The Eternal Gypsy...

So my delightful cottage is up for sale - soon I may have to move again...

Of course, I knew that would happen eventually. There's no sustainable water source here, not enough land to plant fruit trees and have a horse, and it belongs to someone else anyways... sigh.

The first song I ever wrote was called "Gypsy Woman." It popped out, unannounced, in a voice that I'd never heard before - the beginning of this medicine journey of song... Since then, I've often understood God, or Great Spirit, to be a Gypsy Spirit - belonging to none, always moving and changing, flowing on and on through every living thing... I understand that this song is not my "own," nor any of my possessions or life choices, not even this very body - it is simply a momentary manifestation of this great and changing Spirit, blessing us with its Presence.

The night I learned the house was on the market, I was in fantastic spirits - knowing the way of the universe would sweep me into the next perfect thing. But I also cried - sorrow for feeling continually displaced in this world, longing for home roots where I can plant my nettles and meadowsweet in the earth...

But then I remembered - when I remember my true and lasting connection with God, with this Gypsy Spirit within, when I am at peace within the everchanging oceans and storms within my own heart - then all these external changes cease to affect me. And I am at Peace. :-)

So I thank God, and thank Grace, for always showing me the way...

A New Spin...

Hahaha - whooda thunk it...

After all that contemplation and renunciation last year, here's a new spin (one that makes you go "duh") on the old hair/India/lice issue...

I'd convinced myself that it was some great letting-go, that it was foolish to fight shaving my head, that it was a great lesson in how attached I'd become to my glamorous, goddess self...

So a friend says the other day, "my perspective is that it seems like you were giving away your power, going off and chasing a man to India - and catching lice in the very place you were looking for him.

Right.

So all this "great time of renunciation" thing? Fuck that! (although it's surely been very good for my inner strength) - it was simply the foolish consequence of chasing love where it was unrequited. And then lingering too long after I'd discovered that...

And yet, surely the beauty of renunciation has been deep. Surrendering ever into God's hands, God's plan... But now I see that I can surrender also to the power and grace that flows thru me - This is God, flowing through my hair, through the beauty of my dance, through the riversong of my voice. So I surrender to beauty, to sensual love, to this sweet and sacred earth, to friendships that nourish like dew on my sexy skin.

And I renounce loneliness, timidity, holding-back, heck, even renunciation itself!

And I've learned this: when we give away our power and grace to that which doesn't support us, even more than we know can be lost or taken away. But this only empties us to fill up again - we do emerge stronger. The rage that comes clawing out of our hearts, raising our cry to dear God - "I am Worthy!" - this is a sacred rage, the power of Shakti showering us with her cleansing rain...

The Old Spinster...

I never wrote this personal piece last year when I was writing a lot about the period of renunciation I was in "Om Namah Shivaya," "Pancakes and Ice Cream," "Naked," "Death by Shiva," etc... - but it's what triggered it. Perhaps on this personal level you'll understand...

I had been relentlessly infatuated with someone who didn't reciprocate the feeling (anyone else here relate? :-) One day, in one of those epically beautiful and heart wrenching scenarios, I sat alone as he walked away and left me with that mournful longing in my heart, a wolf howling to the moon for her pack. But what was I to do but honestly acknowledge that he wouldn't (couldn't?) fulfill this emptiness in my heart??

So I sat, on the banks of a slow lazy river, lonely and sad. I write to myself, "it's comfort I wish from him - 'yes, you are loved' - but it's comfort I can only receive from God."

The sadness and tenderness I feel in this moment soften, and I comfort myself... I know I can remember God, and find fulfillment in that. I know to some extent this man was protecting himself rightly from my desperate grasping. On the other hand, he was afraid and unable to love...

Some days later, I write a song of forgiveness and gratitude for him, "I love you, like the sunlight loves the clear sky. In your presence, I become Light, and Infinite..." I share the song, and invite him not to take it "personally." But he does, throwing up a veil of separation even in the face of unconditional love.

But it is sung, offered freely, forever.

...
Later, sharing with a friend how this experience finally (if painfully) unearthed this amazing unconscious thought: "if only (when only) I find the right partner, the right relationship, then my life will be complete." A part of me has been fearful of this silly vision of being alone and old - that crazy spinster with her cats. Funny thing is, I tend to prefer my home aloneness. Except of course when I'm sharing time with friends, or making love, or laughing with children, or...

But nonetheless, you can see now why I felt it wise to go through a period of "renunciation" of sorts - to unravel and unempower these clinging thoughts, and to simply find peace. And indeed, it's been now a couple years since I've been in a love relationship... Finding contentment, santosha...

Only this week have my heartstrings been pulled again (as opposed to my luststrings - those have been pulled many times) - though from afar. And so at this precipice, this tender heart wishes to remember the absurdity of that unspoken thought, that something is missing, that I am incomplete. Ha! From out of fullness to allow my heart to open to connection if/when the time is true.

A deepening of wisdom has arisen in these months and years of doing-without. I don't even feel capable of doing things in the same, absurd ways. There's a depth and caring for life that has grown beyond the borders of my petty personal longings... But I still see the possibility of a foolish heart arising anytime...

Hmm, I think I've opened a can of worms - I could write endlessly on this subject because I don't yet have any answers, as I'm still living the questions! So I'll stop now and set it free....

The Balance of Things...

Mmm hmm...

It's moist and slightly overcast outside, a blessed treat in this arid high mountain town. The air smells of earth and blossoms. A meadowsweet shot up right outside my door and its powdery white blossoms a transcendent bliss of ephemeral cloudlike blooms. Heavenly...

Only here since November, I didn't know quite what to expect. At first I thought, "oh, I probably won't do any gardening." That's like a whale saying it might not swim for the year - hahaha!

So poco a poco little plants and seeds have found their way to the ground, clearing away just enough space for them to shine amidst the wild cacophony of weeds and meadow.

The grape arbor sheltering the front of my house is so abundantly overflowing it feels as if it wants to reach out and fill the whole sky with its fullness. Green green and green! I pick and pickle its leaves for quinoa dolmas and have a garden party so I may sit back and enjoy for a few moments with friends, then sing to strains of angel harp and tabla into the eve...

Slender little tomatillo plants drape their fledgling fruits like delicate japanese lanterns, while nasturtiums still yield deep red flowers though the plants themselves look like windblown trees aching up through desolate mountainscapes - the garden bed itself is rather loamy - next year I'll amend that!!!

Amaya, my 8 year old neighbor, and I stung ourselves intentionally on stinging nettles the other day (it took about 20 tries each with the newly planted starts!). I planted them in pots because given my gypsy heritage, I never know how long I'll stay in one place - and wouldn't want to leave a surprise legacy of wild stinging plants for the next unsuspecting tenant...

Sigh. How I long, one day, for a plot of land I can fully dig my roots. Though I know I am ultimately just a fleeting dream and will pass away as any wild seed gives itself to the wind...

Still, I care for the land wherever I may be, tending to the balance of things...