An Adept of Fear

Often, I sit and wonder how we are where we are and what my purpose is in these times. I read the news and am often distraught by the panic, mania, chaos, and lack of resolve offered. In the background, I hear the war drums beating. 

To this beat, my eyes scurry over the words in the headlines and articles and on posts on social media. Panic, helplessness, fear; a drumming up of those emotions seems to be the purpose. 

In a moment of reverence to these feelings, I decided to engage in a practice I’ve developed when I’m feeling lost in words. Word Play is what I’ve called it. It is sort of like Tarot, but instead of using cards with major and minor arcana, I pull words. So I began my practice with the words I was reading “overcome fear”. I sat with it first and wondered how I would like to engage with fear. 

“Am I trying to overcome fear?” I asked myself. To me fear is an emotion that sends a message telling me something is amiss. It is a signal that supports me in staying safe. So the word “overcome” felt incorrect. 

I searched synonyms of "overcome" and settled on the word “to master”. I then looked up that definition, “to become completely proficient or skilled in, to deal with successfully.” This seemed closer to what I was looking for, but wasn’t hitting the spot so I kept on. 

I again searched for synonyms, but this time for “to master” and found the word proficient. The definition of proficient is, “having or showing knowledge, skill, aptitude.”. 

Ah, aptitude, that buzzed when I saw it. So I searched the synonyms for aptitude and found adept. 

Adept, I could get behind this word. I can become an adept, I thought. The definition for adept is “having or showing knowledge, skill, aptitude. Someone who is skilled in any field.”. This is the word I needed. This is the word I needed the headline to use to nurture a sense of empowerment in relation to fear.   

So I write this little piece for us, the humans, who are moving through such intense and paradigm-shifting times to say… It is not that we must overcome our fears to feel better and safer, but learn to listen to them, become knowledgeable of them, and develop a skill set to be in relationship with them. 

If our fear shows up with a message for us, generally coming from our basic instincts or intuition, we should not be oppressing or overcoming them, but thanking them for warning us and then, pulling up a chair to listen. 

Our fear is ancient and wise. It is so fantastic that it comes to us as a feeling that our sympathetic nervous system responds to… put the pedal to the metal and get me out of here! That is profound. It is our duty and our nature to put words to this feeling of fear. It is our responsibility as sentient beings to be care full with our words and how we wield them and to become adept at using them. 

So I leave you with this… when you come across a headline, a social media post, a news article, or any kind of media that haunts you, that “terrorizes” your mind… turn towards the emotion that comes, identify the trigger word, and then use this process to untangle yourself. 

We are the only ones who can create this perspective shift. As our media sources run wild to the beat of the war drums, we must remember that it has not always been this way. We must educate ourselves to know our history of terror and war and why it happened and for what. We must ask ourselves, “Who benefits from this war?”. And then do what we can to support ourselves and others in becoming liberated from it. 

My work, Evoking Reverence, is devoted to supporting a Great Turning…If you’re interested, join me and others who are turning the narrative. 

We are engaged in a great learning in these times and it is our duty to study and shift the narrative. 

May you find peace in these trying times and remember your breath is your pathway back home to yourself. 

I’ve included a link in my bio to offer you a gift: E-Book: Word Play: Following our Felt Senses to Reclaim Language.

Sentinels in the Forest

Lay down your burdens old girl.
Those thoughts tighten your belly til they have you sick.

Til you’re walking around your concrete jungle thinking that sickness is your norm.
Lay yourself down by my streams and exhale.

Unravel.
Give your belly of worries over to me.

Go sit among your Oak Tree Sisters.
Steady and vital they will hold your heavy heart.
They will hold your powerful wail.
They will ground that wicked energy pulsing through you.
To help you get through to Relief.

As you tremble and unwind watch the Grass as she blows with the Wind.
Find the Sentinels in the forest.
Sit with them.
Receive Darshan.

Sing with the Ravens.
Dance with the Thunder.

Let the rain drops give your tears permission to fall and bless our Earth.
Give yourself over to the Lightening.
Let its crackle stir your density up.
Out it goes!

Ha Ha Ha.

And the sun comes out.
Spacious and bright.
A new day comes here in this moment.

On the Edge

A snake slithers
A river meanders
The wind surfs the hills and valleys
As rain falls the soil drinks
Birds chirp

And I’m here
My awareness moves like snakes out of my body into everything around me

Sensing
Interpreting
Contracting
Expanding
Burrowing
Hiding

Expressive in places familiar
Estranged in places not understood

New languages
Less expression
Less flow

More ideas
More certainty
More Protocols

Organizing
Expectations
Holding my breath.

Rigid

How do I evoke the courage to bring myself out into these watering holes?
I fear my language won’t be understood.
That I’m unwelcome.

I’m not being met.
This is a certainty.
Currently.

I stay quit.
Interpreting.
Gauging words.
Feeling out certainty of thought.
Studying for fluency.

Striving for connection.

When I collide with new worlds
I’ve never been the one to be proud or certain.

I’ve stayed quit.
Tried to learn the prestige of fluency.
Worked to build bridges for entry.

It’s been 11 months in a new land and I’ve just gathered some materials to begin building.
My hands tremble.
My heart aches.
My mind scrambles.

I work to contain my awareness.
To sit and let it weave together meaning for me.
Maintaining a container for this process is trying.

Discipline.
Restraint.
Moving in and out of the Chitta mind into Jnana wisdom.

In this world I’m in today the Wisdom of the Heart seems to not have a welcome space.
So I cultivate it inside.
Inside my sanctuary.
In my gardens.
My altars.
My journals.
My relationships.

I sit and crash up against the edges of my own heart centric assuredness and pray that the nature of things will move through me.

Sometimes I look down at my journal and weep.
Surprised at what is written and shared.
Thanking the Mother for having not forsaken me.

To have the bridge built for me, through me...revitalizes me.
I keep on praying that Ill be able to connect these worlds and walk them.
That I’ll understand the other languages soon.
That I won’t feel wrong in intellectual spaces.
That I will meet those on the edge and that they, feeling familiarity

Will help me through the thick fog.

Weaver

I had an experience this summer that gave me the opportunity to weave together three decades worth of study.

It brought me to my knees. I just kept saying.. wow, what a gift, what a blessing.

I’ve followed my interests and the little breadcrumbs so earnestly for my entire life.
I was raised in the forests. Brought up through Southern Baptism.
Participated in Student Government, Mock United Nations and Youth Legislature.
I was President and Vice President. Lawyer, Supreme Court Justice, Most School Spirited.
I got a degree in Environmental Economics and Policy, a minor in French, and was a Public Policy Scholar.
I studied abroad in Ghana, traveled in Europe, and spent time in Guatemala, Indonesia, and around.

I worked in Washington, DC presenting research on public perspectives towards renewable energy and on creating sustainable economies in coal counties.

I learned that statistics and polls are based upon a sample size that often does not represent the whole AND that most academic journal entries and presented studies are backed by sources chosen to support the hypothesis.

I saw that DC politics was more about perpetuating a culture than creating great change to support a better world.

I learned I was heart centric not certainty dependent.
I left and traveled.
I heard the trees of Oregon tell me I needed to save them.

I became a park ranger at Arches National Park in Moab, UT and had the millions of years old rocks laugh at me... they mocked me for thinking I could save the world... reminding me one day I’d be just a layer of dust in their great walls of time.

I moved to Northern California and dove into a deep practice of yoga.
I became certified as a preschool teacher and taught Waldorf preschool for years.
Worked on a food farm, learned how to save seed and the significance of seed sovereignty.

Built out age appropriate environmental curriculum for children pre-k through high school.
I spent several years building a yoga school (business) and taught folks how to teach yoga, traveled and taught in different regions and cultures.

And broke a huge societal spell that had stolen my nature for far too long.
I learned how to sustain an awakened heart.

And I found God again. This time she was the Mother.

I quit my career and left the mountains. Now I’m here in Sacramento.

This past summer I had my story told back to me and it was rich, meaningful, and timely.

It helped me understand a bigger picture.
This page is me taking a step out of my privacy to share how I make sense of the things going on out there in the external world.

As someone who has such a deep internal sacred reality, I want to share how I move in and out of the realms... mostly by weaving.

I’ll be here weaving together all things sacred with all the terror and confusion.

Drawing lines between new and old, imaginary and real, felt and feeling and all things in between... with the purpose of Evoking Reverence for this life.

In these times.

Ushered to My Seat by Remembering (Smarana)

I’ve been called back to council

My day to day tasks have been sidelined

My pleasure delayed

The sun is out 

I’m affirming this life

As the day goes on the knock of the staff gets louder

Outside of my eyes are my friends and my activities

But behind my eyes

Deep in the cave of my heart 

The women are gathering

My actual floor creaks

My window budges open

A presences passes  

Today, I unknowingly prepared 

Cleaning the house

Opening the windows

Clearing the space 

Caring for myself

Now I’m here. 

Seated. 

Initiating my sacred

Evoking Reverence for the now that has passed

In each moment I lived today.

It takes me a long time to get warm even though the fires are lit

For the world outside of me has my attention. 

I’m sitting, reeling it back.

I’ve willingly gone out beyond my recall

Offering my practice up to be forgotten

Having faith, I will remember. 

But not knowing when remembering will return. 

Now I’m here seated. 

Being ushered to my seat by my remembering 

There are others who sit in council with me. 

Angelic voices who serenade. 

Singing into our space a living presence from a world long forgotten  

There is even a smell. 

Sweet. 

Robust. Buttery. 

Earthy, like dirt but magenta in its richness.

As I relax my jaw, my shoulders are pulled back 

My hair is being braided 

I’m being prepared 

Cloaked 

Refilled

As I come to sit

It’s an initiation every time. 

A Homecoming.

The forgetting is longer. 

And the heart inside of my chest burns. 

When I come home to council, I sit. 

I sort information, experiences, personality types, my responses to a new daily life.

I am in dialogue with those who I sit with. 

Receiving information, epiphanies, advice, direction, support

Then the sensation of closure comes. 

It’s time to go. 

The fires are put out. 

The warmth leaves.

And I’m left with a knowing. 

That I’m not alone. 

That forgetting is coming again. 

And to trust it. 

Trust is a different type of timeline.

Ancient Grace

There’s an ache in my chest 

She speaks to me through Feelings

Gasps I take 

Bolsters I lay over

Salves I spread 

Always present, never not there

To soothe this I’ve begun singing 

It’s here that the ache in my chest speaks to me 

She quivers with delight as she sees her potential liberation 

This ache knows me so well

She’s seen my attempt to love her 

To care for her writhing 

To ease her colicky ways 

She’s ancient Grace

A gift planted deep inside 

Abandon

Complete Abandon 

Her yearning to be freed through sound is unbearable to me. 

Her roots sprout and slithering through my body deep down into the earth. 

Preparing me to be anchored as I open to the power of prayer through song.

She’s teaching me. It’s amazing. 

Two parts.

Grounding in

Opening up 

At the same time 

Soaring with oblivion 

Steadied in rich soil

A body full of breath 

A familiarity with awareness

I manage this Instrument of Wonder. 

Sing sister sing.

Let me serenade you

Hold you.

Take up space around you 

I am just getting to know this wisdom

This ancient Grace

It’s part of me

But right now I don’t call it mine

This wisdom is that of those that came before me

I can feel them in my throat 

The effervescence 

The ache in my chest 

This portal has awakened 

When asked what it is I do 

I’ve always answered… 

I sing but with energy. 

I am anchored in awakening

Being pummeled by my forgetting

And by an Ancient Grace being loose in my uptightness. 

The Watering Hole: Nurturing the Feeling Self

She woke me from my sleep.

It was still dark outside so there was time.

Pulled me, by her moans, out of bed.

Whispering into my hips and groin that she needed to talk with me, that she needs me to listen.

So I went softly, sleepily out onto my mat and I sat. I waited for her to show up again, she always comes to get me then plays her games to see if I’ll wait for her.

So I sat.

I’ve honestly never been in this much physical pain before from an emotional trauma.

First, she showed up in my groin. Intense, throbbing, thick, pulsing. So I began my movement there. Slow, supported, jaw unclenched.... breathing.

My breath is my voice in this relationship; it's the bridge and the opening, the offering, to a dialogue yearned for by another part of myself. As I moved into and out of the pressure in my groin, I began to see, in my mind’s eye, the beginning of a map.

Circuitry.

My body, the flow of its language. Not often traveled. Especially right now. I’ve just gone through a dear friend's unexpected death and I nanny a teething 8 month old. My parasympathetic nervous system is dumping chemicals and they trickle down into the sinks within my body.

Today, I rise to soak in them.This is where we meet. My darling.My girl. The one who sits on a swing inside my rib cage. She’s ready to talk to me. I pause in my movement.

Supported and prepared. 

Steadying my breath so she knows I’m prepared to listen and paying attention. As my breath stills, my chest begins to burn. It’s that same feeling I’ve been feeling. Grief. I’ve said it’s like I’m being suffocated.

Like there’s a weight on my chest that I can’t escape.

Today, after 30 days of grieving... I’m blessed with the story of this feeling. As she swings, she begins to sing and I observe in awe. My darling innocent one. Pure emotion. Contained in reaction and response. Tell me your ways. The intensity of her song grows and I feel my heart well up with emotion.

I bow, keeping my jaw unclenched as she continues. I’ve learned by now that this opening is the resurrection process. The awakening of an internal attention.

My circuitry.

From the swing in my rib cage, she climbs up into my back and spreads out. The muscles in between my ribs in my back body are aching, swollen, and saturated. Saturated with feelings and chemicals that flushed my body and found a home in the sturdiest part of my form.

My posture.

They marched up through the bones of my spine, into the muscles of my neck... spread out into my jaw and settled in the back of my head. Seated and folded forward I begin again to breathe supported by blocks, arms raised, collar bones broadened...

My mouth open for this pressure needs more room...

Her dance feels like an uprising, like a swelling, like a drumming beat. I pause here and wait as my breath expands into these contractions like waves rushing onto the seashore then being pulled back out into the sea. 

Then it comes.

The rumbling and ricocheting, tumbling in from a dimension only my body’s wisdom knows exists. A weep. The kind of weeping only the strength of your strongest muscles can endure. To meet this sensation I just keep breathing. In and out. Slowing down.

Moving a bit as needed. Finding the edge of my body’s endurance and breathing into it. As I bear witness to this power it depressurizes. But it takes time. I’m so relieved that she comes to wake me up to tell me how she is.

As the weeping subsided she takes me by the hand of my awareness into the shoulder girdle, the underarm,  breast… Here she whispers and stomps, pointing exasperated.... tired she finally sits.

I know this part. This is the gift. This is our special place. Somewhere we get to by working together.

I’ve moved through this body with her guidance, her name is Wisdom. Now we’ve arrived together at the place we both need. The watering hole.

As she stomps and points I know what to do... I begin to turn and open the faucets. Moving my arms back and forth... now reclined over a wheel, my head supported with a block. I move my arms back and forth, turn my hands as if they’re turning door knobs, flutter my arms as if I’m a bird, turning my head left and right all while breathing steadily. Sometimes, I need to bulge my eyes, stick out my tongue, exhale with a hiss to midwife this process along. 

I continue and she waits. 

She waits, she’s tired.

Now it’s my turn to show her what it’s like to be a body. I continue my practice, and finally the faucets open, the levees break, the clogs, the stuck, the stored energy begins moving.  This is the most intimate part of “my practice”.

This is the sex of yoga.

As my faucets open, my breath collaborates to initiate an ushering. Right along this way please.... good day to you Great One, oh life. As this prana is directed into the engine of my heart, the circuitry initiates. 

Wisdom and I now sit back into one another and experience the wonder of an awakened heart.

We follow the circuitry powered by the breath as it flows through the heart and begins to drop into the roots of its beating. Its depth is not of this world. As this prana pours, I sit and witness a symphony of dimensions, a complexity I cannot compute... 

My heart beats, my eyes blink, I breathe, a bird chirps, a door slams, my friend texts me. With each beat the connection to the other worlds take hold. And I re-member myself, my selves, life, this life.

Here and now... but also then and there. The singing, the sacred, the wisdom of this path. I’m so glad she woke me up this morning. To be with the feeling of this story.

On My Knees with Grief: Nurturing the Feeling Self

These waves of grief are unpredictable.
They are what is beyond my love and light.
As they crash through my eyes and out though my weeping moans.

I tremble.

This feeling is so strong.
Uncomfortable and fearful of being seen.
What does the one who takes care of others do when she needs to be cared for?

Smiling is a lie.
Pleasantries are hallow.
The sadness in the world around me pierces me.

And I’m so hungry.
Someone please make me some food.

I weep hysterically as grief comes and goes.
I sit a lot.

I traverse the ladder from what I perceive my experience to be to the emotions that let me feel the truth of what it really is.

I’ve familiarized myself with my emotions.
It’s always been a homecoming and refuge.

But grief, grief is different.
I’m on my knees with Grief.

I’m sitting with a new feeling that is beyond anything I’ve ever felt.
Grief seems like a super feeling.

It’s the inside out and the upside down of love.
It’s the throw up your food from crying kind of hunger.
The cry so hard your can’t breathe kind of pranayama.
The reach out for support but never respond kind of company.

I can feel my actual heart weeping inside of my chest.
Maybe for now this is how I keep him alive.

So tired.

Imposter Syndrome whispers:
”Did you love him?”
”Did he love you?”

“But she was his favorite.”

“Hold back your cries.”
”Hug the people who hug you. Be polite.”
”Don’t make others uncomfortable, just stay home.”

“You weren’t as close to him as they were.”
”But, you broke up.”

All of this crashes down on me in a split second, over and over again.
These waves.
Knocking me down onto my knees.

This Grief.
This Super Power.
This Feeling.

The circuitry of this grief is only beginning to form inside of me.
I’m weak for now.
I’m tired.
I can’t breathe through it yet.
There is a weight on my chest.
A bit in my mouth.

Not enough oxygen in the air to gasp for...

** This is an offering to a sweet, sweet love I had who left this Earth at the time he did. I give thanks that our ancient spirits found each other in this time and got to play, pray, cry, and love once more. See you again sweet love. **