There was one full day that my iPod repeated Kelly Clarkson’s “Since You’ve Been Gone” a solid seven times. I pulled the rebounder/trampoline from underneath my bed and with some fierce fist-pumping, seriously bounced it out. In fact, I have an old iTunes playlist dubbed “screw you” which came in super handy for about 48 hours. The itinerary that week was: shock/pasta/wine, bouncing/punching/kicking and then my inevitable green juice cleanse/turn in/give it up/let go/figure it out.
One moment everything was perfect and the next I was jilted; inelegantly, impolitely and unconsciously. I did my best to not add any drama to the “story.” Still the (unsolicited, unanimous) response from my friends at the scene of the crime was clear: “what??” “are you serious??” “not ok” “game over” “done.”
There’s a Sioux legend that states: “The longest journey you will make in your life is from your head to your heart.” Here I had the reverse situation. My head, my friends and even my (usually zen and silent) hairdresser clearly pointed out the red flags and danger, yet still, my silly heart wanted it. Thank you, Kelly Clarkson, for bouncing me straight.
When my own emotional dust dissipated I was left with the question that had come up immediately, and finally the clear-headedness to approach it: How did I bring this to myself? What is it in me that caused this to happen? Am I really that dumb or is there something that hasn’t been cleared yet? And I sank in, I went deep, I unearthed a past hurt I thought was over—a trauma from my childhood I thought in all these years of “woo” I had worked through, and there it was, its sad little face, whimpering, “Hey, I’m still here.“ I pulled her into an embrace of acceptance and love… I hold this. I take responsibility for it. I bring the ugliness to light and so the story changes, NOW.
I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, there is something major and unprecedented up with the world as of late. There is quite simply no one I know who is on solid ground. Looking around at my friends, those close to me, anybody who is really working on figuring it all out whether though yoga, therapy, parenthood (rather than just blindly forging ahead in a chosen surface ignorance) is struggling/unsure/unclear in a major aspect of their life. Monstrous curve balls are being thrown in our faces, rugs pulled out from under us, or we’re stuck in patterns of indecision, restlessness, pain and almost everyone has really just about had enough.
A friend of a friend described it as constipation, which I think is most appropriate. We are on the precipice of something great but we can’t see what that is, and right now it feels like everyone needs a huge dose of emotional, spiritual or financial Ex Lax.
The peeps in India say two things—firstly I’ve been hearing for months that there is a giant energy shift in November, another in March and of course the upcoming 2012 brouhaha. Ok, November (jeez, there better be,) almost here, bring it. They also said this week that if we are in the midst of all of this existential suffering, if we are experiencing more of that than physical (i.e.: ‘ow, my bones are creaking, that f’ing hurts’) or psychological (‘why did he say that, what happens if she doesn’t call me, he/she/they had no right to do that, why are my bones creaking?’)—if those thoughts are secondary to a general “what am I doing with my life/what’s the purpose” malaise, then that means we are “guaranteed” enlightenment in this life and we should be celebrating the uncomfortability. Eckhart Tolle and his three years of misery were referenced. Props went out to David Hawkins.
Regardless of all that, we cannot know something as true until we experience it. Therefore, I am not offering you the information above as something I know to be upcoming fact. I’m not a fortune teller, I’m a downtown philosopher with a hole in the big toe of her sock and Lindt sea salt dark chocolate on her tongue, who can’t even fast-forward six hours to make a commitment for dinner tonight. I write it here, so that if it might happen to give you comfort, then that opportunity is there.
The last months, well, years, of my life have been consumed by an enthusiasm for this knowledge; by a desire to share what I have seen and learned most simply and humbly because the quality of my world is so much more excellent having been exposed to these things. The rewards of living a conscious life, again, cannot be known until experienced. Are we going to reach “enlightenment” in this life? To be honest, I don’t really quite care. I’m here. I show up. I’m present for my friends. Even in pain, I am clear-headed, this is all I know to be true. This is what’s real for me.
I was very recently asked by a skeptic, what happens if none of this stuff turns out to be true? What if there is no huge shift in 2012? What if humanity stays the same? What if this is it? And by the way, “you’re beautiful, smart, sweet… I don’t understand why don’t you really go and do something with your life?”
I wish I could say with authority that I chose this… this artist’s life, which is now morphing/merging with an even more amorphous (less practical, less definable, let’s be honest—less “marketable” artist/philosopher life.) Would more credence be given to what I was doing if I were made rich by doing it? In America, it sure would. But we don’t just live in America. We live in a realm bigger than this. I didn’t “choose” to be here, I just followed my heart and my intuition and know it’s not “me” doing it and the joy, the beauty, even in the pain, even in the difficulty, reflecting back at me both pre and post Kelly Clarkson bouncing is something I wouldn’t trade for anything. And I have exquisite taste, if I do say so myself, so that’s no small statement.
I didn’t choose it. It chose me. And I choose to have the faith that this is where I need to be at this moment, and that this moment is perfect. And to my friends who are so outrageously beautiful and inspiring, I say hold fast. The faith isn’t only for myself; it’s for you, for us.
Because even though I can’t lavish the people I love with the material things of this world in the way that I wish I could right now… even though things might be messy and muddy and mascara smeared… even though I’m a tiny woman with a laptop on a chaise in a Village studio, I might be tiny, but I’m not small. None of us are. And so we hang on to that faith, in each other, in something greater around us because we trust the beauty that is our authenticity. We trust that even when it looks ugly, that by choosing to live an integral life, the beauty is on the way. When everything falls apart, we find the courage to be brave, to be raw, to be present, to be real. And that to me, is the most important thing of all.
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