“Have compassion for everyone you meet, even if they don’t want it.  What appears bad manners, an ill temper or cynicism is always a sign of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen.  You do not know what wars are going on down there where the spirit meets the bone.”
~Miller Williams

We are all, at the heart of it, selfish assholes.   And we are all, at the heart of it, good and decent people.

You have brought forth devastation and destruction.  You have been coldhearted and selfish and thrown some ugly sucker punches.  You’ve been the asshole, the heartbreaker, the one who spoke without thinking and who acted in spite of knowing better.  You’ve been thoughtlessly cruel to someone desperately in need of your mercy.  Your ego was bruised and you breathed some serious passive aggressive fire.  You’ve cheated.  You’ve lied.  You’ve played a callous game of wrecking ball roulette with tender hearts.

You carry the guilt of all of this buried deep in your soul.  You could do a lifetime of penance, and never find deliverance.  It’s a heavy weight, this hopelessly flawed humanity that is our birthright.

“Forgiveness is the release of all hope for a better past”
~Buddy Wakefield

But remember, you’ve also stayed up night, wrapping body and heart and soul around a friend who was grieving the end of all things.   You’ve nursed the broken hearted and lifted up the beaten down.  You’ve laid down your heart and done epic battle to shield the ones you love.  You’ve answered the phone at 3am and been the voice in the darkness that stands between life and death.  You have been mother and warrior and protective goddess fire.   You’ve dried tears and bandaged wounds and packed magical picnic lunches and changed lives with the force of your love.  You’ve given and given and given and only let it fill you up.

You have sacred coursing through your bloodstream.  You are howl of grief and the charity of a saint.   You’ve got thief in your bones and courage just beneath the surface of your skin.   And on the days you don’t want to feel and the nights you can’t sleep, when all you can remember is the moments you have failed your own divinity, know this:

In every moment of every day, you are living the path to your own redemption.

None of us is the solely the best or worst of ourselves.  We are all our kindest moments and our darkest hours.    We are the deepest shame and the proudest accomplishment.  Shadows can never exist without light.

Our higher selves and our shadow beings like to nestle together and do a bad ass bump and grind on the dance floor.  It’s after hours at the club, and there’s a full on ecstatic rave going on in the center of the floor. It’s all heat and sweat and bounding bass.  Bodies so intertwined you can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.   There’s the good and the bad and the sex and the shame and the want and the guilt and the freedom and the chains – all right there in the sliver of spaces where skin presses against skin.    This is what it is to live with the duality of our humanity. It’s sweaty and messy and hot. It’s pure and good and true. It’s the red-hot center of the paradox.   It gets us into desperate trouble and it saves us, over and over and over again.

I have been selfish and ugly and weak and bold and brave and beautiful.  I have had the audacity and the grace to follow the call of my own wild spirit, but only at the cost of the heart of another.  I have been beautifully true and I have lived a ruthless lie out of nothing but cowardice.  I have walked a million wrong paths only to fall into one of my greatest truths in middle of the weakest and darkest moments.    This is what it is to live, and to love and to stumble through this life, as inherently flawed as we are the embodiment of the divine.

The most difficult task of redemption is offering the depth of our kindness to the parts of ourselves we would rather hide from the light.   To be as tender with our own flawed and frail hearts as we are with the hearts of our children.    To seek our atonement from within, instead of the relentless futility of searching for it in others.    Our redemption can never be externally delivered.  It lives in the molten core of our animal beings.  It breathes in us and beats in us and pulses with truth and spirit and the infinite grace of our tender human hearts.

Yes, we are all selfish assholes.   We are all good and decent people.  And we are redeemed, over and over and over again – just by our uncompromising insistence on living and breathing and loving in this world.  By our continued willingness to reach our arms, meeting others exactly where they stand, and making a wide open offering of our frail and fierce hearts.

This is where redemption lives.  In the spaces where we come together, and in the quiet moments where it all comes apart.   In the wild center of this world.  In the wild center of our imperfect selves.

Right here, in the vastly complex and utterly priceless wonder that it is this life.

[a treatise of touch]

come here.
come closer.
feel my breath?
good.

do not
look away
right now you are
mine

right now
i am
lifting hair
from neck
running my finger
gently there.  across
the line of
clavicle.
down curve of rib
following
concave of waist
coming to rest on
the hard of hip.

revel, now
in the shiver that
rises
along your spine

it means you are awake.

stay awake , lover
because this
is
a treatise of touch

this is
a dedication to
the divinity
of want
this is an ode
to the fierce hunger of
your
animal skin

so bless your righteous body
bless it’s ancient hunger
bless it’s sacred need
bless the magnet pull
the utter madness
of want
and the selfish haunting
of desire

right here
on electric hipbone
right here
on staircase spine
here on nape of neck
on hollow of throat
on line and curve
on slick and sweat
here in the space where
body meets body
where want answers want
where primal, exalted lust
delivers
you
to your
knees

we all
pray best
on our knees

so let us pray

sanctify the body holy
the wicked desire
the backroom covenants of flesh
the slow slide of acquiesce
the hallowed space of want
the heavy shudder of yes
the burn of craving
the bliss of the fire.

find now
the center of your
longing
meet it where it lives
coax the tender tremor
tease response from
edge to depth to surface
to bone
to salt
to sweat
to skin
to teeth
to yes
to this

this is the
consecrated profanity of
seduction
this is the space where
shame is shed
you are a vessel of want

you are a master of desire
you are the fierce of supplication
the gentle of domination
you are holy
you are holy

you are holy

ask for what you need, lover
take what you want
bring it home
refuse the disgrace
with which you were raised
claim your untamable
unbind your wild
petition the air for your
every desire

this body is not the enemy
your sex is not a scandal
your skin needs no censor
you are not here for denial
your pleasure is
what the universe
demands
it is the purpose
of your
creation
anything else
is
blasphemy

so tattoo want along your rib
name it religion and church
and the rite of communion
take the body and the blood
sprinkle it with holy water
let the salt steam rise

and listen
just listen, lover
always
our bodies tell us
where
to
begin.

{treatise of touch: the official playlist for shedding shame and owning desire}

Life can be fucking hard.   Month after slogging month.  It’s relentless really.  You are weary and worn down and exhausted.  You wonder sometimes, will it ever ease up?

And then it does.  Just like that.  The exact thing you had been longing for, wrapped with a bow and delivered to your doorstep.  Right when you least expected it.  Right when you needed it most.

The sky clears.  Burdens lift.   Old, limiting stories are wiped out.  Boom.   Long dwelled upon fears rendered entirely obsolete.   The universe smiles and says ‘Here, take this.  It’s for you.  You’ve been so brave and so patient. I’ve been waiting for just the right time to give it’.

Game change moment.  Things are possible today that were impossible yesterday.   Anything could happen.

Perfection?   Little chance.
A free ride?  Certainly not.
Smooth sailing from here on out?  Un-freaking-likely.

But still, in that moment, when the news is delivered.  In that moment the sun is shining like possibility incarnate, you’re driving down the freeway with the windows down and your hair blowing crazy in the wind.   The song on the stereo is Hollywood soundtrack perfect for the moment.  Like the universe dialed in the most utterly perfect setting just for this occasion.  And then that one piece of news shifts your trajectory in an utterly essential way and you feel yourself settle into space just a little bit differently.

In that moment your eyes shine and your mouth curves in a smile.  In that moment you let out a powerful exhale and speak some divine gratitude.  In that moment, it is perfectly clear.

Anything could happen.  I can.  And it will.  And it does.

And there is nothing to say but thank you.

Tell me.  What do you want?  Right now.  Don’t be shy.  Don’t look away.  I’m right here.  I’m listening.  There’s nothing else I need right now besides you.  You, and the truth.

So, tell me every last thing.   What do you want?  Do you want love?  Lust?  The hard edge of a soft body?   How do you want it?  Rough and insistent?   Like a gentle caress?  Or again and again, until the heat and sweat and electricity are spent and you drift into a long, slow sleep.  And where? In the depths of secret shadowed corners, or on a patchwork blanket under warm noon sun?

Does it make you uncomfortable that I’m asking you this?  Yes?  Good.  We need discomfort, sometimes, to get to the heat at the core of things.

And it’s that heat we are craving right now.  It’s been a long, cold winter.  So much has been dormant, both inside and out.   The world is awakening.  The ground is fertile.  The earth moves and breathes and undulates with the energy of things to come.   And here we are, right in the simmering crimson midst of it.

So, what do you want? Say it.  Out loud.  Even if you never have before.  Especially if you never have before.  Tell me where your desire lives?  What calls your want home to you?   Show me the spaces where you are insatiable?  What brings forth that low moan at the base of your throat?  What touch makes ancient tremor and shiver rise along your spine?  What brings you to your knees?

Name it lover.   The time has come.  To feel the weight and heat of it.  To let it take shape and form.  Feel it spiral deep inside you.  Feel it gather force and radiate outwards.  Hold the power of it, feel its mighty urgency, welcome its holy heat.

Are you afraid to speak it?  Why?  Has someone told you that this is not to be spoken of?  That you mustn’t give it a voice.  That you certainty can’t ask for it.  Good girls don’t do that.

That ends now.  Right here.  Not for a second longer.  This is a lie that has never served to do anything but keep you small and complacent.  And you are anything but small.

So shed the shame of your sex, goddess.  It’s not yours to hold.  It never was.

Your desire is here to teach you.  It awaits a response.  You were born to answer its call.   So, ask for what you need, lover.  Take what you want.  You were not placed on this earth to practice denial. Your pleasure?  It’s what the universe demands.  Anything less is blasphemy.

Don’t look down.  There is no shame here.  No shyness.  Only the bold of speaking your truth.  So raise your face.  Open your eyes.  Meet my gaze.  Part your lips.  Breathe deep.  Repeat after me.

I am a sacred body of want.  I am soft tissue, hard joint, hallowed skin.  I am a consecrated vessel of desire.   My body is the answer to the questions of the cosmos. I was born for this.  I am holy in my insatiable need.  I am holy in my animal submission.  I am holy in my fiery control.

There is no bargain to be made between wholeness and goodness.   Between desire and divinity.  You need not choose. They are the very same thing.  They have always been.

So tell me what you want.  I am listening.

{this post was originally published in the Spring Issue of Amulet Magazine}

1. Go Now and Live and Circle Of Women Art Prints and Canvases are now available in a rainbow of six fantabulastic colors.

Visit the shop to order your favorite {right now pink is winning as most popular – which is your fave}?

2. The utterly divine and magical Liz Lamoreaux {whose soul inspiring jewelry was featured in our Creatrix Gift Guide} recently featured our prints at one of her amazing retreats.

Liz is currently hosting a giveaway for one of our Circle Of Women Fine Art Prints.  Head over to her blog and leave a comment for your chance to win.

3. A Sale!  A Sale!  We’re having  sale!   In honor of Liz’s giveway I decided to place all of our art prints on sale until 4/24 – so if you’ve been considering making a purchase, now is the time.

Both sizes are a full $10 off the regular price, which makes 12×12 only $40 and 8×8 prints only $25.  You know you want one!

More exciting developments coming soon – stay tuned!

Earlier this year my divine soul sister Marybeth Bonfiglio launched Amulet Magazine {A Field Guide To Living Wise} with her two fired-up co-creators.  I was honored to be included in the roundup of incredible talent in the inaugural issue.  The final product is so filled with goodness and beauty and truth that it blew me away.   

Amulet gave Marybeth and I the opportunity to begin a long discussed project  – a joint advice column called Uncommon Sense.   Although our qualifications for advice giving may appear questionable (at best), we were intrigued by the idea of taking one question and diving into it to compose answers that resonated with own voice, perspective and experience.  Sometimes our responses are eerily similar, other times wildly different, but always – taken together – more than when taken alone.

The piece below originally appeared, in edited form, in the first issue.  Have a dilemma you’d like us to weigh in on?   Send it here.

~~~~~~~~

In the past year I have come to terms with my sexuality.  I have faced the end of my marriage.  I have had affairs.  I have fallen into a love unlike any I have never known and I have had my heart broken.    I am now raising my young daughter on my own and preparing to go back to school.  Everything is different than I ever imagined.   I feel very strong, and filled with passion, but unanchored to anything.  I want to be powerful, creative and connected to my center but I am lost and disconnected from myself.   Where do I go to find myself? How will I know that I’ve arrived?
Dear one,
As women we often anchor ourselves to all the solid things around us.  And then, without warning, we find ourselves in a place where nothing is certain.   There is no longer anything to tie ourselves to.  Nothing to create an illusion of security in an insecure world.

This is the time to find the anchor within ourselves.

Grab a mirror.  Look at yourself until it begins to feel uncomfortable.  Until you want to turn your head.  Fix your gaze on the woman who looks back.  Now look past the surface and see all the women inside her.  Name your motherline.  All the strong women who have come before you.  All the women who have lived through their own personal hells and joys. Your sweet grandmother.  Your amazing mother.  Your own fierce self.  Meditate on each one, their strength and what they passed to you.   Honor all that they have given to bring you here, all that you have given to become who you are.

Now take that overwhelming passion inside you and harness it.  It is valuable and true and you have spent too long offering it to everyone but yourself.  Gather the energy and nurture the spark that lives within.   This is divine creatrix power.  This is the birthplace of all creation.  Pull in everything that you have always given to others and hold it close.  Coax it to the surface.  Claim it as your own.   Hold it in your center until you hum with it.  Until it burns.  Until it begins the necessary process of distilling you down to your essence,.  Your core.  Your one true thing.  You.

Now you are ready to really begin.

There is no prescribed path.  No steps I can give you to deliver you to some neatly anticipated outcome.  But we begin with a question.  What brings you to your center, to the root of you?

If you don’t yet know (and it’s okay if you don’t) you will have to try and try and try until you find it.  Get messy.  You can do yoga and dance and write and meditate to dubstep until the beat pounds through your bloodstream.  Get out the paint and canvas and markers and glitter and glue and see what comes. Hula hoop until your hips spin with enough energy to recreate the universe.   Spray paint the truth of your heart across your living room wall.  Go deep into the heart of the natural world.  Get hopelessly lost and then perfectly found in the middle of the deepest forest.  Talk to the birds and wild beasts.  Scream at the sky.   Change everything.  Write and write and write until you cry.  Cry and cry and cry until you’re empty.  Find a downtown club and dance till you sweat and ache.

Strip yourself down.  This is not a one-time thing.  It’s going to be uncomfortable.  You’ll move in and out of truth and peace and beauty and breakdown.  You’ll want to run away from yourself. You’ll want to run toward the first thing that offers external comfort.  But hold steady.  Just like you’d want a lover to do.  Nurture that inner fire.   Stay there. Right there.  Bring it home.

This journey lasts until the end of your life.  You will find yourself over and over again, and the woman you discover will be both new and familiar every time.   You’ll know.  And then you’ll forget.  You’ll feel just as lost and without anchor as you do right now.  But you’ll begin to see the beauty in the middle of the broken pieces.  Each time it will get easier and easier to remember.  Easier and easier to find your way back to the purest essence of you.

Every time you lose your way, just come back to the mirror.   Face yourself again.   See the woman who gazes back at you, with all that she has and all that she’s lost along the way.  Learn to recognize her truth and beauty and wisdom.   Greet her with kindness.  Offer her love and thank her for her wisdom and service.   Smile slowly.  And begin again.

What are you waiting for?
you know the words are
right there
ready to spill
ready for truth telling
ready for spell weaving
ready to be told
just sit down
with an open journal
and a smooth pen
or the click – clack of typewriter keys
and a pristine sheet of paper
or the computer screen
and every bit of fire in your soul
no excuses
no time like the present
no where else to be
just write.

Of course you don’t want to face it.  Not now.  Not ever, really.   But let’s go there.   It’s time.

You want different than what you have.  You don’t love him, not anymore.  You’re not fit for this glass walled corner office and the perpetually tepid coffee from the staffroom.  You hunger for graffitied concrete, crumbling brick and a hard shot of whiskey that burns all the way down.  You want dogs, not children.  You actually like olives on your pizza.  That thing you did, in the dark corners of a secret room, it’s eating you alive.   And no, that longing for her, it’s not ever going to go away.

Come clean, now.  Chin up, love.  No, it’s not going to be easy, or even gentle.  Truth telling rarely is.  But you can do it.  Indeed, you must.

It has been so long since you have given voice to what lives at core of you that you’ve forgotten exactly what was true to begin with.  The lines between reality and justification blur until the agony of all that has been stifled drives you to the earth.   The silenced wail held tight in your chest slashes through your center and tightens its noose until even breathing seems impossible.

Exhale now.  Let it go.   No matter what darling, you’ve still got to breathe.

Come clean, love.  Lay down the burden of life only partway lived, of half truths, of circumvented clarity.  It’s been so heavy.  The weight of all you are not saying is holding you tethered to an existence far too small for the immensity of you.    Shred the explanations, the excuses, the masks and veils.  Drop all the tired layers that obscure your heart from the world.

Lay it all out.  Leave your inside voice behind.   Scream till your voice threatens to leave, and then wail some more.  Let it loose – get primal and raw and messy.  Cry all the tears you’ve sealed deep inside.  Every secret passage scrawled in your journal and kept under lock and key.  Every smothered bit of knowing you’ve kept locked down deep in your bones.

Let it go.  There is nothing to be gained by holding on any longer.  Life calls for one thing and one thing only, that you live from the clear and present center of yourself.  That you live your life as blazing testament to your truth, whatever that may be.   Wherever it might take you.  Whoever you lose or leave along the way.

It’s true.  Sometimes truth is a vicious wrecking ball.  But amidst the rubble lie the embers that will spark your emancipation.   Your truth, spoken clear and true, is the light that will illuminate spirit and wisdom and a path that is all yours.  Your voice fans the flames that will sustain you on the journey you were meant to take.

Do you hear that?  It’s your voice.  Your mother tongue.  The language of your soul.  The one you were born knowing but forgot how to speak.  It has returned to you now.  It will never leave.  It comes from the deep-rooted center of you, rises unadulterated and whole.  Echoes into the world and lights your way.   Fierce and gentle.  Strong and mightly.  Pure and clear and true.

Do you hear it?  I do,

Wisdom from yoga class.  My entirely divine teacher Mary Bruce at Urban Yoga paraphrased Rumi in class a few weeks back.  The perfect reminder to stay in tune with our own divinity.  So go ahead, you exalted goddess, you.  Shine on.

so, hold your capacity for melancholy
and name it strength
hold your righteous anger
and name it the pathway to peace.
honor your translucent skin,
your bone truth bruises
worship your geography of bones and scars
that roadmap of veins
the path to the center
the pulse of spirit
the gateway of want

Light torch to
bonds built from lies
let the flames build
ignite truth
and let it burn
merge ashes into melody
knit moments into worlds
howl visions into open skies
fold yourself into the endless rain
and call the wild things home.

sing rough croon
spill blood fever
coax magic spiral
nuture the fierce in your belly
let it expand
release the song in your pulse
let the explosion push outward
and rock your standing ground
let the quaking earth birth you anew

rise up, now

accept your catalogue of regret
gather close your imperfect history
this life can be violent crucible
grace doesn’t always look pretty
grief is a complicated ghost
and we are all
in some way haunted.

but this?
this is an invitation
enter your life now
build a home inside your hollow
cast a spell into the ether
evoke your own divinity
turn the music up loud
let it build
feel  the reverb
settle deep in your bones
until your spirit
pulsates

until the heat of it
permeates
your entire existence

and listen, you startlight seeker
listen jackhammer goddess
you’ve been holding on too tight
to things no longer yours.
loosen your grip, lover,
ease open your palms.
come out with your hands up.
this is not arrest.
this is the beginning.

and you
must not
be tamed.