4 days till I leave to go visit my parents! I can't believe it's come this fast.
I found out that it was a glitch on my tickets - apparently when you book greyhound tickets online in one month, the return ticket calendar thingy automatically jumps to the next month. *sigh* I'm supposed to call them tomorrow to see if they'll switch it for me, but if they don't I guess I'll just have to pay the fee for switching it. Hope it's not too much.
Still working on finding a wedding commissioner. There's one who was really nice on the phone who did a friend's wedding last year and I'd really like her, but she's not available on the saturday we were planning for. We might switch it to the sunday (she is available then - September 18th 2011). Got to talk to Jon about it a bit more tonight. Pretty sure we'll be switching though.
After that, the only other main details are catering and photography. Thought we had a photographer, but she's going to be at pole camp now since we had to change the day to the weekend. Jon has a friend who might be able to do it though.
Went to the hall yesterday and mapped it out so we can see what size tables we need and will fit so we can get a precise number on how many people we can invite. It's a pretty small reception building, so I hope it'll fit everyone we want. Still, I really don't want a big wedding, so maybe it's for the best that the reception hall isn't huge.
Anyway, I think that's all that's new. I got sick of posting fitness and goal stuff, if anyone is wondering why I stopped posting about that stuff. I was reading another blog by someone who was always ranting about how it's so hard and it's not working etc, and I decided that I didn't want my blog to be about that sort of thing. So it's not. Now it's going to be about things that interest me, a bit about pole, a bit about my adventures in nature. Random musings. That sort of thing.
Talk to you all soon!
~Heather
PS. Got tired of the dark and gloomy rain background. Thought something simple might be nicer. Hope you like it!
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Friday, May 27, 2011
Walk the Path
The labyrinth is a metaphor for life.
There are times when you know you're on the right path and going the right direction. And then there are times when you're not sure if you've accidentally stepped over the line and are now on the wrong path, maybe going the wrong direction - maybe out or in when you meant to go the opposite way.
Part of walking the labyrinth is trusting that you're on the right path, heading in the way you need to go. It's like a mind trick - the labyrinth confuses the mind, looking like a maze you can get lost in. Just like life. The trick to finding your way through is to realize and trust that there is only one way in and one way out. The mind can play tricks on you all it likes, but it can't change the nature of a labyrinth. There is only one path you can follow. And it's the one you are already on.
The other thing I like about a labyrinth is its center. You can never be lost when you find your center. Or when you're standing in one.
Almost-4-am brings out the most interesting thoughts about my life. I think I may stay up to watch the sun rise.
"There is only one true path. And if you do not know what is in your heart, then you have already lost it"
**bonus: how to draw your own labyrinth for finger-tracing meditation:
Sunday, May 15, 2011
for the trees
I've been struggling with what to do next in my life for the last 6 months, or more. And I think I just had a moment of clarity.
I've been waffling the last half a year. Struggling with the not knowing of what I need to do in my life next. I've finished learning from Wild Rose. And now here I am working in a nutrition store. Which is nice, but not quite why I wanted to learn this stuff. Honestly, not quite what I wanted to learn.
The question was really, where do I want to go in my life? What is my purpose? What do I need to contribute to this world? I thought I'd found it, thought I knew, way back when I first moved here. I'd found the stillness at my center and I knew where I needed to go with my life. First herbs, then horses. And some sort of vague notion about helping people connect with...hmm? not too clear on that.
Having finished wild rose, I had some decisions to make. Did I want to focus on getting married, starting a family? Did I want to jump right into finding horses? Did I want to instruct pole dance? Did I want to look into midwifery and doula-ing (a subject that has fascinated me lately)? So many options, and really, no true way to do all of them.
And in being in this city for almost 5 years now, I'd truly forgotten what made me come to calgary in the first place. There were a series of workshops I went to with my mom, and in the course of going through them with her, I found the small, still, silent place that is ME, when all else is said and done. The stillness there is where I find myself, my purpose, and the strength to follow it through fear and out the other side into doing what needs to be done. And in living here, away from the woods, away from the quiet places I love, I'd forgotten that place. I was trying to figure out what to plan for my future without ever consulting myself. No wonder I was struggling.
There came a moment in all my struggle where I just gave up. Struggling was useless and I wasn't going to do it. I'd just stay there in that miserable place until something told me it was time to move again. As soon as I did this, I got told to move (lol). And then I started remembering. And I've been slowly waking up this spring, as the wind blows winter's stagnation away.
So my moment came today, and it was sparked by the writings of a man who explained exactly what I know to be wrong with the world. People don't seem to care about nature. And the incomprehensible thing to me was why don't they? I was lucky growing up. I had an abundance of contact with wild places. My grandparents farm, the trails around the creek in Thunder Bay, and then the land and trees where we lived on Vancouver Island. I found nature there so easily. I really had no idea what it was like to live apart from the land. And now that I've been doing it for 5 years, I realize how easy it is to disconnect from that part of yourself. It's uncomfortable to try to connect to the land when the land is uncomfortable - restricted by concrete and pollution and the busy back and forth of city life. There's no time for the stillness in my core, and I bet that if i hadn't grown up in the woods in BC I wouldn't even notice.
So here's my moment. People don't care because they are tourists in nature. They don't know it, and so it doesn't matter what state it's in. Or what state we're in, because really, we're also tourists in our own bodies too. My purpose is to teach people to reconnect. To know nature, and through the stillness there, to find themselves. I can remember being in that workshop with my mom, and standing at the top rung, trying to find the ability in myself to take that final step onto the platform. And I found I couldn't do it for myself. The thing that got me up that step was this:
"for the trees"
I had no way to define that then. No way to really take it out into the world and use it. Not then. But now, knowing what I know about the disconnect of living without an easy way to get to a green space, maybe I do. Because I need to wake up, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
I've been waffling the last half a year. Struggling with the not knowing of what I need to do in my life next. I've finished learning from Wild Rose. And now here I am working in a nutrition store. Which is nice, but not quite why I wanted to learn this stuff. Honestly, not quite what I wanted to learn.
The question was really, where do I want to go in my life? What is my purpose? What do I need to contribute to this world? I thought I'd found it, thought I knew, way back when I first moved here. I'd found the stillness at my center and I knew where I needed to go with my life. First herbs, then horses. And some sort of vague notion about helping people connect with...hmm? not too clear on that.
Having finished wild rose, I had some decisions to make. Did I want to focus on getting married, starting a family? Did I want to jump right into finding horses? Did I want to instruct pole dance? Did I want to look into midwifery and doula-ing (a subject that has fascinated me lately)? So many options, and really, no true way to do all of them.
And in being in this city for almost 5 years now, I'd truly forgotten what made me come to calgary in the first place. There were a series of workshops I went to with my mom, and in the course of going through them with her, I found the small, still, silent place that is ME, when all else is said and done. The stillness there is where I find myself, my purpose, and the strength to follow it through fear and out the other side into doing what needs to be done. And in living here, away from the woods, away from the quiet places I love, I'd forgotten that place. I was trying to figure out what to plan for my future without ever consulting myself. No wonder I was struggling.
There came a moment in all my struggle where I just gave up. Struggling was useless and I wasn't going to do it. I'd just stay there in that miserable place until something told me it was time to move again. As soon as I did this, I got told to move (lol). And then I started remembering. And I've been slowly waking up this spring, as the wind blows winter's stagnation away.
So my moment came today, and it was sparked by the writings of a man who explained exactly what I know to be wrong with the world. People don't seem to care about nature. And the incomprehensible thing to me was why don't they? I was lucky growing up. I had an abundance of contact with wild places. My grandparents farm, the trails around the creek in Thunder Bay, and then the land and trees where we lived on Vancouver Island. I found nature there so easily. I really had no idea what it was like to live apart from the land. And now that I've been doing it for 5 years, I realize how easy it is to disconnect from that part of yourself. It's uncomfortable to try to connect to the land when the land is uncomfortable - restricted by concrete and pollution and the busy back and forth of city life. There's no time for the stillness in my core, and I bet that if i hadn't grown up in the woods in BC I wouldn't even notice.
So here's my moment. People don't care because they are tourists in nature. They don't know it, and so it doesn't matter what state it's in. Or what state we're in, because really, we're also tourists in our own bodies too. My purpose is to teach people to reconnect. To know nature, and through the stillness there, to find themselves. I can remember being in that workshop with my mom, and standing at the top rung, trying to find the ability in myself to take that final step onto the platform. And I found I couldn't do it for myself. The thing that got me up that step was this:
"for the trees"
I had no way to define that then. No way to really take it out into the world and use it. Not then. But now, knowing what I know about the disconnect of living without an easy way to get to a green space, maybe I do. Because I need to wake up, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
And the wind goes on
I wanted to transcribe this. I felt it last week, but the wind blows equally strong today and I have a sense that now is the time to prepare.
Something indefinable blows across my skin with the wind tonight. Something electric, perhaps carried in the humidity of the coming rain, perhaps carried in the sense of rising spring. Either way, the power of it rises and sings in my blood, awakening my passion, pulling at my sense of nature's wild desire until I want to erupt into an inferno of dance to this wilding call.
And I realize that no matter how humans try to beat it back, pave over it, or build shelter for themselves from it, we can never control it.
There may come a day when there are no trees left in the cities, but the weather will always be Wild.
And no matter how I may try to stuff myself into a city skin, my wild self will scent this in the air and break free from restraint, fully alive and powerful once more.
I will never belong here.
I need OUT of this city.
Something indefinable blows across my skin with the wind tonight. Something electric, perhaps carried in the humidity of the coming rain, perhaps carried in the sense of rising spring. Either way, the power of it rises and sings in my blood, awakening my passion, pulling at my sense of nature's wild desire until I want to erupt into an inferno of dance to this wilding call.
And I realize that no matter how humans try to beat it back, pave over it, or build shelter for themselves from it, we can never control it.
There may come a day when there are no trees left in the cities, but the weather will always be Wild.
And no matter how I may try to stuff myself into a city skin, my wild self will scent this in the air and break free from restraint, fully alive and powerful once more.
I will never belong here.
I need OUT of this city.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Pole Pictures
So I've been meaning to post this for a while. I did a pole photo shoot back in march with one of my instructors who does photography as a hobby. And it was an awesome experience. Some of the pictures didn't turn out quite like I wanted them to (I had a pic with black knee socks, and we had a black background so...), but it's good to have a reference for what to work on. And I was quite happy with some of them. So, here they are. My pole photos! (click on any photo to enlarge it)
I was proudest of this one - it took me a while to get the move, and it was hard to hold. I had some awesome bruises from it too :P It's called a scorpio
and this is a variation called flatline scorpio. I actually got this one first.
This is called a jasmine. One of my newer tricks. I like it - mostly because it doesn't leave bruises, lol.
I like this one because I'm smiling - it reminds me of how happy dancing makes me.
cross knee release. When I learned this one, it reminded me of hanging from the monkey bars by my knees.
This is another one that took a while to learn. I had injured my wrist right after I got it and my bottom hand kept slipping.
The first thing you learn to do once you've got the upside down part is to let go
My headstand thingy. Saw it on youtube and enlisted my yoga-pole dance friend to teach me how to do a headstand so we could put it in our routine for a performance we did. I knew it looked pretty when I learned it, but I'm pleasantly surprised by how much I like this picture.
Last but not least, this is a spin called the reverse grab - it's one of my favourites. I've seen people who are unimpressed by inverting be impressed by this spin. It just looks cool when someone does it.
Also, I want to say thankyou to Monika of Deviant Optiks Photography for taking some awesome photos. For more of her work, visit her on facebook. She's got a pole album, but she mostly does metal bands.
I was proudest of this one - it took me a while to get the move, and it was hard to hold. I had some awesome bruises from it too :P It's called a scorpio
and this is a variation called flatline scorpio. I actually got this one first.
This is called a jasmine. One of my newer tricks. I like it - mostly because it doesn't leave bruises, lol.
I like this one because I'm smiling - it reminds me of how happy dancing makes me.
cross knee release. When I learned this one, it reminded me of hanging from the monkey bars by my knees.
This is another one that took a while to learn. I had injured my wrist right after I got it and my bottom hand kept slipping.
The first thing you learn to do once you've got the upside down part is to let go
My headstand thingy. Saw it on youtube and enlisted my yoga-pole dance friend to teach me how to do a headstand so we could put it in our routine for a performance we did. I knew it looked pretty when I learned it, but I'm pleasantly surprised by how much I like this picture.
Last but not least, this is a spin called the reverse grab - it's one of my favourites. I've seen people who are unimpressed by inverting be impressed by this spin. It just looks cool when someone does it.
Also, I want to say thankyou to Monika of Deviant Optiks Photography for taking some awesome photos. For more of her work, visit her on facebook. She's got a pole album, but she mostly does metal bands.
It Can't Be Taught?
I just got back from the most awesome pole jam ever. It was student showcase night at my studio, and we had a great time.
Did I perform? Yes I did. Only I was a little disappointed in myself - I WAS going to do this great, meaningful dance to a song that I've really been feeling for the last month and a bit. But I didn't. Of course, I have an excuse. I had to work on finishing my thesis for school and couldn't find the time to work on it, and even though I had the choreography half done I wouldn't have been able to practice and polish it enough to perform.
That's my excuse. And it's a load of crap. Sure, I had to get my thesis done. Sure I was trying to find a new job, and my muscles were a little sore from class. I was feeling stuck in my poling, actually feeling like I was getting worse (I usually feel like this right before I start to improve - I think it's been called the plateau). But none of these are real reason I didn't finish it.
I didn't make time to finish my routine because I was scared. Scared to allow myself to really feel into my dancing - scared to share that much of myself and my emotions with an audience. I feel like if I really did that, I'd never be able to put it all back, lock away all that emotion again. But I yearn to be able to let it out. And when I do, I've been told to stop being so sensitive, or that I need to be more rational about it. Why does emotion have to be locked into 'rational' for people to deal with it? Why does it have to be dealt with at all? Can't it just be?
In truth, I think I yearn to meet myself in the dance. I've had a glimpse of her, here and there, this inner being of emotion and yearning and fire. Standing on the last rung on a tall tree stump, searching for the strength to step up with nothing to hold on to if I overbalance. Leaning out from a cliff, wind in my face, trusting to a rope and harness, and the person behind me to not let me plunge over the edge. Standing on the deck of a windy boat, feeling the earth beneath the waves, the silent strength beneath movement that echoes what is at the core of who I am.
This is what the dance is supposed to let you see. And one of my instructors said tonight that it can't be taught.
I both agree and disagree. No, it can't really be taught, because you can't teach someone to feel. And you can't teach someone how to take that emotion and translate it into movement. But then, I think most people already know how.
The part where teaching comes in is how to make it a practice. How to take the time to really be in your body, with yourself and your emotion, and just let it be. Where do you start? I really want to figure out a way that this can be taught, if only so I can teach it to myself. Because I want to dance like that - and I know I can. I just have to stretch a little. I just have to decide that I deserve to take the time for myself to practice that stretching.
Did I perform? Yes I did. Only I was a little disappointed in myself - I WAS going to do this great, meaningful dance to a song that I've really been feeling for the last month and a bit. But I didn't. Of course, I have an excuse. I had to work on finishing my thesis for school and couldn't find the time to work on it, and even though I had the choreography half done I wouldn't have been able to practice and polish it enough to perform.
That's my excuse. And it's a load of crap. Sure, I had to get my thesis done. Sure I was trying to find a new job, and my muscles were a little sore from class. I was feeling stuck in my poling, actually feeling like I was getting worse (I usually feel like this right before I start to improve - I think it's been called the plateau). But none of these are real reason I didn't finish it.
I didn't make time to finish my routine because I was scared. Scared to allow myself to really feel into my dancing - scared to share that much of myself and my emotions with an audience. I feel like if I really did that, I'd never be able to put it all back, lock away all that emotion again. But I yearn to be able to let it out. And when I do, I've been told to stop being so sensitive, or that I need to be more rational about it. Why does emotion have to be locked into 'rational' for people to deal with it? Why does it have to be dealt with at all? Can't it just be?
In truth, I think I yearn to meet myself in the dance. I've had a glimpse of her, here and there, this inner being of emotion and yearning and fire. Standing on the last rung on a tall tree stump, searching for the strength to step up with nothing to hold on to if I overbalance. Leaning out from a cliff, wind in my face, trusting to a rope and harness, and the person behind me to not let me plunge over the edge. Standing on the deck of a windy boat, feeling the earth beneath the waves, the silent strength beneath movement that echoes what is at the core of who I am.
This is what the dance is supposed to let you see. And one of my instructors said tonight that it can't be taught.
I both agree and disagree. No, it can't really be taught, because you can't teach someone to feel. And you can't teach someone how to take that emotion and translate it into movement. But then, I think most people already know how.
The part where teaching comes in is how to make it a practice. How to take the time to really be in your body, with yourself and your emotion, and just let it be. Where do you start? I really want to figure out a way that this can be taught, if only so I can teach it to myself. Because I want to dance like that - and I know I can. I just have to stretch a little. I just have to decide that I deserve to take the time for myself to practice that stretching.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Hiraeth
The Yearning....
"I know I have heard elusive inaudible music singing forth from land that is wild but nevertheless deeply known by humanity" (Patricia Monaghan, The Red-Haired Girl from the Bog)
I have heard this. The fleeting melody of the deep wild mountain, the quiet joy of singing the land awake, and the wilding call of the greening woodlands.
And I have felt the land I knew welcome me home.
I miss it. I miss being able to hear the music.
In Truth,
Adara
"I know I have heard elusive inaudible music singing forth from land that is wild but nevertheless deeply known by humanity" (Patricia Monaghan, The Red-Haired Girl from the Bog)
I have heard this. The fleeting melody of the deep wild mountain, the quiet joy of singing the land awake, and the wilding call of the greening woodlands.
And I have felt the land I knew welcome me home.
I miss it. I miss being able to hear the music.
In Truth,
Adara
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