I’ve been catching a lot of (well earned) heat on Facebook  for my cocky appreciation of winter in the Southwest.  It’s projected to be 70 degrees today,  the sun is rising in a lazy stretch through a formation of clouds that closely resemble the edge of the sea, like light coming in waves to the shore of the horizon.

The photo above is a sunset, settling into the bosom of the mountains right outside of Yuma, where we are currently hanging our hats.

If you know anything about me and if you know anything about Yuma, you might think to yourself:

“What the hell is she doing there?  That place sucks.”

It does.

And it doesn’t.

If you’ve ever been through Yuma, chances are good you were on your way to San Diego.  It’s the kind of place whose billboards boast of clean restrooms and wi-fi truckstops.  It’s a point in the middle.  A quick stop on the way to Somewhere Else.

The production model of modern agriculture is alive and well in the basins of light on this stretch of the earth, a harsh reality check of The American Way delivered with no remorse.  My children, accustomed to seeing calm pepperings of angus stretched across the land, now observe the stench of the black holes known as cattle farms.  They notice.  And even their young hearts know it’s wrong.  You can see it, hear it in their small voices.

“Mama, what’s wrong with those cows?”

“They’re imprisoned by convenience and greed, love.”

You are what you eat.

Though we are surrounded by acres and acres of green (most of the lettuces sold in the West are grown right here), there’s no local market.  Food is commodity here, a product, a job, not a means of connection.

The farms here are not organic, which means they use pesticides and fertilizers.  There are miles and miles of Monsanto around us.  On windy days, I keep the kids inside.

Mexico is close, so close we can hear the roosters rise in the mornings.  So close that the air is thick with the smoke of burning fields.

We are not here by choice.  We are here by necessity.

And we are grateful.

We adapt, try to understand this place and sort through its reputations.  It’s hot and flat and there’s nothing here, compared to the offerings of the cities within reach.  But it’s still pretty big – 194,000 residents (for my Montana friends, it reminds me a lot of Billings, except everyone here speaks Spanish and there are a lot more handguns).  There’s a definite sense of community, which feels familiar despite the cultural divide, and I’ve observed a fascinating trend amongst old men and their hats.

It’s where we are.

And because we’re here, it becomes good.

Not by our influence, not out of stature or rumblings of pride, but because this is the point on earth where our bodies occupy space.

And that space, whether hot, cold, dry, covered in snow-shimmer or dust, is SACRED.

Always has been.  It was true when I lived up North, it’s true here, it would be true if we lived on the Moon.  I would take note of the stillness, the outlines of stars, the rising light of the earth on the horizon.  Simultaneously, I would be coping silently with the discomfort of oxygen gear and the overwhelming solitude of space.

Here, in this place called Yuma, it happens to be 70 degrees in January and the sun is shining bright.  Something I celebrate because right now it’s all I have to hang on to.  Everything else is gone.

Do you pity me?  Feel flashes of sorrow for our plight?

Don’t.

It’s the kind of grip that comes at the top of the mountain, the home stretch.  The one where you find your last reserves and pull yourself up.

The moment of birth.

Hey ya’ll – if you’re subscribed to The Peaceful Peacock on a feedreader, please pardon the activities/posts over the next few days.  In order to work into my new theme, I have to use the blogging function quite a bit and you will most likely be seeing those posts in your reader.

To progress!

Thanks for your patience.

the hispanic grocery

Have I mentioned the best part about living in the Southwest again?  THE FOOD.

 Jesus candles  and ceramic donkey lawn ornaments at every turn.

Tortillas, made fresh.

morning readings

Waking at sunrise to peer into the clouds, penetrating the paths to passion.

Connecting with heartfelt spirits on intuitive journeys.

and I’m working on a special spread for renaissance souls that’s kinda rockin’ the house.

stepping back into myself

in the smallest and largest of ways.

what do you like right now?

You know what I love about working for myself?  

The endless potential.  

I love being a pioneer on the forefront of ideas, translating complex concepts, and taking the bull by the horns.  Finding patterns in random swings and waves drives me beyond the reach of human thought, where I like to hang out.  It’s the gathering, the collecting, and the presentation of those patterns in a tangible way is the essence of my worth.

BUT.

You know what I hate about working for myself?  

Then endless hurricane of shit to do.

As I write this, my four year old is literally bouncing, poking, singing, doing whatever he can to get my attention.  This isn’t about kids, it isn’t about excuses.

As we stand right now, I have no schedule.  I’m at the mercy of the whims and moods of two sweet beans who are new to this earth and don’t understand why mama needs chunks of silent concentration for hours on end.  But I stop, pause, end myself because I love them.  Because I’m a good mom.  You think I’m pulling the kid card?  Try hanging out with two kiddos who are under the age of five.  Seriously.  Try it and tell me how much you got done.  (Anyone else would have quit.  I almost did.)

But I’m tenacious.  And unstoppable.  And this is who I am.

Deal with it.

It’s still business though, so I’m working on it.  We all need to be ok with that for awhile.  Ok?  Ok.

My hope was to roll out the How to Get a Yoga Girl in one fell swoop, but it just ain’t happenin’ like that.  Think of it as your opportunity to integrate the lessons, allow the medicine to bind, assimilate the words into consciousness, whatever you need.  Each leg of the series will arrive in its own good time in its own unique light.  These posts will stand on their own in the midst of the rest of my work, as they should.

I am, I have always been, and I will always be a Spiritual Nomad.

A restless wanderlust of faith.

The sooner everyone gets used to that idea (including me), the faster we’ll move.  My interests spread far and wide and for the first time in my life, I am no longer ashamed.

So here’s what you do:

Sign up to receive my sporadic posts via email or take your place here, where you will get a free copy of the Kindle edition of the Yoga Girl series.  (The catch there is that you have to sign up before I’m finished examining the seven chakras.  We’re currently on #3.)  You buy stuff so I can pay my bills and keep this thing rolling.  You say, “Hey Julie! I’d like to place an ad!” because beginning in February, I’ll be rocking some ads.

Thanks for understanding that the huntress behind all these bits of code is engaged in her own humanity too.

And watch for the wings to unfold.

‘Cuz it’s time.

It seems like the day we went to this PowWow was a lifetime ago.  It was in Bozeman, a year or so ago.  This is a photo of the Grand Entry ceremony.

It was my first PowWow.  The kids’ first too.  It was beautiful and intensely energetic, welcoming yet far away.  Very overwhelming and colorful, the electricity alive with the sound of the drums, the rustle of voices, the jingle of bells.  I wanted so badly to dive in, to dance, but it just wasn’t time.  We were welcomed and that was enough.  We showed up, we arrived, and that was enough for that moment in time.

I am very lost right now.

My life has been stripped.  I hold a child on each side and stand in the wind, struggling with which way to run.

Everything we own is in storage.  What’s left of it, that is.

The woman I was before is broken, gone.  But she wasn’t a woman, she was a girl growing.  The woman is here.  Me.  Now.

The woman was bursting from chains.

So I am lost.  Settling into dust stirred up by the wind.  Still here, though here is different now.  I watch the glitter of dirt as it catches the sun, the distance coming into view beyond the distractions of shine.

I am coming into my voice.  With preparations to sing.  There’s a tribe, so beautiful, who sings along.  Is the song mine or theirs?  Are we in harmony?  The only answer is to sing.  To try.  To let the words out of constricted throat, to join along.  To take a risk.

To see if my voice can fly.

I see you out there.  I’ll be there soon.  I’ve come down from the stairs, two children in tow.  We move slowly until everyone knows we are here alone, until you see we need extra eyes, extra hands.  Those graces will join us, give us space, lend a hand.  Make room for song.

via flickr

In times of upheaval, removal, relocation, drastic change, it takes awhile for your sweet self to settle in.  Thoughts are like explosions of volcanic wonderlight, emotions churn in wayward caps, receding from white tips to azul tinged eddies of green.

And things just don’t make sense.

Which is cool.  Just roll with it.

Here’s what I’ve got on the radar today:

• I  am writing fiction.  I live in a fantasy laced realm of daydream anyway, so why not take the plunge?
• I am uncracking my own riddle.  The Rabbit Hole thing.  And it totally kicks ass.
• I am loving.  You.  Remember the 30 Good Days thing?  Oh so much more is coming down the pipes.  Starting with 28 Days of Love Letters.  To you.
• I am wondering if I can get up the cajones to run all the way to Mexico.  Like, run.  It’s only eight miles.  Well, and a really big fence to climb if I wanted to get all serious about it.  I think running eight miles would be fine.  Sans fence.  (Got that, Border Patrol?  I have no intention of actually climbing over the fence into Mexico.)
• I am delving deeply deeply deeply into the mysteries of Sacred Work.  And figuring out how to tap others in.
• I am loving my kids to little bits again.  Especially their perfectly curled angel sweet eyelashes.  And the funny things they say.
• I am opening to the rumble of ideas that are screaming out for the opportunity to be born.
• I am intensely studying a lot of very interesting and mysterious things that I’m not ready to share quite yet.
• I am doing the work.

I crawled inside this song and dreamed I was a bird. A blue one.

 I left him.

 And grieved.  Got pissed.  Angry.  Ecstatic with newfound positivity and freedom.  Grieved again.

I followed my heart home, watched my babies play where my mama watched her babies play.

Unleashed my inner cowgirl.

Quite a bit.

I brought my children to the source of wisdom.

Well, a tributary of wisdom, if you want to be specific.  High up and far away.

Where both sides of my blood have come for over a hundred years.

United by ritual.

And common ground.

I breathed it in from the side of a single lane highway.

And said goodbye.

Again.

And again.

And again.

::  friends, we are in transit from infinite skies to eternal summer. thank you for your patience through all of this. ::

Face it:  bad moods are dirty business.  When you’re in a really bad mood, there’s no way to paste an award-winning smile on your face and pretend everything’s cool while your guts are corroding with spite.

And being that we are in the midst of another Mercury in Retrograde, which gets most of us in quite a wad for awhile.  Events from the past rear their ugly heads, forcing confrontation and resolution, which can be difficult.  Electronic devices go completely haywire, so choose the earthly, grounded method if possible even if it seems like it will take longer.  It won’t.

Throw a little PMS into the mix, and we’ve got some real fun.

Here’s 4 Gratifying Ways to Work Through a Bad, Bad Mood

1. Throw a big tantrum. Write letters seethed in hate, with swearing and heavy doses of useless bitching included.  No one will ever see it, so go nuts.  Then destroy it (see #3).
2. Have a biscotti snack. It’s the gnawing and angry crunching that really does the trick.  Don’t bother trying to make it yourself.  It is doubtful that baking will be any assistance to you when you feel like this.
3. Scribble and Shred. Get yourself a big, bold marker and scribble really hard.  Slam the tip onto the paper to the point where the ink splatters.  Tear it to shreds.  Throw all the pieces.  Leave it on the floor.
4. Move your body, fast and furious. Run down the street.  Do an interpretive dance to death metal.  Head to the swings.  Take it out on that mountainside.

For more mean and nasty ideas, get yourself a copy of Throw A Tomato.  If nothing else, it will make you laugh.

::  the last song  ::  sleater kinney  ::

Man, I love this girl.  And her brother too.

And summer.

And photography.

And being in motion.

And feeling clear.

Life is good.

Challenging but good.

::  I’m a little obsessed with hooping videos too  ::

Happy Fourth of July!

In honor of Independence Day, I will be uplugging for the week.

See you next Monday!

janis joplin  ::  summertime