Tell A Vision

I was raised with tel-a-vision, and I survived with my imagination and feelings intact. After spending most of my adult life with very minimal media of any kind, I do notice people tend to shut down quite a bit because of all we have to digest from the images and stories on the "boob tube" - and in movies and other media. When we look more deeply at what entertains us, we realize that these stories represent us. To realize that we are being re-presented by these often negative and superficial perpetuations is something to consider. Are the things you partake of and share with family and friends, do they carry in some way the vision you are imagining for life? What is the view from your mind's eye? Roots & Wings asks us to cultivate a deeper relationship to the vision we create, tell, and allow in our environment. It's time to become more and more conscious of the stories that make up the diet of our brain and heart.

Everything Is Energy

The word intangible at first sounds like we are addressing an unimportant matter. But if we think more deeply about the word intangible, we realize that many of the very most important things in life aren't "things", they are...intangible. The definition of Intangible, from Latin: unable to touch, vague, illusive. For example, the idea of "chakras" or energy centers in the body is intangible, you can't touch a chakra with your hand, saute it or film it expanding. However, each center represents a color in the rainbow, and a field of experience and activity in human life. These "rainbow rays of manifestation" are intangible, but real. What I have noticed is, when we work with subtle energies, healing, thought creation, prayer, creativity, connection, meditation; day by day - the experience of the intangibles takes on more life force than the tangibles.

The example I'm fond of using when people roll their eyes (even inwardly- I can tell) about this concept of intangibility is love in it's different facets. Like a diamond heart with many rays of manifestation, love, that ocean of unfathomable bliss and sweet torture that no yogi or poet can capture: Love: Union, True Marriage, God, Goddess, Ultimate Self, Higher Self, Divine Light, Surrender. Well, all I can say is, looking at the roots and wings of words really...makes me think!

A Braille Year

“This has been a Braille year” Alice said as I braided her hair. I leaned in, looking at her face. I worked as a volunteer at the convalescent home where Alice lived, and with the acceptance that sometimes comes with youth and old age, we had stepped into each others lives and quickly adapted to intimate moments, like my braiding her hair as she sat on her bed in her nightdress. I searched her face, her hands covered her ears, and moved to cover her eyes, as if she did not want to see, but Alice was blind. I was too young to think to ask what happened, to ask for her story, when or how she had become blind, how she had lived her life. But she did tell me what she meant that day. She said her son had passed away six months ago today, that she had outlived her only child, the contract was broken unexpectedly; he was supposed to outlive her. She had not spoken much in the two months I had known her, but I understood then why she had been so quiet. Today he should have been bringing her flowers (it was the weekend of Mother’s Day), he should be alive, calling her every week to see how she was doing, even paying for her living in the home, like a lot of the kids did. The Braille year was one in which she felt there were no words to say out loud, no words that could touch the experience, call it mourning, grief. She took my hand and asked me to sit with her, she said, "Though I feel lonely or isolated at times, I pray in the silence before breakfast, it's the time I feel at peace". I have always remembered that.
This has been my braille year. I often feel I'm living backwards, something always seemed to relate to something that happened before; my words had too much context, an overload that blinded me. How can I renew my relationship to the world, and feel again out of the darkness of my own Braille year? In my Braille year I can only reach forward and feel what’s right in front of me: the laundry needs doing, I’m about to run out of gas. I do not want words either, they are paper maps, I long for silence, for the no word world.
It is the practice of meditation that has saved me in my Braille year. Sitting in meditation, in the quiet before breakfast, I feel the mystery that underlies all of life. I hear the sound of joy buzzing in the very air, and despite all of the suffering, I know the nature of life is inherently blissful, and meditation allows that flower to unfold in the mind, it awakens the sleeping soul. The silence before breakfast is often the best part of my day, the part that cultivates the most important thing in my life, the connection to my own spirit and soul.

Ripples of Thought

The idea of "Ripples of Thought" is out in the culture now, the thought police have announced that we have a responsibility to produce good thoughts - and I believe this - I want to think good thoughts. I want to drive the car. But as I looked out the window last week, my mind racing with negative ideas, I saw this duck land on the water, and the ripples flowed dramatically out all around Mr. Duck. It really brought my negative thoughts in focus and I reeled, catching myself imagining exactly what I do not want!
Even after years of meditation, consciousness workshops, therapy...I still have trouble controlling my wayward mind!
My personal new year resolution is to, once and for all, train my mind, like a wayward vine, to climb up to my highest potential.

The Creative Power of Words-"Made ya Think!"

One of the hooks for Roots & Wings is that so many people are truly interested in words. Roots & Wings uses etymology as a springboard for a deeper conversation about life. Let's take the word personal as an example of a hidden meaning that takes us deeper into the roots of words-and the wings of our understanding of life. Personal comes from Latin, and means: mask. Isn't it amazing to acknowledge that what is personal-only hides our universal or spiritual aspect of similarity-like a mask! So much of our attention revolves around the mask-or surfaces or appearances. The masks of life, how everything looks, tastes, feels...but there are times when we must witness and even surrender for a time to the sometimes ugly underbelly of reality, what is beneath the mask: the light, the beauty, as well as the darkness, our sorrows, our separate journey. Our masks-and our personal stories-are truly what make this strange human journey soulful. This is what Roots & Wings brings to the community, a celebration of the masks and underpinnings of life, a way to soulfully engage in the stories of our separate and communal journey. It brings a context of meaning in a time deeply in need of real connections and communication.

At Work with Roots & Wings

I lead an Astrology Salon with a deck from the Roots & Wings book. In the salon we say astrology is "a language of energy", really just a conversation about your life. Astrology is about leading a more examined life, more soulful, it stretches people to open up and communicate personal as well as emotional or even spiritual things. "It makes ya think!" as many people have commented. When someone challenges the very idea of astrology, I usually say-"It's better than television, its about self knowledge and what your gifts are to develop so you can make the world a better place."

One evening there were a few women who were sort of caught by the salon-they happened to be sitting there chatting-when the salon started. They were good sports-guffawing and giving raised brow looks w/shoulder shrugs, but they selected a few cards from the Salon Deck (from the Roots & Wings book)as it passed by them. The deck is passed around the room, each person is asked to select three cards. The cards have a focus word and questions that accompany the specific word-as well as an almost unnoticable symbol-an astrological symbol that shows what specific astrological energy is at play in relation to the word (there is a chart that explains the symbols that comes with the deck-but most people get so involved-we usually never even address the symbol-we are living it!) Anyway, the caught women looked at their cards on the first pass (we go around the room twice) read their cards, and made wise and witty comments. But as the energy of each person speaking was felt, their truth or resistance, their essence or inspiration, the women who had been caught began to bear a demeanor that conveyed more sincerity, and at the end, when one of them commented how much she enjoyed the game, I laughed and said, "The deck tricks you into communicating and going deeper doesn't it!" She laughed and exclaimed, "Yes! It does! And I think you should keep on tricking people too-I may not have joined in voluntarily-but I got a lot out of that."

Roots & Wings reaches people who, yes, already utilize such things to enrich their lives, but also those who would not normally "be drawn" to these "new age" ideas, like "opening up and communicating". And it's a hook that keeps catching people's attention. Roots & Wings brings us closer to our words, to the meaning of our lives, and to each other. To order your Salon Deck of 50 laminated cards e-mail: artspiritcenter@yahoo.com for order details. Play the game!

Lovingkindness

Meditation teacher's say-"It's the work that's good for us." It's so important to remember this in many moments of our lives. In lovingkindness meditation, we move toward our hearts. We kneel down to the mystery, asking for baptism in the well of experience. In meditation, we talk about how words are symbols for experience, not the thing itself. Each time we say the words for the lovingkindness meditation-it is an exercise-to check in with one's self, to locate the experience of lovingkindness. Say or think, "may I be filled with lovingkindness" and see if you can truly find the feeling, allow or create the feeling of lovingkindness to fill, to contact, to embody and bloom in your energy body. Like Mantak Chia's smile deep within at the inner heart-center, feel the lovingkindness circulate in the four bodies, bring lovingkindness into the: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual bodies.

What words would you use to describe your experience of lovingkindness?