A Blessing for the Bottom

maybe tears are
your body's way of saying

there's still something left in you

when you think 

you've lost everything

you know

gingerly, gingerly, gingerly

you still have terrible wonder

change, 

why won't you be gentler?

i traveled this country once

Complete and Perfectly Whole

Maybe you can just play this time around... fulfill your duties, but not worry so much about hoity-toity accomplishments. 

Maybe you've earned a rest, from further back than you can assess in the recesses of your mind. 

Maybe you're meant for a different kind of living: taking it slow when you're tired and fast when freedom's bursting from your being. Marveling like a baby when someone's spirit catches yours. Or crying when you have bodily needs that are clearly being ignored. 

Maybe the hectic nag of your ego can go for a walk down the street to the café. Maybe she can stay for hours longer than she should, shoulder to shoulder with other youngsters dressed up like adults, afraid that they, too, have not created enough to do in this world, this life, this stuffy city of busy busy busy. 

Maybe, together, you can talk some forgiveness into each other. You can learn how to not apologize for the particular shape or size of your energy. 

Maybe you can begin to trust that you really are enough. That nothing matters more than making peace with your unique core in this wildly diverse world. That you don't need to be at war with yourself. That you can simply sink in, begin believing that you wouldn't have arrived in this way on this day if some other calling needed or wanted you more. 

Maybe you can love yourself--I mean really, really love yourself--as you are, as you truly long to be, underneath all that false need to prove yourself as someone worthwhile. 

Maybe you can learn to know that deep in the center of your soul rests only goodness, only wonder, only the very best material of all. And it needs no one's approval or permission to exist. It needs no improvements, there are no requirements on it. It is just what it is: a magical mystery of dusty delight, not something to fight, but a miracle. 

Maybe you can begin to see yourself as complete and perfectly whole.

a big thank you to philip and hope for letting your inner-kids out to play with mine. i'm so grateful for you both in this life. 

The Convenient Truth of Transformation

Simple and easy are not the same thing.

But simple is simple, and it simply takes commitment. 

Over the past year, I've developed for the first time in my life what some might call a "spiritual practice". More important than the word "spiritual" is the word "practice". I have solitary intentional rhythms that root me, that I love, that make me feel safe and held. And I live inside of them. I breathe them. I dance them, sometimes I scream them. But without them, I'd be doing any number of things: floating, willing, doubting, floundering, forcing myself to be somewhere I'm simply fucking not.

When I meet new people now, they tell me I exude spirituality, sensuality. I think I wish they knew me two years ago. I wish they could've seen my resistance the first time I was told to pray, asked to sing in a sweat lodge, invited to dream what seemed unreasonable. I wish they could've seen my HAIRCUT, my body, my bras.

For most of my adult life I was the first in line to get-shit-done. Self-starting projects all the time. Forcing myself to finish. Berating myself for the natural way that some things fall away. I was also hiding my feminine beauty, magic, mystique.

It's taken nearly a year to unwind the spool of stress and sink into divine desire, deep intuitive listening, humble acceptance of the call I actually hear, as opposed to the one my ego craves.

Here are the most important things I've learned about transformation:

• If you don't create a regular routine of checking in with yourself deeply, you run the risk of skimming through life on the surface of yourself, walking your life in dissonance. Ouch. 

• If you set aside an intentional daily time to be intimately connected to what's below the surface of your conscious mind, you will tap into the force of your limitless being. It's unavoidable. When you give it space and attention, it shows up, grows. 

• And when you grow your life-force from the inside out, one day at a time, small practice by small practice, eventually, you have more might than you ever would've imagined, and you find yourself emerging with clarity and ease into the dreams you barely thought possible before.

You sign up for adult circus camp. You heal your sexual trauma. You make your art in public. You let yourself love in a totally new way. You earn the big bucks because your work has real resonance. Your body shapes itself to match your actual spirit. Really.

It's so simple. Be intimate with your spirit 20 minutes a day and your spirit will wield wild authenticity in your life.

But that's what makes it hard. It's not easy to shed the shallow, known parts of yourself, for what's real and true, and living in an unknown land. It takes courage, faith, trust.

But if you want the deep, juicy, sexy, scary stuff, surprise is essentially required.

~~~~~~~

If you know you're longing for a spiritual practice, but aren't quite sure how to go about creating one, I work specifically with each of my coaching clients to help them develop personalized meaningful practices. I'd be honored to work with you if you're feeling called. Shoot me and e-mail and we can get the ball rolling: rachmadlove at gmail dot com.