men my gramma didn't warn me about

I just went for a walk.  I know it’s dark out.  I needed fresh air. So I tucked my keys in my fist... (all females are nodding right now, they know this maneuver) and walked anyway.  My gramma taught me that.  She told me to be alert, look around, check the backseat of my car before I get in it, keep my car doors locked when I was in the car... She told me not to accept drinks from strangers, or to ever leave my drink unattended.  (Thus I have never allowed someone to buy me a drink) 

She warned me about strangers, that men are dangerous, and that only bad girls get raped (and unspoken implication- molested)    She taught me this when Boise was still a safe small rural town, when the mall was a cow field, when we had just a handful of stoplights. 

It made me kind of paranoid honestly, always wondering what predators could be lurking in the dark hall in the mall at night, or walking across campus, or getting the mail after dark, or carrying groceries at night. 

Know what she didn’t warn me about?  The men who aren’t strangers.  She didn’t warn me about drunk step dads.  Or the boy in college who would trick me, lure me down the hall to show me something, push me into a dark room and force me up against a wall, groping and kissing me.  Or bosses who would give more sales to the girls who showed cleavage.  Or give raises to girls that would make out or sleep with them.  She didn’t warn me about how to navigate an abusive partner.  I don’t often sleep with keys in my fist...  Never even considered that.

It could have been much much worse than it was.  I never told her anything.  Even though I trusted her, and as a woman, she might have understood.  I didn’t want her to think I was a bad girl, or that I hadn’t been alert enough, or that I was naive and gullible. 

I don’t own a tv, but I know enough of what’s going on in the world.  This isn’t just about men harming women, and women being afraid to speak, then getting judged when the speak.  The whole paradigm needs to shift.  Men AND women need to feel safe from attack.  Men AND women need to feel safe speaking out if they are violated. 

I’m sad all this is stirred up, not just for me, but for many.  The old ways need to be done.  I’m grateful people are talking, getting fired up, having conversations.  This is how we will speak our truth, hear each other, and figure out better ways to be humans.

tree forest meditation

Come with me to the forest.  The forest is thick, lush, green.  The sun dapples through the leaves, breeze rustles the branches.  We lean our backs against a tree, sitting on soft grass. We see mushrooms growing, wildflowers, dragonflies, butterflies around us.  There is a stream flowing close by, the water meanders and we can hear it trickling.  Upstream is a waterfall, we can hear it's crash in the distance.

The ground is warm, loamy, alive, vibrant.  It begins to rain lightly.  Rain drops plop on our skin, hair, face, bodies.  The rain trickles off our skin and into our skin, and through our bodies, inside.  The rain becomes a stream inside us, flowing through our veins, refreshing warm water washing away old memories, emotions, wounds, until we are pure.  Our skin is translucent, we are just streams of flowing water over rocks and pebbles.

The rain lessens and stops, our skin is warm and drying in the sun.  Sunlight fills our bodies until the sun is inside our bellies, glowing out of us from the inside.  Hot sunlight flickers and radiates inside, it feels good and we laugh.  The flames tickle and burn away what our bodies no longer need, illness, pain, aging... until we are pure light, and only ashes remain of the old pains.

A breeze picks up and blows through, through our hair, our skin, through our bodies.  It blows the ashes away until we are clean and pure and new again.

We feel free, and marvel at our skin in the sun.  We wiggle our toes in the dirt.  It feels so good, we stretch our toes deeper into the soil until little vines and tree roots grow out between our toes, our toes become roots.  The vines lace around our toes and feet, it feels so alive and tingly.  Our roots reach deeper, stronger, and stretch deep down to the nutrients in the soil, deep until we can feel the heartbeat pulse of earth.  Ah yes, the heartbeat of Gaia, and our heartbeat matches the thrum pulse, we are one with the earth, with the sun, with each other.  We become trees too, in the forest. 

Sunlight filters through our leafy hair, our branches are strong and fluid, graceful, flowing.  We are alive, pulsing with aliveness.  Grass grows over our toes, moss creeps up between the bark, butterflies and birds flicker and twitter in our leafy branch hair.  We are one.  This space is home, it always exists, waiting for us to return.  

Now we are leaning against the tree again.  We touch the ground with our fingers and feel the heartbeat still, and feel it in the trees around us. We are nourished and connected.  

click below for my live recorded tree forest meditation:

https://youtu.be/mAsPHn15LuI

star child receives Reiki

I received Reiki from a friend this week.  I was moved to tears by his Reiki.  It was exactly what I wish for, gentle, safe, and powerful.  He is doing more than just Reiki for sure, and it's so much like my Reiki, it felt like home.  His touch is like starlight?  It's hard to explain in words, so I found pics.

He took me/allowed me to journey to the same places as when I do holotropic breathwork and spirit journeying.  The places that are expansive, more than myself, where everything is inside out, and stars are cells and my body is made of galaxies and nebulas. I've never before experienced that everything-ness during touch and definitely not with other people.  So in a way it gave me hope that I'm not the only one here like that, a lonely one on the planet.  There was so much light coming in, it felt like my body could open and breathe.  Out of body, openness that I don't often feel with my body, especially with touch.  I usually feel heavy, dense, contracted, and honestly, lonesome here as a human...

When he put his hands on my heart, these are the colors/feelings/sense of home, wherever the heck that is. When I do Reiki on others, this is where the energy seems to come from too.

At one point I was floating above lots of trees with leaves gently rustling.  So many trees, I  was floating through the leaves.

Then I was far away again. Stars and electric light connections coming through his hands.

And the connections turned red, which felt like heart warmth or life connection, not just stars

I've always known I'm not from here (nobody is really, most are just checked out, they don't even realize.  I'm definitely a star child.  Without sounding cliche or creepy, it was like my body lit up with his Reiki, like he was making love to my energy (not sexually)