Flower Friends

While walking this morning, I passed a flower garden and got happy just looking at it. It seemed the flowers were screaming "HappyHappy" to me as I walked by. They beckon me to look at and remember the abundance that's all around me. They stand tall, bending in the wind, sometimes opening their faces to the sun, sometimes only coming out at night. They live short lives, but when they're here, they are unabashed in full glory, screaming bounty and beauty like nothing else.

Their colors are magic. I can't merely look at a flower from far away. I get my face right up next to them. I've always liked flowers, of course, but many years ago, I started to be
entranced by them. How do they do those colors? The perfect fading into perfect permutations of shades and hues. If you look at the petals, they are just about perfectly matched...the lines are equidistant, the spots uniform in how far up the petal they go, their overall pattern, how they line up in comparison to each other. Perfect. Ever look really closely at one... those little hairs on the flowers that hold the pollen..sometimes so small that at first I sometimes miss them. But they're there. And when I look at the flowers closely, I always find more color within color, pattern within pattern. They are truly miraculous.

Flowers, of course, do lots for us besides just be pretty. Lots of them taste really wonderful and are great in salads and on cakes. Many of them provide wonderful smellies for our delights. Long, long ago, I got introduced to Flower Essence remedies and got hooked. The first one to "discover" them that I know of was Edward Bach, who noticed that he felt different emotions around different flowers. So he distilled their essences by floating them in water (in very special ways) and started sharing them with people as healing tools. I still consider Rescue Remedy an essential in my home, both in the drop form and the cream. Whenever anyone has trauma of any kind, it's one of the first things I use. I remember I was cooking on one of those flattop stoves. I had no idea that the pan I put on my palm had been on the high heat burner. I heard the skin pop and sizzle as I felt the burn begin. My whole palm was red. I immediately put on ice, then slathered the cream on, put on gunks of aloe, wrapped in a bandage, took the oral Rescue Remedy at intervals until the next day. After 24 hours, I still had no blisters!! Not one. After two days of this treatement, I thought it safe to stop. Within 20 minutes of taking off the bandage, a huge full palm blister started to form. So I reslathered and it went away. I've used this stuff to relax colic-y babies, calm women in labor, and help out of control kids. Who wudda thunk?

So, yes, they have healing properties that they offer in love that we humans have learned to harness and use as allies. But I think their magic lies elsewhere also. How can anyone not feel joyous just looking, really looking, at a flower? I'm thinking they come here to spew joy over the planet. They sure do that for me. I think that's their primary job: to remind us of the joy that is available at every moment. That there's beauty right here right now in front of us, whether in numbers or alone. That the universe is a perfect place, with that perfection expressed in every form of life. They gift us by reminding us what's important.

I mean...how do they DO that??????


Images:

Dalia-from here

Lily from here

Flowering tree from here

Rose from here
Iris from here

This post was featured in the "Live the Power Unlimited Carnival" hosted by the lovely and loving Karen Lynch.

Full Body Breaths

These last few months I've been paying very close attention to my breathing throughout the day. I've been amping it up these last few weeks. I also did a breathwork session with a client last week and noticed that where I used to be able to breath unhindered for over an hour, I was tingly after about fifteen minutes. It looks like along with all the other ways in which I managed to shut things down inside me over the last two years, my breath also got shallow. I'm not in the least surprised.

But that's OK, as I'm on my way back to Body. We can all find our way back to Body. Do you feel all of yours?

So the awareness has been to feel the air enter my nostrils, feel it tickle my throat, notice when it touches the places of holding there, in my jaw. I open the jaw, feel it loosen. I relax my mouth so it opens a bit. I feel Lungs expand and open the constriction that is held there. It's tight each time I focus there, but opens as I bring awareness. I invite opening, inviting breath in to slowly open that which has felt the need to protect itself. I notice that I tend to hold my breath on the outbreath. Sometimes too long until, if I focus at just the right time, I feel almost nauseous. I remind body and mind to take in life, feel its energy, lessen the gap between inbreath and out.

I bring that opening energy to my heart, then see it gently flow out, imagining all that I don't need going with the outbreath. With each breath, I bring the air and mind further down. Within about four more breaths I am at my first chakra, breathing life there, feeling it tingle and be alive. Then I expand the energy throughout my whole body, seeing/feeling it vibrate.

And life is so very very good.

Art:

Storm by Jonna Harris

Our Brain, Sex, And Spirit

My last year of college I did a senior project on trying to find the etiology of why the devil is correlated with sex. It was a ridiculously large endeavor that had no business trying to fit in a 40 page paper. For the project, I did parallel research on the history and evolution of the devil plus the evolution of the Christian Church's views and doctrines on sexuality. And, although I found tons of art from the 6th to the 9th century that depicted the devil with a hard-on, unfortunately none of it has made its way to the internet so you'll just have to trust me that the theme was pretty much on everyone's mind. Did you know that the people of the middle ages thought that there were so many devils and demons everywhere that you couldn't drop a needle without it hitting a number of them? These were very frightened people.

Aside from the obvious references to and need to ban Pan, the only answers that made sense to me were those of Jung's Quaternary Theory. This idea, in a sesame seed shell (cuz a nut would be too big) is that there are four basic areas of the psyche: the Mystical, the Emotional, the Rational and the Body. Everyone has these four realms that are trying to find balance within. We each have one that is the dominant. We also have one that we repress which becomes our Shadow. Jung feels that if we don't learn to find balance with that shadow it rules us and becomes 'demonic' for us.

In the Christian church, the Trinity takes care of three areas of the quadrant. Holy Spirit is the Mystic, Jesus is the Emotional, God the Father is the Rational. The body is left and because the Christian Church does not have that completion, the psyche of the Church, so to speak, develops its Shadow, the Devil, to take that role. Since the brighter the light of the other three, the darker the shadow, the Devil 'becomes' a very powerful force that is correlated to the Earth, sex and anything considered having anything to do with the body.

When I read this, I finally got a little "a-ha" that has sort of kind of satisfied me. But I've kept the question in my mind and always kind of thought it would be fun to go back and do new research on the subject. I think I've found something that adds to the picture.

Over the past four years, I have become increasingly passionate about learning Neurotheology. It is a new study that involves two of my favorite subjects: the Body and Spirituality. These scientists hook people up to EEG's and study the brain's response when people are in, what they would subjectively label, an ecstatic state (during their height of prayer or meditation).

They then take these brain mappings and try to explain the mystical experiences given what is known physiologically about the particular brain area that is lit up. In a VERY short synopsis: they are finding that the same areas that are lit up during mystical states are the ones that are also lit up in sex, rage, fear, dreams, near death experiences and more. All of this is located in the deepest primordial parts of parts of the brain called the Limbic System. Oftentimes people that have a highly charged Limbic System are generally amped up in a number of these areas.

It makes sense to me that if all of that deep unconscious stuff is all there in the mix, that when it is stimulated it can go overboard and may short circuit from time to time, given the personality and environment of the person. It also explains some other things to me, too...like:

Often it is the most taboo stuff gets the most intense orgasms.

Why violence and power are often such a turn on for people.

Why pedophilia is so prevalent in the priesthood.

Why murderers often report a rush like an orgasm of sorts.

Why fighting between couples often results in very passionate sex.

Why fantasies are so dark sometimes.

Basically, those who study Neurotheology feel that our drive for spiritual quest remains crucial to our psyches because, in part, our brains are wired for it. At this point in this new science, when they asked the question of what the evolutionary function of spirituality is, they cite that the initial brain nervous pathway response of both orgasm and spiritual ecstatic states are identical. At this point they suggest that it began as a pathway aligned with procreation. Again...this is a new field of endeavor, in the questioning stages. I don't think this field is trying to reduce spiritual experience to a series of chemical responses. But I do find the questions being asked and the science being studied extremely interesting. And I love pondering the possibilities that can be considered with them.

Graphics and Art Credits:

Devil Tarot Card from here

Jung Quaternary graphic from here

Brain waves from here

Brain and man flying from here

Another Very Happy Song

These days, when I'm not listening to "In Your Eyes" by Peter Gabriel, I often can be found dancing through the house tears of joy streaming with this song from Cirque de Soleil called Alegria.

Watsu And Water Dance

9 Choirs recently wrote a great piece on Watsu which has had me dreaming about it ever since. I want some.

For a history of Watsu and Water Dance, you can go here. Basically it's a form of body experience like no other. It's done in pools. You totally surrender your body to the practitioner, who pushes and stretches the body into healing postitions that articulate the joints, open the heart and put me in another world. In Watsu, the head stays above water at all times. In WaterDance the practitioner puts you under water. Generally, you get Watsu a number of times before you progress to the WaterDance as it's the more advanced form and requires a great deal of trust and letting go to stay with someone dunking you under water and you being able to maintain that level of trance state without fear.

I live about two hours away from Harbin Hot Springs, the mecca for training Watsu practitioners. Unlike most people interested in the healing arts in this area, I've only been to Harbin twice, once as a weeklong Tantra workshop assistant. It was at this workshop that I got my first WaterDance session.

I decided I wanted to have the experience from both from a man and a woman. I was fortunate to have a sessions with both Richard Bock and Shantam, mentioned in the article linked to above.

Shantam has amazing energy. So calm and peaceful and full of love. She hardly touches the ground as she walks. I felt immediate trust and peace the minute we hugged and began the session. There is no talking during a session, every communication was done with touch. She told me before the session what each thing would mean when she did it. Everything was gentle in the pool as she swept my body this way and that. Everything was conducive to total release of any resistence in my body. And I had none.

She twirled me this way and that, held me close then pushed me so I could move independently. Then I felt her touch my nose, which was the signal that she was going to put me under water. Wow...the feelings in my body....remembering it now, make me weep with their beauty. I remember just letting go more and more with each submersion, until finally she did this thing where she literally put me between her legs, rebirthing me. It was a totally amazing transformative experience to be held in the water, going back to the womb and being held by the Mother. When the session was done, I felt total peace, total union with all of me. I floated for hours.

A few days later, I had my session with Richard. Shantam had told him of my letting go, so he was prepared to do the WaterDancing with me, too. I've heard it said by more than four bodyworkers that they love doing Tantra workshops because the people are so open from the work that they can go deeper than usual. I was so excited to be with Richard as I loved his energy.

But...it wasn't the same as with Shantam. I felt uncomfortable, couldn't let to emotionally...this wan't done right, that didn't feel good, nothing was flow. I stayed with my feelings, letting them flow into the water, while staying present to my body so as not to have it tense with the inner gunk happening...body was totally relaxed letting MonkeyMind take its course but not agreeing to participate. As body had no resistence, the emotional pain was had no blocks so went its course.

The session was powerfully healing. He felt me in my deepness. I cannot remember all that went on because so much of it was so deep that I've blocked it out. But with each submersion, I remember getting flashes of ancient female and male pain, the stuff that stays in the backs of our minds in the subconscious, but that we carry as cell history (???) Not sure what it is or if that even exists. But my feelings and flashes were powerfully there.

What I do remember very clearly is the end, when we were together at the side of the pool and he was being present to all I said as I integrated the experience. He cried for and with me as I reported how I had let go and was continuing to let go of unrecognized intense anger and mistrust of men from all that had been done "to" women at men's hands. He cried with me as I cried for men's pain. It was profound for me. Whew...I want more.

This bodywork stuff takes us places that people are not aware are available to us. So much healing can happen when Body is allowed to let go of its past. All it takes is presence to heal decades of holding onto pain. A WaterDance/Watsu pratitioner is so present that the unconditional love of the universe flows through them unimpeded. I think this is what's felt...that total holding of the soul in pure love.

For a list of practioners and to learn more, please visit The Worldwide Aquatic Bodywork Association . You really do owe it to yourself to get a number of these sessions.

Photos in order are taken from:

Top Center with blue swimming suit from here
Woman in red swimming suit on left from here
Woman with knee over shoulder on right from here
Two women with knee on shoulder, brown suit on left from here
Hand on heart on right from here
Embrace on left from here
Two women at bottom on left from here

This post was featured in the Carnival of Healing #92. Thanks!!!

Litha

Also known as Summer Solstice or MidSummer. This is the fifth sharing I'm doing on the Celebrations of the Wheel of the Year. The other preceding posts can be found here. Please note that these are not necessarily the ways that those who call themselves traditional Wiccan or Pagan would interpret these holidays or celebrate them. They're just me and where I've come to with them. I meditated on the energies as I felt them, added to the things I had learned and took them different places. I see these celebrations as not only about the celebrations of the cycles of the Earth, but also our life cycles. Ostara is about birth and young childhood, Beltane about becoming alive sensual beings in our bodies as the Earth starts to grow strong with lush green everywhere.

By Midsummer time, gardens are in full swing. In my area, some of the harvest has begun and all the rest of the plants are in full expression. How that translates to me in terms of our life cycles? We are in full on adulthood. We have grown, are in the midst of creation and full on expression of defining who we are. In the olden days, this was another of the fire ceremonies, that often included an honoring of Life Force in the form of sexual activity. In the groups I participated in, we focused more on our inner achievements and their expression's manifestation on our outer worlds.

Generally this celebration included a time when each participant was given an opportunity to share the ways in which their intentions made at Imbolc were coming to fruition. Each person's journey in turn was given full space and attention and was honored. As we live in an area that gets very hot with has rivers and streams, we usually had our celebrations by the water. We would have a fire. We were instructed to bring organic materials to make a "Prayer Boat." We would do a deep guided meditation, make our boat, then offer them to Yemaya or any other Energy that caught our fancy. It was really fun to watch them float down the river, making their way to the infinite ocean of wish fulfillment.

When I did the combined Tantra/Wheel Cycle of Celebrations, I had the women bring an outfit and a piece of music that best portrayed an aspect of their Sexuality that they usually didn't allow out, but they wanted to embrace. We then took our turns, standing up, speaking as Buried Voice to tell who She is, her gifts, and what she wanted from us. Then the music was turned on and we Danced Her.

I came dressed as a Dominatrix. I remember starting out, speaking as her, but holding myself back as her energy terrifies me. The more I spoke the stronger she became. When I fully allowed her in, started whipping the air, putting every ounce of me into her, the other parts of me literally fell to the ground, as I was shaking so hard. I sobbed and could not continue. Pretty powerful stuff.

And, of course, no matter whether Tantrically inclined or not, there is always feasting. Always. With chocolate.

Questions to ask at this wonderful Solstice time???

As this is the time when the sun and moon get equal stage time, this is a time to also look at balance. How am I in balance? How am I out of balance?

How am I allowing and acknowledging all MySelf?

How am I expressing my Intentions in this world? What are the ways in which they are manifesting but I am not seeing just yet? That if I look, I can celebrate instead of always thinking I'm not there yet?

What are my greatest gifts that I can start to express more fully?

And if you have time for nothing else, go light a candle, put on some great music ("In Your Eyes") by Peter Gabriel mentioned in the previous post is always a nice choice) and Dance in joyous celebration of your glorious You!

Blessings!!!

Litha Card from the 4 Witches Occult Shop
Floating Leaf Offering from here
Dancing woman from here

Happy Songs And Goals

I've been tagged by two lovely ladies to play Meme games!


The first is from Karen at Live the Power. It's a meme called “Songs that make your heart sing” and was started by Hilda at Living Out Loud.


This one is way easy for me. My favorite song of all times is "In Your Eyes," by Peter Gabriel. I've heard it hundreds of times, and each time I hear it I instantaneously get happyhappy...ecstatic, actually. If I'm standing I dance, if I'm driving my arms dance and I sing it really really loud. I love it because it's about the power of love, but also because of the music. You can listen to an amazing live version of it here. Yup, cried again it's so beautiful to me...I love watching people dance and sing. Gabriel says it's about Love between people or of God.


And, I get to tag three others so am tagging Jonas who I don't think does memes but he does do music, Greenwoman and Vera Nadine because......


___________________________________



....Vera Nadine tagged me for another Meme called Alex Shalman's Gotta Get Goals! which can be found here. I'm supposed to "write about the top 5 to 10 goals that you gotta’ get so that you can truly say you have achieved your wildest dreams in life. These have to be your best, most exclusive, and over-the-top goals that you can pick off your goals list."

I have to admit this one is not as easy as finding my favorite song.

Goals....

I used to have tons of them. I did lots fulfilling them. About six years ago, I felt like I had fulfilled enough for a lifetime, in fact, and kind of let go of lots of outside goals. Instead I focused on learning how to be a be-er instead of a do-er, being happyhappy in the wonderful world I had created, with the only goals being to find a few people who I could impact and to be the best parent I could. And in that, the desires and long ago goals I had of travel, experience and stuff were fulfilled, in magical and abundant ways I could not have imagined.

So I did that and then I started to dream again about two years ago. I wanted more. I have dreams again, which I am simultaneously letting go of. I am learing to ride the edge of huge creation, while trying to maintain balance in the being ways I learned before. These dreams will be or they won't. Either way will be fine. My Dreams:

1) To recapture that full on hum I used to feel in my body all the time- that constant in full- alignment-joy-thing

2) To love a man the same way I love my children

3) I dream of circles of women all over Africa, councils of women who are dedicated to health and educating themselves and their children. I see/feel/get that Africa is the place of enlightenment these days. And I want to do all I can to contribute to that. I feel a connection.

4) I see artists all over the world creating the various gifts they give to the rest of us. I want to find a way to support that.

5) To continue to open and be in Service to The All in my own ways.

6) To die with my children around me, knowing they continue to feel unconditionally loved and carry that with them wherever they go, whatever they do for the rest of their lives.


And I will invite anyone who wants to play with this Meme to do so!!!

Reclaiming Addictions As Gifts

One revelatory theme of my life has been that whatever is in front of me is the that thing can move me closer to my connection with my authentic self. Whatever I see as my struggle is my Teacher and Gift. When I'm able to look without judgment, vital information is always available to me. Sometimes I get lost, go into judgement and victimhood and sometimes it takes me some percolating before I'm ready to move into the next cycle. But once I decide to move past the victim and remember the divine creator I am, I regain balance at this new level of creation.

Looking forward with detached anticipation to a nice dinner with wine pairings for each of the amazing seven courses included, is not the same intention as craving a bottle of wine because I'm twitchy. When I'm feeling an urge to drink, especially when that isn't the usual place I'm in these days, I want to look at what that urge is telling me. It's here, it's what I'm experiencing so it has meaning for me. I don't beat myself up about it, I gently ask. Sometimes I take the drink(s) to feed the craving, sometimes I don't. If I do, then I go into the rabbit hole to check out the scenery.

What I found the last time I visited the hole was the realization of a pattern I had been repeating the past two years when I amped up my creative intentions. I discovered that when something big starts coming my way, I get scared. It's really subtle until I find it. But when I tune into it, it's enormous. I don't know where that fear came from, don't know yet how it got here, not sure I care. What I do care about is identifying it, naming it, bringing it to the light of my consciousness. Once I know its name, I can begin my journey and play with it.

Long ago, when I used to do lots of intense breathwork and the facilitator would ask me a "why.....?" to something that might come up, the answer was often: "Because then I will be all that I am." It feels big and scary, brings up pre-verbal terror. No wonder I want to keep it down when faced with some huge shift.

I get now, at a really deep place, that my craving/drinking has to do with issues of personal power. This doesn't surprise me because when I stopped drinking years ago, I was going through a phase of stepping into my power. The crave is me telling myself that something is going on where I'm emotionally out of alignment about my power position, whether it's feeling powerless or feeling too much power coming my way too quickly for my unconscious beliefs in the moment.

Now, with that Gift/message, I can no longer run when I crave drinking...I know that I'm avoiding feeling my power issues, that the craving is my Spirit communicating through my body that it wants me to pay attention. I can either choose to look at it, find a way to be with it, or choose to numb myself again. The good news is that it will always be there to play with, so if I choose to numb, I know it's never too late to play in the future. Either way (if done with consciousness)...choosing to play/be with/heal or choosing to numb...gives me more information about myself. I also trust that if now is not the time, my greatest intention of balance, connection, integration and health will ultimately win the day and I WILL be ready to face this aspect of myself.

The older I get and the longer I do this stuff, I trust that even if my mind misses it, my body will always know and remind me to look further. The Body is not our enemy. It wants what's best for us. It doesn't have a language other than feelings to communicate what it knows to the other parts of us. It's doing its best with the tools it has...one of which is a craving. I don't want to push away those messages from my body by thinking I have to attack and control, burying its messages, talking myself out of my feelings, shaming myself around them, pushing them away. If I'm craving, it means there's more looking to be done, more places in me that want hearing and Unconditional Love.

Obviously if an addiction is out of control, like heroin or drinking oneself into a stupor, it's vital to stop the nasties in whatever way possible because YOU aren't present, the substance is. So stopping whatever is taking over your consciousness in whatever way will work for you is a vital first step if you are over the edge. But the work cannot stop there if you truly want to be rid of the addiction, stop it from running your life, and learn what Gift it's hiding from you and the world.

When we organically heal the need for the craving, it becomes a matter of gently choosing not to take heroin, or drink alcohol instead of fighting a huge battle every day to run from the evil thing that can rule us. We learn to love ourselves and all that we have been and are, instead of fighting ourselves, making ourselves wrong or bad for "having an addiction." It sets up a whole different energy inside us, bringing us a different perspective on life and attracting different things and people into our experience.

Part of changing the mindset and moving from feeling like we have no control over the substance is in the languaging. If I'm forever doomed to be "in recovery," afraid to go near alcohol, call myself an addict for life, I'm telling my deep unconscious that I'm powerless and a victim.This "thing" is stronger than I am so I have to constantly be vigilant. If the addiction is reframed as a positive Teacher, then a whole different energy is set up in the psyche and a whole different avenue for opening and healing becomes accessible.

Because I've done so many personal growth processes, so much work on the deep psyche, so many New Agey journeys, I've learned to be very careful with them. I notice they're very subtle in the messages they sometimes give. To constantly be telling myself I have to "work on" something...some flaw....makes my inner experience a thing to be judged. I've learned to not only become as conscious as I can of what my blocks are, but to REFRAME them into friends...not enemies. I still slip and call it "work," from time to time, but I prefer to call it "playing."

Playing is fun, it sets us up for discovery and creation. It's light, free, expansive. We play with our friends. We appreciate them, give them voice. We're more likely to listen to a friend than an enemy. And when we come to a person, either outside us in the real world or one of our Inner Voices, with friendship, they are more likely to return the favor and not want to annihilate us in order to be heard.

And what does the play look like? It's so simple, yet it's the hardest thing to do.

Just as with any friend, all we have to do is to sit and breathe and be with it. We have to really allow all the depths of the pain in, all the heights of ecstasy while we sit and breathe it through. We think we already are feeling the fullness of the pain, but we're not. There is a holding back just to the point of dissolving that we go and it's that holding on that keeps the pain with us. To make it to the other side, we have to go fully into it, and still continue to sit and be and breathe. The saying "the only way out is through" truly applies here. I will tell you one thing I've learned: the actual dissolving is nowhere near what we think it will be and hold ourselves off from. The continuing pain is there in the resistence to what is. But when we fully embrace it we are free.

Art
Hands chained with butterfly from here

Bella Rosecard from here
Self Love from here

Image of Blue woman hugging herself from here
Self Love by Anne Karinglass from here

Spiritual Gift from here

My Dance With Addictions*

What, exactly, is an addiction? Is it a biochemical thing, something that enters the body and inevitably causes us to have a set of responses? Are we victims of substances or cravings?

Did you know that there is a recovery center for people addicted to computer games? And that the people there go through a physical detox: sweats, tremors, vomiting...just like any other "chemical dependency." WTF??? If addictions and symptoms of withdrawal are due to the chemical leaving the body, what chemical is getting into the people from playing games?

If an addiction to a substance is only chemical, why didn't I have nicotene withdrawal after smoking three packs of cigarettes a day for a little over ten years?

How could that be? I had never tried to quit. It hadn't crossed my mind because I liked smoking. I had been working on my Inner Self intensely for awhile. I began slowly noticing an increasing desire that came from deep within me to be healthy in all ways. I started to not enjoy smoking as much, but knew I still craved the comfort of cigarettes. So I just started paying close attention to what it felt like to smoke. I knew I wasn't ready yet, didn't know if I would ever be ready to quit, I just decided to feel smoking. I remember that I actually had an increase in smoking for awhile. Again...no intention to quit, per se with all this, just an awareness of what it really felt like to inhale all that stuff in my body, feel it in my lungs. Then one morning, I woke up, and of course, wanted my wake up smoke. I panicked when I discovered I was out of cigarettes. I started to scrounge the ashtrays, looking for a butt. I remember stopping, and just saying to myself..well...shoot.. you could scrounge more, you could go to the store, or you could quit. I chose door number three.

I never got cranky (really...husband even said so, so we know I wasn't delusional). In fact, I was happy. Happy and felt light and free. I've never smoked again, never wanted to. It was never a struggle. I was done.

My drugs? After testing the waters with tons of stuff, I ended up taking lots of amphetamines every day for about a year in high school to overcome a debilitating shyness I had. I literally could not talk to people. I would try to open my mouth, but if the person in front of me wasn't a friend nothing would come out. Speed got me talking again. I ended up taking so much of it (interlaced with all sorts of other drugs) that I started to sell it to support my habit.

I wasn't sleeping, wasn't eating (part of my anorexic/bulemic phase....before they were called this) and wasn't doing too well physically. Then one morning I passed out in the shower. When I woke up, I realized that the vision of my father finding me on the floor of the shower from being so wiped out from drugs was not an appealing scenario. So I quit. I continued with other drugs for awhile, but that one was done.

Eating and alchohol were not initially that easy for me. I craved. I dieted, tried to quit drinking tons of times. It didn't work for years, until I figured out what addictions were. I have this theory that I built upon when I heard something from a wise man. He said that addictions are there because the substance triggers an archetype within us. He supported his idea by pointing to drunks and how when they drink, it's like a different personality takes over. I noticed this in me.

So with my experiences to date and this ringing-true-for-me starting point, I devised this whole idea about what an addiction is for me. It's a part, a Voice in me that needs feeding/filling of some sort. If I am able to do the work it takes to fill/feed it, the addiction is no longer needed for that job. There is no craving so it's easy to stop. If the Voice is not fed/healed/given what it needs, then the craving remains and it's pretty useless to even try stopping, because those denied desires of the Voices will take over in their sneaksy ways.

With the alcohol, I stopped drinking entirely for about twelve years. It was easy. Again...one day, after doing years more inner work, I was just done. The need for the craving was filled and it was no longer needed. Then about three years ago, I got tired of, what I called "Not being an adult" and missing out on all the wonderful potential hedonistic opportunities I had going to outrageous dinners and having the added wine pairings. I had never missed drinking, but wanted "more" in life (as I said, I am a hedonist). I also began to wonder what it would be like to drink but not impulsively. Could I do it?

I began the experiment. It was just at restaurants to enjoy those amazing meals (I am a total food snob and enjoy fine dining). It all went really well until the second year, when life began to get very stressful. The more stressed it got, the more I found myself drinking. Not much, compared to the old days, but more than felt healthy. About a year ago, I even started to scare myself a little because I started to crave it again on a regular basis. I tried to control the cravings, but it drove me nuts: the more I tried to control it, the more I craved it. For the first time in many many years, I also started to unconsciously eat to bury my pain. I became a slug, didn't want to go to the gym, which I used to love. I would notice I went in cycles when I was running from myself, afraid to go deep because of what it might mean. One huge lesson I've learned is that growth never ceases and that mine takes circuitous routes. Even though I get to a place of inner freedom, it doesn't mean that I'm done. It just means I get to do it at a different level.

Part three in this series will be about the Gifts of Addiction Awarenesses

*Even though I don't call them that.

Art

Embrace by Ilse Fourie found here

Le Bonheur by Jean Claude Gaugy- one of my very favorite artists of all time. This image was found here.
The Mask by Kathy Ostman-Magnusen I highly recommend you click on the link and read what the artist has to say about this painting. Lovely. Took my breath away.

Addiction As Teacher 1

I pretty much take myself wherever I go. And just as I see Ego and Anger as being Teachers and allies to conscious discovery of the Self, I see Addiction in the same way. Addictions are merely a window to the inner soul, no more, no less. The only power they have over us is the power we give them.

It pains me, I must say, when I hear the constant litany of addictions these days. Are we addicted to addictions? Needing them to do....something for us???? What is it with our need to label everything, confine it, define it, "make" us something?

It pains me because I hate labels that illicit feelings of self-judgement and shame....or that have a very weird sort of energy I can't explain fully except it feels like a strange, twisted variant of a combination of Victim voice and arrogance. Like we're the victim of this, who's the bigger victim and who's overcome the bigger battle sort of thing. Please hear me when I say that I feel no judgement in that statement. Not one. It's a questioning/observation of the energy, nothing more. I have learned to love all my voices, even my Victim. But I also don't give any one reign. I certainly don't give Victim any slack. I listen to it and it lovingly keep in its place. I do this because I've learned that the Victim voice is the most powerful one inside us and I refuse to let it run my life. But that's for another post....

I suppose if I was to consider myself in the standard lingo/mindset of today, I would be labelled an addict of many things. Once an addict, always an addict, yes? I have an "addictive personality." I was a three pack a day smoker for ten years. I was out of control, craved so took tons of drugs for about three years in my youth (lots of it being "highly addictive" speed). I drank way too much for about sixteen years. I was overweight for much of my life, addicted to food.

What I learned was that, again, the body does not lie. If I am unwilling to look at something, wanting to push it down, my body will tell the story. I did all those things for a reason. I was in pain and I didn't want to face what my inner Self was telling me. I was afraid of all of who I was. I was lost. I comforted myself to feel good. And why would we blame anyone for wanting to find a way to peace, even if temporary, even if done in ignorance as to the possible ramifications of an unconscious activity that is so fun?

Our culture doesn't guide us to listen to our inner beings, gives no support for confusion and finding our way. In fact, when I was growing up, much of what I saw in the world was considered crazy. I was shushed, told to hide it in a myriad of ways: verbally, nonverbally and through the information that filters through in life. When seekers have no guide and find themselves alone, it's scary. We try our best in the moment with the tools, support and understanding we have. Sometimes we get lost. We can't ask the questions if we don't know what questions to ask. We can't find how to fix what's going on inside us if we don't know what it is. Why are we so tough on ourselves? Would we treat a loved one with the same lack of compassion that we constantly give ourselves?

So let me ask you...when you meet an addict...the ones who are still able to show a little of themselves between the haze of their addiction....or you knew someone before they temporarily lost themselves in an addiction....aren't they often the most interesting people? When I've listened to people who've gone the rounds, all the ones who did tons of drugs are fascinating. Look at artists!! Many in the performing and visual arts are addicts of one sort or another.

People, not just artists, are addicts because they have tons of creative energy and don't know what to do with it. Or they've been told early in life that they are not good enough to do something with it, or they're weird, or what they know isn't valid or real. And they believed it because it's darn hard not to.

It takes tremendous amounts of energy to keep creative life force down. Something really huge is required to keep a lost, confused creator's knowing and life force down so they can "fit." It's true that they don't end up fitting as addicts, either. But in the intial stages they don't know or believe this is where it will lead. Then once they get lost, they need the additional numbing and continuing the addictive behavior because they still have all of the reason they started the addiction plus they now have this new label to add to their list of reasons for not letting their life shine.

My addictions and troubles have taught me my own Secret: the things that we have in life that seem like the biggest obstacles and pains are our greatest gifts. That when we figure them out, we now have these learnings and light to gift back to Life and humanity in whatever way seems right for us to give and be.

...to be continued

Love Embrace by Frieda Kahlo found here

Two Embrace found here

Yes, I Get Angry

It doesn't happen too often that I lose it. It takes lots to get me the point where one of my buttons gets pushed that far. But it does happen. It's happened twice now in the last seven months. Once was a personal fight, one was online when I felt protective of someone rights being violated and people being cruel about her.

In both cases, I felt a need to protect. See hair fly, teeth bare, energy of a huge battalion all balled up in my aura.

Anger is considered a "lead" emotion, meaning that we feel anger because we don't want to feel something deeper that is harder and more painful to feel. The reason I don't get angry very often is that I have learned to go to the thing being covered up. But....I don't always make it initially. I can still get buttons pushed.

In the first situation, I was angry and said "fuck you" to hide what was really going on...which was that I felt desolate, alone, abandoned, stressed, unloved, uncared for, at wit's end, unappreciated, unseen. The situation had built over time with me not addressing much of what was going on when it was smaller because I told myself that if I did, it would just add to the other person's stress (even though I know better). So, in this case, something that might not have been big became huge. Once I blew up, and got all that I had held back energetically out, I then went into all the other feelings that the outburst had hidden. I cried a really long time. In some ways, I'm still crying about it. But I'm not angry in the least. I would rather be, and am, raw.

In the second situation, I didn't even know the person who was, in my mind, being "wronged." The commentary on some random blog post about a woman was awful. The cruelty and justifications for it made me cry. And everyone was proceeding and adding to it as if cruelty is OK behavior. For me, it was an ethical consideration along with the wondering what it would do to this person if she discovered all that was being said about and around her. I imagined her alone with it. It drove me so nuts I left a comment on the blog then wrote a whole post on my blog (not this one) about how outraged I was. In the first version, I made mention of the "offending" blog and provided a link. I removed it soon after because the issue wasn't really about this particular blogger being mean, it was about humanity forgetting their hearts. In this case, when I went deeper with it, I realized I felt protective of her, but it was, of course, much more. I felt protective for women, for humans who look outside the norm. I remembered back to childhood when it had happened to me, I thought about the kids from Columbine and how people were cruel to them, made them outcasts and the ramifications of that. I saw this nameless woman as an innocent just living her life and being judged by mindless meanness. I felt a need to protect all of humanity from itself.

The anger diffused after I wrote the post. I still had things to say about it, will still call a spade a spade, but without the emotional hook that I had. I understood that people are just blind and everyone needs compassion, all of them. Even the meanies.

When I look at the times I've been angry, remembering times before I understood and was living a life of simmering anger, I know my anger is always about wanting to protect something in some way somehow. I do it so seldom now that when I do feel it, I really pay attention.

So, just like my ego, Anger is now my friend, too. How can I be upset and want to get rid of an ally who is only trying to communicate with me, and bring me the gift of my deep? Do I seek out anger? No. I just don't push it down or try to pretend I am happy when it wants voice. Do I want to stay angry? No way. It isn't fun, it doesn't feel good. I don't think anger is even comfortable with itself. The reason I think this is because when I access it, when I go there and allow its voice, it lovingly moves out of the way so I can become conscious of the underlying reason it showed up in the first place....which leads to greater consciousness....which makes me happier...which leads to creation, and on it goes.

Ideally I will take care of things in the moment more so they don't build. Ideally I will be less stressed so not be in a place of needing to protect as much. That would all be very nice.

And...I don't hold myself to that level of expectation, don't beat myself up when I am angry. Anger informs me, like the heat from a stove tells me that something is going on that isn't good for me. I am just a human woman, going through life, making my ways to the best of my abilities. I may fall off the track, but I get back on the trail pretty quickly. Anger, my ego, my dark all contribute. I want to embrace and be at peace with them all.

Anger by Santiago Mapache

Observations Of Spiritual Blogland

As I've noted a few times on here, this arena in Blogland is new to me. I've been enjoying reading about people's interpretations on spirituality. I notice:

...that very very few people mention sex, alluding it no more than once on their blogs, if that. Is this because spiritual people aren't sexual? Is it because the topic is verboten? Is it that sex is not considered a part of a spiritual quest? Where is this vital, core piece of our humanity, this place of connection with the divine? Are spiritual people uncomfortable talking about sex? Is sex still relegated to the sinful, the untouchable, even in our enlightened times?

....that when I shared this observation with someone I know who has both a spiritual and sex blog, she pointed out that not only is sex not discussed, but anger isn't either. I hadn't noticed, but am now looking for it, too.

**********************
After writing the above, the computer did a jiggle, needed time to regroup so I went to read a book for my coaching called "The New Male Sexuality." I opend the book and the first line I read was:

"Physiologically anger and sexual arousal are very similar. They both excite the nervous system."

Interesting. Are spiritual people unwilling to speak to things that have to do with the old brain, the Limbic system, the place of chaos and primal urges? The study of Neurotheology has discovered that the initial brain patternings in Ecstatic Spiritual Experience and Orgasm are the same pathways, both having origins in the Limbic system...also where anger begins. Why the taboo? Is there a taboo?

Time to ponder.

Tantra Exercise: Desire

This exercise can be done with anything in any circumstance where you have a desire for something.

Say you want a cup of tea. Pay attention to every detail in its preparation, the enjoyment of it.

Putting all awareness in your hands/body, see/feel your hand as it touches the cup. Appreciate its design and colors as you remove it from your cupboard. Feel the texture of the tea strainer. Watch each leaf of the tea fall into the tea pot. As you pour the water into the pot, watch and become one with the steam. Hear the tea pour out of the pot into your cup, notice the color. Smell the plant smells. Feel the heat of the tea.

Now sit with the cup of tea. As you hold the cup, imagine that the cup of tea desires you...your lips...wants to feel your tongue. With each sip, feel the tea's desire for you. Sit and enjoy every sip slowly, feeling the longing from the tea to dance with you, become one with you. Remember and imagine throughout your day that everything you desire also desires you.

Image from here

Kundalini Rising?

In 1993, I had lost 75 pounds, had been doing all sorts of bodywork to become more fully alive, get my energy (life) back. I was in another transition.

When I work on my emotional well being I generally do body stuff rather than traditional talk therapy. Through working with the body, I release emotional trauma and the accompanying deep gunky psychological protective stuff that keeps it there. I like doing it this way because I get to release all sorts of deep unconscious stuff without years of therapy. Very powerful work; not for the light of heart.

I was ready to live and in my Italian Leo sort of fashion, I was intense in this endeavor to have my body be a clear vessel of light. One of the bodyworkers I was seeing lived an hour and a half away. He was supposedly psychic and combined his knowledge about releasing old body stuff with his intuitive abilities. His name was Cory.

At about the middle of the fourth or fifth session, he was doing deep abdominal work on me. Now...I've had some pretty intense bodywork done. Cory did not do any one system of bodywork but had some training, I think, as a Rolfer. That Rolfing stuff hurts like hell, it does. Only thing that comes close is childbirth.


Anyway...there we were in the middle of that session, when he started in on my lower abdomen. I started to moan, and not in a good way. So, of course, he went deeper. Which, of course made it more painful, especially when he dug his elbow into the area above my pelvic bone and started to rotate it. And dug deeper (hate those Rolfers, I do, but keep going back, I do).
Breathing, moaning, screaming, releasing, more blood curdling screaming, swearing (I'm sure a blue streak as I do during those types of sessions), I finally quieted down and just went into the pain. I dove in, invited what was, surrendered to the sensation.

All of a sudden there is a fire in the deep belly. And it burns. And it builds. It starts to turn into orgasmic fire. Then it shoots, just like a Volcano Orgasm of a life time. And it just keeps going. And going. Then stops for awhile, then goes again. And keeps going and going. His elbow is now out of my pelvis, but the orgasm keeps going. It wanes a bit, then starts again. It stops for ten minutes, then starts up again. By the time I am in my car driving my one and a half hours home, this is stop-driving-the-car intense as the orgasm is so strong and is shooting out my head, feet and hands that it takes over. Waves and waves keep coming all the way home. They keep up once I get home, stopping for no more than an hour, then they start up again. I dream them in my sleep. They are there in the morning again when I wake up. And I am walking around having these volcano orgasms throughout the next day and the next and the next.

Now, I know this may sound fun. And today it might be. But at the time, I had three young kids and was running a business with 23 employees. I remember one day I was on a business call to my New York rep...had to stop the call to moan and feel the orgasms.

I kept calling Cory, begging him to help me make them STOP. He had no clue what to do. Thanks. My (then) husband knew what to do with them. Our sex life got better than it had been in years. I was voracious.

But it really wasn't fun. It kept up for weeks, slowly fading a bit, but distracting enough for me to need to try to find a way to stop them. Finally I found that if I held my pelvis in a certain way they slowed down and eventually stopped. Phew. Really, really bad timing.

The next year when I started my Tantra training, I asked all my teachers about this, wanting to understand what had happened to me. The only one that had much to say was Charles Muir who said that it sounded like my Kundalini had risen. It helped to have an affirmation that it was something others had felt, nice to have a reference point.

Interestingly enough, I had mini versions of this repeat when I had two periods of celibacy after my divorce. In both those cases, I had the spontaneous Volcanoes. They didn't occur anywhere near as often as in the original episode, but did happen at the most inopportune times. Like they happened in class...and once at the library when it was so strong I could not stop a moan...and then made the mistake of looking up to see all eyes on me. In both cases, they started after a month of celibacy, then continued until I had penetration. These episodes weren't traumatic like that first time (thankfully....sheesh....), probably because I didn't have the outer world responsibilities going on.

What I learned and relearned:

-Doing deep inner work needs time and space. It's way too difficult to integrate things when having to deal with the outer world. It's important to be gentle with the self.

-If you're going to have weeks long orgasms: plan a vacation and enjoy them, at least.

-It would have been nice to have someone there that understood what was going on to at least hold my hand.

-I'm not sure if it was a kundalini thing, but I thought it was...and, I'm still not sure. I do know that many people experience psychic disturbances with the rising. I didn't. But that could be because I was already "disturbed/out there/crazy" so I didn't have to, as that work was already done, hehehehehe. And in that vein: I also cannot read "The Course In Miracles" because I get vertigo every time. A channeler once told me that I have that experience because the Course is designed to break the ego and mine was already broken. Not sure what to make of that, either, but that would be one person's/entity's opinion, anyway.

-Bodies can do trippy stuff.

-I keep wondering what would happen if I was celibate now. Maybe I should give it a try.....nah!!!

Art:

Kundalini Energy from here

Lightening from here

Holy Fire Kundalini from here

My Truth

After traveling high and low, far and wide, both inside and out, the only Truth that remains for me is that I create my world. For me....from this, all things flow; other than this, all things are relative.

When the Visionaries, the Mystics of each tradition connect directly with Godsource, who do they see? Does a Sadhu see White Buffalo Woman? Does a Pentecostal see Hecate? Does Oshun appear to a Roman Catholic?

No. We create our worlds and The All supports us so completely that even at this level, It manifests itself to us in the ways in which we will most easily receive It.

Why? Why do it this way? Why not one religion, one answer that lets us know our true nature, the One path back to God and how to "be" here on this planet? Why no user's manual for Earth?
Differences exist to further creation and expansion of Life. If everyone's brain worked the same way, if we all had the same experience and came to the same conclusions, there would be very little questioning, therefore very little new thought would emerge.

Our job isn't to arrive at One Final Truth because there isn't one. Finding it would mean the end of creation. Our job is to constantly be open to questions, to finding the next step. To recognize that new questions immediately arise from answers and that we hold all the answers and all the questions inside us. Truth is not static...it expands, it becomes more because the minute we create one thing, Life calls us forth to create more from that. This is what creative Life is about- the expansion, the more. It isn't about staying only with yesterday's thoughts, but rather taking what we have learned from yesterday and moving it forward in new ways.

These days of abundance of ideas and communication, we each have tremendous opportunity to discover and create new truths. A scientist knows the properties of different compounds. He knows how they interact with each other and in nature. But it's the creative scientist who makes new connections from yesterday's knowledge, applies things differently, who makes a new discovery. All knowledge builds upon itself and continues to be "more." Same thing with spirituality and truth.

When I go deep inside and ask what it is that finding Truth does for me, immediately the answer is "safety." Truth gives me a framework, a place to "belong" in the universe. If I can find the Truth, I have something to hold onto, something that I can say is concrete, real....even if it's in the ethers. Answers help my ego to cope, even if those answers involve the message that ego itself is the culprit for causing all my pain. My ego is more than willing to accept the blame if it can feel safer that it now has something to hold onto, to work toward, to explain the discomfort it feels. Ego thinks that when an answer is found, it can now go fix things or at least figure out an avenue to come to terms with itself.

A Teacher of mine once said that Truth is that which cannot be argued. Philosophy 101 said that if something cannot be argued it isn't Truth. So where are we to go with this?

Back to the self, as it's all I have. I am new here in what I lovingly call SpeerchulBlogland. I've been playing in SexBlogLand and this is a different world. Most of the blogs I read are by people sharing what they have found to be Truths. I am almost envious of convictions and surety in what they believe. I have a difficult time saying that anything is a Truth because I only see them as truths for me...and truths that are constantly in flux. As I said at the beginning of this post, the only Truth I continue to tenasciously hold onto is the one of creation. I've experienced it too many times, seen it in too many ways and places, sifted and sorted and pondercated on it and this is the only Truth I end up with. And, yet, I am even fluid in this, remain open. Yes, I've found some "lesser" things that ring as true for me and when I share them, others find resonance. I figure that's because we are on the same wave length, see the same things. I've been sharing some of them on this blog and will continue to. But I share them with a hesitancy, because I don't see them as the end, the only way. They're just my way.

In the meantime I continue to find delight and wonder in the manifestations of people's Truths:

-the Buddhist who finds Nirvana by letting go of desire

-the New Thought person who creates their lives through conscious desire
-the Pentecostal who starts speaking in tongues or does that snake thing
-the Tantrika who finds ecstatic union in sexual union
-the Native American who goes on a Vision Quest and meets her Totem
-the Voudoun who accepts her spirit ancestors/gods/goddesses into her body in trance dance
-the Shinto priest who connects with the Kami in an early morning ritual dip in a pond
-the Roman Catholic who sees Mary or is "blessed " with The Stigmata
-the Sufi who spins his way to Allah

-the Atheist and Agnostic

all of 'em.

Why? Because to me, we/they are all an important part of the Dance that we come here to do: the sheer joy of creation for no other reason than itself.

Art:

Eye of God composite Hubble photograph taken from here
Truth by Jon Syverson

Dervish image from the movie Dances of Ecstasy

This article has been included in be Conscious now's Carnival of Truth