bras and boots and other things that can't be put away

one day we'll tell stories
about half-clothed kitchen dancing
and spatulas that somehow
snuck into the mix--Slap!

you, wearing my bra
me, your boots
my bubby's velvet chairs
standing ancient on your crooked hardwood floors

I need to make you a set of keys
you say ten thousand times

but the doors are never locked
and when they are,
I lay in the yard
and wait
for you to hear my breathing
dance down the stairs
call me in like a street cat
or a crusty punk
whose only currency is kisses

we can never find the keys, anyway
or the shoes
or the other sock that's hiding behind
the famous white couch
that we could never bare to toss

not even when we moved next door
one box, bag, swaggering pile of crap
at a time

everything is tangled
like necklaces in a drawer
of junk]

my records, your player
your children, my lullabies
my dishes, your sink
your cooking, my hunger

the stories we'll only tell when
the children are grown
and messy
like us

Cycles of Creatitivity and Stillness

"Humans, like other animals, are shaped by the places they inhabit, both individually and collectively. Our bodily rhythms, our moods, cycles of creativity and stillness, even our thoughts are readily engaged and influenced by seasonal patterns in the land. Yet our organic attunement to the local earth is thwarted by our ever-increasing intercourse with our own signs. Transfixed by our technologies, we short-circuit the sensorial reciprocity between our breathing bodies and the bodily terrain. Human awareness folds in upon itself, and the senses – once the crucial site of our engagement with the wild and animate earth – become mere adjuncts of an isolate and abstract mind bent on overcoming an organic reality that now seems disturbingly aloof and arbitrary."

-David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous

~~~~~~

I've been laying in the tall grasses behind our house a lot lately. Dancing in the thunderstorms, too. Long walks, while tired in the soon-summer heat, are keeping me humble. And I'm generally less interested in socializing, checking e-mail, going out, doing Bikram yoga, or working at the coffee shop than my often high-speed style.

An internal meditation something like stacking link-n-logs is being called forth. A way to piece together all the wild experiences I've had over the past few months. A new vision. I know not from a place in my mind, but from a feeling in my body. It's telling me to rest. To be quiet. To be still. To do nothing until something is coming all the way through me.

I'm listening, deeply. It's Saturday night and I'm home snuggling up against the possibility of a painting or a poem or a nice long rest. No particular pressures. Just space. Just stillness. Not even a song in the background plays to distract me. Just the quiet hum of the refrigerator and the memory of the birds singing before bedtime. (That's the way they roll, ya know, singing like crazy people before bedtime and then as soon as the sun truly disappears and the sky turns deep deep blue--sleep. The birds know how to go to sleep with the sun.)

The Earth is undergoing a great change these days, moving from a wild rebirthing drenched in diversity, to the sweltering stimulus of a hot hot summer. It's so easy to just keep going in a particular mode without pausing, without laying in the grass to check your own pulse against the pulse of the Earth, without seeing or listening for desires from the inside, out.

But what if you did? What if you stopped, turned off your phone, closed your lap top, left the ear plugs at home for a day, and just listened? Listened with your whole body? Not for something in particular, but for anything that's there.

That's my invitation to you sweet friends, if you want it. An hour, an afternoon, a day--machine-free--body returning to the body of the Earth, there to see what secrets she has to tell you. Because she's full of them, and she's always willing to tell. Grab a blanket. A journal if you'd like. Feel free to jot down her wisdom. She won't mind. She'll just be glad to have you for a visit.

Song 1 :: Dry Grass & Shadows

Friends! Partners-in-expression! Lovahs! ~

Here we have it... The first of many dances in the Delicious Body Dance-a-Thon! To the tune of "Dry Grass & Shadows" by Alela Diane. Track 1 on the album "To Be Still".



I'm having way more fun with this than I ever expected. Feeling expressed, creative, silly, serious, alive, satisfied.

A special, deep, resounding thanks goes out to Jen Lemen for being the ultimate "first follower"; for offering the best kind of creative support any dreamer could ever dream up. And for the constant, enthusiastic Okay! that is as valuable and necessary as water, as sleep, as sex. I love you.

And to Susan, Meg and Leanne for daring to PLAY ALONG! Truly, I cannot wait to see your beautiful expressions! Yes, Yes, YES!

It's not too late to join in. Just pick an album (or 12 songs) that speaks to you these days, turn up the jam & dance! (With the record button ON and a lil post-recording uploading, if you wanna go public). For full details on the experiment, check out the first post. If you decide to play along, be sure to comment / link your site on the magical widget so we can cheer you on!

to dancing & letting it all out,
xo, rach

Here. Now. Happy.

I spent this morning with my two best friends. Judy laid on her bed as we held up her clothes one by one. "Yes." "No." "Ummm, nah." We tossed the future into different piles, letting keepers tell the story of who we're becoming: a tall tree grounded to the beauty of existence; slender power revolving into an indistinguishable knowing; puddling eyes drizzled with sunlit freedom.

Bri & I are down to two weeks until departure for our grand bicycle adventure. My dresser was sold for $20 on Craig's List and the little clothing I kept is resting on Brian's recently cleared bookshelf. In boxes by the door, my art supplies wait their turn. New seeds are being born under florescent lights on the stove. There's a clearing here. There's room for new life.

I pick up my ukulele and play the song that Jodi and I wrote about the comfy red couch, about the coffee from the local shop, about choosing to be together. I walk barefoot through the front yard garden, watching the wine glass path glisten in the sun. I breathe in pollen and car exhaust and sky blue spring time and songs sung by birds.

I read my twitter feed and give all the attention in my bones to the truth of what's happening in the world. I look up and give all the attention in my bones to the truth of what's happening in this room. I pick up my new iPhone and smile at pictures of a long-held dream made manifest; the movements spreading with fiery force.

This is where the stories meet, I think.
This is where everything exists together.
This is where I get down on my knees and kiss the earth and choke up in gratitude and silently scream with my tears.
This is where I am.
Exactly where I want to be.

Gratitude from the Comfy Red Couch

There's no place I'd rather be on a Saturday afternoon than sitting on the Comfy Red Couch drinking coffee, listening to music, talking about nothing and everything with my fellow commune-mates. It's such a simple joy, being surrounded by people you love who love you back for exactly who you are. It's an enormous gift that I'm counting my blessings for day after day.

With 80 days until our Epic Bike Journey, the little things, which are really the biggest things in my life, are sketching themselves like a smiling profile against a blanketing blue sky. Brunches, dinners, chocolate chip cookies, the simple act of cleaning the kitchen, spontaneous art projects and dance parties and times we exclaim, "Yes!" to each other's wildest dreams. I'm sitting back, watching this masterpiece re-create itself over and over again, feeling immense gratitude to be part of something so beautiful.

I'm holding onto the beauty, these days especially, as we brush up against the end of an era--and the beginning of new a new one. What's to come for us, post-commune, post-Sunday Couch Sits? It's a mystery. Really. So much is unknown. But I know it's bound to be daring, bound to involve risk, and sure to shape our souls for the better. We will survive and we will thrive, because that's who we are. We show up big for this thing called Life. We step into the terror and the comfort and we hold it all with gratitude for simply being so.

These past 2 years at the Green Vine Co-op has healed my need for a certain kind of home, a certain kind of community, a certain kind of being known. And this past year, when my closest friends on earth decided that nothing mattered more than being in the same space, I was opened again to the greatest kinds of joy and power. I walked alongside believers, possibilitiarians, hopefuls, and doers. I stood in a puddle of Love. And Joy sat with us on the Comfy Red Couch because it had nowhere else to go and nothing else that mattered nearly as much.

It's true that I've got a lump of Terror in my throat over our bike trip. Who wouldn't? This is no sane or stable undertaking. It's a dream. A possibility. The result of saying Yes to that crazy look in the other's eyes. And--it's actually going to happen. Most of my biggest fears are highly manageable, but some are more like lingering truths that I'm sure will eventually surface: I'll get jaded on the road, I'll miss my friends, I'll be tired and rundown and eventually get sick, I'll go insane, I'll want to quit 2 weeks in. The big fears of either of us dying or getting seriously injured seem less real, less likely. But they're there, too.

Yesterday, on the Comfy Red Couch, we whispered our fears in between our thank you's. We took more time between sentences to just sit and be together. We felt the power and the joy of what we'd created. Something as simple and strong as tribe. Something as necessary as breathing.

And gratitude found its way into my shortened breaths, pulling them out with hope, elongating them with knowing: we chose to create this tribe once, we can chose it again. We can.

My Friends, The Feisty Ones

I've been tutoring high schoolers in the District for the past few months, and I'm having a frickin' blast. 3:30pm rolls around and I've got a clan of students, all smiles and jokes, gathering at my table, pulling out their homework, slipping in sly remarks like, "Where your pigtails at, Miss Rachael?" Or "Did you miss me, Miss Rachael? I know it must be hard those other 22 hours of the day you not with me, Miss Rachael."  I smile and tell them, "It's true. You're the highlight of my day." And I'm not lying when I say it.

Where I work, students can receive after school tutoring in a number of places: their teacher's classroom, study hall, or detention.

I prefer detention.

Why? Because that's where the feisty students are. And I love feisty. 

feisty
–adjective

1. full of animation, energy, or courage; spirited; spunky; plucky.

2. ill-tempered; pugnacious.

3. troublesome; difficult.
 
To me, feisty reads powerful. For better or for worse. Here... let me paint it out...

Feisty + Confusion = A number of Tragic Situations (Bullying, Fear, Disrespect, Attention-Craving)

However...

Feisty + Self-Development = A Chain of Hallelujahs! (Integrity, Vision, Passion, Confidence)

I think we can all agree that when you're working with feisty, self-development is especially essential. Likely even more than academic development because of the need for deeper focus and heart-felt intention to inform priorities and passions--to point that feisty power in the direction of love and more love.

I must admit, I love my feisty friends because I can relate to them (call me Miss Feisty Rachael). Every day I feel like I am on a self-developmental path right along side my students, and I do my best to let them know it, to show them the ways we're not so different after all.

I come clean to them about my fears every day. And every time I let them in on one of mine--"I'm terrified about riding my bike across country."--they let me in on one of theirs--"I'm afraid I'll always suck at reading."

We move on quickly passed our fears. We get into the assignment at hand. We take our time with it, reading each word slowly, sounding things out little by little, piecing sentences together until they finally make sense.

They ask me, "Where's your bike today?" I tell them, "I wasn't feeling brave enough." They tell me, "That's okay. Tomorrow's another day." I tell them, "For us both. Thank god!"

Together, as if we were long-time friends, we check in on each other's hearts, each other's progress, with laughs and jokes a-plenty. With vulnerability, and all. It's sweet, to say the least. And I'm beyond grateful for the lightness and connection that follows coming clean together.

~~~

I'm thinking about my young friends today, curious about what questions might continue to offer a path toward lightness, integrity, and confidence. I've got a handful jotted down, but I'd like to know from you, what questions you wish someone had asked you in high school? The comments are open for your hindsight & wisdom. And I'm thankful in advance.

You're Invited!

I am SO SO SO excited to bring this event out to the world! I've been brewing up the idea of a Small is Beautiful Arts Festival for a few weeks now, and on August 21st it will be the first of a monthly series that I'll carry out until Brian and I leave for our cross-country bicycle adventure in April.

What is Small is Beautiful exactly?? A space for artists of all varieties who are just beginning (or who simply want to be part of an incredible community) to come out to the world embracing their artist. To start where they are... Small. (But really much bigger than they could even imagine). Raw. Honest. Beautiful.

So. What does that mean for the attendee, the evening, the festival?!

~Painting, Photography & Mixed Media Exhibits!
~Music & Poetry Performances all night!
~Zine, Card, Craft, Jewelry & Art Vendors!
~Wine, wine, wine!!! (Cash bar)
~Too much goodness to hardly handle.

Seriously.

An explosion of creativity, love & incredibly supportive vibes.

There's still space for vendors, performers, and exhibitors. Contact me ASAP if you're interested! (rachmddx@gmail.com or 410-206-9052). More experienced artists welcome, too!

I cannot WAIT to see how this emerges. It's going to be beautiful, magical, and simply irresistible (in a tingly tummy kinda way... you know the way... the uber connected humans kinda way... the true blue joy kinda way... )

Come! Bring a friend! Bring CASH! (You know, to buy art & booze). Bring love! (We can always use more of it). 

And click Attending on Facebook if you plan on coming :)


xoxo... hope to see you there!

i'm tryina see it
for what it is--
that 7 minute dance
from the metro to my house

when every person passing by
feels like another bullet
in my little white-girl chest
another missed connection
another lack of affection
another desperate longing
another dis-belonging
to my very own home
to my very own hope

when every person passing by
is another untouchable story
in the glorious, gory reality of life
another nine to five
another struggle to survive
another family fight
another holdin on tight
to their very own home
to their very own hope

i'm tryina see it
for what it is
when i give out warm
and get cold in return

shattered shards
of fairytale mirrors
and abandoned hearts
without the trust--
the energy restart

i'm tryina see it
for what it is--
that 7 minute dance
from the metro to my house

broken truth
unafraid
to reflect
broken truth