Falling

Recently, I heard an interview with a dancer. The dancer said to free up organic movement she and her collaborators practice falling.

The interviewer, thankfully, had my reaction. How you do that?

The dancer, thankfully, had language around the practice.

The dancer said that the reason falling interrupts movement or hurts is because of our interaction with what we fall into. She said that if you visualize the floor as hard, if you expect it to be hard, your body behaves accordingly, tensing. This means that there is hardness in the interaction. The floor slaps your body, your body heaves to the floor.

However, it doesn't have to be like that.

When she practices falling, this dancer visualizes the floor as a soft, permeable, permissive surface. As she starts to feel a receptivity in the floor her body get softer. Her body responds to the floor as though the floor were soft and the interaction between body and floor gains that level of fluidity.

I am now practicing falling all the time.

Yesterday, I went to the ocean. The sky was beautifully, densely grey. The air was in the 60s and the water was colder than that.

I walked into the choppy dark ocean. When the water swirled around my ankles I gasped. My legs started feeling numb. A year ago, I would have shrieked and run from the water. 

But I'm practicing falling.

I breathed and I started talking to the water. Well, I started talking to myself via the ocean.

I let myself feel invited into the water. I reminded myself of how grateful I am for oceans. Just watching waves soothes me. I wanted to be in that water. I wanted to be with the ocean. I started thanking the ocean and feeling at home in the swirling water.

My body started relaxing into the water. I walked out. I stayed in the water for some time. I dove under a wave.

The water was bracingly cold but when I was a kid, I didn't care. I was so excited to be in water that the temperature didn't register. It's only as an adult that I put myself at odds with my environment.

I'm practicing falling.

I think this perspective could expand. There are a lot of environments and situations where I feel at odds.

When I shift my understanding of them, I change. I respond differently. I fall in and am received.

The Rediscovered Beauty of the Alarm Clock

Thanks to helpful human suggestions gleaned through social media, I ordered and now own the Moonbeam alarm clock.

It's cute, it's small, and it lives on my night stand. After setting up the alarm clock I left my phone downstairs for the night. I went to sleep and in the morning this thing loudly woke me up. It has one beep and it is not cute. However! I quickly turned it off and felt awake. I pet my cat for a bit. I slowly got out of bed. With nothing to distract me I decided to meditate first. I went into the office, sat on my meditation cushion, got out my mala, and did a 10 minute japa meditation sit.

And went about my day.

It was calm and intentional. It felt really liberating. I was choosing what served me instead of negotiating away from what drains my energy.

Our house has two bedrooms, one upstairs and one downstairs. In the winter, we sleep upstairs because it's warm and cozy. I placed the alarm clock in that bedroom. For those of you in the northeast you know that we are in a heat wave of 90 degrees in May. Thanks Climate Change. We moved down to our downstairs bedroom as that room has three exterior walls, more windows, and cross breeze. The alarm clock didn't move with us.

I set my phone as an alarm and went to sleep. In the morning the phone gave me a more soothing sound but when I rolled over to hit snooze I saw 10 billion notifications. I was already stressed. The screen was brighter. After hitting snooze a kajillion times I decided I would wake up. I started mindlessly scrolling through email and Facebook and the rest instead of getting out of bed. When I got out of bed, I'd wasted a good bit of time and had to hustle.

I had been discussing this whole process with a friend and felt like it was an issue of willpower on my part. She very generously phrased it as too much choice, which drains energy. That shifted my perspective. When I travel to places with limited wifi I feel FREE because I don't have to chose whether or not to engage with email and the rest. I can't until I seek it out and make it happen. Instead, all of that energy can be allocated intentionally.

That is exactly what I'm feeling in my mornings with the alarm clock vs my mornings with the phone. World's apart. Alarm clock wins.

I've just ordered one for the downstairs bedroom. 

Mother's Day with Father Divine

Lucky for me, Kevin is interested in following bread crumbs.

Case in point, last Sunday, AKA Mother's Day.

The plan had been to go to Asbury Park and swim. Thankfully, we're both getting better at veering away from the plan.

It could have been a good day to pack a quilt and wrap up on the beach but it was cold, a little colder than the previous days when we laid these plans. Instead, we got some food in Philly. I knew I wanted to pick up some sacred stones for friends so I suggested heading to Garland of Letters. Kevin, always the nerd, happily agreed. The shop keep, with Buddha's naga serpents tattooed around his skull, let us in. I found myself fumbling over some moss agate and smoky quartz and assembled my gifts. Kevin found three rare books he's been obsessed with. While Kevin and the shop keep nerded happily together, I realized I'd forgotten palo santo. I picked some up and our friend, the naga-headed one, gifted them to us.

I realized there's a coffee shop near there that always feels good to me-- good light, pretty tiles, succulents. We headed to Chapterhouse Coffee to sit and plot what was next. As I sipped my cappuccino Kevin pulled a few books from the coffee shop shelf. He thumbed through and said, "Father Divine! I was just talking about him with Anthony! He was a Black man who founded a religion in Philly. The Divine Lorraine hotel and a few others were run by him and his followers. The followers still live in Gladwyne. We should go."

Normally, I'm not one for Gladwyne. It freaks me out. Seems to me that the oldest money in the Philadelphia area resides in Gladwyne. Driving through is beautiful. There are sun-speckled glades and gentle hills and soft trees but it's freaky! All the land is private. You can't actually be in any of that beauty and it doesn't seem like anyone ever enjoys it. I have many suspicions about how many torture lairs are underground in Gladwyne. All I feel out there is repression and corruption.

I also don't know anything about Father Divine other than his fantastic name and his beautifully named hotels. Yet somehow, on this particular day, it didn't seem like a bad idea to visit.

We began to drive from center city to Gladwyne. Here's the other weird thing about Gladwyne-- you never take the same route twice. I don't know that the roads actually exist. I think that the powers that be that make certain access points from day to day. You think I'm joking.

I have lived in the Philadelphia area for most of my life and I saw things on that ride I have never seen before. Somehow, somewhere near Manayunk we began riding on a residential street right along the Schuykill River. I DIDN'T KNOW ANYONE LIVED ON THE SCHUYKILL. A tiny street! People were FISHING out their back door! It felt like other areas-- maybe New Hope or Norfolk-- not the Philadelphia suburbs. I was shocked. If you want to get to this area-- if it's real! Try to get to Flat Rock Park. On the river. Stunned.

We climbed the hills into Gladwyne proper. Across from the Philadelphia Country Club we turned into the driveway of a private estate. One manor had 8 dogs barking at the fence. Fenced in nearby there were grazing donkeys, alpacas, sheep, and an emu.

I'm not joking about any of this.

We continued down the drive until we found ourselves at Gatsby's place. Seriously. An old mansion with an air of 1942. When Kevin and I are on adventures we're endlessly chatting so we were happily talking about something or another, parking the car, and walking towards the mansion when an old German woman in a 1930s school uniform comes to the porch and says, "Are you here for the tour?"

And that's when I thought we might die.

OK, I thought we'd wander around a largely abandoned place, maybe find a caretaker, and maybe take a tour.

It was way weirder than that.

This woman was genuinely sweet. Kevin eagerly said, "Yes!" The woman looked at me, dressed in jeans and a loose sweater and clucked, "Oh, we'll have to put you in a skirt."

She invited me into the mansion and found an old apron skirt with snaps. I began putting it on over my jeans as an old man in spats sat thumbing through a book to my right, a hunched over sweet woman in her 90s began clucking at me, and I spotted another very elderly woman seated in a chair in the room in front of me. I began to realize there were people EVERYWHERE. And they were all watching Kevin and I attentively.

It felt like a cult retirement home.

They gave us booties to slide over our shoes to maintain the cleanliness of the manor. The women debated who would take Kevin and I on our tour. The mansion was absolutely beautiful and completely frozen in time. The great room has vaulted ceilings, a fireplace with a Bible quote on the mantle, and life size portraits of Father and Mother Divine overhead. There was a music room, a drawing room, an office, and a dining room set for Mother's Day dinner. A table off to the side was filled with the only recognizable technology, a CD player and CDs. I asked about it and our guide said, "We listen to Father Divine's sermons as we eat."

In the music room she opened a beautiful wooden box filled with a giant perforated silver disc. "It's a music box!" our guide said, "this is what people listened to before the radio!" She wound it up and began to play it's tinny tune. We listened politely while people sat in their chairs or quietly watched us.

Holy shit.

From the dining room we were taken into the kitchen which was much more lively and gregarious. Women were preparing dinner, cleaning up, ironing, and cutting flowers. They even had a room dedicated to preparing vases!

After the tour of the house we were shown the outdoor shrine where Father and Mother Divine rest. There were estate trails that our guide invited us to enjoy. One took us to a cave where Revolutionary soldiers hid during the war.

Everyone we met on the estate was kind. We saw one other family touring; a couple about our age with two small children. They entered as we were touring the kitchen. The women giggled saying, "The children are wearing booties!"

Throughout the tour Kevin kept asking questions about belief and customs but we didn't hear much response. Our guide told us that followers believe in the Constitution and are patriotic. They believe Father Divine is the incarnation of God as was his wife, Mother Divine. However, theirs was said to not be a traditional marriage. Followers stay "virtuous." They all believe they are married to Mother and Father Divine but do not consummate relationships, which is why the group is slowly dying off. When we met visitors or followers everyone greeted us by saying "Peace." The Sisters, as they call themselves, lived in the mansion. The Brothers lived down the road. They share communal chores and responsibilities.

Father Divine was a Black man who originally married a Black woman. She passed when Father Divine was in his 50s. He found a young white woman in her 20s who he said was the incarnation of his deceased wife. This woman became Mother Divine. I tried to ask a bit about the group's racial politics but didn't hear much response. The elderly followers were predominately Black with a few white members, including our German tour guide who's parents joined the group when she was a toddler.

They seem to believe in prosperity gospel. At it's heyday Father Divine had or was given properties in Europe as well as many parts of the US. There were photos of Father Divine homes in the Hamptons and Hudson Valley in addition to the Gladwyne headquarters. The Divine Lorraine Hotel and second hotel in West Philadelphia must have also been sources of income but it wasn't entirely clear who built, owned, or managed what.

The space felt sweet and creepy-- a combination Kevin is fond of. The friendliness and care the collective gave to their daily tasks reminded me that these are simply the practices of any devout people. They infused meaning into tending the home, preparing the food, and engaging in the rituals they'd lived all the decades of their life.

It also reminded me of being with my grandmother. The house had the feel of the 1940s. Not much had changed. It's a time capsule and those are rare to find.

To see exactly what it looks like with a generous story, check out this piece: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/02/kristin-bedford-father-divine_n_7673846.html

We followed the bread crumbs to the Father Divine estate. We wandered the grounds a bit before returning to Flat Rock Park and winding our way home.

Our bodies, ourselves... at 36

I don't normally write about my vagina but I just had 3 shots of espresso and am feeling a little jazzy so why not?

If you're getting excited, don't, I'm about to write about menstruation. Calm down.

If you don't want to read about menstruation, now is a good time to navigate away!

OK, I'm hanging at my friend's house and somehow we started talking diva cups. These are the menstrual cups the hippies use to be environmentally friendly and up in their own business. I thought about shifting gears as a teenager but just couldn't get there mentally. Seemed like a lot of disasters waiting to happen. I'm a long-time pad-user. Simple, old-fashioned, gets the job done. (And leaves my sheets looking like a murder scene, but you can't win them all.)

My friend says that her Mom caught a diva cup sale at Acme. Yup! She bought 10 diva cups for my friend to give to all her nearest and dearest! Somehow, my friend and her Mom are the diva cup fairies. Or Oprah. All of the sudden I'm the proud owner of my first diva cup. At age 36.

I put it on my dresser. The next morning I gazed curiously at the packaging. I noticed on the side that there were options for two sizes. Size A is for those under 30 or who haven't had children. Size B, what I was holding, was for those OVER 30 or who had birthed children.

Wait wait wait!

Even if I haven't had kids my vag is stretching just cause I'm old?! That's a THING?! I immediately texted my friend. "I'm the big size?!" I didn't even know to be stressed about this. And now I am.

Period still hadn't come so I had a few days to mull over my knew found size-phobia. Be vagina-stretch-positive. Whatever.

Then it happened. The magic day. It was a Sunday and I was lightly scheduled. I decided it was time. My friend had primed me to watch some YouTube videos. I asked her what to expect and she assured me it would only be ladies talking and not their parts.

I proceeded to spend an inordinately long time in the bathroom. I figured out how to fold the diva cup appropriately. Then came the moment. I was gonna do this. I squatted like they said, the diva cup is folded, and I insert. So far, on it. It's not the most comfortable thing but it's bearable. Then they tell you to turn a quarter so that as it opens it creates a seal. I'm like knuckles deep in myself. There is no room to turn. No an option.

So then I start feeling really good about my size. Maybe I am a size A after all! I tried to brag about that to Kevin-- I may have yelled through the house, "Yo Kevin! My shit is TIGHT!" He remained unimpressed.

I felt like I was 12 years old again on adventures with my changing body. I had successfully inserted the diva cup! I felt alarmingly aware of a cup in me. Just hanging out. Like more aware than I generally am of my cervix. More aware than I think I want to be.

I figured I should try to remove it. They say to push so the stem of the cup protrudes, grab the stem, and pull. I tried. Again, knuckles deep searching for the stem. Not exactly how I wanted to spend my Sunday. I'd just gotten a manicure too. There's that. This experience makes you look a bit like you murdered someone and then buried them.

My Aunt was suffering a hernia and she said part of inducing the hernia was pushing. I'm feeling really ambivalent about how much I want to push! Finally, I bear down and the stem emerges. It is slippery. I have to take a little toilet paper to use for traction on the stem. I finally get a good hold and pull and it does indeed come out.

A few things.

A) Pulling a cup out of your cervix feels like you're being slapped in the vagina.

B) Holy blood. I HAD NO IDEA. It may be a good idea for every woman to use a diva cup just to properly understand what our bodies are actually doing. I cannot believe I am alive. I am shocked. I felt omnipotent. And like I might need a nap and a lot of iron.

C) The cup does come out, miraculously, upright. It has something to do with the shape of women and God knows what else. The moon and cosmos? A howling wolf? No spills.

I gazed in awe at my goblet of blood. I poured it into the toilet and watched the color become diffuse. Weird performance art.

Then you're supposed to rinse the diva cup and start again.

I did the thing for one cycle and one cycle only. It does work. I mean, I was a newbie so I wore a pad just in case and there were a few spots but by and large, the diva cup does what it's meant to. The main reason why I let it go is it is TOO ROUGH to shove that thing up and down! Too much! I rested my head on the sink and thought, "why does everything go up there manageably and come out painfully?" And I have not given birth.

I felt, perhaps, too open about my experience. I literally shared at coffee shops and prior to my yoga class. And now on a blog. Every woman I met had her own stories. The woman fighting to get it out as a hot guy was coming over. The woman who enjoyed being knuckles deep in her own stuff. Those who had to resize post-baby. On and on.

I enjoyed the shared camaraderie of this weird experience. But I really felt abusive to my vagina as I shoved this thing up and down. Another thing that concerned me was that the flow was not flowing within me. It sat in the cup. The rubber was the thing moving. I don't know if this is true but it feels like the shedding running down the cervix might be some type of balancing agent. I started feeling itchy and I never feel itchy. Things generally run pretty smoothly down there. For lack of a better term, it felt like too much action... ha... disruption? It felt like I was missing some balance of the natural cleanse.

I decided I needed to revert to pads or something like them but I did appreciate decreasing landfill waste. I'd been attentive to Thinx and decided to get two pairs.

I have found my promised land.

Thinx are underwear pads. The whole thing is a pad. No leakage. No murder scenes. No knuckle deep in yourself (not my jam, apparently). You rinse them out, let them dry, and begin again.

The whole experience prompted me to think about how much money I spend on one-time use products and the waste involved. All things I was aware of but hadn't resolved. I'm going to let my body continue running unimpeded, self-cleansing, and self-regulating. The diva cup sits in her pretty pouch on a pretty shelf, never again to smack the shit out of my vagina.

No more decisions

I'm hunting for an alarm clock that functions (wakes me up reliably, with as few issues as possible), is somewhat attractive, and nice sounding. I'm finding alarm clocks that seem to meet these requirements but are horribly reviewed. Other alarm clocks are wildly expensive. Our phones are really good alarm clocks.

But I want my phone out of my bedroom.

I told my friend about all of this and sighed resignedly, "I guess I'll just have to be really disciplined about not opening email after I turn off the alarm." It's not that I want to. It's that I can. It becomes an addictive reflex but not one that serves me.

She said, "It's not about discipline. You are disciplined. The problem is it's another choice you have to make: to look at email or not. It takes energy. You're trying to limit choice."

YES. I LOVE traveling places where I can't get a connection or electricity is limited. I feel LIBERATED. I don't have to siphon off energy deciding whether or not to answer email or look something up. I can't so I don't. And I happily turn my attention elsewhere.

Getting my phone out of my bedroom is another step towards simplifying. I don't want to fight with myself nor negotiate first thing in the morning. The peace I crave is there if nothing complicates it.

The phone complicates it.

I remain on the quest for an alarm clock. I remain on the quest for stripping down, streamlining, and simplifying. I remain on the journey of aligning my energy where I intend it.

God likes stories

I've been deep in the weird nether world of Duncan Trussell's podcast. This morning, commuting to and from my yoga practice. I heard Trussell interview Dr Moody who does research on after life experiences. The two swapped stories and evidence and stats on all the people, around the world, at various times, reporting falling into a light of love. Or something like that. Something indescribable and so beautiful and peaceful that those in the experience were reluctant to leave.

This left Duncan with a question. If pure consciousness is so wonderful why does it, or whoever, create and incarnate? Why are each of us here in incarnation struggling and fussing when we could be in the light pool of peaceful love?

Dr Moody said he'd tossed this question around and the best he had was

God likes stories.

Yogis say this is all a Grand Lila, a big play. Some say we incarnate to learn things and graduate to the next level. We're working out our karmas. A dear friend of mine challenges that-- why does consciousness need to learn anything at all? She thinks it's more playtime. We're just having experiences.

Backs up the story theory.

As a lover of story myself this sent waves through my body. All of this is an exercise in creativity. All of the journeys, meetings, partings, love, loss and feeling to tell a story. To live a story. Why not? What else would we do? Bathe in pure light?

Until then. We create.