Man oh man. I am just recovering from this full moon past. December 12th was the date.
She was so full this time she cried for days and days.
Its been raining here in LA. The moon's been hiding herself in the clouds.
The rain did exactly what it should have. Brought a quiet hush over the city with its steady cleansing back beat. But with cleansing comes pain. Healing wounds can sting. The sting I've been feeling is that of loneliness. Its been seeping in slow and constant for months and months now. I am painfully ware of its presence and haven't been able to pray it away. And its not done with me yet...
But its bringing me to a deep place of revelation.
Yesterday my BFF told me, "I like you like this. All vulnerable and ish." That's where I've been trying to live...in this place where I say out loud to myself - "I want. I need. I refuse to live without."
I am practicing vulnerability. And it is a discipline, like yoga or prayer. One can easily be thrown of its course.
Last Saturday I attended a workshop for actor's called The Workshop. It was the kind of thing actors do...the kind of thing I've never done and am now convinced I must do more of.
The whole day consisted of very intense, intimate, emotional exchanges through a series of exercises with a partner. Within 10 minutes of beginning I was crying, hugging my partner - a magnificent Mexican actor who could make me smile or cry with his eyes alone - whispering in each others ear, 'Help me,' or 'I honor you.' Later Carl, our coach for the day and a mighty man himself, would have one partner (A) say to the other (B), 'I like you.' B would then respond by saying either, 'I believe you,' or 'I don't believe you.' You can imagine the emotion that ensued.
Still vulnerability in these moments throughout the day proved more freeing that frightening.
A couple of nights ago I broke down on the phone with my mother. It was my monthly mommy breakdown. She's used to it yet still compassionate like each time is the first. I shared with her through tears what I learned from that workshop. How Carl stops me before lunch and tells me how my presence is so powerful. How I am so full of emotion and pain and that is where my power lie. How I shouldn't live there, but how the pain is my vehicle of artistic communication and my artistic gift to everyone I encounter. I told mommy, "I refuse to be a crazy lonely artist" - giving away my emotion to others with no one but God to pick up the pieces. I will need a physical lover if I am to live out this exhausting calling upon my life. She prayed with me on the phone and said, "God, just give her someone."
And ironically, it has been men who have been significant in helping me through this vicious full moon week. Two friends in particular, both of whom are men much older than me. Both 45 actually...now that I think of their ages. So they are men of an era passing, secure enough to allow women to actually be women - the vulnerable goddesses that we are. Not like these boys of my day who have with the loss of chivalry come to demand from women that we trade in our goddess for their masculine non-emotive ways. Vulnerability terrifies them. For these dear male friends of mine who rode the wave of my emotional cycle, vulnerability excites them, it calls to them, it sparks in them their own hormonal nuances and enables them to be wholly men. My phone conversations with them, each for hours at a time, and sweet emails or texts waiting to greet my sadness in the mornings after restless nights sleeps healed me, restored me, returned me to my feminine goddess power fighting extinction in this culture of cool.
Vulnerability is healing. It is a pre-requisite for Love.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Friday, October 31, 2008
New Moon
My period came with the New Moon and I suppose with her came a new night. A new way of looking out on Los Angeles, my home, my body, my purpose. She came full and running over with emotion. Sometimes new revelation carries with it the weight of realization.
A once fearful self does not always immediately re-emerge a confident self. More often she first simply becomes a self aware of her fears. One willing to say out loud, “I am afraid.” Willing to hear a dear friend, a teacher, a soft God whisper in the night say, “Darling, you are just scared.”
I began reading The Interior Castle by St. Teresa of Avila. Teresa was a 16th century mystic who recorded her transcendent experiences with God through prayer. In this book, she writes of a place in the center of our being that houses many dwellings. She calls this place ‘the interior castle’ and inside this castle is God’s dwelling place. God dwells here, in the very center of our self. “But,” says Teresa, “the door to this castle is prayer.”
The interior castle houses seven dwellings to be exact, like stages of faith or Hindu chakras. And the book is divided into seven chapters. I read only through the Second Dwelling, stopping at the end as though dead in my tracks thinking, “this is as far as I’ve gotten on my spiritual journey?”
Like the moon, we go through cycles. Within a period of 28 days or less we pass through a range of emotion. At the full moon I feel more sure of self, more open to exposing my true self to others. Like the moon when she is full, I guess I dread less the idea of letting the world see me in full light.
The opposite of fear is commonly known to be love. But I suppose fear’s opposite can also be confidence. Confidence is when vulnerability becomes not a thing to resist, but rather, a thing willing to be understood. Then vulnerability may be used to its fullest potential - to expose the self - without apology, without shame, and without retreat. That is unconditionally loving yourself.
St. Teresa writes this of the soul daring enough to move beyond the second dwelling,
Faith teaches the soul exactly what will make her whole.
The will, after seeing countless signs of love, inclines the soul to love in return. The will shows the soul that this is a Lover who will never leave her, One who walks with her always, giving her life and being. The intellect steps in to help the soul understand that she can never hope to have a better friend as long as she lives. It shows the soul that the world is filled with illusion and that these pleasures that the spirit of evil is dangling before her come laden with trials and tribulations, with worries and contractions. It points out that she will find neither security nor peace outside the castle.
May the soul always cultivate her intention not to be vanquished.
A once fearful self does not always immediately re-emerge a confident self. More often she first simply becomes a self aware of her fears. One willing to say out loud, “I am afraid.” Willing to hear a dear friend, a teacher, a soft God whisper in the night say, “Darling, you are just scared.”
I began reading The Interior Castle by St. Teresa of Avila. Teresa was a 16th century mystic who recorded her transcendent experiences with God through prayer. In this book, she writes of a place in the center of our being that houses many dwellings. She calls this place ‘the interior castle’ and inside this castle is God’s dwelling place. God dwells here, in the very center of our self. “But,” says Teresa, “the door to this castle is prayer.”
The interior castle houses seven dwellings to be exact, like stages of faith or Hindu chakras. And the book is divided into seven chapters. I read only through the Second Dwelling, stopping at the end as though dead in my tracks thinking, “this is as far as I’ve gotten on my spiritual journey?”
Like the moon, we go through cycles. Within a period of 28 days or less we pass through a range of emotion. At the full moon I feel more sure of self, more open to exposing my true self to others. Like the moon when she is full, I guess I dread less the idea of letting the world see me in full light.
The opposite of fear is commonly known to be love. But I suppose fear’s opposite can also be confidence. Confidence is when vulnerability becomes not a thing to resist, but rather, a thing willing to be understood. Then vulnerability may be used to its fullest potential - to expose the self - without apology, without shame, and without retreat. That is unconditionally loving yourself.
St. Teresa writes this of the soul daring enough to move beyond the second dwelling,
Faith teaches the soul exactly what will make her whole.
The will, after seeing countless signs of love, inclines the soul to love in return. The will shows the soul that this is a Lover who will never leave her, One who walks with her always, giving her life and being. The intellect steps in to help the soul understand that she can never hope to have a better friend as long as she lives. It shows the soul that the world is filled with illusion and that these pleasures that the spirit of evil is dangling before her come laden with trials and tribulations, with worries and contractions. It points out that she will find neither security nor peace outside the castle.
May the soul always cultivate her intention not to be vanquished.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Strawberry Moon
I was born in June. Apparently, the Native Americans gave my moon a name and called her Strawberry Moon.
I was born in the night. My mother says after hours of painful labor I entered this world while my Strawberry Moon was in her First Quarter.
My herbalist tells me this time of the lunar phase is known as the ‘Crisis of Action;’ that those born at the First Quarter need to resolve the inner conflict between their solar and lunar energies by taking decisive action in the outer world.
No wonder I always feel the way I do. On the verge of some major life altering decision.
My spiritual life is marked by what I call a recurring crisis of belief. This crisis typically arises around the 14th day of my menstrual cycle and lasts through the first day of menstruation at which point the fog that has settled around my brain lifts and clears as the blood begins to flow.
I was beginning to accept this was just my pattern, that I was as my mother recently told me, just cyclical in nature. Until I met David, my herbalist, who tells me he specializes in women’s hormonal cycles. Known also as a medical astrologist, David tells me the same day we meet that women’s menstrual cycles tend to follow a lunar pattern, both cycles repeating monthly, every 29 or 30 days.
Clearly I found this intriguing...
This recent encounter and persistent thoughts I’ve had of late regarding the emotional roller coaster being a women can be led to these posts. For years now I’ve pondered this notion of how the woman’s hormonal cycle affects the spiritual life. I guess that’s why I now find myself here in this place.
As usual, when I ask God a question, instead of receiving a direct answer I find I am led on a journey to discover its meaning.
I was born in the night. My mother says after hours of painful labor I entered this world while my Strawberry Moon was in her First Quarter.
My herbalist tells me this time of the lunar phase is known as the ‘Crisis of Action;’ that those born at the First Quarter need to resolve the inner conflict between their solar and lunar energies by taking decisive action in the outer world.
No wonder I always feel the way I do. On the verge of some major life altering decision.
My spiritual life is marked by what I call a recurring crisis of belief. This crisis typically arises around the 14th day of my menstrual cycle and lasts through the first day of menstruation at which point the fog that has settled around my brain lifts and clears as the blood begins to flow.
I was beginning to accept this was just my pattern, that I was as my mother recently told me, just cyclical in nature. Until I met David, my herbalist, who tells me he specializes in women’s hormonal cycles. Known also as a medical astrologist, David tells me the same day we meet that women’s menstrual cycles tend to follow a lunar pattern, both cycles repeating monthly, every 29 or 30 days.
Clearly I found this intriguing...
This recent encounter and persistent thoughts I’ve had of late regarding the emotional roller coaster being a women can be led to these posts. For years now I’ve pondered this notion of how the woman’s hormonal cycle affects the spiritual life. I guess that’s why I now find myself here in this place.
As usual, when I ask God a question, instead of receiving a direct answer I find I am led on a journey to discover its meaning.
Monday, September 22, 2008
The Beginning
I began to watch the moon, notice her cycle, and my own in relation. I thought, why count only the days when night’s time passes equally?
In my understanding of the universe the story says in the beginning God created night and day. Story says, what first existed was darkness and out of it God created light.
I wonder if the first light was the moon, the sun being the more radiant light only after she had proven her design? Truly she is a light in darkness. Without her night would be a thick, rich void.
But this is just the beginning. I do not really know yet what is the meaning of the moon.
I call these Mystic Tales because my understanding of a mystic is one who knows always the strength of the moon, knows always what it is to have light in the darkness. Mystics know they must be present in darkness. Not to fear. Because God is there too. Because there is always a Light in us.
In my understanding of the universe the story says in the beginning God created night and day. Story says, what first existed was darkness and out of it God created light.
I wonder if the first light was the moon, the sun being the more radiant light only after she had proven her design? Truly she is a light in darkness. Without her night would be a thick, rich void.
But this is just the beginning. I do not really know yet what is the meaning of the moon.
I call these Mystic Tales because my understanding of a mystic is one who knows always the strength of the moon, knows always what it is to have light in the darkness. Mystics know they must be present in darkness. Not to fear. Because God is there too. Because there is always a Light in us.
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