I wonder

I wonder, on a daily basis and across the world (not just here in my little corner of easy Los Angeles) and on a given minute, how many people would say that they are unsatisfied with their lives. ALL across the world. I wonder sometimes if we are being bred more and more to BE unsatisfied with our lives. I bet if you asked my great-grandmother if she was unsatisfied with her life, she probably would say that she doesn’t give that much thought, she just LIVES her life day to day and tries to get through. And while I feel privileged to be able to examine my life and not just “get through,” I also wonder if there really IS anything but getting through, because then you are really living in the moment. I mean, we are living, we are doing, and what else is there but that?

I am wondering a lot.

I feel unsatisfied, not with a lot of aspects of my life, but I do feel unsatisfied day by day. Mostly with the knowledge of how much there is to DO/SEE/FEEL/BE in the world while I sit at my desk.

I do try to keep it interesting. This past Saturday I joined up with a group of 300 people dressed like Santa Claus in a sort of human art experiment and terrorized/humanized the city with our antics. I regularly spin fire in patterns around myself in an effort to express the beauty that lives in my body and mind. I have read 6 books in the last month. I teach a class every week. I am not afraid to be in a yoga class and test my body and mind for hours at a time. I married someone for love and not security. I am not afraid to get into a conversation with you. I learned imovie this past month and created something. I will scream, jump for joy, or sit quietly at any given moment. I am working on welcoming discord and disagreements for the pursuit of truth.

Maybe the point is that, when I am fully engaged in activities where I am using my abilities and creating, I feel satisfied. I just need to engage those sides of myself more and more often. I need to confront my fears and realize that, when I am being safe and not testing myself, I feel like I’m dying inside. Create. Create. Create.

And I know I’m trying. It’s just that I also think that I work with a security blanket. Not that it’s wrong to have a stable job and have some money, but I think it is wrong when that prevents you from finding your destiny in the universe and testing yourself. I don’t take all the chances that I should because they don’t always fit my day to day, and I want to break out of the box. I want to get rid of the fear that exists when I think of breaking out on my own. Throw it away. Live for what makes me tick, and believe that the universe will reward me for it. Or, at very least, pursue more within my confines, testing and learning and pushing myself.

This whole entry probably makes no sense for a reader. I guess I’m just blogging for myself right now… but I am interested in how other people feel about filling up their lives with satisfaction, and how they do it!

Don't Put My Unborn Baby in a Corner

Last night I had a very vivid dream, where I got to give my (as yet unconceived) teenage daughter the greatest lesson of all - the lesson whose sentiments wound their way through every single one of my favorite movies growing up - to just DANCE! To dance like no one's watching, to dance her own way, to dance even when the "man" tells her not to, to dance in the way she does and not how they taught her... you know, every one of the cliches.

It was a glorious moment. The soundtrack, of course, was the classic fare: thumping 80s beat, soaring high vocals involving words like "hero" and "maniac," and, of course, plenty of neon. My daughter, of course, then proceeded to DANCE, and I mean DANCE: though previously untrained, she could flip and soar and salsa and pirouette in a completely unique style.

Sigh.

I sure hope it happens like this. It will, right?

100 things in the world i love

1. corduroy overalls
2. beards
3. butterfly rings
4. gerber daisies
5. Mom’s homemade rolls
6. very large rocks
7. costumes
8. dance class
9. a good book
10. chapstick
11. acoustic guitar
12. strawberries
13. faux fur
14. scrabble
15. baseball on tv
16. thrift stores
17. painting
18. typing
19. purple
20. striped socks
21. furry socks
22. ouiji boards
23. campfires
24. new shoes
25. yoga
26. hot chocolate
27. collages
28. good beer
29. breakdancers
30. snow angels
31. finishing
32. excel
33. record players
34. sunshine
35. rivers
36. eyeliner
37. babies
38. gymnasium smell
39. french braiding
40. quilts
41. movies
42. wigs
43. hula hoops
44. chaise lounges
45. faces
46. high boots
47. bubble baths
48. mix tapes
49. catamarans
50. road trips
51. incense
52. crab feasts
53. pools
54. fairs
55. musicals
56. feathers
57. jungle gyms
58. gel pens
59. squeezie balls
60. mouthwash
61. kitties
62. q-tips
63. sunsets
64. cornbread
65. ziplock bags
66. top 40
67. hotel rooms
68. moon circles
69. buddah beads
70. someone else’s perfume
71. cranium
72. today
73. spinning
74. pad thai
75. bedazzled game
76. soduku
77. sleeping in the car
78. softball games
79. pubs
80. karaoke
81. fondue pots
82. extension cords
83. christmas lights
84. patchouli
85. conversations
86. patent leather shoes
87. sunglasses
88. tutus
89. tire swings
90. marble notebooks
91. lanterns
92. parasols
93. loofahs
94. crying
95. the sun
96. laughing
97. acrobats
98. silly sting
99. moms
100. love

I love...

One thing I really love about my husband is how he seems to have a sixth sense about when I'm going to get home. He wanders out of the backyard onto the street as if he were waiting for me the whole time.

I've never mentioned it to him... I'm just going to keep enjoying it.

Burning Man reminiscing...

So, apparently this year I've had a hard time putting into words what Burning Man means to me. It was my fourth year, and, by far, my least dramatic (in a good way!). It's a trying place, but I know what I'm getting myself into, and this time I was well equipped with wonderful family (emotional support) and a wonderful husband. Not that bringing three "virgins" to the desert didn't require it's own set of issues, but I felt much safer this time around that we were all clear headed enough to get ourselves safely there and safely back. More than that, I found that my experience allowed me to slip rather easily into my Burning Man person... the language was at my dirty fingertips, and it felt unbelievably invigorating to my soul to be around all that amazing energy. Truth be told, I've been vibing off of that energy in different ways for months now still!

I actually wrote about 3 pages of stuff on the RV trip home, and then in a twist of fate, I put the pages in my camelback, then went hiking about a week later, the camelback got wet, and the pages became a beautiful piece of stained ink art work instead. I really enjoyed that hike, so I guess it was meant to be.

Then, recently, I opened an old notebook and found my gibberish scribblings from my first year there! I figure a lot of my feelings towards the event are exactly the same, so here they are... the random, overwhelming, sometimes cliche scribblings of a twenty something having her mind exploded:

"so much to see! so much to see!

have my eyes ever been this wide?

all the creativity from every soul,

how the world is meant to be.

a gathering of freaks

yet not a demon in the bunch.

wise eyes

open eyes

free eyes

scared eyes

compassionate eyes

demonstrative eyes

and the beats go on and on

this world never sleeps

there's just too much to see

lovely to see people working together

pushing boundaries

smiling

bonding together in strange conditions

willing to be at peace with each other

for no real reason

but that the soul needs to be at peace

and oh! the art and the cars and the bikes and the nipples and the yoga and the furry and the monkeys and the carrots and it goes on and on

MY EYES CAN'T CATCH THEIR BREATH

what expression

what beauty we allow here

and we're all a little awkward and over-stimulated

the porta potties and the dust on the bikes and the body and every little thing you could imagine

the ups and the downs and the hearts and the buses with the people on top, staring down and waving

and it is all about feeling good, and whatever you need, if I can help you get it, I will

does "civilization" really exist? is there anywhere to be but here?

I think no.

i am having no revelations about my personal life because it is so far from here.

overwhelming.

here it is so easy to support the wonderful talent and the expression, the unique abilities

the band with the sitar and the opera singer and the violinist just there at noon to make you happy

playing catch with a frisbee and a stranger, acceptable and encouraged

and what has happened to my nose?? it is not good.

it's just all so much! i must try to be calm to take it in."

The luckiest cell

One of my favorite things that Vanessa, a yoga teacher of mine, says is "You are here because you CAN be here." Upon first listen, I was underwhelmed. Of course I can be here. Obviously. I'm here. And I'm uncomfortable in this position, and this pithy statement of yours is doing nothing to ease my discomfort OR shed enlightenment leading to some new understanding of my discomfort. But she stuck with it. Class after class. And I think it's becoming one of my new favorite statements.

Because the truth of it is that we CAN be here... in yoga... in life... and we are lucky for it. Whatever formation of cells came into being became us, the luckiest cell(s), and now we have evolved to a level of consciousness that is physical, mental, spiritual, with possibilities of enlightenment, happiness, sorrow, and suffering. But we get to experience this. And what is the ratio in which we would be the cell lucky enough to get here? Or, in a simpler (and perhaps more of a reasonable explanation in these circumstances) way, our bodies have afforded us movement which is beautiful and our minds have cultivated ways to stimulate itself. In the best way possible, we CAN be in class because we are terribly, terribly lucky. 

It just translates to life so wonderfully. I was folding laundry today, not exactly loving it, and I reminded myself that I am folding laundry because I CAN, because not only do I have the physical agility to help myself and others, but I also can afford lovely clothes which I CAN buy, wear, and wash. We are not all so lucky. 

I hope that throughout my life I am able to remind myself of this in times of duress. May not be easy... but at least I have this here blog to remind me. :-)

I have certainly been lacking in posting lately. In thinking about it, I have been so deliciously wrapped up in life that I've barely had time to bear witness. Which is not to say that I've lacked a 3rd eye, or a consciousness, but I have been living very in the moment and the act of taking pictures or writing words about moments tends to take away from them for me. I may be entering a period of circumspection... we'll see.

Burning Man really did do a excellent number on me. The vitality that it has afforded has seemed open-ended. As if my brain was rewired to have untapped child-like energy. Tonight I fell asleep on the couch at 8 pm... so it might finally be running out... but I hope not. LA's two season weather is finally starting to turn, and I turn to see introspection on the horizon...