Category: healing

growth · healing · love · trust

Step on a crack…

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

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In meditation this morning, I went to address the fault line
located yesterday. The one within me, upon which my foundational ideas of love
and trust were precariously built.
There, I witnessed this deep crevice in the earth, not Grand
Canyon-esque, but not fillable with some caulk either. So, per my shamanic
practice, I asked my guides how I could fill in this fissure to be able to build love and trust on a firm foundation? No reply. Okay,
how can you, guides, fill or heal this fissure? No answer.
I look back at the crevice, and notice that it’s like one of
those holographic game cards, where if you turn the card one way, you get one
image, and turn it the other, you see something different. As I looked, I saw
that the fault line was both there, and not there. If I chose to see the crack,
it was there; if I looked a little longer, it disappeared into the plain of the
ground.
It doesn’t have to be there. This mistrust, this broken
place, this doubt and fear.
I also heard that this doesn’t erase the events, it doesn’t
invalidate or refute what my experience was growing up, but it doesn’t have to
exist like this fault line any more.
What if I want to visit it? What if I want to pay homage to
my pain, maybe dally in it a little? What if I want to soak in the sorrow of
what happened? ~ Sure, that’s an option.
But, I got to see that, over time, even though I may now know
precisely where the fault line had been–mapped its edges, named its outcroppings–since it is now just a part
of the whole of the landscape, over time, I will forget exactly where it was. It was
somewhere right around here, I know it was. And soon, I’ll walk right over the
land where the pain had been and not even realize I’m stepping easily over
once-hallowed and -harrowed ground.
I don’t have to heal
the place where love was built. I just have to notice that it’s already healed. 

affirmations · change · healing · health · love · self-love · spirituality

Synchronici-wha?

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

When I got sick, my friend Aimee brought a photocopy from a
book she owned to me in the hospital. I told her recently how much this piece
of paper changed my whole experience, and she said she simply didn’t know what
else to do. How else to show up or help, or what to say; she didn’t know if I’d
snarl at the message it had to offer or get mad with her.
It was a page from Louise Hay’s You Can Heal Your Life, though I didn’t know that at the time. I didn’t
know who Louise Hay was, and certainly didn’t know about that sickeningly sweet
title.
The page had on it a list of ailments and diseases and
physical symptoms. Next to them was a column of negative beliefs that the
author had associated with these symptoms. In the final column were a list of correlated positive
affirmations.
She’d circled, “Blood Problems” and “Leukemia.” Blood meant
joy; a problem with the blood meant, in this cosm of beliefs, “Actively killing
joy,” a “What’s the use?” mentality.
During the time I was sick, another friend brought me an
audio CD of Dr. Bernie Siegel’s Love, Medicine, and Miracles, which, in part, tracked the general life pattern those who develop cancer have had. As I listened, I tracked with it–to a T. The
final period before cancer, he’d discovered, usually consisted of a period of success, a major
disappointment, followed by hopelessness.
I had just graduated with a Master’s in Creative Writing.
The photo on my graduation day shows me nothing short of radiant, beaming,
joy-fueled. I spent the summer hustling from a temp job to job interviews,
trying, demanding, aching, to get a job in a creative field. Grateful as I am
for the job that I received and am currently in, I felt broken in the weeks
following my full-time employment. I cried as I waited for the always-late bus
to take me home to a dreggy existence.
Three weeks after I was hired, I got strep throat; four
weeks after I was hired, I was told I also had Leukemia.
Call that whatever you want, but when Aimee handed me that
photocopy, and I saw that my life and symptoms were spelled out by someone who
saw this as a commonplace pattern, I also saw that there was a third column
that could help me to reverse it, or to heal it.
I showed that paper to everyone who came in (well, those who
were of the more witchy variety). Some people squawked that it sounded like I
was blaming myself for cancer. But,
that’s not what my understand was, or is. Simply, we are sending ourselves
messages all the time. We can choose to listen and alter our behavior, our
patterns, as best we can; or, we can, like me, continue to shove aspirations,
dreams, life, underneath a
mountain of I can’t, it’s not working, it’s not for me. Who cares.
At any point along this path, we can choose to listen to
what our heart is saying. And listen though I sometimes did, I didn’t heed. I
was too scared. Too scared to fail, to trust, to try thoroughly, to invest, to
change. This isn’t to self-flagellate, I don’t feel it that way; it’s simply to
objectively look at how I was treating myself.
If we don’t listen, these folks’ theory is that our body
will respond with physical messages. And sometimes, those messages will become
billboards, and sometimes those billboards will become atomic bombs.
Thinking about my cancer this way while I was in treatment
gave me hope. It gave me a foundation, a cosmology, a system of belief that I
was already attuned to anyway. (I’d personally always thought that cancer was
calcified resentment, and you can hate me for saying that and disagree if it
doesn’t jive with your own cosmology.)
But this thinking gave me a life-line, literally. If these
were just thoughts, beliefs that I’d harbored, a pattern of self-abandonment
that I’d worn so deeply into myself that my self revolted, then … they could be
changed. I could change. And, the theory
could follow, I could get well.
I needed that so badly. I still do.
There wasn’t anything more scary that I’d ever faced,
because there was no face on it. These theories gave me a name, a focus, a
target. And the target was Love.
“New and joyous ideas flow freely within me.” “I move beyond
past limitations into the freedom of the now. It is safe to be me.”
When I was home sick with a cold in October, one year past
diagnosis, I needed something to do. During treatment, someone had given me a DVD version of
the Louise Hay book, You Can Heal Your Life. I’d shoved it away, thinking it sounded like utter twaddle and too
saccharine, and much too California woo-woo for my taste. But, I was sick
again, and I was scared, and despite all the work I’d done in the past year, I
needed to re-up, reinvigorate my life-line. So I watched the film. Which was a
lot of twaddle-speak, and also a lot of what I believe. It was positivity on
steroids, but, I watched, and I wished that I had the actual book they were
talking about, since it had the full list of ailments in it, and I wanted to
diagnose everything else, and counter it with love.
I walked outside my apartment building that day to go buy
eggs. Outside the building next to mine was one of those moving-out boxes of
free stuff people leave, boxes I love to
sift through.
In it… was a copy of You Can Heal Your Life. Pristine, with the Amazon receipt still in it,
ordered in 2011, likely, by some girl just like me who in a fit of, Yes, I can heal my life, bought it, received it, and shoved it
away, thinking it twaddle.
I picked it up, bought my eggs, went home, and devoured the
rest of it.
Again, you can call it whatever you like. You can agree,
disagree, roll eyes, think I’m anything you might want to call me. But, I used
those affirmations, and I survived a cancer that kills most people. It may not
be causation, but as I continue to use the type of thinking prescribed, I am
happier. 
Period. 

coffee · friendship · gratitude · growth · healing · poetry · receiving

I Get By with a Little Help from My Friends

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

As I sit across the wide wooden table, slightly wobbly, with
“world music” of some kind emitting from corner speakers, my friend holds out her hand, lays her palm up, crisp milky white against waxed mottled mahogany, and I take it. She places her other hand atop our pile of digits,
cocooning them, warming them as tears make unbidden trails through the
invisible down of my cheeks and under the hollow of my jaw.
authenticity · healing · letting go · love · maturity · self-care

BFF

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

My best friend from the east coast is coming in tomorrow to
visit for 5 days. I’m excited and nervous – and I think I’ve written this
before! I tried to write a blog this morning about real and fancied fears (that
i’ll end up pushing a shopping cart: fancied; skin cancer: realish), but I
couldn’t get it going, so I dug around for what’s really on my mind.

So, that’s happening, and part of my nerves are that she and
I haven’t spent such significant time with one another in Years. We’d had a
pretty bad falling out at the end of both our college years, almost 10 years
ago, and didn’t talk for about the next 5 or so. We both had some growing and
changing to do, but as Fate would have it, about 3 years after I moved to
San Francisco, we began to reconnect.
Like any friendship, and especially a reconciliation, it’s
been by degrees. The warming up, getting to know you again phase. And
particularly with reconciliation, the “what’s it going to be like this time”
friendship fear. Will it be the same? Likely not; we’ve both changed our lives & ourselves dramatically. Will it be based on nostalgia? That, is something that a few
of my friendships from New Jersey have faded into, and have thence faded
completely. A friendship based on nostalgia doesn’t really work. It’s great to
reminisce, but that can’t be all there is – if there’s no current common
ground, no interest in pursuing something forward, then there’s really nothing
to bond over. The bond was made, but it’s … in the past. 
Luckily, with my
friend coming out this week, we’ve been able to learn that we have more in
common now and more to talk about and bond over than we had then. We have the
wonderful ability and common shared history to be able to talk about that
ridiculous party in the sand pit – the “pit party” – or the terrible yet funny
nicknames we used to have for people in high school (Money, Teeth, Banana –
because he looked like a monkey… go teenage girls…!). But we’re also finding
now that our lives, despite our separate courses and coasts, have miraculously
similar trajectories.
It’s been a blessing of the highest sort to have this
friendship come back together. There were a few years when I didn’t know if it
would, and I was viciously saddened by that, but it was not my business or my
plan as to whether someone wanted to be in contact with me again. So, when I
would hear a song on the radio that we’d played 10,000 times at the local
diner, I got sad, but wished her well. When that movie we’d loved as children
came on, I felt a twinge, but sent her the blessings for her life that I wanted
for myself. I hope she’s happy.
And then, as luck would have it, we came back together.
Slowly, for sure. We’re still in the slowly part. This visit is part of the
solidification, but also, I have to take my expectations out of it. I want to
make it a “great” time, so that we are friends again. I want it not to rain, so
the weather doesn’t reflect something about myself or my life. I want us to not be awkward or have tension
so that I don’t lose this again. But, none of that is anything within my
control.
All I can chose to do is to be myself. If this is a person
she wants to befriend, then she will. As with romantic relationships, if it’s
meant to be I can’t screw it up, and if it’s not meant to be, then I can’t fix
it.
I had a conversation several years ago with a girl friend of
mine about the power of female friendships. The “best” friend friendships. How,
really, in many ways they are – we said, then – more important and more
complicated than romantic relationships. I still think some of that is true.
However, part of the difference today with me is that I recognize that people
are human (duh), and cannot, simply cannot, fulfill all the things a person I
wish ought to. One person cannot be someone’s all. One person cannot be my only
friend, or my only social connection, my only vessel of personal relations.
Like seeds, you’ve got to spread it around. Part of this is
self-protection, but part of it is simply being realistic. And that is the protective part. If I am realistic about my
expectations of other people, then I won’t be hurt if they don’t live up to my
demands about them. It is simply unfair to anyone to expect them to fulfill my
needs. Firstly and foremostly, I need to ensure that I’m taking care of them
for myself to the best of my ability. Then, I can look outside myself to other
people, and form relationships where my needs are met. Where my realistic needs
are met.
Sorry for the tangent on what I think friendships and
relationships are, but this writing is also a reminder to myself of this as my friend comes to
visit. For someone who’d been labelled your best friend since the age of 3,
that carries a lot of weight – and I’ve recognized, unfair weight. Part of the
reason for the separation all those years ago was that we each had massive
expectations and need put upon one another – or, I’ll speak for myself, I did
that on her. That wasn’t fair, and the friendship burned down painfully.
So, coming to this visit in a spirit of open-mindedness. And
a loose set of expectations and desires will help us both to have a better
time. The weather isn’t a reflection of me. She’ll have a good time if she’s
meant to or wants to. And I can take care of myself, so that I don’t put the
onus on her.
However, those two hot chicks you’ll see blaring STP down the
interstate? Yeah, that’s us. 
growth · healing · meditation · sexuality

I’ll tell you when you’re older.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

You know how frustrating that answer was to us as children.
I feel like that’s the answer I’m getting now. In mild-to-moderate panic about
the end of school in May, what I’ll be doing then, what I want to do, and where I want to do it, I’ve been knocking
on the Universe’s door, being like, HEY! Throw me a bone here, eh??
Trouble is, the damned Universe has been throwing me a bone.
I just don’t like the taste.
I’ve written here before that it’s been indicated to me via
multiple meditations that I need to do this work on untangling past sexual
trauma before I can move forward, before I can get any further information.
This, makes me mad. Frustrated. Besides the fact that when
that information was once again given to
me in a meditation about 2 weeks ago, I kicked that information in the shins. I
had a right ole’ tantrum about it. WHY?? (She asks again…) Why do I have to do this shit – this uncomfortable, vulnerable,
honest, and sad shit. I. don’t. want. to. feel. this. I don’t want to feel sad. I don’t want to acknowledge that I am. I don’t want to do this. 
I phoned a friend of mine who knows me well and who had done
EMDR for a whole year before, and I expressed my frustration. I also told her
that this trauma/funky relationship with my sexuality and femininity is kicking
me back… She said that I could take all the acting classes I
wanted, all the music lessons, and painting classes, but that THIS was the real
work. That this, doing this work within myself and with the help of Team Molly, is how I will move forward, and enable any of the rest of that stuff to enter my life, and inhabit it in the way that I really need, and in fact, want, to.
I pout. I say that being sad is for pussies, and I
should be over this shit, or rather that so many other people are walking
around psychicly limping, how come I
have to actually do the work? No fair. 😡
And, yet. I know she’s right. Later in that
conversation I told her, I do have a choice. This is a choice that I’m making to work through this. Not to “get
over it.” To discount it, or to continue to walk as a wounded antelope. My
sexuality began wearing a heavy cloak of shame, guilt, fear, and pain almost 20
years ago. I don’t really even know what it looks like anymore. And so, that’s
what I’m doing.
I have a vision I sometimes use of a table at which all my
disparate parts of self sit. There’s me at the head, and the smart girl, the
baker, the Vixen (who is not the same as my sexuality), there’s the goofball, the artist, and sadness who is a recent invite to the table – now that I don’t believe
she’ll infect everyone with her sadness. There’s gentility. All of these parts
of me and more sit at the table, and I’ve been gathering them from the far
corners for a few years, and there are too those who were never banished from
the table or had to hide or escape.
Then, there’s sexuality. Mired in her leaden cloak, like the
kind you wear in the dental office when taking x-rays. I didn’t actually know
until recently that all those emotions she’s wearing are not a legitimate part
of her. That shame and sexuality are in fact mutually exclusive, and that …
they can part ways.
She’s somewhere outside of the house where the table is at
the moment. Somewhere in the woods perhaps, in this sodden cloak, which she is
now, I am now recognizing is removable.
I look forward to meeting her. I imagine that she has a lot
to teach me and show me. I told another person recently that I believe that
eventually she’ll sit on my right side up at the head of the table – she’s that
important and that potent. That does not
mean that there’ll be rampant sex – that’s much of what saddled her in guilt
and shame to begin with – but that the power that comes from owning my body as
well as my voice. The power that comes from owning my boundaries and my needs – and really really speaking up for them. The power that will come with
the kindness and mutuality and trust. The power that comes from sexuality’s
creative bent.
The chakra that is associated with creation is located in
the area of the reproductive organs. This area produces life in the literal
sense, and life in the metaphoric sense. This is a way in which I have been cut off from my own ability to create,
to own voice, to know what the fuck I’m supposed to do with my life, now, after
May, hereafter. Of course I can’t know yet. All the information is still tucked
away in this miasma of trauma and grief.
So, as I was once again
informed this morning in my meditation upon asking, “BUT WAIT!! WHAT AM I
SUPPOSED TO DO??? WHAT DO I NEED TO DO NEXT TO MOVE FORWARD??”, I need to do
exactly what I’m doing: feel sad, have tantrums, cry in my bathrobe, watch Pixar’s entire catalogue, listen to friends, admit what’s really going on, and to let myself become fully and usefully whole. 
healing · intimacy · school · vulnerability

The Gaze.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

So, despite my declaration (or desire to adhere) to a cozy,
yummy 9 pm bedtime, there will of course be exceptions.

Like, every Tuesday night. My new poetry workshop ends at
9:15 on Tuesday nights, and my painting class begins at 9 am on Wednesday
mornings, so these are going to be quick turn around days, and I’ll have to
learn how to work within these parameters. Mainly, sleep enough within them!
Also, despite my saying yesterday, “Theater, I lay you down,” … my
poetry course is mainly, almost entirely focused on performance. Not just
poetry, but, performance art. I’m SO
freaking excited. Like I said, this teacher is a pretty big deal (Guillermo
Gomez Pena, look him up, you’ll get what I mean), and his methods are NOT your
typical poetry workshop, where everyone brings in a poem, reads it, murmurs
comments of assent or dissent and move on.
This, will be much different. And I can’t wait. Last night,
we did all kinds of spontaneous verbal exercises, then some pretty awkward and
intense physical interactions with each other, the other students. It was a
series of looking into another student’s eyes for minutes on end, with
different attendant variations – to explore the gaze and being fully present
with another human being. It, as you can imagine, could get a little awkward.
These were not the ice-breaker activities we did in summer camp! It was weird,
and telling, and opening, and closing, and awkward, and just interesting to
notice the experience.
Further, I had training for the artist’s modeling yesterday
for about 2 hours in the city, and the facilitator said that there are two
reasons that people get out of the business. 1) it’s too physically demanding.
(and after actually running through some 1 minute, 5 minute, and then a 20
minute pose, I assure you, I completely
agree – my muscles are going to be learning a thing or two about what works
with my anatomy… and blood flow – yes, my fingers are numb if I hold them
over my head for 5 minutes…!)
The 2nd reason he said people get out of the
business is because they can’t take “the gaze” anymore. That although, in
reality, the artist and students drawing the model are really only seeing what
they want to see, that mainly they’re interested in form and shadow and
contour, the model can begin to get hyper-sensitive to the gaze, and feel too
vulnerable underneath it.
He said to remember that what they’re seeing is only what
you’re giving them. That still, we’re in control, even if we’re nude, and eyes
open, we still, like most people walking around fully clothed all day, get the
chance to allow people to see only what we want them to see.
In one of the exercises last night, the 3rd woman
I “stared” at, well, I’ll tell you, she was pretty powerful. And after so much
outflow, which is my natural setting (“She’s gone from SUCK to BLOW!” … Spaceballs reference), it was interesting to feel that
actually, she was going to be the one with the outflow, and I could choose
whether to let her in or not. (And if you’re rolling your eyes right now, and
being like, “Molly, you are sooo Woo-woo hippie shit,” meh, c’est la vie.)
So, I did let her, and several minutes into the exercise, I actually began to cry. Not
on purpose! But because, I could feel that as exhausted and raw as I’ve felt over
the last month or so, I’ve still been outwardly focused.
Like with the 2nd girl, I could feel her pain and
loneliness, and she actually said afterward that she realized how little
physical contact she gets these days (we were holding hands as well as eye
contact in this one). And I was sending her all kinds of love and healing.
But with the 3rd girl, I tried to send it out,
but it was like, no buddy, This Bud’s for You. And she sent that healing, and
that love, and that gaze into me. And I felt myself seen, and held by it. And
just let go, into her power, and saw my own vulnerability and raw places by riding into myself through her gaze. I told her afterward, to explain why I’d cried, that my energy had been so
outwardly focused and I’ve felt so raw lately, that to let someone else in, to
allow the energy to go the other way ‘round was really powerful for me, and a
relief to let myself sit in it.
So, yeah. Although I’m not trolling the casting call website
at the moment or going on auditions, I’m pretty sure the HP is arranging for
me to engage in my body, my emotions, and my performance in a variety of new
ways. Even woo-woo hippie ones.
dance · direction · healing · intuition

Dance Dance Revolution.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

The strangest development occurred last night as I was
falling asleep. Actually, I wasn’t falling asleep, having dosed myself with a
trough of sugar not long before bed. As raw as I was feeling yesterday, eating
for comfort seemed wonderfully acceptable, and I was permissive with myself around it.
That said, it was taking me a while to fall asleep with all
the sugar running laps around my blood cells, and my thoughts began to wander.
I began choreographing a ballet.
?? What? Yes. In the light of day, now, I see that perhaps
this is the mode of expression for some of the more raw things that I have to
“say,” – that writing actually is much too close a mode for me, and that when
I’ve tried to write about some of this, it comes off so cold and distant, or so
majorly personal that it doesn’t effect “good” writing. Or, maybe, dance is
just the mode this particular set of events in my life wants to take.
And, I don’t think it would be that bad. In fact, I sort of
story-boarded about 2/3rds of it last night; it wouldn’t be long, maybe 20 minutes. I can see the lighting and the
costumes, and the masks. Because there will be masks. The psyche always has
masks. It will be haunting, and breakingly beautiful. And, I believe, it will
be identifiable. As in, people will be able to relate to the experience, or if
not directly, they will relate to the emotions of the experience. Most people
have trauma. Unfortunately. And if not experienced at that level, most people
can relate to heart-break, or the cycle of addiction that draws us back to
recreate it again and again, attempting to change the outcome, or “make it
work” this time.
Perhaps pipe-dream. Perhaps not. It was so out of left
field, that it sort of feels divinely inspired – i.e. “not me.” Not my
machinations. I also happen to go to one of the best liberal arts schools in
the area, which has a phenomenal dance program. It’s not completely out of
range or reach that this could happen, in some way or other. Perhaps even an
addendum to my thesis.
My poetry thesis, I have decided, is a “tome.” When I said
that word to my advisor, I didn’t actually know what the precise definition
was, but it felt like the right word. I just looked it up right now,
and it means a volume, one book in a set. And although that doesn’t capture
entirely what I meant, it does make sense to me.
The thesis is basically a record of events and
experiences from the first 25 years of my life. I don’t really expect anyone to
particularly care about it. I don’t particularly care if they do. I said to my
advisor that much of the writing that I was doing for it didn’t feel current.
That it felt like this was old, ancient stuff, but that it was apparently
wanting to come up and out, and to be recorded, acknowledged, and then set
aside.
I don’t intend this book to be the thing that takes me
around the world on reading tours. But that’s not its intention. Its intention
is to be heard, seen, recorded. And laid to rest. This thesis (which per the requirements is to be a book of 40 – 80 poems), the process of this
thesis is like a burial ritual. This is the getting ready of the body,
preparing it for eternal and final rest. It will be the laying to rest of a
long and sad and manic period in my life, and it will effect an acceptance and peace in
me, that it will finally have been acknowledged, instead of stifled.
(Acknowledged by me, that is.)
However, like I said, there is some stuff which isn’t making
itself quite available to me in the written way. Which feels too big to whittle
down to a few words on a stagnant page (which, ultimately is why I may never
be a poet or writer by trade, I believe – or at least, strictly a “page poet.”
I want my work to live, to work on you – though, of course, plenty of people and
writers create the most enormous and powerful effects on the page, but it’s not
my sole medium).
So, ballet. How odd. And yet, I already feel myself moved by
it.
And by the purifying power of catharsis. 
healing · joy · meditation · self-care · spirituality

Drinking the Kool-Aid

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Well, folks, it occurs to me that I’m not sure what I will
write about today. I just did a morning meditation – a shamanic journey, in
fact – and I’m a little cock-eyed and raw at the moment.
I usually choose not to do the journeys by myself, partly
because they’re really powerful, and sometimes I just want the assurance of
someone more experienced in case I come out with questions or concerns. And
partly, I don’t like to do them on my own because they are so powerful, and
sometimes I get so thrown by them, like today. It’s hard to put the pieces of
normalcy and reality back together – it’s like waking up from a very deep
sleep, it takes a while to orient yourself to where you are, and mainly, who
you are again.
It occurs to me that this is what I meant when I talked
about being in school as giving me the time to get centered in myself and my life. Not rushing to a
job at 8:30am, not being distracted by the water cooler, or exhaustion, gives me
the space to do this work.
Granted, people who work 9-5 can also find time for spiritual
enhancement 😉
I said yesterday that I’ve been doing work around “soul
retrieval,” and I’ve heard and consider this practice as a way to re-own and
integrate those parts of myself which I have dismissed or which have been
sliced away through trauma. Well, this retrieval seems to be happening more often lately.
It happened on the New Year’s retreat two weeks ago, and it happened this
morning, both in shamanic journey meditation. (I bought the CD of the shamanic
drumming about 2 years ago, and so I listen to it on my iPod when I do it on my own – otherwise, “in real life,” someone actually drums.)
It’s not for everyone. Well, that’s not true. More accurate
is that not everyone is into it, interested in it, really cares, or believes in
it. But, that’s neither here nor there. When I began this practice about 4
years ago, I wasn’t so sure it would “work” for me either, but, consider me a
believer. I’m no expert, and won’t try to explain it here, but you can look it
up. Also, my teacher’s teacher runs a school that does this work called the
Sacred Stream in Berkeley (laugh, scoff, roll eyes, or vomit if you must). I’m
not here to convert anyone, it’s just a tool that has been offered to me, and
which I’ve picked up, not “with abandon,” but with tentative, frightened,
continuous longing.
I was speaking with a woman on the phone this morning before
the meditation, and she was telling me a bit about one of her spiritual practices.
And honestly, I think it’s marvelous that there are so many. A wrench for every
nut, as they say. Or, all rivers lead to the ocean.
I actually emailed Sacred Stream the other day to ask if
they had any sort of scholarship or volunteer program that I could do, so that
I could participate in their upcoming Intro to Shamanic Journey 2-day course. I
haven’t heard yet, but several women on the retreat with me suggested this woman.
I asked why. I mean, I get a lot of juice from my
teacher/friend, why see/try someone else. I was told that it’s like the
difference between two artists, it’s just another view, instead of getting it
all from one (and putting the one I have on a bit of a pedestal, I admit). She
also said that it’s just neat to be in this woman’s presence. That she’s got
the juice, and it’s infectious. Spiritually Infectious Juice. Sounds like
something you pick up in India and ties you to the toilet for 10 days.
But, for now, I’m going to keep juicing this fruit, and
patch my soul back together one lost bit at a time – because maybe all the
king’s horses and men couldn’t do it, but we’ve got a bit more power than that on our side. 
creativity · healing · modeling · recovery · school · vulnerability

"And Render the Visioner Whole."

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!!!! Although I should also say that
today’s one and only class (go grad school) is Advanced Painting (go grad
school!). 🙂 
I’m terrifyingly thrilled to be going back to it. When, on the
last day of last semester, I said to my classmate (in response to her relief at
it being over) that I was looking forward to it beginning again, mainly because
my break was shaping up to look nothing at all like a break or rest or
refuel, and I knew that something would have to change about how I was shaping
it.
However, I took work anyway, got sick, and generally felt just as
soul weary yesterday as I imagined I was going to feel. Hence my gargantuan
relief at being back in school.
For me, this means being back to a purpose. That I have a
definition, a little name tag under my photo – “Student.” I have a label.
Not, “Part-time temporary employee.” Cuz, I’ll tell you, that feels like a
really crappy label. Unrooted. Directionless.
That said, I did run some numbers last night, and have
worked out how much I will still need to earn each month to make my ends meet,
and not be stark raving broke at the end of May, when school is done. To
provide myself a mini-cushion of time to … uh, do whatever it is I’ll be doing
at the end of May.
Although I now have my student loan money, sitting in my
bank account since yesterday with a HUGE pulsating red warning alarm – DO NOT
SPEND DO NOT SPEND. This money is spoken for. And, I will
need to not blow my wad on a car. (gross, when thought of literally. sorry –
but that is what car magazines are for, isn’t it?) 😛  A car may still be possible, but I will have to gather
some help on “thinking” it through.
I did not get a call back for the musical, and I am/was
pretty cool about it. I didn’t really think I would, but as I’ve said, it was
my job only to show up the best I could. Now, my best will hopefully continue
to improve as I do more of these, and practice in advance, but, for today, I
gave it my best shot, and I’m so glad I did.
Mostly because, I auditioned for a fucking musical – i.e. I sang in front of a panel of 4 people and an accompanist. One woman at the table briefly looked up at me as I walked into the room, and then proceeded to fiddle
on her mac for the remainder of the time I was in there – not looking up once.
Whatever, not my business. And, nor have I sat in a small room for 8 hours,
listening to hopefuls nail and fail an audition. I might fiddle too.
But, because I had had the experience of doing that audition
on Saturday, on Sunday, when I auditioned for the live modeling guild, guess
what? Not even NEARLY as nervous. Truly. Being stark naked in front of a panel
of 5 people, coed, was not nearly as terrifying to me as singing, fully clothed
in front of a panel of people. Both are forms of being naked, if you ask me. 
The audition was held in a really old building in SOMA, and the labels on the glass
panes of the doors looked like the old block print you see in private eye
movies of old. One of the doors said San Francisco Odd Fellows, which I found
rather amusing, but also had images of secret society cloaks.
I was almost last on the roster, so I got to spend a lot of time hanging
out, watching other people fold their bodies in half to stretch. It wasn’t all
“model” types, as in fashion/runway models. There were large, small, old,
young. A cross section of folks, but all with a certain … I wouldn’t say “ease”
or “whimsy,” as certainly not everyone there was someone you’d want to be stuck
in an elevator with – but for the most part, each had some strain of artisan in
them. I mean, you’re auditioning to be a model for art classes and painters and
sculptors. It’s a pretty cool thing.
I know from my painting class last year when we had live
models in what a difference it made, rather than painting from a photo. It was
also pretty weird, but it’s almost like you sort of accept that this is weird,
and ignore that folks in the room are naked. Like at the end of my audition,
after I’d posed in a series of postures, which was the sort of silent,
observing, professional portion, they then asked me some questions about my
application and why I wanted to do this, and I’m standing there, the only naked
person in the room, talking to them like I’m on a normal job interview,
answering about my resume. It was weird. Yes, you are naked, but yes, we are right
now ignoring that fact and pretending not to notice that we’re having a normal
conversation with you despite it. Lol. It was pretty weird, pretty fun. They
even asked if I could do some of my performance poetry while posing, and I did.
That was pretty cool.
Some of this for me is about taking ownership of my body.
Not of how it looks, but how I feel in
it. How connected am I to this thing that walks me around my whole life,
digests whatever crazy thing I feed it, and makes my fingernails grow? How
connected am I to this thing that has been abused by self and others? … is
really what it comes down to.
Much like “Owning Voice,” this is another place of
ownership. Of feeling like the master of my body, my fate, what happens to it,
how I engage with it, and how I allow others to engage with it. To be naked in
front of this panel is to claim my own body — to take responsibility and care for all that has happened to it, and all that will happen to it. This is the
vehicle I’ve been given, but it’s like a snail’s shell, it’s not just a house,
it’s also part of the being. And for a while, and for intermittently, I have
not been connected to this part of my being. Throwing it around hither and
thither.
So, this audition for me was one of healing. The musical one
was too, but in a different way. My friend talks about soul retrieval,
particularly in reference to certain meditations. And for me, these actions are
doing just that. I am retrieving parts of my soul which I have dismissed and
shattered from myself, and I am making myself whole again.
How’s that for a Wednesday morning? 

*P.S. I realized where I was quoting the title of this blog from. It’s a line from a draft of a poem I’d written last fall.

excerpt from “The Intelligence of Memory”

Like a fossil patient and low
Truth will wash up like integration
And render the visioner whole.
action · healing · joy · meditation · performance

BART: BY ALLAH, RISE THESPIAN!

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Hahahahaha! Hahaha! Sorry, that was the acronym that
occurred to me when I was trying to figure out how to express “spiritual
experience on a urine-smelling trans-bay public train.” And, lol, I really like
it – it makes me laugh!
In any case, I will start toward the middle, and work my way
back to that.
I arrived at the audition for the musical theater company,
attempting to still my breathing into something less hyperventilatey. I
arrived, got the information sheet, and took a seat on a plastic chair in a
long white hallway with other hopefuls. If you’ve ever sat with a group of
aspiring musical theater folks, or watched Rachel on Glee, then you have some idea of the kind of energy that
is spit balling, pin balling, manic speed balling against the very narrow
walls.
Add to this the fact that at this particular audition, the
walls were very VERY thin. i.e. we,
hallway hopefuls, could hear every single note of the person auditioning as we
sat on our “Next!” chairs.
So, while sitting, I decided it would probably be good to
get my heart rate down from 76 Tromboning through my chest. You know that
really high heart-rate feeling, where you’re pretty sure everyone else can see
this thing pulsating through your clavicle? So, I began to meditate. Because it
was the only thing I knew that might calm me down. I’d looked at my music
again, but at this point, whatever was going to happen, would happen. I knew I
didn’t know the lyrics as well as I’d like, and I knew I hadn’t rehearsed as
much as I’d like, but, there was no
more, really, I could do at this point. I even tried to read a little from a
spiritual book I brought with me, but I wasn’t absorbing a thing. It was like water slipping off oil.
So, instead, I sat. And began to breathe. “Think of your
breath as a bridge between your inner world and the outer world. Notice where
your breath goes as it comes in and goes out. Don’t try to change it, just
notice. Is it deep, shallow, cool, warm?”
And I continually came back to this line of meditation
guideposts, because it would often be interrupted with comparisons. “That
person sounds really good. Why didn’t I choose a better song? Oh, they didn’t hit that note right. Eesh, are they
really going to hold that note out.” And this, began my heart-thumping all over again. Back to the breath.
Because that’s what a lot of the hallway energy is – am I
better or worse than you? Are you better or worse than me? How to I stack up?
How do I compare? How will I do?
And, believe me, a constant chatter of comparison against
anyone, “better” or “worse,” was enough to bring me out of any sense of
acceptance of que cera cera, whatever
will be will be.
To quote what I’ve heard many times, my job is only to do the
work and show up, and leave the results to G-d (Higher Power, Universe, … or
Invisible Sky Fairy, as my great friend likes to call the Power and Calm and
Connectedness we all have within us). So, however I do in that room is really
none of my fucking business. (It is my
business to prepare more, but, c’est la vie. What’s done is done.)
There comes a moment when I’m meditating – vaguely aware of the
people going in and out of the room, shuffling through their sheet music,
someone’s mom nervously helicoptering around her – when suddenly, and
surprisingly, it all goes numb. Suddenly, my heart rate has slowed to a lull,
my breathing to a calm almost still stream, and I begin to experience the tingles that I’ve come to associate with my HP. Perhaps you’ve experienced them
– I had them at that camp experience I told you about, and when I hear a
particularly moving piece of music, or when I hear a story of divine intervention,
and sometimes even at the end of one of those sappy rom-coms when everything
swells (uh, pun intended?) and joy radiates from the screen and sops right into
my core. – Those tingles.
Suddenly, sitting in this hallway, I am calm.
It’s hard to express the depth of that moment, but you will
perhaps identify with it, and also with the near-immediate return to the more
fervent breathing and heart-rate. But for a few seconds, my tromboning heart
was still. I was moved, and grateful, and surprised, and most of all,
reassured.
On my way into the city for the audition, I had to get
copies of my acting resume printed, and was in the copy shop. I was ahead of a
woman who offered me a stapler, and I said, Sure, as soon as I stop shaking! I
said I was heading to an audition and I was really nervous. She said that when
she was 16 (i.e. a long time ago), she was going on a clarinet audition, and
her teacher said to her, Imagine you are 74 years old, and how insignificant
this will seem to you then. And though there’s a part of me that feels that
auditioning for a musical for the first time since I was 17 is actually quite a
significant and really awesome thing, she’s also right. It’s one audition out
of many I believe I’ll have. Whether it’s this, musicals, theater as theater, or none of the above, I
don’t know. And I don’t much care.
What I do know is that sitting in that plastic chair, I
knew, bottomlessly, that this was a part of my path. Showing up, doing this
righteously scary thing, is beyond significant for me, and is helping to shape
the entire rest of my life.
Which, then, brings me to the BART moment. For those
uninitiated in Bay Area public transportation, BART actually stands for Bay
Area Rapid Transit, and is a train which crosses under the bay, connecting SF
to the East Bay. It is also a carpeted train system, which means it hangs onto
every loogie, urine, spill, and foot traffic odor and stain that marks it. It’s
not the place you want to bring a hot date. Nor, in fact, is it the place you’d
imagine having a spiritual experience. But, to get back to the point.
Sitting on BART, on my way into the city with my headshots,
and resumes, and sheet music, and palpating heart, I began to go inward here.
Where I went is somewhere I know – it is an open field, surrounded by a forest.
I discovered this place the first time I said it aloud to my therapist a few
years ago, “I feel like if I step out into the light, there’s a sniper waiting to take me out.” I have
felt, for a very long time, that if I step out into the sunlight, the stream of
life, my power, my gifts, my nudges, that I will be cut down, metaphorically
gunned down by the sniper(s) who stalk those trees. That as soon as I step foot
out of the shade and into the field, BAM!, dead.
Although we’ve, and I’ve, been doing much work to dismantle
this fear, it’s always been on my radar of “Don’t step too far into your own
life, Molly. Stay small, stay hidden, stay safe.” I am mostly clear on when and
how these ideas formed, and indeed, it had been important for me for a long
period of my life to stay small, hidden, silent, and therefore safe and
lovable. I am only lovable if I am small. If I get too big or loud, I will be
quashed down.
These beliefs are very old.
So, yesterday, on BART, I found myself in that forest and field. I
stood in the middle of the field, flanked by all of my teachers, guides, and
supporters. A troop, or a menagerie, or a coven, of strength. From this place,
I invited all of the snipers to come out of the forest. I told them that their
work was done, and they were no longer needed. That, as you can see, I have an
entire community of entities to help protect and guide me now, and that their job
is now obsolete.
I swept my mind’s eye through the forest to the right, and
invited the soldier there to come out. He came forward, and I thanked him for
his service, and let him know he could now leave. And he did, through a wooden
hatch door that appeared in the grassy ground before me and my team. Down he
went. I scanned through the woods from right to left, and invited all the
troops out, watched as they lowered their guns and slung them over their
backs, in a position of neutrality and peace. I thanked each one, and at one
point it felt like there were dozens, and they just all flitted down through
the hatch with my general blessing.
Finally, it seemed like there were no more snipers in the
forest. But, I went to take a look to ensure I’ve created an entirely peaceful
and unendingly safe place for myself. And, in fact, I found one last sniper. I walked into the forest, and a ways back, he was, lying on the
ground, resting against a tree, maybe with his camo hat pulled forward over his eyes. And I approached
him, and told him it was time to leave. He nudged up his hat, looked up at me,
and said, “Are you sure?” Are you sure you don’t need me anymore? Are you sure
it’s safe to go out into the fields? Are you sure that my work at protecting
you is done?
Yes.  Yes, soldier, I am sure.
And so, we both walked out, tromping through the forest into
the sunlight of the field, and I held onto his arm, like an old friend, because
in essence, he was. And we feel kindly toward each other – even though yes,
he’s attempted to kill me, that was his only way of ensuring my safety.
We walked up to the hatch, and I saluted him, and he saluted me, and in real life on the BART train, I got a little emotional at it, at this
goodbye, and down he went, through the grassy hatch, which closed, and sprouted a flower, or perhaps flowers were laid upon it, like a memorial.
But. After this? You wanna know what I did? I went
CARTWHEELING through that forest!! I began to run and jump and sing and yell
and cartwheel all throughout that fucking forest. It was free. It was clear.
This was a safe place for me again. Or perhaps for the first time.
I was free.
Sure, perhaps it will take some getting used to, this
walking out into the sunshine, this taking the reins of my own life, this
“owning voice” thing. But, clearing out my psyche and my heart of obsolete
warriors feels like an incredible start. And after years of toeing the line,
stepping up to it and back away, don’t get too close, Perhaps now. Perhaps NOW,
I get to cross it, in cartwheels.
Amen.