Oh Carolina!

In a few days I will be off to NC! I will visit my friends, attend to business, buy things I can't find or can't afford in the UK, like jeans and decent underwear and scrapbook materials... And, I will pick up our cat. She has been with a friend of a friend this past month, which I am so grateful for. I am looking forward to some time for play, some good hugs and laughs, to actively create bridges between my life there and my life here, and to some sunshine. Also, I will actually miss England, my life here bicycling in the arctic wind and my fantastic studies, my lover and my children, the sense of newness. The trip reminds me that home is where the heart is...so my home must be vast and cover lots of the planet...how enormous can a person be?
With Much Love, Light, Joy, Excitement!

Self Reflexivity

Well doing ethnographic fieldwork is an intensely personal process. In my first week of seminars many of the qualities I learned in polarity training were re-iterated: know your own skills and biases and be sure to account for them, listen deeply, observe all energy fields, stay neutral. They did not use these terms of course, but it was the same set of practitioner tools in an academic language. I write all the time, observations that occur to me on the scene, that night, the next day, a week later, and it is a continual process of observing and reflecting, teasing out what is me and what is the field. I am finding it wonderful! So happy to apply polarity in a new arena, to move toward ultimate integration of all my talents within my livelihood. Also, the group of turning dervishes I am working with this term, they are beautiful people. I am very happy and very lucky to be in such a lovely setting.
Deep Heartfelt Gratitude...

Good GF Muffins

It's the last day of vacation for us, the kids are back in school, Kevin is into the lab, and I begin my classes tomorrow. It has been so nice to cuddle, sleep, play in the park, watch movies, and cook! The English are far from renowned concerning their cooking...tasteless, over boiled stringy meat and mashed peas being a favorite. They put no limits on their childrens eating and often give them tea, or childrens dinner, reserving the real meals for the adults once the children are in bed. Tea is usually something on toast: poached egg, scrambled egg, baked beans, honey, condensed milk, or even spahetti o's! They eat tons of cakes and sweets, and then wonder why they have bad teeth and loads of muffin tops (love handles) walking around. To be fair, they do cheese and beer very well, and we do enjoy that; but mostly we eat Indian out or cook, and here is a good recipe I made up a few days ago:
Good Gluten Free Muffins
2. cups rice flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 teaspoons arrowroot powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
--whisk together--
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup oil
--cream together--
add the flour mix to the wet mix in alternating parts with
1 cup soy or cows milk
--mix in--
3/4 cup coconut
chocolate chips to taste

oil your muffin tins and fill 11 to the top
fill the 12th tin half full with water
bake at 420 degrees fahrenheit or gas mark 7 for 20-25 minutes
cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan

Ahh Winter.

Love Poem

As I have done my research on the whirling dervishes I have read many of Rumis poems. Two of my favorites at the moment are here to share with you:

I died a hundred times and I learned this:
Your fragrance came, and I was mad alive.
I gave my life a hundred times and fell-
I heard your call, and I was born again.
I placed a net to catch the falcon Love
Deep in my heart-he seized my heart, and
went...

Oh, if a tree could wander
and move with foot and wings!
It would not suffer the axe blows
and not the pain of saws!
For would the sun not wander
away in every night-
How could at ev'ry morning
the world be lighted up?
And if the ocean's water
would not rise to the sky
How would the plants be quickened
by streams and gentle rain?
The drop that left its homeland,
the sea, and then returned-
It found an oyster waiting
and grew into a pearl.

Saying No

Hello there~
Another beautiful sunny day in Cambridge, who knew January was like this? Cold as heck, but hopeful and inspiring, something I have really missed. Lately I am working with the space between the cracks, not filling them up, leaving them open to breathe. I am turning down involvement in yoga classes, meditation groups, dance groups, so that I can be open for the spontaneous gifts of spirit. This 100 day gong, it is powerful. New and Big opportunities are simmering, and I am open for them:) Like a trip to Turkey this spring, and another to Scotland next fall. I don't know how yet, but I am going to be there. Each day that I write my desires get more clear, more specific, more true. Some things I don't write anymore, like that I want new socks and stuff. I write more about what I truly want, which is ways of being in the world, movement about the planet, deep rest and space, fruitfulness in relationships. More closely, I want this trip to NC for late January to really happen! Send your love sisters.... Send your blessings spirit.... I send mine out in great guffaws and little winks and nods :)
~Many Happy Returns of the Day~

100 Day Gong

It's a new year, a yummy sprout, fresh sky, sweet love! It felt so good to be all 5 of us, each element present, each umbilical offering of mine at home this Christmas. We ate so much chocolate and blue cheese and celery, and went on outings everyday; to London, downtown Cambridge, many different parks and green spaces, and good hot curry houses. Now my teenager is back in Mulberry Grove and I am immersed in my studies again. I am writing a paper on the turning dervishes of Turkey, creating genealogy trees and immersing myself in the movement practices of Islam, good stuff. For the new year I am committed to getting a great salaried job that I love and that utilizes all of my skills, to creating a personal dance practice that is wholly me, to being present. I begin with a 100 day gong, writing 100 intentions and desires each night for 100 days. For 100 days I will breathe and sit still in my cocoon every single night, creating internal space that I hope will be reflected in the patterning of my outside life. Day 3 today... Much Beautiful Light!

The Light Returns

Panto, short for pantomime, is an English Christmas tradition. The whole family goes to the theatre together: some the ballet, some a West End musical, some a family panto. Today we went to The Magic Lamp, a show in the round made of shadow and light, a really funny new version of A Thousand and One Nights, creative theatre at its best. With only two overhead projectors, some pans of oil, food coloring, paper cutouts, and a remote control car, the two figures in black transported us out of ourselves and into a place of magic. I felt at home inside the theatre, willingly going for a carpet ride with the performers, happy with my family; and I affirmed with my presence and my enjoyment that art as its own unique stitch in the side of society is more important to my sense of place than any other institution or theology. Oh one vivid experience at a time, ahh one lucid moment after another amidst the grey struggles of arctic survival, sigh, one more minute of sun energy today...I am hopeful and happy and believe that the spring will come with bounteous beauty.