Flying lessons

Middle aged women can fly
We spread our wings finding strong wind beneath us
Grace arrives in unexpected forms
As our bellies soften and wrinkles deepen
with the breath of time

We carry youth on our backs and in our bones
We glow the deep satisfaction of age

I understand now how youth is wasted on the young

Tina's turn 

extension 

elizabeth flying over me 

counter balance 

tina tumbling

KinAesthetic Society

Good morning friends and family. I spent this morning learning how to get my photos on line here. So here you go, a couple of photographs from last night's rehersal of the KinAesthetic Society.

Party on.....

Trying a sculpture

Flying over Elizabeth 

Brown

I am reading Brown, Richard Rodriguez's book, and loving it. It has helped me understand and see some things about race that I had struggled with. Brown, the color of my skin, is just that, the outside of me. It is not that by having passed I am white, it is that on the inside there is no difference between Brown, Black, White, Yellow, Red. Yes, we have different cultural experiences that flavor our world view. But the human mind, thought, and emotion, are the same. I was raised in a white world. I was raised in white schools. People assumed I was white, dark white but white, and I learned to be part of the dominant culture.

My skin is brown, light brown, but clearly brown. Already my face and arms are tanning from the increased spring sunlight. My nose is large and defined, my cheekbones high. I am clearly not of northern European descent. It causes people to look twice, sometimes to guess, native American, Greek, Italian. They don’t often guess Mexican, they never guess mixed race.

What did it mean to grow up Mexican-Irish? The question is really difficult, because it was the only thing I knew. I don’t know how it was different from any white person who grew up in my suburb. I know the differences that were caused by my father’s alcoholism. I know there was verbal abuse and that my father in his sadistic loving way called my mother a wetback. I know that Mexican food was my cradle food: rice, beans, and tortillas, tacos, burritos, and tamales. I know how to eat a burrito without a fork and I know that you don’t put ground meat in tacos.

What else made me Mexican? I wanted to side with the underdog. I wanted to stand up for my Mother in that climate of abuse. I did not want to identify with the abuser and the drunk, so I claimed my Mexicanness and minimized my Irishness. I tried once or twice to hang out with the kids from the barrio, but I couldn’t change my personal culture that much. I couldn’t don the clothes and the attitude of the chollos. My barrio friends were the kids who were raised to achieve and get the hell out of there. My barrio friends were the ones who were taught to think and dress and move into white culture, who were taught that there is nothing different on the inside and that it is only the color of your skin and the food that you eat that is different and if you claim a place in the world, that place will be yours.

body history

last night my body kept waking me
its history alive in spasms

a bit of asphalt from Sepulveda Blvd (36 years ago)
deli worker knife scars on hands and forearms (30 years ago)
scar tissue in right knee (25 years ago)
scar tissue in left shoulder (14 years ago)
spiral fracture in left tibia (16 years ago)
belly and breasts stretched by childbirth (9 and 12 years ago)
a bit of neuropathy in left foot (8 years ago)
back surgery scars, titanium rods and screws (8 years ago)
knee swollen and ligaments scarred (2 years ago)

hips achy as the estrogen piles up before I bleed
stomach becoming softer and softer as perimenopause runs its course
long hikes, deep stretches, strong lungs, strong heart
good strong muscles hiding under a nice layer of adipose tissue (aka fat)
crunchy loud joints at the top of my neck
TMJ syndrome doesn’t often bother me any more
a tiny adnoma on my pituitary
long dark hair slowly graying to salt and pepper
and thinning slightly on my temples
skin becoming less resilient by the year as
wrinkles take permanent form like scars

battle cries of the flesh holding on, for how much longer?
I wonder more often what lurks inside when my body wakes me in the night
as a child I was exposed to second hand smoke
asbestos, trichloroethylene, mercury, and other toxins
I smoked for 8 years and once played with other experiments
now: good vitamins, good food, exercise, organic products, a low toxin home
can they counter this personal history, the toxins of our world
at 46 I wonder, how the rest of my body's history will be told.

Death by color

Another dozen killed and reported on the
second or third page of the paper.
Death toll rises steadily, like the stock market.

No one counts the Iraqi dead.
Soldiers weep in airports, saying goodbye
for the last time. No choices left for this life.

Federal Security agents are silenced.
To hide the truth of war
and terror we perpetrate on the world.

A child disappears from school,
awash in bruises. My son wonders
where he was taken.

White life upheld beyond recognition.
While we continuously perpetrate death on colored
skin, where are their court battles ?

I’m confused and dizzy, Should I spend my time
at the court house waving a flag? Stomach in a knot,
writing letters to editors, senators, congress?

Or should I teach my children peace
meditation, prayer, how to untie the knots.
Is this denial or a way to change the world

I don’t know much of anything anymore.

who owns this place?

Dirt ground into the knees of my pants.
Piles and piles of weeds, the whole garden is weeds
The unwanted ones: small yellow flowers and big white fluffy pompoms
stars of spiky leaves hugging low to the ground
lovely smelling mint and acrid onion
so many others, indescrible, prolific

I cut the grass and leave it to mulch on the lawn, to brown quickly.
I leave the chard that grew all winter to harvest in a month or so
Jay says not to turn too deep or I’ll release the good carbon, the good nitrogen
I plant those small red marigolds my boys brought me
Like a light, laughter, choosing them over another
I play favorites here, seeming to create order while yearning for the wildness

Of the small cave that opens in the middle of the grass
We feed it dirt, stones, bricks trying to fill it up but it opens,
A yawning and hungry old river bed in the middle of the lawn
Reminding us we don’t really own this place,
The old river bed does, the giant fir tree does, the squirrels and jays do,
The weeds own this place more than I do

Dream Falling

Today I am aware I have an audience. It makes it harder to write. I get a little lost sometimes when I think about you reading this. Performance anxiety sets in. I close my eyes, breath into my belly, pray, start again.

This morning I dreamt of a man falling from a 16th floor window. He rolled down the wall, head over heels again and again, sticking a pefect landing on his feet. We applauded. I wondered if I could fall and land so beautifully. I yearned to try but knew it was a stupid experiment.

My dreams are so obvious. I am in mid-fall, one of my choosing. I rarely fall gracefully, so beautifully as the man in my dream. Sometimes I land on my feet, sometimes I land on my head. Often life changes for the better when I surrender and fall.

Yoga

Breathe, extend
Let your shoulders surrender toward your hips
Feel your back muscles ripple down your back like a curtain falling
From your center extend in all directions
Lift yourself from the root charka
Be an inch taller

Breathe extend
Claim all the space of your body, and more
Reach out from your spine to the tips of your fingers
From your pelvis ground your feet firmly into the floor
Let your awareness fill each cell
Be your full, beautiful self

This is the dream:

Dream:
A big girl in a tutu dancing her heart out.
Applause, love, gentle laughter as she bows.
A hug, enough. Affirmation and then,
Just the next thing in life, playing house with a friend.
Not forgetting that playing house has turned into real life.

Magic:
Let real life turn into play.
Chop wood, carry water, with joy and abandon.
Dance and sing in public even if you have no voice.
Laugh at the absurd, cry at the pain, be deeply in this life.
Don’t be afraid to dance in a tutu, don't be afraid of applause, bow.

Faithful Fools

Faithful Fool willing to fall in love with what one cannot touch.
Faithful Fool, laughing and cavorting for God.
Faithful Fool wearing stockings in the mud.
Faithful Fool is bruised by life and still laughs out loud at the mystery.

Faith: believing from your bones.
Full: satiated, overflowing, content.
Fool: silly, playful, teasing, mocking.

Foolish Faith: to believe in the unbelievable, to believe recklessly.
Full Fool: the fat one who likes to eat.
Fool Full: Tired of fun.
Faithful Fool: laughing and cavorting for God.

May the world be full of faithful fools, willing to trip over their feet for the deepest soul felt belief in the good of each of us. May the world be full of faithful fools willing to laugh and cavort in churches that turn us away from the truth of our good nature, the unity of love, and universal salvation. May the world be full of faithful fools trusting to give all they have to make the world a better place.

Blessings on your day Faithful Fools. And many thanks to the SF Faithful Fools for hope and inspiration!

Dancing the Shamanic Heart of Life

This is who I am. I have a hard time committing to it. I get afraid of who I really am: activist, artist, shaman. I try to commit to more acceptable things. My last career was about committing to an acceptable and impressive career path. It didn’t work. I cannot commit to what doesn’t call my heart. When I try to convince myself to do those things, I fail. When I try to give myself to the things that I think are the right things to do, I finish quickly or I get frustrated and I set them aside. They are not my things, they are not my calling. I keep looking for those things that are my calling. But I know what they are. What is it that I are willing to drive all day for? What is it that I am willing to be impetuous and ridiculous for? Dance and the Shamanic Heart of life. I traveled around the world and Sheik Nazim looked in my eyes and told me that. Okay, enough already. I get it.

heaven

You watch me
dance, fly, soar
I watch you
dance, fly, soar
We carry each other
on the wings of our breath
on the love of our witness

We soar alongside one another
in formation
Breaking formation
we soar into open space
Holding onto the breath of God
She lifts our wings,
our minds to heaven.

In Corvallis it is so easy to forget about the other faces of the world. If I stop reading the papers, if I stop listening to the radio, I would think that life is easy and that everyone is middle class, affluent. We have high class problems in Corvallis. Yes, we need more money for schools. Yes it would be nice if we had a better mass transit system. We are conservative in our lifestyles and liberal in our politics. Most of us send money to good organizations and write letters and do our part for our causes from a distance. We have very few opportunities to touch and see the pain of the world. I had my little midnight encounter with hate a few months ago. I know that hate is here, lurking in the corners and under the beds. I know if I look under the bridge that I can find a drinking alcoholic or maybe even and junkie. And, I’d suggest that even the junkies and alcoholics have it pretty good in Corvallis.

I need to find a way to touch pain and poverty from time to time. I remember when my mother-in-law cleaned the homeless shelter once a month. That was lovely, washing the laundry of the homeless. Chop wood, carry water. Finding a place and a time to touch and ease the pain of someone. I want to soften the boundaries between my self and the truth of the world. I want to live the Peace Orders vows: I vow to be Diversity, I vow to Harmony, I vow to be Unity. To live these vows I must be able to touch both sides of the human coin. I have lost touch with the other side in my affluent little community here.

torture

Last night at OSU Rev. Dr. William Schulz told stories of torture and horror, of soldiers killing young girls, adults poking the eyes out of children, of the slavery that exists in the world. Today, in the 21st century. This morning I try to find words but I feel speechless. Is this what it is to be human? My friend Dr. Bill Ferrell says that humans have evil as part of their genetic code and that each generation must fight it, that as soon as we stop the battle the evil will return. Is that what is happening? But we must also have goodness in our genetic code, the desire to combat the evil, the stomach turning response to hearing these stories. Are the words of God and the words of Satan equally printed upon our cells? Do the torturers realize what they are doing? We came home from the William Schulz lecture and watched the end of a movie about the Holocaust. I was reminded that the evil returns in cycles again and again and again. I scratch my head and wonder how we became a nation that creates terror and perpetrates torture? How did we lose our way and return to this evil again?

Emptiness

Sleep in day. No school day. Slow day. Slow empty spaces have returned to my life. It feels good. I welcome the moments when I sit down on the couch and there is nothing I have to do. They are not forced moments. I haven’t had to plan and create emptiness. It just is. I can sit and talk of nothing with Jay. I can pick up a magazine. I can close my eyes. I can play with the dog. I can pray. I don’t need to be in a hurry. I don’t need to live such that every moment is full.

This morning, I watch the sway of a branch blown by a passing car and I remember another breeze I once observed. It was a very, 120 degree, hot day. I listened in on the conversation of a couple old men in Cyprus: “Did you feel that breeze?” “Yes.” That was it, enough: to sit by an old friend in the shade of a veranda during the heat of the day, to drink strong coffee, to play backgammon, and to be aware of a passing breeze. I dream that I could be happy with just that much as well. But I keep filling up my life. I keep finding things to add to my load. Then I have to drop something. Again and Again, I let go of things and I am surprised when emptiness returns. Ahhh, there goes that branch again.

favorite quotes of the week

"I'm just kinda out of sorts, but it is all working out well."

After a discussion about how anxious an individual was:
"You should try a yoga class."
"That's what my therapist said to me."

iris

I was walking on Bald Hill last week. The different wildflowers come into bloom each week now. The purple iris are opening in a narrow elevation band under the mixed conifer/oak forest. They open there blooms skyward for all to see. There is no shyness in them. Their genitals are as brilliant and inviting as a sunrise. Yellow lilies turn their faces toward the forest floor. They are shy, showing us only the soft pale color of the back of their petals. They look down at the small insects and creatures crawling in the duff.

Allee, the pup, flushed a grouse on Bald Hill. She wanders off the trail into the grassy underbrush anytime she hears a bird. I watched her run off and kept hiking, but I heard the thump thump thump, of grouse wings. I turned back to see the big bird land in a lower tree branch and Allee running in circles under the tree. She waited until the last possible moment, before I fully disappeared from view, to run back to the trail and catch up with me, panting and smiling the widest of puppy grins.

pretty shoes

You wore pretty but uncomfortable shoes. You wore good makeup, and the right perfume. Your hair was done up just so. You have a good job. Your child goes to the right school. I listened to you and heard so many complaints about life, about the world. Nothing was enough and you live tied in knots and self imposed bondage.

I need to remember the most simple of pleasures again and again. I need to remember the sunrise and the soft sound of the rain. I need to remember that the tulips are in bloom. I need to remember smell of lilacs. I need to remember the touch of my lover’s skin and the sound of my child’s breath. I need to remember my sons voice telling me he loves me, or telling me to go away with so much tenderness that I can hear the love underneath.

Elephant dance

The air was heavy
Like stones weighted around our necks
We laughed nervously; talk of nothing
As we dance around the elephant

The pyre burned; they turned away
Enchanted more by a small plastic pumpkin
safe upon a stump

Don’t watch as they lower the box
Into the ground, don’t throw down the flowers
We walk away nervously; the fabric ripped
As we dance around the elephant

The pyre burned; they turned away
Dear one, I will leave your dream catcher
safe in the forest

mourning

You lay in your coffin boldly with your face exposed
The wound in front is small but too much is missing

The pope lay in his coffin upon a golden pillow
Millions came to see his dead body, walk by, and to pray

Terri’s body was cut open and her brain removed
They are still arguing over what to do with her remains

Hidden faces return home in coffins draped with flags
Without mourning we have lost count of our war dead

Strangers far, far away, die at our hands, by our words and actions
Our national shame is told quietly at the bottom of the front page

body and breath

The touch of good, clean sheets on my skin in the morning. The smell of fresh laundry. I feel the touch of the sheets and the ache of my muscles and I feel alive. The good warm pain of having worked hard makes me smile. I roll slowly from side to side. Slowly enough not to wake my mate. I enjoy the languid easy motion. I hook my foot over the side of the bed and enjoy the pull and sensation of tendon and muscles. Weight and counterweight as I roll on the bed. Last night I watched my dancers. I watched bodies roll and fly through the air. I witnessed the line of body, the fly of hair, the opening of virtual wing. The languid roll and the fresh arrival of body and breath.

The fresh arrival of body and breath and I awaken. Each day again and again. First in bed, I awake and I have body and I have breath and I can get up and start the day. After the children have left for school I sit silently on my cushion and return to my body and my breath to begin 'my day.' I take the dog for a walk in the woods, again returning to body and breath I can experience the forest. This meditation chimes though my day breath reminding me again and again to be present. Only now, only this moment, only this body, this one breath.

complicit

I am complicit. I don’t want to be.
I drive a car too many miles consuming gas beyond my share.
I am complicit. I don’t know how not to be.
I eat food from far lands grown and picked by people living in poverty.
I am complicit. I try hard to forget.
I wear clothing made by people living in virtual slavery.
I am complicit. I don’t know how to change that.
I recycle bins of paper each week as trees are sacrificed so I can stay informed.
I am complicit, though I try hard not to be.
These are the small sins I can think of at 7 am on a Thursday morning.
There are bigger uglier sins I carry: gluttony, greed, ignorance, silence, desire, coveting, lust, anger, vengeance.
I am complicit in the sins of my culture. My heart screams for me to stop.
I'll try to follow my heart.

passing

Passing. A new performance and installation piece by Curtis Walker and Lisa Wells is looking for collaborators and stories. We are interested in exploring the many ways that we pass in the world. Sometimes passing is a personal choice. Sometimes passing is projected upon us. In either case it leaves us feeling ‘queer’ -- different, outsider, other. Passing is that moment when people perceive us to be someone different than we believe ourselves to be. We all pass at different times and places in our lives.

I pass for white all the time. I pass for white unless I choose to tell you otherwise. I am a mixed race person. I was raised in a mixed race household. I choose to identify as Mexican because the models of white I experienced were abusive and oppressive. My father called my mother a ‘wetback.’ I preferred to be the wetback to the abuser.

But what the hell does it mean to choose to be Mexican? I wasn’t raised in a Mexican neighborhood and I certainly didn’t identify with the chollos from the barrio. Our neighbors were white. I played with white kids and I learned the rules of their games. We ate beans and tortillas for dinner. We occasionally celebrated Las Posadas and we made tamales at my Aunt Phil’s for Christmas. A tiny amount of Spanish was mixed into our vocabulary, mocos instead of snot is the one I remember most clearly.

What does race mean? Is it food and vocabulary? Is it the rules to a child's game? Is it the color of our skin? What does your race mean to you?

Potluck

I want to lounge on this couch.
Spread out long, rest my head back on the cushions.
Avoid the crowd around the dining room table.

I want to have a real conversation.
I want to hear what is in your heart.
The surface doesn’t matter.
There is too much surface area here.
Too much of the inconsequential.
Too many global details.

I can not take in so much and so little.
And so, I find the comfortable couch.
I slouch and wait for a small conversation.
I wait to hear the beating of a heart.

Skin

This is me: My skin is covered with a slightly salty residue. My skin has dimples and cellulite in all the typical places. My skin has freckles and sun damage. My skin has deepening wrinkles. My skin is light brown where exposed, white on my belly. My skin bears large scars, on my left knee, lumbar back, left forearm, and small scars, on hands, face, belly. The scar on my knee carries a small piece of asphalt from Sepulveda, California. My hair hangs a bit longer than my shoulders, dark brown and straight. My eyes are deep brown, my cheekbones high, my nose slightly wide. My ears have a few piercings, but I don't often wear earrings. Below my skin is flesh, adipose tissue, a small layer of cushioning fat. Veins exposed on hands, feet, arms. My muscles are toned and strong and you can see them in some places as well. They surprise me, the arc of quadricep, the arch of deltoid, bulge of gastrocnemius. Bones are prominent in some places and the tendons that pull up feet and hands. My fingers are a little swollen this morning. My hips a tiny bit achy from dancing and running. My body feels good, alive and ready to tackle the day. I say thanks to the universe for this lovely middle aged body.