Virtual solitude?

I left my journal in New York. So as circumstances force me to write on the laptop, I figure I may as well blog it. That’s what these things are for anyways, right?

I have no clue really. And frankly, I’m developing a real concern for these public networks. Especially the social ones, like Facebook. What are we accomplishing really exposing ourselves in such ways?

But then again, I have admitted issues with vulnerability. Have written about being like the moon, waxing and waning in stages of revelation. I have talked about love and the pre-requisite state, which I believe to be vulnerability. So maybe my issue is just that, mine. No need to take offense at on-line friend network.

Its just that lately, I have this dreaded sense when I’m on Facebook that I’m just feeding my ego. Saying things so they be heard. Showing things so they be seen. Seeing others so I know where to place myself.

And I’ll be honest, that’s what’s irking me these days. Not Facebook persay, but my Ego. Interrupting my sleep at 3am, Restless. Greeting me each early morning, Ready. The war against my ego and my spirit is waging strong. They cannot co-habitate, and they know it.

I need spiritual food…a good book, some sacred music, and some solitude.

Maybe even virtual solitude.

Between Two Moons

I've been on sabbatical.

My life in LA is on hold and in storage and has been since October of last year.
I worked as hard as I possibly could while living in the Hilton Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas for two months that Fall. Vegas got way colder than I expected, and about a week into the stint I realized I'd be spending the next eight weeks in an adult version of summer camp for yogis. It was an often aggravating and always childish sort of "work" environment. Nonetheless, I shed a layer. Watched the sun rise over Nevada mountains every morning from the twenty-seventh floor of the East Tower. I left once dirty bathroom towels on the floors and returned to a freshly made bed daily. I ate pancakes and bacon at the buffet too many times to admit. I took the elevator to my wine bar. Spent happy hours in the steam room at the spa. And did yoga. Because ultimately that was all we were there to do. So...in some respects, I guess Vegas was the beginning of the sabbatical. And there was the first lesson:
Just do what you are here to do. It is all you can do.

Then Paris. Ahhh...words cannot express. It seems every movie I've watched since I was there makes some reference to that beloved city of all my dreams come true. Or maybe its just me. I can't be sure. But Paris romanced me, enchanted me, exceeded itself beyond my expectations. And in the end, leaving Paris took my breathe away.

Suddenly, it is the new year. Two thousand and ten. The first new decade of the new millenia. And I find myself slowly slowing down. Its like I've come to the end of an epic ride and now I must rest for a moment and get my bearings.
Looking around at it all now, I swear, I have been at this place before.
Or maybe I am just adjusting - to an old but familiar sense of freedom that comes with having unintentionally shed the security of a home, of one address. I've no specific place to be and no immediate needs. So, I can. just. be.
Hmmm. I have been here at this place before.

I've been having these discussions with God about where I am supposed to be. Not like, just in life, but more specifically - geographically, physically, spiritually, etc. And moreso lately, (since this sabbatical began come to think of it), the conclusions are seeming less and less specific.
Be happy. Be adventurous. Be who you want to be. Do what you want to do. Go where you want to go. Enjoy life.

Funny, it was really hard to leave Montmarte, the artsy village where I lived during my stay in Paris, so I visited few tourist attractions. One day after a church service I attended just off George V, I walked along the Champs Elysees. I never saw Le Tour Eiffel, did not visit the Musee du Louvre, but I got pictures of the grand l'Arc de Triomphe. It is impressive, like its city.
The French say, "Courage." Just as Americans know the word. But the French especially, they say it with passion, just as they live. And they say it in very ordinary circumstances. Courage is not just for battle, it is for life.

A cutie at a roulette table in Vegas taught me, the secret to gambling is you can't be afraid to lose. You lose the moment you think you can't win.

Sitting here now, resting between two full moons, I feel like a sea captain plotting her next voyage. Catching my breathe while I watch the waves break and wait for the right tide to ship out.

You can't get back a day,
but you can create a new one
thereby altering the future.
Aren't our dreams, one by one,
mapping out several realities
wherein you are still alive
In what such condition we suppose
is to be determined. Nonetheless,
the perspective is clear. Choose
each day how you will live
and see the fruitful bounty of
your success.

Love cycles

I’ve been meaning to write but I’ve been busy falling in love…pining away after a love feared lost…rejoicing in regaining it…and this pattern has been repeating itself.

Even my love cycles.

The other night as I was emailing a friend the latest update on this new crush of mine 1 Corinthians 13 rest heavily upon my spirit.

Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

Too often throughout the short course of this already dramatic love affair I’ve been entertaining, I have erred terribly from this picture of love. And my actions have been justified because I’ve been told by friends and told myself, “You deserve more.” So then with this mantra as my ammunition I become expectant and demanding. Impatient and rude. Proud of my ability to directly express my disappointment and desire for more to a man who often isn’t giving me what I want when I want it. I make myself heard without concern for his emotion. I am bitchy and bratty, bearing only what I deem worthy of my time or energy.

More have been quick to tell me, “He’s just not the right one…When the right one comes you’ll know it…Love should be easy,” they say.

Meanwhile nothing in this love passage suggests to me that love will be easy. On the contrary, everything in it suggests that along the way of loving I will be tested, my patience tried, faith in myself, my lover, and even love itself, put under fire.

And before we met, I’d been wondering why it is that I cannot find love?

Certainly men have wanted to love me, tried to love me, and failed to love me. I have honestly never even had a healthy monogamous relationship with a man I could call a long-term boyfriend. No flowers on Valentine’s Day, no Happy Birthday baby, no New Year’s Eve kisses.

I have spent recent years rightly learning how to truly love myself. Nurturing a reasonable dose of self-love is healthy…but an overdose I am beginning to fear can be deadly. Especially for one like me. I am good at solitude. I go to movies alone, out to lunch alone, won’t hesitate to travel alone. But once years ago, God whispered to me in a dark moment, “there are some things you can only learn in solitude, and some you can only learn in the company of others.” And I am hearing that same whisper again. In fact, it’s getting louder.

Twelve-steppers (with whom I did some hard time a couple years back) say, “Crazy is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.”

Well, I’m done with crazy! What I want is love! To share my life with a man. To care for someone else in this world besides myself. To be unselfishly in love with a man who challenges me to be more than what I am today, while loving me exactly where I am today.

I pray for the man who God uses to teach me this next love lesson. It may not be easy for either of us. It has certainly not been easy for this one I am learning now to love.
With him I have found the wisdom of older women in my life who have themselves borne the weight of love most valuable. These women have seen him first and have encouraged me in times of prideful hard ass resentment to call him again, again…and again. Really?! ?! That's not desperate or insecure? No, has been their response, that is love.

And still I might have already lost this man ya’ll! No, of course he wasn’t perfect but he was pretty damn near close if you ask me. One of the variety that don’t come around but once is the sweet by and by. The first of his kind I could envision a future and a family with while still maintaining a vision of my own extraordinary dreams and goals.

The sense of loss I have felt in the miserable heartbrokenness of the past few weeks has quieted me enough to really see; to ask for this man’s forgiveness even despite his own transgressions and to forgive myself. I have heard God speak in my humility – You must be patient with all things…willing to see the other in love – their struggles, their desires, their confusion, their hope.

And this is why love is such a challenge…because everything in 1 Corinthians 13 suggests that love is not about ME.

This was a long one and I still feel like its an incomplete thought, but I must leave you now with a quote from a book I’ve been referencing called Love Signs. What I share was written in particular for me, a Gemini woman, but I feel it speaks more broadly. This is how it says she will gain the affection of the man she desires:

“If she will speak softly, move gently…slowly…she may enter his dream world with him, and see love the way he does – as a thing of calm and beauty. All it takes is putting herself in his place now and then, which will eventually lead her straight into his heart – the very haven she’s so long been searching for and thought she’d never find…that magical garden where roses grow without the need for protective thorns.”

Vulnerability

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.

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.

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.