and fear and shame and longing, I began to press my whole body and face into that old, familiar tree in their yard. I suppose I must have called out to the spirit in that tree in some way that evoked its presence, because very soon I began to feel a visceral kind of sweetness reaching out to me from deep within the tree. I let my exhausted body and mind yield into that small miracle of connection to nature, and from a place of gentle surrender, I began to feel as if that generous spirit in the tree was also within me. My mind was suddenly able to see how I had been trying to live my life out on the furthest, most outward-facing branch of my experience, and that this was in fact the cause of my suffering. I realized then that by choosing to live out on this fragile limb, I had become completely identified with the weather patterns - or vicissitudes - of my immediate subjective experience.
From a sense of deep kinship with this tree, however, I began to feel curious about my own sturdier branches, trunk, and roots -- my deepest, most essential self. I believe that this connection with the tree afforded me both the courage and the grace to discover how I might symbolically turn around from my outward-facing position on that limb where I had been living, and look deeply into my own origins instead. I reference the need for courage because I remember exactly how terrified I was to look that deeply into myself; I was almost paralyzed with fear about what I might find there! I also understand that grace played a part in this experience, precisely because I did not know how to bring my own conscious awareness into what had remained so willfully unconscious until then.
But I learned how to do it that night! And with my back pressed into the trunk of that ordinary tree, I swallowed hard, and surrendered my ego's firmly held position on that far-reaching limb, in order to actually see my-Self (consciously) for the very first time. To my utter amazement, I saw something so neutral, timeless, cohesive, eternal, spacious, and incorruptible that I began to laugh out loud! I could not believe that I had been so afraid of this profoundly empty, receptive, flowing, spacious, awareness.
I wrote a poem of sorts that night, which I later understood to be a kind of reflective love letter to my most Essential Self. And the poem goes like this:
I've kept those words and that embodied understanding with me ever since -- and my experience of mySelf has never been the same. The profound feeling of alienation ended in an instant. I also understood in an instant that I would continue living a life full of plenty of mistakes. The lasting transformation for me, however, has been that I've never doubted for a single moment since this one that I could find my way Home to this place within myself whenever I notice that I've lost my way.
I wrote a poem of sorts that night, which I later understood to be a kind of reflective love letter to my most Essential Self. And the poem goes like this:
Lover.
Filled with wonder.
Playmate of the Universe.
More curious than afraid - a steadfast friend to Mystery.
Soft.
Tender.
So soft and tender.
Spacious enough to include all beings.
Different than trustworthy: Entrusted.
The way a river has a course, yet is absolutely Free.
I've kept those words and that embodied understanding with me ever since -- and my experience of mySelf has never been the same. The profound feeling of alienation ended in an instant. I also understood in an instant that I would continue living a life full of plenty of mistakes. The lasting transformation for me, however, has been that I've never doubted for a single moment since this one that I could find my way Home to this place within myself whenever I notice that I've lost my way.
A few days ago, I painted a picture of a naked, yet luminous tree at a friend's arts-y birthday party (see image below). I had never painted anything before, and was amazed that this image was willing to manifest itself through me that night. It felt like another gift from that same spirit I first connected with inside that old tree. The next day, I showed a picture of this painting to one of my colleagues at work. He took one look at it and said, "It sort of looks like you - I mean, it has a feeling to it that reminds me of how I experience you".
I don't know this man very well, but he gave me a tremendous gift inside of that simple statement. It made me feel like my Essential Self was indeed infusing my outer branches with it's innermost Truth more and more consistently. I went home that evening after work and looked for the poem I had written back in 2009. To my astonishment, I discovered that I made this tree painting exactly 4 years TO THE DAY that I had this experience I've described above.
Looking at this painting now, I feel grateful for my own human journey - and simultaneously less and less afraid of being down here on the earth; where pain and beauty seem to always exist in the same place at the same time, and nothing worth having ever comes easy.
May the grace and courage that was given to me four years ago continue to assist in the liberation of all sentient beings. Namaste.
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Sacred Spaces
Grateful: for ritual, for compassion, for safe spaces to do inner work, for grace, for creativity, for community, and for reminders to approach all of these light-filled qualities with the kind of humility that acknowledges their ever-present shadow.
- CG Jung Institute, 1.6.2013
Friday, January 4, 2013
Thursday, January 3, 2013
Choosing Love
I read this excerpt from Lawrence Edwards the other day:
If you take what the Buddha and Christ said,
and all the great yogis, saints, sages,
mystics, and lovers of God,
it can be reduced to two words:
Choose Love.
There is nothing higher than Love,
nothing purer,
nothing more selfless,
nothing more powerful,
and it is present in every moment.
Choose Love.
In all times, in all places -
Choose Love,
for Love has already chosen you.
I believe that Love is the engine of the Universe, and that it's sole function is to produce more Love. I also believe that "surrendering into Love" a choice... up to a point. And yet, sometimes I think I resist really yielding (see blog post about Movement Theory) fully into Love in so many different situations because I'm afraid of what that experience of love will do to me. I wonder if this might be true for most of us. If so, maybe that's because we know that real love always requires personal transformation. The timid, lazy parts of me then resist this surrender - in either big or small ways - precisely because I know that personal transformation comes at a price.
The people listed above in Edwards' example of those who "chose Love" lived radical lives. Many of them gave up a comfortable, easy lifestyle because continuing to choose Love meant that they must. Love requires Love in exchange for Itself, and I suppose that none of us really know what our own Love for the world might look like for us personally if we were to fully choose It. Choosing Love may actually be down-right world-destroying.... or, "the world as we know it"-destroying for each of us. Because Love begs this question of us: What is your full potential?! And if we're honest with ourselves, I think we'd all agree that that's a somewhat terrifying concept. We risk becoming like seeds - each one of us having to allow our safe little shells to crack and tear themselves wide open so that the fertile of ground of Love might receive us, and change us into the fullest expression of our being.
The Buddha abandoned both extraordinary privilege and his own young family, Jesus knew he was going to die an excruciating and humiliating death, Mother Teresa gave up luxury for poverty, and others have sold Fortune-500 companies to sweep the floors of an Ashram. Yet these same people have done remarkable things for humanity, and all of them have reported experiences of sublime ecstasy, unity, and peace.
I suppose there's only one thing we can expect: To choose Love is both to risk and to gain everything.
I'm often reminded of something C.S. Lewis said about his character Aslan (the symbol of Divine Love in his fictional world of Narnia): "Safe? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you". I'd say the same is true of choosing Love. It's GOOD. Just not safe. And maybe I'm scared of that.
If you take what the Buddha and Christ said,
and all the great yogis, saints, sages,
mystics, and lovers of God,
it can be reduced to two words:
Choose Love.
There is nothing higher than Love,
nothing purer,
nothing more selfless,
nothing more powerful,
and it is present in every moment.
Choose Love.
In all times, in all places -
Choose Love,
for Love has already chosen you.
I believe that Love is the engine of the Universe, and that it's sole function is to produce more Love. I also believe that "surrendering into Love" a choice... up to a point. And yet, sometimes I think I resist really yielding (see blog post about Movement Theory) fully into Love in so many different situations because I'm afraid of what that experience of love will do to me. I wonder if this might be true for most of us. If so, maybe that's because we know that real love always requires personal transformation. The timid, lazy parts of me then resist this surrender - in either big or small ways - precisely because I know that personal transformation comes at a price.
The people listed above in Edwards' example of those who "chose Love" lived radical lives. Many of them gave up a comfortable, easy lifestyle because continuing to choose Love meant that they must. Love requires Love in exchange for Itself, and I suppose that none of us really know what our own Love for the world might look like for us personally if we were to fully choose It. Choosing Love may actually be down-right world-destroying.... or, "the world as we know it"-destroying for each of us. Because Love begs this question of us: What is your full potential?! And if we're honest with ourselves, I think we'd all agree that that's a somewhat terrifying concept. We risk becoming like seeds - each one of us having to allow our safe little shells to crack and tear themselves wide open so that the fertile of ground of Love might receive us, and change us into the fullest expression of our being.
The Buddha abandoned both extraordinary privilege and his own young family, Jesus knew he was going to die an excruciating and humiliating death, Mother Teresa gave up luxury for poverty, and others have sold Fortune-500 companies to sweep the floors of an Ashram. Yet these same people have done remarkable things for humanity, and all of them have reported experiences of sublime ecstasy, unity, and peace.
I suppose there's only one thing we can expect: To choose Love is both to risk and to gain everything.
I'm often reminded of something C.S. Lewis said about his character Aslan (the symbol of Divine Love in his fictional world of Narnia): "Safe? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you". I'd say the same is true of choosing Love. It's GOOD. Just not safe. And maybe I'm scared of that.
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