Shamsi

Don’t know what today is?  It’s just Tuesday.  It also happens to be my Mother’s birthday (and the birthday of more than several friends) and yesterday was my paternal Grandmother’s 101st birthday <–her trick has been not living on this plane of reality for the last 40 years or so.  I believe she just crosses back and forth through the door and is really just ‘hanging out’ on this side.

So, for me, this is a big day.  No, it’s not my birthday, but I feel there are so many people in my life whose birthdays’ make them Pisces that I would likely not be the person I am today without any or even all of them.

To mark this auspicious time, for the next two days (March 9^th and March 10^th until 9PM CST) I will give one question readings via email, for free.

What is a ‘reading’ you ask?  A reading is a space in which the reader (me in this case) is allowed access to the questioner’s current state of being, their guides and guardians.  During that time, if there is a specific question, answers are given regarding the question.  Or, if one simply wishes to have a bit of clarification about their current situation, they might ask, “What do I need to know most at this time?”

That is it, my gift to the world at large.  One question per person emailed to shamsi@shamsidances.com.  If you should have any questions regarding this service, the process, etc, please feel free to post here or send an email.  Please allow up to 24 hours to receive your reading.

In Service~

♥~Shamsi

Zulu… always runs late, always runs slow

hey, we saw the first three floats

let’s go.

A group of revelers like flotsam in the Mardi Gras currents,

Flowing, ebbing, eddying around the Quarter.

The Pod strikes a vigorous pace, weaving and careening

No plans, random rumors… cannons…the Pirates are standing off with the Fundies

Head to the Square.

The Pod follows…

Death and the Tooth Faery are on a mission

The Tooth Faery needs wings and Death requires a parasol.

Turning the corner… every corner?  There’s the St. Ann’s parade

Again.

Our sidewalk, our steps…

“Have you ever been here?”

“No.”

“Then you don’t get to stand in this doorway.”

“Hey? Where do we put the quarter if we want some music?”

*Our* drummer kicks the beat

No Pod dances like our Pod.

Wanderers accosted with rhythm, forced to dance before continuing on

Their pods have left them

Dancing in their wake

The rhythm plays on….

Intermingling with the pedestrian crowd

One-Eyed Jacks in our path

“I want to see what else is going on.”

The Pod thins… meandering forth

Stopping at random corners

music filters from…..

the song ends, the Pod travels.

Walking past the fundamentalists, hate-filled voices blaring through megaphones

Ululations rise

Death and the Tooth Faery combat the hate.

Random balconies, because someone had to pee

In unknown peoples’ houses, following upstairs

Children are on top of the world

Casting beads from a balcony they may never see again

Bathroom break is over

Head to the River… wait? Didn’t we do that already?

No, we were distracted.

The Tooth Faery aids the bunny

Finding the perfect stone

Casting them to the River.

The sky darkens

Cold sets in

One more drink…

Before we walk home.

Last night I lay on the edge of sleep after 6+ hours of travel.

I had traveled to Seattle, WA over the weekend to teach Dancemeditation and had a wonderfully luscious experience.  My body was wide open.

Four hours from Seattle, WA to Houston, TX on a full flight, I sat wedged between two large men, completely unable to move my arms .  I felt my body shrinking even as I focused on my breathing, inhaling from my stomach until my ribcage fully expanded.  I was trying to expand from the inside out so as not to feel claustrophobic.  A compressed feeling from not being able to move my arms magnified throughout the 4 hour flight and seemed to crush me into my seat.

Later on the 45 minute flight from Houston to New Orleans I had all the room in the world.  Sounds about right.

On the verge of sleep my body recalled the sense of compression and from somewhere far away my subconscious recreated the physical sensation.  I sensed my body contracting and pulling in on itself.  Abruptly my extremities jerked tensely in response to the contraction, finally opening and allowing my body to relax again.  Over and over, my body processed the effects of the traveling day, contracting and spazaming until at last I was able to fall asleep completely.

I am grateful my body knows how to deal with these stresses even when I do not!

OPEN - The Olympic Mountain Range from Seattle pier early morning

Unlocked, unbroken, revealed

How many times have I stepped through

Countless

Danced across the threshold

Breathed the laughter in

Giggles trapped between the depths

Giving in to giddy anticipation

No doors, no longer

One of the most fearless women with whom I’ve ever had the pleasure of crossing paths,Jamie Ridler each week asks us seemingly simple questions with deep, impacting ramifications.

This week Jamie asks, ”How do you wish to shine?”

Simple.

I wish to shine fully the light I was intended to unleash upon this Earth.  No big.   Yeah right

• I leave behind 7 years of studio-ownership
• I leave behind being (feeling) responsible for dozens of people, dancers, musicians.
• I leave behind old, tired, washed up concepts of myself and my place in the world.

As Marianne Williamson so astutely said

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Thank you to Christina Christ for introducing me to Marianne’s work and this quote.

I am officially ready to shine.  Thankyouverymuch

Shamsi, the *Shiny* beyond measure

Shamsi "Com'mon" at Festival Internationale 2003

I have been in and out of the Wishcasting for the last couple of months.  It was not intentional… things just happen.  Today Jamie’s prompt (deceptively simple as ever) is “What is your winter wish?”

I read the prompt, an odd thing occurred.  I decided I wanted to participate.  I opened a new post and typed the header.  Then I sat, looked at the prompt and went off to do other work.  My world (almost imperceptibly) began to shift.  A creeping awareness overtook my body.  There was no great ‘Aha! That’s it!’  just a gentle knowing.  A peaceful contemplation that began with a tingling in my head, which then spread to my spine and across my lower back, finally settling in my legs and arms; sensory knowing.

I kept coming back to the prompt.  Each time I re-read “What is your winter wish?” I received images, feelings, emotions… no words.  This odd thing of which I speak… it is not nameable… it is not foreign… it is though, a space, a place I find myself maybe once or twice a year, if I am fortunate.

I find myself open.  The feeling inside me is ‘OPEN’, ‘VAST’, empty like a large white hilly field covered with snow before the geese find it.  Pristine.  I’m not sure why, but words have failed me of late.  I cannot grasp a word, just the feeling of it.  I cannot speak, but instead mime and give descriptions of what I would like the words to be.   I know these things all sound disjointed, and even unrelated, but they are not.

When I reach inside myself and feel around for the light switch, I realize it is already on, but there is so much to see, feel, experience, I need a spot light to shine deep into the corners and crevices.

My winter wish… is simply to be in this oddly warm, ever unfolding state of the vast, open, expanses of my interior.  I wish to experience each little thing that comes up, like a gardener or a zoo keeper tending each flower or bird that resides within their care.  I wish to witness all that is within me, all that I feel within me.  I resist the urge to ‘dump’ all of this out for examination and judgement of each piece.  Instead, I witness and in the dreamy way our bodies perceive, I give myself over to life. 

Sunshine Sneaux December 08

I could not find the "Mother Earth Father Sky" picture I keep filed away in my head... but this one says much

Jamie… the wise and wonderful (assuming of course we are in OZ… we are in OZ? Aren’t we asks us today – “What do you wish to embrace?”

Which is really funny, because on waking this morning I had a very vivid dream that I opened her website this morning (I even saw an inset picture of her flying across the landscape) and the wishcasting prompt was “ANYTHING GOES – Wish for Anything!”

LOL – so, today, I open the page and though I did fully expect my dream to materialize as I saw it… it was not far off.  “What do you wish to embrace?”  And so today, I wish for everything, I wish to Embrace the World – and buy it a coke… if I didn’t think cokes would be bad for everyone.  But I digress.

Last night I watched Frontline - it was the story of Neda, the Persian girl killed in Tehran while walking back to her car during the election protests this past June.  I had not intended to watch it, I was very disturbed and upset while watching it, yet I watched.  And I prayed.  I did not pray for peace, I simply prayed for everyone in the whole world to come to a place of understanding that we could live and let live.  I don’t think it’s impossible – I can’t believe it’s impossible – on this count, I fully embrace HOPE that we as a race of humans, of two-legged, can learn to understand that we are all ONE.

And so today, I embrace EVERYTHING – because I know it is possible.  Because I know the human spirit is infinite and we are so much larger than our everyday problems, fears, ambitions and desires… we have the capability to embrace Everything within our beings, and that includes each other.

Aho.

Okay, so, today I am bailing on AEDM!  So there, nahhhh.

Yesterday I had a beautiful “SocialCOREUption” class.  The class was great, and Gwenda came in full of stories about her recent trip to Peru… amazing.  We could have spent the whole class just listening to her stories.  I’ve recently been under the spell of fluid-core-movement practice, born of my Dancemeditation(TM) Skyping sessions with Kate.  I’m just loving this practice, I’ll blog more on it later, but for me, this is about as creative as one can be with core fitness   I’m sure there are loads of other programs doing the same, but since I am currently a creature of an experiential nature, I will go with what I do.

When I got home I cooked up some mean tacos (after watching a bit of Bill Cosby’s reception of the Mark Twain awards show).  My only shortcoming was that I did not realize we were very nearly out of tortillas and so instead I personally had a taco salad on a base of tortilla chips! HA!  Take that!  I felt like a kid doing something totally bad… and that made supper fun

Anyway – today I am wrapping things up because tomorrow I leave for Los Angel-es – so very excited.  Birkan Tore is holding one of his first ever “OM” Oracle Messenger classes this weekend and I felt a strong desire to be there.  I think primarily the desire to be there came from a longing to physically meet of a group of people I consider one of my Soul Families.  They are all truly amazing humans (Angels in human form for certain) and I would love to see their faces in person.  So, a class – the information from which should be outstanding to say the least – is a bonus as far as I am concerned.  This is Birkan’s first trip to the states (he lives in Amsterdam) and I didn’t feel I could pass up the opportunity.

SO!  Tomorrow after work, I leave immediately for the airport and I am trying to: finish up all desk-job projects, wrap up things that must be done for the studio before I leave and think of all that I must pack for my 2day-2night whirlwind trip to L.A.  Fortunately I washed all my clothes last night.  Too funny.  I’m a nut, but there it is.

I imagine myself on the airplane with my art supplies and my iPod loaded up with books on tape and music galore.   I of course will have my camera (it’s on my check list) so I have no doubt I will find some crumb of time available for ‘art’.

So there it is, nah :p bailing on AEDM today so that I can prepare for my adventure!

____________________________________________________

DAY 5 – DO-OVER!

Wow, so totally nix that last bit… well, not totally, but the bit about me bailing today.  Who knew that such focus could allow for the most precious 15 minutes of creativity?

I just went out to run my “lunch errands” and did them with such apparent efficiency that I had time left over to stop at one of my favorite Salad and Sandwich shops (Counter Culture – it’s really a yogurt shop in disguise of an S&S shop) and pick up a salad.  I dragged my sketch book and pencils in figuring I might have a few minutes while I waited.  Lo and behold there were approximately 5 minutes!  So, I began doodling around this ‘Stamp’ I’d made of the outside of my hand the other night.  I had it my head to do little pictures like when we were kids and made the little foot out of the side of our curled pinkie finger and then toes added on with a little finger print.  Well, I didn’t have an ink pad (but now see I must get one) so I just colored with a marker on the side of my hand… my Sig-O thought I was mad.  I only got one really good stamp out of it and then another much more faded one.  Anyway, I left it.  I didn’t know entirely what to do afterwards.  I kept seeing this image of turning it into a rooster, but never did.

So, sitting at the table with my 5 minutes, I began doodling around the stamp.  That was kind of entertaining, but then all of these fragments of phrases kept floating in my head and the only way to get them to go away typically is to write them down or sing them.

as a total aside here and to explain the words on the picture – I’ve often felt like the butterfly from The Last Unicorn. 

That was an entertaining bit of ‘just getting it out.’  When I walked out and got into my truck I noticed a bit of yellow flowers on the side of the building along the property line next to an empty lot.  I almost didn’t, but then I thought that I just wanted to chronicle the appearance of this bit of beauty in the middle of town.  So I hopped out and took a few shots.

Who knew?

Lafitte State Park, Louisiana

I’ve been out of the loop for a few weeks, attempting to be IN my job, rather than simply at it.  But today has been quiet on all fronts and in reading Jamie’s prompt today I realized there are many things I wish to experience right now.  And I would like to wish for the underlying theme of all of those wishes, which is ‘Contentment.’

I’ve been really thinking lately not only about the world I wish to create, but just as importantly, the world I have created; even if I have not been vocal about this to anyone but The Man (Shelly).  The world I wish to create involves my mind being at peace while still allowing for the wild rides I occasionally take and the beautiful influx of people into my life.  My world should still encompass learning and teaching and loving and laughing, but not at the expense of my sanity.

I wish to understand fully my motivations so as to allow the appropriate people, help and guidance into my world.  I want my cake and to eat it too … without the bitterness of complications as a result of creating things out of the wont of my Ego, that are not for my highest or best good.

I wish for the contentment of my heart’s desires being perfectly in alignment with my Divine Purpose.

Today there was no ink or pencil put to paper, but lots of mental processes about the Dancemeditation class I taught this evening.  The practices were simple tonight… stretching and breathing, following the breath in our own movements and then the spinal winding and unwinding followed by free movement.  The space was nice, even if not everyone there was completely into it.

Later when I arrived home it was to S. full-on in guitar-mode in the studio.  After inquiring and finding that spaghetti was not a first choice I ended up working with some thin-cut pork-chops I’d purchased yesterday.

I’ve no photographs of this although there should have been.  I was happy with the breading of chops, they came out looking quite nice.  And as a garnish and to add a little flavor I cut up a couple of gala apples and placed them around the chops.  With those in the oven I sliced up a tomato, some Romain lettuce and an avocado.

Ta-da!  South of I-10 Girlie-queue with the creative supper on the quick.  I never realized until I was an adult with a job and a Sig-o that my step-mother had given me these great ‘quick-meal’ skills… fortunately I’ve gone one step further and my meals aren’t as greasy or calorie filled and contain fresh vegetables.  You won’t find me knocking what she did ever though, with 6 people to feed after a 12 hour nurse’s shift on not a whole lot of money.