Returning “Home”

Tags

Conscious Living, Courageous Vulnerability, heart path, journey, patience, Soul to Soul, spirit, travel, Understanding, universal heart, Vulnerable, well being, Wonder

I have traveled many a place wandering far from home. As a child I dreamed of exploring this world to experience places and wonders unimaginable. The work I have chosen has provided that opportunity. Yet, when I started down that road I had no idea the magnitude of what the choice to make a decision to follow a heart fulfilled by movement would be. In fact, most people discouraged that thought as I threw caution to the wind and decided I must choose that which I knew nothing about but that fulfilled my heart.

It has been a journey. Full of both highs and lows, it has been a tumultuous ride. A ride I would not choose to do any differently. It has not been what I had dreamed, but it has been more than I could have possibly imagined. Yet, I realize my actual dreams are still ahead of me since all that has been happening in life has only been the preparation for what is to come. I have not always been ready for my dreams and therefor my life has been teaching me, training me in the ways in which I will be well prepared to handle the success of what is to come.

I realize this as I return to “home”. You see in all my travels and friendships on this journey I have landed in several places where my work has allowed a space of comfort and connection I could have never imagined. Yes, my original home is with my family in the suburbs of Chicago with family and friends who were incredible to me throughout my time growing up as a young adult. This allowed me the courage and confidence to make decisions to move myself along a path of following my dreams. My mother and my friends, my dear loving friends, held my hand with their love and their belief in me even when I had no belief in myself.

This love is home. And now I have found myself in a second home here in Denver. This place has become a space of creativity, love and light. It has become a place where I find comfort and support, graciousness and gratitude as well as love and admiration. In the creative space of the studio students give their all to us allowing an expression of the human condition through movement while being vulnerable and trusting enough to let us expand their movement vocabulary and understanding of what is possible in dance. This is a sacred space of returning that allows us to feel as if we are “home” when we return to the space of DSA.

And once the work is done in the studio, we return “home” to a space where we are loved and cared for for all of who we are and all of who we want to be. We are embraced with laughter and light, with warmth and with friendship, with food and with care. We return “home” to people who embrace us with their arms and with their hearts opening their home to us and sharing their stories with ours furthering the understanding of relationships full of love. This the ultimate humane condition. I am always amazed and honored when returning with some of the same people and some of the new people who have been gathered in the creative net of my life.

For this, I am grateful. For this I send an appreciation of love and light and most importantly, laughter. Laughter has always been the one thing that made me realize how much I love life and love the people in my life. If we have shared through laughter, we have shared through love. This is the way I prefer to show love I guess; the way in which I do love and express love. The loving light of laughter through humility and vulnerability to laugh at myself and at the experiences that bring a better understanding of humanity.

I am reminded of this as I return “home”. I am reminded to reach for more when I return “home”. I am encouraged and inspired when I return “home”. And this time, I realize it is time to reach further and to have the courage to make new pathways and perhaps leave “home” once again for even more fantastic journey’s and explorations. I understand that through this loving laughter it is time to take off to place unknown once again. It is time to “Depart from Platform Unknown” to places unknown with the courage and faith that life will be unfolding underneath my feet, guiding the way under the light of the waning moon.

Coming “home” after building a home has reminded me of my humble beginnings. And so I begin again for another shift in life to move forward into the direction of my actions, and the actions moving me forward into directions of the unfathomable. Thank you family and friends from Chicago. Thank you “family” and friends of Denver. Thank you for being the platform from which to catapult a whole new way of being.

Nothing is Useless

Tags

Balance, brother and sister, compassion, cultivating love, equality, harmony, love, necessary, open eyes, open heart, peace, seeing oneself, seeing others, sustaining, Understanding, useful

There is value in everything. However small something is, it has a significant reason and purpose even if one does not see it at the moment. If we find ourselves too busy to honor something or someones value, we know we have disconnected from reflection and ceased being present.

Yet, despite usefulness of all things, we must remember the balance in our lives as we do not need all the things that fill our lives. Many of us have too much and therefor are being suffocated by the things that overcrowd our internal and external space. If we find ourselves weighed down by this clutter, we know we have lost our faith in simplicity and efficiency.

It is important to recognize the value in all things and in one another. In acknowledging the importance and usefulness that allows us to see one another and the world around us in a much more sacred and interconnected way. This type of seeing allows compassion and understanding and reminds us of the balance and equality necessary for the very system of sustaining life and cultivating love. We see ourselves as equal; brother and sister.

In order to see these things, we must free up the space around us so that we might free up space in our hearts. It is this space that allows us to recognize the light of the universe inside one another and appreciate the value and sacredness of each individual, each being and every living thing. The more open the heart, the more light we see. The more light we see, the more gracious our lives.

There is Room

Tags

brotherhood, compassion, getting along, love, open hearts, open minds, peace, Understanding

You know, in my heart of hearts, I believe there is room for us all. There really is. There is room for us to express ourselves sharing in discourse and perspectives allowing for understanding, compassion and empathy. There is room.

 

There is also room for us to share the same space and great one another with love and an open heart. When seeing one another we see the light of the universe that is the same light within ourselves. We recognize that although we may come from different places, we are one. There is room.

 

There is so much room that we are forgetting to go to the very place that we can find it. Ironically, we are searching outside of ourselves looking for others to open spaces for us so that we can easily walk through. We are searching for a place that is so far away from us out there that exhaustion and fear take over disabling the heart and mind and enabling hate. There is room.

 

The place where there is the most room is deep within. Spaces so vast we cannot even comprehend its gateway to a spacious infinity. Inside exists a lighted pathway leading to what it is every human being is looking for: Love. The love of oneself with the acceptance of all that one is, is one of the most freeing and liberating places of all. And if we are free, truly free from the tyranny of anger, fear and hate, we can love ourselves fully this allowing ourselves to fully love one another.  Within, there is room.

 

The Depth of Space

Tags

Ballet, bliss, breath, class, contemporary dance, courage, Dance, depth of space, Jazz, joy, Modern, moving mountains, path, peace, practice, Soul to Soul, spirit, spirituality, Understanding, yoga

In the space between the spaces is an ocean of understanding. In the breath that fills the lungs, there is compassion. In our practice we must remember to allow for space despite not knowing how much more there is to achieve. When we diligently practice with a beginners mind and a committed heart, space opens up. Time becomes our ally as we ever expand our reach both externally and internally. In this expanse, we find freedom.

 

This range of motion of both the physical self and emotional self allows for release and rejuvenation. We rehydrate our bodies while replenishing our spirit. Our ever-reaching hearts are allowed to beat the breath of our souls finally becoming congruent as the body enjoys the joy of itself in motion. We are built to move and our hearts built to run.

 

Yet, this is just for today. Tomorrow we must again climb that mountain of practice and once again ascend with humility and awe. We have never been here before because it is this day, this moment. Never have we seen this time and never will we see it again. It is not enough to have felt the joy once; the challenge is to strive to feel it again and again. Memorize your sensation. Know where it comes from and how to access the depth of it. Know the body as you know your soul, intimately and with a sense of respect and reverence.

 

In this daily practice, inside the humility and exaltation, find the replenished heart and then share it with the world. When you realize how much strength and power lies within the space within, when you understand that you are able to move mountains by gesturing the center-line as long as you possibly can, you will know you are free. You will know you are truly alive by your mere ability to reshape your being and your spiritual bliss. Once you know this, share it unconditionally. Give all you can without expectation and love because you can.

 

 

 

Fulfilling Our Humaness

Tags

Ballet, Believing, compassion, Conscious Living, contemporary dance, courage, Courageous Vulnerability, Creative Flow, Dance, Dream, faith, hope, humanness, journey, light, love, trust, Understanding, universal consciousness, universal heart, vulnerablitiy, well being

Dare we land on our dreams? Dare we fulfill our innermost desires? Dare we find our true bliss? I say dare because most of us fear the things we want the most. Do we actually have enough courage to walk in the light of success and absorb it with humility and gratefulness?

Many are deterred by the sheer work that it takes to even follow along their own heart path, let alone thinking of what it might take to navigate the turbulent world of success, once you get there.

Is it really that much easier to acquiesce, falling back into the line of people marching in a circular direction, round and round, numb and not feeling, simply to accept mediocrity? Is this what we choose rather than fear we might just get to the ridge of our dreams, peak over and say to ourselves, “is that all there is?”

If this is our thought process, conscious or unconscious, there needs to be some serious rewiring of our thinking. Even more so, we have some serious cultural and social shifts we need to address along the way.  If these are our thoughts, perhaps we might want to start, one small step at a time, figuring out how to steer our boat into the wind. Perhaps it is time to find that winds current and hoist the sails so that we might start moving into the direction of our dreams and moving into the direction of the action.

In order for all of this, we must ask for help. We must be vulnerable enough to release our desire to manage and manufacture. We must let go of manipulation and greed, and we must accept that perhaps our dreams might even be larger than we could have ever imagined them to be.  Wouldn’t it be funny if we were not even visioning big enough, and that that might be the incongruence holding us back?

Then, what if, through allowing ourselves these things, we were able to land on our dreams? We would touch down in a place though impossible and yet now a reality. Then as we stand there, we do not ask ourselves if this is all there is, but we acknowledge our gratitude for the journey, the lessons learned along the way, and realize that this dream is what it truly means to fulfill our humanness.

Shifting of the Ages

Tags

choice, Conscious Living, Courageous Vulnerability, journey, Mindful Action, Soul to Soul, spirit, Understanding, universal consciousness, universal heart, well being

As we move from the age of Pisces into the age of Aquarius we must also be mindful of making monumental shifts of our own at the micro level. At the Macro level, there will be a change of consciousness in our spiritual relationship to the greater forces in the universe. At this change we too must shift our consciousness and spiritual connectivity to accept the sacred again both in our own beings as well as in the beings with which we share this great journey and planet with.

It is the time of weaving our words with integrity and whispering truth so it soon becomes something we can believe in again rather than run from. We have ignored the reality of our complete being as we have hidden from the truth in order to activate a false sense of power and worth in the world. Truth has lost over the last few thousands of years to the dominating culture of power, repression and selfishness.

Now is the time, as we are at the shifting of ages, to weave our words while we whisper them into the world.

A Cycle No More

Tags

creation, Cycle, process, resolve, return, soul, spirit, Understanding

We pass so that we might bloom once more. We cycle again and again, each time deepening our process and our spirit.

And when we make our final pass, we live so deeply that our beauty transcends the necessity for us to bloom anymore.

Comprehending a Cycle: Yin and Yang

Tags

Child, Conscious Living, Cycle, Dream, Earth, Energy, Existence, Female, Lightening, Male, Rain, Sky, Thuunder, Understanding, universal heart, Yang, Yin

I listened as you roared across a turbulent black and blue sky.

Your voice heavily crashing as you ravished the space above my dreams.

Sending slivers of jagged white rods, your colliding energy opened the gateway drenching a parched desperate landscape.

 

As I inhabit the space between earth and sky, I recognize this communication and relationship between you my father and mother; one releasing and the other absorbing so as to nourish my flesh and bones.

 

I am grateful to be your child, able to take part in your cycle of love and existence. For that you exist allows me to dream. And because I dream, I understand.