Big Hearts - Sherpas Showing Up for Pain

Sherpa - a member of the Tibetan people living on the high southern slopes of the Himalayas in eastern Nepal and known for providing support for foreign trekkers and mountain climbers. (from Merriam-Webster on-line) 

Sonnenschein - German for sunshine.  (Reverso on-line dictionary)

(This 2009 Musing came to mind this morning.  As I sat down to repost it, I happened to look up Sonnenschein and discover it's German for sunshine.) 

2009- For over a year, I’ve pondered the concept of playing with pain and how to honor and feel the sorrows that flow through me and my life in a way that’s light and less heavy while not diminishing what I’m feeling.
 

As a therapist who encourages clients to create community with whom to share, my ponderings haven’t taken me past the pages of my journal. My internal community has been stumped regarding the possibility of playing with pain until recently.

 

During an impromptu road trip, I heard myself confiding the idea with a friend. Although this was a trusted friend, my sudden sharing wasn’t planned. I’m uncertain now what even caused me to blurt out my closely held thoughts and feelings other than we both have been navigating layers of loss, past and present. My friend affirmed the topic merited further thought as we pulled into Hohenwald, TN to partake of the Sonnenschein Festival, a yearly event promoting environmental consciousness and other local causes like the nearby Elephant Sanctuary and Summertown's Farm.

The first thing that caught my attention wasn’t an elephant or the environment, but a local tv station’s mascot. Snowbird, looking a bit alien in the near 100 degree weather, roamed the crowd. We quickly took advantage of this photo op.

 

This was one of many laughs that day, yet the one I remember most occurred at a table where three men sat, promoting learning opportunities with Gaia University. One of the men began to explain the process he uses to help people unload emotions. My friend and I, both therapists, jokingly said we thought there was a potential business in what he described. We created an imaginal business card that read: 

 “Got Baggage? We’ll Carry It. Emotional Sherpas for hire.”

 

Later I realized the profundity of that unexpected interaction.  Pain is lessened as we’re emotional sherpas for one another, not co-dependently thinking we must fix the other, but through showing up and listening, practicing presence as we trek through life together.  

Why is it so hard to call someone and say, “I’m in pain.” I'm an adventurer in travel but this level of sharing involves being vulnerable in a way I'm unaccustomed.  This involved being willing to traverse the space between me and another human being. I was afraid.   

Most of us hold pain closely, so closely it gets left in the dark of our insides never exposed to Sun's light or the heart's light. How beautiful this simple yet profound interaction occurred at a festival named for Sunshine? 

 

Thanks to my friend who sincerely held my idea and feelings as I took a risk, a bridge was created without and within, between her and me and inside me as we trekked between pain and play for the rest of the day.  

Imagine the shift if we became aware of the opportunities that surround us to be sherpas for one another. Imagine the shift if we took the risk to show up, practice presence and share our insides. 

December 18, 2012 - And then there are times when we as a collective are invited to show up and practice presence because an event is forced upon us so to speak.  This happened on 9/11 and has occurred again in light of the loss in Newtown.  After last week's shooting, I am even more convinced of the necessity of our being sherpas for one another and our human kin.  This event offers a stunning, beautiful opportunity for those of us of great heart to hold the sorrow and pain of the many affected.  May all of us of Big Heart consciously allow sorrow to flow through us, our personal sorrow as well as the sorrow of others.  

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 28 June 2009 and 18 Dec. 2012

dawn@imaginetheshift.com 

Rainbow People, Rainbow Bug - Here to Help in the Turning to Love

I awoke last week with this bug on my mind.  I photographed it on a sunflower in my yard in the summer of 2010.

Last week on two consecutive days in two different places I heard Pandora's box referenced. I was vaguely familiar with the story of someone named Pandora, a woman of course, being responsible for opening this box and when she did the ills of the world came flying out.  Eve tried the apple. Pandora lifted the lid.

I had never heard the final part of the story, the part related to the bug.  On both days, persons referenced Pandora opening the box (or jar) one more time.  And when she did a tiny bug flew out, a tiny bug that introduced itself as Hope.

Hope then flew into the world.

This morning I awoke early again with the bug from the sunflower and these thoughts going through my mind:  The bug symbolizes so many of us.  We are the Rainbow people. We often think ourselves  small but we are not.  We are Hope.  We come from the Sun and are of the Sun, the Sun of Love and Light. 

We are here for this time to help with the Great Turning to Love.

P.S.  Here's the 2010 story inspired by the rainbow bug.  A Bug & A Beach Chair-A Return to Wonder

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 17 Dec. 2012

 dawn@imaginetheshift.com

We Are So Loved

Last week at midnight as my time zone entered 12-12-12, I lay on the small spot of grass in my backyard in Nashville under the winter field of stars.  And as I did I felt the stars lovingly lift Earth, drawing her and us into their arms.

We are so loved. 

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 17 Dec. 2012

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Baguettes, Babies & Bread Pudding - Holding Love

(Have been thinking about the beauty of this experience and wanted to recycle it. -Enjoy, Dawn)
This morning I sensed babies as I stood in Provence Bakery with five baguettes cradled in my arms.

These locally made loaves of bread were headed to my kitchen to be cubed and soaked all day in a rich concoction that would eventually be baked to become bread pudding to be shared with others.

Yet in that moment, bread in my arms, I felt kin to the world's mothers, all women and men who hold and have held babies in the bend of their arms.

How is it that we get so far away from our first story of Love? How do we get separated from that first sense memory of being held in loving arms?

Our bodies remember what our minds forget. And this morning standing in the bakery, my body remembered the sense of shared love!

Awakened by my senses, I knew and felt love that in turn was energetically transmitted to those loaves of bread the way parents share love with held babies. That vibration of my love will go out into the world through bread pudding, my gift of food.

I imagine bread pudding, as well as this story, awakening a loving sense memory in all who partake of them.

Bread and story filled (field) of love feed us, allowing our bodies to remember what our hearts and the child once felt.

Remember.

-Dawn! The Good News Muse 15 December 2010
dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Coming later, a video inspired by Butterscotch Habanero Bread Pudding.

The Grammy's & The Golden Ratio - Beauty on Broadway in Nashville Last Night

Just in case you haven't heard, Wednesday night in Nashville acts spanning the musical genres performed in the "Grammy Nominations Live Concert."  This marked the first time the event's been held outside LA. The Tennessean's photo this morning of hosts Taylor Swift and LL Cook J rapping one of Swift's songs made me smile.  (The news doesn't often make me smile.)

Meanwhile also occurring last night a couple of miles west on Broadway, the Parthenon was packed for another event - The Golden Ratio art performances by VSA students that were the result of Hendersonville high school Christian Kissinger's senior research project.  Kissinger's project this fall collaboratively brought together college students, VSA students locally and from east and west TN and long-distance in Athens, Greece!

VSA is an international non-profit creating opportunities for people with disabilities to learn through, participate in and enjoy the arts. VSA TN started in 2002. (I knew none of this until last night.  I just happened to see an internet announcement about the program and was curious. My curiosity was truly peaked while sitting at home thirty minutes before the program I came across a random sheet of paper a year old on which I had written: What is the golden ratio really?  I grabbed my keys and dashed out the door.)

The hour long program covered "The Golden Ratio" in relation to the arts - music, dance, poetry and mask-making.  With the assistance of MTSU students, VSA participants performed at Athena's feet.  (In case you didn't know it, Nashville has the only replica of the Greek Parthenon in the world. Our Parthenon is home to an art museum as well as a replica of Athena, the Greek Goddess of Wisdom.)
 
This was an exceptional site as six teens and young adults with Down's Syndrome performed a dance with a teacher from Vanderbilt's Dayani Center.  Special needs students from Overton High School drummed and used shakers and electric xylophones to make music.  Two profound poems were read accompanied by students signing from Nashville's School for the Blind. And the hour was capped off by the presentation of masks made by VSA students in East and West TN along with a mask made by VSA students in Athen's Greece.  Just imagine disabled students unaccustomed to being included making music, dancing and sharing poetry and art all under Athena's wise eyes.

Encaustic Minotaur Mask, VSA Athens

I have so much to learn about the Golden Ratio or Phi as it's also called.  It is appears in the proportions of the human body, animals, in plants, in DNA, in solar system, in art and architecture, in music, etc.  One of the poems referenced the phi's role in beauty. I'm far from understanding the mathematics of phi but I totally get it at another level, a deeper heart, soul and body level.  I totally get its beauty.

Nashville Wednesday night evidenced beauty not bought in a store, as the Grammy's and the Golden Ratio brought together genres, groups and most importantly people of different walks through creativity. As well-known musicians collaborated and fans celebrated award nominations,  down Broadway students from all levels of education as well as disabled and able-bodied were sharing their creations along with a creation from Greece. Gathered along Broadway we were bearing witness to collaborative creativity and the beautiful knowledge that we are more alike than different. 

The arts create bridges crossing what seems like great cultural divides like nothing else can.

Thank you Nashville, Christian, the Muse and musicians, Athena and those wanting to learn all around the world.  You are part of making this an amazing time in which to be alive!

This is truly Good News!

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 6 December 2012

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

* VSA is an international non-profit founded in 1974 by Jean Kennedy Smith to create opportunities for people with disabilities to learn through, participate in and enjoy the arts. VSA Tennessee was started in September of 2002 and is made possible in part through funding from VSA arts, under an award from the U.S. Department of Education, and generous contributions from our sponsors and volunteers.

Of Guys, Guns and Gas

(Renewed gun legislation talk on Nashville’s Capitol Hill reminded me of the piece below initially written in 2010.  This morning I discovered I never posted it.  So here’s an updated Musing from the comic in my shadow as to something deep that some will find extremely threatening and others will judge as shallow.)

Either I’m just awaking or I haven’t kept up with the news, but many Americans seem to have become obsessed.  Many corporations, lobbyists and politicians fearing loss of power have found a way to make millions and maintain power while stirring our fear of one another as many have become gun obsessed.

As of the November 2012 election, seventeen states now have constitutional amendments regarding the right to hunt.  In 2010 Tennessee joined this group.  Ironically the right to hunt wasn’t actually threatened but the pro-gun campaign was so slick and good that some of my non-hunting, non-packing friends voted “Yes” to the amendment because they thought hunters were about to loose their right to hunt.  

Now the 'battle' as it's called is over whether business and property owners should be allowed to ban employees and the public from bringing guns stowed in locked vehicles onto their properties.

Amidst all this talk of guns, I was reminded of a gun reference from my childhood.  Often when a male member in the family had gas, the phrase was used, “He shot his gun.” I don’t recall that phrase being associated with the females, but of course being a female I may have blocked that out.  And I don’t know the origin of this phrase just that it was periodically used.

This prompted me to wonder if somewhere around adolescence this shooting of the bodily gun gets shut down and traded for a need by many men to shoot a literal gun.

Think about it.  Some folks laugh when a two or three year old 'shoots his gun.'  It's less socially acceptable at least outside the home when these noises come from an adolescent. 

Thus I'm proposing one root of the gun issue is connected to a man having to disown his insides and in turn stifle his bodily experience resulting in the disconnection from his body and a sense of true potency.

Think about it.  Food goes in and gas comes out.  Fear goes in and the guns are brought out.  Guns are brought out because men, the traditional protectors of family, feel unsafe and vulnerable.  Unfortunately still in our society, a man’s labeled feminine when he owns his vulnerability and wants to talk things out.

Contrary to what you may think, I am not anti-guns or anti-hunting.  My intent is not to oversimplify things or make light of serious matters.

I’m concerned about the twisting of truth, epidemic these days as powerful corporations and their lobbying arms try to turn descent gun-carrying, meat-eating folks against descent animal-loving, vegetarian folks.     

Lobbyists and politicians who benefit from this manipulation measure their potency in terms of the billions of dollars they reap by stirring fear.  They’re strategically using these times to their benefit while trying to convince the common man that it’s for his benefit.   It appears they’ve done a good job especially in this time when the American citizenry is blending as never before and white folks especially white men are declining dramatically in proportion to the population. 

Everyone wants to feel safe.  Most folks want to feel potent or good at something from one's contributions at work or caring for one's family.  Many have been convinced they're not safe and that potency lies in guns rather than stepping outside one's stereotypes and comfort zones and getting to know strangers.  

Real potency starts with owning one’s insides.  Until the internal stuff of our insides is as valued as the external of our appearances and looks, we are vulnerable. We will be easily manipulated and made to feel fear until we connect our thoughts, feelings and actions. 

The greater vehicle for increased safety isn't found in a gun.  Increased safety is found in connected body, mind and heart which in turn is willing to relate not retaliate and respond rather than react.

Even though it would increase harmful greenhouse gases, maybe if men (and women) needing to prove their manhood with guns returned to regularly shooting their bodily guns we’d have less violence in the world.  "Shooting ones gun” freely and loudly might be the best start at real self-defense. 

-Dawn, The Good News Muse 6 December 2012

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Bill Murray and Magic in the World's Will Call

Back Story: The "New York Times" December 2nd interview with Bill Murray referred to Mr. Murray as the "folkloric equivalent of a leprechaun or fairy godparent."  The interview prompted me to dig around in my blog for one of the Musings Mr. Murray inspired in 1996. First posted last year, I reread it this morning and was once again stirred.  How are you stirred? 

"We are at this time in history standing in the Will Call of the World."  

When was the last time you felt stirred?

Fifteen years ago today my personally being stirred had landed me in Chicago alongside my partner and three young nephews. Actually the five of us didn't land we had driven to Chicago under the guise of going to museums. Our real intent was about to be made known at high noon.

Christian, Matthew & Kirk before they knew we were going to the game.

At Noon (moments from now as I write) we were at the United Center for a Chicago Bulls game with the Orlando Magic. This was in the height of Michael Jordan's career during a time in which Chicago had a waiting list for those wanting the option to buy season tickets. Three months prior, I had gone on a ticket finding mission and was ultimately promised tickets through a player's grandmother. When I doubted the goodness of this gift she repeatedly reminded me "Ask and you shall receive" and "Honey, you just have to have faith and trust." That faith and trust took us on a ten hour road trip with three little boys none of whom knew the real motive for the trip to our destination.

I was hungry, hungry to create a fond memory for my nephews as they lived through their parents painful divorce. I was hungry because I had allowed my heart to be open and stirred.

Joseph Campbell in outlining the hero's journey talks about how the hero in every story receives an initial Call, a call to step beyond one's comfort zone or cocoon.  I stood waiting for our tickets (my nephews thought we were getting souvenirs) in the Will Call area of the United Center when I heard my name called. The hurried crowd parted as an official came toward me. Assuming I was a con artist, he told me to take my children and leave. There were no tickets for us. I calmly asked him to tell the player that his grandmother said she would be sure the tickets were there.

Tears rolled down my face as my nephews excitedly quizzed me: Do we have tickets for the game? Are we going to the game?

At that moment unbeknownst to me there was another open heart, a heart willing to be stirred in the United Center's Will Call area. Suddenly through my tears I saw a ticket extended toward me.  It's owner had a voice I immediately recognized, a voice that said, "I'm so sorry. I only have one ticket left but I want you to have it. You have to stop crying before you make me cry."

Bill Murray hugged me and fled. There's much more to this story. Suffice it to say, the grandmother, our original angel in disguise, was right.  

What matters most fifteen years later for me is my remembering that heart, my heart that was originally stirred in the midst of such pain.  I want to glimpse, remember, embrace and return to her.

How open is your heart? How hungry are you to be engaged, really engaged in the messy, deep, rich, beautiful, painful journey of this thing life?  How do you experience being stirred? I"m not referring to the stirring that goes on politically these days as corporations and politicians try to stir our fear of one another and co-opt our hearts.  When was the last time you allowed your heart to be opened to be stirred by compassion to anothers need?

We are at this time in history standing in the Will Call of the World.

The Heart is calling, calling to to be remembered through you, through me. How will we answer?

Imagine that Shift.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 25 Feb. 2011
and 4 December 2012
dawn@imaginetheshift.com