thanks to the i am already aware she is amazing and yet she is not an actual acquaintance in the conventional sense lexi holloway my belief that i am supposed to have a blog but not feel obligated to blog according to any sort of schedule or in any way consistently has been completely validated...
so here i come out of what may seem like nowhere to the world wide web but has felt more like out of everywhere to me to say whats on my heart...more like what is being chiseled into my heart with the sharp instrument of life and the hand of a big god super serious about his love thing...
i have been in graduate school for two years now learning about dance movement therapy. before coming here i had already declared Love as my chosen profession but they didn't offer a masters in Love so i settled for something really close...dancing :)(actually i do have textbooks with titles like 'a general theory on love'...i LOVE my school)
but i digress...
the point is, while i have been here in a circle of people who are dynamic, embodied, self aware, radical, and all other kinds of amazing, and we are in a program that is just as amazing in how it engages us in the process and keeps our learning immersed in the truths of life outside the classroom, we have still invested a significant chunk of time in the classroom.
it has been challenging and nurturing, informative and question provoking...and it has taken me and many of those around me into a very heady place where sometimes we begin to see everything through the hypothetical and theoretical lenses we use to view the learning materials. i had a great talk with another amazing georgian (who i am actually acquainted with!) last night about the ways that disecting and examining any subject, particularly one involving humans, can lead to a very constricting pragmatism if we aren't careful that doesn't leave space for the way Truth and Life can and do contradict pattern and logic and expected...all. the. time.
maybe in our hearts we are still claiming hope for what is possible, but with our mouths we begin to expound on evidence and awareness of what is common, or likely, or expected...to be sure that we make it clear we understand and we KNOW what it is we are facing. but as we name the worst case scenario, or even the status quo, more and more...and we name our wildest hopes less all we are really doing is naming our fears and keeping our faiths silent...so we don't look foolish. or ignorant. or ridiculous.
or maybe so we don't lay claim to a miracle that is too big for God to come through on..oh wait...i didn't think those existed...
in our work we talk a lot about being "attached to outcome" and how that affects the work we do with clients. as the therapist our role is to create space for a client to find their own healing, to facilitate the process, to emotionally hold and support them as they find the truths for themselves. it is not our job, nor our right, to change or "fix" another human being or their problems and this is where outcome comes in. we are taught that we must be very aware of the outcomes we are attached to for our clients, as humans we will certainly have them, but our commitment as therapists is to support a client in discovering and pursuing the outcomes that matter to them. so we spend a lot of time talking about what i looks like to create a relationship with a person, explore their life experiences and feelings with them, to create goals and ideas that guide how we work together with them...and yet not become too attached to the outcomes we personally desire for them. umm...yeah.
i don't disagree with this, but i do have to continually examine it very carefully and very often...especially as i start to move my concept of what i am learning here out of the laboratory and more fully into my messy messy life office at the center for people who want to show love for a living. (read: usually my car)
the past two years have been serious career development for me. i have had and continue to have so many training experiences that push and challenge and stretch my understanding of what it means to love, how many ways that can look, what it takes from me, what it takes from God...i could write a thesis...or a business plan...hmmm....
this hit me this morning and it puts so much of what has been going on for me into new perspectives...i know i've been all over the place so try to stay with me here...
faith is believing in the infinity of possibility...without having to get into specifics..if i have faith...i just have it...no matter what set of details you give me faith always has the same answer...YES, ITS POSSIBLE.
hope is a different story...if i have hope...its hope in something happening (or not happening)...its being attached to an outcome for sure...but if hope comes from a holy place then so does the outcome, right? this is important because this means hope is a relational activity...its hard to think of too many things we could hope for that wouldn't affect other people in some way...so living a life of faith and a life of hope are two different stories...and that is all before you get to...
LOVE if faith is believing something is possible and hope is having faith that something that is possible will actually happen to you or someone else or someplace or whatever...then love is living in such a way that you support or encourage that thing to happen...doing and saying things that make it more possible and NOT doing or saying the things that make it less possible...love isn't just relational...its aggressive! it isn't just attached to an outcome...its following at high speeds in a fast car, its studying the blueprints and coming through the airducts, its finding the shortcut and coming out in front, its crouching in the bushes, tracking through the jungle, lying in wait for as long as it takes...its pursuing that outcome to the ends of the earth..and beyond.
okay...and then there is that whole thing about faith hope and love being really important...but the greatest of these being love...
whew...all this and no 401k?
(ok this is the part where i could take the time to make it clear that i don't think that loving people or places or things means you get to decide what is best for them (or stalk them in dark alleys)...in fact that couldn't be more opposite of what i am trying to say here...but i am going to trust that anyone who even knows to read this knows a few things about me...
a. that these are slightly manic thoughts presented in my somewhat melodramatic writing style so that they are out of my head and can be properly played with, talked about, analyzed and danced with until they feel right...
2. i would clear anything i believe or hope for anyone with my Boss before loving it onto them...and i am currently being trained in all kinds of methods for loving people that are not invasive, painful, or even immediately noticable to the naked eye. so don't go checking your airducts, your privacy and free will are safe with me.
and d. this is just the start of a much longer conversation that i would love to have with all of you, or both of you...or just you. hey mama.)
Friday, April 22, 2011
Sunday, January 16, 2011
nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs...
i had the weirdest dream....i took my mama and my aunt sabra and some of their friends to church in a small southern baptist style sanctuary that was supposed to be in haiti...upon walking in i became aware that joseph kony (the ugandan leader of the LRA, a rebel group that enslaves and exploits children as soldiers and sex slaves) was in attendance. other than the presence of this church in haiti and this terrorist's presence in it, a couple of other things were kind of strange...
he was white...with an entourage made up of middle aged men from india and pakistan...who i apparently knew well.
in the midst of all this all my energy was going to trying to convince my mama and her friends to stop being silly and whispering in church, which they saw as highly uptight and hypocritical on my part...because they didn't recognize kony and know that our back pew antics could exact a severe penalty from him and his cronies...which i was apparently painfully aware of and hence...
nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs...
i have no idea what i expect to come of sharing this dream...but i couldn't bring myself not to...its just too weird...and i would just love to hear what cory brooks thinks about it....
he was white...with an entourage made up of middle aged men from india and pakistan...who i apparently knew well.
in the midst of all this all my energy was going to trying to convince my mama and her friends to stop being silly and whispering in church, which they saw as highly uptight and hypocritical on my part...because they didn't recognize kony and know that our back pew antics could exact a severe penalty from him and his cronies...which i was apparently painfully aware of and hence...
nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs...
i have no idea what i expect to come of sharing this dream...but i couldn't bring myself not to...its just too weird...and i would just love to hear what cory brooks thinks about it....
mama t
1-13-11
I bought mother teresa stamps today. Im still not sure how I feel about it. Wish I could ask her how she feels about it. Which leads me to wonder how she would feel if, given the chance to speak with her despite space and time, life and death, I chose to ask her what her feelings are about being put on a postage stamp.
I bought mother teresa stamps today. Im still not sure how I feel about it. Wish I could ask her how she feels about it. Which leads me to wonder how she would feel if, given the chance to speak with her despite space and time, life and death, I chose to ask her what her feelings are about being put on a postage stamp.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
kompa
1-9-11
by now I am supposed to be pulling into my driveway at the “north forty,” the farmhouse we call home in new hampshire...but the weather had other plans so I am spending the night with beautiful and gracious friends and trying again tomorrow...well, in a few hours...
thanks to their generosity and hospitality, I spent the 12 hour plane delay visiting and then dancing in my red high heels before getting a few hours sleep in a cozy bed...all of which totally beats at night on the floor of the atlanta airport :)
in a group of people I had mostly never met, dancing a style very new to me but known intimately to them, to music in a language I am still learning but spoken since birth by most everyone else in the room...at first I felt very awkward and a little out of step, which was both funny and humbling as a dancer and dance teacher. Part of me was so drawn by the music and the desire to move but another just wanted to hide. I studied the movements of those on the dance floor, their arms, their feet, their hips...the effortless way their bodies interpreted the music and conversed with their partners. I tried to compare it to anyting I knew of dance, whether I had a dance in me as fluent as the kompa was the bodies of the men and women I watched.
My face must have betrayed my deep concentration because eventually a gentleman I had been introduced to earlier came over to ask if something was wrong. Laughing at myself I told him no to which he asked “then why aren't you dancing?” It WAS a dance after all....I told him maybe later, to which he responded by setting down his drink and reaching out his hand. I haven't been so nervous to take to the dance floor since the 6th grade when girls were all a foot taller than boys and no one knew what to do with their hands! but being a dancer and dance teacher, letting someone else lead has always been a challenge for me even when I know what they want me to do...and here I was with a man I didn't know and my only kompa lessons had been in the streets and salt flats of jubilee blanc, given by barefoot haitian children!
We got off to a decent enough start but I could feel myself working to hard at trying not to make it feel (and LOOK) like work.
I suddenly remembered my trip to driftwood beach earlier in the day, my last minute stop to soak up some georgia ocean magic before heading back up north...while walking with kathy and shelby we had closed our eyes and let the beach tell us where to go and talked about all the times where closing our eyes had helped us find the rhythm, to find the way.
I decided to try something.
Hoping for no disasterous fall...i closed my eyes.
It was like someone had turned up the volume. Not of the music or the sounds of the party, although I could hear the nuances of both much better. the thing I could suddenly hear so clearly wasn't a sound at all, it was the movement. The moment I closed my eyes, I was aware of exactly where and how I was being touched. I could sense from the pressure in one finger of my partner's hand how he wanted me to lean, move, or turn. I could feel his next move come from his shoulders and be ready to make it with him. even without seeing, I could feel his head tilt or his feet shuffle in the air near mine, drawing me to come closer or sending me back.
The most amazing part, even with my dance movment therapy nerd hat on, I wasn't THINKING about this, it was just happening. His body was calling out instructions to mine and mine was obeying. Later as I danced with others, mine would do some instructing of its own and feel the response of a body that heard loud and clear--way more effective by the way than a warning glance :)
At the end of each dance, I would laugh to myself because I could tell both my partners and I were surpised that this white girl could kompa well enough to keep up with them...
it gave me a whole new take on the old brag “i could do that with my eyes closed!”
by now I am supposed to be pulling into my driveway at the “north forty,” the farmhouse we call home in new hampshire...but the weather had other plans so I am spending the night with beautiful and gracious friends and trying again tomorrow...well, in a few hours...
thanks to their generosity and hospitality, I spent the 12 hour plane delay visiting and then dancing in my red high heels before getting a few hours sleep in a cozy bed...all of which totally beats at night on the floor of the atlanta airport :)
in a group of people I had mostly never met, dancing a style very new to me but known intimately to them, to music in a language I am still learning but spoken since birth by most everyone else in the room...at first I felt very awkward and a little out of step, which was both funny and humbling as a dancer and dance teacher. Part of me was so drawn by the music and the desire to move but another just wanted to hide. I studied the movements of those on the dance floor, their arms, their feet, their hips...the effortless way their bodies interpreted the music and conversed with their partners. I tried to compare it to anyting I knew of dance, whether I had a dance in me as fluent as the kompa was the bodies of the men and women I watched.
My face must have betrayed my deep concentration because eventually a gentleman I had been introduced to earlier came over to ask if something was wrong. Laughing at myself I told him no to which he asked “then why aren't you dancing?” It WAS a dance after all....I told him maybe later, to which he responded by setting down his drink and reaching out his hand. I haven't been so nervous to take to the dance floor since the 6th grade when girls were all a foot taller than boys and no one knew what to do with their hands! but being a dancer and dance teacher, letting someone else lead has always been a challenge for me even when I know what they want me to do...and here I was with a man I didn't know and my only kompa lessons had been in the streets and salt flats of jubilee blanc, given by barefoot haitian children!
We got off to a decent enough start but I could feel myself working to hard at trying not to make it feel (and LOOK) like work.
I suddenly remembered my trip to driftwood beach earlier in the day, my last minute stop to soak up some georgia ocean magic before heading back up north...while walking with kathy and shelby we had closed our eyes and let the beach tell us where to go and talked about all the times where closing our eyes had helped us find the rhythm, to find the way.
I decided to try something.
Hoping for no disasterous fall...i closed my eyes.
It was like someone had turned up the volume. Not of the music or the sounds of the party, although I could hear the nuances of both much better. the thing I could suddenly hear so clearly wasn't a sound at all, it was the movement. The moment I closed my eyes, I was aware of exactly where and how I was being touched. I could sense from the pressure in one finger of my partner's hand how he wanted me to lean, move, or turn. I could feel his next move come from his shoulders and be ready to make it with him. even without seeing, I could feel his head tilt or his feet shuffle in the air near mine, drawing me to come closer or sending me back.
The most amazing part, even with my dance movment therapy nerd hat on, I wasn't THINKING about this, it was just happening. His body was calling out instructions to mine and mine was obeying. Later as I danced with others, mine would do some instructing of its own and feel the response of a body that heard loud and clear--way more effective by the way than a warning glance :)
At the end of each dance, I would laugh to myself because I could tell both my partners and I were surpised that this white girl could kompa well enough to keep up with them...
it gave me a whole new take on the old brag “i could do that with my eyes closed!”
driftwood beach
god has told the ocean the secret, and the ocean tell it to me anytime I stop to listen.
sway. flow. be. come. go.
stand, but not so firmly you cannot bend.
bend, but not so easily that you fall.
when you fall, don't fight the ebb and flow, use it to make your way up.
there is a place in the surf for looking out into the coming waves,
and a place where keeping your eyes on the shore is best. both horizons always have something to show you.
if you can't see it, close your eyes.
the truth
like the ocean
is a body so breathtakingly simple and yet unimaginably deep
at once the epitome of both force and surrender.
and like the ocean, clearly seen and yet tied so intimately with forces unseen.
the ocean is where I find the rhythm I was meant to move to. where I find the truth.
where I become true again.
today I closed my eyes and walked with you in the waves and began to find my way.
sway. flow. be. come. go.
stand, but not so firmly you cannot bend.
bend, but not so easily that you fall.
when you fall, don't fight the ebb and flow, use it to make your way up.
there is a place in the surf for looking out into the coming waves,
and a place where keeping your eyes on the shore is best. both horizons always have something to show you.
if you can't see it, close your eyes.
the truth
like the ocean
is a body so breathtakingly simple and yet unimaginably deep
at once the epitome of both force and surrender.
and like the ocean, clearly seen and yet tied so intimately with forces unseen.
the ocean is where I find the rhythm I was meant to move to. where I find the truth.
where I become true again.
today I closed my eyes and walked with you in the waves and began to find my way.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
can you have resolutions if you skip fake amish new year's?
so tonight was supposed to be "fake amish new year" which is a long story that is probably only funny to my family, or maybe just me, and it ended up not happening at all. it wasn't until i laid down tonight (which happened to be right a midnight) that i realized that in addition to missing out on time at "the coast," fireworks, seeing a lot of peeps i had yet to get to hang with on this break, and a midnight dip in the julienton river, by skipping regular new years in favor of fake amish new years and then skipping that too we never officially welcomed 2011....i realized this in a kind of backwards way too...
first i decided that i should try to write, draw, paint, sew, or dance something everyday and that even still i should be writing everyday, there is just too much happening in my world and my head on a daily basis not to be documenting it for my own reflection once this school season of my life gives way to whatever is next...so next a thought that it was was too bad i didn't think of this at new years so that i could have started fresh with this idea at the beginning of 2011 (read: so that i could have turned this healthy idea for growth and living into the cliche and undue burden and pressure of a new year's resolution)....only then did i realize that since the 6th was supposed to have been fake amish new year, our new year, i was not late and was in fact exactly on time (it was 12:02am by the time i finished having this thought)
so at that point it seemed appropriate to get out of bed and make sure that day one of this venture is a success....writing every day means that sometimes what i write will be way more for me than for anyone else but for sanity's sake i think i will write it all here anyway, except when i don't, and except when i write really important things on envelopes, napkins, the cardboard from battery packages, the back of my hand, and receipts from damon's famous wings.
anyone who actually keeps up with this and notices that i am slacking at any point is free to whine about it, remind me incessantly, and otherwise give me shit about it and call it holding me "accountable" to my own desire and goal...you know...like we do....
ironically, this first writing is really just me writing about my intention to do more writing more than actually writing anything...does it count if i say the word "writing" an obnoxious number of times?
in the spirit of documentation...i did spend the day out at my house, the south forty farm, cleaning (read: moving all the stuff people are storing in my house around so i looks less like a repo warehouse after a tornado). i ended up taking my first baby steps in throwing away stuff which is surprisingly difficult for me in spite of my somewhat nomadic spirit for a number of reasons we won't analyze here tonight. i also ended up finding reminders of moments and places and people from my life that haven't rode shotgun in my thoughts for quite some time. i found reminders of times when i saw certain moments, places and people very differently than i do right now. i found tiny things i can't believe i have managed to hold on to all these years without even meaning to, and couldn't find large and important things i had diligently tried to keep near and i am still pondering the metaphor behind that. i found the strength to move big pieces of furniture by myself and to let go of pieces of my past. i found pieces of things that have been broken and grace for those who broke them. i found a great mix cd and listened to it 5 times through. i found the lyrics i had been needing to hear on time number 5 and i found room to dance around all by myself. i found great joy and satisfaction in finding a place in my home for everyone's stuff, including 4 couches. again, still working through the metaphor. after all that i found a way to leave the house i love so much thinking as i always do when i am there how cool it would be if i could find a way to just stay out there all the time for a while, fixing things and making art and stuff out of old junk. not now, but someday.
i also found a vitamin bottle full of bullets, a book called he-manners, a mysterious bag of meat, kasey kartwheel's pom pons, an unopened bottle of chianti (in the basket) from before 1969, a hand knit baby sweater, the sheet music for november rain, the keys to two churches, a swimsuit worn in the 1972 miss georgia pageant, a velvet robe with zebra print lining and fur trim...custom made for a dog, the receipt for a radiator i put into my first car, a giant wooden bust of a native american chief, and a spittoon.
i love the farm.
happy not fake amish new years everybody...
first i decided that i should try to write, draw, paint, sew, or dance something everyday and that even still i should be writing everyday, there is just too much happening in my world and my head on a daily basis not to be documenting it for my own reflection once this school season of my life gives way to whatever is next...so next a thought that it was was too bad i didn't think of this at new years so that i could have started fresh with this idea at the beginning of 2011 (read: so that i could have turned this healthy idea for growth and living into the cliche and undue burden and pressure of a new year's resolution)....only then did i realize that since the 6th was supposed to have been fake amish new year, our new year, i was not late and was in fact exactly on time (it was 12:02am by the time i finished having this thought)
so at that point it seemed appropriate to get out of bed and make sure that day one of this venture is a success....writing every day means that sometimes what i write will be way more for me than for anyone else but for sanity's sake i think i will write it all here anyway, except when i don't, and except when i write really important things on envelopes, napkins, the cardboard from battery packages, the back of my hand, and receipts from damon's famous wings.
anyone who actually keeps up with this and notices that i am slacking at any point is free to whine about it, remind me incessantly, and otherwise give me shit about it and call it holding me "accountable" to my own desire and goal...you know...like we do....
ironically, this first writing is really just me writing about my intention to do more writing more than actually writing anything...does it count if i say the word "writing" an obnoxious number of times?
in the spirit of documentation...i did spend the day out at my house, the south forty farm, cleaning (read: moving all the stuff people are storing in my house around so i looks less like a repo warehouse after a tornado). i ended up taking my first baby steps in throwing away stuff which is surprisingly difficult for me in spite of my somewhat nomadic spirit for a number of reasons we won't analyze here tonight. i also ended up finding reminders of moments and places and people from my life that haven't rode shotgun in my thoughts for quite some time. i found reminders of times when i saw certain moments, places and people very differently than i do right now. i found tiny things i can't believe i have managed to hold on to all these years without even meaning to, and couldn't find large and important things i had diligently tried to keep near and i am still pondering the metaphor behind that. i found the strength to move big pieces of furniture by myself and to let go of pieces of my past. i found pieces of things that have been broken and grace for those who broke them. i found a great mix cd and listened to it 5 times through. i found the lyrics i had been needing to hear on time number 5 and i found room to dance around all by myself. i found great joy and satisfaction in finding a place in my home for everyone's stuff, including 4 couches. again, still working through the metaphor. after all that i found a way to leave the house i love so much thinking as i always do when i am there how cool it would be if i could find a way to just stay out there all the time for a while, fixing things and making art and stuff out of old junk. not now, but someday.
i also found a vitamin bottle full of bullets, a book called he-manners, a mysterious bag of meat, kasey kartwheel's pom pons, an unopened bottle of chianti (in the basket) from before 1969, a hand knit baby sweater, the sheet music for november rain, the keys to two churches, a swimsuit worn in the 1972 miss georgia pageant, a velvet robe with zebra print lining and fur trim...custom made for a dog, the receipt for a radiator i put into my first car, a giant wooden bust of a native american chief, and a spittoon.
i love the farm.
happy not fake amish new years everybody...
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