Gateway

Tonight we walk through the gateway of the East.  A full lunar eclipse graces evening skies with a coppery red moon.  Frosty winter breath blows silence across the land. Many of us lay in snow, swim in rain, allow wind to caress our cheeks; we feel the first impulse of sweet spring sap in the marrow of cold.  Holiday time, family tensions, family clearings, new birth, new structure.  Structure which will support seedlings in rooftop gardens and songbird melodies on the breeze.  The new earth may be but an impulse deep within lava flows, but she is here!  Oh she is here!!!  Welcome. xxxxxxxx

Santiago

Sometime ago I read The Pilgrim by Paulo Cohelo.  In this adventure the protagonist walks a mountain path which is an ancient pilgrimage to the town of Santiago in northern Spain.  During the course of his journey he faces his fears in the form of a vicious dog, he buries himself alive under a tree at night, he learns to accept help from the most unlikely of angels.  A beautiful weaving of an inner journey, it parallels the journey I said YES to when I chose the path of the whirling dervish.  I said yes. And I pass through the fire.

The fire burns all.  It is a consuming love which hurts as much as it portions out ecstasies.  I have come to notice, this past eleven months, that my supreme ecstasies often precede a harsh blow.... we are given these to fortify us for the next high pass.

When I lived in the Sierra Nevada Mountains for a summer, 16 years ago, I hiked 27 miles in one day.  I was several months pregnant, and I took nothing but water with me.  I loved to do this back then!  Foraging berries, resting on rocks in the sun, an occasional swim in the small icy lakes, it was bliss.  And hard work.

This journey I am on, it is testing me.  Living with family is not easy.  Every pattern that wove my childhood coping skills is on display for me to see, and unwind.  And of course, there is much resistance to that.  Everyday, we walk the firewalk.  With patience, strength, and dignity, the blazes atop my mountains will simply grow in munificence.  Warming, generous fires of Love.  Big Love.  Real Love. 


Hu.

Join Us

Come dear ones, to join the feast.  This full moon, this year, this life, I am so lucky, so blessed, to be crumbled like clay.  Forever now, I fiercely celebrate.  Warrior and princess and angel and queen and oh especially mermaid and starlight I sing.  Dance with me then.  ~Tell me your stories.~   I can hardly get enough of life, humanity, blessedness.  Let us sound the world into being once more.  I love you.  

The 
Earth
Lifts its glass to the sun
And light - light
Is poured.

A bird
Comes and sits on a crystal rim
And from my forest cave I
Hear singing,

So I run to the edge of existence
And join my soul in love.

I lift my heart to God
And grace is poured.

An emerald bird rises from inside me
And now sits
Upon the Beloved's
Glass.

I have left that dark cave forever.
My body has blended with His.

I lay my wing
As a bridge to you
So that you can join us
Singing.

 -Hafiz-
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Sunsets

Wow I can get going so fast, so high, so beauteous, and then I land on earth again, open my eyes, stop turning for a moment, and there is patience smiling sweetly at me. 

The grunt work, the waiting, the hours of loneliness, these are nearly intolerable!  Streaming is so much more fun!  

As the old falls away, in the vacuum, where the new is a mass of potentialities waiting to be chosen, to be activated, to dance hot new life, there is grounded love and elbow grease.  

"Out here in the desert, the sky goes on forever." The Orb

The new patterns reveal themselves each day.  Tougher kids, teamwork, savvy mama, fewer movies, it's all good.  I write sooooo much, nearly 2,000 words a day of passion.  One day - books will be prolifically stemming from my fingertips.  Soon, very soon, I will turn and dance without stopping for breath....I will quite possibly miss these hours of stillness and visions.  

As the end of this particular liminality is perceived, the path of dense undergrowth to clear out in getting there is swatting at my face.  I sweat, crawling on the jungle floor, looking for the water of life which is already on fire within me.  I sit, caked in mud.  I hear in the distance - a hot sauna - waiting to embrace us in sumptuous waterfalls.  And shiny new, we step out, the kids and I, into the next world.  Ho.

Re-neg-o-tia-tion

This is so amazing, this new space, the space of growth after birth, tender green shoots in the darkness of the universe.  And to be a star!  Quiet..perfection..the smell of sparks...the sound of light cracking...the sense of expansion...swimming streaming love and gold.  

I have become crazy and ecstatic, and i have no shame!  I spin and turn and moan and feel and love and sway and my eyes are rivers of diamonds.  For as much sorrow as was carved into our bones, that much joy is given.  In-te-gra-tion is my constant companion, a lily pad of flight on the mythical river, or silk road. 


While I was in Cambridge, the flip just embodied itself deep into my cells.  I let go of Kevin, I forgave him, I learned to jump, and to my surprise the wind is lifting my baby wings.  The whole of trauma, from conception to entry into matter, childhood, original wounding, first loves, shattering disbelief and pulverizing of the ego, I left it at the foot of the mountain and wove the red or golden thread of life into my bones, my eternal bones....the ones which spark and spin.


And oh the loves and the friendships and the helpers along this road!  Endless endless gratitude.  It is a joy being human, with you.


huuuuuuuuuuuuu~

Eagles

Today is veterans day.  My father was a proud veteran.  He fought in Vietnam and served in the military throughout my early childhood.  For most of my life he refused to speak of his military service, it was not for my child's ears, or maybe it was just too difficult.  He would talk of the monsoons, of Vietnamese culture, of his friends in service.  He spoke more to my brother about war itself, and a few years ago, when he went into the hospital for liver failure, he dreamt extensively of his time in service.

Today we went to a ceremony for veterans at the cemetery where my father is interred.  There were speeches, songs, and prayers by members of the military both active duty and retired.  God Bless America was sung as flags from each branch of the military waved softly in the breeze.  Applause was conducted for all veterans present and a hot dog lunch was served for everyone.  It was very all American, very small town West Coast, very touching.  Two hawks performed a lovely fly over, as well as several early period planes.  137 flags graced the walkways, each with the name of a local service man embroidered along the spine.  Next year, my fathers will flag will fly as well.

Post hospitalization, my father brought the wall that heals to Paso Robles.  Many veterans turned up to witness it, and many cried as they touched the names engraved there.  Now, my father is interred in the veterans ossuary himself.

War, it is a powerful ritual that many share in...it is a space where survival instincts rule, where raw energy dominates, where intensity of experience reigns.  For many veterans, integrating back into "normal" life, especially in rich America, is nearly impossible.  They are little boys-who go on their own heroes journey-and negotiate life from a specialized lens forever after.  The eagle is their chosen symbol.  Daring, solitary, unrepressable, it stands above my fathers grave. 

 I love you Dad, I miss you today. xxxxxxx

Flip

In the polarity model there comes a moment, when involution is complete, and incarnation into form has fully manifested, that the flip takes place.  The human soul, the soul of the age, the soul of time and of the universe all witness and enact this process.  We transition from coming into being to returning to divine breath.  In polarity is called the dense point at which matter begins to evolve.  In my drawings, it is a still point, the dot which 11 dimensions were found in, the moment that contains it all.

It is to the flipping point that reference is made in the new testament, "When I was a child I looked as a child, I acted like a child, I spoke as a child, but now that I am passed beyond that all childish things have gone away from me." (forgive if my quotation is not perfect, it is from a long ago memory.)  There is a letting go of what no longer serves, what cannot accompany us back, and I finally have the courage to do this.  Mevlana Rumi wrote, "Forget every touch or sound that did not teach you how to dance." 

As I look at the past six months I realize what an immense spiritual journey this has been, what a truly human endeavor.  I am ready to accept my wings, to know my worth as both the involuting and the evoluting Hannah that writes to you today and sends love to you from all of time.  For it is not me who could manage this flip!  It is a force bigger than myself, which I don't really have to understand.  It is the mystery of life.  And what a bizarre happiness to enter this, brimming with pain, swirling in a vortex toward an outward upward spiral.


Much Love.  Bless this next two weeks I will have in Cambridge, that the new will manifest across continents, joys, and petty human divides; that the angelic will stay present with me and my household, never to leave us again. HU.

Chickens

Autumn is here, and with it chickens!  The children are busy naming them, six in all.  So far we have Lily, Angela, Big Red, Dino, and BossPawk.  They will begin to lay in a month or two..

We also got a puppy for the kids, her name is Daisy, and she is well loved.


This is the season of my birth: socks and shoes, a sweater, clouds in the sky, jack o lanterns, and pumpkin pie...beauty and goodness, mild weather, gratitude, and family togetherness...rest from the heat, out among the haybales, and fellowship with old friends: these things bring back to the visceral what Johnny Cash and And Difranco and Utah Philips sang about, that pioneer spirit with dust in the wind.  Gold dust and manna as we navigate the underworld and come forth among the endless plains.  Boo!

Birthday

Waouh!  34 was a whopper, bringing in 35 with the still point, hardly unchaotic really :)

Home

I have written about home several times over the course of this blog, and now the essence of it comes up yet again.  When we look at death, there is a sense of going home, home to the beginning point from which we came into being as human form.  When we surrender into the divine comedy, as I have had to do this past 6 months, there is too a sense of going home, home to the beginning point from which we came into being as form at all.  And now, I am living in my childhood home.

There is a picture hanging on the wall of my family, post separation and reunion.  Skating back, I see that my father separated from our family for almost a year when he too was 34 years old (the same age as Kevin is now).  Some major relationship issues were worked through during that time, and then we had the joy of coming back together!  My littlest sister was born, life got much better for all of us.

Symbolic for The McClures, the frame has these words around it.
Family: 1. people who know our past, present, and future 2. those who accept us the way we are 3. a source of love, comfort, and happiness 4. those with whom we share a lifetime of memories and traditions 5. what we call home

As I negotiate, wait, work, pray, rest, and heal I am very aware of my relationship to Home. Inside outside upside down and very very present. This moment now contains it all.


"God lives in the moment, and if you get in it, you will be with God in the house of God, and he will give you cosmic candy unknown to human beings." Adnan Sarhan, Sufi teacher in America


The Masai people of Africa, as well as many other indigenous peoples, live in one room yurts, or huts.  They sleep here, make love here, and rest.  At any other moment, they are outside.  There is a sense of home, a place where one returns to for the oldest deepest needs.  Home balanced by adventure, home encompassing the still point of each journey.  Home is the still point during the chaos of surrender for me and my little family.

Much much Love~

The Gift

What a strange liminal time for us right now.  This Friday my father in law passed away.  He was a vibrant healthy man, full of zest for life.  He was a strong man who lived according to principle, who managed all his comings and goings with ethics and care.  He was a spiritual pillar for his family, praying unceasingly that his children and grandchildren would know The Lord.  His death was sudden, unexpected.  

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/r/25259828/detail.html 

Most of all, he loved my children and I  completely.  Through all of the ups and downs Kevin and I ever had, Will listened to me always, whether I was laughing or crying or angry or quiet, and he never missed a Sunday without calling to check in on us.  
At the hour of his death I was sitting in my backyard, warmed by the sun, in silent reverie.  I committed that I would praise the name of the Lord everyday for the rest of my life, in both sorrow and in joy, for myself and my children.  What a gift at that hour, from Will to me, and me to Will.  May it last for many generations.

 

Today we received a postcard that he sent the morning of his death.  It has a picture of some cows and a moose on the front, and he says, "I moose you.  Hope all is going well and that you have found some new friends.  Grandma and I are on holiday in the White Mountains.  Yes there are moose and bear here.  Hope to see you soon.  We love and miss you." Grandma and Grandpa  

We miss you too.  God's peace and protection be upon us, to light our way.  May you walk in the While Mountains always Grandpa Will.

Hannif

Hannif means purity, a purification process.  It is the chief pursuit of religious and spiritual people all over the world.  For me, this happens by my general attitude and by turning in the whirling dervish movement. It is powerful and it is physical and it is joyful, it is holding my heart open through these transitions, providing the path forward to a most exquisite joy.  

Today I was going to sit down and write about the experiences and insights relating to death which have been so intense here in California, and then I was moved to put down the thoughts, the pens, the papers, the books, and go outside in the gorgeous sunshine.  In my green sea colored dress and my pearl and moonstone bracelet I turned barefoot beneath an open blue sky and a blazing fire just laughing.  I turned and turned and knew, this is what Hafiz means when he says that God is making love to his dancers.  

I cannot hide it, I am really happy to be here with my family, where I have space to breathe and a landscape that sings to me.  What will come next who knows, but it is all ok really, it is just change, and with every death there is a spring to follow.

Someone put
You on a slave block
And the unreal bought 
You.
Now I keep coming to your owner
Saying,
"This one is mine."
You often overhear us talking
And this can make your heart leap
With excitement.
Don't worry,
I will not let sadness
Posses you.
I will gladly borrow all the gold
I need
To get you
Back.
~Hafiz~

Ob La Di

        

            
    

















And Joy was a long time coming....   

The Portland Rose Garden and Grandma's Birthday.  :-)

Family First

Wow what a vortex we are in right now, our little family.  My dad is very present, in my memories and nature, and in our collective heart.  He is present too in the passing generations, in our mannerisms and our faces, our names and at our gatherings.  This is a comfort.


Just about a week after the funeral, we all set out to float the Salinas River.  Kids, dogs, various floaties, sunscreen, and our bodies, we parked the car and hiked down to an inlet.  We were excited, tired, and feeling close, and then, just as we set off into midstream, a bald eagle swooped over us.  Right down the middle of the river, right over our heads, close enough to see his face, and he looked right at us, his big eyes direct and sharp.  Hi Dad!!

Kevin is very present too, in my memories, and the children's memories and in our family heart.  We remain a lovely little unity, continuous; what a blessing this revelation is!  The four of us, me and the kids, we are still a family first little group.  I still hold this value for myself, and it runs parallel to everything else which blossomed with Kevin by my side.  Maybe the blossoms fall away, maybe there is a winter, but after the hardest winters the cherry blossoms are simply prolific.  Prolific and fragrant and tender and beautiful.  This is the hardest thing I have ever had to do: to continue on, superwoman with kids in tow, the men I have loved most both gone.  I'd rather not, and then I think of a great modern dance sketch by a young Czech choreographer.

There is a body bag onstage, the dancer is inside, they roll and thrash about a bit, find the string and undo it, roll out onto the floor, scuffle around a bit with lots of newspaper flying everywhere, stand up, look around, and get back into the bag.  As the story was relayed to me, the audience sat there for a moment in silence, and then another young choreographer exclaimed, "I get it!  You are born, you come out, life is not what you expected it to be, and you go back!"

The river she is flowing, the people we are flowing, the spirits they are flying, the earth turns.  Shalom~

White Light

At my father's funeral my brother gave a long eulogy, which did not glamorize my father's life, but instead set bare the threads of courage and grace woven through his harsh existence.  It made us all cry, and especially for me, appreciate the tenderness he cultivated over the last 20 years. 
One of many memories I hang out with these days is the several years of family meetings we had when I was  teenager.  In these meetings my father read to us from the bible, spoke of his family history, fraught with anger, failure, and alcoholism, and encouraged us to pick up the pieces to create blessings out of them. 
When I was 12 my father stopped drinking and made a truly conscious effort that "the sins of the fathers" would stop with his generation.  He wished so much for the blessings of the fathers to be what got passed down, and so he began living those blessings.  He educated himself, talked to us, listened to us, and was present as only a turtle can be.  He often reminded me of a turtle, sitting there smiling, not judging me, just listening and talking late into the night...

In this upside down time of change and healing in my life now, I remember that the piece of the family are there to pick up, that the blessings are there for me to pass down.  The courage of my father is within me.  A potent image which comes to mind is that of a fractured heart, torn down the middle, lying on the ground.  From inside of this heart a white light begins to pulse, to grow,until it is so smelting hot that the suture is welded clean, the light is brilliant, and the heart is crystalline in its array of rainbows. 

Thanks dad, for loving yourself enough to heal and to grow, for loving me.  It is good to be here, in the vast warm California desert, a bright milky way looking down on us at night, soft pink hues cradling us in sunset, ocean breezes tumbling our hair, sunlight to tickle our feet and stitch us together. Ohm.

Shakespeare

Numb.  Sunshine.  Children laughing.  Children crying desperately.  The bark of dogs. 

I am smiling, laughing even at some moments.  I am on the floor of the shower with leaden bones.  No time for carrot cake, no garden started this year to weed in. 

His old recliner to sit in, his old coffee cups to drink out of.  I am driving his truck.  His pictures hang on the wall.  My children's pictures too.  My pictures - I was a cute kid.  We are Family.  Hugs - lots of delicious hugs.  Soft breezes and pink sunsets.  Meteor shower tomorrow.  Birthday to make happen this weekend.  Phone calls forever on the horizon, the yucky uncomfortable ones I don't want to make. 

Alone.  Not alone.  Turning.  Not turning.  I don't know what to write.  I can only be present, and take some small action each day.  A good friend says, she is who is not busy being born is busy dying.  Another friend says, you will be in winter for a little while.  And yet another, I don't know Hannah, I don't know what to say.  I only hope that Shakespeare was spot on...it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. 

My dad would not have read Shakespeare, but he would have encouraged me to love against all odds, to love being here and being alive.  Hugs,

Changes and Love

Us women how wait, sometimes how we wait forever.  Us women how we hope.  And then, love's shattering brings us home-to the center of the universe.  

At the moment of my fathers death I was speaking to him, the phone held to his ear, and this is what I was saying:
I love you Dad, thank you for bringing me into this world.  Everything is going to be fine, the children are growing strong, and Mathias is so much like you....
The atmosphere shifted, almost imperceptibly, and I continued:
There is no pain, no deceit, no harm. There is love, there is love, there is love, there is love, deep joyful love at the center of the universe.  I am with you, I am with you there.
And he passed!

I didn't know I could cry so much!  I didn't know of tears like a waterfall unceasing, day after day and night after night...
And then comes peace.  Why not?  Rest in PEACE.  That's why we say it, that's what happens.
Last week, strong currents of peace interspersed with the waterfalls of tears.  And today, this is Hafiz's gift to me:


Today love has completely gutted me.
I am lying in the market like a
Filleted grouper,
Speechless,
Every desire and sinew absolutely silent
But I am still so fresh.
Everything is now the same to me.
Listen:
The touch of a beautiful woman
As she lifts me near,
Drawing my scent into her body;
She thinks about taking me home.
The touch of a wondrous fly
Drinking my vital fluids
Through a strange shaped flute,
The sun laying its radiant gaze against my cheek,
Human voices and the breeze from a passing
Horse's tail,
All send miraculous currents into 
My world.
God's beauty has split me wide open.
Throw Hafiz on a scale,
Wrap me in cloth,
Bring me home.


In three days time I fly out to California for the funeral.  My children will come along.  We will stay a long while and rest.  We will cook, we will read, we will dance, and we will sit.  I especially, will make carrot cakes and weed his garden, and listen to the birds he loved to hear as they whispered truths to each other among the eucalyptus trees. Peace.

Dad

My dads green eyes are twinkling at me, the creases around them thick with laughing.  His chest shakes and his belly sounds fill the air.  With childlike simplicity, he rocks back and forth, laughing for a full 5 minutes or more.  He has told a bad joke.  
Digging patiently in his garden, he attends to the bugs populating the place, the texture of the soil, the quality of a stem.  He has plowed and read and shopped and sorted for months preparing this garden, later in the summer it will produce lovely beets and eggplants.
Lying in his hospital bed, his body pushing for just a few more minutes of life, he hangs on with his particular sense of humor.  He hangs on until we are all present, and then he slips away, just like that, into the journey of a lifetime.
I see him in the clouds today, I saw him there yesterday and the day before.  He is still laughing, he is a jolly old elf, a dragon spirit, and there are hearts flying past in the sky.
I love you dad.

 

Skating Back

As I reflect on the past two years, the original length of our intended stay in Cambridge, I simply see spirals layered upon spirals over circles reflecting circles, skating back to places we have been, are going, are at now.  
The term skating back comes from a reading on the artistic process of poets, and I like it, I like the feel of the word skating in this context, as if the effort is simply a pelvic initiation and nothing more.  It implies following, following the natural flow of energy: spirals, circles, seed dots.
Love is huge, really huge.  Life is hard, not what we expect.  Beauty rests among the weed patches everywhere. 
Some things never change, such as the child's proclivity to imagine the world as they wish it to be.  I like being a child for some of the day each day right now, in a purple saffron sky beneath the earth.  I like being a grown up mother and dancer too, rockin' in the kitchen.


We, as humans, can focus on our derelict qualities, as consciousness does, in order to transform them.  We can also focus on our simplicity and love.  Two sides to a penny, two ways to skate around a circle.
The grief and horror are so profound right now that I am sometimes in hysterics.  The joy so real that my eyes are once again shining with fire; my kitchen dances get crazy fun :) For the next few posts, I leave the process of consciousness behind, and focus on the innocence and wonder of a chocolate garden.  This, I think, will sustain me over the next two years, the new intended length of stay.


In the sky home and turquoise palace of the west, I am dreaming with you.
Remedios~

Weaving Beauty

Life is for living!  I am done now, with all the work of trying to love and fix this relationship into being all by myself. It is time for me to receive love everywhere it shows up, and it is showing up!  Our show, our being the dancers and I, is opening on Sunday night in London; we have been selected to take a part of it to The Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August too; in September I am presenting a performance and a paper at Oxford University, and in October at Cambridge; there will be many many installations and performances that grow out of these seeds!  
And, my children will come along with me, on this creative adventure.  They are learning about real love, full of pain and full of blessings, and they are learning to weave a world of beauty.  They are learning that life is full of wonderful friends who are full of love, and that the heart is so strong in its unbelievable tenderness.  I am learning too, how to be the woman I am!  
Thank you from the bottom of my heart, all of you who are sending me endless messages, sessions of reiki, prayers from the bottoms of your hearts!  They are working, they are working.  
And now, another poem from Hafiz:

The moon came to me last night
With a sweet question.
She said,
"The sun has been my faithful lover
For millions of years.
Whenever I offer my body to him
Brilliant light pours from his heart.
Thousands then notice my happiness
And delight in pointing
Toward my beauty.
Hafiz,
Is it true that our destiny
Is to turn into Light
Itself?"
And I replied,
Dear moon,
Now that your love is maturing,
We need to sit together
Close like this more often
So I might instruct you
How to become
Who you
Are!

In endless Gratitude,
Remedios (I like that!)

Broken

So, my lovely body has given me tonsillitis again.  It is saying slow down, slow down Hannah, let yourself fall apart.  I am so strong, can fight so hard, can love eternally in the face of doubt, can hope on the flimsiest of rainbow beams and then build great homes out of those same rays of light.  But I am broken.  I do not want to be a single mom, I do not want to build up again and again and again, like Sisyphus.  I do not want to make life out of this storm.  I desire only to love more, to be loved, to rest in the arms of my beloved Kevin and just be.  I desire to feel the summer sun with great peace and inner joy, to know in the depth of my bones that all is ok with the world, with my family, with our hearts.  I desire that a crazy unexpected and gentle subtle ecstasy will rise within my union, in its ephemerality reorganizing all that has come before, opening new thresholds in the sky, to ride on dragon wings together.  I do not know if I have the strength to stop desiring, or the ability to plummet into these depths of grief and still survive.  Can I fly with broken wings?  Can we fly with broken wings?  Is there really any way out of this broken-ness but through it?  I let go, I lay in bed sobbing, I leave it to a greater intelligence.
Much Love,
Luna Dancing Heart

Dancin'

Wow we are given so much, so much!  Today I receive the blessings of many many friends, the glory of a blue sky filled with dragon clouds, the feel of my body dancing, the work of a lifetime opening up.  Here are some rehearsal pics for my show in production.  It's titled Circles of Light and is dealing with all of this in my life, opening windows, looking at horizons of gratitude and joy alongside the great vast emptiness.  It premiers July 4th, so off to the sewing machine and search engines for music!!

Hafiz

Hafiz is a great Sufi poet, his writings accessible and illuminating.  Through this earthquake, the moment of density between invoultion and evolution of my marital relationship, Hafiz is a treasure.  Each day, I wake up to see what he says, and I am called then to love more deeply in the face of hurt, to love more and be happy, to be the rock and the cloud and the pillar of fire, because that is the only way out of this mess.
 

The Mule Got Drunk and Lost in Heaven

The
Mind is ever a tourist
Wanting to touch and buy new things
Then toss them into an already 
Filled closet.
So I craft my words into those guides
That will offer you something fresh 
From the Hidden's Tavern.
Few things are stronger than
The mind's need for diverse 
Experience.
I am glad
Not many men or women can remain
Faithful lovers to the unreal.
There is a kind of adultery God encourages:
Your spirit needs to leave the bed
Of fear.
The gross, the subtle, the mental worlds
Become as a worthless husband.
Women need 
To utilize thier superior intelligence
About love
So that their hour's legacy
Can make us all stronger and more clement.
Sometimes a poem happens like this one:
The mule I sit on while I recite
Starts off in one direction
But then gets drunk
And lost in
Heaven.

Peace~

Birthday

In the midst of all that is going on, Mathias has turned 6.  I am reminded of a children's book from my childhood days, Now we are Six, in which the child is so proud because he can now tie his shoes, communicate himself, and in general has become his own little being.  We had a party complete with games and pinata, lots of little boy energy, and a scary tarantula/black widow cake! Happy Birthday little bundle of hugs :)

The Eagles - Desperado

First Sema

Ridiculously difficult, unbelievably beautiful!  LOVE is all there is to say~

Grounding and Centering

OK, this transformative process is real.  Becoming a semazen, or whirling dervish, acts on all levels of awareness, from the nervous system to the emotional field, the thought field, the spiritual realm, and beyond into a darkness that is at once the light of creation.

All of us new semazens are rapidly centrifuging all old patterns to the surface to be dealt with.  It's a steep path, a quick ascent up the mount of olives, and the ripples created from this change take time to settle in the world of relationships.

What is amazing to me is the power of multiple centers.  I am learning how to act and love from the center that is appropriate to the situation, and this is revolutionary.  


My physical center, my spine, is my way of being in the world.  
My magnetic center, the axis upon which I rotate in the whirling, is my way of being in passion and the depths of cosmic love.
My emotional center, my heart, is my way of discernment, it is where touch and speech and manifestation occur.  It is central to my human relationships.
My diamond caves, of the mind, the bones, the past, and possibility, act as additional little centers from which recharging and downloading takes place.
My art, my dancing, is my ground upon which all of these play, it is my integrative and generative force.


I am putting up shows again.  I am moving and creating and sharing and teaching and being taught.  I am a multiplicity.  I am an artist.  I am everything I desire.  That's necessary, that's good.  Thank goodness for my passion, thank goodness for my craft, thank goodness for my spine, thank goodness for my relationships.  May they all be blessed by the beauty of this centrifugal force.  


And it is so.

Visions and Free Will

This is my vision board for this year.  I had a different one laid out, more reds, deep blues, lips and hands and feet, contrasting swirls, and it was too dramatic, not right.  So I swept the board off and intuitively pulled from my pile of images, placing without seeing really, soft focus.  As I glued positions shifted yet again, new relationships formed across diagonals and in interstitial spaces.  The next night, my life changed.  
There is turmoil in my home right now, our family may be breaking or it may be being reborn.  There is no way to tell for sure, there is only letting go.  It is dark and it is scary.

My vision board is full of women, dancing my heart out, creative generative forces, soft pink beauty.  Cycles of time across a year are woven in.  I hope, I love, I love again and I cry more deeply.  I am love, this year I am love.

Warrior Heart

A few years ago I made my last piece of dance in North Carolina, it was a great undertaking, and I had wonderful women to assist me with the project.  I created an evening around three women, characters from "The House of the Spirits" by Isabelle Allende.  We worked deeply and passionately to embody qualities rather than just dancing steps.  We wove a story of generations of women through our bodies, the medium that comes most easily to me as an artist.  

In this strange time of my life right now, upside down and inside out, I come across Isabelle Allende again, in a more personal way. Listen to her speech, the full 17 minutes.  We too can claim the warrior heart, in fact we must.  Life demands it.  In love,

To Be an Artist

Cycles go round and round, and in this new cycle the self as artist is returning.  
Ladies in Cambridge and in London are dancing with me, and we are producing a show around the theme of feminine circles.  The process continues, of finding and creating venues, designing costumes, rehearsing in the deep intuitive way that I like to rehearse, embodying this moment in time through the creative act.  My old friend and teacher, Kista, is here to visit England, and she has given me a solo to perform.  A mature, witty, feminine solo.  A piece, a shared choreography, an evening, an impulse.
I never meant to be an artist.  I often think I would much rather lie around in the grass and garden, learn needlepoint, read novels and brew my own wine.  Alas, that is not my destiny.  It looks like I must create, talk about creating, write about creating, live my life in the studio and search out culture.  I long for the sun.  I work.  Such is life.  

And so, in the words of Utah Philips, I "Run to the wilderness, the one within."  I run with a bolt of fabric and the sound of drums and a circle of women waiting for me!

Big Love

I love this man like you wouldn't believe!!!!

 

Oestara

Easter this year was so much more successful than last year!!  And still, it can be even better next, now that we are settled and know how to get what we need and desire from this culture.  
We colored brown eggs, and they came out just fine, we used deep reds and blues and purples and it worked.  We went crazy for Cadbury's and that was nice too.  They have been bought by Nestle, so no more Cadbury's come next year as I cannot in any ethical frame of mind support Nestle in any of its guises.  Caramel eggs, creme eggs, caramel bunnies, truffle eggs, on and on.  
We went to the Cambridge Botanical Gardens, and wow everything is in bloom!  Daffodils, hycainth, tulips, violets, dogwoods, forsythia, pink blossoms on bushes, white blossoms on trees that smell like heaven, magnolias in pink and fushica and white!  It was a gray day and still a sea of softly blowing colors that inspired.  We will go again next week on a Sunny Day and take pictures to share.  
The children have 2.5 weeks off school, so we have been swimming at the pool everyday and cooking and cooking and cooking.  Perhaps I will do a few recipe posts soon, there are some nice new concoctions being created =)  
Tonight I will make my first vision board since coming here, and I am excited to see what intuition pulls up as truth for my coming future.  We love you Oestara, goddess of new life and hope and soft gentle days.  We are resurrected in our spirits, even as the sting of winters breaking is still with us.  Shalom~

Fightin' Fires

Here is our boy fighting fires!  He is loving being on the volunteer fire squad and this past week was his first real call.  He responded in time to get dressed on the truck and was put on the hose.  Three other high schoolers are on the squad, and when the fire was completely out they all went straight to their baseball game!  The picture is blurry, it is from the newspaper. Yah yah!

Ex-Pats

Well here I find myself, in the blustery wet winds of England, teaching Oh Susannah to my children.  I've Been Workin' on the Railroad is a new favorite, as is She'll Be Comin' 'Round the Mountain.  Michael Row the Boat Ashore, Jump Down Turn Around Pick a Bale o' Cotton, and When I go Down to the River to Pray fascinate them.  I am just happy they are singing!  
This is the time, 18 months in to our adventure, when we can finally re-integrate the aspects of what we shed in coming here.  Aurora is growing sprouts, I am saying no to constant caffeine and yes to dancing yes to singing yes yes yes to flow.  These are the parts I wish to re-integrate. 
A student recently approached me to begin a sacred dance circle for women.  Energy stuff, free dance, holding the space, and I said, It's about time Lord!  So y'all start planning your visits.... 
the singing dancing crazy American has recently been caught having high tea, and she will be delighted to share the joy of roses and cathedrals with you, while happily belting out spirituals along the tramways =)

Tools of the Trade

Hiya!  Something has shifted.  I am excited, exuberant even, about my studies, about my life here, about my children.  Diving in....  I mean, who ever thought I'd do a PhD anyway?  
Now that I am at the PhD level, there is alot more expected of me.  To make it happen, I need to invest in some basic textbooks and tools.  If anyone is so inclined to help me make that investment, I will so much appreciate it!  I have made a wish list:

Hannah's wish list/Tools of the Trade 

Many Blessings! Xx

Spring!

It's spring sang the frog, 
It's spring sang the groundhog, 
It's spring!!  
The birds are chirping and the crocus have once again 
covered the lawns of England :)  
The windows are open and 
my toes can feel the breeze! 
~Delight~

Dizzy

It has been a very long time since life moved slowly.  This whole adventure, coming to Cambridge and settling in, working toward my MA, and now becoming a semazen and a university teacher and a researcher, I haven't slowed down to breathe much. 
I am in the midst of getting clear about what I really desire right now, about letting old cross bonds in my muscular patterning burst for good, about being more a flow of light and less of a mutli-dimensional diamond, there have just been too many sides of me!  Soon these will crystallize into a new vision board, and I will consciously enter this new phase, as it is shaping itself.  
I cannot hold everything anymore, better go toward streaming again, which is its own nerve wracking joy....that's what landed us in England! Sigh~ Breathe~ Candles lit, a glass of wine, tonight is for that quiet space I've been missing.
Peace~