Never did sit down and write last week…not a moment to spare. The magnitude and intensity of a workshop like Hardcore Vulnerability requires production skill I’ve been honing for a decade. This pinnacle event delivered a significant chunk of healthcare, now rippling out on multiple levels in many communities. In a possibly futile attempt to help you sense that rippling, I offer a rendering of the personal territory traversed. Just multiply this story by 90 participants, including dancers from Canada, Mexico and Japan, to imagine the extent and profound value of revelatory reverberation.

The territory mined for teaching is usually pretty personal…some classes more than others. I sit with stuff like “well, what’s moving through me?” or “what truly is capturing my attention lately?” or “what’s happening in the communal field that is pressing?” It’s a gift, this vocation, never fails to engage me, never a paucity of material, the creative well feels bottomless, alive, teeming. This last Sunday was no different.

You gotta love living in California. Where else would you receive a birthday invitation where creating your own drum nudges out pin the tail on the donkey? Just being a smart aleck…I’m thrilled. And, as if that is not cool enough, there’s a choice of elk skin for calling in patience or buffalo skin for calling in abundance. Well, I only had to sit with that a moment because it was clear pretty fast. And apparently, out of eleven drum-making guests, I was the only one that felt called to summon in patience.

Disclosure: no better phrase wraps up the continual ways we seem to be drawn to working on ourselves than “working my s—t”. So if that vernacular bugs you, maybe you want to pass on this rant.

This just happened. I swear. I’m sitting down fireside to write about hardcore vulnerability. The doorbell rings. A burly black man stands at my door. We look at each other across a mile long cultural divide, though it is only a glass window. Me, safe inside my toasty home. Him, outside…wet with cold icy rain. I take a full breath and feel my vulnerability here. A deep interior soft and supple melting that includes an abiding compassion. It seems to far outweigh the fear I know I should feel. A woman, alone at home.

Grateful sitting fireside last night, my girlfriend cooking dinner. Friendship “can be sustained over the years only with someone who has repeatedly forgiven us for our trespasses.” ***  Thankful for her immutable presence in my life, I sat quiet, peaceful, heart and soul awash with considerations, invitations, conversations garnered over a three day retreat with poet David Whyte.

A sense of twilit pause permeates this chunk of time prior to the new year…it’s so tangible. Uncharacteristic surround sound stillness, that final rhythm that seems to get lost in the buzz. In a working culture known for comparatively stingy vacation allowance, un-busy feels welcome healthy. I know this is not true for everyone. God bless the service industry. But you can picture me fireside in pajamas, sipping hot mug of java, looking out at another clear cold day, wondering what this 24 hour episode holds.

Cold early morning, snug toasty looking out at coated mountains that have hugged me all through the week. As soon as I landed here in Washington, an early snow cascaded out of the sky, carpeting grounded orange leaves with giddy surprise. I’m a rare and awe-filled visitor to snow. It’s fleecy sheen turns the mundane to marvel and, when I’m out in it, the bite in the air and potential slip of each step forces me into constant wakefulness.

The October 8 Sunday Sweat was all about letting go and then honoring the empty space created with that surrender, that space between what was done and what was yet to come. By Sunday evening hundreds of people in Northern California were force fed that teaching by a random act of god. The fire finger of fate burned into so many lives and extorted a full on let go, indiscriminately took everything away.

The rectangular glass table held sun’s gleam, kindling open faces around me, many deeply absorbed in conversations stimulated by the Esalen workshop morning. I turned to a mid-West pediatrician and asked about her experience with scoliosis, which is often detected in teen growth-spurt years. Over 17 years she tracked outcome in response to simple instructed exercise given each spinal curve-y youngster.

It’s those five, ten year milestones that get me reflecting. Realize I’ve been showing up on dance floors for fifteen years now. Always a student, sometimes a guide. I find myself listening for what keeps me coming back with such regularity and devotion. At the heart of showing up is something I believe we all share. I sometimes find myself frustratingly distracted by the speed and demand of the way I choose to live. Maybe you do, too. Awareness of this fact does not seem to mitigate its acceleration.

If it weren’t for geography’s random play, I wouldn’t be teaching 5Rhythms. Somehow I landed in the perfect storm, surrounded in northern California by movers and shakers.   Classes were here, workshops were abundant, I was completely swept up. Even after I began teaching, yearly support was generous: a Marin intensive in August, a January teacher refresh in Manhattan.  

Have you experienced musical transport?   Heart-cracking melody, bliss-delivering lead guitar, bone deep vibration. Human beings have been making music forever. It nourishes us with life-giving properties that food and water and air just cannot provide. Still riding the energy of Guitarfish where day after day filled with the physicality of dance re-affirmed my love and commitment to the healing power of this modality.

If you’re of Native American descent and privileged enough to live on your ancestral ground, you might be deeply root-connected. For the rest of us in North America, not so much. Last week I saw the poignant, hilarious and crafty Bad Jews, a play at Capital Stage. At one point the protagonist, trying to get to the heart of this root-connected reality, asks goody two-shoes girlfriend “Where are you from?” Girlfriend answers “Delaware” which launched protagonist into a hysterical tirade with roots in this Sy Safransky quote from The Sun July 2010:

My family moved to California in 1958 and I’ve spent major chunks of time in the Sierras ever since. Back in the day, my crazy adventurous parents took us backpacking all around the eastern slope. This was low tech camping---no tent, no stove, no water filter. This childhood experience created a robust imprint. I’ve travelled many mountains since, but this one…I’m just connected to this range. My heart thrives in the Sierras.

A simple turn of the English language can travel right to heart or gut, rattle us for days. I was listening to Thich Nhat Hanh clarify why he uses the word “understand” instead of “know” when it comes to matters of the spirit. To know is a fixed perspective. You know your address. You know that two plus two equals four. To understand is an awareness fluid in nature, shifting moment by moment. To understand is to release, to let go. Of what? Preconceived notions, precious opinions, cherished attachments. Oh those.

Journey Day 10, huddled fireside at, of all places, the Ritz Carlton, grateful for a bit of warmth and food prepared by someone other than me. Time out in the elements is challenging with persistent blustery cold. So we take a morning of privileged respite, knowing that we can, before we head out once again. The Pacific is mighty in its moods.

A week simmering in loss and love, feeling how they are inextricably woven, two sides of the same coin…if we are willing. Last Monday I was sitting with a friend, choosing music for her looming memorial service. Today she is not here. She died the same day I flew to San Antonio to be with my old papa, who is leaving quite slowly, his mental faculties quietly washing away. So much has changed in my relationship with him and I owe that healthy evolution to Gabrielle. For that I am extremely grateful. In full vulnerability, I want to write about that this morning. If you are curious about what Gabrielle Roth has to do with my dad, read on.

I was held all day Saturday at a yoga retreat dedicated to sutra 1.33, the four brahmavihara. This sutra takes the practice of yoga off the cushion (where it might be relatively easy to become enlightened) into present time reality. Very specific instruction on using social relationships as a call to awaken. And unless you live in a cave, this would be a never-ending practice. Want peace of mind?

Sacramento residents cherish spring-surprise February days. Especially this wet year. In a small backyard nook, even in winter depth, I can count on basking on those special days. Yesterday I moved my cherry red Adirondack out of maple-shade and wedged it in that nook. I lounged in bliss-flooded memory precisely where I reclined in the 80’s, leaning against the same fence, watching my babies crawl through the grass. I could almost taste the lingering sweetness, lost as I was in reminiscence. Now they are grown and gone with babies of their own. Time is strangely swift and plodding all at once.