And A Night Bird Trills

oh, the stars
the electric blue pulse
of your lips
pulling my skin
oh, this lifetime
in your hands -
wandering an ageless path,
swimming an ancient sea, then
wrapped in
all the arms and legs
of a thousand gods,
my bones shatter
as a universe
streams within

and a night bird trills

D is for Dance

When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor. It's to enjoy each step along the way.
~ Dr. Wayne Dyer

I don't understand people who refuse to dance, who say they can't dance. What they really mean is, "I can't dance like Baryshnikov, so I won't even try." What they're really saying is, "Because it's not perfect, I won't do it at all. Where's the joy in doing something imperfectly?" They fear looking stupid, but really, we all do something that looks stupid every day. So why not make it intentional? Laugh at yourself first and others will join in laughing at themselves.

Even if all you're doing is tapping a foot to the beat of the music, that's dancing. Even if all you're doing is shimmying your shoulders, or swaying, or playing air-guitar, or conducting an invisible symphony... guess what? You're dancing.

I could easily tell you that I can't dance. I've got a gimpy leg. I pretty much have to stand in one spot and sway or pull some funky style with my arms and shoulders. My leaping and cavorting days are long over. Still, I won't say that I can't dance, because I can. Because I do. I let the music take over and work its magic.

Dr. Dyer is right. When I dance I'm not thinking about the next thing. All I'm thinking is, "This feels fine." I'm telling you, dancing is right up there with meditating. It's a very Zen activity. It shuts out everything but the movement and the joy, and therein leaves the dancer rejuvenated.

A revolution without dancing is a revolution not worth having.
~ V for Vendetta

So, dance. Let the revolution begin.

C is for Chaos

Amid the chaos just be.

We humans are a silly lot. We try so hard to control things that we have no control over. We try to control things that aren't even important for us to control. We like to be in charge. Then we get anxious and aggravated.

Life comes flying at us from all different directions and we try to organize it. We plan; we schedule; we make agendas. We build houses and garages to keep all our orderliness in one place only to reorganize and clean them on a regular basis. We even try to force nature to conform to our obsessive need for control with our well manicured lawns and geometrically skewed gardens.

The thing is, the thing we seem to forget, is that the axis of life is chaos. It's a messy business we've got going here - some of that is our fault, some of it isn't. Regardless, it just is.

Somewhere along the way we've forgotten how to separate ourselves from the chaos. We've forgotten how to just be.

A couple of weeks ago I was scrambling to get things done. Construction workers across the field were making tremendous noise. I wanted to scream. Then I had this vision of my life being sort of like a hidden objects game. I can drive myself nearly insane looking for objects buried in a picture. Sometimes I have to remind myself that if I just stop searching so hard, sit back and take in the picture as a whole, sometimes the things I'm looking for jump out to be recognized. Even if they don't, at the very least, I'm not letting the game control me.

Chaos. It's there and you're there, but you don't have to be part of it. Take time to sit back and just be. After all, the only thing we can control is ourselves. Sometimes.

B is for Brazen

I don't much like the way my thesaurus treats one of my favorite words, and that word is brazen. It is compared to the following list of words and that makes it sound like it's a bad way to behave: brash, audacious, barefaced, blatant, bold, brassy, cheeky, cocky, contumelious, defiant, flashy, flip, forward, gritty, gutsy, hotshot, immodest, impertinent, impudent, indecent, insolent, loud, meretricious, nervy, overbold, pert, saucy, shameless, smart-alecky, smart-ass, spunky, tawdry, unabashed, unblushing.

When, I ask you, did anybody accomplish anything by being otherwise? Are great strides made by the timid, the shameful, the weak? No. No. And no.

Long ago, a dear friend and I were discussing the possibilities of seducing the men each of us was seeing. I suggested she just plant one on her intended seductee's lips, grab him by the cojones and say, "How about it then?" She replied, "Sure, why not? If you're gonna be a hussy, you might just as well be a brazen hussy."

Considering that so much in this life is about seduction - not in a sexual way, but in the spirit of cajoling, of trying to get your own way - ought we not be brazen about what we want and what we need? I submit, "Yes!" By all means, own what you want out of life. Be proud. Be loud. Be brazen. How else is any one else going to know, much less understand, what you're all about and what you're after?

If you consider it in sexual terms (because, let's face it, that's such an easy analogy), it would be like me sitting on the sofa and expecting my mate to know I really want sex. It doesn't work that way. But if I brazenly tear my shirt off, start walking up the stairs, and say, "I'm going to see if I can knock all the sheets off the bed without using my hands." Well. Brazen wins the day every time.

Be brazen. Approach your life like you mean business.

Live intentionally.

A is for Art

I am joining the folks at Blogging from A to Z for the third year in a row. The challenge is to blog six days of the week, using consecutive letters of the alphabet for each post.

Sure, Art is an obvious choice for me. I thought about  writing (ranting) about apathy. I've done that topic in the past and the only people who enjoy those posts are others who like to rant about apathy. The apathetic just don't care. I pondered agapanthus and Achilles. I thought, "You can't write about art, you silly self-serving wench!" Oh, but I can.

I want to write about art, not because I want to tell people to learn to do it, or find a passion for it or... blah blah blah. I just want folks to appreciate art for what it is. Art is nothing at all but self-expression. That makes every cognitive creature on earth an artist. It doesn't matter whether you're baking cupcakes, writing stories, doing open heart surgery, painting, being a mother, singing, gardening, or what. It just doesn't matter. If you think - if you create anything, you're an artist.

What you do might be appreciated by others or it might not be. As a writer and an artist, I've learned that what others see doesn't really matter. Yes, it's nice if they connect on some level, nicer still if they actually like what you've done. However, ultimately, it's about how you felt doing whatever it is you did. It's about the soul-stirring that occurs when you indulge yourself in that thing. It is that, and nothing more.

"The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can."
~Neil Gaiman

Your voice, however that voice is made manifest, is your art. Nobody else can say what you have to say. So, please... say it in whatever way you choose. Be an artist.