Sunday, February 24, 2008

Possibilities for Transformation


Tonite I recieved great blessings in the sharings of many hearts all tuned to the chords of community.

I am inspired and touched to my core and somehow I am even more committed to this great work: the Alchemy of the Soul, and the Personality, and even more so the Great Alchemy of Global consciousness.

Each of us is such a vital piece of the whole. The transformation of consciousness that is emerging is doing it's dance in every person it seems. Some are more resistant than others, but still I see this magic working it's way into the heart and mind of each person. Something wonderful, magical and revolutionary is brewing up in the cosmic soup of consciousness, and we have a responsibility to step up, step in and do our part, to whatever extent it is possible. Not just for us, but for our children, and their children.

To invite, support and encourage those who have skills, resources and wisdom to connect, collaborate, and support each other whole heartedly is a crucial piece that we can all take part in. Encourage dialogue, encourage mutually beneficial relationships, talk to those people who you think are so "different" than you, and give an opportunity to find the common ground, give what you have and know that IT IS ENOUGH to make a difference.

We are in such desperate need of GOOD leadership on all fronts. We need more solid able minded beings who know how to move between the worlds and people who can help assist in the in between spaces. We are in need of more liasons between corporate consciousness and New Paradigm consciousness, we are in need of more sharing, more relating as humans, as friends on Planet Earth. We don't have to always agree with each other, or try to change each other, we can't get rid of "one" for the "other" but we can learn to honor, respect and find creative ways to let all voices be heard and respected!

The time now is for integration and exploring how we can dance together. Trying to fight the inevitable is just a waste of time and resources, but learning to utilize what's already in action and move within the matrix to shift energy is an invaluable skill in today's world, and will be increasingly so in the future! We all know, there is no "going back." There is only learning from the past and using that wisdom to guide us into new possibilities and openings. From here, we have to move much more consciously, with much more respect and contemplation into tomorrow's playground of possibility!

There is nothing "too hard" or "too much" for us! Humans have proven that over and over again, we can create ANYTHING we want! What do we want? Really, what do we want? If it's only money, or only stuff, we've missed the essence of life. I think for most people, it's more than that. In the depths of the heart's longing there is a call to help, to serve humanity, to do something that matters in the world, in whatever small or grande way, whether it be feeding our children, or feeding a hungry nation of children. We all have something to offer.

Remembering the grace and the sweetness of community, of family, of sharing the simple pleasures of life, good food, good conversation, fire, starlight, dancing and singing together. For me, that's the essence of life... the essence of love is sharing!

Great gratitude for this night, and this open inspired heart.

Friday, February 22, 2008

Late Night Contemplations

Laughter
Children's voices
Sweet songs of surrender
Thru the wind in the palms

Grace lives in this place
In each pair of eyes
In each story
In each face

Yemaya rolls gently thru
Oshun's overflow
Embracing Gaia's womb
in the softest most sensual embrace

Air clean
Charged by Pele's breath
Ocean pure
Crystallizing mind of zen

Moonlight above my head
Fire at my feet
Earth trembling
Passion Play

The Earth she is alive here
In every instant heard
She rolls and swirls and screams here
With benevolence and rage

Magic in the shadows
Made by the silver moon
Demons dwelling just beyond
the undulating ironwood's stringy locks

Mystical and omnipresent
This sacredness of life
With the power to seduce me
I welcome Her each night...

Fire light
and voices softly sharing
Illuminate my heart and soul

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Deep Nite Delite

The Midnight hour
Soft
Hpynotic
Entrancing
Casts its seduction on me
And oh, I go so willingly
Into pearly starred sky
and mystic night awaiting..

Embracing me now
The Beloved of beloveds
Dancing in me now
Like the seas swelling surges
Pulsing the swish and sway
of Mama Gaia's big swirly sea hips
Me, I like to take sweet soft sips
Seductive dips and slips into her glorious vast depths..

Always receptive
Always giving
Always emerging with truth
Always captivating
Like the night skies

Deep nite delite..
Sounds of the earth's aliveness..
Water flowing
Critters buzzin
Ocean's breath a comfort beyond illusion

Full moon
Full life
Full heart of love

Friday, February 15, 2008

Pulse of Gaia


Beneath me
I feel her pulse
Calling to me
Always, eternally..

She is the medicine I take voluntarily
To soothe
To teach
To acknowledge grace
To remember truth

She is always waiting..
Echoing
Loud
Resonant
Seductive rhythms of nite

Calling me inward
to the sanctuary of my self

The outer worlds of distraction
Gone
The chatter of the mind
Gone
The business of the day
Gone

Only the Pulse of Gaia
Resounding in my ears
Thru my body
Nature is my confidant
My eternal ally


Day by day
Side by side
Hand in hand
Step by step
I learn this wisdom way

Rhythms of Yemaya
Entrancing
Evocative
Always present
Big pulsing power of ocean blue
Like the blood in my veins
Like the breath thru my spirit

Effortless
Always returning
to the shores of renewal

The Pulse of Gaia

Techno world forgotten
Cars, traffic, rush rush rush
Forgotten..

As I merge
Again and again
In silent seductive surrender

Take me, Yemaya
Far out to the depths of your eternal blue
Into the heart of the swells
to ride in joyful playfulness
with the dolphins and the whales

The Eternal wisdom keepers...

Pulse of Gaia
Frog songs at night
Bird songs when dawn returns

Always the Pulse of Gaia lives in me

Remembering the wisdom way

Remembering
The Pulse of Gaia

Day by day
Side by side
hand in hand
Groove by groove

Eternally dancing in delite upon her womb

Gaia
Yemaya
Seductive passions of love's truths
I will always succomb... willingly
Joyfully..

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Polalu Valley: Hawaii



Trembling
bone crunching
jowels of hell
With eyes of fire piercing eternity

Eternal Guardians
Always watchful
Always foreboding
Always vengeful

Some place of evil doings
Terror beyond the imaginable
Lives here on this island

Spooky
Cursed
The forbidden land
Protected but wrongly taken

Deep pulsing mother earth
Yoni fat and moist
Dripping most enticing delites
An Eden poisoned.

What stories live here
I feel the bones
I see the blood
I know mine are here too
My blood and bones

Savage beyond the conceivable
A fortress impenetrable by design

Haunted forests
Ironwood dancing
Featherlike in the raging wind
The wind that never sleeps here

He he o a na..
He he o a na...

I come to pay my respects
I come in peace
I go in peace.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Feedback on Rough Draft of Book

Angel Cheri, I have read a lot of your book. Thanks for sending for feeback, via email. Again I see what a Super weaver you are of the tapestry and a profound messenger.
You deliver & compose powerfully for the community. Thank you for your assistance and for sharing your wisdom & insight.

You cover so many bases. And some amazing & inspirational stories in there. I realize why you couldn't sleep alot of nights, you have had so much to get into words and to realease out of your head. It's great that you have included Tayler & I in your book in the way that you have, and others in our 'tribe' and other 'tribes' That's cool. I see how so much greatness can come from this getting composed and out there. Nicely done.

Very glad you have had this time to upload/download and proceed with what you are up to and what you are here to offer the world and yourself. Thanks for following your intuitions and callings. It is my hope that we can all be supported to follow through with this process that can hugely effect the consciousness & direction of our souls and the planet.

It can be quite subtle but profound in the scope of it all. ay.
Talk w/you later. Hugs ~*
Jen

Monday, February 4, 2008

Excerpt from Chapter 9: Moving thru Chaos: Professional In Service to Community

Moving thru Chaos &
Professionals In service to the Community Spirit

It seems that there is a missing Link in the Community Music arena that I feel called to mention, and that is the integration of all levels, meaning in particular, those who have dedicated their lives to studying the intriciacies and subtleties of music, those who we call “Professional Musicians.” I personally know of many people who have had all or some part of their original inspiration come from drum circles and/or open community music jams. Some part of the experience opened them up to a part of themselves, or to their own potential, or maybe it exposed them to the magic of rhythm in community and how it feels to create an ecstatic experience with and for others. It was from that place that they got to where they are now being paid to perform, traveling all over the world performing with famous or semi-famous bands or as solo artists, with their own bands, etc. I can speak for myself in that drumming opened me up to discovering I could sing, and improv and make songs, etc. I now have recorded 4 CD’s, have my own band, and have performed all over the country as a solo artist: all of it was inspired by what I experienced in these raw, spontaneous sessions in different communities drumming, dancing and creating together.


A lot of my friends and colleagues who have left the Community Music scene to go into professional music talk about Chaos as a part of what pushed them out and away from wanting to participate in community music making. I can understand, as I am often challenged by it in my work and every time it comes up I have to find a creative way to accept it, honor it and move thru it. Chaos is a real part of the human experience, and how we deal with it or run from it is also worthy of examination. If we all just run from the chaos instead of working to bring order and harmony back from the edge of insanity, then the finer teachings that music has to offer will never be fully transmitted. If all those who master elements of Music (in any form) continue to abandon the chaos out of frustration, fear or not knowing how to move thru it, then how can this movement continue to evolve? And, how does that foster strength in community, or teach anyone anything? It may be a bit of a stretch here to say this, but it bears some metaphorical resemblance to ditching out on a child because they are too difficult to discipline. The wild, free abandonment that happens sometimes in Music Making is like the mentality of an undisciplined child who is just so lost in themselves and the experience of life that they can’t see past themselves!

I feel that those who have attained higher levels of proficiency and skill could greatly serve their communities by participating and helping to create solutions, modeling different aspects of musicality, and sharing what they’ve learned instead of just ditching their roots completely.

or running away because it’s too hard. This is not in any way to say that they shouldn’t step out into their professional callings and become the best they can be in their chosen expression! I just feel called to offer the possibility that by occasionally showing up and holding space in their communities on a more roots level, they can provide a source of deep inspiration, and set an example for what’s possible!

In my research, I found an example of this kind of thing in Hungary in the táncház movement. “This model involved strong cooperation between musicology experts and enthusiastic amateurs, resulting in a strong vocational foundation and a very high professional level. The involvement of experts meant an effort to understand and revive folk traditions in their full complexity. The movement revived broader folk traditions. Started in the 1970s, tanchaz soon became a massive movement creating an alternative leisure activity for youths apart from discos and music clubs—or one could say that it created a new kind of music club. The tanchaz movement spread to ethnic Hungarian communities around the world.” (Rolk hungary)

Inspiring a movement is a pretty exciting concept to me personally! I’m in! Imagine what could be inspired if the Professionals of Music actually returned to their roots on occasion and offered themselves in service to the community in a way that wasn’t about “Watch me perform” but was instead about, “Come on, let’s do this together!” The entire group would benefit, and that musician would receive so much love and gratitude for their sharing, and so much respect from their community of Music Making Lovers. I have a strong network of “Professional Musicians” whom I invite regularly to my community sessions in Boulder. Very few of them have ever come, not yet. I will continue to hold this vision in my heart that one day they’ll show up and together we can inspire and show possibilities that have yet to be fully experienced for many people, and maybe even start off a Revolution of music that I’ve been dreaming about for years, that is truly “For the people, By the people,” where everyone is empowered to express and to participate equally, where there are strong models of cooperation, listening, communication, dialogue, dynamics, play and mutual respect interwoven into the fabric of the Groove!

Saturday, February 2, 2008

Raining the Tears of the World

God is dumping the seas upon our heads
Days and days of rain
Relentless
Like a flood pouring from the skies.

This island is drenched
Saturated
Soaked
Like I would be
Were it not for this screened
Roofed sanctuary

The rain comes thru
In little spatters
Spits on me and this screen

Sweet sounds
Water makes
Smacking big green tropical leaves
Thumping a constant drone
Like the raging seas
Smacking again and again
Into black, volcanic rock

It is night again
The Cokee’s sing still
With sheets of water pouring upon them
Still they sing
Finding each other
Thru the eternal watering

Rhythm songs
Frogs are masters
Echoeing above it all
They pierce the night
Melodies divine
Rhythm rhapsody ride

I love to listen
All night long
Sometimes it’s hard to sleep
I want to hear it all
To absorb it
To make it part of me

This place
Pure, Free, Abundant in Life
I want to merge with it
So I stay present thru the night
Listening in my dreams

The rain always comes again here
Breathing moments before it falls again
All night long
All day long
The rain is my solid companion

Barely above the wind and rain
The ocean roars
Loud in my ears, I breathe to it
In and out with the surf
Rhythmical
Always present
Always powerful
Wild, white water
Cascading against black rocks
I see it in here
From my bed
I see it
As part of me now

God is weeping the tears for a million lives lived
For those whose lands are filled with terror
Whose eyes may never see
The beauty that I know
In every moment
In every day

Even here
With the rain falling
Hard, fast and constant

Still
There is beauty beyond beauty