Our friend, Mike Jekogian, just sent this to me. How young and cute were we here??? This was taken a month into our dating in 2003!!! Jon had invited me to attend his friend's, Mike's, engagement party, which turned out to be a surprise wedding. Such a great evening. Sigh... This makes me fall in love with us all over again.
I'm such a sentimental girl...
PS... Mike's wife Carrie has an amazing eco friendly baby company called Lolababiez. She has amazing sweet stuff, go check it out!
Six years with this man. Six. I can't even comprehend the amount of time that has passed since we first met. I can still feel that boy and girl meeting for the first time and it brings a smile to my face and tears to my eyes. We have covered so much terrain since that first contact with one another on Match.com. Yes... Match.com. Can you believe it?
Love is a ride. And there is never a way to predict where it will lead you and how you will arrive at any given point along that journey. This relationship for me has been a practice in living, breathing, opening and saying yes. And how that has manifested changes with every year we are together.
The last year has been a difficult one for us. Many adjustments have had to be made as we both moved into his family cabin in Idyllwild and my work changed, finances changed, needs changed. I'm floored still and ever grateful that we are committed to the truth of things, the lovely, ecstatic, hard, unhappy, thrilled, and challenging truth of things as they are want to come up when two people engage in a committed love relationship together.
He has become my family over all these years and this floors me as well. Everything about him is as familiar as the whole of my life existence, his presence is a constant in the world for me in a way that feels timeless... a part of me. Love can be piercing this way, and its something I had never understood before.
I bow in gratitude to us and where we are now. I bow to us and where we may head towards. I bow to the unknown, and I bow to the journey love is constantly leading us on. I bow to the piercing, to the raw and to the timeless. I bow to this man in my life, at my side and the constant evolving, unraveling and deep seeing that is required from us by this love that has brought us together.
I bow reverently to the last 6 years of our lives and all they contained.
You know those moments when all things just coalesce into one big restless outpouring? I'm having that right now. And what follows is a frenzied list of stream of consciousness words... a list of what is swirling within and driving me into a dangerously delicious direction.
*Passion*
*Balls to the wall*
*HardCore*
*Unleashed*
*SexOnFire*
*Hot*
*Heat*
*Intent*
*Yes*
*Longing*
*Desire*
*Depth*
*Intensity*
*Wild*
*Abandon*
*Wanton*
*Fever*
*Free*
*Free*
*Free*
*Unfettered*
*Emotion*
*Released*
*Re-Membered*
*A-Maze*
*A-mazing*
*Amazed*
*Boundless*
*Heavy*
*Storming*
*Dangerous*
*Potent*
*Potent*
*Potent*
*Unwavering*
*Living In My World Now*
*Yes*
*Daring*
*Audacity*
*Shit Ya*
*Timeless*
*Seen*
*Watch Me*
*Flight*
*Raw*
*Cracked Open*
*Slip Stream*
*Movement*
*Revolution*
*Sacred*
*Carnal*
*Met By Me*
*Free Fall*
*Do It*
*Fuck Regret*
*Embrace It*
*Embrace It All*
*Just Beginning*
*Prolific*
*Eternal*
*Expansive*
*Vast*
*Naked*
*Revealed*
*True*
*Dangerous*
"I am forever... time me."
~The SexOnFire reference above was about the song by Kings Of Leon. The song came up on a girlfriends Facebook page and it played into the mix of the storm within perfectly. The song and this guys voice is hot... check out the video here.
"...No one can advise or help you–no one. There is only one thing you
should do. Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to
write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your
heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were
forbidden to write. This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent
hour of your night: MUST I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer.
And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet the solemn question
with a strong, simple ‘I MUST,’ then build your life in accordance with
this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most
indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse. Then
come close to nature. Then, as if no one had ever tried before, try to
say what you see and feel and love and lose."
~Rainer Maria Rilke, February 17th, 1903
The denying of my deepest truths and desires have lead to most of my dis-ease physically. I suppose the same could be stated about my mental restlessness and discontent.
Hmmm... That's all this Wellness Wednesday. Just clear quiet awareness.
"The two luminaries (Sun, Moon) are in Libra at this New Moon. That brings a rush of fresh air to clear our minds. It gives us special Libra equilibrium goggles, that show us how we're doing in relationships. It sharpens our vision of what's needed to bring more love, peace and beauty into our lives.
Libra is the sign of balance, but in a world of constant change, we reach that only in brief moments. The New Moon chart shows four cosmic bodies (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus) in Libra. So it's a moment when the lunar light goes out, and in the Void of the Dark Moon, we can have flashes of the way things ought to be. With cardinal Libra, we grow agitated to see our ideas made manifest. The New Moon can be a big moment where these ideas are pulled out of the dark of the spirit and imagination."
~from About.com
Renewal is what I feel in the air and within me. Slow, gentle renewal that reveals small cracks in doors that seemed closed not to long ago. With my birthday just having passed and the Fall Season birthing itself deliciously, I am waking up into a sense of possibility and tiny Yeses to that which I had dismissed or cast out of my life out of exhaustion or reaction or fear. And I feel girlie, feminine, very Libra actually, which I love being.
I strive for dynamic balance that is birthed from a place of presence, embodiment and continuous checking in with my deeper self. I long to let my inner guide dictate what needs to happen now, rather then the shoulds that my mind throws at me, which then casts me into a state of rebelliousness and stress. And I want to do all that with big splashes of pink on while doing it!
How are you feeling this New Moon?
"She often told me about other girls or women, linking me time and again into the chain of women. I began to feel I belonged to an invisible sisterhood that transcended past and future into eternity."
I have been really feeling this in the last week or so. I think its a combination of the Season and how much it invigorates me, but leads me inward as well. There have been deaths, grieving, gatherings, emails, art, sharings, and all of them seem to take place either in physical circles or in the ritual spaces that women seem to connect through in the ethers. I'm feeling the red thread that connects each woman, past, present and future to one another, in our intuitive, body wise, soulful core. I feel cloaked in it, beckoned to it as if the entire Season wants to be dedicated to being immersed in ritual, dancing through the Inbetween places and moving through the portals of time gracefully, but wildly.
I feel the chain of women, that invisible cord of sisterhood that ties us all together, calling. Do you feel it? And if so, please share...
Idyllwild is having its big art walk of the year tomorrow, and I can't wait! I will be at the Courtyard Gallery all day showing my journals for the first time there. I also have work in the Artisan's Gallery if you get a chance to come up and take a peak.
I'm thrilled about my work being in the Courtyard Gallery, as the journals are the first of a couple of different works I will be showing there as the months pass. So much fun!
Idyllwild is within driving distance of Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego and Riverside Counties. Come!
"A woman is the guardian and hostess of the earth. As the bearer of life, she stands closest to birth and death, thus closest to life and to the earth. This linking, life itself, is a woman's true space."
These are the first few lines in Grandmother's Secrets: The Ancient Rituals and Healing Power of Belly Dancing
I have been practicing the Tantric Dance of Feminine Power, for over 9 years now, and movement and the potency of feminine wisdom it unleashes has been such a guiding revolutionary force in my life. And when I am not practicing, I have been fortunate to live in a community with a vibrant Belly Dance element thriving here, that lets me savor the beauty and power of an adorned woman moving to the life giving rhythm of her hips. Finding this book now just seems part of the dance for me. Another morsel, another crumb along the path of this life, that affirms the truth that lies within.
"As I have suggested, the story of one's life as it is written in to the body can be retold and understood in the intense moment of dancing. Thus belly dancing becomes a source of inspiration, a means of collecting and strengthening oneself, and a clear and dynamic way of discovering one's wishes and understanding oneself, no matter how insecure and doubtful the future may be."
Indeed.
Full Moon in Aries. Can you feel it? I have been buzzing with the energy of this moon since yesterday. Last night Luna was shining her big face into every single window of the house. And although I can sleep with light, with sounds and with others around me awake and talking, last night I was just... ON.
These days, with these posts I am tending to just post what I'm picking up. We know Aries is a fire sign, the first sign, cardinal, independent, strong willed, intense. But what about how the moon felt for you? To you? For me last night, it was like I could see. I tried to go to bed around midnight, and then had to get back up. My eyes were wide open, and although my mind wasn't racing with thoughts, there were still words that needed to be written.
I quietly made my way back up to the loft and pulled out my journal and just wrote and wrote and wrote. It feels as if this fiery full Moon is burning the veils that were hanging before my eyes, and things were and are clear. I have no other way to explain it.
I'm still buzzing, and awake, and checking in with myself and with the Moon often. What do I need right now? What do I know now? What is wanting to be revealed? What is it I need in order to remain present with what is coming through about my life and the world around me? How am I experiencing this particular Moon that is different then any other Full Moon before it?
Check in with yourselves. Make note. There is much She is broadcasting right now for us to tune in to.
