Avatar

In the dreamtime we are all avatars, blue people of superb sensitivity and conviction manifesting life from the heart.  That's why the movie is so enormously popular; like Harry Potter, it contains mythic truth.  For me, the timing of my seeing it was beautiful.

In training to perform sema (the ceremony of the whirling dervish) one is gently and consistently led to the edge of their egoic capacities.  The sense of reality is turned upon its head, and one comes to view the experience inside turning as the source of all life, rather than the mundane state of worldly machinations.  It freaks us out, the ego is strong, like a little child it tends to throw great tantrums, and really it must be loved and held just so if it is to acquiesce its position of power.  I am training now, and I have just seen avatar this past week.

For me, the main character came up against his ego/inner child/greatest need and human limitation, which was his longing for legs and normalcy and a great need to be valued.  In confronting all this he opened to a strangely beautiful and bizarre world which demanded that he let go to its reality.  He titrated between the inner and the outer world for awhile, but eventually the truth of his heart led to divine union beneath Ewa.  
Once he let go, the mundane world no longer held sway over him, and in mythic proportion he died to be reborn in a glorious unified body.

It is a beautiful heart opening action movie.  Perfect!
xoxoxo

First Poems

By Aurora:

I am

I am You

I am

Box

Oy Boxes!

Box

Boxes!

Jam are you 

good?

Yes I am

J

A

M

My little existentialist =)

Available

My dissertation is now publicly available.  I have received my marks, been formally given a passing grade, and will attend my graduation on March 10th!  Now that I can breathe again, I am happy to share my work.  Due to the large images, the work does not email easily.  I prefer to send out printed copies to interested parties.  It costs me about $25/18 pounds to print, bind, and send, so if you would like a copy, message me and I will finish arrangements my email or phone.  Selaam~

15

Today is my boys birthday!  15 years ago he passed into the earthly plane by my will and effort, 15 years ago he breathed his first breath on the life journey which is uniquely his.  I miss him incredibly, and I let him go, to soar.  He is playing Voodoo Child (slight return) in the school talent show auditions today, he is playing basketball, he is going to be an adult before long.  How does this happen?  I know his cries and his giggles, his tickle spots, his favorite foods, the books he has cherished and those he found boring, the movies which excite him, the ways in which he gets hurt.  And there is so much I don't know, the depth or magnitude of his inner life, the outplay of the choices he makes on a daily basis.  On this day I wish us both a hearty congratulations, and I send the archangel Rafael to guard him, and Gabriel to be his friend.
Shalom~

Open Window

These past two months feel just like this, standing at a threshold, wading into an open sea, wildness and bliss, tasting salt. (Dolombache Palace, Istanbul)

Dreams

Tomorrow I begin my first day teaching at The University of East London!  I have been hired as a guest lecturer in anatomy and nutrition, teaching undergraduate dance majors.  I have also been offered a place doing my PhD.  I will continue studying whirling dervishes, moving away from anthropology, toward narrative and practice based research.  My practice is my research, and I am reading and writing about how to tell stories.  I am free to create art as well as written work, and the whole world feels open for integration.  It is my hope that something truly beautiful and useful will be the outcome, and that this wild growth will continue in the process.  
Who would have thought that I'd move to England to become a semazen (Turkish word for turning dervish)...  Five weeks into the formal training now, I have too much to say..... sensitive souls become more sensitive, worlds upon worlds open up in the inner landscape, and oh my god it feels good to be back in my body!!!  I am training at the gym to keep up my flexibility and stamina, teaching body conditioning one night a week in Cambridge, and attending my turning classes.  It was too long without a physical practice.  The MA, while necessary as a step into new thresholds, demanded the sacrifice of my embodiment, and I am happy now to claim that sacrifice back.
A tiger metal year ahead, white hot smelting and growth.  Roar!

Haiti

As I read news coverage and look at photos from Port Au Prince I am reminded of what Sun Bear wrote beginning back in 1989, of the coming Earth changes and how cities would become death traps at this time. I wonder, in light of Katrina, the Tsunami, and Port Au Prince, if we are seeing the Earth in her dance of changes...
I am reminded also of the incredible strength of the human spirit as I see camps being made, women praying, and even children laughing at times. I am heartened at the massive outpouring in aid, even as I know it is not enough.
I recall to my senses the desperation for water, for a shower, for peace that I have felt at moments. I pray for the mothers with young children.
In these images, these stories, I come face to face with my own mortality...I reflect on the fleeting chance we get to truly be human. I am thankful to be alive. May I not waste my thoughts on pain.
May my love somehow somehow touch somebody in Haiti. Mitakuye Oyasin - we are all related - we are all one.

By Sun Bear: Walk in Balance: The Path to Healthy, Happy, Harmonious Living (1989) and Black Dawn Bright Day (1992)