Sunday, July 14, 2013

One step beyond

Noticing that in nature flows and structures complement one another, that when one can be sensed, the other is there too even if it is harder to identify ... noticing that nature is marvelously exuberant in profuse exemplars and instances of the interplay of membrane and vibration too, I am encouraged to suggest an invitation to another kind of complementarity.

What could it look like to receive in manners that are new to you, in flows that are guided by structures you do not recognize, and to give in a manner that is likewise unfamiliar? To be in complementarity in receiving in ways that show up in structures unlike those you know to be workable, from someone who is able to try a new way too? To give in a complementarity that has new life to it, because the gift is received by someone in a way that expands their sense of possibility?

I say that because I am hoping you are ready for imagination and intuition, and when a chance arrives to let life flow in your sphere in a structure that isn't old hat to you, you say yes to a bit of adventure.

I'd love to see more flow of life encouraged in this community.

I'd love to see you invite and encourage flows that happen with more verve because giver and recipient both are allowing something beyond the same old ways. That happen because a single step was taken, just not one that had been taken before.

And I am ready for you to encourage me to give and to receive in ways that are exciting to me, and create more possibility.

And I am ready to encourage you, and hope that these words already have, to say yes to flows and structures that expand your repertoire for giving what is good for you to give and receiving what is good for you to receive, creating more possibility for you.

I truly would be pleased to hear that you experience that kind of verve, however it might show up for you.

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Feeling food systems in my body.

I distinguished something today.
The sense of protectiveness I have had of my kitchen time has come from a place of fear of being judged. Beneath the boundaries that have come up around me when it’s kitchen time for me has been an extreme sense of vulnerability around my process with food.
I consider myself to be in a process of re-learning how to eat. What has been “normal” doesn’t work for this body. More and more bodies are speaking up about this.
My body knows the stories of the foods that come into it. Tuning into this knowledge is part of the process of re-learning. It is sitting with the pain and complexity of the systems that produce our food.
When an avocado or banana is the best thing my body could want in this moment, I cannot make the choice free of the impacts it has on the systems.
Perhaps my body will never be able to make complete peace with the foods it eats until the systems en masse are re-invented.
Offering my opening to non-solution-focused understanding.

Sunday, July 7, 2013

Rewilding

An amazing day at the house of trystuff.
The second day in a row it has been primarily Sean and me in the house for most of the day.
Ingrid has gone. James has gone. Fron is out on adventures as usual.
Surfing my coercive patterns by day for the second day now, the depth and mystery of which confuse me, I sail into the afternoon with weight and a determination to shift my perspective.
I sit like a rock on the garden bench for a while. I stand up and walk out into the street.
Then the rain begins.
Blood runs to my legs and lips, turning them to a smile. My walk morphs into an exuberant jog. I begin to run up the trail into the park.
I meander into the thick of underbrush beneath a clump of trees and sing and dart about like a nymph.
Things only get better from here. No one is around. Some dark, shady figure on the park bench with a scraggly ponytail. Perfect. As focused and aimless as me. A few dogs pass me and people with smiles or cigarettes. I continue on my private song and engrossment.
Drops continue from the sky. I walk down to the edge of the river and stand by the rocks squeezing out rushes of hasty water. Heron comes flying low along the bank and lands before the rocks, where it always likes to. I nodded. "I saw you coming," I say to the Heron. I thought I had seen it this morning, but it was just a piece of wood then. Now it's here.
I sing to the rushing river. The rain begins to pelt. Shady ponytail is still there. No one can here me because the raindrops are catching my song and throwing it out to the river.
I turn and run out from the tree. I run for cover under another tree.  I sing more. I wait for the rain to let up.  It doesn't. It keeps going strong.
I have an urge to run back out to the river's edge. I do. I stand and watch the water rush and watch the drops land and they soak into my clothes.When I am done standing, I begin to run home. I run under the rain and it soaks through my clothes. I surrender to the wet. My smile grows bigger. I laugh. I laugh harder. I sing louder, and my chest bounces and my song gets cut with each landing. I feel the re-wilding happening. The re-wilding others have been talking about.
I run home and take off my clothes. I run to the pond. I put my legs in, then I slip right in and shriek and yelp while I wonder what lives in the bottom. All I feel is rubber and leaf guts. I shake a little and pull my legs back out.
Then I lie with my legs in the pond for a while, and try different positions of lying over the pond and try out different rocks to sit on. I get up and lie on the rocks in the garden. I feel the tomato plants' relish and promise of growth.
Finally I am cold and my soul, very reluctant, follows me and my clothes in and we ring ourselves out and take a shower.
I go upstairs and turn up Simon and Garfunkel really loud. I've got paints out and a brush in hand but I can hardly focus for all the dancing and singing I'm doing. I run downstairs and Sean takes a break from his sauce and dances with me for a bit.
The sauce wafts into the rooms of the house. I pour my tea and sit impatiently on the stairs, watching the rain get in a frenzy again.
I go into the kitchen and impose my impatience on the process. So the sauce is declared ready. Sean and I dish steaming heaps of simmered tomato and vegetables into our plates with rice and sit in the dining room. Mouths and bellies suddenly grow hot. We talk about cottage memories of rainy days foods.
Soon I am in the living room again, dancing and singing. Who knows where anyone is. I swirl and dance and sing with the freedom I used to know when I was alone. Magic runs through shakers and my hands and the piccolo I try to play with my lips and my feet and fingers and I feel magic rise from my throat and I belt like there are no prosecutors anymore. I am free. I dance into the rainy night.
This makes me want to live this life! This makes me know I live with people who want me to be myself freely. By day, miscommunications get in the way and seem to impinge on our freedom. But that's not all. I sense the possibility of creative collaboration and I sense the many avenues through which we can connect. We can nurture this mystery. We can re-wild ourselves, and meet that way.