Deeper - Into - The Mystic

photo ©akka b.

On the heel of hell, I had the epiphany one might expect to have - on the heel of hell...  tip toeing around who I really am, has been backfiring. It's that simple.

I was crying like a poet last week. With all the passion, fury, longing, aching, loving, searching that a poet is made of - that we all are made of. Pounding down the door of my heart for answers to the flood of emotion and simultaneous stagnation I've been grappling with. Calling out to for understanding of my conundrum, all while sliding deeper into the mess pouring forth from my own impish behavior... The louder I call, the deeper I fall. WAIT! IT'S MY OWN IMPISH BEHAVIOR! That's the answer! I've been wading in 'the answer' this whole time. Ugh. 

Simple, but subtle - but "subtle" is not that simple when your mind is caught in the muck. The outline I've created for myself artistically is correct and leaps and bounds from where I was a few years ago. I've been making art, and words, and public speaking, and producing events, and engaging socially, and trying new things, but without a full commitment to who I am. It's like I have one finger pressed firmly on the 'off' button, while the other finger is holding fast to the one that turns it all 'on.'  

Being half ones own greatness is pure hell. You would think it might suffice in a pinch. But a pinch doesn't last very long. Being half of what and who you are meant to be - keeps you always living at the half-way point. Half-way here, half-way there - stuck in the middle. Sort of good, sort of bad, - mostly mediocre. Everything is partially working, partially broken, but. not. going. anywhere. 

Fear is my go-to vice, when standing on the precipice of my full power. What would happen if I were fully empowered - If I gave myself permission to thrive? Is it so scary? Is it worse than being at the halfway point?

There is living in me, a mystic, a healer, a lover, a child, a mother - a poet. All the elements of my sweet insides depend on one another. If I deny one part of me, the other is thrown off balance and I suffer and you know what? Those around me suffer too.

Standing on the precipice is so - 1999. 

Now is the time, to 'let it' work. 

And let the "work" - be sacred.

'Let it be wild, let it be weeds, let it be - sacred weeds.'

Stay tuned... 

Real Newsletter Coming SOON!

Hi nice people who read this blog! Southern California has been outrageous and beautiful - as usual. Even though the beauty of this place forever stares us yuppy/hippies straight in the face, it's not always apparent when one is having a mood. I was totally stuck in my muck last week - but then, breakthrough! It arrived with that FAT full moon some of you may have noticed came to sit upon all of humankind the last couple days. Whoa! 

This post is to let you know two things: I'll be writing more about breakthroughs SOON - juicy, juicy! Alsooooooo...I'm working on an honest to goodness NEWSLETTER! Creating a real NEWSLETTER is sUper eXciting! It feels strangely personal to me, having a new tool makes me feel inclined to share even more really cool, magical and PRACTICAL things, in a simple effective way. Easy for me and fun for you!

The NEWSLETTER will be sent out - up to four times a month. Each one will be chock full of all kinds of goodies; Poetry, events, pictures, invitations, ideas, art, projects, offers, inspiration... 

Already receiving my sometimes-email? Do nothing. 

Never heard from me behind the scenes? Sign up now! 

First blast launches in 24ish hours. Youpee!

Much Love To All Of You Crazy Love Poets. Hope to connect with you soon! 

akka b.

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May Day! May Day! :: and the 7th sense

Does this make sense?

Sense of Eat

Sense of Ear

Sense of Ouch

Sense of Whiff

Sense of Sea

Sense of Sixth

*Sense of Humor

Oh Great Goddess of Sense of Humor

Please remind your friends of the J O K E you have played.  

Ya know, THIS LIFE ---- the funniest JOKE ever made!!!

photo of akka b. by Raksha Boiteau

* H A P P Y  B E L T A N E *

horned gods

ribboned poles

maids of milking

fired holes

sense of smell

&

sense of sight

flowers fall

where jokes alight 

*

What will you do to reinvent your life today?

DRUNK LOVE HEART - THE CD!

Meet my baby... 

I poured all my heart in to this. All the way. This infusion of sound, melody, words, muse, poems, laugh–tears, ancestors, rivers, rocks, trees, friends, help, love… is designed to pluck your heart strings, make you feel deeper, break open and embrace joy.

THANK YOU – Rory Anton of Pure Fun Records for intuitively knowing the rhythms of my heart. Your beautiful original music and sound compositions make the poems come alive!

Click the photo above or link to purchase physical copy.

Digital downloads coming soon!

SAMPLE IT HERE:
01 Opening Drunk Love Heart by akka b. by drunkloveheart

PURCHASE HERE:  

IT WILL BREAK YOUR HEART - OPEN!

I AM CRAZY EXCITED ABOUT THIS: 

That's all I have to say. 

oops, one more thing...

Releasing CD for public purchase SOON!

TEDx Realized

What an honor! So blessed! 

Thank you TEDx Ojai Women for inviting me to be part of such an amazing ensemble! 

Photo Credit: Ellen Johnson/Sound Visions Media © 2011

Photo Credit: Jodi Womack

Photo Credit: Ellen Johnson/Sound Visions Media © 2011

For a more in depth look at this delicious day - 

check out the blog review below! 

http://coachlisab.blogspot.com/2011/12/relating-to-audience-tedxwomen-style.html

I AM Gratitude

Gratitude is a skill. Don't ever let anyone tell you it's not. To know 'thank you' in your bones is much different than knowing it off the tip of your tongue. You've got to want it, strive for it, grow it and be willing to friend (or kill) the beast that guards the gates to it. I'm not always grateful - I'm often a spoiled little sour puss. BUT when gratitude hits me over the head and enters my heart -

DAMN I FEEL GOOD!! 

And when I feel good, naturally I want to give it away...  

---------------------------------------------

3 things I am grateful for this season: 

---------------------------------------------

DECEMBER 1st 

 I've been invited to speak at the local TEDx Conference being hosted in Ojai, California. Whooooooohooooooo!! Between an amazing line up of brilliant women, I will be sharing about the magic of living from the heart, and what happens when we give ourselves...  

PERMISSION TO PLAY

Read event details here: 

 http://www.ted.com/tedx/events/4226

 http://nomorenylons.com/press-release/

---------------------------------------------

DECEMBER 4th

A good cause event in Ojai (that I will be speaking/poeming at) benefiting the Pine Ridge Lakota Oglala Sioux Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Please click HERE for further details about how you can contribute from near or far.

---------------------------------------------

DECEMBER 10th 

          SAVE THE DATE

I'm having a BABY!! 

But I'm not telling what kind - YET

You're invited to the birth

OJAI December 10th 7-9pm

DETAILS COMING SOON! 

It's gonna be magnificent. 

If you're not on my email list and would like to be notified, please leave your email in the comment section of this post or email me at: drunkloveheart@gmail.com

Lay an Egg

... Minutes before running out the door to read a fresh batch of poems for a live audience, I received a message from a friend.

Photo Credit: Jonas MacPhail

"Lay an egg" he said.

Not

Break a leg 

or

Drink a keg

The man said, "lay an egg."

(And for some reason it made the whole world peel back 
like that snake skin I was writing about earlier today... )

*

I don't have to get hurt ------- to be lucky.

Or be under the influence of...

 Some

'Outside'

 Me.

Just lay the darn egg

It's already made

It just needs to be laid

And.

It's free.

Photo Credit: Atma Cornelius

Me. Laying an egg at The Ojai Art Center October 10th 2011

An event sponsored by The Bubble Publication.

baby Acorns

Thank you brother atma for your photo shopping magicalness!

 

Finally 36!! 

phew.

MADE IT

 Now What?

aKorn b.read?

 

 tree corns

roots up

oh fine,

all write

  

about...

  I just have one or two more things to say... and they have nothing to do with birth, or coming of age, or rounding the bend, or where have I been, or what's for dinner, or what's my favorite whatever. NO. The one or two things I have to say involve...

Thinking LIGHT

  Which either has to do with thinking about light, or thinking lightly, or a nice practical thinking light.

I think I've just said 

the one or two more things. 

Happy

akka b.

?

 Please feel free to congratulate me.

River Runs Through Me

 Thank you Tom for sharing this video!

RIVER RUNS THROUGH ME 

Inevitable it is, that the creek will reach the sea

The creek knows this, and so does the sea

So the trickling waters; sometimes an exuberant melody

Sometimes a violent thunder of pressing

Wraps her curiosity around roots of shore plants 

To see how long they will hold

And softens sharp stones with her willingness 

And wills the rain to fall more down

And surrenders to the sun, that might will her into rain 

And release her to the sea, 

Before she can soften all the sharp stones, 

Uproot all the mountain shrubs 

And feed small purple dragonflies - samples 

Of her industrious continuity... 

Death From Itself

Who am I to keep death from itself? 

Would I push a birthing infant back inside my womb? 

Stick a cork in it? 

Who am I to keep death from itself? 

A child, born of seed, seeks its own light

Knowing as a tree how to siphon water into its capsule

And break through the very soil, which held it to its growth

Who am I to keep death from itself? 

Where does the soil for birth begin?

If not from the ashes of what has come to an end?

Who am I to keep death from myself? 

Denying it, its simple goal, of life

Re: turn ing

Growing Confidence

 

After pushing around mounds of soil for growing things; raking out small and large pebbles; making some nice shapes and putting water places - I sat down and watched. 

Nothing happened. 

Realizing I watered prematurely - I enthusiastically went off to collect any kind of seeds to push in the ground. Collecting, for me, is instantly gratifying and easily accomplished. After all, collections can be found anywhere and made from anything (if you have an eye and ear for them).

So I brought back piles of "seeds" - and sat and watched. 

Still nothing happened. 

"Well I have these seeds, and I have this soil, nicely raked, and I've already watered," I thought out loud, "so why isn't anything growing?" 

Turns out I still hadn't planted the seeds I had been sitting on; holding in my hands, caressing in my pockets. 

It dawned on me, after sometime, that that was the issue - THE NOT PLANTING ISSUE. It seemed resolvable; but then there was the matter of what to plant first, and where, what time of day, what month, in what sequence, how many; should I buy a book, take a class? Hmm?

So many questions to keep me from planting the seeds I already had, in the ground I had already tilled. So I thought about it for a while...

Nothing happened. 

So I thought about it a while more... But of course, thinking only lends itself to more thinking...

Here's what I thought: 

What happens if I do plant the seeds, and they do actually grow? Won't I then have to tend them, and weed them, and water them more, and sing to them of growing? Will I have made myself more work? Will I have made myself more liable should something go awry?

OR will I have made myself a feast? 

A banquet of self-nurturing; Self-proclaiming; Self-Reaching?


 

To My Destiny I Bow

© akka b.

REPETITION. I remember the days when it was comfortable to repeat old patterns; those days are close still, so it's easy - easy to remember, but impossible to go back. Trying - yes. But all attempts are futile - in other words the cause for horrendous pain. Internal. But also, sometimes it comes out in a skin rash or a hurt ankle or a lost anklet or a broken shoe. Big fat sigh goes here.

The other amusing aspect of the attempt to repeat negative patterns; indulge old anger, feelings of threat, neglect, abuse, betrayal, fear and on and on... is that we usually want to blame someone or something. Well I do. And when I do, I receive the greatest therapy on earth, it's called, "RETURN TO SENDER." It pierces; like a fire-arrow straight into the solar plexus. What I attempt to resolve through an 'outside me' blame place, only ricochets back making me feel like I am dying a slow and painful death. Which in a way, I am.

There is something safe about living the way we always have. Crying the same tears, punching the same wall, blaming the same archetype. REPETITION. It's a trap and it no longer works in the context of what we have already done - (that doesn't work). It will only keep biting - and biting deeper each time - until surrender settles in.

SURRENDER always wins. Because everything we fight outside our Self is only a hologram of a pattern that exists because we have asked it to and we are accustomed to it. Therefore, the only real conquest is to dissolve the source of the hologram - the place where we project from; to bow down to the pain place within, and say, I give you up, I forgive you, I release you, I love you. 

I give you up, I forgive you, I release you, I love you. 

REPEATEDLY.

Clearing room for who we really are - sans smoke screens.

eye see

*

 beyond

what you said. and didn't say

why you loved. but couldn't lay

 eye see

 the dragon. you fight. over there

and the dragon. i fight. over here

eye see

why swords. might seem. useful

and shields. might seem. necessary

eye see

why you might like 

and i might like

hiding

in caves. with swords. and shields. and dragons

i see.

*

*

*

i wonder what the dragon sees?

Spirits ARE Talkin'

Click on pic to GROW

The quietness of sunlight pressing me down 

into the driveway where I lay,

Under the driveway tree

Hungry hawk sends echo across skyline 

A kind of wind comes... 

Like smoke signals 

Listening

Every piece of Earth is talking now

Retelling about The Way

There is no considerable danger in ending

And no considerable ending, and no considerable beginning 

As we've been told so many times before

There is also no hawk, and yet there is hawk

No skyline, yet there is skyline

No sunlight, but sunlight yes

No wind

Yes wind

Listening and no listening

There is also no driveway, and yet there is driveway

Where I am laying, but not laying

Pressed by sun

Wind

Turned into smoke

And driveway tree 

A storm coming

But no storm

No coming

No going

and also, and therefore

Quiet. 

Spirits are talkin'

Chunks are Falling

Click to see full pic

Chunks are falling off again

 And it doesn't feel sublime

Artistic maybe?

ok

Chunks are falling artfully again

WOW - amazing patterns!

 Kaleidoscope of patterns

Chunky

 Artful

 Patterns

  

Falling

  

I wonder who I AM under all of this?

and

How much longer please?

Capacity to Give - (a mother's day tribute)

Oceans slosh

Inside her cavern

Bump against her breast

Lumps of flesh round and soft inhabit her

Naturally she might feel inclined to do something with all this excess

She might want to grow something with it

Feed someone by it

Give it away more

The space in her body

Babies can be made

Loved. Protected. Blessed. 

but...

Making children, 
(a customary antidote for the giving urge), 

does not always quench the urge-to-give. 

She's left wondering, WHAT MORE can she do?  
To fill tremendous space.

What talent hides between lumps of flesh? 

What gifts drift in her sloshy cavern - echoing Universe deep within?

Who is she, if not mother?

a mother?

Who is she, if not wife? 

a mother still? 

Who is she, if not traditional in her use of capacities? 

...still, mother.   and

every ocean, every craggy ravine, every salted plain, every lush valley, every expanded sky, every fallen icicle, every hungry belly and every every every kind. every full. 

This she. This her. This we.  

poetry live

photo by Raksha Boiteau

poems

pronunciation

audience

 angels

 the people that came to sit

 thank you for coming to sit

 as i got naked 

 for NOT the first time 

 but for the first time

 and thank you for not clapping too hard when I was foolish 

 and thank you for not laughing too hard when I was sane

I wish someone would have warned me this would be
what I would be.

 doing.

 on.

 occasion.

yes and no

tactile exhilaration. 

it might be more fun to say yes 

if i didn't mind being smashed between tires and concrete

tired of doing the right thing

also getting off on it

gosh i'm dangerous

i'd like to see the contract i made when i signed up for this installment 

the outline of no's and if it ever stops

akka grow

ouch

what this is: is what i am

  I always draw my hearts uneven. To bother making things perfect is hardly my character, had it been, this blog would never have happened. Imperfections are everywhere in these pages; misspellings, bad drawings, strange photos, horrible grammar... it's okay. Every once in a while I go backwards and tidy up in smidgens, but for the most part it lays as it lies.

  Speaking of lying... do you ever feel like you are dying? When I started this blog one year ago today that's sort of how I felt, like I had been holding something in for far too long and the holdings had become sleepings. I felt bloated, lethargic and despondent; exactly the way one shouldn't feel all the time. To be fair it wasn't all the time, it was a lot of the time, but, it was enough of the time to taste this death - - - esoterically.

  

  Drunk Love Heart was not something I pulled from the sky this day in March when I decided to deliver my heart to the world. It was and is everything already part of me, my very fabric, lifetimes of longing, seeking, hurting, loving, giving, trusting, fearing, forgetting and understanding. Not sharing one's universe makes death grow. That's why this had to be. That said, when I began this thing I had absolutely no idea what a blog was or how one does a blog and most especially WHY one would want to do a blog. But I had heard enough people say, "you should do a blog" that I guess I just knew I had to "do a blog." (That - coupled with feelings of impending doom).

  What this is: toodles and doodles and scrawlings of one sweet me.

   a voice. a vision. 

  It's very raw, not design-y... I don't know how to use Photoshop and I certainly don't know anything about html's and secret codes and such, but I do know what touches me and also... I'm very good at hearing voices that, um, I probably shouldn't. 

  What this is: is what I am.

EVERY ONE OF YOU ~ I THANK ~~~~~ deeply. 

Your receptivity makes it worth the effort. 

And fills my heart with JOY!

But I tell ya what... I would do it anyway, even with no one watching.

Because of needing to live, as much as I need to let myself die.  

---esoterically.