It took me a long time to choose to fully incarnate in this lifetime. After being really sick as a child, living with neurological issues and wearing leg braces, dealing with the lack of breath of debilitating asthma and allergies, and feeling the tremendous weight of suffering in our human world, I heartily resisted coming all the way in to my body, my human life. From an early age I sought refuge in Spirit, in my imagination, in psychic capacity and fantasy. I continued to attend my lineage in the stars and nurtured my relations with angels; within my private inner world I cultivated the practices of moving up, up, out and away.

My body continued to manifest sickness~ until I was 19 and was faced with a very dramatic health situation which called for 2 surgeries. I knew the sickness was born of my essential ambivalence about being here, and that I needed to finally make a choice~ either to fully go, or fully stay; I could not simply hover above my life any longer, loosely tethered. And so: I chose to live, to be of the flesh and this world, the full weight and darkness of human matter. I was guided to study dance, to practice yoga, to repair the neurological pathways between my mind and my legs, to open my lower chakras, to meet continuously my immense discomfort with the clumsiness of assuming density.

And then when I was 24 I had a phenomenal enlightenment experience leaving me without a personal reference point, my consciousness blissfully transcended in a 6-week-long state of absolute oneness with all of life. When I finally came down from that it was with the sober and grief-filled realization that my true path in this life was to be one of truly DESCENDING, not ascending, nor transcending anything. My sacred assignment was to come all the way in to my human self, to fully be WOMAN, to learn to cherish every day of this impermanent lifetime, this precious, transient flesh, and the absolute messiness of living a full life of love.

Motherhood, of course, was (and still IS) the ultimate ongoing surrender in this way of holy descent. Every day we get to choose how we show up for this life we are here to live, with the gift of attending our little starbeams of human children.  My children call me to life, to presence, to my own delicious breath and laughter, to my outer limits of patience, like nothing else. They anchor me to our world, to my body’s ancestors and my great, great grandchildren. And every single day it takes courage. For some of us it takes less courage than others to choose this life of body, of full incarnation, of wholly embodied YES. I know for some of you beloveds it comes so naturally; it is a sweet and sacred given. But I know I am also not alone in being divinely challenged to continuously make this brave choice of body, of human, of fully living this life I have come to live.

I recently wrote this poem “Gravity”, and it was the last poem of the evening I shared in our recent TAKE HEART concerts. I wrote it for those of us who must continuously muster the courage to find our YES to life, to body, to allowing “our very own/ blood and bones/ to be the only home we seek.” I offer it to you with my deepest love. <3

Gravity

Courage is another name
for the heart: to find it
we must stop and listen~
to this which yearns
to simply live, to fully become,
to finally release
its weary, frightened grip
within us.

We think we want
some awakened luminosity,
the open hand of transcendence;
some grand or private,
majestic escape
from the dreary weight
of human existence.

We think we crave
that lift, that wide
exhaling soar,
that buoyed breath
of light, right?

But I’ll tell you, my Love,
what we truly yearn for
is the flesh, our very own
blood and bones
to be the only home we seek.

It takes courage to listen
to the heart’s want
for body, for gravity,
for this bittersweet gem
of impermanence.

Distinct from bravery,
our valiance is uncalled for. Put down
your weapons, your cape,
your skillful wand, your shining sword.

Because all that is wanted, finally?
Is to let what’s infinite
meet your beating heart,
lift your fingers to your face,
trace the edges of your skin,
lay your footprints on the land,
and taste the rain, taste the rain.

It takes courage to listen
to the heart’s want
for body, for gravity,
for this bittersweet gem
of impermanence.

Courage is saying yes
to the next bow, the next birth,
to new love
in the wake of loss
inside waves of grief,
in the certainty
of continuous imperfection,
and endless possibilities of failure.

Courage is saying yes,
still yes~ when we wake up
in the morning
alone and tired:
our bodies worn
and minds torn down
by everything in life
not being
what we thought.

Because all that is wanted, finally?
Is to purely love what’s here,
knowing soon it will be gone.

And all that is needed finally
is your open
ear pressed
with attentive curiosity,
eavesdropping at the door
of your heart, and then this:
the simple courage
to hear what’s said.