If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out

Song Rec: "If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out"

Artist: Cat Stevens

Album: Footsteps in the Dark: Greatest Hits, Vol.2

I'm learning so much right now I feel a like I've just gotten off a roller coaster, whoaaaaa

but from the most bizarre mediums.

No class, no book, no poem, no teacher

I'm learning by ADMIRING. By attraction to...

Voices:

breathy Cat Power

harsh Beyonce

cosmically feminine Sheila Chandra

Styles:

a flourescent statement of lipstick

a frayed tribal feathered getup

People:

the way my friend tips her head back and laughs.

When I admire something I take note, put a yellow sticky on it that says "there is something here."

I think we admire something when it's us-- what is inside is magnetized to what is outside. I just saw a dance performance where one piece started with one dancer alone on stage, staring at the audience. I loved how aliveness and power radiated like heat from the dancer to me in my seat. Part of me wanted to run down onto the stage, (gently) knock her into the wings and replace her! The intensity she was oozing- I feel it too- I wanted to stare at the audience, my eyes glowing like a demon or X-man.

When you admire something or someone, it is because you're working your way back to it. But, of course, the mind can get in the way:

Mind: "YOU, my dear, are NOTHING like Beyonce."

Molly: "Says who?"

Yes, my mind doesn't always agree with what I sense, smell, hear as a whisper about myself; with what is weakly banging its fists on the inside of my belly and yelling to get out. I might not look anything like Beyonce, but I feel an inner Beyonce! The way her voice is beautiful but also slightly threatening...her new video "Girls Run the World"....both remind me of something, somewhere in me.

And to not follow these impulses is actually scarier than the seemingly terrifying process that is becoming who we really are. I just spoke with a friend about this- how to block life actually hurts more than the ups and downs of living it. Still meditating on that one.

I find this is often the frustration people bring to their yoga mat- they sense one thing about who they are, but nothing in our society encourages believing or listening to things that cannot be proven, held, or measured. Yet the pain of being in an identity that 'doesn't quite cover it' is intense. I can relate. For a while I really donned the identity of "slyph"- fantastical willowy being in white who wafts from here to there. Well, that doesn't quite cover me.

So, right now I'm working on allowing myself to ADMIRE. I'm realizing that my ego doesn't need to be so defensive when I see something I am attracted to- I already HAVE it. And besides, being able to admire, to be attracted- is being able to be a student, is being able to evolve. What do you admire?

Rumi says: “Why do you stay in prison, when the door is so wide open?"

The door to being exactly who you sense you are is totally, completely open.

Can you walk through?