Day 2: #215800 Extension - Grateful and Relaxing into Sangha

I wrote this post in the midst of a very hectic day - the words below are straight from 750words.com. In other words, unedited - and before I had the chance to give the proper nods to Bindu Wiles and her 21*5*800 experience and Marianne Elliot for her guest post about Sangha on Bindu's page, which I used for inspiration.

Experiencing Sangha

Today is the last day of June. I am about to complete several challenges at once and I don't hesitate for today, of all days, time is of the essence. I type like a sorta-wild-woman and I think: Sangha. Julie. Sangha.

I am electing to write of Sangha as both a part of my 750words.com and as a part of my 21*5*800 post of the day. As the bonus 10 days of this challenge unfold, I am posting my 800 words here, directly, without editing or worry about content. I am simply writing.

What I create, more than anything else, is Sangha. People tell me all the time that I create Sangha in different ways.

"Julie made us fall in love with each other" Althea told me.

She was talking about when I directed a play, the way I managed the process included, especially, a love experience amongst the cast and crew. An abundant, engaging, relationship building time where what was translated onstage was magical.

Creating Sangha in theatre usually gives shows an intangible yet also tangible experience of "something-ness" that is without language but has a definite feeling to it.

Some of my friends use the word "tribe" which is decent, I have just never felt like it was particularly resonant. I have used the word community, as in "Julie creates such a vibe of community in her programs and classes." Yes, both are true, but the field I love to play in is that field of openness, acceptance, mutual admiration, sacred, soulful and dare I get into some of those openly "out there yet in the heart" spiritual sort of words?

Those words lend themselves so well to Sangha, but what I feel the most, what I know I create the most, is connection between people that wasn't there before we all gathered. If I had to put a five step how to plan to creating Sangha, I would say:

1. Create a circle that is open to new people yet is strong enough with whomever is there in the present time. There is never a sense of a "missing" link to the circle or a "weakest" link, because the circle itself understands and recognizes the contributions of each individual within that circle.

2. Mutual admiration and respect is paramount. Praise flows easily and is received gracefully. People don't speak ill of the others nor do they speak ill of themselves. Everyone gives at least 100% though usually they give more.

3. Communication is clear and easily followed. Questions are appreciated and there is plenty of space to ask questions in the normal flow of life for the Sangha. Voices are valued, individual voices and the voice of the collective within the Sangha.

4. Members share a purpose, an aim, a hope, a dream. I see this in online adventures and also in my creative adventures. I saw it last night with Kama as she was leading our Yoga class. This might be odd to wrap your intellect around and I invite you to try. There is discipline, there is correction, but there are no definitive "wrongs." Discipline isn't harsh, it induces growth. The community respects each members devotion to discipline. This is so a part of the community that discipline shifts to be seen as a positive experienced rather than weighty or heavy.

5. There is a sense of shared ownership: collaboration rather competition is vital to the health of the Sangha. There may be leadership, but those "in charge" relish the ideas of sharing the leadership to both train and shine the light on the strengths of community members. Growth in the individuals within the Sangha is good for everyone's growth.

My sacred community is my Sangha.

The people I enjoy working with the most are members of my Sangha.

My Sangha is frequently the place where my prayers are answered.
People who "get" the concept of Sangha get me.

It doesn't matter what "other" rules my Sangha brothers and sisters follow, as long as they follow the rules of love, I know our Sangha will thrive.

I show my authentic face and speak with my authentic voice and show up the most 1,000% version of me without worry of backlash when I am with my Sangha.

I would love to be able to create a workplace which is essentially a Sangha.

Sangha is prayer personified.

Sangha makes work into prayer.

In Sangha, creativity - all forms, is sacred.

Although Sangha is a Buddhist context, I feel Sangha across belief structures and systems. Sangha is love. Sangha is breath. Sangha brings strength and context and form and is fluid and graceful and yes, Sangha giggles.

Sangha stretches and grows and sometimes provides stretching and discomfort. I call out to my Sangha and they respond in ways that surprise me. I reach my empty hands into the Sangha and they are filled without me saying a word.

Sangha is one of the best places to practice becoming more intimate with soul friendships. It is safe and warm yet inspiring and can feel scary at first. We are not used to Sangha in our culture. We forget that this is the way life is supposed to be, that this is the way of love, that friends are sacred, soulful, and can be trusted.

We learn trust and openness in the Sangha.

I love Sangha.

I finish my writing and realize the time I devoted is just perfect as the rest of the day has floated into place today, time and time again. It is as if I am being rewarded for writing my 800 words of 21*5*800 on Sangha by nestling it right in this particular cradle of love.

I smile for Sangha.

I smile at you, grateful you are reading of Sangha.

Love. Sangha. Love. Julie. Love.

Sangha.

Julie Jordan Scott delivers conscious inspiration in the Daily Passion Activator, - insights delivered directly into your email box. Why not Subscribe today? It's free.

June 30, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Reflections on the River: #WordlessWednesday

June 29, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (1)

#WishcastingWednesday: Today - What do you wish for your well-being?

Today at Jamie Ridler Studios, Jamie wants to know:

What do you wish for your well-being?

I have been participating in Bindu Wiles 21*5*800 program for the past three weeks. It follows a fairly simple concept: Write 800 words for 21 consecutive days and do yoga 5 out of 7 days for those three weeks. It was suggested we do the Savasana pose, which I started with and then moved on to Sun Salutations and lately, I have been doing yoga classes for the first time in years.

Tonight Katherine and I went again and when we were done I felt taller, more open and just connected. I am not the “best” student in the class, but I am focusing on progress and presence, progress and presence. It is an additional bonus that my friend, Kama, teaches the classes at our gym.

For my well being, I wish to continue with yoga and add more movement, exercise, and just having fun with it. I haven’t paid much attention to my body these past few years. I was in a great walking regime until my brother got sick and then died, my walking was stumbling along and then Sam got the spectrum diagnosis and I was home schooling him until his educational plan got worked out and bam, my walking never got back to what it had been.

And you know, it’s just fine.

Simply doing the Yoga thing has made me more conscious with my eating and I seem to have lost some weight without even trying, which is awesome.

I feel better and stronger and more content.

My wish is to continue – even if a crisis comes up, to continue. One stretch and pose and another, even when the going vacillates from going great to getting tough to falling smack dab on my face or picking up my loved ones who are splattered about me. My well-being feels so good when I am conscious and moving and stretching and growing.

I wish to keep it up.

Julie Jordan Scott delivers conscious inspiration in the Daily Passion Activator, - insights delivered directly into your email box. Why not Subscribe today? It's free.

June 29, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (18)

Bliss - Bliss - Bliss as June comes to an End....

Today during my time of Savasana I breathed into the word "Vision". I don't know if this is cheating or not for Savasana because from what I have read it is supposed to be an emptying. I find myself with a better experience when I simply breathe a word into the moment, so today - I combined the Self Evidence and Authenticity challenge of the day with VISION
and what came up for me was a re-experiencing of the Writing by the River Writing Camp which was held last Saturday.

It was a different sort of coming out because I was leading a writing workshop in person in Bakersfield, showing to many friends, local friends, my life work. My anchor art. In some ways it feels so intimate I hesitate to show it "in person" yet I know it is what I am supposed to be doing.

I had written it on my goal list at the beginning of the year and people wanted them from me, so I took all the energy from my friends in #215800 and the June Blog Challenge and all my Writing Students since 2003 and whipped these few hours of bliss up... and yes, it was bliss: a mini-vacation in the middle of the weekend.

Saturday, late morning - I found myself standing on a rock with a long stick in my hands, moving wind chimes to make a "come back to me" sound for the writers who were attending my "Write along the River" writing camp to know there writing time was over. I wasn't prepared for what came next.

The base camp for Writing Camp is on the top of a slope, so from where I stood, I looked down and saw people popping up and walking, ambling, cavorting toward me. All it took was mixing up the chime with a stick and all these people came toward me, notebooks in their hands and wide open expressions in their eyes.

I wondered for a moment if this is what it feels like in heaven when people arrive.

"Do you feel the sense of quieting that I am feeling? The sense that when we attend to our writing, here - a hush falls? I wrote while you wrote, 'We are in the home of these trees, these birds, these lizards, this river, these memories, this invitation to write differently and to simply be different when you leave than when you arrived."

I had started the morning feeling slightly embarrassed. The people in my Bakersfield world were beginning to be exposed to this other side of me, this "internet world" side of Julie rather than the "just local Julie" and it made my steps and voice a bit wobbly.

I wrote, "We stay close to the road at first, hearing the beckoning of what is usual and conventional for us, what we know, what we believe to be safe. We allow that to be our siren song at first. Slowly we find spaces here that point the way to delight, where we find ourselves plunging deeper into our pencils, we don't bother to edit instead we swirl or tumble and we write, we write, we write.....

"It is cool here, by the river

The breeze moves the leaves

just slightly, it moves my hair and gently

it strokes my cheek toward my chin,

baked ruddy by my Irishness combined

with the ever present Bakersfield sun

These same cheeks once looked more

like a china doll than a gandy dancer

or a driller or a roustabout -

The timer tells me to stop writing

I ask my writing partners - the trees,

the wind, the stones, last year's leaves

wildflowers, holding onto their last color -

"Is it really time to stop, for now?"

In their silent trust I feel "Sure" so

I agree and sound the chimes...

My writers return and we talk and we share and we pay witness to one another. We listen and are listened to, one-by-one. I offer guidance and ask questions and answer questions and wait for more guidance and direction.

We move, we together make our way to the river beach. We take our time. We appreciate the presence of each other. We begin to write or contemplate or reflect or listen or give or wade or sit or breathe or receive...

I wrote,

"See the smiles,

see the 'I was supposed to be here's'

see the "we are connected"

Listen to the river

the river tells me

The river is like a

hushing mama

Rhe river opens her arm

cradling yet crushable

arms which can muder in

swirling tasks of terror

"Don't grab me so tightly!"

I shout. I squirm and revolt.

I open my heart anyway and

She brings me a gift

Silence brought me a gift

placed on the demin, close

to the bend in my knee

Thank you I prayed

whispered in return

taking a moment to note

the interloper me

the shell stolen from

its home

snatched from its mama cradle

I know you I felt more

I know you know me

I feel you know me

silence brought me a gift

which I returned to her

and she returned to me

with a smile

silence brought me

I moved more and was bewildered and surprised and grateful thirty minutes managed to hold so much space.

I wrote:

The river tells me stay

The river tells me laugh

The river tells me there is safety in danger

There is danger in safety

The river tells me

find shade in that tree

it snows in June

beside Bakersfield

The river tells me

whenever doubt falls

listen for me

The river tells me love lessons

without language or form,

trust the ways to say it are near

wait for it

listen

like the hair clip you asked for

and was left behind exactly where

you needed it

what you need from me

you will find

what I've left for you

in the most unexpected places

The river tells me your tears are true

The ants crawling in your shoe welcome you

as I do, too

And the timer says STOP and even though

I don't want to stop, I do.

My vision, my personal vision – is to expand my teaching into camps – creativity and writing camps of a mobile, virtual and around Kern County form.

I see what happens when people write with me.

That’s what I call it, “Write with me.” I don’t claim to teach, I facilitate. I push open (sometimes shove open) doors. I love people into writing. I hold up the candle, plump the campfire cushions.

I listen to my heart.

Seeing those people walk toward me, watching people silently write and reflect and allow themselves to be 100% present to the creative force within them? This is the birthplace of my renewed Vision.

Julie Jordan Scott delivers conscious inspiration in the Daily Passion Activator, - insights delivered directly into your email box. Why not Subscribe today? It's free.

June 29, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (2)

#SelfEv opens me to Compassion in a whole new way...

In June I have been working with Dian Reid's Authentic Realities Coaching Self-Evidence + Authenticity Blog challenge . It has been an opportunity to explore Self Evidence in 13 different categories as outlined by an art installation from Burning Man several years ago.

These different themes, Love, Fairness, Laughter, Optimism, Truth, Vision, Wilderness, Wisdom, Authenticity, Compassion, Intention, Self-Awareness and Courage have been ever-present through out the month.

I even worked with the theme of Democracy and being American, as the mission statement of the art installation which inspired the challenge (Robert Bengston's ) included this: "To re-contextualize and re-present democracy as an evolving means of social transformation."

The moments I walk through in this essay surround the theme of "Compassion" - which I experienced in an expansive, entirely new way, which is what happens when we take on challenges... when we invite them to change our lives.

She came silently, behind me, and left her gift on my black denim covered thigh.

She turned and left without a word as I said a prayer-thank you. She didn’t look at me. She didn’t acknowledge my acknowledgment.

I held my notebook still and picked up one of her gifts: a shell, coated in river-sludge.

I knew these shells were not indigenous to my river. They are interlopers, but not interlopers by choice. Some boat had floated into their ocean water and inadvertently brought these shells into the Lake, north of this river. The shells simply moved in as best they could to this river and here, this one, found its way, via my friend, to my thigh.

I took my fingernail and scraped off a bit of the sludge to expose the whiteness underneath.

When I saw its raw purity, I cried.

I sat on my rock-chair next to the river and silently cried, feeling immense connection and compassion for the most unusual, apparently non-sentient gift from my friend and nature. It hit me in waves of ache, in waves of recognition.

I had thought until this moment compassion is saved for people, individuals, sometimes animals or complete nations or classifications of people. But a shell? A simple shell?

I held the shell, speaking aloud to it. “You aren’t meant to be here, now, were you? You were torn from your home and brought here and look, look what happened to you – due to no fault of your own, beloved one. Oh, beautiful little one…”

And the tears fell. And fell. And fell.

They fell for this particular shell and for everyone, anyone, who had been torn from love due to circumstance or weird coincidence or being in the wrong place at the wrong time and then the shuffling of life that happens after so many other circumstances shift and then shift again and then shift again until everything has changed and we may find ourselves blessed to be metaphorically placed, all sludgy, on a woman’s denim covered thigh who holds us and feels intense compassion.

Later that day I was reading an old journal and I realized another huge shift my friend and her gift of the shell caused. I had been holding onto anger toward a woman I have been angry with for months, so angry I couldn’t be in the same room with her. I read my words of love about her, from before I got angry, and I found the compassion for the shell had extended to my once-friend/again-friend.

The tears fell, again.

This all took place because I finally took a risk and started living my dream, creating my dream, before any of it looked possible. I have this idea of someday living at a Creativity Camp/Artist Colony/Retreat center… something along those lines… and I want it to be a multi-generational experience so that artists who are parenting and grand parenting may have their children there, too.

Instead of letting this dream hang around in some future but in my heart actually a form of “never ever fantasy land” I decided to allow it to happen now in a workable format that is certainly making a difference for all who are involved.

Bliss found me in silence when my friend brought me the river’s gift.

To find out more about Writing Camp - Either the Virtual Camp experiences or the In-Person Writing Camp experiences, please visit WritingCampwithJJS.com.

Julie Jordan Scott delivers conscious inspiration in the Daily Passion Activator, - insights delivered directly into your email box. Why not Subscribe today? It's free.

June 28, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (2)

The Changing Shape of Body Relationship: A #215800 Bonus

Today my gratitude list included “my increasing physical strength” which I attributed to 21*5*800
but if I was more “on” and aware, if I had thought about it and dwelled in gratitude longer, I would have to add something like this:

I am grateful for the growing intimacy with my body, a mutuality of appreciation between my body and my mind and my heart. Our “relationship” has deepened as a result of almost daily savasana, Sun Salutations or my most recent addition, Yoga classes in the community.

So, what does that mean?

Some quick background: I went for a lot of years like a lot of women I know. I was ashamed of how my body looked, yet I was never able, willing, had the fortitude – whatever the cause, it doesn’t matter at this point – to do anything about it. I just refused to get my photo taken, didn’t like to be touched in certain areas, was embarrassed about my figure and constantly compared my more-than-enough body with nearly every woman I saw because I figured she had a more culturally appreciated body and therefore, was somehow wiser, more deserving or more in tune with life than I. She was obviously more worthy of love and praise than I and she certainly had every right to sneer down her nose at me, less attractive one that I was because of my not measuring up in the right way.

On the first day of this new year, I even did an art journal page about body love, body not so love. See? I had been attempting a greater intimacy, but something was missing until now.

A few years ago, my mind started to shift and I got more comfortable with my body. I accepted who I was and stopped worrying about fitting in. We became reserved friends, my body and me. I was in a writing group that explored our body issues, I took a years worth of self portraits so I could see myself in a transformed way, I even got more comfortable with nudity and stopped refusing touch and clenching up, say if I was getting a massage and the therapist’s hands moved toward what I always felt was a “dangerous – ugly zone!”.

It has only been 18 days, or something like that, since I agreed to do Savasana or some form of Yoga five times a week with the several hundred other people involved in Bindu Wiles #215800 - I wouldn’t have expected the change to be so rapid or so deep but it has been, oh yes, it has been.

My knees have stopped hurting so much. My range of motion is wider. My balance is improving – and I know where my physical weaknesses are so I may address them where before, I just quickly leaped in with "body = non strength = ignore it and maybe it will magically improve"....

My posture and my carriage were the first changes I noticed. I sit up now, my shoulders aren’t constantly rolled forward or up around my ears. When it is time to sleep, I sleep. When I feel the need to rest, I give myself permission to rest.

Last night my daughter, Katherine, and I attempted to go to a Zumba class. We discovered the class wasn’t being held when we thought it was to be held, so instead she showed me a circuit of machines she uses when she visits the gym in the early mornings three times a week.

(I am shy to try new machines at crowded gyms where bodies are at the forefront of everyone’s minds.)

We did the circuit twice and at each machine it felt as if my body was thanking me for making the choices I was making. Katherine had suggested when we saw Zumba wasn’t Zumba that we go home. I had opted, instead, for her to teach me a different way to care for my body.

It felt so good to make that choice.

It felt so good to feel my body’s friendly energetic hug in response. I have never been able to feel that before, so it is a bit challenging to wrap words around it.

I searched for some quotes from women about bodies and as usual, quote sources have about seven or eight men’s quotes for every women’s quote. We women of the #215800 need to get our writing into quotable places for women in the future who search for the “just right quote.”

These words are going to keep me company as we stretch into 10 more days of #215800. I know the yoga aspect of the program is going to stay with me and be a lasting change.

“How idiotic civilization is! Why be given a body if you have to keep it shut up in a case like a rare, rare fiddle?” Katherine Mansfield

“Coming to terms with the rhythms of women's lives means coming to terms with life itself, accepting the imperatives of the body rather than the imperatives of an artificial, man-made, perhaps transcendentally beautiful civilization.” Margaret Mead

“Curve: The loveliest distance between two points.” Mae West

I’m looking so forward to deepening this love my body and I are now sharing.

Tell me about your changing relationship with your body… I would so enjoy hearing about it.

June 25, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (4)

A Riff on Change: #215800 and Writer's Island and Theater Friends, THANK YOU!

(Straight from the page at 750words.com, no editing...I trust I have your forgiveness.)

It was a couple days ago when I heard the fateful words from Emma after I replayed a certain video about seventeen times in a row. "It's fine with me, Mom, I don't mind listening to a little JT."

Her sentence silenced everything. It was like a shattering glass in the middle of a church service.

"What do you mean, JT? There is only ONE JT and no, it isn't, it most certainly isn't, I will not accept, no never you can't be referring to Justin Timberlake as JT." I was rambling, words tumbling out of my mouth in rapid fire succession. Pools of sweat formed at the base of my neck from all the crazy attempts at dancing to the music of Justin Timberlake, not JT and the smile on Emma's face told me I looked as insane as I sounded.

"The only JT in my life is the one who was married to Carly, who has two children, Sarah and Ben, who has played with the likes of Leland Sklar and Danny Kortchmar and, by the way, whose music was playing as your little brother, Samuel was born! THAT is the one-and-only JT, thank you VERY much for remembering this!"

That, my loves, is the sound of the Head Priestess in the "Land of 'Shower the People', 'Up on the Roof' and 'Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight'" shattering goblets and vases and a cistern or two in disdainful horror at the changing face of who in Pop Culture may claim the moniker JT.

Change is one of those guarantees in life.

I have changed drastically since I was still a teen sitting on a picnic blanket in Central Park's Sheep Meadow, calling out to Leland and giggling like crazy when he waved back. I would never attempt to flirt with James, he was married to Carly who I idolized even more than her sweet sounding husband. I remembered the day Sarah was born and they announced it on WNEW as I got ready for school. I wasn't going to mess with that but I could attempt to flirt with a quirky bass player or that hunky Danny Kortchmar whose solo album I bought and listened to voraciously in the days to come. I didn't know how my life would change then, when I sat waiting, for hours, for James and his band to play alongside record numbers of JT fans who watch his concerts still, year after year.

I sometimes wonder if I had known then what I would go through up until now, would I believe it? Would I, looking forward into this timeline of my life, been willing to live this life I have lived?

No one signs up for many of the things I have lived.

Stillbirth; lost dreams; horrible, ill-fitting jobs; failed marriage; absence of family and friends, struggles with depression and PTSD; birth to a "wooops baby" who also, it turns out, lives on the spectrum and so many other apparent 'mishaps' what teen aged girl would look into her future and say, "Wow, I can't wait to arrive at the stillbirth chapter and oh, wow, let's check out failed marriage and worry about the kids and finances and oh, depression - despair and all those fabulous Dickensian themes well into the 21st Century! Oh, please. Bring. That. On! Leland, listen to what I have to look forward to in the future!"

And yet - the change in my perspective is this: all those many seemingly dark situations have been birthed alongside some moments of deep grace, of colors that were not visible when I sat there, back on that blanket in Central Park.

I didn't know that alongside the Stillbirth chapter was soul connection, was service, was creativity and expansion of hope. I didn't know poetry would rise in me again, poetry I had given up once I left college, poetry - a mainstay of my life now - would it have been reborn in me if death hadn't come to my womb?

I have no way of knowing.

I wouldn't have known as a seventeen-year-old girl and the sister of a special needs brother that having a special needs child at an advanced age when I was alone would be among the most transformative times of my life. I didn't have any inkling that I would train myself as an educational advocate, making my voice heard, slugging it out as my mother had slugged it out for my brother. I wouldn't have known that when that brother died I would literally have an out-of-body experience that took me more than a year to stabilize back into my body. Would I have chosen the year of instability, even for that slice of heaven and a more profound understanding of God that came from being told, "Not your time!" and forcefully ordered back into my skin?

There still isn't human language to wrap that experience in, which is perhaps why I don't talk about it much, although I feel the power of the change in me from it daily.

Would I have been courageous enough to choose any of these changes?

It is easier to stay with the safe: to battle it out over the familiar and much loved JT than the flash in the pan JT who at least has been known to appreciate older women. I'll give him that nod.

My thoughts meander into the changes my children will need to live.

I won't pray for them to be as tough as mine have been, but I will pray for my children to open their arms to what appears and receive it, fully, without concern about understanding it but instead, allowing themselves to live it completely and let it live in them completely so someday, they may understand and help the world to understand.

Thank you, Emma and to whomever wrote "Sexyback" and of course, Mike, for bringing this awareness to the forefront of my consciousness.... and Samuel, whose shriek of "STOP THAT! I never want to see you do that AGAIN!" when I was practicing my oh-so-memorable dance moves.

I need to settle back into the memory of the Sheep's Meadow for a moment before I re-enter this here and now, and instead revisit that pleasantly naive here and now.

Julie Jordan Scott delivers conscious inspiration in the Daily Passion Activator, - insights delivered directly into your email box. Why not Subscribe today? It's free.

June 24, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Joy of Taking a Writing and Awareness Bath

Kahlil Gibran reminded me just now in one of my quote collections, “Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge.” Well, if that is the case, I am preparing for an enormous flood of knowledge to rock my world any moment now because I am feeling blissfully perplexed.

I have been experiencing Bindu Wiles 21*5*800 challenge with an excitement I used to reserve for Jackson Browne concerts or later, play dates at the park with new friends. What has happened with the challenge is all my senses have fired up and along with that, my emotions have been cranked up a notch, too.

Everything is more beautiful, it seems. Last night I got out of the car and said to Katherine, “The air smells so sweet tonight!” She put her nose in the air and simply said, “Hmmmm” which is the eighteen-year-old equivalent of “I don’t smell a thing, but Mom seems happy so I’m not going to say a word!”

We had just gone to Yoga class, or what was labeled Yoga class but was actually what my friend Kama, who just happened to be teaching last night, a "Tai-Chi, Pilates, Yoga class mix" so I was leery at first. I trusted I was where I was supposed to be so I just went with it, especially because Kama, who I barely know, was so pleased to see me and did exactly what I had hoped a teacher would do - guided me into the poses I wasn't doing just right and helped me achieve them more accurately and more... balancedly - if that is a word.

Katherine loved the class and it felt so grand to do it with her. We are going to celebrate by doing Zumba tomorrow night and then, I will do a yoga class on my own on Friday morning, perhaps a more Yoga-Y one.

I fell back into the “new found awareness zone” this morning, because I am very tuned into feeing the strength today in my torso. It is as if I am sitting up straighter, feeling more connected in my backbone. I am intrigued.

I could also feel, last night, where my stretch has been worked and where my body is most out of whack. Even that felt good because I felt the sense of awareness wash over me in quite lovely sensations. It was like taking an awareness bath.

Yes, blissful - an awareness bath, even a perplexing awareness bath - is blissful when experienced in a space of increased openness.

In fact, as much as I whine about my body not looking exactly as I would like it to look, when I am honest about it, she and I get along fairly well. We know who we are and after last night, it is as if she is saying to me, "See, you can work me more. I can take it and in fact, I think we would both enjoy it...a lot."

And then, as the 800 word portion of Bindu’s program progressed, from no where in particular, my fingers started following a writing prompt from which no substantive words had been formed… yet.

I started to write a poem with the theme "change" with these words:

I create my life to be

a relentlessly changing

landscape … and then, may the rant begin:

(what a trite

word to use and one I

don't mean except I have

heard, somewhere in my

recollection, somewhere,

changing and landscape

together... what else can

changing be? I’m just going

to play with that here…)

Changing face - aging, wrinkles or sunburn and weathered compared to winter grey no outdoors face. Smiling face, frowning face, puzzled face.

Changing seasons - leaves green and lush or red and orange or missing completely. Buds, bushy, skeletons, perhaps the rape of the trees. Sounds: empty void of sounds, baby birds singing, protective squealing Mama's, pad of cat's feet, children saying their goodbyes to Mama in the morning when school is about to start... September through June sounds... early morning door slams and running feet, late feet.

Changing in the scope of life passing? Sounds of baby strollers wheels or walkers or bouncing basketballs on the way to the park sounds. Sounds of swishing short skirts and cat calls, sounds of polyester pull on pants because fingers can't bother with buttons or snaps anymore.

Changing in romance - in the beginning the hunger for the lips, the skin, the new love making technique racing to show the new idea for the bedroom, the new way of eeking out another moment of pleasure, the not wanting to let go giving way to "just get this over with, please, I am so tired" feeling.

Changing in the community. The quiet of some cars followed by the increase or decrease of cars. The sound of motorcycles. The sounds of lawn mowers being replaced by gasoline lawn mowers and the exchange of rakes for leaf blowers. The change of the neighborhood from newlyweds to newlymoms and dads to elementary kids to empty nest to all of a sudden, everyone is grandma and grandpa.

What evocative, sensory stories can fill in these changing landscapes so much more than "changing landscape"? Trite, overused, humdrum.

Not for you, not for me. Bland, done, ridiculously void of your unique voice.

So here I offer to you a perplexing combination of words and a diverse set of paths I followed. Makes me wonder and then smile and I think I head the tiniest guffaw leave my belly – what cartwheels and stretches and slightly off balance turns does your writing take you?

Often times it is those slightly off balance sessions that net the most alive writing and the most awakened, “awareness bath” experiences.

As for the knowledge rocking my world? I’m on the look out,Khalil, I’m on the look out.

PS: Writers - today we are lighting another writing fire - yours and mine, around a virtual camp space and you are invited! Please join the fun - you can even bring a friend - check it out here!

June 23, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (0)

What fun do you wish to have? Another #WishcastingWednesday!

Jamie’s Wishcast for today….

What fun do you wish to have?

I had just reviewed my highlights of today when I checked out the wishcasting for Wednesday. No questions, today’s highlight was getting my dress, the dress I am wearing as the Narrator for one of the skits in Melon Colony.

I wasn't expecting to be so emotional when my dress came in the mail. It took me completely by surprised. Makes me want to paint a lot of pale pink to get the message, whatever the message is in the swept-away-emotions that I have had from receiving that dress. It seems so simple.

My eyes feel salty from the tears gathering there to celebrate the dress again. When I look at that sweet pink, it bristles up against something about me that doesn't feel like I am feminine, I am not dainty, never have been dainty though I can be light on my feet with practice.

The pink is so dainty, it looks like so much care went into the dress.

I opened the dress and cried. I cried. I looked at it and couldn't believe how pretty it was and then I put it on. And then I looked at it, on me. And it fit so softly and smoothly and it felt so feminine and yet, I don't feel dainty or delicate or anything like that. I am strong and muscular and don't feel easily breakable yet I am easily breakable.

That fabric looks so newborn and I feel so scarred, used up and broken.

It is strange.

I wish to sing wearing my pink dress. I won't get to this time, at least not in the show. but oh, I would love to. I think I can wear it to officiate weddings, pale blush pink. The color says new. The color says "young woman" the color says "youthful" the color says, "I carry magic in my fingers."

I think about being a ridiculous girl, getting emotional over dresses. Wishing I had something else to write about but perhaps, that is why I am still writing about it, palest pink. I wished for a dress like that when I was a little girl. I get embarrassed that it means as much to me as it does. Silly me.

I wish to have girly girl fun. I wish to put on that dress and not think for a second I shouldn't be wearing it because I am not dainty enough or pretty enough or worthy enough. I want to have fun fit for a silly girl, a giggling girl, a blushing way over the top romantic girl because that is who I am.

Hopefully romantic.

Blushingly romantic.

Adorably to some romantic.

I want to have girly fun.

I wish to wear a tiara, which I am wish-praying to buy on Wednesday, and get my hair all curled up and simple, sweet, girly girl make up and have a ridiculously good time in my gorgeous new dress with the bell sleeves and the embroidery and the tie in the back.

I wish to smile and if need be, cry, when I look in the mirror for the first time after I put the dress on.

I wish.