May13

Inbetween Time

Posted on by
Standard

After a rip roaring weekend of 7 little 7 year olds tearing about the house, after blowing out the birthday candles and stuffing the sleeping bags into their too small bags, after picking up unbelievable amounts of Barbie paraphernalia, wiping down sticky counters and talking for hours with the parents, I am beat.  And positively reveling in the silence and solitude of this first school day of the week.

My post this morning on FaceBook said “I want to make like the cats and nap in my bed all day”.  So far, I am making good on my desire.  But there has been a growing sense of melancholy.  Of things just out of reach, and a kind of resignation to what is.  Will the healing arts institute I want to create materialize?  Will I be able to get back to NY for the summer?  Will I EVER have a lover again?

I am tired of fighting for what I want.  Tired of feeling like I should do more (and eat less!).

I got up and did a load of laundry, made hibiscus tea, cooked some brown rice.  Then the power went out.  Did I mention my pocket book was stolen right about this time last week?  I am back on my bed.

There are so many pieces & threads out of my control.  My new mudra is to sit with my palms open, face up.  Not reaching, grasping, pulling toward me. Nor pushing away, giving up, shrugging in defeat.  I am doing what I can each day to meet my destiny.  Working on the business plan with my partner, generally making good food choices, opening my heart to the idea of not going “home” to NY for the summer.  Opening my mind to an ongoing life here in San Miguel… or not.

According to the astrology, this is a kind of  ”inbetween” time. We all are experiencing lots of unexpected changes, plans falling through, surprises.  The impossibility, or at least inadvisability, of making long term plans (and counting on them).  And a concurrent letting go of the structures of the past.

Big stretch. Purrr. Time for a cup of tea.  Strong & black with cream and honey.  Like somebody’s Grandmother used to make, and maybe still does.

Mar6

These Two Things

Posted on by
Standard

We are back from our San Francisco trip, and from seeing the butterflies in Michoacan.  It is Spring here in San Miguel: the jacarandas are just starting to bloom.  Although chilly at night and in the mornings, midday can reach a temperature of 85 in the sun.

Traveling always makes me think about the life I am living.  Where, how, and why I am living the particular life I come back to.  After this round of travel, I find myself with a two pronged focus: connecting with the divine and getting fit.  For me, they are intimately related.

I find myself with the intention to dust off and fluff up my light body.  To make food and exercise choices that will help me shed excess weight; physically, emotionally, spiritually, psychologically.

It’s been through my body that I find my understanding of, and connection with, “God”.  It has been through dance, through sensuality, breath and movement in nature that I experience the divine most vividly.

So, this month sees me meditating and doing yoga, walking and hosting the archangels.  On the back burner, for the moment, is work, making money, cooking up the next big thing, planning for travel or offering a workshop.

Motherhood is the stove upon which all these burners rest.  The idea is that by taking this month and focusing on these two things, I relax into my role as parent, I allow visions of what I want to create to bubble up, I stop willing and pushing to make things happen, instead to allow my destiny to meet me half way.

Feb11

Spicy Rice and Yogurt

Posted on by
Standard

I am about to share with you one of my favorite things.  You know that question about the one food you’d hope to have living on a desert island?  This is it for me.  So simple, yet, so satisfying.  And pleasing.  And addictive. The kind of thing you think about and just have to have. I think it’s the pungent, utterly unique spice called asafoetida, or hing.  It is also known as “stinking gum”, “devil’s dung” and “food of the gods”.

For my friends here in Mexico reading this – you might have to wait until your next trip to the States to buy some, and even then, you might only find it at a health food store. It will stink up your suitcase, maybe even the whole car, but it is so worth it!

The recipe is from a great cookbook called “The Ayurvedic Cookbook” by Amadea Mornigstar and Urmila Desai.

Ingredients:

2 cups cooked brown or basmati rice

2 cups yogurt

1 to 2 tbsp sunflower oil (I use coconut)

1/2 tsp. mustard seeds

1/2 tsp. cumin seeds

1/8 tsp. hing

1 tsp. sea salt

1/2 tsp. black pepper

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 hot green pepper (optional)

Garnsih: 1/8 cup chopped almonds (optional)

Heat oil in medium sized sauce pan. Add mustard seeds and cumin seeds. When mustard seeds pop, add rice and yogurt.  Then add all the other ingredients (except almonds) and mix well. Heat to boiling point. Serve hot.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

Feb9

Honesty

Posted on by
Standard

Did you ever say something that you couldn’t take back?  Like telling your very sexy, slender Japanese boyfriend that he just didn’t have a member that could satisfy you?

I have.  And I regret it to this day.  As much as I am a believer in radical honesty, it has its drawbacks.  Once said, a thing cannot be unsaid.  Feelings get hurt.  One’s self perception might be altered.

But I value frankness.  I keep joking with my girlfriends that I will have to move to Germany to meet a partner who has the same depth of conviction around this value.  When I was visiting a friend in Berlin a few years back I found myself urgently needing the internet to change a flight.  The internet cafe was closed, so we asked a neighbor in the building if I could hop on his computer.  God bless his German soul, he said no. He was watching a movie.  We could come back in the morning. Not a people pleaser, he!

I also spent time at Zegg Community.  Wikipedia says this, “ In particular, ZEGG focuses on exploring innovative approaches to love and sexuality and it has developed and practices the use of tools for personal expression and trust building in large groups, including the ZEGG Forum.”

In a Forum, you could, and were invited to, speak your heart & opinion about your experience, including your experience of others.  It would be heard and held by the community. If you spoke directly about another, they had the chance to share their perspective.  It was all welcomed, none of it judged.  Stephen Cope, director of the Kripalu Institute for Extraordinary Living, speaks of having parts of ourselves in exile.  I think cultures (and sub cultures) as a whole have parts of experience in exile (hatred, anger, sexuality, negativity, etc).

A friend of mine studied at Humaniversity in Holland.  It was started by Veeresh, a disciple of Osho.  The programs explore the very edges of being human and dynamics of human relationships.  In one exercise, a person sits in the center of the group, and people are invited to say what they don’t like about them.  After that go-around they are invited to say what they do like.  Amazing.  Imagine there being room in everyday life for such honesty – the good with the bad.

Many people have written to me in appreciation of my frankness and transparency in these blog posts. This is a risky choice, and I am so relieved people can receive and appreciate my communication.

Feb6

Intense

Posted on by
Standard

My daughter is intense.

She speaks with her volume on “high” no matter what the occasion or environment.  Like we are at a ball game even when one on one in our living room.

And the movement.  This child is in constant motion.  She eats standing up at the table, rocking side to side.  Remember the movie “Up” with the dogs who were very focused and intent, until they were not.  Until a cat passed by. Well, everything seems to be a “cat” for my child.  Homework is interrupted by a dozen different dance moves.  Breakfast broken up with frequent cat pettings.  Bed time wash up with flips and jumps and more dance moves.

She speaks over me when I am talking.  Interrupts me constantly. And with her coach strength voice, she is hard to ignore.  Even harder to educate with manners.  She picks her nose publicly, even daring to eat what she finds.  Not caring very much what others think.  She is rebellious, strong willed and opinionated.

This kid will grow up able to take care of herself.  She will be one of the 10 people to get food rations when hundreds are hungry.  She sits in the front row.  She likes, I mean really likes, to be first in line for things.  Who is next to the birthday child blowing out the candles, ready for the first piece of cake?

It reminds me of the older women in line for bread at the bakery in Madrid.  They’d lived through a war and very hard times.  No messing with these black clad, stocky women pushing their way to the front.

Wonderfully, and this is an excellent development since being in Mexico, Ava now makes sure her best friends are with her.  She grabs the boogie board of her friend to pull her along and catch the wave.  She hustles her cadre with her to the front of the line, and grabs her friends’ hands to get wherever they’re going first.  My hope is that as she gets older, her circle will expand.  That she might fight and push to save, say, humanity.  Or the Earth.  Or Women. I am trying not to judge, but to see the seed of perfection.

And, to keep my sensitive soul relatively balanced, I take time for quiet and stillness when Ava is in school.  Imagine a lizard parenting a shrew, for example. Or an owl a dog.  We have our particular challenges.  As someone once said of my sister, “She is a force to be reckoned with!”

Feb2

Anchor

Posted on by
Standard

An interesting thing happened when I was recently freed of parental responsibilities for a 10 day period.

The first few days I missed the beejeezus out of having Ava around. Instead of feeling liberated, I felt abandoned.  I realized being a parent is now part of my identity.  It shapes my days and gives me a sense of meaning.  It influences my social world utterly.  Going to the organic market on Saturday, where we normally spend hours – the kids running around, the parents talking – I felt naked and vulnerable.  And it occurred to me, this anchor of having a child is also a crutch.

By mid-week I was involved in a totally different social scene.  I went on a date.  I was out after dark!  I saw first run movies in a theater.  I connected with women who do not (yet) have children.

At the end of the week I took a solo trip to another town. At this point I WAS feeling liberated! I remembered parts of myself  - the one who did solo travel in Ecuador, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, the one who moved to New Zealand, who worked on films, who lived in a loft in NYC, who got her Spanish residency.

I was almost giddy.  I woke up at 9am, and rolled over to sleep some more.  I got coffee and lounged over a late breakfast.  I wandered for hours looking in shops and talking with people I’d meet.  Time was unstructured.  My thoughts were my own.

As much as I feared reentry into motherhood, it has been sweeter than I predicted.  Ava’s light is bright, and she wins me over easily.  The first evening I lay with her on the couch and she put her skinny arms around my neck, telling me she missed me.  Her joy infects me.  And doing things for her (like a recent rock climbing adventure) opens worlds for me, too.

My intention is to craft spaciousness and delight into the world of mothering. To ease up about on my expectations for her.  To increase the personal pleasures of my own life.

One can cast anchor in a beautiful island cove.

Feb1

Solo Travel

Posted on by
Standard

There is something so exhilarating about solo travel.  My senses are heightened and there is no hiding behind friend, child or partner.

I went to the lovely town of Patzcuaro about two and a half hours southwest of San Miguel de Allende.  It is an old indigenous-colonial town in the state of Michoacan a mile or so from Lake Patzcuaro.  The lake is in a basin surrounded by old volcanos.  It is beautiful.

The town itself is a bit like this: imagine the architecture of an Austrian village with the vibrant street life of a third world culture, and somehow a flavor of the wild west.

Sunday the streets around the Plaza Grande are closed to cars so that kids and families can ride bikes, laugh, stroll. Such a high quality of life.  Like many others, I  got an ice cream (I chose the diablito flavor: salty, sweet and spicy tamarind & chiles ice) and sat in the park soaking up the sounds & sights.

The day before, on the crowded ferry to an island in the middle of the lake, three scrappy (but talented!) musicians played for the 45 minute ride. People were making requests, singing along, laughing, clapping. The musicians wore cowboy hats, had gold capped teeth, faded jeans and embroidered belts.  Wedged between people, I inhaled deeply the incredibly intoxicating scent of humanity.  I was the only guera (pronounced huera, and meaning “blonde” woman, or gringo).

I figured out where to eat, what to see, how to ride the vans that are a hybrid of buses and taxis.  Travelling solo is such a high for me. I am at turns excited, scared, hopeful, anxious, curious, open, nervous, willing. Everything is new, and I’m called to be awake and aware.  I often feel a tremendous sense of awe and wonder at this amazing planet and the people who inhabit her. God/Source/The Great Mystery is everywhere.