Showing posts with label Gratitude. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gratitude. Show all posts

Monday, January 30, 2012

A Crush(ing) Journey



A Crush(ing) Journey
A crush… you remember the kind – In middle school when you’d moved beyond boys and girls having cooties, or in high school, where you scrawled the name of your obsession countless times in your spiral bound notebook perhaps hyphenating the name of your beloved with your own. By adult standards, sheer silliness. I remember middle school, perhaps it’s because my heart was so open or perhaps I just had an affinity for life, but when my best friend at the time asked me who I had a crush on, my reply was - the entire seventh grade. What was there not to love? Everyone had something beautiful about them, attractive even in the awkward preteen years where hormones were raging. When hormones rage there’s very little discernment. I see it at Tantra pujas, all of a sudden the fat guy across the room who’s balding looks pretty good when you’re eye gazing with him and seeing into the very depths of his soul… heavy set and balding seem to give way to something bigger, deeper, more vast, the universal place that is loveable in all humans, the ecstasy of one-ness, our connection to Source.
Taking people into this state often in session work and facilitating groups has become common place. Yes, I see the divine in you. No I don’t want to be your girlfriend/move-in/leave my husband for you. Well, every once in a while something throws a curve ball and the universe cracks me wide open to a place of love that feels just like those days of having a crush on the entire seventh grade. Dzieci. Dzieci an experimental theatre ensemble, a shamanic tribe of artists, my Beloveds. Dzieci, my crush. Dzieci… I rolled the sound around in my mouth and even now feel the faint flutterings in my belly and I instantly feel like I’m twelve years old again.
While I suppose based on my preteen history, it’s not uncommon for me to have a crush on an entire class of people, it hasn’t happened in a while. I recall the vast memories of awakening that have been this large in my system – beginning my work with Suzanne d’Corsey the Celtic Priestess I apprenticed with for five years, attending my first Daka/Dakini Conference in Sedona and meeting my tribe and awakening to my calling to build a Holy Body temple on the Earth, and the first time I saw Dzieci’s production of Makbet and witnessing a form of what could be when theatre and the sacred are woven together in support of group transformation. Now it’s official. I have a crush, a crush on an entire group of artists who are deeply committed to their own process of transformation and to transforming the world.
Dzieci had been in my dreamscapes for weeks, see the previous blog post below this one. There was an awakening opening up in me once again, just when I was getting all cozy and comfortable in my life and feeling like I knew my shit and where I was going. Just when I was feeling like the fat cat, everything changed. Now I’m making my plans around Dzieci. I ran out before Naked Church this Sunday so I could play with Dzieci for an hour and fifteen minutes before sprinting back in a cab home to greet people for service, and oh trust me I thought of canceling Service all together – thank Source Rev. Goddess holds me accountable every month to be there, as I had already moved Service once already to attend Dzieci’s Maraton.
When you have a crush, things become unreasonable. You become super human. You go places you would never go, your wardrobe changes, you’re dressing up more, paying attention to details, plucking hairs you normally let grow wild. It’s in you, like the universe has a hyper witnessing state of existence where all eyes are on you and you must look your best.
Another thing about a crush, you normally know where they are and structure your plans around being with them. Well, being a shaman and having my psychic perceptions open amplify that ten times more. I know what the group is feeling because they’re so intimately linked. I know each time I am getting an email from them before it arrives because I can feel it being composed. Last night I semi-slept, semi tossed and turned with my stomach doing side stretches and back-flips with nervous crush energy. I’m consumed with a feeling of flying and vomiting at the same time, like being on a rollercoaster and feeling the jump in the stomach as you tip over the fulcrum of the first climb and whoosh down, screaming, arms above your head, stomach in your heart. Yeah – that whoosh-stomach-heart-screaming thing has been happening twenty to thirty times a day for a week and a half right now and quite frankly my body is exhausted from the joy ride.
I remember the Zingo Roller Coaster at Bells Amusement Park in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I was in the third grade and was cleared through height specifications to take my first run on the Zingo. I was feeling queasy towards the end of the ride after all the excitement and just as the coaster pulled in to finish the ride, the operator overshot the stopping point and took us around again. Nearing the end of the second run it happened, I turned my head sideways and vomited over the railing and probably on everyone behind me and below. Even in the third grade this moment was profound - I had waited my entire eight year old life to ride on the Zingo, and then got to go round twice!... and then puked. The agony of ecstasy.
Last night was a bit of a tipping point. I writhed in bed all night with infinite energy. My soul was dying to stay up, write, study, vision fueled by all the energy and awakenings my soul was going through and the agonizing crush energy that kept sputtering through my nervous system, but my body was helplessly beyond exhaustion from being on the Zingo for an entire week and a half going round and round. I’d lost and found myself several times in the deep Shamanic process of the past week and a half, riding off adrenaline, feeling like I would lose my lunch a few times, getting off and climbing back on. Even in the space of deep exhaustion, however, there was a childlike excitement of gratitude. Even in my body’s state of passionate exhaustion, I would rather ride the Zingo and puke than never take the ride at all.
Great paper written on Dzieci http://www.dziecitheatre.org/dzfiles/boss.pdf

Monday, November 30, 2009

A Month of Gratitude

A Month of Gratitude:
On Halloween night, I was walking past a Goddess topped fountain on 5th Ave and 58th St. by Central Park South when I decided to throw a few coins in and make a wish. One of my wishes was that I would always be conscious of and in a state of gratitude for the abundance in my life. This Tuesday, I was in midtown for a lunch and a yoga class before heading to the bank to deposit my 'material abundance' to pay my bills. Finishing my lunch, I left to head to the bank, but something told me to stop in a uesd bookstore right next to where I had lunch. As I walked in, there was a deck of Guardian Angel affirmation cards that for some reason I knew I had to purchase. I picked them up and walked over to the register, reached in my bag to pull out my wallet and realized it was not there. I didn't immediately go into panic as I had another bag to look into where I could have easily put it. Not in there either. My face went flush and hot as I immediatley went into a feeling of vertigo. Disorientation swept over me. How did this happen? What was in there? What credit cards to be cancelled? I excused myself from paying for the angel cards and went back next door to the Cafe. 'My wallet is long gone by now' I thought. All that work. I scanned the crowd at the Asian Bakery where I had just eaten. It was overwhelmingly busy. All was lost. I meekly walked up to one of the eight cahiers running different registers at lunch hour rush. 'Did someone turn in a wallet?' I asked. She looked at me blankely. 'Yeah, right,'I thought, 'in New York City?' 'Oh yes! What color?' she said. In disbelief I stared at her. 'Red, with colored circles,' I said. 'One moment.' She left the counter and went into the back. When she returned, she was holding a wallet. It was mine. I watched her bring it to me. There was no way the huge stack of cash I had was still in there. She placed it in my hands. 'This yours?' she smiled. 'Yes' I said barely audible. My heart beating deep in my chest. I unsnapped the top. Every green bill stacked neaty in its place to pay my November bills was still intact. I sputtered for a moment, tearing. 'Thanks,' I said quietly and walked out. Disoriented I walked next door, bought the angel cards, went to the bank and then came home. A myriad of scenarios raced through my mind that afternoon. When I returned home, I went immediately to meditate and tap into Source Wisdom. When asking about what the universe was trying to teach me about this experience, I heard in reply 'Isis, this is what you asked for. To be conscious of and in a state of gratitude for the abundance in your life.' I jolted out of my meditaiton with a hearty laugh.

Thank you, Thank you for these teachings, this gratitude and this abundance.

Let us celebrate with Gratitude this Month:
What are you grateful for, materially and spiritually? Are you grateful for your body? For all it does for you everyday? How do you express gratitude towards your body? Through self-pleasuring, through yoga, through consicous eating, through education through spiritual nourishment? What reltionships are you grateful for and how are you expressing your gratitude in them? When prayers are answered or intentions manifest, do you openly express thanks? I invite you to take a moment each morning before you begin your day to contemplate gratitude.

In Love and Gratitude for you!
ISIS Phoenix