BeautyDialogues

Ceremony

I awake this morning aware that it is Sunday, the designated day of rest in Christian tradition - although the "rest" part, at least, is not so much in currency these days.

Later today, I'm going to join my Arica community for a Black Earth, which is a ceremony to honor the life of someone who has died, and support them in their journey through the Bardo. My dear friend Emmet has just passed through that veil and I know it will give me comfort to celebrate his extraordinary spirit with others who love him.

I'm lying here in bed thinking about how important it is to give the time and create the space for ceremony in our lives.

Some speak of "Life as Ceremony", and a few bold souls even of "Work as Ceremony", meaning living a life of conscious intent, a desire to keep love for all of Life at the center of who we are and what we do. Sue Blondell, aka Lightning Dove, speaks about life as ceremony in terms of Beauty:

"Living Life as Ceremony means bringing our full awareness to the beauty and blessings that are offered to us in every moment of every day.  It means choosing to have the eyes to see,  the ears to hear, and the willingness to open all our senses to the voice of Spirit and Mother Earth with the intention of living as our Highest Selves and taking actions that support Life versus diminish Life."

I share Dove's passion and as part of my own practice of "giving back" to Life, I have been hosting monthly online Elemental Ceremonies through Digital+ Earth Wisdom with my friends and colleagues FireHawk and Pele.

On September 1st, FireHawk and I are taking what we have been learning to host a 2 1/2 hour online practicum for those who share our conscious intent to honor Life and Beauty in our lives and work. It's called (Co)Creating Ceremony in the Digital Realm: A Practicum. It will be a ceremony in itself, but also a practicum, because we are inviting the wisdom and knowledge of the group to show up; to inform and deepen our collective understanding of ceremony and how to evoke it for ourselves and each other, online and off. I'm very excited about what we are planning, and if the invitation resonates with you, you are most welcome to join us (see the above link for more information and registration).

Elemental Ceremonies Online

Many of you know my passion for a different, more heart-full and earth-connected way to be together online, and I am thrilled to be partnering in this endeavor with some of the most heartful and earth-connected people I know [a special shout-out to FireHawk Hulin, my fellow photographer - he took the photos that grace this post- and dear companion in the art of sacred technology].

Based on the premise that the digital realm, like all of life, is sacred, we've started something called Earth +Digital Wisdom to explore what this means in practice (check out the 2 min video that FireHawk and I made to describe what we are up to).

As part of this Grand Adventure, we have designed a simple series of four free online Elemental Ceremonies as our gift to Life. 

The next two are scheduled for Saturday August 2nd (Air) and Saturday August 23rd (Earth); from 10am - noon Pacific Time so our friends across all US and European time zones can be there. You are formally invited, and most welcome; I think you will really be touched and surprised to find an experience of true ceremonial space online.

Here's an invitation with more details, or you can register now for: AIR (August 2) | EARTH (August 23).

Kiva Time

I'm sitting here in my office on Solstice Day, feeling the urge to connect, to "check in" and share the energy that's moving in me.

I feel the shift inside me as the whole hemisphere is moving into "kiva time", the time of dreaming and imagining what is to come when the seeds we're planting now awake in the Spring.

It's morning, so even though it's cool here in northern California, the sun is starting to fill the room and animate the crystals I hang in the window to catch the light. My office is newly rearranged, cleaned, and cleared. With art on the walls (beautiful pieces by Christopher Castle and Fletcher Oakes - and I'm awaiting shipment of one from Lisa Lipsett) and all my books out, it feels much closer to the nurturing sanctuary I've wanted to create for myself for some time now. A perfect place to dream those seeds into being.

Some exciting projects are germinating: I've started a new venture in partnership with FireHawk Hulin and other friends at Timeless Earth Wisdom. It's called Digital + Earth Wisdom and speaks to my deepest purpose and intent for my work right now. You'll hear much more on this. The multi-generational work I've been doing with Wiser Together is moving gracefully and forcefully into form, and I'm co-designing the curriculum for a Masters Course on World Cafe and Appreciative Inquiry with Fielding Graduate University, where I've been co-presenting courses on World Cafe for the last few years.

I was born in the middle of winter, and this coming birthday is a big one, so I'm planning to take myself on an inner journey with an outer form - a nature-immersed photographic road trip to Sedona (with side trips as and when they appear on the hroizon). Road trips are among my very favorite things (guilty secret) and I am really excited about this one. I've never been to Sedona, so please share anything you think I should know about it, or anything on the way or in the area.

And I'm curious... what's seeding itself in you this winter? What seeds do you want to dream into being in the darkness of your world womb? What would you like to awaken to as the days grow longer and lighter?

Happy Valentines Day from Me n' Love Monkey

I woke up this morning and started reading on my ipad, like ya' do, when I noticed a reflection on the screen... out of the corner of my eye I saw my pal Love Monkey in this curious position, and I knew something was up.

At first I thought he might be in trouble, but apparently it was all an elaborate ruse for a Valentine's Day snuggle...

Happy Valentines Day, everyone, from me n' Love Monkey!

The Earth is Our Mother

This note was sent out by my old friend Crow (aka Bruce Taub) to honor Mother's Day earlier this year, but it is just as relevant today.

"All the stones around here, each has a language of its own ... and our Earth has a song."
~ Wallace Black Elk

I believe we are children of explored stars ... children of the great first mother.  I believe every tree, plant, insect, and animal is a child of the stars. I believe every tree, plant, insect, and animal "talks."  I believe rocks talk ... and oceans and rivers talk. When I am alone in nature and listen I hear voices - my own, birds', trees', rocks'.  The energy each of us emits in life is simply a manifestation of our being alive ... and is received by all we touch.  It cannot be otherwise.  So too, the energy emitted by other beings, even rocks, is received by us, and manifests the consciousness and wisdom of that other being in us.  Each and every entity on Earth has wisdom to share and a tale to tell. 

The Earth is our Mother.  Let us honor her, as we honor all our ancestors, and the stars from which we've emerged, and the heavenly material from those now dead stars which constitutes us ... stone and bee, whale and bird ... sisters and brothers all, the very same heavenly material in each and every one of us.  Then let us bow, every rock and every leaf our teachers.

With gratitude to the indigenous people, without whom i might not have known these truths, to my friends who are teachers, and to the reminder of these truths provided by Martha Fast Horse. Happy Mother's Day each and all.

 

"Stream near Love's Falls", photo by Amy Lenzo

 

Baby Bath

Check out this mesmerising video of a baby having its first bath that I found in Elephant Journal. Nothing really happens and it goes on for 5 minutes, but something about it was so peaceful and soothing that it put me in a state of bliss. Bliss is good, so I'm sharing it here in case it will work for you, too.

Solstice: Two

Another reason the Solstice celebration was special for me this year was because this is the year my friend Gisela Wendling, who lives in Australia, brought the painting she has been working on for me since we launched her blog/site Liminal Songlines just before the last Solstice.

The name of this painting is "Businesswomen Doing Women's Business", and it reflects our collaborative efforts to support each other's work in the world. I had asked Gisela for something that would inspire me on a deep level, and to do that she drew on her experiences in ceremony with indigenous women in the deserts of Australia, powerful spiritual practice specifically described as "women's work".

While Gisela makes it clear that what she does is NOT Aboriginal painting, she uses some of the same iconography, which in Aborginal art is very literal, figurative and descriptive rather than abstract patterns as they may appear to a Western eye.

The two figures in middle of the central circle of my painting are Gisela and I, and we are surrounded by other circles of women sitting in ceremony. The circle in the top right is of men, also sitting in ceremony, and the circle in the lower right without people is what's "on the edge", or horizon. The flowing colored lines that frame the top and bottom are reminiscent of the snake that plays such a central role in Aboriginal creation stories, while the flowing lines in the background are the shifting sands of life at this time on earth as we come together in a sacred way while everything in our external world is changing.

Gisela and I were able to sit together for a few hours after the Solstice, reflecting on this beautiful painting and how it came into being. She was asking how what we did by supporting each other - me by helping her articulate her work through a web presence and her by creating a place of inspiration for me - reflects a way of being together as women that could inspire similar forms of relationship and mutual generosity in others. Unwilling to separate the sacred and the secular, together we recognized and affirmed that our work is sacred and that's the place we want to stand in the world.

Remarking on the central figures in the painting, Gisela said "In a way it's about us, but even more it's about what we are sitting for."

I am blessed to wake up to this vibrant call to life every morning. Thank you, dear Gisela.

Solstice: One

Every year (as long-time readers may remember), I celebrate the natural cycle of life and the majesty of old growth redwoods by participating in a three-day Solstice ceremony/retreat with Resonance in the Santa Cruz mountains. The experience is always profound, but this year's stood out for a number of reasons.

My love monkey Steve came with me this year. Being together in that environment, and sharing the same time schedule (just having the luxury of lying there in the gathering light together each morning, quietly watching the tall trees emerge from the fog) opened some doors for us that we're still exploring. We're heading up to Hendy Woods this weekend for more.

As part of the ceremony, every year each of us stand before the group and commit to giving something of ourselves back to Life in gratitude. This year's committment drew upon the last for me, but my current articulation specified a conscious intent to "be a clear mirror, reflecting back the beauty and light I see in every person and in every thing".

This commitment took on a life of its own as I sat back down into the circle and, moved by the beauty I saw shining in the faces around me, spontaneously offered a free portrait session to anyone there who asked for one. I so wanted them to see what I saw in them that moment.

I was thrilled when my friend Lana Holmes, a gifted professional who specializes in personal and quantum leap development, took me up on the offer and came over last weekend for what turned out to be an extraordinary photo shoot. I loved the experience and felt we were really working with Light, in all senses of the word.

Here's just a taste of what we came up with together:

Some of the photos from our session will be used on the new website I'm building for her now, which will launch later this month.

Kay

My friend Kay died last night at 7:02pm.

Regular readers may recall that I've written about Kay before in these pages - five years ago when she was first diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and just last year when she married Jeff in one of the most beautiful and heartful weddings ever.

I've been part of Kay's live-in caretaking circle for the best part of the last two weeks, my life simplified down to the minutia and routine of end-of-life care. Pancreatic cancer is one of the most painful forms of the disease and much of our time was spent trying to keep her comfortable. Thank goodness we were mostly successful.

Now that I'm back home I feel as if I've been floating in a state of grace. There was a one-pointedness to our days, a unified clarity and focus that brought us intact through some pretty difficult hours. Now that it's all over, I'm a bit disoriented and not sure how to shift back to the very different demands of "real life". But perhaps most of all I'm left with the sense of having been blessed - it was an honor to have been able to be there and to have shared an experience so profound and so intimate. It is such a gift (thank you to my patient husband and flexible clients too), to be able to respond when it really matters.

And Kay really mattered. To me, and to a lot of people. She perfected the art of deep friendship and had so many friends, so many people who loved her. A shining example of what a human being can be, when faced with a diagnosis that would knock most people to the ground, she responded with elegance and grace, compassion, strength and fortitude. She was grateful for every single day she was given. She lived a beautiful life and died an extraordinary death, surrounded by love and the tender devotion of family and friends.

May that be so for each of us.

Memorial

A public memorial is being planned in a month or two for all those who knew and loved my sister Karen, but the last night I was there, we held our own small family memorial for her at home.

We created an altar right in the middle of the kitchen table, all the women working together. A collage of photos printed out and laid on a raised bed of brocade and lace, decorated with her favorite flowers (orange roses) and flanked with fat white candles and her full name written out in long-hand - it was a homage to her beauty and love of dramatic flair and I think she would have liked it.

(click to see any of the images larger)