Friday, November 28th - National Day of Listening

This is fabulous... I'm looking forward to participating.

StoryCorps is declaring November 28, 2008 the first annual National Day of Listening.

This holiday season, ask the people around you about their lives — it could be your grandmother, a teacher, or someone from the neighborhood. By listening to their stories, you will be telling them that they matter and they won’t ever be forgotten. It may be the most meaningful time you spend this year.

StoryCorps is asking the whole country to set aside one hour on Friday, November 28th, to record a conversation with a friend or loved one, and I wanted to encourage you to participate. You can read more at http://www.nationaldayoflistening.org

Everyone has a story by Zac Wong

Voice Dialoguing and A Personal Story

Journaling yesterday morning, I found myself wondering about how I operate:
Who is it that has all the control? Who is the dominant decision maker?
I decided to explore this inquiry through Voice Dialoguing.

If you’re not familiar with Voice Dialogue, Brandy George explains it here:

Voice Dialogue work allows us to transform the unconscious struggle of opposites that we carry within us into a conscious acceptance of all of our humanness. It makes it possible for us to disengage from old, automatic, reactive patterns and become more fully alive in the present.

Voice dialogue work is based on the theory of the personality as a multiplicity of selves. These selves, which are also called “voices,” “sub-personalities,” “parts,” and “energies” or “energy patterns,” are real live autonomous “people” in their own right. They have their own feelings, desires, memories, opinions, worldviews – they not merely concepts and this is not therapeutic role playing.

Drs. Hal and Sidra Stone, creators of the voice dialogue process, describe an “inner family” of selves that evolves in each person. These selves are family members, friends, teachers, or anyone who has any kind of influence over us. They may also develop as the polar opposite of the models we have had in our lives.

"Learning about this inner family is a very important part of personal growth and absolutely necessary for the understanding of our relationships since the members of this inner family, or “selves,” as we like to call them, are often in control of our behavior. If we do not understand the pressures they exert, then we are really not in charge of our lives." ~ Hal and Sidra Stone

In my process, I engaged with 'the dominant decision maker', Pure Curiosity, and Seeking Harmony and Understanding (the three voices that showed up). It's a personal sharing, but I find the process fascinating and the learning extremely helpful so if you're curious to peer into my psyche, have a peek!!

Forever Emerging: A Dreamstory

A dreamstory, poetry of visions, moving through on a crisp morning at the Art of Hosting on Whidbey Island.

Trees droop on a heavy wet morning.
The fog offering a lightness to the sky, an air of awakening becoming evident in the crisp light softened by the mist.

A woman sits at the base of a tall pine. Her spine sculpted by its embracing form, heart blending, space sharing, love unending. They breathe together. Giving freely, opening widely, surrendering effortlessly.

There’s a spirit circling the edges… a shimmer in the light? a falling drop catching a reflection? a bird whispering through? What is that effervescent heart skip that tickles her awareness and peeks her curiosity? Her mind pokes forward, leaning in, wanting to engage, feeling pulled to follow. And yet… at her back she feels the tree’s shape-shifting. A giant oak with ominous limbs looming down to embrace her. Her spirit picking up. Her own tree form emerging. A sacred union of goldenous love echoing the heart of all that is. The roots of the oak are growing beneath her. Fat, full, forever reaching. She (as we) is solid and grounded.

she as we is solid and grounded. there is no separation. there is complete illumination. it is.

Forever Emerging. A heart pulse. a tear. long grains of moss growing. a teacher, a warrior, a shaman, so dear. Forever Emerging.

Time passes and she wakes from a dream of tomorrow, feeling cuddled in today, wondering when next week will next court her fire. The bends and wraps of time have been intensifying her dance. Space and shape have taken on all new meanings for her since this great convening. She’s discovering what it means to live as a shapeshifter. She’s discovering what it feels like to adorn this cloak of being becoming, always here, never exactly clear where the next moment’s relations will invite her soul to travel.

Like the xylem of the tree, drawing water and nourishment from the ground, traveling the journey to the tip, a fluid channel… a constant source… she too is finding this place of calm knowing at her center. And she marvels at the steadiness around which the chaos and order emerge, takes shape. A teacher, a guide, a student, a child, an elder, a foe, a mirror, a cloak, an angel, a fox, an eagle, a lizard. How to host these many entities circling the core of her relations, igniting the core of her expression, and loving the soul of existence which cradles her in being. She walks steadily this path of love. A fire enraptured as her heart, lit upon her hearth as the embrace and companionship of dear friends, heart play mates, circle in all forms, inviting her into this new journey. Forever Emerging.

Tree photo by Andy Burrows
Video and story of the ritual art