Serendipitously, just last Saturday night (and really all the time that I interact with my new chosen-family). It was The Impropriety Society's staff decompression and party. It was feeling at home with my tribe, which was desperately needed after a couple of difficult weeks and the time with my parents (who I don't feel unconditionally accept me). It amazes me how the more authentic I am with my tribe, the more I expose, the more I am given love and appreciation for my distinct quirkiness. At every gathering I connect more deeply with people, constantly surprised by how many people have been holding back from engaging with me because I was so closed down in fear before. All that time (over five frickin' years!!!) I was in such fear that no one cared that I was around or didn't like who I was, when most were actually wishing I'd come out of my shell and participate more fully.

One of my tribe mates (someone that I actually used to judge for being a party-girl but who I am now open to seeing as the incredibly intelligent and creative soul she is) told me she loves that I'm a "cool nerd" (I was in a cuddle puddle but also diligently taking notes on my laptop during the decompression so we wouldn't forget anyone's feedback). She said she loves the contrast of my quiet, structured, and hardworking side with the uninhibited and passionate woman who emerges when I play. And she said she enjoyed watching me open up to the community after hiding on the fringes for so long, which I've heard from multiple people.  I mean that's the thing, I receive gratitude from my friends for opening and sharing myself, the parts that matter most to me, whether it's making artful creations or sharing my deep feelings about what we do or opening up to a more intimate connection or whatever. It's an amazing feeling to know that people don't just fully accept you but are actually grateful for you, what you have to give, and the ways you express yourself in the world. If everyone in the world could experience this, the world would be a much different place. Truly. I feel cherished and appreciated and fully witnessed for my unique expression of the Divine in the world. I am so happy.

There is tremendous love and acceptance in our group and I think the only thing that makes us distinct from any other group is our openness to intimacy of all kinds; whether it's being honest about our feelings about anything and everything, especially each other (including conflicts), or being open to all the ways we can connect and love each other intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, creatively and physically. We are just so incredibly open to love and expressing that love and communicating when shadows arise. We're committed to exploring just how open we can be, pushing our limits consciously. Each time we're together the closeness grows and deepens within the collective.

Can I just say kissing circles are one of the coolest things ever? Seriously. (What is a kissing circle you ask? 6-8 people in a circle hug who all take turns kissing each other...within the comfort of each person's sexual orientation of course. Lucky for me, being a bi-girl means I can kiss anyone!) How is it that we are so uptight about kissing and touching and enjoying friends in light, fun ways? I mean part of me wonders if I should even be writing this here because we have so many taboos about these kinds of things in our culture and I could worry at least some of you will judge us as a bunch of  "sluts." But if I am to be completely myself here, as I strive to be, then I have to say I love kissing circles (and cuddle puddles) and I think it's silly that we are only supposed to kiss or cuddle with one person for as long as we're partnered to or dating them. Forget sex,  I'm just talking about kissing and cuddling. Kissing, hugging, holding hands, and cuddling up to each other are just ways to express our love for each other, even friends (we don't all become lovers...we're not even all polyamorous). It feels good. It feels right. It feels natural, like this is the way it's supposed to be.

I'm more convinced than ever that if we had considerably more intimate touch in our lives, we would put the anti-depressant industry out of business. Our isolation in this culture isn't just about being too busy working to survive and consume, it's about being afraid of intimacy of any kind. We experience so much of life vicariously or from a distance instead of in our own skin. We are all walking around with these big walls between us and the rest of the world, carefully deciding when and how much we'll emerge from behind the wall to interact with each other. We hardly actually talk to each other, let alone touch each other. Ultimately, this is what the Society is about for me, breaking down the walls, breaking out of fear and insecurity to love without limitations, breaking out of our cultural isolation and creating a true sense of community. We consciously create space for people to feel safe to emerge and connect, both within the core collective that produces the events and in the community at large.

I'm also figuring out that there all kinds of ways and reasons to be attracted to people. There is just so much beauty and love in people if you are present to it, if you open to all the possible ways you can connect with them. I am seeing so many people I've known for years in totally different and more expansive ways than ever before. I'm seeing what there is to love in everyone, if not through my own interactions with them, then through the eyes of love and shared experiences of others in the tribe.

I have a quote in a prominent place from Eve Ensler that essentially says that what we give to others we are giving to ourselves. As I open to giving unconditional love and acceptance, I receive it. It's deceptively simple, but true.

This passage below speaks so perfectly to my last post. I had this saved on my desktop, found at someone's blog in recent months. I was compelled to open the file tonight and loved the serendipity of it....
 

"As we expand, we melt. Our hearts open. Our thinking changes. Our obsessions subside, our addictions quietly pass away. This is the slow, elegant, loving process through which, little by little, we let go of the old and welcome the new. We open our hearts and allow in a few more people, just a few more relationship experiences, just a few more kinds of relationships. We learn there are no mistakes, and our hearts become a circle so large that there are no more boundaries, no differences, no judgments. We know the graciousness of that great undivided familiarity, in which there are no more strangers, only friends.

We stretch, and to our amazement we don't break. Instead, we grow. Suddenly, everything becomes easier, and our hearts, which once we believed could love only one person, or were battered so badly we thought they could never love again, expand so fully that the whole world is welcome. In such a state of openness, we see that we've only forgotten how to be together, we faintly and beautifully remember that once we were all together. We remember the way we were in a universe of incredible softness where there were no edges, no walls, no mind games, no rules. In that incredible world, we were happy. We loved one another. It wasn't a feeling. It was a state of being called joy.

The future of love is this all-encompassing embrace. For when we have expanded so much, we will finally arrive at a place where the heart can open its doors to everything and everyone. Our souls have been taking us on this journey and Love is the magnificent destination to which they have been leading us. Now we can feel joy. Now, at last, we can be satisfied. Now, finally, we are home. ~ Daphne Rose Kingma

Looks like a summer campout is the next event for The Impropriety Society, scheduled for early August so we're on another quick production schedule. We have a staff member with a lovely piece of property out in the redwoods on a creek that the partners and I visited tonight. We're imagining a two night event with 100 attendees plus 25 staff. No performances but there will be dj's and a dance floor. Bonfire on the creek. Communal kitchen and we'll provide one dinner and one breakfast. Not quite sure how we're going to set up the social areas to facilitate play yet, but we're creative.

Yay, more opportunities for community building and connection!

I find art everywhere that I possibly can. Art is my bliss, not just in the making of it with my own hands, eyes and heart, but in the experiencing of other people's creativity through every possible art form. My home and office are filled with art, both original pieces by myself, my sister, my kids and friends over the years, as well as prints and cards by all kinds of artists. My life is filled with music since I have it playing nearly everywhere I go. I love film and extremely well done television (which is rare). I love theater and live performances of all kinds, although I can't afford to attend nearly as often as I like. And I love trying to bring art into everything that I do in my work and in the community, whether it's building a float for the Pride Parade or painting banners and making posters for The Impropriety Society. Soon I will be hosting some women's art nights, bringing creative women together to share their talents and create together.

Art simply fills my life in every possible way.

I am head over heals in love with and open to touch of all kinds, as should be obvious from recent blog entries about the touch that takes place within my tribe. I thrive, I am happier when I am touched and touching often. Cuddling with my daughter feeds my soul just as much as cuddle puddles and kissing circles with friends and lovers. I am happiest in intimate friendships, women or men with whom I am not sexual but can still sit close to, cuddle with, touch in friendly ways. I love dancing with with another person, allowing our bodies to touch sensually as we respond to the music. I love spooning with another person, lover or friend, when I fall asleep. And of course I love big hugs.

I'll say again that I believe lack of touch--which represents an overall lack of intimacy--in our culture is the primary cause of our collective depression and dependence on anti-depressants to function.  Being touched in a let's us know that we are truly witnessed and even cherished. Touch is necessary for babies to survive and thrive. I don't think that ever goes away, we just learn how to settle for less than we actually need to thrive. We settle for surviving, getting through, instead of thriving and living a life of real joy and authentic pleasure.

I used to have a really hard time with change and would always fall apart or get severely depressed, especially when change involved loss or uncertainty about financial survival. However, I believe I handle change remarkably well these days (in fact, I think I truly thrive in the midst of change, even when it hurts). Considering how much change is currently taking place in my life (lay off from job, helping the office I'm leaving move into a new building, impending financial chaos, son leaving for college, new business, opening of my heart, fluctuating relationships, etc.), I am finding my own resilience and ability to adapt to be pretty amazing this time around. I am emotionally tired, but I am not immersed in worry about the future. I am a bit moody as I process my feelings about things. But I am not falling apart. I am strong and brave. I am trusting the Universe will take care of me and my family. I am finding and appreciating the gifts in every day (today I am appreciating an influx of connection here at Gaia!). I am entirely functional, mostly content, and continue to give to my family, my work, and my community commitments at nearly full capacity.

Kali's Fire of transformation keeps burning and I continue letting go of the old shadows as I let my light shine brighter. The question/goal I keep in mind as so much is burned away (and in response to a previous QAR, this is my guiding question in life), especially when it hurts: How can I bring my Divine nature into every moment of every day and every connection with another soul? How much brighter can my light shine if I allow myself to work through the heartaches that arise and let go of limiting perceptions of myself and the world?

“Love isn't something we do.  It simply moves through our being reshaping us again and again until all falseness has gone to seed and the fragile husks of who we are fall away or break into prayer, becoming kindling for the long winters.”  ~ Rashani

The change that is heaviest on my heart at this moment is the loss of the lover I've been growing close to the last few months. Things have shifted in his life and there is no longer time or space for me, although we will remain friends. I understand and am doing my best not to take it personally. But I would be lying if I didn't admit that there is heartache. This is not someone I ever hoped to have a primary relationship with, but as I've written before, I became quite attached to the purity of attention he gave me when we were together and I will miss the delight he brought into my life. I did fall in love with him in a sense and it's a bummer that yet again I must let go of someone I love as my heart remains vulnerable and open. (I'll be glad some day when instead I get to learn how to have  healthy, happy long term connections rather than this continual lesson in letting go.)

I'm also finding that every door to lover relationships with women that have stood open before me in recent months seems to be closing one after the other. I am either connecting with women who aren't sure about their own sexuality or women who express interest but then don't follow up with what they say they intend. Maybe it's for the best. With so much change going on in my life, perhaps it's not the best time to initiate relationships outside of the intimate friendships within my tribe. Regardless, I must accept what is and continue believing that the right relationships always come into my life at the right time. I will love and be loved in that way again.

These lessons in non-attachment are not easy. There are still so many old conditionings and patterns that come to the surface. The Invisible Girl still hungers for attention. The abandonment and rejection complexes still wriggle their way into my heart and I must consciously work to keep my ego/pain-body from acting out. But I am not acting out. This is what I am seeing I have achieved in my evolution: I may have the old feelings arise but I do not act on them in any way. Only my readers here know the internal emotional struggles I am having, those in my immediate life do not see it. They just see the choice in action to love and remain open.

Ultimately, as a mystic evolving is my biggest kink, my greatest turn-on, so I must be at peace with change. I am bound and determined to push the edges of evolution in this human experience and see just how much I can consciously experience being the Divine in the world and how purely I can live love. As far as change is concerned, I am living an invitation to the Universe to Bring It On!

Tonight there is a storm coming in. Thunder rumbles through the floor and the walls. Lightning flashes in the window behind me. The air smells wet and alive. And I feel like it's waking me up out of a reverie of sorts. Or perhaps it's my impending moon and the introspection that always comes.

Or perhaps it's a reflection of the little storm in my own heart.

I am home alone tonight. Even though my son has come home from Spain, I have yet to see him because he's already off with friends who will be leaving for college soon. My daughter is also at a friend's house. And I am home for the third night this week without a commitment of some sort (which hasn't happened in months). The truth is that I don't know what to do with myself.

Frick, there is so much change in my life, so much shifting of energies on a near daily basis. I am excited about the adventure of it all, but I am also tired. I am grieving what's being left behind. I am unsure of this new person and life emerging.

I came across this in a Gaia blog today...

"The soul keeps carrying us to love. At the soul level, the pain we feel about all the ruptures in our relationships ... is the pain of wanting to love and having that impulse cut off, cut short. It is the pain of having the longing to love with no place to put it, no one to deliver it to, no form, no vehicle for its expression." from The Future of Love by Daphne Rose Kingma

Yes, this resonates. I don't know where to put all this love that has been generated in the last few months of my opening as the doors to others keep closing. Even my children, the default love recptacles of my life, are not here and do not need me to love them with so much attention anymore. My creative energies have been going to the Society, but we're in a waiting mode right now as we try to solidify a location for the campout. I'm just here, with no vehicle for my expression of love, or at least no vehicle that I am conscious of or familiar with in this new life of mine.  I don't know that love has ever flowed through me so immensely before. And now I don't know where the heck to put it.

I suppose this feels like it does right now partly because I am so tired of hearing that I love too big, I care too much. How ridiculous is it that people turn away from me because I love too big? Is it just me who thinks that's kind of crazy? I mean, don't we all want to be loved? You would probably be shocked to know how many times I've heard it, in both lover and friendship contexts, over the course of my adult life. And I heard it again yesterday. How is a girl supposed to remain open when everyone she gets close to closes the door on her? This is my blessing and my curse. I can love so big, and know what is possible in big love between two people, but I can't find anyone who wants to go there with me. Seriously, there is someone on this big frickin' planet who really wants the fullness of  my love...isn't there? 

Better question, why am I always drawn to people too fearful to be open to big love? What do I need to change in myself to attract people to my life who are willing to face their fears in order to discover how big love can get? What fears am I still not facing if they are my mirrors? Ergh, we can whine all we want but it always comes back to ourselves when we are suffering. I hate that sometimes.

The storm's quieting, as will the one in my heart.

"Art is our one true global language. It knows no nation. It favors no race. It acknowledges no class. It speaks to our need to heal, reveal and transform. It transcends our ordinary lives and lets us imagine what is possible. It creates a dialogue between individuals, and communication between communities. It allows us to see and to listen to each other." --Richard Kamler

Pray for Peace
by Ellen Bass
from the book The Human Line (Copper Canyon press, 2007)

Pray to whomever you kneel down to:
Jesus nailed to his wooden or plastic cross,
his suffering face bent to kiss you,
Buddha still under the bo tree in scorching heat,
Adonai, Allah. Raise your arms to Mary
that she may lay her palm on our brows,
to Shekhina, Queen of Heaven and Earth,
to Inanna in her stripped descent.

Then pray to the bus driver who takes you to work.
On the bus, pray for everyone riding that bus,
for everyone riding buses all over the world.
Drop some silver and pray.

Waiting in line for the movies, for the ATM,
for your latte and croissant, offer your plea.
Make your eating and drinking a supplication.
Make your slicing of carrots a holy act,
each translucent layer of the onion, a deeper prayer.

To Hawk or Wolf, or the Great Whale, pray.
Bow down to terriers and shepherds and Siamese cats.
Fields of artichokes and elegant strawberries.

Make the brushing of your hair
a prayer, every strand its own voice,
singing in the choir on your head.
As you wash your face, the water slipping
through your fingers, a prayer: Water,
softest thing on earth, gentleness
that wears away rock.

Making love, of course, is already prayer.
Skin, and open mouths worshipping that skin,
the fragile cases we are poured into.

If you're hungry, pray. If you're tired.
Pray to Gandhi and Dorothy Day.
Shakespeare. Sappho. Sojourner Truth.

When you walk to your car, to the mailbox,
to the video store, let each step
be a prayer that we all keep our legs,
that we do not blow off anyone else's legs.
Or crush their skulls.
And if you are riding on a bicycle
or a skateboard, in a wheelchair, each revolution
of the wheels a prayer as the earth revolves:
less harm, less harm, less harm.

And as you work, typing with a new manicure,
a tiny palm tree painted on one pearlescent nail
or delivering soda or drawing good blood
into rubber-capped vials, writing on a blackboard
with yellow chalk, twirling pizzas--

With each breath in, take in the faith of those
who have believed when belief seemed foolish,
who persevered. With each breath out, cherish.

Pull weeds for peace, turn over in your sleep for peace,
feed the birds, each shiny seed
that spills onto the earth, another second of peace.
Wash your dishes, call your mother, drink wine.

Shovel leaves or snow or trash from your sidewalk.
Make a path. Fold a photo of a dead child
around your VISA card. Scoop your holy water
from the gutter. Gnaw your crust.
Mumble along like a crazy person, stumbling
your prayer through the streets.