BeautyDialogues

from my home to yours...

 

May the Light and Love of this season grow in our hearts and expand out to embrace all that exists. May we walk in Beauty, all of us, as we celebrate the holidays and step into this new year.

Solstice: One

Every year (as long-time readers may remember), I celebrate the natural cycle of life and the majesty of old growth redwoods by participating in a three-day Solstice ceremony/retreat with Resonance in the Santa Cruz mountains. The experience is always profound, but this year's stood out for a number of reasons.

My love monkey Steve came with me this year. Being together in that environment, and sharing the same time schedule (just having the luxury of lying there in the gathering light together each morning, quietly watching the tall trees emerge from the fog) opened some doors for us that we're still exploring. We're heading up to Hendy Woods this weekend for more.

As part of the ceremony, every year each of us stand before the group and commit to giving something of ourselves back to Life in gratitude. This year's committment drew upon the last for me, but my current articulation specified a conscious intent to "be a clear mirror, reflecting back the beauty and light I see in every person and in every thing".

This commitment took on a life of its own as I sat back down into the circle and, moved by the beauty I saw shining in the faces around me, spontaneously offered a free portrait session to anyone there who asked for one. I so wanted them to see what I saw in them that moment.

I was thrilled when my friend Lana Holmes, a gifted professional who specializes in personal and quantum leap development, took me up on the offer and came over last weekend for what turned out to be an extraordinary photo shoot. I loved the experience and felt we were really working with Light, in all senses of the word.

Here's just a taste of what we came up with together:

Some of the photos from our session will be used on the new website I'm building for her now, which will launch later this month.

Morning Light

For some reason my calendar is especially full lately and I haven't had much time for reflection and contemplation. But necessity has forced a creative response...

Every morning I take just a few minutes and lay watching the light grow in the sky though two big west-facing windows opposite my bed. I let myself lie silently and drink in the subtle shift, feel the light increase inside me as I slowly wake up and move into another day.

It's become my daily practice, particularly delicious on a morning I don't have anything scheduled and can just let my day emerge organically, but those times are rare.

On one such day, a little too long ago now, I went on a morning walk with my friend FireHawk and our cameras through the forest around his home in the Santa Cruz mountains.

Here's an image from our journey:

Hakone Dreaming

I did something delightfully unexpected (and deeply nourishing) the other day. I took time right in the middle of one of the busiest periods I've ever experienced to join my friend and creative mentor FireHawk Hulin in a photo shoot at Hakone Gardens.

Here's a little glimpse into what happened there:

Solstice Ceremony

Every year I respond to the drum beat of a Solstice ceremony held high in the Santa Cruz mountains where I join 25-40 others in dancing to the Tree of Life and declaring my intent, my commitment, for the next year.

It's almost impossible to describe the power of this experience in words, but I'll give it a go:

Tall trees, a deep horizon
a meadow with open sky,
where unruffled deer
witness
a communing circle of earnest hearts,
entering ever closely
the domain of their destiny.

A circle of Humans
sitting in the bounty of the gifts we hold,
Listening
for what it is we feel we must offer back
in the grace and gratitude of this fullness.

...o...o...0...o...o...

My own commitment, in this next cycle of the sun, is to hone my inherent, god-given aesthetic intelligence into a powerful instrument of Light.

I offer this commitment for the benefit of all sentient beings, and ask three blessings to guide my way:

May my voice be sourced in Silence.
May my words evoke the magic of original Knowing.
May my images be graced by the catalytic spark of Beauty.

May it be so!

Dreaming

My annual Dreaming Ceremony was a little different this year, due to the series of storms that hit the California coast in the last few weeks. The winding mountain road I took to get there was a 2 hour obstacle course of rock-slides, flooded low spots and downed power lines, so it was no surprise to find there was no electricity when I arrived.

We gathered that first night in a large room in the Santa Cruz mountains, lit by a roaring fire in the fireplace and the glittering lights of this year's altar (created by Lightning Dove, aka Sue Blondell). The heat in the building was electrically generated so it was cold and we were all wrapped in medicine blankets and woolly socks - some of us wearing scarves and hats, and even gloves.

It was magic...

One of the main motivations that takes me to the Dreaming Ceremony - and the Summer Solstice Ceremony that bookends my year - is the wish to realign my system to the rhythms of the natural world. The conditions could not have been better for that purpose, or for the collective Dreaming we all came to do together...

Later that night I took a flashlight back to my little cabin in the woods and lit a bunch of votives to do some journaling before snuggling into bed and watching tree shadows moving outside my windows. I left my porch light on so I could tell if the electricity returned and when it came on in the middle of the night I was kind of disappointed.

But that wasn't the end of our adventures with the weather- the electricity was on and off throughout the four days of ceremony and the darkness in the Kiva was especially deep when there was no electric current to distract us from the Void. My body actually began to remember what it was like to live without it and the re-calibration of my internal compass was well and truly set by the end of our time together; I figure it's good for another six months at least!

We Are All Connected

My magical friend & mentor FireHawk Hulin passed along this fabulous video from the Symphony of Science, which samples media snippets from the brightest scientific heart/minds of our time. The message is simple: "we are all connected", but there couldn't be more crucial knowledge for us humans to carry as we go into our next decade.

The power of this symphony's lyrics is literally stunning, and I find myself fascinated by the last line of one stanza - "we are a way for the cosmos to know itself" whose implications are still reverberating ...

The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it
But the way those atoms are put together
The cosmos is also within us
We're made of star stuff
We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.

Morning Light

The morning light on my long-overdue beauty walk today was exquisite.
I took this photo, feeling blessed and grateful.

On the Mountain

All those who live in my region are blessed by the presence of a sacred mountain, Mount Tamalpais, who shelters and graces us with her presence. She was sacred to the Native Americans who lived along these shores long long ago, and she is sacred still to those of us who know her.

I was driving over this very mountain Sunday on my way to Bolinas, and I had an experience that I wanted to share with you here. But before I could write it, I found myself in my Medicine Wheel circle on Second Life telling the story:

"It was one of those foggy wet days we get here (when we're lucky :-) and everything had that rain-drenched glow - all the colors standing out rich and deep like river stones in a glass of water. There were streams crashing white against the dark rocks that held their banks and trees like arcs of green tinged with a still lighter hue; prism drops of rain-light falling from them."

image by Eric in SF, found on Flickr

"It was so enchanting. I was lost in admiration and just so grateful, feeling the gift of this world - experiencing the infinite beauty of each tiny part. I heard myself think, "Darn! I wish I had brought my camera!"

But then I realized that it was a blessing, this time, not to have it and instead to feel the record of that perfect drive etched on my skin, captured in my eye's membrane instead of the camera lens. In that moment I felt the full power of my work as "Record Keeper"; the sacred work of keeping my eyes open, keeping them clear so I can see the beauty in this life and share it with others."

So, on this day I didn't bring my camera, and that triggered the epiphany, but there are many ways to record the beauty of this world, and I plan to try as many of them as I can. That's part of my work as a Record Keeper, a Light Bearer.

We light-beings are precious to each other, and to those around us, especially in these times - our light is truly needed now. Here is my prayer for all of us: May we be strong and clear. May we see the beauty around us, even in these days of darkening and fear. May we become beacons of light, sharing the beauty & clarity we see with those around us. And may they too be strengthened by our vision.

Harvesting Lightning

This image came at the end of one of those "state of the world" PowerPoint slide-shows that are being emailed around. The material was fairly predictable until this last slide, which I found myself totally enchanted by - an image of ma and pa - two regular folks - harvesting lightning.

I don't know where it came from, so I don't know how to credit it, but there's something so cheerful and matter of fact about this image of harvesting lightning, light-filled bolts of inspiration that are emerging from the cloud-saturated skies of these dark days. Regular people watching for the ideas and dreams that are appearing now, and harvesting them like canned peaches for the winter when they will be most sorely needed; a time that is coming fast upon us now.

Meet you in the root cellar!