Boots Off to My Sisters

I know this isn't usually a fashion column, but I love wearing my black boots.

When I'm in a sassy, no-nonsense, go-get-'em mood, I wear my black boots.

When I don't feel quite up to a challenge, but I have to show up anyway, I wear my black, knee-high boots.

When I want to make a statement, but don't think I have anything of value to say, I pick out a skirt and some leggings and the boots do the rest.

My knees can't take heels anymore, so they're flat-soled, with a buckle at the top. They zip up the middle.

They're my super-hero costume! I can walk a mile in them without a blister, they're not too tight for my fat calves, and they go with just about everything, although they say the most with a skirt. They're warmer than socks and keep the wind out. I can wear them casually and to dress up something frumpy. They're my all-out wardrobe (and attitude) lifesaver.

Today I walked into a classroom full of women, all of us prepared to talk about our scariest selves. To write about our darkest, shadowed shames and to let them be dissected, trusting strangers. We came to celebrate together.

About half of the room was wearing knee-high black boots.

I surreptitiously sized up my booted sisters to decide whether we did indeed belong to the same tribe. All writers. All women. I noticed that the teacher had on her black boots too. I knew her to be a clear, confident and gutsy writer who was well respected for going-all-the-way with her literary career. I secretly thanked my boots for gaining me admission to this club of accomplished and self assured women, and hoped I wasn't just a lot of black vinyl when the time came to share my stuff.

As we went around the room, unloading our fears, our whos and hows and whys, our tales of grief and sorrow and broken and reclaimed dreams I knew that I was not the only one who expects the Super Hero to show up even when I feel less than super. And my membership card was not revoked.

And yes, I do belong to the fancy footwear club. As do all the other women I know, boots or sneakers or crocs, who show up when they'd rather hide out. Who have the courage to take a good look at themselves just for the opportunity to grow, and learn, and maybe share something that can help another sister. Who acknowledge the unspeakable alongside the angelic in themselves and (even if for just a second) see that marriage as a work of art. Who are willing to learn to say "yes" and "no" for themselves, knowing that that is what makes the world a better place.

On further reflection, I think I wear the boots to set the bar. I know I'm bootworthy, and that's my Truth. When I wear them, costume or not, I know that somewhere in there there's the sassy, fearless, woman unafraid to express her opinions and stand firm in her convictions, even if I feel more like sweats and shapeless sweatshirts of uncertainty and self-doubt.

Today I wear my boots for you.

Peace,
Darcy
Namaha Healing Arts

The Bigger Picture

It's not the whole image. I can see the dog balancing the ball on his nose and the teenagers fighting over the magazine in the background, and the car running the stop sign. In high color I observe the flower vendor on the corner and the crab apples that have spilled from his basket and the toddler scurrying after one into the cobbled street.

I can savor each intricate detail. The broken thread in the pin-stripe on the elderly gentleman's lapel. He appears forlorn; I can see the tear collecting at the corner of his eye. I can even see the torn binding of the book he is reading, which obscures its title. As I get closer, I can make out the name on the cat's collar - "Hermione." I can almost pick out the texture of her tongue as she grooms her downy breast. I notice the broken spoke in the adult-sized tricycle as it narrowly misses the toddler in the street. I can practically smell the popcorn popping in the wagon on the paved path along the top of the bridge.

Every detail, every brush stroke.

And yet, in the back of it all lurks a menacing alleyway, incongruous to my impression of the scene. It's purple-green walls surely conceal evils secreted from this innocent urban event. Despite all the gaiety of the day lit square, my eyes are repeatedly drawn to its depths.

Upon closer inspection, I notice this grotesque emptiness blots out a great deal of the canvas, a netherworld where unimagined and unsavory elements pace, menacing and patient.

With respect to the antics of the sunlit crowd, I conjure that what is ominous in the darkness is treacherous, to be avoided at all costs, the brightly-lit scenario a safe haven from its questioning shadow.

What's down the dark alley?

As I now juxtapose the two visual impressions, the known chaos against the unformed, darkling way, I notice just how bright and lively are the images of light. As I penetrate even more closely the images become almost garish in their literality - their precision. A crumb stuck to a cheek. A skinned knee. A drop of saliva hanging from the lip of the expectant and obese hound. It all becomes a little too much. The unknown becomes almost a welcome flavor, bland, subtle, the delicacy of a lavendered salt, more scent than taste.

As I teeter on this precipice of known vs unknown I feel a battle for an unclaimed part of myself. At the pivot is the assumption of contrast, dissonance, and all moments have coalesced into this one. The conflux of utterly known, utterly described and experienced, and the pregnancy of what will be, what may be, what is not yet. The realized vs the potent.

To then unfocus my eyes, and gasping, take a further step backward, prepared to drink all in as one whole, and then, having breathed deeply, with purpose, to notice...

...My God! Not one image but a vast argument in triptych ever expanding, ever describing and ever questioning. The darkness and detail now but texture on a far greater landscape, stretching into infinity, or so I must conceive from the point in space and time where I reside.

And so how may I presume to guess what lurks in shadows, or the meanings of crumbs and crab apples? I reel and teeter and brace to topple. I remain barely balanced, then am poised, with nothing available to me but surrender to the Mystery. And I do not fall.

But I see, I breathe, and I wonder.

And finally I am borne up, soaring, to a position unprecarious, cradled.

Peace,
Darcy Molloy
Namaha Healing Arts

A Few Notes on a Quotation

This was just shared with me by an associate the other day:

"Until one is committed there is always hesitancy,
the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness,
concerning all acts of initiative and creation.
There is one elementary truth,
the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans:
The moment one definitely commits oneself,
then providence moves in too.
All sorts of things occur to help that would never otherwise have occurred.
A whole stream of events issues from the decision,
raising to one’s favor all manner of unforeseen accidents and meetings
and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would come his way.
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it."
-Goethe

Don't you just hate it when someone says something WAY better than you could ever have said it?

To sum up: It's really scary to ACT on a whim, even though you know you've got the support of All of Heaven because once you step down that path, it's all going to fall into place in ways you couldn't possibly imagine, and THEN where will you be? So then we just don't do ANYTHING, which is kind of a mess.
Okay, well it's not exactly subtext, but you can extrapolate. Humor me, okay?

It's really easy for me to listen to guidance, to listen for definitive Guidance. But often I get caught right up with worrying about hearing it right or interpreting the signs or doing what I'm "supposed" to be doing. The truth is, we decide what we want to do, and we must ACT on a decision, for better or for worse, in order for the Universe to act upon our behalf, not the other way around. I mean, half the time Guidance is just the Higher Self brainstorming anyway. It isn't just a manual for personal satisfaction, right? I've spent plenty of time acting (or not acting) on the misconception that I just wasn't receiving the proper instructions. Actually, nothing was happening because I wasn't actually doing anything...

Recently I've realized this about my practice. I'm sitting in the orchard waiting for my basket to fill up, when there are beautiful, ripe apples, pendulous, on every tree within my view. The ladder is unfolded to one side, inviting. And yet, I've been sitting very still, expectant, waiting for them all to leap from the branches. And all this time I've wondered why my basket is empty.

This new year I've rededicated myself to building my practice, to reaching out, to act on my dreams and visions instead of just waiting for my clients to decide what it is I want to be when I grow up. And the result has been astounding. Even my darkest moment, when I had just about thrown in the towel altogether (which was, I think, Monday), has now become a banquet table of options with a fountain of creativity at it's center; it's shaped like a swan!

My lesson this week reflects directly on Herr Goethe's verse: you can dream and scheme all you want, but when Harvest Time is here, all of Nature supports the commitment to make that apple pie, whatever it takes, and that includes setting one foot on the ladder and beginning to climb.


Peace,
Darcy Molloy,
Namaha Healing Arts

What, Me Worry?

True confessions, I have a tendency toward anxiety attacks. Recently I've discovered some physical relationships with those, and am better able to control them (energy work +magnesium = okay! energy work - magnesium = CRAZY), but I've gotten into these horrible loops where my total lack of control over anything in my future would seem to present an actual, physical threat, and I would totally cease to function. I would rationalize with myself, reminding myself that nothing bad was happening in that moment, which is all I needed to concern myself with. Didn't help. Last time it was earthquakes. I was literally convinced we were all going to die at any minute and I felt absolutely lost and helpless and completely nuts. And worry is now a rabid rhinoceros and reason is not an option.

Let me backtrack a minute. As a Reiki Master I teach Dr. Mikao Usui's 5 Reiki Principles. Each of these precepts is designed to help guide the practitioner in daily life. The version I was taught is as follows:

Just for today, I will not worry.
Just for today, I will not anger.
I will honor my parents, teachers, and elders.
I will earn my living honestly.
I will show gratitude for every living thing.
(and then my brain adds, "and live by the Girl Scout law," but that's just me.)

The anger thing is sometimes an iffy one for students, but the one that seems to cause the most consternation is "Just for today, I will not worry."

Now I'm never going to be comfortable with anything that has Thou Shalt in front of it, and I highly doubt Usui took that tone with his students, either. Still, so many of my students come back to me, hangdog, admitting that they just can't do it. Or they're frustrated because if feels crazy to even try. Because, geez! There's so much that can go wrong and so much to care about and fix and fret over.

Now, I don't actually think it's crazy to try not to worry, but at the same time worry naturally tends to beget itself. If I'm worried about not worrying because I shouldn't worry, then I'm stuck in a worrying loop and then I'm worried about the loop and so on. And what good is that? My panic attacks have taken on many shapes and faces over the years, and the mind just goes wherever the fixation is and just. won't. stop. It was once pointed out to me that people call it being Out of One's Mind, when in fact you're trapped in there and the walls are moving in and R2D2 is nowhere to be found...

And here's where the loop becomes a noose. I'm now not only paralyzed with fear, I'm also berating myself for stooping to worry when I should know better, and I try to vanquish the panic through reason. For a long time I just thought if I could get at the truth about why I was freaking out I could deal with that part of it, and it would stop. I could track my fear of earthquakes to my overweening sense of responsibility, or my belief that everything that happens in the universe is somehow up to me. Then I track that back to this instance in my childhood, or even this or that past-life experience and find the root, trying desperately to conquer that false belief in order to eliminate the core issue permanently. I could track the fix like a pro.

Didn't help me in the least. The mind just said, "Uh huh. That's nice. WE'RE ALL GONNA DIIIIEEEE!!!" See, this is an irrational operation, so reason isn't really a useful tool. You can use a lipstick to water the lawn for awhile, but pretty soon you're just going to get Viva Glam all over everything and the azaleas are only getting crispier.

Experience has taught me that truly the only thing I can do at that point is to just look the monster in the eye and offer my hand for a shake. Because it's apparently not going away, and you obviously aren't functioning while trying to fight it off. Might as well make nice. I'll just give in, I'll usually go completely numb, and tell myself, "yes, we're probably all going to die at any minute and you won't know where your loved ones are when the Big One hits and you don't have enough cat carriers and it's supposed to rain for the next 6 months nonstop and you probably don't have enough water stored. Yup. All true, friend. Okay. So what?"

And the mind just spins, but I can step out of it and say, "Wow. I'm totally out of control. This is extremely uncomfortable. I'm going to take another one of these deep breaths - gasps really - and maybe have a good cry and cancel my massage because it won't do any good." I just live with it as best I can. I've quit trying to track the emotional debris that's causing the freakout, quit judging my inability to let go of the insanity and just sit back and get comfortable being uncomfortable. Okay, Freakout. Freak right out. I'll be here when you're done, humming "Everything's Alright" from Jesus Christ Superstar.

My point is, no matter how useless worry is, it's something we're probably going to go back to now and again. I don't think worry in itself is a practical or undertaking, but viewed as part of a larger whole, with conscious intent, worry can be a powerful ally in our own evolution. I firmly believe that sometimes, when one can't let it go, it's better to just acknowledge it, give it a little hug, and go back to washing the dishes, because ultimately we know it isn't serving us, but it's a part of the experience right here, right now. So long as that ego-mind isn't running the show, worry can be a good teacher. It can show us where we're at right now, and ultimately teach us compassion for ourselves as human expressions of the Ultimate Divine. Only when we can conceive of compassion for our own, perfect imperfection can we truly feel that compassion for our brothers and sisters.

See the part of Just for Today, I Will Not Worry that draws my focus is the "just for today" part. Because if I'm truly focused in the present then I'm not worrying anyway. Worry is always about What's Gonna Happen, which we can't ultimately control or even know, even if you are a psychic or an astrologer. You still don't truly know. Ever.

And to my mind, that's what Usui's talking about in principle #1. Even if you are worried, just be here. Just show up. Just for today.

Roads Taken and Not

Some of you who read this (I actually do think there are more than 5 people, despite what Blogger indicates) might have noticed the lack of circles, classes and events Namaha's been hosting lately. I've had a sparsely attended Oneness Blessing circle at my office (a line, really. Me, point A, and one other, point B) and not much else. Now, if you've just read the mid-December newsletter or checked out the Facebook page you'll notice I'm suddenly cannonballing right back into the middle of the pool at a new venue with new offerings and new prospects, and all sorts of balls to juggle.

Why the ebb and flow, you ask? Why this grand lull in the action?

Too many ideas. Too many good, great, exciting, heart-centered, life-affirming CHOICES.

Does this happen to you?

For me there's a balance of expectation and realization. I'll take out the Roadmap of My Life and point to where I expect to be by X date. It's a fantastic place. A place I know I can get to. A place that is utterly affirming of all my gifts and skills and desires. A place that will prove I've been on the right track the whole time. Yep. That's where I'm a-goin'.

More often than not, the point on the map is so far from where I am, the roads to it seem almost limitless. I can take the 26W to the 101, or I can take 30 and cross the bridge to 14 and take a more scenic route. Or, of course, I could just take the direct-not-so-pretty route and take I-5 most of the way then drop down by the river...I could start another Reiki Circle, but which night of the month, and how many days each month? Should I work it so this client can come or that one? Should I teach workshops in places I've already worked, or should I branch out and try something new? Do I want to work out of my home or keep my office? Should I scrap the whole practice and just work on the book?

Which path is the right one?

Often it feels like I have to choose exactly the right thing, or nothing will work out. If I concentrate on this then I feel like a fraud here. If I schedule that and I'm not a complete expert on the subject then will I have anything to say?

I try to think about what route I do like to take to the coast. I almost always choose the most scenic, even if it takes a bit longer. And I don't mind if I pull off the road at a viewpoint and get distracted by a herd of Elk. Or if I get lost in the small town looking for a restroom at the halfway point. I don't even mind that I've forgotten the keys to the condo and we have to harrass all the neighbors trying to get in.

So why is it any different choosing my course in life? If I've set my sites on a destination, and I know pretty surely that I'm going to get there, then the route ought to be the most fun one, right?

Here's the thing. In the Indian energy anatomy there are two currents of energy running through the body (well, according to this map there are more like 72,000, but we'll just focus on these two.), one that goes up and out, merging with everything. The current of "enlightening" that connects us to All There Is. This is the Liberating Current, and it's what transcendental meditators seek to achieve. This freedom from all things physical. Which is one way. The other comes down from the heavens into us. It is what creates the universe. It is what turns thought to things. It is the direction of creation, called the Manifesting Current. While the Liberating Current brings us freedom, the Manifesting Current brings us - you guessed it - limitation. We have to exclude in order to create. We have the imagination to create the thought, and when we feed energy to that thought we create. We choose one thing at a time to bring into being.

Sometimes I feel too good rolling around in the vast field of unlimited possibility. I get very comfortable there. I get a little cocksure and snooty with the creativity that oozes from my inspired mind and I don't want to leave it's vision of sugar plums AND chocolate cake AND ice cream AND pumkin scones...okay so I'm hungry, but you see my point.

I've had to come to terms with this process for what it is. You have to pick one thing at a time. You have to cause something for it to have an effect. This doesn't mean that there isn't room for all of it to come about, but you can't put three feet forward at once. And by "you" I mean "I."

I'd say "just listen to your heart," but my heart gets overly enthusiastic too. "Yes! Absolutely! Oh wait! No! You should do that instead. Ooooh, that would be cool! Hey, aren't you doing the first thing? Can we go over there?" My heart is like a Labrador puppy at the beach sometimes. It's ALL good.

And I have to promise myself that it IS all good.

Because next time I'm revisiting this part of the map I might be on a motorcycle or have a flying car, and the trip will be different, but I can still go back and retrace my steps. I can pick a different route if I want to go to the same place. The road doesn't necessarily vanish just because you don't take it.

Trust, faith, not taking myself too seriously.

Okay, I think I got it.

Check out the site for all the new stuff.

Just Desserts

It's not always that easy to show myself I love me.

Lately I've been in this mode of observation, whereby I notice my mind taking an easier route than what actually makes me comfortable or content. Somehow, I've also been in a state of mind to see that that just doesn't fly.

For example, I was watching TV with my family a couple of weeks ago. I've got this pesky neck thing that requires a lot of paying attention and maintenance to avoid chronic discomfort. We were maybe 20 minutes into the movie, and I had already paused it for a good 5 minutes to get the tea ready for everyone, and I'm feeling like a heel because "I always do this. Everyone's always waiting for me." I notice my neck starting to complain and I start the inner turmoil about whether to stop the show again for all my silly physical issues, like some invalid prima donna. Then suddenly this light bulb flashed: I'm an expression of God and it's my job to take care of this vehicle I'm in. It's important for me to be comfortable. It's not trivial. I am a Divine Being. And I stopped the movie and got the bloody Bucky Pillow. No one even rolled their eyes.

Later that week I was at a birthday party which included a performance. I was standing in the corner, watching with some friends next to an empty chair. One friend asked if I wanted to sit. I did; my back was starting to get tired. Instead I shook it off. Why should I get the chair when someone else might want it? A few minutes went by and the light bulb, now swaying above me as if from a low ceiling, smacked me in the head. Um, sit in the chair. Take care of yourself. It's important.

It's an act of Love, is what it is.

Okay, so maybe this sounds tiny and trivial, but I began to put this notion into practice. Just here and there, to see what happened. Every time I notice I'm making a choice between convenience or not-being-a-bother and doing what my body or my being needs I tap into that love for all Creation, myself included, and the choice becomes clear. Flossing as a form of a hug.

Now let me take this one step further. I'm someone who, for the past several years, has suffered from a number of debilitating ailments. The list of foods I can't eat is now longer than the list of okay choices. This gets old. Physically, I know what the root of this issue is now. I know what to avoid to control it, and I've got assistance in taking things to eliminate it. Somehow, though, I still am challenged when it comes to making choices that don't cause me pain.

I've been telling myself stories from the role of the victim, the role of the addict, the role of the ignorant, the fixer, the child, the loser, etc. After even rounds of pharmaceuticals, I'm still struggling. And I can't stand explaining to EVERYONE what I can't eat and why and what it does and all the helpful suggestions and the looks of "Wow, you're a freak! I'm sure glad I'm not you!" I even got a "Oh. You're one of those!" sneers from a well-meaning church elder as I refused a homemade cinnamon roll.

So why won't any of it work? Have you guessed?

And I think this is a breakthrough. I am a Divine Creation and I deserve perfect health and well-being. This doesn't just mean, "okay. so now I believe wellness is available to me so now - heal me!" It means that every time I choose sprouted sunflower seeds over puffed millet (which hurts me) I am just overwhelmed with love. I can be in love with making choices that lead to feeling good. I am allowed to feel good because I am a Divine Creator. I am a part of God, Source, All-That-Is. I AM no less Divine than any reckoning of Divinity and it is a joy to care for this physical emanation that I have been gifted with in this moment.

Sometimes the story has been that I serve best by being ill - the Wounded Healer - but this is a martyr complex of sorts, isn't it? I think I've actually believed that someone somewhere actually benefits by my incapacity. This story also perpetuates the guilt that is generated by spending so much money (you have no idea) on all the supplements and treatments that I only need because I've got no will-power, right?

Holy Cow!

Okay, so listen up. Loving yourself, REALLY loving yourself, is no crime. It does no one any good to deny yourself the things you need to be well and strong and comfortable. I mean those things that come from a place of balance and centeredness. I don't mean those things you need to be better -the things the Western media would have you believe you need: a perfect body, perfect hair, perfect teeth, a perfect iPhone, even a perfect education. I mean those things that, in serving yourself, serves the greater whole. The things that come from the YES that sings in your heart and belly if you listen. It has a language of its own. It isn't hard to learn, once you let it in.

Be still. Breathe. Can you hear it?

Look Me in the Eye and Say That!

Right now we're in the process of selling my husband's family home. We're up to our neck in renovation demands we agreed to simply to keep the peace with the buyers, even though these requests don't seem altogether fair. We were given a hefty list of fairly expensive upgrades which even included an open-ended bill for the decommissioning of the oil tank. This was given to us by our realtor via her assistant via the buyers' realtor in a game of "telephone", and when we asked the buyers to just wait a minute until the estimate came back for the tank, panic ensued; the "we're-gonna-walk" card was played.

So now we're stuck paying for a whole bunch of stuff we hadn't planned for -stuff we really don't mind, but which was more expensive than we had imagined. Which is fine, really. However, I feel like much of the panic and frustration surrounding the process could have been avoided if we were able to look the buyers directly in the eye and have a conversation. If we were human beings to one another, and could hear the tone in the other's voice there would be an opportunity for a heart-connection that just isn't available in the current paradigm.

I know I'm guilty of perpetuating a similar sense of distance in my own life. I think it's just a mode we've gotten used to working in. I know I'd much rather start a conversation via email than (gasp) call someone on the phone, even though all my questions could easily be resolved in the space of moments, rather than days as I wait for a response. A lot of my shopping is done online. When on roadtrips, sometimes I can't wait to cross the border to a state where I can pump my own gas, swiping my card at the pump, so I never have to talk to a stranger.

But it's really easy to misunderstand when we are not sharing an experience with the person we are communicating with. Instead we communicate at each other. This makes it easy to project whatever expectations we want on another person, for good or for ill. We expect someone to behave badly, so our reaction to their note is a reaction to that expectation. You just can't hear a tone of voice, or share a smile via email.

I know there are good reasons for separating people in a home-buying situation. I also know that sometimes in life it's actually beneficial to a relationship to get it all said by writing one's feelings down in one long letter, but those are unique situations. For myself, I'm making an effort to be conscious of the way I connect with people. I'm trying to make a phone call rather than sending an email, an email instead of a text. I'm stopping into the store to ask my question rather than just searching the internet incessantly for answers. Heck, I'm even going into the bank rather than just walking up to the ATM, just to make the connection. Some days even that seems like more than I can handle, but I'm working on it. Nothing bad has happened yet.

Life is relationship. Plain and simple. We're here to experience what it's like to be different from everything else in order to have a relationship with it. The air we breathe, the chair we sit on, the food we eat, the music we listen to, the different people we meet, the places we go. We are in relationship with all of it. The big part of our relationship with our brothers and sisters here is to recognize that we are each a unique part of a greater, synergistic pattern - a much greater Whole - and the more we can connect with our hearts, the more we are doing what we're here to do.

So maybe that's my challenge to you. Give this a shot this week: When you're about to send an email, pick up the phone instead. Go into a store to buy something you were going to order online. Stop into the venue to ask your question. Look someone in the eye whose gaze you'd otherwise avoid. See what happens! It might feel unsafe and scary, but they're probably more afraid of you than you are of them.

Or is that bears?

Anyway, I'd love to hear what happens!