Some days the dance is beautiful
some days it is bitter sweet
or full of pain and being alive
somedays the dance of all of us is so full
reasons to fight and fling and move forward
things to push against
and celebrate
try

But some days the long dance
is just long
and for a few minuets you just want to sit down
and rest
but still the laundry needs to be hung.

All we all want
is to be seen
and loved
to connect

See me sunshine
see me leaves
hear me cicada far away in your tree
I am here
so full of longing still
so full of sadness too
for all that is alive
and all that is dying
all the hope that is not in me
or others
for our long dance of meaningless life

We do not need to learn to sing or dance

We do not need to learn to sing or dance. We do not need to learn to move or make music. We just need to move, to let our bodies do what they want, to let ourselves experience music and sound and space and react as we want. The only thing most of us need to do is UNLEARN holding ourselves back. To UNLEARN the lies that we are not good enough. To Unlearn that our bodies are flawed. We were born sacred and have everything we need within ourselves.

A prayer to my Brown Mother

I know many of you
prey to a "God"
and I hear you say "he"
I see the prophets
painted as a white man.
I hear you say you put your trust in "him"
Many of you are kind and good, full of love.
But I myself
I am going to worship my Mother.
My Mother Earth
and she is old and graggy
and grey
and brown.
She does wears dresses
of green or white
she loves red and purple polka dots
She is wrapped in mysterious flowing blue.
But for me
her body is mostly brown.
Beautiful
run my fingers through your soil
brown.
Beautiful I can lay my back upon you
and you will never disappear brown.
Beautiful
rich offering giving
ready, steady, brown.
And like any child I am of her.
I am her again, young and new and fleeting
and different
She loves everything about me
my skin and hair, my bones and blood.
She has no shame of my body
she loves my breasts
and folds
she would have me hide nothing
if I wish
she cares not what mistakes I make
at times she spoils me
she knows I will die but she gives everything she can
She is a busy mother, so she does not spoil me too much, she has many to feed.
and at times she has little to give
but still holds me close.

I know that I owe my life to the Sun
and his energy
I know he pays the energy bill every day
works to build and warm the house
But he comes and goes.
I know without his sperm
I would not be here
his gift of life.
And I will bow down in gratitude before him.
I dance with the glorious love he shines on me.
But my bones are made from my Mother Earth
She raised me
hugs me everyday
she makes do with whatever is given
never complains, does her best
feeds me, cloths me, loves me.

To be truthful
I bristle when you call your God a he
When I see a video of a white man trusted with a gun
but a black man ordered to the ground
The question is why do we trust the white man over the brown?
Why do you put all your trust in the wealthy white mans God?
made in his image?
his understanding that God is not his flesh, blood, breath, shit and bones?
Every mother knows poop comes with new life,
It was the old rich white man who imagined God as only clean and bright, strong and perfect,
someone else emptied his chamber pot.
Old momma know that if you empty the camber pot in the garden the tree you plant there later will make the most fruit.
Do you want a god that is far from you? floats away from you?
that is not in you all the time?
that is better than you?
I know we all long for his love, but like an older woman talking to her daughter now, I remind you, love yourself first, then love him.  Love your Earth Body first.  He may come and go, there maybe others, but you will always have yourself.  What good are you without loving your body first?  Put your own air mask on then help others.

And if I ripe off my shirt
stand before you
a woman topless
what would you think?
Would you look at me strangely?
tell me that is not respectful but you would let a man do it?
Then you have swallowed
the lie of the white father.
If you see the tan lines on my body
and do not see that they are the first chains we accept
that my breast must be covered while a mans are not
than you do not see the first oppression
the oppression from which all the rest are based

That a woman's body can be owned, 

possessed by others than the who's spirit it houses.

The first lie that the land of our Mother Earth can be hoarded.

You have bought the shame they have spent centuries passing on to our bodies

the lie that it is ok to cover us up
in order to protect us from his lust
that it is ok to build a fence and keep others from drinking from the stream.
that is is ok to own while others are homeless.

I am brave,
free and wild
I am not scared of the suns lust
or love
nor a mans
I will let the whole of my skin shine.
But I am weak,
I am a civilized pet
breed to submit, to live by the lie that I and others can own
our Mother
the riches of our Father.
I see the house I live in and believe I own it
and the land under it,
I have bought the lie too.
We might as well try to give the oceans and clouds away
to our white male God too.
oh but you already have in your preyers,
when we prey to "Him" our great father.
when we are told to trust him and his son, his servants more than any of his other children.
I maybe weak, but I will not prey to the lie.

Maybe today will be the day
that we all throw off our cloths, and chains
and the lie that a woman's body should be covered
that a white man be trusted more than any other
and a brown mother body be in labor without thanks.
Maybe today is the day we tell our white light father we are grateful
but we remember we must also always thank our brown mother, our earth body soul.
Maybe today is the day that see how brown and beautifully and earthy we are
The day we throw out the blue plastic antiperspirant tube, the bug poison and weed killer
The day we eat straight from the garden
invite anyone hungry into our homes
wrap anyone crying into our arms
lay our bodies down in front of all risk to show our brothers and sisters
the same love our parents showed us.
Trusting,
knowing
that we will go back
always
to the arms of our Big Brown Mother.

Ok the bad news is that our cherry tree is sick and it looks like we will be getting a very small crop this year, but the good news is a new friend just told us we can pick buckets from hers in her back yard! but the bad news is i am overwhelmed by all the fruit there is to pick, want to go strawberry picking too, still need to get my beans stung up, and its hot and i don't want to think about canning fruit for next winter, but the good news is I am overwhelmed by all the fruit there is to pick and there are free greens in my garden and growing all over the city and my kitchen is clean after a SUPER busy weekend where I helped a bride have an awesome wedding and made some money, all while keeping other

commitments and having fun, but the hard thing is my to do list is now super long and I have lots of calls to make, dates and conflicts to think about, details to pin down and i don't know if i can get to them all, but the good news is that I have so many amazing friends, old and new, beautiful family, and people interested in the pink house and what i have to offer the world, people who feel comfortable with me, who share what is deep in their hearts with me, who want to work with me. The bad news yesterday was Andre fell off his bike and hurt his hand pretty badly and It kept him up much of the night and i couldn't get him to help with somethings i was counting on him for today, but the good news was he didn't get really badly hurt even though he fell in the middle of the street downtown and my family is healthy. The bad news was that i felt like i didn't have time to take my 9 year old to the beach, the good news is my friend SaSa is taking him right now and I have dinner marinating for Chuck to grill as I get ready to run off to teach a yoga class. The bad thing about last week was that the last of the peonies rained their petals down on the floor and we won't get to see or smell them again until next year, for some of us maybe never again and i have been wondering when I will dance my last dance ever, how most of us we will never know when our last anything will be, but now the day lilies are blooming and the air is perfect and I have few wonderful minutes to sit calmly in my yard and write and be thankful for everything. <3 span="">

feel the petals

quick,
go outside and bury you face
deep in a peony
breath in its smell
stroke your cheeks with the petals
cool, silky
feel how soft beyond soft they are
fall in love with your skin
and the skin of the flower
together
meant for each other
do the petals feel you?
breath it all in
and think of me
and you
and how one day we will be in the ground
gone from what we know.
next time you see me
dance with me
love me
because the heat comes
June ends and the petals fall back to the ground.

Love of the elements On Center Meditation

I am going to be co-host in a weekly meditation show on Milwaukee's Riverwest Radio.  Today we recorded our first one live on the radio.  I called it Love of the Elements, celebrating our bodies and the elements of air, earth, water and fire that make up our bodies and world.  I invite you to find a comfortable place and join in me for half an hour of centering meditation and visualization.  click here to listen on sound cloud 

Dancing in sunlight. Or is it ok to say you are in love with yourself?

         This is a video I shot of myself a few weeks ago at my friends house in Oakland, I was dancing to Cat Power.  I am working on a song of my own to put to this, not done with it yet.  Watching myself, I am in love with my hair, like the element of the earth made liquid. So beautiful, then my thoughts... "Is it ok to say I am in love with myself?" Why do I have fear to write that?  As I look at it I'm not only stunned by my beauty, but I think about all the years I felt insecure... about being flat chested, short legs, big arms and shoulders, I thought I was not feminine looking, that I had funny teeth, a pug nose.  Now I worry about aging and wrinkles and grey hairs, and sometimes I still worry how people see me, how I dress; too frumpy? too dressy? too sexy? Are they judging my underarm hair?  How crazy!!! Look how beautiful I am! And even now as I write this I judge myself for showing off my gifts, attributes that our culture says are "good."  The voice in my head says "well you are a skinny white woman with 'good' hair, nothing special to show off there! You're just lucky to be part of the privileged, what's deemed beautiful."  But the part of me that falls in love with my beauty, that also falls in love with all those around me, the world, the flowers, the water, that part, says "NO! You are made from stars, you and everyone else and you ALL deserve to shine!"  WE all want to be seen and glow, we are all magical. This is what a year and a half away from 50 looks like for me, I am going to celebrate! 

          I also think about how my posting dances, images like this might awaken others to judge themselves. And I see, yes, I was given gifts, this healthy strong body, this gift of movement. I imagine for some they might have a real and justified feeling of envy, sadness about their own bodies. Bodies that hurt, that they don't love, that others have hurt, violated, that they feel shame of.  I can only imagine what others experiences are like, but I can imagine grief being a real and valid response. We all deserve to have bodies and spirits we love and can celebrate, that are honored by others. We are all wounded in so many ways. For many of us our wounds include being taught a lifestyle that doesn't support our bodies being fully healthy, and abuse of our bodies. For me although I have been given the gift of a healthy body, I have escaped physical trauma, like everyone else I struggle. I awaken at night tortured with pain, loss and regret. The people around me struggle, we try to connect over and over and often can't seem to find the path. We love each other and we feel hurt by each other.  But now I see all that struggle, those wounds can also be gifts, for they are the flip side of joy and connection. So... what is my final thought.... that obstacles, stepping over logs and climbing mountains makes our legs strong, and struggling with connection and love make our spirits strong.  It is my belief that we are made from exploding stars and the energy of the sun and in so creation and destruction are one and the same.  Mother earth opens violently over and over to bring fresh elements up to the surface to feed life. Human life mirrors that, mothers' bodies are ripped open in pain to give birth. We hurt each other and are hurt.  We can not exist without pain.  We can not feel joy without grief, we can not know love without pain.  May we all honor and respect each other. May we all know we are made from stars and may we all struggle and rejoice in body and spirit.