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The Little Things

12/15/2017

By the time we are in our 40’s there is both no one person or situation to blame nor any to praise in our life. What we were is not what we are and what we do is not who we shall be. We are an accumulation of all our chronicles and experiences. We are the sum of our choices.

”Zonia?”

”Yes , Love?”

”How do we know what is real?”

I smile. Good question. I ask that everyday. “You will find evidence to support whatever it is you believe to be true.”

Also, there is no substitute for life experience. It’s why the older most people get, the quieter, the less you know, the more you understand.

During one of his life reflections, Ken tells me there is a fundamental difference in the quality your life will take on as to whether you believe in magic or prayer.

Magic. It’s a good reminder because I have been focusing on the little things, the zen practice of ordinariness.

He says to me prayer is the only real power that exists in the world and that when he forgets how real it is, that is when life feels hopeless and his power scanty.

He starts to channel Rocky and strings together all the beat Stalon lines until we are both laughing. He summarizes by saying that heart can’t be bought or faked that the most real moments are the ones in which prayer manifests and creates the undefeatable moments in the face of all odds and in those moments the hero births.

Its what I need to hear because, despite what Ken says is the mythology surrounding me, that I am imperturbable, I am very human.

At the time of this conversation, entering my first winter in five years, I am wondering about this thing called prayer and I am praying for myself.

Its 4 am. I’ve been up two hours. I spent half that time with my head out my window getting fresh air, looking at the stars and the silhouette of redwoods in my yard where my garden used to be before the squirrel took a lightsaber to it.

Before Mexico I was in a gardening rhythm, after Mexico I’m catching up and settling into short days long nights, painting, games and puzzles.

Community building. Getting past the self imposed isolation and realizing no, despite the times I wish I could “fit in,” the answer for me is not to drink and do more drugs to follow the crowd.

I did that in high school, it almost killed me. Literally, a near death experience at 16. A self-created rite of passage to unguided vision quest. I was looking for the same thing I look for now.

I don’t have the desire to revisit old lessons but to apply what I now understand to new situations. It takes time to find what you are looking for, but if you believe in something don’t give up, until you do. It’s there, this life you know to be true.

In between the lines, just below the surface is the life you know exists. Shift your vision. Pray with the rising sun. Listen to the voice of your heart in the darkness and silence of twilight, there is the answer you seek.

Higher Power.

Evidence of divine power.

I think of my teacher uncle from the Washington Pullayup tribe. Every time he poured water he’d start out with a prayer to Creator in recognition of his humanness , “Creator God, I am not a perfect man, but I try.” Marvin Hannah

I feel that this week. I am not a perfect woman but I try, not in the ancient religious way of sinfulness but in a humble way, I know my own heart and sometimes, I realize, it is hard to tell what is leading you, pulling you forward towards what end...until you look back.

A year in review. Mini steps along the way so that when I die, there are no surprises.

Winter. Introspective.

I definitely feel separate from the very thing I wish to be a part of, I feel like I have done a lot of work on prayer, connection and sobriety.

Mostly sober, I do believe in the use of teacher plants. I have done and on occasion partake in ganja, psyllicibum, acid, peyote and ayahuasca. It is all once in a while, microdosing and shamanic journey.

I can't say they made me a better person. Only the meditations of your heart felt intentions fill you with all the goodness you perceive. They did help me transcend aspects of brainwashing but overall if the use of them is to follow dreams and live with heart, I know how to do that with mediation and breath. In fact, my shamanic burial and tumor healing took place a decade before my use. If anything, I can trace back relationship issues to when my partner and I were altered.

I can remember the first ayahuasca ceremony they made my partner and I sit on opposite sides of the room, they separated us. Honestly, I don't know why I listened to them. I did have my own experience. I understand the value of developing a personal relationship with God, but I already had that.

During my experience, I'm dead, I'm alive, I'm dead, I'm alive...ok I get it, now what? I ended up walking around and being a guardian for several people. But that imposed separation prevented me from wanting to connect to my partner who was falling into eternity with the love we had, and we still have powerful love together. We ran sweat lodges together.

We took down that lodge because people wanted to start using that lodge for money. The concept of prayer as an offering and holding space for not charging was really important to us. We had a really hard time wanting to pray. We weren't a part of the ganja travelling circus, (I say that as in the fun gypsey caravan way) we joined it and had a blast but we were coming from a really different place with our vision quest travelling.

We would have $300 praying in front of our own fireplace and we would individually receive the same message. Sometimes the fire would tell us that we needed to go to Maui, or wherever it was we ended up...Washington....sometimes I got called back to Texas to help with my aging grandparents, sometimes we got called back to Washington to help Ken string together a relationship with his daughter.

We just never knew. More often than not we didn't' have anything. Some times we would have one more meal and, having met the circus kids, we would erroneously think they didn't have any food and we would throw a gathering with the last of what we had to feed and shelter them and it was always worth it! So much fun and then we would pray and move about the world at spirit's direction...fasting haha yea we would pretend it was purposeful.

We would be hitchhiking 12-14 hours a day and I'd look around and everyone looked super blissed out...ha ha which actually I definitely had plenty of those moments but it was a contrast usually to the travelling trimmies eating their cocoa and wearing their super cute outfits. I wanted to be cute too! But I needed walking shoes more and coconuts were exotic and served their delicious purpose.

Anyways, so this is where our dedication to the concept of "No can charge for prayer" comes from. Some of our elders found us on the side of the roadside looking for a place to pray and a community to love and they took us home with them. As a result, part of that story goes, we brought one of them his wife. They have two boys.

That story came out of a prayer message in the middle of the night, during which we were both awakened and told to go the other side of the island and when we arrived there she was just arriving as well.

So, prayer...that shit is real, although sometimes I do wonder what the hell I am doing, and the soul in me says, "We are praying and the other part says, yea, but what are we doing?" And I will get down on myself a little bit and have that feeling I told you about in the beginning, that I'll wish I drank and did more drugs so I'd have more "friends."

We always wanted community. Ken specifically wanted to hang out with the "cool" kids. They were really cool. I saw them. I recognized them. I just never wanted to be in a container, either socially or structure wise.

I would be in tipi, and I could never get up. Fire. That was it. I just stared at the fire and waiting for the morning to arrive so I could be free. But I did have really powerful experiences in front of the fire that manifested for my family lineage. The remembrance of relatives that had passed. A lot of times my relatives wanted me to reenact my life according to their value systems. It made me feel really old.

I outright rejected and disobeyed those messages which led to...some really amazing times, sexual explorations, orgasmic fulfillments and its all short-lived. It made me really start to think about what they were telling me about what endures.

I was talking to a friend I have known for a decade. God did always make sure I had a few people during those travels who supported and believed in me. I am so grateful for them being in my life. I missed a lot of things but I could skid into home plate....aghhhhhhh...and they would be there crouched like an empire...SAFE! Those were exhilarating times.

I camped in friends yards, I slept in the back of yoga studios where I worked.

I was really ashamed over my poverty. Financial restrictions led to social isolation, but I had spiritual wealth. Although everyone just keep asking me, "Zonia? What's it for?"

I don't know. Its not really FOR anything outside of itself. It just is.

I've made a little life for myself. I'm really good at what I do, I travel to other countries, and do crazy amounts of healing sessions, hold space for interdimensional healings, haha I guess! (I'm told! I don't know! I can't lay on my own table! One of my friends heard me say this once and looked at me in wonder saying, "Wow. To be so good at something and never be able to know.")

Haha. Life is a strange thing, isn't it?

Then, I come home. People are really busy, which is good. So I've created this really magical life, where I go somewhere exotic and warm, I work my butt off, people pay me a lot of money, I share it with my loved ones, and I come home. I live somewhere beautiful and only work a couple days. I go to the river and am constantly looking for people because they don't have time to hang out. Everyone seems to be functioning as high powered executives to FaceBook, answering emails, and I sure do wish we could simplify and come back to friendships and gatherings, so I throw game night and have people come over to cook and, you know, be with actual people.

There's no substituting the very special connection experienced through eye contact, a hand on the back, laughter, the sound of voices. They are all so important.

So many years of life, decisions and choices that have walked themselves out. I can see things much more clearly now. Does it mean I'll do it better from here? Who knows? I shift the more I age and experience so its not as simple as looking back and saying ahhhh...right there...next time I'm in that situation I will do this...Life is more complicated and in the moment who you are is who you are and so there is a level of trust and acceptance we must all come to.

But my little girl self, does sometimes reflect and say...ahhh, Zonia...was it worth it? And sometimes the answer is, "No, but we will be ok."

So, I look at the younger people who have so much life ahead of them and I see that they don't want to talk to older people. They just wanna be cool and beautiful and THEY ARE REALLY COOL AND BEAUTIFUL and there's a level of God-given happy that comes with youth. Life hasn't tried your soul as much.

I definitely have the prayer that life will support that unlimited expression and that infinite view of life and themselves as being all powerful. I have walked the world like that. I get humbled. I listen to every prayer direction I have been given and, like the thunderbird I am, had to rise out of the ashes of many a prayer fire willingly serving, not myself, but some greater force. It is always for ME in the end. The stories it fills me with, the life experience, the purpose and meaning are irreplaceable.

But I do have times when listening to prayer is really difficult to decipher. Is it my own mind deceiving me? Is it my heart guiding me? Is it the love of something in a healthy way? Is this going to make me a better person? Am I just lusting after something and I just can't stop? Is there a hole I'm trying to fill but I don't know what it is? or something I am running away from?

And as humans we have evolution built into our soul blueprint and patterns, so no matter what there is inevitably a moment when the feeling that “life is supposed to be way more fulfilling and gratifying than whatever the fuck I am doing right now” surfaces and beckons us on to the next phase and cycle of learning. That you know, a knowing that you can do “better” and you are siting in it.

I'm sitting in it. Sitting in winter.

One year ago I left Mexico, I was in Texas, I look really fucking happy in those pictures. I was scared. I was getting ready to ship my car to Maui, I was going all in. My long distance boyfriend was 24. Silly! But my nephew is 24 and he loves his girlfriend. I could see that he is going to make it last, they are going to. I wanted to try. I wanted a fresh start, but honestly I had already fucked that one up a lot.

Two years long distance, and every time one of my ex's would descend into my life with a hair brained scheme to do a yoga teacher training or start a non-profit religion for travelling medicine people, I would go. I thought I was doing something important, but I don't know.

I see right now an opportunity to hold space for kind healers, for healers who are interested in sad, depressed, lonely people, the elderly, humble, quiet people. I will hold space for them. I will give them somewhere to go.

I have tried to be friends with many healers and I find that they are suffering from scarcity mentality, only hanging out with those who will pay them or proving themselves to each other. It seems like a lot of wasted energy.

So, it will strike me hard sometimes, this feeling....if I keep going down this road with everyone, because I am supposed to abandon the lone wolf mentality, but I don't know. Sometimes I see a herd of wild stallions running towards the cliff, I don't follow them.

That actually reminds me of a story April Whitecloud used to tell me. She told me she didn't know why but spirit came to her while she was in meditation and told her to go out to this location and walk into the field with her hands raised powerfully in front of her and start singing. And when she did, this huge movement on the horizon was coming towards her. She didn't know what it was but she started singing louder. She had her hands out and realized it was a herd of wild mustangs about to run themselves off the cliff and she had been asked to go there to prevent them and to see if she could help change their course.

April is a lot of things. She's crazy. hahah. Flat out one of the craziest human beings I have ever known. Half Hawaiian, daughter of a Kahuna, half Apache medicine woman, daughter of an Apache medicine woman. She stands about 6 feet tall, with giant hair, and always a huge smile and these arms that she would wrap around everybody. She always had these really big stories about being a model or singer in London. I always just knew her as an older woman sitting in her lounge chair meditating and dreaming, a nice man who loved her and tried to hold her on this plane.

It's how she found me.

I met her the year of my Saturn return when everything was collapsing.

I remember once someone asking me, "What did you do to deserve all that?"

I was like, well, fuck, good question. What did I do to deserve anything? What do any of us ever do to deserve anything? Good or bad?

She had a dream that she had to go to the Sidestreet Boutique in South Lake Tahoe, at the same time I was having my awakening moment at sunset praying on my porch facing Lake Tahoe about what to do after my brain tumor had returned, I had gotten careless jumping jumps on the ice...busted myself from the coccyx bone to occipital ridge, and was in deliberations with the elders of my church who told me I was no better than animal for having sex for the first time 26. MY LIFE was just beginning. The one in which I thought for myself.

I knew from that first time, hey! this is not what they told me. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever done. I mean since then I have seen what they mean about the animal of it, the lust and darkness, but I always like the way Mary Oliver described it as the "soft animal."

We are animals; we are human animals. I mean there is an animal force that is ferocious, barring teeth in their predatory nature, but there is the aspects of those same animals that will huddle together, take care of their young and elderly. Like the elephants knowing the bones of their ancestors. The animals really take care of their young. That's the soft animal, take any predatory and see them with their young, they are soft for them.

I was thinking about this the other day because a woman at yoga was talking about her daughter and how she had raised her to be a strong woman and independent. There are so many women like that. I was raised like that. My dad was determined that after seeing his mother struggle with 9 kids ironing and working so hard everyday to make sure they had life, that I would be able to take care of myself.

I take care of myself. I do know how to take care of them. I know how to take care of people around me. So I appreciate that.

But, I could really relate to this mom saying her daughter had a really hard time finding relationships because men are really intimidated by her. So, I said, maybe something really amazing will happen and she will fall in love and she will get really soft, feel held by love. The soft animal. That can happen and is just as much a part of our nature as anything.

In the teepee they talk about the water bird. The water bird is the woman in the morning, the soft heart, the emotion. There's a lot of fire in the world, its actually put out mine. I have keen insight but I am always speaking form a place of love. I am not sure that gets communicated.

I helped raise a couple kids. Not just my brother's, but I had partners who had children. Saga Sue she looked like a little fairy, she was 3. She used to sing and had the sweetest voice. She used to call us the mermaid family, which pissed her mother off and led to false allegations that resulted in a 15 year gap. It has been so many years.

The kids I was a teen director for were in junior high and I think they have graduated college now. So time is flying by but, for him, I know it has moved with painful slowness as he hopes someday she will remember the love and find him.

Kenna, she was 9. She is a feminist force to be reckoned with, an activist, who is in college now. She is so strong.

Elliot, he was 12 going on teen. They were still babying him but he was watching everything happening on the farm. I hear he's a super star.

Sometimes I wish I couldn't see things. I have always been able to look down the road and see where they could lead...like Starbucks? I remember when they were first coming out and I made my family crazy! I was way ahead of my time in the anti-corporation movement talking about local economy and local mom and pop coffee shops. Everyone told me I was just being crazy.

So, now, Starbucks is everywhere and everyplace looks the same now, it's even in Mexico. I'm not gonna lie, its how branding works. Its now so familiar that I will laugh and think, hey...don't worry. There’s Starbucks, everything will be alright. If we are all drinking coffee surely everything is not that bad. Everyone just drink your coffee. Don't worry about anything.

Coffee. Ha ha that's a whole other conversation. I made people crazy after I worked on a coffee farm and realized how long it took to make it. I was like, holy shit! We should have one cup a year!

No wonder it was sacred.

The whole tribe was watching...What the hell is Juan doing over there? One year later Juan Valdez would arrive and say, "Finally! I have done it! It is the perfect cup!" Everyone was so happy and it was so good.

Juan? When can we have another?

Pues...next year...and they would wait and celebrate.

Why is coffee only $3? Haha don't tell Starbuck s I said that they will raise the price again and we will all go bankrupt for that special tasty beverage.

I love coffee. It makes me think about my grandpa. It's all he wanted. Eight cups of coffee a day, a sweet bread, paper and a pen. The little things. A simple man. It made him happy. My grandparents whole lives were built around these little things.

He would sit and write. I remember visiting their gravesite. It was the first time my mother had been there since my grandfather died. She had a really hard time, she turned 5 and was hiding behind a tree. It was really adorably sad. I kneeled in front of that gravesite. It was both of them side by side. I saw them like they were in that kitchen. Their little novelas, my grand mother cooking the same damn food because that's all my grandpa wanted. Simple man. She had one sweater, green and rust striped. My grandfather would just sit writing at the table, sipping his coffee asking my grandmother to walk 4 feet to hand him something that was 4 inches from him. It was their little game. I watched them do that for a long time.

I called my mom out from the tree. "It's ok, momma, come here," and I held her while she cried and I remembered.

My grandma died at 63. She was a smoker. It took her. It didn't do anything to my grandpa, he lived to 99, but my grandma died at 63. I don't know, some people can get away with it, some people can't.

She got lung cancer they took 2/3 of her lung. She got breast cancer, they took her breast. She got bone cancer, well, that took her life. We would still catch her locked in the bathroom with cigarettes smoke coming up out of the door. She just wouldn't quit. Would not. My parents had made a huge sacrifice to go from Pleasanton, CA to El Paso, Texas. I ended up going from the only Mexican to being called a coconut because I was brown on the outside and white on the inside. haha life has changed me. I had no idea what kind of trouble I was gonna get myself into living in a border town, crossing borders.

I went head long into it. I wasn't the kind of kid that went into marijuana as a gateway drug. First thing I did was a line of cocaine with my friend Yaraseth, who ended up being a drug and alcohol counselor after we graduated. All of us ended up really interested in the well-being of youth. We became public servants, teachers, firemen, nurses.

I specialized in at-risk youth as an educator. My last couple years of teaching I worked with Indigos. I wrote a book about this experience , which I never published because I'm not business oriented and there's always so much to do I can never understand how everyone gets everything done.

I never think to ask my dad or anyone. I was taught to do everything myself! Too well! I am working on that. I have a lot of DUH! moments realizing that, I suck at business but that's what my dad did. I kept thinking I could just get good at it. haha. I'm still trying! My new meditation lately is filled with lots of duh! moments. So I am learning as I go.

I don't have much money but he could help. I always felt like I was waiting for THE vision! The amazing thing that was worth investing in. I was waiting for the MOST INSPIRED thing. I didn't want to waste his help on something that wasn't worth it. That included sometimes helping me, even when I was sitting on, "Skid dirt." I actually felt ok. Some of my most fulfilling moments were simple, watching the sun set over the ocean from Ulapalakua than I did for most of my life. A lot of people came there to pray. I was hopeful, thinking we were going to harness all the magnificent energy Indigos were born to have.

I was a teacher for at-risk high school age Indigos. I bring that up a lot because the list for at-risk Indiogs and what behaviors and attitudes would identify them as at-risk. They are worth taking a look at again, they are powerful human beings who would be around the age of 30 now. They are masters incarnate, there is no doubt about that, express doubt in this and you will come face to face with their ego and they aren't afraid to flip you off and go their own way. That is actually part of the power they needed to harness to make a new way in the world. They will always go their own way.

Their magic is that there are so many of them and they magnify each other's power by banding together. What I have a hard time with is they don't want to talk to anybody outside of themselves. They are more concerned with coolness and spend an inordinate amount of time proving themselves to each other. There are so many people out here that are worth knowing and can be allies, not for money but for heart.

Actual community is built on heart, care for. I try to build community.

I find that people who are not a part of the nucleus see the possibility of a larger circle that will hold them, but also, it is not my intention to break the other circle apart but to widen it. I think that I offend people sometimes with the things that I say. Its my truth, I don't know how not to say what I feel in my heart. What's in my heart is not just a thought or idea, it's my own experience and those of people I have met.

There are times that I wish I drank more, went to bars, wanted to have orgies, did more drugs, only for the fact that I can not relate to the majority of people anymore and I feel like they can't relate with me. I think that could be a problem, I mean I have been through a lot at a very young age, I've been through it, it being the wringer...it squeezed me to the deepest core. I hope that people know they can be open honest vulnerable with me because I will share my own frailties.

I will share my own strange stories. I'm not a prude, in fact, I got in trouble once in Maui for the people across the valley being able to hear what was happening at the sanctuary. Oops! I don't care about that stuff, I care about what separates us and what human behaviors are expressed and repressed that are resulting in similar pain body scenarios when people come to see me.

Like I have said before that sexual liberation means getting myself into a situation in which I feel free whatever that means, emotionally, spiritually, mentally, and physically. It requires knowing yourself and is a fundamental self-inquiry process. Knowing what is the best fit, for me it is people who are in their heart space.

My canvases tell me better stories than my words. They paint the stuff of childhood dreams, not a 42 year old woman. I painted over the canvas a couple of times because it kept pulling up feelings that I felt silly for wanting still. I think that I have stopped trying to think about it being a representation of what is for me and to see it as prayer for the future, for the kids for what I would like to instill in their hearts, to show them what I value taking chances for love, to live with nothing if you have to, but to follow your dreams no matter what.

You might lose everything and there might be a billion people against you but you have to have some people telling you to keep walking that way if it is right for you and it doesn't matter what anybody else has to say about it. If it is right for you, keep walking that way. I don't care if people don't agree with me or what I am saying, I'm saying that in the long run, I'm wondering if we will have missed the power we were sent here to unite and what we were supposed to do with it. That's all.

I see all the people and what they are capable of accomplishing. They accomplish way more than me, their power to gather people together far exceeds I have ever been able to do in my life, but you get me one on one connecting with people in their heart and something special happens. You put my hands on them and something happens. You put me in front of the fire with a cedar bag, something happens. I don't know what anymore or if it matters.

Maybe everybody else has it right. Hedonism. You only live once. Get everything you can, suck everything and everyone dry. We are just gonna die anyways. Maybe you get a disease. Maybe you dump all your dopamine and you can't be happy anymore. Maybe you get rich. Maybe you go to jail. Who knows? Maybe you can never fall in love. Who cares?

I care. I'm having a hard time right now. One year in review. Where was I last year? What happened?

Yea, what happened? I went to Maui, my boyfriend surfed sometimes 6 hours a day. Timing was off finanacially. I used all my money to get there, then a roommate moved out. I went from working as a healer at a retreat center to hoping to work as a barista. Which is fine, except that I couldn't get a ride to work. A lot of the surfing was my own fault, he was such a pain in the ass that I would tell him to go surfing, plus we couldn't stop having sex. haha so how am I supposed to plan anything? And out he would go. Maybe I should have just lost myself.

I notice that about myself and others, that people, including myself, can't seem to lose themselves in things. They get too much up in their heads and block or abort things right before the magic happens. I would like to get lost in something again. I choose time over money and so I am praying to know what to do with that time that will get me lost in something that will lead me into my next life phase.

I pray still. I think it does do good. I hope it does.

It's my first winter in 5 years, so apparently it's seasonal and normal, because my roommate looked at me and said, "Ha! Welcome to winter! Now you know what the rest of us have been going through."

Year in review.

It's been a really big thing for me as a woman. I have had really wealthy partners who wanted to fly me off to Spain and India. Sweep me up. Support me in Maui, have me do all these things with them which left me no time to generate my own money supply. It took away a lot of freedom and when they were "done" with me I was "fucked" and as I got older that got scarier. There will always be a younger hottie in the yoga room purposely not wearing underwear with her shorty shorts, there are always going to be women who for the power of it will take what is basking in the light and love of another woman. Women love to do these things, especially when they are young and exploring the power of youth and beauty.

The love of the woman is powering everything. Women take things from other women, I am including myself. Don't get me wrong, but reflection has taught me which choices lead to love and joy.

I am marching forward in life and watching my parents age. They are headed towards their destination, which I would like to think is always in my heart. They are finally travelling which my dad put off until retirement and ended up being extended into the caretaking of their parents. So, they are finally enjoying their lives. They are part of the consumer problem. They also balance it with generosity to others. I can see why in their minds it doesn't really seem to matter but for our generation as we try to correct for the younger generation, I suspect we are OVER correcting. I am sometimes.

I was working on a family lineage. The grandmother, mother, and granddaughter. The grandmother had colan and uteran cancer. Both the mother and granddaughter were holding tension in the same place, so I asked, "How do you heal generationally?"

I kept hearing, "Comfort what the grandmother generation has experienced. Mother will have compassion and understand. The grandchildren are the ones who change."

I changed my grandmothers's lineage. At her bedside she had a whole slew of family and I have me. So, as I head towards menopause, and paint my childhood dreams, I accept 12 years of travelling what I believe was helping other people, but it is possible I chased ego for a period. That's when I ended up in London, with the humanitarian woman who had been reduced to nothing but herself, clothes meaningless, hair falling out, scathing letters from ex-patrons.

I came home. I just wanted to be with my nephews and now they are growing. I did that several times. I had a partner in India who wanted to take me to Thailand, but all I wanted was to take care of my grandmother. Now that I understand his lifestyle, I am so glad that I chose my own way and family. I understand that I love him. I did love people who I wasn't going to end up with and deny those who wanted to give me everything. It's an interesting place in life, full acceptance, full knowing, full responsibility...what stories you would hold out to younger ones who you see doing the same thing.

I ask myself, do I trust my choices are based on conditioning or did my soul see my way through this life.

I count my blessings. I would like to share with somebody. I would like to share the gift that is life with someone who sees it too.

When I look back a year in review, the thing I will remember the most is that every time I opened my eyes, and this had nothing to do with Haleakela, the ocean, or the West Maui's, that person was smiling at me. Every morning started the same way.

"Hey gorgeous."
"Hey beautiful." And a knowing about how rare it is.

So, I ask what happened?

Tipi came to Maui and I was sitting in front of fire and I saw deer clan. I connected with my mother's lineage, the volcano pulsed, everyone there I knew was from California and I had followed a fire and prayer to know them. Now I live in the same town and I don't even talk to them. So, God knows.

But I live in a house with a man I met 10 years ago. We are neither together or apart. He's been married and has a child 19. I like the idea of leaving possibility open for myself. He's my family no matter what. Romantic love?

What is that? Does it last? Ten years from now does it all go away? Are you still putting a flower in their hair. Are you still waking up smiling? Or is it all going away? Really it is. One way or another. We have to make our peace with that.

That's winter right, old age and death?

Opportunity for evaluation. Introversion.

Shit, I have warm clothes and all I'm painting is a plumeria, a bird of paradise , and an ocean wave. So, explain that neurosis.

I remember when I was in Maui, daydreaming about laying on the rocks of the Yuba and trail running. I thought I was crazy, there I was in Paradise with the love of my life, young as he was, telling me I'd always be beautiful.

It was my own fault that I saw my grey hairs more than he did. I had a standard of life, just a little more comfort. Just have coffee. You just want to go out and have a damn coffee. it's stupid. I guess. I don't know. Worked for my grandpa but he drank it at home, probably Yuban, cost a lot less.

Doing a lot of yoga. Meditating. Sitting. Getting still. There's a part of me that says, no, what I really need to do is rev up so I can stay ahead of the winter curve. Really, we are almost there. Solstice is right around the corner, New Year and then its' practically spring.

It's the year of the Rabbit! It’s supposed to mean something. I don't know what. Family. Success. Home. Family. Hopefully we have all cleared everything out. It has been a shit storm.

I get women and their fears of being assaulted. I had very strange male female dynamics, fled a house, experienced purely functional interludes. Also, had a beautiful interlude with an old friend. A vixen story. Which means, I have to forgive everything. The reason I say these things is so people know where I am coming from that is to say, I've seen some things, I've done some things, and I still am smiling and embracing.

All the people I call out, I love you.

I love you.

I call my own self out. The people who love me most, call me out. I can't give a glossy version of things. I know you. I know myself. I know what I have done and I can love the imperfect because that is our world.

Looking forward to making a community. I have chosen my home.

I am not running off anymore. Travelled 12 years . I've had amazing experiences. Many changes. Community. I didn't have a community travelling with me. I guess when I comment about festivals I do see the beauty, I do see the friendships and I see shared experiences bonded people together.

And...You are cool by the way! Sometimes not very nice, though.

I do often times confront the attitude of others, do you know who I am? No, but you don't know me either. Would you like to know each other? or a puffed chest and a Posh Spice face that says I am someone. Yes! You are amazing. I am also amazing. We all are and we are also not.

So, I didn't have a warrior band tribe following me around, I have had to do it all myself. My warrior tribe is invisible. Its my ancestral line. Its my guidance system. They only get you so far.

It's a tough bunch this one. Indigos as adults. Aye. God help us all. Soften our hearts. Unite our cultures. Open doors. Put us in contact with all our selves.

Really.

Unless they come in and they need me on the table, then they are have a squeezy heart, cute, super loving, healthy, creative, open. many who, if they never came to see me, would most likely not talk to me.

Sigh.

Ahhh...we are all still in high school.

All still in high school. Haha what does that mean? I recon someday we will graduate, even if that age is 99. Hopefully we will have a really good life. There will be a lot of people around us when we die who care about us. Some of us will outlive others. We will all know of each other, even if we aren't friends. We'll hear of people passing. Some day that will be true of our teachers in Maui, our families, and then one day we will move on as well.

Until then, keep smiling. Keep thriving. Keep playing. Keep making the world a better place one dance at a time. One hug at a time. One breaking social barriers at a time.

By the way, you should listen to the new podcast from the vice-president of Facebook speaking to business students at Stanford. His children aren't allowed to be on there and he has guilt over the way social media has destroyed human connection. Just a thought. We should think about it.

Anyways. Entering into the dark of winter. Heading towards our rebirth. Take the time to go in there. It usually some good stuff. Its gotta come up.

Year in review. Holy shit. Eclipse. Memories from Ken. I watched a lot of friends go through heartbreak. I saw people be attacked on Facebook. Dear God, I quit that two years ago. Thank goodness. There's a lot of weirdness on there. Came back form Maui. Lots of trail running. Lots of river. Happy to know the people I work with.

Wondering what I am gonna do. Wondering about relationships. What makes them real? What makes them stay?

Wondering about all the little things.

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The Real Deal

12/8/2017

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I'm burnt out. I know it. I lovingly flipped the reception desk off when they asked me to work on one more client. Done. Can not. I laugh.

“Sorry. It did it by itself.” I stick out my tongue. “Love you!” I say with a cheesy fake smile.

My face feels heavy. I lug myself up the spiral case to my room to take a knee on my mat.

80 sessions. A Yoga Retreat. Second week. Two yogas a day, the owners, the staff, their friends and family, and two sessions per student. No matter how late I finish, sometimes 10 or 11 pm, I will come to this mat and do yoga. No matter how early I start, sometimes 7 am, I will begin each day here.

Some days I have to dig deeper than others to find the love. When the depletion hits its thorough. I feel it in my bones.

I get a lot of help, but I am only human.

A new group arrives. I know this group too, we all hug and embrace they hope I am staying, I am not. They get sad grandma looks on their faces as they ask about my life, about Maui, about love.

I didn't stay.

They look concerned.

I tell them it is the least traumatic break up I have ever had and though it has taken a year to not miss him everyday, I am happy I am in Nevada City. The rest of my life is so fulfilling and filling with new friends and community that I have the patience to wait on the gift and magic of love to arrive.

I try Tinder for two days. It's both comforting to know so many people are looking and disturbing when I see two of the guys out at Mexican. They are sitting together on their phones. I literally stand in front of their table. They don't look up. I laugh inside and think to myself...this is retarded. Put your phone down. I defect and decide organic is better. I'd rather paint and go to the river.

I feel spirit tapping me on the head. Zonia?

Si!

Write. I do. I write a book a month. I have books from my crazy London trip with the Russian princess who has dementia. Its filled with cooky stories involving my crazy medicine sister and a gift from the 9 indigenous grandmothers. Those grandmothers. I really need to talk to them. I've been upset with them since the women's gifting circles.

Upset? How can you be upset with the grandmothers? Get me started.

The climate of women isolated in their insanity, man bashing, began back then. I can still remember while on my travels having sisters I had known who randomnly would "think" to call me. Ask personal questions, tell me we could continue this conversation If I paid them $5000.

Excuse me? Are you fucking nuts?

Out of their mouth the sales technique of many a pyramid scheme.

“It's a pyramid scheme” I tell them.

“No, it isn't.”

“Yes, it is and don't fucking use my personal life to fund your India trip.”

Jesus. It’s an upsetting scheme of heart strings for money.

I keep travelling.

Many other sisters who used to be friends will quarantine their hearts and round people into circles. Some will make thousands, others will sell their cars hoping to get rich, and most will get left at the bottom of the pyramid all in a quest to "Be friends" with people who used to do so for free.

It will issue in a whole new era of sacred commerce that stretches into the inner sanctums of a London bedroom with an ill princess who used to fund lamas and religious leaders, who will receive scathing letters from these people when she loses her fortune and can no longer be a patroness.

She will isolate herself from public because of her thinning hair and to hide her new status filling boxes of high end lottery schemes hoping to refill coffers. All come from so called gurus and spiritual advisors, while old, not even a family member is present to help.

She will run down the hall to my room, in the middle of the night, telling me the voices are saying she is going to die. I will calmly walk her to bed and discuss the journey of life with her.

"Yes," I tell her, "We are all going to die."

"But no one has ever talked to me like this."

"Make peace with your life. It's time."

I will fall in love with her while washing her hair and she will say, "I think I'm thinning back there."

I tell her, she is.

She will let me hold her and she will tell me she wants to give me the medicine bundle the 9 grandmothers gave to her. Its the end of a year of many sisters asking me for money. I smile at her and say thank you, but I will leave without asking for it.

I will leave and walk the whole city of London, go across every bridge, see Micheal Angelo's sketches which are in and of themselves masterpieces, and attend a flamenco show that will change my life.

I will change my focus from my father's New Mexico Apache ancestry to my mother's gypsey blood. I will have a dream of running a gypsey caravan for people to learn rhythm, movement, and voice.

I will write the story of life as it unfolds, and buy new journals and always remember one very important thing.

Our humanness makes us HUMANE. The less we accep our imperfections the further we get from our humanity.

Humanity. So many choices to make. I’m thinking about my friend Paula who is angry with me for not taking her side in a custody battle with her ex-husband. She tells me to champion her rights though bedridden with Lou Gerriggs disease. I will struggle inside knowing her father will take her to the beach to play in the ocean. Her daughters anxiety attacks are fresh in my mind. I tell her I will pray for her daughter. It’s not enough. I ask, “God what’s right?” and keep doing what I can.

I will think about all this as I cross over from Mexico to the United States. Nothing but time on the day of travel and lines that wrap around carosels to get into lines. I dance around. Strike up random conversations, play with kids and watch people anxious who will want to talk about how bad their day has been until they realize we are all in this together. We have all been waiting.

I transition slowly from smiles, acknowledgments, hugs and laughter, into the grey mechanical world of technology and the American syndrome of group think that is infecting people linked by social media. One degree of country separation and what seems normal is crazy.

Women are on a rampage about gender and, my aged dentist tells me that relations between men and women are back in the dark ages. We couldn't be further apart.

People will come to see me in tears, tension in their bodies from lack of contact and I am still recovering form Mexico.

I will take knee in yoga several times before I realize what I really need is sleep and a bath.

I will get slow slow slower and I will ignore the message from spirit...Zonia?

Si a little wearier than my usual

Go write.

Instead, I will find myself river rock jumping and bathing topless on the granite near the river.

I will wish for the freedom gold, laugh knowing many have done so at the waters edge and I will let it go, feel settled in my heart with a golden sunray warming my bare chest to sky.

And finally, the voice will crescendo until I am at the computer and I am praying. Who’s reading? I don’t have Facebook. Doesn’t matter. I write because I must, usually with pen and paper, today with keyboard.

Breathe. When it comes it flows fast.

Creator, write me. This is what comes through:

Help me to say all the truths people know to be true inside their hearts but can't find words to say...

Like...the messages of the stars coming to us from light hears away...

Telling us the story about how money and technology almost divided us until we remembered to look to the Earth and God for comfort. Until we remembered that who and what we are can't be taken away from us.

It's in us.

But until we turn in again HOLD HANDS, let all the fucking bullshit go NOTHING is going to get better.

Look with your heart, filter costumes from real people. You'll recognize them by the light in their eyes, by the fact that they believe in and talk about GOD...not as a concept or out there far away ideal.

But HERE in our HEARTS.

The real deal.

You'll know them by the way they love people. Altruism. You will know them by the way they help people and give out of their want. They let people God Earth Spirit take everything from them even their life, but not their CONNECTION TO GOD that is called INTEGRITY.

You'll know them because they keep faith in a higher power. You’ll know them because they don’t get caught up in mass hysteria or witch hunts. You’ll know them because they are a calming compassionate force that will bring you back to LOVE.

THE ONLY THING THAT MOTIVATES A SHAMAN MEDICINE MAN is the heart of the MOTHER. The HEART of a woman is what saves the planet, not the power or intellect. And if ego beauty and charisma reign then we forget we are all born of a women and an egg without sperm washes away as blood.

Mother. We are all someone to her regardless of station and money is no indication of divine favor.

THE LOVE OF A WOMAN LIKE A MOTHER for her children is the power of love the world needs. UNCONDITIONAL.

Forgive each other. Please. Forgive each toher everything. Whatever it was...START OVER TODAY.

Please, everyone.

Every single one of us.

God, we need to organize a PUT THE GODDAMN CELL PHONE DOWN DAY.

We need relief.

Jesus. Holy Spirit. Buddha. Mohammed. Great spirit.

Every Master.
Every Angel
Every Univeral Being of Light

Break the chain of control over our heads--our hearts.--our body’s addictions.

Bring us into UNION. Ecstatic. Super Nova Union Dance Pray Move. Channel God.

and...be careful who you defend and side with...if you spew vileness in return to put a person in place, you are now an attacker perpetrating verbal abuse.

Ghandi.

Spiritual Resistence. It is softer. It is in the heart.

Resist mechanic, cold cutting words you say to NO FACE, NO EARS.

Words on screens are BRAINWASHING you.

Take back your spirit. Go to river. Try sobriety. Get over your social anxiety, go in public interact with human beings get off news Facebook is propaganda. Propaganda written by peers who smile and sell you their success is still propaganda, especially if it divides.

Give your tears and fears to the river. Pray our waters stay free.

Band together to keep land otherwise GIANT CORPORATIONS ARE GOING TO BUY IT and turn the Sierras into MONOCULTURED GMO POTFIELDS.

Wake up.

While you inform others about how they should be, planning your next trip, playing rich and famous, selling your amazingness, the powers that be are sweeping the nation selling National Parks.

Wake up.

Burn your Pendleton blankets if you need to..no, don't they are cool, warm and once people traded horses for them.

but SERIOUSLY...

You will know Yuba lovers and Gold lovers because the GOLD lovers chase GOLD the river lovers lay naked on the granitie in infinite BLISS. Communion.

Water
Sun
Love
Freedom

Hippie Gypsey Roots.

We've lived with nothing. Live that way now, but don't sell the land. Save it. Band Together. This is when the power of community manifests.

Don't break apart over power struggles, ego or fear.

This is how FIRE hold together at the CENTER in the private PRAYERS of our HEARTS.

For Earth, not fame, not fortune, not Apple, Ipod or IPhone, but EARTH.

Guard her with your heart and fall deeply in love with her, realize YOU CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT HER. CAN NOT.

Dumb. It’s that fucking simple. Geez.

Brain Surgery. We need a lobotomy.

Pull the fucking headset out of your ears and LISTEN to SILENCE again.

Then rise up singing songs of LOVE and TOGETHERNESS.

Human Family.
Water Bird
Songs of gratitude and rejoicing for nature's beauty.

Make peace. Stop fighting.

African. Native American. Mexican. Tribal ways depend on peace and communication between members.

If two people are fighting they need to sit together and talk because no one will be happy where there is hurt. No one it’s why grandmothers used to gather the warring parties together not encourage shit talking and division.

Pray to keep the love together.

Can everyone bow their heads and pray this to their God?

REVIVE LOVING FEELING IN OUR HEARTS AGAIN.

PRAY FERVANTLY.

To the fire, into the center of Earth which is our heart, to bring us back together, the two parts of our broken hearts and literally put them and our heads together in EMBRACE.

HOLD EACH OTHER. CLOSER. CLOSE ENOUGH TO HEAR BREATH.

And stretch ourselves to LOVE MORE. FORGIVE MORE.

Make more space for other to make errors and experience us in our own vulnerability without carefully crafted photos.

Pray.

In time you will know who is praying with the ancestros for FUTURE GENERATIONS TO HAVE LIFE.

At the river. A new serpant painting on rock.

Got that right. We are the ancestors for the future.

What will the children see we LOVE?

Spread love become an orchestra of God's children. Come together in UNIVERSE.

In praise of women. In praise of men.

I remember going to a ceremony on the reservation for the women who returned from war who had been brutally raped by their own people. We were there together in a house surrounded by photos of all the ancestors and at my back was a giant deer cedar drum I could have fit inside that spoke water through me.

It told me to tell the women, not to forget to include good men in their healing because their healing would be not be complete without them.

Nelson Mandala. Stop fighting. Love.

In hatred there is no freedom and no one will be happy. Guard your freedom and focus on the things our lives actually depend on

BREATH.
Fresh Air.

Clear your lungs and find the words your soul want to express in starlit walks. The sunrising, no longer to the face of my Beloved or Haleakela is still beautiful.

Just painting. Getting ready for work.

Gluten free pizza. Bowling night.

Simple. Getting really simple.

Quiet.

What a fucking crazy year. Anyone?!?!? Geez...thanks eclipse. Now I know why ancient people said NOT to look at it, it would destroy your life. Hahah crazy modern people we stared at it by the thousands and watched as our whole life gets stripped away, revealed, exposed, wow! So much to write...

but I have so much to live.

Gotta go. Love you's.

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Bringing Light Into Shadows

The Little Things

The Real Deal

Zonia Lucero

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