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Friday, September 21, 2012

Play Hard: Guided by Providence

In Moab today. Utah is "Life Elevated".
Moab is "where Adventure Begins."
Here's how.

Slept under the stars last night just outside the gates of Canyonlands National Park. Dream visions  were basically: slow down... and, another strange driving vision. For me, the dream metaphor of driving has always been about how in control, or lack of control, I have over my life at any given point in time. When I was at PlayMotion, I had a recurring nightmare about being in the drivers seat, passed out, eyes barely open, in the night, in the rain, in a car whose brakes didn't work and whose accelerator was stuck on full throttle. The metaphor seems totally clear now.

Other times I've been in the passenger or back seat with someone else driving. Again, fairly clear.

Last night, though, I had a very unique vision: I was in the back seat of my Suburban, the Big Black Truck, and JuJu, one of the young founders of Alchemy, was in the front seat. The odd thing was, I had a steering wheel mounted to the back of the front passenger seat. And JuJu wasn't really paying attention to the road that much, because I was steering from the back seat. Need to think about this one a little more. While a gut preference would be to be directly in the drivers seat of a capable vehicle, Being in the 'limousine privelege' seat and maintaining steering control might just be the best of both worlds.

Now, back to waking life.

Arriving in Moab for unknown reasons. On my way in, a fleet of 10 or so Porsche Cayman's zoom out of town. I stop by the Holiday Inn Express for a free breakfast. And there are literally tons of bicyclists mulling the in parking lot. They have racing shirts on that say "DC Metro Area", and I ask one of them what's up. "We're here for the Moab Century Race." Cool. Eat breakfast. Afters, stop two girls in the parking lot, ask if they're from DC. They are. They encourage me to enter the race. I think about it for a little bit. You Only Live Once. YOLO. Here we go.

I can't quite believe I'm doing this. But what the hell, I was just thinking about how little exercise I'm getting on this trip. Time to step it up.

So, tomorrow I will rise at 5:30am, don my biking gear, down a large breakfast, and head out into the wilderness of Moab for a race. w00t!!!




Saturday, September 15, 2012

a vision for life 2.0

At Burning Man this year, I experienced the absolute turning point of my vocational life.

I was wandering through Center Camp, looking at the art in the gallery. One of the panels was empty, and a small hand written sign said:
"Sit in front of me,
look into the mirror, and
see your Heart's Truth."
Leaning against the ground was a mirror mosaic with a heart in the middle. I sat down in lotus position and stared into the mirror. As expected, I saw a multi-faceted reflection of myself. A bit wild-looking due to 4 days in the desert, but still, at its core, my familiar face.

I stared deeper. It was then that I noticed a small gap of a few inches above the mirror. Shifting my gaze to the gap, I was fascinated to see a delicate hand, painting with a brush on heavy artist paper.

The Artists Hand by Alex Grey
My mind started reeling: was this the metaphor of the mirror? Was this person painting me? Who was it? Was there a hidden camera so they could see me? Where were they? Were they in a hidden room? I moved my head slightly and looked closer. The painter was a woman. She didn't appear to notice me. So I leaned in conspiratorially and whispered "pssst!". Slowly, curiously, she turned her head, then leaned closer to me, and calmly responded: "Yes?" She was at attention.

I explained to her the stated purpose of the mirror, saying "So I was seeking my heart's truth, and here you are, painting!" Unexpectedly, she began to weep. She gasped, then blurted out: "I used to be an artist, that was my path, and then I sold my soul to commercial success and the corporate world." She continued to cry, tears running freely down her refined face. I decided to breach the gap, telling her: "Wait one minute."

I got up, determined to find physical access to the other side of the mirror. I wound my way around the gallery labyrinth, and sure enough, there she was, a petite woman in a chair, at a table, painting with watercolors, crying. I had her get up and gave her a big hug. We both sat down, and I listened to her story. Somehow we got to the subject of acrobatic yoga. She called it acroyoga. It turned out that she was planning to attend a workshop in Costa Rica, with a teacher who she used to practice with as a child. It just so turned out that that teacher was an acrobatic friend of mine. The world gets smaller every day, in a good way.

Lux rocks deep metta acro on playa
I invited her to practice a little, and we found a nice quiet spot and  worked through some therapeutics and basic acrobatics. It was in this flow that I realised that even experienced dancers needed very clear and explicit instruction from the base; every school of movement has their own vocabulary. I also realised that there is a very sensitive balance between agressive, tight, beautiful, fun acro and gentle, loving, careful metta antigravity massage. I try to balance the two. In the midst of this thought pattern, Jennifer reached down from the air and tickled me. It was the most natural and fun thing; luckily I'm an experienced base and giggled and laughed while maintaining balance.

We shared a little more conversation, exchanged contact information, and parted ways with a deep and lasting hug.

Of all my playa experiences, it is this energetic exchange that I've returned to most often.

Life 2.0, here we come!