for the past couple of years, i have chosen a word for the year. in 2010 the word was clear. in 2011, it was wild abandon, and boy was it ever–the outcome of which still has me surprised (and grateful). these past years catapulted me into my voice, my heart, and my passions. quite literally, everything changed. i did many new things, some of them excruciatingly hard, as i made a commitment to myself and to the ones i love to speak my truth, to be transparent, and to feel everything. i fall short every day on this promise, but i hold the intention. because the alternative is a level of discomfort that is intolerable. and i can honestly say that the whole of my life, especially my relationships, holds a fulfilling depth of intimacy that is the reward of this intention. i have personal testimony that love, and the truth, always win.

looking ahead, i know this year holds many more opportunities for travel, beauty, and connection. i also know there will be shifts in the way that happens, specific to my projects and my mission, as i refine my understanding of how best to be of service to my heart and to the world (which i believe is the same thing). in my continued search for doorways to freedom, this fall had me stepping back and going into a deeper level of inquiry with myself than i have before. in these past few months of going in, i have sat with my crazy, my misshapen, my less-than, my too-much, my sad, my hurt, my loneliness, my anxious, my terrified, my embarrassed, my ashamed, my tired and my weak. in the company of these parts of myself, i experienced anger, lethargy, heart palpitations, and more tears than i thought i had left in me (i am a champion crier). i dropped balls, broke promises, and cancelled many things. there were days that i was just a heap on my office floor, surrounded by sufi poetry and tissue box. but i did it. i felt everything and i began to mine for my own prescription for wellness. i asked for help and i accessed the medicine that i needed to feel more free–my own personal alchemy for self-care. more important than sharing the practices i do and the supplements i take, is my sharing that what i realized i had to do was to ask MYSELF, my body, what i needed to feel well, and to listen for the answer.

and that leads me to the word for the year, EMBODY, the definition of which is to “provide a spirit with a physical form.” what became clear to me in 2011 was that the war i have waged with my body no longer serves me, and more so it stands in the way of my fully showing up, experiencing freedom, and being of service to my heart and to the world. i speak of connection and beauty as my highest ideals and passions, yet i have lived a lifetime of disconnection with my own body and of denouncing my own beauty. this is the year to let that go. i want the same intimacy with myself that i seek with others. i want to experience the radiance in myself that i am attracted to in others. i want to feel free in my skin, well from the inside out. i want to have a love affair with myself. this is not about narcissism nor is it about some flogging exercise routine or fasting for a month. i refuse to subscribe to “no pain, no gain.” been there and done that. this is about listening, tending, nurturing. my supporting words are GRACE and EASE. i am making choices based in peace and not in conflict.

choosing a word to guide our intentions for the year is a powerful thing. really, the word chooses us. for me, as i’ve gone to the depths of my spiritual and emotional bodies, and become a more wholly integrated self, it is not at all shocking that the physical body is now speaking its truth. the temple that houses all the impressions of who i am has been neglected. i haven’t loved it. praised and appreciated it, or gently coaxed it into taking its best form. my body has been criticized from within ever since i was told at a young age that it was not ok, and i believed it.

of course, once a word chooses us, the obstacles of doubt and denial stage a flash mob in our path. it has already happened. only this time i have a plan. i am rubbing scented oil on my skin and taking myself for a walk. i am chopping kale and making love. i am indulging my senses and forgiving myself. i am adorning and prioritizing. i am juicing and eating cake. i am meditating and listening. praying and trusting. i am loving. and i am embodying all that i KNOW now to be true.

thank you in advance, 2012.

note: after i had chosen my word, i listened to tara brach’s latest dharma talk, fittingly titled “Embodied Presence.” i treasure her guidance and wisdom. have a listen here.

photo: first sunrise of 2012.

i get it now. how i can hold darkness and also share my own oxygen with the flames. i have favored the clouds and the watery places. it has always felt easier to go to the intense and the weighted. the levity seemed intangible and shallow. i placed value on my ability to be with the hard, the heavy, the disparate. and secretly, I was curiously envious of the light and the buoyant. the ones who seemed to float.

this solstice, this birthday, the past two months, i have been mining a new language. crumbling away at words and ways that felt rigid, blaming, and fierce. hacksaws and fighting parables just don’t work for me anymore. i don’t want to kick ass or WORK on my spirit. i don’t want to suffer for my freedom. i am not afraid of the dark– i have spent most of my life there. it’s that now i realize that i am one of those that may be more afraid of maintaining the light.

i think i have confused depth with despair. i know how to talk about shadows and twisted feelings and pain. i’m really good at being with these things, and i am grateful that i have this to offer the world, for clearly there is no shortage of suffering among us.  but how to speak of the depth of rightness and ease? how to speak about ok?

where i am at right now is trying to translate and embody this new place of gratitude, wellness and peace, that is still capable of being with the darkness that i know so well. i want to create a language that is gentle and easeful. for so long, perhaps always,  i wanted to have the shadow lifted off–the weight and the inner chaos. and now that i am experiencing this, i kind of don’t know how to be. i don’t know how to talk about this. it hasn’t been my way to speak of rapture and glory. i know much better how to speak to insecurity and involution.

and so i am once again in uncharted waters. and letting go of the fear of doing it wrong–especially when it comes to matters of love and the alchemy of grace and god. i am writing my own mantras, building my own fires, praying in my car and on my knees. i get the ecstasy of the simplest things now. and i appreciate the many offerings i see toward the cultivation of joy in the world. i am allowing myself to be loved. and offering my smile more readily. i’m curious about how the next year will unfold, excited and not concerned.

this is new territory as i move another year into my fourth decade. it feels like this is where faith and fear meet, with kindness, embodied and whole.

Vague as this definition may be, I believe most people are aware of periods in their lives when they seem to be “in grace” and other periods when they feel “out of grace,” even though they may use different words to describe these states. ~ Anne Morrow Lindberg,  from Gift from the Sea

photo: solo sunrise mission. 41st birthday, winter solstice. december 2011.

fire. wine. my cashmere sweater that goes all the way to my knees. the right soundtrack, mercury glass, my children’s art. avocados still on their branches and clementines in a hand-thrown bowl with a blue patina at the center of our well-worn table. thick lentil soup that sticks to the inside, a friend on the way over. the stuff of my life. my home.

it was a fall of inversion. of hermiting and long mornings spent trying to breathe more freely. of asking for help, opening my fist, and resting my head on the floor. i paid attention to the birds, to the rain, to the bright reds and purples of the latest sunsets. i threw a few tantrums and we tangled ourselves under the down comforter at the end of each day and i learned to rest. to really rest.

this is the longest gap between entries since i first began blogging. as you know, the more time passes, the more it feels like there is just too much to say. or not enough.

and so i offer a few images of the past month. the time wherein i emerged from the dark, after going all the way in, and simply began to love my life.

the boy is now 12.

breakfasts have mattered. a lot.

the beast and i have been hiking. often.

the girl is behind the wheel. enough said.

time on the mountain top with my love.

sunrises with community.

and sunsets, too.

sigh.

and you, friends? how are you wrapping up the season?

it is not unfamiliar, this place.

though i have grown weary of it.

noisy and sharp, inhibiting rest. ego on alert, fables and accusations running rampant.

i only want to feel at ease. elemental. not wondering if i lit the right candle, said the right prayer, or missed the portal.

it might be hormones, or darker shades of what i have always known.

(fear, unexpressed pain, hunger, loneliness, grief, anger, shame–whatever)

only now, i refuse to consider that i haven’t “worked” hard enough. or that i haven’t sat in the fire long enough. or that i am lazy, inconsistent, uncommitted, or indulgent. that i am faint of heart.

i am none of those things.

though there are plenty of arrow wounds that suggest i have believed otherwise.

this is the day that i begin to understand. that i challenge the separation that bores canyons in me.

separation from source. from love. from beauty. from you.

i think that salvation is in the letting out. the letting go. the letting in.

the allowing.

and the help.

(the tree, the camera, the nourishment, the time, the forgiveness, the care, the now, the us)

photo: shelter. 11.11.11. butterfly beach, santa barbara. iphone.