Riding the Wild Donkey

One of my favorite bloggers, Goddess Leonie of Goddess Guidebook.com, recently said something that struck me as both hilarious and profound as well as very timely in my life.

Leonie supports her family with her blog, artwork, etc. She took her dream and leaned so far into it that there was simply no other way of being. Last week she provided her readers with her own personal method for accomplishing - something she has done a lot of in the last few years. She calls it the Ride ze Wild Donkey method.

In Queensland, Australia where she lives there are these funny little critters we would call burros. They're shaggy and wily, living mostly out on the high wild plains, but occasionally one of these sly creatures will find its way into a well manicured paddock to take advantage of the lush grass and free security. Leonie says when your orderly, habitual thinking, dreaming and being is interrupted by one of these Wild Donkeys of an idea that comes out of nowhere and nags you and won't go away, that your only job is to get on it and ride.

Now, real wild donkeys aren't house broke, they aren't ridden easily and they don't play by the rules. So, you can be sure jumping on the back of that new thought or dream isn't gonna be easy and smooth. It's gonna take you on the ride of your life. Literally.

You can't plan out where the donkey is gonna go, in fact your well-laid plans are probably going to get trampled under its hooves as it rips up the grass of your manicured life. Your only job is to get on, hang on, and watch where it goes. The rest is up to the donkey. Ride it till it's done. And then get off.

Leonie, like me and everyone else, admits she's had plenty of good ideas that she didn't get on and ride.  The ones she wanted to wait on and digest and plan and think about. Those are the ones that are still in her inbox.

So get on that Wild Donkey and ride it! It came into your paddock for a reason. Be the person enjoying the ride, not the person wondering what the donkey means or waiting to get the conditions just right.


I'm pretty sure my Donkey is Red!

In Grace, (Master Osho says it's the Opposite of Gravity)

Kell

Speaking the Truth, or Throwing a Temper Tantrum

So, today was a very unproductive day. I woke up got out of bed and just had no umph to do anything. I had this annoyed out of my mind feeling all day - like I should be doing lots of things, but I didn't really want to, but that was a bad thing.

My husband was trying to get me to get out of the house - go pick up a pizza with him. I was trying to tell him about this kind of yucky cloud I had hanging over me. I mentioned that my moon cycle started waning a few days ago and now that the real moon is waning I had this very pulling down and inward thing going on and that I had intentioned to do things well when this time came so as to not end up feeling like this for 2 whole weeks and that part of my angst was that I felt I hadn't been true to that today.

He then commented that he sometimes wondered if my knowing and talking about my "moon cycle" (the quotations are his) doesn't just give me a psychological excuse to get depressed or angry or bitchy or unproductive or whatever. I started to answer that I realized the possibility of that happening and that the point is to recognize and realize the timing so that I can do something about it - like making sure I get some exercise, drinking plenty of water, not eating sugar, taking extra Vitamin D, etc. And to do these things consciously and on purpose so that I don't spiral into a dark hole of self-pity.

He then rolled his eyes and said that he only wondered if I wanted to go pick up a pizza with him. I was so freakin' hurt in that instant, take-your-breath-away and have no idea what to say sort of way. Why did he bring up and contribute to the conversation if he thought it was stupid? Why did he make eye contact and encouraging noises if it was the most boring conversation of his life and he couldn't wait for it to be over?

Normally I would slink into a corner and not say anything but something clicked this time and there was just no way I was going to be ridiculed for talking about my feelings, or for reaching out in a female way on a female topic and then being shut down. I actually had the thought that this is how the burning times keep happening in our culture and that if I didn't consciously pull myself off the stake that they will never stop. So, I let him have it.

Unfortunately I think my anger at being shut down and silenced came out more like just an extension of my pms-ing. It came out very bitchy. Also both my sons were standing in the room at the same time and while I don't regret that they saw me rage in defense of my Self, I think they perceived the situation as something they needed to contribute to and both of them made funny, jokey remarks in an attempt, I think, to bring some levity into the room. In the heat of the moment, all I saw was two more people with penises telling the person without one to shut up and stop inconveniencing everyone with the truth. Get back on the burning stake, mom. So, I let them have it too.

In the end before I stormed out the door to go get the damn pizza was to let them know in no uncertain terms that I wasn't nearly as angry about my unproductive day as I was at not being allowed to talk about it.

The funny thing is I'm not telling this story now so that I can bitch about my husband or complain that my own sons contribute to the ongoing patriarchy game. I'm also not confessing my own flying off the handle and feeling guilty about it. If anything, I'm actually doing what Mama Gena would call bragging.

For once in my life I felt that nudge and honored it. I actually heard that voice tell me I was worth defending. Not that I had personally been terribly wronged, but that there was a principle at stake and if I walked away and left it alone a precedent would be set, reset really, and my family culture would forever be formed by it. For once the words didn't get stuck in my blue chakra behind my poor thyroid that is just starting to heal - they came tumbling, ripping out - like Kali's flashing fiery swords, cutting away what no longer serves.

Yes, there was smoky residue. Yes, feelings got hurt. Yes, I coulda shoulda woulda handled it better. Perhaps a little more grace and a little less cussing was in order. But my guys are all fine now and it turns out they actually got the gist of what my ire was all about. And afterward I was just kinda in awe that I felt the nudge and acted on it at all. That my voice spoke when it felt it needed to. I thought, "Hey look at me, I'm actually learning!"

It's all baby steps. Tiny, imperfect, faltering, red steps toward the light.

So, this day turned out pretty Red after all. Not that it ever doesn't.

In Grace,

Kell

On being nothing...

Am reading The Book of Secrets by Osho. In hinduism, the difference between a yoga and a tantra (from a tranta-ists perspective) is that a yoga involves the repression of all desires while a tantra involves the full expression and experience of all desires until they no longer serve you. Like eating too much chocolate cake and pushing the plate away?

The only alternative to using a methodology, either a yoga or a tantra, says Osho, is to surrender. We choose to use a methodology because surrender is the hardest thing to do. The only way to surrender is to discover who you are. Show me who you are, he says. So the student meditates and learns that she is not her body. She lives in her body but it is not who she is. She meditates some more and learns that she is not her mind because her mind is only the rantings of her ego which only has one belief - that she is not god. So I must be my soul, my atma, she says and goes to meditate on this some more. Then she learns that the atma, the soul, is only a collection of philosophies, doctrines and teachings. And to her horror and delight she learns that she is nothingness, a blank slate, clear air, the space in-between. Now, says Osho, you have learned surrender. Now you can be filled up with god-ness.

This seems too big to digest - I guess I will keep reading the 112 tantras given by Shiva and Devi on how to be free.

This little piece of nothing/everything had a delightful evening last night at the inaugural meeting of a new book club. We met at the Vault in the Pearl District. We're going to read The Color of Water by James McBride. Every woman at the meeting is at least 10 years older than me. Four of us are Aries and carried giant red purses. They are beautiful, every one of them and I sat there in that loud bar feeling how cool it is to be a woman and have woman-ness in common with both those I "connect" with and those I don't.

Today I am meeting Deva Kelli at the tea house here at home. It is beautiful and serene and Victorian and I can't wait to sit there sometime and write. My stories seem both blatantly at odds and at home with the puritanical surroundings and the raging hormones of the Victorian era.

I continue to fight daily with the to-do list in the back of my head. Even when I am peacefully reading or joyfully painting, there is an underlying guilt about what I am not doing. It is a learning process, this being instead of doing. What is it an artist does in order to BE an artist? What is a Deva does in order to BE a Deva? What does a mother of two with a messy house, a dirty dog, an at-home job, and a husband who constantly worries about money DO in order to be a Deva? I don't think the answers come by brain storming a giant list of the things one does in order to be. It comes from relaxing into the being. Its a flow rather than a schedule. Sometimes I will BE doing the dishes. Sometimes I will BE sanding a board or painting a wall. Sometimes I will BE reading a book by a Hindu mystic or writing down the stories of a woman's fantasy life. Sometimes I will BE at the computer working on economic development. So, there is no to-do list. There is only a to-be list.

Last week I Be'd a gardner. Here is a picture of the start of one of my "lasagna" garden beds. This summer it will Be lettuce and chard and tomatoes and cucumbers. No one will make it a to-do list. No one will tell it how to do in order to be. It will just be it.

Having a very deep Red Day,

In Grace, (that ever flowing, ever abundant field of joy that you can never do enough to earn, because it is your birthright)

Kell