Category: poetry

hollowing out

Some of you I will hollow out.
I will make you a cave.
I will carve you so deep the stars will shine in your darkness.
You will be a bowl.
You will be the cup in the rock collecting rain.
Read more.

Hollowing out. Becoming a cave.

Being carved deeply. Into a bowl. Into a cup.

Able to collect, to gather, to hold.

This poem, which I posted a few weeks back, keeps arising in my bodysoul.

  • My mind wonders: What does it mean to be hollowed out?
  • My heart feels a bit scared of the carving.
  • My body simply senses—the stripping, the filling…
  • And my bodysoul?

She knows. She has experienced this over and over again. She understands that this is the lawful unfolding of life. Filling up, overflowing, hollowing out, and filling again…

hollowing out

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Saying Yes to Love—Part II

This is Part II of a 2-Part Series on Love for the month of February. Part I explores how essential it is to say Yes to Love in relationship. This second post focuses on practicing Love. Although originally written for dear friends whose wedding I officiated, and, thus, about the personal Love relationship between two people, everything here applies to Love in any relationship—with yourself, with your friends, with your family, with an animal friend, with a partner, with the Beloved. Read the poem that inspired this exploration.

Saying Yes to Love also implies unconditionality.

I practice Love which is not dependent on whether or not…

  • Dave remembers to put the toilet seat down,
  • Or brings out the garbage,
  • Or pulls the sheets off of me to his side of the bed in the middle of the night.

It’s not an “if” you do this kind of proposition!

Even if he hasn’t done something I had hoped for, I still look at him and say “I choose you.” I still say Yes to Love.

Because saying Yes to Love is choosing to live a life that is worth living.

When I say Yes to Love, I open myself to something greater than my limited understanding—

  • To the possibility of both of our growth and transformation,
  • To the mystery of the depth and breadth of the heart,
  • To this moment of limitless possibility.

In order to do this, we have to be willing to feel and allow everything—

  • The old wounds that will get retriggered by our partner,
  • The shame of doing the same unskillful behavior over and over again as we try to learn a new one,
  • The pain of not being able to open our hearts in the moment,
  • The suffering of being stuck and unable to see our way through,
  • As well as the amazing joy, gratitude, and bliss of Love.

For feeling is the language of the heart. And sharing these feelings with our partner is the language of intimacy. It is Love saying Yes. It is saying Yes to Love.

So, I encourage you to say Yes to Love every day, every moment, every chance you get. As Gregory Orr encourages us in his beautiful poem:

Later for “but,”
Later for “if.”

Now
Only the single syllable
That is the beloved,
That is the world.

Yes. May we always choose to practice Love.

What are some concrete ways you
practice Love?
With yourself? With others?
How could you deepen your practice?

Read Part I of Saying Yes to Love.

Saying Yes to Love—Part I

This is Part I of a 2-Part Series on Love for the month of February.
This first post explores how essential it is to say Yes to Love
in relationship. The second focuses on practicing Love.
Although originally written for dear friends whose wedding
I officiated, and, thus, about the personal Love relationship between two people, everything here applies to Love in any relationship—with yourself, with your friends, with your family, with an animal friend, with a partner, with the Beloved.

 
By Gregory Orr
If to say it once
And once only, then still
To say: Yes.

And say it complete,
Say it as if the word
Filled the whole moment
With its absolute saying.

Later for “but,”
Later for “if.”

Now
Only the single syllable
That is the beloved,
That is the world.

Yes. Unequivocally, Yes.

Conscious relationship, for me, is about learning to say Yes, over and over again, to Love.

Love can open in us as a gift, as a grace, but for the most part, Love is pretty hard work!

I find that Love is a practice of choosing to say Yes to the needs of the relationship, to being and acting as Love in each moment.

  • Even when I’m tired and just want to fall back into the comfortable slumber of “my way,”
  • Even when I feel disconnected and would rather lick my wounds,
  • Even when it would feel better to pretend everything is OK when it’s not,
  • Even when I’m not feeling very loving…

Because Love is bigger than a feeling. Love is a choice.

  • Love chooses connection.
  • Love chooses trying to understand.
  • Love chooses generosity.
  • Love chooses hope.
  • Love chooses to accept my partner’s reality, even when it’s not only different from mine, but might seem downright crazy or misguided.
  • Love says Yes.

For a long time, practicing Love, I would find myself saying Yes, but…

  • But what?
  • But you don’t see the whole picture…
  • But that’s not really what I meant…
  • But I would do it this way…
  • But…

Dave called me on it—many times—and he still may have to from time to time. It is a pretty engrained habit!

  • He let me know that when I say “Yes…but,” he only hears the “but.”
  • He no longer feels heard or acknowledged.
  • It’s like that “but” negates everything else I’ve said.

I have come to understand that the “but” is a turning away from Love, a choosing to separate a part of myself from the Yes of Love. The togetherness of Love. The generosity of Love.

I’m not saying we have to agree about everything—we don’t!

  • If I have a different idea, I share it.
  • But I try not to before acknowledging the Yes.
  • Yes, I see and hear you.
  • Yes, you are right in your truth.
  • Yes, I value and respect you and your expression.
  • AND here is my truth…

This is practicing Love. I won’t always get it right, but I will continue to practice.

How do you say Yes to Love?
With yourself? With others?

Note: Part II of this Valentine’s Day blogpost came out at the end of February, so we can remember to keep practicing, even when the romance of Valentine’s Day, or falling in love, or a candlelight dinner is over….

Fall Equinox: Letting Go

One of the ways I am simplifying and letting go this season is by not posting a long Seasonal Blogpost at the Solstice and Equinox. I hope you enjoy this simpler, seasonally inspired reflection.

Bidden or Not

This collage feels appropriate as we walk through the doorway into another season. What will Fall bring to us? To walk with the earth into this turning into Fall, we can be mindful of the themes of simplifying and letting go. Summer coming to an end, the school year starting, harvest being gathered and stored, leaves falling, the days getting shorter…

What is our harvest? What can we strip away to focus on the bare essentials most necessary to our lives right now? As one of my teachers, Sara Avant Stover, asks in her book, “How gracefully can you let go? How much can you give into the way things are? How well can you honor yourself and that which is passing?”

I recently posted about Vivian, my inner teenager self—collaging her and giving her a voice is part of my practice of letting go. Including her in my life allows me to let go of the ways I have unconsciously acted out her feelings and needs.

Today, as I finish this, in the middle of a trip to New York State and Vermont, I am letting go of over-productivity and focusing on the bare essentials—in this minimalist blogpost, in resting a lot to heal (a head cold is trying to re-establish itself), in doing only the minimum necessary so I can focus on connections with dear friends (not keeping up with all my emails or facebook, not visiting too many friends or places)…

How can you re-orient with the Fall season and practice letting go, holding on only to that which truly feels necessary and nourishing in your life?

An Autumn poem to close by Joseph Stroud, from Of This World: New and Selected Poems:

Home. Autumn. The Signatures.
Let the day begin with its light.
For once, let the mothers and fathers sleep late.
Let the chickens in the mud
scratch their own inscrutable chicken poetry.
Let the clothes hang from the line
in the rain.
Allow the crickets under the woodpile
one more day of their small music.
Soon everything will be clean
and bare, a fine inner blazing as the leaves
drop, and the air is tinged with oak
burning across the fields.
Let the skeletons of cornstalks
scrape in the wind
and sunflowers droop heavy heads
spilling their crowns of seeds.
Let the dew on the webs
gleam a thousand pearls
as the sun hazes its light
around everything we must lose.
Let the night build its darkness,
and earth close once more
and, at last, become quiet.

Seasons Blessings of Letting Go Gracefully!

life practices: summer solstice 2014

My intention is to blog once a season about Life Practices in order to share what I am practicing in my life, and to suggest opportunities to join me, as well as ideas to use in your own practice.

Summer Solstice is almost upon us! The daylight hours have been growing since Winter Solstice, each day becoming slightly longer until now, when seen from the North or South Poles, the sun reaches its highest position in the sky and appears to stand still (Latin “sol” or sun and “sistere” or to stand still). In 2014, the Summer Solstice occurs at 5:15 am CT on Saturday, June 21st.

Here in Minnesota, we’ve had a long cold Winter and a very unpredictable Spring—cool, hot, windy, thunder-stormy…but everything is growing and really green!! It turns out that the earth knows how to grow and follow her natural rhythms regardless of how crazy the weather is…

Summer’s glory—blooming radiance—abounds, with a new flower coming into bloom almost every day. We’ve passed from Spring’s early blooming bulbs to Lilacs, to Azaleas, to Lilies of the Valley, to Peonies, to Poppies and Clematis, and more…and now Evening Primrose and Daisies are smiling their sunny faces just in time for the Solstice!

How are you preparing or being prepared to bloom this Summer? What are some ways you can support yourself so that you, like the earth, can flourish this Summer?

You may want to write in a journal, or try a short ritual alone or with friends that could include the following:

  • Sitting outside, on the earth if possible, light a candle, red or orange in color.
  • Take a few deep breaths into your connection with the earth—into your feet or bum or legs, and breathe that connection up into your belly.
  • When you feel grounded, look around you and find one beautiful thing—it may be a flower opening or the light or something else that moves you.
  • Say gently to yourself “Beauty sees beauty.” Feel yourself, as beauty, seeing beauty. Own this, breathe it in…be beauty, breathing in beauty…
  • Continue to breathe as you look around, acknowledging and welcoming more beauty within and without. You might also want to try a different verb—”Beauty sees/hears/touches/senses…beauty.”
  • When you feel filled and beauty-full, say thank you and blow out the candle.

Remember that as this day comes to an end, the days will very slowly become shorter, until at Autumn Equinox, the day and night will be balanced, and by Winter Solstice, we’ll be back to the longest night. Savor and enjoy your own flourishing and beauty with that of the earth this Summer season! May you welcome and find grace in this changing of the seasons.

Being Woman-crpd2Collage as a Practice. My collaging has slowed down recently as I pour more creative energy into my studies (more about that below), my daily practice, the garden, creating healthy meals and new recipes, and other projects.

Being Woman explores the luscious, life-giving, instinctual, ever-renewing, deep Feminine ground that not only supports us but also gives birth to our many human expressions. We arise from and return to Her.

How does She live and arise through you?

KatyNourishing Wholeness: My New Holistic Health & Wellness Coaching Practice! I am so excited to be starting to practice as a Holistic Health & Wellness Coach—it feels like the fulfillment of my life’s journey thus far! Studying with the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, I also bring my years of practice and training as a Certified Riso-Hudson Enneagram Teacher, an ordained Interfaith Minister, a Certified Laughter Yoga Leader, a Diamond Approach Student, and an Assistant in Sara Avant Stover’s Red Tent, as well as a Student in her Way of the Happy Woman Certification Program.

I will be taking more clients—both in person and via phone or skype—in September. Be in touch if you’d like to set up a free discovery session to talk about your dreams and desires for your health and well-being. I would be honored to support you on this path!

dandelionsFun, Healthy Eating as a Practice! How about instead of battling with the dandelions in your yard, you picked them and ate them instead?

Are there wild things growing in your yard or on your property that you can harvest and eat? I’d love to hear about it!

poppy-tpWomen’s Practice. As women, there’s something we rarely talk about. We pretend it doesn’t happen. Some of us are ashamed by it. Some wish it would simply go away. Even in the most “evolved” and “spiritual” communities, it remains taboo.  Have you guessed what it is?

That’s right: it’s our moon cycle. (Or period or menses or whatever your favorite word for it is.)

Last year, with the guidance of my teacher, friend, and yogini, Sara Avant Stover, a group of really brave women began changing this conversation. This “Moon Tribe” got real and raw about how their moon cycles affect them, their work in the world, and their relationships. It was edgy. Real. And especially valuable and healing—for thousands of women across the world.

Poetry as a Practice.

Bare branches and silent winter days
are but a memory
as we near summer solstice.

Shades of white snow and crystal blue
have given way to relentless green.

From dormancy rises
a summons to grow
that keeps us on our toes.

No longer shoveling
instead we mow, pull, whack,
and make our choices
around what to trim and tame
and what to let grow wild.

What we know
most especially this time of year
is that everything and everyone
shares this boundless call to grow.

Seasons and cycles give us
quiet reflective times
and periods of busting out.
A pull toward green sprouting
boisterous courageous steps
further in and further out
in this world.

If its inspiration you seek
as you feel the push / pull inside you
of steps in perhaps frightening new directions,
look to the grace of branches
swaying with the weight of vibrant leaves
heavy from new growth and recent rains.
See the way buds stretch skyward
readying for bloom
as if extending a cupped hand
to hold the sun.

You can trust the trees, the flowers,
the bursting green of this season.
Just as you can trust your own yearning
to set your wild spirit free
and grow in directions that call to you

Chris Heeter, Leadership Speaker, Wilderness Guide, Poet
The Wild Institute

Blooming and Flourishing Summer Blessings,
Katy Taylor, Holistic Health & Wellness Coach

Being Woman

She is always here, beneath the surface of our lives
living in bone, in flesh, in blood, in cells, in our human embodiedness

She is that which we spring from, that which we rest into,
that which holds, supports, and sustains us

She is ancestral woman of us all, of the earth’s knowing,
of nature, of the elements, of the seasons

She is the ancient, embodied wisdom of living, of surviving, of thriving,
of tribe, of pleasure, of wholeness

She is pure, natural, healthy instinctualness—
instinct to rest, to relax, to savor, to be
and when needed—instinct to arise, to spring forth, to engage in life

She always returns to Herself, to Beingness

She loves to be enticed into the flowing expression of life—
as daughter, friend, maiden, mother, lover,
nurturer, worker, enjoyer, queen, crone, wildish one
—always remaining true to Her Being nature

From Her, in Her, through Her springs forth all life
To Her, in Her, through Her returns all life
She is Being Woman

Do you see Her in this collage?

Do you know Her? Do you rest and arise in Her?

How does She live through you?

Note: I was exposed to this idea by Zsuzsanna Budapest who calls her Sloth Woman in her book The Holy Book of Women’s Mysteries

life practices: winter solstice 2013

My intention is to blog once a season about Life Practices in order to share what I am practicing in my life, and to suggest opportunities to join me, as well as ideas to use in your own practice.

Winter Solstice occurs this year on December 21st at 11:11 am CT. This is the first day of Winter—the shortest day and longest night of the year. Every day thereafter, the days grow longer until Summer Solstice, when we have the longest day and the shortest night.

But first we have to make it through the Winter! Fall’s inward turning is the gateway to the deep surrender into Winter’s dark mystery. It can be a little confusing that we first have to make it through a bunch of celebrations—Thanksgiving at the end of Fall and then Christmas and New Year’s at the beginning of Winter, events that ask us to be more social and outer-directed—when nature is slowing down, releasing, and dropping her energy into the earth…

Nature herself can be a steady companion for this transition into Winter. Most trees are stripped naked, down to their skeletons, allowing their simplicity, their bare bones to be seen. Plants are dead or in deep dormancy. This is what we, too, are invited into. What would it be like to drop our external ways of knowing ourselves—the face we show to the world—and to simply be ourselves, with no frills, no airs, and nothing to hide? What if we allowed unnecessary parts of ourselves to die or go dormant? Underneath our smiles, our helpfulness, our good ideas, our appropriate clothes, who are we anyway? This inquiry is Winter’s invitation to dive deeper into the mysterious dark, the great unknown, “the dark hours of [our] being” (Rilke).

Here’s a starting place for a journal exploration, or a short ritual alone or with friends:

  • In the dark, naming this intention: “I am ready and willing to drop into the dark hours of my being.” With each breath in the dark, feel yourself rooting down, dropping your energy into the earth, like the dormant trees and plants, dropping into “the dark hours of [your] being.”
  • When you are ready, light a single candle. As you take that light in, feel back into your connection with the earth, with the fertile darkness of your being.
  • Name out loud or in your journal the parts of yourself you would like to drop, to allow to go dormant, to rest for awhile.
  • Then name out loud or in your journal who you might be without these self-images, behaviors, or activities. Who is resting in the dark hours of your being?
  • When you are done, acknowledge your gratefulness for this inward time of listening and being, and blow out the candle.

Please join us for the Winter Solstice Celebration on December 21st at 7:30 pm at Unity Church Unitarian in the Parish Hall. May you welcome and find grace in this changing of the seasons.

Advent Singing Meditation image larger Advent Singing Meditation. As we transition from Fall to Winter and continue our inward turning, I invite you to gather one more Friday evening with me to deepen your Advent journey with sacred chant and silent prayer/meditation. Learn and sing music from Hildegard of Bingen and from the Gaelic tradition. No prior singing experience necessary. Suggested donation $5-$10 per session.

Friday, December 20th, from 5:15-6:15 pm, at Our Lady of the Presentation Chapel atrium, 1890 Randolph Avenue, St. Paul

Singing Meditation will also be offered during the Easter season. More Information: Jennifer Tacheny, jtacheny@csjstpaul.org (651) 696-2872, Hosted by the CSJ Membership and Association Offices (Celeste’s Dream, Consociate Services, and Sister Membership).

Is music a part of your life? Try singing alone, with others, or even with a recording and then dissolving into silence. What do you notice?

Katy & Amy MirabilisWelcome Brigid—Mirabilis in Concert on St. Brigid’s Day, February 1st! In ancient Irish mythology, Brigid is the Celtic fire goddess representing the aspect of divine femininity.  Her feast day, February 1st, celebrates the arrival of longer, warmer days and marks the start of Celtic Spring. Come celebrate with me and my singing partner, Amy Fradon, the early signs of returning spring!

We will perform original, Gaelic, and medieval chant and song that weaves Celtic ornamentation with haunting, mystical chant and prayer. Specializing in the music of Hildegard von Bingen, a capella and simply accompanied, Katy and Amy’s purity of tone and musical depth inspires and transports. Includes some participatory singing.

Community Potluck at 5:30; Concert at 7:00. Admission is $15, pay at the door. For more information, contact Carla at (763) 479-4396 or sundogfarmconcerts@gmail.com.

We will also be singing all three services at Unity Unitarian Church in St. Paul on Sunday, February 2nd, and may be offering a concert in the Twin Cities Friday, January 31st as well, TBA.

A few love notes from audience members: “Thank you for an incredible evening. You really have the ability and power to bless—truly bless people with love and spirit through your song, voice, and music.”

“Your angelic voices blended so well that I was in a special odyssey of sound. I love your spiritual Celtic melodic harmony of prayer ad gratitude to the Big Boss, whoever! May your work continue to lighten the hearts of many earthly souls.”

with azaleaThe Enneagram is one of the main maps of the soul Dave and I find helpful to understand the unfolding of our lives, individually and as a couple. It is an amazing system that helps us to see the deeper, purer roots of our behavior—how most of our less savory behaviors are simply misguided attempts to reconnect with a more loving, whole, and good self.

Dave and I are facilitating an Introduction to the Riso-Hudson Spiritual Enneagram on February 8th from 1:00-5:00 pm at The Well in St. Paul, and a Couple’s Retreat March 7th-9th at our favorite B&B, Journey Inn, in Maiden Rock, Wisconsin.

Introduction to the Riso-Hudson Spiritual Enneagram. Ever wonder why the types have the specific traits they do? Or why our traits can look so different when we are under stress? How come the types seem to want such different things from life? What can the Centers teach us about type? If you’re new to the Enneagram or just want to explore the Riso-Hudson Approach, join us for an afternoon overview of the types that emphasizes their spiritual roots and natural unfoldment. Includes teaching, exercises, music, and poetry. Fee: $75, with $10 off if first time at the Well, or if you bring a friend, or for early registration by 1/27/14. More information and register here.

Cultivating Deeper Contact: A Retreat/Workshop for Couples. Even in a relationship grounded in love and open communication, we often yearn for deeper contact with each other. The Enneagram illuminates many of the structures that stand in the way of such contact, as well as others that actually invite us toward a deeper contact with ourselves, each other, and the moment. Early registration (by January 15th) is $600 per couple, and after that, $650. For more information, see our calendar. We hope you can join us!

What maps of the soul do you find useful? Do you spend time with your soul, honoring his/her rhythms, thus learning to more deeply support your own  psycho-spiritual growth?

A Poem for the Season: Before Jesus by Alla Renée Bozarth
Before Jesus
was his mother.

Before supper
in the upper room,
breakfast in the barn.

Before the Passover Feast,
a feeding trough.
And here, the altar
of Earth, fair linens
of hay and seed.

Before his cry,
her cry.
Before his sweat
of blood,
her bleeding
and tears.
Before his offering,
hers.

Before the breaking
of bread and death,
the breaking of her
body in birth.

Before the offering
of the cup,
the offering of her
breast.
Before his blood,
her blood.

And by her body and blood
alone, his body and blood
and whole human being.

The wise ones knelt
to hear the woman’s word
in wonder.

Holding up her sacred child,
her spark of God in the form of a babe,
she said:

“Receive and let
your hearts be healed
and your lives be filled
with love, for
This is my body,
This is my blood.”

Deep Winter Blessings, Katy

practice loving kindness

life practices: summer solstice

My intention is to blog once a season about Life Practices in order to share what I am practicing in my life, and to suggest opportunities to join me, as well as ideas to use in your own practice.

Summer Solstice reminds us to “celebrate and relish all of life’s pleasures by drinking them into every cell of our bodies.” (From Sara Avant Stover, The Way of the Happy Woman, p.135.) The daylight hours have been growing since Winter Solstice, each day becoming slightly longer until now, when seen from the North or South Poles, the sun reaches its highest position in the sky and appears to stand still (Latin “sol” or sun and “sistere” or to stand still). In 2013, the Summer Solstice occurs at 12:04 am CT on June 21st.

Especially with such a late Spring this year in Minnesota, the full return of Summer is a time for great celebration! We find ourselves invited out into the abundant, fertile, hot, and colorful magic of nature’s glorious embrace. Our senses on high, we can deeply nourish our cells, severely depleted from a long Winter and late Spring. We breathe in the many scents—of blooming flowers, rich earth, and barbecuing food. We taste the succulent, fresh fruits and vegetables, and cool, refreshing drinks of the season. We see the abundant forms of beauty all around us—in nature and in each other’s radiance. We hear the sounds of flourishing human and animal life. And we touch and are touched by the earth under our bare feet and hands, by the soft, warm air on our skin, and by our friends and lovers….Everything is blossoming into ripeness, coming into its fullest expression.

The challenge of Summertime is to really experience this magical plenitude, and not get caught up always chasing after more of this yummyness, thus missing out on the beauty and bounty that is right here. The last few lines of Mary Oliver’s poem When I Am Among the Trees remind us to land: “Around me the trees stir in their leaves / and call out, ‘Stay awhile.’ / The light flows from their branches. / And they call again, ‘It’s simple,’ they say, / ‘and you too have come into the world to do this, / to go easy, to be filled with light, and to shine.’”

Can we really take in Summer’s abundance, savoring each taste with all five senses, so that we fill up and revitalize our bodies and souls? Even in the midst of full celebration, can we truly receive and relish in Summer’s magic, passion, and glorious light? Perhaps then we, like the trees in Oliver’s poem can “go easy,” “be filled with light,” and shine.

You may want to write in a journal, or try a short ritual alone or with friends that could include the following:
•    Sitting on the earth if possible, light a candle, red or orange in color.
•    Take a few deep breaths to land yourself in your body right here. Sense the earth beneath you, feel the air and warmth on your skin, take in the smells, sounds, and sights around you.
•    When you feel landed, look around you and find one thing that captivates your attention, in which you find beauty. Breathe this into your body, heart, and mind. Allow the beauty to touch you, to fill you, to affect you in whatever way.
•    Continue to breathe it in, savoring its essence, dropping any thoughts that arise, and allowing yourself to be filled with its light and to shine as long as you like.
•    When you feel complete, say thank you and blow out the candle.

Remember that as this day comes to an end, the days will very slowly become shorter, until at Autumn Equinox, the day and night will be balanced, and by Winter Solstice, we’ll be back to the longest night. Savor and revel in the juicy passion of this Summer season! And local Minnesotans, please join us in a Summer Solstice Celebration at Unity Unitarian Church in St. Paul on June 21st at 7:00 pm. May you welcome and find grace in this changing of the seasons.

primordial beingCollage as a Practice. My collaging seems to have slowed down recently as I pour more creative energy into other projects, especially the garden, which is also a sort of collage, I guess! Primordial Being explores the Source—the life-force energy, the wisdom, the mystery, the beingness that informs and moves my life. Its depth, dark unknownness, and instinctual movement is something I often avoid, and yet, it is this very life force that channels through me and out into the the world.

I felt this collage wanting to take form and looked for quite a long time to find the image that might be able to express the vast, primordial beingness that I was sensing within, not knowing how it would take shape. That’s actually one of the things I love about collaging—entering into the unknown of what will come together to embody a deep yearning for expression an exploration…

How do you approach the unknown? Do you have practices that help you touch and explore it?

instinctual body2.1Celebrating & Savoring Pleasure: A Half-Day, Summer Women’s Retreat.  Align yourself with the seasons, a Feminine form of spiritual practice. Summertime invites us to rejoice in our love of life in all its forms. Retreat-time helps us to slow down so that we can really savor and celebrate the pleasures of the season, thus connecting with our natural joy and gratitude. Listening to the wisdom of all three Centers—body, heart, and mind—we will engage in practices such as ritual, reflection, movement, laughter, and inquiry. No prior knowledge or experience is necessary.

Sunday, August 18th from 1:00 to 5:00 pm. For more information, see our calendar.

What do you do to help you slow down and savor your life? How do you build it into your life?

katy laughingLaughter as a Happiness Practice! Come explore the art of laughter to invite more joy, play, and wellbeing into your life! Because of the deep pranayamic breathing exercises, this form of practice is also called Laughter Yoga, but it does not include any physical asanas and can be practiced by people of all ages who are willing to be a little bit silly. It was started in 1995 by a family physician in India and is now widely practiced in over 65 countries around the world. Medical research supports its physical and emotional health-giving effects.

I am a Certified Laughter Yoga leader, and I lead the Summit Hill Laughter Club, which meets two Wednesdays/month, June-September 2013 at St. Paul Yoga Center: 6/19, 7/3, 7/17, 8/7, 8/21, 9/4, 9/18 from 7:30-8:30 pm. No registration required, donations for use of the space accepted. Please contact me if you have any questions—I would love to laugh with you!

How do you consciously bring more happiness and joy into your life?

Rev Katy Blowing BubblesReverending/Ceremony. I absolutely love performing ceremonies that bring more honoring of our intentions and love into the world! This picture and the above laughing picture are from a wedding I performed, and I facilitate the Seasonal Celebrations like Summer Solstice at Unity Unitarian Church.

On July 28th at 10:00 am I’ll be serving as Worship Leader for Unity Unitarian Church, offering a service entitled What’s Up With the Goddess? How does the resurgence of teachings focused on the Goddess have relevance for us today? As Sobonfu Somé clarifies, these are not “new age” teachings, but “ancient age” teachings. We will explore how the qualities and manifestations of the Goddess are necessary for living a balanced and whole life today.

Let me know if I can assist you in honoring any transitions or special moments in your life—Weddings, Baby Blessings, Seasonal and Transitional Rituals, Memorial Services… You can read more about my practice of ministry.

Have you attended any celebrations or ceremonies recently? What about the ceremony touched you and invited you into a deeper place of contact with the sacred?

And you — what of your rushed
and useful life? Imagine setting it all down —
papers, plans, appointments, everything —
leaving only a note: “Gone
to the fields to be lovely. Be back
when I’m through with blooming.”
—excerpt from Lynn Ungar’s Camas Lilies

Joyful and Blooming Summer Blessings, Katy Taylor, Wholeness Mentor

Nourishing Wholeness
nourishing wholeness

primordial being

Primordial Being
Rich, fertile chaos
Foundation of all life
Mobility of all movement
Deep chasm of all depth
Ground of aliveness
Ancient, eternal, luminous darkness
Volatile, guttural, primal, surging
Awe-full, wonder-full
Claim me
shake me, break me, take me
Dissolve the structures within
that try to hold you down
that try to pretty you up
that try to shape and control you
Move me
in your natural rhythms and cycles
in your spontaneous and perfect unfolding
in the natural order of all things

ancestors

my ancestors surround me
like walls of a canyon
quiet
stone hard
their ideas drift over me
like breezes at sunset

we gather sticks
and make settlements
what we do is only partly
our own
and partly continuation
down through the chromosomes

my daughter
my baby sleeps behind me
stirring in the night
for the touch
that lets her continue

she is arranging
in her small form the furniture
and windows of her home

it will be a lot like mine
it will be a lot like theirs

– “Ancestors” poem by Harvey Ellis (edited to be a female baby)

I’ve been working with a book called The Path of Practice by Bri. Maya Tiwari to help myself align more to the natural rhythms of myself as a woman, connected to the earth and moon, to the seasons, and to the cosmos. One of the practices Tiwari recommends is to explore your ancestral heritage and learn about yourself and your relationship to those who went before. Since I feel most connected to my matrilineal line, I thought I would start there, with my mom’s mom, “Gammy.”

There are some interesting synchronicities that lead to a deeper exploration of this material now. My husband’s mom just passed away, and as an Interfaith Minister, I offered to help them put a Memorial Service together. I started with my Minister’s Manual and the Memorial Service I wrote as part of my seminary training, and found the service I had written for Gammy! It brought back many memories just as I was reading Tiwari’s book. As I was reading and making notes for myself, I remembered that not only did I have this collage, but also a beautiful photo album filled with stories about Gammy’s life that mom had given me for a recent birthday, almost as if I had been being prepared for this exploration.

* * *

I grew up hearing that I resembled my mom’s side of the family, and my sister resembled my dad’s. I never minded resembling the Tuck side in looks, as I always thought mom was pretty, but I wasn’t so sure I wanted to carry forth the opinionated and intense—some would say fanatic—energy that Gammy embodied. Turns out mom later found out that she was the wild, extreme one in her family, a role that then passed down to me in the matrilineal lineage…

As the collage portrays, Gammy’s bloodline included some percentage Native American (Cherokee or maybe Sioux), so I may have as much as 1/16 Native American blood in me, or much less…no-one seems to know for sure how far back that union took place. I like the idea of having some heritage that is much more deeply connected to the earth and her rhythms than the culture I grew up in. I like to think that connection is guiding me on this exploration as I deepen my awareness of my place within the natural rhythms of the earth.

As I reflect on the relationship between Gammy, mom and me, I see the many similarities as well as the ways my individual soul may be trying to bring my matrilineal line back into balance.

* * *

I come from a line of women who love to eat sweet things—Gammy ate so many that she ended up with diabetes in her old age, I had a binge eating disorder for many years, and mom has always tried to be careful not to overeat sweets. I remember how surprised I was to find out that mom and I both had the same taboo sweet treat: Oreos! Nowadays, sweet food isn’t calling me as much, but it makes me wonder what ancestral pattern was carried through to me that made us need to try to find the sweetness of life through treats instead of in our daily living?

What occurs immediately is the legacy I carry of being overly busy—until recently, too busy to savor and enjoy my life, which is where I am now finding that sweetness in abundance. This is a problem mom has complained about for years, commenting that I follow in her footsteps. Having learned more about Gammy’s life with nine children on a farm during the Great Depression, with very few amenities, I realize that she, too, must have been very busy.

However, Gammy was also known for indulging in pleasure, something I am still learning to embrace! Mom says she belonged to five book clubs, spending their sparse money on that instead of a flush toilet! She was also always willing to stop what she was doing and have fun. She never passed up a chance to turn a jump rope for any one of her nine kids, and she enjoyed jokes, and laughed, and really enjoyed her life. The best story I remember was when a bunch of the kids were home for Thanksgiving dinner with their friends. One of the boys asked Gammy to pass the butter and she picked it up and tossed it down the table!! The kids were pretty shocked, but all went on as normal, catching the butter, and not saying anything!

Gammy was also ahead of her time in her thinking about sex. She felt women had the right to be pleasured and in the mood before having sex with their husbands, and I imagine she practiced this, too! I also remember mom telling me that sex between two people who love each other is a beautiful and loving connection. I’m afraid my personality type combined with my teenage years of born-again Christianity got in the way of inheriting such an easy-going, forthright approach!

Gammy also felt the pull for deeper meaning through spirituality as I do. She spoke of past-lives and had an interesting theory about the soul that is actually very similar to the Diamond Approach path I follow. She felt the soul was like a many-faceted lantern, and each facet was a window into another person. She felt this explained why we feel connected to some people as soon as we meet them, as we are sharing the same soul. In the Diamond Approach each individual soul is the part of True Nature / God / Truth / the Divine embodied in a human being. And the diamond metaphor also feels related, as the diamond represents the many different facets of True Nature (Love, Joy, Will, etc.), some of which we have easier access to than others. Gammy believed that when she died, she was going to a good place and would be reincarnated—she even viewed death as another exciting part of life to learn about and enjoy!

Like mom and me, Gammy also loved beauty. She’d cry seeing a beautiful sunset and loved the fog lying low in the valleys. She also sketched, painted, and wrote whimsical poetry that celebrated her love and enjoyment of life. Beauty is imperative in my life—from the gardens, to collage and poetry, to music and singing, to color, texture, and the way a room is laid out—beauty soothes, delights, guides, and nourishes me.

We also share a love of dogs. Gammy had many—chihuahuas, dachshunds, st. bernards, and all manner of terriers! My life, thankfully, has been blessed by the sweet companionship of dogs, too—from Heidi the dachshund when I was a baby to Moppet the cocker-poo, to Bart the airedale terrier to Jake, Gammy’s toy poodle/terrier mix, to my own dogs Finnegan, a lab mix, and Teddybear, a lhasa apso, and many other dog friends in between!

Poverty has also influenced my life through Gammy, even though I have been lucky enough not to have to live through it myself. Having nine children, whose births overlapped the Great Depression, Gammy knew how to make ends meet through such practices as scraping out the last of the eggwhite from the shell and carefully using all left-overs. Mom was careful, too, passing this along to me. I can’t stand to waste food, always using a rubber spatula to get the last bit out, trying to get the most out of any meal, avoiding expensive items, and not wasting left-overs…

I wonder about my jaw—I have Gammy’s jaw, as does mom—the wide, square look of Native American ancestry. And this is also a key place that I hold tension. Is this related to unprocessed ancestral linkages? I wonder if I incarnated as an Enneagram type One to balance out mom and Gammy as Sevens. In Gammy, the Seven energy expressed as imbalanced pleasure-seeking, playing and joking around, as well as being outspoken, uninhibited, and crass at times. In mom, while there’s always a willingness to play and experiment and follow her curiosity, it’s more a matter of having her fingers in too many pots, not wanting to miss out on anything, being overly busy, and not able to rest.

Being a rigid, constricted, nothing-is-ever-right type One, has not been a very fun or relaxing way to live! So now my task is to learn to balance this One-Seven energy. Can I be responsible, conscientious and orderly, playful and happy, and enjoy my life all at the same time? It’s about sacred balance—perhaps my role is to find this, not just for myself, but for the ancestral lineage. To learn not to reject pleasure and the desire to take in and experience life, but to balance it with discernment, devotion, and right action. As Br. Stendl Rast says: to be “playfully serious and seriously playful,” enjoying a life-affirming life.

I see how my involvement in Laughter Yoga is related to this attempt to find balance! After experiencing a period of openness to Joy last year, I felt drawn to try Laughter Yoga. I’ve never been much of a laugher as an adult, being a rather serious and disciplined person. I did laugh socially, but not so much pure laughter just for the enjoyment of it, so Laughter Yoga was a stretch. I found I had so much fun being silly and playing and inviting a younger, less-inhibited, less self-conscious part of me to show up, that I decided to become a Laughter Yoga leader and create a club in St. Paul! This practice is about opening up to play, pleasure, and lightness, and breaking up my Oneish patterns of being serious, disciplined, and rigid, and I see now how it’s also about allowing access to my ancestral heritage through Gammy!

And this last few months of learning to rest, savor, and relax are also related to breaking up this pattern. More and more, I find pleasure in not doing anything, in simply being with myself, in seeing the beauty around me, in appreciating life. I feel so much gratefulness for this shift in my orientation—again, imbibing the lessons of my ancestry and my line of growth in the healthier side of type Seven.

I have decided to take a new middle name to represent this heritage. Mom originally wanted to name me after Gammy’s younger sister, Khyva, but my more conventional dad nixed naming me Kimberly Khyva Taylor (Katy is my nickname). It’s too bad as it would have been very appropriate! Khyva was a performing violin player, and I have been the only one in the extended Tuck clan to actively pursue music through singing professionally. Another interesting connection is that during my seminary training, when we did a meditation on taking a spiritual name, I received the name [kiva]. Researching the meaning of the word, I found that a kiva is an underground room used for spiritual ceremonies by certain Native American tribes. I was unwittingly connecting not only to my matrilineal, but also to my Native American, heritage, in this name! It is also amazingly synchronous to be connected with this now when we are learning about the Citadel in our Diamond Approach Work. The Citadel is experienced as a solid, stone-like structure that supports and provides shelter on the Path as we learn to live in alignment with our current realization of the Truth. I never felt connected to or liked my middle name, Kay—now I know why!

This exploration helps me to understand more deeply that I am not just Kimberly, aka Katy, Taylor, an individual doing her spiritual work. I am also part of this genetic and psycho-spiritual lineage. Who I am now continues to be informed and guided by those who have gone before me. I can learn from this heritage that lives on through me. I can embrace the gifts of my ancestors and find balance in the way I embody this lineage in the world. By incorporating Khyva’s name into my own, I more formally link myself to my matrilineal line. In so doing, I feel more connected to the earth-boundedness of being a human, born of a mother who was born of a mother…as part of this earth. I, too, am part of this rhythm of birth and life and death, intimately intertwined with those who have gone before and will come after me.

When I finished this collage on Thanksgiving Day 2009, it inspired me to also finish the collage in which I was exploring my pain around not having my own child. I saw the relationship very clearly—in not having my own child, I don’t get to continue my bloodline. What came before and created me will not get passed down by me through my physical flesh and blood. It will have to be in some other form. I hope that I can be a psycho-spiritual ancestor for some other woman as she discovers her connection to herself and the earth.

***

How do you see yourself connected to your ancestors? Are you aware of the heritage your life is carrying forward and / or trying to heal?