How to take that turn, to touch so deeply, to stride blindly into the heart of my poet so far that I not return, that I become her and abandon all ambition for other and allow her light to be so bright she blinds who I thought I was…

How to be the bold artist, pressing paint so wildly into my canvas as she paints the path of life, daring to create despite the fading honor of her gift, to touch because of my willingness, to soften into the potential of that perfect stroke forming that perfect moment for myself but mostly for those who witness…

How to be the brave mother, opening to her deepest longing even as she is discarded by a world built around status and power, she carefully stretches my creative potential into the most magnificent love and cries forth the fruit of my limbs into a whole new body to touch toes onto Earth and press wonder out through mind….

How to be the explorer, leaving society at my back, pressing forward into the distinct beauty of climbing up the mountain in the height of effort, breathing thin wide air, knowing stillness that speaks beyond words, and examining the fragments of fullness at high elevation even as wall street marches on and makes so much of the future of my people…

How to be the lover, greatest risk of all, opening those places to another and receiving touch that can hurt so openly, rocking me into the greatest uncertainty, falling from the highest cliff as I follow the same impulse burning the stars into life's wandering surrender into future life…

How to trust the cosmos so fully that I dissolve into wonder at the exact shape of the broken flower, the internet, the layers of human mind, breath, moments of holding, and the impossible pictures of stars and galaxies that must be the conspiracy of the best artists because I keep being told that this is really a human universe…

Maybe the question is how to be all of these and still press truth and driving devotion out through the weaves of bureaucracy, like the lamb up for slaughter, risking all of the above for a glimmer of the light I feel buried in the human collective....

As I watch "Into the Wild", I wonder, can we know this sense of passion, of freedom, of love with the essential nature of life, here in these simple moments? How deeply can I love right here, right now? Can I wonder and wander into new experiences and taste them as fully as this brave young man in any body, any mind, any heart? Can I risk this deeply today? Can I love this fully into bliss with my imagination as I fall into the night sky, and into the concrete outside my door? Can I appreciate the shape of my big toe, the shape of my dying and thriving heart, from this soft seat? I wonder about the beauty of truth that burns stars into legs, a planet into motion around a ball of brutal fire. What is the truest nature of love, and what is the practice of meeting the needs of an exploding universe? And what is sane in a humanity that eats the world that births her? Are we really here to eat the food that bore us from her limbs? And then, I wonder, what is next for the impulse that rose life from stardust? I still believe in love through all of it.

I have always had these basic concepts about life, that light teaches us about dark, and dark teaches us about light. That great tragedy reveals great beauty. That the farther we get into fear, the more we are able to know love. A great polarity, of sorts – with continuums that inform us to increasingly greater depths. These are the things I believe.

So where does cosmology fit into that? What do I do with the idea that light and mass are attracted to themselves and each other? That allurement draws me to the light, and draws the light into my body, and it's as old as the universe that things happen this way? How does the dark fit in here… that dark matter repels and separates that which has come together? Does the light (and mass!) make me stronger, and the dark make me bigger? Or does the light/mass dissolve my boundaries, and the dark define me?? How do I assimilate this? How the f*ck is light the only thing in the universe that responds to gravity/allurement besides mass? Light? No mass, but curves toward a star when passing by... Light, coming into my body by attraction, rather then by random location.

Allurement. Allurement is as old as the universe… this force which draws us to each other, which calls atoms in, out of great potential. A multi-billion year process that annihilates the atoms, and creates stars. A two billion year old process that reproduces DNA. How it draws us in, life creating more life, love unfolding as we come together… Allurement is the cause of the greatest wound, and the greatest potential. Is it the star that drew the atoms in to their death in the first place, the call for something amazing to unfold? Is it us, or the potential for us, that drew the stars to their death, causing heavy elements to float through space and land here on Earth?? The greatest potential. Creative possibility. What happens when we participate in allurement…?

This brings me back to the fact the there is nothing independent of relationship, and thus our greatest science and our greatest philosophy lies in the exploration of this simple truth. How science has removed itself so far from life that it can even fathom the idea of something still/stagnant is beyond me. The most basic of knowing about life is that everything changes, and everything exists in relationship.

I love being in a changing, relating world.

……………..
I think this question of whether mass is drawn by the possibility or drawn by simple gravity is a powerful question... but I know that stars are beautiful, and I know you are beautiful, and I know that there is great possibility in the ways we come together. I wonder what is being generated in the future as this much humanity gathers on earth? Look what happened when enough atoms got together - stars were formed, and then us. What's next??

So what the fuck are we here for if it is not to FEEL this body? Spinning? Hurting? Loving? Living? Listening, carefully? Being touched by the air breathing us?

What am I here for if not to live, love, and humbly teach? What am I lost in a body for, if not to really fully explore it? Deeply touching places I didn't know existed, rocking open the fairy tale and deciding to dream it once again? What am I here for?

All these months trying for stability, trying for consistency – all while knowing the simple bullshit that stability is. It isn't. That's all – no such thing. So why would I seek it? And even the illusion, even the apparent consistency – it's simply not made for me, or maybe I not made for it. So what now? How many cliffs do I need to walk off of? How many times to do I have to dive into the unknown and risk everything, before I find the dance? I seem to be falling into step – it must not be too far…

But even in the celebration it never gets easier. Even in the victories, I come back to that erotic whirling dance of serious fucking uncertainty, rocking me so far off center that I lose even that, and yet then the miracles come. Then the synchronicities show up. Then the devotion re-minds me, and everything is okay. Just to be turned upside down all over again. It's a killer cycle, and I love it as much as I fear it. And I trust it as much as I live it.

Time to shift gears, breaking patterns, opening my reality in ways I hadn't even conceived of in my many many journeys before… Breaking open, letting go of parasites, seeing with new eyes, a bad ass movement through my life…. And once again everything I ask for comes, to the point that I do not know anything, and am falling in love with life all over again. Trials and surrenders, love and pain, and gentle reminders, I am here, now, living all the way. I am on my knees with thanks and awe. I just watch my body open more every day, and my mind, heart, and spirit join that dancing. Opening life. Living free. Freedom from safety, with freedom to be…

Sifting through finals, beginning my dissertation, incredible change and all too timeless to share....

Here are some recent brief thoughts around my dissertation work. A new movement will be showing up soon on my Yoga business website - if you like the concepts of this post, keep an eye out for the work emerging there.

In the meantime, I will be back with more as the words arise and call to move beyond the scholarly bubble.
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It's that piece of being able to feel the whole body - all interconnected, and the bodies of the others in the room - all interconnected, and the bodies of those birds floating on oil in the Bay - all interconnected. And the earth under the pavement, that moth that almost got stuck in the fridge tonight, the air on my body, that huge hole in our ozone... - all interconnected. I just think it's absolutely amazing to know this deeply, in my own experience of body. And I think my Yoga practice might help me this capacity. Maybe other people don't want that experience, but if we are truly going to make that figure-ground shift, from bodies to dynamic relating entities, then we have to be able to feel the systems. In my worldview, flow simply is life - everywhere we hold, we stop life. Any moment you catch a still image, you are not looking at truth any more than you are looking at the depths of a person by measuring her shadow on the wall.

Oh India...

I am finding myself talking in broken english in my head, occasionally with a dutch or english or italian or isreali accent... sometimes hindi.

What happens to me here?  What draws me back here, beats the shit out of me, and then softly and lovingly resists me leaving?

I spent yesterday with my beautiful friend Evelyn, and we walked with a saddhu down to sit below the road, next to the river (the river Ganga) where they all live.  This saddhu is one of the few left here with a real light in his eyes.  He is sweet and desperately thin and peaceful and light.  We trust him, so we follow him to sit for awhile.  As we land and speak with him and his friends, he just softly glows.  His friends take turns talking to us and lecturing about spirituality and life, as they pass the chillum pipe and speak wisdom in their broken english.  They are quite perceptive.  It was a magical couple of hours.  Dirty, smelly, hard, peaceful, sweet, honest...  Painfully honest.  One man and I take turns telling stories of the mountains and bears.  Then he tells me to spend more time looking very deeply inside.  It is the theme of the trip, and the root of my motivation to move - I need space and freedom for what is deeply me to re-create my outer life.  He also says "God doesn't see you making good, God doesn't see you making bad, God sees you making karma."  Well said!  Karma is action, and the Buddha spoke of this beautiful thing called paticca samuppada - it is basically the idea that everything we do/think/feel/know arises co-dependently with the world around us.  This is true most overtly with the things/people close to us, but also true on larger levels - it is the basic understanding of complexity.  Since karma is action, this saddhu's statement comes back to the basic idea that we are constantly co-creating in an intricate complex web, and contributing to the appearance and momentum of reality.  I do not think there is ultimately a right or wrong, but there is this fleeting moment of experience, and karma is the understanding that what I experience and how I experience it changes with each thought, word, deed... So I am choosing again, surrendering even more deeply, breathing a bit more honestly... 

So back to my question, what does India do to me?  Why do I return and relish it all?  In the midst of it, as I was being digested and seeing and experiencing the deepest of my uncertainty, I questioned it...  And thank GOD, because I don't think I could have seen those deeply rooted uncertainties at home.  I am always holding space in Boulder, teaching Yoga, leading workshops... it's absolutely wonderful, but you've got to dig into the shit in order to be fertilized with good mulch, eh?  Yeah.  I went all the way there.  And now I land back, another level deeper.  Distilled to the center of my being, then finding more hidden little (or big?) barriers, then finding myself distilled even deeper and more honestly.  I feel better then I have in months.  Life is so incredible, and I am so thankful for the work this country (land, culture, people...) does on me, and for my willingness to do it.

I spend time volunteering with these orphan kids, and this incredibly strong woman who runs the orphanage, Dhwaba, reminds me very concretely that we can cause social action, we can cause big change, and it's not that hard.  She is inspiring in a very specific way.  It was a very good reminder of social responsibility in a world where I spend a fair amount of time living in a realm outside of body.  Yet my whole study, my whole sholarship is about truly deeply integrately the sacred, the truth as one finds it, into the body, with the Earth, and into community.  Why else could we be here?  I do not believe that Earth is a school to be trashed and transcended - I think we have the gift of a body for a reason - transcend but then (as Indian Yoga teachers would say..) try harder, try better... take it deeper.  Bring that unity consciousness or even better nondual, bring that deep practice DOWN into daily life, and then wade through the dirty flood waters, see the dragonflies as they swarm around you, breathe the scent of flowers so deeply that everything else disappears for that instant, and then inhale the chemicals you clean with... check it all out - all of it, with that sacred lens.  I don't think there is right or wrong, but there is certainly an incredible knowing to be found through dedication, through honest intentions of surrender, and through deep breath and deep wilderness.  And there's nothing quite like truly beholding a flower and her scent.

What does India do to me?  I guess it reminds me, it boldy pulls away all of my protection and humbles me until I surrender to the beauty that lies at the heart of my being.  And then I love it back, brilliantly.

I have so many stories to tell, but for now I can barely remember them - I am just relishing in re-membering me.

Thanks for visiting my little pocket of reality for the moment =)

Love and blessings,

Kelly~

Possessed by frameworks of light skewed by shadow defining truth… breaking free I have no idea how to be, but a clear sense of what is true. Leaving my seeking I open to standing clear, and sure, and wavering in assault by a world that is so distant I forget, and then remember that the assault doesn't matter because what is true transcends and I am here to root it, to plant seeds, to re-member, to integrate a knowing being sacred loving into the tao of my path.

It glows, like a radiant light ebbing and flowing growing and shrinking - with purity, but more – with freedom. Truth calls in compassion and again I reel through the cosmos through the wildest ride and land like a fucking rock, shaking my head clear so my heart has room to flow through the being that gathers for this physical experience, stretching my limbs and opening my body for the ecstasy of the ultimate receiving unfolding and exploding in ways transcending every sense of boundary of limitations that might have been known. My body kisses love with every pore expanding and connecting within and without as I surrender to the trust of complexity unfolding in light.

Thank you for your pain your joy your breath pressing into your blood and caressing the trees outside my door. Thank you for your fear, your trust, your willingness to take another step.

Pressing strong hands and feet into Earth I step in stealth grace. Echoes of the tiger fall through my vision.

The wind is my breath is blood of the earth is water is my body, the sensitive skin of the earth breathing each pore open through the heart of your body. Unfolding the complexity of gratitude.

I just received a call from my parents, reminding me of the brief moments of the body's life. A woman that I love dearly and has been a part of my life for at least 20 years passed away last night in a car accident. My body cries, and it feels so amazing. My heart is broken open just another sliver, loving even brighter across the miles and across the dimensions of existence. More people to include in my loving embrace for tonight.

And I am reminded of the purpose of my service. Much of my desire is help people remember their own beauty and the sacredness of existence so vividly that they might pass in peace to the freedom that lies beyond the body. Death is the end of suffering, in my view, as long as a soul is willing to love and trust through the process, rather than clinging to a fear of the divine surrender.

If you are inclined please send love to her husband and daughter, Harold and Rayna. Beautiful people feeling exquisite pain. Another return to this sacred dance, a reminder to breathe brightly today as every moment in a body is an eternal sip of the paradise that follows.

I keep wandering back in my mind through thoughts of love and frustration and shock as I wandered through Thailand, and continue to journey through this education that I chose. What really matters? And how do I impact that? Or truly, how do I not impact it? Every day in every way, the butterfly effect in complexity theory.. every thought every action impacts everything else. How often do I think, act, and be in a place of love? And when I don't, how do I learn to let it go and not feel bad about it?

Thailand was a dirty place.. not dirty like filthy as much as dirty from toxic Western (largely American) influences. And yet it was so beautiful. Such depth of lush green mixed with humble beautiful rural workers living with their land in a way that honors the greatest home we all have. Buddhists surrounding me reminding me of love and karma and trusting in a larger picture of life that is fundamentally peaceful. But what about those girls who feel like they have no choice but to sell their bodies to send money to their families? And what about those many many many men from all over the globe that support the industry. The selling of sex as an industry. How could it be anything but fundamentally wrong? And is it truly the most empowered choice that these women have? And if so, how FUCKED UP is that? How seriously fucked up is that?

But what to do about it all. As I laid my body under a hot sun, reading about gender and racial issues affecting our epistemologies in research, in the midst of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen, laying topless in a conservative country, because Western influence has made that okay in the tourist areas, what exactly am I doing? Am I disgracing locals from my choice of dress, or making a difference by being aware of the racial and gender biases grounded in epistemological perspective of my inquiry, or making a difference by recognizing that talking about all these issues does jack shit for that young woman that just became a "bar girl" who hides back in the corner, wanting business to send money home, scared to death that it will come to her.

So I return to my studies, return to my heartache, return to the noisy tourists around me, return to the 7-11 to get a water, all the while bothered by my own support of such a terrible convenience store putting the locals out of business. Return to my internet conversation with the other students in my program. Return to the daunting task of PhD work, return to my own uncertain vision of impacting the world.

The last week of my time there, I found a peace, I found deep love for the country. One of the greatest gifts I can imagine is to share something like this with your mother. Mine came to meet me and that was the greatest blessing of that particular travel experience. And now I am back, looking at my education, walking through the fires of fear as I read and write and grow exponentially. And I trust that we can only do what we can do, only love as much as our hearts are open to love, only give as much as we forgive, and only shine as brightly as the sun. I have finally come to a point of being able to articulate my inquiry for school, so here goes..

My intention is to empower human beings to reconnect with the sacred. I approach this through re-establishing communication with and awareness of the sacred implicit in our global ecosystem. Considering the body as our most direct connection with Earth and Nature, my method applies the concepts of Ecopsychology and Deep Ecology, Complexity, and theories of Transformation to Shamanic and Integral Yogic practices. This integration reveals a mutually nourishing and sustainable relationship between the body and Nature which extends to the diverse ecologies that comprise human existence and experience.

That's all for now... I love you. I love this beautiful living being and home always breathing us. I love this experience. Live it up.

1/3/04

Sometimes I think of the old ways. I think of life entrusted to Newtons laws and pieces separate. I think of for each his own and shouldering feelings not allowed to be felt. I think of the life that my grandparents have known, and the misguided parents and children at heart. I think of believing that life is defined by what is seen. Forgetting to acknowledge the powerful forces of feeling, the passions that drive us, the minds that interpret experience as we have known it. I remember the times in my life where I felt the essence of my soul, buried in pain, unable to stand and carry any more of the ripping pain in my very center. Physical sensations nearest to my heart as I felt the most liberating sorrow known to these bodies. Its as if the worse it seems the more there is inside to remind us that YES! I am alive. I do feel. Somehow, in some way, I love so much that I can hurt this much. And at times I didnt even realize the blessings of having the experience of that pain, because that is a powerful taste of life. A taste quickly forgotten in media distractions and fallen archetypes. Bitter wounds deny the taste that reminds us of the sweetness of the heart, and the fire deepest within. And what does that pain bring to me? A measure of beauty. A measure of wonder as it appears. Reminding us that if life can be that bad then damn it, life can be that good. Awesome experience tends to strive for balance. As we taste the darkness, it seeks the light. And as we dance in the light, it seeks to feel the shadow. Beautiful synthesis, spiraling through simply to experience all that we cannot see, as well as that which we believe we can.