Retreats and Party Girl skillz...

I wanted to share some pictures from an event which I helped to plan a couple weeks ago. Actually I was on the planning committee for the larger Community Retreat of which the event was part. Mt. Madonna is a conference center, so we work to provide a retreat space for guests and for the visitors who come to the temple and grounds. Community Retreats are a newer thing (this was the 4th) but they are a time for the residents to reflect and spend time together. This time, the retreat schedule included a workshop with a trainer from the Center for Nonviolent Communication; an art project where each person could create a panel of a giant prayer flag; a community work day; a group dialogue session focused on mission/vision and the future of the community, with input from our resident teacher and with a few readings of original documents regarding "community" from around the time of the Center's founding; a partner yoga class taught by the new resident yoga teachers; and a ritual yagna.

The whole retreat was a big success, but for my part, I wanted to do a dress-up dinner that was catered since we NEVER get catering and we almost NEVER dress up! The idea was a re-TREAT...I mean the thing is called a retreat, but so often it means more work, and what I wanted was a celebration of sorts. So, I got a budget and I organized a full-on Thai feast, preceded by a half-hour of mocktails and jazz piano. Yum and fun! It was a lot of planning but I had a lot of help on the actual day, which is good because we had just one hour to totally reorganize and decorate the main room! We hauled in and screwed together a bunch of tables and decorated them and then, after everyone ate, we turned the chairs toward the stage for a showcase of talent from the community, like a fancy supper club. The talent portion (which I didn't organize) was great because the people that usually perform did (there are SO MANY talented people here!), but some community members that had never expressed themselves until that night did too. There was singing, spoken word, skits, a comedy game, all kinds of stuff. It was so sweet, it came toward the end of the retreat, and people were buzzing for days after! As one of my friends put it so well, the retreat was like a renewal of vows between a couple that had been together for 30yrs (the age of the community). If the retreat was the renewal, to me the dinner night was like a community-sized date between people that know each other well, with a deep understanding, but who get a fresh look, an intimate new perspective on this person they have loved so deeply...like the feeling you get when you look over and realize how amazing and handsome your partner is all over again, and all dressed up just to spend time with you. And how special and grateful that makes you feel...

The whole community retreat thing is right up my alley--I love the self-reflection as a group and the open dialogue process and deepening relationships with the people around me. But I also loved the opportunity to organize the dinner event because in it, I could sense a little of the energy I love from the House music scene, that special jolt when you know the night is going off and everyone is sharing in the same commonality. So, that night, I felt like I got to bring a little of myself and my history and my love for festive social events--!woo hoo!--and offer it up to this place as a gift, as my talent in a way. And I realized the funny thing about a talent is that it's just a gift! It's easy for the person who has it! It's no thing! It just wants to be expressed! And it seems to want to be expressed for the people you love so that you can feel like yourself in your fullest way around them. It felt refreshing to be able to offer it and not be attached to the idea of that role--or ability--or even talent, if I want to think of it that way--defining me. It was just one more thing being exchanged and shared that night, how cool...

So, here is the link to the Slideshow for the full collection of photos.

(Continued from an earlier post)
In general, I preferred the days at Burning Man over the nights. During the day, the natural beauty of the desert sparkled, creating a picturesque frame for each person and scene. My friend and I tried to get reasonable sleep throughout the week and on Sunday, our last full day, we awoke at 10am. We woke to our 3rd RVmate packing everything up to leave, a day earlier than planned. We considered. But this wasn’t right! We had plans with new friends today, and we wanted to watch the Temple burn tonight! We hopped on our bikes to return the furry coats and headscarves we’d borrowed the night before, after the temperature had dropped drastically. This would give us time to think and plan—maybe we’d seen enough during our 4 days and could let it go? We’d had some full days already I guess…

Cruising on my bike, wind fresh in my face, I look around at the scene. The Man burned the night before, so today, I can distinguish the people for whom last night’s party has not yet ended. They mingle happily, sometimes obliviously, amidst the others. I witness a few meltdowns this morning as well; I watch as 2 dedicated people try to reason against frustration and alcohol and lack of sleep manifest in the form of their friend, who pounds her fist on a truck bed. Instead of anxiety, this scene sparks a funny realization of the variety of expression so appropriately related to “burning”. Your skin burns from the alkaline in the sand, your eyes burn from lack of sleep or the fine dust in the air; you may melt down from time to time; you slather on sunscreen in order not to burn; you are paralyzed in amazement as countless ideas are sparked in your consciousness, and of course, you can’t believe how hot and raw people look, a smoking sexiness everywhere.

The burlesquey, circusey style that epitomizes the Burner theme confused me until I experienced it for myself. I used to think the whole style contrived; I still think there’s something odd about dressing the part for something billed as nonconformist and intended to inspire creativity (and I count myself guilty for this by the way) but there are a couple things I learned about this. First, in any social gathering, any culture or society, there exist mutually-created social norms, rules and customs, and in this regard, Black Rock City is a city like any other. Secondly, I found that the style is not only functional, it also exposes the raw, wild west energy of the experience and its severe location. Exposes how, out of the dust, a fresh society throbs to life, burning the sky and then packing itself up and leaving town with the feathered flutter of a cast-off costume. And how, just beneath this pulsation, Bradbury’s ghost lingers about the nooks of the city, portending a coming death. It is an intense but brief encounter, far from whatever role you may be required to assume in your normal life, and there is something darkly sexy and dramatic about this.

Just as you accustom yourself to some feature of reality, it may change form completely. So, every day has its own quality, its own feel. Well, Sunday morning was—forgive me—absolutely Divine. The energy was crisp, quiet, clear. The thumping bass and choppy music was absent and I could hear bluesy tunes, a touch of reggae floating in the distance. It felt like a Sunday, clean and fresh, with a spaciousness that felt different from every other day that week. Out in the middle of the playa, silver ribbons of sand whipped up into the sky like angelic tendrils.

Still riding our bikes around the Esplanade, we float past gorgeous house music easing out of the Philadelphia Experiment camp, and tears start to fill my vision. That was it, my mind was made up. From then on, it was a matter of details. We set our intention and watched as what we needed—a trike to haul our suitcases back across the playa, a ride to our next destination, a place to sleep for the night—materialized before us. What else did we need? Now we were committed, and I felt no fear; once the decision was made, I was optimistic and useful. As everyone reminded us, we couldn’t be in a better place—we would have no problem finding what we needed. They were right ultimately, but not without a few bumps and not without a cost.

So, we collected our gear, traipsing back across the playa behind men in skirts schlepping our stuff on bikes. A mild dust storm kicked up, so we took cover in an art installation inside a metal camper. Colorful lights greeted us from chandelier-type clusters, sea-anemone objects which, if you got closer (and I’m sure that was the artist’s intention), you noticed were a huge variety of sex toys. They were absolutely gorgeous, beads and dildos of all sizes, lit from underneath. We stayed out the storm and promised to come back at night, when the installation was expanded and “even better”. (It was! Giant flowers of light grew out of bins placed around the camper’s opened doors, softening the night’s darkness.) After one more stop—this time to dance an Irish pirate jig in exchange for a rum snow cone—we reached the other side of the Playa and we were free! Our Sunday could begin…

Ode to Community Life

After my vacation to Burning Man and my visit back to SoCal, I returned to Mt. Madonna and looked around (and it really was “around”, because I live in a dome now!) Standing in my new living space, I had the sensation that I had truly come home. I’m not sure if I've been so content or so clear about my intention to be in a place as I feel right now. I’m generally peering into the distance of time or space, planning my next move, rushing through, or lamenting the loss of a past version of my life. I really miss and love my friends in San Diego—I know we have something special and unique, our own community of music, dance, art; emotional support and intelligent conversation; spontaneity, silliness, and fun. That life is irreplaceable and I’m not comparing because it’s not possible! (And anyway, it still exists.) But sometimes I have loved it too much and have slipped too far inside and I know that too. I have a deep-seated hatred of waste, so I cringe when I see my life and my environment turn to excess and I know I can only hold myself responsible. So, if life at Mt. Madonna had a cheerleading squad, I’d be on it right now. And to clarify for those who’ve asked as well as for myself, here’s why I’d praise it:

1. I feel safe here. I feel safe physically, emotionally, financially, and spiritually. This is numero uno…a precious quality that allows for growth and facing anything that comes up head-on and with confidence. My dad pointed out that up here, I don’t have much stress. I argued that really it gets quite frenetic and stressful here at times (it really does!), but then he clarified himself and said, no, I mean, you don’t have many worries there. And it’s true. There’s always food, shelter, beauty, and truly supportive people around. It’s abundantly safe. And feeling safe is required for growth.
2. OUTDOOR SHOWERS! I might miss this the most when I leave Mt. Madonna. During the first shower I took at my new Gnome Dome, I watched as the mist evaporated up the canyon while 3 deer watched lazily from their seats just off my deck. Another shower I used had its platform nestled in a small circle of redwoods and the shower head attached to one of the giant trees. And there are more! I can’t tell you how beautiful, sensual, natural, and sexy these showers feel. They make my day.
3. I have interactions with animals in their natural habitat every day and probably a really unique experience once a week or so. A few: I watched a small skunk overpower a big raccoon once, running so fast into the raccoon that the skunk’s tiny back feet came off the ground! And once, while driving just outside the Center gates, a deer literally flew over the hood of my car! He didn’t dent it at all, but left a visible mark in the wet dust across my hood showing his trajectory. Or just the family of wild turkeys—parents and miniature babies in tow—that traipsed past my house almost daily in the summer. I like that they remind me that I am sharing my home with other creatures which live totally different lives. I am not watching them in the space we have given them, but instead I am allowed to live in peace in my own life next to theirs…it’s humbling and sweet. It’s community life on the grand scale.
4. Interacting with people of all ages and discussing all manner of topics with utmost regard. I have discussed mescaline with an 83 yr old woman; the sadness trees may feel with a 4 yr old; the details of listening and letting go with your romantic partner with a guy with whom I would not even consider a close friend. I can easily sit down to breakfast and launch into a deep discussion about anything, and deep is my favorite conversational quality, other than silly, which also happens pretty frequently, usually out of the unprecedented social situations in which we find ourselves here. I mean, you sort of have to make up the rules as you go because you don’t usually have prior experience with people that communicate primarily with a 2x3” chalkboard, or prior work experience with crews that have no idea what they are doing (including yourself) because burying dead foxes just hadn’t entered the work resume until now. It requires that you jump in and do things you aren’t particularly good at (as far as you know), which is really important for me as I get older and more prone to shying away from unfamiliar things and thus becoming rigid.
5. The intensity. Okay, this is a mixed blessing at times, because you really have to remember to take time out to nourish yourself and process or else you can burn out. I feel up here that there is no running away…the things I normally use to distract myself from the deeper issues broiling away just aren’t as available up here. So it’s me and the skeletons; me and the shadows; sometimes it’s even me and my light and radiant self…and even that is intense! But I thrive on intensity (perhaps we all do? Maybe we all seek divine and mind-blowing experience—it’s the realness we crave…) and I can find it here, safely.
6. The view. It is absolutely breath-taking sometimes. No, it is almost always breath-taking. If it’s not the silhouettes of the giant redwoods, it’s the soupy fog lifting, or the curving coastline and the town of Monterey 25 miles away, or the blinding brilliant sunset streaking the sky coral and purple and magenta. Seriously. I feel blessed just walking around.
7. The smell of the sandalwood incense wafting way down from the temple and into every nook and cranny. Before I came here, it was one of my favorite scents. I almost cried once when it worked its way into the dish room and up my nose, over the smell of the dish detergent and bleach I was scrubbing away with. It seems to be everywhere, even when I can’t see it.

Hell Realms for the Spooky Season

I participated in the Soulmate Trading Outlet at Costco within the Nectar Village at Burning Man ("Bringing top quality soulmates at warehouse prices to the playa since 1998.") It was a really clever way for people to come together and interact in a meaningful way. Whether a true soulmate was the end result was sort of not the point; the “applications” you filled out, the “waiting room” conversations, and the interviews by the members of the camp all figured to be an amazing project in itself and so much fun.

One question on my application asked me to tell one of my secrets. I had to think about this. Well, of course I’m not going to give away something too personal and plus, without some prompting I can’t think of anything that would be juicy to a stranger—a secret seems better when you actually know the person and its context. I mean, almost everyone’s cheated or violated a sacred contract, everyone’s lied, stolen, intentionally hurt someone, probably done things they don’t mention but assume everyone else has done, right? (woohoo, how’s that for revealing some of my secrets?!)

But for some reason, a line popped in my mind that didn’t really answer the question, but seemed to qualify as a secret because I think it may be a fact people don’t know about me. Or maybe I just thought it sounded poetic, who knows? But the line that popped in was, “I love the darkness almost as much as the light. ALMOST.” Looking back now, I think it is actually a mantra I could live by. Or have already perhaps.

The key word, of course, is almost. In that word, years of exploration, years of trial and error, years of stubborn naiveté, years of tears and growth and love and a dawning understanding of the texture of my own shadow—in that word, years of learning by crawling around in the dark have been possible. And I wouldn’t trade it. I wouldn’t caution against learning the boundaries of your person, the limitations and edges which you fear to cross. Those places where you feel yourself unnecessarily suspended and outstretched, overextended. It’s important to know your absolute limits, so that you know you’re safe to navigate all the way up to that point without hesitation. There’s confidence and real strength in that.

BUT BUT BUT. But “almost” means that you go close, but you have to love the light more. Have to. “Almost” means that it is imperative to respect that limit. And that’s because the other side is slippery. It is seductive. On the other side of that line, the rules change and a new reason takes over, one that is noticeably incorrect, uncomfortable, but completely unchangeable. You find yourself agreeing to things you hated before and wondering when the promised payoff will appear. You have to keep walking deeper just to get the clarity to walk out…or so you think. So you go deeper, and it doesn’t get clearer, it gets darker and more confusing and more twisted. It pulls you with a dense and sticky gravity. In this room, people all seem to be very accommodating, they seem to be holding out exactly what you were looking for when you came in. But then you realize they are holding out their hand to take what they think you can offer them. Suddenly, when you can’t hand them what they need, they don’t trust you at all and turn quickly away, searching for a quicker, more open hand. Hungry ghosts with pinhole mouths and distended stomachs with holes in the bottoms look at you with vacant eyes. It’s dangerous here because trust and loyalty are cheap commodities, traded concepts, a mask people wear to see your hand. Have you seen a cornered animal? Scared, untrusting creatures are dangerous creatures. Eyes dart desperately, including your own…

My friend loves vampires. I personally love choke holds and the beauty of a half-dead visage…have always loved heroin chic, dark circles, pale skin. I couldn’t tell you why, at least not with any rationality. Something darkly beautiful has always colored my image of death. Well, my friend says she’d like to meet vampires, and I argued against calling them into her life because I’ve met a few and they are not so great to have around, sucking the life from you and all. She wants to meet the ones in Ann Rice’s books she says, because they are so beautiful and interesting. (Yep, that sounds exactly like the ones I’ve met…!)

But the scariest vampire I’ve met is the one inside. It is the Ego. It is driven by a desire for immortality, seducing us away from the nourishing light of the sun; beautiful, interesting, vapid and empty, casting not even a reflection, neither alive nor dead, exactly where your ego would like you…scared and hungry…all the better for pushing you around and feeding it. It whispers that it will take care of you forever; that unlike the rest of the world, you can live forever with no consequence, with no pain, with no hurt or sadness…but the thing to know about Ego is that its only form of communication is deception. It convinces you that your weakness will kill you and calls you into what feels like strength, but is only more darkness.

I believe it’s important to catch a glimpse. We should meet our shadows and welcome them, should recognize those fatal flaws that are actually the beautiful parts about us, provided they don’t exist in excess, wastefully littered about, pushing out the other parts of us. I hope we dabble in darkness, and then get the hell out.

Burning Man journey #23

Before I went, I’d heard that the first day or so of Burning Man could be totally overwhelming, total over-stimulation of the senses and one’s reason. Perhaps if I had arrived well-rested, maybe simply driven the 2 hours from the Reno airport after a flight from somewhere, I might’ve taken it all in with a giggle. But the journey that preceded our arrival—an arrival all the more noteworthy by the corps of totally nude official greeters at the entrance—was an exhausting adventure in itself and not something I was expecting. Luckily, excitement and delirium lend a special energy, so I was alert as we pulled up to Black Rock City on Wednesday afternoon.


Our arrival was actually the cap-off of a Tuesday 7 AM start to meet my friend and have tea and see the pieces she’d made for the trip (a gorgeous feathered headpiece we would work into a costume somewhere), and an initial grocery stop and car exchange; then a trip to pick up an RV with faulty locks and a scheduling of a locksmith for later that day… to a shopping trip to Costco with our patron who was gifting us this trip; then to hours of my friend and I packing and loading the RV with all our camping supplies, costumes, alcohol and food, wigs, boots, survival supplies (vinegar to neutralize the sand on our skin, nasal spray for the dryness…etc), our trusty bikes, and an industrial size box of glow sticks; after a jarring call from a friend who just learned he has a brain tumor; after making several last stops to drug stores and having one last real shower and shave; after stuffing down some food and then finally leaving San Diego at 10PM and driving 16 hours—sixteen hours—through the night and through freeway closures (can they do that? Just shut down Interstate 5? Apparently yes!) and detours and getting lost and several CDs and yes, come morning, caffeinated cocktails (whoever wasn’t driving had to navigate the bouncing mobile kitchen and flying marinated mozzarella balls—of COURSE it was the half gallon of oily cheese that had to take flight and crash onto the linoleum!—to make drinks and snacks for the driver and the third person if they weren’t dozing, a job in itself. SO…on that first day, the first moment driving into the temporary city felt slightly surreal. I soon learned that the surreal is a state to which one can adjust and accept as normal, and after 4 days in the desert, I wanted nothing more than to embrace that dreamlike reality. I’d enlist the help of strangers, with an optimistic but realistic faith, to stay longer if I had to. And I did.


On Wednesday evening, I hopped on my decorated bike and skimmed the surface of the city, got my bearings. The Esplanade was crawling with bikes, music wafted around on the breezes, and people cruised around in various levels of nudity, costumery, normalcy, and body paint. Giant sculptures soared above our heads and I picked out a few clever theme camps to use as landmarks. It was similar to my imagined picture of it, but on a much larger scale. But the vast emptiness of the center and the distance to the other edge of the city completely blew me away (we camped at 3 o'clock and I could just make out some huge structures across the playa at 10 o'clock). I heard that this year’s population was estimated at 47,000 people, and it must surely be one of the most intensely energetic, innovative, and unconventional collection of people to gather together. My eyes were open.


My experience of that week is still trickling in, conversations and images and even fresh realizations filtering through a processing device in my being I guess. During the week itself, I was impressed and stimulated and sometimes amazed, but something about being there provided me the resources to take it all in without much overwhelment. I’ve always understood that the adaptability of humans is one of our greatest abilities (as well as our most crippling quality) and as the week’s energy slowly grew, my ability to withstand its harshest elements grew with it. On Saturday, after riding through thick dusty sand to an art installation a ½ mile or so out into the vastness, we encountered a complete dust storm. After lowering my goggles and adjusting my bandana around my nose and mouth, we set off for the clubs and bars in the city’s outer ring. What the hell else would you do? How many opportunities do we have in our modern lives to test our reserves, to weather extremes with the intention of enjoying art and freedom and creativity? Should we sit in the RV? Leave early and sit in traffic? You may as well sip on a beverage someone hands you (no money is ever exchanged at Burning Man), meet some other gritty freaks, and dance to house music in a dusty tutu and a bustier…which is what I did...

to be continued...

Pure Fire

From the mountains of the Central Coast of California, where I'm living now, I've watched handfuls of fires pop up unexpectedly. Sometimes they are distant but still visible--a volcano spurting a surreal coal-like orange glow over the ridge behind Monterey (over 80 miles away) in the huge Basin Fire in June. Others seem to lurk around nearby, closing roads and stinking up the air like an ashtray, but never showing their faces or flames. They move fast, OR they might move slow; they change direction, they jump; they burn in areas unreachable and thus un-fightable; they ask you to stay on alert and pay attention but they give you no solid information to work with. I've found that the most frustrating aspect of fire energy is the "hurry up and wait" feeling: my car sat packed, a potential evacuation hanging like a drawn out farewell, making all normal activity or conversation seem useless, or forced, or repetitive. All we could do was check in on the current state of the fire, discuss it from some new angle, and carry on with the day. I kept thinking about the phrase "putting out fires" which is often used to describe the mode of operation in a dysfunctional system like an alcoholic family or a corrupt political system. It's a panicky survival--just a low-grade maintenance, no rich or meaningful life-living. I'm familiar with it, and I hate it.

I noticed, too, how different it is from the extreme blizzards or hurricanes I'm used to on the East Coast, where everyone knows it's coming and then buckles down and waits it out until it ends. Those affect whole towns, states, regions. But the fires here are unannounced and unpredictable, inexplicably hopping around and swiping off parts of the earth like a layer of dust. Strangely, in that, something very clean and total is felt when the fires blow through because something about it requires that you just give in to impermanence and chance.

I wrote this poem seven years ago, after experiencing my first wildfire, and my first winter, in California. I've gotten to know the intricacies of fires a bit more, but this first impression still holds.

Purifier
On the day of the eternal sunset
I awoke,
ashes softly falling from the sky.
A pink haze greeted my eyes
and I couldn't tell you where I was.
My first thoughts trickled out...
purposeful destruction...
pointless devastation?

I woke up
but it seemed the sun was going down,
and my sleepy headed, east coast reality
read:
A Southern California Snowstorm
in the skies that morning.

Collecting my logic,
I rewrite a new story
and I choose this to remember:
That December is still a time to die,
to leave our preconceptions behind.
Cause if it's not the cold, the heat'll get you
down,
choke the air from your throat
and leave you lonely--
yet proud!--
that at least you have yourself
(and no small task at that...)

Sometimes our hope for warmth
becomes the winds on a raging fire.
So, are you ready
for the death and dying?
For the purifying
-Heat-
that melts your need
to search
and learn.
It says give up and start again.

It wants to shed your skin.

Revolution

It is a lazy Sunday afternoon. It is the kind of contented afternoon that feels rich with meaning early in the day, so that the rest of the day is gravy…borrowed time…just extra hours intended for enjoyment. Earlier today, I traded a dish shift with one of the members of the yoga community in which I live so she could have her Sunday morning off. Normally, I don't work with the crew of people working today, and there is always a different feel, a different dynamic depending on who is working and the schedule of the particular day.

The shift was smooth, and I sailed, smiling, through my sink of stainless pots and pans. My mood was encouraged by the selection of traditional gospel bluegrass and the singular sense of home I could hear in the crisp, modest voice of the songstress. One of the crew, Vishwanath, had put the music on for us this Sunday morning. Vishwanath is an older man; I don’t know how old, but he has a full gray beard and long gray hair. He has taken a vow of silence, so he communicates via a pocket-sized blackboard and while he has a boisterous laugh and pleasant demeanor, I consider him a serious man. We chat for a bit (I speak, he writes) about music and bluegrass and then I return to the dish room for the final task of mopping.

So, I am in the process of mopping, and notice myself thinking, “Uh oh, what if I’m not doing this right?” (By the way, the amount of thoughts you can have on just ONE shift, WHOA! Not a good place to try to escape from yourself!) And then I think, “I should slow this down so that Vish will see that I am a good worker (and approve of me).” But I catch myself--trying to impress someone I respect. I realize this with some humor, and tell myself that I just need to slow it down and benefit from the practice myself. I am not trying to rack up brownie points, I came here to deepen my spiritual practice. These dishes, this soapy puddle are my Karma Yoga--selfless service with no attachment to the result of one's actions. And here I am cheating (myself) by trying to get the instant gratification of Approval! And what a booby prize approval is...will I just sit around hoping someone will recognize my goodness and offer me salvation...? At this point, Vish taps me on the shoulder, showing me his chalkboard which says, “Revolution has to come from inside.” Now I’m speechless, so I just nod.

I turn back to my mop, but with tears in my eyes. (My tears…always popping out whenever Truth stings me unexpectedly!) I think for a second how special this place is, but really, I wonder if amazing things are always happening around me and I only need to change my routine and slow down to recognize them.

Young swinger

I really love linguistics and especially wordplay. You know—puns, pidgin, double entendre, esoteric languages between friends. I could nerd out forever on this stuff and in fact, I do. My friend, Andy, is an eager wordplay teammate (in fact, the name of this post came from him) and we like to make up words like beleaguerent, for that variety of drunk who is displaying both the angry belligerent and the beleaguered victim at the same time. Or he might say something like, “Let’s get down to the pool so we can relaxificize ourselves!” because somehow it’s funny to make words longer than they need to be. (By the way, I learned that this process was especially rampant during the Revival days in America when attempts to describe the glory of Lord Jesus apparently necessitated the hijacking of grammar. I learned about this practice on San Diego public radio’s “Away with Words” but I cannot remember the actual word for it. Please help me out if you know what it is!)

SO, the experience I’m about to describe was such a treat for me! But first, have you heard the word "unadulterated"? Well, I looked it up and it means: pure; undiluted; without qualification, ie: milk can be described as unadulterated. But when it's used to describe fun, I have devised my own definition. I discovered the meaning of the word on a summer evening bikeride, warm flowery air at my face as I careened downhill in bare feet. Ever since that night, I have understood “unadulterated” to mean: "not tainted by the rules of the adult world; pure childlike expression." Ahhhhh...remember unadulterated, good time, butterfly in the belly fun??

Well, I babysat a 4 year old today. I am pushing this little boy on his swingset and he is having that kind of fun--laughing in a giggly, spazzy way that is part fun and part fear from the height of the swing.
He is SO HAPPY to have someone to push him on his swing!

Then he looks at me with a huge grin and big brown eyes, his arms and legs twitching with the sensation, and says, "My peepee feels exciting that you're here!" I have to ask him what he said to make sure that I heard him right and then of course I burst out laughing.

By far, my highest compliment this month! And spoken by someone blissfully unaware of the rules of adult etiquette as well as basic grammar. Unadulterated times two.

Lovers

Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy,
absentminded. Someone sober
will worry about things going badly.
Let the lover be. ~Rumi

If intimate connection could be a religion, I would try to worship at that church. To me, most things pale in comparison to the richness of truly getting to know a person—the geniuses, scars, contradictions and all. I am embarrassed to say that I am only just understanding the ins and outs of true love (no dirty pun intended here, although I think the vulnerability required is just as naked, just as raw and messy). I’d like to accept love in all its confusing glory, instead of telling myself I am crazy for having such feelings, or worse yet, trying to fit it in to some small box where it could live happily ever after with my preconceptions of problem-free friendships, stable marriages, and parents who never disappoint. It seems instead to require both warrior skills and meekness. And lots of faith and patience. And a commitment not just to be there for another person, but also a willingness to confront the demons when they block the path, even if those demons happen to be inside yourself instead of the person you love (where we would prefer them to live).

So, of course I found my way to Jalaluddin Rumi. Perhaps you know of him—the 13th century Sufi poet whose firey love poems make Sade seem cold-hearted by comparison. He’s been read for centuries, but he’s enjoying a rebirth recently in the West (see esp.Coleman Barks). Lately, his words are ubiquitous on cards and journals, and they are still just a sampling of the tens of thousands of lines of poetry he wrote! But the detail I appreciate about Rumi is that his work and his life were inspired by a relationship of spiritual proportions. In simple but gorgeous language, his poetry describes a love affair with a mystic, a wild dervish named Shams-e Tabrizi. Ultimately, the story of the fateful relationship between this rogue sage, Shams, and a trained scholar and theologian, Rumi, is really the story of transcendent union. It describes a spiritual path, and the necessary death of the ego that accompanies the movement toward divine union with another. And it is no quiet storm; it is a violent disillusionment, a ripping away of the mask of false identity. As another Rumi scholar, Andrew Harvey, describes, “Rumi had to be shattered by Love to become Love itself, emptied and broken to be filled and remade, burnt away…” Their relationship was certainly unconventional, but the themes are universal.

Desperation, let me always know
How to welcome you
And put in your hands the torch
To burn down the house. ~Rumi

I know there are many paths and roads and means to enlightenment, to the realization of our true nature as Divine creatures. I’m trying them all! I’m at least considering them. But I can really relate to Rumi's portrait of love, which is not without its bloody fangs. And mostly, I like the idea—and I believe it—that true intimacy, truly loving, truly being present for someone can be the path itself.

As Rumi says, “Let your teacher be love itself.”