20121215

Love Gun

I shoot all my love out to our world tonight and every night as long as I live. You feel me?

Let's set hard hearts to fire, melting above our burning compassion.
How much suffering? How much horror is echoing back to us.

Do we really think we can shoot others in other countries with impunity?
There is no escape for the firestorm of karmic actions we have let float by under our very noses. And we will be blown about.
Biblic indeed when children murder children, again and again.

How do we stop it?
They had the right idea in Newtown, by gathering
and singing and loving each other so much more.
Only by loving and caring for our children will we be able to stop
the future from crumbling.

The child in me is speaking to the child in you.

You know I reach out to you because I love and trust you.
Let's spread the positive vibrations quick!!!!!
Choose the love.
The time for the gun is past.

Be a part of history by forgiving,
starting afresh without losing roots or heads.

The spring will soon be coursing through our blood
and the darkest night of the year, moonless and long,
will incubate with our love and be born
with light pouring out of her ears.

The brain of a love child is scientifically proven
to emit low levels of gamma rays,
otherwise known as love tickles~~~~

sleep with the lions
dance with snakes
pray with the mantis
love with the wolves
do whatever love asks you to

JUST STOP FUCKING AROUND WITH GUNS< YOU TWWAAATTTS!!!!!!!!!

And with that, good night. No... Good Love.
Cheers to the world we birth! Love her already. Love him already.
Here it comes....
Boo!


No really just kidding. Not about the love though :)





Last winter, I took this picture at about the same time of year. 
We were roadtripping with my son and dear friend Leti.
We stopped at an out of season hotel on the edge of a vast marsh,
the sun, the herons, the horses all reflected in this light.
The new light of the new year.


****************************************** *************************************
7777777777777777777777777777777   \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\




20121123

You are all welcome, no matter your experience


In a taxi, as on an elevator. Stuck together, going the same way. You can or cannot talk but you can’t move while you both move. Both keeping an eye on the movement markers ticking away. The driver has a stuffed animal dog on a pillow on her dashboard. Does she have a dog at home? No. Such intimacy shared yet no names exchanged. Nothing left but money and advice. Here we are. A place to connect.

You start arriving as soon as you take the first step. I realize when I walk up to the theater that this is where I always wanted to be when I dreamed of growing up. Now I am too old to be of here, but as I walk around to the entrance of the Teatro Lliure, my back straightens, my feet grip the floor, my arms swing, casually I can look the part.  Right here, right now, I do belong. 
I will dance where real dancers practice. This hallowed space where they make the intangible visible. Souls are waiting, hoping, counting on them. But us, we here now, can only help ourselves.

Fifty of us make our way in, pretending not to check each other out. How will this workshop bring us together or keep us apart? I see a complicated mix. I love to come to this practice where all ages, all body sizes, all levels, all mindsets are welcome. As long as they are ready to flow. 
There are those who are hard to define, with half-smiles, clear eyes, humming feet- instruments of the oncoming path. My eyes seek them out, they will be my reference points during the journey. They are the ones who will keep me from thinking, who will inspire me to keep chasing around my body until I can finally pounce on the rampaging critic, tie him up tight and pin him to the shadow at my feet, allowing the light to seep unfiltered into my pores, into my veins, up through my spine like a night highway, and out through my ears like a lighthouse. 
If I’m lucky, I will arrive radiating. And though the last step will bring me back to where I started, I will be that much higher on the spiral, that much further out or in, or at least further from or closer to that self dragged by space, looking for time, doing doing doing. But for now I can just be be be. And what can we bear. And how. When the waves come bearing down, how will we ride them?

Bodies are littered across the rubbery floor, stretching randomly. The first rhythm starts. A voice opens the gates. Flow. 
Finding our feet, birthing our awareness to this space, these people, this body, waking these feet that go and go and touch us to the earth, connect us to the floor like magnets or we would float, pushing, lifting, landing, forwards and back, side to side, wide sweeps as the rhythm coaxes, the melody loosens, the hips undulate to the rippling bass, as I swim through dancers, float backwards, dive forwards again and round and around, drowning in thoughts, resurfacing to breath in emptiness, roll, skin my knees, fear, feel the sea of energy rising, pouring into our matrix. 

Then, just when the stretching and the softening begins to loosen us up to the pleasure of being graceful, the second rhythm hits. Staccato. 
Shapes. Angles. Percussive. Pound. Respond. Shield. Blink. Search. Play. This way. That way. Down. Hard.  Up. Soft.  Trust. Stare. 90. 30. 45. 180. 360. You. Me. Us. Them. Sweat. Stink. Chest. Hips. Heart. Pulse. On. Off. Forward. Stop. Back.  Go. Don’t. Know. Don’t. Care. Love. Anger. Hesitate. Hate. Laugh. Shouts: “Breathe! Breathe! Breathe!” Go. Go. Go. Go. And 3. 2. 1. 

Zero. Chaos breaks comes jumbles through the gates, he’s there, they’re wizards, monkeys, snakes who slither, hop, whip hair, lost heads zip up seaweed jungles of thoughts dried up chickpeas rattling in brain will get bingo bongo freaky outy, eyes without goals, angrily   fuck   the air, hold the space captive, smell deep long beaked birds break out calling voices touching fingers closing eyes vibrations see through us. 
“We are all meant to be dangerous,” the voice shouts out. He is powerful, sleek, full of electric breath. His body hypnotizes us, our twin zombies. Released, we land into ourselves and explode with the joy of recognition. Aahhhh, THIS is where I was! Promise, don’t hide again. Be quiet, keep dancing if you want me to stay. I’m here.

The fourth rhythm massages itself into our bodies- lyrical- making us all feel beautiful. 
As we were meant to be. 
“Trust your body, it never lies,” unless it wants to. Now it wants to tell the truth, the whole truth to everyone and knows already what everyone knows. 
Alive, we leap and turn into clouds. She’s a wind. He’s a flower gently opening, She’s a hummingbird, sipping each nectar. He’s a feather, waltzing in currents. She’s a ripple, bursting with widenings. He’s a shore, waiting to be lapped. She’s a me. I’m a loose pebble tumbling through the air. 
We are beings discovering our endless frames of being. We commune by dancing. We experience ourselves by moving. We feel ourselves by being still.

And so, in the final rhythm, we slow down, down, down and listen to our echoes. And finally, our heart the engines, our breath the fuel, our bodies the machines, all quiet down. Down. Down. And we drop into the supply. 
Evaporated, condensed. The journey is that effort to distill, that peeling of useless layers to reveal, that trusting leap into the unknown known, that evaporation of preconception and condensation of what you didn’t know that you knew. 
Or in this case, what you moved that you didn’t move in order to know what you already knew without knowing it. Stillness.



Holding hands, we gather in a circle; only circles will do at this point. We squeeze. Tears, laughter, goodbyes. It doesn’t matter that we separate, we have shared the most important part. When I walk out, the critic is nowhere to be seen, the audience is dancing, the dancers can rest and the theater is just another space. 

Outside, the fog lays thick among the trees, as if the universe was still waxing lyrical, a group of graceful elderly practice varying forms of tai chi on the different levels of the tiered park at MontJuïc. I sit to eat some raisins and chocolate, and to watch. I can almost hear the cosmic orchestra overplaying as lovely rosy white pigeons land on my sleeves, on my knees. They pick raisins from my hands. 
But then they too leave me when I run out. And it also doesn’t matter. I’m on to the next thing and I’m walking away before I know it.

20120210

The Passion of Opa


“Vell, since you asked.” 
Opa looked over at Oma and added: “Zey are old enough to know vat really happened.” Oma looked into the hearth and the shadows of her wrinkles danced in the firelight. Opa smiled at us knowingly, white lips framing browned teeth. Nodding, he continued:
“It really vas ze most extra-ordinary experience in my whole life!” 

Opa sat deeper into his sunken leather chair. His movements slowed and then ceased. His soul lost in the memory vaults of his mind, looking for the file with the full story.
Isolated parts of his body jerked as he re-animated and picked up speed:
“It vas, as usual, a cold afternoon. Frau Schraub and I decided to walk to ze Musikverein to attend ze matinee performance of ze traveling Transylvanian Monks Choir. Oh! You should have seen ze Musikverein in zat time. Gilded balcony boxes, gilded ornaments, even gilded cufflinks on ze attendants! Oh meine gott! And ze perfumes, zey were inebriating. Ve men all sat zere drinking in Midnight Vishes, Eve’s Secret and even some vomen dared to vear Pink Depression. Can you imagine vat a disturbance it vas? But zat afternoon, when ze monks appeared on stage, everyone got sober right avay. Ze humility of ze monks’ poise, se-ven-ty-two of zem calmly lining up in rows. Ah. Ze silence rose and zen fell as ze tritonal vibrations began. I tell you zat vibration shook ze gilding off our teeth! Ve felt as naked as god’s children. Ze polyphonies of ze choir weaved new clothes for our beings to become...erk..”

Opa gurgled and coughed. His eyes wandered off and then a rasping sound came from his throat as it always did before one of his 'episodes':
“assamalaitooaaaA alles consumini nihilihomini balangasuuuooorna!”
He turned to us with his elated rictus, his nostrils sniffing the air but just as suddenly, he frowned. His face chalked up.
“For gott’s sake! Argh! Ah vell, anyvay. Frau Schraub and I left ze Musikvereinssaal feeling like babies! New! Nozzing made much sense anymore so ve vent home and sought ze comfort in each other’s arms and...Anyvey! Ze next day, ve found out ze roof of ze concert hall had collapsed on ze monks during rehearsal before ze night show. Ve vere shocked and really, devastated! And, ve vere not ze only ones. Ve vent to back to ze Musikverein to see vat had happened and saw many ozzers from ze matinee audience vere zere. Ve gazzered before ze rubble like lost lambs and zen, yes my little ones, ve did do it like zey said. Ve did tear off our clothes and begin to sing!”
Opa was exuberant, but getting tired. He lay his head back on the chair’s headrest and closed his eyes.
“All of us! Ve sang and ve chanted, mitout a stich as you say, in ze rude Viennese air, while onlookers desperately tried to clozze us. Ve knew not vat ve did. But ve knew vat ve felt.”
Oma seemed to be smiling, even laughing, but it was hard to tell in the flickering light. Opa thrilled:
“Ve vere one voice! Such power...And zen, ven ve finished, ve all collapsed at ze same instant. Some people called it mob hysteria, some a mass hallucination. But I know! I felt it! Zey vere wiz us! Zey vere good to zeir promise.”

Opa’s skin glowed translucent in the firelight. He seemed to doze off but his familiar rasp creaked out announcing the beginning of another episode:
“Nigaliboo vizaminilooya huaka ni boombala ommm mishka nishkaaaAla!”
Opa gagged and his eyes snapped open.
“Ach! It vas amazing but it had its’ side-effects. Zey called it Monk Regression Syndrome, or somezing like zat. Zey said ve vere experiencing ze remaining echoes of shock from such resonant beings. But ve know ze truth, don’t ve, meine Frau?”
Oma finally piped up with her warbling voice:
“Oh, Opa Schraub, enough meine liebe. Ze story is causing me to..um..you know.”
Opa arched his billowing eyebrows at her and looked back at us.
“Vell, meine lieblings. Know zat you too know ze truth, you must excuse us. Ve have some 'communing' to do.” Opa got up with a series of creaks. He gave Oma his hand and helped her steady onto her cane. Opa turned to us one last time: “Remember, ze situation is hopeless, but not serious," and they hobbled off through the doorway.

We looked at each other and of one accord, snuck up to the crack in the door. As we positioned ourselves, we could hear them harmonizing. They stood there, facing each other, chanting in the candlelight. Shadows grew and stiffened around them, turning first into smoke and then into dark cloaked figures. We froze as the monks manifested and circled our großeltern. The monks threw back their hoods and howled in unison. The walls vibrated with their wailing. Oma and Opa raised their smiling faces to the skies and sang loudly. The monks clawed at their clothes, unfolded their flesh, and began sucking their necks, drinking the vital flow from their song. As the incantations thickened into a feeding frenzy, we fled to hide under our beds, fainting with fear. The next morning we were surprised to wake up alive, tucked in our sheets. We held hands as we went downstairs. The house was silent and smelled of stale smoke and slaughter.

We found Oma and Opa’s bodies in a tight embrace on the floor, naked.. to the bone.

"The Lovers of Valdaro"