for writers, who are wondering

the hard part about writing isn't the writing,

it's the feeling. 

how long can you linger in the lump of your ache?

dare you whisper the worst words of all?

when the rain rises from your teeming past

do you run around with tiny buckets, trying to catch 

a storm so grand?

or do you let what must, be drenched?

dare you stay with the raw dripping slashing skipping

rhythms 

long enough

to bleed something true?

tiny drops, deep red

and royal?

for a moment

you enter the cracking thunder

houses and heroes and heartache fall around you

and you, a queen of courage, 

you hold your gaze

you take the hits

you let everyone see

the way it looks

to be rumbled

PS--I'm writing a poem a day for the month of August and sending them each to one person only. Head right here to find out how to get in on the magic. There are about 15 spots left. xo

Calling All Creeps

Come, love. Sit down with me. This is for you...

When it seems like there's no where to put your love
When your desire becomes a splinter in your heel that you cannot remove no matter the tweezers
When you just keep walking, pain and all, beginning to limp from longing so deeply

When what you prefer giving and what they prefer receiving doesn't exactly line up
When you have no fucking clue what it is that you're meant to give
When you can't control your energy in ways other than outbursts of desperation or denial

When you're the only one at the party buttoned up, or wearing flannel, or ready to kiss with as much as a hint
When you're never invited to the party
When you always choose to stay home

When you're popping xanex in the bathroom to kill the edge
When you just can't shake your judgement
When you can't understand why everyone's judging

When you get the best gift of your life and then have nothing for the giver but a thank you that he won't even receive
When you know the truth will most definitely break something--like the inertia of your body or the frozen fear of your voice
When you'd rather lie than go through the pain of restoring a shattered life
When you decide to let things break, and no one likes your recklessness

When you begin to see yourself in everyone and everything
When you can call yourself what you really are, without pretending that you are not
When your big bold life begins to topple over the edge of normal and into the realm of whole
And when you let yourself worry that this--this expansive way of being alive--makes you even stranger than before when you had no where to put your love

What if your belonging doesn't depend on someone else's word or approval?
What if there's no one coming to comfort you--I mean down-to-the-bones comfort--but your own tired self?
What if you are the so fucking special and also the creep, the weird-o?

We are all so very vulnerable. No one immune. No one getting to play hookie in the health room during the math exam. Not forever, anyway.

We all eventually have to sit for that test--the one that exposes how little we know, the one that makes us feel like beginners again, the one that softens our ego and teaches us to ask for help, or say nothing at all and just be with our own tender limitations.

We are all creeps. All weird-o's. And there is someone out there, someone so fucking special meant to make your creep stand tall like hairs on your back. Meant to remind you of your fragility. Meant to point you to your strength by illuminating your wobbly parts.

Sit for your test. Struggle to let someone see your vulnerability. Over and over and over again.

Passing's not the point.

You're learning. Perhaps, if nothing else, how to let go of the need to get everything right, to know all the ways of the all the worlds, to always have an answer.

You're learning how to be a creep, and therefore, relatable. You're learning how to be a weird-o, and therefore, low-pressure for everyone else. You're learning how to be one of many drowning in the pool of desire for a perfect body, a perfect soul.

And this, this makes you more known, more normal, more human than you ever thought you'd be. It makes you just like me, just like her, just like him. It makes you one of us in this big, messy, beautiful human family that's trying to learn love despite our differences; that's trying play and grow up and stay young and feel free and feel safe all at the same time.

We see ourselves in you.

We all have our days (or months, or years) wondering, What the hell am I doing here?

We're all in this together.

what doesn't need an ounce of fixing

there is no real cure to a vulnerability hangover. there are only options of how you choose to be with your hangover: running, screaming, kicking... avoiding, numbing, nursing... laughing, crying, chatting... breathing, breathing, breathing.

i'm currently bouncing back and forth between all these ways of being (and more). i'm totally over-exposed in more ways than even you can see. but i'm lucky enough to have people tell me that this is good. that nothing is wrong here. that it's perfect and powerful, and whatever i think i need is absolutely correct. (it's helpful to receive unconditional positive regard, you know?)

my god sent salvation is that i feel like even in this space of total exposure and massive dream-manifesting, there's still room to play. there's an element of complete "fuck it! why not?!" that's really serving me, so long as i remember to laugh.

playing may be the number one remedy to a vulnerability hangover--a remedy that doesn't cure, but just makes all the "bigness" feel less important. what i know is whenever jen leaps across the floor in her cute sweater dress and five-year-old face, i feel better.

do you think something is happening in the universe that has us all pushing everything out with more umph than we thought we had in us? were we all constipated for most 2011, and now finally getting the relief of a huge, massive, dump?? (or is it just me?)

my next dance video is still a few days away. i just wanted to check in here and speak to the effects of being so "out there". i'm assuring us both that whatever residual feelings may be bubbling to the surface are totally fine. beautiful, even. a sign that real movement and change is happening. just keep playing with it.

bravissimo to us all!

with love, trembling and gratitude,
rachael

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

If you tell the whole truth

You may face the consequences
You may literally quiver in your body, shiver in your bones, and just barely whisper your words
You may suffer regret
You may be surprised by the way another's whole truth affects yours
You may enter the freedom and committment and chill of actually marrying yourself
You may be mistaken for selfish or rude
You may apologize with nothing but sincerety in your heart, no matter the humiliation or blow it takes to your dear ego
You may feel the emerging pain of bringing something new into the world for the very first time
You may begin to believe in love
You may actually get what you really want (and you may come to realize that it's not what you thought you wanted... not even one bit)
You may cause storms
You may change your entire life with one sentence you can never retrieve
You may lose things or people or places or jobs you never planed on losing
You may wonder if it was worth it, or if you (and everyone else) would've been better off living just below the surface of your perfectly normal lies
You may gain the life you're really meant for
You may find true companionship
You may be seen and loved, fully, for every single bit of who you really are
You may sacrifice ease for holiness
You may be completely exhausted and need two naps a day for the rest of your life
You may become far more curious than you were ever prepared for
You may ask provacative, pivitol questions, and fear not their answers
You may feel alone
You may swell over with remorse
You may swell over with gratitude
You may Surrender
You may become closer to God than you ever knew possible
You may learn the true gifts of imperfection
You may give more than you were ready to give
You may learn more than you were ready to learn
You may have nothing left to sit with than what you're actually meant for in this very moment in time
You may come to life like never before
You may embody a difficult, honest work
You may embody Love
You may know that it was worth it, every tiny morsel, every drop of sweat, every tear and laugh and unruly sigh of relief

You can

Word of the Year

Cammie at the top of the Rocky Mountains in July

2009. This is the year I've been waiting for since about 10th grade of high school.

It was then that I knew no one else's plan for my life would fit me quite as well as my own--even if it meant learning some things the hard way. It was then that I began my first real sketch journal, my first exploration into the creative cosmos. I read Thoreau and Emerson and sunk deep into Transcendental thought. I dreamt of abandoning my car and the suburbs for my journal and the woods. I read SARK and plotted impossible things like driving the perimeter of the great USA in 2 weeks with $200. I was full of desperate urgency--the now-or-neverness of rash teendom. "Reality be damned!" I'd cry.

And still today, I can't seem to shake that audacious attitude. But I've gained a sort of knowing that even if I damn reality, it will still be there--with or without my permission. And I've learned that it's better to say yes to it all--to impossible dreams, ingenious problem-solving capacities, hundreds of generous & believing supporters, disgusting inequality, moments of throwing in the towel, and the way my soul knows no answer but to hold onto hope. To say yes to all of these, and then to roll the dice, play the odds, and somewhere in my heart, believe they're in our favor.

Rolling the dice of reality takes something I'm just beginning to let into my life. Something even more brash and brave than dreaming impossible dreams. Something I didn't understand as part of the shake, as the other side of Adventure's coin.

It takes permission to be Vulnerable. To sink into the raw and naked unknown...that dear state of putting your big brave heart on the line and crying your truth to the universe. (All with the hope that somehow when your confetti of dreams fall, they'll give rise to possibility just as they hit the ground.)

My dear sage Jen said to me the other day, "Even when your life feels secure, stable and well planned, it's just an illusion. Because just as fast as you can create a beautiful 5-year plan, something unexpected can come along and wash it right away. Stable people have their lives pulled out from under them every single day."

Sitting across the table, my heart crept up into a cumbersome lump in my throat, about to pound its way out in tears. I know Jen's right. And I've been oscillating between working my ass off for some sort of stability, and surrendering to the inevitable Vulnerability of life.

The path before me is clear these days. This is my year--to sink in deep, to say Yes against my fear, to let go of perfection, to create from the pit of my heart. This is the year for the Vulnerable.

I hope you join me on this ride. I'd love your company along the way.