Happy Holidays!

Dear Friends and Family,

In November an asteroid passed 202,000 miles from Earth! Liz, a junior at Boulder

High School, is taking astronomy and assured me that the Earth is relatively tiny and hard to hit, but STILL! Contemplating asteroids, booming population and shaky financial times, I’m either prone to party like Ms. Lohan or contemplate the meaning of life. Given my allergic reaction to alcohol, I gravitate towards studying my navel. On a recent NPR broadcast Terry Gross asked Nobel prize winner Seth Perlmutter: “If it is an infinite universe, how can it be expanding?” Perlmutter explained some of the science behind the phenomenon and concluded: if one doesn’t like being boggled on a daily basis, astrophysics and the exploration of supernovas is probably not a good fit for them.

Heck, I’m no astrophysicist, although maybe I’ll go back to school for another degree (just kidding, Mom! Mom?), but I’m boggled daily by the visual splendor of Boulder, by the miracles that my children are – from their remarkable talents to the challenges that they have overcome. I am deeply moved watching them navigate life; they are both kind, intelligent, wise and determined women. I’m blessed by their presence and glad they chose me to be their mother.

Only weeks after a frightening kidney infection, last month Bella had exceptionally painful surgery on her ankle, and yet she remains resilient and upbeat, maneuvering around lithely on her scooter. She loves her home in Durango and her major is environmental studies at Fort Lewis. Her animal family sustains her when the going gets rough. (I can’t imagine from who she inherited her love of critters!) Liz studies singing and writes songs and is working on a novel. Our kitties, Pablo and Toby, think she is the cat’s meow and tend to distract her from homework every opportunity! In the last year Keesha (age 16) has almost died so many times I think she may have stolen both cats' nine lives for herself.

Maybe it’s crossing the 50 mark, maybe it’s the world circumstances or maybe it’s just because I’ve always been an existentialist pain in the ass, but every day feels like the ripest cherry plucked from the bunch. Recently I heard the saying: “There is no bad weather, only bad clothes.” I mind winters far less because of a collection of fuzzy hats, gloves and scarves, puffy coats and rubber boots. I am learning to live my life that way – to rearrange my days so that I have enough time to meditate daily and to write or attend yoga or dance class when not doing school work or shuttling Liz. I am rehearsing for a show at the Dairy (not dancing with cows at an eco-site - the Dairy is our local arts venue). A happy heart generates the energy to live several lives within one life and to give of myself fully. When we do what needs to be done at the expense of our joy, it’s like going out into the cold without a coat. One may be burdened by debt and responsibility, but if we don’t do something for our spirit and soul, our bodies will most assuredly say “No” in a big way.

In Soulcraft, Bill Plotkin explains: “the movement toward spirit is a journey of ascent… transcendence, while the movement toward your soul is a journey of descent… a journey that deepens.” My spirit loves angels and dancing, water slides and swings. My soul knows I have near misses with small asteroids daily. It walks me into the terrain of my shadow and the bittersweet of what it means to be human. Soul sustains my spirit’s quest for lightness and peace.

I am boggled by the miracle of life and marvel that I ended up living in a little cozy yellow house in a bucolic, forested place with loving, supportive friends. My humble roots would not have predicted this. But even without humble roots we have all been battered enough to appreciate what we have. They say life brings us to our knees and that’s when we connect to our concept of the divine. Marianne Williamson once said: “I finally decided to just stay on my knees.” “Surrender” does not mean giving up; it means an open heart that has been broken so that we reach more quickly when a friend falls. “Surrender” transcends religious affiliation, because when we surrender, joy is seated in our heart no matter the circumstance or what is happening around us. We plug into the joy and just get that this is an illusion and all that matters is Love. We trust a greater plan and we live from love.

It’s definitely a practice. When life isn’t testing us, it’s testing everyone around

us. We take turns catching each other when we fall. This September we were offered up some record highs that enabled strolls under trees with leaves changing into the most vibrant reds and golds I had ever seen since moving to Colorado. But then the snow arrived with a bang, and I woke to branches down all around town. Shoveling it from the sidewalk felt like shoveling wet sand and my lower back was grumpy and so was I. But I was dressed right: in my tall snow boots and brown down coat, long underwear and sweat pants. After shoveling, I stood and gazed about. Everything was perfectly still and hushed. The snow sparkled and the sky was a blue bead I wanted to wear. We tend to hold on to what we know and the gloomy ways of the world, but if we can become present and aware, the serendipity of the moment will be a rising sun in our hearts.

Happy Holidays!

Love & Blessings,

Jen

Halloween, Sex and the Number Two Test

…to be human
is to become visible
while carrying
what is hidden
as a gift to others…
~ David Whyte

People often ask how I know or choose what I’m going to write about next. I’d like to report that I carry a literary witching rod to divine a lofty inspiration from some higher source, but that’s generally not the case. I do two things. The first is called the #2 test. Usually while I’m driving I scan through recent events. If an idea is too intellectual, I skip over it because clearly my ego would be writing about what’s “important" (yawn) and not my gut and heart. Every now and then the divining rod strikes it rich and the material has to come out as soon as possible. I rush home and let it flow. If I ignore it or I can’t get home in time – you guessed it: the urge passes and I forget whatever it was I wanted to write. Naturally, the urge will return in some form and sometimes even when I do get home in time, I read it over and realize, well, it’s crap.

The second part of the equation is humor. If it’s not somewhat funny, no one wants to read it. Generally, if it’s funny there’s a darker underbelly to the piece, which gives you an idea about my sense of humor. But darkness is not necessarily twisted - soul seeks darkness. In Soulcraft, Bill Plotkin explains: “the movement toward spirit is a journey of ascent…transcendence, while the movement toward your soul is a journey of descent… a journey that deepens.”

So, today what got me racing home at high speeds was… s-e-x! Well, at least the idea of it. This weekend I went to a couple of Halloween parties. I dressed as Nefertiti, complete with a hat I made for the occasion. Totally ignoring the heavy eye make up and bejeweled dress, some guy asked if I were a “Bic Pen.” Really? That gave me an idea about how to use the headdress next year. Granted, I passed over sexier options, choosing instead an elegant sack, and at one of the parties, I watched as men gravitated to more skimpily dressed women. No surprise there, but it reminded me of the Halloween party in college when I dressed as a frumpy yellow bird and all the guys asked my two lithe friends, who were dressed as a kitty cat and a school girl in a low buttoned shirt and mini skirt, to dance while I sat in a chair preening my lemon yellow feathers. One of the guys pulled me aside and said: “You’re the kind of girl we’d want to marry, but who wants to get married in college?” I was such a nerd; it's no wonder I was a virgin until age 21!

I have no issue with being playful and wearing fun, sexy costumes, especially on Halloween. I've worn my share of them. And when I was married there was clarity and it was easier to venture from base and be flirtatious. Married but not dead. But as a single woman I want to be conscious about what I'm putting out there and what I want to attract. My last lover taught me a lot about spirituality and health. He said that most people “bleed sexual energy,” which depletes power and the capacity for deeper relationship. (I liked to remind him that when I met him at a Halloween party years ago I had my hair down and teased and I was dressed in a skin tight, one-piece snake suit draped in a strand of ivy.) The fact is some men are visual and won’t see my mind unless I show them my ass first. Alas, I wasn’t in the mood this weekend to be luring men, at least, not that way. I like to remind myself that as much as I learned from that lover, we weren’t on the same page. If I am meant to meet a long-term partner it’s probably not going to be dressed as a wanton middle-aged Lolita.

Certain traditions say that when a woman has sex, she carries that partner’s energy along with her for seven years. Maybe I knew that back in college or maybe I was a scared canary. Sex is never just sex – at least not usually for women. The heart gets involved in a way that can shred us. We think we’re going to be calm, cool and collected, and the next day we are crying and thinking about puppies dying in scientific labs and the affect of global warming on bees and is he ever going to call me again? On the flip side, one may have sex with a man who seems and looks relatively stable and then Pow! The intimacy triggers something shall we say... unexpected. Humans are complex!

It’s one of the reasons I’m not looking for sex for sex’s sake. Besides worrying about the puppies, birds and bees, I want to understand my heart more fully, and I think it’s been shut down for a long time. It’s why yoga has been so important to me. I remember last year when my favorite yoga instructor, Matt, led a class that focused on “heart openers.” Heart openers, I innocently thought, were exercises that stretched the pectoral muscles to free up my shoulders and arms. But NO! Fear the cruel yoga instructor! (And they all look so innocent. BUDDHIST BULLIES I say!) When it came time for savasana, I was a blubbering fool curled in a fetal position trying not to sob audibly and disturb the peaceful corpses lying next to me.

I’m happy to say my heart is accustomed to opening more readily thanks to the safe space of yoga, tango or BodyMantra. Don’t get me wrong. Sex is a show stopper. It’s glorious, transcendent, life changing at its best. But it's more fun with a committed partner. Our culture seems to breed men and women fumbling towards one another with the idea that we can complete each other in a night, that the other person will erase our pain. We go into relationship with too much expectation - we wonder why it caves under all that wet snow! We might be relieved that – God forbid – we are not seen in public alone...again. We jump in without taking the time to feel our way fully, without understanding our hearts and the deeper quests it leads us on. Our media flaunts sexuality as if sex is no more life changing than eating a bag of chips. Sadly some people who've been abused and never taught otherwise are inured and their hearts and feelings are shut down so that it isn't any more special than Cheetos. While some teens may be ready to experience it with a sense of fun and wonder, other kids feel obligated and lost, slamming the heart shut for another decade or for good.

There really is no answer here. It’s like the question about what I’m going to write next – sometimes the urges we follow, whether on the page or between the sheets, turn out to be great and then other times… not. I guess what I’m hoping for is more creativity when it comes to engaging with the opposite sex – especially for middle-aged singles. Friends often say that dating in our 20’s was fun and easy. At 50 people are crumbling fortresses of terror. Halloween is our signature holiday.

I feel a certain peace when my yoga teacher comes over to kneel on the back of my thighs and ease down on my upper back as I’m lying on my stomach; my heart opens like a tide pool on my yoga mat. I feel this same serenity and safety with a couple of dear male platonic friends - one I've only known a year and the other I have known for five years who told me he would never sleep with me because down the road it wouldn’t work out and we would lose our friendship. I thought he was wrong at first, but now I know – in my heart – that he was right. What I've come to find with both is this unconditional acceptance, a freedom of interrelating with someone from the opposite sex without expectation.

Granted, it would be nice to have a sexual partner, but ultimately friends with benefits seems to end up biting someone in the ass. It's been so long... I want to bite an ass. Sigh.

While I’m not officially declaring abstinence, I have made a commitment to sink into the feeling of what it’s like to be by myself... making snow angels! And, without getting lost in another person or carrying yet another man’s energy around for seven years. (That is such a weird concept.) There will come a time for losing myself – again – to delicious, blissful love, but first I want to know my heart. I want to urge her out of hiding. It’s all perception. I could focus on the disappointment of going to one more event without a date, but I am beginning to trust that being single is right where I’m meant to be. The universe will open the door to a relationship and when that happens, I will be ready to walk through the door without leaving myself on the other side of the threshold.

In the poignant book by Martha Beck, Expecting Adam, as she contemplates whether she’s going to abort or keep her unborn son with Down’s Syndrome, she asks herself: “What is it that people do? What do we live to do, the way a horse lives to run?” Later in the chapter she reveals: “This is the part of us that makes our brief, improbable little lives worth living: the ability to reach through our own isolation and find strength, and comfort, and warmth for and in each other. This is what human beings do. This is what we live for, the way horses live to run.”

I may be single, but I don’t feel alone. My life is graced with a wonderful immediate and extended family, close friends and dear teachers who sustain my heart and make every moment worth living.