Joyfully Bea Healing Arts

Beandrea Davis, CYT

Live the questions :: Happy Now Year!

Posted: Mon 28, Dec 2009

I am actually not curious right now. I am anxious, apathetic, and eating chocolate icing from leftover Christmas cake as I resign to die slowly watching 16 hours of television a day until my brain atrophies.

I’m tired of asking questions. I want answers.

It was so gratifying to stomp on the cement porch of a friend the other day. It was solid and unbreakable under my paltry human weight. I jumped and jumped pretending to crush precious objects under my feet.

Life seems to go like this: there are peaks and valleys and in between there are plateaus. Repeat and rewind a million times and you have a human life.

My mother seems to have received an Oracle From The Prophet commanding that she share her every opinion about my life with me. Today I told her for the first time that she might want to consider keeping her unsolicited opinions to herself every once in a while. (You know, just for fun.)

Last night I drove to visit friends I met in Paris who now live in Branford, CT and we had a lovely dinner of chicken risotto and red wine. Afterward I bought American Spirit tobacco at the gas station just off Interstate 95. Then I rolled and smoked my first cigarette. Things I never thought would happen are happening all the time. Things I thought would happen by now are not happening at all.

Why anticipate the future and wait for an illusive later to become now? Who am I? Who am I right now this very moment? I am a creative and complex being who sometimes remembers she is held by something larger than herself. I have a body. I have breath. I have energy. I have a variety of internal and external resources. How do I want to use this human life?

I want to ride those peaks as they turn into valleys and rise again to plateaus. More and more I want what is happening now more than I want what happened or what could happen someday. Happy Now Year friends. This moment might just be enough.

Writing Prompt:Take one of your ‘up’ questions right now and answer it as if you were an expert on your life. You actually are. As usual, don’t think about it too much. Just get your pen moving across the page. Happy Now Year!

“Happy Now Year!” is the last installment in a series called Live the Questions. Based on the idea of learning “to love the questions themselves”, as Rilke put it, this series made space for communal inquiry into Life’s many questions.

Live the questions :: the right path?

Posted: Tue 01, Dec 2009

Is the path I’m on as a writer really what I should be doing to make the changes in the world I want to see, or should I be out on the streets one and one with people? -anonymous Joyfully Bea blog reader

How do things change? Can I affect change? Why do I write? Is it personal, political, both?

Why do I constantly lurch forward into the future? What do I think will happen someday? What is the point of long-term goals anyway? Isn’t the world going to end in 2012? If the word will end in two years should I care so much about getting a new car, paying off debt, setting up an IRA?

What’s wrong with the world? What do I want to be different in the world? What do I want to be different in my life? How can I relate to others with empathy and compassion instinctually, without needing to coach myself into it?

Why is the truth always changing? Are there books in libraries that have never been read? Does the holy dirt at Chimayo Mission really heal psoriasis? How do we heal and what for? Where do we go when we are wounded? What helps us grow new skin?

Where am I going? What is carrying me along? Who is moving me forward? Who walks in my skin? When I leave who will come with me? When I stay who will be there? Who will be part of my life ten years from now? Will I live to be my Grandmother’s age? Will I make it to 40 or 50? What’s happening in my liver? What do my ears hear the sound of? What do I taste with my tongue?

What do I remember about growing up? About being part of my family of origin? About going to three high schools in as many years? About college? Why didn’t I go to any parties when I was in college? Why did I party so much the first year I lived in the Bay Area? Why did I come here to Oakland? Why am I leaving Oakland now? Where am I landing when I leave here? Where is ‘here’? Is it constantly shifting? Do we ever go backwards? Are we always moving forward even when we have déjà vu?

Who will leave the light on when I come in late? Who will run the hot bath so its ready when I arrive in the dark, cold and soiled by the day? Who am I really? Where have I been? Where am I going? What will happen next? How did this or that thing go? Is there anything else I need to do now? Is there something I’m missing that I need to see?

Where? How? What? Why?

How to hold these questions as if precious antiques I wanted to save for my grandchildren who may or may not ever be born?

Writing prompt: Take a question that grabs you from this commentary or elsewhere and let your pen run wild on the page for a set amount of time. You could write more questions, you could postulate your own theories. Just keep the pen moving and make space for whatever wants to come out.

“The right path?” is the third installment in a series called Live the questions that is ongoing through 2009. The question was contributed through the Live the Questions Experiment Portal which is available for your anonymous inquiries here. Based on the idea of learning “to love the questions themselves”, as Rilke put it, this is a space for communal inquiry into Life’s many questions.

Live the questions :: Is effort required?

Posted: Tue 17, Nov 2009

Is effort required?
-anonymous Joyfully Bea blog reader

Do I owe her anything more? Is it okay to let go of a difficult relationship primarily because it is difficult and always has been the entire decade we have known each other? Does she know I can count on one hand the number of moments we have shared that have been satisfying?

Why do I so fear conflict? Why be afraid when someone disagrees and doesn’t like something I’ve done, I’ve said? Why on the outside do we look nothing like our insides? How can I leave things this way – scattered text messages signaling the end of a significant friendship? Why aren’t there divorce-like papers to sign when a close friendship is lost?

Is effort required? Can there be ease as I reach toward things that are challenging and feel impossible? Where did I learn to shoulder things alone, to carry the weight all on my back? Who am I when I am at rest? Where am I struggling? What is the struggle illuminating for me? Where can I let go? What can’t I let go of? What has to be pried from my fists before I will relinquish it?

How can I say no? How can I prioritize what’s most important to me? What are my needs right now? What do I do all this stuff for? Why make an effort? Why care about anything? Is effort required? Is caring the point? How do I keep my heart open in the midst of betrayal, disappointment, and mistrust in relationships? Who is a true friend? What does real friendship require?

What does it require of me to relate to people? To relate to myself? What do I need in order to feel willing in relationships? What is the point of relationships really? Am I alone? Am I held? Am I one with something I can’t see but still exists? Am I deluded into thinking I know myself? If my emotions and thoughts are fleeting – why do they interest me so much? Who am I in the dark, under the covers, naked?

Where do humans get off believing in right/wrong, good/bad, either/or? Why are we so into ultimatums as a culture? I mean who really needs that? Where have I been? Where am I going? What am I doing now, here?

Where did we get this idea that everyone has to like everyone else all the time? That everyone has to like what we do, how we choose to live our lives, and if we’re not popular then something is wrong with our choices? What if we can train ourselves to accept people we don’t like or agree with and live in harmony with them, without destroying ourselves and the planet in the process of trying to convert them to our cherished point of view?

What if the kindest thing I can think to do in relationship to someone I have a hard time with is to avoid them? To refrain from engaging directly until I have some more spaciousness inside to interact? What if absence really does make the heart grow fonder? What if there is value in dropping the connections that we have with others – for a day, a month, a year – and seeing what it is like when we come back together again? What if letting go really makes sense?

What if I stopped using the words “my, I, me, and mine” for a week? What would I talk about then? Who would “I” be then?

Is effort required? Can there be ease as I reach toward seemingly impossible challenges? Where did I learn to shoulder things alone, to carry the weight all on my back? Who am I when I am at rest? Where am I struggling? What is the struggle illuminating for me? Where can I let go? Where can I not let go? What has to be pried from my fists before I will relinquish?

“Is effort required?” is the second installment of a series called Live the questions that is ongoing through 2009. The question was contributed through the Live the Questions Experiment Portal which is available for your anonymous inquiries here. Based on the idea of learning “to love the questions themselves”, as Rilke put it, this is a space for communal inquiry into Life’s many questions.

Live the questions

Posted: Tue 03, Nov 2009

Audioblog download

Live the questions – Beandrea’s audioblog – 11.03.09.m4a

There are years that ask questions and years that answer. –Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

For my first full-time job out of college I worked as the only staff writer for a small education newspaper in Philadelphia.

I made a decent salary doing what I have always known I wanted: to be a writer. I was also exhausted and depressed, and spent evenings and weekends recovering rather than creating writing projects that excited me.

Covering school board meetings routinely gave me migraines and multiple knots in my belly. I felt gratified and privileged to see my name in print with the title of “staff writer.” Yet daily I inched closer to burnout and hopelessness.

Six months into my job at the paper, it was Winter and I discovered Dawna Markova’s I Will Not Die an Unlived Life. I stayed up nights reading in bed grasping for shreds of hope about living life on my own terms.

The world Markova talked about – one that included her deciding to take her young son on a yearlong trip around the world – felt a lot different than the world I knew.

Growing up I saw my parents – who both have masters degrees from a prestigious university – drag themselves to their middle-class jobs like indentured servants, their tired bodies subconsciously whispering to me, “You can’t expect to have a job that you like. Work is supposed to be hard and exhausting. That is just the way it is.”

Silently I took a vow: when I grew up I would find work I loved.

Inspired by the ideas in Markova’s book and thirsty for companionship in my quest, I emailed a bunch of friends and asked them to tell me what life question was “up” for them at that time. I would then compile the questions anonymously and share them with the group.

The thoughtful questions of the twenty people who responded reminded me then and now that I am not alone. They asked questions like:

Who do I allow into my life today? How should I manage boundaries to stay on the path towards my personal best?

Am I going to get into medical school?

When I look at a picture of me as a 5-year old, I think ‘What do I owe her?’

It has been six years since this experiment. Since then I have tried many, many strategies for Right Livelihood, from working at Trader Joes to being a self-employed yoga teacher and bodyworker. As a result, I have clarified that my long-term vision is to be an author, teacher, and lecturer writing about my experience of Life and living.

While I am further along the path of finding work that I love than I was right after college, I am not yet where I want to be, and I’m guessing it will be another 7-10 years minimum before I am living my long-term vision.

So I am inspired to do this experiment again, inviting you dear reader, to join me: What life question is most “up” for you right now? Nothing is too mundane. Nothing is too deep. Send them to me! I will compile an anonymous list of the juicy inquiries and post them on November 17, when I am next scheduled to update this blog.

I have been told a good book is not made by the answers that it gives, but by the questions that it asks.

This is true about life as well. A good life is not made by all the answers it contains. A good life is made by the sincerity of the questions that it asks and the willingness stay with those questions for as long as it takes.

There are years that ask questions. There are years that answer. In this year of questions, I want to have the patience to wait for real answers.

Meditation: So what is Life asking you right now? Take out a pen, paper, and timer and write the questions that want to come through your pen. Don’t think too much, just get to scribbling. Click here to anonymously tell us what you discover.

It's all about the hips

Posted: Mon 19, Oct 2009

Audioblog download

It’s All About the Hips – Beandrea’s audioblog – 10.20.09.m4a

One of my most vivid memories at a silent meditation retreat was of a woman’s hips. I sat on the aisle where the retreat teachers walked to the front platform at the beginning of each 30-minute sitting period. One of them, a tall midwife from Canada, wore knee-length skirts and stockings each day. I couldn’t take my eyes off her hips as she walked past me down the aisle. She let them sway widely exuding a regal presence. I could hear the give in her stockings as she walked towards the Buddha statue and bowed at her cushion.

There is juiciness in exploring the hips – the full pelvic tilt, side-to-side, front-to-back, in circles upon circles. When I am connected to my hips, to my body’s center, I feel connected to the Life Force within.

In my Black woman-owned preschool in Dayton, Ohio my favorite teacher was Mrs. Donna*. She led us in a dance every afternoon before naptime. She swayed her hips from side-to-side; head leaning back and fists at her side filling me with delight. I rarely slept during naptime. Instead I lay on my cot staring at the ceiling hearing the teachers watch As the World Turns in their lounge, still entranced by Mrs. Donna’s hip dance.

I hated practicing walking meditation for a year. Then during my third silent meditation retreat it clicked in my head: “Walking is all about the hips.” From then on I was hooked. As I lifted and lowered my feet in a slow, deliberate pace across the length of a room with white walls, I saw that the legs and the torso are actually extensions of the hips. I felt how the body’s movement is rooted in the pelvis, the anatomical and energetic center of the human structure.

Since May I have felt overly slugglish and constantly tired and have gained a dress size. Throughout my life whenever I have had a new medical doctor, she would take one look at my “prominent neck” and order a battery of thyroid tests. These tests would then come back from the lab showing nothing to be out of the ordinary with the doctor staring intently at my supposedly goiter-like neck in disbelief. An herbalist whose wisdom I value gave me an herb called Ashwaganda. She told me thyroid dysfunction is “an epidemic” in North America and is often sub-clinical, meaning it does not show up on traditional tests.

But even when it feels like someone is sitting on my head, I can feel a soothing warm sensation in my hands and feet. I can feel the warmth of my skin inside a red bathrobe. I feel gentle cooling currents against my bare legs and my feet warm and protected by purple slippers.

Embodiment is one of the most delicious pleasures I know. When I’m walking I feel my feet in my shoes, noticing the cushioning between my feet and the ground. When on all fours doing hip circles, I feel sensation spinning out from my pelvis. The pelvic bowl is the crucible of creativity, sexuality, and spirituality. This triune nectar holds my ability to make form out of the formless, to choose to flow with Life’s waters.

Try this:Move your hips! Move them side-to-side, front-to-back and connect those movements by making circles. Notice how you feel as you move your body in this way. Then take out pen, paper, and a timer and free write about your experience, keeping your hand moving the whole time. Here’s to a world full of juicy, shameless, and unrepentant hips!

Dedication: I would like to dedicate this commentary to Mrs. Donna who died of breast cancer in her early forties some years ago.

Older

Recent Blog Entries

RSS / Atom