art, energy and inspiration

I'm still exploring energy - reading the book Brett recommended to me by Diane Stein, Essential Energy Balancing. And a quick lunch with the other Riva at Omega reminded me of some grounding exercises that are very helpful.
One is to imagine a red ball in each of all corners of the room, and then connect them all to a larger ball in the center. It's amazing, and really clears out the frenetic energy of a room. The other is to imagine white light, blue water or golden light, pouring through you from the heavens and into the core of the earth. Very cleansing.






Last Sunday I taught two workshops at Omega. One was Watercolor Meditation, usually taught by art goddess Mai. But I offered to help out so that she wouldn't have to rush back from a wedding. The other was a combo of my usual Beeswax Bliss and Beauty to the Bone. Both workshops were amazing and meditative each in their own way. The rain was pouring down in buckets in the afternoon, creating a special atmosphere in the art hut. When I packed up I got drenched to bone, literally. But what was most interesting was how the morning Watercolor Meditation, impacted the afternoon Beeswax Bliss. I typically pepper the hours with quotes and thoughts while everyone is working. And because of the instructions given to me by Mai for the Watercolor Meditation, I was able to add a different type of inspiration to the 3d workshop. The somewhat methodical, but instinctive painting process, in which we initially used two contrasting or complementing colors in freeform grid patterns drawn on the paper -- helped me to see process in a completely different way. I really did lose myself in the painting, much the same way I do in 3 dimensional work. But simply because it was a completely different experience for me, I think I was able to explain it more fully, and expand upon my ideas about process work, instinct and intuition. Perhaps I'll have a chance to write more fully about it too, in my every developing Magic Medicine book.
Meanwhile, a commitment to art has meant life is becoming busier than ever as I jockey and juggle it all.
This morning, running around the city, I was struck by the amount of construction going on, and more interestingly, the earth revealed by the removal of buildings. Under all that concrete, Mother Earth, rich and brown, rests and supports us.

caution to the winds

I'm usually very careful about the energy that I emit in this blog, and try my best to keep it to the positive. In this busy swirl of a life, that can be a challenge of course. But it can be a gift to find the upside in everything. And often it's a teaching that comes full circle back to the teacher.
That being said, today I'm going with the strange energy that is in my body today. It's not exactly negative, but it's definitely not feeling positive either. For days now, I've felt on the verge of tears for no real reason -- not even hormones. And though we only had a single day at home this week, which could be the reason, I sense that something larger or more important is lurking.

I'm going to backtrack a bit, to the day I left Omega more than 2 weeks ago. More than anything, I didn't want to leave. I was having such a great time with my friend and yoga guru Lori, and her friend Sophia -- I just didn't want it to end. But knowing that ending was inevitable the three of us hiked up to the woods behind the Sanctuary and Hill House on the Omega Campus, and completed ourselves and our time together with three closing primal screams to match the three we'd reveled in a few days earlier.
After our scream we went to a workshop in Hillhouse, which is a sort of staff sanctuary at Omega. It was a version of Brett Bevell's Shamanic Colonic, which included a yogic rune pose, an ancient Egyptian chant, and Vortex Healing.
Brett doesn't talk a lot about what he's doing. He explains enough to make everyone comfortable and then just does it. And that adds to the magic and mystery. As a yoga teacher recently said after a class: a professor only tells you what you need to know, a grad student tells you everything.

After the Vortex Healing I felt completely ready to leave Omega, in fact happily anxious to be on my way. And that was quite a relief, because I'd been carrying a kind of sadness all morning in anticipation of making the break.
Fast forward to a week later, where I am sitting on the floor at the Ananda Ashram for a Krishna Das kirtan, and I feel as though a dark black energy is sucking the life force out of my spine. I attribute it to a woman who is sitting behind me, and not at all respecting my personal space. Everyone is kind of crammed into the room and it's close quarters, but there are ways of being mindful of one another's space, and for the most part everyone else is. I feel so assaulted and vulnerable that I put my hands protectively at the base of my spine as a shield.
I've all but forgotten about the encounter, until another two weeks later when I am walking down the street and feel the same energy again, though not quite as dark feeling, and more of a swoosh. That was today.
For the last week in general, I've been increasingly aware of energy patterns, how our individual energies impact others. Larry and I had a short conversation with Shozeki Shihan Renzie Hanhman about ETF while Larry was dealing with a definite energy deficit at our dojo's 30th anniversary tournament.
And I'm in the midst of The Energies of Love by Donna Eden and David Feinstein.
I'm having little auguries every day. The first of which had to do with how we create an energy suck on others when we don't take care of ourselves and deplete our energy reserves. There's a certain point at which you can't fill back up until you've done something restorative for yourself. Time alone. Quiet. A massage.
It's helping me to understand how and why some people are just succubi.
So, while I have nothing particularly definitive to say about energy -- I am explorating it in ways I haven't been quite so open to before. And that reminds me of something Pat the devic gardener at Omega told me while we chatted one particularly gorgeous morning. And that was that sometimes we meet someone just so that when the time is right, we can really meet. That's as true of ideas as it is with people.

everything we need is right here

This year's Omega experience was particularly heightened. A shamanic initiation of sorts that started with a brutal bite from my cat, Simon. My hand was a mouse in his mouth. And the way the blood spurted when he finally unclenched his teeth had me initially freaked out, and pretty traumatized for days.
As a result my Omega entry was a bit delirious and not in a postive way. Hand swollen, sleepless, stomach in knots from antibiotics -- I walked around in a stupor, not quite sure why I was there. The driving rain and cold didn't help. And the sauna was off limits til the wound healed.
But less than a week later, the veil lifted, the sun came out, the temperature rose, and the world turned upside down in a good way.
My workshops were phenomenal and I'll be posting a page of pics on my website. Days were filled with yoga, kayaking, kirtan, massage, dance and delicious food. The library and sauna were nightly retreats.
I got a bit of my own art making in, but more importantly a renewed commitment to forging this path and presenting more workshops, so that my soul life isn't squeezed into just two weeks each year.
The overwhelming truth about Omega is that everything we need comes to us exactly when we need it. This is true of love and friendship, healing and life lessons. And while it seems that Omega is a magical place where the universe is conspiring to shower us with joy, in fact, it's a concentrated version of our lives out in the world. The land there is definitely sacred ground; the air we breath there too. But so is every step and breath we take in the world.
I struggle gently to keep this in my heart as I return to work, a hectic schedule, difficult people and daily demands. Proof is already mounting. As Omega's Life Coach Win Harper told me: the very first thing we need to do is ask for what we want.
Maybe it's the only thing.