"ambiance of salt and sorrow"

photo courtesy of Creative Commons by AloneAlbatross via Flickr, some rights reserved.



there is nothing    more
than this:

a peptide
an impulse

an ambiance of salt
---and sorrow    after

the dying

three
a trinity
a tripod of days

"lust in my mouth"

sweet scent

lend me a moment

dangle

 

purple lust

in my mouth

a breath 

my nostrils flare

and      quiver

"i am not alone in this"

a telling bell

from                 another realm

half-wakes me

(i am not alone

in this)

a slug—i stumble

answering the call

then the light

—a dim remembering

~          ~          ~

now

the sun

the ground

a niche

berries—a cadmium flash

—mob

the sky

Would you dance a jig in the aisle?

           

What if I gave you permission to dance a jig in the grocery store aisle or go outside your office building and set up a howl?  Would you do it? 

            Of course not, you say.  I'm not crazy.  I know how to behave in public.

            See?  That's my point.  Our society has conditioned us to be quiet and still in our cubicles at work, in our desks at school, in lines at the grocery store, in our pews at church, and at the dinner table.  We call it "minding our manners."  We are taught to keep our eyes front and our mouths shut. 

            Venues for self-expression are limited to the chosen.  Choir members and celebrities have permission to sing and dance.  Authorities with recognized credentials are given platforms by the media and the publishing industry.  Socially acceptable movement is formalized and repetitive.  Working out with weights at the gym; practicing certain stylized, choreographed forms like Yoga, Tai Chi, or aerobics; participating in athletic training; and playing sports are our choices.   But the average human's need to spontaneously self-express is repressed.  You just proved it.

            Consequently, as a culture, we are rigid and angry (or depressed).  We have manifested phenomena like drive-by-shootings and road-rage, and we have become an obscenely obese population dependent on alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, anti-depressants, and sleep aids.

            I can't dance or sing, you say.  There's the problem:  you think it's about ability.  It's not.  You came into this world not only knowing how to move and sound, but doing it all the time, naturally. 

            While I affirm the necessity to teach self-control, and develop the critical thinking skills it takes to judge appropriate from inappropriate social behavior, I denounce the necessity for the rigid, industrialized, robotic, oppressive nature of the methods by which these behaviors are taught.  In fact, I hold the barriers of socially appropriate behavior in question as borderline cruelty.

            What you need to know is this:  the body carries a cellular memory of every experience you've ever had, and somatic stagnation or holding feeds disease and breeds unhappiness.  To dance and sing or writhe and groan however your body desires is your divine birthright and the kinesthetic key to your body's ability to self-heal. 

            In my work, I challenge individuals to move and sound through cultural barriers that stagnate and repress, and to transmute the term "socially appropriate behavior" into something more like "bio-dynamic, spiritual well-being."  I encourage increasing somatic awareness through movement, sounding, Healing Touch, bodywork, and breath-work. 

            I offer you the permission here to reconnect with your body, to allow it to move spontaneously in its own unique, biodynamic, rhythmic wisdom and watch what happens.  Blocked energy will move.  Holding patterns will release.  Your bio-field will expand.  Ultimately, the spontaneous fluidity you cultivate will enable your body's innate ability and voila!  Healing happens.

"There's nothing else in Twin Sisters except a dancehalle and more land, but that's the point."



"House in Kendalia" Acrylic on Board, Buzz Heye



It's 100 degrees.  Two AC wall units hum. I'm sitting in a rocking chair on a cement floor inside a tin building that used to be a storage facility that has morphed into a local gallery, The Bulverde Area Art Center.  Across the drive from the gallery is Mike's in the Village, a great destination, fine-dining experience with a rich, New Orleans fare.  It's located inside a 100 year old structure  that used to be a nine pin bowling alley. 

At four PM, it's so quiet, I can almost hear the old Germans who settled this area whooping "Strike!" across the landscape.  There are six vehicles in the parking lot: one of them is mine and the other five belong to Mike's employees.  Before I close the gallery at eight, six or so folks, three couples who've dined at Mikes, will stroll through, toothpicks in hand, nodding and pointing at the art.  They won't buy anything.  But they should. 

This show of local talent celebrates the 175th anniversary of Texas' independence from Mexico, so of course, it features some of Texas' most cliche scenes and images, including the capitol and a longhorn. The featured artist is retired architect, Buzz Heye . His piece titled "House in Kendalia" is my pick for best of show. Of course, Kendalia, an even more rural community than Bulverde located about 15 miles north of here, is one of my favorite spots on earth. I want to live there when I grow up. They don't have stores in Kendalia (well one very small ice house privately owned), especially not Walmart, which I've heard through the grapevine is about to build in Bulverde.  

Karl Vaught has captured a near photo-realistic image of the popular "Arneson River Theatre" located in San Antonio on the river walk.  While the Arneson Theatre is well-known and often visited by tourists, Robert W. Pettigrew's nostalgic oil on canvas painting of "Twin Sisters," another, even smaller community a few miles further north, depicts the elbow room and pastoral charm of the Hill Country landscape that Texans love.  The area is named for the two small hills in the painting.  There's nothing  else in Twin Sisters except a dancehalle and more land, but that's the point.

Next door to and inside the same building with Mike's is The Bulverde Emporium, a consignment antique shop. I'll let you know there's a spot open for lease in the shop just in case you're interested in doing business.  Besides the gallery, Mike's, The Emporium, a privately owned ice house, a post office, a couple of small business park strip centers, a courthouse, and a private air strip there's not much going on here in downtown Bulverde.  

Now if you go out onto Hwy. 281 at the intersection of Hwy. 46 about five miles from here, you'll see the world you know closing in on this sleepy German settlement:  Home Depot, a Super HEB (grocery), Chevron & Exxon gas stations, banks, schools, and soon, a Walmart.  


Progress.   It makes me sad.  And, I'm glad I no longer have to drive the twenty miles back to "town" (San Antonio) I used to have to drive for groceries.

You may be able to tell my age by my sentiment.  Good.  If you share any of it and you feel drawn to a simpler time, a slower paced culture, you can find a taste of it here.  The paintings are like a dream within a dream, the primary dream being the historical property and quaint setting in which they find themselves hanging.  


Bring a date.  Come see the art.  Dine at Mike's. Invite yourself to leave your i-phone at home & step back in time for a while.

"Arneson River Theatre" Oil on canvas, Karl M. Vaught





Entrances to Mike's in the Village & Bulverde Emporium




Emporium window panes




Adjacent landscape




Gallery exterior with antique tools




Gallery exterior




Gallery tin ceiling




Gallery rocking chairs





"Twin Sisters"  Oil on Canvas, Robert W. Pettigrew



blip of grace

  

photo courtesy of Creative Commons by AloneAlbatross via Flickr, some rights reserved
           

after Martha K. Grant

contentment stands
in the corner

her arms crossed
like a school marm
watching me squirm

—used to this kind of
tantrum she is completely

unmoved


this switch       has flipped &
i'm in the dark       again

my hands     i've run
along each familiar wall:

you shouldn't have done that
say you're sorry
maybe if i get some sleep

perhaps a bit of dark chocolate
i should go for a run

but no

i still can't see a thing

is anybody there
no response

anybody? 
nothing

i pace     bent slightly
at the waist    my arms

— probes groping the air      my eyes
—radar sweeping the screen

for a blip of grace      my soul

—a sonar

ping

Creating a Buddha Field

Photo courtesy of Creative Commons by Temari09 via Flickr, some rights reserved.



In early 2007, I met the strongest, toughest, most gentle man I've ever met.  I can truly say I love him.  I mean, I don't know him that personally, but I love the concepts for living he and his practice of the martial arts embody.  He was my Kung Fu Sensei.

I only studied with him for a few weeks.  "Why only a few weeks," you ask.  I now know, that what he was teaching me-to take up my own space, to be centered and strong in my own space, and to deflect aggression with graceful, inner power are still life lessons I am learning.  But, apparently, at that time, I was not ready.  I was finishing an internship to get my massage license, I was taking Level 3 of the Healing Touch Program's path to certification, and I was fighting cancer, but I didn't know it.

Spirit's Way is mysterious.  If I had not experienced the extreme fatigue that came upon me like boulders falling in an avalanche after week five or so of Kung Fu, I might not have pursued the diagnosis.  I'd had a small, but painful, lesion growing on my perineum for years.  I'd had three different medical doctors (none of them GYN Board Certified) look at the lesion and pass it off as "nothing."  I'd learned to live with the pain, but it was definitely interfering with my sex life.

Anyway, after focusing my martial intent on a huge bag upon which I placed the face of my father (more about that later), and kicking the screaming bezeeberz out of it, I came away from class feeling "better than I had in my whole life.," meaning empowered, strong, confident, capable, and liberated.  I remember saying that to a client.  Then boom.  I was flattened by debilitating fatigue.  I could barely finish my internship.
Grant you, the fatigue had come and gone before school and I had questioned whether I'd have enough stamina to do the work, but I'd been determined, an over-achiever to the death.  And that's what it felt like, like I was dying.  Well, I was.  At my root, cells were growing out of control and by the time they were surgically removed in late '07, they were at Stage Four-that's a nebulous demarcation right before they say, "You have XYZ cancer."

Now I say this: WOMEN!  ALWAYS SEE A BOARD CERTIFIED GYNECOLOGIST EVERY YEAR!  Thank God, I did.

Yesterday, four years later, I found myself in my backyard, punching the bleep out of a human who was non-physically present (I won't say his name, but it IS a HE) with serious martial intent (that's martial arts code for I'm going to kick your ass now).  Why?  Because, the memory of myself playing a victim's role with that human and suffering violence at his hand had surfaced with a vengeance and I wanted to clear it out of my field without hurting anyone while at the same time, empowering myself.  No telling how many times I will have to dis spell that memory and others while at the same time not perpetuating the cycle of violence and my belief in it: judge, blame, punish, and attack. No telling,  But I am willing.

I want to be clear.  Without blocks,  Without misguided notions that do not serve the Highest Good, my Highest Good.  Think I have my work cut out for me?  Yep.
  
So, I came home from doing Healing Touch sessions this afternoon and began pecking around on the internet for information about St. Germain because a client had told me they'd seen an angel in the room with us and I thought it might have been St. Germain (and the violet flame), as I had asked for his presence today.  As usual, I was lead (by Google and my preferences; btw, I love that they call those "cookies!") to this familiar version of the Tibetan compassion meditation on the "zenguidedmeditation" You-Tube channel.

According to visuals embedded in the video, the following are English concepts associated with the Sanscrit words of the mantra:  OM=generosity, ma=ethics, ni=patience,pad=diligence, mi=renunciation, hung=wisdom.  Another source, Awakening the Buddha Within, by Lama Surya Das says it means:  the jewel in the lotus (which might be the concepts above) and is the "divine mantra of unconditional love and compassion."  I like both interpretations, and have used the mantra over these last four years continuously, especially when I cannot get MIND to think my way out of what I FEEL, which is mostly always.  According to Das, the mantra is used to "create a Buddha field."  That sounds like a really good idea in this case.

Back to yesterday's anger.  What MIND told me I needed was an apology from the perpetrator.  I would need to use force to get that and it would create chaos not resolution.  So, I asked for clarity and punched the air.  Later, on Face Book, two different posts of folks I follow mentioned unconditional love.  And today, again, here comes a reminder of unconditional love.  Oh!  Maybe that's it.  Ya think?

I think I'm going to listen again.  And again.  And again.  And, I'm going to find my Kung Fu man because now--I think I'm ready!