With Purpose

Have you ever had the feeling that you're wearing someone else's skin?

For me, it's a body sensation akin to borrowing someone else's clothes - they are size-comparable but they don't have that "right" feeling the way our own clothes do. I find that I have this sensation when I'm going through change - change through my own choice or through no choice of my own. Currently it's a combination of the two!

In general I'm not a control person. As I go through my life, the only thing I feel the need to control is me. I do, however, like to have my way and being the only child that I am, I have a tendency to exert control or manipulate my environment to get it. I know that none of you have ever worked your own brand of magic to get what you wanted!!! Say a prayer, cast a spell, gather some "insider" info and BOOM! (How many did I offend with that one? Feel free to comment, please.) You got it and boy, it is fabulous! Yea, you and I always get what we want. We do?

Ever feel like you never get what you want?!?

Sound ambivalent to you? On the fence; can't decide what I really want to write about today?? Nah, just looking for a temporary close - get to go teach Nia!!!

Back Soon...

Test

Ok, folks. I've lost 3 posts this week!! They weren't brilliant but pointed.

Test run...

New Beginnings

I just finished taking the first non-fitness test in over 20 years.

This is huge.

For me. For my children. For everyone I am close to. For everyone with whom I interact.

For Nia.

I am grateful for this step into my next life.

I am happy and grateful to be stepping in to re-invent myself once again.

This time is for me and for my life.

I step into this new art vision with the intention to live fully into the human soul I am and to love wholly.

I am still challenged to pay the bills on time, to show up and follow through with what I promise and to be relentless in finding out just what I'm capable of and where I belong and desire to belong.

Working to scrunch 350 medical terms in my head in 2 weeks left me little energy to write - to think of much else. The rest of the semester should move at a more manageable pace. Besides, I'm positive I will be inspired often and in huge ways by the details of our next chapters: the Digestive System!!

I can just feel it, I've got you on the edge of your seat again!!

Tools for Transformation - Nia - Life - Love and the Duodenum!!

Stay tuned...

Valentine's Day and Physical Love

Happy Valentine's Day!

Today I am in my body more than ever!

This weekend and today, in my classes, I have and am celebrating the physical me.

This morning in class we danced the love and the privilege of being in our bodies.

We, our physical bodies are a marvel; a miracle and each day lived with awareness is a wonderous event.

We are Earth, we are Stars, we are Air and Fire. We are Life and Death. We literally hold the cosmos in our hands.

All of this and we are Feeling and Loving and Growing and we are Possibility.

We are desire, playfylness, creativity, passion, joy, anger, grief, compassion, forgiving, hopeful, and enduring.

We are Wonderous!

All of that inspiration brought me to this. While not new, I had not shared these thoughts aloud: I do not teach my Nia classes so that I will not gain weight.

I do not teach my Nia classes so that I will not be mushy and weak.

I teach my Nia classes and I dance every day because I Love it! I Love the way each move feels as I birth it into shape and timing. I Love the sensation of shifting from one move into the next. I Love the way the music tickles my nervous system and teases sway and reach, push, pull, extend, contract, ooze, melt, bounce, flow, pulse, hang, lift, lower, open, close, curl, and uncurl* from my muscles. *(and the zillion other verbs we cold come up with given enough time!!)

I teach and I practice because it invites my self, in all its forms (body, mind, spirit and emotion) to release and express in a safe and constructive way. Debbie Rosas Stewart uses the expression "feel to heal". I see no other way. I must feel it all (using my trusty volume control) to come out whole and healthy.

Today, I celebrate my Body, my Life and my Dance!

The Sacred Animal in Us

Playful Joyful UnselfConcious Passionate Willing Aggressive Scary Tender Fully Alive Sensual Hungry Connected Vulnerable Passive Hunter Prey

W I L D

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Spiritual Warriors Apply Here for Great Work

P.S. Thanks, Andrew for introducing me to this book!

Spiritual Warriors Apply Here for Great Work

I'm reading a book that's taking me all over the place in terms of what I know, what I think I know, what I believe and what I have to learn about our culture and the masculine and feminine spirits and roles within our culture.

The book is The Hidden Spirituality of Men by Matthew Fox and this is a very brief taste:

"A job provides a paycheck and economic survival, but the work we are meant to do which may be the reason we are here on this planet, will provide more."

On being "Spiritual Warriors" and "the Great Work":

"Such a great work will require great spirits, real warriors, and it will require steering our moral outrage, and our powers of aggression and competition into more positive directions. The Great Work is 'not a role that we have chosen. It is a role given to us, beyond any consultation with ourselves... We are, as it were, thrown into existence with a challenge and a role that is beyond any personal choice.'" (Fox quoting Thomas Berry)

"Noble warriors are called for."

This book is sub-titled Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine, but this book is a beginning step for all of us seeking to balance our bodies, our minds, our emotions, our spirits and our worlds.