New Life

I will now make this a photo blog where I can share pics of the kids online.  Love to you my friends!

Easter~

Peace

Wow, I am all amazement now.  Wonder and profundity seep into my tired bones.  That was a fabulous show- so deep, so real, so well received.  There will be many sprouts that come from the seeds I have sown this year.  I look back, and I am deeply satisfied - I have been deeply held - I have fought a glorious fight - it's time for a little rest now, to nourish my new wings for the next era, to dream in my sleep and wait to see what colour and fragrance the roses will be come next spring.
Twelve-Fifteen-Eighteen months ago I was in the throes of my marriage breaking up, I was deep in the training to become a whirling dervish, my father was living his last days on the earth.  This moment I take the time to notice that I did it: I crafted and won my legal battle, I came to peace with my father, I made it back to England, I produced some marvelous performances and papers, I carried my children through it all, and we are all laughing.  We are all laughing now, how glorious that is!
Thursday Kaiah arrived from America to spend his summer visitation here.  Friday night we all sat in the garden eating tofu coconut curry and just giggling.  My family is whole, I am whole, there is beauty still, and it can only grow and open more and more and more from here.
Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

Fire

"In love, ask for madness, a life abandoned and a mind lost, ask for dangerous adventures in deserts filled with fire." Mevlana Rumi

This weekend I spent the time camping in lovely lovely Roslyn Glen, Scotland.  The grass is soft and mossy, the river swift and wild.  The trees sing ancient songs and the wind is gentle down in the glen.  There are many wild campsites, fire pits showing who has been there before.  In nature, in communion, my heart catches those sparks and flies!  

The children were camping too, with their dad at the seaside.  This is the first adventure separate, so to speak, as there is really no separation between a mother and her children ever.  They were happy and well cared for, and it is really not just ok, but beautiful.  Thank you universe~

Love is amazing.  And I am a dancer in love.  Here are some of the pictures from my dance of passion in March. 

It is good to be here, to be working, to be loving, to have brought my family through this past year intact.  gently now, we celebrate :)

Roses

The roses in my garden are blooming.  The roses and the lilacs everywhere are blooming.  Queen Anns Lace blankets the understory in the Cambridge gardens and the fields smell of blossom.  I am love~  with the earth, my life, my beautiful children, myself, my work, mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.  I am super busy with teaching and performing and writing, also delicious.  Here are some links to see what I am up to.  

Show and Symposium

you tube

some photos

HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU  XXXXX

Love

It's spring!  The cherry and almond trees have come out in bloom, and the smell as we cycle across town is heavenly....archways full of blossoming branches cover the bikepaths, buttercups cover the fields, and I am committed to spontaneity.  Today on our way to breakdance camp we came across a group of volunteers weeding one of the commons, and got a little lesson in edible herbs, taking time to eat chickweed, dandelion, wild mustard.  We discovered shepherds purse and discussed various ways to cook nettles.  Love!  Love has opened in my heart, my heart's resonance has shifted, and I am full of delight at the earth and my place in it.  Yum~  We are dyi busy as well (do it yourself) and tonight I decorate and make lovely my room.  I found a fantastic 1950's wardbrobe that will hang my oodles of sundresses and some crazy lanterns for tea lights that glow blue and pink...the kids have painted their walls blue and covered them with planets, shooting stars and flowers.  It feels good~  In London I continue to discover fantastic parks and to commune with my dervish community.  New people, new energetic places all opening up and I feel that wonderful flow of vortexes I hadn't known about spinning into play.  Keepin' it real and and grounded, this feels right, humble, focused and open.  Opening and opening and opening.  Hu~

Space

I've written about space before.  It's so necessary, and I never let myself have it.  Now, a congenial emptiness introduces itself into my brocade, this seasons carpet. Fifteen years of raising children and 30+ years of parenting has left me with a formidable loyal soldier.  She really rocks on, and on, and on, and on, until finally she soothes herself with all that rocking and let's go into a dance of trance.  Sigh~  This is beautiful too.  And in this spirit spaces emerge which contain the lace of duties next to holy smiling eyelets.  I arrive late, don't answer emails, burn the porridge, and everybody smiles.  Today, when we were meant to get out of the house early to manage errands, I found myself evening out colors of paint on our newly coated walls.  This afternoon, when I was meant to be more or less arriving at a meeting, I found us in the park munching celery and doing cartwheels.  This evening, after eating pizza and surfing youtube, the three of us fell asleep on the couch.  And when I got them up to put them to bed, they were smiling too.  I'll have more of this in the basket thanks.  where time drops out and our frequencies tune to love.  ~ 





 

Planting

The time for planting is near-I feel it close to me on this new moon.  My seed bag, it is growing fat.  I am growing lighter beside the seed bag, able to channel and move visions of the one heart into shared experience.  Spring speaks herself-through shining eyes, windswept sighs, bare feet, chilly nights, and wobbly first pronouncements like this one.

For as long as I can remember I have been making plans for my healing resort.  I first wrote up a schedule of classes and lists of skills offered when I was just 11 years old.  I included lots of movement, cooking, work with horses, prayer circles.  I was not far off at all!  Or, my vision hasn't changed that much.  I have simply been building the skill set to manifest it for the past 20 years now.  
Newer visions have come along to integrate and refocus the plans, but always they return, to wake in my vision again, to include lots of movement, cooking, work with horses, prayer circles.  There are dances and ceremonies too, many many healing modalities for coping with everything from ancestral bondage and cancers to positive digestion and happy skin.  The centers are connected to local communities.  There are several.  They lead the way in walking in balance, they are facilitated and managed by some really wonderful people.  
I feel the first one coming close to me, close enough to almost hear her name, to see a clear path of action in her wake.  I wonder what she will look like?  How she will behave?  Who her friends will be?  Her supporters and admirers?  Her enemies?  What discoveries await!  I hope I am up to the task.  I know, and I know, that I am just a little person with big ears.  May they hear at every step of the way, and may they be cradled.  ALL of this, all of my writing, my turning, my healing, my producing, my mothering, it all gets integrated now.  

Check this out: Dome Houses based on writings of Rumi
and this:sustainable farming and artist community in India
and this:young people enabling "new" methodologies
and this:using our talents to foster emerging paradigms
and this:the power of heart-thought becomes prominent

I have no doubts as to the reality of this possibility.  I have no doubts as to the eventual beautiful outcomes.  Most importantly though, I have immense faith, without doubt, in the human desire for creative positive high vibrational action and living.  I plant my faith in this desire today.  I water it with sound and dance.  I show up to it's shining mirror and listen.  Aho.

Water

Today at 12noon, across the world, humanity will join our intentions to purify and cleanse our water.  We can no longer allow events such as Chernobyl, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the many many other oil spills of the last century, and the Fukushima leaks to evade our honest attention.  This is sacred activism.  It is not so difficult to do.  One prayer today, one dance tomorrow, one life born into a clean world with water for health and hydration for cycles to come.  Technology will follow the impulses of our desires.  Place your desires for harmony at the center, concentrated passion behind them, and they will manifest.  This is the prayer:

March 31st, 2011 (Thursday)
12:00 noon in each time zone

Please say the following phrase:
“The water of Fukushima Nuclear Plant,
we are sorry to make you suffer.
Please forgive us. We thank you, and we love you.”

Please say it aloud or in your mind. Repeat it three times as you put your hands together in a prayer position. Please offer your sincere prayer.

Thank you very much from my heart.

With love and gratitude,
Dr. Masaru Emoto  

Let us continue beyond today, let this be a seed which sprouts prolifically and grows vast.  HU~ 

 

Dirt

A few days ago I sat in my garden courtyard, looked at the sliding glass windows, and saw my father's eyes looking back at me.  It's like origami, the pressures of the past year released from my bones so that supple, multiplicities of beneficence have folded themselves up into a tiny thread, aveoli upon aveoli, at the core of being.  That day I walked to the store, radiant in a sundress, and planted sunflower and nasturtiums from seed, lettuces, strawberries, and little white violas from starts.  Mathias placed a huge number of crystals in and around the lettuces, and aurora held each tiny leaf of the flowering seedlings, both fresh.

Did you hear that winter’s over? The basil
and the carnations cannot control their

laughter. The nightingale, back from his
wandering, has been made singing master

over the birds. The trees reach out their
congratulations. The soul goes dancing

through the king’s doorway. Anemones blush
because they have seen the rose naked.

Spring, the only fair judge, walks in the
courtroom, and several December thieves steal

away, Last year’s miracles will soon be
forgotten. New creatures whirl in from non-

existence, galaxies scattered around their
feet. Have you met them? Do you hear the

bud of Jesus crooning in the cradle? A single
narcissus flower has been appointed Inspector

of Kingdoms. A feast is set. Listen: the
wind is pouring wine! Love used to hide

inside images: no more! The orchard hangs
out its lanterns. The dead come stumbling by

in shrouds. Nothing can stay bound or be
imprisoned. You say, “End this poem here,

and wait for what’s next.” I will. Poems
are rough notations for the music we are.

~Mevlana Rumi~

Today I lay in the dirt among my rosebushes, soaking up warmth, gently chanting the names of saints.  I like dirt.  I like the grit and the realism and the insects, these too are part of beneficence.  The daffodils are dying now, their yellow scent upon the wind paving the way for other flourishes...open and soft.

Hu

Balance

Balance is not a static state, it is a state of continual adjustment.  When maintaining physical balance all the tiny muscles of the foot synergistically shift from one stress point to another, spreading and pulling weight across arches into toes down to the earth up the calves and along the femur into wide hips in constant transfer.  Attention to this level of balance is prophetic for minute transformation, as physical transfer down to the cellular level is tracked.  It is one of my favorite ways to move, with slow steady awareness and outrageous timeless risk.  However, there are many ways to be in the world and the works I shared last week stretched my sense of balance to maturity in new ways.  

A Heart in Flames made me move fast, huge, tracing the borders of containment, barely held together by flesh, bursting out of pattern.  Alot of anger came out!  Alot of joy!  I kicked my own ass and it too was prophetic, exhausting stubborn attachments and tilling the blueprint of Hannah into fresh crumbly soil.

Grief was *lovely*, so so lovely.  Not a sound was heard, suspended in gorgeous imagery and gentle pulsing of energies universal into the fabric of our bodies, props, and individual stories, we succeeded in balancing depths with concrete moments of stillness.

Tenderness was off balance.  As a professional art maker I really struggle when this happens, when perfection is too elusive, nowhere close enough to catch a wisp of her as she slides in and out of sight, when she refuses to reveal herself.  As the leader of my troupe it's up to me, to grounding my state of inner balance for the energies at hand, and when I take risks that are real risks, beyond the physical, I have to get ok when sometimes I flutter, when sometimes I harvest weeds. 

This three days after performance week mania love I rest, reflect, and remember that many Japanese flower arrangements have an ugly gorgeous out of place weed placed in the bunch.  Notice this lovely example by Junko, a flower artist working and living in London, the dead yellow leaf providing exquisite symmetry to the other obvious beauties.  I should like to have my falls be so poetic.

And really, if I have 60+ years of making work ahead of me, it really is nice to fall sometimes, to find new ground and experience surprises.  

I am open to surprise and delight in its many varied manifestations, yoked within my cellular being, that all comes not just to the good, but to the joy.

In closing, a poem by Jay Ramsay, local transcendentalist: 

I saw a great light come down over London,
And buildings and cars and people were still
They were held wherever they were under the sky’s
Clear humming radiance as it descended –
Everywhere, in shops, behind desks and on trains
Everything stopped as the stillness came down
And touched the crown of our heads
As our eyes closed, and the sky filled us
And our minds became the sky –
And everyone, regardless of crime class or creed
Was touched; as slowly we began to stir
Out of this penetrated light-filled sleep
Dizzily as the hand completed its dialing,
And the train lurched forward
And I saw faces looking at one another questioning,
I saw people meeting eye to eye and standing
Half amazed by each other’s presence
I saw their mouths silently shaping the word why
Why didn’t we know this? and yet knowing
They already knew, and without words
We all stood searching for the gesture
That would say it –

Ohm into~

(photos and video clips on the way..) 

Midnight Oil

Bright shiny morning greets us, my dancers and I.  We have been up all night preparing for next weeks shows, and will rehearse most of the day tomorrow.  Tissue paper roses, revisions of monologues, changes in music choices, re-conception of pieces according to who we are today.  Depth work at the processual level.  

This past week has been huge for this body, huge for this heart, huge for this creative self, for through the studio of life I/we have reached and reached and reached until fingers eyes shadows just won't grow anymore.  In my work I do not show pieces, I do not entertain, I do not show off for the sake of an adoring witness.  I am a shaman, as are my dancers, and all of this is new to all of us.  

In grief it is collective grief that courses through us, paved on the circuits of our own real processes.  In tenderness it is the sweet so sugary it hurts that cracks the child egg and allows life to flow forth.  In passion it is an all over new discovery of self as woman self as alive self as beating powerful rhythm which emerges from the plunge into embryonic implantation. It is tsunami here, tender eyes there, broken students, cooking food, firm decisions, hungry self.  It is three dances.  Three years.  Three years ago today we made the solid decision to move to England.

Each show is a vortex of vast potentialities...riding these waves is joy in motion, humanity in action, conscious co-creation.  I am wonderfully blessed to have such rich material and amazing committed dancers to surf with.  Thank you.

I Insist

Ahh we come now to the bend of ascension through Earth and Fire.  There are lots of hills and valleys, switchbacks and beautiful vistas on the human journey.  Once again: clear boundaries, exceptional will power, stamina, sheer belief in the impossibility of failure, vertical realities.  It has been 3 years now of this.  And new habits are finally taking root.  We humans, we learn very very slowly ;-)

In the newspaper today I read about the new release of my favorite hop-hop artist, Lupe Fiasco.  It's a hidden/not hidden metaphorical/literal manifesto of his most recent struggle.  I relate.  In the major uphill of legalese I walked last autumn Lupe's music carried me,his songs of ghetto redemption driving my blood to boil as I fashioned the first of what may be many manifestos. Thirty-five pages of jargon I wrote to provide a foundation for light.  Ho.  The judge signed it into law January 4th and I received my certified copy in the mail.  Shortly after we landed the children and I co-created an 8 point set of rules for our house.  Number eight says, "in all your actions remember you are loved".  I/you/we relate as artists to the upgrading/processing/unwinding of patterns via the creative act.  Studios are sacred ground.  Thoughts made there manifest as exterior life.  

Two weeks ago, I entered a dance of fire, which will showcase next Tuesday and Wednesday night in Cambridge.  This was the result of the first rehearsal: 
1. I take total responsibility for my emotions and emotional health.
2. I make and use clear boundaries about what I am and am not willing to do.
3. I take total responsibility for the financial well being of my family.  I rock it out as the matriarch.
4. I am open to relationships of all varieties which simply delight me.
5. I make no apologies for being the bright and beautiful star that I am.
It's a hot dance!  In the doing of what is set before me, I also stage a version of grief upon the stage next Thursday, and a version of tenderness on Friday, which feels really really good.


And in growing slowly, sensuality takes form, incarnating and ascending us in rapid replay and quick freshness, fast tides over/upon primary respiration.  Huuuuuuuu Allah Hu de Alim 4eva.  

British Seas

Swish~  That's a door opening.  On Monday I will perform with British Sea Power as part of an online series of live performance.  It is a fascinating project!  The technology, hacked from Kinect- Microsoft's response to the Wii- records, edits, and transmits digitally live time.  At rehearsals last week we were recording my movement with the Kinect inspired software in development by the crew.  It works with infrared imaging and responds to movement as the basis for editing choices.  With the recorded movements the software then pre-designs possible edits of the cameras and they are literally choreographed for the event.  The real delicious part of it all is the underlying aspect chance will play!  With many stored possibilities we all show up and perform for the space, perform for/with the cameras, perform for the live audience, and what is simply is.  There is no going back to the editing room, no air brushing of the lead singer, no back up vocalists added to the mix.  We are live, we are online, Feb 28th 9pm Greenwich Mean time.  The show lasts 20 minutes. Hu~

http://www.myspace.com/roundhouseblackbox

Daughters

We have reached that age, eyes roll and tears spin out in breathy gasps, everything seems so unfair!  Delicate and fragile, the nearly nine year old child becomes self conscious in a very new way.  Such tender handling is needed, not to break the sapling, as the self rises in flow with these early hormonal rushes.  Luckily, there are many great avenues to turn toward: peaceful parenting, love and logic, anthroposophy, and my daughters very nature.  These tell me that she desires responsibility, something to love, close connection on her terms, physical activity.  We are reading Ramona all over again (having read 4 of the books a few years ago), this time she reads some of the chapters to me.  She is taking yoga, swimming, cycling to school.  She wants more!  Ice skating and breakdancing too.  I'll have to see what I can do.  But the biggest and best part, is that she was offered a guinea pig to love and care for.  Daffodil came to our home, complete with indoor hutch, outdoor hutch, garden run, bales of hay, bags of food, and toys.  Every step of the way through our adventures, exactly what we need and desire has been laid before us.  Welcome Daffodil.  Next, I become friends with the ice dancers of the area, if there are any to be found! =)

16 Years

The most difficult part of being across the Atlanctic from my homeland is the fact that my teenager stayed there.  13 years of joy and cacophany, and then it was time to share him with the world.  Today he will not take cupcakes into school, he will be getting his drivers license!!  Happy Birthday Kaiah!  With Love. 

Contracts

Life Giver

My children like to play to with my cell phone, taking random pictures and pretending to call China, what child doesn't?  Last week they changed my ring-tone to that wonderful song from the 60's, "It's a gift to be simple, It's a gift to be free, It's a gift to come home where we like to be".  Delight is in the details~


Two weeks ago my drier arrived.  I happily live without a car.  I will not, however, continue to find creative ways of stringing laundry across my kitchen.  This is not Siberia, and I am a posh spoilt American in the end.  Being also a granola loving hippy in the end, I find the lived in mess of daily life so comforting...and the meows of our cat, and long naps, and hot chocolate.  Delight is in the senses~


One week ago today, we were in a major car accident.  Mathias bolted into a very busy intersection without stopping, and it really happened, he was hit by a car going at a very fast speed.  The car swerved, tried to stop, Mathias took the impact on his left side.  That boy, sitting in the ambulance, just kept talking about texting his friends that he really got to see the inside.  He grilled them about every detail he saw, and walked away without so much as a single scratch or bruise!  "Mom", he said, "the angel saved me."  Life Giver Aho!  Every day I wrap them in angelic love.  That day I did it twice for good measure.  Delight is in the big things~~~


As we gather close to each other in the aftermath of, of, of everything, I think repeatedly on a story told often by our sheikh in London.  "There is a traditional Chinese fable that illustrates the need to reverse our ordinary way of thinking and of viewing events.  It tells of how a poor farmer had a horse that ran off into the country of the barbarians.  All his neighbours offered their condolences but the farmer said, 'How do you know that this isn't good fortune?'  A few months later the horse returned bringing with it a barbarian's horse of excellent stock.  All his neighbors offered their congratulations but the farmer said, 'How do you know that this isn't a disaster?'  The two horses bred and soon the farmer had a whole herd of fine horses.  One day when the farmer's son was riding one of them he fell off and broke his hipbone.  All the neighbours offered the farmer their condolences but he said, 'How do you know this isn't good fortune?'  A year later the barbarians invaded the frontier and all the fit young men were called up and most of them died in the war but the farmer's son survived.  Thus good fortune can be disaster and vice-versa.  Who can tell how events will be transformed?  So we can learn to turn around the view we have of almost all the events in our lives."  Delight is in deepest trust and knowing~  It is a delight so deep and normal as to be missed...the sound of a drier, the glow of a radiator, the smell of a starry night holding a new contract on life.  To be a chalice of earth, that is all I desire now.  It contains universes of love.  Aho!


Jacobs, Philip. 2006. Oneself: Life as a Means of Transformation. Winchester: O Books. 111-112.

Chalice

 

~O sun she rises, shakes out her fiery mane, purple and windy on a glorious song~

Joyous Year of the Rabbit!

Structures of crystal and light 

the very essence 

of this new life

Thank you 

Baby Dinosaurs

Lol.  When you are part genius and terminally weird what can you expect??  Some cried, some came back for a second night, some fell in love with "the tai chi dance", others fell asleep.  Namaste to all who witnessed~ 

http://cambridgetab.co.uk/featured-image/inspired 

 It's good to be home!

Performance

Live performance is just awesome.  It brings us into the moment so viscerally, so deeply, there is simply nowhere else to go.  Onstage, lights exposing our nakedness, we performers must come out, crack the seeds of our selves open, and reach toward our depths, or die without birth.  It had been too long!  Too long away from performance, too long away from healing work.  I must and  I will and I am integrating these aspects back into my life in a big big way.  
How lucky, how fortunate, how blessed, to perform five nights so soon upon arrival in England.  I am dancing an old solo, from when Open Air Dance was brand new, and I put on that crazy huge show while five months pregnant!  Who remembers that?  It was beautiful, turtles painted in mud and maidens in turquoise plether :) I am not the worlds best performer this week, but I am pretty good, getting it spot on at least some of the nights.  The audience comes into our s-l-o-w state of being at any rate, and so the choreography stands.  
Tonight, I will kiss the moon in the headlamps of the stage lights once again~  Ohm.

Space

The sky is gray.  So gray.  Seagulls flock on my daily walks in the mud.  So much mud.  Rain pours down the windows.  I love it!  Something about the land, my body here, the general consciousness in interaction, is very very happy.  I believe it is a sense of the sacred.  In my journey, I feel home: not home as in where I grew up, but home in my own self, home in this temple of bones, as if I have been erased and am just a lovely pure thought coming into form again.  Exquisite.

My village is three blocks long.  In these three blocks there rests a church from the 12th century, four pubs, a playground, an art gallery, some mud and brick structures and a handful of well designed homes.  It is perfect.  So perfect.  Commerce at an ebb, bells through the day, birds at every glimpse, space to breathe.  Hu~

Quiet

I'd like to be silent for awhile, still.  I'd like to sleep for a long long time.  I'd like to cry until I have no more tears left, and just be tiny, quiet.  And so I will.  With a furnace in my heart, resting in my own new space, close to nature, shhhhh.  I am laughing when I cry these days =)  We are here.

Dream Big

"What happened to the boy who suddenly got everything he ever wanted?" asked Wonka.  "I don't know," responded Charlie. "He lived happily ever after," smiled the great candy weaver.  

It's time to light the lighthouse beams =)  This year, oh this fantabulous on our doorstep rabbit year, I DESIRE, I long for with that deep grief based longing, I pour into the universal boomerang, the seedlings of my heart!

Dancing, working through my body, Performing, Healing with my hands and feet and sweat.  Huna Raindrop into the lake of being.
International travel to simply be with kindred spirits of my heart.  Working, praying, loving, singing bridges into manifestation.  And maybe sleeping in quite a bit too.
Writing writing writing Books, stepping stones to later become articles, and first precious drafts of the eventual PhD document.  Hu.
Reading everything I desire...autobiographies, textbooks, movement books, joyous funky words, on a brand new kindle. Yo.
Children children singing children dancing children playing music from their very hearts children laughing children cuddling children resting in the peace and safety of my arms.
Teaching.  Polarity.  Ho.
Prosperity and Fellowship that fully supports my work and DESIRE and very incarnation in the world on all the Machiavellian levels so that I am free to just do it.
And deeper longings yet unspoken on the public space of a blog.  For the soul is a diamond of multiplicity and prisms...what we see is only a fraction of reflection pointing towards the inner world.

Dream with me, weave with me, the beauty that we are.  
Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!

Blessings

 

The picture is blurry but I think you get the idea :)

At The Sir Francis on Weston in San Fransisco.

Such treasures!  Happy New Year. 

Epiphany

Epiphany rests at the door of Imbolc and is the traditional end to the twelve days of Christmas.  It is truly the birth...the darkest hour has passed, the sun and moon have risen together, certain light continues to build momentum towards peace, new dreams take shape.  

This epiphany my children and I will land at London Heathrow, new dreams in hands and hearts.  It has been joyous, desperate, awful, terrific, intense, filled with song, and heart wrenching.  I never lost hope, that wonderful human quality which so defines our holistic condition.  May this continue.  May the love and friendship which has so bountifully supported that hope continue to thrive.  May prosperity bless all whom this circle touches.  Ho.

Though my body will be flying through the air in two days time, my feet are firmly emblazoned with mud and vines and thorny scratches.  It feels good, being grounded, as I take off!  Hu. 

~Much Love~