I’m so full of juice, my palms are turning orange.
Daily Juice Rituals constitute a new spiritual practice.
Join me; we can change the world with the sacrifices of and indulgence in carrots, ginger, kale, apples…
There is the gathering of the veggies which are placed in the alter of a large bowl.
Then there is the transmission Of sending them through the machine,
Then we mindfully receive the juice, down it, thanking the life force that contributes to health,
Then we lovingly wash the machine .
Finally, there is the high. Not a joke – the zinging is for real.
I bought the juicer in a time of great anguish in my house. While a certain soul cried and thrashed in the car, I defiantly marched into the health food store, bought the juicer with holiday gifted money, loaded a bag full of organic veggies, and celebrated life through juice despite the dark time for my loved one.
My joys are so simple anymore.
I haven’t missed a day in this practice since December.
I’m not trying to convert, just sharing my awareness today of the ritual aspect of this consumption. Okay, maybe I do want to start a juicing cult. We could gather on a hillside by the sea near the Yucatan Peninsula –
Whose in?
Peanut butter on rice cakes, butter on toast, wine with your dinner, a corner of a chocolate bar…anything can be a practice – everything is holy!
Am I the only one who hears this song in my head at moments in my life?
Well, How did I get here?
Lately, no words are here as I feel like I am slipping away. I go about the business of living, regimented in times and places to be, money to be exchanged, chores to be accomplished.
Joyful moments come from exchanges with strangers. While I am Dropping off a load at Goodwill (I’m clearing out in anticipation of our move in june) the man helping me carry things told me I had the most wonderful voice. My voice. How funny. Compliments are a way to break the ice of our solitude, the way I see it. We bask together in our smiles this sunny day in the drop off line. We leave each other with the parting words…hang on tight. Oh yes, you too, hang on!. I can’t make that up.
I announce at the end of class today to my students that I may not return the last days of class this week because I have found a new religion that requires me to move to Israel and change my name and sign over my possessions. I thank them for the hard work and ask them to wish me well. There are no rules.
Take my worries, take my shame, take my shyness, take my trophies and certificates. Take the hopes and dreams based on whom I thought was coming to dinner. Take the molehills, the ditches, the numb sleepwalking and shove them all down the cosmic commode. There is no waste; every experience in the random experiment is recycled and reused in the mini bubble of this universe in an ocean of universes, needle prick – POP.
The ugly reality show of some parts of this messed up joke of a planet have been cancelled, but the actors and the cameramen keep showing up, so the show keeps rolling on.
Some of us have stepped off that treadmill. Some of us don’t care what you call us or if you agree or if you like us. We are here and open, wide newborn babies, but with an aged wariness too (can that be?) – aware of the different sides of this chasm of change. Run and jump over the crevasse. Truth so naked and so raw and so delicious on one side and on the other, the same old world we were told was the truth – judgment, hierarchy, surface, eyeballing, rape, projections, desperation. Turn the light off. Shut the door. Go outside as not yourself. Climb back in the womb and be born anew.
Can we every convey the surreality of the overlapping patterns of this experience here in a body?
In the 60’s, there was a theatre form called happenings. A professor described this movement to our class, and I was filled for a longing to see it, participate in it. Here is how wiki defines it: A happening is a performance, situation meant to be considered art, usually as performance art. Happenings take place anywhere, and are often multi-disciplinary, with a nonlinear narrative and the active participation of the audience. Key elements of happenings are planned, but artists sometimes retain room for improvisation. This new media art aspect to happenings eliminates the boundary between the artwork and its viewer. Henceforth, the interactions between the audience and the artwork makes the audience, in a sense, part of the art.
My professor shared that upon leaving a happening, he saw a fire truck go by, and he thought it was a part of the show, but really it was just life “happening.”
Last night’s flow was so very cinematic I want to try to capture; i do not know if i can.
Eden was auditioning for 12th Night last night, a play which we all know is ripe with gender fun, which for a 14 year old is pushing envelopes. I was to drop her off close to the theatre and stay with the car in that she didn’t want to seem like a kid with a parent nearby, but she needed me nearby. (grin)
So I find a spot, between the action of downtown Charleston and the cool black-box space of the theatre and I stay with the car while she goes off.
The whole world is a show – the tourists, college students, downtowners getting about – fun to watch through the side mirror of my car – putting a fun twisty angle on the action.
Walking toward my car in front of me, 4 young, fit and calendar-worthy firemen make their way from the corner station together in dark uniforms toward the restaurants – wide smiles of camaraderie. Within a few minutes, the loud radio one of them carries goes off about a fire, and all 4 men go sprinting back toward the station with their to-go boxes of food.
Down the main drag no less than 4 full firetrucks and 2 ambulances speed in my side mirror view. The city is roaring with sirens from every direction.
A happening.
From Eden’s perspective: she enters the audition to a room full of 10 or so guys. They begin discussing whether or not there are any hot police or firemen in all of Charleston. She is annoyed as she is trying to prepare for the cold reading, but says it is pretty funny to listen to them too.
When the sirens start going off, one of the men steps outside in time to see the firemen running down the street. 9 of the men at the audition run out to watch the firemen, squealing with delight as they now have proof of hot firemen in Charleston, sprinting down the street before them. Eden is left inside with the one straight guy who looks at her drolly and says, “Well, if that is what you prefer.”
She acts out the whole scene when she enters the car, playing all the roles with hilarity.
Life is a show in the moment. Clearing more and more of a role, an agenda, or a point of view, even, I’m a pair of eyes and ears – and I am thoroughly entertained.
You can climb a mountain
You can swim the sea
You can jump into the fire
But you’ll never be free
You can shake me up
Or I can break you down
Whoa-o-o-o-, whoa-o-o-o-
We can make each other happy…
I would change the line from But you’ll never be free to You will always be free 🙂
I hope all is well from the fire!
My daughters still do not wake themselves for school. I go in, as they sleep through their alarms, and gently, or sometimes not so gently, prod them back into consciousness. It won’t be long, probably, until they are off, and my flow will not include this morning ritual. This is one area I allow their self-sufficency to lag, and I just realized why I continue this childhood ritual when one might suggest they learn how to wake to an alarm. There is a moment – a pause between sleeping and waking – that I get to see. From the dreaming state to the identity of the burdened teenage student, there is a gap. The essence of their being seeps through before the suit of the ME is put on entirely. We meet eyes, but those eyes that see me in that state are different. There is a sweetness of confusion, of contentment, of dismantling and reassembling that I get to peek into.
Rising and Shining into this new day – I see I can hold on to the one who observes all the dreaming and waking, the one before I put mySELF back together. Thank you for the glimpses here, teenage girl pointers 🙂
Poetry Anthologies at the end of my Writing About Literature class blow me away every semester.
This is not a post about me as a teacher. I am humbled by a job that feels like it never reaches my ideals, but I am learning most moments by showing up. I do do that. I show up. And many show up with me. And then we see what happens.
When we get to the last unit of the class – I get to share the stuff I love. The assignment (borrowed from my colleague who is so generous as to share his good ideas) to create their own poetry anthologies allows the students to embrace what speaks to them – and express sides of themselves often tucked away. Not a one disappoints! No project has ever come in that did not tickle my soul in some way. I’ll shut up and just post an assortment from this semester.
My photography does not do them justice. From hand-sewn, to hand -painted, to painstakingly handwritten in fountain pen – even the most asleep students seem to come to life when asked to express themselves.
The Silence anthology was printed on to cloth; the poems were arranged from the most words to the least – so that the pages made no sound when being turned and the words tapered off into… silence.
Sometimes the students are apologetic when they present their works in front of the class for they cannot see their own unique beauty. They do not know how wonderful their creations are.
If you find yourself stuck in a rut without any creative juices – I’ve found a source for you – don’t know their prices, though… 🙂
Mind won a round last night. Instead of going and doing something, I chose the easy path of staying home in my comfort zone.
Breaking the long time, heavily-grooved patterns can SEEM really, bloody hard.
I think this is my task right now. I can focus on the instances where I am successful, but in reality, I recognize some patterns that seem so close to the core as to actually BE me. These patterns are not the definition of a person, they are just familiar. They are habits of how one tends to inhabit the world. In-HABIT – what an encoded word!
Actually many of my habits give me such nice interactions: the cloak of accommodation, the hat of approachability, the gloves of kindness, the air of acquiescence – these patterns have gotten me far in the face to face dance with others. But now the ground is shaky – All is in flux when you start messing with the early programming. I don’t know how to be anymore. This is good.
Besides the habit of nice, open, accommodation, I also retreat. I love to be alone. I love the familiar. When trying to socialize, I feel such strong resistance. I am lifting a 10 ton car out of the road, I am bending solid steel spoons, I am groaning with the strain. In one mind state such EFFORT, then all of this can fall away and the 10 ton car becomes an imaginary feather.
I can psychoanalyze why but that doesn’t stop the fact that in times of mind stress, habits return; they drop down like a trap door around the spaciousness, as quickly as a rigged mouse trap pops over the head of the rodent – POW, my pattern and I’m back to my shoe box house.
Writing this down makes my habits here seem so SILLY.
Social gatherings, oye, my Achilles heel. I will get out of socializing faster than you can say boo. But here is an interesting thing – when I go out of my comfort zone, I am richly rewarded. Every path walking friend has come about because I stepped outside of the marga identity and did something different. Living this life for me, is recognizing the paradox in learning when to go with the flow and when to step out of the stream and do something that feels uncomfortable. Taoism is not describing a passive practice. The Vedas are not describing a way to walk from birth to death as a ghost. Meditation and walking with awareness are not about staying the same.
So last night there was an improv gathering at the Riverdogs baseball game. The mind won.
I had arranged a ride for Eden to get to her play rehearsal. I had finished my work. I made the night clear and knew the value of getting to know everyone better so I could be more comfortable on stage and open to the moment with people who were not “strangers!” Granted it was pouring rain…
These improvisors who were gathering are the nicest and most open people I can imagine, which makes it all the more SILLY! My mind habit of social anxiety kept seeing images of myself having to walk in alone, sitting by the most standoffish person, playing a scenario where i actually make things worse by showing up. Instead of seeing myself making friends, I see myself alienating others. This is the power of the mind.
I had the most magnificent walk in the rain around my neighborhood alone, I got some extra work done , I got a good night’s sleep, and I am in good shape to face this new day. I had a good night alone, but that is not the point here. The quiet voice of awareness feels like a gentle prodding for me to be new and fresh, without the burden of habits and patterns.
Every moment always gives me the opportunity to make a new choice. Here’s to new choices for me and for you with whatever your mind habits happen to be!
Life as Improv 