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

Shinin' the Light.

I belong to a LifeMakeover Group. That's a group of women going through, chapter by chapter the book, "Life Makeovers" by Cheryl Richardson. It just so happens that this particular LMO group only has me and one other person in it. Deva Kelli and I are like separate trains runnin' on parallel train tracks. She "gets" every word that comes out of my mouth and I'm always amazed that the words coming out of hers are exactly what my soul was already feeling or needed to hear. Anyway, we talk more about Mama Gena than we do Life Makeovers but this week we decided to be "caught up" to chapter 23 which is called "Shine the Light."


The take action challenge in this chapter is to shine a bright light on a secret dream. Take it out of the closet, shake the dust off, and make some kind of declaration about it.  I've been slowly trying to do just that to a couple of friends, my husband, and here on this blog. But to shine the full force of the sun on my sweet moldy little dream feels like standing naked in Grand Central Station.

So here goes...

I've been, with some trepidation and reluctance, begun practicing referring to my Self as an "artist." I recently announced I'm taking on the new official part/full time job of being such an animal and seeing where that takes me. For years people have been telling me "your signs are so cute," "you're so talented," "you should have a website," "you should be in craft fairs," "you should sell you work." Blah blah blah. I either didn't really take them, or me, seriously or I just didn't know where to start.

Here's where I want it to take me. I'd like to have my signs/chairs/toolboxes, etc. in about 5-10 different locations in the state at any given time. I'd like to "show" in a couple of art fairs each year. I'd like being an artist to be so successful that I don't have to work for anyone else. But here's the big part. The part that's really coming out of the closet.

I'd like to run/own/operate one of those adorable seasonal boutiquey craft fairs that operates for 3-4 weekends in a row 3-4 times a year. One that brings together the beautiful artplay of beautiful women who make things especially for other beautiful women. It's called "Pomegranates." It lives in an antique barn, or maybe a funky grange hall, or maybe someone's guest house or over sized tool shed.

Have to admit that I didn't know I had this part of the dream until I met Deva Kelli and she told me her dream is to run a boutique  but didn't know how running a full time retail shop would work with her being a full-time mother of three and I actually suggested that she try the "seasonal boutique" thought on for size.  The more I thought about it for her, the more I wanted it for me. And for Pete's sake the universe is big enough for both of us, isn't it?

Well, the light is shining. Not sure what to do with it next. Guess I'll just head back into the studio and paint the crap out of some more boards.

Red is scary sometimes.

In Grace,

Kell

I Love Me!

Been so long since I blogged. Guess that's what happens when you live your life and don't have time to write about it. Soooo much has happened and I always feel like I need to catch everything up here in blogland. But I'm not gonna.

It's Valentine's Day. A Holiday I've come to intrinsically dislike and disagree with on so many levels. As if we are incomplete without a sweetheart in our lives. As if having a sweetheart fixes everything. As if that sweetheart could love us perfectly without our learning to love our Selves first.

That being said my Sweetheart has been rather lovely lately. We did our Val-Day thing yesterday, and he went without complaint to a whole/raw restaurant in Portland that I've been oogling. He enjoyed it very much - its tastiness far surpassed his expectations and I am infinitely cooler than before.

That same Sweetheart of mine has had an incredible epiphany lately. It seems that as he approaches 40 (I'll get there first!) and faces that inevitable mid-life crisis thing, that he has found new fulfillment, joy and life-essence in the prospect of making me Happy! All I can say is, Mama Gena was right. It seems that when I make my own pleasure, joy and fulfillment a priority to Me, I become this amazing, interesting, beautiful woman that suddenly everyone else wants to make Happy too. I've said it once, I'll say it again, every woman in America needs to read this book

Thanks to Deva Rana's encouragement and the now out loud verbal support of that sweet guy of mine, oh and the screaming whisper of my inner goddess saying "Enough already! Get on with it!" I am now devoting myself to the 2nd job of being an artist. The antique shop in Albany is almost ready for my work - Deva Kelli is ready to research a show or two, and there are lovely outlets all over the place once I start looking. The Graceful Deva website is under construction to support this endeavor and every Monday is devoted to the magic of Art Play.

There's another creative project underway but under wraps for now. Its a writing project and lets just say the research is fun and titillating. It's been in the back of my brain for a couple of years but is now springing forward onto the written page - sometimes sheepishly, sometimes powerfully - but always with lots and lots of Red!  I take my little Red notebook to a coffee shop on Fridays now and write lovely, wicked things - right in plain view of baristas, business men with laptops, church ladies with bibles and college students with homework.

Got to see one of my heroes, Green Smoothie Girl, live and in person recently. I've been 70-80% raw lately and she is on of the people who inspires me. I've been finishing up the Women on the Edge of Evolution podcast series from last year - its always amazing to hear how my journey is not just my own, and certainly not alone. Ooh! One last thing that I am so excited about - although no one else will be - tomorrow I'm having my first colon hydrotherapy session! I will keep the gory details to my Self, but will let everyone know if it makes me feel good!

Happy all about Red-Hot, Passionate Love Day! Be the very best sweetheart of your own Soul that you can possibly be. What is it your dream love would do for you today? If you don't currently have one, or he/she falls a little short, do it for your Self! You are so miraculously, gorgeously, beautifully worth it.

Have the Reddest Red Day Ever!

In Grace,

Kell

Walk into the light!

Did you see the lunar eclipse last night? I did for about 15.5 seconds. It was actually kind of magical. We got back late from a holiday party - my mom called and said I was missing it and needed to go outside RIGHT NOW. Bailey and I ran outside - no jackets or shoes - into the middle of the street and looked up. It was solid gray skies - no stars, not a hint of moonlight. It wasn't going to happen for another 342 years and we were missing it. Oh well, I thought, its still happening, whether I can see it or not. I can still let go of what I no longer need and embrace a new light. Its not like the eclipse itself makes it happen, its my intention and reaction to the symbolism of it.

Suddenly the clouds moved. The sky shifted and wisps of gray clouds parted just enough in just the right spot. It looked like an ordinary half moon - no strange coloration or dimness - just a plain old white half moon. Except that we knew the moon was full. That this was no ordinary sight.

There wasn't time to run for the camera or let anyone else know. It lasted for barely more than a moment before the clouds shifted again and this once in a lifetime sight was obscured.  I felt blessed. Truly honored.

The winter solstice might be my very favorite day of the year. Not because of any symbolism or ritual attached to it, but because every day hereafter for the next 6 months is a little lighter, longer, lovelier.

The ever eloquent Caitlin Matthews greets it like this:

"Brightener of the Darkness, hail!
Keeper of the Clearness, Opener of the Depths,
Gifts of plenty are arising, 
Winter wonders, white snows' fall.
Joyful be the heart within us, 
Open wide the guesting door,
Wisdom waken in abundance,
Warm our beings to the core."


Turn on the tea kettle, stoke the fire, huddle in and get quiet - winter is here. But, Hades' arms hold us a few seconds less every day and Spring is coming. How will you get ready to Shine?

Have the Reddest Winter ever!

In Grace,

Kell

Giving Thanks....Finally

I haven't written in a while. Its in part due to the busyness of the holidays and in part due to the bzillion thoughts and realizations tumbling through my head - too many to write down at once.
I had a bad feeling at Thanksgiving. When I tried to explain this to people it usually came out sounding like I resented having to do all the work involved or pay for the cost of the holidays in lieu of other things. But, that wasn't really it.

I think I was feeling displaced.

When I was shopping at the grocery store for the Thanksgiving meal, it did occur to me how commercialized and materialistic even Thanksgiving has become. There didn't seem to be a lot of joy, let alone gratitude, in the whole undertaking. Now, I don't mean to bitch here. I had some great moments cooking with my kids, and the meal itself - sitting down with friends and family - that part was great. But, my husband summed up what I was feeling later that evening. My kids commented that although I read a Celtic blessing before we all dished up and sat down, that I had forgotten our tradition of holding hands, going around the table and each person saying something they are thankful for. My ever hilarious husband piped up, "I'm thankful that we didn't have to say what we're thankful for!"

I threw myself into Christmas wholeheartedly, thoroughly enjoying the decorating and the beauty of the Christmas tree and the lights and everything else. But, a few days ago some friends on Facebook commented about how people focus only on presents and greed and commercialism - and another friend responded that she loved the opportunity to give and celebrate just the joy of having people to love and give gifts to. It was in reading that "conversation" that I understood my angst.

I was indeed feeling the lack of meaning in the spoon fed commercialism that has become the tradition behind the holidays in our culture. But, at the same time I was feeling a pulling away from what has also been traditionally referred to as the "true meaning" behind them. The pilgrims did not wear top hats with big buckles and big white collars. They didn't eat turkeys, they ate sea bass. Jesus of Nazareth was not born on the 25th of December and there is nothing more pagan than an evergreen tree all lit up with ornaments and candles. While I was craving meaning, I was also resisting being told what that meaning should be.

I have in my every day life gotten far away from religion, from churchy-ness, from letting someone else tell me what God wants. But, at this time of year it comes flying back in the door with a vengeance.

So what is the answer? What is the meaning? Well, as Mr. Miyagi or Yoda, or Rumi, or any of the great and not so great new-age, self-help teachers of today would say - the answer lies within your own heart. Its whatever makes you happy. As Mama Gena would say, it means sucking as much pleasure out of the whole thing as you possibly can. It means letting go of all traditions, all expectations, keeping the things you like and ecstatically chucking the rest. It means being okay with someone else celebrating their religious rituals and knowing that I don't have to.

So for the rest of the holiday season - just a few more days really - I'm going to celebrate what most people would consider the secular side of things. I'm going to buy people presents and wrap them beautifully. I'm going to be grateful for the excessive number of sno-men and snow globes in my home.  I'm going to not make cookies and candy because it would make me feel gross. I'm not going to darken the doorway of a religious service. I'm going to thank Goddess that Jesus was born on whatever date he came into being and that his message was of unconditional love, grace and the awesome powerfulness of being human. I'm going to love love love everyone whose presence I am honored with. I'm going to give until it hurts; I'm going to receive until its embarrassing. I'm going to sing Christmas Carols at the top of my lungs - religious and secular ones alike - because they remind me of the magic and mystery I felt as a child. I'm going to do all of this intentionally and consciously.

As the loving Universe we live in often does, it confirmed my conclusions this morning in a funny way. You know how everyone talks about those Facebook "friends" we've never met and don't really know like they're a bad thing? Today I'm incredibly thankful for one such friend. Paul Kennedy and I have never met, we simply have a few "likes" in common. But today he said this: "Pleasing folks makes them needier .... please yourself this holiday season. Love yourself above all others and that love will overflow to everyone in your life. The greatest gift you can offer anyone is your own happiness." I don't know if he was quoting someone else or this was his original thought, but wow - well said.


I am no longer displaced.


Have the Reddest Christmas Ever!


In Grace,


Kell