My Daughter's Child

Is alive and well and living inside her belly!
What must this be like?
This baby has been blessed with a pitta vata mama who acts like a kapha. The culinary morsels, aromas, nutritional components balanced and rationed so that every few hours a delectable, usually home-made exquisite experience floats in.
This mama is a yogini, hence one never knows where one’s feet or head will be from the get go! And the sweet ohms, soft voices and soothing caresses that go with.
The bubble baths that add outer slosh, the wide and wild array of music whilst driving and cheffing, the hours of sitting and hearing sounds of actors’ voices ramble and explode, and her own mama’s as she is one of them!
Ahhhh, yes. Before we are born, we are indoctrinated in the ways of our mamas.
And this little being will appear with a wide range of knowing and feeling, and a breath-taking abundance of love and beauty from a woman who I know quite well, and has consciously been present for this chapter.
And in two months?
Oooooooh lala!!!!!!!  Music,  choreography, visions, explorations, inspirations, passions, creations! That have never ever been seen before.
Look out world!
And over here? A grandmama in waiting, whose lap and arms are already primed.

The Fifth Broken Toe

How can this be? One might ask. And one does.

Obie. Prone in agony. The vets closed as tis the weekend. Breath coming sporadically and glass covered blank eyes. Where is the strength and joy and life in that golden body that we’re used to? Gone.
Channeled into dealing with the moment, all because another tennis ball was tossed and how can one not charge headlong, with might and power to fetch yonder orb? One cannot.

Therefore, five broken toes later, Obie is on ball restriction.
He has been to the vet, his paw is swathed in royal purple, he has pills to swallow and behaviors to adhere to. The frisky wind and salt air beckon as he stands sniffing and grinning, but he’s going to have to find another passion, because five toes and you’re out.

The Cocoon Cracks Open!

Pop! Oh joy! I’m still here!
What?
Oh! Not still…newly.
Yes, all of these months of solitude, introspection, mulling and mucking about with the inner world, delving into dark damp places, finding ways to bring in the light, believing it was a need to create but in all honesty it was a need to clean house on myself, so that the creations that were yearning for wings but grounded, could glide and slide and lift off and become.

Yes. Thank you, God for this time of upheaval, chaos, discomfort, sorrow, and transformation. You and I have many miles and many worlds to share in this new skin. Look at those cute feet. Ready, set go!

Springing Winter

Oh Tigress Tales! Where oh where  have I been?

Right after my last entry, in mid December,  I was thunderstruck by a bolt of divine creativity that peeled away layers of with-holding that had grown around my screenplay writing. Prior to this I had completed and fine tuned several scripts and was basking in a hiatus when suddenly, my butterfly wings were dry and off I flew to begin anew; fresh stories and new magni opi!

I have missed my blogging, as each entry is a spontaneous  joy-filled adventure, but alas, the way my mind and energies work, I cannot create two different offspring at once. For now, the screenplays are front and center, consuming and generating, throbbing and delighting and BECOMING!

When this flow has quieted, and the ebb is at hand,  I shall return, with a basket of treasures to share! And now? With joy and wonder I am off! 

Blessings, blessings, life and love.

Winter Solstice and The Frisky Moon

Yesterday, a day of darkness and light, quiet and wild, rain rain rain, jarring turns of events, mechanical malfunctions, meowing cabin fevered cat, more rain rain rain, communications from afar, internal upheaval, internal silence, and in came winter. A time for Bear Medicine and introspection. A time for hibernating and planting internal seeds. A time for infusing those seeds with energy and expansion. A time for growth.

This world of ours, that we have co-created, needs every one of us to become the blossoms that were twinkles in God’s eyes when he dreamt us up! We need to shake our feathers and extend ourselves to each other in new ways. We need to plant our feet deep into Mother Earth and reach reach for Father Sky and sing while we do. We need to stretch to the east, where illumination inspires and lean to the west where our goals are realized and touch each other all along the way. We need to shilly shally along, with thanksgiving for every breath, in our hearts, and smile at the young and nod to the old as we do.

If every single one of us, would leap off a cliff into the unknown every morning, by springtime, oh what a garden we shall be!

Let's!

The Messiah

Last night my daughter, Melanie took me to Los Angeles’ Disney Hall’s annual Handel’s Messiah Sing-a-Long, as a pre Christmas gift.  I have so much to say!

I grew up in household where music played an integral part of every day. My mother’s piano playing was our rising bell. During non holiday times she would alternate between hymns and Chopin. During Christmas were we roused pre dawn by every Christmas carol you can imagine and usually my Dad’s voice could be heard singing along in the background, slightly off key, while he brushed his teeth and got dressed for work.  As the English muffins and marmalade began to take center stage the ‘victrola player’ was turned on and we would swallow our toasty morsels with either Benjamin Britton’s 'Ceremony of Carols' or Handel's 'The Messiah' as background, but in actual fact we were all humming and singing along.

During my prep school days, by some miracle,  I sang in the highly respected girls’ chorus. I say ‘miracle’ not because my voice was at fault but because I sang  the way that I played tennis: wildly, with no restraint and no plan. For graduation the chorus presented our long rehearsed ‘The Messiah’ with our brother school, Mount Herman. I never really did know if I was an alto or soprano but it wouldn’t have mattered if I was a bass! My best friend, Samm, who sang next to me had to plant herself firmly and periodically lean over and say “ This is not a free-for-all, Plum, you must sing your part!” I could not. I knew this music, not the words necessarily, but the music,
and I sang to my heart’s content whatever part was happening.

It has been years, decades! since I have officially sung “The Messiah”, and now my parents are gone, the victrola player is no more, my friend Samm is gone, and here I am, being invited by my daughter to this dream of a gift in the most acoustically  acclaimed music hall on earth, to sing ‘The Messiah’. Pure enthusiasm filled my soul at the thought. This music, this daughter, this moment, the depth that it touched, the memories that it evoked, the passages that it punctuated, my throat  constricted with emotion and my eyes blurred with tears  before we even arrived in our seats.

And then ‘Comfort Ye My People’. Comfort. Comfort. And the tears poured forth.

Melanie and I together sang our hearts out, were moved to tears, laughed until we couldn’t catch our breaths and sang some more. This evening ushered in Christmas for both of us. The greatest gift that I could ever imagine was this evening.

My advent is alive and my heart sings thanks to God, the story, Handel, the conductor, and Melanie. This year I could not find my expansive, joyous, Christmas self and connection to the true spirit that birthed it all, prior to this evening and now I have.

Thanksgiving Stream of Thanks

My husband
Obie
My husband’s love
My husband’s laughter and wild brain
My husband’s touch
Obie’s love
Obie’s sweetness
Obie’s beauty
My girls
My girls
My girls
Mom and Dad
My friends
I love you all for being so true
God’s love
God’s beauty
Thank you
God’s gifts
Melanie’s joy
Every moment
Sunsets
Wild winds
Poofy clouds
Dancing flowers
My husband dancing
Nina’s smile
Eye to eye with comrades
Obie’s smile
Obie’s paws
Blading by the sea
My life
The earth
Thank you
My spirit
My body
Thank you
The gifts of the unknown
The gifts of being challenged
The gifts that human angels bring
Thank you
Thank you for this day of Thanks.
Amen.