LunarMusings

Saying Goodbye to Typepad

Well my loves, the time has come.  I am leaving typepad and moving Lunar Musings to its own domain.  This transition won't occur until mid to late August, but I am posting this now so that those that are lead here through various links will be up to date. 

I have a newsletter that I will be sending out giving updates and information on upcoming events and changes so please do sign up for it either by following this link or by using the form in the right hand side bar.

Thank you.  The time I have spent here on typepad has been amazing, and the new incarnation of Lunar Musings will come soon, sweeter then before if I do say so myself!

Today's Meditation

This morning I woke up with this Mary Oliver quote in my mind: 

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

It was as if she were calling me out of my dream time and waking me with this question.  Interestingly, it hasn't elicited in me any anxiety to find the answer, but rather a very sweet and calm sense of expansion from which to marinate in the question.  Today, right now in this moment of my life I actually feel like I can answer this question, even though the actual words haven't arisen in me yet.

This is different from the anxiety this question has caused me in the past, because somewhere buried deep within was the belief that I really didn't have what it took to answer it with any amount of ownership or certainty over my life.  Just this shift alone, is so powerful that I am finding I want to sit with this before even going about the business of audaciously answering Mary Oliver's question. 

I take this into my day... freely, unleashed and joyfully. 

Arrival

I've been so busy for the last month preparing to come to Hawaii, that I hadn't really absorbed what was going on.  Its true, I've been ridiculously excited about coming and about being able to spend the entire Summer here, but the reality of the situation had yet to sink in.

Yesterday, as I sat at the dining room table surrounded by glorious beads and sacred stones I had a moment.  I stopped, and as I looked around, it was as if all these layers of my current reality coalesced and downloaded into my consciousness.  Several years ago, I had tentatively signed on to a dream of working for myself in such a way that I could be mobile and work from anywhere in the world.  Sitting there in that quiet moment of stillness, I realized I am doing just that.

It was a realization of an arrival.  I have to admit that I'm still in shock by it all.  I sat there thinking, "Wait... I think this is it.  This is it, right?"  And in fact it is.  Nothing is ever exactly as you imagine it will be in some distant future.  And often times I know for me, its so in the moment different, that you risk missing the arrival when it actually happens. 

But sitting there, open and genuinely available to the sensation of the truth, I received and continue to receive the wonder that comes when a dream you dared to have, actually reveals itself to be not only true, but right then in the present with you in it. Right there in the middle of this suite, with beads strewn all over a dining room table, while I 'worked' and created adornments, in Maui... for the Summer(!) I was/am living the dream I had mildly considered years ago.

Who knew?  And where its true that I've been doing this for the last year and a half, it hadn't at all seemed like a dream when I was struggling for cash and things seemed murky at best, and I didn't have a clue as to how to create a plan for myself.  Today, I have a plan, the path is revealing itself with each step I take, and although I'm certainly not making the money I once did, the income is still coming.  And did I mention, I'm living in Maui for 3 months, because I simply wanted to? 

I don't say that last statement lightly, nor do I say it to brag.  I say it over and over again, because 1) I still don't fully believe it, but also because 2) Its possible!  There are many soul sisters and brothers out there who share this desire, and in some way I need to convey to you, that it is possible.  Doors open, abundance appears, and not always in the form we expect.  Dreams manifest.  Even when, like me, the dream isn't fully owned until its sitting right in your lap.

Back in the early conception of this seedling dream, I didn't fully believe or want it.  Didn't have a clue as to how it could happen, or if I really wanted to live a true Gypsy life.  The little secret I hold is that I STILL don't know!  But I have to say, that I'm loving it, and I'm deeply grateful for it.  I'm floored by it, actually. 

So, when people say, "Oh my god!  A three month vacation?!"  I say, "No, just living and working and doing my thing, where I choose to."  For the next 3 months, it just happens to be in a tropical paradise.  Last year it was in a small mountain artist town. 

I wonder if I will ever not cry when I think about it. 

I'm A Blogger

Duh, right?  I've had this blog going for over 4 years now and its been such a wonderful medium of expression.  I've loved the community created and the ability to express myself both visually and with words over the internet.  Its such a great marriage of photography, soul and community. And I'm hooked its now become part of what I do.

As some of you know, I have been working on moving all my blogs over to their own host and server.  Its been a super slow process but so exciting!  I finally got my very long in the making food blog up:  Food Practice.  I love it!  And it has been such an invigorating journey to create a blog from scratch again.  Please go take a look and pass it on to friends!

My original plan was to redo this blog and move it out of Typepad (which by the way has been an AWESOME platform), but this has proven quite hard for me.  I love this blog and it has served as a magical forum for discovering and developing my voice.  So much has been covered here.  But as I look at elements for a new banner, and fonts and style components, I am struck by how much time has passed and how different things are, and how different things want to be. 

My journal is no longer just Lunarmusings.  And I'm finding that I need to dive deep into what the new face of this latest incarnation will be. I'm not sure yet, and will be stirring with it in the upcoming weeks. I want to clean it up, restyle the colors and form to match where I am now in my life, and also to have it fit into a grouping of blogs that I write in.

I'm struck by the fact that I'm a blogger.  Its not just that I'm a writer, but a blogger.  And part of my creativity in the world, specifically when it comes to writing, expresses itself through this medium.  So its not just a matter of sharing my journal musings anymore. I'm finding that my other passionate interests in the world want photographic and blogging expression and I'm thrilled by this!  I've dreampt of publishing books all my life, and in a sense blogs are ongoing living books that include the glorious dialogue of your readers on an ongoing basis.  And its with the deepest gratitude that I say to all of you, that this dialogue has shaped my growth and direction as a creative.

So this is where I've been of late.  There is this delicious coalescing of elements in me right now and I'm working at keeping a workable pace that keeps me focused, but also organized with all the ideas and plans blooming up within me!  Stick with me, I'll keep you posted.

Blessings!

The Highest Purpose of Intimacy and Valentines Day

How could I let a Valentines Day come and go without posting a little morsel of love wisdom from one of my most treasured books on the topic?  Here it is.  May love come and crack you open, exposing you to the audacious ride to the center of what IS.

"The highest purpose of intimacy is to call forth the beloved's soul."

"Enchanted partnership begins with the conscious understanding, on the part of two people, that the purpose of their relationship is not so much material as spiritual, and the  internal skills demanded by it are prodigious.  High romance is not about past or future.  It is not about practicality.  It is not about society or worldly routines.  It is an audacious ride to the center of what IS, at the heart of every person.  It is a bold and masterful inquiry into who two people really are and how we might become, while still on earth, the angels who reside within us."

~Enchanted Love by Marianne Williamson

Diving Into Divine Play

I've committed to doing a meditation practice for the next 40 days or so. I say 'or so' because the truth is that I would like to do a full 100 days, but I'm not sure what I will be once this practice is done.

I'm finding the practice to be so intense and such a vicerally potent recalibration that there are days when it takes me almost 2 hours AFTER the actual 2 hours of meditation to find some sense of stability. The energy movement caused by the practice itself feels like a dizzying high that leaves me both shockingly awake and totally unaware of which direction is actually up.

This morning was... interesting. I say this with a smile on my face because one of the things I'm loving about this practice is that all I have to do is show up, and the work, what needs to shift and be alchemized within me and throughout my ancestral line, happens without much mental control on my part. And... this morning. This morning I felt such an intense rush of energy through me, like a flood gate had unleashed itself, and for quite a while I thought I was actually going to faint. My entire body was tingling, and my brain felt as if it was spinning.

There was a moment or two when I pulled out a bit to observe myself, and my thoughts ran something like this, "Um...? Shit... am I going to faint, or is this like a stroke?" Not very spiritual huh? :) But this practice for me, at least right now, is about learning to trust, to free fall, to let go of the attachments I hold with a kung fu grip in order to maintain some illusion of safety. And so I did. I continued, feeling that if I fainted, then I fainted, if it was a stroke, then so be it. So be it.

I let go and dove further into this exploration, this rush of life coursing through me. And that was the calibration, the alchemy of my morning practice today. I didn't faint, or die or have a stroke. I floated into my morning, as the flood of energy began to find its place in me in such a way as to let me function and on I went.

Then a few minutes ago, I stumbled onto this video. And I sat here crying. Crying because as I watched each of these guys jump off the cliff, somewhere in the back of my head is the usual voice that clings to life and all around her vehemently say, 'Oh hell no!" But then, I took a deep breath as I felt a surge of emotion come up and rather then marvel at them as an observer while telling myself that there was no way I would EVER risk my life this way, instead I felt my body open and embody the experience it was watching.

Their utter freedom resonated with the sense of surrender and letting go that I had experienced this morning. And more then that, watching them fly through these majestic canyons spoke to me deeply about how life is nothing but Divine Play. That there is so much here to taste, experience, have, give, recieve, play through. Most of the time we stop ourselves short due to fear or rules or traditions or societal pressure. And I feel so humbled, so naked before the fact that this morning's moment of sitting there and thinking that if this was to lead me to fainting or even a stroke then so be it, because having the fullest experience this practice had to offer was more important.

Living fully, is more important. And I realize that jumping off a mountain seems a to be a bit more then practicing sadhana, but in that moment I got it. I am beginning to taste it and get the dance of the unleashed.

Enjoy the video!

What Does Unleashed Look Like?

 

Mixed media original art by Elena Rego 2009 "Unleashed I"

I retweeted this quote last night:

"Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still."

~Thoreau

This quote came to me on my little status stream just as I was sitting with this question of what does Unleashed look like. I mean, we are already three weeks into the new year and I'm looking around at my life and at myself wondering, "Is this Unleashed?"  So this quote, as magical synchronicity would have it, shined a light on something that has been happening within me for the last month or two, and I'm going to try to process it out here as best I can, since its still bubbling to the surface.

As I begin to embark on this exploration of strategy and how to achieve the vision of my bigger life picture, there is a little voice bubbling up.  Actually its not so much a fully formed voice yet as much as it is this inner prompting, or a nudge.  And it comes up whenever I veer off course.  And this occurrence is important to stay with because I'm not fully clear what the course is, but then again... I have always been.  So I don't want to dismiss this, but rather dive deeper into this knowing.  There is treasure here.

I know my 'bone'.  I have always known my 'bone'. And all the distractions that got my attention either out of anxiety, fear, avoidance, selling myself short and whatever other reason there was, may have at times given me benefits, but it in no way honed me and my power in the area that I meant to shine in.  Not by a long shot. 

This sounds terribly vague doesn't it?  I think what I am saying is that of late as these distractions come up, and some of them certainly worthy of looking at, when they come up, this inner prompting or nudge comes up, that urges my sights back to my vision, my purpose, my 'bone'.  And the nudge is growing in intensity with each day, so much so that its mere presence has begun to fill in the details of this larger life picture I am embarking on and creating.  And its informing me on where I need to turn. 

I find myself internally saying no to choices that come my way that would take me in a direction I don't want to go in. And that 'no' is so much clearer then it has been in the past, when I would question, doubt, or jump in anyways. Again,its not that these choices are bad in anyway, but rather, they don't nourish the purity of this vision I'm carrying. And this... this feels potent.  Like a refinement is taking place within me that is unfamiliar to me. 

Its almost a paradox in a way, isn't it?  That somehow refinement and strategy are integral to unleashing, and this stills me.  And then I come back to this quote by Thoreau, "Do what you love.  Know your bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still." I feel that this is one of the alchemical formulas to my Unleashing, and it thrills me.

Dreads: The Soul Process part 1

About 6 weeks back I wrote about the technical process of dreading my hair.  
Since then I have been sitting with what to write here, regarding the Soul Journey of locking my hair, not sure how to begin to articulate what has been a profound and multilayered experience.  My last post got me started a bit and so here I am, diving a bit deeper.

Dreading my hair has always been a desire buried deep somewhere in the back of my mind. But for years, I would say 10 years at least, I just couldn't bring myself to do it.  There was fear there I suppose.  Fear of committing my hair to such a permanent style and fear of what others would say, and fear of what it would look like.  But really more then any of those, was this sense of, "Who do you think you are?/Who does she think she is?"

Its fascinating to me now that these were the thoughts and feelings that would come up for me.  So much time had passed between then and this last year.  Really, my desire to dread my hair was no longer about my hair as much as it was an impulse to physically mark the deep shifts that were occuring in my soul.  

In the realm of the energetic, hair is a potent part of our body, especially for women.  Its our crown, the flow of our lives, and then that becomes our adornment.  I have been cutting my own hair now for the last 10 years or so.  Always waiting for the new moon, trimming away with intention and letting the moon imbue my mane with its power so that it would continue to grow strong and long and beautiful.  This became such an integral ritual for me, that the thought of someone else cutting my hair made me uncomfortable, unless it was someone I was connected to and of course, unless it was a woman - a magical sister that understood the magic contained in our hair.

This is why when it came to dreading my hair I opted to do it myself.  I was nervous about the process and had a consultation with someone that was amazing, but right before it came time to have him do my hair, I just couldn't.  

The act of locking my hair was one of empowerment.  A declaration of choice and of path to myself and the universe.  Each lock, each hour that passed as I did my hair was a meditative spell.  It was life altering in so many ways.  It really brought to life the potency of ritual adornment, which is what this has become for me.

And whats interesting is that I know that its a symbol, a representation of the soul path I am on, but I don't really think about it or am conscious of it while I am out in the world.  I had someone ask me if I had begun to experience others judgement or projections regarding what they think about people with locked hair.  I said no.  And as I sat there looking at her, the truth came forth for me in such a sweet way and I said, "I'm living in my world now."  

I can't really articulate what this was for me.  Such a liberating moment, where i realized that I wasn't even looking for approval or signs of disapproval, because I was now living IN my live.  My world.  So even if there is judgement coming at me, there is no opening in my consciousness for it to reach me anyway.  This has been such a revelation for me...  I'm still marinating in its significance.

And this is only the beginning of my dread lock journey.  Just the beginning indeed.

Bring It

My word last year was Transmutation.  I had just left my old life behind and moved up here to live in Idyllwild full time with Jon.  With no one else to work for but me and my time being my own, I knew that 2009 was going to hold space for me to do a great deal of inner traveling.  And so it was.  This last year kicked my ass.  And I needed it.  It wasn't pretty, and it didn't have a concrete path that I could follow so I knew where I was heading.  But on this end of it, I see how much shedding, self facing and individuation took place in this dark journey of a year. 

I also got a deeper glimpse into how shackled and bound I still am after all this time and self inquiry.  The layers just keep revealing themselves to me, and I come out of this time with such a potent awareness that its still me that holds me back, keeps me 'in line' and makes nice in order to play small.  It made sense that after a year of dancing around the decision to dread my hair, I did it and it became a physical manifestation of the changes occurring within me and all around me, but more on that later.  

Transmutation is constant in a life that is impulsed by deep inquiry, and I'm by no means done.  But there has been this renewal in what I can only call individuation.  That thing that most of us did as teenagers to separate our identity from our parents.  The process is never over with out parents, of course, but I have been experiencing it this year in such a profound way.  Its happening in my thinking, my relationship, my work...

I was sitting in the living room of a friend last month and we were talking about our journeys and the questions that were coming up.  And at one point she pointed to my hair and said, "Your hair..."  and we locked eyes and grinned in that knowing way when there is some deeper cellular communication going on.  I reached up and took hold of a couple of dreads and nodded my head.  Without thinking about it, I said, "I'm becoming unleashed."  And every part of my being responded to those words.  To that word. 

Unleashed.  Its certainly not the word I thought would lead me into this new year, but there it is.  A breaking free of myself and my story and of appearing onto the scene in a fully real, wild and primal way.  I think that is what this last year of transmutation has lead me to.  And I can't explain it fully, but there is a wildness that has been held back for to long. And I don't think its a wildness that is unique to me.  I think its intrinsic in every woman.  A wildness that is stifled, subdued and pushed back for one reason or another.

"There is a wolf in me...fangs pointed for tearing gashes... a red tongue for raw meat..and the hot lapping of blood. I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go."
~ Carl Sandberg - "Wilderness"

Like this last year with Transmutation, I have no idea where this theme and year will lead.  But I say, 'Bring it.'

The Meadow

 

Just a little something from my walk around the Meadow yesterday.

Thankful

"The Landscape That Calls Me"  by Elena Rego

I spoke to Leslie on skype today and she asked me to give her 5 things I was thankful for.  I was all caught up in my busy - ness and couldn't really even think of 5 that were even remotely substantial. 

So here, in honor of Thanksgiving, a holiday I absolutely love, I give you a list.  My list, of what I give thanks for this year.

Friends

Discovery

Truth

Good Food

Opportunity

Color

Art

Solitude

Individuation

Bonds

Family

Commitment

Music

Letting go

Living

Choice

My age

Art

My camera

Words

Freedom

Freedom

Twinkly lights on the house

Fireplaces

Purity

Maui

Idyllwild

Long Beach

Movement

The sway of my hips

Self employment

Mountain air

Distinct seasonal change

Bloglandia

Books

Community

Small ponds

Practice

Red convertible sports cars

Love

Audacity

Will

The ability to start over again

Yawning

Warm fluffy beds

Sleeping in

Sisterhood

Magic

Yes

Please, share your list here.  I would love to read them!

Dreads: The Technical Process

Today marks 4 full months of having dreads.  Its been a bit of a gestational period with them and so I haven't felt called to sit down and write about the process in detail here, although I have mentioned it often and shared the images.  

There is so much to say about it all that I'm going to try to do it in a couple of parts.  This post will be on how I did it.  The next one will be on the Soul Process.

There are so many ways to lock your hair.  I spent close to a year talking to people, reading articles online, watching You Tube videos and towards the end having a consult appointment with a guy in Santa Monica, whose name came up several times when I stopped random girls on the street to ask them about their amazing locks.  

I had concerns about my hair being too thin, or if the crochet method would end up looking like braids instead of locks, and I certainly didn't want to use wax... and on and on.  Massau, the stylist I had a consult with was amazing.  And enlightening.  I kept thinking that I had to use wax if I did the back combing method, which I was adamant about not wanting.  And he shared that he did the backcombing method, no crochet needle and no products.  I loved it!

Despite Massau's utter coolness I decided to lock my hair myself.  The reasons for which I'll discuss in the next post.

So I'm going to break it down and keep the soul process until later, which might be harder then I thought.  ;)

::The Doing::

~I sectioned off my hair with small rubber bands.  One inch squares.  This took about 2 hours believe it or not.   I really wanted to be careful how I divided them all.  I had originally wanted to have a straight part down the middle of my head as well as two straight parts on either side thinking that it would make hair does easier.  But in my research, it came up a few times that to stagger works better, because it lends some body and layers to your hair as oppose to the dreads hanging down from a center part and growing thicker in width towards the bottom. There is a danger of triangle head!  I didn't think that this would be the case with mine as they were thin, but I didn't want to take my chances, and I like a more organic look to my hair as oppose to neat straight lines.

~Next I took a fine toothed comb and began working on the sections at the nape of my neck.  I would remove the rubber band, and then giving the chunk of hair a slight twist, I would back comb pretty vigorously.  Then twist again and back comb again.  I would do this until the section of hair had been teased so much that there was at least a 3 inch length loss.  Then taking the strand of teased hair I would twist it and with my thumb and forefinger, rub up, against the grain of the hair to tighten the dread.  I would do this over and over again.  This entire process took me over 2 days, as once I did my entire head of hair I went back a few more times to tighten the dreads I had created.

I have quite a lot of baby hairs, especially along my front hairline.  So I experimented with them.  For the first couple of weeks I bundled them up in the small rubber bands so that they would lock into the dread.  You can see them in the picture below.

 

I took them off when my friend Tree, who had ridiculously gorgeous dreads for 7 years taught me the thumb circle and twist root method. (I just made up that name!) Here is an old picture of her with her dreads:

 

So I took my thumb and forefinger and pinched the base of the dread between the pads and then taking the stray hairs, I make small circle movements with my thumb until the little strays knot up and bind to the dread.  I twist the lose ones around and repeat the procedure until the root is tight and the strays are all in. 

~None of this required wax or perms or any other product. 

~I opted to let my ends remain lose for a softer look and didn't blunt the ends in the dread. 

~And I also chose to dread all of my hair and not leave any loose.

~I had a headache for the first 3 days from all the pulling and tightness.

~I didn't really have a lot of itchiness like others talk about.  I would get a bit just after some maintenance, but not anymore.  My scalp seems to have gotten use to it fairly quickly.

~To date I would say I've lost about 3 inches in length due to locking.

::The Washing::

I heard so many differing opinions about this.  Some said to not wash it initially for one or two months, others said to wash regularly. I couldn't last longer then a week without washing and that has been my standard since the beginning.  Usually on a Sunday or Monday, I was my hair with Dr. Bronner's lavender soap.

The first month of washing was challenging for me as my dreads always fluffed up and felt as if they would unravel.  They didn't, and soon after that month, each time I washed them they seemed to get tighter, which is what I am still experiencing now.  Also the amount of lose hair caused by washing is slowly diminishing.

::The Maintenance::

I think this is a matter of personal preference.  Some let their dreads do what they want and never really touch them after they have formed.  I'm a Libra.  I think this should say it all really, but in case you don't get what I mean, let me say that there is no way that I could avoid tending to them if I tried!

For the first 3 months, after washing I would crochet the lose hairs back into each dread and do the root tightening method I discussed above.  That seem to help in the locking process tremendously, but I just didn't like the braided look that the crochet method was giving my dreads, particularly the thin ones in the front. 

So I have stopped using the crochet needle, unless absolutely necessary and am now doing the root tightening method only, and doing it the entire length of the dread when needed.

::Random Tidbits::

~I have more hair on the left side of my head then the right.  And consequently more dreads on one side then the other.  (who knew?)

~I have one favorite dread that I can't for the life of me stop touching!  There had been two favorites for a time but now its just the one.  Whats interesting is that my same friend, Tree, mentioned that they pull on certain pressure points on the scalp, so being a favorite dread might be linked to the pressure point being stimulated.  It was an Aha moment for me as I'm a massage therapist, but hadn't considered the connection.

~In the beginning of the dreading process I had numerous dreams where they were unraveling and I couldn't keep them locked.  I hadn't heard that others had also had this dream until I began sharing my experience.  I remember waking up feeling that I must be so attached to them already, that there was anxiety about losing them.  I haven't had one in a while.

~They have made my graying hair easier for me to accept.

That's all for now.  If you have any questions or if there is something I have left out, feel free to leave a comment.  The follow up post to this one is coming soon.