Poems & Thoughts

Hoop Path Retreat 2009: The Best Ever

Ann — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 00:46:15 GMT

It's hard to even begin to get to the heart of what I wish I could express about this weekend--to even begin to wrap my mind around the sweet energy, love, and SOUL that our locals and guests brought to our little event. I am so moved by the generosity and openness embodied by every person. I know that people had their struggles and their challenges, and possibly weren't always dealing with ideal circumstances, but for me the 3rd Annual Hoop Path Retreat was overwhelmingly marked by the presence of an undeniable Energy, a Force that animated pretty much every moment of the retreat for me, opening doors, removing obstacles, smoothing rough spots, lightening burdens, and facilitating connection. All things that presented themselves as potential disasters, whether logistical, interpersonal or otherwise, easily yielded to this Force and folded into a manageable shape without my having to do anything except stay Present. This weekend was for me so many things and contained so many lessons, but one of the greatest of these was the reminder to stay with Way and allow it to open, to remember not to resist what is, to allow others access to their experience without making them responsible to me or to anyone else. I must say that my belief in the phenomenon of Energy was powerfully stoked by the weekend in its entirety. And I have all of you--the locals and the guests who joined in with their good Energy and positive intentions--to thank for that. Thank you. (Warning: I might say that 400 times in this blog-note). The story of HPIII began months ago, when we local Hoop Pathers broke our self-imposed restriction on "talking about the retreat" : > in January of this year. Baxter's and my highest hope was that our locals could experience the retreat as fully and as leisurely as any guest (lessons taught by HPII) and I want to thank each and every local for, among so many other things, *being honest about how much you were willing to do*. I believe with all my heart that this honesty was a major reason why we had such a phenomenal retreat this year. Thank you all for being real with me. That's what I want and that's what I hope to offer to each of you. Despite my deep love for so many far-flung hoop brothers and sisters, you are my first and foremost hoop family, and this event is primarily for and about YOU--because we think you are all amazing, we want to show you off, and we love you "to the bones and beyond" (Laurie). I cannot even find words to express my thanks. You are a rare group of people. Most of our guests realized at some point during the weekend how much love, attention, and work our locals were pouring into this event, but there are still so many efforts that went by unseen, and all I can say is WE COULD NOT AND WOULD NOT HAVE DONE IT WITHOUT YOU, IN ANY WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM. I LOVE YOU. Once we began discussions about 2009, now that I look back on it after the fact, it was as if that Energy had already established itself, because we just flowed forward without incident. Most of that was due to the hard work and planning that our 2008 locals had given to this event, and I hold deep gratitude to each of you who participated in that challenging year. We were all stretched to the max, and we tried to bring that into every stage of planning for this year. I feel tremendous joy that several times throughout the weekend, I was able to look around and see locals talking, laughing, hooping, and chillaxing. So grateful... I did struggle in the first 24 hours of so with just *letting the retreat happen*--it was like I couldn't accept that it was actually starting. This was really more on Wednesday, the day before most of you arrived. It kept seeming like I could change the channel, somehow, and be in a regular Wednesday with some extra time at the end of the day. I suppose it was the acceleration of time I was resisting. Another lesson in the futility of resistance--but sometimes it's so difficult to overcome our instincts. I acknowledged it as it was happening and just let myself be in a resistant place. Class that night with my Sweetie helped a lot, as it almost always does. Over 3 years (4 if you count my first HP class ever) my tremendous respect and, really, awe at Baxter's teaching power is undiminished. In fact, it has only deepened. His great teaching gift gave me, a very unlikely hoop student, an access point into the physical expression of joy and changed my life forever. I am his biggest fan and never get bored in his class, despite a 3-12 hour weekly immersion. I love you, my Sweet Sweet. Thursday was when I finally felt the Energy in the present moment. I got to Snipes around 2pm to set up tables, and was stunned and dismayed to see that all the folding chairs, which has been set out the day Bax and I went by to check out the space, were nowhere! Mr. and Mrs. Snipes showed me the closet where they had been stored after the last event. I had an "Oh no..." moment, but then strong, beautiful Antje showed up and we got the chairs out in no time. When that ostensible problem became a non-problem, just by presence and doing the work, I felt the first sweet sense of delight that yes, this was our retreat, it was happening, and it was going to be not only good, it was going to be great. The gentle shift in the weather, away from thunderstorms into the usual mugginess and heat, also lifted my heart and gave me a deeper sense of the presence of Way. All of the sudden, it was easy, effortless, not to worry about the weather or anything that *might happen.* I noticed that despite being aware of *what might happen*, I was just willing to let things happen. What a sweet feeling. Once everyone started arriving at Snipes, and immediately started whipping out hoops and dancing in the light of the setting sun, everything became color, light, motion, Energy. And I knew it really would all be ok. After sunset, and good words from our homeboy Kimo as well as the first of many speeches by Baxter ; > , we tucked into our delicious (if I do say so myself) plates of homemade green beans and local NC barbecue and let our eyes and ears feast on our friends’ many talents. Highlights for me were, of course, singing harmony with Beth, Casandra’s amazing spoken word poetry-performance piece, and catching a glimpse of some of Spiral’s new acrobatic feats, but one of the weekend’s most profound moments for me began with Laurie’s inaugural poem—an intensely powerful paean to the female body: “Look upon this body, for this is the Goddess incarnate.” I cannot do it justice. Laurie is a healer and a true role model for me and, I’m sure, many others. We are blessed to have her generous spirit among us. Thank you. And thanks to everyone who brought it for the Flowcase! This was our first attempt at a talent show and I thought it went fabulously. We missed Toni, aka ThunderShyne, who was scheduled to speak but was having too much trouble with her eyes to make the trip to NC—we hope to see her and her husband Keith next year. The Morning Meditation was, for the third year in a row, wonderfully peaceful. Laurie brought her strong voice and healing guidance along with Bonnie’s gentle and soothing imagery, lovingly chosen quotes, and beautiful home setting. I love witnessing the results of their teamwork and feeling the stillness that descends as everyone falls into meditation. We’re so lucky to have these two women in our community. Thank you both. The Orientation could not have gone more smoothly, and again I felt Way opening moment by moment. I frankly astonished myself by how many names I already knew (thanks, Facebook!), and how easy it was to create the mini-tribes, a task that had proved staggeringly complicated the year before. Just a few shifts into accommodating the natural flow, and voila, tables were buzzing with chatter as everyone shared a few things about themselves. I was able to leave and grab a snack and a Kombucha (Kombucha addiction is NO JOKE) as well as have a couple of needed conversations. Similarly, the Monday ride-share meeting took all of 10 minutes. It was a good thing to see everyone’s readiness and willingness to accommodate others. As if I needed reminding that this was, indeed, a one-of-a-kind group of people! Thank you to everyone who shared rides with the rideless and thank you to all the locals who provided brotherly and sisterly guidance to their fire tribes. I know it was appreciated. The first workshops, on Friday evening, were a challenging moment for me, as I realized that we might have a serious a/c issue on our hands. Those in the earlier workshop endured some highly elevated temps, and we thank you for your patience in dealing with that. I kept having to pop out of the workshops to make calls about the a/c, so I didn’t get as much of a continuous sense of the how things were flowing that evening. However, we finally got in touch with our friend Brad, a contractor, and he was able to explain to us what he thought was happening. He proved to be exactly right and everything was fine by the next morning. Even though none of them will probably read this note, I offer thanks to Alex, the CFS gym manager, Brad’s wife Christine, and, of course, Brad himself for their patience and generosity fielding our calls on a not-so-early Friday night. Saturday’s workshops, with better light and much better air, allowed me to drink in the beautiful, expressive hoopdance of every single participant. Many, many times, both on Saturday and on Sunday, I was brought to tears by the sublime expression I witnessed. Several times, as Beth, Khan, and I circulated the room, spotting people as they hooped blind, we had to stop and exchange looks or hugs simply to acknowledge the beauty we were witnessing. That was another major highlight, one I wish everyone at the retreat could share. There is nothing more astoundingly beautiful than a roomful of people hooping blind. There’s no hesitation in the movement. It’s just incredible. Thank you all for trusting the safety of our container and sharing your beauty so generously. What a great job I have!!! I was tickled pink that so many of you came to my twins class, and especially honored to see twin-spinning badazzes like Cari in the mix. It was a visual thrill to see twice as many hoops whizzing through the air! I wish I hadn’t broken our good camera (a SECOND time) and could have gotten some good shots—another thanks goes out to all of your who are sharing all your great pictures and videos of the weekend! Dealing with a camera is often too much for this former Luddite, and so I hugely appreciate the chance to see so much great footage of the weekend. The sound textures and beats brought by my old friend Ken Ray to Saturday night’s drum jam caught my whole body and moved me from my very core. The richness of the sound was itself a tribute to Kevin Brock, the gentle and shining soul who was with us in our hearts that night. I reveled in the chance to lose myself in dance for the first time of the weekend. Victor’s leadership of the kava ceremony only augmented my memories of Maria in years past. Boolaboolabooola! I love this ceremony and I love the way that Victor brought in awareness of the sacredness of the water we drank with the kava—this is the first time in two years we have been out of drought in this area, and it was good to be reminded of yet another blessing. I loved the fact that Colleen and Nicki helped Sister Mary hand out the rings (thanks to Natalie, Pat, Patricia, Cathy & Kathy for those!) --- two of our remaining First Ringers who took the chance to travel hundreds of miles in 2007 to make the first-ever Hoop Path Retreat happen. We MISSED our other First Ring homies--Martine,Vicky, Jess, Diana, Chris, Hadria, Natasha, & Maria—terribly. But we were profoundly honored that Colleen, Nicki, Khan, and Kaiya could make it back to hang with us. The Fire Ceremony amazed me with each group so galvanized, engaging, and expressive. We locals were the real zorks with our 15-minute fire-lighting struggle. Y’all basically swept us off the stage. As it should be. : > I loved the mixing bowl of emotions, the multipartite harmonies, the flying birds, the Skoos, the Sacred Seven, and everyone’s realness and apparent ease in sharing some of their deepest thoughts and feelings. I have to say though, the moment that really transported me was singing “We are a circle” while Bonnie’s mini-tribe wove hand-in-hand through the whole group of us. I was lifted! Thank you all so very much. And you know that we all have a special place in our hearts now for Robin, the Hoop Path’s own Steve Tyler. Sunday’s workshops were a once-in-a-lifetime confluence of planning, openness, collective intention, and Presence. The silence was, for me, utter peace, and the music and dance that followed brought a new level of freedom into our shared space. Sunday’s blind hooping reached even higher than Saturday’s. It was truly humbling to see. You are all bright, shining spirits, and guiding lights to me. It was such an honor to get the chance to sing with Ter’i Buttafli and Beth—we would have been nowhere without Miss Buttafli! Nothing against me and Beth : > but we cannot bring the a capella the way she can. Thank you for coaching us through! Another of the highest highs of my weekend was SO MANY of you telling me you had breakthroughs in spinning at the end of the workshop! I had hardly dared hope, but this was one of my strongest intentions of the weekend, to open this door for people who had been feeling, for days, months, or years, that they could not spin. It had really bothered me that so many people told me over the years that they just could not do it. I wanted people to feel what I feel in that sacred place. It means so much to me that some of you who had never experienced that got to feel it for the first time that day. Thank you for trusting me and for allowing me to lead you there. Thank you also for sharing your experiences with me. It really made my year, as far as teaching goes. I’ve been loving having these opportunities to stitch together all I’ve learned from Baxter with other subjects and disciplines in my life. But this was a singular high point. Thank you. Bringing us to…THE HOOPERS’ BALL…finally, we pulled it off! After two years of feeling very limited by the circumstances of our final night’s celebratory bash (bad lighting the first year, no lighting the second) we finally, finally nailed it. Tsunamis of thanks go to our decoration and breakdown committee—Kara, Josh, Patricia, Antje, Jolie, Laura, Laurie, and Diane---you all ROCK! It was absolutely, absolutely perfect. Though I was distracted by trying to secure hip-hop for y’all’s discerning ears, once I finally got that rolling (Thank you again, Mary!) I looked at the pulsing crowd and got immediately and completely mesmerized by my dear friend Christabel. I could not break away as she whirled and whirled holding her glowing rainbow hoop. It’s a sight that just stays with me. I still hadn’t even gotten the hoop around me one time but I stayed rooted to the spot! It was a moment of nourishing beauty. Once I made my way across the room I became similarly entranced by the riveting dance energies of Michele and Nayeli, who were luckily right next to each other. Nayeli’s power and clean lines absorbed me, while Michele’s wild creativity with the hoop kept zapping my senses with wonder afresh! Such richness and delight… About my own experience dancing, really, what can I say that cannot be summed up in the word “Brecken”? That girl opened a vortex that I can still feel when I close my eyes! I know we all felt it and were truly graced by it. She was like an electric mad scientist possessed by her lab. An other-worldly spirit! When I could finally stop watching (or, really, gaping at) her, I started hooping beside her and was borne aloft by the most palpable current of Energy I have ever felt in dance. I could literally feel the Energy zinging off her. Bless you, friend, for bringing the phenomenon of yourself to share! I swear, that was a life-changing recognition. Brecken reaches deep and taps into something that enriches us all. Thank you. There are so many more moments I remember and savor—no way to get them all down on one page. To our wonderful house guests, Heather, mARTa, Khan, Geoffrey, Rob, and Donna, and our honorary house guests Rich and Lauren, thank you for holding down the sweet vibe all weekend long. We love you and can’t wait to play with you at Burning Man. To our honored guests, whether you came from Winston-Salem or from Vancouver—thank you, thank you, thank you for making the sacrifices necessary to join us here in Carrboro, thank you for bringing and sharing your authentic selves, thank you for going back into your home communities and bringing the hoop to more and more people who need it. Y’all are a blessing. Last but not least to our beloved local Hoop Pathers: You are our heroes, our inspiration, the reason this all got started, and you deserve the biggest and loudest applause. Thank you for all that you did to pull this off and thank you for showing up to class! We love you!

Reflections On the NW Hoop Gathering: Parts I & II

Ann — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 15:25:02 GMT

Reflections: Northwest Hoop Gathering—Part I It’s Monday night at the Portland airport. My entire body feels altered—there’s a lightness in my joints and bones, and a gentle heavy awareness in my muscles that can feel like pain if I move quickly. What’s been descending over the last few hours as Baxter, Beth and I said our goodbyes to Rob and Donna (our incredibly groovy, lovable hosts in Bend) and drove over the snowy pass back to Portland, is a hoop melancholia, a lovebuzz hangover that is the by-product of too much joyful dance, conversation, and belly laughter. Would that all hangovers were the result of such overindulgences… Having to travel to and from the East Coast, my post-hoop-fest reflections are regularly subject to the mundane interruptions of desperate pre-flight sleeping, cross-country hoop transfer, and car rental return. This trip in particular we were compelled to soak up every possible minute we could with our delightful hosts as well as the scores of dear friends we were so lucky to have all in one place at one time (not even counting workshop presenters): Heather HooperPower and mARTa, Jasmine, Xta, Sparks Evolution, Doug Snowflake, Jennaluna…the list could go on ad nauseam. I can’t even believe we got to sit down and have a meal with just about everyone above PLUS SaFire, whom we met for the first time (and who ROCKS), Doug’s fiancé Dara (who made us cookies—choco chip and dried cranberry—oh my god--), THE Philo, Dave & Christine--our hosts in Vancouver in ’07, Jonalyn and Natasha (feeling a terrible dread I have your name wrong—but I do remember you and your gorgeous happy blue eyes!), the beautiful Miss Rosie, sweet Serena Doodlebug, PLUS Hoopalicious herself and her man Franck! Not only that, Revolva made a heroic journey to Bend, altering her schedule at the last possible second to come & bliss out with us. And the thing is, I haven’t even hardly gotten started yet… Here’s the deal: The Northwest Hoop Gathering in Bend surpassed every possible expectation I ever could have had. I had hoped it would stir the conversation about our theme, Flow, into a community-wide exploration. What happened was that my fellow workshop presenters freaking blew my mind in serial fashion and in my opinion occasioned a full paradigm shift in the world of hooping—a great leap forward into a land of conceptual frameworks and meshing theories where our art pings off of ideas developed through more traditional disciplines such as movement, design, and physics. In my wildest hoop dreams, I couldn’t have come up with anything better. Reflections: Northwest Hoop Gathering—Part II Back home in NC, rested and replenished. Wanting so much to record some pieces of this phenomenal weekend before they fade away! So, as I was saying, to me this gathering represented a real paradigm shift in hooping, away from simple mechanics and/or styles, into deeper and richer terrain—the land of the intellect (one of my favorite places) where philosophies can turn into shapes, conceptual frameworks take on mass and velocity, where our academic and critical traditions make resounding collisions with a bunch of colorful plastic rings---if you will, the NW Hoop Gathering was, for me, the thinking person’s hoop retreat. Not to dis any other event (including out own BELOVED Annual Hoop Path Retreat—coming up on Year Three in June 09!)—but for me the overall scope and ambition of this event was clearly different from anything that has gone before, and I feel deeply enriched by it. Baxter and I were honored to kick things of with a dose of soul (Bax) followed by a shot of literary tradition (yours truly). I hoped to bring people’s awareness closer to the ways that the Hoop Path’s focus on myth and archetype fits within humanity’s age-old practices of storytelling, myth-making, and hero worship. I wanted to show how these practices help us build on our human strengths, which are every bit as real, powerful, and important as our oft-lamented weaknesses. I thank my Honey for opening the space for me and for all of us to share our insights, no matter how wacky they might sounds to non-hoopers---the moment I remember best is Bax shouting into the microphone, to everyone’s delight: “I AM A SPIRITUAL HOOPER! I AM A SPIRITUAL HOOPER! I DON’T CARE HOW WEIRD IT SOUNDS!” That was exactly what we needed to shake of any apprehension and dive headlong into the wilderness of hoopgnosis, which sustains us all. Strong, shining Spiral opened Saturday morning with a workshop that blazed new trails in the evolution and re-contextualization of the hoop movement by bringing in the ideas of a branch of movement theory called Laban, a whole system for understanding human movement which isolates its various qualities and properties. This was a delightful shift in awareness, bringing focus to some of the more abstract and subtle dimensions of movement, and I felt new connections everywhere. These ideas feel very much in line with a specific pleasure I’ve felt more and more as my practice becomes more nuanced. Here is a wiki quote that touches on this correspondence: “Laban described a complex system of geometry based on crystalline forms, Platonic solids, and the structure of the human body. He felt that there were ways of organizing and moving in space that were specifically harmonious, in the same sense as music can be harmonious.” There’s so much more to say about this, but for now I’ll just give big big thanks to Spiral for bringing in this fascinating piece that gave me so much to think about. Next up we had Rich of Isopop, who brought a whole nother realm of thought into our hoops: diagram and design. With an absolutely nifty professional pamphlet, showing simple, precise visuals of what he was discussing, Rich turned our focus to the geometric, asking us to be aware of the shapes the hoop made in space around us (we were using the hoop off-body, in what the Hoop Path would call the Vertical Plane), while at the same time remaining focused on the center of the circle and/or, as the case may be, on its point of rotation—all different aspects of the hoop in space. Seeing the hoop, arm, and core as design elements again changed the framework—now I could concentrate on the hoop primarily as a shape and notice all the differences, as it changed its relationship to the core, in terms or pure geometry. Another refreshing shift that gave me new ways to think about and play with the hoop. Rich—you are a badass! Thank you! The divine Candice of SHiNE pulled us inward to look at what might be holding us back from reaching towards or being open to growth. She invited us to reconsider which voices we allow to guide us—are we listening to those that might be afraid of transformation and change? What is coming between us and our biggest, craziest dreams? Could it be something as small as a judging voice? These are the vital questions I took from Candice’s talk and our discussion. They continue to resonate. Our dear friend Christabel closed the day with a delicious relaxation into the floor—I loved having yet another reason to step away from my habitual relationship with my hoop (me standing, the hoop either on the core or off-body on the horizontal or vertical plane). Instead of standing on my feet, I was invited to sink down to the floor and enjoy the full sensation of support as my hoop swung above me. It certainly shows the limits of my imagination, that I had never even explored lying on the floor with my hoop! I enjoyed attempting full rolls on the floor while passing the hoop behind me—very, very challenging, but wonderfully feminine and fun. I also loved revisiting sitting and kneeling with the hoop on the core—another different relationship I often forget about. Christabel finished the day meditating with the tiny mini-hoops. My set are 21” diameter and I love playing with them, though mine are in perpetual motion when I pick them up. It was lovely to hold them still and explore yet another configuration with core and hoop—holding the minis separately, or twinned in a spaceball, I felt a sense of peace and unhurried-ness as we ended our day in contemplation. Sunday started off with another real conceptual advance: Khan’s discussion of particle-wave theory with regard to the hoop and its relationship to the body. This is another set of ideas I feel a strong kinship with, having had many experiences inside my hoop where I felt new understandings of the principles of physics, subatomic and macro alike. The simple pairing of velocity and the circle just on its own could constitute a book’s worth of discussion. Khan’s overview of the behavior of light and matter on this quantum level brought language and form to some of these early hoop experiences, where I could at times, rolling the hoop off-body, sense a grid of possible energetic paths it could follow, and “see” this grid in my mind’s eye. I was powerfully inspired by this workshop (Khan’s FIRST!) and I look forward to see the next wave of ideas he surely will be rolling out. Thanks, Flow Bro! Next up was the delightful Philo who wowed us all with his leg prowess and his hilarious tales of hoop days gone by. Honestly, he should post the story of how BAH came into being somewhere—either on video or in writing—it’s priceless! I was truly impressed as his versatility on the legs and the way he brought everyone in on the lesson—inviting students to show any leg move they could think of. It was a really fun departure from some of the more serious, heady themes of other workshops—which I was obviously ALL ABOUT, but still, it’s great to take a break and just play and romp around with the hoop. Philo also impressed me with his utter relaxation and natural humor. The chillaxed air he brought to the class allowed everyone to have a good time with what for most of us is the most difficult part of hooping—using the legs. Thank you, Philo—you are awesome. And finally—what could anyone say?—Anah Hoopalicious herself! She stunned everyone into jaw-on-the-floor silence with her demos (some of which have already been posted on Facebook) and in general brought it all home with a strong sense of hoop-family and just the most unbelievable manifestations of Flow, leaving everyone with the ethereal moving picture of her impossibly limber and lithe body truly dancing with the hoop’s revolution—I have never seen and probably never will see anything like Anah’s hooping. She gave us insight into the separateness of each aspect of moving with the hoop, able as she is to isolate so perfectly almost muscle by muscle and reveal exactly how much variability there is in the core. Her shoulder hooping is like magic. I’m at a loss for words… Despite the blatant appearance of long-windedness, I feel I have only brushed the surface of this seminal weekend. It was most definitely path-altering for me, in that I now know I can look forward to more conceptual and theoretical growth in the hoop movement, which will undoubtedly continue to enrich my practice in unexpected ways. Thank you Bend, and thank you Mollie HoopDazzle, for bringing this weekend together. I can’t wait for next time!

Poem for Nov. 4th

Ann — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 23:21:17 GMT

A couple of notes on this poem--I wrote this during some of the darkest days of the Bush administration--somewhere in the trough of 2002-2003, when the damage really began to sink in. I struggled against the futility of my own political views--nationalistic fervor was still running high, and I was feeling less American than ever. During this time I happened to see the documentary "The War Room." For those of you who have not seen this exceptional film, the most prominent figure is James Carville, Bill Clinton's campaign manager in '92. The movie details the campaign's triumphant endgame, and memorializes Carville's quirky brilliance. As I was walking my dog through this brisk fall afternoon, for a few moments I dared to really, truly hope for the best outcome two weeks from today. I suddenly remembered this poem and the brief respite it gave me during the awful middle of the Bush regime, which seemed to go on forever. I'd like to think that this poem was perhaps the tiniest harbinger of better days to come, glimpsed down a long, long road, where a little light showed at the end. HOPE I know that I love James Carville just as right now I know I love you, and there are so many gorgeous quiet Saturdays before us we will spend together or separately in the dead clean leaves that fall towards the end of September, when children feel a delicious impatience for cold nights we no longer feel but in the flash ghosts of ourselves we sometimes pass through such nights--fall arrives like this, for us. And whether or not we are James Carville, or love him, as I know I do, we experience the sharpness of what we do not feel in miniscule bursts that shock through our thicknesses like a flashbulb. James, I never imagined this adult life, or you crowing through it in your birdy way--where were you? I needed you so, you yokel, so indescribably that I was incapable of imagining your face, roundly crowded with thought, tipped towards its center like a mashed penny. You are so smart, so smart and so impatient I lean on the thought of you, I rest my head on the thought of your middle back like a sturdy corduroy pillow. I love you. And I'm certain I will never get over it.

The Magic of Hoopcamp

Ann — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 17:01:35 GMT

We got back to NC yesterday, mid-morning, after one of those weird nights of airplane half-sleep--the day melted into naps, but today I have a strong wish to write down some of the moments that stay with me from this past weekend at the Hoopcamp Retreat, a magical gathering of hoopers from all over the world. Christabel has blogged eloquently about the overwhelming vibe of Oneness that was present at this retreat, which was undeniably powerful and did feel like, as she said, an alchemical transformation. Living so much of our collective hoop life virtually, much of it on this (imperiled?) space, does seem to have oftentimes exacerbated our differences and stimulated some of our less noble instincts: fear, judgment, anger. Meeting in person all at once dramatized--in a way that no article or post could ever duplicate--the fact that our connection through the hoop unites us much more than it divides us. I felt a constant undercurrent throughout the weekend, like an underground river, of peace and healing. I found a new clarity around my own contributions to anaerobic, limiting judgments concerning what happens (or doesn't happen) in the hoop community. I felt a real heart-opening and relaxing around the (totally illusory) need to determine/control what's "good" or "bad" for this community. This weekend I witnessed so much richness, good sense, originality, strength, and maturity, I was able to let go of a huge burden of that limiting, unhealthy energy. What also struck me was how different this gathering felt from either of our Hoop Path Retreats —yet I found this retreat equally profound and magical. I confess to being shocked by this phenomenon, which forced me to face having harbored a slight prejudice and protectiveness around what I considered to be “my” event—i.e., “Hoopcamp will be great—but not as great as the Hoop Path Retreat, of course.” Seeing this prejudice in its stark arbitrariness allowed me to own how this piece of pride might have stood in the way of my being able to grow and learn from other teachers, join in other hoop communities in more meaningful ways, look beyond the identity and responsibilities I uphold and just be a hooper amongst hoopers. This is the Hoopcamp gift I feel most grateful for—learning to yet another degree how directly I am responsible for my own unhappiness or happiness—that how I embrace the world determines so much of how the world embraces me. Speaking of other teachers---!!!!!---whoo-EE! What a whopping collection of badasses! The experience of learning from so many hoop masters all in the same 48-hour period was just…beyond my capacity to describe. For me, the technical guidance offered by both Bunny Hoop Star and Erin Shredder was the most intellectually and physically exciting. I had never had the opportunity to learn any circus hoop techniques, and my awareness of the possibilities of working with multiple hoops was dramatically expanded by these two megababes. I loved their strength! Wonderwomen, they are! Also totally mind-blowing was learning from two of my favorite female hoopers, Anah (Hoopalicious) and Vivian Spiral. I can honestly say that I have never gotten tired of watching these two, and I don’t expect I ever will. Each of their classes offered fresh new insights from a more directly dance-based point of view—I found myself moving in new ways immediately. So exciting. Anah had an unexpectedly playful approach which broadened my willingness to experiment. And Spiral articulated the interstices of rhythm, sound, and movement with a depth and precision I’ve never heard or read anywhere else. Nothing but insight and grace. Sharing the learning space created by Christabel was a much-longed-for dream come true. I was amazed at the different flavors and nuances that came through her guidance. For the first time, I thought of each of my fingers in a totally different way! Christabel brought my full awareness to each frontier of the body—lungs, heart, ribcage, face, hands, booty, knees, legs, mouth, throat—and also engaged my mind with rich imagery. My favorite image was the grid of light. I felt fully loosened and free, dancing with my whole self. I had a similar full-body freeing-up in Sharna’s Playhouse!! I loved loved loved jumping and dancing without the hoop—and when else am I going to get the chance to press a balloon between my chest and Grant’s?!? I DID find my inner child (instantly) and felt like I was on the playground again, running and leaping (except, this was even more fun). I let my body go crazy and dropped the hoop fifty times. It was wonderful to feel that permission to play and be silly. I found new ways of interacting with my hoop, mainly with my legs—the area of the body I’ve been least confident about, hoopwise. Bravo, Sharna! Also marvelous was stepping into my inner showcase diva with Stefan. I loved purposely bringing different emotions into the hoop—an exercise I had never thought of trying before. Switching approaches rapid-fire gave me insight into the pure physicality of emotion: when I’m suspicious, I turn my body away, keep my eyes low, hold my hands up to protect myself—when I’m guilty, I hang my head, fold my body in on itself, let my arms dangle uselessly. Zip-zip-zip—we went through at least twenty emotions. I felt a renewed respect for stage actors—that shit is exhausting!! A non-movement workshop I really got a lot out of was the hoop biz forum hosted by Shakti Sunfire and Ali Cat. This was another moment where I really felt how much more we have in common with each other than we do, really, with almost anyone else on earth. Shakti gently and non-judgmentally gave voice to the fact that tensions do arise when business gets involved, and her openness and true hopefulness gave me a new burst of confidence that we can all contribute to growing hoopdance as art, meditation, and/or exercise without choking on our own competitiveness. This forum reminded me of the obligation we all have to responsibly shepherd the growth of this nascent dance form. Many of the biz-experienced participants offered wise contributions as well. Thank you, Ali and Shakti! And, lest I forget, my sweetheart Baxter and homegirl Beth simply knocked it out of the park. I could not have been better preceded in my first ever out-of-town workshop! It was a profound honor to teach alongside two of my biggest hoop heroes. Throughout all the music, dance, beauty, swirls, hugs, and giggles, there is one moment for me that particularly stands out. Though ostensibly un-hoop-related, in some way this story for me encapsulates perfectly everything that we are ‘about’ as a community: Saturday night, between mini-hoop-jams, I retired for a little girls’ break up in Christabel, Jasmine, & Cara’s room. The four of us lounged on the bed, jawing about girl stuff: emotions, relationships, life plans. Somehow we ended up sharing stories about outbursts of rage. As the girls shared, I started thinking about how I had never, throughout my whole life, truly screamed in anger at another person. I casually mentioned this fact. Jasmine sat up, eyes twinkling. “I think you should do it right now! Scream at us! Just scream whatever you want! It will be really healing!” “Yeah! That’s great!” Christabel agreed. No-ho-ho waaay, I thought. Everyone in camp was walking by right outside our open window. “I don’t think I can,” I said. “Well, we’ll do it then!” said Jasmine. “You just join in if you feel like it.” Christabel followed up: “Yeah, we’ll just scream our heads off, and you can do it too, if you want to!” They looked at each other, faces alight with joy. “Let’s scream happy things at each other!” Jasmine called out. “Happy, loving thoughts! In an angry voice!” “Yes! The Happy Anger Group!” answered Christabel. Cara and I were laughing and looking at each other like, No Way (she was also a non-screamer). Slowly, Jasmine gathered up her voice, looking across at Christabel. “I-I-I-I-I LOOOVE YOOOU!!! AAAAAAAAGGH! I LOVE YOU SO MUUUCH!” she screamed, face distorted and pink. Christabel screamed back, looking truly scary: “YOU’RE SO BEAUTIFUL AND SPARKLY!!!!! AAAAANH!!! ARRRRHHH! I CAN’T STAND HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU!!!!!” Jasmine looked at me. “YOU HAVE SUCH A PERFECT ASS!!! I LOVE IT!!!!” Christabel fumed: “YOU MAKE ME SO HAPPY!!!! AAAAHHHHH!” All of the sudden, I let it go: “YOU’RE ALL SO GENEROUS!!!!! I CAN’T STAND IT!!!!!” I screamed. And it felt so good. Our screams dissolved into deep belly laughs again and again and again. For a full twenty minutes, I felt my whole body shedding layers of inhibition, judgment, and shame---letting everything held inside bubble up through my vocal chords and spill out my mouth. It's funny how quickly a scream can turn into a laugh. Beautiful! I love screaming and laughing with my friends! YOU’RE ALL SO WONDERFUL!!! AND I LOOOOOVE YOOOOUUUU!!!!

Long Ride Home

Ann — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 05:15:28 GMT

The last week seems more like a month; the last month, more like a whole season. A time of change. So many of you I had the great privilege of connecting with at the Hoop Path Retreat just two and a half weeks ago—it seems impossible! Only two weeks ago this morning I was saying the last goodbyes to Sparks and Jessica as they left to drive back down to Florida. Hard to believe. Since coming up here to the far Northwest of this continent, I feel I’ve walked through a long and transforming dream, just barely having awoken from the magic of our retreat weekend. The delicious electric activity of the retreat weekend fuzzed into a few days of pure exhaustion—nothing but catching up on sleep and food---and then immediately shot into high gear again. The Sunday after the retreat I was up early, driving the 5 hours to DC to enjoy a spur-of-the-moment hoop jam in a local park (courtesy, Surprise! Thank you so much, girl--) before a quick night’s sleep (thanks again to Surprise!) and up at 7 to get in line for same-day passport renewal at the DC branch of the US Passport Service—an undertaking I fully expected to expose me to the most extreme forms of bureaucratic tedium. I was not disappointed. A jocular security guard from Oxford, NC, did his best to entertain me, and I enjoyed some friendly hobnobbing with fellow passport sufferers. During the 3-hour break when my passport was being prepared, I wandered around the neighborhood, marveling at the meticulously landscaped rows of embassies and diplomatic residences. I have never quite enjoyed DC in the past, having firmly established my New York snobbery when I was in school there (“It’s all right—but it’s not New York f*ckn City!”)—however, the excellent hoop jam (to 30 or 40 live drums! Incredible!) and the surprisingly pleasant afternoon I spent dealing with the federal government gave me a fresh view of the place. I got back from DC just in time for Monday night hoop class—still distracted by the need to finish some hoops (which I never finished), pack, and leave the following noon for another long day of travel. Wasn’t quite relaxed until the next night around 7 or 8pm, at the Toronto airport, when I finally finished some paperwork from my other job, The Sun Magazine. Kimo and I had a 5-hour layover there but it flew past—we were already walking into the next dream. We arrived in Edmonton after 2am (4am our time) and caught a cab ride to our hotel, a downtown Days Inn. We got in so late we couldn’t pick up our rental car til the next morning. We finally got into bed by 3am (5am our time) and slept well for just a few hours—had to pop up early to check out and grab the car. On that overcast Wednesday morning I got my first solo taste of Edmonton. Leaving Kimo at the hotel, I walked the four blocks to pick up the rental car. I immediately noticed the cleanliness of the sidewalks and streets (something Baxter and I had also noticed in Vancouver last summer) and an appealing kind of plainness to the features of the city. Buildings of gray & brown, lacking ornamentation, but this absence of obvious beauty was tempered by the sense of purposefulness behind the design. Nothing was there that didn’t need to be there. This was one of the many ways I felt I saw the Canadian character reflected in my surroundings—a friendly and inoffensive pragmatism governed so much of my experience, which I noticed all the more, almost constantly needing to avail myself of services. Once I got our snappy little Toyota Yaris, we were mobile, and this is where The Food began. For many years Kimo had waxed rhapsodic about several Edmonton restaurants, two in particular. One was the Cheap Chinese (not its real name), the other was the Than Than Noodle House. Our first stop was the Cheap Chinese, whose specialty is the Long Donut, an unappetizingly-named culinary wonder. I was too afraid to order one myself, but once Kimo’s arrived I ate as much of it as he would allow. It’s a strange dish made of fried bread wrapped in a silken rice noodle and served with a strong broth. It was the first of many astonishing flavors I was gifted throughout the week. We had to more or less kill time the rest of the afternoon in order to ensure a supper at Than Than, which is only open Tuesday through Thursday. Apparently it’s so popular it can dictate its own weird hours. In a few days the restaurant will close for its annual five-week summer break. Incredible, no? The dish-to-die-for there was the Red Soup (again, not its real name). This soup is so important to Kimo that he greeted it and thanked it when it arrived. It was a tremendously beautiful sight—the bright crimson broth in the white bowl, sprinkled with chopped fresh spring onions. I had to take mine to go because I had not recovered from lunch yet! We began our drive into the great countryside of Alberta that evening around 7. The sunlight stretched long in the sky—so far north, the sun only touches the horizon around 10 and is fully set by 11. The sky and the land opened in every direction around us. The colors blue, green, white, gray, and gold made a painting that we were in. Deer of a much warmer reddish-gold color than the drab deer we see at home leapt at intervals in the reserves we passed, wisely placed a safe distance from the highway, wire fencing keeping the animals from leaping into the road. I appreciated the civility and kindness shown in this government planning. It struck me as very Canadian. We dragged in to Cold Lake First Nations Reserve around 11:30, too late and dark we felt to join the rest of Kimo’s family at the campsite they had set up down by the lake. Instead we were offered the chance to spend the night at his cousin Conrad’s house, where another couple and their teenaged son were also staying. Conrad and his family were all already at the lake about 10 miles away. I felt lucky to have the chance to get one night’s uninterrupted sleep in a real bed before we went to roughing it for 3 days and nights. My feeling of luck, however, ran dry the next morning when I felt a slight heat on my face, looked in the mirror and saw a nasty red rash all over my neck and cheeks. WTF?!? I quickly ascertained that it had to be the misleadingly soft, plush airport pillow I had impulse-purchased in Raleigh. I hadn’t used it on the plane, but figured it was the perfect thing for my night at Conrad’s, since they had taken their pillows with them. I had been poisoned by a reprehensible Toxic Pillow. It turned my stomach to think how I had snuggled into it, loving the light nap of its cover. Now I knew it to be filled with something about as innocent and yummy as radium. The Toxic Pillow Disfigurement proved to be a primary feature of my weekend. My face remained tomato-red through the whole Treaty Days celebration, as well as swelling up one day so that my whole face went off-center, finally resolving into a red, cracked hardpan that made me look like I’d been riding through the desert for weeks without water. Today my entire face (except the forehead) continues to slough itself off in a kind of Accutane nightmare. It feels much better though—no longer burning hot, and no pain or itching. K and I trashed the pillow at a gas station. I thought about sending it in and demanding a refund, but as the saga went on, more than anything I just wanted the pillow out of my life forever. My disfigurement, however, could not override the joy I experienced finally meeting Kimowan’s family and spending time within that warm circle. We met Conrad, who is best described in the Southern way as “a hoot,” the next morning when he came with his wife Michelle and baby Landon to pick up more supplies. When Conrad has the stage, which he most often does if he’s around, he has you laughing about every 90 seconds. I imagine his smile hasn’t changed a bit since he was 10 years old—it shines with a child’s brightness and hilarity. I loved him instantly. We made our way to the camp that afternoon and I was finally able to meet Kimowan’s Auntie Lee and his mother Ada. Two sisters, Lee’s expansive presence is complemented by Ada’s sweet, shy shadow. Within minutes we were all sitting around the fire (which at the family camp is going around the clock) listening to stories and trading jokes. I found it remarkably easy to catch onto the family rhythm, which surprised me since it was so different from what I’m accustomed to. Instead of questions and answers, or abstract debates, conversations were braided together out of observations of the immediate, affectionate jokes, and old stories. All these modes of communion came together to further establish a primary focus on common history, which was of course what the weekend was about. The Treaty Day celebration, as far as I was able to understand it (an effort which was midwifed dramatically by many conversations with Kimo) is a yearly occasion of marking another chapter in the tribe’s (or, as they might say, band’s) history. Folks who now might live in Toronto, Winnipeg, or Eastern Canada (or even North Carolina ; > ), come home to re-inhabit their space in the unfolding story of this people—in some sense, to remain in the story. Here we lived chapter two of The Food. Kimo’s Auntie Lee, aided by Ada and cousin Molly, cooked 3 meals daily over the open fire, usually for about 25 people. We ate boiled eggs and fresh sausage, deer and beef stew, fried bannock (Indian quick bread), steaks, boiled potatoes (it’s incredible how delicious a simple boiled potato can be…), as well as your classic roasted marshmallows (we cooked those for ourselves) and the most succulent fruit plate I have ever enjoyed. I sat by the fire and feasted, with my sore face, for three straight days. Every morning I made my way down to the shore of Cold Lake, the 13-mile-wide deep crystal-clear lake that straddles two provinces, Alberta and Saskatchewan. Bright sunlight coated the quiet surface of the water like a layer of liquid metal, or a precious oil. I was told to greet the lake by facing it and throwing a stick into the water. Then, the lake would know I was there. I had said hello. Though I mistakenly dunked my feet in the water before properly greeting the lake, I think it forgave me. I submerged myself as long as I could stand it (something in the neighborhood of two to four seconds) each morning, letting the frigid water start my blood racing. I’d go under two or three times and then stride desperately through the water to a dry towel. Wrapped in the scratchy, homeworn towel, I felt true warmth. Nights we would gather around the fire and just jaw. I mostly just listened. That is the overriding memory now—sitting around the fire, listening to the voices. I immediately adopted a noticeable Canadian accent and set of verbal cues: “Cohen-rad’s goht to goh set up the hahndgames, hey.” It just came out of my mouth without any kind of plan set up by me. It was like a voice had been waiting around there for me to pick it up, and it was simply available when I reached for it. There were many games and customs ritually engaged in throughout the weekend, many of which I was able to witness. I relished every second of my role as background observer. I felt greatly relaxed in the mix of people, though I was one of the only non-Indians and probably the only American there. It reminded me of my early twenties, when all I did was walk around New York and watch people. But I digress. Just to describe a few of the games and practices I got to see: the annual dance (the cover band played nothing but classic country and fiddle tunes—by far the most popular music in the area and I am NOT KIDDING). Couples shuffled around doing variations on the Texas Two-Step and the basic clogging steps. A few times an old gramma would dance with a younger female relative. It was such a sweet thing. I also got to see (and play) the handgames, teams of five seated across from one another, trying to guess who’s holding which “bone”—the blank or the striped—in which hand. The “bones” are often made of wood but used to be made of moose bone. The team that is holding the bones sings and beats small handheld drums. The plaintive song against the strong and fast beat makes a deeply soothing sound. I fell asleep to it each night. Another really fun ritual is the Tea- and Bannock-Making Contest. Teams of two race to build a fire, boil a pot of tea, make bannock dough and bake it in a skillet over the open fire. One couple finished their goods far ahead of the others—it struck me how watching the race made me hanker for a piece of the bread and a slurp of the tea. We had to leave before the contest was quite over, though, to partake in another of Auntie Lee’s feasts. It’s not advised to be late for supper, or god forbid, miss the meal. That would constitute a deep insult to those cooking for you. I obliged happily. Our time there seemed like an age—when we left Sunday morning, both Kimo and I had to hold back tears. Yet, when we got back on the open road, all was well. We were headed for Food: Chapter Three—Dim Sum in the City! We were blessed to meet up with our hoop brother Geoffrey and his partner Kyle for this meal. They drove all the way from Calgary (three hours!) just to spend the day with us! It was a joy and an honor. Our dim sum choices were delightfully varied: squid in curry sauce, barbecued pork buns, large savory meatballs, fried rice wrapped in a banana leaf, steamed shrimp dumplings. With a cup of black tea and a glass of water, it was a perfect Sunday meal. In the afternoon, we stopped through a street festival. K suddenly got tired and we realized that we were standing right across from a sort of cheapo-fleabag-but-also-nugget-of-history hotel, which had a bar downstairs and a youth hostel kind of vibe. It wasn’t fancy living by any stretch, but at only $70 a night we felt we could do little better. Seems like the hotel and its companion bar had been going for many, many years. Kimo remembered it from his college days back in the 80s. We slept just fine there. My power supply is getting dangerously low here on the plane, and I feel moved to wrap things up. I’ll just mention a few more moments: hooping in the park with Geoffrey and Kyle, breakfast at Albert’s, the best Tom Kai Gai I have ever tasted, and another series of glances at the city of Edmonton—a city I had never heard of until Kimowan and I became friends some six years ago. It was a journey on every imaginable level. And I thank you, Kimo, my friend, for bringing me into this rich experience.

Ocean

Ann — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 22:56:40 GMT

The ocean that is eternally open to you. In the sliding sand, your dog gently alters his play to meet the deficits of his aging companion. A similar tenderness in your decade-long friendship with the other dog’s owner. When was the ocean ever not there? If such a time could be remembered, it would exist beyond anything resembling memory, or what became memory—the force that enables single-celled organisms to reproduce. When have we ever not been here? Youth sang a song and later watched the young sing. Age watches neither self, nor other, but the knowingness in which we will all come to be held. The ocean that is eternally open to you.

Proud

Ann — Wed, 07 May 2008 03:11:04 GMT

I feel so proud tonight, May 6th, 2008, to have had the opportunity, the honor, the privilege of voting for Barack Obama today in North Carolina's Democratic Primary. I feel so proud that this rare leader, such as I have never seen in my lifetime, has handily swept a victory in my home state. I feel so proud, so proud tonight, of my state, North Carolina, for so unexpectedly bringing its tarnished (by decades of Jesse Helms and other Republican victories) political power to bear in one of the most important political contests of American history. Should this moment ultimately prove to be pivotal to Obama's candidacy, should it be the decisive showing of votes that finally and fully (and deservedly) open the Democratic nomination to him and thus make it possible for him to defeat John McCain in November, and thus make it possible for us to finally and fully (and deservedly) exhale for the first time in eight years--I will be glad to have noted this feeling I have today of Yes. May 6th, 2008, today, I have had the opportunity, the honor, the privilege of voting for Barack Obama in a contest that may well determine the future of this country and, therefore, the world (at least as we know it), and I'm proud and humbled tonight to have the power of the right to vote, and I think of so many who fought and put their lives on the line to make this privilege possible for me and for all people who have been disenfranchised in the history of this nation.

An Introduction

Ann — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 21:26:08 GMT

At our Hoop Path Retreat Fire last summer, some of you will remember that for my Fire offering I burned a huge stack of checks. These were the checks my father had signed over the last six months of his life, when an aggressive tumor was rapidly overtaking his brain. Steadily his signature disintegrated until it became an unrecognizable, childlike scribble. Finally his signature was replaced by that of his executor, an old family friend. Finding the checks when I cleaned out his house (alone) after his death was one of the hardest discoveries. The visual evidence, the image of his artfully minimalist signature unspooling, little by little, into an awkward, effortful, bumpy scrawl, was too much for my eyes. I put the checks away and didn't look at them again for ten years. When I found them again, I didn't understand why I was holding onto them, but I also knew I couldn't throw them away. It was a strange and confusing feeling to be lugging around this concrete relic of my father's slow disappearance from the world. Why? I couldn't answer the question and so stopped trying, and put the checks away again in the attic of the house I had finally settled in. When I started a regular hoop practice, with Baxter and Kimowan, I began a new relationship with myself. Instead of my mind always leaping to the forefront, taking over all tasks of understanding, shoving its way to first place to interpret and synthesize experience, I began to experience things through the body, through a truer and less mercurial Center. Before hooping I could not get my mind out of the way--it simply dominated. Now I was learning how to trust a deeper knowledge, a wisdom that came up directly, unfiltered and uninterpreted, through me. It was this deeper wisdom that told me it was coming time to let go of the checks. Seeing with my inner eye, I could recognize that I was holding onto the checks because my father's death had become more important to me than his life. What I had lost when he disappeared from this earth was more important to me than all of the gifts he was responsible, loving, and unselfish enough to give me in life. I realized that holding on in this way, while I was able to have compassion for myself for doing so for many unhealed years, was not the best way of honoring my father's memory. Who he was was so much more than the last six months of his life. And so, with the witness of my hoop brothers and sisters around the Fire, I set in motion a Current Change (a term coined by Brother Robbie) to let go of dwelling on the pain and sorrow of losing such a vital and rare person, and turn towards honoring the immense gifts he brought into my life. And so, in this blog, which I've thought about for many months, I thought I would make an attempt to introduce you to my dad, Jim Humphreys. For sounds and visuals, the best way to envision him is to imagine John Edwards. Their resemblance, noted by our whole family, is uncanny--particularly their similarity of speech. When he died, my dad was only a couple of years younger than Edwards is now, and looked every bit as youthful and exuberant as the unfortunately doomed presidential candidate. Daddy was also a lawyer with political aspirations, albeit considerably more modest. He was active in the local Democratic Party and talked occasionally of running for mayor of Winston-Salem. Like Edwards, he grew up in small-town Southeastern North Carolina, and like Edwards he felt inordinate ambition from early in life to move beyond the parameters his hometown. He spoke quickly, often in staccato flurries that suggested his thoughts nearly outrunning his ability to lasso them into words and sentences. In what I now recognize as an innate delight in language itself, he always took care to find just the right word, to say exactly what he meant. Having spent 3 years in Germany (he had compulsory military service after college because he had been a cadet at West Point, where he was teased mercilessly for his hillbilly accent), he was also fluent in German and spoke some French (but zero Spanish, to my great amusement). He read only histories and biographies, lacking the patience to follow the often winding paths of fiction, and would often read a thick hardback with one eye while watching TV (news, old movies, and "Rockford Files" being his programs of choice) with the other. My parents had divorced, with admirable maturity and absence of drama, when I was 7, and we spent two nights a week at my dad's house less than a mile away. He was an absolutely terrible cook but did his damnedest to make meals for me and my brother, despite our relentless heckling, eye-rolling, and jokes about his prowess in the kitchen and ridiculous yellow apron. His weekend Birkenstocks, coupled with khakis and a bright polo shirts, were also the object of affectionate derision ("Wow, Pop--what a combo!") My dad bore our bad preteen jokes and even insulting comic drawings with an endless well of good cheer. He saved my brother's superhero rendition of him in a cape and tights with a discernible potbelly and a huge, orating mouth, along with every artistic foray we made while at his place, the Land that Art Supplies Forgot. Magic marker menus on notebook paper and pencil tracings of Ziggy were carefully collated in Daddy's photo album. At home, his 1977 Gibson Hummingbird was always out of its case, ready to be played. He played and sang at least one song every day, and my brother (who eventually became a professional musician) and I (who still play & sing when I get the chance) learned hundreds of songs that way--traditional, bluegrass, folk, and "gonzo country"--the Texas style pioneered in the 70s by legends Jerry Jeff Walker, Waylon Jennings, and Willie Nelson. I know if he had believed in his own musical talent, which was real but limited, he would have loved to spend a few years knocking around coffeeshops as a gypsy songman, like his idol Jerry Jeff. But his small-town sense of convention and responsibility, as well as the strong desire for a family, took him down another path. Even though it is so easy to exaggerate the attributes of the dead, so easy to render them as they appear in our memory--larger than life, rinsed of flaws and limitations, amplified to proportions that would be unrecognizable in life--I know that when I say my father was an extraordinary parent, I am not exaggerating. Nothing in life brought him more joy than my brother and me. He delighted in us whether we won or lost, whether we were behaving ourselves or being little whining pains in the ass. He both loved us unconditionally and genuinely *liked* us, as people. He believed in us and consistently demonstrated that, which gave us the gift of real confidence in ourselves. He listened to us, he was fair, he was interested in who we were and who we would become. He often mentioned how excited he was to become our friend when we were grown, to get to know us as adults. He would tease me, saying, "Maybe someday you'll start calling me 'Jim'--" to which I would scream "NO!!! I'm NEVER calling you anything but Daddy!!!" Among my dad's papers I found one of those local magazines (like "Triad, On Point" or "Winston-Salem Magazine"--mostly advertisements for local businesses) who they had interviewed my dad as one of "The Top 10 Eligible Bachelors of the Triad." They printed the answers to a semi-personal questionnaire which all the "eligible bachelors" had filled out (my dad was never one to refuse good publicity) and I was struck by one question in particular: "What is your life's greatest achievement?" All the other bachelors (many of them, like my dad, divorced with children) had cited business or professional achievements. One of them even talked about buying his first boat. My dad's answer was: "Being father to two nice children." It goes without saying that my dad's funeral was surreal. I had been largely oblivious to the symptoms (forgetfulness, exhaustion) preceding his diagnosis with an advanced and inoperable brain tumor, which happened two weeks before I left home for my first year of college. One day my dad was up and about, his normal self; the next day he sat me down and told me that no matter what was wrong with his brain or what happened to him, I was to continue my life as planned, no interruptions; the next day he was disoriented, flat on his back in the hospital, head shaved from the biopsy, voice weak, unable to find words. We never again had a real conversation. As he had directed, I left for college two weeks later, as planned. I returned for 3 visits before he died in February--two weekends and the winter holiday. Nothing about it was in any way real to me when I received the phone call that he was gone. My dad had several close friendships and knew thousands of people, and thousands showed up at his funeral. In my shock I experienced this outpouring of love and respect as through a convex lens--large faces waving in front of me, one after the other, moving, distorted, speaking words. Thankfully, some words made it through my glassed-in state and offered me another chapter of what my dad had to teach me in this world. Face after face that I did not recognize came up to me after the funeral, saying, "Your dad really helped me once..." "I wanted to go back to school and your dad lent me some money..." "I can't tell you how much your dad helped me when I was having a hard time a few years ago..." I was astonished that none of these people were familiar to me. I didn't know any of their names or how my dad knew them. Most of them I would never see again--my mom moved away from Winston-Salem before I graduated from college, so I hardly spent any time there again. But they gave me the gift of letting me know who my father had been, in at least one respect, outside the world of my perception. They realized that I might never have known something important about who he had been. I am so grateful for that. This was one easy example of a way my father has been able to guide my life toward Light, toward being a better person than I might have been, even though now he has been absent from my life as long as he was in it. It's an amazing thing, to realize that I can still learn from his example, or at least try to. But I've had to turn away from the temptation to wallow in this loss, to refuse to grow out of anger that things did not turn out the way they should have. Of course, my father should have lived, should have been able to delight in witnessing the growth and change in our lives as well as take more time for himself, for answering his own unanswered questions as he got older. I often wish that he could have gotten to know the many wonderful friends in my life--there are so few left who really remember him. But I thought I'd take some time today and let you get to know him a little, not just because he was my dad, but because he really was a great guy, and you would have liked him.

Movement's Blessings, and Lessons

Ann — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 17:56:38 GMT

Last night's hoop practice was particularly rich. Having had a sore shoulder for much of the week, and a bizarre episode of overcaffeination on Thursday, I vividly felt the absence of discomfort in my body. Stretching out before practice, I reflected on the simple relief that quiet, relaxed, mind-present stretching can bring, really noticing the difference that came out of allowing my full attention to rest in my physical being. Having practiced an intense form of yoga for eight years, I got to a point where yoga itself dispirited me, and for the last 2-3 years I've essentially put it aside--it had become encrusted with thoughts and associations that made me feel intense and keyed up, as opposed to relaxed, free, full. Now that hooping has dropped my center more resolutely into the actual center of my body (as opposed to residing, like a transient renter looking for a new place to live, in my head/thoughts, in the electric center of my brain) I have felt awareness in parts of my hips and back that is entirely new. The awareness is unrushed, quiet, and complete. I realized while resting inside this slow movement how easy it would be for so many to benefit from the very low-impact exercise of simple stretching. I also realized that I, an extremely physically active person, rarely take time to stop what I'm doing and just stretch, just feel. So I understood how difficult it must be for someone who is inactive, unfit, and unhappy in their body to take this time to practice this kind of self-care and feel its richness. My hoop practice itself zoomed by, easily yielding a score of new insights about moving with the hoop--exhilarating--separating undulations of the upper arm, moving from the soles of the feet as the hoop revolves around the core, new connections with the hoop on the legs--a delight. I marveled at the joy that is so readily available through engaging the whole body in rhythmic movement, and understood anew that the human body is meant to move, is built to move. I am certain that there are encodings built expressly for dance embedded in our genetic material. We are machines that can move as a poem moves--with intent, within structure, into grace. Present within these recognitions was the conviction that each of us has the potential to find physical relief, joy, and, consequently health, through movement. I could feel the untapped power of pure physical awareness--how, if we can bring full attention to our bodies from within, we can identify with ease the places that don't feel "right", and we can nurture those places with profound relaxation, deep stretching, even self-massage. It struck me in the middle of one of these delicious moments that the love and respect of self that we can choose to bestow upon ourselves by honoring the body in this way is something that so many people desperately need--an easily accessible resource that can truly heal. But the thing is, so many people lack even the self-respect and self-love to even begin the process of taking time to nurture the body, to listen to its needs and respond with kind, loving hands. The healing these simple practices have brought to me--a former anorexic who saw my body as a queer windowshade that was pulled down awkwardly beneath my huge thought-stuffed head, as an incidental and confusing scaffolding that I was attached and condemned to--has been immeasurable: listening to my body, responding to my body, respecting what it is. And yet--and yet--after a while as my thoughts drifted on, I realized that an underpinning of this line of thinking was that we have total control over our health, that we can always be free from pain if we listen closely and carefully enough. But we cannot be free from pain, whether it be physical, mental, or emotional--we have no guarantees (as my therapist likes to say). We might take every precaution and still develop stomach cancer. And ultimately there is no way to guard ourselves from death, of course. Death and pain, at some level, come into our lives, and they are not by definition punishments, or the consequences of bad choices. They simply are. So what is the lesson here? I have life, and blissfully I have, much more often than not, health and comfort in my body. My gratitude for these blessings, and my recognition that my life and health are gifts that have miraculously come into being through phenomena that I have no way of understanding, will leave less room for bitterness, resentment, and resistance when pain, physical challenges, and ultimately death come my way. I will be more present in the miraculous cycle of my own life. How else can we live? If we are afraid of pain, we are not appreciating the freedom from it that we now enjoy. If we are experiencing pain and hating it, we are preventing ourselves from discovering acceptance and, possibly, healing. I felt last night a new understanding that the more humbly and completely we appreciate the gifts that we are blessed with now, the less we will be shocked and unbalanced when life inevitably brings its slings and arrows. Gratefulness for the miracle of being. Thankful. Present. Alive.

Black Dog

Ann — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 03:07:04 GMT

---for my beloved Vincent Down at the creek trail we run together, as twilight makes shapes in the trees. The next moment, for him, always holds promise-- he bounds ahead, unafraid. With my voice I could stop him fifty yards away-- and his black, bat- eared head, turn, waiting for my yes. And if a stranger, if a stranger were to enter our home, he would stand between me and whatever might happen. I know this. More deeply than I have ever trusted another person, he trusts me. In the growing dusk, we run. And his brave heart cuts like a light into the darkness and danger before us.

A gift, a love-gift/ Utterly unasked-for

Ann — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 21:19:12 GMT

Over the last few weeks, my consciousness has been pricked again by the flat-out realness and even perhaps the necessity--certainly the inescapability--of the shadow side of life, the heavier and darker side that lives with or without our acknowledgment. In youth, I lionized tragic figures like Sylvia Plath (from whose poem "Poppies in October" comes the title of this blog)--whose explorations of loss magnetized me. I was drawn to and identified with emotions like nostalgia, sadness, wistfulness, and melancholy. The Christmas season was the epicenter of this orientation--every year I reviewed family albums, rued my lost childhood, and ticked back through my extensive catalog of memories, just for the sake of doing it. I quite simply enjoyed it. The compulsion to do this was powerful--often much of my daydreaming mind was caught up in an almost cinematic memory review, almost unfailingly culminating in a few tears, swollen with a sense of import. I was deeply *aware* of the passage of time--poetically, "What had been"--the sense of anything that "had been" earned automatic significance and weight. When real loss hit me with my father's totally unexpected death at 50 (I had just turned 19), this formula for a time helped me stay afloat, like a single dry branch, in the incomprehensible and raging ocean of what was *really* possible in life. What *real* loss was was a sickening halt to the rich accumulated meanings in everything, from the largest (a sense of the presence of god) to the smallest (enjoying a pretty new set of earrings). The sudden revelation of the depth of my ignorance was gag-inducing and unbearable. For a time, the memory-review habit became important as incantation: my father *was*, he *had* been somebody, he was *not* forgotten. I grieved constantly and privately--looking back, looking back, looking back--my father, after all, was there. I developed many behavioral rigidities to preserve things as I understood them. This meant: lots of serious concentration on abstract concepts, doing the same things in the same way every day, never wasting time on anything that I couldn't define as useful. It took many, many years to fully relax this hold on myself, but it did happen bit by tiny little bit over the years. The natural disorder and unpredictability of life slowly became apparent to me, and I set myself to the task of acceptance. And yet, since I've started hooping, so much more has been revealed to me. When I first started hooping seriously, and was experiencing my first moments of bliss, I also had an extremely intense encounter with fear. This strange dance, which was borne upon me with a sudden and totally uncontrollable ferocity, led me (unwilling) closer to the face of fear than I had ever been. I can't explain it any better than to say, I was casually spinning the hoop around my waist one night, and Fear itself possessed me and chased me through the house. It sounds incredibly bizarre, and it was. The whole time I was aware, "What am I afraid of? I don't even know what I'm afraid of!" but at the same time I felt more acutely terrified than I could ever remember. In a way it was even more terrifying not to know what was scaring me. I could just feel the presence of Fear and I knew it was chasing me. I knew it *meant* to scare me. And what I learned was: there was nothing I could do. I simply lay down, squeezed my eyes shut, and tried to ready myself for the worst. And what I learned then was: feeling Fear is one of the worst feelings imaginable. I truly felt like I might die. But I also saw that what I usually call fear, is not Fear, but resistance to Fear. This was so important. Avoiding Fear is also a terrible feeling, and that's what I usually feel. Feeling pure Fear is way too intense and draining to go through regularly. I can't tell you how many times I've returned to this insight for guidance and clarity in moments where Fear seems present. So, moving through this awful, awful feeling was incredibly important and valuable to me--an experience that was new. I had a similar experience a few nights ago. I was home alone, working on hoops, and feeling heavy reverberations of some anger and anxiety that I had been struggling with earlier that day. I've tried recently not to resist anger (trying to take the lesson from the fear experience) and open myself to witnessing it, feeling it in my body. This anger was mixed with old, stuffed-down feelings of betrayal so it had a particular acrid and raw feeling. I found myself crying and just tried to allow myself to cry as deeply as I needed to. However, the more deeply I cried the more confused I got about why I was crying. I was trying not to get caught up in thinking about why, and just observe my thoughts, but the more I observed them the more they seemed to change. I tried to just follow them. And what I understood was: the deepest, deepest sadness that I felt came from the realization that I could not know what was real or true. This is hard to explain. I was trying to follow my feelings back to their origins in facts and events, and I realized that nothing could really be said to be absolutely true about anything that had happened, and everything was always going to be interpretable or understood in a different way, and then I realized that I did not even know myself or anything, really. I could not see what was true, and I could not even know if there was an irreducible truth. This is not a new idea in philosophy, but experiencing it directly was entirely different from considering it with only the intellect. I finally felt like I had a shred of understanding for the incredibly strong longing some people have for a real (i.e. verifiable) sense of God--how someone might just want to know, "What's real?" And to feel, to experience, the unknowability of this, was really, terribly sad. Yet, the next day, I felt calmed. I had seen something real, which was unknowability itself. It was profoundly calming to see that I didn't have to "get to the bottom of things" somehow. The bottom was not the bottom. Or something like that. Then the next night I was reading my new Sun magazine (which is, incidentally, my other job--reading manuscripts for The Sun) and there is an interview with a therapist named Miriam Greenspan who has written a book called "Healing Through Dark Emotions: the Wisdom of Grief, Fear, and Despair." Through the interview she talks about her parents, both survivors of the Holocaust, and the despair that shaped their lives, and her own experience of losing one of her three children. These experiences are unimaginable to most of us. Yet, her life has shown her the wisdom of learning from, as she says, "the dark side of the sacred." She points out how pain and despair are categorically pathologized in modern medicine--i.e., there is not such thing as "normal" despair. She references practices and rituals in other cultures--sitting shiva after a death in a Jewish family, for example--that contextualize a descent into grief and hence, provide a way out. When she described emerging after the seventh day from sitting shiva after her father's death---how the rabbi guided them on a walk around the block, and how struck she was, after seven days in the same room, at the bright bustle of life, and how a part of her longed to return to that---tears came into my eyes. She saw the wisdom of the ritual--it was designed to allow that sense of rebirth after being fully *in* grief. Somehow, all these things have come together for me, reflecting on the past year. I have learned so much from the darkness, so much that I don't know how I would live without. I still hate and resist it in many ways, but more and more I understand and accept its place in the world, and in my own mind and heart. I send out to all of you the wish that whatever darkness befalls you becomes your teacher and guide.

Train

Ann — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 02:58:00 GMT

Moving south on the train, towards home, middle life truly a welcome companion. The sky darkens rapidly, to the left a brighter skein of orange and rose gold, the last remaining stain of the day-- and I don't mind anymore-- nothing's so terribly important as I once believed. Nothing's waiting to happen like an actor offstage, the idea of a life. Today a foul smell wafts through the train car every once in a while, people chat on their phones. I've been comfortable here, I've gotten work done.

Night in Fall

Ann — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 04:58:39 GMT

The way the dog sleeps tells us the season's changed-- he's no longer restless. The cold gives us deeper access to the unconscious. And if I could describe that space-- Lord knows I don't want to. The first time loss hit me like a two-by-four and erased who I had been I decided I no longer wanted to try to become a better person. But that's been eighteen years, and the temptation to be better, better than who I was, comes on so slowly I never knew it hadn't left-- the foolishness of a teenager! To think I could decide how life would change me.

Lucky

Ann — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 05:31:12 GMT

Tonight I feel good luck in this perfect air of September, both warm and cool enough to leave the door open. Luck: it tends to point back to survival, at core, basic, and unromantic. But to feel it in the first nights of fall! There are certain nights... It is obvious what's real. On such nights, no one is called superstitious. Death tried to take someone and didn't, that's when you know you've seen Luck pass over this life and felt her silk ribbon across your cheek.

Outside the O.R.

Ann — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 19:16:40 GMT

Hunger, a stiff jaw. Family members pace, pace, slump staring at a small TV "What happened to her? I went to get her cigarettes and she wasn't even there, she doesn't even watch TV. Just lays in her bed all..the..day.." It's nothing like the desire for real food, real life, being in here and thinking about getting a Frosty (Wendy's actually inside the hospital) and everyone, everyone is having this experience of not-life here, where we have to be saved. It's too cold in the hospital. Belongings have to be lugged. You have to lug an IV behind you like a tail or Siamese twin. It's loud. There's a TV on. The fan grum, grum, grums, then blessed silence. Everyone's suffering. When they stop suffering they get to leave.

A New Poem

Ann — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 21:55:44 GMT

The Parrothawk Dream The parrothawk's wing folded against my chest though he would die-- And his chirrup-song beneath my chin was everything love was supposed to be. I wished he would never leave me, I'm still wishing-- Something had crushed his wings, tail--my mother stuffed him in a bag and when I ripped it open to save him his lost blood left a stain. So gently, I tried to straighten his broken length, and laid him against my heart which might warm him, with one hand lightly I held him safe for a short time. And against my neck he tucked his head, and made small whirring sounds warm, he curled against me, and sang, and for those moments, did not die.