Imaginal Cells

It seems that since that fateful day in January 2006, my life has been a constant stream of turning points.  From that small gathering in January 2006 came the Declaration of Evolution by Intention, the Sekhmet Rising book, Emerging Futures as a process for mindful and meaningful living, a profound shift in the approach to ‘certification’, new direction for working with women, release of the 3rd edition of Fully Alive redesigned five-day intensives, new four-day women’s retreats to awaken an Emerging Futures way of engaging the world, a Huna retreat in Hawaii, powerful and compelling new audio products including my personal favourite Leadership Redefined – Reclaimed…. and lots of other things I can’t even remember!  

And yes, one more thing : I continue to work on the  ideas for the next book.  And therein lies part of the challenge.  As I live the process of what I write about, my life keeps shifting!  Not just little twists and turns here and there, but big leaps from one place to the next, often seemingly unrelated and ultimately revealing the connections that underlie the direction.  As an example, although I had no idea at the time, I now know that Fully Alive, Phoenix Rising and the new Emerging Futures book are all connected – each whole and complete in itself and yet each a part of a greater whole.  I can see that now and had no sense of any of it when I was writing each book.  It was not until I began writing this book that the other pieces fell into place. And I know there is already more… just waiting to flow and allow itself to be witnessed. 

It’s been an amazing two years!  MY life is changing, and with it so are my connection to my Self, my connections to the people I love, and my connections to my work and those who are attracted to engage in these processes with me.  It seems that what was a perfect fit in January 2006 has long been overtaken by growth, discovery, awakening and accelerated change.  I’m not complaining – just noticing that everything has consequences. 

My greatest gift to myself was the day I realized that there is nothing for me to be but myself and nothing for me to do but live fully.  When I am able to engage that way, something happens and doors open, not only for me but for those who have chosen to engage with me.  Insights that lead to expanded lives become the norm within these small collectives.  Those present and engaging wake up to their lives, recognizing that they have been launched into new ways of seeing and being.  They also discover that not everyone is willing or able to see what they see, hear what they hear and know what they know. 

During the last Emerging Futures:Entrepreneurial Women retreat,  one of the women talked about the caterpillar/butterfly transformation.  What was different for me was her reference to a ‘pulse’ in the goop and how the butterfly begins to form itself around this pulse.  I got curious about this (recognizing the notion of the pulse as that of the signal) and searched the web for info.  Along the way, I discovered the idea of ‘imaginal cells’ and the unfolding process of these.  (A search on ‘imaginal cells’ will bring up many different-yet-the-same stories.)  Amazing little things!  

I know in my own body what it is to be an imaginal cell.  I am privileged to spend my life with women who are these imaginal cells in their worlds/lives.  What struck me about this notion of imaginal cells is that their very language suggests that they are not ‘real’ or ‘fixed’ or ’static’.  They represent the notions of ‘can be anything’ – just like my imagination can create anything.  There is no past to these imaginal cells – there is only the potential they invite in the moment and what streams from that. 

Imagine!  Daring to live my life from the moment-to-moment of the ‘now’ without being tied to history!  There are many who would feel compelled to prove that way to be ‘wrong’.  There are those who would offer evidence that it cannot even be so.  And yet, caterpillars and butterflies abound!  They came from this pure potential and created the imaginable. 

As I approach my 58th birthday, I revisit my own journey as the caterpillar in my life.  My desire to know more of who I am began at the age of 18; and somewhere along that 40 year trek of personal growth/development/evolution of consciousness, I lost interest in who I am and gained great insight into WHAT I AM!  In that realm of exploration, I discovered that I don’t have to ‘know’.  I don’t have to be ‘right’.  I don’t even have to have answers!  All I need is to be willing and able to live fully; to engage mySelf from one breath to the next… and to attend to the pulse and watch for the butterfly.  

Letting go of my to-the-death commitment to the Newtonian being that I was taught to believe I am (the caterpillar) and trusting that the goop that my life became would be my gateway; listening for the pulse or signal that I AM and trusting enough to engage awakened me to the Quantum Biological Human (the butterfly) that I AM.   

It leaves me wondering:  does the butterfly know that it was once a caterpillar?  Does caterpillar memory live in the butterfly?  I have no answers for these and I do know that the Quantum Biological Human that I AM recognizes ‘caterpillar-ness’ in its expressions.  That I see it, and know it and am familiar with and to it, does not mean that I have to embrace it.  

I can choose to fly! 

Breathing is good…

For the love of dancing… Part 2

Even when I sleep, I am still dancing! I awoke this morning with an yet another insight into my experience of dancing.

My dancing is not dependent on whether or not I like the music, the people or the environment. Dancing is an essential form of expression of who I AM in my world. Music or no music; classical, rock or jazz, dancing is still the expression of my being in a physical world. There are even times when I know that I am the only one who hears the music that entices me to move! And yet, it never occurs to me to question whether or not the music is there. I know… from someplace other than where I have been schooled to listen… that I hear what I hear.

For me, dancing is how I experience the flow of my own evolution. To seek to evolve is the essence of my being and not a tool to solve a problem or an approach to silence the scream from within. Over these very many years of working with others, I have come to know the difference between those who dance for the joy of dancing and those who dance to ‘address’ other less life-sustaining moments in their lives.

There are those for whom a choice to engage in their own evolution has come as an act of compliance with the desire of another. There are those for whom engaging in their own evolution is a desperate attempt to stave off an outcome that appears to be inevitable. And yet still, for others, engaging in their own evolution is a last-ditch attempt to figure out what’s missing so that they can fix their lives – and just get on with it!

Solving a problem. Avoiding a different problem! Satisfying someone else. Postponing the inevitable. Not good/bad, right/wrong – just not what lights me up. In my world, these dances are not from the joy of dancing but from a desire to use dancing to compensate for something else, somewhere else.

This week has been a great invitation for me to pay very close attention to my absolute joy of dancing! More and more, clarity awakens a keen eye to identifyng and selecting those others with whom to dance for the sheer joy of dancing – and not for any other reason. And yes, lo and behold – they are there!

That’s the good news. The sad news is that I have not found many. Ours is a world of questions and answers; a world of problems to be solved and journeys to be completed. Ours is a world of practicality and external referencing; a world that leads us to believe that what we need to do is understand and have knowledge; what we need are strategies to make others do things; and that when we feel we can’t or haven’t, it’s a sign of intelligence that we have chosen well how to protect ourselves from the unknown.

I often say to those with whom I work: be very selective about who you spend your time with. Be very picky about the nature of conversations you choose to engage. Both the people and the conversations we choose to engage will become threads in the fabric of the design of our lives. The problem is, we’re the ones who have to live them.

In our world, as with so many other things, we learn to dance so that we have one more arrow in the quiver of our resourcefulness. How sad that so many of us have lost the joy of dancing simply because it is the truth of who we are.

Breathing is good….

For the love of dancing

I am a dancer.  I have no memory of anything other than loving the movement of body, connected and engaging in flow, with or without music. 

I remember moments of walking down the street, being present to the vibration of every cell in my body, as it engaged in the flow of getting from here to there; vibrating to, responding to and dancing with the sounds of the world around me.  Weaving and bobbing through the crowd;  a quick step to the left to avoid the baby carriage; and small skip to complete my journey through the intersection as the light turned red.  

My body dances to sounds around me… and sounds inside me.  Thoughts create the music of my life – inviting me to move slowly, tangled in the web of my own imaginings; or propelling me forward with the burst of energy that comes with a new insight, marveling at our endless capacity to make our lives interesting and entertaining! 

My mind dances to the words that flow in and through the conversations with those around me.  An idea… awakens and excites another idea… and in the blink of an eye, a life changes.  Quick steps; slow, meandering flows; thick and messy struggles… each an enlivened response to a dance of body, mind or spirit, engaged in living life to the fullest! 

Every one of these, a dance!  Every one of these, an excitation through some level of vibration, moving from thought through sound and image, to a place where my physical body connects with my physical world.  And through it all, I am enlivened and awakened and sourced by the dance!  Through it all, I am nothing if not the great joy of the dance, itself! 

And here is what I have come to discover – about myself and about those with whom I choose and have chosen to dance.  

I can share with you my great love of dancing!  I can speak with you about my love for the dance.  I can share with you all that I have learned in my own living, from the dance of who I AM.  I can direct you and guide you to ways and means to discover and engage the dance for yourSelf.  I can dance with you.  I can dance for you.  I can go first and dance a new dance of living.  I can dance alone and with others.  I can encourage you and cajole you and cheer you on in the creation of your own dance.  I can even use the movement of my body to press your body into movement.  But sadly, the one thing neither I nor anyone else can ever do, is cause you to love dancing. 

No one can make you love dancing.  That is something that you either find inside yourself – or you don’t. You might be able to fake the dance but you can never fake the loving of it. 

I LOVE dancing!  Without the love of dancing, I would have no idea who is the I AM that I bring into this world! Regardless of the music; regardless of whether that music moves inside me or outside of me; regardless of its form or shape or essence – whatever its intrinsic vibration of thought or image or sound or flesh; I LOVE DANCING!  

Wherever I am, whatever I do, whoever I am with, it is the essence of who I AM to dance… and more, to love dancing!  I actively seek out others who love dancing, no matter their perceived ability to follow the rules or know the ‘right’ steps.  What I seek is that innate, instinctive, intuitive love of dancing!  

I remember long ago being called a ’shit disturber’; accused of being one who ’stirred the pot’. Interestingly, these labels had been applied long before I had any idea what was considered good/bad, right/wrong, polite/rude.  I was a child – and even then, could not NOT see what lay before me.  Unable and unwilling to be blind to the obvious, I spoke what others carefully avoided to ensure that no illusion would be disturbed. Today, much older and wiser, I must both admit to and agree with those ‘charges’.  I continue to be unwilling to pretend that I do not see what I see, hear what I hear and know what I know.  Those are the steps in the dance of my life.

I am indeed, a moving presence that disturbs that which many others would prefer not to disturb and sometimes even more, actively engage to preserve the dormant status quo.  Like dancing in a crowded room, sometimes people bump up against each other.  Does that mean that we should cease to dance?  

Without that in myself; and without my relentless and tireless ability to continue to seek out others to play with for whom this is also the essence of their being, I would have to find a way to cease to hear the music.  And before I would do that, I would be willing to spend my life dancing alone. 

I can love dancing.  I can even love others who can’t dance.  But I can never cause anyone else to love dancing.  That is something that no one can hide – from themselves or anyone else – for very long. 

Breathing is good….