A trip to brighten my spirits...

Waiting for take off in San Diego, 7 am  / Mount Shasta, Northern CA

Time travel

To the month ahead

Can we go there, together?

If I see the future

     will I change it

     will it be different

From seeing it now

Time travelling

     in an airplane

We couldn't do this

     before machines were born

Time travel

We fly!!!

In a car

We couldn't do this

     before horses were born

Time travel

     before our legs could walk

Time travel

     soaring above

Galactic plane

     time travel stealthly

Flight attendant

Usher me in, to a new realm

Where are we going?

Flight attendant

Journey, journeywork

Journeywork into my soul

Retrieve what has been lost

The power I gave away

Circluar & square markings

     of a beast, the farms on grounds

Time to travel backward

     to a place where notions began

Travel backward

To Before

Choose the choices

     of memory

At once, they served me

But do they now?

The School of Life

The School of Hardknocks

Knocking at my door

     the threshold

From One to another

Time travel through the snowy mountins

     the stormy seas

Into the bliss, the hell, the waking

Lifted up by clouds and moonbeams

The firescape below, the firey landscape below

Into the depths and upwards

Our universe expands

     After years of wondering about Oregon, I'm here!!! Orchid, a friend from a yoga workshop we took in Sedona, invited me to stay with her. So I took her up on the offer and am delighted to finally be here...getting to know my new friend and exploring this place.

     The first evening we went to a fundraiser for the Tryon Farm, a place designed for Sustainable Ecology Education. It was a very healing place to be, when we came upon the farm from the trail I felt a huge sigh of relief throughout my being. Children were running around with bare feet, people were mosying through the gardens, there were activities like basket weaving, educational mushroom walks, etc. I meandered around and found myself in one of the community living quarters where I received a table massage. I felt so safe and open there.

Living quarters   /   Mushroom education walk 

Little friend   /   Tree quarters

     There was some amazing, heartfelt, jammin' music. It was really great to enjoy the variety of folky hip-hop, acoustic, electro-funk, and spirituals. There were some participatory songs like kirtans, etc...lots of people brought their own instruments and would improv along. I found myself sitting next to a young man playing the largest digeridoo I've ever seen. Listening to his breath and rythms gave me the feeling I was meant to be there.

SaraTone   /   Alpaca!

     With nightfall firedancers appeared. Smoke from a small fire flew across the sky as the stars came out. We smudged ourselves and spoke of sacred stories such as the White Buffalo Calf Woman, spoke understandings of consciousness shift, philospohies and curiosities we have. I was pleasantly comfortable and surprised to have such a spontaneous, abundant healing experience on the farm. We were there for hours.

     The next morning I had much lucid dreaming, messages that came through from others in my life. Gratitude and Inspiration. My dreamscape was another space for me to listen and grow. I went for a walk around Portland and found some of these views:

     Back at Orchid's place, I watched as she and her housemate, Odette, were gardening in their new backyard.

     After a while I left for a few hours to the coffee shop across the street. On my way back I heard the lullibic sound of guitar and sax wafting through the streets. It was coming from a club two doors down. I smiled knowing that I'd be listening to this soulfull live music in Orchid's backyard for the next while when I got back to their house. These pictures are veiws of the band playing across the way & the sunset from their back porch:

     I am relieved to discover what an amazing place Portland is. Great food (I was surprised how much vegatarian, vegan, local, organic & sustainable choices there were everywhere), comfortable, earthy coffee shops (one place had more than 10 different choices of Chai to choose from), great music, great art...murals throughout the city, and green, green, green. Green trees, green grass, and eco-consciousness. I have heard that Portland is the leading bicycle commuter city in the US, and while there I was shown a map specifically color coded with the types of bike routes all throughout, just like a regular highway system map. Portland overall seemed like a Pacific New England...that's all I can compare it to, other than Northern CA, however, having a Life of its own, a defined unique personality.

     For the last ten years people have been encouraging or discouraging me to cut my hair. It has been very long since I was a child. It has been a strong part of my identity. People were often surprised when I let my hair down (because it 's usually worn up), they would compliment me, dote over it, etc...it felt beautiful, especially when I swam and strode out of waters, like a mermaid.

     My ex-boyfiend used to show me Maury Povich shows of people with drastically long hair gettting it cut, being “made over,” and how happy their friends and family were. I silently refused to cut mine, I didn't want to, and I felt I couldn't go through with it. It was a part of me, like a limb. I observed that the people on the show appeared to be doing it for what I perceived were superficial reasons...to make others happy, to look better, etc. Yet, hey, if it makes them happy, why not? Years later my ex apologized, acknowledging that he, unconciously at the time, wanted me to cut my hair because we were unhappy in the relationship and thought a change might somehow make things better. Other people have told me to never cut my hair.

     About two years ago I began more seriously considering letting my hair go. I felt that the only way I could do it would be for Locks of Love, to give it to kids with cancer, or whomever they give it to. I heard a story on National Public Radio about a little girl who keeps growing out her hair for the sole purpose of giving it away. I thought of how selfless that is and in some sense felt guilty for being so attached to mine. My hair has been long since I was a small child. It's been more than 20 years since my hair was shoulder length or less than. History, in some essence, is stored in the hair. The length of my hair generally stored up to the last 10 years of my history, my life, what I've been through.

     Some say it's really difficult to regrow your hair long after it's been cut. It may be. Like tatoos. I knew that with my first tatoo, I was risking the possiblity that over the years they would multiply, and they did. To be honest, I wear my hair up so much, what's the difference anyway? I had a friend in high school who used to tease me by pretending to slick back his hair and get in a running stance. He would say “You're so fast, Sue Bear,” insinuating that my hair was so tightly worn it made me more aerodynamic.

     So, recently I've been slowing down, relaxing. Realizing that Rome wasn't built in a day. That “letting my hair down” and going with the flow is really good for me. It reminds me off all the times my car has been rear-ended...it was like my past was racing up from behind me, slamming into my present, shouting at me to WAKE UP!!! I've spent too much time pining over the past and too much time thinking about the future. When in reality dreaming, or dreaming reality, I don't know what's around the corner tomorrow...and I get to decide how to view experiences now and in the past. Cutting my hair short forces me to “let it down” all the time.

     I called an old friend, also in Portland, and told her I was ready. Being a hairdresser, Deynce said she was honored to cut my hair for me. We met at her studio called “Akemi,” which I found means bright & beautiful in Japanese. I met Denyce for the first time in two years, and her 3 year-old son, Quay, for the first time.

     The experience of knowing I would be cutting my hair was a long, gradual process. The morning it came time to do it I couldn't sleep. I waved in and out of slumber, attempting to get more rest. At some point that morning I did fall back into partial sleep for awhile, and when I woke up I was laying on my stomach and my right arm was strecthed upwards...I was lightly holding a handful of my hair at the back of my head. It surprised me that somehow, unconsciously, probably due to my anxiety, I was holding my hair safely in my sleep. That has never happened to me before. I eventually made my way to the salon. Orchid asked me in the car if I was ready. I replied that ”it's like childbirth, you'll never be 'ready'” I said, “you can prepare all you want,” it's something that's just to be done and experienced.

     My body felt strange that whole morning, tingly, floaty, I had trouble eating...when I sat in the salon chair, Quay, her three year-old, playing in the studio came as a relief to me, a distraction from my nerves. We talked about what I wanted, had it in a pony tail, and she asked me if I wanted to watch it being cut and how I wanted the hair to handed to me when it was over (she was very sensitive to my needs) I said I didn't want to watch and couldn't answer after that. As the cutting was prolonged I finally came to a point when I didn't want to talk about it anymore...I said, “just do it.” I closed my eyes and felt her cutting. Eyes closed...feeling her cut through it in layers...when she was finished and held it in her hands I began to cry immensely. Everything, everyone in the studio became quiet...I felt that I was in a sacred space. It didn't matter what was going on around me. I felt safe. When I finished crying she handed me my hair and told me how she could feel the energy held in it when it was cut off...that her arm began tingling all over as soon as it was seperated from me, that it really felt to her like a letting go of the past for me.

     Then we went to the sink and washed my hair, then back to the chair to cut and style some more. While she was styling, I held my old hair in my lap and played with it, almost like it belonged to someone else, which in some essence, it now did. It now belonged to Locks of Love to make a wig or two for chemotherapy patients. I braided a little cornrow thinking I might keep some of it...then I thought, why? Why would I want any of this anymore? I'd rather it all be in my memory.

     Denyce, Quay, and I had lunch, said our farewells, then I walked back to Orchid's place...wild hair fluffed out. I found some more great views of Portland.

     When I got back, I took a shower and it felt great. I was laughing at myself for all those years of mulling over cutting my hair. I spent so much time freaking myself out that I was pleasantly surprised and comfortable to have it short for the first time since age 5 or 6. As days went on...now writing this blog, I have not woken up in the morning shocked or regretful at all. I've had way more anxiety over tatoos when I would awake in the mornings afterward and realize what I had done. I thought it would be a lot more shocking to my system to have my hair cut, and it wasn't.

     Later, my friend Alton picked me up for a drive to see Astoria for the first time. It was beautiful driving through the country. Being an '80s child, watching The Goonies 14 million times; when I figured out Astoria was a real town in Oregon, I decided I had to go see it someday. That was years ago...so this little drive to Astoria was like a childhood dream come true, to see the real town. It rained that day, I had a feeling it would. Alton and I ran around taking photos of the old, weather-worn Victorian homes...and I proclaimed my dorky Goonie-ness in front of the town sign (my sister bought me the shirt for x-mas years ago, now put to good use.) I was an ultra-tourist!! It was pleasantly embarrassing and I had to do it!!

     We drove further north up the coast, across a five-mile bridge that crosses the Columbia river, linking Oregon and Washington state. Crusing along, now in Washington, we decided to go see where the Columbia meets the Pacific Ocean. Alton and I had been talking much about love and relationships throughout the day...the dynamics of giving & receiving, break-ups, divorce, etc., so I had to laugh when I found out where we were going to see the river & ocean meet was called Cape Dissapointment. Gotta have some humor. Where the Pacific & Columbia meet:

     Up on the top of the Cape, a bald eagle magically floated toward me. I wasn't sure who it was at first and was staring in disbelief when I realized it was an eagle. It was another sacred, indescribable moment of the trip. Then walking back on the trail, another bald eagle appeared. It stayed hovering above me for so long I could have taken a photo, but something held me back. I just stared in amazement, honored and humbled, and felt the Freedom. I understood why the bird became a symbol of our country...I could feel the freedom emminating from it. It soared over me, knowing I was there, watching.

Back in the car, the sun began to set and these words came to me:

Bald Eagle

Solemnly beautiful

Cape Disappointment

Are we there yet

Always there

Numb fingers

Blind heart

Reflective of

     what was found & lost

With you

     So after all this, what's the driven message?...though I wrote nothing new on my car which was left back at home...

Even when surrounded by feelings of dissapoinment and despair, life is beautiful. Keep breathing one breath at a time, keep beating one heartbeat at a time, each movement forward one step at a time. Keep Moving Through.

(Spiral Cloud above Catalina Island, off the coast of SoCal)