Animals as teachers

Sometimes the most profound lessons come when we least expect them and from those we may not have sought out as teachers. Part of staying balanced and at peace in the world today is keenly tuning our senses to what is around us and how it is informing our choices.

I am just ending a temporary living situation that came with unexpected gifts, namely a lot of animals, and particularly a lion and three tigers who taught me some powerful lessons. I entered that relationship with them by first of all making space to just sit with them and be still. Once the connection was made, they took me on an amazing journey inward, particularly one of the tigers named Typhoon. I can't exactly put the experience into words, but my internal being has changed.

They are powerful beings who command respect. To meet them eye to eye there must first be a stillness within and a calling forth of courage to stand equally in their presence. Hand in hand with stillness is being fully present and aware, because if you are distracted in their presence they will either lose interest in connecting with you or they may startle you with an aggressive move.

I spent my time singing to them of their magnificence and then later meditating with them. Even when it seems they are nodding off they are tuned to your every move and when you are unruffled by their advances they drop back. Ty would test me to see if I would sense him coming up behind me before he reached me with a lunge. They move silently, but I got to where I could feel him energetically and when I would turn to look him in the eyes, as he practiced his stalking, he would immediately release the approach. Often times I would come down and approach him head on, leaning to the fence that divided us to look him in the eyes, nose to nose, as he "chuffed" or gently snorted his greeting and acknowledgment. Then I would sit next to him and sometimes he would curl up pressing the fence where my body touched, gazing intently into my eyes. The stillness and presence with him both opened my heart and called me into my courage in a way I hadn't stood in it before. There was no inner quivering, only a respectful strength, for which I felt appreciated.

So here's what I learned and how I have changed as a result:
1) I'm more confident to speak my truth without hesitation or quivering.
2) Living courageously commands respect.
3) Being still and present disarms aggressive moves.
4) Taking time to really connect with whomever is before you yields amazing gifts, one being a heart that breaks fully open.

So, find what is both wild and courageous within yourself, as well as that which is still, present and loving. These are times that call for all of these qualities.

Move to thrive

Sometimes the most powerful things we can do to stay balanced just seem too simple and we can tend to gloss over the innate resources we have, thinking there must be some special product or program we need to buy in order to maintain good health. The truth is, other than needing to obtain healthy food, the other basics of the health equation require nothing external. Those are: exercise, deep breathing, getting enough rest, keeping a positive attitude and having meaningful connections with others.

This month I want to emphasize the importance of moving your body, and if you have trouble thinking about an exercise program then how about dancing? Make it fun and enjoyable, but however you do it, move. Energy gets stuck and the more it becomes stagnant the greater the sense of discomfort on all levels. I'm always amazed at how fast I can shift my energy with movement--dancing, yoga, a walk in the park, or whatever it is. I'm not sure why at times I forget how huge the benefit is and I can let it slip when I need it the most. It seems that during periods of change in living situation, relationships, or finances that beneficial routines can get disrupted. At these times stress tends to be higher and it is more important than ever to push through and stick to an exercise commitment. While conscious, deep breathing doesn't replace exercise, it will move energy and is essential.

Remember, if your position is fixed in a moving stream, you will get worn down.

The only difference between fear and adventure is how much you breathe. ~Rob Kalnitsky

I have to exercise in the morning before my brain figures out what I'm doing. ~Marsha Doble

Passion is key

I'm back on the Blog circuit realizing the importance for sharing tips and inspirations for navigating these potent, amazing and stressful times.

Today I came across a link to a performance of a young Korean man on "Korea's Got Talent" that touched me to my core. I think it has moved many people who have seen it and for me there was a special gift, which was the affirmation of the power of passion to transform lives. His passion certainly will transform his own life, and beyond that his example of staying connected to a passion that gave him joy and made him feel like "someone different" will rekindle dreams many have let go of because they believed they weren't possible. Here's the link to this story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SIxSbTSBTc&playnext=1&list=PLB405CDBF61489F16

My own version of this is that I just completed a collaborative project to make the first video segment of a series called, Earth, a Love Story. This is something for which I have carried a vision a long time. And, while the first offering isn't perfectly polished, it is birthed with great joy because I stepped up to meet the universe regardless of ideal circumstances. While I don't live on the streets as this young man did, it seems I've been in a phase of instability and transition for longer than I would like. Committing to this project in the midst of all of this has in an odd way created "home" for me and so I encourage any of you reading this to commit to your passions and dreams knowing that a ground swell of joy will help to transform the face of the Earth. Following is a link to my website where you can read about the larger vision of my work and you can watch the Earth, a Love Story video: www.onwingsofadream.com

Beyond Blogging

When I entered the world of blogging it felt a bit odd, like talking to myself in a way, or recording my personal reflections as sort of an online diary. Sometimes I had inspirations that I wanted to write about, which I did, but I find inspirations come more fluidly when ideas are sparked in relationship to others.

A wonderful new friend invited me to participate in a site that was being "re-developed" to expand global consciousness and to create community. The site is called Avanoo, www.avanoo.com. The space is dynamic, kind, loving and co-creative and it has become a wonderful part of my life. I do the majority of my posting there now because it comes naturally as a part of dialogue.

I invite those who are interested in the type of offerings I make to come to Avanoo where you will find a banquet rather than one offering on the menu. Avanoo is a place for inspired engagement for dreaming a new world and for occupying home,in each aspect of its development, with gratitude, ease, awareness and joy.

My profile picture and name is the same as here. You can select "Listen" once you are in my profile and you will get notifications of new postings from me, or other people you choose to "listen to" when you log into the site (click on notifications). Otherwise you can just browse the recent activity.

Hope to see you there!
Lots of love,
Dawn

Giving Up Judgment for Lent

I had a client in my office the other day and she was talking about the "bad things" she was giving up for Lent. I can certainly understand if it feels important to change a behavior because it doesn't support the person, and I've heard that it takes 30 days (or maybe it's 6 weeks) to establish a new habit. That's all good, but in her case, as I think is true for many, it was about sacrificing the pleasures she felt guilty about.

I invited her to instead consider giving up judgment for 40 days, since I think that was more what Christ had in mind anyway. Hey, what if that resulted in a newly formed habit at the end of Lent? Wouldn't that make the offering up of Christ's life more worth it than the fact that someone wasn't eating Twinkies anymore?

I don't know, just food for thought :)

Love is the Doorway

Many years ago I had an instantaneous healing experience that followed weeks of praying for an ailment to be healed with no result. At the point of the healing, something was communicated to me from spirit that enabled me to see that the prayers had been offered in more of a rote fashion than with a sense of faith in the outcome. Praying was simply what one was supposed to do in such cases, but I had no real sense of them being received and the request granted. The day the healing occurred I received the message that if I truly believed I could be healed, I would be. The moment that really clicked in me the pain and other symptoms were gone.

I think that in a similar way I have created my own barrier to awakening because of some basic misperceptions. I have held the notion that to awaken fully and completely meant giving up everything of this world and I made a pact with God to do just that when I was in my mid-twenties. I think on some level I assumed that included loving partnerships, because I equated that with attachment. I think the deeper truth is that this was a convenient way to avoid vulnerability and potential pain.

It’s amazing to me sometimes how the most profound understandings are really so darn simple, and get lost in all of the other conditioned beliefs. What I think I am finally grocking is that waking up depends on loving fully. Just as with the instantaneous healing I think I had the core understanding about awakening backwards. I assumed that I had to be fully awake to be an embodiment of love. I’m sure the conditions of each awakening are different, but my sense is that creating a practice of being present to love each moment is more important than a letting go of the world. I’m not talking romantic love either, I’m referring to the hardest kind of love—to love everything as it is. Any parent also knows that what is offered from love may often not feel like it.

Some of the most profound experiences I’ve had as an “activist” involved seeing beyond surface appearances into the essence of someone perceived as the enemy and loving them. The reactions against that both from fellow do-gooders, and from my own internal judge, are that if I love someone in this way they may forget that I don’t agree with them. They may think I have forgiven them and that we are no longer opponents. It may be taken as they no longer need to feel the guilt and pain over their actions that I’m intent on eliciting or reinforcing in them. I think the bigger question here is, What does happen when we truly forget that we are enemies or that we have different ways of being in the world? Please don’t take this to mean that behaviors that are not supportive of the whole go unaddressed, but rather that true transformation results more from love than judgment and rejection. (I will include fear in this also, because I strongly believe that lasting change is not brought about by fear).

On the level of personal relationship there is a lot of hesitation to use the word love, particularly between adults because there is a fear that the depth of that will be misconstrued. We also withhold our love until we have deemed someone worthy. Personally, I sign the bulk of my communications—Lots of Love and I mean it. I refrain from this only when I feel someone doesn’t know me well enough to understand that it is simply a statement of where I am coming from. It does not, however, define a type of relationship, or any expectations I have with that person. If there is any confusion or concern around what I mean, just ask me to clarify.

Lots of love,
Dawn

Healing Communities

It feels like a time of moving from a consumptive economy to an enrichment economy. That said, I am inspired to breathe life back into a long-held vision to develop a highly creative and self-sufficient community as a model and resource center for others who want to explore harmonious ways of living. My idea of this is community made up of simple individual living spaces, although if people are inspired to live in more of a collective, that's up to them. The community I have envisioned will have five primary focuses: 1) care for and education of the children; 2) food production; 3) architectural design for energy and resource efficiency with an emphasis on aesthetic beauty; 4) healing and transformational services (which includes a strong emphasis on the creative arts), and 5) consulting, communications and external project funding. The objective is to provide livelihoods for community members through these five focus areas.

I see people from all walks of life visiting this community not only to explore the idea of cooperative living, but to take part in a series of experiences which would open them up to their creative potential by reconnecting them to a part of themselves that longs to dream and to celebrate. By the way this model can easily be integrated into existing communities.

Intuitive knowing and a sense of balance within our environment has been conditioned out of many of us, or at least significantly repressed. How many of us are even the least bit aware of what our own bodies are trying to communicate to us through discomfort or illness? We have been taught not to pay attention—take a pill and it will go away, rather than exploring where our body is telling us we are out of balance. Similarly we are taught not to pay too much attention to the environmental imbalances that speak to us of a system in distress. If the water is not healthy to drink, we are sold water filters rather than being asked to look at how we are contributing to the situation.

The objective of the experiences people would go through in this community is to get them back into their bodies, so to speak, to enliven their senses and empower them to be acutely aware of how they are interacting with everything going on inside of and around them.

There could be retreat-type programs that included some or all of the following: 1) dream work and journaling; 2) body movement including five-rhythms, ecstatic or freeform dance, Tai Chi, yoga, etc.; 3) music workshops, i.e., drumming, singing, toning, etc., 4) communication workshops, i.e., consensus or team building, effective/compassionate dialoging and active listening, mediation; and 5) solo or guided wilderness quests. Body work or healing modalities geared toward accelerated release of emotional and physical blocks would also be available upon request, but would not be required.

During the course of a day, visitors would have free time to spend with members of the community whose function they were particularly interested in. For example, if someone’s profession was as an educator they might be interested in observing how that function happened in the community.

At the end of a day, people might gather around a fire to the sound of drumming to hear the storyteller weave a tale of who we are and where we have come from. Then the group would begin to develop their own story of where they want to go. By creating one’s own dream, the chances of maintaining the commitment to follow through are greatly increased.

The emphasis of the community experience would be to empower people to start from wherever they are to create a more satisfying life. Although the community itself would serve as one model, it is only that. This would not be presented as the only way to live, since it will simply not be within the reach of some of the people who come as participants. Ideally, funds will be raised to enable people from a range of social situations to come and participate and to have access to the help they need to actualize their dreams. For example, inner-city youth who are interested in taking their energy for organizing gangs and directing it another way can apply for scholarships. Once they have developed a plan or vision for how they want to enhance the communities from which they have come, staff members would be available as consultants to assist with the development of plans or to guide them to the resources they will need. It is even possible that some type of foundation could be set up as a part of the community that would provide funds for start-up projects on a limited basis.

The Community Core Center Design

Urban or suburban communities can also be enlivened and transformed with the introduction of a community core center. The model community proposed above would serve as a resource center to provide consulting services to guide people through the process of designing centers in their existing neighborhoods for the purpose of reestablishing and deepening their joyful engagement with one another. These centers would incorporate nodes that catered to the needs and interests of the members of that particular community. Existing buildings can be adapted for this purpose. In new developments, or where vacant lots exist, earth-friendly, energy-smart centers can be built. Following are some of the components that might make sense:

* A type of “general store” that would be a food co-op, carrying locally grown organic foods and also hand-crafted goods. An important aspect would also be to have a type of café or gathering space for socializing. Having live music or open-mike events further attracts people to hang out and interact, as well as creating venues for artistic expression.

* Shared gardens, both a community food garden and beautiful reflective gardens to engage the senses and for peaceful contemplation and renewal.

* A business resource center, particularly for people who have home-based businesses who would benefit from convenient access to shared equipment or services such as shipping. These can be relatively small and still serve the needs of the immediate community. It can also be a place for people to have a workspace who are visiting for a while.

* A community room for gathering to play music or have performances, meetings, classes such as yoga, dance, or celebrations of various kinds.

* In artisan communities there may be a desire for a ceramics studio or another type of workshop that people wouldn’t necessarily have room to incorporate in their home space, and would enjoy sharing with others.

* There might also be a desire for a few spa type rooms with hot tubs and space for services like massage or body work, or other healing modalities.

* There could be spaces for after school programs with the elders of the community being available for tutoring, storytelling, or childcare.

Basically, members designing the center would want to think in terms of what would draw them into the community space with others, feel nurturing, and make their life easier and more joyous.

When I think about these spaces I know that beauty draws me in, not just functionality. I suppose this would be the Feng Shui aspect of the design, or what encourages energy to flow there. Buckminster Fuller captured it when he said: “When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.”

The garden aspect of the core center seems key. Personally, I like the idea of rooms or spaces that are built out around a beautiful hub—a garden that people can even walk into and sit next to a pond or small waterfall. Hot tub rooms could be situated to look onto the garden in areas that would have privacy. The café or other socializing spaces would also be enhanced by the garden. Additionally, there could be two garden spaces, one a community garden for growing food, the other aesthetic.

These centers would be supported financially both by membership fees from the community members, similar to homeowner’s association dues, and revenues generated by different aspects like the business center, café, or healing services. There may even be Bed and Breakfast pods adjoining the center for visitors coming for workshops held at the center, or just people who are interested in visiting to experience what it is like to live in one of these vibrant hubs. Additionally, initiatives could be put forward with local governments to give financial incentives for these centers since they would increase the health and well-being of their citizenry. This isn’t out of the question, since this is a common practice with large-scale development.

I also see this being a car-free center with ample bike and walking paths leading into the center, with covered, artistically enhanced walkways in between the different pods of the hub. One of the community services could be little electric shuttle carts for people who couldn’t walk or bike into the center from an outlying area.

To further enhance the healing aspect of this core center, it could be designed in line with sacred geometry principles and include things like labyrinths. There is so much creativity that could be brought to this endeavor and ultimately it is about communities thriving because money is kept local and relationships with each other and the Earth are the focal point.

Please respond if you want to join me in taking this idea further! (Or, if you already have such a thing going!)