OCF day pass

Anyone want to go to fair for the DAY only???
I can get you a free day pass for any of the days, but I think I have Sat, and Sun covered so Friday is the important day.
This would be in exchange for giving my mom a ride back and forth to the fair. She even has a disabled pass so you can park up close.
She needs to be there first thing in the morning and the day pass gets you at 7am and the sweep doesn't pass our booth until 8 or 9pm....
We also have space available in Eugene to camp out or even a guest room...
let me know :)

Avalokitesvara (Not)

“Sadness is a byproduct of awareness”

Many serious meditation teachers in various traditions will warn you not to dabble in a path but to commit to one.

The Buddhist’s would say because you will eventually crack like this dude…
With many arms reaching out to the world that is full of suffering, because once you obtain a true awareness of the nature of suffering the only reaction is to offer compassionate action back to the world. In the case Avalokitesvara he did it by transforming into a creature with many arms and an eye on each hand.

So they say, it is only practice, continuous practice that will allow you to continue to extend love. Because in the cracking process, you may have glimpsed the violence that exists in the world, and in your own mind.

Seems a little harsh huh? Especially in the glorious New Age of congealing everything. Taking a teaching, throwing away the teacher.

Almost makes me wish, I could go back to sleep. Or live my life, silent and celibate in a forest house.

Many teachers speak of living in a conjured dream filled with false promises of some peak experience, the dream being always in the future, always considered your salvation.

Some Examples:
Enlightenment

Or more likely in our culture:
The love of your life
The Perfect Job
The Perfect Body
That shoes that match the purse
A really great Steak
Maybe a fancy Vodka drink

And the satisfaction of all these things always proves to be temporary and there is always is something bigger and better to pursue.

The Tantrics talk about the constant dance of concealment and revelation, remembering and forgetting your blissful nature at a pulsing rate. I always liked that best.

Opps I just forgot I was infinitely peaceful for a little bit.

No eternal damnation, just temporary amnesia.

And if your accepting of your lower self as well as your higher self then, hot damn, have a party.

The difference though between this ideal and a roller coaster I am finding is the equanimity and grace of the dance. And once again… practice.

It is not the high of success or domination but the acceptance of the cycle of life, seeking of a balance between the polarities.

But a strange side effect of balance is power. And a side effect of power is success. And then with success comes responsibility and commitment. And we all know power corrupts.

It’s enough to make me want to go back to sleeping.

And question the pursuit of balance because it could lead to success.

And that just sounds like waaaaaay too much work.

Can I have another drink please?
How about a large slice of pizza extra cheese?
Did anyone say cookie?????
Ahhhhhhaaa… shit… I am still sleepy now, but its morning and I need to achieve….A double nonfat latte hold the cream…

Unfortunately I only have one arm to hold the coffee cup, so the other one can hold the steering wheel, one foot to press the gas pedal because I need one free to slam on the brakes.

It’s a hopeless feeling. But Pema says hopelessness is also fearlessness, so why not start now?

Just the breath… just the dance… just one girl with two arms, two legs, and a big freakin’ mouth.

Remembering and forgetting cyclically. About a commitment I made to myself once for my number one relationship, for all of this life, to be between the balance between matter and spirit. And that I love yoga, and life is simpler on sleep.

A little about Culture Shock

I talked to my friend yesterday who is American and from Oregon and I worked with at Pura Vida a couple years ago, she lived in Costa Rica for 5 years and recently moved to Portland...

My Friend: It's been 5 months and it's still soooo hard..

Me: Tell me about it, I'm afraid most of the time, I like to hang out in bubbles mostly, little communities in the middle of nowhere. But I think that just keeps me in perpetual culture shock.

Friend: Yeah, I'm overwhelmed all the time, most stores I just can't go in. I physically can't go inside of them.

Me: You should have seen me at the farmers market I just about lost it. My boyfriend was like, it's just a bunch of yuppies buying vegetables, and I was like, Dude you have no idea how SCARY that it is to me. I'd rather be trying catch a cab in downtown San Jose, it makes no SENSE!

Friend: Yeah, there is just something about this country that is really difficult, the amount of shit people think they need makes me feel sick, but Portland is a really good place, I'm living on a horse farm in Oregon City.

Me: That's cool, Portland is really good, and I can handle it if I don't think too much about it all, or spend too much time out of neighborhoods.

Friend: It's good to be close to my daughter and my family

Me: Yeah that's the trade off huh... I still miss Costa

Friend: No Shit

PS After that call I rode my bike to the park and loved Portland even more. It’s awesome to not be sick anymore. Count down the ending of my home-free-ness 35 days!!!!

Attempting reintegration...

Sometime last week, very near to the moment when I woke up and thought, alright, here I am back to my senses ready to get back to work. Maybe I’ll start a to-do list, which is the only way to finish one. Maybe I’ll try and find a job or 3. Pay my bills, call my clients back. Have tea with a friend. Go on a bike ride, read a book. All the type of things the great functional people of planet America, seem to do. Perhaps I could even do some of my very favorite thing, that yoga business which helps my mood and my emerging limp like no other. All these things I really like doing, would rather be doing then- wondering where my marbles have gone, or how to get them back, whether or not I want them back, and if it is at all possible that some great trickster actually swapped out my marbles and returned me another set.

At about that point I woke up with a monster cold which has wiped me out for the past six days.

Does the body have to follow the mind or is it the other way around.

So I think I’m going on a month now since I’ve really worked. (besides the part of the online course I’m teaching, the book I’ve gotten edited, the letters and blogs I’m writing) But not really my plan, this forced vacation, but out a complex of health issues, I’ve had no other choice. But I’ve been told plans are for entertainment purposes only. Mine entertain me endlessly. Confuse me sincerely but in the end give me hope, and the drive to get up in the morning, even under a grey and uninspiring sky.

Here I am back in Portland, which is where I am going to start the stable life that my body demanded, and where my partner has to stay for at least the next 3 years while he finishes school.

Still it’s hard right now, not having my own space, living with my lover, needing his help and not being big on accepting help. Feeling the urge to run, it’s hard to know that the job that is most available and the most tempting, digging in the dirt in the sun, is not in the plan. Or if it is, it’s the side dish, not the main course.

I just have to remind myself, that I’m trading my love of freedom, and fear of responsibility for the solidity of love. The day in and day out, love. A kind of love I’ve never really known in this way. Craved for and went looking for in all the wrong places. And the love of not only this man but my family and my community.

Because it was a rough day in hell when I decided to move home. Probably one of hardest moments I had ever known, I was lost in a crazy maze of a wounded mind, when I looked up and saw I had already a gift of this angel protector bear in my life. And he was just about fed up with seeing my tailpipe as I drive away, over and over again. At least he had to know I was coming back.

I just could never say I was coming back, because I didn’t know for sure. Or if I did, I had to reserve the right to change my mind. People will say whatever they will about sacrificing your whims for love. Like you have to follow your passion, or else you will end up resenting your partner. That’s actually what Aaron told me; don’t stay for me, because in the end you may end up hating me for it. So I didn’t. Over and over I didn’t. But then finally I realized I had to stay somewhere for me because there were no more whims worth chasing.

And only then I found myself a novice in the art of compromise and how navigate this ship of relation.

I just could not understand how he could be so sure. But I then figured, hey dude, if you still want to make a life with me, after seeing me as hard as I get, then we’re going have freakin’ blast when it gets good again.

So here I am blessed once again, with doors wide open to me, to make the most amazing life I could dream of.

Still trying so hard to remember my own joy, and not swallow or choke on the waves of the world’s sorrows. And then even more difficult to remember, is my own pain. Is it not separate from yours??? Just to know a small part of it, without getting lost in it. Visit it like the way I visit a new place, interested, cautious, but unafraid.

And in that process of knowing myself, I get to know then my family. And this would be the exact opposite of a new place. This isn’t a Mayan ruin, or Ganesha temple overrun with monkeys. It’s not a Latin salsa bar; everyone speaks English here in familytown so it’s harder to tune them out.

So the number one thing I’m trying to remember these days is …. While I am doing this because I have to, I am also doing this because I want to.

The world to me is just not a small or simple place.

Then oh yeah… back on alien planet Amerkica… It doesn’t seem like the kind of place where one can get a job easily when one has already committed to taking about 1/3 of the month of July off. Or at least all the weekends booked and all the spas want a weekend warrior. Rough life of a girl so committed to her family and friends and good times that she can’t get a job. Also the same girl is committed to painting a house in trade for the security deposit on her little dream house in the month of July. Not mention the projects that shall make money in the future list is mile long.

But whatever…. I am going to get everything done and taken care of. And be the better for it. The key is I am well now, I am healing and getting better, I am not going to stay stuck in any illness. Neurological, Psychological, Spiritual, or Viral. I will not take any diagnosis and let it mean more to me then my own experience, and I will also not deny the truth of the tendencies that have redefined my limits and my capacity. I've leaned on the ones closest to me but I am finding my footing so I don't topple on top of them, or so that when they are in need they can lean back.

Since this is the first day I am officially not too sick and tired, of being sick and tired, to give it my best shot I guess I’m going to go get a job or drive to somewhere that I can work until the business of July rolls around. Because visiting the space in between the worlds doesn’t pay the bills.

Although if anyone wants to pay me to channel my interpretation of universal truth, either while I am or am not touching you, just let me know. I’m for hire.

Otherwise I may go back and channel my interpretations of how to dig in the dirt for anther week or so.

So here I go…. In the marriage of work and play… Hope and Action… The moment and big picture.
Wish me luck. And send me even just a small silent prayer. A little intention, to return to being on my game.

And I wish you all luck and grace on your journeys, and hope we can soon sit down to some tea to commiserate, and ignite a little bit of the spark… that catches the upward blaze of transformation.

Where are you going to be for Summer Solistice???

Well Ya’all I’m going back to my Original Perma Culture farm in Oregon….

Meaning the one I grew up on. At least part of the time…

Don’t actually think I’ve grown up yet…

But it’s a Summer Solstice Gathering!!!
Check out WWW.AERIOUS.ORG

This is a gathering that has been happening on my Dad’s land for years.

And this year is going to BE Super Duper Special!

I will teaching a Summer Solstice Yoga practice with live percussion….So Bring your body, a yoga mat, or a drum (or two sticks to rub together)

There will camping, an outdoor kitchen, creek, sauna, moonlight dancing, to moon lit musicians and potluck eating…

Its OFF the GrID… Solar Power....

Also you can check out the amazing nearly completed 2 story 12 sided Cob structure that my Dad and Mary Gold have been building over the past decade….
This is also indoor Workshop and chill space depending on the weather...

Suggested donation for camping $22-$44 for the whole weekend! (Friday night and Saturday night)
June 20-22

Offer up your talents and bring your own food…

Reconnect with Nature

Carpool in my Van leaving from Ptown and Cruising through Eugene Friday Evening….Leaving late Sunday Afternoon…Also Some Carpools from Cali are heading North So Call me for details…

Pass it ON…Everyone is Invited if they can Respect the Land… .Just don’t Forget we are calling out to our most honored Guest….. THE SUN!!!!!!!!! (So if anyone has the email address of sunshine, make sure to pass this on)


Scholarship Available for Photographer, Film Maker, or Anyone with a Camera that is into FILMING

Back to the scene of the crime

I’ve returned to the place where I lost my marbles two weeks ago.

It feels good to be back in my van and back in the sunshine. And yesterday all I did was sleep.

Today I kinda feel like myself again. What a Strange and Beautiful thing.

Maybe a few marbles short still.

Not sure I ever had them all to begin with, or perhaps, a few long gone now, lost somewhere along the way.
Still committed to coming back to PDX and making a home. Looks like Aaron and I will be moving into a house in the beginning of August. I am so thankful for his sweetness and devotion, and as I really open myself up to making a life with him it just seems to get sweeter.

I am now thankful for my family more then ever. Challenged by them just the same or maybe even more then ever. But a nice little reminder…that my shit does in fact stink.

Looks like I’ll spend about a week here, all the hard work has been done and I’m just going to be, massaging neighbors, doing yoga, and teaching a small yoga workshop in Weaverville. Aka the middle of nowhere, but apparently these days even the middle of nowhere likes yoga.

My life is pretty amazing really. And maybe I’ve tried a little too hard to understand reality. There are so many versions. I think I’ll just pick my own and stick to it from now on.

I also honor my friend Meta Pierre who died recently and upon learning of his death (among a lot of other things) I hid my marbles from myself.

He was a kundalini yoga teacher who taught Yoga in prisons. His life was lived with bliss and simplicity. He helped people humbly and had a great sense of humor. I have no doubt in my heart, he has returned to the absolute bliss, after helping people to find little pieces of it here on earth.

More then you needed to know about a Drama Drag Queen

My sister told me I was a Drama Queen

A mirror I told her and that’s all. I am just trying to keep loving her until she forgives me because I have no choice.

Then she told me I didn’t love her I loved drama and I was dead to her.

But I know I’m not a Drama Queen, I am more like a Drama Princess.

But I have to ask myself could it be… Could I really be one of those adrenaline junkies I am so quick to spot out in a crowd? The special kind of person who is the best person you want in a crisis because they stay calm in the eye of the storm. But if it’s not a life or death situation they like to make it feel like one.

I know I am dramatic and I feel things intensely, and maybe I haven’t had the greatest outlets for that drama in the past many years. Maybe I should be doing Gorilla Theater on the streets.

All I have done for years is write. It started just as promise to everyone that I would stay in touch to ease their worries that I was still alive. Then maybe it just became something I did for myself to remind myself I was alive.

People eventually got over the semi-annual Aradia's going away or coming home party.

Now that’s Dramatic. I love it.

Now I try to have my keep my pity parties private.

Really honestly though, I gotta tell ya, I actually feel like a Drag Queen. I remember the days when I was a teenager with Sharon and we would watch Pricilla Queen of the Dessert over and over again hoping to someday grow up to be Drag Queens that beautiful.

Sometimes I feel like a dude trapped in a curvy ladies body. I’ve done so many things gone so many places that women don’t really go, things women don’t do alone. Man’s worlds. I got tough in places that world told me women aren’t supposed to be tough. I found out, why it is, those cultures don’t have women in those places. I have seen shit I would rather pretend doesn’t exist in real human persons lives. I have always kept myself safe though, trusting my gut, and using common sense. Plus lucky for me I’m usually bigger then the men in those countries. Rarely used em' but often flexed me muscles.

Plus I spent years holding people for a living. I learned to hold half naked men and woman's bodies in my arms without turning on 1 percent of my sexual engery so that they would feel safe. And could remember the orginal nuturer.

But oddly enough I feel disarmed here in this country and confused at the customs because I think I should already understand them. Been confused at times at how to turn my sexual engery back on.

Sometimes I feel like an ethereal virgin removed from and disconnected from all but my practice. I've spent months of my life dressed all in white. Seen by my neighbors as the oldest unmarried woman on earth, and the only one they had ever seen live alone. Pobrecita. They kept an eye out for me.

People at home might find that hard to believe. Someone (I still don’t know who) told my sweetie when he was out and about on Alberta street. Watch out for that girl she has a boyfriend in every state, probably every country.

Now… I do not for the record have any boyfriends in a majority of the states or a majority of the countries in this world. And honestly I have lots of boy friends. I have one Boyfriend these days which really what I wanted all along.

But people can say what they will because I know myself and my sweetie knows me. And wants to know me more.

To my family I am seen as the raging social extrovert who runs off with her whims. But fragile in ways, and in need of being protected at times from herself.

To my friends who have known me through the years they know I am sensitive in ways that often overwhelm me, and I’m also raging social extrovert who runs off with her whims.

I am a base line optimist and usually assume the best about people. Although I have heard through the grapevine that people thought I was stuck up, self-absorbed, or that I snubbed them.

ME??? I just have a terrible memory people. Quite fickle and selective.

And I am like humans tend to be self-absorbed.

Can you change in your life from an Extrovert to an Introvert based on your environment?? I think someone told me it was less about how you behaved in the world and more about you how recharged.

I learned how to recharge by being alone. But not until I got away from my all 16 of siblings and all 29 of my parents. ( i also NEVER exaggerate and am very modest) So I suppose I am introvert. Just an introverted Drama Drag Queen that tries her best to function in the world but is also an epileptic insomniac with a possible martyr complex.

Really though, labels are for entertainment purposes only. So call me whatever you feel like.
Just call me.
Anything please,
but stuck up,
I really do like people they just scare me sometimes.

A great mind is a terrible thing to waste

Terrible that is if you’ve haven’t a mind in the first place.

Here I am making a move back to Portland happen.

Saturn return is in sight. Saturn a slow moving planet liking to move two steps forward and one step back (a little something like me). Has been shadowing over my life for the past two years. Tricky bastard crossed my ascendant 2 years ago and told me ROOT you’re wandering days. Go back to your home and make a home. But it was like this false alarm and again my little feet moved so quickly it would appear from a distance like I was in constant flight.

Now as my true Saturn does finish returning this August I begin to set the foundation for the next 29 years of my life. All the crazy dreams and crazy plans are coming together. Some parts true, some parts real, some false and born of illusion, and all unbelievable. Something I’ll spend the next 29 years sorting out.

My own vision I’ve been given. But coming from parents who both have visions I think I’ve learned a little about the process. Visions must evolve and include others and include the forces of time and space. Realism balanced with the gift to imagine equals limitless possibilities.

Portland is the place for me because of my greatest love Aaron, because of my wonderus friends here, and because of the closeness to Eugene without being in Eugene.

With the right home space and with the right partner I think I can even weather the weather. That is, with sun breaks adventures, but a home to return to.

I have had, one wild ass adventure, in the past two weeks to bring me to this place. Care of my mind and body just preempted every other thing on the priority list. The time for rest became NOW in no uncertain terms.

I have no doubt that I have made it through the crisis’s of late with the internal resources I have in spiritual practice and external resources of my family and my friends.

I always thought belief was a mask we carved out of mystery. And while interested in many things I never really wanted to believe in anything. Afraid of, losing my openness to learn, or worse getting lost in Dogma. In every spiritual tradition there are the mystics who commune directly with the Divine in there own ways. Music, Art, Dance, Meditation, Animal Sacrifices, you know that kind of thing.

In this world today there are so many amazing teachers transforming and inspiring life.

I told Jessica we were alchemists turning love into more love. Because the stakes are that high, and it’s so worth the risk. If we are talking about gambling I don’t know any better odds.

I find myself as Grateful and humbled as I’ve ever been. With renewed inspiration, in how to stand in my own power.

I no longer wish to underestimate the power of intention.
I have reserved the right to Believe in my own capacity to heal.

And I intend to teach, to write, to dream and to create. And to find balance in the personal so that I can better channel the Universal.

And as much as I am angry and bitter at this country and how far away the power is from the people. I have been asking for things from it but not giving anything to it. It’s time now that we take the power back. That’s why when I met Bernard Beckwith from the Secret he said…WHEN BARRACK BECOMES PRESIENT…

Another teacher told me once--- The heart people are the majority on this planet, it is only that the ones that are of evil intent are the louder. So it is time for us peace lovers, land lovers, tree hugging dirt mongers with pocket compost to get loud! He also told me there is no such thing as ‘bad karma’ its unresolved guilt that manifests.

I learned I had to forgive myself and my mistakes before I could speak up. And I forgive those closest who are themselves humans like me.

This message has been brought to you by the founder of the Fake it Till you make School of Enlightenment….