"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." Anais Nin

Kiki bomb!

You know the bumper sticker "Be the person your dog thinks you are"? I don't have a dog.  I have a cat and I have no idea who she thinks I am, but i know what she wants. She wants to be petted, she wants fresh water in a highball glass no bowl, thank you it's beneath me...literally. She wants to be petted when she wants to be petted and if you pull out the brush all the better. Oooohh..a little more on this side...

we call her a Kiki Bomb because, at 15 fluffy pounds, she makes quite an entrance when she descends on our chests for some one-to-one attention.  We also call her Kiki Love because she is so...love-starved all the time. She has never deigned to fight another cat..it's not her style, but her sheer size keeps all other cats at bay.

I always know where my heart is by how I respond to her pleading for attention. If I can cheerfully take a minute out of what I'm doing, pet her with tenderness, tell her I love her (all god's creatures need love) and then resume what I was doing, then I am in a good space. i am present  In this moment. If I roll my eyes and pretend I didn't hear her mew or stretch her paw out to me...whoa. I'm too wrapped up in my own shit....literally.

I figure I was a cat once and was probably just like her....very needy. I sometimes wonder if I give her a good life now, will that improve her next life? will she be further along the path to enlightenment if I give her my unconditional love now? who knows. we help each other in this life. That is what I know.

Posted by: brutallycurious at April 27, 2006 21:33 | link | comments
kiki

Gently on my mind

Up late. Just finished, in the last 3 days,  The Secret Life of Bees and The Mermaid Chair, both by Sue Monk Kidd. I read her memoir..Dance of the Dissident Daughter..last month. She was in town Friday night and I drove to the hinterlands to meet her. It was a magical evening.  She is the author I will be taking a class from in September..Writing, Creativity and the Soul and after hearing her speak, I am very excited about it.

It feels like her spiritual evolution has been a little more elegant than mine. A little less tumultuous. But then again that could just be her way of protecting her privacy and making it more accessible to an audience. I don't know. However it happened, she has reflected elements of her journey and mine in the The Mermaid Chair.
In revisiting my own journey through this story,  I come away with this aching emotional stew of loss, discovery, love, and largeness.  I have labeled it unique....but she shows me how universal it is. My story is the Mermaid Chair with a different ending. Which means my ending could have mirrored the book's. I am glad for my own story, and grateful that in this cycle around the wheel of my wounding it hurts a little less. I mourn gently, I am grateful for what it has brought me, and in the emotions, my underlying peace holds me steady. I have fought very, very hard to get here. I don't intend to go back.

Posted by: brutallycurious at April 25, 2006 01:48 | link | comments (1)
emotions, authenticity

from religion to politics....

Uppity Women Unite...it's  Equal Pay Day!

Posted by: brutallycurious at April 24, 2006 21:42 | link | comments

by the way...

Yogaboy has a new name . He practices Lakota medicine work, and last month he received his Medicine name..a reflection of his inner spirit. His name is Singing Arrow. So, that is what I will call him. Singing Arrow. Cool, huh?

Posted by: brutallycurious at April 23, 2006 23:02 | link | comments (1)
singing arrow

I'm going through another energetic, spiritual shift right now..and even as i type that I laugh. What an understatement. It has made it difficult to journal my soul-work lately, but the quietness is also due to the exercises I have been doing as part of "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron.  This process has me journaling 3 pages longhand on paper every morning. Longhand! That took several days to get used to. It doesn't supplant my online journal..but it does seem to diffuse the angst my mind throws at me to derail the creative process, which is the point. Get the mind junk out of the way and allow the creative ideas to float to the top...to pay attention.
 I have been doing it for about 3 weeks, but I am not supposed to re-read it or judge it for the first 2 months.  I will say that it is making me aware of my thought patterns. I usually wake up  with my mind going at top speed with all sorts of negativity or to-do lists. Now, I can just pour it into the paper and forget about it. None of it is important. When I am centered, what is truly important will make itself known and I will do it. Or not. My choice. My mind is just the....administrative assistant. The computer. That is how I prefer it.

The spiritual stuff..geez. I step back and wonder when I will decide to take a break from reading, meditating and discovering. Coast. But I will not. I feel like I am finally coming into my own skin, my own way of feeling...of knowing. I am beginning to remember what my soul has known all along.  My soul is growing large, strong. I am standing in myself. I am full of myself. I AM, and that is enough. Dwelling in the possibilities takes on even more breadth as I  stand in this new soul-space.

This is by no means an end, but it feels like the culmination of the last 3 year's work. I have made it to the top of this mountain and can stand on top and look around, proud of how far I have come. How inadequate are words and metaphors to describe what I am experiencing.

Posted by: brutallycurious at April 23, 2006 22:52 | link | comments (1)
finding my own rhythm, authenticity, artists way