Hidden In Plain Sight

How many years of beauty do I have left? 
she asks me. 
How many more do you want?
Here. Here is 34. Here is 50.

When you are 80 years old
and your beauty rises in ways
your cells cannot even imagine now
and your wild bones grow luminous and
ripe, having carried the weight
of a passionate life.

When your hair is aflame
with winter
and you have decades of
learning and leaving and loving
sewn into
the corners of your eyes
and your children come home
to find their own history
in your face.

When you know what it feels like to fail
ferociously
and have gained the
capacity
to rise and rise and rise again.

When you can make your tea
on a quiet and ridiculously lonely afternoon
and still have a song in your heart
Queen owl wings beating
beneath the cotton of your sweater.

Because your beauty began there
beneath the sweater and the skin,
remember?

This is when I will take you
into my arms and coo
YOU BRAVE AND GLORIOUS THING
you’ve come so far.

I see you.
Your beauty is breathtaking.

Poem by Jeannette Encinias

I’m being serenaded ?

Wish it had occurred to me to record his singing. If you’ve never heard a Magpie sing, your life simply isn’t complete.

little fellow working diligently. The picture doesn’t do it justice. The way the morning light hits and sends beautiful prisms of rainbow is magic. And I can’t help but wonder…

do spiders know the intricate beauty of their web? Or do they simply have faith that each part they create is working towards something greater, and that what they build will be enough?

When I first began suspension, I had envisioned that it would simply be like floor work but suspended… like a pretty marionette doll. I was in for a shock. It hurts, it’s uncomfortable and it’s damn hard work. What? What the? She must just be saying that because she’s unfit and out of shape.

Yeah… I thought that too.

Funny thing is, as I get fitter and in better shape… and more experienced as a bunny… the greater the appreciation I gain for what we do. It requires a lot of core strength to maintain strenuous positions during transitions. It requires knowledge to know what is good discomfort and what is bad discomfort. It requires a lot of mental strength in moments of uncertainty or worry. It requires trust, communication, self-awareness, honesty and humility. In other words, it requires education and training, on your own time, outside of sessions.

I jumped into rope with such naivety, even though I did it slowly and with experienced guidance. I had a belief that it would be easy. I had a belief that discomfort was a choice and simply depended on the style. I misunderstood what the relationship was. I have had to learn to simply accept that I will hurt for my Rigger to be able to perform his art. I have had to learn patience while he does what he does. I have had to learn how to explain the many different ways in which discomfort can present. I have had to create a relationship with my body, listening intricately to what it tells me… before, during, and after our rope sessions. I have had to learn to honour my body each and every time I step under that anchor point… respecting precisely where it is on that day, in that moment. Not where it was yesterday or last week. And I have had to learn to voice these things without ego, guilt or shame. I have learned to live in the moment. To let go and simply breathe. Simply listen. Simply feel.

There is magic in rope. But it doesn’t come without the cost of some sweat.