answering the call

When the call is answered

There is a death to the seeking

To the feverish fleeing

To the indiscriminate receiving

Don’t misinterpret the discomfort of this freedom

And grab for more

Insight and believing

Instead, lean in

To just enjoy

This sensual wide-bodied piece of completion.

Where the dares have been recollected

Where the convergence has occurred

Where the lost wildness has been found

It’s time then to come forward

Into the spiral

Into the haze

Continue forward

In the tumult

In the responsibility

Continue forward

In the imposible idiosyncracies!

Keep going

With room, too, for the rejection

The blame and blunders

The foils, faults and flaws

Keep going

Not forgetting to pause for decay, separation and integration

Keep going

Keep renewing where your mutant individuation

Meets your invaluable belonging

Where your impatient I can’t wait anymore!

Meets your slowly earned wisdom

As you keep on loving, living and creating

Keep sanding, sharpening and softening what is your contributive best

What of you is needed when and where?

Cowboy or wrangler?

Accompanist, conductor or arranger?

-

In the death of a person, place or thing

There is a peace

Can you stay with it?

Can you hold it?

Can you stand with it?

Right next to it?

Listening humbly and respectfully?

Can you stay there?

Can you hold wonder and awe?

Stay in a way embodying undemanding play?

Beware of the backwards tilt!

The kind that’s not contained in a rocking chair

Swaying you back and not forward

The nostalgic seduction of old wounding!

Whether your liability is entanglement or seclusion

Stay low in gratitude by thanking the trees each day

Give cheap distraction the cold shoulder

Gather your soul’s weight

And then stand there with it now

Hands on your hips

Everyone right there with you

Shoulders back

Head up high

Proceeding as if success was your fate.

“The shame feels like grief now.”

A participant said this in a recent constellation workshop.

There’s a lot in this statement. It’s no small thing to get from one to the other.

The left and the right. The North and the South. The spiritual and the psychological. The psychodynamic and the cognitive behavioral. The avoidant and the anxious. The neglected and the abused. The enmeshed and the lonely. The angry and the sad. The corporate and the blue collar. The too high and the too low. The zealous and the immobile.

Regardless, the vector of shame to grief to movement unites us all. When we feel stuck and unable to move or move erratically in circles, there is sometimes shame wanting space to transmute into grief. When held in a collective field of curiosity and respect, beyond duality and dyad, we can often more easily be with what needs to be seen and witnessed. We can find more capacity to somatically acknowledge what is. The “what is” can sometimes be what was or what has happened but is “what is” because its effect is still here now.

In a different way, if we do not fully receive, account and celebrate (integrate) where we are now, how far we’ve come, what we’ve gathered, sometimes this thwarts movement as well. A group with a field consciousness, can give permission to take full ownership of our resources, successes, and gifts.

Sometimes shame is about what we’ve done. Sometimes it’s about what we’ve let be done to us. Sometimes it’s survivor shame or bystander shame. Sometimes it’s about being complicit in systemic oppression. Sometimes it’s about not contributing to what feels our fullest. Sometimes it’s long-term procrastination on our most authentic expression.

When we bring spacious presence to narrative content, we might find relief beyond terror, clinging and escaping. Spacious presence allows what’s on loop in us to slow down to a manageable piece or image, distilled into the elemental and be seen, accepted and integrated.

—

How do we build this spacious presence?

We practice non-judgement of others and compassion for ourselves. We explore within where we are judging others. “They’re a mess.” “They’re insensitive.” Where am I a mess? Insensitive? We remember where they’re at. “They’re new at this.” “They’re only 23.” “They’ve suffered severe discrimination and marginalization.” We can use our projections as prompts for making art, exploring a moment where we were that too or portraying where and how we see it in the collective. We can also own our choices and emotions. If we’re sick and tired of being used and abused, we can jam out to cathartic music or write a passionate slam poetry piece. If we can’t stand everyone on their cell phones everywhere and always, we can write a snarky public service announcement.

When we cause harm in a relationship, we can remember that being a human in love and relationship inevitably involves making mistakes. If we have the courage to own the mistakes, the injury can become a source of mutual healing and freedom. We can still discern when someone’s behavior towards us or values in the world are not a good fit for us. We can still hold ourselves to a serious standard of growing capacity for both loving others and being with more life to build and sustain our contribution.

An effective parent takes a lot of responsibility for their child’s behavior. They respect their stage of development. They remember that a toddler’s constant “No.” is them learning their boundaries and developing the ego required to survive. They remember that their teenager’s brain isn’t fully formed until it’s in its mid 20s. If not developmental, effective parents recognize that the child might be acting out something unconscious in the family system or lineage. They look within themselves and in the family and societal environment to what could be contributing to the behavior, as opposed to reacting and blaming the child. Sometimes one member of a family or system will hold more than their fair share of the anger, sadness, anxiety or disgust.

The more we practice non-judgment of others and compassion for ourselves, the more we embody the spaciousness where transmutation can occur. And then our profession, modality or role is always secondary and iterative. First, we are humans practicing love and kindness. Second, we are whatever we’re up to that day. First, we are the space, and second, we hold space for something to occur. First, we are the canvas and then we are the paint. First we are safe and then we facilitate a safe space. First we are the blank page and then the author who writes upon it.

The micro and macro. The dirt and water. The vapor and tinder. The soul-centric middle.

The Part That Can Say No

The Part That Can Say No to the predator and the Part That Cannot Say No to the predator had a conversation.

They discussed what they needed from one another. The predator was still there. Because they are still here. We practice and exercise our width with them in the room, too. The predator was acknowledged and they were reassured, “We see you. You’re still here.”

The room chuckled and softened.

The Big One was sitting in a chair close-by, alongside the parts, silently accompanying them, listening with respect to them.

Slowly, the Part That Cannot Say No started feeling bigger as they acknowledged their resources of curiosity and sensitivity.

The room relaxed.

The Part That Can Say No became less afraid and more at play. And next, the Part That Can Say No ever so gingerly stretched out their legs in a protective wide v-shape position.

The room breathed.

What’s going on for you now?

“My movement says it all.” The Part That Can Say No replied.

We left it there.

Unyolk

An oocyte is a cell in an ovary which may undergo meiotic division to form an egg. Primary oocytes are formed between three and eight months of gestation in the human embryo and remain arrested in prophase of meiotic division I until the female becomes sexually mature.

The youngest and eldest of seven sister healers.

We are cells in our mothers’ ovaries when our mothers are embryos in our grandmothers’ uteruses.

A new studio space for healing and community - before, a pentecostal church.

We are inside our grandmothers and mothers as early as three months of our mothers being in utero of our grandmothers.

January 1955.

Blink! The original awe. Pride. Immense pride to be born of these women, of this lineage.

Essential dignity. Soul. Conception. Realization.

One month in, mom’s dad dies along with the company. Money, not the most essential resource.

Division, desperation, and despair - a full-bodied lamentation from the twelfth house of grief and mystery. Feeling and knowing converge.

Some are laughing. Some are crying. Like when I was three and came down crying. They were laughing. Joni Mitchel said “Laughing and crying, you know it's the same release.”

40 more breaths. An epsom salt bath.

One by one, my four grandparents sweep up from under me. Horizontally. They’ve given me all they’ve got. “Just get to work. We have nothing else to say. We’re behind you fully. The connection is complete. Now stay attuned.”

Emerge. Embody. Emanate.

Together forever and yet holding steady in the “I am here. And you are there.”

Unyolk.

Craftily Lit

“We live in a kind of dark age, craftily lit with synthetic light, so that no one can tell how dark it has really gotten. But our exiled spirits can tell. Deep in our bones resides an ancient singing couple who just won’t give up making their beautiful, wild noise. The world won’t end if we can find them.” -Martín Pretchel

The group of 22 adolescent orphans never knew a life of non-longing and neither did their parents or grandparents and farther back even. The longing grew stronger through the generations. Some oppressions and injustices were balanced and healed but the longing never was. It seemed that there was a larger missing piece that allowed the oppressive systems to keep sprouting up. The longing was for a culture.

Can we find true belonging outside of an intact culture? They would debate this everyday. Some would say why bother, it isn’t real, let’s not pretend and delude ourselves. Others would insist that we have to do something, albeit imperfectly. They would discuss the elements of what an intact culture consists of. Although there would be great variance in their debate, they would usually agree that a culture is led by percipient elders. Elders that have experienced and integrated multiple dimensions of their being through life’s ongoing uncertainty, grief and renewal. Elders who experienced more and more of their parts within themselves and without through the Other. Elders who could stay playful with the youth about their fears and reactivity.  Elders committed to reverence and revelry. Elders who left the position of their childhood and stepped into their place as initiated adults. Elders who were part of bringing the youth into the fold both delicately and fiercely. 

What the adolescents fantasized about was for an elder to take them in the night. 

Without permission. Without total safety.

Bringing them in touch with the life force so they could step into their undeniable place.

Through initiation.

Risking their life to belong.

In an essential once-and-for-good rite of passage.

The stories of an old time where a culture was still intact were miraculously still passed down. A time when the elders were so life-loving that a child’s first aspiration was to prepare to be a good elder. When a person’s place was taken, the young initiates had to continually court the elder masters of their craft while they trained as apprentices and then artisans. The elders were often persnickety and sharp and also doting, witty and sincere. The young initiates thought they knew more than they did but they also inspired and challenged the elders to apply what they know to what the youth felt coming down the road.

What qualities from an intact culture can we apply without an intact culture? And worse, in the midst of climate catastrophe and soul-sucking artificial intelligence? We can commit unwaveringly to our soul’s craft and contribution. We can discern well between messages of movement-based awareness and freeze-provoking fear mongering. We can stay low and slow in ever-expanding grounded gratitude. We can take pleasure and delight in even tiny exchanges of life and nature. We can practice turning away again and again from what’s not good for us. We can center the voice, perception and needs of the most marginalized for the largest collective evolution. We can insist on leaning on one another through simple presence and not too much elusive enigmatic abstraction. We can aim to increase our capacity to know just enough, see wider and wider perspectives, feel with greater inclusivity of all human feeling and think with increasingly sound luminosity.

Here I am.

Look at me!

Here I am.

See me!

Here I am.

I’m lonely!

Here I am.

I’m stuck!

Here I am.

I’m not safe!

Here I am.

I’m ashamed!

Here I am.

I’m lost!

Here I am.

I’m bored!

Here I am.

::Exhale::

I inhale. Another new start. Another opportunity to begin again.

I am. I can.

I start with the I am.

Here.

Here I am.

I am rooted.

Here.

I am here.

Here I am.

Rooted.

From a cosmology.

Through a lineage. 

In a collective.

I express myself outwardly to the best of my ability. For that day. For that moment. Under these conditions and based in this present reality. Expectant yet unattached. I allow a voice to come through me and trust the process. I’ll see what happens in the end.

Amò is neopolitan for love (Part 1)

My favorite memory of us is when we were giddily cuddling in bed the first night that we moved in together. We were so happy to be in one another’s arms. I think we knew even then, in that moment, that this would be one of the great loves of our lives…and also not a forever one.

We were curled up in a blue and white bedspread that we picked out together in Chennai when you visited me while I was working there. My students still ask me about you. They met you in Switzerland and then when we were in India. I didn’t know then what a triumph it was for you to get a visa to visit India…better yet a passport. You wouldn’t eat any Indian food, you carried around a miniature bottle of extra virgin olive oil to put on plain rice. You had never really left Italy.

The night we met, I was in your town, in Sorrento, with my friend. We were supposed to only stay a couple nights but the hospitality of the hostel staff was so overwhelming that we stayed a week. On the last night, we hosted a party for them to thank them: la festa della primavera sorrentina. I was behind the bar in a red orange spaghetti strap dress. All of a sudden you, King of Sorrento, walk in and inquire, “Ma chi sei tu, una modella?” “And who are you, a model?” I giggled and drank up every ounce of your attention. Later that night you’d take me to some grotto by the seaside. I was like, “Cosa stiamo facendo qui?” “What are we doing here?” I had no fear with you. You said, “Dobbiamo fare l’amore.” “We must make love.” I said, “Scherzi?!” “Are you kidding?” And then we both laughed until we cried. We were making out against the grotto walls and then I said, “Basta! Io ho una fame da lupo!” “Enough! I am hungry, like a wolf!” An Italian saying.

So you brought me to Marina Piccola. You ordered appetizers. There were 12 little plates of fish. I was completely and totally amazed, subsumed. I was 24 and I had never really had fresh fish besides maybe an occasional lobster - just frozen shrimp or fish sticks. We ate the fish paired with a carafe of peach-infused wine. And then pasta. And then more fish. And then dessert. And then amaro. And then coffee. And then limoncello, one of Sorrento’s world-renowned products. I learned how to eat from you. I didn’t even eat tomatoes before you. I guess I was waiting for the ones grown in the rich volcanic soil of Vesuvio. You said you didn’t know how to cook but your “I don’t know how to cook” was gourmet chef to me. I regularly make the simple and delectable spaghetti ai pomodorini I learned from you and transfer that nourishment I learned from you to people I prepare it for.

My friend and I stayed another couple nights. You and I made love in the hostel kitchen. Sitting up, eye to eye. It was hot. You said, “ti amo” and not the more friendly “ti voglio bene.” Furbissimo! Sly. Cunning. I stayed unattached because the hostel owner told me, “Lui è un pazzo ma un pazzo buono.” “He is crazy but good crazy.” Very exciting.

You cheated on me a lot I’d later find out but you gave me so much love, care and tenderness that I could never stay mad at you. You, the land and the people of la peninsula sorrentina cured much of my type A Americana rigidity. At work, I would not be praised for my competence but praised for taking breaks. “I’m going to get a coffee. I’m going for lunch. I’m taking Friday off.” “Brava, Mattie!” My life in Italy, and with you, woke up my pleasure body in tutti i sensi. And then there’s the exquisite beauty of our last encounter, after being broken up for some time, kissing one another on different parts of one another’s faces but not on the lips…in the rain. Non lo dimenticherò mai.

I didn't know

I didn't know that freedom meant

allowing grief to strike as it pleases

I didn’t know that freedom meant 

both at choice and surrendered

I didn’t know that freedom meant

staying low in liminality

I didn’t know that freedom meant

not holding onto anything

I didn’t know that freedom meant

continually raw and at risk

I didn’t know that freedom meant

finding security within uncertainty

I didn’t know that freedom meant

recollecting the here and now, in every heartbeat

I didn’t know that freedom meant

sobriety…capability through humility 

I didn’t know that freedom meant

a forgiving open stance

I didn’t know that freedom meant

withdrawing all extrapolation

I didn’t know that freedom meant

keeping faith and trust in the body

I didn’t know that freedom meant

yielding 

to not knowing much of anything

Andiamo! performing the tammuriata at the 2023 NYC Dance Parade